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fandom-imagines-stories · 3 years

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Meet the Mikaelsons

Enzo St. John x Mikaelson Reader

Words: 2363

Part 2 of 4: Part One

Summary: The engagement is official! You and your new fiance, Enzo, travel down to the spot of the big day; New Orleans. With wedding plans already in mind, your announcement to your family goes much better than Enzo expected. Now all he has to do is survive your brothers until the ceremony.

Note: This might be my favorite chapter to write for the fact that I get to come up with the Mikaelsons’ reaction to the reader getting married. Especially to Enzo. Plus some Klaus drama and precious Elijah? My cup of tea, and I hope that it is yours as well! (Repost: I forgot how much I love writing Elijah and Klaus! Reading this made me so nostalgic. I know that Vampire Diaries/Originals doesn’t get read as much anymore, but I really hope there are some of you out there that love them as much as I do.)

Road trips with Enzo were always some of your favorite memories. Whether it was belting to the music on the radio or just riding in silence, listening to each other’s breathing move along with the hum of the engine, they always managed to bring a smile to your face, as well as his.

But the buzz of the road died as soon as your bags hit the sidewalk outside the compound. The city sounds fell deaf on your ears, turned off by the sound of your heartbeat. The last time you were here, it was to scatter the ashes of your oldest brother Finn. Enzo had helped numb the ache that came from missing your siblings, but now, standing merely feet away from seeing them again, the feeling was almost unbearable. Excitement and worry mixed within you to the point that it was suffocating. Seeing the look on your face, Enzo gently grabbed your hand and gave you a small smile.

“It’s alright love.” He slowly led you into the entrance. You gripped the bars of the gate and looked around inside.

“Freya?” You called into the courtyard. At first, there was just that still silence, but then the clicking of footsteps cut through the quiet. The oldest Mikaelson came into your view, curiosity spread across her features.

“Y/N?” She shrieked excitedly. With a wave of her hand, the gate opened and you were captured in your sister’s embrace. She pulled you further into the compound, but you stopped her.

“Um, I brought a guest.” You stepped to the side, revealing the terrified vampire behind you. Enzo waved awkwardly, waiting to be invited inside. Freya watched him cautiously.

“Come in.” She said slowly. He stepped across the threshold and laced his fingers through yours again. You ignored her skeptical glances at your fiance and pulled her into your arms.

“I’ve missed you so much.” You breathed into her blonde hair. It was shorter than it was the last time you last saw her. Tears welled in your eyes, taking in every sound of the compound, filling your head with them. You were home.

Freya stepped away from you.

“I’ve missed you too, little sister.” She smiled brightly at you, then turned her attention to Enzo. “And who, may I ask, is this?” He started to introduce himself, but yet another voice cut him off.

“Y/N!” Rebekah sped over to you and nearly tackled you to the ground with an infamous bear hug. “You know it’s rude to visit without calling us first.” She scolded playfully.

“I wanted it to be a surprise!” You laughed. There was a light murmur coming from upstairs. Three people in a deep conversation. “And the boys are arguing, no doubt?” She smirked.

“They won’t be once they see that you’re here.” You placed a hand on your younger sister’s face.

“When has that ever stopped them before?” You snickered. Like Freya, her eyes fell on Enzo, her head cocking to the side.

“And who might this heartbreaker be?” She asked. Enzo put on his dashing grin and bowed.

“Lorenzo St. John. Friends call me Enzo.” He greeted. You couldn’t help the smile creeping onto your face. He was quite the charmer. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Rebekah shook his hand. Enzo tried not to wince at her incredibly strong grip.

“I’ve heard about you, Enzo. I have some friends back in Mystic Falls, and they tell me that you’re a troublemaker.” Rebekah stepped closer to him, her expression a dare for him to retaliate and give her a reason to tear him to pieces. He chuckled.

“Yes well, from what I’ve been told, I should fit right in here.” Rebekah raised an eyebrow at his confidence. You snickered. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘Fair enough’ and sat down on the sofa. Enzo whispered. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“She wasn’t the one you needed to worry about.”

Your eyes darted upsards as your three brothers emerged from the room above you, looking down into the courtyard, their expressions menacingly serious. Your heart was beating faster than you could speed up the stairs and into Elijah’s waiting arms.

“Elijah! How I’ve missed you.” The tears were openly streaming down your face as he held the back of your head in his hand, his other arm wrapped tightly around you. Behind him, someone coughed in annoyance. The two of you pulled away.

“No, no, continue.” Kol crossed his arms in a dramatic fashion. “It’s not like I’m her twin brother or anything…” Laughing through your tears of happiness, you ruffled Kol’s hair and hugged him as well.

“Are you ready to cause mischief for our siblings?” You challenged, your twin grinning maniacally.

“Always, dear sister.” He cheered. You turned to greet the third brother, but Klaus was still staring down into the courtyard at a semi-nervous Enzo.

“How rude of you Y/N, to not introduce us to our new guest.” Klaus turned to you, eyebrows raised and hands clasped behind his back. You placed a loving kiss on his cheek.

“I missed you too, Nik.” You leaped over the railing, landing gracefully on your feet. You wrapped your arm around Enzo. “Everyone, this is Enzo.” A deep breath filled you with confidence as you looked up at your brothers. “We are engaged.”

At first there was a shocked silence, but to everyone’s surprise, Klaus’ laughter rang through the compound.

“No you’re not.” He grinned wildly at the two of you and poured himself a drink.

“Yes we are, Nik.” You scoffed. He shook his head, still chuckling deeply. “What? Why is that such an impossible thought?”

“Because I know you, Y/N. You’re not exactly the type to chain yourself to one person for eternity. Especially not someone you met in dreary Mystic Falls.”

“Well I think we both know that people in Mystic Falls can be quite charming. Isn’t that right, Klaus?” You snapped. His face went red. You knew very well about his infatuation with Caroline. Elijah shifted uncomfortably, keeping his eyes solely on you. Kol jumped down to join you, throwing an arm around your shoulder.

“This calls for celebration! Not only has the prodigal sister returned, she has brought a new member to the family. I say we all head to Rousseau's for a drink.” He proposed, but the rest of the family wasn’t as sure.

“You don’t care what is going on as long as it means a round of drinks, do you?” Rebekah snapped at her wily older brother. She turned to you, and her scowl slowly spread into a smile. “But I suppose a wedding wouldn’t be such a bad idea…” You squealed with excitement and pulled her into another bear hug. “What can I say; I’m a hopeless romantic.” You pulled away and shot Enzo a look as if to say ‘I told you’. Elijah slowly walked down the stairs, not saying a word, his expression unreadable.

“Eli?” You stepped towards him cautiously. Of all of your siblings, you wanted his approval the most. Of course, you wanted everyone to love Enzo as much as you did, but Elijah was different. He would hide his true feelings if it meant pleasing everyone else. You just wanted him to be deeply and truly happy for you. After a moment of your stares, he finally smirked and shrugged his shoulders. He took your face in his hands and softly kissed your forehead with a small smile.

“I’m just happy you’re home.”

“Thank you thank you thank you!” You squealed, wrapping your arms around your big brother’s neck. He chuckled and shot Klaus a warning glance over your shoulder. He held up his hands innocently with a coy smile.

“What do you say…” Klaus was off of the balcony and in front of him in a blink. “Enzo?” He questioned, taking a step towards the much younger vampire. Through his nerves, Enzo smiled back, flashing his teeth.

“Drinks on me.”

After a round of bourbon and whiskey, the whole family settled back to the compound for the night, with you and Enzo taking your usual room. You flopped down onto the bed, giggling like a little schoolgirl. Enzo laid down next to you, grinning at your happiness.

“I can’t believe I’m home!” You sighed merrily. Enzo played with a strand of your hair, twirling it around his finger.

“I can definitely see that I have my work cut out for me.” He smirked. You bit your lip.

“You hate them, don’t you.” You pouted, running your fingers through your hair. “I know that they can be difficult and dramatic but-”

“I don’t hate your family.” Enzo interrupted, his deep laugh sending waves through you. “I just don’t think they like me very much.”

“They’ll learn to love you, I promise.” You pulled him into a deep, passionate kiss. “I’m just worried Klaus won’t let them have the chance.”

“So am I.” He muttered. A knock at the door alerted you both. You scrambled away from your fiancé.

“Come in!” You shouted and the knob turned. Elijah stepped into the room and you could practically feel Enzo’s relief. Elijah sensed his nervousness as well and smirked.

“I hope that you are feeling at home, Lorenzo. I know that we can be…difficult to adjust to.” He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, like he had some great matter to discuss. “Y/N, I was wondering if I could have a word with you before you settled in for the night.”

“Uh, yeah.” You said, feeling slightly skeptical. Enzo shook his head frantically, worrying that this may be a plot to get him in the room alone so that Klaus could pounce. You shot him a glare before following your brother into the library down the hall.

“I see that your fiancé isn’t quite used to Niklaus’ hospitality.” Elijah chuckled. You cringed.

“Yeah… I think they just need a little time.”

“I believe a few decades will do.” He noted with a smile. The two of you laughed. His expression became serious. “Y/N, I am not going to try and change your mind about marrying Lorenzo.” You opened your mouth to object, but he cut you off with a wave of his hand. “I just hope you know what you’re getting into.”

“I’ve lived for a thousand years, Eli. I think I know that marriages can be difficult.” You scoffed. Elijah sighed.

“That is not what I meant.” He watched you intensely. “You are bringing him into our family. Our enemies will become his. Lorenzo is much more vulnerable than you and I. He can be killed just as easily as any other vampire.”

“Enzo knows all of this. And he can handle himself.” You protested. “Besides, we will be there to protect him.” Elijah put a hand on your shoulder.

“I want you to be happy, Y/N. I truly do.” He looked deeply into your eyes, trying to get his point across. “I simply don’t want to see you lose Lorenzo the way Hayley lost Jackson.” You remembered the day that Hayley called you to tell you that Jackson had been killed. You had grown close to the kind werewolf, and finding out about his death had been crushing.

“You’re right.” You sighed, closing your eyes so you weren’t looking into your brother’s concerned stare anymore. “I hadn’t even really thought of the danger I would be putting him in....” You blew out a long frustrated breath. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I mean, what was I really thinking? That I could just force him into our family? I thought that it would fix everything but maybe I just wanted to rush into this so he couldn’t run away. Maybe I should just call everything off. Let him find someone who’s rivalries don’t extend back to the 12th century.” You ranted until you were out of breath.

He was right, of course. Your noble big brother was always right. Enzo didn’t just have Klaus to worry about, though he was certainly a big enough problem on his own. Your panic was evident and you started to pace. Elijah grabbed your arms and forced you to look at him again.

“Y/N, do you love him?” He questioned, taking you off guard.

“What?”

“It is a simple question, dear sister.” He laughed. “Do you love Lorenzo?” You took a deep breath.

“Of course I love him, Elijah. I asked him to marry me!” You exclaimed. “But-”

“Marry him.” He interrupted. “If there is one thing I have learned from loving Hayley, it is that we never know which day could be our last together. I wake up everyday knowing that I could lose her. But when I see her next to me, I realize that we must cherish what we have instead of living in the fear of losing it.” He placed a caring hand on your cheek.

“Is this your way giving me your blessing?” You asked, feeling slightly confused.

“I suppose you could call it that.” He smirked and you nearly tackled him in a hug. You pulled away.

“There is one more thing I need you to do.” You bit your lip anxiously. “Make sure that Nik doesn’t make a massacre of my future husband?”

“I’ll do my best.” Elijah snickered. “And do make sure he doesn’t do anything to aggravate Niklaus.”

“Klaus would be more infuriated if he didn’t put up a fight.” You grinned and started out of the library door. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Elijah called back. “And do keep the noise down. We do all have enhanced hearing, remember?”

You laughed as you raced back down the hall into your room. Enzo was pacing in front of the bed, nerves clearly still on edge. When he saw you, his eyes immediately went wide.

“What did he-” He started, but he was quickly interrupted by your ecstatic kiss, knocking him over onto the bed. He pushed you back, surprised by your sudden enthusiasm. “Y/N, what did your brother say?”

“We’re going to be married!” You squealed, coming in for another kiss.

Keep Reading to: Get Me to the Church On Time

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination; @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks

#enzo st. john x reader #lorenzo st john #elijah mikaelson #mikaelson reader #klaus mikaelson #always and forever #the originals #the vampire diaries #i love my vampire boys #michael malarkey #Daniel Gillies #Joseph Morgan #rebekah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #freya mikaelson

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snelbz · 4 years

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Puppy Love {Elorcan Angst/Smut}

A/N: Collab with @tacmc. Let’s be honest. This is pure smut with a thinly veiled plot. And we have no shame.

WC: 5,161

Lorcan’s fist slammed against the door again, the reverberations shooting up his arm and causing the pictures on the wall to rattle.

“Open the fucking door, Elide!”

There was no response from inside.

The silence only made it worse, only made him angrier, only made him panicked.

“Elide,” he said, voice low, trying a calmer approach, but it only made his hands shake at his sides.

He waited.

Took a deep breath.

Two.

Nothing.

He slammed on the door, continuously, wanting to break it down, but using his fist as cordially as he could muster, instead.

“Elide, I’m sorry, okay? I’m so fucking sorry.”

The words had flowed from his mouth before he could stop them, constantly said by his friends on the team, but as a joke.

The lack of reply told him everything he needed to know.

He heard the key in the front door behind him, but it was already unlocked, and the door opened freely.

Manon and Asterin Blackbeak entered the apartment, the cousins’ eyes narrowing as they saw him standing outside Elide’s bedroom door.

“What are you doing here, Lorcan?”

“Fuck off,” he muttered, knocking on Elides bedroom, once again.

“Go home,” Manon snapped, walking up beside him and pushing him out of the way. “El? It’s Manon. We brought you food.”

They waited for a moment, but still nothing came. Manon slowly turned to Lorcan, golden eyes narrowed. Asterin had taken a seat on the couch, clearly ready to watch the show.

