#like watching nine seasons of this show in the span of three weeks

[waterimark]

guys im starting to feel like it’s not always sunny here in Philadelphia

#it’s been a while lol #I’ve been doing important things clearly #like watching nine seasons of this show in the span of three weeks #iasip fanart #iasip #charlie kelly #dee reynolds #dennis reynolds #mac iasip #frank reynolds

[sofoulandfairaday]

The ultimate How I Met Your Mother Finale rant

I know this has been done before, and I know I'm several years late to the party, but I don't care, so IN THIS ESSAY I WILL tell you about why this finale takes the spot as the second-worst finale in TV show history (because Game of Thrones is still, to this day, unbeatable, and it will probably stay like that forever). 

But first, a little context: I've just finished binge-watching HIMYM. This binge has been going on for three days straight (my final exam of the semester is in a week and I should be studying, so the fact that the last few days were a partial waste of time makes me so mad). Second thing: I already knew how it would end, and yes, kids, it does ruin the show for you. It ruins the show so much it makes your blood boil when you rewatch certain scenes, but I will get to that. 

You might want to make yourself a drink because this is a complete list of all the reasons why HIMYM's finale sucks - I'm warning you, it's gonna be looong.

It completely invalidates the entirety of season 9

This is one of the complaints people most often have with this series, and I have to agree. It would have been so much better if the last two episodes never existed, and they just showed Barney and Robin dancing at the reception after walking out of the chapel, Ted noticing Tracy and then the platform scene. "And that, kids, is the story of how I met your mother". Cut scene. Honestly, I don't get the hate people give to season 9, barring the last 2/3 episodes, especially since season 8 was so much worse (except for a few honourable mentions, like The Robin). S8 was slower, less funny, and less deep, and while the authors took a risk by making s9 happen in the span of a weekend it paid off: they took their time introducing the character of the Mother to the gang and fleshing her out. They make sure to highlight all the little ways in which Ted and Tracy are perfect for each other, and even tie up loose ends, like with the Slapsgiving episode, that was a filler but it wasn't boring to watch (although it may be problematic for different reasons, I'm not Chinese, so I can't say for sure if it's cultural appropriation or just the authors making fun of a particular movie genre). 

Some episodes were arguably great: "Daisy" was amazing, and that whole fight between Marshall and Lily was so realistic and well thought out, "Sunrise" was extremely important for Ted's character development, same goes for Tracy and "How Your Mother Met Me", "Bedtime stories" was impressive, "Rally" was incredibly funny and proved once again what a beautiful character Barney Stinson is, so much so that even Robin never has doubts that he (the guy with the biggest commitment issues on the planet) will bail on her before the wedding, and says to Ted that "he always comes back". Daphne's character is super funny and the right amount of annoying, the shenanigans of the gang are well thought out and all of the characters (not just Barney) complete their arc in this season. The last two/three episodes butcher that.

Marshall and Lily

Marshall and Lily, arguably the world's most solid couple, are the only thing this God-awful finale gets right, especially Marshall, who is my second-favourite character, that finally gets everything he deserves. But what about Lily? They never mention her career after Italy, and I refuse to believe she goes back to being a kindergarten teacher as if her year in Rome meant nothing. I also refuse to think she becomes nothing but a political wife, the equivalent of Zoey, but without saving the world. We know she has three kids, but her postpartum depression is never really talked about much and they definitely had the screentime to delve into it. 

Barney

 Where do I even begin? Barney Stinson is, without a doubt, the best character in this series, the glue of the whole gang. I think the message they were trying to give is that, since his trauma stemmed from the absence of a father figure in his life, he could only truly heal by becoming a father as well. People also say that n°31 had to stay just a number, because who could match up with Barney Stinson? First of all, I call BULSHIT on that last point, because Robin wasn't the only girl Barney could have ended up marrying. I used to think that too, but it's just not true: that is the equivalent of saying that Barney was incapable to truly love a woman and commit to her, even after all the development he got, and that he only got one shot at love in life, and that's it. This goes against the point the showrunners try to make by having Ted and Robin end up together AND by having Tracy get with Ted in the first place: "it's never too late, you always have another chance at love, etc." And, let's face it, Barney and Robin are legendary, but Barney and Nora (hell, even Barney and Quinn!) were pretty good together too. 

Second of all, if they wanted to give Barney a kid, they could have easily done that, before Barney married Robin. Barney's "redemption" starts when he gets with Robin the first time, hell maybe even when we meet James for the first time: Nora, Quinn, finding out who his father is, the episode dedicated to the lies his mum told him/finding James' father, him getting to know his own dad, etc... those are all steps along the way. The s9 episode where Barney accepts the relationship between Loretta and the reverend proves how far he's come. So why not give him a daughter BEFORE he proposes to Robin? Have him cheat on Nora/Quinn with n°31, giving him a relapse, and having him get closer to Robin while struggling to be a dad to Ellie. That would have been great. 

Or, you know, don't give him children. What's the point of burning the Playbook if you're going to have him write the second edition? What's the point of having him do a complete 180 in the last few scenes and acting like having a kid is the only thing that makes him change? What's the point of doing that when the show spends entire episodes berating Marshall and Lily for "changing too much" when they have a kid?

Also, Barney is the "challenge accepted" guy. He loves his wife so much, he spent years wanting her, and then he gives up because there is no WiFi in his hotel. How does that make any sense at all? This is Barney Stinson, the "I will fly out to San Francisco and buy Lily a plane ticket", the "I will steal every girl from my best friend just to save him for Lily", the guy that wrote the Playbook (it takes effort to pull those plays off), the guy that planned for weeks his proposal, the guy that waited years to get back at the man who stole his first girlfriend, the guy that makes every night legendary... are you telling me that that guy becomes the equivalent of a bored housewife instead of living his best life while travelling the world? Come on. They don't even try to make it believable.

Ted

While watching seasons 7 and 8, I felt that Ted was becoming the worst character on the show: he was boring, depressed, basically had no good storylines, the whole thing with Victoria was pointless and inconclusive (and the whole "stop being in love with Robin" was completely out of character for her), but whatever, we could have accepted that because it passed the message that two people could be good together, without being soulmates - which, by the way, renders the TedxRobin ship pointless, because they were right for each other, but Ted and Tracy were soulmates. Him being hung up on Robin in the latter seasons is almost pathetic, and the thing he does with the locket is insane, not romantic - BUT I will say this: it can be seen in two ways, depending on who's watching. I personally like the two as friends, so I see the whole thing as a "Dahmer" situation, but I get the people who see it as a "Dobler" one and see what he did as a grand romantic gesture. 

The problem, though, is that the whole TedxRobin ship gets pretty old, pretty fast: it's an annoying on-and-off thing, that should have ended with the locket. Because, yes, Ted was in a dark moment, yes, he was probably depressed, yes, he thought Robin was his only shot at happiness, but he changes during season nine! He spends entire episodes letting go of Robin, including the one where she transforms into a balloon and flies away. Ted is the good guy, ultimately. He is the guy that is genuinely happy for his best friends. In one of the deleted scenes from the finale, he meets Robin years later and says that he's so happy with Tracy he never thought about Robin in that way anymore. All of that gets thrown in the trash. Why do that? To use a Harry Potter metaphor, Ted is Severus Snape, while Barney is James Potter: the former loved the girl of his dreams with all his heart, even to the point of creepiness, but they weren't meant to be together. 

Robin

This, along with the next point, is the worst of all: Robin is the worst character of the entire finale. Her relationship with Ted in season 2 is wonderful, and I say that as a full-on Barney/Robin shipper. There was never a problem in their relationship, apparently, but they then break up because they have an "expiration date" and ultimately want different things in life. Except that Ted is not her soulmate. The only times when Robin wants Ted are the times where (1) she can't have him because he's either trying to move on or (2) the times where it's convenient, for example when they become roommates again and they solve their disputes again. Around that time, we see perfectly that Ted had moved on and that the person getting hurt was Barney. It's one thing to see Ted and Robin in the finale as two people picking up where they had left off after they dated. But this is not the case. 

In season 7, we have the exchange that should have put an end to any and all TedxRobin drama, and that completely invalidates whatever the writers wrote after that about the two of them: Ted declares his love - "I think you know how you feel about me now. I don't think time's gonna change that. Just tell me: do you love me?" To which she answers "No". And Ted also says later to Marshall, that he's "happy because he can finally move on". 

What a load of crap. 

Getting over someone is hard, believe me, I would know. And, oftentimes, it doesn't happen until we find someone else to love (and from the moment he meets Tracy, there is no one else for Ted). But by giving Ted feelings for Robin after this moment, it takes away from the beauty of it- because it's one of the most heartbreaking feelings in the world when you declare your love to someone and they don't love you back. Ted and Robin were both honest at that moment, and it was the last genuinely good exchange between them. After that, during season 8 they try to show us Ted trying to get over her (and failing) and in season 9 Ted getting over her completely. This is also weirdly paced because at the beginning of s8 both are in happy relationships with other people and there's no jealousy (which is good, because at least they weren't toxic) and they seem just friends (when Robin leaves Nick to go see him in the middle of the night, she implies that she would do it for any of her friends), but after Ted breaks up with Veronica because of Robin everything is weirdly coated in this sort of tension between the two: first Ted loves her, but she doesn't, so when he helps her by taking her to Barney's proposal ("which means my best bro in the world has given me his blessing"). 

And, by the way, every time they try to paint Ted as the guy that comes through for Robin after this moment, they dumb down Barney's character. And still fail to make Ted a better guy than him (see: the carousel in Central Park). 

Yes, Robin and Ted have some chemistry, but it is nothing compared to what Robin and Barney have. Every time Robin is jealous of Barney, it doesn't seem like a stupid whim, just because some other child is playing with her toys (except, perhaps, during The Robin). Robin and Barney's relationship would need a whole other post, and the next time I rewatch the series I will write down all the things that make them perfect for each other, but, to me, the biggest difference between the two relationships is this: in season 6, when she's not dating either one of them, Ted accuses Robin of never making him feel needed while they were together, whereas Barney praises her for it. Those are elective affinities: that's what Barney and Robin have, and what Tracy and Ted have. 

Barney and Robin have more or less the same arc: they both get over their fear of commitment and they do that with each other. Time and time again, we are told that if they're ever going to settle down, it would only be with the other. The first time they break up is honestly so stupid, and even when they are broken up, they are the best of friends, which also makes Robin's behaviour in the finale look so stupid. The way the two of them fit together is unparalleled, both in a romantic and a platonic way. 

Think about it: Robin makes Barney a better man, while she makes Ted a worse one. 

Also, the whole point that there are different seasons in life for everything gets thrown out the window: apparently, Ted and Robin (that were a couple that ultimately worked in their young twenties) are the same people in their forties.

But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that the two final episodes butcher Robin's arc as well: episode 23 starts with Lily saying "I want this girl to be in our lives" and we know Robin never made other friends outside of the gang, because she didn't need to, and now she walks away from everything because of fucking Ted?? This is saying "hey, Robin was only in the group for Ted, who brought her in, and now she leaves because he's not her puppy anymore". Robin was the one that was eternally indecisive between Ted and Barney and you're telling me that three years and many many life experiences later, she's still not sure? 

The point of her story is learning how to get over her fear of commitment, learning how to be there for her friends (there's an entire episode dedicated to that, and it's the one where Lily's pregnant and we meet Robin's ex-best friend in Canada), and how to balance her job and her life. Also, the way her character is treated is un-feminist and un-progressive: she becomes Ted's consolation prize. She is passive throughout s9. She cannot, ultimately, win the modern-day struggle most women have and balance out career and love life, so her true life, her "happy chapter" begins after she has already accomplished everything she wanted to and she's free for Ted. She doesn't even go back to him, she just the prize the main character wanted for all his life and only got in the end because his wife died (ONE SCENE, people, ONE SCENE!). Also, this makes Tracy the "broodmare" that gives him the kids he wanted, and his "happy family" experience before he goes to be with his one true love. 

The mother

This. This makes me so mad. One whole season spent on building up Tracy's character, just for it to go to waste. It would have been so easy to screw her up, but she is hands down the best thing about s9. She's the perfect woman for Ted and the episode shot through her perspective is the sweetest. By the end, I liked her more than Robin and Lily. She was the perfect addition to their group, she fit together with them in a perfect way, and they show us the biggest moment of her and Ted's life... for what? To have her die in a few sentences? And I don't care if they shot a funeral scene, I don't care if the finale was supposed to be 40 minutes long, because, in the end, it wasn't. The scene where Ted meets her is the second most beautiful one (after Barney's proposal to Robin) and the climax of the whole show, but they ruin her... and for what? The chemistry Ted has with her, he has with no one. The joy she brings him, the way she understands him, is unlike any other. I am sure that one of the reasons they killed her off was the shock value and I hate it. 

I cannot stress this enough: Tracy makes Ted a better person. When he's with Robin, Ted is "the nice guy" in the most selfish and narcissistic version of the trope. When he's with Tracy, love comes easy to Ted. Also, the scenes between the two of them are arguably the best Ted scenes of the show.

The kids' reactions (ugh)

It's not really what they say- it's the way they say it. The end of HIMYM was not supposed to be funny, even though the show is a sitcom. It was supposed to be bittersweet and beautiful, because it's the end of an era, and the writers must have known that. So, Ted finishes telling his story, reveals to the audience that their now-beloved Tracy is dead, and the reaction is: "No, ahah, you totally have the hots for Aunt Robin" (their words, not mine). Like, what the actual fuck? I cringed when Penny said that. It's tasteless and not fun at all. Even if it has been six years... It's still your fucking mum, show a little bit of sadness at the thought of her. 

The reason the show ended this way

What makes me especially mad is that I know for a fact that the reason they went with this ending is that it was the original one, always intended for the show, from season 2 onwards. And, if you watch it right after s2, it makes sense. But if you consider the eight years that passed and the massive character development, then no, it's not the best possible one. So many things hadn't been decided yet back in s2, especially about Barney, Ted, and Robin, and I hate that they didn't dare to scrap their work. This ending probably had sentimental meaning to the writers, but authors have to do what's best for their characters, not themselves. It's like with GoT, in a way: I think that the authors were all too aware of the impact of HIMYM and didn't believe that their finale would live up to the expectations... which compelled them to make the worst decision possible?? Every single character is OOC during the episode. Oh, and Marshall and Lily moving in the last episode is a ripoff from Friends (or maybe a tribute? Idk). Anyway, I believe that the authors were too attached to their sentimental version of "what should have been" and didn't give the characters the endings they truly deserved.

"Life works this way" // "Life only moves forward"

Some people say that the show is realistic because that's how life works. But I call super-BS on that. That might be true, and yes, people do get sick and die (Max, Marshall's dad...) and life does go on. But then, you don't frame it the way they did. It's just bad storytelling if you do it like that. And the problem is not the structure of season 9, because the characters develop in that season. The problem isn't even the mother's death. The problem is Ted ending up with Robin because that's not life moving forward for him, that's him, doing the same thing he did in 2005, 25 (twenty-fucking-five) years before! 

In conclusion, this finale is incoherent and inconclusive, and not satisfying at all. The only character that gets a good ending is Marshall: why is that? What makes his ending great? It's the fact that his character arc is respected and he finally gets what he's been working towards for more than ten years.

#himym #how i met your mother #how i met your mother spoilers #how i met your mother finale #09x23 #09x24 #robin sherbatsky #ted mosby #tracy mcconnell #barney stinson #marshall eriksen #lily aldrin #swarkles #ted x robin #ted x tracy #barney x robin #a rant #the blue french hor #the yellow umbrella

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven. ~ eight.

Wordcount: 2.7k

Summary: Being with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm.

Masterlist here

AO3 Link here

Playing volleyball in Milan is everything Atsumu dreamed of and more - the lights are brighter, the crowds are bigger, there are no distractions, no nagging to ignore, no pending errands to run - nothing to detract from the rush of exhilaration when he executes yet another perfect set. His teammates introduce him to the joy of soaking in the sunset over aperitivo by the Navigli canals, and he develops a liking for cheese and cured meat -  prosciutto, salami, bresola, sending pictures of the street markets to Osamu even though he receives no reply.  

But it’s not long before the novelty of living alone in a foreign land fades. He’s never been particularly good with languages, so he’s unable to get across the language barrier preventing him from socialising outside of his teammates. So Atsumu finds himself falling back into habits he learnt at home - buying take-out pizza on Friday nights from the pizzeria down the street, ordering extra because the pizza in Milan is thinner, crisper and infinitely less filling. There are no aquariums in Milan, no museums with dinosaur bones, so he measures his steps on cobblestone streets to the park every Sunday to sit on a bench too large for him alone, watching the birds and clouds in the sky. 

He tells himself to be content with watching his baby grow through the frame of an eleven inch screen, recording every one of her babbled words and chuckles onto his phone until it runs out of space and has to call Suna for technical support. He becomes a regular at the post office, mailing packages of dolls and nutcrackers, chocolates from his favourite sweetshop and handmade baby dresses from wizened oba-chan he learns to air kiss on both cheeks. 

‘Home, Oto-san?’ Shino asks during one of their calls. His voice breaks when he has to tell his baby ‘sorry, darlin’, not yet’. It’s the only time he opens up the webpage to check if he can book a flight back home. 

He starts rushing to the locker room right after matches end to avoid seeing his teammates’ faces light up when their families congratulate them with kisses and warm embraces after every match. When his teammates ask about his family (he drives away the thought that they’re asking out of pity), he whips out his phone to show them his favourite picture of Shino, her little face screwed up in confusion when they loaded her back with the giant mochi for her first birthday- ‘such a trooper, didn’t even cry when she fell down’ he tells them proudly. He’s quick to swipe past any photos of her. 

He doesn't need the memories, he really doesn’t.

Well - he might not  need  the memories, but it’s not as if they disappear. He wakes up to find himself on the other side of bed. ‘Sorry, darlin’ he mumbles sleepily (because he knows he tends to invade her space, and she’s likely to kick him bodily off the bed if he doesn’t apologise quickly enough) - before snapping awake with a thin sheen of cold sweat on his forehead remembering he’s five thousand, nine hundred and sixty miles from home. 

