#a collection of classic creatures! All of them more than hundreds of year old and probably out of date in his current timeline

[socksoinabox]

#Happy halloween! #drew them cause they would be haunting the streets on hallows eve and ween #blaze's a witch #marines a pirate/captain #and sliver is.... #a collection of classic creatures! All of them more than hundreds of year old and probably out of date in his current timeline #(if he has one) #or... it could be called #a Monster mash #hah sorry #anyway Happy hollows #less then a month left for those turkeys #sth fanart #sth blaze #sth sliver #sth marine #marine the raccoon #sliver the hedgehog #blaze the cat #sth #sonic the hedgehog fanart

[justforbooks]

Collectors can be withdrawn and secretive creatures, as jealously protective of their possessions as Tolkien’s dragon Smaug was of its gold. This was not Joe Bussard’s style at all. Over more than 50 years he built an exceptional collection of American vernacular music – old-time country music, blues, jazz – on 78rpm discs, and he enjoyed nothing more than sharing it with others. Joe, who has died aged 86, played the records on his Country Classics radio show, he taped them for fans and researchers at 50 cents a track, and he lent them to labels that were committed to reissuing the music of the past, so that enthusiasts all over the world could hear fabulously rare, sometimes unique, recordings for the price of an LP or CD.

In “Joe’s Basement”, the 30ft storehouse of shellac beneath his home, he entertained an endless procession of visitors, spinning records he wanted them to hear and telling stories about where he had found them: “This old stone house down the hollow … This old shotgun shack … This little old coal town, forgotten long ago …”

“Joe doesn’t just listen to his records, he actively participates,” wrote the fellow collector Marshall Wyatt when he reissued some of them on his Old Hat label in 2002, on the CD Down in the Basement. “He’s snapping his fingers, jiving, keeping time with his whole body, and smoking his cigar all the while. He picks up the record sleeve, fanning imaginary flames that leap from the turntable. ‘This is one hot record!’ Every record has a story, and every story is like a theatrical performance, with Joe playing all the parts.”

The exuberance of Joe’s interaction with his records is brilliantly captured in Edward Gillan’s 2003 documentary Desperate Man Blues, interspersed with tributes from performers and listeners whose horizons were redefined by the music he secured before it was lost. “When you stop at Joe’s,” his musician friend Paul Geremia said, “it’s like going to a museum.” Joe himself, no lover of museums, would simply grin. “You can’t say you don’t have fun when you come down here!”

Joe was born in Frederick, Maryland, to Joseph Bussard Sr (it was pronounced not Buzzard but Bersard), who ran a farm-supply business, and Viola (nee Culler). As a boy Joe liked Gene Autry, but when he was 11 he heard a record of the pioneering country music singer Jimmie Rodgers – it was a bombshell moment that reshaped the terrain of his life.

Having dropped out of high school, he financed his record-gathering by working in the family business and at other jobs; he also spent eight years in the National Guard.

In the 1950s, he began to take long collecting trips into Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio, and down into the south-eastern states. He claimed he could glance at a house and tell, from how it was kept, whether there might be records inside. “I’d go from door to door, house to house, and it was nothing to go out and in one weekend to come back with four, five hundred records.”

In later years, the duplicates he acquired in these ventures became another source of income. He liked to tell the story of how the band Canned Heat, whose Bob Hite and Henry Vestine were themselves noted collectors, dropped in one day, flush from one of their hit records, with “wads of money, enough to choke an elephant! By the time they were done, they dropped $9,000. In cash!” So he bought a swimming pool.

Joe’s tastes were wide, but not limitless. Country music and blues of the 1920s and 30s were his passion. Jazz, too, but only up to the Depression; he would say bluntly that, for him, jazz died in about 1933. Of the music made since the second world war, he approved of bluegrass but scorned rock’n’roll (“the cancer of music”), and he dismissed all subsequent pop as inconsequential noise.

His response to the 45rpm record was to create his own label, Fonotone, hand-pressing 78rpm discs with a vintage record stamper and handwriting the labels. It lasted from 1956 to 1970, its catalogue embracing obscure rural musicians Joe had come across; himself, playing guitar, banjo or mandolin, with his friends, sometimes as Jolly Joe’s Jug Band; and collector-musicians such as Mike Seeger, Mike Stewart and the young John Fahey, whose first recordings were made for Joe in 1959. The Fonotone years have been lovingly documented by Dust-to-Digital Records, presented – a detail Joe appreciated – in a mock cigar box.

It was even through records that he met his wife, Esther Mae Keith, a bluegrass enthusiast. They married in 1967; she died in 1999. Joe is survived by their daughter, Susannah, and three granddaughters.

🔔 Joseph Edward Bussard Jr, record collector, born 11 July 1936; died 26 September 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Joseph Edward Bussard #in memoriam

[venfx]

magnus fic roundup

as tma comes to a close, i thought i'd post some of my favorite fics to come out of this fandom. most of these are classics, listed in no particular order.

A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed​ | 3K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."

Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.

↳ this is such a well-done exploration of jon’s character and his relationship with touch, and i’ve re-read it at least five times. sweet and sad and phenomenally well-written.

in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by imperfectcircle, singlecrow | 20K | Safehouse, S1-S4 | Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin | Complete

Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.

or; hope is a thing with feathers.

↳ hey, you wanna fuckin..... feel things? read this.

The Magnus Institute vs the 21st Century: a series of emails and IMs by shinyopals | 26K | Series | S3 | Pre-Jon/Martin | Complete

The Magnus Institute hires a Data Protection Officer. He sets about diligently booking in meetings, writing policy documents, and training all the staff in the importance of confidentiality. Now if only he could get hold of the Head Archivist, who seems to have vanished again...

(Jon is only trying to save the world, but apparently some people think he should still be doing his day job.)

↳ i’d be surprised to find people who haven’t read this series, but it’s the definition of “the magnus archives is a workplace comedy”. also, alasdair stuart has actually read some clips of this on Twitch, so that’s a fun bonus.

Bell, Book, and Candle by yellow_caballero | 102K | Series | S3 into S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete 

In accordance with the Ride or Die Pact of 2009, Jonathan Sims can call upon Georgie Barker at any time for aid with no strings attached. Despite their rocky history, their childhood friendship, and Jon’s barely recovered alcoholism, this pact is sacred and must be upheld.

Georgie Barker may regret this. She may regret it when she discovers that the world is full of monsters and eldritch gods and dickhead managers. She may regret it when a punk rocker who should be dead collapses on their doorstep, a teenager again who needs their help. She may regret it when her stupid ex-boyfriend starts selling his soul for knowledge and the ability to keep his new family safe.

But she probably won’t. Georgie isn’t scared of anything - not a Clown’s apocalypse, not the apocalypse that Jon is destined to begin, and not Jon’s own loss of humanity.

Maybe she should be.

↳ if you’re looking for an everyone-lives-no-one-dies-happy-ending fic that also happens to be massively chaotic, look no further. 

The Reverb in These Holy Halls by @wolftraps​ | 98K | AU, S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.

↳ quintessential time travel AUs. plot-wise, i feel like these can be difficult to write, but op does a fantastic job of tying things together in a way that makes sense. plus, it’s just fun to read.

jon sims v the nhs by @thoughtsbubble​ | 12K | Series | S3 | Complete

Joan Bright has a new patient. He's carrying an old tape recorder and is covered head to toe in scars. Jonathan Sims looks dangerous, but Dr Bright has dealt with all sorts of atypical individuals. She has no reason to be nervous.

Right?

↳ if you’ve ever thought “hey, jon should probably go to therapy”, then 1) you’re absolutely right and 2) this is... probably what would’ve happened. prior knowledge of The Bright Sessions is not required. also, apparently, this fic is written by the showrunner of The Underwood Collection? wild.

Family, Found by Dribbledscribbles | 9K | S4 | Complete

It’s Basira who catches onto it.

The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.

The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.

↳ i think being part of the avengers fandom circa 2012 has given me permanent found-family-trope brainrot, but you know what. jonathan sims can have a little happiness, as a treat. 

Road to Damascus by @titanfalling​ | 107K | Series | S4 | Jon & Tim | Complete

n. an important moment of insight, typically one that leads to a dramatic transformation of attitude or belief

Or, in which Tim becomes an avatar for the end of all things.

↳ tim dies and then he doesn’t. there is catharsis and world building. just....read it.

Come, Change Your Ring With Me by @backofthebookshelf​ | 29K | S3 | Peter/Jon, Jon/Martin, Peter/Elias | Complete

The Lukases demand the Archivist marry into the family, and the Institute relies on them too much to say no. Peter is smug. Elias is fuming. Martin is suffering. Jon thinks this might be tolerable if only Peter would hurry up and leave him alone already.

OR, the soap opera we call an Archives revolves around Peter Lukas this time.

↳ superb evil-bastards-in-love content, feat. martin pining, tim being obnoxious, and jon being... well, tired, mostly. i will literally never get tired of how op writes peter. 

creatures that i briefly move along by @dotsayers​ | 16K | Series | AU, Post-S4 | background Jon/Martin 

Mr Sims was so weird, was the thing. Miss Grant always said calling people weird was rude, and Anna sort of agreed, but she didn’t know what other word to use to describe Mr Sims.

He’d only been in with the class for a few days, really, and half of that he just sat at the back listening, but that didn’t stop her from making a swift judgement. 5BG had had student teachers before, back when they were 3ST, and they’d been uniformly normal.

Mr Sims was… actually, Anna had a better adjective. He was interesting.

↳ i just.... love teacher!jon fics. this series delivers. 

Once Bitten by @apatheticbutterflies | 1K | S4 | Jon & Daisy | Complete

Jon Sims has always been a jumpy kind of guy. Nervous. Twitchy. Daisy used to think it meant he was guilty. Turns out he was. Just not of what she’d thought.

Daisy learns how to peel an orange.

↳ daisy and jon’s relationship is an example of an instance where i’m happy to say “fuck what you wrote mr. jonny ‘chocolate torte of tragedy’ sims, i want them to be friends”.

pins and needles by mutterandmumble | 13K | S1-S4 | Complete

He’s got a reputation to uphold anyways; an uptight, rigid reputation that dictates the way that he interacts and functions and is such an integral part of him that he can’t let go of it anytime soon. He likes his safety nets. He likes his contingencies. He likes his privacy, and everything around this place right down to the walls seems to have ears, so he’ll stay tight-lipped up to and beyond the threat of death.

He’s good at that.

In which Jon takes up embroidery and bumbles through life the best that he can.

↳ out of all the introspective jon pieces i’ve read (and there are many), this one stands out. maybe it’s the symbolism or the characterisation, or maybe it’s the fact that i have an embroidery kit lurking in the back of my closet along with a hundred other half-pursued hyperfixations. whatever. this is excellent.

sleeping in by @ivelostmyspectacles | 5K | S2 | Jon/Tim | Complete

“Who are you trying to convince?”

Jon gives up, letting his head sag against Tim’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”

aka Elias gets tired of Jon and Tim's bickering, sends them away for a "team-building" weekend trip, and is sure to book them a room with only one bed

↳ this has everything you’d need from a “oh no there’s only one bed” fic. someone please get these men therapy.

if you try, sometimes (you get what you knead) by @ajcrawly​ | 3.5K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin, Tim/Sasha | Complete

It starts with an abundance of boeuf bourguignon and ends up as a team tradition.

Food and love in uncertain times.

↳ more found family fic, this time with a diverse og!archival staff and food as a metaphor for love. hurt in all the right ways. made me hungry in the process.

#tried to keep this shortish but i might just make a part 2 #people in this fandom are crazy talented #tma #the magnus archives #tma fic recs #fic recs #long post #txt #mine

[rockislandadultreads]

Books that aren’t Twilight but you’ll still love: a list

Crave by Tracy Wolff

My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy. Nothing is right about this place or the other students in it. Here I am, a mere mortal among gods…or monsters. I still can’t decide which of these warring factions I belong to, if I belong at all. I only know the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me. Then there’s Jaxon Vega. A vampire with deadly secrets who hasn’t felt anything for a hundred years. But there’s something about him that calls to me, something broken in him that somehow fits with what’s broken in me. Which could spell death for us all. Because Jaxon walled himself off for a reason. And now someone wants to wake a sleeping monster, and I’m wondering if I was brought here intentionally—as the bait.

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized. Atl needs to quickly escape the city, far from the rival narco-vampire clan relentlessly pursuing her. Her plan doesn't include Domingo, but little by little, Atl finds herself warming up to the scrappy young man and his undeniable charm. As the trail of corpses stretches behind her, local cops and crime bosses both start closing in. Vampires, humans, cops, and criminals collide in the dark streets of Mexico City. Do Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city devour them all?

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle L. Gómez

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien's guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret. When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights . . . and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.

#fantasy #low fantasy #horror #urban fantasy #vampires #books like twilight #Twilight #readalikes #to read #Book Recommendations #reading recommendations #paranormal romance #tbr #highly recommend #booklr #booktok #paranormal #ya books for adults #ya books

[bywordofaphrodite]

Book Reviews 3&4: Nancy Drew and the Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene & Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell Tatham

This review’s theme is girl detective books ! Audience age range: roughly 12 and up !

Just as Enid Blyton’s books made me fall in love with magical creatures and faraway lands, detective novels became an obsession during late primary school, with classic lead female characters Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden being my absolute favourites. My school had an extremely small and limited library, and the Nancy Drew books were one of the only decent series there- even with a great chunk of the collection missing. My mother introduced me to Trixie Belden, which she insisted was better than Nancy Drew, though I refused to listen to such a declaration at the time.

Now, though? My opinions have definitely changed.

Nostalgic review

Rating: ★★★★★

From memory, Nancy Drew is a clever, beautiful and well-off girl in her late teens, living with her lawyer father Carson Drew and her housekeeper Hannah Gruen, who has looked after Nancy since her mother’s passing when she was only three. I always enjoyed the dynamic between Nancy and her father, as it was similar to mine with my father, also a lawyer- Carson doesn’t step in unless Nancy needs his help, but he does assist in legal advice when necessary. I also loved Nancy’s friendship with the cousins Bess and George, and liked that her relationship with her ‘special friend’ Ned never got in the way of solving mysteries or hanging out with her friends (‘hanging out’ was practically code for sleuthing in these novels anyway). Overall, my memories of this series amount mostly to exciting searches for missing heiresses, finding beautiful jewels and battling crocodiles in Florida.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Trixie Belden- rough-around-the-edges thirteen year-old from a poor family living with both her parents and three brothers. Where Nancy has a housekeeper, lives in an affluent suburban neighbourhood and never wants for money, Trixie lives on the outskirts of a small town, both her parents work, and she is constantly reminded of how important it is to work for money as they do not have much of it to spare on mindless things. Nancy is a fairly solitary character, often working alone unless her friends show up, and even then she does most of the legwork; Trixie is also the main sleuth in her series, but her best friend Honey is almost always at her side. While the mysteries were great, the warm friendships in Trixie Belden novels are what I remember best.

Regardless of whatever my thoughts may be after rereading books from these two series, I’ve never ceased referencing either of them and my love of the mystery genre still holds fast even now.

Nancy Drew and the Lilac Inn Review

Post-read: ★★

Synopsis: girl detective Nancy Drew is called to solve a series of odd goings on at her newly engaged friend Emily’s inn, in what seems to be an attempt to prevent Emily and her fiancé from opening. Disaster strikes when her aunt retrieves Emily’s inheritance of diamonds- Emily’s last hope to cover the costs of fixing up the inn- and they are swiftly stolen within the hour. Nancy vows to catch the thief and the intruder and save Emily’s inn from failure.

I struggled in choosing which Nancy Drew book to reread for this review, and after reading through multiple rankings lists I decided on the Lilac Inn because it ranked highly on every list. I now wish I had just gone with Crocodile Island anyway… at least there was something snappy about it. In between the bomb, the theft, the doppelganger, the underwater fake-shark, the kidnapping, the spear-gun attack- I think I’ve made my point. There’s far too much going on, and if it was well-written I would be okay with it, really I would, but it’s all so blandly articulated that half the time I had to reread just to make sure I’d read correctly what nonsense was occurring at any given time.

Straight out the gate, I just want to say how shocking the writing was- that’s shockingly bad, by the way. If I thought Enid Blyton’s work was stunted, well, this was far, far worse. Especially since it lacks the excuse of being written for young children. It was incredibly difficult to push through in the slower parts, and I must admit I basically skim-read the lead up parts to the action sequences (which were incredibly minimal compared to the gnashing crocodile teeth I longed for, but alas). Sadly for me, Bess (my old fave), George and Ned were not present at all, and I cannot remember if they had actually been introduced that early in the series because they are not mentioned once.

I did really like the concept of the story, and the element of Nancy having a creepy doppelganger posing as Nancy to cause mischief (she has several over the series) was fun, even more so that said doppelganger was an actual actress and quite ruthless in her attempts to steal Emily’s diamonds- I love a morally-corrupt pretty female villain as much as the next person, after all. There is a romance teased between Nancy and a young man staying at the inn, a young man who continuously seems to be in the same room as the diamond thief messing with Emily’s inn, but ultimately both never amount to anything. This hardly surprised me given the book is written in the thirties, and Ned and Nancy never do anything but attend dances together the entire series, but still, come on. He could’ve at least stolen the diamonds to add some spice to his useless appearances.

It’s possible that were a very talented scriptwriter to take this book and make it into a movie it could work out a lot better than it does on paper- provided the casting was done well. The sets would be interesting, and I think the creepiness of the ‘ghost’ in the orchard and the diving scenes would translate a lot better on camera. Normally I’m not one to nominate live actions of novels for no reason, but this thought kept recurring as I struggled to get through the writing.

Characters who aged well: Nancy is smart and weirdly good at everything (they don’t explain why she knows how to do all the things she does, but diving and freeing herself from bonds seems to be easy enough for her. Given male characters are always allowed to be perfect without training, I’ll allow it). For a female character written in the 30s she has plenty of agency and does not once rely on a man’s help to do anything, which is why I always enjoyed her books. Carson Drew also aged well- not present that often, but useful without being interfering, and his trust in his daughter is refreshing. As for the other main characters in the series… they didn’t even show up in this book so I can’t really comment on this.

Characters who aged badly: plot twist- I’m adding Nancy here too. She is a little too perfect, too polished, a common criticism by modern readers, though at the time of publication was her main selling point. Additionally, earlier editions of the series featured racist comments made by Nancy, although those have since been taken out. However, the publisher and creator of the first books was not a very pleasant person, so I find myself able to separate that from Nancy’s character.

Favourite scene/quote: ‘The article went on to tell that Nancy had just completed a course in advanced skin diving in the Muskoka River, and that she had finished first in total points in the twenty student group’.

I find this quote amusing because there is really no need for Nancy to be good at every single thing, and this is a good example of the many times throughout the series that Nancy is the ‘best’ at a very random activity that is often never mentioned again.

