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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years

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The Space Between Us

Alien au? Alien au! I have no self control! Please accept this one shot that quickly spiraled into 23 pages of Virgil being a disaster in space. (If you guys enjoy it, let me know because I’m considering making it a series.)

Summary: The cosmos is a Gigantic place and somehow Virgil’s past still catches up to him.

Words: 11400

TW: Human trafficking, Human experimentation, dehumanization, fighting rings,

Quick taglist: @chelsvans @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders

Read on Ao3 || General Writing Masterlist

“Tell me again why this is absolutely necessary?” Virgil asked, watching Logan’s hands dance across the console. On any other day the sight would be comforting. Every time his digits landed on a key, his nerves glowed with sparks of multicolored light through his transparent crystal skin, creating a beautiful firework show right in front of them all. Logan had told him once it was called Lightdancing, an evolutionary adaptation of the Tenkarie people: their bodies were near invisible in dim light, and they could control the pulses of light just enough to attract other cave dwelling creatures to them before striking the killing blow.

Now, though, the sight made Virgil’s stomach churn. Logan’s lights were a calculated system that he had trained to hone better than most of his race: he could make any part of his body glow at a brightness ranging from a flickering candle light to a flood light, he could make his whole body radiate or he could make just the tip of one of his sixteen fingers, he could even change the color of the light with just a thought. Virgil had always been glad that Logan was the only Tenkarie that dared venture from their caves on L0-G1C; Logan’s kind had perfected the use lights and dancing which made all other creatures become so nauseated they couldn’t fight back or become so mesmerized by the swirling motions that they didn’t see the attacks.

(Of course, because Virgil was rather distinctly human, it took longer for either of the effects of Logan’s fighting to work, which had saved both their lives more than once.)

However, in contrast to the usual focus of Logan’s fingertips on the control panel, lights were flickering all over his body, up and down each of his four arms and burning from the notches around his neck. The lack of control was enough to make Virgil’s stomach churn.

“Because its Remus,” Roman replied, although it didn’t help that he said his brother's name the same way he might have said puppy kicker.

“And we care about Remus because....?” Virgil prompted, running his fingers over his satchel again, checking the latches to make sure they were still there, still closed, still containing the supplies within. “If my memory serves me correctly, Remus was the one that set us up to be ambushed by those space pirates the other week. You know, the ones that nearly killed Patton?”

“We care because, in Erefrenian customs, blood bonds are the most sacred of bonds.” Logan supplied distractedly. “And Remus invoked the Oath of Brothers, which means that if Roman were to ignore his call for aid, Roman’s honor would be forever stained which would prevent him from crossing to the planes of heroes after his death according to the religion of his people.”

“Yeah that,” Roman says, even less excited than Logan at the idea. The bone spikes along his spine had been secreting that red poison that usually only happened when he got annoyed or anxious. Virgil had learned quickly to stay away from him when he was like that: touching it merely made Virgil’s limbs feel pins and needles, but the Orlun thief had screamed until unconsciousness.

It was one of the (very) few perks of being a Deathworlder, Virgil supposed. Most of the things that hurt the other species out here usually had a looser effect on humans because humans rarely made it this far. In fact, it was illegal for humans to get this far by at least sixty doctrines (all of which Logan had filed away in his room).

Humans were juggernauts-- the alien versions of the boogie man told to children to keep them from acting out. Virgil had seen some of the written documents about his kind, and the tales of bloodshed and terror invoked by merely existing were pretty horrifying. Graphic depictions of humans tearing aliens limb from limb, scientific studies on the amounts of chemicals that humans had absorbed and withstood against, an interview with a survivor of a human rampage who revealed the bite marks left by the so-called beast.

Almost every species out here was just as scared of him as he was of them.

The problem came from the ones that weren’t scared.

Which, of course, was how Virgil had ended up hundreds of literal light-years from Earth, on a ship with three aliens whom he was pretty certain he would end up dying for sometime very soon. Yurinks were crafty, shameless, bold, creatures, and they were notorious for visiting Earth and abducting humans for individual sale. Weslors ran fighting rings and humans were almost always the safest bets for some quick cash. Quitans were a fan of skinwearing, which was not something that Virgil ever wanted to see, based on the name alone. And Pol’turs loved learning how things worked and paid very handsome prices for human subjects on the space black market.

Virgil, himself, had sold for 300 griot. (Which was apparently a lot, based on the way that Patton’s eyes had quite literally bugged out. Virgil was still trying to figure out the conversation ratio of American dollars to griot and getting nowhere with it.)

“I hate him,” Roman said under his breath as he threaded through the spare armored uniforms in the storage, trying to find one to fit over the rigid bone plates along his back. His tail squirmed behind him as he searched, dragging the spikes through the air. “I hate him so much.” His bone claws cut through the fabric and he growled as he tossed the ruined clothes to the floor. “We’re gonna save him and then I’m going to toss him off into space, myself.”

Logan made an affirming noise, using his lower left arm to nudge his visor back up his nose. Virgil had only caught sight of Logan’s eyes once or twice, as most light strained his sensitive eyes. They had paid a pretty griot for a repair and a spare of his light blocking visor after the first time some space smugglers had surprised them and managed to break the lens. Logan’s pained scream was the worst thing that Virgil had ever heard and he had sworn he’d do anything to avoid ever having to hear it again.

(That had been the first time that Roman and him had truly worked together on something, Virgil noted absently. Between Virgil’s uncharacteristic bloodlust and Roman’s furious wrath they had taken out the smugglers in less than five minutes and they hadn't been very nice about it.)

Looking from the back, Roman resembled a stegosaurus to Virgil. If, like....stegosauruses ran around on two legs, flourished a sword, and were prone to acting like every minor occurrence was a slight against them personally. His red-ish skin had the appearance of leather but was twice as thick, his bone plates were slimmer rounded triangles than Virgil remembered from his kindergarten picture books but they ran from the based of his neck all the way down his back and to the tips of his tail which he liked to use as a spike-ball-and-chain attack along with his ridiculous sword. Virgil couldn’t count the number of times that Roman had nearly taken him out along with the enemy. His claws were only a few inches long but Roman whined like a baby when they broke-- which was ridiculous because his bone plates literally grew back overnight, and the ones on his forearms were made to be taken off and thrown. (Logan had indeed informed Virgil that Erefren grow new bones every moon cycle and proceeded to lose the old ones which Virgil had then mentioned that humans did that too sorta! With their baby teeth! And Roman and Logan had both looked unnerved by that information.)

“I’ve got it!” A voice sang from the ceiling, which was about all the warning Virgil got before a child sized figure vaulted down from the rafters of the teleportation deck right onto his shoulders.

“Jesus! Pat!” Virgil yelled as he stumbled swaying to accommodate the new weight that had stuck itself to Virgil’s back and then wrapped around to hug his chest. “Give a guy a warning, will you?”

Patton giggled, hooking his legs around Virgil’s waist so that he could sit comfortably, swinging the two other satchels he had been sent to fetch from his hands. Roman accepted one of them readily.

“What's a Jeeezus?” Patton asked, stressing the syllables as English terms never really fit right in his tongue. As far as Virgil was aware no species were equipped to speak human languages, although Roman’s Erefren dialect involved some rolling syllables. He probably could have picked up Spanish, if Virgil hadn’t barely passed Spanish III with a C minus.

To be fair though, that year had been bad. Janus had been in his class, and then he hadn’t. And it was hard to focus on conjugation of verbs when the golden student of the entire school who had sat next to him had been declared dead and Virgil had been the prime suspect of it.

That, and Virgil was pretty terrible at picking up new languages. He had only managed to figure out how to communicate with Logan by luck: hands raised with the fingers spread was a symbol of innocence and fear for the Tenkarie, while a sign of rage and fury for Yurink. This, of course, had also been in the middle of an illegal Weslor fighting ring which Logan had been dragged into and essentially sentenced to die in after being separated from Roman and Patton.

(Virgil tried not to think too much about those days. Alien blood was still blood and it was very not-good to feel dripping from his hands, even if it was him or them, even if it had been his life on the line, even if it wasn’t another human with heterochromic eyes and smug smirk. Virgil had fought nearly six times before Logan had been his opponent, and that was six times too many.)

Regardless, Virgil was lucky that when Roman and Patton had come for Logan, Logan had remembered his reluctance to fight and insisted that Virgil come with them in an escape. Roman and Patton had their hesitations but Logan wouldn’t take no for an answer.

(And Virgil who did not understand Common, had honestly thought that Logan had come back to kill him officially. Not a good first impression.)

Logan had made him flashcards to study from and taught him common in the sitting area of their ship. The endless hours of memorization, the drills, the sentences, all of which helped him more than he thought the others knew. They were something to do with his mind and Virgil had been in desperate need of something to do with his mind those first few months that wasn’t thinking about Earth or home or boys who were dead.

“We could go to Earth,” Logan had offered once during one of their sessions.

Virgil had blinked looking up to from the practice reading he had been studying with a bewildered look. “What?” It had taken a moment for him to realize that he had spoken in English rather than Common, but Logan must have picked up on the meaning of the foreign word anyway.

“You were… badly, ah, stolen,” Logan had said, pointing at the flashcards. “We could give you back.” He had used his lower two arms to mimic the motion of handing something off.

It had been so touching, the way that he had scaled down his speech to match Virgil’s progress, had offered despite Earth being the infamous Deathworld, had been looking at Virgil like he was living being and not just some animal. Virgil had cried.

He should have wanted to go back to Earth, should have wanted to go home, but instead he had begged in his broken, garbled Common for Logan to let him stay in space with them. And Logan had glowed nearly blindingly with purple light, a relief light, a content light, a happy light and promised that he wouldn’t have to go back if he didn’t want to.

Perhaps that had been the day the Virgil had realized he’d die for Logan.

And once Virgil had decided that for Logan it wasn’t hard to decide it for Patton too. The Reytin was just so nice. Even back in those first months when Virgil didn’t know how to talk to them and Patton had been so obviously terrified of him, the alien had made sure that Virgil was eating, that he was sleeping, that he had space when he needed it. Though, Virgil really suspected that their friendship had blossomed so quickly because of Patton's rare Reytin ability to see emotions with his frog-like eyes. Once he realized that Virgil was actually terrified of everything, and it wasn’t just ploy to kill them (or maybe despite that….Virgil hadn’t gotten a straight answer from him), Patton had done his best to befriend him back to good health.

And Virgil liked being on the ship. He liked his room, which was filled with stupid alien plants he had managed to collect and the weird shapes of the bed. He liked being right down the hall from the kitchen so he could smell when Patton was cooking something, and the way that he could always hear Roman singing in his room. He liked slipping out to the observation deck and just seeing Space the way no other human really had.

(Its stupid really, that sometimes he forgot it had been three years. Its stupid really, that sometimes he still turned to ask a question of someone who was never going to be there. Its stupid really that he could be so happy and still feel the gaping hole where someone used to be.)

“Oh this is so exciting!” Patton said happily, shaking his hands in the air to show his excitement. “Isn’t this exciting, guys?”

“Exciting isn’t the word I would use,” Virgil said hoisting the smaller creature from around his waist to settle him on the floor carefully.

“More like Vexing! Or perhaps burdensome! Irksome! Problematic!” Roman snarled, finally finding the armor that would fit around his plates and slipping it on. “You know what? Let’s forget it! Remus got himself into this mess and he can get himself out!”

“Now kiddo…” Patton warned, and wow, Virgil sometimes forgot that the alien who was half Virgil's height and twice as lively, was also older than all of them combined. Reytin lifespans were literally off the chart. Patton had been around way back when humans were first declared illegal on this side of the cosmos. “You know that we can’t do that! He invoked the Oath of Brothers so we have to!”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Roman griped. “Worse case, my soul just becomes eternally damned and I’m shamed by the rest of my race until I die a lonely, lonely death on some distant planet!”

“Must you be so dramatic?” Logan asked.

“You won't die alone!” Patton said, “We’ll be right there with you! Probably even die right next to you as well!”

“No offense Pat,” Roman said glumly, “But that makes me feel like I’m gonna be the cause of your death.”

“It’ll be fun!”

Thankfully before Roman could explain exactly there was nothing fun about making all his friends die, Logan cleared his throat and made his upper two palms glow with a soft blue light. Green and pink bulbs flashed up and down his neck. “I have mapped out the perceived trajectory of the enemy ship so we should be able to beam directly into the hold. However because of possible miscalculations I believe that I should be--”

“--The first to beam aboard as I am the only one who is not affected by the lack of gaseous properties and the extreme temperatures of the expanse of space.” Roman, Patton, and Virgil chorused together.

“Must you all?” Logan asked, with just enough fondness in his tone for Virgil to know that he wasn’t actually bothered.

“Change up your speech sometime, Teach,” Roman suggested, and then he sighed dropping his head. “You guys are really willing to do this for me? These are mercenaries, you know. If this doesn’t go well they’ll likely sell us for parts.”

Virgil really didn’t need the reminder. Just the thought of once again having his arms restrained, having his clothes striped away, being reduced from a person to a thing used for entertainment, was enough to have Virgil eyeing the door back to the rest of the ship. Even on the off chance that they didn’t try to take him apart to see how he ticked, they would still sell him for griot. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, survive being thrust back into the fighting rings. He’d shake himself apart before they managed to drag him into that dust riddled death trap.

Patton reached up and tugged the edge of Virgil’s under armor tunic, drawing his eyes away from the door and down to his friend. Patton, of course, was smiling, imitating the human action of bearing his teeth (something that Logan had explained was incredibly threatening to all other species and you may want to avoid participating in that activity with Roman in the vicinity, Virgil).

It was silly things like that that make Virgil hopelessly certain that he would do anything to protect his friends. He didn’t need to worry about being caught and sold off because the others wouldn’t let that happen again, and in turn, he wouldn’t allow them to be taken away either. They were a family, for better or worse.

(He wasn’t going to lose someone again. Not like before. Not without a fight, a trace-- not without Virgil doing every single thing he could to get them back first.)

“We’ll be fine!” Patton told Roman brightly.

“Yeah, cheer up, Princey,” Virgil added, hooking his satchel over his shoulder, “Worse case scenarios are my thing.” He offered out a folded fist, palm up and Roman dutifully knocked his own knuckles against it, as an upside down fistbump (a signal of friendship in Erefrenian).

Patton let out a chittering and jumped up to knock his own knuckles with them. And Logan’s left forearms flickered pastel pink from the wrist up to his neck and he begrudgingly added his own to the pile.

“Everyone remembers their part of the plan, correct?” Logan asked, letting his two lower arms finish typing a final sequence into the control panel.

Patton sprung in the air, jumping Virgil’s entire height, and shook his palms. “I’ve got the emergency pods and the armory, using Virgil’s thingies to shut down the access to the lower rooms and blocking off escapes as I make my way to the medic bay!”

“I’ve got the crew quarters to where I’ll use Virgil’s thingies--”

“Can we not call them thingies?” Virgil grumbled. “They’re just EMPs. Barely enough to take out the door locks. And it's likely they won’t do much of anything if this group has an emergency system reboot in case of an electrical surge. It’ll buy us five minutes, max.”

“--Virgil’s thingies,” Roman repeated with his tail rattling in that way that said he took pleasure in Virgil’s annoyance. “To lock as many of the doors as I can, before travelling to the cell blocks to get my brother and his crew and move them to the medic bay where Patton will have the necessary supplies ready incase of injuries.”

“I will take the Bridge,” Logan said, “and act as the major distraction, as Tenkarie are very rare and it is likely that they will have never encountered nor have preemptive measures against my Lightdancing. Once I have control of the bridge I will cut off the communications to other ships in the area and start inputting the redirection course. Once I have the new coordinates I will send them to Virgil for him to implement.”

“I’ve got the engineering deck,” Virgil said, finally, “To make sure they don’t try to blow us all up with the warp core and whatever. Then I’ll redirect the teleporting course and get us home while the rest of you take out the bad guys. Piece of cake.”

Logan’s neck notches glowed red, “There should be no stopping for cake--.”

“Idiom,” Virgil interrupted quickly, “Human saying. Means it should be easy.”

Logan hummed musically, which sent a vibration of multicolored lights off his shoulders and down under his clothes. “Ah, interesting. This should indeed then be a piece of cake.” He picked up one of the teleportation bracelets from their charging pads and fixed it on his upper right wrist. “I’ve already added in the coordinates to the watches, so merely wait for my signal and press the button.”

Virgil would be lying if he said he didn’t have a little bit of anxiety over their plan. It was pretty slapshot compared to the things that they had put together before, but Remus’s transmission had been shoddy, even after Roman and his combined efforts to clean it up. It was hard to remember that Remus was every bit a ship captain as Roman was with how he had appeared in the picture dressed in ripped and tattered clothes, oozing green poison from his forearm plates, and bleeding profusely from a wound on his forehead. He had been leaning heavily on the communication panel, gritting his teeth through the pain, but his tail had been dancing in the air behind him in the same motions that Roman’s did when he saw a new sword to add to his collection.

Remus had invoked the Oath of Brothers, spit up blood on the console, and then relayed as much information as he could about the attacking ship. They were lucky, in that way. Most of the Pol’tur ships followed the same base model, which meant that the Bridge was always going to be at the bottom, the engines would be at the top and the engine core center would be between them.

If it was possible Virgil was sure they all would have wanted more time to make a better plan, but they all knew that Pol’turs loved to work quickly. They had already lost three days chasing after the ship, and in that time, Pol’turs could cut apart fifty Reytins like Patton.

They were working mostly on the assumption that the Pol’turs would save Remus for near last, and they were going to be absolutely fucked if they had chosen to chop up the other Erefren first.

In addition, their plan had Virgil avoiding most of the fighting. well, as much as he could while being on an enemy ship. Virgil himself wasn’t sure how he would do in a lot of combat, but they had seen what happened when one of the others were in danger (when Logan’s glasses had broken, when the space pirates had almost shot Patton through both his hearts, when the spikes had been pulled from Roman’s spine by the Quitans before the new ones had grown in--). He could fight, and he could fight well, but the cost was a little bit of Virgil’s sanity and his ability to sleep through the night.

Patton plucked his own teleportation watch from the pad and hooked it on, before offering Virgil his. Well it wasn’t really his, the same way that the red one wasn’t Roman’s and Patton didn’t own the blue one. They were all Logan’s pet projects, but he had tailored them to their favorite colors. It felt a bit like coming home when Virgil clicked the locking mechanism into place and the screen lit up with the digital alien symbols.

“I shall see you all soon,” Logan said matter-of-factly, as if he couldn’t see all the ways that their plan could go wrong. Then with barely more than a breath he clicked the activation button and his form flickered out of existence.

Roman made a nervous noise with the back of his throat, which ended up sounding a bit like the first bars of a Disney song Virgil had forgotten. Virgil gently tapped his tail with the toe of his boot, avoiding the glisten poison spikes. Roman startled just enough to laugh.

“Its funny, you know?” He said, glancing towards Virgil. “A year ago Remus told me he had taken in a Deathworlder, and I thought he was crazy. A Deathworlder? But now that I know you guys I can’t believe I didn’t get my own sooner.”

“Remus has a human on his crew?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, I wonder if you know each other!” Patton added.

Virgil bit back his original comment, and let the weight settle in his stomach. If Remus had a human in his crew there was even more of a chance that Remus was dead, because the Pol’turs had chosen to save the mysterious human for last.

“Earth is a big place,” Virgil said instead. “Like really big. They’d probably be from like Russia or something.”

At the blank stares he got, Virgil tried rewording, “We probably never have met before. Or speak the same language.”

"There's more than one human language?"

Virgil breathed through his nose, warding off a memory of rolling Rs and failed pop quizzes. "Yeah," he said, "Humans can't agree on anything."

Roman thoughtfully crossed his arms, but Patton made a chittering again and bounced, “Oh well! Now you guys are gonna meet! All the way out in space! How cool is that?!”

Virgil hid a smile in his shoulder. Trust the Reytin to find the bright side to everything.

Roman looked like he had more questions (questions that Virgil wasn't exactly enthusiastic to answer; Earth was a sore topic for him) but mercifully each of their watches let out several musical bars from Patton’s favorite song. The alien shook his palms one last time, beaming at each of them.

“Oh this is gonna be so much fun, guys!” He said right before pressing the activation button and disappearing.

“I’m so going to kill Remus for this,” Roman grumbled, one hand on his sword hilt.

And, really, Virgil agreed with him on that. Tossing Remus into the airlock and ejecting him directly into the void sounded like an excellent plan for when they got back to their ship alive and whole and safe.

“Let’s do this,” Virgil said and jabbed his thumb into the activation button.

***

Predictably, their flimsy plan fell apart within seconds of them appearing on the ship. Starting with, exactly, Virgil did not appear in or near the engineering deck. Instead he had landed approximately two feet above a box in the Cargo hold of the Pol’turian ship, which likely meant he was somewhere left of where he needed to be.

It also meant that the Pol’turs in the Cargo Hold had a grand view of his body blitzing into existence, landing on a crate, and then tumbling off it with a lot of English cursing. It was a mere matter of luck that Virgil was able to roll his body to the side just before the first BZZZTTRRRT of their blasters went off.

(There was an actual name for the guns that most aliens used, and Virgil was pretty sure that it started with a hard K sound but he had never been able to remember it. He stuck to calling them blasters in his head, and hoped somewhere back on Earth George Lucas was proud of himself.)

The Polyfurnish of the crate hissed and sizzled as it took the brunt of the attack meant to vaporize Virgil, and the human hissed another curse as his hands dug through his satchel.

One of the Pol’turs-- the deep purple one although Virgil hadn’t truly been able to catch sight of how many there were-- shouted something in its language. Probably something along the lines of “Stop”, “Surrender”, or “Kill him”. Virgil wasn’t exactly a fan of any of those options.