Not that he’s counting. He really isn’t.

He’s ashamed to admit that he heads to the club that night to pick up someone - anyone to warm his bed, but he’s not sure if it’s the burn of alcohol or the flashing lights (or that prick of something in his chest - it can’t be his conscience, he’s pretty sure only Osamu has that) because his stomach churns whenever pigs with their painted faces and false smiles approach him, and soon gives up, returning to his apartment cold and alone. He’s pretty sure it’s the alcohol because he pukes his guts out in the morning and swears off from ever going to a club again.

“MIYA !’ 

He only has time for a brief flash of shock between hearing his coach shout his name and feeling the impact of his teammate’s full weight against his shoulder that sends him sprawling across the floor. There’s a collective gasp from the crowd, but it’s not loud enough to drown out the sickening snap of bone ringing in his ears as he’s lying on the ground. 

The sharp burst of pain stabbing his shoulder is enough for him to know what the doctors later confirm - a shattered collarbone. Complete rest for at least eight weeks is prescribed for a full recovery. 

‘What were you thinking, Miya?’ his coach asks him exasperatedly when he’s discharged from the hospital. 

‘I goofed’, he replies lamely. ‘Sorry, sir’. 

It wouldn’t do to tell anyone that for a split second, he was distracted by the sight of a dark haired woman with bright eyes cheering at the top of the stands, a plump toddler balanced on her hip. 

It’s close enough to the end of the competition season that his coach figures it’d be better for him to just cut his stay in Milan short and return to Japan early to recover properly. So he lands in the Osaka airport amidst a haze of rain, arm tucked in a sling. The airport staff are kind enough to help him wheel his bags out to the arrivals gate where he’s surprised to find Osamu waiting with a bored expression on his face. 

‘I thought ya weren’t talkin’ to me’, Atsumu says.  

Osamu snorts, taking hold of his bags. ‘Mum made me come and get ya, since you're useless with that busted collarbone of yours.’ Then he turns on his heel and matter of factly adds as he walks off - ‘Besides, you’ll end up stayin’ with me anyway - it’s not like you have a home of yer own.’ 

Atsumu opens his mouth to retort but shuts it with a snap. 

‘You better hide in the kitchen if ya don’t have the guts to show yer ugly mug around her’, Osamu tells him at half past six in the evening, not even looking up from the tuna and spring onion onigiri he’s forming in his hands. 

But Atsumu doesn’t. He tells himself it’s because he can’t bring himself to leave Shino’s side for a second more than he has to, not when he’s still drinking in the sight of her grown so, so big in the span of just a few months. The little girl had been confused at first, when both he and Osamu turned up at the childcare centre to pick her up, but after several minutes of coaxing her to recognise which one of them was Oto-san and Oji-san (the hair colour probably helped) and the bribe of a very elaborate doll (probably the main reason), she’d warmed up to him and refused to let go of his hand. 

She pushes open the door to Onigiri Miya with a gentle smile on her face when Shino shrieks ‘Mama!’ at the top of her little lungs and rushes over to her, though it vanishes the instant she notices that it’s not Osamu playing with the little girl. He tries his best to ignore the stab of guilt in his chest when she takes an instinctive step back to yank Shino behind her legs. 

‘You’re back’, she finally says, glancing at his arm resting in its sling.   

‘Yeah…’ he responds, starting to sweat like he’s standing under the hottest stadium lights. ‘Ya look good’.

‘I know when you’re lying, Atsumu’, she sighs - and if he's being honest, she’s right. To the untrained eye, she looks perfectly put together, dressed in a pencil skirt and heels with her hair neatly tied back, but he knows her too well to be fooled. He can spot the pallor of her skin beneath her makeup, the droop of her shoulders, the downward tilt of her lips. But before he can formulate a response, she grabs Shino’s hand and turns to go, the little girl waving goodbye at him until they’re out of sight. 

‘Wow. That was awkward.’ Osamu quips from over the counter. Atsumu can’t even find it in him to respond.    

Osamu makes him work at his store in between his sessions of physiotherapy. ‘To keep ya out of trouble’ he says, and Atsumu doesn’t really mind, it still leaves him plenty of time to pick up Shino from childcare every day, and it certainly gives him the excuse to hang around Onigiri Miya when she stops by in the evenings. 

He tries to make conversation with her - ‘That’s a new dress you’re wearing’, but is always rebuffed - ‘I bought this old thing years ago’, to Osamu’s endless amusement. She’d always enter the store with a fond smile on her face for Osamu (it makes him want to puke), and would immediately drop it the moment she meets his eyes. 

He tells himself it’s normal, she used to be cold and standoffish to him before they started dating, that she’d come around after a while. But even when he tries a different tack (perhaps compliments don’t work on her like they used to before), asking her ‘how’s yer day’, she shoots him a look of distrust that cuts right through his smile - ‘Just tell me what you want, Atsumu. You’ve never bothered asking me that before’. 

Osamu actually roars with laughter at that. Traitor. 

‘Need help with that?’ Osamu comments after watching Atsumu struggle to reach the exercise tape on his back with his one good hand, stepping in after Atsumu gives a reluctant nod. But he immediately yelps in pain when Osamu decides to abandon all pretense of being gentle and yanks on the exercise tape viciously.

‘Just take off my skin while you're at it, why don't ya’ Atsumu whines. ‘It never used to hurt that much when  she  would help me after physiotherapy’. 

‘She’s always been nicer to ya than ya deserve, fuckin’ scrub’. Osamu retorts, pulling at the remaining tape with increased vigour. 

Atsumu bites his tongue through the pain, picking apart his brother’s words before replying - ‘Hey ‘Samu. She’s still really mad with me, isn’t she? D'you think she’ll ever forgive me?’ 

‘Have ya tried apologising to her, for starters?’ 

‘What?’ Atsumu asks, bewildered, before yelping - 'Wait - ouch!! What the hell that bloody hurt!?!?!' 

‘You know - saying sorry? Owning up to your mistakes? Asking for forgiveness? You abandoned your wife and child for months - but I suppose that concept must be alien to you, shit stain.’ 

Osamu doesn’t give him a chance to respond, shaking his head as he walks away. 

His pride is an ugly, misshapen lump in his throat that's so inflamed it's almost impossible to be swallowed, but he does so anyway, asking her if they can speak for a short while in the alley behind the shop, away from Osamu’s eavesdropping ears. She furrows her brows at his request, but follows him out without complaint. 

It’s only when she’s standing before him in the dimly lit alleyway, the dying light of the setting sun reflecting a halo above her head that it hits him like a blow to the back of his head that he’s a fuckin’ idiot - how did he manage to convince himself to blame her for trying to get in his way of chasing his dreams. This is what he missed when he was living alone in his cold studio apartment in Milan - being able to return after trainings and matches to a cosy flat overflowing with her cheeky banter and his baby’s laughter. 

Gods, he wants his family. He wants to come home. 

But before he can pour out the apology he’d been preparing with Osamu’s help, she interrupts him by slapping a brown envelope into his chest. 

‘Look, I’m not sure what you have to say to me, but frankly, I’m not sure we have much to say to each other anymore,’ she tells him impatiently, as he opens the envelope, a tidal surge of dread overwhelming him. 

‘What's this’, he says blankly, even though the title on the very first page of the stack of papers trembling in his hands sets it out clearly -  Rikon-Todoke. i.e. Divorce papers. 

It spells out in clinical, cold words the terms of the proposed separation - dissolution of marriage by mutual consent, no request for alimony or compensation, legal custody to be granted to her with ample visitation rights for him. He would think it fair, if it were to apply to anyone but him.  

‘But why?’ he rasps, chest burning from the knife that pierces him right through his heart. 

She shifts forward, and the neon lights from the buildings surrounding them melding together to throw her face into sharp focus, her mouth curving upwards into something much harsher than a smile. It’s as if his departure acted as a whetstone, sharpening her edges, shaping her into a woman with hard eyes he can’t recognise. 

‘You and both know it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it Atsumu? You’ve made it quite clear that this marriage isn’t what you want out of life. In any case neither of us have really been happy even before you left, so we might as well be free from each other.’ 

At this, he shakes his head, parting his lips to object but she continues ruthlessly, her words slicing past his tissue thin excuses. 

‘If anything, my time with you has taught me that it's impossible to stop the storm from destroying everything in its path. You can only try your best to outrun it, and  this' - ’ she stabs a finger at the stack of papers shaking in his hands -  ‘this is my attempt at outrunning you.’

It feels as if his world has somehow shifted, tilted upside down, turned inside out, his assumption that her taking him back would be an inevitable conclusion now disproven by the papers burning in his hands. He knows he’s hurt her beyond measure, but he never thought that his choice to chase what he thought were his dreams would leave him without the ground beneath his feet. 

‘You don’t need to do anything else - just sign it and give it back to me soon. I think it’s better for all of us - you, me and Shino, if we divorce formally and lead our own separate lives’, he hears her say, turning to go. 

Acting on instinct, his hand shoots out to grab her wrist and she flinches, the steel in her eyes crumbling to leave only frozen terror behind. 

I could never hurt you, he wants to say, but doesn't - because he knows it's a lie. 

Numbly, he releases his grip, letting his hand drop to his side. 

He hears the door close behind him. 

Osamu finds him hours later, crouched on the back steps to the shop, papers clenched in his hands. He takes the papers from him and mouths to himself while scanning through it, but there is no spark of surprise in his eyes. 

‘Did ya know she planned on divorcing me, ‘Samu?’, Atsumu asks, swiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

‘I had a pretty good guess it was coming’, Osamu replies heavily. 

‘Fuck’, Atsumu groans, dropping his head between his legs. 

Osamu prods his side with the tip of his shoe. ‘It’s not that I want to kick a guy when he’s down, but she's your wife, not a toy you can toss aside and come back to after a few months, shit for brains. And if I’m being honest, it looks like you’re acting like a brat who only wants his toy back when someone else picks it up’.

Osamu’s response lights a fire in his chest, and he whirls to his feet, grabbing his twin by the front of his apron growling - ‘Whose side are ya on anyway?!’ 

Osamu looks at him calmly, uncharacteristically refusing to take his bait. ‘Well, it's not as if ya don't deserve it. You walked out on her and Shino for almost a year, Atsumu. I’ve been the one cleaning up yer mess like I’ve been doing my whole life - I’ve been the one picking Shino up from childcare, I had to accompany yer wife to the hospital when yer kid was down with a high fever - d'you still have to ask whose side I’m on?’

‘D'you love her, ‘Samu?’ Atsumu asks after a pause. 

The twins stare at each other. 

‘I love her like a sister, you asshole. And I hate that it’s my own brother causing her pain.’ Osamu eventually says, pushing him away.  

The door slams behind him again.  

The dark clouds above him rumble ominously. It starts to pour. 

#hq #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #haikyuu writing #hq writing #haikyuu angst #hq angst #haikyuu imagines #hq imagines #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu x y/n #miya atsumu #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu x y/n #hq atsumu #miya osamu #inarizaki #haikyuucreations #haikyuu romance #haikyuu fluff

[bibliocratic]

I was going to write this for the Aspec Archives week, but I got overexcited, so here we are. 

AU: Mythical creatures. OG Archive team. 

Some CWs apply, see tags. 

The sea is more than water, her elder brethren taught her, warned her, chided her. It is home and harm and hungry, and you should not face it alone. Her siblings were older, ever knowing better, boisterous and boasting braver, but even they worried, scolded and fretted when she swam out too far alone into deep waters.

It will love you, but it will not always be kind, her eldest sibling bit out, snapped to mask their anxiety. There can be no bearings, in the deep-deep down, no anchors to denote where the sky lies.

When her people sleep, they rest wedged into some secure rock or crevice, tails looped around tails so no one is lost while dreaming.

You cannot be a shoal of one, my dearest, my youngest and bravest, the oldest of their shoal had said, when she told her she was planning on taking the rising when the waters warmed. Ascending landward on the tide swell, letting the shimmering scales of her tail split into skin.

She had not used the name Sasha at that time because that was a landward name she chose with care. Her folk gather names like a garland of pearls, to be constantly strung longer through life as age advances them; names for qualities, for momentous events, for hopes and desires. Her first name, gifted by her shoal, was guttural. It starts at the back of her throat, trails off into a susurration through gills. Mer is a difficult language to learn, though not impossible.

Tim tried. There is no one singular language of those who skirt the deepwaters, so he attempts to mimic her dialect. His pronunciation stumbling, he makes tentative sentences with the butchered grammar of fry. Martin’s grammar is even worse, though he picks up the eddies and waves of the sounds easier.

Jon, like most things in life, takes it as a challenge. One day, almost stubborn with nerves, to perform his task to perfection, he pushes out a juvenile approximation of her first name. Clipped and textbook and the stress in the wrong places, but Sasha smiles, showing her sharpest teeth in delight. Instructs him where to hold the hum at the back of his throat, how to roll the third phoneme upwards like an air bubble. Jon repeats it and repeats it, quietly smug and pleased at his achievement, and the sea in her soul rocks fondly at the sight.

She broached landward in the rising two moons after her age of maturation. She was one of a handful to come to shore. A sibling in Brighton who she phones every week, another two in Holyhead. Her first shoal traverses to warmer waters when the season shifts, and she would feel the rock-hollow absence of them if it was not for Tim, inviting her to participate in a hundred-and-one inane activities that keep her from feeling swept out; Jon, with his libraries of questions and intrigues, his quick-silver tongue; Martin, who sometimes swims a little further out from them but who finds her small knick-knacks in charity shops and craft markets and leaves them on her desk for no reason other than he has thought of her.

She makes three necklaces, plain with a strong chain, a single pearl attached. And on a day where her folk traditionally string garlands of seaweed and mangrove roots and colourful plants from coral reefs in a celebration of family –  there is no one word in her language for this idea; it poorly translates into hierarchies like sibling and brethren and elders, but these are not concepts that fit it exactly – she gifts them to the shoal that will anchor her in the depths of the sea, and bestows upon them names. Most Mer names are wishes for quick fins, calm waters, safe shores, and so she wishes these for them in a language they are not quite proficient in yet.

Her landward shoal is smaller than is traditional. But she loves them as treasures of her heart, and thinks she understands what her siblings told her, about anchors.

--

His parents, both harpies from local nests, are perplexed when his wings start coming in.

Must be a colouring from your mum’s side, his dad hums thoughtfully when Tim’s primaries grow in long and shining like struck bronze. He runs a careful finger down the central line of the rachis, and the wing shudders and jumps, the feathers still sensitive, and Tim complains that it’s ticklish. His wings are too small to fly away as his dad dives in, captures him in careful arms, corkscrewing upwards a little off the ground with Tim squirming and squealing and squawking in play, but they flutter and flap nonetheless.

The wing span’s from your dad’s side, no-one from my nest ever went more than five foot, his mother says, rubbing at the dark brown of his downy secondaries. Tim stretches them out wide, eager to boast at their length, the tips of his longest feathers reaching past his arms held out wide.

Danny’s wings are smaller. Magpie like, bold lines of white broken up by blue and black, the same as his parents. Tim’s wings, broader, a colour like beaten brass that tips into gold at the ends, draws attention, but he’s never been embarrassed. His family never treated him differently, so he didn’t dwell on it.

He can fly, though he doesn’t often. After his parents died, and after… after Danny, he moved to London, where there’s tighter airspace regulations and permits involved, so he mostly doesn’t bother. This doesn’t mean never, however. He has learned, while working in the Archives, that from the ground, his wings have enough lift to pick up both Jon and Sasha by at least a foot. He thinks he could probably manage Martin as well, if it wasn’t for the unfortunate fact that Martin is mildly allergic to a whole host of things, including feather dander, meaning he gets a bit watery eyed whenever he gets too close to Tim’s wings, and he’s a sniffing, red-eyed mess come  moulting season.

Anyway, he can always fly when he leaves the city. When it’s been too long since Sasha’s scales touched seawater, she invites him out to the coast. Jon apparently has had enough of the coast to last a lifetime, and Martin gets funny about large bodies of water, so it’s often the two of them. She swims out, the greenish scales of her tail catching the sun-struck water, and he, above, feeling the breeze brush through his cramped wings, follows her wake. When she breaches the surface in a playful arc, he swoops down, trying to catch her at the same time as she tries to splash him.

“You never thought to look into it?” Jon asks. Always brewing with questions. Tim is obligingly holding out one of his wings, and Jon, who takes everything like a project, has books out and webpages up but with no further clue as to why his colouration and span differ so from his parents.

Tim shrugs. “Doesn’t matter really, does it?”

Jon hums, clearly not agreeing, and Sasha rolls her eyes fondly,  and that is the end of that.

-

Marysia had hoped her child would not take after her husband. She’d lit candles and attended masses during her pregnancy, worn the beads of her rosary smooth. Her child had been born on land, miles from shore, and her husband had been a grounded man, who had folded up his pelt on their wedding night for her and swore to wear no other soul than his human one.

But then her husband leaves, the box where he kept his second soul empty, and Martin is eight years old, and he wakes up one morning glassy-eyed and complaining of nausea, his lip bleeding from where his sharpening teeth have ripped the skin, and she knows her prayers were not answered.

It is not unknown, for the second soul of some folk to flourish later. But it is a rough awakening, to have one’s body grow a new skin out of itself, and Martin is off school for over a week, riddled with fever and fervour, constantly parched, crying and sweating out salt-water.

She watches his skin prickle with grey and black fur, blotching with white over his stomach as he coils up under his covers, throws them off only for his limbs to reduce to shivering. His brown eyes have gone black-shot, his cries a mix of language and barks, and Marysia fears she will lose her only child to the sea.

It will be hard for him to fit in, she tells herself. It would be best to choose one, and he has his friends and family and her on land, and who knows where his father is now, and surely it would be cruel, an unnecessary agony for him to endure some other foreign pull away from all he knows.

