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ourladyofomega · 3 years

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Close to the end of the year, and also when the semester ended, I looked forward in selling my books after finals so that I would get money back. I’d get a friend together to take me to Tower Records in Huntington. In a matter of one hour, that money would be gone. Right now I’d be very excited about what I would find in those bins. But due to the pandemic it hasn’t been the case and the euphoria of being in a store, any store at midnight, has been absent. During the mid-00′s, Tower Records went under and currently co-opting the former Huntington location is a third-rate clothing store.

One day as I was driving to work, people stood on the sidewalks of Route 110 holding picket signs like it was the end of the world. First advertised on those signs were 10%-30% percent off all merchandise at Tower. When passers-by and sidewalk shoppers took a closer look, they ended up in shock as they realized that it was an end of an era of some sort. A few days later, the stakes went up. 40%-60% discounts finally garnered Tower’s final audience and rush of shoppers. The final swan song came when all merchandise was down to a whopping 70%-90% percent off. That was when they had their biggest ever turnout because no one wanted to pay full price for music. (Not then when downloading broke, and still not now.) Music collectors and fans were reluctant to buy any new release or any title that was full price. Now they all jumped at the opportunity to clean out Tower’s shelves with a steal. Buyers hovered and tracked entire sections looking for that one shining crown jewel that made their lifetime.

As a music fan for years, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much Tower shaped my taste in music and style. Unlike FYE and Sam Goody, Tower was the one commercial music chain that had a lot of artists and titles that no other commercial store had. Think of what was the Port Jefferson Music Den (closed in 2002) where they were the one underground record store that had everything other stores didn’t even come close to carry. I remember summertimes visiting the Massapequa location picking up rare CD singles and imports as well as other rare hard-to-find and ahead-of-release-date CD’s and artists I picked up such as Autechre’s LP5 (1999) and EC8OR’s World Beaters (1998).

And being a fan of print media and graphic design, I also bought stacks of magazines every week. The magazine selection in Huntington was unrivaled, measuring at least several rows of 60-70 feet of anything and everything you could think of: Industrial Nation, Punk Planet, The Wire, Disruptiv, Mass Appeal, Mean, Vice, YRB, and art design magazines like LoDown, as well as hardcore zines Short Fast Loud!, Maximum Rock And Roll, Under The Volcano and other cult magazines I happened to be lucky to pick up (Lisa Carver’s Rollerderby, anyone?). Every month went at least $60.00-$70.00 total on magazines alone.

Yet towards the end of Tower’s presence I didn’t pick up on music as much because just like other buyers, I had to stand back at the higher-than-usual prices for releases. Compared to discount chains like Best Buy and other record stores, it wasn’t unusual to find a new release with no-frills to be priced at $19.99 or even $21.99. DVDs I noticed were priced at times to be five dollars higher than their competitors. Maybe some shoppers felt the same sentiment as I did.

Not only that, the forces of internet piracy and MP3 downloading of recent years proved to be too dominant and powerful to be stopped, and is currently but begrudgingly co-existing with other existing record stores this day and age. Consumers then re-routed the system right to their own bedrooms with no price to pay for their music. These factors, plus incurring debt that led the chain to bankruptcy proved to be too much for them.

Without Tower Records, it was less convenient for me to pick up whatever artist or movie title I wanted right away right after work. When Tower closed down it took a bite out of some of the physical record collecting I had. Yet, only they could have given me these experiences: no more magazines letting me know what the latest art direction was or who was in the spotlight. No more frantically walking around with a huge stack of everything and more in my hands still looking for one more CD. No more back room full of posters, sheet music, jazz, classical, hip-hop, techno, and soul. No more silly Hollywood memorabilia and comic-book fantasy merchandise. No more video games, no more characters hanging out in the store wearing goth, back-pack indie, or hardcore.

No more attitudes from the employees who treated customers like nothing because they felt like it. That was really the only problem I had with Tower Records, mostly in Huntington. The cashiers pointed people out with a huff and puff because they were given more than enough change or money, or how they rang up a transaction without even making an emotion or saying a word. Some stuck female cashiers had that flat out know-it-all act for no apparent reason. Sometimes I even renounced the shop because of its sometimes poor service, but that was not the case in the end as the attitude did improve, thank you.

And no more of where I had my first date with my Peruvian then-girlfriend. I would never forget wandering in that Huntington store looking for the next purchase when she walked in, greeting each other with open arms. We left when a thunderstorm knocked the power out but we returned after dinner and had a fun time, the first of many for months to come. This was also where I met a pretty pale Irish ginger who I later met again into at community college the following year.

What is now left of the record store scene on Long Island? A few of them which existed when Tower crumbled are still around (Cheapo’s, Looney Tunes, Infinity Records) and even new ones popped up (High Fidelity and Record Reserve to naming two). Some opened and either re-located (Record Stop) or said good-bye by the time you read this (Permanent Records and Vinyl Paradise). The majority of shops in total are still around because internet opinion made their case about the lack of quality, esthetics, art, and ritual of having the physical thing that you don’t get from digital or streaming; and the classic ritual and synesthesia of experiencing a record store and handling the format makes the case of cherishing these shops. On the online circuit, some titles are now being released in very limited quantity, mainly in the low thousands or even in the mere hundreds. It’s a huge drop-off from what the millions in print runs used to be. Naming your own price for digital downloads, streaming, or even buying from the label or artist directly is the way to go nowadays.

With my radio show, Omega WUSB, I do most of my music testing at home. My habits have been ruined by MP3s and streams as acquiring music is of very low cost and extremely ubiquitous. After all that, it hasn’t stopped me from going to record stores or celebrating Record Store Day to find breaks, samples, or dollar music to win it all. Yes, I still very much prefer to go out of town to buy music with my money which I support the artists and shops I like. Even to this day, I’ll be very happy spending $200.00-$250.00 on music just to have the artwork, colors, lyrics, pictures, ink, liner notes, credits, barcodes, and the entire release itself, because later on I will turn a profit in style points as time goes by, just like when people are hoarding and sharing their vinyl and cassette collections now.

That November was my last visit to Tower Records ever, a few months after getting a substantial check from a near-fatal car accident. Acquired would be some titles that made my pre-Omega shows and would be part of some personal seasonal mixtapes. Prices were 40% off on music and that was when I decided to go and treat myself. There comes a time when you just can’t wait and risk a good sale on music before they’re gone forever. The total spent on my last ever visit there was $200.00 on music and the Andy Warhol book at $75.00, originally $125.00 (have you ever carried a book so massive and so heavy?) I took my bags worth of music and magazines with me to the trunk of my car, never to return to the Tower Records experience again.

On another note, I’m still friends with M-Ro to this day, a former manager there. He moved on to become a lead of Hicksville’s Utopia further west before becoming a ticket broker at an independent movie house. He once had a show on WUSB and was a major figurehead and darling of the Long Island punk scene. You might also know his brother J-Ro, a master archivist who still has his own show with us and is known as a major record collector by practically everyone on the island.

#omega #Tower Records #our lady omega #personal #Long Island #friends #music

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imnotcameraready · 5 years

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chivalry is dead (epilogue 2)

A/N: wowee it’s been a long long long week. i just started my new job OFFICIALLY today! so yeehaw to that! its been a lot of working and running around but between everything i managed to not only crank this shorty out, but also get a headstart on epilogue 3. which is. gonna be long.,..the outline i write for myself pre-chapter writing is already longer than this chapter laksdghaslfk

WARNINGS: Remus is in it lol, a pillow fight, scars, mentions of weaponry, mentions of fights, argument mentions — hopefully this covers it! let me know if i missed anything!

Words: 2428

AO3 link!

MASTERPOST <-- here’s your one stop shop for all the other chapters and the long term warnings!!

enjoy! love you !!

Roman closed the door carefully behind himself, letting out an exhale. He then rested his forehead on the door, smiling a soft and true smile to himself.

It’d been a week since his little incident, and he had never felt so loved. Patton and him had cooked dinner, dancing around each other, and heck, they’d gotten Logan to sing when they revealed it was breakfast for dinner. Who knew the man could drop bars for Crofters? Well, they all knew, but he’d let Virgil tape it for future reference. Deceit had even helped do the dishes with Virgil afterward, leaning against each other in a way that — Logan posited the theory, but Roman was inclined to agree — was all too familiar to be a new thing.

All in all. It was fairly good. He was healing. He hadn’t changed his countenance around the others since his return, despite the gnawing desire to throw on a fresh layer of skin and his uniform every day. Sometimes, like today, he wore other kinds of fancy clothing. Playwright did have one thing on the money: vests looked so cute.

God, he was excited to lay down in bed. Hopefully continue to iron out his thoughts. They had a script, too, that had to be edited. He and Logan had to do that tomorrow.

“Oh, good, you’re back,” he turned around, hand flying to his sword on instinct, but the sound of compressed air being released eased his worries.

There were few constants in his room. He liked having a bed. His desk always remained the same, cluttered with papers and make-up products. Usually there was a window, so he could look out at some kind of view, and there were fairy lights, and a vanity mirror.

One such constant was the bookshelf. They’d made it soon after the first Split, a secret doorway between the two sides of the Mindscape, because they’d promised to be friends forever. That promise was usually under strain. They were at each other’s throats so often that it was easy to forget that they were also friends. And, at times when Remus’ morningstar was pressed against his chest, Roman’s sword drawing a thin line against his throat, it was easy to forget. So easy.

Still. They didn’t think anyone would approve of their promise, not after Creativity was split, regardless of why. The bookshelf would open if Roman pulled “The Prince and The Duke,” a fake novel for a fake door. The same thing would happen if, on the other side, Remus tugged the handle of the sword on his weapons wall. “As if I’d ever use something so boring,” Remus had joked when they made it.

There were times when they wouldn’t open the door for a day. Sometimes it wouldn’t open for weeks. Months. Years, for a small time. But they couldn’t disconnect the Imagination, would accidentally run into each other, would accidentally apologize. Would be friends again.

They’d been arguing, before the incident. Roman had been angry with how Remus made himself known in the last episode. He’d agreed to it once everyone else expressed that they thought it would match Remus’ characterization, would be comedic, would assert his villain-self, but Roman of course never agreed with it internally.

Remus had given him his space. And then had accidentally ended up trapped in the Imagination. That’d never happened before, so he sought out Roman, and, well. Found the Damsel instead.

Roman wondered if it was jarring. If Remus was angry with him. The Dragon and the Damsel were incredibly volatile and aggressive, even with him. The Dragon had said some things. Not all of them were things Roman agreed with, would have voiced had he been given the option, but they were all things he’d thought before. That he was objectively better. That Remus was cast out for a reason. Things Roman had definitely thought, but would die before voicing. Hopefully getting to physically kick the shit out of the Dragon helped Remus let off some steam.

“You’re quite put together, brother,” Remus drawled from the now-open doorway, “Do you have gel in your hair?”

Roman lowered his hand from his sword. There wasn’t any anger in his voice, but Remus was good at being unpredictable, even offstage. “I took everyone to see my library,” he spun around, then began unhooking his sheath belt from his side, “I thought it was a momentous occasion.”

Remus was still in his pajamas, an oversized sweater and some short-shorts, lazily eating some whipped cream straight from the canister. Roman watched as he lifted the container to his mouth and absolutely filled it with whipped cream, smacking on it happily. Then he held out the can to Roman.

Okay, so he wasn’t mad. That was nice. Roman’s shoulders finally loosened, and he nodded. Remus tossed the can across the room, which Roman caught and consumed easily, spraying his own mouth full of the air-liquid-solid sugary goodness. He could almost hear Logan telling him off for the unhealthy decisions but, well, c’est la vie and it tasted good.

He tossed the canister back and began taking off his vest as Remus entered the room, stealing a quick glance out the window as he did.

It seemed Roman was tired of the kingdom, because before them was a sprawling city, something out of a comic book. His room looked like it was the penthouse apartment of some building, looming over the other towers, cars honking and lights flashing below. It was night, and this was the night life of his city.

Remus was kinda fond of the city. Whether they were just people, or superhero and archnemesis, or unlikely companions on a mission, it was always so interesting. Yes, companions. You can’t expect Remus to always want to play the villain, despite it being his favorite role. And, similarly, when they were an evil duo….those were especially fun times, indeed.

He liked working together. Roman was a dumb bitch a lot of the time, yeah, he was soft and a people pleaser and was so full of himself that there wasn’t any room for anything else. But brothers were brothers, and he did love his brother. The other Sides got to love him, too, in a much different way. Remus wouldn’t hesitate to decapitate any of them if they were mean to Roman.

Oop! But for now!

He threw himself onto Roman’s bed, rolling around on top of it to get the blankets stinky, and then propped himself up on his elbows. Roman, now just wearing just his black slacks, shot him a look of disgust.

Meanwhile, Remus was just looking at Roman’s scars. He usually hid them; they were always striking. Remus had even given him a few! Like that one, on his shoulder — and that one, on the back of his neck — and that one, on his spine — “Do you mind,” Roman asked, raising an eyebrow at him while toying with the white dress shirt in his hand.

“Since when does your Highness physically do anything?” Remus joked, kicking a leg up in a pose. “You can just conjure on new clothes.”

“I’m going to physically throw you off of my bed if you keep messing it around,” Roman shot back, tossing his shirt at Remus.

He failed to catch the shirt and it smacked straight into his face, and thus Remus’ only viable answer, as a sibling and as a chaos gremlin, was to spray whipped cream into his brother’s bed. Retribution! The shirt covered his face, though, so he just laid down and made snow-angels. Except, you know. On Roman’s bed. Which was now covered in whipped cream.

“I’m just freshening it up for you!” Remus laughed, “I want all the best for my baby, baby brother!”

He heard Roman scoff, then make an incredibly offended noise. He probably finally noticed the disaster state that his bed was in.

“I’m older. And done,” Roman said, tone as defeated as they come.

“But you’re still a baby,” Remus responded as he rolled over, taking Roman’s shirt off of his face and throwing it back at his pajama-ed princely brother. Roman, now wearing pajama pants, grabbed the shirt and tossed it into his laundry hamper, where it promptly vanished. Why wash clothing when you can think up new ones? I mean, Patton enjoyed the concept of domestic activities, Logan enjoyed order, but Roman didn’t care much for doing chores.

Roman looked back at his mess of a bed as Remus hopped off of it, waving his hand to clean it. The whipped cream vanished, the blanket tucked itself once more, and the smell of roses wafted off of it.

“And you’re still a nuisance,” Roman found himself saying.

There was a pause.

Roman looked up. Why the fuck did he say that? He looked at Remus, who was halfway through the doorway. Putting away the whipped cream maybe?

Leaving now? He was frozen. Remus wasn’t moving, and Roman didn’t blame him. His throat felt like it was closing. He hadn’t meant to say that. Well, he had, but he hadn’t mean to be so mean.

He was always so mean! Always pushing the others away!

“I’m sorry, Remus,” Roman stepped closer, he didn’t want to keep pushing people away, he COULDN’T, “You’re not a nuisance. I...I’m sorry, I said a lot of things—”

“Don’t.”

Roman recoiled, flinching as Remus set the canister down in his room and turned around on the ball of his foot. His face was flat, lacking in expression, hands loose at his sides. It was always weird to see Remus without any exuberance.

It was weird, until Remus smiled. A small, kind smile. One of those smiles that only Roman and, on some occasions, Deceit was privy to. He held open his arms and Roman, well. He wasn’t one to deny a hug.

Remus’ hands curled around his shoulders, squeezing the living daylights out of him, while Roman just held him as tenderly as he could against himself. “I know what having no filter’s like,” Remus said, voice quiet and leading into a small, confessional giggle, “And I can’t say I haven’t thought equally devious thoughts about you, Prince Perfect.”

“That’s weirdly promising,” Roman murmured. His hand squeezed Remus’ shoulder, and he pressed his nose into his brother’s collar.

Figuratively, he did feel a weight leave his shoulders. He didn’t want to make an enemy out of his brother, no matter what the world expected of them. No matter what he wanted in the flash anger of a moment

“It is, isn’t it!” Remus squeezed him tight once more, then let go of him, grinning ear to ear as though he was proud, “I was a li~ittle offended at first but, well. It’s hard to offend me for long.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that one. Roman was often the one to instigate their arguments. Mostly out of offense.

He smirked, though the happiness, comfort in his eyes made it clear to Remus that he

“.....Thanks, Remus.”

“My pleasure, Prince Pea-brain,” then Remus giggled, and followed his statement with an elaboration, “Pee, you know, like pea but also like pee, like piss.”

“I see,” Roman leaned out of the hug, a small, happy smile on his lips. Sure, yeah, that was a disgusting image. He didn’t need to see it in his mind’s eye. But! He didn’t want to upset his brother!

Remus straightened up, then conjured a hot dog. He grinned cookedly and asked, “Gee, Roman, how come Thomas lets you have FOUR boyfriends?”

Roman laughed, moving back toward the bed, expecting Remus to leave almost. They were done, right? Remus didn’t have to stick around. Roman had no expectations. “Because I’m the hot twin,” he said with a smirk.

“Hot as a hot dog on the sidewalk pavement,” the hotdog in Remus’ hand turned into a pillow, which he used to smack Roman in the face with. “Covered in spilt popsicle and snow and pee, Prince Pee-brain.”

Roman spluttered, arms immediately shooting to protect his face, despite the pillow being a lot softer than a morning star. Still, he laughed.

At least it was a pillow!

“Holy fuck, ew,” Roman grabbed himself a pillow off of his bed and smacked Remus in the side with it.

Remus just laughed. These arguments were fun. The ones with no stakes other than making the other think something ridiculously outlandish.

It was good to have his brother back. Remus was certain Roman knew by now that he was happy to see him, he was so relieved that he was okay. Of course, he’d rather have his tongue cut out and grilled and served as BBQ before inflating Roman’s ego anymore, but, then again….he was glad that his concern was over Roman having too much of an ego than none at all.

“I’m right and you know it,” he retorted, smacking Roman once more in the head with his pillow before tossing it back onto the bed and hopping away toward the window.

Roman recoiled, making an exaggeratedly disgusted expression. He swung at Remus as he fled, but found him out of reach. At that, he “Am I allowed to hate that visual? Because I do.”

“Love you, too, Abel,” Remus stuck his tongue out at Roman, who smacked him with the pillow once more before tossing it back onto his bed.

Then, he fell against the cushions. It had been a week, yes, but everything was still sore. And Remus was just going to keep jumping around. Might as well verbally fence with him from laying down.

“I am a sacrificial lamb,” Roman’s voice took on a deadpan tone, “And God is my brother with a morning star.”

They both laughed at that one, airing out the last threads of the already. loosely-wound argumentative knot. Remus fell back against Roman’s bed with him, heads only lightly resting against each other, while Roman reached up. The ceiling opened up at his command, the Imagination swirling above them like a cyclonic galaxy, stars glittering on the black backdrop of nothingness and space. It was all theirs. Their kingdom, built separately yet together.

Roman exhaled. It was all so….pleasant. “Thank you, Remus,” he murmured. “For believing in me.”

Remus knocked his head against Roman’s, earning a small chuckle. “I always have.”

He paused for a second, turning back up to the ceiling, then added. “We’re the king, after all.”

“That we are,” Roman said, “That we are.”

Taglists!!

General: @jemthebookworm @okay-finne

chivalry is dead: @starlightvirgil @forrestwyrm @daflangstlairde @marshmallow-the-panda @askthesnake @k9cat @patromlogil @theobsessor1 @ninja-wizard101 @fandomsofrandom @sos-fandoms @gattonero17 @thiaholimon @psychixx

#chivalry au #roman #remus #roman sanders #remus sanders #my fic #fic #ts remus #ts roman #pics #lmao im sorry remus is canon now #sorry not sorry #i love him #he's my son and he just says what he thinks #they're dumb and soft ok i dont make the rules #thomas sanders #sanders sides #ts fanfic

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dropsofletters · 5 years

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the bad list

title: the bad list pairing: song minho/reader genre: best friend!au/artist!au/unrequited love!au summary: the bad list—that’s how minho’s best friend calls his list of ex-girlfriends. he doesn’t know why or how, but suddenly he feels the need to add something good to that list, but when he tries to reach out for her, it’s too late. type: angst/fluff.

Not only is the freezing wind enough to bite and go through her cardigan, but it turns her heart into a pile of absolute ice immediately, as well. The peach-colored fabric of clothing that is draped over her shoulders is nothing to battle the coldness of Minho’s air conditioner, and even though the gray curtains are pulled to the side to showcase the faint light of the spring day, and the door of his room is opened to welcome the warmth of the rest of the tiny apartment, it is still not enough for her. She tries to use Minho’s pillow to cover her body, but there is an insatiable coldness seeping through every fiber of her skin.

Minho changed the sofa his ex-girlfriend bought for him when he moved to his apartment for a desk he used for his art. The room was painted in a faint color of baby blue, with a fluffy bed and a closet, but what is more outstanding is the palpable feeling of him in the room. It’s not in the smell of his bed, musky and lingering, it’s not in the painting that he insisted on getting in the small room, it’s actually in the small corner that he uses for drawing. He has pens, brushes, charcoal paint, markers, pencils of any kid and a lot of sheets of paper—it’s the only part in his entire apartment that looks organized, and even his cat knows not to get close to it. His seat is comfortable, gray with packed cushions, ready to be his home for hours to no end as he works in whatever it is that he is working on.

Sometimes, it is a drawing of a woman he wants to enamor with such a meaning behind the strokes of the pencil that indicate attraction. He always says his drawings are better when there are feelings involved.

Other times, people ask him to make drawings for books. Those are his most well-known projects, but he complains the most when he is doing them. His eyes lose their light, his hands get cramped continuously and he snaps easily.

There are the littlest moments in which Minho draws comics or Webtoons, but that is very rare. She has always wanted to be drawn by him, but she has never served him as inspiration. Her best friend he is, but she is not his muse.