He had heard them before-- too many times. The hundreds of variations of the terms spat and yelled and cheered down at him, and he scrambled away from the edge of a sword, as he tasted nothing by dust and dirt as he dodged another attempt on his life, as he desperately backed away from an opponent who couldn’t understand that Virgil didn’t want to fight, please, stop, please, I’m sorry, please I don’t want to hurt anyone--

Virgil curled up as another gold blast ricocheted off the top of the crate he was cowering behind. The air was cooler here, he told himself, the air was cooler and the floor was slicker, and he was surrounded by shelves of goods. He was not in a colosseum and he was not in a fighting ring and he was not alone.

He had the others to regroup with and no time to panic over the past here and now. Virgil gritted his teeth, remembering the feel of Roman’s knuckles bumping his, the sight of Logan’s excited lights, the sound of Patton’s laughter, and then his hand wrapped around the homemade smoke bombs in his satchel.

He yanked the pins from their sockets, wound back, and launched them over the crate into the mass of where all the shooting was coming from. Almost immediately the shoots veered off course, and the cavernous room echoed with high pitched screams. Virgil ripped his turtleneck up and over his nose and then he grabbed the edges of the nearest shelf and hoisted himself to a higher area, out of the range of the low hanging gas.

It was a pale red, near pink thing: a concoction formed by Logan out of Roman’s poison that had taken them literal years to perfect. Virgil was mostly immune to it, the same way he was mostly immune to most poisons that horrified the other species. Inhaling it made his head dizzy and his limbs a little numb, which was just unpleasant enough that he tried to avoid inhaling anything when he had the chance. Other species though...they weren’t so lucky. According to Logan, inhaling it allowed it directly into the bloodstream where it would swiftly ignite all the pain sensors in the body and could make one feel like they were being stabbed everywhere at once.

(He knew this, Logan admitted, because it had taken him many times to get it right. His scientific journals recorded experiments #1 through #357 as “unpleasant” and “ill-advised” and Virgil had nearly throttled him when he discovered that Logan had used himself as a test subject.)

Using the shelves he boosted himself another level until his head was parallel with a box of what he thought were floating Welsor hearts, before he scanned the ground under him. There were three Pol’turs on the ground writhing in pain, blasters discarded, and pale smoke floating ominous above them. Their usually languid tentacles flopped up and down on the floor like a bunch of fish out of water.

The glass container next to his hip exploded, missing him by mere millimeters. Virgil cursed as he scrambled up another level, eyes darting around to find where the hell that shot came from. His armor took much of the hit but it was sizzling with heat in a way that was decidedly not-comforting.

“Up there!” Something shouted.

Another blast missed his ear and a container of Sblorp fangs shattered and sent the teeth spilling to the floor. Virgil kicked his feet through the lower shelf pushing through a crate and a dozen jars of various indeterminable body parts and squeezed his body in the place of them. The crashes on the next isle were rather satisfying.

He ripped the pin from another smoke bomb with his teeth, and felt his tongue buzz slightly as the proximity to the toxin before he launched it out at the direction of the other shooter. There was another scream and Virgil took the time to roll into the next isle and leap back down to the floor.

The gas still hadn’t cleared around the original three Pol’turs, but they had gone unconscious from the pain, with a few seizing tentacles here and there. Virgil would feel bad about it, really he would, but the last time he had been in a room of Pol’turs they had been discussing how nicely his skull would look in the centerpieces of their tables and tried to buy him for 270 griot.

His skin tingled the same way he thought it might right before he would get struck by lightning back on Earth. Virgil ignored the feeling in honor of sliding across the polished flooring to the nearest fallen mercenary and hoisting it up as a shield, while he grabbed its blaster from the floor.

Two blaster shots sunk into his Pol’tur shield and it dissolved into ashes in his hand. Virgil cursed again, raising the blaster with his other arm and using his ash coated hand to slide the trigger, because this blaster-- like all other blasters-- were not made for human anatomy at all.

The last Pol’tur was a sickly orange color, like some type of invasive evil moss with long arms. Virgil grinned as the blast exploded forth in a dangerous golden ray of death. The heat singed the edge of his fingers, although the mild numbness prevented him from feeling much more than the slight pressure he assumed was warmth. The shot went wide, and the kickback sent Virgil to the floor, but it was enough.

The blast shattered though several items on the shelves and Pol’tur scrambled back to avoid the avalanche of perishables-- scrambled back right into the pink fog of Virgil's last smoke bomb. It was screaming before Virgil could even sit back up.

Virgil inhaled heavily, sucking as much oxygen into his lung as he could afford and breathing it out through his nose. He squeezed his hand around the handle of the blaster, and tried to pretend like his skin didn’t feel too small. His empty hand-- the one that had held the Pol’tur-- was trembling, shaking, burning.

“I just think you’d be better off spending time with someone else.”

“You’re not fooling anyone, Storm!”

“What was it like, Virgil? When you killed him?”

His hand was covered in soot, tingling from nerves and poison and the heat of the blast that had annihilated all evidence of the living, breathing alien.

“It wasn’t….” Virgil breathed heavily, “I didn’t….”

He sucked in another breath, two, three, seven breaths, until he could feel the masquerading gas in the air turn his face numb, and the voices in his head went back to threatening buzzing.

“Fuck,” he whispered softly, and pushed himself off the ground.

Virgil took the blaster with him, and made a private note to ask Logan to look into building communicators for times like this. There were an untold number of things that could have happened to get them mixed up: the Pol’tur ship could have barrel rolled at the time of, or before the final teleportation codes were in, it could have slowed or sped up, it could have marginally changed direction. All of which just proved that only stupid people like Virgil, Logan, Roman, and Patton would dare attempt a teleportation on a moving ship. Virgil tried not to think about what would have happened if his coordinates had been a little lower in space, a little closer to the box he had landed on, a little more personal and prompted whatever was inside of the crate merged with whatever was inside of Virgil.

It took him a moment to realize that the lights had started flashing an interspaced red and yellow series: a visual alarm to the crew.

“Fun,” Virgil mumbled, hugging the wall next to the exit, with one last breath, and then punching the exit lock. The hydraulics took a moment to work (probably due to excessive use of the doors and wear on the components), but it opened to reveal a brightly lit, completely empty hallway. Virgil raised his blaster, checking both the direction before he stepped out and punched the door closed behind him. Then he lined the blaster up with the door controls and fired.

You know, for safekeeping. The last thing they needed was the Pol’turs inside to wake up with a vengeance and come after them before they were off the ship.

(If he was still on the ship by the time that they woke up, Virgil was pretty sure he’d be dead. But hey! Surprising things happened all the time when one lived in fucking space.)

The floor was springy under his feet, some mixture of carpet and flooring that Virgil didn’t know the name of, just that it was weird and he didn’t want it in his Sims House. He could feel the fibers through his shoes as he hugged the wall and sprinted towards where he thought the Engine room would be located.

He could hear the sound of more blasters echoing from the depths of the ship, some yelling, some cursing: all lovely signs that Roman was doing his best to be the most annoying moving target anyone had ever seen. Virgil found his lips curling into a smile as he faintly at the noise.

“Oh come on!” Roman taunted, “I’m a big guy! Surely, you can’t be that bad of a shot!”

There was deafening BZZZTTRRRT, a clamorous crashing, and an ear splitting series of screams.

Virgil flung around the last corner but in time to see Roman stand up from a kneeling position over a clump of bodies that had probably been more alive a few seconds ago. There were blaster marks all along the walls, and several had blown through a wall revealing a cozy living quarters with giant sword slices in the beddings and floors.

“Oooh, so close!” Roman said with faux-empathy bordering on smugness which at this point should just be his default to the mass. “Maybe next time you’ll think more before attacking an Erefren!” He spun at the sight of Virgil coming around the corner, pointing his sword and then shaking his tail in a greeting.

“Roman,” Virgil sighed in relief. “You okay?”

“Virgil! It seems like I got a little off course! Checked the prisoner cells but they were all empty. And then a few new friends of mine had some fun things to say about Remus.” Roman looked feral as he bared his teeth. He jabbed his sword down into the corpses and something wheezed painfully. Virgil didn’t look at them, didn’t look at them, didn’t look.

“Do you know where he is?” Virgil asked.

Roman used the edge of his shirt to wipe the blue grey blood from the tip of his blade. “Not yet, but if you give me a few more minutes with these lovely fellows of mine I will!”

It did not take “a few more minutes”. Roman hoisted on still gasping Pol’tur up by its gangly neck and it had already started blubbering in a mix of languages. Virgil watched the halls while Roman took notes from their new best friend.

Half a minute later Roman dropped their captive to the ground with a fire in his eyes and turned to Virgil with his bone plates clinking, and dripping poison.

“He was on the Bridge.” He said, coldly, “He didn’t know if they had finished with Re or not, but he was up there”

“Okay,” Virgil said.

“The rest of his crew, Virgil,” Roman growled, squeezing the hilt of his sword. “His friends! His family!” He stared down at the shaking cowering alien life. “They..!”

The back of Virgil’s throat tasted like his stomach acids.

Remus had tried to have them killed, he had sold them out, he had been a thorn in their side since before Virgil had become part of the team. Between the harrowing escapes and the near deaths, it wasn’t hard for Virgil to absolutely despise him.

But his crew? His entire crew? In three days?

Just….gone?

Condensed into the memories with a snap, removed from the future in just a blink. The initial attack on them must have been bad and bloody for Remus to call them for help, a surprise ambush type of attack. And for all Virgil hated Remus, he couldn’t help but wonder if Remus had had plans with them-- had they been discussing visiting the bars on L3-012 or shopping on K5-369 or relaxing on C2-276? Had Remus made plans with the people he had been close with and now those plans were meaningless because the people he had made them with were dead and gone and never coming ba--

The Pol’tur on the ground giggled something hysterically, one last brave blubbering comment, and Roman took the toe of his boot right into the creature's soft flesh. Its tentacles flopped on the floor with a plu-plat.

“Virgil,” Roman hissed, without looking up.

Virgil blinked and swallowed hard, “Right, Engines,” He said, turning to go back to his task but Roman reached out and hooked his claws on Virgil’s shoulder, stopping him there.

“Change of plans,” The Erefren said, “You’re coming with me to the Bridge to get my idiot brother.”

Logan was on the Bridge too. Roman didn’t need to have Virgil come with him-- in fact, Virgil shouldn’t come with him. Too many people, too close to fighting, and Virgil couldn’t wipe away the feeling of grit on his hand.

His entire crew. In just three days.

Roman didn’t mention anything about how Virgil was shaking from head to toe, and Virgil didn’t point out the way that Roman’s voice wobbled with silent pleading. He just nodded at the alien and let him lead the way towards where they suspected the examination rooms would be.

Two heads are better than one, and all that.

It was less of a guessing game when the halls and doors were labeled and Roman was very fluent in Pol’turian. Roman was quick to move, quick to sort his way through the poorly designed areas, quick to move. Virgil kept the pace as well as he could, watching the halls behind them for stragglers attempting to get the drop on them and Roman cut down anything in his way.

Blue grey blood splattered across their shoes, filling the air with a sickly sour smell that made Virgil want to gag. He settled for squeezing the handle of the balster and counting out his breaths again as he avoided Roman’s tail striking forward at astonishing speeds and squeezing his eyes shut when he thought he saw a pair of mismatching eyes in the reflection of the lights.

There was no way for them to go quietly through the halls, not with Roman stomping hard enough to shake the entire ship and his poison attacks turning every enemy into a screaming, begging, crying puddle.

“Roman!” Virgil yelled as heat billowed around them, and the taller alien stumbled back, hit the wall and fell to his knees.

Virgil snarled at one of the mercenaries and fired three times at them. Between the near misses and the scattered yells of “Deathworlder!” they retreated into nearby rooms and locked the doors after them. Virgil tore one of his EMPs from Roman’s belt and sent it flying down the hall to keep them trapped there for a little bit, before he turned to check on Roman.

His shirt was smoldering, and one of his bone plates were cracked, but he just looked out of breath and angry, “I’m fine.” His claws scraped the floor as he stood up. “Armor took most of it.”

Virgil checked the hallway again. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, like a cancerous lump that he couldn’t get rid off no matter how much he swallowed or coughed. It pulsed to a beat that he wasn’t sure he could replicate: too fast and yet the space between each thud had felt like forever. It was so loud he almost was afraid of missing the sounds of another attack.

(An attack where Roman’s armor wouldn’t be enough, where he wouldn’t be able to wheeze off the pain, where he’d hit the wall then the floor and he wouldn’t be able to get back up and it would be all Virgil’s faul--)

Roman’s claws pricked his shoulder as he looked. With a slightly trembling hand he pointed in the direction they needed to go and Virgil did his best not to let his churning stomach get the better of him.

“Virgil! Roman!” They both spun at the voice; Roman in particular struck out with his tail, and just narrowly avoided impaling Logan’s crystalline chest on spikes.

Logan didn’t even flinch, not that he could really. His lower arms spread with palms out to signal innocence but his upper arms were busy holding up the profusely bleeding Erefren that was leaning mostly on him. Logan’s arms were flickering with so many colors Virgil couldn’t keep track of them. (Vaguely it reminded him of a disco ball, of party lights, of something so Earthly it would have made him laugh if he wasn’t so busy trying to hold back a panic attack.)

“Remus,” Roman breathed, reaching forward, impossibly gently.

“Ro’mn,” Remus slurred, shifting his head ever so slightly. His blood was pooling down the left half of his face, his eyes were partially glassy, but other than that he looked remarkably like Roman: they shared the same face with a strong jawline, the same dark dark hair curled the same way, and the same long tail with dozens of bone plates. The only real difference was the tinge of white in Remus’s hair, the oozing green poison leaking from his bone structures in place of Roman’s red, and the gaps where someone had torn out his bone plates before Remus had grown new ones in.

“Didn’t think…” Remus’s head lulled to the side, showing off the smile he was desperately forcing on his face, “didn’t think… you were comin’.”

“I’m throwing you out of the airlock,” Roman told him.

“‘ounds fun…” Remus murmured, dropping his head back to Logan’s back, and wincing like each inhale was a battle.

“They had him on the Bridge,” Logan explained, “When I arrived, they were attempting to retrieve information from him through barbaric methods. I may have gone overboard with my retaliation.” Logan shifted Remus’s weight slightly, drawing a groan from the other alien. “I am by no means a medical examiner, however, I suspect that he may have several rib fractures, and a few wounds that need to be looked at and well bandaged.”

Roman nodded, although Virgil didn’t think he actually heard anything. Virgil was an only child himself, but he could guess that even if Remus had been the biggest asshole in the entire cosmos seeing him reduced to this weakened, bloody, broken mess was terrifying. From the stories of their childhood, Virgil had always guessed that Remus was as lively as they came. But this version of him couldn’t even stand by himself.

Roman’s head shot up, “Patton. Where’s Pat? We’ve got Re, now its time to get out of here and get him help--”

“NO!” Remus shouted lunging forward suddenly. Logan stumbled at the change of weight, nearly dropping him to the floor, but it seemed that the movement had taken most of the rest of his power. “I can’t… They have…Jay… I prom’sed…”

Virgil checked the hall for enemies because that was easier than looking at the desperation in Remus’s eyes. His voice was scratched and grated like a glass under the assault of a diamond. He coughed so violently it dragged out a glob of purple blood from him.

“Remus, you can’t--” Roman said.

And despite Remus looking like a simple breeze could end his life, he grabbed at Roman’s outreached arm, above the danger of the forearm spikes.“Me and... my crew,” Remus coughed, weakly. “The oath…”

“I talked to one of those bastards,” Roman countered, forcibly soft, forcibly strained. “Re, your crew is--”

“Ro…” He pleaded, “Please.”

Roman made a noise like something in him was physically shredding him apart. Virgil suspected it was his hero complex, which usually manifested the urge to save every living being he saw. Lost wasn’t a good look on Erefrens, Virgil decided right then and there. Hopeless and terrified and sad-- all of them made Roman look wrong.

“What's wrong, Vee? You look like you want to say something.”

“....It’s nothing.”

“What? Not even a joke? Come on, I know you--”

“Let it go, Ekans.”

Virgil blinked away the unwanted memory. He sighed out of his nose and reached up to hook on the back of Roman’s armor collar. “Let’s go.”

“Virge…” Roman murmured.

“If we don’t do this now,” Virgil said, “We’ll regret it.”

He didn’t wait for the others to catch up with his train of thought, or maybe he wasn’t waiting for his own train of thought to catch up. He tugged Roman back a step and nodded at Logan. “We’ll double back and find any crew that’s left and get Pat. You take Remus to the engine room room and get the codes ready for us to get back.”

“For real?” Roman said.

“Understood, Virgil.” Logan nodded back. He glowed purple softly, around his neck notches as if he had expected this after all. “Don’t be late.”

“Time is a construct.”

Remus laughed like he was choking on a handful of rusted nails. Roman tensed at the sound, gritted his teeth, and then tightened his grip on his sword. Resolved hardened in his eyes, burning through the lost expression like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.

“Right,” Roman said, “Let’s go.” Roman grabbed Virgil’s hand and took off in the direction they had come from. “Any guesses where the guy’s gonna be? Or where Pat is?”

Virgil felt his stomach churn. He closed his eyes and let Roman pull him along as he tried to remember the 3D diagram of a Pol’turian ship. “Well if I was in cargo, you landed near the prisoner blocks, while Logan was on the Bridge...that means that while Logan was doing the calculations the ship probably did a half roll on the longitudinal axis, which he couldn’t have accounted for. Since this ship appears to be the same as the other makes and models of Pol’turs that means that Patton probably ended up in the medical bay. And if I had to guess that’s where any last member of the crew would be as well. Take this left here.”

Roman nearly stumbled over his own feet. “How in the name of the Great God, Disney-- have you memorized all the maps?”

Virgil furrowed his brow at the alien, “Haven’t you?”

“Well yes, but--” Roman’s face flushed with a bit of his purple blood, “Nevermind, Deathworlder.”

The medical wing of the ship was easy to get to compared to the other places. It seemed that either the Pol’turs had wisened up for an ambush or they had fled when they had the chance. Either way they only came across two mercenaries and Roman made quick work of them.

He knew they had arrived by the buzzing of air, the tingle of his skin that made him feel too big and too small at the same time. The walls were bare and there were four rooms lining them, each with a number engraved in the door and the lock panels glowing red with what Virgil guessed was the Pol’turian symbol for “closed” or “locked” or “dangerous chemical inside do not release”. Virgil reached for another EMP, but his bag was empty. There were scents around them, faint scents: something metallic, something sour, something clean, something, something, something--

Something that smelled like blood. So many different kinds of blood.

Virgil swallowed hard. He hadn’t known a lot about Remus’s crew, but he knew that Remus had had a dozen different species with him. A dozen different species that hadn’t survived the encounter.

“Pat!” Roman yelled down the hall, brandishing his sword.

“Roman! In here! Help--” A voice that was most definitely Patton’s yelled out.

Roman didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward to the room the voice had come from, almost feverishly, desperately, and he didn’t bother with the password. With a swift violent motion he jabbed his sword into the locking panel and then pried open the door with his claws and his hands.

Virgil thought that it would have been one hell of a sight: if he had been strapped to a table, a knife jab from death’s door, begging, pleading, crying and knowing that all his friends had been taking to the room before him and had not come back out intact? If Virgil had been bleeding out and clinging to the slippery bit of hope that was a miracle, and then he saw his captain’s brother literally prying open the door with his bare claws to get to him---

Virgil thought it would have been pretty awesome.

Not something that should have warranted a knife being thrown at them.

Roman let out a curse in Erefren and it was one of those don’t-repeat-this-don’t-tell-Patton curses that Roman specialized in. He staggered back, clutching his shoulder where the knife had sunk in all the way to the hilt, Jesus! What the hell! Virgil kicked the rest of the door open, dropping low as scalpel skirted by where his body should have been, and then he sprung back up with his blaster set on that asshole.

Except.

“Virgil!”

The room was small, almost claustrophobically small. Just standing in the doorway made Virgil’s breath shorten (his cell back at the Welsor fighting rings had been bigger than this--). And it was lit with cold harsh white light, nearly blinding, if it weren’t for the greyed walls and the splashes-- the splashes of faded pink and blue and other colors that Virgil recognized all too well as blood. The table took up most of the room, leaving just enough space for a Pol’tur to sweep around and a small hand tray of twisted instruments.

In fact there was a Pol’tur on the ground right there. Limp and unmoving with an eye scoop so far in it’s skull there was no way it was coming back out.

But Virgil wasn’t staring at the body.

“Don’t you get tired of being everyone’s favorite person?”

It couldn’t--

“Just shut up and help me with these conjugations, will you?”

This wasn’t--

“What do you mean no one can find him?”

He hadn’t--

The detective had looked at him with such a pity that it had made Virgil’s entire body flinch. He squeezed the plastic cup in his hand, crushing it, letting the fragments cut into his skin. He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything. The man was still talking to him, talking softly like anything louder would shatter the fragile reality around them, talking so quietly Virgil couldn’t hear a single thing he was saying at all over the sound of his own heartbeat.

“You’re wrong,” Virgil had croaked. “He’s not dead.”

But he had been.

He had been for nearly two years now.

And everyone had thought that Virgil had done something to him, had thought that Virgil was the last to see him, had thought that his dark clothes and his eye shadow and a few sneers in the hall had meant that Virgil was suddenly capable of killing Janus Ekans in cold blood.

Except.

Except that Virgil was staring at Janus --fucking-- Ekans right now.