She does what she thinks is a kindness, though that is neither excuse nor forgiveness. After nine days, his fur has come through, sleek and soft, his whiskers twitching, and she helps him peel it off as one would do clothes, revealing sweat-sheened limbs, his eyes slipped back into brown again. His gaze still distant and feverish, he tries to cuddle into her, and she soothes him while she finishes stripping off his pelt and folding it neatly.

While he sleeps, she burns it in a fire in the back yard.

When he comes back to himself, she lies and tells him that he’s been sick with a bad fever. And he trusts her, and never questions it. He doesn’t understand that she’s burnt a part of him up, scattered the ashes to the winds, but it was for the right reasons. To keep him safe, and happy, and with her.

He grows up human-limbed and cloven-souled, and she never tells him the truth.

--

Sasha floats in an ever-dark, stolen away and hidden. There is a knot, a cage-trap around her legs, which have fused into her tail although there is no water. The sea, far away, like the wail in a conch shell, throbs in her soul as she strains and shouts and snarls in the wrapping of spider’s webs.

The sea is the only thing with her in the dark.

Sound has a particular quality, underwater. She hears it first, an echo that shivers through her, like being thrummed on the backdraft of some shallow wave. And then it is a wash of insistence. A command.

The compulsion uses her names, landward and seaward and it pulls and demands her attention, and she shrieks and cries back, struggling in the depths. She is being called home, up up up to breach the surface, and she cannot help but answer.

There is a crack and the sea splits, and she is choking on cold and dusty air.

“Sasha!” someone is saying. “God, is she – she’s not – ?”

“Get that stuff off her, come on. Sasha. Sash, love, can you hear us?”

A series of thuds as she splutters. A twisting, gnarling screech, and several swear words.

“Jesus!”

“Shit – shit, get her out of the way.”

“Boss, move, give me the – ”

The screech degrades into a glitching, warping scream. There is the multi-layered sound of compressed air, and crackling fire,the woosh and stench of something burning.

In time, she cracks her eyes open to the punch of light. Her tail flaps weakly. Someone is pulling great strands of silk that has clumped like poorly soldered iron around her limbs, making visceral noises of disgust. She’s cold-stream shivering, surrounded by broken wood and chippings.

“Hey, hey, we got you. We got you. You with us, Sash?”

The faint scratch of feathers against her cheek. Furnace-warm arms are holding her.

Jon is kneeling down in front of her. Holding an axe and stinking of smoke, and she knows, she knows, that it was his voice she heard, although she doesn’t yet understand why.

Martin throws a blanket over her as she shivers, her tail shrivelling and bisecting into legs. He has silk in his hair, and his fingers are trembling, but his face is broken with a look of such relief.

“It’s you,” he says, and his hand touches at his throat, at the necklace she made for him. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

It’s Martin in the end that carries her out of the tunnels, tucking the blanket completely around her. He is talking in the scatter-gun way he does when he is anxious, babbling, and she can’t bring herself to listen. He smells of soot and saltwater, and she’s never noticed that before.

She falls asleep, curled up into his hold, drained and shaken, but feeling utterly safe.  

--

Jon is human. Completely, one hundred percent, although Sasha had joked once that way way back there must have been some Spinx in the family. Tim’s long suspected that Martin’s not quite human, no matter how he presents, but that’s Martin’s business, not his. Some folks have lineages that are rare, or mistrusted, or misunderstood, and Tim’s not one to pry.

Jon, though. Human through and through. Which is why he’s so worried.

“I shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Jon says. Martin’s with Sasha, making sure there’s no nasty side effects to her imprisonment in the table. Jon’s had a face on him for a while which means he’s Worrying with a capital W, and it’s taken hours for him to untangle himself into a blustered declaration to the rest of the class, spiked with nerves. “That place, it had her. It shouldn’t have… I don’t know what I did, but I told her to leave, a-and she could. And she shouldn’t have been able to.”

“And you think that you did that?”

“I – I know I did that, Tim, I felt it, o-or. I mean, I felt something!”

“Ok, alright. Alright. Let’s, let’s calm down and look at this logically.”

Jon goes over what he said while they struggled to rescue Sasha from the deep. It was something he said, he’s sure of it, which is why he is sitting cross-legged on the floor of the main archive office space with Tim, his trousers getting dusty and his temper scraping frayed, getting increasingly frustrated when he tries recreating exactly what he did with his voice, going through questions and commands and instructions and inquiries. And while Tim answers, it’s clearly not what Jon’s looking for, and he’s rubbing the hair at the back of his head in the way he does when he’s getting increasingly frustrated and is too bull-headed to walk away.

Then Jon, rolling his eyes and seething in annoyance, asks him a throwaway question, one of many he’s been trying – what’s your favourite colour? (seriously, Jon, that’s what you’re going with?!); What did you do at the weekend? (you know what I did, you and Martin were with me!).

“Why did you join the Magnus Institute?”

They both sit, frozen and horrified as Tim’s mouth opens and his words trip over his tongue in their eagerness to leave his mouth. As his eyes grow wide and water with tears as he cannot stop speaking about Danny, about the Covent Garden circus and Joseph Grimaldi. As Jon sits, ramrod-backed and cannot stop listening, a muscle jumping in his jaw.  His expression wars between frantic and panicking and hungry.

Tim feels wrung out and hollow once he’s finished. Jon’s manic with apologies. It takes both of them a long time to calm down.

“Maybe… maybe you’re a siren or something?” Tim suggests, but Jon is shaking his head.

“It’s this place, Tim. It’s those statements, when I read them. It’s … I – I think they’re doing something to me.”

Tim looks at Jon and the light strikes off his eyes in a way that it shouldn’t on a human.

He touches Jon’s arm.

“We’ll sort this,” he promises. “We got Sasha out, didn’t we? The four of us, we can get to the bottom of this, yeah?”

Jon nods, and gives a small fragile thanks, and that’s human enough for Tim.

--

Marysia told herself she was not a bad mother. That her son was simply a hard child to love, that he had all the worst trappings of his father, his brown eyes perpetually caught with a far-away look that doesn’t know where to place its longing. But even as she sickened, and he sloughed off every facet of himself in a pathetic attempt to please her, she couldn’t find anything but sorrow in her heart to look upon the man grown over familiar in face, a growth that grew deep-set and fungal into contempt.

She almost spat the truth out to him. Once or twice, with the thought that confessing might bring them closer. She wished he’d chosen the sea instead, so she wouldn’t have to look upon her amputated, half-formed child who would always be lost.

But she never did.

And Martin finds out alone, cornered in an unlocked office, his hands dropping the lighter as a thousand eyes open and watch satisfied as they pour his mother’s choices down his throat to choke him.

--

It starts when Martin starts sleeping in archive storage. When Tim watches worms burrow into Jon’s skin at the same time as they latch and gnaw and wriggle under his own. When they get Sasha back, and find Gertrude’s corpse and Jon leaves and gets hurt and hurt and hurt again, and the world around them gets smaller and meaner and there is nothing Tim can do.

He takes to storing food in their desk drawers. Nothing that will go off, or won’t keep. Tins and dried goods and non-perishables. He lines the walls of Martin’s storage room with fire extinguishers of different types, fire blankets, and spare first aid kits bulging with plasters and bandages and antiseptic wipes. He buys blankets and pillows and rope and penknives. He stress-moults constantly, and tucks his feathers out of sight, irritated and embarrassed at the sight of them,  and it occurs to him that nesting is not a healthy way to deal with this.

He wants his family safe. He used to think it was such a small thing to ask for.

He thinks about that when the bomb goes off.

He burns, and he is dying.

His rage and fear burn off into a different fury. That it has come to this, his family so threatened, that all he has to his name is his sorrow and trauma and frustration and vengeance.

Tim wants nothing more than to live. To see them safe. To rail and rage against what seeks to harm them. So he burns and he burns and burns, his wings aflame and his mouth twisted in a scream, and does not die.

They dig him out breathing from the rubble. His skin stained grey with ash and soot.

His new wings stretch out red as the sunset.

#tma #the magnus archives #fic #alternative universe #mermaid!sasha #pheonix!tim #selkie!Martin #regularOGhuman!Jon #with added Beholding spicyness #cws for implied child mistreatment #cw fire #cw burning #cw canon typical violence #cw compulsion #ask to tag

[bird-in-a-cage]

Inspired by that prompt

012

It was August, 1986, when Billy was released. He didn’t have much. A bag of second hand clothes that had been donated to somewhere at some point, nothing of which had ever fit right or would have been anything he’d chosen to wear voluntarily. The keys to a basement apartment underneath a general store, two small windows up high near the ceiling the only natural light source. Basic furniture. Only enough to survive, nothing homely. A tracking bracelet around his ankle. A thick black box that weighed more than it looked, hidden by baggy jeans that were kept up by a belt he had to stab extra holes into.

It might have fit him properly last year. But that was last year.

He kept the letter they gave him pinned to the small refrigerator next to the sink. This apartment is owned by the US Government. You are not to leave Hawkins until we say you can under any circumstance. You are not to take off the tracking bracelet for any reason. You are to report in to the number below once every two weeks, same time and day. Failure to do these tasks will see you readmitted.

Neil’s abuse was fun in comparison to that possibility.

It had been a long year. The longest of Billy’s short life. A year of surgeries, rehabilitation, endless tests. Having his hair shaved off. Losing his muscle mass. Losing his tan. Being kept in rooms with no windows. Alone for weeks. Being stitched back together like a jigsaw puzzle made of skin. A sock with a hole in it. Being treated like an animal, an experiment. Being poked and prodded by miles of needles. Blood and plasma. Bone marrow. Lumbar punctures. Spinal fluid. Staring into bright lights for hours until he went temporarily blind. Patch worked with pads to listen to his brain. His heart. His lungs. His stomach. Every different face wearing the same masks, the same gowns, the same gloves. Never feeling anything real apart from pain.

Sometimes he still felt like a prisoner in his own body. What was left of it. What he didn’t recognise was his anymore. That thing still in his arm. In his head. Alone at night he would still hear it whisper. But it was different now. It had no power to control him. So Billy tried to ignore it. Just keep going somehow, this would get better eventually. If he did well in this test he’d be allowed a coke. If he did well in another he could sit next to a window. He could, and did, work his way out of the Building, away from being a lab rat directly.

He’d come out with 012 tattooed on his arm, just under the crook of his elbow. They must have done it when he was passed out at one point. Everything else about him had changed, it made sense there would be something new added as well in amongst the web of white scars that spanned his entire body. Thick like elm roots on his chest, the epicenter. Thin and fine on his arms and legs and the backs of his hands, a few up the back of his neck. He kept everything hidden under thick clothes. A donated Slazenger jacket became his best friend. Grey and waterproof. Sleeves that fell to his fingers. Old jeans that someone probably died in. Dirty white sneakers. Everything the opposite of who he was before. It felt right somehow. He wasn’t that person anymore. He’d never be that person again.

A government appointed talking person had advised Billy to take everything day by day. The world was very different from what was inside the Building and its grounds. The one tree outside to look at to guess what season it was. Doing too much at once would upset things. Getting drunk wasn’t an option. Getting high wasn’t an option. Working out wasn’t an option. Getting a job wasn’t an option. Walking was fine though, practically encouraged. Enough time had passed, there was a very low chance of being recognised. Legally he was dead. He should probably think of a new name for himself. The government would help with paperwork when he was deemed ready for phase three. It would pay for him to live, exist, in phase two.

Billy never saw her face. But she had a calm voice throughout. Hidden behind the two way mirror and through the phone that had no numbers to dial. No outside line. He liked to imagine she had green eyes. The closest thing he had to a friend, even though he never said more than yes or no in return.

It took two weeks before Billy went further than the store upstairs. Three weeks before he went more than two blocks. It was odd to feel a breeze again. Odd to feel a cold that didn’t come from within. Odd to feel hot from the sun. Odd to hear multiple voices and vehicles coming from everywhere. Odd to hear children. Odd to hear joy and laughter. 

Odd not to hear beeping white boxes, the crinkle of sanitised plastic casings being unwrapped and opened. Hollow footsteps on a tiled floor. Count back from ten. Nine. Eight. 

Hawkins didn’t look any different. It had the same amount of stop lights, stop signs. The same amount of parking spaces outside the diner and town hall. The same amount of benches in the park. The same playground equipment. The same graffiti under the slide. The same names scratched into the hard orange plastic, autographs of teenagers hiding out and getting high with their friends after dark. Billy thumbed over his own name. The night he and Harrington buried the hatchet over a joint and a half bottle of whiskey. Both hiding from home and wanting to just feel young and stupid again. Both tired of fighting.

That Billy had no idea what tiredness was.

Billy spent every day just walking. Retracing his steps over the whole town. Streets he used to drive down with abandon, screaming along to music or just screaming for the hell of it. Now he was ignoring how his lungs burnt when every step too far. Walking through pretty little neighbourhoods with white picket fences, perfect front yards. He felt like a ghost. No one looked at him twice. He really had died. There wasn’t a grave for him at the church. He didn’t expect there to be one, that required his family caring about him. They didn’t care before. Why would they care now he was the reason the fancy new mall ‘burnt down’?

The house was the same. At least from the outside on the other side of the street. 4819 Cherry Lane. The same broken steps. The same mailbox. The same windowed front porch. The same dead grass. The same dead trees. He could still be there but he couldn’t. Schrödinger’s Hargrove. A part of him wanted to go and knock on the door. Look through the windows. See what happened to his room. If any part of him and who he was still existed in those walls. The government wouldn’t like that though. He was dead. It was hard to accept it was better to stay dead. The box around his ankle felt heavier.

The centre of town was busier than the suburbs. Billy worked his way there last. Built up a tolerance for noise and engines and people over a few months. Step by step. Day by day. Getting used to being dead. Watched the stripmall from the other side of the parking lot. The auto repair shop he visited a lot for parts for his fallen camaro. God knows what they did with her. The arcade where he dropped Max off more than once. He tried not to think about her. About what could happen now he was gone. The broken great wall. He sat at the bus stop for a break. His lungs felt like they were about to tear open again. His chest was heavy and tight. Five minutes. Then he’d keep going. Keep carrying on. 

Keep fighting. 

A sharp scream dragged his head up from his sneaker laces. Two kids piled out of a BMW. A brown one that looked expensive. A shock of red hair that had been long but was now just short to shoulder length in a dramatic line. Jean shorts and a yellow t-shirt. A denim jacket. Billy’s denim jacket. The sleeves had been cut off. Someone had painted a skull smoking on the back panel. Probably the wearer herself. It wasn’t unlike Billy’s first tattoo. The one he used to have on his arm. The one they cut through and scars took over from both sides took over and removed.

Max. She’d screamed. But she didn’t look scared or worried or even sad. She was smiling from ear to ear. Sunglasses pushed into her hair. She looked taller. She’d screamed at a boy in a baseball hat. Billy vaguely recognised him from long ago, somewhere in the back of what was left of his old mind. He winced and made a show of fixing his ear with a finger. Probably complaining that Max was too loud. Billy had told her that before. When things were different. When he was different. When he was younger but old.

They both went to walk through the doors when the driver got out of the car. Harrington. Of course it was him. He looked exactly the same. Big mane of brunette hair effortlessly styled. Stupid mom jeans. He tossed forgotten backpacks at both of them. Sounded kind as he said he’d pick them both up in two hours so don’t be fucking around in there. He’d already been hat kid’s surrogate brother by all accounts, it looked like he just picked Max up too. Another lost duckling to add to his gaggle.

Watching them live out their lives made Billy feel even more in the ground. A part of him wanted to walk over, say hi, I’m not actually dead. But he knew that was a bad idea. The whole town had moved on by way of nothing changing. The mall had been brushed over. It was a building site now. All the people that Billy took, they had been forgotten too. Someone had planted a heather bush in the town square. She hadn’t been forgotten. But that was it. People just carried on. As if nothing ever happened. As if those people had never existed. As if Billy had never existed. Max clearly remembered him if her attire was anything to go by, but did anyone else? He didn’t expect to be remembered at all. But then he also wasn’t dead yet. But he was a memory now. Nothing more. Even though he was sat right there. The cold plastic of the bus stop bench sinking through his denim covered thighs.

Max smiled at Harrington. Really smiled. Said thanks and squeezed his arm before the two kids went inside, into all the noise and lights that even the thought of following made Billy panic. Not as much as fireworks did. Harrington yelled after them to not lose all their money and sunk back into his car. Watching it all was like watching tv. Billy couldn’t interact with any of it. His body wouldn’t let him. His mind wouldn’t let him. Stuck frozen on the bench. Stuck frozen in the past while the world moved on. Left him alone with his scars and memories and regrets and apologies to people who would never hear them.

He’d apologised to Max so many times in his head it wasn’t funny anymore. He had so many regrets they consumed him. Being alone for so long at the hands of the government, he longed to be out. To be given a second chance. He regretted not being nicer to Harrington. He was a good guy. Too good for this town. He regretted just not being an asshole to his sister. Wanted a chance to not treat her like some second class citizen. Their situation wasn’t her fault. He’d just been so blinded by rage and hate about things he couldn’t change he took it out on her. She didn’t deserve that.

It had just taken dying to truly realise it.

She needed someone to make sure she was okay, now stuck alone at Cherry Lane with no one to stop angry fists and hateful words. She had Harrington.

Harrington was better than Billy.

He watched the BMW drive away, the kids long inside. The scene resetting itself. Billy sighed shakily and got to his feet, rubbing over his chest where his heart ached behind inches of scar tissue inside and out. Starting to walk back to his basement.

It was better he was dead. Unmourned and forgotten. It's what he deserved.

