#i live in an urban area so i should have plenty of notice but also there's some bushland pretty close to me............... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonbeamsung · 3 years

Text

Winter Nights & City Lights

Because nothing says ‘Christmas’ like spending the big day (and not to mention the whole holiday season) in the Big Apple living with your high school friend-turned-roommate, Mark Lee.

member: mark (featuring johnny)

au: roommate!mark x gn!reader, college roommate au, christmas au, ‘the gift of the magi’ au/inspired

word count: 9.5k

genre: fluff, angst, slice of life

warnings: profanity, underage drinking, hangovers, insecurities, mentions of food and drink, money issues, embarrassing moments

author’s note: This fic is close to becoming my favorite that I’ve ever written. It’s also almost twice as long as I planned, not to mention that tumblr crashed right as I tried to post it so here I am, two hours later. Overall I had a blast writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it! Please let me know what you think, too! :,) Happy holidays! <3

taglist: @astroboy-lele @kisshim @radiorenjun

network tags: @kpopscape @neo-constellations @starryktown @culture-cafe @dreamlab-nct

“That parade was so cool! I mean, did you see the size of all those balloons? They were huge! I’ve never seen so many people all in one place before,” Mark chatters away like an excited child as you navigate through the crowd that always seems to grow bigger year after year, gathered along the curbs of the New York streets to watch the famed Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“How are you not more excited about this?” He questions, and you stifle an amused giggle. “I’ve lived in the city for over a year, Mark. I’ve seen a thing or two.”

“Oh, right. I knew that.” The cold air only accentuates the blush on his face as he remembers that particular detail about you. It isn’t often that it’s demonstrated, however, considering you spend so much time cooped up inside of your shared apartment cramming in university work and studying. There are hardly any opportunities during the year to take in the sights of the concrete jungle you live in the very heart of, but luckily, one of your long-awaited breaks is coming up soon.

Thoughts of Christmas vacation are the only things keeping you going, along with countless cups of steaming hot coffee, as you prepare for exams in just a few weeks, weeks that seem to go by in a flurry of snow.

There’s less than three days left until your first one, but you’re nothing short of drained after pulling so many all-nighters, and you need a break. A breath of fresh air seems like just the cure for your burnout, so you slam your textbook shut and lethargically drag yourself off of the soft comforter you’ve been sitting on for the past two hours. You grimace at the deep imprint left behind.

Trudging through the living area, you knock softly on Mark’s bedroom door. A tired “Come in” sounds from the other side, and you push it open, immediately noticing his disheveled state. Eyes heavy with fatigue and lacking their usual sparkle of youthful innocence, he blinks back at you, “What’s up?”

“You look like you need a break just as much as I do,” you insist. His already-open mouth widens a bit more, “But... our first exam is on Monday, we can’t just—”

“Mark, come on, you’re one of the smartest people in our class. If anyone’s going to pass, it’s you.”

He huffs, “Maybe you have a point.”

“I do have a point, and you know it. A little walk in the park never hurt anyone, right?”

Mark rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, fingers raking through his dark locks before he musters up enough strength to push himself off of his bed and into a standing position.

“I’ll get my jacket.”

Central Park is a sight to behold on its own all year round, but something about the Christmas season makes it even more magical. You and Mark step at the same pace, your paths lined by metal benches blanketed in fresh snow. Even through the many layers of warmth you’re both wearing, the chilly air still nips at your skin. It’s Mark’s first time experiencing the holidays in New York City, and you’re determined to show him everything this real-life winter wonderland has to offer.

The story of how you two came to be roommates in the first place is an extremely lucky one. You met in high school, and had been part of the same group of friends along with six younger boys. Both Canadian, you’d been hoping to get into the same New York college since what felt like forever. The day that you received your acceptance letters in the mail was full of joy and celebration, but not even a week later, Mark got an unexpected scholarship to a local but prestigious university not far from where you lived that he simply couldn’t pass up.

Parting ways after graduation, you had thought you might never see each other again until you got a call from him. It was the day after your last exam of the spring semester in college and you were sitting on your two-person couch, feeling rather lonely. The number seemed too familiar, too good to be true, and scrambling to pick up the phone as it blared throughout your fairly small apartment, you answered with a shaky voice. Mark’s recognizable tone met your ears, and a wide smile met your face. Though he couldn’t see it, he could hear the happiness in your words.

As it turned out, his college had given him the opportunity to transfer to yours for the remainder of his four years, as their programs were closely linked and on similar levels. Graciously, he had accepted, and wanted you to be the first to know.

“So, uh... are you living with anyone?”

The question he dreaded asking more than anything else. Call him cliché, but he had the biggest crush on you in high school, much to his dismay and to the rest of his friends’ excitement. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to like you, but he feared that college could tear a potential relationship apart, regardless of whether or not you went to the same one.

As a result of this, he had never acted on his emotions. But he’s older now, and wiser, which leads him to believe that maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to maintain one, should he ever gain enough courage to ask you out.

“No, actually, I have my own apartment.”

Silence.

“...Are you looking for somewhere to stay?”

“Yes! Yes,” he replied a little too quickly, eager to accept what would hopefully be an invitation from you. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Well, my place isn’t the biggest, but you can live with me if you want to. Plus, we could split the rent between us!”

You’ve always liked Mark. He’s hardworking, kind, and humble, maybe a little too much of all these things for his own good. Even back in high school, you spent endless nights and very early mornings on the phone with him, trying to convince him to go to bed after he refused to stop studying. To reassure him that he did the right thing by ending that friendship, or to insist that he tell the teacher no one worked on the group project, so he did everything himself. You’ve been his shoulder to cry on for years, you’ve seen a side of him that he’s never been brave enough to show anyone else because they expect so much of him.

Mark knows he’s blessed to have had a picture-perfect childhood, a good family, and an education that was rigorous yet rewarding enough to prepare him for his next chapter in life. The pressures that came with being so lucky just got to him sometimes, and they made four years of high school seem more like fourteen.

You, on the other hand, didn’t quite have all the same luxuries that he did, but you still managed. He’s been there for you plenty of times, too. In your opinion, though, he’s the much more vulnerable one of the two of you, mainly to his cumbersome insecurities and shortcomings, however rare those shortcomings may be.

So in your mind, Mark Lee deserves the entire world and then some. The least you can do is share your apartment with him, either until he finds what you’re sure would be a much more desirable place to live, or if he wants to stay with you indefinitely.

What you don’t realize, and will eventually struggle to admit to yourself, is that your admiration for his perseverance and endless generosity is teetering rather precariously on the edge of blossoming into something more than just platonic.

“Sounds good, then. Thanks so much!” He had exclaimed, the sound of his pure excitement and gratefulness bringing a wave of heat to your face, and you were glad he wasn’t there in front of you to see it.

You talked a little bit more for the next few minutes, catching up and enjoying a lighthearted conversation about what you had both been up to. These sessions on the phone began to occur more and more frequently, turning into weekly, and soon daily, affairs. Mark planned to move in a couple weeks before school started again, giving himself some time to settle in and adapt to urban life in general. The calls became a highlight of your summer vacation, and every day without fail, you found yourself waiting to hear the unique ringtone you had set his contact to.

Less than twelve hours before Mark was scheduled to arrive at New York’s largest airport, you were on the phone with him just like always. The clock in your apartment chimed eleven o’clock, and as reluctant as you were to hang up, you knew you should turn in for the night. After all, the sooner you went to sleep, the sooner the morning would come. The morning you would meet him at the airport.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” His voice was hopeful. Slightly unsteady, but hopeful all the same.

“I guess so. What time does your plane land, again?” You confirmed the time you had scribbled down onto a neon yellow sticky note a few days earlier as he repeated the short string of numbers, nodding to no one in particular. Why did you feel so nervous? It’s just Mark, you had told yourself.

“Have a safe flight!”

He bade you goodnight in return, accidentally throwing in a “sweet dreams” before he could stop himself. When you put your phones down, you were both too busy trying to calm your racing pulses, however, so it didn’t matter. Mark collapsed onto his bed, hand bumping his duffel bag and heaving a sigh. You sank down into the couch cushion, closing your eyes and leaning your head against the back of the furniture. Neither of you could find the strength to stand in those moments, scared that your legs would give in from the unsteadiness of your nerves, your hearts, your emotions.

A singular worry occupied both of your minds from that point on until you greeted him in the JFK airport terminal the next morning, shy smiles on your faces: is it dangerous to enter into the impending situation of living together? Are you really ready to be in such constant close proximity to the object of your affections, however oblivious you might be to them?

Before his brain could talk his heart out of it, Mark had wrapped you in a tight hug, extra thankful for the welcome since you were all he had here, in the city. You wouldn’t have missed his arrival for the world, and you told him so. You also wouldn’t have missed the chance to make him flush a deep but adorable shade of red, reaching from his rounded cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears.

In your long-term rental car, you drove him back to your apartment, enjoying the quiet sounds of surprise and amazement that spilled from his lips, generated by the city’s sights. As you passed underneath towering skyscrapers, navigated bustling avenues, and caught glimpses of world-renowned landmarks that you both had seen only in the movies when you were younger, you just knew Mark’s eyes held their signature sparkle, despite your inability to see the dark brown orbs glimmer with wonder. You kept yours on the road ahead.

His first day was spent unpacking his suitcases and bags full of possessions, one of which was his most prized: an acoustic guitar.

It had been a gift from his parents when he finished the eighth grade, and all throughout high school, he had turned to music as an escape whenever he needed it. As any new musician does, Mark had played around with chords, experimenting and seeing what sounded good, and before you knew it he had composed a song. Another one followed, then another, and by the end of his freshman year he had written enough to fill an entire album if he so wished.

The guitar had heard every note, every lyric, carried every melody from his heart into the world. It had grown to be a part of him, a worldly sliver of his soul in the form of a simple musical instrument that could convey every hope and every dream, every concern or every frustration. Every love confession. Though that wasn’t saying much, since he only had eyes for you. You didn’t know it, but one of those songs was about you. For you.

You and Mark’s circle of friends tried to set you two up one day in the school’s band room after hours, with the excuse that the second-youngest of the group, Chenle, had forgotten his piano sheet music in there. They sent you to retrieve it, which you only agreed to do after being persuaded by the boy’s intimidating but still lovable pout.

With no sheet music in sight, your eyes landed instead on a diligent Mark that appeared to be the only sign of life in the room, plucking away at the strings as the sun set outside. You had sat with him for a while, neglecting your task and listening to him strum gracefully, softly murmuring lyrics that sounded like your name at one point. You didn’t think much of it, though, not making the connection behind the rest of the words coming out of his mouth and accompanying the chords. His love song was left unacknowledged by the subject of it themselves, and that was both the first and last time he ever attempted to confess to you.

He wondered if now that you were sharing an apartment, he would let something slip by accident. What would he do then?

University had other plans, though, and his fears were temporarily relieved. So fortunately and unfortunately, you were so occupied with schoolwork that trying to balance dating, or even mere thoughts of doing so, with all of your other responsibilities would have been exhausting, not to mention impossible.

Snapping out of your memory-induced daze, you realize that you nearly wandered off the path into a deep snowbank, only aware of this fact because Mark catches you by the wrist and pulls you back toward him to walk at his side. His fingers stay curled around your forearm as you approach a famous bridge, stepping to the side and gazing down at the icy waters below, calm and rippling with the chilly breeze.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

You honestly haven’t thought about it yet, so you can’t give Mark a definite answer. The same goes for him, both of you leaning against the brick railing in a comfortable silence.

In Mark’s mind though, he knows what he wants to give you: something to complement your own equivalent of his guitar, a large collection of handwritten letters and notes from your childhood and school days. Sentimental by nature, you had saved every colorful post-it note one of your friends would slip through the narrow slats of your locker, every birthday card received over the years, every thoughtful postcard from someone’s vacation.

Your favorites are undoubtedly the always-awkward Christmas cards that your friends’ families consistently mail out each December, by far the most humorous parts of your growing collection. You always found yourself chuckling at the pictures displayed on the front. Eyes bright with mirth, you would observe their forced smiles and arms slung carelessly over siblings’ shoulders, their eyes flickering between the camera and something going on behind it, probably the family pet getting into trouble across the yard. You pitied the photographers, surely beyond frustrated as they would try to get everyone to stand still for more than five measly seconds. Mouths were clamped shut and for a brief moment, the air was void of complaints of how itchy someone’s sweater was.

Then the camera would snap, capturing an image that was simply “good enough.” They’d plaster it on the card and in a few days, it would magically appear in the mailboxes of relatives and close friends. Grandparents would overlook the uncomfortable expressions and focus instead on how fast the kids were growing up. You didn’t blame them. Even in four years’ worth of cards, so much could change. In between fits of laughter, you’d stare in awe at the way your friends grew into their features, only becoming more handsome with time and some growing so tall that they even towered over their fathers. You always kept the letters they included, too, detailing the highlights of the year that was soon to come to an end by the time they dropped it into a nearby mailbox.

And like he could read your mind, Mark makes an offhand comment right then and there. “My folks texted me the other day to ask for our address. You know, for the Christmas card.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Shame I couldn’t be there for the family photos this year.”

“Is it really a shame, though?” You prod, tilting your head a bit at the boy. “You always told me you couldn’t stand waiting around for the so-called ‘right lighting’ and all that.”

“Well, I couldn’t, but now that I’m not there I wish I could go back to those days. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know?”

“Right,” you sigh, thinking about how the same saying could easily apply to the way you felt about Mark all throughout your first year of university.

You have a box, made of a dark mahogany wood and lined with elegant golden trim, where you keep all of these letters, these handwritten memories and souvenirs from some of the happiest moments in your life. A gift from a past Christmas, your family had your initials engraved onto the front in a loopy cursive font, making it truly unique and utterly irreplaceable. And, you’ll soon come to realize, valuable.

Mark remembers it well, remembers the many times you’ve shown him its contents, remembers how his eyes sometimes land on the delicate container resting beneath the windowsill in your room, sunlight catching the accents. He knows how much those letters mean to you, and he also knows how much you love returning the favor.

That’s why he wants to give you the tools you need to do just that, and to do it well.

You’ve always been one for writing thank-you notes for any and every gift you receive, your parents having ingrained the habit in you since you were very young. Slowly, crayons turned into pencils and lead became ink. To this day you remain unfazed by the increasing amount of yellowing papers residing in the letter box, but the words imprinted on them never quite fade, strong enough to withstand the test of time.

Too many times in high school Mark would find you, hunched over your dining room table in frustration with a stack of letters beside your arm that you deemed “failed” because your handwriting was bad, or something of the sort. Usually it was the other way around, him being the one in need of comfort, but on those days your roles were reversed.

He had always wondered why you didn’t have fancier supplies that were more suited to your task, but he supposes now that maybe it simply wasn’t an option for you and your family. So a stationery set seems like the perfect gift for you this year.

On a similar note, you’ve already decided what you’re getting him: a guitar case. You happened upon a sleek leather one while browsing the website of a popular music store, coincidentally with a location not too far from your apartment.

Now it’s no longer a question of what to get the other, but how. As university students living on your own, money is scarce. Unknowingly, you both contemplate this concern as you walk side by side, returning to the start of the path that you set out on at least a half hour ago.

This stroll of yours was supposed to clear your minds, but why are they racing even more than before?

There’s no time to worry now, though, and for the next week, your thoughts are forced to shift back to the topic of school and midterms and all your academic endeavors.

Your exam week is over before you know it, and the two of you return to your apartment after the last one only to collapse onto your respective beds, beyond exhausted.

The dreary Friday afternoon clearly calls for a nap, but unbeknownst to you, Mark decides to seize the opportunity that has so conveniently presented itself to him: a chance for him to go out and buy your gift without suspicion. He drops his backpack on the carpet next to his dresser and sighs, wondering if what he’s about to do will be worth it. But it’s you, of course it’ll be worth it.

Thus, his next move is done with a heavy heart. He’s been forced by a lack of funds to come to a decision about your gift, and a difficult one at that. The only thing he can think of doing to even come close to affording a nice stationery set is to sell some things in exchange for cash. Namely, the most valuable item he owns: his beloved guitar. He doesn’t really want to, but deep down he knows that a true friendship warrants the occasional sacrifice. He’s done some research on a nearby pawn shop, and however sketchy those kinds of places may seem, it’s his only feasible option at the moment, with just a week left until Christmas Day.

After making sure you’re fast asleep, he not-so-stealthily slips out of your shared flat, his actions far from silent but even so, you don’t wake up. Mark winces at the unintended high volume of pulling the front door shut behind him, sticking his hand into his jeans pocket and relaxing when he feels his keys at the bottom of the fabric compartment. Guitar strung over his shoulder by the flimsy, fraying strap, he sets off.

With his phone in hand and directions to the pawn shop displayed on the screen, he strides through the lobby of the apartment building and pushes the revolving door, stepping onto the busy sidewalk and into the cold winter air. Shoppers crowd the pavement with hands full of department store tote bags, crinkling loudly as they pass by one another. Shoulders knock together and heels click against the concrete, just some of the many sounds of the city that Mark is still growing used to hearing.

A few blocks and several wrong turns later, he finds himself on a quieter street, standing in front of the shop. It’s dimly lit inside and looks almost abandoned, the letters painted on the window chipped and faded from the wear and weather of past years. A soft bell rings when he lets himself in, searching for some sort of employee.

From behind a cluttered shelf a tall man emerges, the shabby name tag pinned to his vest reading “Johnny.” Well, he’s not some shifty-eyed, balding man wearing a muscle shirt stained with grease. New York continues to be full of surprises.

His dark hair looks neat, the jacket he’s wearing free of any wrinkles and face young but chiseled, high cheekbones prominent.

“How can I help you today?” Johnny booms, stepping behind the counter and absentmindedly sifting through some loose change in bottom of the cash register.

Mark gulps, “I’d like to sell something.” Still not entirely sure he wants to do this, he instinctively tugs on the strap resting atop the fabric of his wool jacket.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Johnny assures with a small laugh. “What did you have in mind?”

Taking a deep breath, Mark slides the guitar off his shoulder and holds it near his chest for a moment, before extending his arms out towards the counter.

“A guitar, huh? We don’t see many of these,” the tall man comments. “Are you sure? It seems pretty valuable to you in more ways than one.”

Mark’s fingertips trace the strings for the last time and he decides to just get it over with, before he can change his mind. His hands are shaky as he gently places the instrument down on the counter in front of Johnny, taking a step back once he’s done so. “I don’t have much of a choice. I need the money to buy a gift for my… uh, my friend.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow, “Just a friend? Or a special someone?”

“They are special,” Mark confirms, noncommittal to either title that Johnny suggested.

“They must be if you’re willing to give up something like this for them. Okay, that’ll be…”

Johnny tells him what the guitar is worth, matching the amount with a stack of cash and a few old coins, rusty but still holding their value.

Despite the pain of letting something so meaningful go, a bit of joy creeps into Mark’s heart as he realizes that now he can give you a gift that will hopefully become just as meaningful to you as his guitar was to him.

He thanks Johnny and bids him goodbye, step lighter than when he entered, much to his surprise.

It’s the next day when you and Mark find yourselves getting into the Christmas spirit for the first time this season. After he had returned yesterday, you were still out cold on your bed, so he chose to follow your example and do the same. The both of you had slept the rest of the day and almost the entirety of the following morning away, waking up just before noon.

With a sudden burst of energy you spring up from the sheets, overtaken by your excitement for the nearing holiday as you dig out the artificial Christmas tree you had bought last year from your closet. Sure, it may seem lazy of you, but let’s face it: there was no easy way to find a real one in New York City, let alone lug it down the streets, through an elevator and down a narrow hallway to a door it wouldn’t even fit through.

Mark hears the loud rustling of various decorations as he begins to stir, leisurely getting out of bed and checking one of his dresser drawers to make sure he hadn’t merely dreamed up his shopping adventure of the previous evening. There the stationery set sits, tucked safely at the back of the wooden cabinet.

The bookstore he stopped at on his way back last night had many different options to choose from, so he made sure to get one that both matched your box of letters and reminded him of you, with its color scheme and style. A surge of pride brings a smile to his features, pleased with his choice, and he pushes the drawer shut before joining you in the living area.

Your knees brush as he sits down next to you to help unpack the large but manageable box, taking out the tiers of the tree to eventually stack on top of one another. Working more quickly than usual (and probably necessary, there are six days left after all), you assign Mark to stringing the lights across your small balcony while you finish setting up the tree. You knew you shouldn’t have let him do it alone, though, because when you look over at his progress you find more lights wrapped around his body than the metal railing.

“Do you need a hand?” You question, holding back a laugh at the way the cord restricts his arm movements to the point where he can’t even reach for the handle on the sliding door.

From outside he opens his mouth to reply, but pauses, looking down at himself and the mess he’s made of the lights before meeting your eyes once more. His voice is muffled by the glass, but you hear him shout playfully, “I’m the tree now! We don’t need that one.” He tries to gesture to the one you’re currently decorating, but fails, and this time you aren’t able to contain your amusement.

“Let me help you,” you offer, joining him on the balcony and helping him untangle himself from the glowing strands. “Thanks,” Mark replies, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck. With your combined efforts, you manage to thread the string of lights through the railing with little to no mishaps, and both of you continue decking out the apartment with other seasonal items for the next several hours.

At some point during the afternoon one of you decided to connect their phone to a speaker and play some music, all Christmas songs of course. As the classic version of “Jingle Bell Rock” begins to blare throughout the living room, Mark abandons his task momentarily to walk over to you. He extends a hand down to you, sitting on the floor, and you accept the invitation to stand up with a questioning look.

“Dance with me?”

It’s hardly a platonic request, Mark realizes once the words leave his lips, but even so you don’t shy away, glancing down at your feet with a slight trace of bashfulness in the action.

He intertwines your fingers somewhat loosely, placing his non-dominant hand on your waist and beginning to sway, slowly at first but then his movements become more exaggerated, shoulders tilting dramatically to one side after the other and straying from the rhythm of the music. You join Mark in drawing out the jesting movements, losing yourself in laughter and leaning forward to bury your face in his shoulder, the heat of your breath hitting his skin through the thin t-shirt he’s wearing. In one last attempt to keep the joyful smile on your face, he steps back a bit and holds your wrist above your head to twirl you in a circle.

The electric guitar in the song fades as you collapse onto the carpet, recovering from your fit of giggles. The sun has begun to sink in the sky, you can tell by the gold and orange glow that your apartment becomes bathed in as it sets, inching closer to the horizon and eventually becoming hidden by tall skyscrapers in the distance.

Satisfied with your progress so far, you both decide to call it a day, though in truth there aren’t many decorations left to put out. A few stray ornaments and some garlands remain, still packed up in boxes that you would need help reaching. You’re also eager to get your mind off of the way your heart was palpitating as you danced with Mark, your roommate and friend but nothing more, nothing less. You have enough to worry about at the moment, not wanting to add potential feelings for the boy into the mix. Shit, you think, you still need to buy his gift.

“What should we watch?” Mark asks, scrolling through the list of movie choices on the TV screen.

“I don’t really care, anything’s fine.”

His finger presses a button on the remote to select a film at random, the intro playing as you scan the refrigerator shelves for a frozen meal. Hopefully it’s not one of those cheesy holiday romances.

Settling down on the couch a few minutes later, you with the warmed-up container in your lap and Mark holding a cup of ramen noodles, both of you fall into a comfortable chatter about the movie. Thank god it’s a comedy.