Talking to Minho for the past year has been a bit of a hassle. She’s always working, but her social life has turned into a puddle of memories of what she used to be. She’s also getting older, meaning that she craves that eye-catching, air-stealing, mellow and soft love that everyone talks about, while Minho recommends to her to simply forget about it (“It’s not as pretty as people say it is.”, he comments, but that comes from a place of heartbreak). On the other hand, Minho is trying so desperately to be the image of perfection in his eyes—he wants to try it all, grow as an artist, but he gets frustrated whenever he is met by the acrimonious reality that artists do not have it easy.

His way of solving her problem is easy, though. Minho says he has this friend: Jaekwang, with nice tattoos and the softest speaking voice she has ever heard. He’s also an artist but not the type that paints or draws, his skill is photography and most of his shoots end up at the very front of a magazine. The best thing about him is his simplicity, the way he held her hand after their date at some museum she has visited with Minho before, the feeling of his dancing across hers—teasingly, tasting her lip-gloss before diving in. He takes his time, he is patient—sweet, even, never too little, never too much and while he is exactly what she wanted, she still feels iffy.

And her phone beeps at every given moment, just like it does as it rests over her thigh while Minho enters the room, his cat in between his spread big hands, his index and middle finger reaching to scratch the kitten’s fur by its neck. She knows it Jaekwang, always one to ask how she is doing, text her in between breaks at work, but she can’t help but feel wronged about being with Jaekwang.

She fidgets in her own spot on Minho’s bed, watching as Minho’s cat slips away from his hands to play with her new kitten, who patiently looks at the bigger cat before leaning over to lick its paw. “Jhonny hasn’t had cat friends in a while.” He starts a conversation before crossing his arms over his chest. Minho’s hair is bleached blonde, a mess over his head that matches his all-gray attire of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. “Look, she’s so happy—” A smile creeps up his face and she nods her head with a beam of her own.

“I thought she needed the company.” She replies as she looks over to the cats playing by the floor and without any other word, Minho moves towards his desk. Acting upon routine, she stands up from her seat on his bed and walks over to him, her hands interlocked behind her back as she looks over his shoulders. The screen of Minho’s device for drawing shows what she believes is another book cover, all drawn by him with precision and a lot of colors. “That looks so good. I like how you painted the sky in the background. So pretty.”

But she feels a thick line dividing the two, as if there is something bothering him but she can’t ask him. Minho pushes the strands of his blonde hair to keep them away from his face with one swipe of his hand and then, he releases a big sigh. “Yeah…” His voice trails. Thoughtful, but never one to keep a secret. “How are things going with Jae?”

“Jae?” She asks, voice soft like satin caressing his eardrums. Minho nods absentmindedly, continuing with his work with a straight face. “Good…why? Did he say something?” Taking one glance at the drawing, then she concentrates on Minho’s profile. Her soft intakes of breath are released against his skin and with the closeness, Minho doesn’t seem to be bothered.

“What hasn’t he said?” Minho adds in between a short chuckle and soon after, he looks over his shoulder to talk to her. “He’s all up on you. He’s been smiling all week.” She wants to smile at that, but she puckers up her lips, humming at Minho’s words to quickly dismiss them. Yet, they have been friends for years—the type of friends that can’t spend more than a day without talking to one another, he can feel her uncertainty. “…Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I said it’s going good.” She shrugs her shoulders and Minho leans back on his seat, hands on his thighs, extended and creating triangles by his sides.

“…Good.” He replies and then, she squints her eyes.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” She pries and Minho chuckles.

“I’m not you.” She knows where that comment is coming from. It is usual for her to get into Minho’s business, sure, sometimes she thinks he is more of a man-child than the supposed badass he makes himself to be, but it comes from a place deep in her heart that wants the best for him. Minho makes bad choices on the regular, like slurping on his ramen when it’s recently done and burning his lips, like buying shoes that bring him blisters on the soles of his feet, like dating women that she specifically tells him not to date. He’s reckless, giving it his all in burning passion but ending up burned. He says he likes playing with fire but blows on his wounds with a hiss before putting them inside water. Minho is not as cold as he deems himself to be.

“…Okay, right, yeah, maybe I get into your business a lot.” She confesses with an eye-roll, releasing her hold on her bottom lip and she hears the joyous sound of Minho laughing.

Her phone rings once again, indicating a text has arrived, and both their gazes end up on the cellphone over his bed. Minho immediately know it’s Jaekwang and for some reason, the smile on his face falters. He doesn’t know the reason behind such absurd reactions to an event as his best-friend finally going out on a date with a person he thinks is fitting for her, but there is a gut-wrenching feeling deep in his stomach that he can’t quite pinpoint. He steals a long look at her, watching her puzzled look while her phone sounds two more times before stopping. The blush she opted to apply that morning makes her cheeks be the main point of her face and it matches the peach-colored cardigan over her white t-shirt. “He says he’s excited for you date on Saturday.”

She had not planned on telling Minho she is going out on Saturday, but it seems like he already knows. She looks into his brown eyes before sighing. “He’s excited about this new movie…”

“He’s very into you.”

“I’m glad.” Though she doesn’t know how she feels about him. Is she so swept off her feet that she can’t describe him or is she just so uninterested in him that she can’t even think of his good traits?

Minho knows exactly what is bothering him and he moves his seat so he is once again working when he says. “Just be careful. He’s a bit possessive…and the least I want is to lose you because he goes…you know, crazy.”

She shakes her head, crouching down beside Minho’s seat and resting her cheek at the edge of his desk before replying. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Minho extends his hand to grip her cheeks in between his index and thumb, pulling it quite harshly as he mumbles with a smile. “…I know.”

There is no lovelier day than the Thirtieth of March.

It has been years of spent birthdays with Minho and while he adores dancing in a club, or nodding his head to the newest hip-hop track he can get his hands on, she always tries to keep the childish side of him away. Normally, she reunites with Minho’s mom to prepare a tray full of pastries with him, as well as a big cake that he normally shares with people, but he always leaves four to five slices to have for himself at home. This time around, however, in the very end of March, Minho’s mother tells her that she is really sick with the flu and as sweet as the woman is, she says that she can’t meet up with her son’s nicest friend. She swats the comment off when she asks if she needs someone to take care of her, for she would go to Yongin just to make sure she was alright, but she says Danah has it under control and she believes her.

That leaves her with flour stains on her kitchen’s island and a recipe to follow for Minho’s favorite pastries, as well as the sweetest and tastiest chocolate and strawberry cake she can muster.

This year, however, there is a huge difference and it is the fact that there are a manly pair of hands helping her the night before Minho’s birthday to prepare everything. The faint sound of music is playing in the background and she keeps her windows closed because even though spring is getting close, it is far too cold to open the windows yet. Her sock-cladded feet move around the kitchen as she checks on the cookies and leaves Jaekwang to mix the egg whites for another mixture, fluffy and soft just like she asked him to. His sweet features twist in concentration and in need of helping his girlfriend, because it’s been six months since they gave a name to what they had, and all he wants to do is make her happy.

And sure, she is happy. Jaekwang is sweet and caring, a little bit possessive with one arm wrapped around her waist at every given time, but she doesn’t feel like her heart is about to burst with happiness. Sometimes he stays over at her place, but it feels like he is just warming up her bed. Jaekwang takes pictures of her and there are plenty of her pictures posted in his social media accounts pointing out how much he loves her, how she is his entire world, counting the days that they have spent together, but at what cost?

Because Minho’s smile is huge when she goes to visit him with his cake inside a box over her hands and the bag of pastries hanging from her arm. He opens the door with sulkily, a little bit sleepy as he whispers under his breath what she recognizes as curse words but once he sees his best friend, standing outside of his door at six in the morning with his promised cake and pastries, he almost bursts in excitement. “Dude, you remembered!”

That is what has been bothering her. Jaekwang is all she ever wanted but he takes time away from her, the type of time she used to spend with Minho. The man’s hair is a darker shade of blonde now and she doesn’t know if his life has changed all that much. She knows hers did, but she hasn’t been able to ask him. “How could I forget?”

Minho doesn’t reply to that, but he does open the door wider before taking the box from her hands with a big grin on his face. “My mom said she was sick, so I thought you weren’t going to do anything.”

“Impossible.” She replies as she turns around after taking off her shoes, the door behind her closed and her arm still holding onto the bag of pastries. She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, looking into his eyes before sighing. “Since I needed an extra pair of hands and your mom could not catch the train here…I asked Jaekwang for help.”

If he is bothered, he doesn’t show it, but it is clear in his face that he suddenly finds his gifts a bit complicated to accept. He nods his head curtly, still. “Oh, does he know how to bake?”

“Not really. He mixes well, though.”

“…That’s an innuendo right there.” Minho tries to break the ice but they are standing right in front of one another, near but far away at the same time. She rolls her eyes at his words, a small grin appearing on her face.

“How can that be an innuendo?”

“Means he knows how to use his hands—”

She clears her throat, looking over to the side with slight embarrassment on her features before recomposing herself. “Stop, just…happy birthday. Yeah, I forgot to say that.” She replies easily and Minho raises his eyebrows, placing the box with his cake inside down on his coffee table before wrapping one arm snugly around her shoulders. Minho rests his chin on top of her head, breathing in her scent happily as he closes his eyes, shaking them from side to side quite harshly, still playfully.

“Thank you!” He drags the words before pulling away and scratching his cheek. “Uh…” He runs his fingers through his dyed hair before raising an eyebrow. “How about we slice this cake and we eat it?”

“You need to save some for Seungyoon, remember.”

“I’m gonna think about it.” Minho adds joyfully, thoroughly enjoying his birthday. He opens the lid of the box and he coos at the sight of the chocolate cake. She had coated the entire cake in the dark treat, leaving some strawberries at the top, bathed in white and dark chocolate. “Those strawberries are huge!”

“Innuendo.” She points out and Minho rolls his eyes, taking the small candle that the box had inside before putting it on top of the cake. “Oh, by the way, do you have plans for the afternoon?”

He tosses one glance at her over his shoulder, puckering up his lips and looking up before shaking his head. “No. I do plan on going to the club at night…because you know…birthday boy and all.” She nods her head. “Why?”

“We’re going ice skating, that’s why.” She adds after patting his thigh and Minho chuckles.

“What a birthday surprise.” He replies and she shushes him.

“Just—Let me sing the birthday song, don’t question your birthday gifts.”

She should have known that his birthday gift would be ruined the moment his happiness-coated eyes met the figure of Jaekwang just right behind her when entering the ice-skating spot. Minho’s nose is reddened because of the cold, his hands fiddling with his shoes and getting ready to skate. He greets Jaekwang, throat bitter for some reason—he does not know what is going on with him or why he suddenly disliked the friend he used to share one or two beers with every once in a while, but it is difficult to take in all the information that had happened in the past few months.

How is Minho supposed to feel when she would get angered, mad and anything in between when he spent time with his ex-girlfriends? Heck, she had even gone as far as making a list of them. She always says she dates bad people, but he always managed to have time for her whenever he was dating. Perhaps, he is bitter because he hasn’t dated in a while and suddenly the idea of monogamy sounds thrilling, somehow.

She is holding onto Jaekwang’s arm and Minho is far away, skating on his own because that’s all he manages to do. Sometimes he spares a few glances at the couple, and he notices how in love Jaekwang is with her. His tattooed fingers move strands of her hair back, his smile is bashful and sweet whenever she smiles back and he feels the need to show everyone the love he had for her through short pecks and lingering hands on her waist.

Disgusting.

Minho doesn’t realize when he slips to his feet, his arms coming for leverage but reaching nothing as he falls to his knees. Some kids playing by his side turn to look at him but sooner than later they return to their game, it’s usual to see someone falling there. The sound of ice being skated on was all he heard until he felt a pair of hands lifting him up—

“Thank you,” He mutters and when he looks up, he hears her say something.

“Always here to pick you up.” She replies and Minho realizes then that it is his best friend he is talking about. Of course, he should be happy that she is dating and a good person at that, but his chest falls, his heart is caged and all he can seem to think about was the gut-wrenching feeling that is abandonment. That is what it was: Minho wants attention. She wraps her arm around his to guide him, helping him continue with his movement as she whispers. “I’m sorry for bringing Jaekwang here.”

Minho frowns because, seriously, he does not think he was that obvious on the first place! And instead of speaking his truth, Minho denies it quickly. “What are you saying?!” Minho asks with a dumbfounded look. “He’s my friend.”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on, now, I know you don’t like him that much.”

“I like him.”

“You do?”

He just doesn’t like the idea of his best friend forgetting about him. “Yep.”

“Then, let’s go skate with him!”

And Minho does what he has never done before: pretend. He is pretty honest with himself, but he can’t bring himself to ruin her fun, not that night, not in a million years.

It’s only three months later that Minho finally gets to spend time with his best friend.

Those three months had been his fault, truthfully, he is too busy with this new animation he is working in for some known company in Japan and he is constantly sending emails that quickly receive suggestions and changes that he needs to make. Now that he has some time to finally breathe, he decides to pick up his phone and text his friend to ask her to have some dinner—nothing too fancy, just their favorite pizza place in which they can dive their faces in the greasy, yet delicious, treats. She is more than eager to finally be able to look at him and he can’t say he did not feel his breath being knocked away from his lungs when he looked at her.

Surely, he is not one for scarves and gloves, but she makes it worth so efficiently and effortlessly that he can’t help but smile as they get out of the restaurant. She speaks with such emotion, snowflakes falling over her eyelashes, her gloves, her coat, her hands move in motions as she points out about this one coworker that she pretends she likes, when in reality she doesn’t. She skims around the subject of her relationship and Minho is unable to ask her—he doesn’t want to hear about Jaekwang, about how good of a boyfriend he is, and he continues to blame it on the fact that he has been single for quite a while.

Davichi’s songs play in the background as they continue walking, opting to go there by foot instead of taking their cars. He hears the soft, crispy tone of the singer’s voice, the lightweight feeling of his heart, the compass of a piano that entices him to dance. Minho is ridiculous, he doesn’t think about things before acting upon them and it shows when he grabs her wrists, pulling her flush against his chest before wrapping an arm around her waist and interlocking their fingers together.

Confused she is, staring into his brown eyes and his tinted tanned cheeks before listening closely to the ballad behind them. She realizes then that Minho wants to dance, but she still speaks against it. “What do you think you’re doing?” Minho had never been so warm, so close, so much like the perfect type of man. Her teasing, funny and sometimes dumb friend was lost gone to the sight of a man.

“Dancing.” Minho mumbles, one step to right given when her hand rests over his shoulder. “Do you know what this song is called? I feel like I’ve heard it before.”

She looks around, worried that someone will see them dance in a sidewalk and someone does, honking by the time they pass by and that leads her to hide her face on Minho’s chest, cursing breathily and earning a smile from Minho. Had she ever said his scent was her favorite from the moment they met? “This Love.”

“Davichi, right?”

“Yeah.” She whispers, finally pulling her face away from his chest to look into his eyes. Brown, sacred parts of his soul that show his mischievous self and he continues to smile, as if there was something there. “I would love to talk about the song if only you told me: why the fuck do you want to dance right now?”

Minho hums. “I guess I really missed you.”

She knows what he is talking about. The lack of conversations, even through texting. The never-ending questions about what the other is doing. The presence of Jaekwang whenever they do so much as go out…and really, she should be happy that she is in a nice relationship, but there is something so bitter about losing him. “Oh, that’s a first.” She tries to ease the conversation. “Remember that one fight we had once?”

He rolls his eyes. “When you argued with my then girlfriend and I was stupid enough to side with her.” She chuckles heatedly at that.

“I loved fighting with her, to be honest.”

“…Sure.” Minho indicates and then, he drops her slightly, earning a laugh from her as she clings to his shoulder. “Funny. You used to be the one that was always single and now we changed spots.”

“…It’s…good.” Once again, she doesn’t know how to describe her relationship. “Thank you, for introducing me to Jaekwang.”

That is all he needs to know to feel like he did something great, to feel like the snowflakes seep through his clothes and turn him into a mess of frozen limbs that doesn’t know what to do. He is glad for her happiness, but something within him stirs—he is willing to let go of their friendship, only to see her smile to gleefully as she does right now. This love, that will never happen, that means nothing, that is just an idea of Minho’s that fleets through his brain. His silence is enough of an answer, dancing through the song with a faint smile on his face.

Despite Minho being a party-goer ever since he became an adult, if not earlier, he was still a little bit reckless when alcohol entered his body, intoxicating him harder at times but softer in other occasions. Minho would say that he does not have any habits or quirks whenever he gets drunk, but his best friend could confirm otherwise—Minho is a watcher.

His eyes settle on anything, stares for a few seconds and he has two reactions, he laughs or he simply shakes his head in hunt of another thing to look at. The fact that he had called her at eleven at night simply to go pick him up was not a bother to her, but she knew he was drunk the moment she smelled beer exuding from his clothes. He clings to her body, enters her car and doesn’t say a single word, but he continues to stare at her. Maybe, it is how messy her hair looked, it was late and she had to get up early the next morning, but she knows it’s something else.

Minho’s cheek rests against the seat and he doesn’t say much, apart from singing to the lyrics of a Lil Uzi Vert song that he had put on himself. He looks peaceful, in his zone, looking at her as if she had something on her face. Three heads, maybe, that’s also a possibility why he is looking at her. Minho could look at the road, seeing the city lights illuminating a well-crowded Seoul on a Sunday night, he could look at his phone or at his clothes, he could do anything but look at her and still, his eyes fluttered ever so slowly just to concentrate on her again.

And she would be lying if she said she did not feel her heart racing—heck, she might even get a heart attack with how she feels when Minho is looking at her. It reminds her of something, of how they used to laugh to the sight of dawn in front of them, how he would always joke around with her and after everything, he would steal one glance at her. Sometimes, her friends told her that they exchanged the most meaningful of stares, not the type that were meant to be romantic but they surely felt like it, but the type of glance that was a mere whisper of ‘never leave me, I will always be here for you.’

She lives up to those words, for she will always be there for Minho.

When she is looking for Minho’s keys around the pockets of his coat, his hands too fidgety to even pick them up properly, her phone rings and she already knows who it is. She responds with her free hand, taking the keys out of Minho’s deep pockets as she hears the sound of her boyfriend’s voice. “What are you doing out?” His voice is sleepy, groggy and then she remembers that it was Sunday and she was sleeping at Jaekwang’s apartment, like they always did. It’s still too early in the relationship to live together, she says, because she knows she doesn’t want to ruin whatever good the relationship has. “I woke up and you were out. Are you okay? Did something happen?”

And then, she realizes that opening the door to Minho’s apartment is hard with one hand so she presses her phone in between her shoulder and her ear before sighing. “Sorry, babe, Minho got drunk and I…I had to pick him up. For his sake.”

Jaekwang hums. “Someone else could have gone pick him up.”

Minho is aware of who she is talking to, she realizes, much more when he pushes the door open and gets inside with wobbly legs. She rubs her eyes at the action, two males tearing her apartment for two different titles. His best friend was as important as her boyfriend. “Yeah, I know…but it’s Minho. He’s my best friend.”

“And I’m your boyfriend.” Jaekwang comments. “Is it so bad of me to get mad that you give Minho more importance than me—?”

“I don’t.” She mumbles, entering Minho’s apartment and closing the door behind her to watch Minho’s shirt disregarded by the couch. She takes off her shoes, walking when she knows fully well Minho is in his room. “He’s drunk. If he took a cab, he could have ended anywhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s eleven-something at night and you have work tomorrow.” Her boyfriend says with all the rationality in the world. “Put him to sleep. Get back here.”

“Jae,” She adds sweetly. “I can’t just leave him. What if he throws up in his sleep—?”

“Oh my God—” Jaekwang mumbles and then, he clears his throat. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Really. I trust you.”

Although, she knows Jaekwang is not as okay as his voice gives out, so she stops right by Minho’s door and she speaks. “Jae, I’m so sorry. I promise to make it up to you.” But there is nothing on the other line, the sound of the call ending making her pull her phone away. “Hello?”

With her phone in her hand and a confused mind, she opened Minho’s door only to see him sprawled on the bed. Her feet bring her closer to him, pulling the thin blanket he had to sleep up his naked chest before taking a seat beside him. She pats his chest once and Minho groggily opens his eyes. Staring, as always. “Do you have to leave?” He asks and she feels her heart beating at her throat.

All she knows is that she feels bad, of losing the sight of those brown eyes that looked at her with such respect that she felt the need to keep him by her side forever. It feels like the moment will dissipate into nothingness, so she wants to freeze it. She’s not bold, she doesn’t say anything, all she does is brush Minho’s long hair away from his face, the blonde strands in between her finger rough after so much coloring and bleaching. “No.” She replies, running her fingers down to his nose before smiling softly. “I’m not leaving you here, drunk and smelly.”

Minho closes his eyes, finally stopping his stare-off before sighing. “Good.” He says. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“Why’s that?” She questions, standing up to turn off his lights and Minho breathes out softly, cuddling closer to his pillow. She knows she will take a spot on his couch, praying that she gets some sleep and her phone does not go off on her before she has to get to work.

“Because I miss you.” Minho’s deep voice brings a shiver to go down her spine and she looks to the side, nodding her head slowly as if to stop her tears. When had they pulled apart?

“…I miss you, too.”

The ache of her back was insufferable when she woke up a little bit earlier than her alarm was set to, picking up Minho’s keys only to go to the bakery nearby to get him his favorite dessert—hazelnut and chocolate cake. She remembered the times she would pick some pastries up on the way to Minho’s tiny apartment, how she always compares the beige walls and flavorful pastries to her best friend. It is too cold to go to work and she can’t help but want to take the longest nap in between fluffy blankets and pillows. However, reality calls and with that, comes saying goodbye to Minho.

