#t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north)

[megyulmi]

#i am writing again. #will this make it into the new chapter of turning pages? likely not in this form. #but i am finally writing again. #hoping to update by the beginning of next week. #t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #stsg #satosugu #sugusato #geto suguru #gojo satoru #suguru x satoru

[spellucci]

Changing Coasts

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

We strike camp on the west side of the island and stop at La Boulangerie AuCoin. This is a bakery which is always crowded, often a line outside the door, and decide to see what all the interest is about. Inside there are 2 LCD screens with several pages of breads, cookies, scones, bars, pies and more. The sign says “Nothing here is gluten free.” Margaret braves the 25 min line to pick up cookies and sandwiches, but not too many items so Jeanne isn’t left out of the fun.

Back on the road we head to the Cabot Trail and back into the park. We say a sad goodbye to the rugged cliffs and Gulf of St Lawrence, heading into the mountains at the northern center of the island. These mountains are almost all flat ridges rather than peaks. As we drive we are able to see ridges of deep green conifers in all directions and steep valleys in between the ridges.

Conversations ensue about how the mountains were made. Jeanne consults Gaia and tells us of the types of rock we are driving over. We discuss the theories of glaciers vs rivers for the valleys. We stop at a pull-out and all is clearly explained with diagrams and helpful visuals.

A young man and his father have stopped as well. Jeanne talks with the father about good RV locations in the west coast of Canada and around Cape Breton as well. The son gets into a conversation with a carful of young women about the geology, flora and fauna of the park. One woman said, “I wish you could get in the car with us and explain it all as we travel.” It’s true, he was pretty handsome!

At one pull-out we were able to see the last of the gulf on the west coast between the cut of the ridges; at the next pull out, there is the Atlantic Ocean in all her glory! Then down we descend into the woods, lower gear, taking it slow due to hairpin turns and head for a trail with waterfalls.

That wasn’t the only draw however, it was a dirt road, and we all know how much J & T love off-road driving! We turn on 4-w drive and head into the potholes, ruts and washboards. Thank goodness we have the new strong suspension! Partway down the road we see a road crew beginning their work to grade the road - it will be welcome once it’s done.

When we get to the end of the long dirt road we park and walk a short way to the Beulach Ban Falls. The falls are full and wide, with water coming about 50 feet down. We stand a long time admiring rivulets and trickles. There’s a rock where the water comes sideways in waves, different each moment. Another spot where a trickle goes down thru some moss and looks like a gnome is washing it’s hair. It’s mesmerizing and gets us thinking about how many native cultures use animate language for water. It does seem alive and powerful and gentle all at once. We also notice a cave about 20 feet up in the rocks to the left. What made that cave we wonder and on go the discussions of geology and erosion.

There is a 6 km trail leading from the falls into the woods on track that is clearly some type of road. The trail crosses a number of streams leading into the North Aspy River slightly below us as we hike. Tim brings up the discussion of how each bridge is constructed. Jeanne ponders what vehicles could even drive on this track as the bridges are so narrow. Margaret continues her discussion of the trees and admires some old silver birches. The woods are open, the mosses are lush and the mushrooms are having their day - popping up everywhere.

As we head back we begin to think we must be on an ATV track and as we arrive back at our starting point we see how they must have crossed a really rocky, steep spot just to get on the trail.

In the evening we drove south to look for a dinner spot with a view. As we drove we were greeted with signs on the side of the road. “Your mother texted.” “Send a picture from the top.” “Blueberry jam.” It was all to advertise a mini-ski resort. It seemed so incongruous to have it right across from a harbor and overlooking the Atlantic. We pulled onto the wharf next to the small harbor for our dinner.

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Take Me Away

A/N: Honestly, every time I look at Hangman, this song plays in my head. This man is bringing the country girl out of me again. 

I didn’t know if I would ever get used to surprises from Adam Page. He’d taken me to his ranch on the first date to ride horses. Our third date had been a day trip floating down the Dan River. Date five had been fishing on a pontoon boat. Out of seven or eight dates, only two or three of them had been low-key dinner dates in town.

           He’d been away for several weeks traveling in Japan on a wrestling tour. The truth was, I’d been lonely without him. I’d taken a drive over to Hangman Ranch almost every day after work while he’d been away. There was a stock of apples in my purse… treats for Paisley, Stoney (the chestnut), and Eclipse (the jet black). Whenever I pulled up, no matter where they were in the field, they made their way over to the fence and popped their heads over the top rail. They munched on apples from my hand as I stroked the soft velvet of their noses.

           I waited patiently for three weeks… waited for the message that said he was home. But when it came late one evening as I was crawling into bed, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I opened the message to find a photo of the steering wheel of Adam’s truck and a text. Pack a bag. I’ll pick you up at 6:30 in the morning. You can sleep on the way.

***

           I’d been awake since five. The mystery of this sudden trip was enough to keep me from settling into a comfortable rest. After fighting to go back to sleep for almost an hour, I got up and tried to prepare myself for whatever Adam Page had waiting. I’d brushed my teeth, washed my face, and packed the rest of my toiletries. Then I sat, wondering and waiting, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.

           The knock came at exactly six-thirty. Adam stood on the threshold with his hair in a messy knot on top of his head, aviators hanging from the collar of his t-shirt, sweatpants, and a pair of flip flops. He grinned when he saw me, his blue eyes sparkling bright.

           “Hey, Em,” he said by way of greeting. He reached out and looped one arm around my waist to pull me against him. His free hand cupped my cheek, thumb stroking my skin slowly. “God, I’ve missed you.”

           Before I could respond, he dipped his head and his mouth was on mine. It was like the first kiss all over again. A rush of weightlessness rushed into me. I wound my arms around his neck and leaned up on my toes to return the kiss. I could feel him smile against my lips.

           “Let’s get,” Adam said playfully when he broke the kiss. “It’s a long drive.”

           He snatched my suitcase up from beside the door and laced his fingers with mine. As soon as I’d checked the door, he was pulling me insistently down the stairs and outside to the curb. Adam opened the door and helped me up into the truck before stowing my suitcase in the backseat with his bag. When he climbed into the driver’s seat, he leaned into the back and came up with an overstuffed pillow and a fleece blanket.

           “Curl up and go back to sleep. I’ll stop about eight and we’ll get breakfast.”

           “Where are we going?” I asked, knowing just as well that he wasn’t going to tell me.

           He smirked and reached across me to snatch my seatbelt. “You’ll see. Now go to sleep, Em.”

***

           It was easier than I thought to fall back asleep. The rock of the car, the faint sound of Adam singing along with the radio, and the warmth from the heater lulled me to sleep by the time we’d left Aaron’s Creek. Surprisingly, I fell into dreams of horses and wild grass.

           The sun was rising higher in the sky when Adam gently shook me awake. We were idling in a parking spot outside a Cracker Barrel. He hopped out and came around to lift me to the ground. He took the chance to kiss me again, grinning with playfulness. Our fingers twined together as we walked across the parking lot.

           “I’ve always wanted one of those for my porch,” he said wistfully, looking at the rocking chairs lined up outside. I tugged on his arm, pulling him over to them, grinning at the thought of watching the stars come out over the clover grass fields at his ranch.

           I glanced at the price tag and gasped. “Too bad they’re so much. We could have gotten two.”

           When I turned my attention to Adam, he was looking down at me with bright blue eyes and a slow smile. He leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, lingering for a long moment. I settled my palm against his cheek, my fingers brushing his soft blond beard. “Four hundred isn’t too much to sit with the prettiest girl this side of the Mississippi.”

           “Stop it,” I murmured, blushing and smacking him playfully on the chest.

           His smile turned serious as he tucked loose strands of my hair behind me ear. “You’re beautiful, and don’t you forget it. Now come on, we’re burning daylight.”

           Adam led me inside and asked for a table by the fireplace. It was warm and smelled faintly of woodsmoke, setting my mind onto thoughts of camping and nights curled up in his arms next to a fire. We ordered pancakes, gravy and biscuits, scrambled eggs, and sausage. He told me about his time in Japan, promising that he would introduce me to his wrestling buddies.

           I was warm and pleasantly full when we finally walked back to the truck. Adam turned to look at the chairs again as we passed by. “We’re comin’ right back here on the way home, and I’m buyin’ two of them.”

           He hooked his arm around my neck and drew me close as we crossed the lot. I couldn’t help but giggle at the lingering kiss he left on the top of my head. He laughed when I pushed away from his side and raced him to the truck. The locks opened, and I climbed the runner and opened the door.

           “Come on, cowboy,” I called over my shoulder as I scooted into the cab. “We’re burning daylight!”

           His laugh got deeper and brighter as he jogged around to the driver side and hopped in. As soon as he put the key in the ignition, he reached toward me, curling his fingers around the back of my neck and pulling me in to a playful, laughing, grinning kiss.

           Then we were back on the road. I watched the world roll by outside the truck. It was flat for a while, then began climbing higher, winding through mountains tinged in blue and green. Virginia had faded away, given in to the North Carolina Piedmont and then the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

           It wasn’t until he pulled off the highway that I realized where we were going.

***

           The house came into view after a slow, meandering drive through heavy woods. First came the highest peaks of the roof, grey slate mixed with limestone and brick. Stained glass windows and a three-story house that looked like a castle from a fairytale. Adam slowed to a crawl as we drove through the wrought iron gates and across the carriage road. The sprawling front lawn spread out to my right, the fountain in the center spraying a curling jet of water into the air.

           The Biltmore Estate was bigger than I’d ever imagined. “Oh, Adam…” I squealed into my fingers. “This is… are we going to go in? Are we taking the tour?”

           He laughed and reached out to squeeze my knee. “Em, we’re going to stay in the Inn. I made sure to get us a room where you can see the house. We can take the tour every day if you want.”

           I looked back at him, not caring that the truck was rolling through a gate and down a narrow road away from the house. “Every day?”

           “Three days. Anything you want, you get,” Adam replied, looking sheepish. “I hope… did I do okay?”

           My heart thumped hard in my chest. He looked so young in that moment with the blush highlighting his cheekbones and the faint, worried smile. I reached for his hand, too overcome to say much of anything. My fingers squeezed his as I tried to put my thoughts and feelings into words.

           After another twenty minutes, Adam pulled into a parking spot next to a sprawling hotel that looked very much like the house itself. The radio played on, filling the cab with the sounds of banjos and fiddles. I recognized the song, grinning as I thought how fitting it was to that moment. I shimmied closer to Adam, resting my head on his shoulder.

           “Cowboy, take me away,” I sang softly, threading my fingers with his. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears bubble up. “Fly this girl as high as you can into the wild blue…”

           Adam pressed his lips against my forehead. His nose bumped my cheek, silently asking for me to look up. When I did, he curled his fingers against my cheek and kissed me so delicately but so strongly that it took my breath straight from my lungs.

           He settled his forehead against mine, his thumb stroking my cheek. I could feel his breath ghosting along my skin. My heart gave a steady thump, pushing certainty into my veins.

           “Adam…” I stopped, drew a deep breath, licked my lips.

           “I love you, Em,” he said quietly.

           His blue eyes were closed, squeezed tight as if he was bracing for a blow. As if he thought for one second that I didn’t feel the same way. I smiled and curled my fingers around the back of his neck, feeling tears start to slip down my cheeks.

           “I love you too, cowboy.”

@mox-made-me-do-it

#Adam Page #Hangman adam page #take me away #take me saga #romance #fluff #aew #aew fanfiction #adam page fanfiction #cowboy take me away

[grither55]

The Princess and the Peasant - (An Azula Epic) - Chapter 50 - In the Tent

Elle lay on her back with her head resting on Azula's cushion while she relaxed with headphones on her ears.

A muffled music floated into the night air while she held a book over her head with finger pressing into her lip.

In the corner of the royal tent sat a small torch lamp that provided just enough light to read comfortably.

That was when a tall woman stepped into the flap of the tent.

Azula entered with a refined smile adorning her lips while she quickly took notice of the music playing in her tent.

And curiously enough…the girl was reading a book.

Add to the fact that her pet had her back turned to her.

A truly devious smile curved onto her red lips while she quietly walked forward only for her brow to quirk upward in amusement when her handmaid began singing to herself.

And somewhere deep inside her frozen heart she couldn't help but find her young girlfriend's voice…soothing.

"Well, I know it's kinda late. I hope I didn't wake you. But what I gotta say can't wait. I know you'd understand. Every time I tried to tell you. The words just came out wrong. So, I'll have to say I love you in a song." The blonde-haired girl sang to herself with a cheerful smile on her lips before she turned the page of her novel.

All the while unaware that her master was staring down at her with her golden eyes flashing in a hint of strange emotion.

The princess stood unmoving with her fists falling down to her womanly hips while she listened with the barest hint of pink on her regal cheeks.

'She's…singing about me.' Azula thought with a strangely subdued smile on her lips while her fingers grazed the sides of her scarlet pants in something akin to a haze.

"Yeah, I know it's kinda strange. Every time I'm near you. I just run out of things to say. I know you'd understand. Every time I tried to tell you. The words just came out wrong. So, I'll have to say I love you in a song." Elle sung to her lonesome or so she thought with a lovesick flush on her youthful cheeks.

And she never even had the faintest idea that she was singing a live performance for her taken aback master.

Azula peered down at her handmaid with her strict eyes conveying a gaze of fondness that was for her betrothed alone.

All while she listened in a captivated silence as her singing pet neared the end of her little song.

"Every time the time was right. All the words just came out wrong. So, I'll have to say I love you in a song. Yeah, I know it's kinda late. Hope I didn't wake you. But there's something I just gotta say. Know you'd understand. Every time I tried to tell you. The words just came out wrong. So, I'll have to say I love you in a song…" The blonde-haired girl trailed off in a lovelorn sigh while she read her book only to blush as she found herself unable to focus on anything but her master.

In that moment the princess quietly plopped down behind her handmaid with her full lips curving into a strangely moved smile while she silently twirled a hand in her ebony tresses.

While her callous golden eyes honed in on her pet's lovely hair before she inexplicably found herself reaching down to pet the smaller girl's hair.

To her amusement the serving girl didn't notice her presence until her palm lowered into her pet's golden hair.

"Aah!" Elle squeaked in a startled voice only to find the strong hand held her down just as her amber eyes widened when she caught sight of Azula's seated form towering over her.

"Calm yourself little peasant. It's me." Azula assured with a sophisticated smile still gracing her cheeks while her fingers already began dancing through her surprised pet's hair.

"M-master! Y-you scared me! For a moment I thought that someone dangerous had snuck up on me!" The blonde-haired girl cried out with a childlike pout while pointed boots loomed in her line of vision while her master's icy eyes now narrowed down at her.

"You forget the nature of the company that you keep Elle! I am more dangerous than your little mind could ever fathom!" The princess shouted with a pompous huff as she glared down at her handmaid's gulping face.

"Sumimasen Azula-sama! But you aren't dangerous to me…because I know that you would never hurt me…ow!" Elle yelped after she recoiled when a finger sharply flicked her forehead while Azula sat rolling her eyes over her.

"You would do well to remember that not even you are exempt from the wrath of the Great Princess Azula!" Azula boasted with a haughty flip of her hair just as she reached out to get another drink of her liquor while Elle sulked on the floor.

"T-that hurt…" The blonde-haired girl whined with a hand nursing her face while her master snorted through her nostrils as she gazed down at her.

"Please Elle. It was just a flick." The princess stated with another roll of her eyes but she found herself unable to resist gazing down at her pet to verify that the girl was uninjured.

It was absurd to think that it has come to a point where she is so taken by this peasant that she finds herself fussing over the girl like a mother would her own child!

"So…were you listening the entire time?" Elle pondered just as she dropped her head onto the royal woman's soft thigh while she listened to Azula take a graceful drink of her liquor.

All the while she relaxed like a kitten in her master's lap when the princess's palm began to pet her hair once more.

"I was…" Azula spoke with a sliver of pink on her royal cheeks while her crimson lips began to curl into yet another smile just as she petted the smaller girl's head.