“Why are you still here?” Manon asked, voice low, the to go box with Elide’s breako clutched in her hands. “I told you to go home.”

“I’m here for Eli-.”

“I know why you’re here, but this is my apartment, too, and I’m telling you to go home,” she said, voice rising with every word.

Before Lorcan could reply, which was probably for the best, the door creaked open slightly.

Manon surged forward, entering before Lorcan, but he looked in. And what he saw made his chest crack in two.

Elide’s eyes were red and puffy. She glanced up at him, and he could see the pain his words had caused.

He hadn’t known she was there, she’d told him she wasn’t coming to the party because she would be studying for their bio chem exam. The game of Never Have I Ever started out innocently enough, teammates asking about stupid pranks and injuries. And then one of them had to bring up Elide.

“Be honest, Salvaterre. You’ve hit that, right?”

Gods, only in his wildest dreams. But he couldn’t tell them that. He had a reputation to uphold.

“Of course not, have you seen her?” He’d taken a drink from his beer, draining the cup, and although his friends’ eyes had gone wide, he’d assumed it was just due to the bluntness of his words. He continued. “She’s cute, but she’s too cute. It’d be like fucking a puppy.”

He stood, heading for the keg for a refill.

And she’d been standing there, in the doorway, tears already streaming down her beautiful face.

Lorcan froze, unsure of what to do next. He wanted to run to her, but that hesitation cost him. She shook her head and ran herself, fleeing the party and getting far as hell away from him.

Now, the next morning, sober enough to get to her, Lorcan was in her apartment, heart breaking at the damage he’d caused.

“Elide,” he said, breathing her name, his eyes widening at her distress, but she just shook her head and went to close the door.

But he stopped it with his hand and took a step toward her.

“I’m sorry, okay?” He whispered. “Please, just, give me a minute to explain.”

“If you enjoy having those fingers,” Manon crooned, the words a promise rather than a threat, “you’ll let go of the door before I shut them in it.”

He bared his teeth. “I don’t recall you being a part of this, Blackbeak.”

Her golden eyes were damn near glowing with anger. “You made me a part of this when you made her cry.”

The door slammed shut, and if Lorcan hadn’t jerked his hand back at the last second, Manon’s promise would have been fulfilled.

“Why don’t you run back home to your dogs?” Asterin asked from behind him.

His shoulders slumped as he ran his hands frustratingly through his dark, tangled hair. He slowly turned to face her, all the anger having faded. Now, he was just tired. Now, he just felt like shit. Now, he had lost his best friend, the woman he was in love with, and wasn’t going anywhere until she spoke to him.

“I’m not leaving until I talk to her,” he said, making sure his voice was loud enough to be heard through the door, but keeping his calm.

“You’re not welcome here,” she said, her voice sharp. “And your name isn’t on the lease. So I suggest you get out before we call-.”

Elide’s bedroom door opened and Manon stepped out. If looks could kill, he’d be a dead man. “If I hear so much as one sob from her, if I hear her crying at all, I will come in there and I will personally rip your balls off one by one and feed them to you.”

Lorcan’s eyebrow rose and rather than be concerned for his own safety, he was wondering what kind of kinky shit Dorian Havilliard was into if these were the kind of threats his fiancée made.

Elide stood in her doorway, clearly waiting for him to enter, but she wouldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t look up from the fuzzy Christmas socks she wore, regardless of the fact that it was barely October.

He entered the room and Elide shut the door and locked it. She said nothing, leaning against her desk and crossing her arms over her chest.

Lorcan wasn’t sure to begin. There were a million things he wanted to say, a million things he should say, but none of them were coming out. Instead, a horrendous amount of stuttering was taking place when he opened his lips to attempt an apology. “Elide... I... Look... just- th-I...” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He had never been good at apologizing - he’d had very little practice. It definitely wasn’t something he was known for.

When he opened his eyes, once again, Elide was watching him, but he quickly broke her gaze. He’d been in her room countless times, but this time felt different. Not only because he was an asshole and couldn’t make it right, but because he wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and lay her down, apologize with his actions instead of his words, but that was a pointless ideology to have.

“El,” he began, again, speaking slower so that his words didn’t get jumbled. “I fucked up and I’m sorry, oka-.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked, her voice nothing more than a whisper. The pain in her eyes was unbearable, but Lorcan deserved to look at the pain he’d caused, even if it felt like a punch in his gut. “Why would you say that about me?”

He sighed, dragging his hand through his hair again. “Because I was trying to save face. Because I was trying to uphold my tough guy reputation. And-.”

“And you could never do that with me, because it’d be too cute?” Her voice was like ice, he’d never heard her so cold.

“That came out wrong, it’s not-.”

She laughed and it sounded so much like Galathynius that he cringed slightly. “How does it’d be like fucking a puppy come out right, Lorcan?” He was ashamed because she was absolutely right. “Just admit you got caught being an asshole and-.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do’,” he said, his voice raising of its own accord. “That’s exactly what you caught me doing! And I’m trying to apologize. What I said was fucked up.”

“It’s not even that it was fucked up, Lorcan.” She shook her head and chewed on her lip. “It’s that you said it. My best friend, my Lorcan, would never say that about me.”

She was right. Lorcan ran a hand down his face and stared at his feet. She was right. She deserved better than that. She deserved someone who would never say such a thing, whether he came to regret it or not. His apologies meant nothing, because she deserved people in her life who didn’t have to apologize.

“You’re right,” he breathed, refusing to meet her gaze. “You’re right, and I can apologize all I want to, but it won’t really make a difference, will it?” He looked up at her then, and those tears continued to stream silently down her face. “I went home after you left last night and I laid in bed and I couldn’t fucking sleep and all I could think about was the look on your face when I turned around and saw you there. I hurt you, Elide, and I usually don’t feel bad about the shit that I do, but when I saw the look on your face…” His words trailed off, and he shook his head. “I realized that when I leave this place in a year, everything I’ve done to uphold the reputation of what this fucked up school expects me to be will mean nothing. When I’m gone from here, I may be known as a good football player, sure, but what’s the point of that? I realized, last night, after being a complete dick, was that I don’t care about any of that. When I’m gone from here, Elide, the only thing that I want to take with me is you. Not my reputation or my legacy or whatever the fuck else. Just you.”

She was shaking her head, the tears coming faster and faster. “We’ve been friends for years, Lorcan. You’ve been my best friend since I was fifteen and I have never imagined you talked about me like that when I wasn’t there. Is that how Rowan talks about Aelin?” Lorcan opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “Of course he isn’t. Because he doesn’t give a shit what people think about him. He loves her and he wants every person he meets to know it. And with how we’ve been recently, I thought maybe you-.” Her voice broke and she shook her head. “Nevermind.”

He knew what she was about to say. For the past few weeks, it hadn’t been their entire group of friends hanging out. It had just been them.

It started out studying for a quiz, but then they decided to grab lunch. She asked if he wanted to meet for coffee. He asked if she needed a ride to class. There had been more accidental touches, less awkward silences. Things between them had finally felt...right.

And now he’d gone and fucked it up.

“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” he breathed.

But she was shaking her head as she took a slow, shaky breath. “Just lea-.”

“No,” he interrupted. It was the one thing he wouldn’t do. “Don’t tell me to leave, Elide, I’m not going anywhere until I make this right, I have to make this right, let me make this right.”

“There is nothing to make up for, Lor,” she said, quietly, her voice small. “Just….please, leave.”

He didn’t.

He stayed put, exactly where he was and said, “I love you. I’ve loved you for years, but I never knew how to tell you.”

She was shaking her head. “You’re just saying that to try and-.”

“If you think I’d use your feelings for me like that, you don’t know me.”

“I feel like I don’t!” She said, tears falling again, though they’d never really stopped. “Fuck, do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you tell me that you love me? And now you say it and I can’t even tell if you mean it.”

Lorcan ran his hands down his face and let out a deep, frustrated growl. “Damn it, Elide! You know me! You’ve known me for years! How many times have I ever told anyone that I’ve loved them?” He took a step closer to her, hesitantly, but to his satisfaction and relief, she didn’t back away. “I am so in love with you. I’m an idiot, and an asshole, and you deserve a hell of a lot better than me, El, but I fucking love you, am so undeniably in love with you.”

She didn’t move, didn't blink, hardly breathed.

“I love you,” he repeated, quietly.

She was quiet for a long while, and Lorcan could see the internal battle going on in those dark eyes. But when she finally spoke, the words she whispered were the last thing he expected.

“Prove it.”

He didn’t give himself time to think, didn’t stop to consider whether there was another way to show her how much he cared. He closed the last couple of steps between them and pressed his lips to hers, not as gentle as he’d imagined their first kiss would be, but he didn’t care. He just needed to show her how much he cared.

And if he couldn’t do that with his words, he’d do that with his actions.

She gasped at the contact, her body going rigid at first, but it soon relaxed. His tongue slipped inside of her mouth, between her lips, brushing alongside her own, as her hands wrapped around his neck. He pulled her closer to him, his arms snaking around her waist, his mouth crushing against hers with such desperation that he had to remind himself to breathe.

He kissed her again and again, slowly, passionately, his teeth clashing against hers. He should probably calm down, probably be more gentle, take it slower, but he couldn’t convince himself to.

He had wanted to kiss her for far too long.

He pulled away, his forehead pressed against hers and breathed, “Do you believe me now?”

She didn’t say a word, couldn’t remember her own name. The only thing she could do was lean up on her toes and crash her lips against hers again.

Lorcan practically growled as he knitted his hand into her hair and their words were no longer needed.

His back was straining from where he was having to lean down to kiss her, so his hands made a slow, deliberated path down her body, until he was cupping her ass. He lifted her and she gasped, legs wrapping around his waist.

Elide’s back pressed up against the door as he kissed her and her hands dove into his hair. His lips left hers and instead trailed kisses down her neck, to the hollow of her throat and then to spot where her neck met her shoulder and he sucked. The quiet moan that fell from her lips had his teeth biting down on the soft skin, his tongue soothing the ache a moment later.

There was a banging next to her head. “Are you fucking kidding me, El?”

Lorcan’s head snapped up, meeting Elide’s bright, humored eyes and her pale, flushed cheeks.

“Fuck off,” Lorcan called back, but his tone was light as he met Elide’s lips with his own.

If they were bothered by the sweet little moans coming out of her mouth now, Lorcan couldn’t wait for their reaction when she was screaming his name.

Elide was smiling into his mouth as she pulled on his shirt, a silent question with no hesitation. Lorcan leaned back, pressing her up against the wall with his hips as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

Elide had seen him shirtless before, at the beach and pool parties and while he practiced football, but she had never reached out and traced the tattoo across his chest as she was doing now. Lorcan’s eyes closed, enthralled by her featherlike touch against his skin.

They heard someone call, “Traitor!” before a bedroom door closed down the hall.

When he opened his eyes, he found her staring at him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. He reached out, skimming his thumb over the flush high on her cheekbone and then down to that sinful lip. He worked it out from her teeth and whispered, “What do you want, Elide?”

He had imagined this for so long, spent some many nights with his hand wrapped around his cock, pretending it was hers. But he wouldn’t pressure her into anything, wanted her to make that decision on her own. Because, gods, he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to make her moan loud enough for the witches down the hall to hear. But he’d wait if she wasn’t ready.

“You,” she breathed. “All of you. Now.”

The slight whimper in her tone, laced into those words, had him instantly hard. He carried her to the foot of her bed and gently laid her down before climbing on top of her, his lips finding hers once more.

“Are you sure?” He asked, terrified to ask it, but felt he had to. And yet, he didn’t break contact with her lips.

“Yes,” she begged, and that was all the permission he needed.

His hips fell into hers and she gasped from the feel of him as his hand snaked up her stomach, to her breast, underneath her old tee.

She wasn’t wearing a bra so there was nothing to stop him from palming her breast and gently tweaking a nipple. The gasp that left her had him grinding his hips into hers and pulling back to look down at her.

His hand left her chest to grab the hem of her shirt - his high school football shirt, he realized with a purr of male satisfaction - and lifted it, revealing those magnificent breasts he’d always tried so hard not to stare at whenever they were even minutely displayed. But now he could stare all he wanted, he could drink in his fill of the expanse of tan skin in front of him. Of the dark pink nipples, peaked in the air, just begging for his teeth to tug on them.

He observed her, worshipped her with his eyes as they grazed over her breasts, her abdomen, down to the leggings that began at her waist. His hand slid beneath her ass as his lips trailed down her neck, between her breasts, over that peaked nipple where his lips wrapped around and he sucked, lightly.

Her slim fingers tangled into his messy hair as her breathing quickened. Lorcan’s teeth tugged her nipple, ever so slightly, as he pushed down the waistband of her leggings.

Elide lifted her ass to help, her little sign of permission.

Lorcan gripped the fabric and ripped them off, tossing them to the side and letting his fingers play up and down the insides of her thighs. With every pass, he moved closer and closer to the apex of her thighs, and she writhed more and more as he teased her. She whimpered and he pulled back to look at her, a smirk on his lips.

She sat up, pulling her shirt over her head and hooking her thumbs in the lace boy shorts she was wearing. She scooted to the head of the bed, her back hitting her pillows, and she opened her legs for him.

She was completely bare and Lorcan thought he might actually combust. His cock was so hard, he was in physical pain.

For a second, he remained still, his breathing heavy as his eyes trailed down her body, and back up again. Then he unbuttoned his jeans and kicked them off. He was perfectly aware where her wide eyes lingered as his boxer shorts quickly followed. He went to climb back up her body, but she put a steady hand against his chest and subtly shook her head.

Lorcan froze, but she only whispered, “Sit.”

He obeyed without protest, sitting, leaning back against the pillows up against her headboard.

Then Elide was crawling on his lap, straddling his waist, his cock standing tall, teasing between her thighs.

She reached down, gripping him in her hand and he hissed at the contact. Stroking him twice, she rubbed the tip between her folds, the slick heat making his eyes roll into the back of his head.

