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x0401x · 3 years

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Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #17

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Play of Color

Shaved ice.

A summer that everyone, from kids to adults, knew about. But how to say this in English? I’d never been taught that. Could I even say it to begin with?

The beautiful man responded clearly to my offhand doubts, “‘Shaved ice’. Other options such as ‘ice frost’ and ‘snow cone’ also go into the category, but if you are to to regard the context of ‘ice that was shaved’ as important, then I believe ‘shaved ice’ is appropriate.”

“I see, so it’s a direct translation for ‘ice that’s been shaved’. Got it... A-Aaah! Didn’t you put too much syrup? Ah—”

“I will add more ice.”

A rattling sound echoed through the jewelry shop, where there was nobody but the shopkeeper and his employee. Sitting on the tabletop was an ice shaving machine. As one would expect, we couldn’t commit the barbarianism of placing it directly on a glass table, so three cloths were stacked under the machine’s legs. It wasn’t the manual and nostalgic type but an electric one.

A customer had come over with a paper bag from a famous home appliances mass retailer and bought a glittering yellow diamond that they had reserved, but on this occasion, they ended up forgetting the bag from the electronics retail store. The shopkeeper immediately noticed it and contacted them by phone, but they were in the Narita Express, going straight to Bali for vacation. Apparently, they would only be coming back in the beginning of autumn. What luxury.

The customer who was heading to the southern island had casually said, “You can use it if you’d like—actually, please use it and tell me how it went”, then bid goodbye to Richard with a lighthearted voice and hung up. Inside the paper bag was a brand-new ice shaving machine. It also came with small syrup bags. Seven types of them. The mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones were a shock to me, as lived in a world of strawberry, melon and lemon ones. So people could enjoy even things like the pleasure of actually visiting stalls at home nowadays?

That was how we decided to choose at our own discretion a time on the following day when there were no reservations, and began holding a shaved ice party for just the two of us. However, when I said in a joking tone that I honestly never thought we’d really get to be the first ones to use something that a customer had forgotten, Mr. Richard Ranashinghe de Vulpian sighed grievously.

“After what happened yesterday, he contacted me to inform that he had arrived in Bali. He posted on social media, ‘I forgot my ice shaving machine, so I asked an acquaintance to try it out. I’m looking forward to it’, so it seems we need to take a video of the shaved ice as fast as possible. Think of this as also a kind of service.”

“There’s all sorts of jobs out there these days.”

Marketing that introduced new products on social media wasn’t something uncommon these days. But I heard that this sort of business was strict about many things, such as obligations and deadlines, so it might be serious stuff in its own way. I thought up until this point, but then my head whispered, “No, hold on” to me. If this was really the case, then bringing along an ice shaving machine immediately before going to Bali didn’t make any sense. Could it be...?

“Did that person leave this here on purpose? It’s clearly something that you can’t bring into an airplane and would get in the way during the trip.”

“That is possible. But it is not something for a single jeweler to judge. There is a possibility that they thought they would be able to enjoy shaved ice at a beach resort but were mistaken, and are now feeling down. Oh... oh, mgh...”

“Ah, the ice turned into water. Didn’t you put a tad too much syrup?”

“Nonsense. From the market price, it is obvious that the more syrup, the merrier.”

“You told that wholesaler who came to buy a ring with lots of decorative diamonds the other day that ‘more doesn’t equal better’, though.”

“Those are two different things,” he said in an eloquent, beautiful Japanese that sounded like it had been cut and trimmed, at which I prostrated myself with a “hahaa”.

Despite the force in his eyes being certain, he seemed to be having trouble putting an appropriate amount of syrup. When he put an abundant amount of the mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones all together, the ski slope-like white canvas turned into a color that looked like that of Shinjuku’s gutters during a downpour. Richard would surely call this shade of gray “smoky quartz” or something like that. The fluffy pile of ice was gone, leaving a sleet – or just plain water – in the glass bowl. It would’ve been fine if he had added them little by little, but on second thought, I was thinking this way because I was Japanese, so I was used to the way we added shaved ice syrup to some extent.

As the jeweler, not discouraged, put his bowl under the ice shaving machine, pressed the button and added more ice with crunchy noises, I called out to him, “Hey. Can you lend me that for a bit?”

“I do not mind.”

I took the bowl of water in my hands, adding the syrups of each type little by little. I felt like the jeweler was staring fixedly at me, like, “You’ll only use that tiny little bit of them? Seriously?” but I ignored him. As they said, the last drop makes the cup run over.

The result was...

“Tadaaah.”

A snowy mountain had changed its form into a richly colored shaved ice. I thought it was pretty good, if I could say so myself.

His eyelashes fluttering as he blinked for a moment, the gorgeous jeweler whispered, “Hoo. Excellent. Beautiful.”

“Well, being told that by someone who’s like an incarnation of the concept of beauty is flattering.”

“Ahem. Anyway, this color is extremely tasteful. It bears a close remembrance to ammolite.”

“‘Ammo... nite’?”

“Not ‘ni’, ‘li’. ‘Ammolite’. Ammolite is a gemstone that derivates from living creatures, of which the components obtain an iridescent effect during the many years of fossilization.” Saying this, Richard opened a video on his phone and handed it over to me. I exchanged it for the bowl of shaved ice as if it were an assembly-line system.

What appeared on-screen was a cross-section view of the ammonite. It was split vertically like a CT image taken at a hospital. The contents were a rainbow-colored stone that sparkled brightly. A gradation of red, green and yellow. It changed depending on what angle you looked at it. A while ago, when I heard about the opal, it was revealed to me that this kind of effect was called “play of color”. Still, to think that the inside of a shell could go through such a transition. There was too much depth to the things that happened in nature, and they were immeasurable.

“So can this be called... a stone too...?”

“This would be something that happened about forty years ago, but it was classified as a ‘gemstone’ by the Gemological Society of America. Of course, I do not think it should be pushed through, even if the costumer themselves happen to say that ‘this is a fossil’.”

It apparently depended on how you thought of it. Thinking back, this applied even to the general idea of gemstones.

I flicked the phone’s screen, head-over-heels for the prism-like shells that showed up one after another. Some people used them as pendants or brooches by processing the glittering part with gold.

“How pretty. Hey, do we also have ammolites here in Etrang... eh?”

“There is a possibility that we will one day. Something the matter?”

The beautiful jeweler had been scooping the shaved ice with a tiny spoon and eating it. He wasn’t eating it in a rushed way at all, but half of the iceberg was already gone. With perfect moderation, so that the proportion of the colors of the syrups that I had added one by one wouldn’t crumble.

“D-Did you like it that much?”

“I have never eaten shaved ice at Japanese stalls. Having a frozen desert in a refreshing place like this has a nostalgic air to it.”

He had never waged shaved ice at a stall. Did that mean he had eaten shaved ice at some fashionable shop? Probably not, I thought. A normal Japanese person wouldn’t eat shaved ice at that pace. The reason went without saying. This pace was – how should I put it? – dangerous.

“Richard, hey, listen well. Shaved ice is—”

“Why are you coming close?”

“I’m telling you something important. You have to eat shaved ice at a high pace.”

“But why are you shortening the distance between us? You are too close.”

“Don’t get hung up on minor stuff. More importantly, you already ate a lot of this shaved ice, right? Aren’t you tired of it? I can eat the rest.”

“It is terribly disconcerting to hear this from the father of this work of art, but I do not see any reason for that whatsoever, thus I humbly decline.”

“Aah! Don’t gulp it down! I said don’t gulp it down!”

“I am not. I do not eat that way.”

“Like I said, that’s not what I’m talking about...”

“It is impolite for me to eat by myself. Hurry and make yours to eat as well.”

“Whatever happens got nothing to do with me...”

Glancing backwards at the jeweler as he gave me an aloof nod, I began making my own shaved ice.

Later on, after Richard pleased the customer by sending them pictures of the shaved ice, he reported back to me. He probably reported because the pictures he had sent to the customer was of the shaved ice that I had made for myself, on which the colors were scattered in the form of a whirlwind. I smiled back, replying that I was glad, and not saying anything else. I also didn’t tell him that, by the time he remembered we had to do a photo shoot of it, the beautiful jeweler was making a face that looked like a boy having a worrisome migraine due to some anguish towards the meaning of life and death.

Summer was not yet over. We also didn’t know yet whether or not the customer in Bali would come to retrieve the ice shaving machine. Etranger wasn’t that big, so Richard was probably troubled that it was left there. But if they didn’t come to get it, I might be able to enjoy eating shaved ice with Richard in the summer every year for a while, I thought. And each of these times, I’d be sure to make a shiny mountain of ice in the colors of a rainbow, just like an ammolite. Just like the sparkly smile that Richard showed, I thought that it’d be great if such a summer came around and was looking forward to it.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinghe de vulpian #richard ranashinha de vulpian #jr short story collection #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation #richard

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fishmongeringstudies · 3 years

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eighteen ways to forgive yourself and one reason to try

anyone who had the happy misfortune of speaking to me in the last three months has probably, at some point, been treated to my now-established signature monologue about how my skin is clear, my crops are thriving, and the body living in my closet finally rotted away and was picked apart and carried off by ants. many facets of my life in the spring contributed to this impression. i was eating edible things. i was actively meeting people. i was waking up at the crackass of dawn (a/n: seven a.m.) and going for morning runs and drinking strawberry smoothies which cost even more than the disappointingly expensive boost smoothies of my early childhood. most of these things are, i understand, normal. i am under the impression that the average human being often meets other human beings at places with food and spends significant lengths of time conversing with them. but i am not like the other girls. i am not a girl. i am your coffee machine.

the problem with those freaky little before-and-after narratives that started as a trend on instagram and have since been adopted into the way we narrate our lives as a whole is that for the narrative to work, the before and after have to be really, really far away from each other. in order to create this distance, influencers have historically attacked the earth with shovels, construction vehicles, and shaving razors. but apart from the cost of renting a supersized claw machine and subsequently hiring someone to sit in it, one must also ask the question: why are you digging to begin with?

all of which is to say that i'm bored. i'm bored of being a freaky little human being. i no longer care if i go for weeks at a time without talking to anyone, and i fully intend to go for weeks at a time without talking to anyone because priorities shift, and last thursday (arbitrary) a bunch of mine tripped off the edge of the table and fell into the gutter and died. luckily we have a new gutter now and new earth around it, new flowers, new trees. terraforming in animal crossing is a privilege one unlocks after you trick k.k. slider into visiting your island. i have yet to unlock that achievement. for the time being, i am terraforming my soul.

what are this summer's priorities? priority one: not die from heatstroke (hard). priority two: write (less hard). you see this? there are no humans in this floor layout. i am trying to become god.

and that's what was wrong with spring. i thought spring was a step in the right direction, a step into the great unknown of self-care and personal improvement and half-an-hour-long white yoga mom meditation videos with ad breaks every three minutes. but it wasn't any of those things. i just got up one day and started walking in the other direction. around the same stupid houseplant. i have spent my whole life walking around this stupid houseplant.

metaphor: you spend your whole life walking around a houseplant. sometimes you see different parts of it and you think: wow, these are some cool leaves. other times you see wall and wall and wall and you think: wow, this is a wall. what i am trying to say is that life is both the cool leaves and the wall. life is many other things, too, like electric chainsaws and the niagara falls and half-baked cinnamon rolls which make you question the sanctity of life and specifically yours. life is not one photograph taken in front of marina bay sands in which your ass looks delicious and your skin is especially pink. life is falling out of the frame while trying to make your elbow look sexier than it's ever been before and tumbling down the stairs. life is breaking your leg.

in my happy spring monologue i told everyone i was miserable before i got to america, but things had changed and i was better now and would never live like that ever again. i was wrong. i didn't get better and i haven't gotten worse since spring left. i haven't gone anywhere. i'm still here with my fucked-up spine and my fucked-up sense of humor. a recent discovery: sometimes i want to spend every waking hour of my life in the presence of other people and happiness is the small conversations you have while waiting in line in the dining hall and every breath taken in the presence of another is a gift. other times i want to hole myself up in my room and hammer away at a google document until my fingernails fall off for ten weeks. sometimes i am lonely. other times i want to be alone.

before and after. yes and no. lies! social media is full of lies! i know this because i use social media. believe me. trust nothing you read on the internet.

today i wrote some, listened to podcasts some, and spent an ungodly amount of time on one of the same four puzzles i've been putting together and taking apart all summer. i didn't have a particularly enlightening conversation with anyone. fuck, i barely spoke to anyone at all. when i got bored of my puzzle i watched people wade through the sticky wet afternoon from my third-floor window. later on in the evening, two people met each other on the path leading up to my dorm. one of them took out their airpods and slipped them into their pocket, then held up their hand and waved. 'hi,' he probably said. his friend waved back. they paused for half a second to talk, two figures painted gold by a saccharine yellow sun, then gently parted ways.

life is beautiful. but life is beautiful no matter how you choose to live it. there is no way to optimize the human experience because humans have too many bones to keep track of. i am convinced some of mine go missing in the night and return at the crack of dawn (a/n: seven a.m.) before i wake, slipping into my open, snoring mouth and settling themselves back in their sockets. i am convinced that i have done nothing wrong.

spring was nice. i might have made something flower. i might have mowed one or two bodies down with a lawnmower. but this isn't singapore, this is america, and when you live in america, absurd as it may seem, the seasons actually change. spring died; i watched it happen. i was standing there when it took its last breath and the last of my people-loving peace vanished down the drain with it. spring died, and now making plans makes me anxious again. i'm inclined to horrible bouts of groundless negativity and being outside for longer than two hours at a time makes my head hurt. but i haven't taken any steps backwards, and i haven't fallen off a cliff. spring happened; i was there. i haven't lost the triumphs of spontaneity and fearlessness and joy and the long conversations had with people i no longer speak to. after all, i'm still walking around the same stupid houseplant in the same stupid apartment where the blinds in the kitchen are broken and the floorboards on the left side of the hallway creak and the houseplant in front of the speaker is dead but we all pretend it isn't anyway. it doesn't matter if you're standing in the storage room or on the living room balcony, watching people crawl like ants across the street below. it's still the same damn apartment. you're still the same damn clown. and you're killing it, babe, you're the star of the show.