"O-oh I didn't know." The blonde-haired girl murmured in a lovable voice just as her book dropped from her hand while she melted under her princess's skilled hand.

"Why does that not surprise me? Is…that a song that you like to listen to?" The princess questioned in turn with a shake of her head before she set her bottle down while she held her serving girl's face against her thigh.

The girl was going to be her wife one day.

So, it was a strategic move to get to know her as much as she could.

"Yeah…it's Jim Croce! My mom…liked his music…" Elle answered in a reminiscent voice with her hands taking her headphones off her ears while Azula quirked a curious brow above her.

"I see…" Azula commented as she leaned back while she pulled the smaller girl into her toned arms with her fingers still fiddling about in her girlfriend's hair.

"Oh…. Azula-sama…" The blonde—haired girl mumbled in a lovesick voice as the back of her head pressed into her girlfriend's pillowy chest while she felt hot air wash against her tickling neck.

"I want to hear more…sing me another." The princess purred in the shorter girl's ear while she wrapped her arms around her gasping pet's chest.

"S-sing you another princess?" Elle stuttered in an adorably timid voice while Azula smirked at her from over her shoulder.

"You heard me little peasant. I demand that you sing for me." Azula ordered with a charming smile on her red lips while Elle blushed from where she sat against her breasts.

"If you say so Azula-sama…then I will do so." The blonde-haired girl spoke with a bashful smile while Azula brushed the hair from her eyes.

"Now that…is what I like to hear." The princess stated with a trace of fondness lacing her callous voice while she steadied her young girlfriend in her lap.

And not a moment later the small girl pressed a button on her mp3 player before a surprisingly fitting song began to softly play in the tent once more.

And soon Azula found herself sitting there with her hardened eyes softening ever so marginally when Elle began to sing along with the music.

"Like the pine trees lining the winding road. I got a name; I got a name. Like the singing bird and the croaking toad. I got a name; I got a name. And I carry it with me like my daddy did. But I'm living the dream that he kept hid. Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway. Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by." Elle sang over the music with a carefree smile on her lips while Azula listened in an increasingly captivated silence.

The princess sat back with an uncharacteristically soothed expression in her golden eyes while she stared down at her young friend's happy face as the girl hummed to her music.

"Like the north wind whistlin' down the sky. I got a song; I got a song. Like the whippoorwill and the baby's cry. I got a song; I got a song. And I carry it with me and I sing it loud. If it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud. Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway. Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by." The blonde-haired girl sung with a gleeful grin as she snuggled against her girlfriend's warm chest while the firebender's arms pulled her in closer.

It was no small wonder why the girl liked this particular singer so much.

It contrasted with the girl's whimsical ideas about 'flow' quite well.

"And I'm gonna go there free." Elle sang in a joyful voice while she beamed up at Azula only for the royal woman to release a smug snort.

"No, my pet. No, you will not." Azula taunted with her breath washing against Elle's reddened cheek while her handmaid reclined in her well-muscled arms.

And for a moment she almost thought that she had tripped up the girl's tune.

But to Elle's credit she continued on to the finale.

"Like the fool I am and I'll always be. I got a dream; I got a dream. They can change their minds but they can't change me. I got a dream; I got a dream. Oh, I know I could share it if you'd want me to. If you're goin' my way, I'll go with you. Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway. Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by." The blonde-haired girl sung with an endearing blush just as the music ended in her ears while golden eyes peered back at her from mere inches away.

"That was pleasant Elle. You did well." The princess remarked with her lips curving upward into a mesmerizing smile while her young girlfriend peered up at her with taken aback amber eyes.

"R-really?" Elle asked in a voice of low self-worth while she numbly removed her headphones from her ears.

Only for her music player to drop from her hands while her cheeks turned as red as a tomato when found herself being pulled to the floor of the tent.

Their bodies landed side by side while she gazed back at the royal woman's gorgeous face just as Azula began to stroke her cheek once more.

"Foolish peasant. You should know by now that I do not offer compliments so tepidly." Azula sighed with a charming smile on her full lips while she peered back into her serving girl's emotional amber eyes.

"A-arigatou gozaimasu Azula-sama…" The blonde-haired girl murmured with a gentle smile only to giggle sweetly while Azula exhaled against her cheek.

"Oh peasant. Wherever would you be without me?" The princess purred with a fond shake of her head before she pressed her red lips into her pet's quivering cheek.

"I-I would be lost without you to rule over me princess…" Elle admitted in a shy voice with a gulp while Azula's lips lingered against her skin.

"So, you would dear. That's why it's best if I subjugate your little life." Azula remarked with a confident smirk while Elle cracked a radiant smile over her words.

"Please do Azula-sama! I like living in submission to you!" The blonde-haired girl cried out in a cheerful voice while her princess lounged beside her with a pleased smirk growing onto her red lips.

While she shivered wonderfully when her master ran her finger along her lip with her captivating aura making her tremble in anticipation.

Only for domineering golden eyes to narrow back at her in such a way that she could feel herself melting under her demanding stare.

"Stand up peasant! I demand that you attend to my needs!" The princess bellowed in a tyrannical voice with a snap of her fingers only for her smug smirk to grow even larger when her girlfriend sprang to her feet in a panic.

Now that she just adored.

Watching this lovely girl take such delight in serving her every desire was just beyond delightful.

And to her great gratification she found herself gazing up at her little handmaid as she hastily bowed at the hip.

"Yes, Master Azula! If you say stand then this girl stands!" Elle cheered with bounce in her step while she bent over in a curtsy that had Azula smiling up at her.

"Look at you…such a good girl." Azula cooed after rolling over onto her belly as she twirled a finger in her ebony hair while she propped her chin up in her other hand.

She just couldn't help but smile in a strangely softened manner over her innocent handmaid's eagerness to curtsy her.

"I-I am so glad that you think so Azula-sama. How…how may I serve you?" The blonde-haired girl stuttered with her head inclined in a show of reverence while her master placed her cushion beneath her elbows.

Only for another demanding snap of the royal woman's two fingers to draw her attention to the older girl pointing over her shoulder at her booted feet lazily pointing into the air.

"It is time that you make good on your offer to give me that massage. Get to it…now." The princess ordered with a pompous smirk while her golden eyes observed in amusement when her pet sprung forward on command.

"My princess wants a massage and I shall see it done!" Elle yelled out in a jubilant voice before she quickly seated herself behind Azula's dangling boots.

And then she reached out to grasp a hold of the one on the left while she began tugging it off with a bashful smile on her face.

"Start with my feet and work your way…upward. But only if you want to. I would hate to overwork you." Azula commented in a haughty voice with a playful smile on her lips while she gazed over her shoulder at her handmaid obediently pulling off her boot.

"Oh no! You never overwork me Azula-sama…you are always so considerate of my lung condition…arigatou." The blonde-haired girl assured with a bashful shade of pink overtaking her cheeks just as she slid the boot free from her master's socked foot.

All the while Azula now glanced over her shoulder with her callous golden eyes expressing a rare margin of concern for the girl's wellbeing.

"Of course, I don't. You certainly are a pampered pet…although that reminds me. Are you…going to be okay without your breathing machine?" The princess pondered in an aloof voice while she watched her little handmaid yank off her second boot.

Her two socked feet now hung before her serving girl's face while she observed in satisfaction as her young girlfriend began sliding off her socks.

"I-I should be alright…as long as I abstain from anymore long walks. I trust you to take care of me Azula-sama." Elle mumbled with an adorable blush on her cheeks when the royal woman's bare toes now wiggled before her face.

"For the remainder of our time here this tent will serve as your cage. If I am not with you…you are not allowed to roam out of view of my tent. Is that understood peasant?" Azula remarked with a controlling smile on her red lips while her toes brushed against her pet's gulping cheek.

"O-okay princess. If you think it so then it must be so." The blonde-haired girl agreed in a lovable voice with her shaky fingers pulling off the second sock while her lovestruck amber eyes followed after her girlfriend's wiggling toes like a transfixed kitten.

"That's my girl. So good." The princess cooed with a fond sigh while she relaxed when her handmaid's soft hands began to massage her bare sole.

"O-oh Azula-sama." Elle swooned with an innocent smile before she hugged Azula's bare foot to her cheek while golden eyes observed her in delight.

"Hm. You like that?" Azula questioned in a silken voice with her chin resting upon her fist while a refined smile grew onto her lips.

"I-I do. I know it's weird…sumimasen…" The blonde-haired girl answered in a voice of uncertainty while she briefly gazed away in shame.

And although Azula wouldn't have cared if it was anyone else.

Strangely she found herself almost frowning over how self-conscious her young girlfriend tended to be.

"Please. It isn't weird in the least. There is nothing shameful in it Elle. It's just human nature." The princess reassured with a confident smile while her toes still hung near her handmaid's adorably spellbound eyes.

"I-it isn't?" Elle queried as she chewed on her lip while Azula's freshly washed foot lingered upon her blushing skin.

"No. I for one just adore watching you fawn over my feet. By all means…carry on dear." Azula purred with a captivating smirk that only grew larger when she felt two lips press into the underside of her sole.

Just the best pet indeed.

"I…love you Azula-sama." The blonde-haired girl declared in a heartfelt voice with a gentle smile on her face as she briefly hugged her master's warm foot.

"I know Elle. I know. And I…like you too peasant…as in really, really like you." The princess confessed with the tiniest hint of pink on her cheeks while she brushed her bangs from her eyes.

"We're two peas in a pod Azula-sama! We're inseparable." Elle exclaimed with a joyful countenance while her hands began to massage Azula's foot once more.

"So we are. And nothing can stand against us." Azula spoke with a sophisticated smirk while her fingertip pressed into the underside of her chin.

"That's right princess! We're a team you and I!" The blonde-haired girl cheered with a speedy nod while her palms kneaded the older girl's bare sole.

"Just think about it! With my evolved bending and your Component, we will dominate this entire world! Our enemies' despair will only serve as fuel to quench our flames! And then we will reign for all time!" The princess announced with a violent grin while the lone blue flame in the tent suddenly lit up into an even brighter fire.

Silence reigned in the tent for the briefest of seconds while Elle sat sweatdropping behind her.

But even so!

She loved listening to her princess talk about conquest and domination!

She really did!

"And then we will bring world peace and love to all!" Elle shouted with a cheerful grin while she happily nodded as her hands continued rubbing her girlfriend's foot.

The princess turned to glance back at her with a deadpan expression now in her golden eyes only to find herself sighing fondly under her breath.

"Childish peasant." Azula snorted with a regal roll of her eyes while Elle beamed back at her.

"That's so Azula-sama!" The blonde-haired girl exclaimed as she giggled softly while strict eyes peered back at her.

"Elle." The princess began in a curious voice while she took delight in how her pretty handmaid peeked back at her with bright amber eyes.

"Yes princess?" Elle asked in a dutiful voice with her fingertips kneading Azula's warm foot while her girlfriend brushed the hair from her eyes in a manner that made her heart speed up.

"I see that you were reading a book…from your homeland by the look of it." Azula commented in a thoughtful voice while she gazed down at the cover with a brow raising in mild interest.

“Oh! That’s H.G. Wells! I was only able to fit two books in my backpack so that was one of the ones that I brought.” The blonde-haired girl cried out with excitement in her voice while her master lazily sprawled out on her belly.

“H.G. Wells? Only two? What was it about this one that made you choose it over any other book?” The princess inquired with an elegant curve of her brows before she found herself opening it in her curiosity.

The one nagging thought that wouldn’t leave her mind was that Elle spoke the same verbal language as her.

Yet the girl wrote and read a style of written language that was completely foreign to the Fire Nation.

It was so strange and baffling. Just how do the people of Elle’s homeland share such a strikingly similar verbal language?

It was an intriguing detail indeed. One that most certainly warranted further investigation.

In the meantime.

Perhaps this book is just what she needs to completely master the writings of Elle’s people.

"He's a very famous author! He died long before my time. He wrote many science fiction novels and I find them to be really fascinating. I chose that one because it has six of his most famous stories. I figure that it would keep me entertained for some time." Elle admitted with a happy nod while Azula turned a page in a thoughtful silence.

"Science fiction?" Azula answered with a turn of her head while Elle leaned forward to peer over her sloping back.

"Yeah! My Earth isn't spiritual like your Earth Azula-sama. Throughout much of the history of my homeland. The things that you regard as everyday life…humans throughout history in my world have commonly called that fantasy. Fantastic creatures like dragons have long since been regarded as nothing more than a subject of fiction." The blonde-haired girl explained in a helpful voice while she sat rubbing the bare sole of the royal woman's foot.

"How interesting…our two Earths really are completely different." The princess stated as she gazed down at the rather old paperback book with a piqued golden eye.

"Throughout most of our history anyhow." Elle muttered vaguely just as Azula gazed back at her.

"What do you mean by that?" Azula queried in an ever-sharp voice only for her brow to raise higher when her handmaid just shook her head.

"Nothing. Anyhow! Science fiction isn't quite the same as the fantasy genre. It's different." The blonde-haired girl spoke in a soft voice while she returned her focus to her master's soft foot.

"Is it now Elle?" The princess replied in an attentive voice while she gazed at her pet in amusement.

The girl just diverted the subject.

But she decided that she would let it slide.

Her pet was a well-behaved girl. And because of that she will allow a small lie every now and then.

"It sure is master. You see dragons and wizards fall under the fantasy genre. Because throughout history they are largely regarded by all humanity as impossible fairy tales. But science fiction on the other hand is based in imagined subjects of future technological advancement. Things that may not be possible now but may ten thousand years from now." Elle informed in an enthralled voice while she nodded in excitement with her amber eyes still peering down at Azula's foot.

Being the brilliant woman that she is.

Azula understood what the girl was trying to say.

"I understand. Your science fiction is a fantasy image of the future." Azula commented with her cold eyes staring down at the title of the first story.

 The Time Machine.

"That's right! Time travel! Life on other planets! Science fiction proposes that the impossible may be possible! And H.G. Well's books are the most classic science fiction there is!" The blonde-haired girl piped in a childishly delighted voice while she listened to her master's smooth chuckle float into her ears.

"I gathered as much Elle…from the title of this first book. Have you read it?" The princess pondered in a strangely content voice with a soft smirk on her lips as she turned another page.

"I have princess!" Elle cried out as she leaned down with her face above Azula's curvaceous legs while her palms continued dutifully rubbing the bare foot against her chest.

An even deeper shade of pink appeared on her cheeks when she found her eyes guiltily gazing up Azula's womanly thighs clad in red pant leggings.

Only to find her eyes drawn to the royal woman's round posterior more than anything else.

Something that Azula took notice of all too quickly.

"Are you enjoying the view pet?" Azula asked in a knowing voice with a graceful smile while she turned her head to peer back at her handmaid's adorably reddened face.

"I-I uh I d-didn't mean to." The blonde-haired girl stuttered in a jumbled voice with her words dying in her throat only for her older girlfriend to sigh under her breath.

"If I had a problem with you looking…then I wouldn't have given you such a generous view. But enough about my flawless ass. Tell me about this story." The princess remarked in an ever-sanguine voice while she gazed over her shoulder at her young girlfriend's confuddled face.

"W-well the Time Machine is the only one that I have gotten to read yet. It's about a man travelling over 800,000 years into the future." Elle answered with a bright smile form where she knelt over Azula's sprawled out legs.

"Hm. 800,000 years. That is quite a long time." Azula spoke with her callous golden eyes reading the first few pages while she continued to dangle her feet in the air.

"It sure is Azula-sama. There the Time Traveler meets the Eloi. A group of people who are…uh unusually small, childlike…vegetarians…" The blonde-haired girl trailed off with a blush on her cheeks while her princess gazed back at her in obvious amusement.

"Is that so tiger monkey? These…Eloi sound like distant family of yours." The princess taunted with a smug smirk while her handmaid turned even redder under her stare

"T-that's unfair Azula-sama. I can't help it that I grow small…" Elle mumbled in a pitiful voice only for Azula to roll her eyes over her robed shoulder.