#harringrove #if you squint #billy hargrove #steve harrington #stranger things #big sad #sorry not sorry #my writings

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Reviews: The Shut-In

More Halloween Havoc, whoop woop! The Plantars return just in time for Halloween! It’s Shut-In in Wartwood, their version of halloween, but less of a focus on getting candy and more on getting suplies to protect yourselve and barricade yourself in so the moon dosen’t turn you into a monster. I remain not suprised. To pass the time our heroes tell some true spooky stories and Polly tries to find one they weren’t around for.  Phone-Mo: Anne and humanized versions of Polly, Maddie, and Toady watch a cursed video and soon disappear by one. Nothing ominous about that! Dead End: A young Hop Pop serves as Chauffer for a mysterious man played by george takei and death seems to follow them at every stop. Oh myyyyyyyy.  Skin Deep: Sprig and Ivy go to fetch a lost ball and end up running into the skin stealing seamstress. Arson naturally insues..  It’s Terror Time again, with full recap and spoilers, under the cut. 

Whelp, no dancing around it this airing order is weird. And look airing shit in a weird way has been disney’s past time since the 90′s, Darkwing Duck’s airing order is a waking nightmare, and this very show had all of season 1 air within the span of a month and a week in order to get it on disney plus by launch, star vs had it’s last season burned off in three months, and Ducktales pre-covid flip flopped from airing week to week to just one for some reason and then no others for months. Consitency is not their strong suit is what i’m saying and it’s not new.  And yes I get these holiday special episodes are mecurial: their built specifically to slot in wherever without really upsetting continuity: The Casagrandes recently aired their first season 2 episode before even finishing season 1, so this isn’t just a disney thing, while speaking of disney things ducktales had it’s first proper halloweeen episode air the week before a spring break set episode, with a christmas episode set to air next month. What i’m saying is I get these things sometimes don’t air in production order, but it’s less excuable on Disney’s part here when it’d take airing exactly one episode for this not to be a tad jarring. Not enough that it spoils the episode nor does the episode effect the ongoing story or continuity in any way, so it’s not TERRIBLE but it smacks of lazy incompetence on Disney’s part and I wish they’d do better already. 

Okay that rant out of the way we can dive right in! It’s the annual Shut-In in Wartwood! Basically their verison of halloween but instead of a fun spooky holiday, it’s the annual tradition of getting various things from the neighbors to help stay indoors during the blue moon, which in wartwood turns whoever views into a monster. Because of course their halloween is a fight for suvival. Also theirs pumpkins everywhere with their versions of jack o lanterns being fear gourds which.. okay. Point is instead of candy the kids trick or treating has turned up rusty nails, a hatchet, a first aid kit and anne, winning the night, a flamethrower! On one hand it’s neat these exist in wartwood via fire breathing slugs. On the other I do worry about Anne accidently burning everyone and everything down so please take that from her. 

The Plantars then lock themselves in. To stave off bordeom, Shut-In tradition is to go around the fire and tell each other creepy true stories that happened to them. Polly tries going first but just has the Inn story from last season which they were all there for.. thought hat dosen’t make complete sense as they werent’ awake for all of it and shoudl’ve just let her tell her side of things. But eh it sets up polly’s plot so fair enough. Luckily anne has one. So we get our first tale of terror Terror Tales of the Park/Treehouse of Horror III Styles...

Phone-Mo 

Anne’s story is very clearly made up, though no one really calls her on it and it DOES add elemnts from the domino II story from last season so fair enough.  Rather than use her real friends, which is fair enough since she just sadly had to say goodbye to Marcy and probably isn’t handeling the guilt well and Sasha you know.. tried to stab her a few months back then tried sacrifcing herself for Anne’s own well being. Point is thnking about them is a loaaded issue right now so instead she dreams up human versions of Sprig, Polly, with a bucket on her foot for a shot which is a nice visual gag, as is how we meet them, along with Maddie and for some weird reason Toady. I mean I do get Ivy is in our third story, so fair enough, but they could’ve used.. anyone else. Wally would’ve made more sense honestly and he’s also an adult but he’s also you know Anne’s friend and not some town asshole she vaugley knows. It’s just weird. That said I do love the human designs for everyone and they clearly put a lot of work in knowing the fans would like them, with little touches like Polly having pink hair, sprig having his normal haircut he does under the hat but not covered up and toady’s phone having a little keychain of his amphibia version. Also while they all have diffrent names including Anne I won’t be using them on the grounds that I don’t wanna. 

Anne and the plantars are watching a funny internet video when Toady and Maddie offer to show them one that’s apparently cursed and makes whoever watched it disappear. Sprig talks Anne out of it and keeps her from watching anyway but Polly’s naturally all in. ON the way to class, once sprig is gone, anne ends up watching it and liking it anyway because she has no self control and freely admits it.  Naturally given this is a halloween episode, the others start disapearing, with Maddie coming to anne with support after Toady vanishes which again is just.. weird. It’s just weird to hear anyone car about wether toady lives or dies. It keeps throwing me off. Anne reasssures her but sure enough the second anne’s gone Maddie’s phone eats her alive. Still nice to see her again. Regular Maddie should get a hoodie. Also anne apparently eats the corners of her sandwitch so she dosen’t have to share. Clever girl.  Back at home where Anne continues to mock whoever it is told her she can’t write stories as she makes a gila monster and a flamingo make out, where are they I must hurt them, when Sprig calls panicked that polly is missing and admits i’ts a good thing they ddin’t watch the video.. yeah about that. Sprig is of course freaked, and soon the video pops on anne’s phone and soon the weird cat thing inside comes to life and then turns deadly.. also it turns out it eats the host then forces them to be int he background of the video, which was hinted at earlier with one guy having been in there for 35 years.. despite having a smartphone. Well this is anne’s story I don’t think she knows those didn’t exist once. 

Luckily Anne figures out how to beat it.. in the most hilarious way possible. by disliking it, since liking and commeting linked it to her, she weakens it before finishing it with a rude comment. It’s.. i’ts purespun comedy gold. This frees everyone else and they leave along with sprig.. but eggs are left behind. Dun dun dun.  Final Thoughts on Phone Mo:

First off .. I have no idea what FOMO means so the title left me as lost at first at the plantars... oh okay it’s fear of missing out.. should’ve remebered that from brooklyn nine nine and amy’s legendadrily bad case of it. Aw well a decent story, if the weakest of the three. It does have an incredibly funny conclusion, neat human designs, and an intresting setting given while school stories are common, usually we don’t get that here so it’s a nice break from the norm. But compared to the genuinely chilling with a funny and odd climax next two, it’s just okay. Not bad, but not quite as good.  Back in the present, Polly once again tries this time with children of the spore, once again being shot down though that being said hop pop’s line of “I was responsible for that one” was given a great delvery by charlie addler. Also Anne missed Wally’s birthday and he’s sad. oh Wally. Though i’m sure she’ll make it up to him.. at least he’s back home. So anyways speaking of HOp Pop, it’s his turn for a story...

Dead End:  And it’s a story from Hop Pop’s Youth! Given we’ve never SEEN hop pop beyond his present day and only heard the ocasional scrap, it’s REALLY nice to hear. It dosen’t tell us a ton more granted, but we at least see what he looked like, get to hear charlie adler use a slightly less aged voice for him and get to see him with a luxrious golden mane of johnny bravo hair, which is as hilaroius and glorious as it sounds. 

Back in those days Hop Pop was a coachman. He still had the farm, but given how tight things are now it’s not a stretch to assume he could always use some extra coppers to keep his family we never get to know about besides the grandkids fed. He also prides himself on honest work, not taking payment till the rides finished and the customer is satisfied which is INCREIDBLY risky, but I do kinda get it both for Hopidah’s sense of honor and because it seems clear he mostly does it in town by the fact all his stops this ep are within wartwood or close enough, so clearly it’s mostly people he knows personally.  This time though the rider is the well dressed, crimson red Mr. Littlepot, played by George Takei. Best known for Star Trek, being out and proud and since coming out after years and years in the closet, using his celebrity to help promote gay rights and other good stuff. He’s also known for saying ohhhh myyy and this clip from futurama. 

I got a lot of respect for the guy, He was even in archie comics once after Kevin Keller was introduced. So it’s nice to see him doing some voice work and he kills it here.. pun intended but more on that in a sec. Littlepot has some simple rule: keep driving no matter what hapepned where he was.. and given both places he ends up have someone dying, once by a horrifying looking snake, it’s clear somethings up. IT also nicely builds the tension as hop pop tries to steady himself, but is clearly cracking as he realizes his client might be murdering people he knows.. and he could be next. As Hopidiah KNOWS each person Littlepot visits and it nicely ratches up the tension. But turns out he’s not a killer.. he’s simplyd eath himself come to collect those already about to die. 

It’s a nice twist: The genuine trappings of the guy make you think h’es some form of the devil, the crimson skin, yellow eyes and cultured demanor.. it’s only as he goes you start to realize what the man actually is and even then he easily could still be frog satan. But no he’s just the frog reaper and defends himself to Hop Pop when confronted: He’s just doing his job, just like Hopidiah, getting people where they need to be. Unforutnately for Hop Pop his final stop is the farm.. though thankfully for him he hasnt come for Hopidiah.. just his hair. Yeah it’s a nice comedic twist on an otherwise chiling and well done story that what the devil came to take is his hair.. which he starts wearing hilariously. So Hop Pop lives but sobs, and Anne points out it was pretty fucked up. 

Final Thoughts for Dead End:  Not much to say. This one was dripping with atmosphere, Takei was utterly awesome and need to do more voice work, and the comedic ending twist was really damn funny. Top notch. 

Polly tries again, gets shut down again and is now really understandably frustrated at not having a story. Naturally given the other plantars have gone though, Sprig does. And he dosen’t have at itle at first until one cuts him off ....

Skin Deep:

Ivy’s Back! 

Yeah I was genuinely worried the return ep would break up either her and sprig or hop pop and silvia.. and while the second one remains a horrifying sword of damocles over my head, Sprig and Ivy are fine and Ivy gets a nice spotlight episode here. It was a pleasant surprise to get some fresh info since i’tll be months till we find out anything else.  So the young couple are playing bugball down at the old courts, when a couple of guys they were up to no good, started making trouble in the neghborhood. Sprig got in one little fight and Hop Pop got scared he said “your moving with your auntie and uncle to bell air”. He begged and pleaded day after day but Hop Pop packed his suit case and sent him on his way. He gave him a kiss and then he gave him a ticket Sprig put his walkman on and thought he might as well kick it. First class yo this ain’t bad, drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass. Is this what the people of bel air live like, yo, this might be alirght!   He whistled for a cab and when it came near the liscene plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror, if anything he could say that this cab was rare but he thought man forget it yo holmes to bell air. He pulled up to the cab about 7 or 8 and yelled to the cabbie yo holmes smell ya later. He looked at his kingdom and he was finally there to sit on his throne as the fresh prince of bell air. 

So then Will walked into the mansion and wait.. wrong show.. so the young couple are playing bugball when they loose their ball, and it goes off into the creepy part of the woods. Ivy also looses her hat and is self concious about her hair. Looks fine to sprig but she’d rather not. Aww she’s insecure. But the two head off with Sprig getting more and more nervous, as Ivy details a legend about the area of the seamstress, a mysterious recluse who steals your skin! Naturally Sprig is nettled while Ivy says it’s fine and does what anyone would do upon finding out the ball went into a creepy abandoned shack in a world where it’s clear murderers are pretty common: kick down the door! It’s the perfect crime. 

Naturally Sprig gets more unernved, finding a set of needles and thread, which gets a great gag as Ivy points out that’s nto that uncommon.. but the giant pile of skin they find sure is!

Oh.. it gets worse me. Sprig finds the ball. and the Seamstress who has a horrifying patchwork of skins on her and wants to add theirs.. the kids are naturally spooked and prepare to flee but she wants their skin and grabs ivy! Thankfully she breaks free and Sprig busts some off.. OH GOD.. and it turns out she’s a glass frog! .. turns out theres a kind of frog that has translucent skin.

But yeah obvoiusly the show takes it a step further, and her skin is entirely see through. Poor girl. Ivy sympathizes shows off her hair.. then puts her hat over the Seamstress’ eyes and tells sprig now, and sprig starts a fire, and the two start to escape when he grabs Ivy’s leg!

Thankfully Ivy breaks free and the two leave her to die. Sprig compliments ivy’s hair, ivy gets him a smooch it’s all adorable and they defintely murdered someone who defintely murdered a lot of people. Horay!

Naturally the rest of the family is freaked out by this with Anne wanting to know if ivy being bitten means sh’es infected and Hop Pop wanting to know if one of her skins was his friend fred he hasn’t seen in a while. Sprig then spooks them by having ivy show up, complete with a burlap frog skin.. maybe. She could’ve been lying. We dunno. Ivy heads home to risk her life for a good gag, depsite the fact her boyfriend’s house is right there and her mom and grandmom clearly had to sign off on this shenanigan given the night. But this life risking prank naturally risks some life as Polly has ran off to look at the moon to get her own story. The rest of hte family runs after her only tfind it did.. ntohing. She’s apparently fine just fine and they assure her the fear they felt thinking she might become some kind of monster was scarier than any story and the rest of them head home with polly following.. after transofrming. Turns out the moon DOES make you into monsters but she’s fine with it. She’s got her legs now! Everyone screams understandably, Anne finally realizes this isn’t quite a holiday the end. 

Final Thoughts on Skin Game and the special as a whole: Easily my faviorite, partly for shipping reasons as I do like Ivy and Sprig together, and partly because it really let Ivy have a roll OTHER than sprig’s love intrest. Sure she still smooched his cheek and their clearly still together, but she got to be proactive, badass and hilariously impulsive and trollish. It was a nice change of pace and the story itslef was the best of the bunch to me becuase of that, though Dead End was really close.  Overall this was a nice treat, a good anthology with lots of fright and humor and a nice wraparound story arc with polly, as well as some nice call backs to previous episodes. An utterly excellent halloween special i’ll probably be revisiting every year and another slam dunk from disney this year. The airing snaufu really dosen’t hurt it any and in the future this one will likely be after Return to Wartwood on D+ anyway so no harm done. Great all around. If you liked this review follow me for more amphibia whenever it comes back, ducktales reviews every monday, and loud house reviews every saturday or sunday depending. And until next time stay safe, stay spooky and happy halloween!

#amphibia #the shut in #anne boonchuy #hopidiah plantar #sprig plantar #polly plantar #ivy sundew #george takei #mr littlepot #one eyed willy #halloween #halloween reviews #reviews

[luvdsc]

tag games ;

tagging :: @eggyukhei ; @jaemericano ; @aqiaquas ; @forehead-enthusiast ; @choerrypuffs ; @latetaektalk ; @winetae ; @taeyongtime ; @nochanchu 🌼

—

TAG GAME ONE

tagged by :: @njmin thank you, lovebug! ✨

— tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

omg ok it was april 2014, and I was procrastinating on homework and scrolling through youtube. shinee’s lucifer mv was recommended for some reason, and I was intrigued, so I clicked on it. From there, it just spiraled out of control. I was blown away like there’s this one dance move where they all lined up and taemin does this hand motion so fluidly and I was like “this is it.” More shinee mvs were recommended after I clicked that one, so I kept going and watching all the other ones until I watched them all. Their music is just so different and unique, like even after all this time, I can’t find another kpop group who mimics the music style of shinee. and all their solos are absolutely god tier, too!!! they really are gonna be my first and last kpop group. shinee withstood through my stan eras for other groups. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being their fan.

I also found snsd through shinee because their mvs were recommended after I clicked lucifer too. the first one I saw is the iconic gee. taeyeon stood out to me in those mvs. her voice is so distinct, and I’ve been a fan of her ever since. She didn’t have a solo then, but I searched up all her drama osts, song features, everything because I loved her voice so much even back then. so yeah, taeyeon and shinee will forever be my faves, and I love them a lot 💓

TAG GAME TWO

tagged by :: @latetaektalk thank you, linh !! 💖

rule :: answer the ten questions and write your own!

— how are you today?

I’m doing really good! I’m enjoying my summer, and my day is pretty lax. I’ve been facetiming friends, watching chopped, making banh bao with my mom, and doing my daily cardio ✨

— what book has had the biggest impact on your life?

the princess knight by cornelia funke. my elementary school did this thing where your parents can buy a book to donate to the school library under your name for your birthday. this was the book my sister chose for me when I was in kindergarten. I loved that book; I borrowed it so many times and kept rereading it. It’s a children’s picture book about a princess who secretly learns how to joust. the king tries to give her hand in marriage to the knight who wins the competition, but she defeats them all and chooses to marry the gardener’s son who she loves 💕

— what is something you think everybody should have done once in their life?

Travel. There’s just something so wonderful about going to a new place, whether that’s halfway across the world or just the town a few states over. It’s a lovely feeling embarking on an adventure to a place unknown to you where you can meet new people, try new foods even if it’s just a random dish at a restaurant you’ve never been to, and make memories with strangers that no one back home ever has to know about. There’s just something intriguing about being able to go somewhere else and be someone else for an hour or a day or a week before you return back home.

— what story are you the most proud of and why?

on my previous blog, I wrote a fic called the universe of us, and it’s 21k+ wc. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into that fic, and although I can’t read it now without cringing, I really am super proud of myself for pulling through and writing that. The concept of it was unique, in my opinion, and I would love to rewrite it someday! 💫

on this blog, I am most proud of the dumbing down of love. that fic is personal to me because it is literally comprised of my college experiences in written format and the characters embody my friends. I wrote that over the span of 3-4 nights, and that’s the fastest I’ve ever written a fic of that length. the words just flowed so easily for that fic, and the quesadilla scene was the first thing I wrote, and I’m quite proud of that scene!! 💓

— what has made you really happy recently?

I graduated uni!!!!! 💛💛

— what is the first thing you want to do after this whole pandemic is over and it’s safe to go out again?