Occasionally you find yourself diverting your attention from the harsh display and directing it over to the panes of floor-to-ceiling windows, where you watch more and more lights flicker on in the distance, illuminating the urban landscape as night falls. The view is breathtaking, but so is the way your face softly glows with their warmth, even from blocks away. Not that Mark would ever tell you that, of course.

“I’m going out!” Mark hears shuffling from outside his bedroom the next morning, your voice instantly bringing him to his senses. Curious, he shoots out of bed and flings the door open to find you, one arm stuck through the sleeve of your coat and the other buried in a bag, but it’s not the one you usually bring when you leave the flat. Eyes wide and panicked at the boy’s unexpected appearance, you clutch it to your chest with a visible amount of difficulty, Mark notices.

“Where are you off to?” He squints at the brightness of the living room, the early morning light pouring in through the glass on the far wall.

“...Maybe I can’t tell you,” you respond with a huff, slinging the heavy bag over your shoulder and pulling the rest of your coat on.

“What do you mean, you can’t—oh.”

“Nice going, genius,” you shake your head, feigning disappointment. “It’s not like it’s Christmas this week or anything.”

“My bad, sorry.” Mark winces and rakes a hand through his bedhead, abashed.

“I’ll be back soon, okay?”

With that, you step into the hallway and offer a parting smile over your shoulder, shutting the front door behind you.

At least your being out of the apartment gives Mark time to wrap your gift. All he has to do is figure out how.

Johnny gets a familiar feeling when he sees you enter the pawn shop, fumbling with your things and reluctantly gazing at whatever’s in the tote you’re holding. Are you also about to make an exchange you could potentially regret?

“One second,” you excuse yourself as you step up to the counter, placing the heavy bag down and removing the large item from inside: your letter box, minus its contents. Of course you would never get rid of those, but despite the letters and notes being so special to you, the box they were always kept in is also a significant part of your attachment and the memories you hold dear.

With a thud you set it down, Johnny glancing between the hesitation on your face and the wooden container on the counter in front of him. “Let me guess, you want to exchange this for cash?”

“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I—” You pause, biting your tongue. “Hold on… Look, I know this is a pawn shop and that’s what people do here, but how are you so sure?”

Johnny’s gut tells him he shouldn’t give away the fact that a boy wearing the very same expression and with the same sense of purpose and determination was in here just two days earlier. So he corrects his mistake with a simple “Lucky guess” and a hearty chuckle.

Without Johnny even asking, you tell him that you’re also looking for some extra cash in order to afford a gift for your “friend,” and you say the word with so much conviction and certainty that it’s almost laughable. The information given to Johnny helps him fully connect the dots in his mind, realizing that each of you are the one the other talked about.

Before handing you the money, Johnny tears off a sheet of paper from a nearby notepad and asks you to fill out your information, most importantly your address. He has to lie a bit, saying it’s for contact purposes, but his heart is in the right place nonetheless. Just in case something goes south (and the sinking feeling in his stomach tells him that it will somehow), doing so gives him an option, even if he doesn’t know what that option might be yet.

“Thank you, Johnny, and Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas!” He returns your wish cheerfully as you push the door open to leave.

“Good luck finding a gift for your ‘friend,’ too.”

You feel heat rise to your cheeks when you see his teasing use of air quotes, but still smile.

On your way back to the apartment Mark texts you and asks you to check the mail, saying he forgot to do so yesterday. When you arrive in the lobby and make your way over to the cluster of mailboxes, you’re instantly shocked to find a large cardboard box shoved into the small cubby with your and Mark’s name on it. You’re already struggling to carry the guitar case you bought for him, so you decide to make a second trip later.

A few moments after stepping out of the elevator, you knock on the door to your apartment, hoping with all your might that Mark won’t actually open it and instead just answer with a “Come in” as he always does. Your wish is, thankfully, granted, but it’s quickly followed by “Wait, wait, wait!” As it happens, he just finished wrapping your gift and needs another minute or two to tuck it away somewhere until the big day arrives. “Can you stay out there until I say?”

“Sure,” you reply, “but I’m going to have to ask you to do the same.”

“How about I stay in my room while you come in and do… whatever you need to?”

“Sounds good.”

With his door closed, Mark hears the front one open and shut as you enter. Trying not to make any noise that would give away the size of the item you just bought, you finally settle for hiding the leather case underneath your bed, concealed by the drapery attached to its frame that hovers just above the floor.

Mark had hastily placed the now-wrapped (though not elegantly so) stationery set back into his dresser, so he’s already out of his room by the time you leave yours. “Any letters or packages?” He questions when he sees you.

“Oh, right!” You snap your fingers, “We do have a package but my hands were full, so I’ll bring it up right now.”

“Eggnog?”

While the box had looked fairly ordinary from the outside, upon opening it and glancing at the return address you learned it was actually anything but that. Mark’s and your parents had sent a holiday care package of sorts, including both of your families’ Christmas cards and a carton of eggnog, along with some small gifts that are meant to be saved for the morning of the 25th. Also mixed in are a few small decorations (not that you need more), some baking supplies complete with a copy of the recipe for the cookies you make every year, and a soft pair of mittens for each of you. He hopes you don’t realize that one of the items is a sprig of mistletoe.

“You don’t like eggnog?” You ask, stunned. Mark shrugs, “I don’t really care for milk but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.”

That evening you and Mark take another stroll, this time choosing to stay on the streets and admire the festively adorned buildings and shops as you pass by them. Admiring Christmas lights at this time of year is nothing new to you and Mark. In fact, when you lived in Canada you would do the same thing. The only difference is that back then, it involved driving through quiet suburban neighborhoods and not ambling through crowded city streets and alleyways on foot.

Snowflakes begin to cascade from the heavens as you make your way back around to the block where you live. Mark sticks his tongue out to catch one of the small crystals, and it immediately melts in his mouth, eliciting a high-pitched laugh from the boy. Snow is also something you both are more than used to by now, having grown up with white Christmases all your lives. It makes you wonder if the holiday season would be the same without it.

“You know what we should do?” Mark turns to you just as you’re about to enter the apartment building again. “Go ice skating at Rockefeller Center.”

“Mark, c’mon, you know stuff like that is overpriced. And besides, I can’t skate to save my life. Remember—”

“That time in sophomore year? You bet I do,” he laughs as he remembers how you clumsily fell not even two seconds after stepping onto the ice with your skates, and then refused to let go of the railing for the rest of the day. The elevator whirs to life, climbing floor after floor with ease.

“Hey,” you offer, “we can still go and watch people skate, I’m sure there’s some place to sit.”

“And we can look at the Christmas tree, too,” Mark adds, eyes brightening at the idea.

“Right. I forget you haven’t seen it in person before.” The cabin doors open with a ding and you step out, your eyes landing on the door to your apartment a few yards away.

When you turn on the TV, Mark becomes mesmerized by the movie that’s playing, since it takes place in NYC and he recognizes so many places from actually being there. He scrambles to remove his jacket and beanie, plopping down onto the couch once they’re safely hooked on the coat rack.

Watching him, you sigh. Would anything really change if you were dating? Assuming your feelings were returned, of course, but you can’t imagine that your relationship would differ much. You certainly wouldn’t go on extravagant dates, or buy expensive gifts for each other, but that’s not what love is about, anyway. With the exception of a few extra hugs and the addition of kisses, along with more forms of physical affection in general (actually, scratch that, Mark’s always been awkward with those kinds of things), you’d still be by each other’s side just like always.

As you sit down next to him and feel an arm wrap around your shoulder, you don’t shrug it off, instead embracing the warm and fuzzy feeling in your heart that you can’t blame on the holiday season this time.

Mark’s glad, too. He’s been working up the courage to do that all day.

Late that night, you quietly tiptoe into the living area, retrieving an old box from your move-in last year that will fit his gift perfectly, and won’t give away what’s inside. Your hands fold and tape the wrapping paper with care, tying a neat ribbon once you’re done. Sure, you had to give up something that meant a lot to you in order to afford Mark’s present, but the gains outweigh the losses. You find comfort in imagining the way his face will surely light up with pure joy on Christmas morning, drifting off to sleep with ease once you’ve hidden the rectangular parcel back underneath your bed.

A few days pass and soon it’s the 23rd, and you join Mark at the railing of the ice rink, of course on the side with solid ground. “Ice is solid ground,” Mark had corrected, but you stood firm in your words. “More like slippery ground, if you ask me.”

Luckily you had been allowed to stand here for free, because god only knows what small, simple thing someone would be charged for in New York. It’s happened to you before, and you’re not even a tourist.

Mark’s dark eyes gaze up at the 75-foot-tall tree in wonder, pupils dilating and reflecting the tens of thousands of bright lights strung through the dark green branches. They seem to sparkle with sheer amazement. Just then someone skates a little too close to the section of railing you’re leaning on, startling Mark out of his LED-induced daze and putting the most adorable look of surprise on his face.

His focus shifts to the people on the ice, wearing sweaters and jackets of every color imaginable, and the sight is still as beautiful as the looming Christmas tree above. He notices some couples, holding onto one another or skating hand-in-hand, and it makes him wonder if that could be you two someday, at a future Christmas, or if it’s an idea absurd enough for an alternate reality.

Mark sees you shiver out of the corner of his eye, and it’s his cue to suggest returning home for the evening. In a very cliché and boyfriend-esque gesture he offers you his jacket, but you decline, insisting that it’s not far and assuring him that you’ll be okay.

Back in your heated flat, you twist open the lid of the eggnog carton and pour a small glass for yourself. “Are you sure you don’t want some?” You call out to Mark from the kitchen, snatching one of the cookies you made the other day and finding a paper plate for the thin shortbread wafer, lined with elegant white icing and dusted with sprinkles.

“I already told you, I don’t like eggnog!”

“Have you even tried it before?” Mark grumbles at your nagging. You really sound like his mom right now.

“No…”

You appear at the other end of the couch, holding out a small cup with just a sip or two of eggnog in it. “Try it. You never know.”

He knows you won’t leave until you see him lift it to his lips for yourself, so he does. Immediately the sweet drink overwhelms his taste buds, and also leaves a slight sting on his tongue.

“What’s in this stuff?” He coughs, nose scrunching a bit from the strong taste. Surprisingly, though, he doesn’t hate it. Following you back to the kitchen, Mark pours a full glass this time, already gulping it down.

“Uh,” you scan the ingredients on the back of the carton once he sets it down on the counter, “milk, cream, sugar, eggs…”

“...whiskey? What the hell?”

“It has alcohol,” Mark slurs, his giggling interrupted by a hiccup. Having never drank before, he’s undeniably a lightweight, and even a little bit can get him wasted almost instantly.

“Mom and Dad must have mixed something up, because they definitely didn’t mean to send us alcoholic eggnog.”

Sure enough, back home in Canada your parents are wondering why they only have the kid-friendly stuff in their fridge.

Mark latches on to you, arm curling lazily around your waist. Great, he’s one of those people that gets clingy when they’re drunk. “Try some,” he whines, nuzzling into your shoulder a little.

“Are you crazy?”

“No one will know,” he laughs, hiccuping again. Giving in to his adorably drunken pout, you take one sip from your original glass but no more, an unpleasant buzz taking over your whole mouth.

Not looking forward to finding a hangover cure on Christmas Eve of all days, you pray that you’ll stay sober enough to take care of the tipsy boy, who’s currently pressing his face into the back of your neck and—shit, did he just kiss you there? You really don’t need this right now.

“Mark, you’re drunk, okay? Stop it,” you caution.

“But I love you,” he murmurs, warm breath fanning your skin, and you want to kick yourself for almost saying it back. Does he even mean it, though? Alcohol makes people say crazy things, things they don’t mean, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up. You unhook his arm from your torso and turn around to push against his chest, frustrated. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He seems to have just remembered something, because he ignores you and instead goes over to where the care package was still sitting, digging into the bottom and pulling out something you hadn’t noticed before. “Look,” Mark declares in a nasal voice, “mistletoe.”

You exasperatedly hang your head, desperate to slam it into the nearest wall. With much difficulty, you eventually manage to get him tucked underneath the blanket, leaving a glass of water on his nightstand for when he wakes up. “Get some sleep,” you say simply.

He tells you goodnight with a fond mumble of your name as you shut the bedroom door behind you. Rubbing your eyes, you yawn before turning off the lights and heading to bed yourself, trying to block out the events that had just taken place.

Your head aches when you wake up the next morning, and you feel like garbage, so you can only imagine how much worse Mark must be doing. Quickly chugging a water bottle, you reluctantly go to knock on his door, hearing a pained groan once you enter. He’s sitting up, chin resting in one hand and the other anchored onto the heavy comforter covering his legs.

“How are you feeling?” The obvious question with an even more obvious answer makes Mark wince. “Awful.”

“Sorry.” It’s silent for a moment, Mark pressing three fingers to his throbbing forehead and you staring aimlessly at the wall. “I knew that eggnog was a bad idea.”

“You were the one that told me to try it!”

“I didn't know it had alcohol in it!”

You sigh, dejected. Something tells Mark that your head isn’t the only thing hurting.

“Hey, I know that look. What’s wrong?” He prods, voice soft and gentle and altogether unlike how it had been last night. You meet his eyes for a moment, about to speak but biting your lip at the last second. Mark’s brain puts two and two together at your expression.

“Oh god, did I say something? Do something?”

“Yeah, actually,” you reply in a huff. “First you kissed my neck, then you told me you loved me, and then you held up a clump of mistletoe and implied that we should kiss underneath it.”

His memories of the previous evening are all a blur, so he truly would have no idea what happened if you hadn’t just said something. Mark knows he screwed up, bad.

You tense when you feel him place his hand over yours, but you don’t snatch it away. After collecting his thoughts, Mark clears his throat.

“Look, I… I know that’s not the best way for you to find out how someone feels about you. But I’m completely sober, and I can tell you that I meant what I said last night.”

“You promise?”

“Promise,” Mark replies.

“...Can you say it again, then?”

He blushes, “That I…?”

You nod, the corners of your lips lifting into a small smile.

“I love you,” Mark tells you for the second time in the last 24 hours, but this time you know you can believe him. The pain of your hangover goes away for a moment as he takes your jaw in his hands and connects your lips, just barely retaining the buzz of the alcohol but not enough to bother you. Slowly you kiss him back, sinking down onto the mattress beside him.

Mark pulls away for air a few seconds later, thumb grazing your cheek lovingly. “Does this mean we’re—”

“Dating? If you want it to, then sure,” your finger traces swirly shapes on the small of his back while you assure him that neither of you need to rush into anything if you aren’t ready.

“I don’t want things to change, though.”

“Who said they have to? I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and we’re already pretty close, you know? Making it ‘official’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘different,’ so...”

Mark hums in agreement, “You’re right. Okay, I can live with that.”

“And I can’t live another second without food. I’m making breakfast,” you quip, reverting back to the usual banter between you and him.

“I’ll cook the eggs,” Mark insists as you both make your way out of his bedroom and into the kitchen.

“You absolutely will not!”

The night before Christmas had started out unlike any that you’d ever experienced before, with you confronting your now-boyfriend about a drunken love confession the previous day. But now, it’s ending just like every year, with you cozy and curled up in front of the television as the last few segments of the news play.

It’s the coldest Christmas Eve in years. You learned this after the meteorologist had informed viewers of the record only a few minutes earlier, inadvertently planting an idea in Mark’s mind.

Right as you’re about to turn in for the night, setting a plate of decorated cookies and a glass of milk down on the end table (as is tradition in your families, no matter how old you are), Mark holds out his arms like a child might. “Can we…?” He asks in a quiet voice, nervous to finish his sentence.

“Huh?”

The boy inhales sharply, “It’s freezing. Do you wanna sleep in my bed tonight?” His cheeks flush a deep red that’s almost the color of Christmas itself.

You’re slightly taken aback, and then you remember it’s just Mark. “Sure, why not,” you answer with a light shrug and a smile on your face.

“But no funny business,” you inform him as you climb under the sheets together, instantly happy with your choice to join him because double the people means double the body heat. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mark replies, pecking your lips. His wrist finds the warm skin of your neck and you flinch away.

“Your hands are cold!” He just snickers at your whining.

The two of you fall asleep more quickly than you ever have on Christmas Eve, usually overcome with nerves and excitement, but now, as two college-aged kids, you’re comfortable and not rushing the morning’s arrival at all, content in each other’s arms for the moment.

You feel like you’re 10 years old again as you rush into the living room at 8am the next day, the bright, early morning sky lighting up your entire apartment. At the base of your Christmas tree sits a humble amount of presents, composed of the two that you bought for each other plus the half-dozen small ones from your parents.

You hand Mark one of the cookies from the end table and grab one for yourself, taking a bite of the sweet treat as you sit down and motioning for him to do the same.

“Open yours first,” you say eagerly, referring to your gift for him. Mark shakes his head and points to what he got you, “No, you go first.”

“Fine, we’ll open them at the same time.” Mark nods, satisfied with the compromise and handing you both the packages.

“On three. One, two…”

The final number barely leaves your lips before you both begin tearing into the paper excitedly, Mark reaching for the flaps on the box and you unfolding the tissue paper.

When you each see what the other gifted you with, it’s completely silent, save for the TV playing a Christmas Day special in the background.

He gazes blankly at you, licking his lips as his eyes dart between the guitar case and your expression.

“I appreciate the gift, but I…” Mark pauses, unsure how to tell you this.

You don’t say a word, raising your eyebrows as a signal for him to continue.

“I sold my guitar to pay for your gift,” he breathes.

“You what? Mark, that guitar means everything to you! Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re worth it, of course!”

“Well, I did the same thing,” you break the news with an unamused expression. “I sold my letter box to pay for that case.”

His eyes become impossibly wider at that, nearly bulging out of their sockets. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

You groan and lie down on the floor, beyond discouraged. “Let me guess, the pawn shop on 23rd?”

“Yep.”

“Hey, wait a minute.” An idea hits Mark like a rush of cold air. “Maybe we can work out a deal or something.”

“Meaning?”

“We go back and see if we can trade in our new gifts for enough money to get our old things back.”

“One, I doubt it’s that easy, and two, pretty much everything is closed on Christmas Day.” You’re half tempted to laugh because of how ironic this situation is.

Mark sighs, “I guess that makes sense.”

“We can still try, though.”

Sure enough, the pawn shop is dark, even more so than usual, and the door doesn’t budge. A sign taped to the window from the inside confirms your fear: Closed on Christmas. Gloved hands pressed onto the glass, you and Mark admit your defeat. You had been bested by the giving spirit of the holiday season, almost too generous for your own good.

But it’s the message that the day itself stands for after all, for putting aside material value and doing something out of the kindness of your heart just to make someone else happy. That’s what it’s all about, and you and Mark had personally experienced it this year.

So you’re surprised to find two boxes leaning on the wall beside the door to your apartment the next morning, shapes oddly familiar. Could it be?

Just hours earlier, the hallway surveillance cameras caught a tall man striding down the corridor, carrying those exact packages under his arms. In the video he pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen from his coat pocket, scribbling a short message before tucking it underneath the ribbon of the larger parcel and leaving the building just as quickly as he came.

You and Mark’s only clue as to who had returned your items is a messy ‘J’ at the end of the note attached to the box containing his guitar. Exchanging knowing glances, you both grin, squeezing your intertwined hands with the same name in mind.

...So what if Johnny had to take a bit of money out of his own paycheck to cover the cost of the items? Besides, it’s Christmas. And his boss never has to know.

223 notes · View notes

tifaria · 4 years

Note

Good Omen fan fic recommendations?

This has been unanswered in my notes for far too long!

Whoo boy, where do I start?? Let me just pull up my AO3 bookmarks… okay. This is gonna be a long post because I have a Lot of Thoughts about fic in this fandom. I’ll separate by types of fic.

Series/stories with a plot:

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm

As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following:

–His clothing was expensive and stylish;–He wore very strange but noticeable cologne;–His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;”–He looked angry;–He was wearing sunglasses.

What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?

Okay, so some warnings: discussion of suicide, PTSD, implied alcohol abuse and implied child abuse. That said…. this is an excellent fic and I was thinking about it for days after it ended. It’s about Crowley dealing with trauma from the bookshop fire, and it has an outsider POV that I ended up caring deeply about, and the ending had me in (happy) tears. Just. It’s a miracle that this fic exists.

A Curious Case of Miracles on Marlborough Street by @nihilnovisubsole

After stopping the apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale finally take the next step in their six-thousand-year friendship. But when a spate of miracles sweeps across Soho and Mayfair, they realize their amorous escapades may have an unintended side effect. As they scramble to restore balance and an archangel arrives to investigate, Heaven and Hell’s messengers learn that you can never have too much of a good thing.

At the very least, you need to go look at the art on this fic, because it is magnificent. But you should really read the story, because it’s absurd and weird but in a way that makes it feel like it could plausibly take place in the TV-verse. Implied sexual content, nothing explicit. Plenty of humor. It’s crackfic that’s taken seriously, but it works and I love it.

The Sandford Flower Show by Musimm

Crowley had waited six thousand years, kept it all in check. But this was the slipperiest slope he’d ever set foot on and as soon as he’d indulged in a few discretionary acts of kindness he was falling face first into pining, tumbling into flirting, about to dislocate his knees on the sharp rocks of intimacy.

Was this really it? What he had waited six thousand years for? A stupid flower show? Aziraphale wasn’t pulling away from him. Maybe… maybe this time he wouldn’t? Maybe they’d hold hands again. Maybe tonight with a bottle of merlot in them he’d finally work up the courage and just kiss him and he wouldn’t pull away.

The very moment he’d thought it he spotted the problem at the flower show.

Chapter 7 is explicit, so if that’s not your jam, skip to the next chapter after they go to bed. I really enjoyed this one! There’s angst, pining, miscommunication, idiots acting like idiots, but with a happy ending. The plot is interesting and the original characters were engaging and felt like they’d fit right into the TV-verse. I re-read this immediately after finishing it, that’s how much I liked it.

I Will Get Up Now and Go About the City by @drawlight

This is the story of six-thousand years and a borrowed jacket. (A tale told in vignettes.)

Look, if you haven’t gone and read every single thing that @drawlight has written by now, I don’t know what to tell you. This is my favorite fic of his. It is, quite simply, poetry. I’m due for a re-read, in fact.

Fluff/Sweetness:

Divine Intervention (AKA God Ships It) by @theladyzephyr

There’s a battle strategy devised by humans many millennia ago that’s designed to overcome an adversary who is particularly well entrenched. Some walls are too tall and thick for a frontal assault, and must instead be bested through sheer dogged stubbornness.

Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t know it, but they were about to be put under siege.

Fed up with an angel and a demon who are still avoiding any talk of Feelings, God starts to interfere. When it comes to the ineffable plan, sometimes things need a bit of a push.

Listen. This is my favorite fluffy Good Omens fic ever. It’s silly, it’s romantic, it’s completely heartfelt, and it’s joyous and happy. I grinned so hard while reading it, and re-reading it, and re-reading it again. I go to this fic when I’ve had a bad day. I go to this fic when I’ve had a good day. It’s wonderful and sweet and it fills my heart with warmth.

Sunny Picnic with the Southern Pansy by @almaasi

As the one-year mark of the Unpocalypse approaches, Aziraphale pointedly mentions to Crowley that he’d like to spend the anniversary doing “something lovely” with “somebody special”. Thus, Crowley secretly plans a surprise picnic in Tadfield with Anathema and the Them. Of course, this comes served with a plateful of misunderstandings, a side of moping, and a seasoning of mischief… eventually followed by a deliciously pleasant afternoon.