"Quit moping Elle and continue with your story." Azula ordered in a sterner voice while she watched her handmaid grin once more.

"Yes Azula-sama! The Eloi are a gentle but naïve people. Their existence is seemingly without worry. They eat fruits that they seemingly gain with ease. And they don't even farm. It is eventually revealed that the reason for this is that…the Eloi are cattle for the Morlocks." The blonde-haired girl revealed in an animated voice while her fingertips still massaged the sole of the royal woman's foot.

Azula's cold eyes glanced up from the book with a small flicker of surprise in her gaze.

It was a darker story than she was expecting a girl like Elle to read.

"The Morlocks?" The princess questioned with evident intrigue in her voice as she relaxed while her petite handmaid massaged the underside of her foot.

"Yeah. The Morlocks are the second group of people. They are primitive, almost monstrous apelike people that live underground. They hate the light and they only come up to devour the Eloi at night." Elle stated in a helpful voice while Azula listened in growing interest.

"And these Eloi are too stupid to even try to fight back." Azula scoffed in understanding while she finally closed the book shut.

"Basically. The Time Traveler eventually theorizes that the once privileged group of wealthy people…like you and my oneesans became the Eloi. After 800,000 years of having their needs catered to by the lower classes…they became weak and ineffective. And he likewise theorized that the long trodden on working class became the sunlight fearing Morlocks. Interesting isn't it!" The blonde-haired girl with a radiant smile while she still sat before the older girl's dangling bare feet.

Azula quirked an intrigued brow while she mulled over her handmaid's explanation with an amused smirk on her crimson lips.

"I suppose so. I confess that you have aroused my curiosity with this…science fiction book." The princess responded after setting the book down before she resumed her prior resting place on her cushion.

"I'll lend it to you if you want to read it sometime princess!" Elle chirped with her palms grasping her girlfriend's foot while Azula's red lips curved into a pleased smile.

"Lend it to me? Foolish peasant. A master doesn't have to ask her pet for permission to read what already belongs to her." Azula huffed with a spoiled wave of her hand while Elle still smiled as she massaged her feet.

"I know! But I love you so much Azula-sama I just want you to know that I will share my things with you." The blonde-haired girl stated in an innocent voice that earned her another a sighing glance.

"I will keep that in mind Elle…which reminds me. Did you enjoy those comics that I bought you?" The princess conversed in a still attentive voice while she held her chin up in her open palm.

She could have mocked how her handmaid didn't possess any belongings of worth other than one old coin.

But strangely didn't.

"Oh! I did! I had some trouble making out the words but I was able to figure it out.” Elle exclaimed in a thrilled voice just as she reached for the other foot while Azula observed a thoughtful smirk on her regal lips.

“Would you like for me to teach you how to read and write in Fire Nation calligraphy?” Azula inquired in a silken purr while she gazed over her shoulder at her young girlfriend's adorably eager face.

“I-I would like that very much Azula-sama.” The blonde-haired girl stammered in a bashful voice as she averted her eyes from her master’s captivating stare while she propped the other foot up in her lap.

Only to be snapped from her reverie when the regal woman suddenly snapped her fingers and pointed down at her sloping back.

"Then I will purchase you ample reading material on our return. Now massage my back!" The princess spoke in a beyond entitled voice with a wave of her hand.

To her delight that was all it took for her handmaid to scurry forward like a trained puppy.

"Wakarimashita Azula-sama!" Elle cheered with innocence in her voice before she knelt before the beautiful monarch's shirt covered back.

"Well what are you waiting for peasant?" Azula snorted in a spoiled voice with a smug smirk on her lips only to watch in satisfaction when Elle began frantically bowing her head.

"Sumimasen! But I…don't understand." The blonde-haired girl answered in a submissive voice with her head inclined in a show of absolute respect while the older girl gazed at her in puzzlement.

"What don't you understand? I want you to massage my back." The princess asked flatly while her pet began to fumble with her shirt.

"W-with your shirt on or do you want me to p-pull it up?" Elle requested in an endearing stutter that Azula just adored.

Only for her eyes to nearly fall out of her head when Azula began pulling her shirt over her head while lovely lips curved into a truly mesmerizing smirk.

"Without. You may begin now dear." Azula commented with a sophisticated smile before she carelessly tossed her shirt over her shoulder.

Only for her victorious smirk to grow even bigger when her scarlet shirt landed over her sputtering handmaid's head.

"Y-yes A-Azula-sama." The blonde-haired girl squeaked in a muffled voice with her nervous hands removing the shirt from her head while the older girl watched her in unhidden amusement.

"You are so adorable peasant." The princess spoke with a charming smile on her full lips just as her formal shirt went flying over her handmaid's shoulder.

Her crimson lips only grew into an even greater smile when her young girlfriend now peered down at her naked back with her little mouth ajar in awe.

"A-and you…have the body of a goddess…my F-Fire Queen." Elle stammered with her thumbs twiddling while Azula's lips curled into a beyond gratified smirk.

"That's because I am a goddess! And you would do well to remember that girl!" Azula barked with a conceited smirk while she felt trembling hands begin to touch her warm back.

"That's so…Azula-sama. The goddess of the Fire Nation." The blonde-haired girl declared in a reverent voice with a timid smile while she took to kneading her master's spine.

The princess's eyes lit up in approval over the beyond pleasing praise while she surveyed her submissive girl with a haughty smirk.

"Of course, I am. And you are my little worshiper." The princess scoffed in a supremely arrogant voice while she gazed over her shoulder at the smaller girl massaging her upper back.

"Can I ask you something princess?" Elle pondered with her hands already rubbing the mighty woman's back while Azula's eyebrows rose into a curious expression.

"What is it Elle?" Azula answered in a content voice with her face resting on her folded arms while Elle bit her lip over her shoulder.

"I…have heard you speak of your father…and your brother. But never your mother." The blonde-haired girl spoke in an uncertain voice only to regret it a moment later when her girlfriend's good mood vanished into a rotten tempered scowl.

"For good reason." The princess hissed in an aggravated voice while she glared off at the tent wall with soft hands briefly trembling against her skin.

Yet she knew better than to punish her young companion just for asking.

"Sumimasen Azula-sama." Elle muttered in a guilty voice while she listened to Azula grunt under her breath.

"She abandoned me and my brother a long time ago." Azula admitted in a resentful undertone while stared down at her with saddened amber eyes.

"Oh. I…see." The blonde-haired girl stated in a remorseful voice with her hands still gliding across her girlfriend's back.

"She said goodbye to my brother…but not to me. She didn't say a word to me." The princess grumbled with something akin to pain in her eyes while her handmaid listened in a taken aback silence.

And for once the teenage girl sat quietly while the older girl angrily swallowed the lump that was in her throat.

"My mother called me a monster." Azula confessed with her eyes flashing in an unseen emotion while her bangs hung over her skin.

The young handmaid's mouth dropped open as soon as she heard those heartbreaking words.

The princess stared off at the tent wall with ruthless golden eyes only to turn her head around in surprise when she felt small arms latch around her neck.

"Oh Azula-sama. She was wrong…you are not a monster." Elle assured in a compassionate voice with her face buried in Azula's dark hair while she clung to the taken aback older female's neck.

"Soft hearted peasant." The princess grunted as she rolled over with her cold eyes staring down at her little handmaid curling up upon her open breasts.

There was something about this peasant girl.

Even after all of this time she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

How…did she manage to get this deep into her heart?

"How can anyone who has done so much for me be a monster?" The blonde-haired girl asked in a gentle voice with her chin propped up on her girlfriend's soft breast while a strong arm snaked around her back.

"Easily. I…like you servant…but be assured that I am a monster." Azula insisted in a colder voice with her muscular arms wrapping around her handmaid while she held her girlfriend in her arms.

Only to be taken by surprise when the girl gazed back from where she lay on her breasts with a look of anger in her eyes.

"No! You are not! To say that you are is narrow minded!" Elle exclaimed with her smile giving way to a frown while Azula gazed at her in puzzlement.

"Narrow minded?" The princess found herself replying with her reaching out to cup her young girlfriend's trembling cheek.

This girl really was too soft for her own good.

"Yes. There are all kinds of people out there Azula-sama…from all different walks of life. Some grow up different than others. But that doesn't make them monsters. You…have good in you. I know so. Because I have seen it." The blonde-haired girl explained with a speedy nod while she touched the hand tracing her cheek.

"Is that right?" Azula sighed with a fond shake of her head while her foul temper began to ebb under her young companion's tender touch.

"It is master. To call such people monsters…just because they grow up different than the rest is small minded. We are all human…each one of us." Elle spoke in a loving voice with her hand grasping ahold of Azula's own while she gazed into her master's calming golden eyes.

"I hurt people. And yet you are so confident that I am not a monster. Why?" The princess questioned with rare confusion in her strict voice while the peasant girl pressed her face into the crook of her naked neck.

"You are a wartime princess…are you not? You are fighting to bring victory to your people. What you do you do for them. Isn't that right?" The blonde-haired girl queried in turn while her princess glanced down at her in increased bafflement.

"And your point is?" Azula pondered in a smooth voice with her handmaid already beginning to cuddle into her warm body.

How audacious she thought with a snort.

The girl is already trying to pass out on her when she hasn't even finished massage her back!

"You don't hunt and kill people for pleasure…. that's what real monsters do. Rape and murder…all for a twisted sense of joy that they gain from watching their victim die. In my homeland we call people like that serial killers. But that isn't you Azula-sama." Elle declared with a returning smile while Azula listened in grudging fascination.

"Mhm. No. I don't hunt rape and murder peasant girls for the thrill of it. Yet." The princess boasted with a cruel roll of her eyes while she stared down at the tiny girl hiding her face in her neck.

"Then you are not a monster…my Fire Queen." The blonde-haired girl concluded in a warm voice before she kissed the underside of her master's neck while a strong hand lowered into her hair.

"That's my peasant…ever loyal to your master." Azula purred with her palm now petting Elle's blushing head while she sighed as she stretched out.

"T-that's so my master." Elle agreed in a bashful voice with a giggle while Azula's stern hand briefly petted her hair.

Now that the princess just could not resist smiling over.

Not a second later two fingers loudly snapped above the young handmaid's head while the royal woman watched with smug golden eyes when her pet sat up in a fretful panic.

"Get back to work peasant! I demand that you finish my massage!" The princess barked with a haughty huff before she rolled back over onto her bare belly while she propped her smirking face up on her fist once more.

All the while observing in sadistic delight when the small girl hurriedly bent over her naked back with her dainty hands massaging her once again.

"Yes Azula-sama! You can count on me! Because I am your loyal girl!" The blonde-haired girl cried out before she bowed her head in a show of respect while a smile of approval grew on the older female's lips.

"Believe me dear I know. You are…. the best pet that I could ask for." Azula conceded in a spoiled sigh while she relaxed when gentle hands began to knead her lower back.

"Don't you worry Azula-sama! We may not have our mother's anymore but we have each other. I'll always be here for you." Elle announced in a kind hearted voice with her amber eyes peering down at the slope of her master's back.

And even though she couldn't see it.

The princess was now staring down at her from over her shoulder with a rare expression of moved emotion in her cold eyes.

"Your words please me peasant. In recognition of your devotion I will always keep you by my side." The princess remarked with a pleased smirk on her full lips while her handmaid beamed back at her.

"Arigatou gozaimasu Azula-sama!" The blonde-haired girl cheered with sweet laughter lacing her voice while she happily worked on her girlfriend's-tired muscles.

Azula just fell into her cushion with a content sigh escaping her red lips.

Indeed.

There was much to like about this peasant girl of hers.

About forty-five minutes later.

The royal woman lazily lounged with a mildly intoxicated look in her dominant golden eyes while her little girlfriend still knelt massaging her back.

She set down her liquor bottle while she released another sigh before she turned to gaze back at her submissive girl.

Her handmaid had not once lost her smile in the entire time that she has been serving her needs.

And with a devious smirk on her lips she decided that now was time to put the girl to the test.

"Go lower dear." Azula ordered in a controlling voice with a smug look in her eyes while her handmaid smiled back at her.

"If you say go lower master! Then I go lower!" Elle chirped with her palms massaging the woman's lower back while she tried her hardest not to look at Azula's round posterior that now rested near her head.

"Go even lower." The princess spoke with her fingertip pressing into her lip while her pet's face turned red as she gazed up at her.

"B-but if I go l-lower then I will be…" The blonde-haired girl trailed off in an overwhelmed voice only to find herself gulping when a hand pushed her down.

She dropped with a squeak only to find herself turning as red as a tomato when her face landed on her girlfriend's robed ass cheek.

"Massaging my ass. You may begin now Elle." Azula taunted with a sadistic smile that only grew when she felt her handmaid push her face off her round posterior in an adorable panic.

"P-please show me m-mercy Azula-sama. I d-don't know if I can handle this." Elle stuttered in a confuddled voice with her thumbs twiddling as she peered down at the woman's shapely behind in a spellbound trance.

"Hm. Let me think about it…no." The princess drawled in a silken voice with her lovestruck handmaid's shoulders now slumping like a disciplined puppy.

And if you asked her it was just too adorable that the girl was becoming so jumbled over being ordered to rub her ass.

"I-I um uh." The blonde-haired girl blurted out in a confused voice only for the flames in the lantern to jump inside its cage.

"Are you defying me servant!" Azula bellowed in a terrifying voice of feigned anger while her smirk grew by tenfold when Elle dropped down onto her knees on command.

"S-sumimasen Azula-sama!" Elle whimpered with a deep blush on her cheeks just as her hands touched Azula's round backside.

"It's just a massage Elle. It's not like it's going to bite you." The princess snorted in an amused voice only to find herself smiling when the girl's soft hands took to rubbing her rear.

"I-I know." The blonde-haired girl muttered with a timid countenance while her nervous hands moved across the royal woman's beautiful posterior.

"Do you like that Elle?" Azula purred in a mesmerizing voice with her lips pursing into a smirk while Elle turned an embarrassed shade of red.

"I…I do Azula-sama." Elle admitted with an abashed expression while she listened to Azula's devious chuckle flow into her ears.

"Then by all means continue. I am your girlfriend Elle. You should get used to touching my body." The princess commanded with her face laying down in her folded arms while she sighed when the girl's touch sent a jolt of pleasure down her spine.

But even so she knew that she would have to wait until her intended was sixteen.

But at least she had her much needed moment of release in the springs earlier.

It will just have to suffice for now.

"Yes…princess." The blonde-haired girl spoke with an ever-present blush while her eyes remained glued to her girlfriend's robed posterior.

Azula just smirked before she propped her head up on her arm while another sigh escaped her lips.

There were no words for how content she was right now.

Just none.

About twenty minutes later.

After several minutes of sleepy yawning Elle turned her head to find herself being pulled up by the neck of her short-sleeved shirt.

"That is enough for tonight Elle. Our expedition continues tomorrow and I need you well rested." The princess instructed with a charming smile while her shorter girlfriend dropped down yawning beside her.

"As you say…. Azula-sama." Elle yawned with a hand over her mouth while she pulled her t-shirt over her shoulders.

While the older female watched with a pleased golden gaze just as she plopped down on her back beside her similarly half naked girlfriend.

"Let's go to bed Elle." Azula said with a fond look in her eyes while Elle's smaller body began to curl up in her arms.

"Azula-sama?" The blonde-haired girl mumbled while strong arms pulled her into a powerful embrace.

"Hm?" The princess answered in a lazy voice with her golden eyes peering down at the petite serving girl laying against her nude breasts.

"T-those spiders aren't going to crawl into our tent, are they?" Elle inquired in a mousy voice while she averted her eyes with a blush when Azula cast her an incredulous glance.

A look that plainly conveyed you have got to be kidding me.

"Are you serious Elle? That's what you're worried about?" Azula groaned with a purposeful roll of her eyes while the sleepy girl shrunk under her annoyed gaze.

"W-will you put some torches burning around the tent to ward them away?" The blonde-haired requested as she chewed her lip while she listened to her girlfriend groan in aggravation.