06.07.21

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angryhausfrau-writes · 3 years

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I Travel Troubled Oceans: Chapter 15 - Meditations Two! Electric Boogaloo

There's something to be said for having a home to come back to at the end of the day. Especially when Charles is coming home battered and bloody and with his blood singing in his veins, “You're still alive, motherfucker. You're still alive.”

Because against all odds, he is still alive. And it's starting to feel like he's going to stay that way for a while. Like he isn't just dancing on a knife's edge where a single misstep gets him dead. And the steps more and more complex everyday, til he's jigging for his life to the devil's tune, too caught up in the steps to ever stop cuz if he stops he's dead. And he ain't quite ready to end it all – not just yet, not without a good reason.

So he'd smoked up – from a bong, from a crack pipe – and tried to forget for just a little while that he is where he is (the boneyard) and that he's living how he's living. Just a tiny misstep from dying.

And it's fine. He's got a crew, to help catch and steady him, just as he's there to catch and steady them. Make sure there's at least a little margin of error in the dance. Make sure there's a guy rope tying them together. Keeping them all balanced on that blade – or all falling together.

But the thing about living that way is that it ain't really living. Charles had never known anything else but this, so it feels like a life. But all it is is being dead and not realizing it yet.

Or maybe he had realized, just a little. Been able to catch tiny glimpses of another way of living through the cracked and dirty glass separating him from the living. Able to see out into the real world, with its real people. People who were safe and clean and happy and free.

And Charles had hated them.

Hated them for having what he could never have. Hated them for living when he was just dying slow. Hated them for being free – for having the ability to make choices about what kind of life they lived when he can't choose, not even between living and dying, not really.

And Charles got bitter. Spiteful. Angry. He'd fought back the only way he could. Telling himself that they were weak. That he was strong.

Look at how coddled they are. How loved. He'd never needed any of that shit to survive. He'd toughened up, and they could stand to do the same, the fucking pansies.

So it had become a kind of mantra. Rules to live by, in a world where he's half dead already.

Loving things makes you weak. Loving things makes you vulnerable. And out on the streets, vulnerable means dead. Better to love nothing and be free than to chain yourself to worthless comforts. Better to love nothing than to chain yourself to vulnerabilities.

So Charles had loved nothing. Not even his crew. His crew who'd feared and respected him as he'd respected and occasionally feared them. But there's no place for love – not there on the streets and not with the kind of people he'd invited into his crew – into himself. Strong people. Fierce people. Fighters.

And then Charles had fallen in love with Eleanor Guthry. Or he'd though the had, anyway. Eleanor might not actually be capable of that emotion. And even if she is, she certainly wasn't in love with Charles, making the whole relationship just a touch one-sided. And that was before she got him sent away for that two-stretch. The bitch.

Because that's the thing about Eleanor, the thing that had originally attracted Charles to her. She's a monumental bitch. Ruthless and callous and cold. Just like him.

Equals.

And she'd played the part of fellow gang boss well. Acting tough. Acting like she could understand the life of someone like him. Like she could care about street trash like him.

But it had all been a not-particularly-well-constructed facade.

She'd only put up with Charles for what he could get her – money and thrills and respect from the street. As soon as his usefulness was gone, he'd been disposable.

And Eleanor herself. Well...

She was no gang boss. She was not strong, not in the ways that mattered on the streets and not in the ways Charles has learned are strong in the world of elitist fucks he lives in now. No. Eleanor had been coddled. She'd been safe and spoiled and pampered by everyone she'd ever come in contact with. Completely divorced from the consequences of her actions – at least until Max had taken a go at her.

Max who's another lover scorned and tossed aside when Eleanor grew bored. Which means the justice is just fucking poetic really. And Charles is so fucking glad he'd gotten to be part of Max's revenge. Gotten to see Eleanor toppled from her marble pedestal. Gotten to be the one to send her crashing down to shatter on the streets with all the other gutter trash.

But he's also glad he got to be part of Max's revenge cuz it means he's part of the con she's running now. The con that involves a fancy house and fancy clothes. And safety – real safety.

When he'd gone away for that two-stretch, Charles had chafed under the pointless rules, the petty tyranny of the guards. The lack of humanity – from the guards and from the other prisoners.

But he'd had three hots and a cot and nobody'd fucked with him, not even the most sadistic guards, not after he'd threatened – and committed – enough violence to make his point. His point that he was the toughest motherfucker around and they'd better take that into account going forward.

And, since he didn't know any better – hadn't ever experienced anything else – he'd thought that was safety. He'd thought that was freedom from fear. And it had just confirmed his belief that you couldn't have safety without giving up the freedoms that made life – even a half-life on the streets – worth living.

And then he'd gotten out, gotten back to the streets. Back to Jack running the crew and Max planning the cons. Just in time for the rug to be pulled out from under him – for him to get shoved into the kind of life he'd always derided, always sneered at. The life of soft, safe, spoiled fucks with no drive in them to ever achieve anything. So used to the gilded cage that they'd never walk out, even if the door was left open for them.

He'd chafed at the idea at first. Remnants of his mantra echoing in his head. Love nothing. Care for nothing. Cuz then it can't be taken away. Only then are you free.

Plus, he'd been pissed as hell at Jack for manipulating him into this shit. Cuz he knew – he knew – Charles'd fight it tooth and nail if he'd approached it honestly, democratically. But Jack's always been a slippery fucker. Charles can't honestly say he'd expected any different from him – though Anne's easy acquiescence to the plan had surprised him, Jack's machinations or no.

But Charles is man enough to admit when he's been beaten. So he'd gone along with the plan. Dolled himself up in designer togs. Submitted to Mary's ridiculous social media campaign. Insinuated himself into a circle of shallow, self-obsessed, backstabbing aristocrats. And all for a plan he hadn't really believed in.

But Jack's the captain of their little crew. His word is law. So now Charles is living like one of those rich fuckers. And as it turns out, the half-life he'd been living out on the streets wasn't even close to the real thing. Jail just a pale imitation of what safety could mean.

Cuz it turns out that when you're rich, you can have the food and clothes and safety. But you also have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want. The freedom to live.

That's the big fucking secret. The thing they don't want you to know, cuz you'd burn the whole fucking city down if you knew about the caviar at breakfast eaten off of an ivory spoon. About the champagne filling the Jacuzzi of a penthouse hotel suite with enough gilt to make the Church green with envy. About the blood and spend and filth on your hands – just what it takes to get you that multi-million dollar view, that corner office.

When you're that kind of rich, you can do whatever the fuck you want. No rules, no laws affect you. The little people – the normal people - don't matter at all. They're worth about as much consideration as a bug on the sidewalk – noticed, reviled, and then immediately forgotten.

Charles and Max and Anne and Jack, they're all rich enough they can live like that. No regard for anyone's rules but their own. No concern for anyone but themselves. Content to live cut off from all consequences, surrounded by splendor. Never having to face the grit and the grime of the streets again if they don't want to.

But that's the thing. It ain't about having fancy cars or fancy clothes or a fancy house.

Sure, it's fun to ride around in a limo. Fun to wear ridiculous outfits that cost more than most people make in a fortnight, hideous and tacky and camp, because you can afford to. Fun to live in a mansion with more rooms than they know what to do with.

But that's not the thing that makes him free. That's not the thing that makes this living.

It's the smaller things. The quieter things.

Things like having a place to return to at the end of a long day. A place to rest. A place where he can rest, without worrying someone'll try for him. Without having to put up a facade of power, of ruthlessness.

Charles had mocked Flint for his domesticity once. For his desire for the finer things – well, finer for them, anyway.

But there is something comforting in having a favorite mug in the cabinet of your kitchen. Of having tea to drink out of it, breakfast to eat along side it. To have people around you who you can dare to care about because you're not just clinging to survival – you're living.

People you can do things like sitting out in the garden with, having a tea party like some kind of posh fucker. And people you can trust to patch you up after a night at the underground boxing ring, instead of licking your wounds all alone in the dark.

Because Charles has never felt stronger than the morning he stood in the bathroom with Jack wiping the blood away from his face with a posh hand towel. Berating him for coming home in this state. Begrudging in his ministrations. But his hands were gentle. And worry lurked behind his eyes.

And Charles had realized that Jack cares for him. Anne cares for him. His crew care for him. Care rather than fear.

And Charles cares for them in turn. Can care for them. And that is safety. That is strength that can never be taken away.

Even if they were to lose everything tomorrow, all the money and the house and the whole con going up in fucking smoke, that can't be taken away. Charles knows now what it is to be strong. Strong in a way that even the rich fuckers who they're conning can never be. He knows what it means to be free.

Because the rich aren't free.

They might look free. They might act free. But they've chained themselves inside a new kind of prison, one they made for themselves. Because the thing holding them back, the thing keeping them weak, keeping them civilized, is shame.

The idle gossip of their neighbors. The scandal that can ruin them as easily as it had ruined Eleanor and Woodes Rogers. The fear of offending the wrong other rich fuck and ending up “penniless” and on the streets – or, shudder, a lower-middle-class neighborhood.

That fear, that shame, is what keeps the rich from being free.

But Charles has been penniless on the streets, and he survived. Charles has been low and nearly dead and he'd lived. He isn't tied to the money and the disgusting excess and the whole fucking pretend pageantry of nobility.

And the thing about Charles - about Jack and Anne and Max and Mary - is that they don't really feel shame.

#black sails #i travel troubled oceans #chapter 15

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bittysvalentines · 4 years

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la dolce far niente

To: @insertatitlehere

From: @wrathofthestag

For @insertatitlehere who wanted some family drama, pets, some introspective Jack, or social media. How about all of them? :) I hope you like it. From @wrathofthestag

Fic Summary: With Bitty out of town for a few days, can Jack learn to unwind and enjoy the sweetness of doing nothing?

Rating: General Audience.

It had come as a surprise. Just as Jack and Bitty had settled in for an evening of Netflix and Chinese takeout to enjoy the last sleepy summer days before Jack’s preseason the call came in.

“He did what?” Bitty sat upright on the couch, practically knocking over the bowl of pepper steak on his lap. “Oh no!”

Jack looked at Bitty, who in turn, stroked Jack’s arm and shook his head, as their husky, Netty, nervously paced around the room.

“Coach broke his leg, he’s okay,” Bitty quickly whispered then returned to the call at hand. “What did the doctor say?”

Bitty spoke to Suzanne, throwing out an occasional, “uh-huh,” and finally hung up with a big whooshing exhale.

“What happened, Bits? Is Coach okay?”

“That darn man! He insisted on cleaning the gutters himself—even after mama warned him not to—and he slipped as he was coming down the ladder. Bam! Broken fibula!”

And just like that, Bitty was off to Madison the next day to help Suzanne out and act as referee between her and his Aunt Marlene.

The night of Bitty’s departure, Jack sat in bed catching up on long-ignored emails. He waited for Bitty to text him, letting him know he arrived safely.

He saw an email from Ruben, the Falcs head of social media, and groaned. The subject was read Social Media Update. He’d been on Jack for a while to get his Instagram going and much to Jack’s chagrin, George agreed.

Ruben had called Jack into his office, a while back, and Jack already knew what was coming.

"George said photography’s your hobby,” Ruben said matter-of-factly. “So let's set you up with an Instagram."

"Bitty already did, I just haven't done anything with it," Jack said as he fidgeted with the Falcs paperweight on Ruben’s desk.

"Jack, the only thing worse than no social media is bad social media," Ruben sighed.

"You sound just like Bitty, " Jack said as he shrugged helplessly.

"Yeah, well, there’s a reason I like that boy." Ruben smiled. "Now let's get some content in there.”

Since that meeting, Jack uploaded exactly zero images. That was three weeks ago. He now took to ducking into empty rooms whenever he’d see Ruben walking his direction.

+++

Jack's alarm had gone off twenty minutes ago but he remembered the conversation he had with Bitty before he left...

“Why don’t you finally do all those little things you’ve been wanting to do, but never have time?”

“Little things?”

“Yeah, you know. Treat yourself."

Bitty leaned in and kissed Jack. A big lush kiss.

"You know how you’re always saying you want to sleep in more, try some new recipes, read a book on the balcony—those things. Do it. Do a little nothing."

Jack smiled thinking of the possibilities, and so he opted to stay in bed. He stretched lazily and watched the sunlight waft in. The light made curious shapes on the bedroom ceiling.

He turned to look at Bitty's side of the bed. Even though Jack had the entire bed to himself, he stayed on his side the entire night. He reached over and took Bitty's pillow and pressed it to his face. It no longer smelled of him, but Jack hugged it to his chest.

Just then Netty walked in, the look on her face clearly demanded breakfast. She gingerly strolled over and placed her chin on the empty side and looked up at Jack through lowered lashes.

"I know, girl. I miss him too."

Netty’s tail wagged.

Bitty was never really a pet person, and it had taken a whole month for him to really warm up to Netty, but when Jack went a long roadie, Netty stuck to Bitty’s side. By the time Jack returned, Bitty now called her Punkin, Cookie, Biscuit, and about a million other baking-related nicknames.

“Jack, she’s just so sweet—and has your eyes. Don’t you, my little praline?” Bitty had said as he scratched Netty’s chin.

