alex panganiban

what's shaking, world?

[alexpanganiban]

Name: Alex Panganiban Birthdate: June 1, 1988 (Gemini) Age: 36 

Faceclaim: Darren Criss  Gender/Sexuality: Genderfluid, pansexual

Skeleton: Riverdale Past profession: Celebrity host  Powers: Duplication - Alex can create two replicas of himself which are capable of acting independently of him, but only for a limited time and only if Alex Prime can focus on it.

Hometown: Nanaimo, BC Nationality: Canadian

Growing up in Hollywood North afforded Alex plenty of acting and singing and performing opportunities, easy enough if you were talented and didn't mind putting yourself out there and making peace with the sacrifices you'd have to make; but it also meant that before long, everything was distorted by a sticky, filmy layer of fomo. Why wasn't I at that restaurant opening/club event/liquor promo/designer fingerpaint popup?? Alex had a robust fan following, social media everywhere, but it just never seemed enough.

Until We The Survivors came along, and Alex, chirpy and personable and ambiguously ethnic and possibly queer but coy about it, landed the job as the ubiquitous host of the reality survival show. It ran for eight glorious seasons, some better than others but all of them with viewer count through the roof, and Alex carved out his niche -- a sizeable niche -- in the consumer heart as well with his line of Panganex products. Fashion, lifestyle, podcast, workouts, even a pretty successful line of compostable party accoutrements made of pressed leaves and so forth, the whole survivalist theme.

And even when We The Survivors ended, there was the spinoff. Alex and three of the fan favourite competitors, in their new show We Lived, which had been happily in the promo appearance stages when Alex took a little time off for himself. You haven't had a real vaycay in fifteen years or so, he told himself. Kicking back for a hot minute? Why not?

[tempestaslokni]

"I can respect that," Lokni replied, dragging a stool out from the bar to seat himself. It would be easier to talk if Lokni weren't standing there like a scarecrow in a field. Gratefully, Lokni accepted the slice of coconut- maybe having something to chew on would help him get his thoughts together. "Everything's going just about as well as they can, all things considered," Lokni started pensively, "how are you and the others holding up?" It was hard to imagine what life must be like with two other selves. Lokni didn't envy Alex; the idea honestly was not appealing to Lokni. Seeing his face in the mirror was awful enough, let alone having to witness how he made a fool of himself regularly in realtime.

"Everyone always asks me that," Lokni chuckled in amusement, "Tej isn't hard to get along with, y'know? He's real nice, to be honest. It's been handy to have someone to divide chores with. He's also pretty damn sharp- always coming up with ideas of how we can improve things and whatnot." Lokni didn't really know where Tej stood on Alex's own personal scale of rating, but Alex was a pretty reasonable guy. Surely he saw the good in Tej. "What have you been getting up to lately?" Lokni was already beginning to sweat. He had no idea how to approach the topic, let alone get Alex to keep it between the two of them- he had three of himself, how on Creator's green earth could he keep a secret from himself? A little agitated, Lokni took another bite of the coconut, the flavor and scent calming him a bit.

[alexpanganiban]

It took Alex a moment or two to fully grasp what Lokni was referring to, when he said the others; he'd opened his mouth to give a broad sweeping generalization about the mood he'd been able to gauge among the bungalow-core dwellers before he realized that Lokni meant the other two. Xandi and Sasha, the passengers.

Alex gave a slight, disoriented laugh, turning his back fully on the work he'd been doing and leaning against the table with a pucker in his forehead. "They're ... good. I mean, they have their issues, of course -- Xandi keeps traipsing off to find new outfits and makeup, and Sasha wants to organize everything down to the ground -- but we feel more ... cohesive, I guess would be the word. Which sounds weird when they're basically aspects of me, myself, Alex me."

He grinned a little wider, relieved, when Lokni delved into his good-natured self to relay that life with Tej could be a dream, in paradise up above. "Tej and me, we have a special bond," Alex boasted, because what was Lokni gonna do, ask Tej to corroborate? He'd probably squirm himself to death from discomfort first. "We faced down a fall from a bridge and a rushing river and an eleven-foot crocodile when we first arrived, but I got him through it and he's been nothing but full of admiration for me ever since. So sweet of him."