When exactly had her friendship turned into a set of rules in which she meets Minho every few months before returning to reality? When did their friendship become a memory? The laughter shared in between the two is now a faint reminder of who they used to bit. Even when she holds his keys in her hands, she wonders what their future would be.

She knows what will happen—Minho’s patience had never been his best forte, so it is only a matter of time before he gets tired of her.

For now, however, the smell of hazelnut fills the air as she enters Minho’s apartment, tiny and secluded. She releases a big sigh, walking over to Minho’s room only to hear the pitter-patter of steps coming from the kitchen. Before she could react, she hears the sound of Minho’s deep voice calling out her name.

“Oh, so you stayed?”

She looked at him, giving him the container that had his slice of cake inside before shrugging. “You called me when drunk. I was afraid you’d throw up in your sleep.”

Seeing her face made his heart want to explode. All he wants to do is ask her to stay, to be as close as they used to be in the past, to forget there was ever anyone else but them in this world…but that is not possible. Minho nods his head, thanking her in a small whisper for the food. “…You didn’t have to. Let me pay you for it—”

Before Minho could look for his wallet, however, she stops him with a hand over his forearm. “Consider it a gift.”

Minho chuckles. “…What for? It’s not my birthday.”

“For leaving again, because I kinda have to go to work and fix my relationship.” She tells him and Minho gives a bitter smile. Of course, he is not the only person in her world, there is her boyfriend and her coworkers, and it is so stupid of him to think that she was to stay. After releasing her bitten lip, she says: “Sorry.”

“No, no, no.” Minho shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

“Alright, cool.” She says and then, she gives him his keys. “I am leaving for work. Text me after you eat and take a shower and all, okay?”

“Yep. Promise.”

“Okay, remember. You promised!”

Only that Minho did not text her at all, he did not even answer her calls.

Glasses clinked with one another, indicating the cheering of a moment as various people put their glasses down to grab bites of food, but her hands immediately rest over her lap, fiddling with the edge of her dress as she wonders (ponders, actually) what she has to do when all she has in sight is Song Minho in all his glory. The blond hair is long gone, changed for his favorite color of dark brown, and at this point she believes that she doesn’t even remember the sound of his voice. Were his eyes always that sharp? Was his profile as beautiful as she thinks it is now? Were his lips always the source of her smile?

Drink, she whispers to herself as she takes a gulp of water, feeling her boyfriend’s hand sneaking to touch hers under the table and when she feels the warmth of someone else’s hand, she wonders if Minho’s is equally as soft and candid. The man barely looks at her and then she is reminded of the months they have spent without talking to one another, without even making the effort of picking up her calls. Minho was angry or saddened, one of those two, she would say he is acting upon resentment. Towards her, most likely.

Across from her, he is seated. She doesn’t know how to get him to pay attention to her, to spare one little glance her way and the first thing she does is kick him under the table. That gets a reaction out of him, parted lips and widened eyes as he looks at the source of his pain and once he realizes it was her, he looks down. All Minho can seem to think about was the man beside her, the irrational anger he feels towards two people he used to call friends just because they are in love.

He feels childish…does that stop him from acting childish?

Not really.

He puckers up his lips when he feels another kick against his leg and he sighs, raising one eyebrow as he connects gazes with his best friend. If he can even continue to call her that. She lifts both of her eyebrows, widening her eyes and mouthing a small ‘talk’, which he considers is an invitation to talk to one another. His response is simple, he shakes his head, but she rolls her eyes before pointing with her phone as discreetly as possible.

Oh, Minho thinks, Kakao Talk.

Without realizing, or with all the intention in the world, his fingers reach for his phone, unlocking it before realizing that there was a text from her—a number which he had deleted, but her profile picture gave it away. Minho sighs deeply, opening the text to be met with the words of: “I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this.” He clicks his tongue, frowning deeply before locking her phone and that is enough to cause frustration within her. Her fingers move to type on her phone, his device buzzing as he picked it up again. Once he looks at her, she is pretending to listen to Jaekwang’s conversation. “Please, Minho, I miss you so bad.”

“Don’t say things like that. Your boyfriend is right beside you.”

Whether he realized just how bad that sounded or not, that’s up to him but he doesn’t receive another text until minutes later. Minho has his chopsticks midway through his mouth when he reads over her text. “What?! Minho, you’re my friend, I don’t care if Jaekwang is against our friendship (which he is not), I care about you.”

He rolls his eyes, licking whatever was left in his chopsticks before typing down. Can’t a man just a conversation with his friends without being met by the reality of feeling jealous for his best-friend? “Yeah, right. Jae doesn’t like it when we get together, that’s it. I’m not about to break bro code.”

She groans when she reads his text and that earns a look from Jaekwang, but a kiss on his cheek and a hand gripping his thigh is enough to calm him down, as well as an excuse of how a coworker is bothering her. “You’re breaking bro code with me! I’m your friend and you’re ignoring me.”

Minho decides to reply as soon as possible. “I don’t see you like that. Stop texting.” Before he could regret it, he deletes the conversation and locks his phone, basking in conversation to forget about everything that was happening but in the matter of seconds, she responds, something he only gets to see once he goes back home.

“See me like what?” She wrote first. “Minho, what do you see me as?” Once again, she typed. “Minho?!” And after that, she gave up, just like Minho wanted.

Or did he want that?

The landlady of the building she lived at with Jaekwang was the sweetest old lady she had ever met. There was something about her eyes, glossy and smiley, wrinkly as she laughed, that gave her the comfort she received from a good broth whenever she was sick. Whenever she had the time, like when she was going out to work or when she was arriving home late at night, she would try to talk to the landlady, lonely and old she would always bask in conversation.

The only bad thing about the landlady is that she is a bit of a witchy, driven by her sixth-sense type of woman and personally, she doesn’t believe much in the existence of physics or anything of that sort. Maybe, because her sixth sense was dull or slow, one or the other, she never understands situations quickly, but that was far from the point. When she had moved in with Jaekwang to that new apartment, the landlady had made it very obvious that she saw something in her…something like love. Obviously, Jaekwang had beamed happily at the reminder of his girlfriend of years, loving him to the extent that she did, but only when the two women were alone did she get the full version of it.

“I think you fell in love with someone without knowing. You never acted upon those feelings that you had and sooner than later, you’ll regret it.”

That was ridiculous! She had thought. She had loved Jaekwang for who he was, sweet and caring, for his mistakes and his little quirks, but she loved him for waiting for her as well. However, as days passed by and she realized just what was missing in her life, she gave a bit of reason to the landlady. All she ever did was fall in love for the person Minho told her was perfect for her, the complete contrary of who she used to be when they were friends: always trying to control who Minho dated or not.

Back then, she thought it was caring for him. Now, she thinks it is jealousy.

But the more she asks for him, the more delusional she feels. One friend says that Jhonny is as cute as ever and she gets to see a picture that one time, but she doesn’t get any news about Minho. Another friend indicates that Minho is dating this girl—short hair, thick lips, small in height but with the biggest smile, but it hasn’t been long and it is his first serious relationship in years. The last friend says ‘wait, you don’t talk to Minho?’ and then she realizes it has been almost a year since the last time she talked to Minho, and oh, how things have changed.

It’s the landlady that gives her this terrible-looking box that has his name on it, written in his messy handwriting and definitely something that she would like to hide from Jaekwang. The least she wants is an argument when things have been going so well for the two of them. Seriously, Jaekwang has been smiling to no end ever since she moved in with him, his dreams had come true: he had a cat, a girlfriend and he was living with both of them. What else could he ask for?

The light that seeps through the curtains illuminates the beige color of the box as she opens it with a knife, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear once she opens it, her cat growing insanely curious about the contents inside. “Go away.” She whispers but the cat doesn’t listen, making her sigh as she opens the box only to be met by two things. A canvas and a photo album. “Oh, my fucking God.”

That is the first thing she says when she picks up the canvas in between her hands and now she understands what had gone wrong between the two. Minho had always said that he drew people the best when he liked them, like his first girlfriend or a woman he meets at a bar, he is detailed when he looks at them and when he likes someone, he stares and now she understands the meaning behind his reasoning. Every single one of her features was drawn to perfection, like he took everything she ever considered a flaw only to turn it into her best feature. Minho used pastel colors, lots of pink, the nice contrasts and the perfect shade for her eyes and lips. Minho recognizes where her moles are, the little spots here and there, the way she smiles and it is at the very corner, not a single date and a signature but a time-lapse of sorts.

Minho started painting that for her two years ago. Only a month after she started dating Jaekwang.

And the album is no better, it shows pictures of the two of them—their first picture together, that one time they went to a country they did not the language of and ended up lost, those pictures she took of him drawing and those he took of her when he needed a subject for his photography. All those memories were put together, ending with a drawing of the two, more like a doodle of sorts. However, she felt mortified and hurt the moment she read the last few word, written rapidly across the last page of the photo album:

“Please, never forget. My one and only love.”

It is then that she realized just what was wrong, why Minho was so against her relationship and why she had always been protective of him. Her stomach churning did not come from laughter whenever she was around him, it was the excitement she felt when being with him. She never forgot about him, neither does she think she ever will…but now she realizes she is part of the what-so-called ‘bad list’ of women Minho had fallen in love with.

However, in his opinion, she is not part of his bad list of ex-girlfriends. She is the sweetest ‘it never really happened’ that he ever had.

#mino scenarios #mino #winner scenarios #winner #kpop scenarios #writing #winner angst #winner fluff #mino angst #mino fluff #is this really fluff though?#not really #but i consider it #sCREAM AT ME LATER #best friend!mino

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nish-s-random-writing · 5 years

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Five More Minutes (1/?)

A USUK Fanfic

Summary: They were told how the world was going to end, but they would never be told when. Arthur Kirkland is 14 years old and had accepted the end of the world, but what he couldn't accept was that his best friend and maybe crush was to die without ever really smiling again. If he had five more minutes left to breathe, he'd want to spend them knowing Alfred Jones was happy.

|| FF.net Link ||

They said the world was going to end like this:

From giant rings and metal tubes being built towards the sky, sticking straight out of the hollowed ground, titanic fumes would be released into the air—fumes that would bleed into the atmosphere, that would dissolve trees’ leaves like paper in water. Among the fumes, all the oxygen in the world would amount to a needle in a haystack, eventually being reduced to nothing. The fumes aimed to kill and destroy, aimed to bleed into one’s lungs and deprive them of precious air. The fumes were poison.

And they would be invisible.

No one knew when they would come. No one knew when the poison would start to be fed into the air, and no one would be able to see it begin. But the tubes were on full display; the workers of the law gradually built great hollow structures of metal and concrete, all over the world, and in Arthur’s town, there were three.

Like football fields being stacked on top of one another, they rose higher and higher.

Arthur saw people protesting, saw them hurling stones and rallying, but metal fences kept them nearly a mile away from the construction sites, their screams meaning nothing.

It was the government, they said. And the government didn’t stop all the news people and TV people to broadcast what they were doing all over the world. After all, every country was on board with the destruction. Not the people of course, but their governments. And they were all silent.

Any group of citizens that dare sabotage the work were killed without a second thought. That was the aim anyway—to kill them. All of them.

Sitting on his rooftop, Arthur watched one of the tubes being built over the horizon, its rim now above the old factory in the distance. Rooftops rimmed with the golden sunset glinted out of reach of its shadow, and the misty silhouette of city buildings clouded the orange sky beyond.

He looked to the boy sitting next to him, his sandy hair whipping all about his face and loose hoodie moving restlessly in the summer wind. In the golden light, his precious blue eyes were almost green.

“Alfred,” Said Arthur, shifting his weight on his hands. “Would you have stopped this, if you could?” He swallowed, eyes flickering from the rooftops and to his friend, then back again.

Alfred smiled, bitterly, eyes focused on the horizon—or perhaps on the construction. “Of course. But if I tried, I’d die anyway.” He laughed, short and sarcastic.

“Well,” Arthur lowered his eyes. “Aren’t we all going to die anyway? I would’ve thought you would, perhaps, run at full speed towards them with grenades in your hands with the justification that you ‘at least tried’.”

Alfred laughed again, a bit less sarcastic. “Like you said, we’re all gonna die anyway. I just think it’s a bit more heroic to stay here and live life, and help others live life, and give them a smile before we all go, you know?”

He was smiling now, and Arthur smiled too.

“Is that what’s going to make you happy, then, before you go? Helping others?” The Brit asked.

Alfred shrugged. “Maybe. Well, it’ll help, at least.” He turned to Arthur now with a lopsided grin. “Beats uselessly running towards a bunch of loaded guns and making my mom feel horrible afterwards. She doesn’t need two sons to mourn over. Heh.” Arthur didn’t smile. “And hey you’ll finally be rid of the ‘stupid bloody git’ you’re always complaining about.”

Arthur frowned then. His fist curled towards the rusty metal beneath his palms. “You know I don’t hate you…”

His voice was weak. Alfred had been like this for a while now. Sarcastic smiles and all accepting and cozying up to the notion of inevitable death. He was too melancholic, too… too sad. It wasn’t like him, and Arthur knew his best friend, known him for seven years, for half their lives.

Alfred dropped the smile, worry edging into his eyes. He tried to be nonchalant, but that’s not how Alfred worked. Arthur knew, Arthur saw.

“I know that,” said the teen, placating. He looked at Arthur for a moment, concerned eyes searching his face, then he opened his arms with a small smile playing on his lips.

Arthur crawled forward without a second thought. He curled up into that familiar body and hooked his arms around the waist. He let Alfred hold him, and neither said a word.

They stayed there until the sky was black; and it was black without the sparkle of even a single star.

--- - - - - - -- - -- - - -

Arthur walked out the door to a grey and dusty morning. Living on the edge of a city, in the suburbs where people always had places to be, Arthur was used to the noise and yelling, to the honking cars and thrumming engines. But this morning, it was quiet.

Ever since the tubes, it had been very quiet indeed.

People walked now, or biked everywhere, with few people bothering to hop into their cars anymore. Around half of the people never even bothered to go to work, while the other half stuck to their nine-to-five schedules to keep up some semblance of a normal life. Arthur’s mother was one of those people, and he watched her speeding down the driveway in their rusty van in the bleak light of day.

Arthur didn’t go to school nowadays. He couldn’t think of anyone who did anymore. And yet he was to be found hitching his backpack up his shoulders at 8 am on his front porch, dressed comfortably for the chilly autumn air.

He walked down the sidewalk, the rustling of leaves filling his ears. The houses and their gardens were all quiet, shrouded in a muddy yellow light that matched the dead feeling of the world. From windows and behind picket fences, muted faces gave him muted glances, brief flickers of interest, and then the people went back to whatever they were doing—gardening, conversing… it didn’t matter, not to them, not to anyone.

A block later, Arthur was looking up towards the roof. On that one charming little house sat Alfred, staring off into the distance, wind ruffling his loose hoodie like a flag around his teenage frame.

It didn’t take long for him to walk through the house, up the stairs and the ladder to the roof. He sat next to Alfred, and without any notice from the other boy, hefted his backpack onto his lap and started rifling through.

After perhaps a long minute of shuffling around, Alfred turned to him inquisitively.

“Uh, watcha got there, Artie?”

Arthur looked up, once, before sticking his nose back into his pack without responding.

Alfred waited, and waited, and then Arthur sat up with a triumphant smile, his hands now stilled in his backpack, obviously already holding onto whatever he’d been searching for.

Slowly, with a smug grin, Arthur pulled out a think book secured tightly in a somewhat dusty sheen of plastic. Alfred squinted, confused, and then his eyes widened suddenly and his face was frozen in that precious look of shock that had Arthur giggling as he recognized the identity of the brightly colored book cover.

“I meant to give this to you the other day,” said the Brit, holding down a chuckle. “But boy, if I’d known this was to be your reaction I would’ve gotte—”

“H-how?” Alfred gasped, grabbing at the book. The comic book. A copy of the very first original edition of one of Alfred's most treasured comic book series in perfect mint condition. “Arthur—! This… this thing’s like, an artifact! How…?”

Alfred stared, eyes tearing up. He read the dates and turned it over in his hand, verifying its authenticity.

Arthur gave him a warm smile. “Old Billy over at the shop down the block’s been selling this thing for over a hundred dollars since last year. I’ve been eyeing it for you, actually, wondering if he’d settle for ten dollars one day. I supposed last week was the day because I’d seen him dumping out the contents of his shop, I suppose he was closing up, and agreed to let me have it for five bucks.”

It’s been a while since Arthur saw Alfred smile this wide. His friend was a huge nerd, and he knew this fact very well. He’d been rather down ever since the tubes, much like everyone else. He’d been sitting on the rooftop, he’d been shutting people out. He didn’t read his books or play his video games, he simply… sat there. Much like his mother in her room, he supposed.

But now, when Alfred wrapped his arms around him tightly, burying that grinning face into Arthur’s coat, he felt that he’d finally done something right for his friend. He couldn’t do much when they had Matthew’s funeral, he couldn’t do much when they heard the media spread the recent news, but if he could do anything to make Alfred happy for whatever’s left of their lives, then he would’ve done something right in the world.

But even in that serene moment of peace, in the quiet that draped over the city, the distant, constant, banging of metal was not lost on them. The tubes grew taller each and every day, and the sound was like the ticking of their time bomb.

---------

(a/n): yeet, so I hope you liked that. tell me watcha think and I might actually have it in me to keep writing lmao luv ya~

#usuk #fanfiction #usuk fanfic #aph america #aph england #alfred f. jones #arthur kirkland #ukus #apocalypse au #nish #teen au #ukus fanfiction #fanfic #do you feel the existential gay

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signourneybooks · 5 years

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There were some firsts this month which was interesting to say the least. There was also a lot of coughing and overal sickness though so I’m not sure how I feel about January yet.

There are an awful lot of reading challenges down below. For the first month I’m keeping it this way and after that I am going to always have the amount reading challenge and my own. And alternate a bit between the others. I think I’m going to do an update and a wrap up of the harry potter board game over the year instead of taking it along here as there are so many levels and all.

The Numbers

# Read 60 Books Read this month: 12 Total: 12/60

Shadow of the Fox (Shadow of the Fox 1) by Julie Kagawa / 3,5 stars // ARC

The Crown Conspiracy (The Riyria Revelations 1) by Michael J. Sullivan / 4 stars

The Girl in the Tower (Winternight 2) by Katherine Arden / 5 stars

The Winter of the Witch (Winternight 3) by Katherine Arden / 4 stars // ARC

A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison / 4,5 stars // ARC

Cogheart (The Cogheart Adventures 1) by Peter Bunzl / 4 stars // ARC

Wintersong (Wintersong 1) by S. Jae-Jones / 3,5 stars

And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness / 3 stars

Shadowsong (Wintersong 2) by S. Jae-Jones / 3 stars

The Ingenious by Darius Hinks / 3 stars // ARC

Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children 1) by Seanan McGuire / 4 stars // Reread

Avempartha (The Riyria Revelations 2) by Michael J. Sullivan / 4 stars

Average: 3,8

Fire Breathing Dragon: 3/20 Prompts Completed This Month: Thief / Fairytale Retelling / Classic Fantasy

Complete Alien: 1/20 Prompts Completed This Month: Steampunk

Generic Robot: 4/12 Prompts Completed This Month: WOC / Finish a Series / One word title / Mental Health

Total: 8/52

Read more about my own reading challenge here.

Level: Mt. Vancouver (36 books) Read this month: 8 Total: 8/36

Rules: Books Owned Prior to 2019 / No Library Books / Rereads can count (but not in the last 5 years read) / I Am Counting My Ebooks and ARCS received before 2019

Level: Elemental Witch (11-15 retellings) Read in this month: 6 Total: 6/15

Level: 1 (1-10) Asian Authors Read: 2 Total Asian Authors Read: 2

⌘ This month was a bit meh on the health department. It took a month for my voice to be back to normal again and a week later it wasn’t exactly great again but also not completely gone. I also got sick for the 3rd time in 2 months which is just really frustrating. And then on the last day of the month, poof my voice went again.

⌘ As you know I have been working on my depression since the end of last year. I got to the half way point with my one on one appointments and she suggested trying a course as group therapy instead of continuing on like this. I started it this month and have been twice now. There are a total of 8 sessions and we follow a book (with homework assignments yes lol). So it does require some extra work from me, especially on the emotional front again. It was interesting to see I also recognized some thoughts of it as I was reading Shadowsong.

⌘ I managed to burn my hand just below my thumb. Very certain a portion of it is a second degree burn. Fun times.

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A while ago @therealrobinhobb offered to exchange postcards and of course i send her a #dikkiedik postcard. This weekend i got a lovely card back with a bookplate. Thank you so much ❤️ . . . #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksofig #readersofinstagram #bookaddicted #booklover #bookobsessed #spreadthebooklove #blogger #bookblogger #boekenblogger #robinhobb #bookplate #foolsfate #thegoldenfool #realmofelderlings

A post shared by Annemieke (@signourney) on Jan 15, 2019 at 12:21am PST

⌘ A few months ago Robin Hobb offered on her website (and mentioned on her instagram) that she liked to send out postcards if we send her one. So I did that. And this month I got her card and a book plate. So amazing. ❤

Reviews

⌘ A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer / ARC ⌘ Shadow Captain (Revenger 2) by Alastair Reynolds / ARC ⌘ Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts ⌘ The Girl in the Tower (Winternight 2) by Katherine Arden ⌘ A Pinch of Magic (A Pinch of Magic 1) by Michelle Harrison / ARC ⌘ The Winter of the Witch (Winternight 3) by Katherine Arden / ARC ⌘ Shadow of the Fox (Shadow of the Fox 1) by Julie Kagawa / ARC

Top Ten Tuesday My 5 and 4,5 Star Reads of 2018 / 2019 Releases I Am Looking Forward To – January to June / New to Me Authors in 2018 / Books I Meant to Read in 2018, but Didn’t… /

Other Posts Dancing Out of December 2018 / Dancing Out of the Year 2018 / My Year in Books 2018 Over on Goodreads / End of the Year Survey 2018 / Trying to Be an Elemental Witch – 2019 Retellings Reading Challenge / 2019 Goals & Intentions for Reading, Social Media and the Blog/ Time to Crunch Some Numbers – Reading Statistics 2018 / Why You Should Be Watching Jordskott / From US or UK Cover to Dutch Cover / Year of the Asian Reading Challenge / Books I Want to Reread This Year

⌘ Justice League / Movie Surprisingly I actually liked this. The plot wasn’t that special but the underlying tensions in the relationships were. I was worried I wouldn’t like the flash since I’m so used to the tv show The Flash. But I shouldn’t have worried. Its Ezra Miller. The only thing I wish that it wasn’t that he endlessly was used for comic relief and that there was more humor for the group as a whole. The flash stood out like a sore tumb because of his youth and because he wasn’t as brooding as the others. More interested in seeing Aquaman now (instead of just for Jason Momoa).

