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magicbystarlight · 2 years

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One For Sorrow, Two For Joy - Part Eighteen

Masterlist, Part One

Part Eighteen of Eighteen

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes Divider by @bwbatta

Summary: For the last three years, you’ve been working a repetitive Ministry job and wrapped your life around an unhappy relationship. After realizing how empty your life has become, you leave everything behind and stumble across an unlikely job for you - Office Manager for Weaselys’ Wizard Wheezes. There you wish to find something you lost in the war: hope.

Word Count: 3408

Warnings: 18+, grief, suggestive language. Minors DNI.

It took a minute to pull yourself out of the spot George left you in, trying to calm your breathing and slow your heart. It was a story a decade in the making and you were finally at the climax of it. It had always been him. Since that night with a chance meeting in this very corridor, he was the one.

There was only one more obstacle standing in the way–Headmistress McGonagall. With a deep breath, you forced yourself to walk down the opposite way from where George had gone. You could have told her that you didn't have time or that an emergency popped up but, even after all these years, you couldn't bring yourself to lie to a teacher.

"Biscuits," you said to the gargoyle that stood at the entrance of the office. It bowed its head and moved aside. Ascending the great spiral staircase, voices floated down. It seems you were late.

"Ah, there you are," McGonagall greeted. She sat behind the grand desk, surrounded by three other professors: Flitwick, Sprout, and Sturgis Podmore who had been the DADA professor since the end of the war. Harry and Neville were seated in two of the three seats across from them.

You scurried to the empty chair, muttering an apology and trying not to trip. Merlin, you’d been out of school for nearly four years now and you were still a spinless kiss arse.

"As I was telling Potter and Longbottom, thank you for taking the time to come and speak with us. I know you'd probably prefer to enjoy your night, but we couldn't pass on the perfect opportunity to speak to you three together."

"After much back and forth, Pomona, Filius, and Sturgis have decided that it is time for retirement and they will not be returning next year. While I am incredibly happy for them, it does leave me three professors short for core curriculum. That is where you three come in. Each of you were the first choices to take over their positions."

Your mouth hung slightly open. You had been a good student, great even, but you’d never considered yourself on par or even near as good as any of the professors. Neville? Yes. He already held great esteem amongst the students in the DA for how he led them during the hellish year under the Carrows. His knowledge of magical plants was beyond anything you’d ever seen. And Harry already had the experience teaching.

"Harry and Neville, I am aware that you are both very active in your roles as Aurors. I have already spoken with Robards and Kingsley and they agree that you both would be the perfect successors to Sturgis and Pomona. They believe that the department can carry on without you and you will have several months to prepare it before your departure."

The two men looked like little kids on Christmas morning. They both readily agreed with no further questions or time to consider. Men.

Her sharp gaze focused on you. "I must say we've all been rather impressed with the products the shop released. As much as we would love to see what you would come up with next, we believe that you could be an incredible asset to our students as our new Charms professor." The four professors looked on expectantly, as if they knew it was an offer you couldn’t refuse.

Your mouth was dry as you considered what to say. "I–I appreciate the offer. Really, it's the highest compliment I think I've ever received. But I can't take the job."

What followed was a level of silence that could unnerve even Madam Pince. It was a nightmare you’d had a hundred times during school: giving the wrong answer to a professor and being judged for it by everyone listening.

"Are you sure?" Flitwick squeaked. "I'm sure Mr. Weasley would understand you taking the position. You wouldn't have to live at Hogwarts, either. Relationships aren't as difficult to maintain as you may think." Everyone knew.

"I'm sure George would be perfectly fine with me taking the position," you said, knowing he would support anything you did, "but I love my job. I'm the happiest I've been in a long time because of it. Thank you for considering me but, as I said, I can't accept it."

McGonagall took a sharp intake of breath and tapped her finger against the wooden desk. Her face had turned into the hard, stern expression that had struck fear into decades of students. "Well, I do not believe that any of us would ever have suspected that you would not only work at a joke shop, but that you would choose to keep your job there over a prestigious position at Hogwarts.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “It is truly a surprise."

The trip to Azkaban had been less terrifying than watching your worst childhood fear come to life. You would have almost preferred one of my uncle's torture sessions to the overwhelming sense of disappointment radiating off of the Headmistress. "Pro–Professor, I'm sorry, it's just–just I really enjoy–you know, the shop, it–it has more than joke stuff—"

McGonagall held up her hand, silencing your rambling. "I am pleased to see that you have found happiness." A small smile broke her severe manner and shattered the anxiety that had started suffocating you. "After everything you've suffered through, it is the least you deserve."

Your heart unclenched at her approval and understanding. You hadn't just experienced the stinging disappointment of one of the most respected witches in the Wizarding World.

"The very least," Professor Sprout added with a nod. "You've given more than enough in service to Hogwarts and its students. All of you have."

This was it. Tonight was the night. Seven years in the making, maybe even longer if he wanted to count that night in the corridor. Maybe if he had taken the time back then to talk to you, it wouldn't have taken so long to get here.

Bounding down the last steps of the hidden staircase and past the open doors that led into the now lively party, he was practically sprinting outside. There had to be plenty of time for him to double check everything had been set up properly. Madam Hooch had readily agreed to help out in exchange for season tickets to the Holyhead Harpies which Ginny had provided, no questions asked. He’d have to remember to get his sister a damn good birthday present.

The long, black, glittering stone slowed his steps. He’d purposely avoided it earlier, claiming to his brothers that I wanted to find you first as he slipped past it with barely a glance. It hadn't been a lie but it hadn't exactly been truthful. In the years since the Battle, he’d only been back to Hogwarts once. He had been there the day they revealed the monument and locked himself away from everyone not long after. If it wasn't for having you and his family with him tonight, it was doubtful that he would have been able to step into the castle again.

Skipping past the story of the Battle, his finger searched the names directly underneath. The Fallen Fifty. The last fifty to die because of Voldemort. At the bottom of the list, in bold white letters, was Fred Weasley. Guilt swarmed in his stomach. He hadn't visited his grave since the funeral.

"I'm sorry, mate. I guess I've been a pretty horrible brother, huh?" he said aloud.

"Pretty shit, actually."

Maybe it was because they were twins and he knew Fred so well that his voice had become George’s conscience. Or maybe it was guilt. "Sorry mate, I'll make it up to you soon. At least I'm finally taking your advice. Even taking a page out of your book and going big for it."

"Right, I'll believe it when I see it."

"It's going to happen this time. I've waited long enough. Maybe it didn't happen before for a reason. Maybe we both needed time to fix ourselves. You should see her now, Fred. She's divine. She looks the same really–it could just be me being head-over-heels in love with her–but I swear she's got this glow about her now. And Merlin, that dress she's wearing!"

"Alright, alright. Keep it in your pants."

"Can't keep any promises there, mate. It's been a while." There had been a few flings in that first year of the shop being open after he’d already given up on the idea of you. Between the war and his self-imposed isolation, there hadn't been a lot of opportunities since.

"Guess I better get over there. Got to make sure everything is ready. But I'll...I'll go see you soon, Freddie."

"Good luck."

Hooch had gone above and beyond in setting up. A curved wall of candles, photographs, and glittering red stones hung suspended in the air. Dennis had been kind enough to send all the photos he had of you and George spent hours Transfiguring stones into rubies. All for this. All for you.

"Wow."

Angelina walked through the tunnel leading into the Quidditch Pitch, her gaze shifting over the setup. After she had heard the plan, she wanted to see it with her own eyes and had volunteered to help. Her steps were slow as she took in the full sight. "You really outdid yourself, Weasley."

"So you think I have a shot?"

She stopped to look at some of the photos, her fingers grazing over the one of you and George the Prophet had used during Skeeter's attack. It was too good of a photo not to keep, your wide smile as he swung you around was too beautiful. "With all this? It's beautiful."

"Is that a yes, then?"

She chuckled, turning away from the photo. "How on earth could any girl ever say no to all this? It's definitely a yes." She stood next to him, bringing him into a side hug. "I'm glad you've finally decided to do this."

"Me too, Ange. Me too."

They admired the scene for a minute more before she went off to hide. As much as he was grateful for her help, he really didn't want her to be seen until after. Then they waited. And waited. And waited. It had already been an hour since he left you in the corridor. Had McGonagall really needed to spend this long talking to you?

"Oi, I'm going to go see if I can find her! I'll be right back!" he yelled out to Angelina who gave a shout of acknowledgment. Angelina would need to be added to his list of people who deserved an extravagant birthday present.

The night was slightly chillier than usual as he walked back towards the jovial sounds from the castle. Hopefully, the weather wouldn't bother you too much. Halfway up the path, he spotted the sparkling red dress in the distance.

But you were heading away from the Quidditch Pitch and towards the gates that led back into Hogsmeade, your back towards him. And you weren’t alone.

Cormac McLaggen was with you.

It was Deja Vu as George watched him sling his arm over your shoulders. You didn't push him away or recoil from his touch. You leaned into him as you continued down the path to the village. Towards the shop. Towards your apartment.

He should have turned away sooner. He shouldn't be watching him getting you again. Not again. Fuck, not again. But his feet wouldn't move. His face wouldn't turn. His eyes wouldn't shut. Not until well after the red disappeared into the darkness past the gates. Not until it was certain you were not coming back.

Not again.

He could hear his name being called, but he was still rooted to the spot watching the emptiness of the night. "George, George! Hello?" A hand waved in his face. "Hey, are you alright?"

Was he alright? No. His heart was somewhere ripped apart as he touched you. Held you. Kissed you. You’d never wanted George. It had been McLaggen. It had always been him. "She left," George’s voice was hoarse as if he’d been screaming for hours, "with McLaggen."

"No. She wouldn't." Angelina’s voice was firm. Had he not seen it himself, he would have agreed. Not after everything McLaggen put you through. Not after everything that had happened that night between you and George.

"But she did," he said, finally tearing his eyes from the darkness. "I watched her walk out the gates with him." Angelina placed her hand on his shoulder, but he felt no comfort. "I'm going to go home. I–I need to be alone."

You left Harry and Neville in the Entrance Hall, congratulating them both again on their new career paths. They were over the moon about it. After the war and the sacrifices they had made since, they had more than earned it. You had all earned your happiness.

Hogwarts was your past and it would always be special to you, but the shop was your future. You’d found yourself again there and you’d managed to help George too. Even if things didn't work out between you, you’d never regret the things you had accomplished together or the happiness he had inspired.

Passing the black monument, you paused to touch its cool surface and remember those you had lost. "I miss you all," you whispered. "I hope I'm making you proud."

The walk to the Quidditch Pitch was cold and you wished you’d brought along a coat. George would probably let you borrow his until you got to someplace warmer. Whether that warmer place be back at the castle or more intimate was still to be seen, but you definitely had your preference set on the latter. Closer to the entrance your steps quickened in sync with your heart; it was finally time.

Angelina's voice stopped you in your tracks. "You really outdid yourself, Weasley."

"So you think I have a shot?" George asked.

"With all this? It's beautiful."

"Is that a yes, then?" Your heart stopped. Peeking around the corner you could see glittering red stone and candles floating with what looked like photos, though you couldn't see them well in the dim light of the candles. Angelina was staring at one, her fingers gliding over it.

"How on earth could any girl ever say no to all this? It's definitely a yes." She let it go and walked next to him, slipping her arm around his side. "I'm glad you've finally decided to do this."

"Me too, Ange. Me too.

It wasn't you. He didn't want you. This–this had been for Angelina. Of course it had. She was beautiful, funny, confident. They had years of friendship, they'd played Quidditch together. That was why he had set it up here. It was all for her.

How could you have been so stupid? How could you have ever thought it could have been you? You’d watched him countless times shamelessly flirt with every of-age witch that walked into the store. What had gone on between you tonight had meant nothing to him. It was just who he was.

Cormac called out your name from behind you. At some point, you had wandered back up the path to the castle. It seemed like he had just arrived. "You look–well just wow."

"Thanks," you said quietly, your glance falling back to the Quidditch Pitch as you began to rub your arm.

"I'm surprised Weasley has let you out of his sight."

Your nails dug into your forearm. "He's busy."

Cormac snorted. "Busy? When you look like that? Did one of your products give him some kind of brain damage or something?"

Tears were forming before you could stop them. "He's not interested in me, Cormac." The words came out harsh and bitter. It had been a stupid idea to come tonight. "He's with Angelina."

"No, no way. That man is in love with you."

"And you know so much about love, do you Cormac?" He flinched like you’d swung at him again. "I saw them, everything he set up for her. He doesn't want me." Your voice cracked at the end, the tears finally rolling. Years. You’d wasted years pining for a man who would never want you. "He doesn't want me."

Cormac pulled your hand from your arm where it had left red crescent shaped marks. "I'm sorry. He's an idiot."

"No," you said, wiping your face, "he's not. Angelina is wonderful. They make sense." It wasn't anyone's fault but your own that you had read George's actions wrong. They were still your friends and, as long as they were happy, you would support them. "You should go ahead inside, enjoy your night."

"And you?"

Despite the warm light and festive sounds floating down from the open doors of the castle, the thought of going back inside was too much. You weren’t ready for the questions the others would have. Everyone had been able to tell you were in love with George but they'd all failed to realize it had been one-sided. "I'm going home."

"I'll walk with you," he offered.

"No, it's fine, Cor. Seriously, you should go enjoy your night." Your hand slipped out of his and gestured to the castle. "Cho did an incredible job."

He shook his head, insisting he walk with you. After a few minutes of back and forth, you relented. It was nice to have him there. Even if you no longer wanted to be with him, he still had helped you through the worst part of your life and his presence was more comforting than solitude for the long walk.

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked as he set down the path.

The bourbon sitting on the counter in the kitchen next to the Giggle Elixir George had gotten you came to mind. "Sleep."

"I meant with work."

Oh. Work. You worked with him. "Nothing's going to change at the shop. We're still going to be partners." You’d already decided that no matter what happened with George, it wouldn't affect what you had rebuilt together.

Cormac was momentarily quiet, an unusual thing for him. Looking up at him you could see his face framed in confusion. "I thought...I thought you'd want to leave."

Just like you had left the Ministry. Barely above a whisper, you said, "It's not the same thing, Cor."

You continued on in silence for a few minutes. Your mind drifted to how things would change. The lingering hugs, the constant glances, the brief little moments you’d had that felt like you were the only two people in the world. All the things you’d read into as him sharing your feelings that had actually been little more than friendly instances between a boss and his employee. You’d have to build back the boundaries that you’d foolishly torn down around him. You would still be friends and partners but your heart would need distance.

"For what it's worth, I still think he's a bloody idiot."

You laughed, knowing nothing you said would change his mind about that. "It takes one to know one, doesn't it?" He returned your laugh, throwing his arm around your shoulder and pulling you in. It felt comfortable and familiar to lean into him, like being around an old friend.

Like promised, he walked you to the shop where he said goodbye. It took a deep calming breath before you could enter the shop. Everything in it, quite predictably, reminded you of George. The spot where he'd healed your hand after you had punched Cormac. The display for Fred's Fantastic Funbox. Behind the counter where you’d spent countless hours together. Maybe you’d have to finally take that vacation he'd offered all those months ago. Upstairs, you faced the pictures again–this time knowing they were only that.

A headache was forming and part of the blame laid on the pins holding your hair in place. At least removing them was a far simpler process than it had been to put them in. A quick wave of your wand and they easily slid out and floated into a pile on the desk. Your eyes drifted back to the pictures on the wall. You’d been so close. So very close.

With a glass in hand, you sat on the couch overlooking Hogwarts and let the crushing disappointment of the night finally sink in.

Taglist Closed

HP Tag List: @bamboozledflamplant @charmingandfantasticfics @discogrrl @squishytomatoes @brenna-oneil @byelannie @itsccc @vangohvibes @bluegiraffeplushie @pancakefancake

One For Sorrow, Two For Joy Taglist: @sugasthreedollarkookie @bethanystan @maralisa124 @confusedcrayon @ikkleroniekins @lyricalstreams @slytherclaw1978 @winterishfallinknowledge @prettywhitedoves @that-eco-bitch @hunnybunimdun @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @gabbyvalentine25 @prongsyy @sslytherinprincess @vivalakatee @alldaysdreamers @sweetphantomofyournoodler @rainyprincess @poison-of-the-ivie

#george weasley #george weasley x fem!reader #george wealsey x reader #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley x you #george weasley x ravenclaw!reader #weasley wizard wheezes #george weasley x y/n #george weasley x fem

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fandomsonrequests · 3 years

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unexpected friend

fandom: ATEEZ

characters: choi san

reader: fem

word count: 5.4k

summary: fate decided to test this decade long feud between you and choi san

notes: enemies to lovers AU, toxic themes, character death, substance abuse (it’s not explicit) such as alcohol and cigarettes, heavy themes, language, violence

You had no idea where it started— you just knew that you hated Choi San with every fiber of your being. And unsurprisingly, the feeling is mutual with you.

Maybe it started in kindergarten when he accidentally pushed you to the ground in the game of tag. You got so mad at him, saying that he meant it when he obviously didn’t, calling him stupid because “all boys are stupid.”. Or maybe it started when you knocked over his tower of building blocks as revenge. Or was it when he dipped your pigtails in paint to get back at you? Or maybe the time he spread rumors that you had cooties causing everyone to avoid you like the plague.

Whatever the reason, it spiraled into a childhood rivalry that continued as you grew older. The endless cycle of cat versus dog, taking revenge on one another, followed into grade school, where you reached your horse phase and he reached his gun dam phase. It was inevitable you’d see him again— you both lived in a fairly small town after all.

Petty actions like drawing on the other’s homework turned into stealing each other’s lunches or setting some sort of prank at each other’s seats— whatever your ten-year-old brains could think of. Your screaming matches grew even worse and at one point, you both started throwing punches. The teachers always had to watch you during breaks because eventually, you’d be on top of each other and pulling at each other’s hair.

San had an advantage of course since he took taekwondo, you always ended up as the loser. But in retaliation, you managed to convince your mother to enroll you in some other martial art to protect yourself. And when you won your first little fistfight— you always made sure to lord it over him.

“Hah, you got beat by a little girl! Not so tough now huh potato-head?”

“Shut up horse-face!”

San saw your kindness and charisma towards others as an act. It was your own way of reeling others in to be on your side, gathering some sort of army to help you gang up against him. You on the other hand managed to convince yourself that his cute little dimples and selflessness for others was a facade, You couldn’t believe how many people he’s managed to fool or turn against you. And you’ve always hated him for that. You let it fester as you go through grade school and towards middle school. That hatred you harbored for him was always lit inside you.

Your parents and his were always apologizing to each other during parent-teacher meetings or school events, having to hold you back from jumping on one another. Your dad had given up on the whole thing so he was totally useless; that left you to run to your mother for comfort. Whatever the situation was, at the end of the day, she was always on your side.

“Things will blow over soon. But please, honey, try to stay out of trouble for me?”

So when she died in your junior year of high school, you couldn’t help but feel alone. Your dad had taken to smoking to cope with the loss, marrying a woman who was in love with alcohol while bringing her two hellish twin daughters with her into your home. Things grew miserable for you at home; your dad became a pathetic pushover, letting his new wife run the household. That made you angry— how could he get over your mother so easily? How could he let himself get walked over like that? How could he ignore the way your older step-sisters trampled all over you?

How could he let all this happen?

San’s endless taunting at school didn’t help either. His harmless pranks grew worse as time passed: spray-painting some nasty words on your locker, or setting a bucket of paint on top of the gym doors since you’re always the last one to head out. You’d heed your mother’s words, always doing your best to ignore him. For a while, it had worked and he pestered you less than usual but your mom’s death and the situation at home had triggered something in you, making you snap back. You’d shove his face down into his food during lunch or knock his books down the stairwell whenever you pass by each other. You had even managed to sneak some of the insects from the lab into his gym clothes, causing him to end up with nasty rashes all over his body for a week.