As for my favourite scene, though nothing interesting actually ends up happening in the orchard, I did like the eerie setting of Nancy dressing up as a ghost and chilling behind a tree for a while (okay it was partially eerie, mostly just oddly comedic). The actress/impostor posing as Nancy provided a few good scenes, too, but for the main villain of the story she was hardly in as many scenes as she should’ve been in.

After doing some research, I discovered something most interesting: Nancy was written with significantly more character by the original ghost-writer of the series, a woman named Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote Nancy ‘embodying qualities that she wished she had’- but the publisher Edward Stratemeyer did not want a bold female character, and she was rewritten with similar dialogue but now accompanied with ‘dainty’ verbs to sweeten her words. Stratemeyer was also known for his beliefs that women belonged in the kitchen, and the only reason he created Nancy in the first place was to capitalise on young female readers who wanted their own equivalent of the Hardy Boys.

With all of this in mind, it’s very possible that the Nancy from my memories is a mix of the older and new editions, which allowed Nancy more personality as the series went on, no longer needing to confirm to the sexist expectations of the 1930s. And despite these origins, Nancy Drew aged quite well as an unintended feminist icon: she solves her mysteries alone and rarely needs Ned’s help at all; in fact, most of the time, Nancy is the one doing the saving. It’s nice to think that, almost one hundred years later, Mildred Wirt Benson’s version of Nancy is the one being kept alive, both on paper and onscreen.

Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion Review

Post-read: ★★★★★

Synopsis: energetic teen Trixie Belden’s boring town of Sleepyside is turned upside down when a rich new family moves onto the property opposite her own, an old miser winds up in hospital and his empty mansion is suddenly inhabited by a runaway boy, and a missing fortune is waiting to be uncovered.

Whewww.

This was a massive breath of fresh air after the Lilac Inn! After being so unimpressed by both Blyton and Keene’s writing, Tatham’s writing restored my faith in my childhood judgement. Her words flowed well and the conversation between the characters was very natural. The blank slate characters in the Lilac Inn were showed up by the animated and multiple-dimensional characters in the Secret of the Mansion, and I never once felt the need to rush myself through the chapters.

Unlike my method of choosing a Nancy Drew book, I simply decided on reading the first Trixie book for this review. While I almost went for a later book where all the main characters had been introduced, I couldn’t remember how Trixie first met Honey and Jim, which I felt was pretty important to her character. I’m very glad I did. Even in the first book, Trixie endures so much character development (contrasting very strongly with Nancy’s flawless existence). Longing for a friend, Trixie takes herself up the hill to the newly habited mansion to introduce herself and her little brother Bobby, who she is babysitting to earn money to buy herself a horse. There she meets rich girl Honey Wheeler, a sickly and sheltered but sweet girl of the same age, whose parents pay little attention to her. Things fall into place with all the expected luck of a teen heroine- Honey’s governess is a lovely woman who wants Honey to befriend Trixie and offers to look after Bobby, and of course Honey’s stables are now filled with horses and a stable hand who can teach her to ride.

But for every easy thing comes an opportunity for Trixie to grow: she comes to admire Honey’s bravery after previously being irritated by her fear of trying outdoor activities; she ignores the stable hand’s orders not to ride the stallion and falls as a result, leading to her having to work to regain his trust and also being taught the valuable lesson to recognise her own limits; finally, as much as Trixie hates looking after little Bobby, when he is bitten by a snake Trixie is resourceful and quick on her feet in helping him, keeping him well enough until a doctor and other adults arrive.

Rather like the Lilac Inn, the mystery of the story centres on the hidden will to a supposed fortune of the elderly man who lived in the old mansion not far from Honey’s new home. On a whim, Trixie nags Honey into accompanying her to snoop around the building, leading to their discovery of the old man’s nephew Jim hiding there. By the end of the book, the girls have helped Jim to find the will and safely escape his abusive step-father. Later in the series, Jim is adopted by the Wheeler family, and also becomes Trixie’s primary love interest (I love that this relationship is not at all rushed either).

The reading level for the Trixie Belden series is listed as grade 3 and above, but I had no problems being completely involved and intrigued by the storyline and characters as a twenty-three year old. I think I’ll continue to read the series on my own time, as I always enjoyed the full character line-up developed after a few books in.

Characters who aged well: Trixie! If my praise during this review didn’t make clear enough, she’s a wonderful character with great development. Honey and Jim are also solid characters, and Bobby and Trixie’s parents are well-written too- supportive and kind, but realistic concerning raising Trixie to be a responsible kid. Also going to add that Trixie’s group of best friends- self-named the Bob-Whites of the Glen and consisting of her two older brothers Brian and Mart, Honey, Jim and the later additions of Dan and Di- have a strong presence and very distinct personalities when they show up in the later novels.

Characters who aged badly: nobody! All the side characters were well done, including the villain. He wasn’t over-the-top by any means, his abuse of Jim was both emotion and physical in a realistic manner that concerned the adults around him enough to comment on it without actually taking proper action to help him, as it often goes. I appreciated the author’s ability to write a male character the vulnerable one, to recognise what was wrong about the situation, and to gladly accept help from two girls younger than him.

Favourite scene/quote: “‘serves him right,’ Trixie said, wiping her grimy hands on her rolled-up blue jeans. ‘The mean old miser. You should have left him lying in the driveway, Dad.’”

An earlier quote in the book, this sets the tone for Trixie’s character: she’s messy, no-nonsense and cheeky. For a female character written in 1948 I found this quite amusing. There’s none of the internalised misogyny that often popped up in ‘tomboy’ characters of the time: Trixie just is what she is, and she’s great.

A standout scene would be Trixie sucking the venom from her brother’s snakebite to save him, and the chapters focused on the developing friendship with Honey and Jim while the two teach Trixie how to handle horses is also enjoyable.

Overall verdict:

My mother was right, Trixie Belden is far better than Nancy Drew in every category I can think of. I wish that the series had gained the popularity that Nancy Drew did, because it would make for a fun movie or television show. There is an eighteen year gap between the publication of the first novel from both series, and both heroines saw many more books written after that. Nancy Drew is so persistent, however, that multiple movies and even a recent CW show have been made, though it is not very accurate to the books at all. Even now, modern-day setting Nancy Drew mysteries are still being released under the Carolyn Keene pseudonym, showing her unending mythical status.

I still love Nancy, bad writing and all, but in all fairness, Miss Trixie deserves a cut of the nostalgic hype surrounding the girl-detective genre. I’d also like to bask in the poetic justice of Nancy not only remaining a more iconic character than the Hardy Boys, but also becoming more feminist as time goes on. I’m sure the publisher is rolling in his grave!

#nancy drew #carolyn keene #trixie belden #girl detective #fiction #university project #nostalgia #feminism #female characters

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #481

Top Ten Pixar Villains

Those rascals and rapscallions at Pixar are famous for twisting our emotions, aren’t they? Perverse masters at making us cry with sadness or joy, often at the same time (I’m looking at you, Inside Out, with your yellow and blue marbles). Oh yes, they’ll stick the knife in and give it a good old yank, like John Travolta teaches his daughter to do in Face/Off when he’s not really John Travolta and it’s a bit icky but then she stabs him at the end of the film so it’s alright really.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Pixar, renowned for turning grown men into blubbering messes, mostly because an adult character was convinced to part with old toys he no longer plays with. But I’d argue that one thing they’ve done less well than their parent studio (that’s Disney) is crafting iconic baddies. I mean, we all know the Disney Villains; they’re so iconic and successful as pop culture icons that there’s an entire trilogy of movies based on what would happen if a bunch of them had kids (apparently they’d sing a lot). Pixar baddies though? Hmmm, maybe not quite so iconic. I can’t see someone making a live action prequel movie about Chef Skinner.

But that’s not to say they’re not great; in fact, rather than going down the route of snarling, moustache-twirling villainy, Pixar actually does a great job in creating antagonists instead. Sometimes they’re misunderstood; sometimes they’re not the person you thought they were! Quite often some kind of redemption is offered, and the villains are very, very rarely dropped off something tall. A lot of them aren’t even defeated, so to speak! A good deal of nuance and shade goes into a Pixar villain, and if they haven’t made as many all-time-great iconic ne’er-do-wells, it does seem as if their approach is starting to rub off on Disney mothership (the likes of Frozen II and Moana either don’t have, or at least subvert, the notion of all-powerful bad guys).

So what do we have? Well, hopefully, we’ve got a list of really cool villains from Pixar movies. most of them are presented as the film’s “big bad”, although there are a couple of lesser baddies. And I think we do see the pattern emerging, of more mundane levels of villainy; the selfish and greedy and damaged. It makes for great characterisation and some beautiful storytelling; some complex and pitiable characters. And, yes, a few absolute bastards too. Let’s tut disapprovingly.

Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty, Toy Story 3, 2010): a superb performance from Beatty as a seemingly nice, jovial old bear who’s really a manipulative, power-hungry, gaslighting bully. Realistically portrayed as damaged and bitter, he has a tragic backstory that feels real, and a sense of pain and loss that feels earned in this universe. Questions the nature of everything the movies are about, and is a genuine threat in more ways than one. Plus he literally leaves them all to die in the furnace!

Syndrome (Jason Lee, The Incredibles, 2004): Buddy Pine’s backstory is one of belittlement and rejection, so his switch to villainy is as well explored as many a comic book bad guy. But he’s interesting partly in what his character says about Mr. Incredible – in a way justifying the criticisms of superheroes, as Mr. I does ignore the admittedly-annoying Buddy rather than mentoring or respecting him – but also because he prefigures notions of toxic masculinity about a decade or so before they became, well, a threat to global democracy.

Al (Wayne Knight, Toy Story 2, 1999): Like how Lots-o can be seen as a dark examination of toy life (all toys are replaceable, kids don’t really love you, etc), Al also shows us another dark facet of toy-dom: namely the life of a “collectable”. Toys, in this world, want to be played with, preferably by children, so a big ol’ man-child who stores them in boxes or puts them on display is not ideal. It’s an inversion of what a toy is for; an object of joy reduced to a commodity. Is it entertainment versus art? Who can say? Also, he’s really just a massive jerk and a huge slob, so we feel no pity for him once he gets his comeuppance at the end of the film.

Sid Phillips (Erik von Detten, Toy Story, 1995): man, they nailed the Toy Story villains, didn’t they? Maybe there’s even more to come! But right out of the gate, Sid was a classic. An utter sadist in a skull t-shirt, torturing toys for kicks; adults can see the traits of a genuine sociopath (some serial killers start by torturing animals, remember!), and he’s portrayed like a character in a horror movie. Seriously, in 1995, Sid’s room was legitimately disturbing. I’m not sure what moral lessons his actions teach us, but just as a pure article of terror, he’s supreme.

Hopper (Kevin Spacey, A Bug’s Life, 1998): it feels a bit weird, if I’m honest, to celebrate a Spacey performance. But as a character, Hopper is excellent, one of the best things about the generally-overlooked-but-still-a-bit-lesser-Pixar Bug’s Life. Riffing on biker gangs, Hopper’s locust swarm in, revving their wings. Hopper’s a classic tough guy thug, dominating through violence and threat; a creature with a small amount of power determined to hold onto it, and ultimately eaten by a terrifying bird. Just don’t look at the cast list.

Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt, Coco, 2017): after the horror of Sid and the thuggery of Hopper, de la Cruz is a different, more insidious villain. He’s a thief and a betrayer who exploited and murdered his best friend, condemning him not just to death but to a forgotten obsolescence in the afterlife. He’s a perfect example of the gaslighting, friendly-seeming bad guy, more in the mould of Lots-o, but with the world on his side and a sweet guitar. Genuinely hissable.

Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammar, Toy Story 2, 1999): what, more Toy Story? Well, yeah. Don’t blame me, blame Pixar. And so Stinky Pete; a far more relatable and understandable villain, one driven to desperation through a lifetime of rejection and broken promises. Unlike the Machiavellian, power-hungry Lots-o, Pete just wants everyone to retire quietly together; he can’t accept the risks of freedom and only becomes sneaky and, indeed, violent after all else fails. But he does kinda get a happy ending, even if he doesn’t realise it; this is a villain who I feel could eventually be redeemed.

Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi, Monsters, Inc., 2001): Waternoose is the real baddy in Monsters, Inc., of course; a conniving capitalist who’s prepared to sacrifice the world’s children to keep his monopoly. But it’s Randy who sticks in the mind; his selfish, vain lackey, a monster with a huge chip on his shoulder. His design – lizard-like, snake-ish, with a huge mouth and invisibility – is seriously disturbing. Hearing Buscemi’s voice come from that form – an aggravated teacher, a furious accountant – adds something special, something darkly hilarious.

Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener, Incredibles 2, 2018): visually and conceptually, The Screenslaver (great name) is pretty cool, but when it’s revealed that the Big Bad is really under-appreciated tech genius Evelyn, that’s a great twist. A smart woman propping up her schmoozing brother, her criticisms of the heroes – like Buddy Pine’s – have resonance, although she’s learning the wrong lessons from tragedy. Her relationship with Elastigirl, from friendship to enmity, is very well-written and performed, and her belligerence at the end is a nice touch, denying the heroes of any catharsis from her capture.

Shelby Forthright (Fred Willard, WALL-E, 2008): I was originally going to feature the autopilot, but then I figured, if you can get Fred Willard in your list… and really, who’s the big villain here? It’s us, right? We killed the Earth. But Willard’s smiling, happy CEO is there, encouraging his customers to buy, promising them safety and security, promising them a repaired world… but really he’s shovelling them off the planet, secretly commanding the computer to take humanity far away and never look back. It’s a devious, horrible plan, giving the people unending luxury, making them want for nothing, turning them into fab, soporific blobs, basically because that’s easier than the alternative. It’s a horrible indictment of humanity (also: he’s the CEO of a company, but also – it looks like – that makes him rule the world? Creepy). So, yeah, the autopilot might be a baddun, but it’s the man in charge who’s the real villain of the piece, even hundreds of years later.

Sadly no room for John Lasseter, who may not have tried to enslave humanity or torture children, but still managed to be a huge jerk and a phenomenal disappointment.

#top ten #pixar #disney #villains #pixar villain #bad guy #movies #animation #toy story #incredibles #wall-e #monsters inc

[boyswhocry]

Haikyuu Spotify Habits | Karasuno Pt. 1

The First Years! Hinata, Kageyama, Yamaguchi, Tsukishima & Yachi

Favourite Songs: 

Walking on Clouds - Esthie

Haircut - Ryan Beatty

Antidote - Orion Sun

Slow Down - Taichi Mukai

Favourite Genres:

Bedroom Pop

J-Pop

Habits:

listens to music recommended by EVERYONE he meets

follows everyone’s spotify’s but no one follows him back except for Suga and Akaashi #bestmoms 

publicly saves other people's playlists but prefers to listen to his own MASSIVE collection of liked songs rather than making a playlist

however, has one really popular playlist for his favourite favourite favourite songs, but it’s only popular bc people thought his playlist was dedicated to hinata hyuga T^T

has a playlist strictly for non-explicit songs so that Natsu and him could listen to it without getting yelled at by Mama Hinata UwU

he himself doesn’t like listening to super explicit songs, but it’s too common to avoid - he’s BABY

usually listens to music on his way to school while riding his bike

he remembers the melodies of songs really well but never remembers the lyrics, so he’ll make it up on the spot and improv a whole concert

listens to nothing but different variations and covers of All I Want For Christmas Is You as soon as november and december roll around

his favourite user is Akaashi!

My Favourite Playlist About Them: hinata. by hebees_

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5p33ROYi22Xf3KwOxiqTZ7?si=3vk2qT6NQ1GH9qxVyy9v4w

Favourite Songs:

My Favourite Part - Mac Miller ft. Ariana Grande

Yah. - Kendrick Lamar

The Kids Aren’t Alright - Fall Out Boy

Obsession - EXO

Favourite Genres:

Chill Hip-Hop

Alternative/Indie

Ariana Grande

Habits:

kinda hooked on ariana grande after listening to ‘7 Rings’ and feeling like a bad bitch

prefers to listen to instrumentals and nature noises to focus on training and keeping calm when he’s practicing volleyball at home

has a dedicated playlist full of chill hip-hop when he’s manicuring his nails 

uses the most boring and generic playlist names and never changes his playlist covers ;-;

“nails songs“

“running songs“

“volleyball songs“

utilitarian spotify user rather than one who uses it for fun

suffers through ads cuz he doesn’t have premium 

his favourite user is Iwaizumi!

My Favourite Playlist About Them: stealing milk from vending machines with kageyama tobio by tsxukei

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Xey47Wm43Ufq8Y9kFeQvO?si=LWOB9nDqQs-Tr4aYFJS12Q

Favourite Songs:

Put Your Records On - Ritt Momney

Sunflower - Post Malone ft. Swae Lee

Save Me - BTS

You Know How We Do It - Ice Cube

Favourite Genres:

Alternative/Indie

Whatever Tsukki listens to

Habits:

literally will follow all of Tsukki’s playlists, critique them without a HINT of negative comments, write about ‘em his personal journal, take a shit to ‘em

likes to listen to anime soundtracks whenever he finishes watching one

his favourite OSTs are from tokyo ghoul cuz it gives him anxiety and is a closeted masochist : )

no but seriously he’s trying to listen to more anxiety inducing songs so that he could get over his nerves with exposure therapy, someone give his bb a hug ;-;

publicly follows Tsukki’s playlists, but also makes super aesthetic playlists based on his moods

his favourite user is TSUKISHIMA!

My Favourite Playlist About Them: lord and savior, punk yamaguchi by Paige

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0lM5Bjnw3atBoN041DBK2x?si=Xt30Otb0TDONygKB2t0iyw

Favourite Songs:

Moondance - ADOY

Put Your Head On My Shoulder - Pauk Anka

The Hills - The Weeknd 

Slim Shady - Eminem

Favourite Genres:

Old Skool Hip-Hop

RnB

LoFi

Habits:

ofc out lil salty boi would be listening to Eminem 

a man of many tastes 

listens to classical music every now and then but it’s only when he wants to release steam by fuggin’ JAMMIN to chaotic piano music

has a playlist for new songs that he keeps interchanging whenever he gets tired of the old ones

doesn’t even try but has hundreds of followers

A++ in music curation, he carefully thinks them out to create out of body listening experiences whenever you listen to any of his playlists

playlist covers and titles are based off of different extinct creatures 

has a study playlist with lofi and instrumental songs from documentaries that he’s watched

has a secret playlist that he listens to incognito so that no one knows that he’s a mushy little lover boi on the inside 

his favourite user is Kenma!