Jack put the pillow down and sat up. Netty perked up.

"All right, let's get you some food and we'll go out for a run. Let me just see if I got any messages from Bits."

Jack reached for his phone and checked it. He already had a message waiting for him.

Bitty: Morning, handsome! Text me when you're up. Say hi to my little cupcake.

Jack: Netty said your pillow is VERY soft. We might have to make room for her every night.

Bitty: Jack Laurent, please tell me you did not let her sleep in our bed.

Jack: Maybe?

Bitty: Jack!

Jack: Haha. Just kidding. I might, though. The bed's too big without you.

Bitty: <3333

Jack smiled. He got out of bed and turned back to look at it. He was struck with the urge to take a photo of it, and then on a whim opened up Instagram. Scrolling through the filters, Jack felt overwhelmed by all the choices so he skipped that part and typed his caption.

The bed feels too big this morning.

He smiled and pressed "share."

"Shit. Was I supposed to do hash things?"

Netty looked up at him and Jack frowned. He edited the post and tagged Bitty.

"There."

Jack walked into the bathroom and saw his toothbrush sitting solitary. He felt an instant pang of longing as he missed having Bitty's toothbrush next to his. A toothbrush. Jack felt so silly. The chirping would have been endless if the guys—Samwell and Falcs alike—could see him now.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror and blushed. Jack decided in that instance that rather than feeling sorry for himself (Bitty had only been gone one day and Jack needed to pull himself together, tabarnak) he would document his day to show Bitty what he was doing. Also, he could finally get his Instagram going and get Ruben off his back, but mainly it was for Bitty… and a little teeny bit for Jack.

The caption read: Good oral hygiene is the cornerstone to any healthy smile. Which comes in handy when you have someone who makes you smile. @omgcheckplease

After he brushed his teeth, Jack walked to the kitchen and poured some kibble into Netty's bowl and she eagerly dug. Jack took out the coffee grounds from the cupboard and was about to get the pot going when he stopped and remembered the Chemex Nursey had gotten him for his birthday.

He had used it a few times, but mainly he’d stick to the coffee machine because Bitty would be so antsy for his morning cup. This time, however, Jack knew he could be a bit slower. He'd drink that “hipster bullshit”—Shitty's words, not Jack's—and really savor his morning cup.

He ground the beans and set the kettle to boil. He folded a coffee filter into a conical shape and wet it. After he had placed it on top of the Chemex, he put the grounds into the filter. Once the water was ready, Jack slowly poured it over the grounds and watched it drip, drip, drip away.

Jack's thoughts suddenly took him to his childhood. Every morning when maman was home, he'd make her coffee. He hadn't thought about it in years, but he would get up early (anxious insomnia kept slept at bay often for young Jack) and make her some coffee in the old silver Italian percolator that always sat on the stove.

"Jacky, you made me coffee!" Alicia would say every single time, sounding just as surprised and genuine as the time before.

He remembered how he watched her carefully a few times and then memorized all the steps so that one day, he would be able to do it on his own. And he did! Jack felt less alone somehow, brewing coffee for his mother as the rest of the world slept.

A great cup of coffee this morning, thanks to @derekmaliknurse’s birthday gift. @omgcheckplease should I pour you a cup? #chemex

Netty pressed her nose to Jack's calf.

"Hey, girl. As soon as I'm done with my coffee, I promise we’ll go."

Just then, his phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Do my eyes fucking deceive me?"

"Hey, Shits."

"Don't 'Hey, Shits,' me."

"What do you mean?"

Jack could already hear the teasing mirth in Shitty's voice.

"Well, I'm sitting here in Haus 2.0, chowing on some cereal, having my morning caw-fee, scrolling through my ‘Gram when lo and behold, not one but two—two motherfucking super soft JLZ posts appear on my feed."

Jack grinned. "Oh?"

"I just about spat out my Oops Berries, brah."

"The front office asked me to step up my online presence, that's all."

"That's all? Lemme talk to Bitty."

"He's in Madison."

"Madison? Why?"

"Coach broke his leg and he's out there helping Suzanne."

Shitty was quiet, almost too quiet.

"Shits?" Jack asked, eyebrow quirked.

Shitty guffawed. "Jack, I love you but let's call a spade a spade."

"What do you mean?" He asked feeling transparent.

"Brah, you're not doing that for the front office. You're sending Bitty a visual love letter through Instagram. You’re wooing him with images, and I gotta tell you, I fucking dig it."

Jack grinned. "I don't know what you mean."

Shitty snorted. "Right. Yeah. Okay. Listen, who am I to stand in the way of your courtly lovin' ways? Personally, I dig it. You go with your sweet displays of man-on-man affection--"

"I'm hanging up now, " Jack laughed.

"All I'm saying is prepare to be either chirped within an inch of your life or fawned all over online."

"Bye, Shitty."

"Bye, you Ansel Adams mofo. You better dedicate a post to meeeee!"

Jack laughed. He shook his head as he picked up his mug and walked out to the balcony.

Taking a small sip, Jack relished the robust aroma of the coffee which had hints of chocolate and pepper. He hummed happily. The silky lush coffee slipped down this throat deliciously while he sat and watched the morning sky finish making her appearance.

+++

During Netty's walk (Jack chose to opt out of a run that morning), they stopped at the corner bakery he and Bitty like so much. The morning rush hour crowd had long died down. He got in line and watched as an employee brought out a tray of chocolate croissants, fragrant and fresh.

"Hey, Jack," Kamal, the owner, said as Jack reached the register.

"Hey."

"No Eric today?"

"No. He's visiting his parents for a few days. It’s just me and Netty."

They both turned toward the window and saw her patiently sitting by the lamppost.

"Cool. So, one low-fat bran muffin?" Kamal asked as he began to ring up the order.

Jack looked at the croissants.

"No, I'll have two chocolate croissants and a peanut butter dog biscuit."

"All right, all right.” Kamal smiled. “Treat yourself, man."

Jack smiled. "Yeah, something like that."

Jack untied Netty and they made their way to the dog park down the street. He sat on a bench as he watched her run to and fro, while he ate his pain au chocolat.

+++

“It is little wonder that for Jack the Ripper, the ‘Liston Knife’ was the weapon of choice during his killing spree in 1888.”

Jack closed his copy of The Butchering Art, as he finished reading the chapter to Netty, who seemed quite enthralled while she rested at the foot of the couch where he lounged. She then gave out a loud yawn.

“I was going to order some food, but how about I make us something instead?” Jack said to Netty.

Jack put down his book and polished off the last dregs of his tea as Netty lazily wagged her tail a few times. Jack quickly took Netty’s picture and posted it. The caption read: She’s practically a baked good now and has no clue. Right, @omgcheckplease? #husky

He sat up and stretched as he made his way to the kitchen. Jack scratched at his belly and opened the fridge. There was some deli meat, a couple tamales Bitty got from the local carniceria, half a cheesecake, packages of fresh meat, and various odds and ends. Jack knew there were some chicken tenders in the freezer, but he wanted something else… something different.

Jack: Debating what I should have for dinner.

Bitty: I’m surprised you’re not ordering from Star of Siam.

Jack: I was going to but changed my mind.

Bitty: What are you in the mood for?

Jack: Not sure. Something good.

Bitty: Aw! I wish I was there so I could feed you.

Jack: What would you do?

Bitty: Hmm… after giving you a bunch of kisses, maybe some spaghetti and meatballs? Put some meat on your bones. You’re wasting away, Mr. Zimmermann.

Jack: Haha. That does sound good, actually.

Bitty: You know MooMaw’s recipe box? The one on top of the fridge?

Jack: The yellow box?

Bitty: Yep! Pull her spaghetti and meatball recipe and make that.

Jack walked over to the fridge and opened the small metal box. He found recipe after recipe handwritten on index cards, some yellowed with age, some written in Bitty’s neat script.

Spaghetti and Meatballs - Made with Love by Irene

Jack read the recipe: ground beef, onion, eggs, milk, garlic, crushed tomatoes, parmesan cheese. Reading it alone made his stomach growl. He opened the fridge again and saw he had most of the ingredients on hand. He opened the cupboard and found the rest.

Jack: I’m making MooMaw’s spaghetti and meatballs. And I love you for having all the ingredients in the house.

Bitty: Be sure to send me a picture of how it turned out.

Jack: Have you been online at all today?

Bitty: No, I haven’t. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I’ve been running errands for Mama all over town. I’m getting ready to make a chicken casserole and then finally sit for a bit. Why?

Jack: No reason.

Bitty: Skype tonight?

Jack: 9?

Bitty: See you then, handsome. xoxo

Jack smiled as he gathered all the ingredients on the counter.

“Alexio, play Wilco by Wilco on Spotify.”

The smart speaker began to play as the music floated through the kitchen. Jack rarely listened to music in the house. He preferred to let Bitty play whatever he wanted and instead saved his tunes for the car.

“You and your old man music,” Bitty would sweetly chirp whenever they were in Jack’s car.

Bitty would lean over and raise the volume for Jack and begin singing to whatever song was playing—even if he didn’t know the words. Bitty would make them up as he went along. Each one smiling as the wind would blow through their hair. Bitty’s smile like sunshine while Jack would gently stroke his leg as they drove down the Providence streets.

“Alexio, call Papa.”

Jack began cutting onions for the sauce, referring back to MooMaw’s recipe, as his phone rang through the speaker.

“Allô?”

“Hey, Papa.”

“Jack, what a surprise. I wasn’t expecting your call until Sunday.”

“I know, but I wanted to call you now.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I’m just making some dinner. Bitty is visiting his parents for a few days, and I just wanted to see how you and Maman were.”

«Missing your boy, are you?»

Jack smiled, even as his eyes stung from the onion. «Yeah, but I’m also missing you and Maman.»

«What are you making?»

«Spaghetti and meatballs. I’m using Bitty’s grandmother’s recipe.»

«Do you remember that summer, you must have been about four or so, and the only thing you wanted to eat was spaghetti.»

Jack paused. He placed the tip of the knife down onto the butcher block. «I don’t remember that.»

Bob laughed. «Really? I’m surprised. You were very adamant about it. Your poor mother was so upset that you wouldn’t eat anything else.»

Jack laughed. «Crisse, I think I do remember! Did she make it for breakfast?»

Jack recalled sitting at their kitchen table in Pittsburgh (He always liked that house because the backyard was enormous, they got a dog. Wayne, the golden retriever) and swinging his legs back and forth as Maman placed a bowl of pasta in front of him. The tang of the sauce, the gooey cheese being pulled from his lips. It all came back to him.

«How is Maman?» Jack asked warmly.

«She’s out with Louisa and Marie—they’re at a wine tasting or something. Who can keep track?» Bob said. Jack could hear the mirth in his voice.

«Well, I just wanted to say a quick hi, and I better get back to this otherwise I’ll never finish.»

«Sounds good, son. Send me a photo.»

«Will do. Talk to you on Sunday.»

«Love you, Jack.»

«Love you, too, Papa.»

Jack began to sing along to Wilco once again and he tossed the onion into the ground beef...

Jack sprinkled some parsley on the top of his dish and smiled.

“Not bad, eh, Netty?”

She looked up at him expectantly, hoping for a bite. He scratched the back of Netty’s ears, then scooped a little pasta and a couple of meatballs into her dog bowl.

He took out his phone and opened up Instagram again.

Homemade spaghetti and meatballs based on @omgcheckplease’s grandmother’s recipe. I hope I made y’all proud.

Jack shared the photo and instantly closed the app.

“Come on girl, let’s eat.”

Netty followed Jack to the dining room where he put both dishes on the table. Netty jumped up onto one of the chairs. Jack smiled contently as Netty began to dig in, and he soon followed.

+++

It was almost nine and Jack began to get ready for Bitty’s phone call. He had cleared the dishes and placed them all in the dishwasher. The leftovers were in the fridge and he remembered there was half a key lime cheesecake in the fridge. Jack took it out, cut a big slice and poured himself a glass of milk.

Jack took a photo of cheesecake and shared it on Instagram. The caption read: A day of doing sweet nothing ends with a sweet something. Wishing @omgcheckplease was here.

He stood at the kitchen counter and dug in; each bite delicious and sweet, reminding him of Bitty in every possible way.

He took another forkful of cheesecake and finally looked at his Instagram notifications. Jack did a triple take—he had so many likes and comments, he didn’t even know where to begin. So many were from strangers, too. It was a little overwhelming, so he decided to just look at comments from people he knew.

rubenalmanzoSM: Well done @jlzimmermann1

bsknightESQ: Brah! When you cooking for me? Did you ever know that you’re my hero??

derekmailknurse: I’ll get you some Stumptown beans. #chemexforlife

AliciaZimmermannProd: Look at you! On Instagram.

thelarissaduan: I told Shits I would not chirp. (Even though I really want to. Esp. with that bed pic, dude.) #softbro

omgcheckplease: I love this... and you.

Jack closed Instagram and yawned as he made his way to the bedroom. He pulled his laptop into bed and at nine opened up Skype and called Bitty.

Bitty’s face appeared, looking sleepy and tired, but smiling brightly the instant he saw Jack.

“Hey, there, handsome.”

Bitty was in his bedroom, in bed, with his back against the headboard.

“Bits,” Jack said.

He turned onto his side and rested his head on the crook of his arm. The laptop sat on the mattress next to him.

“You are the sweetest, most beautiful boy in the entire world.”

“Am I?”

“You are! I saw all of your Insta posts.”

Jack could feel himself blush.

“They weren’t too… boring?”

“No! I love them! They were lovely.”

“They were all for you,” Jack said softly.

“I know.”