I love when authors can work in the ensemble cast in a way that works. This fic is fluffy, warm, and fuzzy. I loved every time The Them were in a scene because the author wrote them so well.

Saturday (Wouldn’t It Be Nice) by Sir_Bedevere

It’s a Saturday in the little cottage on the South Downs, where a demon and an angel are spending their retirement, and there’s nothing - nothing - that they can’t face together.

It’s a Saturday, and this is how Saturdays tend to go.

This is a gentle and soft fic that soothes my soul when I read it. There’s plenty of cuddling, sweetness, and fluff. This fic is like a comforting, warm blanket when you’ve had a hard day.

Love Like Fools by @animeangelriku

One minute, Aziraphale is cataloguing some of his first editions, and the next one, he’s leaning against the bookshelf with one hand because he feels like the breath he doesn’t necessarily need (but is nonetheless used to taking) has just been knocked out of him.

He does not need to hold back his feelings for Crowley anymore. He does not need to hide his feelings for Crowley anymore. They’re on their own side now.

Soft romance with hand-holding and plenty of kissing? Sign me up. I live for Aziraphale showering Crowley with affection, and Crowley being overwhelmed by it.

An Honest Surrender by @kedreeva

“For six thousand years,” Crowley said, voice cracking, “I have wanted something I couldn’t have, because I asked the wrong questions. But I’m asking the right one now. The only one that matters.”

In which Aziraphale follows Crowley home after the nonpocalypse.

I never get tired of what-happened-at-Crowley’s-flat-that-night fics. Never. Give me all of them. This one depicts the boys as asexual and includes some intense soul-bonding that I find really lovely and that I think is achingly beautiful.

It’s Getting Hard, This Holding Back by ZehWulf

6,000-odd years is a long time to evolve a romantic relationship, but as a near-immortal being, Crowley had patience. True, they had lost momentum right around reaching the Speaking Looks and Meaningful Gestures stage, but at the time Crowley had been more or less content to let things idle.

Now, he was determined to shift things back into gear, and that gear was Explicitly Romantic Physical Expressions of Affection.

Crowley comes up with a plot for easing into physical affection with Aziraphale, and it goes about like you’d expect. Cute, sweet, and fluffy asexual relationship.

Smut/Explicit:

Lie Back And Think Of Dinner by jessthereckless

“Crowley, this is a disaster. This is everything I ever wanted. We’re in love. And there’s a picnic. And we don’t seem to be able to get…amorous without causing earthquakes.”

Aziraphale attempts subterfuge. Crowley sees right through him.

This fic is so cute, with just a bit of smut. I don’t always enjoy smut, because sometimes I feel it strays too much from their characterization, but this fic gets it right. It’s funny and charming and the dialogue is spot on. When you’re finished, read the sequel, which has more explicit smut but still manages to be believable for me while also being very sweet.

The First Week of the Rest of their Lives by @deputychairman

“Port gives the worst hangovers in the world, did you know that?” Crowley slurred when the bottle was all gone. “Don’t know who got credit for that one. Nice drink, lovely drink, shame it makes you want to die in the morning.”

“Such a shame,” Aziraphale agreed sadly, watching Crowley stretch out on his sofa. He did like port. He liked Crowley stretched out on his sofa, too.

After a week of lunch dates, Aziraphale is finally ready to face his feelings. This is sexy and just smutty enough and the banter between them in the bedroom is cute but also hot.

Overboard by Laura Shapiro

Asking Crowley to move here with him is, Aziraphale thinks, the bravest thing he has ever done.

Aziraphale tries and fails to deal with his anxiety, and eventually the pining and angst lead to an understanding. I enjoyed the depiction of Aziraphale’s anxiety over he and Crowley’s relationship, and the sex is very well done and you can sense the love in it.

Alternate Universe (AU):

Here’s the thing about AUs: I don’t usually enjoy them. I find that often the characters don’t resemble the ones I know at all, and it prevents me from getting interested in the story. However, I have come across some that I’ve loved, and while the characterizations aren’t necessary recognizable as Aziraphale and Crowley, the stories are compelling and well-written. I tend to think of it as the actors from the TV series playing other parts, and it works for me.

Acts of Service by seekwill

After receiving direct instruction from God, village reverend Aziraphale leaves his countryside congregation to serve the underserved and in-need at an urban church in London, a transition made all the more complicated by the mysterious and handsome Crowley, who always seems to appear when Aziraphale least expects him.

I was thinking about this fic for a while after I finished it. Is it a bit soap operatic? Yes. Is it also compelling and romantic and sexy? Hell yes. Just go read it and decide for yourself. The only reason I didn’t finish the entire fic in one evening is because I read until 1am and then had to wake up four hours later. Otherwise I’d have binged it all in one go.

Only Love (Can Bring the Rain) by soft_october

There were all these little hopes and musings Crowley buried so deep in his heart it ached to bring them out into the light to catalogue their faults and flaws, and each time Aziraphale sought him out, or asked his opinion on some weighty manner that was hanging on him, or even just smiled, those little wishings grew bigger and bigger, pressing in on him until he felt as if he was being crushed.

“Princes do not fall in love with gardener boys,” he told himself one night, staring into the shard of looking glass he kept on a shelf, hoping it would help, hoping that hearing it out loud would make him believe it, would help him put all these ridiculous notions behind him.

It didn’t work.

Crowley and Aziraphale, the gardener’s boy and the prince, meet as children and develop an unlikely friendship.

By the time they’re twenty, everything has changed.

Crowley is a gardener, Aziraphale is a prince, and this reads like a gentle fairy tale. I adore everything about it.

With All Your Delights by @weatheredlaw

Crowley laughed. “I thought you’d have realized by now. I am no ordinary king.”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “You certainly are not.”

or: aziraphale is sent as a gift to the southern king to smooth over trade negotiations. they both find themselves in over their heads.

Good Lord, this fic. This fic is so sexy, so romantic, so immersive. The world-building is vague, but somehow that worked for me because I was able to imagine and fill in the gaps as I pleased. Do they 100% resemble any Crowley and Aziraphale that we know? No. But is it a well-written romance that checks off a lot of boxes I enjoy? Yes. There’s angst, but with a happy ending. I think I’ve read this one 3 or 4 times now, which is unheard of for me with an AU.

Slow Show by @mia-ugly

Listen. This. This fic. It’s done something to me. I live for updates on this fic.

Crowley and Aziraphale are co-stars on a Game of Thrones-esque TV show. There’s pining, angst, explicit sex, mentions of past addiction, and somehow, it all comes together in a beautiful story that has me rushing to me computer on Mondays to check and see if it’s been updated. It has wrecked me. The last chapter was a wham and I am desperate for more. I have the utmost admiration for the author because it’s a beautiful, sexy, romantic story and I have never been so eager to read an AU before.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fic #good omens fic rec #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfic rec #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfiction rec

2K notes · View notes

crusherthedoctor · 4 years

Text

Crusher Elaborations #1: Thoughts on the Aesthetic of Sonic’s World

If someone came up to me and asked “Which do you prefer, Classic Sonic or Modern Sonic?”, my answer would start off with “Well, technically Classic Sonic because...”, and then I'd get cut off by the other person immediately lecturing me on why I'm wrong and why I'm the worst kind of fan imaginable. Should they finish their rant, I would then explain to them in the midst of them basking in their flock of easy Twitter likes that I didn't necessarily mean it in the way they predicted.

If we were talking about the games, the characters, or the character design, I'd be fairly neutral, since I like both halves equally for the most part. In fact, when it comes to characters, Modern might actually have the edge believe it or not, since the sheer number of characters introduced from SA1 onwards naturally means a lot of my favourites were introduced from that point on, such as Tikal, Rouge, Gamma, Omega, Blaze... But then again, Classic introduced Eggman and Tails, and the Hard-Boiled Heavies are technically Classic as well despite being relatively new...

Anyway, the point is, I'm not talking about any of that today. I'm talking about the world that Sonic and his multicolored chums live in. Or rather, the aesthetic of it.

NOTE: This is purely about the game universe. While I do have my thoughts on Sonic’s world as presented in other continuities, that won’t be the focus here.

If you're familiar with my blog, you'll know that as a general rule of thumb, I much prefer colorful and creative worlds in my Sonic universe, and that rings true for my reasoning here. And I know what you're gonna say: “But Crusher, isn't there plenty of that in the Modern games as well?” Yes, there is, and I appreciate them very much. But this is why I feel the need to make a post of this sort to begin with, because I'm NOT saying “Classic cool, Modern boring” and calling it a day. There's a little more nuance to my tastes here.

When I say I prefer the Classic aesthetic for Sonic's world, I don't mean it in the literal sense of disregarding everything about the Modern aesthetic. Let's put it like this: when you're asked to paint a picture of these two sides of Sonic's universe in your head, a specific image will likely come to mind. When you think of Classic, you'll probably think of Green Hill first and foremost, whereas with Modern, you'll probably think of something like City Escape or Rooftop Run before anything else. In other words, when you think Modern Sonic, you're probably imagining the more realistic kind of locations first. And between the two mental images that come to mind, I personally prefer the Classic image. Shock, horror.

I wish I could swim in a sea that’s probably radioactive.

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying that City Escape, Rooftop Run, and all similar environments in the series look bad, because they don't. Unless they're painted with the '06 brush, they generally look fine, and the locations in Unleashed in particular are undeniably beautiful from an graphical standpoint. The problem is that although I can picture this as a world that Sonic could be in, I can't necessarily picture it as Sonic's world specifically. Because when it comes to the more realistic environments, I feel there's not much of an attempt to let it branch out as its own thing.

I know that might seem harsh, especially for Unleashed, since the real world angle was the deliberate theme of that game. And Sonic taking cues from real places is a fine concept, there's no issue there. I'm not gonna complain if there's a France Zone with an Eiffel Tower in the background. In fact, Sandopolis Act 1 has one of my favourite aesthetics in a Classic zone (mainly because the background is really pleasant to look at), and that zone is essentially Egypt Zone. But if you're making a Real World Zone, there needs to be more to it than that, otherwise you don't truly get a Sonic interpretation of our world... you instead have our world as it is with Sonic characters awkwardly stapled on.

When I look at City Escape, it may not be completely unfitting for Sonic (the posters and billboards in particular are actually a really nice touch), but when I look at it, I don't see Sonic's interpretation of San Francisco. I see San Francisco with Sonic shoved in. When they morph these places to Sonic's liking, they'll add rings, loops... and that's it. They rarely take the concept any further, which is a huge shame, particularly in the case of Rooftop Run, where I otherwise do like its visuals a lot, but it just doesn't go far enough with the concept for my liking.

At least you get to murder car owners, and give G.U.N. a legitimate reason to arrest you.

So which Modern games do I feel did the best job at making Sonic's world... er, Sonic's world? Well the truth is, most of them actually do a decent job in this area, regardless of the level design quality or the game’s quality period. SA2 has Pumpkin Hill, Eggman's Pyramid Base, and... SOME levels aboard the A.R.K (mainly the “outside” ones, like Final Rush). Shadow the Hedgehog, a game that reveled in how brown and gritty it was, still had highlights like Circus Park and Digital Circuit. Even '06 of all games had Aquatic Base, which was pretty cool from a conceptual standpoint. And although Unleashed as a whole might be a touch too vanilla in the creativity scale, it still had the glorious Eggmanland at the very end. But if I had to say which of the Modern installments did the best job overall...

- For starters, I'm gonna give a shoutout to SA1, because even though it was the first Modern game, and thus it was technically responsible for the more focused angle of realism in Sonic's world in the first place, it didn't take it quite as far as later games would, and although it may not be a perfect 1-to-1 representation of the world we saw in the Classic games, it does well enough with what it brings to the table that I can still accept it without any issue at all. Some of that has to do with the fact that you still have wilder areas like Windy Valley and Red Mountain to balance things out, but even with the other half, the game's use of colour is enough for it to go a long way, oddly enough. Take the At Dawn section of Speed Highway for instance:

From innocent times, when the radar wasn’t a piece of shit.

Technically, it's really not that different to the urban environments you see in SA2 or Unleashed. But something about the sleepy morning approach gives it a subtle, almost dream-like edge to it that I really dig, and despite it being pretty similar to the likes of City Escape, somehow I have an easier time buying into the idea of this place being part of the same world as zones like Sky Sanctuary.

And seeing how I already mentioned Red Mountain, let me compare it to Flame Core:

Yes, I know bringing '06 into this discussion at all is inherently and hilariously unfair, but let's put aside the game that Flame Core comes from for a moment. Aside from maybe the purple crystal caves indoors (and that's assuming you can even see where the fuck you're going in there), Flame Core is pretty boring to look at as far as Sonic levels go. Red Mountain is vastly more interesting, even though it's basically the exact same concept, and a lot of that has to do with - you guessed it - colour. Sure, it's day time, that's one thing, but you'll also notice that for a lava/mountain stage, it surprisingly has a few grassier sections, sort of like Hill Top in that regard. A little bit of green among the brown and red, and a great contrast to the volcanic nightmare you'll experience when you head inside.

Now this might seem like a fairly minor detail... and yeah, it is, but the thing that SA1 does so well is that it combines so many of those small details to make a complete, well-rounded package. This is why SA1 meshes well with the Classic style despite not being an exact replica, because just as the Classics excelled at, it wasn't afraid to use colour in interesting ways. It understood that a fire level could have more than just red and orange, in the same way that a grassy level could have more than just green and blue.

But of course, as I mentioned, SA1 is not an exception. There are other Modern games that did a great job on the whole...

- Heroes is an obvious answer, since it's translation of Genesis-style environments to 3D is probably one of the most recurring praises the game receives, and rightly so. Not much to say here, except that Hang Castle is still cool as hell.

And plenty of opportunity to admire the not-broken-in-half moon.

- Colours is another obvious one, though something of an ironic one given that the premise of the game involved going to other worlds, and those worlds were all converted against their will by Eggman. Yet, they did an equally superb job at creating fun, unique locales, and Aquarium Park in particular remains a favourite of mine.

Gotta love that red/blue contrast.

- The Riders series has a more futuristic bend compared to the rest of the series, but even when it's not all high-tech, it's got some pretty cool environments of its own, and I feel they even do well at mixing the real world side of things on top of that. Gigan Rocks comes to mind, as does Aquatic Capital.

Reminds me of when Perfect Chaos peacefully protested against Station Square.

- Regardless of my thoughts on the game itself, Secret Rings had some undeniable winners in this depertment. You tell me with a straight face that Night Palace doesn't look amazing.

A wonderful palace for a domestic abuser.

- And lastly, they might have had an early advantage since they're already 2D, but the Advance trilogy and Rush duology deserve a mention. They had some fantastic ideas for zones, like Planet Sonata Music Plant, and they did great with the colours as well. Hell, throughout these five games, the sky was practically every shade of the rainbow at one point or another.

Oh look, another completely whole moon.

Also, quick shoutout to another minor detail akin to the grassy sections of Red Mountain: these pink tunnel sections in Ice Mountain. No elaborate point to make here, just another perfect example of how much I adore these games' use of colour and contrast.

Seriously, I could go on for hours about good contrast.

Although I do bring up these small details for another reason, and in turn, another layer to my more nuanced take on Sonic aesthetics. By this point, we get the basic jist: Crusher likey when Sonic levels unique and pretty. But this can - and has - lead to a couple of misconceptions, so I'd like to address those and then laugh at them.

“So you want Sonic's world to be exactly like Mario?”

A common complaint that Lost World received was that it was too much like Mario, in more ways than one, and part of this was to do with the game's visual style. The zones may have been upbeat, but they often consisted of a bunch of things floating in the air and not much else, ala 2D Mario. While I didn't outright hate it, it’s definitely not what I have in mind for Sonic.

Of course, all complaints about being too much like Mario suddenly turn into praise when Eggette gets brought up...

And why is that? Because yes, I like my Sonic locations to be fun and lively... but I also want them to be firmly established within the context of this universe. The Lost World approach is fine with Special Stages and the sort, but outside of that... well, Studiopolis is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

On one hand, it's very unique when compared to other cities in this franchise, and it's full of quirkiness, great use of colour, and all that good stuff I've went on about. But at the same time, it's grounded just enough so that it still feels like an actual city that the people of Sonic's world could feasibly live in, rather than a basic and empty video game level with a tacked on city background. Studiopolis may be a level from a video game, but you can totally believe it's a fully fleshed out place from its own perspective.

Naturally, this praise also rings true with the Modern games I listed earlier, and is yet another reason for why I approve of their settings.

“So you think Sonic can't have darker locations?”

It might be easy to take my compliments at face value, and assume that I'm immediately opposed to a zone that's not brightly colored. This is... very obviously false, as even the Classic games have their share of less-than-cheery areas, such as Scrap Brain and the Bad Futures in Sonic CD.

However, when you're making a grittier location in Sonic's world, regardless of the context, it still needs to be interesting. The problem with a lot of them in Modern installments is that they're boring. Crisis City is a generic city on fire. Westopolis is a generic city with aliens firing lasers from above. The prison levels in SA2 - and the indoor ARK levels not named Cannon's Core - are just grey hallways for the most part. That shit isn't exciting, and it doesn't get my mind speculating. It just makes me want to move on.

Let the eggsperts take care of this.

By contrast, Eggmanland is a prime example of how to do it right. Eggmanland is a magnificent theme park as envisioned by the good doctor, but it's also, at its core, a giant metal hellscape fueled by the energy of a dark entity, and it only gets more ominous the further you go through it or try to before you give up because it’s too fucking long and you died at the end. So it sets the mood to be sure, but it's still visually compelling to look at, and interesting to think about.

And since Eggman is apparently the only one who can show us how it's done, here's a shoutout to Titanic Monarch as well:

Like Heavy King, but Heavier and Kingier.

When comparing the final zones in Sonic games, I especially love this zone's visual approach, because it manages to be dark and colorful at the same time, and in a strangly organic way. It's got a spooky atmosphere, with a moody moonlight backdrop to match, and the titular robot is foreboding as hell as you climb up it and traverse through it... all the while having red floors, green and yellow wires, blue and pink buildings, and stained glass windows of Eggman and the Heavies for you to marvel at. So even putting aside the unique scenario of climbing up and then through a Kaiju-sized mech, the mood of the zone alone manages to be extremely memorable.

So what have we learned from all this? Aside from the fact that I’m way too interested in this subject? We now know that when I say I prefer the Classic “style” over Modern when it comes to the way that Sonic's world is presented:

- I don't mean that literally.

- There are certain qualities that although both of them possess, they tend to be more immediately associated with Classic in the collective consciousness, even within the fandom.

- The environments that I love the most in Modern games are often the ones that would also fit perfectly in the Classic style.

So whenever I express the basic nature of this opinion in the future... just imagine a small asterisk at the end of my sentence.

#Crusher Elaborations #Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

54 notes · View notes

azvolrien · 3 years

Text

Gryphon Beach Party

I’m not even going to pretend that this has much of a plot; it’s more of a slice-of-life thing, winding up characters and letting them bounce off each other, with a fair helping of worldbuilding. It also ended up quite a bit longer than I’d intended when I started, but I was having fun.

In the spring of Asta’s second year living in Stormhaven, she decides to attend an important cultural festival and makes a new friend into the bargain. What Happens Next Will Shock You! (no it won’t)

---

There had only been one to start with, but as the afternoon went on more and more had joined the parade until a whole flock of young gryphons hurtled around the College, all screaming something over and over at the top of their collective voice.

Asta attempted to tune it out. “So, remind me how many of the day students have decided to start boarding?”

Matron Inkfoot sat up on her haunches and double-checked her clipboard. “Seven first-year apprentices, four second-years, and one third-year.”

“A third-year? It doesn’t usually take them that long to decide.”

“It is out of the ordinary,” said Inkfoot, nodding, “but Ffion Howell’s family are moving out of the city in a month, so she’ll have to start boarding on a full-term basis. The others will be week boarders.”

“Right.” Asta scribbled the details in her notebook. “Will the dormitories require any reshuffling to make room for them?”

“No, there are enough free beds,” said Inkfoot. “The actual floor space is running somewhat low, but the new dorm annexe should be ready by the end of the summer before the next batch of first-years arrive.” She hung her clipboard from one of her harness straps and dropped back to all fours.

“Good, that ought to simplify things,” said Asta just as the bell rang to signal the end of the day’s last lessons. “I’ll amend the apprentice records in the admin office and see to it that the kitchen staff know how many breakfasts and dinners they’ll need to account for. And then…” The chorus of gryphons outside had fallen silent at the bell, but as soon as its echoes faded they took up their cry even louder than before. “…And then I give up. What are they chanting out there?”

Matron Inkfoot cocked her head, angling her ears to listen properly. The tip of her tail flicked to and fro in amusement. “Arakhasthan,” she said, making the kh and the sth into a resonant click in her throat and a sort of roughened hiss from the sides of her beak.

Asta rolled the word over in her mind a few times. “I don’t think I have any hope of pronouncing that properly,” she admitted. “What does it mean? I assume it’s Gryphic, but…”

“No, humans always have trouble with Gryphic,” said Inkfoot. “You just don’t have the right vocal structures. It’s why our names are usually in Imperial. Arakhasthan means something like ‘time of new feathers’.”

“Oh, the New Feather Festival?” said Asta. “Tigerhide mentioned something about it earlier but I didn’t know what she meant.”

Inkfoot nodded and half-spread her wings to display her glossy new flight feathers, each one a deep gold-brown tipped with black and almost five feet long. “It’s when we celebrate the end of the spring moult, when everyone loses their winter plumage and gets their summer coat instead.”

“I did notice the gryphons were all looking a bit, um…”

“Scruffy?” suggested Inkfoot, her tail-tuft twitching again.

“I was going to say ‘unkempt’,” said Asta, “but it didn’t seem polite to comment.”

Inkfoot made a soft clicking sound in her throat – the gryphon equivalent of a light chuckle – before she cocked her head in the other direction and her crest-feathers raised slightly in a curious ‘frown’. “Were you not here for last year’s festival? I know you came to Stormhaven that Hawk Moon. Sirakithi, in the Kiraani calendar.”

Asta stared into space for a few seconds, counting the months backwards on the joints of her fingers. “I was living in Stormhaven by then, yes, but I was on a trip up to Northold around this time of year.”

“That explains it, then. There aren’t as many gryphons up north – they don’t make such a big fuss about Feather Fest. Do you think you’ll come this year?”

Asta blinked and drew herself up a little. “I – well. Is it allowed? I’m not exactly…”

“A gryphon?” said Inkfoot with another flick of her tail-tuft. “Or from Stormhaven?”

“Well, both, I suppose, but I meant being human.”

“No, no, plenty of humans come to the festival,” Inkfoot assured her. “There are some parties in the city – you might’ve spotted bundles of shed feathers hanging from lampposts and so on – but the big get-together will be on Aberystrad Beach tomorrow. Quite a lot of the wizards like to attend; I’ll be shepherding a few apprentices myself.”

Asta gave it a few seconds’ thought. “I… need to get this up to the admin office,” she said, holding up her notebook. “But after that… I suppose it might be nice to get out of the city for a few hours.”