My Favourite Playlist About Them: tsukishima’s headphones by april<3

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1vO8OVraTdfDMeAxOgDVeI?si=kH1rlUekRF-Dxk8iBVEf7w

Favourite Songs:

Sofia - Clairo

Fireflies - Owl City

midnight love - girl in red

Fantasy - Fei

Favourite Genres:

Pop

K-Pop

LoFi

Habits:

has the MOST aesthetic playlists names and covers out of ALL of karasuno, absolutely no one could even come near her level of artistry, the closest being Suga

changes her aesthetics based off of the season

secretly follows Tendo’s crackhead playlist filled w inappropriate songs  o.O

only listens to it when she’s tired of listening to songs that makes sense

also has a broad range in terms of music taste and is constantly listening to new music, especially when she’s doing her hw and starts jammin’ to some bops

she’s part of the beehive

has a joint premium account w Yamaguchi

makes playlists for all of her closest friends, including her neighbours cat who is very cuddly and loves her UwU

cried listening to the Stevens Universe sound track - she’s so BABY T^T

her favourite user is Sugawara!

My Favourite Playlist About Them: yachi hitoka by alyssa 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2F0okvUsF6pHJ6LB7c5fwv?si=-nW7r6AcQ0K64CWTW7jPMg

#hinata #hinata shouyo #hinata shoyo #kageyama #kageyama tobio #hq yamaguchi #yamaguchi #yamaguchi tadashi #hq hinata #hq kageyama #shoyo #tobio #tadashi #hq tsukishima #tsukishima #tsukishima kei #kei #hq yachi #yachi #hitoka #yachi hitoka #spotify #headcanons #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #haikyuu headcanons #hinata headcanons #kageyama headcanons #yamaguchi headcanons #tsukishima headcanons

[bookandcranny]

Stone Heart Gambit

Part 1 - Chapter 1

Soso likes her town, but she’s starting to think she’s never going to find a single interesting thing about it. There’s a supermarket, a park, a few family-owned shops and eateries that haven’t yet succumbed to the pressure put on them by the encroaching chain franchises. Pretty standard small-town fair, not unlike the one she grew up in.

Therein lies the problem. She’d been so excited to leave home for the first time all those semesters ago that she hadn’t considered that change doesn’t always equal improvement, and putting a hundred miles of distance between her and her old problems didn’t guarantee her a perfect new life. She doesn’t particularly miss living with her parents, rather she finds herself feeling homesick for a place she doesn’t think she’s found yet. There’s a restlessness in her-- her mom claims she gets it from her dad, and vice versa. It’s plagued her in small ways all her life, in the way she finds new friendships but struggles to make them last, in the way she throws herself into new passions only to grow bored of them within weeks, in the way college had seemed so thrilling and full of promise when she was a bright-eyed freshman and now here she is, on indefinite academic leave, struggling to remember what it was she saw in the place that was worth a lifetime of student loans.

She only has so long to figure it out too. She wants to finish her degree, she does, but art requires inspiration and there’s only so much to photograph in a town whose main export is cow shit and stale gossip. If she changes her major again at this point her advisor is for real going to mount her head on a pike outside the bursar’s office, so she has to at least try.

It doesn’t help that she’s pretty much limited to the immediate vicinity surrounding her housing co-op until she either manages to get herself a car or the bus drivers union wins their latest standoff with city hall. Cars cost money though, which means getting a real fulltime job, which she expects will spell the end for any lingering chance of her going back to school anyway. The snake devours its tail, and Soso commutes by bike.

Soso’s handy; she’s confident she can fix anything given enough time, the right tools, and a couple reliable video tutorials. That, among other odd jobs, is her main preoccupation right now. It’s something, but she can’t picture herself changing tires and cleaning out gutters for elderly neighbors to support her Chinese takeout dependency forever. At the rate she’s going, her best customers are going to start dying off before she graduates.

On that morbid note, Soso decides she needs to get out of the house. She slings her bag over her back just in case she manages to run into something photo-worthy and grabs her bike. It’s a brisk autumn afternoon and the fresh air is just what she needs.

On the way out she runs into one of her housemates, Carmen the highly caffeinated, returning from campus looking frazzled. Soso isn’t particularly close with any of her housemates, frequently as they tend to come and go, but that doesn’t stop her from offering her sympathies.

“Any luck with the research?”

Carmen groans. “My paper is doomed. Remind me why I thought ‘modern impact of classical mythology’ was a good choice for my level 300 history course?”

“Uh, beats me.” In reality she thinks it sounds like a fun subject, but it doesn’t feel her place to say so given that while Carmen’s been slaving away at the school library, she’s spent the better of her day half-watching questionable documentaries on alien conspiracies.

“Ensfield is full of weird old superstitions and legends,” she goes on frustratedly. “The old bridge makes it on one of those ‘top 10 spooky locations’ lists like once a month. Complain about a cough to the wrong person and suddenly you get people telling you you’re hexed and you need to walk in a circle counter-clockwise under the new moon to get rid of it.”

She’s pretty sure that’s not a thing, but nods anyway, waiting for the point she hopes is coming.

“You’d think the library in a town like this would have better sources on mythology. But no, all I get is a shrug and the same three books everyone else in the class is using. If I want to bump up my GPA, I need something you can’t just find on Wikipedia.”

Another one of their housemates crawls out from the shrubbery by the porch. “Maybe you should try that other library.”

“Jesus!” Carmen jumps. “What are you doing down there?”

Phoebe brushes dirt off her knees. “I saw a black cat go into the gap.” She points at a thin crack in the woodwork. “Halloween is coming. Any cats, especially black ones, you see wandering around need to be brought to the shelter pronto. People do terrible things to them if they see them wandering around this time of year.”

Soso squints. “Looks too small to fit a cat.”

“I saw what I saw. Anyway, there’s supposed to be an old town library way past the woods, thataway.” She points. “Guy who works there is really weird I heard but almost no one goes there anymore so you’d have first pick.”

Carmen looks thoughtful. “I think I’ve heard of it. I kind of thought it was just something people made up.”

“Nah, it’s real. My brother’s fraternity brings freshman there to haze them. They tell them to go up and throw eggs at the place and then ditch ‘em in the woods.”

Soso blinks. “Why?”

She shrugs. “It’s just a thing they do. It sucks and it’s totally immature but no one ever accused those guys of being creative.”

“Whatever,” Carmen says. “I’m done with books for today. I’m gonna go inside and enjoy some nice brain-rotting TV.”

“Good call, honestly. If you get caught hanging around that place too much they’ll probably start egging us next.”

Carmen heads inside and Phoebe goes back to making little coaxing noises at the gap in the porch. Soso frowns to herself. Sometimes she feels like people in this town purposely go out of their way to ruin anything that could be the slightest bit different. It’s probably just a normal library that happened to be in a weird spot, run by a typical cranky old librarian. Even if it is nothing it probably has more to offer than spending the rest of her day throwing french-fries to birds and squirrels in the Burger Beast parking lot.

“Hey Phoebe,” she says. “Where did you say that library was?”

 --

 The trip is longer than she had anticipated. Her legs are strong but the sun’s getting low enough that she worries she’ll be riding home in the dark. A generous part of it she blames on Phoebe’s vague directions, scribbled into a patchwork paper map of hear-say more than anything else. Despite this she continues. She’s snapped a few pictures of the foliage in its brilliant reds and golds, so if all else is a bust at least she won’t have completely wasted her time. Worst case scenario, she returns home with a little extra muscle on her calves from all the pedaling.

Well, the real worst case scenario is probably more along the lines of her getting caught by an axe murderer and left to rot in the spooky woods, another ghost for the local repertoire. Even then, at least she won’t have to worry about the next family phone call if she’s dead.

Grim musings aside, she loops back and manages to find the correct path, a trampled dirt road half-hidden under the leaf litter, and at last make her way to the fabled “other library”. It’s one of those old brick buildings, surrounded by a low fence that struggles to hold its own against the climbing vines and insects nibbling at its posts. It’s early enough in the season that their collective buzz-chirp-hum still fills the air, though otherwise it is almost eerily quiet. It’s strangely peaceful, Soso thinks as she wades through wild patches of tall grass, as if she were returning to somewhere familiar.

The place is clearly abandoned, she decides, sunlight refracting off the firmly shuttered windows. It’s a cool discovery to be sure, but she ought to have known a mysterious library in the woods with an equally mysterious shut-in tending it was too much to expect from a town like Ensfield. That doesn’t stop her from exploring though. She likes it here, and she especially likes the gorgeous, ancient-looking gargoyle that sits in front of the steps leading up to the entrance, like one of those stone lions that stand guard outside of libraries of greater fame than this one.

The thing is magnificent, as well as truly hideous, its face twisted in a snarl so visceral and strikingly lifelike that it sends a genuine chill down her spine. The attention to detail, to carving out each individual wrinkle of flesh, is astounding. The stance the stone creature is frozen in comes off much more threatening than the regal intensity she might have expected, and it seems to her a counterintuitive choice of décor, but one the artist in her wholeheartedly approves of.

Propping her bike up against the stairs she crouches in the shadow of the gargoyle to get a better look. Organic shapes like vines encircle the beast, so lifelike that feels compelled to touch, as if they might fall away under her fingertips. Just as she reaches out however, the front doors of the library swing open and a stout, middle-aged man rushes out.

“Don’t- who- don’t touch that! It’s- it’s not-“ he stammers. “It’s an antique. Very breakable.”

The man is well-dressed, but his head of yellow hair is mussed to one side, like he’s just woken from a nap, enforced by the wrinkles he anxiously tries to smooth out of his vest. His eyes are a shocking shade of spring green.

“Sorry?” Soso offers, still recovering from the fright. She pulls her hand back guiltily and he seems to relax. How fragile could something made of stone be, she wonders, that he would work himself up into such a state over it. “Uh, is this the library?”

The man finishes straightening himself out before he responds. “That’s what you’re here for? Books?”

“What else?” she asks. His eyes remain narrow with scrutiny, so she adds, “Books on mythology. It’s for a school project. I heard… I am in the right place, right?”

There’s a copper plaque by the door that reads “North Ensfield Public Library”, but at this point she’d be as willing to accept that she wandered into a random person’s front yard, for how he looks at her. After another awkward pause, the man turns back towards the entrance and gestures for her to follow.

“Sorry about that. I don’t see many regular patrons anymore, not for a while now. Pardon the mess.” He speaks quickly, not leaving any room for interruption.

There isn’t much mess to pardon, not really. In fact, the shelves look well organized, if a bit dusty, and the space isn’t as cramped or cluttered as she had expected from the outside. A certain saying about books and covers comes to mind, but she doesn’t think her host would appreciate the joke. It’s no wonder he doesn’t see many people if he acts this way with everyone. Soso bumps into a table and nearly upsets what seems to be a pyramid assembled from various glasses, topped with an upside-down teapot.

“Do you live here?” she asks before she can curtail her curiosity.

“I’m a librarian,” he answers. “This is a library.”

“Right, but that doesn’t…” she fumbles.

“Do Canadians not live in Canada? Do Norwegians not live in Norway?”

“Vegetarians don’t live in vegetables,” she counters.

He considers that. “Well-played.”

Soso laughs despite herself and, to her surprise, things seem to go more smoothly after that. She continues speaking with the librarian and learns that his name is Surehouser, though if there’s a first name attached to that one, she doesn’t catch it. He’s certainly as eccentric as the rumors had led her to believe, but he seems harmless, and quite frankly more than a little lonesome. She doesn’t know how a person could be anything else, living like this.

He’s not friendly or unfriendly; his words have a measured quality to them, as if he’s afraid of saying too much. Soso gets the impression, as the sole carer for this seemingly ancient place, his occupation is more out of a sense of obligation than a passion for literature. He looks the part of the academic for sure, down to the silver that threads through his hair and the half-moon reading glasses folded in the front of his shirt, but his eyes track her as she browses like he doesn’t know what to do with someone who actually wants to check out a book.

“Do you have an idea of what you’re looking for?” he asks after she’s been at it for a while.

She doesn’t want to admit that not only is she not sure, since it’s not really her class she needs it for, but that whatever organizational system is in place here is totally incomprehensible to her. “Anything you have should be good.”

Which is how she ends up checking out way more than she meant to, sending up a tiny prayer that her comparatively tiny backpack can rise to the occasion. Surehouser gives her a look like he knows what’s going through her head as he leads her to the front desk. There’s no computer in sight, just a leatherbound book of names and dates and a thick rubber stamp.

“On my way out, would you mind if I took some pictures of that statue you have out front? For my project.” She adds that last part as an afterthought, then regrets it right away. She’s a notoriously terrible liar and the more she enforces the threads of this pointless story she’s weaving, the more awkward she feels.

He frowns and says, more to himself than to her, “I always thought that old thing was a bit gaudy myself. I’d have gotten rid of it ages ago if I could.”

Something about the way he says it strikes her as strange. Not knowing how to respond, she simply says, “I don’t know, I think it’s cool.”

He laughs. Or, she thinks that’s what it is. The sound is gentle but rusty at the edges. “I suppose you would. Feel free to do whatever you want, only do not touch it, and be careful.”

She walks down the stone steps, her haul unexpectedly light on her back, and pauses to look at the gargoyle once more. The light isn’t any good right now, but she’ll be back.

“See you later,” she tells it.

Sure enough, the next day she’s back. She hadn’t actually planned to be such a regular, but she’d been unable to keep the place from her mind, and it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. Carmen had looked about to cry when Soso showed her the books she’d picked out. The ones she didn’t need for her paper, Soso decided to flip through herself and had found herself more invested than she’d counted on. The book on obscure pagan deities she’d selected, though dense and confusing in places, was particularly interesting. Before she knew it, she was finished, and thus had the perfect excuse to go back.

“This guy kinda looks like you, don’t you think?” She holds the page open so that the gargoyle could “see” it. Despite arriving at noon on a Wednesday, the library seems to be truly closed today and no amount of knocking had managed to change its mind. Since she’d already come all this way, she figured she might as well find some other way to entertain herself before heading home.

“The horns are all wrong, but the general look is there. He could be, like, your second cousin,” she tells the statue.

The statue doesn’t respond, obviously, but Soso likes talking to it regardless. She adjusts her position so she can keep reading while keeping the book within its line of sight. When it’s time to leave, she turns to it and says,

“Keep an eye on that guy who runs the place for me. He’s weird, and should really keep more regular hours, but he’s nice, and I think being alone out here is making him a little…” She makes a spiraling motion with her finger. “Guess I’m not one to talk though. I’m chatting with a hunk of rock.”

She doesn’t stop though. Maybe it’s the boredom, maybe it’s something just fundamentally Soso, but whatever the reason, she keeps coming back. Partially for the library, yes, and for the company of the strange librarian that dwells within, but primarily to have a quiet place to vent her frustrations and speak her mind, where often the only one around to judge is one who’s incapable of talking back.

Surehouser is an acquired taste, and they don’t have much in common, but he never turns Soso away on the days when her visits magically coincide with the hours of operation. He always seems to have snacks on hand and is content to let the young woman ramble on about whatever latest subject has caught her interest, which as much as she could ask of anyone really. He still speaks frustratingly little of himself, but she believes she’ll get it out of him eventually.

She’s moved from taking pictures around the library to breaking out her old sketchbook, sitting on the steps and muttering to the empty air as she tries to map the contours of the stone body before her. She’s always been visually minded, for whatever good it does her.

“My mom keeps calling and asking if I want to come home for the holidays,” she complains, holding her knees to her chest. “And I know that’s months away but if I say yes that means having to see my family in person while they interrogate me about my future. I’m not even sure I have a future.”

She paces around for a minute to work out some pins and needles and brushes back her hair where it’s been falling in her face. Feeling playful, she imagines she can feel the gargoyle’s gaze watching her.

“Oh this? Yeah, I did get a haircut, thank you for noticing. Just a couple inches off the bottom but I think it’s nice.”

She tosses her head. Nestled among her dark hair, a tip of pointed ear pokes out and she worries idly at the cartilage like she used to do when she was younger.

“You noticed that too, huh. I was born with this itty bity point to my ears. They used to stick out when I was a kid. I was kinda self-conscious about it, actually. I dreaded whenever we had a course in school about fairytales because the kids in my class would call me an elf. I started making my mom do my hair so that they were hidden and just, never grew out of the habit I guess.”

The gargoyle is without comment. She smiles.

“I knew you’d understand, dude. Us freaks have to stick together.”

The following week is a flurry of last-minute Halloween preparations. Soso herself hadn’t been planning to dress up, not having anywhere to be other than planted firmly on the couch in front of a horror B-movie marathon, but the other girls insist they decorate, as there’d been whispers in their neighborhood of pranks planned on those deemed not festive enough. According to Carmen, who had become the resident expert on local tradition since she aced her last history test, the custom of shunning those who didn’t partake was almost as firmly rooted as the decorating itself. It stemmed from a belief from ye olden days that the festivities helped to fend off ghosts and goblins and the meddling of the fae on the day when the border between their worlds was the thinnest.

“Wait, do ghosts come from the same place as fae, or do they just, like, carpool here?”

She snorts. “It depends who you ask, but a lot of people around here believe that anything that’s magical or ‘otherworldly’ in origin is technically ‘fae’. Ensfield has a whole history of convoluted fae-based superstitions. Did you know some people still leave out bowls of fresh milk for house spirits?”

“House spirits?”

“Like, brownies.”

Soso nods. “I love having milk with brownies.”

Phoebe pipes up from the kitchen. “I had a girlfriend in high school who left out offerings when she was doing her SATs.”

“Did it help?” Carmen asks. “I’ll try anything.”

Soso is no skeptic, but she’s more inclined to believe that leaving food out overnight will attract more mice than faerie blessings. The sentiment is nice, but it’s hard for her to take comfort in fairytales without remembering her childhood teasing. How much worse could it have been if it had been more than just a joke, if her ears and her daydreaming demeanor were enough to get her labeled as an outsider for life, rather than just for the span of third grade.

“Are you doing anything special for Halloween, Soso?” Carmen asks.

“You mean like leaving out bowls of milk?”

She laughs. “No, like going to a party. You can come with me to Katy’s if you want. It’ll be lowkey.”

Carmen has been making more of an effort to get to know her since she got her those books for her paper, but while Soso appreciates the thought, being a plus-one at a stranger’s party where everyone knows each other from the classes she’s still not attending doesn’t sound like her idea of a good time.

“No thanks. Someone’s gotta stay and hand out candy to the trick or treaters, right?”

“Good point. Did you pick up candy?”

“Not yet, but I’ll do it.”

“Just don’t put it off until the night of.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

That is exactly what happened. October 31st finds Soso standing in line with a back of candy under each arm. Their neighborhood isn’t exactly kid-heavy, but better safe than TP’d she figures. She’s nearing the register when a pair of college-age boys stumble in, looking conspicuously red around the whites of their eyes. She sighs inwardly as they wander around, talking just a bit too loud for comfort, and does her best to ignore them even as they get in line behind her. Looking out of the corner of her eye, she notices that there is nothing in their baskets except a two-liter bottle of off-brand soda, a box of marshmallow snackcakes, and about four cartons of eggs, each.

