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mudhornchronicles · 3 years

Text

dreamboat | greaser!frankie morales | part two

diner cred to @thatretrobitch

pairing: francisco “catfish” morales x reader; 1950’s greaser!frankie x reader

warnings: swearing, drinking, smoking, ya know… 1950s stuff + death and war, and being rude af

a/n: part two of dreamboat

masterlist

dreamboat: part one | part two

“If I didn’t know any better, Francisco, I’d say you were teacher in a past life.” You look up at him and smirk. He looks over to you and gives you a crooked smile. He adjusts his jacket and runs his left hand through his hair.

Frankie taught you a lot more history than the teacher. Frankie had a lot more patience and explained each topic that was covered in much better detail and simply enough to understand. Like when Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1932 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband. Frankie compared it to the demonstration of the first long distance telephone service between New York and San Francisco in 1913 – surprising but needed.

You didn’t have Frankie for a third period, just first and fourth, but he made sure to meet you out each of your classes and walked you over to your next class. He had conversed with the boys about asking you to Rosie’s Diner on Friday night. Everyone knows when a guy takes a little darlin’ down to Rosie’s, she’s unavailable. Frankie knows you probably don’t know what going to the diner with him means but he assumes if you did, you wouldn’t go. So he decides that the less you knew the better – well at least that’s what Tom decided.

“Ya know, doll. I like the way you say my name, but how ‘bout ya just call me Frankie, huh? I don’t use the entire thing anymore.”

You cock your head to the side and your smiles turns into a slight frown. “Do you not like the way Francisco sounds?”

He tucks his hands into his jean pockets, shrugs, and looks down at his dirty Chuck Taylors. “Thanks, I do like it, but it don’t… it don’t sound cool, you know? I got a reputation to keep up – all the guys do.”

Frankie stopped using the name Francisco at the start of freshman year. Pope stopped using Santiago around the same time. Their teachers would call them Francis and Saint because they found it difficult to pronounce the boys’ names correctly. Frankie was too shy to say anything and Pope was still unsure about his accented English, so when Will laughed and told the teacher, “Ain’t that a bite? You got a degree, but can’t pronounce an ABC name,” the boys knew Will was going to be a great friend. The boys thought that would be the end of it, but then Benny decided to join his brother and say, “How ‘bout, since ya feel so high and mighty, you call ‘em Frankie and Pope? We got Francisco like that city on the west coast, so call ‘em Frankie. Then we got Santiago. You wanna call ‘em Saint, then give ‘em the highest honor.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better,” you stopped walking and placed a hand on his arm. “I like your name. I think it suits you very well.”

He smiles and nods. He doesn’t know if he’s nodding because he’s convincing himself he likes it too or if he’s nodding because he’s glad you like it too. He liked your company because you weren’t too invasive, but he could also tell that you wanted to get to know him. He knew he wasn’t the most open to people, he has his father to thank for that.

As young 19-year-old – about a year older than Frankie – his father was drafted and fought in World War 1 in 1918 as a US Army soldier and was then sent off to France a few weeks in to fight with the AEF, the American Expeditionary Forces. Because of this, Frankie’s father wasn’t the most expressive when in public but was easily the most caring when it came to his family. When Frankie was growing up, his father had spoiled his baby boy and made sure he worked hard as a welder so that Frankie wouldn’t want for anything. Frankie remembers his father coming home from work late at night, oil and bits of metal stuck to him, and always turning his frown into a smile when he laid eyes upon his son.

His father’s closure to the world only grew when he saw his family in danger. Frankie figured that by growing up within a military family, it would lead to him serving in the military as his father did before him. When Frankie was coming to the age of enlistment, he told his family about him wanting to go off to the military, but his father was very much against it. All his father wanted for his son was for Frankie to live his life the way he wanted to, so Frankie didn’t enlist. One day when Frankie was at school, recruiters came to the Morales home and were knocking the door down. Frankie’s father had informed them that his son would not be serving. He was told that because Frankie was able, male, and was soon to be of age, he had to enlist whether he was needed or not. His father complied; except he wrote his own name down instead of his son’s.

His father never regretted going to war. He still had nightmares, which Frankie knew all too well. He had met Frankie’s mother when he came back home in 1921 and after years of trying, he was blessed with a son in 1935. All was good in the world until the year 1950 – Frankie was 15 years old. In August of 1950, a letter came in the post reading the following:

SIR: FRANCISCO MORALES SR.

You are hereby notified that you, on the 21 day of August of 1950, have been legally drafted in the service to the Armed Forces of the United States of America. You are to report to the Armed Forces station below and will be transported to Daejeon, Korea.

Frankie’s father never came back.

His body was never recovered – just his ID tags. Frankie’s mother was told that the last transmission received with the whereabouts of Francisco Morales Sr. were near the Nakdong River in South Korea. Frankie always carried his father’s ID tags around his neck no matter where he went. Those tags always reassured him of himself knowing that he was doing what his father wanted him to do.

Frankie walked you down the steps of school building and stopped at the sidewalk. “Ya know, if ya need a ride, I can take ya home – aint no trouble.”

You smile and shake your head. “I appreciate that. I told my mother I’d take the bus back home.” You knew your mother would have a fit if she saw you get dropped off by a boy, but she may still be at work. You looked back at Frankie and saw that he had a slight frown on his face as he played with a necklace hidden in his white t-shirt. You weren’t sure the reason behind it, but he didn’t want to pry. “Actually, I’ll take a ride.”

His eyes lit up and nodded. “Great but I do gotta warn ya, doll. I gotta take Ironhead and Benny back to their place. Pope usually goes back to mines.” A ride home in a car full of teenage boys – what can go wrong?

The pair of you walk down to the school’s parking lot and there you see students laughing in their cars – 4 to 5 in a car – all while having a smoke and others are drinking from beer cans. You have no doubt that it’s beer cans when one gets tossed towards you with left over beer splattering over your white skirt. Frankie takes notice of the yellow stains and the grimace growing on your face. He looks over at the teenagers in a beat-up Chevy.

“Aye watch where ya tossin’ shit, birdbrain.” The teens look over at Frankie and walk over to him. You place a hand on his arm and look up at him.

“Frankie, c’mon. Let’s just go to your car, huh?” you plead. His arm tightens and as the teens arrive in front of him, Frankie protectively put you behind him and adjusts his jacket – a tick of his you’ve taken note of. The three boys who walked over to Frankie look over at you and smirk.

“Well shit Frankie, pal.” One of them takes a smoke and blows the out towards his side. “You already smashin’ up this little new betty? Don’t you work fast… first Michelle, then Tiffany, now this one?”

Frankie’s jaw tightens and his hold on your arm shifts. “How ‘bout you stuff it, Jack? You know you ain’t even supposed to be here. This ain’t your turf.”

Jack removes his hat, a cowboy hat he’s become fond of, and fixes his hair. He puts it back on and laughs. “You’re right, but I clearly don’t care. Oberyn ain’t out the can ‘till Friday, so I call the shots. My boys wanna be here and screw all these chick-a-dees, then they will. I know you ain’t gon’ do nothin’.”

“He will,” you hear a click and quickly turn your head to see Pope and the boys, Benny holding up a pocketknife. “But he ain’t doin’ it alone either.” The Bandits circle the three men and puff up their chests.

“Alright,” Jack holds his hands up. “We’re gone but trust me when I say that Oberyn ain’t gon’ be too happy to hear this.” With that he snaps his head over to his boys directing them back to their car. They turn to leave and Jack walks away backwards. When he’s satisfied with the distance between himself and The Bandits, he turns on his heel and runs to his car. He jumps in the driver’s seat, gives his girl a smooch, and revs the engine – with that he’s gone.

Pope looks at you and gives your shoulder a quick squeeze. “You good? Hope those bumrats ain’t spook ya too bad.” You shake your head and smile shyly. You look down at your ruined skirt and shrug.

“Just a ruined skirt but that’s okay. I wasn’t fond of it.” Will laughs at your comment fluffs yours skirt from the bottom, earning a nudge from Frankie.

“Let’s get her home, huh? I gotta drop off everyone else,” Frankie says. Tom tells Frankie that he’s got detention and to go on without him. Tom goes back towards the building while everyone piles up in Frankie’s Cherry Red 1945 Mustang GT – his father’s gift to him for his 15th birthday, also his last gift.

Per usual, Benny and Will leans the driver’s seat forwards and get in to sit in the back while Pope goes to sit in his usual spot as shotgun. Frankie tuts at Pope and points to the back. Pope scoffs but shoots Frankie a wink. He gets in and sits in between the brothers, being the smallest of the three, and Frankie runs over to open the door for you to sit up front. He grabs your books and hands them to Pope. As you situate yourself and buckle your seatbelt, Frankie gets in and turns on his baby. He revvs the engine and backs up out the school’s parking garage, but not before revving his engine one more time for the freshmen per Benny’s request.

On the drive to the brother’s house, Benny grabs your notebook and looks through your notes of the day. He looks through the math notes you took during 4th period and immediately closes it. “You sure are smart if you’re taking this angle stuff. I’m guessing it’s college prep?”

You look over your shoulder and nod. “I’m currently taking college preparatory trigonometry. They unfortunately didn’t have any other advanced placement for me here.”

The boys let out a harmony of “ohs” and Will shakes Frankie’s shoulder. “Frankie! She’s smart like you, buddy!”

Pope smirks and joins in on the teasing. “Lo vez, hermano! Being smart doesn’t make you un-cool. Being you does! No te hagas ver como el tonto porque no lo eres.”

You see, brother… don’t make yourself seem dumb because you aren’t.

You look at Pope and smile. “I agree with you, Santiago. Frankie is very intelligent so he shouldn’tdumb himself down because he thinks that’s what people think of him.” Pope stops and looks at you. “You know some Spanish, angel face?” You eagerly nod. “I’m very familiar with the language. They had us choose electives at my old school. I took Spanish, Italian, and French. I had a lot of a free time.”

Pope looks at you in shock but happily hollers. “Well sugar you sound pretty good speakin’ ‘em”

You couldn’t explain it, but you felt giddy. You felt happy to be around the boys and you knew you wanted to continue to be around them.

With Frankie getting out of the car and moving his seat forward, Will and Benny get dropped off first, but not without teasing him about “asking the chick.” Frankie flips them off and Pope lets out a belly laugh. Frankie apologetically looks at you and mouths sorry. You blush and mouth that’s okay.

Once leaving the brothers, Pope tells Frankie to turn up the radio. Frankie looks at Pope through the rearview mirror and narrows his eyes. “Switch to 12,” Pope says with a wink. Frankie rolls his eyes and turns the knob so the needle hits channel 12. Once Frankie hears the recognizable melody from “Takes Two to Tango” by Pearl Bailey. Frankie goes to switch the channel, but you stop his hand. He glances over to you and he sees you mouthing the words. He looks back at Pope who wiggles his eyebrows and sings out loud and to Frankie’s surprise, you join Pope singing at the top of your lungs. He laughs at your attempts at dancing in your seat and looks back at Pope who was waving his hands in the air.

Frankie thought that you’d be this proper, shy little thing but here you were having singing and laughing with his best friend. You gave him the slightest nudge and smiled in his direction. “C’mon Frankie. Don’t be a sour puss. I know you know this song!” You were right. He did know this song. He and Pope sang it so much because Pope thought he could woo some girl – he didn’t really know what the lyrics meant so you can guess what happened. If you guessed he slept with her… you’d be correct.

You poked Frankie in the ribs light enough to not affect his driving and giggled as he sang out with Pope. You liked seeing this Frankie – not that big tough guy you saw at the parking lot. He seemed like he had a big heart but was scared to show it and you were determined, but you were ripped away from your internal planning when Frankie politely asked for your address.

“It’s a shame you ain’t hangin’ longer sweetheart,” Pope began. “I think you’d like being around us two mucks. You would definitely like Frankie’s mom’s cooking. She makes the best food in town.” You smiled as the two best friends bickered about whose mom had the best food.

“I would have loved to, but I have to be home and do chores before my mother gets home.”

Frankie looks over to you and gives you a reassuring smile. “It’s alright. Maybe next time, cool?” You smile at the invitation and nod. Frankie continues to drive as you and Pope make a conversation about the possibility of you tutoring him in math. With them being high school seniors, they are not failing one class.

You feel on top of the world, laughing and talking with your new friends, until you spot the yellow Pontiac in the driveway and your mother coming out of it. Your face drops and the boys immediately take notice.

“What’s wrong?” Frankie asks. You straighten out your top and ask Pope for your books as you ready yourself to run out of the car. You look at Frankie and offer a weak smile.

“My mother won’t be happy with me is all.” You’d ask Frankie to drop you off a couple of houses before your own, but you know your mother has already seen you. As Frankie pulls up to your house, the boys’ jaws drop. You wouldn’t say your house was big, but to the boys, it was huge. Your two-story home consisted of 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The exterior of the home was beige with dark brown trimming and the river rock pathway leading up to your home was lined with grass so green you’d think it was plastic.

Your mother, dressed to the nines in a pale pink dress and white belt, looks at the hot rod parked in front of her home and places her hands on her hips as she sees Frankie run out and open your door. Your mother would normally love seeing her daughter be treated by a gentleman, but she isn’t very happy to see that it’s Frankie. She has always dreamed of her daughter being courted by a young man in polished Oxford shoes and ironed pleated pants not a worn out leather jacket and dirty chucks.

You thank Frankie for the ride and look over at your upset mother. The boys say hello to her as she gives them the ungenuine smile of hers you have seen many times. You wave goodbye to both boys and begin to walk up to your mother. You hear whispers behind you and then you hear your mother say, “Is there something else you’d like to say, boy?”

You turn and you see Pope shove Frankie towards you. His face turns red as he sees your mother staring him down and he knows that this may not be the best time to ask you.

“On with it, young man. My daughter and I have work to do.”

Frankie once again runs his hand through his hair and clears his throat. “I- I, uh, I was wonderin’ if ya wanted to hang with us at Rosie’s on Friday. The shakes are pretty good so we could ma-“

“What’s your name, young man?” You look at your mother. You narrow your eyes at her for interrupting Frankie.

“It-It’s Frankie,” he stutters, “my name’s Frankie, ma’am.”

Your mother gives her less than friendly smile again. “Well, Frankie, you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I tell you this – you are not the kind of person I want my daughter befriending. You just don’t quite… how can I put this nicely? You don’t fit a mother’s standards.”

“Mother!”

“Quiet.” she tells you. “You will not be around these boys again, do you understand? Your father works too hard for you to just ruin your life like this. You asked to be taken out of the pristine private school we paid for you to go to and we allowed you to enroll in public school. Why are you bringing home some… some hoodlum! How can you do this to us?”

You wished this had surprised you, but it wasn’t the first time your mother disrespected your choice of friends. You huffed and you felt tears coming to your eyes as you saw Frankie’s defeated look in his eyes and Pope fighting the urge to get out of the car.

You mother calls your name, and you turn to look at her. She walks to you, heels clicking the pavement, and cups your jaw. “You will not associate yourself with these boys, do we understand each other?” You see Frankie nod to you and walk back to his car. You look back at your mother and nod. “Yes, Mother. I understand.” Your mother smiles at you and gives your cheek a pat. “Good girl. Now… get inside and put that skirt in the hamper. Your allowance is going towards a new skirt.”

She leads you into the house and you look back and see Frankie’s car is still there. You stop in your tracks and look at your mother. “Mother, may I please run back and grab a paper I left?”

“Is it school related?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well. Go grab it and say goodbye and come back in. We have to get dinner going.” You nod and run back to the car and your mother walks into the house.

Pope rolls down the passenger side window and both boys look at you. You smile at Pope and look at Frankie.

“Does Rosie’s Diner have sundaes?” Pope smirks and turns to Frankie while Frankie nods with a confused face. “Well,” you start, “If Friday’s invitation is still open, pick me up by the green house down the street at 6pm. She’ll be going to my grandmother’s house up north.”

“Sounds like a plan, doll.”

The light breeze surprises you as it picks up the more you walk down the street. You walk past two houses and you see the red backlights of the cherry red mustang you seemed to miss.

Your mother, thankfully, left to your grandmother’s home about two hours ago, much earlier than expected. She called not very long ago to make sure you were home and doing homework. You told her that you were planning to retire early as your homework began to give you a headache. She insisted you eat dinner and sleep as she didn’t want to see eyebags under your eyes when she got back tomorrow. She bid you goodnight and said she’d be home by tomorrow’s lunchtime. Once you hung the phone on the hook, you ran to your room and began to ready yourself for the night.

You grew giddy as 6 o’clock crept closer and closer. You had applied your blush and mascara so carefully you’d have thought you were dusting the finest of china. You did not want to wear too much makeup; you didn’t want to seem as though you were trying too hard. You picked out the pins out of the curls on your head you’d put up right when your mother left and watched as the soft and tight curls fell and framed your face. You grabbed your wide tooth comb and brushed the curls out, parting your side at a side so there was more hair and volume on one side. You sprayed a tight hold hairspray all over so you could make sure your hair stood – Frankie wouldn’t want to see frazzled hair, no man would, you thought.

As you went through your closet, you decided that a dress was the best choice as it was simple enough to either be dressed up or dressed down. You went with a white collared black dress with thin white windowpane patterned lines all over. You wore your black flats and added a black shiny belt running across the waist. You get closer to Frankie’s car and you see him get out of his car – you figured he had seen you coming.

“How ya doin’ there, doll?”

“Hello, Frankie.” You wave and get closer to him. Once you’re in front of him you fix his jacket lapel and look up at him. “Aren’t you sight for sworn eyes.”

His eyes widen then starts laughing loudly and your face goes red. He nearly falls in laughter as his hands catch himself on his knees. “W-What’d ya just say?”

“I said aren’t you a sight for sworn eyes,” you frown. “Is that not appropriate?”

He catches his breath and puts a hand on his belly. He reaches over and tucks your hair behind your ear with the other hand. “The saying is a sight for sore eyes, doll; not sworn eyes.”

You feel as if your face is about to burst as you start laughing at yourself. You just cannot believe you’ve messed up your first attempt at flirting with Frankie. “I was really sure it was sworn.”

He smiles brightly and shakes his head. “Hey… can’t say ya ain’t tried right?” You giggle and nod. He look you up and down and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Te vez hermosa.” You look beautiful.

Have you ever had that feeling when there’s a puppy trying to get comfortable, but it can’t so it walks over to you and lays with you – falling into a deep and peaceful sleep? You know how it makes your heart feel as if it’s grown twice in size because the puppy chose you and trusted you to protect it while it slept? That’s how you felt when those words came out of Frankie’s mouth.

“Muchas gracias, Francisco.” Thank you very much, Francisco.

He playfully rolls his eyes at you and lets out a laugh. He points to the car and says, “get in the damn car.” He runs over to your door and lets you in, as per usual, and off you two went to Rosie’s Diner.

Frankie leads you into a bright neon-lit diner not very far from your home, about 25 minutes from your place. The diner stands out from the black concrete parking lot and pine trees decorating its background. He opens the light brown doors and places a hand on your lower back as you walk in – not too low or too high.

“Howdy’ho kiddos.” You’re greeted by a woman in her late 40’s or early 50s – the grey hair and sweet smile give it away. “Hey there, Frankie. Bandits meetin’ ya here?”

Frankie smiles at the woman, gives her a hug, and a quick kiss on the cheek; a kiss she smiles at and hums in content. “Hey Ro. Boys are comin’ in a while. You know they ain’t missin’ your special tonight.”

“There’s a special night every night for my favorite bandits, Frankie. Who’s this, huh? You finally bringin’ a girl for me to meet?” Frankie shakes his head from side to side smiling. He turns to you and introduces you to Rosie, the diner’s owner and one of his favorite people. “She’s new in town and I wanted to show her the best diner in the world.”

Rosie slaps Frankie’s arm and laughs. “Stop talkin’ sweet ‘fore your teeth rot, boy. You’re too pretty to be all gums now. I knew my boys were comin; your usual booth’s open, but take the table next to it, yeah. Ya need the extra seat ‘less you sittin’ the girl on ya lap.” Frankie begins to stutter a protest as you stifle a laugh.

“It’s very nice to meet you Miss Rosie. I’m in awe of your diner and excited to try your food.”

“Well it’s very nice to meet the girl who Frankie finally decided to bring to the diner. It’s a very special moment in his life ya know?” You cock your head to the side and take a quick glance at Frankie.

“Why’s that, Miss Rosie?”

As Rosie was about to explain the beginning of courtships of 99% of the teenagers in town, Frankie dragged you away with the dramatic excuse of being so hungry he can eat a horse and how he’ll drop dead if he doesn’t get a shake.

As you make it to the table Rosie had sent you to, you’d think that Frankie would have pulled out your chair, but a couple of some teens you remember seeing at school look in yours and Frankie’s direction whispering among themselves. You took a seat and looked at Frankie to ask if he knew them but as you were about to ask, you saw his face looking back at them with a deep stare. He gave them a single nod towards the door and to your surprise, they ran. Frankie scanned the room and he knew everyone would be taking in the scene. Frankie had never taken a girl out in public – especially not a girl like you. Sure people knew about other girls he’s been with, but everyone knew they weren’t together.

Frankie sat down after everyone in the diner turned their attention back to where it previously was and he passes you a diner menu, but still tense due to the eyes that locked with his back once more.

When the waitress you learned was named Vi and was obsessed with Will, Frankie had ordered a basket of fries for the two to share, a cherry soda for him and a sundae of your pick for you. Vi was also an older woman, best friends with Rosie, and had an innocent crush on Will’s blonde self. Frankie told you about the time Will brought Vi a bouquet of flowers for her birthday and Vi almost attacked the poor kid to the ground with kisses. Vi was sweet and she made you feel very good about yourself as she fixed your collar and fluffed your hair because “her Frankie needs to see what he’s got in front of him.”

You were nearly done with your sundae as you heard the distinctive pitch that is Benny’s voice as he said “What’s cookin’ good lookin’ don’t you look like a dream,” and wrapped an arm around your shoulder. You greet each and every one of the boys as they take their seats around the table – Benny calling dibs on one of the seats next to you. Benny puts his arm around the back rest of your white chair and calls Vi over to place a new order.

As the night continues, you feel free. You feel so relaxed and at ease with the boys around you that you don’t even notice the dirty looks some girls were giving you. Benny puts his head on your shoulder and give his cheek a little pat resulting in Benny playfully trying to bite your hand. Frankie clears his throat and Benny looks over at him and smirks.

“I ain’t trynna steal ya girl, Frankie. If she hangin’ with us, ya gotta get used to us playin ‘round.”

Frankie turns red as Benny calls you “his girl” and rolls his eyes with a chuckle. He looks out the window and immediately tenses. You follow his gaze and see a 1942 black Ford with some boys in it – one of the being that Jack guy from school – revv its engine as it speeds back and forth through the parking lot. He grabs the boys eyes and directs them towards the window and Benny stands up immediately. The boys follow suit and Frankie turns to you.

“Stay here alright, doll? We’ll be back.”

You turn from Frankie to the window and back to Frankie with a worried look painting your face. “What’s going on Frankie?”

“They shouldn’t be here. This ain-“ You both turn at the sound of a crash and see Pope being held against Frankie’s car by a guy in a black tee with its sleeves rolled. Frankie runs out of the diner and you run after him. You know you shouldn’t be getting in between this, but you aren’t going to let anyone hurt your new friends.

Frankie runs up behind this guy, turns him around, and shoves him away from his car and friends. The guy smirks and nods at Frankie. “Did you miss me Frankie?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Oberyn? We already told ya friend there that this ain’t your turf.”

You had to admit, Oberyn had this strut to him that showed his self-confidence and the combination of his flirtatious smile and smoldering eyes only made him more attractive than he already was. Jack came to stand next to him and as he turned to toss some keys over to another friend of his, you caught sight of the word VIPERS with two snakes on the back of his jacket.

“Yeah… he told me ‘bout it. But ya anna know what else Jackie told me? He told me that ya got ya’self a knockout.” Oberyn locks eyes with you and winks. He tries to walk over to you, but Frankie pushes back and away from you.

“Don’t get near her.” Oberyn lets out a sarcastic chuckle and gets in Frankie’s face.

“How ‘bout ya make me, Morales?”

The next thing you knew, you were yelling and crying with Will held you away as you saw Frankie and Oberyn duke it out on the concrete while Benny and Pope tried to pry Oberyn away – Jack and some other guy pushing them away. You caught a glimpse of Frankie’s bruising cheek and Oberyn’s bloody nose. You only noticed the officer’s arrival once Will dragged you back in the diner and making sure Rosie held you back as he ran back to be by Frankie’s side when the local sheriff gets out the car.

dreamboat taglist:

@ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @funerals-with-cake @seasonschange-butpeopledont

#frankie catfish morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #francisco morales #francisco catfish morales #francisco morales x you #francisco catfish morales x reader #francisco morales x reader #frankie morales x you #catfish morales #francisco catfish morales x you #triple frontier #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal #dreamboat #catfish morales x you #catfish morales x reader

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jalebi-weds-bluetooth · 4 years

Note

Hello Soapy! Hope all's well with you. I remembered a rhyme - Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. I know we both are accident prone and are goldfishes and since I had my moment sleep walking in the dark, I would like you to share some of Arshi's best falls and any of your fall stories. Personally I have a thing for airports, roads and stairs (flat surfaces are good too :P) with no Rabba ve or Arnav to catch me, yet -.- Usually I cry and crib and then laugh about it. This is my silly ask- Yours, RDX

Hello Soapy! I don't have any asks . Just came to say hello hi and hope all of you are doing well. I ended up stalking you and Ridz so much that ended up on your IF posts (I also unfortunately remember your old ID and some of your friends from back then) I am so happy for you and R and the positive response you've got. Love the blog and the podcasts! This goldfish filters out all key information and remembers the unnecessary stuff :P Sending love, positivity, and prayers <3 You know who :P

Hello hello :D

I am very tired :) But I am doing well as currently my biggest source of entertainment is @tellywoodtrash‘s live-blogging of IMMJ 2. I have never been more in touch with my crack self than now. Someone give a Noble entertainment prize to TT for making things SO MUCH BETTER.

Thank you for the positive wishes <3 Ugh, don’t remind me of what I wrote in IF... my Tumblr is the most reliable page right now (don’t know how I’ll react five years later).

Haha, yeah the road and I have a full on love story going on. I seem to kiss it pretty frequently.

Best falls of Arnav Khushi

- Khushi falling into Arnav’s lap, fashion show.

- Arnav, Khushi falling in rangoli, pre Diwali.

- Arnav, Khushi falling on the ground with flowers falling above them in Gupta House.

- Arnav, Khushi falling on their bed during their Delhi main Bali honeymoon.

- Arnav, Khushi, falling on the bed post Namak Ishq Ka dance sequence.

My fall stories

I seem to be amazing on crooked surfaces, and terrible on flat! Once I didn’t even fall, but it was a terrible slip. It was rainy so the floor of the bus was wet. My foot slipped before I could sit on my seat and my shin directly hit the metal seat bar in front of me. The pain was TERRIBLE. I blacked out for half a sec. Thought I’d immediately puke from the pain. Had a chocolate, popped it in my mouth, and somehow felt... better?

Also once I slipped and landed perfectly on my butt, so it looked like I was sitting on the sidewalk XD

Also...

- fell in front of oncoming traffic

- fell from stairs at least 10 times

- slipped on ice and fell twice

- fell on my way to an Uber, broke my glasses, nearly blacked out and puked from the pain

- fell face first in university while running to my class

- fell thrice from trying to ride a cycle

- fell on rocky desert while trying to race my cousin. Ouch.

- had a friend stop by fall once but he accidentally had grabbed my arm so hard that I still got the pain I would’ve got if I fell down.

Much love,

- Soapy

#ask #my best friend rdx #favorite scenes #arshi falls

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kaesaaurelia · 3 years

Text

books and reading in 2021

Overall I’d like to read at least 65 books for 2021 and I’d like for most of those to be new-to-me and things I either already own or have listed as to-read on Goodreads.

So far I have read 11/65 books and 4 fanworks.

Themed reading challenge checklists and brief book reviews are under the cut. I may or may not finish any of these challenges; again, my goal is to cut down my to-be-read list and unread books I own, and themes and deadlines help me pick a book rather than hemming and hawing.

Book reviews answer the questions “Did I like it? Was it good? Would I recommend it?” (please note these are very different questions) and how many stars I rated it.

I may put fanfiction, webfiction, and other things that are very much not traditional books down on here as well, depending on how booklike I’ve decided they are.

The FFA reading challenge, 2021 (2/12 books)

JANUARY - The Pandemic Year - a medical thriller, or a book about medicine The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum Did I like it? Yeah! Was it good? I think so. Sometimes the prose meandered in such a way that I felt the author was kind of saying dun dun dun! under her breath at me, and I was like “idk, is that significant?” but usually it was good. Would I recommend it? Do you have a strong stomach? Then sure. 4 stars

FEBRUARY - Macavity/Ratigan - a genre you wouldn't normally read Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone, book 1 in the Jane Doe series Did I like it? Yes! Very much! The power fantasy of being able to take vengeance against people who hurts your loved ones, without feeling bad about it, was really appealing to me, a person who feels guilt over a frankly ridiculous number of things. It was also genuinely funny. Was it good? I thought so. The narrator had a really strong voice that struck the right balance between creepy cold indifference and endearing little moments of self-discovery. Would I recommend it? Yes, but with the caveat that there’s some pretty serious emotional abuse of the protagonist’s false persona (which she encourages and privately gloats about), and she also gets close to committing serious violence, including fantasizing at length about it. 5 stars

MARCH – 100+ Comments of Terror - a book set in the arctic, or a book about an expedition In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic by Valerian Albanov (ordered)

APRIL - Sexy John Oliver Rat – a book about animals, or a book with a character called Oliver or Olivia A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (hardcover)

MAY - A Feud in Wolf-Kink Erotica - a book involving wolves, the legal system, or ripped from the headlines Song of the Summer King by Jess Owen (ebook)

JUNE - Showerhead Wank - a comedy of manners, an etiquette manual, or a book where someone wanks or has sex

JULY – My Shithead Is What You Are! - a book with profanity in it, or a book about themes of censorship

AUGUST - Yep, Still Indoors - a book involving travel, or being stuck in one place

SEPTEMBER - Socktopus, Maybe? - a book where someone has a secret identity, or a book about aquatic animals

OCTOBER - Politics is Sequestered – a book involving politics or politicians Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko (owned in DRM’d ebook)

NOVEMBER - It's Canon in Spanish - read a book originally written in Spanish, or set in Latin America

DECEMBER - Apple Is a One Syllable Word - a book about language/linguistics/etc., or a book with a two syllable title.