"Ugh. This is pitiful. You do know that don't you?" The princess remarked with her golden eyes glaring down at her pouting serving girl in her arms.

"I…know b-but I would feel more comfortable sleeping if you surrounded me with your bending while I slept." Elle mumbled with another yawn escaping her lips while Azula now smiled down at her in approval.

And then the small girl found herself smiling in appreciation when the much taller woman wordlessly pushed herself up from the tent floor.

"What am I ever going to do with you Elle? But so be it…" Azula trailed off with a shake of her head while she stood up.

But even so.

She couldn't help but feel pleased over her handmaid's innocent request.

The girl craved her dominance so terribly that she went so far as to plead her to surround her with her bending as she sleeps.

"Arigatou…Azula-sama…" The blonde-haired girl murmured in a loud yawn while she peered after her master's tall form stepping through the flap of their tent.

A few short minutes later a distant blue light could now be seen through the dark fabric of the royal tent.

The teenage girl lay on her side while she now cast a grateful smile at the royal woman now sitting back down beside her.

And then with a mere flick of her hand the flame inside their lamp promptly died out while she plopped down on her back.

Only to reach out to greedily pull her drowsy handmaid into her strong arms while she stared down at the yawning girl with a possessive gaze.

"Oh peasant." The princess sighed in a fond voice with a charming smile on her lips while her pet crawled into her arms.

"My…alpha." Elle spoke in a barely perceivable voice before she burrowed into her girlfriend's open breasts while Azula held her against her boson.

"That's right little lady." Azula replied in a fond voice with a content smile on her lips while she wrapped her arms around Elle's naked back.

"A-Azula-sama." The blonde-haired girl muttered in a drowsy yawn while her eyes began to close just as the firebender's hands held onto the back of her head.

"Humph. The Avatar doesn't stand a chance against us Elle. Our victory is inevitable." The princess commented in a confident voice while she crushed her serving girl against her warm bosom.

Only for the sound of adorable snoring to resonate into her ears not a moment later.

Her handmaid now slept with her face buried in her breasts while she peacefully snored in her sleep.

And Azula now observed her with a strangely subdued smile on her regal lips.

"My Elle…" Azula spoke in a quiet voice with her hands grasping onto Elle's head while the small girl released another soft snort against her naked breast.

Her head sunk into her pillow while she cradled her handmaid in her arms with a possessive smile still adorning her regal lips.

"I…confess that I am falling in love with you peasant." The princess admitted in a prideful voice just as she herself closed her eyes while she protectively held her snoring girlfriend in her breasts.

And then the powerful Princess of the Fire Nation began to relax with her young betrothed in her arms.

And soon enough Azula fell asleep with her lips entrenched into a soft smirk while she cradled Elle's snoring face against her bare breasts.

And the two slept soundly for the better part of three hours.

Only for the princess's golden eyes to snap in alarm when she heard a fearful whimper emanate from the girl in her arms.

Which was followed shortly by a soft cough that soon had her brows furrowing in frustration.

And then a plea.

"N-no…please don't…kill my mother." Elle pleaded in her sleep while Azula listened closely with her golden eyes hardening in a cold glare.

'This man…Strados…I am going to kill him.' Azula thought with her nostrils releasing a puff of blue fire while pulled her trembling girlfriend's face back into her breasts.

And just when her eyes began to close once more.

They reopened instantaneously when her young companion suddenly jolted away with a piercing scream.

A scream that was so loud that she knew awoke Mai and Ty Lee judging by the sound of tent flap opening in the distance.

"Mother! No! No!" The blonde-haired girl shouted in a panic-stricken voice while she panted with her eyes wide in terror only to find herself gazing not at her mother's killer.

But her girlfriend's wrathful scowling face.

And then she broke down in a sob in the princess's arms while the royal woman now sat holding her in her lap.

"Azula? Is…she okay?" Ty Lee questioned from outside the tent with a concerned countenance while she listened to the sound of crying from inside the tent.

Mai stood silent with her tawny eyes softening as she listened to the sobs with a look of anger in her eyes.

They had both heard the teenager cry out for her mother.

It was painfully apparent what caused her young friend's frightened cries.

"She…had a nightmare! Just leave us be!" The princess barked with a hand on the back of her sobbing servant's head while she held the crying girl into the crook of her neck.

The two noblewomen women exchanged a sympathetic glance before turned away to return to their own tent.

All the while a tear dripped down the acrobat's cheek when she heard the girl cry out for her mother and father.

"H-he shot my mother. He k-killed my parents. I m-miss them. I miss them so much." Elle wailed with tears streaming down her cheek while she retreated into Azula's body for comfort.

"I know Elle. I know." Azula growled while she lay back down with Elle still sobbing against her naked breast.

All the while her strong arms held the crying girl closely into her bare chest.

"Shush. Elle…shush." The princess purred in her best attempt at comfort with a hand on the back of her handmaid's plush head.

"Y-yes princess." The blonde-haired girl sniffled with tears in her eyes just as she felt the older female's chin press down into her hair.

Only for her eyes to widen mere seconds later when a light puff of air was released by the monarch's nostrils against her forehead.

"There…there. It will be alright my pet. I own you now." Azula whispered over her whimpering handmaid while she held the smaller girl against her neck.

"Azula-sama…my dominant." Elle murmured in a needy voice with her wet eyes closing once more while she retreated back into Azula's breasts.

"Go to sleep now Elle. Fear not…if anyone touches you, I will burn them to ashes." The princess snarled with a possessive hand clamping down on the back of her pet's head while the girl's damp face hid between her breasts.

And then she held her saddened handmaid in her arms for some time.

And after twenty or so minutes.

She finally heard the girl snoring against her breast once more.

Her full lips were pursed into a tight scowl while she held her snoring intended's wet face into her breasts.

If anyone ever tries to hurt this one again…

Then they will find themselves regretting it in their death throes.

Yes indeed.

And that was a promise.

#Azula #Avatar The Last Airbender #yuri #ty lee avatar #mai avatar

[fluentlee]

625 words in korean

These are the 625 words to know in your target language in Korean. I excluded honorific/formal words, which you can find in my last post. Please feel free to correct me if there are any mistakes as I’m not a native speaker ^_^

A D J E C T I V E S  ||  형 용 사 to be long // 길다 to be short (vs. long) // 짧다 to be tall // 키가 크다 to be short (vs. tall) // 키가 작다 to be wide // 넓다 to be narrow // 좁다 to be big/large // 크다 to be small/little // 작다 to be slow // 느리다 to be fast // 빠르다 to be hot // 덥다; 뜨겁다 to be cold // 춥다; 차갑다 to be warm // 따뜻하다 to be cool // 시원하다 to be new // 새롭다 to be old (vs. new) // 오래되다 to be young // 젊다 to be old (vs. young) // 늙다 to be good // 좋다 to be bad // 나쁘다 to be wet // 축축하다 to be dry // 마르다 to be sick // 아프다 to be healthy // 건강하다 to be loud // 시끄럽다 to be quiet // 조용하다 to be happy // 행복하다 to be sad // 슬프다 to be beautiful // 아름답다 to be ugly // 못생겼다 to be deaf // 귀먹다 to be blind // 눈이 멀다 to be nice // 착하다 to be mean // 못되다 to be rich // 부유하다 to be poor // 가난하다 to be thick // 두껍다 to be thin // 얇다 to be expensive // 비싸다 to be cheap // 싸다 to be flat // 평평하다 to be curved // 둥글다 male // 남성 female // 여성 to be tight // 팽팽하다 to be loose // 헐겁다 to be high // 높다 to be low // 낮다 to be soft // 부드럽다 to be hard // 딱딱하다; 단단하다 to be deep // 깊다 to be shallow // 얕다 to be clean // 깨끗하다 to dirty // 더럽다 to be strong // 강하다 to be weak // 약하다 to be alive // 살아있다 to be heavy // 무겁다 to be light (vs. heavy) // 가볍다 to be dark // 어둡다 to be light (vs. dark) // 밝다 to be nuclear // 핵이다 to be famous // 유명하다

A N I M A L S  ||  동 물 dog // 개 cat // 고양이 fish // 물고기 bird // 새 cow // 소 pig // 돼지 mouse // 쥐 horse // 말 wing // 날개 animal // 동물

A R T  ||  예 술 band // 악단; 밴드 song // 노래 (musical) instrument // 악기 music // 음악 movie // 영화 art // 예술; 미술

B E V E R A G E S  ||  음 료 coffee // 커피 tea // 차 wine // 와인; 포도주 beer // 맥주 juice // 주스 water // 물 milk // 우유 beverage // 음료

B O D Y  ||  몸 head // 머리 neck // 목 face // 얼굴 beard // 수염 hair // 머리카락 eye // 눈 mouth // 입 lip // 입술 nose // 코 tooth // 이; 치아 ear // 귀 tear (drop) // 눈물 tongue // 혀 back // 등 toe // 발가락 finger // 손가락 foot // 발 hand // 손 leg // 다리 arm // 팔 shoulder // 어깨 heart // 심장 blood // 피 brain // 뇌 knee // 무릎 sweat // 땀 disease // 질병 bone // 뼈 voice // 목소리 skin // 피부 body // 몸

C L O T H I N G  ||  옷 hat // 모자 dress // 원피스; 드레스 suit // 양복 skirt // 치마 shirt // 셔츠 t-shirt // 티셔츠 pants // 바지 shoes // 신발 pocket // 주머니 coat // 코트 stain // 얼룩 clothing // 옷

C O L O R S  ||  색 깔 red // 빨간(색) green // 초록색 blue // 파란(색) yellow // 노란(색) brown // 갈색 pink // 분홍색; 핑크색 orange // 주황색 black // 검은(색) white // 하얀(색); 흰색 gray // 회색 color // 색깔

D A Y S  O F  T H E  W E E K  ||  요 일 monday // 월요일 tuesday // 화요일 wednesday // 수요일 thursday // 목요일 friday // 금요일 saturday // 토요일 sunday // 일요일

D I R E C T I O N S  ||  방 향 top // 위 bottom // 밑 side // 옆 front // 앞 back // 뒤 outside // 밖 inside // 안 up // 위 down // 아래 left // 왼쪽 right // 오른쪽 straight // 직진 north // 북쪽 south // 남쪽 east // 동쪽 west // 서쪽 direction // 방향

E L E C T R O N I C S  ||  전 자  제 품 clock // 시계 lamp // 전등 fan // 선풍기 cell phone // 휴대폰; 핸드폰 network // 네트워크 computer // 컴퓨터 (computer) program // 컴퓨터 프로그램 laptop // 노트북 screen // 컴퓨터 화면 camera // 카메라 television // 텔레비전; 티비 radio // 라디오

F O O D S  ||  음 식 egg // 달걀; 계란 cheese // 치즈 bread // 빵 soup // 국; 수프 cake // 케이크 chicken // 닭고기 pork // 돼지고기 beef // 소고기 apple // 사과 banana // 바나나 orange // 오렌지 lemon // 레몬 corn // 옥수수 rice // 쌀; 밥 oil // 기름 seed // 씨 knife // 칼 spoon // 숟가락 fork // 포크 plate // 접시 cup // 컵 breakfast // 아침 lunch // 점심 dinner // 저녁 sugar // 설탕 salt // 소금 bottle // 병 food // 음식

H O M E  ||  집 table // 식탁; 탁자 chair // 의자 bed // 침대 dream // 꿈 window // 창문 door // 문 bedroom // 침실 kitchen // 부엌; 주방 bathroom // 욕실; 화장실 pencil // 연필 pen // 펜 photograph // 사진 soap // 비누 book // 책 page // 페이지 key // 열쇠 paint // 물감 letter // 편지 note // 메모 wall // 벽 paper // 종이 floor // 바닥 ceiling // 천장 roof // 지붕 pool // 수영장 lock // 자물쇠 telephone // 전화 garden // 정원 yard // 마당 needle // 바늘 bag // 가방 box // 상자 gift // 선물 card // 카드 ring // 반지 tool // 도구

J O B S  ||  직 업 teacher // 선생님 student // 학생 lawyer // 변호사 doctor // 의사 patient // 환자 waiter // 웨이터; 종업원 secretary // 비서 priest // 성직자; 사제 police // 경찰 army // 군대 soldier // 군인 artist // 화가 author // 작가 manager // 부장님 reporter // 기자 actor // 배우 job // 직업

L O C A T I O N S  ||  위 치 city // 도시 house // 집 apartment // 아파트 street/road // 길; 거리 airport // 공항 train station // 기차역 bridge // 다리 hotel // 호텔 restaurant // 식당; 레스토랑 farm // 농장 court // 법원 school // 학교 office // 사무실 room // 방 town // 마을 university // 대학교 club // 클럽 bar // 술집; 바 park // 공원 camp // 야영지 store/shop // 가게 theatre // 극장; 영화관 library // 도서관 hospital // 병원 church // 교회 market // 시장 country (usa, france, etc.) // 국가; 나라 building // 건물 ground // 땅 (outer) space // 우주 공간 bank // 은행 location // 위치

M A T E R I A L S  ||  재 료 glass // 유리 metal // 금속 plastic // 플라스틱 wood // 나무 stone // 돌 diamond // 다이아몬드 clay // 점토 dust // 먼지 gold // 금 copper // 구리 silver // 은 material // 재료

M A T H / M E A S U R E M E N T S  ||  수 학 / 측 정 meter // 미터 centimeter // 센티미터 kilogram // 킬로그램 inch // 인치 foot // 풋 pound // 파운드 half // 반 circle // 원형 square // 정사각형 temperature // 온도 date // 날짜 weight // 중량 edge // 가장자리 corner // 모퉁이

M I S C E L L A N E O U S  ||  잡 동 사 니 map // 지도 dot // 점 consonant // 자음 vowel // 모음 light // 빛 sound // 소리 yes // 네 no // 아니요 piece // 조각 pain // 아픔; 통증 injury // 부상 hole // 구멍 image // 이미지 pattern // 양식; 패턴 noun // 명사 verb // 동사 adjective // 형용사

M O N T H S  ||  달 january // 1월 (일월) february // 2월 (이월) march // 3월 (삼월) april // 4월 (사월) may // 5월 (오월) june // 6월 (유월) july // 7월 (칠월) august // 8월 (팔월) september // 9월 (구월) october // 10월 (시월) november // 11월 (십일월) december // 12월 (십이월)

N A T U R E  ||  자 연 sea // 바다 ocean // 대양 river // 강 mountain // 산 rain // 비 snow // 눈 tree // 나무 sun // 태양 moon // 달 world // 세계 the earth // 지구 forest // 숲 sky // 하늘 plant // 식물 wind // 바람 soil/earth // 흙 flower // 꽃 valley // 계곡 root // 뿌리 lake // 호수 star // 별 grass // 풀 leaf // 잎 air // 공기 sand // 모래 beach // 해변 wave // 파도 fire // 불 ice // 얼음 island // 섬 hill // 언덕 heat // 열 nature // 자연

N U M B E R S  ||  숫 자 0 // 공; 영 1 // 하나; 일 2 // 둘; 이 3 // 셋; 삼 4 // 넷; 사 5 // 다섯; 오 6 // 여섯; 육 7 // 일곱; 칠 8 // 여덟; 팔 9 // 아홉; 구 10 // 열; 십 11 // 열하나; 십일 12 // 열둘; 십이 13 // 열셋; 십삼 14 // 열넷; 십사 15 // 열다섯; 십오 16 // 열여섯; 십육 17 // 열일곱; 십칠 18 // 열여덟; 십팔 19 // 열아홉; 십구 20 // 스물; 이십 21 // 스물하나; 이십일 22 // 스물둘; 이십이 30 // 서른; 삼십 31 // 서른하나; 삼십일서른 32 // 서른둘; 삼십이 40 // 마흔; 사십 41 // 마흔하나; 사십일 42 // 마흔둘; 사십이 50 // 쉰; 오십 51 // 쉰하나; 오십일 52 // 쉰둘; 오십이 60 // 예순; 육십 61 // 예순하나; 육십일 62 // 예순둘; 육십이 70 // 일흔; 칠십 71 // 일흔하나; 칠십일 72 // 일흔둘; 칠십이 80 // 여든; 팔십 81 // 여든하나; 팔십일 82 // 여든둘; 팔십이 90 // 아흔; 구십 91 // 아흔하나; 구십일 92 // 아흔둘; 구십이 100 // 백 101 // 백일 102 // 백이 110 // 백십 111 // 백십일 1000 // 천 1001 // 천일 10000 // 만 100000 // 십만 1 million // 백만 1 billion // 십억 1st // 첫 번째 2nd // 두 번째 3rd // 세 번째 4th // 네 번째 5th // 다섯 번째 number // 숫자; 수사

