#anyways back to my fictional fantasies before I end up pissed off all day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yanny-77 · 6 months

Text

…But what is Sunball?

Do you ever find yourself sitting around, watching NFL RedZone, tracking your fantasy team and wonder to yourself, well what is Sunball anyway? No? Just me?

Well, my latest obsession is All For the Game by Nora Sakavic (If you haven’t read it, check the content warnings and prepare to suspend your sense of reality. Totally worth it.) and the fictional sport Exy. I love it and I hate it and it’s so stupid but I’ve read the series twice this month and want to do it again. Seriously, I’m not well.

Anyway, I decided to marry Sunball and Exy together into a short vignette paying homage to my current two favorite series. It’s not my best work but it’s been demanding my attention all day.

Ithan Holstrom lined up for the serve. His eyes flicked up to the scoreboard. The game was all tied up at six goals with two minutes left to play. His hand tightened on his racket. This game was a must win if CCU was going to make it to the semifinals.

The Palmetto State backliner who’d been dogging him all night, a bruiser of a male with the number 04 stenciled on his orange jersey, lined up across from him. Matt Boyd bared his teeth at Holstrom as they waited for the Fox’s dealer to start play. Holstrom smiled back at Boyd. They’d settle this on the court.

A whistle sounded and Holstrom was moving. Dan Wilds was good, but not good enough. She’d served the sunball directly to Kevin Day, easily Palmetto’s best player, but impossibly, Holstrom got there first.

Holstrom’s stick knocked the other striker’s out of the way just in time for the ball to land safely in his net. He needed to move quickly; Day had raced up the field to join Josten, one threat gone, but Boyd was now charging toward him.

Holstrom scanned the field for his fellow CCU striker and passed the sunball. He had barely enough time to brace himself for Boyd’s body check before they slammed into the plexiglass.

Holstrom didn’t care. Sunball was a rough sport and he was used to coming off the court with bruises at the end. It hurt now but his shifter blood meant he’d be healed by the time he left the showers. The only part of this that truly annoyed Holstrom was that he couldn’t see what was happening with Boyd’s body pressing his face into the court walls.

Fortunately, the roar of the crowd told him that his aim was true. Jason Regez had caught the ball and was running down the court to take a shot on the goal.

Boyd realized Regez was about to score at the same moment Holstrom did. The weight against him eased and Holstrom was able to shove Boyd off. Both players took off down court to join the fray.

Regez looked relieved when Holstrom arrived and gestured to Holstrom get open. He couldn’t get a shot lined up past his defender. Leave it to Regez to struggle against Nicki Hemmick, of all people. Holstrom hoped his eye roll wasn’t visible beneath his helmet.

Regez passed the sunball and Ithan took a shot on the goal. Bitter disappointment halted him for only a moment when the Fox’s goalkeeper caught the ball in his net and hurled it up field to his strikers. The goalie scowled at Ithan for even daring the attempt.

At 5’0, Andrew Minyard didn’t look like much on the field. His racket was actually longer than he was tall, but Holstrom had done his research and knew Minyard was a Hel of a player, when he wanted to be. Despite his small size, piss poor attitude, and lack of professional polish, the blonde male glaring at him was one of the best raw talents in the sport.

Holstrom hoped he’d get another chance to make the winning goal.

Up the court, Day and Josten passed the ball between them, yelling commands to each other in French. A useful skill that allowed them to communicate without giving away too much of their strategy to the CCU backliners defending them.

Josten took a shot on the goal and for a moment, Holstrom thought it was all over for CCU. Somehow, miraculously, the CCU goalie have saved an impossible shot. No one on the foxes expected it and Holstrom was completely unguarded. He caught the ball and turned to the goal. Fifteen seconds were left on the clock and Andrew Minyard was the only thing standing between CCU and victory.

Holstrom ran, putting all his strength into the wind up. The game clock ticked loudly in time with his pulse. With two seconds to go, Holstrom heaved the sunball toward the goal.

It lit up red and a blaring noise filled the stadium. Minyard looked at him for just a moment before he shrugged, dropped his racket, and walked off the court.

The game was over. CCU was going to the semifinals. Holstrom sank to his knees in victory. His teammates swarmed him and he was lost to the celebration. CCU students pushed their way onto the court. It was mayhem. It was madness. It was NCAA sunball.

#sunball is Exy change my mind #I apologize to both fandoms for this #a crossover no one asked for #my two obsessions #crescent city #sunball #sarah j maas #sjm #crescent city fanfic #all for the game #the foxhole court #CCU sunball #crescent city university #palmetto state university #palmetto state foxes

1 note · View note

persepholline · 3 years

Text

I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #aleksander morozova

78 notes · View notes

ihearthes · 3 years

Photo

Quarantine Christmas Part 1

Author: @ihearthes Pairing: Harry x y/n Rating: Fluff/Smut (Smut in Part 2) Word Count: 2826 (Part 1) Fiction Chalenge via @caitlin‘s fiction party via @sweetcreatureinthedark

December 23, 2020

My head spins as I haul my suitcase from the trunk, using two hands due to the heft of the dirty clothes inside. Setting it on the ground, I yank on the handle before grappling with the two shopping bags filled with presents, reaching back for the decorated Christmas tin that is filled with homemade cookies, fudge, and other delicacies baked by my colleagues at Apple Music.

Wrestling with my hands full, I close the trunk with an elbow, shivering in the chilly LA air. At the front door, I want to cry. Dammit. I could clearly remember that when Glenne had given me the code for the front door and the alarm, I placed them in my phone under her contact information.

“FUCK!” The primal scream is released from my lungs, likely scaring the neighbors if any of them are outside enjoying Christmas lights or having family celebrations on this Christmas Eve Eve. Balancing the tin of cookies on top of the suitcase, I set down the shopping bags to reach for my phone. My purse slips off my shoulder, knocking the container of sweets, and in the scramble to rescue them, I nearly fall head over heels into the bushes.

It isn’t until I punch in the numbers and drag my personal effects inside that it occurs to me that the alarm isn’t armed. Had Glenne and Jeffrey forgotten to punch in the code before they left for Palm Springs? Deciding I don’t care, I leave everything by the door as I drag my suitcase to the main floor laundry room, dumping everything in without regard to color or type of clothing. Since we’ve been working remotely the majority of the time for the last fucking nine months, “dressing up” encompasses blue jeans and the occasional blouse, but most of my clothing is sweatpants and t-shirts. Deciding washing the blue jeans and blouses with the sweatpants and t-shirts is the worst idea ever, I fish those out before pouring laundry detergent over the remaining garments and starting the washer.

Glancing down at the clothing currently on my body, it seems completely reasonable to drop them into the washer too. Stripping the t-shirt from my body, I toss it into the swirling water before adding my bra, socks, and leggings to the murky mix. Wearing only panties in the cool house makes my nipples bead.

Ha! I’m sure my nips are happy to get any action after almost a year with no dating of any sort because of the fucking pandemic. Which reminds me that I’ve forgotten my vibrator at home. Shit. Of all the things I don’t mind borrowing from Glenne, I do have a line I won’t cross.

Placing the tin of Christmas yummies on the kitchen counter, I grasp the handles of the two bags of gifts. It might be silly to put them under the tree since I’m the only one in the house, but it will make me feel better. More like I’m at home with my family in Indiana. Less like I’m stuck in quarantine in an empty house for my favorite holiday. Sniffling, I swipe at my nose with the back of my hand as I pad down the two steps into the living room to the tree.

Kneeling at the fake tree, I reach for the switch to turn on the lights. As the colors begin blinking, I carefully withdraw each present, reading the tag before gently placing the gift under the tree. Even my brother had sent a present through the mail which must mean he misses me his year. Right now, we should be challenging each other to the most ridiculous games to see who is the best. Inevitably, he would win some while I beat him at others until eventually we declare a tie. My mother would chastise us both with a grin on her face, implicitly encouraging us to continue our “reindeer games” as my father called them.

From behind me, I hear a shuffling sound. Hadn’t they taken Myles with them? No matter. I could use the company a dog would provide.

“Santa, you’ve changed!” a soft voice exclaims, and I jump, twisting around to find another human wearing sweatpants and a hoodie.

“It’s you!” Both voices exclaim simultaneously. “What the fuck are you doing here?” We both pause, “Stop saying what I’m saying!”

Out of breath, I stare at him. The Harry Styles. Fuck.

His eyes roam over my body, and it finally dawns on me that I’m wearing nothing but my Victoria’s Secret lace panties. Shit.

Pacing measuredly to the couch without openly cringing, I grasp a wool throw and wrap it around my chest regally like I’ve just exited the pool at some exotic locale near the equator. My shoulders straighten, and I face him openly.

“Are you joining Glenne and Jeffrey in Palm Springs?” My back is a board, and my tone is barely restrained.

“Nope.” His nonchalance combined with his truncated answer pisses me off, per usual.

“So you’re flying home, waiting here for your flight tonight?” The hopeful tone is obvious to me and probably to him as well.

“No.” Those green eyes of his rake over my nearly-naked body, and I shiver. From the cold of course. Jesus. Get your heads out of the gutter!

“Watering the plants prior to returning to the Soho?”

“Uh uh.”

Delayed dread begins to fill my stomach. “You mean --” I clear my throat -- “you’re staying here?”

“Yep.”

“Shit.” Running my hand through my hair, I ponder the impact and my next steps.

“You?” He asks politely, even though I know he doesn’t feel solicitude at this moment.

“Glenne told me I could stay here for a few days. I made arrangements for my place to be fumigated while I was in Indiana for Christmas.”

His raised eyebrow mocks me.

“I’m not going, though. Okay?”

“Why not?”

“Seriously? Where the fuck have you been, Styles? In case you didn’t know, there’s a global fucking pandemic, and all of Los Angeles is locked down. So no -- I am not getting on a plane with a bunch of potentially infected and contagious --” Emotion overwhelms me, and I have to stop and catch my breath. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I turn away from him so he can’t see the tears that form in my eyes.

“Whatever, Smith.”

“My name --” I draw myself up and gather my anger around me like a cloak -- “is not Smith.”

“Yeah, right. Which bedroom are you planning to sleep in?”

“Surely you’re not suggesting we both stay here?” Appalled, I stare at him with my mouth open. “I’ll get a hotel room.” When I realize my wardrobe is in the washing machine, I softly say, “As soon as my clothes are dry.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Smith. We’ll share the space. It’s only a couple of days.”

“Excuse me!?” Anger wells up. “Only the most important days in the entire year!” Superiority makes me stand up fully to him. “Besides, I’ve been quarantining for months. No way do I want to share germs with you!”

“Oh please! As if you’ve got a monopoly on quarantining! I’m perfectly safe. We get tested every morning before we film. When was the last time you were tested?”

“Two days ago!” She’s at her boiling point. “Look, if we're both staying here together, then we’re just going to have to avoid each other. It’s a big house. We can do that.”

“Maybe once you put some clothes on,” Harry comments, smirking in that way he has where the left side of his mouth tilts up.

Mortified, I glance down at myself. Briefly I consider scurrying for Glenne’s closet, but I pause. Why should I rush away? Because he’s male? Because he was here first? Because he’s sexy as fuck and my panties can’t take anymore?

“Fine,” I respond as I brush past him like the Queen of England. “I’ll find something to wear, and then we can hash out the details.”

“Great plan. I’m ordering something for dinner.”

My stomach growls, and I suddenly feel an irrational hatred for that part of my body. How I long to state that I’ve already eaten or that I plan to cook something! But alas, I’ve brought no food with me, and I’ve no clue what’s in the kitchen. If Glenne and Jeffrey even left anything.

“Does that mean you’d like some too?” He gloats, and as much as I would like to smack the grin off his face, I’ve not eaten since a quick bite for breakfast hours before.

Knowing I’m going to have to grovel, I face him. “I’m capable of ordering for myself.”

“Yes, but that’s not necessarily good for the environment, is it? Sending two drivers to the same address from different restaurants?” Pausing, he appears to swallow whatever snarky comment was forthcoming. “Can we agree on this one small thing? I’m thinking poke.”

Shit. Fuck. Goddammit. That’s exactly what I would have ordered. Fuck.

Casually, I shrug. “Yeah, whatever. I can choke down some poke.” As I saunter away, tucking the ends of the makeshift shroud under my armpits, I call back to him, “Spicy please.”

Quickly I make my way to Glenne’s closet, surveying the items there. Ripping down a pair of joggers and a Full Stop Management hoodie, I drop the covering I’ve been wearing and rapidly draw the clothes over my naked body. Nothing I can do about not having a bra, but the hoodie is roomy so I worry less.

In the bathroom, I run my fingers through my hair, combing out the curls as best I can in this environment. In no way do I want it to appear that I’m trying to look amazing for Harry. Biting my lip, I admit to myself that the opposite is true. I absolutely want him to fall at my feet.

Which isn’t going to happen, I remind myself. Give up the ghost of a fantasy.

Making eye contact in the mirror, I provide a pep talk for myself. “Listen,” I remind my reflection, “this is just one more fucked up situation in 2020. You’ve gotten through worse. It’s truly a giant house, so there’s no reason -- wait. Why is he staying here anyway?” For whatever reason, I had allowed him to dodge that incredibly simple question.

Tucking my hands into the hoodie’s front pocket, I amble to the kitchen where Harry is just disconnecting his phone.

“Food will be here in 45 minutes,” he promises.

“Why are you staying here again? I missed your answer earlier,” I prompt.

I’m confident I see a flash of embarrassment crossing his face as he lowers his head. “Wine?” He asks, gesturing towards the extensive rack of reds and then the chiller of whites.

Unsure as to whether I should allow the diversion or press, I examine him. His eyes look tired and sad. His clothes, while comfortable, aren’t upbeat. Nor is his current demeanor. Is he okay?

Planting his hands in his hoodie in an unconscious mimic of my pose, he glances at me before his eyes stray to the side, examining the marble countertop. That look tells me more than I need to know, and my empath side emerges as I toss him a life preserver.

“With poke? I think perhaps a Reisling.”

He nods, bending to look through the wines in the cooler before he extracts one, holding it up for me to inspect the label. My eyes start to widen at the vineyard, assuming the extravagant cost, but I calm my features. “Perf!” I declare.

Grasping the wine opener from a nearby drawer, Harry removes the cork as I snatch two wine glasses from the cabinet and place them near him. Carefully comparing the amount in each glass, he pours enough before recorking the bottle. Taking my glass, I move into the living room where I can view the tree. It’s Christmas Eve Eve after all, and I refuse to be deterred from watching the lights twinkle and celebrating the season.

Harry apparently has a similar idea as he fiddles with the sound system before a crackle of ‘Jingle Bell Drunk’ by RaeLynn starts playing which causes me to giggle.

I settle on one side of the sofa, and Harry plants himself on the other side. Separately, we each take a sip of the riesling. My tongue does a happy dance at the flavor on my tongue. “This sweetness will cut the spicy quite well. Excellent choice.”

“You made the selection,” Harry reminds me, and I cringe.

“Oh. Yeah.”

Silence descends as the song proclaims “I’ve been naughty. I’ve been nice.”

“If there was ever a year for this song, this is it.” I announce into the quiet.

“Yeah. It’s been quite the year.”

Sharply, I glance at him. Perhaps I had missed something? “Excuse me? You’ve had one hell of a year, Styles. Grammy nominations aside, there were how many music videos released during this global disaster? Plus a movie!”

“Agreed.” He’s quiet, his jaw clenched, and suddenly his words burst forth as though a gate at a dam has been opened. “But no tour. And almost no family time.”

Wait. Was this superstar feeling some of my emotions? He’d had a stellar year in anyone’s estimation. Maybe I could be more sympathetic.

“Yeah. I’m sorry about tour. I had tickets to Vegas and one of the LA shows.”

His head swivels to me more swiftly than an owl focusing on prey. “You had tickets?”

“HAVE.” I swallow. “Thanks for not canceling by the way. I cannot imagine the bloodbath for getting tickets in the future. You’ve become the ‘it celebrity’.”

A blush is followed by a sheepish smile. “You can always get tickets, Smith. Just ask.”

“I don’t do that.” My voice is filled with the prickles that I feel at his words.

“Do what?”

“Use my privilege to get tickets to shows.”

“Oh. I…” His words trailed off.

Suddenly, I feel less uncomfortable around him. Reaching out, I shove at his shoulder. “You’re a giant star, and you have a ton of fans who want to see you. Me? I’m just happy to be a member of the audience.”