It almost doesn’t click for her until she remembers what Phoebe said about the frat bros and their hazing. That paired with it being a night notorious for pranks by idiot teens is enough to get her nervous. After making her purchase she lingers outside the store for a moment and watches as the boys climb into a car and drive away in the direction of the woods.

It might still be a coincidence, they might be heading to some other destination that just so happens to be in that direction as well, but the image of some stupid stoners invading her sanctuary makes her hackles raise all the same. She starts pedaling after them, following just far enough behind so as not to be spotted in the swiftly fading light.

#fantasy #writeblr #original fiction #my writing #project: stone heart gambit

[mymelodyheart]

Forget Me Not Chapter 2 ~Homeward Bound~

“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”

2015

He cocked his head to listen if anyone was in the corridor. Satisfied nobody was about, he cautiously snuck into Claire's old bedroom and shut the door firmly behind him. After carefully placing a vase of forget-me-not flowers on the desk, Jamie noticed not much had changed in her room since she left Lallybroch. On one wall was a massive poster of the world map, on the wooden beam above, hung an assortment of dreamcatchers, and on her bed was a collection of stuff toys he had given her over the years. After a brief glance at the bookshelves filled with classic literature and travel books, his eyes wandered to her dressing table. Slotted in the frames of the mirror were a collection of photos, and they were mostly of him, William and Jenny. He smiled as he peeked at each snapshot, conjuring memories from their childhood. He wished he had a more recent photo of her, but that was one thing Claire never granted him as she was never keen to have her picture taken. Although she was active on social media, most of her posts were images of places she had visited, wildlife, food and the odd time her feet, to show off her new trekking shoes.

Over the years, he thought of her often even in times when he was in relationships. How could he stop thinking of her when Claire would faithfully send postcards, cards during special occasions and made-up occasions, and also ridiculous souvenirs that served no purpose except to clutter his apartment. But he kept every damn thing she had ever sent him. In return, he would send her favourite hardback books with forget-me-not flowers pressed into the pages and occasionally a bottle of single malt whisky so she wouldn't miss home too much. 

Every Christmas and a couple of weeks in summer, Claire would come to visit Lallybroch, but Jamie was never there to see her, for the most part, because those times were his busiest at work in France. And whenever he came home, either she was studying in Switzerland, or she was on some adventure with her backpack in some faraway places. Once, only once they had an opportunity to meet in London airport for their connecting flights when she was bound for Scotland, and he was returning to France. Even that chance meeting went awry when Jamie's flight was delayed departing Edinburgh. But today she was coming home, and it would be the first time they will see each other in six years. This time she was staying for good and so was he. 

..........

"God ah hate regional trains! Are we nearly there yet?" Geillis muttered as she slumped on her seat and stretched her legs in front of her. They have been travelling on the train from London for four hours already. "Remind me again why we took the train instead of flying."

Claire closed her book and sighed at her friend. "If we had booked a flight, we would have had to wait for two more days, and I can't wait that long. All the cheap flights were fully booked, and I wasn't prepared to pay a few extra hundred pounds to fly from city to city. I know how you're feeling, Geillis... I can hardly wait to get there myself. I'm even finding it hard to concentrate on reading, thinking of seeing my family again. God, I've missed them." Looking at her watch, she smiled. "Not long to go now... an hour and a half... more or less." 

In actual fact, she had been thinking of Frank for the most part of the journey, and the thought of him made her stomach do somersaults. Claire had seen him the summer before when she came to visit Lallybroch, and she couldn't forget the appreciative look he had given her way when they met at the local pub. He seemed surprised as if he was seeing her for the very first time. And if her instinct is anything to go by, Claire believed Frank loved what he saw.

"What's with the secret smile, Claire? Is it Frank?" Geillis cheeks dimpled as her lips curled into a puckish smile.

Claire grinned. "You know me too well. Yes, alright yes I've been thinking about him, but I'm also thrilled to be seeing my family again, especially Jamie...I haven't seen him for years. God, I've missed him." She paused as she summoned memories from the past before continuing. "Just between the two of us, Jamie is my favourite out of the three siblings. I love them all, but Jamie is the best. Maybe because we're closest in age and we get along so well. As for Jenny, she used to fuss over me a lot, and when I got older, it became annoying. Well, Willie is great too, but he was always so grown up. He rarely played with me when I was little, but in my teens, he spent more time with me when ma and da were busy in the hotel. On weekends he used to take Jamie and me to movies and such, while Jenny was more interested in staying at home and pottering about. "

Thinking back to her childhood memories, the Fraser family was the greatest gift her uncle Lamb had ever given her. Although Claire felt like an outsider in her school and was often taunted for being English, the love her foster family had for her outweighed the heartaches. Her happiest memories were within Lallybroch and days spent with the Frasers. Even though she lost her parents at such a young age and then later, her uncle Lamb, in her heart and in her mind, despite what her schoolmates made her feel, she was never an orphan.

"Here, hand me yer IPad. Ah want tae see pictures of your folk again, sae ah ken who is who."

Claire shifted seats next to Geillis, and opening her IPad, she tapped into the gallery icon. After a few swipes on the screen, she found what she was looking for. "This one here is the last photo of all of us together under one roof. This was taken before Jamie went to a culinary college in France. I was sixteen here. Willie here was on holiday from his training as a chef in Italy. And Jenny, she's the only one who stayed at home. She never had any interest in the hotel, restaurant or further studies. Though she did go to University in Edinburgh to study Business Management. Da said she was born to be a housewife because she loved running the household and cooking." 

"So you're the youngest? You look sae different in this photo...maybe it's the glasses ye were wearing and your hair was shorter."

"Yes, I'm the youngest. Jamie is now 25, Jenny 28 and Willie is 30. I was the baby then and was spoiled rotten when I first came to Lallybroch. Yea, I got rid of the specs after ma convinced me to wear contact lenses because I kept losing them or breaking them. As for my hair, I realised the curls aren't as wild if I kept my hair longer. I hated my hair back then and wished I had Jenny's straight hair. " Claire swiped past more pictures to a more recent one. "This one is from last year, just the Fraser kids."

"Holy mammy of God, are these Jamie an' Willie? They're sae tall an' Jenny is sae wee. Mmm such good looking lads if ah may say sae."

Claire laughed. "I don't know why Jenny is so small. Everyone else in the family is tall, even ma. Jenny and Willie take more after da with their dark hair and blue eyes. As you can see here, Jamie looks more like ma... he's ginger just like you, but he does have his father's eyes."

"Mmm...Jamie looks scrumptious, and he's more buff than Willie. Is he single? You wouldna mind if ah tried tae angle for a date? Unless of course, ye want him for yersel'"

"Don't be daft! He's my brother...and if he falls for you and ends up marrying you, it's like we're going to be sisters. Now wouldn't that be fab? And yes, he's definitely single. He broke up with his French girlfriend a few months back. He never really liked to discuss his relationships with me, and all I know is that he reckons Frenchie wasn't the right girl for him."

Claire loved Jamie with all her heart, and she had time and again reminded him that he will always be her best friend. He had consistently made her feel special, especially on the night when Frank cancelled their dance date when she was fifteen. He had planned to go with his friends after the dance, but instead, he went with her and Willie, stopping by a gas station to buy a tub of her favourite vanilla ice cream. When they arrived home, they both tucked into their treat sitting on the outside balcony, wrapped in a blanket and looking at the stars. Claire always loved looking at the stars, and she thought it was the most beautiful thing. Then she remembered him saying to her softly as he fed her a spoon of ice cream, "Next time you think of beautiful things, don't forget to count yourself in." 

"So does Jamie have a type?" Geillis asked as she enlarged a photo of Jamie on Claire's IPad.

"Funny you ask that. He always told me he prefers brunettes, but his past two girlfriends were blondes. Blokes are funny that way, aren't they? They say one thing and do another, and yet Jamie always told me women are the most complicated creatures. Tsk, men!"

Geillis closed the IPad and handed it back to Claire. "Weel 'tis braw tae be back in Scotland an' I'm sae glad ah will be workin' wi' ye and yer family. How is yer da tae work for?" Geillis asked, straightening up from her seat to rummage for some snacks in her satchel.

"Oh, da is great, you will love him. I spent summer as a kid doing odd jobs at the hotel...helping in the kitchen, in housekeeping and such. I enjoyed it so much that I proceeded to study Hotel Management instead of nursing."

Claire and Geillis met while fulfilling their apprenticeship in a five-star hotel in Munich, Germany. Once their training came to an end, Geillis had planned to apply for a job in New York hoping Claire would follow suit. But Claire declined as she had promised Brian, her foster father, she would come back to work for Fraser Manor Inn once her studies and training were over. As Geillis was intrigued by the Frasers' hotel and wanted to be closer to her friend, instead of going to New York, she applied for the Front Office position with the help and recommendation from Claire, which Brian Fraser accepted.

Jamie and Willie have returned home to Lallybroch a few months back to help with the preparations for the Grand Opening after the hotel went through a major restoration. It was a pact they all made that they would one day return home to work for the family business. Claire had, at first, wanted to travel to Mexico after her apprenticeship had ended. But since the Grand Opening of the hotel is imminent, she decided to come home earlier than planned.

Fraser Manor Inn, having only thirty rooms, is not by any standard grand but more traditional of the Highlands. The pièce de résistance  of the hotel was the restaurant, and the food was very sought after for its exceptionally high standard in taste, presentation and creativity, promoting Scottish fresh and local produce. The head chef Murtagh Fraser, god-father to all Fraser children had earned the restaurant a Michelin three stars; hence, his cantankerous manner was put up by Brian and Ellen. Working alongside Murtagh in the kitchen would be the Fraser boys; William as the Sous-Chef and Jamie as Chef de Pâtissier.

"Weel, I'll give it a go for a year, and I hope yer da will give me a fantastic certificate tae add tae my resume. When does the hotel re-open?"

"Hopefully before Christmas. So you'll have plenty of time to familiarise yourself with the locals and local delights. Da says you can stay in Lallybroch until you find your own place. Otherwise, he has a couple of apartments for rent...normally he rents them out to staff. It's supposed to be for one of us in case we tire of living in Lallybroch."

"Oh good, plenty of time to get to know the local boys before we start work. Or let's say, plenty of time to get to know yer brothers, " Geillis said, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

..........

Jamie and Willie were standing on the platform, waiting for the train to come to a halt and for Jamie, it seemed to take eternally before the screeching and clunking on the beaten old track ceased. The air felt nippy, and although it was only mid-afternoon, it was quickly turning dark. It was a perfect homecoming for Claire, Jamie thought, as autumn was her favourite season. He smiled to himself as he thought of Jenny and his mother preparing Claire's favourite meal of Beef Wellington, thick gravy, roast potatoes and vegetables. Willie had offered to cook, suggesting a more elegant dish, but the Fraser women had shooed him away. Earlier in the day, while nobody was in, Jamie snuck in the kitchen and made Claire's favourite dessert of Raspberry Mille Feuille and Sherry Trifle much to Jenny's annoyance. He had to make it as it was the only request Claire had of him when he asked what she wanted when she came home.

The whoosh of the sliding doors of the train carriages brought Jamie back to the present. As his older brother started to move forward, he followed, looking up and down the platform for a ginger-haired lassie and a curly-haired brunette. There were plenty of people disembarking eager to get off, and others, keen to get on board and out of the cold. The brothers strained their necks watching out for the girls, and it was Willie who saw them first.

"Claire! Over here!" Willie shouted as he started to jog forward.

"Oh my God, Willie...I'm finally home! So good to see you!" Claire squealed as she flung herself to his older brother's arms, while the ginger-haired lass stood back and observed the scene with amusement.

Jamie waited patiently, not wanting to disturb their moment as he leaned on a pillar watching the scene before him. He watched her squeal some more and giggle as Claire introduced Willie to her friend Geillis, babbling and swinging her rucksack onto her back as she went along.   Ah Dhia, she's more beautiful than ever.  Gone was the awkward and shy teenage girl he remembered but instead there stood a bubbly gorgeous young woman full of self-confidence and most importantly, happy to be home.

"Where's Jamie? I thought ma said he was coming with you." Claire asked, looking slightly disappointed.

"Right here, Sassenach," he replied, stepping away from the shadows and opening his arms for an imminent embrace.

She spun around to the direction of his voice, her eyes widening in surprise before her face broke into a most stunning smile he'd ever seen. Gone were her braces and in place were perfectly even teeth. "Jamie!!!" Claire wasted no time and ran up to him.

Jamie lifted her and hugged her tightly as they both laughed and spoke at the same time, of how they missed each other. Jamie didn't let go, and Claire wrapped her legs around his waist to keep her balance, as she rained loud kisses on his cheek. "Fancy a piggyback for ol' times sake?" Jamie suggested, grinning.

Claire nodded her head animatedly, her smile never leaving her face.

Without much effort, Jamie grabbed her hips and shifted her to his back without her feet touching the ground. Once she was safely behind him, her arms around his neck and legs around his middle, Jamie grabbed Claire's duffel back and turned around to his brother. "I'll race ye to the car!" Jamie shouted as he ran off.

Willie laughed at their carry on as he watched Jamie zig-zagged on the platform, Claire's laughter echoing in the air while Geillis face was one of astonishment. "Don't mind them, they've always been like that..." Willie confessed, shaking his head as he chuckled to himself.

"Brother my arse...he's got the hots for her," Geillis muttered to herself, as she watched Jamie and Claire disappeared into the crowd.

"Pardon me...you were saying?" Willie turned to pick up the rest of the bags as he smiled at Geillis.

"Nothing."

"I don't want to race Jamie to the car, but you can tell me how your trip was from London..."

#melodyheart #forgetmenot #Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser #outlanderfanfic

[carriagelamp]

March 2020 Book Review - Books To Quarantine With

You know, when I talk about wanting more time to read this isn’t REALLY what I was talking about. Anyway, here are some of the books I read this month and/or helped me stay sane during self-isolation

Belle Révolte

Quarantine Queer Reads! This is a book I’ve been excited about for ages, from one an author I love, and is definitely worth picking up if you like high fantasy, complex magical and societal rule systems, and queer ladies leading the charge. This was a bit of a prince and the pauper story, with the wealthy Emilie switching places with the lowborn Annette so that Emilie could run away from her finishing school and study noonday magic necessary to become a physician, and allowing Annette to take her place to study the delicate midnight magics at a wealthy school. Both end up getting embroiled in the societal and martial turmoil of their country. (Also, if you haven’t read it, go back and check out Mask of Shadows, Linsey Miller’s first duology!)

Calvin and Hobbes: Weirdos From Another Planet

Let’s be honest: this has been a stressful time for everyone. I have no idea what my job is going to look like next week, it’s a little terrifying, and sometimes you need something feel-good. So I pulled out my old Calvin and Hobbes books and have been rereading them relentlessly. As a kid, this one was always my favourite, and you know what? You are literally never to old for Calvin comics.

The Witcher: Season Of Storms

Took me some time to decide if this was meant to be read third or last in the Witcher series, but I finally decided to follow the advice to stick to chronology and read it third. I was glad I did! Season of Storms reads like a really really long short story somehow, and it was just a really enjoyable adventure. An entire plot based around Geralt losing his swords is hilarious to me, yet it managed to cram in all the philosophizing and emotion as the other stories so far. It’s a really impressive balance. Also there was lots of Dandelion trying to be helpful and Geralt Having Feelings so how can I not love it? Seriously, the Witcher novels are some of the best “classic high fantasy” novels I have possibly ever read, and they routinely make me incredibly emotional.

Sisters

A Raina Telgemeier book I hadn’t read yet. Like her others, this was a cute, heart warming story, this one focusing on families, siblings, and the importance of connection and bridging differences. I’ll be honest... not a lot of this stuck with me afterwards, I couldn’t tell you much about it now, but it was a very pleasant read at the time and the art in these books is always lovely.

Kristy’s Big Idea

Rather the same as above. It was a retelling of the first Baby-Sitters’ Club book in a graphic novel format. It was fine. I never loved this series as a kid, and I can’t say this adaptation is what made me fall in love with it.

No Fixed Address

A fantastic Canadian novel! This is a story that touches on the child homelessness crisis in Vancouver, and is about a boy who lives with his single mother. When his mother loses her job, they wind up needing to live in a van, as a web of complicated little lies weaves tighter and tighter around them. It isn’t as depressing as it sounds though! The book manages to be very goofy, light-hearted, and funny -- and over all optimistic! So while there were definitely bits that had me crying, it was over all a really enjoyable read. I would recommend, and this coming from someone who normally isn’t super into real-world fiction!

Bleach 7-9

I had taken some more Bleach books out of the library before this all hit, so I had plenty of time to get through them during this quarantine! Have to admit, these later books are a bit more meh than the beginning of the series, in my opinion. I’d never actually read this far into the series as a kid, and I can see why I stopped. It’s a bit more of a run-of-the-mill shonen fighter at this point. But I still love Ichigo and once the libraries reopen I’ll probably continue reading.

Candy Color Paradox

A manga that did not let me down. I absolutely adore this series -- and finding a yaoi series that actually feels like it has a really good, solid, interesting relationship is like finding a needle in a haystack. Since the couple has really already gotten together, there’s not much relationship drama in this book, and it’s more to do with the drama that comes from their jobs as reporters, and honestly it was very refreshing. I’m looking forward to the next book getting translated.

Kiki & Jax

I’d read Marie Kondo’s book, so when I saw that there was a picture book to I had to pick it up and check it out! It’s actually really cute! It’s a charming little way to introduce the importance of cleaning to children that’s a bit more relatable than just “because I told you to”, and provides some of the more practical, useful tips from Kondo’s book presented in a simple, visual format. It was lovely.

F in Exams

This is just a collection of some hilarious test answers. It takes about ten minutes to skim through but made me grin. Some are so clever you feel they should really just be given the point.

Five Nights At Freddy’s: Into the Pit

More FNAF? Yes. Listen, I’m not proud, but I was too curious after that first one not to dig deeper into this (hurr hurr) pit. This one isn’t a part of the same series, and is a much simpler collection of short stories. While Silver Eyes actually managed to be kind of intriguing and suspenseful, this was mostly just... annoying. Like bargain bin twilight zone episodes that vaguely had animatronics slapped into it. A barely dragged myself through it, and it was less than two hundred pages, though in fairness it’s also clearly written for a younger age demographic than Silver Eyes.

Deltora Quest: Special Edition 2 (volumes 5-8)

I’d read the first special edition earlier this year (books 1-4) and finally got around to finishing the series (or at least the first arc of it). Reading it as these big collected volumes is great, because it feels less like tiny little books, and more like chapters within a larger story. Honestly, Deltora Quest remains one of the my favourite series, and it did not become even a little less enjoyable to read as an adult. The characterization of the main characters is fantastic, and this author doesn’t shy away from putting her characters in truly horrifying situations that feel new and intense. Despite the premise being a classic (the characters are seeking the seven stones of the Belt or Deltora) Rodda creates really unique creatures, people, world building, and plot points.