She was far from the only person to have made that decision. The next day was perfect weather for a festival – clear skies and a light breeze off the sea, with the warmth of late spring before the oppressive heat of high summer properly rolled in from the south – and there were so many people trying to leave Stormhaven that there was a queue for the north road. Asta drummed her fingers on Pardus’s saddle-pommel as she waited her turn to pass through the Soldier Gate. Stormhaven’s city walls were not as substantial as Kiraan’s old fortifications, now long overtaken by urban sprawl and only encircling a small area around the Emperor’s palace, but they were still more than twenty feet tall, five feet thick at the base, and a more than adequate barrier to everyday passage; while there were smaller gates for pedestrians around the walls, each of the main ones was only wide enough for two lanes of traffic. There were no checks, however, and the guards waved Asta through without delay. Outside the wall, she tapped Pardus in the ribs with her heels and spurred the construct into a brisk trot. Even past the gates, the road was busy with a steady stream of carts, carriages, pedestrians and beasts of burden both natural and constructed, but the pace soon picked up and as the city fell behind, the road widened until Pardus could overtake the slower traffic and accelerate to a flat-out gallop.

Aberystrad Beach was a few miles north of the city, but Pardus at full tilt ate up the distance in less than a quarter of an hour, easily keeping pace with the cloud of gryphons soaring above and outstripping many of them. The well-signposted turnoff soon came into sight up ahead, and Asta tugged on the reins to steer Pardus down the narrower, more winding side-road to the beach. Rolling dunes covered with wiry marram grass rose up to either side until the paving was completely engulfed; only the trail of footprints and wheel-marks through the soft, dry sand gave any sign it should be there. The sand slid under Pardus’s paws as the construct slowed to a walk and crested the last dune before the beach.

After five years in the Sea Lochs and more than one in Stormhaven, Asta sometimes felt she was used to the sight of the Western Ocean, but she seldom had a view with no buildings or hills in the way. Out here, beyond the city walls and on top of the dunes above the beach, there was nothing to obstruct the view, and for a long while she forgot to do anything but stare. There was a chain of islands out there somewhere, she knew, but they were far enough from the coast that even on such a clear day there was no sign of them. A single ship – three masts, so not Captain Steel’s Curlew – was under full sail a couple of miles offshore, bound for the north, but otherwise only a few white dots of seabirds and the shadow of the odd small cloud broke up that vast expanse of blue-grey-green stretching to three horizons.

Below the mottled green-yellow of the dunes and with the tide well out, the beach was a long, broad sweep of white sand split in two by the River Ystrad, its broad, looping channel shallow enough to easily wade through. Above the river, a natural outcrop of some rock hard enough to withstand the sea had been carved into a huge statue of a gryphon – more than twice the height of the city walls – sitting up and gazing out to the west. Years of wind and waves had worn its front claws smooth, leaving only vague shapes to show the sculptor’s intent, but its head with its alert stare, fierce hooked beak and pointed ears could have been carved yesterday and the detailing of the feathers on its half-folded wings was still clear even from a casual glance. A few of its flesh-and-blood cousins perched atop its head and on ledges at its shoulders and haunches, but far more had staked out little campsites along the sand below.

There was no shortage of humans as Inkfoot had said, but if the gryphons did not truly outnumber them, the numbers were as close to equal as Asta had ever seen; hundreds of gryphons had set up colourful blankets and sunshades all along the beach, lounging on the warm sand, while others queued at food stalls just below the dunes where scents of cooking meat billowed up from fire pits dug into the sand. Still more gryphons circled above, soaring effortlessly as they caught rising thermals beneath their wings. A small group was hard at work down the beach attempting to erect two thin poles almost as tall as the huge sculpture, perhaps markers for a game of some sort. Snatches of music and voices raised in song – enthusiastic if not always tuneful – drifted on the air. And yet, for all the bustle of the festival, the beach was big enough that it did not feel crowded, and when Asta rode down from the dune she easily found a free space for herself and Pardus beside one of the statue’s hind feet. She climbed down from the saddle, laid her travel rug out on the sand, and had Pardus lie down for a backrest before she unpacked her picnic from the saddlebags. There was no one she recognised in sight – or at least, no one she dared to approach unasked – so instead she sat back against Pardus’s flank to drink her tea and watch the goings-on.

A few of the airborne gryphons had stopped their lazy circling and, while the others drew back to fly in a vast ring around them, launched into some kind of aerial performance, twisting into loops and rolls and locking talons to fling one another across the sky. Some had clipped brightly-patterned streamers to their feathers while others trailed strings of polished metal discs from their legs and their tails, turning the whole display into a riot of colour and light to shrieks of approval from the audience. A band struck up on a stage below – two gryphons with a harp and a set of drums, and three humans with flute, guitar and fiddle – but it wasn’t clear if they were setting a beat for the flyers above or just playing along with them. A crowd quickly gathered around the stage to dance along.

Between the cheering, the music and the thunder of wings it was absolutely deafening, and the Asta of two years ago would have been terrified – not just of the general uproar but of the gryphons themselves, of their talons like grappling hooks and their beaks that could shear through bone – but now, after the journey south with Steel, Pirate and their crew and then months of living in Stormhaven and working with Inkfoot and the College messengers, it was no more threatening than any other festival. The gryphons may have been huge carnivores who showed more expression in their feathers than their faces, but they were people as much as any human or elf.

Asta had just finished her first cup of tea when one young man peeled off from the crowd around the stage and trotted over to her, almost tripping over a trio of small, fluffy gryphon chicks who were making a determined effort to bury an older male up to his neck in sand.

“Want to dance?” he asked, holding out one hand with a cheerful grin. Asta glanced up from her mug, and something in her throat and her stomach came to a juddering halt. Fair skin, dark hair, incredibly blue eyes – not Daro, of course not him, that wasn’t fair on this innocent stranger, but-

“That’s very kind of you,” Asta stammered once her voice would obey her. “But I- I think I’m fine where I am for now.”

“Are you sure? You could-”

A shadow fell over both of them. “The lady gave you her answer,” said a new voice, this one a deep, gravelly rasp. The young man swallowed, nodded, and retreated back to his friends on the makeshift dancefloor.

Asta shaded her eyes and squinted up at the gryphon who had just landed on the statue’s foot. “He meant no harm,” he said. “He’s a good lad; son of an old friend from the army. But I like to see a ‘no’ is respected. Mind if I sit?” Asta shook her head and he hopped down onto the sand at Pardus’s tail, clutching a leg of meat in his claws. His feathers were an unassuming dark tawny colour with off-white barring on his wings, and like many gryphons he wore a harness around his chest. However, where most of the harnesses Asta had seen were made of leather and often decorated with carvings and medallions, this one was sternly utilitarian – all tough, heavy canvas dyed a dull grey-green – and its only decoration was an old rank insignia pinned to one shoulder-strap. Even without it and his comment about the army she would have thought him an ex-military sort: he had clearly and literally been in the wars, for half of his tail, one ear and a toe on his left foreclaw were all missing, and various odd ridges and discoloured patches in his feathers suggested more scarring beneath them.

As she watched – surreptitiously, from the corner of her eye – he took a waxed cloth from one of the satchels on his harness, spread it on the sand, and carefully laid the haunch on top before he pinned it in place with his talons and began to tear away strips of meat with the tip of his beak. The outside had been seared brown over one of the fire pits, but the inside was so rare it was almost still bleeding.

“What is that?” asked Asta. “Beef?”

“Horse,” he said with his mouth full, and flicked his head back to tip the flesh down his throat. “Want some?”

“I… Wh… No, I brought my own food. But thank you for offering.”

He gave a little shrug with his wings as if to say your loss and returned his attention to his meal. “Kiraani, are you?” he asked once he had stripped it to the bone. Asta nodded, and he lowered his head to the sand to scrub away the juices crusting on his beak. “Thought so. Last time I was in arm’s reach of one of your lot was during the war.”

“Um.”

He clattered a laugh in the back of his throat. “I won’t hold it against you. Bravest soldier I ever met was an Imperial scout I ran into in the Darkwald. Fought like a tiger, he did – not many humans’ll square up to a full-grown gryphon with just a knife to hand, but he left quite the mark. Would’ve liked to know him better, if we’d met under different circumstances.”

“Is that what happened to, um…” Asta nodded towards his missing toe.

“Ayah. What happened to this, too.” He turned to look at her squarely, and she narrowly stifled her horrified recoil down to a twitch. The same wound that had taken his ear had carved a huge gnarled scar down that side of his face, leaving a deep notch in the bony ridge above the empty eye socket and twisting the corner of his beak into a permanent grimace. He laughed again, waving what remained of his tail from side to side, and lifted a talon to his intact brow ridge in an informal salute. “Flight Captain Redbolt, lately of the Second Assault Wing.”

Asta smiled despite herself. “Asta zeDamar, still working at the College of Sorcery’s admin office.”

“Ah, the College? You’d know Inkfoot, then.”

“Oh, yes, we often work together to sort out one thing or another.”

Redbolt gave a little sigh and looked up at a small, wispy white cloud high above. “Had quite a crush on her when we were both younger, but she was never interested. Wanted to focus on looking after the little wizards.”

“They do take a lot of looking after.”

“Talking of schools,” said Redbolt, “here’s something I’ve wondered for a while. I know how we remember the Darkwald War. How’s it taught in Kiraan?”

“Well, there’s a certain degree of embarrassment there,” admitted Asta. “As if a lot of the people writing textbooks aren’t really sure how the army of a nation as small as Stormhaven faced down the Legions and won.”

“I’m not sure ‘won’ is the right word. Felt more like everyone just got tired and stopped.”

Asta nodded acknowledgement of the point. “But otherwise it’s a lot more honest and even-handed than you might expect, both about how it started and ended and everything in between. The main focus from a tactical standpoint tends to be on the wizards and the gryphons – though you can tell in some of the older books that they hadn’t quite wrapped their heads around you being people rather than just well-trained animals.”

“In the end, are we not all just well-trained animals?” said Redbolt with such exaggerated soulfulness that Asta snorted with laughter. “You know, the books – ours and yours – always gloss over how boring it was most of the time. Lots of long stretches of just sitting around waiting for something to happen, with the odd quick burst of-” he paused for an instant, glanced at her, and obviously changed what he had been about to say, “-heart-stopping terror.”

“The Voynazhi priesthood don’t really like to focus on that part for some reason,” said Asta drily.

Redbolt chuckled. “Me, I always wonder how many priests of Voynazh have actually seen battle.”

“And how many would find another vocation if they did.” Asta looked down at her hands for a moment and asked, more quietly and with some hesitation, “Have you ever met a berserker?”

“One or two over the years. One or two.” Redbolt opened his beak in a gaping yawn and scratched under his jaw with a talon. “Deadly fighters, but they don’t make good soldiers. Don’t work well in a team; can’t hold a formation. What makes you ask?”

“I… used to be a slave,” said Asta. Redbolt cocked his head slightly but offered no comment. “Up in the Sea Lochs. I escaped, but before I made it down to Stormhaven I… I lived with this woman for a few weeks. Roan.” Absently, Asta brushed her fingers against her lips. “She lived alone, a long way out on the coast miles from anywhere. And she was a berserker. I suppose I wondered… I’m not sure. If berserkers were usually loners like that, or if that was just how she was.”

“Didn’t spend enough time with them to know,” said Redbolt. “Yours, well… Clearly not so much a loner that she wouldn’t let you stay with her.”

“No, I suppose not.” Asta fell silent and gazed out at the horizon. “I hope she’s all right by herself up there.”

Redbolt looked from Asta to the sea and back again, quietly scraping his talons through the sand, then got to his feet and stretched out his wings to their full extent, his feathers reaching thirty feet from end to end. Despite his buzzardish markings, his wing conformation was more eagle than hawk – long, broad, and almost rectangular – and he was the biggest gryphon Asta had met so far, taller than Inkfoot and more heavily built. “Tell you what,” he said. “They’ll be starting the ring toss in a few minutes. I can give you a lift up there if you want a better view.” He pointed up to the statue’s head high above them.

“Ring toss?”

He laughed. “Not the kind you’d see at a funfair.” Asta bit her lip, looking with some apprehension at the statue towering above. Redbolt cocked his head, lifting his crest a little, and went on more soberly. “By the sun’s egg and the sky’s breath,” he said, “you are safe with me.”

Asta had spent enough time with Inkfoot to know how serious an oath that was to a gryphon. Some did follow human religions – she had once seen one making an offering at a shrine to Kura – but most kept to their own nameless sky-gods. She nodded, stowed what was left of her picnic back in the saddlebags, and stood up.

“Ever flown before? Nah? I’ll give you the – ah – crash course now, then.” He took a belt made from the same canvas as his harness from one of his satchels and passed it over. “First, you can’t sit up like you can on a horse or a construct, or even a gryphon walking; the balance and the wind resistance’ll be all off. So…” He bent his forelegs and nodded for her to climb onto his back. “You’ll want to get your knees on the back of my wing joints first, just where they meet my shoulders – gods, do you have bird bones yourself? You hardly weigh a thing – and belt yourself to that back strap, then lie flat on your belly and put your arms forward over my wings. You see those loops on the harness collar? Put your wrists through them and hold on where they join the main strap, like you’d hold one of those handles that stop you falling over on a tram. There you go.”

“You’ve done this before?” asked Asta.

He nodded and walked away from the statue. “Every military gryph big enough to carry a human gets the training. Never know when you’ll need to pull one of your mates out of a sticky situation. Ready?”

“I think so.”

Redbolt rocked back onto his hind legs and leapt into the air with one massive downward stroke of his wings. Asta’s knuckles turned pure white, but the straps held; within seconds, they were soaring in a wide circle above the sea faster than Pardus could run. Asta looked down over Redbolt’s shoulder, watching his shadow skim over the waves. The sun-warmed water was a beautiful clear turquoise over the white sand beneath; more than a few festival-goers were taking a swim and throwing a ball around. As Asta watched, one of the gryphons flying above folded their wings and dropped in a breakneck stoop right into the water with an enormous splash, only to resurface to enthusiastic cheers with a silver fish clutched in their talons.

Another, lazier beat of Redbolt’s wings carried them higher, before his outstretched feathers found a thermal that bore them upwards until they were above the statue’s head. Asta lifted her own to catch the wind on her face.

“Make some room down there!” roared Redbolt. Half a dozen gryphons looked up from their perches around the statue’s ears and promptly scattered, leaving Redbolt free to glide in for a landing. He flared out his wings and the fan of feathers at the base of his tail to slow himself, lowered his hind claws to the carved stone, and dropped to all fours. “There we go,” he said as the other gryphons reclaimed their space. Asta unbuckled the safety belt, slid down from his back, and peered over the edge of the statue’s head. Pardus still lay on the sand where she had left it, some fifty feet below. “I’ll say this for you,” said Redbolt, hooking a precautionary talon into the half-belt at the back of her coat. “You’ve no fear of heights. Last rider I carried screamed his head off the whole time.”

“No, I’d say heights are one of the few things that don’t scare me,” said Asta, sitting down cross-legged at the edge.

“Evidently,” said one of the other gryphons, this one a younger female with grey-and-white plumage and long pointed wings. “When was the last time you gave a human a ride?”

Redbolt shrugged. “Four, five years ago? I’ve kept up with the weight training in the meantime, though. Oh – Asta, this is my niece Gull. Gull, Asta. Thought she’d get a better view of the ring toss from up here.”

“Ooh, yeah, you get the best view of the game from up here!” said Gull, her tail-tip drumming on the stone behind her. “Tunnel Fifteen’s put together a really strong team this year, but I was just talking to Stoat here and he thinks the Windstone Wing are the ones to watch.”

“They’ve got a very good defence this year,” said Stoat, whose feathers did indeed give him a resemblance to the animal: mostly a reddish-brown, but with a white bib down the front of his neck and a black tail-tuft. “But it’s true, Tunnel Fifteen has some very quick players. Slate is one of the best flyers out there; the Wing’ll have to account for her if they end up against the Fifteens in the tournament. Who do you think’s in with the best chance?” he asked Asta.

This was met with a blank stare.

“You don’t… actually know how it works, do you?” said Gull. “Oh, well, it’s pretty simple. Each team has five players; they have to try and get the ring onto their team’s goalpost, but they have to throw it; if anyone’s touching the ring when it goes over the post, the point doesn’t count. A game lasts either an hour or seven rings’ worth of play, whichever’s shorter. If there’s a draw after an hour, they have a tiebreaker round.”

“And no biting or clawing the other team,” added Stoat. “You draw blood, you’re out of the game.”

“It’s not as interesting since they added that rule,” said Redbolt, his tone so bland that Asta couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Gull cuffed him on the back of his head with one wingtip as the first two teams took flight above the game field, marked out from each other by different colours on their harnesses. Another gryphon with a blue-and-white harness – presumably a referee – flew overhead and dropped a foot-wide wooden ring from their talons, and both teams launched into play.

Asta had very little idea what was going on despite the running commentary Gull and Stoat provided for her, but it was surprisingly engrossing nonetheless. Ring toss, it turned out, was a fast-paced game of skill and agility where the airborne players flung the ring to their teammates or intercepted it from their opponents so quickly that it was difficult to keep track of where it was until it landed on the goalpost and slid down to a hook a couple of feet below the top. None of the games lasted the full allotted hour, and a few of the more uneven ones barely went a minute between the referee dropping the ring and a point being scored.

The tournament final had just started – as it turned out, neither Tunnel Fifteen nor the Windstone Wing had made it there – in the late afternoon when Stoat pricked up his ears. “Asta, you said your name was?”

“Yes?”

“Someone’s yelling for you.”

Asta leant forwards over the edge of the statue – Redbolt held on to her coat again – to see Fayn, Wygar, Inkfoot and a handful of blue-clad apprentices from the College gathered around Pardus and looking in all directions except up. Fayn cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted again, then shrugged and said something to Wygar that Asta couldn’t make out.

“Up here!” called Asta, waving one arm. They looked up at that; Inkfoot half-spread her wings, but folded them again at some comment from Fayn. Wygar nodded, stepped back, took a quick run-up, and clambered up the side of the statue as quick as a squirrel. He had abandoned his usual long blue coat in favour of a sleeveless shirt, baring his wiry, well-toned arms and the flowing blue tattoos on his shoulders. A couple of the apprentices giggled and nudged each other at the sight.

“I hope you’re wearing plenty of sun cream,” was Asta’s only response when he reached the top.

“Thought you were afraid of heights?” said Redbolt, his tail twitching.

“Yes, Fayn and I are both well-protected,” Wygar assured her. “And I’m afraid of flying,” he added to Redbolt. “I like heights just fine. You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Redbolt shook his head to muffled laughter from the other gryphons. Wygar turned back to Asta. “Fayn and Inkfoot spotted your construct down there and were worried when they couldn’t see you anywhere.”

“Oh. Well, it’s very kind of them to be concerned, but I’m quite all right. Redbolt here carried me up so I’d have a better view of the ring toss.”

Redbolt rubbed the back of one talon against the scar on his face. “Thought she looked like she needed cheering up,” he mumbled.

“Inkfoot was right,” said Wygar, grinning. “You are an old softy.”

“Oh-ho-ho, you want to have that conversation again, boyo?”

“…You two clearly have some history together,” said Asta as Gull, Stoat and the rest of the gryphons quietly backed away.

“All journeyman warmages are put through a course of gryphon-riding practice,” said Wygar in an extremely neutral voice.

“You make it sound like some horrible torture,” said Redbolt. “‘Warmage’.”

“The good Flight Captain here is of the opinion that no mage who hasn’t actually been to war should be permitted call themself that,” said Wygar.

“I can see where he’s coming from,” said Asta slowly.

“Thank you!” said Redbolt.

“But if Stormhaven hasn’t seen an actual war in twenty years, surely there can’t be that many people in active service today who do fit that criteria.”

“Which is my point,” said Wygar. “But the way he goes on, you’d think I’d never even been in a playground fight!”

“Reckon you’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, lads,” Gull interrupted. “Look, the ref’s just dropping the last ring now.”

The referee hovered above the pitch at the exact midpoint between the two goalposts and released the ring from their talons. Immediately both teams lunged into action. One big pale-feathered gryphon with crest-feathers long enough to mark him as male even from that distance grabbed the ring in his beak and hurled it halfway across the pitch with a flick of his head. One of his teammates stretched out their talons to catch it, but before it even reached them a smaller, quicker player from the other team intercepted it and threw it in a high arc to one of their own teammates, who batted it further up with their tail. One player with pointed falcon-like wings, hovering above the fray like a kestrel, hooked their talons through the ring and beat their wings, flying for the goalpost, but the pale gryphon half-folded his wings and barged into them with his shoulder.

“Is that allowed?” asked Asta as the crowd gasped.

“Didn’t draw blood,” said Redbolt with a shrug.

The ring fell, but the pale gryphon’s teammate reclaimed it before it hit the ground and threw it to a player circling above the other goalpost. They caught it in their beak, passed it into their talons, and dropped it. The ring fell neatly over the post, the referee rang a bell to signal the end of the match, and the air exploded with gryphons cheering themselves hoarse.

“What was that team calling itself again?” asked Wygar over the uproar.

“They’re the Crag Shadows,” said Gull. “New team, they’ve never entered the Feather Fest tournament before, nobody thought they’d get this far – but look at them!”

The captain of the losing team touched beaks with the leader of the Crag Shadows – Asta presumed that was the equivalent of shaking hands – and led their team off the pitch as the victors lined up between the goalposts and looked up at the sky. Asta hadn’t noticed in the excitement, but everyone who had been flying overhead had landed, leaving just one imposing figure in the air.

Lady Starfeather, the chieftain of all the gryphons of Stormhaven, glided above the crowd and landed neatly on the pitch, settling on her haunches. The white tips on her otherwise jet-black feathers seemed to glitter in the sun, which had not yet begun turning red but was well past its zenith. The Crag Shadows bowed low, their beaks almost scraping the sand, before their captain straightened up and accepted the trophy – just a ring painted gold – from Starfeather’s talons. They touched beaks for the briefest of moments before Starfeather drew back and the team captain reared back on their hind legs, holding the ring above their head in both front claws.

The cheers that followed almost totally drowned out the sound of another gryphon landing on the statue’s head. “You all need to clear the summit,” she announced. Like Redbolt, she wore a tough canvas harness, but it was dyed a vivid shade of red with a strip of gold braid down one side of her collar and she wore a sort of ornamental diadem-helmet, its bands of polished steel framing her face. The brass chestpiece of her harness, almost big enough to count as a breastplate, was engraved with a five-pointed star framed by raised wings.

Redbolt stood up. “Time for the fledgling parade?” he asked. The newcomer nodded. “All right. Well, you all heard the Wing Guard – clear off, the lot of you!” Gull, Stoat and their friends took flight, leaving only Redbolt, Asta and Wygar on the statue’s head.

“Need a lift back down?” asked Redbolt wickedly. Wygar just scowled at him, nodded to Asta, and clambered down the side of the statue. “Ah, he knows I don’t really mean anything by it,” Redbolt added when he caught the disapproving look on Asta’s face.

“Does he, though?”

“Well… Hm. Hop back aboard and I’ll take you back to the ground, eh? Truth be told,” he added as they glided down from the statue, “if it came to a real fight between him and me, unless I caught him off-guard, I’d be ash. No illusions there.”

“Who, Wygar?” They reached the ground not far from where they had first taken off; Asta unbelted herself from Redbolt’s harness and dismounted. “I know he’s technically a warmage, but I see him around the College a lot; he’s really more of one of those harmless, slightly scatterbrained academic types.”

“Oh, really? Ask that harmless academic about his body count some time.”

“…You can’t be serious.”

“I watched his Master’s exam,” said Redbolt. “He turned a bladehound into a puddle of molten steel.”