P E O P L E  ||  사 람 들 son // 아들 daughter // 딸 mother // 어머니 father // 아버지 parent // 부모 baby // 아기; 애기 man // 남자 woman // 여자 brother // 오빠; 형; 남동생 sister // 언니; 누나; 여동생 family // 가족 grandfather // 할아버지 grandmother // 할머니 husband // 남편 wife // 아내; 와이프 king // 왕 queen // 여왕; 왕비 president // 대통령 neighbor // 이웃 boy // 소년 girl // 소녀 child // 아이; 어린이; 애 adult // 성인 human // 인간 friend // 친구 victim // 피해자 player // 선수 fan // 팬 crowd // 군중 person // 사람

P R O N O U N S  ||  대 명 사 I // 저; 나 you (singular) // 당신; 자네; 너 he // 그 she // 그녀 it // 그것 we // 저희; 우리 you (plural) // 당신들; 너희들; 여러분 they // 그들

S E A S O N S  ||  계 절 summer // 여름 spring // 봄 winter // 겨울 fall/autumn // 가을 season // 계절

S O C I E T Y  ||  사 회 religion // 종교 heaven // 천국 hell // 지옥 death // 죽음 medicine // 약 money // 돈 dollar // 달러 bill // 계산서 marriage // 결혼 wedding // 결혼식 team // 팀 race (ethnicity) // 민족 sex (the act) // 섹스; 성교 sex (gender) // 성별 murder // 살인 prison // 감옥 technology // 기술 energy // 에너지; 정력 war // 전쟁 peace // 평화 attack // 공격 election // 선거 magazine // 잡지 newspaper // 신문 poison // 독 gun // 총 sport // 스포츠 race (sport) // 경주 exercise // 운동 ball // 공 game // 게임; 경기 price // 가격; 값 contract // 계약서 drug // 마약 sign // 신호 science // 과학 God // 하나님; 하느님; 신

T I M E  ||  시 간 year // 해 month // 달 week // 주 day // 하루; 날 hour // 시간 minute // 분 second // 초 morning // 아침 afternoon // 오후 evening // 저녁 night // 밤 time // 시간

T R A N S P O R T A T I O N  ||  교 통 수 단 train // 기차 plane // 비행기 car // (자동)차 truck // 트럭 bicycle // 자전거 bus // 버스 boat // 배 ship // 배 tire // 타이어 gasoline // 휘발유 engine // 엔진 (train) ticket // 표 transportation // 교통수단

V E R B S  ||  동 사 to work // 일하다 to play // 놀다 to run // 뛰다; 달리다 to drive // 운전하다 to fly // 날다 to swim // 수영하다 to go // 가다 to stop // 멈추다; 그만하다 to follow // 따르다 to think // 생각하다 to speak/say // 말하다 to eat // 먹다 to drink // 마시다 to kill // 죽이다 to die // 죽다 to smile // 웃다 to laugh // 웃다 to cry // 울다 to buy // 사다 to pay // 내다; 결제하다 to sell // 팔다 to shoot (a gun) // 쏘다 to learn // 배우다 to jump // 뛰다 to smell // 냄새를 맡다 to hear (a sound) // 듣다 to listen (to music) // 듣다 to taste // 맛보다 to touch // 만지다 to see (a bird) // 보다 to watch (tv) // 보다 to kiss // 뽀뽀하다; 키스하다 to burn // 타다 to melt // 녹다 to dig // 파다 to explode // 폭발하다 to sit // 앉다 to stand // 서다 to love // 사랑하다 to pass by // 지나가다 to cut // 자르다 to fight // 싸우다 to lie down // 눕다 to dance // 춤을 추다 to sleep // 자다 to wake up // 일어나다 to sing // 노래하다 to count // 세다 to marry // 결혼하다 to pray // 기도하다 to win // 이기다 to lose // 지다; 잃어버리다 to mix/stir // 섞다; 젓다 to bend // 구부리다 to wash // 씻다 to cook // 요리하다 to open // 열다 to close // 닫다 to write // 쓰다; 적다 to call // 부르다; 전화하다 to turn // 돌리다 to build // 짓다 to teach // 가르치다 to grow // 자라다 to draw // 그리다 to feed // 먹이다 to catch // 잡다 to throw // 던지다 to clean // 청소하다 to find // 찾다 to fall // 떨어지다 to push // 밀다 to pull // 당기다 to carry // 나르다 to break // 부서지다; 깨다 to wear // 입다; 신다; 쓰다; 매다; 끼다; 차다 to hang // 걸다; 매달다 to shake // 흔들다 to sign // 서명하다; 사인하다 to beat // 치다 to lift // 올리다

practice on quizlet

#korean vocabulary #korean language #korean #language #korean langblr #langblr #studyblr #625 words to know in your target language #korean vocab #vocabulary #vocab #한국어 배우기 #한국어 공부 #한국어 #한국

[finnishfun]

I hope this hasn’t been done yet! Inspired by the Finnish list by @languagesandshootingstars​ and original post here

kutya - dog macska - cat hal - fish madár - bird tehén - cow disznó, malac - pig egér - mouse ló - horse szárny - wing állat - animal vonat - train repülő(gép) - plane autó, kocsi - car teherautó, kamion - truck bicikli, kerékpár - bicycle busz - bus csónak - boat hajó - ship gumi - tire benzin - gasoline motor - engine jegy - ticket közlekedés - transportation város - city, town ház - house lakás - apartment út - way, road utca - street, road repülőtér - airport vasútállomás - train station híd - bridge hotel - hotel étterem - restaurant farm - farm bíróság - court(room) iskola - school iroda - office szoba - room egyetem - university klub - club bár - bar park - park tábor - camp bolt, üzlet - store, shop színház - theater könyvtár - library kórház - hospital templom - church piac - market föld - country; ground; soil; Earth épület - building (világ)űr - (outer) space bank - bank hely(szín) - location kalap - hat ruha - dress öltöny - suit szoknya - skirt ing - shirt póló - t-shirt nadrág - pants cipő - shoes zseb - pocket kabát - coat folt - stain ruhák (plural) - clothing piros - red zöld - green kék - blue sárga - yellow barna - brown rózsaszín - pink lila - purple narancssárga - orange fekete - black fehér - white szürke - grey világos - light sötét - dark szín - colour fiú - boy; son lány - daughter anya - mother apa - father szülő - parent (kis)baba, bébi - baby férfi - man férj - husband nő - woman fiútestvér - brother báty - older brother öcs - younger brother lánytestvér - sister nővér - older sister húg - younger sister család - family nagypapa - grandfather nagymama - grandmother feleség - wife király - king királynő - queen elnök - president szomszéd - neighbour gyerek - child felnőtt - adult ember - human barát - (close) friend haver - (casual) friend áldozat - victim játékos - player rajongó - fan tömeg - crowd ember, személy - person tanár - teacher tanuló, diák - student ügyvéd - lawyer orvos, doktor - doctor beteg, páciens - patient pincér - waiter titkár(nő) - secretary (male/female) pap - priest rendőr - police hadsereg - army katona - soldier művész - artist író - author menedzser - manager riporter - reporter színész - actor munka, állás - job vallás - religion menny(ország) - heaven pokol - hell halál - death gyógyszer - medicine pénz - money dollár - dollar számla - bill házasság - marriage esküvő - wedding csapat - team faj - race szex - sex nem - gender, sex gyilkosság - murder börtön - prison technológia - technology energia - energy háború - war béke - peace támadás - attack választás - election magazin - magazine újság - newspaper méreg - poison fegyver - gun sport - sport verseny - race; competition mozgás, torna - exercise labda - ball játék - game ár - price szerződés - contract drog - drug jel - sign tudomány - science Isten - God együttes, zenekar - band dal, ének - song hangszer - instrument zene - music film - movie művészet - art kávé - coffee tea - tea bor - wine sör - beer gyümölcslé - juice víz - water tej - milk ital - drink, beverage tojás - egg sajt - cheese kenyér - bread leves - soup torta, sütemény - cake csirke(hús) - chicken disznó(hús) - pork marha(hús) - beef hús - meat alma - apple banán - banana narancs - orange citrom - lemon kukorica - corn rizs - rice olaj - oil mag - seed kés - knife kanál - spoon villa - fork tányér - plate csésze - cup reggeli - breakfast ebéd - lunch vacsora - dinner  cukor - sugar só - salt üveg - bottle étel - food asztal - table szék - chair ágy - bed álom - dream ablak - window ajtó - door hálószoba - bedroom konyha - kitchen fürdőszoba - bathroom ceruza - pencil toll - pen fénykép - photograph szappan - soap könyv - book oldal - page kulcs - key festék - paint levél - letter jegyzet - note (as in “to take notes”) fal - wall papír - paper padló - floor plafon - ceiling tető - roof medence - pool zár - lock telefon - telephone kert - garden udvar - yard tű - needle táska - bag doboz - box ajándék - gift kártya - card gyűrű - ring szerszám - tool óra - clock lámpa - lamp ventillátor - fan mobiltelefon - cellphone hálózat - network számítógép - computer program - program laptop - laptop képernyő - screen fényképezőgép- camera (for photos) (videó)kamera - video camera televízió, tévé - television rádió - radio fej - head nyak - neck arc  - face szakáll - beard haj - hair szem - eye száj - mouth ajak - lip orr - nose fog - tooth fül - ear könny - tear nyelv - tongue; language hát - back lábujj - toe ujj - finger lábfej - foot kéz - hand láb - leg kar - arm váll - shoulder szív - heart vér - blood agy - brain térd - knee izzadtság - sweat betegség - disease csont - bone hang - voice; noise; sound bőr - skin test - body tenger - sea óceán - ocean folyó - river hegy(ség) - mountain eső- rain hó - snow fa - tree; wood nap - sun hold - moon világ - world erdő - forest növény - plant szél - wind virág - flower völgy - valley gyökér - root tó - lake csillag - star fű - grass levél - leaf levegő - air homok - sand part - beach hullám - wave tűz - fire jég - ice sziget - island domb - hill hő - heat természet - nature üveg - glass fém - metal műanyag - plastic kő - stone gyémánt - diamond agyag - clay por - dust arany - gold réz - copper ezüst - silver anyag - material méter - meter centiméter - centimeter kilogramm - kilogram hüvelyk - inch font - pound fél - half kör - circle négyzet - square hőmérséklet - temperature dátum  - date súly - weight szél - edge sarok - corner térkép - map pont - dot mássalhangzó - consonant magánhangzó - vowel fény - light igen - yes nem  - no darab - piece fájdalom - pain sérülés - injury lyuk - hole kép - image minta - pattern főnév - noun ige - verb melléknév - adjective rajta - (on) top alatt - under oldal - side előtt - in front of mögött  - behind kint - outside bent - inside fel - up le - down bal - left jobb - right egyenes - straight észak - north dél - south kelet - east nyugat - west irány - direction nyár - summer tavasz - spring tél - winter ősz - autumn évszak - season nulla - 0 egy - 1 kettő - 2 három - 3 négy - 4 öt - 5 hat - 6 hét - 7 nyolc - 8 kilenc - 9 tíz - 10 tizenegy - 11 húsz - 20 huszonegy - 21 harminc - 30 negyven - 40 ötven - 50 hatvan - 60 hetven - 70 nyolcvan - 80 kilencven - 90 száz - 100 kétszáz - 200 ezer - 1000 tízezer - 10000 százezer - 100000 millió - million milliárd - billion első - first második - second harmadik - third negyedik - fourth ötödik - fifth szám - number január - January február - February március - March április - April május - May június - June július - July augusztus - August szeptember- September október - October november - November december - December hétfő - Monday kedd - Tuesday szerda - Wednesday csütörtök - Thursday péntek - Friday szombat - Saturday vasárnap - Sunday év - year hónap  - month hét - week nap - day óra - hour perc - minute másodperc - second reggel - morning délután - afternoon este - evening éjjel - night idő - time dolgozik - to work működik - to work (“function”) játszik - to play (children, games, sports, instruments) sétál - to walk fut - to run vezet - to drive repül - to fly úszik - to swim megy - to go megáll - to stop (moving forward) abbahagy - to stop (doing something) követ - to follow gondolkodik - to think beszél - to speak mond - to say eszik - to eat iszik - to drink öl - to kill meghal - to die mosolyog - to smile nevet - to laugh sír - to cry vesz, vásárol - to buy fizet - to pay elad, árul - to sell lő - to shoot tanul - to learn ugrik - to jump szagol - to smell hall  - to hear hallgat - to listen ízlel - to taste érint - to touch lát - to see néz - to watch csókol - to kiss ég - to burn olvad - to melt ás - to dig robban - to explode ül - to sit áll - to stand szeret - to love vág - to cut veszekszik (verbally), verekedik (physically) - to fight (le)fekszik - to lie (down) táncol - to dance alszik - to sleep felébred - to wake up énekel - to sing számol - to count házasodik - to marry imádkozik - to pray nyer - to win veszít - to lose kever - to mix, to stir hajlít - bend mos -  to wash főz  - to cook nyit - to open zár - to close ír - to write fordul - to turn épít - to build tanít - to teach nő - to grow (by itself) rajzol - to draw etet - to feed elkap - catch (e.g. a ball) dob - to throw tisztít - to clean talál - to find esik - to fall tol, nyom - to push húz - to pull visz - to carry tör - to break visel, hord - to wear lóg - to hang ráz - to shake jelez - to sign üt, ver - to beat emel - to lift magas - tall hosszú - long rövid - short alacsony - short (person); low sekély - shallow (water) széles - wide keskeny - narrow nagy  - big, large kicsi - small, little lassú - slow gyors - fast forró - hot hideg - cold meleg - warm hűvös - cool új - new régi - old (object) öreg - old (person) fiatal - young jó - good rossz - bad nedves, vizes - wet száraz - dry beteg - sick egészséges - healthy hangos - loud halk - quiet boldog - happy szomorú - sad gyönyörű, szép - beautiful ronda, csúnya  - ugly süket - deaf vak - blind kedves - nice gonosz - mean gazdag - rich szegény - poor vastag - thick vékony - thin drága - expensive olcsó - cheap lapos - flat szűk - tight laza - loose magas - high puha - soft kemény - hard mély - deep tiszta - clean koszos - dirty erős - strong gyenge - weak halott - dead élő - alive nehéz - heavy; difficult világos - light sötét - dark nukleáris - nuclear híres - famous én - I te - you ő - she, he az - it mi - we ti - you ők - they ön, maga - you (formal)

#hungarian #not finnish #625 words

[bike42]

March 19-21, 2021

Six weeks have passed, and the weather has turned gentler, so we’re back for a redo to finish off Lincoln County and move into Langlade County.

We decided to step up our game and go for over 11 miles on our first day, meeting at 9am at the Cty Rd B trailhead on the Harrison Hills segment. We piled into two cars to shuttle to where we left off at the Alta Springs segment on a very snowy day in February! By 9:30am we were hiking.

After a few weeks off, our gang is always talkative and eager to go, so we started out loud and fast! We quickly covered what we had left of the Alta Springs trail, pausing briefly at the spring (guidebook says that from the late 1800’s until the 1930’s the spring water was bottled and sold for medicinal purposes).