#book review #book reviews #queer lit #canadian lit #deltora quest #belle revolte #linsey miller #season of storms #the witcher #calvin and hobbes #raina telgemeier #candy color paradox #five nights at freddy's #into the pit #marie kondo #manga #comics #graphic novels #bleach #no fixed address #susin nielsen

[cover2covermom]

Goodbye April & hello May!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I’m running toward it…

April seemed to drag on despite the days flying by.  Does that even make sense?  Like I’ve mentioned before, my days are filled with homeschooling, home projects, mask making, and reading.  I’ve been doing my best to fill my hours to ease the COVID-19 anxiety.

I received the notification that I will be returning to work next week, which was welcome news.  I’m ready to get back a little bit of normalcy in my life.  Thankfully, our library system is reopening in phases.  Our first phase will be employees only (3-5 employees in the building at one time) and offering curb-side service to our patrons.  As of now, we will not open our doors to the public until June 1st at the earliest.  At that point in time, we will be limiting the number of patrons allowed in the building.  It is definitely going to be a learning curve to see what my new work normal is going to entail.  I’m looking forward to adapting & rising to the occasion.

» Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

As per usual, Mindy McGinnis puts out another harrowing YA book.  I love survival stories, so I enjoyed this story about a girl that has gotten lost in the woods.  Be Not Far From Me was uncomfortable to read at certain points.

» Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

*3.5 Stars*

This was a sweet story about two kids that form a friendship while hanging around an abandoned lot.  The first half of this book didn’t grab me and moved far too slowly.  I enjoyed the second half of this book a lot better than the first half.

» Keeper of Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities #1) by Shannon Messenger

An awesome MG fantasy!  I cannot wait to continue on with this series.  I’d recommend this to fans of Harry Potter.

» Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

*2.75 Stars*

I read this for one of my book clubs.   I think the author was attempting to write a book that would charm readers with eccentric characters & a humorous plotline, but don’t think it delivered.  Instead of being funny, the story felt odd & forced.

» A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry

I think the author did a tremendous job writing a book from a wolf’s perspective.  You can tell the author did extensive research into wolves & their behaviors.  While I think this animal perspective was very well done, I didn’t think the plotline was all that entertaining.

» The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum

I’ve decided to challenge myself to read more children’s classics in 2020.   To kick start this challenge, I started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This was a delightful read!  I was surprised to learn that the slippers were actually silver instead of ruby red… mind blown!

» SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is a must read for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.  While you don’t HAVE to read Speak to read SHOUT, I feel like it makes a bigger impact if you read Speak prior to this.  If you didn’t know, SHOUT is Anderson’s memoir told in verse.

» Loveboat, Taipei (Loveboat, Taipei #1) by Abigail Hing Wen

*4.5 Stars*

This is a guilty pleasure type of read.  Actually, it reminded me a bit of Crazy Rich Asians a bit.  It is a tad racy for a YA book… So I’d probably recommend for older YA readers that are 16+

» Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger

I am LOVING this MG fantasy series.  While these books are a bit chunky, don’t let the page count deter you.  I flew through the first two books in this series this month.  Also, I’m happy to report that this second installment does NOT suffer from “second book syndrome.”

» Nooks & Crannies by Jessica Lawson

Nooks & Crannies is an excellent MG historical mystery.  Some of the elements of this story gave me Matilda mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events vibes.  The audiobook is well narrated.

» The Penderwicks (The Penderwicks #1) by Jeanne Birdsall

This is the perfect book to pick up during the summer months.  It really gave me modern Little Women crossed with The Secret Garden vibes.  The ending was so heartwarming it almost brought me to tears.

Goodreads Challenge Update: 46 books!

*I know it says 47, but I finished The Last (Endling #1) on May 1st*

March 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up

April 2020 TBR

Childhood Classics 2020: TBR

Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (May – December)

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 1

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 2

If you were ever curious what a bookworm’s quarantine stress shopping spree looks like, here you go…

» The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising #1) by Kiersten White

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

» Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

The story of a deaf girl’s connection to a whale whose song can’t be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.

When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to “sing” to him! But he’s three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?

» Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.

When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk–grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh–Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar.

But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.

Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tale, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.

» Girls Like Us by Randi Pink

Set in the summer of 1972, this moving YA historical novel is narrated by teen girls from different backgrounds with one thing in common: Each girl is dealing with pregnancy. Four teenage girls. Four different stories. What they all have in common is that they’re dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her years, but burdened with the responsibility of her older sister, Ola, who has found out she’s pregnant. Their young neighbor, Missippi, is also pregnant, but doesn’t fully understand the extent of her predicament. When her father sends her to Chicago to give birth, she meets the final narrator, Susan, who is white and the daughter of an anti-choice senator.

Randi Pink masterfully weaves four lives into a larger story – as timely as ever – about a woman’s right to choose her future.

» The Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.

» The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

» Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai

Nadia’s family is forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria, when the Arab Spring sparks a civil war in this timely coming-of-age novel from award-winning author N.H. Senzai.

Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.

Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents’ elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing “Happy Birthday,” when her uncle calls from the living room, “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.” Reluctantly, she follows her family into the other room. On TV, a reporter stands near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. Beside it is a mound of smoldering ashes. The reporter explains that a vegetable vendor in the city of Tunis burned himself alive, protesting corrupt government officials who have been harassing his business. Nadia frowns.

It is December 17, 2010: Nadia’s twelfth birthday and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Soon anti-government protests erupt across the Middle East and, one by one, countries are thrown into turmoil. As civil war flares in Syria and bombs fall across Nadia’s home city of Aleppo, her family decides to flee to safety. Inspired by current events, this novel sheds light on the complicated situation in Syria that has led to an international refugee crisis, and tells the story of one girl’s journey to safety.

» The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre #1) by Gail Carson Levine

Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. Waving her sword Bloodbiter, the older girl declaims in the garden from the heroic epic of Drualt to a thrilled audience of Addie, their governess, and the young sorcerer Rhys.

But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys – along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.

» The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre 0.5) by Gail Carson Levine

In this compelling and thought-provoking fantasy set in the world of The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine introduces a spirited heroine who must overcome deeply rooted prejudice—including her own—to heal her broken country.

Peregrine strives to be the Latki ideal—and to impress her parents: affectionate Lord Tove, who despises only the Bamarre, and stern Lady Klausine. Perry runs the fastest, speaks her mind, and doesn’t give much thought to the castle’s Bamarre servants, who she knows to be weak and cowardly. The Lakti always wage war, and the battlefield will give her the chance to show her valor.

But just as she’s about to join her father on the front lines, she is visited by the fairy Halina, who reveals that Perry isn’t Latki-born. She is a Bamarre. The fairy issues a daunting challenge: against the Lakti might, free her people from tyranny.

» A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman

An enchanting historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Thanhha Lai’s Newbery Honor-winning Inside Out and Back Again   No one comes to the Second World on purpose. The doorway between worlds opens only when least expected. The Raft King is desperate to change that by finding the doorway that will finally take him and the people of Raftworld back home. To do it, he needs Pip, a young boy with an incredible gift—he can speak to fish; and the Raft King is not above kidnapping to get what he wants. Pip’s sister Kinchen, though, is determined to rescue her brother and foil the Raft King’s plans.   This is but the first of three extraordinary stories that collide on the high seas of the Second World. The second story takes us back to the beginning: Venus and Swimmer are twins captured aboard a slave ship bound for Jamaica in 1781. They save themselves and others from a life of enslavement with a risky, magical plan—one that leads them from the shark-infested waters of the first world to the second. Pip and Kinchen will hear all about them before their own story is said and done. So will Thanh and his sister Sang, who we meet in 1976 on a small boat as they try to escape post-war Vietnam. But after a storm and a pirate attack, they’re not sure they’ll ever see shore again. What brings these three sets of siblings together on an adventure of a lifetime is a little magic, helpful sea monsters and that very special portal, A Crack in the Sea.

» The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead … but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!

» Ballet Shoes (Shoes #1) by Noel Streatfeild

Pauline, Petrova and Posy are orphans determined to help out their new family by joining the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. But when they vow to make a name for themselves, they have no idea it’s going to be such hard work! They launch themselves into the world of show business, complete with working papers, the glare of the spotlight, and practice, practice, practice! Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. But practical Petrova finds she’d rather pilot a plane than perform a pirouette. Each girl must find the courage to follow her dream.

» Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood “wishtree”—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighborhood.

You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

» The Library of Ever (The Library of Ever #1) by Zeno Alexander

With her parents off traveling the globe, Lenora is bored, bored, bored–until she discovers a secret doorway in the library and becomes its newly appointed Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian.

In her new job, Lenora finds herself helping future civilizations figure out the date, relocates lost penguins, uncovers the city with the longest name on Earth, and more in a quest to help patrons. But there are sinister forces at work that want to destroy all knowledge. To save the library, Lenora will have to test her limits and uncover secrets hidden among its shelves.

» Chains (Seeds of America #1) by Laurie Halse Anderson

As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.

From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

» The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

The acclaimed author of The Witch’s Boy has created another epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to become a modern classic. 

Which books did you read in April?

Have you read any of the books I read or hauled this month?  If so, what did you think?

Did you buy any books?  If so, which ones?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

April 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up + Book Haul #BookBlogger #Bookworm #Bibliophile #BookHaul #Reading #Books #WrapUp Goodbye April & hello May! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I'm running toward it...

#Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Chat #Book Haul #Book Nerd #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading #Wrap Up

[alphawave-writes]

Sigrold week 2019 Prompt 4) Halloween

Synopsis: Junkentstein!AU. The King has called for heroes to his aid to defeat the wicked Witch of the Wilds once more. But these heroes shared a history before. Especially the Warlock and the Werewolf

Read it here or check it out on AO3. Support me by buying me a ko-fi. Commission slots are still open!

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On a dark and stormy night, the King made his yearly summons for heroes to come to his castle’s aid. When once many would rally to his aid out of honour or fame or wealth, now they feared the King’s call. Dr. Junkenstein had been slain once before, but they could never get the Witch of the Wilds, and for the price of his soul he became her servant, rising from the dead alongside her other servants. It became somewhat common knowledge that the witch only appeared on All Hallow’s Eve. For what reason, it was uncertain, but it ultimately did not matter. What mattered is that every time she survived the battle and retreated, and every year there would be a tentative peace over the lands, and then every All Hallow’s Eve since, the Witch would summon Dr. Junkenstein and her allies to attack the castle once more.

The Warlock had come to the King’s aid. For what reason, no one knew. Privately, he was not sure what his purpose here was himself. The Void whispered its mad curses into his ears, but he had learned to ignore them. All that mattered was that he fought and slain the witch for good. That was all that mattered.

“So you are ready, old friend?” The King called. He had gave the Warlock his old room for board. It had not changed over the years, hundreds and hundreds of magic scrolls all collecting dust on a shelf right next to his overused desk and underused bed. It was comforting, and just a little bit sad. If he failed today, he might not be able to see it again.

“I am ready,” he replied, his voice softer and meeker, a far cry from the arrogant brilliance of his youth.

“You will not be alone in this battle,” The King said. “Heroes have once again answered the call.”

“Do I know these heroes?”

The King frowned.

The Warlock’s lips thinned to a line. “How many, and who do I know?”

“Three others, and all of them.” Before he could ask, the King added, “All you need to know is that they have called themselves the Beast, the Werewolf, and the Abomination.”

“Not comforting names,” The Warlock murmured.

“Perhaps not, but you are needed downstairs. Talk to your fellow comrades.” The King grasped his shoulder tightly. “Whatever you do, don’t let your past define the present, Siebren. The Kingdom needs you. We need you.”

The Warlock shook the King’s hand off his shoulder. “I shall be fine,” he grumbled. He turned on his heel and descended the staircase to the banquet hall.

At the opposite end was a small crowd, the remaining castle servants staring curiously at the King’s newest heroes. From this angle he could not see them, so he glided over, using his magic to part the crowd and let him through. He was relieved to not hear more from his patron than a dark whisper.

At the centre of the crowd was a large gorilla in the typical robes of a mage, as well as an oversized hamster sitting on an enchanted Gourd. The Warlock recognized the Beast and the Abomination, but they had changed a lot since he last met them. They were subjects in magical experiments at first, designed to fight against the Zomnics, but instead were given the gift of incredible intelligence and strength. He got closer and they both turned to greet him, the Beast giving a friendly wave while the Abomination, still on top his strange gourd-like vehicle, gave a little squeak.

“The Abomination says greetings,” the Gourd spoke.

The Warlock blinked rapidly. The Beast smiled nervously. “The King told me you were alive but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. It is good to see you, sir.”

“It has been too long,” The Warlock gasped. “But…if you are both here, then who’s the Werewolf?”

The Beast’s smile faltered. “You don’t know? You haven’t seen him?”

“Seen who?”

The Warlock suddenly felt two fingers tap on his shoulder. He turned around, eyes widening when he saw who it was. Their hair was wild, growing in patches over their face and their forearms, though it did little to hide the scratches and claw marks that marked their skin. The classical symptoms of lycanthropy was already affecting them, transforming them into a form that was half monster and half man. They expected a full moon tonight. It wouldn’t be long before the monster fully emerged.

The Warlock couldn’t help the tears that beaded his eyes. Arms wrapped around his body, holding him impossibly tight.

“I can’t believe it’s really you,” the Werewolf whispered.

“H-Harold,” The Warlock’s throat quivered.

The Werewolf let go from the hug, smiling tightly. His eyes roamed over the Warlock’s body. “When I heard that you were alive and that you got yourself a patron for your magic, I thought it couldn’t be true. Siebren de Kuiper, making a deal with a spirit? I thought it was impossible. But…you have the brand.”

The Warlock quickly put his hands behind his back, hiding the brand from the Werewolf’s sight. “They told me you died on an expedition.”

“That’s what I get for dabbling in Necromancy,” he sighed.

“Necromancy? You tried to dabble in Necromancy?! Why would you delve your hands into the dark arts?”

The Werewolf frowned for a long time. Quieter, he admitted, “I thought you were dead. Everybody did, after the ritual you performed. All we found were your books and the signature of the spirit realm. Why wouldn’t I try to revive you?”

He turned his head away, frowning deeply. The servants have mostly dissipated, leaving only the Beast and the Abomination standing. He had to change the subject. “I suppose it was you who found them, then.”

“They found me,” The Werewolf replied. “Hammond was roaming the outskirts of towns, driving away the zomnics and the bandits. Winston however was studying the arcane arts just like us.” He suddenly smiled. “He’s a skilled astrapomancer now. Would be qualified as an electricity Elementalist by the Guild if they weren’t so against other magical entities joining their ranks.”

The Beast blushed, shyly revealing their weapon. “I’ve…developed ways to hone my electrical powers. Not that I’m as good as Master Winston.”

“It’s Harold. Or the Werewolf. I’m not Master Winston anymore.”

The Warlock frowned. The Beast and the Abomination were both enchanted creatures, magic permeating their bodies even till this day. The Werewolf raised them like his children, hoping they would never have to unleash their true power and fight. Evidently, he failed, and as punishment he must fight alongside them.

“Harold, could we talk privately?” The Warlock asked.

The Werewolf gave a look to the Beast and the Abomination. He nodded, gesturing to a small corner of the Banquet Hall. Soon as the Warlock was out of earshot from everyone else, he pinned the Werewolf to the wall with his magic. The void whispered in his ears, eagerly awaiting a sacrifice, but he gritted his teeth and kept the flow of magic steady. He had been starving them, and they had been forced to feed on his soul for nourishment. They would want a blood offering and they will get it, but that blood won’t come from the Werewolf.

“Harold,” The Warlock said slowly, “why did you come here?”

“I have a duty to my King, just as you do,” The Werewolf replied.

“Do not lie to me, Harold.” He could feel the Void growing in his veins, begging for release, but he gritted his teeth and forced it down. Not yet. Not until the battle. “I do not have any ordinary patron. I have harnessed the Void. I can hear for all the spirits, and if you are a necromancer and a lycanthrope now, then I would’ve felt your presence as soon as you entered this town.”

“Not unless I masked my trace.”

The Warlock frowned. “You were a Scholar, a Druid with a mastery over animal magic. Not a necromancer, not a werewolf, and certainly not a warrior.”

“You were a Scholar too,” he countered. “You were so talented, Siebren, but you let that power get to your head.”

“But I have achieved it, Harold. I have achieved my life’s work” the Warlock retorted. “I have discovered gravity magic, and I have mastered it. Why else are you floating above the ground? You know very well it’s not the signature of air magic.”

“Gravity magic cannot be controlled without great cost, and that’s not even beginning to consider your pact with your patron.”

“I have harnessed it.”

“What did it cost, Siebren?” The Werewolf asked.

The Warlock stared at the Werewolf for a few seconds. The Void began to speak to him again, begging for violence. He tried to stop their whispers but it was too late. Harold was, and still is, an adept at sensing magic. With a sigh, the Warlock gently put the Werewolf back down on the ground.

He was staring at him with soft, pitiful eyes. “You gave up your soul?”

“They said I would get it back if I defeated the Witch for good. They say her magic defies the natural order of the living and spirit realms.”

“And you believe them?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can try at the very least.”

The Werewolf is silent for many moments. When he spoke once more, his voice was quiet and strained. “Tonight will be a full moon. I will change soon.”

“What strain of lycanthropy is it?”

“The curse variant. The Lunar tribe killed everyone in my expedition except me. Fortunately, it is only a physical change; it does not affect my mental state or my magic, but I still feel the bloodlust. I might as well put that bloodlust to some use.” The Werewolf ducked his head. “I don’t want to live life like this, hiding in the shadows, running away from people when the full moon tolls. If I do this, maybe I’ll be accepted by everyone. Perhaps Hammond and Winston will also be accepted.”

The Warlock’s lips dipped. “If only I knew you were alive.”

The Werewolf stared at the Warlock for several seconds. Then he extended his hand, pointing out his ring finger. Golden magic trails from his fingertips as he did an intricate series of gestures. It was the magic rite that they first performed when they got married all those years ago. To perform it now was a silent admission of undying love. A silent admission that Harold still loved him true, and that he accepted him for what he had become.

The tears beaded in the Warlock’s eyes as he did the second half of the ritual, his purple magic crossing and merging with the Werewolf’s magic to create a unique sigil. A flame flickered on their ring fingers, signifying that they had performed the ritual correctly and that their love remained true. He stared at the Werewolf, hoping his message was clear. That he reciprocated in kind, accepting Harold and loving him regardless.