It was unmistakable, the shape of his face, the curve of his lips, the slimness of his nose. The wispy brown hair that turned golden under the summer sun, the mischievous eyes danced with different colors, the flick of his tongue that moved so freely when he let it, the tattoo of two theater masks on his chest that no one was supposed to know about-- Virgil could have spent days naming things, committing them to memory, staring in disbelief at him. This was the same boy who had sat next to him in Spanish. The same Janus who had been convinced he was so completely untouchable up until Virgil had dragged him off his stupid, golden pedastal.

It was the same Janus who was currently wrapped around Patton like a boa constrictor cutting off the alien’s ability to move and had a knife perched ever so closely to one of Patton’s eyes.

“What the hell?” Virgil had said because-- because--

Because Virgil had asked Logan once if there was a race that could pick through minds, pull memories from heads, change the way someone thought. And Logan didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t lie to him. There were no alien types that could break into a mind and drag illusions into reality and there were no races that could bring ghosts back from oblivion.

“Virgil,” Janus said barely a whisper, barely enough to be heard, barely enough to mean anything. The knife was tilting in his hand, tipped like he wasn’t sure what he was saying, wasn’t sure what he was doing. “What-?”

Partially drugged, Virgil thought with absolutely no room to breathe in his chest. Partially drugged, holding a knife to Patton’s weakest point, and alive.

“Janus,” Virgil said, ”Put down the knife.”

He’s still partially strapped to the table, bound by his left ankle and sporting a lovely series of cuts on the side of his face as if someone had started carving scales into his cheek for funsies. If Virgil had to hazard a guess he would have assumed that Patton had dropped in literally as the Pol’tur was taking Janus-- Janus, alive, breathing, real-- apart one centimeter at a time, then proceeded to win a very cramped fight in the room. Virgil would even say that Patton had started taking the restraints off of Janus when he had gained enough consciousness to realize that he needed to defend himself.

(The fact that they found something capable of drugging a human, a Deathworlder, was concerning, so concerning, terrifying--)

“Virgil….You are not real,” Janus said, slowly, blood dripping down his neck. “You cannot be real. None of this is real.”

“I’m the one thats not real?” Virgil muttered. “You’re the one that was declared dead.”

He laughed. Virgil’s stomach swooped.

For a second, a brief fleeting second, he could have sworn that this was all a dream. A fever dream in which Virgil would blink himself awake from and find himself on the floor of Janus’s stupid, giant ass room surrounded by a dozen cans of off-brand energy drinks, a half eaten bucket of popcorn, and the credits for a horror movie scrolling on the screen. For a second it felt like he would roll over and bump elbows with Janus who had woken up an hour previously to study for that stupid Spanish test that wasn’t until Monday. For a second it was like he was seventeen again and his biggest worry was figuring out if it was too weird to ask to run his hands through Janus’s silky hair.

“Of course, I was declared fucking dead!” Janus said, like it was the obvious thing that would happen, “I am dead. I have to be, because there’s no other way that the kid who's afraid of going outside made it this far into space.”

“Janus, put down the knife.” Virgil took a step forward, a half a step, but Janus just squeezed the knife tighter.

“Why don’t you come and make me?” Janus smiled at him, smiled, smiled, smiled.

Smiled like he knew that this was a dream and nothing he did was going to matter. Smiled like they were back on that balcony of his room with their feet swinging between the bars and two Seagrams gone each and they were going to get in a shit ton of trouble for it. Smiled like he had never been dead and Virgil hadn’t had to bury the thought of him.

Patton made a noise, a small whimper, and Virgil felt it in his chest. The near silence of the room, the soft muted buzzing in his head, the fuzzy dream like quality of reality-- it all shattered at the sound. Shattered like glass, like a mirror, like the concept of “forever”. It shattered and Virgil was suddenly hyperaware of how small the room was, how cold he felt, how metallic the air smelt.

“Hm, just as I thought,” Janus said softly, smile dropping into something wistful and disappointed, “I really am just seeing thin--”

Virgil didn’t give him the satisfaction of finishing; he surged forward, throwing his blaster to the side, and using his left hand to catch Janus’s wrist millimeters from putting that knife in Patton. He twisted his hand, pining his fingers into the soft flesh of Janus’s nerves until his hand jerked open on reflex and the knife fell into the open air.

Janus froze, inhaling so sharply Virgil was certain that he took all the oxygen in the room away.

He was warm, Virgil realized absently. He was warm and had a pulse and for some reason both those things made Virgil’s chest hurt. His skin was soft and his breath was sweet and Virgil had gotten punch-drunk stupid on less.

Which probably explained why, how, when, Virgil’s lips ended up on his, pressing firmly, and tasting like something from a past Virgil had thought he had given up on. Virgil had always been stupid, but this was another level of stupid. This was incredibly dumb, unbelievable, ridiculous.

Janus’s mouth was on his, and Virgil’s hand was tipping his head back ever so slightly, and Patton had managed to scramble out of Janus’s absolutely shocked slacked hold.

“You’ve always been so annoying,” Virgil gasped between breaths, “Always thinking you know everything. Have you ever considered you might be wrong before?”

“You’re--” Janus whispered, “Real? For real?” Then, “Don’t you know what the fuck consent is?”

“Fuck you,” Virgil told him.

Janus grabbed him by his collar and yanked him forward again. “Since you asked so nicely.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Don’t be coy.” Janus shot back because he was still the same asshole who needed to have the last word. He bit at Virgil’s lip, and then pulled back to show off a wolfish grin.

Virgil was stuck somewhere between wanting to smash his stupid smug face in and wanting to kiss him until he lost all sense of direction. Janus was like that, Virgil remembered suddenly, even when they were kids, when Janus was trapped on that pedestal everyone had put him on, when Virgil couldn’t have cared less about him and somehow had ended up unsure how to live without him.

“Not that this isn’t the fucking cutest shit I’ve ever seen--“ A voice behind them called and Virgil stiffened.

“Language!” Patton interrupted, as Roman grunted through the pain of still having a surgical knife in his shoulder.

“--But can the two of you save your weird-ass….human…. greeting custom…. for some other time?” The Erefren snarled with one hand clutching the hilt and then yanking it out with a wheeze that Virgil felt physically. His purple blood spouted out from the wound but Roman didn’t seem to care, beyond tossing the knife to the floor.

“That’s an Erefren,” Janus said because he’s just as good at stating the obvious as he is at kissing. “That is not Remus.”

Roman snapped out something in his native tongue, which by the stress on the syllables was probably not nice and definitely not Patton approved. The Reytin even puffed up, shaking his head in a way that normally prefaced an hour long lecture on manners and the reintroduction of a swear jar.

However, Janus just laughed that pretty stupid little laugh of his but when he opened his mouth the words were all forgein. It took Virgil a moment to catch up, a moment to realize that he hadn’t even fumbled, that Janus had actually spoken Erefrenian and it had been grammatically correct enough that stunned Roman for a whole half second.

“You speak Erefrenian?” Virgil asked.

Janus blinked up at him a smug looking expression on his face. “You don’t?”

Virgil had a good response, he did. It was a response that had been some-three years in the making and Virgil had been ready to wipe that prideful expression of his face. But before they could do anything the entire ship lurched to the side, taking gravity with it. Virgil let out a yelp and grabbed for Janus and clung for stability.

(Space had done wonders for Janus’s abs, Virgil thought distantly.)

Roman slammed into the door frame and stumbled out into the hall, with all the grace a drunken ballerina, and cursed again when Patton landed on top of him.

“That’s our cue to leave!” Roman growled.

“Ya think?” Virgil shot back. He lunged for the end of the table where Janus’s bare foot was still strapped to the table. He didn’t look at the rusted color on the buckle, at the stiffness of the leather strap, at the rawness of Janus’s skin where it was biting into his ankle. He didn’t, didn’t, didn’t--

His hands shook. Janus reached over and clasped his forearms, the fabric of his tunic, him.

“Virgil--” Janus said, softly, unsuredly, with no trace of that previous pompous expression on him. “I--”

There was blood on his face, trailing all the way down his neck in scarlet silvers from the cuts. His hair was sweat matted, pressed and tousled in a way that made Virgil feel a certain rage in his chest, like someone had been running fingers through his curls while they sliced him apart. His eyes were still slightly glassy from whatever they put in him. There was an unspoken question on his lips, in his eyes, through his fingers as he clung to Virgil.

“I’ve got you,” Virgil told him, practically scooping him up. Janus heaved a breath as his feet touched the ground again. “Us humans have to stick together, right?”

Janus Ekans was alive.

It sounded surreal even in the moment, because Virgil had been mourning him since they were seventeen and stupid. Everyone else had moved on, had buried his memory, had forgotten about him. But he was not dead, and Virgil had not killed him. Somehow he had ended up in space, ended up with Remus, ended up here on this ship in the several billions of lightyears from anything they had known previously.

There would be no more late-nights-turned-early-mornings study sessions, no more sneaking over the gated walls of the Ekans mansion, and no more scaling the lattice underneath Janus’s balcony. They were never going to go stargazing on the hills outside of town again, never going to ruthlessly text each other under the desk during History class, never going to skip prom together to go trespassing in the woods somewhere to find Mothman. He was never going to butcher Spanish past participles in the cozy corner of the school library after hours and he was never going to get to listen to Janus brag about obtaining his Seal of Biliteracy finally despite his proficiency in about three languages.

Janus had disappeared right before senior year. And Virgil, who had been the biggest thorn in his side, the biggest instigator of all their fights, the wild and unruly punk kid that lived in detention-- Virgil had stopped looking for him. Because everyone said he had died. Because everyone said that Virgil had killed him.

But Virgil could feel Janus’s pulse, could hear his heartbeat, could see the way his chest moved as they stumbled out of the room.

Part of him was afraid that if he let go now, later, ever, Janus would disappear again. Shimmer and fade like a mirage in the desert.

“Careful Virgil,” Janus said breathily. “I almost think you missed me.”

“I hate you so much,” Virgil said back, as Roman and Patton led the way toward the engine rooms by blade and alien jujutsu and well-placed pun.

“Somehow, I don’t think you mean that, at all.” Janus said, grinning.

And then he closed that last little bit of space between them again.

[Next installment: Stars Die (But We Don’t)]

#Sanders sides #Virgil Sanders #Janus Sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Remus Sanders #Logan Sanders #Alien Au #Sympathetic Deceit #Sympathetic Remus #23 pages of Virgil in space #humans are space orcs #blood #Anxceit #background intrulogical #Probably will end up as part of series if you guys want more

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suketchilt · 5 years

Text

19 Questions

tagged by @l-y-r-i-u-m-g-h-o-s-t

…:U!

Rules: Answer 19 questions and then tag 19 people who you want to get to know better.

Nickname: Sketch

Zodiac: Virgo (I blanked and was like ‘Year of the Snake…?’)

Height: Almost 4’11”

Last movie I saw: All the way through? ………….. I think it was Little Nemo on YouTube. But random clips I’ve seen more recently? Pieces of the BNHA movie with Spanish subtitles…

Last thing I googled: Zodiac. Because I forgot which things were the Zodiac. 8);;; Before that, I think it was the first line of a police station’s address ‘cause I needed the full address to Uber there for some paperwork. BY THE WAY…. Uber has NO IDEA where that address is and kept sending the poor Uber drivers in circles. I had to use Google Maps to direct them.

Favourite musician: WAIT, DO GROUPS COUNT? ………………………. I don’t have a favorite single person. :C

Song stuck in my head: Nothing. I’m listening to 10 Minute Power Hours and thus NO MUSIC CAN HURT ME… But a few days ago it was Pentagon’s song Humph! ‘cause y’know. YouTube told me it exists and there is orange eye shadow and I had to process that.

Other blogs: I only have one Tumblr. I get asked if I have an adult one for adult art and I’M SORRY TO SAY THAT I JUST DON’T MAKE ADULT ART… Are Twitters blogs? I have one, but I forget about it every other day ‘cause I don’t follow a lot of people and the way it chooses the posts I see and their order confuses me.

Do I get asks: Not normally since I haven’t been doing anything Dragon Age related, but some Lindrel stuff is going around again and someone told me Lindrel is sexy.

Following: Idon’tunderstandthequestion.

Amount of sleep: I usually get about six hours and then wake up feeling sick. I’m not good at sleeping. xD;;

Lucky number: Numbers don’t give me luck, but I like 4, 2, and their multiples. EXCEPT FOR 36. ‘Cause I don’t like 3 and I also don’t like 9. (36 is 9x4.) ‘CAUSE 9 IS 3 TIMES 3 AND YOU CAN’T DO THAT.

What I’m wearing: Long-sleeved, black shirt by Carhartt ‘cause it has a SHIRT POCKET. Also black pants that are probably for yoga. Spoilers: This is what I always wear at home. I literally have eight sets of the same clothes. Then for work it’s Armachillo shirts and Lee’s blue jeans (jeans I bought from SEARS). I’m simple and can’t handle thinking about fashion. If I like it, I buy a week’s worth and that’s that for two years and then I try to rebuy the same stuff as my wardrobe disintegrates around me. Next step is for my next set of Armachillo shirts to all be blue… Currently, Monday and Thursday are blue, Tuesday and Friday are red, and Wednesday is green. I can’t go to Publix on Wednesdays or else people think I work there ‘cause it’s almost the exact same green and looks like the manager attire.

Dream job: I just want to be comfortable. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.

Dream trip: I don’t like traveling. Dream trip is to not take a trip. >->

Play any instruments: Not anymore. I used to play a little piano and I was good at French horn and eventually got a double horn (plays French horn and B flat horn- you use the thumb key to switch the set of pipes you’re using), but this was back in middle school. I’m turning 30 this year. xD;;;; OH. I learned a tiny bit of guitar in college, but it hurts my hands, so I have NOT pursued that.

Languages: English. I used to be okay with Spanish, I just had too low of a vocabulary in the topics I was interested in. I’ve also taken a TINY BIT of French and I’ve had a semester of Russian, German, Latin, Modern Greek, Chinese, and Japanese. I’ve derped with Norwegian Bokmål on Duolingo, but I stopped using Duolingo. I tested too high in its Spanish course, so I still didn’t know the darn vocab. xD;;;;;; I want to learn a little Korean and ASL. Haven’t practiced anything, though. I barely speak freakin’ English now. >8V

Favourite songs: I don’t know. I’m not sure I have any favorites, and it’d be weird to say them given that I pay more attention to the sound/feeling of a song than the words. Usually when I say I like something someone will either say they think it’s dumb or try to discuss the meaning and I’m there like, “I can’t even hear the words clearly and I don’t understand poetry and then half of what I listen to isn’t English so I don’t know what you want from me.”

Random fact: I’ve barely been drawing these past two years ‘cause of work and mental health, but I’m trying. >8I…!! I feel super guilty that people want to see more Lindrel, though, ‘cause I’ve been focusing on other characters who aren’t in the DA universe. I’m sorry. ;o;

Tagging: I haven’t been talking to anyone, but I’ll tag @smuttine and @hobovampire if you haven’t done this recently. >8U! Anyone else can feel free to consider yourself tagged and tag me back so I can read about you. Just ‘cause I rarely initiate doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear about you. I’ve clicked through the first few pages of all of your blogs. B) KEEP MAKING ART (THAT INCLUDES WRITING) AND WORKING TO IMPROVE YOURSELVES AND THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. KEEP RESEARCHING AND LEARNING. DON’T BE AFRAID TO HELP OTHERS. DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE WRONG. LEARN AND GROW. >8U!!!

#Personal #Questionables.

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levinea-yuuki · 5 years

Text

I've been thinking recently

We don't have much foundation. Both Millennials and Gen Z are stuck with so much responsibility for our futures. We're judged for our quirks, called special snowflakes by the most entitled generations, and tossed out on our own by Baby Boomers and Gen X.

Now I definitely don't feel like a Generation Z child because of two reasons:

I'm 22 years old and that just makes me feel like a millennial based on the whole structure and my lack of a sense of timelines.

I've never gotten into fortnite or the majority of these memes or dabbing.

But honestly that is not going to stop me from enjoying watching all of these people having dance-offs or making cleverly woven jokes or saying things I'll never fully grasp, (I still don't understand "worm"), or simply feeling refreshed about the open-minded beliefs of equality and acceptance, understanding, and kindness. Pour as much of that on as your hearts can show.

Getting back to the point. Though there's not much of a generation gap between Millennials and Generation Z in my point of view, seeing as we're both dragged into the same issues that arose with having to deal with the baby boomer generation in the same manner that we're having to deal with Gen X, though maybe not to the same extent, I feel like the older Generations are trying to shove a gap between us or push the blame.

This link takes you to a website that expresses just how much there is to think about with what Baby Boomers have done to our economy... Even though they blame millennials. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness

It's not just our economy that I'm worried about in the long run.

We can repair that type of damage, what I'm really worried about how the younger ones are raised. Striking on a highly personal and sensitive note, my mother born in Gen X married young to my baby boomer father and had my brother and me, my brother being in the millennial generation. After seventeen years of supporting us, forced into not seeing us very much at all with working two jobs and still expected to cook and clean while he made no effort to get his own job, criticized her for everything she did as well as prevented her from having literally any friends in or out of work, she got out. Good for her, right? She left the abuse, lived a little, remarried, and had my siblings.

Now here's where it gets sticky.

This left us with our father (me as a sheltered albeit pampered 11 year old and my brother the inexperienced 16 year old who was also pampered) because he fought her in court and somehow won full custody of us. It came to the point where my brother was suddenly the sole money maker for the household (while also in school) in the time frame of a week after she left because dad still refused to get a job but insisted on smoking and drinking a six-pack a day anyway. At the same time his pride got in the way of accepting my mom's help because she had optional child support and when he did accept it he immediately went and spent it on his booze, so she ultimately stopped the fruitless. He cut ties between my mother and us and pretended everything was fine and dandy now that she was gone. When he died of an impending and incurable death triangle (kidney failure, liver failure, and sever diabetes) almost five years later we were left with his debts and he didn't teach us a single thing to get us started. Almost three years later, I left to live with my mother because she found us and got back in touch. My brother rejected her offer and went out on his own, swimming in the unbacked pride dad had set, and since then has been entirely incapable of holding a job for more than a few months before he's fired for one thing or another. He still refuses to speak with her.

Now on my end, everything started fine. I was expected to do some of the chores, finish highschool, and I finally had the chance to learn who my mother was the first time in my life... but once I had settled in I came to understand that she was in a constant defensive state anytime she was questioned and was afraid of moving forward. She suddenly had a late teenage daughter that didn't know a single thing about living. To this day four years later she has had a very easy-to-boil temper. It started as a self defense mechanism, she had to become this way to keep herself alive with my dad as a husband, but she became more than the overseer of the new family, she became an overbearing abrasive woman to make sure things were going her way so that there was no way she could slip back into what she had been living in.

She is now the type of person who considers pain to be a competition, a concept of reality she got from her father, my father, and her generation as a whole. Her existence is work, bills, her new spouse, and figuring out how to set me on my siblings on the best path. She has experienced more pain than I can picture, lived a longer life with many challenges, gave every ounce of effort to get back to her senses and I respect that wholeheartedly, but what I can't seem to respect or handle is her needed to feel like she's right all the time even when she's dead wrong, how deaf she is to the hurtful things she says, and how she goes about getting things done.

It's not just life she tackles harshly now, but pain is measured on her own set of scales. It is her competition in order to feel sturdier about her situations and I see this a lot in her age group, frequently and everywhere, but in the process of all of this she invalidates anybody else's difficulties if they are less than her own. In her eyes, "if I can tolerate it then you should be able to" or "if it's not bothering me then it shouldn't bother you" is the only reality. There are no extra spoons or forks, no in between, no consideration for how somebody else perceives a situation or how much somebody else can handle before they burst, and particularly with people in my age group she holds absolutely no patience. It's almost like she considers us a to be hypochondriacs because we haven't learned how to "suck it up" or "save face" when the physical aches or mental loads are too much, or the shambles they've left our economy in and voting Trump in because they think he will just fix it right up like changing a tire. It's entirely irresponsible, immature, inhumane, and unreasonable. She and most people her age, and people like my father, are incredibly blind to it. I can no longer respect them or trust them.

Now here's the kicker.

She as well as many other mothers claim that people in my age group have tunnel vision, that each day is brand new for us, that we don't know hardship or real stress, when in reality we are all facing the teeth gritting consequences for their choices. We are trying so hard to have optimism and open hearts, the patience they lack, and the wisdom to break free from their mislay of twisting roads and bare minimum guidelines.

As an example of her mindset and the challenge it presents, she believes I am entirely incapable of taking care of stressful situations when she hasn't taught me how, just like my father but and almost an exact opposite sense. My father pampered me and sheltered me, my mother drowns me only in harsh reality and expectations. It's not just her, the society these Generations have built are also malfunctioning and sending catless mixed messages. There are scores of American schools that don't teach a lick of daily knowledge like how to clean without making freaking mustard gas or how to go about sewing on a button. Cooking, paying bills, skills like changing a tire or what to do when the electricity goes out and it's not the breaker. Finances and taxes. They believe that schools only need to teach things like the states and capitals, sports, math, language (but only English and Spanish, I wanted to learn Japanese and sign language guys...), wars, a collection of science subjects, and maybe music. They've cut the budget for anything else. Screw the general public. Even my mom acts like her goal is to become middle class so that my siblings have more opportunities to learn what they need, but she's so fixated on raising her rank in society's standards thinking that it will solve everything she can't comprehend the real issues.