⌘ Astroboy / Movie I’d never watched this and when I was browsing on demand when I was sick I came across it. I liked it. Its cute. It could have done with some more depth (and poeh certainly some more poc) but overal it was a nice watch.

⌘ IT (2017) / Movie I had some time left over one day and I decided at random to watch this. I’ve never read the book or seen the older movie. I actually liked it. I mean the whole thriller parts aren’t exactly my thing but I enjoyed the characters and their relationships. Beverly ❤

⌘ Scooby-Doo Adventures: The Mystery Map / Movie This might be the weirdest movie of Scooby yet. They were puppets and they were shown as they were in the series a Pup Called Scooby-Doo so children. The plot was all kinds of meh so yeah not a good one.

⌘ Scooby-Doo and the Mask of the Blue Falcon / Movie This one had more of a old scooby doo feeling again. But the plot didn’t really interest me.

⌘ The Passage / Season 1 / Ep 1-2 I was going to try and read books 2 and 3 before I went to look up to watch this show, like in a few years, lol. But then I saw that our Fox also started showing it very quickly after its release in the USA, and here we are. This is really just the set up and it doesn’t diverge from the book that much. Amy however in the tv show is so kick ass. Love her.

⌘ Zoo / Season 2 / Ep 1-4 We finally started this season and it is so weird oh my gosh. And addicting in a way. But so weird. Like a train wreck. You just can’t look away.

Blogs

⌘ Jackie from Death by Tsondoku talks about Jólabókaflóðið. ⌘ CW from The Quiet Pond shares their most anticipated diverse debuts for 2019. ⌘ Crini from All About Books updated her spreadsheet for 2019. ⌘ Noura from The Perks of Being Noura had me in her item The Life of a Reader. ⌘ Kathy from Books & Munches has the fantastic february fantasy themed month. ⌘ CW from The Quiet Pond, Shelea from Shut Up Shelea!, Vicky from Vicky Who Reads and Lily from Sprinkles of Dreams are hosting the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge. ⌘ Jamie from The Perpetual Page-turner talks about how her reading life has become more rich and full. ⌘ Greg shares things he’s learned from Game of Thrones. ⌘ Ely from Of Wonderland shared a list of 2019 Releases featuring disability. ⌘ La La in the Library posted the January Snidget with all the Harry Potter News. ⌘ Shannon from It Starts at Midnight talks about open endings. ⌘ Fadwa from Words Wonders shares why she loves rereading. ⌘ Brianna from Pages Unbound talks about miscategorizing adult books as young adult. ⌘ Have you seen Cait’s cover reveal of her second book? ⌘ Imryl from X=1 has created a recommendations list for my reading challenge. You can find part one here!

Dutch Blogs

⌘ Liesbet from Zwartraafje always starts the new year with numbers from last year. She also shares if she stayed within her book buying budget.

⌘ #SapphicAThon 2019 starts on February 1st to February 7th and I am planning on reading two books for that: Down Among the Sticks and Bones and The Abyss Surrounds Us.

⌘Other than that I want to read my pre orders (King of Scars, Firestart, both arrived way late), some review copies and do my buddy read with La La in the Library for The Darkest Legacy.

⌘ As for the blog, I am going on a Semi-Hiatus to fix some of the broken photos. There are still posts coming along like top ten tuesday and a wrap up post, and some books I read for review. But no more than that. Hopefully it will give me some breathing space to fix the broken photos, even though I really don’t want to spend time on it again. -_-

This monthly wrap up will be linked up with the monthly one by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction. This so we can blog hop to each others wrap ups easier.

Dancing out of January 2019 There were some firsts this month which was interesting to say the least. There was also a lot of coughing and overal sickness though so I'm not sure how I feel about January yet.

#Personal #what I read #what i watched #wrap up january 2019

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freenewstoday · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/01/01/mf-doom-masked-rapper-with-intricate-rhymes-is-dead-at-49/

MF Doom, Masked Rapper With Intricate Rhymes, Is Dead at 49

Daniel Dumile, the masked rapper who performed as MF Doom and built a lasting underground fan base with his offbeat wordplay and comic-book persona, died on Oct. 31, a statement from his family said on Thursday. He was 49.

The rapper’s record label, Rhymesayers, provided the statement, signed by Mr. Dumile’s wife, Jasmine. The label did not give the cause of death or say why it was being announced two months later.

Over six solo albums released between 1999 and 2009 and five collaborative LPs (with Madlib and Danger Mouse, among others) between 2004 and 2018, Mr. Dumile honed a style that was intricate and imaginative, calling on both esoteric and lowbrow references as well as cartoonish imagery in lyrics that could be poignantly emotional.

Born in London and raised on Long Island, he grew up steeped in early hip-hop. He debuted in 1989 on the 3rd Bass track “The Gas Face” with a standout cameo that helped him get a record deal for his own group, KMD, in which he rapped as Zev Love X.

The act included his brother, Dingilizwe, who performed under the name DJ Subroc. Its first album, “Mr. Hood,” arrived in 1991 on the major label Elektra. During the recording of KMD’s second album, “Black Bastards,” Subroc was killed in a car accident, and the label later declined to release the record. Mr. Dumile vanished from the entertainment business but continued to work on music privately while he raised his son.

He resurfaced in 1997 with the single “Dead Bent,” his first song under the name Metal Face Doom. (The persona was a nod to the Marvel villain Doctor Doom.) Around the time of the release of the album “Operation: Doomsday” in 1999, which featured a masked character on its cover, Mr. Dumile began hiding his face in public, at first with a stocking mask and later a metal one, which became his signature.

In a 2009 interview with The New Yorker, he said the mask had become necessary when he made the leap from the studio to the stage. “I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about,” he said. “A visual always brings a first impression. But if there’s going to be a first impression, I might as well use it to control the story. So why not do something like throw a mask on?”

Once an underground cult figure, Mr. Dumile found greater fame with albums in the mid-aughts. “Madvillainy,” which arrived in 2004 with the producer Madlib, was a breakthrough.

“He delivers long, free-associative verses full of sideways leaps and unexpected twists,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in reviewing a 2004 concert in The New York Times. “You think you know where he’s heading and what each sentence will mean when it ends. Then it bends.”

On “Raid,” a track from “Madvillainy,” he rhymes:

Trippin’, to date the Metal Fellow been rippin’ flows Since New York plates was ghetto yellow With broke blue writing, this is too exciting Folks leave out the show feelin’ truly enlightened

Released in the same year, his album “MM .. FOOD” (an anagram of his stage name) included tracks like “Gumbo,” “Kon Queso” and “Kon Karne.” In rapping about the seemingly mundane topic of food with goofiness and wit, he was “showing respect for human life,” he told Spin in 2004.

“I’m more like a writer dude rather than a freestyler,” Mr. Dumile told The Chicago Tribune that same year. “I like to design my stuff, and I consider myself an author.”

Mr. Dumile rapped under different personas and later became known for sending impostors out onstage to perform for fans; in his trademark metal mask, it was difficult to know the difference. The body doubles often disappointed fans but sparked viral moments online, like when an apparent MF Doom drop-in at a concert turned out to be the comedian Hannibal Buress.

In 2017, Mr. Dumile announced on social media that his son, King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile, had died at 14. Information on survivors was not immediately available.

Though he never reached mainstream superstardom, Mr. Dumile was widely admired by fellow rappers and producers. He was “your favorite MC’s MC,” wrote Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest on Twitter. In a post on Instagram, El-P wrote: “thank you for keeping it weird and raw always. you inspired us all and always will.”

Caryn Ganz contributed reporting.

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 6 years

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Press: Secrets of the Marvel Universe

VANITY FAIR – After a decade of unprecedented success, Marvel Studios is at a pivotal moment: the looming farewell to some of its founding superheroes, and the rise of a new generation. Kevin Feige, the creative force behind the $13 billion franchise and a slew of Marvel stars, discusses its precarious beginnings, stumbles, and ever-expanding empire.

On a sweltering October weekend, the largest-ever group of Marvel superheroes and friends gathered just outside of Atlanta for a top-secret assignment. Eighty-three of the famous faces who have brought Marvel’s comic-book characters to life over the past decade mixed and mingled—Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, bonded with Vin Diesel, the voice of Groot, the monosyllabic sapling from Guardians of the Galaxy. Angela Bassett, mother to Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, flew through hurricane-like conditions to report for duty alongside Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brie Larson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Laurence Fishburne, and Stan Lee, the celebrated comic-book writer and co-creator of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.

Their mission: to strike a heroic pose to commemorate 10 years of unprecedented moviemaking success. Marvel Studios, which kicked things off with Iron Man in 2008, has released 17 films that collectively have grossed more than $13 billion at the global box office; 5 more movies are due out in the next two years. The sprawling franchise has resuscitated careers (Downey), has minted new stars (Tom Hiddleston), and increasingly attracts an impressive range of A-list talent, from art-house favorites (Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange) to Hollywood icons (Anthony Hopkins and Robert Redford) to at least three handsome guys named Chris (Hemsworth, Evans, and Pratt). The wattage at the photo shoot was so high that Ant-Man star Michael Douglas—Michael Douglas!—was collecting autographs. (Photographer Jason Bell shot Vanity Fair’s own Marvel portfolio shortly afterward.)

But it wasn’t Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury or even Chris Evans’s Captain America who assembled Earth’s mightiest heroes. They came for Kevin Feige, the unassuming man in a black baseball cap who took Marvel Studios from an underdog endeavor with a roster of B-list characters to a cinematic empire that is the envy of every other studio in town. Feige’s innovative, comic-book-based approach to blockbuster moviemaking—having heroes from one film bleed into the next—has changed not only the way movies are made but also pop culture at large. Fans can’t get enough of a world where space-hopping Guardians of the Galaxy might turn up alongside earthbound Avengers, or Doctor Strange and Black Panther could cross paths via a mind-bending rift in the space-time continuum. Other studios, most notably Warner Bros., with the Justice League, have tried to create their own web of interconnected characters. Why have so many failed to achieve Marvel’s heights? “Simple,” said Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers 3 and 4. “They don’t have a Kevin.”

Before Feige, Marvel Studios wasn’t even making its own films. Created in 1993 as Marvel Films, the movie arm of the comics company simply licensed its characters to other studios, earning most of its money from merchandise sales. (The popular 2002 Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man movie, for example, was made by Sony’s Columbia Pictures.) Feige was part of the team that pushed for the studio to take full creative control of its library of beloved characters, a risky move at the time. “For us old-timers—me and Robert [Downey] and Gwyneth [Paltrow] and Kevin—it felt like we were the upper-classmen,” Jon Favreau, director of the first two Iron Man movies, told me shortly after the photo shoot. “We were emotional . . . thinking about how precarious it all felt in the beginning.”

Feige has never really forgotten that feeling of uncertainty. He confessed that he experiences pangs of anxiety “multiple times” on every film, and told me he often wonders, “What is the movie that’s going to mess it all up?” But, as the vaunted Marvel Cinematic Universe enters its second decade, perhaps the more pressing question is: What’s the movie that’s going to keep it all going?

After Avengers 4, an ambitious multi-franchise crossover movie slated for release in 2019, at least some of the original characters who sit at the center of the billion-dollar Avengers team will be hanging up their capes and shields. That’s partially because the Marvel contracts with the actors who play them—Evans (Captain America), Ruffalo (Hulk), Downey (Iron Man), Johansson (Black Widow), Hemsworth (Thor), and Renner (Hawkeye)—are coming to an end. Meanwhile, DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, one of the top-grossing films of 2017, proved that Marvel doesn’t have a monopoly on beloved superhero icons.

Disney promises that Marvel has at least another 20 years’ worth of characters and worlds to explore—for starters, the studio is finally delivering films with black and female heroes at the core—but declines to offer up any secrets of that ambitious slate. Moviegoers, for now, will simply have to trust in Feige. Luckily for Marvel obsessives, the 44-year-old studio executive is one of them. “At the heart of Kevin is a real”—Scarlett Johansson paused before using the same word everyone does to describe her boss—“fanboy.”

THE FANBOY

On the morning of the premiere of the latest Avengers film—Thor: Ragnarok—Kevin Feige sits in his office on the second floor of the Frank G. Wells Building, on the Walt Disney Studios lot. Alongside a shelf of his trademark baseball caps, some stacked four deep, Feige’s walls and tables are adorned with reminders of the characters, narratives, and modern-day myths he’s brought to the big screen. But when it comes time to tell his own origin story, Feige smiles warmly at me before . . . pretending to fall asleep.

It’s not that he’s told the story too often—Feige rarely talks about himself in interviews—he just finds his own journey deeply uninteresting. Mark Ruffalo thinks this is actually the key to Feige’s success: “The people that I think are great, like Daniel Day-Lewis, don’t make it about them—it’s about the material,” he said. “You don’t see Daniel Day-Lewis trying to show you how fucking great Daniel Day-Lewis is, and he’s our greatest actor. Kevin’s like that.”

Feige obligingly zooms through his biography for me: childhood in Westfield, New Jersey, in the late 70s and 80s, an obsession with blockbusters (Superman, Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future), terrible grades in junior high, movies at the local theater every Friday night. Comics were O.K., but movies were his thing. Feige’s grades improved in high school, and he got into the University of Southern California—his goal since he was 11 or 12 years old—only to be rejected from its selective film school five or six times before he got in. All he wanted to do, his entire life, was make films.

As he relaxes in the interview, Feige’s storytelling instincts kick in, and he begins to infuse his own narrative with touches of destiny or, as he calls them, “Can you believe it?” moments.

The first of those moments came years before when Feige landed a college internship working for director Richard Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. Later, when each Donner was looking to hire a full-time assistant, Feige thought the choice was clear. Richard Donner, who directed Superman, was one of Feige’s idols. (“Superman was formative,” he says.) But he ultimately decided to work for Shuler Donner—the busier of the two—and set himself on the road to becoming a producer. Which is how he found his way to Marvel and an important lesson in risktaking.

Shuler Donner was a producer on, and a driving force behind, X-Men, a 2000 Fox film starring Marvel characters. One day on set, Shuler Donner and Avi Arad, then head of Marvel Studios, watched as an exasperated stylist, at Feige’s insistence, sprayed and teased actor Hugh Jackman’s hair higher and higher to create the hairstyle that would become the signature look of the character Wolverine. The stylist “eventually went ‘Fine!’ and did a ridiculous version,” Feige recalls. “If you go back and look at it,” he admits, “he’s got big-ass hair in that first movie. But that’s Wolverine!” The experience stuck with Feige. “I never liked the idea that people weren’t attempting things because of the potential for them to look silly,” he says. “Anything in a comic book has the potential to look silly. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make it look cool.”

Feige’s passion and geeky attention to detail caught Arad’s eye. (He affectionately refers to Feige as a Trekkie.) Arad hired Feige and sent his new employee to studios that licensed Marvel characters to monitor the company’s intellectual property, offer helpful notes, and generally serve as a Marvel ambassador. Feige watched directors like Sam Raimi with fascination and others, occasionally, Favreau noted, in “frustration” in the era of films such as Daredevil, Ang Lee’s Hulk, and The Punisher. Feige’s advice was sometimes ignored, and many of those films became notorious flops. “The answers,” Feige still says, explaining why comic-book adaptations go wrong, “are always in the books.”

By the time Arad had a financial plan in place for Marvel to finance its own films, Hollywood had turned its back on the superhero genre. Even Marvel’s most popular character, Spider-Man, disappointed at the end of his trilogy in 2007. “Some people were giving last rites” to the genre, Favreau said.

Feige downplays it now, but like Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Marvel Studios bet everything on the first roll. Borrowing money by offering up film rights to its biggest characters as collateral and tirelessly pitching the idea to skeptical foreign buyers, Feige and Arad finally hired three directors to make movies for Marvel Studios: Favreau for Iron Man, Louis Leterrier for The Incredible Hulk, and Edgar Wright for Ant-Man. (Only Favreau would become part of the enduring Marvel legacy.) “People forget Iron Man was an independent movie,” Feige says.

The gamble paid off. Iron Man premiered to rave reviews and a huge box office in 2008, giving Marvel the financial cushion and industry credibility it needed to forge on with its strategy. Meanwhile, as the ranks of Marvel Studios swelled beyond a skeletal operation, its C.E.O. decided to depart. “You can talk to my friends and enemies, and they’ll tell you my weakest point is I’m a one-man show,” Arad said. Not wanting to deal with the infrastructure that comes with launching a major franchise, Arad stepped down before the first Iron Man hit theaters but not before anointing his heir apparent. At only 33 years old, Feige was officially in charge of the first significant independent studio since DreamWorks.

BIRTH OF A UNIVERSE

Marvel’s run as an indie studio didn’t last long. The Walt Disney Company had been looking for a producer of “tentpole” films that could expand its audiences beyond family-friendly fare and the girl-centric princess line. Marvel, with its built-in audience of young men, fit the bill, and Disney acquired the company in 2009 for $4 billion. (Another “Can you believe it?” moment for Feige, who spent annual childhood vacations at Disney theme parks.)

Even with Disney’s deep pockets, Marvel continued to run a lean operation. Up until four years ago, Feige operated out of a series of unassuming offices—one shared with a kite company in West Los Angeles, one above a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Beverly Hills, and one Manhattan Beach office that, even after the success of The Avengers, was “cheap” and “dreary,” as Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn remembers.

On the wall of one of those early, drab offices hung a 1988 Technicolor poster by Marvel artists Ed Hannigan and Joe Rubinstein, crowded to the margins with hundreds of characters from all different story lines with the words MARVEL UNIVERSE emblazoned across the top. Feige would challenge visitors to find the smallest figure in the scrum.

Feige said he had long believed in the storytelling potential of weaving together Marvel’s superheroes and plots—in essence bringing that Marvel-universe poster to life. His hunch was validated by the media coverage around the astonishing $ 98 million opening weekend of Iron Man. Samuel L. Jackson’s brief appearance in that movie as Nick Fury, director of a counterterrorism agency central to the Marvel universe, initially was meant as an Easter egg, a knowing wink, for die-hard fans. “We put it at the end so it wouldn’t be distracting,” Feige said of the post-credits stinger that launched a decade-long trend. But after he saw how audiences—not just devoted comics fans—responded to Fury’s appearance, Feige knew the idea of cross-pollinating characters and movies had legs.

One early challenge was getting actors to sign up for Marvel’s ambitious vision. A character might star in one film, be part of an ensemble in another, and just make a goofy guest appearance in yet another. Jackson signed an unheard-of nine-picture deal with Marvel shortly after Iron Man came out, ensuring his participation in the subsequent Avengers movies and other Marvel properties. Feige found it particularly challenging to secure Chris Evans as Captain America, a character who acts as leader of the Avengers. Evans, who’d previously tackled the comic-book genre as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movies, was hesitant to sign a long-term deal that would prevent him from doing other projects. Evans asked for a weekend to make his decision—Feige cited those few days as among the most nerve-racking of his tenure—before committing to six movies. Once Hemsworth agreed to play Thor, another foundational Avenger, Feige’s grand plan was under way. (It doesn’t hurt that Marvel contracts can be supremely lucrative. Robert Downey Jr. reportedly made $ 80 million in 2015, thanks largely to his work as Iron Man.)

Still, it wasn’t until a celebratory night in Rome in 2012, on the Avengers press tour, that the Marvel extended family really understood what its boss had planned. “I’m socially awkward,” Feige said. (“He’s short on kibitz,” Downey likes to say.) “So I talked about what we can do next.” As the hotel staff shushed them and the hour grew late, Feige pulled back the curtain on his master plan—or at least some of it. “I would like to take all of the comics and start to build the Marvel universe,” Feige declared. “We’ll have 15 productions in the next two years!”

THE MARVEL WAY OR BUST

Marvel’s first decade of moviemaking has not been without its misses and heartaches. Neither Iron Man 2, which came out in 2010, nor 2013’s Thor: The Dark World won critical raves. Two prominent directors—Edgar Wright and Joss Whedon—very publicly parted ways with Marvel after squabbling with the studio over artistic control. Wright, who wrote an early draft of Ant-Man but left the project in 2014 before filming began, declined to comment for this story. Whedon, who wrote and directed two Avengers movies and severed ties with Marvel in 2016, did not respond to requests to talk about his departure. But in published interviews both men have said they felt they had to sacrifice their own vision to serve Marvel’s interests.

The exodus of two admired artists (Wright was known for his genre send-ups Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Whedon for creating the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series) was not a good look for Marvel, which until then had enjoyed a fanboy-friendly reputation. From inside the family, James Gunn, Anthony Russo, and Evangeline Lilly, an Ant-Man star, described this period as a messy “divorce” and the tone around the studio as “uneasy.” Some critics argued that Marvel’s success spawned so many big-budget copycats that creativity didn’t stand a chance in Hollywood. Even one of Feige’s childhood heroes, Steven Spielberg, took a public shot at the glut of comic-book movies.