Your physical fights weren’t frequent but they became more violent, with one or both of you having to go to the nurses, holding an ice pack to your busted lips while a piece of gauze was stuck up his bloodied nose. It took several students or even teachers to pull you apart because most of the time no one wanted to jump in and separate you two; it was always so messy with fists and kicks flying everywhere. There was even one point where you both had to go to the hospital for fractured bones. You were both suspended for a week.

Fortunately, things had toned down now that you both were in your final year of high school with the pressure of college and meeting requirements looming over you. Although, neither of you managed to make up. You’d still exchange some foul words but the stupid pranks and fights had simmered down. That never meant you were on good terms though.

But then fate decided to be a little shit and put you in a situation you never thought you’d find yourself in.

Your new biology teacher didn’t seem to be informed about the decade-long feud between you and San. So when she assigned the both of you as partners, you felt your heart drop to your stomach as a sick feeling crawled over you. You wanted to cry and throw up at the same time- that’s just how much you despised him. You both tried to plead with her to change partners but she was as stubborn as a mule, insisting that you two can “sort out your differences” and finish this project as a team.

And now here you were, avoiding each other’s stares despite being sat next to each other. The proximity between you two was suffocating, it made it hard to focus on the project being explained to you by your cruel teacher. Your skin tingles unpleasantly whenever either of you shifted in your seat, your arms just several centimeters away from touching each other. Many thoughts ran through your head on how you can get out of this. But you knew that you had to find some time to work on the damn thing together or else you’d flunk high school— and being stuck in community college, never being able to leave this town, was not worth hitting San at the back of the head and gloating at him.

“You have the rest of the period to plan with each other. Make sure to have your presentation set and ready for next week.” Your teacher says and sits at her desk.

The room was filled with chatter as the students started conversing with each other. Many pairs threw knowing stares at you, worried that you’d be at each other’s throats. Surprisingly you weren’t… at least not yet anyway.

For a while, neither of you said anything to each other. San simply scrolled through his phone hidden under his desk while you organized your final notes. Minutes tick by and the class slowly comes to an end. With a heavy sigh, you decided to swallow your pride and talk to the guy.

You turn to the boy, roughly shoving his knee with yours and he sends you an irritated glare. “C’mon we need to plan for this.” You deadpan, ignoring the look he gave you.

San returned the sigh and pocketed his phone, shifting to face you. “Alright then. So what’s the plan?”

“That’s what we’re supposed to be talking about, dumbass.” You mutter, growing irritated. You clench your fists together in an attempt to keep your calm before continuing. “Anyway, we’re supposed to make some model of the nerve cells then present it.”

San stays quiet for a moment before speaking up. “My sister has some spare clay and wires from her sculpting hobby. I could ask for some.”

“Great. You work on that while I work on the script.” You conclude before going back to your notes.

“Hold on- you’re gonna leave me with all of the hard work?”

“We have the same workload?? I’m making the script.”

“That’s easy- scripts can be finished within a day or something.” San shot back, finding the arrangement you had set, without his consultation by the way, as unfair.

“Then I’ll help you when I’m done. Quit whining like a bitch.” You sigh, having no energy to continue the argument with him.

“Asshat…” He mumbles under his breath, pulling out his phone to text his sister. He expected some sort of retaliation from you but you simply remained quiet. That was odd- considering that you never missed the chance to have the last word in. Maybe you just weren’t feeling it today.

Nevertheless, he ignored you, deciding that it wasn’t worth pestering you at the moment. The bell rings, signaling the end of the class, and you’re immediately up and out of your seat, stuffing your notebook into your bag and swinging it over your shoulder. It almost hits San’s cheek in the process but you were already walking out the door before he could call you out on it.

“Geez…” He huffs and keeps his own things, glaring after you while hoping that time would fly by fast so that the project was done and over with.

A few days have passed by since the biology class. True enough, you’ve finished writing and even printing the script within the day the project was assigned to you. So now you were stuck helping out San with sculpting the whole model. You two would work together at the back of the library after school. Initially the librarian was hesitant about letting the two of you inside given your reputation and all. But when she saw that neither of you were at each other’s throats, surprisingly, she allowed for you to work on it in the library.

Of course you and San still had some disputes— how it’s supposed to be positioned, what shape it’s supposed to take, yadda yadda. But it had never escalated into a full blown argument because it always ended up with you taking the blow of his harsh words. That alone started to concern the boy, you’d always get back at him. But your resigned silence after every quip he threw at you started to worry him. Sure he hated your guts but San wasn’t a nasty person. He knew something was bothering you. But, he never took the initiative to ask what was bothering you; it wasn’t his problem anyway.

A weekend away from Monday aka the day of your presentation. The model was almost done— it just needed a paint job. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, meaning the school was closed, neither of you were able to work at your usual spot. So San decided to just take the whole thing to your home to finish it. Of course he could finish the whole thing himself but he had a party to attend later in the evening, and he didn’t want to miss out on it.

He arrives at your home, model in one hand and a crate of paints in the other. He takes note of the absence of your dad’s and step-sister’s cars in the driveway and assumed that you were all out. He sighs in frustration, hoping that that wasn’t the case. Jogging up to the porch, the boy sets down the crate and rings the doorbell a couple of times, foot tapping against the wooden floorboards as he waits.

When there was no response after a few minutes he tried again, this time ringing the doorbell a bit more frantically. Before he could turn around and head back home after getting no response, he hears frantic footsteps scurrying inside and steps back as the door swings open. There you were, hair looking like a bird’s nest while your week-old cardigan hung off your shoulders. There were dark circles under your eyes and you looked like a hobo who had the opportunity to clean after themselves. In other words: you were a mess.

“The fuck are you doing here?” You snap the minute your hazy mind registers that San was standing at your door.

The said boy snaps out of his own trance and shoves the model in your face. “We need to finish this.”

You stare at the figure in his hand then to the crate by his foot and then to his face that displayed an expectant expression. You sigh and rub your face. “Couldn’t you have finished it yourself?”

“I’m busy later.”

Another sigh leaves you and you step back to let him in. He enters the house, leaving his shoes by the door as he looks around the place. It was a bit messier than he had expected. There were rumpled coats hanging off of the arm of the couch, a small pack of cigarettes and a few bottles of cheap beer on the coffee table. The wallpaper was starting to fade with a few faint stains here and there.

San stays quiet as he follows you through the house, seeing the small stack of dishes waiting to be washed in the sink. He turns back to look at you, finding your silence as unnerving. You only trudged up the stairs, motioning for you to follow him. He expected to see you turn down the hallway and enter one of the rooms but was quite surprised to see you stop by a frayed rope hanging from the ceiling of the hall. You reach up and tug down on it, revealing the ladder towards the attic.

“Don’t tell me you live up there,” San jabs.

“Yeah and what of it?” You grumble, sending him a tired glare over your shoulder before climbing up the ladder.

He was stunned into silence when he realized that you were serious. He bites his tongue and refrains from jeering at you, handing the box of paints to you before climbing up. Several thoughts ran through his mind— why was your room in an attic? And since when did you start smoking and drinking? Was it even yours?

His head pokes into the surprisingly clean but small room. Your bed was pressed up near the slanted wall of the roof, several polaroids of you, your few friends, and your mother plastered along it. On the opposite side was your desk and your wardrobe whose paint was starting to chip off. Several boxes, labeled and not labeled, were pushed to the corner of the room, stacked in a way for them to take up less space.

San looks to you rummaging through your desk, probably finding a brush or something. He wordlessly steps into the room and pulls the rope, closing the trapdoor beneath him. He turns to you again and before he could stop himself, he found himself blurting the question that was plaguing his mind: “What the hell happened to you?”

You turn on your heel, almost knocking over the picture frame of you and your mom. Your hand reached out to steady it before answering San. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

“Why do you live up here?” He motioned to the whole attic space with his arm. “Don’t you have a room downstairs?”

“I do.” You simply say and take the crate of paints, pulling out the needed colors and some paper cups for you to place them in.

When you don’t elaborate, San squats down to your level on the ground and tugs the purple paint tube out your hand. “What happened to it?”

“Why do you care?” You snatch the tube back with a hiss, preparing all the things needed. “It’s none of your business…”

The boy sighs, running a hand through his dark locks. He nibbles at his cheeks, carefully going over what he wanted to say. “...look, _____,” he starts, voice surprisingly gentle. “You don’t have to tell me everything but you don’t have to keep everything in.”

You don’t answer him or make any move to acknowledge what he had said. But you were listening; part of you decided to take down your walls for just a moment and hear what he has to say. And San seemed to sense this because he continues.

“I’m not gonna say that ‘I’m here for you’ and all that crap but, there are people who're willing to listen to you. Whatever you’re going through right now, no matter how big or small it is, you don’t have to go through it alone.”

Again, you don’t respond. A moment of silence full of high strung tension passed by. It was only a few seconds but it felt longer than that— especially since you both stopped in what you were doing and stared at the ground or at each other’s hands.

You always hated San but you couldn’t help but sense the sincerity in his words. It’s kind of pathetic but at the moment, his genuinity, the softness of the way he spoke was what you were craving for. At that moment, you just wanted assurance that things will be okay and that whatever you were doing in life wasn’t useless. And the guy you seemed to hate most was offering you that.

Tears prick at your eyes and you hastily brush it away with the sleeve of your cardigan, refusing to show any weakness to your nemesis. But it was hard; once the tears started flowing it was difficult for you to stop. You play it off by finishing up in preparing the paints, suppressing any hiccups or sobs that would escape before eventually giving up and bringing your legs up to your chin, crying into your sweats. Fuck it if San sees.

You curled up into yourself, crying into your pants when you felt a gentle but hesitant hand on your shoulder. You jolt at the touch, seeing San back away quickly. His brows were furrowed in concern and his lips were pursed, almost as if he were thinking about what he was going to say.

“G-go on, gloat,” You hiccup, choking on your tears. “I look like a m-mess anyway…”

You were surprised, and a little bit embarrassed, that he didn’t follow with what you said. Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small packet of tissues and handing it over to you. He looked up to your desk, seeing your water container on your desk. He stands up to take it, shaking it to check if there was still some water in it, before placing it by your foot.

“I’m not going to lie, you are a mess,” San says before returning to his previous spot on the floor. “But I guess that’s normal when you’re having a shitty day.”

“More like a shitty life…” You mumble. You chug down the rest of your water, managing to stop your tears as you wipe them away with the tissues. You look up at the boy across you and sigh heavily. “It’s my step-mom,” you say.

“I’m sorry?”

“My step-mom. She made me move up here so that her daughters could take my room.” You explain. “My dad didn’t say anything because he’s a pushover, wasting his life away on cigarettes and the alcohol his wife buys…”

San nods slowly in understanding, finally making sense of what he saw in the living room and kitchen. That explained a lot of things: why you would always faintly smell of alcohol or nicotine a few months after your mother had died. It had honestly shocked him to hear that— your dad and step-mom always looked presentable in public. Your step-sisters were a bit more extravagant but neat nonetheless. The way they talked and carried themselves didn’t seem to indicate that they had any substance addiction.

Thinking back on it, it had also explained why you were so irate and moody almost all the time, leading to you losing some friends in high school as you fell back into yourself or into violence. It was a defense mechanism— you didn’t want to seem vulnerable because at home, you were vulnerable enough.

An idea pops into his head and he promptly stands up, momentarily making you jump from his sudden movement. You look up at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Come with me.”

“What???”

“I said get up and come with me.” San says and actually held his hand out to you.

You look at it skeptically before looking up at him, contemplating about any consequences in following him— if there were any. He wiggles his fingers, impatiently coaxing you to join him and you finally make up your mind. Might as well follow him; you had nothing to lose anyway.

You swat his hand away to get up on your own, mumbling something along the lines that you could get up yourself before straightening yourself out and placing your hands on your hips. He gives a satisfied nod and grabs his shoes to put them on. He then kicks open the trapdoor before heading back down for you to follow.

He returns to the living room with you trailing behind, still wondering where exactly he wanted you to go. When you glance at the clock you see that it’s already 5:30 in the afternoon. Your thoughts were interrupted when you felt something land by your feet. You whipped your head around to see San pointing at your shoes which he probably threw at you from the door.

“We’re heading out for a while.” He says as he exits your house. You take a moment to process what was happening when he pops his head in. “Come on slowpoke.” He ushers you.

You hastily throw on your shoes, grabbing the house keys hanging by the coat rack, and hop out of the house. You lock the door behind you and approach San who was sitting upon his notoriously loud motorbike. “Where are we going?” You ask, settling down behind him.

Your arms awkwardly flutter beside you, opting to hold onto whatever space was left on your seat. You jump in surprise when you hear and feel the engine roar to life, eliciting an amused chuckle from the boy in front of you. You glare at the back of his head, smacking his shoulder and settling yourself once more.

“Hold on tight,” San tells you as he revs up the motorbike.

“I am.” You argue and strengthen your grip on the seat, shaking the bike a little to emphasize your point.

“No you aren’t.” You feel heat rise to your face when he tutted in annoyance, taking your arms and placing them around his waist. “There you go. See? No harm done.”

You only grumble something in response, making him chuckle to himself. It was a bit strange to see you tame like this. Sure it kind of boosted his ego considering that he managed to make you flustered with just a few words and a simple action but he actually kind of liked it when you weren’t at each other’s throats. He revved up the engine again before taking off and speeding down the road.

The evening breeze is cool as it whips through your hair and brushes against you, sending small goosebumps running down your skin. A small yelp escapes you when San picks up speed, causing your grip on him to tighten. He glanced back at you for a moment before taking the turn that exits the town and towards the road uphill. It led to the small forest that overlooked the city; it was a popular place in town for hiking or camping. You remember going there to play as a kid.

The air gets chillier as you both reach a higher altitude. You unconsciously nuzzle closer to the boy in front of you in an attempt to seek some body heat. The sky grows darker, turning into a deeper blue shade as the night slowly creeps upon the town. Some stars start to peek and settle themselves in the dark blanket of the sky by the time San slows down to a stop. He had stopped by the edge of the forest, a metal railing along the opposite end to keep people or vehicles from falling off the edge.

“We’re here.” San says and looks back at you. “You can let go if you want now.”

At that, you peel yourself away from him and hop off his bike mumbling something about how cocky he was while walking over to the railings. He joins you soon after, keeping a respectable distance from you. None of you say anything at first, simply taking in the view of the city in front of you. Now know why San took you out here: to breathe and clear your mind of things; something that you didn’t know you needed at the moment.

The spot you were in allowed you to overlook the town, seeing the lights from the roads and houses down below. You could spot the water tower in the distance along with the radio tower next to it. As you survey the scene before you, you make out one house in the distance with a multitude of colored lights flashing around it.

“Looks like someone’s having a party.” You muse, finally breaking the silence.

San hums in acknowledgement. “I hope they aren’t missing me.”

It takes a moment for you to understand what he said, perking up when it made sense to you. “So that’s what you meant when you were ‘busy.’” You say as you lightly punch his arm. “You’re such an ass.”

“What? I wasn’t lying; I would’ve been busy.” He defends himself, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Yeah,” You huff. “Busy shoving your tongue down people’s throats.”

A mischievous hum. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Ew no, gross- I’ll pass.”

You share a small laugh together before settling into silence again. It was… kind of cathartic, being able to actually laugh for a long while-even if it was with your longtime nemesis. It was better than crying yourself to sleep almost every night.

You turn to lean your back against the railing, using your arms to support you as you mull over the forest.

“I used to come here a lot as a kid.” You say, managing to capture San’s attention. “Pretended to gallop along the trees like some sort of princess when I was in my horse phase… I would always come home with scraped knees. I was a clumsy kid.”

“Except when you’d throw punches at me,” San interjected, ghosting a hand over his jaw. “You sure knew how to pack a punch.”

You smile apologetically, a sheepish flush on your cheeks, and look over to him. “Well you did deliver some pretty good kicks- I needed to learn how to defend myself.”

San shrugged in agreement. “I guess,” He muses and offers you a small smile, lapsing into silence again. “You know… it’s actually kind of surprising but you aren’t so bad to talk to.”

You nibble at your lower lip at his confession, unsure of what to make of it. When you look up at him, you see that he had inched a little closer to you. He still kept a reasonable amount of space between you two but it was apparent that he wanted to get closer. He drums his fingers against the cool metal of the railing, brows furrowed as he thinks over his next words carefully.

“I’m sorry.” He blurts out. “I’m sorry for all the times I’ve been an asshole to you. I know that I’ve hurt you, not just physically, but emotionally too. And I want to apologize for that… I know, words are just words. It won’t do anything to reverse or take back what I’ve done to you then, but please, take it as a first step to making it up to you.”

San decided to meet your watery gaze, his chest clenching at the tears you were trying so hard to hold back. He holds his hand out instinctively, wanting to offer some sort of physical comfort. He stops himself midway, opting to just settle it on the rail halfway from you. “You don’t have to make a decision right here and now. You can still hate me all you want, but I promise to leave you alone from now on.”

You whimper pathetically, finally letting the tears flow down your cheeks. You felt guilt consume you at his apology. Why was he taking the blame for everything? It should be you who was saying sorry. After all,you were just as cruel as him. And thinking back on it, this feud had most likely started with you. You raise a sweater paw to wipe at your tears, sobbing into your hand.

God you were a mess.

“Don’t, don’t blame yourself… I should be apologizing too. It takes two to tango right?” You hiccup, managing to give him a shaky smile. “I could’ve chosen to ignore you or direct my anger elsewhere but I still ended up targeting you at the end of the day…”

“_______, it’s okay—“

“No it’s not.” You hiss. “I’m not just talking about what I did in high school. I’m talking about every instance I was cruel to you. It was petty, extremely childish, and just horrible overall. I don’t expect you to forgive me but I want to apologize too. I’ve made part of your life a living hell.”

You glance at his hand on the railing before holding your own out towards him. “Truce?” You offer. “We don’t have to be all buddy-buddy after this but at least we can just end this whole thing.”

San gripped your hand in a gentle but firm handshake. “Truce.” His touch lingered for

just a second before he gave a gentle squeeze and pulled away. He returned it to the previous spot on the railing.

The both of you remain for a while, just overlooking the town and reflecting on what had happened. The quiet atmosphere that you both shared suddenly didn’t seem so awkward anymore. Instead, it was filled with some tension but with a bit of comfort at the same time. It was similar to the feeling of a thorn being plucked out of your side: painful but relief that it was finally out.

You don’t expect that things would go right at once— this wasn’t like the movies or the books where everything was magically solved. You both had left some scars on each other, some that are too hard to forget or too deep to heal easily. But you two were working on it: healing and forgiving each other. It was still a long journey but it was something you were both willing to go on together.

You glance to San, seeing how relaxed he was right now. He didn’t look so annoying or so terrifying anymore. A tiny grin makes its way to your lips; never in a million years did you think you’d find solace in someone you despised so much.

“Hey San,” You call out to him, resting your hand beside his, your pinkies brushing against each other. “...thanks for this. I really needed it.”

He smiles at you, flashing his cute dimples at you. It sends a warm, tingly feeling down your spine and you couldn’t help but feel calm at that. “Glad I could help.” He momentarily pat the back of your hand, engulfing it with his larger one when you didn’t pull away.

It was late when he drove you home to finish the project. Unsurprisingly, your family was still out, probably at an event they forgot to tell you about. But you didn’t mind, you had an unexpected friend with you right now.

You smile to yourself as you wave goodbye to San from the doorway, seeing him speed down the road and into the night. He may have been the bad guy in your life but it turns out, he wasn’t such a bad guy. And you were thankful that you were able to see that because at least you knew you had someone in your corner.