Subject successfully melted away, Alex cheerfully picked up one of the coconut halves and started to crack it into careful pieces, one hip against the table so he could still look in Lokni's direction as the other man spoke. "I've been working on keeping tabs on the other two, which is harder than you would think. I only ever find out what they've been doing when I reabsorb them at the end of the day -- so far we can't stay split longer than eighteen hours, no more than that. But while we're split up?"

Alex twirled the cleaver he was using, tossing it in the air to catch again and crack the hard shell of a piece of coconut into three jagged chunks, moving them equal distances from each other on the table. "There's nothing between us. I don't hear their thoughts or feel their feelings. It's radio silence."

[roseykingixora]

Rosey was supposed to see it coming. She should have never let her guards down even a little bit, but in her mind, Alex and her clicked and got along so much from the get go, and she couldn't see any change in him now when she showed up, it didn't even cross her mind that Alex would pull something like this. Would pull anything, really.

So even when Alex got up to get a photo of Adarsh - a photo of Adarsh, how would he have any kind of photo of anyone, Rosey, use your brain! -, she didn't think twice about it. Even when the handcuff snapped around her wrist, her brain needed time to catch up and for a good five-ten seconds she just stared at it, her drunken brain not even processing the information strapped around her wrist fast enough.

"What are you even--"

And then it hit her as if she was hit with an airplane crashing right on top of her.

"Are you fucking insane?" she jumped up, feeling clearer in her head than she really should have been, considering how much rum she drank, shaking her hand fruitlessly, her wrist very much stuck to the sofa now. "Did you lose your mind, you asshole?!" she looked over at Alex, her hands, her voice shaking from anger.

"Good joke, good job, you got one over me, har har." She was continuously shaking her hand, trying to get it out of the damn handcuff, as if it would actually do anything. She needed a key for this (unless she broke her own wrist, but she was not thinking of that as an option). "Now let me out, Alex, because you cannot fucking keep me locked to this piece of shit sofa."

[alexpanganiban]

Alex stepped back a little -- Rosey was hopping mad, and people did after all get those crazy jolts of adrenaline when they were juiced up with emotions to that point -- and watched how she moved as she berated him. She was anxious to get out of the handcuff, yes, but her movements were just a tiny bit unfocused, just a pinch sloppy. The rum had done enough of its job to throw her fine motor skills and maybe her thinking as well, so she wouldn't be in any shape to think up a creative way around her predicament.

"I'm so sorry," Alex said, pressing his hands together and doing a little half-bob bow in Rosey's direction, "but this is for everyone's good, even your own, if you'll just see it that way. We don't know who's running around out there baying for your blood! People act nuts when their food is threatened, and our food might be limited but it's good! That FLOWR brand spam is--" Alex shut his eyes in bliss, kissing his fingertips to convey how delicious it was. "There's gonna be hoarding, yeah, but once people have done that they're gonna be gunning for you and Hana. Now, Hana's on her own, but I've got you right here, see?"

Alex moved closer again, reaching to dart a few cautious strokes of his hand near Rosey's elbow. "This is the safest place for you right now. That's all it is. But if anybody comes in and finds you here, they'd drag you off if we were sipping rum and chatting. This way they'd see that you're restrained and they'd leave us alone."

[selinswonderland]

Selin nodded along as if she was well versed in the lifestyle Alex explained. Maybe in a way she did in this specific case, just instead of paps it was a students parents with conservative and puritanical views. Getting sloppy with a few drinks was no longer given a first or second thought now that she remembered this life ruining moment that was being held close to her chest. "I just don't understand why people are so willing to stoop to stealing. Even if you're not a big drinker, it's the principle of the matter. Hoarding is already bad enough, but instead of taking from the warehouse, now people are actively taking things that people have already claimed as their own? It's greedy. It's not fair."

She let out a sigh, brows furrowed about Alex's situation, slipping one of her handmade sign out slips into the book in her hand. "I don't know, I think they're nice. It helps protect them from damage and dirt, and in a place like this, I think they need that protection more than ever. Plus, I've always liked using it as a bookmark if I don't have one handy." She explained, demonstrating with the book in her hand, slipping the inside part of the dust jacket between a random page and closing it. "See? Useful."

[alexpanganiban]

"The principle of the matter!" Alex repeated, latching on to her phrasing. "Or at least the vice-principal of the matter if we don't wanna make it sound too serious a crime." He did a badum-pum-ching motion and sound effect, then laughed. "Sorry. Bad habit I have, making jokes related to somebody's career. The ol' tv show host instincts die hard, y'know?"