“Wait, really? But those are-” Asta ran one hand back through her hair, attempting to reconcile that image with Wygar currently standing stoically as Inkfoot attempted to clean a smudge from his face with a handkerchief, much to the undisguised amusement of both Fayn and the apprentices. “That is… an odd idea to think about.” She shook her head as if to chivvy the thought away. “You said something to that guard about a ‘fledgling parade’?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s an old gryphon custom,” said Redbolt as they walked back over to Pardus and the others. Asta unbuckled the saddlebags from Pardus’s harness and dismissed the construct into its summoning stone. “Though ‘parade’ is putting it a bit strongly. Every Feather Fest, all the youngsters who’ve just finished growing their first lot of flight feathers gets presented to her Ladyship up on top of the statue.”

“It’s not mandatory,” said Inkfoot, tucking her handkerchief into one of her bags. “But a lot of families like to mark the occasion in some way – your first flight under your own power is a big milestone.”

Lady Starfeather took off from the game pitch and flew up to the statue’s head where she landed on top of the beak, in easy view of everyone watching from the beach below. Young fledgling gryphons – not much bigger than the chicks, but with proper structure to their wing feathers and the beginnings of their adult markings instead of fluffy grey down – fluttered up out of the crowd towards her. Each one was accompanied by an adult, perhaps a parent or an older sibling. Complete silence fell on the beach, even among the humans, as one by one the adults escorted the fledglings up to sit in front of their chieftain for a moment. With each one, Starfeather lowered her head to inspect them, made some statement that none of the watchers below could hear, and lightly touched her beak to theirs before they and their escort glided back down. A hint of orange had come into the sun by the end.

“I remember my presentation, years and years ago,” said Inkfoot once the last fledgling was back on the sand. Starfeather remained on the statue’s beak, lying down with her front claws folded over each other. “That wasn’t with Starfeather, of course – her uncle Lord Eclipse was in charge back then.”

Redbolt chuckled. “I remember old Eclipse! Now, there was a gryph with a sense of humour.”

“Wait,” said Wygar, rubbing the back of one hand against his face. “Lord Eclipse died in – Inkfoot, how old are you?”

“Ninety-seven,” said Inkfoot brightly.

“Have you told me that before?” said Fayn, wide-eyed. “I don’t think I knew that.”

“Neither did I, and you practically raised me from age twelve!” said Wygar.

“That’s a slight exaggeration,” said Inkfoot. “You did go back to your parents’ house every weekend.”

“Hundred and three over here,” put in Redbolt.

“…Huh.” Asta ran one hand through her hair. “You do give off a certain aura of ‘old soldier’,” she said to Redbolt, whose crest lifted slightly. “But I had no idea you were that old!”

“Well, you haven’t known me very long,” said Redbolt, waving his tail. “Should have another fiftyish in me, all going well.”

“Fayn, you’ve been in Stormhaven longer than I have,” said Asta. “Did you know gryphons could live to be that old?” Fayn shook her head.

“I knew that they could,” said Wygar. “I just didn’t know Inkfoot, specifically, was that old!”

Inkfoot just shrugged.

“If it makes you feel any less out of place,” said Fayn quietly as her husband quizzed Inkfoot for further details on the ages of the various gryphons he knew, “this is my first time at the festival too. Wygar talked me into it – I’m not fond of crowds, but I get on well with Inkfoot.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” asked Asta.

Fayn laughed, nodding. “She’s a likeable person. Besides, Wygar’s actually got more of a role to play this year than just attending.” She cleared her throat and stood forwards, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the bonfires?” she asked.

Wygar swore, prompting a chorus of “Ooooooh!” from the apprentices, and ran off.

“He’s quite a fast runner,” commented Asta.

“He is, isn’t he?” said Fayn with a fond smile as Inkfoot led the apprentices off to one of the food stalls. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t really have speeds between ‘stroll’ and ‘sprint’.”

“What was that about bonfires?” said Asta.

“That’s a human thing,” said Redbolt. “Before the first humans came to our land, we gryphons didn’t make much use of fire. But they have their own traditions for this time of year, so a bit got added into the festival. They light those big ones you can see along the beach at sunset,” now that he pointed them out, Asta could indeed see the wood and brush piled in heaps along the tideline, “and the littler ones in between. Folk line up to jump over the small ones for some reason.”

“Oh, Beltane!” said Asta. “Yes, I’ve read about that. It’s sort of a fertility-luck ritual thing. The fire-jumping, that is.”

“How is jumping over a fire going to help with fertility?” asked Redbolt.

“That’s… a good question,” said Fayn, frowning.

“I’m sure there’s some reasoning behind it,” said Asta. “It’s not really a Kiraani tradition – I’ll have to read up on it.”

People returned to their little camps along the beach, chatting amongst themselves, until finally the sun touched the horizon and Lady Starfeather got back to her feet, flanked by the Wing Guards in their red-and-gold uniforms. She spread her wings, took a deep breath, and roared out over the sea. The roar of a gryphon was a higher, shriller sound than that of a lion, but still deeper and more resonant than the cry of a hawk and far more impressive than the chirping of an eagle. Standing at the edge of the water, Wygar stretched up one arm at her call and clicked his fingers. A brilliant spark flared around his upraised hand and every one of the bonfires erupted with flame, instantly burning as hot and as bright as if they had already had hours to build up.

“He didn’t really need to do that,” said Fayn, clicking her own fingers. “That was just for show. He could’ve woken those fires with a thought.” Her voice was exasperated, but there was no disguising the pride in her smile.

“See what I meant?” said Redbolt to Asta, quietly enough that Fayn wouldn’t overhear. “Ash.” Asta nodded.

Wygar ran back over to them, and had just been dissuaded from explaining the precise technique he had used when Starfeather raised her wings for silence again and, once she had it, began to sing.

After more than a year in Stormhaven, Asta had heard many different sounds a gryphon’s voice could produce. She had heard them speak, roar, laugh and screech. She had never heard them sing. Starfeather’s voice was nothing like the high piping of birdsong; like her roar, it was a more resonant sound that reminded Asta curiously of drumming. Other gryphons took up the song, even Redbolt; humans, their voices incapable of the Gryphic words, had to settle for humming the melody. Soon it felt like almost everyone on the beach had joined in. Wygar had closed his eyes to listen; Fayn leant against his side and held his hand tightly.

Asta sat down on the sand, folding her arms around her shins as she listened. The lyrics meant nothing to her – she would have to ask someone for a translation – but the tune somehow conveyed a deep sense of renewal and belonging. Life goes on, the gryphons sang. We are a family, and we’re exactly where we’re meant to be.

“Are you all right?” asked Redbolt once the song was over and Wygar and Fayn had gone to join the line of couples waiting to jump the fire.

Asta sat up, blinking. She hadn’t even realised she was crying until she lifted one hand and felt the tear-tracks down her face. A few different explanations came to mind, but somehow the only one that made it past her lips was the truth. “I want to go home,” she said quietly.

“Ah-hm.” Redbolt looked around. “Well… I can give you an escort, if you don’t want to go by yourself in the dark. Or you can maybe tag along with Inkfoot if she hasn’t already taken the apprentices back to the College. Where’s home?”

Asta thought. Her flat near Stormhaven’s northern wall didn’t even register; instead her mind went to the house where she had grown up back in Kiraan, then considered Lady MacArra’s fine manor overlooking the water in Duncraig, and finally settled on an old stone tower by the sea, where hens pecked through a little vegetable garden in the shelter of an outer wall and water horses rested on the rocks after dark. “A very long way from here,” she said, watching the fires.

“Ah. That kind of home.” Redbolt sighed and lay down on his front beside her. He laid Pardus’s saddlebags across his shoulders and took out Asta’s tea flask. It had held its temperature throughout the day and the tea was still hot. He handed it to Asta; she unscrewed the cap and poured herself a cup. “Tell me a bit more about your berserker.”

Asta sipped her tea. “She’s… Have you seen the portrait the museum has of Lady Meredith?” Redbolt nodded. “It reminds me of her. She’s tall, very tall, with long red hair she usually keeps in a braid and fair skin with hundreds of little freckles. Lots of tattoos on her face and her arms, and maybe more under her clothes.” She smiled. “And strong, too. Very nice arms. I expect she could pick me up like a kitten if the mood took her, but she was always gentle with me while I was staying with her. Her eyes are… Do you know Captain Steel, from the Curlew? They’re grey like hers, like… well, like steel. Piercing, is the word. Like they see right to the heart of you.

“She’s not always talkative – there’s a shyness there – but she always answered whatever questions I had and if I needed to talk, she listened. Really listened, not just sat in the same room while I spoke. I don’t think I’ve known anyone who listened to me like she did.” Asta took another sip. “The man I escaped from recaptured me after a month in her home and tried to take me back to his family’s castle near Duncraig.” Redbolt’s wings came up in a protective stance Asta recognised from Steel, though he didn’t seem aware he had reacted. “She killed him and his guards and put me on the next ship south – Curlew – to here, where I’d cross the border to freedom and be well out of reach if his family came looking for revenge. That – fighting the guards – was the only time I ever saw her go berserk. Maybe it should have scared me, but…”

“But you felt safe with her,” finished Redbolt.

Asta nodded. “I thought a lot about it on the journey south, and after I’d got settled here. Whether what I felt for her was real or if I’d just fixated on the first person to show me some kindness after… after a very trying period in my life.”

“And?”

“And… a lot of people have been kind to me since I got to Stormhaven. Surely those feelings would have faded by now if that was all there was to it.” She sighed and wrapped both hands more snugly around her cup. “What about you? Any romance in your life?”

“Nah, not for a long time.” Redbolt stretched out his front claws, curling his tail as far around one hind leg as it could go. “Even among gryphons, the ladies prefer a fellow with both eyes and all his toes.”

“Well, you’ve been very gallant with me today. I’m sure any lady would be lucky to have you.”

“Ah, well.” Redbolt scratched his remaining ear. “You looked like you could use an outrider for the day.”

“It was very kind of you.”

Redbolt folded his wings again. “I flew north once, a long, long time ago,” he said, watching the silhouettes around the fires. “Followed the coast all the way up to the great ice. Kept away from humans mostly – they’re not so used to us up there, or at least they weren’t back then – but I ran into the odd hunting party or trade caravan in the Sea Lochs, up in the hills or out on the water. Seemed a nice place to live – peaceful, even in the towns.” He sighed. “I’m no seer to go telling the future, but… I have a feeling you’ll find your way back one day.”

“I certainly hope so. I’m just… Not entirely sure when.”

“Give it time, and keep your eyes open,” advised Redbolt. “You never know when you’ll get your chance.”

Asta finished her tea and packed the flask back in the saddlebag. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything you’ve done today.”

Redbolt nodded. “Do you want an escort back to wherever you’re staying?” he asked. “A lot of folk just sleep on the beach – Wygar and Fayn would probably let you share their camp if you want to stay until morning.”

“I’m sure they would,” said Asta, “but I wouldn’t like to impose. I think I’d rather go back to my flat, if you really wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s no trouble.” Redbolt stood, stretched, and looked back at his wings. “Though I don’t think I have it in me to fly you all the way there. You ride your construct and I’ll follow.”

The road back to the city was well-lit with lampposts every fifty feet, but it was still reassuring to have Redbolt prowling alongside Pardus while Asta rode at a walk or soaring above when she spurred the construct into a run. The sky was fully dark by the time Asta reined Pardus in outside 103 North Wall Street and climbed down from the saddle.

“Where do you stay, out of interest?” she asked as she removed the saddlebags and dismissed Pardus.

“Got a nice cosy eyrie up in Gryphonroost,” said Redbolt, flicking his beak in the general direction of the gryphons’ traditional home beneath the Crag. “Reward for my long service – don’t you worry about me.” He gave another little salute, tapping one talon against his scar. “Could show you around some time, if you haven’t been up to the tunnels yet.”

Asta smiled, lifting the saddlebags onto one shoulder. “I’d like that, actually. Maybe next Starsday?”

“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at the west ramp around noon?”

“I’ll see you there.”

“Sleep well, then.” With a last nod, he took flight and vanished into the dark. Asta let herself into the stairwell and climbed to her flat on the third floor. All things considered, it had been a rather interesting day.

---

Asta gets on rather well with gryphons - once she’s used to them she finds them less intimidating than other humans - and in return they’re quite protective of her. Gryphons in general have a tendency to go ‘is anyone gonna adopt that’ and then not wait for an answer, even if the object of their interest is a grown adult in their late twenties. Redbolt made a passing comment once about how easy it had been to fly carrying her (she’s 5′5″, a fairly average height for a woman, but she is quite slim; Roan could indeed pick her up like a kitten) and the others got very concerned she wasn’t eating enough and started offering her snacks.

Further gryphon trivia:

The corners of a gryphon’s beak can curve up enough to mimic a human-style smile, but it isn’t a natural expression for them. They generally only do it if they’re trying to put a human at ease (or freak them out, whichever). A natural ‘smile’ for a gryphon is lightly flicking the tip of their tail from side to side, while waving their entire tail from side to side is a more effusive ‘grin’. Redbolt missing half of his tail means that other gryphons sometimes view him as much more stern than he really is.

Leadership among the gryphons is hereditary up to a point. That point is when the others decide that the current chief isn’t doing a good enough job and they elect someone new. Lady Starfeather’s family line have been in charge since her grandmother (Eclipse’s mother).

Although gryphons are longer-lived than humans - a hundred and fifty years is a fairly average lifespan - they mature more quickly; a ten-year-old gryphon is physically and emotionally an adult, roughly equivalent to a twenty-year-old human.

Redbolt was originally called Goshawk from his wing markings. ‘Redbolt’ is essentially a nom de guerre that people started using consistently enough that it just became his nom de paix as well. Lord Eclipse was named such not for any markings but because he was such a huge gryphon that people used to joke he blocked out the sun whenever he took flight.

#az writes stories

3 notes · View notes

desiraypark · 4 years

Text

Drawing the Line (Pt. II)

PART I Characters: Kylo Ren x Tiffany Palmer (OC, Blk/F) Setting: Modern/Current Universe - comparable to an urban area in present-day U.S.A. Content: Infidelity; a little pushiness? Lust/lust-driven relationship; quick smut near the end. | The Ren House Word Count: 1,810

AUTUMN 2014

“We haven’t changed the colors or done much repainting, and I have no intention of doing so. I love the house as it is. But as for the furniture, in here, I want something fancy and vintage, but not super ornate. None of that Jetsons, space age shit. I’m talking Gibson girl era. No...flapper era...”

“Art deco,” Kylo chimed in.

Chelsea Ren whirled around and glanced at her tattooed husband. He shrugged at her. He was leaning against the pillar of the entryway, watching Chelsea and the interior decorator observe the living room. Well, he was watching the interior decorator. Tiffany Palmer.

As soon as stepped into the house, he soaked every inch of her in--her painted face, the curly ponytail down her back. She wore a sweater dress that clung to every curve of her body. And every time she walked by, he quietly breathed in her scent--floral, with a hint of fruit.

“That actually sounds perfect, Mrs. Ren,” she said. She looked up at the ceiling, then back down at the floor. “Intricate, unique lines, but plenty of pieces with solid colors.

Chelsea nodded. “I’m going to be honest with you Ms. Palmer, I have no clue what the fuck art decor is.”

“Art deco,” Kylo corrected.

“Honey, why don’t you go look around at the rest of the house. See what other ideas you can come up with?” Chelsea said.

“Why the fuck am I here if you don’t want my opinion?” Kylo asked.

Tiffany swallowed and unwittingly began backing into the corner of the living room.

“I want your opinion. But only when I ask for it,” she said.

“Fuck you,” Kylo said with a scoff. He walked out of the kitchen and completely out of the house. Chelsea smiled at Tiffany, whose eyebrows were raised. Then, she rubbed her full belly.

“The only thing he’s done is spit a fucking teaspoon of semen in my cunt and been a complete dick about it. Now he wants to be involved in things,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Tiffany walked back to Chelsea’s side. “Maybe he’s trying to do better, Mrs. Ren. Art deco living room, arts and craft style dining area. He has some good ideas.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Chelsea said.

____________________

DECEMBER 2014

“Good morning, Ms. Palmer!”

“Good morning, Grace!”

“These flowers are for you!” Grace, the receptionist said. She held up a large bouquet of red and white roses that had sprigs of holly sticking out.

“Oh, this is gorgeous,” Tiffany said.

“Isn’t it?” Grace asked. “You must have made them super happy.” “I hope so,” Tiffany said, smiling. She grabbed the bouquet, winked at Grace, and went into her office with it.

Tiffany got gifts from clients all of the time--bottles of wine, flowers, chocolates, etc. She put the bouquet on her credenza and grabbed the envelope. “K. Ren” it said on the front. An eyebrow quirked--the Rens had already sent her a box of gourmet chocolates and a Christmas card for decorating their living room, dining room, and entertainment space. She sat in her chair and opened the card to beautiful cursive handwriting.

“Gifting beautiful flowers to a beautiful, gracious, and understanding woman. Thank you for listening to me. Have a happy holiday.”

Tiffany had caught Mr. Ren’s glances and stares whenever she met with him and Mrs. Ren. It also didn’t take her long to realize what kind of clients she was working for--two spoiled people who somehow wound up in a relationship. Both control freaks who didn’t like hearing the word “no”. Her bratty, him hot-headed. But of course, she leaned more towards Mrs. Ren’s side. Even if she was bitchy, no amount of bitchiness justified looking your interior decorator up and down every chance you got...

...and even if Tiffany did go home and finger herself, imagining Mr. Ren on top of her, it still didn’t justify his flirty glances.

And it certainly didn’t justify these flowers.

Tiffany tossed the card in one of her desk drawers and started on some paperwork. Just as she was about to head out and grab lunch, her phone rang. She sighed but answered it anyway--praying the conversation wouldn’t be a long one.

“Cannon Street Design Firm, this is Tiffany Palmer speaking,” she said.

“Ms. Palmer, this is Kylo Ren,” a baritone voice said on the other end. The sound made her shudder a bit.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Ren,” Tiffany responded. “I received your flowers, thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Palmer. I meant every word that I said in that card. Thank you for listening to my ideas. You executed everything beautifully…”

Tiffany looked at the time on her computer. “I appreciate it, Mr. Ren. I’m glad you and Mrs. Ren like the results.”

“You can call me Kylo, Ms. Palmer,” he said.

“You know what, Mr. Ren, I actually can’t,” she said, voice firm. “I don’t know what’s happening right now but it’s very inappropriate. And I have a mind to call your wife right now and ask her if she knows about this extra gift.”

She heard a deep, short chuckle on the other end. “I wouldn’t give a fuck, Ms. Palmer.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Tiffany said. She hung up the phone and rose again to head out for lunch, but stopped when she got to the door. Instead of walking through, she closed and locked it and sat back down at her desk. Then, she lifted her skirt, opened her legs, pulled her panties to the side, and licked the pads of her fingers...

____________________

TWO YEARS LATER

“...but anyway, thank you all so much for another year of great service and for providing our clients with great experiences.”

Adelle raised her glass of champagne, and the staff of Cannon Street Design did the same. They clinked their glasses together and sipped the beverage down, and right on cue, servers came through with their holiday meal.

“I’ll be right back,” Tiffany said, getting up from the table. As she made her way to the restroom, she noticed a familiar figure face sitting at the bar. Mr. Ren--with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Tiffany scoffed, shook her head, and went into the ladies’ restroom. When she came out, Kylo was standing in the short hallway where the restrooms were tucked away.

He looked...different. A little bulkier than the last time she’d seen him. His hair now stopped just above his shoulders and he had a goatee.

“Good evening, Ms. Palmer,” he said.

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “That’s not your wife out there.”

Kylo looked over his shoulder and back at Tiffany. “It’s not. Chelsea and I are separated.”

I wonder why, Tiffany thought to herself.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Enjoy your evening.”

Tiffany started to walk around Kylo, but he stepped in front of her. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you, Ms. Palmer.”

“Mr. Ren…you knew me for like...a month. If that…”

“And that entire month, I wished I was decorating a home with you and not Chelsea…”

Tiffany stared at him with a dropped jaw. “This is insane, Mr. Ren.” She tried to step around him again, but he blocked her.

“Almost as insane as that time we came by the house and I touched the small of your back...and you had to run to the bathroom to play with your fucking pussy...” he said.

Tiffany’s eyes widened, and she swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Ren...”

Kylo chuckled, “Oh, yes you do.” He stepped closer to her. “I know what a woman looks like after she’s come hard.”

Tiffany looked away and took a deep breath. “Even so, Mr. Ren. We’ve both done some inappropriate things, and should leave them in the past.”

Tiffany finally got around him.

“I’m taking my date home, soon,” he said. Tiffany glanced over her shoulder.

“And?”

“I’m staying at the Alderaan Hotel. Room 610. I’d like to be in the presence of a real woman tonight.”

Tiffany scoffed, rolled her eyes, and walked back to the table...

...her clit throbbing the whole way.

She ate dinner with her co-workers and was prepared to take the train home. But Kylo’s voice echoed in her brain. His scent was still in her nose. The sight of him--so big and tall--was etched into her brain. She stood outside of the restaurant and ordered a Lyft to take her to the Alderaan Hotel.

____________________

“Fuck…” Kylo and Tiffany said at the same time. He held on to her thighs as he plunged deeper into her--so hot and wet.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he said, leaning down and kissing her on the neck. He found the perfect rhythm that sent Tiffany’s legs around his waist and her hands around his neck. “I’ve wanted you all this time. All this fucking time...”

Tiffany’s nails pressed into his back. He was too thick; felt too painful, felt too good.

“Really, Kylo?” she asked. She bit her lip as he pressed deeper. “Fuck!”

“Yes, really. I’ve thought about you every day. Every fucking night...” he grabbed her breasts and gave her a kiss so passionate that he almost pulled her entire mouth into his.

They licked and sucked and ground into each other for what felt like hours--melding their bodies and intertwining their souls. Tiffany didn’t want to believe that this man had fallen so deeply in love with her in such a short time, but he made love to her like she was his, and he was hers. He said all the right things that she didn’t want to trust, but he held her chin and made her stare into his eyes--forcing her to stare into his sincere soul.

He wanted her, and as wrong as it felt, she wanted him, too. She always did.

All was well for a few weeks. So passionate, so loving, so quick. He took her out to dinner and to all of the high end stores in the city. Suddenly, he became distant. He didn’t answer her calls or her texts for about three days. One morning, he called and asked to meet her for lunch. He told her that him and Chelsea were back together--for Kylo’s family had threatened him with a bad time if he jeopardized their lucrative business with Chelsea’s family.

But the same evening he broke the news, he showed up at her place with gifts. He confessed that no one ever made him feel important--like his opinion was worth taking into consideration. She made him feel like more than just Michael Ren’s big, reckless, raven-haired son--the son that everyone questioned...

In exchange for his material tokens, promises of security, and many orgasm-filled nights, Tiffany gave Kylo Ren her heart, her mind, and her body...

...when he texted her and said that he was available to receive them...

#drawing the line

21 notes · View notes

submissivekillers · 4 years

Note

Please for the love of spooks, I NEED A FLUFF HAROLD (scary stories to tell in the dark) with a farmer reader pls there’s not enough love for him

damn we getting Niche™ tonight!! love that. kinda went for more of a set-up/pre-relationship thing also i have not seen the movie so idk how different that might be?? hope u enjoy tho

You didn’t consider scarecrows particularly frightening.