Around the Year in 52 Books (8/52 books)

A book related to “In the Beginning...”: (Using the subprompt a book set in the ancient world) The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson Did I like it? Yes; it was definitely a less comfortable read than prior translations I have read, but a more interesting one, I think. A lot of details leapt out at me that I had either forgotten or that had been overlooked in the 3ish literature classes I have read the Odyssey for. Was it good? Yes! Would I recommend it? Probably, with the caveat that if you are just in it for a cool mythology story you would probably prefer an adaptation rather than a translation. 5 stars

A book by an author whose name doesn't contain the letters A, T or Y The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Did I like it? I really read this for the worldbuilding of Hell, so I liked that; to some extent I did also like some of the musings on how a lot of human foibles that people like to think of as virtues can actually be kind of shitty. On the other hand, Lewis and I disagree about a lot of things -- mostly that whole Christianity thing. So I liked it with caveats. Was it good? It was okay! Again, I was not really there for the Christianity stuff. I am never there for the Christianity stuff. I am either precisely the wrong audience for all of C.S. Lewis’ stuff, or, if you look at it a certain way, precisely the right audience, but even if you look at it that way, he is never going to convince me; I wrote furious postcanon fanfiction about the dwarfs when I reread the Narnia books as a teenager and realized they were meant to represent people like me. Would I recommend it? Probably not? Unless you frequently write demons or other evil creatures trying to figure out how humans work, which I guess I am. 4 stars but only because that reveal at the end is great

A book related to the lyrics for the song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (The cover depicts a rose with raindrops or dewdrops on it.) Ensnared by Rita Stradling Did I like it? In a sense. In a sense, I enjoyed this book. It was a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and I like Beauty and the Beast. There were robots, and I like robots. And it certainly gave me something fun to talk about. However, it also inspired me to try and figure out when and why I acquired this book, and while I still don’t know why I bought it, I was relieved to find that I only paid 99 cents for it. For a more thorough description of the plot, please see my Goodreads review. It was a weird book to start with, and then it really, really didn’t age well. Was it good? IT SURE WASN’T. Would I recommend it? No. However, if you decide to read it I’d love to hear what you think. Please. Please talk to me about this book. 2 stars

A book with a monochromatic cover The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson Did I like it? Yes, very much! Also it accidentally became fic research. I genuinely was just thinking “where do I slip Leonard into this narrative so he can try and fail to sabotage the Ferris Wheel?” and then I began to think about how much Leonard would admire and envy H. H. Holmes’ ladykilling ways. But in general it was a really good read and had a lot of... Chicagoness, which I of course am fond of. Was it good? I thought so! Obviously a lot of the narratives of Holmes’ murders were mostly the author’s speculation, but there were a lot of great research tidbits in there, and the picture the author paints of the World’s Fair was vivid and wonderful. Would I recommend it? Yes, with the warning that this is true crime and there is vivid narration of several murders, including the murders of several children. 5 stars

A book by an author on USA Today's list of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, book 1 of the Patternmaster series Did I like it? Yes, but it was intense. It takes a lot of skill to keep me reading and invested through so many horrors; the protagonist’s children and loved ones die on-page multiple times, in horrible accidents or senselessly murdered, and it hurts every time, but I kept reading. Admittedly I am (predictably) extremely here for immortal enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies angst, so that was probably part of it. Was it good? Yes! I am kind of sad that I’m not just moving on to the next in the series (there are 3 more books), but also, god, I’m not sure I could handle it. Would I recommend it? Yes, definitely, with the caveat that it is very dark and very sad. 5 stars

A love story Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha, book 1 of the Mercenary Librarians series Did I like it? It was good! I gather both of the authors who are Kit Rocha were (are still?) in fandom, and it shows in the right ways; it doesn’t shy away from depicting sex pretty explicitly but there’s a lot of emotion in it, and the main couple is a m/f couple without the book being unpleasantly heteronormative. Like, yeah, it’s about a big butch macho dude who’s broken inside and a woman who’s very caring, but the big butch macho dude is genuinely kind and not like, violent for the hell of it or overprotectively jealous, and the woman doesn’t drop everything to Heal His Pain. (Also I think most of the characters, including the romantic leads, are established to have had same-gender lovers at one point or another without that being considered unusual or wrong in the setting, so that’s nice.) It’s also a cheerful and optimistic post-apocalyptic book about two found families coming together to make the world a better place, despite the very grim backstories of pretty much everyone in the story, which is really nice. Was it good? It was okay. It was good popcorny reading; it’s not winning any literature prizes, but it sets out to be fun and readable and exciting, and it is all of those things. Also, as noted above, the prose has a lot of the strengths of fanfic (not being afraid to mix genres, not being afraid of writing sex earnestly and emotionally but also explicitly, strong emotional focus) without the much-derided stereotypical weaknesses of fanfic. Would I recommend it? Probably? This isn’t a must-read; it’s happy to be idfic so if it sounds like it’d scratch your id I would recommend it, but it might not be Your Thing and that’s okay too. 4 stars

A book that fits a prompt suggestion that didn't make the final list (Using the subprompt a book related to a local industry or small business) The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld by Herbert Asbury Did I like it? NO. NO I DID NOT. It made me genuinely angry. It was a useful read for fic research and unfortunately I’ve got it in my little fic-writing reference material corner in my office but I DID NOT LIKE THIS BOOK IT WAS VERY BAD. Many questionable or outright incorrect assertions and implications, and extremely racist and sexist. For details, see my review on Goodreads. Was it good? It was actively bad. Would I recommend it? Not unless you are interested in it historiographically, or on the off chance that you are trying to find some fiddly details about a particular bit of Chicago crime history, but also have no responsibility to make sure those fiddly details are correct when you use them in the project. 1 star

A book set in a state, province, or country you have never visited The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager Did I like it? It was okay. It was definitely interesting but not amazingly life-changing. Was it good? It was fine! I did think the underlying rape case was handled surprisingly sensitively given that this was a male author writing about 20 years ago about a medieval rape accusation and trial, but there is a chapter that is basically just the victim’s account of her rape, and it’s very brutal. Would I recommend it? Do you want to understand more about trial by combat in the Middle Ages, and/or learn about how medieval people treated rape victims? You should definitely read this book. But if that doesn’t particularly interest you, probably not. 3 stars

A book you associate with a specific season or time of year Summers at Castle Auburn (ebook borrowed from CPL)

A book with a female villain or criminal Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott (owned in paperback)

A book to celebrate The Grand Egyptian Museum The Oasis by Pauline Gedge (ebook)

A book eligible for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa (on hold at CPL; est. 3 week wait)

A book written by an author of one of your best reads of 2020 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (on hold at CPL; est. 10 week wait???)

A book set in a made-up place Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey (paperback)

A book that features siblings as the main characters Sisters One, Two, Three by Nancy Star (ebook)

A book with a building in the title

A book with a Muslim character or author

3 books related to "Past, Present, Future" - Book 1

3 books related to "Past, Present, Future" - Book 2

3 books related to "Past, Present, Future" - Book 3

A book whose title and author both contain the letter "u"

A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads

A cross genre novel

A book about racism or race relations

A book set on an island

A short book (<210 pages) by a new-to-you author

A book with a character who can be found in a deck of cards

A book connected to ice

A book that you consider comfort reading

A long book

A book by an author whose career spanned more than 21 years

A book whose cover shows more than 2 people

A collection of short stories, essays, or poetry

A book with a travel theme

A book set in a country on or below the Tropic of Cancer

A book with six or more words in the title

A book from the Are You Well Read in World Literature list

A book related to a word given by a random word generator

A book involving an immigrant

A book with flowers or greenery on the cover

A book by a new-to-you BIPOC author

A mystery or thriller

A book with elements of magic

A book whose title contains a negative

A book related to a codeword from the NATO Phonetic Alphabet

A winner or nominee from the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards

A non-fiction book other than biography, autobiography or memoir

A book that might cause someone to react “You read what?!?” Missing 411: Eastern United States by David Paulides (terrible pdf copy I’m not paying $100 for a book about extradimensional bigfoot)

A book with an ensemble cast

A book published in 2021

A book whose title refers to person(s) without giving their name

A book related to "the end"

There’s No Business Like Snow Business February Reading Challenge (8/8)

Snow is precipitation in the form of small white ice crystals formed directly from the water vapor of the air at a temperature of less than 0°C (32°F).

Read a book that has snow on the cover or snow in the title. Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps by Fergus Fleming Did I like it? It was okay. There was more about the personalities involved in early mountaineering than I did about actual mountain-climbing, which was fine, but didn’t get really exciting until those personalities got really dysfunctional. Was it good? Again, it was okay. The prose wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t gripping, and there was some odd (lack of) translation on occasion. The research seemed thorough and solid, though. Would I recommend it? Not really, unless you are specifically looking to research the Alps or early European mountain-climbing enthusiasts for a writing project or something, in which case, of course. 3 stars

Precipitation: Read a book that has any weather related term in the title. Trail of Lightning, book 1 of The Sixth World, by Rebecca Roanhorse Did I like it? Yes! This took me back to my first forays into urban fantasy as a preteen/young teen. I loved the Diana Tregarde books and also Harry Turtledove’s The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump, and whenever I want urban fantasy that’s kind of the pattern I’m looking for? An unfriendly world full of myths that are real and living and breathing and otherworldly but also they are probably trying to bum a cigarette off you. I haven’t reread my favorite childhood urban fantasy because I think it probably won’t hold up, and later urban fantasy has mostly been not quite what I wanted, but this book was like being that kid all over again. I’m not super familiar with Dine folklore/mythology so it was neat to learn a little bit about that, too, although obviously to learn those stories maybe don’t go to an urban fantasy novel. Was it good? It was pretty good! The prose wasn’t like, stylistically exciting, but it conveyed the plot well, and I did like the narrative voice, and the characterization was good, I thought. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Content warning for violence (as per urban fantasy) and a child dies violently early on in the book, but if you were the kind of kid I was but you’re not really into paranormal romance or Harry Dresden, give it a try. 4 stars

Small: Read a book that has less than 200 pages. A Butt in the Mist: Stirred to the Core of My Bodice by the Duchess Triceratops of Helena by Chuck Tingle Did I like it? I mostly did, but it wasn’t super exciting. I liked the free book afterwards better. It was funny, but Chuck’s been funnier. Was it good? This 4,000 word book was written with all the quality and attention to detail that I have come to expect from beloved author Chuck Tingle. Would I recommend it? Not really? It was funny, but I think I like his more metafictional stuff better, and I think he gets a lot weirder with his m/m stuff; if I’m reading Chuck Tingle, I want it to be weird. 3 stars

Snow is formed of crystals and is a slang term for diamonds. Read a book in which a gem or other mineral can be found in the plot, title, or cover art. Ombria in Shadow by Patricia A. McKillip Did I like it? Mostly! I love the lush visuals of McKillip’s prose; they more than live up to the also gorgeous covers. Dreamy fairytale stuff but with solid emotions and a good sense of place. Was it good? I think so, although the dreamlike quality of the prose does mean you’re liable to miss something if your attention drifts. Would I recommend it? Yes, I think so. 5 stars

Snow is a dessert made of stiffly beaten whites of eggs, sugar, and fruit pulp. Read a book with a dessert on the cover, or read a book in which a dessert is made. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, book 1 of the Hannah Swensen series Did I like it? I enjoyed parts of it, but I thought it really suffered at the beginning, when our introduction to the detective was “not like other girls, not interested in DATING and MEN” and our introduction to her older sister is “she was a DITZY CHEERLEADER and now she’s married with a kid but she’s a HORRIBLE CAREER HARPY who WORKS ALL DAY and puts her child in DAYCARE and CAN’T COOK” and that was all just very tiresome. The sister does turn out to have redeeming qualities and useful interests, but the way these two and their mother interact is all like, if you were asking yourself whether there’s such a thing as toxic femininity and what that would look like, it’s these women. Aside from that, it was fine; it was a cozy mystery novel about a bakery specializing in cookies. I will say, I did appreciate the Midwesternness of the small town Midwest setting. Was it good? Not really. I did kind of have to handwave a lot to let the detective get away with all the HIPAA violations and crime scene disturbing that she does, but it is a cozy mystery. Would I recommend it? Probably not; I’ve heard this series gets better so if you’re interested in the series and/or like the idea of cookie-themed cozies, maybe start with a different book, unless you’re a completist like I am. 3 stars

Snow is slang for cocaine. Read a book about drugs or drug addiction. The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren Did I like it? It was not a fun read, by any means, but Algren’s prose is fantastic and it was such a novelty to see such a familiar accent represented by eye dialect. (Which I know has fallen out of fashion and is considered the mark of a bad writer, but I really don’t mind it if it’s done well.) It’s one of those books where nobody has a fair shake and everybody is doomed, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous. All the characters are horrible to each other, but in fairness they are also horrible to themselves; it’s all they’ve ever known. Was it good? Yes. It was extremely good and I’m considering buying a physical copy so I can write things in the margins. This is actually really weird for me to do; in high school we occasionally had to turn our books in so our teacher could be sure we were writing in them Correctly, and I found it a little painful, but I did want to do it with this book. Would I recommend it? Yes, if you’re up for a really depressing story about heroin addiction and poverty. 5 stars

White is the color of snow. Read a book that contains white in the cover. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin Did I like it? I definitely did. I haven’t read much Le Guin yet for some reason, and while this did initially start off feeling exactly like just another ‘70s SF story where in the future we’ve solved all of psychology and it’s super mechanistic, it was really fascinating and surprisingly, unpleasantly prescient. Was it good? I thought so! There were some parts of it that were pretty awkward about race, from a 2021 perspective, but it does actually deal with race in a way that made me think “yes, that’s exactly what would happen as a consequence of this plot, and it would be horrible, oh no, oh shit,” and it is horrible. Would I recommend it? I am not sure I would! I would recommend it in like five years, assuming those five years are not much like the last five years. Hoping and praying that those five years are not much like the last five, really. The premise of the book -- which I haven’t explained, I realize -- is that in this near-future environmental dystopia, the main character can change things in real life by dreaming about them, and he would like to not do that, only he is put under the care of a psychiatric researcher who tries to play God. So this poor man literally wakes up every day to a brand new dystopia and it felt... familiar. 4 stars

To snow someone is to deceive, persuade, or charm glibly. Read a book about a con artist, or read a book about deception. Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation by Dean Jobb Did I like it? I did. I have joked that my own personal reading challenge this year is to fill up the Chicago shelf/tag on my Goodreads account, and this book was recommended to me in that spirit, and I always like hearing about a. Chicago; b. the 1920s; and c. con men conning people. Was it good? The prose was fine; it was fun but I think the thing I appreciated most was all the punny newspaper headlines. Would I recommend it? If you are someone who perks up at the sound of at least 2 out of 3 of the themes of “Chicago,” “1920s,” and “con men,” yes. 4 stars

2021 Q1 challenge: Changes (3/20)

Read a book that features:

The word "change" (Changes, Changing, or other variations) in its title. Weeds: How Vagabond Plants Gatecrashed Civilisation and Changed the Way We Think About Nature by Richard Mabey Did I like it? It was all right. I like hearing about plant history, and the chapter on plants unexpectedly surviving/thriving on battlefields and bombing sites was particularly interesting to me. Was it good? It was okay, but kind of poorly-organized; there were chapter themes but it felt awfully stream-of-consciousness sometimes. Would I recommend it? Maybe not unless you’re really into botany and Western anthropology. (As in, the study of Western cultures; this book does not do much with other cultures.) 3 stars

The theme of money or money on its cover (loose change). Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Did I like it? I really, really liked it to the point that I feel kind of silly about it, gotta say. I’m really, really hit or miss on the author’s work (both fanfic and profic) but the themes of this were perfect for me; Russian fairytales, a cynical but earnest sort of Judaism, creepy fairy abductions, interesting worldbuilding, and women coming together to help each other. (Also some interesting enemies-to-lovers stuff that wasn’t really developed on the “lovers” side, which I would have dug. Like its precursor, this book has a lot of f/f friends-to-lovers subtext and hostile canon het.) Was it good? I don’t know? I liked it enough that I genuinely don’t know if it was well-written. Would I recommend it? I would, but I’m not sure you should trust me on this??? Again, this book really, really hit me in the id. 5 stars

An adaptation of its original format (book-to-manga, translation, etc.) Murder on the Rockport Limited! by Clint McElroy et al Did I like it? It was okay, but not nearly as good as the original podcast’s murder train arc. The art was good and all, but, eh. Was it good? It was fine. I’m not sure how into the DM/character conversations I am, and I found myself having to pause and reimagine the dialogue in the various McElroys’ voices, which wasn’t good because it meant I wasn’t automatically reading them in those voices in my head, which is a major litmus test I use when I’m deciding whether I want to keep reading a fanfic. Would I recommend it? Definitely not as a standalone thing. 3 stars

The author's initials found in the word "change" Helen of Sparta by Amalia Carosella (in progress)

Separate book sections or part of a series of three or more books (make change) The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig (in progress)

An author or character writing under a pseudonym The Maker’s Mask by Ankaret Wells (in progress)

A topic or character about which you feel differently now than in the past. La Belle Sauvage by Phillip Pullman

Changing one's mind about a life decision. A Tapestry of Magics by Brian Daley

Switching careers/jobs. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Relocating to a different city, state/province, or country. Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

Cultivating new daily habits. How to Be Fine by Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer

A character who shifts shapes or identities. The Lie: A Memoir of Two Marriages, Catfishing & Coming Out by William Dameron

Life changes due to age Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis

A medical transformation Specials by Westerfield, Scott

A life-changing experience. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright

A changing household The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Volume 1 by Nagabe

An action or phenomenon that transforms society or the world. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel

Replacing one thing with another (change out) In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman & Charles Constant

Technological innovation Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum

A game-changer. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark

Fanfic Reading Challenge recs (1)

I have a private checklist with the fanfic reading challenge data, but will not be sharing all of the fics; fanfiction is generally an amateur endeavor, and many people do not enjoy receiving (or stumbling across) criticism of their work. Bad reviews are normal and accepted as part of commercial publishing, and professional authors (hopefully!) get paid for their work, so I’m comfortable criticizing published novels. I would prefer not to publicly criticize someone’s writing when they are just writing for the joy of it, especially since some of the tasks require me to read first-time authors’ fics, fics with relatively low kudos counts, fics for ships I don’t like, etc. So I’m only putting the recs here.

Romancing the Tome by Anti_kate Good Omens; Aziraphale/Crowley; ~40k words; rated Explicit Romance novelist Aziraphale Wilder is pulled from his carefully ordered life when his sister is kidnapped and held to ransom. With the help of antiquities forger Anthony J Crowley, he braves the wilds of Scotland to rescue her and keep a priceless book from falling into the hands of dangerous book thieves. Did I like it? Yes! It was cheesy and cute and basically what I want out of this kind of romcom AU fic. I’m not normally into human AUs and this one wasn’t like, super deep or anything, but it was very fun. Was it good? I thought so! The dialogue was great, I enjoyed the characterization, the sex was good. I do think the Crowley in this fic is pretty self-loathing in a way that I don’t see canon Crowley being at all, but I have a weakness for that and I also think self-loathing works for a human version of Crowley. One thing it doesn’t shy away from is Crowley doing genuinely awful stuff (instead of being a misunderstood woobie) and yet the resolution is sweet and lovely anyway. Would I rec it? Yes! Go read this fic. It’s fast-paced but long enough to be worth settling in to read, it’s funny, and it’s sweet. 5 stars

In Holy Matrimony by Myracuulous Good Omens; Aziraphale/Crowley; ~6.7k words; rated General From the private journal of Alisha Jones, wedding planner, concerning the nuptials of Anthony J Crowley and Aziraphale and the planning process thereof, containing an account of chosen decor, guest list construction, and the holy war against the Antichrist that nearly ruined six months of professional organization and a very nice dinner. Did I like it? Yes! It was extremely cute, and I always really like outsider POV. I did appreciate the fact that poor Alisha definitely knew something was definitely weird, but kept telling herself not to question it because a gorgeous wedding with an unlimited budget and zero issues with scheduling, catering, guest limits, etc. is a great problem to have. Was it good? It was pretty good! The climax and wrap-up felt a bit rushed, mostly due to the limits of outsider POV, but I did enjoy Aziraphale unexpectedly embracing his inner groomzilla while also being unfailingly sweet about it. Would I rec it? Yup, especially if you want wedding comedy/fluff and outsider POV

Wrong Turn by anticyclone Good Omens; Aziraphale/Crowley; ~38k words; rated Teen And Up Lots and lots of somethings are wrong. First, Crowley's nearly hit by a car. Then he almost brains himself tripping over new and excessive piles of books at the bookshop. To add insult to near-injury, Aziraphale starts throwing knives at him. Safe to say his day could be going better.

The thing that's the most wrong of all is the universe, of course. In this one there was never an Arrangement. Aziraphale and Anthony (they can't both be 'Crowley') aren't friends and they certainly never agreed to prep for Armageddon. Unfortunately, the end of the world is two days away.

So that's something Crowley really has to fix before they can figure out how to get him home. Did I like it? Oh yes. I had read bits of this on ffa previously, and also anticyclone is a good writer (and a friend) so like, I was expecting it to be good; I was not disappointed. Was it good? Yes! I was particularly impressed at how much alternate backstory is set up in little hints here and there, and then explained more thoroughly in ways that take the AU Aziraphale and Crowley by surprise when they do finally get to talking. Would I rec it? Yes! Especially if you like a nice dose of enemies-to-lovers along with your friends-to-lovers, and also the awkwardness of meeting your alternate universe self.

Finished in January, not for reading challenges (3 books):

The Way of Kings, book 1 of The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson Did I like it? It was fine. Was it good? I think so. I am maybe not the best audience for epic fantasy at this point, partly because I’ve read a lot of it and partly because I habitually read 3-7 books at once at any given time. Would I recommend it? Maybe, but I feel like most of the people who would enjoy it have probably heard of it already. 3 stars

Get a Wiggle On, a Good Omens fanzine Did I like it? Yup! Was it good? Mostly, although as usual with zines and anthologies, quality varies piece by piece. Of the fics I particularly liked “A Head Above Water,” “The Grapes of Mild Irritation,” and “Concerning the Great Serpent Glykon and the Angel Clothed With the Sun,” all of which are now available on AO3. Would I recommend it? If you like snakey Crowley, yes. 4 stars

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne Did I like it? Yes, very much! A very silly thing I particularly liked (which unfortunately you cannot really replicate) is that the edition I have is an illustrated hardcover book from 1926 which I picked up cheap at a used bookstore, knowing I would like it because Jules Verne. I didn’t think much about that specific date when I bought it, but I am now writing a fic set in 1926, with a character who has a habit of reading adventure novels and who I have specifically mentioned enjoyed Jules Verne in his childhood, so when I discovered the date the coincidence made me very happy. The book itself smells very nice, it’s nice to hold, and as I was reading it I kept thinking about what Danny would think of the book, and whether he would try reading it aloud to Crowley, and wondering if the book smelled as nice in 1926 as it does now. Maybe I will have Aziraphale give this book to him as a very small thank-you for all he has done to keep Crowley alive and well. Was it good? For the most part. Jules Verne is prone to wandering off on tangents where he shows you his research, but I’m sympathetic to that, and there’s some really cool and atmospheric scenes in this book. My favorite character was definitely Captain Nemo, who we don’t really learn much about. Could have done without Conseil, the bland servant character who could be a naturalist in his own right, if he had any opinions of his own, or the period racism/imperialism, which unfortunately is so built into this kind of adventure novel. But the environmentalism was a nice surprise, and you can definitely read some critiques of certain aspects of (Western?) culture at the time into Captain Nemo’s behavior; I have not yet read The Mysterious Island where Captain Nemo also appears, but I do get the impression a lot of people read him as being disgusted with imperialism. Would I recommend it? Probably! With the caveats above. It was a good adventure story with some awesome visuals, and I kept thinking about what a pretty movie it would make with modern SFX, and how sad I would be that they would inevitably not spend just 3 solid hours on cool fish and interiors of the Nautilus and scenes of the lost city of Atlantis and Captain Nemo being very mysterious and dreamy scary, because they’d probably shoehorn an awkward romance into it. 4 stars

Finished in February, not for reading challenges (2 books):

The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig, book 3 of the Pink Carnation series Did I like it? I did. It was a silly Regency romance novel with espionage elements, it is the third of a series I have enjoyed, and it contained an accidental/forced marriage to preserve a lady’s honor despite neither party to the marriage particularly liking or wanting to have anything to do with each other, and some misunderstandings about that. Also spies. Was it good? Not really. It was fun and I liked the characters, but I don’t think the writing was of particularly high quality. The handling of certain elements of English imperialism was not great, and bothered me enough to note it in my review on Goodreads. Would I recommend it? I’d recommend the series if it sounds like something you’d like; I might not recommend this specific book. 3 stars

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley Did I like it? No. It was very dark, and I did not enjoy most of the book. A lot of it was because it was very gritty and grim, and because I frequently don’t enjoy military fiction; a lot of it was because many of the dystopian aspects of our present reality that came to a head in 2020 were magnified in the book. Part of it was also that the protagonist’s entire reality and memory was being denied for much of the book, and I think it reminded me of being gaslit. (This is not a criticism of the book, or some kind of weird accusation that the book or its author was somehow abusing me, I just have this personal history. In fact, it turns out the main character is being gaslit to some extent, and the author writes it very well.) It was a minor relief when she finally decided the stuff she was going through was real, and a huge relief when she was able to talk to someone who believed her. Was it good? Yes, I think so. Would I recommend it? Not right now, but I think this would be a good book to read at a time when the world feels more stable. I don’t say this because I want you to wait until everything’s fine to read it; I say this because it feels like a good anti-complacency read. 4 stars (3 for not being an enjoyable read, 5 for the actual plot; it averages out.)

In progress, not for reading challenges (1 book):

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by 墨香铜臭

#kaesa op

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smutav · 4 years

Text

So i posted the pictures I had for my xray and comic in this post here and I said id wait a year but I’ve decided I need to lay this project to rest and move on to what comes next. Its under the cut because its mad king heavy

the old man part was fully scripted out so I’m going to throw the script in here first then it’ll be just notes for the general plotline

(M) Old Man = O1 / (J) Old Man = O2 / Xray = X / Vav = V

we come in on Xray and Vav coming onto the scene but we start lookin at the old men

O2: "Uh Oh, the calvaries here" O1: "issit the popo? tell them they cant make me go back... to that horrible home... fulla old people..." O2: "No.. its those spandex kids again" O1: "Oh, the blue one confused me... so blue jus like those dirty cops" O2: "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE US ALIVE" [O2 throws something that lands nowhere near xray and vav] V : "Look you have to stop causing a ruckus!" O1: "ah ah ah prettyboy we got da bomb" O2: "Thats right if you get in our way it'll be a real stinker!" O1: "Uh Ohhhh"

X : "you have got to be kidding me" O1: "I'm too old for kidding, im old-ding over here" V : "What are you doing with a bomb!?" O2: "We've got demands!" O1: "Oh yeah lots of demands!" O2: "We want.... Pudding!" O1: "Oh yeah and none of that rice shit in there" O2: "get that rice out of our pudding no chunks!" O1: "itsa chokin hazard, I almost died when they had that at the home" O2: "thats why we left they was tryna kill us" O1: "But you only show up to stop two guys havin fun" O2: "Ya punks!" [Vav has snuck over to the obviously hidden 'stink bomb' and gags when he sees whats under the cover]

O2: "Ey!" [he smacks Vav with a cane] "gettaway from there" O1: "These two have no manners" O2: "they jus go touchin stuff that doesnt belong to them!" O1: "Well two can play at that game" [he moves towards Xray pointing at his glasses] "I want those" X : "How about I give you this instead" [he shoots a lazer at the old guy but it bounces off his walker] O1: "uh oh you shouldn't have done that" X : "oh yeah what if i do it again" [it really has the same result smart guy]

[Vav at the same time is dealing with.. a really slow old guy. and he dodges a punch an the old guy just keeps goin down and hits the ground] O2: "Ah! I'm hit thats it for me! [he tries to get up but just knocks himself over again] it's over for me I'm deadd. You killed me ya bastard" V : "I really didn--" O2: "this blood is on your handssss ohhh im goinnnn" [Vav backs off while the old man keeps slowly 'dying' to help out with Xray who's wrestling for his glasses from O1]

X : "Youre smudging up my glasses!" O1: "oh i'll do more than that" [he moves to take a lick at them] X : "no you dont!" [He punches the old man square in the jaw] O1: [catches himself on the walker] "you want a boxing match, i used ta have the belt ya know" [he lands a punch on xray who doesnt even flinch]

V : [Vav comes up from behind and pulls the old man away] O1: "No he's got me!" [he flails a bit but ineffectively to get out] "this is just like the 40s you cant stop all this" V : "We're sending you both back to the old folks home just stay there this time!" O1: "You'll never keep us caged! We'll always be ba-- Oh no is this a heart attack? Ma is that you in the light I'm-- I'm comin... comin to kick your dead ass" [and he's dead]

[Xray and Vav dump the old guys on an elderly bus they're used to dealing with these guys 'dying' and approach the stink bomb which is the stink jug but theres wires and stuff attached to supposedly detonate it] X: "Well I guess we'll have to deal with this" [he kicks the 'stink bomb' and Vav goes green] V: "I guess it'd be best to get it to Hilda she'll know how to get rid of it" X: "right lets go" [he starts walking leaving Vav to carry the barrel, poor vav]

I hope the notes after this make sense plot wise a lot of it was going to be explored deeper as we get drawing XDD ((also you get all my note writing jokes that i make to myself))

V = xray and vav / K = mad king / R = rimmy tim / M = mogar

(V) - I need,, some basic everyday hero biz to start the story with - tIME TO THROW THE OLD MEN IN THERE (K) - He decides to try out his powers a lil test run ((around Hilda's lab)) - Xray and Vav crash the party ofc - He gets by them EASY slow mo can't do much against teleporting - He didn't have much of a goal for it but, now he knows he has the upper hand on Xray and Vav - He leaves victorious (V) - He gets the business end of a run in with ender ryan - What was that?? he can teleport?? - Well we have to figure something out! (R) - Rimmy Tim runs into Mad King - Which is wild! thought he was dead! - but he does have some weird ass shit going on (K) - Wow running into Rimmy Tim isnt that neat? - He pays no mind to the Battle Buddy (R) - Rimmy Tim is crashing at Jake's place ((to be relevant)) - He also meets Xray and Vav but nobody knows what his full deal is ((and theyre distracted from having they ass kicked))

(V) - Vav is the plan guy - They get intel that he has a weird power source - it gave him the powers so if they can figure it out maybe they can take them away! - We'll need to be stealthy boys... - MOGAR! - ask mogar for help, he distract while they sneak in and nab the gem (M) - The plan involves Mogar fighting Mad King up front - Mogar runs into Rimmy Tim and is suspicious of him (K) - Ofc he knew Xray and Vav would make a plan - Mogar comes to fight him aw they just decided to send a fwiend - Mad King is busy beating Mogar and doesn't notice that they got the gem ((Uh Oh! Plothole!)) (M) - They dont see him at the meeting place (K) - He Notices when he decides to experiment with it and tries out a lesser power source - Resulting in Zombie Mogar

(V) - They HAVE to find Mogar - poking around the outside for a sign of him they find his sword in the dumpster - thats,,, not good - its really heavy but if vav straps it to his back he can handle it - they wind up splitting up for any sign of Mogar (K) - Well if you're going to be rude about it - [teleports in the streets] - Have it your way do what you want - [and he leaves Mogar there] - when he teleports back Rimmy Tim is there and he quips ab how convenient tping is (R) - MK has him get rid of the new power source obviously a failure (V) - It gets dark but vav hears a noise in the alley - He finds Mogar! But he's eating something - Mogar growls and starts running at him - *british screaming* - As he BOOKS IT around a corner Xray runs into him and Vav just grabs his arm - NO TIME TO EXPLAIN - so what the plans just fucking run - oh wait thats Jake's van - *climbs in* wEHAVE TO GO HIT THE GAS - bro its a red light - iTS THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT THERES NO TRAFFIC JUST - Mogar jumps on the vAAAAAAAA - Thats enough to convince Jake she slams on the gas - " you guys are paying for any tickets i get"

((for context, Jake is my oc she has an ask blog that I was planning to use to be like in between she and rimmy tim are hanging out and you might find out things from interacting w her. But for character knowledge she’s an appliance installer that works with The Monarchy’s Servants. Which that is the company that installs the stuff that comes out of Monarch Labs. there was also a whole bit where she and rimmy tim would be hanging out and he’d be joking like oh do you ever go in like “ah m’lord!! is this installation to your liking thank you m’lord!!” and she’d goof back if he ever had a house for her to install shit in she’d do it just for him.

and for how Jake and Rimmy tim met it was at 3am dennys a few years ago and they been buds ever since))

(R) - Jake's checking on her van later and Rimmy Tim comes out to give a hand - and he asks what happened and she's shaking a lil - she just leaves it as hero biz as usual she thinks (V) - bloody hell we have to help mogar! - yeah what did Mad King do to him! - they gotta bait and catch him (R) - Jake gets a call from xray and vav asking for help getting mogar to a lab - Rimmy Tim tags along and gets to see Mogar (M) - Xray and Vav catch mogar and have him leashed in the lab - But?? Is he dangerous?? Can he contaminate others??

