#like it would have been terrible to have esther die and then not have a follow up scene containing how joel felt afterward | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wonderlandleighleigh · 1 year

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14 pages of fic based on S5 spoilers.

"He's going to die, you know."

Midge freezes, pausing her attempts to wipe her tears away after seeing Lenny off at the airport. She stares at Alfie, who had been kind enough to drive her to the airport, but apparently not so kind. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Your friend," Alfie tells her. "Not on purpose. Just a sad accident."

Midge shakes her head. "You can't possibly-"

"You can stop it, I think. You have a shot, at least."

"You think?" Midge croaks.

"Yeah. Here, hold on."

She blinks and she's no longer in the airport. She's in a cemetery, at the back of a crowd of people.

She hears whispers around her. That the departed was lonely. Alone. Drove everyone off. It could have been different, they say. This could have been avoided.

In an instant, she's back at the airport. She blinks at Alfie, completely bewildered. "What the fuck was that?"

"What?" Alfie asks.

She glowers at him.

"Oh. That. Your friend's funeral in a few years. Sad stuff."

"Alfie, I swear to God, if you are fucking with me-"

"I wouldn't do that," he insists. "Not about this kind of thing."

She takes a breath, crossing her arms. "I'm getting a cab home."

"Sure."

*****

She can't stop thinking about it.

The dry heat at that funeral. The crowd and their murmurs of what a shame it all was.

Midge huffs out a breath and snatches up the phone. She has Lenny's LA number, and she's not supposed to call too much; an unspoken agreement of breathing room.

Fuck breathing room.

She has the operator patch her through long distance and waits.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Make it okay?"

Lenny chuckles, a little confused. "I made it fine. You didn't have to check up."

She bites her lip. "I wanted to."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"I'm fine, Midge," he assures her. "Jetlagged as fuck but fine."

"Good. Not about the jetlag, but-"

"I get it," he assures her. "Are you alright? You sound a little stressed."

She pauses for a moment, trying to decide what to tell him. She settles on some truth. "I think I'm missing you more than I thought I would."

She can tell she's surprised him.

"Midge…"

"I know," she says, gripping the phone tighter. "Don't be a stranger, okay, Lenny?"

It's his turn to pause. "Okay."

"Bye, Lenny."

"Bye, Midge."

*****

"You're getting warmer," Alfie tells her the next time they're both at Susie's office.

She glares at him. "You didn't give me much to go on."

"Oh," Alfie chirps. "Here."

Susie's office melts away and she's sitting on Gordon Ford's couch.

"I know you and Lenny were close for a while," he says. "His death must have been a terrible shock."

Midge swallows and nods, and words spill out of her as if someone - her future self maybe?- is in control. "You know, it was and it wasn't. He had a bad habit of assuring people he had everything under control, even as he was spiraling. It was hard to tell where his head was at. He wasn't like me. He was a very private person."

She snaps back, Alfie sitting in front of her.

"Does that help?" He asks.

"No," Midge snaps.

"Oh. Oops."

*****

Her phone rings that night and she's surprised to find Lenny on the other end.

"Quick, what do you buy a six-year-old who's seen too much shit for her birthday?"

Midge grins a little. "A good analyst," she tells him. "And a very fancy Barbie."

"Fancy Barbie it is."

"How are you, Lenny?"

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yes. Fine. I got arrested again, but I'm fine."

She gives a silent sigh. "I'm sorry."

"Fuck 'em."

"Yeah."

"You doing good?" He asks, clearly desperate for a subject change.

"Yeah. Working. Gigging."

"Good."

"My kid threw up on my ex the other day."

Lenny chuckles at that, loosening up. "Sweet satisfaction"

"Esther is mommy's little angel," Midge jokes. "It was right on cue. He started giving me shit, and the vomit just flowed."

He laughs at that. "Someone else has earned a fancy Barbie."

"She's just a tad too young," Midge grins. "She'd eat its hair."

"And then vomit more."

"Exactly." She pauses. "Any plans on when you'll be back here?"

"Not yet," Lenny tells her. "Missing me that much?"

"Yes. And also I found your tie."

"My tie? From -"

"Yep."

"Keep it. Use it in your act."

"Is that blanket permission to humiliate you in public?" She laughs.

"Why not? It'll keep that terrible place from forgetting me."

She grins a little. "You're hard to forget."

"Clearly, Miss Weissman."

"I'm sorry, who called whom tonight?" She accuses playfully.

"An innocent phone call to a friend about a birthday gift suggestion."

"Uh-huh. Why didn't you call Jo-Jo then?"

"I did. He suggested stock options and a cocktail shaker."

Midge laughs at that.

*****

"Definitely getting there," Alfie tells her after one of his shows a few months later.

He snaps and she's sitting at a table in a ballroom. It's 1984 and Steve Allen is hosting a tribute to Lenny.

And it's sad, and funny. And then the mood turns dark at the end.

And suddenly there it is. A prolonged image of a naked body lying dead on a bathroom floor.

And she knows now. She knows how this happened.

She's in tears when Alfie brings her back. She looks at him angrily.

"I don't make future things happen," he tells her helplessly. "I just see them."

She gets on a plane for LA that night.

*****

His house is nice. Bigger than she expected. He opens the door when she knocks, and he's genuinely surprised to see her.

He looks a little ill, to be honest. Thin. Shaky on his feet.

"You don't have the best timing," he tells her. "I'm a little under the weather."

Midge takes a breath, squaring her shoulders. "Then it's a good thing I'm an excellent nursemaid."

Lenny considers for a moment, before letting her in, and she can't stop herself from wrapping her arms around his neck, making him hunch for a hug.

She makes soup, and he shakes at the table, watching her.

"What are you doing here, Midge?"

"I thought maybe you could use a friend," she shrugs. "And my mother is driving me crazy. She keeps trying to set me up on dates."

Lenny's shoulders slump. "You should take her up on them, you know."

"I would," she says thoughtfully. "But there's this guy who lives clear across the country I really care about. He's handsome and funny and very good in bed and also an idiot."

"Who is this mystery man? I'm a little jealous."

She grins and brings him a bowl of soup. "Eat. You'll feel better."

He eyes her suspiciously. "You know what's happening here, don't you."

Midge nods. "You're trying to stay clean. I'm feeding you soup."

He swallows, averting his eyes, shame coloring his face.

She strokes his hair soothingly. "Eat."

*****

She can only stay a few days, but she makes the most of her time. Helping him regain his strength, telling him the jokes about his tie from her act. He laughs loudly, the joy on his face making her beam.

That smile, he claims, is how they wind up in bed together.

She holds him tightly in the aftermath, tracing circles on his back, kissing his shoulder.

"You keep showing up," he points out softly as he settles next to her.

Midge gazes at him softly. "There might be a good reason."

Lenny swallows, and she can see the hope in his eyes.

It's not a lie. It's just that there are two good reasons and not just one. She leans in, kissing him slowly, her arms tight around him.

*****

Sally and Kitty show up an hour before she leaves. Sally is suspicious. Kitty is adorable.

She shows off her birthday gifts for Midge, who produces an extra gift from her bag - a Barbie accessory set - which earns her an excited squeak and a hug.

Lenny lifts an amused eyebrow at her and she answers with a shrug.

"So, Midge. You just came out to visit Lenny?" Sally asks as Midge is getting ready for Lenny to take her to the airport.

"Just checking in. There's leftover soup in your refrigerator."

"...Thank you."

"I like soup," Kitty chimes in. "Daddy, can I come to the airport?"

"You stay here, Kit. Keep grandma company," he tells her.

She huffs, but agrees, hugging Midge again and looking up at her. "Bye Midge. Come back soon."

"I'll do my best, Sweetie," Midge promises.

Sally eyes her again. "Nice meeting you."

Midge smiles and follows Lenny out to the car, and he hooks his fingers with hers.

"You have a new fan," he grins.

"And a new critic," she jokes.

"Don't mind Ma, it's Kitty’s opinion that counts."

She holds his hand tightly as he drives them to the airport, and when he parks, they very nearly wind up hot and heavy in the backseat, but he manages some self control.

"What is this with us?" He asks, still holding onto her. "You came all the way here on a whim. Midge, what is this?"

She looks him in the eyes, swallowing down the full truth and kissing him again. "This is what I want."

Lenny stares back at her for a long moment before kissing her again firmly. "Give me a few weeks. I'll come see you."

Midge can't help smiling. "See you in a few weeks, then."

****

"It's almost enough," Alfie tells her. "There's one more thing."

Midge bites her lip. "Alfie, what-"

She doesn't get the chance to finish her sentence before she's sitting in a booth. Lenny is lounging across from her, and the restaurant is warm and noisy around them.

And she remembers this. She remembers this night so well.

She remembers talking about herself and her stupid manifesto that whole time.

A waste.

When she opens her mouth, sitting here now, she expects the same results as before. To not be able to control her words.

It's not the case.

"Lenny?" She asks softly.

He looks at her, his face open and sweet.

Midge reaches out, taking his hand, playing with his fingers. Savoring how good this whole night felt.

"What is it?" He asks, getting a little concerned.

She takes a breath. If there was ever a time to ask, it's now, and not while he's lecturing her on stage at Carnegie Hall.

"Is all really well?" She asks softly.

His eyes drift from hers to her fingers, keeping them fixed there as his expression goes serious. "All is…probably not as well as it could be."

Midge nods, watching him closely.

"You don't have to worry," he promises.

"I'm sorry. I'm Jewish and a mother. What do you think we do in our spare time?"

It makes him laugh, and he rubs his eye with his free hand.

She gazes at him softly, squeezing his hand a little. "I care about you, Lenny. If I didn't, tonight wouldn't have happened. I really like having you around. You know what I mean?"

He gazes back, nodding in understanding.

"I don't know exactly what was in that bag," she goes on softly. "But I can make a guess that as good as it feels in the moment, it'll hurt you in the long run." She untangles her fingers from his, reaching over to brush her fingertips against his jaw. "I don't want you to hurt."

He stays quiet for a long moment before responding.

"I originally started using because I didn't want to hurt," he admits. "It was for a war injury. The original stuff. It kept me up for days at a time. And so they gave me shit to calm me down. And it worked too well and now…"

"Now," she repeats, not needing him to finish.

Lenny nods.

"I can't tell you what to do," Midge shrugs. "I mean I could, but you'd probably walk out. All I can tell you is that if you need me, you've got me. And I don't care if we’re friends or friends who are fucking or totally ass over tea kettle in love or if I'm pissed at you for ridiculing my apron again. You've got me."

He stares at her for a long, silent moment, and she can't read his face.

She waits him out.

"You want dumplings?" He asks finally. "They're great here, they taste like sewer meat."

Midge has to laugh. "I love dumplings."

The last thing she sees as Alfie snaps her back is Lenny's grateful little smile.

"Well?" She asks.

"You've done all you can," Alfie confirms. "It's up to him now."

*****

“Can I tell you something completely fucking crazy?” she asks as she sits in Shy’s lavish townhouse, drinking her martini.

They’ve been talking again, and it’s good. It’s great, actually, to have another friend to rely on. Susie is so busy with her other clients, and Imogene has been busy with her stenographer work, and the friends Midge had before the comedy and the split from Joel and the comedy have mostly dried up.

Shy tilts his head at her, quirking a grin. “You know I love a good crazy story.”

Midge pauses for a moment, considering how to talk about this.

“Oh, this must be crazy if you don’t even know how to start,” he chuckles, taking a seat with his own drink.

“I think maybe I changed the future,” she blurts out.

Shy blinks.

“God, I knew you were going to look at me that way,” she grumbles.

He laughs. “Midge, you just told me you think you changed the future. That is the craziest, most ego-fueled statement you’ve ever made, in a history of crazy, ego-fueled statements.”

“That’s fair,” she concedes. “But I’m being serious.”

“...Alright.”

“I am!”

“Tell me how,” Shy says. “How did you change the future?”

“You know Susie’s client, Alfie?” Midge asks.

“The creepy one,” Shy confirms.

“Yes, the creepy one,” she nods. “He said- he told me -” she blows out a breath. “He told me Lenny was going to die…sometime before the decade ends.”

“Shit, that is crazy,” Shy marvels. “Did he have proof?”

“Yep,” Midge nods, taking a larger gulp of her drink.

“Like what?”

“If I tell you, you’ll have me thrown in a nuthouse,” she tells him.

Shy lifts an eyebrow. “If I haven’t yet…”

Midge considers, and then explains. About the visions. About the revised conversation.

Shy stares at her with wide eyes, taking it all in. “Boy slipped something in your drink.”

“I wasn’t drinking when this happened,” Midge tells him.

He goes silent again. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck?”

“I don’t know,” she hisses. “But apparently, all I can do now is wait and see what happens. Maybe I helped. But maybe i just- didn’t.”

Shy sighs and rests his hand on her shoulder. “Could this just be leftover worry from finding out about the drugs? Or leftover guilt from not taking that Bennett gig?”

She thinks about that for a moment, nodding. “Maybe. But I don’t want to take the chance.”

*****

She trudges through the door of her apartment after her first taping at the Gordon Ford show, and she slips her heels off, sighing in relief as she lifts them to carry them to her room.

It was a great show, and she killed, and the audience loved her and she made Gordon laugh, and Susie was fucking thrilled.

Midge wonders if Lenny tuned in. If he saw. If he’s thinking about her.

She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him. About the idea that maybe she changed things for him; that whether they wind up together or not, he’ll be okay.

Or maybe she’s insane for believing Alfie in all of this. But then, what the hell were those visions?

Midge sighs heavily, set on getting ready for bed and putting this behind her. After all, she has no control over what happens from here, Alfie told her so. She just wishes she did.

She’s not used to the apartment feeling so quiet, but her parents are so busy these days, she rarely sees them, and the kids are in Queens for the weekend. Soon, she’s out of her dress and corset and slipping into a soft dressing gown; a gift from Shy for booking the Ford gig.

She’s about to go fix herself a drink when there’s a knock on the door, and Midge frowns as she course corrects for the foyer instead of the living room.

When she swings it open, Lenny is standing there, looking mildly sheepish.

“I tried to get here sooner,” he tells her helplessly. “I wanted to come to the studio and watch tonight. My flight got in too late. I caught the broadcast in the airport.”

Midge melts a little, leaning against the door, gazing at him. “You paid a whole quarter to watch me?”

“Yes I did.”

“What did you think?” she asks him.

“You don’t need me to say it,” he says softly.

She shrugs innocently. “Then I guess I’ll talk to you later,” she says as she starts to close the door.

Lenny shoots a hand out quickly, holding the door, staring her down.

Midge swallows hard and steps back as he follows her into the apartment, closing the door carefully behind him.

“Abe and Rose here?” he asks.

“No.”

“Kids?”

“With Joel’s parents in Queens,” Midge tells him.

He nods, looking thoughtful. “So if I wanted to make you scream my name for an hour or two, I wouldn’t be disturbing anyone.”

She shrugs. “The neighbors might get startled.”

“Fuck the neighbors.”

“I’m not sure Mrs. Himmelfarb down the hall would appreciate-”

She doesn’t get to finish, before he’s kissing her deeply, taking his time, pressing her against the wall, his hands sliding over her. “You were incredible tonight. And it was so hot.”

She beams at him, her arms resting on his shoulders.

Lenny shakes his head. “That smile again, the way you smile at me. How am I supposed to resist?”

Midge smiles, tugging him closer. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you-”

“I mean, in the city,” she clarifies.

“I did say I’d come see you soon,” he reminds her. “And here I am.”

“Just to see me?” Midge asks. “I’m that special?”

He gazes at her for a long, quiet moment, taking her hand. “Do you remember that night? At that terrible Chinese place?”

“With the sewer water dumplings?” Midge offers.

“Yes, those,” Lenny chuckles. “You said something to me that night.”

She stares into his eyes. “I…I did?”

He nods. “You said that no matter what, no matter where we are in this…whatever this is between us, that I’ve always got you.”

Midge nods slowly, trying to keep the disbelief from her face. “I did say that. And I meant it, too.”

“I know you did,” Lenny says. “And if you still do, I’d like to take advantage of that on a more consistent basis.”

She leans back against the wall, tilting her head curiously. “In what way? Just friends? Friends who fuck? Ass over tea kettle in love? Me being pissed off at you for complaining about my apron again?”

He looks down at his shoes and her bare feet. “I thought…if you might possibly be interested in a date. A real one. And we can see where it leads us.”

“I Assume back here to my pace,” Midge jokes, brushing her nose against his.

“Or mine,” Lenny offers.

“Your hotel room?”

“I got a place,” he shrugs. “It’s nice. Big enough for Kitty to come and stay. You made a very good impression on her, by the way. She can’t stop talking about you. It’s driving my mother crazy.”

Midge laughs softly. “She’s sweet.”

“Yes, she is.”

She gazes at him, taking him in. The brightness in his eyes. The little bit of weight he’s put back on. The color in his cheeks. “You look good, Lenny.”

“So do you,” he responds, tugging at the die on her dressing gown. “I like this robe.”

Midge smiles and cups his face. “I mean. You look like you’re doing good.”

He nods. “I am. I feel like I am. Things feel…better. Good. It’s why I wanted to see you. To…to try whatever the hell this is.”

“What do you want it to be?” she asks.

He hesitates, then, looking a little sheepish.

“See, the thing no one seems to realize about Lenny Bruce,” Midge teases. “Is that he’s a very soft boy on the inside. I really like that about him. In fact, I actually really love that abou-”

He cuts her off with a kiss, pulling her in close, and she’s too distracted by the stumble towards her bedroom to complete the thought.

They’ve had sex a couple of times now, and every time has felt just as good. He’s deeply attentive, and reaches completion twice. Once from his fingers and tongue, and then a second time while he’s inside of her.

Afterwards, as they come down from the high, he buries his face against her neck, kissing her there tenderly.

“I want this to be everything,” he mutters, still holding her in his arms. “I want to wake up in fifty years and know that I still have this. You.”