She believes I don't get certain responsibilities done the instant she tells me to because I'm lazy or inconsiderate, but mostly it's because my mind doesn't allow me to multitask like hers does, or I'm not sure how to go about it because I have to teach myself, and therefore it's just one more thing she has to add to the list of what I am not putting any effort into. She doesn't understand, or maybe she doesn't WANT to understand, that I have anxiety when I'm put on the spot because if I don't have a moment to think about what to do she chooses to scream at me instead of simply suggesting a solution or helping me think, and then decides to take over the responsibility with an added bonus of guilt-tripping and gaslighting. After years of this I've grown apathetic to her to the point where she has started calling me heartless and disrespectful. It is incredibly difficult to respect somebody who treats you like a tool that needs fixing but also doesn't make the effort to find out what's wrong in the first place.

I've read so many cases of this, just terrible awful parenting, it's to the extent where it's old news and that's unfortunate because it still hasn't changed. Make situations like these current news, spread them with a warning for our future, this problem has been around for so long it is almost entirely ignored by the older Generations in exchange for the opportunity to push blame. I myself have gotten so tired of asking "what is wrong with them? Why don't they see what they're doing? Don't they understand how harmful this is?" I see my mom giving sexist excuses about the behavior of men into the mind of my younger brother, I see her pushing my sister to tolerate him instead of stopping him from acting this way, and I think, "why can't they take responsibility for the damage they've done, re-evaluate themselves, or feel any regret for the stigma they choose to keep planting in young minds?" At every turn I'm invalidated, and though I'm expected to watch my siblings, I'm not allowed to stop them if they choose to play recklessly, rebel, or cock an attitude if I tell them they need to do something like brush their teeth or put a toy away. Unless there's an obvious chance of injury, I'm prevented from intervention. What kind of children are these siblings of mine going to grow into with this mindset? What are the claims that her generation are going to throw on them when there's no one else to blame? Why am I expected to relent to her demands and stretch and mold myself into her concept of what an adult should be if I can't suggest a compromise or take a stand? How am I or anyone else supposed to know what to do in shaky situations is if were not given the chance to learn, shown an example of how, or charted a better path instead of setting expectations and just demanded to reach them? I can't stand this. Each of these generations all hold individual, unique, brilliant people but the younger ones are treated like entirely different entities based on societies obsolete standards and malformed beliefs. This needs to change.

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secreto-draco · 6 years

Text

gert centric fic ,with hints of gertchase, exploring a bit of gert’s pan sexuality and early friendship with karolina. and also there’s molly.

fair warning people;

1) gert is Jewish Latina cause the actress who plays her, Ariela Barer is latina and jewish.

2) spanish is my 2nd language,and i have lived in a country,Chile-south america for 7 years,it’s been a bit over a month being back in the USA,so i speak castaño-meaning basic universal Spanish,with hints of Chilean slang,moreover my spanish grammar ins’t perfect so bear with me.

3) i’ve left the ending open-so i could write one more chapter from either or both gert’s and chases’ view -let me know if i should.

4) the time is kinda altered here-the astronomy project occurs a bit after Amy's death.

p.s shout out to @carolruwer who agreed to be beta.thank you so much :)

ill get out of your hair now;

It’s her 7th birthday, all the invitations clearly stated so, even the banner hanging overhead and the icing on the cake. But once again the father -daughter duo that is, Frank and Karolina dean have stolen the show. It shouldn’t bother her- she doesn’t like being on being in the spotlight anyways (it makes her anxious, kind of like her head’s underwater) and quite frankly [pun intended] it’s the norm. People and yes including, Gert Yorkes herself, can’t help but turn to Karolina when she floats in, she’s ethereal like a fairy or an angel or some being of light.

Yet Gert can’t help feeling bitter and invisible, even with a giant piece of cake on her plate that spells out her name in bold lilac icing, and a table set to the side holding gifts with tags that literally say,’’Happy Birthday Gertrude’’. Because right now, sitting on the edge of a circle with all her classmates, who only engage conversation and play with Karolina moreover, even the mothers who are supposed to be over with all the ‘’superficialness’’ and are supposed to be mature and nice to everyone, only happen to ‘’pop in’’ under guise of parental checking just to compliment karo, always with; ‘you look beautiful.’’ ,’’so sweet’’.

What is worse, is that after complimenting karo, they don’t stop to wish her a ‘’happy birthday’ they don’t even glance her way, instead choosing to go off to Frank Dean to loudly (seriously ladies chill) proclaim and shower him with compliments for his daughter; precious and remarkable. And to tell him that he’ll need to keep an eye out for boys, especially ‘’that chase stein.’’.

it burns her all the way down, fills her to the brim with shame, makes her cheeks red with embarrassment and her eyes sting with frustration and hurt. This party was a bad idea. She just wants it to be over, so everyone can leave, but unfortunately; there are games to play and ice cream to devour. So, it would take at least a few more hours till sweet solitude.

Amy and alex had left earlier to go inside to play video games in the living room, Karo is surrounded by her adoring ‘’public’’ alongside best friend Nico, Chase seems to be engaged with some of the boys playing soccer. Molly’s snacking on chips and pizza. Her parents are offering everyone their homemade cheese and joking around. Contemplating, maybe she could just slip up into her room to read, it’s not like anyone would notice plus she’s sad and bored, but just as she’ heading in,

‘‘hey Gert, you get the first try at the piñata. ’it’s chase, tone playful and boyish. Turning to him, she doesn’t fail to see his furrowed brows or his line of site. Chase, it seems, whilst clueless to her plan; has not failed to notice her on her own, or that currently, Gert is halfway inside through the patio door. He gestures to the bat he’s holding out to her, bringing a smile to her face. Giddy, she rushes off to make it rain candy.

Much later though, various parents gather them around for pictures and Gert’s perking up a bit, at least until she hears;

‘’Karolina, dear come stand next to Gertrude, you’re barely in the picture.”

Followed by;

“Karolina.come quick! I want to take a picture of you with the rest of your friends, you look beautiful in that dress of yours.’’

Standing next to Karolina who is glowing more than usual: flushed cheeks and shiny eyes from playing and laughing, not a single hair out of place and in a still crinkle-free baby pink dress and spotless white ballet flats, Gert feels less, in her army green shorts and purple blouse and old boots, long hair knotted and tangled, cheek scrapped. Rubbing salt to the wound is that, every picture taken focuses on Karolina. And the person who she feels closest too, her best friend, Chase looks just perfect on the left side of said blond blue-eyed girl, both beautiful and flawless; seeming to fit together.

In the end, though, just before leaving, Chase drags his mom over to take a picture with his best friend and birthday girl, his proclamation making Gert’s cheeks warm; and Molly, appearing out of nowhere jumps on her back and sings, terribly off-key’ happy birthday’-and quite loudly , in her ear, just as Mrs. Stein clicks on the camera.

She may be invisible to the world, but Gertrude Yorkes has her parents and Molly and Chase, they always see her.

2012

The ear-splitting bell had just released them from class and rushing out to meet the others in their usual corner in the playground.

‘‘Hey Gert, hold on a sec.” she barely hears him, but she stops. He’s short, a brown-haired kid with a combo of a weird smirk and smile;

With a rushed out ‘‘Hey thanks, ’ he starts walking with .Strange as it is, it’s also kind of nice, especially because everyone only talk to her just to ask her about-

‘‘So, you’re friends with Karolina?”. Of course. There is such a eagerness in his voice, making it obvious that he can’t play it cool.

‘‘Yeah”. She knows she’s being curt, but Gertrude Yokes doesn’t care.

‘‘And Chase, too? ’he keeps prodding.

‘‘Ye-’‘’

‘‘Do they, you know, like each other? Because I was thinking of asking Karolina to be my Valentine. And I want to know beforehand if she likes Chase or anyone else. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or cause any problem” he’s being so boyishly nice and bashful and sweet. Damn Karo.

No, I don’t know. And we’re eleven, we’re kids so we don’t normally talk about this stuff.’’ It comes out of her mouth in a rush, like strong waves crashing forcefully and loudly on the beach and the foam that’s left behind, dirty in the sand, gross and icky, is her embarrassment when she realizes what she said and how she said it.

‘‘bye, nicetalkingtoyou!” rushing the words out she power walks over to her friends, who are goofing off, Gert tries to ignore the burning in her heart and the way her blood is sluggish and cold.

Two weeks later, her card box only has 6 “Happy Valentine” friend cards, one from each of her friends: Molly, Chase, Nico, Karolina, Amy and Alex.

‘‘Molly asked me to put hers in for everyone, because she wasn’t allowed to come in and do it herself” says Chase, with a shy voice carrying a similar box, except his is full. She smiles in response.

*Whistles* ‘’Damn Karolina, did the whole school give you a card?” and her smile drops, Karolina’s got two boxes, bursting at the seams, Nico next to her, has a full box as well. Her eyes land on Alex and she feels better and a bit of kinship: they’re both in the same boat.

‘‘You need help there, Alex? ’voice playful and laced with sarcasm, she tosses in a wink.

‘‘You got your hands full, Gert. Doubt you could help me with mine.” He answers with a wink back. Self-deprecating humor for the win!

‘‘Let’s head out, whose place are we hanging out this time? ’asks Chase, his voice strained, sharp and heavy.

huh. Weird.

2012

She’s arguing with some jerk, he calls her a bitch. And just as she’s about to respond it’s Karolina that’s softly, yet firmly, tells him to watch his mouth and to leave. It surprises her. For the rest of the day she keeps talking with Karo, hanging out and it’s nice. She’s sweet, sometimes sickeningly so, but she treats her with respect and talks to her even when it’s just the two of them.

Two days later, though, Karolina starts acting weird. They’re in Alex’s game room, their usual afterschool hangout, and the seven of them are making plans for the weekend. Gert proposes to watch a scary movie at the movie theater.

Karo and Nico share a glace and look at her weirdly, then Karolina says:

‘‘Gert” voice stern and tone chastising it doesn’t suit her, Nico, sure, but not Karo, who adds:

‘‘If you don’t want to go to the sleepover it’s fine, but don’t just assume we won’t go either’ ‘

‘’What sleepover?’’ asks Gert curtly.

‘‘Don’t play dumb. Eiffel’s slumber party, she’d invited all the girls in our class, back on Monday.’‘

‘‘I wasn’t invited” even though her voice is steady, she can feel the humiliation staining her cheeks and shame settling on her shoulders. ‘‘I didn’t even know.”

‘‘oh….Gert I’m sor-“ starts to say Karolina, but Gert’s quick to stop her:

‘‘It doesn’t matter, though it seems like you and Nico won’t be able to hang out with the rest of us.” Then turning to the others; voice strained and forcefully cheerful; “So, what’s the plan kids?’‘

That weekend Alex has an online video game thing, Chase has a lacrosse away match and Amy has a school project. So, she and Molly have their own sisterly sleepover. It is awesome, fun and cozy.

2 months later;

Her friendship with Karolina has always been rocky. Karo’s a mama’s girl, the perfect girl, ethereal and nice. On the other hand, Gert is... well she’s Gert. They’re both too different, besides what friendship doesn’t have its patchy moments and difficulties. And moreover, it must be difficult for Karo to get along with her too. So, Gert tries, but things don’t always go smoothly.

Karolina usually has church things to go to, to be a face for it or just support her mother, but it comes in the way of their friendship a lot, mainly when Gert’s inviting her and the others to things, because if Karolina can’t come, then automatically no one ‘’can’’ come to her thing, whatever it may be. She tries not to feel snubbed and bitter, furthermore, her stance on religion doesn’t help, it usually just adds to the tension. Other times, it’s their differing personalities like now;

There’s a garage band that she hears off in the neighborhood which she wants to check out, but Alex isn’t into it, neither is Karo because, as she puts it, “loud angry music” is not something she’s into. She tries not to be offended or too sensitive about it and, ‘’luckily,’’ within seconds Chase is butting in offering up his plan. He does that a lot. He can’t side with either Gert or Karo so he always ignores the issue and friction at hand and proceeds to move the attention to something else. It bothers her that her best friend won’t stick up for her, especially when it’s against Karolina.

They end up hitting the Arcade and going for ice cream, Chase’s suggestion. And when she gets her period midway through, it’s Karolina who helps; handing her a pad and loaning her an extra pair of gym shorts. Coming out of the bathroom, she shoots a thankful little secret smile to Karo, who returns it with a soft one of her own. And that little secret makes things a little bit better between the two of them.

2014

Getting to take music lessons is a fun 13th birthday present from mom and dad. And even though Gert knows without a shadow of a doubt that she really likes chase. There’s this girl who sits next to her with piel morena y pelo negro. She has shining black eyes that light up when she’s being mischievous and sparkle when she smiles. She is beautiful, but not the angelic kind like Karolina, her beauty has a sharp edge and ruggedness to it, as does her wit, which can cut you in half. Valentina is also kind and sweet and mischievous, a bit of a trouble maker. She and Gert start to hang out a bit after class and, within a few weeks, Valentina is a regular visitor at the Yorkes’ household.

For Gert it’s refreshing to have a friend outside of her usual group of friends and even outside of her school circle. More importantly, having becoming friends with Vale boosts her confidence, even though it shouldn’t. Now, when all her friends within the “pride group” have their own thing, she doesn’t feel pathetic anymore as she’s no longer alone when they’re all busy.

When with the group she doesn’t feel out of place because she now has a friend to share certain interests with. Her research on feminism, for example. Her parents are feminists so hearing them talk openly about stuff is liberating and researching and learning has opened her mind and she feels she is a better person because of it. And nowadays, thanks to being able to share this with Valentina, she doesn’t have to nervously ramble about it with her disinterested friends. She doesn’t need to ask them to go with her to check out indie bands or to join marches, she has her parents, Molly and Vale for all of that.

A month into their friendship, she and Valentina have shared a kiss somehow,someway and in the end the details don’t matter, what is important is that it feels good. It’s different from kissing Chase, who was her first kiss when they were 12, they’d both wanted their first kisses to be safe and with someone they could trust, thus,with a touch of the lips, they’d kissed, but she’s not going to delve into that, too many feelings, too complicated for just a simple brush and press of lips. And that’s when it hits her, like a piano, loud and heavy and man it should have been obvious-she likes both boys and girls, and that maybe, maybe gender doesn’t matter to her. She’s attracted to Karolina, who’s both beautiful inside and out; she strongly likes Chase, who is someone she never wants to lose, someone who makes her feel safe, Chase who is all heart and soul. She likes Vale, who’s spunk and sweet and who shares interests with her, such as music, feminism and mischief, which she’s coming to like. Valentina who’s loud, who doesn’t make her feel small or shameful or patronized or last.

She continues to share little pecks with Vale sometimes, it’s nice and she likes Vale quite a bit, not as strongly as she feels about Chase, but that’s not something she wants to ruin with awkwardness with either of them.

Unfortunately, Karo catches her and Vale one day in Gert’s sound proof basement where they’re supposed to be working on a piece for Mr.Ashraff’s drums class, and the tensions rise too crucial heights. For days on end Karo’s quiet and tense and terse around her, spying on her through the corners of her squinted eyes- is Karolina homophobic?

Thus, once again, Gert doesn’t feel quite safe in the group and is on the brink of frustration when one day the seven of them are hanging out in Alex’s game-room. After yet another side eye from Karolina, she bursts;

‘‘Got a problem, Karolina?” her voice cold and bitter and angry to hide the hurt and the anxiety.

‘‘no.”

‘‘okay, good.”

‘‘good.”

‘‘I’m going to get some more soda” walking out to give herself a moment ,to reign in.she’s not alone,

‘you two okay? asks Chase in a soft yet concerned voice, sharing a worried look with Molly.

‘‘yeah. of course.’’ she’s lying so obviously lying, and by the looks on their faces, molls and chase know too.

She needs to avoid this confrontation, so Gert rushes back into the room and throws herself in her spot, pretending to look busy on her phone.

Craving something sweet Amy drags them all to timely for baked goods and frappes.

It takes her a bit to decide, but eventually she gives her order hesitantly to the annoyed barista. Gert feels accomplished, she doesn’t how or why she feels so uncomfortable at times, but she isn’t going to let it control her, she’s going to own that bitch one day.

“Oye bandadia’,(hey badass/bandit) calls her a teasing voice underlined with pride, for her? She turns so abruptly that she gets whiplash, and it hurts her neck. And yes, she isn’t hallucinating, it really is Valentina giving her a teasing smile with those shining lit up eyes.

‘Cállate cabra, probaste el vanilla frappe?” (shut up weirdo [goat],have you tried the vanilla frappe?) she manages to answer reigning in her nervousness. She’s still a little anxious about her order, but still, small victories, besides it’s seen as making conversation.

‘No, pero mi hermano sì y le gusto” (No,but my brother has,he liked it)Valentina tone ringing with teasing and smug and her lit up eyes, she knows, ugh, the little shit.

“ah, okis, hola” she says almost as an afterthought after realizing she hasn’t properly greeted her yet. leaning in to touch her cheeks and to make the kiss sound, only Vale kisses said cheek loudly. Afterwards, Gert can feel her cheeks warm and can also feel the group’s eyes on her, well not Molly’s because she knows Valentina and greets her the same way Gert did, except this time Vale doesn’t peck her cheek. So much for playing it cool. Proceeding to do the introductions to try and keep the attention away from her, more specifically Karolina’s, who is starring-hard. ‘‘everyone this is Valentina, a friend of mine from music class, vale, everyone.’’.

Bit’s only when they are back at Alex’s place that they start questioning her;

“what was that thing that you did and why did she kiss you on the cheek?” surprisingly it’s Chase. is it her or is he sounding rather insistent? And what is he prodding for?

‘‘She’s Chilean, now American Chilean, and in South America kissing each other cheeks or pretending to and just touching and making the sound is a common way of greeting people. And since she misses her home country, and since both Molly and I are Latinas, ‘I’m Jewish Latina, she’s asked us to greet her that way.” Gert automatically answers,it comes out sounding like she’s tossing in an obvious factoid-good, cause she’s anxious right now.

‘‘Oh..That’s sweet of you. ...and Molly” with a soft breathless voice and melting eyes. She doesn’t understand why he does that with her sometimes and she’s not sure she wants to know because it does things to her, and she doesn’t want to dig into that either, shit. are her own eyes doing the same? So, she lowers her head and fiddles with her frappe’s straw to keep herself busy.

‘but a kiss on the lips is just a kiss ’‘she can’t be serious.

‘‘‘Yes, a kiss on the lips, it’s usually universally meant for, you know, either love or lust or whatever people feel when they kiss.” Nope. She’s not going to let Karolina get to her. She won’t look at anyone or anywhere, yup she’s just sipping her frappe, it is delicious.

‘‘Gert?” just the sound of her name and how can someone sound so vulnerable and quiet and yet loud and baleful with only just a one-syllable word. But that’s just how Chase is. She makes the mistake of looking up at him and his whole stance has shifted, he’s tense, standing with his back straight, jaw clenched, Adam’s apple bopping, neck muscle pounding and his brown chocolate eyes are the color of burning onyx and are showing swirling hints of pain, sadness, anger and a few other things she can’t really discern. The air around Chase, chase is heavy and charged.

‘‘Valentina and I have shared a few kisses.... I’ve come to realize that I like both girls and boys, I don’t care about gender to be honest.” Her voice is quiet and firm, but she can feel the fear stirring up in her. She has realized she’s either bi or pan-sexual (yes, she’s been researching) and these people won’t be her friends if they’re not okay with it. She has her parents and Molls whom she has spoken with and have accepted her and they don’t love her any less because of it.

She’s tall and defiant, pushing down the fear; no one says anything but her sister comes to stand beside her, tan hand on her shoulder,squeezing, giving love and support, Moll’s brown eyes locked on the rest of the pride kids, cold and alert.

Looking at Chase and she sees that he has changed yet again. Now he’s looking at her softly and openly, but his eyes are still the color of onyx with all that swirling darkness, his aura is lightly tinted with loss and anger, his stance has relaxed, his arms hang loosely on his sides, but for some reason he looks defeated.

‘‘Chase?’ her voice comes out tentative, even she doesn’t know what she’s asking for. Acceptance? Understanding? to at least say something?

‘Gert” he says openly, standing in front of her, “you’re my best friend, always”, and she’s tearing up and she can’t take it anymore, so she clutches him to her and his arms wrap around her tight. Then he releases her, but plants himself on her right, throwing his arm around her shoulders, clutching her to his side giving her safety and support.

‘‘I don’t get it, but it’s okay. ’Nico says and then her, Alex and Amy and even Karolina all pull her in for a hug. It’s one of the best feelings ever.

Later she is left alone with him., everyone having left for their own homes but chase had come and stayed at her place, and Molly’, had feigned tiredness and retired to her room, the little sneak.

‘‘You like her, Valentina I mean?’‘he’s looking at her inquisitively.

‘‘I kind of do.” She keeps quiet and for some reason she feels guilty like she’s said something wrong. She and Chase have a well-balanced friendship that’s bordering on domestic, it’s easy going, even though sometimes it feels like a relationship to her; just without the label and the kissing, but it’s not and it’s best to break out of it now because he doesn’t like her, at least not like she likes him so it’s better to try and move on.

‘‘Are you or will you be dating her?” the more they talk the more dejected and frustrated Chase sounds.

‘‘No and no. I kind of like her, but I don’t want to be with her that way” she answers quietly.

‘‘Why?”

“I don’t know. She asked me on a date and I said no, because it didn’t feel right. Don’t get me wrong, kissing, it’s more like pecking to be honest, we’re still kids, pecking her it’s nice, but maybe I’m too young to date or maybe I can’t give her what she wants. She wants to build an established relationship in the future and Vale’s feelings are so much stronger than mine. I feel like we’re friends and we’re figuring things about ourselves, being bi or pan or whatever, it’s a slow road we’ve just found ourselves walking, and at this age.... She was disappointed with my answer but she accepted it. She’s asked for some time and space before we can go back to being friends.’’ It’s the truth, those were the things she told Vale except Gert’s leaving out another part, the one where she feels too strongly about Chase to entertain getting in any kind of relationship with somebody else. It wouldn’t be fair to Vale or herself. But there’s no chance in hell that she’s going to tell Chase that. Luckily, though, Vale understood and gracefully bowed out.