Bitty reached out to touch the screen and Jack immediately did the same.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“I swear Jack, I thought I was going to have to break up some fisticuffs between Mama and Aunt Marlene.”

Jack chuckled. “That bad, eh?”

“The worst. I’m so glad I’m coming home the day after tomorrow. Poor Coach was basically like, ‘Save yourself, son!’”

“I miss your face,” Jack said simply and unguarded.

“Lord, I miss yours too. So much…”

The two looked at each other as if they had nowhere else in the world they’d rather be.

“So, how was your day? It looked pretty nice from what I saw,” Bitty said as he finally spoke.

“It was. I did a little nothing, all day.”

“And my little strudel?”

“She helped. Turns out she’s a pro at it.”

Bitty chuckled. “I love it. And how was it?”

Several years ago, Jack was in his therapist’s waiting room and was idly leafing through a copy of Psychology Today when he came across an article that made him pause. He began to read it, and at the time found it to be completely absurd. The article was about la dolce far niente, or the sweetness of doing nothing.

“Maybe you sit and read a book. Maybe you stare out the window or balcony and listen to your favorite musician,” the article read. “What can you do today to begin doing nothing?”

Jack frowned as he read, not understanding what was so great about remaining idle. It wasn’t until he began a relationship with Bitty that he truly understood what doing nothing could mean. They could do nothing while they snuggled in bed, they could do nothing while they sat on the couch as the rain poured outside as Bitty slowly ran his fingers through Jack’s hair.

Nothing with Bitty came to mean everything to Jack, and soon Jack began to appreciate doing nothing by himself. He understood that he didn’t have to be “on,” all the time. 95% was okay. La dolce far niente.

“Well?” Bitty asked again.

“It was sweet, Bits,” Jack replied with a smile. “Very sweet.”

#bittyjack #bv2020 #bitty's valentines #omgcp fandom #omg check please!

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bluesfortheredj · 5 years

Text

Modern Romance Pt. 16

Walking back into the house this time is even worse than the last and all I can see is where she’s been; the left over cake that she so neatly wrapped in foil to preserve it, the lounger that lay empty in the garden on which we’d been huddled on only a couple of hours ago, and glass that she’d sipped water from before leaving. Going upstairs was completely out of the question for me right now and I need something to distract me from sinking into a lovesick sadness.

“Ben!” I smile when he answers his phone.

“I’ll be right over mate,” he laughs, “I’ll bring the beer if you’ve got the snacks.”

“I’ve always got the snacks.”

“Great, see you in a bit.”

Ben arrives within the hour with the cans of beer as promised and we settle down on the sofa with the rest of the cake from earlier and stick on the television as some background noise.

“A month without seeing her then?” he asks before taking a bite of cake.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I sigh, looking at the slice on my plate but unable to take bite just yet.

I pick up a can instead and flick it open so I can take a long few gulps and Ben watches me with a knowing stare as he shakes his head from side to side.

“What is it about her?” he asks, “apart from the obvious.”

“The obvious being…?”

“That you two look and act like you’ve known each other forever.”

“I can just be myself around her,” I shrug, “I’m the person who asked her if she was listening to Queen at the tate modern, I’m not an actor, and I love how she makes me feel.”

Ben clutches his hand against his chest as he gives me a genuine look of happiness for me, and I give him a smile before taking another swig of beer. It was all true what I was saying, I was just this person who couldn’t resist talking to her, and if she’d gone through my acting history she sure as hell didn’t show it, but I truly believe she wanted to keep it exactly as it was.

“You’re making me want to find someone again,” Ben says, “sounds dreamy.”

“Too good to be true?” I question.

“But it’s not though, is it? Look at what’s happened this weekend!”

“Hmm,” I hum.

“You excited about travelling Australia?” Ben asks, changing to subject on purpose.

“Yeah, yeah I am. It’s going to be an experience I’ll never forget, I’m sure of it.”

“Good! Try and just go with the flow, you know?”

“I am, I really am. I’m trying not to fuck this up completely before it’s even started, but I’m certainly not looking forward to being unable to touch her for four weeks.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Not like… Keep your mind out of the gutter, man!”

“So you haven’t…?”

“No! We haven’t. Didn’t stop me from getting a hard on though, did it?”

“Did she see it?” Ben laughs.

“She fucking felt it.”

“Shit, that must have been awkward.”

“Surprisingly it wasn’t, actually.”

“Did you just ignore it?”

“Yeah, it went away eventually.”

“That’d dedication, mate. That’s love.”

“Ha! I don’t think refusing help for your boner equals love, but I know what you mean. The thing is though…”

I’m cut off by my phone ringing and I see her name on my screen when I lift it up, then Ben rolls his eyes playfully before getting up and shaking his empty can to signify getting another one. He points at me and I nod, then I slide my finger across the screen and lift the device to my ear.

“Hello you,” I smile.

“Hey. As promised, here is my ‘I got home safe’ phone call,” she says.

“Good, very good.”

“Have you, um, been up to your bedroom?”

“Not yet...”

“Ah right, okay.”

“Should I?”

“No! I mean, just wait until you need to go up there. Don’t do it because I said this. I shouldn’t have asked, I’ve ruined the surprise now,” she chuckles.

“I’ve forgotten the question already,” I laugh, “but suddenly I’m looking forward to going to bed.”

Ben comes back into the living room just as I say that sentence and gives me a disgusted look which makes me laugh, and then hit him on the leg as he passes me.

“I’ll speak to you soon, Gwilym,” she yawns, “sorry, I’m bloody exhausted!”

“Speak tomorrow,” I confirm, “hope you have a peaceful night’s sleep.”

“You too, bye!”

I find myself staring at the phone screen when I end the call, and Ben snaps me back to reality by shoving a can of beer under my nose with a smile.

“Chin up, mate!” he grins.

“Thanks for coming over, think I would have slipped into some teenage angst if you hadn’t.”

“You haven’t got time to mope, you’ve got a tour of Australia to do!”

“True,” I chuckle, “true.”

Ben stays for another couple of hours before he eventually heads home after cheering me up to a level he’s happy with, and as soon as I shut that front door, I turn on my heels and race up the stairs to my bedroom, taking a deep sigh when I see the sheets that are still creased from where we were this morning. I spot a piece of paper peeking out from underneath the pillow she used and when I retrieve it, there’s a short note on the other side. I sit down on the bed as I prepare to read her words, and my hands are shaking when I read my name at the top.

Gwilym,

I’ve never been very good at articulating how I feel, although after that story I told you yesterday you know that by now!

I laugh as I recall her words: “My family always tease me about how I’ve rarely said ‘I love you’ since 1997!”

But I just wanted to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed being in your company the past couple of days, and I would very much like to spend more time with you. You’re really something else; a rare gem that’s somehow crossed my path. Have the best time in Australia, and I hope to see you when you get back. X

I fold the note and slip it into my suitcase that stands between the wardrobe and the wall, ready to take it with me wherever I go, and I return to the bed where I lay on her side as if it would comfort me somehow, then I wonder if she’s thinking of me as much as I am of her.

It’s my first full day in Australia and I’ve never felt jet lag like this before; it’s a complete killer and I both look and feel like utter shit. I’ve had a bit of a change of look since the weekend, and (Y/N) was the first person I sent a photo to. The scruff on my face is now clean shaven and my hair is no longer a shaggy mess, so it’s quite a change but she seemed to like it, which was a huge relief as I don’t want to put her off straight away.

A lot has changed since we saw one another, and although we’re in regular contact, things have been strained the past couple of days; something’s going on and even though she insists she’s fine I know there’s something bubbling beneath the surface. There’s been an influx of people requesting to follow her on social media because someone did a bit of digging and realised both myself and Ben followed her around the same time he uploaded the photo of the three of us. Some people do not understand privacy obviously, so she’s been having to decline follow requests every day so far. I want to be there to reassure her – doing it through the phone just isn’t good enough right now. It feels as though I’m holding a piece of string between my thumb and forefinger, and it’s slowly being tugged away from me as her replies get shorter and the time between them increases.

I understand she’s busy with work and home life right now, but I can’t help that little voice inside my head telling me that she’s losing interest because of all the unwanted attention she’s getting right now. Our perfect little bubble that we’d formed at mine has well and truly popped, and reality is hitting me hard as I could, quite literally, not be further away from her. This is what I was dreading with coming over here, especially with everything being so new and wanting to keep it just so all the time; a completely impossible task, I know.

I feel like I need to do something to show I’m thinking about her, that I’m serious about this, and it’s got to be something that shows how much I want her. I know what I want to do and it’s risky, but it’s my semi-public grand gesture which is what I need right now. That photograph of her laying in my bed with the sun caressing her skin has been a real comfort the past few days, and maybe... Just maybe, if I show the few people who I allow to follow my private instagram account just how amazing this woman is, and how much I miss her, then she’ll know how committed I am.

Either that, or she’ll absolutely hate me for it.

I switch accounts on my phone, making sure it’s the correct one, then find the picture and get to caption part. I feel more at ease that you can’t see her face and it keeps some anonymity on her part, plus the sheets are covering most of her, it’s only a small portion of her thigh on show – okay, enough justifying this, just fucking do it.

Australia seems lovely, but I’m missing this view…

I hit the post button and immediately lock my phone for fear of her reaction, but then again the time difference is not on my side right now, and it’ll be hours until she sees it probably. Well it’s done now, and I don’t regret it. At least not yet anyway…

@painthatiusedto @winnielinleigh @queenslandlover-93 @excellentbecca @peachllobotomy @lovemarvelousfics @lovemelikeyou1997 @readinghorn @godohammers @timeandpixiedust @lv7867 @fuckyou-imspiderman @aynsleywalker @captainxholmes @the-baby-bookworm @leah-halliwell92 @chlobo6 @tenement-funstah @rogmeddows

#gwilym lee #gwilym lee imagine #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee fanfic #gwilym imagine

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boww-tiez · 5 years

Text

Spend Some Time

Back again! This one’s a bit different. Set in the past. Colby is like seventeen, and so are you, setting is around 2014. It’s more of a fluffy friendship fic with a bit of cute romance at the end because I’m a sap. Involves some 2019 Snapchat as well since I did not have Snap in 2014 and I don’t know any differences between then and now. Anyways, please enjoy!

Warnings: Some swearing (probably? It’s late rn)

Word Count: 2,492

I just want to spend some time alone with somebody...

You added the sentence to your Snapchat story, the background just a photo of your wall- too dark in the room to make out details, so it was just a black screen. You flopped back against your pillows with a groan. It was late, twelve AM at least. You didn’t think too much of the snap, you hadn’t really expected anything to come out of it. People posted things like that all the time, right?

So, you were very surprised when something hit your window after about ten minutes of playing on your cell phone. The quiet clinking noise of the object made you sit yourself up on the bed. Curiosity got the better of you, so you slowly walked towards the window- hesitant of seeing some kind of threat waiting outside the window like in all the stupid horror movies your friends made you watch.

You didn’t know what you’d expected to find outside your window at twelve AM, but it certainly wasn’t your neighbor. Colby stood close to your house, staring up at your window with a grin.

“What are you doing?” You laughed after opening your window.

“I’m getting your attention,” Colby explained. He fidgeted with a small pebble between his fingers before lifting his hand and throwing it at your window effortlessly. The little rock clinked perfectly against the glass, missing you entirely before dropping to the grass.

“Hey, quit it. My mom will be pissed if you crack the glass,” you laughed once more. You were shocked, quite honestly. You didn’t know what was happening, or why it was.

You and Colby were friends, of course- you were neighbors who were both seventeen and the two of you had lived side by side for as long as you can remember. But, the two of you hadn’t been close since the start of high school. Colby had met Sam and the two were practically inseparable- and the Vine thing took up a lot of his time. The two of you simply went different directions.

“What are you doing here?” You asked finally. Colby was stood waiting, eyes searching the ground for another pebble.

“We should go out,” Colby said, eyes shining in the dark as he glanced at you.

“Now?” you questioned, confusion in your voice.

“I just want to spend some time alone with you,” Colby grinned. It took you a second, but you couldn’t help but shake your head and laugh at yourself as you linked his words back to your Snapchat story.

“Colby, my mom would never let me leave,” you raised an eye brow at him, leaning forwards to rest your elbow on the window sill, and your cheek against your palm.

“And you think my mom would?” Colby snorted a laugh, launching another pebble at you. You caught the small stone, setting it on the sill as you smiled at the boy on the ground. “Come on, Y/N. Live a little. Sneak out. Come hang out with meee...”

After a moment’s thought, you swung a leg out the window and carefully crawled down the side of your house. You relied on the gutter pipe, as you shimmied down the two-story house. Colby helped you safely to the ground by a gentle hold on your hips when you were in arm’s reach.

You quietly adjusted your clothing, pulling your sweatshirt down, and attempting to wipe off the dirt from some moss that had been on the pipe off your pants. You looked towards Colby, who slowly lifted his finger to his lips and he held his hand out for you to take.

When your hand landed in his, he tightened his grip and pulled you quickly from your yard. Colby opened to the passenger’s side door of one of the cars in his driveway, and gestured for you to get in. You slipped into the seat, pulling your door shut as Colby rounded to the driver’s side. The two of you remained silent as Colby started the car- both wincing as the vehicle hummed to life.

“So, what are we doing?” You questioned, once Colby had turned off your guy’s street.

“You know, I’m kind of hungry,” Colby tilted his head, eyes drifting off the road to glance at you before shifting back, “how about some Don’s?”

“I’m always up for some McDonalds,” you grinned.

It was still pretty unbelievable. Colby was literally going out of his way, sneaking out of his house- all because of a Snapchat story? The two of you barely talked face-to-face, both busy with your own lives.