Midge ducks down and kisses him slowly. “I like the sound of that.”

He smiles and kisses her again.

*****

“So?”

Alfie looks up at her from the couch in Susie’s office. He’s got a top hat he’s fiddling with. “So what?” he asks as he peers inside.

“Lenny still gonna die?” Midge asks.

Alfie puts the hat down, looking confused. “Lenny was gonna die?”

“Alfie-”

“Lenny’s not gonna die, don’t be ridiculous,” Alfie tells her. “You are such a strange woman, Midge. You should see a professional. That’s morbid.”

Midge frowns deeply. “Alfie-”

“Susie, Midge is being morbid,” Alfie cuts her off.

“Midge, stop freakin’ out Alfie! He gets weird when he’s not the one being cryptic!”

“I-”

“C’mon! We gotta go over the contract for Ford’s people,” Susie orders as she heads for the inner office. “And that asshole boyfriend of yours made me promise you’d be home for dinner, because he’s cooking, apparently.”

“I see I’m having beans for dinner,” Midge jokes as she follows.

“You’re the one who decided to fuck a world famous comedian who can’t fucking cook.”

Midge smiles widely. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

END

#fic #au #tmmm #Midge x Lenny #Midge/Lenny #I wrote this mostly on vacation #Alfie and Susie and Shy are here too

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cellsshapedlikestars · 2 years

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Kit Harrington 🤝 Jensen Ackles

Spending actual money to produce their own fan fictions after their characters get terrible endings.

As someone in both got and spn fandoms, this is just weird. If someone “et tu brute”s Kit I will literally die laughing. I really hope Jon insists that Ghost gets more screen time now that they don’t have 3 dragons and a bunch of wights to cgi.

I have not watched spn since around season 6, but I have heard about what's going on through tumblr. I'm less surprised on that front, 1 - because spn became clownery a long time ago, and 2 - it's the CW.

But I'm also not totally surprised that HBO is trying to go the Star Wars & Marvel route and just pump out as much media for an IP as possible to make as much money as possible.

I think Kit cares and if GRRM is involved, I hope that means a good show, but also, I don't know HOW Kit interprets his character and we don't know HOW involved GRRM will be.

(my ranting about this spinoff got quite long, so under a cut. this is genuinely a rant about the show, you've been warned)

I also am quite sure we won't get Jonsa, but that's my personal opinion and I know a lot of people are really hoping for it. And if it happens, amazing! I just... this show genuinely broke me. I have no hope that I will ever be happy with anything GOT again. Not a spinoff or prequel, I don't think the books will ever come out... I think the best we'll ever get is an outline of what would have happened after GRRM dies.

What I would want out of the show is for Sophie and Maisie to return. Sophie because literally how could you do a Jon show without her? Sansa is the QitN. Like unless Jon just hops on a boat and fucks off to Essos, how does he not encounter her? Obviously Bran and Arya are easier to explain away if they don't show up, just due to distance, but I was so disappointed with how little screentime Arya and Jon got together. Of all the siblings, they had the best relationship in the beginning and then the reunion was just... nothing. Honestly same with Sansa & Arya, because the chance we got to see them be badasses together was ruined by making it look like they were fighting for a whole season. So dumb. How amazing would it have been if we could have seen Sansa & Arya working together to fuck with Baelish?? But once again, D&D needed everything to be a SHOCKING TWIST, so we didn't.

And yes. 100% more Ghost screentime. It is actually unreal to me how much the dragon/D stuff took over. Nearly every single thing that happened with the Starks in the last 2 seasons were in service of the D plotline, and trying to hide that she was a villain for as long as possible. Bran and Arya barely got screentime, Sansa was presented as bitchy and rude around D to hide the fact that she was actually right & D was the villain, and Jon got turned into one of those pull string dolls that can only repeat the same 3 lines over and over again with no real personality.

(this also applies to Tyrion, who's character was also ruined the minute he got sucked into the D vortex)

Also, for the news that EC will not be returning... I really hope that's true and not just some dumb "no, Jon Snow is really dead, we promise uwu" bullshit. As someone else said (I think @esther-dot) they really screwed with her by not letting her know Dany's end for so long (but then I also think... girl, didn't they tell you to study Hitler speeches to prepare? How did that not clue her in? They must have gaslit her HARD, which makes me feel so bad for her.)

ANYWAY. This got so off topic. I just genuinely, 3 years later, cannot get over how bad the show ended and how completely they ruined every character and plotline. And maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I have no faith this spinoff will do anything to fix it. This show truly and utterly has ruined me & the way I consume/enjoy media.

All that being said, I will watch it, and I will let Jon Snow absolutely destroy me again.

#cellsshapedlikeasks

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televinita · 2 months

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I decided to read through some of my oldest used-book-sale posts last night, like from 2010-12, and I have (re)learned so many things! A sampling:

1. Can confirm I've owned both Moonrunner and Alpha Dog, two (unrelated) titles on my perpetual "I'll read this soon probably definitely," since 2011. One, in my defense, is in a box somewhere and I have no idea where. The other is literally on my bookshelf in the apartment with me right now, the one that's not even double-stacked, where it's been since I bought it, and I have no excuses.

2. The Hanged Man was the first Francesca Lia Block book I ever read.

3. The paperback copy of Inkheart that I own is beaten up/wrinkled to hell, because this was back in my "earning $10k a year and spending at least half of it on student loan payments" era and also I had so little book sale experience that I was just excited to find a copy of a book I liked at all. tl;dr next time I see a nice copy I should feel free to upgrade.

4. I bought so many friggin' awesome computer games I never had time to play because fandom ate up what little time I wasn't spiritually crushed by my terrible paid-by-the-completed-piece job, and now my computers are too new to play them. (side note: the fact that this is even how computers and ~upgraded systems~ work is incredibly stupid. I'm so jealous that video game consoles don't die the way computers do.)

5. I bought the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants soundtrack?? What is even on it? Where IS it?? I can't possibly have decided to get rid of that...? But I have no memory of seeing this among my collection. Maybe I was still in my "I don't have room to keep everything" era and didn't like enough songs on it to justify keeping for the booklet and charm.

6. I bought (and didn't read or keep and in fact explicitly picked up in a bag sale to flip @ Half Price Books) a hardcover-with-dust-jacket vintage juvenile novel that didn't interest me at the time (Bridge of Friendship -- and tbh, the plot summary still doesn't excite me), but...Mabel Esther Allan! Who would later become dear to me via Home to the Island.

7. I considered giving 5 stars to The Fault in Our Stars in spite of my John Green Vendetta. I know it's because I got swept up in the giddy fandom rush on Tumblr in 2012 -- everyone in the Glee circles talking about The Land of Stories also was in love with this one -- but LMAO. "I will definitely buy the first copy I see for $2 or less." False. By the time I see one a few years later -- a special edition with an author Q&A and everything -- I will have forgotten almost all of the plot details and said, "Meh." (I left it 4 stars on Goodreads for The Memories tho)

8. I bought Double Trouble by Doreen Tovey in 2013, never having heard of her. It would take me fully 7 years to actually read one of her books (a different one I bought later). I still haven't read this one. Though in my defense, which is minimal since the first book I read was #7, I have only otherwise read book 1 and this is #6 in her set of memoirs.

9. As an aside -- in 2007, after losing my one precious flash drive at college, I finally bit the bullet and bought a replacement. This one held two gigabytes AND it "only cost $20."

(Sometimes you just gotta appreciate the rare thing that doesn't cost more now than it did in the past, you know? While we're at it, remember how gas prices were so bad in 2008 that sometimes minimum wage jobs weren't worth driving to, but they're basically still that price if not lower today? Just little gratitude things.)

#even as I regret not keeping a real journal anymore it's amazing how many little details land in ANYTHING personal you write down #i hope that someday i have a computer strong enough to handle downloading my tumblr archive cause i KNOW I have loads here (mostly in tags)

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crimechannels · 6 months

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By • Olalekan Fagbade Residents seek government intervention on outrageous House rents Residents of Abuja have appealed to the Federal Government to intervene on arbitrary increase in house rents by landlords in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT). Some residents told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in separate interviews on Sunday, that paying rent in Abuja was burdensome as landlords increased rents at will. They lamented that such indiscriminate hike in rent had caused ill-treatment and harassment from landlords. Mr Dauda Abusali, an artist, said that his rent was increased without prompt notice, adding that he was currently putting up with a friend. “My landlord asked everyone to pack if they are unable to pay the rent he is demanding; my experience is tough. “ I have sent my family home to see how I can survive the situation.’’ Abusali said that there were many houses in the city with no one occupying them because of high rents. “The government should make policies that will stop this trend; houses should not be empty when many people do not have houses,’’ he said. Mr Kolade Tayo, an event planner, said that it was inhuman to increase the rent on a house that was built many years ago because of the economic situation today. “As a tenant, I have received terrible treatment from my landlord who does whatever he likes. “The government should be able to regulate the arbitrary increase in house rents; if the government can put a benchmark on rents, it will greatly help the residents,” he said. Mr Ajibola Olushola, a fashion designer, said that the reoccurring increase in house rent had affected his household. According to him, after paying rent, he does not have enough money to sort other family needs. He pleaded that the government should come to the rescue of the citizens. “Government should support schemes that manage house rent issues before all of us die in this country,” he said. Miss Esther Mamudu, a corps member, said the outrageous house rent by landlords was a type of injustice tenants faced in the hands of landlords. “My sister resumed school only to realise that her rent had been increased with no prior notice. “ She was asked to either pay immediately or vacate the house,’’ she said. Mamudu added that there was need for a body that would serve as a watch dog to regulate house rents and activities of landlords in Abuja and Nigeria at large. She said regulating rents in Nigeria as a country would go a long way to easing the suffering of the masses. Mr Nex Peter, a printer, said that everything in the country was very expensive, adding that house owners were also trying to survive the hard times. “I decided to live with my friends so we can and join hands together to pay the rent of N400, 000 every year. “This is the only way I can survive in Abuja; I appeal to government at all level to look into the hardship people are facing and address it; it is becoming unbearable,” he said. Mr Agogo Stephen, a corps member, expressed dissatisfaction with the situation in the country, adding that no average Nigerian was having it ease. “The situation is very bad and has rendered many people homeless because they cannot afford to pay rent in the city,” he said. Stephen said the government needed to intervene in reducing the price of building materials to help the low income earners afford a roof on their head. However, a landlord, Mr Banji Oluwaseyeri, attributed the increase in rent in Abuja to the high cost of living in the country. “Transportation and feeding are on the increase; as landlords, we have to increase our rent to be able to survive the current economic situation,’’ he said. Oluwaseyeri appealed to the government to support the citizens with tokens and reduce the cost of transportation. NAN reports that the 9th Senate passed into second reading, a bill seeking to stop landlords in the FCT from demanding advance payment of one-year rent from their tenants. The legislation was titled,

“A Bill for an Act to regulate the mode of Payment of Rent on Residential Apartments, Office Spaces, in the FCT and for Other Matters Connected Therewith.’’ The bill, sponsored by Sen. Smart Adeyemi (APC Kogi-West), was aimed at ending the practice whereby landlords demanded a yearly advance payment of rents from their tenants.(NAN)

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blooblooded · 1 year

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Marty During the Bombings.

Marty stared at Ayda’s wide-eyed, frightened face on the screen of his phone and realized that she was crying. Why was she crying? That didn’t make sense. There was no reason to be crying anymore. “It’s OK,” he said. “C’est— It’s OK, it’s OK. You’re fine, Kip’s gonna be fine, you guys just have to take him to the hospital. You just have to take him to the hospital and he’ll be OK. Everything’s OK now, you stopped Lee, you stopped the bomb, you’re fine.”

She wasn’t even looking at him, she was looking around the basement wildly. “Did you hear that?” Her voice was so tiny and scared. “Did you just hear that?!”

“Ade, we need to get out of here, we need to go!” That was Casey’s voice, bright and clear despite the edge of panic beneath. Marty watched Ayda’s camera swing towards her sister, it looked like she and Rosie were trying to pull Kip up to his feet but his injured leg buckled beneath him. Kip was sobbing. Marty felt a terrible pang in his heart. “We need to fucking go!”

“You gotta put weight on it, I’m sorry, you gotta get up.” Rosie got one of Kip’s arms around her shoulders. “Just stand up, you just gotta get up. We can– I think the stairs are–”

“No, no no no no.” Even in the flickering basement light, Kip’s face was bloodless. He clutched at Rosaline as if she was hurting him. “No, no, I can’t, I can’t, it hurts.”

There was a loud crash. This time Marty heard it and he flinched back from 500 miles away. He heard Ayda and Esther scream.

There were other bombs.

Suddenly Marty could not breathe. Of course there were other bombs. How could he have been so stupid? This wasn’t the plan of one deranged individual, this was a carefully thought out act of terrorism. Lee and his stupid little friends. Lee and his stupid little beliefs. Eden was an anthill! Where was there to go? There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to hide. They didn’t even know, they didn’t even understand the level of destruction that was in store for them. Well Marty knew. Marty remembered the way Jules had gone all quiet when she talked about helping the First Army soldiers dig broken bodies out of the rubble after the Imperials had bombed Ile de Matane at the end of the war.

And this would be ten times that scale. Twenty times.

“Ayda,” he said. The name was nothing but a hoarse whisper. He held onto his phone so tightly that his knuckles went white. Maybe if he held it tight enough it would be like he was there, it would be like he was helpful, it would be like he wasn’t sitting safe in his room, useless and alone. No. No, no, no. “Ayda?!”

Another loud crash. More screams. The lights in the basement flickered again. Oh god, he was going to watch them all die. Marty felt a peculiar numbness. Death. Oh, he knew what death looked like, he had seen it before. He was going to watch them all die and there was nothing he could do.

Ayda looked at her screen. Marty looked into the face of his best friend. He saw her wide, terrified eyes fill with tears. “What is happening?!” she asked shrilly. “What’s going on, what’s happening?! That sounded like– like–”

“--Will you grab her, we need to fucking go! Kassidy, why aren’t you move–”

“There’s more bombs,” said Marty. He could no longer move, he could barely even breathe, all he could do was stare at the tiny piece of metal and glass that was the only connection between himself and his friends. His thoughts seemed to move as slow as honey. “There’s more bombs. You need to get out of there, you need to get out of there, go find a place that’s not going to collapse, no glass, nothing – I mean nothing that can break. Nothing that can break and hurt you.”

“I don’t want to be here! I want to go home, I want my dad!”

“Ayda, you have to—”

The call disconnected. The screen went blank.

Marty was by himself in his room. It was dark. It was quiet. The only light came from the screen of his computer. Everything was so still it was like he had slipped beneath the surface of deep cold water.

For a second he couldn’t move and he couldn’t think. Oh. So it was like that. All his friends were gone in less than a second. He had always known how easily the connection between them could be severed. He had always known that if they decided to never answer his calls again, that would be that. The physical distance that separated them had always put a limit on the length of their relationships. But this was not a choice. This wasn’t as if Ayda had woken up one day and decided not to talk to him anymore, no this was worse than that, this was complete finality. This was Ayda getting crushed to death in her horrible anthill Colony and it was all his fault.

Breathe. He needed to breathe. Marty tried to fill his lungs but his chest wouldn’t rise. He stared at his phone, still clutched so tightly in his hands. Everything was numb, he could hear static. His body acted without the permission of his mind and he watched himself press the button next to Ayda’s name.

The call didn’t go through.

Marty blinked. His eyes stung.

There had to be somebody. He had to talk to somebody. Anybody. Ayda, Casey, Kip, Esther, Kassidy, and Rosaline had all been together in the basement. It was no good trying them. It was pointless. But he didn’t want anybody else, he wanted Ayda. He only wanted Ayda. He was stupid. He was so stupid. He pressed the button next to Ayda’s name again and watched as nothing happened. He tried a 3rd time. A 4th time.

“Stupid,” Marty said to himself. He swallowed hard. There was a lump in his throat. He took a small, shuddering breath. Ayda wasn’t going to answer him. This didn’t seem real. Everything was moving too slow and too fast at the same time.

Somebody else then. Rome. Rome would pick up. Rome was smart and careful, he would be somewhere safe. And he panicked so easily, maybe he needed to talk to Marty just as much as Marty needed to talk to him. Yes, Rome would pick up. Rome liked him, he would always pick up. Marty pressed the button next to his name.

The call didn’t go through.

He kept trying. There was nothing he could do but keep trying to make contact with someone, with anyone. He tried the Bellamy twins, then Rome’s babysitter AJ. He tried Ayda a 5th time, then a 6th time. When Marty tried to call Kip, he had to close his eyes so he didn’t have to see the blank screen on his phone.

As sick as it was, he even tried to call Lee. Not because he was worried about him– Marty hoped that he had gone and blown himself up. But if Lee picked up, maybe he could get some confirmation that the others were OK. Something. Something. Anything.

Nothing. And he had no other contacts in Eden.

Maybe Eden had fallen in on itself and everyone was dead. Whose stupid idea had it been to shove a million people into a pit? Marty was only 16 years old and even he could see how easy it would be to annihilate an entire population by blowing up Eden’s support structures. They were all dead. He could see no other reason that nobody was answering him. Giant chunks of concrete had probably fallen on top of Ayda and smashed her into paste. And he was never going to talk to her again. He was never going to see her face again. The last thing she had said to him was that she wanted her dad, she had been scared and helpless and now she was dead.

And it was all his fault. If he had told Kip’s mom or Ayda’s dad about Lee, they could have put an end to this months ago. Kip’s mom would have had him dumped into prison. Ayda’s dad would have just bashed his face in with a hammer. Either way, with Lee out of the picture, maybe there wouldn’t have been any bombs. Maybe everyone would be OK. But Marty hadn’t told any grown-ups about Lee. He had been too scared. He had been too scared that Kip and Ayda wouldn’t want to be his friends anymore if he told anyone and since Marty’s only friends lived in Eden, he never risked it.