#ficscafe #ateez #ateez x reader #ateez smut #ateez imagines #ateez angst #ateez choi san #choi san x reader #ateez san #ateez headcanons

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trans-cuchulainn · 3 years

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What are the major details that confused you about the Hound blurb? The major one that stood put to me was the "way of the farmer opposed to the sword" thing which felt very...un-Cú Chulainn. Also, if you don't mind expanding further, which details didn't you question/be confused by?

and also for anon:

okay so it is like. 2am so there are not going to be any sources here but i can't sleep so here goes!! i will go through this blurb line by line and give youse my thoughts

In 50 BCE,

reasonable. this is roughly the right time period for when the ulster cycle is set. maybe marginally earlier than i'd place cú chulainn, but i'm talking a few years, nothing to get worked up about.

Morrigan, the goddess of war,

fine. normally i'm wary of pantheonising impulses with regard to irish characters (almost none of them can be identified as a god of anything in particular, it doesn't work like that) but tbh the morrigan is like, the most plausible exception to that, so whatever. normally her name has the definite article attached to it because it's kind of a species term as well but whatevs.

has become restless as a long-lasting peace settles over Ireland.

dubious. closest i can think of to peace being reference in any texts is togail bruidne da derga talking about conaire mor's reign being like, prosperous and peaceful and whatever, and even there you've got díberg (plundering/reaving) which is what eventually fucks him over and starts the otherworldly hell spiral situation. that's roughly the right period here but conaire's doom proves you don't have to do much to nudge peace into war, and connacht and ulster are at each other's throats for years before cú chulainn comes on the scene anyway

Deciding the time of peace must end, she chooses Setanta, the nephew of the king of the north, to become her ward.

hmm. i mean. like, this isn't the WEIRDEST choice they could have made. it's still completely made-up, don't get me wrong -- cú chulainn has a lot of different foster parents in different texts and they don't agree with each other but none of them ever mentions the morrígan. but like, they do have a connection of some sort, as evidenced by their conversations. and there's that one moment in the r1 boyhood deeds where little cú chulainn is out on the battlefield and hears her (not sure which name is used here) calling out to him and it like. motivates him to do some deeds or whatever, and i guess you could extrapolate that into some kind of teaching capacity.

so like. could be weirder. if you're gonna pick anyone, you could do worse. still seems weird to me! but not on its own a major issue, i could get past this and consider it a Fun But Unorthodox Creative Decision

(the fact that she tries to seduce him in the táin probably wouldn't get in the way of this considering sleeping with his teachers/foster-mothers is far from unheard of where cú chulainn is concerned)

After a young Setanta slays the demon-hound of Cullan, he becomes known as Cú Cullan—The Hound of Cullan.

weird spelling choices, they could have at least bothered to use the genitive properly. also the hound isn't a demon, it's a ferocious watchdog -- making it sound all Otherworldly and Hellish like this kinda confuses the issue of why he would need to take its place. he needs to take its place because the cattle and people still need protecting because it is a watchdog!! but whatevs, again, it's a brief summary so they can't exactly give us all the details and this is not actively objectionable

As Cú Cullan grows older, it is apparent that an extraordinary power lies within him … and a great darkness.

ugh boring. this makes it sound like he's going to be ~tortured~ and angsty about it. give me an unapologetic murder teen please. is the ríastrad dark? sure i guess, if you're going to be boring about it. it's more like, grotesque neon in my head

When he chooses the quiet life of a farmer over the sword,

this would fucking never happen on like five different levels. obviously like anyone who has ever read anything about cú chulainn can see that this is not in his nature. he is never going to choose a quiet life. this is the kid who tricked his way into taking arms before everyone thought he was ready. also juxtaposed with the "darkness" comment makes it sound like he would Angst his way into this quiet life which. again. have you seen this kid. he is an unapologetic murder teen

the only thing i can think of that might make him temporarily want to walk away is connla's death which... depends where you position that in the timeline really, he does seem a bit fucked up by it and maybe he'd want a holiday although i can see that lasting precisely 5 minutes before someone pissed him off enough for him to murder them. but if he's being raised by the morrígan i can't see him going to train with scáthach so then he'd never meet aífe and therefore connla would never be born so that wouldn't happen. so like. whatever.

but also like. he would not become a farmer. he just wouldn't! it doesn't work! the ireland of the stories is super hierarchical, right? and this blurb has already fucking told us that he's the king's nephew (canon) so we can tell that being a farmer is Not His Place. when we see upper class figures becoming menial labourers in texts, like in cath maige tuired, it's because Things Are Fucked, Shit's Gone Wrong. people don't just decide to change their entire social class on a whim lmfao

if cú chulainn really wanted to turn his back on being a warrior he could probably make recourse to certain other Suitable Professions ... his grandad's a druid so he might have a route into that, though his dad's not so that might fuck things up a bit bc it's one of those things that's usually inherited. he does give "wisdom" in at least one text though and we also know he can write (he carves riddles in ogham in the táin) and he composes verses on various occasions so idk, maybe something in a poetic direction, though again, usually requires two generations of inheritance to be a real poet and not just a lower-class bard. warrior's kinda the main thing he's got open to him tbh. but farming? i'm not a legal expert but as far as i'm aware based on what i have read, that would fuck shit up

more likely an upset cú chulainn would just go off in search of an adventure somewhere conveniently far away until he'd calmed down (alba, or the tyrrhenian sea, or -- if we're going to get early modern about it -- somewhere like india, which frequently gets thrown into the texts with absolutely no cultural context and it's always hilarious)

Morrigan, angry at the betrayal,

of the entire social order, yes,

instigates an invasion of his homeland

i mean. if they intend this to be the táin then.... táin bó regamna does kinda make the morrígan responsible for it? not in the sense of triggering the pillow talk argument that it's in the book of leinster -- it's her getting up to her usual cow-nicking behaviours for shits and giggles. [note to readers: it is probably for more than shits and giggles but did i mention it's 2am]

but all in all, not particularly out of character that she would be at least some way responsible for this so i can vibe with this. echtra nerai also supports the TBR explanation with her fucking around with otherworldly cows and pissing people off so, yeah, whatever. the morrígan engineered this. sure.

and Cú Cullan must challenge fate itself

this is probably a controversial stance but fate feels like a difficult concept to apply to medieval irish texts. like are people sometimes Doomed? yes. there are prophecies, there are gessi, there's all manner of otherworldly fuckery that can trip you up. is that the same thing as fate? no idea. considering cú chulainn comes out alive from the táin though and his doom prophecies don't catch up to him for like, at least another decade, maybe 16 years depending on who you listen to, hard to see how that would apply here

to keep the goddess at bay.

again like she IS causing fuckery in the táin but also it's like... one time. really not the main character. but she or maybe just some crows, hard to say, do get implicated in the death tale so maybe they're doing what people often do and conflating the two? even though there's like 10-16 years in between them?

anyway as you can see i don’t think it’s wholly terrible / i’m not completely thinkshaming it. like, having cú chulainn raised by the morrígan is unorthodox but it could be a fun and creative direction so i don't object to it. making cú chulainn get sad about murder and choose to be a farmer is just fucking laughable tho, and makes me doubt their characterisations in general. so that's offputting and would probably make me think twice about buying it, if that had ever been on the cards.*

and of course sure, their cú chulainn can be a Sad Boy Who Likes Sheep, but that means he's not the cú chulainn of medieval irish lit / irish myth, because that cú chulainn is a feral murder teen who keeps killing his friends and also is way too high social status to ever be a farmer, and whose only relationship to livestock is as the watchdog who kills anyone trying to harm them (which is an important role on a farm! but like. not the same thing as Being A Farmer. mostly because it involves more murder and is essentially just an extension of his role as a warrior. or rather the other way around. he promises to protect mag muirthemne as a watchdog and this like. gets extended into him becoming its sole defender)

this has been my analysis of this blurb i hope you enjoyed it

it's now 2.30am i should try and sleep now that i've exorcised a few thoughts from my head

*as i mentioned in the tags of my other post, i don't tend to read graphic novels due to disability stuff. they're much harder for me to understand and follow than prose, to the point where some are incomprehensible, so i don't really enjoy them. there are a few i've read, but they tend to be short ones, and i'm usually not reading them in order, just admiring the art separately from the text. so it's unlikely i would read a graphic novel of this size anyway.

#cu chulainn #hound #hound graphic novel #answered #oddnub-eye #anonymous #irish mythology #medieval irish #tain bo cuailnge

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thejadedidealist · 5 years

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Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens) Summary:

"The silver hair. The wrinkles. The strange ache in one of his knees lately. He wasn’t falling—he was aging. And so was Crowley."

More than ten years have passed since the would-be apocalypse. Everything changes when suddenly, those years begin to make themselves known on Crowley and Aziraphale's vessels.

It was a decade or so after their clever little switcheroo that Aziraphale first noticed it. Right over his ear, nestled in one of those perfect blonde curls, was a single silver hair. He plucked it out without hesitation and held it up to his face, examining it. Nothing at all unusual about it, save the color. Not quite white, but not quite gray, either. A sort of dull colorless shade just a fraction darker than the rest.

With a confused sort of frown, he flicked it into the air, disintegrating it with a snap of his fingers before it could float to the ground. Odd, certainly, but nothing to be concerned about. Not yet, at least.

A month later, there was another. Then over the course of the year, out sprang five more, ten more, two dozen more. He plucked out every one, each making him more nervous than the last. Why was his hair changing color? He’d never heard of such a thing before—an angel’s hair darkening. The only similar thing he could think of was wings, but those turned black all at once in a flash of hellish fire, not one by one like this.

Still, the idea plagued him.

Was he falling?

It wasn’t the falling itself that scared him. He wasn’t afraid of becoming a demon; he was barely an angel anymore, after all. What difference would it make? No, what scared him was the look he’d find on Crowley’s face—the utter self-loathing and disappointment he knew would creep into those snakelike eyes. Crowley would blame himself for making him fall, and Aziraphale couldn’t bear to see that. It wasn’t his fault, after all. Aziraphale suspected he’d been careening toward this end for a long time now. Ever since he gave away his sword, really. Regardless of Crowley’s influence, he would have ended up here. He knew, however, that he’d never be able to convince Crowley of that, not when the demon seemed so desperate to condemn himself at every turn.

But that was only if he was actually falling. And there was nothing yet to suggest that, nothing but the handful of steadily darkening strands he’d zapped out of existence. He hoped there would be nothing more than that. A few dark hairs were easily concealed, easily taken care of before Crowley ever noticed them. If he was indeed falling, the other signs, he knew, wouldn’t be so easy to hide.

It was six months later when Crowley dropped into conversation the casual announcement that he’d found a white hair on his own head that morning. Aziraphale had nearly choked on his cocoa. Crowley was trying to sound nonchalant about the matter, but after six thousand years Aziraphale was familiar enough with the demon to know he was unnerved.

“Be funny if I was turning into you, eh?” Crowley teased, flicking one of Aziraphale’s white-blonde curls. The joke was an attempt at lightheartedness, but it made Aziraphale wonder. If he was falling, could Crowley be…rising? Was that possible? Could such a transformation go both ways?

Still, Aziraphale kept his mouth shut about his own follicular woes. Better not to burden Crowley, at least until he knew what it meant. He had learned over the millennia how easy it was to send the demon into a spiral of worry—a spiral that usually ended with him doing something stupidly self-destructive, like sleeping for a century or drinking for weeks on end. No, best to keep Crowley in the dark. He seemed to like things better that way, anyhow.

A few month later, the two of them were sitting across from each other at a bar, celebrating the anniversary of the end of the world that they had so haphazardly avoided. Crowley had some godawful concoction in front of him that smelled of cinnamon and whiskey and…pineapple? Aziraphale’s own drink was a strawberry margherita, complete with salted rim and little umbrella.

Together they drank and talked and laughed, getting more and more drunk as the night went on. Crowley, sufficiently inebriated at this point, said something particularly uncouth—Aziraphale couldn’t remember exactly what, afterwards—and they both lit up in a fit of laughter. Other patrons looked over at them in drunken curiosity, but the angel and the demon paid them no mind.

At last the two of them caught their breath, and Aziraphale met Crowley’s gaze behind those conspicuous glasses, beaming contentedly.

“Do that again,” Crowley slurred when Aziraphale looked away to take another sip of his drink. At the distraction, Aziraphale almost dumped the contents all over his lap.

“Do what?” he responded, quickly righting his teetering glass.

“Smile.”

Aziraphale did so without even meaning to, an instantaneous blush spreading itself across his pale cheeks. Crowley leaned unsteadily forward on his elbows, and at this angle Aziraphale could see the cluster of white hairs at the demon’s temples that he’d stopped trying to pluck out.

“Well, that’s new,” Crowley muttered.

Aziraphale blinked, his smile falling. “What? What’s new?” His muddled thoughts went immediately to the silver hairs he’d still been keeping secret, wondering if one had escaped his notice.

“That line. There.” Crowley jabbed a wobbling finger into Aziraphale’s face, right in the corner of his mouth. Aziraphale flinched back, rubbing his cheek.

“What line?” he asked, searching for a reflective surface. He picked up the metallic napkin holder and examined his face. “I don’t see any line.”

“You have to smile, angel,” Crowley reminded him drunkenly. He did, and then he saw it. A tiny crease at the edge of his mouth, pointing down from his bottom lip.

“Well—th-that’s always been there!” Aziraphale spluttered, setting the napkin holder down perhaps a bit harsher than he’d meant to.

“Nuh-uh,” Crowley insisted. “I know that face, angel. I’ve known it for six thousand years, and that line—” he thrust his finger toward Aziraphale’s jaw once again, “is new.”

Aziraphale’s altered mind spun with the implications of this fact. Now that he was thinking about it, there was a line on Crowley’s face, too. Right between his brows, deepening as the demon looked at him with concern.

A lightbulb went off in Aziraphale’s mind, the effects of the alcohol evaporating in one clarifying moment. The many margheritas he’d drank rushed back into the pitcher, their various flavors and colors muddling into an unappetizing sort of brown. Concerned, Crowley followed suit a moment later, his very tall glass overflowing.

“What is it?” the demon asked, instantly on alert having seen the angel’s alarm. But Aziraphale didn’t answer. He was still struggling to come to grips with the realization he’d just made.

The silver hair. The wrinkles. The strange ache in one of his knees lately. He wasn’t falling—he was aging. And so was Crowley.

Crowley seemed to come to the same conclusion a moment later, because even behind his glasses Aziraphale could see his snake-eye pupils widen.

“Well, shit.”

#good omens #go #ineffable husbands #otp: ineffable #crowley #aziraphale #good omens series #good omens fic #fluff #angst

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brokenmusicboxwolfe · 5 years

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On a photo of a not exactly human face I sculpted....

labratbren said: What do you do with them when they are done? Do you ever post pictures of the finished product?

Ah, well, um....short answer? Nothing.

Here’s the longer answer (VERY long)....

While I was always drawn to sculpting, I really didn’t sculpt growing up.

I mean, I tried to use clay I dug out of the ground, drying it in the sun, when I was tiny. Naturally it crumbled except for this lump of a head I still have. In Kindergarden the art teacher had his own kiln and let us use the scraps left over from the pots he had us make. I still have a loop armed alien and creature head I made, but he left with his kiln the next year. The dough art they had us make in second grade was gone by the next year, ‘cause this buggy and humid climate doesn’t agree with it. My parents gave me modling clay, but I hated it. I wanted something that would “stay”.

But everyone acted like sculpting was hard, so maybe I wasn’t missing out.

Then one day, when I was 19 or so, my hands got bored. Anyone would have laughed if I’d said I was bored right then. I had a book open to one side of me, a magazine on the other, as I went back and forth reading both. I was also listening to music AND watching the movie The Brothers Karamazov at the same time. I have this problem where I always feel like I should be doing more, and when I am doing something I get itchy to be doing something else. Like my brain isn’t fully occupied even if I’m really enjoying whatever. That day my hands needed something to do, and there was this block of clay left over from a project one of Pop’s projects (a river system display, I think) It was just sittin’ there on the porch so....

And it turned out sculpting was easy! I mean, maybe not art bit doodling around having fun making faces. Do NOT be intimidated by sculpting! It comes so much more easiy than trying to convert our 3D world into some 2D drawing. Seriously, try drawing a nose head on! But toss on any wedge on a sculpted face and you have a nose...

Ok, maybe I just am bad at drawing! But I really do wish more people would try sculpting.

Anyway, the clay was another dead end, but it did inspire me to hunt for something I could “make stay”. And that something was sculpey.

Whenever I was certain I would have the place completely to myself for a full hour I’d go stand out on the ramp behind the house and sculpt. It wasn’t too often, what with the house also being the office of the family business and my family being the sort of close one that did everything together. I couldn’t sculpt and be watched. All I needed was an our because I sculpted quickly. In an hour I’d have a little bust, rough as heck but with some detail I liked.

But then I ran out of places to put my busts in my already overstuffed bedroom. I solved this by just slicing the faces off and just baking them. I could glue magnets to them and line all the edges of my metal bookcases.

I did dabble in other things. I tried a full figure and made a few little stick figures. I sculpted something from Babylon 5 for my brother, mixed my box painting (I used to paint boxes when I had a table) with sculpting for a Discworld box for Mom, Easter bunnies for my parents, magnets for everyone, Christmas ornaments...

When she saw the Christmas tree ornaments my cousin Katharine, dollhouse collector, roped my into making her a doll. She had specific requirements for a 6″ tall Beast in what I gathered were Regency era clothes from her decription. In my ignorance I assumed the doll would have to have a jointed body, fabric clothes and furry fur, which kinda drove me nuts! But somehow I pulled it off! I sculpted a few more of those little dolls (no sewing on these!) as gifts for my parents and brother, as well as a bit of goofing around for myself (I liked my little Sleestack a couple decades late for little me). But that was that.

Then the weirdest darn thing happened: I was suddenly stricken with a full imaginative block!

I stopped sculpting. I stopped painting boxes. I stopped writing stories. Worst of all I stopped dreaming! I still remember how upsetting that was, this sense of loss. It was like having a part of me paralyzed.

It lasted years. Terrible years.

When my father became sick right after my irreparable rift with my brother, as I was facing the most terrible external loss of my life, something woke back up in me. Constant, vivid dreams, elaborate epics spiraling through night after night, images and stories that writing didn’t full satisfy the need to express. I started painting miniature boxes again. Box after box after box....

But no sculpting.

I dunno why I still didn’t sculpt. I just didn’t.

Then my father died.

Pop’s death was a devistating moment. My father. My best friend. When Pop was sick I told him he couldn’t die because I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to. There is a lot of truth in that. I love Mom dearly, but our brains work very differently. Pop might have been smarter, and his depth of knowledge was certainly mind blowing, but our mental wiring followed a similar eccentric pattern. That said, somewhere along the line my parents and I had become a sort of unit, functioning as one. Think one of those anime giant robots made of smaller ships, Voltron or something. Then imagine it functioning with the head section missing. Five years later we still feel that void.

So anyway, Pop was dead, the family business gone with him, and I was unemployed with no qualifications in a rural area with few job opportunities anyway. This was, and frankly still is, not a good situation. And my cousin Katharine thought she had a solution.

Katharine sent me a letter suggesting I make dolls. She’d shown the doll I’d made her to a dealer who said I had talent, and she sent me a copy of Art Doll Quarterly to show me that my “weird” stuff might have a market...

Honestly I felt inspired by this. I immediately seriously considered it. I’d work a bit bigger than 6″ scale, sculpt the clothes instead of the stress and tedium of sewing, and figure out a way to do ball joints. Because each thing would be unique (until I could teach myself mold making) and letting go of something I make is soooo hard for me, I decided to use the story of one of my painted boxes as inspiration. I’d make wolf people, which I figured would create enough sameness to help me let go, but enough variety to keep me from being bored. I quickly sketched out a reasonable design and got to work.

Obviously things didn’t turn out to be so simple. Sculpting ball joints by hand is fiddly to manage. It would need a bit of experimenting. I could do a head on day, casually. I could do the upper body, arms and waist joint with a lot of effort another day. A third day would be waist and legs. Fourth day was the hellish threading. I wasn’t set up for safely storing unbaked work in progress, so I had to do these marathon one sitting sculptings on the bodies. Then I’d rest up a few days and just sculpt a few heads.