Feige doesn’t deny that directors need to play by a set of rules when they join Team Marvel, especially now that the concept of a single cinematic universe is non-negotiable. “Filmmakers . . . coming in understand the notion of the shared sandbox more than the initial filmmakers did because the sandbox didn’t exist then,” he said.

At the same time the studio seems increasingly willing to let directors be experimental and original in other ways. “Guardians is probably the best example of the audience validating even our more esoteric instincts,” Feige said. The unabashed goofiness of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and the gonzo tone of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok signal a radical departure from, say, the staid bleakness of Thor: The Dark World. Director Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Black Panther movie marks another major shift for Marvel: in February, the studio will launch its first movie with a black actor, Chadwick Boseman, in the lead. Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson in the title role of a female air-force captain with superpowers, opens in 2019. “I can’t think of anybody [at Marvel] that hasn’t directly approached me and had very, very in-depth conversations about Panther,” Boseman told me.

LIFE WITH IKE

It seems like more than happenstance that Marvel’s emphatic inclusiveness coincides with a long-overdue 2015 management re-structuring by Disney that put Feige firmly in control of the studio and quietly sidelined Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, Marvel’s controversial chairman and former C.E.O. Perlmutter is a shadowy but essential figure in the world of Marvel. The 75-year-old mogul helped rescue Marvel Entertainment Group from bankruptcy in 1998, when he merged it with Toy Biz Inc., a company he co-owned. Though Perlmutter endorsed Marvel’s decision to make its own films, he clung to outdated opinions about casting, budgeting, and merchandising that ran counter to trends in popular culture, sources close to the studio said. For example, Perlmutter, citing his years in the toy-making business, reportedly made the decision to scale back production of Black Widow-themed merchandise in 2015 because he believed “girl” superhero products wouldn’t sell.

Director James Gunn chalked up every conflict he had making Guardians of the Galaxy to Perlmutter and the Marvel “creative committee”—a legacy of the studio’s early days—which read every script and gave writers and filmmakers feedback. Said Gunn, “They were a group of comic-book writers and toy people” who gave him “haphazard” notes. The committee, for example, suggested Guardians of the Galaxy ditch the 70s music that the film’s hero loves. (The movie’s soundtrack, featuring retro hits, would later go platinum.) Members of the creative committee declined to comment for the story. Perlmutter also declined to comment, but a person with knowledge of his approach said, “Ike Perlmutter neither discriminates nor cares about diversity, he just cares about what he thinks will make money.”

In August 2015, a few months after rival Warner Bros. earned serious feminist bragging rights with its announcement that Patty Jenkins would direct Wonder Woman, Disney confirmed that it had changed Marvel’s management structure: Feige would report to Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, ostensibly as part of an effort to integrate Marvel into the bigger Disney film family. Perlmutter remains chairman of Marvel Entertainment. An early Trump supporter, he also advises the White House on veterans’ issues.

Critics sometimes forget that Feige announced Captain Marvel and Black Panther in 2014—during the Perlmutter era. Instead they focus on how Marvel missed the chance to make the first female-led superhero movie of the modern era. I asked Feige if he wished Marvel had gotten there before Wonder Woman. “Yeah,” he answered carefully. “I think it’s always fun to be first with most things.” Ever the fanboy, Feige got chills recounting the heroine’s powerful stand in No Man’s Land for me in his office. “Everything’s going to work out,” he said cheerfully. “Captain Marvel is a very different type of movie.”

THE AVENGERS, AND EVERYTHING AFTER

One week before the Marvel 10th-anniversary photo shoot, on the set of Avengers 4, I watched Marvel’s biggest stars lounge on comfy couches under a canopy in the long stretches between takes. Mark Ruffalo scratched Scarlett Johansson’s back, while Johansson, Chris Evans, and several other Avengers hunched over their phones in a competitive game of Words with Friends. I reached for a camera to record the moment—some of the most famous faces in the world lit up by phone screens just like the rest of us—but the ever vigilant Marvel security team had wrapped my phone in layers of protective tape. Later, Chris Hemsworth mentioned that very moment to me. “I thought, Could somebody take a photo of this? We’re all aware that this is going to be the last time we get to hang out like this.”

And yet the actors who have contributed so much to Marvel’s past successes have little doubt about the studio’s future. “I feel a lot of joy for the next generation,” Johansson said. “It’s a bittersweet feeling, but a positive one.”

In true Marvel fashion, members of the original Avengers team will help pave the way for the new guard. The latest Captain America introduced fans to Boseman’s Black Panther while Downey’s Tony Stark mentored Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming—“serving at the pleasure of young Master Holland,” Downey said with characteristic flair. Spider-Man’s return to the Marvel fold is a coup for Feige, who helped orchestrate a hero-sharing arrangement with Sony.

To hear Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger tell it, Marvel’s next wave is just beginning. He notes that the studio has rights to 7,000 characters, who can travel anywhere their creators wish to take them. “We’re looking for worlds that are completely separate—geographically or in time—from the worlds that we’ve already visited,” Iger explained.

Both Iger and Feige hinted at how the franchise will expand into different realms, with James Gunn working in close collaboration to possibly spin off some characters from the extraterrestrial world of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel is “22 movies in, and we’ve got another 20 movies on the docket that are completely different from anything that’s come before—intentionally,” Feige said.

While Feige refused to reveal any details about the characters and stories Marvel has yet to introduce, he did promise a definitive end to the franchise that built Marvel. Avengers 4, he said, will “bring things you’ve never seen in superhero films: a finale.” This may mean a lot of dead Avengers at the hands of the villain Thanos, who has appeared sporadically and tantalizingly since the first Avengers movie back in 2012. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe will live on. “There will be two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after. I know it will not be in ways people are expecting,” Feige teased.

“Everything after,” without these Marvel mainstays, will be hard work. The studio constantly needs to cast new actors, develop surprising new narratives, and risk looking a little silly—as Feige did with Wolverine’s hair—all under the harsh glare of millions of fans and detractors watching the studio’s every move. Feige, however, has no worries about Marvel’s longevity, a point he illustrated by quoting one of his personal heroes: “On opening day, when people asked Mr. Walt Disney if Disneyland was finished, he said, as long as there’s imagination in the world, Disney will never be complete.” And as long as people are willing to watch superheroes save the world, Marvel—and Kevin Feige—won’t be done, either.

Press: Secrets of the Marvel Universe was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #Lizzy Olsen #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Marvel

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thebestintoronto · 5 years

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Things to do this week in Toronto

What's happening in Toronto April 15-19, 2019

MONDAY, APRIL 15

3rd Monday Nights Free at the Royal Ontario Museum: Bring family and friends to the ROM on the 3rd Monday Night of each month and enjoy free admission from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

Education Town Hall with Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath: Discuss the impact of Doug Ford’s education changes. This is a free event and the venue is accessible. Light refreshments will be served.

TechTO April Edition at RBC WaterPark Place: Join the TechTO Community to meet and learn from Toronto’s technology leaders, innovators, and enthusiasts.

Pop Music : Better Now or Better Then? Is music better now or was it better back in the day? We play a new number one hit, then pick a random year out of a hat and play the number one hit from that year and let the audience decide: better now or better then?

Etobicoke Camera Club presents Rob Stimpson: The Challenges (and Rewards) of Travel Photography: professional photographer, Rob Stimpson, will discuss capturing images on the go focussing on the challenges and rewards of travel. Guest fee of $10.00 in effect for non-club members.

Jaymz Bee's Caravan of Music at Old Mill Toronto: Jaymz Bee’s Caravan of Music is a four hour event where you can explore the various rooms at Old Mill Toronto. Experience 20 bands in 10 rooms. Proceeds will support the Unison Benevolent Fund.

Eric Andersen and Scarlet Rivera: Performing at Hugh's Room Live. Doors open at 6 p.m., concert at 7:30 p.m.

'This Is Me' at Fairview Library Theatre: showcases talented artists from Centennial Colleges PAFS before they make their leap into stardom.

TUESDAY, APRIL 16

Humber Docs Film Screening at The Assembly Hall

Humber College School of Media Studies and IT would like to cordially invite you to the annual Humber Docs Screening, showcasing the documentary film work of the Third Year Bachelor of Film and Media Studies Students. Free admission.

ALSO ON TUESDAY

Toronto Lit Up: Alexandra Kimball at The Ossington: Alexandra Kimball is releasing The Seed: How the Feminist Movement Fails Infertile Women and will be celebrating its publication with a Toronto Lit Up book launch.

Canadian Children's Opera Company's Junior Open House: Does your child love music, drama, and theatre? The CCOC is just who they're looking for. Join them to find out what a CCOC music education looks like and learn about our programs for kids aged five and up.

F*ck Sh*t Up: Trans + Non-Binary Cabaret: A night of performances by trans and non-binary artists and performers! Featuring M A N G O S A S S I, Ravyn Wngs, Robbie Ahmed, Ben Agiter and Velvet Earl. Hosted by Babia Majora and Fluffy Soufflé.

Pro-Case Tuesdays at Absolute Comedy Toronto: Event features headliner Tommy Savitt and host Alastair McAlastair, with Joe Vu, Noor Kidwai, Perry Perlmutar, Rhiannon Archer and Sam Feldman.

Kelvin Wetherell at Cafe Mirage: Cafe Mirage Grill and Lounge presents Kelvin Wetherell on Nov 6. The performance runs between 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm in the evenings with a 15 minutes break in between. Cafe Mirage is one of the leading restaurants in Scarborough.

Hot Breath Karaoke at The Handlebar: Ridiculous game show style karaoke, with prizes.

Westway Christian Church Food Bank: The Westway Christian Church Community Food Bank is open for clients to receive food on Tuesday evenings from 5-7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17

Caught in the Net by Ray Cooney

Teens Gavin and Vicki happen to meet surfing the internet. They are attracted to each other and yet are amazed by all the coincidences — each having a father with the same name, same age, and same occupation. Why? Find out in this farce.

ALSO ON WEDNESDAY

2019 Cannabis Capital Conference: Benzinga is the go-to source for investors who need the latest news in the cannabis sector. This is the event that connects companies with investors.

Coloured bodies: Material Moves by Dori Vanderheyden: Dori Vanderheyden’s work layers and enfolds themes of sexuality, the body and colour as a way to evoke questions of what it means to be a human in the universe at this time.

OCAD University’s President’s Speaker Series presents: Burton Krame: Kramer was a professor at OCAD University for over 20 years and in 2003 was one of the first to receive an honorary doctorate from the institution.

'My Father's Son' releases new single at The Dakota Tavern: Montreal's 'My Father's Son' releases his new single, "Ribbon in the Wind", ahead of his second full-length album, The Greatest Thaw.

Who run the world? QTBIPOC: A free drop-in workshop series on relationships for youth. Learn skills and connect with other 2SLGBTQ Black, Indigenous and youth of colour (16-29) at this Beyonce-themed workshop series on relationships-- with pals, family, partners and yourself.

Off The Rails Comedy Competition at Comedy Bar: 'Off The Rails Comedy' is an interactive, improvised stand up show where Toronto's bravest comics make up their acts based on your suggestions! You have the power!

Christian Bernard Singer and Heidi Leverty: HABITAT: In this exhibition we bring together two artists whose artistic practice embraces our relationship with our Habitat, the exhibited works create a striking narrative between the chaotic and the sublime.

The Liveable City? Transportation: As Impressionism in the Age of Industry takes viewers on a journey through a period of immense change in 19th century Paris, we invite speakers across various disciplines to enter into conversations around urgent issues facing Toronto today.

Chocolate Groove: A weekly social dance celebration featuring Toronto’s best DJ’s in one of the most visionary alternative venues in Canada: Alternity.

THURSDAY, APRIL 18

Great Art: Rembrandt in Black and White: The Printmaker

Art historian Anne Thackray shows how Rembrandt’s immensely creative and fertile imagination embraced the expressive possibilities of prints, the most widespread art form of his times.

ALSO ON THURSDAY

Toward environmental rights in Canada: A panel discussion: To mark Earth Week, educators, activists and thought-leaders will convene for a half-day symposium on environmental rights. The event will map a rights-based approach to climate, water and health challenges in Canada.

The Experiment at Comedy Bar: Come see a hilarious improv show featuring performers from CBC's Workin' Moms, Baroness Von Sketch, Sunnyside, and Netflix's Umbrella Academy!

Sketch Swap Showcase: The best of Toronto's Sketch Comedy Scene will be performing the best sketches seen on Toronto stages in the last year and they're not allowed to do their own material! A fun night full of laughs, drinking, and stupidity!

Casual Chess Club at Beaches Library: Join other chess players in a friendly and welcoming environment for casual play. All ages and skill levels are welcome.

Online Reputation Management with Veronica Chail: The CEO of VC Strategies examines the current online culture and provides tools to help you: Curate content that aligns with your brand; Build trust with your audience; Monitor your reputation; and React promptly to avoid crises.

Rock for Dimes Toronto 2019: The annual fundraiser supports MODC's After Stroke suite of programs. Acts include Fresh Water Sharks, Oui B. Jamon, Bit o' Brit Collective, Martha Rocks and Envy & The Cants. Maie pauts of boom 97.3 will host.

Earth Love & Learn - Yoga, Meditation & Earth Talk: Join Irina Andreea and Cassidy Thedorf for this celebration of earth day. A portion of proceeds will be donate to One Tree Planted to help support global reforestation.

RuPaul's Drag Race Viewing Parties: Fans of the hit reality television series can watch new episodes every Thursday at several spots around the city, including The Gladstone Hotel, The Beaver and Striker.

FRIDAY, APRIL 19 (GOOD FRIDAY)

The Toronto Passion Play at Church on the Queensway

The Christian Performing Arts Centre presents 'The Toronto Passion Play' this Easter Season. This spectacular musical depicts the life of Christ, in a brand new riveting story that is sure to delight and please audiences of all ages. April 19-21.

ALSO ON FRIDAY

Mike Rita's 'Pot Comic' album release party: A fresh voice in a haze-filled room, Mike Rita's Pot Comic riffs on being at the forefront of the “weed generation”, how his mom came to love pot, and the hilarious ways in which legalization has changed Canadian lives.

Hey Girl Hey: Bad Friday! Come get bad with us at The Baby G at your fave queer hip-hop and r&b dance party celebrating female and non-binary artists.

International Fan Festival Toronto at Metro Toronto Convention Centre: International Fan Festival Toronto is the newest Anime Convention in Toronto. IFF Toronto is a multi-day, multi-fandom, Japanese focused event. Our featured events include, exclusive Fate/ stay night talk shows with the main casts of the series.

Kidnetix 13th Annual Easter Egg Hunt: Egg-citement for the whole family! Hunt for thousands of Easter candies in our indoor playground. Free photo booth with the Easter Bunny. Crafts, fun interactive petting zoo, and video game theatre.

Friday Night Jazz at Ripley's Aquarium of Canada: Explore the waters of the world the second Friday of every month with live jazz music as you sip on a drink (alcoholic and non-alcoholic available) under the sea.

C'mon, Angie! at The Assembly Theatre: Told with humour, heart, and unflinching honesty, C’mon Angie! is a new play by Amy Lee Lavoie that dramatizes a difficult and all-too familiar situation, as two character navigate consent and sexual assault following a one-night stand.

Brooklynn Bar Comedy: We’ve put together some of the best Pro Comedians in the city with help from 'Perfect 10 Comedy' for a VIP comedy show.

Redwood Comedy Cafe: A weekly comedy showcase featuring Canada's top comedians at the intimate Redwood Cafe in Little India.

After Hours: Comedy Bar's beloved late night ensemble party show returns with a fun lineup of some of Toronto's favourite stand ups.

ONGOING

Annual Beaches Easter Parade Weekend: Easter weekend celebration includes: Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt at Kew Gardens, which includes children's entertainment and a meet and greet with Peppa Pig. Easter Sunday Parade on Sunday at 2p.m. along Queen Street East.

Neighbourhood Trust at Lakeshore Arts: A collaborative project examining the state of affordable housing in Toronto through the lens of those directly affected. Runs until April 18.

Angélique at Factory Theatre: Inspired by historical transcripts from the infamous trial, Angélique is a moving account of Black Canadian history beyond the Underground Railroad.

Winter Stations 2019: Featuring six unique art installations. Runs until April 21.

Art Show & Sale by Marley Berot at Starving Artist Restaurant: Trini-Ja Canadian Marley Berot is opening her first show at the Starving Artist Restaurant and Gallery at 467 Danforth Avenue. Her acrylic paintings will stay on the walls until May 18th.

PRECIOUS: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Jewellery: By creating precious artwork and art jewellery from everyday and discarded items, Micah Adams, Christine Dwane and Lawrence Woodford remind us that our world is shaped by the decisions we make. Whether disposable or sustainable, beauty is everywhere. On display through May 23.

Being Japanese Canadian: Reflections on a Broken World at the ROM: Explore the original exhibition through the eyes of curators Bryce Kanbara and Katherine Yamashita. Runs until May 25.

The post “ Things to do this week in Toronto “ was originally seen on toronto.com by Whatson

IV Vitamin Drip Therapy Toronto Clinic - The IV Lounge

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onlyfools-fall-foryou · 7 years

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So I wrote for the school magazine but this was never published because we ran out of time. Long story. Just gonna post this here.

Lina’s Completely Self-Indulgent To-do List for You and Me

Most of these listed items are pretty mature. By that, I mean high school and older.

Upcoming Movies: Dunkirk Why don’t we just watch all of Christopher Nolan’s movies while we’re at it? Dunkirk is, yes, another WWII movie on the side of the Allies, but it’s a Nolan film, so I’m not complaining. Nobody’s complaining. Like Nolan films, it’s incredibly star-studded, with his usual Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy etc. Nolan really hasn’t given away anything by his short and simple trailers, other than what people already know about the Battle of Dunkirk. (Spoilers, they get rescued.) Release Date: July 21, USA

Spider-man: Homecoming Can I just say, I am loving new spidey. That guy is ador(k)able. Marvel is finally giving us the sassy teenage Peter that we didn’t know we needed. Release Date: July 5, Finland

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Luc Besson, director of /Leon, Nikita, and The Fifth Element/ decided to turn the futuristic sci-fi time-traveling comic series, /Valerian and Laureline,/ into a movie starring Dane DeHaan and the beautiful, beautiful Cara Delevingne. (I was slightly obsessed with Cara Delevingne in 2016.) Let’s just hope that Cara is better at acting here than she was in /Paper Towns/. Release Date: July 21, USA

Detroit From the only female director who has won the Academy Award for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow, director of /The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty,/ comes another possibly scarring, possibly life-changing movie based on modern historical events. (By modern, I mean 50 years ago.) This time, it’s about the Algiers Motel Incident, taken place during the 1967 12th Street Riot that left three black males dead and two white females and seven black males brutally beaten by the police. Remember when I said this would be scarring? It stars John Boyega and many other beauties. Release Date: August 4, USA

The Dark Tower This is the beginning of a possible movie franchise adapted from Stephen King’s novel series of the same name. Starring Idris Elba as our formidable hero and Matthew McConaughey as our mysterious villain. If you’ve read any Stephen King or seen any adaptations, notably I’ve seen /The Mist,/ you know they’re chilling and terrifying and scarring. Watch with caution. Release Date: August 4, USA

Movies If you’re a nerd who likes to spend most of their life in a screen like me, just invest in a Netflix account (unfortunately, I get nothing out of this promo). And, all the Netflix original shows are top notch because Netflix goes all out on their shows. (Edit: DON’T TRUST NETFLIX. THEY MIGHT CANCEL YOUR FAVOURITE SHOW.)

Patriots Day (2016) It’s about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. Apparently watching it the first time around is the best, according to my brother who watched it twice. For the first 20 minutes or so, you’re so tense because it’s just people getting ready for the marathon and you know what’s about to happen. That was interesting, because the movie did try to tense us up, but it didn’t try that hard. It was mostly our knowledge of the bombings that did most of the work. Most of the characters are real people, except for the main character played by Mark Wahlberg, who is fictional. It leaves you sweating from your pores (and tear ducts) at the end of the movie so drink some water before starting.

Moulin Rouge! (2001) If you’re into music, beautiful people dancing and singing, renditions of pop songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Like a Virgin,” you should watch this sort of rom-com/rom-tragedy starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. Go read my other article on page * for some extra info.

Inglourious Basterds (2009) Glorious cinematography. Glorious deaths. Glorious acting. The opening scene is pure gold. It’s one of those scenes you get completely lost in. It also gets you sweating from your pores. Everything from the cinematography and the acting and the set and music and everything is just so well done. Everyone who has seen this scene knows what I’m talking about. And of course, Mélanie Laurent is (one of) the main character(s) so that’s a lot of, em, eye cleansing.

Twilight (2008) Just kidding.

TV The Get Down Go read my other article on page *. Tl;dr: About the origin of hip hop in 1977 Bronx told around beautiful brown young adults with voices of angels.

Lost You have probably head of /Lost/, whether it’s something good or bad. Lost is infamous for its bad ending, which, I don’t think is that bad, but who cares about an ending when everything else is good? The premise is, a bunch of people were on a plane going from Sydney to LA but it crashes on an island. For the first couple episodes, you might think it’s just another survival show, but boy you are wrong. The episodes vary from present to flashback, the centric-character changing every episode. Try not to cringe too hard as Daniel Dae Kim completely ruins the Korean language. Lost is one of the shows I only watch when I have a lot of time because it and its soundtrack completely emotionally ruins me.

Books Sorry, this list may be shorter than the others because I shamefully admit, I don’t read as much as I watch. (Stop judging me, I know my brain cells are dying.)

Harry Potter Need I say more? If you haven’t read Harry Potter, where have you been and where is your integrity?