Now he didn’t have any friends because they were all dead and it was his fault.

There was nothing inside of him but he couldn’t move. The loss was too fresh and new to process. It had happened in an instant and Marty had always struggled with knowing how he was supposed to react. When he was 10, Jules told him that his mother had been killed. Marty hadn’t known what to do then either. He knew that he was supposed to be sad, because he had seen that Jules was sad. This seemed like it was worse. His mother had never loved him and had never really wanted to be alive either. When she died at least he knew that she wasn’t suffering anymore. His friends though? His friends and everyone else in Eden? They hadn’t wanted to die!

He did not know how long he sat there, feeling nothing. It felt like hours.

He set his phone face down on his desk and stood up. Marty swayed like he was about to fall and put a hand out to catch himself. He shook his head, looked at the clock. Not even 8am. He hadn’t slept all night. Of course he hadn’t slept. The night had started with him begging Kip to climb out of Lee’s bathroom before he got hurt and it had ended with him hearing the explosion that more than likely killed everyone he cared about. Marty didn’t think he would ever sleep again.

Still, he felt nothing but numbness. Was he in shock? When he blinked, he could hear his eyelids touching each other. Marty shook his head. He kept trying to breathe but his chest would not expand all the way. Dead. Gone. It had happened so fast and now he was alone.

Maybe he deserved it.

Marty reached out to his lamp and switched it on. He paused for a second and switched it off again. Then on again. His heart pounded. Marty gritted his teeth and started to flick the light on and off as rapidly as he could. The bright flashing light hurt his head. “Stupid!” he said again, more forcefully as he stared directly at the flashing light. If he was lucky it would induce a seizure. He didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be alone in his room, alone with his thoughts, alone with the stark reality of what had happened. He could check out. He could go to the Void. Even that horrible place would be better than this.

There was clarity in the Void. There were answers. Marty looked straight into the flashing lights and felt nothing but building frustration. He gave up, clenched his fists.

What was he supposed to do? He didn’t know what to do. Ayda would know. Ayda was always talking about feeling her feelings, but Ayda was gone. Marty would never be able to ask Ayda for help again. The corners of his eyes prickled.

He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t just sit here alone. Marty didn’t know what he needed, all he knew was that he didn’t need to be alone. He still couldn’t breathe. There was a heaviness squeezing his chest and he put a hand over his heart. Was he shaking? Why was he shaking?

Had it hurt? Had it happened quickly? What if it hadn’t happened quickly? Marty’s stomach flipped at that thought. When Ile de Matane had been bombed at the end of the war, there had been half-crushed people who lingered beneath the rubble for days only to expire from dehydration. He had seen the pictures on Beatrice Kosarin’s propaganda pamphlets; the children with their faces smashed like eggs. What was he supposed to do? Pray? Kip had already been sobbing in pain after being shot, how was it fair for him to endure more pain?

Kip. Marty had worked so hard all night long to keep Kip calm and keep Kip safe. What was the point? Kip had been the point and now Kip was gone. Kip was gone and he had probably been hurting and terrified the whole time.

Marty’s stomach lurched for a second time. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from throwing up. No no no, don’t throw up, he hated throwing up. He gagged, swallowed bile. His body kept shaking.

All he knew was that he couldn’t stay alone in his room. Marty wiped his mouth and staggered out into the bright hallway.

Outside his room, Florence’s estate was exactly the same as it always was in the mornings. Busy. A couple of kitchen girls passed by with buckets of fresh milk in their arms, and were too busy gossipping to spare him a passing glance. One of the Partisan soldiers stood at the end of the hall near the door to the main building, his rifle crooked lazily in one arm. Nobody looked at Marty. Nobody cared. They went about their daily routines with no knowledge of the violence that had unfolded hundreds of miles to the south. Nobody knew.

The east wing of the estate was enormous, connected to the main building through a secondary kitchen. Most of Florence’s staff lived in the east wing, and she allowed Marty and Jules to have rooms there as well. Maybe Jules counted as staff, since she worked bandaging small injuries and healing illnesses. It wasn’t as clean or decorated as the west wing or the main building, but that was fine. Marty didn’t care about fancy portraits or chandeliers anyways. And Jules’ room was right next to his.

He needed Jules. He wasn’t sure what he needed her for, but every instinct in his body was urging him to find her. Jules would know what to do. She was 13 years older than he was– something less than a mother but more than a sister to him. All those years that his own mother was too wrapped up in her own sadness, Jules had been the one to take care of him. Jules had been the one to feed him and give him baths when she was only a child herself, Jules had been the one to teach him how to read. She would know what to do. She always knew what to do.

Marty barged into Jules’ dark room without bothering to knock. He had known her his whole life and had never once knocked on her door. Like his room, her’s was small, only big enough for a bed and a desk. There were bundles of dried herbs hanging from the rafters and half-melted candles everywhere. A deer skull hung on one wall, painted with symbols and draped with garlands of fresh flowers. It was a cluttered mess, a uniquely Jules-like mess, but the air was fragrant with the scents of rosemary and sweet oil.

“Jules.” His voice cracked. It hurt to speak. It hurt to try to think in his native language instead of English. Marty flipped on her lights.

The sudden light made Jules wake with a start and sit straight up in her bed, cursing. Marty noticed with dull shock that Ivan Kosarin, the big handyman also called Dog, was beside her in bed. That was strange, since Dog usually slept on the floor of the scullery. While they were sleeping, he had put his huge arms around her. As much as Marty protectively hated the idea of Jules sleeping with anyone, his mind was too slow and overwhelmed to do anything but take note of it.

“What is the matter with you?” Jules snapped. Her eyes were still bleary from sleep and her dark hair hung in limp tangles. She angrily brushed the front of her nightgown and then pointed at him. “What are you, a wild animal? I know I raised you better than that, what, you think you can just–” When she got a good look at him, she paused mid sentence and frowned.

He didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stand there. His legs were weak. At any moment, he might fall over. They were dead. They were dead and he was alone and it was his fault. Marty could not stop shaking.

Dog sat up as well and had the good grace to look embarrassed. He had a soft face and watery eyes and also frowned when he looked at Marty.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jules. The irritation in her expression melted away to worry. “What’s wrong with you? You look sick. What’s wrong, did you eat something bad?”

“Everyone’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” Jules and Dog shared a glance. The little witch shook her head. “What are you talking about, who’s dead? Don’t talk crazy like that, you know it’s bad luck. Nobody’s dead.”

“You have a seizure and see things again?” asked Dog, in his quiet, nervous voice that was always so strange to hear coming out of such a large man. He was not wearing a shirt. The shirt was on the floor in a pile.

Through the haze of nothing, Marty felt a jealous pang. It wasn’t fair. The first and only boy he had ever liked was dead. Kip was dead. He had tried to save him and he had failed. There would never be a time he could lie next to him in bed. There would never be a time he could hold him, he knew that, he knew that they had been too separated by distance and that Kip didn’t like him back anyway. But now he couldn’t even fantasize about it. He couldn’t fantasize about liking a dead boy.

It was stupid. For six months, he had been so happy. It was stupid for him to think he could be happy. It was stupid for him to imagine life in a place where there wasn’t something wrong with him. He should have just accepted that he was a freak and would always be alone, that would have hurt less.

It wasn’t worth it. Human connection wasn’t worth the pain and vulnerability.

So why did he want it so bad?

Marty couldn’t talk. He just stood there, frozen. What was he supposed to do? What were people supposed to do when this happened? What did he want? He didn’t know what he wanted, only that he wanted something. Needed something. His chest was so tight that it felt like it was squeezing his heart.

“What is wrong with you?” Jules scrambled out of bed, clutching her robe around her gristle-thin body. She hurried to him and pressed her hand to his forehead, brushed his hair away from his face, cupped his chin in her hands so that she could look at him close up. “You’re covered in sweat. What were you saying, who’s dead? Did you have a bad dream?” One of her thumbs rubbed back and forth against his jawline. “You dreamed about your Mama?”

His eyes stung again. Suddenly he was very small and very young. All he could do was shake his head. Jules kept rubbing him with her thumb. It was a small gesture. Usually he got upset when anyone tried to touch him.

“You dreamed about someone else?” She was struggling. There was nobody else. The only people Marty spoke to in real life were her and Dog, Olive Vernier, and the Prime Minister and her inner circle. There were few children in Florence’s estate. The girls laughed at him, the boys would try to start fights. He had no friends, nobody to really worry about. “What’s wrong, you’re scaring me.”

From day one, Marty had been unwanted and unloved. He knew where he had come from. He knew that some fur trader from the Hinterlands had raped his mother, he knew that she had never been capable of loving him. Of course she hadn’t loved him. And he knew that nobody was ever going to love him. If he ever acted on his hormonal instincts and made a pass at another guy, he would be lucky to make it out with only a beating. People would just put him in the same category as his father, a predator and a pervert. It wasn’t like Eden here. Nobody was ever going to love him. He had been stupid, he had been a masochist for even imagining a life where somebody loved him.

Well. There was one person who loved him. One person who wasn’t fucking dead.

Marty knew what he needed.

He stiffly raised his arms, wrapped them around Jules, and squeezed her. They were the same height and he buried his face against her shoulder. She smelled like the lavender she kept under her pillow at night. For a moment she froze, the behavior in front of her so out of the ordinary that she did not know what to do. Then, fiercely, she returned the hug, rubbing his back as she did so.

A weird sound came out of him then, from deep in his belly. Just one. It sounded like all the air came out of his lungs with a whine.

“I’ve got you,” said Jules. She was as unused to affection as he was and rubbed his back awkwardly. One of her long nails scratched him. “I’ve got you. Everything’s alright.”

“No it’s not.” He blinked rapidly. When was the last time he had been hugged? It had been years. Nobody even tried to touch him anymore. Now it felt so good that he was worried he might cry. “No it’s not, it’s not alright, everyone’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“It’s all my fault. I didn’t tell anyone and now they’re all dead.”

Jules pulled away from him, held him at arm's length with each hand on his shoulders. Her sharp face looked very worried and confused now, black eyes narrow, the pox scars on her cheeks standing out like drips of wax. “Who is dead, Marty? Tell me who is dead.”

He shrugged her hands off of him. No more touch. He didn’t deserve it. He looked down at the floor. The corners of his mouth twitched. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry. Only women and little kids cried. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had cried.

“Who is dead?

Just tell her. Just say it. Saying it out loud would make it real. Maybe saying it out would make it less cold and empty. His chest constricted painfully. “Ayda.” Again his voice cracked. So stupid. What would she think of him? “Ayda. Everyone. Everyone in Eden.”

It didn’t feel better to say it.

“That girl you talk to on your computer?”

Her voice told him that she didn’t understand. She thought he was a freak like all the rest of them, she had never understood why he would rather lock himself up in his room instead of acting like all the other boys his age. Marty couldn’t do this. He swallowed compulsively around the lump in his throat. The stinging in his eyes would not stop. Another stupid little whining noise escaped from inside of him.

“Ma mie.” Jules reached out and tried to grab him up again. Marty pushed her away and would not look at her. “Tell me what’s wrong, let me help you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What happened to that Eden girl you talk to?”

One side of his cheek felt wet. Marty wiped at it furiously so that nobody could see. But Jules saw. Too close not to see. She tried to wipe at his face with her sleeve. The tenderness in the presence of his vulnerability was more than he could bear. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anyone loving him, no matter how much he craved it. He didn’t want to be touched. He didn’t want anyone to touch him. Without thinking, he slapped her hand away from him, harder than he should have.

Jules grabbed his wrist and gave it a squeeze. He wrenched it away from her. “No,” she said forcefully. “I’m not the one you’re mad at. You talk to me, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to act like the other boys here, you talk to me.”

Lee had been right. He was a bad person. He deserved this.

The floodgates didn’t open, not all the way. With him, they never did. He was too disconnected. There weren’t even any words for it. He sniffled once, hating himself, then started to cry without making a sound. It was overwhelming and he was lost and alone. There was no way he could soothe himself. He put his hands over his face and felt himself hunching over.

One cringing and humiliating thought occurred to him, the same thought that occurred to Ayda right before the connection between the two of them was severed. He wanted his mother.

“No, no.” Jules wrapped her arms around him and he was too pathetic to fight her off a second time. Her comfort unleashed more weakness from inside of him. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

“It’s not alright.” Feeling her rub his back made him want to die. Despite being undeserving, he held her tightly. She was the closest thing to a mother that he was ever going to get. “It’s not alright, everyone’s dead! Ayda and Kip and everyone! I tried to figure things out for weeks, I’ve tried to fix everything for weeks and they still all died! They all got blown up! I don’t know what to do! They all got blown up and it’s all my fault, it’s my fault, I didn’t tell anyone because I was scared and now they’re dead!”

“You don’t–”

“There were bombs all over Eden and now I can’t reach anyone!” There was no way to make her understand. There was no way to make anyone understand. “I tried, I really tried. I should have told Ayda’s dad what was happening but I didn’t want her to get mad at me and stop talking to me. And now she’ll never talk to me again!”

He could sense Jules’ bewilderment as he cried about a world she did not belong to and people she would never know. But she kept rubbing his back. She did not tell him to stop crying or to grow up. She just stood there and held him. “It’s alright,” she said, probably because that was all she could think of saying. Her body was more of a comfort than her words were anyway.

“I didn’t sleep last night, I just wanted to make sure Kip was safe, I was trying so hard to help him get away from that guy and now he’s gone! I figured out about the bomb, we all tried so hard to stop it, and it still went off! And Kip’s dead! Kip died anyway!” He couldn’t stop himself now. His stomach flipped again as he thought about Kip’s loud laugh, and then what it sounded like to hear him scream and scream and scream after getting shot. His fault. “And I knew he would never like me back, I knew it was all pointless, but I liked him! He made me feel like I wasn’t a freak! I liked him and now he’s dead because of me! I pretended that he wanted to be with me because I didn’t want to think about how no boy is ever going to want to be with me here! And now everyone’s dead, now everyone’s dead and it’s my fault I’m going to be alone forever!”

Because of the state he was in, Marty did not fully grasp what he had just revealed to her. It was a mistake to say that and he didn’t know it yet.

“That– that doesn’t sound like it’s your fault,” Jules said haltingly. He felt her head turn, probably glancing back at Dog for support. “None of that sounds like it’s your fault. You’re just a boy. Eden is so far away. You just–”

“It is my fault! It’s my fault I didn’t tell anyone! I could have told someone but now it’s too late!” His voice was high and hysterical now, like a girl’s, or like Rome’s when he had one of his panic attacks. Was he having a panic attack? He still couldn’t breathe. All the bottled up emotions were pouring out. It was hitting him then. Everything he had done was all pointless. It would have been better for him to have never met Ayda, to have never built friendships, because then he wouldn’t have to know what it was like to not be alone. He held onto Jules as tightly as he could, shaking. “It’s not fair!”

“Ivan, he’s going to work himself up into a seizure. Get my smelling salts.”

“I wish I would have a seizure! I don’t want to be here! It’s not fair, why do I get to be here?!”

He kept his face pressed into Jules’ shoulder, holding on for dear life, holding on like he was drowning. There was the sound of clinking glass from the desk. A second later, Jules peeled him away from her, tilted his chin up, and shoved a small bottle up to one of his nostrils. The acrid smell of ammonia was immediately apparent. It triggered him into inhaling deeply and the lump in his throat, the tightness in his chest loosened. The chemicals rushed into his brain with a certain clarity. They stopped all his frantic thoughts in their tracks. Marty gasped for air.

Jules tucked the smelling salts away into her sleeve. She pushed his hair back. “You breathe,” she said. All she cared about was what was in front of her. Carefully, she guided him to the side of her bed and made him sit down. “You just breathe, you’re not helping anyone by making yourself sick.”

Dog must have gotten up to grab the little bottle of ammonia for Jules. He looked more worried than she did, but by nature he always appeared worried. Even though he was a big man, the biggest man Marty had ever seen, he was always trying to hunch in on himself, make himself smaller. “You’re alright,” he said, and for a second it looked like he was going to try to reach out and touch him but thought better of it. His mouth naturally curved down. “That happens to me sometimes. I just tell myself I’m safe, I think of Jules and–”

“Me being safe is the whole problem,” Marty snapped. At least he could breathe again and the shock of the salts had forced his mind back into the present, but he still shook and could taste bile in his mouth. He was still crying silently, his shoulders heaving from time to time, the tears dripping off the end of his nose without a sound. “I’m not like you, I don’t feel sorry for myself because some bad things happened to me when I was a kid and cry about it, I just watched everyone I care about die and I couldn’t do anything!”

“Don’t talk to him like that.” Jules kept rubbing his head. “Don’t talk, just breathe.”

But for the first time, all Marty wanted to do was talk. There was nobody else to talk to. All the years of isolation were pouring out of him now and he could not stop it. “I saw them all die! I was on the phone and there was a crash and then everything went blank! Now nobody will answer me! Nobody will pick up!”

“Maybe they’re fine and they just can’t answer you,” said Dog.

“No.”

“You’re not helping,” hissed Jules. She put her arms around Marty again.

“During the war we blew up the Imperial radio towers so they couldn’t communicate. Maybe the same thing happened.”

“Ivan, don’t talk to the boy about the war! He doesn’t want to hear about that butchery.”

“But it’s what people do. It’s what people always do. If you can’t communicate, you can’t ask for help.”

Oh. Marty hadn’t thought of that.

There was no way he should have been able to talk to Ayda all these years anyway. The fiber optic cables running between Eden and the Northern Territories had been destroyed 200 years ago when the embargo began. The only way he was able to maintain contact was because Ayda’s dad had a man working for him who could put his mind inside of machines and this man had amplified the signal in Eden’s towers to reach Florence’s estate. He had done this out of desperation, because he needed to talk to Florence. And–

Marty shoved Jules away from him easily and scrambled up off her bed. He scrubbed his face furiously. “Right,” he said. “Right, right.” They could be OK. They could be OK and he just didn’t know it. He was stupid, he had let his emotions get the best of him.