The ball jointing drove me nuts. So I gave myself permission to not worry about wolfheads, but just sculpt whatever head happened. From the backlog of heads I’d just pick one to experiment with body making. In just a couple months I was making progress.

The first discouragement came with an art show. The county has a sort of art society and they were having a sculpture show. I was scared silly to show my work to anyone, since at that point it was 2014 and I wasn’t even on Tumblr. No one had seen them. Still, when I went to see about entering the lady there was encouraging. I was soooo nervous and tentatively hopeful when I went to the grand opening with Mom amd my cousin Shirley. I was soon deflated. No one seemed to notice my figures. My work was the odd one out anyway in a sea of found object sculptures, colored paper masks and ceramics abstractly suggesting the figural. Also, everyone there knew each other and so no one was talking to me. At one point I did this really sad thing of hovering near my figures in case anyone came near so I could sorta maybe get them to notice them....

When the show ended a few weeks later the lady very nicely said at least a couple school children had liked weird figures, ‘cause, you know, kids like that fantasy stuff. I definitely should sculpt a lot bigger and maybe use terra cotta instead....

Yeah. I felt my stuff was crap. I was crap. Why had I ever thought anyone would like my crap? Heck, I’d thought I’d at least find a club I could join, belonging, friends....

But, I kept at the doll making experimenting, crap or not. That winter it was too cold for much sculpting in my unheated house, but I could work on trying to figure out how to paint them....

Then life happened don’t ya know. At first I thought it was a temporary break while I dealt with crisis after another. I kept sculpting heads, strictly sculpting a head a day (still just an hour each)....until the spreading collapsed floor situation forced me to move the box I’d made for storing the bodiless heads out. And that was that for doll making.

Still, I kept sculpting. I went back to just the faces....

And that’s where I am now. I gave up sculpting every day, because I no longer have time. I watch a movie and sculpt. I bake the face and take pics I post on here. I wrap ‘em in tissue and put them in a storage container....

And that’s it.

I don’t do anything with them. I’m not entirely convinced there is any point anymore. My life isn’t going to include free time. Or tables to work on. It has been years after all, and it gets less and less likely I’ll make anything more than a few boxes full of chipped up sculpey faces for the nephews to find when I die. Well, unless they follow my brother’s advice and throw them out unopened! LOL

I sculpt just ‘cause I sculpt. I post pics of them on Tumblr, ‘cause Mom isn’t really all that interested in looking at them. They aren’t ever going to be anything, but I guess if I enjoy making them and someone out there likes looking at them that’s okay. They may be nothing, but that’s something.

#comments #art #sculpting #artists on tumblr

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portrayedby · 5 years

Text

The Last Two Years and M*tski

Tw mitski

Tw lonely f*g ramblings

Tw #reflections

Okay first off idk how to make a read more on mobile...Second I need to VENT!!! So i have a lot of complicated feelings about mitski tbh like :

1. she’s sent my soul into an inescapable downward spiral of hellish proportions over the last two years but I digress...

2. She often mentions Kuala Lumpur in interviews and how she went to high school here for 3 years and it’s like i wanna feel a sense of kinship with her because we had our adolescences in the same place but at the same time I feel this intense misplaced sense of jealousy towards her because she had US citizenship all the while and got to move to New York to pursue her dreams and me and my third world ass literally could never...like we’re similar but wildly different, but also her songs feel like she’s speaking about me directly? idk I’ve always had “”white”” interests and couldn’t relate to my peers so listening to her talk and sing feels like a psychic attack on my soul and my brand LOL because her music deals heavily with topics like that

3. Puberty 2 like caught me completely off guard before I started med school. I had never even heard of her at that point in time, and I had just lost my grandfather (whom I’d been taking care of for 5 years and I feel like he was the only person who would be actually happy to see me)...and I was already going through a really bad mental health period in 2016 so his death made things in my life explode in a pretty terrible way. My mother was super super close to him but she was overseas at the time so she couldn’t bury him...and that made her have like this yearlong bout of religious grandiosity and she took all crazy out on me because I’m closest to her among my siblings. And i guess I didn’t realise how much it was to deal with at the time (God was like: i know you’re starting med school but you need to deal with your mom’s mental illness in addition to yours...also you’ll develop 50000 unrequited crushes on guys at the same time because you haven’t spoken to a man in a year you homo NEET...). Starting med school rly did feel like going through puberty all over again I wish there was a less corny way to say that but it DID okay

4. Listening to that album amidst all that emotional turmoil (which in retrospect I shouldn’t have done) made me realise that I never got to like have a real proper adolescence because I never got to come out properly on my own terms, or even have any kind of sexual or romantic experience with someone else for that matter because I’m just really terrified of all that. Also it’s illegal to be a faggot here so there’s that. And even now I’m kind of just flailing about/stalling with regards to my personal growth/career+academic path because I’m in the midst of an identity crisis because I’m realising that becoming a doctor would feel like crumpling my soul and stuffing it into a box (tho i guess that isn’t unique to medicine #fuckcapitalism right) and I desperately want to find a way to express myself musically/artistically because I used to in the past but I had to give it up to please my family... fuck REPRESSION!!!

5. In high school I literally put myself on hold and was pretending like every single day of my life (but also...who wasn’t) and that obviously burnt me tf out so by the time I graduated I didn’t who tf I was or what I wanted to do. From then till now I’ve felt like I’ve been in a fog blindly groping around desperately trying to find myself lol....It was only until like this year where I’ve started to feel almost sure of myself in my own small way, which is why I’m taking a gap year so I can really just deal i guess! I know it’s been like literally half a decade and I should be over this but I literally can’t LOL! So that album unearthed a lot of old feelings about my own experiences and my lifelong obsession with getting to grow up in the US which is a stupid dream but also I’m a stupid bitch so...

6. Kind of unrelated my sister who is basically a cis and less crazy version of me got married last year and moved to London to be a doctor and get her masters and it literally felt like I got my hands chopped off because a) I’m stuck here with my parents where I can’t be myself in many many ways b) I’m being forced to accept some random man into my life that I barely know!!! {how do other ppl deal when their siblings get married i have no clue}, and my younger brother who is a fellow f*g left soon after too so I’m double all alone now but again I digress...

7. Finally (!) Seeing miss miyawaki gain this crazy cuckoo gigantic level of acclaim and popularity is making me feel so strange because I’ve slowly and unwittingly integrated her music as part of my identity over the past 2 years but that’s my fault like who asked me to do all that!! Then again I guess a lot of ppl feel this way when something they like gets big wtv I’ll get over it I hope. Also I wonder what it’s like for her too tbh having random ppl like me live their whole life stories through her art...

Anyway idk why but I’ve never felt this way and this intensely for this long about an artist in my life and I’m lowkey starting to resent her in a weird complicated way and that’s really sad to me...Anyway #2 I like 1000% need to go to therapy and need to stop comparing myself to other people especially my idols + projecting my faggy problems onto them 😔❣️(and i really need to stop living in the past but it’s hard) Anyway #3 I wish I could transition too but I feel like I’m a very long way from that

#if you read this i love you #i guess my dream would be to leave this place and start anew #but in my heart i know that i’d still be the same unless i make some big changes to myself #this felt good to write :-)#personal

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trustyourpartner · 7 years

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so a while back i tripped over and then fell in love with @cafecliche‘s yuri on ice fics, and then while i was checking out her tumblr i found out that she co-writes the bridge podcast with @alextriestousetheinternet, and i was like “oceanic eldritch horror alternate history with lesbians? sign me up!” and binge-listened to it all in like two days. and then i started writing this. at this point it’s probably going to waste away in my wips folder because i have so many other projects i’m working on, but i thought i’d let the stuff i have written see the light of day? so. enjoy.

The labels are nearly worn off of the switchboard at this point, by decades of fingers sliding over the words on their lazy way to the keys and buttons and knobs, but Viktor doesn't need the labels to boot up the broadcasting system. He could do this in his sleep by now; undoubtedly has, at some point over the last several years, during one of the periods when the coffeemaker was acting up, or maybe on a particularly gloomy day where the iron gray sky bled into the sea, turning the world outside the window into one huge dome of half-light, broken only by the long line of the highway stretching over the waves.

He waits for the static to clear from his headset, then takes a swig of water from the bottle on the floor and switches the microphone on.

"Good afternoon, travelers," he says. The chipper tone isn't even ironic, at this point; just a reflex. "This is Viktor broadcasting from Watchtower Eight, your halfway marker on the journey across the Transcontinental Bridge. It's just a few minutes until the top of the hour, but I think we can get a head start on our traffic report. Current Bridge conditions are the same as usual, which means—" here he leans forward to glance out the window again, just to be sure "—no traffic near Watchtower Eight. So all of you nonexistent drivers will have a pleasant cruise across this particular bit of the Atlantic."

A bright chime bursts out of the tinny intercom speakers on the console, and the light labeled Inter-Tower Channel flashes green. Viktor flips the switch that connects his personal headset to the public frequency.

"Fucking moron," is Yuri Plisetsky's greeting, somewhat obscured by the normal static from the line. "There is literally never any traffic, Viktor. You don't have to do your annoying-ass reports."

"Good to hear from you too, Yura," Viktor says. "How are things over at Eleven?"

"Dead. There is nothing here. Oh, no, actually, a seagull brained itself on the signal beam this morning, and I got sent up to chuck its body into the sea. It's the most exciting thing that's happened in months."

Which probably isn't true, Viktor thinks, but he'd believe that it's the most exciting thing that can be broadcast on the airwaves. The intercom chimes again, and a new voice chimes in.

"Maybe the seagull was just bored out of its head," the new voice—Viktor has to think for a second to place it as Leo, from Watchtower One, all the way back on the American coast—says. "The ones back here just try to steal my lunch."

"And how is the ground traffic on your end, Leo?" Viktor asks, so that he can at least sort of pretend to be doing his job.

"Two skateboarders practicing their grinds on the guardrail," Leo reports. "For the record, this is inadvisable. It's a long drop, kiddos."

"'Kiddos'," Yuri scoffs. "How old are you again, Iglesia?"

"Older than you!" Leo says.

"Ah well," Viktor says. "I'm afraid that's it for our afternoon traffic report. So, listeners who may or may not exist, I'm afraid I'll take my leave for now. Lunch won't make itself!"

He leaves Yuri and Leo to their bickering and ends his broadcast. The equipment makes a shuddery, wheezy sound when he powers it down, but Viktor's not terribly worried about it. He's fairly sure everything in this Watchtower could survive a war. It might have already. He doesn't know about that, but he does know better than to ask. He's been threatened more than once for snooping in the Archives, and not by his supervisor, but by strange people who called his personal cell phone and whispered reprimands that sent shivers up his spine. Never mind the fact that he hadn't charged his cell phone in years, or that he didn't get reception in the middle of the Atlantic.

The spiral staircase that leads down to the main floor is situated in the gap between the broadcasting room and the guest cabins. The steps rattle under Viktor's feet. He passes Georgi on the second floor, tinkering with something in the ceiling—hopefully the vents, because none of the crew cabins have been getting decent air circulation in months. Viktor ignores him and continues down to the first floor, turning into the kitchen. Yakov is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a dour expression.

"Vitya," he says, "how many times do I need to tell you to do your damn job?"

Viktor waves him off with a lazy sweep of his hand. "There's nobody to make traffic," he says, "and nobody to hear the traffic report. Quit being such a fusspot, old man."

Yakov harrumphs into his coffee, but doesn't respond; this is an argument he and Viktor have had dozens of times over the last few years. "As long as you do your other job," he says.

"Yes, calm down, I'm going to feed Makka now," he says. "Where's the bucket?"

"It's outside the containment area," Yakov says. "Georgi filled it earlier. Honestly, Vitya, that stuff reeks."

"Makkachin likes it!" Viktor says. "I'll get going. I'm sure he can smell his food already."

He takes the stairs down two at a time: past the Archives in Submare One, the storage rooms in Submare Two, all the way down to Submare Three. This far below the water, the walls creak and groan with the shifting waves. There are no portholes—best not to think about what's outside, Yakov had said, on Viktor's first day—but even so Viktor's bones ache with the knowledge that the sunlight is dim down here. The rivets hold steady, but Viktor can still imagine them shaking loose, the walls buckling inward, crushing the Watchtower like a tin can.

Viktor shakes it off when he reaches the vault door in Submare Three. He taps in the twelve-digit code on the keypad with one hand and picks up the bucket of severed fish heads with the other. When the lock beeps, he presses his thumb and all of his fingers against the scanner in turn; only then do the hydraulics hiss as the door unlocks with an ominous clunk. Despite the thickness of the steel, the door opens easily at Viktor's touch.

The vault door opens up into the containment area: a huge circular room that takes up nearly all of the lowest level of the Watchtower. Despite this, the only floor is a narrow metal walkway around the edge, just over a foot wide. The rest of the chamber is open water: deep, dark, and washing back and forth in small waves, despite the fact that there are no direct water lines between it and the ocean outside.

"Makkachin!" Viktor trills. "Where's my good boy? Did you miss me?"

He drops the bucket and claps his hands over his ears: just in time, as a hellish SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE echoes through the chamber. The water boils. Three long, brown tentacles, each nearly as thick as Viktor's thigh and easily long enough to brush the towering ceiling, burst through from below, the suckers pulsing. One of the tentacles begins slithering over the walkway by Viktor's feet, slinking, searching.

"I've got your dinner here, boy," Viktor says, and reaches into the bucket. He picks up a fish head and tosses it, watching as one of the other tentacles snaps down lightning-quick to snatch it out of the air and drag it below the water. "Is it nummies?" Viktor asks. "Nummy fish for the good Makkachin?"

The resulting chainsaw-on-chalkboard noise doesn't make Viktor's ears bleed, thankfully. The seeking tentacle near his feet winds around his leg, slick mottled brown, and Viktor leans down to give it a gentle pat.

"I missed you too, buddy," Viktor says. "Open wide, okay? Food incoming!"

He throws the rest of the bucket's contents out into the water and sits on the edge of the walkway while Makkachin's tentacles pull the fish bits into the depths. He's just tall enough that he can point his toes and tap the surface of the water with the soles of his shoes, so he does. During his first month at the Watchtower he taught himself Morse code in a fit of over-enthusiasm, so he uses it now, tapping and swishing the water, a secret message just for him and Makka: tap-swish-tap-tap-swish-swish-swish-swish-tap-tap.

Makkachin probably doesn't know Morse code. So maybe it's just a message for Viktor. Fitting.

"I'm sorry it's so lonely down here," he says. "I don't mean to stay upstairs so long. I'll come visit more often."

Makkachin gurgles.

"Yeah, just me and you, buddy," Viktor says, and reaches out absently to scratch a passing tentacle.

Before he’d been a Watchtower crewman, Viktor Nikiforov had been a legend.

He’d been on the top of the figure skating world for nearly a decade. His undefeated streak spanned five years: five years of gold at the Grand Prix, at Nationals, at Euros, at Worlds. Multiple world records tucked under his belt. Two Olympic titles. Russia’s hero, they called him; a god among men. Undefeated, unattainable, untouchable. His shadow from atop the podium was monstrous in the flashes of the cameras.

He’d just won his fifth Worlds gold in Boston when the kennel called. His dog—Makkachin—had just died. In his sleep, the woman said. Surely he hadn’t been in any pain. A gentle death for a gentle dog.

Viktor hadn’t seen Makkachin for nearly three days before he’d actually left.

So he’d told his coach that he was going to rent a car and drive back to Europe. Time to clear his head, he’d said, and the coach had agreed. The Transcontinental Bridge still had a lingering reputation as a tourist attraction, albeit one that Viktor had experienced before. Even half-abandoned it was a marvel of engineering. There were hotels, restaurants, museums, little Bridge-side towns with kitschy mom-and-pop shops. Viktor had ignored these; for just under a full day of driving it had been only him and the ocean. He’d driven and driven and then stopped for the night at Checkpoint Eight, the Transcontinental Hotel: the pride of the Bridge, a glittering palace over the sea with a glass ballroom, fresh-turned silk sheets on every bed, and a string quartet that turned sea shanties into sweeping waltzes for guests to float along to under the stars.

He’d emailed the Russian Skating Federation his resignation notice the next morning. By that afternoon he’d unpacked his single carry-on in one of the empty crew cabins in Watchtower Eight, his handful of spare shirts and underwear tucked neatly inside the chipboard drawers, the concrete walls bare, the fresh cotton sheets scratching his bare skin.

And…well. Why would Viktor ever leave?

“Good afternoon, Bridge travelers,” Viktor says. “It’s another slow day here by Watchtower Eight, and so, your traffic report: there is no traffic. I’m sure if you questionably-extant listeners wait for a few minutes, one of my colleagues from elsewhere on the Bridge will chime in with commentary.”

Viktor waits for a beat, then repeats himself in Russian and in French, just because he can.

The intercom beeps, and Christophe’s voice comes through, amused and slurred—likely hungover, or maybe just being Chris. “Your accent is horrendous,” he says by way of greeting.

“Good afternoon, Christophe,” Viktor says. “How are things?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Chris says. “Light traffic down here at Fifteen, come stop by the Gold Doubloon casino for a fun night of games and revelry, gamble responsibly: don’t wager anything you aren’t willing to lose, don’t play for anything you aren’t willing to live with, et cetera. Word on the wire is that there’s a big closure down by Checkpoint Nine—do you know anything about that?”

“Hmm? No.” Viktor absently shuffles the stack of letters from mainland headquarters. He should probably read them at some point.

“Ah, there’s a little Bridge-side town that’s closed its access road. The Travel Agency sent out a notice that the road won’t reopen, so drivers should plan their stops around it, what’s it called…Hatsetsu?”

Viktor frowns. The name tickles at the edge of his memory, but nothing concrete comes to mind. Possibly he just remembers driving past the sign, if it’s really so close to his own domain. “Any idea how the residents are going to get around?”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Chris says. His voice is low, now, conspiratorial, as though they weren’t having this discussion over public airwaves. They could be huddled around a campfire, sharing ghost stories. “You didn’t hear this from me, but a little birdy”—meaning, Viktor thinks, Phichit—“says the town’s abandoned. Everyone vanished overnight. Poof.”

Before he can respond, someone else on the Inter-Tower line squeaks out a small “Ah.” This is followed by a gust of air and a smacking sound. Viktor thinks, suddenly, of a small child clapping a hand over their own mouth, afraid to be caught listening.

“Hello?” he says.

“Oh,” the new voice says, strangely muffled, and then clearer: “Oh. Uh. This is Watchtower Nine—sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Nine!” Chris says. “I don’t recognize your voice.”

“Oh, yes,” the man says. “I’m new. I just started here.”

Viktor smiles. It’s been a while since any of the towers have gotten new crewmen. “What’s your name?” he asks, propping his chin on the desk.

“I’m…I’m Yuuri Katsuki,” the voice says. “It’s nice to, uh, meet you?”

“Welcome to the Bridge, Yuuri,” Viktor says.

Yuuri—laughs? It’s hard to tell over the crackling line. “I’ve lived here all my life,” he says, “but thank you.”

“Your whole life, huh?” Chris says. “Very interesting. Not many Bridge natives come to work at the Watchtowers. What brought you to us?”

Yuuri is silent for a few heartbeats too many. “…change of scenery,” he says finally.

“Well, we’re a good bunch,” Viktor says, over Chris’s questioning noise. “And Chris will only bite if you ask nicely.”

“It takes more than a bite to scare me away,” Yuuri says.

Despite the static noises, Chris’s purr of “Is that so?” comes through crystal clear.

And Viktor makes possibly the most disgusting noise he has ever made in his life, like a pig with a cold, directly into the microphone. He hears another few sets of tinny laughter, probably other Watchtower radio hosts lurking on the line, and over that Yuuri sputtering, “No! I didn’t—not like that!”