“I’m buying, since I forced you to sneak out,” Colby told you, as he pulled into the drive thru lane. You went to argue, but the McDonalds employee interrupted you. Colby took that as a win as he flashed a victorious grin your way.

“Hmm, twenty nuggets-” Colby continued to list off your guy’s order. You were kind of surprised that he still remembered what you like from McDonalds- the last time you’d gone together probably would’ve been eighth grade. He got every detail right, down to the kind of fountain drink you liked. Colby paid, flashing you a grin as he swiped his debit card.

The two of you waited, filling the car with laughter and friendly banter as your food was being made. You were both in light, happy moods when finally, a paper bag was passed through the windows and two medium fountain drinks followed shortly after.

“Where do you want to eat?” Colby questioned. You shrugged, maneuvering the bags so they were in between your feet, safe from falling over and spilling everywhere.

You watched quietly as Colby lifted one of the drinks, taking a sip, before handing it to you.

“I wish they’d say which was which- that's your drink,” Colby laughed. You laughed as well, taking a drink and humming at the taste of your favorite soda. You swapped the two drinks so Colby’s was now in the cup holder closer to him, and yours in the cup holder nearest to you.

The two of you settled into a comfortable silence. It was nice to just be in the company of your oldest friend, listening to the hum the car engine and watching each streetlight pass by- the relaxing pattern of on and off light and dark.

“Think we should eat here?” Colby asked when he parked the car. You’d barely noticed you’d stopped, having zoned out in the peaceful atmosphere.

You glanced around your surroundings quickly, a small smile curling on your lips at the nostalgia of the parking lot.

“I haven’t been here in years,” you told him. The playground looked much older than you remembered- weathered down by the climate of Kansas.

“The last time I came here, was... well, it was with you, I think,” Colby informed, a cheeky smile on his face, “you good staying here? We can go somewhere else if you’d like?”

“Let’s eat here. Then I’m sure I can still beat you at a race to the slide.” You grinned, reaching down to pick up the bags.

“Okay now, we both know one of us always won those races, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you.” Colby smirked, taking a fry from the bag and popping it in his mouth.

“Oh, you are so on, Brock. I’ll beat your slow ass just like I always used too.”

“We’ll see about that!”

----

“Okay, Okay- you win! I surrender,” Colby gasped, huffing out a deep breath.

You laughed, hopping onto the top of the play structure and leaning over the edge to mock him. The place was abandoned, neglected over the years. It definitely wasn’t as popular as it used to be, but the late hour ensured that the two of you would be alone.

“Aw, Colbs, was I too fast for you?” You teased in a baby voice.

“Yeah,” he whined with a playful pout. You giggled, sitting down and sliding down the slide that had been a lot more thrilling a few years back.

“That was anticlimactic,” you mumbled, looking up at Colby who was stood in front of the slide.

“Y/N, you’re the same length as the slide now,” Colby laughed. These slides were meant for toddlers. He reached forwards to help you up, and you dusted off your ass after letting go of his hands.

“You know what never changes?” You grinned, rocking on your feet in excitement.

“No, what?”

“The swings! Come, come! I’ll beat you again Colby!” You took off without waiting for Colby to reply. You beat him again, of course. You seated yourself on the flexible plastic seat, kicking yourself off to just barely swing yourself back and forth as Colby finally arrived at the swing set.

“Colbs, you should push me! Remember when you did that when we were little? Your mom always thought it was adorable.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Colby groaned, but you could hear the smile in his voice. You felt Colby’s hands grasp the chains of the swing on either side of you, and then he was pushing you forwards. You couldn’t help but smile- you had missed swinging, and you had missed Colby... a lot more then you thought you had.

You felt tingles run up your spine as his hands settled against the small of your back for those few seconds it took for him to push you forwards again. He repeated that a few more times until he was happy with your height before seating himself next to you and attempting to catch up to you.

“You know, I haven’t just chilled like this in forever,” you told Colby, turning to look at him, only to see him already looking at you.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. High school has been hectic. And Sam and I are crazy busy with Vine and everything,” Colby explained, lifting his hand from the chain of his swing to push his fair out of his face.

“How is that Vine thing?” You questioned. You had seen some of them- or, well, all of them. But you didn’t really understand the app.

“It’s actually really good. Sam and I are gaining followers like crazy- and my Twitter is starting to take off as well.” Colby beamed. He looked so happy talking about his social medias, and his smile made you happy.

“That’s great to hear,” you smiled. You were happy that he was happy, but also sad that his apps were taking him away from you- and Sam was too, but every guy needs a guy best friend. You really couldn’t fault Sam for taking up Colby’s time.

The two of you sat on the swings for a while. Swinging at the same time. Changing so you were passing each other in the middle as you went opposite directions. Attempting to link hands and swing left and right instead of back and forth. And just having a good time overall until you both started getting tired of kicking your legs out.

“We should head back soon,” you yawned; feet brushing against the ground, slowly stopping yourself.

“I had one more thing I wanted to do, but we can do that here too,” Colby informed, standing up from his swing. He once again held his hand out, sending you a small tired smile. You took his hand and he pulled you up off the swing as well. He led you to the car, but gestured to the hood, instead of the door.

“Let’s watch the stars,” he whispered, voice low as he pulled himself onto the hood- patting the spot beside him before leaning back to his back was flat against the windshield.

You copied him, resting up against the windshield as well, but letting you head fall to his shoulder instead of the hard glass. Your sides touched and the cool metal of the car cooled your body.

“I love watching the stars out here, they’re always so bright and beautiful.” Your eyes trailed the night sky, searching for any constellations, but coming up empty. You shifted your gaze to look at Colby, who was looking up.

It felt different being around him now. He was different. He was more... grown up? You had always had the slightest crush on him- and it seems that now it was starting to bloom into something more. Colby had always been your friend; he was always there for you- even now. That innocent little snapchat story- anyone else would’ve looked right past it, but Colby was here with you now- hours past curfew.

“Hey, Colbs...” you mumbled softly. The boy looked towards you, focus shifting from the sky to you, “I wanted to thank you for tonight... I was just feeling a bit down earlier. I didn’t expect anything as amazing as this to come from my Snap.”

“Y/N, I’ve actually been looking for an excuse to come over and talk for so long...” Colby admitted, looking down at his lap before glancing at you, “There’s actually something I’ve wanted to ask you for so long.”

“What is it?” you tilted your head, full attention on your friend.

“Well, heh. I’ve kind of liked you for a while now. Sam has been trying to get me to grow a pair and just ask you out- but I wanted it to be something more special than just texting you, or asking you out at your locker.” Colby confessed, his cheeks brightening to a pale pink colour. “Your snap just seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend some time with you... I’ve missed you. I don’t want to not see you all the time like we’ve been doing since high school started.”

“I missed you too, a lot actually. We used to be so close, and then we just kind of drifted. We’ve always been friends, no matter how long we go without talking and... truth be told, I’ve liked you for a bit now too...”

“Really?” Colby perked up, eyes bright and smile wide. “Do you want to be my girlfriend then?”

“I do,” you grinned. You leaned up to press a kiss to Colby’s cheek, then a little further to lightly peck his lips.

“I should get you home now, our parents will freak out if they find us gone- and it is almost three in the morning.” Colby spoke, voice low and sad. He slid himself off the hood, moving to stand in front of you.

“Maybe we can hang out tomorrow or something? Or do something with Sam?” you suggested. You had met Sam before, you had classes with him and he seemed like a nice guy, so you were open to hanging out with the duo. “Maybe you guys can even teach me Vine?”

“Anything for my girl,” Colby’s replied, grin wide as he helped you off the car with a quick peck to your cheek, “anything for you.”

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nightcoremoon · 4 years

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there's lots of tiny brained bad takes of the far left branding things as Bad™ based solely on their association to other things or certain aspects of part of their fanbase.

this isn't to discredit the shit idiot brain fungus plaguing everyone from centrists, the moderate right, the far right, and the alt right, and even some of the moderate left, where they label everything that isn't about a Cishet White Male American Capitalist Bootlicker who's stateist, ambiguously christian/atheist, neurotypical, able-bodied, has "aryan" facial attributes, is an insufferable asshole, and the like, as "SJW garbage".

but see, prejudice and judgment is bad even if it's not motivated by minority demographic. being a rude dismissive asshole is, you know, bad. maybe making fun of a furry or whatever isn't as bad as being a racist, but you're still a fucking dickhead either way. fuck both of you but fuck the racist more. I'll punch both of you but punch the racist twice (maybe a third time for good measure). do y'all understand what I'm trying to get at here with the tiers of badness? the shades of grey? the steps down the path of evil from "kind of rude" to "literally hitler"?

bigotry is not the only bad thing in the world. yeah it's one of the worst, but you can talk about other bad things without discrediting that, which I know is next to impossible for teenagers (or people who never bothered to mentally progress from such) to comprehend.

anyway what sparked this is all the fuckin joker memes. now I went into it expecting, you know, literally taxi driver 2 followed by a silly horror movie about a clown murdering people. which is what the joker of the comics is all about. if I never watched the movie and only saw, what, the killing murray scene, the stairway dancing scene, the trailers, and joaquin phoenix sitting in a padded room and laughing, that's exactly what I'd had gotten.

but like. I fucking watched it because my dad wanted to watch it with me and he fucking loves all things batman (except Ben Affleck). and wolverine but mostly batman. he's a comic nerd. so yeah I went to watch it with him.

and it was legitimately terrifying from a purely psychological perspective. it's LITERALLY the best scary movie I've ever seen without being horror in the slightest. the acting, the writing, the score, the pacing, the cinematography, it was well put together without being a moffat level overproduced mess. it was a good movie. you're allowed to not care for it or not like it but to objectively call it a bad movie is not only a logical fallacy (eye of the beholder) but it also discredits the opinion of every single person who didn't hate it and makes you come off as a pompous fucking asshole rather than having different tastes.

it's about a guy with severe mental trauma in a bad situation trying to make the best of it and care for his family and hold down a job but he gets fucked over from literally every angle and eventually he snaps and makes a mistake and kills the misogynist rich asshats on the train. oh fuck. he could have gone to the police and said self defense and go through the court system but wait, society in gotham doesn't allow for a clean system of justice when you aren't rich. so instead he proceeds to be a major creepazoid turned murdering lunatic blaming everyone else for his own bad situation instead of the whole deal where he did stupid shit like taking a gun into a fucking children's hospital and stuck his fingers inside a child's mouth and stealing shit and falling further down the rabbit hole. until finally, he says fuck it and seeks revenge. the whole bloody mess that follows is his own fault. he chose to kill people. he chose to murder for petty reasons. he made his decisions and he suffered the consequences for it. all of the festering rotten crime in the city spawned by waynecorp's supreme negligence heralded him as a hero and so begins batman's story.

arthur fleck is not a fucking hero. he is a villain through and through. his circumstances were unfortunate but he made the wrong decisions. the world fucked him over and he said okay and retaliated. joker is exactly the fucking same as breaking bad. arthur and walter white are both evil people through their own decisions. but they were once normal people. and that's the point. the scariest monsters in the world are usually the white men angry at the world for their own shortcomings. oswald. ruby. dahmer. bundy. gein. manson. klebold and harris. white. fleck. they're all the filth stuck in the gutter of society that, if left unchecked, has deadly results.

I'm not kidding at all when I say joker was an important movie for myself personally to see exactly when I saw it. because that first half, I'm not gonna lie, it got me. the therapy didn't work and then it was taken away. he didn't eat most days because he had to support his mother. the people he worked with were dickheads, the people he commuted with were dickheads, his boss was a dickhead, people treated him like garbage on the streets. he couldn't remember the trauma inflicted on him when he was a baby but it still warped every aspect of his life. he had aspirations but lacked the skills. he was sad. alone. empty. he was suicidal. he was me.

then he started killing people and using the neighbor girl as a tulpa and I realized oh no oh god oh shit OH FUCK I need to change from this. and I did.

joker is a perfect template of how not to react to the world when it kicks in your teeth. it's a perfect template of a dark movie. just enough to sympathize with the bad guy but not enough to excuse his actions. the opposite of star wars with kylo ren. a good movie. a good character. an amazing actor. a terrible person.

if you watched joker thinking you're watching the story of the protagonist, you're right, but if you conflate protagonist with the good guy, yeah you won't like the fucking movie because it'll leave a sour taste in your mouth. you'll feel slimy. disgusting. unless you're a megadouche shitlord piece of human fucking garbage who wants to cosplay arthur fleck because he's so damn cool like walter white and eric cartman and rick sanchez and bojack horseman and tyler durden and all those FUCKING HORRIBLE LOATHESOME HUMANS TO NEVER EVER TRY TO EMULATE OR YOU ARE AN UNEMPHATIC ASSHOLE AND A MORON TO BOOT.

if you hated the movie, that's fine. you're kinda supposed to hate it. and if you loved the movie, that's fine so long as you understand what the message was. but if it's one of your favorite movies of all time ever made holy shit please go to therapy jesus christ.

still the point of this post is, discrediting the movie as a steaming pile of shit is incredibly ignorant. and as for the "good movies made by white men are only liked by other white men and are therefore bad movies" thing... if y'all can thirst over eddie brock in the trainwreck of venom and admit that the standards of good movie vs bad movie are all subjective, you're a goddamn idiot if you can't apply the same logic and reason to every movie just because some white boys like edgy clowns (even tho joker is way less edgy than pennywise but go off) in abusive relationships with harlequins. oh and assflash newshole, I'm not a white man.