Gert, she’ll come around and be a friend to you again. Though probably time and distance will be good for both of you.”

‘‘I know” she answers pulling him in for yet another tight hug that day “Thank you, Chase’’ She’s pouring all her feelings in that hug and drowning in his security, she knows she’s putting herself on the line but it’s ok for now, she will chastise herself later for it.

During the next music class Vale doesn’t sit next to her or smile her way or even glance at her. And somehow the class had lost some of it’s luster. Within 2 months Vale and her family leave for Miami to be closer to her abuelita.

It’s stupid for her too feel sad, because she lost her friend long before she left,since they weren’t even speaking. But Gert can’t help but feeling sad for weeks until Molly has had enough and crawls into her bed and cuddles with her bringing her love and warmth and sunny, positive and reassuring feelings. She’s so lucky to have her.

The pride kids don’t treat her any different, except for Chase who listens to her, pays more attention to Gert and her rants, and asks her questions when he doesn’t seem to understand and needs further explanations. This is not a bad thing.

Though,looking back, Chase has always like this, constantly careful not to hurt; he checks his words when he does speak, he’s mostly quiet in serious matters instead choosing to absorb and think. It does make him passive at times-it annoys her, cause why won’t he just take a stand! dammit! He’s extra gentle with his strength. It’s heartwarming cause, God this boy is patient and he’s good to his core. He’s witty beyond measure, matching her in battles of wit and snark, which makes him even hotter, if that’s even possible. And Chase is a dork and a closeted theater junkie who likes to apply red tinted lip balm and rock out to “wake me up before you go go”.

2015

Amy’s dead. Alex didn’t show up to the funeral. Nico’s shut down. Karolina’s helpless. Molly is sad and won’t leave her room. Chase is furious because Wilder didn’t show up, so he’s concentrating on lacrosse and his physique. And Gert has being losing sleep and is overall, just losing it.

All of them are drifting apart, but at least Molly comes back to her, crawling into her bed, holding her tight so that no one could snatch Gert away and asks for her lullaby.

Days turn to weeks and then months. Her phone keeps quiet. None of them can stand to be together, so even calls or texts are too difficult to fathom and even at school they avoid each other.

She doesn’t know exactly what’s going on with the others, their absorbed in their own lives. Nico looks buried with guilt. Karo seems to feel helpless so she’s running off to the church. Chase is always looking angry and is slipping into the role of the popular jock living the typical high school life.

Gert develops anxiety and panic attacks, she starts to go to therapy accompanied by Molly -God does she loves Molly.She makes the careful decision to use the doctor’s prescribed pill. With the help of her family, the exercises she’s learnt from therapy and the pill, does she start to get better.

Though after a particularly bad panic attack, her long, long hair was a stressor. [Sentient tentacles pinching and chocking, wrapping around her neck, crushing it and crawling into her mouth and down her throat.] she gets a slightly layered bob with bangs. And purple, from an eco-friendly brand, because she needed the change, something to break out of the after the stifling aftermath that was Amy’s death and the disbanding of the group.

she’s doing alright and life without her friends, the pride kids and Vale, is slowly becoming her new normalcy.

At least it was, until she gets partnered up with Chase in astronomy. When the professor announces it, Eiffel snorts and proceeds to reassure Chase, who is sitting in front of her, that she’ll Snap him to keep him company. Gert feels her blood freeze and tries to control herself because she can’t lose it now.

#gertchase #gert yorkes #chase stein #chase x gert #molly hernandez #karolina dean #pansexual #gertchase fic #gertchase fanfic #gertrude yorkes #marvels runaways #marvel's runaways

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hhemeraa-a · 6 years

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Rules: Answer the questions you’re given, write 11 of your own and tag 11 people.

(1.) Is there anything you dislike about the character(s) you play? OC or otherwise? How difficult he can be. He doesn’t make plotting or interactions easy for anyone and it’s hard to be spontaneous with him unless he’s under some influence. It gets bothersome at times when you see muses you as the mun like, but know your OC would never have anything to do with them.

(2.) How many languages can you speak? I can only speak English. I took over 2 years of Mandarin but still couldn’t properly speak it, though I can read it pretty decently. Same with Japanese - took 4 years but at most can just read it. I understand a lot of Spanish and some Korean. I took Arabic in high school, but I suck at it. Only know like 3 words now.

(3.) Where did you first go on vacation? I remember as a child when my parents were still together, we went on a road trip from Chicago all the way to Disneyland in California. We went through Colorado, I got to hand feed a giraffe, I fell on a cactus, I cried about not being able to go on the monorail, had my first BBQ sauce pizza (which I hated) -- I think that was my first vacation.

(4.) Do you have any potentially-unpopular opinions about your character or the fandom that they’re involved in? Since Myles started off as a Starfighter OC, I guess you’re asking me if I have any unpopular opinions on Starfighter? Do you have 8 hours? I understand that Starfighter is/was supposed to be a smut comic and was actually supposed to stop after “chapter 1″ but got so popular that the author decided to continue writing it. I understand that a majority of the plot is based around two dudes fuckin’ and I understand that expecting or asking for more than that is silly.

BUT THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL JUST WASTED. THE WHOLE REASON I EVEN FUCKIN JOINED THAT FANDOM WAS BECAUSE I THOUGHT I COULD DO IT BETTER AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I fucking did. Hamlet gives such a great basis and outline for amazing world building that just ends up falling flat because the story is focused on well detailed dick draws (which are great btw, I won’t slight her for that). The concept of the last surviving humans fighting against an alien collective using their own tech against them just gets my dick hard, but all of that is sort of thrown to way side and lost under “who emotionally betrayed who” and “I love you now even if I didn’t at the beginning” nonsense. You can still have a great romance story OR EVEN PWP?? But establish it in a world that makes fucking sense. There are all of these aspects that we’ll never get answers on that she’s just thrown into the story as a vehicle to get to the next sex scene and it just rustles my fucking jimmies.

I had to stop writing in the fandom because I honestly am incapable of writing with the new people who come in -- nothing against them and their writing abilities, I’m sure they’re great, but everyone always comes in like “I’m looking for an Abel for my Cain” or vice versa, or just some smutty locker room pwp and weird Commander Daddy Doms -- just things I’ve read over and over and over again that have just become absolutely bland.

DID YOU KNOW??? There are whole constellations?? of crystals floating through space? Shattered diamonds and acidic clouds?? Did you know?? that there are 3 different theorized ways to bend space and time to create warp drives? Could you imagine being the final ship BSG style trying to float your way to what essentially might be your grave in space avoiding stars that are literally eating each other so that you can fight an alien race that has destroyed not only one, but many of your species homelands???

BUT WAIT, LEMMIE GET A DICK IN THIS SPACE CRAFT FOR A MINUTE AND WE CAN BICKER ABOUT HOW U LOOK LIKE MY EX.KJDHGJKGHKDJGHS IT JUST MAKES ME SO MAD. DONT GET ME STARTED, I FEEL VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT SPACE.

(5.) How many kids would you like in the future? 0 is also an acceptable answer! z e r o -- I can barely take care of myself, how am I supposed to take care of another life??

(6.) Have you ever broken down into tears because of writing a roleplay scene? No, idk, I don’t get that emotional about things? Last time I cried was because I was on drugs after my surgery and there was no ice for my tea.

(7.) Where did you first get started roleplaying? Gaiaonline.com sgjkdhskgjs I still have my account.

(8.) Quick! Make a list. FIVE FILMS TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. That I haven’t seen already??? uhhhh UHHHHHH 1. Schindler’s List 2. Breakfast At Tiffany’s 3. Shape of Water 4. Hurt Locker 5. 13 Assassins

(9.) If we had to ask your friends to explain you in five words or less, how do you think that they’d describe you? avoidant, funny, no-shit taking, emotionally strong, positive ((I guess????))

(10.) What is one of your life mottos that helps you get through each and every day? “No regrets.” “No excuses, nobody cares.” “But will it kill you?”

(11.) Do you feel comfortable writing NSFW themes? Hahahahaha WELL. Yes - I’m comfortable with plotting out the nasty nast, but when it comes to actually writing it? It takes me forever because I get really really really embarrassed. I once talked to Lex about lube and it was just me screaming uncomfortably for about 15 minutes, but ask me about nasty fuckin and I gotchu.

Rules: Answer the questions you’re given, write 11 of your own and tag 11 people.

(1.) Hardest thread/plot you’ve ever done and why? Did you complete it? (2.) A song that triggers a memory and what happened (3.) Favorite subject in school (4.) Do you have any potentially-unpopular opinions about your character or the fandom that they’re involved in? (5.) Would you chose to be immortal? (6.) Have you ever considered veganism / vegetarianism? Why or why not? (7.) Who/What was your first OC? Describe them. (8.) Be honest... how honest are you with your friends? Your family? (9.) What would be your superpower and would you use it for good? (10.) What did you do before Tumblr? (11.) Guilty pleasure food

Tagged by: @celestialspitfire Tagging: @banditborn / @corpusdxlicti / @sonderrow / @portalipsis / @viclate / @vicariousphotographer / @dcsidcrium / @paxeuropaea / @catastrophicur / @sokrovennyi / @inionnaforaoise / @sukkubxs / @evildcers / @fluffmiester / @flieuthi / @moonsought / STEAL IT AND TAG ME

#;; we've all done this before (dash games)#I wasn't going to post this today #but I just feel sO MUCH

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warmau · 7 years

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{Special College!AU} Ten

{tw: drinking mention}

major: modern dance

minor: spanish

sports: focuses solely on dance performance and auditions

clubs: is part of the uni radio show that reviews new music and is on at like 2 am but ten loves it so much and he basically makes johnny promise to stay up and listen so he can tell ten if he did well but johnny falls asleep and ten is like what are you even good for. thankfully taeyong loves to support his friends so he stayed up and he thinks ten did really well :-)

there is nothing more in the world ten loves than the stage

dancing on it, singing on it, just performing on it,,,,,,it’s everything to him

people like to assume it’s because there’s an audience, that ten likes to flaunt and show off

but in reality,,,,it’s just the surge of sharing what he loves and works so hard for with the world that makes him so excited

and yes,,,it’s easy to fall for ten’s charming socialite personality, but when it comes to dance - it’s more than that. when he’s dancing, he’s really - truly the person he wants to be

which is why modern dance feels so right to him,,, it’s so complex and vibrant and striking - much like what he is like as a person

and although he’s had fun growing up and doing everything from ballroom, to latin, to ballet ,,,,,,,, something about learning a style that let’s you explore and be as free as modern dance clicks for him

so whenever jaehyun comes to watch a performance and sheepishly admits that some of it,,,he just doesn’t get,,,,ten always perks up and is like “that’s fine!!!! it’s just supposed to make you FEEL”

johnny: cool, i FEEL hungry let’s go get foo-

taeyeong: jonathon don’t say that, ten honey i thought everything was very beautiful

doyoung: how do you bend your arm like that. is your arm broken?

sometimes, just to be cheeky, ten tries to teach his friends some of the moves that he 100% knows they can’t pull off

but sicheng always freaking gets it on the first try and ten is like dude why aren’t you a dance major and sicheng just shrugs, in that totally dazed out way about him

and ten is just like clasping his fist like,,,sicheng you could be world famous i dONT GEt IT

sicheng: idk, im gonna go take a nap now

ten took spanish as his minor because he really likes learning languages, and much to everyone’s shock, he’s actually decent

it has nothing to do with the fact that for a class there was an exchange teacher from spain who danced in ways ten didn’t even think were imaginable???

and well,,,,let’s just say someone had a tiny crush

(and totally learned the phrase ‘i respect you’ in spanish just to be able to say it through half tears when that teacher had to leave)

but no really, a lot of dance comes from spanish-speaking cultures and ten is honestly so excited about it,,,

even though it isn’t his main discipline when he watches people do flamenco or paso doble he literally thinks it’s the coolest and he’s probably got a bookmark folder on his laptop for every kind of dance and his fav youtube videos of it

as much of social butterfly as it is,,,,ten is nerdy when it comes to his passion

like if there are biography's of dancers, instructional manuals on posture, and films on genres of dance - best believe ten has seen/read it all

people brush dance off as an easy major, but it’s an art

and all types of art have history,,,, that ten just really rEALLY loves to indulge in

totally splurges on cute practice clothing

neon headbands anyone,,,,,,,,,,,,,,he’d look cute ok

actually there’s a ballet technique class all modern dance majors have to take and ten had remembered looking at the prices of really good ballet shoes and just being like,,,,,,oh god

tried to get a job at a bakery outside of campus,,,,which went well and people actually started showing up more just to like,,,

see ten???????

because he’s so sweet and talkative,,,,, the manager was loving it

but it was cutting into his practice time so ten had to leave,,,,,but believe me everyone who worked there totally got his # and followed his instagram like im telling you right now ten is everyone’s best friend

hangs out with seungcheol, the kinesiology major who he met while stretching at the gym

knows hyungwon, the linguistics major who gave him tips on studying another language

regularly invited to mark and jackson’s parties

modeled for art history major hongbin in his painting class

him and jin sometimes host the campus radio show together

he’s just,,,,, he’s just always someones friends and there for people and the center of attention - even when he isn’t even trying

he just shines bright because he’s always trying to be positive

even if he’s just busted his butt practicing for five hours, is wearing the SWEATIEST pair of leggings, and is running on iced coffee only

oh, big thing about him: as a broke college student he thinks he can survive on super high levels of sugar

eats essentially the following: chocolate, ice-cream, sugary coffee, soda

taeyong is so worried he’s going to die

you and ten are acquaintances, how you ask?

you and ten frequent college parties,,,,well like,,,,who doesn’t??? but here’s the thing about college parties: the drinks are all beer

and ten doesn’t like beer,,,,,,,,

so when people expect him to be tipsy, singing along to shinee’s ringdingdong, they only get one of the two. it’s the singing

now, don’t get me wrong - if there’s wine? champagne? fruity cocktails?????? ten is all done for it

and ends up with his shirt on backwards and a fake tattoo of a dragon on his cheek

but that’s only out in the city, the occasional meetup with friends for dinner

college parties,,,,,,,that’s johnny’s turf,,,,,,he’s the Beer boy

which makes ten - part of the sober patrol

you,,,,are also in the same boat. your friends are all fans of beer pong, keg stands, etc. and you just don’t have the taste for beer

that or maybe you just know you’re the last to get too wild and someone has to make sure everyone gets home safe

so you and ten have gotten used to doing the rounds. johnny teasingly refers to ten as the designated driver even tho ten’s never driving - he’s just dragging johnny out by the collar

your friends tease you just the same, affectionately calling you the parental figure when they’ve got their heads in the clouds

and on one or more occasions you and ten have found yourself out on the lawn near the dorms or standing above your giggling friends on the sidewalk curb

handing out water bottles (or pouring them ontop) to your friends, telling them that tomorrow there’s class - there’s work they gotta get their butts up and in bed

the most common place scene is ten with johnny, doyoung, and surprisingly taeil all slumped over one and other. ten shaking his head and going “who has a test tomorrow? all three of you? jesus-”

you find yourself right beside him, your own group of friends groaning and asking you to get them something for the headaches

ten and you share the same sigh, the same crossing your arms and going “why did you drink on a tuesday night” speeches

until it’s happened so many times that you see each other at the same party

and ten jokingly grins and goes “what’s up sober patrol”

and you’re like “not much, designated driver”

more than anything, it’s just silly banter between each other

you’re honestly surprised by the fact that ten manages to still be so energetic and magnetizing without participating in drinking

like he’ll still get up on tables and dance, he’ll still tell great jokes and be every bit as comfortable

even when people hand him cups, he passes them along and doesn’t let anything bother him from just having a good time

and still being able to take care of his friends when it’s over

one night, as your group of friends manages to not get TOO wild and you’re leaving with none of them leaning on you for support

you spot ten, crouched down in front of a well known senior

as you look closer you realize he’s the one everyone knows ,,,,, he’s the schools top dancer - accepted into a major company with a whole track list of performances

he’s slumped against the wall, rubbing his temples and ten seems to be trying to offer him water

which the older boy sluggishly takes from his hand and you walk over, asking if ten needs help

at first he just smiles and tells you it’s nothing,,,but the guy up close is obviously bigger - with broad shoulders and long legs

if ten tries to hoist him up,,,you know he’ll never be bale to do it by himself

so you go “i can help, really”

with a LOT of struggle you get the dude up, he leans most of his body weight on ten which doesn’t seem to bother ten as much as you guessed

although dancers are lean, you know they’re also toned

but you swat the image of ten’s muscular upper arms and legs from your mind and try to bare you brunt of the guys weight

by the grace of who knows what you get to the dorms, the guy’s bunk is on the top so you and ten watch in horror as he tries to barell his way up the stairs

at some point he tilts back and you and ten think he’s going to fall over

once he’s safely in bed, feet hanging off, ten throws a blanket up ontop

where it lands -- it doesn’t matter

ten just tells you that you’d two better get out of there before the floor RA does rounds

you both find yourselves, sweaty and tired, out on the campus grounds at 4 in the damn morning

and you think,,,,really being the sober friends isn’t worth it either - you have class at

and just when you’re sure ten’s going to tell you he’s gotta split he motions to the main dance building and goes

“i know a good place for some snacks and since it’s basically morning, wanna get an early breakfast?”

you’re shocked one; at the proposition to share breakfast with him but also two; tht he doesn’t want to go get a quick nap instead

either way it’s free food - but what’s more important is it’s ten,,,,,

and ever since you both started this whole weird in between of strangers-with-tipsy-friends thing going on,,,you’ve wanted to more about him

like seriously all you had so far was cute, dances,,,,,,,caring,,,,Cute

so with a small nod, you follow ten curiously into the building

the doors aren’t locked - ten explains that late night practice groups usually always forget to lock the door

you two end up in the kitchen of the teacher’s lounge and out of the mini-fridge ten pulls out two yogurts. handing one to you he opens a couple drawers and throws you an energy bar

“isn’t this,,,looting?”

ten shakes his head with a laugh “it’s not the teachers food, it’s snacks for students. people raid this place all the time.”

you feel a small tinge of guilt, but hey he’s the dance major here

so you unwrap the energy bar to take a bite

“i know the coffee machine works, but there’s only hazelnut flavor?”

you shrug and go that’s fine

ten grins and disappears toward the back of the kitchen

you look around, the desks are covered in pamphlets for different performances, there’s a stack of books on the history of different dance styles

someone’s got photos of alumni in elaborate, beautiful costumes tapped to their wall

and there are countless racks of CD’s, tangled wires from stereos, and what you assume are recordings of past choreography’s

it doesn’t look anything like any other departments office, but at the same time you see just how much the people who work there must love dance

when ten motions for you to come with him you can’t help but wonder,,,,where does that passion for this come from

getting the door open with his foot, ten uses his elbow to flick the lights of one of the studios on

the entire room is pretty empty - the mirrors go from the floor to the ceiling

and there’s only a computer in the corner on a standing desk which you assume is for music

setting your drinks and coffee down on the floor he jokes that you can’t spill anything - this floor is too hard to clean

you settle in with your legs crossed, ten sorta lays on his side with his arm propped under his head

and for a while it’s silent till ten goes “we deserve a day off from the sober patrol, we should get some good wine together or something.”

you laugh, but agree “beer is gross” you state and crinkle your nose

ten nods, taking a spoonful of yogurt and going “it tastes dry - it gets stuck in my throat. i could drink anything else, but not that.”

“i think college kids like it because it’s cheap.”

ten wags a finger and goes “i know a place where there’s bottles of wine for $12. kids just don’t have class these days”

you giggle and go “do you?”

ten raises an eyebrow, “oh you don’t even know”

it’s so natural around him, you guys spend the next two hours talking about the worse parties on campus, the horrible scheduling this semester, and ten impersonates the chem teacher you both had for core

even though you’re hanging out with him for real for the first time - it feels like you’ve known each other for years

“you should give me your number, just in case we need each other for more sober patrol missions”

ten suggests, sitting up and handing you his phone

“it’s at 8%, how hot”

“just enough time to get those digits”

he winks and you laugh, rolling your eyes

but just like that you and ten are in each other’s contacts. under the very creative name ‘sober patrol buddies’ with the ambulance emoji next to it

it’s all goofy and silly but ten suddenly goes “ive seen people abandone their friends at parties, not a lot of people are loyal like us.”

you nod slowly, but it’s true - college can really bring out the worst in people. the amount of times you’ve helped out random students is pretty high

ten catches your gaze and adds “loyalty is important to me, trust is something i don’t want to lose in people you know?”

it’s the most serious thing to come out of him since you met hi

but you somehow understand why that would mean so much for him. in dance, a lot of the time you have to trust the partners you’re with. the people who train with you and help you become better

you don’t say anything, but you go that ou just want to be the kind of friend whose there for people

and you hope those people will be there for you

ten leans over, patting the top of your head and going ‘ill be there, just call your sober patrol buddy”

in that moment, you assume he’s just being silly

that he means it, but in a friendly way

you don’t know that for ten, it’s something a bit more

not until weeks have gone by since you guys hungout like that - a party or two happens and you and ten see each other again

but you don’t hang out - not until you get a random text in the evening that’s from ten and it’s the wine emoji and question mark

and you’re like “are you inviting me or are you asking me if i can hook you up?”

ten just says he’s all set, you can come over if you want

you’re surprised when you see his dorm

it’s a little cluttered, but somehow feels really genuine to ten

with fairy lights, pictures of his family on his wall, and rows of dancing shoes and duffle bags full of training wear pilled near his desk

ten pulls something out of the corner of his bed

“is that the cheap wine you told me about?”

you joke and ten goes “cheap, but not that cheap.”

you sit down at his desk and ten opens the bottle

“i thought we should have a day where the sober patrol gets to have fun”

“inside you dorm,,,,,,,,?”

ten shrugs “it’s safer than t some frat house. we can get tipsy and critique twilight if you want, or oh - my fave - truth or date ft wine”

you laugh, but agree. there’s a nervous knot in your stomach because tbh this seems kinda like a stay-in date??

but you don’t know,,,,there’s no way ten feels that way about you ,,,, right??

you watch him pour some wine into a mug with your college’s logo on it. he passes you an identical mug and pours you some

the wine is red, which you like and makes you feel warm

“ok , truth or dare?”

you spin in his desk chair and go “,,,,,,dare?”