Perhaps you had at one point, but living in farm country had managed to kill that instinct; it would have been difficult to be afraid of something that popped up every five minutes. You could understand why they scared people, but they no longer bothered you - and if sometimes you might have played on that fear when your more urban friends paid a visit, well. It was all in good fun.

All that being said, when a scarecrow landed on your windshield, you thought your shriek of surprise was justified.

You slammed the brakes, the screech of the ancient mechanism drowning out your flustered cursing, and the limp form rolled off your hood. A couple stalks of straw stubbornly clung to the scraped paint, catching in your wipers. You waited for your heart to resume a (mostly) regular pace, swiping at your sweaty forehead, and then hopped out of the cab to survey the fallen figure.

He was in rough shape - more damage than a little tumble would have caused. Straw poked haphazardly from a gaping hole in his stomach, and the flannel and jeans he wore were torn and stained with something brown and stiff. His sack face was drawn into a twisted frown, topped with mats of stringy hair. There was still a pole bound roughly to his back, but it had snapped in two, the end coming to a jagged point. You hadn’t noticed a shape in the trees as you were driving up… but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Probably some kids had been messing around and stuck him up in the branches, nothing more.

You told yourself that was all as you lay the scarecrow in your flatbed, tucking him amongst the bags of produce you’d traded for at the market, but somehow, you still felt watched.

________________________________________________________________

You had decided his name was Harold, for no other reason than thinking he had a very Harold-esque face, and set him up by the peas you were cultivating in your yard.

You weren’t sure why you’d decided to keep him so close at first; you weren’t the largest farm in the area, but you had plenty of land which could’ve used a scarecrow guard. But the longer he kept you company, the more you found yourself enjoying it - greeting him in the morning turned into keeping up a steady stream of patter as you worked in your yard, and you even had brought him into your home once or twice when the rain came, carefully repairing every wear and tear before settling him in your window to watch the fields.

And, well. Maybe you were a bit lonely. You were one of the younger crop (ha) of farmers in the area, and though you kept in touch with your old friends through social media it didn’t really compare to having someone to talk to - even if that “someone” was just a scarecrow.

And even if, you thought as you tossed and turned in bed, he wasn’t just a scarecrow at all.

It was - crazy. Superstitious. The solitude going to your head. But when you talked to Harold, it didn’t feel like you were talking to an inanimate object, or even like how you talked to your pets; it felt real. Like he was listening, remembering, taking in your words.

When you complained about your fence coming apart, the problem spots had been reinforced when you went to fix it. When you’d fucked up your back and left your carrots unharvested, the next day they were neatly heaped in a pile of straw. When you offhandedly mentioned your favorite flower in a story about an old ex, the next morning you’d found a bunch of them scattered over your doorstep, torn out by the roots.

(A few days later, one of your neighbors had complained about “those damn teenagers tearing up her gardens again,” and you’d had to awkwardly explain away why you choked on your drink before you could make an escape.)

Maybe this should have been your cue to move him out to another field, or just lock him up in the barn and forget about him (if he’d let you, your traitorous brain whispered, and you squeezed your eyes shut until your vision bloomed with fireworks.) But.

He was a good listener, your scarecrow.

You sighed, burying your face in the cool side of your pillow - and then jerked up, heart pounding, when a rock bounced off your window. You lay still, breath caught in your throat, and then relaxed with a groan at the sound of drunken laughter.

Your neighbor was right about one thing: the teens around here sucked.

You rolled your eyes, reluctantly leaving your bed and slipping on a flannel and your boots before you headed out into your yard, settling yourself in front of Harold’s looming figure. You grabbed the baseball bat in your umbrella stand as you left, just in case - you doubted anything would happen, but it never hurt to carry a big stick.

“Okay, fun’s over. Don’t y’all have homework -”

You were cut off by another rock whizzing past your head, close enough to ruffle your hair. You heard the soft crunch of hay as it impacted with Harold. “What the fuck, assholes? You know I probably have all your parents’ numbers?”

“Snitches get stitches,” a girl tittered, voice bubbly with drunken malevolence.

You hefted your bat and smacked it into the palm of your hand. “Try me.”

Behind you, something snapped.

You froze. Somewhere in the depths of the rustling corn, the teens stopped laughing.

You heard a soft, rasping slither, and knew instinctively that the rope binding Harold to his perch had come undone. The bat fell uselessly from your hands, but it was no problem; you could hear the terrified cursing as your night invaders scrambled away, shaking stalks marking their haphazard progress.

You turned on numb legs, already knowing what you’d see but still knocked breathless by the sight of Harold standing tall behind you, glowering in the direction of the distant rumble of a starting car. As the sound faded, he turned to you, and you thought you could see something glimmering in the rough slits of his eyes.

“Harold?”

He nodded. It was more fluid than you would have thought a scarecrow would move, but you could still hear that telltale crackle.

His arm rose slowly, perhaps anticipating your flinch. Gloved fingers dipped into the pocket of his shirt, then extended; offering you a flower, slightly browned at the edges.

You laughed. It was the only thing you could think to do, other than reach out and take it. You had felt his hands before, had stuffed his gloves with hay yourself to reinforce their shape, but they felt different now, more solid. When you made to withdraw, he caught your wrist but made no move to pull you closer, only held you limply enough that you could have wrenched away had you wanted to.

You considered it, and found you didn’t want to at all.

Bending, you retrieved your bat and tucked it under your arm, slipping out of Harold’s grasp only long enough to take his glove in yours. “Do you want to go inside?”

He nodded again, and together you went.

#harold the scarecrow x reader #harold x reader #does he have a dedicated tag??? idk #sfw #anon this request was CUTE i support u in yr love for scarecrow man #let me know if you want to see any more with him!! i hope you like this even tho it got way out of control hjgfdsa

33 notes · View notes

torturedwarrior · 4 years

Text

City Vs. Country!!!

City or country? What is better? Big metropolis or big yard? Culture or nature? Even though but public transportation options fill this void, making owning a car in a big city unnecessary., I like to live in the country because it is more peaceful. because in the country, the brain is less likely to experience this kind of overstimulation. and the further out into the country you get, the more your air quality improves. Public Transportation bring many benefits to individuals, communities, and the local economy, but all too often, they dont get near the amount of attention that they should. Public transportation options fill this void, making owning a car in a big city unnecessary. Whether traveling by taxi, subway (called the EL in Chicago), or bus, you can reach your destination in a city for a reasonable price, without the hassle of searching for a parking spot. Example: reduces air pollution, Increased fuel efficiency, reduced traffic congestion, saves money, increases mobility, frees up time, makes transportation safer, encourages healthier habits. Another example that shows that public transportation options fill this void, making owning a car in a big city unnecessary. Is public transportation contributes to both the economical and physical health of individuals, it brings financial benefits to communities, and it provides not only jobs in the industry itself, but is also a key component of a healthy business ecosystem by increasing mobility options for both job commuters and customers alike. Even though public transportation options fill this void, making owning a car in a big city unnecessary. I like to live in the country because it is more peaceful. because in the country, the brain is less likely to experience this kind of overstimulation. One example is that science shows that living in the country is beneficial for both your physical and your mental health. And while city and suburb living certainly have plenty of their own benefits, theres something about country life that just does the body good. It has cleaner air, less crime, less psychological health, it can be cheaper, exposure to nature and you can have easy access to organic food. Example, Pollution in more heavily populated areas comes not only from a lack of greenery, but also tiny yet harmful particles released into the air from trucks, buses, cars, factories, and other mainstays of urban environments, A lower risk of anxiety disorders and mood disorders. There is also research showing that city living increases schizophrenia risk, likely due to unknown environmental factors that impact developing brains, and As for specific benefits, immersing yourself in a natural environment is good for everything from improving your short term memory to lowering your blood pressure. It might even make you more creative. The most important reason I like to live in the country because it is more peaceful. An example can be You look out your window every morning to see what people from the city drive for hours (and sometimes pay big money) to enjoy. Peace and quiet. Real quiet. Hearing a car – a single car – drive by within a kilometer is a noticeable event. And at night you can lay out and look at all the beautiful stars which also makes it more relaxing. You dont have to worry about neighbors playing their music too loud or cars honking right outside your window. The peace and quiet of country living isnt just about what you cant hear, its also about what you can hear – the rain hitting your roof at night, the birds singing in the morning, and the cows mooing out in the pasture. So, it is clear that although But public transportation options fill this void, making owning a car in a big city unnecessary. I like to live in the country because it is more peaceful. for two main reasons. First, In the country, the brain is less likely to experience this kind of overstimulation. But most importantly, the further out into the country you get, the more your air quality improves. It also means you can crank your music as loud as you want and honk at your livestock if they get in your cars way and Theres nothing better than taking a blanket out and laying it down in the grass on a summer night, so you can lie down and look up at the stars. Work Cited: "Advantages of Living in a Big City | The Clare." Senior Independent Living Community in Chicago | The Clare. 2019. Web. 27 Jul 2019. . Bradley, Jenny. "8 Best Things About Country Living." Country Music, Video, and Entertainment News - One Country. 29 Jun 2015. Web. 27 Jul 2019. . "9 Benefits of Public Transportation." National Paratransit & Transportation Service Company. National Express Transit, 18 Jul 2017. Web. 27 Jul 2019. . "City Life vs Country Life: An Unbiased Analysis - The Professional Hobo." The Professional Hobo - Traveling full-time in a financially sustainable way. 9 Mar 2019. Web. 27 Jul 2019. . Long, Heather and Jessica Reed. "City v country: where's the better place to live? | Head to head | Opinion | The Guardian." News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's US edition | The Guardian. Opinion life and style, 18 Aug 2013. Web. 27 Jul 2019. . Mueller, Laura. "6 Proven Benefits of Country Living | Moving.com." Movers - Local & Long-Distance Moving Services | Moving.com. 18 Sep 2018. Web. 27 Jul 2019. .

#city #country #opinión #writing #essay

1 note · View note

howtohero · 5 years

Text

#206 Rural Superheroes

When most of picture superheroes they picture brooding men and women with capes draped around their shoulders and standing on buildings doing their best gargoyle impressions. Or you see them swinging and slinging around crowded streets using buildings as anchors. Or you see them hunched in a sewer eating pizza with their sewer-gator sidekicks after a long day of fighting crime. You definitely don’t imagine them standing next to a big pile of hay and holding a pitchfork and wearing overalls. (Guys I’m talking a huge pile of hay. Like the kind that looks like it’d be amazing to be dropped out of an airplane onto.) If you’ve never imagined a superhero stopping some disgraced middle school guidance counselor from rewriting reality and then going back home to milk the cows and tend to the corn then you’re just part of the problem. You need to reevaluate your personal biases. That’s right people, you heard it hear first! Superheroes can be countryfolk! And that’s a fact!

For some reason, lots of people think that the only reason any superhero would be in a rural area was if they were like, I don’t know, hiding their secret family on a secret farm. But that’s simply not true! In fact, that’s a terrible idea! Rural areas are not a safer place for your family to be, you know what kind of crimes go down in rural areas? Really weird ones. I’m talking like cow-related crimes. (Once the evil Cowcatcher built a giant cow robot to roam about rural Kansas just mooing really really loudly and scaring the stuffing out of everyone! That was a heck of a Thursday!) That’s just not normal! Don’t set up a secret farm to keep your family safe, just have a normal secret identity like everyone else and your family will be fine.

So if you live in a rural area and have been looking around at all the insane cow-crimes that happen in your neighborhood and felt that you had no choice except to throw your hands up, shake your head, and exclaim “Aw shucks, if only there could be superheroes in rural areas!” Then you’re in luck! There can be superheroes in rural areas! I’m serious, we had our interns check the laws and there’s nothing saying that it can’t be done! (Except for the laws about vigilantism and stuff but they’ve got those laws in the cities too and nobody seems to care!).

If you’re going to be a rural superhero though, you need to know that you’re going to have to operate a little bit differently than an urban crime fighter, but that doesn’t make you any less super! (What makes rural heroes less super is the fact that their are just less toxic-waste corporations in Middleofnowheresville, USA than there are in Heartoftheactionsville, USA.) For starters, you’re going to have an entirely different wardrobe in the country. Instead of grays and blacks you’re going to want to go with beautiful verdant greens and some mud-like gritty browns. If you’re going to be prowling around vast empty fields patrolling for cow-tippers and and goat-suckers, you’re going to want to look like a field. Glue bits of grass onto your costume, tape a live pig to your back, roll around in some manure. If you’re going to protect the farm you need to become the farm.

Living in a rural area also drastically changes the options for both superhero hideouts and supervillain lairs. While urban heroes might find their superhero adventures taking place in corporate offices with mysterious secret floors or abandoned subway tunnels that have become home to an evil rat hive mind, for rural heroes it’s gonna be all barns all the time. Barns make for rather spacious superhero hideouts, there’s plenty of room for any gear or computers you might need for crime stopping and conducting illegal investigations, you can convert any stables into holding cells or trophy cases, and if any civilians wander on by all you need to do is cover everything with a layer of hay and no one will be the wiser! Rural supervillains are also very likely to use barns as their lairs, their’s will just be littered with disemboweled animals and fake cobwebs from the halloween popup store because they have a taste for the creepier things in life. While a barn might not be as glamorous as a time-displaced spaceship or a high-tech cave, they are competent and cost-effective hideouts and are good enough for any countryside-crusader. The only think you have to look out for is Jhonny McBarnburner whose entire thing is burning barns and would probably be more than happy to set a superhero’s barn on fire. That’s like a double-whammy, and such opportunities are rare in Jhonny McBarnburner’s life. Honestly, you should’ve been there when he first discovered that some barns were actually secret superhero hideouts. It was actually kind of adorable. His whole entire face lit up, it was as though he’d finally be validated for his extremely niche modus operandi after all these years. So honestly, I say you capitalize on his newfound enthusiasm for barn burning and frame uninhabited barns for being superhero hideouts. This can be as simple as just putting a sign in the ground that says “superhero hideout” in front of random abandoned barns. That should throw him off your scent for a while.

Getting around rural areas is very different from getting around crowded cities. There’s not a lot of people around so you’re not likely to run into a lot of traffic, but at the same time, populated areas are very far from each other. Even the distance between individual houses is much larger than the distance between any manmade structures in a big city. There are also a lot less superheroes per capita. All of this means you’re going to be responsible for protecting a very large open area. Which means you’re going to need a very specific kind of super-vehicle. You need something that’s fast, something bright so people will see it on poorly lit country roads, something that’s doused in cow-repellant or whatever to keep animals out of your way. It needs to have off-road capabilities, because if there’s a crime being committed in the middle of a farm or on top of a mountain, you don’t want to have to ditch your vehicle and jog to the crime. That’s a great way for crimes to happen. You really should not put so much faith in your jogging abilities. You can’t jog up a mountain, but you can drive an obscene vehicle up one. That’s what makes it obscene. You also might as well drive something fuel efficient, something that runs off of vegetable oil or something, there’s plenty of it around.

Rural superheroes are also often, believe it or not, the first heroes on Earth to encounter alien invaders. Aliens just love alerting mankind to their presence through carving crop-circles and stealing cows. Depending on the species this can be anything from a harmless prank to a signed declaration of war. (Often the cow thing is because to most alien species, cows appear to be the most intelligent species on Earth. I mean, they live in their food, that’s just smart.) So you need to be prepared to single-handedly fight off an invading force at a moment’s notice. So I hope you’ve got some corn-powered laser blasters at your disposal, because you’re gonna need them sooner rather than later.

When it comes to crime fighting partners, you may find yourself in short supply. Heroes like Old MacDonald-Man or Crop-Top describe the loneliness as the most difficult part of rural crime fighting. In big cities you can’t walk more than five feet before bumping into someone who spends their nights wearing spandex and laying the smackdown on evil puzzle enthusiasts or finger-puppeteers. But in the country you’re likely to never run into another superhero in your neighborhood. That’s why you need to take on an animal sidekick. Fortunately, rural communities are a great place to find some domesticated animals that would be down to come fight crimes with you. In order to determine which farm animals would be the best crime fighting partners we actually took a husbandry course. (Ok, you got us, Dr. Brainwave got engaged and we all chipped in and paid for him to go to a husbandry course so he could learn how to be a good husband and the rest of us went for emotional support but it turns out none of knew what husbandry was and we were not in the right place but we learned a lot and had fun and it turned out that Dr. Brainwave’s engagement was fake and part of some villainous scheme to poison the concept of weddings or something so it didn’t matter anyway.) During this course we learned a lot about the breeding of crops and animals and we have scientifically determined that the best possible animal sidekick for a rural superhero is a goat on roller blades. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Are you idiots joking? You guys go on and on and on and on about how roosters are the best animal sidekicks and now you’re going to come at me and say that goats are the best animal sidekick for a rural superhero? Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?” First of all, yeah, everything we say is a joke. This is a comedy blog. And second of all, hey tone back the attitude why don’t you? Gosh you’re being real hostile about this. Roosters are the ideal superhero sidekick for urban or space-faring superheroes. But they’re useless for rural superheroes. Roosters are great for waking you up? Rural-superheroes already wake up with the sun to tend to their crops, don’t need a rooster. Roosters can fly? No crimes are committed in the skyline of a rural community. There is no skyline. Anybody can scramble to the roof of the local post office or pitchfork wholesaler, don’t need a rooster. Roosters can attack your enemies with their sharp beaks and talons? Uh, hello, pitchfork wholesaler? There’s no shortage of sharp farming tools that rural superheroes can use in lieu of a beak or talons, don’t need a rooster. A goat on roller blades on the other hand, can thoroughly mess a criminal up. Imagine all the rage and power of a common goat, but with the speed of roller blades? You rural criminals may as well just pack it in, you’re not getting away with anything with Thunderbolt Cannonberg, goat superhero, on the scene.

Crime is everywhere, even in the idyllic countryside. So don’t be afraid to be the change you’d like to see in your community and start fighting back against the chupacabra or Terrence, the kid who steals pigs. If you follow these tips, and take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the land and sky around you every once in a while, you should have a wonderful and productive career as a sylvan superhero.

2 notes · View notes

grison-in-space · 6 years

Text

more on the horse discourse

( @jasmiinitee, you’ll probably like this.)

This morning I was reading that piece I linked on the ancestors of today’s Shire horses. It’s a mixture of primary sources from the nineteenth century discussing draught horse types and breeding. (It actually doesn’t just cover the Old English Black Horses that became the Shire: it also discusses the ancestors of today’s Clydesdales, Suffolk Punch, Percheron, and Cleveland Bay as well as a few other extinct draught breeds.)

This is a commentary on early Shires from c. 1831.

“The Heavy Black Horse is the last variety it may be necessary to notice. It is bred chiefly in the midland counties from Lincolnshire to Staffordshire. Many are bought up by the Surrey and Berkshire farmers at two years old, - and being worked moderately until they are four, earning their keep all the while, they are then sent to the London market, and sold at a profit of ten or twelve per cent.

It would not answer the breeder's purpose to keep them until they are fit for town-work. He has plenty of fillies and mares on his farm for every purpose that he can require; he therefore sells them to a person nearer the metropolis, by whom they are gradually trained and prepared. The traveller has probably wondered to see four of these enormous animals in a line before a plough, on no very heavy soil, and where two lighter horses would have been quite sufficient. The farmer is training them for their future destiny; and he does right in not requiring the exertion of all their strength, for their bones are not yet perfectly formed, nor their joints knit; and were he to urge them too severely, he would probably injure and deform them. By the gentle and constant exercise of the plough, he is preparing them for that continued and equable pull at the collar, which is afterwards so necessary. These horses are adapted more for parade and shew, and to gratify the ambition which one brewer has to outvie his neighbour, than for any peculiar utility. They are certainly noble-looking animals, with their round fat carcases, and their sleek coats, and the evident pride which they take in themselves; but they eat a great deal of hay and corn, and at hard and long-continued work they would be completely beaten by a team of active muscular horses an inch and a half lower.

The only plea which can be urged in their favour, beside their fine appearance, is, that as shaft-horses, over the badly-paved streets of the metropolis, and with the immense loads they often have behind them, great bulk and weight are necessary to stand the unavoidable shaking and battering. Weight must be opposed to weight, or the horse would sometimes be quite thrown off his legs. A large heavy horse must be in the shafts, and then little ones before him would not look well.

Certainly no one has walked the streets of London without pitying the poor thill-horse, jolted from side to side, and exposed to many a bruise, unless, with admirable cleverness, he accommodates himself to every motion; but, at the same time, it must be evident, that bulk and fat do not always constitute strength, and that a compact muscular horse, approaching to sixteen hands high, would acquit himself far better in such a situation. The dray-horse, in the mere act of ascending from the wharf, may display a powerful effort, but he afterwards makes little exertion, much of his force being expended in transporting his own overgrown mass.

These heavy horses are bred in the highest perfection, as to size, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and few of them are less than seventeen hands high at two and a half years old. Neither the soil, nor the produce of the soil, is better than in other counties; on the contrary, much of the lower part of Lincolnshire is a cold, hungry clay. The true explanation of the matter is, that there are certain situations better suited than others to different kinds of farming, and the breeding of different animals; and that not altogether depending on richness of soil or pasture. The principal art of the farmer is, to find out what will best suit his soil, and the produce of it.”

Bolding, of course, is mine. Clearly size breeding in excess of function is not an issue new to horse breeders.

Here is another comment from 1853 on dray horses bred for the brewers in urban areas, also specific to the Old English Black:

"AN elephant among Horses, the mixed Flemish and Black Draught Horse is familiar to all Londoners as drawing the heavy drays on which beer is conveyed from the breweries to the purchaser. This enormous animal is really needed for his peculiar work, although a natural emulation that exists between the different firms leads them to rival each other in size and magnificence of their dray Horses, as well as in the excellence of their beer. It is a general idea that the dray Horses derive their huge bulk from being fed on grains and permitted to drink beer, and that the dray-men owe their large proportions and rubicund aspect to similar privileges. Such is, however, not the case, as the Horses are bred especially for the purpose, and the men are chosen with an eye to their jovial aspect. It would never answer for a brewer to keep a poor, wizened, starveling drayman, for the public would immediately lay the fault on the beer, and transfer their custom elsewhere.

The dray Horse is a very slow animal, and cannot be permanently quickened in his pace, even if the load be comparatively light. Its breast is very broad, and its shoulders thick and upright, the body large and round, the legs short, and the feet extremely large. The ordinary pace of the heavy Draught Horse is under three miles per hour, but by a judicious admixture of the Flemish breed, the pace is nearly doubled, the endurance increased, and the dimensions very slightly diminished. The great size of the dray Horse is required, not for the absolute amount of pulling which it performs, but for the need of a large and heavy animal in the shafts to withstand the extreme jolting and battering that takes place as the springless drays are dragged over the rough stones of the metropolis. And as a team of two or three small leaders and one huge wheeler would look absurd, it is needful to have all the Horses of uniform dimensions and appearance."

There’s an incentive here to make these horses bigger and bigger as, effectively, a advertisement for the beer!

Here’s a comment from 1861:

According to "The Complete Grazier And Farmer's And Cattle-Breeder's Assistant" by William Youatt and R S Burn (1864): The Black Cart-horse, par excellence, the 'Old English Black' (fig. 27), of which the annexed is a delineation, is mostly bred in Leicester, Northampton, and Lincoln, and some of the neighbouring counties; but the largest kind, and that principally used in brewers' drays and other heavy road-work, is chiefly reared m the fens of Lincolnshire. These counties have been from time immemorial in possession of a celebrated breed of black horses, from the lighter kind of which some of our heavy cavalry were formerly mounted.