13 Reasons Why I read this book in the summer of 2015 and it was one of those books I couldn’t put down, not because it was so fun to read, but because my stomach was shaking with uncomfortable angst and I had to get it over with in order for my life to move on. It’s about a teenage boy who gets a mysterious tape one day. On the tape is a recording that a sort-of-friend/ex-crush, Hannah, made before she killed herself. The thirteen reasons are, yes, why she killed herself and are directed at 12 people in total (it goes to a person twice). It deals with some pretty mature content like sex, sexual assault, and obviously suicide. I think I was a little young to understand the book to its full potential, because the book is heavily about the relationship of Hannah and everyone around her and I didn’t realize relationships were so hard at the time.

Percy Jackson Yes, I can hear you snickering about how big of a nerd I am. I admit, I was obsessed with Percy Jackson, still low-key am, but to be fair, so was my mom! Whenever we would get a new book, my mom, brother, and I would pass it around none too patiently. Percy Jackson is definitely more for younger kids, i.e. middle school, because the level of darkness and death sort of stays the same throughout, unlike Harry Potter that matures along with us, becoming darker and darker. If you don’t know who Percy Jackson is, he’s the son of a mortal and Poseidon. He then struggles to save the world every book. The series really educates you in a fun way on Greek (and later, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and who knows what next) mythology and it’s fun to see how the writer portrayed his Godly characters. It’s just a really, really fun read. Another perk is Rick Riordan seems to keep writing books, so the series doesn’t seem to ever end.

Music

Hamilton If you’re into American history, people of color, hip-hop, bromance, and death, listen to this amazing cast album of Hamilton: An American Musical (or watch the bootleg). Basically the story of Alexander Hamilton’s life, through childhood in the Caribbeans, coming to New York where dreams are made of, the American Revolution, trying to set up a government and finally his death. Will you become a non-functioning human for a couple days while you finish it? Yes. Will you start violently sobbing when you hear the name John Laurens? Yes. Will you start breaking into song and rap when you know you can’t sing or rap? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

Harry Styles Following the classic tradition of naming your debut album after yourself, Harry Styles comes back to the music industry with this album that is completely different from One Direction (before they started writing their own songs, so this album more like MITAM). After a year (and a half) of being in the new Nolan movie (life goals right there mm mm.) and chilling in the Caribbeans, he randomly dropped news of his single “Sign of the Times” and the rest of his album in April. The album is like a time capsule from the 2007s with a mix of the 1970-80s, giving off rock god and sappy indie breakup band vibes at the same time. I’m actually listening to it as I’m writing this right now, and gosh it is good. It’s Harry doing everything he couldn’t do in a band, every song has him straining his vocal cords and (*wipes away proud tear*) you can just imagine him jumping around stage and having the time of his life.

Other

Duolingo.com (Like I said, I get 0 money out of this.) Duolingo is a website for, you may have guessed it from “duo” and “lingo,” learning languages. It’s completely free, these people don’t even require you to “upgrade your account” to do all the languages. There are most of the European languages, some Asian languages like Vietnamese (Japanese and Korean etc are in progress), Swahili, and Klingon (in progress). You can choose how seriously you want to learn and set your daily XP goal. It sends you an email and application notification so you don’t forget (but of course you can turn it off) and there’s an app too. If you do it intensively (really intensively, like a couple hundred XPs a day), I think finishing a language course during the summer is possible. It’s such a good and wholeful website/app. I’m currently learning Norwegian so if anyone wants to join, halla at me!

Learn How to Box Finally, a non-nerd item on this list! More broadly, get in the habit of working out. Whatever we’re going to do in the future, we need the stamina for it, even if you’re just going to sit at a desk all day. I’m only putting boxing up there as an example because it’s fun and it makes you feel powerful. Not that I’m an expert or anything, I did like four months and quit (lol) but I still work out in various ways. Grab a friend and convince them to go with you. Working up a sweat, even for a short time, generally makes you happy. I don’t know how much this applies to other people, but personally, I spend my workout minutes giggling most of the time. When I’m doing something really challenging, I start manically laughing. This is also an excuse for you to get your mom to let you out of the horrible cycle of hagwons and tutors!

#dunkirk #valerian and the city of a thousand planets #spider man: homecoming #the dark tower #Detroit #patriot's day #the get down #moulin rouge #inglorious basterds #lost #harry potter #harry styles #hamilton #thirteen reasons why #skam #percy jackson #Duolingo

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lhugbereth · 7 years

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Yakuza!Ignis fic update!

Hey there, lovelies! Here’s the second half of the first chapter of this thing (the first bit can be found here)

It also now has an official title: Death Fears Not the Reaper (it will make sense in later chapters, just trust me okaaaay) and can be found on AO3 here!

As always, feedback is GREATLY appreciated as this is my first time attempting a full-out AU with more plot than smut.... Let’s be honest, I have no clue what I’m doing lol *flails* On with the show!

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It was only a short drive from the main complex to the penthouse apartment where Noctis, son of Lord Regis L. Caelum and heir to the family’s veritable underground kingdom, lived alone. It had been a compromise of sorts between him and his father; while Noctis wanted nothing more than independence, Regis wanted him close at hand to keep learning about the family business. Getting him his own place nearby seemed like the perfect solution, and Ignis himself had been asked to scout the area for suitable living arrangements. As such, he knew the place like the back of his own hand, and even had his own access code to get him through the heavy security.

Stepping up to the front entrance, he ignored the cameras that tracked his every move and punched in his key code by heart. The doors swung open and he was inside. It seemed easy, perhaps, but he knew that one false step, one suspicious move and he would never even hear the bullet coming. Regis took no chances when it came to his only child.

Ignis rode the elevator to the top floor as he’d done countless times in the past. As he waited, he withdrew his phone from his shirt pocket and skimmed through the various messages he’d received throughout the night. There was one from Cor, undoubtedly in regards to Gladio’s half-assed reply after the warehouse fiasco, and a few updates from other members of the Glaive whose names he’d never bothered to learn. Surprisingly, there was a message from Noctis as well; this was the only one Iggy bothered to read. He swiped the notification next to the familiar icon to see only two words:

/Bring pizza./

A long-suffering sigh escaped him. Yet as the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open, he had no choice but to step forward into the vast expanse of the ohji ’s suite.

From the foyer, he could see past the kitchen and into the drawing room that Noctis had furnished with plush grey sofas and a gigantic flat-screen television against the far wall. Noctis was there, too, as far as he could tell from the mess of black hair bobbing rhythmically above the edge of the couch to some music only he could hear.

Approaching, Ignis cleared his throat twice before the young heir, finally noticing him, yanked out his earbuds and turned around. “Oh! Hey, Iggy,” he grinned, and set his game controller on the cushion next to him. “Didn’t hear you come in.” He got to his feet and circled around the edge of the sofa.

“You should take more care. Lucky for you I’m not an enemy of your family, but the next time….”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Not like this place isn’t harder to get into than a maximum security joint.” Still smiling, Noct folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the sofa. Dark blue eyes roamed up the length of Ignis’ body, taking in the sight of his suit, his gloves, the way his hair was beginning to fall out of place where he’d slicked it back much earlier in the day. Fresh off work, then, and decidedly not carrying dinner. Noct feigned a pout.

“All out of pizza at the pizza store?”

He almost laughed aloud at the way Ignis stiffened. “Apologies, your Highness, I only just received your message. If you’d like I can call for delivery, or -- “

“It’s fine, I’m kidding. Anyway, I’m sure I’ve got some ramen or something around here.”

As he brushed past his advisor on his way to the kitchen, Ignis released another sigh. “Highness….” No response. “Noct, please. At least let me prepare something for you.”

“It’s fine ,” came the reply, Noct’s voice muffled inside the half-empty pantry. “C’mon Igs, you’ve gotta be exhausted. Don’t worry about me.”

A firm hand closed around his shoulder, causing him to jump half out of his skin in surprise. He hid it as smoothly as he could behind a cough. Above him, Ignis’ eyes softened. “Noctis, you are the one and only son of the most powerful man in the city. You need to learn how to let others serve you. Trust me, cooking for you is a pleasure, not a chore.”

The red tint that started at the bridge of Noct’s nose and spread slowly over his cheeks was impossible to hide. He swallowed, dropped his eyes to the gloved hand on his shoulder, and nodded. “...Then, uh, thanks. I guess I’d like that.”

“Very good.” Ignis shifted, moving instead to the refrigerator to inspect what little his ward had in the way of ingredients. “Hmm. How does a simple stir-fry sound to you?”

“Yeah, fine.” Mostly recovered now, the dark-haired heir to the criminal underworld hopped up on the edge of the kitchen counter and stared his advisor dead in the eye. “But no veggies.”

“...H-highness….”

In the end, Noctis acquiesced to the addition of green peas to the stir-fry provided Ignis double the serving of potatoes and smother the whole thing in sauce. While certainly not the most balanced meal, it was a far cry better than what Ignis normally got him to eat, so he accepted the deal without much argument. Noctis watched as, stripping off his gloves, Ignis stepped up to the sink and began to rinse his bare hands under the warm water. He noticed, of course, the dried blood under the other man’s fingernails, and the subtle red tint as the water washed away the rest, but he knew better than to comment. Ignis never talked about the details of his work with Noct, and now was hardly the time to press.

They ate together in relative silence. The dining table in Noct’s penthouse was large enough to seat eight guests comfortably, but more often than not it held only one. Dinner for two was a rare treat for the young ohji . Perhaps that was why, when Ignis got up to collect the tableware and, inevitably, excuse himself for the night, Noctis jumped up to stop him before he even knew what he was going to say.

“Wait a sec.”

Ignis paused, a plate in each hand, and glanced over his shoulder. “Something the matter?”

“No, I just, um.” The young crime lord shook his head, thinking quickly. “Don’t you want to grab a shower or something before you go?”

The look Ignis gave him made him instantly regret his choice of words. But never one to back down from even the scrappiest of fights, Noct straightened his back and continued. “I mean obviously you have a perfectly good shower at home and all that, but, well, it’d be a shame to get your car dirty on the way, right?” Open mouth, insert foot , he chided himself, though he managed to hide his grimace behind a convincing smile.

Ignis glanced down at himself -- his pristine suit jacket, his pressed pants, his polished shoes -- and arched a brow. “Do I offend ?”

“N-no, no!” Kicking himself mentally, Noctis decided to spare himself further humiliation by instead sidling up to Iggy and very gracefully snagging the plates from his grip. “I just mean, why don’t you take it easy for once, hm? Relax, pamper yourself. You go shower, and I’ll take care of the dishes.” That dark green gaze narrowed in suspicion until he was forced to add, “Well, I mean, I’ll at least put them in the sink for you. Go on, stop wasting time.”

Though his mind was spinning a mile a minute trying to catch Noct’s angle, Ignis couldn’t very well ignore a direct order. He padded down the hall to the bathroom, stripped and folded his clothes, and placed them neatly on the counter. While waiting for the water to heat up to an adequate temperature, he stole a glance at himself in the mirror.

And frowned. He had served for the Caelum family his whole life, just like his father and grandfather before him, and from a young age he’d gotten accustomed to the plethora of scars and injuries that came with the territory. But something he had never quite learned to accept were the tattoos. A mark, a brand even of his history with the yakuza, his irezumi were colorful, exotic, covering nearly every inch of his body from waist to neck. His chest was a menagerie of gruesome beasts with great, open maws. On his left arm, lotus blossoms scattered on the surface of a blood-red stream. On his right, falling leaves burned and blackened in a fiery wind as great, winding dragons ascending to the heavens. His back held the largest piece of all; the most fearsome skeletal figure imaginable, a Reaper, surrounded by the anguished souls of its countless victims.

Horrors, all of them. Noctis had never seen the tattoos, and Ignis was determined to keep it that way.

He tore his eyes away from the mirror and stepped into the hot water, letting it burn away the filth and rot of the day’s unsavory work.

When Ignis returned to the living room, hair damp but not a button out of place on his suit, he found Noctis once again on the sofa with his headphones. This time, however, he was nose deep in a comic book and, much to Iggy’s chagrin, had his shoes propped up on the arm.

“ Really , Noct,” he started, swatting his feet down and snatching the comic from his hands. “Is this all you do in your free time?”

“No. I play videogames, too.”

A resolved sigh before Ignis was taking a seat on the sofa at his side. There was a stack of black, sealed files set on the table in front of them, and he swiped up a few to pass forcefully to his companion. “Why not read up a little about the state of your family’s current investments? This is going to be very important for you one day.”

Noct accepted the files, glanced at the title on each, and tossed them back onto the table without ceremony. “Money comes in, money goes out. Got it. Hey, here’s a question,” he said suddenly, shifting a little closer until he could pick up the scent of lilac soap on his advisor’s skin. Ignis leaned back a few inches out of instinct. “Why don’t you tell me about those Glaives? Y’know, the ones who died yesterday.”

Behind his glasses, green eyes widened in surprise, then just as quickly narrowed. “Where did you hear about that?”

A shrug, and a smirk. “Y’know, around . ...Actually, it was Nyx.”

“Of course it was.” Ignis pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose with one gloved finger and sighed. “How much do you already know?”

“Not much. I heard it happened in broad daylight, that three of them were attacked and -- “ He paused, drawing his thumb across his throat in a meaningful gesture. Ignis’ mouth twitched.

“Beheaded, yes.”

“Right, that. So they’re dead, and now my father thinks someone is trying to start a turf war, or whatever.” He looked at Ignis for a long moment, his deep blue eyes searching for answers, for affirmation, anything written in his stoic expression. “Is that what you were doing today? Why you had blood on your hands?”

For once, Ignis wasn’t sure how to respond. As much as he wanted Noctis to someday successfully fill his father’s shoes, he was also loathe to drag him down any further into a world he didn’t yet belong. Still, he supposed this counted as studying in its own right, so he was willing to let both the comic book and the economics issues slide for now. “Yes. And no,” he added quickly, not missing the curiosity piquing on Noct’s face. “Nyx isn’t entirely wrong, but your father knows this is no mere turf war. The killings were sudden, unprovoked. Neither the Niffs nor the Nox Fleurets have stepped forward to claim the acts, and we haven’t been able to find any witnesses or reliable….informants.”

The young heir let the words sink in for a moment before asking again with renewed interest, “So who did it? What’s your theory?”

He shrugged. “A couple of rogues? Or a mistake. Even a fool wouldn’t pick a fight with the Caelum family without some kind of deathwish. Still,” he sighed, reaching forward to lay a gloved hand on Noctis’ shoulder. “Until we sort things out, it isn’t safe for you out there. Noct, you’re going to need to stay here for a few days.”

Anger flared to life almost instantly in those usually calm eyes. “Stay here, alone in this glorified prison?” Noct spat, suddenly raising his voice. “The tournament is this weekend, Father promised he’d let me go this year!”

“Noct, calm down. I’m sorry, this isn’t my decision.”

“But you agree with it, don’t you?"

"For your safety, yes, I do." His reply was met with rebellious silence as the dark-haired nineteen-year old folded his arms over his chest.

It wasn't that Ignis didn't understand. Of course it was only natural that Noct was lonely, of course he wanted a taste of freedom. The boy had spent his entire life under constant surveillance, after all, under lock and key by an overprotective father who was doing what he thought best against the dangers of the cruel world. But no teenager ever understood that. And Ignis, for his part, would have given the world to see Noct happy, if only that choice were up to him.

"If it helps," he offered, voice quiet and soothing in the space between them. "Once this all blows over, I promise to take you fishing. Outside of the city."

"...Really?" Noct’s tone was a mix of hope and incredulity, but if nothing else the thought got him talking again. "And you think Father would allow that?"

A warm smile, one that made Ignis’ eyes crinkle as he patted the other’s cheek. "It may just be our little secret." That was the kind of thinking that would likely land his head on a spike someday, but he wouldn't really be Iggy if he wasn't risking his own neck to please the prince.

Although still somewhat reluctant, Noctis managed a smile up at his advisor. His gaze faltered for a moment, then before he lost the nerve he leaned forward and pulled the taller man into a hug. "You're the best, Specs."

Few things made Ignis the Reaper’s heart thud in his chest. Danger, the adrenaline-fueled thrill of a fight, was one. Palming a brand new set of knives was another. But perhaps more than either of those was the feeling of holding Noctis Caelum in his arms.

Only five years apart, Ignis had quite literally grown up alongside the young would-be boss. They'd been friends once, back when the innocence of youth had allowed such things, and even as they fit piece by piece into their ever-shifting roles, Ignis had wanted nothing more than to stay by Noct’s side. Selfish, perhaps, given the sheer amount of secrets he kept to preserve their relationship, but it was a feeling that gave him strength all the same. And, at times, had him questioning his own sanity.

He returned the hug gently, almost reverently, and willed his mind to focus on the present. "It's late, Noct. Would you like me to help you to bed?" Because that didn't conjure up any vivid images at all.

Against his shoulder Noctis shook his head. "Nah. Not tired yet. But...you don’t have to go right now, do you?”

Once more Ignis checked the clock on the wall. He had a meeting first thing in the morning, and Regis would be expecting results that he didn’t yet have. What he should be doing was making his report to Cor and checking that his men had properly disposed of the evening’s evidence.

What he did instead was pull Noctis closer and settle into the cushions of his sofa while he watched him play videogames for several more hours.

The young ohji had fallen asleep against him sometime just before midnight. Ignis carried him to his room and laid him out on his bed, at least taking the liberty of removing his shoes if nothing else. In sleep his face was so peaceful, so beautiful that tearing himself away from the sight was almost physically painful. Yet it was as he turned out the lights and made his way back toward the foyer that he finally retrieved his phone once more from his pocket. Now that Noctis was settled, it was time to get back to business. He pressed a single key on his screen and the line was ringing before he even stepped into the elevator.

Cor answered after only two beats. “Scientia, where the ever-loving fuck have you been?”

“Working,” he replied politely. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

“You’d better be. Now that our last informant is sinking in about twelve different parts of the Crestholm -- and I suppose I have you to thank for that? -- we’ve got nothing to show the boss. He isn’t going to be happy. You and Amicitia have exactly seven hours to fix it.”

“Overtime again, then, I take it?” His answer came in the form of a dial tone, and Ignis raked his gloved fingers back through his hair before switching to text.

/Be outside in ten/, he warned Gladio, letting his head fall back against the wall of the elevator as he continued to descend.

On the bright side, at least he’d already had a shower.

#fic #yakuza ignis #ignoct maybe #there will be eventually #why does tumblr hate formatting?#plz read on AO3 for better experience #myfic

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 4 years

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It's a big day for the Warcraft franchise, as Blizzard has officially released Warcraft III: Reforged, which is billed as a "full-scale modernization" of the RTS classic.

The PC title features the base game, Reign of Chaos, as well as The Frozen Throne expansion. The graphics and sound have been given an modern update, while there are new and improved social and matchmaking elements through Battle.net and user-generated content tool through the improved world editor.

In addition to the base game, you can pick up the Spoils of War version that includes new skins for Arthas, Cenarius, Jaina, and Thrall, as well as in-game bonuses for titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo III.

To learn more about the origins and specific details of Warcraft III: Reforged, we spoke with lead producer Pete Stilwell. In a wide-ranging interview, Stilwell talks about topics like why Blizzard chose Warcaft III for a remaster over some of its other titles, how the team at Blizzard is honoring the original design while revamping the story and other elements, and what the studio has done to make Warcraft III: Reforged stand out as more than a nostalgia-grab.

Stilwell also speaks about how it is a "blessing and a curse" to have such a dedicated and passionate fanbase, and how Reforged aims to appeal to World of Warcraft fans who want to know more about the origins of the Warcraft universe. "Most of them probably don't know the origin story," Stilwell said of the millions of World of Warcraft players.

Check out GameSpot's full interview with Stilwell below.

Going back to the start, why did you choose Warcraft III instead of some of your other properties for a remaster?

There were a few factors here. We had just come off of StarCraft: Remastered, so we'd put together a very RTS-focused team – so this was a natural transition. It almost followed Blizzard's own transition of making one into the other. We already had the right team for the job.

Then there's also the fact that we wanted to, first and foremost, do service to the largest communities that still existed with our older games. There's plenty of games in the deeper catalogue that we probably could have gone to that would be easier. If you were doing it from a timeline perspective, it might be more logical to start with the first Warcraft or something like that.

But Warcraft III still has a massive community in both the competitive and the creative scene, especially with custom games. One of the other fortunate things I've gotten to do in the leadership of this team is travel the globe and talk to our players. And while we were in Korea, talking about StarCraft, it made us more aware of how strong the custom scene still was, especially with Warcraft III there.

And then it's just a hop, skip and a jump and suddenly you're in Shanghai talking to people there and they're saying, "Yeah, StarCraft's great, but what we're really all about is this Warcraft III." And I think it was just a natural progression on many fronts.

What are you doing to honour the original design while also revamping the story and art and other elements?

From a gameplay perspective, it's largely the same.

From a visual perspective, Warcraft has continued to evolve since the original, and since the Third War was released. So, we drew on elements of Sylvanas and Jaina and all these other strong characters who have continued to evolve for their models in Warcraft III: Reforged. For a lot of them, it was their debut moment in Warcraft III and because they had all of 200 triangles to work with, there wasn't much definition of what people looked like or how they behaved.

We looked around at all the amazing stuff other folks have done – be it the books or the comics or the games, all of the cool stuff that's out there, and tried to draw inspiration from that to pull the strands together.

As far as other elements, again the custom game community is so strong and does so much cool stuff. We did a lot of research into what they wanted, and we looked at the creative ways they've found over the years to solve problems.

We've done a lot of things under the hood that the average player may not directly benefit from, but hopefully when a map maker gets hold of it, they'll be able to make a cooler map with more performance, or can support more people. A ton of effort has gone into the fact that this community is really what has given this game legs and we want to re-energise them for the next marathon, if you will.

What kind of technical work was required for this? It looks extensive!