“Siebren,” the Werewolf whispered as he caressed his face.

“It’s Sigma now. Or Warlock,” he frowned.

The Werewolf opened his mouth but before he could say anything, the bells tolled from the clocktower. Horns erupted throughout the castle as the King rushed to the banquet hall.

“Heroes, the time has come for you to come to Aldersbrunn’s aid. Tonight is the night that you shall fight Dr. Junkenstein and the Witch of the Wilds.”

The Beast and the Abomination have approached the pair, faces resolute and serious. The Warlock felt a hand wrap around his, squeezing tightly as the skin quickly gave way for rapidly growing fur, nails giving way for dark claws. Amongst these oddities, the Warlock felt a small sense of calm. He was with loved ones who would protect him, and who he would protect in turn.

“As the Lord of Aldersbrunn, I represent the people in thanking you for your service. You shall be finely rewarded if you return alive and the castle safe. Double so if you defeat the wicked Witch of the Wilds for good.”

The Warlock squeezed the Werewolf’s hand in return, feeling the magic build up in his system. The Void was gleeful, erratic. As the first lightning bolt struck, he could see the first wave of Zomnics leave from the battlements, currently being fended off by the castle guards. By his side, his comrades had summoned their weapons. With a flick of his wrist, the hyperspheres were brought into creation. One by one they knelt down as the King used his magic. The air around their bodies shifted. They were now marked as the castle's defenders, together until their job was done or until death did them part.

“Godspeed, and god’s guidance on your path. On this All Hallow’s Eve, I mark thee Heroes of Aldersbrunn." With a shuddery breath, the King added, "May the Gods light your path this cursed night."

And thus the four Heroes, bounded by destiny, banded together to defend the castle. For tonight, the minions rose from the dead, ready to wreak havoc on the land. For tonight was the night of Junkenstein's revenge.

#Overwatch #Sigma #Siebren de Kuiper #Harold Winston #Sigrold #Sigroldweek #Sigroldweek2019 #Once again I write way too much for a very specific AU #Three tanks and a healer can only work in Junkenstein let's be real #Yes I am once again implying that Warlock!Sigma and Werewolf!Harold are married in this verse

[hizzalot]

Sethos: 02. My Butler and I by @SecretlyClawed

Driving into the city of Aberdeen usually took us a good couple of hours, us being Gerald and myself. It was a trip we took at least twice a week sometimes more if business or boredom required it. I did have a nice apartment in the city and it wasn’t completely uncommon for me to use it, but being who I was and living in the city with people everywhere wasn't that good of a combination. Besides the city was too noisy and wouldn’t allow me as much freedom to do as I please which my country living did. If you asked my alter ego he would snort and huff you in the face hard enough that you thought a tornado just winded by at the mere idea of living full time in the city because no matter how gullible and unaware many humans were when it came to the existence of other beings, most people would still notices the difference between a large bird and a 10 feet tall dragon, and no matter what you think they don’t scream like they do in movies and runaway. No today the little twats with all their technology want pictures, film clips, autographs and all other sorts of things. I'm being serious, they want it all if they could they want a goddamned interview and any of that is just a big no no. 

I do have full control of my animal, well at least as much control as one can over a partly wild beast. In most cases I can stave him off if I have too but he is a demanding son of a bitch. Unlike me, I'm the least temperamental person you can meet, but don’t tell Gerald I said that because he will most likely get a heart attack he doesn’t like bent facts. Anyway, my dragon if he is denied his time to fly, hunt and play for too long he will eventually force his way out no matter where I am or what I'm doing, he can’t be stopped in those situations. In the early days that happened quite often because I had refused to accept what I had become. Gerald was many time forced to clean up my messes for many years, until one day about 25 years after my dragon first appeared. One day he had enough and sat me down for a talk, if that's what you want to call it. 

After having to use every trick in the book to get me to listen even Gerald patience ran thin. He'd ended up taken me by the ear, and when I say by the ear I mean by the ear. Imagine being a 45 year old man in human years being dragged away by his ear, it was horrifying let me tell you, humiliating and nothing I care to experience ever again. He made me see sense so to speak even if he had to do it while I kicked and screamed like a child. Yes, it wasn’t one of my finest moments. I was young, childish and still blamed my unknown father for making me into a beast and in the end taking my mother from me, so I had cursed him off and refused to take my fate serious. When I still wouldn’t listen and had cursed Gerald too he had left me to my fate. 

Trust me when I say don’t piss off the hand who feeds you especially if it runs your household, take care of all the nitty details that you never have to bother with because if you do you are left to tend to them yourself. It took me a lot of groveling and a hell of a lot more begging to get Gerald to come back, many years later he told me he never really left he just wanted to teach me a lesson, I should have seen it coming but didn’t. I didn’t dare chance it by cursing him off again but I might have grumbled about it for a while. Today Gerald is my one and only true companion, living side by side with me and as long as he does we are linked together. He was my father’s companion for many years and he is linked with both of us by blood. He is this ordinary human, if you can ever call Gerald ordinary, as anyone else but with the benefit of being linked to me by blood he is what you would call my human servant. He can feel me as I can feel him, we have a bond and as long as I live he will live too.  

Gerald as my butler and personal adviser love to drive that was why we never invested in a helicopter to take us to the city. No he wanted to do it the old fashion way, the long way and he even drove an old Classic Alvis, the love of his life. I think he even loved that car more than me and he said he was pretty damn fond of me, but not more than that car. Gerald was the father I never had, no matter if the man who went under the name of Lord Stravos had father me. The irony being that it was not Gerald I was now going to have to save. Gerald said driving calmed him and gave him time to think how to work out the latest mischief I gotten me, us into, as for me well I enjoyed the quiet. If I got too bored I would fired up the laptop and do some work, work being searching for the next object for my personal collection. I both sold and collected antique goods and being 250 years old with more money to spend than I could find things to buy it was a good job and hobby. My money came both from the inheritance my mother had left me in property and money that had been well invested and my own personal wealth.

I had a very large and impressive collection of objects ranging from small coins, rings and bullets up to full warrior armor gear, to swords and my personal favorites, cars. I had built many garages over the decades to be able to store all 150 or so cars that I owned. I had every car that you could imagine a T-Bird original, an Oldsmobile, several different Mustangs; let's just say I have a thing for really old classic cars and Muscle cars especially. I even have a first model ford car, the so-called Ford Model T it was my pride and joy it didn’t race you down the streets but it was the first T Ford ever produced and it was bought by me. It was worth more in sentimental value than money to me. Considering the shape it was in I could probably get a good 100 grand for it but why would I ever need another 100 grand that I had in plenty, First produced T Ford not so much. The most amazing thing with these cars were that they all worked. Then they were all bought by my own hand, most of them but not all hadn’t been owned or driven by anyone but me, family bought and owned. I took pride in that. To others of course I simply let others believe I bought and restored or that they’d been in possession in my family for decades which in itself was impressive enough. Because to claim I bought a car in 1908 when I looked no older than 30 wouldn’t fly. 

Closing the lid on my laptop I put it back in my bag letting the bag rest against the seat next to me. I let out a deep sigh watching the steep mountain of my home disappear before me as we kept heading for Aberdeen. I'm sure you are wondering about this thing with my father. I do too sometimes, it is a story of its own and rather long but for you to fully understand it I better take it from the beginning. My father was the longest living dragon shifter the earth had known. He lived long before what we today call civilization and long before that even existed. Tales of dragons started because of him, and because there were actual sights of him as he flew the skies of earth there were rumors about giant monsters that could fly and had spiky tails. Gerald told me all about it once I had finally come to a stage where I would listen to what he had to say. He told me how my father had pretty much reacted the same way that I had done, but compared to me he was all in alone in dealing with it. He hadn’t met my father until much much later and by then he was all well good and pleasant with his other self, so much in fact that Gerald was the one who had to lure him back into human shape. The first few hundred years alive my father had been so besotted about being this giant powerful creature that he had mostly lived in the skin of his dragon. His dragon so strong that over time he almost completely took over Drake Stravo’s mind and soul. Gerald had found him in the nick of time becoming the man to save my father’s humanity, that was how he had become my father’s butler and human servant. Gerald was the humanity to keep the dragon lord grounded. 

Before Gerald he was a hunter, alone, living out in the wild, surviving day by day the only companion being the smoke that made him high. One night when he'd come face to face with a real life dragon it'd been the stroke of midnight he'd been lying by his campfire fire, and had just finished eating his one and only meal of the day and was high as a kite. That was when all of a sudden the flames of the fire had been shielded by this large shadow and this enormous creature without a name had appeared before him. At this time he didn’t know what a dragon was, and being high as a kite he didn’t even react in fright or other, Drake Stravos lay still on the ground watching the stars while the Dragon spoke to him in his mind telling him that he would be the new lord of dragons on earth, a predator to keep humankind in check and the one chosen to lead the Dragon Clan. That was how he became Lord Stravos 

Some hundred years later here I am, Dragon Shifter extraordinaire, disguised as an antique dealer, the only offspring of the magnificent Lord Stravos his legacy like a chip on my shoulder. It is 2019, leather jacket is on and I have an old fashioned Butler in tow. We look like oil and water trying to mix, me with my 'going with the times' attitude, your average Joe persona. Then we have Gerald who refuse to live in the now with his fancy accent and polite manners that make people look at him like he is from Mars, which to be honest is not to far from the truth. I have a job to do, buying and selling antiques, if you ask Gerald it is to save his Master (I am only Sire) my job is to save a father I never met from the evil Elves in the realm beyond and reunite him with my mother. Because if I don’t his death will kill us all. No pressure!

It all sounds pretty stupid when you say it out loud therefore I almost never do unless it is with Gerald and a dying must to ensure the man I have not forgotten about my real job. Dragons, evil midget elves and heroes saving other heroes and damsels in distress sounds just like a bad Hollywood movie. But for heaven's sake don’t tell Gerald I said that he will have my tail, literary because he takes this hero business very seriously. He takes saving his Master very seriously. My only problem is finding that damn door to the realm where my father is kept and the fact that the damn thing only opens once every decade makes the waiting process a fucking drag. 

“Sire. We are here.”

The window between the driver and passenger was down, Gerald always insisted on me sitting in the back, I was after all Lord Stavos offspring. Do you know how many times I’ve rolled my eyes at this, the legacy of man that is to me unknown is a burden all on its own. 

“Awesome!” I exclaim knowing perfectly well it makes Gerald’s skin crawl using modern slang or words. It tickles me so to tease the man, I mean what else should I do with my time, there’s so much of it to spill. 

“Splendid Sire, Splendid.” He emphasized each word giving me a stern look by using the rear-view mirror. Snickering I get out of the car before he has a chance to get out and open it himself. 

“Sire if you insist on acting like a brat I will have to treat you as such and give you a time out in the corner when we get back home.” He threatens calmly next to me, his exterior never faltering even though I have made him very annoyed. With a pat on the shoulder I turn to him.

“Oh come on Gerald. Take that drivers hat off and dance down the street with me, live a little old man. Who knows you might even get laid.” I say as I hang my laptop bag over my shoulder and start down the street eyes glimmering with mischief. 

“Corner it is then Sire.” Gerald shuts my door with a little extra force to show how serious he really is and all I do is laugh. Life’s good in o 2019. #MyButlerAndI #Eddark

#Eddark SethosBently MyButlerAndI SecretlyClawed

[elishebe]

Sasuhina Secret Santa-Vampire AU

A/N: God I’m atrociously late, and excuses are trash, but I literally didn’t save my work when I damn near finished this last week, and I just...had to recover from that trauma and try to write it again lol. It’s honestly not as great as it would be if I weren’t so upset with myself for losing all the work and trying emulate it again, but I tried my best! Super sore again, Hope you like @fher43

-btw Hinata’s slighty ooc just because...i feel like six hundred plus years of vampirism does that to a person lol.

:: There’s something about the ripeness of age... ::

Unoriginal. Cheap. Cliche.

A birthday gift for his mother absolutely had to be authentic and well-thought out. She might appreciate anything she received, but she could smell things like cheap and overdone.

But Sasuke’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel any hope this antique shop he stumbled upon. It was dingy in all the right ways, and he was the only customer in. A turn around each corner and something ancient and beautiful would appear eclipising the last item he’d seen.

And then he turned another corner, the shopkeeper standing right before him.

Mismatched, Sasuke thought. Completely and utterly.

From the deep, velvet maroon of her lip, to the smokey obsidian modeling the edges of her eye with a blackish cardinal pigment dusting from eyelid to brow bone--well--Sasuke was no stranger to heuristics or falling prey to stereotypes himself. Thus he was good of watching himself, and looking at her darkly themed makeup, which he was indeed a fan of, decided it was just her interest and mood, not her personality entirely.

Even the hair he could reconcile as just...another thing, he supposed. Blue, though dark. Smalt, even. It fell down around her--bone straight, obedient--like a stream, and her long bangs acting as a curtain parted along the sides of her trim face for the main act as pearlescent orbs descended upon his shirt.

But that small bat tattoo right below the eye...well it was hard to think her anything other than what he believed upon seeing it.

So-

That angelically soft smile had caught him off his guard.

“Theatre of Tragedy?” She asked with a glance at his shirt, cup in hand, looking away as she pulled at spine backs of books.

Sasuke stared at the woman from down the aisle, mindlessly approaching her. She sorted through some large books, and with one hand, before picking one up with a graceful ease.

“Venus is my favorite song right now.” She remarked, pleasantry on her lips, as she turned to him; glassy lavender eyes were like white against her eyeshadow. “What about you?”

Sasuke blinked. “Uh...And When He Falleth.”

Her visage warped with a thoughtfulness, nodding. “Yeah, I like that one too.” Her eyes were trained on the book, trying to place it properly. “They’re a bit old school. I’m surprised to see such a young fan.”

He tilted his head slightly. Young? He wanted to ask. She didn’t look much older than him, if at all. He could pin her three years older than him at most, and the band would still be considered ahead of her time too.

Sasuke poked his head in an victorian-themed wardrobe. “Yeah I’m...into old shit...I guess.”

He didn’t miss the way her lips twitched at that. Without looking up the woman replied,”That explains why you’re here I guess.”

The raven haired man nodded. “That explains why I’m here-well, uh-”He paused. That wasn’t true, well it was true, but-

“I’m looking for a present.” He elaborated. She took a sip from her cup and gave him her full attention.

“You work here?” Sasuke asked, lamely, might he add as if it weren’t obvious.

The woman peaked at him through long bangs, a smile at her lips, and something wistful behind i

“I own here.” She answered, “But my apologies. I should’ve introduced myself. My name is Hinata. I’m the owner and dealer of this shop.”

She was sort of...very pretty, he quickly noted, maybe too quickly. But further than that, although she looked no older than him, something about her did rightfully belong in this small antiques store. He just...couldn’t name it.

“What’s the present for?” She asked.

After explaining his predicament, Sasuke found himself following behind a magical creature. The store was somewhat cramped, and he had to shift and duck a few times making for some disjointed steps, but the woman before him was like...a floating gothic sheet of clouds hung low to the ground. Her movements were subtle and graceful. Her black lace cover up flowed behind her in an intriguing and dramatic way.

As he trailed behind her, he put his hands on some knives for the sake of it, and called ahead of her, “How did you get into Theatre of Tragedy?”

“I’ve been around.” She answered.

Sasuke glanced down at her. “So what?”

She looked him up and down once before turning around a counter to open a cupboard. “Means I’m an old soul. So I guess I also...am into ‘old shit’.” She mocked.

Sasuke smirked at her mockery leaning against the counter. “Old soul...” He mumbled. “how old?”

She hefted a large box onto the counter. “686 years to be exact.”

The dark haired male belted a low chuckle.

“Here,” She said to him opening the box with an assortment of jewelry. “It’s a 19th century French and Japanese collection. I especially like the brooches; they’re designs are more reflective of the era. See anything your mother might like?”

“You, probably.” He responded ignorant of the subtext behind it. Though it was very true his mother loved individuals with a fascination and knowledge of things she knew little about. And considering the expanse of this shop, there was much this woman could talk his mother’s ear off about.

He looked up at her to find her fighting a laugh, with a shake of the head. He felt a warmth rise to his face.

“Oh, I...I didn’t-I wasn’t trying to...”

“Flirt.” She finished for him, understanding look in her eyes, but teasing smile about her lips.

“Yeah...not that I wouldn’t. I mean-” He said opting to look at the brooches rather than her amused face. “I just, like...these are really nice.”

Hinata had surrendered to her giggles, and Sasuke tried to brush it off as he rubbed his neck, sighing at his own failing.

“I’m so sorry for laughing,” Hinata apologized holding her stomach in between fits of laughter.

Sasuke smirked. “It’s fine.” He peeled the black and red one from the box. “I think I’ll take this one.”

::

A Week Later

::

“Witch?”

“Nope.”

“Sorcerer, wizard, warlock?”

“Those aren’t all the same as witch?”

“I don’t know I’m asking you, Not-Witch.”

“I don’t know. But, still wrong.” Hinata replied dusting the wooden, creaky floor.

Sasuke sat in her chair at the counter, playing with an old toy staring at her all the while. He’d came back the day after he got the present. Though it was simply because he didn’t get a good look at the whole shop, and that was it, he supposed. While the shop itself was tiny, there was much to see, and in the meanwhile, he had a wildly likable  and likely magical witch (or rather not-witch) for a personal tour guide. Extremely personal, he hardly ever saw anyone in here but himself.

In the midst of it their proximity, Sasuke had become more and more certain of her magical not-witchery. She moved like water, didn’t have a door bell to know when people come in, but somehow always knew he had arrived, and

she knew everything.

“Mmm, nymph? Fairy?”

She shook her head, but then wore a pondering look. “I do know a nymph actually. You have one more try. I’ll even give you a hint: remember how old I told you my soul is?” Hinata looked at him with amusement; she was sure he was being funny.

“No.” He deadpanned.

Hinata turned around chuckle jostling her shoulders.“Be careful with this next one or I win.”

Sasuke squinted at her, and leaned over the counter.

“Werewolf.”

Hinata cocked her head in laughter. “You must be teasing me now. I told you I have a cat, right?”

“Nah, I definitely told you I have a cat.” Sasuke retorted slumping his chin into his arms. “I’m a bad remembererrer-er.”

“Without a doubt.”

Sasuke folded his arms together. “So what are you, Hyuga?”

“An antiques dealer,” replied she. She stopped sweeping to look at him. “And what are you, Uchiha?”

He looked thoughtful a second.

“Charming.”

She leaned into her broomstick as she heaved an amused sigh. Sasuke stared intently. He liked making her smile.

“You sure you’re not a witch? Got the whole broom stick thing-”

“No.”

::

Two Weeks after first walk in

::

“So why do you persist to congest my store further?”

Sasuke scoffed lightly. “Congest?” He asked looking around the store, devoid of other customers. “I’m practically keeping you business.”