She pressed his length flat against his stomach, grinding her hips along him. He groaned, gripping them and helping her move.

He licked one of his thumbs and pressed it to her clit, rubbing a slow circle in time with her hips. She whimpered again and he looked up at her. There was a look in her eyes that had him pausing. “What is it, baby?”

She shook her head and laughed. “Nothing, it’s just I-.” She chuckled again, moving her hips deliberately slowly. “That is not going to fit inside of me.”

A dark laugh left him and the sound itself gave her chills. He reached up, pulling her lips down to meet his and breathed, “Don’t worry, baby, it will. It will and I’m going to make you feel so good.”

She laughed, breathlessly, tugging on his bottom lip with her teeth. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The grin he gave her as she leaned back sent chills down her spine, as her hips paused. She reached down beneath her and grabbed his cock, with gentle hands, and ran a thumb over the tip before lining him up with her opening.

Lorcan’s grin faded as his head fell back against the pillows and he took her hips into his hands. She stayed like that for a moment, and it nearly drove him insane but then she slowly pushed herself down on him, just a little bit, just a tease.

The only reason Lorcan didn’t slam her down, taking her as deeply as he could, was because she was right. Lorcan’s member was larger than most and Elide’s small stature meant she was going to have to get used to his size.

So instead, he began to rock her again, pushing her hips down little by little, until most of his length was inside of her. She was gasping and he was damn near holding his breath.

She was tight. She was so fucking tight.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she breathed, her hands pressed to his chest, “Just a minute.”

Lorcan nodded, reaching up and brushing his thumb over her nipple. He’d wait. He’d go slow. He’d do whatever she asked of him, just as long as he was inside of her.

But then she started to roll her hips on top of him, her eyes fluttering shut, her head tilting back. Her hands remained on his chest as she did so, and Lorcan couldn’t help but watch, his breathing ragged as her slim hips moved in a slow, steady circle. He cursed under his breath as she continued, moving herself up and down on top of him. She went slow, was hesitant, cautious, but persistent. And when she started to become more comfortable, she only quickened her pace, her tits bouncing in front of his face.

He swore, his voice low, his hands gripping her hips as she moved, as she rode him slowly, but relentlessly. The quicker she moved, the deeper that crease between her brows became, the more her nails dug into his skin, into his shoulders.

He did his best to let her lead, to let her control the pace, but when his name fell from her lips, the breathy moan bouncing off the walls, his control broke.

He held her in place above him and lifted his hips, snapping them into her, making her cry out. She fell on top of him and his mouth latched to her breast, while his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her in place. The noises she made were music to his ears and he reached down and grabbed her ass, kneading the curve in his hand.

There was a sharp smack and Elide cried out, clamping down on Lorcan’s cock.

She sat up, her hands on his chest again. An eyebrow raised, she asked, “Did you just smack my ass?”

Lorcan squeezed where his hand had just made contact, smirking. “Depends. Did you like it?”

A grin broke out across her lips as she said, “Try it again and I’ll let you know.”

He did as she asked, and pushed herself down on him until she was full of him and Lorcan was watching her with dark, humored eyes.

“I never knew you were so naughty,” he whispered.

She leaned down to nip at his bottom lip. “You have a lot to learn about me, Lorcan Salvaterre.”

All of his control escaped him.

Lorcan flipped her over, his lips instantly connecting with her neck. He sucked the tender skin, his tongue moving in circles as her moans continued to fill the air.

He was certain Manon was furious.

The walls were thin.

And Lorcan didn’t give a fuck.

Her legs wrapped around his body as he thrust his hips into hers, just once, with as much force as he could conjure. She gasped, gripping his back, and muttered a curse.

Lorcan pulled her hands from him and pinned them above her head with one of his. Lorcan pulled back, almost all the way out, and their eyes connected. Again, Lorcan snapped his hips into her and Elide was unable to stop the scream that fell from her lips. “Fuck, Lorcan, please!”

Again, and again, and again, he thrust into her slowly, deliberately. Every time, Elide cried out and Lorcan pressed his thumb into her clit.

Elide cried out, but Lorcan thrived on the sounds tumbling from her lips, the sounds she was unable to stop. He picked up to a steady pace, his skin growing damp with sweat as he made love to her, fucked her as he had in his mind so many times. It was finally a reality. It was happening, and Lorcan was desperate to make it one to remember.

He loved this woman.

And gods it felt good being inside of her.

A loud bang came from the door. “We’re leaving you, nymphomaniacs. We’ll be back later.”

At that moment, Lorcan’s cock hit that illustrious spot inside her and Elide cried out, her legs shaking and Lorcan groaned as she became unbearably tight.

“Fuck you, too,” Manon yelled, and the outside door fell shut.

Lorcan wasted no time in taking advantage of their solitude, picking her up and putting her back against the door once more. The door shook with every thrust of his hips, his hands on both side of her head, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

He didn’t hold back, was tired of holding back, as he pushed into her, over and over again, relentlessly, faster and harder. The more she cried out, the more those little sounds escaped her, the faster he went, the more he lost control.

Manon was gone.

Asterin was gone.

He and Elide were alone in her apartment, and he would not take that lightly.

His hips connected with hers so forcefully, his cock slamming into her vigorously, that those little sounds flowing from her mouth became mute. Her face was distorted in pleasure, her breathing becoming heavier.

Lorcan was on the verge of losing himself completely.

One of her hands was in his hair, tugging on the long strands and spurning on his merciless pace. The other clutched at her breast, pinching and tugging on her nipple, kneading the soft flesh.

One of his own covered the other and he growled, “Have I ever told you how much I love your tits?”

She let her hand skim down her body and she touched herself, gasping at all of the sensations coming together. “No,” she groaned. “But I’ve always caught you staring.”

“Oh, really?” He brought his thrusts to a torturously slow pace, but they were no less brutal.

“It’s not like you tried to hide it,” she said, giggling softly, only cut off by her gasps, her moans, every time he slammed into her.

Lorcan decided he would never grow tired of it, those sounds.

It only pushed him further. His teeth found her shoulder and he bit into her flesh as he pounded into her, without boundaries. He became one with her as she clung to him, unaware of the rest of the world, unaware of anything but she and him.

Then he was close.

So fucking close.

But he begged himself to hold on, a little while longer, if only so he could listen to the sounds falling from her lips. That could only last for so long though.

“I’m gonna cum,” he said, breath hissing through his teeth.

“Me too,” she said, voice no louder than a whisper. Her eyes were closed, head thrown back and her breathing was shallow. Lorcan watched, watched as her chest began to heave, breasts bouncing. She continued to play with herself, one of the hottest fucking things he’d ever seen, and after a minute, he felt her getting tighter and tighter.

She moaned his name one last time before she fell over the edge, crying out.

He felt her come around him, felt her juices flood out over him, and the sensation had him approaching a climax of his own. He cursed, deeply, brutally, fully captivated by the beauty before him, as he pulled out and came on top of the soft, ivory skin of her abdomen. His head fell back, his eyes closed, and he groaned as he rode it out.

For a moment, he said nothing. He only pressed his lips upon her shoulders, her neck, her lips, as his climax came and faded away.

Elide was the first one to speak, breaking the silence and saying, “With how all of thia started, thanks for not fucking me doggy style.”

Lorcan laughed, the sound full and bright, and kissed her before laying her on the bed. He grabbed a towel from her attached bathroom and cleaned her up before laying next to her and gathering her in his arms.

He was almost asleep when she murmured, “Only eight-forty-five in the morning and I’ve already had three orgasms.” His eyes snapped open and he looked down at her.

“Three?” He asked. He could only think of two times she’d cum: once, right when he’d gotten on top, and then at the end.

She smirked and said, “What can I say? I couldn’t sleep last night.”

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut without saying a word. She laughed at his speechlessness, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You have no idea the way I feel about you, the way I think about you.”

Lorcan chuckled, pulling her closer to him beneath the blankets. “Trust me, I have a pretty good idea.”

#throne of ashes and beauty #tacmc #tacmc toab tag team #throne of ashes and beauty x tacmc collab #elorcan smut #elorcan #lorcan salvaterre #elide lochan #throne of glass

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dexi-green · 3 years

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Okay so wrap up thoughts for ep. 4:

Where is Zemo? Do not let this man loose. Also bless marvel for releasing the longer cut of Zemo dancing earlier 🙏🏽

We love the Dora. However I wonder if the arm thing was a gag or if it’s going to come back. I could definitely see Buck having some questions and beginning to wonder whether they actually freed them or just put him under Wakanda’s control with a longer leash. He obviously has reason to be skeptical about people’s intention with him (see; how Zemo used him) I can definitely imagine them explaining that it was impossible to wipe out the WS controls but rather they just changed them and just never intended to use them, making him a sort of unintentional sleeper agent White Wolf for Wakanda. He is clearly very thankful and grateful to them, and is very close to the Dora, especially Ayo, so I could see that distrust being a good future character arc. But I stand by that with T’Challa in charge they would never seek to take advantage of Buck in that way. Also I was never a HUGE fan of Stan’s acting, I felt he got too hyped up for just brooding, like he was good but not Oscar worthy as some on here tried to say (you can just say you think he’s hot, you don’t have to lie about his acting to justify your adoration of him and watching his whole filmography, it’s okay I promise), but that scene at the beginning was actually amazing. I love the change between fear to relief and realization. Chef’s kiss.

As I mentioned several times, I love that this show is carefully exploring warring ideals, and actually saying them pretty plainly. It’s giving me what Civil War could’ve been. In Civil War there was just too many blatant misunderstandings and things that could’ve been cleared up if the Avenger’s didn’t share one (1) brain cell and it somehow ended up with Peter Parker who had homework to do. In this show, the ideals come from very understandable different perspectives, different lives lived. I know I want a conversation, but that alone won’t truly solve this like it would’ve in Civil War. It comes from very real criticism of our very real govt and society which I thinks helps cement this so much more in reality in a way that isn’t boring to watch like some other comic things that try to be gritty and realistic. The only part that has taken me out so far was the so very subtle cop scene in the second episode, which leads me into my next point

ISAIAH BRADLEY! Loop his story back in, let’s get some backstory and information and all that good stuff. Obviously Isaiah has made it pretty dang clear he wants nothing to do with any of this but obviously that’s not gonna happen, and it’ll be a tremendous waste of an absolute amazing and groundbreaking story to just bring Eli in at the end in some shoehorned way or something. Isaiah needs to be a part of whatever solution this story/season comes to. I’ve seen a theory floating around about either Isaiah being Wakandan (either like killmonger with one or both of his parents being from Wakanda, or more distantly) or perhaps Erskine’s secret ingredient for his serum was derived from the heart shaped herb (which would’ve made Cap White Panther 😬) which I think would be an interesting way to completely tie in Wakanda but perhaps a little unnecessary, specifically the first theory, we don’t need every future black person in the MCU to be secretly Wakandan. I just need his story to be more prominent then it has so far. It’s very important and not something that should just be a basically D grade side plot at this point.

I feel like we have shifted away from much focus on Sam. But I feel like the focus has pulled more on Zemo, Karli, Walker and Buck. Like Sam is doing what he needs but we aren’t getting as much insight into him as we did in the first episode. Which is why I think I liked his talk so much with Karli. We went back to his history of counseling and got to see how it uses it, how he calms down a situation, and his own insight into Karli’s ideals, he agrees but wants to go about it in a different way. We have constantly seen him offering help to others, but hasn’t really received much in return. I feel like now every time the shield comes up it’s just Bucky being all pissy that Sam gave it away which really turns me off his character. Sam already explained that maybe he made a mistake, but also Buck is so set in his way and his ideation of Steve that he can’t for a second consider Sam’s side. Like at this point it’s getting kind of annoying how Buck is being with Sam about it. I want more insight into Sam’s feelings about Steve, and Cap, and all that. Hopefully these last couple episodes with shift the focus back. At this point I feel I know more about Karli and John as people than I do Sam and that’s not great considering the title of the show. This was one of my earliest concerns for the series when it was announced, that it was going to focus too much on Bucky who has had his story almost front and center for almost all of the Cap films, they almost all in some part revolve around Bucky. Perhaps I need to rewatch and there has been some bits of Sam’s I haven’t appreciated enough, but it feels unbalanced, not in favor of him.

Sharon is being sketchy I fear. I do kind of like the idea that she is the power broker, but it’s hard to wrap my head around her threatening Karli like she has been. I mean she obviously has changed a lot, but if she is the power broker her motives have to be something different than what she is trying to lead people to believe. I think what’s more possible is her working for the power broker or perhaps working for/as the power broker as a cover for Fury or some other person/organization. She’s worked undercover for Fury before, she is obviously loyal to him, which might’ve changed since she talks to much about being abandoned by everyone, but I don’t know. It’s obvious something else is going on with her character, and while I love if she had just pivoted to this crime lord role, I just think of her speech at Peggy’s funeral and her loyalty to Cap and Fury in TWS. It’s possible she flipped on a dime like that because everything done to her and what she’s been through, and it may be too predictable for her to have the exact same storyline as TWS but who knows... that or she’s a skrull, always a possibility, can’t be too careful.