He did pay close attention, though, to where Selin drew her lines to define what was allowable and what was plain unfair bad manners; Alex couldn't say he would've expected any different from her. Teaching kids, after all, would necessarily involve giving them a sense of morals and fair play, wherever possible.

Selin's stance on dust covers wasn't out of character, her solid logical points made sense, but all the same Alex shrugged.

"They're sometimes nice but most of the time they're way uglier than the real cover. I just feel like ... if you're so scared of getting the much more beautiful, thoughtfully designed cover wrecked that you go through life with the cheapo dust jacket on -- even if it's a convenient bookmark -- then you're missing out on part of what the entire book experience was intended to be, y'know?"

[roseykingixora]

Rosey shook her head in disbelief with a smile on her face. "I would have taken you for a champagne guy, can't believe it's those fruity stuff." Another sip of the rum and gestured towards it with her head. "I know you said this is bottle-shelf stuff, and again, my standards are low - they are so ridiculously low, really -, but this is good." She absolutely did not notice just how much more she was drinking, she was just enjoying herself. If the topic didn't change into something more serious, she could have easily imagined the two of them sitting in her trailer after a long day of shooting, just letting out some steam.

"Yeah, it's Hana," she muttered with a roll of her eyes at the mention of the other woman, not even trying to keep in her annoyance with Hana. The fact that it was the two of them who were in this situation was probably the worst it could have gotten - no true friends from the people on this beach, not even a friend in her.

"Oh, before I would have assumed they would have just let us rot there as long as they could, even forgot about us, but after this, I'd say they would have figured out a way to come after us again. Maybe--!" Rosey sat up a bit more, started excitedly gesturing with the glass in her hand, the rum sloshing in it. "Maybe you being here had an end goal of sending you after us! Why not just try with the forever youth serum again? Why go into superpowers if not to take us out somehow?" Did she just crack the entire case? As the rum started to hit in, it certainly felt like it for Rosey.

She tilted her head as Alex turned remorseful about naming people. "Zaid's the chef who is refusing to be a chef now, right? For some personal depressing reason or something, I am assuming. He's Zaid. Which one of them is Adarsh again? And don't feel bad, reeeeeally, it's better to know who to look out for."

[alexpanganiban]

"Naaaah. I mean I'd drink champagne, obviously, at industry functions and parties and galas, but it always tasted kind of like ... bugs? You know like when you find a stinkbug in the house and you wanna get it out because even if it's not actively releasing stink it just smells too much like a bug? Like that." Alex added another dram of the rum to Rosey's glass, since she was enjoying it so much and so volubly. "Not a big Hana fan, huh? That's unfortunate."

--and interesting. Rosey appearing on their beach with a single companion who she didn't get along with? Who wasn't necessarily her single haven while being witchhunted? More than interesting. Useful.

"Easy, easy," Alex said with a startled laugh, wrapping his hand over Rosey's on her glass as she gestured wildly with it. A sign of how deep in her cups she was, a practiced actor like her losing track of what she was doing with her body. He took his hand back and licked a droplet of cheap rum off his thumb, nodding at her theories. "If we were likely to come after you," Alex said, "then that's a feasible theory. But I don't think we would. Not most of us, anyway."

Because now Rosey had Zaid's name in her mouth, Adarsh's, and Alex rose from the sofa smoothly, setting down his own barely-touched drink to say, "I might have a photo of Adarsh here, lemme just grab it. He's this good looking brown guy with a shock of black hair but a scowl as if someone just kicked over his pani puri cart. You'd know him if you saw him."

SNICK.

Alex stepped away further behind the sofa, a rueful look on his face, eyes bright and dilated: he hadn't fetched a photo at all. He'd gotten the pair of handcuffs he'd filched from somebody's suitcase on the ship, and snapped one bracelet around Rosey's wrist stretched out along the back of the sofa, the other to one of the sturdy wooden slats. Mid century modern, couldn't beat it.

"--but you're not gonna be seeing anybody, for a while."