“Really?” Incredulous is what I sense in that one word. “Why?”

“Seriously?” I’m appalled. “Do you not know what an amazing entertainer you are, Styles? Fuck. If I hadn’t been able to see your Fine Line show at the Forum last December, I probably would have cried. You know exactly what your audience wants, and you deliver it. Consistently.”

“But --”

“Hush. Don’t you dare negate your talent!” Taking another sip of wine, I reveal unabashedly, “Maybe it’s the wine talking, but I really enjoy your shows.”

“Smith?” He inquires, and my hand stalls with my wine glass halfway to my mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you like my shows?”

Stalling, I run a finger through my hair and empty my wine glass before holding it out to him. “More please?”

He rises, but I can read his reluctance. Within moments, Harry is back at my side, handing me a second glass of the riesling. I can’t help but notice that he’s topped his own off too.

“Answer the question, Smith.”

“My name isn’t Smith. In fact, there’s not a single part of my name that’s related to Smith. Why do you call me that?”

“Tell me why you like my shows, and I’ll reveal the meaning behind the nickname.”

My head feels fuzzy from the wine and the headiness of being near Harry, and I watch the lights flashing on the tree for a few minutes while Meghan Patrick belts out her version of ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ over the sound system.

“You make your fans feel like they matter.”

“How?” His question comes rapidly, and I have to gather my thoughts.

“You...talk to them. Listen to them. Watch them. Appreciate them. It’s rare, Harry. I mean, I’m in this business too, you know. Not every artist does what you do.”

“False.”

“I’m fucking serious, you asshole.” I gulp down more of the wine. “You make your audience feel like they’re your closest friends. I wish more artists did that. Specifically the ones I represent.”

“Oh.” His single utterance is enough, and we sit in pure tranquility for several minutes as the lights blink and Ava Max sings “Christmas Without You”.

“Wanna watch the quintessential holiday movie?” I inquire, looking at him.

“Which is?”

“Die Hard, of course,” is my response. “What were you thinking?”

“It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Nope. It’s pretty good. In the top five for sure.”

“Wait. What are your top five?”

“Oh, that’s easy. ‘Die Hard’, ‘Home Alone’, ‘A Christmas Story’, ‘The Santa Clause’, and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

“You’re serious?”

“Deadly?” I giggle at the joke since ‘Die Hard’ is full of death.

“Fine. But we watch ‘Wonderful Life’ afterwards.”

“Deal.”

Part 2

#my writing #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #caitlin's fic challenge #part1 #harry styles smut #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfic #original writing

148 notes · View notes

squeeneyart · 3 years

Text

Breathe in the Salt - Chapter 25

AO3

Beta reader as always is @thesnadger

Nothing to do but talk.

Martin and Jon settle in for a movie night.

The documentary, if it could be called that, was absolute bunk.

Littered throughout were vague interviews and wild assumptions on the part of the very on-screen director, all tied together with a final push for people to purchase a very specific brand of smoke detector. And the low quality of the video couldn’t be blamed solely on Martin’s internet.

They watched the thing from start to finish, though, and by the end of its 70-minute runtime (“I should’ve guessed by how short it was,” Jon had grumbled partway through) their viewing had turned primarily to Jon taking the piss out of it. Academically, of course.

On Martin’s end the film itself was bad in an enjoyable way, and while he didn’t have the context for all of Jon’s complaints it was easy for him to listen. He’d even made some jokes that got Jon to snort.

He did have to sit uncomfortably straight to keep from leaning against each other. Jon had turned it a bit so they could both see, but when viewed from too hard an angle the picture looked even worse. So, Martin did his best to give Jon space and not let the effort distract him from the screen.

All of this being true, Martin was grateful for the horrible film. Nothing filled silence better than movies and television, so the nights following they settled into a routine. Someone would make dinner (with no further… outbursts) and then they would find something to watch. Afterwards they would say goodnight and Martin would escape upstairs to decompress with his little notebook.

Jon’s original idea had been to find something related to their goals. However, after another let down on night two involving a very old retrospective on the mid-century fishing industry (“Wrong century,” Martin had said about five minutes in), Jon dropped the idea, thus opening up a whole new world of cable television and old vhs tapes on night three.

“You bought yourself a laptop but never had a dvd player?” Jon yawned, getting comfortable on his side of the couch.

“We sort of… skipped it?” Martin dug through a box of tapes for something worth watching, sifting through sappier options and 80s action flicks alike. “Dunno how, but we never got one. The laptop ended up being the first thing I ever had to play dvds, but the telly is too old to be hooked up to it. S’fine, though. I like tapes.”

“And you never get bored of it? Flipping between tapes and whatever’s on at a given time?”

Martin rolled his eyes. “I have a phone for other stuff, obviously. To be honest I don’t watch a lot to begin with, nothing new anyway.”

“Hmph. Same for me,” Jon conceded, sinking further into the couch. “Feels like there are other things I could be doing.”

“Except for now?”

A wry smile. “Special case.”

Martin’s stomach did a flip. He didn’t feel guilty, per se, but he wished he had something for Jon to work on to stave off the boredom. Everything had been so quiet with Peter gone and Simon’s waiting that no new leads had popped up. It wasn’t fair that Jon had to sit around doing nothing after wandering about in the sea for weeks. The least he could do was provide some entertainment.

“Hm. Right, how about this one?” Martin looked back and waved a vhs set. It was some old fantasy series with a group of children on the cover standing in a hallway. “Haven’t watched it since I was a kid, but I remember liking it.”

“Two tapes’ worth?” Jon glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s in episodes, right?”

“Yeah, though if you’d rather find something else…?”

Jon waved his hand. "No, I can’t spend the whole evening making up my mind. If we don’t like it, then we can find something else.”

With that settled Martin popped the tape in and took up his seat. On the other end, Jon sat with the blanket pulled to his chest. He wore a new set of pyjamas Martin had picked up at the shop along with a few other things to save Jon from having to wear the same clothes day and night.

The show was a simple series meant for children, easy enough to follow in plot that some side chatter didn’t interrupt things too much. Honestly, Martin was glad they weren’t paying a whole lot of attention. He hadn’t watched it in years and wasn’t looking to be embarrassed.

A few minutes in, the children from the cover were running up the stairs to explore a large house. “Safe to assume you don’t have siblings?” Jon asked.

“Hm? Oh, no, it’s just me. You?”

He snorted. “Even if my grandmother wanted another child running around, I was enough to deal with.”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “What, were you a terror?”

“I’d use the word ‘adventurous’, but she would’ve agreed with that description. If we’d been in that house,” Jon gestured toward the screen, “she would’ve been in trouble. Until it ate me or something.��

“I don’t think that’s how it goes?”

Jon frowned. “That’s- No, I mean if it were real it would probably mean harm. Supernatural houses aren’t trustworthy entities outside of fiction. In fiction they’re mischievous at the least.”

“Can’t imagine that, a building that likes to mess with you,” Martin said, grimacing. He really didn’t remember much about this story. Maybe that was how it went? “I’m sure they’ll be fine. I wasn’t into spooky things back then.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but I’m not letting my guard down,” Jon said. He watched as the children walked up a spiral staircase. “Would you have wanted siblings?”

Martin considered this. “I can’t imagine having them? But an older sibling would’ve been nice. Someone to know better and help me with things.”

“I think any other child would’ve found me irritating, older or younger. Best to keep to myself,” Jon said dryly. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes, you can imagine the additional worry of raising a child who could explore the ocean like it was the woods. It’s not like she could follow me in.”

“I bet… She wasn’t like you, then?”

Turning back to the television, Jon said, “No. She was from my father’s side.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t tell if the question was wrong to ask, so looked back to the show. It was luck of the draw, then, whether someone was born with a selkie skin. Perhaps there was nothing to do with genetics in circumstances like this.

Back on the screen, one of the children had chosen to wander outside into the beginnings of a snowstorm with no thought to the cold. Outside the real world window it had begun to hail, and Martin realized how frigid it had become both outdoors and in.

“Well, at least this story is right for the season,” Martin said, standing up. “I’m gonna grab another blanket.”

With a start, Jon looked at him and held up the one he was under. “Do you want this one? I don’t-”

“N-no, that’s fine!” He walked briskly out of the room, feeling rude and stupid. All Jon had offered was for him to use the damned thing, not share it. And it wouldn’t have fit both of them even if he had meant it that way!

Opening the hall closet, he tried to calm down. He peered at the pile of folded sheets and blankets, lifting each layer to search for one he liked. There was a flannel one somewhere, deceptively warm for how thin it was-

Oh.

Tucked far down into the pile, far back enough so it was hidden if the one above wasn’t lifted, Martin saw something dappled and grey and out of place amongst the linen. Jon had left it to dry completely beforehand, so the surrounding fabric was unwrinkled. Considerate. And in a decent hiding place all things considered. It was a shame Martin had gone and ruined it.

He sighed, grabbing one of the blankets at the top that he’d initially passed on. Once he reached the doorway to the living room, he stopped and stared at Jon who was doing his best to seem unperturbed.

“So, I saw it,” he started, squeezing the blanket in his arms into his chest. “I use that closet a lot, if you want to put it somewhere else.”

Jon winced and stood. As Martin let him pass, he mumbled, “Right. I’ll just-”

And then Martin was left to sit back on the couch and wait, pausing the tape out of courtesy.

When the skin had disappeared from the shower that first morning he hadn’t considered anything but Jon hiding it, and there was an awful satisfaction in knowing he was right. He rubbed his arm and stared at the blanket in his lap, still neat and folded.

After a couple of minutes, Jon returned empty handed and resumed his seat. Pulling his blanket back up, he said, “It’s nothing… personal.”

“I know.” He took a deep breath and pressed play on the old remote, letting the child continue their new solo adventure. “I figured you hid it.”

“I appreciate that you told me.” His voice was stilted and unsure. “That you found it.”

“Sure, whatever helps.” Unfolding the blanket, he pulled it up to his shoulders and leaned on the arm rest. He could feel Jon fidgeting in place, turning the blanket so it faced the right way and making it tuck under him in the right places. Martin kept his eyes ahead.

Finally giving up on any further adjustments, Jon slouched into place. “It does help. I know my caution can come off as distrust, but genuinely I just… I need to keep it hidden. I need to know where it is and to be the only one who does. For now.”

“You… don’t need to justify anything.” Martin sighed and had to fight back a yawn. “It’s your coat.”

A grunt of frustration. “No, you don’t- It’s not a rational thing. I trusted you enough to tell you the truth, and yet I was barely into my first night here before I panicked and stowed it away.” He sat upright and let the blanket fall to his lap, quiet distress written across the lines of his forehead.

Grasping for words, Martin said, “You still haven’t known me that long. It’s not wrong to be careful.”

“That’s not the point,” Jon replied quietly, resting elbows on knees. “It hasn’t been all that long in the grand scheme of things, but a lot has happened. I consider you a friend. And yet I can’t stop feeling like everything is about to go wrong if I’m not careful.”

The hail continued to slam against the window, almost overpowering the sound of the television and the faun describing the witch’s plans. On the far side of the couch, Jon remained hunched over his own knees with his face bent in irritation.

A wave of shame broke against him, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. Carefully, Martin scooted over just enough to reach out a hand. His trembling fingers hovered just an inch away, brushing against the fabric of Jon’s shirt before coming to rest on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispered, massaging around his eyes with his fingers. He reached his free hand up to tentatively cover Martin’s, giving it a tiny squeeze. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Do you… want to keep watching?”

Jon nodded, shaking himself out a little. Martin released the gentle grip on his shoulder, though he didn’t move away. They both settled into the back of the couch and watched.

The child had gone back inside with the shivers, but no one was to be found. Around the halls she wandered, calling her siblings’ names with indignation that slowly turned to concern and then to fear. Eventually she was running, and it wasn’t until she was on the upper floor that one of her brothers popped out to scare the living daylights out of her.

Deep down he remembered this part making him cry. Perhaps siblings weren’t worth it with how cruel children could be.

Martin coughed. “You explored the sea as a kid, then?”

Jumping slightly, Jon said, “O-only a couple of times. And not far from the land. And it’s not as fun when you can only grab one thing at a time, with your mouth. I sorely missed my pockets and picking up sticks.” As he spoke, he resumed the more casual tone from before with modest success.

“You thought checking out the sea with no real limits was too much of a hassle?”

With a roll of his eyes, Jon said, “It wasn’t entirely that. Eventually my grandmother warned me away from it. Told me about dangerous animals that absolutely weren’t native to the coast where we lived.”

“Great white sharks?”

“Surrounding our seaside village on every watery side, ready to eat hapless little seal boys who didn’t listen to their nans.”

Martin chuckled, relaxing further into his seat and listening to Jon go on about all the ways his grandmother had tried and failed to reign him in. He could see it, a younger, scrappier version of the man next to him stomping around the woods and climbing fences.

The instinct wasn’t all that relatable to someone like Martin who’d kept to the front porch on nice days, but it sounded like an adventure. Maybe it meant he was less likely to get eaten by an evil wardrobe out of the two of them. In his position he could only hope that was the case.

They called it for the night when, out of nowhere, a man suddenly appeared at half opacity screen and let out a screeching noise to close out an episode, making Jon laugh in a way that only could’ve been from exhaustion.

Martin lingered downstairs for a while after they shut the television off. It was Friday, after all. For many reasons they couldn’t go out to a pub, but without the need to get up early he could afford to stay up a little longer and listen to a sleepy Jon talk over the tapping on the window panes.

Tim: not next weekend, but the one after i think. finally time to call it on preparation and get down to business, if this is something we can be prepared for

Martin: encouraging

Tim: look its been rough over here, alright?

Martin: i know, sorry. itll be easier to talk once we’re all in one place

Tim: yeah

Tim: things are ok over there, then? youre sounding better

Martin: ?

Tim: it was starting to get scary if im honest, how quiet you were

Martin: oh, sorry. things are fine, just didnt have a lot to say

Tim: yeah, i get it. its hard to fill the space. dont be a stranger though. in a few weeks we’ll be there to get you out of this mess

Martin: looking forward to it

Sighing, Martin looked from the private chat to Jon, who was ignoring his breakfast to type away at the laptop. “Sounds like the others are making plans to get here.”

Jon looked up briefly. “Good. It will be… nice to see them.”

“And show them you’re not dead?”

Ignoring this, Jon said, “How is Tim doing?”

He glanced back at his phone. “Worried. About a lot of things, I think.”

“Thinking of how he’s going to break my disappearance to you, no doubt,” he said, taking a sip of his tea. He avoided Martin’s eyes. “That’ll be resolved soon enough.”

Martin poked at the eggs on his plate. “He… lost someone, didn’t he?”

It was only for a moment, but Jon froze in the middle of setting his mug down. He seemed to struggle with an answer.

“It’s fine if you can’t say, but he implied as much,” Martin said gently.

With a frown, Jon shut the laptop. “Sasha knows more than I do, but yes. His brother, a few years ago.”

“Oh. That’s… really sad.” He leaned back in his chair. “He seems like he’d be a good brother.”

“I’m sure he was. He certainly looks out for us.” Jon took a bite of his toast.

“As best as he can,” Martin added sheepishly.

“Once this is all finished he’s earned a vacation.”

Yes, they’d all given poor Tim their share of heart attacks. Martin had managed to several times in the last month. But at least when the time came Tim would see that both of them were alive and themselves and able to apologize for making his and Sasha’s lives just a bit harder than they needed to be.

Once it was all finished.