John Walker is clearly becoming the actual Anti-Cap. They are getting storybeats to line up. A ‘good’ soldier, turned propaganda tool, turned govt lap dog, serumed up, best friend dies, then what? Switched on by society? I love the moment with him and the flag smasher. It brought me back to when I was in the theater watching Civil War and I swore Steve was going to chop Tony’s head off with the shield. Steve just smashes the arc reactor of course, but John straight up murders this guy. And people are watching, the world is, people were recording. Definitely some purposeful similarities to our very real recording of police brutality irl. Which makes me think what will the govt response be? Will they spin it and try to get him out of this (which will feel really...weird? With the trial going on rn) or maybe will they abandon him completely and leave him high and dry? Hopefully we will see whoever the current MCU president is (prolly maybe Thaddeus Ross??) speak on it as well as the flag smashers and GRC. Walker is obviously not a good person at heart. I theorized before that he had already been given the serum, which clearly isn’t true so he has just taken it but there is something about his background that needs to be revealed. It has to be more than just “‘we did bad stuff while we were deployed” like... yeah it has a profound and damaging effect on people, but I feel like when he was talking to Hoskins it felt like they were remembering what went down slightly differently. I don’t know why, I’ll have to rewatch the scene. Either way, I think there is some stuff we still don’t know about Walker, something so terrible about him that made the serum change him like that. He was already clearly on edge, feeling insecure about people not giving him the respect he thought he deserved just from putting on the suit and carrying the shield, feeling that same imposter syndrome Sam did/does, and his pride was clearly DECIMATED by the Dora. He has this seeming obsession with super soldiers... he’s just giving weirdo vibes.

One thing I noted is that I think this series is taking apart Steve/Cap and spreading him out over several different people, and having them all pick at and dissect what makes/made Captain America the symbol he was, and what happens when you dig a little deeper. Karli seems to be the embodiment of the kindness/concern for others. She is fighting for the people, to protect them, as Cap was. But she is not holding back and is willing to put everything on the line, but where Cap was putting himself in the line of fire to protect people, Karli is putting others. Buck may be the classic idealism and Steve himself, I’m not 100 sure, but he seems to embody the kind of idea that people need something to put hope in, something to lean on, the idea of true good. He always brings up what the shield means and represents, doesn’t ever actually get specific though which is interesting. This may be because Bucky has a hard time separating Steve from Cap, since he saw the two grow up, when he talks about the shield and Cap he IS talking about Steve, there is no symbol or hidden meaning, just the Steve he knew. He conflates it all together. So I guess he represents whether or not the classic ideals can survive, the idea of hope, and Young Steve. Sam I think could be change. Where change is unwavering, like Cap’s fight for freedom never changed, but also where it is inevitable, in Steve and Cap’s place in a time that isn’t their own. How the idea of Captain America needs to be updated for modern times, or whether it should be thrown out altogether. I don’t know this is all ramblings. I though I had something but it’s almost 5am 😩

I believe we have 2 more episodes left so it’ll being interesting to see what they do with it. Fingers crossed 🤞

#tfatws spoilers #tfatws #tfatws liveblog #marvel #mcu #captain America #Bucky Barnes #Sam Wilson #Zemo #dora milaje #Karli morgenthau #Sharon carter #agent 13 #powerbroker #spoilers #episode 4

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creatorofclay · 4 years

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2019... What a year right? When I started in this fandom, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I had never RPed on Tumblr much before, except for within a group on ask blogs. I had never felt enough of a connection to a game or universe to really want to take that jump, but Simon was a start for me. I love Detroit and the universe that has been built here. Even if the canon can be a bit ridiculous at times, and blatantly obvious with it's symbolism, it's still one of my favorites that I've played and still love to play. This fandom has just been such an expansion on a world I already love and there's nothing that has compared.

Simon was the first, but really that blog is nothing compare to this one, all I've done and everyone I've met has truly driven me to be the very best I can be. I appreciate everyone here who is on the dash all the time, so crazy and so lovely.

ALL OF YOU LOVELY PEOPLE.

First of all, @an-unlikely-duo and @gracioustwin and two of the greatest people I know. You both have been there basically since the start of this blog and really, I don't think I'd even know who Elijah is without you both. Even though it's a different side to him, it's made it easy to make him more human and realistic. Plus having great muses to interact with helps ;)

I love you both more than anything. Just talking and joking around like we do, gushing over silly things or just Neil's face. I'm truly blessed to know you and I know you guys feel the same. I'm just so incredibly thankful to know you and I hope we will be able to be friends for as long as the internet allows. I could scream my love for you from the mountains and it still wouldn't be enough.

To my lovely platonic spouse and absolute babe gremlin @rk800isalive . Eme, I adore you. You are so honest and so sweet and just completely amazing. I'm proud of you and everything you do because you just deserve it. Just... SCREAMING I LOVE YOU. I don't even know how to form the right words to say how much I just appreciate you and everything about you and all that you do??? You're so creative, most of what I've done just in the past months, I wouldn't have even DREAMED of without you. Connor actually being friends with Elijah? Can't imagine anyone but you. Demon AU and subsequent WAR? If it weren't for that one little "What if we connected it all?" I swear I wouldn't be having as much fun as I am. Such a delight and I just can't wait for M O R E.

AND THE OTHER PLATONIC SPOUSE @ruthlessnessisyourdesire ASH. Ash. Actually talking to you lately and being to really interact has been so great. You are just so wonderful and I am just so happy we are in this giant mess together. Your muses are so great and ?? There's just so much on the horizon, so many possibilities for us and I am so super pumped about them all!! The new year will be amazing for you, I believe it. I wish you nothing but the absolute, very best because you deserve it. You are so sweet and just so cool. BIG PREESH because you seem to juggle so much (even just more than one amazing character is so incredible to me, but the DEPTH in them is amazing on its own). Here's to the future and all the things we will write my friend! 🥂

I'm gonna sound like a broken record because man I'm just big love for everyone but god I'm trying. Just all of you take all of my love.

@theveryfirst Heather , I adore you and I am always so excited to see you pop up again. You know I love you and how happy I am for you. My thoughts are always with you, because you deserve to be able to just do what you love to do here and everywhere. 2019 started with you and me plotting the craziest thread, and still I of my favorites, so here's to all of the insanity 2020 will bring! Don't ever change because you are amazing.

@fearlessandchaotic ELY, I DONT THINK YOU'LL SEE THIS UNTIL YOU COME BACK BUT 😘😘😘. You. Are. Amazing. You've allowed me to really show a darker side to Elijah and even got him to try and be better about it. I feel so blessed to have such amazing people to write with this year. I know there is still so much we can do ans I really can't wait for it. You're so much fun to talk to and just write with. Just.. big love. Big heart eyes. Big appreciation.

And speaking of big heart eyes, @rxseguided another absolutely delightful person to have known and had pop up all year long. Look. You are amazing okay. First of all, Death is an incredible character and I can't believe that was like the second or third big ship on this blog. But, then there's Jesse. Jesse. The one to truly turn this cold man's heart of stone to mush. The best gift you could have given me was this blessed pairing of muses. I'm nervous to talk to people in general most of the time, so I'm just saying it now that it's been one of the most interesting ships to watch develop. And the tastiest slowburn. So thank you. Thank you for coming to me and continuing to come back. You're so much fun and I adore you too. Like I said, big heart eyes.

Also Eli. Eli is so fun. I love the back and forth of like maybe they can actually get along to no they will absolutely never get along. I love it all. AH. Just. That. AH.

@stayhuman-genevieve @musesdivine @diivinerose @perfected-first @dulcis-pythonissam @ninehartx @coffee-and-guns @vexeddetective @dogandroses for fear of becoming too redundant with my love because man this is all wordy enough, you are all absolutely great people who are fun and wonderful to talk to, who I am blessed to know, and who I sincerely look forward to ringing in the new year with. When hard times get you down, just know there's always a light in the dark to shine through uwu I love you guys all ♥️♥️

Slightly secret shout-out to @kingsunfury >w> shhh, it's ok. You know I'll love you until the sun burns out, and even beyond. Dragging you into my appreciation post because no one can stop me.

And to all the others I didn't mention, you guys are all MVPs in my book. Never forget that. Everyone here are great and I'm thankful to see you all on the dash.

@angelrk900 @phcking-prick-dbh @9th-in-a-line @jericholeader @ihavenoside @head-shot-60 @nightofthefall @chendetroit @detrcitmade @amyriadofmuses @overlyanalyticaltrash @that1badassbitch (I hope you are doing well, dear ♥️)

I feel like there's some others, but I promise you guys are great too. It's a struggle to remember everyone I've talked to and everyone who is still here. Thank you all for being here this year ♥️♥️♥️

#clay is in the kiln // ooc #big love to the dash #happy new year everyone uwu #♥️♥️♥️

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alizrak · 5 years

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Thrawn Treason Review

You know me. You know how much I love Thrawn and Zahn, but I’ll try to be as objective as I can with this.

At first I was going to give it a 8/10 but having these few days to go over my feelings and putting the issues I found to words, I believe I’ll have to make that a 7.5/10. I liked Treason, but I liked Thrawn and Alliances better.

This is my spoiler free review comparison:

Thrawn 2017 - 9/10 I loved the heart this book. Just watching the struggles that Thrawn and Eli faced to get to the top was worth it. I was surprised by the revelations and implications the story had for the Galaxy at large… but especially by how emotionally charged the ending was.

Alliances - 8/10 Anakin and young Thrawn were amazing and so fun. There were several emotional scenes and a HUGE setting up for potential story lines now that we know Ezra and Thrawn are lost out there in the UR, but I’ll be honest and say I had a few problems with some slow parts.

Treason - 7.5/10 What I loved about Treason were the characters. I wish we could have explored them more but the plot didn’t allow it. If I had one request for Zahn in the next book it would be less math, more character development. There are other issues but I’ll explain them below the cut.

Now, the full review:

[SPOILERS FROM THRAWN, ALLIANCES, OUTBOUND FLIGHT AND TREASON AHEAD]

Positive:

The story was very fast paced. There was always something going on, people doing a thing, going places, trying to stay a step ahead, not a moment to spare. Some parts from the previous books felt like they were dragging their feet so this was a change of pace.

The book was mostly serious compared to the hilarity we got from Anakin and Thrawn, and even Vader and Thrawn in the last book, although there are a few fun gems too with Ronan and how everyone reacts to Krennic.

Zahn also did a splendid job to establish the grysk as a -real- threat. In Alliances I couldn’t help but feel the Grysk were too similar to the Vagaari but with more black mail. Now, we get to partially see how they keep their slave/clients in control which is… scary. Really scary. I even think there might be some Force domination at work but I guess the only way to be sure would be for Ezra to confirm it if he ever gets to meet them in the future with Thrawn.

The book it’s at its strongest when the main characters interact. I liked the personality of the new characters and they feel very distinctive from one another. Ronan was a rollercoaster of “I like him- I hate him”. Ar'alani was amazing to have back after reading her in Outbound Flight. Every time she talked with Thrawn, Eli or Faro it was a top notch experience.

Faro is having second thoughts on her competence because she thinks she might have let down Thrawn in some way, Eli continues to be the goodest space cowboi in the Galaxy which I love and cherish, and Thrawn… well, Thrawn is Thrawn, which is both good and bad. Also the new Chiss girl was interesting but I hoped we could have learned more of them.

My issues:

The plot quickly shifts from a politically charged bet to get rid of pests, to a big conspiracy to con resources out of Stardust, to overly complicated battle plans against an invasion force that you must follow closely word by word to try to visualize and understand what is happening... or you will get lost. That’s going to be a problem for a lot of people. I struggled.

I actually felt tense and exhausted because there was no chance to catch your breath before we got another invisible Grysk ship or complicated puzzle to solve with science. When Thrawn explains a plan I honestly feel like I’m getting a class on astrophysics and thermodynamics. I didn’t need every little detail of how everything will work down to the angles because I started to get lost. Looking back I realize that perhaps a good third of the book might be comparing data, analyzing said data, making an intricate mathematical plan, revising the data and applying it. I commend Zahn for his amazing descriptions at how they get to a solution, but even for me it was a little too much. I feel a bunch of that time could have been used to develop a few other issues that we were misled to expect…

For example, we were technically lied in the premise of the book. The premise at the back was the one it was marketed by the publishers and SWs and speaks how Eli seeks out Thrawn to warn him about a big problem in Csilla… and that never happens. Not even close. They stumble into each other by accident when their respective “prey” encounter each other. That was a let down. I expected more information on Csilla and interactions between Eli and Thrawn. In fact, they were barely in the same room, let alone... alone. I’m starting to fear steps were taken from high up to tell Zahn to “tone them down”, going as far as hinting a possible female interest for Eli because Eli and Thrawn have undoubtedly gained certain popularity. I’d think this is the case, as even Zahn wrote Eli wondering why was Thrawn being so aloof towards him and chalking up to having to be professional in public. That’s too much of a coincidence. In any case, many of us came hoping to see how their friendship from the first book had evolved after such a long time... but it just fell flat.

Next is the inconsistencies with time. Those who are also fans of Rebels know that from the moment Thrawn leaves Lothal a number of events happen that critically endangered the TIE Defender project. We get at the beginning of the book one such scene: Thrawn speaking with Tarkin, asking him to come to Coruscant. We get it from Faro’s pov, allowing us to have another look at that talk and a little more of Thrawn’s insight on what might happen if they leave Pryce in charge. He assumes the Rebels will attempt to rescue Hera and might succeed given Pryce is emotionally compromised. The moment Thrawn left Lothal, a timer started in my head to the next scene linked to these events in Rebels: the very next day Thrawn would have a holocall and confront Pryce for her incompetence, he would look more than just displeased… he would be angry. A type of frustration that carried on to the finale where he seems ‘incredibly done’ with everything and he’s trying to salvage the situation as best as he can. That’s… that’s a big thing if we are talking about Thrawn.

As a lover of Rebels and the Thrawn books I expected to get the answer that explained why Thrawn was acting like that. So, as the plot developed, battles were won, puzzles were solved and treasons were unearthed, I started to realize the book was running out. I wondered if something would happen at the end that messed everything up and his call with Pryce would be the last strand. But there was no call. The book ended. A whole week had somehow passed already. I was aghast. At no point it felt we were witnessing the events of several days. The book talked of hours passing by so I assumed this would be “Thrawn and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”… but instead he seems satisfied with the results even though he lost the bet on a technicality and, just like that, Thrawn states he must return to Lothal in the brevity. So in the end, Thrawn simply gets a holo meeting with the Emperor who is not exactly satisfied with his results and questions a his loyalty a little, so they will talk about that after Thrawn gets the Jedi chamber into the Chimaera and brings back Ezra to him. Aaaand the book ends. I was… stunned.