This was Blizzard's first 3D game. That's one of the things that we undervalued going into this. StarCraft was Blizzard's last major 2D game and they'd been doing it for years. They knew the technology and they were super good at it.

Warcraft III was the result of a lot of experimentation. We have engineers like Jay Patel and Colin Murray, who helped build the original game, come in and help us with Warcraft III: Reforged, and they look at their code and go: "Oh, what was my young self thinking? We know better now."

In terms of the gameplay, are you making any changes compared to the original?

The fact of the matter is there's a good abstraction between game logic and game rendering. Most of our efforts went into game rendering and trying to get modern 3D standards in there, versus the game logic, which largely remains untouched. “Gameplay First,” one of Blizzard's best core values, is still really about, "How does this feel? Does it read as Warcraft III?"

If you've played Warcraft III before, you're going to loosely remember the way units moved and things like that. And if you're a hardcore player, you're going to have it ingrained in your DNA at this point.

Authenticity is really in that gameplay logic, which we tried not to touch. Whenever there's risk there we do a lot of testing and get it in the hands of pros or get it in the hands of folks on our team who are advanced players to make sure gameplay is intact.

Part of what makes Warcraft III so enduringly popular is its passionate and communicative fanbase--what can you say about your fans and what their support means to you?

The short answer is that our fans are why we do it. The fans and the fact that they're still playing this game and are voracious about what it represents is what gave life to this team. It's also our compass. It's a blessing and a curse sometimes, but it's mostly a blessing to have people who know the game so well and have such an expectation. It does make it more difficult to change and to evolve.

"Our fans are why we do it." -- Stilwell

But that's also part of the conversation of what our agenda is as a dev team and as a group. And first and foremost, it's to preserve these games. The cool thing with Warcraft III is because we can extend the editor and keep the original game the way it was for all intents and purposes, we get to put the tools back into the hands of the community where they can help navigate that next chapter.

The game is now updated with Battle.net functionality and support--what kind of work did this require and what does it allow for that you couldn't have all those years ago?

The original games on Battle.net were very different – there wasn’t much functionality beyond the social aspect of Battle.net. Modern Battle.net now has even better social interaction because we can now be in a group chat together. You can be in one game and I can be in another and we never lose contact. That's awesome.

Additionally, it means that your multiplayer experience tends to be more in league with other games that Blizzard makes, for example, matchmaking.

Do you envision Reforged to appeal mainly to fans of the original game? Or to new players who might have played WoW and now want to learn more about some of the lore origins?

We hope it's both. You can go boot this game up, choose to play in what we're calling “Classic” inside of the client, and you'll see all the original models, and play the original campaign. You can have that experience, and we even have guys on the team like that who believe the only thing we needed to do is get this inside of Battle.net so you can install it more easily. And then there's the rest of us that are like, 'Wait, look at the size of World of Warcraft's player base”. Most of them probably don't know the origin story.

That's what this is, the kick-off to World of Warcraft. For example, seeing Eastern Plaguelands come out of Andorhal is just one of the core moments that are part of the story of Warcraft III. With WoW Classic last year showing the passion around this IP, the hope is those same folks will want to experience the “prequel” that is Warcraft III.

Because if you missed it, there's over 60 missions, there's hours and hours of cutscenes. There's so much story and getting to see some of those characters who are giving you quests in their origins is really powerful if you're a fan of Warcraft.

As I understand it, the voice acting remains the same in Reforged. Can you explain the decision to keep the voice acting the same?

Part of this has been galvanising our identity of what our team was going to be.

When we went to BlizzCon 2018 with the Warcraft III: Reforged demo and showed off what we could do, we were actually taken aback by a lot of the community's response to it. Some asked, “what are you doing messing with this thing?”

If we're saying that we’re using the community as a lodestar, as a guiding light, then we need to actually own that. We decided as a group that it isn't our job to take it that far.

We as Blizzard should own our experience and we decided as a team, that means it should be more in concert with that classic experience.

Remasters and re-releases seem to play on the appeal of nostalgia. Longing for a time gone by. So how have you gone about creating Warcraft III: Reforged to be more than a simple push at people's feelings of nostalgia and instead something that stands on its own in 2020?

To me, the real modernisations have gone in that direction of handing the tools to the community. A lot of that is in the editor, with new art, new triggers and new Lua support, for example.

Obviously, the visual facelift and the integration of the game back inside of modern Battle.net is important, but there is no doubt there is a nostalgia play here and that is why we kept the original VO and things like that. We hope it's a bit of both ultimately.

Reforged has been available for some time now in a testing phase--what kinds of feedback have you received and how are you going about changing the final game?

With the multiplayer beta, a big part of what we've done is changed this game to a new server infrastructure and again, get it onto modern Battle.net. There's a lot of risk there. Somebody playing in a different part of the world can't necessarily be emulated without a beta because the backbone they connect to that reaches our servers might have some weird switching station that we don't understand and can't test for adequately here. We have to get this out into the hands of the players to really know the state of an online experience.

That was the focus of the beta – to find those weak spots and shore them up. Especially with the custom games, we've got somewhere in the neighbourhood of one billion custom games that have been published in the past 15 years. We are well aware not all of them will work day one and that some old bugs and exploits have been fixed. Because the custom online experience is such a hub of this game, creators could have time to see their maps breaking and start to make fixes and things like that.

One of the big pieces of feedback from the reveal was that the art style look sort of mishmashed from the new HD character models and how other parts of the game stayed old. What's your reaction to that, and have you updated the game now for its final release?

When we went to BlizzCon with the demo, we wanted to get feedback and first impressions. It was very work in progress. I think every single thing we showed at BlizzCon has undergone some iteration and that's natural. One of the things that we were having difficulties with at that point was the lighting. We had overblown it and that's why there's these really stark shadows.

If you saw the entirety of the game, you'd realise that really bright light works well on Lordaeron Summer, but as soon as you start getting into the caves or all these other tilesets that are important parts of this game, you find out quickly that it doesn’t work. Once we figured out those values and level set, the most important thing at this point is if you put the original colours of the original tilesets next to the new ones, they match. They're very in concert in the right way, in that it's got higher fidelity and it looks great and it's benefitting from these new systems we brought in with physics-based rendering. It is not exactly what we showed that very first time, but most of us in the community and on the team agree that it's where it should be to be Warcraft III.

What can fans expect as it relates to custom games and the map editor?

The things that will help beyond what I've already talked about inside of the editor itself, is that we made unique assets for everything. One thing we understood with the campaign was that when you're looking at the same Dreadlords or the same Paladins, all standing there side by side, they are identical except the little glow around their feet is a different colour. We thought “we could do better than that," especially when the custom community is sitting over here thirsty for assets.

They can't necessarily hire a group of artists to make assets at this fidelity and giving them more was going to be beneficial for everyone who plays custom games. So, we dogfooded ourselves by adding a lot more to the campaign in order to feed back into the custom game community. Then for the online experience, we revamped the lobby system, so getting in and out and finding the right game is a much better experience.

from GameSpot - All Content https://ift.tt/2S0xWgO

#Blogger

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changterhune · 5 years

Text

Time to Cut And Run

I think I’m done with social media.

Okay, not all of it. But most of it.

“Why?” is what you’re asking. “You’re so active on it! Look at you with all the Facebooking, the Twittering, the Instagramming, the Tumbling and such!”

You’re right. And it’s slowly killing me. No joke.

WHEN YOU’RE THE PROBLEM YOU GOT A BIG PROBLEM

When my first reaction to dropping all social media was fear and concern that I couldn’t do it then I should’ve known I had a problem. As I’ve had more and more time to hear their experience and how they felt after cutting this particular cord I knew it was something I had to do.

Of course in grand Terhune style, I made a big frigging pronouncement that on August 1st, 2019 I would be deactivating or mothballing my Facebook and Twitter accounts for one month. I said I’d keep my Instagram and Tumblr active, though I might’ve ditched Tumblr, too, at the end of the month.

But it didn’t work out quite like that.

“Why?” you may ask? (As if anyone’s still reading).

Well, I’ll tell you.

PEER PRESSURE

Two friends of mine cut the cords from social media this summer.

They immediately reported feeling great but not after some initial shock and withdrawal (which apparently was significant). My aforementioned terrified reaction to this turned into admiration then concern and jealousy. They could easily disengage, it seemed, while I found the idea as frightening as severing a limb.

When I began to envy those who can seemingly manage if not thrive from their social media presence is when I realized I was really in it deep.

A HISTORY LESSON Fourteen years ago our family moved to Maine, uprooting from an established network of friends and family. My wife and I threw ourselves into a new business (a yoga studio) and our daughter was in school. We developed friendships and built a loving, vibrant community around our yoga studio. Our sense of professionalism meant maintaining boundaries though we maintained some social contact in meatspace (what the rest of the world calls in real life or IRL in technospeak). It was enough and made up for what we lost when we moved to a new state.

During this time, from 2005 to 2014, social media grew from a few blogs and LiveJournal into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others. Many of my social media accounts were created in 2008 after I attended the Viable Paradise workshop. There I connected with fellow writers and future friends from all over the world.

In the beginning, these platforms allowed me to keep in touch while friending new people and reconnecting with friends from my hometown, college and other areas of my life. It was fun to grow my friends lists in all those apps. There I got to know the new friends and reconnect with the old ones. At one time I could even distinguish between someone I knew from real life, the internet, high school, my yoga life, my music life and my writing life.

Then as they often do, things got… weird.

Actually I became severely depressed and then I got weird.

Okay, fine. I got weird-er. Ya happy now?

“MY COMPLICATIONS HAD COMPLICATIONS.”

2013-2014 is when social media became problematic for me. Though in some ways it was a lifeline, where I kept in touch with people when I felt isolated. But more often I grew to feel as if I wasn’t validated unless I posted something on social media.

Or I wondered if I was valued or even alive if I posted something and got a “like.”

It became the place where I lived the most and this wasn’t good for me.

In that time social media grew into something like the facehugger from the movie “Alien.” If you don’t know what that is (what the hell is wrong with you?!) then here’s a litte background for you:

The facehugger is a parasitoid; its only purpose being to make contact with the host's mouth for the implantation process. The Facehugger secures its eight finger-like appendages tightly around the head of its victim and wraps its tail tightly around the host's neck, eliciting a gasping response and allowing the insertion of an ovipositor into the host's esophagus. An embryonic form of the Xenomorph is then implanted directly into the stomach of the host. During the implantation process the host is fed a constant supply of oxygen via two lung like organs.

Here’s a fun video (WARNING IT CONTAINS SCARY SHIT):

Get the picture?

Social media - mostly Facebook and Twitter to be honest - became a thing attached to me, breathing for me while implanting something foreign into me. But instead of originating as something invasive I basically invited it in, made it some tea, shaved while it drank the tea then allowed it to hop on my face and ride me like a fucking tired, old pony at the carnival.

OUTRAGE FATIGUE

As my friend good friend and bold German brother Marko Kloos wrote, it’s all too easy to open up one of these sites and get enthralled in the rage of the day. I don’t know who manages their social media engagement and doesn’t feel this or how they do it. But I realized that I was experiencing something dubbed extreme outrage fatigue. And it made the depths of my depression in the last five years considerably worse than it had to be. Because it’s one thing to be engaged and aware of what’s going on and yet another thing entirely to go from zero to furious in a second.

I had enough stress and cortisol cocktails back when we owned our business. Real life then dealt me an even greater dollop of it in the last five. I’m better now with the help of therapy, medication, and a new CPAP machine. And as I get better, I realized giving my body a heaping dose of cortisol every time I open Facebook and see something that jolts my nerves and off I go into a tailspin.

And I’m so, so very done feeling this way. I’m fairly sure it’s killing me slowly.

DER PLAN? DIRT PLANT!

Unlike the facehugger from Alien, pulling the plug on social media hasn’t strangled me or causes acidic blood to scar me or eat a hole in three or four decks of a spaceship.

But the withdrawal was a little intense that first day. I’m not gonna lie.

Because I’m a little addicted to social media.

Which, if you’re unfamiliar with recovery schpiel, means I’m very addicted.

Social media - with its likes, hearts, emojis, RT’s and everything else - is perfect for our little lizard brains. They only want to feel fed, fucked, free and fat - which really means feeling loved, wanted and secure. When we get a little like or emoji on a post it releases endorphins into our brains and we crave more. So much so that I often wish I’d never gotten involved with it and kept my daughter off social media for as long as possible.

It’s not social media’s fault per se, it’s just that I am wired in such a way that it makes addicts of us (my wife can take it or leave it which is both annoying and enviable).

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s a ton of things I love about social media. I love that it’s connected me with people all over the world, made new friends and reconnected me to old ones. I love that it’s truly helped people in various causes across the globe from the Arab Spring uprising, the RESIST marches in the US and the Hong Kong protests. It can be a tool for positive change in the world but it’s not being used as such because those who run Facebook and Twitter see more profit in running it another way.

Don’t believe me? Then go to Netflix and watch The Big Hack documentary. Then tell me how you don’t care about what Facebook does with your information. Because I guaranteed they know how you think and decide about your purchases and beliefs almost as well as or better than you.

SOCIETY’S A DRAG SO WHY NOT JUST DROP OUT?

“Well, why are you staying on Instagram and Tumblr?” you may ask. “They’re just as bad!”

Okay. I’ll tell you why. It’s simple.

Because they bring me joy.

My Tumblr dash is mostly science fiction themed posts and a few political ones. I go there for concept art, the work of favorite artists, funny gifs and even music (I certainly don’t go there for adult content since they killed that community off the day before my 50th birthday. Great gift, jackasses!). It’s a nice place to unwind as I usually check it out at the end of the day before I go to bed.

My Instagram feed is full of pictures and videos of synthesizers, cute animals, cartoons, comics, fail videos, concept art and almost no politics. I feel better when I go on it, especially when I see pictures of dogs and cats. And Sparky has a pretty dedicated following which I must curate for his majesty.

Now if I’m being honest with myself I’m still checking the likes for video clips I post of my songs or artwork. That little approval drug, that little pip of endorphins is something I have to deal with.

And if I’m being even more honest with myself I can safely say social media has done very little to help me sell my books, music or comics. Most of that I’ve done by hand through word of mouth.

DELETE AND REPEAT UNTIL YOU FEEL THE BEAT

“Okay, so big deal,” you say. “You’re not dropping out but you’re cutting back. What’s it gonna look like from here on out?” you may ask (as if anyone is still reading this).

For starters my online presence has shrunk noticeably. Initially I planned to deactivate my Facebook account early in August and do the same with Twitter. I started this by deleting the apps from my phone on a Monday.

Then something extraordinary happened.

First the anxiety whacked me over the back of the head and took me for a ride in the back of a smelly old beater. Like for most of the day I was grabbing my phone, going to the apps and experiencing a jolt at not seeing them there. It was like I kept reaching for a door that had been there or a window only to find it replaced with a giant brick wall or gaping empty space. This went along for a good 5-6 hours.

Then the anxiety went away.

The next day was infinitely easier. Without reaching for my phone the way Charles Bukowski reached for a cigarette or glass of whisky first thing in the morning, my day started off much more relaxed. Combined with the benefits of sleeping with a CPAP machine and POW! I was up earlier and easier in the morning as I went off to walk the dog then head into work. In the weeks since I curtailed my social media usage I feel so much better. More relaxed, less anxious and not nearly as out of touch as I thought I might. I check the news feed for a few minutes and listen to the radio but that’s it. Not nearly as much outrage first thing in the morning.

Despite not deleting my Facebook or Twitter accounts completely I haven’t felt much temptation to reinstall them. In fact most days, instead of checking in on both at least a dozen times an hour, I usually check in on Facebook at work late in the morning then once at night at home in my office.

It shocks me how, after so little time away from it there’s so little there that I wonder how it became such a huge part of my life. The annoyance hits me like a day old haddock in the face the moment I open Facebook and after seeing if I need to reply to anything immediately I just close it and move on.

I have not, obviously, deactivated or deleted either of the monsters for a couple reasons. It’s nice to check in on people individually because the feed is bullshit due to algorithms that show you want Facebook or Twitter wants you to see (I’ve largely abandoned my artist pages because the effort involved in getting them to produce any results is herculean and yields nothing). My Instagram posts to Facebook and other social media so I didn’t need to check it as often. In fact I can’t usually stay on it for more than 5 minutes before getting bored.

YOU NEED US. DON’T YOU? PRETTY PLEASE? “So how are we going to stay in touch?” you may ask. “What about the people who need to get in touch with you?” (as if anyone is still reading this in the present day).

Honestly? If you want me you know where to find me. If you have my digits then call or text a brother. You can always email me, too.

I use Facebook Messenger regularly, despite knowing every word and image I put there is used to sell beer and cheap shit. My intention is to focus more on my personal site and blog at www.charlesrterhune.com and www.changterhune.com. There I’ll be posting regularly in an effort to hone and maintain my internet presence as much as I can (for we are all still at the mercy of the behemoth that is Google). It’s also a case of having the time to post as I’m working on several project at a time. My website will post to social media as long as those sites are active.

Honestly, if I feel this good weeks after cutting the cord I’m sure it will feel a-frigging-mazing in a couple months or even a year’s time!

So I’ll see you around these parts I hope.

Or maybe even IRL here in meatspace!

- CHARLIE/CHANG/CHIZZLE/CRT

#outrage fatigue #social media #facebook sucks #twitter sucks

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astridspokemonfic · 5 years

Text

Episode 3: The Rocens City Ribbon!

Narrator: The day of the Rocens City Contest has finally arrived! After some setbacks, Astrid is ready to take her first ribbon! A fierce, new rival has set her competitive spirits high.

“Vulpix! Use Ember!”

With a cry, the fire-type released a barrage of small flames, directly hitting Chikorita’s Razor Leaf, with nothing but charred remains.

“Alright! So we’ve gotten accuracy down! We’ll still need to come up with a winning combination for the Performance Stage though…” Astrid mumbled. “Maybe something simple for now, until we can find a way to be flashier. Okay, let’s try…”

Janine and the twins watched her from afar.

“She’s trying really hard to come up with good combinations.” Kayla observed. Vulpix let out a huge fire spin while Chikorita comically struggled to keep away from the flames. The Fire-Type stopped immediately and both trainer and Pokemon panicked when her leaf caught fire. They began to frantically try to blow it out, coincidentally making it worse. Kayla watched with concern. “Do you think she’ll get past the first stage?”

“She’ll win.” Janine said easily. Kaytlyn nodded.

“It’s Astrid. She’s been planning for this day all her life! She’ll be fine.”

“Kaytlyn, she had one day to practice. That’s not enough time!” Kayla argued back.

“No, it’s not.” Astrid agreed, suddenly standing next to the trio. Kayla jumped in surprise. Vulpix and Chikorita sat behind her, both eating poffins. “But at the very least, it’ll be the best learning experience of my life.” she chuckled. She moved to reach for her bag which Kaytlyn passed to her.

“When we get to Rocens city, I need to go straight to the Contest Hall and get my Contest Pass.” Astrid said, absentmindedly petting her Vulpix.

“You need a Contest Pass to compete?” Kayla asked.

“Every person who wants to compete has to get a Contest Pass…” She gasped suddenly. “You guys should totally compete!” Astrid hopped up, her eyes practically shining.

“Astrid. We only have one Pokemon each…”Janine reminded her. This did nothing to sway the other girl.

“Next time then! When it’s a Singles contest!”

“I guess if we have time…” she muttered.

“It’s a promise then! I’ll hold you to that!”

“Don’t we need Ball Capsules and Capsule Seals to compete?” Janine asked. The twins breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nah, they give those to you with the Contest Pass. So no excuses!”

“Wait, what’re Capsules and Seals for?” Kayla asked. The Rowlet on her head tilted its head a full 90 degrees in joint confusion.

“Don’t they add special effects to Pokeballs when you release the Pokemon inside?” Kaytlyn asked, throwing out a vague definition. Astrid nodded.

“They’re kinda important! Along with costumes.” Astrid added.

“Ah! We don’t have any costumes-”

“That’s the easiest part of Contests.” The girl deadpanned. “Stop trying to get out of it!”

The group laughed nervously.

~*~*~*~*~

“Here’s your contest pass! Along with the two ball capsules, a Seal case, and the rule book! Make sure to read it carefully!” The Reception Lady presented Astrid the items on a tray with a smile. Astrid carefully placed them in her bag.

“Of course! Thank you.” Astrid bowed slightly to the older lady and ran back to her friends waiting in the lobby of the Contest Hall. “So I finally have my Contest Pass… and I have everything I need to compete. Honestly, all that’s left to do is get changed…”

“What’s wrong? Something’s up with you.” Janine said. “Suspicious.”

“I guess I’m a little nervous…” Astrid said, looking down at her feet.

“Dude, you have like 4 hours until the Contest starts. Let’s go look around.” Kayla said, glancing at her phone clock. Kaytlyn nodded in agreement.

“It might calm you down.” She added. Astrid nodded and walked along with them with a troubled look on her face.

She only looked up when she felt Janine elbow her.“Isn’t that the group from Prof. Laurel’s lab?” she pointed at a group of three teens who were sitting on a bench on the side of the sidewalk. Astrid squinted and recognized the taller girl with a Popplio in her arms. She nodded and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Hey, guys! Adrian! Sheyla! Andrea!” The coordinator shouted out, causing the other trainers to look around in bewilderment until Adrian’s eyes landed on them and he waved back, calling the group over.

“How have you guys been?” Janine asked, somewhat relieved to see familiar faces.

“We’ve been fine! We’re just sightseeing the city for now!” Andrea said happily. “We were planning on going to the art museum later today, would you like to come?”

“Ah, actually I’m competing in the contest in a few hours,” Astrid said sheepishly. “You guys are free to come and watch if you want.”

“That sounds way more fun than a boring museum!” Adrian exclaimed.

“Hey!”

“It’s true, Andrea! They’re all dead! I don’t care!” He turned to Astrid. “We would love to watch your contest later.”