(R) - This is wrong - RYAN is wrong - Rimmy Tim,, Has to do something - discussion doesnt work, Ryan's just a wall discussion wise - theres no talking him out of anything he's too absorbed (V) - Mogar has good moments - reference the rotten flesh test w vav (K) - Rimmy Tim is getting increasingly worried ab him - Rimmy Tim mentions Mogar - Well it wasn't on PURPOSE - but yeah i did that - No, I don't particularly know how to reverse it (R) - Rimmy Tim tries talking hey what if we just did this partner like - Nothing can beat the battle buddies then this can all be done right? - Mad King brushes him off and tells him to stay out of his business - Ryan gets caught in the rain - He claws Rimmy's face oh no! his money maker! - Rimmy Tim decides enough is enough and leaves to help Xray and Vav fix this,,, fix him,,, (V) - They hear Mad King in the rain - hhhhh i dont want to deal with more monsterrrrssss - Rimmy Tim joins the team! - he explains his history with Mad King - and how he's worried - wORRIED LOOK WHAT HE'S DONE TO MOGAR - He digs out the lesser power source that was used on Mogar - THIS made THAT *points at Mogar* (K) - Mad King is bandaged and goes to sleep off the pain and *emotions* (gross) of the evening - as he drifts off instead of dreaming he finds himself seeing through Jeremy's damaged eye - He just sees xray and vav but he cant hear a word - needless to say he feel betrayed

(Finale leadup)

- they need a plan to catch MK - Xray and Vav decide to drill RT ab possible weaknesses - he doesnt have much to contribute though they havent worked together in years and he didnt have all this magic junk going on. - and all RT's seen of the magic junk is teleporting - Well have you seen his hideout? can you explain like layout or whats going on there - oh fuck yeah i guess that is intel lemme sketch it out

- Hilda is playing around with whats the difference between the gem they stole from MK and the one that RT says changed Mogar - Mayhaps after some experimentation gone wrong she figures they cant use the thing against him but need a device that'll remove that specific energy - so you know a SUCKING machine - While she's working so closely with this she starts having enderhilda dreams but like when she's awake shes like yeah thats neat but you aint caught my interest you dumb gem

- Wait RT if you and MK used to be in cahoots do you have any powers that can beat him? - I got guns we were guns for hire you know battle buddies - wot MK doesnt use guns he plays mind games - well yeah NOW he does he uh-- didnt have it all together after our last mission

(flashback)

- Battle buddies are cleaning up after a mission - they're both pretty angry like we wound up being the bad guys AGAIN how does this keep happening - RT agrees he's not a fan of dirty cash - MK comes to the conclusion if i controlled these sheeple nobody would be calling my shots and makin me do the wrong thing - come on ryan ya cant control people thats wrong - whats a little more blood on my hands if it means making things better on the whole - and MK winds up leaving the battle buddies :C

(Finale)

- Hilda comes in like hey i got your guys's sucking machine go suck off mad king or whatever - and vavs like Alright! lets make a plan lads! - then we go to MK - he can see them coming, he's gotten practice watching through RT's eyes - he gets the machine from them as theyre barely through the door - "well I was curious what this would do but what does it matter anyways" - and he's got like some full ender shadow clones to help with the fight and they all pair off ((not like an army literally just enough to pair off MK dont need an army to beat these guys)) - the real MK personally faces off RT though :) - RT "why do i get the real ryan why couldnt you face off with like vav or something" - MK "im curious if you could shoot me 'buddy'" - RT "well I doubt i'll do something but i do owe you one ;)" and he do shoot him but yeah the bullets are stopped and do nothing - MK "I do hope you brought something else if youre turning against the MAD KING you have best be prepared" - RT "what can i say" [drops gun] "I stick to my guns" [throw punch]

- but yeah after the fighting and witty dialogue clears it looks like MK do have the upper hand - RT was left bleeding out ((stabbed through with pointy fingers oooo MK got his blood literally on his hands)) - While MK is monologuing RT sneaks into the bathroom which MK pauses mid monologue when he sees a flash of RT's bloody hand reaching for the showerhead - cant believe that fuck - and RT comes out and hoses him down ((yes it reaches that far LOOK its got a long hose)) - then MK's on the ground fucking sizzling - vav's like oh right! and jumps up to get the sucking machine and they use it on MK

(epilogue)

- Jake drops RT off where they got MK locked up and shes like "do what u gotta do man" and RT's like "thanks for understanding bud" - and he gets in MK shifts to look at him - RT starts to apologize for ruining his plan but gets interrupted as MK says "you were right" - which is a SHOCKING thing to hear from that guy - and mad king is like "thank you" - and we end on "anytime buddy."

so that was my plot I havent been kidding when I said it was a long comic plan. Its been heartbreaking to have this whole thing ripped from me but I can’t tell a story about friendship w a manipulator.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be until I actually get another thing started but I hope its soon because I was very excited to share a good long story with the xray and vav fandom and I thought this plot wouldve been like a good season worth of content

I had some draws tagged under “#its all connected” and they were all me working on this idea before I actually decided to write it out and try for a whole comic after being inspired by some close friends and the good at being bad animation collab

#xnv #xray and vav #tav script

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studylizziee · 5 years

Text

Starting University

Having started uni last year, I can really relate to the anxieties/fears that people have towards the start of September. So I decided to make this post which is a compilation of tips and advice I’ve accumulated over my first year of university. I hope it’s helpful :)

What to bring

it’s a difficult thing to strike the right balance between bringing too much and too little, but my advice is to err on the side of too little, as you can always buy things you’ve missed once you arrive (the only exception imo being decorations for your room from home)

a doorstop is a must! when you’re moving in my literal number 1 tip is to have your door propped open virtually at all times - it makes such a difference because then people will just stop to have a chat, or wave and say hi as they go past, and it just sends a friendly vibe

things that will personalise your room and make it feel like your space. This was one of the biggest things that combated my homesickness, because I created a sort of safe space for myself. So for me this was cosy lighting with lots of lamps (I brought 2 in addition to the one my uni provided) and fairy lights, posters on the walls, books on the shelf, pictures of my friends, cushions and blankets, and lots of cute mugs

in that vein, get some command strip hooks that you can stick onto the wall - I used small ones to put my fairy lights up and larger ones to hang my jackets on

for posters and pictures for the wall, I used blu tack

keep the storage boxes that you use to move all your stuff in with (I put shoes in one, misc stuff in another), and drawer dividers are a really handy buy too (I used them to separate my underwear)

don’t forget important documents/ID like your passport and driving license. There’s usually quite a lot of admin when you first arrive so it’s important to have these kept safely with you

if you drink, bring some alcohol and a mixer you like for pres

a bumbag for nights out is pretty essential - it’ll keep your phone, ID, keys and money safe, as they’re difficult to steal from and far more secure than your pockets!

make sure you have a medicines bag stocked with paracetamol, plasters, antiseptic cream etc, because the last thing you want when you feel sick for the first time at uni is to have to go out and buy medicines

I brought earplugs because I like quiet when I’m trying to fall asleep, and halls of residence are not exactly known for that.. also, walls are thin

there are nowhere near enough coat hangers provided, so bring some from home

I also 100% recommend taking a bike to uni! I cycle everywhere around campus because it’s faster and good exercise, and I also sometimes cycle into town rather than getting the bus (& if you bring a bike, bring a helmet, front and back bike lights, and a D-lock! They’re worth investing in I promise)

lastly, I recommend that the first thing you do when moving in is to do a big food shop! I arrived on a Friday night and planned for my parents to take me food shopping on the Saturday, but I forgot I needed something to eat for dinner on Friday and ended up having a freebie pot noodle that was in my room...

What not to bring

shared items like a kettle, toaster, toastie maker, blender etc (until you’ve communicated with your flatmates)

before I came to uni, in august I think, a few of my flatmates and I made a group chat on facebook (unis normally make a fb page with your halls of residence and you can find your flatmates from there), and sorted out who’d bring shared items. It was really helpful because the last thing you want is 5 kettles taking up loads of space in the kitchen!

if you’re not able to/don’t want to message your flatmates before arriving at uni, I still wouldn’t bring these items as you can buy them once you’re there if no one else has them (which is pretty unlikely)

a bin and desk chair - they’re provided

too many clothes/shoes: I know it feels like you’re going away for a really long time but try to think realistically about how many things you’ll actually wear. Instead focus on making sure you have lots of layers, and clothes for all weather possibilities

an iron - I literally never ironed once while at uni - and yes, that’s as a person whose course requires me to go on placements and look formal fairly regularly

unless you’re an avid baker I wouldn’t bring baking equipment like scales/mixing bowl etc. I only had a measuring jug and a roasting tin, which was enough to make cookies ;)

Freshers

Ah, freshers. The most over-hyped week(s) in existence. As an introvert, it was an exhausting period of time for me. Although I had fun meeting people and at the events I went to, it left me drained, and I also felt pretty anxious a lot of the time, especially during the first week. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the whole freshers experience because it was, frankly, pretty overwhelming. Just remember that freshers is not at all representative of the rest of your uni experience, and it’s okay if you don’t love it.

Meeting people/making friends

I was equally excited and nervous when I moved in, and I was particularly worried, as most people are, about making friends. The first thing to say is that everyone’s in the same boat. Everyone is anxious to be sociable and make friends, especially during freshers, so make the most of this time to start conversations and get chatting with people. Although don’t feel you need to make long-lasting friendships during freshers - often people find that their uni friends aren’t the people that they hung out with in freshers.

Don’t feel pressured to go to loads of parties/nights out if it’s not your scene; there are other ways of meeting people, the biggest one being societies. My biggest regret from first year is that I didn’t try enough societies - I did choir and went to one netball training session (rip) because I thought I didn’t have time for anything else. I wish I’d taken up more opportunities and tried more things, because it’s such a great way of meeting like-minded people (and people from other courses)!

When to leave your parents

This is a difficult one, and I know this was one of the things causing me the most anxiety. I’d read somewhere that you should just say bye to your parents when they drop you off and get on with it, because you have to grow up now. The truth is, everyone is different and needs a different amount of time in order to say goodbye. For me, my parents helped me move in on the Friday, and stayed the night at a hotel while I went on my first night of freshers, a pub crawl. The next day they helped me with my food shop/buying other things I needed before they left in the afternoon. I know both people who spent the whole first weekend with their parents, not coming to any freshers events, and people who said goodbye the minute they walked into their flat. Neither choice is right or wrong - just think about what’s best for you. I knew I needed a bit more time but simultaneously wanted to be part of the big first night, and I found a happy compromise for me.

Dealing with homesickness

I was really homesick for, I’d say, the first 2 weeks. One of my big mistakes was that my dad came up a week after I’d moved in to bring my bike (don’t regret that bit, my bike is great), and it was actually more difficult saying bye that time around. It was wayy too soon. My advice is:

give it a bit of time before you see your family

facetime/call home regularly to start off with, and over time it will naturally become less often. For the first week, I facetimed my parents every night, and after that it was every 2-3 days, and by the end it was every one or two weeks

get busy! the absolute worst thing you can do is isolate yourself in your room doing nothing, because it gives you too much time to overthink. Especially for the first few weeks, keep yourself busy and take advantage of all the events on offer

Things to make sure you do during the first week or so:

Even though freshers is super busy, it’s important to make time to do some bits of admin

Find out where the student support service is/the telephone number you can reach them on

Get a phone number for maintenance of halls because you never know when something might go wrong (on literally my first night the shower didn’t work)

Find the library, cheapest food shop, launderette, and explore campus

The academic jump

The jump from school to university can be quite a considerable one. It’s not only harder content, but also a different way of learning from what you’re used to in school, with much more reliance on independent study. Don’t worry too much about the first term, because that tends to be a sort of re-cap where they bring everyone onto the same page. Use that time when the content is not as difficult to 1) have fun and do lots of non-academic things, and 2) attempt to develop your style of learning. People underestimate sometimes the fact that you have to learn how to learn. So try different things and see what works for you, so that by the time you start the ‘real work’ you’ll be a bit more prepared. Tips:

have a system - by second term I decided that my system was to make a summary, somewhat condensed document of notes for each week, which I filed in folders for each module. This works for my course, but what the system is doesn’t matter - the most important thing is to have a tangible goal of independent work (usually notes) that you want to achieve

keep on top of things - I was sooo bad at this in first year, and have resolved to change things next year... I would do my set work for the week, but I didn’t do my weekly summary notes until the end of term and it was a mad rush. It would have saved me so much pain to do it as I went along

pay attention to feedback and learn from your mistakes

lecturers are an amazing resource and they love their subject, so if you have a question ask them! (either in person after a lecture/seminar or if that’s too much send an email)

make friends with your coursemates - you’re all in it together and it’s amazing how much you can learn from each other

BACK YOUR WORK UP! it doesn’t matter if it’s an external hard drive, dropbox or google drive as long as it’s somewhere!

Cooking/Food

bring recipes or a cookbook - these are pretty essential for when you’ve run out of ideas (or if you haven’t done much cooking before!). My friend got me ‘The Hungry Student Vegetarian Cookbook’ which was great, as is ‘The Green Roasting Tin’. I especially loved the concept of the latter because it’s so simple - put everything in a roasting tin and bang it in the oven

cook in bulk! this is my number 1 tip. Put whatever you don’t eat in tupperware containers and freeze it - then, as my flatmate said, you have prepared your very own ready meals

most people have heard of the ‘fresher five’ (5kg put on in first year), but this can so be avoided by making sure you have your 5 a day, not having takeaways too often, and not overdoing it with alcohol

as I said, don’t get takeaways too often - it’s tempting, I know, but they’re mega expensive so you’re better off saving it either for when they’ve got a really good deal on, or as a special treat

consider eating less meat - any meat of a good quality is far more expensive than vegetables are! I’m vegetarian and slowly becoming more plant-based as I cut out dairy, and among its other benefits it’s so much cheaper

making meal plans can be really useful - you don’t have to have an elaborate chart, but when you do your weekly food shop, plan what you’re going to eat during the week. This also helps reduce your food waste

freeze your bread! I got this tip from @muststudy, who has a great post on cooking tips linked below, but this is such a good idea to stop your loaf going mouldy before you can eat it

cook with your flatmates/friends - around dinnertime was by far the most social time in my flat, as we all congregated in the kitchen to cook and have a chat. If you have similar tastes to a flatmate, consider shared cooking! My friend and I virtually took it in turns to cook for each other, or we’d cook a shared meal together, and it made what can become a chore a fun thing to do

General

There can be a pressure for uni to be ‘the best years of your life’, and to be having a great time 24/7. It might be like that for you, but don’t worry if it’s not - it’s perfectly normal to feel sad or lonely at times. I definitely did. If you feel that way, reach out to people and don’t keep things bottled up. Try to make the most of opportunities, and enjoy this exciting and novel period of time in your life :)

Useful posts / websites:

Budgeting: how to manage your money at university by The Complete University Guide

Cooking: essential cooking tips for uni students by @muststudy

tips for starting university by @quilavastudy

tips for freshers week by @dxmedstudent

What to bring to university checklists: one, two, three

#mine #starting university #freshers #freshers tips #freshers week #uni #starting uni #my tips #studyblr #studyspo #study blog #studivation

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novantinuum · 5 years

Text

Crack the Paragon, Chapter 9

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 7.2K~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which a diamond is a girl’s best friend.

You can find the first/previous chapter and AO3 links in the reblogs! (I have to omit them from the original post these days to ensure this will show up in the tags.) If you enjoyed this, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos on AO3 as well.

Chapter warning: There is a fairly in-depth depiction of a dissociative flashback. Nothing I'd consider particularly extreme or deserving of a ratings bump, but I figured it'd be courteous to make a specific warning for it anyways.

Chapter 9: Symmetry

On literally any other day, folding laundry would be relaxing.

There’s something comforting about falling back into predictable rhythms, hands running on automatic through assorted piles of clothes as her thoughts take a wandering vacation. Chores are boring, sure, but compared to the non-stop drive of the rest of her life Connie can at least appreciate how mindless they are. In a world filled with things like honors algebra and violin recitals and sword training, falling into the arms of subconscious repetition every once in a while feels nice, like a much needed mental break from the rest of reality.

The only problem is exactly that: it’s mindless. It doesn’t force her to use an ounce of brainpower. It doesn’t block her thoughts from waltzing down dark alleyways, or taking sharp swerves into territory unknown. It doesn’t distract her from obsessively checking her phone every other minute to see if she’s gotten any new calls or texts.

It doesn’t stop her from worrying about Steven.

Normally steady fingers twitch as she folds a sock inside its proper pair. Her pocket nearly feels like it’s burning. Groaning, she tosses the pair into her suitcase and pulls her phone out. The lock screen illuminates, showcasing a photo of a pretty sunset she took from the hill above the temple. Her mouth tightens. Once again, nothing. Giving in to the distraction, she unlocks her phone and taps to reach his latest message. Tired eyes gloss over his photo and those words for the thousandth time.

Accidentally got separated from gem—

I’ll call later, some kinda scary stuff happened—

Please don’t worry too much.

Well, too late for that. She’s not fooled by his blasé, chipper attitude in this text, or the forced grin of the concerningly pale-faced Steven (one of two! How can he claim he’s fine when he’s literally lost a part of himself??) at the forefront of the photo he sent. No, no. She won’t be convinced until she audibly hears it or can throw her arms around him in person, which is harder said than done when he hasn’t returned her calls and Mom won’t let her take the bus over to his place for the morning because she’s supposed to be “packing.” Ugh. As far as she’s concerned, visiting extended family in India can wait its turn. Something terribly wrong must have happened in Beach City last night, and the suspense of not knowing is nearly suffocating her.

But logically, she knows worrying about it nonstop won’t be of help to her or Steven. He’ll call when he calls. She just hopes it’s before she leaves the country. Her dad's a bit of a tightwad when it comes to the idea of upgrading to international call and text, to her chagrin. If she’s honest, it’s the one part of this trip she dreads— having zero contact with her best friend for a week.

Connie hastily breathes in and out, attempting to forcefully will the stress to dissipate. Let it go. Stop thinking about it. She gently tosses her phone on her bed where she can’t reach it, and pushes herself back into the dependable rhythm of laundry folding.

Licking her chapped lips as she works through the pile of newly clean clothes, she folds the turquoise colored silk choli bodice her mom arranged for a relative to hand weave for her on her last birthday and carefully places it with its matching saree. The decorative border running the length of the saree is embroidered with little flowers and swirls in gold thread. Connie smiles faintly, reverently running her hand across the smooth fabric. She’ll be wearing her typical shorts, overalls, and blouses for most of this trip, but she’s super excited to have the perfect excuse to bring this outfit out of her closet for once. It always makes her feel beautiful, with her hair pinned back and the saree draped around her, but she still can’t help but fear she’s ridiculously overdressed whenever she wears it anywhere outside of family events. A shame. Maybe she’ll build the courage to wear it one day when she goes to Steven’s house for sword practice. She’ll change into her usual training clothes during the practice itself, of course— she can’t risk tearing silk or restricting her movement— but it’d be cool to share a piece of her own family’s culture with him like that. Her cheeks heat up as she imagines his reaction. He’ll probably think it’s pretty. Pearl, too. Her teacher definitely has a flair for artistry, after all.

...but of course, that’s assuming Steven and the Gems are okay.

Her previously giddy thoughts wane like a withering petal. Sitting with her legs criss crossed on her bedroom floor, she hunches over with a heavy sigh, propping her chin into her hands. How long is this morning going to last?

Muffled amidst the cocoon of thick blankets adorning her bed, her phone’s ringer picks that very moment to blare into existence. Her nerves electrify in an instant, though whether that’s more a symptom of surprise or anticipation is anyone’s guess. Chest pounding, she shoots to her feet and scrambles across the room to pick it up. She sighs a breath of relief as her eyes skim over the caller ID. It’s him. And he wants to video chat! Without thinking twice she jabs her thumb against the screen to answer.

A handful of seconds pass as her phone attempts to connect over her family’s spotty wi-fi, heart twisting painfully in her throat as she steels herself for whatever potentially bad update about her friend’s life she’s about to receive, but then—

The video pushes through, and her friend appears on the screen. His hair is notably mussed, (more so than usual, that is), with wild curly locks sticking up from his head at weird angles.

“Mornin’, Connie,” he says, exhaustion evident on his face but besides that, appearing physically well. There’s actually color in his cheeks for one thing, unlike in the photo he sent before dawn.

“Steven!” she exclaims, subconsciously gripping the sides of her phone tighter in the absence of an actual hug. “You’re okay!”

“More or less,” he says in confirmation, the corner of his mouth turning up for a glimmer of a second. His expression quickly becomes tinted in shades of remorse, however, his voice on the brink of cracking. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t call back earlier! My phone died on me, and then I forgot to plug it in, and then I got distracted by a bunch of crazy family stuff, and that’s probably not a good excuse, but—“

She tries to feed him a reassuring smile, pushing down the blatant depth of her worry for his sake.

“Hey, don’t fuss about it. It happens. And anyways, you’re here now, right? So all that doesn’t even matter anymore.”

Her friend deals her a noncommittal shrug in response, and slouches against the rough hewn stone she’s only now noticing in the background. If she has to guess, he’s sitting on the beach, leaning against the sheer cliff walls where they first met almost two years earlier. Interesting, she muses, her brow furrowing. Usually when they do video calls Steven makes a point to stay in his house because he gets better reception there. On top of that, there’s an undeniable melancholy brewing within his eyes that would be amiss to ignore. He’s not even trying to mask it for once, which speaks volumes in and of itself about how heavy a burden it’s become, whatever it is that’s bothering him. Geeze, what on Earth happened over there last night?

“So, your gem,” she starts, edging towards the topic carefully. “Are you still—?”

He shakes his head, seemingly already catching on to what she’s gonna ask. “Nah, we’re together again! Turns out I can still fuse even without without him.”

“Hmm, I—“ Connie pauses, mind fixating for a second on the specific way he referred to his gem half, ascribing an undeniable sense of individuality to him— “well, I’m super glad you figured that out. But I still don’t understand, how can you get separated from your gem in the first place?”

“It’s, uh- a pretty complicated story, fair warning.”

“Pshhh, that’s no problem, I’ve got all morning,” she says, and props her phone against her bedpost so she can continue packing while listening. Freed once more, her hands seek out more unpaired socks to join.

“Only if you’re good with it, then.” The boy sighs deeply as he begins to prepare his words. The infamous drama zone kicking in, he lets his head lull backwards at gravity’s command against the cliffside’s face. She can’t help but cringe at the audible smack of his skull against smooth rock. “Ow!” he whines, immediately jerking forwards again. He rubs the back of his head in clear disbelief, softly laughing at his own folly. “Well, that was a pretty dumb idea.”

“Not gonna disagree,” she says with a giggle, glancing between her clothes and the screen in intervals as she folds. “Now, tell me everything. From the beginning. I still gotta pack, but I’m listening, I promise.”

A soft smile brightens his face, sunlight glinting off his dark brown irises. It’s enough to capture her stare, to make everything else in the world freeze to a stop. Just for one magic moment. Her heart almost flip flops at the gentle way he gazes at her, his eyes filled with a shy reverence that honestly, speaks volumes to his nature as a person. Because while he’s grown undeniably strong as a half-Gem, he’s far more than that. He's kind. He’s sensitive, and caring. So, so caring. More than anything else he tries his hardest to be extra empathetic about the needs of others around him, and she adores this about him, she truly does. Her only wish is that he could be this receptive about his own needs all the time, too. With her firsthand knowledge of the stressful stuff he and the other Gems deal with on a weekly basis, she can’t help but worry sometimes.

He breathes in, chest rising and falling as he prepares to tell his story. “Okay. So it all started yesterday morning when I was playing video games with the Gems…”

______

“—and then that’s when I figured out I could still fuse, right after I texted you. So we did, and- and well, that’s pretty much it,” Steven finishes with a bit of a waver in his voice, absentmindedly twirling his finger around a short curl at the nape of his neck as he adjusts his grip on the phone with his other hand.

With his story more or less complete, barring a few recent occurrences he’s hesitant to speak of right now, he pays careful attention to the minute fluctuations of Connie’s expression as everything he’s told her sinks in.

(He intentionally left out some of the more intimate bits, of course— like softly crying himself to sleep before Dad warped back, or having a near breakdown on the beach, or his conversation with half of himself. Some moments simply aren’t for others to know.)

Her voice wavers as she finally makes to respond. “Wow, that’s… a lot.”

“Yeah. And like, I wanna believe it’s over now, but everyone’s still acting so weird.”

“Mmm, and then there’s everything about your mom, and Pink Diamond…” She balls her hand against her mouth as she mulls over this information, her sobered glance shifting from him to some unspecified point in her bedroom.

And at seeing the subtle aversion of her gaze, he frets for a second. He squirms in the seat of the cold metal chair he’s made his temporary home in, toes curling inwards much like the creeping dread that’s trying to inch its way ever further into his heart, stifling any last hope of peace or calm. Replacing it with fear. Like, what if his real talk is too real? Too honest? What if he’s freaked her out, or overloaded her with the sheer weight of everything that’s happened to him, what if she’ll wanna keep her distance from him because of all this, what if—

“I’m so sorry you have to deal with all this,” she says softly, slashing the cord that’s restraining him within his frantic thoughts.

His shoulders relax, tension fading.

“I- is there anything I can do?” his friend continues. “To help, I mean?”

“Nah, don’t think so. Not right now, at least. Honestly, just having someone to talk to about all this means a lot.” He begins to slowly swing his legs back and forth, and leans against the coffee stained table top. “Normally I’d talk to one of the Gems, but. Well, y’know.”

His friend bobs her head in the affirmative. “Mmm.”

“It’s just…” he begins, pausing with a long sigh as he tries to organize all his jumbled emotions into something remotely explainable. His eyes drift away from his phone, focusing instead on the soft, tantalizing glow of the ice cream freezer across the shop. “I think I almost died, Connie. For real. I was shivering, a-and scared, and cracked, and- and yet they couldn’t stop fighting about whatever happened in the past. I don’t know anything about Pink Diamond, or what terrible things Rose apparently did, but now it’s like… even if they don’t mean to, that’s all they can think about when they look at me?”

Steven groans in exhaustion, slumping forward so the side of his face is pressed against the table. It’s comfy, never mind how dirty the surface probably is. He shifts his phone in his hands so Connie’s image is still parallel to him. “I dunno. I should’ve never popped that bubble in the first place. If I didn’t let Bismuth out, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Steven!” a loud voice calls from across the shop. “Are you gonna buy a donut or what?”

“Whu- huh??”

Startled, he shoots upright in the chair— knowing all too well from the faint thrum dancing under his skin that he’s on the brink of summoning his bubble on sheer impulse— before realizing that no, it’s only Lars, everything’s fine, I’m fine.

The surly teen is slumped against the counter next to Sadie, (who’s counting the money in the cash register on sheer compulsion, as if rifling through it one more time might cause the cash to magically multiply), both employees marinating in the boredom of yet another low traffic mid-September day at the Big Donut. He pauses to catch his breath, in retrospect feeling super silly for his near freak-out. His two favorite donut people have been here this whole time, of course. How he managed to become so sucked in by his call that he forgot is beyond him.

“Are you okay?” he hears Connie ask softly, obvious concern in her voice.

Lars on the other hand, apparently wasn’t finished calling him out.

“You can’t just- loiter here all morning and not buy anything!” he says. Brow threading together in perplexion, he whirls towards his coworker. “Right? Isn’t there a law for that? Sadie, help me out here-!”

She rolls her eyes so far they almost disappear back into her skull. “Oh, leave him alone, he’s fine...” “Yeah, I’m not loitering, I’m having a nice conversation with my friend!” he chimes, holding up his phone screen to them as proof.

“Hi Sadie, Lars,” Connie says.

The young lady behind the register smiles warmly despite the bags under her eyes, and pauses her task to wave to the camera.

Unimpressed, Lars leans his chin against his balled up fist, elbow propped on the counter. His tired eyes narrow into thin slits, exaggerated by the squish of his cheek against his bottom eyelid. “A ‘nice conversation?’ You’ve been sitting there for half an hour rambling about the misfortunes of near death,” he says, deadpan.

“I—“ His eyes grow wide as he combs back through the— now that he thinks about it— admittedly dour mood of everything he’s recently said. “Is that really what it sounded like...?”

Is he just being a killjoy to everyone? He thought it’d be okay to be real about it with his friend for once, since he usually keeps his deeper issues to himself, but perhaps...

“No, just ignore him,” Sadie says as she diligently sorts the coins, cutting in right before his mind can continue its downward spiral.

On the screen, Connie nods in wholehearted support. “It’s just venting, I don’t mind.”

And despite everything else he manages a smile at that, small and thin but filling him with a needed burst of energy all on its own.

“Huh,” Lars mutters, scrutinizing him closely. “Well, whatever it was, dark and brooding is a surprisingly good vibe for you. We’ll make a teenager of you yet.”

Steven blinks in confusion.

“But I already am a teenager,” he says, perhaps a bit more defensively than he ought have.

“Yeah!” chimes his friend over the phone.

“Wait, really? Aren’t you like, nine or somethin’?”

He squirms in his seat upon reference to his inability to physically age, feeling the flush touch his ears. “Uh, actually…”

“Dude, he’s been a teenager,” Sadie says. She stuffs the last of the quarters in their slot and securely shuts the cash register drawer. “He turned fourteen a few weeks ago, don’t you remember?”