From there, we entered the Harrison Hills segment. Supposedly, there is a large wolf population here, and we did see some large tracks in the snow and mud. We also saw 4 deer, and it was spectacular to watch them spring up the hill with their tails flashing – seeing them was only possible because of the leaves being off the trees now. They looked much more majestic than those that I see out my window eating from my neighbor’s bird feeder!

The Harrison Hills segment is rated a 5 (on the scale of 1-5) for elevation changes, and contains the highest point on the IAT at Lookout Mountain. It was rated a 4 in its general ruggedness. Honestly, we’re about a third of the way into this adventure and I just started paying attention to the ratings! I guess I’m more of a “it is what it is” kind of gal.

It was about thirty degrees when we started, with abundant sunshine and beautiful blue skies. It warmed up fast to a very comfortable day in the fifties. There was still 6-10” of snow in some areas, and the breeze across the snow cooled things down. Still, Gary and Kent hiked most of the day in T-shirts.

 There were lots of up and down, including many super steep portions. Our pace slowed, but with break time, we still averaged 30 minutes per mile.

In the spots where there was no snow, we were hiking through dried leaves from last fall, and once again we found ourselves occasionally stumbling on rocks and stumps – it was nice to have those covered by snow!

Saturday was the first day of spring, and another beautiful day. There is no direct route from Tomahawk to the trail head, so we spent about an hour dropping a car and shuttling to the start. We were hiking by 8:30am. It was a cool start to the day, in the 30’s. I started in my light down jacket, but after the first mile, layers started coming off. Similar to yesterday, we’d hike through snow covered areas, and then areas with dry leaves and no snow at all!

Until about 11am, we could easily walk over the snow. After that, it was warm enough that you’d crash through the six inches of crust, which made for difficult going!

We finished off the Harrison Hills segments and started the Parrish Hills segment without much fanfare. The terrain was the same. Our guidebook said that the wetlands in this area are so extensive that the trail was designed to traverse the high, narrow ridges, and across beaver dams in the low-lying areas. We were grateful that the low-lying areas were still mostly frozen. After another week of 50-degree days, this will be a mess!

Being Saturday, we saw a few people, more than usual! When we dropped the car at Townline Lake, there was a couple getting ready to start the Highland Lakes segment, and we saw a bike tied to the sign which is generally a sign of someone shuttling themselves with a bike. At the parking lot where we started, there was a young man named Ross who was going to likely hike and camp overnight then hike back.

We crossed Hwy 17, about where the turnoff to Fish Camp is. Jeff and I will head there after hiking tomorrow and visit with my folks and celebrate my Dad’s 81st birthday.

Then we came to the Prairie river, and a “ford” that we’d been talking about and dreading for weeks. Just before we reached the river, we encountered a young man from Green Bay (Chris), and talked with him awhile. It was his bike we’d seen at the trailhead. He started hiking the whole IAT last April, and will likely finish it within a year! He said the river was just ankle deep, so that put us at ease. We had a variety of apparatuses that we employed for the crossing: Tam wore her dive boots, Jeff and Dan used heavy garbage bags on each foot, Lynn and Kent had bought lightweight waders that they’d carried in the packs, and Gary and I changed into river shoes. The water was cold and initially felt refreshing, but the river was wide and my feet were frozen by the time I made it across.

We had a 17-mile day, and at that point we were only 8 miles in - although it was about 12:30p and we had a lot of daylight left. On the other side of the river, the trail was NOT well traveled, so the river ford must deter a lot of hikers! We occasionally had to really search to find the trail and the blazes!

 The rest of the day was a mixture of beautiful trail, and not so great fire and/or logging roads, and traversing logged areas. When the roads weren’t snow covered, they were mostly soft mud, and you had stay on your toes to stay upright and not get mired in the muck. Along the way, we came to some big stacks of logs and took an extended break there – good for stretching out a bit!

Over these two days, we’ve been past several beautiful lakes, most still ice covered, just starting to thaw on the edges. It’s been so special to be in these remote areas of the state and see these beautiful undeveloped lakes. We saw several covered lakes with islands covered in leatherleaf, which had a striking burgundy color.  

We’re not at the northernmost part of the IAT - we hit that early, then dipped south before heading north again. Today in Langlade county, we turned south again (southeast for a few more sections) but soon we’ll head straight south, and closer to home.

Sunday was another glorious day.  We had breakfast, packed up and we were hiking by 9:30am.  Today we hiked most of the Highland Lakes segment.  The first half was fire lane / logging road, the second half was road walk.  The first three miles of the fire road were a wonderful mowed grassy lane – lots of up and down, but no mud.  Of course, someone remarked that they were glad this wasn’t a logging road, and about then, it became a muddy logging road!!

Just last night, we noticed the word “ford” on the map along the West Branch of the Eau Claire River.  The book said its possible to rock hop, unless the water is high. We were optimistic that would be the case, and it was.  However, Lynn, with shorter legs than the rest of the group, tried to use the same stepping stones and she got two wet feet (changed into dry socks and she was ok for the rest of the hike).

We took a sit-down break just before getting into the muddy stretch, and then slogged about three miles through the mud – glad for waterproof boots and gaiters.  From there, we had a 4.2-mile road walk on a paved road.  I took off my muddy footwear, wrapped it in a plastic bag and strapped it to my pack.  I completed the walk in my river shoes with socks, which worked out better than walking 4+ miles in my heavy hiking boots and mud-coated gaiters!  

We walked past “Bogus Swamp State Natural Area” and a sign that described it as an “870-acre swamp of primarily a large muskeg of stunted tamarack and black spruce on a bed of sphagnum moss and sedges.” I let the others go ahead and just stood and enjoyed the organic smell of the bog coming back to life on the second day of Spring!  

Just before we got to the cars, there was a group of about a dozen hikers and two dogs that had climbed the hillside overlooking the road and were having their lunch.  We greeted one another, and later connected on the IAT “Thousand-Miler Wannabe” Facebook page.

We finished up just before 1pm.  It felt great to have hiked nearly 40 miles over these wonderful three days. Jeff and I drove up to Pelican Lake to visit with my folks, while the others went back to the bowling alley in Merrill for a late lunch and to catch the end of the NCAA Basketball game (where the Badgers lost).

[ithoughtyouweredifferent]

Part 8: New York New Me

Requested by: Sort of @ocean-marina Line Request: “No fucks given. Next please,” and “Just come home alive…okay?” @i-cant-even-superwholock-anymore A/NL yes, this was formerly posted on @imagineimeliza but was removed-I am ImageineI’mEliza but because this fic was going on for so long, it doesn’t belong on a one-shot maybe 2 parter blog! Word Count: 2,800ish

Chapter 7

Table of Contents  

Chapter 9(link also at bottom)

When Lin had gotten on a plane bound for London, you were certain that you’d never see him again, you doubted you’d ever contact him again, and you found it unlikely he would even hold true to his offer of listening for better job openings for you to apply to. You were wrong on all accounts but one. Email became your friend once again as you talked to him while he was across the sea he would complain about this and that but then tell you a piece of overwhelmingly excited news and for the first few months there was a link to so a friend he had somewhere that had an opening for a job he thought you might want to take and you sent in your resume to all of them, you got more calls back than you had dreamed of.

You weren’t surprised when July came with a letter saying that you had been let go from the school. You got the letter the same day that you were due to set out for a fancy schmancy museum up north that seemed fairly promising. Knowing you weren’t going to have a check coming in anytime soon was worry some but motivated you all the more to exceed expectations and land this position. It had excellent opportunities for growth, it was by far better pay than what you made now even factoring in the higher cost of living, hopefully, it would be something you would do for a long time.

With a lovely letter that summed up to say “you’re out of a job,” on the counter, you threw your bag into your backseat and hit the road, a fifteen-hour drive to a fifteen-minute interview that hopefully would come through. You had a small hotel room booked in advance that you wouldn’t get to until 1am at best but it would be somewhere to sleep and then freshen up for the interview and wait at for the next three days while attending a few other promising interviews in the area. Lin promised that the people at all four for the places you had on this trip were relatively fast working and you would know if you’d made the cut within the week.

It was with confidence and hope fueled by reopened dreams you had all but abandoned that you had landed your job as a curator for the New York Historical Society. You had a week to get settled here before you started. It turned out to be more of an overpaid intern position beneath the real curators, but you would grow and prosper here. When you got the call saying you had the job it was disheartening to realize that you didn’t have anyone to share the good news with. All you did was send an email to the friend who got you here, a friend probably asleep due to time zone differences, a friend who now that he had fulfilled his promise to listen for an opening for you would fall out of touch. But it was a friend for now and that knowledge only strengthened your resolve to make this new position in this new city something you would share with others

“T 23 15, ivory and ink, hand-crafted maybe late 18th-century cup, 3 cm tall five cm diameter at rim and base seven cm diameter at largest,” you looked at the small sketch you had made beside the location and description biting your lip. You had been trying to find this piece for a good twenty minutes, it wasn’t on the shelf it was supposed to be, not the entire case that it might be, you’d gone down the case in front of, behind, to the left, and the right of where it was supposed to be just in case it had been originally put in the wrong place but now you were going to have to add it to the list of artifacts that you would have to look for when you searched the entire room top to bottom for items that had been completely misplaced.

Three years you’d been in the city, two and a half years you’d fit in with your coworkers and enjoyed life, two years without talking to anyone but them - people from your teaching days had faded out of your life just like people from college had. Almost immediately.

“Hey Y/N, we’re all headed out for lunch today, you coming?” Tanya called popping her head in, she had become one of your best friends quickly and easily.

“Ummm I’m actually a bit behind, who’s turn is it to stay  today?” You asked, “Joe right?” she nodded, “Tell him I’ll cover him today if he’ll take it from me next time,” you offered and she gave you a thumbs up, before darting out the door while you went back to inventory. There were so many amazing things here and they were always rotating in and out so there was always more to find. You thought that the idea of enjoying your job was nothing more than that, an idea, but you were wrong. You enjoyed coming to work every day, when you skipped going with friends to lunch it wasn’t because if you left you would be miserable the whole time knowing you had to come back, it was because you didn’t want to leave. Of course, there were downsides, but you loved enough of it that those didn’t matter. You had a routine and you were happy with it.

Looking back at your clipboard you began looking for the next item which was where it belonged thankfully. As were the next several, you had gotten back into your rhythm when you heard the bell over the door jingle, they shouldn’t be back so soon,

“Hello, is anyone in here?” you heard someone call, not many people knew about this door,

“Yes, I’ll be with you in just a moment,” you told them wondering who was using the back door that didn’t already know the place like the back of their hand.

“How can I help you today?” You asked as you rounded the corner,

“Yes I was wondering if-,”

“Lin?” you gasped in shock when you looked up at his face for the first time and he looked you over in confusion for half a second before you found yourself engulfed in a smothering hug, “oh my,” you yelped in shock but hugged him right back

“Y/N? I can’t believe you’re here, what’re you doing?  How’ve you been? Are you-”

“Woah one question at a time, I can’t handle three years of questions in one breath,” you said pulling out of his hug, he smelled exactly like you remembered,

“God I’ve missed you,“

“Same here, wow three years. Doesn’t feel like three years,” he said blinking rapidly

“It feels like just a minute has passed but at the same time, I was teaching down south at least a lifetime ago, maybe two. What’re you doing here? Last time we talked you were finishing up in London and off to work in animated films - getting an EGOT with that. Hell, you were sponsoring on toothpaste and cereal commercials for a while and then you just stopped. Fell off the face of the earth. What happened for almost two years that had you hiding in some sort of underground cave?”

“You can ask me to sum up, three years in one breath but I can’t ask that of you? That’s not fair, I’m wounded,” he teased and you rolled your eyes, “If you must know, I’ve been doing research and writing,”

“How many months worth of paychecks is it going to take for me to get tickets?” You sighed,

“I don’t have any idea yet, but how are you doing?”  

“Pretty great, I’ve actually fallen in love with the city and the job and, you’re going to be proud of me, they’ve got me playing at charity dinners and things, and wait for it,” you paused, “Introductions, presentations singing and playing in the background, the whole nine yards,” suddenly your feet were off the ground and behind you spinning, “Lin! Put me down,” you laughed, smacking his shoulder as he spun you,

“I am so happy for you, that’s wow,” he paused and seemed to think for a second, “You wouldn’t happen to be playing at a ceremony Thursday night would you?” you narrowed your eyes,

“Actually, I am, the coordinator of the ceremony is supposed to come in later today,” he grinned wide at your answer, “Why,” he pursed his lips trying to suppress a smile and shook his head, “Lin-Manuel what is going on in that brain of yours?”

“Later today might be sooner than you thought,” he said and your eyes went wide as you looked around frantically as if someone was going to suddenly appear from behind one of the many artifact shelves, you hurriedly patted your hair down and straightened your shirt that Lin’s hugs had wadded up,

“What? I can’t mess this up Kathrine’ll kill me if I lose this one, its some big deal hotshot that we need to keep things going and not get wiped off the pages. Some guy probably filthy rich probably so full of himself he can’t see right from left” you groaned in frustration and he laughed heartily at your worry,

“I think you’ll be okay, You’re such a goof,” he said, “’sometime after 11′,” it’s almost 12, isn’t it?” he checked,

“What? They’ll be here sometime after 1,” you ran over to the computer that was at least as old as some of the objects in the back of this room, “Nononono,” you groaned, “the screen’s fuzzy I misread it Oh god ah okay Lin,” you took a deep breath and shook your head, “Okay sorry, I’m a mess. What did you come in here for in the first place?”

“To talk about a ceremony Thursday night,” it clicked in your mind all at once and you wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor

“You can’t be serious,”

“as a heart attack,”

“I uh..oops?” you giggled, “can we forget that I said anything? Like pretnd you just walked in the door and I didn’t stereotype the no-name leader of Thursday Nights ceremony at all?”

“Oh you mean the pat where I’m rich and so full o myself I can’t see up from down,” you thought he was joking but you were very hesitant and unsure,

“yes?”

“I don’t have any idea what you are talking about, I just got here,” he told you smiling and you breathed a heavy sigh immensely relieved to know that you hadn’t just ruined everything.

“So anyway, I got called in to do something because of Hamilton again, and it’s lost a bit of its hype, not much but some so why not? Plus I might be planning a bit of a surprise like one I did a while back,” he grinned, "You know how I promoted Hamilton at The White House when I was supposed to do something for Heights,”

“You are not!”

“Oh I am so!” his smile was infectious, “But you can’t tell anyone - it’s gonna be a surprise and if I chicken out I don’t want people hounding me about it,”

“You’re not going to ‘chicken out,’” you promised, “Now that you’ve told me this, you’re stuck,” you stuck your tongue out at him, "If you want to sit down we can go ahead and start going over the plan for Thursday night, it needs to run with as few hitches as possible, you’re going to throw it off a bit if I’m the only one allowed to know about your plan of change of plans but no fucks given, next order of business would be the order of introductions, we have a pretty standard template of order of importance but…” and just like that you managed to get down to business and plan out the evening,

“That sounds perfect. I don’t think a meeting like this has gone this smoothly in…I don’t even know how long. What are my chances of having lunch with you now, to catch up and interrogate you?” he asked and you smiled,

“Everyone else should be getting back from lunch any minute now, it was supposed to be Joe’s day to stay back and watch over stuff back here but I offered to stay instead,” you said, “But how would dinner sound?” and he nodded,

“I was planning on meeting up with a bunch of old friends tonight, that’d be excellent,”

“Great, I can’t wait,” he wrapped you in a short hug that lasted only a few seconds, you both already pulling back when Tanya and the others came in all laughing until they froze in the doorway seeing the two of you locked in a hug,

“Well, it was really nice seeing you again,” you said your face scarlet red, as you looked between Lin and your coworkers

“Yeah, back atcha Socrates,” he said and hurried out the door,

“What. Was. That?” Tanya asked,

“That was an old friend who helped me land this job in the first place dropping by for a visit…and to go over the plans for Thursday night,” you told her as calmly as you could in your flustered state, the others had all scattered almost instantly but would hound you later.