[alexpanganiban]

just a little composition for Open Mic Night at the Hub 😘

[mc-adarsh]

Adarsh smiled into the kisses, a smile that was invisible to anyone with their lips pressed together and rare. Reserved only for moments like these, when his insecurities were boiled down to what Alex thought of him and the small assurance that if the other thought him dull, they wouldn’t be meeting up like this.

“Too much food colouring, that can’t be good for anyone,” he said, and then sputtered at the mention of lemonade. “If it was for say… a kid’s birthday party, I could get that… but aside from some food dye on cupcakes, I’d rather stick with just my obsidian beach being charcoal coloured.” He had tried to remember more about his daughters, their names, ages, birthday parties, if he read them stories at night, if he’d been a good father. Had he ever made them charcoal coloured lemonade for a birthday?

Was it possible to die from teasing, because when Alex swung himself over his lap and proceeded to hoover, Adarsh let out a grumbling whine. His body boiling with the need to have Alex closer, but for every step he wanted to be taken forward, the other seemed to be waiting for the right moment to put his foot down. The hand in Alex’s hair tugged a little, as if trying to command him to just let himself fall.

He shuddered at the kisses and breathe against his hairline, his hand difting downwards to between Alex’s shoulder blades. The lengthy moan when the other rocked his hips against his was stiffled as he dug his mouth into the crook of Alex’ neck. He let his hand slip down further and cupped Alex’ ass while straightening his back and bringing his now free hand to his thigh. He kissed Alex’s neck feverishly for a moment, before pulling back to look up at him.

While he wanted nothing more than Alex beneath him, looking up at that handsome face was just as thrilling. “I take it you’ve sampled your share of red velvet cakes,” he said, his words hot with want. “And coloured foods.” His lips tasted more salty now, after connecting with Alex’ skin, and there was something about the left over texture of the ocean that made him feel a lot more solid. He’d always thought he’d lived near the beach as a child.

“So what do you think about the matcha and pumpkin spice craze?” It wasn’t a serious question but Adarsh loved it when Alex ranted, the flow of his words, the natural way he moved through subjects. He’d gladly worship his body while Alex talked to him about whatever he wished.

[alexpanganiban]

The feel of Adarsh's hands boldly roaming where they wanted on him, the roughened need of the fist in Alex's salt-scrunched curls, the actual feel of weight against weight when Alex finally settled into their bodies in direct contact, it was all getting a little heady especially when paired with the scent of ocean air and the soundtrack of waves pounding rhythmically along the shore. Alex had been in his share of saltwater-adjacent locales during his tenure on We The Survivors, but right now he was pretty acutely aware of why the ocean was a favoured metaphor for sex.

Fortunately Adarsh himself offered an out by continuing the nonsensical conversation, giving Alex a reason to continue prolonging the foreplay instead of just melting against the other man and finally getting them to the promised land. "Mmmm," Alex hummed, bringing his hands around to Adarsh's chest to rub his well-defined muscle, up over his shoulders, down his biceps and back again, "I've tasted just about every kind of cake there is and then some." He gave a wide, sudden grin, leaning in to drag his nose along Adarsh's cheek to say low in his ear, "--and I know you're pretty partial to cake yourself." So far they'd done just about every variety of hand and/or mouth stuff, some of it intended for the act itself and some of it intended as lead-up, but the lead-up had never quite reached the main act. It was almost funny by this point.

Although, taking in the way that Adarsh's whole strong body was tense as bowstring under Alex right now, maybe it was only funny to one person. "I love them both," Alex said seriously, sitting up higher in Adarsh's lap with his hands on the other man's shoulders, "but they show up in combinations that are just unholy. Nobody needs matcha potato chips or pumpkin spice chicken wings."

The wind was tossing Alex's hair around, making a high wild rumple of his curls, and he squared his shoulders as he shifted his hips down more fully against Adarsh. Alex wasn't very big, but he knew his strengths; his compact, tight body that thickened and softened in the right places, enough to grab hold of if you liked a handful. And Adarsh, for all that this island was a banquet of attractive partners for anybody interested, seemed perpetually starving.

"Babe," Alex said, smiling a little with the pang of sympathy that was warming his belly, "you don't have to wait for me to throw open the gates, y'know. I don't need that much consideration. You could just storm the castle, defenses are down, I drained the moat and everything. March right on in, whydontcha." He kissed Adarsh again, hotly, shifting off his knees so that he was sitting full-weight against the other man.