I swear this bandwagoning bullshit is exactly the same mentality as "hurr durr nickelback worst band ever" even though nickelback is ripe with musical talent underneath a few pop songs that they wrote for the record label as part of their career so they can make a fuckin living BECAUSE CAPITALISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL and also because of all the misogyny that bled its way into the music industry in the 2000s but that's a topic for another day. 'joker bad' and 'nickelback bad' are products of the same mental decay that social media wrought upon us all, inflicting mass mob mentality and incapacity for individualistic rational thought. which is exactly why there's a war between camp 'joker is bad' and 'joker is amazing' and nobody acknowledges the group in the middle that's like 'joker was good objectively but also terrible subjectively and content-wise'. polar. I could make a political statement and also say how the neoliberals and the fascists are at war while the people in the middle are caught in the crossfire and forced to fight like pawns on a chessboard, but the moderate right, dumbass centrists, pastel commies, and pockets of the moderate left, but that just throws everything into chaos.

tl;dr learn to think for yourselves omg

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osmw1 · 5 years

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Crowbar Nurse Chapter 2 — A Gun, A (Zombie!) Virus, and an Out of Place Hottie

“Argh, Sera this time?! This isn’t some sort of web novel! What is happening in here?!”

Barrelling into the room was an unbelievably handsome guy. By “unbelievable”, I meant it quite literally. He was unrealistically handsome.

“… huh? Kiryū?!”

I was just as shocked seeing him as he was seeing me… that's because he’s definitely a fictional character.

Kiryū Sōichirō. The most popular character from the hit dating sim released in 2014 on social media platforms, Rainbow Dreams High School☆Fantasia.

His dark brown eyes, black hair, and a soft smile gives off a clean-cut look. When combined with his calm demeanor, it made for a perfect young mastermind character like him. Kiryū would act as your mentor, guiding the player along with hints and tips. Because he helps the player perhaps a little too much, he would always come out on top of the character popularity rankings.

… but he was a secret unlockable love interest.

In other words, Kiryū is only unlocked after clearing all other routes first.

Players would begrudgingly clear characters they weren’t interested in to finally get the chance to date him… well, not that this really matters though.

“Hey, stop spacing out! I’ll explain everything later, but first, we gotta shake off these zombies!”

Kiryū lifted me up by the shoulders right as he shouted at me. He sure is strong in real life, I thought to myself.

“Can you move?” “Mm… I’m really sleepy, so… maybe?” “You shoulda gone to bed earlier last night! Oh, whatever, just hide behind me!” “Uh… okay!

I was shocked when I first saw him, but now I was stunned at how he spoke to me. It was completely wrong. The Kiryū I knew was soft-spoken and perceptive. But this guy was snappy, if not brusque.

Weird. It’s as if it were someone else in Kiryū’s body…

—hmm?

—wait, zombies?

“… whaaaaaaaat?!”

Just as I screamed out loud, Kiryū grabbed a crowbar lying nearby and then struck a zombie with it.

Blood splattered down onto the ground… along with various other fluids.

A single swing of the crowbar was enough to silent any groaning zombie. He then kicked the dead-again zombies aside to create a path before forcefully grabbing my wrist and dashing through the door.

—his hand was so warm.

I had questioned whether this Kiryū was a figment of my imagination, but the warmth of his hand seemed to prove otherwise. And even though I realized I was in a dire situation, his warmth was comforting.

He seems so used to fighting. Wait, was Kiryū a bad boy-type character?

We ran through the door together as I questioned my memory of the game. The familiar nurses’ station should be just on the other side… except, it wasn’t. Instead, my eyes opened wide as I found an unfamiliar alley in a busy, cloudy part of town.

…! No, I recognize this! I’ve been here before!

“—run!”

He grabbed my wrist and started running before I even had a chance to reply.

“H-Hold on!”

I hadn’t been eating or sleeping nearly enough. I might actually die if I suddenly broke into a full sprint…! Or so I thought, but I actually felt quite agile.

… huh?

In fact, I felt great running. It’s as if the exhaustion I felt until were but mere lies.

Strange… I don’t feel tired at all. No way I’ve had enough sleep to feel this good…

That’s so weird. Was I in the afterlife? I confusedly scanned my surroundings while running.

A narrow alleyway. Worn-out walls.

The buildings are so decrepit, they made me wonder whether they were still structurally sound.

Countless air conditioning units and broken gutters were dangling on the side of them.

I instinctively looked over my shoulder and realized that there were zombies staggering—or rather, scurrying—and chasing us. It probably wouldn’t take more than ten seconds for them to catch up to me if I had stopped running right now.

No surprise that one hit with the crowbar wasn’t enough to take them down… we probably have to do something about them though…

Even though I still didn’t have any idea of what was going on, I knew that we definitely didn’t have the time to sit and think unless we killed the zombies first. I looked at my surroundings once more as I tried to calm myself down.

—I have definitely been here before.

I… remember seeing this area on a map before.

… we’re in a game…

Realizing the truth sent shivers down my spine. The streets and the area around it were just how I remembered… we’re in a level of Dead Man’s Conflict 3. The 1998 game was a Japanese classic in which the player has to slay hordes of zombies while trying to escape from the infected Confi City.

“Downtown”.

This was the first stage of Dead Man’s Conflict 3. The graphics look a lot better, but otherwise it was the same. The door to Uptown should be just a little farther ahead.

The roads here twist and turn like a maze. It sure makes it difficult for beginners…

I remember how tough it was all those years ago where I would be lost in these streets while being chased by zombies and ultimately being eaten over and over and over again. But perhaps thanks to that, the layout of this town had been deeply burned into my memory…

… hmm? Hey, hold on, you can’t go this way…

I blinked at the path before me. The road ahead splits into three… and the middle path that Kiryū headed towards was the wrong way. I panicked and yanked at his hand to stop him.

“—whoa, hey! What’s wrong?!”

He looked down at me in confusion.

“We gotta hurry, or else the zombies—” “That way is a dead end, my dea—err, Kiryū!” “What?!” “I-It… it’s this way!”

I pulled Kiryū towards the left path as I told him which way we should go.

“Wha—but isn’t that way a dead end? I can’t help but feel we shouldn’t go where it’s clearly marked ‘KEEP OUT’, y’know…?” “Normally, it’s only open after you complete the second week in game! We’ll… rip through the tape!” “What?! Rip through it?!”

If this were a game then there would be no way to get past the black and yellow tape with “KEEP OUT” written in big, Helvetica letters. This path is locked until after the second week is finished. The tape doesn’t budge no matter how much the player cuts or runs into it.

“Hyaaa!”

But seeing how we’re not bound by the rules that the protagonist should be, I easily torn down the tape.

“Just who are…”

Kiryū blankly stared at me but now’s not the time to care about that. It took me five seconds to take down the tape before we could hurry on through.

—I haven’t touched a single game in this past six months.

All I did after getting home was either check social media or pass out. But… my body remembered. Dead Man’s Conflict 3 is second nature to me.

“But Sera, we can’t open windows in this world.” “Windows are another story!”

A large window was on the wall right beside us. I hooked my fingers on the frame and pulled on it, but it did no more than jostling it. It’s a little weird how he addressed me as “Sera”, but that’s not important right now. Neither pushing nor pulling the window had any effect so I resorted to borrowing Kiryū’s crowbar and smashed away at the window. … crowbars are heavier than I imagined.

“Aaaaargh!” “… you some sort of runaway gorilla or something…?

I ignored Kiryū’s comment on how I’m swinging at the window. I sure am glad to have played all these zombie games and have researched all the strategies. Having been swamped by work for the past half year, the gamer didn't get to unleash all the knowledge I stored for future use, until now!

“Can we really go through this?!” “Yes, we can! Just be careful of the broken glass!”

We crawled through the window and into the room, and if my memory serves me right… there it was! The corpse of an old man (which I couldn’t smell in a game unlike now) sat on a dining chair and in his hand was his assault rifle with unlimited ammo!

It tough enough to pry it out of his hand, but the old man suddenly turned into a zombie as well. I delivered a swift kick to his head before sending bullet in his brain. It was an instant kill. It’s not like I did it because I’m actually that savage in real life. The protagonist had to do the same thing else he gets eaten by the old man.

… I never knew rifles were this heavy either.

“Tch, still alive, huh? Why don't you stay dead already!” “… what in the world are you…”

Kiryū was dumbfounded after seeing me like that and muttered to himself again, but I didn’t have the time to respond. The zombies should have almost caught up to us by now.

“… crap! The damn zombies are here already!”

I flashed a smirk just as he shrieked out. Just as I expected, the zombies were here.

“Don’t worry… the old man’s dead for good but let me clean up the rest of them!”

My skirt fluttered as I whipped around. The zombies came crawling and lumbering to meet my machine gun.

—blam blam blam!

The sound of gunfire masked the sound of the zombie falling over after being shot between the eyes. Not only did I flip the fire selector switch to burst, but by also going for headshots, I should get double the points. I acquire my next target and fired. And at the next zombie. And the next one…

“Just what kind of creature is she…?”

Kiryū seemed to be taken aback at how casually I’m slaying these zombies. He stood there with a with his mouth wide open.

“You can’t hold back when dealing with zombies, Kiryū. They’re tougher than you might think. They will pretend they’re dead and then ambush when you’re not expecting it… they’re sneaky bastards, eh?!”

I kicked each zombie as I said that to make sure none of them were feigning death.

“When the zombies in this game don’t bleed after keeling over, that means they’re just faking it. Then when you walk close to them, they’ll get you and bite your legs. Be careful about that, okay?”

Right after I felt like I cleared this area, I came back to my senses.

“…”

Then, Kiryū—who was standing there speechless—and I looked at each other.

“…” “…” “… umm, uhh, Kiryū! We’re good now! We’re safe!”

Kiryū could only fake a smile as he stared wide eyed at me as I switched back from the gamer me to being a proper human being.

■This isn’t some sort of web novel!

Web novels are novels which authors post online on dedicated forums or personal websites. Many authors do not have editors to help and instead tend to upload whatever they scribble down. But because of that, there are many elements in their writing which may represent the authors' desires and frustrations. Some may be off-putting, but many readers appreciate web novels for that very reason (and of course, many don't). When Kiryū mentioned to "web novels", he alluded to the popular theme of everyday characters being transported into game worlds for reasons unknown.

contents: /ch001/ /ch002/ /next/

(leave me a tip on Patreon?)

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hazyheel · 5 years

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Monday Night Raw 4/1/19

The very first segment of the night was a quick one, where Stephanie McMahon announced that the main event of Wrestlemania will be winner takes all. That makes sense, it will proabably unite the championships as well. I think its about time that happened, but too bad for Asuka, getting screwed again.

Next was the real opening segment, with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman getting out one last promo. Heyman said that the Universal Championship match will also be winner takes all, because he will take and destroy everything Seth Rollins has. He mentioned how Lesnar beat the streak and how he beat Roman Reigns. Heyman then finished it off by saying that he will absolutely destroy Rollins on Sunday. Rollins interrupted, and said that Wrestlemania 35 will house the biggest match of both of their lives. He told Lesnar that no one wants him in the WWE, which is fair enough. Rollins said that he will do anything to beat Lesnar on Sunday, before nailing a low blow. Lesnar responded with a German suplex, but slipped out of the F5 for another low blow. Rollins landed a superkick and a curb stomp, before holding the belt above his head and walking away. Walking around backstage, Charly told Rollins that if he hit the low blow on sunday, he wouldn’t win the belt. Rollins just shrugged and said that he had it coming.

Grade: B+. I haven’t been the biggest fan of this feud because Rollins felt pretty lost after his Royal Rumble win, but I was into this. Seth fought dirty, and he needed to. Even the part with him holding the belt above his head was good, and I don’t normally like that. But he is already an underdog, so I liked seeing it. This is definitely a match I am looking forward to.

First match of the night was an 8-woman tag match, with all of the Women in the Women’s Tag team championship match in it. Bayley, Sasha Banks, Natalya and Beth Phoenix took on Tamina, Nia Jax and the Iiconics. Banks and Phoenix were arguing early on in the match. Banks botched two arm drags early on in the match, but didn’t look like she got hurt during them, despite slipping off the ropes. The Boss n’ Hug connection argued with the Divas of Doom the entire match, but both teams had infighting. The Iiconics were in throughout the match, as Nia and Tamina refused to tag in. As Bayley was looking for a hot tag, Phoenix nailed Banks with a forearm and took her off the apron before tagging herself in. Phoenix had a good hot tag, culminating in spearing Jax through the barricade and hitting Peyton Royce with a Glam Slam for the win.

Grade: C. Pretty paint by numbers match, but it was good to see Phoenix wrestling again. That is the only thing keeping this out of a gutter grade.

After the match, Batista arrived in the arena for a promo. Batista got a big babyface reaction from the crowd. He showed a video package of all the times that he has pinned Triple H. The extent of the promo was just Batista saying “kiss my ass.” Not going to grade this because it was so short and didn’t have much actual content. But I liked it, I think their promos together have sucked, so I am glad they went for a “short and sweet” route. Weirdly looking forward to this match.

Elias then had a quick segment, where he was outside of the MetLife stadium talking about his big break on Wrestlemania as the musical guest. Not much happened here.

Then we had Jinder Mahal vs. Apollo Crews in a random lumberjack match. Crews quickly won with a frog splash, and all the lumberjacks brawled in the ring. Titus O’Neil looked good in the scramble, but Crews was again the last man standing. Corey Graves kept saying that Michael Che will win the battle royal. Funny.

Grade: F. This match didn’t need a segment, I don’t think anyone cares.