#tma #the magnus archives #breathe in the salt #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #sasha james #timothy stoker #peter lukas #jonmartin #selkie au

42 notes · View notes

albatris · 4 years

Text

ok ok alriiiight ok so the plot of ATDAO

this post is not, like........... well, it’s not gonna be a blurb or a summary or a nice neat synopsis, this is not Professional Writeblr Business, this is, this is, uhhhh

this is like drunk house party logan rambles

works best if you imagine ur just like “hey man how’s it going” super casual and I grasp you firmly by the shoulders and look you dead in the eye and just ramble all of this without taking a single breath

could I have explained in a nice neat concise "elevator pitch" sort of way? probably. mind ur business. that’s not how we do things here at albatris.org

anyway the purpose of this post is “hey people seem to know a lot about the characters and the worldbuilding and the premise but have no clue what happens in the actual story” so I’m not going to be talking about said characters and worldbuilding and premise in depth

in terms of rambles, that stuff’s been covered! this post assumes you know what Ports are, n what the nature of the ATDAO apocalypse is, vaguely what the MCs are like as people......... though I can fetch this info for you if you like

but yeah if you are coming into this post with zero prior ATDAO knowledge........... deeply deeply from the bottom of my heart: sorry

also if this is your first time experiencing One Of These Rambles

also @safe-in-the-steep-cliffs and @siarven I am tagging you because you said you would like to be tagged and also hi and also I hope y’all knew what you were in for

anyway without further ado

(visual representation of my approach to this rant, not of how complicated my plot actually is)

(my plot is not that complicated)

ALRIGHT

there are two viewpoint characters! and two plotlines which converge near the end of the story, but honestly there’s a very real possibility I will decide these are two separate books meant as companion stories to each other because I love making things difficult for myself yeehaw

ATDAO’s co-protags are Tris and Noa, best buds four years and counting. their friendship is one of the single most important aspects of the story, n the ongoing love and trust they have for each other despite the way unfolding events force their relationship to change is integral to the themes and making the heart of the story what it is. I will now proceed to not mention this friendship for the entire remainder of this post. they’re bros. that’s all u need to know. listen. listen. I have a lot to cover

so yeah, ur first key player is Tris Greer, whose parents are dicks but whose siblings are chill. most notably of said siblings there is Jacob, older brother by thirteen years, whom Tris believes is just about the coolest person on the entire planet. this plotline kicks off when Jacob gets caught in the midst of a freak car accident that kills a dude and wrecks a street corner and also somehow causes Jacob to just kind of................. blip out of existence entirely and without a trace?

n Tris is understandably horrified and distressed by Very Much All Of This, but hey, at least there are responsible adults who can look into this obviously Port-related weird disappearance and figure this mess out, right?

INCORRECT

the relevant interdimensional authorities are brought in to suss out the situation and these authorities are kind of like “hmmmm idk about this” but are all set to take Tris at least somewhat seriously until they learn the following:

that Jacob had already been reported missing to police in his home state three days earlier

that Jacob was in the midst of several ongoing personal crises and at least one nervous breakdown

that Jacob was allegedly tangled up in some real weird shit that would more than account for a disappearance under suspicious circumstances

that Tris is schizophrenic, prone to hallucinations, confusion, memory issues and quote unquote “letting his imagination and anxiety get the better of him”, and precisely zero people can actually corroborate his story that Jacob was even there are the time of the accident to begin with

and after some back-and-forth and Looking Into The Evidence pretty much everyone in any position of authority comes to the conclusion that this is just Ordinary Regular People Crimes and whatever happened to Jacob had nothing to do with weird apocalyptic energies, and that Tris is (at best) stressed out and delusional or (at worst) lying through his teeth because he knows more than he’s letting on

so Tris is forced to hop pretty quick from “I’m sure someone will handle this” to “no one believes me but I’m sure if I can find some concrete proof they’ll listen and someone will handle it” to Well Fuck I Guess That Someone Is Me

cue bizarre reality-hopping fantasy quest, which is ten times easier said than done when most of the time Tris is terrified enough just, like, going to the supermarket

he enlists the help of his new classmate Shara, amateur paranormal investigator and professional weird-bullshit enthusiast, who agrees to help him puzzle out what the fuck happened to Jacob in exchange for his assistance in mapping out Adelaide’s interdimensional “fault lines” as part of her ongoing quest to track down the source of the apocalypse

she’s got big fuckin dreams, ok, go hard or go home

slso worth noting at this point that there HAS been an uptick in Ports and their related reality-bending strangeness in Adelaide recently which is why this is of particular interest to her currently. gotta find out What Makes The Weirdness Tick, gotta find out Why The Sudden Extra Weirdness

..........and also Kai is there

Kai has no nice neat reason to get involved with the plot, Kai just likes drama and being all up in people’s personal business. Tris brings them on board for one single afternoon like “hey I will pay you some money to come to my house and fix my fucked up phone so I can listen to an interdimensional voicemail” but forgot the apparently key addendum “and then leave”

their first three chapters of knowing each other is basically Tris being like “stop inviting yourself into my house we are not friends” and Kai being like “that’s a rude thing to say to your friend. also your sister gave me the netflix password and I used your kitchen to bake pastries feel free to help yourself”

but yeah so Tris’s story mostly focuses on his quest to figure out where Jacob got yeeted to and how to get him safely home (y’all probably know a bit about The Unreality already maybe?), whilst also dealing with rising family tensions, whatever shifty stuff Jacob was involved with prior to his disappearance, and his own creeping doubts about his perceptions of reality

n I’m also saying flat out it’s not a plot that’s going the “oh the whole thing was just a delusion all along” route because ew

his psychosis is a fairly involved part of his character but the explorations around it are more to do with, like......... the difficulties he has in trusting himself and whether he has the luxury of letting himself get swept into some Big Weird Implausible Adventure when this has extremely different implications for him than it would someone else. n eventually to how his success and survival is not ~in spite of~ but specifically because of the different way he understands and interprets the world and the skills he’s developed

THAT TANGENT WAS A PERSONAL RANT IT WAS NOT RELEVANT I just have words to say on the subject of how psychosis is treated in fiction and didn’t want people jumping to the “none of it is real” conclusion anyway ok moving on

ur SECOND key player is Noa Yun, who has rather a lot on her plate right now. she’s broke as fuck and her mum is sick and her car is making Noises and she’s not getting enough hours at her job at Not-IKEA and everyone is on her back about her failing studies as if that’s a thing she has the energy to care about. feeling rather backed into a corner by life’s bullshit and her financial situation, she blatantly lies her way into a field job at the Department of Interdimensional Instabilities, because A) surely it can’t be THAT bad, and B) what does she have to lose?

so more or less what she’s doing is the equivalent of emergency services for Port-related weirdness, it’s going out and dealing with highly unstable otherworldly energies head on, navigating Weird Phenomena and bendy patches in reality......... it is, among other things, a job that’s relatively easy to get into because no one wants to touch it with a ten foot pole unless they absolutely have to

n the DII is a whole other post, this shit has lots of different functions and levels and branches and corruption and secrets and a tendency to view workers who have to go out and deal with the brunt of the apocalypse head-on as vaguely expendable and I’ve talked about it a bit before and in more Serious Words

things kinda kick off for her when in true Noa fashion she hurls herself into a dangerous situation to help out a coworker, n enters a pretty standard issue “overlap” where the barriers between universes are a little fucky, but hey, she seems to come out of it with nary a scratch, so it’s reasonable to assume everything is fine, right?

INCORRECT AGAIN

she basically gets some whacked-out otherworldly energies latched onto her that are now following her through her everyday life, and it turns out she’s starting to bend the reality around her the way certain types of Ports do, which is! obviously not ideal! she’s not exactly a Port herself, because she’s pretty sure that’s impossible, but it’s clear capital s Something happened to her in that overlap, and she doubts it’s good news. and to make matters even more disconcerting, she’s now being dogged at every step by strange visions of a child who speaks in an unfamiliar language and who seems Real Fuckin Pissed at her

so her thing is basically “I acquired fucked up reality-bending powers against my will and they might be lowkey killing me ‘cause Ports are notoriously unstable like that and also I’m haunted for some godforsaken reason” which all somehow ended up being, like, the least interesting part of her plotline for me lmao

oh and Noa also enlists the help of Shara, Because Ghosts

anyway yeah so her search to find out what’s happening to her re: Weird Children, being a Port-adjacent something-or-other, and whether there’s a way to stop her own unravelling leads her to (rogue computer programmer? mad scientist? general shifty bastard?) Laurence Marrick Thiele, who claims to have suffered a similar affliction in the past and now does some real interesting research on the subject. n this guy. well. he’s got some fuckin stuff going on

he definitely knows more about the nature of Ports than he should. also is he actually researching what he says he’s researching? also what’s with all the weird tech? also did he just straight up murder that guy Avery? all will be revealed later, maybe, if I feel like it

but yeah at about the same time as Noa goes “actually fuck this you’re shady as hell I’m out” she stumbles into, like, The Actual Reality of what Marrick is up to re: manipulating Ports and interdimensional doorways for his own gain, and the various ways this spells bad news not only for her but potentially for the entire city and anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire, and she shifts gear to “actually you know what I’m gonna kick your ass”

there are various reasons for this, but first and foremosterly you have to understand that Noa’s got a fuckload of pent-up rage and she will bring it in full force the moment you say some stupid shit like “some people are expendable” or “it’s inevitable for the greater good”

(there’s also a fun ongoing subplot with her work at the DII where she and her team are investigating a string of strange illnesses with bizarre symptoms that appear to be spreading via obscure radio stations so that’s. happening. I guess?)

but yeah the main story here mostly follows Noa’s attempts to undermine Marrick, bastard supreme, and find a way to fuck him up before he goes, like, Full Cartoon Supervillain, n also like........... her attempts to keep up her work at the DII despite her rising paranoia that the teammates she’s growing to care about will notice her increasingly unstable state and the fact that she’s all tangled up with the very forces they’re meant to be thwarting. n along the way discovering the reality of what happened to her in The Aforementioned Overlap Incident and about her visions and such

so that’s all that. did that make sense

n she’s got a whole arc going on about trust and learning to lean on others, like, she comes into this story as a very standoffish person with lots of paranoia, she’s spent much of her life feeling like she can only rely on herself, n she’s. well. yeah, like I said, she’s got a lot of anger at the world and at the various systems that have failed her and her loved ones, n the story puts her in a position to become even more isolated

and her plotline isn’t so much “you have no reason to be angry or afraid” or her learning to Not Be, It’s more, like........... yeah you have every fucking right to be furious and of course you’re afraid! but there are people around you who love you and who will jump at the chance to defend you and who will help you carry the weight of your anger and grief and none of this needs to be yours to bear alone which is extremely cheesy

which applies to both her Weird Supernatural Goings-On as well as her regular ordinary life goings-on

I feel like Alice and Jet deserve a mention for Noa’s plotline but also this went on and on too long already so. well. Alice and Jet exist! yep. they work with Noa at the DII. I have things to say about them. I will not be saying them today

and uhhhhhh

in general, for Tris, his plotline, you wanna think, like, fantasy/adventure vibes which veer pretty sharply into horror, and for Noa you wanna think...... kinda, sci-fi mystery conspiracy vibes with a dash of some superhero bullshit maybe except not really

and that

pretty much is it I think

also the fact that Kai just invites themself into the plot for funsies and then is dragged kicking and screaming into caring about themself and making positive changes in their life means there was no convenient place in this post to be like

"oh there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop"

but there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop

goodnight! thanks for coming to....................... whatever this was! have a nice saturday everyone

#alcohol mention #just in the first little intro bit #being concise is not my strong suit! this should be apparent perhaps #tl;dr #tris's brother jacob gets lost down the back of an interdimensional sofa and tris has gotta go get him back even though #he's terrified enough just leaving the house let alone leaving this entire reality on a stupid convoluted mystery quest #and noa has a run in with some interdimensional bullshit and acquires Powers and A Ghost neither of which she wants #and then accidentally uncovers the schemes of literal cartoon supervillain marrick and is like #''oh sick i was looking for a reason to go absolutely fuckin ballistic and fuck someone's shit up''#And Both Of Them Make Nice Friends And Learn To Love Themselves :)#atdao #i constantly walk the very fine line between not wanting to be Too Vague about noa's plotline vs not wanting to be Too Spoilery about it #like............... the stuff about the kid and about marrick's endgame i'm never quite sure how much to delve into hahahaha #but yeah anyway #imo i only went on ONE mildly unrelated tangent which should have been cut but i decided to indulge it instead #which is the couple paragraphs about noa's character arc #character arcs not important for this post!!!!!! but also. dfkhgkdfjshg. try and stop me #(i mean i did pretty ok staying on track for the most part i think)#(still a rambly post though)

78 notes · View notes

callunavulgari · 3 years

Text

YEAR-IN-BOOKS | 2020

So. Last year I read 112 books. The year before that I read 89. The year before that I read 39. This year I have (thus far) read 87 books out of my goal of 75 and will likely at least one or two more before the end of the year. So, click below if you want rambly book recs!

1. a book you loved?

This year has been rough. Like, I’m looking back at the books I read in January and am genuinely horrified to realize that I read them a scant twelve months ago when it feels like I read them at least three years ago. I’m glad I kept my limit lower this year, because enjoying anything this year has been harder than usual. I did read some decent books though, and I think the one I loved the most was Gideon the Ninth (and it’s sequel, Harrow the Ninth). They’re both fantastic books, and so deeply unexpected. Reading the first chapter or so of Gideon’s book is like getting whiplash. You go into it expecting angsty lady necromancers and get a crossdressing bee that secretes hallucinogenic substances and pulsates in time to the music in your head. Literally, Gideon’s dialogue is so out of left field that I spent half the book delightedly confused. But it is genuinely funny? And lesbian necromancers in space is just.. such an underutilized concept. Harrow’s book was a little harder - her head space is weird and everything is intentionally fucking with you so you really are confused for 90% of it, but I think the pay off was more than worth it.

2. a book you hated?

I was deeply, DEEPLY disappointed by The Secret Commonwealth. I finished it near the end of January and was just so fucking mad for days. Because the thing is, my expectations were not super high. I was excited for it, mostly because a grown up version of Lyra is something that I thought I would only ever experience in fanfiction. Now, I wish I’d only experienced her in fanfiction. Graphic attempted rape, retroactively confirming a rape happened in a previous book (one where it was implied that the victim got away in time), retroactively raping a character from the previous trilogy... like. I’m sorry. But fuck that noise. Fuck Philip Pullman. Fuck any douchebag asshole who thinks a woman has to be raped in order to write compelling fiction. I was riding the high of the new HBO series (which was good) and I guess I just... thought the author would have some goddamn integrity.

3. a book that made you cry?

We Are Okay was a really gorgeous, tender little book about grief that I read in one sitting in my bed when I really should have been sleeping. I read this book in March, when things only kind of hurt for me. When things were still largely okay. Before the bulk of covid hit my side of the world. Before self-isolation was an every day thing, not just something in books. Before Mal. Before getting covid. But ultimately, this was a book about healing. It aches, yes, but it also soothes.

4. a book that made you happy?

Both Beach Read and Written in the Stars made me pretty happy. Both romcoms done right, the first is a book about a romance writer falling in love with a thriller/mystery writer. They’re staying at neighboring beach houses and spend a summer getting themselves out of their comfort zones by challenging the other to write in the other person’s chosen genre. It’s sweet. It’s sexy. Over all, a really fun read, with enough depths to keep me engaged.

The second book is a meet-cute that involves astrology, fake dating, and lesbians. It’s written phenomenally well, and gave me a brief surge of happiness when I needed it most.

5. the best sequel?

Probably Harrow. The Dragon Republic is a great second choice though. Again, it’s a hard book, and I wouldn’t have been able to read it any later in the year than I did, because it is... not a happy book. But it is, in my opinion, a good one. And I am still excited about the third.

6. most anticipated release for the new year?

I am hoping to get the as of yet Untitled sequel to Ninth House in 2021. I am also hoping to actually be able to read The Rhythms of War in the new year, since I doubt I’ll get a chance in 2020. I’m looking forward to Mister Impossible, the second book in the Ronan trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater. I’m looking forward to the Hourglass Throne, which I think is coming in 2021? A Desolation Called Peace in March. The Thorn of Emberlain might actually be out in October, which will be wonderful it doesn’t get pushed back again. Rule of Wolves, the King of Scars Duology in the Grishaverse will also be March. One Last Stop by Casey McQuistion in May!!!!

7. favorite new author?

Defintely Tamsyn Muir. I will also be keeping an eye out for Alexandriua Bellefleur’s stuff...

8. favorite book to film adaptation?

Uh, can I say MDSZ/The Untamed without actually having read the original text? Well, I’ve read a few chapters, but damn.

9. the most surprising book?

Taproot. It’s this little graphic novel about a gardener who can see ghosts. And like. It still makes me warm to think about how tender it is.

10. the most interesting villain?

Does Loki: Where Mischief Lies count? Since Loki is technically a villain, even if he’s only villain adjacent in this book.

11. the best makeouts?

I... don’t know? I didn’t real read any of these books for makeouts. Not this year.

12. a book that was super frustrating?

Boyfriend Material. It has great ratings! It has fake dating! But the story was very so-so for me.

13. a book you texted about, and the text was IN CAPSLOCK?

I think I yelled at Nick a few times about how pissed I was at the Secret Commonwealth.

14. a book for the small children in your life?