[roseykingixora]

"Guilty as charged. What would be your alcohol of choice, if you could have anything?" She shifted in her seat, not to move away from him, but to turn her body halfway towards Alex so they were still sitting next to each other, but she was facing him at the same time, resting her free arm on the back of the sofa.

Alex was right, Rosey loved being the exceptions, loved being special, but this? She hated this. Then again, what did she really love that those two assholes did? "It does make you think, though, right? What if we never showed up here? Would they have just let you keep living the way you do for who even knows how long? Or did they always have plans to shake things up and we were just a coincidentally good duo to blame us as scapegoats?"

She sipped from the glass - her tolerance was so much lower than it was before she arrived on this island, and Rosey could feel the hotness of the alcohol burning down her throat, but she welcomed it. "Probably the mix of that, yeah. They clearly take pleasure from doing crazy shit, toying with people "in the name of science" or whatever bullshit they tell themselves. And I think part of it is also just them taking their chance to get rid of us.

"When we fled..." Rosey shook her head, taking another sip of her rum. "They came after us, they tried to get rid of us. You heard them call us the failed experiments, the moment we stopped cooperating them, we were liability and they couldn't handle us not doing what they told us to. And now they are probably thinking that it's better late than never. And with you guys here, they can keep their own hands relatively clean, claim the blame on the experiment."

It really just proved how insane Dr Pan and Mr Hook were and made Rosey wonder just how they could keep all of this is a secret all these years. If this wasn't her life for the past two decades, she would have said it was some kind of evil mustache-twirling, badly written villains of some movie, but alas, here she was. "How much do you know these people? Do you think-- I've gotten threats. I've gotten questions and answers. I've gotten ugly looks. But do you think anyone would actually act on any of it?"

[alexpanganiban]

"Y'know, I gotta confess -- out of all the fancy-schmancy alcohols and liqeurs and everything I've drunk -- and I've had mead made from wild bee honey brewed in a bamboo stem!! -- my favourite is those nice flirty little fruit-flavoured sojus." Alex laughed, mirroring Rosey's position on the sofa and switching his glass to his other hand so he could also put his arm along the back of the couch, drawing his fingertips along Rosey's plum-dark skin. It felt unbelievably soft and rich and moisturized and he made a mental note to ask what she'd been using, but that would have to wait until another time. This conversation was steering into a different place.

"I definitely think that they would've come up with something else if you and Hana -- it's Hana, right? -- hadn't turned up. You happened to create an insanely convenient way to funnel all of our shock and confusion into a couple of handy targets. Why would we keep on trying to find them if we had you two right here to punish?"

Rosey was really going in on that rum, and Alex helpfully kept her glass topped up even though he didn't have any more himself. Even if he did get drunk he could rap out his dupes and then the effect would be divided among the three of them, making it a light buzz instead, but that wouldn't be necessary right now.

"It's pretty diabolical that they still wanna off you guys. You think maybe if you'd never come to meet us, then they'd leave you living in peace?"

But now Rosey was getting pretty intense, asking how Alex felt about his own cohort on the island, her beautiful face tensing and her eyes boring directly into him. Part of him thrilled at the experience -- acting across from Rosey King! Fucking excellent!! -- but Alex demurred, scrunching his nose.

"It's hard to say. There's a couple of people who're a little more ... volatile. Like, um, Zaid. And Adarsh." He gave up the names as if he was hesitant to rat them out, and just to add to it, looked distressed and glanced down from Rosey's gaze. "They're good guys! I'm not trying to say they're bad. Just impulsive. And kind of hard-edged. That's all. Ohhhh, I shouldn't have said anything."

[mc-adarsh]

Adarsh had enjoyed all the time spend with Alex over the past months, despite it never leading to what he thought they were both eager for. It mattered mostly in annoyance to the world, rather than how he saw Alex. Perhaps it was even in his advantage, Adarsh wanted him even more because the world didn't want him to.

He was smiling back at Alex, studying him. He was so freaking hot, it made his head spin. He could talk about paper cranes and Adarsh would still hang from his every word. "The only difference is that I think this beach is natural," he said in return, though it was hardly thought about, his eyes and mind too busy trying to guess at Alex's next move. How badly he wanted Alex beneath him.