I want to eat sushi LOL I haven’t had it in four months, and I’m craving it so badly.... I also want to go out with my friends again! I miss being able to see them everyday and our late night shenanigans ):

— if you had to make a soundtrack/playlist based on your life, how would you call it and which songs would you include?

honestly, these are just a bunch of my favorite songs throughout my entire life. some of them don’t relate to me personally, but I remember listening them on repeat, and I still know all the lyrics to them 💘

title: cue the soundtrack of my life

songs: complicated ⋆ avril lavigne ⋮ check yes, juliet ⋆ we the kings ⋮ the way i loved you ⋆ taylor swift ⋮ a daydream away ⋆ all time low ⋮ that’s what you get ⋆ paramore ⋮ i won’t give up ⋆ jason mraz ⋮ holy ground ⋆ taylor swift ⋮ lucifer ⋆ shinee ⋮ don’t go ⋆ exo m ⋮ 1000 years ⋆ shinee ⋮ breathe ⋆ taeyeon & jonghyun ⋮ coffee ⋆ bts ⋮ you are in love ⋆ taylor swift ⋮ walk you home ⋆ nct dream ⋮ i ⋆ taeyeon ⋮ tell me what to do ⋆ shinee ⋮ mad city ⋆ nct 127 ⋮ gravity ⋆ taeyeon ⋮ blueprint ⋆ stray kids

— what is your favourite breakfast food?

omg it’s this one dish that I order every time I go to the diner near my university, and it’s a smoked salmon eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce and hash browns 🤩🤩

— how did you get into writing and is it something you would like to do as your job?

I’ve always enjoyed writing, and my teachers sent me to the young authors’ faire every year from kindergarten to 8th grade. You don’t really get to write creative stories in class when you’re older though, and I stumbled upon fanfiction, and here we are. It’s not something I want to do as my job though. Writing is simply a fun pastime and hobby for me!! If I was forced to write or profit off of it, then that’d take fun out of it ):

— did you remember to drink enough water today?

yes, I did!! I make sure to drink 6-8 large cups of water a day :’) stay hydrated!!! 🤍

my questions for you:

what’s your favorite jelly bean flavor?

if you hated your child, what name would you give them?

do you pour cereal first or milk first?

do you like pineapple on your pizza?

if you could be a celebrity for the day, who would you be and why?

what are three dealbreakers for you in a relationship?

what’s your favorite word and why?

would you rather punch your ult bias in the face full force or lick the porta potty that hasn’t been cleaned after Coachella weekend?

which song(s) would you cut out from nct’s discography?

what’s the most unique/interesting food you’ve ever eaten?

TAG GAME THREE

tagged by :: @pwarkhans ty, sweetpea! 🌸

rule :: bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people.

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆͙̈

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

#tag games

[terrebus-fc]

how do all y'all recommend getting into football for a newcomer? just pick a team and start watching them? or like watch previous tournaments or something?

first of all, welcome to football :3

there’s some similarities to the terror so i think you might find it quite familiar:

get ready for some rambling below the cut!

i think it’s easiest to start by watching a bigger international tournament while it’s happening. the world cup, obviously, is the biggest event in football, but other tournaments like the european championships or the copa américa (or whatever is going on where you’re from) also work well and are happening sooner (in 2020). follow the country you’re from if they qualified or pick any other country you like, really, and… just watch.

the advantage of those tournaments are that you’ll usually get to see a good mix of teams that are actually playing to win, that it all happens within the span of a month and that there will be extensive media coverage of the matches, part of it tailored to new viewers. don’t worry too much about the details of all the rules, you’ll get into the important ones quite quickly after watching some matches. part of being a football fan also is angrily disagreeing with the rules so not much knowledge is required. the emotions are the important thing. when the tournament is over you can follow the players you got to know during it back to their clubs and slip nicely into watching club football and selling your soul to the beautiful game.

of course you can also start with club football and randomly see what sticks. football is all about irrational attachments so… whatever works. (if you’re looking for club matches, this is a good site to find a stream!)

we agreed on our discord to each recommend a past match and an upcoming one to watch. i’ve thought about it for a bit and always kept coming back to the same match that’s a classic one and though it’s cliché i’m biased enough not to care. so. world cup 2014 semifinal between germany and brazil. i promise you the pay-off is very good (unless you support brazil).

for an upcoming match there’s a women’s football match between england and germany happening on 9th november. i know we’re all here for guys being lads but if you feel like it, check out the women playing, too.

- frauke

past match: my past match recommendation is Germany vs England, World Cup 2010, Round of 16. I think it’s a beautiful example of football at its best (Germany’s incredibly fluid style of play, feat. one of my favorite goals of all time) and worst (a referee completely failing to call a goal: a farcically monstrous error on the world stage). I love this game because despite everyone’s tactics, despite everyone’s efforts, the entire game arguably hinges on one incredibly stupid, incredibly human mistake, and what comes after. In a way it is a little bit like the Franklin expedition! And even nine years later the thought of what could have been evokes hilarity in some (three fifths of this mod team) and despair in others (one fifth of this mod team). That’s football babey! [WATCH IT HERE]

upcoming match: I’m gonna recommend a club match for this one! I’m a fan of German football and the Berlin derby (Union Berlin vs Hertha Berlin) is coming up this Saturday (Nov 2) at 5:30PM GMT! This is the first time these teams will be playing each other in the top league of German football, and it’s likely to be a good example of what rivalries in club football can be like. Union Berlin has a great underdog story–this is their first year ever in the Bundesliga–and it should be a lot of fun all around! Also, one week later, on Nov 9 at 4:30PM GMT, Borussia Dortmund take on perennial juggernauts Bayern Munich. Over the last decade or so Dortmund’s fast-paced, attacking football has been the only real challenge to Bayern’s throne, and with Bayern (my team, for better or worse) not playing nearly as well as they should this season, this could shape up to be an exciting match!

-ireny

past match: so i heard you like this very english show about these very english boys? you also like to suffer? FANTASTIC! croatia vs. england, the world cup 2018 semifinals, is the only match that matters on the planet and you should watch it immediately. underdog narratives on both sides! nobody expected either team to make it as far as they did – england because they’ve got a long history of disappointing in national tournaments, croatia because they’re considered a small country in football terms and because they hadn’t gotten past the group stages since 1998. england scored early, croatia equalized in the second half to drag them to extra time – their third game in a row that went to 120+ minutes – and despite how ragged and exhausted the team was, my #1 player of all time ever mario mandžukić scored the winning goal that got croatia through to their first ever world cup final. it was a truly transcendent moment. no matter whose side you’re on (i mean, there is only one right side, but who am i to judge) it’s a thrilling, scrappy game to watch. i want you to watch it so badly, i have a link for you.

upcoming match: outside of frothing at the mouth about my national team, i watch the italian league religiously. if you’d like to try out club football, this weekend has a couple high profile games in italy. on saturday (nov. 2) at 7:00 AM PT, you can watch roma vs. napoli, which are two teams that are considered hipster to like despite the fact that they’re actually massive. napoli are, regrettably, usually very good, but have had a poor start to their season, so they’ll be looking to dominate on-fire roma. it should be a shitshow, i can’t wait! meanwhile, at 12:45 PM PT you can watch the derby della mole, torino vs. juventus. juve is the most successful team in serie a, and torino are their cross-town rivals who are EXTREMELY lovable but also Not Very Good At Football. watch it and root for torino and have your heart broken (and then come talk to me about either team/any players you like because i can prime you equally on both!) (not ronaldo.)

- caitlin

past match: W O W do the attacks against england just keep coming and coming huh just like Tuunbaq huh!!!! Aside from that, the perennial sense of crisis, setback after setback, English people suffering, madness and disappointment, and betrayal of everything you hold dear are also some of the ways in which England resembles The Terror and therefore why you should also watch us. 

In the spirit of England, I’m going to recommend a match in which we lose: England 1-1 West Germany, 4-3 on penalties, at the 1990 World Cup. We lose to Germany a lot. (Pls hold: 1966, babey.) But 1990 was the first time that we reached the semi-finals since ‘66, and it was crazily emotionally charged; our coach Bobby Robson was leaving amidst a scandal, there’d been fights between the police and fans, and of course there was a palpable sense of christ, we could actually do it. (I say ‘we’ as in the way football fans say ‘we’, since in 1990 I was -5 years old.) The game is rip-roaring, furious, dramatic - look for Gazza’s Tears - and also introduces you to the concept of extra time, aka sitting in your seats for a full half-hour more than you expected, and penalties, aka something we are so famously bad at that when we finally won a penalty shootout last year we celebrated as if we had won the cup itself.

upcoming match: The Engl attacks made me defend myself and I couldn’t recommend a club game, which I would otherwise have (United 2-1 Arsenal ‘99, for those interested) because my club’s current football is SO DIRE I would not recommend it to anyone unless I wanted to turn them off of football forever. You might want to tune in next week for Liverpool Vs Man City (4:30 PM GMT, 10 Nov), a giant clash with probably entertaining football for everyone except United fans, who will desperately be cheering on Team Sinkhole.

- rach

I have something to add, which is that football has a weird and wild history, and I recommend looking up something like ‘the 10 most inexplicable moments in football’, or ‘five of the most unhinged things the most unhinged managers have ever said’ to get a taste. The sport is about enjoying the actual movement of the ball across the grass, but it’s also about basking in the massive array of bizarre personalities.

past match: a lot of good bases have already been covered re: Germany so I won’t pile on by recommending our 4-0 battering of Argentina in 2010 :3c I present to you instead the FA Cup final from 2014, Arsenal-Hull City. (Have a link!) Arsenal hadn’t won a trophy in nine years. The fan discontent with iconic manager Arsene Wenger was getting nasty. Hull City was the decided underdog. An underdog who promptly scored twice in the first ten minutes. Through a mix of lovely skill and scrappy luck the match ended happily for Arsenal, and even knowing that the Wenger story wasn’t entirely on the up and up after breaking that long drought, seeing the sheer joy and relief on everyone’ faces still makes me feel a whole lot of things.

upcoming match: that aside, Arsenal are currently playing as though they’ve got lost in a damp paper bag and have yet to soggily wander their way out. Despite that I’m going to recommend Leicester-Arsenal next weekend (9 Nov, 18.30 CET). Leicester have been absolutely swanning about (they annihilated Southampton last week 0-9 in the joint-largest prem league scoreline ever) and Arsenal at the moment, with their negative confidence and cotton wool defence are precisely in position to be smashed. But we’ve also done historically quite well against Leicester, and it could be the sort of match where Arsenal get their heads up and deliver the kind of easy-passing, smooth-running performance they’re supposed to be known for. It has great potential to be either a misery or a cheer-up charm for me, and regardless it’ll be a good time for you.

- Sabina

#anonymous #anon thank you for this opportunity to basically just yell about our teams #which is what football is actually about #(very germany and england heavy simply because the mods are who they are) #the orlop

[alethiometry]

quarantine questions // tagged by @winedark – thank you!

1. Are you staying home from work/school?

yep. the start date for my new job got pushed back to october. they’re offering me a small stipend to make up for it, which is nice, but honestly i just want to have something to do again. i’ve been doing some remote personal assistant type work for a family friend in the meantime but it’s slow going.

2. If you are staying home who is with you?

my parents. just so happened to get shelter-in-place orders while i was visiting them, so i’ve been here for a month. it’s nice to be able to spend time with them. but also i miss my apartment.

3. Who would be your ideal quarantine mate?

no one! i like being on my own. if i had to choose someone, maybe my bff who lives in san diego and is as much of a homebody as i am. ideally there’d be at least four of us though so we could play mahjong.

4. Are you a homebody?

absolutely but in my defense it is peak allergy season right now so the moment i step outside it’s like my sinuses turn into one giant hive.

5. An event you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

i was supposed to go visit @shivermepickles the moment i got a confirmed job offer, but that’s not gonna happen anytime soon, because the offer arrived literally three days before shelter-in-place :(

was also hoping that mbmbam would come to los angeles as part of their 2020 tour, but i don’t think any west coast cities had been announced when they made the decision to cancel said tour.

6. What movies have you watched recently?

i am dumb and don’t have the attention span for movies, but i did recently watch portrait of a lady on fire with my roommate (we pressed play at the same time and texted each other the entire time about how delightfully gay it was!)

i really, really want to see the live-action mulan movie though. out of curiosity more than anything else. pixar’s onward looks pretty good too.

7. What shows are you watching?

parks & rec, brooklyn nine-nine, and the borgias!

8. What music are you listening to?

nothing really... i’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts, primarily old episodes of mbmbam. i also caught up on the magnus archives, and am on the last, 3-hour episode of the adventure zone’s balance arc!

9. What are you doing for self-care?

animal crossing, mostly. i play with my brother a lot which has been super nice since he’s halfway across the country currently. also trying to do what i can with the minimal skincare stuff i have here (basically just face wash that i think might be a little too drying, and some moisturizer to try and make up for it). it’s slim pickings as far as skincare products go right now. god i miss my glycolic acid toner.

10. What are you reading?

i’ve had the ebook of circe by madeline miller open on my laptop for weeks but i haven’t gotten to it because i’m terrible at reading :|  i did read the two adventure zone graphic novels that are currently out though!

i’m tagging: @potsticker1234 @thatsouthernanthem @the-gothic-assassin @shivermepickles @businessboyjared (if y’all want to do it) and also anyone else who wants to do this!

#cool story charlotte #tl;dr i'm basically being kept sane by nintendo and the mcelroy family

[five-hxrgreeves]

Feeling My Way Through the Darkness

A/n: This is my first fic on Tumblr! I also have it posted on AO3, but I thought I’d post it here as well- I will try to keep them on the same schedule by updating once a week. This is a Five x OC series fic; I’m late to the TUA party on here, so I’m not sure how many people will read this, but if you feel like it, let me know what you think! 

Here’s what you need to know: 

The timeline: everything is basically the same (except Ben is alive), but this takes place after season 2, where I'm assuming the Umbrella Academy stops the apocalypse successfully. The year is an alternate 2019 from the one the show has. Everything else will be explained later.

Ages: all the main characters (except Jared, one of my OCs), are 15 in body. Five spends less time in the apocalypse than he does on the show, and the OC isn't exactly a normal 15-year old. Everyone else's minds are how old they are in the show (so 30.) 

THERE WILL BE NO SMUT, we don’t stan pedophilia here!!!! 

Summary: Due to unknown circumstances of the time anomaly caused by certain members of the Umbrella Academy in stopping the apocalypse, there was a ripple in the continuum that caused an unaccounted-for effect to happen. At midnight on January 1st, 2004, seven women gave birth unexpectedly; and the strangest thing of all was that none of them had been pregnant in the first place.

This time, though, there was no Umbrella Academy to mark these children's birth to the world. Many of them lived quiet-albeit unusual- lives in the homes of their biological families, who, by 2019 and the long-forgotten news of the Umbrella Academy, were mostly used to strange occurrences happening.

Or, the wheel of time continues to turn and, according to The Commission, the Apocalypse is inevitable; it doesn't matter to them what brings it. (Prologue below cut)

Prologue: In the Beginning...

Feeling my way through the darkness

Guided by a beating heart

I can't tell where the journey will end

But I know where to start

On this particular New Year’s Eve, Lola and Richard were celebrating at home with their four-year-old-son, Jared. While they considered themselves to be loving parents, they were often busy at work and travelled around a lot, which left little time for family bonding, so they took advantage of the holidays when they could.

Lola had blonde hair and blue eyes, which was mirrored in her son; she was a petite woman, but that didn’t detract from the power she could hold in a room. Richard had short, dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes, and he was quieter and more easy-going than his wife.

They were currently celebrating New Year’s with Chinese takeout and watching old movies on the TV. The Christmas tree still stood in the corner of the living room, and colorful homemade streamers decorated the ceiling. The family of three sat on the couch in pajamas, with Jared being the slight exception; he was also still wearing his mother’s heels and had the sleeves of her bathrobe tied around his neck to make a cape from their earlier game of fashion-superheroes (while he thought superheroes were cool, he wouldn’t want to be one; he’d want to design their uniforms.)

As the clock counted down to the new year, nothing seemed out of place. By 11:45, they switched over the channel to watch the ball drop in New York, and surprisingly, Jared was still awake- a fact he was very proud of. And, fifteen minuets later, the countdown drew to a close:

“5!”

“4!”

“3!”

“2!”

“1!"

When the clock struck midnight, the people on the screen cheered as the ball dropped. Richard picked Jared up and swung him around the room in celebration, and Lola watched them amusedly. Suddenly, her expression dropped into one of horror and fear. Something wasn’t right. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong- until there was.

Afterwards, no one could say exactly what happened, but one moment, Lola was her usual slimness, and the next, she had ballooned out to nine weeks pregnant. Her father and son were startled by her scream and sudden change in appearance, but Richard was quick to react. He hastily shuffled Jared into the next room, ordering him to stay there. He grabbed the necessary items and rushed back to his wife’s side; having helped deliver his son, he knew the basic procedure for birth.

Her face was screwed up in pain and she was breathing heavily, “deep breaths, my love,” Richard said gently, stroking her hair. Despite the suddenness of the situation, he was able to remain calm, which had always been one of his gifts.

Lola tried to comply, but the pain was even greater than Jared’s birth, and she remembered that well. Surprisingly, however, the labor lasted only minutes, and soon there was a fourth member to the Quinn family.

Richard stared down at the baby girl who’d burst into life in the span of not even half an hour. Unlike Jared- and most babies-, she didn’t cry as she was born. Instead, she waved her tiny limbs around as she squirmed in his hands, opening vibrant blue eyes to take in the world around her.

“We have a baby girl, Lola,” Richard said, amazed. He knew he could immediately love their surprise child, no matter the unusual circumstances of her birth. He handed the baby to her mother who, despite her now-exhausted state, managed a small smile as she took her daughter in her arms. While she had every right to hate or fear the child by the surprise situation, having Jared first had helped ease the shock, and besides, they had the means to raise her.

Lola looked up at her husband, “we’re keeping her,” she said determinedly.

“Of course,” Richard said, surprised that his wife might think there was a different possibility.

"Will you get Jared? He should know everything's okay," Lola requested, and her husband went to find their son.

The blonde woman looked down at the baby girl, her expression soft, "everything's okay, baby. You should know that too. I don't know what happened, but we'll work through it. Supernatural things happen all the time in movies, after all. And you're special; I can feel it."