There were no answers here. And Zahn didn’t seem to align the most important story arc of Rebels and how it affects Thrawn other than a mention at the beginning and the very end. For someone who is painfully detail oriented with their battles, this was a huge oversight. You could even argue this plot could have happened at any point in S4 but Zahn saw an opportunity to patch it right after Jedi Night.

In any case. While we get a few lovely scenes with Eli and the Chiss… there’s one thing that has become what I regard as emotional highlight for the last few Thrawn books: even though Thrawn wins, he loses something that you could regard as personal. In Thrawn (2017) he loses Nightswan, a rival and almost an equal he hoped could become and ally, as well as “losing” Eli by doing the best for him by sending him away. In Alliances he let’s go of Anakin, both in the past and the hope that he can bring him back in the present. Even more importantly, in Outbound Flight he loses Thrass. But there’s no such thing here. Thrawn wins the battle but loses the funding bet and still doesn’t look phased.

Also, compared to the previous books, there was no point in which Thrawn wasn’t in control of the situation. In the first book Thrawn was a little at a loss with the politics and society which is why Eli was always doing his best to help him. In Alliances, the real danger was the possibility of Vader having the last word on whether or not help him retrieve the girls and stop the Grysk. It was something out of his control, and it showed. I hoped the third book was Thrawn facing an impossible choice, hence Treason. But it wasn’t. It was Thrawn slightly bending Imperial protocol and rules like we are used to by now. I suppose that’s on me. I wished we had seen *something* that Thrawn can't face with logic. Treason ends there, just as Ezra was about to become that *something* immediately after you close the book.

Overall, the enjoyment of this book may vary at certain points if you don’t like math battles or care too much about the timeline. I don’t feel there wasn’t any big revelation like in the two previous books like Thrawn saying there were bigger threats than the Empire lurking int he UR and that he playing the long game to replace the Emperor. In Alliances we got the bomb with the Chiss navigators and how their powers work different than the rest of Force Users. I don’t feel anything in Treason gets to that level. Nothing happens that changes your perception of the Galaxy at large or even the story that was happening parallel to it Rebels. You could arguably skip this book but you would be missing some great Eli, Faro and Ar’alani content that makes this book truly shine.

I’ll reread it soon but now I’ll likely skip on the battles and focus on the characters because ELI IS JUST THE BEST AND YOU ALL KNOW IT. xD

#Star Wars #Star Wars Rebels #Thrawn Treason #Thrawn #Review #Spoilers

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sepiadice · 6 years

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Tales of Genius Ch. 2: Follow the Light

(9/16/18)

And so, for possibly the first time ever, I got a session two in a campaign! New high score! Woo-hoo!

Also, got to redo an adventure I ran for the old High School crew. Updated it slightly, added a puzzle, changed the final encounter, added a pair of magic items.

Don’t think I have any sort of RPG Life updates. Working on various other projects off and on. Started watching a new Netflix original series that redoubles a plot point later in this campaign.

Added a fourth party member. Which I think I’m going to lock down on. The games I’ve been involved with always had a problem of having a large number of players, so I think I want to try for the classic four-person ensemble.

Hope they’re having fun. Doubt plagues me, but they’re not whining to me, so it’s probably fine? It’s still clear I need to continue practicing GMing, and I’ve noticed I’ve been stuttering and having difficulty pronouncing words. That will all need to be improved before we move on to the podcast phase.

Now, for the second part of Tales of Genius![1]

CAST

Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellect! Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated. Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions.

Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist.

Quick exposition:

So, that whole “Child of…” thing is part of my world’s lore. About nineteen hundred years ago, nine sisters travelled the world and founded nine schools of philosophy and nine separate cultures that populate the world. The only solid marker for the tribes is eye color. White/Light grey for Clio. Yellow for Thalia. Orange for Calliope. Green for Terpsichore. Others for the other tribes as they’re introduced.

The sisters are named after the Greek Muses.

And, so, onto our tale.

DATE: Late Winter 1911

PLACE: THE TINES (Mountain border of Astree and Hervar)

We open back up on North Fort. Food supplies are running even lower, especially since a good chunk of it has been poisoned. The mayor has decided to send those clever adventurers to try and find an alternate path out of town,[2] plus this nice Jean fellow who speaks highly of his own conquests.[3]

After some brainstorming while I was busy making curry,[4] the mayor mentioned the town crypts, which are a small network of caves some distance from town. There’s an iron door there which no one has explored past, because there’s a bunch of warning symbols on it, so better just stick the dead in there until claimed. But, well, it’s something?

The party heads to the crypt, as I couldn’t be bothered to force any scene work in the town. Would’ve been nice to establish the mixed critters of the setting, but I’m bad at following even my own notes, and I didn’t really have any cause to delay them.

In the crypts, they discovered a small band of Saber-toothed foxes.

Olivia tried to befriend the foxes using the cheese from the rations North Fort gave her, but the foxes weren’t satisfied, and unhappy with the intrusion. So combat despite Olivia’s protests!

I still am far from getting a handle of combat narrative, but after a few rounds, they’ve killed two foxes and scared off three.[5]

Then Olivia used a magic spell to cave in the entrance. Which… I should probably take a moment to taunt the party over.

And now I have. What nerds.

The party moved towards the iron door. It’s magic proof,[6] locked, and barred. So the group needs to figure out how to get in.

Unbarring it was easy enough, but it’s still locked.

But, hey, the party has a new Scoundrel Character! Maybe he can pick the lock!

The dice say no. This is dire, as the back up plan I had is sitting in North Fort,[7] and that’s not an available path anymore.

Okay, okay. Let’s reason this out. Is the door there to keep people out, or something in? Both, but which is important?

Which is to say: this door opens out, so the door hinges are on our players’ side! Which the fair doctor thinks up, then teases the con artist for not coming up with.

Said scoundrel (Jean) uses skullduggery to get the pins out. (Because it’s heavy iron, hasn’t been moved in a while, and would require finesse. Probably some heat to remove frost). I then have them do another check to get the door open since the lock is still engaged and needs to be worked out of the wall. Which they do.

Momentary inside baseball thing that might ruin the magic: I didn’t have a firm solution. I just placed the door down and waited until I heard a solution I liked. I recommend fellow GMs do this, but also try and prepare an alternate solution if the party can’t get past it for some reason. (See footnote 7 for my release valve).

On to the next room! A massive cavern, with many tunnels shooting off, and crystalline protrusions here and there. Then there’s a wooden lean-to slash shack near the door.

In side is a desk with a chess game mid-progress, and notebook tracking the game next to it, a glass jar of mythril dust, and a mummified corpse sitting in a chair[8] holding a bullseye lantern.

Eli Roberts examines the board, makes a move, notates it in the notebook(!), pockets the mythril dust, then investigates the mummy.

(A spent story point later also says he took the notebook.)

Eli fails to find anything notable on the corpse, so he turns to figure out what path to take.

Olivia, who we are learning this session has no regard for her fellow humans, uses her magic to puppeteer the mummy.

This jostles a rolled up scrap of paper out of its beard.

Time for the puzzle! Also pop quiz for my world building lore, because screw you, at least learn the muses you picked for your character’s heritage![9]

I wrote a poem (not a great poem, because I lack rhythm) that referenced the Muses in a certain order.

Now, this puzzle needs workshopping, because once the party figured out to use the mummy’s lantern[10] to shoot a beam of light into a large crystal to refract it into colored beams, and that they needed to follow the beam that corresponded with each Muse’s assigned eye colors in the order listed on the poem, there wasn’t much else to do until the final twist.

I probably could’ve done something with the crystals. Finding them, getting them in position,[11] just some complexity for the successive rooms.

Needs workshopping. But we also had a time limit, so maybe simple wasn’t bad for this rendition.

Now, this refracted light thing was an expansion on a moment that wowed the last time I did my North Fort session, which I mimicked halfway down the mine: the first obvious crystal sent the light bouncing all over the chamber, hitting other crystals, and illuminating the entire chamber, revealing a mural![12]

The mural told the mine’s story: they were mining it normally, then thought ‘hey, let’s try magic!’. Magic resonated with the mythril they were mining, heating the cave and waking up a giant snake that started gobbling people up. They got some adventurers in to deal with the snake and stopped using magic.

What I wish I added was the snake’s giant skull in this room. Instead, I had it in another room, looming over the exit tunnels. Oops.[13]

So that’s neat.

The party continued the prescribed solution and moved on, seeing the ribs of the snake were repurposed into support beams.

Another element I failed to convey is that the mining shafts were actually expanded from the snake’s tunnels throughout the mountain.

Anyways, the final room was the cool twist. Because the final mentioned Muse is Urania. Who I assigned black/dark grey eyes.

Black light’s not a thing. What could be the…

They killed their light. Eventually, mythril dust started to glow, a thick vein going down the final correct tunnel. (The poem also mentioned Urania using the stars in her line. This fit with the mythril dust but also her role as the Muse of Astronomy.)[14]

And they exit into another large chamber like the one at the top. Including wood office shack and an iron door. Inside the shack is another mummy, chessboard, and a notebook with matching move notations to the one earlier.

Including the move Eli noted and wrote down.[15] Huh.

Eli’s player spent a Genesys Story Point to say he nabbed the first notebook earlier so he wouldn’t have to hike back up.[16]

For those curious, there’s another poem on this end for going the other way. The colors don’t even have to be the same since they’d be approaching the crystals from a different angle, so the first step doesn’t have to be Urania![17]

Anyways, the spent story point ruined how I’d hoped to bring in the boss fight, so instead a Masked Snake slithers in.

Smaller than the one slain long ago, but still pretty big. Also way too young to listen to reason.

Again, three party members work to kill it as Olivia uses nonlethal magic. The snake iced the floor, making footing difficult.

I allowed the fight to drag on a while because, despite putting in my session plans to come back to make stats and having more than a month to, I never did.

Really should sit down and just make a series of notecards for easy, normal, and hard enemies. Get too distracted with narrative.

Anyways, combat rages, half the party gets upset with Olivia’s efforts not to kill the snake, when a mysterious figure in fancy robes and snake skull mask arrives and pulls a gun.

Olivia promptly magically murders this man without a word. Then steals his mask. And returns to nonlethal spells against the snake.

After realizing the snake can’t fit through the door, Eli and Jean attempt to flee, but Olivia refuses to leave, instead standing on the human corpse she created to avoid the disadvantage of the ice floors.

Eli goes in and finishes off the snake.

Grumpy after the encounter, they exit the caves, which leads out to a point on the path below the avalanche. There’s a way to connect North Fort and Soldier’s Rest.

They go to Soldier’s Rest (named such because it’s where the military men went to rest when not on duty at the mountain fort). Turn in a letter of introduction to Soldier’s Rest’s mayor, and step outside.

Where they encounter a Jackalope. They’re giant creatures ridden by the mail carriers of His Majesty’s Courier service![19] The courier has a letter for Eli Roberts: The Queen and Heir Apparent are ill with a mysterious disease, and Dr. Roberts comes highly recommended by his peers to help.

Whether this is because his peers genuinely believe he can do it, or because not healing the royal family could have dire consequences and they’d rather gamble Eli’s career over their own is a question I intend to play with.

End session two.

Admittedly, it was a railroading session that hinged on two combats that I didn’t prepare properly and a puzzle that need a few more facets, but I set some Campaign Plot up and actually got players to the table, so I say sufficient success! Always a learning experience! And Anthony seemed to prefer the system vastly over GURPS, so I think it’s good.

Just need to cement running combat and the Advantage and Disadvantage system. It’s a new thing that takes getting used to. Plus the question of what to do when you get a nothing roll.

Also need to get firmer control over what magic can and cannot do. And also that GM trumps rulebook everytime.

I have an outline for the next session. Just need to add some meat and work in elements the players enjoy. Maybe try and have it be less of an Eli Roberts focused story.[20]

Until next time, may the dice make things interesting!

[1] Pompous sounding name? Perhaps! But it’s a grab from the Tales JRPG series, and a TED Talk I saw once. [2] Had the party asked, the Mayor was avoiding asking South Fort for help because that crosses a border and could cause a lot of diplomatic tensions. The party didn’t ask, so I’m noting it here for my own gratification. [3] Because we needed to fit a new party member in some how. [4] Which I forgot to put potatoes and apples in. I’m disappointed in myself. [5] Unless it was the other way around. There was confusion! [6] Iron is magic proof in the setting! Because I’m taking inspiration from my vague knowledge of fair folk mythology. [7] Her name is Debra. I didn’t have the exact details (improv!), but if needed, she’d have the key for the door for… reasons? [8] I keep trying a Douglas Addams thing where I save the most glaringly obvious and distressing fact for last. It’s never worked because I keep getting interrupted or the players overlook I mentioned a monster. Might be a sign to stop, but why would I? [9] I casually left a prose-y cheat sheet on the table before we started. So it’s open notes. [10] Always provide the required tools if you can’t be sure the party has the needed supplies. [11] My much coveted block puzzle! I’ll figure it out someday! [12] In the pathfinder version, it instead revealed a sleeping dragon. I should’ve worked in a similar element on top of what I put in the chamber. [13] Maybe if I ask nicely, my players will pretend this is what I did. [14] Why do the muses include two with dominion over Astronomy and History? Who knows! They just do! [15] I was hoping someone would mess with one of the notebooks for this exact reveal. They played right into my hands. [16] I’ll leave it to the players to retcon why they stole the first notebook. [17] Maybe Urania should’ve been the mural room. You light the crystal for the story, then have to darken it to move on.[18] [18] Take three on this dungeon’s going to be epic! [19] A pay off when, long, long ago, when I was very young looking through a borrowed copy of GURPS 3rd Edition, I saw a picture of cowboys riding giant rabbits with saddlebags reading ‘Bunny Express’. Finally did it. [20] He took the reigns on the session one mystery, and the letter plot hook only works with him. I’ll try to do hooks working off the other three before returning to him, if at all.