“I believe the key word is ‘practically’. In order for that to be remotely true, Sasuke, you’d have to buy something; not loiter all day. You must find me very entreating if you insist on continuing to come without purchasing a single thing,” She ended with a smirk. 

Sasuke rejected the rather obvious notion. “It’s not because of you,” He grumbled, sliding a long spined book out of its place to open it. “I’m here for the books, I’m here for..” He squinted. “Paradise Lost.”He held up the book in hand at her. “A true classic,” He urged.

Hinata stood staring, unconvinced, but always in the mood to entertain him. “You sound very familiar.”

“That’s what happens when you read books, I guess. You know them...” He trailed off as his eyes caught sight of another title, one he actually knew.

Hinata huffed. “You’re starting to sound like....” She trailed off as she saw him towering over the glass encasement of another one of her rare editions of old literature. 

“See a read you like? One you actually know?” She teased.

Sasuke crossed his arms. “In addition to, actually,” He said, evoking a defeated sigh from her. 

“I know this one--The Witch’s Hammer. It was hard to get my hands on a hardcover copy of it. But this one looks...extremely old. Like something of a museum.”

“That’s because it’s a first edition. An original copy.”

She observed him quietly, watching as his eyes wanted over the glass, seemingly entranced by the ancientness about it. It was a grey brown old thing, but she learned how to preserve it, to a point that she could even pick it up to read herself from time to time. 

“Hn,” He grunted before unlatching himself from the glass. “Guess you are a grandma.”

Hinata gave him a pointed look. “Nice,” She said, sardonic taste about her reply.

“How much?”

“Not for sale. You’re welcome to look always. That’s not a privilege I give to all customers.”

Sasuke looked around himself. “Do you have like...ghosts for customers? Because who...else..is here besides me.”

The pleasantry in her eyes didn’t fade. “That’s for me to know.”

Sasuke’s lips parted, and closed, as he struggled to decipher the seriousness of that statement. He settled with a defeated nod, and “Okay.”, before pressing on. 

“But...can I look at it?”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You are.”

“With my hands.”

“Didn’t know that was possible,” She admitted, as she rounded the corner to the encasement. 

“You know what I mean.”

“Your faith in my understanding of you is impressive,” She remarked unlocking the glass door. She grabbed the book carefully from its closure. “I wouldn’t usually do this, but for such a loyal ‘customer’--and I use that term loosely-- I’ll make an exception.”

She laid it out in her arms for him to take. “It’s still pretty sturdy, I’ve done well to maintain it--it might even be in better condition than some of the non-encased books here; that’s how much I like it. But, I’ll lend it to you.”

Sasuke grabbed the large heavy book from her arms and examined its exterior before tucking it away under his arm. 

“Thank you.”

She nodded to him. “Glad something here genuinely grabs your interest.”

Though of course, for him, something already had.

::

A month after first walk in

::

“Walk in front of it. I wanna see.”

She smirked. “See what?”

“Just...go. I wanna see.”

Hinata put down her coffee cup, and walked in front of the mirror.

“I can see you,” Sasuke noted.

Hint nodded slowly. “Nothing gets past you, Sasuke,” She said with a straight face walking back to her stool.

Sasuke scoffed. “You know what I meant. How come I can see a vampire in a mirror?”

“Because. This is a mirror. It reflects things. Images.”

Hinata smiled. He was all but pouting now-it was cute.

“So that old rumor is just wrong, plainly.” Sasuke said folding his arms.

Hinata smiled looking at him through the mirror. He was significantly taller, though somewhat lanky, and she did appear, at least, to be his age. His attire was black and ripped from the denim jacket to the jeans. The fine contrast of jet black hair to his skin was impossible to miss.

The young Uchiha might’ve caught her eye half a millennium ago, but the wafting charm that seemed irresistable to everyone around fell flat on the ageless woman. Though this did nothing to diminish her fondness for the boy; however,

to her, he was just that: a boy.

Crash!

She turned to find Sasuke quickly but gracelessly trying to pick up the metallic vase up off the floor, which he’d clearly dropped. She watched him with quiet humor about her eyes.

He must’ve been staring too hard again...

::

Three months After first walk in

::

“How much blood do you drink?”

Hinata paused at that question. She knew he’d come to ask about the blood eventually. Although, it was rarely how much, rather than what, how, or how often. 

“Enough.” She answered.

“where do you get it from?”

Hinata flipped another page to her book. “I have a friend at the blood bank, but occasionally animals.”

“Can I see your fangs?”

“Absolutely not.”

Sasuke looked at her strangely. “Is it like...offensive?”

She looked over to him. “Imagine I asked you to pull your pants down.”

Sasuke blinked a moment, uncertain before looking back to her. “I mean...I’d do it.”

Oh brother.

::

Five years after first walk in

::

“So, how was she?”

Sasuke stretched himself out on the chair as Hinata paused her sweeping. She looked over at him excitedly.

“She’s nice. Cute too.”

Hinata turned to him with optimism glint about her eyes. “So your date was...”

“Insufferable,” He answered.

Hinata looked to him, pitiful smile. “How so?”

“i don’t like her.”

Hinata put her broom down to refill her tea. “You just met her. Never took you for a ‘love-at-first-sight type’.”

“Yeah, don’t have much patience for anything less I guess.”

He saw her shaking her head as she poured her tea. “I’m just kidding.”

“I’d hope.” She encouraged, a smile in her voice.

“...give me five years. I’ll know.”

::

Twenty years after first walk in

::

She heard the door open and close from the back of the store, pleasantly surprised at the smell of her “customer”, whom had bought only one thing in all these years of dropping by.

He’d been visiting a lot less frequently. In fact it’d been a handful of years, if not more, since he last had come, but before then, he’d come at least biweekly, and before then, multiple times a week, if not even everyday.

Maybe she was exaggerating.

She didn’t usually keep such close track of time.

Even still, he did visit less often these days, and by a sweet twist of irony, she wanted to see him more often these days, much more often.

Though, maybe she just missed him.

She figured maybe he’d grown busy, other parts of her even thought bored. The former would make more sense though, considering his current presence. Whatever the case, she thought, setting down her broomstick to twirl around to him, she was glad he found his way-

Well.

She cleared her throat, trying to rid of her face the contorted expression she knew she might be wearing.

But she just...forgot what time could do to a person. 

When she thought or remembered Sasuke, she remembered him young. Not thirty-five. certainly not forty-some odd years either. She’d forgotten, that he was no longer twenty. That he’d grown in the span of their friendship, and that he was human, and that time was an arguably real thing for him.

His face was exactly the same, only, not quite. He wore a more...eloquent expression. Eyebrows just slightly pinched, that she remembered, but with an adult concern that she couldn’t. There, just the slightest wrinkle at the side of his pitiless black eyes and his mouth had creases beside it, and his cheeks were slightly sunken. His hair had grown, thrown back with a few black threads rebelling onto his face against the rest with whiskered greys at the side. His build had widened in muscle, but his posture carried that common burden of adulthood. And...gone was the rebellious  aesthetic: he wore a black button down shirt with some grey office slacks and dress shoes.

He wasn’t so different from last she saw him, but twenty years prior kept breaking her thoughts, and she thought maybe this was a different person. It couldn’t be helped, a younger Sasuke had came around more, spoken to her more, annoyed her more, was more familiar.

This older Sasuke was infrequent and inconsistent...and adult.

Looking around playfully, the man then turned back to her,”I’m here for the books...’Lost in paradise’, in particular.”

Hinata smiled. “I have no books of that name here, but Paradise Lost, yes, that I can do.”

“Damn.” Sasuke’s lips had twitched. “It’s been a while since I’ve picked it up for a reread.”

“Maybe if you had bothered to buy it, you’d know its name.” She responded.

He chuckled with heaviness about his voice, she wasn’t familiar. “But then I’d have no excuse to come back here, and look at other things I won’t buy.”

She observed him quietly as he rounded the corners of the store, attention captured by the subtle differences that age had committed against his mannerisms. 

“So that’s the reason.”

“Hn,” He huffed before returning his attention to her with a small smile. “It’s been some time.”

The vampire offered a light shrug. “It’s been about a month, on my timeline. No worries.”

Sasuke carefully pulled at the straight of his pant legs before settling himself slowly in his regular old stool. “It’s been too long on mine.”

How strange, a troublesome thought had perverted her mind. Her heart only beat a couple times per day, and when it did, rather mundanely so. This time, however...it was like a ricochet, and strong like...it was alive.

She inhaled deeply, sweeping her store as she routinely had been for the past century.

“I’ll assume I’m still welcome to overstay it.” His face was placid like usual, but that wink was new. 

Hinata watched him with her back turned, more mindful of his movements, evaluating the similarity of then and now. even six years ago when he’d last been, Hinata had begun to take note of the waves of adulthood ushering over him. A little less awkward, slightly more tense, equally as charismatic, which netted to zero. Maybe even richer, too. Though, that she had no interest in.

“How old are you now?” she asked.

The raven haired male paused in between flipping through Paradise Lost--he picked up the same exact copy every time. Black orbs darted to her, they seemed more intense than before.

“That’s the first time you’ve asked me that,” He remarked.

 “Now can be your first time to answer.”

“It’s offensive to ask we human adults things like that you know?” He said, a mischievous glint about his eyes. 

“Really? I hear it’s only rude if you’re old.”

“I’m forty-two,” He replied, with a quickness about it that made her laugh. He went to looking back to the book. “For some reason I assumed you’d always known. But why do you ask?”

Hinata resumed her sweeping with a joke on her lips, “And you were a mere, what? Seventeen, sixteen--when you first walked in here?”

Sasuke’s eyes found her. “I was about to be twenty. Jesus. That’s how annoying I was?”

She laughed at his bewilderment. “It was endearing.”

“God, save your pity.”

Pausing her chore, she looked to him. “So how’s life? How is Sakura?”

A coldness befell him, that she wasn’t expecting. 

“Our wedding was beautiful,” He started. She blinked; he’d gotten married to her? “But our divorce really takes the cake I’d say.”

Hinata dusted the inside of a wardrobe. “I...I’m sorry to hear that,” She was, but her mind was skidding a little. He’d gotten married? And she knew nothing of it? She was almost sure ten plus years of friendship just might earn one a wedding invitation. Though she withheld any selfish thoughts or ideas--they’d been estranged for some time, after all.

“I’m not. Christ, I’m never marrying anyone for my mother’s sake again.”

She chuckled lightly as she retreated to her side of the counter, to finish her cup of tea, and watched him quietly. She couldn’t help but study this new Sasuke. It really did feel like such short time ago when he was full faced and somewhat cheeky and quick to retort. 

“You got married...when?”

He sighed. “About a year and half after I stopped coming here. Finalized that divorce a couple months ago.”

Sasuke never missed those eyes when they were trained on him. Mainly because it wasn’t often that she actually did look at him. She’d usually be in her duties or already know what he was doing without turning to him; he supposed he never had a good excuse to be seen by her. Though now, she was being rather overt.

“I must look extremely odd to you, if time flies the way it does for you.”

He watched her take a sip from her tea, lavender eyes--starkly illuminated by that dark eye makeup--still glued to him even from behind her cup, and an imperceivable emotion behind them.

“Mhm,” She agreed setting her mug down. “You’ve grown, Sasuke.”

He blinked slowly down at the counter, unsure of how to respond to that--he felt like it’s something his relatives would say to him twenty some odd years ago, not an antiques dealer he can’t seem to leave alone. 

He huffed. “Tryna call me old now?”

She joked, “Aren’t you?” 

“Nah.”

Her face was telling, and she was, in a word, unconvinced. 

His eyes challenged hers, before moving his leg out from under the counter. “I’m gonna extend my knee. If you don’t hear anything, I’m young as can be.”

“Is that a fair risk for your joints?”

She saw his leg twitch, but his eyes didn’t waiver. 

He hesitated.“No,” He replied breaking into a smile. “Yeah it’s true. I’m old as shit.”

“Welcome to the club, my friend.”

::

A week later

::

Infatuated...She didn’t quite like that word. No, it wasn’t fitting. Maybe she was just being particular about the whole thing...she hadn’t felt like this for a long time. She’d never been so...

smitten--that’s the word.

She didn’t remember the last time she’d been so smitten on a human.

More conversely, she didn’t remember the last time she’d been this smitten without an ounce of reciprocation. 

The new Sasuke had grown to be a stone wall, save for the occasional sarcastic comments; but with respect to her affection, everything seemed to be falling flat. He was ignorant of everything she threw to him.

She reached behind the counter, embarrassed almost, but mostly proud. Though still, she’s never had to...be so obvious.

She subtly turned from her book, to see his nose trapped in one as well--he was a bit quieter than he used to be.

“Sasuke, I have something for you.”

He looked away from his book to meet her gaze. Hinata plopped the plant on the counter. 

“It’s a piece of my garden--my tomato garden. I remember you’ve always liked when I brought them, so you can have some of it for yourself. If you want, of course. I don’t mind taking it back home,” Hinata explained.

His smile was ear to ear. “I...thought I smelled something earthy, but I was not expecting this.” He got up out his chair. “This is kind of-wow. Thank you.” 

She crossed her arms satisifed at his reaction. “So, do you think you’ll need any help planting it?”

He shook his head, looking it over. “Nah...but if worse comes to worse, I’ll look up a video. And if worse actually comes to worse, I’ll...probably call my mother for a tip or two.”

Hinata nodded at him. “Okay, well I’m free to help as well.”

Sasuke huffed, amused. “Even my back can handle a simple planting job like this one on my own.”

Smiling softly, she concede with a nod of the head, ignoring her growing plight. This may be more cause for trouble than she hoped.

::

Two weeks later

::

She had always seemed older to him. Even now, when she looked how she did, she gave off an air of wisdom and certainty that could rival the physical laws of nature. But it was extra weird now because he looked older than her, and sort of did feel like it, but things were still uncertain to him. He honestly just didn’t like how it felt being attracted to someone who looked, that young...maybe even just a couple years short of being his kid, but was simultaneously old enough to make his own intellect cower.

Sasuke glanced over at her, balancing his weight on the back legs of the chair.

“What is that?” He asked, referring to the book which seemingly captured all of her attention.

She hardly looked up. “Conjuring ways to seduce you.”

Shock. Then confusion, crashed onto his eyebrows.

 And fixed his seat, slamming it to the floor. “Wh...I...that’s not even wha-”

“I know.” Hinata muttered. He might’ve thought she were kidding if not the dejected look she wore on her face as she browsed the contents of her book.

“Seduce me?”

“Mhm.”

He was silent a moment. “Hn...” He grunted, thoughtful, but then a thought came to mind. “Why are you....why am I suddenly something worth being ‘seduced’?”

Hinata removed her hand from under her chin, to turn a page in her book. “I do recall saying sometime ago...I’m into, well how you put it: ‘old shit’. But really, I’m just an antiques dealer. Things, to me, become more beautiful with time; when they have a nice layer of dust, or wrinkles coating them in life.”

Sasuke faced her from around the counter, looking seriously at her. “Is this you’re way...of calling my wrinkles sexy?”

Hinata shook her head, amused at his ability to make humor of anything. She also wanted to tell him, that he had hardly any wrinkles to look twice at. And also that forty-two, realistically, was somewhat far from old.

But she also watched the way he was watching her, and it was tentative but fond, but not akin to how it used to be. She released a low huff of dismay.

“What a pity,” She started with a sad smile. “You don’t like me anymore.” She said crossing her arms.

She wanted to roll her eyes at the onset of denseness as he looked at her confused. He was getting ready to dispute it, she knew, on the basis that her friendship meant a lot to him, and absolutely nothing meaningful to her in the moment.

Sasuke’s brows pinched. “That’s insane,” he said.

Hinata met his challenge. “Not entirely.”

“No. You’re-” His expression made a weird change she couldn’t pin point before   relaxing.

“I more than liked you, Hinata,” he stated making an obvious face, like she were dense. “I didn’t come by because I more than liked you, and thought maybe I should give these emotions to someone else. I mean that didn’t...work, but-” He cleared his throat. “i’m here again. And I still...more than like you.”