“Welcome!” Sara says through the ruckus. “Once Chris has hit on you, you’re really part of the family.”

Viktor’s own laughter trails off a bit at that. He doesn’t know Sara well—mostly snippets of information passed from Mila or Yuri in conversation—but he knows enough to think about the reason she’s on the Bridge at all, running from home and a brother who refused to let her out of his sight. She’d come because she’d had nowhere else, and then she’d stayed.

Family might be too strong a word for what they are, a collection of outcasts strung across thousands of miles. Viktor already knows he will never see most of these peoples’ faces. But after all, it’s not as though he has anyone else.

“Vitya!” Yakov’s shout echoes up the stairs.

“Oh, dear,” Viktor says. “My supervisor’s calling—I have to go. It’s been a pleasure, Yuuri.”

“Ah—likewise, Viktor,” Yuuri says. Viktor indulges himself in a lazy smile as he powers down the equipment.

It’s not until after he’s fed Makkachin that he realizes nobody ever told Yuuri his name.

Here was a secret that Viktor had sworn he would take to his grave long before he came to the Bridge: the podium was his least favorite place to be.

The rest of it had a certain thrill to it. The routines, of course; the costumes, extravagant and beautiful and designed to make him irresistible and ever-so-slightly inhuman; the plane rides to faraway countries, the sponsors and the fancy dinners. The hotels with silk sheets and crystal chandeliers that glinted like little chips of stolen starlight.

The podium, though—somewhere along the way it became a pedestal, or a display shelf. He looked good and he worked hard to stay there until he thought maybe his feet would fuse to the top spot and he’d be frozen there forever, the rest of the skating world clawing at his ankles, tearing at each other for a chance to send him crashing down.

He was Viktor Nikiforov, the legend. The singular. There was no room at the top for anyone else.

Perhaps the move to sea level did some good. But now here he was, sitting at the top of the Watchtower, just him and the radio and the empty road.

#callie writes #the bridge #yuri on ice #CUT BC I WROTE...WAY MORE THAN I THOUGHT I DID #oh well

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md3artjournal · 5 years

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Feeling sad right now. Worthless and hopeless, more like it.

This morning I got out of bed and the first thing I did was draw. It all ended up bad. Well, actually, the 4th drawing turned out pretty well. And it was a re-draw of a sketch I did a few days ago, and in comparison, it was an improvement. In fact, after all these days of failing to draw everyday and being so out of practice, those original sketches I did a few days ago were already a triumph. Just doodles and not my best work, but the fact that they’re proof that I finally got myself back to moving pen on paper, back to drawing practice, was significant. So that fact that I was tackling scale drawings and returning to practicing sketching from models of human figures, was also a step of significant progress. Heck, the fact that I attempted to go for accuracy and get back into drawing scale humans, vs copping-out to chibi, was all important.

But I still feel like a failure. Nothing I did turned out pretty. Objectively, the 4th drawing today turned out a *little* pretty, but I just can’t see that right now. I’m too sad. ;_;

Maybe I made a mistake listening to a bunch of “artist motivation” YouTube vids. I have a vetted playlist for “creative motivation”, but today, I just used the autoplay function and let YouTube’s algorithms choose the vids. Sure, ti was mostly helpful stuff, but the more I dwell on them, the more that ambient things like tone and side messages, jab into me. And I have untreated depression, so I’m going to dwell and turn neutral memories into poison. So with all their talk of drawings looking bad without first mastering the fundamentals and how even someone who has drawn for years but not mastered the fundamentals will still suck (in comparison to a newbie who’s studying consciously), I can’t stop thinking about how I am the exemplary “bad art major” used as comparison. No, that’s not my big problem right now. Right now, I can’t stop thinking about how after all these years, I just can’t get myself to study “the fundamentals”. I’ve never been good at perspective, anatomy, and all that. And every time I sit myself down and force myself to practice it all, I just end up so frustrated, that I ended up with nothing pretty and wasted so much time, that I end up acting nasty to someone, then I have to regret _that_ for all time. I hate studying. I just want to get my stories down, and manifest the images in my head. Even when they’re not technically good, they’ve always made me happy. I was storyboarding comics before I ever became an art major or studied “fundamentals”. But I do often feel bad that my drawing aren’t good. But studying fundamentals makes me so miserable. So I never study them, and my drawings continue to be bad. …Though secretly, they make me happy, just capturing some feeling from the image in my head. Still, technically bad though.

I always end up in these pessimistic spirals when my depression come around. Maybe I’ll just crawl into bed and give up on getting any of my other projects done today. I thought that maybe I could make up for how bad I feel about how terrible I am at illustration, by working on sculpting. Surely, that would end up better and give me a much needed self-esteem boost. And I really do need to sculpt. There are so many things to get done for artist alley in 1.5 months, and gods know I don’t make my money from illustration. But I just feel so spiritually tired right now, maybe I’ll just go to bed for the rest of the day, or a few hours. I tried binge-eating chocolate junk food to make myself feel better. It didn’t work. That’s why I’m writing. Writing always makes me feel better. That’s why it saddens me to know I neglected it for so long, that I haven’t written a story (I could be proud of) in years, after Writing used to be a major part of my identity. ;___; I gotta stop finding more stuff to feel sad about. Maybe that’s why I need to go to bed; to shut off my brain. Being alive is an endless nightmare; I don’t know how people do it.

Maybe I need to go back to drawing tigers, or at least animals. Something that looks prettier than humans—even when I make sketching mistakes. That’s always been an esteem boost before. Then when my hands gets re-accustomed to drawing, I’ll go back to that staircase up, drawing humans. And more importantly, back to drawing fan-art of characters I love.

There are so many jewelry charms I’ve wanted to sculpt for artist alley, but after last year discovering that past customers have broken the things they’ve bought from me, I’m reluctant to make anything. They’ll just say my products are bad some more. I keep screaming to myself that they’re unreasonable for thinking polymer clay, designed as jewelry pendants, could stand up to the thick, jagged metal of keys. And how am I more culpable for customers who break my ornaments, than customers of illustration artists, who crumple their posters and somehow think that’s the artist’s fault. I do durability checks on my products, but I also don’t expect them to have the same resilience of industrial plastics and acrylic charms. Since last year, I’ve been posting “handle with care” warnings at my artist alley table, and I’ve discovered that other polymer clay artists include “care instructions” with each of their products, which is a practice I’d like to try. But I still feel so stunted with fear to make anything, because I’m afraid people will buy charms from me, crush the on keys, or just throw them into a tote bag to swing around the rest of the convention, to come back and make me feel bad that my sculptures are at fault for not being as durable as the industrial plastics they get from Wal-mart. I’ve been too afraid to make anything. For a long time now. This time last year, I was frantically producing pendants. Now I’m too afraid to make anything, and I’ve got an ENORMOUS backlog of projects and designs I’ve been itching to get done in time for my yearly, biggest convention. I’ve been thinking more and more that I’m not cut out for making a living as an artist or in artist alley. I’ve been thinking of quitting next year, since it’s the end of the decade, and possibly making this year or next year, my last year. I kept telling myself that my social anxiety would be best served by opening an online shop, but I’m so afraid of all the hellish customer stories I’ve heard about online from people who take commissions or have to deal with customers who complain about shipping problems. I’m afraid of the problems I’ve heard with PayPal. I haven’t even gotten the guts to get a free Square credit card reader, after all these YEARS—and it was the reason I got my first smartphone a few years ago! I’m too afraid to do this artist thing. A comedian once noted that VanGogh failed during his lifetime, because he was too mentally ill to do the networking, required of a successful art career. Maybe it’s time I accept that. But I’ve been there before, in non-art office jobs. I just goof off, writing and wishing I could use my time/energy to make things instead. Had money though. I could use money again. …But I also tried before to use Consumerism as a means to make me happy, since the cubicle job took away all my time/energy for anything else for fulfillment. And that failed before too. All my paths and possibilities look like failures and I feel trapped. I don’t’ know if that’s reality or just my depression. I really can’t tell the difference anymore.

#depression #artist problems #venting #please ignore my idiocy #quitting art

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officialravendc · 7 years

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Nature of Hell (for the Caffeine Challenge 24/02/17)

Caution to all readers: the following story contains graphic descriptions of extreme bodily harm and other assorted body horror. Please do not read if you are not comfortable with this. Thank you.

Nobody ever tells you how big empty is.

Not empty like an empty box or an empty room. We’re talking about the Empty. Tentatively known by humans as ‘Hell’. The eternal nothingness that is life after death.

When you die, you might expect to encounter… nothing. And you’d be right. Half right. Because what you’re expecting is an ending, a cut-off point, a sensory completion followed by total brain death and the loss of your personality. You, a whole human being, just gone. And maybe you’ve come to terms with that. Maybe you’re happy with it. Maybe you’re not. Whatever the case, the truth will surprise you.

When you die, you might expect to encounter… an afterlife. And you’d be right. Half right. Because what you’re expecting is a beginning, a new start, a total epiphany followed by pure human completion and the loss of your personality. You, a whole human being, just become pure love. And maybe you’ve earned that. Maybe you’ve done good in your time. Maybe you haven’t. Whatever the case, the truth will surprise you.

When your consciousness transcends the veil, it is in fact making the passage into another dimension entirely. Separated from the material flesh, it should be left to drift – but the body is all that anchors it to a single spot. The plane on which it exists has been warped by some malevolent force into an eternal downwards spiral, an exponentially increasing funnel that descends into what might well be a hellish pit of eternal flame.

A while back, primordial evil decided that ‘eternal flame’ wasn’t the worst torture that could be inflicted on a thinking life-form. The worst torture had to be something else. Something simpler. Something so simple and so terrible that a child could have conceived it in a daydream.

And of course, because the god of chaos is a child, one who loves breaking humans with the ease it takes to snap a matchstick, the most abhorrent destruction came to mind quick as lightning. The Empty. The Void. The Cage. Incredibly simple, yet unfailingly horrific.

Nobody ever tells you how big empty is. You can’t comprehend the vastness of the ocean or the limitless expanse of space. Your head can’t contain their sheer deathly magnitude. Only when you no longer have a physical head to speak of can you fit eternity into your mind. Because that’s the nature of the Empty. Whoever said ‘hell is other people’, the darkness decided, was wrong. Hell is nothing. Hell is yourself, for all eternity, all alone. Hell is rotting on the inside and never on the outside.

There’s always confusion, when they wake. They’re not anywhere, not any more – not occupying any physical space or residing in any finite enclosure. They appear to have a body, for the most part; but that’s just a projection of the personality, a mental creation designed by the brain to protect it from the truth of the hundredth dimension. They have no eyes, no ears, no nose, no mouth, no fingers or hands or arms or heart. There’s just the space the head fills in around them.

The blank white void has no dimension or texture. Depth perception doesn’t exist in Hell. If there were anything physical to actually see, this might pose a problem. All it does instead is cause your vision to blur into an empty nothing where you’re left apparently floating in a sensory deprivation tank. That doesn’t mean there’s no light, mind. No, there is definitely a muted white light, but it doesn’t stem from any individual source. It is universal. After a time all the colours, even those of the perceived body, blend and fuse back into the whiteness.

(The devil also made the light occasionally flicker at a frequency right at the edge of human visual perception just to piss you off. This happens when you throw an endless force of hatred into a bottomless pit and expect it to stay put for eternity. It gets annoyed.)

It goes without saying that you can’t die in Hell. The Empty sustains your existence to the point of literally forever. There is no mental decay. And that leads on to the worst part.

You cannot go insane.

Essentially what this means is that there is no relief. You cannot dream. You cannot sleep. The darkness engineered it so that your mental state never changes. You always have a perfectly clear head.

There is nothing to hit in the Void. Nothing to swear at and nothing to hide under. There is nothing to talk to, nothing to hate, nothing to love. There is nothing to cry for. But that doesn’t matter, because it is made so that no matter what, you cannot cry. Some people try as hard as they can to stave off insanity. The strongest last a hundred years or more before they discover that that wasn’t an option in the first place.

Some people swear, scream, try their hardest to wear their throats ragged. They don’t realise that their throats don’t exist any more. They can’t even take their frustrations out on themselves. Some stay silent, in the belief that there’s nothing worth talking about. But their minds are forced awake, forced into overtime, ticking away like perfect dark clockwork, keeping them constantly in a loop of disgustingly cursed life.

Some people make reference to a ‘fate worse than death’. There isn’t one. There never will be. After a hundred thousand years in the Cage, eternal torture seems like a luxury. Then at least you could feel something. Anything. Some of them fantasise so readily about driving spikes into their own flesh, or dropping themselves into vats of boiling water. It really takes something to make people wish for the relief of evisceration.

Each and every individual in the Empty has perfect recall. There is always and forever a constant knowledge of the time spent, the aeons passed. And so it is that after maybe a billion years or so, they start to realise how big the space is.

Eternity is impossible. Eternal time and eternal space are the same thing. Einstein proved as much back in 1905. Despite the total lack of time or space in Hell, however, there is still something… big. Something so, so big. Something impossibly huge. The vastness of the ocean and the unlimited expanse of space are nothing compared to the power of eternity. It floods into your soul through your non-existent eyes and stills your vanished heart to nothing. The seconds and minutes and days and weeks and months and years and decades and centuries and millennia force themselves into your brain like existential toothpicks and crush the love out of you.

Each and every individual in the Empty has perfect recall. Perfect recall, that is, of lives left behind. Of people loved and lost. Of summer days and long starry nights and walks in the rain. Everyone remembers the rough street corners and the violent arguments and the days where everything became flat and grey.

See them, now? The people? Single them out. That one. The one with the sparkling eyes and the perfect smile and the sharp, witty mind. The one who you vowed to die for that night on the beach. The one who vowed to die for you. Aren’t they beautiful? Their very presence makes your heart strain in your chest.

Now picture pulling their teeth out with pliers, one by one, and decorating your empty sky with a row of tiny tombstones. Picture sliding their ribs from their heaving chest and wearing them like bloodstained trophies. Picture forcing your arm down their shattered throat and tearing their heart out through their mouth and raising it to your own where all your slicing little beauties crunch down, scythe through the living meat and let the blood run from your mouth and doesn’t it taste good so good it’s beautiful sweet oh yes it is and then with a wicked smile that unzips your face all the way around and down the back of your segmenting neck you plunge your head into their screaming carcass with the howl of a million starved animals and –

That’s what eternity does to you. There they all sit, now, plastering the walls of infinity with the slow drip of blood, sitting atop pillars of twisted corpses, wearing the thick skin from the faces of their loved ones like masks. That is the true horror of Hell. Hell is rotting on the inside and never on the outside. It makes everyone want to be the Devil.

Nobody ever tells you how big empty is.

Nobody ever tells you how cruel.

You might call on the cruel sea,

Sharp on the rocks by the dark beach,

But you’ve been played for a fool.

Let’s dance with the devil in the pale moonlight,

Let’s love us to death in the water.

You can’t run away

From the devil’s gaze,

For love makes you long for the slaughter.

Because of time zones and my work hours, I was unable to finish this during the time constraints of the Caffeine Challenge itself. But it’s here now. I doubt you’ll enjoy it as such, but it’s something. Horror concepts have always come easily to me.

For some reason.

- R.R.

#caffeine challenge #caffeinewitchcraft #nobody ever tells you how big empty is #hell #nature of hell #body horror #horror #graphic content #devil #dance with the devil in the pale moonlight #the cruel sea #empty #the cage #the void #emptiness #the worst torture imaginable #this is fairly dark #to be honest with you #if you hadn't figured that out from the tags i'd be worried

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honeycalories · 3 months

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when youve been suffering your ed for years and see a newbie say "i cant wait to reach my gw so i can eat whatever i want!!!"

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years

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New top story from Time: The 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2020

For the publishing industry, the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many books slated for spring and summer of this year were moved to the fall. Now, the last months of 2020 will feature an abundance of new work from some of the world’s most celebrated authors. There’s Elena Ferrante’s first novel in five years, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami’s searing new nonfiction, Margaret Atwood’s latest poetry collection and Marilynne Robinson’s return to the world of Gilead. Readers will also be introduced to emerging voices like Susie Yang and Dolores Reyes. Their stories of heartbreak, humor and hope will guide us through the end of the year. Here, the most anticipated books of fall 2020.

Short stories

Likes, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (Sept. 1)

In the titular story of Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s electric collection, a father tries to make sense of his 12-year-old daughter through examining her Instagram posts. The narrative captures the tensions that exist between technology, parenthood and growing up—all of which are revisited throughout the different stories in Likes. The nine pieces, though rooted in reality, contain unexpected undercurrents of magic, coalescing into an innovative portrait of modern living.

Buy Now: Likes on Bookshop | Amazon

Daddy: Stories, Emma Cline (Sept. 1)

In 2016, Emma Cline made her debut with The Girls, an explosive coming-of-age novel inspired by the Manson family that found a spot on many best of the year lists. Her follow-up is a quieter, but still haunting exploration of how we interact with one another. The 10 short stories that comprise Daddy range in subject, from a celebrity family’s nanny recovering from a scandal to a father who must pick up his son at boarding school after he’s been expelled. Throughout, Cline asks how familial units are constructed—and illustrates how quickly they can fall apart.

Buy Now: Daddy on Bookshop | Amazon

To Be a Man: Stories, Nicole Krauss (Nov. 3)

Novelist Nicole Krauss is known for stories that cross generations, time periods and continents. Her first short-story collection, the luminous To Be a Man, serves up sharply drawn slices of individual human experience. Over 10 stories, a diverse set of characters come to terms with sexuality, maturity and identity.

Buy Now: To Be a Man on Bookshop | Amazon

Realistic fiction

Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi (Sept. 1)

At the center of Yaa Gyasi’s follow-up to her celebrated 2016 debut Homegoing is Gifty, a Ghanaian-American neuroscientist. After her brother died of a heroin overdose as a teenager, Gifty dedicated her life to understanding addiction. In Transcendent Kingdom, she is catapulted back to their shared youth, and the time she spent at her family’s Evangelical church. Gyasi’s timely novel offers reflection on the relationships between science, faith, grief and love.

Buy Now: Transcendent Kingdom on Bookshop | Amazon

A Girl is A Body of Water, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Sept. 1)

It’s 1970s Uganda. Idi Amin is in power, and a curious girl named Kirabo, raised by her grandmother in a small village, is just discovering what it means to grow up. In lyrical prose, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi renders Kirabo’s coming-of-age tale as a tender depiction of evolving womanhood, self-awareness in a tight-knit community and the path back to family and history.

Buy Now: A Girl is A Body of Water on Bookshop | Amazon

His Only Wife, Peace Adzo Medie (Sept. 1)

Afi, a young seamstress in a small Ghanaian town, must contend with cultural mores and her family’s expectations when she’s offered a marriage proposal by a wealthy suitor. When her new husband sends a stand-in to their wedding and she begins living married life alone in the bustling capital of Accra, Afi sees that her marriage is not what she anticipated. But soon she begins to wonder if this unconventional union may be the key to gaining the freedom she’s always dreamed of.

Buy Now: His Only Wife on Bookshop | Amazon

Monogamy, Sue Miller (Sept. 8)

For almost three decades, Annie shared a life with her husband Graham. In Sue Miller’s latest novel, Graham suddenly dies, leaving Annie unsure of how to go on living. Hers is a quiet but heartbreaking dilemma, which is made all the more difficult when Annie discovers that Graham had been unfaithful during their marriage. In Monogamy, Annie is prompted to find the answers to an unsettling question: Who was her husband, really?

Buy Now: Monogamy on Bookshop | Amazon

What Are You Going Through, Sigrid Nunez (Sept. 8)

The latest novel from Sigrid Nunez shares several themes with her 2018 National Book Award winner The Friend. In both, Nunez contemplates how we write and talk about death, love and friendship. What Are You Going Through follows a middle-aged writer through a series of interactions with various people in her life, from her pretentious ex to an Airbnb host. But when her terminally ill friend makes an unthinkable request, the narrator is forced to reckon with her definitions of living and dying. Nunez crafts an aching look into the ways people can support one another through crisis.