#SepiaDieGMs #Genesys #tales of genius

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monasatlantis · 3 years

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My first review of „Hajimari no Kiseki“ (played with spreadsheet)

Ever since I know that Hajimari no Kiseki (or Trails of Reverie) will not be released in English until (what probably will be late autumn of) 2023 I am very frustrated about the fact that there is no way in hell that I will be able to stay away from Kuro no Kiseki spoilers until this game will be released in English (what will probably be not earlier then the end of 2025 if not later). You see, after I spoiled most of CS3, CS4 and also a large part of Hajimari for me, because I just couldn’t wait that long for its English release, I decided I wanted to play a Trails-game “blind” for once and Kuro is perfect as it starts with new characters and a new place and so on. BUT I am a spoiler-junkie, so waiting freaking 4 years to get my hands on this game and not feeling the urgent need to collect any spoilers until then is almost impossible for me. Plus, until 2025 its very likely that Kuro no Kiseki 2 & maybe even 3 are out at this point already and you know how it goes. The deeper we go into the story, the more characters of the previous games will have cameos in the Kuro-Saga. And the more characters I love show up there, the harder it will get for me to not fish for Spoilers. Okay let’s face it, as soon as one of my favorites will show up in on of the sequels, there will be no force in hell that will be able to stop me from getting all the freaking spoiler XD

So… how does one solve this problem? There was only on way to do it: Thank the people who made the freaking spreadsheet, buy Hajimari no Kiseki on Amazon.jp and get your Computer and Playstation ready to play on remote-play. So that – hoping that someone would do a spreadsheet for Kuro as well – I would be able to get through the next Saga within a year of its release (or so) without having to drown myself in spoiler again to survive the wait until the English release. In other words: I wanted to play Hajimari, so that I could go into Kuro with a clear conscience, since I finished the previous game and thus rounded up the other free previous Sagas just nicely.

And here now is my review of Hajimari no Kiseki and my description of how I was able to handle the spreadsheet…

Let me tell you that handling the spreadsheet is very easy, especially if your PC and Playstation are already ready for remote play (as it so happens, I prefer to play on my computer and thus I’ve been playing with remote play before) and there is nothing much left to do aside from opening the spreadsheet, after changing a few control-buttons in the game-menu.

I say it took me roughly 3 to 5 hours to get the hang of how the spreadsheet works and how and when to best operate it. And after that, it mostly guided me through the game without many issues. (excluding jumping 2000 lines or so, that was a shore, but maybe it was just me being to stupid to push the right button to jump from line 1000 to 2400 without problems. Once again, that aside, the spreadsheet worked amazingly for me and it tells you all of the things you need to know to get the plot and don’t miss any development on either characters or story.

The most annoying thing was that you couldn’t decide who you want to talk to. It not critique on the spreadsheet because it was definitely already hard enough to make it, as it is. Its just something that was bothering me a bit while I was playing. Sometimes there were people I didn’t wanted to talk to that I had to if I wanted to follow the spreadsheet and there were people I wanted to talk to, that the spreadsheet did not tell you to talk to. It takes a bit getting used to. Once again tho, its no big issue. P

The only other thing that MIGHT be a bit troublesome is that there are some choices in the game were you have to follow the spreadsheet, even if you don’t want to OR you do it like me and don’t follow the spreadsheet and will be sad because what does it bring you that you bring Elie along for this fight (it was a mechanic decision, because I ALWAYS chose Elie with Lloyd, its how I always chose Alisa with Rean, I didn’t even realize I picked her until it was too late ^^’) if you don’t understand what she is saying. Once again, it is really no big issue, it just takes some getting used to or the will to accept slightly different dialogs.

PLUS when the game comes out in English and I play it again, I can do whatever I want and its normal that you just have to make some compromises when you play a game in a language you don’t understand. Playing this game with the spreadsheet is to get through the plot, so you are capable of witnessing the plot of the next game. Everything else, you can and will have when you buy the English localization.

Alright, lets finally talk about the game itself.

I’ve watched someone playing it before, not all of it, but certain parts. There were still a few surprises here and there tho and there were moments in the game that I saw in a completely different light, after actually playing it myself.

But where to start?

First of all, Hajimari no Kiseki was a good game. I really enjoyed playing it, even with the extra difficulty do to not being able to read the names (and descriptions) of quartzes and crafts and so on. (There IS something in the spreadsheet were you can search for stuff like that and translates it, but it was too time consuming for me to really use it. I play on very easy and am not a strategic fighter – hence the easy difficulty – so it wasn’t a big issue for me. Not to mention that do to the battlesystem being mostly just a copy of the one from CS4, it wasn’t too hard to know what to do when and the muscle-memory worked just fine for me too, when I needed to push certain buttons. Like, I wanted to switch characters and my hand seemed to automatically go to the right button – it will honestly be really hard to readjust in Kuro.

Anyway, something that I first thought was annoying but actually added something good to the game was the switching between the characters. Even tho I though the force-switch between Reans-Team and “C”s-Team in chapter 2 was a bit annoying, all in all it was nice to have 3 different storys play out at the same time. Because even if you found Lloyds story currently a bit boring, switching to Reans-Team might just give you the action that you needed and then going over to (SPOILER! I AM NOT HIDING THE IDENTITY OF “C” HERE!) Rufus – Team were the pacing was a bit faster was just making it feel good. Also, handling the different MCs with their different teams was also very refreshing. Especially as the chemistry was different and thus the feeling when you played the different teams. Not to mention that Reans-Team was changing with every chapter, which once again gave it a great variation of dynamics, depending who was currently on your team. It is almost sad to think about going back to playing the same MC with mostly the same team all the time in Kuro. Because this “3 MCs with different Teams” – thing was really refreshing and enjoyable.

When I was watching the guy play the game a lot of people complained that at the end of the day, we were going through the same old patterns that we were already used too and that that is boring. And even tho it is true, that we have a lot of things that… you know… happened again or at least look like we’ve been through them before, it never felt boring to me. Not when I was watching it and not when I was playing it myself. Because it fit well into the plot. As an example, Lloyd once again has to go around to gather his friends – who are currently facing their own problems – and yes, we’ve done almost the same in the Crossbell-Saga, but it fit very well with the situation, because the SSS had lost themselves and they were finding themselves again and that figuratively and literally. Also, the fact that Lloyd was finding and reuniting them shows him at the center of the SSS, just like it was with Rean in CS2, when he too had to find and reunite his friends again. Plus, I really liked how we took the time with the individual characters and deal with their problems without too much other characters intervening. Especially with the Crossbell-Saga, were we never got I satisfying ending for, it was important to put the characters into a position were you as a player would feel like they are fine. Just like we have reached it with most of the people from the Erebonia-Saga, so that saying goodbye in CS4 felt really whole.

Speaking of which. While in the other routes, the plot focuses not just on the MC but also the characters surrounding him, in Reans-Route, it mostly felt like he was the main-focus of everything and it does make perfect sense, because the reason the prologue of CS4 felt so whole and satisfying was, because everyone’s story was finished. Everyone had found their place and purpose and happiness… everyone but Rean. Now, back then we focused on the fact that Rean was still alive and realizes of some of his burdens and thus seemed to be happy too. But was his arc really fully finished? No. And the latest moment in Hajimari you realize this, is when he FINALLY says that he understood that to make others happy, he has to be happy himself. So what we are doing in Hajimari is going to face his problems and see him learn to solve or deal with them. He has the help of his friends and comrades as always and of course the plot itself is not just “Rean learning to not constantly sacrifice himself” but all in all this is the true background of his route and I found that they did that really well.

Now… lets talk about Rufus-Route… I just freshly finished my second playthrough of CS4 and it was really fresh for me what that bastard did their and I was sure as heck that I would never forgive this guy for what he did. And… I mean… it’s not like I’ve really forgiven him or that I absolutely get why most of the fandom loves him now. BUT I have to admit that they made his redemption-arc really good. For ONCE in one of our many side-switching former enemies life’s, it felt like this character really worked hard for his redemption and earned it. Rufus team was by far the most enjoyable do to the weird misfitting mix of people that had just such an amazingly enjoyable chemistry that it never got boring to play their part of the game. It was also nice to – while we had already well established teams on Llyods and Reans side – see how the characters grew to know and like each other and become a team. Adding Duvalie, Renne and Arios too the mix later on was just making it even better – as ridiculous as this sounds.

So… let me be myself for a bit and let me talk to you about the shipping-aspect of the game for a moments – and let me add some frustration about how they handled Reans situation too, while I am at it.

Here is the thing. Most of us, likely have chosen Rean to be with one of his 12 or so possible girls. The game makes it possible for you to chose one of the among them regardless of who you picked in the previous game. So… in case you suddenly realizes that Alfin is much better for Rean than Towa, you can go for it. Now the question just is, what does this choice add to the game? Basically nothing. Let me tell you, that the Spreadsheet choses Fie as Reans final partner (which was a surprise for me, as all the lets players on YouTube always seemed to choose Laura – which gets annoying after a while if she is not on your top 5 list, if you know what I mean – so I am certainly not complaining here) and I wouldn’t chose anyone but Alisa as Reans final partner even if you torture me XD So I went with it and accepted that I would get addition text for Fie and probably would miss some translated text for Alisa. But I was fine with it. It didn’t happen that way tho. BECAUSE you can also chose the people you had a strong bond with in CS4 which also added additional text. The spreadsheet chose all of them – I didn’t. So EVERYONE got some additional lines. ALL of the girls did. And something I’ve realized was, that they all had an romantic context, which was slightly irritating, given that Rean has a girlfriend now – but I mean, its Rean right? Were talking about the girl sitting in the hotspring together with Claire, flirting with her without even noticing it. So whatever XD

Thing is… when I’ve reached Alisas reunion scene (which happens freaking late in the game, let me tell you all about the torture I went through…) there was no additional line. She says the same things if you chose her as your partner, like she does if you just chose her as one of your strong bonds. And that goes for ALL the girls, which is why their lines sound romantic, because they are made to also be used in case she is your girlfriend. Meaning that Falcom doesn’t make a damn difference between who Rean dated and who Rean just had a strong bond with. Imagine my disappointment!

Lets stay with our glory hunt for a little bit longer. Rean, as he is Rean, has a few canon moments with certain girls that are flirty or… slightly considered romantic. Regardless of any choices, I may add. And no, Alisa is not among them, to probably most peoples surprise. Seriously, we don’t even get a reunion-hug. That is the first time since CS2 that we didn’t get a Rean x Alisa hug. It was HORRIBLE! XD The link event was also reduced back to the “high five” that is common ground for Rean and Alisa since CS1 (we just skipped CS4 for a special hand holding and akward moment link event – but I am sure not complaining ;P) which is fine for me, as even Estelle and Joshua just get a “High five” (a very cute one tho!) and other almost canon-shippings aren’t going much further then that either. So… no biggie. Anway… as you know by now, Alisa will not be in Reans team until the freaking final chapter. She joins Lloyds Team in chapter 3 (or so…) a she (as well as Towa) was in Crossbell when things went down the drain there. Now you might be wondering if I too agree that Alisa had no leg up whatsoever in Hajimari, as many people proudly say. I DO NOT! Look, yes, we’ve got deprived of many special moments that we usually have, but lets face it, as a Rean x Alisa fan I am spoiled rotten. We got hugs and kisses as early as freaking CS2! We have gotten one of the most amazing Reunion-Hugs ever in CS3 (only slightly rivaled by Elie and Lloyd – and we get to their special status quo in a minute) and NO ONE had a special link event in CS4 but Rean and Alisa and to top it off, even if you do not do Alisas Bonding-Events, even if you do not date her at all, you WILL get the hand-holding-link-event in CS4, like it or not. So… lets face it, yes, we are used to far too much special treatment to our ship, especially considering that its not officially canon (yet, I may add ;P) and yes, that caused some disappointment on my side at certain points in the game.

BUT all in all I can not complain. Alisas name is often the only one on his lips. Towa, Machias and Sharon are currently stuck in Crossbell and Alisas name is almost always the only one he mentions. When he tries to reach Crow on the phone, but doesn’t seemed to be able to do that, he actually slightly panics and adds that he just can not reach Alisa. Alisa. Not Towa, his Coworker. Not Machias, his Friend. Also not Sharon everyone favorite maid, who he sure as hell has the number of as well. No, he was only trying to reach Alisa and he was only frustrated about not being able to reach her. AND despite the fact that he is obviously just hiding how worried he is, this little moments, is the only one were he allows himself to show that. That little moments when he can’t reach Alisa. The reunion-scene really isn’t special, but after that we can find Alisa almost always exactly were she belongs, which is right next to Rean. We also have some wonderful small moments in the final chapter. Starting with the in-synch-reaction after hearing Ishmelga-Reans awful story and ending with Alisa being so close to Rean on that Rooftop in Crossbell that there is only on camera-angle which even allows you to see that she is in fact right next to him. So yes… as an Rean x Alisa fan, I might got a bit disappointed because we didn’t get the usual super special treatment, but believe me, we did not run out of the normal special treatment. Alias leg is still up.

Achem…

Lets get to Crossbell now. Falcom had the guts to reveal in an interview that Elie and Lloyd are a thing but didn’t have the backbone to make it canon in Hajimari. They even dared to give Lloyd a special scene with almost every of his available girls. BUT if we are talking about legs up… I would say the reunion hug and the “I want to support you with my heart” – moment, were still giving Elie a leg up. Not to mention that there were multiple small hints here and there at them being an item, so there is no need to worry. I say this ship has sailed. FINALLY another ship has sailed in Crossbell. We’ve all been waiting for this since the Crossbell-Sagas relatively early days. Yes, Mirelle and Randy FINALLY got from “former Co-Workers” (my ass!) to “a married couple” and that in the short span between the beginning and the end of this game. I wish all our ships would be that efficient and fast XD

Did I hear some rumors about Wazy and Noel? Who knows!