He shuddered at the kiss and the warmth of Alex's hand, let out a small grunt of disapproval when Alex kissed the side of his mouth, then a sigh of contentment when their lips touched. A chuckled escaped as Alex kept talking about food being dyed black.

"I don't know if I've ever had black coloured food," he said, one hand reaching out to burry in Alex' hair, pressing their lips together. "I never understood Red Velvet cake," he added, a little desperate to be on the other's level, to be interesting to him, to have his attention constantly.

[alexpanganiban]

"Really? You can count yourself lucky you missed out on that particular foodie trend, because it's awful. Horrifying. Pointless." Alex punctuated each descriptor with another kiss against Adarsh's mouth, purring at the feel of the other man's strong grip in his hair. "They even tortured poor inoffensive foodstuffs like lemonade with the charcoal treatment. Can you imagine?"

At Adarsh's own confession, Alex clucked, laughing slightly as he slung himself into Adarsh's lap fully, putting his arms around the man's neck as he kneeled up over his hips. Just close enough to make contact, not close enough to fulfill any deeper need. Which was probably a foolhardy move, given the number of times they'd failed to sink the ball -- so to speak -- in all their fooling around, but Alex couldn't help himself. Adarsh was delicious when he was being teased and thrown off-balance and Alex wasn't above exercising any power he had in that arena.

"That's a tricky one," Alex murmured, dragging his lips along Adarsh's full hairline, letting his own bearded chin scruff against sun-deepened skin. "It's good if you have it done properly. But hardly anybody--" Alex lowered his weight some, giving a loose, gaspy breath at body contact and rucking his hips forward, "--does it properly, sugar."

[roseykingixora]

It's funny, how old habits one haven't used in decades can somehow cause such comfort in certain times. Alex approached and gave Rosey a brief hug and kisses, and that small gesture put Rosey at ease and she settled down onto the sofa, watching him move around his space like they weren't on a damn island where the people running everything just announced a food shortage, pinning her and Hana as the bad guys.

"I'm not saying I wouldn't be just thrilled to get a good glass of wine or a high end whiskey, but Alex, I haven't had any kind of shelved alcohol in about two decades, give or take, I will happily accept anything that is not moonshine made on this island." There have been attempts made, and Rosey's never really been a big fan of them, but when that was your only option, you take what you can get. "And considering everything, all bottles will be top-shelf very soon."

She closed her eyes for a moment and sunk further into the sofa, pinching the bridge of her nose. She could and absolutely will get used to the comfort of these bungalows. It was annoying.

When Alex came back with the drinks, she looked up again, gave him a smile and slid to the side to give him more room. "It's safe to assume they didn't pull any shit like this before, right? We are the lucky first to get this generous welcome treatment?"

[alexpanganiban]

"A whiskey woman! I should've figured, your voice sounds like a good double malt in itself." Alex was turning things over in his head, deciding how he was going to play this, but that statement was nothing but fact -- he'd listened to the inflections of Rosey King's voice a dozen times, trying to filter through and grab on to what quality there was in it that made her such an arresting performer.

Sitting down next to her as she made room for him on the mid century modern sofa (Alex was certain its wood frame was teak, a tiny luxury that comforted him when the island started getting too much), he sat close enough that they weren't uncomfortably pushing together but there was still a sense of intimacy, two people who knew their bodies well as the instruments of their profession. "There was nothing like this before, nothing," he assured Rosey when she asked, because hey, who didn't like to feel they were special and singular? Even if it was to be targeted.

Clinking their glasses together, Alex sipped his before asking, "...why d'you think they'd even do this? Set you two up as the scapegoats? Is it some kind of social experiment, like The Lottery or something, to see if we'll sacrifice you for our own ends?"

[alexpanganiban]

location: the little library costar: @selinswonderland

"--and the thing is," Alex continued, even though his voice had been the only thing in the air for what felt like the last small eternity other than the quiet thumpy sound of book-sorting and page turning and Selin's occasional notes aloud about what she wanted to do with a particular book, "that it's not like I'm a huge drinker or anything! When your work means that there's always the potential thread of paps around waiting to snap a photo of you getting sloppy, you learn fast not to give them that opportunity. Not in public."

He paused to run his hand over the dust jacket of some volume from the seventies, muttering mostly to himself, "I hate these. The books look so much better without them but nobody ever takes off the dustcoats and throws them out even though I'm sure that's what they were meant for. Why keep a stupid fakey cover instead of letting the book breathe and look nice?"