Er. The lighter kind, you say? Mind you, this is heavy cavalry of unknown era, and this is exactly the time when the popular myth of the weighty, constricted knight was gaining prominence; but still, this is a useful point to the effect that the Shire as we know it today had been noticeably bred past the point of usefulness as a military animal quite early on.

Note that one comment from 1910 says of the breed

The Black had had a chequered history. In the days of armour it was the war horse; when heavy armour was discarded it still furnished remounts to Dragoons, and remained, up to the earlier years of the last century, in some request (though lighter horses were more in demand) for Army purposes. The Black was also in general use for coach and carriage work when vehicles were weighty and roads bad ; but improvements in carriages and roads led to its disuse.

Yet writers from 1790, when surely these black horses would still have been “in some request” well within living memory if not at the present time, mention nothing of the sort! In fact, the only comment on the subject:

The cavalry of England formerly consisted of this class of Horses; but their inutility being experienced in most situations, others of a lighter and more active kind have been generally substituted, except in a few regiments.

Hm. Damned with faint praise, I should think. It is interesting that no one is aware of any purebred draught horse of a modern form used in British cavalry forces any time within living memory; the one notion of praise on the whole page for their use is a cavalryman praising the use of crossbreds with more [hot] blood in them as remounts, and that can hardly be surprising given the popularity of warmbloods and other draft crosses in sporting events today. But the pure heavy horse of the modern draught breed? You can see the mythologizing happening in these primary sources, and you can see how very vague authors are about these historical military uses at a time when English cavalry was in full use.

#posted here because apparently I cannot be trusted to maintain blog boundaries #sorry y'all #will crosspost to grison-in-labs for tomorrow #the dishorse #or should I say horse discourse #the puns write themselves

34 notes · View notes

junker-town · 3 years

Text

5 winners and 3 losers from Week 4 in the NFL

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

This version of the Cardinals is different, and very special.

I’m drinking the Cardinals Kool-Aid, big time. I’ve been warned against falling for its intoxicating scent. Given reason not to give in to its sweet promises. But dammit, at this point I’m willing to take a big swig, even if it kills me.

After the first week of the season I noticed this was a very, very different Cardinals team to the past. There have been established expectations for Arizona that existed long before the Kliff Kingsbury era. They established themselves as a team that lived or died by the pass, with almost nothing else to show for it. There are times this approach has worked well, like the 2008 team that made the Super Bowl — but what is often forgotten about that team is just how average they were.

Kurt Warner having one last run made for a heck of a story, but this was a really bad team propped up by a hell of a playoff run. The Cardinals went 9-7, in the regular season, had the worst rushing attack in the NFL, and a defense that was in the bottom third of every statistical area. The narrow loss to Pittsburgh for the Lombardi Trophy was the absolute maximum juice that could ever be squeezed out of that orange.

We know that Kingsbury’s approach was bold. He was taking the Air Raid offense and porting it over to the NFL, and for a while it seemed destined to follow in the path of other bold offensive choices that flourished, before fizzling and failing.

Now in 2021 it’s working, or it would be if this was a true Air Raid. Calling what Arizona is doing by any label would be inaccurate, because they’re absolutely unique. Sure, the bread-and-butter of the offense is overwhelming teams through the air with a host of weapons, but the running game has increasingly become a focal point — and it’s been trending this way for a couple of years.

The concept that the Cardinals are marked by Kyler Murray throwing 50 times a game is definitely true at times, but not in 2021. Rather, they’ve been remarkably balanced. Murray has thrown the ball 134 times this season, while the team has run the ball 114 times. This near-parity has positioned Arizona as 19th in the NFL in passing attempts, and 11th in rushing attempts.

This offensively balance was on full display against the Rams, who really didn’t have an answer defensively for the Kingsbury approach. Now with a 1-2 punch of Chase Edmonds and James Conner at running back as their shifty and power back respectively, there are just infinite ways this Arizona offense can attack you — and this season they’ve finally found a defense that’s good enough to get the job done as well.

A win over the Rams is of extra significance to Cardinals fans, who have seen this team struggle so much against Los Angeles in recent years that it’s their Moby Dick. Entering the game on Sunday Arizona had never beaten the Sean McVay led Rams, with an 0-8 record against them. Now sure, 1-8 isn’t much better — but that’s a very important symbol. In doing so it’s also catapulted Murray into potential MVP conversation, even though the season is young.

In four games Murray has been, well, incredible. He’s thrown for 1,273 yards, which projects to well over 5,000 on the year. While his 9 TD to 4 INT ratio is good, but perhaps not incredible — it’s really two other statistics that jump out to me. Murray is completing a ludicrous 76.1 percent of his passes, while converting at yard-per-attempt of 9.5. Keep in mind that averaging over 8.0 is normally a sign of an elite quarterback, and this number is just astonishingly good.

Oh, have we mentioned he can run too? 109 rushing yards for three touchdowns this season. Nothing to exactly write home about, but he’s also been incredibly efficient on the ground when needed — averaging 4.7 yard-per-carry.

What this means in totality is that Murray makes everyone’s life so much easier because he’s locking down an entire phase of the game. It’s meant that the defense doesn’t need to be in world-beating form, just enough of a speed bump that it’s impossible to hang with a team averaging 35 points a game and succeeding against everyone they’ve faced.

Now at 4-0 and coming off a big divisional win over Los Angeles I’m ready to double down on the Cardinals this season. They are that damn good, and this could be their best season ever.

Winner: Dallas Cowboys

It’s not like beating the Panthers is some huge statement game that solidifies the Cowboys in the NFL elite, but there’s a trend to this 3-1 team that’s worth following: Their offense is extremely good, and very difficult for teams to manage. Dallas hasn’t really had an easy “gimme” game this season so far, and they’re still on the right side of the ledger.

Time will tell whether their offensive explosion against Carolina is an indictment of their defense just not being as good as we thought, or if it’s a case of how good the Cowboys’ offense is — but either way this was an important win to take a grip on the NFC East.

In the next four weeks Dallas plays the Giants, Patriots, Vikings and Cowboys — which could absolutely position them at 7-1 as they reach the halfway point in the season.

Loser: Tennessee Titans

If you lose to the Jets you’re a loser of the week. I don’t make the rules around here, I just enforce them.

Winner: The Panthers and Broncos

This was a major statement week for both teams who entered Sunday at 3-0, but neither of whom really had an actual test. When the dust settles I think fans of both teams should remain pretty excited about their teams.

Carolina definitely made mistakes on Sunday, and their defense was exposed by Ezekiel Elliott — but without Christian McCaffery on offense the team still made this a one score game. Assuming McCaffery isn’t out too long there’s every chance this team can get back on track and continue to surprise this season.

Meanwhile the Broncos deserve plenty of props too. The scoreboard might not appear too favorable, but Denver was able to hang very close to Baltimore up until Teddy Bridgewater was forced out with a concussion. The game got away from them after that point, and it became clear a comeback wasn’t in the cards, because Drew Lock is terrible, but this is another case where I think Denver can move past this and put together a good season.

Even if 2021 isn’t the year in Carolina or Denver, both teams are showing that they’re trending in the right direction.

Loser: Urban Meyer

‘Nuff said really. You can find the video, I’m sure.

Winner: Patrick Mahomes

The Chiefs are a bit of a mess this season if we’re all being honest. Defensively Kansas City has been one of the worst teams in the NFL, and when that side of the ball is so bad that Mahomes can’t bail you out, well, you know there’s trouble.

That aside, we can’t just ignore a player throwing five touchdowns — even if it meant just a 12 point win over the Eagles, who are lost and confused this season.

I don’t think the Chiefs have it in 2021. There are just too many issues on defense to imagine this team making a playoff run in a division with the Raiders, Chargers and Broncos (who are better than expected), and I just realized that’s an actual sentence that I said, and not as a joke.

This is all so wild. This season rules.

Loser: Everyone who sat through the Patriots vs. Buccaneers broadcast

The game between Tampa Bay and New England was fantastic. Easily one of the best of the weekend — and it was absolutely ruined by how far the hyperbole in this match was pushed.

Every Patriots series we heard Cris Collinsworth talk about what a win over Tom Brady would mean to Mac Jones. Whenever Brady made a throw there was a cut away to show him warming up before the game, walking into the stadium or hugging Robert Kraft.

Then, just when you thought “this game is so great we don’t need to rely on Jones vs. Brady being a thing,” NBC played this video of Patriots fans leaving voicemails about Brady like it was call in radio, and it was awful. People saying they felt like Tom betrayed them, others saying watching him win a ring in Tampa was tantamount to seeing an ex get married.

Jesus Christ people, dude gave you unparalleled success for 20 damn years. Chill maybe.

Anyway, Mac Jones was good. The Patriots have a solid foundation, the Buccaneers are still the dangerous — and we just didn’t need any of this.