“i dare you to prank call my friend jaehyun”

“but he’s so sweet, he doesn’t deserve it”

ten taps his chin “you’re right lets go for the real demon,,,,,,joh-taeil.”

the game goes on for a bit, you almost finish the entire bottle when you go “truth” with a small hiccup

and ten goes “have you ever thought of me romantically?”

you drop your eyes to the floor, the embarrassment burning bright on your cheeks

“hmmm?”

ten hums, sitting upright on his bed

“,,,,,,,,,yes”

truth or dare has never been 100% of a real game to you - the amount of times you’ve lied playing it is countless but something pries you this time to just do it. say the truth

ten suddenly puts a hand on your knee and pulls you a bit so the desk chair slides you closer

“im gonna ask another one, truth or dare”

you presses your hand to your lips, “truth,,”

“is that the wine talking. or do you really like me.”

“i really like you”

ten doesn’t try to hold back the grin on his face, he doesn’t even try to hold back the “oh good, i was worried for a sec”

you both sit there,,,,you shell-shocked that you said that - well, admitted that

and ten basking in the happiness of knowing you like him, he goes “you can ask me”

“truth,,,,o,,or dare”

the words come out a little nervous and ten goes “truth.”

you know he expects you to ask him back, ‘do you like me too’, but you shift a little and go

“do you want to kiss me?”

“yes”

and just like that, ten let’s you lean in and his lips are soft - the mutual taste of wine lingers on them

he gently falls back, tugging you on top of him and you feel the knot in your stomach turn into a butterfly

but as ten’s hand cups your face, you stat thinking,,,,,,what if this is just the wine talking for him - do you really wanna do this right now - when neither of you are sober

you suddenly pull back, ten confusing lifts himself on his elbows and you go

“i,,,,,i want to do this,,,,but not like this,,,,”

you say the words in an almost hushed whisper, the thoughts that flash through your head have to do with everything you’ve ever seen or read about college

where if you pull out in the middle of a hookup- the other person will be hurt, angry, distraught

and you know you completely have the right to say no if you’re not feeling it 100%,,,,,but you also don’t want ten to stop liking you-

but ten makes all that wash away

he nods, that signature smile on his lips

“i understand, wanna just cuddle and watch a movie? im telling you - twilight is better with wine”

you giggle and moves so you’re laying beside him, arms pressed against each other and you go

“i think,,,,,,,horror movie would be better?”

ten scrunches up his face and goes “sure, but im going to be hiding and holding onto you for dear life, that cool?”

you nod, and ten gets up to find his laptop

for the rest of the time, you guys stay huddled under the blanket,,,,and everything is warm and fuzzy and ten doesn’t ever take things too far

just small kisses here and there and ten going

“the sober patrol is now the sober,,,,,couple??”

you must already know who the first person is that knows you’re dating,,,,,,,,,

well actuaally johnny is the /second/

because the first is the senior you and ten dragged home, he’d actually spotted you and ten on campus after ten had walked you to class and he’d went up to both of you to thank you

but to also beg you not to tell anyone about his state that night,,,,he was even like “ill put in a word for you a t my company” to ten but you and ten were like it’s fine LOL

he’d left with a “you guys are cute together” and you had turned cherry red as ten just shone like our first compliment babe we are gonna be the POWER couple soon you just wait and see

but yeah, after that it was johnny and oh,,,,,it was special

johnny, upon hearing ten introduce you as his s/o had just got the most happy look on his face - to the point where it was a lil goofy

and pulled you two into his arms like you guys,,,,you guys,,,,,you’re my favorites ok,,,

johnny gets dramatic ok

and ten, gets just as dramatic he was like johnny i honestly feel like they make me the best version of me and we’ve been on like one date

johnny: marriage-

ten: don’t say that. but also very very low key do say that jokes jokes

the rest of ten’s friends, and by friends i mean nct, are all really happy for him. they’re also happy that someone will be there to help ten deal with their tipsy butts and you’re like oh,,,i wish my friends get in over their heads too

which leads to nct being like we should all party together then

you and ten: oh god. our worst nightmare

ten: this is mark, he’s great because he doesn’t like drinking at all

the rest of ten’s friends, the entire damn campus, is also super happy for him

a lot of people start introducing themselves to you and asking you to hangout and stuff be cause anyone that dates ten has to be an awesome person

which you’re flattered but you’re like my boyfriends a celberity,,,

he’s even friends with amber?? JACKSON WANG???

ten is the kind of boyfriend who everyone assumes is going to take you clubbing, make you do things you’ve never imagined, and basically just be wild

which,,,yeah is something you guys do

because ten knows the nightlife of the town like the back of his hand , but you know he’s a hardworking dace major

sometimes he’s just tired and wants to be lazyi n the dorm with you

and both lively ten, and cuddly ten is perfect for you

but as you find out, after an evening of drinks with friends, ten can get LOUD

and i mean loud like singing along to karaoke at high volume, asking the DJ to play sons when the DJ is literally across the room, downing shots like his liver just doesn’t exist

dunks his whole body in the pool with his clothes on and pulls you in right after him

but it’s fun, being with him is exhilirating, but can also just be so romantic and safe

because even tipsy ten is still aware of boundaries and puts communication first

honestly ,,,,,there’s a point where you two are just eskimo kissing each other in the club and johnny is like “true love,,,,,”

but im not even gonna lie does ten grind on you and pop some hot dance moves out - yeah, he does and you love it

how can you not it’s ten like???

those nights, neither of you is on sober patrol because you both end up gripping onto each other for dear life and taeyong is the one to call the uber LOL

dance majors are super studious in their studies, as you learn with ten and his spanish minor

like he never misses a chance to practice and he’ll turn to you and go from “Eres la persona más bella que he visto,,,,” to “Dios mío, ¿que pasaría si le pinto el cabello naranja a Taeyong mientras duerme?”

if you understand spanish: you’re like thank you,,,but don’t do that to taeyong

if you don’t understand you’re just like ??? babe??? translate?? babe all i got was bella and taeyong what’s happening

i feel like ten is a big petname person , but also like personalized nicknames that are inside jokes

oh- he takes a lot of pics on his phone

most of them are selfies and the amount of time you’ve had to stop in the street, sip your coffee and reply to texts while he gets the perfect angle is hilarious

but also like it’s adorable, he takes pics of you - and they’re god. like totally candid quality

but also he’s like ‘look at my new dance tights - i could do a split’ and you try not to laugh in lecture because of the pics he sends

squishes your face

likes when you squish his face

practice for him can be super long and sometimes you’ll surprise him after with dinner and you’ll sit infront of the mirror and eat while other dance majors come in and out and try to steal the snacks you got ten

and he’s like swatting at them like mine,,,they’re mine,,,the snacks and my s/o

piggy backed you to class once because you were running late and didn’t even get a chance to brush your hair

like literally just got you on his back and he was off!

when you got to class he let you down and put his cap on your head and he was like “your look is complete, and none but me gets to see your cute bedhead”

you and him totally do the couple challenges that go viral on the internet because ten is just totally that boyfriend

you’ve done each others makeup blindfolded, you’ve tried to guess each others favorite things, played pranks on one and other, and just in general been cute as hell

everyone on campus wants u two to vlog

like so bad

ten runs that radioshow and when he really really likes a song he dedicates it to you before they play it

johnny: i know your s/o is texting you because you always get that dumb goffy look on your face

ten:you always have a dumb look on your face, it’s your face

johnny: im calling the police

ten stresses out a lot about auditions and you always have to stock up on his favorite ice-cream and come over and just tell him he’s gonna do fine

one of those nights, as you’re laying beside him and ten is telling you that he’s just,,,worked so hard what if it goes to waste

you go “you’re ten, nothing can stop you.”

he’d looked over at you, eyes softening and his lips pressing against yours

and it had felt so right in the moment ,, having his arms around you and you’d remembered what ten had said to you

about mutual trust,,,and just knowing people will be there for you

and you had let your hand rest on his neck, his lips against your collar and you just felt like you had to tell him

“ten, i trust you. forever.”

something had sparked in him, having your trust gave him the confidence

and it had been perfect, with marks left on both of you and giggling shyness afterwords as you ducked under the covers and ten had to tickle you to show yourself again

also just a comment, dancer’s body. that’s all i gotta say

you and ten have less time to always be on sober patrol because now you’ve got date nights instead of parties - but don’t get me wrong you guys still go out with friends

and you and ten still nag at your friends for forgetting that they have exams tomorrow or competitions and everyone is like it’s hard to be maD at you TWO when you’re SO CUTE together And im drunk

you attend one of ten’s performances and seeing him dance, you get it. you get that he belongs there and why he tries so damn hard

why he’ll keep practicing when everyone’s gone and keep trying to learn new techniques

and you’re so freaking proud

ten asks you one time, as you’re sitting at lunch, your friends surronding you and chattering away

he asks if you think he’ll make it

you just put your hands on both his cheeks and kiss him and go “yes. don’t doubt yourself”

he grins, pulling you closer and mumbling, “Mi vida seria un desastre sin ti.”

you and ten are dating but the amount of times you’ve both had to pull johnny out of some dorm with silly string in his hair and someones number scribbled on his cheek just indicates that you’re both the parents of this overgrown child

but it’s ok,,,,,,,because in the end you and ten have something undeniable - a connection that’s gonna last forever

you just can’t believe you found each other indirectly, literally, because of something you both don’t like : beer

“we should get matching t-shirts, and i want one to say ‘if lost please return to the best person on earth’ and the other one gets the ‘im the best person on earth’ shirt”

you look up at ten from your laptop and chew your lip

“that would work, but who gets the best person on earth shirt. we’re both pretty great”

“it’s interchangeable, we switch it up depending on how we feel.”

“deal”

“i love you”

“i love you too”

#nct scenarios #nct imagines #ten scenarios #ten imagines #chittaphon scenarios #chittaphon imagines #drinking/#nct u scenarios #nct u imagines #nct #ten #chittaphon #College!AU #this one is actually based on a couple i know lmao that met because they didn't like drinking on campus it's actually cute #if this disturbs anyone in anyway - please tell me so i can properly tag

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

Text

Why does the Duolingo owl scare me more than my high school Spanish teacher ever did?

The Duolingo owl is ruining my life. So why do I feel so pressured to learn from it?

Like many other disappointments to the public education system, I spent seven years studying Spanish and barely retained any of it. The little remnants that still float around my memory are disjointed and just out of reach — I remember the words and their purpose, but can't seem to string them into a coherent conversation.

The pieces are all there. They're just scrambled.

I started Spanish lessons on Duolingo months ago, but my enthusiasm wore off. When I stopped ascending two levels a night, the notifications began.

SEE ALSO: The Duolingo owl is out for vengeance in these threatening memes

Unlike my high school Spanish teacher, whose reach only extended to 50 minutes of class time a day, Duolingo is always with me. It lurks in the shadows of my phone, waiting for me to practice, and striking when it's most personally inconvenient. Whether I'm navigating rush hour traffic or sitting through an excruciating first date, Duolingo's push notifications remind me to spend five minutes on my daily lesson precisely when I don't have five minutes.

It's an internet-wide experience: Duolingo's passive-aggressive notifications became a meme, and the company even leaned into it by bringing the threatening owl to life in this year's April Fools' Day prank.

Granted, Duolingo users can turn these notifications off, and if you ignore them for long enough, the app will send you the ultimate passive aggressive alert: "These reminders don't seem to be working. We'll stop sending them for now." But allowing that to happen is even worse — you're just admitting defeat and accepting your failure to progress.

The moment you've all been d̶r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ waiting for... Introducing Duolingo Push! We're taking notifications out of your phone and into the real world. Yup: Duo the Owl will literally show up to remind you to practice so you never miss a lesson. 👉 https://t.co/UB8ld0pyiY pic.twitter.com/kHEQv2Winc

— Duolingo (@duolingo) April 1, 2019

Despite my annoyance with the overwhelming notifications, I still feel pressured keep going with Duolingo. I used to dread vocabulary quizzes and writing assignments, but somehow my high school Spanish teacher never instilled the same anxiety and guilt that skipping a Duolingo practice session does.

oh god oh fuck pic.twitter.com/JmrilYLl3n

— John (@monadoboii) March 31, 2019

To get to the bottom of this, I reached out to Rosanny Genao, who was my Spanish teacher for two years of high school, to figure out why an anthropomorphic green owl scares me more than she ever did.

"You're not really encouraging people by sending messages that are going to generate more anxiety," Genao explained in a phone call. "I feel like if you're getting notifications all the time, it's almost like you're getting harassed."

The actual notifications aren't even that threatening — it's the personal disappointment that follows.

There are no stakes when it comes to learning with an app. There's no risk of failing a midterm, or lowering your GPA, or losing credits and repeating a required class. You won't miss out on walking at graduation if you skip a few nights of Duolingo practice.

At the same time, you're the only person holding yourself back if you don't keep going. Nobody will hold you accountable for not memorizing past tense conjugations except yourself; if you decide to stop educating yourself, that's on you.

"Duolingo consistently makes me feel like a failure," my friend Rebecca texted when I joked about the owl's menacing reminders. "I feel like you could track my depression by looking at my Duolingo history."

It's a commonly held sentiment.

"Every time Duolingo sends the 'we'll stop sending you these reminders because they don't seem to be working' notification my heart breaks," @bicesrceis tweeted. "Stop reminding me how much of a failure I am."

"Not only am I a disappointment to my parents but now I’m also a disappointment to the Duolingo owl," @jaz_ham said a good month before the murderous owl went viral.

The duolingo owl when you leave it alone for like 5 minutes pic.twitter.com/q5hQKVgZ7r

— Violet⚧☭⚢⛤🛡 (@OnePrplGrl) March 29, 2019

According to Genao, we're too used to finding immediate answers. In the age of Amazon Prime and Google Translate, who wants to spend time on absorbing and understanding a new language when you can learn it all in an instant?

"It's the technology era," Genao said, referring to the neurotic people like me who finish ten levels a week before crashing and burning, doomed to never achieve bilingual glory. "We want everything, all the information as quickly and effective[ly] as possible. And we want to be done."

The immense pressure to learn comes from the immediate validation of completing a level. Practice more, and you're awarded more lingots. Acquire enough lingots and you can buy power-ups that'll freeze your streak for a day, outfits for the owl to wear, and bonus lessons that'll teach you idioms and flirtatious phrases.

Aside from the bonus lessons, none of these purchases have real-world value, and unless you're planning a Love Actually-type romance with a Portuguese woman in rural France, learning to flirt may not hold much weight either. The knowledge that you achieved something is still there, though.

If it's any solace, following Duolingo's orders won't actually make you bilingual.

You can't truly acquire a second language by pairing matching phrases. There are two branches of bilingualism: simultaneous bilingualism, which means the speaker was spoken to in both languages from birth, and sequential or successive bilingualism, which means the speaker learned a second language later in childhood or adulthood.

the new duolingo ad is weird pic.twitter.com/VDij0YVUaF

— miranda (@shazamstark) March 27, 2019

A paper from MIT and the University of Ottawa notes that when it comes to multilingualism, "most of this language learning occurs in untutored, naturalistic settings and throughout the lifespan of an individual."

Even though language learning apps may have flashcards, visuals, and speaking components, they don't compare to immersing yourself in another culture. You don't just hardwire your brain to start thinking in another language.

"It takes about five years if you really want to be bilingual," Genao explained. "It depends on the person but unless you are immersed in the language by going to that country where it's spoken, it takes at least three years to become somewhat proficient in it."

Which only adds to the fact that there are literally no stakes in ignoring Duolingo's pushy practice alerts. Still, knowing that your own lack of motivation keeping you from moving forward is enough of a guilt trip. A human teacher, Genao says, will keep you accountable for learning. If you're unmotivated, you have someone to push you to continue.

"Whatever is that benchmark for the expectations you have, you set those goals on your own on an app," she said. "Where a teacher might demand a lot more from you."

Not learning is a failure to yourself, and depending on the type of person you are, is worse than any teacher's disappointing lecture. You may have lofty goals, but confronting your own ambition is terrifying in itself. For me, realizing that I'd never be conversational just from an app was absolutely freeing.

the fact that the duolingo HQ owns a duo fursuit somewhere in their office is what scares me the most pic.twitter.com/6SVQgFoK4U

— reya | i'm babie (@catradoreya) April 1, 2019

That's not to say that you should give up on learning altogether. Learning Dutch phrases got me through a semester abroad, and getting into Korean has made grocery shopping for traditional family recipes significantly easier. But at the end of the day, Genao says nothing will accelerate language learning like daily conversations with a native speaker.

I'm less self-deprecating when it comes to ignoring Duolingo's push notifications now, but it doesn't mean I'm deleting the app altogether. Duolingo, thankfully, will not come to my house in the dead of night to torture me into memorizing vocabulary, but I keep the app around as a self-flagellating reminder to try it again one day.

There will always be a slight pang of guilt for not paying more attention in Señora Genao's class every time I clear my notifications.

WATCH: These warming 'space pants' use technology to help people with chronic pain — Future Blink

#_author:Morgan Sung #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_uuid:cbc89493-e446-3d5f-9d1b-ad94ac997c35 #_revsp:news.mashable

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ruffoverthinksthings · 7 years

Note

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Claudine/Frollo headcannons, do you have any in mind for Esmeralda/Phoebus? If the sequel movies are wiped from this universe, that means their son doesn't exist (or not yet). Also, do you have another headcannon for onesided fresme on frollo's part? How would he handle being unable to obtain her in this universe?

Ilike to believe the sequels and spin-offs are valid, as the bookseries (which is, as of the Rise of the Isle of the Lost, is canon…to a certain extent) makes reference to characters that could onlyexist outside of the original movies, such as:

Diegode Vil, presumably the child of Ivy de Vil from the 101 DalmatiansTV series, or a descendant from the rest of the extended de Vilfamily, and

Jade,Jay’s cousin and presumably the daughter of Nasira, Jafar’ssister from the Aladdin video game series

There’sa level of personal bias, with the amount of work I’ve already putinto expanding the world with my own ideas, but I think we can allagree that the Isle and Auradon would be a whole lot less interestingif we didn’t have the likes of:

Mozenrath(Aladdin animated series) acting as Maleficent’s longsuffering middle manager, and personal chew toy as an “inferiormagical being,”

LadyWaltham (Tarzan animated series) adding an element of sympathyto the Isle of the Lost with her regretting her brother Clayton andher nephew are still on there and unable to return, and

LadyCaine (Tangled: Before Ever After), who adds a deliciouselement of grayness and a MASSIVE stain on the otherwise pristinereputation all sympathetic Disney monarchs have.

Ontothe headcanons:

Phoebusbecomes one of the new Captains of the Guard in France once theoriginal forces are merged with, or completely replaced by the newlyestablished Auradon Royal Guard. Though the actual administrative andexecutive power lies much higher up the ranks (such as theCommander-In-Chief, Beast), he himself is an incredibly influentialmember, well-known and well-loved by the citizenship and the fellowsoldiers he patrols the streets with.

Auradonhad to rely heavily on translators, human and machine, or translatingmagic during its tumultuous first years, as everyone struggled tofind one common language for every state to use as the internationalstandard (it’s English still). A LOT of things get lost intranslation or don’t translate too good into another language, orsomeone gets VERY offended when someone who is fluent in both Frenchand Chinese tells you exactly what they meant, and howunflattering it is.

Andthis isn’t even going into all the numerous cultural clashes andfaux paus, such as one unfortunate Louisiana chef realizing you’renot supposed to serve pork to most Agrahbans until he was alreadyuncovering the dish...

Phoebusbridges the gap through his calm, professional demeanor, alwaysshowing politeness and civility to everyone whoever they may be, andof course, his sense of humour, given “a real workout” when hehas to figure out how to make someone laugh with universallyunderstood comedy (someone falling face first into a pile of horsedung), non-verbal humour (wearing a silly, pink, fuzzy bunny earswhilst on duty), and using simple plays on word that foreigners caneasily get, or are tailored specifically to their language.

“Inever quite realized eggs could be such a huge source of humour,”he muses when he has to speak to Spanish speaking citizens.

However,his usefulness quickly dwindled as the culture clashes settled down,people started learning English, and of course, the already olderPhoebus found himself growing ever older and unable to keep up withthe rapid pace of advancement and pop culture references in Auradon,not to mention his disadvantage of “not being gifted a smartphonefor my first birthday.”

Hehas an incredibly cushy administrative position that pays well,commands respect from his soldiers still, and gives him great hoursto spend with his family and other pursuits, but as he’s no longergoing out (or being allowed) on patrols and interacting personallywith the people in his jurisdiction, he can’t help but wonder ifhe’s just being eased into the idea of retirement, and Auradon issimply too nice to boot him for the much feared “chainsaw HR” ofsome corporations from BGU London.

(Forthose not familiar with the term, “chainsaw HR” is when entiredivisions, and numbers into the hundreds are suddenly, and oftentimeswithout proper recompense or retirement packages, fired or forcedinto early retirement.