Next was Kurt Angle’s final match on Monday Night Raw. Before he started, he was showered with “thank you Kurt’s.” He thanked the crowd, and looked pretty upset. They then showed a wonderful video package of Kurt Angle’s career. It detailed the ups and downs of his career, such as his second broken neck, his goofy heel phase, his milk truck attack, and his hall of fame induction. Angle was crying as the package ended, being showered with support from the fans, only for Baron Corbin to ruin it. He made fun of Angle for crying and leaving and such. Corbin said that he couldn’t hang with the wrestlers anymore. Corbin then heeled on the crowd for attacking him on social media. Angle challenged Corbin to a match, but he refuses. Rey Mysterio then came out to be in Angle’s corner. Mysterio then challenged Corbin to a match. He was going to refuse, but sucker punched them before getting overpowered by the faces.

Grade: C. The best part of this feud is when Corbin complains about how the fans say that he doesn’t deserve Angle’s final match. Its funny that it is actually part of the story. Other than that, this sucks. Corbin really doesn’t deserve Angle’s final match, but story wise it kinda makes sense. I liked the beginning of this though.

Charly interviewed Charlotte Flair about the main event of Wrestlemania, saying that the winner take all stipulation only benefits her. That was basically it.

Next up was the Revival vs. Aleister Black and Ricochet for the Raw Tag Team Championships. Why this isn’t on the Wrestlemania card is beyond me. In my opinion, they shouldn’t still be competing in NXT, and they should be on the main card of Wrestlemania. The Revival got a jobber entrance, but put on a mat classic early on in the match. Black and Ricochet actually have awesome double team moves together. Ricochet landed a series of rollups, but they all failed before Wilder sent him into the ropes, where Dawson hit a cheap shot and Wilder hit an awesome gory special for a near fall. Black tried to even the odds on the outside, but they then double teamed him to take him out with a tornado DDT, only for Ricochet to hit his awesome corner dive. Wilder ran back into the ring at 6, but Dawson tripped up Ricochet on his way back into the ring, allowing the Revival to win by count out. After the match, the faces assaulted the champions, with Black hitting a black mass to both of them, and Ricochet hitting Dawson with a 630 senton.

Grade: B. Good match, and I actually liked the finish. I never liked it when WWE treated countouts like dusty finishes, but this is a classic example of a time when it made sense. It was still a definitive finish, even if it was a countout. The heels kinda played dirty, but it came across as smart rather than cowardly. So good stuff to them for a good match and finish, but why are the faces attacking after the bell? That is stupid, and they need to stop doing stuff like that.

Backstage, Charly tried to interview Ronda Rousey, but she just said that she is gonna kill the Riott Squad, and Lynch/ Flair if one of them attacked her. She was shadowboxing very dramatically. Then we had Alexa Bliss talking to the returning Tyler Breeze and EC3. They hyped up the battle royal, and the odd SNL storyline. Braun interrupted and intimidated two guys who supposedly liked Colin Jost and Michael Che. He challenged the two randos to a match. One of the interviewers, whose name I can’t remember, interviewed Roman about whether or not he will be ready for his singles return, but he was quickly attacked by Drew McIntyre, and thrown into a barricade backstage. Love this feud, McIntyre looks crazy, and Roman actually feels like an underdog for the first time in years.

Then we had an interesting 6-woman tag, pitting the Riott Squad against Rousey, Lynch and Flair, but if any of the main eventing women betray her teammates, they will be removed from the Wrestlemania match. Before the match, Lynch said that she will defeat both of her opponents on Sunday, and she said that she made Rousey feel untouchable, which is when she is the most vulnerable (great line). Lynch’s promos have gone downhill since they started actively attempting to write her as a face, but this was pretty good. Tension was high amongst the main event team, jaw jacking with each other before the match started. Flair and Lynch did most of the work during the match, but Rousey forced the tag, and tapped out Liv Morgan. As soon as the bell rang, the three women started fighting, even beating down security before police had to separate them, and Rousey was taken away in handcuffs, only for Lynch to attack while she was handcuffed. She too was cuffed, shouting “again?” as she was. Then Flair attacked both women, and was also cuffed. Rousey and Lynch even kicked at each other in the back of a car, shattering a window. They all fought backstage, and Ronda crashed a car into another car.

Grade: A. The match did not matter to me, but the post-match segment was wild and suspenseful and cool. It gave a sense of danger to the match on Sunday, a type of unpredictability that it has lacked up until this point. I am glad that they didn’t try to say that the main event was in jeoprady, because that is unbelievable. But it was a fun segment.

Next, we came down with a tag match, pitting Bobby Roode and Chad Gable against Heavy Machinery. Lacey Evans did a catwalk in the middle of the match. Heavy Machinery won after an assisted powerslam. No reason for this to happen, but I’m glad they all got time on the show, and they looked good.

Grade: C+. Decent match. Everyone in it was good.

Strowman then had a squash match against a couple jobbers. Good times

Bobby Lashley came out for an interview, asking if he has any concern about the match at Wrestlemania. Lio Rush said that there was absolutely no reason to be worried. Charly then brought up the Demon Finn Balor, but Lashley said that he isn’t scared of it. Balor then announced, with a cool little fade effect, that it will be the demon at wrestlemania.

Grade: D-. I hate this feud. I hate Lashley having the Intercontinental Championship. I hate that they announce when the Demon is coming. Lio Rush is still good, but I hate everything else. It should be Rush and Balor. Rage.

Baron Corbin then took on Rey Mysterio. This was mostly a match for Corbin to be super dominant, while Rey sold his ass off. Mysterio may have tweaked his knee during the match as well. The match was actually half decent, but I just didn’t care. Mysterio hit the 619, but missed the followup splash. Corbin then caught Mysterio running the ropes and hit the deep six for the win. Angle attacked Corbin after the match, locking in the ankle lock.

Grade: C-. Decent action, no story. Definitely an odd main event.

Overall Grade: C-

Pros: Rollins attack; Raw Tag Team Championship; Wrestlemania main event angle

Cons: Lumberjack Match; Lashley Promo; lackluster feel overall.

#monday night raw #wwe #hazyheel #wwe monday night raw #raw #wwe raw #raw review #monday night raw review #pro wrestling #pro wrestling review #wwe review

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steveramsdale · 4 years

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Bloggity Blog 10.6

Well, dear reader, you are reading the words of an older and wiser blogger (bloggist?). Perhaps not wiser but definitely older. I never intended to write so many blogs. I started the first weekend we arrived here in 2016 and just never stopped. I have given you holidays off, out of kindness, and there were a couple of weekends this school year when I was busy feeling self-pity and couldn’t find the resources to impose this nonsense on you. But apart from that, I have offered this collection of words for your perverse enjoyment. There are not many left, you will be relieved to know.

At the risk of repeating myself, last Saturday was the same as the last few Saturdays- dull, long, solitary, and a few other adjectives. I had my Russian lesson and did some shopping, I clean a bit and then nothing. I think I’ll have to start talking about things that haven’t happened but might have happened in another world. I would probably have started swimming by now. Not as much as in previous years, but I would have been driving over to NBU with my own changing room and going through the pain barrier to get into the pool and swim. I would probably have seen KB by now. I would have gone camping in various places and had little adventure. Instead, I have, instead, cowered in my flat, hoping that the menace doesn’t notice me.

My hot water went off briefly again on Sunday evening but was back on by Monday morning.Monday was a long day. Other days were quicker. I still find that very strange and it seems to have no rhyme or reason.

You may be interested to know that the pointless date on my pointless return ticket is 34 days away. It seems that airlines are selling tickets from the 1st July. So I may be home a week or so late.

On Sunday, I walked more than I have walked for many, many weeks. I went to the cafe I bottled out of driving to last week. I bought take-away coffee and enough coffee beans (hopefully) to last me until I leave. This was from my favorite coffee shop (joint with Sunpresso). Then I walked back to the supermarket and got bits and bobs (actually just bits as I was walking). Then I walked through the park, sitting for a little while in the gentle sunshine.

I also, finally, returned the keys to Dave which I had after feeding his cat weeks and weeks ago. I had noticed them while sorting a cupboard. We had a socially distant cup of tea and chat. It was, therefore, a long walk, good exercise, fresh air and mind-clearing.

On Thursday, our school closed for half-term. It is a short break - we resume teaching on Wednesday. I will have a few days to relax although I have reports to write and a bit of planning to do.

This was also the week of my birthday (Friday). I had been invited to meet some good friends in Ekopark for a safe picnic. This would have been excellent. As you may know, the park that that had opened, suddenly closed again. I don’t know if this was because it should not have opened last week or someone decided it was unsafe - there were lots of people starting to exercise. Whatever the reason, it is closed again. I have been to the gate a couple of times and been told it is closed. While Friday was not my best birthday ever (long-time readers will remember the debacle which was my 50th when Mairi was in England and I had my only bout of Tashkent tummy - you could go back and find the blog if you are truly full of self-loathing), it was a long way from being the best. I have too many now with which to compare it. The messages I received through the day, on social media, were very welcome, so thank you.

I also have a couple of ‘what kids did’ stories to relate. We are reading Holes. This is a great story and the class seem to be enjoying it. On Wednesday, I think, a child audibly gasped at the end of ch 27 when there was a huge revelation about one of the characters. It was so good to realize how much she was engaged in the story and was listening. In the same story, when I read that a character staying in an isolated cabin for three months, one girl wrote in the chat ‘she has been living the cabin for three months because of coronavirus’.

I mentioned before about my decent into craziness because living alone is not good for me On Tuesday, I very lightly bumped my toe and did a ridiculous ‘pretending to cry like a toddler’ thing. Get a grip.

On Wednesday, we had a meeting with a school in Vietnam which reopened a couple of weeks ago. It seems that the government there locked everything down very early and only had a few hundred cases. They have been free of community transmission for a month. I really don’t think that our school, due to its small campuses for a large number of children, can put into place the measures that this school have been able to do. I think that is even more true for school in England.

I also ran the van. I have not really wanted to drive anywhere. It started first time and I drove around the block.

Someone cleaned my roof. I saw someone on a ladder who seemed to be cleaning gutters. I noticed the next morning that my little roof was almost totally clear of the leaves and bits of bread that had been accumulating.

If Freddie had a blog, he’d have a good story this week. He was out, being pushed in his push chair and he dropped a favourite toy. He didn’t notice as he was snoozing and his dad didn’t notice until they got home. Keir went and re-traced their steps/wheels but did not see it. Back at home, he was looking on their community Facebook page and saw that someone had found it and posted a picture. Fred saw it and instantly said “that’s my faff”. (It is a giraffe/mini comfort blanket.) They were reunited!

My hot water went off briefly on Friday again and it is back this morning.

This week, I released some my ridiculous thoughts and opinions into their natural habitat, on social media. As already mentioned, social media has helped me this week. I have had lots of enjoyment from it in the past but also found myself in interesting, upsetting, pointless and unnecessary arguments over the years. I also decided that Facebook should introduce a delay system. After you compose an opinion piece or share something you have seen, there should be (for everybody!) a 45 minute delay before it is published. When the 45 minutes is up, you should received a prompt saying: You have a post ready to publish. Have you considered whether your post is:

A True because you have reflected and researched?

B Useful because in adds necessary knowledge or reflection to readers?

C Helpful because it gives reliable information?

D Kind because it is kind?

It might improve social media a little bit. Photos of kittens and news would be exempt it would just apply to the sort of nonsense I post.

I decided this week that raspberries are my favourite fruit. They were back in the shop and I love them. That would be ok for Facebook.

This would not.

I read an article this week about the current crisis. The writer presented a strong argument that the UK has an incompetent and cruel government. We (I wrote this earlier in the week and they did a U-Turn just before the distraction tactic of the clapping so need to change are to were) are charging foreign workers to save the lives of and protect true British people. This shows the callousness and thoughtlessness and true ‘heart’ of Tory philosophy. I said last week that we have mini-Trump in charge. They have a similar story brewing. The US National Guard have been used to support communities, hospitals, food banks, etc for many weeks. It was announced that they would be relieved on 24th June. This is a Wednesday. People seemed surprised at this apparently arbitrary date until someone realised it was 89 days until they had been federalized. After 90 days, National Guards people become entitled to pension rights and other benefits. Ending after 89 days means they don’t get this. Trump coined the term ‘evil genius’ for just such a scheme.

Enjoy your new week as much as you can and stay safe. See you next time.