0 notes

yewcough9 · 3 years

Text

Myanmar Points Of Interest And Excursions

Myinkaba & Traditional markets -Here, you'll get to know the standard Burmese taste, as you explore an fragrant market of vegetables, herbs, and conventional food. The Pagodas of Bagan -Once you've got climbed to the top of one of these ancient pagodas, you will have a terrific view of the expansive archaelogical site the place 1000's of pagodas were built between the 9th and thirteenth centuries. This 11-day adventure tour of Myanmar visits Yangon, Bagan, and spends two full days trekking in the Shan State area. Malikha Lodge is perched excessive above the Nam Lang River and commands spectacular mountain views. Excursions include rafting alongside the clear and fast flowing waters of the Nam Lang River, trekking into the dense forested hills of the Putao Valley and making cultural journeys to Rawang tribal villages. Eight traditionally- styled cabins positioned discreetly amongst bamboo groves recreate a sense of village life but with many residence comforts. Each room is centred round its own log hearth and options an unlimited handcrafted teak bathtub. A 14 Day itinerary that permit you to visit and experience should see destinations in Vietnam and Burma . Kalaw is a wonderful hill station in Myanmar, which is often a place to begin for you if you're planning to trek to Inle Lake. Take a visit back in time to discover peaceful pagodas, sacred websites, historic towns and monasteries of Myanmar. Visit the southern city of Bago on a full-day, non-public journey from Yangon that explores architecture, wartime historical past, and religious websites. You’ll find gleaming Buddhas and pagodas all through the city, and see the Second World War-era Allied graves in the Taukkyan War Cemetery. A boat trip will take you to Mingun, the place once failed the development of the largest pagoda within the Buddhist world. The forged of the world's biggest-sounding bell, nevertheless successful, and the Settawya Pagoda homes a Buddha footprint. In the afternoon tour to the hills countless pagodas of the Buddhist meditation middle Sagaing, the place white stupas like treasured porcelain bells shimmer across the darkish hills. Morning flight to Bagan spying the massive plain of red temples as we land. National Parks In Myanmar Many know Myanmar as Burma, a rustic coated in glittering gold temples. Take the time to discover the breathtaking pure beauty, like Popa Mountain Park or the vibrant wilderness of Namdapha National Park, that makes up the rest of the country. Under the kaw system, farmers normally practice shifting cultivation. Families are allocated forest land that they will clear to grow crops, says Sein Twa, and they move on every year to permit the forest to recover. Named Popa after the Sanskrit word for flower, all that grows within the rich volcanic soil in Popa Mountain Park is vibrant and beautiful, so be sure to deliver your digicam along to capture it all. 外燴 can be found to lead the way as it might be easy to get misplaced, and remember to ask concerning the petrified forest as you make your way alongside the street west of Popa village. Explore stunning white sand beaches and delightful blue ocean that make up the sleepy little seaside town of Ngapali. Indulge within the mix of cultures in Myanmar’s premier resort city. Visitors can stay in luxury resorts and still enjoy the natural magnificence alongside the Bay of Bengal. Unwind on the sand and benefit from the surf as ox-carts haul the day’s catch to markets and restaurants all through the town. To see this charming town lively, visit from November to March. The area hosts a quantity of sacred websites including Nat temples and relics. The enticing flowers of orchids have drawn many specialists to Myanmar (e.g., Kurzweil and Lwin, 2013; Jin and Kyaw, 2017; Kurzweil and Ormerod, 2018), where the household could be very numerous (Aung et al., 2020). However, even for the Orchidaceae, an estimated 150–300 additional species still remain to be found (Aung et al., 2020). The completion of the flora thus requires that experts on all vascular plant households and genera contribute fashionable taxonomic therapies (Aung et al., 2020). A marked enhance in population has created challenges in delivering primary enough infrastructure and services. These mixed challenges create poor urban settings and fail to promote the well-being of residents. But they didn't win many seats in the new parliament, and Suu Kyi was returned for a second time period. Karen community members documenting ancestral land boundaries within the park. Therefore, plant conservation efforts in Myanmar must be formulated that stability utilization required for nationwide improvement with protection. This national park has the Mount Victoria, also referred to as the Nat Ma Taung mountain, as its central characteristic. The park includes the mountain and the surrounding areas close to the Myanmar-India border in the Chin State of the country. With an elevation of three,035 m above sea-level, the mountain is the tallest in the Chin State. It was founded in 1994 and has been designated as an ASEAN Heritage Park. The mountain is covered by montane forests whereas tropical and subtropical moist forests occur at lower altitudes. Unfortunately, the wildlife of the park obtain little safety and are exploited to serve industrial purposes. Bagan With temples dotting the panorama, rolling fields, and clusters of lush trees, the views beg to be photographed. While dawn offers just as stunning a view, it is often packed with guests all vying for a photo of the identical view. Once the morning crowd dissipates, it turns into a lot simpler to make your method alongside the steep pagoda steps and explore the 4 nearby pagodas which are mentioned to provide religious safety for Bagan. The pagoda enclosure also homes a centre devoted to the study of sacred manuscripts. The 600 monks who live within the monastery annex spend their days meditating and learning old Pali texts. While Theravada Buddhism was the first religion of the Pyu kingdoms, archaeological finds point out that Tantric Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Hinduism were also current. Figures from the Mahayana and Tantric pantheons were represented in Pyu artwork, together with Avalokiteshwara and Tara ; Hindu deities, together with the Hindu holy trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; and the goddess Lakshmi. Arguably an important and sacred myanmar pagoda is the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Also often known as the “Great Dagon Pagoda” and the “Golden Pagoda”, this great gilded temple is surrounded by a complex of smaller stupas and shrines and dominates the skyline of the city. Visiting a Myanmar pagoda is a should for international guests to the nation, with plenty to select from. The immense Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is emblematic of the nation formerly generally known as Burma, while town of Bagan is understood for having over 2,000 temples and pagodas. It’s an extended,186-mile street journey from Myanmar’s international gateway of Yangon, the opposite choices being a rickety train journey or sporadic flights. This pagoda homes a sacred hair of Buddha, which you can see a shrine to inside – the Botataung Pagoda is hole inside and you'll stroll through it. The temple was utterly destroyed by bombing in World War II, however is now back to its former glory. Shwesandaw, constructed through the reign of King Anawrahta in the 11th century, is Bagan’s tallest pagoda with a height of a hundred meters. It contains five terraces and contains the sacred hairs of a Buddha known as Gautama. The Ananda Temple was inbuilt 1091 AD in the course of the reign of King Kyanzittha and modeled after the Himalayas’ Nandamula cave. Inside the temple are 4 standing Buddhas; Kakusandha facing north, Kassapa , Konagamana , and Guatama . The Yangon City Development Committee, established in 1990, has worked with the State Peace and Development Council to recondition many Buddhist monuments with plans for newer and more-challenging designs. Pagodas and temples have been renovated to promote "monumental Buddhism", the renewal of Buddhist architecture for a sense of authenticity. These newer Buddhist sites, a mix of modern and traditional Burmese type, are found throughout Myanmar and embody monasteries, pagodas and the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University. The crown umbrella atop the Shwedagon Pagoda, which was donated by King Mindon in 1871, was replaced within the spring of 1999. Only a quantity of colonial-era buildings and about 2,200 temples and pagodas remain in Myanmar. As a result of these losses, many groups have united to protect the remaining buildings. International flights are principally cancelled from and to Myanmar and new vacationer visa purposes are being suspended for the time being. Those touring to Myanmar might want to quarantine themselves for 14 days on arrival. Full Guide To My Secret Wakayama Japan! For probably the most part, these retreats are simply visited for deep relaxation, though some go for the categorical purpose of treating private illnesses. These hot springs are usually positioned in rural or wild areas which are protected and fewer developed, surrounded by nature and a tranquil setting. Inside my suite I take pleasure in trendy facilities that complement the normal, minimalist Japanese type. In addition to the personal baths, Araya Totoan has three public baths filled with the restorative waters of Yamashiro sizzling springs. Kinosaki has long been known as the onsen town of Japan, with its seven public hot springs which are distinctive and very well-maintained. Winter generally goes from December to March in Taiwan, with January and February being the coldest. You’ll also find that the subtropical north of Taiwan is noticeably colder than the tropical south, which lies below the Tropic of Cancer. In some circumstances, I’ve had aged Taiwanese attendants at hot springs telling me I shouldn’t convey my children in . I simply assured them that my kids had been to many hot springs before, and they still let us in. Most mixed-sex scorching springs don’t have a rule against brining youngsters in, however some do, so it’s finest to ask earlier than being disenchanted. Transfer from Kyoto to the gorgeous village of Kinosaki, and check into your conventional ryokan lodging. Sleep on a comfortable futon, enjoy a multi course kaiseki conventional dinner, and bathe within the conventional scorching springs that define the onsen experience. From Kyoto Station take the JR Limited Express Kinosaki to Kinosaki Onsen Station (2.5 hours, 5040 yen/$45). There are 4 direct trains a day—we got the eleven.25am prepare which arrives at 1.49pm. We reserved seats prematurely and have been glad we did because the train was busy. We couldn’t end half of it so it was toned down the subsequent day! The town is more in style with Japanese in July and August when they come for festivals and fireworks, and in winter, which is crab season and there may be snow in January and February. We highly recommend them to save cash and time when travelling around the country—see our submit Is a Japan Rail Pass Worth It? Washing and thermal physique remedies with steam and accessories similar to a bunch of birch branches have been historically carried out in banyas. It was normally a smallish wooden cabin with a low entrance and no more than one small window to maintain warmth inside. Roman fashion public baths were introduced on a limited scale by returning crusaders within the eleventh and twelfth centuries, who had loved warm baths within the Middle East. These, however, rapidly degenerated into brothels or at least the reputation as such and have been closed down at varied times. For occasion, in England through the reign of Henry II, bathtub homes, known as bagnios from the Italian word for bath, were set up in Southwark on the river Thames. Issues To Do In Myanmar, Myanmar Though the space isn't prepossessing, the artist is internationally acknowledged. In 2002 he grew to become the primary Burmese artist to win at the Asean Art Awards. The nonprofit gallery and art college New Zero Art Space occupies two flooring of an workplace constructing, however their limited actual property hasn’t stopped them from dreaming massive. Their new artist in residence program invitations international artists to go to the placement short term and to exchange ideas with native artists. This sort of grassroots involvement is working to undo the injury caused by years of cultural and political limitations on artistic expression. “I painted this while crying in ache in my mind,” wrote the artist, who was imprisoned for 3 years starting in 1990 for his political activism. The museums and galleries in NYC are a few of the City’s most powerful attracts. Destinations like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the Whitney Museum of American Art house immense collections and put on spectacular exhibitions. Couple these with the big selection of galleries round town, and a trip to NYC becomes a visually beautiful expertise. The trail included all of the exhibitions within the museum as properly as the artwork gallery. Prices are typically mounted and the cash goes to the folks she employs and these are poor village and town folks who've lots of skill but if it wasn't for Black Elephant, they might not have an outlet. Lacquerware in Bagan is dominated by SIX families and there are pitfalls in shopping for from the usual tourist enterprise that you information will push you into. Instead, tell them you wish to go to Black Elephant and meet Veronica and admire her passion and her nice work which has a real international market .This amazingly passionate lady is working an exquisite social enterprise. https://www.caterertaiwan.com/party-tray/ purchase will endlessly remind you of the artistic ability of the Myanmar folks channelled so selflessly. Museums are few normally in Myanmar, although the government s making plans to reopen or set up new ones within the coming decade. Located within the peaceable environment of the Golden Valley, near the magnificent Shwedagon Pagoda, the KZL Gallery is house to the work of 20 main Burmese contemporary artists. It is also the actual house of outstanding young artist Khin Zaw Latt, who lives, works and exhibits his pieces above the principle gallery. Khin Zaw Latt is famed for his portraits, having painted the primary portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi to be deemed suitable for public consumption by the authorities. With the uncontroversial title Just a Portrait, the painting depicts the long-lasting opposition chief made up of tiny crimson photographs of her father. This painting drew attention when it was entered into the Myanmar Portrait Competition in 2011, but it was his second portray, A Tale of My Daughter, that won first prize. Myanmar Journey But most international travelers have no idea what to anticipate from Myanmar food. This two-day Mandalay metropolis tour introduces you to the unique flavors of conventional cuisine in addition to the country’s foodie culture. This 8-day itinerary is designed for unbiased travelers who wish to experience Myanmar's variety but have restricted time. You'll uncover Mandalay's royal vestiges, wander amid Bagan's infinite spiritual monuments, cruise the gorgeous waters of Inle Lake and experience Yangon's intoxicating mix of old and new. In the afternoon, visiting the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda is the ideal vacation spot largely as a end result of it's the holiest spiritual website in southern Shan State. Students will be astonished by the local handicrafts, silk weaving, wood handlooms, and traditional blacksmith methods alongside the means in which. Interestingly, students can participate in a cooking class to discover methods to make a meal. Then, they can take a chance to visit Inle Lake where is not just about being on the water but additionally about discovering the Shan and Intha villages on the banks of the river. Discover Myanmar — a vacation spot wealthy in culture with beautiful scenery — by venturing off the overwhelmed path on this 8-day tour. You'll visit dazzling pagodas, native villages, float down the Irrawaddy river, in addition to catch the country's most famous sites. This afternoon, you’ll be transferred to the airport for your brief flight to Bagan. Bagan is amongst the wonders of Asia, a veritable sea of temples and pagodas amid countless greenery and ubiquitous palm bushes. Find hidden treasures within the bustling markets, relax within the countryside of Kalaw and the Shan Hills, and discover culture and religion as you tour ancient pagodas and temples. Though it’s simply across the river from Downtown Yangon, Dala feels worlds away. With this bike tour, get off the beaten tourist observe and discover Dala’s farming and fishing villages, rural markets, and rice paddies. A journey to Yangon is deeply gratifying with its reminders of the easy pleasures of life and dwelling. Revel in the vibrant tradition and interact with the endearing locals to find the city and rediscover your love for travelling. A local market could be difficult to navigate should you don’t know the language. So how about taking this tour, that can let you stroll across the local market! However, you’re not solely here for enjoyable, you’ll be looking around and looking for fresh ingredients. The tour guides could even educate you the means to discount with the native sellers! Annual Events In Nyc The Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival draws within the crowds for good cause. This one of a kind event attracts collectively some of Burma’s most enduring images; the normal one-legged fishing technique, the waters of Inle Lake, and gilded Buddhas. Get in contact and tell us precisely what you need out of your journey to Myanmar. We'll match you with a neighborhood professional who can plan, organise and e-book your whole holiday for you. To get in touch with considered one of our travel advisors about excursions that include festivals round Myanmar, fill outthis form. On this present day, locals visit their elders and pay obeisance with a standard providing of shampoo, and water in a terracotta pot. They also launch birds or fish into the river or lake along with their prayers. Besides these spiritual actions, throughout New Year you may also enjoy great performances and style delicious meals. This is also an auspicious time for younger males to have their shinpyuinitiation into the monk-hood. During the day, balloons resemble the form of pagodas, whereas at evening they appear like picturesque lanterns that light up the sky. Kachin, the hill individuals or the "Scots of Myanmar," celebrate this hottest March occasion, a celebration of the model new yr, victories in battle, and the reunion of the tribes. It's additionally an ideal time and placement to go to the Himalayan foothills around Putao, for light climbing and clear views of the mountains. This isn’t a comprehensive listing, so don’t fret if your holiday doesn’t coincide with any of them; wandering around the pagodas is all the time particular, and you could properly locate a neighborhood custom or two. On 12 February, Union Day marks national unity with flag-bearing and different celebrations. National holidays of a secular nature are dated based on the Western calendar. Independence Day, a secular holiday, is held on four January and celebrated with week-long festivities. Boat races are staged on Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon and the palace moats in Mandalay. The pageant of Tazaungmone takes place between October and November. Under the full moon, single girls work at their looms all night to make new robes for the monks. Souvenirs Archives From the beginning, we've been dedicated to offering low-impact tours that benefit traveler and host alike. We work with local communities, companies and individuals to develop sustainable tourism opportunities that assist native economies while minimizing negative environmental and cultural impacts. Soumya has traveled to 27 international locations in the final 11 years and specializes in cultural and historical travel. Easily foldable and handy to carry, the longyis are some of the best things to purchase in Myanmar. Handmade parasols in Mrauk U – One of the most colourful souvenirs of MyanmarWell, who hasn’t heard of the parasols from Pathein! Lacquer is the sap collected from Thitsee tree in the jungles of Burma. Lacquerware is made by coating a quantity of layers of lacquer over frames manufactured from wooden or bamboo. Pathein parasols can be found throughout Myanmar in each purchasing advanced and with temple vendors. If you are interested in studying more concerning the history and manufacturing processes, you can make a journey to Pathein and learn from the masters themselves. Longyi, a standard Burmese clothing, is a cylindrical-shape sewn fabric that's worn by each sexes round their waist down to their ft and held in place by folding over. Sometimes, it is being worn just as much as the knees for comfort. It is a sensible and versatile piece of clothes that is good for the country’s sweltering weather. It’s a fantastic pit cease for selecting up distinctive and fantastically made honest trade gadgets. More importantly, it also gives the shopper an opportunity to connect with and perceive Myanmar’s social-economics landscape a bit higher as the shop helps various local communities. The shop assistant was extremely friendly and took his time to elucidate many items to me. Viet Vision Travel customizes unique Vietnam trip, Vietnam tour packages and multi-country excursions that can help you explore Vietnam & Indochina on your method. We are a passionate team of one hundred avid travelers who love to share our Vietnam & Indochina with these in search of a extra authentic journey expertise. Myanmar Restaurants And Cafes Her social enterprise works with artisans to design and market merchandise, from handwoven textiles to candied pomelo peel — none of which might look misplaced in a boutique in Dallas or New York City. Yangon, in Myanmar, is an amazing showcase for the newly open nation's distinctively savory, funky type of cooking, which carries influences from China, India, and other Southeast Asian countries. Desmond Tan, owner of the popular Bay Area restaurant chain Burma Superstar, provides a guided eating tour of town. Despite my adventurous nature I’m considerably skittish to eat in the subway so I took the relaxation of my order to go. When my new pals informed me about pin le sar tote, a Burmese seafood salad, I instantly ordered it. For obvious causes it’s the most effective Burmese seafood salad to be had throughout the confines of the New York City subway system. All kidding aside, it’s the best seafood salad I’ve eaten all summer. It was nice to have a drink on the verandah while the solar was setting behind the mountains. The cocktail was good they usually had a number of Myanmar craftbeer! The setting is far nicer than what we now have seen in other restaurants in kalaw (it's in the heritage hotel).I had a local curry and my spouse a burguer. Guide to Halal food places, restaurants and buffets in Yangon, Myanmar. For practically half a century, Myanmar languished in isolation as its army junta fended off the political and financial progress that swept across much of the remainder of Asia. Suddenly the town is in dialogue with the world, and with this has come a reimagined dining scene imbued with international flair. Located on University Avenue Road in Yangon, Fuji Coffee House is a perfect place to rest, have a cup of coffee or maintain a gathering. It has a good vary of private rooms that make it a good place for official conferences and business actions, whereas the beautiful and spacious garden is a great place to relax. Fuji Coffee House is a place that provides you a quiet and comfortable surroundings, suitable for each work and good meals. It’s a great place for Western and Asian meals, Thai meals, lunch snacks and coffee with neat environment and free WiFi. Shwe Pu Zun Cafeteria and Bakery House is located in Yangon and at present operates 3 shops with the identical name and is doubtless considered one of the most popular and noteworthy bakery outlets and cafe in Yangon. It has a large and lip-smacking assortment of desserts, cookies, coffees and pastry gadgets like croissants, puff pastries and pies that taste nice and the place is excellently clean and hygienic. Some of our favorite merchandise are woman finger cookies, fa lu da, chocolate swiss roll, pudding cake, vanhouten and freshly made chocolate éclair. The workers is educated they usually know tips on how to deal with their visitors and fulfill them. Go Myanmar Tours tailor-makes distinctive Burma tours to assist travelers discover Myanmar their way. We are a passionate staff of 100 avid travelers who like to share our experiences of Myanmar with these looking for a extra authentic journey expertise. Even although, many non-vegetarians nonetheless love this place due to a broad range of cheap vegetarian dishes. Markets In Myanmar The possible cause was that we counted only the vegetables that have been from entirely wild sources as “wild vegetables”. The most regularly cited greens have been generally cultivated species, which reflects the truth that vegetation cultivated on a big scale comprise the major supply of greens. Some lesser known greens may replicate the unique meals culture of native individuals, however most of these were cited only a few times by the interviewees, which caused low UV and RFC rankings for them in the league desk. In addition, future research ought to pay extra consideration to the food safety of these vegetables. Observations and interviews have been used in the field study, and 10 markets and festivals have been selected in central Myanmar. We in contrast the native data we collected with selected important and typical natural books on conventional Myanmar medication. The traditional Myanmar medication references were selected for essential typical herbal books on conventional Myanmar medication, including Defilipps and Krupnick , Kyaw Soe and Tin Myo Ngwe and Ministry of Health Department of Traditional Medicine of Myanmar . These books were really helpful by Professor Kyaw Thein Htay, former president of the University of Traditional Myanmar Medicine in Mandalay, and his colleagues. These books embody many of the medicinal plant species utilized in mainstream traditional Myanmar medicine. To help companies which are reluctant to list because of the YSX’s standard necessities on corporate governance, the authorities announced in September 2019 that the secondary Myanmar Public Companies Board would be launched in 2020. The board hopes to attract a variety of the 251 registered public companies in the country that are not listed yet have public status underneath the Companies Law. Although the secondary board will nonetheless enforce excessive standards, it'll offer a route for corporations that aren't yet ready for the main YSX board. The YSX has additionally established a special taskforce in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency that's tasked with boosting awareness of the trade and the advantages of listing. With 2019 market information and continuous follow-up of markets information, this report brings clear and concise insights with which to sort out national energy challenges and opportunities. Browse the tabs beneath for an in depth table of contents, the list of graphs and tables, and details on the data information. A whole of 132 plant taxa from forty seven botanical households and 116 genera have been collected. Most (106 taxa, eighty.3%) of these vegetables had been cited by the informants as practical foods that had well being advantages, while others have been regarded as merely “good for health”. Elsewhere, the latest transfer by the SECM to bring in extra foreign participation can also be starting to tackle the lack of traders. In July 2019 the commission introduced that foreigners would be permitted to trade shares on the YSX, with a framework for this revealed in September. However, there are still few studies on this subject in worldwide journals and books. The only related research published in English have proven rich native medicinal information among ethnic minority communities in Chin State , Shan State , Kachin State and Mon State . Nevertheless, the core region of Myanmar, central Myanmar and its major ethnic population, the Bamar people, have been ignored in previous ethnobotanical research. Furthermore, coming into Myanmar shall be better facilitated by synergies from sources in different Asian countries. Any firm contemplating doing enterprise in Myanmar would be nicely advised to adopt the next three central rules as part of its method and strategy. Myanmar is evaluating the growth practices and strategies of its Asian neighbors as it emerges from many years of economic and political isolation. As the Asian Development Bank factors out, it is going to be necessary for the nation to have a robust commitment to broad-ranging reforms while guarding against environmental degradation. While political and financial reforms sweep throughout the country, retailers are now eyeing-up the previously reclusive nation for alternatives. Still, the query stays as to how optimistic the outlook of the Myanmar retailing industry actually is? This paper explores and analyses the developments of Myanmar’s retail sector thus far. Within the decision making course of, firms operate inside an external and an inside setting that include political, cognitive and sociological elements. A company’s habits and determination making processes are affected by both environments. The Best Myanmar Family Excursions 2021 We initially visited in 2013, then made a return journey in 2018, and found that not all that a lot has changed since we’d been gone. Bagan has to be seen to be believed with the world’s largest and densest concentration of Buddhist temples, pagodas and temples some courting again to the 11th Century. You can get pleasure from yoga, pancha karma and other spa therapies in the resort, stroll up the near-by mountain or have a picnic and a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the holiday. This is nice retreat for fogeys who want to sit back and relax, or want to do their own factor, and let the resort employees do the activities with children. For more detailed and up-to-date advice, we suggest visiting Equaldexor ILGA before you journey. No vaccines are required to be able to enter Myanmar however some are recommended for defense towards illness. Finally, end today’s tour with an amazing sunset view at Shwedagon Pagoda, the largest pagoda painted with actual gold in Yangon. If you have a bit of additional time in Bagan and grow weary of viewing ancient pagodas daily, rent a driver to drive you an hour and a half to a barely more entertaining pagoda. [newline]Mount Popa is an extinct volcano and the favored Popa Taungkalat monastery sits on a rocky outcrop on the slopes of the volcano. The views from the highest are unbelievable but it’s the journey to get to the top that is the most entertaining. Of course, travelling alone might make you seem ‘odd’ by the native people. And the easy antidote to that is to make some associates, take a tour, or simply to chatting to some local girls. Ngapali, famed as the most effective seashore within the nation has wide selection of watersports and shore excursions to make your days occupied. We pack our luggage and take a look at of the lodge then drive to Amarapura, a small city that served because the royal capital in the 18th and nineteenth centuries. We visit the well-known U Bein Bridge, the world’s longest teak bridge, for pictures and a chance to mingle with the locals. Upon touchdown at the Yangon International Airport, your English-speaking guide and driver might be ready to greet you and switch you to your lodge. The remainder of the day is free at leisure to get well out of your international flight. Tourists to Myanmar should keep in registered motels, resorts, guesthouses, motels and inns, and there could be loads of selection of family accommodation in Myanmar to suit all budgets. Myanmar's wealthy history, fascinating tradition and stellar natural magnificence will keep your loved ones entertained as you may be guided by local consultants throuhg Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan and extra. Where you'll have the ability to visit bustling cities, pristine beaches, and memorable floating villages. Where as soon as you permit you begin dreaming of going back. Since Bagan is the one of the most important locations in Myanmar, a colourful Nyaung Oo market can be a should sight in Bagan, it will make you notice the livelihood of native people every day chore. Recall all temple visited in Bagan and fine-tune sightsee agenda to get probably the most of Bagan. How Pop Culture Can Help Explain The Coup In Myanmar In 1989 the name was modified to theUnion of Burmain theUnion of Myanmar.In 1990 received theNational League for Democracyled by Aung San Suu Kyi's first free elections, however the end result was not acknowledged by the army rulers. Since then, many supporters of the latter are detained and state they themselves frequently under house arrest or in different ways intimidated. The army government is put under stress by a number of Western governments with sanctions to allow free elections and to do something about thedrug trade. The army, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, had unseated an elected authorities and placed its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, again beneath home arrest, along with other senior figures from the ruling get together, the National League for Democracy . The three-finger salute from the bestselling book and film sequence The Hunger Games is the movement’s most famously co-opted symbol. The gesture first emerged in Thai protests after the 2014 navy coup and has since spread to the current demonstrations in Myanmar. The country’s envoy to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, even flashed the salute throughout his last speech to the UN General Assembly on February 27 earlier than he was fired by the junta. It has become a typical fixture in Thai and Burmese protests as a symbol of solidarity and defiance in opposition to authoritarian governments and political elites. In Thailand, protesters have drawn parallels between their struggle against the military-led government and different literary narratives to mobilize support. The term “keyboard fighter” can have negative connotations, as lots of keyboard fighters produce misinformation. But as keyboard fighters, we will also play a vital position within the activist motion. We are giving consciousness about what is occurring in Myanmar to international communities, in order that the voices of people in Myanmar don’t die out. Myanmar's army overthrew the democratically elected government and has killed hundreds. Christian and Muslim ethnic minorities are dominant in sure ethnic minority areas and have incessantly struggled with religious persecution. I’ve long come to simply accept that non-Burmese folks do not write Burmese characters, as a result of that may contain too much work. While other Asian cultures are extra visible and due to this fact easier to draw characteristics from, Myanmar's ethnic groups – its Bamar, Karen, Rakhine, and Rohinga individuals – are too undocumented for fiction. And attempts from the skin to understand Myanmar’s individuals would probably be met with frustration. So let me break this down – Burmese identity in itself is complicated. The nation is internally fractured along ethnic lines, among those that still use the name Burma and those who prefer Myanmar. It’s been invaded, by the British, by the Japanese, after which locked away from the world under the junta in the fallout. His research in Yangon were disrupted in 1988 when a preferred rebellion towards the government, which had proved disastrous in its working of the nation, swept across the nation before being violently put down. Though he stopped by to hear scholar leaders and activists give speeches, Kyaw Moe Tun largely averted participating in the protests on the behest of his mother and father. The Prime Minister U Nu himself wrote a quantity of politically oriented plays and novels. A new wave of Dalit artists, musicians and writers is catalyzing the motion for equality by popularizing the struggles of their communities and elevating the consciousness of Indian society. 6 Spots To Meet Burmese Women In Your Subsequent Trip Like the Shwedagon Pagoda, the Sule Pagoda serves as a culturally, traditionally and even politically vital landmark found throughout the city. The pagoda’s compound is open to guests from 4 a.m. You need to pay an admission payment of around $2 to enter the premises of the pagoda. Beer, rumandwhiskyare the preferred alcoholic drinks in Myanmar, whilstlocally brewed toddyis also typically available, andwinecan be present in higher-end eating places and motels. To find out about locations to drink around the nation, go to individualdestinations. For info on bars and nightlife in Yangon, gohere. Since then, this iconic model has constantly maintained its standing as the go-to source of inspiration for both locals and visitors alike. Once inside, you’ll be enveloped by the smell of candy Shisha vapors. The cocktail menu is pricey and impressive, to make sure, and the outcomes might miss the mark by way of flavor and intensity, but the presentation is spot on. With Djs performing LIVE on the weekend, there is something for everyone at The Myst Bar and Lounge. Look out for our newsletters with journey tips and particular offers. Yangon International Airport is the first and busiest worldwide airport of Myanmar. The airport is situated in Mingaladon, 15 kilometres north of central Yangon. All ten Myanmar carriers and about 30 worldwide airways function at Yangon International Airport. This is an ideal place for evening leisure in Yangon. Besides, there are a variety of clothes, household home equipment, handicrafts, delicate handmade souvenirs in the evening market that you can buy at an inexpensive value right here. Apart from purchasing numerous items, visiting Chinatown in Yangon is also the best way to enjoy nightlife and get an insight into native life right here. It is positioned on the rooftop of Myanmar Plaza and solely upper class people spend their night at this membership. The entrance charge is 20,000Kyats but when you book a table and purchase a bottle, entrance charge is just 10,000Kyats. Fuse is often crowded so you must guide a table before you go and it closes on Monday and Tuesday. It's an upmarket haunt, the type of place to have a glass of Taittinger champagne or basic cocktail, so don't count on low cost drinks. It's nicely worth the spend though, for nothing apart from the views alone. Also know as Burman, Myanmar is a wonderful but not so explored country within the South of Asia. Myanmar's culture is heavily influenced by Buddhism, as you can see from the structure. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar is derived from the Burmese Empire, and holds unbelievable temples and pagodas that attracts more and more of vacationers every year. Although left forgotten by travelers and vacationers, this young capital city nonetheless has a couple of up and coming bars and pubs to go to. In the same compound as the popular hostel of the similar name, this bar provides the basic selections in drinks.

#外燴

0 notes

gaad · 4 years

Text

"When contemplating the Notre-Dame cathedral, one had better consider how it compares with other cathedrals and sacral buildings rather than begin by visualizing it as an accretion of mineral solids."[1] One also rarely judges the construction and constitution of it but rather contemplate it, astonished, without grasping the motive, as one could freeze in front of a monster. This accretion of mineral solids who stands in front of us, and those disseminated in Paris, are our rivals today. And we shall overpass them by our greatest attention. By listening to you, you will listen to us. It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess today's world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. Even the Opera Garnier which claims to be an ecclectic, never-ending spectacle appears flat in its complicated oppulence. Sophisticated complexity is what we are longing to. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities. As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, our Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive and mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now she wants to stage them. But how do they want to talk ? "Where should one search, in the city, for that lost unity of glance and speech? In what space can one again listen to himself? Can the theater, which unites spectacle and discourse, not take up where the unanimous assembly left off? "[2] As we stand here, in a place of great affluence and exposure, with the reminiscence of a residential block behind us, Notre Dame before and the Seine and green spots inbetween, I cannot help myself but to think of "the Paintings (in the ancient theatres that) represented three sorts of Buildings, which made three sorts of Scenes, The Tragick by Magnificent Pallaces, the Comick by Private Houses, the Satyrical by Fields and Groves."[3] This is the place. "(...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature." This is Elisabeth's inherited background. "(...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis(...) , (to) create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population (...)." Take Paris for example: "(...) the Champs Elysées, bec(a)me the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement bec(a)me the “spiritual power” of this new regime."[4] Elisabeth has grown bored of this univocal apprehension and wants us now to refute that. "This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...) (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts."[5] It appears also appropriate for us, architects, to call up and refer to past apostles of our art. Vitruve and Alberti. The one who in Momus places "the extended climax (...) in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, the one who) repeatedly uses the word persona (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters."[6] Alberti will embody our urban theatre, Elisabeth's friends, our Personas. The story will therefore intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. And those masks will "assure(...) the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask(s) (are) now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face."[7] So be it. Let them be the masked actresses of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies embedded in concepts and rituals. As a constellation, they are powerfull. As a system, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithfull story, it accesses the realm of discussion. Finally as statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where "(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible (...)."[8]

The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map." [9]

We have announced a number of figures and our intention to spatialize them. "For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it."[10] Time to summon Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : "The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand."[11] According to the treatises of our masters, the theatre is a kind of mythical module present in most classical entertainement building. Take the theatre, elongate the arms along parallel lines and you will have a circus, or duplicate it, set them in a circle and you will end with an amphitheatre. As such, they have most of their elements in common. Or as Alberti likes to say "if (he is) not mistaken, (they) are totally composed of either stairways or, more especially, windows and doors."[12] Elizabeth's palace will merge the three typologies and be simultaneously a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, composed of stairways, windows and doors, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown. A place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up, do not apologize. These are Elisabeth's Friends. These are the masters of the area, the rulers of the "compartition (which) divides up the whole building into the parts by which it is articulated."[13] "The idea of a constitution, therefore, involves not only the idea of hierarchy of authority or power but also that of a hierarchy of rules or laws, where those possessing a higher degree of generality and proceeding from a superior authority control the contents of the more specific laws that are passed by a delegated authority."[14] Approching the building you would have already noticed on the façade the different motivations at stake in the building. Flavoured rythms, proportions and nodes are just the superficial expression of the inner game. Otherwise the colonnade and "the spaces between the columns (which) should certainly be considered among the most important of openings"[15] bind, over three tiers, "as far as possible, (the whole in an) integral and unified structure"[16] reflecting the building's main function as a theatre. By its semicircular form, it is accessible from three sides through "royal doors"[17]. Each persona takes its origin behind the colonnade, in a chamber equal to one third of the lineament, expands from there through the whole building, converging at the center of the stage and intersecting themselves beneath it. There, at the very heart of the theater should lie Elisabeth's private hotel. But we will eventually get there, let us first retrace our steps a bit and proceed to the description of the private quarters of our personas. Pandora has herited a box, a jar which contains unspeakable truth, she knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others. She actually lives outside, among the men. As such her chamber is characterized by openness. There are two types of skin, the inner and the outer."[18] If the latter is kind of strict or well defined, her inside space is far more curvy and mellow, embracing the visitor. Everything there reminds of the sensual, material, confortable and overwhelming nature of its resident. Highly decorated, floor, wall and ceiling are a canvas where she do not mind showing off all her pomp and circumstance. It is a showcase she presents you. Treasures, gifts, jewels, secrets, objects of all kinds. honest and luxuous. Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions, she learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters. She erected her own palace inside the building, living there isolated, luring you to her. In "(t)he zone stretching between (the structure) referred to appropriately as "paneling" (and consisting of) (...) the skin and the infill."[19], she created an ambiguous space which folds and unfolds in every part. Simultaneously inside and outside, most of all inbetween. She embodies bipolarity, dualism. Before you even notice, you are at her mercy, enchanted, trapped, swinging between fear and desire. and Metis, renowned for her cunning and wiseness, makes problems no longer valid. She is from another world, inhabits the space, fills it. She is the omniscient negative space. Floor, wall, ceiling are defined and modelled on the volume they content. Her. If she is the flesh, "anything else (...) come under the description of bones. Also included in the bones are the coverings to the openings, that is, the beams, whether straight or arched: for (we) call an arch nothing but a curved beam, and what is a beam but a column laid crossways?"[20] Columns pointing in all directions. As such, the room is acetic and performative, tricky and threatening. Overwhelming in its kind. Material and immaterial.

Pandora, Circe and Metis "(...) (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities."[21] "(V)aulted passageways, all similar and modest in size, (..:) some leading into the central area and some ascending to the uppermost steps"[22] act as neutral territory to connect every parts of the building including Elisabeth's Appartment, the fourth chamber. In this room, the three personas intersect to form the most sophisticated and suitable dwelling for our host. Above unfolds the actual theater where our personas play yet another kind of game, much more specific. The stage belongs to Pandora, the ceiling and backwall all glassed to Circe and the portico to Metis which "work prevents sound from escaping, and compresses and fortifies it (...).[23] Inbetween, the steps, the common ground, the binding element, as the motive of the theatre, "the place from which shows are seen", as an accretion of mineral solids. Finally if you dare yourself till the top of the steps and through the portico, you will reach the terrasse slightly above the surrounding parisian roofs and from there, be able to listen to the city.

[1] D. Corfield, Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics [2] Derrida, Of Grammatology [3] Perrault, An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius [4] Mumford, The Culture of Cities [5] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 [6] Alberti, Momus (Preface) [7]-[9] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus [10] Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 [11] Ayache, The Blank Swan [12]-[13] Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books [14] Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty [15]-[20] Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books [21] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [22]-[23] Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books

#gaadc #text

0 notes