He would not do that again.

“What are you doing?” Jules’ own confusion and frustration were getting the best of her and she was raising her voice. “Where are you going?”

“The Prime Minister.” Florence had devices connected directly to the interface she had dreamed up with Ayda’s dad. If anyone had lines open between Eden and the Strath, it was her. And Florence knew everything. She was mean and angry and terrifying, but she always seemed to know everything.

“Marty, don’t you even think about bothering her this early in the morning, don’t you even–”

He was off. He slammed through Jules’ door and started to run up the east wing corridor. Marty didn’t look at the servant girls staring at him, he didn’t pause to explain himself to the Partisan soldier standing at the kitchen door. All that mattered was Ayda. Ayda could still be alive. He didn’t know. He didn’t really know but he had to find out. Dog was right. The smartest thing anyone could do to an enemy was keep them from talking to each other. Lee was smart. Lee would have thought about how he didn’t want the police in Eden to be able to call each other and stop the bombs or help people.

And even if Ayda had died, even if everyone had died– he had to know for sure.

All the grief and sadness and anger left him in the wake of this one single minded goal.

The main building was more ornate, filled with the trappings of the dead Duke. A few more soldiers were present with their swords and machine guns, Partisans with their painted faces and the savage marsh-landers of the First Army. None of them paid Marty any mind. They were all used to him. Marty passed through the atrium with its enormous banner painted with rowan berries and fire, then left to where Florence’s offices were.

A First Army sergeant whose name was Bedny stood outside Florence’s door. He looked down at Marty and raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with you, witch-boy?”

“Let me in.” There was a stitch in his side from running. He knew that he looked like he had been crying. “Let me in there.”

“I don’t think so.”

Marty balled up his fists. “I need to talk to the Prime Minister.”

“Get out of here.”

As useless as it was, Marty would fight him if he had to. He would fight the entire garrison if they came between him and finding out what had happened to Ayda. He was breathing hard, exhausted, out of his mind, and all he could think about was his best friend. “Let me in there!”

Then Jules ran up behind him, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder. She was still only wearing her robe and her hair was unbraided in her haste to follow him. The sergeant looked down at her bare legs and laughed. “I’m so sorry,” Jules said breathlessly. She tried to pull Marty back. Even after 10 years, she still hated and feared the soldiers. “I’m sorry, he’s very upset this morning.”

“Go put some clothes on, you’re not decent. And you smell like the kennels.” He laughed and then mockingly barked at her.

Jules’ face turned red.

“I didn’t have time to get dressed, I was trying to look out for him!” She kept pulling Marty back. Her sharp nails dug into his shoulder. Jules never cut her nails, she let them grow long just in case she needed to use them. “Are you stupid, Bedny? You’ve never seen a woman’s legs before? All you First Army marsh-landers fuck the sheep in your swamps instead of women!”

“You better watch that mouth before I pop you, witch.”

“Let me in there!” Marty didn’t have time for this. He struggled away from Jules. Ayda. All that mattered was Ayda. Ayda could still be alive. He was going to throw up. “I need to talk to the Prime Minister!”

“And I say you can’t. Her Ladyship is currently occupied.”

“Let me talk to her! I need to see if she can reach Ayda!”

“Marty, just come back to your room with me!”

“Fuck you! I need to see if Ayda’s OK!”

The sergeant crossed his arms. “We should have never let you raise this boy here, if this is how he acts. Kimble was right. He should have gone to the garrison with the other war-orphans.He isn’t normal. We failed him by allowing you to let him sit inside all day getting fat and lazy and acting like a little faggot. You and your dog made him like this.”

Jules drew back and slapped him across the face as hard as she could, which wasn’t very hard. Sergeant Bedny laughed incredulously, then lunged forward, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and gave her a shake before pinning her arms behind her back. It was easy for him to do. Jules started to scream, kicking and cursing while her robe came undone to reveal her nightgown.

For a second, Marty was torn between the unguarded door and the fact that Jules was getting into her thousandth tussle with one of the soldiers. She always started it, and they always ended with her getting pinned down and laughed at for thinking she could try to fight a grown man. Maybe if she could use her magic for anything else than healing, she would have a chance. Because of her value to the Prime Minister, they never really hurt her. Marty hated to see her like that though.

But the door was unguarded. While Jules spat and screamed, Marty abandoned her for the first time by grabbing the door handle and pulling.

It was locked.

Of course it was locked. It was the one thing standing between him and Ayda. “Fuck!” Marty yelled, and kicked it as hard as he could. He was not wearing shoes.

“Pig!” Jules screamed as she struggled. “Swine!”

Marty kicked the door again but it did not release his frustrations. Pretty soon he was going to start crying again. The last 36 hours had devastated his nervous system. Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong and now he was having to deal with the bullshit place he lived instead of what was important. Ayda. Kip.

The door opened and Flick, the Minister of Intelligence, looked out into the atrium. He was a smug, rangy man with a crippled leg who had always treated Marty like he was a person. His black eyes slid over Marty, to where Jules was trying to wrench her arms away from the sergeant. “Could you people keep it down?” he asked mildly. “The Prime Minister can’t hear herself think above all this racket.”

“Sorry about that.” Bedny let go of Jules. She scrambled away from him, gathering her robe back together to cover herself. “This bitch just slapped me out of nowhere.”

“Let’s all try not to act like animals in this–”

“I need to talk to her,” Marty interrupted. There was hardly anything keeping him from darting around Flick and inside Florence’s office. It wasn’t like he could stop him. “I need to talk to her now!”

Flick blinked and smoothed down his mustache with one finger. “She’s busy.”

Jules stepped beside Marty. She was shaking her head and rubbing her wrists. “Motherfucker!” she swore. “Stupid motherfucker! All of you are exactly the same!”

“Why don’t you calm down, Miss LaBelle?”

How was he supposed to express his immeasurable need for reconnection? If he didn’t find out what had really happened, Marty felt like he might die. He had to know. What had happened was his fault and he had to know the consequences.

“Eden!” he blurted. His fists were still clenched. “Eden, I have to know what’s happening in Eden! My friends, they– I was talking to them and there were bombs going off! And then my phone cut off and I can’t talk to any of them! I don’t know what happened, I need to know if they’re OK! I thought the Prime Minister could help me. Please!”

He could see Flick’s perpetually nonchalant expression soften a touch, something about the eyes and mouth. “Now you can’t say I’ve never done anything nice for you, Martin Bonneville.” The use of his full name was a sign of respect, but hearing it said gave Marty a shock. His father’s name. An evil name. “Come on. If she yells at anyone, she can yell at me.” He stood aside, leaning on his cane.

And Marty rushed in. Jules followed behind him, Bedny barking at her again as she went.

Florence’s office was larger than the two of their rooms put together. Three walls were covered from floor to ceiling with full bookshelves. The floor was lushly carpeted and one wall hung with a massive oil portrait of the dead Duke Rowan Gauthier, staring down coldly at anyone who walked in. No windows on the wall, but natural sunlight filtered down from a massive skylight on the ceiling. It smelled strongly of old books and cigarette smoke. In the middle of the office was a huge desk built from ironwood, covered with more stacks of books– and a computer.

The Prime Minister sat at her desk, chain smoking as usual. She didn’t even look up when Marty and Jules came in. Florence was only a small woman in her mid 40’s, but she had a blazing presence that demanded attention. It was like looking at the sun. Her graying hair was braided back, and instead of her usual fur-trimmed dresses, she wore the camouflage uniform of the Partisan army.

“Then tell me what you’re doing,” she demanded in English, staring imperiously at her computer screen. “Panicking like children? Get a hold of yourself, a disaster like this is the perfect time to seize control. I used to pray for earthquakes, now you’ve had your chance handed to you and you’re holding back?”

“People are dying!” A man’s voice Marty recognized. The flat, thick accent of Eden was unmistakable. He bit his tongue as hard as he could to keep himself from yelling. “I can’t attack the Capitol like this, I won’t have that blood on my hands! I don’t even know if the Capitol will last the day, we don’t know how many bombs there are– they keep going off!”

“If you’re too cowardly to take this chance, you’ll have blood on your hands for years. Your hesitation will result in the blood of children, the blood of my people who are starving because of that woman’s embargo!”

“You don’t understand what it’s like! Nobody can see everything, the air is full of dust! The streets are crawling with secret police! Even if I had been prepared, even if I had enough people, we’d–”

“Mr. Agapama!” Marty lunged towards the computer so that he could see his face. Florence seemed to notice him for the first time and scowled, put her hands up. “Is Ayda– is she— I was talking to her, she was at school, there was this crash and now I can’t call her!”

Ayda’s dad looked like he was in his own fancy house. He was wearing pajamas and didn’t have on any makeup, not even eyeliner. There was another man beside him with his hand on West’s computer. Marty had seen him a couple of times, Percy, the guy who could put his mind into machines. Percy’s eyes were rolled up in the back of his head and there was blood and foam coming out of his open mouth. Ayda’s dad didn’t seem to care about that. “The girls are fine, Marty.”

Smoke filled his lungs as Florence exhaled. She made a dismissive gesture. “Get out of here, I’m talking.” She cut her eyes towards Jules, who was taking a handkerchief from Flick, then switched to their native language. “Julia, put on some damn clothes and get this boy away from me.”

Someone would have to physically drag him away from the computer if they wanted him to leave. Marty’s heart pounded. He was brazenly close to the leader of his country, close enough to almost be touching her, but that did not matter. This was his only connection to Eden. He gripped the edge of Florence’s desk and tried to communicate his terrible need to Ayda’s dad with only his face. “But I can’t call her, I can’t call anyone! It’s not going through, it’s just blank. I thought– is she OK?!”

“The internet is down across the Colony, somebody’s set off explosives at the interface hubs.” Ayda’s dad looked like he was barely holding himself together. His jaw was set and his eyes were hugely dilated. “Radio still works. Vega got down to the School District and found the girls immediately, I just spoke to her.”

Marty could not imagine how scared they must be. “Please, can I–”

“Let’s not waste our time.” Florence did not take her eyes off the screen, but she reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a peppermint, handing it to Marty. When he was younger, the Prime Minister used to give him a peppermint whenever she saw him and the taste of mint always made him think of her. He didn’t want the candy but took it anyway. “You won’t get another chance like this, Agapama.”

“I won’t be responsible for more deaths today! I can’t keep sitting here talking to you about this, I should be out there helping people! Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m wasting my time here! Thousands of people must have already died, we don’t even know! We don’t need more death, we need help! We need doctors, food, we need architects to help us rebuild!”

The end of Florence’s cigarette was nothing but ash. “You’d have me waste my resources on a place that has let us freeze and starve and tear ourselves apart for years.”

“Yes! Help us, you can help us!” Somewhere in Eden, there was another crash. Ayda’s dad did not flinch. Sweat was pouring down his face and his teeth were clenched. He glanced at Percy, the man beside him, who had started to twitch. More foam spilled out of his open mouth. Ayda’s dad put his hand on his forearm. “I don’t have time. I don’t have time for any of this, I have to do something. But if you sit there and watch without sending us help, you’re no better than Botega.”

Florence barked a harsh laugh. “If I send aid south, that woman will have my men killed at the gates like she’s killed every envoy I’ve sent.”

We need help! We need help now! This is just the beginning, I don’t know how bad it’s going to get out there! If bombs hit Fuelero or the Prosperity plants, we’re all going to starve! I know you understand how that feels! You can help us, you can choose to let Eden know that the Territories are an ally!”

Marty felt dizzy. Florence had tried to make contact with Eden before? What else did he not know about? Suddenly everything felt bigger than it was before.

“What are they yelling about, Marty?” asked Jules in French.

Percy was convulsing now. Ayda’s dad made a low, desperate sound of frustration. “I have to go. If the interface is repaired, I’ll reach out to you again. But you have to help us!”

“You’ll find that I don’t have to do anything, my friend,” said Florence.

And the screen went blank.

All Marty could do was sit there. His hand was clenched so tight around the peppermint that it hurt. So Ayda was safe. If Ayda was safe, he could only assume that the others were safe. But for how long? It sounded like bombs were still going off in Eden. Ayda’s dad had been scared, scared enough to beg for help. That was bad. He knew that was very bad.

Florence stubbed out her cigarette and lit a new one with a box of matches. “Audacity,” she said. She blew smoke out of the side of her mouth so that it wouldn’t hit Marty. “What audacity.”

“It sounds like the people are fed up with the way things are being run in Eden if they’ve resorted to direct action,” said Flick. He had put a kettle on the fire and poured two cups of tea, then handed one to Jules and set the other on Florence’s desk. “That’s how the Duke started it here in the Strath. Bombings. A dictator can only push people so far until they fight back. If we’re lucky, the people of Eden will destroy Botega on their own. This sounds like a good thing to me.”

How long before Marty could talk to Ayda? How long before Eden repaired their interface? He tried to think about what had happened during the war in the Territories. Everyone had tried to shelter him, but he remembered being hungry when he was very small, back when he and Jules and Mama lived together in Stasya’s cottage. There had never been enough food.

“We’re going to help them though, right?” Marty asked Florence. “You’re going to send trucks south, aren’t you? Trucks with food and– and medicine?”

Florence’s mouth twisted. She reached out and ruffled his fluffy black hair. Marty scowled but it wasn’t like he could push her away. “Where do you think food comes from, eh? You think everyone would be happy if I sent our resources to our enemy when we have children here who go hungry because of the trade embargo? When we don’t have enough doctors or architects to take care of ourselves?”

“But he was asking for your help.”

“You’re too young to understand these things. I’ve sent 3 envoys south to Eden asking for their help. They’ve been shot at the gates each time. The people in charge of that place are blinded by their pride, they’ll never accept help from outside. I doubt that they’d even let their people know that it was being offered.”

His shoulders slumped. “You– you’ve tried to send people to Eden?”

He imagined himself in one of the cargo trucks, traveling down the south road. The truck would be full of supplies and people who could help Eden through its crisis. He imagined himself seeing Eden for the first time, Eden with its marvels of technology and architecture. And Ayda! If he went to Eden, he could see Ayda without the barrier of the screens between them. Not only Ayda, he could see the others, he could see Kip! Kip. As averse as Marty was to hugs, he knew that he would like it if Kip put his arms around him. Kip with his bright eyes and big smile, Kip with his strong arms and–

“Marty’s very fond of a girl who lives there, Prime Minister,” said Flick helpfully. “Agapama’s daughter.”

“I’m sure his little girlfriend will be quite safe.” Florence rolled her eyes. “It’s time for you two to leave my office now, scurry back to the east wing. Phillip, go round up Reed Kimble and Beatrice. I have many things to discuss with them.”

Flick gave her a curt nod and then limped out. Jules made eye contact with Marty and jerked her head toward the door.

There was nothing else to do. He would have to wait, ridden with anxiety, until Ayda or one of the others contacted him themselves. They were safe. Surely they were all safe. He tried one more time. “You’ll send them help, won’t you? You won’t ignore Eden the way they ignore us?”

“I’ll do whatever I think is right.”

That was that. Marty followed Jules and left the office.

While they walked, Jules looped one arm through Marty’s. He was so exhausted and beaten down that he allowed her to do so. Sleep. He needed to sleep but he didn’t want to risk missing any calls. When they got to the kitchen, he’d stop and make himself a pot of coffee.

“You feel better?” asked Jules, eyeing him as they walked. Each step she took was deliberate because she was not wearing shoes. “You look better.”

“I’m tired.” Marty couldn’t think. His brain wasn’t working. The waves of emotion that had crashed through him over the last hour were too much. Ayda. Kip. It was still his fault that this had happened, but maybe they would be OK. He would keep telling himself that they were OK. Ayda’s dad wasn’t a liar. He believed him.

“I’ll make you breakfast. I’ll have Ivan go out to the smokehouse and get the trout we caught last week. You’ll feel better after you eat.”

“I just want coffee.”

By the door leading to the east wing, Jules hesitated. Marty stopped too. He felt dead again. He wanted to lie down and never get back up. It was hard to even keep his eyes open. His entire body was heavy. The adrenaline surge from earlier was completely gone and left him feeling more exhausted than before.

“I didn’t realize that you were so close to those kids from Eden,” said Jules after a beat. She unhooked her arm from Marty’s and crossed her’s in front of her chest. Her posture was stiff and uncomfortable. “Did that man tell you that they’re alright?”

Marty shrugged. He didn’t feel like talking anymore. He was shutting down. It had all been too much. His mind and body had been in a state of terror for hours and now there was nothing he could do but wait and trust Ayda’s dad. Maybe Jules would stay with him for the rest of the day. He did not want to be alone.

But something was wrong with Jules. Her expressions and movements were usually so natural, she flowed into one and then the next with such ease. Now he could tell that she did not know what to do. Maybe she wanted to hug him again. She fidgeted with the rings on her tattoo-blackened fingers. “You sounded like you’re very close to that boy Kip. You said you liked him very much.”

Ice shot through every inch of him. Marty froze. What had he told her when he was hysterical and panicking? What had he said? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember any of it. Marty looked at Jules. He couldn’t speak and he couldn’t move.

“What did you mean when you said that?”

“Nothing.”

Did Jules’ face look scared? Worried? Her eyebrows were furrowed as she looked at him. Her mouth was tight. “You said you didn’t like to think about how you couldn’t be with boys here, what did you mean?”

This wasn’t a conversation Marty ever wanted to have. Not here. Not with her. And especially not after everything he had been through for the last 24 hours. There was no way out. Jules was standing right next to him. What had he told her? Oh god, what had he said in front of her and Dog while his grief and fear overcame him? He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Jules reached out and took his hands. “You– you’ve never wanted to talk to the girls here. Boys your age start to notice girls, that’s all they ever think about. I’ve never even seen you look at a girl.”