Buy Now: What Are You Going Through on Bookshop | Amazon

Homeland Elegies, Ayad Akhtar (Sept. 15)

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar examines the intersection of identity and politics through a story that closely resembles his own experiences as the son of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan living in the U.S. The novel’s narrator, who is also named Ayad Akhtar, struggles to make sense of his place in a country that is fractured by fear and hate. Through the eight chapters of Homeland Elegies, Akhtar weaves together a stunning narrative on the barriers to belonging in Trump-era America.

Buy Now: Homeland Elegies on Bookshop | Amazon

Jack, Marilynne Robinson (Sept. 29)

Marilynne Robinson makes her triumphant return to the world of Gilead, Iowa in the fourth installment of her acclaimed series. Jack’s titular character is the white adult son of Gilead’s Presbyterian minister, and has fallen in love with a Black high school teacher. An agonizing push and pull of power and love ensues, as two people fight to be together despite objections from family members. Through this blistering story of an interracial romance, Robinson once again mines the intricacies and complications of American life.

Buy Now: Jack on Bookshop | Amazon

Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam (Oct. 6)

It’s summertime in Long Island, where Brooklynites Amanda and Clay are vacationing with their teenage children. The home they rent is perfect—marble countertops in the kitchen, French doors to the deck, a pool out back—except its owners show up in the middle of the night during their stay. There’s no power in New York City, and Ruth and G.H. didn’t feel safe in their apartment, so they trekked to their vacation home, which now has no internet or cell service. What begins as a luxurious getaway spirals into a hellish fever dream as the families live together, cut off from the rest of the world, unsure of who to trust and desperate for information about what’s going on outside their shared walls.

Buy Now: Leave the World Behind on Bookshop | Amazon

Memorial, Bryan Washington (Oct. 27)

Benson is a Black daycare teacher living in Houston with his boyfriend Mike, a Japanese-American chef. Though they’ve shared a home for a few years, the longevity of their relationship is shaky at best when Mike learns his father is dying. Mike decides to go see him in Osaka—just as his mother shows up in town for a visit. Now, Benson is forced to share his living space with a woman he just met while her son is halfway around the world. Memorial follows the duo on their separate journeys, where they begin to understand the place they hold in each other’s lives.

Buy Now: Memorial on Bookshop | Amazon

White Ivy, Susie Yang (Nov. 3)

Ivy Lin has a crush. But as a conflicted teen, torn between her multi-generational Chinese family’s expectations and her desire to assimilate into the culture of their adopted home of Boston, Ivy’s crush becomes a turning point. In a suspenseful debut from Susie Yang, Ivy’s coming-of-age story is complicated by the power of her ambition and the meaning of her past.

Buy Now: White Ivy on Bookshop | Amazon

Translation

The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante (trans. Ann Goldstein) (Sept. 1)

Twelve-year-old Giovanna has never met her aunt Vittoria. Her parents hate the woman—Giovanna has grown up listening to them call Vittoria cruel and ugly. It’s no surprise then that Giovanna’s world is completely rocked when she overhears her father compare her to the sister whom he despises. In her first novel translated to English in five years, Elena Ferrante follows Giovanna on a wrenching path of self-discovery as the young protagonist decides to find her aunt in an effort to learn more about herself. One of the most anticipated books of the year, The Lying Life of Adults demonstrates Ferrante’s superb ability to capture the anxieties and complications of adolescence.

Buy Now: The Lying Life of Adults on Bookshop | Amazon

Earthlings, Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori) (Oct. 6)

Japanese author Sayaka Murata’s previous novel, Convenience Store Woman, offered one of the most original and striking narratives of the last few years, at once eerie and comforting in its depiction of a devoted worker in one of Japan’s ubiquitous convenience shops. Her new novel promises another original premise, following a girl who begins to wonder if she’s an alien after her cousin reveals that he is one. It’s a novel about belonging, changing how we see the world and the struggle against easy conformity.

Buy Now: Earthlings on Bookshop | Amazon

The Hole, Hiroko Oyamada (trans. David Boyd) (Oct. 6)

Hiroko Oyamada’s 2014 novel, The Hole, will reach English readers this fall with a new translation by David Boyd. The book centers on the darkly fantastical adventures of Asa, a bored Japanese housewife, after she tumbles into a hole on the grassy knoll of a river embankment and meets strange creatures and outlandish characters. If the plot feels reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, know that Alice’s surreal dream is more like a horrific nightmare for Asa, who must confront whether her sanity is at stake as her circumstances grow more and more bizarre.

Buy Now: The Hole on Bookshop | Amazon

Genre fiction

Red Pill, Hari Kunzru (Sept. 1)

Hari Kunzru’s work is marked by a dogged pursuit of truth, an element that’s readily apparent in his latest novel, Red Pill. The book’s unnamed narrator, a Brooklyn-based writer going through a midlife crisis, decamps to Berlin for a fellowship, leaving behind his family and home for the chance to produce writing of value. His new environment, however, proves to be more disturbing than inspirational, leading him to question everything he knows and values—including his own sanity.

Buy Now: Red Pill on Bookshop | Amazon

The Searcher, Tana French (Oct. 6)

Midwestern detective Cal relocates to western Ireland to find some peace after a bad divorce. But instead of settling into retirement, Cal finds himself swept up into one last case involving a local teen and his missing brother. Tana French, the author of best-selling crime thrillers including the Dublin Murder Squad series, takes this standalone novel at a measured pace, easing readers into Cal’s quiet life before the thrills unravel.

Buy Now: The Searcher on Bookshop | Amazon

Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Oct. 13)

With Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse kicks off a new trilogy set in a universe inspired by the pre-Columbian Americas and thick with mythology and magic. Roanhorse, who has won awards for sci-fi writing and contributions to the Star Wars series, builds a world featuring beasts, mermaids and deeply human characters on a quest for survival.

Buy Now: Black Sun on Bookshop | Amazon

The Arrest, Jonathan Lethem (Nov. 10)

From his detective fiction with Motherless Brooklyn to his evocative writing about childhood in Brooklyn in The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem has demonstrated a chameleon-like ability to take on different forms and subjects. His new novel promises a turn into a post-apocalyptic future, where technology has stopped functioning and the U.S. has been torn apart. In this reality, a former Los Angeles screenwriter living on a farm in Maine confronts a college classmate who is traveling across the country in a nuclear-powered car.

Buy Now: The Arrest on Bookshop | Amazon

The Kingdom, Jo Nesbø (Nov. 10)

For mystery readers in search of a darker hero than Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, enter Norway’s Jo Nesbø and the admirably effective—and occasionally alcoholic—Inspector Harry Hole. The Kingdom, Nesbø’s latest installment with Hole, sees the detective peeling back layers of unnerving secrets surrounding a pair of brothers in Oslo, from their parents’ mysterious deaths to their family’s disturbing history and the secrets of their hometown.

Buy Now: The Kingdom on Bookshop | Amazon

Eartheater, Dolores Reyes (Nov. 17)

In Dolores Reyes’ debut novel, a young woman in Argentina is given a rare if terrifying gift: the ability to see visions of lives lost when she eats dirt. She first encounters her powers following her mother’s death; upon impulsively tasting soil, she learns the real and shattering truth about her mother’s passing. In a series of beautifully haunting moments, the woman’s newfound gift becomes the vehicle for those around her to confront the traumas surrounding the mysterious losses of their loved ones.

Buy Now: Eartheater on Bookshop | Amazon

Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline (Nov. 24)

Ernest Cline’s 2011 sci-fi adventure Ready Player One became a best-seller, a prophetic vision of a technology-fueled dystopian future and a Steven Spielberg blockbuster. The sequel arrives nearly a decade later and promises more action and even more predictions about what happens when the real and virtual worlds inevitably meld.

Buy Now: Ready Player Two on Bookshop | Amazon

Poetry

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, Kevin Young (Editor) (Oct. 13)

One of the U.S.’s most talented poets, Kevin Young is the perfect guide to reconstruct the American canon. His sweeping anthology of African-American poetry across U.S. history is an exhilarating collection of voices that have helped shape the country, many of whom never got their full due. By including new forms and overlooked schools, Young’s anthology promises to rewrite the history of American verse.

Buy Now: African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song on Bookshop | Amazon

Dearly: New Poems, Margaret Atwood (Nov. 10)

While Margaret Atwood is best known for novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, readers would be remiss to forget that her writing career began with poetry. Atwood’s new book—her first collection of poems in over a decade—is a good reminder of her mastery of the craft. In Dearly, Atwood’s inspirations run the gamut from the intoxicating pleasures of nature to the fantastical goings-on of zombies, but the themes are grounded in the familiar: love, loss, desire and the inevitability of time passing. Atwood blurs the lines of what we know and asks us instead to give credence to what we feel.

Buy Now: New Poems on Bookshop | Amazon

Memoir

Eat a Peach, David Chang (Sept. 8)

The affecting memoir from chef and Momofuku founder David Chang details his path to culinary success amid his struggles with bipolar disorder. In Eat a Peach, Chang opens up about growing up as a Korean-American kid in Virginia, where he battled a mental illness that he only began to understand years later. In vulnerable and honest terms, Chang puts these experiences into the context of his life and career, delving into the chaos of working in a kitchen and outlining his rise to cooking stardom.

Buy Now: Eat a Peach on Bookshop | Amazon

Let Love Rule, Lenny Kravitz (Oct. 6)

Rock ‘n’ roll icon Lenny Kravitz looks back on his first 25 years in Let Love Rule, his memoir co-written with songwriter and biographer David Ritz. With roots in New York and Los Angeles, Kravitz narrates the story of a colorful youth spent exploring music, discovering his passions and coming to terms with his star power before signing his first record deal.

Buy Now: Let Love Rule on Bookshop | Amazon

Is This Anything?, Jerry Seinfeld (Oct. 6)

Longtime Seinfeld viewers will know that Jerry always opened his hit sitcom with a stand-up set. Is This Anything, the comedian’s first book in 25 years, is the written version of sets like those and more, seeing him spell out jokes on subjects from airplane bathrooms to the pitfalls of being left-handed. These are his best “bits,” in chronological order from 1975 onward. And beyond his dry humor, they trace the development of one man’s distinctive (and wildly successful) craft.

Buy Now: Is This Anything? on Bookshop | Amazon

Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, Christie Tate (Oct. 27)

Popular blogger Christie Tate is no stranger to looking to her personal life for writing material, but her debut memoir about her years participating in a psychotherapy group takes it to the next level with fearless candor and vulnerability. In Group, Tate revisits how group therapy changed her life by forcing her to be radically honest about everything from her former eating disorder to her childhood traumas. She reflects on the group of strangers who helped her to find connection and intimacy with others, and perhaps most importantly, with herself.

Buy Now: Group on Bookshop | Amazon

One Life, Megan Rapinoe (Nov. 10)

Megan Rapinoe became a household name thanks to her winning performances in the 2016 Olympics and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup as a star of the U.S. women’s soccer team. Her defiant insistence on standing up for pay equity and her visibility as an LGBTQ icon and ally have only reinforced her stature. In One Life, Rapinoe traces her roots in conservative California, her journey with soccer and her growth into a social justice leader.

Buy Now: One Life on Amazon

No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael J. Fox (Nov. 17)

Since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 29, Michael J. Fox has fueled his advocacy work surrounding Parkinson’s with his trademark optimism—an element that was undeniably apparent in his first two memoirs, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up. In Fox’s new memoir, No Time Like the Future, the actor and activist re-evaluates his sunny outlook on life in light of new health challenges. Filled with humorous and thoughtful anecdotes and reflections, the book offers insights into a man who knows struggle all too well, but refuses to let it get in the way of living.

Buy Now: No Time Like the Future on Bookshop | Amazon

Essays and journalism

Having and Being Had, Eula Biss (Sept. 1)

“What does it say about capitalism that we have money and want to spend it but we can’t find anything worth buying?” The question comes from Eula Biss’ husband as the two search for furniture for their first home. The answer is undoubtedly complicated, and one that Biss rips apart in her sharp collection of essays fixated on class, privilege and how we assign value. From how her son trades Pokémon cards to mass reliance on IKEA, Biss underlines the uncomfortable truths that accompany American consumerism.

Buy Now: Having and Being Had on Bookshop | Amazon

Just Us: An American Conversation, Claudia Rankine (Sept. 8)

Claudia Rankine has been writing about injustice and Black oppression for years, most notably in 2014’s Citizen. That multidisciplinary book was written partially in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin, and won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. Her timely follow-up, Just Us, weaves together poetry, personal essays, historical documents and more to explore how the dominance of whiteness hovers over every aspect of American life, from corporate culture to classrooms to hair color.

Buy Now: Just Us: An American Conversation on Bookshop | Amazon

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America, Laila Lalami (Sept. 22)

Moroccan-born author Laila Lalami became a U.S. citizen in 2000, just before national upheaval brought about extreme prejudice against people who looked like her. Astute and timely, Conditional Citizen uses Lalami’s personal journey as a jumping-off point to illustrate the dangers and challenges that whole segments of U.S. society continue to face on a daily basis: assimilation, xenophobia and the ongoing threat of white supremacy.

Buy Now: Conditional Citizens on Bookshop | Amazon

Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Peterson (Sept. 22)

Last year, Anne Helen Peterson illuminated the realities of millennial burnout in a piece for Buzzfeed that went viral. Now, she follows up on her reporting with a book that explains how that burnout got to be so bad. In dissecting how workplaces have evolved, along with the pressures that come from social media, Peterson continues to address the increasingly impossible expectations that millennials face.

Buy Now: Can’t Even on Bookshop | Amazon

One Last Song: Conversations on Life, Death, and Music, Mike Ayers (Oct. 13)

If you could listen to one last song before you died, what would it be—and why? That’s the slightly morbid yet endlessly entertaining question journalist Mike Ayers posed to 30 musicians, ranging from jazz legend Sonny Rollins to activist and rapper Killer Mike, in his debut book. The answers to this seemingly simple query vary widely (and are helpfully aided by charming illustrations), but all provide insight into the deeply personal ways music helps us make sense of our time on earth.

Buy Now: One Last Song on Bookshop | Amazon

Politics, history and activism

What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action, Jane Fonda (Sept. 8)

“When you’re famous,” actor Jane Fonda writes, “there are so many ways to lift issues and amplify voices. God knows I’ve done it before to varying degrees of success.” Since last year, the lifelong activist has been leading “Fire Drill Fridays,” a weekly climate change protest in Washington, D.C., lately transformed into a virtual event series. Her new book What Can I Do? is a history of that project, a basic education on the impact of climate change on our planet and an outline of actions that like-minded readers can take. With information and sidebars from scientists and fellow celebrities, Fonda’s book is a pointed use of her platform.

Buy Now: What Can I Do? on Bookshop | Amazon

If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, Jill Lepore (Sept. 15)

One of the U.S.’s most acclaimed historians follows her bestselling, sweeping history of the country, These Truths, with a book about the origins of Big Data. Jill Lepore tells the story of how a group of social scientists created a new company in 1959 that claimed to analyze, predict and sway public opinion. Before they collapsed in 1970, they were used by everyone from John F. Kennedy Jr., for his presidential campaign, to major companies. In unearthing their story, Lepore finds resonant echoes today with controversies around Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and election security.

Buy Now: If Then on Bookshop | Amazon

Rage, Bob Woodward (Sept. 15)

We don’t know much about fabled Washington reporter Bob Woodward’s follow-up to Fear, his first book about the Trump Administration. But reports that Trump spoke to Woodward 17 times for Rage promise an informed look inside the White House just weeks before the election. Whatever Woodward reveals, there is no doubt that this will be one of the most talked about—and contested—political books of the season.

Buy Now: Rage on Bookshop | Amazon

The Queer Advantage: Conversations with LGBTQ+ Leaders on the Power of Identity, Andrew Gelwicks (Oct. 13)

This collection of interviews from fashion stylist and writer Andrew Gelwicks feels less like a book of tips from queer power players and more like a series of intimate chats between good friends—that is, if your good friends were LGBTQ+ icons like George Takei, Adam Rippon and Margaret Cho. Offering deeply affecting anecdotes from queer leaders and the life lessons they learned in real time in the worlds of business, tech, sports, entertainment and more, The Queer Advantage encourages readers to find power in their identities.

Buy Now: The Queer Advantage on Bookshop | Amazon

The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Alicia Garza (Oct. 20)

In 2013, Alicia Garza wrote a Facebook post that she called “a love letter to Black people,” which went viral after the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin was acquitted. Garza’s powerful words about why Black lives matter soon became a rallying cry—and the hashtag—for one of her generation’s most pivotal movements. But before Garza co-founded Black Lives Matter, she had done nearly two decades of organizing, a time when she learned how change really happens, encountering plenty of challenges along the way. In her new book, The Purpose of Power, Garza shares her insights and the lessons she’s taken to heart from the frontlines of Black Lives Matter and beyond, providing a guide for anyone who’s ready to take action to create the world they want to live in.

Buy Now: The Purpose of Power on Bookshop | Amazon

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, Ijeoma Oluo (Dec. 1)

Ijeoma Oluo’s sharp yet accessible writing about the American racial landscape made her 2018 book, So You Want to Talk About Race, an invaluable resource for anyone looking to understand and dismantle racist structures. Her new book, Mediocre, builds on this exemplary work, homing in on the role of white patriarchy in creating and upholding a system built to disenfranchise anyone who isn’t a white male.

Buy Now: Mediocre on Bookshop | Amazon

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 4 years

Text

SPIRALING

Many of our staff have traveled great distances to join the Museum. Many of our patrons are the same.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality is written, performed, and edited by Dom Guilfoyle. Published by That's Not Canon Productions. Dom's cats can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/dom_question_mark/ Their T-Shirts can be bought at https://www.teepublic.com/user/domguilfoyle For more Mistholme, subscribe to the show and like the Facebook page. It's ok. But it's not ok. But that's ok.

TRANSCRIPT: Hello and welcome to the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity and Mortality. This audio tour guide will be your constant companion in your journey through the unknown and surreal.

As you approach our exhibits, the audio tour guide will provide you with information and insights into their nature and history.

Do not attempt to interact or communicate with the exhibits.

Do not attempt to interact or communicate with the audio tour guide. If you believe that the audio tour guide may be deviating from the intended tour program, please deposit your audio device in the nearest incinerator.

While the staff here at Mistholme Museum of Mystery Morbidity and Mortality do their absolute best to ensure the safety of all visitors, accidents can happen. The museum is not liable for any injury, death, or Implosion that may occur during your visit.

Enjoy your tour.

And good luck.

Before we begin today’s tour, The Mistholme Museum of Mystery Morbidity and Mortality would like to issue a correction. Previous visitors to the Museum may have seen our exhibit titled “The Guitar Of The Man Who Met The Devil At The Crossroads”. The Audio Guide for this exhibit, centred around the guitar which once belonged to legendary Blues musician Johnny Samuels, contained information in support of the legend that Johnny Samuels sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his musical prowess, and was eventually claimed by the devil during the recording of his third album. After the publication of that Audio Guide, a letter appeared on the desk of our complaints department written in a truly immaculate hand. The writer claimed to be Samuels himself, and according to the note he did not make any kind of deal with the devil in exchange for his musical success, and he has been forced to defend himself on this matter for decades. Johnny Samuels was, quote, “Just a really fine guitar player who finally got his big break” unquote. These rumours became so commonplace that he was, in fact, taken during the recording of his third album, but once the man with the voice like honey and chocolate and coffee- whom Samuels told us does not appreciate being referred to as the devil or any other hellish titles- realised his mistake, he gave Samuels the opportunity to slip his mortal form and become something more, the nature of which Samuels was not willing to impart to us. Samuels’ also asked if he could have his guitar back but-while we wish whatever it is that Samuels has become all the best- the guitar is Museum property and we do not under any circumstances part with any items in our collections. The guitar’s description will be corrected, and it will be moved to our “items related to urban legends with more than a grain of truth to them” section.