The baby's bright blue eyes blinked up at her as if to say yes, I know. Richard returned with Jared then, who was hiding behind his father's legs. After seeing that his mother was okay, he hesitantly moved to stand in front of her.

"You have a baby sister, Jer," Lola told him, "we haven't named her yet, but she'll be a wonderful part of our family."

He stared at the baby with wide eyes, "was she supposed to happen like that? Was that how I was born?" he asked, looking up at his mother, who looked faintly amused.

"No, you were very different," she answered, "none of us know quite what happened, but she's our little miracle. You're her big brother, Jared."

The four-year-old looked at the little child in his mother's arms and frowned. He was supposed to be the baby, not this strange creature. And besides, why did she stare so much? Those wide blue eyes were super creepy.

"I don't like her," he declared.

Richard laughed, much to Jared's irritation, "I'm afraid you'll have to get over that, son. I know this can't be easy, but she's our responsibility now. Go on, it's time for bed anyway. Your mother has to rest. Tomorrow, we'll get some new baby things."

Life settled into a new routine for the Quinns. The one good thing about the baby, Jared decided, was that it made his parents stay home more often; but even then, they were busy taking care of her. Jared tried to stay out of her room as much as possible to get away from those eyes. He really didn't like them. His mom had said that if her eyes were going to change color, they'd do so in a few days, since all babies were born with blue eyes. He didn't think that would help, to be honest. He wasn't able to put it in to words with his limited vocabulary, but the girl's eyes seemed to stare with a strange alertness that even his parents didn't have. And, if he looked too long, he could swear he saw something mysterious swirling in their depths.

When he tried to ask his mom and dad to "take her back" after explaining these very valid points, they merely laughed and said he had a great imagination. Eventually, they'd decided on a name: Elena Melany Quinn. He'd thought calling her "baby" was good enough, but apparently, that wouldn't do.

As Elena got older, she became very inquisitive, and was often found in some sort of mischief. In her quiet times, though, she loved it when people read books to her. One night, Elena and Jared were being watched by a sitter, who wasn't really paying attention to them. It was getting close to Elena's bedtime (Jared always made sure to make this distinction; he was older, after all, so he got to stay up later), and their caretaker was following the instructions their parents left. After getting his sister ready for bed, the babysitter placed her in the crib, turned off all lights but the lamp on the dresser, and left the door open a crack. There was only one thing missing; her bedtime story. Elena then did something she didn't often do- she began to cry. The sitter rolled her eyes and went to close the door, but Jared stopped her, "did you read a story?" he asked.

"No," the girl said with a slight question in her voice.

"Ellie always gets a story before bed," Jared explained importantly. While he wasn't fond of his sister, he never wanted her to cry.

She huffed, "well I'm not reading a story. She'll have to go without one tonight."

Jared knew that his sister wouldn't stop crying, so he said, "can I read her a story?"

The sitter looked at him with amusement, "I didn't know you could read."

"Of course I can!" he declared (in truth, he was just starting to, but she didn't need to know that.) He slipped past her into his sister's room, "don't worry, baby. I'm going to read you a story."

Almost like magic, Elena's cries stopped. Jared looked at her with wide eyes, "can you understand me?"

The baby's mouth opened and closed, as if she was trying to form words. Pulling herself up by the handlebar of the crib, she supported herself in a standing position to get a better look at him, but still didn't say anything; she just watched him with deep blue eyes. Jared sighed, he should've guessed she wasn't smart enough yet. He made his way to her bookshelf and picked out one of the thinnest books he could find before returning to the crib. As he struggled through the first page, Elena's baby mind was turning. She knew she knew this person, although she didn't think he liked her. She thought him name was easy though, she'd heard the taller people say it, and if she said it, would it make him like her more? Was it.... Germ? No. Jar? No. "Jer!" finally came out of her mouth.

The little boy looked up at the baby in surprise, stopping in the middle of the second page, "what?"

"Jer! Jer! Jer!" the baby turned it into a chant.

He couldn't believe it; his sister's first words were his name! Jared wished his parents were there to hear it. He couldn't help smiling, "yes, that's me," he said. Maybe his sister wasn't so bad after all.

"Jer!" came his name the final time, before, "bo?"

He nodded, "yes, book."

----------------

When Lola and Richard found out about the new understanding Jared had for his sister, they were surprised until they learned what her first word was. They exchanged amused smiles.

#umbrella acedmy #the umbrella academy #fanfic #five hargreevesxoc #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves #diego hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #allison hargreeves #umbrella academy luther #luther hargreeves #ben hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #pogo #grace #reginald hargreeves #apacolypse #au #super powers #powers #elementals #sort of #Griddy's #agnes #cha-cha #hazel #the commission #the handler #siblings #oc

[rachelthompsonauthor]

The past two quarantine months have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime, and I turned 56 in January. So rather than regurgitate what you’ve likely read in the news or on social media, I’ve decided to share how I’ve spent my time these past two months along with random thoughts. I hope you’ll continue along with me as I share what I’m doing each week.

Books

Oh, how I’ve missed reading! With my business so insanely busy (for which I’m truly grateful) these past few years, I’ve barely had time to read little more than Slack, emails, texts, and social media updates. Not exactly satisfying for this lifelong, avid reader. This quarantine has allowed me a little bit of extra time, which I’ve put to good use.

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve read: 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is fantastic. Read it in one sitting because I didn’t want any of the details of this lacy, incredibly intricate work to fade. I highly recommend it. A mix of fantasy, drama, and a love story (because in the end, aren’t all stories love stories?), anyone with a working brain will love this novel.

  Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is also superb. I’d heard about this book for a while, yet only got around to it because it’s also now a mini-series on Hulu (which I watched afterward – also very good, though the character arcs and the plot changed in crucial, at times startling, ways).

Curious if you’ve read the book and watched the series, what your thoughts are? I could write an entire post about it, yet I’ll only share this…

As a child, my parents hire a housekeeper. My folks both work full-time and we are not in any way rich or well-off. Neither of my folks has college degrees – Dad is an assistant manager at a chain drugstore and Mom has just completed x-ray tech school and works nights at San Bernardino County Hospital. We live in a small house on a long street in the smoggy Inland Empire of California.

There are two of us, my older sister and me. Then my mom gets pregnant when I’m nine and has my baby sister when I’m ten. My folks advertise for a housekeeper and Miss Louise answers. She’s African American and willing to work for the little they can pay her. She smokes a lot (outside only, so as “not to hurt the babies”), insists on wearing a uniform though my mom tells her it isn’t necessary and comes looking for us in her big old white Caddy if we aren’t home from school exactly 20 minutes after it lets out.

(Miss Louise’s husband’s name is George. If you are alive in the 70s and watch The Jeffersons, you understand why this is an endless source of amusement to my sister Caren and me.)

Being that young, neither Caren nor I understand what privilege means. We didn’t get whatever we wanted because my parents are always strapped, yet there is food on the table, and the lights are always on. Except for the occasional venture to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm that one time (mom hated it), our vacations consist of driving to visit our Zayde (great-grandfather) in a nursing home in Santa Cruz, or some other relatives we don’t know somewhere in L.A. (I remember one great-aunt who drank. A lot.) We’d always stop at Cantor’s for a soup and sandwich (the highlight for us), and be back on the road. We don’t mind because it is anywhere but home.

Anyway – my entire point is that in Little Fires Everywhere – the show – Kerry Washington’s Mia is an artist who takes a maid job with Reese Witherspoon’s Elena Richardson’s family to keep an eye on her daughter Pearl, who is quite taken with the teenage Richardson clan. The racial and financial dichotomy is blatantly obvious: a rich family who’s seemingly got it all vs. a seemingly poor black single mother, which adds to the ‘fires’ mentioned in the title.

The book really made me think about my own privilege and despite how well my folks treated Louise, and how much we loved her, and she us, there would always be that wall. Granted, it was a business arrangement and my folks paid her for her services, and in truth, anyone could’ve answered the housekeeping ad. The fact that she was African American and we were white created a racial divide that’s undeniable.

The third book I read is Certain Cure by Jennifer Valoppi, also excellent. It’s the first in a series (parts two and three aren’t out yet, darn it). The novel chronicles the life of three generations of the Cummings family; Claire, a woman in her 70s who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Helene, her television journalist daughter and Justin, the teenage grandson whose adoration of his “Grams” leads him to discover the dark secret behind the miracle technology that is not only curing Claire of her cancer but tempting his mother with eternal youth, as traditional medical industries wage war against the mysterious doctor from China who threatens them all.

I had no idea what to expect with this one, and I’m glad I read it. Valoppi is a former TV journalist from NYC so she knows her stuff. I’m not particularly religious (or scientific), yet I didn’t find either the science or religious stuff bogged me down.  Fascinating read. I highly recommend it.

Movies and Shows

Gosh, so many. With four of us in the house (and two teens), it’s worth it to me to pay for Hulu and Netflix, Amazon Prime Video comes with my Amazon Prime membership already, plus my internet plan comes with AT&T Direct, Showtime, HBO, and other premium channels. For the amount of entertainment, it’s worth the money.

I watch movies and shows on my iPad at night, once I’m finally off my computer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like a super loud TV with stereo surround-sound barking at me after a long day of noise and stress. So I go upstairs to my cozy bed, surround myself with blankets and pillows and cats, and snuggle in for a few hours to watch a movie or a few episodes of something I enjoy.

Another note: not a big ‘reality TV’ watcher, mostly because, as a writer, I prefer well-written shows. I also don’t like the negativity and yelling normally associated with those shows. That said, I do watch Vanderpump Rules (on Bravo) with my daughter (age 20). We bond.

Shows

Here’s what I’ve binged these past few quarantine months, show-wise (no links because you can Google):

Ray Donovan – ggggggreat! Heard it was wonderful, yet truly had no idea how awesome. Liev Schrieber is captivating as Ray. Flawed, human, sad, and, in case you don’t know, a childhood sexual abuse survivor (church abuse). I had no idea going in this would be a theme of the show, yet it was handled with care and truth. The entire supporting cast is also amazing. Every season is great. Watch it all. I hated to see it end.

Homeland – the first four or so seasons were mesmerizing. Then, I got bored. This last season had me falling asleep and then WHAM! that ending. Worth it.

Hunters – Good, not fantastically great. The twist in the last episode will get you, though.

Upload – Loved it! Thought it would be silliness (and in some places, it was, but that’s okay – we need a little silliness right now). Had a ton of heart which I love.

Bosch – come on, it’s Titus Welliver. He’s fantastic. This last season didn’t draw me in as much as the entire rest of the series, though. You?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – terrific, all of it. Every season, every episode, every character.

Tales From The Loop – amazing. Anything having to do with time-travel or the bending of time, I’m a total sucker for. This hurt my brain in a good way.

The Feed – weird but good and thought-provoking.

Dark – by far, my favorite show year. A German show dubbed in English (you get used to it – don’t let that scare you off), this time-bending, decade-moving hit show spans two seasons and every episode is worth watching. And the music – my god. Amazing. Here’s a Spotify playlist link.

Movies

Parasite – thought-provoking. Took a while to get into it and then boom! It just goes full-on insanity. Well-written, well-acted, and the message of the movie is just, wow. No spoilers in case you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Hustlers – loved it. Whatever issues people have with strip clubs and ‘dancers,’ get over it. These girls are amazingly talented, are in amazing shape, and work hard to make money for their families. What I loved the most about the movie is that it’s all about the women; the men are only there as a plot device. It’s a movie entirely shot through the ‘female gaze’ (though of course, men will enjoy the dance scenes which are sexy, yet not unclothed). How many movies can say that?

Memento – I think I’m probably one of the few people who had never seen this neo-noir psychological thriller starring Guy Pearce looking like Brad Pitt (who was originally considered for the role). It was great, I think? LOL. My brain still hurts.

Call Me By Your Name – Lovely, sad, gorgeous. (And I will not make a juvenile peach joke.) And the music! Oh, my.

Zombieland – I hate zombies, I hate horror movies. I hate gore and squishy sounds. This movie was cute. (Not ready for the sequel, yet.)

Music

As mentioned above, the music in Dark sent me off on a ‘who are these talented musicians?’ lark. I’ve discovered so many. Here is who I’m listening to right now (all free on Spotify) and links provided here:

Apparat (you’ll recognize the opening theme of Dark and stay for the rest).

Agnes Obel – wondrous. I’ve played her entire catalog repeatedly since discovering her music on Dark. She’s become a commercial favorite as well now. Familiar is the song used in the show that’s received the most play.

Alev Lanz – otherworldly. I’ve not heard anyone like her. Her songs on the Dark soundtrack and Black Mirror are what she’s most noted for (May The Angels, and Fall Into Me, respectively), however, I love all of her work. Her harmonies are like nothing else. One song is layered with her voice and African throat singers – it’s gorgeous (May The Angels). She’s active on Twitter and we’ve interacted a few times. She’s beautifully transparent about her love of music and it shows in all her work.

Patrick Watson – I heard this song, Good Morning Mr. Wolf, on the Ray Donovan soundtrack and immediately clicked my SoundHound app. Who is this talented being? This song, in particular, sounds so large and cinematic – I wondered – is he is a film composer? (yes). A band? (yes). And so much more. I cannot get enough of all of his music, and still, I play this one song on repeat – repeatedly.

London Grammar – I discovered this band a few years ago and still adore them. Strong is still my favorite song, though Rooting For You is a close second. Hannah Reid’s vocals are big and beautiful.

Hilary Woods – ethereal and lovely. Especially the song Kith.

Sufjan Stevens – many of us just discovered him from the movie Call Me By Your Name soundscore, however, he’s been a working musician since the early 2000s. Talented beyond.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. I made a Female Rockers list on Spotify which you’re welcome to.

Thoughts on Quarantine

My Business

Living in California, I’ve barely left the house in two months, with the exception of going to the pharmacy for meds or for the occasional physician appointment for me or the kids, because of the quarantine restrictions in place. And I’m okay with that.

I’m fortunate that my business is primarily online-only: I work with authors and small businesses on their branding, marketing, and promotion, so given that all real-life events are off the table, I’ve been quite busy working with my clients to ensure their products and services are still viable.

This doesn’t mean I don’t need help as a small business. I applied for an SBA loan and couldn’t even get onto the website the first time – it was pretty ridiculous – like the end scene in Beetlejuice. You all know who those first small business loans went to, right? Not small-potatoes people like me. So the second time around, it went much smoother, and I’m grateful to have received a small loan which will definitely help me keep going with rent, insurance, and other expenses.

I still did my annual non-profit initiative for writers, NaNoProMo (National Novel Promotion Month) this year over on my business site, BadRedhead Media, yet only for two weeks instead of the entire month. Daily blog posts from experts on everything publishing-related plus amazing giveaways. It’s always exhausting, yet I find enormous gratification in helping writers.

This year, however, getting writers to comment to win amazing, FREE giveaways was like pushing a house up a hill. I get it – people are focused on putting food on the table instead of commenting on blog posts, even if the giveaways were worth $500. That’s why I wanted to do this initiative this year – to help writers who are in a jam – yet only a smattering of writers participated.

I’m seriously rethinking if I want to do it next year given the financial cost as well as the personal toll. My first therapist, who I started seeing after I gave birth to my daughter Anya (I was terrified to leave her to go back to work, given my history with childhood sexual abuse), gave me this tip whenever I had trouble deciding whether to do something:

“If you ever aren’t sure if you should do something, ask yourself this question: Is this good for Rachel? If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t. It really is that simple.”

Self-care, y’all.

Social Media

I’ve stopped interacting with the crazies on social media (and who knows, maybe you’re one of them so truly, no offense), but I’d rather stay safe and keep my family safe by working exclusively at home – which I mostly do anyway – than venture back into face-to-face meetings with clients. I support four people with my business and if something happens to me, four people are doomed.

So the answer is simple to me: stay home, work from home, and don’t risk dying from this virus.

I don’t buy into any of this ridiculous conspiracy crap. Sorry, not sorry. You can if you want to. Spending time arguing with people online about it takes away time from my business, my kids, my guy, and my own sanity. Speaking of which…

Mental Health

There were a few mix-ups with my meds when this all started, and I couldn’t get my prescriptions filled and delivered before I ran out, so I ended up having about a week of insomnia which I’ve never had to deal with. I was a zombie (the non-squishy kind) and it sucked.

If you have insomnia, I’m sorry. I feel for you.

It’s all straightened out now, thank goodness. My son Lukas and I donned our masks and drove to the local CVS the other day because I couldn’t wait two days for my meds to be delivered. It felt like walking into a dystopian future walking in there: everyone in masks, tape six feet apart for the waiting line, plexiglass between us and the cashiers.

I’m thankful for these measures, of course, and wonder how long we’ll need them, or if this is our new normal?

My Writing

I finished the final edits on Broken People and sent it back to my editor. She’s had some health issues, so the delay is understandable. To be honest, I’m not in a huge hurry to launch a new book right now. Here are the questions that run through my mind:

Do people have money to purchase a new book?

If they do, will they want to read my new book?

If they do want to read my new book, will they take the money they do have to read mine, and then review it?

Does it even matter in the grand scheme of life? 

I’m an author just like any author – I want to get my work out there so people can read it, engage with it, connect with me. I hope they’ll like it, feel something, reflect on their own lives, learn something new, particularly about being a childhood sexual abuse survivor. It’s a weird limbo to be in right now.

Our New Normal

This phrase is bandied about quite a lot yet let’s face it: it’s life as we know it, now. The anxiety is real, too. I haven’t hugged or kissed my elderly parents who live two miles away in two months. I bring them toilet paper and cookies from our favorite bakery (drive up and trunk drop off, pay online only) and drop it on their porch.

All these scenarios run through my mind: If I go to do this, what happens if? I know I’m not the only one. And yet, we can’t predict anything. So I sit here, writing this post, safe inside my little house bubble, grateful I can pay my rent, put food on the table (delivered by Instacart, thankfully), and everyone around me is healthy.