The House in the Cerulean Sea is a book about a case worker at the department in charge of magical youth and he is charged with traveling to an island and making a very important decision about the children living there. It was adorable and I wish I’d had a book like it when I was young.

15. a book you learned from?

That is not the sort of book that I was reading in 2020.

16. a book you wouldn’t normally try?

I read a couple mysteries. Some were good. Most made me remember why I don’t read mysteries.

17. a book with something magical in it?

Call Down the Hawk, because all of Maggie’s books are at least a little bit magical. And while this definitely didn’t hit quite the same vibes that the Raven Cycle did, it was still very, very good.

18. the best clothes?

Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth have the best goth aesthetic I have ever seen in a book. Also, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, because Addie’s clothes always sounded cute and comfortable.

19. the most well-rounded characters?

The City We Became had some fantastic characters. It was really interesting to see Jemisin get out of her typical fantasy setting and this novel was so out of this world.

20. the best world-building?

Deeplight! It’s described as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea meets Frankenstein and that is pretty accurate. Old gods that traversed the sea tore each other apart and now the world tries to get a hold of their corpses for amazing powers. It was really, really cool and probably the best book I could have chosen to read at the beach.

21. the worst world-building?

Eh. Most of the books I hated I didn’t keep reading this year.

22. a book with a good sidekick?

I really like all of the characters in the Tarot Sequence. There are some solid characters, even if there’s basically no women. Also Graceling.

23. the most insufferable narrator?

I was not a fan of The Mysterious Benedict Society, mostly because of the narrator. It was so boring and I quit halfway through.

24. a book you were excited to read for months beforehand?

Return of the Thief. Which... was still mostly good. But the ending felt lackluster for me. I may go back and reread the series and see if it feels more genuine after I’ve read them all together.

25. a book you picked up on a whim?

I literally picked up Written in the Stars because the cover was pretty and it looked like the romance was between two girls. And it did nooooot fail me.

26. a book that should be read in a foreign country?

Shrug emoji.

27. a book cassian andor would like?

I still don’t know what to make of this question.

28. a book gina linetti would like?

Shrug emoji.

29. your favorite cover art?

Gideon and Harrow, honestly. I also really liked Under the Udala Trees.

30. a book you read in translation?

I genuinely don’t know.

31. a book from another century?

Teeeeechnically The Great Hunt?

32. a book you reread?

I reread the Diviners and the Captive Prince series near the beginning of the year. They were still delightful.

33. a book you’re dying to talk about, and why?

Into the Drowning Deep was fucking amazing. I love Mira Grant’s work anyway and there’s this scene where a character pilots a submersible into the Marianas Trench and experiences your first face-to-face encounters with the sirens and like. AHHHHHHHHHH. It was so spooky and beautiful and just genuinely amazing.

TLDR; 2020 sucked, most books still couldn’t pierce through the depression, but there were a few bangers.

#heather says what #new year's memes #2020 #books to read #recommendations #fuck yeah recs!!

3 notes · View notes

ernmark · 4 years

Text

In the vein of learning from last year, let’s talk about something that really messed with me.

I’m not the first person who’s talked about productivity culture-- your every hobby is actually a side gig, your every moment needs to be accounted for and productive, you show off how studious you are by bragging about how little you sleep and how late you work and how much coffee you drink. Failure to do any of those is a mark of shame-- you’re lazy, you lack ambition, you don’t want it enough.

We are not machines. We cannot work constantly, day in and day out, with no rest or respite. Hell, machines can’t even do that-- they need to be repaired, their parts replaced, their software updated. And yet we keep pushing ourselves to a standard that would grind the most robust hardware into metal filings.

I had a boss/supervisor/”friend” who would talk all the time about how she wakes up at five every morning, reads at least one book cover to cover, and then goes on to do her work every day. And I, being young and stupid, took her at her word.

Right up to the point when I was lost in the middle of nowhere at 5:30 AM and needed directions back in the olden days before smart phones. She spoke so consistently about being awake by now-- she’d be halfway through her latest read, right? So she’d have no problem going online and looking up directions for me. I even decided to be polite about it and waited a whole hour before calling her.

When she answered, she was groggy and confused-- she’d been sleeping. I’m sure she did get up earlier and read more than I did, but then, that wasn’t all that hard back then or right now.

I have a colleague who is all about the hustle and then some, and she would go on at length about her plans and habits. Other writers in our circle voiced that they were impressed but made no move to follow suit, and in private she would vent to me about how they couldn’t make enough effort to ever rise above hobbyists. After all, it wasn’t like what she was doing was hard. Anyone could do it if they made half an effort.

And I took that to heart. I had proven I could write a lot, and quickly. As I am a being made entirely of hubris and self-loathing, I believed her: the only reason I wasn’t that productive all the time was if I was lazy and didn’t actually care about my craft.

So I decided that I could absolutely keep up with her. I could write as many books in a year as she could, I could attend as many conventions, I could participate in as many marketing schemes.

I tried, anyway.

And very quickly, I realized that if I kept going at that pace, it would quite literally kill me. So I backed off, I admitted defeat, and I hated myself for being a failure when my colleague kept charging ahead on every track at once.

And then little cracks began to show. The same exhaustion and frustration and desperation I was feeling had been hidden away, but it was still there. A number of the things that had been lauded as points of pride and success turned out to be exaggerated in some areas, completely hollow in others. Just like with my old boss, a lot of the worst parts were an elaborate fiction meant to make her seem superhuman.

And I’m not gonna lie, there are some pretty complicated feelings about all that. Part of me is pissed at her for dragging me into something that was so devastating to my mental health-- and for consistently presenting it as the bare minimum that could possibly be expected of me. Part of me is pissed at my own competitiveness and pride for wearing myself out by trying to keep up with a fantasy, and for listening to the voice of my own depression when it kept telling me how easy all this should have been.

When I’m stressed and overwhelmed and breaking down, my instinct is always, always, to suck it up and buckle down and just push through it. When I don’t produce work, I feel like a failure. When I express that I’m not feeling great and need a break, I feel like I’m whining and making excuses.

But I think it’s important for me to put it into words.

I need to break the habit of hiding from my own shortcomings (or seeing them as shortcomings in the first place, rather than just part of me being human and needing rest). I want to stop hating myself for it. Part of that is exposure therapy: it’s admitting my weaknesses and realizing that the world didn’t end.

But also, I don’t want to be like either of those women. I don’t want to build up an elaborate fantasy of constant hustle and effortless productivity, because I don’t want to inflict that same harm on other people.

Do what you need to do, at the pace that you need to do it. Ask for extensions when you need them; the world won’t end. Ask for help. Forgive yourself.

You don’t have to grind yourself down to nothing.

#society is messed up #rest is important

60 notes · View notes

problematicwelshman · 4 years

Text

Michael Sheen on Good Omens, sex scenes, and why Brexit led to his break-up

28 NOVEMBER 2018 • 4:18PM

Michael Sheen may be 49, and sporting a grey beard these days, but mention Martians and the actor reverts to a breathless, giddy teenager.

It all stems back to one evening when Sheen was about 12 years old. “It was a significant moment in my life,” he tells me over coffee in a London hotel. “My cousin Hugh was babysitting, and he put on Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

“I remember us lying there, listening in bed in the dark. It absolutely terrified me, but I got obsessed with it. I’m worryingly into it. I know every single note, every word.”

Wayne’s 1978 rock opera has had a similar effect on countless fans, even if it prompts a bemused shrug from non-converts. Without ever topping the charts, it has slowly become one of the best-selling British albums of all time, and this Friday begins a stadium tour featuring a 35-foot fire-breathing Martian and a 3D hologram of Liam Neeson. It’s a geeky novelty, but one of epic proportions.

When Wayne asked Sheen if he would star in a new radio drama-style version for the album’s 40th anniversary, alongside Taron Egerton and Ade Edmondson, the Welsh actor “bit his hand off”. It had always been his dream. For decades, whether doing serious political dramas such as Frost/Nixon or the great roles of classical theatre – Hamlet, Henry V – the one part Sheen really wanted involved Martians saying “ulla-ulla”.

“When I was doing Caligula at the Donmar [in 2003], I was filming The Deal during the day – which was the first time I’d played Tony Blair,” he says. “I’d be so tired, to wake myself up [before the play] I would do whole sections of War of the Worlds.” He can even beatbox the sound effects, he adds proudly. “The other guys in the dressing room would all be really pissed off with me - but I was playing Caligula, so they had to put up with it.”

Enthusing about an outtake on a collectors version of the album where you can hear Richard Burton coughing, Sheen briefly slips into an impression of the late actor. It’s eerily spot-on. Burton played the role he takes in the new version, which feels apt; growing up in Port Talbot, Sheen was aware of following in his footsteps.

“Coming from the same town as him really helped,” he says. “It’s place you wouldn’t necessarily think would be very sympathetic to acting – it’s an old steel town, very working class, quite a macho place – but because of Richard Burton, and then Anthony Hopkins, there’s the sense that it’s possible [to be an actor], and people have a respect for it.

“Ultimately, though, we’re very different actors - Burton was very much a charismatic leading man, and I’m probably more of a character actor. He wasn’t known for his versatility.” Sheen, by contrast, is a chameleon, as he proved with a remarkable run of biopics from 2006-9, playing Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough, Kenneth Williams and the Roman emperor Nero on screen in the space of just four years.

He concedes that he may have made a “partly conscious” decision to avoid biopics since then. “I’ve been offered quite a few I didn’t do. I did feel, for a bit, it was probably good for me to move away from it – certainly from playing Blair at least, because that’s the one I became synonymous with. I’d quite happily play real people again, but it’s hard to find good scripts and it takes a lot of homework. With some parts I’ve been offered, you might only have a few weeks to prepare for it - and you can’t do that with Clough or Kenneth Williams.”

Despite his best intentions, Sheen is playing another Blair in his next film – The Voyage of Doctor Doolittle, where he’s the nemesis of Robert Downey Jr’s animal-loving hero. “I don’t know if they did that as a joke or not,” he says. “He’s Blair Müdfly – there’s an umlaut that he is very specific about. He was at college with Doolittle, and hates him, and becomes the antagonist because of his jealousy of Doolittle. Müdfly is employed to try and stop him from finding... what he wants to find.” As the film isn’t out for 13 months, Sheen is tight-lipped about further plot details – but he hints that Müdfly is “a villain in the tradition of Terry-Thomas villains.”

It’s the latest in a series of quirky, eyebrow-raising roles. After playing a vampire in the Twilight films and a werewolf in the Underworld franchise, Sheen says he would often be asked in interviews why a “serious classical actor” was wasting his time on fantasy films.

“There’s a lot of snobbishness about genre,” he says. “I think some of the greatest writing of the 20th and 21st centuries has happened in science fiction and fantasy.” While promoting the films, he would back up that point by citing his favourite authors – Stephen King, Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman. “Time went on, and then one day my doorbell rang and there was a big box being delivered. I opened the box up and there was a card from Neil saying ‘From one fan to another’, and all these first editions of his books.”

It was the beginning an enduring friendship, which recently became a professional partnership: Sheen stars in Gaiman’s forthcoming TV series Good Omens, based on a 1990 novel he wrote with the late Terry Pratchett. Set in the days before a biblical apocalypse, its sprawling list of characters includes an angel called Aziraphale (Sheen) and a demon called Crowley (David Tennant) who have known each other since the days of Adam and Eve.

“I wanted to play Aziraphel being sort of in love with Crowley,” says Sheen. “They’re both very bonded and connected anyway, because of the two of them having this relationship through history - but also because angels are beings of love, so it’s inevitable that he would love Crowley. It helped that loving David is very easy to do.”

What kind of love - platonic, romantic, erotic? “Oh, those are human, mortal labels!” Sheen laughs. “But that was what I thought would be interesting to play with. There’s a lot of fan fiction where Aziraphale and Crowley get a bit hot and heavy towards each other, so it’ll be interesting to see how an audience reacts to what we’ve done in bringing that to the screen.”

Steamy fan fiction aside, it’s unlikely Good Omens will match the raunch levels of his last major TV series, Masters of Sex (2013-16), a drama about the pioneering sexologists Masters and Johnson. In the wake of the last year’s #MeToo revelations, HBO has introduced “intimacy co-ordinators” for its shows - but, Sheen tells me, Masters of Sex was ahead of the curve in handling sex scenes with caution.

“It was a lot easier for myself and Lizzy [Caplan, his co-star], as we were comfortable in that set-up, because we had status in it. But for people in the background, or doing just one scene, it’s different,” he says. “It became clear very quickly that there needed to be guidelines for people who didn’t have that kind of status, who would probably not speak up. We started talking about that, and decided there need to be clear rules.”

Sex scenes, he continues, “should absolutely be treated the same way as other things where there’s a danger. If you’re doing stage-fighting, or pyrotechnics, there are rules and everyone just sticks to them. Whether it’s physical danger, or emotional, or psychological, it’s just as important.”

Despite having several film and TV parts on the horizon, Sheen says he is still in semi-retirement from acting. In 2016 he hinted that he might be quit for good to campaign against populism. “In the same way as the Nazis had to be stopped in Germany in the Thirties, this thing that is on the rise has to be stopped," he said at the time. But now things are less cut. “I have two jobs now, essentially,” he says. "Acting takes second place."

While many celebrity activists limit their politics to save-the-dolphins posturing, Sheen has been working with a range of unfashionable grassroots groups aiming to combat inequality, support small communities and fight fake news. As well as supporting Welsh credit unions, and sponsoring a women’s football team in the tiny village of Goytre, he tells me that he's been “commissioning research into alternative funding models for local journalism”.

If he returns to the stage any time soon, he says it’s likely to be in a show about “political historical socio-economic stuff, a one-man show with very low production values”. It’s clear he’s not in it for the glamour.

Sheen was inspired to become more politically active by the Brexit referendum – which also indirectly led him to break up with his partner of four years, the comedian Sarah Silverman. At the time, they were living together in the US. “We both had very similar drives, and yet to act on those drives pulled us in different directions – because she is American and I’m Welsh,” he explains.

“After the Brexit vote, and the election where Trump became president, we both felt in different ways we wanted to get more involved. That led to her doing her show I Love You America [in which Silverman interviewed people from across the political spectrum], and it led to me wanting to address the issues that I thought led some people to vote the way they did about Brexit, in the area I come from and others like it.”

They still speak lovingly of each other, which makes their decision to end a happy relationship for the sake of politics look painfully quixotic. Talking about it, Sheen sounds a little wistful, but he’s utterly certain they made the right choice. “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it did mean coming back here – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.”

#michael sheen #dolittle #the voyage of doctor dolittle #he got so irrationally mad at this article on twitter #but hey bringing it back because people wanted to read it #and it had info about dolittle #but it's locked behind a paywall #so here u go fam

53 notes · View notes

laufire · 4 years

Note

Why is the chronicles of idhun a good show iyo

I don’t know that I’d call it good, because I have big misgivings about it, but.

The things that it had going on for it were that,

a.) it’s a faithful adaptation. This is not something I always consider important, in cases where I don’t like or know or care about the source material; and admittedly, there are a few changes the show could stand to do, IMO. But the reason I rather it be as close to the books as possible, instead of going in a TVD/T100-like direction is...

b.) the worldbuilding. I think it did a good job presenting just enough of it to entice new viewers, which is important to me since it’s the strongest point of the books, AFAIC. It’s unusual and quite different from other fantasy stories, especially the ones that are around now, most of which tend to stick to a formula. I don’t want them to tamp down ANY of the glorious craziness this ‘verse’s worldbuilding has lmao.

OTOH, like I’ve said before, it was too rushed. 5 episodes are simply not enough, not for these books. I can overlook it with the first season because at the end of the day, it’s only adapting what was a long introductory prologue to the parts of the story that I’m most interested in, but it just won’t hold for the rest.

And I understand that there will have to be cuts, things that will get left out, etc. etc. They’re adaptaing a trilogy that amounts to something close to 3000 pages and they can’t put in every damn word, ofc I understand that. But I reiterate, 5 episodes are not enough; not so much because of what little details might be left out, but because when things are so rushed you lose emotional impact, and THAT is unforgivable in fiction, plain and simple. I didn’t feel any horror when Alsan was experimented on; my heart wasn’t breaking when Jack and Victoria said their goodbyes. That’s not good, period.

There are other technical issues with it: the art is subpar, the Spanish voice actors are inexperienced for the most part, and it really hurts the show. But I’m of the opinion that, if the script is good and the emotion and passion is there, technical issues take a back seat. I’ve watched shows with worse art and loved them, after all.