It’sa play on the term “axed” for being suddenly fired, and chainsawsbeing a modern, much more efficient tool for the same job as aliteral ax.)

It’ssafe to say that at the age of 55 or so, and having already lived oneillustrious career then a brief revival, he’s having a midlifecrisis, not helped by the fact that many other Auradonians about hisage are feeling as obsolete as last year’s ayGem.

(“Butit came out just a year ago!”

“Yeah,but they updated to a new, much better firmware and hardwarearchitecture, all the hot new apps don’t even bother with legacyupdates.”)

Esmerelda has fared much better.

Shehas become an activist in this world, using the power of theinternet, the normalization of the “other,” and the erasure ofthe national and ethnic boundaries that once separated communities tohelp her fellow Romani people (I won’t use “gypsies,” as that’san offensive term to them), and other marginalized, and forgottengroups, such as much of the Wild Fae population.

Shealso owns and teaches at a dance studio, using them to train the nextgeneration of performers (“Be they for the street, the stage, orthe screen”), and waging a subtle campaign to remove the stigma forblatant and shameless use of sexuality.

I’vealways known Auradon is a conservative wet dream in many respects,and the fact that ripping a tiny tear in your skirt is considered“scandalous” by teenagers says a lot.

Beforeyou ask, YES, Esmerelda is still as desired and lusted afternow as she was BGU—probably even more so, now that we have thecombined populations of all the states, and she is a very popular andcommon presence on the internet.

Beforeyou also ask, Phoebus has long gotten over it and considers it “partof the package.”

Sheis one of the most knowledgeable and well-versed with moderntechnology out of the “Travellers” (Auradonians who were adultsor close to it Before Great Uniting), seeing as her troupe ofperformers have always been highly adaptable and all to ready to dowhatever it takes to survive, fit in with the locale they have foundthemselves in, and afterwards, thrive.

Thatthey have generally relied on being couriers and brokers ofinformation, and the internet basically being a giant free market ofinformation has helped GREATLY.

Withher religion, she still isn’t 100% on the existence of God, onlyever praying to Him during times of crisis or as a show of good faithwith the religious institutions of Auradon, but the Greek Pantheonhas given her hope that Supreme Beings like Him do exist.

“Atthe very least, He’s been very light on throwing down lightningbolts from up on high.”

(Thoughmuch less murderous and many other negative traits than the original,Disney Zeus is still INCREDIBLY fond of “warning shots.”)

Andonce more, before you ask, I can seriously see her making a cameo inthe canon as a guest dance instructor for the Descendants, if sheisn’t already a full-time staff member of Auradon Prep, and yes,she would definitely mentor Evie by showing her much healthier waysof expressing her sexuality and femininity without feeling like she’sdegrading herself, or turning herself into a “slab of meat in thebutcher’s window.”

Zephyrwas born BGU, and if my idea that the states had been communicatingfor a few years before the idea of fusing is canon, has a veryunique perspective of being a “Traveler Tot,” living with theideas and concepts imported over through the portals andcommunication crystals, before he got to live it in Auradon when thetechnology and materials could be more easily accessed and produced.

Heis still hyperactive and excitable as ever, though most of that wasbeing channeled into a combination of soldier training and becoming acircus performer like his parents; in his mind, there really isn’tmuch difference between the two, as they both require incrediblephysical skill and endurance, a sharp and creative mind, andrelentless, dedicated training, day-in, day-out.

“Itall really comes down to what you mean when you say you ‘slayedthem,’” he says.

Thisquickly changes in Auradon when he finds himself addicted to HeroRising, the video game that Carlos was seen playing during hisfirst night in Auradon. While initially Phoebus sees it as a good wayfor him to blow off all his excess energy and get some physicaltraining done, and Esmerelda tolerates it as he’s not going offstealing and rearranging stop signs, it evolves into something muchmore for him in time.

Atfirst, he’s the best player on the block, then in theneighbourhood, then the school, then the city, then the state, andfinally, one of the Hall of Famers in Auradon. As he grows older, hejust barely passes his high school subjects as a conditional for hissponsors support and working with the Hero Rising developersas a PR person, community idol AKA a “Paragon,” and beta tester.The height of his fame and success comes when the latest release,Hero Rising: The Lost Legion, features a new playablecharacter based off of him, and his unique dance-like fighting style:

“Twister.”

Trueto the name, his life is sent into a spin cycle after that.

Afew years pass, a new Hero Rising is released, and everyone isgushing over the new characters, and Twister gives up his place onthe cover art alongside the series “cornerstones” to give them achance to shine.

NewParagons are brought in as the old guard goes off to college, retiresfrom the business into different, less-demanding pursuits, or isquietly given a send-off as they simply aren’t as salable nor asgood as they were a few years ago.

Zephyrquickly realizes that while he’s still got it, these new kids areinsane, and have so many advantages he didn’t, like muchbetter nutrition, a much more generous school schedule, and havingthe infrastructure, the audience, and the sponsors for Hero RisingParagons already there, rather than helping spearhead them.

Hecontinues on, making less and less public appearances, awkwardlybeing one of the only adult Paragons in crowds increasingly filledwith little kids and teenagers, and new characters based off the newParagons get the spotlight.

“Everyonealready knows Twister, and played him to death in all the specialinstance maps, the players want someone new!”

Thedeath-knell of his career and the cold, hard slap from Reality comeswhen Twister is removed from the roster due to development costs, andthe fact that Zephyr’s fees and royalties were considered too highfor the relatively lower cost of a new, fresh face who the fans aremuch more eager to see digitized.

Heand Phoebus both find themselves facing obsolescence, being leftbehind by a world that has simply moved too fast for them and leftthem in its dust, as they were only ever good at one thing each:fighting, either real bad guys or fictional ones.

Andso, with Esmerelda’s love and support, the two go off to reeducatethemselves and train in the new industries and careers Auradondemands, incidentally becoming the inspiration for the blockbusterfeel good movie of eight years from this time of writing:

“WithHonours”

Thestory of how a father and son went back to college, forced to startfrom scratch in a brand new world, learning new tricks, makingstrange friends, and doing a whole lot of growing up they didn’tknow they still needed to do.

Nowonto Frollo:

Helaments his permanent loss of Esmerelda (unlike the other Villains,he harbours no fantasies of Claudine getting him off the Isle—notwhen there’s still so much Good Work to be done here in this landof Sinners and Nonbelievers), and takes the disastrous results of hisobsession and lusting after her as a cautionary tale, the catastrophethat befalls those who turn away from God and the Right Path, and howthey take the whole world down with them.

Publicly,he is “that” preacher yelling about modesty, the sanctity ofmarriage and sexuality, and how pretty much everyone on theIsle is damned for engaging in such scandalous, salacious acts likepremarital sex, sexual intercourse without the intention ofprocreation, and of course, homosexuality.

Privately,he seeks a form of redemption by raising a good, Christian child inClaudine, the child he would have born with Esmerelda and raised ifcircumstances had been different (yeee-eep), and is looking for awoman with whom he can have a much healthier relationship with, toshow someone from this Isle what marriage and the word “love”truly means than the perversion the Islanders have turned it into.

Asboth Claudine and Not Esmerelda will attest to, he’s failedmiserably on both counts, but as usual, is blissfully unaware ofeither.

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uomo-accattivante · 7 years

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#oscar isaac #the promise #interview #independent.co.uk #armenian genocide

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hebrewing · 7 years

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Hebrew Basics #1: All about the Hebrew Alphabet

In order to learn a language, the very first thing you need to know is reading it. This is a basic step in all language studies. Hopefully you’ll start conquering that by the end of this lesson :)

The Hebrew alphabet… isn’t an alphabet. Technically speaking, it’s an “‘abjad” (an acronym of the first four letters of the Arabic ‘abjad), although it is commonly called an alphabet (as I’ll continue calling it for simplicity’s sake). Characteristic of Semitic languages (to which Hebrew belongs, among Arabic and many others, extinct and alive), the ‘abjad’s main characteristic is (almost) complete lack of vowels. Every letter stands for a consonant, and vowels are simply omitted. It’s equivalent to writing English “lk ths.”

While using an ‘abjad-like system with English is quite hellish, the case for Hebrew is quite different. Due to its relatively simple vowel system and unique Semitic grammar and morphology (how words are formed and act in a sentence), using an ‘abjad is actually quite a reasonable choice for Hebrew. Oversimplifying, Hebrew words are comprised of a root and a template, each contribute meaning to the final word. The root is comprised of (usually three) consonants, and the template describes the vowels, prefixes and suffixes you insert between and around the consonants.

The Letters

The Hebrew alphabet, called הָאַלֶף־בֵּית/אָלֶפְבֵּית הָעִבְרִי ha’álef-bét ha’ivrí, is comprised of 22 letters.

The first, most important fact is that Hebrew is read from right to left.

Note: the names aren’t all that important to learning the letters. Simply learning their pronunciation is enough at this point.

Five of the letters, for historical reasons, have two different forms - a word-initial and -medial form, and a separate final form. These are marked with a 1 on the table.

As you might have noticed, some letters have multiple pronunciations, and some of these overlap with one another. This was caused by many changes that happened to the language’s phonology over the years since the alphabet was created (some 3,000 years ago in its earliest forms).

The most notable of these letters are the בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת* béged kéfet letters, marked with a 2. These days, for historical reasons**, only three letters actually change their pronunciation depending on their position in a word–ב bet, כ kaf, פ pe–and they are the only ones marked on the list, pronounced as /b~v/, /k~kh/, /p~f/, respectively. Generally speaking, for native words, at the beginning of a word and directly after a consonant (with no vowel in-between), they are pronounced with their ‘hard’ pronunciation (/b/ /k/ /p/), and in all other positions with their ‘soft’ pronunciation (/v/ /kh/ /f/). Loanwords do not follow these rules, and are pronounced as they are in the original language.

*Acronyms and initialisms, as well as Hebrew letter names and numerals, are marked by the Hebrew punctuation mark ״, called גֵּרְשַׁיִם gershayim, and placed before the last letter of the phrase. It is similar looking to the Latin quotation mark, and is often confused with it even by native speakers, but nonetheless different.

**You might have noticed that ‘historically’, ‘for historical reasons’, etc. are somewhat a trend in this lesson. Hebrew is an incredibly old language, about 5,000 years old in fact, riddled with old tales and tradition. During that period it changed a lot, it even died for 2,000 years and came back to haunt us in the last 150. Despite this, the Hebrew writing system as we know it today was tailored (albeit not perfectly) for Hebrew as it was spoken some 2,500 years ago, and remained relatively unchanged during that whole period. Therefore, there are a lot of peculiarities in the Hebrew alphabet that we simply do not have time to cover, stemming from the complicated history of the language.

There are also a handful of letters which, for historical reasons, are still pronounced the same.

א alef + ע áyin (+ ה he) = ‘ (glottal stop) or none (ה he only as none)

soft ב bet + ו vav = /v/

ח chet + soft כ kaf = /ch/*

ט tet + ת tav = /t/

hard כ kaf + ק qof = /k/*

ס sámekh + שׂ sin = /s/

*I still transcribe hard כ kaf and ק qof, as well as ח chet and soft כ kaf differently (/k/ vs /q/, /ch/ vs /kh/) because, well, it’s easier than the other homophones.

To form a word, simply string together letters - the vowels magically appear in your head!

ספר (séfer) - book

ספר (sapár) - barber, hairdresser

ספר (sipér) - (he) told, (he) cut hair

ספר (supár) - (passive of above verb)

ספר (sper) - spare (English loanword)

…Yeah, that’s easier said than done.

See, in general with the ‘abjad system, all words pronounced with the same consonants are written exactly the same, which can create a heck of a lot of homographs, words written the same but pronounced differently. This problem has been cleverly solved using אִמּוֹת קְרִיאָה - ‘imót kri’á (literally mothers of reading). These are letters in Hebrew that serve a double function as a consonant and a vowel, marked with a 3 on the table. Noticed the letters ו vav and י yod have multiple pronunciations?

In many words, vowels (especially /i/, /o/ and /u/) are marked using one of these letters to reduce the number of homographs. For example, the words listed earlier are usually written:

ספר (séfer) - book

ספר (sapár) - barber, hairdresser

סיפר (sipér) - (he) told, (he) cut hair

סופר (supár) - (passive of above verb)

ספייר (sper) - spare (English loanword)

These letters can be conveniently memorized using the acronym אֶהֶוִ״י ‘eheví.

Interestingly enough, Yiddish, written with the same 22 letters, uses these letters (and some more) to create a full alphabet, where each and every vowel in a word is written, as well as the consonants. But we aren’t learning Yiddish here.

Learning when and where to put ‘imót kri’á comes with time, as it is often up to the reader where to put them. The style of writing I’ll be teaching with is called כְּתִיב חֲסֵר ktiv chasér, or ‘lacking spelling,’ where the bare minimum of ‘imót kri’á are used, and all vowels are indicated using vowel points, נִקּוּד niqúd, explained in the next section. This style is often used in children’s books and Biblical inscriptions; ktiv chasér is historically the only way Hebrew was written. This is in opposition to כְּתִיב מָלֵא ktiv malé, ‘full spelling,’ where ‘imót kri’á are used and vowel points aren’t; this is the style of writing virtually every modern Hebrew text is written in.

This might seem all confusing at this point, but let me assure you it isn’t. Once you wrap your head around it and start reading more and more of the language, you just instinctively know how a word is read off the bat. Context is usually more than enough to settle any ambiguities in how to read a word.

Vowel Points

Vowel points, נִקּוּד niqúd, are the diacritics used in Hebrew to indicate the vowels of a word, to complement the ambiguous ‘abjad system. These are the little dots and lines around each letter in previous examples.

Hebrew has five vowels: /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ - pronounced almost identically to those in Spanish and Greek, to name a few. However, it has 13 different vowel points. Historically, and still in some traditional readings of the Bible, each mark had a different pronunciation, but in Modern Hebrew a lot of them merged with one another.

The final form of מ mem, ם, is used as a placeholder here.

Make no mistake, the two vowels marked with an asterisk are in fact the same vowel. For now, know that in most cases it is pronounces as /a/. The /o/ pronunciation is rare, only in certain templates of words, and distinguishing between them is out of the scope of this lesson. For now, the only common word that uses the /o/ pronunciation is כָּל kol, meaning ‘all’.

Short and long vowels are only traditional nomenclature - in practice, all vowels in each row are pronounced with the same length. תְּנוּעוֹת חֲטוּפוֹת tnu’ót chatufót are stlightly different, but nonetheless pronounced the same. Note that the some long vowels use ‘imót kri’á intrinsically.

דָּגֶשׁ Dagésh:

The point on the bottom left, the דָּגֶשׁ dagésh, is an interesting topic. However, the only relevant point to this lesson is that it distinguishes between hard (with dagesh) and soft (without) pronunciations of בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת béged kéfet letters.

שְׁוָא Shva:

There are two types of shva: נַע na’ ‘moving’ - indicating an /e/, and נַח nach ‘still’ - indicating no vowel. Distinguishing between them is way out of the scope of this lesson, so for now the only way to tell them apart is through experience and transliterations.

שִׁי״ן Shin Points:

You might have noticed the rogue ש shin at the bottom of the table there. ש shin is different to other letters with double pronunciations, as it had always had two different pronunciations. Therefore, it got a different point to distinguish between the two: a dot on the right spoke of the ש shin indicates the common /sh/ pronunciation - שׁ, and a dot on the left spoke indicates the rarer /s/ pronunciation - שׂ. Each pronunciation is subsequently called שִׁי״ן יְמַנִית shin yemanít ‘right שִׁי״ן’ and שִׁי״ן שְֹמָאלִית shin smalít ‘left שִׁי״ן’.

All word-final letters have no vowel, unless marked otherwise. Most letters cannot even take a vowel mark at the end of a word. Exceptionally, ה he, ח chet, final ך kaf, ע áyin, ת tav, in certain circumstances do take vowel marks. ש shin must always have either a left or a right point, but no other vowel mark.

Practice!

Try reading these basic Hebrew words, then look at the answer key at the end to see if you were right.

1. אֲנִי 2. כֶּלֶב 3. בְּתוֹךְ 4. שֻׁלְחָן 5. פְּרִי 6. כָּל 7. יַם 8. עֵץ 9. אֲדָמָה 10. שְׂמֹאל

Answer Key

‘aní – I (me)

kélev – dog

betókh – inside

shulchán – table

pri – fruit

kol – all

yam – sea

‘ets – tree

‘adamá – ground, earth

smol – left (vs. right)

Alright then, that’s it for today! Follow me for more Hebrew lessons, hopefully they won’t all be as long as this one :D

לְהִתְרַאוֹת בַּפַּעַם הַבָּאָה! (lehitraót bapá’am haba’á)

See you next time!

#hebrew #learn hebrew #study hebrew #hebrew lesson #hebrew lessons #hebrew alphabet #עברית #אלפבית עברי #lessons #basics

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underachievers-please-try-harder · 5 years

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Interview // Jimothy Lacoste

I interviewed Jimothy for Issue 129 of Loud and Quiet. Photography by Sonny McCartney.

Read online.

At Burberry’s New Bond Street store, the stairs leading to the menswear department are lined with immaculate, heavy pile carpet in a fantastically impractical shade of cream. Sleek, Art Deco-style banisters guide the way to tastefully-lit chambers on the lower ground floor, its walls sparsely lined with clothing rails and covered in staff-sanctioned customer graffiti. Shop assistants glide around the space silently, smoothing shirts and straightening rows of signature trench coats, which currently retail at £1,495 apiece.

Jimothy Lacoste is stood examining the shoes. In his hands is a fawn-coloured loafer, decorated in Burberry’s trademark tartan, edged with navy blue, calf leather piping and embellished with a buffed gold chain. “Classic. The more simple, the better,” he nods approvingly, turning it over to inspect the sole. “£450. The perfect price.”

As we prepare to exit, Jimothy chooses a black marker pen from a selection on a ledge, crouches and carefully adds “Jimothy” to the lower regions of the wall in capital letters, the tail of the Y spiralling inwards like the shell of a cartoon snail.

As predicted on 2017’s breakout track ‘Getting Busy’, life has suddenly gotten quite exciting for Jimothy, real name Timothy Gonzales. Following a steady string of standalone tracks with enjoyably low-budget music videos, the Camden-raised rapper is now signed to Black Butter Records, the home of Rudimental, J Hus and Octavian.

His first release for the label was September’s single ‘Fashion’, the premise of which provides an amusingly literal framework for today’s interview. As he explains in the intro to the song in his leisurely drawl, “You know, I love to dress… Clothes is there – you might as well take advantage of it. It’s just fun, bro.” To ram the latter point home, props in the accompanying video include a real life zebra and a white Rolls Royce. Meanwhile, Jimothy lolls on a leather sofa in a cobalt fur jacket and crystal-covered Gucci shades, steals a bottle of champagne from a Sainsbury Local, and does his trademark hip wiggle in a succession of primary-coloured slacks.

It’s this vague whiff of the ludicrous that has made Jimothy a divisive figure. His deadpan delivery is less fire in the booth than easy-going Sprechgesang, the well-to-do North London accent and clear diction jarring with the use of street slang. Lyrics are literal and rhymes often ridiculous (“I’m gonna have to dip, I’ll see you soon / Baby, don’t get sad, when I’m rich I’ll take you to the moon”). So far, all the subjects covered have been simplistic, including his love of London transport (‘Subway System’), bilingualism (‘I Can Speak Spanish’) and plans for romance (‘Future Bae’).

Mirroring the minimal production of his iPad-pop, his homemade videos have an endearing DIY quality, and through them he’s established his own visual language. For example, by now we know to expect sporadic subtitles, rotating £20 note graphics, and Jimothy in smart-casual dress, showcasing his extremely gif-able dance moves in an array of urban locations, including on top of high rise buildings and bus stops. In a genre that prides gritty authenticity, Jimothy’s benign playfulness stands out, earmarking him as either endearingly naive or wilfully provocative. After our afternoon together, I decide he’s probably both.

Certainly, he seems to benefit from an enviable lack of self-consciousness. In the opulent Gucci store on Old Bond Street he breezily dismisses their trainers as “horrible”, within easy earshot of staff. In the walnut-panelled rooms of Ralph Lauren, Jimothy tells me that, unlike most people, he much prefers the Polo Bear motif to the iconic Polo player logo. “It’s cute,” he explains. “Shows you’re not insecure. Shows you don’t take life too seriously.”

Though still probably only in his late teens (his exact age is being withheld to preserve mystery), Jimothy is a seasoned aesthete, with a precisely defined personal style. He aspires to the preppy look preferred by “posh, old people”, boarding school kids and city workers, citing his staple pieces as cable knit sweaters, gilets, cords, pinstriped silk shirts and heritage labels. He’s not precious about seeming androgynous: the Gucci glasses from the ‘Fashion’ video were from the ladies department, and he intends to start wearing handbags as necklaces. He loves primary colours, happily philosophises on his favourite shade combinations (red with blue, and green with black) and proudly offers an itemised rundown of today’s outfit. It is as follows: navy and white Prada sneakers (£460), scarlet Ralph Lauren cords (£50 from eBay), white Oxford shirt from Uniqlo (£24.90), Gucci belt (£265), Prada shades and Coach messenger bag (gifted), cream fur jacket (on loan from his older sister), Slazenger socks (£2), and briefs from a Spanish supermarket (around €1 for 3 pairs).

Jimothy will happily concede to being materialistic, but he retains a sense of perspective about his expensive purchases: “I love brands. But if [something I buy] breaks the next day, I’ve got no right to be upset about it. No right. Because as soon as I buy something, it’s already money down the drain.” If he seems surprisingly sanguine at the idea of squandering cash, it’s a position he’s only had the luxury of indulging in recent months.