What’s your new normal? What have you been reading, watching, and listening to? If you’ve stuck it out this far, I thank you. Would love to hear your comments! Safe hugs, y’all. 

***

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

                The post This is How To Spend Quarantine With Me appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

#IFTTT #Rachel Thompson

[jastersmohnson]

Rewatching Masters of Sex: Volume 2

Season 1 Episodes 8-12

Masters of Sex’s hot streak (no pun intended) comes to a screeching halt with “Love and Marriage”, which is my least favorite episode of Masters of Sex’s first season.

As far as episode eight goes, let’s start with the positives.  The highlight of this episode is probably the introduction of Lester and the use of “home movies”, as well as this being the first episode to mention the presentation in front of the University, finally giving this season some sense of it’s endgame.  Allison Janney and Beau Bridges also give fantastic performances.  Another positive of episode eight is that Ethan Haas doesn't make his first appearance until the 20 minute mark.

But the increased focus on Ethan and Vivian really drag down both episodes eight and nine, including the cringeworthy subplot wherein Ethan briefly attempts to convert to Christianity, and then runs over a guy with his car.  I already dealt with how much of a scumbag Ethan Haas is in the last installment, so I’ll save you all the rant.

“Well, Margaret, that is a blow. But, of course, if if you've made up your mind I respect your decision. Of course.” -Austen Langham, after being broken up with

Watching episode eight, I was struck by how much of a gentleman Austen Langham was when Margaret broke up with him at the start of the episode.  Especially with this being the 1950s, you would imagine most men being womanizers and pig-like; it’s interesting to see a guy being an absolute gentleman in this period of time.  Langham is probably the most underrated character in the show, it’s a shame he didn’t really get anything substantial to do after this season (Cal-O-Metric was just weird and then he was just shoehorned into seasons three and four).

Speaking of Austen Langham, there’s a part of episode ten that kind of stuck out to me.  When Margaret is swimming, Austen enters and says “California’s been blown off the map.  They’re announcing death tolls on the radio like baseball scores,” jokingly, I assume.  And then Margaret’s response is “What are you doing here?”.  I would imagine, in a time of nuclear panic, that if somebody entered saying that California has been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, my first response would be something like “Are you serious?” or “Oh my God!  How awful!” 

"Fallout” is an improvement over episodes eight and nine in every way imaginable.  The debate between whether or not Virginia should have told Austen about the baby is a debate that I still waffle on whenever I rewatch this episode.  “Fallout” is the first of three episodes wherein Libby Masters is not present.

And speaking of Libby Masters, I did a post on the timeline and the implausibility of Libby’s pregnancies taking place within the certain amount of time, but I think it’s absolutely laughable that the writers expect us to believe that the events from episode nine to episode twelve span eight months.  That would mean that Bill/Gini’s rough patch lasted months, when if you took out Libby’s pregnancy, I would have guessed it was only weeks.

“You might as well tell me the sun now sets in the east.” -Margaret Scully, regarding the discovery of her husband’s homosexuality

I always found this to be an interesting choice of words for Margaret Scully.  As far as Earth-shattering revelations go, the sun setting in the east would be pretty far down on that list.

While the third-act break-up has become commonplace in most movies, it felt sincere in Masters of Sex’s first season.  Bill feeling guilty about his affair with Virginia, and feeling the need to pay her.  I have to say, it’s a good thing that I am not a television writer.  I would not be able to come up with arcs that deep.

The first season comes to a close with “Phallic Victories” and “Manhigh”, the latter of which is arguably the best episode of Masters to date.  Michael Sheen delivers another excellent performance, particularly in the lonely dinner scene with Libby, laughing at the idea that Virginia was the woman in the video.

You know, I didn’t mention it last time, but it really is shocking that Michael Sheen didn’t get nominated for “Catherine”.  I mean, I looked up who his competition would have been.  Apparently it would have been Bryan Cranston, Jon Hamm, Kevin Spacey, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (both from True Detective).  So there would have certainly been steep competition.  However, they also nominated Jeff Daniels, who already won the year before, so they could’ve easily given his spot to Michael Sheen.

(Above: The extended cut of “Manhigh” showed us that Bill Masters kind of got carried away with his presentation)

I mentioned while ago that the first season of Masters of Sex was my least favorite.  Well, I don’t know what I was smoking; this re-watch has been illuminating.  I can safely say that I like season one more than season three, which--I know, I know, baby steps.  I do think I still like seasons two and four more, if only because it contains 99% less Ethan Haas.

Anyway, season one concludes with our heroes finding their way back together.  Next time, I begin watching season two, which, if memory serves me correctly, is my favorite season.  Will that still be the same after re-watching it?  Stay tuned!

Love and Marriage: B-

Involuntary: B

Fallout: A

Phallic Victories: A-

Manhigh: A

#Masters of Sex #Rewatching Masters of Sex #Season 1 #Michael Sheen #Lizzy Caplan #Love and Marriage #Involuntary #Fallout #Phallic Victories #Manhigh

[moonprincess92]

One, two, three... 

Jyn is terrible at Salsa. Cassian teaches dance for a living. Bodhi ships it.

(AKA: the Salsa AU that I am 100% going to regret posting but #yolo). 

Read on AO3 

Chapter 1 

If she’d had her way, Jyn would be at home wrapped up in a blanket burrito with tea and three seasons of Victoria.

As it was, her feet were involuntarily tapping to the beat of the music that she couldn’t understand, too hot and too tired to even try and stop it. The Muddy Farmer was always a pulsing mass on a Friday night, a wave of heat that managed to sit low over the dance floor even if it was blowing a gale outside. She still didn’t understand why an Irish pub hosted a Latin dance night of all things, but there were stranger things in the world, she supposed.

“Come onnnnn,” Bodhi had practically whined earlier that evening, attempting to forcibly unroll her from her blanket burrito. “I need a partner to dance with!”

“You know I’m shite at Salsa and half the bloody class goes out to Muddy Farmer every week,” Jyn had argued right on back. “There will be someone you know there.”

“Look,” Bodhi had huffed. “You and I both know that as soon as Luke arrives you can go home.”

“Oh no,” Jyn had shaken her head. “You said that last time, only I was forced to stay because you were too chicken to ask him out for the tenth time!”

“It’s HARD, ok?”

“He literally told you he had a crush on you.” 

“…still.”

Yes, still. She still somehow ended up here, on the edges of the crowd and watching Bodhi and Luke tear up a storm across the floor. Luke Skywalker’s perfect blond hair whipped around as he span, almost blurring as Bodhi led him through the crowd. Some heads still turned at the sight, but most of the social scene was used to the two dancing by this point, not to mention that the well known masters, Baze and Chirrut, still came out every once in a while as well. The couple had been the original ones to get Bodhi into Salsa in the first place, Jyn naturally being reluctantly dragged along behind him as the dutiful best friend/roommate. 

(Sometimes life just threw you curveballs). 

She took another gulp of her beer, watching the steps, turns and dips. There was everything from beginners just learning to cross-body, to seasoned veterans who could spin no less than five times in a row. She could barely hear herself think over the live music, it thumping and rattling in her eardrums. The scent of greasy pub food hit her as the guy next to her at the bar ordered a basket of chips and she debated the merits of getting some herself versus just going home. She’d been here long enough now that she could probably get away with it, and Bodhi barely noticed anything when he was dancing.

Though the chips really did smell good…

In the end, the decision was made for her when someone accidentally stepped too close and shoved into another dancer. Chips went flying as they stumbled right into Chip Guy, nearly throwing him off his stool. Jyn debated the morality of eating the chip that had landed on her chest for a hot second or two, before deciding to go with the conscience and toss it aside so that she could offer to help him up.

“I’m so sorry!” the dancers exclaimed several times over.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Chip Guy insisted, somehow taking the battering with a smile. “Not the first time I’ve been danced into.”

“You all right, mate?” Jyn asked him.

He glanced over at her as the dancers went back to their partners. “I’m fine,” he insisted once more. “although I might need some help eating these now, my friend is weird about eating things off the floor.”

“Just don’t tell him, who has to know?”

He thankfully laughed a little, offering the basket up to her. Figuring it would be rude not to take one at this point, she quickly shoved a chip into her mouth, suddenly wishing that she’d actually made an effort to look decent that night, rather than stubbornly remain in her dirty jeans and t-shirt combo. The guy looked vaguely familiar, which was confirmed when he then asked her,

“I think I’ve seen you around, what’s your name again?”

“Jyn,” she said around her chips. “I’ve seen you too, I’m pretty sure.”

“I’m Cassian,” he replied. “Sorry if I’ve told you before, I’m pretty bad with names and there’s a lot of people–”

“Oh god, don’t even worry about it,” Jyn insisted. “You don’t need a name to dance so I forget everyone pretty much as soon as they introduce themselves.”

He smiled in solidarity. “I know a lot of faces, and I know a lot of names, but I’m at the point where I don’t know which name goes with which face.”

“That’s exactly it.”

“You don’t come out often, right?”

“Nah, only when the flatmate drags me,” Jyn gestured across the dance floor. “Do you know Bodhi?”

“Oh, THAT’S Bodhi!” Cassian said, face lighting up in recognition. “I’ve actually spoken to him several times! Good guy, although I had no idea what his name was until now.”

Jyn found herself wanting to laugh a little, which was clearly the strangest sensation she could ever feel on a Friday night when she should be at home alone with her historical dramas. She certainly knew of Cassian before now, even if she hadn’t ever properly spoken to him before. He was apparently from Mexico, he was pretty damn cute and he was insanely good at Salsa. She had danced with him a couple times as they’d all switched partners during the classes that Bodhi had forced her to do with him, and she could remember the way he had shaken her hands, claiming that she was way too tense, and how he had taught her how to switch the tension to her arms so that her frame stayed locked and easy to lead. He had been easy to chat to and easily her favourite to dance with…

But the thing with favourites is that she wasn’t the only one. Cassian insisted on her continuing to help him eat the contaminated chips and she noticed the eyes from across the pub, people wondering and craning heads, trying to figure out who she was and why she was the one who got to sit and eat with Cassian the Infamously Amazing Dancer. She tried to focus on what she was saying, answering her question of what she did as a job, instead of acknowledging Bodhi who was practically hollering at Luke at the sight.

“It’s not that interesting,” she tore her eyes away. “but I’ve got good work colleagues so it’s not too bad.”

“Are you kidding? It’s so cool you work in a police station!”

“Admin doesn’t solve murders, remember?” she said.

“Still,” Cassian pointed out. “You’re Gina from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

Jyn nearly choked on her chip.

“I don’t – I don’t think I’m quite like Gina,” she coughed. “Although to be fair, she is an inspiration to all.”

“I love that show.”

“Me too,” Damn it, she was smiling too much. Their basket of chips was nearly empty now as she asked, “So what’s your job?”

“I teach dance.”

“Never would have guessed that,” Jyn said, dryly.

Cassian laughed (god, he was cute when he laughed). “Not just Salsa, other styles too,” he added. “I actually mostly teach kids classes, although sometimes I help out with the adult ones if there’s an instructor away or an uneven amount of people or something.”

“I bet there are kids even better at dancing than I am.”

“There are some kids better than me,” Cassian pointed out. “Still… I think we demolished these chips, by the way.”

She glanced down at them. “Oh, definitely. Your friend won’t be pissed we ate them all?”

“He’ll be pissed, he’ll get over it. Want to dance?”

“Oh–” Fucking shit. He was holding out his hand and jumping down from his bar stool and suddenly she wished she hadn’t eaten quite so much. “but we just ate–”

“We’ll burn off the calories.”

“I’m honestly shit at Salsa, like I could barely keep up with the beginners class–”

“If I do my job and lead you properly, then you’ll be fine I promise.”

Jyn reluctantly slid off her stool. “And if you fuck up?”

Cassian smiled. 

“I’ll buy you a drink to go with the chips.”

She… couldn’t argue that.

So despite her better judgement, she ended up taking his hand and following him to a relatively spare space within the dance floor. She hoped to god that Bodhi wasn’t still witnessing this because she would no doubt never hear the end of it, although it was kind of the least of her worries. There were too many things cycling through her head to pay attention to much else. She prayed that she didn’t fuck up her ankles in these heels, she hoped that no one accidentally stood on her or that she didn’t crash into anyone. Hell, she begged to all the primordial forces out there that she didn’t just fuck up in general.

At least the basic step she could do.

Cassian held her hands as she concentrated on getting the beat right – 1-2-3, 5,6,7 – and she could feel the sweat starting to gather at her hairline already. She practically held her breath during the first turn and he shook his head once she was back facing him once more.

“I can practically feel the anxiety coming off you,” he pointed out.

It was always hard to talk on the dance floor, what with the cacophony of the live band, people talking, glasses clinking and bar stools scraping. However, Cassian had made the effort to yell over it all and so she felt compelled to reply.

“That is a skill I am proud of, I’ll have you know,” she yelled back.

He just snorted. Instead of stepping forward he stepped back on the next bar, moving them through an open break turn and not even pausing before swapping their hands and leading her through a cross-body turn. “See?” he pointed out once she had thankfully not keeled over. “It comes naturally, you can do it!”

Ok, maybe a part of her knew it.

She knew she wasn’t absolutely completely fucking terrible, as she was determined to make it seem. She wasn't great either, but after a few of the beginners classes she had found herself picking up the rhythm. She struggled with anything fast, but eventually learned how to make her steps smaller and tighter. She wasn't bad…it was just hard to not compare herself when she was fully aware of the fact that she was currently partnered with an actual goddamn dance teacher. He moved into a close hold, hand curving up to rest between her shoulder blades as he swept her around and she tried to ignore the heartbeat currently slamming in her throat. This was supposed to be fun. She was supposed to be swept up into the music, uncaring of those around her, just moving and feeling. She could be fun, goddamn it! She supposed the tension in her arms was good at least for something as he continued to lead her this way and then that, changing the line depending on the crowd. With so many people, it was impossible to not stand on someone occasionally. She ended up half gasping, half laughing when Cassian lead her in a cross-body turn and she ended up slamming right into someone she recognised from Bodhi’s dance classes.  

“Oh, shit!” she mouthed to Cassian once the initial apologies were over.

“You ok?”

“I am,” she answered. “I don’t think my shoes are. Shit, do I actually have a dent in it?”

They took a moment to pause and glance down at where the other woman had literally stomped down on the back of her heel. Sure enough, running her fingers over the dance shoes that she had bought second hand online she could feel a dip. She grabbed his hand without thinking to ensure that he could feel it too, and she gripped his arm to keep her balance as she stood up on one foot.

“You have battle wounds now,” he teased.

“I guess so–”

She hastily cut herself off as the latest song apparently finished and her yelling was suddenly much louder as the music faded. The crowd cheered and they both clapped politely, several people leaving the dance floor, others coming to join. It was a mass of movement and Jyn hovered awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what she was supposed to do now. Etiquette said that they should thank each other for the dance before going and finding someone else, but some weird part of her knew a fucking vibe when it saw it, and wasn’t denying that it wanted to stay. For a wild moment it looked like he wanted to stay too, but unfortunately the next song that was strung up sounded off, and it took her several moments to click.

“Oh,” she screwed up her face. “this isn’t Salsa anymore, is it?”

“No, this is Bachata,” Cassian nodded.

“Christ,” she sighed. “I don’t know how to Bachata at all.”

“Do you know the basic step?”

Jyn cringed at the memory of the one Bachata dance she had attempted, the last time she had been dragged out social dancing alongside Bodhi. Thank god it had been with him. If it had been with anyone else she might have died of mortification, but remembering how she had awkwardly attempted to move her hips the right way made her want to throw up a little.

“It’s 1-2-3-hip or something, right? Or is it a tap, I can’t remember–”

“It just depends on which style you’re using, but honestly,” Cassian shrugged, tugging on her hands once more. “Just move your body, and you’ll be great.”

He started moving then as if to prove his point in the basic side to side motion that Jyn had to actively think about in order not to mess up. All around them, couples were already pressing up against each other’s bodies, rolling and grinding. Jyn was pretty sure that wasn’t the traditional Bachata, but then again much of her internal meltdown was probably because she was certain her hips just simply didn’t not move that way. She didn’t even realise how much she was glancing around anxiously until she caught Bodhi’s eye only several couples away. Now dancing with a girl that she recognised from classes with long brown braids, he mouthed at her in astonishment,

“WHAT THE FUCK?” 

“I DON’T KNOW.”

“THAT’S CASSIAN!”

Thanks, mate. She had no idea.

She was pulled away from the non-verbal conversation when Cassian lead her into what was probably one of the most simplest turns she’d ever had to do and yet she still somehow managed to botch it. Stepping with the wrong foot, she ended up on the wrong timing and exclaimed in frustration,

“Sorry! I told you I don’t know what I’m doing!” 

He stopped them. For a moment her heart pounded, sure he was about to politely call it quits and send her packing across the dance floor so that he could sweep up some other woman into his arms… except instead, he steadied her with his hands sliding down to her hips.

“You think you’re terrible, fine,” he started to grin. “Crash course in Bachata.” 

He started counting. His hands moved her hips with the beat of the song and shit, if she had blood, it was currently rushing to her face. Was anyone watching this? Another quick glance around however showed her that Bodhi had apparently already moved on and was now totally absorbed in having fun dancing with his friend and that literally no one else gave a shit. While a little disappointing to know no one cared, it was also admittedly… liberating to know that she could thrust her hips as awkwardly as she liked and no one would make fun of her for it. It took a while, but soon they were adding in the footwork and then her hands were being picked up again, the two of them finally having found their rhythm.  

“That’s it!” he said, happily.

She wasn’t quite sure how the knot in her throat managed to dissipate (and to be honest, she didn’t think it was going to entirely go away) but she did feel a hell of a lot better than when she had first stepped out onto the dance floor, and that said something. This time when Cassian led her in a turn, her feet automatically kept up the rhythm and she found herself with her back to him, arms crossed in front of her as he kept a hold of her hands. 1-2-3-tap, 1-2-3-tap…

It was slower than Salsa, which helped, not to mention less spinning like a top and more turning within his arms. When she was eventually brought back around to face him, he span himself before moving in and bringing her into a close hold. Jesus Christ. This close, their legs overlapped to avoid their knees banging into each other, and it may or may not have been causing a slight heart attack, she still wasn’t sure. They moved in a 360, around and around until she was let go and allowed to breathe again.