Fuck fuck fuck. She knew. She already knew, she had figured it out. Stupid Kip! This was his fault, his and Marty’s for not being able to keep his fat mouth shut. Jules was going to hate him. She was going to hate him. The only time he had ever heard her talk about gay people was in the context of men preying on younger boys– she was going to think he was some kind of freak! Without Jules to look out for him, Marty was done for. He was cooked. He’d have to leave and join the garrison with the other war-orphans, and they’d almost certainly beat him to death for being a degenerate. Fuck! It was over, it was all over.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t like he had asked to be this way.

Marty wrenched his hands away from her. “I don’t like talking to anyone.” He was going to throw up. He was going to just collapse. “I don’t like anyone.”

“And this boy Kip?”

“No! Just leave me alone.” Luckily Jules was not savvy enough to ask for his phone. If she ever checked his messages and saw the pathetic, needy, desperate way he talked to Kip, she would really lose it. God forbid she ever learned about Lee.

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t fooling anyone. It was all over him and he couldn’t hide it.

“Marty.” Jules swallowed hard. Her expression was only worried. It had not changed to one of disgust or hatred. There was gentleness behind her eyes. “You’re alright.”

“You obviously don’t think I’m alright.”

“I’m scared you’ve spent so much time talking to people in Eden that you forget what life’s like here. People will hurt you, do you understand that? People will really hurt you if they think you’re different.” Her voice was tight. Again, she tried to reach out and touch him but Marty jerked away. “I’m sorry about your friends. But you can’t– you can’t talk like that in front of anyone. I don’t want you to ever talk about feeling like that to anyone. It’s fine if you want to have feelings for a boy from Eden, but you can’t think of anyone here that way, do you hear me?”

It would have been better if she had yelled at him. “I’m tired.” Marty edged away from her. Sleep. He just needed some sleep, just an hour or so, just until Ayda was able to talk to him again. “I’m going to bed.”

“I won’t be able to live with myself if someone hurts you,” said Jules. She didn’t move to follow him. Her voice sounded small and scared.

“Nobody is going to hurt me.” Marty left to go to his room. He didn’t look back at her.

After all– that night he had learned that nobody could hurt him as badly as he could hurt himself. Not his mother, not the soldiers, not Lee, not anyone. The bombing was still his fault and he had to live with the consequences.

When his head hit his pillow, he fell into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep.

Ayda did not contact him for a week.

For a week Marty was wracked with fear and guilt. He did not speak. He did not leave his room. Jules brought him food, she told him about how Florence sent a caravan with aid south, she told him about how they stopped communicating within a mile of Eden. Marty stared at the ceiling. He did not eat. He could not imagine anything worse than being unable to talk to the people he cared about.

And after all that time, when she did finally message him, it was worse. It was worse than anything. It was worse than Marty could possibly imagine.

One message. Two words.

“Kip’s dead.”

Marty would never open his heart up again.

#writing

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plongitudes · 3 years

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just read about a scene that got cut from TLOU2 in place of the Tommy sniper lesson & music store scope out scene, Joel and Ellie go to see Esther, Joel's gf who lives 2 hours away and she ends up dying.

honestly I think that scene would have been really good, and I am SO curious what kind of partner/lover the writers would have made for Joel-- is she like my OC? is she completely different? who do they see Joel falling for in his settled Jackson life? -- but at the same time I'm so glad they cut it because thinking of Joel losing someone ELSE .. it just sucks.

He lost his wife (we dont know how, but we know it hurt him deeply OBVIOUSLY, whether it was divorce or death) (I believe divorce if it means anything), he lost his daughter, he lost a (PROBABBLY LOVER) partner Tess, and at that point he is feeling Ellie pull herself away from him. Of all the things they put the characters through in TLOU2 I just think the loss of a lover is one I'm very happy we didn't have to witness.

#tlou2 #tlou #the reasoning for the cut was that they were unable to truly have time to flesh out Esther as a character #the player would not have had time to feel attached to her or get to know her #also it was a Joel centric narrative #instead of an Ellie narrative which the writers wanted to focus on #totally agree with this choice; i want more joel content obviously at all times but we'd have never seen the fall out of that death #like it would have been terrible to have esther die and then not have a follow up scene containing how joel felt afterward #rambling....

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ckneal · 3 years

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So, there’s this one angel story in the back of my head that I know I wont write. I wont write it, because it’s utter nonsense, with very little regard for the canonical timeline of Supernatural, and a willfully blurry view on what is and is not “in character.” It’s fluff. It’s all fluff, in the form of a bunch of smaller stories that gradually weave together, following the Love, Actually style of storytelling, but instead of problematic love stories, it’s all about angels playing hooky from Heaven after the Fall.

(Seriously, there is no substance here, I swear.)

Stories include Abner, living out the first half of the movie Family Man, struggling to figure out how to be a good father and house husband after he steps into the life of the raging alcoholic who agreed to be his vessel. There’s also a very minor story about Esther (not to be confused with Hester, who is not in this story because she never deserted her post in Heaven) learning to play the part of a little girl and navigating schoolyard politics, but kids can be mean and Esther learns the hard way that Michael’s approach to asserting dominance in Heaven does not translate well. There’s also Daniel and Adina, who both settle into vessels in the same movie theater where a romantic comedy is playing, and fall into a very innocent, play-acting sort of love after they leave the theatre—like little kids pretending to be in love, recreating the scenes from the movie, but at the same time not really understanding it. Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael each trying to roll with the luxurious high roller life style, and awkwardly running into each other at VIP poker games, exclusive spas and clubs, and the occasional orgy that they promptly leave IMMEDATELY after running into a sibling (don’t give me weird looks, Balthazar and Gabriel canonically include that sort of thing in their definition of luxury, and the whole thing of their story is their siblings keep cramping their style). Tyrus is in there bowling, somewhere. Benjamin’s playing arcade games with his wife. And then there’s Thaddeus, my pet favorite minor angel character, realizing what’s happening as he’s falling with all the other faithful angels during the Fall and seizing the opportunity to abandon his life as a guard and torturer, settling into a pop star for his vessel—initially for the sake of the cushy lifestyle, but then gradually looking back, before the garden and Lucifer, before everyone was assigned a job in Heaven, like it or not, and the options were to adapt or to be smote, and remembering that back then, he could sing.

And of course, Michael and Adam get a story too—in which Michael lowkey gets into a pissing contest with death, as he and Adam travel the world, hitting up hospital after hospital to heal people. Because the first thing Adam wanted to do after getting out of the cage (okay, second thing—burgers came first) was go to the nearest medical center and start healing people left and right. And at first, they’re having a great time. Adam steals a white jacket he finds in the breakroom somewhere, and anytime someone says he looks a little young to be a doctor (Adam still looking nineteen years old, because I say so), Michael wipes the poor sap’s mind. But eventually—sometime after they’ve cleared out the children’s ward, the cancer ward, the cardiac ward—Billie shows up, sniping at them that they can’t just go around healing people who are destined to die, because there is an order to life and death that cannot be shoved aside. And Billie tries to make a show of it, as Terra did with Dean, by having several people who Adam had healed over the course of the day inadvertently cause several massive accidents. The news suddenly comes pouring out of the television, channels flipping as newscasters talk about tragedies occurring in several different parts of the city they’re currently in. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens fills the air, as in the hospital hallway, doctors and nurses begin hurrying to receive a rush of ER patients.

Adam’s horrified.

Michael does not take kindly to this. He snaps his fingers and makes it so that the carnage has never happened. Because he is the archangel Michael, only two steps away from being a god, and if he says that all of these people are going to live, then they are going to live, and he WILL NOT be intimidated, especially by an amateur reaper whose only qualification for her position was dying at the right time.

Billie in turn lands Michael with a cold stare, and points out that the order to life and death is beyond even God’s authority, let alone daddy’s blunt, sniveling instrument.

As Michael’s eyes start to glow, Adam steps in and says, “So, to be clear, you want us to stop healing people on the verge of death? We can do that.”

After Billie leaves, Michael is outraged, but Adam says, “No, Michael, THINK about it.”

We then cut to other stories, where newscasts in the background reveal that ailments that are not IMMIEDATELY fatal (AIDs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.) are mysteriously disappearing overnight, worldwide.

Billie is not amused, and tells her reapers to be on the lookout for an archangel at every major hospital in the world.

Cut to Michael throwing open the door of the bunker, muttering aloud to Adam that he’s going to do it, he’s going to bind Death, just like Lucifer did—how hard can it be? Sam and Dean see him as he goes stomping off toward the cabinet where they keep all of their magical dry goods, but Michael snaps his fingers and the two of them are abruptly half drunk in Dean’s man cave, sitting in front of Dean’s flat screen TV, watching some campy monster movie, because that’s lowkey what Michael and Adam assume they do all day.

As they’re raiding Sam and Dean’s supplies though, Adam says, “Wait, I have an idea.”

Cut to Abner looking up while pushing his vessel’s daughter in a park swing, and literally seeing Michael and Adam chasing an ambulance, so they can technically heal the person inside before reaching the hospital.

Yes, I’m aware that Abner was dead by the time Michael and Adam got out of the cage. But see, this story? This story is like when someone gifts you a goldfish unexpectedly, and you put it in a bowl, checking in to feed it a couple times a day, lowkey expecting it to die. But it doesn’t die, it gets bigger. And you’re not a cruel person, so you put it in a bigger tank, but it just gets bigger again, and you don’t really know what’s going on, but you know, you just kind of keep checking in, meeting the minimum requirements but not really getting in there as a guiding force because it’s a goldfish and it’s surely going to die any minute now—but then you look over and there’s giant tank taking up your living room, and you’re thawing out bloodworms twice a day, and looking into tankmates to keep Charles company, and realize that “Oh wow, I guess this is a thing now.”

In short, the story says we’re ignoring the timeline, and it’s calling the shots. I’m just keeping the tank clean.

The angels all eventually wind up running into each other. Abner and Esther happen upon one another in a park, where Esther is morosely realizing that she is terrible at being a human child but she does not want to go home to Heaven, and it just happens to be the same park where Abner goes with his “little nibblet” once a day to let her toddle around the playground while he chats with nannies and other house parents. Anael, Adina, and Daniel meet up when the latter two’s game has reached the point where they’ve decided to get married, and they apparently need to buy something new—preferably blue—as per this very important rhyme someone told them about. Esther and Gabriel run into each other in an ice cream parlor. Thaddeus gets recognized while doing an interview on TV that everyone sees. And, while out joyriding in a Lamborghini, on their way to meet up with the growing community of angels who decided to opt out of their responsibility to Heaven and their father’s legacy, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael are all startled to see Michael land on an ambulance stopped next to them at a red light.

Balthazar and Anael are both terrified, as if they’ve just been busted by a parent, because Michael, of course, is the guy who enforces the rules, and isn’t he supposed to be in Hell? They both shoot Gabriel looks as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing’ when Gabriel, watching as Michael climbs down and matter-of-factly wrenches the ambulance doors open, calls out, “Hey, Mike! Is that you?”

Michael looks over, freezes for a second—not prepared to be suddenly thrust into a social situation in the middle of his self-imposed mission to spite death—then his eyes flash and Adam takes over. “Oh hey, you’re Michael’s family? What a small world! I’m Adam, I’ve heard so much about you. Wait, hang on—”

The light starts to turn green, but Adam snaps his fingers and it promptly reverts to red.

Three jaws drop in the luxury car, and they don’t even hear Adam politely explain that he and Michael are in the middle of something, as he ducks into the ambulance, because Michael’s evidently letting a tiny human use his powers like it’s nothing, and what does that mean?

“Sweet dad in the unknown, Michael’s shagging a human. . .”

“Nooo!”

“HOW?”

“Hey, kid, you like weddings?”

At some point in the story, all the MIA angels are together, and Benjamin or someone comes running in saying, “Quick, they’re coming! Everyone hide!”

And everyone scatters, except for Michael, who stands in place, saying, “Gabriel, we’re archangels, two of the most powerful beings in existence. Why would we—”

And then Gabriel picks Adam up like a sack of potatoes and sprints off, calling back, “Trust me, you do NOT want to get involved with them!”

Being a projection, Michael is obligated to follow.

Team Free Will then walks by, looking constipated from whatever Big Awful Thing is currently threatening to destroy the world.

The story, of course, culminates in the wedding of Adina and Daniel, who still don’t quite understand what marriage is beyond promising to love each forever, which of course they will, after all, they are the very best of friends—which is about the same concept that most of the other angels present have. Adam is the first one to actually approach the big awkward question, upon finding out who the bride and groom are.

“Wait, aren’t they brother and sister?”

To which Serafina’s Adam, (who is of course there since Serafina was the original angel to play hooky) whose sons married his daughters, and all the angels, who do not understand what that has to do with anything, all cock their heads in unison and respond with, “So?”

Adam struggles to find words, looking into so many innocent faces. Then Benjamin’s wife puts a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Shhh, let them have their fun.”

Benjamin’s wife and the two Adams wind up sitting at the venue’s bar, where they order nachos from a very confused bar tender, and watch as the angels go about setting up a wedding. But given that most angels haven’t been on earth regularly in roughly two thousand years, none of them have a clear grasp of what a human wedding entails.

“I heard it’s traditional for the father to give away the bride.”

“I think they’re supposed to kiss over bread.”

“Do humans still slaughter cows at these things?”

“I’m pretty sure someone is supposed to break a glass—”

Several angels promptly throw glassware on the floor.

At no point do the angels ask the humans for advice.

Occasionally, Gabriel knowingly throws out obscure details to keep the confusion going.

“You know, the groom needs to stand with the right arm to the aisle in case a sword fight breaks out.”

“Right! . . .How do we know which one’s the groom?”

At the bar, Adam open’s his mouth to say something, but the original Adam shushes him.

“No no, son, let them get there.”

The angels agree that being the better fighter, Adina should be the groom.

They’re nearly ready to start when Michael suddenly doubles over with his hand over his mouth. It coincides with the sound of Adam pounding the bar top, having just eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper on dare. Michael’s eyes quickly flash silver-blue as he straightens, and both he and Adam are abruptly fine—even if their eyes are still watering somewhat. But a different sort of damage has already been done, as Anael, Balthazar, and Gabriel all abruptly turn toward the triad of humans, having been reminded that the Michael walking around with them is actually a projection. In actuality, Michael is anchored to the human ex-college student sitting at the bar.

All three of them rush toward Adam, but Serafina gets there first, asking Adam if he’s ever tried mushroom tea.

Balthazar gets there next.

“Adam, was it? We didn’t get to talk in the car, let’s fix that. Are you over twenty-one? You know what, this is a family affair, don’t worry—CAN I GET TWO SHOTS OF DON JULIO OVER HERE?”

From that point on, any time Adam turns around, there’s one of Michael’s siblings, wanting to get to know him—by consuming some sort of beverage. Because Adam and Michael are sharing body—and that means they share a liver too. A bet ensues as to how much it will take to get God’s alleged favorite wasted.

Gabriel’s actually one of the first out, having been convinced that Michael would be a lightweight. Little does he suspect that Benjamin and his wife caught onto what was happening soon after Adam was fed his third long island iced tea and second jager bomb, and began quietly cleansing the alcohol from his system through casual shoulder pats and high fives.

Adam does not know what to make of any of this, but it’s Michael’s family and he wants to make a good impression, so he just goes with it.

Thaddeus, of course, is in charge of music, Gabriel and Esther consume the majority of the cake, and Michael catches the bouquet (he may have cheated after finding out what the bouquet toss is for).

#my thoughts #lowkey might be putting this idea out so it'll leave me alone #midam #supernatural angels #the divine shurley family

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imissthembutitwasntadisaster · 2 years

Note

4) favorite character you’ve written 15) why did you start writing? 25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

4) favorite character you’ve written

Again besides Beatrice (I'm sorry but she is the girl of my heart), and the others I've mentioned, I will always have a soft spot for Esther and Peter, my immortal couple. they were the first people I wrote where I actually liked the story as something good, and I love them.

15) why did you start writing?

So I just always did? We had creative writing homeschool group meet-ups as a kid, and I read tons, so writing just happened? and then it didn't for a while, it was on and off, but I was always make up scenarios before I go to bed type of girl, and then one day I came up with the short story about this immortal married couple and I wrote it and it wasn't terrible! (because my biggest problem was that generally I hated everything I wrote), and then I never looked back really.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

"But let’s rewind, just for a minute, to give justice to the nosy, gossipy girl in an orange jacket. It is an impossibly heart-breaking thing to be lonely, it is even worse to be a lonely child."

and from the same story

"Dear reader, it is easy to hate Inez. Many did. Often young men and women went home declaring loudly and despairingly that she had ruined their lives (looking back from adulthood, they would realise she had ruined a few weeks, months at most). But she was a child, and she was lonely, and those are the two most terrible states of all, and this at least meant people knew her name. You do not have to forgive her, but please at least try to mourn her."

also from a different story

"My wife still echoed in my footsteps, and I still wept for her. But August had come and olive harvest began. I picked jars of them and gave them to young men. I had no bread to offer, but I played and sang for the women. I taught the lyre. I led my goats. I told stories. I had asked my heart before that it would stop, but it refused. I grew again to love the sun.

My wife and I, we are spun out by the turning of the world, again and again, as a tragedy. Sometimes we are.

But tragedy suggests an end, and this time, I do not die." (This one is especially dear to me because someone send me a message once saying this story really helped them in a difficult time, and I'll never get over that).

And finally

"For you see, it has long been known that a good coming-of-age story involves the discovery that people are cruel. Oriana learnt this a long time ago, from whispers in ornate corners and orders given from high thrones. By that definition she had long since grown up, so there is no real need for a coming-of-age story, not here. But this is not a coming-of-age story, this has never been a coming-of-age story. This is a story of the discovery that people are kind."

(that is the thesis statement of like 70% of what I write actually)

Thank you!

Writer asks

#ask games #writer asks #<3<3

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livlepretre · 3 years

Note

If you could, how would you remake the Originals' background/origins? Because after reading the cave discourse, I can't help but agree that the Viking storyline simply... doesn't make a lick of sense...

Thank you for asking!!