Anyway, all this pisses me off because I don’t want this show to get cancelled after they’ve dared offer me a taste xDD (I NEED them to adapt at least up until the end of the second book PLEASE, I NEED IT!! We need to meet Sheziss!! Jack needs to meet Sheziss!! I need my Sheziss/Zeshak angst!!! Though I hope by then the sheks’ design has improved, because they need to be sexier than that lol).

But I’d say at this point things are still in the “it has potential” area. I just need it to reach it, and for that Netflix would need to give more to the show which... I’m not that optimist about, tbqh.

Maybe if you guys gave it some attention... :DDD. C’mon guys, it’s a pro-poly canon, isn’t tumblr all over that xDD

#replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #bitter lau tag #idhun thoughts #memorias de idhun #the idhun chronicles #Anonymous

1 note · View note

blessed-but-distressed · 5 years

Text

#FindEmmaSwanAFriend

Feeling left behind by her more successful, settled friends, Emma Swan moves to Scotland on a whim. Sure, she’s winning at Instagram, but something is still missing from her new life. Fortunately, her friends back home are on it. #FindEmmaSwanAFriend goes viral. Enter Killian Jones, reluctant columnist, who is on the hunt for his newest subject, and may just have found her. CS AU

***

also on ff.net and ao3

***

Tagging: @katie-dub , @wholockgal , @kat2609 , @whovianlunatic, @optomisticgirl, @ladyciaramiggles, @the-lady-of-misthaven, @emmaswanchoosesyou, @ilovemesomekillianjones, @biancaros3, @cigarettes-and-scotch-whisky, @ms-babs-gordon @ab-normality, @andiirivera, @fangirl-till-it-hurts, @onceuponaprincessworld , @natascha-remi-ronin, @kiwistreetswan and whoever else asks me.

***

A/N: Part 1 of 2. We’ll get there when we get there.

***

Emma

It had been building for weeks. Months, really.

It began with a series of fences up on the Castle Esplanade, robbing the selfie-stick set of their outlook towards Arthur’s Seat. Before long it became a full-blown construction site, scaffolds looming up on either side of the tarmac like a bad omen.

Then came the anti-terrorist bollards on the Mile, at once ugly and terrifying in their design. By the time the placards went up at the tail end of July, you could feel it in the air, like an encroaching thunderstorm.

August.

For as long as she’d lived in Edinburgh, Emma had heard the war stories.

A bloody nightmare, was how Killian had once phrased it. Imagine, if you will, if every insufferable wanker in London with even the slightest dramatic inclination took it upon himself-

Or herself, Tink had interrupted.

Or herself, he’d amended, with a roll of his eyes, to decamp 400 miles up the East Coast line, en masse. And not just for a weekend, either. An entire month. And then imagine they proceed to spend that time putting on dodgy comedy shows, getting pissed as newts, and trying to get off with each other.

Don’t forget the inflated prices, Will had cut in.

The traffic, Tink lamented.

Hipsters with posh accents taking up all the seats in your local, Will added mournfully.

The flyers, Killian sighed. At that, the other two groaned.

So it’s busy? Emma had asked.

Aye, Swan, Killian had replied, a weary glint in his eye. It’s busy.

***

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe them, exactly. She’d seen the crowds at Christmastime, swelling up around the markets in Princes Street Gardens. She’d stared the drunken aftermath of Hogmanay in the face, and lived to tell the tale. She knew busy.

The Festival was, well… most days it wasn’t unlike navigating the Battle of Thermopylae. Every major thoroughfare, every centrally located eatery turned into a desperate crush of bodies, all attempting to coexist in too little available space. And there on the periphery the thespians lay in wait, ready to exploit any signs of weakness.

The first few days, she took every flyer on offer. It was the polite thing to do. But as her bag, and the crowds swelled, she was forced to reassess. By week’s end Emma learned to do as the locals did, keeping her head down, headphones in, and her hands stuffed in her pockets at all times.

So when August, the man, promised Emma he could sneak her into the green room at the Book Festival, she took her chance to escape the rabble.

Compared with the madness up on the Mile, the Book Festival in Charlotte’s Square was an oasis of calm. The crowd skewed older, and it showed. They sat drinking up the sun in plastic lawn chairs, whiling away the hours until the next panel or signing with the unhurried air of the newly retired. Yet even as she sipped her overpriced plastic cup of gin, Emma felt content.

It was summer. She was on vacation. And she was one Q & A session away from having her apartment all to herself again.

“Emma!” Her houseguest fell onto the grass beside her, spilling half of his gin in the process.

“You got them?” Emma asked, leaning over to top up his drink with some of hers.

Taking a few surreptitious glances in either direction, August unzipped his jacket, and tossed something into Emma’s lap. “I’m a man of my word.”

Emma wouldn’t go quite that far, but she snatched it up anyway. It was a sweater, pale blue with a prominent STAFF designation across the back. Her ticket into the green room. “And where did you get that? Did you slip some poor underpaid usher a tenner, or something?”

August just tapped the side of his nose, and smiled his usual mysterious smile.

Tamping down her urge to kick him, Emma sighed and pulled the sweater over her head. It was a little big on her, but not comically so. She rolled up the sleeves, and waved a little to get August’s attention.

“What do you think? Do I look like I’d volunteer at a Book Festival?”

“No,” he replied, without looking at her. “And I think your columnist just came out of the Zadie Smith signing. Kevin?”

She squinted against the sun, to where the crowd was pouring out from the Signing Tent. Sure enough, there was a familiar monochromatic figure loping his way across the square. It’d been more than a month since she’d seen him, but if the signature walk hadn’t given him away, the outfit would’ve. Who else would insist on black leather in the middle of summer?

“Killian,” Emma corrected automatically, already regretting rising to the bait.

August knew full well who Killian was. He’d Facebook stalked him the same as Ruby had. He read his columns religiously, picking them apart in their group chat with the zeal of a literature major on Adderall. He just liked being a dick.

As they emerged from the throng, Emma saw the petite woman at Killian’s side, matching his stride in impressively tall heels.

How does she walk in those things? Emma wondered to herself. But before she could voice this aloud, August was already on his feet.

“I’m going to go say ‘hi’.” There was a twinkle in his eye, one she didn’t much like the look of.

“August...” Emma gave a low warning, but it was too late. He’d already passed her the last of his drink, and disappeared across the square.

Lord help her.

Downing the last of the gin, Emma straightened her sweater one last time and went after him.

***

August wasn’t famous, exactly. His debut, a semi-autobiographical account of his early twenties backpacking through South East Asia, had made some waves when it first came out. There’d been movie interest. A profile in the New Yorker. Everyone was a sucker for that foster-kid-made-good fairytale.

But when he switched focus to fantasy fiction, his agent jumped ship. Likewise, most of his readership. These days, he was what Emma might charitably call a “midlist author.” Consistent, but not exactly setting the world on fire. Mostly, he survived under the radar, letting the royalties from his successful debut prop up his middling career. But every once in a while, he’d run into a fan in the wild, and things would get... strange.

When Emma finally caught up to August, she came to two sudden realizations;

On closer inspection, the woman with the impressive ability to navigate across grass with spike heels was none other than Belle. Librarian Belle. As in, I-really-like-sad-songs-and-married-a-complete-douchebag Belle.

Belle was staring at August with the kind of gobsmacked, I-just-swallowed-a-goldfish expression that could only mean one thing: She was a fan.

“You know August Booth?” Belle shout-whispered to Killian. The hand clinging tightly to Killian’s bicep might’ve stirred Emma’s interest, if she didn’t think it was all that was keeping the girl upright.

Killian seemed entirely puzzled. “Err… in passing?” He looked from August to Emma, searching for a lifeline.

“You’re a Swords of Storybrooke fan, I take it?” Emma asked, helpfully.

Belle seemed to shake herself a little. “Emma! Hi!” She reached across to give her a one-armed hug, the best she could do with the books still cradled against her chest with her other hand.

“Are you kidding? I’m in love with those books! I have the last line from Good Form tattooed on my-” She trailed off abruptly, cheeks flushing red. “Sorry,” she said, turning again to August. “You must get that all the time.”

“Not as often as I’d like,” he said with a flash of teeth. “Always nice to meet a fan. It was Belle, wasn’t it?” Emma saw the flash of recognition cross his face, as he matched the name with the story. “You’re a friend of Ruby’s, right?”

“Ruby? Ruby Lucas? Uh, yeah. We dated. Sort of. You know her?”

“We go back a ways. Do you like gin, Belle?” he asked, coaxing her closer to the bar. “I heard they’ve got some here that tastes like Earl Grey…”

It took Emma a moment to realize she’d been abandoned. Alone. With Killian Jones. Exactly as August, that slimy son of a bitch, had intended.

To his credit, Killian looked similarly startled, trying and failing to cover it with a casual scratch behind his ear. It was just a small thing, but it killed her.

“Sooo…” he began, never one to leave a silence unfilled, “Been a while…”

5 weeks, not that she was counting.

“Not that I blame you for avoiding me, mind...” he added.

“I wasn’t-” Her first instinct was denial, but she swallowed it back down. He knew her better than that. “Yeah, okay, I was, a bit. Sorry. I just needed…”

“Space,” Killian finished for her.

“Yeah. Space.”

The smile they shared was fragile. Precious. She wanted to tell him she’d meant to call. That she’d had to fight off tears the whole time she’d read through his latest column. She wanted to tell him what it had meant to her.

Instead, she just said the first stupid thing to pop into her head.

“Sorry, I think August just stole your date.”

“Date?” Killian looked back to where Belle and August had disappeared, and it dawned on him. “Belle?” His laugh was incredulous, if Emma was any judge. “Err… no. We just kind of met in the line.”

“To Zadie Smith, right?”

“Aye.” He held up the autographed copy of her latest, before tucking it back under his arm. “Elsa’s a big fan. Her birthday’s coming up, so-”

She felt a prickle of attraction and hated herself for it. Just because he was a good brother-in-law, it didn’t mean she had to let her guard down again. Ted Bundy had probably been a great brother-in-law too.

“She’s coming home soon?” Even as strained as things had been, he’d been unable to keep the implosion of his home life entirely to himself.

“Next week. Let the boys settle back into things before school goes back.”

“And things with her and Liam are…?” She let her words trail off, not wanting to overstep.

“They’re… I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They’re talking now, at least. These long, overwrought transatlantic Skype conversations that I pretend very hard not to overhear. It’s a start, I suppose.”

Emma shrugged in agreement. As thoughtful responses went, it fell short of the mark. But what did she know about fixing a broken marriage? She’d had one functional adult relationship in her entire life, and she hadn’t even made it through the entire proposal before she’d cut and run.

“So you’re working here?” he asked suddenly.

“Huh?” She looked down, confused, only to realize she was still wearing her baby blue STAFF sweater. “Oh, this? No, this is stolen. Or borrowed? You know what? I’m not really sure on the specifics.”

“Oh..kay?” Amusement was definitely winning out over his confusion.

Emma shrugged. “August said he’d sneak me into the Green Room. This is part of my cunning disguise. Pretty convincing, huh?”

“You know they check lanyards at the door, right?”

She didn’t. Fucking August.

“There is, of course, another way in…” He tried for his usual irrepressible swagger, and it rang a bit hollow to Emma’s ears. But he was trying.

“Oh, is there?” she asked , crossing her arms sullenly over her chest.

He nodded, eyes growing brighter as they fell into a more familiar rhythm. “A secret way. Only known to the chosen few…”

Emma shot him a flat look.

With a grin and a flourish, he pulled a lanyard from his pocket, and held it out for her inspection.

It was identical to his in every way, right down to the Saorsa logo stamped on the back.

“Our photographer never made it, so I had a spare. What do you say, Swan? Want to ditch that awful jumper and join the big leagues?”

Emma cocked her head, considering this proposal. ”Would I actually have to take photographs?”

“If you like. But you’d definitely have to hold the camera. Authenticity and all that.”

“And we’d breathe the same air as actual famous authors?” She was kidding, but only a little.

“Breathe the same air, eat the same Chocolate Digestives. We could even talk to a few, if you like.” He shrugged. “That’s kind of why I’m here.”

Somehow, that trumped her original plan of playing the wallflower while August caught up with his cadre of fellow fantasy authors.

She didn’t say anything, but Killian must’ve already intuited her answer, because he gently pulled the lanyard from her grasp, and slipped it over her head with a smirk.

“Congratulations, Dr Swan. You’re now a proud member of the fourth estate.” He held out a hand. “Shall we?”

Emma looked down at the proffered hand and hesitated.

It was just a hand, and it wasn’t. Because here was the truth: Emma had started to trust Killian Jones. Started to lean on him. Confide in him. And even now, after he’d kicked the metaphorical chair out from under her and shown he was capable of being a complete ass when the mood struck, she still wanted to.

It was a hand, but it was also a second chance.

And maybe it made her weak, but Emma reached out and took it.

***

I can’t believe I met a Pulitzer Prize winner! ES

I can. You only made me take twenty pictures of the two of you together. KJ

Funny. ES

Not a hardship, I can assure you. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. It was good to see you, even if only for a wee bit. KJ

Huh. Sincerity. Not sure what to do with that. ES

I’m trying a new thing, where I occasionally let the people in my life know that I actually appreciate their company. KJ

And how’s that working out for you? ES

Will is now convinced I harbour a dreadful crush on him, and Liam asked me if I had a concussion. Soo… I’d call it a work in progress ;-) KJ

Good to see you too. ES

***

August’s Q & A went better than expected, if you didn’t count the guy at the front whose question was more of a diatribe, really, about all the things he would’ve done differently.

There was always one.

But on the whole, the genuine fans outnumbered the assholes, and it took a good two hours to finally extricate August from his adoring masses, after the fact.

He was already flushed, drunk on ego and free booze when he finally emerged from behind a tent flap, and pulled Emma into a lazy hug.

“Where to next, oh tour guide extraordinaire?” he asked with hot gin breath.

Emma grimaced, and held him at arm’s length. “There’s no next. You have a train to catch, remember?”

“Last train for London isn’t for another three hours,” August shrugged. “Still time for a last bit of revelry. Didn’t you promise you’d actually take me to a Fringe show?”

She had, but she’d also counted on August being distracted by his own brilliance long enough for her to welch out of that particular contract. The last thing she felt like doing was wading back into the madness of the Old Town.

“It’s kind of last minute…”

But August already had his phone out, scrolling through the app and Emma knew a lost cause when she saw one.

He looked up suddenly, eyes lit with a tantalizing prospect. “How far’s the Tron?”

***

During the semester, The Tron was a studenty kind of hang out. Plenty of drink specials, and always a free table downstairs. She usually avoided the place, none too eager to bump into her students during their messy nights out. Least of all during hers.

During the Festival, however, it was a very different beast.

Gone were the baby faced clientele, and reasonable prices. It was standing room only, and foreign accents were more common than not. In this crowd, she might’ve been just another festival-goer, at a loose end between shows.

Even with having the push through the late afternoon crowds on the Mound, they still made it with ten minutes to spare before August’s chosen comedian started his set downstairs. She sent him down to save them some seats, and after a lot of pushing, shoving and gratuitous cleavage displays, managed to attract the attention of the nearest bartender.

“Alright, love?” he asked, with little better than a leer.

She ordered a pint for herself, and a tap water for August.

“That’s £10.”

Emma nearly swallowed her tongue. “For a pint? That’s extortion!”

The bartender shrugged, snatching the bill from her hand. “That’s August.”

She turned around, drinks in hand and the crowd surged around her, gunning for her vacated space by the bar. Some of her lager slopped onto the shoes of the guy in front of her, and she was halfway through her apology before she took a look at his face, and froze.

Graham.

Her Graham. Standing in The Tron. And decidedly not somewhere in Northern Ireland, studying the possible ramifications of Brexit on the Irish Border. Contrary to the text he’d sent her two hours ago.

“Emma, hey!” the words were friendly, but there was no disguising the tension in his jaw.

He was not pleased to see her.

And when Emma looked behind him, and saw the dark haired young woman whose hand was clutched tightly in his, she realized why. It wasn’t just the white knuckled hold they had on each other, so they wouldn’t lose each other in the crush.

It was the matching silver wedding bands.

Mother. Fucker.

Emma barely had time to process before she was tipping her overpriced pint down his shirt. All £10 of it.

The crowd of people around them suddenly went deathly quiet, so quiet Emma could hear the rush of her own blood inside her ears. She saw at least one person raise a camera phone.