“N- no… I just—“ Lars lets out a scoff, shooting her a moody sneer. “Whatever, okay? I don’t have the time or the patience to remember everyone’s birthdays in this dead-end town.”

“Only twenty-nine people even live here year round.”

“So? Your point is?”

“My point is that it’s kinda common courtesy to look up and pay attention to your surroundings every once in a while?”

He turns up his nose. “Ugh, well you know what—“

Steven purses his lips as he watches the two of them devolve into yet another round of petty squabbling. (Why all of these fights lately…? What’s wrong with everyone, what’s in the air?) Suddenly feeling very much like high tailing it out of here, he shifts in his seat. He and Connie share a knowing glance, one that quickly lets him knows they’re on the same page. Originally, he came here to use the store wi-fi since he didn’t want to be at home right now, but he can probably still use it just fine sitting at the table outside. Without any overt announcement of the fact, he stands and makes his way to the door. Lars and Sadie are too caught up in their spat to notice him leave.

Only when the cool breeze greets him outside can he relax. He kicks back in one of the chairs set out front of the store, adjusting his phone in his hand. Gulls call loudly from the boardwalk in their endless search for trashed food. A handful of people he doesn’t recognize— tourists!— splash in the water or play in the sand, a pair of young men holding hands as they cross the public beach. Sunlight is finally breaking through the cloud cover, brilliant blue overtaking dreary grey. He smiles faintly. Despite everything, it truly is a beautiful morning.

“Sorry about all that!” he says to his friend on the line, glancing back at the doors of the Big Donut. “They really are cool people when you got to know ‘em, but they kinda disagree about stuff a lot.”

Connie stifles a laugh, her expression unreadable for a moment. “I know you keep saying they’re probably dating, but I honestly don’t believe you.”

His skin grows clammy all of a sudden.

Don’t… believe...

He's frozen. It’s almost like he’s with Sapphire, trapped again in that old motel room shivering amidst her frost powers. And yet simultaneously he’s not, ‘cause… because he’s burning up, hand clutching at thin air. He’s terrified. He’s completely alone, he’s—

He’s back in the forge.

Bismuth’s there, looming like a reaper above him, arm shapeshifted into some sort of curved saw blade and held aloft. Thick, viscous lava boils angrily in the pool surrounding the platform he’s on, and more than anything it’s a warning, a constant warning, and he’s stupid, he’s so unobservant and stupid, he should have paid heed to it when he came down here in the first place, why didn’t he—

Heat blasts almost violently at him as he shuffles away on hands and feet, scooting backwards on the blistering stone. He heaves for breath amidst his panic. Meanwhile, the channels of hard light running parallel with his veins buzz alongside the rush of adrenaline keeping him alive. Sweat beads on his forehead, sticky and unnaturally cool.

No matter how hard he tries, he’s too weak against her. His shield isn’t strong enough.

He knows this for a fact now, knows that Bismuth can dissipate both it and his bubble with enough force, and that’s a super scary thought but it doesn’t stop the primal instinct pulsing insistently at the back of his mind, pushing him to stand back up, to summon his weapon anyways and try to defend himself. It’s nothing but a lost cause, though.

Now, his only true shield is his words.

“Wait, I’m not my mom!” he cries in desperation, shielding himself with his arms. “I don’t know what she did, but I’m sure she didn’t want to hurt you!”

The stark shadow obscuring the rainbow haired Gem’s eyes grows darker.

“It’s too late,” she spits, preparing to swing her arm down. “I don’t believe you anymore!”

And then with a shallow gasp he’s here again, here at this dingy plastic table sitting under the bright and blue hope of morning, his phone clutched in a vice-like grip. Breath passes through his lips shakily. What the heck was that?? Was his gem feeding him old memories like what happened in his sleep, or something? Whatever it was, he’s genuinely not sure how much time has passed during the vision, a realization which unnerves him. Seemingly not too long, as Connie hasn’t moved to speak yet. Yet still her too-familiar words echo in his mind, pulsing with the thrum of inflamed blood vessels at an open wound, and without the blessing of inhibition he blurts out the first thought that reveals itself.

“That’s fair,” he says, voice cracking. “I probably wouldn’t believe me about a lot of things right now.”

Her brow creases with obvious concern. “Hey... Hey, I didn’t mean that personally. I was just messing around with ya’. You know that, right?”

“I know,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. I guess I just feel... really on edge.” Jittery fingers card through thick curls as his chest softly rumbles in the absurdity of it all. “Geeze, I’m being a real sad sack today, huh?”

“Well, you’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah, but to be fair ‘near death scenarios’ are pretty much just an occupational hazard at this point. And I’ve handled that fine before, so…”

“Still doesn’t erase the fact that it’s impacted you hard this time,” she says softly, leveling her gaze squarely on him, her intuitive brown eyes disassembling his insecurities and then putting them back together like a puzzle.

He flushes, shrinking where he sits. He pulls his legs up onto the seat, clutching them to his chest. Intuitively he knows she’s right, he knows that all this has messed with him more than the danger of Gem stuff normally does, but he still can’t help but feel… ashamed? That he’s feeling this way in the first place? It’s bizarre. It’s completely dumb, and the more he fixates on it the more dumb it becomes. Eventually he decides he’s not in the right mental state to try and weave a halfway rational response to her and elects to swerve the topic.

“So there’s also another not-great thing that happened,” he begins, hugging his knees. “Should probably mention.”

“Yeah…?”

“Garnet unfused over all this. Maybe for good this time.”

She gasps, and in an instant her face shoots closer on his screen.

“Wait what? She- you mean that Ruby and Sapphire aren’t—“

“Yup.”

Connie covers her mouth in shock, eyes glistening. “Oh, no! Steven, I’m so sorry! And you don’t think they’ll be able to work it out?”

“No, they made it seem pretty permanent.”

“That’s… really rough,” she sighs in solidarity. “‘Cause I mean, at least since it’s fusion she’s still there in spirit, but- you grew up knowing Garnet.”

“Exactly,” he nods. “I love Ruby and Sapphire a whole bunch, but it’s still different, y’know? Like, it’s like I lost someone important to me. Maybe forever. And... it feels so awful,” he says, pushing past the lump in his throat that he wishes more than anything would go away. “All of it. It’s like everyone in my family’s falling apart. The moment she unfused, Sapphire immediately shut herself in her room, and then Ruby was so upset she ran away, and Amethyst and Pearl started yelling at each other about everything, so… I left. And called you,” he explains, gesturing at her. “And now I’m here, chillin’ at the Big Donut. And that’s pretty much it.”

“Gosh...”

“Yeah.”

“Again, I’m sorry you had to deal with all this. I mean, outright getting cleaved from half of yourself? I can’t even imagine…” She bites at her knuckles for a moment, deep in thought. “Makes me wish I had more than sympathy to offer.”

“Nah, just you listening to everything means a whole bunch. I really appreciate that,” he says. “I—“ his voice wavers a bit as he feels the heat of the blush blossoming across his cheeks— “I really appreciate you. A lot. You- you know that, don't you?”

She giggles, the sound a beautiful reassurance to his ears. “Of course I do! And anyways, you always take time to listen to me when I’m down. That’s what jam buds are for, right?”

“Right,” he says, the word reverberating in harmony in the deepest reaches of his heart.

“Steven!” a voice calls from the distance.

Connie’s brow furrows. “Is that…?”

He whips his head around, squinting in the sunlight to catch a clearer glimpse of the figure running towards the edge of the Big Donut’s patio, his long hair rippling behind him. At the sight of family, his eyes light up. He waves his free arm in greeting.

“Dad!”

“Hey, kiddo!” his dad says, crossing the last few steps to the patio chair he’s curled up in. Gasping for breath, he plops himself in the chair adjacent. “I thought I’d find you here. You doin’ better now?”

He makes a half grimace, and shakes his flattened hand in a so-so gesture.

Dad’s hopeful smile fades, quickly replaced with a compassionate sense of understanding that could only come from years of hard earned age and experience. “Yeah. Yeah, I getcha. Seeing people you love fight like that’s never fun. Do you wanna talk about it?”

He presses his mouth into a line as he contemplates. To be honest, after venting about everything to Connie, fixating on negative emotions more is the last thing he wants to do, but he doesn’t wanna be rude to his dad. Thank goodness he has a valid excuse to avoid it altogether!

“Uh, I’m kinda on the phone, here,” he says, showing him his phone screen as proof.

“Oh, by golly, so you are! Hey, Connie. How are you hangin’ in there?”

She flashes a smile. “Hi, Mr. Universe! I’m okay, thanks.”

“Heh, Mr. Universe, huh?” he chuckles softly, scratching at his beard. “Such formalities! You’ve known me for what, how long? Please, you can call me Greg.”

“Thanks, but my mom says I’m not allowed to call grown ups by their first names.”

“Dr. Maheswaran has all sorts of weird mom rules,” Steven chimes in, nodding.

“Hoo boy, do I know about those,” his dad commiserates in a flat tone. He makes a big show out of mulling this over, humming as he taps at his chin. “Well then, don’t think of me as a grown up, but more of a big kid with, erm… slightly bigger responsibilities.”

“Uh, okay!” Connie says, hesitantly glancing between him and Steven. “If it’s alright with you, then, Mr. Greg!”

Dad‘s mouth turns up in a fond smirk, and then he glances back at him. “Anyways, I wanted to let you know that the Gems have cooled down. I had… a bit of a talk with them, let’s say,” he mutters, clear exhaustion betraying his otherwise content demeanor. “Should be fine to go back when you’re ready.”

“Did Ruby return??”

“Nah, she’s still MIA. But Pearl and Amethyst are on the case.”

He sighs, disappointment flooding his heart. He’s not sure why he ever dreamed otherwise. She’ll come back eventually, of course. She’s gotta. According to Garnet, Rubies are very social Gems, which means they prefer sharing in the company of others over being alone. And even when she’s not fused with Sapphire, she’s still a part of his family. He dearly hopes she knows that.

“I hope her and Sapphire will be okay,” he mutters.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine in the end,” he says with a shrug. “They’ve come apart before, after all.”

Connie hums in agreement. “Yeah, sometimes even my parents need some quiet time away from each other. That’s totally normal!”

Dropping his legs to dangle from the chair again, Steven watches an orange spotted butterfly flutter between the beach umbrellas set up on the patio tables, meeting with its other half before both journeying away in the wind. His cheeks lift at their attempts at reassurance, and boy, does it feel so much more natural than frowning pensively.

“D’ya really think so?”

Smiling softly, his dad affectionately musses his hair. “All we can do is wait and see, bud. Wait and see.” He stands to his feet then, grunting as he uses the table’s surface to help push him up. Gaze growing somewhat weary, he peers with purpose towards the far side of the hill. “Anyways, your old man will be over at the car wash, scrubbing soap scum off the floors. Eughh, right? But hey, if you need anything… a hug, an ear, some classic fatherly advice… come and find me, okay? Take it easy this morning.” Grinning, he turns back to wave goodbye to the girl mirrored on the screen. “Nice seeing ‘ya, Connie. Take care.”

“You too!” she waves in return.

And with that farewell his dad begins his casual jaunt down the sidewalk, leaving the two of them alone once more. Except, he supposes that’s not true at all, is it? Even without Connie, even without Dad, or the Gems. Because if he can take away one good thing from this whole messed up experience, just one hopeful message, it’s that he’s never been alone a day of his life. That’s simply the nature of fusion, you see. Even in the darkest, scariest moments...

I’ve never actually been alone, he marvels. I’ve just been me.

______

Once Steven’s dad leaves to scrub down the floors at his car wash, their conversation evolves considerably from its bleak beginnings. Enough about all this Gem stuff, Steven says, what’s new with you? Besides, uh- folding underwear, of course!

Connie laughs, rolling her eyes at the visible blush on his face as she pushes the aforementioned undergarments out of frame. She eagerly shares some of the finer details of her India trip, telling him all about when she’s leaving for the airport, (late this evening, on a red-eye flight across the Atlantic), what area of the country she’s visiting, (Punjab, where some of her extended family lives), and how long she’ll be gone (just a week!). From there, the topic shifts between a variety of themes, ranging anywhere from her anxiety and excitement at starting school again when she gets back, the pride of finally figuring out a challenging song she’s wanted to perfect for a while on her violin, to this super compelling Unfamiliar Familiar fanfic she found where Lisa discovers she’s secretly heir to the throne of the corrupt society she’s always been vying to escape from underneath the authoritative thumb of.

“Wow, this is the story I never knew I always needed so badly in my entire life,” Steven says, brown irises turning starry-eyed in the sunlight. He’s sitting atop the hill now, resting content on his belly in the grass in front of the lighthouse.

“I know, right?? I’ll send you the link,” she promises, dangling her feet in the air behind her as she lays on the carpet.

He pumps his fist in the air triumphantly. “Woo, free infinite books!”

“Well, keep in mind, it’s not finished yet. Apparently it’s supposed to update bi-weekly, but I think the author got a bit boggled down by life stuff recently.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. I hope they’re doin’ okay.”

“Same… But hey,” she says with a soft laugh, “at least it’s a long fic, right?”

“Y’know,” he interjects the current topic suddenly, rising to his knees. “I wonder if I can see your house from here! D’ya think that’s possible, ‘cause I wanna see if that’s possible!”

He switches his camera’s view from front to back, the image of his face replaced by the scenic vista of the cozy beach town below, ridged by the peaceful waters of the Atlantic and Rehoboth Bay. She can see everything, from the gigantic pastry shaped facade atop the Big Donut, to the water tower clear on the other side of the peninsula. Beyond, lush green grasslands— dotted with clusters of small residences, humanity’s touch on the Earth— stretch as far into the horizon as far as a young dreamer can imagine.

Connie picks up her phone from the bedpost she leaned it against and squints at the screen, trying to map out the precise scale of the countryside between them in her mind. “Hmm, probably not. I think my town’s pretty hidden by the surrounding hills.”

“No silly, not from right here, here! I meant, from up here!”

She yelps as the view of Beach City on her phone screen jolts in a burst of sudden, rapid movement, shrinking smaller and smaller as the seconds tick by.

“Steven!! What are you—“

But internally, she finds the answer to this question before she can even finish asking it. Clearly, he jumped into the sky, so… so he’s using his floating ability. Even though she’s never seen him utilize it to leap to this extreme, it’s the only possibility that makes any ounce of sense. Her mouth falls agape at the picturesque view below, the town beginning to looking more and more like a blurred watercolor painting. Distantly, she wonders what it would feel like to be up there with him, her hands clutched tight in his, the wind dancing through her long hair.

"Consarn it! Your house is too small to pick out. Hmm..."

Or even as Stevonnie, can they float too? she wonders. Maybe one day she can ask!

“Oh my gosh, this is just like I’m on the giant slingshot they used to have at Funland,” she says, averting her eyes as her best friend continues his ascent into the shimmering blue sky. She lets slip a slight grimace, finding the stark contrast between the movement on the screen and the still permanence of her bedroom dizzying the more she watches. “And I’m starting to think there’s a reason they shut that ride down…”

“Hey, my floating powers are way better than The Comet,” he chirps playfully, having finally reached the apex of his leap. “Hah, maybe that means I should start my own attraction at Funland!”

“Doing what?” she says, unable to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the very concept. “Bubbling people on the tracks of the rollercoaster like the day we first met? I’m pretty confident that’d be a major health and safety violation.”

“Aww, but those are the best kinds of attractions!”

She hears him grunt with minor exertion, and suddenly the aerial glimpse of the countryside she’s watching on her phone drops out of sight, replaced in an instant with a sweeping panorama of the boundless sky, the line of the horizon with the sea, the ground looming ominously hundreds of feet below. Rinse and repeat, over and over. Everything is spinning, she realizes in alarm, and there’s no end in sight.

“Whoa-oH, it’s the Stevencoaster!” he cries in childish glee as he somersaults.

His lighthearted joy is so contagious she can’t stop the grin stretching wide across her face.

“Careful, you doofus, you’re gonna make me motion sick and I’m not even there,” she giggles breathlessly.

“Nooo! And the Stevencoaster makes everyone toss their cookies! Words truly cannot describe the culinary carnage left in its wake.”

She rolls her eyes in fondness at his antics, and sits up on her carpet. “No, but seriously,” she reaffirms, “that’s making me pretty dizzy.”

“Oh, sorry!”

Soon enough she watches him level out from his spin, his camera focusing for a moment on the ground a hundred feet below his sandaled feet before flipping to show his face once more, framed by wild dark curls. His irises are shimmering an unnatural pink she’s never seen before. It's enough of an unexpected shock that her smile fades, ever so slightly.

“Better?” he says, beaming at her as he continues on his slow descent to Earth.

They’re still pink. And his pupils… She’s not just imagining it, right? She blinks heavily.

“Y- yes, much.”

“Connie? What’s wrong?” he asks, landing upon the grass. His brow furrows.

Even more notably, his eyes are just as normal and brown as they ever were. Connie balls her hand against her chin as she deliberates this. Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

She shakes her head, silently mulling over how best to explain this. “Nothing, it’s just… I could’ve sworn your eyes were… different, for a second.”

“Different?” Steven‘s grin stretches so wide he looks like he’s about to burst at any moment. “Eye don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Well, if you become my pupil I could explain it to you,” she giggles.

“I’m listening,” he chimes eagerly.

“Okay, so honestly it could’ve just been a trick of the light, but… it’s almost like they flashed pink for a second. And your pupils were all funny, kind of, uh- slitted! Like a cat’s.”

“Pink?”

“Yeah.”

His face goes shockingly pale. “Connie, when was this?”

“Just a second ago,” she shrugs. “You were still floating.”

“Floating,” he repeats under his breath, seeming haunted by the very thought.

“Steven?” she calls, a sudden twist in her chest at the sight of his clear distress. “Steven, what’s wrong?”

“I, I—“ he stammers, unable to even meet her glance. “I’m really sorry, but I gotta go. I’ll text you later?”

“Uh- okay. Thanks for calling—“

He hangs up.

“...back,” she finishes softly, shoulders sinking.

She sighs heavily, dropping her phone into her lap and sitting back against her bed frame. What did she say? What could be so scary about the idea of glowing pink eyes to make him react like that? Sure, it’s a bit strange, but it’s no more unusual than any of his other unique abilities. She only hopes she didn’t ruin his good mood all over again by bringing his attention to it.

Her mother knocks on the doorframe outside, signaling her presence.

“Come in,” she mutters glumly.

The door creaks open. Mom steps through, and leans against the wall with her arms crossed, glancing knowingly between her and the phone still clutched like a lifeline in her hands.

“Are you still worried about that boy?” she asks.

Connie can almost hear the capitalization inherent in her tone. 'That Boy.’ Even though she and Steven are just friends, she knows full well who her mother thinks he is to her. (Not that she’d complain if that were the case, but that’s simply not a thing with them, and really that’s fine, she’s fine, their status quo is comfortable how it is—)

“Yeah… I just got off the phone with him," she says, letting her head sink into the folds of the covers trailing off the side of her bed. "It sounds like he’s been through a lot lately.”

“Well, when a child spends all day fighting monsters instead of going to school like he’s supposed to, I can’t say I’m surprised,” her mom says under her breath.

“Mom, come on, this is serious!”

“Yes, sorry, you’re right,” she says wearily, pressing her hand to her temple. “Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean that it’s fair of me to say.”

She turns away, and hugs her knees to her chest. Like a storm on a late summer day, her mind brims with so many things she wishes she could admit, so many things that need to be released if she wants to find any peace about this. But how to start? How can she make her mother understand?

“I’ve really been looking forward to this trip, y’know?" Connie says, feeling oh-so vulnerable sitting on the floor just like she always would as a young child, eyes glistening as she calls upon her mother for support. "Really. And I know we gotta leave tonight, but just knowing he’s hurting and I won’t be able to text him at all makes part of me wish… that I could stay here."

Unable to dam it up anymore, a few tears spill over to roll unbridled down her cheek. Her chest quivers uncontrollably as her face screws up and she begins to cry.

"Oh, honey," she breathes, moving to kneel on the floor next to her. She rests her hand on her upper back, gently kneading the stress out of her tense muscles.

"He's always been there for me when I needed someone to talk to, o-or somethin' to feel better," she sniffles, wiping the damp from her eyes and nose. "A- and then- the moment he needs me, I can't be there for him at all, an' it's not fair!"

Upon seeing the trail of snot beginning to drip towards her upper lip, her mother grimaces. She reaches across her for the small square box perched atop her nightstand. "Tissue," she says firmly, passing her the box.

She accepts the gift, pulling one out, and blows her nose hard.

As she's dabbing away, cleaning up the evidence of her tears, Mom's fingers shift to comb through the length of her hair. She twirls through long dark strands and pulls them out of her face. "Even if I don't get all this magic stuff you're both dealing with," she begins, voice brimming with compassion, "believe me, I understand more than most what it feels like to be cut off from the people you love. So... I’ll change your phone plan to international, how’s that? That way, at the very least you’ll still be able to contact him.”

Her eyes light up. “Wow, really?? But that’s super expensive!”

“Says your father,” she scoffs with soft laughter. “We can afford it. And anyways, I’d hate to see you miserable the whole trip.”

“That’ll be perfect!” she says, throwing her arms tight around her mother. And although she can’t see her face, Connie knows from the reassuring solidness of their embrace that every bit of the love she has for her is returned in full. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispers, her anxious heart finally finding a glimmer of peace.

#su #steven universe #connie maheswaran #su fanfic #su fanfiction #crack the paragon #greg universe #lars barriga #sadie miller #priyanka maheswaran #my writing stuff

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bthenoise · 5 years

Text

Q&A: Hear How Frank Iero Wants You To Become The Future Violents With Third Solo LP ‘Barriers’

All photos by Julius Aguilar

When you think of Frank Iero, we’re sure a lot of things come to mind. He’s a musician, he’s a dad, he’s an active user on Twitter. What most people might not realize is that Frank Iero is a huge music fan -- like, the guy knows way more about things you didn’t even know existed in the first place.

For example, take a certain guitar used by a late-60′s early-70′s band called The Wrecking Crew. Frank, being the musical factoid that he is, was able to spurt out knowledge dating back years from a recent documentary he had watched. Knowing this, we knew we had to take the former My Chemical Romance member to Arizona’s approximately 200,000 square-foot Musical Instrument Museum.

There, Frank and Noise contributor Jimmy Smith were able to walk the halls, discover instruments dating back to the 1800′s and discuss the upcoming Frank Iero And The Future Violents record Barriers.

For a glimpse into the knowledgable and insightful hang out, which also dove deep into Frank’s life-changing car accident between a city bus and his tour van, be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to pre-order Frank’s forthcoming LP Barriers before it hits stores May 31st via UNFD.

Alright, so maybe the easiest or the hardest question I’ll ask you all day: What was the best thing you saw here at the Musical Instrument Museum?

Oh man, Tommy Tedesco’s [Telecaster]. That was unreal. I had no idea that [they] had that here. Like, I’ve seen documentaries on The Wrecking Crew and you learn about the incredible players they all were and how many songs that particular guitar has been on that you wouldn't even know. And just to kind of see it sitting there, it's like, “Wow.”

Were there any out-of-the-box instruments you would want to get on a record of yours?

That's the thing. Any chance you have to get an instrument in your hands and try to learn the inner workings of it and what kind of sound you can get out of it, that stuff's amazing. I like to sometimes try to take a step back and approach it from a side I don’t know and think about like, “How would I think of this instrument if I had never seen anyone else play it before? Like, how would I get a sound out of it that I’ve never heard?” And that’s kind of fun.

What do you think is the most unique instrument you've actually used on a record?

Well, early on in the My Chem days, a theremin was on [a record] but it's definitely not like one [that’s noticable]. Because it was just really a bit of a little sprinkle on top. That's an odd one to play. On this next record that we're releasing at the end of May, there's a song on Barriers called “Basement Eyes.” I wanted church bells, I wanted the chorus to have this Phil Spector kind of vibe with like percussion and almost like that feeling you get when you listen to The Crystals. “And Then He Kissed Me,” that kind of thing. So we rented this piano -- I guess, you’re not going to be able to see this reading this -- but it's like a desktop kind of thing, like maybe three-and-a-half feet tall, not a lot of keys and maybe an octave and a half. It's called a Viber-Charm and they sold it to churches that didn't have a lot of money and didn't have the pipe organ sort of church bells and they can play different things on this keyboard. And I mean, it had to be from like the 50s. [It had] braided cables, everything looked like it was going to catch on fire at any moment. And that made a resounding sound on that song. That's how we achieved that.

So obviously with every record you do you want to spice it up and do things differently. What else did you bring to the table this time around aside from adding new members?

Well, this was this is a fun one to do because I was able to really chase tones that I wanted to get. Usually, you don't have a lot of time in a studio, especially when you're a smaller artist or self-funding and stuff like that. [Usually,] you’re going into the studio with, you know, say 17 days or two weeks or something like that and you're trying to get 12 to 14 songs out. This record, we did 17 days and we did 17 songs. Steve Albini is the one that engineered this record. He’s just such a master of his craft. And I mean, he’s the only person that you work with that doesn't have any help, it’s just him in the studio. No ones there. Like someone goes and gets coffee sometimes. Other than that, like no one touches a microphone or anything. Like, he sets up everything himself. He's at the board. He does edits on tape, of course, it's like straight two-inch tape. You need someone that is so unbelievably versed in their craft to be able to make that time work. And we mixed in that amount of time as well.

Wow. Did you enjoy having that kind of time crunch?

[Laughs] There's definitely a picture of me [and] the whole band at the end of the session I posted on my Instagram. I look like someone that is like, “Oh my god, I can't believe we finished this.” And yeah, I mean, it's hard. You sleep at the studio too. So you record [all day] and then you can go in after hours and work on stuff. But like, you're there a lot and it's the second time in my life that I had an episode of sleep paralysis. Like, one of the nights, I woke up and my brain had woken up first but my body didn't. And I was like, “Oh no!” It's the scariest experience ever. So I was definitely stressed. But we got it done.

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A post shared by frnkiero (@frankieromustdie) on Mar 29, 2019 at 2:06pm PDT

Did the sleep paralysis affect any of the songs at all? Did it make you think differently about your lyrics maybe?

No [laughs]. Like, I've had it twice. Once it happened, I was in My Chemical Romance at the time, and I don't know if we were recording but I was definitely stressed out. And I didn't know what it was. And that [time] was like, “Oh man, there must be” -- I was in a hotel, I was like, “This must be haunted.” Like, immediately I went to that because it feels like someone's pushing you down and you can't move at all but you're fully awake and aware that you can't move and that's why it’s so scary. The second time it happened during this recording, I woke up and I was on my side, and I remember being like, “Oh no, it's happened again” [laughs].

The ghost found you!

[Laughs] Yeah! The ghost found me! Like, “Oh great, he’s followed me now.” But I heard this -- it almost felt like a laser starting from the top my head and going all the way down and I heard “zzzzzzzzzzz” like I was being scanned. It was crazy. And then when it finally got to my feet, [snaps] I woke up. I was able to come out of it and I immediately Googled it like “What the fuck is this?!” So I saw this sleep paralysis thing that said sometimes when your brain wakes up before your body, you can carry through a dream that you're having. So if you're having a nightmare, you'll see things from your nightmare and that’s why people think it's like, “Oh no, it's a demon holding me” and it freaks you out. But it's like, “Oh my god” [laughs].

So just talking about the people you brought in for this record, some of them you’ve known for a very long time. Like Tucker Rule, for example. What is it like to get to play in a band with him?

Oh, man, it's a dream come true. Like Matt [Amrstrong] too, I've known both of those guys since maybe 2000 or 2001. I saw them play in respected bands that I thought were just unreal. I mean, Thursday was one of the greatest live bands, and still is, that I've ever seen. And I remember being like, “Wow, I would love to play with Tucker.” And I got to play with Tucker later on in the 2000s when our drummer from My Chem Bob [Bryar] got sick and had to go home. I think Tucker came in for an Australian tour and that was really awesome. He was fantastic. I mean, he's a fantastic drummer it was great to play with him. But I remember being like, “I wish I could write songs with him.” Like he's playing parts that someone else wrote. And that's always weird. It's almost like putting on your dad’s suit. Like, you could look good in it but you're never going to look like it's yours.

So I was like, “Wouldn't it be cool to be able to write songs with this guy?” And then Matt, he was in a band called Murder By Death. And I remember them when they were Little Joe Gould. And they came into the Eyeball [Records] family through Tucker and Thursday. And I remember being like, “Wow, I thought Thursday was good. Like, holy shit, this band is unreal!” And I mean, there was completely different instrumentation. Of course, there was a cello player and keyboard player and just the things that they were doing, I think let everyone in our little microcosm know it's not just about “I got these four chords, I'm gonna write this song.” It's like, “You should and can do so much more.” And I think that kind of blew the doors off for everybody and that's when we started to really take it seriously and try to get better. I remember thinking like, “Oh man, how cool would it be to be in a band with that guy? That kid can play.”

So is it kind of weird to think in a weird way you’re sort of their boss since it’s your band?

It's weird to be in that position because I never wanted that. I've always had bands and always started bands and ended up in that position because I was the one that started it or no one else wanted to do that job so it was like, “Alright. Well, someone's got to do it, so I guess I'll do it.” But I very much love that idea of a community being like, “Alright, we're all in this together. We all have equal say.” I like the writing process of that where you bounce ideas off of each other.

So it was collaborative writing with all the members for this project?

For this one, a lot of the songs started just in my head and that's kind of how this solo project has gone. But on this record in particular, because I think we had such high caliber musicians, two songs started with ideas that my brother Even Nestor had. And two songs, one of which made the record, started with Matt. So that was a kind of a thing like, “Hey, I have this riff. Do you think we could use it?” And we would jam out on it and all of a sudden it’s a song.

Do you have a favorite song on the record?

I do [laughs].

Which one is it?

It's called “Medicine Square Garden.” It was one of those where I wrote it, had it in my head and I was like, “This is going to be really difficult to explain to someone how this song is supposed to go.” And it's either going to work or it's not. It's going to be one of those things where if it doesn't work, I'm going to be bummed because I think it's really good but I need people to like -- I don't think I could have done it with anybody else other than this bad. It's crazy. It's one of those songs that I really took a leap of faith on. And since it did pay off and it is still one of my favorite songs, I feel like that's how I knew it it was a successful record.

Getting to hear the record early, it’s interesting that after your accident, you could have gone two ways with how you wrote it: Angry and pissed off at the world or calm and just looking to get back to basics. Was that something you considered when writing Barriers?