Lets move to Rufus-Team, shall we? I am not talking about him and the Lolie… because… not sure what this even is about ^^’ But lets talk about 3 and 9. I mean, Swin and Nadia. (I love them talking about the book, by the way XD) and how Falcom uses the “Sibling” – Zone on us yet again. Seriously, Swin and Nadia are really cute together and its sure that they will become a couple eventually. I mean, there is a scene in the reverie-part of the game were Nadia is complaining about being sister-zoned. And who is the one answering her with the words “its just a phase, Jusis did that with me too”? Guessed it right, Millium. The one with the freaking cutest Link-Events you have EVER seen. Seriously, I loved my Rean and Alisa Hand holding and I absolutely adore the way Estelle and Joshua are looking at each other in their event after their hands stayed connected for a little longer then necessary and yes I jumped out of joy about Tita getting a freaking Trails-Trademark-Headpat from Agate and all. BUT look at Millius and Jusis Link-Event and tell me it is not the cutest thing you have EVER seen? I love how she leans against him like this. Its just… *chef kiss* perfect! ANYWAY… my point is, that Millium hit the nail on the head. The Sibling-Zone is a running-gag in Trails games ever since Joshua and Estelle. Now think guys, Joshua and Estelle are THE canon-couple of the whole Trails-Saga so far. And even here we had the freaking sibling-zone. This is nothing but a freaking joke. I dare to assume that ALL the sibling-zoners are eventually turn out to be couples in the end. Including Cedric and Shirley – Angie proofed to us that queerbaiting is a thing, right George?

So… honestly? All seems to be going very well shipping-wise in our games as far as I can tell. Who knows, maybe Renne will bring us good news about the two remaining ships of the Liberl-Saga in Kuro at some point. I mean, Joshua and Estelle need to get married already and Tita is 18 at the point of Kuro and with Agathe reaching his thirties, it is about time he stops sibling-zoning the girl and date her already. Geez.

I totally digress XD

So back to Hajimari. We had some really great szenes, some amazing chapters. The pacing was mostly good (a bit of a few stupid moves when Rean was in Nord aside), the character-development well done and the plot really interesting. I loved what they did with the normal-ending Reans story and how it helped our Rean to finally see the light. I was totally and absolutely amazed by Lloyds character-development as well. And once again, Rufus earned himself his redemption and I enjoyed watching it. The Riverie-Corridor too was FINALLY well done. It is not too hard, it is actually helpful and you aren’t forced to do much in there, but if you do you gain plenty of benefits from it. As someone who was like: “Oh no, not again!” after hating Phantasma in Sky3 and the Riverie Corridor at the end of CS2, I think it says a lot that I am not complaining about this thing this time, but rather praise it. Music was good. Falcom-Music. Soundtrack of CS3 is still better, but all in all it was very good as per usual. There was really barely anything to complain about.

Looking back at it, I would give it a solid 8,5 out of 10 points – and if you think that I haven’t played the real English localization yet, that has to say a lot.

#Mona plays Hajimari No Kiseki #Monas review #I really enjoyed this game

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ramblingsrantsreviews · 4 years

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Daybreak (Netflix, 2019)

There’s no easy way to describe Netflix’s new show Daybreak. It’s part teen drama, part teen rom-com, and part post-apocalyptic nightmare. The best way to describe it, as many professional journalists have, is teenage Mad Max meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Now, I’m not a fan of Mad Max or anything to do with the apocalypse or post-apocalypse and yet, I found myself drawn to this story — mostly because I wanted my brother and dad to stop pestering me to watch it. I was surprisingly shocked when the pilot captured my attention and willed me to press that “next episode” button Netflix. Yep, I was hooked.

Daybreak is an adaptation from a graphic novel of the same name written by Brian Ralph. The tv series which was created by Brad Peyton and Aron Eli Coleite, tells the story of Josh Wheeler who is on a quest to find his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) Sam Dean in the aftermath of the apocalypse that left only teenagers (and 10-year-old girls?) alive.

With no adults to bring order to the town of Glendale, the high school students do what they do best — create cliques. The cliques, or tribes as they’re referred to in Daybreak, are all controlled by one dominate tribe — The Jocks. Sounds like high school, doesn’t it?

Our protagonist, Josh, has decided the best way to survive the apocalypse is to keep to himself, avoid all tribes and not be a dick. Except, he doesn’t want to be completely alone. No, he wants and needs to find his true love, Sam Dean. Of course, hunting down your true love in a town you’re relatively new too and that’s crawling with Ghoulies (Daybreak’s version of zombies — who are all adults who repeat their last sentence over and over again) is not an easy task for a loner. Despite, his better judgment Josh does end up cultivating his own tribe of sorts out of the misfits roaming around Glendale. Together they form the tribe Daybreaks.

Get the gist? Good.

Now, here’s Dani’s Desk review of Daybreak.

Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

Favorite Episode: Episode 2 — “Schmuck Bait!”

While I admit the pilot was interesting, the only reason I tuned in to the second episode was because of the cliffhanger in the pilot. Episode 2 is what really got me hooked on this show because I wanted to learn more about our core characters.

This is the episode where we start to understand who our characters are. We get to see Josh begrudgingly start to bond with his former bully Westly, who has taken on a new outlook on life that has to lead him to become a rōnin searching for redemption, an Angelica, the 10-year genius and pain-in-the-ass Josh occasionally babysat. Also added into this found-family mix, is Eli Eli Cardashyan (yes, it’s pronounced the same way. No, they’re not related) who has claimed the Glendale mall as his own sanctuary and is not happy about the other’s presence. And I can’t forget about the “Witch” who is better known as former-biology teacher Ms. Crumble who has somehow survived the apocalypse and isn’t a total Ghoulie like the rest of the adults in Glendale.

What’s so special about this episode is that we get a sense of who these characters are and the struggles they’ve been facing on their own. Let’s face it, no one wants to be alone especially in a post-apocalyptic world that run by teenagers. It also really sets up the different stories that are going to be explored over the course of the 10 episodes.

This episode is the starting point. The characters are nervous around each other. Some still want to be alone (Josh), others desperately want to belong to a tribe (Angelica) and some just want their mall back (Eli). This is the episode that sets up the before so that the conclusion, in the end, will show us that these characters have undergone a change.

Least Favorite Episode: Episode 10 – “FWASH BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!”

This is the final episode of the series and honestly, it should be my favorite. Obviously, it’s not. Is there action? Yes. Is there a resolution? Yes. The biggest problem I had with this episode was that it didn’t answer any questions.

Daybreak poses lots of questions over the 10 episodes. Who started the nuclear bombing? Why did only teenagers (and Angelica) survive? Is it the same everywhere? Why did the adults turn into Ghoulies? Why didn’t Ms. Crumblr or Mr. Burr turn into Ghoulies? With so many questions, it’s an unfortunate disservice that the conclusion of Daybreak doesn’t answer one of these pressing questions.

Favorite Character: Ms. Crumble / The Witch

For viewers of this show, this might be a shocking surprise. Ms. Crumble certainly wasn’t destined to become anyone favorite’s character. If anything, she was the comedic C plot to an already comical and dramatic a and b plot. And yet, here I am declaring her my favorite character.

Ms. Crumble is intriguing because she’s unlike any character we’ve ever seen before. Josh is basically this decade’s Ferris Bueller. Angelica is a modern Hit-Girl. Ms. Crumble is something totally different.

She’s also the character that really sticks to her values and inequity. Every other character slips up. Josh becomes a dick. Westly plans to kill despite his road to redemption. Even, Angelica gives up on her goal of creating a tribe with Josh and Westly by her side. Ms. Crumble, though, never goes back on her word. She has a few close calls but it never happens. She never eats a child.

What’s even more interesting is she could have been like Principal Burr. She had every reason to turn on the teenagers who tormented her for years and forced her to change her name to Ms. Crumble, but she doesn’t. She loves kids. She wants to help kids. Even with a blood-thirsty urge to consume her former students, she doesn’t.

She also has the single greatest line of dialogue I have ever heard. “My shit is like a Health Valley granola bar that feels solid, but when you open it up, there’s shit everywhere.”

Don’t get me wrong, she does have some faults — like her involvement with Principal Burr before the apocalypse, but her highs far outweigh her lows.

Least Favorite Character – Samira “Sam” Dean

Yeah okay, I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t Baron Triumph/Principal Burr who killed and ate students for no reason or Turbo who killed classmates out of jealousy and rage be your least favorite character? Probably. Don’t get me wrong their terrible characters, but they’re not necessarily terribly written which is why my least favorite character is golden girl Sam Dean.

Sam Dean is a textbook manic pixie dream girl. For most of the story, she’s MIA leaving us only to see her as Josh sees her. So maybe my statement is a little unfair. It’s not that she’s a manic pixie dream girl, it’s just that Josh sees her as one. But that’s not the only problem.

Sam Dean is Principal Burr’s go-to student. She’s the self-proclaimed “human sorting hat” when it comes to figuring out where kids belong in the social circles of high school. She’s the nice girl on campus and the it-girl after she makes a viral video of her randomly complimenting her classmates.

But is she really the nice girl we think she is? No, she’s not.

She lashes out at Josh and blames him for her new homecoming queen status since he’s the one who posted her video that went viral. Why else would she have asked him to film it if she didn’t want it to be posted?

She lets Baron Triumph out because she’s convinced he’s the one who can bring order to the students — despite the fact that he’s the one who’s been eating them!

And to top it all of, she goes around whining that no one knows who she really is but doesn’t bother to show them who she really is. Even Josh, her boyfriend who claims he’s in love with her, doesn’t get to know the real Sam Dean.

So yeah, Sam might be Josh’s manic pixie dream girl but she’s also her own manic pixie dream girl. Clearly, she has an idea of who she is that no one else does.

Since no one knows who the hell Sam Dean is, not even herself, her ending is confusing and slightly shocking. Is that who the real Sam Dean is?

Complaints:

Lack of answers.

Again, I don’t understand how a show that presents so many questions can leave so many unanswered. We literally do not know why anything is happening or how it’s happening. I get it, writers want to leave things open for a second season and we need cliffhangers. While that is the truth, they still could have answered at least one question.

And yeah okay, there’s Principal Burr’s crackhead theory that the teenagers are the only ones who survived because they got their HIV vaccine but it’s played for laughs. I certainly didn’t take it seriously. Nor would I be happy if that truly was the reason why all the teenagers were able to survive.

What’s the deal with Turbo? How did his face get messed up? Why doesn’t he talk? When he does talk, he bleeds, why?

Exceptions to the Rules.

Daybreak does an amazing job of establishing the world we are now in and the rules for that world in the first episode. And then, we’re presented with all these exceptions to the rules without an explanation.

If Jayden Hoyles was held back several times in high school, wouldn’t he be an adult? If he’s an adult he should be a Ghoulie. Why isn’t he? I certainly don’t know because it’s never even addressed.

What about Angelica? She’s just a 10-year-old kid. How did she survive? Are their other kids out there trying to survive without their parents? What about babies?

How about Principal Burr and Ms. Crumble? They were both adults that survived the apocalypse. And yet, they’re nothing like each other. Yeah, Ms. Crumble comes to the conclusion that she’s the way she is because she has suffered a traumatic brain injury but is that the truth? Regardless, how are they able to continue to survive?

The reason for the Nuclear War is never addressed.

It seems like a disservice for the show to not even mention or even search for the reason why the nuclear war occurred. Yes, the kids know it was all the adults’ fault but what caused it? Given the times we are currently living in, it would have been fun and interesting to see the kids come up with ideas on why the war started that parallel things happening in the real world.

Praise:

Direct Addresses.

I’ll admit at first I was skeptical of the extent that Josh broke the fourth wall. It was a carbon copy of Ferris Buller’s Day Off (and even borrowed some of his taglines) and seemed like a crutch the writers’ used to explain what was going on. Thankfully, it moved away from a crutch and became an amazing device.

I really loved that each character got their own version of a Fourth Wall Break that fit their personality. Josh had the standard, Ferris Buller one. It fit his character and eased us into this device in a way we were comfortable with. Our resident wild child and wannabe gangster Angelica took a different approached and borrowed from mob movies by narrating her episode with voiceovers. Westly’s episode was narrated by Rza, the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, and relied on Japanese animation to help get his point across. Ms. Crumble used flashbacks in the form of a zany multi-cam format to get her story across and Turbo addressed the camera directly relying on doodles on screen since he is mute.

Soundtrack.

Simply put, the soundtrack was amazing. Go stream it on Spotify!

Overall, Daybreak was entertaining but the conclusion left me annoyed and wishing for at least an hour of my time back. The series certainly ends with a hope for a season 2 but I’m not sure if I’d be invested enough to tune in.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Also follow here or on Wordpress to stay up to date with all my reviews, rants and rambles.

Daybreak is streaming now on Netflix. You can catch the trailer for it here.