Maybe it was her mind just wrecking havoc inside her, but it almost felt lighter inside the pub now. She supposed it was the atmosphere of connecting with the person in front of you and tuning out the rest, or at least it was certainly hard to concentrate on anything else. She could imagine that drink Cassian had promised her, imagine that they danced together every weekend, that his hands sliding against her hips were familiar to her and that the chest she was pressed against was always warm and solid. She felt like she could let go and just fucking dance, and she wondered whether maybe he could feel it too. She was pulled into his body once more, his arms lifting hers up before his fingertips traced back down her sides. She slung her arms around his neck, her body settled firmly on his thigh. After a moment he bent her back so that she swung around, Jyn letting her head tilt back so that she could see the ceiling of the pub and the ends of her hair brushed against his arms. Pulled back up, she smiled into his shoulder.

He must have recognised the song enough to know when the end was coming. After feeling his leg sliding between hers, after swinging her hips in time with his, he eventually turned her around and with her back pressed to this chest, brought each of her arms up and over his head. Leaning to the side to see her, Jyn realised that he had ended their dance with perfect timing, left standing with their noses inches from each other, hands still clutched in his behind his head as they struggled to breathe. Jyn might have ignored all the polite claps and cheers for the band, might have even had the guts to say a giant fuck it in her head before closing the distance between them –

– when suddenly, her phone started buzzing in her pocket.

“Oh – shit, I’m sorry–” She pulled away and he hastily snatched back his hands, taking a step back. One glance at the caller made her stomach sink. “Fuck – I have to answer this – but thank you for the dance and the chips, it was really good! The dance, I mean, the chips too but the dance was – fuckity fuck–”

She made for the exit before she could glance back and see what was no doubt utter bemusement left on Cassian’s face. She hit answer on the way, finally speaking once she was outside the pub and out on the cold city street.

“Hey, Papa,” she said, wrapping her spare arm around her like it could retain the heat of the dance floor. “what’s up?”

“Jyn! My darling daughter–”

“Yeah, yeah,” Despite her slight disappointment, she smiled a little at hearing her father’s voice. She also heard rustling and clicking, along with Galen cursing under his breath every now and then.

“You aren’t busy, are you?” he asked. “I know it's kind of late, I can call back later or tomorrow even–”

“Nah, it’s fine, I’m just out with Bodhi,” Jyn immediately said. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m grand – got the new T.V. finally!”

“The T.V. you’ve been meaning to buy ever since it went on sale two months ago, you mean?” Jyn teased.

“Har, har, you know how I am with crowds,” her dad scoffed. “I’m just trying to connect it now, but turns out it’s harder than I thought. There’s so many damn cords and – shite – I’m no good at this sort of thing at all! Technology was all your mother’s territory–”

She just knew what it must be like, her dad sat in the middle of a pile of cables, pretending to be ok with the fact that he didn’t have a wife to help him with this kind of thing anymore. He had been doing reasonably ok since the funeral – or rather as ok as anyone would have expected him to be – but he still called every day and there were still moments Jyn knew he was really only calling because he needed to have her near, rather than because he actually needed her help. She closed her eyes a moment, making the decision before her mind could consciously think about it.

“You’re terrible, Papa. Need me to come help?”

“You wouldn’t help an old man, would you?”

“I’ll be there soon,” she told him.

She hung up quickly so that she could give Bodhi a call to explain. He eventually picked up in the bathroom, still not entirely quiet, but at least able to hear what he was saying. “I gotta go help my dad,” she explained. “You all right if I leave?”

“I’m totally fine – are you, though?”

“Oh, you know,” she let out a long breath. “I think I might have to take up Bachata lessons again, mate.”

“I fucking saw you dancing with Cassian, SHIT, Jyn!” She could just imagine Bodhi practically hopping up and down in glee.

She smiled despite herself.

“Shit sounds about right.”

#rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fanfic #dailyrebelcaptain #therebelcaptainnetwork #rogue one #rogue one fanfic #ro fanfic #my fanfiction #the salsa au #that yall all know exactly what it is based off #DON'T JUDGE ME #i hope you all like it!!! #pls reblog me 😄

[gojaimas]

Late Comments

Hello people. It’s been four months since I finished I Wanted What I Saw That Day, and I’ve received many more comments since then. I figured I’d do some more responses, and give you all a quick update on what my plan is for writing more in the future.

So, I’ve been taking a bit of a break from writing, but I’ve been mulling over ideas for my next story and I think I’m ready to start planning it out officially now. It’s gonna be set in the Legend of Zelda universe, and it will be mostly centered around original incarnations of pre-existing character archetypes that have appeared throughout the series. But just so you know, it will still be a long time before I start posting again, so please be patient with me.

Now, onto your comments:

EternalWisdom: “I just gave a standing ovation for a fanfic of a cartoon from my childhood: That's how good you are. I've already praised much of the technical work such as your pacing and understanding of the characters, but I'd be lying if I said this Final Chapter didn't just play my heart strings like a golden violin. I intend for my own work to (eventually) convince readers of my characters having 3-Dimensional, 'clicking' personalities like the masterpiece you just bestowed upon our nostalgic, incest-supporting fandom. Best of wishes from an avid reader (with a somewhat pretentious name I came up with years ago), yours sincerely, EternalWisdom.”

Wow, thanks! It’s very nice to hear people found my depictions of the characters to be that well done. And don’t worry too much about your name. I’m already hoping I don’t live to regret choosing a broken japanese phrase for mine.

Anonymoose: “Sneaky how Lucy suddenly became the main character. Loved it the ending. I wouldn’t change it or create an alternate. It was perfectly bitter sweet.”

Lucy’s always been sneaky, after all. And thanks, I plan to leave the ending alone for now. I will still consider continuing it in some way in the future though.

justanaverageguy: “"I wanted what I saw that day."...I would pull a CinemaSins and say "Roll Credits," but I would also say it was well used in this work (Plus, it was in the last chapter, after all). I had always thought the "I" in the title was Gwen, but seeing that it was actually Lucy was a great reveal. Lucy truly was the star of this fic. Her character makes this one stand out among anything else (that I've read at least) from this community. I've always seen Ben and Gwen as a great duo ever since I first watched the show, and I will always enjoy fics and episodes focusing on those two. But seeing these three work as a trio was quite a unique take on the characters, and they work so well together. Hats off to you, my friend, for what might possibly be my favorite Ben 10 fanfic. I look forward to checking out what else you may do. I am a Zelda fan too, so I'll probably end up seeing your work again at some point. Until then, ciao!

I couldn’t resist the title drop! It was really fun holding onto the secret of the title’s true meaning for nine whole months while everyone else tried to figure out what it meant. I’ve said before that I’ve probably done more for the Lucy fandom than I have for the Bwen fandom at this point. I would certainly like to see her appearing in more stories. Thank you for your compliments, average guy! I look forward to your reactions to my Zelda story in the future!

jairoesme: “wow that was epic I wasn't expecting the title to show up in there as I read that part it felt so strong. Great story”

Thanks! Seeing everyone reacting to the title drop like this seriously has me giggling. I love it!

Spazbulba: “That was pure magic - it has been years since I was simultaneously both so happy and so sad with the end of a story. Gojaimas You truly are a Legend!”

Truly.

armandaza: “I wanttt moreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, no wayyyyyyy T_T”

More??

Guest: “Well, it took me 17 and a half hours to do it, but I finished it. All 300,000 words of it. I gotta say, this has been one of the best bwen stories I’ve ever read in my life. I was so excited to see that there was a new story to read after not looking for months, I read it all in one day! I was wondering something though. Since you basically have the market cornered on Ben 10 fanfic now that everythings died down so much, I was wondering if every now and then, you could post another story about it. Not necessarily long ones, just a one-shot every now and then and maybe a longer one if you’re up to it (maybe even a few stories with Lucy and Ben or even Gwen). It’s been ten years since Ben 10 ended, so there isn’t much more new material out there for the community to enjoy. I know you said you were planning on moving on after this, but maybe every now and then, when you’re stumped with writers block or you’re just bored, maybe you could throw together a little story for us. If it’s even a fraction as good this story was, it would honestly make everyone’s day to have something new to read, especially if you’re writing it. :) Cheers man, happy writing. -Just another fan”

Wow, 17 and a half hours? Damn, dude. I hope you got some sleep after that. But also, wow, that’s really flattering! I’m glad you liked it so much. Doing little Ben 10 one-shots set in my story’s canon every now and then as I work on my Zelda story is something I’ll consider. I grew really fond of working with those characters, so it’s definitely something I’d love to do again some time.

Guest: “Beautiful. What a journey this was” Dark Ace Demon: “What a journey. Thank you for posting this masterpiece up, truly.“

Thank you! Alexa, play “Don’t Stop Believing.”

Guest: “Just as an FYI, a werewolf is a man-wolf. Wer being the old english word for man." (Context: Chapter 12)

That was based on a real conversation I had with someone back when I was (even more of) a little know-it-all. Gwen is smart, but she’s still a kid. She can make mistakes too. I was the Gwen at the time. I was corrected by Snape when I watched the third Harry Potter movie.

GoodScottish: “That was an amazing read and well worth staying up all night to finish it but its just left me wanting so much more. There is just so many things that i want to know what happens next to. Like what happens to Lucy does she find that special someone? What do Ben and Gwen get up to on this summer vacation? Does grandpa Max find out? What happens when they get back can they keep hiding it? And most importantly for me what happens when their parents find out?”

Many thanks, good scotsman! I know there’s still a lot left unanswered, but that’s how Ben and Gwen feel now too. They still have a long road ahead of them. Maybe I’ll write more of it one day, but I think that was a good place to leave it for now. Also, today I’m finding out a lot of my readers have terrible sleeping habits.

Mason: “Your country is proud of you son.”

Fuck yeah!

Kira Sema: “Anyone else reread this in the span of a couple days and start crying all over again? Because here come the waterworks all over again. I know I reviewed, but had to review again after a reread. I think I've said this before, but I relate to Lucy so much. It's hard not to be considering how she felt. Great story once again. Even though it's 48 chapters, all those chapters were worth it and all as much in character as they could be.”

Thank you once again, Kira Sema! I’ll admit I often cringe too hard at my own writing to reread too much of it, but I’m glad you enjoyed it as much the second time around!

Guest: “I read through this everyday... it’s a bittersweet ending. It was like waiting for an anime episode every week and you feel sad when it’s over, so you go through it again holding onto hope for a season 2.”

I know that feel.

“I’ll even wait as long as for an incredibles sequel if I have to.”

Um. I have some good news for you on that front, buddy.

“I had no idea the story would stop there though so it kinda threw me off guard... I was all “wait it’s really over?!” I thought we’d deal with more of having their relationship bloom, being exposed and we’ll have a year 4 summer trip before coming to an end. I mean having the epilogue near the end of a summer trip would really match the beginning of where Ben and Gwen started off in the story but show us how much has changed between the two of them. But I guess it depends on how we look at it, we could also view it as the “Start of Something New” with Ben & Gwen going to their trademark summer trip as a couple then they were as kids who couldn’t wait to get rid of each other at the end of it in the beginning, so maybe it’s a sign that their story isn’t over yet. Lucy was one of the most breathtaking and heartbreaking characters in this story, kind of like menma, a bit of an airhead. always happy, puts other people infront of her feelings.”

She probably was one of my minor inspirations for Lucy’s character. I think I watched Anohana at some point while I was writing this story, hence the inspiration for the title. I love that little cutie.

Thank you for the rest of your comment too, kind guest! I really appreciate you taking the time to write such a glowing review of my work. I’m glad I was able to give you another Bwen story to read!

Guest: “Mr. Gojaimas, I don’t feel so good...”

I love how Infinity War came out during the time I was posting this. I’ll always associate my story with this meme because of my fans, and I’m very happy about that.

TargaryenFire: “Hey Just came here to say i am loving this story, one of the best i have ever read with this ship. Not wanting to be a bother, but will Gwen's anodite blood come into play in the future?”

Thank you! You’ve probably seen your question answered in a different chapter by now, but just in case: Anodites don’t exist in my story, Gwen is completely human, and a lot of other stuff from the sequels is ignored.

Guest: “Your legend will live on...”

Hopefully in the form of oddly specific fandom inside jokes.

Shirokokuro: “You did an excellent job on this-especially in keeping within the 4-year timeline you had set! It was all so sweet, and that ending of them going on a summer trip together was amazing! Here's to you on being such a dedicated and awesome author!”

Thanks so much! I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out, and I’m glad you liked it too.

Lost: “I think I just binge-read this whole thing. Uh. It was riveting, to say the least. The final connection between Lucy's actions, her memories and the title was very powerful. Thanks for writing this! :)”

You are very welcome! Once again, Lucy steals the show!

Guest: “I read the entire story in a week. I loved the character development and how you effectively gave some deeper understanding of the characters not just Ben and Gwen, but also Lucy, Natalie, Joel, Emily, and Julie. I love you so much for creating this fanfiction and your undeniable talent in writing a story. That is why it pains me even more for how the chapter ended and contiualy wished that Proffesor Paradox or even Gwendolyn could just come up from the future and change Lucy's ideas or yours so that the three could be like a three- man couple. I am just so heart broken right now bailing my eyes out and just hoping there is a continuation (not a different ending) where it can be from Bwen to Bwency (I don't know if that's a word).”

Giving minor characters more development is something I’m a huge fan of, as you can plainly see with Lucy. I’m always happy to hear from binge-readers! Bwency is most definitely a word, and if I ever do a continuation, I very well might make it happen! But for now, Ben is simply following this sage advice from yours truly:

Slykke: “Beautiful shit here. Binge read this in 5 days. Really liked how this was wrapped up and how you turned someone that I forgot even existed in the OS into a favorite. Lucy was amazing in this story and now holds a special place in my heart after this. Thank you for the wonderful read and I cant wait to see your next work.”

“Yes, yes! Praise me more!” -Lucy

Amin: “This has such solid plot that every other fanfic seemed inferior. I kinda wish this story was real.”

Thank you! If any Ben 10 writers are reading this and wanna retroactively make it all canon instead of the sequels, that would be just fine by me.

Guest: “when are we gonna get the Lucy route?”

Not sure. Maybe someday. I am very interested in how I could make that happen.

Guest: “Gojaimas is... GOD. He does a miracle and then leaves us. This was the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

I’m flattered, but I’ve never made a tree.

Well, that’s all for now. Bye, everybody! I hope to hear from all of you again someday!

#Comments

[grocerylines]

Interview with Author fic tag!

‘Twas tagged by @wonderbatwayne ! thanks bestie :)

1. Your favourite fic you’ve written (or just want to give a shoutout to)

my favourite fic i’ve written is actually one i haven’t released yet!! don’t want to give away too many details since i’m an indecisive bunny and am constantly changing things us as i write, but to tease a little bit: time travel :) :)

if i were to choose one i’ve posted though, i’d have to say my most recent one - crash course on good decison-making. i just loved the family element and the humour and getting to write gar who’s very quickly becoming my favourite of season three. it was such an interesting dynamic and i spent the full week between episodes just wondering how that conversation was going to play out, so i just had to write it!!

2. Your favourite fic title that you’ve come up with

fic titles aren’t really my fave thing, i typically just use song lyrics, but i also love when i can use a line from a fic as a title so. she can’t have ‘em both really worked for me :)

3. How do you get inspiration to write?

it varies to be honest. watching a good movie or good show always gets me inspired. i love using concepts from other media and applying it to what i’m currently obsessed with. i’ve done something like that with an upcoming season one au im writing - spoiler alert: rachel and gar are trained, mind-controlled assassins, kory is the agent trying to free them, and dick grayson is just living that detroit detective life and trying his damndest not to be robin again when rachel comes in and throws him off balance.

4. Your favourite genre/subgenre of fic to write

i’m not too particular and sort of just go with the flow when it comes to what type of fic im writing, but i do love my angst with a happy ending. especially when it comes to found family. there’s just so much potential with a group of broken people trying to create a home together and sort of learning how to be partners/parents/siblings together.

5. Do you have other hobbies?

i am a music FREAK and have been since i was a baby. i never go more than an hour without listening to a song unless i’m working or in a lecture. i took guitar lessons for a few years but never got good - i was a teenager in high school who had a very short attention span - but i’ve started to pick it back up!

6. A fun fact about you that a lot of people may not know

i’m currently studying law at uni!

7. Pick one character to self project onto

i have a few honestly. my best friend always calls me the b.davis to her p.sawyer from one tree hill (hello, fave show of all time), i genuinely relate so very much to jake peralta from brooklyn nine nine on a personality level, and i think i also really relate to callie adams foster from the fosters. I grew up in an abusive household and i think we have similar worldviews because of that, similar coping mechanisms and we place the same value on particular relationships in our lives.

8. Favourite genre of music

like i said before, music junkie here! so this is suuuuper hard. i love pop, rock, pop punk, alternative, folk and i can even handle some GOOD country!! but really, if it sounds good or if the lyrics are excellent, it’s for me :)

9. Favourite singer/band

again, DIFFICULT! to name a few: Taylor Swift, 5SOS, Chase Atlantic, Lorde, Aly & AJ, ABBA, The Pretty Reckless, Betcha, The Neighbourhood - and many more!!

10. How has your experience in fandom been?

Titans fandom? EXCELLENT! there’s definitely a few shows i love that the fandoms are kind of wacky and everyone’s super opinionated in the sense that they think only they can be right, which is definitely not the case with the people i’ve gotten to know on here that just love Titans!! it’s great to share the love of something with other people, even if there are definitely aspects of it that get on your nerves or don’t deliver the way you’d like them to.

This was so fun!! thanks again @wonderbatwayne

#dc titans