We regret the error, and will do our best in future to ensure that no similar mistakes are made again. And now, on with the tour.

In this case, you will see a horn, roughly 9.6 inches in length, with an ornate spiral pattern from tip to base. Patrons familiar with the traditional animal kingdom might think it belongs to an adolescent narwhal, or perhaps a unicorn. However, this horn is special, because it comes from a most unusual and specific place: the head of a young boy.

The boy in question, whose name has been lost to time, was born somewhere in central Europe several centuries ago. His story has been twisted and mythologised a great deal in the years since but, as is so often the case with folk stories there is a grain of truth. He was, with the exception of the horn, a perfectly normal young boy physically. Mentally, he was what people in his time would describe as “touched”, with a dreamy disposition and a predilection for silence. His mother had died giving birth to him, and by some circumstance or another, he became a traveling performer in the employ of a man believed to be his father. They would travel from town to town, stopping at each location to set up a small stage from their wagon and put on a show. The man would spin some fanciful tale about the boy while the boy did as he pleased; sometimes he would roam the crowd touching babies on their foreheads to “bless” them, others he would simply sit on the stage in silence. The main attraction was his unique deformity. The man would tailor the superficial details of the performance to the mood of the boy, as well as the time and the location; most accounts hold that he was quite shrewd in this regard, and that he and the boy made a handsome income for several years- though the man saw most of the benefit, as after each performance the boy was locked in a cage in the back of the wagon. This run of good fortune came to an end quite suddenly late one winter, when they reached a mining town deep in the mountains.

When the man surveyed the atmosphere of the town he found that the people of the town had a dour and miserable aspect to them, and decided that what the town needed was some light-hearted comedy. He did his usual work rustling up a crowd, but there were precious few takers. Thinking that things would pick up once the show began, he beckoned the boy to take the stage. As the crowd saw the boy, the atmosphere turned from dour to sour, and the man began to realise that he had made a mistake. Unbeknownst to the travelling pair, there had been a terrible accident in the mine early in the day they arrived, and several souls had been lost. And now, on the very day that tragedy had struck their town, these superstitious people were looking at something entirely outside of their frame of reference. A crowd quickly gathered, but not at all the type that the man had hoped for. Angry muttering gave way to shouts of “Freak” and “It’s an Omen” and other sundry accusations that the boy had somehow caused the miner’s deaths. The boy began to become distressed by the vitriol being hurled his way, and the man knew that they had outstayed their welcome. He began hastily packing up the wagon for their departure but before he could finish, several burly miners charged at the boy intending to do him harm. There was a struggle, and one man met the pointy end of the boy’s horn. They fled down the icy mountain in their wagon; as they rode, the man berated the boy for riling up the crowd, for defending himself, for all the troubles in the world. The boy was silent: he simply stared down at his horn, tightly gripped in his hands. It had snapped off in the struggle.

The man and the boy managed to get away from their pursuers, but their misfortunes were far from over. As they attempted to cross a frozen river in the wagon, the hastily packed stage shifted suddenly and the thinning ice gave way under its weight. The man and the boy escaped the sinking wagon with their lives but none of their supplies and took shelter in a nearby cave. The man had injured his leg in the escape and would be unable to travel the icy roads for several more weeks; with no supplies the man knew that he and the boy would never last that long, and he screamed and railed at the boy for ruining everything he had built. But the boy paid him no heed. He looked out from the mouth of the cave at the wilderness beyond and- mute as ever- he strode out into the snow. The man called after him, but to no avail: the boy was gone. And then, hours later, he returned, with a fish caught tightly in his teeth. He dropped the fish at the man’s feet and looked up at him expectantly. The man was too shocked to act at first, but recovered quickly, and soon the pair were feasting on roast fish around a fire. For the next few weeks as they waited for spring, the boy would go out in the morning and return at dusk with food enough for both of them. The boy’s horn soon grew back, and he used it to defend them from wildlife on more than one occasion. As the man would often regale to anyone who would listen in the years that followed, the boy was finally in his element. He had never truly been at home in the world of man, but here he came to life. He was fearsome and cunning and entirely at home in the wilderness, in a way he had never been in civilization. When the ice melted and the man’s leg could hold his weight, they parted. The boy had found his place in the world, and the man was too grateful and filled with regret at his past mistreatment to him to deny that. As a final gift to remember him by, the boy gave him the horn he had lost back in the town; his new horn was even longer and more resplendent than the old one.

The man’s story became a folk legend, and he made an even better career with tales of the boy than he had with the real thing, with the horn a constant prop. It became almost as popular for drunks to tell stories of their own interactions with the boy, of glimpsing a wild-eyed boy with a horn while out alone in the woods. The people of the small mining town had a different version of the story. Their story tells of a wicked and monstrous demon child who had brought tragedy to their town, first in the mines and then in the street. When one brave soul confronted the boy, his caretaker- a bitter drunk who kept the creature in chains- stabbed him through the heart in cold blood. The town rallied and drove off the monster and his master, buried their dead, and moved on with their lives. Months later, when the snow had thawed, woodsmen from the town discovered the skeleton of a young boy, in a cave near a river, at the base of the mountain. His bones had been picked clean of their meat, and there was a hole in his skull where a chunk had been forcefully removed. They sealed up the cave to contain his evil, and if it truly existed it has never yet been rediscovered. All that remains of the boy is the stories. And his horn.

This is an antique radio transmitter, of the sort that would have been used in the mid 20th century for commercial radio purposes. While there is little unusual about its construction, it is noteworthy that it does not appear to match any documented make of radio transmitter that Museum Researchers could locate. It is also noteworthy that the transmitter is active, despite the fact that it is not- and, as far as the Museum is aware, has never been- connected to any power source. In fact, it still sends out a signal on a regular basis, as it has done for years at the very least, though the purpose behind these messages is the subject of a great deal of debate among the Researchers: there is clearly a logic or pattern to the broadcasts, but very few have the ability to discern it. A notable exception is a woman who- for the purposes of this exhibit, will be referred to as “Dee”.

Dee lived an unremarkable life in a mid-sized city which will remain unnamed, where she worked in a business which will remain unnamed and cared for a pet whose species will remain unnamed. Her life was utterly unremarkable- although, if it had been remarkable it would nonetheless have remained unremarked upon in this guide. Dee was, however, content with this unremarkable existence, as most people are: a life of contentment and routine is what most people aspire to, and at this point Dee would have considered herself most people.

That all changed one day, while she drove to her unnamed workplace in her car- the make of which will remain unnamed- while listening to music on her unnamed music playing device: a perfectly normal start to what she expected would be a perfectly normal day. Then, as her car idled at a red light, her music cut out. She picked up her music player and pressed a few buttons: nothing. The device was dead. She fiddled with it for a moment, then was forced to stop as a car behind her honked its horn to let her know the light had turned green. As she continued her journey, she reluctantly turned on the radio in her car for the first time since she bought it. She scanned through the frequencies searching for whatever stations were playing the sort of music she liked; never having used a radio in her life, she didn’t realise that she was scanning the AM frequency, and was therefore unlikely to find anything to her taste unless she was particularly into dry news reports in languages she didn’t understand. She had almost given up on having anything to listen to when she heard something that caught her attention. A voice, with a crisp accent she couldn’t quite place, reciting a string of numbers. 1. 6. 1. 12. 2. 33. 56. 1. 56. 3. 2. She scrolled past it in her haste, and it took her a few seconds to find it again. 101. 82. 83. 1. 23. 0. She listened to it, enthralled for reasons she couldn’t quite put her finger on, for the remainder of her drive to work. When she arrived, she sat in the car park listening for several more minutes, until the numbers abruptly stopped. She sat in her car for another minute, waiting to see if the numbers would return, before she realised that she was now late for work. As her manager admonished her for being late, her mind was still on the mysterious numbers. At her desk, she struggled to focus on her work; eventually, she gave up and began searching online for answers.

The results were as revealing as they were confounding. There was a seemingly endless number of people who had heard similar broadcasts, and a number of articles written about the phenomena and theorising what could be behind it. They referred to the broadcasts as “Numbers Stations”, and they had been witnessed by people around the world going back as far as World War One. Dee devoured all the information that she could find, but was confounded by the lack of a consensus as to the Numbers Stations’ origins and purpose. Some said they were coded messages, sent by governments to spies in foreign lands. Others, that it was a method for AI to communicate without accessing the internet. Some, that it was ghosts attempting to communicate with the world of the living. Dee didn’t think much of that last one. There were so many people theorizing, with so many examples- how could they have failed to get to the bottom of this mystery? Most people seemed to accept that the spy explanation was most likely, and that cracking the code was impossible without knowledge of the cipher being used. Disappointed, Dee returned to her work, troubled by the lack of closure. When she drove home that night, the station was silent, and she determined that she would put the Numbers Station out of her mind.

She was reminded the very next morning when she got in her car and turned the key. The radio- which she could swear she had switched off- startled her by blaring out the same voice as yesterday, reading another inscrutable string of digits. She reached out to switch off the radio, but hesitated. There was something to the numbers she couldn’t put her finger on, something that made her want to keep listening, to understand. She couldn’t but shake the phantom feeling that the numbers were, in some way, meant for her to hear. To understand. When she arrived at work, she searched the internet again, this time to see if anyone had reported on this specific station, if anyone knew how long it had been broadcasting or if anyone had gotten to the bottom of what its messages meant.

An hour later, she had found absolutely no trace of anyone discussing her Numbers Station.

She called in sick to work the next day, bought a radio set and some books on codebreaking, and sat listening to the station for the rest of the day and well into the night. When she awoke the next morning she continued in the same manner, waiting for a broadcast, writing down the numbers, and attempting to discern their meaning. She used up all her remaining sick days doing this, then- in a brief gap in her vigil- managed to convince her boss to let her take an unscheduled holiday from work. Friends called her, concerned for her wellbeing, but Dee rebuffed them, insisting she was fine. She made only brief breaks in her listening to leave the house to purchase food and other supplies, always making sure that she did so in gaps in the broadcast. Feeding her pet proved too much of a distraction, so she purchased and set up an automatic feeder. After weeks of this, however, she had made no progress. The books on codebreaking she had found were fascinating, but useless when it came to uncovering the meaning behind the Numbers. Eventually Dee found herself sitting alone in front of the radio in her dark living room, surrounded by the rubbish and filth that had built up over the course of her attempts to crack the code, in clothes that hadn’t been washed in who knows how long, with nothing to show for it. Wordlessly, she picked up the radio, took it to her front door, and hurled it out into the night. Then she went to bed.

She woke a few hours later. Her head felt like it was full of lightning. She ran out of her house in her pyjamas, past the ruined radio, to her car, and got in. She switched on her car’s radio: the numbers began immediately. She smiled, as one does when the see an old friend for the first time in years, and began to drive. She didn’t know how many times the sun rose and set while she drove: her focus was almost entirely on the numbers, with just enough spare to keep from crashing, only stopping to refuel. The numbers didn’t stop this time: they kept going on and on, guiding her in a way not even Dee fully understood as she made her way to her unknown destination.

After some time, the numbers stopped, and so did Dee. In front of her, illuminated in the headlights, was the entrance to a bunker. It was in the middle of nowhere, and there was no signage: without the numbers to guide her, Dee was quite certain it would have been impossible to find. She got out of the car and walked cautiously to the entrance; she turned the handle on the door and it swung open smoothly. Dee took a deep breath, and entered. Inside the bunker, Dee found a facility with halls that seemed to stretch on forever, with no signage to be found. She wondered how anyone could navigate the place without getting hopelessly lost; she wasn’t lost though. She knew, without knowing, where she was meant to go. She walked past strange glass windows without glancing inside, past cases with contents she didn’t care to see: the Numbers had told her where to go.

Eventually she stopped in front of one such case. She had found her destination. She looked inside the case, a mixture of elation and trepidation in her heart as she gazed upon the radio transmitter you’re looking at right now. Suddenly, a cold metal hand clapped down on her shoulder, and Dee spun around to see an imposing sight: a metallic woman, clockwork whirring at her joints, wearing a “security” badge on her chest.

Dee was interviewed extensively by Museum Security in an effort to determine how she had found our location. She insisted that she had been led here by a radio signal meant for her, that she was supposed to be here. Eventually, the Museum’s Curator themself invervened, and explained that the signal had indeed led her here for a purpose: with her investigative spirit and subconscious connection to the alternatural, she was a perfect candidate for becoming a Museum Researcher.

And so, Dee now works here at the Museum, a valued asset to our Research department and a cherished colleague to those with sufficient clearance to interact with her. She, with the rest of her department, conducts important investigations into the nature and origin of the exhibits here at the Museum: this facility would not be possible without people like her.

Addendum: the history of the radio transmitter and the signal it transmits is still a mystery to the Museum, as is the method by which it came to be on display here, as the night of Dee’s arrival is the first time anyone here learned of its existence. If you or anyone you know have any information regarding the nature of the radio transmitter or its signal, please state it in a clear tone of voice directly into your playback device after the beep.

BEEP.

Thank you for visiting the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality. We hope that you have enjoyed your visit, and that you will return one day, in this life or the next. Please, tell your friends about what a great time you had here- but don’t tell them too much! If they’re worthy, we’ll find them. Stay safe out there.

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#Narrative #story #horror #fantasy #funny #comedy #thriller #gripping #spooky #fiction #anthology #historical fiction

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letstraveltoorion · 5 years

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Made it through 2018 alive!... Barely

Pfew! What a hellish year that was, both personally and internationally (Trump). I’m still working on the Masters of Orion project for the simple reason it kept me sane throughout this insane year. I didn’t post that much, thought as I was fairly busy and once everything was said and done, I realised I had almost no energy left for the project.

This was caused by many factors:

Personal Issues

As I’ve mentioned a lot of times already, this project is a way to keep me sane. Since 2017, at the heel of multiples personal setbacks, I started to look back at my life and came to the realization on how extensive and deep the psychological damage was. This was not the result of a few mishaps or some isolated incidents but rather years of pushing my mind and body up to the breaking point. Once I understood that, I’ve started the long and arduous process of identifying to damages but more importantly, what caused those damages in the first place to better address them and finally heal myself.

Strangely, I feel like I was a city that went through multiples wars and disaster while maintaining its economic productions… only to realize that I was running on empty for so long… so long that even hope has run dry.

The good news is that I’ve started the process… the bad news, it will be a very slow process before I can fully recover.

World Building.

That said, my second issue is world building. I feel like I’m stuck in a never ending spiral. I watched many tutorial video who warn me about that and I guess I’ve felt into the trap. The thing is, I want my background to be as solid as possible. Mainly to avoid plot hole or any kind of hole in my story. Some people advise to begin small and then expand your universe as you go along. But I do prefer to start big and just work on the details as I build my characters. Thus I’m working many multiple angle of my story at the same time. Here some of the challenges I’m working on:

The Human Republic: Mostly Earth and the solar system at this point. Going from some short stories and official background information, I need to come up with a comprehensive background and origin that will not only fit my story but also have a logical feel into it. The last thing I want is a background full of holes that will be hard to fill later on. Also, I do not want to create an utopian society like Star Trek but something more realistic and somewhat gritty.

Alpha Centauri: I came to realize that since one of my protagonist was from a colony orbiting Alpha Centauri, I needed to flesh out that system earlier than I thought. Out of this, all I can say is: If the Earth of the Human Republic will feel like the current USA in term of economic and policies, Alpha Centauri will feel like Canada.: Small in population (compared to Earth) but big on industrial/economic output and a very strong voice in the Republic’s politic.

Terran Khanate: is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought. Mainly because in order to explain their origin, I MUST complete the background of the Human Republic in the first place… since their origin lays within origin of the Human Republic. I already have a general idea about this but I seriously need to work out the details in a very logical way.

The Bulrathi Empire: Once again, going from sources material, the Bulrathi Empire were deeply involved in the formation of the Human Republic… and since I’ll have two, maybe three Bulrathis as protagonists, I’ll need to flesh out some background before I can even start writing about them. I do have a few ideas thought.

Antagonists: As I started to flesh out my ideas, I came to the conclusions that my story will have to include many antagonist. (Dah) Of course! What I meant is that my story will include three type of them: Those who pertain to the characters directly, those who will target the Human Republic (like the Terran Khanate and other organisations) and, finally, those who will belong to a great evil. A bit like Sauron in the Lords of the Rings, those types of evil will be of a more grandiose nature. Think of them as a storm gathering on the horizon: you know it’s there; you know it will be a matter of time before it will strike but you just don’t know where or when it will happen. And I have a few wacky ideas for those. More to follow.

The HRSS Orion: Believe it or not, I still have a lot of detail to flesh out about that ship. Mainly after I realized that I could not follow the canon established in the game. Mainly because the game represented a more stylized version of stats that are just not compatible with reality. Sure, I just could throw out some random numbers but, I know this will come back to bite me in the butt if I cut corner… at some point. This could be as simple as the layout of the bridge to the size of the storerooms and how many torpedoes the ship’s carry. More complicated than I first thought.

Protagonist: The character creation turn out more complex only because, like actors, they come to me like lost puppies trying to find a home… but the ones that come to me are not the one I can use right away. Some will only come into play much more later in my plot… IF I can reach that stage. So far, I got Jason C. Master, Zuri Azikiwe and Cody Winter. I need more of them if I want to begin my story. I have some idea for other people but no definitive answer as of yet. So it is still a work in progress. But I should start to make some graphic representation of them using Sims 4… for the human at least and maybe the Elerian. For the other non-human characters I’ll have to make do with what I’ll find on the Internet.

Finally, TUMBLR itself! With their purge of the adult content from their site, I must admit I was shaken by this violent suppression of Free Speech in the name of Morality. This is the second purge of the internet I’ve witness since the year 2000. The first one was on Yahoo… which happen to have purchased Tumblr. Coincidence? I don’t know… but I find it strange this purge happened for the same reason… done by the same people. Don’t get me wrong, pedophilia is wrong and must be banned and prosecuted but the way this happened just feel wrong and discriminatory. I feel the damage done to the internet communities will take years if not decades to be repaired. Instead of providing a free space for people to express their opinion or deviancy as a safety valve, it will force those people to hide back into the obscurity where they will fester and create more serious problems that will have to be deal with in a not so distant future. Because of this, I’ve lost my confidence in Tumblr and thinking of changing platform… The options are on the table and I’m looking at them.

2019 will be a year of changes for me. Many ending including my current job and the beginning of a great unknown. And this this project will be what is gonna help me going through this challenging year ahead.

With so much ground to cover in 2019, I guess it is time for me to roll up my sleeves and get down to work.

PS There was a lost of realizations in 2018... I came to notice that as I reviewed what I’ve just wrote... I wonder what 2019 will bring me?

#orion #Master of Orion #MOO #writer's notes #update

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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RIFF 2018: Welcome to Sodom, Over the Limit, Daughter’s Table

If there’s any lesson I plan on gleaning from my time in Iceland, it is to stop hurrying and allow life to move at a slower pace. So laid-back was the waitress at Reykjavík’s Lebowski Bar that I had to chase her down in order to pay my bill. It wasn’t that she was busy, it was that she just didn’t seem all that interested in money. A quartet of Icelandic friends passed the time by quoting “Good Burger” at their table, while Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” played on a large screen nearby. I had never seen Judge’s 2006 dystopian satire before, and though the volume was off, I found the film’s opening moments to be laugh-out-loud funny and unnervingly prescient, even in their subtitled form. Its slapstick portrayal of a “garbage avalanche” foreshadowed the actual one that killed 17 people in Mozambique a mere decade later, and its hellish imagery isn’t all that far removed from the apocalyptic scenery on display in Christian Krönes and Florian Weigensamer’s Austrian documentary, “Welcome to Sodom.”