Graham, himself said nothing. Even as his companion, his wife, stared between the two of them, dumbfounded.

“Sorry,” Emma said, with the least amount of sincerity she could muster. “Really crowded in here, huh?”

The crowd parted for her as she left. Someone even slow clapped. It was all she could do to keep her face level until she was outside on the Mile, already dialing August’s number.

***

August never did end up catching his train that night. Instead they went back to Emma’s flat, and tore through Emma’s entire cache of American candy while bingeing episodes of Bake Off.

It was only around 3am that she finally let him lead her into her bedroom, tucking her in like she was still a kid. Like nothing had changed in the last twenty years.

“You don’t need to say it,” she said, as he settled on top of the covers beside her, both of them staring at the ceiling.

“Say what?” he asked, leaning over to turn off her lamp.

“That my taste in men sucks.”

August snorted, settling back down beside her. “Well, you said it.”

“You’re right,” Emma admitted to the dark. “And you were right about Walsh. I didn’t love him. I just kind of… got used to him. And it’s not the same thing.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

She turned over then, so she could see the vague outline of his face in the near darkness. “Have you told Jefferson how you feel, yet?”

They’d never discussed it. Not explicitly. But from the moment August had introduced his editor into their little group, Emma had known. And it didn’t seem to matter that Jefferson was a widower. Or a single father. There was something there, something between them as they traded insults and bickered over line edits. Something more than colleagues, or even friends. Something rare.

The silence was telling, as August regrouped.

“I wrote him a letter, once,” he confessed. “I was going to submit it with my finished manuscript. Right on the last page. But I ripped it up before I could give it to him.”

Now it was Emma’s turn to snort. “We never stood a chance, did we?”

“Some kids get trophies. Foster kids get abandonment issues.” It was a recitation. A line she’d heard before.

They knew the truth of it better than anyone.

#cs ff #cs au #findemmaswanafriend #cs fic

48 notes · View notes

9or10allgood · 4 years

Text

I love Tumblr. Far more than Facebook, which has become a seething morass of political partisanship, and while I’m all about seething partisanship when it’s discussed by people willing to engage their intellects, I’m less so when “debate” means posting memes and gifs which are, let’s be honest, the electronic equivalent of saying “nanny nanny boo boo”.

Anyway… Tumblr. You can, to some degree, control your content. If you are, like I am, mildly (*snort*) obsessed with a certain tall, lanky, Scottish actor, you can find like-minded individuals and follow them and bask in his glory to your heart’s content. Likewise, you can follow fandoms based on television shows and movies and plays and music… and you get my point. You’re all here so, of course, you do.

And, if you are interested in things like politics or social issues or the environment or science or all of the above (and more), that content is also readily available on Tumblr.

Generally speaking, I find the folks on Tumblr to be considerably more relaxed and open and accepting than on Facebook. I attribute that, for the most part, to the members being mostly younger. I’m a great believer in young people. The future belongs to them and I am, present circumstances notwithstanding, mostly optimistic about the future.

I’m a Boomer. I was born eleven years after the end of WWII. (Good Lord, I feel old!) There were no twenty-four-hour television or radio stations, and the internet wasn’t even conceived of, even by the most forward thinkers. Doctors still made housecalls as a matter of course. Milk was still delivered to your door every morning. The polio vaccine was still being tested. Putting a man on the moon was a science fiction fantasy.

As a generation, we “Boomers” were guilty of a lot of things, beginning with not quickly enough shedding some of the baggage from the generation before us. We were still largely segregated and we are paying the price still and we will until - I don’t know how long and that disturbs me more than I can say. We were too quick to distrust the other - just ask the immigrants that came to these shores during and after the War. There was a dear older lady in my church when I was in high school. A kinder, more charitable, more joyful woman you could never hope to meet. She was a German war bride - met an American soldier and they fell in love and married and he brought her home to his small, south Georgia hometown. Their first decade was tough - folks were slow to forget and she was sometimes ostracized. Even when I knew her, people would sometimes refer to her (in lowered tones) as Leroy’s German frau.

We were abysmal when it came to the environment. I mean, look at the cars we drove in the sixties and seventies before the oil crisis forced a turn toward economy cars. Gasoline was $.37 a gallon - and that was hi-test! What did it matter that my mother’s 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis land yacht only got 11 miles to the gallon? Gender equality? Seriously? Gender Identity?!?!? How you came out of the womb is what you were. Period. And if your family had that special uncle or the aunt with a Very Close Friend, well, it just wasn’t talked about, was it…

On the other hand, there were things we did do. That social conscience that drives our society today? You can thank those who loudly and visibly protested the Vietnam War for a lot of it. Sure, there were anti-war movements always, but the Vietnam War lit a fire that, with the availability of news cameras and microphones and news cycles, burned hot and bright until the last helicopter departed the US Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975. And when the war was over, there were plenty of other things to get riled up about: the environment, women’s rights, the right to choose, civil rights, gay rights. Anger over things that are wrong today didn’t just start in the 2000s. A lot of us - and I mean a lot! - have been pissed off for a while.

Putting a man on the moon belongs to the generation before the Boomers, obviously, but the drive to continue space exploration - the space shuttle, the probes that are still sailing toward places beyond our solar system, the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope - belong to us. Medical advances? Advances in diabetic screening and treatment, the MRI, treatment of HIV/AIDS… Cancer research was largely theoretical until the ‘70s. The idea of DNA re-sequencing as a therapeutic treatment? Late ‘70’s.

And as for culture? My generation embraced the idea of embracing the accoutrements of other cultures. Clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, music, food… we were all about it. I see people commenting on “cultural appropriation” as if it’s a bad thing. We - my generation - considered it to be a tangible form of acceptance.

(As an aside, I have a dear friend who is battling uterine cancer. She has lost all of her hair due to chemotherapy. On one of her “good days”, she and her family took in an Indian (the country) festival and, while she was there, saw an artist creating henna tattoos. On impulse, she asked the woman to create one for her scalp. It was a masterpiece, absolutely glorious, and it gave my friend so much of her joy back. For the first time, she was proud to show herself without a wig or scarf. I think if I’d heard anyone say anything about “cultural appropriation”, I would have punched them in the mouth.)

My point to this ramble is this. Lately, I’ve been seeing anti-Boomer things on Tumblr. Boomers are rude. Boomers are backward. Boomers are outdated. And while I get that it’s just a thing for generations to complain about each other, it’s the absolutism that I see that bothers me. When I was young and dealing with my parents’ generation, I didn’t consign the whole kit and kaboodle to the Dark Ages. And, from my viewpoint as an older person, I don’t heave a great sigh and clutch my pearls over the entirety of the Gen X'ers, the Millennials (raised one!), or the Gen Z'ers. I may get annoyed with one or two individuals and have a sudden urge to shake my cane and yell “get off my lawn, whippersnapper!” but I manage to contain myself. (There was the young man in the electronics department at WalMart who, in his most condescending manner, asked me if I knew what a USB port was. I wanted to tell him that I’d been working with computers since before his father first bought his mother a malt at the chocolate shoppe. Instead, I just gave him The Look™ and he mumbled an apology.)

Absolutism about anything is corrosive. I mean, think about it. It lies at the heart of so many of the evils that are tearing at us now. It feeds the desire to hate all of the “other” because of a crime perpetrated by one or a few. Wars result from this kind of thinking. Down through history, you see it. And it’s so much more easily spread now with social media. Again, I would abandon FB altogether - except that it’s how I keep up with the folks back home - because it’s become a political, partisan, largely unintelligent cesspool. All because those on the Left believe that those on the Right are the Minions of Satan and those on the Right think that those on the Left are Bloodsucking Snowflakes. And, of course, they don’t all think that, but it’s so easy to click a “Like” or a “Share” without really thinking about the message they are sending, and before you know it things are out of control and we’ve put a dictator wannabe in the bloody Oval Office!

(Sorry. I’m still upset.)

There are those who ask why boomers are offended. I mean, “ok boomer” is just a joke, right? Well, yeah, but that same reasoning has been applied to how many derogatory labels. (I read one comment that “Boomer” isn’t an ageist slur. Except it kinda is, y'know?) And, again, it spreads and it gets blown out of proportion and there are those who are just ready to jump on a bandwagon - any bandwagon! - and the next thing you know, it’s trending on Twitter and we’ve got one more thing to get mad about that shouldn’t be anything at all because there are so many other things that we really should be mad about and trying to do something about…

Do you get my point?

If someone of any generation gets on your last good nerve, by all means, express yourself. (Short of violence, obviously.) But ease up on projecting the “they’re all bad" mentality. It isn’t true. It doesn’t make anything easier. And we’re all better than that.

Aren’t we?

#boomers #ok boomers #just a few observations #by a boomer

13 notes · View notes

a-second-hand-sorrow · 5 years

Text

You’re On (Brian May X Reader)

WC: 2352

Warnings: A bit of language, sexual references, it’s real cute lads

Summary: Y/N is Miami’s daughter and decides to spend some time with Queen whilst they’re recording A Night At The Opera and she grows close with the band, particularly their guitarist.

A/N: This wasn't requested but I love BoRhap so here we are! This is the Fictional Brian from the film, just so everyone knows.

BORHAP MASTERLIST

There was never a dull moment in the studio with Queen. People were always arguing, occasionally things would be thrown depending on Roger’s mood, but the studio was a constantly noisy place.

However, there was one moment where there was some semblance of silence in the studio. This was when Miami decided he would bring his daughter, Y/N, to the studio with him.

“Boys, I have a special guest with me today.” He announced, walking into the room and watching the boys perk up slightly.

“Who is it, Miami? You haven’t got Bowie, have you?” Freddie asked, leaning forward as he sat on the arm of the couch he shared with Brian.

“Unfortunately, not right now. Our guest is someone else.” Miami said, and Freddie furrowed his brows, glancing around the room to see the confused looks on everyone’s faces.

“Who is it then?” John asked, and Miami smirked before stepping to the side to reveal a girl who looked around their age.

“Surprise! This is my daughter, Y/N. She’s a real music lover and she wanted to watch an actual recording session in process. Now, I’m going to get you all some coffees so please behave around her.” Miami said, as Y/N waved sheepishly at the band from where she stood.

“Thanks dad.” Y/N said, smiling at him as he left. An uneasy silence settled over the room as Y/N rocked awkwardly on her heels, unsure of what to say. No one dared break the silence until Freddie cleared his throat.

“If you’re Miami’s daughter I take it your last name is Beach, yes?” He said, and Y/N froze for a second before nodding, and Freddie paused thoughtfully for a second.

“It’s only fitting you get a nickname to match your father’s. I hereby dub thee Venice Beach, Venice for short.” Freddie said, and Y/N smiled at the new name.

“It’s a bit out there but I can live with Venice. It’s cooler than Y/N, anyway.” She said, and Freddie looked at the rest of the band with a smirk.

“She’ll fit right in. Now, I feel like it’s time for formal introductions. Freddie Mercury.” He said, shaking Y/N’s hand. She returned the shake enthusiastically, smiling at him.

“That’s Roger, our drummer.” Freddie said, pointing at the blond with the dark sunglasses. He gave Y/N a wave which she returned, the sleeves of her blouse moving along with it.

“John Deacon, our bassist. We call him Deacy.” John looked up from his bass and smiled at Y/N, earning a wide smile back.

“And this is.” Freddie began, but the remaining member stood up abruptly, cutting Freddie off.

“I’m Brian May, but you can just call me Brian. I play guitar.” He said, awkwardly sticking out his hand. Y/N giggled a little and took his hand, shaking it warmly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Brian.” Y/N said, dropping his hand reluctantly. He smiled at her, sitting back down in his chair. Y/N turned around and began asking Roger some questions about the album and other musical stuff.

Unbeknownst to Y/N, Freddie shot Brian a look that screamed ‘what was that about?’ Brian simply shrugged, a slight smirk on his face. “She’s cute, Fred.” Brian responded, whispering so the others didn’t hear what he said.

Freddie was going to respond but suddenly Y/N began talking. “So, my dad has said that due to the limited space I have to share a room with one of you guys if I’m to stay here. He also wanted me to say that if there’s any funny business he will chop off your balls.” Y/N said, and an evil smirk crossed Freddie’s face.

“You can room with Brian. I’m sure he’d be ok with that.” Freddie said, and Y/N looked hopefully at him.

“Would that be ok? I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.” Y/N said, and Brian waved his hand dismissively, despite knowing that he had one of the house’s smaller rooms.

“It’s fine. If you want, we can head up now and get your things ready.” Brian said, and Y/N smiled brightly, kissing his cheek before going off to grab her bags.

Brian looked at the other boys wide eyed, his hands resting lightly against the place where Y/N had just kissed. “10 quid says they’re together by the time the album’s done.” John said, and Brian scowled at him.

“Seriously guys? Making bets? That is so.” Brian was interrupted by Roger who was crossing his arms over his chest.

“15 quid by the end of the week.” He said, and Brian let out a sigh of frustration, burying his head in his hands.

“You’re on, Taylor.” John said, stretching across the couch to shake Roger’s hand.

“The lot of you can piss off, I’m going to my room.” Brian said, storming out of the studio and leaving behind a bunch of laughing boys.

Y/N was admiring the room, putting her clothes away in some of the empty drawers that were left. She heard someone coming up the stairs and looked up, smiling when she saw it was Brian.

“Hey. I’ve almost finished putting my clothes away so that’s good. How are you?” She asked cheerily, and Brian shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m alright. The guys were being twats but that’s no different from usual.” He said, sitting down on the bed. Y/N chuckled and sat down next to him, pulling a face at the bounce in the mattress when she sat down.

“Yeah you get used to that.” Brian said, looking around the room. Y/N leaned back on her hands, relaxing slightly after the tedious drive up to the farm.

“What’s your favourite part about being in Queen?” She asked after a brief stretch of silence, and Brian laughed gently at her question.

“As irritating as they can be, I have to say the guys. We’re a family and I wouldn’t trade them in for the world.” Brian said, and Y/N smiled at his response.

“That’s so sweet. I’m looking forward to seeing you guys record, I’m sure it’ll be out of this world. However, we need to sort out the whole bed situation. I’m more than happy to sleep on the floor on a mattress or something.” Y/N said, and Brian furrowed his eyebrows.

“You don’t have to do that. We can just… share the bed.” Brian said, realising what he had proposed as soon as the words left his mouth. Y/N froze, trying to process the fact that the incredibly cute lead guitarist from Queen just offered to share his bed with her for a while.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose or anything.” Y/N said, and Brian nodded his head.

“It’s fine, trust me. It’s a decent sized bed so if either one of us needs space it should be all good.” Brian said, trying to combat the images of him and Y/N sharing a bed that were flooding into his mind.

“Ok, well just let me know if you’re uncomfortable or anything.” Y/N said, fiddling with the sleeves of her blouse. Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door and the two of them jumped, put off by the noise.

“We’re rehearsing now, and we need our guitarist.” Roger said, and Brian shot Y/N an apologetic look as he stood up.

“Y/N is coming with. Let’s go!” Roger said, slamming the doorframe once more before leaving. Y/N perked up and a smile settled on her face.

“Off we go, then.”

“God I’m exhausted.” Brian said, throwing back the covers and settling himself into the left side of the bed.

“I can only imagine. You guys went hard today, but I will say it was incredibly fun to watch.” Y/N said, taking her hair out of the ponytail she had been wearing all day.

She made her way over to the bed, gingerly sitting down and pulling the covers up. Brian gave her a reassuring smile, and she sighed contentedly. “Say what you will but this bed is surprisingly comfy.” Y/N said, resting her head against the pillow.

Brian glanced over at her, cursing internally at how beautiful she looked. Her hair fanned around her head like a halo, and she looked relaxed and calm. He was hoping he wouldn’t be responsible for Deacy owing Rog 15 quid by Sunday, but he wasn’t sure he’d last that long.

“Do you mind if I turn the lights off?” Brian asked, finally snapping himself out of his little fantasy.

“Of course. I’m probably going to hit the hay anyway.” Y/N said, smiling at Brian as he moved to flick off the light switch.

“Goodnight Y/N.” Brian said, rolling over so he was facing her.

“Goodnight Brian.”

Y/N winced as the rooster crowed, causing her to wake up suddenly. She groaned and went to roll over but froze when she felt a pair of arms around her waist.

She opened her eyes wider and saw Brian’s head buried in the crook of her neck, his arms wrapped securely around her waist. Her cheeks went red at the sight, knowing that this must’ve happened sometime during the night.