::

A/N: Yeah that ending...will be edited lol, but hope you somewhat enjoyed. Through it all, I honestly enjoyed writing this AU and I absolutely loved exploring those little pieces of art and literature you threw to give the AU some more richness. It was extremely fun to do, and I added some books on my to-read list lol, anyway it’s super late but Happy Holidays ! @fher43

#sasuhina #shss2018 #the characterization: off #especially with Sasuke #idk its not as good as it could've been but i just felt bad about not having put it out yet :// #I'm probably coming back to edit for sure #bc this was such a cute concept

[thelazyenvironmentalist]

Why I’m Organizing for a Green New Deal in Canada

When I was little, I spent my summers at my grandma’s house. She lived with my grandpa in a ranch-style bungalow a few hundred meters up from the shores of Lake Huron. The house had an immaculately kept garden, mint shag carpet, and a blue porcelain bathtub. It was perfect. When the weather was good, my grandma would spend hours outside with me, collecting Queen Anne’s Lace in the meadow across the road, walking under the cool green canopy of the forest nearby, or splashing in the waves at the beach for so long that when she brought me inside she would immediately place me in the bathtub to wash the sand off. If I sit quietly I can still hear the sound of the grains of sand settling at the bottom of the blue porcelain as she washed the day out of my hair. It was during this time outside that I first learned what it felt like to feel at home in what we refer to as “nature”. I learned that I could eat apples right off the trees in the woods, scrub myself clean- and then get hopelessly dirty again- at the lake, or sit in our secret spot and nap in the shade of a pine tree with the person I loved the most. On days that were cold and rainy, my grandma and I would stay inside, flipping through a Reader’s Digest encyclopaedia of North American Wildlife, or watching TVO. On those days spent inside, every Saturday or Sunday morning (I can’t remember which) I would park myself in front of the old tube TV to watch the same two mid-nineties infomercials each week. The first, a classic in Canadian Millennial cannon- was from the Humane Society- the one with Sarah McLachlan playing in the background, while sad kittens stared into the camera. The second, slightly more scarring, was produced by the World Wildlife Fund, and this one broke my heart. Every weekend I’d sit on that mint shag carpet and sob watching images of Amazon Rainforest being clear cut, or Bengal Tigers being poached and separated from their cubs. Silly as it might seem, it was these early morning infomercials that taught me the devastation and heartbreak of losing nature. They taught me empathy for creatures I will never see or touch in real life, a sadness and longing for places and times I will never live in. They taught me that if I wanted to see things change, I would have to take action myself. My grandma echoed these lessons in her care of me, and those around her. Her compassion for all creatures-humans and animals alike- sticks with me even now, years after her passing. Anyone in our family could tell you about the time that Grandma nursed an abandoned baby mouse back to health, or when we hand fed a litter of baby bunnies for weeks when the mother was scared away by my Aunt Pauline’s dog, or when she brought our Cat, Mr. Tibb’s back from the brink when he was sick and my parents’ had already booked us a trip to Mexico. What I’m trying to say is my grandmother taught me that even if you can’t immediately relate to someone, or something, even if you’re a different species, when help is needed, you offer it. She taught me that there was beauty in the world and that it was worth saving. I haven’t mentioned my Grandpa yet, but he was the love of my Grandma’s life. They met when she was 17 and living in Florida with her parents. He saw her singing in the church choir when he was on vacation with his family, and three months later she had moved up to Canada, they were married, and soon my Aunt Debbie was on the way. My Grandpa’s brother’s made their way owning car dealerships and racehorses, and lived well into their 80s and 90s- my Grandpa got into the oil industry. First in Sarnia, then Nova Scotia, the United States, Calgary, and, for a short period of time, Saudi Arabia, among numerous other towns and cities. My Grandpa managed oil refineries for decades- and was proud of his work and all it afforded his family. Both he and my Grandma had jackets and hats stitched with the Turbo Canada logo (a now defunct petroleum company) and somewhere in my closet at my parent’s house, I still have one of his old jackets tucked away, with a decades old cigarette hidden in the pocket. My Grandpa was in insanely good health, for his entire life. Due to his health, and love of his job, he didn’t retire until he was in his early 60s. When I was about 11 his health abruptly changed. He got very sick, very quickly, and for the first time in his life, he was admitted to a hospital overnight, and for the next 6 months or so, he didn’t really leave. My Grandpa died of Leukaemia in his early 70s, due to, what the family believed, was from a lifetime of benzene exposure from working in the oil and gas industry. Much of the generational wealth I still benefit from, is due to the Canadian oil industry; this makes me uncomfortable. But this same industry, the one that allowed my grandparents to raise 4 daughters comfortably, and retire on the shores of Lake Huron, in a house that they built, is the same industry that ultimately cost him his life- it’s the reason I no longer have a Grandpa. It’s also why when my grandma had a series of mini-strokes resulting in dementia, she spent the last few really difficult years of her life alone, without the comfort of her lifelong partner by her side. I’m not going to say that my Grandfather dying is the reason I work with other young people for climate justice- that fate was sealed over two decades ago, when I first started crying in front of the TV seeing the harm we have the capacity to inflict. But what my Grandpa’s leukaemia does compel me to do is work for a world where no one else has to leave this world too soon in order to provide for their family. The oil and gas industry in Canada has given so many of us so much, and it has also taken so much away. Not just from those like my family who lost a single loved one too soon, and too painfully, but from the communities like the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Chemical Valley, downstream from the refineries my Grandfather worked at in Sarnia, where miscarriages are frequent because of exposure to chemicals like cadmium and mercury. The weight of our affluence shouldn’t be borne by those who have had their land stolen from them, or by the workers who risk their health and livelihood working in mines and refineries because our government can’t be bothered to subsidize job training programs for low-carbon work, or support an energy economy that doesn’t make a few influential people exorbitant amounts of wealth. The greed of the Canadian petro-state is devastating. It is so easy to give into the heartbreak, the malaise, to wallow in the understanding that we are already losing, that we have lost so much, and so many to climate change, and the fossil fuel industry. What’s hard is hope. What’s hard is to continue to love, to continue to plough ahead despite the odds, to demand better of our leaders; of ourselves. The Green New Deal is the first thing that has offered me real hope in a very long time. The Green New Deal and it’s “no one left behind” attitude offer us a chance to build the world we want to live in- a world without catastrophic climate change, a world where workers are respected and valued to a higher degree than the resources they’re extracting. A world where having the energy to power our lives doesn’t mean sacrificing entire communities like the Aamjiwnaang, and their children. Where, in order to provide for your family, you don’t first have to sign away your red blood cell count. My heart was first broken in front of that TV when I was little. I’m so ready to put it back together. And I’m going to do that the only way I know how: by working with those I love to try to save my home. We can do that with a Green New Deal, but we need your help, we need your hope, and we need your hands. We need to get to work.

#GreenNewDealCanada OurTime2019 ClimateJustice YouthClimateAction

[dreamboytranscripts-blog]

Ep. 1- Goodbye, Esmerelda Part 1

DANE: The milky way galaxy. Planet Earth. Cleveland, Ohio. Twelve-year-old Esmerelda looks out the window of her father single-engine airplane.

All of Cleveland is rolling underneath her. The trees look just like broccoli, she thinks. And the lake looks like one of her mom’s silver plates and it’s getting bigger in her eyes. And she smiles.

Now, little Esmerelda doesn’t know this probably, but a hundred years ago or so her great great grandfather John Stonefall, the oil tycoon, bought all the land currently rolling under her for a suspiciously small sum. But rather than build on the land like everyone expected, he instead had it all dug up. Leaving mounds of dirt everywhere, much to the chagrin of the locals. Petitions were signed, ladies groups had lunches. Finally, as a compromise, Stonefall filled most of the holes, built a summer home on a small piece of the land, and donated the rest of the city of Cleveland for parks.

The Stonefalls ended up liking it in Cleveland. Despite the controversy, they were happy there and they breed like rabbits becoming more and more cousins with cleaner and cleaner money. And that money eventually thinned and settled, becoming locked up in foundations, orchestras, zoos. Many of these cousins left Cleveland, but a few stayed. Their lives buoyed by the steady pumping of old trusts.

And it was one of these cousins, a guy named Roger Parring. A man made foggy from a life of never having had to know that he had never really had, who took his little daughter, Esmerelda Parring, for a ride in their single-engine airplane. Now, later on that night they will show their flight path on the news. A single red line that ends abruptly in the solid blue section at the top of the map graphic. Apparently, their engine began to malfunction as they were right over Pepper Heights and people on the news later will say they could hear it.

A sound like a saw in the sky.

But while that plane was still in the air above Pepper Heights, I didn’t hear it. I was far below, sleeping late in an old bed in my friend’s guest room. Huge white clouds were racing through the sky, making the light in my bedroom change from bright to dim to bright to dim. But I didn’t notice that either. I was deep in a dark dream.

Now, my dreams are pretty fucked up usually. Like me and my mom are astronauts and she’s floating away and I can’t do anything about it. Or like the train car I’m on is full of a thousand big, fat slow black flies landing on everybody's face and lips and they don’t notice because everyone is reading their Kindles that sort of thing. And I don’t dream about sex that often but, when I do it’s always something really awful. Like I’m at the deli and the guy behind the counter is making me fuck my cousin, Bryan, in front of a line of old ladies waiting for their hams and I can’t get hard and everybody is waiting.

Anyway, ever since I got to Cleveland I’ve been having this strange recurring dream. It always starts the same. I’m in the water. Hanging suspended and it’s deep water. And it’s dark, I can’t see anything. The water is the same temperature as my body. It feels pleasant. My hair’s just gently swaying. And then I feel a little bit of cold on my legs. And at first, I think it feels sort of nice. And then a little bit more cold and then slowly I realize, that’s something huge is moving underneath me.

I start to freak out and I start to try to get away but I can’t get anywhere. The water isn’t moving and I feel the coldness coming up more and more cold like the thing is getting closer. So I start to crash and I open my mouth to scream but the icy water rushes in. It hits the back of my throat and zooms down into my stomach. I feel it fill me up. And then it zigzags it’s way through my intestines like a cold knife and just before it gets to the back of my asshole, I wake up.

And I throw off the covers and I look down. And my dick is rock hard. Like so hard that it’s actually like bobbing up and- oh fuck I am late for work. I jump out of bed, I throw on my faded red Zenarc Corporations t-shirt and I tuck my boner into my shorts as best I can. I run downstairs and grab a pop tart and I dump a glass of water on the counter somewhere near the plants and then boom I’m out the door.

I usually walk through the neighborhood, Woodshire to York to Willowbrook to Cedar Ridge and then I cut through the woods. But not I have to run right down the main street area of Pepper Heights, Rivington Road, because I’m running late.

I get to the four-way stop and people in Ohio are way too polite for four-way stops so everyone just of sort sits there going:

“No, you go first” “Nah you go first” “No please I insist” “No please”

So I just run diagonally right across screaming. [sounds of screaming and honking cars] Now the thing about Rivington Road is that it’s a busy little street. There’s all these different kinds of food: Indian, Ethiopian, a Ramen place, a Sushi place, a Chinese food place, a toy shop, an independent bookshop, records, second-hand clothes, Peruvian imports, A head shop, a couple of bars, and even a gay bar. All in like a few blocks and it’s always crowded.  And there are so many different types of people and outside of New York, I’ve never ever seen anything like Pepper Heights. It was such a mix of people. People from every country, every income bracket. All living in the same neighborhood. It felt like some sort of lefty public tv fantasy. All these different kinds of lovely humans right here on Rivington but not a single fucking one of them knows how to walk at the right speed. “MOVE!”

I turn the corner right by the mirror store and boom. I see a truck, I almost run into it. Some sort of utility truck. It’s like parked half on the grass and half in the street. And I hear cussing coming from somewhere close.

“Cock sucker motherfucker son of a bitch”

And it sounds like it coming from above me so I look up. And there is a sort of crane coming up from the utility truck to bucket and there is a man in the bucket fiddling with the light pole but I can’t really see him because he is silhouetted by the sun but he’s just cussing up a storm. I have never heard some cuss so blatantly and out in the open and I mean this is a neighborhood. There’s like old ladies and like little kids-

[child's voice] “Move fucker!"

DANE: “Hey!”

A little girl comes out of no where she almost runs me over on her bike. Jesus. Okay, just a few more blocks. And I don’t have to run anymore I think I can just walk briskly, I don’t want to be a complete sweaty mess when I get there. And I’m only…..13 minutes late that’s not so bad. That’s close to ten minutes, it's almost ten minutes late. Okay.

I get to the side entrance, this big metal building and above the door, there is a sign that says “Zenarc Corporation: Shuttle Bay Five.” I stop for a minute. I take a breath. And then I open the big metal door. The cold air instantly hits me. The security guard gets up from his chair and blocks the hallway. He crosses his arms and stands in front of me. His eyes narrow as he demands to see my id badge.

“Really I’ve worked here for three weeks and I’m late.”

After a ridiculous amount of looking at me up and down, looking at my badge then looking back at me looking at my badge again, he lets me pass. Four more heavy metal doors and finally, I’m in the shuttle bay.

VOICE FROM OVERHEAD: “Mission Log 10182135 - Project Objective: To survey the 69 known moons of Jupiter for possible helium2 deposits. You are to report any signs of helium2 directly to your superiors at Zenarc Corporations upon debriefing. All 69 target moons are classified as lifeless but nonetheless, you are advised to keep your scanners on. Be safe and happy hunting miners.”

DANE: Okay, hold on for a second. I know what you are thinking.

Cleveland? Why Cleveland? Why did I go to Cleveland?

Well, I went to Cleveland… because I was tired. Tired in- tired in like a cosmic sense. Like a big sense. Not like a day to day tired. Not like ‘I need a nap tired’ but like ‘I need a 6-month soul nap’ tired. And my friend Emily was going to be gone for 6 weeks so she said ‘Come stay in my house, water my plants, and you can be alone’ and I thought ‘Alone. Alone time. That sounds great. What a gift to somebody who's been living in New York, especially a musician.’ So I thought ‘I’ll write an album.’ And so I went. I took my keyboard, I set it up in her living room, I turned it on, I sat on the bench and Grindr-ed. And ate my way through an Amazon shipping error of Doritos but every once in a while my free hand would reach out blindly and finger a random cord.

Grindr for some people, I think, is fun. Like they can just pop into it and then pop right back out of it whenever they’re done. But for me, I’ve never been able to stop having fun. But not in like a- not in like a ‘I’m always having fun’ kind of way. But in like a- like ‘There’s so much fun that it hurts’ kind of way. Uh, it just eats all of my time, obsessively. But after three days, I still hadn’t gotten laid and all of my white keys were orange. So I deleted Grindr again, and started looking for a job. But after literally walking into a mirror while dropping off my application at the American Apparel and being given what I thought was a rather gosh but nonetheless classic runaround by the assistant manager at the Chipotle, I was running out of options within walking distance. But I finally scored a late season job working at this tiny little neighborhood amusement park. It’s called the Pepper Heights Zoo. This place has been a risk free tax haven since before plastic was invented. It was like a nursing home for the old oil money and the zoo part was a motley collection of creatures gotten cheap for various reasons. But the most popular attraction by far, the animal on all the lunch boxes, the star, was an elderly zebra named Zoe.

Now, I don’t have any experience with animals myself so they gave me a job as a ride attendant on one of the few rides. This large indoor roller coaster called ‘Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons.’ It was right next to Zoe’s exhibit. Everyone just referred to it as ‘The Moons.’ It was a pretty tame ride actually, with a rider minimum height of only 48 inches. 44 if you had an adult. The whole idea was that it was a space shuttle that took space prospectors out to the moons of Jupiter to look for helium2 deposits. My job as an employee of the fake space prospecting company, the Zenarc Corporation, was to unload the kids, instruct them them to report any helium2 deposits during their debriefing in the next room and I had to use my most official sounding voice. And the park did a pretty good job making it all seem spacey and fun, there were flashing lights and space props. And in line, you heard a robot voice saying the mission objective on loop.

[Overhead voice plays again]

There was even, like, space adventure music playing from hidden speakers during the ride itself. That was the cool thing about the Pepper Heights Zoo. They piped in music all over the park like specifically made for the park. A lot of it was recorded years ago by these three ladies. They were sisters. The sherggeburg- the something sisters. I- I don’t know but you can buy their CD in the gift shop.

[Music fades in]

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream boy

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream boy

Dream fade into the night

But rather than die away

Why don’t you stay

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream

Dream

[Music end]

But they also recorded a theme song for Zoe

[Upbeat(Kind of crazy) music starts]

[Sisters laughing]

Zoe, Zoe

The most amazing zebra

Zoe, Zoe

She’s our favorite friend!

La la la la..

[Music fades to background]

And since the ride shares it’s huge metal building with part of Zoe’s exhibit I did have to listen to that on loop for my entire shift. Other than that it was a pretty easy gig though, I just had to stand behind my podium and say my one line into this rank microphone that jesus smelled like a hundred summer’s worth of spit.

“Attention all miners aboard Shuttle Five. Please report your helium2 findings in the debriefing room.”

The lap bars clank open and the kids scramble out. They all run into the next room, the debriefing room but one girl lags behind. She stands there beside the track. I realise slowly that I recognize her. She has ridden the ride several times this week and she’s dressed like a Catholic school or-or I don’t know what I think they dress like. The lap bars slam down automatically on the coaster behind her but she doesn’t jump. The empty car disappears into the dark tunnel to pick up another batch of kids in the next room, leaving us alone.

“Are you okay?”

GIRL: “I’m perfectly fine.”

DANE: “O-Okay. Um, you need to report to debriefing.”

GIRL: “Please. I’m nearly 60 inches tall.

DANE: “O-oh um…”

GIRL: “I know it’s all pretend.”

DANE: “Okay, well you still have to leave before the shuttle comes back though okay?”

GIRL: “I know. I just thought I’d wait till they clear out a little. The other kids.”

DANE: She nodded towards the debriefing room but she wasn’t really looking at it. She wasn't looking at me either and she spoke like a small adult.from the 1960’s in that creepy way that kids who are raised by their grandparents sound. Her eyes settle on a far door. I instinctively step out from behind podium. Then another door opens and a man enters. He walks quickly towards me. His nice suit makes him look completely out of place but he stops when he notices the little girl.

MAN: “Oh! Hello there!”

DANE: He winks at me as he walks over to her and bends down to her eye level.

MAN: “So, tell me. Do you have any helium deposits to report?”

DANE: She says nothing. She just glares at him. It’s the kind of glare that stays anchored on his face as she walks around him and disappears into the debriefing room behind him.

MAN: “Awww. That’s a great age.”

DANE: This man is Eli Critch, the director of the Pepper Heights Zoo.

ELI: “Hello Dwayne.”

DANE: “It’s um..it’s Dane, actually.”

ELI: “Oh yes of course. I’m sorry, Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane.Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. I knew that! Dane. Dane. How are you liking it over here at the moons?”

DANE: “Um, it’s fine.”

Somewhere else in the building the old roller coaster car makes a turn and the whole building responds with a soft metallic groan.

[Kind of a aggressive groan from the building]

ELI: “Okay. Well, I just wanted to give you an updated set of keys. Changed the locks last night. Can’t be too careful. What with the current...rigamarole situation.”

DANE: He sets a key ring on the podium. Two shiny new keys on it.

ELI: “That’s the broom closet, that’s the front of the ride and that should do ya’”

DANE: Then he smiles and there is an awkward moment where he is just smiling at me. And then the smile turns off like a neon sign and he walks away. But he stops short in the middle of the Shuttle Bay and turns back around. That green shuttle approaching light flashing on his nice suit.

ELI: “Oh, indeed. You do know that door leads to Zoe’s night time enclosure, yes?”

DANE: He points at the far door. I nod slowly.

[music change to softs casual music]

Now I’ve always loved the grocery store at night. Like a 24-hour grocery store is like my church. And it’s mostly because there are no people, yeah sure but, also because everything has been restocked and straightened and it’s perfectly neat. There’s just row upon row of brightly colored boxes with little cartoon faces all peeking out the same way. And I think it’s because everything is so neat and there are no people moving around and there’s this bouncy music playing, that if you look for it you can really glimpse the shape of a terrible screaming skull behind the gorgeous face that the grocery store. And it hits you. You are standing in a warehouse of death. A plant and animal morgue.

Tonight I want a pie. But the bakery section of the store is dark. Like the lights were out in just that corner and also the pie case, I know exactly where it’s at, I can see it from here, but it has a shorted light tonight. And it’s blinking randomly. Giving the whole bakery section sorta bad part of town feel. Now… I’m maybe a bad boy, maybe not a bad boy, depends on who you ask, but I’m certainly not afraid of the dark and I mean… sort of a rebel. I even have the cart with a squeaky wheel. So, I like squeak right over to that bakery section.

CART: “Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeak.”

Dane: And as soon as I cross the threshold, I see them. Sitting in shadow. Three little girls. Girl Scouts maybe, behind a table. About 12 years old, give or take. They had doll eyes. Over thin smiles.

GIRL: “Good morning.”

DANE: “Oh! Go-But it’s just after midnight.”

GIRL: “Technically morning.”

DANE: “Oh. That’s uh… That’s pretty by the book.”

GIRL 2: “There are enough lies.”

DANE: They’re all wearing matching uniforms? And they all have different patches and I recognize the one girl from the ride easier. It’s the girl that lagged behind and she recognizes me. And the other two are twins but with, different hair.

“Uh… Are you selling something?”

GIRL:“No. But if you would like to donate we would be most appreciative.”

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