Well I think for me, having that accident, I knew I couldn't write a record without addressing it because it was such a huge moment in my life and it changed everything. I knew I'm a different person because of it. And there was this huge elephant in the room that I knew I had to talk about and I had to address it and it had to be, if not a focal point of the record, it had to be -- just, it was there within everything I was writing so I needed something to be dedicated to it. But everything I started to write about just didn't feel right. Like I didn't feel like I was getting everything out the way you do, there's so much to say. And the words just weren't there. I would write something and be like, “that doesn't sum it up.” It's hard to sum up a life-changing experience like that. So that was kind of my wall that I had. And I didn't think I was going to be able to do a record. That's why too I was like, “You know, I'm just gonna take some time.” And it just so happened that Tucker ended up being free. Matt became free. Evan was free and then, Kayleigh Goldsworthy, who's the fifth member of the band. And that's when I was like, “Oh man, this is a sign. It’s like now or never. If I don't write the songs, then I'm gonna miss out.” So then all of a sudden, it all started to come out and this song called “Six Feet Down Under” emerged. And it's basically just my conversation with my therapist of trying to explain how I'm feeling and like, “I know you're trying to help and the things you're saying are very nice and they come from a good spot and I know you're really smart and that's really awesome but like it doesn't mean anything [laughs] if I can't believe that this is all real.” And getting that across, I think really opened the floodgates for me to be able to finish everything else.

Have you had a wall like that in your songwriting career before?

That was a huge one.

Was there anything similar to that previously?

Minor things. You know, there's some childhood things that you have a hard time fully grasping until you get older. Like the divorce of my parents and things of that nature, like trying to make sense of all that. Family, addiction and certain things that I went through. But nothing like this one, because I feel like this was -- it's weird. Childhood trauma evolves. You know, you start to see different sides of things and you've had the time -- there are some people that say “You have your entire life to write your first record” and then you have like maybe six months to write your second basically. With this one, it was still so fresh. And [the accident] happened to me in my adulthood. It happened at a time where I kind of felt like -- like, I had a family. I thought I had things figured out. And immediately [snaps] everything changed.

It shook you up a little.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like at 25 you go crazy. 30 you're like, “Alright, I'm okay with not knowing everything.” Around 35 you’re like, “Well, I'm starting to get my shit together. And then you get hit by a bus” [laughs]. And you're like, “Oh man, I know nothing again.”

Okay, so then just wrapping up. I was wondering if your three band names -- the Cellabration, the Patience, and The Future Violents -- have any sort of connection?

So the Cellabration was, in my head, it was my first time as a solo artist and I didn't feel comfortable in that role so I wanted to bring along something that felt boisterous and exciting so that would take away from my, you know, like, “It’s just me up here. It’s weird” [feeling]. And I spelled it differently because I like the idea of it being like a cellular thing, like this building block of life and it's going to start from here and evolve and grow and change. So that's where that came from. The Patience was me kind of getting over the idea that I needed something to take away from me. I really wanted something that would kind of even me out and just that self-fulfilling prophecy of bringing this virtue along where you kind of take a step back and appreciate the now. I've spent so much time like, “What's next, what's next? Alright, this tour is going, alright, cool. I'm gonna get home here and then when I'm home, the next tour I’m going to do is this.” And it's like, you live so fast that you don't appreciate what's actually happening. And I don't want that.

And then this time around, The Future Violents, I started to think about how life is kind of this -- it's like you're staring at a lake and you can passively take it all in and see the things swimming underneath and maybe how the wind kind of takes the current. And we do that sometimes, we live vicariously through other people and sometimes, you know, just having it be serene is nice. And then the “active” way to live by is to kind of pick up a stone on the side and throw it in and see the ripples that go on and really affect it. And I think that act is a violent act that disrupts things [but] doesn't have to necessarily have a negative connotation. You know, it's about leaving a footprint and changing things and being conscious enough to want to disrupt what's there and hopefully in a positive way and see that ripple go on and affect other people and like bellow out. So, collectively, I'd like to think that the band and the people that are listening to this record are The Future Violents, the ones that go out and create a change and hopefully listen to this record that we've made -- a record that I used to break down these walls and barriers that I had set up -- and use it to destroy their own barriers and go out there and do things that scare the fuck out of you. Because that's the only time that we do something really wonderful is when we're so frightened that we're not going to do it right. And that's the best part.

#Frank Iero #Frank Iero And The Future Violents #UNFD #Interview #My Chemical Romance

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chasholidays · 5 years

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Bellarke AU for To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before!!!!!! Pretty please! Thank you for doing this every year, you’re the greatest!

when I wake up in the morning and post this, it will be my 500th t100 fic on AO3, so that’s a cool milestone

Bellamy Blake does not identify as “good at feelings.”

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. Realistically speaking, he gets that he’s better with feelings than a lot of people, especially in the teenage boy demographic. He’s empathetic and fairly good at helping other people through their own emotional issues. It’s more that he’s bad with his own feelings, especially romantic ones. He’s bad at developing feelings for appropriate and realistic people, he’s bad at dealing with those feelings, and he’s bad at getting over those feelings.

Which is how he came up with the letter thing in the first place. He’d had a stupid, incoherent crush on Clarke Griffin which was bad before she started dating Lexa Commodore, and once that happened, he felt not only annoyed but actively like an asshole about it.

So he wrote a letter, explaining how he’d come to like her–one stupid kiss in one stupid game of spin-the-bottle–and all the reasons he really shouldn’t like her, starting with how they couldn’t stop fighting and ending with the way she was possibly not even into guys and he should respect that, covering pages of ground between the two.

It wasn’t a particularly good letter, but it was a great way to purge his feelings, and over the next few years, any time he caught himself watching the curve of Clarke’s smile or agreeing with her in a debate for once, he’d go home, read the letter, and remember all the very good reasons he didn’t have a crush on her anymore.

It worked so well that he did another one explaining to himself why just because he and Echo Argent made out at one debate-club tournament, it did not mean they were going start a functional long-distance relationship, and then another reminding himself that John Murphy was weirdly attractive but it would absolutely never work between them.

And then his last, for Nathan Miller, which really only needed one reason: he was dating Monty.

He came up with other reasons too, obviously, but Miller dating his foster brother was the biggest one. He could get over the fact that Miller is one of his best friends–that’s a plus, mostly–and get over the fact that Miller was kind of a crutch after his mom died when his whole life was in chaos. After all, he’s doing a lot better now. Monty’s family is great, Octavia’s largely stable, his life is in order. But Monty and Miller are together, and that means he will not and cannot have a thing for Miller.

Which is why the two of them breaking up is so catastrophic, and why he goes to find the letters in the first place. There was probably some valid reason to not like Miller somewhere in there. Once he gets going, he can usually keep going for a while; his letter to Clarke was like five pages long, and turned into, not to be too Hamilton about it, an itemized list of thirty years of disagreements.

So all he has to do is reread the letter, and he’ll remember all the good reasons that Monty and Miller breaking up doesn’t mean his Miller thing is allowed to come back. He can even add a post-script: siblings’ significant others are off limits, even after they break up. That seems like a good rule. If he was dating someone and they broke up, he’d think it was weird if Octavia or Monty picked them up on the rebound.

He’s working through the exact wording of the planned post-script when he realizes that he can’t find the box of letters, and his whole body goes cold.

His first, obviously incorrect, thought is that he misplaced it during the move to the Greens’ house, but he wrote the Miller letter after that, and then he put it in the box with the other letters, and put the box in the corner of his closet. He’d even brought it down about a couple months ago to reread the Clarke letter again after they were in the same group for an English project and it went really well. He remembers thinking about editing it, since she’s single again and he knows she IDs as bisexual, but it didn’t seem particularly important.

“Must have moved it somewhere this weekend,” he mutters. Monty was getting packed for his semester abroad, and it was a good excuse for everyone to reorganize and purge.

But he turns the room upside down and finds nothing, ends up sneaking into Monty’s empty room next to make sure it didn’t end up in there somehow. He doesn’t look inside anything, doesn’t violate privacy any more than he has to, but if his foster brother somehow ended up with a box that contained a “why I don’t have a thing for your ex-boyfriend anymore, really” letter, Bellamy needs to know that.

Of course, even though the box isn’t in Monty’s room, he could have taken it with him for his semester abroad. But if he did, there’s no way of knowing that, so Bellamy lets it go, tries not to think about the box stowing away in Monty’s luggage. It’s got to be somewhere in his own room, he just hasn’t figured out where yet.

He goes on not telling himself that right up until Wednesday morning, when Murphy leans against his locker to say, “You’re right, it never would have worked between us.”

“What,” he says, flat.

“It’s a little weird to send a whole letter about it, especially when I never asked if you wanted to fuck me, but I guess it was cool to find out you were thinking about it. Even if you decided to give it a pass.”

Bellamy’s stomach drops so low it feels like it’s actually left his body. He looks up at Murphy, sees he’s got the letter in his hand, the familiar envelope the most horrifying thing Bellamy has ever seen.

“What the fuck,” he says.

“That was my reaction, yeah.”

“Seriously, where did you get that, Murphy?”

He rolls his eyes. “In the mail, where else would I get it? It’s a letter.” His eyes flick up and down Bellamy. “You actually wrote it, huh?”

“It was a moment of weakness. I wouldn’t fuck you if you paid me.”

“That’s cool, I’ve got better things to do with my money anyway.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” he says, and then he sees Clarke, down the hall at her own locker. She’s watching him, and he realizes, rapidly, that if Murphy got a letter, Clarke probably got a letter, and Miller got a letter, and his whole life is going to unravel very, very rapidly. “I gotta go,” he says, and ducks into the men’s bathroom before Clarke can come his way.

Murphy’s not a real problem; he and Bellamy aren’t friends, he was never a real crush, and he’s got a girlfriend now. He thought it was funny, but it’s not going to go anywhere else. Echo isn’t either, she lives on the other side of the state, and even if she gets the letter, they don’t really have a relationship to ruin.

Which leaves him with two crises: Clarke and Miller.

Clarke’s the less obvious but more pressing problem, as she’s in his grade and a lot of his classes, including his first-period history class. Miller’s a year younger than the two of them, so Bellamy won’t see him until after school, if not later. He can avoid Miller.

Unless he cuts class, he has to see Clarke. And his letter to her is definitely rough. He can’t imagine she needs a list of reasons they’ll never work, and it’s been years since that stupid spin-the-bottle kiss, at this point. She’ll probably figure out that something weird happened, but he can’t imagine she’s just going to let it go.

And then, miraculously, she does. She doesn’t look at him in history, or in English. He skips lunch because he and Miller have the same lunch period that day and doesn’t talk to Clarke through two more classes before the final bell rings and he escapes to his locker.

He’s almost convinced himself that she’s going to let it go when he hears her ask, “Hey, Blake, you want a ride?”

He glances up at her, but her face is blank, her expression giving nothing away. Clarke’s always had a good poker face.

“You don’t have stuff to do?” he asks. “Practice?”

“Nope. Do you want the ride or not?”

If he says no, she might never mention it again. This could be her way of asking if he wants to talk about it, and if he turns the ride down, this will be the end of it. She’ll let him off the hook.

But then he’ll never know what she thinks about the letter, and that’s always going to bug him. Plus, he and Miller take the same bus. He’d been thinking about hiding in Mr. Pike’s room and waiting for the late bus, but if Clarke’s willing–

“I would love a ride,” he says, shouldering his backpack. “Thanks.”

He and Clarke still aren’t friends, but they get along better than they did when he had his stupid crush on her. They mostly just don’t interact unless they have to, and Bellamy can admit he avoids her a little. There’s always this worry at the back of his mind that whatever weird fluke that caused him to like her in the first place will flare back up, and everyone in the world is convinced she and Lexa are going to get back together any day now, so that would be bad.

Although it might not be worse than having a crush on his foster brother’s ex-boyfriend. Seriously, if he could just opt-out of romantic feelings entirely, that would be great. He doesn’t need this.

“So, how old was that letter?” Clarke finally asks.

“End of eighth grade. I decided I was going to get over you so I could have a summer romance.”

She snorts softly. “How did that work out?”

The truth is that his mom was starting to get sick and he didn’t really have time for that kind of thing, but it doesn’t seem worth spoiling the decent mood they’ve got going. “Well, I got over you.”

“And you found the letter and got nostalgic and decided to send it to me after all?”

“No.” He leans back in his seat, rubbing his face. “Fuck, I honestly have no idea how they got sent out.”

There’s a long pause, and then Clarke says, a little prickly, “What do you mean, they?”

“This is how I get over crushes.”

“You write down a list of all the reasons you hate them?”

“Why we wouldn’t make a good couple.”

“How many did you write?”

“Four.”

“Who else got one?”

“You know Echo from debate?”

“Sort of. You had a crush on her?”

“We made out in ninth grade. It wasn’t that great, but I still kind of fixated for a while.”

“So the letter was basically you will have better makeout sessions?”

“And closer ones. She lives like four hours away, it wasn’t practical.”

“Okay, that’s two.”

He debates which one to share next, goes with, “Murphy.”

“Like–John Murphy? Murphy Murphy?”

“I had this dream about making out with him and it fucked me up for like a week, until I wrote down a complete list of reasons I didn’t want to actually make out with him.”

Clarke clucks her tongue. “It seems like a lot of your crushes start with kissing. Have you tried casual sex? Just to see if it’s an option for you?”

Bellamy hasn’t tried sex at all, but he’s not telling her that right now, or ideally ever. He’s not hung up on virginity or masculinity or whatever, it’s just not something he wants to discuss with her.

“Maybe I only kiss people who are really good at it.”

“Thanks, I think.” She pauses. “Was the list of reasons not to date Murphy longer than the list of reasons not to date me?”

“No, yours was the longest. I was inspired.”

“Thanks. You know I’m bi, right? Not a lesbian. And Lexa and I broke up.”

“I didn’t in eighth grade. It’s not like I go back and edit them,” he says, conveniently omitting that he’d been thinking about doing just that.

“And neither did whoever sent them out.”

“It must be my sister,” he says, sighing. “It’s not like Monty’s parents would do it.”

“Did you guys have a fight? Is she pissed at you?”

“She’s twelve, she’s pissed at the world.”

“That sounds right.” She shoots him a look. “That was only three. Who’s the fourth?”

He sighs. “Miller.”

“Shit,” she breathes. “Like–Nate Miller. Like Monty’s boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” says Bellamy. “Yeah. It was mostly before they were going out. When I was dealing with all the stuff with my mom, he was really great. I kind of imprinted.”

“But he and Monty broke up, right?”

“That makes it slightly less awkward, yeah. But only slightly.”

“Was your whole reason for not liking him that he was dating Monty?”

“Pretty much.”

“So if he gets it–”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t actually know what you’re agreeing to. I was going to say he might be interested, but you sound like you’re dying.”

“I was going to say it would be really awkward.”

“It never occurred to you that someone you like might like you back?”

“It’s not going very well so far.”

“Isn’t Murphy not being interested kind of a good thing?”

“Kind of.” He sighs. “Thanks for being cool about this, by the way.”

“It’s flattering, right? Finding out someone likes you?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never found out anyone likes me.”

She takes the left turn onto his street without his having to remind her. “I knew how to spin a bottle and get it to land on the right person even in seventh grade,” she says, once she’s pulled into his driveway. “Good luck with the whole Miller situation.”

He’s not sure what to say besides, “Thanks for the ride.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, and he watches her drive away.

It definitely could have been worse.

Miller doesn’t call or text that night, which he tries not to let bother him, and Octavia denies any knowledge of the box or the letters or anything convincingly enough that he has to believe her. He has no real grounds for accusing her of doing anything once he’s asked and she’s said no.

So he’s back at square one, Murphy smirking at him in the hall, dodging Miller when he sees him, feeling a weird lurch every time he sees Clarke. She looks worried, like she’s actually dwelling on this, and that’s weird too, and not something he’s prepared to deal with.

But it means that when Miller makes a beeline for him Friday morning, he feels comfortable assuming Clarke will have his back, so he ducks into her conversation with Raven Reyes and slides his arm around Clarke’s waist.

Raven’s eyebrows shoot up. “Blake.”

“Reyes.” He wets his lips, turns his attention to Clarke with an expression that he hopes somehow pulls double duty as “adoring boyfriend” to Raven and “damsel in distress” to Clarke.

It must get across some message, because her expression softens and she leans into him. “Morning, Bellamy.”

Impossibly, Raven’s eyebrows go even higher. “Bellamy?”

Bellamy goes by his last name because Mr. Hartford, their seventh-grade science teacher, misread his roster and thought Bellamy’s name was Blake Bellamy, which is, admittedly, a much more normal name. But Bellamy didn’t correct him, and no one else did either, mostly because they wanted to see how long it would go. And once you’re in the habit of calling someone something, it sticks.

He calls everyone else by last name too, mostly to remind them that Blake isn’t his name, but that’s more of a personal preference.

“Did you forget I have a real name?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m the one acting weird here.”

“I told you Bellamy and I were hanging out,” says Clarke, which he wishes he could react to but probably can’t.

“Not that you were on a snuggling before first-period basis. Did you know about this one, Miller?”

Miller goes by his last name to avoid confusion with Nate Thompson, which is a much better thing to think about than what is actually happening in his life. It’s hard to believe pretending to date Clarke beats having a conversation with Miller, but somehow here they are.

“Nope, this is news to me,” says Miller. “Is this why you’re suddenly skipping lunch?”

It’s only been a couple days, so Bellamy doesn’t feel judgement for his life choices is entirely warranted, even if he has been being fucking weird. It could have just been a busy couple of days, and Miller would have been reading into things.

At the same time, it’s not normal for them to go this long without talking, and Bellamy is avoiding him, so he has no real right to get indignant about the whole thing.

“He’s been helping me with a project,” Clarke says, smooth. “You have late lunch today, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. We should be done in a few days,” she tells Miller.

“Sorry I’ve been busy,” Bellamy adds. Miller hasn’t mentioned the letter, so maybe they can just pretend it never happened. It was clearly older, just like Clarke’s; he doesn’t date them, but the information was from just after Monty and Miller started dating. And if Miller doesn’t feel the same, he’ll probably just let Bellamy off the hook. He’s not Murphy. Or Clarke, for that matter.

“Are we still on for gaming this weekend?” he asks. “Or are you going to be too busy?”

“Saturday should be fine,” he says. Octavia will be there, so it won’t be that weird. Probably. And he can’t actually avoid Miller forever. He doesn’t want to.

The first bell rings, and to Bellamy’s shock, Clarke takes his hand as they walk to first period. It’s not a big deal, really, but it’s public and unambiguous and everyone is really going to think they’re together.

“I could use a fake relationship right now,” is how she explains it at lunch. They’re in Ms. Rodriguez’s room, since she likes them and has a free period right now.

Of course, she’s also still in the room, so that’s weird.

“Excuse me?” she asks.

“Just plotting,” Clarke says, flashing a smile. “Bellamy is having a minor crisis.”

“Why do you need a fake relationship?” he asks.

“Because everyone is convinced me and Lexa are going to be back together any day.”

“But you’re not?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t know her that well,” he admits. She’s popular, maybe more popular than Clarke, but in that aloof way he associates with teen movie villains. Everyone says they like her, but she’s not that close to anyone.

Not that Clarke is a social butterfly. But he can’t help wondering how much she’d fly under the radar if she hadn’t been one of the first kids in their grade with a steady relationship, and a queer one at that.

“I like her, we’re still friends. But she’s got this–I like that she’s passionate and driven. But she can be myopic.”

“Good SAT vocab there.”

She elbows him. “You know what I mean. Have you and Miller talked at all?”

“No.”

“Would you want to date him?” She sounds curious, a little small. “If it wasn’t for the whole Monty thing.”

“I don’t know.” He pushes his hair off his face with a huff. “I think when Monty’s back, they’ll get back together. I get why they broke up, but I don’t think it’s going to last.”

“Does no one at this school understand what breakups are?” Clarke grumbles. It sounds like she’s only half joking.

“If Monty was still here, I’d say they were broken up,” he says. “But he’s spending a semester in France and he’ll be back in the spring. I’m not going to be the reason he comes home and finds out his ex really did move on.”

She winces. “Yeah, okay. But what if they’d never dated? Would you want to date Miller?”

“Who cares?”

“You sent four letters,” Clarke says. “And if they were all like mine, they weren’t love letters. They were anti-love letters. They were lists of reasons why your crushes were stupid and you shouldn’t have them. Have you ever had a crush you didn’t write to and tried to actually date?”

“No,” he admits.

“And if Miller hadn’t been dating Monty, you would have come up with another letter talking yourself out of liking him.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“And you’re pretending to date me just to get out of having a conversation with him. Can’t you just tell him it was an old letter and you’re not interested in him? Why is Miller different from me and Murphy?”

“Because I’m actually friends with Miller,” he says. “No offense, but it’s not like you and I hang out. There wasn’t much to ruin.”

“Nowhere to go but up.” She sighs. “You really want to lie to your friend about your relationship to get out of having a conversation?”

“Just until the end of the semester,” he says, even though want is a strong word. But if Clarke wants a fake boyfriend and it would help him, it’s a victimless crime.

Like Clarke said, he wouldn’t be dating Miller anyway.

“End of the semester,” Clarke agrees. “I can live with that.”

“You know I’m going to gossip about this with the other teachers, right?” Ms. Rodriguez asks, dry.

Clarke doesn’t miss a beat. “As long as it’s just the teachers, sure. We deserve it.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees. “We definitely do.”

Fake dating someone isn’t nearly as difficult as Bellamy would have expected. If anything, in fact, it’s too easy. The biggest change is how much time he spends with Clarke, but as it turns out, spending more time with Clarke isn’t bad. When Bellamy was in middle school, he hadn’t yet learned how to disagree with people without it becoming this giant argument, but now that casual shit-talk is a hallmark of most of his close relationships, being with Clarke more is easy. They can tease each other, but they have a lot in common too, share a lot of classes, are applying to a lot of the same colleges. She hasn’t played a lot of video games, but she’s interested to learn, and she has a lot of good Netflix recommendations for him. She even gets along with Octavia, which is a minor miracle.

Then again, she is giving them rides every day. Octavia loves anyone who keeps her off the school bus.

The major miracle is with Miller, who is being so normal it’s actually a little unnerving. They hang out and play video games the Saturday after the fake relationship starts, and Miller has a lot of questions about how and why he and Clarke got together, but they had the group project they were working on that had inspired Bellamy to revisit his letters in the first place. It was easy enough to turn that into a relationship origin story, a crush that somehow didn’t go away over the summer.

And once he’s done that, Miller is just Miller again. September bleeds into October and November and absolutely nothing about their relationship is different, not even slightly.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Clarke asks. It’s a week before Thanksgiving and she’s on his couch with her feet in his lap, doing her reading. No one else is home and won’t be for hours, so there’s no even real reason for them to be hanging out, but his family will be home eventually and Clarke was bored. “The whole point was that stuff was normal with Miller.”

“I know. I’m just still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“So you bring it up. Hey, remember that weird letter I sent you? That was weird, right?”

“Wow, what a great conversation starter.”

She digs her heel into his thigh. “I’m trying to help. If you want to talk to Miller about it, you don’t just have to wait for him to start it.”

“If I mention it, he’ll think I care.”

“You do care.”

“It is weird, right? You told me about getting the letter, Murphy told me about getting it, Echo’s came back with a wrong address. And Miller just doesn’t care?”

“Maybe he never got it.”

He frowns. “Never got it?”

“Yeah. Maybe it went to the wrong address or his parents misplaced it before he got it or he lost it or something. What if Miller just never got the letter and he has no idea why you were acting weird for a week or two?”

“It wasn’t that long.”

“It really was.” She smiles at him over her book. “You got better.”

“Thanks.”

“I still don’t get what exactly you want,” she says, and it’s so quiet, like it’s this giant revelation. Like she spends a lot of time wondering about what’s going on with him. “Are you still in love with Miller?”

The answer comes quickly. “No.” He sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know if I ever was. I don’t know if I really wanted to date him. Jesus, I probably suck at dating.”

“No, you don’t.”

“We’re not really dating.”

“So, you think if we were, you’d be bad at it? It’s pretty much the same skill set.”

“There’s no pressure,” he says. “I’m not worrying about being a good boyfriend or making sure I’m paying enough attention to you or whatever. And I don’t have to kiss you.”

“Wow, you don’t have to kiss me. Lucky you.”

She sounds genuinely hurt, and he can’t blame her. “Fuck, that’s not what I meant. It’s not like–of course I want to kiss you, but I’m not, so it’s not–I don’t have to worry about being bad at it.”

“I thought you made out with that girl from debate club.”

“For ten minutes. It’s not like I got feedback. I really didn’t mean it like that,” he adds, softening his voice.

“Do you really want to kiss me?” she asks.

It had not, at any point in the entire course of their relationship since seventh grade, ever occurred to Bellamy that kissing Clarke Griffin outside of a spin-the-bottle game might have been an option. It hadn’t occurred to him he could kiss her during a spin-the-bottle game until they were there, on the floor across from each other, and she was doing her first spin. As the bottle went around, he thought, wildly, that she might kiss him, and then she did.

He’d kissed four girls that night, Clarke only once, but he’d already liked her before then. She hadn’t been his crush because she kissed him, he’d just been denying it. Giving himself reason after reason to not like Clarke Griffin, rereading them every few months, when he wanted a reminder.

He’s spent so long telling himself he didn’t have a crush on her, that it wasn’t even slightly possible. Not having a crush on Clarke Griffin was a part of his identity, a personality trait.

One he had to work very hard at. One he had to remind himself of almost constantly.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and she puts her book away and climbs into his lap.

It’s nothing like the spin-the-bottle kiss, not light or quick, no circle of kids around them, giggling at the first press of lips. It’s just him and Clarke, her mouth so warm and close, her fingers tangling in his hair, his hands sliding up under the back of her shirt, time losing meaning as their mouths slide together.

“I don’t want to be your fake girlfriend anymore,” Clarke murmurs, bumping her nose against his.

“Yeah,” he says, breathless, stupid, gleeful. “Definitely not.”

Octavia owns up in February, once Monty is home and he and Miller have reconciled and Bellamy has almost totally forgotten about the letters going out in the first place. He knows, of course, that his girlfriend has a long list of reasons he said he’d never date her, but it was that list that make Clarke think he might actually like her, since about half of them were things he resented liking about her and the other half were either outdated or his protesting too much.

On reflection, he was talking himself into liking Miller and out of liking Clarke, without even realizing it. It’s a miracle it ever got sorted out.

So when Octavia comes in with the box of letters, he’s not as mad as he could have been. But still, he is her brother.

“So, you lied to my face, huh?”

“Yeah,” she says, at least sounding a little guilty about it. “You would have killed me!”

“You would have deserved it.”

“Because that letter to Clarke turned out sooo bad,” she says, with a roll of her eyes.

“It could have. And that was just one letter, the one to Miller–”

“I didn’t send that one,” she says. Bellamy blinks, and she nods to the box. “Open it, it’s still there.”

It’s a little surreal, opening up the box and seeing the single remaining letter, addressed to Miller in his own blocky hand. Clarke asked him once why he’d put actual addresses on there, and he’d explained it added to the sense of closure. It made the whole thing real.

“Jesus, Clarke was right. Why not?”

“Because I wanted him and Monty to get back together, duh. I wanted you to date someone, but it was supposed to make my life less stressful because you had something to do other than worrying about me. You hooking up with Monty’s ex would have just made everything worse.”

“That was still a shitty thing to do and then lie about. You’re really fucking lucky it turned out okay.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over how much you owe me forever for this.”

“O.”

She huffs. “Fine, I’ll never help you again. Happy?”

He puts his arm around her, gives her a squeeze. “So happy, yeah.”

#womanlalalalalalalala

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let-it-raines · 6 years

Text

Palms and Recreation

Summary: Bartenders at hotels are just supposed to serve you drinks, not change your entire life, but Emma Swan’s life never seems to go as planned.

Also available on ao3

She works at a hotel.

Scratch that.

She works at a resort that is an oasis inside of the oasis.

At least, according to the website.

Like, chandeliers and oversized couches in the lobby, palm trees scattered throughout the property, pools (yes, two) with water so blue you think it must be an illusion, tennis courts and restaurants and a spa oh my!

She works at a resort in Palm Springs, California, playground of the rich and famous year round – and living space of the retired elderly, but no one ever mentions that part when they tell you to come to Palm Springs.

How she got here isn’t that interesting. Well, not to her, but it seems to be to everyone else when they’re trying to get to know her. Usually, she lies. She tells them she’s just never felt comfortable in one place, that she enjoys moving around, moving on to the next adventure. And if she smiles just right, shows just enough teeth and bats her eyelashes just so, they don’t ask anymore. They accept it, and they move on.

She wants to move on.

But it’s kind of like she’s stuck in her head, stuck in this place, stuck in her life.

But this is also the first place that’s ever even slightly felt like a home. That’s ever felt like hers.

The reason she lies when people ask about her background is because it’s not a pretty story. She’s an orphan who grew up without a home, without family, without friends, without a plan for what to do with her life. She always just had to think about her next step, never having time to think of more than just how she was going to put food in her belly that day.

When she turned eighteen, her current foster home was in Phoenix, so she figured that’s just where she’d stay. Especially because she met a guy who made her feel like she was finally something special.

Turns out, she was special.

Special enough for the guy to frame her for some of his screw-ups (see: crimes), to tell the cops my girlfriend did it, not me. And if he hadn’t been such an idiot, hadn’t committed the crimes while she was at work waitressing tables at a Red Lobster, fifty people as her alibi, she probably would have gone to jail while he walked free.

If you look up the definition of an asshole in the dictionary, you would get some pretty unpleasant pictures next to the definition, his face included.

Instead, she walked free, and he went behind bars. But she wasn’t unscathed, not in the slightest. She walked away with a broken heart and the belief that she would never be anything other than some kind of pathetic pawn in the game of life.

Arizona suddenly felt incredibly small, like it wasn’t an entire state and was just the small apartment she had been living in. The heat was suffocating, and she just couldn’t take it anymore.

So she moved.

Saved some money, any money she could get her hands on, working two jobs and double shifts, and started working her way toward California. A part of her wanted to go east, toward places like Boston and New York, but she was a waitress with a GED. She couldn’t afford that. So to California she went.

If she’s honest with herself, it wasn’t her brightest idea to travel 268.2 miles (yes, she looked it up) to just another hot, desert town. But the bus fare was cheap, and she knew it was a touristy town, a place where she could get a waitressing job pretty quickly – and hopefully get good tips from the tourists and the elderly who lived there. And if she was lucky, she could get a job at one of the nicer restaurants, where the patrons will sometimes heavily tip just because they can.

When she looked in the paper for jobs – because that’s what you did when you didn’t have a computer – she found an ad listed for a restaurant inside one of the nicer inclusive resorts. It was kind of a long shot – she worked at a Red Lobster for goodness sakes – but when she gets to the interview, the older woman who manages the restaurant likes her. And somehow, she gets hired at a job that pays higher (much higher) than minimum wage plus tips.

It’s the biggest break she’s ever gotten, and when she finds a little studio apartment in walking distance from her job that she can afford, she thinks that she might cry tears of joy.

She will never admit to it, but she does.

So things are going great for her for a little while. Not great by most people’s standards, but great for a girl who’s frankly had a pretty shitty life, so she’ll take what she can get. Always has. Probably always will.

When she turns 21, she’s been working at the White Palms restaurant for two and a half years, and her coworkers double as her friends. She’s never really had friends, so this is kind of a new thing to her. They talk to her – ask her about her day, ask her if she wants to go out to grab dinner someplace they don’t work, ask her if she’s okay when she shows up to work with eyes rimmed in red after a particularly bad night of memories of being a lost girl – and while she’s not great with the communicating and the sharing at first, she learns how to be a friend.