“Y/N, you were broken when you came here, you never said that the Lin that you were friends with that had told you about this job that had faded from your life leaving you dead inside was the Lin-Manuel Miranda. I don’t want to see you like that again,” you tried to protest, you weren’t broken, and even if you had been, it wasn’t because of him in the least, “I mean it, be careful, Thursday night is a big deal for us, important people will be there, important people with deep pockets,” you knew what she meant by that all too well: money was always what things boiled down to in any business and boy could you use some of it right now,

“I’ll be fine, we’re just two good friends that have found ourselves working on a project together. I’m meeting him and a bunch of friends tonight for dinner. Friends.” you stated as many times as you logically could.

“Just come home alive, okay?” she asked, “If you come to work next week like a dead zombie because of him  I will personally see to it that he doesn’t get another gig as long as he lives, And don’t you fall for him again tonight, you better be sober and chipper tomorrow morning or I will get Katherine to pull both of you out of the banquet ceremony on Thursday,”

“Yes mom,” you mocked

“Good. Now then, inventory.” Tanya was your best friend. You knew that she only had your best interests at heart and she was right. You couldn’t let yourself get involved with him again because he needed to chase his dreams all over the planet and you just couldn’t do that. You needed a stable environmnet where you knew what was going on and that just wasn’t something you owuld be able to have if for whatever reason old flames re sparked. But it was only a short fling before and besdies, it’s been three years. He probably found someone else and you had both moved on. He was your friend. That’s how it is and that’s how it is going to stay.

Chapter 9

So that’s not what I originally had in mind for “No Fucks given next,” I actually had an audition thing going on that was half-written mentally and I didn’t have any idea what to do, neither of the two characters in this series are likely to be in a particularly high risk situation.

#lin x reader #lin manuel miranda #i thought you were different #chapter 8

[itsworn]

Everything You Need to Know to Learn Pinstriping

Pinstriping – at its roots – is as old as mankind and cave drawings. For hot rodders, those roots stem directly from the decoration of Roman chariots, through the transition of horse-drawn carriages to the steel bodies of the earliest locomotives, automobiles, and fire trucks. Even Henry Ford, who mandated every Model-T be painted black to save a few bucks on materials, spent the time to detail his mass-produced Tin Lizzies with hand pinstriping. While there were no shortage of creative minds and hands in this era, it was the explosion of Kenny “Von Dutch” Howard’s technique that paved the road for what we know today after he was challenged to hide some scratches on the poorly paint-prepped nose of a customer’s car.

Our Art Director, Ryan Lugo, was a natural candidate for this (we’d be stuck on straight lines past this story’s deadline), and so we introduced him to friend of HOT ROD and legendary pinstriper, Jeff Styles.

Materials Needed

Just about everyone agrees that 1-Shot is the only paint to grab.

Just three key tools are needed: a brush, some paint, and a can of paint thinner. “I’m going to say 1-Shot is the only paint out there you want to use, because it’s an oil-based enamel. It was developed for the industry — pinstriping and lettering – it’s real user friendly,” Styles explained. Paint for sign making and pinstriping lays on relatively thick and dries slowly to allow the brush strokes to flow out and minor corrections to be made. It skims over quickly enough to allow for multiple colors to be layered on top of each other in a session without smearing. The paint thinner can be anything on the shelf, but Styles sticks with his 1-Shot reducer.

Every brush has its own use. The narrow, needle-like brushes are for scrolls or details, the sword-like brushes are excellent for long, flowing lines and most of what you’ll stripe, and the chiseled-edge brushes are for lettering and filling large amounts of color.

Things aren’t so simple when it comes to brushes. Styles whipped out his brush kit like 007 deploys a new gadget, and in it were tools that were just about as mysterious to us. “You never throw away a brush, that thing will come in handy for something,” he exclaimed, while holding a well-worn Mack brush that had the belly of the brush whittled down while the handle was shortened even further, creating a unique detail brush.

“You may go, ‘Man I really like this brush.’ But the other guy might not like that brush, you know. And that’s why there’s the Von Dagos, the Kafkas, and the Jensens and everybody else who make their own brush, because there’s a lot of different people out there that have different techniques, and it may be right for one person but it may not be right for you,” said Styles.

“What you’ll usually be working on is a Series 10 Mack. Good for flames, good for designs good turns – a good overall brush. However, if you were to do circles with a Kafka, a Jensen, or a Von Dago, you’ll go ‘Why didn’t he give me that in the first place?’ They’re scrolling brushes, so you don’t have to spin them in a curve. There’s also a lettering quill, they come in all sizes — 1 through the big-giant-mop called a 179 – a nice chiseled tip. You’re going to get a really nice lettering technique, block style, cursive letters, all of those.”

Foundations

Every brush has its own use. The narrow, needle-like brushes are for scrolls or details, the sword-like brushes are excellent for long, flowing lines and most of what you’ll stripe, and the chiseled-edge brushes are for lettering and filling large amounts of color.

First thing’s first: the real secret of pinstriping steady lines and flowing curves is all in how you hold the brush. Don’t sweat the technique too hard, ultimately you must adjust for what’s comfortable, but the key is two-fold: for long pulls of lines and arcs, you’ll want the brush at a slight angle relative to the work piece, allowing the brush hairs to act like a “shock absorber” for your hands, but for curves and tighter circles, the brush is held more upright.

“The way that I like to explain it is to say, OK, everybody knows how to make an OK-sign but everybody picks this brush up and they want to hold a pencil, you know? But when I go to North Carolina, where the NASCAR guys are, it’s Three for Dale – I got to give them the credit for that,” Styles jokes, holding up a “three” with his pointer finger and thumb pinched. The pocket created by your thumb and pointer is where the brush handle should sit, while your three remaining fingers are used to stabilize the brush against your work.

“You’re going to take this brush belly side down, you’re going to take your Three for Dale, pinch it on either side of the ferrule (the wrapping that ties the bristles to the handle). And the reason that you want to pinch that is so you can rotate the brush.”

Ryan, our Art Director, was quick to pick up the minutia, like keeping the brush palatted and loaded with paint.

Next, you’ve got to load the brush with paint. The paint’s consistency is important because it affects the coverage of the line you pull, along with the drying time when working through a multi-color design. “It gets heavy when you load it with paint,” Ryan mentioned. “And when you’re thinning it, you can feel when it’s right because it’ll pull smooth – if it’s too thick, it feels like it hops as you pull,” Styles continued.

This will take practice and experimentation, but Styles elaborated: “If it gets too dry, what’s going to happen is the brush is just going to skip. If it’s too wet, it’s going to bleed out. This is really one of the major, major things that you have to master.” The last top-trick is to use two containers for your thinner, one to wash while the brush is dirty, and one to deep clean the brush before reloading it with a new color or when putting it into storage. Not unlike the two-bucket method of car washing, you want to reduce contamination as much as possible.

Practice Makes Pinstriping

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, err – the squirrel hair meets the metal, rather. It’s time to start stripin’, and we’ve given you a variation of Styles’ practice guide to start on yourself on the last page of this story. We’ll first talk a little about brush technique before going into design.

Ryan, our Art Director, was quick to pick up the minutia, like keeping the brush palatted and loaded with paint.

Then lay the belly of the brush into the work piece, and begin pulling your line.

Once you’ve got the brush pinched in your Three-for-Dale grip, you’ll first position the tip of the brush where you wish to start your line, and settle your pinky, ring, and/or middle finger on the panel where needed to help stabilize your hand. It helps to do a dry run to ensure your body position is where it needs to be for the line you’re trying to pull. Once ready, you simply lower the tip of the brush onto the surface, like a record needle, and start pulling. “If you can hear your hand squeaking, that’s going to prevent you from moving smoothly. Put a little baby powder on the end of the hands because it’s going to affect your lines,” Jeff recommended before pulling a laser-straight line. Styles’ class uses three basic practice lines to build the individual techniques of pulling a full design. Straight lines, lazy esses, and horseshoes are the building blocks of everything, he says.

Lines, lazy esses, and horsehoes – the elements of pinstriping.

Using a straight reference line, tape or a guideline, Styles’ first lesson is just repeating straight lines over and over, like an apprentice welder practices laying beads. Von Dutch once said, “It’s got to become an obsession, it’s got to become the most important thing – to make an absolutely perfect, straight line like a machine man. You’ve got to imitate a machine, and you’ve got to put your head into that. It’s very much like yoga, you can go deep into striping and meditate while your body is striping.”

The important thing to internalize here is how to set-down and remove the brush, and where you’re placing your eyes. Like in racing, target fixation is the enemy, so keep a focus on where you want to go instead of where you don’t.

First, the line is dragged over the tape.

Then the tape is pulled to remove a perfectly flat edge.

You can also take a bit of thinner in a towel, and wipe the line to give it a hard edge.

When it comes to finishing a line, you have a couple options: gently lift pressure or flick the brush to create a teardrop tail; abruptly stop and lift to create a blunt end; or you can lay a piece of tape where you want the line to end, drag it down over the tape, and then remove the tape to create a hard-edge, which is great for block-lettering and outlining.

Notice the position of the brush as Ryan enters the next arc…

…a slight rudder effect happens when you twist the brush into the curve.

Next up are lazy esses — the long, gentle curves that make the licks of flames and those long, flowing whiskers you see on any traditionally-striped rod. This is when you start to treat the brush like a rudder, steering it into the curve so that the bristles don’t splay and twist.

Horseshoes help practice the inside licks of flames, shark curves in designs, and even some lettering.

Using his guide fingers like a protractor, Styles shows how to churn a circle.

Lastly, horseshoes and circles, the trickiest of techniques. The lazy esses give you the practice to the brush-twisting technique of drawing tight curves and circles. The circle is the torture test of this – pivoting around a single finger, and twisting his Mack to steer it into the complete circle. Think of it like a human protractor, using the placement if his fingers and the brush to draw a radiused line.

Scrolling brushes make quick work of circles and tight curves.

The handle of a brush can be dipped in paint and used to create precise dots.

Lining it All Up

To help proportion a teardrop as you’re starting a design out, Styles recommends using guide tapes to help keep things consistent when establishing the bones of a design.

Now that you’re skirting carpal tunnel after practicing those three lines, it’s time to bring it all together and start designing.

“If you’re right handed, you’ll want to work left-to-right [on each half of your design],” that way you can easily mirror the opposite side while preventing your hands from dragging through wet lines, he said. Start with your first line on the left-hand side of the V, and your second – mirroring it – on the right-half of the V. From there, just line it up as you go, and replicate each line on the other half of the design.

When starting out, there are a number of methods to practice designs. Grabbing designs from books like Bobbo’s Little Book of Pinstripe Designs, Kafka’s practice kits, or through an online image search, you can lay them behind transparent surfaces (like glass), or use Saral transfer paper to lay down a guide to practice over. Glass is advantageous because you can just let the paint dry and scrape it clean with a razor. The idea, again, is repetition; you’ll only start to find your own flow and style with practice, failure, and more practice.

A transparency sheet is laid over a practice design, and then traced – this isn’t to give you an easy-way-out on a final design, but helps to practice different proportions, layouts, and styles.

Saral transfer paper can also be used by lightly tracing the design onto the paper, between your work surface and the template, which transfers temporary guide lines onto the surface.

From here, you just cover every bit of Saral you can with paint!

If you’re thinking about doing your own artwork, you can smear paint around…

… and even pat the whole panel in that same towel to give it a trippy effect. Styles will also over-thin paints and mix them up like tie-die, create wood grain panels, and so-on.

Also, Don’t do This!

Styles keeps a small jar of motor oil with him to recondition the natural hair brushes before storing them.

Brush care is vital for your pocket book as much as your portfolio, according to Styles. “You got to take care of these precious brushes. Oil them up put them back in your nice case,” he said, pointing that it’s paramount to store the sword-shaped brushes, like the Mack, vertical. If the bristles take a set to an odd-angle, the brush can be forever ruined. Oh, and his choice of brush oil? “Plain ol’ motor oil. You could go get some off the dip stick if you had to!”

“This is the brush I bring out all the time, because it means a lot to me,” says Styles while holding a crusty, paint-dried brush. “And the reason it does is because a very well-known builder in Southern California decided he wanted to pinstripe with me at Disneyland. Chip Foose comes and says, ‘Hey, set up this brush for me.’ Well Chip, that’s the way you left my brush! [he says jokingly] So it’s a good example that if you leave it, walk away and we go to lunch and it’s 100 degrees on a summer day, you’re going to come back to that.”

Get out There!

Take this practice page, buy a few cans of 1-Shot, a Mack 0 or 00 sized brush to start, and get at it. Styles told us, “One of the hardest things in striping to get started is just getting a break. What you have to do is practice, practice, practice, but where do you practice to get the long-line?” Styles took the “pushing brooms before building race cars” shop mentality to pinstriping, heading to body shops to restripe cars after they were repaired and painted. He used this as a way to work on as many live canvases as he could to pull those mile-long beltline stripes and other details once popular on new cars. “All that long-line, day after day, for free for about a year and a half,” he continued. “Turns out, I’m one of the best long-liners out there. The reason being is I taught myself to do it. You can go out in the parking lot, stripe a bunch of cars and run, but I was doing it for free and they were making the money. They finally told me you need to start charging.”

The post Everything You Need to Know to Learn Pinstriping appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/everything-need-know-learn-pinstriping/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network

[kylanrice]

Day 4, 5, 6

I have been unable to find time to write for three days. I have written, but not in a diary. After seeing the National Gallery in London on the 19th, and after looking there at the anonymous Flemish painting “Cognoscenti in a Room Hung with Pictures,” I have been eager to work on a world that takes after that piece.  I am compelled by the desire that has precipitated it, an epistemological thirst. It is a painting that wants to be several paintings; it tries to contain, index, profile. If each painting inside this painting is a logic and a world, this work worlds itself with these as its lineaments, acknowledging the work of art as more than subject matter: as matter itself. Art retro-architects reality. “Cognoscenti” is essentially a form of praise, too, showcasing the virtues of appreciation, abundance, knowledge, and the limits of knowledge. I want to write a series of embedded essays that work chiastically through world, into art, and back into world again, showing the ways in which transferences redeem the real. Mediation is reality—or rather, reality is always already mediated.

I will return to the National Gallery. I have to take this slowly. Monday the nineteenth begins at Abney Park, a cemetery in the Hackney borough in which I am residing.  I am brought here by a book I’m reading called “Lights out for the Territory” by Iain Sinclair. My new unofficial handbook to the city. It perverts the figure of the flaneur into that of a stalker. My walks are like Sinclair’s in this: anxiety, hunger, and paranoia gyring into each other, a sense of non-belonging, voyeurism. I am here to observe, subvert, contain, vivisect. Sinclair’s walks through Hackney take him to Abney, where he notices a spray-painted pyramid-and-eye symbol scrawled in an unused non-denominational chapel at the heart of the park. I’m there before nine and it’s already broiling, one of the hottest days on record since the 70s. The inside of the cemetery is overwhelmingly green, dense, clotted with grave stones. Arborists and wood-cutters haul machinery through the overgrowth. What is overgrowth and what is undergrowth and what is a memorial to the dead is impossible to disentangle or set straight. Everything strays here. Death is no straightforward terminus. Indeed, one of my favorite aspects of Abney were the signposts scattered throughout identifying the various trees on site. The signs record the curious and mazy longevity of silver birches, common ashes, service trees of Fontainbleue, and horse chestnuts, among others, as though offering veiled metaphors for grief and earthbound afterlife: “SILVER BIRCH (Betula pendula, planted around 1930) / This tree appears to have been struck by lightning about 30 years go. It is not know exactly where this avenue of birch trees was planted, but birch rarely live more than 100 years. Lightning is the most likely cause of the long wound down the north side of the tree. You can see decayed wood inside, with fungi and beetle holes. Healthy wound wood has grown around the cavity but it is so big and deep the tree has been unable to seal the gap. The tree remains healthy and should live for another decade or two.” From the trees of Abney I learn that the material for our dearest metaphors are present already in the fabric of our lives.