Ranking high among the most visually arresting achievements at the 2018 Reykjavík International Film Festival, this impeccably lensed picture takes an unflinching look at the place where our laptops and smartphones will likely end up—a sprawling waste dump in Ghana populated by 6,000 men, women and children. Strewn throughout the rubble are familiar items that had once been commonplace in American homes, such as bulky computer monitors. The sheer wastefulness of our quickly outdated machines currently cluttering a site previously comprised of untouched swampland is enough to make one’s blood boil. By creating technology built to not last but be replaced by newer, more expensive models, we have left a toxic heap of debris for people in impoverished corners of the world to clean up. Cinematographer Christian Kermer opens the picture with a 360 degree panoramic view of the vile landscape, stretching as far as the eye can see. The low hum of the brooding score is so evocative of Paul Schrader’s ode to impending environmental catastrophe, “First Reformed,” that I half-expected to see Ethan Hawke’s tormented priest floating above the mountains of discarded tires. Anonymous inhabitants speak in voice-overs juxtaposed against the footage, each providing an eye-opening perspective on how mankind manages to survive in an environment plagued with disease (at one point, a group of guys perform cathartic dance moves that cause spirals of ash to soar from the ground).

As a fiery preacher spews homophobic rhetoric, a man privately reflects on how his identity as a gay man derailed his chances for a successful career, despite being at the top of his class in medical school. With Ghana’s president voicing his desire to behead homosexuals, this scholar-turned-outcast has resigned himself to a life of self-imposed alienation. For him, the dump is a “temporary safe house” where he won’t be able to run the risk of having anyone get to know him on an intimate level. A more extroverted subject makes his living from breaking down broken appliances so that he can gather their basic properties—copper, iron, zinc—ripe for sale. He admits that the location is good for business despite being bad for humanity. The most haunting narration comes from a child who recalls how mankind’s disrespect of the land has left the gods angry—or, according to Werner Herzog, “monumentally indifferent.” As its last third grows increasingly repetitious, it’s clear “Welcome to Sodom” could’ve worked equally well as a short film. It’s not on the same level as the best documentaries screening at the festival—including Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap,” Roger Michell’s “Tea with the Dames,” Alexandria Bombach’s “On Her Shoulders” and Mila Turajlic’s Lux Prize nominee, “The Other Side of Everything”—yet there is considerable worth in its extended length. Like the chameleon that haunts the hypnotic title sequence, the film takes its time, moving slowly enough to let us fully absorb the details of our world that we’d normally choose to overlook.

“There’s no such thing as a healthy professional athlete!” claims gymnast-turned-coach Amina Zaripova, spouting one of the numerous quotable if morally questionable lines in Polish director Marta Prus’ documentary, “Over the Limit.” Examining the relentless emotional and psychological abuse endured by Margarita “Rita” Mamun, the celebrated Russian Olympian in individual rhythmic gymnastics, this film causes one to question if her success occurred as a result of—or in spite of—her coaches’ bullying tactics. No tangible evidence is offered as to whether head coach Irina Viner’s mean-spirited demeanor punctuated by four-letter words had any discernible impact on Mamun’s performance, apart from elevating her stress level through the roof. This may be in part because Prus has little interest in the actual gymnastics, providing only fragmentary glances at the routines while keeping Mamun’s pivotal triumph at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics entirely offscreen. The director’s focus is kept primarily on the 20-year-old subject’s pained expression as she is alternately called a “silly cow” and “brave girl,” depending on how much her effort impresses the coaches. Never mincing her words for the camera, Viner approaches her job like a drill sergeant, believing that athletes cannot be truly built up unless they are broken down. Just as I began likening her in my mind to Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock’s unstable couple in “Best in Show,” Viner exclaimed, “She’s not wound up! We need to train her like a dog.”

If anything, Mamun appears all-too frenzied in her early routines, lacking the slinky self-assurance of her peer and rival, Yana Alexeyevna Kudryavtseva, whose joy is palpable as she dances to Jessica Rabbit’s crooning rendition of “Why Don’t You Do Right?” Viner is correct in assessing that Mamun’s greatest obstacle stems from her mental state, but doesn’t seem to realize that her own schoolyard putdowns have only further damaged the athlete’s confidence. There are shades of the obsessive theatre director from “Madeline’s Madeline” in how Viner violates the young woman’s personal struggles by contorting them into her artistry. Taking advantage of the cancer diagnosis that has hospitalized Mamun’s father—whom we see the gymnast chatting with on a heartrending phone call—Viner orders her to channel the grief prompted by her “dying dad” into the performance. When Zaripova attempts to show affection for Mamun, she is immediately chastised by Viner. In an ideal world, the notion of an entire country’s well-being hinging on the medals it gains in an Olympic contest would be immediately expunged. The undue pressure it places on athletes like Mamun is criminal, and if there’s anything worth cheering about in this picture, it is the athlete’s heroic composure amidst adversity. After hearing one-too-many disparaging expletives from Viner, streamed into the practice room via a monitor, Mamun tosses her ribbon on the ground and walks out of the gym, much to the protestations of her coach. It’s in that moment, more than any other, where she appears primed to win the gold.

The coveted Golden Egg prize is awarded to the best short film at Reykjavík’s film festival, and I’ve been fortunate enough to view three of the worthy contenders. Tomas Leach’s intriguingly titled “Alba: Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into the Future,” is also about a young athlete—in this case, an aspiring dancer—though its style is more in line with “Welcome to Sodom,” allowing the recorded voice of its subject to anchor its assemblage of near-wordless footage. At age 16, the titular girl is already facing the perils of pushing her body to the limit, keeping up with her classes at Spain’s Corella Dance Academy despite a conspicuous pain in her legs. There are no tidy solutions to any of Alba’s lingering questions, as she ponders whether life is simply testing her to see how much she can take. Leach’s vignette recalls how the closure we seek in adulthood never existed in our youth, which was often consumed with a sense of discomfort as our future hung preciously in the air. Another highlight is Hakan Ünal’s Turkish submission, “Crack in the Wall,” a chillingly bleak look at a night-shift janitor’s futile pursuit of spiritual repentance. Wracked with guilt after awakening from an erotic dream, the man bathes himself as the camera stares down at him in stark judgment. Though the film initially seems to be a portrait of sexual repression, a final twist—deftly conveyed by the recurring image of red fingernails—affirms that a much darker sin has been committed.

Easily my favorite short I’ve seen in Reykjavík also happens to be the festival’s unlikeliest crowd-pleaser. South Korean director Heui Son’s 18-minute gem, “Daughter’s Table,” follows three adult sisters as they rush to their mother’s side after receiving news of her ill health. While together, they find themselves falling prone to the same sibling rivalry that characterized their upbringing. This premise would be compelling enough if handled as a straightforward drama, yet Son’s picture takes the form of an exuberant musical comedy, with the sisters breaking into song as they vie for their mother’s approval. The childlike spirit of the piece is appropriate, considering how nothing brings out a grown-up’s inner kid quite like visiting a former home marked by lines on the wall that had previously measured one’s pint-sized height. A trio of girls portraying the younger versions of the sisters are each represented by a bright color that corresponds with their teddy bears spotted in the background. The bouncy music and pleasingly unpolished choreography make this film a complete delight, carrying traces of the poignance perhaps best expressed during the finale of Isao Takahata’s masterpiece, “Only Yesterday.” How Son goes about resolving the mother’s storyline as she's surrounded by her children is an indelible example of pure cinema. Rather than treat difficult subject matter with the heavy hand of a morose dirge, Son crafts a celebration of life, encouraging us to savor the time we share with loved ones, as well as the memories destined to last for generations.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2zRdXcH

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starchild-existence · 7 years

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In The Back of the Lab

Bethany Rider never expected to become a teacher. Let alone a Biology teacher! And yet, that’s where her college education led her.

She looked back on her college years often and wistfully. She’d been a beauty back then, with long dark hair and a sweet face. Beth, she’d been called. She’d had lots of friends and lots of boyfriends, none of them too serious. She got her bachelor in marine biology before realizing how much she hated marine biology. So young Beth had gone back to school and become a teacher.

Beth had ended up in Maine at the ripe old age of twenty-two. It seemed like fate that she ended up teaching at her local high school, Blue River High. After all, she had to pay off her student loans somehow.

And so Bethany Rider taught at that high school for years and years, becoming attached to the job and also falling further into debt. Truly, she was trapped there, without any other job prospects or ways to move on. She supposed that she could leave, if she wanted to, but she didn’t.

Ten years, fifteen, twenty. Bethany grew out of her youthful beauty. Her hair began to frizz instead of curl, her skin began to lose its elasticity. Her waist grew out, and she traded in small dresses for larger, more comfortable pairs of yoga pants. Before Beth knew it, she was Bethany, an older woman without a man. She was past her prime.

It was depressing, really. Bethany had never been too attached to the thought of settling down, but she’d always romantically wished for a husband, a soulmate. Over a decade of teaching didn’t attract men. Youth did.

In her twenty-third year at Blue River High School, Bethany met Oliver Flint Pilgrim.

Oliver Pilgrim became Blue River’s new Chemistry teacher after Mrs. Rowland retired. Bethany overheard two English teachers, Mrs. Black and Mr. Quincy, chatting about it in the last week of August.

“I met him,” Mrs. Black confided. “He came in here last week, moved a bunch of things into his new room. He was positively bursting with energy!”

Bethany rolled her eyes. English teachers. Always so… poetic. But she was intrigued. She walked over, rested one hand on the counter the teachers were leaning on. “Who are you talking about?” she asked.

“Ms. Rider, hello!” Mr. Quincy smiled. “Mrs. Black was just telling me about Mr. Pilgrim. He’s our new Chem teacher.”

“I heard about Mrs. Rowland,” Bethany said, sighing. “It’s a shame she retired…”

“I know you two were close,” Mr. Quincy said. “But I’m sure Mr. Pilgrim will be popular with our students as well.”

“He seems very… energetic.” Mrs. Black giggled, hiding her mouth behind a perfectly manicured set of nails. Bethany fought back a surge of annoyance.

“You’ll be working with him, since your rooms are right next to each other,” Mr. Quincy said. “It might not be a bad idea to get to know him before school is in session.”

“School is always in session, Mr. Quincy.” Bethany gave him a tight smile, ignoring Mrs. Black. “If you’ll excuse me…”

Bethany went back to her room, stewing. Teachers like Mrs. Black pissed her off.

Four days before class started, Bethany decided to clean up her room. Partially. At least forty percent of the way. Maybe thirty. (Okay, at least twenty-five.)

She set about the room, grabbing stray papers and textbooks. She stacked the books on one shelf and tossed the papers into the recycling bin. Bethany looked over her shoulder at the cluttered room and heaved a sigh.

“Need a hand?”

Bethany jumped, head whipping around. Standing in the doorway was a skinny man, not much taller than her. His hair was sandy brown, greying in parts, and stuck out in all directions, and he was wearing thin-rimmed, rectangular glasses.

“Who are you?” she blurted.

“Oliver Flint Pilgrim,” he said, very quickly.

“Are you the new Chemistry teacher?” Bethany immediately felt like an idiot.

“Yep, yep, that’s me!” He grinned and looked around her room, one time and then again. His attentiveness was a bit… off-putting.

Finally, she had the common sense to go over and shake his hand. “I’m Bethany Rider, the Biology teacher.” She offered him her hand. “Good to meet you.”

He grasped her hand, grip firmer than she expected. “Good to meet you, too. You were cleaning your room just now, right? Do you need any help?”

He said all that too fast for her to understand him. She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you need any help?”

“Oh, no, I’m alright.” Against her will, she flushed. “It’s my fault everything’s such a mess. I’m a slob.”

“Well, if you ever want to clean, I’ll help you.” Mr. Pilgrim’s grin flashed quickly, like dry lightning. “See you later!” And he was gone.

Like dry lightning, his smile lit her on fire. Bethany leaned back on a desk, staring at the empty doorway and feeling like she’d been hit over the head with something heavy.

“Welcome back to school.” Bethany looked out over the desks of her homeroom. “I know you’re all just bursting with enthusiasm to be back-” A few titters. “-but I need you to listen up now. There have been some schedule changes concerning lunch-”

There was a loud sound that Bethany recognized as the sound of a door banging open. It wasn’t her classroom door, and it wasn’t her supply room door, so…

She turned and saw the door next to her desk was flung open, the door that connected to the Chemistry room. Mr. Pilgrim was standing there, eyes a bit wild.

“C-can I…?” Bethany almost choked on her words, but pulled herself together. “Can I help you…?”

“How do I take attendance?!?” he whispered.

The class burst out laughing.

Bethany helped Mr. Pilgrim with his computer, and everything was back to normal. His homeroom laughed and teased him a little, and he laughed it off good-naturedly.

“I trust everyone’s first week has gone well,” Principal Wright said, standing from his seat at the head of the table. “As everyone knows, the lunch schedule has been shifted around, but the students seem to be settling into the routine.”

The next ten minutes were of the same caliber. Bethany focused on not falling asleep, which was a struggle. Staff meetings were terribly dull, especially when nobody talked to you. The science department wasn’t exactly forefront in the eyes of the school system.

“Students of the month!” Principal Wright clapped his hands together, startling the vast majority of the table out of a stupor. “Does anyone have a freshman to nominate?”

Mr. Wynn stood up, brushing his hair back from his face in a showy, obnoxious gesture. “Thea Cannon, freshman. She’s been great in my class, an 98 on the first chapter quiz. She’s a natural at Spanish.”

“She moved to Maine from Mexico two years ago,” Mr. Quincy said.

Mr. Wynn deflated. “Oh.”

“Thea Cannon.” Principal Wright made a note on his clipboard. “Any more girls? A boy?”

Bethany tuned him out again.

“Juniors?” the principal asked. “Come on, everyone. We need to nominate some juniors.”

Thinking back to her AP Biology class, Bethany spoke up. “Troye Martell, junior. He is trying really hard in my class - he shows real drive to succeed.”

“Or to pass your hellish class,” someone muttered.

“Quiet!” Principal Wright barked. (Everyone knew that Ms. Rider’s AP Biology class was one of the hardest classes offered at Blue River.)

Bethany crossed her arms and looked out a window at the school parking lot. It wasn’t her fault that the material in her class was so difficult, or that many of her students didn’t bother studying for tests. (It was kind of her fault that she got behind on grading.)

“Anyone else?”

“Ondine Heath,” came a familiar voice.

Everyone turned to see Mr. Pilgrim standing in the doorway.

“She shows great potential in my class,” he said.

“Mr. Pilgrim, is it?” Sarcasm dripped from Principal Wright’s words. “We are looking for more than “potential” when choosing Students of the Month.”

Bethany bit her lip. That seemed a bit unfair.

Mr. Pilgrim shrugged one shoulder and half-grinned. “Ondine is a pleasure to have in class. She’s bright and helpful.”

“How are her grades?” the principal asked.

“Is this process determined solely by grades?” the teacher shot back.

“A significant portion of it!”

Bethany could see this was about to spiral out of control. She knew the principal was stubborn as a grease stain. Bethany stood up.

“Criteria for Student of the Month is very loose, isn’t it?” She put up her hands in the universal symbol of surrender. “I’ve met Ondine - she comes into my homeroom every once in awhile to help her friends with their work. She seems like a very bright girl.”

“Very many very’s,” some English teacher muttered behind Bethany’s back. She gritted her teeth but kept her gaze leveled at Principal Wright.

“Alright, fine!” Principal Wright threw up his hands. “Ondine Heath for juniors. The science branch in action!”

Most of the teachers around the table snickered, but Bethany was looking at Mr. Pilgrim. He was looking at her, too. He smiled, eyes twinkling.

She smiled back, and suddenly she was Beth again, young and beautiful. Her heart pounded.

Then somebody clapped their hands, and the spell was broken.

Mr. Pilgrim’s first lockdown wasn’t pretty, either.

“Everyone, please go into lockdown mode,” someone boomed over the loudspeaker.

“Alright, everybody over here.” Bethany shooed her students over to the corner of the classroom.

“Is it a drill, Ms. Rider?” one sophomore asked excitedly.

Bethany always hated to burst their bubbles. “I don’t know,” she lied, even though she knew full well it was.

As she flicked the lights off, somebody banged on her classroom door. All the students yelped good-naturedly.

Bethany opened the door, and Mr. Pilgrim was standing there, a familiar sheepish look on his face.

“Hello,” she said.

“Is this a drill?” he asked.

“Did you read the email?”

“No…”

“Yes, it’s a drill,” she said. “In the future, if you’re uncertain, you shouldn’t leave your classroom…”

“Ah, yes, I knew that.” He flashed her a grin. “So, do I, well, where do the kids go?”

“In the corner of your classroom, away from the windows and doors,” she said patiently. “Didn’t they go over this in orientation?”

“Probably,” he said, cheery as ever. “Thanks!”

It turned out that when the principal came to his door to give the all-clear, Mr. Pilgrim had had his students smush into his office… and accidentally locked himself in with them. Bethany couldn’t stop laughing for at least five minutes.

To celebrate the end of Mr. Pilgrim’s first year, Bethany invited him to send his students over to her classroom to watch a movie on energy conservation. The students had griped and groaned about that, but when Bethany told them they could bring their own snacks, they perked up a little.

She turned on the movie and went through the door connecting their rooms. “Everyone’s settled in,” she said.

He stood up from his desk and shut his laptop. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“What can I say? We could all use a break once in a while.”

“I love my AP Chem kids,” he said, “but they can really be a pain in the neck sometimes.”

“Same with my AP Bio kids.” Bethany thought about casually leaning against the wall but decided against it. Her blouse was already rumpled enough.

Mr. Pilgrim smiled. “A whole hour, now. What could we possibly do to fill it?”

Bethany did her utmost best to ignore the innuendo, and tried not to wonder how intentionally it had been said. “I should do some cleaning, but since the kids are in my room…”

“Well, we could try and clean mine, but.” He didn’t bother finishing his sentence, glancing out at the lab. His room was spotless.

“Your room doesn’t need any cleaning, Mr. Pilgrim!” Bethany knew her joke was weak at best.

“Oh, don’t call me that!” His eyes twinkled, and his grin was infectious. “We’re partners, basically! Call me Oliver.”

“Oliver,” she said.

They stared at each other for a minute. The weak fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Then, a girl banged open the classroom door. Bethany nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Xavier fell asleep and hit his head off the desk,” the girl said.

Oliver sighed. “He does have a habit of concussing himself, doesn’t he?”

The moment was gone. Bethany rushed after Oliver, hoping there wasn’t any blood. Then she’d have to stop the movie and the kids would complain.

“So, Open House!” Oliver rubbed his hands together. “Should I dress up? I can wear a plaid button-down!”

“You wear plaid button-downs every day,” Bethany pointed out.

“I got a new one at Reny’s the other day,” he said. “It’s blue with black plaid.”

Bethany held back a smile as Oliver bustled into his office and came out with two mugs. “Coffee?”

“No thanks, I’m trying to break off my addiction,” she said.

“Tea, then?”

Tea still has caffeine in it, but Bethany pretended it didn’t. “Why not?”

He turned on his little electric kettle and ran water into it.

“Aren’t we not supposed to have beverages in the laboratory?” Bethany teased him.

“Says the lady who eats Subway sandwiches in her classroom every day,” he shot back.

Bethany narrowed her eyes at him.

“I took out your garbage last night,” he said. And before Bethany could think of a witty response, he whirled back into his office. “What about Open House?” he called. “What should I wear?”

“I don’t think it really matters that much.”

“Maybe I’ll wear a bowtie,” he mused, handing her a mug of tea from seemingly nowhere. “I’m bad about tying regular ties.”

“I could teach you,” Bethany offered.

He winked. “Maybe another time!” Oliver took a swig of coffee and his eyes bugged out of his head. “Hot!” He made sounds like a dying dragon.

Every day he surprised her. Bethany tried not to grin and failed, again. Every day was a miracle hanging out with Oliver.

#original work #short story #unfinished #i wrote this based on two real people now that i think about it

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