“The first time I actually went shopping by myself and bought something was literally six months ago,” he recalls later, reclined on a sofa in a quiet nook of Soho House. “That was Lacoste. Basically, I got money from merch, and that was the very first time I had any money ever in life, despite what people think. Lots of people think I’m a rich kid and I’m really not. My mum would only give me £10 maybe every three weeks and every time she did that she was so upset that I would just spend it on spray cans.

“It’s weird because I’ve never had money, but I’ve always dressed really smart. And that’s because my older sister worked in retail and she was really into fashion. She would be onto me, like, ‘Do you want me to get anything for you?’

“But I don’t shop in these shops regularly. I had guilt when I first went to the Gucci store the other day. I felt really weird. I felt a bit depressed, even. But I need to remind myself that I left this much money in my savings account, and I’ve left this much money to spend on food and clothes. And that I’m here because I am becoming a little successful in life.” He describes designer clothing as “a medal” in that “it reminds me that I’m doing well, and it motivates me more and more each day to carry on and chase my dreams.”

Aside from the influence of his sister, it was graffiti culture that first sparked Jimothy’s interest in fashion, when he was hanging out around Gospel Oak from the age of 11. “I was always just in a typical tracksuit with quick [Nike] Air Forces. I had no style,” he laughs. “Because that’s just how everyone dressed, and you’ve got to look the same and what not.

“There were these older graffiti writers in London that I looked up to. I thought they’d be dressed exactly like me but then I met some of them and they were all extremely classic and smart. They just dressed like they had money: slim trousers, tucked-in shirt. I looked at that and then I looked at my situation and I thought it would be so cool to do the same, first of all because I love this style, but second because dressing like a rich guy even though you’ve got no money is fun. Even though your mum’s been on the dole for over 25 years and your dad’s never worked a single day of his life. Because no-one in my family has money. But when I was dressed like a rich guy, I just felt amazing. I felt amazing. So ever since then I was just dressed really smart.

“And then later I watched this documentary on kids in New York in the ’70s. And they all dressed how I dress now: colourful trousers, [Adidas] Sambas or any slim trainers, tucked in shirt, sweater, a nice old-man-looking jacket, flat caps. I was like, ‘This is where he got it from. This whole time I’ve been dressing like these kids without knowing.’ And after that I really, really stuck with my style.”

We exit Burberry and head towards Prada on Old Bond Street, past a gaggle of wealthy teenagers and two immaculately coiffured ladies being helped into a car by their chauffeur. It’s an uncharacteristically mild October day, and businessmen are visibly flushed in their bespoke suits as they plough past us. A chrome Lamborghini cruises past, driven by a man in his 50s. While my default response is to roll my eyes, Jimothy is delighted. “He looked so happy,” he smiles, as it vanishes around the corner, “I love it!”

Jimothy’s parents split when he was barely one, and he, his sister and brother were raised by their mother. They lived in Primrose Hill, a notoriously well-heeled enclave of Camden, at the top of Regent’s Park. “The council gave us the flat in Primrose Hill thirty years ago, so it’s all a blessing,” he says, gauging my surprise. “See, this is the funny thing: the way I talk, the way I walk, the way I dress, where I live – people are convinced I’m rich. But I talk like this because I’ve been around lots of posh kids, and because it’s a better way of talking.

“And of course, my mum’s from Spain so she has class. So she’ll be poor but she’ll also be dressed like a rich woman, and the house will look well designed even though it’s a council house. A lot of people have money but they have no class. A lot of people have money but they don’t know how to dress. Do you know what I mean? Money doesn’t mean anything.”

He mixed with affluent kids at the local park from a young age, only to be separated when they went to private school. When they hit their teens, Jimothy invited himself along to their house parties, and his socialising then snowballed to the point where he was hanging out almost exclusively with rich people. “Literally, I don’t have a single friend in my situation, living in a council house,” he says, shaking his head. “It makes me sad sometimes. But if it wasn’t for those friends I wouldn’t be the person I am now.”

I wonder if Jimothy ever felt intimidated by his friends’ wealth. “Definitely,” he nods. “At first I was very insecure about it. But that was when I was 13 and dressed in a certain way, and all the other kids would be dressed really smart. They would make me feel really bad. The funny thing is, now I’m the one dressed really smart, and they’re dressed like they’re from a council house. They go to private school, and they’re trying to dress like a roadman, trying to dress like a hood kid.”

While there was once an element of Jimothy dressing to deliberately confound people’s preconceptions, he now feels conflicted about being mistaken for a rich kid. “The reason why it hurts my feelings so much – and no offence, because I love rich kids – is they all know how to play the piano. Their parents could afford to lend them a decent amount of money or a car for their music videos. They could start a career easier than someone with not much money. Me, I literally started with nothing. It was all me, me, me, me, me. So when people think [I’m a rich kid] it implies I didn’t work for anything; that it was given to me. And that really, really disrespects me, my family, everything.”

If Jimothy was initially a fish out of water in his friendship group, he felt even more out of place at the special school he attended from the age of 13, due to his dyslexia and dyscalculia. The way he tells it, he knew he didn’t belong there but stayed because the work was easy. Had he left, he might never have pursued music.

“At the special school there are no kids with insecurities,” he explains. “So I wasn’t shy to write a song and put it out there. I wasn’t shy to make a music video. That school made me do music, basically. And the work was easy but that was freeing. That school gave me a free-thinking mentality and a higher consciousness.”

In some respects, he believes the school protected him. “It did get to a point where it was then scary to go to a mainstream school. Because I thought to myself, actually, if I go to a mainstream school and someone laughs at me for dyslexia, or for my parents having always been living off benefits, or for not having a father figure, I don’t know how I would react to that. [I don’t know] whether I would fight them, whether I would then not go to school and end up on the streets selling drugs. If I went to a mainstream school – and it sounds really harsh and kind of depressing, but it’s true – but if I went to a mainstream school I’d either be dead or I’d be prison. And that’s why I always say with my songs that Jimothy is blessed.”

The floors of the Gucci store are covered in geometric patterns, in tiles of purple, red, grey and white. There are mirrored walls and staircases lined with plush velvet in a vivid shade of oxblood. In the womenswear section, we’re admiring the craftsmanship of a collection of luxe satin bombers in jewel colours, each intricately embroidered and painstakingly stitched with sequins. Jimothy’s eyes are drawn away from the glitz to a monochrome coat in the iconic interlinking GG pattern. “I’d buy that for my future bae,” he nods.

There wasn’t money for piano lessons growing up, but Jimothy believes he inherited a “gene of rhythm” from his dad, and a fascination with melody from his mum, who was always playing R&B at home. Grime was a formative influence, as was UK garage, which he was exposed to via the older graffiti writers. “I’d listen to anything,” he remembers. “If it sounded good in my ears, I’d put it on, whether that was Somali pop or classic house.”

Playboi Carti, Lil Uzi Vert, Octavian and Sheck Wes are all mentioned when I ask Jimothy about who he sees as his peers. “Basically, it’s music that you can dance to but music you can sit down in your room to by yourself,” he explains. “Tomorrow, I could come out with a house tune, I could come out with a rock tune, I could come out with a bedroom pop tune. Nothing is ever intended. You’ve got to come to [my music] with no expectations.

“A lot of people think I don’t take music seriously,” he continues, “and that’s super disrespectful. I will not put out anything I don’t like. So many producers send me so many instrumentals, and I am super particular. It offends me when people come up to me like, ‘Oh mate, I love your stuff – it’s funny.’ I wanna hear, ‘I love your stuff, I love your instrumentals, I love your lyrics.’”

And yet, I counter, surely he must concede that there’s a vein of humour running through his work? “Oh yeah, definitely,” he smiles. “And I love to shock people. I’ve always been a bit of an attention-seeker. But I think it depends. If people only find it funny and they don’t appreciate anything else about it, it offends me. Like, I find my own stuff funny, but when I’m doing the instrumental, I have so much passion and love.”

Considering the rigour he applies to every other area of his life, I don’t doubt Jimothy’s discipline in the studio. Today he’s fasting, which he does two consecutive days a week, the rationale for which is apparently to “repair DNA”. “When your digestion isn’t going your body then focuses on cell replenishment,” he elaborates. Then there’s the cold showers he takes every morning, and the nights spent sleeping on a hard floor.

I wonder at the rationale behind his asceticism. What tangible benefits does he actually take away from such restrictive rituals? “The main benefit I see from it is mental strength. So when someone says to me, ‘Can you do this?’ it’s easy for me to do it because my brain is so strong. You know, I’ve had no father figure whatsoever. I’ve never had someone to say, ‘Good job. Focus on your goals.’ I had to find that in myself.”

En route to Soho House for our sit-down chat, there’s a pretty uncanny coincidence. We’re discussing fame and the loss of anonymity. “I’d love paparazzi following me,” Jimothy insists. “I’d love it.” Suddenly, a young man steps into Jimothy’s path. “Can I just interrupt, man?” he asks, clearly attempting to play it cool. “I think your shit’s dope.” They take a selfie together, the fan departs and we continue our journey, Jimothy wearing a contented grin.

As our conversation draws to a close, the subject turns to aspiration. For Jimothy, is success ultimately measured in luxury clothing, or is there something loftier he’s aiming for? “A good income,” he replies without any hesitation, “to the point where I’ve got my own house and I can treat myself, and I can have kids and I can have a wife.” So in essence, he’s seeking security? “Definitely. It’s something I’ve never had. It would just be amazing to have it. Something that seems a little bit impossible.”

What else? “Having a fan base that loves me and I love them. I love being a role model. I want all my fans to be happy to express themselves and to have fun at my shows and to just go crazy. To let their emotions out and to let go of stress, and to not be insecure and not be those kids that judge other people. I want my fans to just be nice people. Like me. Don’t judge people, don’t call other people names, treat everyone with equality. Simple things really.”

While it’s heartening to hear the connection Jimothy feels to his fans, I wonder if his increasingly lavish lifestyle might eventually create resentment. “It should be the opposite,” he insists. “They should look at me and think. ‘1. I’m happy for Jimothy – he’s doing well. And 2. that’s motivation for me.’

“When I now see someone with a sports car it makes me happy, like, that could be me one day. That motivates me. I’m not gonna hate on them; that’s how unsuccessful people think. You’ve got to be happy for that person and aspire to those levels.” The way Jimothy reacted to the owner of the Lamborghini earlier, I ask? “Yeah exactly. Stuff like that makes me happy. You’ve got to use it as motivation. You can be like that one day if you just follow your dreams and you’re smart.”

#interview #interviews #loud and quiet #tearsheet #tearsheets #jimothy #jimothy lacoste #black butter

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aliahaider-blog · 5 years

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The time flamenco pop sounded like my Pakistani mom’s cleaning music

Boring, I thought. The first time I listened all the way through Rosalía's debut album, Los Angeles, all I could think about was that, boring. 12 tracks and an hour later it felt like I had listened to the same song over and over again, the same guitar strum repeating itself with some off-beat vocals scratching on top of it. This had been right after discovering Rosalía on J Balvin's new record, Vibras, in which she delivers an interlude ("Brillo") that completely overshadows Balvin and the rest of his guest features on the album. The hype built up later as I discovered her latest single at the time, "Malamente," and loved the choreography, the production by one of my favorite Spanish artists El Guincho, that sexy repetition of "malamente" aided by the claps in between. So with all the dance-y hype built up in me, I decided to listen to her debut album, reaching that first impression I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post: boring.

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It had to be impossible, though. It couldn't have been that this singer rose to fame among her peers had they thought she was boring. So I listened to Los Angeles again two or three times, and its beauty and elegance struck me in weird and nostalgic scenarios: as I cleaned my room, as I folded my clothes, as I drove to hang out with my friends. Her vocal range and constancy of such a raw performance took me back to childhood when my mom played her old Ghazal and Qawwali cassettes in those exact scenarios: when she cleaned, or folded clothes, or drove me to my friends' houses. Los Angeles likened itself to that hour-long string of consciousness prevalent in performances by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the feeling like you're listening to one long song with fragments of various identities that tie in with its overarching theme of love or loss or peace. Where I saw the beauty in the variety of her talents through "Brillo" and "Malamente," I now also saw in Rosalía's range of whispers and shrill screams compiled together into a central theme. Listening to "Si Tú Supieras Compañero," you inch towards the desire she emanates through her lyrics and lilting vocals (as my friend would classify them), following her through an awaited climax that never arrives, just as she does when she remarks,

Ay te voy pintando y pintando

Al laíco del brasero

Y a la vez me voy quemando

Por lo mucho que te quiero

Válgame San Rafael tener el agua tan cerca y no poderla beber

Oh! I am painting your portrait, painting you,

by the faint light of the brazier;

and at the same time I am burning away slowly,

consumed by my love for you.

May Saint Raphael help me, oh!

The water I need is so near, yet I cannot drink of it.

-Translation by Anonymous

The same effect captures you in the next song "De Plata," as Rosalía expresses her mere 14 lines of anguish towards this unrequited love for 4 1/2 minutes. The elongated "Cuando yo" at the beginning takes you inside that raw emotion, those periods that seem like forever just waiting for that person to understand the extent of her love. The pattern goes on from song to song, the concise feelings of loss piercing deeper in Rosalía's vocals and getting heavier in each song's lyrics. Time passes as the narrator's mother dies, and little brother dies, and the town's gravedigger buries his daughter, and by the time you can't handle anymore she concludes her narration with a cover of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's song "I See A Darkness," an ending that dually traps the narrator in her own head yet brings her closer to the ones she loves through her familiarity with imminent death.

Los Angeles and its similarity to Ghazal and Qawwali helped me connect to these feelings of loss in such a larger-than-life manner. This connection as well as Rosalía's objective with flamenco-pop moving forward helped me realize the quickly-changing landscape of music that she is adapting to. For me, this isn't the first time I've been exposed to South Asian/Arab and Spanish cultures coinciding. The Bollywood movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara draws connections between flamenco and Hindi music in its hit song "Señorita." Indian authors like Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy incorporate elements of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude into their tales of India and Pakistan. El Guincho, Rosalía's co-producer for her newest album, has incorporated Hindi samples and Indian influences in songs like "Cuando Maravilla Fui" and "Bombay." I even wrote about a project by Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili in which she juxtaposes speeches by prominent (albeit controversial) North African leaders and revolutionaries next to those by Latin American leaders and revolutionaries to universalize the experiences of Maghrebi immigrants in Europe. For Rosalía, she's not the first to try and bring a niche, traditional genre like flamenco into the pop or hip-hop world. "Despacito" became one of the most widely-heard songs in 2017, Riz Ahmed and Heems integrated Bollywood-inspired production with East coast rap and grime in their duo Swet Shop Boys, and Skepta found his way into every rapper's feature list from A$AP Rocky to Playboi Carti to Drake. But what seems to be so unique about Rosalía's flamenco-pop integration is that it embodies her transition into a purely diasporic art-form, beginning from the foundation of authentic Catalan flamenco and shifting according to her surroundings. In an interview with a fellow student named Jon a few months ago, we discussed the essence of diasporic identity being the ability to take the morally-rich parts of our parent-country's heritage and the morally-rich lessons we learned from the new environment we were raised in and combine them to create our own identity, one that transcends any doubt we experienced trying to fit into exclusive circles throughout our lives. Through that experience we learn to identify with people who experience the same feelings as us, like displacement and the necessity to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings, rather than exclusively people who look like us or share the same traditions as us. That's not to say I didn't mostly hang out with South Asians anyways. Sometimes people who experience the same feelings as us are also the ones that look like us. It's not mutually exclusive. And perhaps this inclusiveness, or absence of exclusiveness, is what allows Rosalía the ability to delve into these new areas of her music while staying true to her roots. This flamenco-pop wave she basks in is not a new era but a transitional one. In an interview with Tom Tom Mag, she discusses her perspective of creating popular flamenco, stating, "It is not my intention to alter, in any way, the status quo of this genre. It is more like….I sing flamenco from my perspective. For me to make music, and specifically flamenco, it is absolutely necessary for me to play in my own way." In this sense, she maintains that diasporic identity through the creation of her own perspective of flamenco, one that she hopes younger generations who were not exposed to its pure form since birth can identify with. And through this perspective, she capitalizes on the expanse of the genre without denouncing its purists. In a video set in Barcelona, a camera follows Rosalía through her favorite square. She reminisces on randomly meeting friends every time she goes there, and then the video quickly switches to her explaining the process of creating her new album, El Mal Querer. Through it all, I get to see how she manifests her explanation of this transcendental identity my friend and I talked about, but through her music. She remarks, "It's quite different from Los Angeles, but the essence remains. You can sense the flamenco inspiration," she says as she mimics the snaps and claps common in flamenco, "but at the same time, it's a whole new thing." This brief explanation rings throughout my head as I contextualize this leap in her career. Perhaps all the artists who pivoted to other genres of music and creativity never truly departed from their past crafts but just adapted to the environments they found themselves in. And perhaps as diaspora dominates more and more aspects of our lives, the preparedness to embrace unfamiliar circumstances opens the doors to many new forms of expression.

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As I sat here writing this after hearing that quote in the video, I remembered where I had read something similar before. It was an interview with Riz Ahmed written by Carvell Wallace of the New York Times. In it, he explains his experience listening to Riz Ahmed's verse in the Swet Shop Boys song "Half Moghul, Half Mowgli." He ends that verse with four different voices talking to him, one of them calling him a "Paki" terrorist, one of them praising him for representing South Asian kids, one of them saluting him for his raps, and lastly an old Muslim man condemning him for his explicit content. Wallace explains his experience hearing that verse and coming to truly understand it, writing, "But the reason it unraveled something so deeply inside of me was that it also represented four different ways you can look at yourself. All completely opposite one another, and completely isolated, and yet completely validated by the world you live in. And when there are so many versions of self, maybe the only way to maintain safety is to develop a view that can see, literally, everything." Reading that passage a few months back brought me full circle in coming to terms with this "transcendental identity" Jon and I coughed up in our discussion, and now finding myself in the wake of this album that popularizes the artist's own perspective of flamenco, pop, love, loss and everything in between, I understand Wallace's notion of viewing "everything." I understand it through being a Pakistani-American who identifies with a piece of art from halfway across the world, one based in a language I can barely speak and a form of music I have virtually never heard before.

Through this piece and Rosalía's own expression of her diasporic identity, we get to see her perspective of flamenco come to life, whether it be in the fierce pop choreography in "Malamente," in the flamenco-inspired crescendo of the guitar and background of emphatic snaps and claps in "Que No Salga La Luna," or in the Bedouin-style auto-tune riffs in "De Aquí No Sales."

Throughout her performance in everything--video, song, and stage--we see the two worlds of Rosalía combine to create a third. We see her perspective of pure flamenco come together with the pop and R&B she came to know growing up; we see extravagant displays of color and flare in costume, fabric and setting yet also her casual streams of consciousness through fluid dance, concise lyrics and steady cinematography; we hear the theme of love and loss carried over from Los Angeles--even hearing that lyric from "De Plata" in which she asks her love to tie her hands together with their braids carried into "Di Mi Nombre"--yet we find our narrator with a brand-new air of confidence in her; and we see her Catalan roots become universalized as listeners around the world share her experience.

In the song covers (yes, she has a different cover for each song) we see these elements come together even more, such as in the “Bagdad” cover as Rosalía lays on her side pointing towards the sun with stigmata in her feet, a fitting expression of the Catholic undertones for her liturgy rendition of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River.” The cover for “Que No Salga La Luna” displays two versions of Rosalía shaking hands during the flamenco medley, the left dressed in chic white clothes as if a pop icon, the right dressed in an embroidered flamenco suit. Keys of different colors float in between them as if to open a door not accessible previously.

In the beautifully-crafted lyrics we hear the story of the narrator play out through the darker stages of her love. In “Que No Salga La Luna,” we hear a male singer repeat “Que no salga la luna que no tiene pa' qué / No tiene pa' qué, no tiene pa' qué,” saying the moon has no reason to rise because the narrator has filled herself with light, yet deeper into the song those repetitions soon bring out the loss of oneself in this obsessive relationship. Whereas the line once serves as a reason for hope, it soon becomes a reason for doubt in the confines of this love full of diamonds and undying loyalty to each other. In “Bagdad,” the narrator prays to God repeatedly to see her way out of the trapped relationship, yet despite the descent of an angel she again falls in love with her evils. The story of this love bound to end in flames continues through “Di Mi Nombre” as she basks in the sexual moment between her and her love. The last three tracks show the narrator confront her desire to find that exit and maintain the hope of finding herself again too. The final track, “A Ningún Hombre,” brings us to her realization of self-worth, remarking that no man can dictate her life, asserting that she will tattoo his initials to remember what he did and how she came out of it. These songs, layered as chapters, tell the coming of age story that is born out of this obsessive love in a way so unique to the genres they touch. “Di Mi Nombre” epitomizes the sex-fueled undertones of pop and R&B, getting its name from the famous Destiny’s Child song “Say My Name.” The experimental production of “De Aqui No Sales” meshes flamenco claps, auto-tune riffs, and car engine sounds in a way that perfectly matches the scattered and fluctuating feelings of pain and infatuation this relationship causes. It seems that with every line comes its corresponding piece of instrumentation to fully embody the narrator’s circumstance.

Throughout this listening experience we perceive "everything" the way Carvell Wallace explains. We can be both the purists and the adapters, both the flamenco and the pop, both the familiar and the unfamiliar. Somehow, while having to balance all of these ambiguities, Rosalía does not fail to leave out any aspect of her new identity that she’s embracing, that of a powerful, self-realizing woman, a pioneer of the emerging genre of flamenco pop, and a product of cultural eclecticism and diaspora.

Listen to El Mal Querer below:

#Music

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