Other things about Abney: the chapel is the oldest non-denominational church in Europe. The carved stone urns partly draped with veils. Extras of these piled beside a Simplyloo. The Egyptian style entry columns.

A long walk to the National Gallery, as the tube is unexpectedly expensive. I pass over canals, Kingsland graffiti, vertiginous mash-ups of architectural history and new construction. On Stoke Newington high-road, Arabic men drinking red coffee from tiny glass cups in front of bars and barbering establishments. Memorials displaced by bombs in the Barbican. Ornate underpasses. Smithfield wholesale market, whose sprawling industrial galleries are tastefully domed with glass and hinged with arcade glass. I have lunch at Fabrique. Ham sandwich on rye. Live flowers in glass milk jars on the tables. London Review of Books Cake Shop later on for afternoon refreshment. At last, two hours later, the National Gallery. A room full of still life floral arrangements, stray curves, diagonal axes. Closed peonies in shadow. I am an anachronist and miss in today’s world the understated ambition on display; again, the desire to contain all, the burgeoning thrust of the catalogue, the encyclopedia, the enlightenment era reach and grasp. The transparent wing of a dragonfly laid over a half-concealed leaf laid over a panted leaf on a vase. Palimpsest. My attention turns to the other museum visitors. A woman on a bench, having unconsciously adopted a Marian pose, arm over her backback, eye-shadow, Adidas, double rings on her wedding finger. Repose, in the gallery. Turner, Dido building Carthage: construction, development, empire, the empire of scope. The return again and again the judgement of Paris. This pairs well with my interest in Enlightenment era observational painting: anxiety regarding accuracy, discernment. Are these available to us? Is the illusion of possible accuracy even available anymore? I feel Cassandralike, intuiting a dark truth, completely bereft of a capacity to speak it or even explain it to myself. Agamemnon gets murdered off stage. What is mine is not knowledge but an inarticulate shriek in the shape of knowledge.

A beautiful painting by Meindert Hobbema called The Avenue at Middelharnis. Arbors, cranes in the backdrop, husbandry. Order (arrangement) and its derangement—that is, its warping. Hobbema excised two trees from the foreground of his painting to clear up the sky, giving it visual priority. You can see evidence of this on x-ray. Elsewhere: shipping scenes, ports, fleets. Trade and spectacle and confluence. Claude Lorrain, his lit backgrounds and shaded foregrounds: a curious sense of closure, lateness. Beautiful work by Beuckelaer: his four paintings make up a group illustrating the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The elements communicated by way of market scenes as frame narratives for Christological imagery. Densely layered. The main event or subject as peripheral (in both cases). The Ambassadors. Again, epistemological ambition. Measurement, efficiency, death. Despite wayfinding technology: memento mori, pushed into the periphery to see the skewed skull rightwise. In many of these paintings of Christ and martyrs, the body is there to suppurate, gush, anoint.

At the end of the day, a long walk through St. James park and alongside Buckingham palace. Dinner on the steps of Westminster Cathedral, a beautiful striped, squarely Venetian building across from the malls near Victoria Station. The apartment buildings nearby match this decorative scheme. I listen to the nearby sounds of the wind in the maple, a roundabout with mopeds and bikers at its foot. Westminster has exquisite marbling on the interior, like being inside a shell discovered on a beach, creamy and lit from the outside in.

The next morning I call an Uber to get to Victoria station at 5 in the morning. The stillness and quietude of his Prius. I navigate to Gatwick and onto my first Easyjet to Lyon. I admire the Saint Expury TGV station for the structural integrity of its concrete arches and lattices. Once in the city, I take lunch at Ludovic B.—a restaurant about halfway through my walk toward Parc de la Tete d’Or. They’re confused at first but ultimately amenable when all I want is bread and cheese: with sweet balsamic reduction a demi Saint Marcellin, which has a pungent, good, bitter, indoors (interior?) taste. Again the sound of maple leaves beside a primary school as I leave the restaurant—refreshed, amorous for this place—and make my way toward my AirBnB beside the Rhône. At the park, where I linger until 2 pm, check in scheduled for 2:30, I walk through a fin-de-siecle wrought-iron greenhouse. Superheated. Camellias, the emblematic flower of romanticism, immortalized by Alexandre Dumas in his novel the Lady of the Camellias. Polynomial and Riemann equations graffitied in the public bathrooms.

I chat (in French!) with my AirBnB landlord while he finishes cleaning the place. He teaches literature at a university in Paris. We talk about my upcoming entrance at North Carolina and he points out that the study of American literature is one without any intertexts, so young and new as a literary epoch. The apartment is perfect. Windows with a rotting balcony overlooking the massive, wide celadon Rhône river. Multiple rooms to myself. Fourth floor. I leave to explore in the afternoon: the excruciatingly steep and winding upward staircases, the two hills of the city, old stonework built into the mountainside, the narrow pastel-colored riverside buildings wedged into each other. Stone reclining chairs by the waterfront, where I read for a while. A girl next to me is paging through Levinas in paperback. Saupers pompiers practice their diving in scuba gear in this summer heat. I wander through galleries and ateliers, trying to get a feel for the city, feel through its shirt to its skin to its spine. I follow signs toward Parc des Hauteurs. Ascend endlessly in 90 degree humidity. Like a pilgrim to a temple. Continued on into my misdirection, upward, plateauing, discovering the ancient Gallo-Roman theater ruins. Labyrinthine stone passages. Boys playing in their corridors. Sprays of summer flowers, purples and whites where grass springs between the ancient stones. Torpid bumblebees. A magnificent view of the city, its white buildings. Musicians practicing for the evening entertainment below, the drifting sound of saxophone, piano. Old heat of a late afternoon. I sit and read Faulkner and think on the vista and realize I may be experiencing a perfect and golden moment. Sometimes my ambling pays off. I buy bread and butter and a viennoise on my way home, dine in.

The next day—today—Lyon was less forthright with me. I started the morning at the mall, a dead hive experience, looking for a cheap t-shirt to get me through the day. I hadn’t planned for Europe’s heat wave. I went west, away from old town, until noon, and found Lyon in commercial merchant squalor. I walked through an indoor market, the smells of fresh fish, bread, doggish smell of hard sausage. Swallows all day, urgent cries overhead. Delighted by the high-pollarded avenues of trees I see from time to time—like the stilt legs of Dali’s surreal elephants. Into and out of cathedrals on my way: these are spectacular to look at, and each different in its own way (its own light), but curiously similar and banal, too. You tire after a while of vaults and stained glass. Women everywhere with hand fans—quaint. Back toward the river near 11 am. Shallow pools, a biker dragging through slowly them in rings, a wood boardwalk, strange metal plaques drilled onto 450 meters of the wood pontoon ramp. Research reveals it is an art installation by Philippe Favier called “J’aimerais tant voir Syracuse.” The wood ramp reminded Favier of an infinite “table d’orientation”—a semi-circular table you might find at an overlook or panorama. He came up with a series of literary terms for fantastic or fabulist places, inscribed these in metal plaques, and drilled them into the surface of the wood. Others, on their own accord, have added their own. La piscine du Rhône nearby, 60s style, space-needle architecture. Took a street lined with Arabic food shops and stores where you can buy traditional Muslim dress. The pastry-shops feature glittering caverns of tiny gem-like confections, glazed and square as ornate snuff-boxes. Purchased a pear tart for lunch and ate it in the courtyard of the old ESSM (École du service de santé des armées de Lyon-Bron). There, you can find a museum on the resistance and deportation. I wasn’t originally planning to visit, but I felt compelled, as I usually do when visiting France, to understand the complex European relationship with the second world war. Especially enlightening to learn that Lyon was included in Vichy France. Old propagandistic images of Petain. Narratives of racism, exclusion, turmoil. As if the shroud of Turin, a fragment of the parachute used by Jean Moulin to drop secretly into Southern France, where he was tasked by de Gaulle with uniting the resistance. An exhibit on the extensive food rationing in Vichy France. The ration stamps called “tickettose d’angoisse”—or “anxiety tickets,” for fear of losing them. Petain encouraged his populace to grow their own food. Steep increase of home gardens during the war years in places like Lyon. The countryside encouraged to donate excess to the cities.

Above all, the important lesson from the museum and today is how crucial the medical industry has been in Lyon. I get the impression there has been some kind of mandate to this end, and near the Grange Blanche later in the day I discover an austere statue of a robed woman with a sword and sheaves of wheat standing on a plinth that reads: “À la gloire du service santé,” which translates: to the glory of health services. The plinth features a frieze of figures at work nursing and ministering to the sick. At the Musée des Confluences, I encounter a “fermenteur Frenkel,” a large vat with clamps and dials used in the process of vaccine production. By way of prelude, the accompanying plaque informs me that Lyon has been backed by a long tradition of health and veterinary institutions, which led to this flourishing of the health industry in the 19th century. During the war, the ESSM was dismantled of its military status by Germany, but continued educating young men in the medical arts. Grange Blanche, which is near the Lumiere institute (more on this in a moment), is a veritable etoile of specialized hospitals.

Another industry central to the development of Lyon is silk production. My plan is to dedicate today to learning more about Lyon’s canuts, or silk-weavers. At the Musée des Confluences, I see large taxidermy displays that catalogue the components of the industry: large white braids; fat, gold-translucent moths; cocoons in various stages of  unraveling. Also at the Confluences, which is where I go after the Centre, I also see a fiberoptic wedding dress, fringed with light, woven using Brochier technologies, which have been adapted from the original Jacquard loom types. The dress making technique was designed for the Olivier Lapidus haute couture fashion show in 2000, and the present artifact was made in 2014 by Mongi Guibane. Jacquard loom technology was used to develop the punchcards that supported the development of the computer and film industry.

In all, the Musée des Confluences is astonishing, and often painful to look at. Its exhibits are dizzyingly ambitious in scope. Permanent exhibitions include: “Origins, stories of the world,” “Species, the web of life,” “Societies, the human theatre,” and “Eternities, visions of the beyond.” The attempt here is to track a story of the world—a dubious aspiration, given the rigid warping porosity of historiography. The methodology here for engendering an epistemic experience is completely indiscriminate, much like the old-fashioned, original museums or curiosity cabinets. Indeed, there is a temporary exhibit at Confluences regarding the acquisitive spirit—a display of cabinets, carnets, colonization, observation, exploration. The latter exhibit teaches me that museums of natural history in France were often the outgrowth of imperial activity in colony nations—a strategy for understanding, and thus subverting, containing local populations and epistemes. I am overwhelmed here. Nothing is stable. I can’t concentrate on anything I see. A vast display of varieties of microscopes, magnifying glasses. Equally vast the glassed-in case of beetles, butterflies, shells of all kinds. I am desperate to concentrate, to core down to the heart of one of these objects. My mind does not operate on the basis of this kind of expansivity. I am wrecked by the curatorial attempt here to encompass all the world and all of human understanding—a cross-sample that asks its visitors to ask themselves: is there a duty to remember? A good question. I remember thinking on my walk today back to the conversation I had with my landlord, Thierry. We assume that literature is intended to amuse, entertain, or educate. But I think we forget the preservationist function of the medium, too. To safeguard in language language itself, the means of transmission of human learning and love. I can think of no holier obligation. This doesn’t mean just writing—this means writing in a tradition. I am sick and tired of literary peers who have no regard for the acquisition of or immersion in tradition, since this is the most important task for any artist. What you have to make or say is only possible as it relates to a long history of expressive force.

At the end of one of its permanent exhibits, a plaque declares: “The objects and specimens preserved in the museum’s stores and show in this exhibition constitute our common heritage. They are inalienable—they cannot be assigned or sold.”

Objects of note at the Musée: a Volva volva shell—a false cowry—unwrapping like a lily bulb, or a twist of angelic candy; a simple microscope designed by Dutch astronomer and physicist Christian Huygens, high performance, easy to use, made and engraved by Jean de Pouilly for wealthy clients. The privatization of accuracy for amusement’s sake.

The museum was designed to look like a crystal and a cloud by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Austrian studio known for deconstrutivist architecture.

After the museum I walk out to the point of confluences, where the Rhone and Saone flow into. It was originally a trafficked port area. The point hosts a submerged rail track for offload. Concrete pillars indicate incoming ships to pass “Gauche” and “Droite” (left and right). Now the area is under heavy construction, a rebuilding phase intended to urbanize the area. The regional governmental seat is nearby. Construction of apartments and other highrises. A mall.

I do a crash course in public transit and leave for the Lumiere Institute, which I learned about in a temporary exhibit at the Confluences on the Lumiere brothers, pioneers of the cinema and film industry, and lifelong locals of Lyon. Developers of a special dry plate for making photographs in the late 19th century. The institute used to house a factory for manufacturing these, and the brothers created their first film by recording end-of-day closing-time at the factory doors, the workers squeezing out, back into the world of their lives. The brothers, as the museum points out, were dyed-in-the-wool industrialists. There is something tautological about the development of this new medium: their first film (and so the first cinema experience) is an outcome of photographic plate development at the Lumiere factory. Later this factory would be converted into a studio production space. Here, the subject of film is film’s production; then the film eventually colonizes and magnifies the industrial context that produced it. No wonder the Best Picture Oscar goes every year to a film about film.

Watching early Lumiere films, I get the sense that what the brothers sought was movement, sheer motion. Their narratives were simply frameworks or pretexts for acrobatics, destruction, rising dust, consequence.

I eat a raw ham sandwich with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes in a little margin of grass near Grange Blanche. Delicious and sweet. On my way home, I stop at Place Bellecour (featured in a Lumiere film, as well as the Centre on resistance and deportation), then walk home from the Hotel de Ville. Music in the streets. Solstice is always la Fete de la Musique in France. For the last three years, every 21st of June I have been in France, where the streets at night fill with discos and trumpeters and opera soloists.

[megyulmi]

A lover paints Spring in the image of a beloved’s face. or, chapter three of stsg post-break up/getting back together fic with itafushi, turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north).

#offering angst stsg and awkwardly sweet itfsh as an apology for delayㅜㅜ #t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #stsg #itafushi #jjk fanfic #gojo satoru #geto suguru #suguru geto #satoru gojo #satosugu #sugusato #gojo x geto #satoru x suguru #(trying to know which variation of their names is actually used is a tagging challengeㅋㅎ)

[megyulmi]

“Autumnal sunset reddens the leaves As I return to my homeland in a dream. The memory of home feels distant, A man and a mountain top out of reach, But the sky is still an azure of the beloved’s eyes And reminds me that home is where the lover’s heart is.”

Suguru’s post-break up yearning from the upcoming chapter of turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north)

#it makes sense in the context i promise. it is no curses au but i was thinking of the yearning in these images. #ha. how i love writing yearning. #this chapter is turning out not as bad as i worried it would be. #t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #geto suguru #gojo satoru #jjk fanfic #satosugu #sugusato #suguru x satoru #jjk suguru #jjk satoru #stsg

[megyulmi]

allow me to offer you a satosugu break up/getting back together fic with itafushi: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north)

#t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #this fic has haunted my thoughts for months. #finally it is here. #geto suguru #gojo satoru #fushiguro megumi #itadori yuuji #satosugu #itafushi #sugusato #fushiita #jjk fanfic #megumi fushiguro #yuji itadori #suguru x satoru #itadori x fushiguro #stsg

[megyulmi]

or a line that did not make it into the second chapter of turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north).

#no one dies in this fic and it is no curses au but i thought this line fits canon satosugu hence this post. #and it felt like a waste to leave it in the drafts. #finally finished editing. i will post sometime in the morning because i need to write the explanations as well. #t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #gojo satoru #geto suguru #stsg #satosugu #sugusato #jjk suguru #jjk geto #jjk satoru #jjk fanfic

[megyulmi]

a lover cannot bear to remember the fragrance of a lost home. or, second chapter of stsg post-break up/getting back together fic with itafushi, turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north).

#ha. i guess i forgot to post this. well here it goes four days late. #t: turning pages (the narrow road to the deep north) #stsg #sugusato #geto suguru #gojo satoru #jjk fanfic #satosugu #itafushi