Well, I’d make a few simple changes:

1) Keep them in Europe. There’s no need to have any of their story set in the Americas before 1500 at the earliest, and it would be more interesting if their arrival in New Orleans in the early 1700s was special to them because it was them turning over a new leaf and leaving Europe behind after 700 years

2) in keeping them in Europe for their backstory— keep to the original EASTERN European idea. Have them be Bulgarian or Transylvanian or my personal favorite, Russian, or what have you. But it would be cool on a meta level if vampires figure prominently in those folklores because vampires actually originate in that region. Also the patronyms would be much cooler, full offense to “Mikaelson”

3) No Vikings. Nope. Nope. Nope. It was so bad I cringe alllll the time. Whyyyyyy. This ties into #2 but I wanted to emphasize how much I dislike it.

4) Have the vampire “spell” be a CURSE, like a terrible, unholy CURSE instead of a “protection spell”— my favorite fan theory from Summer 2011 was that Klaus was the “first” vampire because he had done something AWFUL or UNFORGIVABLE, maybe to Tatia Petrova herself, and her family had had the curse lain on his entire family in revenge. Because being a vampire? That is straight up HORRIFIC. You keep your soul and your human heart but you’re afflicted with this insatiable thirst for human blood that drives you to devour even your loved ones? You’re permanently stranded with one foot in life and one in death? The body horror of vampirism is off the charts. The inevitable psychological torture and spiral that leads to them becoming the very monsters they fear. It’s a curse for sure. If it’s not a curse set by someone else, make it clear that ESTHER AND MIKAEL are so fucked up that they chose to curse their children and somehow convinced themselves it was for their own good

4) have Tatia actually die to create the vampires— THERE is the tragedy— both Klaus and Elijah love her, and she’s unable to choose between the two brothers (a curse/personality flaw her doppelgängers share) and THAT’S why Esther and Mikael drag her screaming from her bed one night to ritually sacrifice her in a ring of fire and blood and terror. In order for something to be tragic there has to be a sacrifice, and the sacrifice here is Tatia Petrova who was beautiful and wild and loved too easily, and it got her killed. None of this “just a little blood from the hand” business, and also, tangentially: the Amara thing was really stupid, so just cut Amara’s very existence out and have Tatia picked by the parents for the ritual not because Esther somehow knew she was a doppelgänger but in revenge for causing strife between her sons and have her role in the sacrifice create the doppelgänger line.

5) obviously no cave drama. honestly it would have been more believable if Katherine had been researching them for centuries and just handed over what she knew.

Like most of the plot holes could be fixed with this. Also, it would be perfectly reasonable for the show to let us know that the Originals change or evolve their names over time. Maybe Elijah was originally Ilya, for example, or Kol changed his name to Kol on a lark, etc. (or they could just all have names that at least have translations/roots in a common language/culture. The fact that half their names are Norse and half are Old Testament drives me wiiiilllllddddddd. Whyyyyyyyy)

I think that sums it up?

#anonymous #cave discourse #the originals

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hecallsmehischild · 3 years

Text

Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. About ten or fifteen years ago, I tried to read this and was totally overwhelmed by it. I kept it around, hoping maybe someday I might be able to read it. I finally have, and here are my impressions: WHY SO MANY NAMES. WHY YOU HAVE TO NAME EVERYBODY, AND EVERY TRIBE OF PEOPLES, AND EVERY INANIMATE OBJECT, AND EVERY LANDSCAPE FEATURE. WHY. *ahem* So. I have a general comprehension of the events of The Silmarillion, but I dealt with it by doing what you do for an impressionist painting. I (mentally) stepped way back and let all the names flow by me, and if there were names that were repeated a lot, then I mentally attached appropriate plot points and character details to those names so I could track with who they were and what they were doing. And, actually, I found myself able to hang on and enjoy the book for the most part. This is going to lead into a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings books, since I haven’t read those in about as long…

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I haven’t read some of these books since pre-teen years, with one required re-read of The Two Towers in high school (i.e. it’s been many an age since I’ve read these and my memory of the stories has been far more heavily influenced by the movies). In re-reading the first book, I was struck by the extreme tone shift for the Elves and Dwarves. Elves seem much closer to happy, mischievous fairies than these ethereal, solemn pillars of elegance and grace the movies show them to be. And Dwarves are far more bumbling and craftsmanlike than the movies show. Aside from that, The Hobbit was a pretty solid adaptation from the book, and the book also reminded me that this story was the first time I experienced “NO, MAIN CHARACTERS DON’T DIE, HOW DARE YOU,” and probably was the first book to make me cry. I must have been 8 or 10 years old. I FORGOT HOW MUCH THIS STORY INFLUENCED ME.

A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. I have a longer-than-usual list of things to say about this book. First is that it was just that level of difficult that I was struggling to understand while reading it (on Audible), but I think I got it. Sowell has several base concepts that I see repeated throughout his books, though he does like to dedicate whole books to specific aspects of the same topic. He is pretty damn thorough that way. So, for example, I would put this book in the middle of a three-book spectrum of similar concepts: Intellectuals and Society (most concrete and easiest to read), A Conflict of Visions (next-level abstraction, a little difficult to read), Knowledge and Decisions (root abstract concept, very difficult, I have not been able to get past chapter 2). The second thing I have to say is about a couple interesting concepts it proposes. Its whole point is to help readers understand the roots of two ways of seeing the world that come into severe conflict politically, and he calls them by their root titles: the constrained and the unconstrained visions. He traces the path of each back through the intellectuals that most spoke of them (tending to contrast Adam Smith with William Godwin and Condorcet). Though he leans heavily toward the constrained vision (based on reading his other works) he does his best to make this book an academic study of both, with both of the visions' strengths and flaws and reasoning and internal consistencies fairly laid out. In doing so, he helped me understand a few things that make this situation really difficult for people on opposing sides to communicate. One of them is that root words and concepts literally mean different things to different people. I had some vague notion of this before, but he laid out three examples in detail: Equality, Power, and Justice. It was kind of astounding to see just how differently these three words can be defined. It makes me think that arguing about any specific issues rooted in these concepts is fruitless until first an understanding has been reached on terms, because otherwise two parties are endlessly talking past each other. Another really interesting idea he brought up is the existence of “hybrid visions” and he named both Marxism and Fascism as hybrid visions. This was especially fascinating to me because I have seen the accusation of “Nazi” flung around ad nauseam and I wondered how it was that both sides were able to fling it at each other so readily. Well, it’s because Fascism is actually a hybrid vision, so both sides have a grain of truth but miss the whole on that particular point. In any case, this was a little difficult to read but had some fascinating information. For people who are wondering what on earth this gap is between political visions, how on earth to bridge the gap, or why the gap even exists in the first place, this is a really informative piece.

Movies

The Hobbit & Fellowship trilogies (movies). I mean, it’s definitely not my first watch, not even my second. But I went through it with Sergey this time and that means the run-time is double because we pause to talk and discuss details. This watch came about partly due to Sergey’s contention that Gandalf’s reputation far outstrips his actual powers, so we ended up noting down every instance of Gandalf’s power to see if that was true. Conclusion: Gandalf is actually a decently powerful wizard, but tends to use the truly kickass powers in less-than-dire circumstances. That aside, this movie series was always a favorite for me. I rated The Hobbit trilogy lower the first time I saw it but, frankly, all together the six movies are fantastic and a great way to sink deep into lore-heavy fantasy for a while. And I’m catching way more easter-egg type details after having read the Silmarillion so it’s even more enjoyable. (finally, after about a week of binge-watching) I forgot how much this story impacted me. I forgot how wrenchingly bittersweet the ending is. I forgot how much of a mark that reading and watching this story left on my writing.

Upside-Down Magic. Effects were good. Actors were clearly having fun and enjoying everything. Story didn’t make enough sense for my taste, but it was a decent way to kill flight time.

Wish Dragon. So, yes, it’s basically an Aladdin rewrite, but it’s genuinely a cheesy good fluff fest that made me grin a whole lot.

Plays

Esther (Sight and Sound Theatres). < background info > This is my third time to this theatre. There are only two of these in existence and they only run productions of stories out of the Bible. The first time I went I saw a production of Noah, the second time I saw a production of Jesus. My middle sister has moved all the way out to Lancaster, PA in hopes of working at this theatre. My husband and I came out to visit her. < /background info > So. Esther. They really pulled out all the stops on the costumes and set. I mean, REALLY pulled out all the stops. And the three-quarters wrap-around stage is used to great effect. I tend to have a general problem of not understanding all the words in the songs, but I understood enough. I highly recommend sitting close to the front for immersive experiences. This theatre puts on incredible productions and if you ever, ever, EVER have the opportunity to go, take it. Even if you think it's nothing but a bunch of fairy tales, STILL GO. I doubt you'll ever see a fairy tale produced on another stage with equal dedication to immersion.

Shows

The Mandalorian (first two seasons). Well. This was pretty thoroughly enjoyable. It felt very Star-Wars, and I’d kind of given up after recent movies. Felt like it slipped into some preaching toward the end? Not sure, I could be overly sensitive about it, but I enjoyed this a lot (though I did need to turn to my housemate and ask where the flip in the timeline we were because I did NOT realize that the little green kid IS NOT ACTUALLY Yoda).

Games

Portal & Portal 2. Portal is probably the first video game I ever tried to play, back when I had no idea what I was doing. Back then, I attempted to play it on my not-for-gaming Mac laptop. Using my trackpad. Once the jumping-for-extra-velocity mechanic came into play, I just about lost my mind trying to do this with a trackpad and gave up. Later I returned to the game and played it with my then-boyfriend on a proper gaming computer. Now, after having played several games and gotten better at "reading the language" of video games, I decided I wanted to see if I could beat the Portal games by myself. Guess what. I BEAT 'EM. Yes, I remembered most of the puzzles in Portal so that's a little bit of a cheat, but I'd say a good 2/3 of Portal 2 was new puzzles to me. It is crazy how proud I feel of myself that I could beat Portal 2, especially. Learning how to play video games at this age has really knocked down the lie, "You can't learn anything." Though I still suck at platformers and games that require precision. Since I find those types frustrating, I probably won't be playing many. Games are about enjoyment, so I'll push myself a little, but not to the point where I can't stand what I'm playing.

The Observer. I like the concept and the art but I don't think I could keep trying to play this game. It's really depressing. My in-game family members all died of illness or accident or committed suicide. I also kept getting executed by the state. In order to keep us all alive I'd have to do pretty terrible things that I have a hard enough time contemplating even in a fictional setting.

Baba Is You. Fun and interesting concept, but I got stuck pretty early on. Don't think I want to push as hard on this one.

#recent media consumed #n00b gamer child #child loves books #child loves movies #child loves shows

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lalosalamcnca · 3 years

Text

The Originals 2x17-2x22 Review

So I watched TVD during quarantine last year, and even though I swore to never watch another Julie Plec show again, I’m watching TO! I thought I’d share my thoughts, let people know how much I love Elijah Mikaelson in a suit or how I enjoy diabolical planning. You can find my reviews of S1 and S2 on my blog.

2x17

Oh god, this looks like a psychological battle between Eva and Rebekah

YES SNEAK PEEK OF GILIJAH

I love that baby Hope just looked around like “what’s going on”

OH MY GOD GIA, HAYLEY AND ELIJAH MEETING…SO AWKWARD AND FUNNY

That is sad, those poor kids…can’t even be reunited with family

Honestly, I get why the witches want Eva, I LOVE Rebekah but Eva is clearly a danger

The two kids most wronged by Esther having a meeting with her…things are about to get messy

I’m loving this Vincent and Marcel meetup

Well, this foreshadowing about Hayley’s future is…kind of accurate

OK, WELL KEEPING KIDS IN A COMATOSE STATE STILL DOESN’T ABSOLVE YOU OF YOUR CRIMES, EVA

WELL, VINCENT’S PARTNERING WITH EVA, THAT’S JUST GREAT

OH…EVA’S GOING AFTER Josephine Larue

REALLY, ESTHER?! YOU ASKED DAHLIA FOR KIDS, YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU’D MISS ONE?! Get outta here

YAYY VINCENT WAS A DOUBLE AGENT

Yikes…who is Klaus going to believe…Freya or Esther

ELIJAH’S HERE, VOLUNTEERING TO BE THE ANCHOR

Well, good. Klaus can have his neck snapped and be put in time out

Can Elijah just get over Hayley and be with Gia

I HOPE MY BABY BEKS GETS SAVED

DO YOU take the blame for your mistakes, Esther?! It doesn’t feel that way

Oh god, this mind battle thing is really scary

THANK FUCK THAT KLAUS IS HELPING FREYA, ELIJAH AND REBEKAH

LITTLE BEKS KILLED EVA, HELL YEAH

I’m glad all the witch kids are ok!!

It’s kind of funny watching Klaus doubt Freya, knowing the relationship they have in the future

Well, apparently Freya is against Klaus…we’ll see how that goes

AND ESTHER’S GONE…oh well

2x18

This is kind of a cute Jayley + Hope family moment

DAHLIA’S LULLABY’S PLAYING OMGG

OH NO NO NO, SHE’S IN TOWN, THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET MESSY

Klaus has a point…Dahlia’s testing them, if she’s really so smart

Klaus jumping straight to murder, who’s surprised

Aiden has such a cute smile

I ALWAYS FIND IT SO FUNNY THAT KLAUS JUST TAKES SHOTS AT JACKSON

He’s kinda right tho…what has Jackson done that’s been so helpful, he’s a shitty alpha

JACKSON STFU, THIS “WAR” ISN’T EVEN KLAUS’S FIGHT, IT’S ALL THE PARENTS. YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM

Dahlia is POWERFUL. She will chase them down, she’ll kill them anyway

Why would Mikael join forces with Klaus?? Is it just revenge for Freya??

What is with all the TVDU characters loving bourbon…is it really that good

LMFAO THIS LUNCH BETWEEN KLAUS AND MIKAEL IS SO FUNNY

OH SHIT, SOMETHING’S UP WITH FREYA

Oh no…Freya’s about to reunite with Dahlia, I’ve seen this scene before

THAT’S SO CRAZY THO, THE FACT THAT SHE CAN MANIPULATE ALL THOSE PEOPLE

THIS DAVINA, KLAUS AND MIKAEL TEAMUP IS PRICELESS, I’M KINDA LIVING FOR IT

Yup, this was an idiotic plan to go fight Dahlia

Look, Aiden, you’re literally choosing between loyalty and death. If it were me…I’m going with Klaus, bc Jackson doesn’t seem strong or vicious enough to kill Aiden

JACKSON, THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLAN. YOUR WOLVES WILL BE NOTHING IF THE ORIGINALS DIE

OH HELL, THEY LOST THE KNIFE

Poor Aiden…this really is a hard choice

THANK GOD MARCEL FOUND HAYLEY AND JACKSON

OH YES, MIKAEL’S DYING

OHHH KLAUS’S FACE WHEN HE ASKED WHY MIKAEL ABUSED HIM, BABYYY

Ok…I do feel bad for Freya but Mikael wasn’t a good man

That’s kinda sad…Josephine playing the violin one last time before her death…

2x19

Eh…Freya has a right to be upset, but Klaus also had a right to kill Mikael

HOW IS JOSEPHINE BACK, SHE’S PROBABLY ALREADY DEAD BUT IT’S LIKE SOME VOODOO CORPSE THING

Ooh, looks like we have an ultimatum about hanging over Hope

EXACTLY JACKSON THE IDIOT, YOU CANNOT OUTRUN DAHLIA

I highly doubt those shackles will stop Dahlia

KLAUS IS DEFINITELY ONTO AIDEN

CAMI’S BACK YAY, I’VE MISSED HER

God, Esther is such a loser…she’s almost worse than Mikael

THANK YOU, CAMI’S POINTING OUT THAT KLAUS NEEDS TO SHOW MORE COMPASSION

JAIDEN’S SAYING I LOVE YOU…yup, it’s for a bad reason, goddamnit

BABIES, THEY’RE KISSING NOW AND I’M SO HAPPY…but my heart will be crushed soon

OH DAVINA, MARCEL HAS VALID REASONS TO HATE KOL, JUST SHUT UP

Yeah, I actually agree with Davina, she doesn’t have to hand over the dagger

OH HELL…AIDEN’S ADMITTING THE TRUTH TO JACKSON

AIDEN WOULD MAKE A BETTER ALPHA THAN JACKSON, WE ALL KNOW IT

Jackson is a good person but he needs the leadership classes more than Klaus

FUCKKK, DAHLIA HEARD THEIR CONVERSATION

Dahlia killing Aiden is a pretty smart move but I HATE THAT HE’S SUFFERING

HE’S DEAD…MY BABYY

JOSH FOUND AIDEN, THIS IS SO FUCKING SAD

WHY THE HELL IS KLAUS SAYING HE KILLED AIDEN

I feel like everyone is just losing sight of the goal here: protect Hope! The only victim here is Hope (and now Aiden)

I don’t see how the wolves will be magically cloaked if Hope can’t do magic…tracking spells still exist

This Klamille angst is delicious

ELIJAH DAGGERED KLAUS?!

Looks like Elijah and Rebekah are standing with Freya

2x20

What is Dahlia doing…

How can Dahlia and Klaus be allies??

Having Hope as bait?? That’s a risky move

Elijah knows about Aiden, but he’s not changing his mind…kinda saw it coming

WHAT AN INSULT, SAYING THAT CAMI’S JUDGEMENT IS CLOUDED BY HER FEELINGS

Hayley pointing out that Aiden deserves to be buried properly…another reason that Jackson’s a shit alpha

Esther falling in love with Mikael, basically one of her captors?? That’s some Stockholm syndrome shit

I like that Davina’s helping out but what is her motive?? Is it just trying to help a baby??