And it’s at 21 that she realizes that not everyone in the world is going to treat her like she’s nothing.

She’s not nothing. She was never nothing.

By the time she’s 25, she’s got a life that she’s pretty proud of if she does say so herself. She’s now the manager of the restaurant, the woman who hired her having retired and recommended Emma for the job. She works on a salary (a salary) and if she wants to buy herself a new top, she can. No questions asked.

She’s never moved out of that studio apartment, but she doesn’t need to. She’s only one person, and she doesn’t have a lot of stuff. But the stuff that she does have is hers, unequivocally. That apartment is her little safe haven, everything draped in soft lighting with fluffy blankets and pillows filling the room. Of all the things she’s been able to accomplish, having a place of her very own that’s more than just four walls to sleep in is the one that probably means the most to her.

When she’s 27, a job opens up with the resort. Not just with the restaurant, but with the actual resort. Some sort of management position, and she just stares at the posting on her computer when the email comes in. They’re looking for someone who already works there with management experience.

She already works there, and she has management experience.

Technically she meets the qualifications, but she’s sure there are other people who are much more qualified, who have more experience. So she doesn’t apply. She doesn’t apply until it’s the deadline, and she tells herself you just never know until you try, and when she hits submit on the application at 11:45 PM, she lets out a sigh of relief, butterflies taking root in her stomach, fluttering around like they never have before.

She tries to forget about it, tries to forget that she’s trying for something more than what she already has. But every time her phone vibrates with a text, she’s jumping toward it hoping that an email came in instead. Every time her phone rings, she’s answering before she can even check caller ID.

Two weeks after she submitted her application, she gets a call at work asking her to go to HR. She figures it’s just something about the new direct deposit with her paycheck, but when she gets there, she’s directed to an office she’s never been to before.

And suddenly she’s terrified that she’s about to get fired.

When she opens the door, it’s to the head manager of the entire resort telling her that while she didn’t get accepted for the management job she applied for, they want her to work as one of their managers of customer relations – basically she would make sure customers are happy, but her main job would be planning events at the hotel.

The events coordinator, to be exact.

Apparently, she gets great reviews from guests – she didn’t even know she got reviewed by guests – and the administration thinks her management skills and people skills would really translate well as their events coordinator.

She doesn’t understand why the hell they would want her for that, but obviously they must see something in her that she doesn’t see – management and people skills, apparently. They did reach out to her, after all, offering her a job she didn’t apply for.

So she takes it. If they’re crazy enough to want to give her a new job, an important job for their profits, then she’s not going to be crazy enough to question it.

She’s sad to leave the restaurant and all of her friends that she’s made there, but she will still work with them on events and on the same property, so it’s not like she’ll never see them again. Plus, they’re her friends. They hang out.

So her life changes again, but the important things stay the same.

Her first big assignment involves a corporate event for some tech CEOs who have come to the city for “business,” but mostly to utilize their golf courses and get away from their significant others for a couple of days.

She’s nervous. She won’t admit that to anyone else, but she is. She doesn’t want to screw up. She doesn’t want to get fired. She’s scared to know what will happen if she gets fired. Will she be allowed to go back to work at the restaurant, or will she have to go find someplace new to work? Oh, fuck.

That thought terrifies her, so she digs into her work, driving herself almost into the ground. But that’s par for the course for this new job.

So is making golf jokes, apparently.

It’s technically a two-day event, but the guests are staying a little longer. They’re not really her problem then, even if she did book their block of rooms, so she takes a deep breath and tells herself that she can survive two days.

And she does.

It goes on more smoothly than a fresh jar of Skippy (Peter Pan is obviously the better peanut butter if you ask her, but that’s not what Bruno Mars put in the song, now is it?). They like the food she picked to serve for their resort-provided meals, the alcohol she chose to be supplied at the open bar, the music she selected to be played during cocktail hour.

They liked everything, including her. She kept getting stopped on her way through the ballroom to talk to some of the guests, them complimenting her on how this is just so well run compared to last year.

She’s a girl who was almost put in jail nine years ago, and she’s talking to men and women who are worth millions of dollars. And they don’t bat an eye at her. They think she’s welcome to be in the same room as them and actually enjoy talking to her.

It’s absolutely insane in every way.

Her life is absolutely insane in every way.

But she loves it.

She never thought she’d love her life, but she does.

And suddenly she doesn’t want to escape anymore.

When summer rolls around that year, she’s been in this new job for six months, but nothing could have prepared her for the craziness that is summer. They’re booked to capacity every single day, and she feels like she doesn’t have room to breathe.

After a particularly long day, one that’s seen three different moms yell at her for their children not having a space in the daycare center – resort policy says you must book 24 hours in advance to guarantee a spot. I’m sorry. Would you like a complimentary drink at the one of our bars? – she decides she, too, needs a drink. She needs a drink, but she doesn’t want to go home and change out of her khaki shorts and white resort-issued polo and then go find somewhere to get that drink. So she stops in the Clubhouse in between the pools.

Surprisingly, she’s never been in this part of the resort. She’s never needed to. She’s always seen it when she does events by the pools and the surrounding lakes, but all of her catering comes from the restaurant. Loyalty lies where loyalty lies, she guesses. When she walks in, she shouldn’t be surprised by how nice it is, but it’s like her entire life is full of surprises now.

There are floor to ceiling windows looking out to the lake on one side, view of the sunset reflecting off the water, and looking out to the pools on the other. It’s beautiful, she thinks. And it’s not that crowded, another surprise, so she really wonders why she’s never come here to relax after work.

Probably because she spends too much time at this damn place.

This wonderful place.

But this damn place.

When she gets to the bar, there are only a few other people so she’s able to sit by herself, pulling out her phone to check her messages – because she never really does leave work, does she – as she waits on the bartender to finish serving a patron. She recognizes the guest – his wife is one of the women who yelled at her earlier, so he probably does need a drink.

She’s on her phone replying to an email from a vendor for the yet-to-be-named (it’s driving her crazy that she can’t think of a name) end of the summer season party she’s throwing in three months at the end of September, so she doesn’t notice when the bartender moves toward her.

“What can I get you, lass?”

Well that accent wasn’t expected.

She’s getting tired of all of these surprises. Can’t some things just happen normally?

She finishes her email quickly and looks up to see the owner of the Irish accent. She’s taken aback for a second. But just a quick one. She doesn’t let men get to her. Not anymore.

He’s attractive in the way that every man wants to be, unruly dark hair atop his head and a ginger-tinted beard across his jaw, bright blue eyes contrasted against the dark tan of his skin, and a subtly toned physique hidden under the blue button-up that’s apparently his uniform. When she looks down, slyly of course, he’s got on khaki shorts, and they just seem so out of place on him. It’s like she instinctively knows that he was made to wear something like black skinny jeans, not khaki shorts and a polo.

She processes all of this quickly, realizing she doesn’t want to get caught staring because this man is technically her coworker, so that could probably be considered workplace harassment.

“Yeah, a glass of Pinot Noir, please,” she finally says, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t just staring at him.

“Sure thing.”

In what has to be the fastest service she’s ever received, her glass of wine is sitting in front of her. And she knows from years of working in the restaurant here that he’s served her much more than the allotted resort serving size for wine.

But she’s not going to complain, just drinks her wine as Irish bartender deals with the husband of Satan at the other end of the bar.

She’s looking out the windows watching the people in one of the pools. It’s time for the movie of the night, something they do during the summer season. They’ve got a large projector set up between some of the artificial palm trees, and it’s night three of their Harry Potter marathon (she picks the movies, obviously).

She’s distracted watching the movie, sipping a little on her wine, so she doesn’t notice that Irish bartender has moved back to her side.

“You’re the events coordinator, right?”

She’s glad she finished her sip of wine because she definitely would have done a spit take at that, this random stranger knowing who she is. “Um,” she replies slowly, eyes flitting around the room and wondering if Satan’s husband over there will help her if the bartender is a stalker.

“I’m not a stalker,” he starts, putting his hands in the air in defense. Not a stalker, but apparently a mind reader. “I see you putting on events out by the pools and out on the deck. I kind of have a view of everything from in here, so I notice things.”

“Ah, okay,” she replies slowly, this time a little less freaked out. But she doesn’t say anything else.

“I’ve also noticed that you never have any of the bartenders from the Clubhouse do any of your events. It’s always the White Palms bartenders.”

It doesn’t sound like an accusation, not with the casual tone he’s using, but it is, even as he’s across the bar from her, sharp profile in her view as he takes a turn staring out at the movie, seemingly paying no attention to her.

She must have some sort of awful scowl on her face, and he actually must be paying attention to her astonishingly enough, because he quickly tacks on, “not that I’m complaining or criticizing you at your job. You’re bloody fantastic at it, I’m sure. It’s just that if we’re not hired for the events, we don’t get the tips. And it would help a lot of people out.”

She doesn’t really know how to respond to that, but Irish bartender is right. He’s calling her out on her job, and as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, he’s right.

And she feels awful.

Just, like, a horrible person.

“You’re right,” she sighs, and his head snaps back to her, blue eyes going wide and eyebrows raising with them like the last thing he expected was for her to admit that he was right. “I was a waitress at the White Palms for six years, and I was a waitress at various chain restaurants for two years before that. So I get what it’s like when tips are a huge part of your life, and frankly, it’s been shitty of me to isolate the bartenders I hire. I should have never done that, and I’m sorry. I guess I let my loyalty to my old coworkers lead me to be biased, and that’s not okay.”

He’s still staring at her with those wide eyes, and she figures that he probably didn’t expect all of that. He probably thought she was some sort of spoiled party planner who has never worked a low wage job in her life.

Apparently she can surprise people too.

Including herself because she definitely didn’t mean to share quite that much.

“I – I…thank you, love,” he finally tells her, lopsided grin on his face. It’s so unbelievably charming that she finds herself putting her wine down and reaching across the bar to shake his hand.

“Emma Swan,” she says, giving his hand the three firm shakes she’s been trained to do.

“Killian Jones,” he replies, still smiling at her. “It’s nice to meet you Emma Swan, events coordinator. I hope to be working with you soon.” He gives her the most over exaggerated wink she’s ever seen, but he seems to be pretty pleased with himself, so she’s just going to let it slide.

“Came in for a drink, left with a business deal,” she laughs to herself, picking up her wine off the bar to take another sip.

“Gotta always be hustling, Swan.” He pauses for a second, seeming to debate if he should say his next thought. Apparently he decides to just go for it because the next words out of his mouth have her legitimately laughing for the first time that day. “Time is money. Money is Power. Power is pizza. Pizza is knowledge.”

“Did you seriously just quote Parks and Recreation?”

“Aye,” he confirms, scratching behind his ear and leaning on his elbows on the bar counter. “Was taking a shot that you’d recognize it. Can’t tell you how relieved I am that you do or I would have made a complete arse out of myself.”

He’s cute, she thinks to herself. She didn’t want to admit anything past physical attractiveness when he was calling her out for not being fair with her hiring practices, but he’s charming. And he apparently has good taste in television shows.

“I’m a big comedy fan,” she tells him, smiling at his worry over making an arse of himself. “Parks and Rec, The Office, 30 Rock, Superstore, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Brooklyn 99. You name it. I’ve seen it.”

“That’s a lot of television, lass.” He’s very good at judging her without his tone sounding judgmental.

“And your point is?” she asks, raising an eyebrow as if to say do not challenge me.

“No point,” he says, raising an eyebrow right back at her. “I just quoted a show word for word, so obviously I’ve been to known to watch a lot of television, will probably do so when I get home tonight.”

“And what time is that?” It comes out much more…suggestive than she intended and oh my god she can’t believe she just asked that. How red is her face right now? Can she go jump in the lake and just swim far, far away?

“Are you propositioning me, lass?” he laughs out, hand covering his chest as he throws his head back, his body shaking with laughter.

“I’m so, so sorry. I did not mean it to sound like that. I guess I’ve just spent so much time managing shifts and being on shifts that it’s automatic for me to ask.”

She’s going to get fired. First, she’s biased in her hiring. Now she’s propositioning her coworker while he’s at work. Oh my god, and she totally checked him out earlier. She really is going to get fired.

“I think it’s time for me to go home.” She tells him, pulling cash out of her short’s pockets to pay for her drink and give him a tip. “It was nice to meet you.” She’s not sure if she really means it because this has been embarrassing in so many ways, but she says it anyway, getting up and walking away at what she hopes is a normal pace.

“I get off at eleven, Swan,” he yells out as she walks away, and she just knows he’s got a smug smile on his face. “It was an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

The way he says pleasure makes a chill run down her spine.

Nope. No. Not going there.

So she doesn’t go there.

She avoids the Clubhouse for the next two days, effectively making it to the weekend, which, for most people, means they get to go home from work and do whatever they want. Not for her. She works Saturdays and Sundays and has Mondays and Tuesdays off. It’s kind of a weird schedule, but she doesn’t mind.

Well, she minds a little because she’s trying to avoid the Clubhouse and Killian and how she embarrassed herself the other night. But she needs to go in there to at least work out a schedule for events for those bartenders.

So as she pushes up the glass doors, she tells herself that it’s purely for business reasons.

When she sidles up to the bar, Killian isn’t there. Instead it’s two girls wearing the same uniform as Emma.

“Hi,” Emma starts, her voice squeaking slightly. And oh my god did her voice just squeak? The girls don’t seem to notice, just looking at her as if they’re waiting for her drink order, which considering that’s their job, they probably are. “Can I speak with your manager?”

Wow, first her voice squeaks like a pubescent boy and now she’s asking if she can speak to the manager like a middle-aged woman unhappy with her service.

“Sure,” girl one says, voice peppy as can be. “I’ll just go to the back and get him.”

Emma’s left standing with the other girl, and she really should learn their names, but she’ll deal with that later. When the first girl returns, she’s got Killian trailing behind her, animatedly talking, and with the way her week is going she definitely should have expected that he’s the manager of the Clubhouse and not just a bartender.

When he sees Emma, he gets this wide smile on his face like he’s actually happy to see her. He probably is. She kept putting her foot in her mouth the other night, and she bets that he’s ready for her to embarrass herself all over again.

But he doesn’t mention anything from the other night, just smiles and asks what can I do for you, lass. She’s brought her laptop with her, excel spreadsheets of upcoming events all laid out, and she gets with Killian over scheduling his employees at the events – mixed in with the White Palms employees as well, of course.

After about two hours of work, Killian leaving to go take calls and sign for orders occasionally, the two of them have every pre-planned event, including the yet-to-be-named end of summer blow out bash (she really needs a name for it, and it’s still driving her insane that she can’t think of one) scheduled. It’s a perfect mixture of employees from each bar, and she’s pretty proud of herself for this, even if she shouldn’t have made the hiring mistake in the first place.

June slowly (hotly) moves into July, the temperature so high that Emma finds herself popping into any air conditioned building that she can. She gets a tan just by working, running around the grounds and driving around on the golf cart she was just issued (that’s right, she gets a golf cart), and she just knows that her entire body is covered in the freckles that seem to appear with the sun.

Her new favorite air conditioned spot is the Clubhouse. But no, not because Killian works there. She spends a lot of time doing outdoor activities during the summer, longing for winters when people do things inside, and the Clubhouse just happens to be the nearest enclosed building between the pools and the golf course.

Killian is there though. Like, consistently. She wonders if he ever goes home. Of course, she very rarely goes home as well. She honestly can’t remember the last time she was there for more than just showering and sleeping, even on her days off. She should probably change that before she gets overworked. She could use a day.

But she doesn’t have one. She just continues working.

And the Clubhouse becomes her office of sorts. She has an office, technically, but it’s so far removed from where she works during the day that she only bothers going by in the mornings to pick up her mail. So she sets up shop at the bar counter, talking on her phone to guests and potential event holders and staff while ordering supplies on her computer, everything carefully color-coded.

Killian supplies her with coffee without her asking – she honestly didn’t know there was a coffee maker out here – and it only takes her saying with milk and two sugars one time before he gets it right every time after that. When she takes a sip of the coffee on the second day he gives it to her, she’s pleasantly surprised that he remembered. When it happens again on the third day, she realizes that she could get used to this.

It’s like Killian can anticipate every one of her needs – you’re a bit of an open book, darling – and while it freaks her out having someone know her so well so quickly, she honestly kind of likes it.

It scares her a little, the fast friendship they seemed to have formed. But she likes it.

She likes that he knows when she comes in before ten, it’s for coffee. She likes that he knows when she comes in the middle of the day, it’s for a bottle of water and a box fan to dry the sweaty hair at the nape of her neck and the pool of sweat that has collected at the small of her back – it’s hot as hell, okay. She likes that he knows when she comes in after six, it’s for a drink and someone to talk to about her day.

She likes that when a flamingo somehow got from the lake to one of the pools, effectively causing the whole place to lose its collective mind, he offered half priced-drinks just to get some of the crowd away from the pool. It’s what eventually allowed the guy who’s in charge of the flamingos, because there really is a guy for that, to get it safely back home.

It made her want to kiss Killian to thank him for that, but she doesn’t. Because that would be really damn weird. And she probably couldn’t handle it and the conflicting emotions that would come with that.

So she doesn’t kiss him, just goes on with this thing they’ve got going and prays that the flamingos don’t show up in the pool again.

Eventually she gets so comfortable at the bar that Killian moves her stuff back to his office, crafting her a little makeshift desk in the corner facing his desk. He says it’s because she brings the mood down with all that talk about business in front of the guests, but she thinks (hopes despite her best efforts not to because she’s a coward) that it’s because he’s technically only working out front at night and maybe, just maybe, he wants to spend time with her.

So they get to know each other back in that little office as June melts into July, and Emma organizes a fireworks display so explosive (yes, it’s Killian’s pun) to celebrate the good ole US of A on Independence Day.

They don’t tell their life stories outright, and Emma is rather thankful for that. But it’s enough for Emma to know that she likes Killian. Likes his sense of humor and his taste in television shows. Likes how he hums songs while he fills out the Clubhouse’s books – even if those songs are Christmas songs 90% of the time. Likes how he scratches just below his ear when she makes a dirty joke – because she’s still doing great at the embarrassing herself in front of Killian thing. Likes that he knows when she needs to talk and when she just needs to be left alone.

One day when Emma is buying floats for the pools – like the ones you see on Instagram, the flamingos and unicorns and slices of pizza – she can’t decide if she should buy two swan floats (yes, she gets the irony) or four. She’s apparently been debating on the merits of swan floats and donut floats for too long because she hears Killian let out just the most frustrated groan from his desk in front of her.

“We’re taking a day off,” he tells her, like it’s final and like he has any control over what she does.

“Killian,” she sighs out, deciding on three versions of fifteen different types of floats, “you know I can’t do that.”

“You have tomorrow off, aye?”

She lets out a little whine and before she can open her mouth to tell him that she does, but she still has to work, he’s telling her that under no circumstances is she coming to work tomorrow. He’s taking the day off, and they’re going to do something together. Something fun and non-work related, and don’t question me, Swan, I’m picking you up at your apartment at nine.

So it’s eight thirty in the morning on her day off, an actual day off, and she’s standing in her closet trying to decide what to wear. It’s supposed to get over 100 degrees today, and when she texted Killian to ask what she was supposed to wear, he just texted back to be prepared for anything. Like that helps.

So she pulls on her favorite pair of high-waisted jean shorts – they’re frayed at the end and probably too short, but she’s twenty seven years old and can wear whatever she damn wants – and a gray bralette, throwing a loose tank top on over it and tucking it into the shorts. When she slips on her converses and braids her hair into two french braids parted down the middle, she realizes that she looks like every girl who comes to the resort during Coachella.

Whatever. This is comfortable and cute, and the hairstyle keeps the sweat from pooling at the base of her neck. Plus, she needs to get rid of the farmer’s tan her polo gives her.

When Killian knocks on her door at 8:59, one minute early, she suddenly feels nervous for the first time in a long time – probably since she started this job. They’re not going on a date, but it sure as hell feels like one – it sure has hell feels like they’ve been living in this weird relationship limbo for the past month. It’s probably just because this is the first time they’ve hung out outside of work, even if they spend a lot of time there after working hours. So it just feels kind of…different.

But it’s not different. It’s just a day doing supposedly fun things with a coworker who just happens to be a friend and that friend just happens to be a guy that she kind of maybe definitely likes.

Before she can hype herself up too much, she answers the door, and Killian is standing there in gray shorts and a t-shirt, short sleeved plaid shirt unbuttoned on top of it, showing off his biceps. When she looks down, he’s got on the same pair of converse sneakers she does, and she can’t help but laugh at how stereotypical Palm Springs tourist they look.

When she’s finished laughing, she tells him that they’ve been living here too long. If it goes on for much longer, they’re going to start golfing every day and taking pictures of their food next to wall murals every night.

He just smiles at her as he puts his hand on her lower back and guides her out of the apartment.

“We’re about to have a touristy day, love,” he tells her, laughing when she looks up at him in surprised disgust. “But it’s going to be fun. And there will be no worrying about balloon arches or bloody pizza floats.”

She’s wary of this “touristy day” they’re going to have. She did a little bit of that stuff when she first moved here, just to check it all out, but she avoids downtown like the plague.

When he helps her into his truck – gentleman, love – she has absolutely no idea we’re they’re going. He’s purposely taking wrong turns, and it’s driving her insane that he’s basically playing a game with her – relax, Swan.

After about thirty minutes in the car, and her making him stop to get her breakfast and coffee, she finally figures out where they’re going when she sees the glass pods of the damn aerial tramway.

“No fucking way,” she mutters under her breath.

“Excited, love?” he asks, not hearing the slight shake in her voice.

She likes to think of herself as a badass – she is a badass – but she’s terrified of heights. Always has been, probably always will be.

“No fucking way, Killian,” she repeats, but this time it’s with conviction. “I don’t do heights.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, just parks the truck and then turns to her, concerned look on his face but with an entirely too reassuring smile, not that it’s reassuring her that much.

“Emma,” he starts, looking at her directly in the eyes, like he’s looking into her soul. Woah, calm down, drama queen. “We don’t have to do it if you’re scared. We can do something else. But I promise the view is worth it, and if it helps, you can hold my hand the entire way up.” He wiggles his eyebrows at that last part, and she can’t help but let out a small laugh, even if it does sound pathetic to her own ears.

She really doesn’t want to, but he just looks so hopeful. And she hates to not go along with his plans. He did plan this entire day for her. No one has ever done anything like that for her. And maybe if she just closes her eyes, she’ll have no idea that she’s up in the air.

So she tells him that she’ll do it, and his smile is bright enough to light this whole desert on fire.

She kind of feels like she’s going to throw up the entire time they’re waiting in line to buy tickets, and when they load into the tram, she grabs onto Killian’s hand before it even starts. He moves to interlace his fingers with hers, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as the tramway starts moving up the mountain.

She’s got her eyes closed and is chanting it’s just ten minutes, it’s just ten minutes, it’s just ten minutes over and over again in her head.

Killian starts talking to her about a time he and his brother went on a rollercoaster when Killian was ten. He so rarely talks about Liam after one whispered confession that he died, Swan in the Clubhouse after work that she opens her eyes and looks up at him. Not outside, but up at him.

He’s looking out at what she’s sure is an incredible view of mountains and trees as he tells the story about how he was so bloody scared because the rollercoaster went upside down, and he’d never ridden one like that before. Liam told him that it was only scary when you’re anticipating it. Once you’re actually flying through the air, adrenaline pumping through your veins, it’s amazing. Like being free of all of the stress and responsibilities of life. You just have to take the leap of faith first.

It’s a surprisingly deep story to have started off with Killian being nervous about a rollercoaster, but she imagines that’s what Killian intended. So she thinks about taking that leap of faith and conquering one of her fears, squeezing his hand more tightly as she turns her head from him to look out at the view.

It’s stunning. Miles and miles of trees mixed in with the desert and the mountains, the city in the near distance. It’s also terrifying to know just how high up she is, and when she tenses just the slightest bit, heart beating quickly and bile rising in her throat, Killian must be able to feel it. So he pulls her into his side and just kind of holds here there, his skin warm against hers, hands still intertwined.

And suddenly her heart is beating quickly for an entirely different reason.

Once they get to the top, she’s not so nervous anymore – she doesn’t think about the fact that they have to go back down – and as they exit the tram, Killian doesn’t let go of her hand, guiding her out and onto the mountain top where people are scattered around either hiking or taking pictures.

They spend a few hours up there, wandering around to look at the different views, and Killian asks other people if they’d be willing to take a picture of the two of them, handing off his phone and wrapping his arm around her shoulder, smile wide as can be.

When she looks at the picture later, she’s stunned by how amazing it is, the two of them so small compared to the mountains in the background. But she looks happy and unstressed, and that stuns her most of all.

After they make it back the level ground, Emma only freaking out a little bit in the tram, Killian takes her to an In-N-Out Burger.

“Are you serious,” she laughs as he pulls into the parking lot, getting out of the truck.

Apparently they’re going inside.

“You bet your arse, I’m serious, Swan.” He’s opening up the door before her, letting her go in first – gentleman, Swan, he reminds her. “This is our touristy day, and you and I both know the burgers here are damn good.”

And they are. She knows this. As someone who doesn’t cook, she’s eaten here a few more times than she’s willing to admit. And if she eats both her fries and then half of Killian’s animal fries, no one has to know but the two of them.

When evening rolls around, she thinks that maybe he’s going to take her home and that the day will be over. The pang of disappointment she feels in her chest hurts, but he just looks over at her from his place in the driver’s seat and grabs her hand, pulling it over to rest on his thigh.

They’re not going home, though. They’re going downtown, and she has no idea what could make him want to brave the traffic.

But he just parks in one of the parking garages, paying the fee, and as he leads her down the sidewalks to wherever it is they’re going, he has his arm wrapped around her waist, and she thinks that this is one of the best days she’s ever had.

After about ten minutes of walking, she figures out that they’re going to the street fair that happens once a week, vendors and live entertainment lining three blocks of downtown streets. She went once, when she was eighteen years old and by herself, but it didn’t quite feel this magical, with the lights strung around the palm trees, the R&B music playing in the background, and the smell of fried food wafting through the evening air.

They walk around for awhile, looking at different vendors. Emma spends at least forty minutes looking at some folk art, and if Killian minds having to carry around a painting she bought to put over her couch, he doesn’t say anything.

With the day she’s had and the beer she’s consumed, she’s feeling like today is one of those perfect days that only exist in movies. And when Killian pulls her off the bench where she was resting her feet so they can dance, she doesn’t even question it. Just lets him twirl her around, swapping partners with some of the older couples dancing along to the live music with them.

And when the night is over and Killian is walking her back up to her apartment door, for the first time in a long time, she isn’t surprised. She isn’t surprised when he bends his head so that his lips can meet hers. And she isn’t surprised when she kisses him right back, standing up on her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

It’s simple, and it’s sweet. And if she wanted it to go further, he doesn’t let it, kissing her cheek and telling her that I’ll see you tomorrow, love as he walks away, leaving her standing in front of her apartment door with a goofy grin on her face.

As July sizzles into August, they don’t talk about the kiss. They just keep doing it.

In the mornings before work starts, she’ll give him a quick peck, moving away to go start her day. In the afternoons when she’s stopping by to get a bottle of water, he’ll grab her by the waist and pull her into his office, pressing her up against the door as he devours her with his mouth. It’s incredibly hot, and it’s also incredibly inappropriate for work. And she definitely finds herself panting from an entirely different kind of heat than the one she came into the Clubhouse to escape.

On the rare evenings where neither of them are working the night shifts, they usually end up back at her apartment. Killian’s been taking things surprisingly slow, and it’s then that she realizes the he’s been burned in the past, just like her. So she doesn’t question it and doesn’t complain. Just goes along at his pace, even if she knows he’s really just going along with her.

Sneaky bastard.

It’s one of those rare evenings when they’re sitting on the floor in front of her TV. She’s sitting in between his legs, leaned back into his pajama-clad chest, and he has his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, hand drawing random patterns at the skin exposed between her waist and her t-shirt.

They’re watching Parks and Recreation, a bit of a throwback to their first meeting, and Emma is completely zoned out to the world. But then Killian jokingly tells her that she should name the end of summer event Palms and Recreation.

She doesn’t quite understand him at first, but then she gets it. And she’s turning in his arms quickly, placing her palms on his chest and staring at him.

“What, love?” he asks, incredulous look in his eyes but a smile on his face.

She just puts her hands on either side of his face, cradling his cheeks, and kisses him slowly, lips moving against lips in a gentle dance. When his tongue starts to work its way at her bottom lip, she pulls back, and he groans at the lack of contact, lips swollen red.

“You’re going to go work now, aren’t you?” He doesn’t look disappointed, though. Just kind of has this affectionate closed-lip smile on his face, eyes crinkling as his lips are upturned.

“You bet your ass I am, babe,” she tells him, giving him one last quick kiss before getting up from his lap and grabbing her laptop, making all sorts of plans for the Palms and Recreation end of the summer bash.

So Emma plans her event for the next few weeks, spending her daylight hours talking to vendors and working on menus, making sure she has all the right permits and ideas, spending more time creating an Instagram palette to promote the event than she ever thought was possible. But she spends the night hours with Killian, even when he’s working at the bar. More often than not, he finds her asleep in his office chair, legs pulled up underneath her and head resting on his desk.

Let’s go home, sweetheart, he’ll whisper to her as he helps her up, wrapping his arm around her waist as he walks her out to his truck and drives her to one of their apartments, letting her wrap her arms around his stomach as they climb into bed.

It’s the morning after a night like that when she realizes she loves him. It’s fast, and it’s terrifying. She’s never done this before, the getting to know someone as a person and the dating and the love. The last time she thought she was in love, she was eighteen, and it ended up being one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

But this doesn’t feel like a mistake. This feels right, in every sense of the word.

So when Killian wakes up, eyelids heavy and groggy smile on his face as he finds her propped up on her elbows on his chest, she can’t think of doing anything but kissing him at that very moment.

So she does.

And he’s obviously a little surprised at first and maybe a little bit sleepy because it takes him a second to kiss her back, but just a second and he’s there completely, lips moving against hers.

When she moves to crawl on top of him, legs on either side of his hips, he raises his eyebrows as if to say just what do you think you’re doing, love? She doesn’t say anything at first, just smiles sweetly at him as she grinds her hips into his, feeling exactly how much he wants her. And honestly, she doesn’t know how either of them have been able to wait this long.

“I love you,” she says simply, like she hasn’t just dropped a bombshell on him while grinding down onto his lap.

He puts his hands on her hips, pulling her away from him slightly, but holding her steady. He hasn’t said anything back yet, he’s just lying there with this incredulous look on his face, and it’s only freaking her out a little – a lot.

Just as she starts to try to squirm out of his grip, he holds her tighter, and she thinks there might be bruises in the shape of his fingers later.

Finally, finally, finally, he speaks. “I love you, Emma. More than anything.” He pauses for a moment, mischievous look on his face before adding, “more than all the palm trees in Palm Springs.”

He looks so proud of that, and she can’t help but laugh, mumbling a more than all the palm trees in Palm Springs right back at him before she’s kissing him again, tongues fighting a battle for dominance before she lets him take over.