[alexpanganiban]

location: obsidian beach, mid-morning costar: @mc-adarsh

"It's disconcerting, isn't it?" Alex clapped a hand to his head where his sunglasses were sitting, keeping them from blowing away in one of the strong gusts that hit the shore periodically. He slipped them down onto his face and gave Adarsh a scrunchy grin before scooting closer to the other man on the tatami mat they were sitting on, weighted down with chunks of black rock that could be found on the beach. "The black sand, I mean. It's like the physical equivalent to eating food that's been coloured black with charcoal and has no business being that colour."

Alex brushed at the sand that was clinging in a streak to Adarsh's thigh, before impulsively bending to kiss the spot of skin he'd just wiped; warm and smelling of the salt water they'd been swimming in a short while ago before coming back to the shore to bask in the sun. He kept his hand there when he sat back up again, smoothing his palm over Adarsh's thigh as he continued, "...pitch black croissants. Midnight coloured custard tarts. Vantablack pancake syrup. Deeply unsettling."

Leaning in, Alex planted a kiss at the side of Adarsh's mouth, then more squarely on the other man's lips, murmuring, "Squid ink energy drinks...."

[alexpanganiban]

[tempestaslokni]

Closed for: @alexpanganiban Location: The Hub This amount of sweat was uncharacteristic for Lokni. His palms formed miniature lakes in a moment of seconds- and it had nothing to do with the weather. Most of their needs on the island were taken care of and squared away, except for those of a more extracurricular nature. Lokni had never dated a woman before, let alone been intimate with one, but he knew one thing for sure: he wasn't about to risk bringing a kid into this island situation- at least, not with how things were currently. The only thing between him and holding Selin close was, unfortunately, the alleged hoarder of contraceptives, Alex. According to Tej, Alex had taken all the condoms off the ship and hidden them somewhere that only he and his two clones knew. That was another thing- while Lokni was trying to avoid making little Selins and Loknis, Alex had gone ahead and made two more of himself. This island was getting stranger by the day- but if Lokni was being honest with himself, he might rather have three Alexes than some of the less amicable islanders. Needless to say, with the food supplies being cut off, making more mouths to feed would not be the wisest of decisions. Presently, the original Alex (as far as Lokni could tell) was in the kitchen breaking open coconuts. He was wearing a simple white tank top and yellow shorts, complete with flip-flops. He looked like he was practically on vacation. Lokni looked around, unable to see Alex's two other clones, which was strange. He had the impression that they never strayed too far from their progenitor. Might as well state his business while the others were inundated. Lokni walked into the hub, leaning against one of the wooden columns that supported the roof. "How's it going? Need any help there?" Lokni asked, his tone a bit off. Get it together, Lokni mentally chided himself, it's just a little 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.'

[alexpanganiban]

"Nah, it's more or less a one-dude job."

Alex paused in his work to throw a wide, loose grin Lokni's way. It was a sultry day, warm no matter where you were, and the scent of the coconuts as he broke them open was adding to the atmosphere, making everything just a little sexy. Not that Alex intended to do anything about that, but it made life on the island and the group trauma of the revelations easier to endure if you found your own pleasures here and there. Coconut smell, flip flops, humid weather -- he could almost pretend he was there on purpose.

(Well ... technically he was. But Alex didn't consider his pre-mindwipe decision to be useful to his post-mindwipe self in practice.)

Turning one of the opened halves of coconut in his hands, Alex angled it on the counter so he could use his cleaver to crack off pieces of the sweet white inner meat of the nut, holding out a shard to Lokni before taking a piece for himself to gnaw on. "How's it going, man?" he asked, because it was likely that Lokni -- deliberate, careful Lokni -- had some specific reason for approaching, but Alex didn't want to ask about it right away. "The cohabitation sitch working out well for you, or are you and Tej drawing lines down the floor to divide up space yet?"

[roseykingixora]

[ @alexpanganiban ]

Those assholes! Those fuckers. All Rosey really wanted to do was find those who were running this entire island and wrangle their necks. In a matter of a few sentences, they managed to turn such big part of these people against her (and Hana, but that was less of a problem for her specifically) and made life that much harder.