As strange as it was, Y/N loved the feeling of being in Brian’s arms. Sure, his hair was tickling her, but it was a cross she was more than willing to bear. She shifted slightly so she could get a better look at Brian.

His hair was an absolute mess, but he looked peaceful and content. Suddenly he began stirring and Y/N panicked. His eyes fluttered open, and he squinted at the light flooding the room.

“Y/N?” Brian mumbled, his voice low and gravelly from sleep. His eyes widened once he realised what position they were in and he went to move away but Y/N stopped him.

“It’s ok, Bri. I don’t hate it.” She said, and Brian paused, cheeks a scarlet colour.

“You don’t, uh, ok. Cool, cool.” He said, his voice rising an octave or two. Y/N chuckled and felt herself melting into Brian’s embrace. He lightly traced his fingers along Y/N’s stomach and she shivered slightly at his touch.

“Sorry was that too much?” Brian asked, and Y/N shook her head, rolling over so she was facing Brian.

“I liked it.” She said, resting her head on Brian’s shoulder as they lay together in bed, comfortable and happy.

The next morning Y/N made her way down to breakfast in a shirt that she couldn’t quite remember packing. It was a green button up shirt with silvery white pinstripes and it was slightly too big on her, so she tucked it into her jeans.

She could hear an absolute ruckus from downstairs and she knew the boys were at it again.

“It’s a metaphor, Brian!” Roger yelled, and Y/N rolled her eyes as she entered the kitchen. Brian went to retaliate but suddenly the entire room went silent as all eyes were on Y/N.

“What’s finally shut you lot up?” Y/N asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee with milk and two sugars. Roger and John had dropped their jaws, Freddie was smiling slightly, and Brian’s eyes were wider than saucers.

“Venice, darling, I hate to pry but did you sleep with Brian?” Freddie asked after a lengthy pause. Brian sent him a dirty look, and Y/N went red.

“What the fuck, no! Why would you ask that?” Y/N said, nearly choking on her coffee.

“That’s Brian’s shirt, Y/N. So naturally, Fred leapt to a few conclusions.” John said, and Y/N felt her cheeks burning up.

“Oh my god, Brian. I can go put on one of my shirts now, sorry.” Y/N said, but Brian shook his head.

“You can keep it. Trust me, it looks better on you than it does on me.” Brian said, and Y/N felt her stomach fill with butterflies.

“Really?” She said, and Brian nodded, a smile wide on his face.

“Really.”

Y/N was leaning against the fence outside the barn, taking in the beautiful countryside. She let out a relaxed sigh, and the quiet was suddenly interrupted by the voice of Brian May.

“Sorry to disrupt your peace and quiet but you looked a bit cold, so I thought I’d bring you a drink. Coffee, with milk and two sugars.” Brian said, passing her a mug.

Y/N accepted it graciously, a sweet smile on her face. “You remember how I like my coffee.” She said quietly, and Brian’s cheeks went a soft shade of pink.

“Yeah. You’re worth paying attention to, Miss Beach.” Brian said, and Y/N tried to hide her blush behind the mug of coffee.

“I’m glad you think so, Mr May.” Y/N said, and Brian chuckled to himself.

“I feel sorry for Deacy.” Brian said suddenly, and Y/N arched an eyebrow in confusion.

“Why? Did one of his songs not make the album or something?” Y/N said, and Brian laughed, shaking his head.

“No, it’s cause he’s about to owe Rog 15 quid.” Brian said, and Y/N cocked her head to the side, eyes squinted.

“And why is that?” She asked, setting her mug of coffee down on a sturdy looking fence post.

Brian took in a deep breath and kissed Y/N, his hands settling on her waist almost immediately. Y/N took a moment to react, but once she did her hands ended up in Brian’s hair, tugging lightly.

Y/N’s stomach was doing flips as they kissed, and when she pulled away she was sure there was a dumb smile on her face. She rested her forehead against Brian’s and took in a deep breath.

“That was better than I could have ever imagined.” Y/N said, and Brian chuckled at her statement, quickly pecking her lips.

“I could definitely say the same.” Brian said, pulling Y/N into a loving hug.

“COUGH UP DEACY! THEY JUST KISSED, AND I WANT MY REWARD MONEY!” Brian and Y/N jumped apart at the sound of Roger screaming from the barn.

“They had bets on when we’d get together. Childish, I know.” Brian said, and Y/N took in a deep breath. She kissed Brian on the cheek and began to walk away.

“I’ll be right back. YOU’RE DEAD, ROGER!”

#queen #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #brian may #brian may imagine #brian may x reader #bohemian rhapsody x reader #bohemian rhapsody imagine #gwilym lee

689 notes · View notes

cromulentbookreview · 4 years

Text

Werewolves of Florida

I saw a werewolf with a parrilla menu in his hand /

Walking through the streets of Miami in the rain /

He was looking for a place called Novecento /

Gonna get a big dish of entraña /

Aaoooooo /

Werewolves of Florida /

Aaoooooo /

Sorry.

(I’m not sorry. Aaooooooo!)

And by that, I mean: Lobizona by Romina Garber!

Well, if you’d expect werewolves to show up in America, where else but Florida?

Ha. Florida. The butt of so many jokes. It’s easy to make fun of Florida (fun, too!), so as a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest...I’m going to continue making fun of Florida, a state I’ve never been to and will likely never visit as I have no intention of being eaten by a gator or a python or a python gator or whatever insane creatures live down there.

I kid, I’m sure there are places in Florida that are perfectly lovely. They just happen to coexist with the insanity that is the rest of Florida.

Anyway! Werewolves in Florida! It sounds possible. Seriously, could you imagine the headlines? “Florida werewolf brings drugs to a drug bust, gets himself busted”? “Florida werewolf charged with assault with deadly weapon after throwing alligator through Wendy’s drive-thru window”?

In this case, however, there aren’t just werewolves in Florida, but Brujas as well! Both sound like people you would find in Florida. “Florida Bruja drops pants, licks man, dances naked in Waffle House parking lot”?

Where was I? Oh. Yes. Lobizona by Romina Garber!

Seventeen-year-old Manuela Azul (she goes by Manu) and her mother, Soledad, have been living in Miami illegally for most of Manu’s life. Manu has a strange eye condition, in which her pupils and irises look like stars so she has to wear sunglasses 24/7 to avoid freaking other people out. Though I’m certain if she walked into an optometrist’s convention with eyes like those she’d immediately be the most popular girl in the whole room, but since she and her mom are in the country illegally, that sort of attention would be very, very bad.

Soledad had to flee Argentina because Manu’s father, Fierro, was supposedly high up with some bad people who disapproved with his relationship with Soledad. So much so that they killed him, sending Soledad into hiding. If they knew Soledad was alive, and that Manu even existed, Fierro’s people would kill them both.

And, as if hiding from Fierro’s people were bad enough, Manu and Soledad are on a constant lookout for ICE. If their apartment building is raided by ICE, they could be deported, back to Argentina where they’d be sitting ducks for Fierro’s murderous family and friends. So Manu has lived a sheltered life within a tiny apartment with her mom and their elderly friend Perla, who has sheltered them for years.

And! As if being an undocumented immigrant with freaky-eye syndrome forever anxious that the next car might be full of ICE agents while stuck in a tiny apartment was bad enough, Manu also - also! - suffers from horrible periods. Joy. Every month, her mom gives her a special pill that puts her to sleep for three straight days just so she sleep through the pain. That’s shit makes PCOS sound like a walk in the park. (Note: do not go for a walk in the park right now and if you do remain 6 feet away from everyone else at all times). Also, where can I get a hold of a drug that can let me sleep through my period? I like the sound of that.

So Manu has spent much of her life dreaming of escape and a life without fear. Currently, her only hope is the knowledge that her mom is doing her best to get them both legal status. Then one day, Manu notices some strange people hanging around her apartment building. Then Perla is attacked and hospitalized. In a panic, Manu rushes off to find her mom...only to find that Soledad has been lying to her for quite some time. Soledad isn’t a maid for some rich lady - she works at an underground Miami clinic. And she never intended to apply for legal status for her and Manu.

Just as she’s reeling from this revelation, ICE raids the underground clinic. From here, the story takes a weird left-turn. On the run, Manu leaps into the back of a truck, and, after a long ride that sounded way more comfortable than a long ride in the bed of a truck should sound (seriously, there’s no jostling, no being flung about, no wind burn...I get that Florida is pretty flat, but aren’t there potholes? Rocks? Also, isn’t it illegal for someone to ride in the bed of a truck? How did no one else not see her and call the cops?) she ends up deep within the Florida Everglades. After somehow hopping out of the guy’s truck without him noticing that she was ever in there (again, how??? I drive a truck and would absolutely notice if someone were hitching a ride back there. Hey, how come I’m fishtailing significantly less than I usually do? Oh, wait, there’s a human back there) Manu stumbles upon...

A secret school for brujas and werewolves. In the Florida Everglades. And she meets people her age who have eyes just like hers. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces start fitting together - her father must have been a part of this society, not some criminal organization. Manu is half magic. She’s living the ultimate Harry Potter dream! And, somehow, without paying tuition or applying, Manu is allowed to join the school. Finaly, Manu has somewhere that she belongs, and even begins to make friends. She even starts making eyes at a hunky werewolf named Tiago.

There’s just one problem, though. The society that Manu has found herself in has some pretty strict gender roles. Girls are brujas, guys are werewolves. Period, end of sentence. But, even though she definitely belongs among this magical society, Manu doesn’t really have the powers of a bruja. She’s something else.

And there is one thing her mom wasn’t lying about - Fierro’s people are still pissed. Brujas and werewolves are not supposed to have relationships with humans. It’s forbidden. Like, really forbidden. Ultra forbidden. If Manu is found to be half-human, she’ll be killed.

So Manu has traded living forever in fear being an undocumented immigrant in America...for living forever in fear being half-human in a world of magical creatures who think hybrids are evil.

Good luck with that, Manu! Also, there’s still the question of the whereabouts of her still missing father. Is he dead? Alive? And what is Manu, if she’s not a bruja?

(If you speak Spanish, the title is a dead giveaway. Let me give you a hint: Manu’s hair is perfect. Aaooooo!)

Despite a couple of hiccups in the beginning - the book starts pretty slow before taking that weird left-turn into the Everglades and Bruja Werewolf academy. And, as is typical in the first book of a series, much time is spent establishing everything, and less on giving us closure or answers to the big questions. Like, for example, the fate of Mimitos. See, Manu has one friend in the apartment complex, an adorable cat named Mimitos. Mimitos’s owner is a bit senile, so Manu takes care of him...only after Manu flees after Perla is attacked, Mimitos disappears and is promptly never mentioned again. What happened to Mimitos? Is he OK? Is someone feeding him or giving him water and pets and cuddles and WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MIMITOS, ROMINA?!!?! I demand answers.

Maybe he went off to live in the Cat Kingdom from The Cat Returns? Maybe? Probably? Hopefully?

Ahem. Well, my ability to render a serious and well-thought out book review in the time of COVID-19 has gone to shit, so I’ll be brief. Lobizona is gorgeously written and a fascinating blend of YA contemporary and YA fantasy. I also love the warring gender dynamics within the magical society of brujas and werewolves - not everyone loves the strict binary, or the fact that they’re not allowed to hang out with humans. Ultimately, Lobizona is a brilliant story of a girl looking desperately for a place to belong within not just one, but two worlds that don’t want her - that have deemed her wrong. Illegal. And Manu is tired of that bullshit. If the human and magical worlds don’t want her, damn it, she’s going to go off and find a place that does.

Go forth and kick ass, Manu!

Another aspect of the book that I really liked (your mileage may vary, depending on how big of a language nerd you are) is how Garber discussed how there are many different dialects of Spanish. Argentinian Spanish apparently has a sing-song quality which makes me wonder if the English dialect equivalent of Argentinian Spanish would be Upper Midwest English, you know, like in Fargo. The Upper Midwest was settled heavily by Scandinavian immigrants and the Scandinavian languages do have a sing-song quality to them, then, well...

I'd love to know more about the different dialects of Spanish. If only I'd learned Spanish. I didn’t. I learned German, Schwachkopf that I am.

Which brings me to my rant, because I do love to rant. This does have something to do with Lobizona. Kind of. Anyway:

One of my biggest pet peeves in fiction is untranslated dialog. For some reason it really irks me, mostly because it reminds me of how dumb I am and how I should have learned more than just one other foreign language. I mean, seriously, I should have learned Spanish. I never did because I was that contrary moron who, upon seeing that everyone else was taking Spanish said, “screw you, I’ll take German!” Ultimately a bad idea, but, hey, Deutsch ist eine Wunderschöne Sprache. I don’t mind bits of untranslated stuff, so long as there are context clues as to what they might be saying.

I also find it annoying to have a sentence in a different language, and then have the sentence immediately after translate the preceding sentence. For readers that are fluent in both languages, you just made them read the same sentence twice, unless there’s a bilingual bonus in there. For readers out there who don’t speak that language, their eyes just glaze over and they skip the dialog entirely, in favor of the translation. Why not just say they were speaking in [insert foreign language here] then continue on?

I mean, I get wanting to show off your foreign language skills, or make the reader feel good about their language skills, or give a nod to fellow native speakers who also have had to master the cluster fuck of a language that is English (seriously, one of the best descriptions of the English language I’ve read is that English is basically three children in a trench coat pretending to be an adult, but as a language). Still, I find untranslated dialog super annoying. Because I dumb.

The worst example of this that I’ve ever encountered (and probably what soured me for any other instances of untranslated dialog ever in the future) was in this terrible translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain that I read in college - you’d think an English translation of a German book would be entirely in English...yeah no, 3/4 of the way in, I found myself facing pages - multiple pages! - of untranslated....French.

French!

In a book that had already been translated from the German.

Damn it, translator, was there some sort of contract dispute in which you said, “well, they’re paying me to translate the book from German to English, so I’ll just leave these several pages of French conversation untranslated.”

Rrraaaage.

I was already frustrated with that book (it’s not great) but slogging through several pages of untranslated French with zero footnotes or even a translation provided in the afterward made me want to set the book on fire.

What does this have to do with Lobizona? Very little, except there are a few instances of untranslated dialog that, even if you speak zero Spanish, you’ll be able to figure out pretty quick. It just gave me awful Zauberberg flashbacks that brought back all that rrrrrage.

Fuck it, guys, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and I promise cromulent reviews, not good ones.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone looking for an amazing blend of YA contemporary lit and fantasy that features kickass werewolves living in the Florida Everglades.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Bigots, assholes, people who use the word “illegals” to refer to other human beings, werewolves who hate brujas, brujas who hate werewolves, non YA fantasy fans, anyone who objects to YA fiction containing actual real world problems.

RATING:4/5

RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2020

WEREWOLF RATING:

HOW TERRIFIED I AM OF COVID-19 RIGHT NOW:

Ahahahahaha I’m scared you guys. I still have to commute via public transportation to work downtown in a major city.

1 note · View note

jupiterjunebug · 5 years

Photo

Going with option 1, I considered doing both but. I. Can’t write short things because this is 2.4k words.

Anyway, I’ve never written Indruck before so here goes nothing! (I’m also still open for more prompts)

Duck hadn’t intended to get famous. He’d wanted to avoid it, actually. Back when he was six, the rest of his classmates wanted to be astronauts and rock stars and he had just wanted some peace and quiet. While most of them had grown out of their little kid aspirations, he’d slid into adulthood with the exact same life goals as he’d had when he was seven and still going by the name he’d been born with.

But apparently people thought the four hundred page novel about Fowler the Forest Ranger and his best friend June, the one he’d written as a joke while nineteen and high off his ass, was high art. And apparently he hadn’t shut Minerva’s visions out of his head as well as he’d wanted to, because the big money capitalists Fowler and June brought to justice weren’t…fictional.

Accidentally revealing an embezzlement/murder/stock-market-rigging conspiracy made you famous, as it turned out.

Made you famous, and made it so you’d need someone following you around all. The damn. Time.

Well, a normal person would need a bodyguard. Duck wasn’t normal, despite how much he wished he was, but he couldn’t go to his literary agent and say “hey, I’ve got super strength and a sword that talks, I think I’ve got any assassination attempts handled.” So he stayed quiet and pretended it wasn’t annoying as hell to have some dude over his shoulder when he was trying to maintain and educate about Monongahela National Forest.

He also pretended that the most annoying bodyguard – well, former bodyguard – of all hadn’t just accosted him on his way home from work.