“We can go to the museum tomorrow, chill.” Sheyla placated the other girl. She seems to have warmed up to them. Janine thought.

“Wait, did your group double since the last time we saw you?” Andrea asked. Astrid beamed and nudged the twins forward. Kaytlyn tensed considerably while Kayla seemed bored.

“We met them in Gemlock Forest. A funny story actually.” She giggled lightly and prompted Kaytlyn to introduce herself.

“I’m Kaytlyn. I'm a Pokemon trainer.”

“I’m Kayla, and I’m comedic relief.” She deadpanned. Janine whacked her shoulder in annoyance.

“A mood.” Adrian replied. While the others introduced themselves, Astrid pulled a Pokeball off her belt and stared at it for a moment before putting it back. She slung her arms around Kayla and Janine’s shoulders and began to lean on them.

“Alright, so who wants ice cream?”

~*~*~*~*~

Astrid sighed in the waiting room, trying to push her nerves down. Both her Pokemon were safe inside their balls, already with seals. Astrid stared hard at the viewing screen on the wall as the announcer began her opening.

“Hello, everybody, and welcome to Rocens City! I’m Miriam, and I will be your Master of Ceremonies for this evening! Tonight we have…”

The faint echo of Miriam’s voice reverberated below the stage, down to the coordinators waiting to be called up. Astrid began to play with the hem of her yellow dress.

One by one, each trainer left the room and returned, some looking victorious, while others… didn’t. Astrid stole a peek at Pearl who waltzed past her and to the stairs leading up to the stage with a smirk. Unable to resist the urge, Astrid watched the monitor as Pearl practically danced onto the stage.

“Stunfisk, Quagsire! Go!” The ground types were released from their Pokeballs as Ribbons of light swirled around them.

“Oh, so that’s what Seals do!” Kayla exclaimed in the audience. To her right, Kaytlyn gave her a tired look while Janine let out a laugh she disguised as a cough. To her left were the three other trainers that they had barely met that day. She squinted a little harder at the stage and gave off a whine.

“Eugh! What Pokemon are those? They’re so ugly!” She whispered to Janine. The trainer looked for a moment before turning.

“Stunfisk? I mean, it looks like a pancake so-”

“It looks like a peanut and a pear fused with bird… And the blue one is even worse!” She pointed at the aforementioned Quagsire with such revulsion that Janine had to laugh.

“It doesn’t look that bad!” Janine said, trying to placate her. Kayla let out another gurgled hum before Pearl finally began to get her Pokemon to perform.

“Quagsire, Mud Bomb!” The Pokemon swiped its arm, creating a ball of mud and throwing it up into the air. “Stunfisk! Use, Hidden Power!” The flat Electric-type threw orbs of power at the mud bomb, causing it to blow up in sparkles.

“What a stunning use of Hidden Power! The audience is loving this!” Miriam said.

“Let’s keep it going! Quagsire, use Water Gun! And Stunfisk use Discharge!” Pearl crossed her arms in an ‘X’ fashion over her chest.

“Wait, won’t that move hurt Quagsire? Discharge attacks everything in the immediate area! And Quagsire’s a Water-type…” Andrea furrowed her brow in confusion. Adrian shook his head.

“Quagsire is a dual type: Water and Ground. And as you know... Electric-type moves won’t affect Ground-type Pokemon.” he explained. Stunfisk’s Discharge hit Quagsire who remained oblivious. The Quagsire used Water Gun, directing the electricity charged water upwards in a fountain.

“Wow! A dazzling display of electricity from Stunfisk! Quagsire’s water fountain is simply breathtaking!”

Pearl took a bow along with her Quagsire. Her Stunfisk just sorta flopped around.

“That’s going to be a tough act to follow. That fountain really appealed to the audience.” Janine said, glancing around at other spectators. A few more coordinators, performed on stage until it was Astrid’s turn.

“Vulpix, Chikorita! Spotlight!” Astrid threw her Pokeballs in the air, releasing both her Pokemon in a sea of stars.

“Chikorita! Let’s start off with Poison Powder!” Chikorita twirled her leaf around, expelling a purple powder into the air in a tornado fashion.

“Vulpix, use Attract!” Vulpix winked, summoning hearts that got caught in the tornado. “Ember!” The Ember dispelled the poison tornado, leaving sparkly purple hearts floating around.

“Vulpix and Chikorita have created a beautiful display of hearts, now floating around the stadium!” Miriam said in slight awe.

“Chikorita, use Vine Whip!” Astrid made eye contact with the Chikorita at her side and winked, signaling something to her Pokemon. The Grass-type got a determined look on her face and reached out with her vines.

“What is she doing? If Chikorita touches those hearts-” Adrian began. Janine shushed him.

“Watch.”

Chikorita wrapped her vines around Vulpix’s middle and flung him high into the air.

“Vulpix use Ember!” Vulpix stopped mid-somersault and blew Embers out at the hearts from the Attract earlier.

“Razor Leaf, Chikorita!” Chikorita sent dozens of sharp leaves up at the hearts above. The combined attack destroyed all the hearts, causing pink sparkles to rain down on the audience below. Chikorita effortlessly caught the falling Vulpix with her vines, depositing him softly onto the ground.

“Wow! Chikorita and Vulpix’s performances seem to have impressed the judges!” The announcer said, looking to the judges who were all smiles. “And that concludes the Performance Stage of the Competition! We’ll return with the results before intermission!”

“Do you think Astrid passed?” Kaytlyn murmured. Kayla considered for a moment, then nodded. Janine watched the judges apprehensively, choosing not to reply.

“And the results are in! These 8 Coordinators have made it past this stage and will be moving on to the second part of the Contest!” Miriam announced. She turned to the screen behind her.

For one tense moment, the screen didn’t move, then 8 faces flashed onto the screen at once. Astrid’s eyes immediately zeroed in on her own smiling face staring back at her like a reflection.

“We will be back after Intermission for the Battle Stage, where these trainers will battle head to head for the Rocens City Ribbon!”

Astrid let out a happy whoop and pulled both Chikorita and Vulpix close, giving them a tight hug.

“Alright let’s win our first ribbon!” She said with determination. Both Pokemon gave a cheer in response.

~*~*~*~*~

“Alright, Ladies and Gentlemen! You’ve waited patiently! Now it’s time for our first battle! To my right I have Judy! And to my left…”

Astrid zoned out for a bit in the waiting room and glanced around. There were only six other coordinators in the room, the others had already left after hearing the results of the Performance Stage.

“Hm. So you can fool everyone into thinking you’re good after all.” Astrid turned to find Pearl standing next to her. “You probably won’t make it to the final battle, but kudos to you for trying.” Astrid resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Next to her, Vulpix bristled.

“Kudos to you for wearing one of the only colors that clashes with your hair.” She retorted, walking away, leaving Pearl sputtering as she gripped her gaudy lime-green dress. Her Pokemon followed in suit, walking away with their heads held high.

The teen sat closer to the stairs, waiting not-so-patiently for her turn. Finally, the previous coordinators returned, the male looking victorious while the other girl rushed off towards the restrooms. Astrid felt a twinge of sympathy for the other teen. Astrid recalled her Pokemon and took a deep breath before running up the stairs to the stage.

Astrid’s opponent this round was a male teen around her age. He wore a dark cape along with an outfit that instantly reminded her of the outfits Princes wore in fairy tales.

“To my right, I have Astrid! And to my left, Darius! Alright, Coordinators! Five Minutes on the clock! Begin!”

“Chikorita, Vulpix! Spotlight!” Astrid released them with a flourish, both Pokemon bursting from swirling ribbons.

“Come on out, Surskit, Munna!” The opposing trainer called as his Pokemon burst forth in a splash of color.

“Munna, use Round! Surskit, use Bubblebeam!” Surskit shot out dozens of bubbles while Munna let out a ringing sound that boosted the power of Surskit’s move.

“I don’t think so! Chikorita! Use Razor Leaf to burst those bubbles!” Darius’ points sunk down at Chikorita’s counterattack. “Alright! Vulpix, use Ember!”

The other trainers’ Surskit moved to intercept, but Vulpix leapt over it and hit Munna square on its head.

“Astrid’s really going at it,” Andrea said, watching as Chikorita unleashed a wave of leaves on the opposing Surskit.

“That Type difference is going to be difficult for Surskit. Chikorita’s Grass-Type moves could decimate any water type.” Adrian murmured. Janine nodded in agreement but kept her eyes glued to the points on the screen above the battleground. The opposing coordinator’s points were steadily going down to slivers while Astrid’s only had a sizeable dent in comparison.

“Munna use Zen Headbutt!” Astrid glanced up at her opponent who seemed to be sweating with desperation. Astrid sent a silent apology his way.

“Dodge it!” Both of her Pokemon jumped away from the rushing Munna in a V pattern. “Vulpix! Use Ember!”

“No! Surskit use Quick Attack on Vulpix!” The Surskit let out a small cry and went rushing to Astrid’s Vulpix.

“Chikorita, use Vine Whip to intercept!” Chikorita’s vines stretched across the battleground and managed to grab onto one of Surskit’s thin legs. “Toss ‘em!” Chikorita flung Surskit across the field and back to the block where its trainer was standing. Meanwhile, Munna took a direct hit from the Ember.

“Oh no, Surskit, Munna!” Both of the Pokemon were lying down with swirls already forming in their eyes.

“Surskit and Munna are unable to battle! The winner of Block B is… Astrid!” Miriam announced. Astrid stood there panting slightly. She smiled lightly at the crowd before running back to the stairs, her Pokemon following her. The coordinator sighed in relief in the waiting room, pausing when she saw the Coordinator from earlier. She gave him one of her brightest smiles and offered him a handshake.

“Darius, right? That was a good battle.” Darius eyed her hand warily before shaking it hesitantly. Astrid beamed and filed him away in her mind as a potential friend. “My name is Astrid. That combination with Round and Bubblebeam was really cool!”

Darius gave her a surprised look. “Really? But you cut through it so easily...” Astrid shrugged.

“That was just the type difference between our moves. They cancelled out!” Astrid explained. “Your combinations were really amazing!” Before Darius could reply, Miriam’s voice echoed again.

“And the winner is… Pearl!” Astrid flinched and looked up to the Screen in the room where Pearl had already won her battle. Her eyes widened in shock.

“T-That was only a couple minutes…” Astrid stuttered. The teen next to her glanced up and paled considerably.

“I’m actually glad I got you instead of her. That was just… brutal. She demolished me in the Mistdrive contest.” Darius muttered. He eyed Pearl’s smiling face warily. “The combo of Surskit and Floette was no match for her…” Darius murmured again, clearly disheartened. Astrid shook her head stubbornly.

“But she’s not unbeatable. I’ll show you that when I’m holding that ribbon.”

Darius absorbed her words with a spark of determination in his eye.

As if on cue, Pearl strutted in, clearly proud of her accomplishment.

“Next time,” He said “I’ll be the one you’re competing against.”

“That’s a promise then!” Astrid said in a sing-song manner. She shot a glance at Pearl who was preening in a mirror.

“You better demolish Pearl in the finals or I won’t forgive you for beating me.” Darius said, his competitive spirit reignited. He gave her a smile before departing to the changing rooms. Clearly if Astrid was ever going to get this ribbon, then Pearl would be the one to beat.

~*~*~*~*~

“I’m back and I have food!” Adrian said, scooting past the twins and seating himself between Janine and Andrea. He passed popcorn to each of them.

“You missed Astrid’s second battle.” Sheyla deadpanned.

“Did she win?” He asked.

“Yes-”

“Then I didn’t miss anything at all.” He gave a self-satisfied smile.”Besides, from what I heard, this is the battle I shouldn’t miss.” Janine nodded.

“Apparently, Pearl challenged Astrid’s integrity as a coordinator, so she really pushed through just to get to this battle!” The trainer said, remembering her desperate hunt for Vulpix and Astrid’s determination in training them both.

“It all comes down to this! The Rocens City Ribbon will go to the winner of this battle! In Block A, Astrid! And in Block B, Pearl!” The crowd cheered loudly. “Let’s get this started! Trainers! There are five minutes on the clock! Battle, begin!”

“Chikorita, Vulpix! It’s showtime!” Chikorita and Vulpix both gave Pearl a fierce glare and Pearl merely raised an eyebrow.

“Quagsire, and Stunky! Show ‘em how it’s done!” Quagsire was the furthest thing from intimidating, but Stunky glared right back.

“Stunky, use Fury Swipes!” Stunky charged at Chikorita.

“Chikorita, Vine Whip!” Chikorita whipped Stunky away, causing the skunk to retreat.

“What Pokemon is that?” Janine asked out loud, pulling out her Pokedex. Kayla shuddered at the Quagsire once again.

“Stunky, the skunk Pokemon. It protects itself by spraying a noxious fluid from its rear. The stench lingers for 24 hours.” The Pokedex recited perfectly.

“Oh,” Janine paused, thinking about the description. “Ew.”

“Ew! Stunky’s even worse than Quagsire!” Kayla whined, making a face. Kaytlyn patted her back without any real sympathy as they watched the battle continue. Astrid and Pearl seemed to be taking turns, both of their points steadily going down until they were both at about half.

“Quagsire! Water Gun! Stunky use Acid Spray!”

“Vulpix, Ember! Chikorita, Razor Leaf!”

Janine watched with bated breath as Astrid countered another one of Pearl’s attacks, causing Pearl’s points to go down by quite a bit. The coordinator growled.

“I’m done playing around! Stunky, Smokescreen!” Without pause, the Stunky jumped back and released dark smoke all over the battleground. “Quagsire, Mud Bomb!” The Quagsire threw the bomb into the fray, dispelling the smoke and hitting both Chikorita and Vulpix. Chikorita shook it off easily, but Vulpix seemed to have more difficulty. Astrid’s points went down to just below half.

“A Ground-type move like that is super effective against Vulpix.” Janine said, causing Kayla’s eyes to widen in understanding.

“Doesn’t that make Quagsire super dangerous to Vulpix?” she asked. Kaytlyn nodded stiffly.

“Don’t let up! Quagsire, use Water Gun, Stunky, use Feint!” Astrid gasped.

“Chikorita use Razor Leaf on Quagsire! Vulpix get out of the way!” Chikorita’s move hit Quagsire square in the chest, but she got the full force of Stunky’s feint. “Chikorita!” Pearl’s points went down a bit, while Astrid’s points were now down to around one-third of their original amount.

“Quagsire, use Rain Dance!” Quagsire began to shift its arms about in a strange way, causing rain to pour down in the Stadium. Vulpix’s ears flattened to his head.

“What does Rain Dance even do?” Kayla asked. Janine had a tense look on her face as she answered.

“Rain Dance lowers the power of Fire Type moves by half.”

Pearl had a triumphant look on her face. “It’s all over for you now!”

Astrid grit her teeth. Vulpix wasn’t being hurt by the rain, but he clearly felt weakened. Chikorita was still recovering from Stunky’s Feint. Astrid ran her head through her options when it suddenly clicked.

“No! It’s not over yet! Vulpix, use Fire Spin!” Vulpix unleashed a beautiful tornado of fire around Quagsire, the tornado sustaining itself around the Ground-Type.

“What are you doing?! Fire-Type moves are weakened in rain!” Pearl yelled. From the audience, Adrian and Sheyla gave each other confused looks.

“That doesn’t change the fact that Quagsire is trapped in that Fire Spin!”

“Quagsire, use Ice Beam!” Quagsire attempted to shoot and Ice Beam but was unable to shoot one through the flames.

“Chikorita use Poison Powder!” Chikorita’s powder joined the Fire Spin, making the tornado sparkle. The powder wafted inward as Quagsire began to suffer from the effects of the poison.

“Stunky! Use Fury Swipes!” Pearl yelled. Stunky began to take a running start towards Vulpix.

“Nuh-uh. Vulpix! Attract!” Astrid stood with bated breath as Vulpix’ hearts hit Stunky dead on target. To her absolute relief, Stunky began to stumble around, clearly infatuated with Vulpix. Pearl gaped as her points were neck and neck with Astrid’s.

“A male Vulpix?!” She yelled. The rainclouds faded away.

“Vulpix! Use Ember on Stunky, Chikorita, get ready!” Stunky was knocked back into Quagsire, forcibly pushing them through the Fire Spin. Pearl’s points began to diminish.

“Rrrgh, Quagsire! Use Ice Beam on Chikorita!”

“Vulpix, intercept!” Vulpix jumped in front of Chikorita and opened its mouth. Astrid had expected Vulpix to release an onslaught of flame on the Ice Beam. Instead, Vulpix’ eyes began to glow yellow and a rainbow-colored beam of light was released from his mouth, overpowering the Ice Beam and getting through to Quagsire. Astrid struggled to form words.

“Was that…” She stammered.

“...A new move?!” Kayla exclaimed in the stands. Kaytlyn swiped Janine’s Pokedex out of her hand and had it analyze Astrid’s Vulpix. She narrowed her eyes and began to read it out loud.

“Known moves: Fire Spin, Attract, Ember, and… Extrasensory.”

Astrid’s eyes began to shine as Vulpix glanced back at her with a determined look. Chikorita cheered next to her. Astrid glanced up at the clock. 20 seconds left.

“Chikorita! Use Razor Leaf! Vulpix, use Extrasensory!” Chikorita’s Razor Leaf headed straight for Quagsire. “Quagsire, Ice Beam to intercept!” Quagsire shot an Ice Beam to deflect Chikorita’s move, but the leaves boosted with Vulpix’s Extrasensory cut straight through the Ice Beam and subsequently hit Quagsire. Pearl’s points went down.

“Vulpix, use Ember on Stunky!” Vulpix let out a cry and shot the Ember, resulting in a mini-explosion as Stunky was knocked back and into Quagsire.

“Quagsire, Stunky, get up!”

“Chikorita, Vine Whip!”

Both trainers stopped suddenly, pausing to looks up at the screen. Astrid’s points were just barely larger than Pearl’s. The screen changed to feature Astrid’s face along with Chikorita and Vulpix. Champion shined in bright gold.

“Ladies and Gentlemen what a turnaround! The Rocens City Ribbon goes to Astrid!” The crowd cheered loudly.

“We did it?” The coordinator was tackled by both her Chikorita and Vulpix. “We won! We won our first Contest!” She could very faintly hear her friends yelling in the stands.

~*~*~*~*~

“It is with Great Honor, that we present you the Rocens City Ribbon. We look forward to your future performances.” The Contest Director said, presenting the ribbon to Astrid on a tray. Astrid accepted it and bowed gratefully. Soon enough the people onstage began to disperse and the coordinator left to the changing rooms, ribbon in hand. She entered the waiting room below only to find Pearl waiting for her, no longer wearing her gaudy green dress, which she had switched out for the red one she had been wearing the day previous.

“So you aren’t that bad of a coordinator after all.” She said haughtily, refusing to look her in the eyes. Astrid resisted the urge to shove the ribbon in her face and instead offered out her other hand. Pearl glanced at it before turning around, completely snubbing the other coordinator. She stopped suddenly.

“Today was a fluke,” she announced. “Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

Astrid watched her stride off with an exasperated look on her face.

“She’s absolutely insufferable.” a voice said from behind her. Astrid spun around to face Darius, no longer in his costume, and instead was wearing a dark red hoodie.

“You stayed!” Astrid said joyfully, “Oh yeah!” Astrid showed him her open palm, revealing a light purple ribbon. “I told you she wasn’t unbeatable. No one is.”

Darius laughed and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. He suddenly got a determined look on his face. “Well, that means neither are you. So next time, I’ll beat you and Pearl!”

“I look forward to it.” Astrid smiled.

“Congratulations on your first ribbon, by the way.” Darius offered her a good-natured handshake, which Astrid accepted.

~*~*~*~*~

“You did it!” Andrea yelled and gave Astrid a tight hug. Kaytlyn and Sheyla followed in suit while the others offered their own congratulations.

“My first ribbon! I’ll be Top Coordinator in no time!” Astrid laughed.

“Vulpix learning a new move in the middle of a battle? That was insane!”

“Actually, I think Vulpix knew that move or at least was learning that move before he met us,” Astrid said looking to her Vulpix. He was sniffing around Andrea’s Popplio, while Popplio was clapping their flippers together in excitement. “It just kicked in when we were onstage I’m guessing.”

“Alright! So tonight, let’s rest up at the Pokemon Center! Tomorrow we go to the Art Museum!” Andrea cheered. Janine shook her head.

“Tomorrow we head out to Mistdrive city. I’m going to try and fight the gym there and get my first Gym Badge.” Janine said. “So is Kaytlyn.” The twin shrugged non-committedly.

“So I guess we part ways-again,” Adrian said quietly. “Janine, after you get your first badge, we should battle!” Janine nodded and gave him a hi-five.

“I promise.”

Narrator: With her new ribbon, Astrid is one step closer to her dreams of being Top Coordinator. Now, it’s on to Mistdrive city, where the Mistdrive Gym awaits!

“Huh? That’s weird.” Kayla stopped in front of a billboard as they were leaving the city. Kaytlyn hummed in confusion and backtracked to where her sister was standing.

“What do you mean?” Astrid asked. Kayla furrowed her brow.

“You know how Kaytlyn and I had already visited this city?” Kayla reminded them. Astrid nodded.

“That was one of the reasons why we travelled with you in the first place.” Janine chuckled.

“Yeah well, that was only two days ago, right Kaytlyn?” Kaytlyn thought back a bit.

“Maybe two or three.” She admitted. Kayla gulped and stepped away from the billboard with a dark look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

“The number of “Missing Person” posters has tripled since then.” Astrid and Janine shared a look. Kaytlyn scanned the board for a moment before pulling Kayla away by her shoulder.

“You’re imagining things.” Kaytlyn said offering her sister a smile. Kayla gave her an unsure look and glanced back at the posters before following her friends.

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