But, unfortunately, she couldn't actually do that. So instead she did the next best thing that night - went and found Alex's place. The person she bonded with the best - he got her, she got him, it was a quick understanding. They lived similar life outside of this horror of a place, of course they understood each other. And Rosey assumed the other would understand her anger as well. "Alex! It's me, Rosey!" she called in through his door. "Please tell me you are one of those people who stash away some alcohol just in case. This is definitely one of those just in case moments."

[alexpanganiban]

Alex never bothered closing the door to his bungalow -- he'd wrangled it away from Lindi for its view, and he liked taking advantage of that view as much as possible. It wasn't like there were animals who wandered around, or anything much to steal ... or at least, there hadn't been until that announcement started blaring.

It seemed like things here were about to get way more stealable, real fast.

So he poked his head out from the bedroom when he heard Rosey King's distinctive voice, her lush low tones, and maybe he was thinking just a little bit that there was a chance she would start shaking down his place for a bottle and he should make sure she didn't nab anything, but then he also thought if he said anything about that it would sound like he was racially profiling, so Alex settled on braying, "Hells yeah! Although I hope you like bottom-shelf rum, because that's the only thing I've got."

Sauntering out to meet her in the main space, Alex leaned in to give Rosey a brief hug and kiss on both cheeks (the old pleasantries between celebs should be kept up even in a place like this) before gesturing towards the sofa. "Lemme get a couple glasses and we can take the edge off, huh?"

[alexpanganiban]

oui, le time skip

in all honesty, Alex was faintly relieved when the revelation came about that they'd all been mindwiped -- faking that he was in on some bigger plan while Darcy interrogated him for more info was starting to get stressful.

Finding out the reason he'd decided to be part of the experiment was more distressing, combined with the ID card he'd found among the pile of the World's Worst Pokemons. Not that he's told anybody, yet.

Instead Alex worked on figuring out more about his duplication power, and over the year and a half, Sasha (the polite nerd) and Xandi (the party monster) have been able to maintain integrity for longer and longer stretches, even having experiences that Alex isn't aware of until they reabsorb back into him.

While Sasha helped Selin and Lindi with organizational stuff, and Xandi did ... whatever Xandi did, Alex decided to keep busy exploring with Zaid and Lokni whenever they felt like some company on their jaunts.

He also "kept busy" with Adarsh whenever they found the time, although somehow they always seemed to get interrupted before getting down to full on business.

Alex has also gone on a number of smaller, less honourable jaunts solo -- or at least, with his own dupes as companions. Because while survival does keep you busy, sometimes spying on your fellow survivors is the thing that keeps you going.

[alexpanganiban]

× what does your muse smell like? what perfume/cologne are they using? Alex wears his keynote Panganex scent, Crumble, which he will boast smells of pandan and ube and pink pepper (but fresh out the bottle mostly smells like grass and vanilla with a note of dirt). Sasha is a neat freak and makes sure he smells of whatever soap and deodorant is most effective. Xandi smells like too many hair products and vape.

⌘ do they rather shower or take a bath? Xandi likes a bath whenever possible; the other two prefer showers, and Alex scrubs up hair to toe in under five minutes. Sasha would do both but overthinks baths and tries to make them too therapeutic and then worries that he's not enjoying it enough.

⚣ how long does your muse take to shave?  They've discovered that the dupes appear exactly as they'd like to, which means Sasha's generally clean-shaven and Xandi might have a little stubble if they're wanting to dress girly along with it. Alex maintains a close-cropped beard so he just buzzes it when it needs to be kept in shape.

♂ does your muse wear make-up? how long does it take to put on? Xandi enjoys the makeup process and CAKES it on, sometimes doing the whole eyebrow-blocking and foundation baking to get into full drag. Alex will wear some eye makeup if he feels like it but he digs the artfully messy look, plus nailpolish. Sasha wears lip balm and hair gel and grooms his eyebrows and that's it.

♧ any freckles/moles/birth marks? where? All of them share the same birthmark, which looks like a sideways apostrophe low on the back of their necks.

♥ do they have more muscles or more fat on their body? Alex kept in very good shape for We the Survivors, a lot of sporty working muscle, and if he doesn't attend to that then he gets a little heftier in his belly and thighs and ass. Xandi keeps that waist snatched (still the runner's thighs though). Sasha is softer and baby-fat-faced, though his arms are pretty toned.