DID YOU KEEP THE WOLVES SAFE, JACKSON?! Because I’m not really believing you

IF ANYTHING, IT LOOKS LIKE DAHLIA MADE FREYA’S MAGIC PAINFUL BECAUSE OF HOW SHE TREATED HER

Marcel is kinda giving out solid advice to Hayley…I’ll say it again, I like their friendship

Dahlia is not the only witch that exists, someone else can tutor Hope

OH…Dahlia’s kind of giving Klaus a good deal (and she’s saying all the right words)

ELIJAH, BEAT JACKSON’S ASS

Fuck NO, no fight?! I don’t want Jackson to die but can he just get punched in the face

HAYLEY WILL HAVE TO BE ELIMINATED?! Mothers really get the short end of the stick on this show

KLAUS IS AWAKE, AND I KNOW HE’S ABOUT TO JOIN FORCES WITH DAHLIA

Hope is a Mikaelson?! Hayley of all people should know what a biological family means to a person

OH MY FUCKING GOD, FREYA’S THE BAIT?!

Klaus really looks like he’s going through it

Klaus is going back to a villain again…honestly, I’m kinda here for it

DAHLIA’S ALREADY FOUND HOPE, NOT EVEN SURPRISED

2x21

WOW…NOLA is celebrating while all this supernatural shit is happening

Oh, good!! The kids are no longer linked to Rebekah!!

KLAUS, IT TOOK YOU BEING DAGGERED TO UNDERSTAND WHY YOUR SIBLINGS HATED IT?! Jfc

FINALLY someone realizes the spell is linked to the storm…I always knew Marcel was smart

Freya, stop being so salty about being bait. You’re still technically immortal, Hope is a BABY

YUP, THE WOLVES ARE FUCKEDDD

Hayley would make a MUCH better alpha than Jackson

WAIT A MINUTE, DID CAMI NOT REALIZE KLAUS LIKED HER UNTIL REBEKAH POINTED IT OUT

FINALLY WE SEE GIA

THEY’RE KISSING YAY GIVE ME THAT GILIJAH CONTENT

Klaus looks kinda hot in this episode…he also looked really good in TVD S2…maybe I’m just attracted to Klaus as a villain

Poor Marcel getting caught in the middle of a Mikaelson battle, why they gotta make him suffer

Vincent’s right, Davina. There’s no point in bitching about the witches but doing nothing to change their ways

There’s no way that Dahlia will be fooled by the Mikaelsons’ trap

THIS MIKAELSON SHOWDOWN WITH DAHLIA IS VERY TENSE

NO NO NO GIA JUST DIED, FUCK THIS, I HATE IT HERE, I LIKED GIA, FUCKKK

HAYLEY, RUN TO RUSSIA, GO HIDE IN SIBERIA

They chose a horrible time to do the Jayley “I love you” scene…like it’s nice, but who’s rooting for them at this point in the series

I CANNOT TAKE JACKSON SERIOUSLY BECAUSE KLAUS IS RIGHT, JACKSON IS A DUMBASS

The Marbekah angst is superb

Supernatural child custody battles can be so intense

I like that Davina’s becoming regent, but I hate that she’s doing it just for Kol…why u doing it for a man, like you’re about to be SUPER powerful

KLAUS SAID “DADDY’S HERE” TO HOPE, TOO SWEET

I KNEW KLAUS HAD A BACKUP PLAN

2x22

Freya’s just hanging out, unconscious in the back of the truck?!

WE WERE ROBBED OF GILIJAH CONTENT

KLAUS JUST DAGGERED HIMSELF IN ORDER TO DAGGER DAHLIA, HOLY SHIT

FREYA WOKE UP!!

I like this little Davina and Vincent friendship

Oh god, Davina’s wasting her one chance on Esther

DAVINA, KOL IS EXACTLY LIKE HIS BROTHERS, ONLY WORSE, GIRL PLS

The dagger melting is like their hourglass…

I’m glad that Rebekah’s back in her body, but I wish that she could’ve properly saved Kol

Davina’s gonna refuse Rebekah’s offer, and I’m actually with her on this one…even if I dislike Kolvina

FREYA, I KNOW IT WON’T WORK BUT WHY ARE U ABOUT TO COMMIT LITERAL GENOCIDE

DAHLIA’S ABOUT TO RAIN FIRE DOWN ON THE MIKAELSONS

I also think we’ve just hit a turning point with Freya and Klaus’s relationship

I LOVE CAMI’S LITTLE RANT AS A GREETING FOR KLAUS

CAN WE JUST GET TO THE VICTORY AND STOP WITH THE BITCHING

Elijah and Klaus alliance is officially broken, understandable but disappointing

I know I’ve said this before, but the Vincent and Cami friendship is too cute

“I have complicated feelings for a monster” FUCK YEA U DO BABY

DAHLIA AND ESTHER REUNITING…

WOW THAT’S REALLY SMART THINKING, MAKING THE STAKE EXPLODE

ESTHER ACTUALLY SHOWING SOME CONCERN FOR HER KIDS

Esther and Dahlia are in the afterlife together…this is kind of heartwarming

Marcel and Elijah burying their dead, honestly sad

Why do I feel like Klaus is on best terms with Freya right now out of all his siblings

OHHH BEKAH WENT BACK TO EVA’S BODY, HONESTLY I LIKE IT

Marbekah kissed!!

YAYY ANOTHER KLAMILLE MOMENT…THEY’RE SO CLOSE TOGETHER, JUST KISS!!

A satisfying ending to the season

3x01-3x08 review coming soon! Please, DO NOT POST SPOILERS OR HATE COMMENTS. I don’t expect people to agree with my opinions, but being rude is not going to get me to change mine. I haven’t seen the show before, my opinions are probably going to change over time as I keep watching. If you want longer notes on any of the episodes, opinions on a TO ship, my overall thoughts on S1 or the past S2 episodes; please ask or message me, I’d be happy to share them.

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wonderlandleighleigh · 1 year

Note

Can you please do another follow up on the interview drama? Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top

"Guys I'm really gay."

They've been drinking for a number of hours. Drained a few bottles at this point, sprawled out on the floor and couches in the living room.

"Wait, you thought we didn't know you were gay?" Esther asks, confused as she lifts her head from the floor.

Lan lifts his own, looking panicked. "What?"

"We know you're gay," Lily tells him.

"Smokey and the Bandit," Ethan chimes in.

"Wh-"

"I took you to see Smokey and the Bandit," Ethan goes on, laughing from the couch. "Lan, you were smitten."

Lan stares around at his siblings.

"No one could blame you," Kitty assures him. "Burt Reynolds is really sexy."

"It's the mustache," Lily agrees.

"Honestly, I'm a little jealous," Esther chimes in again. "I wanted to be the gay one."

"You-"

"Men are terrible," Esther cuts him off.

"Wait, does everyone know?" Lan asks, still completely flabbergasted.

"None of the grandparents guessed," Ethan tells him. "And lucky you, you only have to tell one of them. Unless you wanna tell Sally. I don't think she'd care much."

"But you're being safe, right?" Lily asks worriedly. "The Aids thing isn't getting better, and Reagan is still choosing to ignore the problem."

"I only have the one partner," Lan assures her. "And we've both been tested a couple of times."

"Don't die please," Lily says.

"Doing my best," Lan tells her. "God, I can't believe you all knew all this time. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you didn't say anything," Kitty shrugs with a giggle. "What were we supposed to do, point at you and announce it at Yom Kippur dinner?"

"Not that you've been to Yom Kippur dinner in the last couple of years," Esther comments. "Busy movie star that you are."

Len sighs heavily. "Do you think the parents know?"

"Oh, Daddy definitely knows," Lily tells him. "Your dad once mentioned a matchmaker and Daddy blew coffee out his nose."

"Ow," Lan flinches.

"Many, many worse things have gone up and come out that nose," Kitty comments. "He was fine."

"Pop is gonna lose his shit," Lan mutters, pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes. "It's times like these I wish I was a Weissman-Bruce. Midge would not care."

"She'd wrap you in cellophane and ask for the sexual history of everyone you know," Ethan comments. "She's terrified for Uncle Shy right now."

"I'm really fine, you guys," Lan grumbles.

"Keep being fine, please," Kitty insists. She sits up and huffs. "Who wants more whiskey?"

Ethan's hand shoots up, as does Lily's.

"Five people, all aware that addictions runs in every branch of their family," Lan jokes.

"Wait, Mei's family, too?" Esther asks.

"Opium, back in China," Lan explains.

"Well, here's to bad habits," Kitty states, as she refills everyone's glasses.

*****

When Lan opens his eyes again, sunshine is streaming through the smudged windows, and he can smell French toast from the kitchen.

He feels like a little kid again, slumped around with his siblings, delicious smells in the air, and Midge and Lenny's voices - low and soft - coming from the other room.

The aroma of coffee has him pulling himself to his feet. He thought he'd be more hungover, but he actually feels okay. The combination of a handful of aspirin sometime in the night, and good quality liquor making things feel a little easier, most likely.

"Hey, we have a life one," Lenny comments, grinning at him.

"Well, that's one less funeral to plan so soon," Midge jokes, zooming by and kissing Lan's cheek. "Hi, sweetie."

"You guys don't look mad," Lan says, frowning.

Lenny snorts. "Do you know how many times people have said I'm gonna die soon? You're far from the first, and you won't be the last."

"You just have to learn how to give less shitty interviews," Midge tells him, handing him a cup of coffee. "God, this place is not in good shape anymore. Every since Paulie retired..."

"Maybe we should just buy the bungalow," Lenny suggests. "Fix it up nice, give it some love, have a good place for vacations and whatnot."

"It's not the worst idea," Midge grins, before looking at Lan. "How are you? How's LA?"

"LA is good. I'm...I feel awful about that interview," he tells her. "The stuff they said about Mama, and Lenny and Ethan...and then they did a deep-dive on Maisel and Roth and..."

"There are just some journalists who will do anything to get ahead," Midge tells him. "There was this one woman who used to trash every show I ever did."

"Ah, L. Roy Dunham," Lenny muses. "When she trashed Midge's first Gordon Ford appearance, she got so much hate mail, they had to fire her from the Daily News."

"And she died last year," Midge adds. "Food poisoning. Bad pork."

Lan frowns as he sips his coffee. "So...if you're not mad..."

Midge takes a breath and smooths out her dress. "There's a lot of stuff that you kids don't know, that...well..you're all adults now... Lily is nineteen for god's sake, so...it's time. Once your parents get here, and everyone's been fed and given hangover cures, we'll all talk."

Lan nods.

"You know the best thing about being the first up is first dibs on the shower," Lenny tells him.

Lan lifts an playfully eyebrow. "Lenny, are you telling me I smell?"

"I absolutely am. Go."

Lan laughs and takes his coffee upstairs.

#fic #au #tmmm #the siblings #Lan Maisel #Midge x Lenny

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mrstransformersfanfiction · 3 years

Text

Title: New Beginnings

Disclaimer: my OCs I designed belongs to TorianScriber2012

A/N: So it was meant to be a one shot but apparently I decided to do a very short mini series. Writing prompts I thought out yesterday. A little dabble in the alternate universe of and I definitely was upset when Bayverse movie killed Jazz.

I feel need to doze some love to this little bot character that didn't deserve to die in Megatron's hands in the movie and Jazz is cool! I'm kind of working on the title and haven't come up with one unlike the crossover I was working on. That's my primary goal. I did have many series one shots in mind but I might turn to series.

Summary: (AU) What if Jazz have a human partner to protect and still is alive? William Lennox asked his student, Esther Tseo, a graduated soldier on the NEST team to bring her Autobot guardian home. What can possibly go wrong when her family meets Jazz?

Graduation

Chapter one

Esther Tseo was finally packing her bag. It was time to go home and she only got one week leave. After all, she promised her mum that she will come back home and to the rest of her family.

She now triple check on her items in her luggage until there was a knock on the door. The new recruit soldier went out to the entrance to find herself face to face with her commanding officer: Colonel William Lennox. Esther gave a salute to him.

"What did I say about formality when not on duty?" Lennox sighed.

"That I don't have to salute you when on duty?" Esther replied cheekily at her CO.

"Yes. Relax, kid. Come to my office." Lennox declared to her. "I got three things I want to go over with you before you go back home to Hawaii."

Oh scrap. Esther had a feeling she knew what he'd wanted to discussed with her about and it was something she hidden not just from her Autobot guardian, Jazz, but also to her teacher and wasn't surprised at all if her mum did blabbed out her medical condition to him.

The young female officer followed her mentor out to his familiar office. The loud ruckuss outside was considered normal within the military base from the Autobots. There is always training involved especially hand to hand combat or else weaponary designed courtesy by Wheeljack.

In passing, Jazz waved at her and Esther smiled at her guardian in response. The lady returned a friendly waved at him. Once the colonel and Esther walked into the office, Will threw the file back on the desk and gestured her to sit down. His student took the sit.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a heart condition?" The colonel rested his chin on his knuckles.

"How did you find out I had one?" Esther's eyes widened in shocked.

"Answer the question, kid." Will said very firmly and raised a finger at her sternly. "I'm only going to asked once." He looked already stressed out. There was a huge concerned in his tone.

Esther sighed and slumped back to her sit. There was a whole lot of reasons why she didn't declared her medical condition onto the paper and wanted to try her luck. She always felt that Will was like a father that she never have. She pondered his request.

"Because I didn't want my medical condition to be an excuse, to get in the way and I wanted to try my luck, to see how far I can get." Esther admitted to him guiltily to him. She gazed at the floor when she answered.

Will walked over to her. He clasped onto her hand and the other, lifted her chin up with his finger. Reluctantly, Esther returned her gazed to him. She pictured the whole conversation Will must had with her mother and can imagine how her mother berated at him in her panic voice in clear desperation.

"No. You won't be dismissed from the NEST team. That's a promised. But, I spoke to your mum and she's pretty determined to get you off the military service. You know I had to follow protocol after an injury report, Esther. I am behind you one thousand percent because you were the best candidate soldier I ever seen in the field. I will personally vouch for you and fight for your case.

"All I asked in the future is not to keep anything from me. So I can take all the necessary precaution. Personally, I would not even have minded even if you told me back then. I can also see that serving with the NEST team means the whole world to you. I understand you also gotten closer with your Autobot guardian, Jazz.

Esther nodded in agreement. The last part was very true. She become very accustomed to Jazz and he was the one who taught her how to drive a vehicle because she didn't have her license. Plus, a good opportunity for the duo to learn the road rules. She looked apologetically at her teacher.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to lie to you. That wasn't my intention. I guessed I wanted to hold off the matter for as long as possible. All my life I wanted to feel normal and I didn't want anyone to choose for me. I wanted to be able to choose a path for myself." Esther told him truthfully.

"You didn't lie to me, kid. Trust me. We all kind of found out on our own to be honest with you." Will massaged his eyes with his palms. He stiffled a yawned. It had been a really long day for all of them. "Okay. First up, after this meeting, I want you to see Jazz. He was worried out of his mind about you when he found out and didn't stopped hassling me all week about human anatomy and medicine.

Esther grinned. That definitely sounded a lot like Jazz. She can imagine her Autobot guardian personally walking beside him, annoying the hell out of her superior officer around the base. She didn't dare to speak but merely listen to her boss who'd continued in a business way of the day to day schedule per usual. Will definitely looked rattled.

Though, she can imagine Jazz's reaction and the entire scenario in her head, where her guardian was poking for further information when he wasn't meant to and after her last encounter with the Decepticon made him all very jumpy. It was his job to know everything.

"I'll be honest with you, Esther. Jazz actually found out on his own too and did a quick scan on you when you were unconscious the last time you were at the infirmary. I want you to apologize to him too in person. He looked pretty offended you didn't tell him because he felt you were family to him even though you're not by blood.

At his words, Esther felt a wave of guilt erupted in her heart. Her stomach churned uncomfortably. She didn't intend for Jazz to worry or the fact to feel that way. This was one of the main reason why she didn't want her medical condition to be known because everyone worries. Esther always considered herself to be a very capable independent person.

"Secondly, what I wanted to talked to you about, and I know it sound totally ridiculous or unnecessary, is to let your family meet Jazz. I put my hand up: this isn't my idea. The idea belongs to Optimus. So you had to try to convince him and believed me, I tried. Optimus wanted to introduced himself to your family. But, I put my foot down on that. Personally, I think Jazz will be more than enough for your mum to handle. Will assured his student.

He noted Esther looked on the verge of hysterics amusement now with a mix emotions shown on her face. Her face tells him all. At this, Esther couldn't helped but to burst off laughing at what he just told her. She could imagine Jazz being in her tiny occupied garage and knowing her Autobot guardian, he definitely couldn't sit still all day. There are a lot of incidents scenarios Esther was certain anything can go wrong in one day.

It took her awhile to settle down from her hysterical giggling that Will know all too well. Even Lennox cracked a smile at her. He had expected her reaction would be like this and didn't blame her. It was nice to see Esther looked like she was back to her normal self from her injury trauma incident encounter with the Decepticons attack at the base.

"No. Absolutely not, sir! This — This is a terrible idea. A total catastrophe in the making without a doubt. You don't know my mum. She have a temper and definitely will have a meltdown if she ever meets Jazz in person. No way! I will be more than happy to tell you the reasons why. Don't get me wrong. I love Jazz very much and like spending my time with him too because I learned a lot from him. He's a great teacher too.

"I have a very nosy neighbour with her two pet dogs, parks up the damn drive way like she owns the damn shit, plus her other relatives that drives up all the time to blocked the road and definitely there will be more than a few incidents while Jazz is on guard duty." Esther finished and blurted out completely.

Will placed his hands on her shoulder. "Calm down, Esther. Take a deep breathe. I totally agree with you what you are saying and don't think for one minute I haven't consider the consequences that can occur without neither of our knowledge.

"I was definitely thinking along those lines. Because, the first time Ironhide met my wife, Sarah, was exactly what your mother's reaction would be and when my daughter met Ironhide, she went absolutely bananas and started calling him Uncle Ironhide.