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Bigg Boss 13: Gauahar Khan, Shefali Zariwala’s husband Parag slam Paras as he mocks Asim’s financial status - tv

The controversial game of Bigg Boss 13 turned uglier on Wednesday’s episode as Paras Chhabra and Asim Riaz indulged in mud-slinging that involved their personal lives and financial status. Soon after the episode, #WeareproudofYouAsim began trending on Twitter and inside the house, his current close friends Mahira Sharma and Sidharth Shukla condemned Paras for talking about money, status and fame in a fight about the game. In the episode, Paras was seen commenting on Asim’s look and his financial status, calling him ‘PG mein rehne wala’.Reacting to Paras’ demeaning remarks, Asim chose to stay calm. Paras’ behaviour did not go down well not only with the housemates but also social media users, including celebrities. Also read: Arjun Kapoor says Ranveer Singh sends him long voice messages: ‘I tell Deepika Padukone that I am her souten’ Actor and Bigg Boss 7 winner Gauahar Khan took to Twitter to lend her support towards Asim by putting a yellow heart emoji after Asim’s name in her tweet. Asim 💛 — Gauahar Khan (@GAUAHAR_KHAN) November 27, 2019 Shefali Jariwala’s husband Parag Tyagi was also angry at the way Paras fought and tweeted, “Bro u have no idea how helpless I am feeling.. and how her mother and Gf must be feeling when that piece of shit treats woman? These disgusting people forget that they have mother and gf who are woman. he shud pray ki wo big boss ke ghar se bahar na nikle.” Bro u have no idea how helpless I am feeling.. and how her mother and Gf must be feeling when that piece of shit treats woman? These disgusting people forget that they have mother and gf who are woman. he shud pray ki wo big boss ke ghar se bahar na nikle — Parag Tyagi (@imParagTyagi) November 28, 2019 Actor Gautam Gulati, who won Bigg Boss 8, too showed his support towards Asim. “Asim’s hands in his pocket lol... I completely understand. Asim aaj khel gaya,” Gautam wrote. #screensharinglevel 🙈🤣 paras ke Deewar ke dialogues 🤦🏻‍♂️ And asim,s hands in his pocket lol I completely understand Asim आज खेल गया 💯💯💯 — Gautam Gulati 🇮🇳 (@TheGautamGulati) November 28, 2019 Condemning Paras’ behaviour, actor Sambhavna Seth tweeted: “Paras has gone overboard today..Even he knew he was talking all shit with Asim..sabke saath khelte khelte aaj khud ke lagg gaye.” Paras has gone overboard today..Even he knew he was talking all shit with Asim..sabke saath khelte khelte aaj khud ke lagg gaye @BiggBoss @ColorsTV — Sambhavna Seth (@sambhavnaseth) November 28, 2019 In short Asim aaj paras ke saath khel gaya..Ajj usne paras se woh sab khelwa diya jisse ab Janta will be with Asim and paras will be a complete villian..Asim ka game plan paras pe bhaari pad gaya @BiggBoss @ColorsTV — Sambhavna Seth (@sambhavnaseth) November 28, 2019 During their fight, Paras called Asim, “Chikne” and said mean things about his life outside of the Bigg Boss house, including his residential place, his financial status and how he is yet to make it big in the showbiz. Mahira tried to pacify Paras and stop him from talking about financial status but Paras refused. Asim later asked Paras what was the use of his Rs 2000 perfume and flat. “You are a curse to yourself, you are a curse to your family. Mere liye to tu gutter ka keeda hai.” Later Sidharth went to Paras and told him that there was no point talking about money. Follow @htshowbiz for more Source link Read the full article

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erza-liao · 7 years

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Three years (Kaitlyn and MC fan fiction)

Note: This is a bit long, but I hope you guys will appreciate it. I have already started this weeks ago as an entry for the Choices Creates round with the prompt kitchen. But being so busy lately, the round closed and I’m only halfway through. I decided to finish it anyway and then the prompt for this week was released and I found a way to merge it with this week’s prompt. This is my entry for Choices creates round 12.

Sooooo, @hollyashton and the rest of the fandom, here it goes. Happy reading!

—

Good morning, sunshine! Got you this before walking to class. Drink it up before it gets too cold. I love you! See you in the evening. xoxo

P.S. Wish me luck for my song presentation today! I couldn’t have done this if you didn’t help me with the lyrics! P.P.S. You’re drooling! But still beautiful, don’t you worry sweetheart. *grin*

I smile to myself as I finished reading the note beside a cup of coffee on the bedside table. On the cup is my name with a heart icon beside it. I drink my first sip and take time to realize how lucky I am to have Kaitlyn. For the span of our three-year relationship, she never failed to make me happy even with the little things, despite of being busy especially now that we are in our senior year.

Yes, it has been more than three years since the day I bumped to Chris, splashed with Kaitlyn in a bikini, appreciated Abbie’s artwork for the first time, and spent the first night at the rooftop together with my suitemates. We still do, though, even if all six of us have gone different ways to pursue our passions. Chris had rerun for the student council president position several times, and had won in every single one of them. I always believe that being a Public Administration major has given him an additional edge against his opponents. Tyler took Information Technology and is bound to finish his own mobile game. Abbie pursued Fine Arts, and has already accomplished putting up several art exhibits to showcase her works. Zack took up Fashion and Design, and plans on having his own clothing line in the future. James had found a new agent who’s willing to bring his original play to life. He’s back in LA and is very busy with the movie right now. Zig is a major in Mathematics, a consistent Dean’s Lister and a candidate for honors in graduation, continuing to uphold that the Second Chance scholarship program is indeed possible! Kaitlyn, obviously, continued pursuing her career in music. She is the lead vocalist of The Perfect Circle, a band she joined after she quit Gutter Kittens. They’ve been playing together for almost two years now, and three of their original singles have been hits across many social media platforms. I won’t be surprised if Kaitlyn will be signing her first recording contract right after graduation. I pursued a career in journalism. I am now in the process of writing my third novel, the second sequel to the novel I first wrote for Professor Vasquez.

The clock reads 8:10 AM. Kaitlyn’s music composition class had started ten minutes ago. I take one last sip of coffee before pulling out my phone and typed:

To: Kaitlyn

Good luck on your song performance! Go on and nail it! I know you can do it. I love you! xoxo

My relationship with Kaitlyn is one heck of a roller coaster ride. There are so much good times – from the romantic dinner dates, spontaneous movie nights, adventurous hiking days, late night booty calls, to the exchange of flirty, sweet text messages – I only found myself falling for her more and more every single day. But just like any other relationship, bad times happen as much as the good times. Time came when Kaitlyn became very jealous of Becca, when I felt bad thinking that Kaitlyn isn’t proud of being my girl in front of her high school gang, or when both of us struggled to make time for each other. There were also times when we wouldn’t speak to each other days after a fight, for the argument to cool down, for the heart to heal, and for the mind to wander for a bit. And as it is said, not all who wander are lost. Sometimes, it will just make you realize that you will always tend to come back to where you truly belong. And that’s how it goes for me and Kaitlyn. We belong to each other and nothing’s going to change it.

My phone buzzes and Kaitlyn’s name appears on the screen.

Thank you babe! You don’t know how nervous I am now!

Don’t be, silly. You’ll do great! By the way, I’ll see you at dinner. Wear your best!

My best? For what?

I laugh upon reading her reply. I’m thinking she might be forgetting something.

On Fridays, Kaitlyn’s schedule is more packed than mine. My classes already ends at 2 o'clock in the afternoon while hers ends at 5, not to mention her band practice that lasts up to 7 o'clock in the evening. I’m the lucky one today; I have lots of time to prepare for my plans tonight.

Before the sun sets, I find myself standing at the kitchen, looking around to check if everything is perfect. Lights are slightly dimmed, giving way for the candles at the table’s center and some are scattered at the floor. The food is already set – from the appetizer to the main course to the triple chocolate cake dessert – at the bar counter, which is now covered with white linen. The table is also covered with white cloth, chairs placed on its opposite sides, two sets of eating utensils placed above it. Rose petals are also scattered on the floor to add to the romantic vibe of the setup.

I then look down on myself, smoothing the white, floral dress I am wearing. I glanced up the clock and it reads 6:37 PM. Kaitlyn will be home at any moment.

Not for so long, the suite’s doorknob clicks. The door opens and there emerges Kaitlyn, wearing the same red dress she wore during our first formal together. Her hair is tied up and she is holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand. She smiles widely at me as she sees my reaction.

No, she had never forgotten.

I greeted her with a long passionate kiss, and after she pulls away, she said, “Happy anniversary, babe.”

I tell her the first words my tongue could find, “How… I thought you forgot.”

She hands me the bouquet before answering, “How could I forget the day I became the luckiest girl in the world?” She grins.

I smile at her as I take the flowers from her hand. I set them on the table first and pull out a small paper bag. I gestured at her, “Here, I have something for you, too.”

I unpacked the paper bag’s contents and reveal a silver bracelet similar to the lucky charm bracelet I lend her when she almost failed all her subjects during our first spring term. The pendants of the bracelet include two female symbols joined together, a musical note, a zombie, a heart and a letter E – each representing different sides of her personality.

Her eyes follow my hand as I clasp the bracelet around her wrist. I could sense the genuine happiness in her eyes when she turned them back at me and hugged me. I returned the embrace and whispered, “Happy third anniversary, babe. I love you.”

She replied, “I love you, too.”

I pull away and lead her to the dining table. I pull her seat for her before sitting in mine, and tonight, we both have the dinner of our lifetime.

#choicesstoriesyouplay #choices #choicescreates #kaitlyn #kaitlynliao #kaitlynxmc #the freshman #pixelberry

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triplemondo-blog · 7 years

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Mondo Cane: Seminal Document of the Mondo genre

Mondo Cane, Gualtiero Jacopetti's masterpiece, is the first and the best mondo movie.

Shot all over the world by an Italian crew and released in 1963, Mondo Cane's collection of grotesquery was a worldwide phenomenon so financially and artistically successful it spawned and defined an entire film genre. It was even nominated for an oscar for Best Song: Riz Ortolani's awesome "More.” Weird that hardly anyone has ever heard of it, right?

While exploitive documentaries about weird crap date back to Thomas Edison, Mondo Cane is the first film that encompasses all of the elements that were later called “mondo.” Since this is my first post, and Mondo Cane is the seminal document of the genre, I'll use it to define the elements of the mondo movie.

The Four Hallmarks of Mondo Movies

Documentary...kind of: A mondo movie may or may not contain actual documentary footage, but all footage must be PRESENTED as real, no matter how obvious the fakery. Like the best of the genre, Mondo Cane is a mix of real footage, embellished-reality (IE: a narrator adding invented explanations), and completely staged segments. Jacopetti was more honest than most mondo directors, though (which is like being the tallest midget). He was a journalist and seemed to want to capture something of real life, even if his narration is questionable and he clearly staged and directed some of the action. Harmless here, but Jacopetti's tendency to treat real people as actors and alter real events eventually destroyed whatever reputation he had.

Narrated-Omnibus Structure: Mondo movies are made up of short segments held together by voiceover narration that joins disparate elements thematically. Mondo Cane's thematic skeleton is something like: "No matter how different our cultural expression, people all over the world are horrible and ridiculous." Later mondo movies are less elevated in their themes, which tend toward "Man, people in Asia do some weird crap." or "Ladies take their clothing off in many different situations!”

Cynical, Authoritative Tone: The narrators of Mondo movies are total assholes. Mondo Cane's narrator, Stefano Sibaldi, affects a world-weary tone that drips with contempt for sexuality, creativity, happiness, social mores, and really any cultural expression at all. Although the filmmakers have clearly gone to great lengths to present footage of, say, a "crazy" artist in New York City using naked women as paintbrushes (Yves Klein in an appearance he later deeply regretted) or a Taiwanese butcher slaughtering dogs, the narrator wants you to know he DOES NOT APPROVE OF IT and you probably shouldn't enjoy it too much. But Sibaldi's narration manages sympathy for a few of Mondo Cane's subjects too.

Perhaps the cynical, disgusted, "everything is shit" tone of Mondo Cane is a result of personal tragedy in the director's life. Jacopetti's girlfriend, actress Belinda Lee, was killed in a car crash at the beginning of production, and some say the film is Jacopetti's reaction to her senseless death.

Another universal element of Mondo narration: The pretense that the film has an elevated intellectual purpose, even though it clearly doesn't. This may have been to provide a "social value" argument if the censors ever cracked down. No matter why it's there, There's something hilarious about a movie lying to its audience so blatantly, telling them they're watching a thoughtful examination of cultural differences in sexual mores when it's clearly a bored stripper in a seedy Hong Kong club.

"Shocking" footage: Presenting the shocking, weird and outre is the mondo movie's whole reason to be. Sex perverts, primitive tribes, buildings being wrecked, car crashes, druggies, hippies, etc. Mondo likes anything shocking. But like the reality of the footage, the "shock-factor" varies greatly from scene to scene. We're constantly TOLD how shocking the footage is, though, but it’s usually pretty tame.

"In the interest of public awareness, we snuck our cameras into an LSD freakout party where depraved hippie deviants enact unspeakable debauchery!" a narrator might soberly intone over footage of middle class teenagers frugging at a house party.

The casual sexism, racism, and cultural bias, of Mondo Cane actually are shocking--people were FUCKED UP back in the 1960s--but other than grandpa-style bigotry, there's little of the truly disturbing in this movie... except the cruelty to animals.

Animal cruelty is a common theme in the mondo genre, and my least favorite aspect of these films. I have no particular love for animals--most of them are dicks--but I don't need to see them slaughtered, hunted, vivisected and otherwise abused.

Points to Mondo Cane for at least choosing interesting animal cruelty to present. The section on how French people force-feed geese to make pate is amazing. Who knew that's where that stuff came from?

Lesser mondo films tend to pad out their running times with cheaply purchased stock footage of animals attacking each other in jungles (when there used to be jungles.)

There is room for an endless variety of films within those four criteria set by Mondo Cane, from amazing documentaries like The Killing of America to total dreck like The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield. But it’s really unfair to lump Mondo Cane (and the rest of Jacopetti's filmography) with its imitators.

Jacopetti and his partner Franco Prosperi are unique in film, and their best-known movie is a landmark in filmic and cultural history. Their genuine artistic sensibilities and photographic eye (Mondo Cane is beautifully shot and edited) combined with their total lack of taste and restraint resulted in a groundbreaking, genre-smashing, and deeply troubling film that predicts our media landscape’s downward spiral into its current post-truth state.

Like the Catholic idea of God as both all human and all divine, Mondo Carne is at once 100 percent high Art and total gutter trash. Not quite fiction and not quite fact, it’s a documentary that ignores all the “rules” of documentary filmmaking (IE: Show things as they really are) in the supposed interest of making a larger point (”Everything in the world is terrible”) but it’s actually just an excuse to show half-naked ladies and weirdoes doing crazy shit... but the audiences themselves proves the movie’s point! Gathering together in dark rooms and being lied to by Italians is a ritual that could go in its own Mondo movie.

If you're new to the genre, Mondo Cane is essential viewing and a great place to start, you can watch the thole thing on YouTube for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj5U8UbWqsk

#mondo cane #gualtiero jacopetti #movies #shockumentary #cult movies #exploitation movies

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