He’s lifting her t-shirt over her arms, and she lets him, raising her arms in compliance as he kisses every inch of bare skin as it’s exposed. Then he’s flipping them over, caging her in with his body possessively, protectively, lovingly, and kissing down her neck, hot open-mouthed kisses that are sparking the match to light her on fire. When he gets to the freckle on the side of her right breast, he’s sucking a mark into her skin, finally branding her as his, and the sharp pain of his teeth mixed with the soothing touch of his tongue feels like it’s going to burn her alive.

When their remaining clothes are shed and Killian is hovering over her again, looking at her and whispering are you sure into her skin with the most loving look on his face. Yes, she whispers right back, but it comes out as more of a moan because he’s sliding into her, slowly pumping back and forth, dragging against her, and it’s driving her insane in the most delicious way.

It goes on for what feels like forever, but when her body starts to pulse and she closes her eyes in ecstasy, she thinks that it could never last long enough. Killian grips her hips tighter – and yep, there will definitely be bruises in the shape of his fingers later – and after a few erratic thrusts, he’s collapsing on top of her, a weight that’s far more comfortable than it should be.

“I love you,” he says, kissing her again, a long, deep satisfied kiss, before he rolls off of her and onto his side.

“I love you,” she says back, boneless and just…happy.

August cools into September – not really, but it’s now 95 degrees instead of 100 – and Emma is back into working nonstop again. It’s the end of the main tourist season, and as soon as the end of the summer party is finished and the resort isn’t booked to full capacity, she’s thinking of taking time off to go somewhere that’s actually cooler.

When she wakes up on the morning of the party, she’s antsy with nerves. Her bosses have explicitly stated that this party is huge for their summer profits, that people travel from all over the country just to spend the weekend – this weekend – here before they go back to school and to jobs and to responsibility.

She doesn’t have to be up until six, but her body wakes her up at a quarter until three with nerves, Killian’s arms around her waist with his body aligned tightly with hers. She tries to get up to go check on her laptop, to make sure all of her deliveries for the day are on track, but Killian’s arms tighten around her stomach, pulling her back to him.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he mumbles against the back of her neck, scruff of his beard tickling her skin as he sleepily kisses behind her ear.

“I’m not tired,” she replies, trying to get out of bed once again. But he doesn’t let her, just holding on tighter.

“Yes, you are. You haven’t slept in days.”

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

He just grunts at her in response, starting to trace her hipbones with her fingers because if anything will get her to stay in bed, it’s that.

“Killian,” she says firmly, and he lets go of her, knowing when to pick his battles to win the overall war. “Thank you,” she tells him, getting out of bed and giving his cheek a kiss. “I’ll be a normal human being again soon. Promise”

As it turns out, all of her deliveries for the day are on track despite all of her worrying. All of the vendors show up on time, and they don’t forget anything they were supposed to bring. The sound system for the music works, and she lets out a big sigh of relief at that because it wouldn’t work for the wedding they hosted last week and if she was actually sleeping, she’d have nightmares from the way the mother of the bride had yelled at her as if she was putting a curse on her daughter’s marriage. The decorations go up around the pools and the docks surrounding the lake, fences and trees strung with lights for when the sun sets.

It looks perfect, and Emma could almost cry in relief.

She doesn’t though.

She just clips her headset on, attaches the battery pack to the belt loop in her shorts, and gets on with her day, letting the problems come to her as they happen and trying not to worry about them ahead of time – ahead of time being the operative word.

Because she definitely worries about them when they come.

The clock is ticking over from 1:59 AM to 2:00 AM when she’s finally able to tell the DJ to turn the music off. Usually everything around the resort ends by 11:00 PM because technically they’re first and foremost a hotel and people need to sleep, but everything stays operating just a little later today. So as the music dies down and the bartenders stop pouring drinks, guests start to slowly filter out and make their way back to their rooms.

Emma still has to make sure everything is properly cleaned up though, so she doesn’t get around to being anywhere close to finished until exactly 4:42 AM. She’s been up for over 24 hours, and it’s finally starting to hit her.

She’s handled it pretty well though, if she does say so herself. That is, until she realizes that she has to make her way all the way to her apartment, and she just doesn’t think she can do that. She’s just going to lay down on this pool lounge chair. It’s totally fine and professional for the events coordinator to sleep outside on property grounds, right?

She really does consider it, even sitting down against the cushioned chair, but then suddenly Killian is there, pulling her up and leading her back to the parking lot.

The next thing she knows, she’s waking up in Killian’s bed, sheets smelling like his cologne and just this other thing that’s pure Killian, and the sun is blinding her even through the curtains. When she checks her phone, it’s five o’clock in the evening, and she’s been asleep for twelve hours.

She doesn’t move though, just cuddles back into bed and ignores the world for as long as she can.

She’s always been good at that.

But then Killian comes home an hour later, and she doesn’t want to ignore the world anymore. She wants to be an active participant in her own life. This wonderful, beautiful life that she’s built for herself out of literally nothing but a bus ticket from Phoenix to Palm Springs.

Doesn’t mean she’s not still tired though.

“Hello beautiful,” he greets her, climbing into bed next to her and giving her a quick kiss before pulling her into his side as he sits up against the headboard. “Did you get some sleep?”

“Woke up about an hour ago.”

“Good,” he tells her before adding on, “I’m so bloody proud of you, my love. Not a day goes by that I’m not amazed by you.”

She does end up taking the week off after the party. She doesn’t go somewhere cooler, though. She just treats herself to a week of relaxation at home, and it’s…wonderful. And if she happens to check her work emails while no one is around, well, that’s her little secret.

She does eventually have to go back to work and the real world, even if her real world is where other people go to get away from theirs. So life goes on, and she plans her corporate events and her weddings and a Halloween party with invitations saying Trick or Treat Yo’ Self in honor of the Parks and Recreation theme she’s apparently got going on. Killian dressed up as a pirate, and she can’t even talk about how incredibly difficult it was for her to keep her focus on her job when he was wearing damn leather pants and had his shirt unbuttoned far too low, or maybe just right for her. But then he greeted her by saying hello boo-tiful, cheeky grin on his face as he kissed her, and she couldn’t contain her laughter, want dying down in her belly but something decidedly more sentimental rising in her chest.

Eventually, Killian takes a job somewhere else – the traitor – but it’s okay because he gets to do a job that he really loves as a manager of water recreation for the city – apparently that’s a thing even in the desert – and if there’s one thing she’s learned about Killian Jones, it’s that he was made to be out on the water.

So she doesn’t get to see him at work anymore, and the new manager of the Clubhouse definitely doesn’t let her share his office. And while she misses seeing him during the day and getting to pop in on him just because she wants to see that beautiful face she loves, it’s okay. Because when she goes home at then end of the day, whenever that may be, he’s at the house that’s deed has both of their names on it – property of Killian and Emma Jones – and she thinks that she’s got a pretty good thing going for her here, better than just quick kisses in the Clubhouse at lunch.

Of course, for someone who stumbled into planning parties for a living, she’s not entirely prepared for the one that’s thrown for her by all of her friends (after all these years it’s still just so weird to say) when her belly is swollen and she’s just so ready to meet this little life inside of her – and obviously plan parties for him for the rest of his life.

But then she looks at Killian who’s smiling down at her from his seat beside her, and she thinks that she’s never been more thankful for cheap bus fare from Phoenix to Palm Springs and for the pissed-off mom who yelled at her, making her walk into the Clubhouse because she needed a drink.

Her life is crazy and it’s weird, but it’s everything she so desperately wanted but never knew she needed.

And she loves it.

More than all the palm trees in Palm Springs.

#palms and recreation #my fic #captain swan #cs fic #captain swan fic #cs fanfic

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amarantine-amirite · 5 years

Text

November Syndrome

Imagine that you're a freshman. You're away from home for the first time, out from under the thumbs of veganism and expectations for high achievement that were previously foisted upon you. You have no sense of obligation other than avoiding being yelled at by parents and school. No discipline. No idea how to schedule anything. No sense of organization or time management. The only reason you ever got anything done before was because you had been emotionally beaten into submission by your higher-ups.

What happens? You go crazy. End of story. For the first two months, you go to every party and social event on campus, then, come November, you go bonkers over how much work you have to do, but you don't actually do any work. Instead of working, you escape into things like writing fanfiction, playing Fortnite, or something else unrelated to your studies. It's almost like you evolve into a master procrastinator.

Worse, you don’t even notice your lack of discipline until there’s no one saying “no” to every one of your ideas. As a premed, one of the courses I had to take was called "Computer Science for Scientific Applications". It sounded better than it was. It involved having to hand-write code. On top of that, we had to write in pen! It sucked. My handwritten braces looked like sideways boobs. It was just awful. What really sucked was that I write in cursive, so I did my code in cursive. The professor was not pleased when I handed my assignments in. Our assignments were graded based on whether or not they worked. We don't know until we hand anything in if it works. We don't test the code ourselves, he runs it for us. He put our assignments were put through a scanner, and the scans would be put through a piece of software that would convert the text on the image of the page into actual text. The text that it scraped would then be entered into the IDE for the language in question. Usually for freshman computer science, the language was Java, but our steam (recall I was in premed at the time) did Javascript. The only sort of editing that had to be done to the code once it was scanned and in the IDE was typically spacing related/missing character (the software was good but not perfect).

How was your assignment scored? If the code ran, you passed, and if not; you failed. And I failed my assignment (I only did one) because my handwriting always created a ton of problems for the transcription software. It was kind of a weird program. The software had an auto-detect-language-and-translate feature. Sounds cool, but because of my writing, it thought that I was writing in Hindi and it would "auto-translate" my code. Since the translation module for the software was not that good, stuff got mistranslated…a lot. I remember on one of my assignments, I wrote something in the comments and it got garbled into "radish boots". Ever since then, my nickname amongst my friends in CS was Radish Boots. I didn't hand in any more assignments for that class after that.

See, that's how it starts. Something very small, very unexpected like that. That's how you get the idea that your assignments are optional. And that was all it took to turn me into a master procrastinator.

Once I got the idea that assignments were optional, I just really let myself go. Within three weeks, I went from "good student" to "crappy student" to "how the hell did they get into university?" With no actual work weighing me down, I went ahead and participated in every campus social event ever. Paint-your-own flower pot day at the library? I was there! Fitness event? I was there! Halloween party? Take a guess? I kid you not, I was acting like one of those guys in a college movie. Rather than studying, I went to social events. It was great, except for one little thing. Turns out (and I learned this at board game night), people find people who act like they're in college movies really annoying.

Anyway, the incident that happened at board game night was related to something that happened in chemistry. We had one of those semester long group projects where they put you in groups of seven or eight people. One of the people in our group (Anne, I believe it was) was at the event, and she gave me an earful. Not going to lie, she was really mad that I wasn't doing any work. That's bad enough on its own, but she was angrier than I had expected her to be because we lost five people in the group (four of whom died in rapid succession in some bizarro chain reaction):

last Monday, Laura died of obesity related complications

last Tuesday, Alejandro took up jogging to avoid dying like Laura. He got hit by a bus

last Wednesday, Kevin became afraid of the outdoors (thanks to what happened to Alejandro) and sought refuge in playing video games. Come the weekend, he died of a blood clot from playing Starcraft for 62 hours straight

on Sunday, Melissa shunned all technology (because of what happened to Kevin) and went off to rough it in the woods. She died eating poisonous mushrooms

and yesterday, Michiru dropped out because she couldn't handle the pressure of doing the work of the people that died

Now, our group only had two people, and we had to do the work of seven people. Actually, scratch that. Since I wasn't pulling my weight, poor Anne was stuck doing the work of seven people. Understandably, she was fuming with me, and more than a few swear words were uttered. Anne made a point of saying that if I didn't step up in times of crisis, I had no business being a doctor. I would have agreed, but I had my first taste of freedom in my life. There was no one telling me how I had to respond, so I did what people in movies did: I told her to fuck off.

I don't blame Anne for being so ticked with me. After all, she was doing the work of seven people and I was being a coward, hiding behind a mask made out of lies and excuses. No one likes that.

And then, it happened. November rolled around. The amount of stuff that was past due was insane. Seriously! I missed literally every single assignment that wasn't a test (actually, I think I might have missed a couple of tests, too). I made the mistake of buying into the delusion that assignments were optional, and I ended up paying for it.

I needed to get my shit together and do work, but I couldn't. It went beyond lack of discipline. I never built a workflow, and now I couldn't, for it was too late to dig myself out of the hole. And so, instead of doing the work I needed to do, I did a bunch of irrelevant crap. I had run out of time as a procrastinator, but I acted like things were OK. The reality was, they weren't. My situation with school was beyond dire. Worse, I lied to myself about how it wasn't a big deal. Rather than own up to anything, I escaped into a world of playing video games, writing crappy fan fiction, and other bullshit that would in no way help me get on top of school. November called, and I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was stuck where I was.

I know that I sound like I am repeating myself a lot, but I really want to emphasize how I still didn't get my ass in gear even though things had gotten to the point that I really, really had to buckle down and actually do a ton of work to just pass. More specifically, I wanted to emphasize how much stupid fan fiction and creepypasta I read and wrote during that period. I don't know why I gravitated to creepypasta. I think I was trying to hide the fact that I was a coward, afraid to face the consequences of my procrastination. Liking works of fiction involving surreal horror and demented episodes of beloved childhood cartoons somehow must have translated in my mind to not being afraid of anything. Regardless of how the logistics of that excuse supposedly worked, I ended up being a creepypasta addict.

And that bled into my fanfic writing. I know because I tried to write this ridiculous JumpStart fanfic. It was supposed to be a creepypasta/fanfic (like the infamous Cupcakes), but it just came out incredibly stupid. The concept that powered the story was the little animals from the early elementary JumpStart titles (Frankie the dog, Eleanor the elephant, Pierre the polar bear, CJ the frog, etc…) acting like the folks on South Park. For instance, Frankie the Dog was "Kyle", CJ the Frog was "Stan", Eleanor the Elephant was "Cartman" (albeit with a hidden softer side), and I don't remember who was "Kenny" (I think it was Pierre the Polar Bear). Anyway, the actual story was this thing with vampires. The story was that, at some point, Eleanor got bitten by a vampire (and consequently, turned into a vampire). At the same time, Pierre (I think) was in the hospital with some pretty heavy duty muscular dystrophy, and CJ was trying to persuade people to fund stem-cell research in the hopes that they could save Pierre. However; Frankie thought CJ's thing was dumb and said that they could get Eleanor to bite Pierre so he'd turn into a vampire, thereby curing him of his muscular dystrophy. The only problem with that was, well, Pierre would be a vampire. Eleanor ends up being conflicted by the whole thing, and that's the conflict that drives the story.

I remember some time after I posted the first two chapters online wanting to have a twist ending (I'd written about 75% of the story by this time). I didn't know whether I wanted to do "you think it's the future but it's really the past" or "you think it's the past but it's really the future". I guess it didn't matter, because I noticed that I had only two hours left before the submission deadline for my biology term paper. After trying to convince myself that no, I wasn't dreaming this, I wrote the bare minimum of what I needed to write to fit the guidelines for the term paper disclosed on the webpage; then uploaded the results to turnitin.com, fingers crossed that I would at least pass.

Except I didn't. Not only did I not pass the term paper, I didn’t even hand it in. I found out the next day that I had actually uploaded the fourth chapter of my dumb-ass JumpStart fanfiction (and it was a scary chapter too...it was the flashback to when Eleanor gets bitten by the vampire). The prof was not impressed. Let's just leave it at that.

You have no idea how badly I screwed everything up. I managed to get a flat zero in every single course this term. The only exception was CS, where I wound up getting only 2%. Bottom line is that I failed everything. Yes, everything. My only shot at academic redemption is the final exam.

Even still, it might not be enough. As of this writing, I have less than twelve hours before I go in to write the exam. This is bad. I can't sleep even though I'm exhausted. I have to stay up and work. I need to sleep, but I can't. I'm stuck. I've made this bed, and now I'm going to die in it.

No, really. I feel like I'm going to die.

When I first started cramming, I was fine for the first hour and a half. After that, though, I started seeing static in my field of view. The static thing lasted for a couple of hours until it progressed to seeing shadow people. Or, at least I thought they were shadow people. They weren't even remotely humanoid. I was seeing weird, shadowy spider things. They looked like giant tarantulas, all four of them, and they were coming for me. Just before they got me, they vanished.

They were gone. They were 100% all gone. It was like it never happened. No static, no ghost spiders, nothing. Crisis averted. Back to work.

Nope. It's not that simple. The minute I went back to reading the textbook, I could feel my heart race. I tried to highlight stuff and write down key points, but I couldn't, since my right arm is numb. I switch to writing with my other hand, but that doesn't work. I can't write with my other hand too well. Worse, the minute I get the hang of writing with my other hand, I start throwing up like a volcano. After that, it's over. I can't study if I'm throwing up every three minutes. Even if I weren't throwing up the way I am, I wouldn't be able to focus on studying right now. I can barely form coherent sentences, much for your time like to undarastamnd the impotence of teh book biology and chemistry. Chemical biologrehcal flerbut connection ffrhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAA!

@the-writer-s-hideout

#writing #writers #writers on tumblr #creepy #short fiction #drama #short story #original fiction

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years

Text

On MySpace, what was in the last bulletin you posted? Most likely it was a survey. Man, I wish I could still access those. 15/16 year old me survey answers... yikes.

When and where was the last time you took a picture of yourself? In room a few weeks ago.

Have you ever been scolded by a mall cop? Not scolded, but one told me to take my hoodie off once. ha. He was cool about it.

How often do you catch yourself daydreaming? I zone out a lot.

What’s your favorite thing to think about as you’re falling asleep? I don’t have much control over where my brain goes. It likes to go some weird, random, and sometimes dark places.

Is there anything that you want to do, but you won’t do because you’re too afraid? A lot of things.

Who was the last person to yell at you? Not sure. I don’t get yelled at, but like my parents and I have our disagreements and get frustrated with each other sometimes.

Who gets up the earliest in your household and what about the latest? My dad gets up the earliest everyday even on the weekends when he’s off work. The latest is me.

Have you ever had a pet walk across your keyboard while you were typing? No. My dogs have always been too big to do that.

Which political issues are you most passionate about? I don’t want to get into politics.

You’re going to your favorite foreign country, so what landmarks do you go see? I’d love to check out many places in Sweden.

What’s the longest amount of time that you’ve spent away from your home? A week.

Did the last movie you watched have any emotional affect on you? I just saw Glass on Saturday, which was pretty crazy. In a good way.

What motivates you to go to school? I’m done with school, thank goodness.

How much caffeine have you consumed in one day? I used to always have coffee first thing and then a can of soda later on. Sometimes more coffee later that night. I haven’t had soda; though, in over year. Well, minus the sip I take with my medicine (I have to crush my pills and soda is the only thing I can take it with). Now I’m just about the coffee, twice a day. Nice, warm, big, delicious cups of coffee.

Are you more hyper and up-tight or laid back and relaxed? Hyper and upright don’t seem to go together in the way you paired these things, but I’d say I actually come off laid back to people who don’t really know me and probably just cause I’m pretty quiet, but really I’m more tense and anxious.

When was the last time you heard someone talking about you? *shrug*

How did you pick out your last outfit? I just grabbed some leggings and a sweatshirt. Not much thought went into it.

Are you embarrassed to bring people into your bedroom? I would be now.

When was the last children’s birthday party you attended? It’s been a couple years.

Are you good at reading other people’s body language? I think so. I could be taking it the wrong way sometimes, though.

If you’re sick, do you go to school or do you stay home usually? It depended on how sick I was. Typically, I’d power through, but there were times where I just couldn’t. There were times in college before I had a pretty big surgery for something where I was sick a lot and went to school with a fever and chills. I’d have to pop some Tylenol before class, sometimes even during, and just push through. Weak me today can’t relate.

Does chicken noodle soup really make you feel any better? No.

What’s one meal that you like to eat whilst sick? Usually I’m not much into anything because my taste buds are all messed up and everything tastes bland. And then depending on what kind of sick I am, I may not want to eat anything, really. I have to force myself to eat toast or soup in times like that.

Thinking of the last survey you filled out, did you enjoy it? It was okay.

Have you ever fed bread to ducks or geese? Yeah, before I learned how terrible it is for them. <<<< Same. :X

Is it hard to imagine you were ever as small as a one or two-year-old? Yeah. Such a long time ago. D:

What set the tone for your mood today? It’s only 1:56AM. So far; though, I feel pretty crappy cause of this cough and cold thing I have going on.

Have you ever set out to ruin someone else’s day? No. I would never intentionally do that.

Have you ever felt like the whole world was against you? Just like life in general, ya know?

What was the name of the last video game you played? Life is Strange.

What was the name of the last board game that you played? I don’t remember, it’s been too long. I love board games.

What was the last thing that you told yourself? *shrug*

How many times a day do you wash your face? I actually don’t. I just apply moisturizer sometimes.

If someone throws hot coffee on you, how do you react? Uh, well, I’d react to something HOT being thrown at me and be like WTF? I’ve spilled hot coffee on myself on accident, so I know it’s not a pleasant feeling.

Is there a high school or college that you would rather be attending? I’m doneeee with school.

Have you ever lived in an apartment or duplex home? Duplex.

Has anyone ever commented on your weight? Yes. I get told how I’m “too skinny” all the time.

What’s a show from the ’90s that you miss? I mean, I still watch a lot of my favorites from that time.

Who provokes your sarcastic side the most? My brother and I sarcastically joke around all the time.

Have you ever thought about joining the military? No. I couldn’t anyway.

When you were little, did you ever stare at disabled or “different” people? I was/am disabled and am quite familiar with the stares.

Could the contents of your bedroom get you in any trouble? No...

Do weather patterns sometimes have an affect on your health? Rainy, cold weather can give me headaches and make me achy. Hot weather makes me just absolutely miserable.

If it snows a lot where you live, do you experience cabin fever? It doesn’t snow here. :(

When was the last time someone disapproved of something you were doing? I feel like my family disapproves of me not doing things I should be doing pertaining to my health. I know they get frustrated with me for that.

Do you consider yourself to be approachable? I’m not sure.

How do you respond to cheesy pick-up lines? Laugh. I’ve been asked the whole, “aye girl, what’s your sign?” before.

How was the service at the last restaurant you visited? Fine.

Are you ever jealous of happy couples? No. I may feel envious sometimes, but not jealous.

How would you describe a thought that’s sticking with you today? I’ve been thinking about how crappy I feel.

Lately, who has spent the most time on your mind? No one in particular.

In a car, air conditioning or roll the windows down? Air conditioning.

Is there a new song or band you’ve discovered? I’ve come across some new music recently. I don’t really listen to music a whole lot like I used to, so I went on Spotify the other day and checked out some new stuff to add to my playlist.

What teacher gives you the most homework?

What type of personality do you find most annoying? Cockiness and arrogance.

Are you punctual? Yes.

Have you ever howled at the full moon? ...No.

Have you ever seen yourself on camera? Yes. EW. The most torturous thing ever was back when I for some reason took this “acting for the camera” class and we’d have to do monologues and skits that were filmed. The WORST part about that was the professor would play everyone’s tape in front of the class and we were to give constructive criticism. Omg it was horrible.

Do you give any consideration to what’s said in your horoscope? I don’t even read those anymore. Back when I used to, I was so opposite of how a Leo is always described. They’re always said to be confident and outgoing people and I’m just like, ahahahahah.

When was the last time you felt like you were being followed? Yikes. I used to feel that way sometimes whenever I had to go to the bus stop or was going home from the bus stop.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Suspiria remake review from a shitty movie-goer

(this review is posted too late so excuse me for some timing inaccuracies I couldn’t be arsed to edit)

(IF YOU HATE TL;DRS JUST SKIP AHEAD TO THE “THE REVIEW” PART. YOU’RE WELCOME)

I actually hate to admit why was I interested to watch this movie in the end, but for once SOMETHING motivated me to go to a movie after countless tries from my family to get me to watch something in theatres at a “reasonable time” (daytime is what they mean, this movie was at 8pm our time, and this is when the cross-city bus transport (it goes from one big city to another) stops doing their service lmao).

I myself have a lowkey interest in moviemaking (I’m already getting there by editing my phone-recorded videos because whatever). I come up with my concepts in my head and I am mostly willing to put them down somewhere in my computer so I don’t forget it years later if I want to make that concept a thing in the end (because none of my concepts are finalized... well except for one short horror-ish story I posted on DeviantArt (see mom, I do like some horror stuff!). Reddit as of lately inspired me to edit some of my movie’s plot-lines based on irl events (not related with anything too SJW), and I’m not sure how an usual movie-goer would see this concept but I am going to try to execute it... whenever I have enough equipment to shoot my own little films or skits or whatever.

What’s that? There are people who scrolled past this and already yell at me that “YOU ONLY WENT TO SEE THIS MOVIE BECAUSE OF THE MAN WHO COMPOSED THE SOUNDTRACK~~~”? Ugh yes you exposed me, tea all over. I even had “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” on a bit of a repeat as of lately (how fucking come I wasn’t too couragerous to listen to this song before?? And “Pyramid Song”??? Man am I discovering their pearl(ie)s(*) too late). And I’m occasionally on the band’s subreddit as well. And the man himself is touring ‘round the USA, signing material of fans and have genuinely warm chats with them. Admireable.

But that’s only half truth.

I never thought I’d see Suspiria on cinema theatres in here. Until one time when I saw an ad on a completely random Lithuanian website that said this movie is coming to our theatres 14 December... I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. I made my goal to see Suspiria since then. I even dared to ask a couple of my new college ‘friends’ to see it with me, but one of them fell off the deal when I revealed that I’ll be going to see it on Saturday, and on the weekends he’s usually at home, far away from the city the college is in (he lives in college dormitory on mostly the work-weekdays). So my only movie companion ended up to be this 28-year-old coursemate (actually we both study different things but sometimes we attend some of the same lectures) who was intrigued by the Suspiria trailer herself so at least I’m gonna have her by my side of the movie, so I thought. Sweet.

I already envisioned seeing this in a mall cinema theatre but my companion offered me a cheaper alternative - her suggested cinema theatre was actually in renovation so the business is temporarily happening inside an actual drama theatre’s long theatre hall. I had to wait long until the ticket box opened and because of that I was lowkey frustrated as I finished my English test writing a little earlier, so I spent my time walking around the city until the time came and I wandered off to the old building of the cinema so then I remembered it was moved and I found the moved place. Yeah I bought the tickets before my companion could but I’ll skip ahead to the time that I almost lost the tickets because they were put down on a windowsill outside some children activity centre (Suspiria and children?? lol). I came back home late at night and was ready for the movie to happen the next day. Oh and before buying the tickets I coincidentally saw dance classes going on nearby that building... weird, as Suspiria has dance elements in there

The day came (December 15) and my family went together with me because they saw this as an opportunity to see the Christmas tree of our city (but not the movie). Needless to say, they were still visibly pissed at me orchestrating this idea, as I planned everything BUT the transport to go by. Well at least my mom and my sis. Dad was cool with it as he returned home to watch Home Alone. Aside all that, the cinema hall was cozy, Christmassy, not too small, there were a few trailers before the movie, no snack-seller places (as this is not a mall lol) - my companion was glad she wasn't at the mall as she found this place where we were at way lovelier.

Now with all that unnecessary long intro off my chest, let’s begin:

THE REVIEW

(definitely not spoiler-free, if you are sensitive to spoilers please watch the movie for yourselves before reading my review. But if you like being spoiled, I’m your friend then I guess lmao)

The intro to the movie felt like I ended up booking a wrong movie - I didn't expect that to be set somewhere in Germany, especially an American/Italian-shot one. Was that a thing in the original Suspiria? I don't know... (apparently it is, but the cities are different, never the country though)

Patricia (I didn’t know it was Chloë Grace’s role until reading the Wiki) looked like to be a really big deal here, with the dance pupils discussing her disappearance the other day and Susie overheard them, then Sara mentioned the Patricia thing to Susie after Susie revealed she was kind of chosen as the lead dancer for the Volk play... is it because Patricia was THE saviour that unfortunately knew a little too much?? Idk, it’s perhaps the reason we get to see the Klemperer guy subplot happen (I didn’t know it was Tilda Swinton behind him all the time either, must be because the way the male German accent was put on her lol). Turned out she was captured and kept under some dungeon where Sara had gone later in the movie, but looking like an almost melted and grotesquely old human being (or if Mary’s mother from “Chocolate with Nuts” was a person). Speaking of which, there is one more later in the movie, but I won’t tell just yet - we will need to get into such scenes discussion first.

Interesting deaths here, despite of them being grotesque and horrifically detailed. It almost felt like Susie, whilst doing her first dance as the probable lead dancer, temporarily turned into Olga’s voodoo doll or a violent bloodbender (that old lady from Avatar that could bloodbend was incredibly uncanny, damn) and left Olga completely fucked up, and the foam mouth later on... is this the effect myxomatosis has on a human being if it was ever humanly? She was twitching and salivating afterall. :P But no, she’s not dead until she gets to plead her death later in the movie! :O Several others occur throughout, but none is more prominent than this key scene I described, well at least according to TV Tropes.

The search for the evil person in this movie without Wiki helping me much was definitely a nice game for me to play. I kept thinking that Blanc might be that one, then I thought she’s not the one until she looked at Carolina (I think that was the tall tomboy’s name??) suspiciously and then she later passed out on the floor violently, with rabies foam and everything.

Anyway, don’t tell me Tilda Swinton wouldn’t make out a pretty good Thom Yorke post-Pablo Honey. She’s 8 years older than him, ffs! Also played a man before (e.g.: this movie I’m talking about) so the make up won’t be an unjumpable-over hurdle.

The sighs were for sure unsettling, especially because they oddly sounded like orgasm here and there. IDK why. I know fucking is referenced twice in this movie (well only fucking once and sex another time). Speaking of random things, the nightmare shots were completely random themselves, following up with some imagery we never see in the movie again, and some of that we see only a little (like the worms and bloody organs).

3 long scenes that were note-worthy for me. One is the Olga mutilation/Susie's first dancing scene that I already noted, and it was driven by music (the others will be too. Soundtrack of this movie still rules). Then there's the Volk play itself - girls go from one place to another, take poses of each other, dance individually, let their minimalistic red rope dresses flick in the air, interspersed with Sara in the underneath area and her broken leg (so broken, the bone went out of her skin!), and then the matriarchy getting her back on stage, but healing her leg with her witch powers before that. I haven't really listened to the rest of the soundtrack but I gotta check the song out so that I won't end up labeling it as a Kid A reject. No but seriously - intense dancing needed some intense drumming and painful instrument sounds just to project out the massiveness of the whole play.