"I also did a lot of thinking and as crazy as the idea sound, I am incline to agree with Optimus fully because he was the one who'd led all of us to victory. So, I asked Optimus if he would be obliged to be in a human holoform which the Autobots are working on right now. I know is a lot to take in too.

"But, he's also right about your recent encounters with the Decepticons musn't happened again. His greatest fear is any of us to be hound onto the Nemesis warship for any sensitive classified information interrogated by the warlord. Optimus is usually worried about everyone's safety.

"And one last thing, Esther...I don't want you to feel awkward or intimidated or get the wrong idea or anything. But your mum gave me an earful earlier and she insisted I should stay at your sisters vacant room while I'm at your place for the week to talk about why you should still be with the military service." Will informed her. He even looked embarrassed.

"My mum said what?!" Esther yelped. She covered her face with her hand, now embarrassed in return. "I'm so sorry sir and I am totally embarrassed she cornered you like that! Let me speak with my mum." She reached for his phone and was about to dial home.

But Will stopped her mainly because he didn't want to also deal with her mum personally and definitely have enough of an earful for the day. At this, he realised how Esther and her mum is very alike: persistent and determined with no avail. One of the qualities that Will admired her very much and liked.

Esther turned to him when Will clasped his hand around hers. She never seen him this way: terrified at the prospect of an earful from a woman. Poor Will. She looked amused and sympathetic at the same time. She even forced herself not to smile about it. Her mum can be a push over person sometimes.

"N-n-n-n-no! H-h-h-hear me out, kid! I'm also going to be honest with you on this, one hundred percent! Because I took a deal with your mum. She said I had to convince her why she should let her daughter stay on, to show her the kind of man I am and I told her, that you are my responsibility and will do everything in my power to keep you safe." Will explained seriously.

Esther's heart was racing now. Her insides melted into tiny little pieces as she said it and wasn't why she felt so emotional right now. Will represented to her a way her father never did. All the young girl knows is her father walked out on the family when she was very little. Will was determined to go to extra length just for his modest student.

He wouldn't admit the real feelings towards her mainly because he was married and decided at that moment he will seal that feeling to lock away in a box never to be opened, ever. Very reluctantly, Esther sighed for the second time and nodded in answer, too stunned to comprehend anything else and too shocked to utter a word back. Her voice seem to be lost.

There was a moment there when they looked into each other in the eye. Will gripped onto her hands very tightly.

To be fair, Esther never looked at him in a boyfriend manner more like a father figure she couldn't explained even to herself. Sure, they'd spend every day at the base. So why was today any different? They had been alone everyday in the base together at the NEST team.

It wasn't until then Esther managed to find her own voice. She felt awkward indeed because she noticed his married ring on his finger on his left hand. She felt heat rise up her cheeks completely. Silent fill the room for a short while. Until, she spoke in a croaky voice.

"Uh, sir?" Esther gesture her head at her hand where Will gripped firmly on.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Will rubbed the back of his head in embarressment. He cleared his throat just to clear the uncomfortable tension. "I think that covers everything. Please. Don't call your mum. She knows we're coming over. I just feel your mum is a bit of a pushover sometimes. She's a great mum. But she's something else."

"Welcome to my world, sir." Esther smiled appreciatively at him. "Now you know why I stayed with a family friend of mine who's like a second mother to me. I don't mind people being protective. I just want to feel free and be independent."

"And you will be. Don't forget you got a job waiting with the NEST team." Will reminded her. At that moment, he looked immensely proud. "Congratulations Esther. Happy birthday. You completed all your training very successfully." His eyes twinkled with happiness genuinely.

"Thanks boss." Esther grinned broadly. A true smile Will witnessed on her face.

"You're welcome, kid. You earned it. I think we'd covered everything we need today. I truly understand why you hide your medical condition. I'm very impressed with how you carry yourself out. I'm super proud of you, today, Esther. I'm very proud. You are one of the best student I ever trained, kid." Will concluded.

"Thank you, sir." Esther couldn't helped her routine formalities. Will groaned only to earn a chuckle to his now former student.

"Kid, you do know you can call me Will when we're not on duty right?" Will smiled at her knowingly.

"I know. It's just traditional culture to respect the elders. Oh, and you might want to add in on the paperwork I got learning disability." Esther added casually now she was more inclined to trust her former mentor.

Will swiped his face with his hand. He still couldn't believed how she'd managed to keep that piece of information quiet or even her medical condition for that matter.

"Jesus Christ, Esther. One of these days, I'm going to have a heart attack." It was Will's turn to sighed and he rested his knuckles onto the table. "Duly noted. Enjoy your day. Happy birthday. Please go and see Jazz. You're free to go." Will said dismissively.

"Thanks...Will." Esther stood up. She made her way to his front door until she was stopped by her former teacher behind her who'd called out to her from the distance.

"Oh and Esther," Will tapped the side of his chin with his finger with a thoughtful look plastered across his face. "I feel I owe you a last explanation."

Esther gave him a questioning look at him. "How do you mean?"

"You know how your mum often writes letters after letters and electronics letters to the court house to petition to be exempt from the field?" Will said honestly to her in the open.

Esther's heart sank like a stone discouragely and felt her chances at the military base was slim. This should be good, she thought hopelessly at this situation.

"You should know Jazz was the one who'd interfered with it all and brought all the letters to me and trashed her emails that was about the exemplary from the base. In fact, he tore it out the paperwork in anger.

"He cares a great deal about you for your future and so do I. I just hoped you put more trust in us and don't feel like you got to do everything by yourself and let people in sometimes. That's all I asked. He's actually a pretty bad ass and had a real knack of interference too. Don't apologise to me, just see him. Be glad is not Ironhide that is your guardian." Will advised her seriously.

At this new knowledge, Esther let out a low whistle. Suddenly, out of the blue, she threw her arms around Will and hugged him tightly, forever grateful for their actions that they were the reason she made it this far to graduation. Will's face flushed brightly when his own student gave him a kissed on the cheek.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You're the best! Where's Jazz?!" Her whole face lit up.

"Uh...in Wheeljack's labratory...tinkering again..." Lennox patted her on the back lightly and felt awkward when he almost keeled over.

"Whoops! Thanks Mr William Lennox! Yeah. I'll see Jazz now!" Esther flung the door opened, closed the door lightly behind her and ran on ahead to find her Autobot guardian. It was clear that this was the best birthday present she'd ever received. A graduation. A job and a home. What more could she want?

Will sighed and stared after his former student. "It's William Lennox."

#fanfiction #transformers fandom #tfa jazz #my ocs #alternate universe #my story #what if series #optimus #WillLennox

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trustsalvatorewriting · 4 years

Text

queendom || hope mikaelson - chapter eight

Summary: In which a tribrid falls in love with a human girl

Word Count: 2,411

"SHE'S GONE." HOPE PACED across the room, her heart racing as she imagined what possible circumstances she had just put Angel in. She'd tried to fight against the monster, but regardless of what she did, it seemed as though nothing she did affected him. He was immune to every spell. Everything she did only served to exhaust her and stall him.

Unfortunately, Aunt Rebekah hadn't managed to compel Angel to stop acting calm. She'd simply stood there, quiet and accepting of what was happening in front of her. As if she'd known that the creature wasn't going to harm her. Hope had continued fighting after Rebekah had 'died,' but it was no use. He had managed to throw her across the room while she was doing a spell. By the time she had come to, Angel was gone, and the monster had gone with her.

There was a time when death was an unfamiliar concept to Originals. Hope's father, Klaus, had always gone out of his way to make it known that the Mikaelsons were immortal -- ironic, really. Simple death like the snapping of a neck or drowning, something that would usually kill an ordinary human being, would be an untimely nap for an Original vampire. As would a stake in the heart, or a beheading -- things that would ordinarily kill a regular vampire.

To be an Original was to be immortal. Though it seemed that even immortal beings can find a way to die eventually.

It had been about two or three hours since Aunt Rebekah's 'death.' She would be awake soon enough, and they would be able to search for Angel. Unfortunately, that would mean heading straight toward Statera, and the lack of supernatural beings in the town seemed to suggest some sort of magical border.

Or magical blockade of Unsullied Soldiers that would kill whatever supernatural being tried to enter the territory; but what was the difference?

A light began to glow from inside Rebekah's pocket. Hope sighed, reaching over and pulling the phone out of her pocket. She raised her eyebrows at the 'Salvatore School' contact name. How often did they reach out to Rebekah regarding Hope's grades or absences? Honestly, she was surprised that she had any emergency contacts left. Lately it seemed as though Dr. Saltzman was all she had in terms of an adult figure, though Josie and Lizzie were making that relationship particularly hard.

"Don't answer my phone," Rebekah choked out, weakly gasping for air. She held her hand out. "Give it to me. I don't trust you using a phone to speak to anyone except your Aunt Freya from now on."

Hope sighed, begrudgingly handing the phone back. "You just came back from the dead. Do you really think you're in the mood to be speaking to Dr. Saltzman right now?"

"Trust me, darling, we go way back." Rebekah slid the call button, holding the phone up to her ear. "Rebekah Mikaelson speaking... Yes, I have Hope with me right now... What's happening with that map?"

It was easy to forget that her own aunt had been a student of Dr. Saltzman's at one point. Hope sighed, reaching into her pocket for her own phone. Admittedly, she wasn't supposed to have one, but Uncle Kol had always enjoyed bending the rules.

"Yes, I understand," Rebekah responded. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

As Rebekah went to hang up the phone, Hope looked up. "I have to go back to the school, don't I?"

"Well, grand theft auto isn't as bad as turning a werewolf into a hybrid -- so yes, you'll be going back to your regularly scheduled classes," Rebekah responded. She reached for her purse before noticing the disappointed look on Hope's face. "What's wrong? When you were younger, all you wished for was to go to a school for supernaturals. Your father didn't donate three million dollars to the school out of the goodness of his heart."

Hope simply shrugged in response. "All I 'wished for,' was to have friends that knew what I was going through; but no one does. I thought I wanted to be surrounded by supernaturals because it would be where I fit in the most; but ever since Mom died, it's like I would give anything to be human for a day."

"Being a human doesn't protect you from death, love," Rebekah whispered, running a hand through Hope's auburn waves. Only a few shades darker than that of Rebekah's late mother, Esther. The Original Witch -- before she'd tried to slaughter half her family.

"My mom died because she was a hybrid. My father and my uncle died because they had to get rid of a supernatural being called the Hollow that had been preying on me since I was seven years old. Those aren't issues that normal humans go through, Aunt Rebekah." Hope swallowed back tears, stinging at the burning sensation of doing so. She pushed herself off the bed to avoid crying for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. "Let's go."

The ride back to Salvatore School was relatively silent if you didn't count the blaring Frank Sinatra music. Rebekah always said she never enjoyed modern day radio; likely due to the ninety year nap Hope's father had forced her into in the 1920's.

Hope bit her lip, scrolling through Instagram and waiting for a post from Angel's account. Any sign that she was alive and not eaten by the rabid beast that was all she could hope for at the moment -- she would even be glad if she found out that Angel had blocked her. A sign that Hope hadn't been the cause of another person's death.

'Due to her often disastrous past, she has resigned herself to isolation, considering it the path that will provide the least heartbreak in her life. She sees loneliness as less of a burden... than her formative experiences of loving so deeply and losing so terribly.'

A direct quote from her psychological assessments from earlier this year. Dr. Saltzman had the students do one at the beginning of every school year. This was the first time she'd managed to prove the files wrong.

"Is this the part where I apologize?" Hope raised her eyebrows, eyes flitting over to see her aunt's reaction.

"Hope, I was friends with your mother. She knew what it meant to apologize when she knew she was wrong," Rebekah responded, not taking her eyes off the road. "I would hope you didn't learn how to apologize from your father."

"How could I?" She muttered in response, despite knowing very well that Rebekah had supernatural hearing. "He died when I was fourteen and he only spoke to me for two years of my life."

"Your father never learned what it meant to love someone unconditionally." Rebekah seemed to spit the words out as if they were poison. For a brief moment, Rebekah's eyes become glassy, the street lights highlighting her tears.

Hope dropped the conversation before it became it became more intense. Unlike the rest of her family members, Rebekah had always been the person who defended Klaus in Hope's presence. Kol and Davina had never held back when it came to insulting him -- and though Hope couldn't blame them, that didn't mean she was happy about it.

As the gates of the Salvatore School began to open, Hope braced herself for the the endless judgement that came with what she had done. Even stepping inside of the school made her feel as though she were trespassing, entering somewhere she never felt like she belonged.

The Salvatore School: a school for witches, werewolves, and vampires, yet couldn't fit in a tribrid. On paper, it would've made sense.

The two girls were immediately greeted with Dr. Saltzman, his daughters, Raphael, and Kaleb. The diversity in greetings was almost comedic. Dr. Saltzman looked largely disappointed, and slightly shocked by Rebekah's presence. Clearly whatever past they had was complicated, to say the least.

As if reading Hope's mind, Dr. Saltzman stated, "You tried to kill me."

"Your friends killed my brothers and your attempts on Nik and Elijah's life were innumerable. I'm here for Hope's protection, not yours." Rebekah spat, almost disgusted by Dr. Saltzman's reaction. "I will apologize for nothing."

Josie stepped forward, shocked. "You tried to kill my dad?"

"Succeeded, really," Rebekah shrugged. An amused look comes to her face as Josie steps in front of her father protectively. "Love, please. All of my brothers are dead -- rest in peace -- and I am a step closer to becoming human. What would I gain from murdering this poor old man?"

"You're Rebekah Mikaelson," Kaleb stepped forward in awe. "I've read about you in the books -- you and your brother. You guys are, like, the founding fathers of vampirism. Why would you want to become human?"

A sad look crosses Rebekah's face, though it disappears as quickly as it comes. Before she can respond to Kaleb's school boy crush, Lizzie scoffs. "Really? So we're just gonna let Hope off the hook after she literally almost exposed an entire school forsupernatural? All because she brought her stupid aunt."

Hope's eyes began to glow gold, signaling her werewolf gene to step forward. She flashed them at Lizzie as she took a step forward. "Don't say that about my family."

"Guys, we have bigger issues to deal with right now," Raphael pointed out. He walked back the map, pointing toward the town Angel and Hope had met at. "I was watching the map earlier. Trying to figure out what was going on, and what those spots were. I saw a really bright light" -- he glanced up at Hope. The stronger the supernatural abilities, the brighter the light -- " leave Mystic Falls and head to this town. A couple hours later, I saw one of the darkened areas leave the border of Statera and followed you, Hope."

"It wasn't following me. It was following Angel," Hope explained.

"Yes, Kol, I was sure to check that she was human," Rebekah said into her phone. After a moment, she sighed, setting the phone on the table and turning the camera on. A group video chat appeared and Rebekah turned the camera to face Hope. "Say hello to your niece."

She turned her head to see the faces of her Aunt Davina, Aunt Freya and Uncle Kol. Hope's last living family members. She raised her eyebrows to greet them, putting on a tight smile. "Hi, everyone."

"There's our little troublemaker," Kol greeted. "Now, tell me, how exactly did you meet this girl? And why a human? There's always so dramatic."

"Don't mind him, Kol's just saying that because he eats every human he comes into contact with," Rebekah muttered. She turned to Hope for a brief moment. "It's one of the reasons Davina's died so many times."

"That was a fault of a hex, not I," He argued. "And if we're keeping track of dead body counts, exactly how many men did our befallen Niklaus kill on your behalf?"

Hope flinched at the mention of her father. "Her name was Angel. I met her through Instagram, I used the location tags."

Part of Hope felt guilty that Aunt Davina even had to hear this story. She had told Hope stories about a boy named Tim, who she'd met when she was around fifteen; a boy who Hope's father had killed because she had had the nerve to stand up to him. Davina had once told Hope that she regretted ever reaching out to Tim again -- how if she had just avoided going to one of his concerts in the French Quarter, he might've survived.

Yes, Hope had heard all of the horror stories that came with falling in love with a human; for a brief moment, she didn't care. All she wanted was to feel normal for once. To have someone that didn't look at her like a freak. The tribrid; the daughter of Klaus Mikaelson; granddaughter of the Original witch; the girl who was destined to never fit in, no matter how hard she tried.

"Would it be fair to consider her human?" Freya questioned, "If she's being protected by this creature, she may descend from witches."

"If there were supernaturals living in Statera, the map would've shown us," Hope responded. She bit her lip, staring down at the map and tracing the dark border that had grown, surrounding Statera and making it that of a fortress.

Lizzie shrugged. "Or you could've messed up the spell."

"This spell has worked every other time we've needed to track down a new recruit. Why would it be an issue now?" Hope sighed, covering her face. "Look, do you guys remember the Vietnamese legend about the Unsullied? The supernatural guards who were supposed to protect their people during the Dark Ages? It said that they disappeared, but their owners left on boats, right? Maybe they came here."

"But why Virginia?" Davina questioned. "If they wanted to protect their families from armies and supernatural species, why choose a town an hour away from the birthplace of the Original vampires? Why choose a place so close to the water that it could be attacked without a moments hesitation?"

"The logistics don't matter right now," Josie pointed out. "What matters is that we need to go to Statera and see what's going on."

"What? And risk your lives?" Rebekah raised her eyebrows. "No. My niece is not going to fight one of those beasts again."

"We kind of don't have a choice," Hope hissed. "I need to know she's still alive."

Kol cut in, his voice cold and harsh. "Hope. Your survivor's guilt is not an excuse for putting yourself in harm's way."

"Didn't we kill you?" Dr. Saltzman murmured before shaking his head. "Hope's right. Statera is an hour away from Salvatore School. We need to make sure we know what's going on there, and whether or not those monsters are a threat to us."

Lizzie scoffed. "Yeah, let's all listen to Hope. The reason we're in this position in the first place."

Hope grabbed the phone and hung up before her family members could retaliate. Rebekah bared her fangs at the blonde witch, as if daring her to keep going. Hope reached into her pocket, grabbing Dr. Saltzman's car keys, throwing them in his direction.

"Enough with the family drama. Let's go."

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