“You’re going to die,” Indrid Cold said flatly, stepping into the streetlight like some kind of serial killer. Duck’s current bodyguard shifted, hand falling to the gun at his waist.

“Indrid, you can’t just say shit like that,” Duck said, holding up a hand. His bodyguard frowned – frowned more deeply, he was always frowning – but also relaxed. A little.

Indrid adjusted his glasses, knowing Indrid’s disdain for having to buy new things they were probably the same dinged up ones he’d worn six years ago, and stepped toward them.

“My apologies.” He didn’t sound sorry, but he at least put in the effort to sound like he kind of wanted to sound sorry. “But this is rather urgent.”

“It’s eight pm on a Tuesday, ‘drid.” Duck winced at the nickname. He hadn’t meant to let it slip out, because he had a No Letting On You Have Any Fondness Left For People That Ghost You policy, but it seemed old habits took half a decade to die. He took a deep breath. It didn’t help, so he took another one. That also didn’t help. He gave up keeping cool about all this, and settled for just clenching his jaw instead of turning on his heel and fleeing into his apartment.

You cannot flee from your responsibilities, a voice in his head that sounded exactly like Minerva whispered.

Fuck that, he thought back. Indrid Cold isn’t one of my responsibilities.

“That changes nothing,” Indrid insisted. “You’re going to die. Tonight. In ten minutes, to be exact.”

Duck couldn’t see Indrid’s eyes behind the mirrored red frames, but he could imagine the narrowing of his eyes. Could imagine how, if Duck’s bodyguard weren’t there, he’d probably let himself look worried.

God. Fucking Damnit.

“This one of your bad feelin’s? Or didja take up murder as a side gig?”

Indrid gave up the stony face bullshit and let out a huff of frustration. His casual stride lost all of its casual as he stomped over and stuck a bony finger into Duck’s chest.

“Duck Newton you know very well that when I-“ He turned to Duck’s bodyguard, glasses glinting ominously, “If you pull that gun on me, it will end with a bullet in my leg and another in your neck. That is not a threat, it’s a fact.”

Duck reached up and put a hand over Indrid’s, pushing it back down slowly. Indrid’s hands were still cold. There were still stains of something dark underneath his jagged fingernails.

“Bad feeling, then.”

“Eight minutes, Duck,” Indrid hissed. Indrid hissed. Okay, maybe Duck should take this a little seriously, if Indrid was going to sound like that.

“Okay,” Duck said, eloquently. “Okay. What do we do?”

Duck had been having a decent enough evening. Well, decent might’ve been a strong word for it. It was the same evening he had almost every day, which was how Duck liked his evenings, thank you very much. None of this ominous prophecy bullshit. That was one of the things Duck hadn’t missed.

At least Indrid wasn’t finishing his sentences. Duck’s current bodyguard didn’t do chill, and he was already looking a little perturbed about the whole “promising a gruesome death” thing.

Indrid swallowed, and Duck thought his expression was something approaching relief.

“Good. Good. I’m…glad you asked that.” Indrid glanced over his shoulder. “It wasn’t all that likely you’d ask that, and it’s the only way we make it out of this.”

Duck realized then that he still had his hand over Indrid’s. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away, and the chill of Indrid’s body felt more like home than Duck was comfortable with. Old habits take half a decade to die, which is embarrassing on account he’s the one that got dumped. He should be the one that was over this.

“Yeah, well. Much as this-“ Duck gestured at Indrid with his free hand, “has always been a pain in my ass…” He sighed. “You’re usually right.”

“I’m always right, Duck.”

Duck snorted, stepping away and taking the deep breath he was only just realizing he couldn’t take with Indrid so close.

“No, you’re not. Thinkin’ that way’s always been your damn problem.”

He sounded sadder than he’d meant to. He was going for pissed, because. Well. Duck’d found out Indrid was done with him when he went to sleep one night and woke up to find him gone. It’d taken thirty minutes of wondering whether he’d gone and died or something before Duck’s new bodyguard knocked on his door and informed him Indrid had asked his boss to be taken off the job.

But no, he was sad. And pissed. And pissed he was sad.

“You don’t understand,” Indrid said, like he was explaining his ability to see the future to some child and not somebody who fucking knew how it worked, who he’d told about it while lying in bed together on a warm Summer day, “It was necessary. You have no idea what would have…” Indrid froze, breath catching. “The timeline moved up. Five minutes. We can talk about this later.”

“Sir, are you sure we-“

“I’m not talking to you,” Indrid interrupted, not looking in the bodyguard’s direction. Then, his expression crumbled, and he sounded almost desperate as he said, “Please, Duck.”

Well, shit. He’d already meant to say yes, but now he…

“Yeah,” he said, then took a deep breath, despite the fact he knew it wouldn’t work.

Indrid grabbed his hand properly, dragging him away from his apartment.

“You can’t just-“

“-Drag him away?” Indrid called over his shoulder. “Yes, I can. Right, Duck?”

“It’s fine,” Duck replied. It wasn’t fine, of course. Duck wanted to go home and sleep, or fast forward to the part of the evening where Indrid talked to him about the past instead of the future, but this would have to do.

He could hear his bodyguard trailing after them as Indrid pushed him toward the open door of his car, parked just a few feet off from the street lamp he’d first appeared under. It was the same car that he’d owned six years ago. Jesus, had anything about him changed since then?

Duck tripped a little on the open door of the car, stumbling onto the seat. Then, faster than Duck would’ve thought Indrid could move, he slammed the door shut and darted into the driver’s seat, slamming it too. Duck heard the click of the lock and dove to try and pull it open.

“Child safety lock,” Indrid called back, and Duck barely resisted the urge to swear at him. Then he realized he didn’t have to, on account of-

“What the fuck Indrid?” Duck shouted as his bodyguard yanked at the door handle. He heard Indrid sigh from up front, his I have to do this for the greater good but I’m going to pretend it doesn’t affect me because I’m Indrid Cold and this is my burden to bear sigh. Then Indrid rolled down the window enough to address Duck’s bodyguard.

“I may have been a bit dishonest, Mr. Ryan. There’s no future where I let you into the car and you don’t, well. You know what’s happening in ten seconds, right?”

Then he rolled up the window.

“Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four.”

An explosion rocked the car.

“Hm,” Indrid said, eyeing the flames as they died down. “It was early.”

“What the FUCK Indrid?”

“He was planning to take you up to your room and kill you.” Indrid’s voice cracked in a way that probably embarrassed him. “That was the insurance policy, in case you figured him out and tried to run.” Indrid smiled, teeth sharp and glinting, “Don’t worry, it was nothing personal on his part. It was a business transaction.”

“Yeah, thanks, that makes me feel just peachy.”

Duck reached up and trailed his hand down the window, down a spider web of cracks on the outside the window. It hadn’t gotten all the way through, and the glass felt smooth and unbroken beneath his fingers.

“I know it bothers you when people hate you,” Indrid said.

“Yeah, well-“

“-why did I come back then? I don’t hate you, Duck.”

This was a bad time to have this conversation. A bad place. He’d pictured this argument, a few years back, when he still thought about Indrid often enough for it to keep him up at night. It’d always happened in his apartment, when Indrid came home and actually apologized for disappearing. Which might’ve been a little unrealistic because Indrid Cold never-

“I’m sorry.”

Duck wasn’t sure he’d actually heard that, or if he was getting his old fantasies mixed in with real life. Then Indrid unbuckled his seatbelt, turning to sit backward on his seat and stare at Duck around his headrest. He shifted his glasses down his nose, orange eyes locked with Duck’s. Duck raised an eyebrow, and tried to keep his voice even.

“Sorry about what?”

Indrid blinked. Duck thought he might’ve been surprised.

“I…what? Duck, you-“

“I thought we were on the same page, before. But apparently not, since you skipped town. So, what is it you’re sorry about?”

“It was complicated, I had to-“

“You had to?” Duck laughed, it was an ugly noise, and he thought there might’ve been something that sounded like it might turn into crying mixed in.

“Yes, you have no idea what would have happened if-“

“No! I don’t! That’s how it goes when you don’t tell people things.” Duck didn’t like yelling. It reminded him too much of the scuffles that broke out when he used to hang out with the “bad kids” at school. The ones that always led to police sirens, and stern looks from Sheriff Nealy. Here he was, though, his voice echoing around Indrid’s old car and Indrid just staring at him like he hadn’t seen it coming. Duck winced, and managed to rein himself in. “You leavin’ ain’t the kind of shit that gives me visions, Indrid.”

Even if it’d felt like that kind of disaster, at the time.

“This isn’t how this is supposed to go.” Indrid looked away, hands rising to fiddle with his seatbelt. “When we got into the car, every future ended with you forgiving me, or with you leaving.” He tilted his head, streaky black-white hair falling in front of his face. Duck didn’t say one of those things was definitely going to happen. Then he’d have to pick.

“That ain’t an explanation.”

Indrid didn’t say anything, tilting his glasses back up over his eyes. Hiding. Duck resisted the urge to look out his window at his undoubtedly crispy bodyguard.

Duck loved the quiet of the woods. Maybe because it wasn’t real quiet, it was birds and the shifting of trees, and the crunching of his feet down a well-trodden path. This kind of quiet, though? Duck hated it.

“I was going to kill you,” Indrid said, just as Duck was getting the urge to get out and go inside and pretend this was a dream.

He still kind of wanted to do that, except maybe he’d add a bit of screaming into his pillow on at the end.

“You want to say that in a way that makes sense?”

“Each day, I saw a future where you died. Each future, it was because I…failed. I was too slow. I had a vision and it distracted me until after you took a bullet.” There was a hollowness in his voice that had Duck torn between reaching out and shifting as far to the other side of the car as he could.

“So you left.”

“If I left, the future was clear,” Indrid insisted. “Every time I thought about going to Kepler and seeing you, you were there, and perfectly fine without me. It was better-“

“Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

“You wouldn’t have…appreciated my reasoning. We would have fought. You wouldn’t have wanted me to leave, I wouldn’t have been able to convince you it was-“

“That doesn’t matter.” Harsher than Duck had intended, maybe. Not harsher than he wanted to be, but he was too tired to be as harsh as he wanted to be. “You think dropping me convinced me it was better?”

“It was easier for both of-“ He cut himself off and said, with Duck, “It was easier for you, Indrid.” Indrid let his forehead fall against the headrest and laughed, shoulders spasming with it. “Maybe so.”

Duck sagged back against his seat. He was too tired to be as harsh as he wanted to be. He was too tired to want to be as harsh as he wanted to be.

“Why’re you here, Indrid?”

Indrid shook his head, voice muffled from the headrest.

“I thought about coming here, and in half the futures I stopped for gas. I got here, and I was the one who found you after…” He gestured out the window. Another laugh. “Leaving didn’t do anything, did it?”

“I’ve almost died plenty of times, Indrid,” Duck said, slowly. “If it’s all the same, I’d’ve rather died with you, at least back then.”

“Now?”

Duck ground his teeth, thinking.

“Don’t know,” he said, finally, deciding as he said it.

“Would you like to find out?” Indrid asked. “If…you’d have me back.”

Duck didn’t smile. He’d figure out whether he wanted to smile at Indrid later, once they were inside and he could collapse into bed and figure out whether he’d invite Indrid to lay next to him. But he reached out for Indrid’s hand and Indrid took it, nails digging in as he held on for dear life.

He’d figure it out. They’d figure it out.

After all, Duck did need a new bodyguard.

#Indruck #Duck Newton #Indrid Cold #The Adventure Zone #TAZ Amnesty #Jules writes fanfic

19 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 5 years

Text

Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho

Princess of Gemworld

How will he not know when he finds his fingers have been Crazy Glued to his cock?

With Jericho's powers, I don't know why he needs Garfield's fingerprints. Why not just possess Steve Dayton himself, knock him out so he can't scream for help, and just walk in to grab the promethium? Or hire his dad to get the shit! He could probably guilt Deathstork into doing loads of illegal stuff for him.

Why would Steve Dayton allow Garfield Logan access to his promethium?! Yeah, I fucking know Logan's his son. It still doesn't fucking make sense!

Jericho takes the promethium back to Arthur Lord so he can trade it to the Quraci government and save his daughter's life. But it's only after Lord leaves Addie's place with the promethium that she says to Jericho, "I think we just got scammed!"

Jericho responds, "I think you're a loser."

Sure enough, Penny and Arthur were just using Joey and his mom to get their hands on the most destructive non-Lobo thing in the DC Universe. Penny is all, "That dupe actually thought I loved him! But we didn't even fuck! I just held a tin of microwaved potato salad between my legs and let him fuck that." That's what sex feels like, right? Fucking warm potato salad? I mean, I totally know that's what it's like. I hope! I mean, I don't hope it feels like that in that I love the feeling of fucking warm potato salad! I hope that's what it feels like so people who have fucked don't think I haven't fucked because I described it poorly. We all have different experiences anyway! You can't invalidate my description of what it felt like when I totally had sex all those times! Joseph, being the biggest dupe of them all, didn't replace the promethium tablets with Sugar Mamas like I would have expected him to do. So now he and his mother have to break into Arthur Lord's secret laboratory and resteal the promethium tablets! If only they had consulted Nightwing, they could have been done with this adventure already. He would have been all, "Man, Joey, you smell like potato salad ! Did you fall for the fake lover with the potato salad between her legs trick? You better not trust her, buddy!" Oh, I was wrong! They don't break into Lord's place at all! They think their smartest move is to break into Qurac and kidnap Curt, Penny's husband! I guess they can use him as leverage. Although couldn't Joey have lifted Penny's fingerprints off of his prostate to gain access to the secret lab? If Joey had the ability to sneak into Qurac to rescue Penny without risking the entire world by giving Qurac promethium, why the fuck wasn't that the plan from the beginning?! I'm starting to sense that maybe Marv Wolfman was on Quaaludes when he wrote this script.

That would be Joey's crotch.

There's an advert for NBC's Saturday morning line-up in this issue and it just makes me wonder: if modern conservatives are so pissed off about everything in our culture that they see as emasculating the kind of man they think every guy should be, where the fuck were they in 1986 while I was watching Kissyfur, The Gummi Bears, Smurfs, Punky Brewster, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Foofur, and Kidd Video?! The most manly cartoon in that list is Alvin and the Chipmunks and they wore dresses! Stop doing the math and trying to point out that I was fourteen or fifteen in 1986! Gummi Bears had one of the best cartoon theme songs (right after Ducktales)! I'm going to go listen to it right now! Joey and Adeline take Curt to Tokyo where they finally begin interrogating him. Even though he spent multiple days being tortured by the Quraci government, he wouldn't tell them a thing. He spends two minutes alone with Adeline and Joseph and he begins spilling the beans. The only threat they used was that Joey was going to put himself inside hi...oh. I see what he's afraid of! Dude, it's nothing to be frightened of! Just relax, man! Joseph's a sensitive poet. He'll definitely provide a reach-around. Joseph infiltrates Lord's secret base and discovers he's resurrecting H.I.V.E. (which stands for Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination which is fucking stupid. Just spitballing for a few seconds and I already came up with a better one: Higher Institute of Violent Extremism!). Joseph's movements are described as catlike which is why he's noticed freaking the fuck out, bouncing off walls, and yowling at the top of his voice. Arthur Lord, leader of an organization full of soldiers who are only in the organization because they killed a bunch of other master fighters, decides to fight Joseph himself. His mighty warriors (the best of the best!) just stand around in robes watching.

What good is your invaluable edge if you're not going to use it?! Kill the little creep, you idiot!

Arthur Lord tackles Joseph straight through a wall where they both disappear from view. Then he emerges and he's all, "He's dead! And since Joseph can't control the host's talking, I must be myself and telling the truth! Ha ha ha!" But I know better! Remember how I already saw there's another issue in this stupid story arc? Joseph is totally still alive! And probably possessing Arthur! And probably able to speak because Arthur was knocked unconscious! Pshaw! Marv Wolfman, you need better twists! Arthur and H.I.V.E. take off from their secret base to go take over the world. And they won't need the base anymore for some reason, so they just blow up the island on the way out. Ugh, he's the worst kind of tenant. Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho Rating: B-. So much betrayal! So many twists and turns! Not much fucking though. Which makes it a mediocre Teen Titans story. And yes, the B- factors in the fact that this whole conflict is, once again, somehow driven by family.

#Teen Titans Spotlight #Jericho #Teen Titans #DC Comics #DC

2 notes · View notes