Then I keep remembering the scene where Madame Blanc commands Susie to jump higher and higher in the mirror hall, up until she jumps as highest as possible. Also my companion’s favourite scene was the stare exchange between these two ladies during the part where people were singing some drinking song in a bar to celebrate ‘Volk’’s success - you hear them singing and then some chilling background noise slowly mixing and creeping its way into the atmosphere, then I think it leads into a scene where some sparkling aura entity wakes Susie up (and she’s nude) in the middle of the night and gets her to go down to this... dungeon orgy full of random stuff going on, complete with an Asian man doing something beyond explanation (I could say lewd but not quite), even more strange ritual dancing and the very much frightening Madame Helga... who looked like Jabba the Hutt for some reason. And then of course everyone slitting, slashing and twisting each other, and by the end Susie throwing us all a plot twist which makes her THE evil one who can finally let her ‘friends’ go of all that suffering they have been through thanks to the damn witches (and yeah apparently her dance friends haven’t completely died? THAT’S how they do - they tell Susie to end their suffering and she does). Also she cracks her chest open to reveal a... very graphic part of a female body that will by no doubt get this whole text review reported without consent so I refrain from any illustrations. Oh and this scene mostly has the possibly favourite this movie’s soundtrack song of mine, if not one of them, play - titled Unmade. It was a mind-boggling decision to do so but the movie editors do them I suppose, but still. I felt sad for the song having to be the background of such absurd but fair enough events? (Oh and I didn’t mention that everyone who voted for the other woman than Madame Blanc to be the leader of the witches (iirc) were rid of in this movie. Damn.)

Oh and the ending is rather an interesting detail, not talking about post-credits because as always I have to be this one movie goer who wants to do it but can’t because they’re urged to go back out of the movie theater. We turn into modern day Germany with a love heart carved on a brick wall with the letters A and L (perhaps?? at the time of finishing this review my memory towards it kind of erased some parts of the movie for me), a nice little remembrance of Lutz’s (the old man’s) love for his dear Anke, with which they have reunited during the movie, but Lutz was dragged out by some people related to the dance academy for probably wandering elsewhere than needed and somehow Lutz ended up as one of the sex dungeon victims, stripped of clothing and lying down quite powerless. That and before the modern day shot we are subjected with Lutz in hospital with Susie coming to visit, they discuss something related to the plot, Susie touches the guy speaks some more, leaves and according to the Wiki, Lutz “suffers from a violent seizure” that was nothing more than just a hard seizure. And it even erases his memories!

Anyway, as a whole, I felt more underwhelmed of this movie’s experience despite really wanting to see it. Like, “uhm yeah gore blood people getting slashed everyone’s a witch and everyone’s watched over by the witch and if you expose the witches you die” kind of underwhelmed. I didn’t want this movie to blatantly go through my head, but it did, that’s why I wanted to make notes everytime something notable happens. There was one startling moment, and it just was an innocent scene transition. And something within Olga’s mutilation scene made me chuckle (and made some other people leave the cinema hall ASAP). It’s more of a disgusting watch than scary. Also feels too dragged out in parts.

I’d only recommend it if you are gore-tolerant (there are people that can’t stand looking at blood so this might as well not be for you, especially if you’re younger than 16), like intense choreos that can impact other people literally, and... the soundtrack. Yes of course. If you dare to get through the movie with feeling its soundtrack, sometimes you might as well feel it right, but some of the soundtrack song usages might as well make you go “hmm” as much as me.

I'll remind myself to never watch a movie in theaters for soundtrack again (unless they're not THAT late). And the other 'trilogy of the three witches' movie remakes, especially if they come out at the time I haven't moved houses by now, because for sure as hell will my parents not like me going to cinema late once more. The movie is lowkey 7 out of 10 for me, can sometimes it's on the verge of falling down to 6 becaude of no completely proper comprehension of some directing choices... so 6.7/10 is good - as it still has 6 in it, but totally leans on to the 7.

Will probably watch it again. I need to remember some more of this movie sometime later. And looking for online uploads of this movie is unrecommendable - I'll wait until Lionsgate distributes it to America for wider audiences so that anything could surface 2 months (or even a few days) later from now. Though if I didn't need all that, I'd definitely not watch it again for a long time... unfortunately I want to.

Post movie feelings: my companion liked the movie, initially said to never watch it again but now wants to watch it again because it was so "wtf" she felt like re-experiencing it at some point. She liked the music (another bonus point for Yorke). She wished she could film the reactions of other people who watched this, as they mostly were confused, all being like "wtf did I just watch???". I'm already feeling bad for the 3rd companion who didn't join us but would also like to watch this - he’ll likely be one of those confused movie-goers.

#suspiria #reviews from a shitty movie goer #lol :')#spoiler alert #tl;dr alert #this review's looooong overdue but f*ck it!#suspiria (2018)#there's a lot i might have missed?#movie review #review

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residentanchor · 6 years

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A Lesson in Practicality 9

<<Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Summary: Patton and Roman go looking for Virgil. Word count: 3200

The day rolled by and the light started to fade in the sky, causing the three to grow anxious. Logan had taken out an old puzzle he had after nervously finishing all the crosswords he had stashed away. He sat at the kitchen table and worked on it, doing his best to ignore the unsteady feeling that he couldn't quite shake.

Patton had started pacing and cleaned all the dishes within the first hour. After vacuuming and wiping everything down twice, Roman got him to try and relax on the couch and watch a movie. It distracted him a little bit, but Patton would suddenly snap out of his daze and his leg would start to shake from not being able to sit still.

Roman had already gotten out his costume, mentally preparing himself to go and hunt the time stopper down. He was the calmest of the three, but he would be overcome with bouts of energy and start worrying more as well.

Eventually, he ended up in the kitchen with Logan, staring down the puzzle. It was a forest path, and Logan had worked out the border and random bits of the trees starting from the left and working his way over.

"So, this fifth person." Logan ignored Roman, searching the small pile in front of him. "How much around that situation do you remember?"

"I told you, Roman, I don't. I had a note written down that I was meeting up with someone. I remember going there, then I remember leaving with no memory of anything in between. About an hours time had passed."

"We need more than that to go on! If they can alter memories then we need everything we can! Luckily they know you but not us at least."

"I am unsure of their abilities, Roman. All I am aware is that my memory was altered." Logan moved and pieced together another bit to the tree he was working on. "It's strange that our abilities all differ but this last person holds similarities to my own."

Roman huffed and pushed back into the chair. "So they might be able to read minds as well, fantastic." He fiddled with a puzzle piece on the table, another small random green one that could go anywhere. "So what exactly can you do anyway?"

Logan sifted through more pieces, sorting them into piles as he went through. "It started out as psychokinesis. I started moving things around as a kid. No shelf was too high for the cookie jar, my parents were quite baffled until they saw it themselves."

"Ohh, good thing I didn't have that power." Patton walked in and sat down. "Can you imagine? Little me with unlimited access to cookies?"

Logan smiled a bit and pushed the feeling away. "Yes, well, it grew the more I learned about it. By middle school, I realized I was hearing peoples thoughts. By high school, I knew I could give them ideas and suggestions. Before I graduated I had pulled off enough tests to discover I could slightly alter a few things as well. Such as memories or as you have experienced, sobriety."

"Logan with the power to alter memories and give suggestions." Roman leaned forward and smirked. "So what did teenage Logan do with all that knowledge?"

"Surprisingly little." Logan looked up and frowned. "I was worried about what I could do, whom I could hurt. I spent a lot of time keeping my powers under control. I learned they were tied to my emotions at a younger age and tried keeping myself in check."

"Oh? So tell me, Logan, how old were you when you made that discovery?"

Logan froze and looked up, staring at the wall in deep thought. "Fourteen, I believe. Give or take." He started sorting his small pile once more.

"So fourteen-year-old Logan held an experiment to figure himself out. You ever go and redo the test just to make sure? I mean, that was a long time ago, I would think you had to redo it to prove your theories." Logan froze in his place. "We're always learning stuff about ourselves and grow as people. That was over ten years ago for you and you still think the answer you got then might not be different with the new information you have now?"

Logan looked up at Patton who smiled back innocently. He put down his pieces he was holding and stared at the table in front of him. "That was a surprisingly deep and poignant inquiry, Patton."

"I'm just saying, after that emotional scare earlier, it seems like your powers aren't controlled by your emotions, but strengthened by them. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the reaction. Perhaps the only reason you lost control is that you haven't been expressing yourself like you should." The kitchen grew quiet and Patton smiled at Logan and shrugged. "Just a thought."

"P-perhaps." Logan cleared his throat. "Perhaps I should look into that further and re-evaluate my standings on past research."

"That's the spirit?" Roman questioned and looked out the small kitchen window. "It's getting dark. Patton, how about you head out and start looking for him while the sun is still up? I'll join you shortly."

Patton stood up from the table and stopped to pat Logan's shoulder reassuringly. "I'll call him first, maybe he'll pick up this time. You know what they say, twelfth time's the charm!"

Roman waved at Patton and waited after hearing the front door click before turning back to Logan. "Alright, let's settle something first." Roman leaned forward and pointed accusingly across the table. "I don't trust you right now, and I'm sure Virgil doesn't either. Patton seems to be willing to give you another fair shot, but you'll have to earn it back from us."

"That is fair, Roman. I hid something rather important after pushing far too much from you and the others."

Roman stood up and walked over to Logan. Their eyes met and Roman stared him down, before sticking out a hand. "I'm willing to give you another shot as well since I know why you did it. I understand it, though I don't agree. Can't say I wouldn't have done something similar in your shoes."

Logan stared the hand down before reaching up and grabbing it. "That is more than enough, thank you, Roman."

"Don't thank me yet, we still need to get Virgil home."

Roman had gotten suited up and waited for night to fall. He had texted Patton, asking where Patton had checked and where needed to be checked before quickly calling him.

"Alright, Patton, check the north side, I'll check near the south side. Stick to cafes and stores. I'll do the alleys. Keep me posted. Okay. We'll find him, he's a grown man with the ability to stop time. He could randomly just appear back here. Yes, I'll check his room before I go. Goodbye."

Roman clicked off and sighed. "He's starting to freak out a bit. It's been a few hours." Roman stuck his phone in his pocket. "Keep checking to make sure he hasn't come back, Logan."

"Of course. I will inform you both immediately."

Roman checked Virgil's room one last time before running out the door and down the stairs. He ran down the road and headed for his usual area downtown, praying he didn't have to find his roommate in the more unsavory parts of town.

Roman had weaved in and out of some alleys and even a few businesses. Not many people paid attention to the man in the masquerade prince costume running around. A few looks were the most he got on nights he patrolled. Usually, he cared about his image as he strolled down the streets, but knowing Virgil had left that morning and hadn't been heard from since, along with Patton's worry, made Roman start to be on edge as well.

It was another hour or so before Roman's phone went off. He reached down and pulled it out, answering the call. "Have you found him yet?"

"Roman?"

He pulled the phone away and looked down at the caller id, seeing 'Emo Nightmare' on the screen and sighing in relief. "Virge, we've been looking for you everywhere!"

"You have?" Virgil let out a scoff. "I was visiting my dad, you obviously didn't look hard enough."

Roman stopped walking down the street. "We don't know where he lives, or his number, or how to contact him. You didn't answer your phone all day!"

"Yeah, I saw Patton called me a bunch of times. That's why I called you."

"Me?"

"Yeah." He heard cars honking on the other side of the phone. "Patton forgave him already, didn't he? Figured I could at least talk to someone with some sense first."

"Virgil, where are you?"

"Got off the bus and I'm walking home. Why?"

Roman looked around and headed back into the center of the city. "I'm near downtown by the abandoned movie theater, I'll meet up with you if you tell me where you are."

"Did Logan explain anything?"

"A little, and you really should hear him out."

He got a deep sigh as a response. "He can mess with our heads, you know that right? How do you trust someone like that?"

"You trust me not to shoot electricity at you, do you not? Same concept."

"There's a difference, you haven't shot me before. He's messed with our heads, Roman."

"You're telling me if you found a group of people like you and that you weren't truly alone in this world like you thought, you wouldn't try and do whatever it takes to bring them together?"

"He could have talked to us!"

"You really need to hear it from him first. Trust me at least, okay?"

"Whatever."

"I'll call back in a minute, I'm going to let Patton know I've found you, alright?"

"You're in costume, aren't you? I'm not your damsel Roman, I swear-"

"Oh, sorry, you seem to be cutting out!" Roman hung up the phone and let out a big sigh of relief. "He's such a pain, I swear."

"I heard that." Roman jumped and spun around, spotting Virgil casually walking up with a smug look. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry sir. Did I scare you?"

Roman shoved his phone away into his pocket. "Where did you come from? There's not a bus stop nearby!"

Virgil shook his head as he walked by Roman without hesitation. "I can stop time. I just walked over here and started it back up again." He stopped and spun around with a cocky grin. "Isn't the big hero gonna walk me home?"

"I swear, I do not like you." Despite his words, Roman smirked and removed his mask. "I still need to let Patton know you're alright."

It barely took two rings before Patton picked up in a panic. Virgil could actually hear the sigh of relief come from Roman's phone for a brief moment. Virgil looked back and locked eyes with Roman who smirked down at him, causing him to look away. "Come on, it's getting late and I don't want to miss the bus back."

"Sorry, Patton. I have to go. The one who can stop time is worried we might miss the bus. See you back at the apartment."

"I try to be more practical, thank you very much."

Roman walked up to Virgil and they continued their trek back home. "Practical? You just used them to walk across town and scare me. Appearing out of nowhere is practical?"

"More practical than running around the city in a costume to stop purse snatchers." Virgil leaned over and nudged Roman. "Besides, I don't like messing with things that already happened, nothing changes if I just stroll across town without anyone noticing. Still, don't do it often just to be safe." Roman rolled his eyes and shook his head at the comment. "If you get popular, aren't your theater geek buddies going to recognize the costume?"

Roman jumped as a look of realization spread across his face. "Sweet cheese danish you might have a point." Roman looked down at his plain white jacket and red sash before glancing over at Virgil. "You seem to be a bit crafty, any ideas on how to upgrade my wardrobe?"

"You want my help? Seriously?"

"Hey, you upgraded a plain hoodie into something so angsty it's impressive. If I give the ideas could you help?"

Virgil didn't answer at first as he kept his gaze down on the sidewalk. He hunched over a bit more and pulled himself closer. "I mean, I guess, if you really want my help."

"Perfect! I thought you might make a great sidekick!"

"Woah, no, I am not your sidekick."

Roman stared Virgil down and smiled. "You're right, I guess you're more like my Alfred then my Robin."

Virgil laughed and didn't bother hiding his smile for once. "Yeah, sure. Keep dreaming, princey."

They eventually made it home, talking about possible quick wardrobe updates for Roman that would be easy to add. Roman wanted it pretty much the same, but different enough that no one could outright point him out, at least for now.

They made it back to the apartment and saw Patton standing outside. He came rushing up when he finally saw them and immediately pulled Virgil into a hug. "Oh, I was so worried! I'm so glad you're okay!" Patton pulled away and left Virgil a little frazzled, but not too terribly upset. "I know you're probably still upset, but let's just get some rest and we can all talk to Logan in the morning, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Virgil shuffled his feet and pulled his hoodie closer. "Patton?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"Thanks for, you know, looking for me."

"Aww, of course, I did, Virgil." Patton gave a sincere smile and shrugged. "I understand why you left, but I was still worried. I'm just glad you're back."

Breakfast was quiet the next morning. Virgil was in the kitchen waiting for the others first, the anticipation of the inevitable talk preventing him from relaxing and getting enough sleep. Patton smiled at him and gave him a hug, not letting go of a good solid minute.

When Logan emerged, he ducked his head and looked away. His eyes fell on the puzzle he left out last night in the rush of things. Virgil had done a big chunk of it, making Logan curious if the other even slept at all.

When Roman came out of his room, Virgil just sighed and stood up, breaking the silence. "Alright, we need to talk." He spun around the chair and sat backward in it, pointing at Logan. "Any time you're ready, I just want to get this over with."

Logan looked around the room and Patton nodded, shooting him an encouraging smile. He cleared his throat and stood up. "I would like to formally apologize. You all moved in under a false pretense, that was my own fault. However, due to recent events, I'll just come out and say it." Logan looked at Virgil. "There's another one of us in the city."

It was not the news he had expected, causing him to jump, shocked. His mouth fell open and closed a few times as he looked over at Patton and Roman, who had already heard the news. "H-how do you know? I mean, I kind of figured there might be? Maybe not in the city, but the odds of us being the only people in the world..."

"True, but as far as I am aware, there is only one more person in the city. I do not know who it is. I believe we met and my memory of the meeting was eradicated, so I am unsure."

"They erased your memory?"

Patton took a step forward. "That's why he kept it secret, apparently he tried approaching us and the first one he did was this other person and it didn't go so well."

"I have my memory of searching for all of you. I remember going to talk to someone, but I can't remember who, and I remember walking away confused. It was then I decided to bring us together more discreetly."

Virgil looked up at Logan and stared him down. "Have you used your powers on anyone else since we've met?"

Logan jumped back and cleared his throat. "I don't believe that is relevant." He pushed his glasses up. "But to ease your concerns, no I have not. I could have easily found you last night if that were the case."

Virgil stared down Logan and kept quiet. Logan met his gaze head-on, having nothing more to hide. Virgil shifted in the chair and shot him a more serious glance. "So, you brought us together and never hunted down this mysterious last person because the first time didn't go so well. You kept this a secret, even after we figured each other out without your input. What did you think was going to happen?"

Logan cleared his throat once more for effect. "The lease would run out and we would have made a friendship so strong that it would have been inconsequential."

"And you would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids." Roman let out a laugh. "So close!"

"Let's say I believe you. Let's say I decide to let you earn my trust back." Virgil motioned to the room. "What now?"

"Well, we could either agree to leave this stranger alone or seek them out and figure out what happened."

"I think" Virgil began, standing up from his chair. "That we should eat breakfast and worry about that later. I need to absorb everything you've told me."

Logan nodded and turned towards the coffee pot. "That is more than adequate, thank you."

"Logan." He didn't acknowledge his name being called and continued making himself a cup of coffee. "I want to trust you, but I just can't. Not yet."

"No need to explain, Virgil. I have broken that trust by not explaining myself and fully intend to remedy the situation, even if it eventually means my departure from the group." The harsh chuckle was not the response Logan was expecting. He turned and glanced over his shoulder, looking at Virgil who stood up and fixed the chair. "What is so amusing?"

"You don't get to just duck out at this point. You're stuck with us."

"Yeah, we're all friends! We can work through this!" Patton perked up. "I know we can!"

Chapter 10>> Tag list: @cyberpunkjinx @phlying-squirrel @equipodeleo @ace-anx

#sanders sides #sander sides au #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #sander sides #superpower au #slice of life au #practicality fic

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livingasaghost · 6 years

Text

alright folks. settle in. this is the story of how i met taylor swift after waiting 10 years. whew.

i don’t honestly know how to start this bc i never thought i’d make this text post.

so it all started on tuesday night. i was reading and scrolling my phone as one does, and then i get a text from hailee aka @ootwoodsyet aka my twin.

taylornation sent her a dm and both of us FREAKED OUT. we were cautiously optimistic but i think both of us were like OKAY THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! EVERYONE STAY CALM IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING! so anyway, obviously hailee is the best person in the universe and replied putting my name in as her plus one and then we just texted each other non-stop for like two hours straight. tn replied to her email and asked for our social media handles, my full name, and our birthdays. we could hardly sleep that night, so when we woke up early the next morning we texted each other still freaking out. finally TN emailed back and was like OKAY YOU TWO ARE ON THE GUEST LIST! HAILEE LITERALLY FACETIMED ME FROM HER CAR AND WE BOTH LOST IT. at that point we immediately started making plans bc the next day thursday was the event in chicago. we had no idea when or where it was happening, but we knew we were going to be there. so we started prepping. i had to cancel on a client photoshoot (oops...but i’m not sorry) and uh hailee may or may not have had food poisoning that morning......so i went to platos closet and bought a new dress (velvet, blue, and PERFECT) and then i packed up a bag bc i was gonna go straight from my parents’ house to louisville on saturday for the rep show (wtf). neither of us slept very well wednesday night, and then AND THEN IT WAS TIME FOR THE WEIRDEST BEST DAY OF LIVES.

thursday june 28, 2018 --

i woke up at 7:15 and drove like 8 hours north from nashville to chicago. there was actually a decent amount of traffic that day but at one point i had to take a detour because there was a crash on i65. so on this random detour in southern indiana, a little ways outside of louisville, i was blasting better than revenge and i look to my left and I SAW TAYLORS FACE ON A TRUCK AND I SCREAMED BECAUSE THE REP TOUR BUSES WERE JUST SITTING IN THIS RANDOM LOT

I THOUGHT IT HAD TO BE A SIGN AND UH I GUESS I WAS RIGHT???? i also passed a place called “swifty farms” (what) and of course i drove through taylorsville so um needless to say....it was all meant to be

i eventually made it to chicago at 5:30pm and i picked up hailee from the train station. we flipped bc we literally did this exact same thing less than a month about for the 2nd chicago show and HERE WE WERE AGAIN FOR THE SAME WOMAN soooo we made our way to the first location that TN said to meet at by 7pm. we pulled up at like 6:15 and the parking lot was full but they already had a line of people. after finding a nearby garage to park in, we literally RAN across the way to get in line (it was like 10 minutes and we were so sweaty wow) and then we were in line and we had to go through two different security sections - each one asked for our names and ids. then at the second checkpoint they gave us wristbands based on our ages (i’m over 21) and eventually we went off to give them our phones and bags and stuff. then we were directed onto a greyhound bus and when we got on we legitimately became the most obnoxious people i’ve ever known in my entire life.

when we got on they were playing reputation (duh) and RFI was on so we literally listened through the album one whole time and it was WILD. we didn’t have our phones so we were just freaking out about twitter. we spent the whole time singing along and being totally in awe. the whole bus did 123 LETS GO BITCH during delicate, and thennn during getaway car when she goes SAID GOODBYE IN A GETAWAY CAR the bus MOVED AND WE LEFT TO GO TO THE SECONDARY LOCATION (john mulaney???)

so we drove until new years day came on and then we pulled into this random alley. before we could get up, this CAMERA crew showed up and went to the back of the bus to film us. they told us to be excited so we WERE?? and then we got off and went inside this random venue. hailee and i gripped each other’s hands so hard and then we went down this tunnel with mirrors & screens & then i almost broke down into tears bc it was all so overwhelming. they had so many professional photographers asking to take our photos and then the taylor people were handing out raffle tickets telling us to do stuff. it was like this weird underground area that had these gorgeous industrial bathrooms (with so many toiletries like oil sheets & dry shampoo & tampons & gum & hair ties) and there were arcade games and an led dance floor that lit up with hearts where you stood and there was a skee ball thing where we STOOD ON IT AND GOT OUR PHOTO TAKEN and they had claw machines with merch inside and these HUGE photobooth backdrops (BIG REPUTATION + taylors face + a huge snake) and basically you had to do stuff to get tickets and then you could use the tickets to get free merch! we didnt catch on quick enough though so we didn’t get anything more exciting than a water bottle & a tote (which were still so cool)

so anyway, we did some stuff, got a BIG REPUTATION non-alcoholic drink that was like soda water + blackberry syrup + a lime and it was just okay haha and as we went over to try and get our free merch we heard a THATS TAYLOR SWIFT scream from across the room and basically RAN to see what was happening. and that’s when this wall opened up and uh WE WALKED INTO A CONCERT VENUE AND LOST ALL CHILL

IT WAS SUCH A SMALL VENUE HAILEE AND I WERE IN THE BACK ROW BUT LITERALLY WE SPENT 10 MINUTES HYPERVENTILATING AND SCREAMING AT EACH OTHER!!! there were cameras everywhere, and it was so industrial but there was PIANO + THE SPARKLY GUITAR + THE KOI GUITAR?????? AND HER BLACK GUITAR WITH THE STARS ON THE FRETS!! so we hung out for a while in taylor limbo and felt like we were gonna combust and then AND THEN THE NIGHT KICKED INTO HIGH GEAR AND I SWEAR HAILEE AND I BOTH JUST BLACKED OUT

THE LIGHTS WENT OUT AND TAYLOR JUST FREAKING WALKED OUT ON STAGE AND I ALMOST BURST INTO TEARS SHE WASN’T REAL BUT SHE WAS RIGHT THERE AND I WANTED TO EXPLODE anyway she wore a green jumpsuit with a huge belt and some cute high heeled booties and uh she was her usual cute self being like HI GUYS WHATS UP there were like 200 people there and i couldn’t get over that!!! this was her smallest show in like 10 years???? AND I WAS THERE??? uh but yeah so she did 6 songs - gorgeous + delicate on guitar, all too well + new years day on piano, and shake it off on guitar. here are some highlights from that set...

the whole crowd did *DING* during gorgeous and 123 LET’S GO BITCH during delicate

taylor said that they were trying to decide if they needed backing vocalists and she decided not to and it turned out they didnt need them because we sung literally ALL the backing parts - like the high pitched “delicate” - we did that

she didnt even finish the last delicate bc we sang it so loud and she just laughed

she was so so SOOOOO comfortable with us like i have never seen her so candid and chill and relaxed?? like she was smiling and giggling and she made mistakes and didn’t even care and it was so CUTE I CANT STAND IT

at the piano she was like “oooh sorry i didnt get to sound check hang on lemme figure this out”

when she sat at the piano she was like “wow my hair’s so long” and how she thought about cutting it for these upcoming florida shows since it’s so hot and then the crowd was like OMG CUT IT or OMG DONT CUT IT and our section was like CUT ITTTT and she looked directly at us and was like mmmmm “you guys dont want it....” and wow i think she looked at me then wowowow

she explained that for all too well it was such an emotional song and she used to hate playing it bc it made her so sad but bc we love it so much now she loves playing it bc it makes her think of us and she was freaking SMILING DURING THIS WHOLE PERFORMANCE!! like the last time i saw her perform it live in my presence was 5 years ago at the red tour in chicago and she was crying but during this time she was LAUGHING AND SMILING

someone sang all to welllllll really terribly and off key and the whole audience fell silent and taylor just looked at that person and laughed and we all lost it

then she talked about writing reputation and how it was so cathartic for her and like she came up with the “there will be no explanation there will just be reputation” rhyme and it was so cool that now she has to stick to it and not give interviews so she was excited to explain to us more about the album

AND THEN she told this story about how 2 new years ago she was celebrating and just like realizing that everyone just wants to kiss someone at midnight but you really need someone to look after you while you’re popping advils the next day

she played new years day and we were all so emo wow

so then she gets up to get her guitar and we’re all like PLAY THE SPARKLY GUITAR!!!! and she looked so dismayed she was like “guys it’s just a prop it isn’t tuned” and we were so sad we were like TUNE IT!!! and she’s like NO I CANT

so thennnn she’s like “okay so i have one more song” and we were all like “PLAY MORE PLAY MORE” and she said “well, i could play you three more songs ORRRR we could take pictures...” and wow everyone died it was wild

she played shake it off acoustic and im not okay

then she explained what was gonna happen next and she was like FIRST OF ALL i cant really talk to you since i’m touring i need to save my voice and i’m not supposed to talk and second, we’re doing it in groups of four so make friends bc you’ll get photos in groups of four!

then as she finished she was like “uh i guess i’ll just go back here? no one really told me what was happening or what to do so...ILL SEE YOU SOON!!!”

as we walked out i saw a girl hugging her friend and crying. relatable. so hailee and i waited for our blue color to be called and went to claim our free merch. after we freshened up, we were waiting and this girl offered us poptarts and we both looked at each other and were like “omg poptarts” soooo then we got at the end of the line for the M&G. we were freaking out and we didn’t know what we’re gonna say and it was so surreal. like, we were gonna meet taylor swift. TAYLOR SWIFT! FUCK

so we’re waiting. and then these staff people come over and ask how many we have in our party (we say 2) and immediately they’re like...i think we have 2 openings over here hang on. so they deliberate, and then we’re being motioned to the FRONT OF THE LINE and we skip like 50 people and OUR HEARTBEATS TOOK OFF! WE WERE NOT ALL THERE! WE EXPLODED! WE WERE SO UNPREPARED TO JUMP THAT LINE BUT WOW WE WERE REALLY OUT THERE GETTING READY TO MEET TAYLOR.

we then were ushered upstairs and they lead us over a little bridge that was above the concert venue. eventually we made it past another security checkpoint and got to this fabric walled hallway where we glimpsed MAMA SWIFT and we almost lost it.

as we approached the very front of the line, TREE PAINE SHOWED UP and was just so sweet and nice and bubbly and we immediately decided to stan her. she was like “wow this is such a beautiful group of people you all look fantastic!” and we were like WOW ITS TREE PAINE and so then THEN ANDREA CAME BACK OUT AND WAS LIKE HELLO WOW YOU ALL LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL!!! and i shook her hand and told her it was honor to meet her and she was so so happy

(this whole time dont blame me and delicate was playing in the background)

((at one point tree was trying to figure out what was playing and i was like ITS DELICATE and she was like OH YEAH YOU’RE RIGHT))

sooooooo ummmmmm then security was ushering us around the corner and into this back area and TAYLOR SWIFT WAS RIGHT THERE??????? hailee and i were GRIPPING each others hands and i almost broke down into tears but hailee was like NO YOUR MAKE UP DONT DO IT YET NOT YET HOLD IT TOGETHER

and taylor (that sneaky bitch i love her) saw us together and basically took a photo with the other 2 people in our group and THEN came over to us to do us separately (!!!) ((apparently according to hailee the at&t lady running the thing was like “what is happening” but it’s taylor swift so she can do anything) so she walked over to us and we kept our cool somehow and i was like “WE WAITED 10 YEARS FOR THIS” and she high fived me and was like “WE DID IT!!” and i told her i drove 8 hours from nashville and she was baffled about how far that was. hailee thanked her for making her more courageous and resilient and we thanked her for the pride speech in chicago and she was so excited we went to the rain show. then i thanked her for writing “invisible” and she looked at me like OH WOW IM SHOCKED she was like “wow no one ever talks about that song thank you!” and i told her it made me feel seen and she was just so so kind and warm and did i mention she hugged us? and she’s kinda tall but she felt like our height and she felt like our best friend? ummm yeah so then the at&t people were like PICTURE and we went over and hailee and i both blacked out like we don’t remember what the background looked like??? i assume it’s the same as it always is but we didn’t notice lol um yeah so i remember smiling for the photo and i LEANED MY HEAD AGAINST TAYLORS???!?!? and then as we were finishing i was like IM GOING TO LOUISVILLE ON SATURDAY!!! and she was like “wow im so excited! i cant wait to be back on tour! i always hate the breaks in between!” and then i was like “CAN YOU PLAY SOMETHING FROM SPEAK NOW” and she was like “oh maybe” but she looked so disinterested i was thinking TAYLOR COME ON ITS SPEAK NOW and then i said i love you and she said i love you i think and then we got out and wowowowowowow

tree paine was there again and we were like OMG THAKN YOU CAN WE HUG YOU and she was so sweet like YES OF COURSE!!!! (um @tree-paine you are literally the kindest i would die for you) anyway hailee had a letter for taylor and she asked tree if someone could give it to her and tree was like i’ll put it in my back pocket!! and then we left and we kept thanking people as we walked out and that is the story of the greatest night of my life.

thank you to at&t and to hailee and to @taylornation and of course to @taylorswift wowowow i never thought this would happen to me and it did IT REALLY DID WOW

#personal #taylor swift #at&t #taylor swift now #i met taylor swift #6/28/18 #reputation

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