#pop culture #tv #tv shows #reveiw #daybreak #netflix #netflix daybreak #reviews

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gffa · 7 years

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Time to cry about STAR WARS and I have no shortage of tears again this week. What I especially love about this collection is that there’s a number of fics exploring different possibilities, ones that diverge from canon or remix just one or two things (to go along with all the lovely character explorations here!), to highlight what might have happened. There’s just something really wonderful about getting to read these possibilities that will maybe fix things or will maybe ruin it differently, but there’s so much creativity and so many possibilities that I’m in love all over again! ✦ Time To Go by light_mantled_albatross, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 27.2k wip A version of the “Anakin doesn’t find Ventress at the end of season 5, with the result that Ahsoka gets Dramatically Sentenced To Death” plotline. Obi-Wan makes choices, Anakin freaks out, the Jedi Council behaves somewhat questionably, Darth Sidious behaves completely reprehensibly, and Ahsoka is generally her bad-ass self. ✦ Fast, Thorough, and Sharp as a Tack by igrockspock, han/leia, 2.9k Leia knows how to fire a blaster, survive an interrogation, and escape from the Death Star, but she’s still missing a few essential survival skills – like how to apologize, how to accept help from a friend, and okay, she might not know how to wash her own clothes or cook a real dinner. ✦ Any Scar You Give Me (I Will Endure It) by igrockspock, leia & ben & han/leia & luke, 15k Leia and Han had escaped from Imperial assaults, been captured by Jabba the Hutt, blown up the shield generator on Endor, and helped to found the New Republic. After all that, raising a child together couldn’t be that hard, right? ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 1k Obi-Wan idly watches Anakin pace back and forth, muttering to himself. ✦ the world, nothing less by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin, fusion au, modern au, 6.1k wip Modern day London; Anakin Skywalker, a young man who’s accidentaly always in trouble with the law, is in bigger trouble than usual. ✦ Better Living Through Lack of Chemistry by avarand, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, a/b/o, alpha!obi-wan, omega!anakin, 5.5k Anakin has hidden his Omega status his whole life. Thanks to suppressants, he passes a hot-headed Beta Jedi Knight. On a small-scale mission with Obi-Wan days away from the nearest city, he learns his suppressants have been compromised. He’s sharing a room with his long-time object of lust and desire, and about to go into heat. ✦ untitled by glare-gryphon, obi-wan/anakin, 1.1k The door chimes once again, and Anakin pushes off the couch to find out who it is before they wake Ahsoka. He is both surprised and not to discover Obi-Wan Kenobi standing in the dark of the Naboo night. ✦ untitled by likealeafonthewind, obi-wan/anakin, 2.5k It’s two years after the Battle of Geonosis. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Jedi War General and leads the GAR. Anakin Skywalker had just been Knighted 6 months ago after completing supplemental healer training under Master Che and is now the Commander of the Relief and Support Forces. He’s just returned from a trip and learned that Obi-Wan has not been taking care of himself. ✦ The Stars Died So That You Could Be Here Today by WinterSky101, obi-wan & anakin & padme, 4.6k Anakin and Padmé guide Obi-Wan through his mourning for Qui-Gon. ✦ Got a lot of fight left in me by silveronthetree, obi-wan & leia & luke & cast, 3.6k Leia meets Ben Kenobi on Tatooine. A New Hope AU. ✦ Inheritance by ambiguously, obi-wan & leia, 1.2k The Tantive IV makes it to Tatooine, and Leia has a job to do. ✦ Mother Is the Name for God by victoria_p (musesfool), padme & leia & bail & breha, 1.8k Leia dreams of a beautiful woman with long curly hair. Sometimes, she’s smiling brightly, and sometimes, she’s sad, but Leia knows, deep in her heart, that this is her birth mother, and that she loves Leia very much. ✦ The Wisdomless Cadet by Ignite the Stars, thrawn & eli, 1.2k Eli Vanto isn’t very happy when he is informed that officers are required to have their Wisdom Teeth removed before commissioning. Features Cadet Vanto on drugs and Thrawn making sure he follows the post-op instructions. ✦ Split the Night by Zinga763, obi-wan & anakin/padme & ahsoka & maul & cast, 3.3k wip Darth Maul knows exactly how to break Kenobi. In which Maul targets someone other than Satine, and it changes Obi-Wan and Anakin’s lives, along with the galaxy’s. ✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & waxer & cast, 11.8k wip For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him. full details + recs under the cut!

✦ Time To Go by light_mantled_albatross, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 27.2k wip A version of the “Anakin doesn’t find Ventress at the end of season 5, with the result that Ahsoka gets Dramatically Sentenced To Death” plotline. Obi-Wan makes choices, Anakin freaks out, the Jedi Council behaves somewhat questionably, Darth Sidious behaves completely reprehensibly, and Ahsoka is generally her bad-ass self. Chapter 6: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rather than the fic as a whole. I’ve recommended this fic before, of course, and this chapter is more of exactly what I loved about it–it gets into the nuance and shades of gray of the war’s effect on these characters, but does so in a way that really feels thoughtful and engaging, it does so in a way that blends characterization and plot so incredibly well. While this chapter doesn’t have as much hilarious banter as some of the previous chapters did, it’s no less sharply characterized and no less high octane in the action part of the plot, in the fight scene that takes place. It continues to balance that Anakin is just this sheer well of raw power and so incredibly talented, but that doesn’t mean Mace is any less intimidating, it doesn’t mean that Obi-Wan is any less brilliant and kind of awe-inspiring, it doesn’t mean that Ahsoka is any less amazing. And the plot really is incredibly solid, there’s a story there and, wow, does the author know how to write a tense scene that even I felt wound up, just reading it! The things that happen here feel like they have genuine weight, the scene with the Council members was genuinely effective, and I love how I feel like this fic is entirely possible, had things just been nudged slightly differently, that’s how true it is to everyone and everything in this galaxy. ✦ Fast, Thorough, and Sharp as a Tack by igrockspock, han/leia, 2.9k Leia knows how to fire a blaster, survive an interrogation, and escape from the Death Star, but she’s still missing a few essential survival skills – like how to apologize, how to accept help from a friend, and okay, she might not know how to wash her own clothes or cook a real dinner. This was a really lovely look at Leia’s character, a combination of her prickliness and underlying vulnerability and then mixed with the banter she has with Han. It really shows so well how she can be difficult to get along with, how hard her outer shell is, while also showing how incredibly human she is, and it’s just so Leia. The writing is sharp and fantastic and it’s such a great, great look at her in these quiet moments where she’s struggling with things she’s never had to learn before, but she’s trying so hard and she’s so brilliant and yet none of this is easy. ✦ Any Scar You Give Me (I Will Endure It) by igrockspock, leia & ben & han/leia & luke, 15k Leia and Han had escaped from Imperial assaults, been captured by Jabba the Hutt, blown up the shield generator on Endor, and helped to found the New Republic. After all that, raising a child together couldn’t be that hard, right? I have one caveat about this fic, in that Luke doesn’t feel quite right (the idea that he would go the PT Jedi’s Buddhist-influenced route doesn’t quite sit right for me) but that I see why the author did so by the end of the fic and it’s a minor personal quibble in what’s a really lovely, bittersweet, heartbreaking look at Leia’s character and her relationship with her son. I sank into this fic and just read and read and read, in a way that worked so well for me, that it did really well with showing the sympathetic sides of everyone here, even when it was entirely in Leia’s point of view and she has such strong feelings and reactions, it showed how her relationship with Han was good but could still have turned out to have contributed to Ben’s issues, that Ben wasn’t an evil monster from the start, that even as Leia doesn’t really understand what went wrong or precisely where, I understood exactly where she was coming from and there was enough of Ben to get at least a vague sense of what happened with him. I liked that I really cared about everyone here, that they were all flawed in their own ways, but that didn’t make them evil or wrong. And Leia’s relationship with the Force and learning to use it, how things ultimately end up, the last few moments of the fic and where she philosophically ends up, really had such an impact for me. It’s a fic that packed a lot in for something that was told across such a large span of years, but the moments chosen do a great job of illustrating the picture the fic is painting and there’s such care here, from the fic and the characters themselves, and such a strong grip of Leia’s character, that it really, really was a wonderful read. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 1k Obi-Wan idly watches Anakin pace back and forth, muttering to himself. This is part of a larger series that should probably be read in order by now–especially this fic and this fic. It’s a shorter piece, where Obi-Wan and Anakin wait for Ahsoka to show up, and it’s about showing the shift in their relationship after they’ve had such an important talk, that they’re still very much themselves, but something has clicked back into place again, that this is a light-hearted moment before (presumably) the shit hits the fan again. And, oh, I love that kind of fic, I love the sheer amount of affection between these characters, who have a few moments to just be, even if Anakin is, as always, a little wound up. But better. And I love love love that Anakin’s resentment is simmering back down, that he can hear about Obi-Wan having taught Ahsoka for a bit, and not start spiraling again, that it shows such a small thing can be such a major shift, that Obi-Wan isn’t discarding him, that they’re not leaving him behind, that she’s always and forever Anakin’s Padawan, that he’s still present here, is such a huge and understated and wonderful thing here, ahhhhh. ✦ the world, nothing less by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin, fusion au, modern au, 6.1k wip Modern day London; Anakin Skywalker, a young man who’s accidentaly always in trouble with the law, is in bigger trouble than usual. In a bit of a coincidence, I’d actually been reading a fair amount of Kingsman fic lately to get a fix on this dynamic that I enjoy, and then up pops an actual Kingsman fusion fic and, yeah, boy, does it ever fit together really well! The early scenes of the movie, with the Star Wars characters mapped onto them, works really well and it’s such fun and I’m already eager to see where the rest of it goes, because this first chapter flew by it was so delightful and engaging. But it’s also so enjoyable for the characterization–Anakin is the completely relatable mess that I love so dearly, he is my precious disaster son, and Obi-Wan is the polished, controlled, super hot warrior who knows how to fight really, really well, yet still warm and caring. They play off each other really well already, of course, and it’s just super super fun! ✦ Better Living Through Lack of Chemistry by avarand, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, a/b/o, alpha!obi-wan, omega!anakin, 5.5k Anakin has hidden his Omega status his whole life. Thanks to suppressants, he passes a hot-headed Beta Jedi Knight. On a small-scale mission with Obi-Wan days away from the nearest city, he learns his suppressants have been compromised. He’s sharing a room with his long-time object of lust and desire, and about to go into heat. You don’t even know how into a/b/o fic I am and this one was just exactly what I wanted, it happily embraces the tropes of this and it’s all about feelings and then sex, which was entirely satisfying! Anakin trying so hard to hide himself that’s paralleled just enough alongside canon to be satisfying for that as well, to have those echoes of the canon in their relationship and especially Anakin as he tries to be something he’s not, until he finally gives in and Obi-Wan discovers the truth of him and of course they fit together perfect, of course Obi-Wan opens him up and fills him up with something better. It’s one of those fics that just hit my id dead on and was so satisfying for what I wanted from it! If a/b/o isn’t your thing this may not be for you, but if you want something fun and with some nice sex, where Anakin is spread open and taken care of and is happier for it, then I enjoyed this one a lot. ✦ untitled by glare-gryphon, obi-wan/anakin, 1.1k The door chimes once again, and Anakin pushes off the couch to find out who it is before they wake Ahsoka. He is both surprised and not to discover Obi-Wan Kenobi standing in the dark of the Naboo night. Oh, this was just entirely the way to my feelings, to be honest. Anakin leaves the Jedi Order, he thinks Obi-Wan is here to try to convince him back, but instead their conversation takes a different turn, and it’s definitely fluffy and happy and sweet. It’s one of those fics that I need sometimes, to counterbalance all the angst, especially when it’s almost a little understated (except for, well, everything that is Anakin, of course, as it should be) but no less heartfelt. I enjoyed it a lot! ✦ untitled by likealeafonthewind, obi-wan/anakin, 2.5k It’s two years after the Battle of Geonosis. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Jedi War General and leads the GAR. Anakin Skywalker had just been Knighted 6 months ago after completing supplemental healer training under Master Che and is now the Commander of the Relief and Support Forces. He’s just returned from a trip and learned that Obi-Wan has not been taking care of himself. This was a really low-key sweet piece about Obi-Wan pushing himself to incredible lengths, like that guy is a goddamned tank for how far his reserves go and he’s still basically functioning, even if it’s not great compared to his usual standards. And I love that Obi-Wan is so calm about it, even when he’s dead tired and pushing himself further, while I could practically feel Anakin getting more and more wound up. It’s a softer fic, it’s meant to be fluffy, so you know things will work out and eventually Anakin does manage to lure Obi-Wan into sleep and it’s really satisfying when it finally happens and there’s some very nice cuddling. This is especially a good fic if you’ve been binging on angstier stuff latey and could use something nice! ✦ The Stars Died So That You Could Be Here Today by WinterSky101, obi-wan & anakin & padme, 4.6k Anakin and Padmé guide Obi-Wan through his mourning for Qui-Gon. Oh, this was so lovely for all three characters. It’s set from Padme’s point of view and she shines so much in this fic, but it’s really lovely for Obi-Wan and Anakin as well, it’s very much how these characters would react, it was so easy to see this in my head, there’s such warmth and care, framed in how these characters would express it that it had my heart from the beginning. I really can’t express enough affection for that warmth this fic had, that I came away caring very much for each of them, that Padme has such compassion to her, that Anakin is bright and shining, that Obi-Wan is loved and will find his way even when he’s struggling right now and that makes you care more for him. I want to flail over little things, the way Padme is firm without being preachy, that she gives others their space, but also won’t back down from kindness, she’s warm, she’s the kind of person I want to be around, she’s the person I recognize from the movies. And it was just really, really meaningful to me today to read this. ✦ Got a lot of fight left in me by silveronthetree, obi-wan & leia & luke & cast, 3.6k Leia meets Ben Kenobi on Tatooine. A New Hope AU. Oh, this was a really lovely look at Leia meeting Ben (and then Luke) on Tatooine and there’s a good weight to it, both for Leia as a character and the sense of impending history here, that things are different because Leia is not Luke (and is so much more like Anakin) and how I ended this story feeling almost hopeful for the galaxy again, beyond just that I know things generally work out, that maybe it won’t be quite so heavy a burden and cost as the canon one was. And, of course, I am always here for complicated, yet surprisingly warm interaction between Obi-Wan and Leia, which this was nicely satisfying for. ✦ Inheritance by ambiguously, obi-wan & leia, 1.2k The Tantive IV makes it to Tatooine, and Leia has a job to do. This was another short but solid piece about Leia making it to Tatooine and the brief conversation she has with General Kenobi, the steel in her spine and the determination she has to set the galaxy to rights. I love her banked fire here, that she draws people in, it’s so easy to know what a legend Luke will become, but Leia is just as much of one, too. ✦ Mother Is the Name for God by victoria_p (musesfool), padme & leia & bail & breha, 1.8k Leia dreams of a beautiful woman with long curly hair. Sometimes, she’s smiling brightly, and sometimes, she’s sad, but Leia knows, deep in her heart, that this is her birth mother, and that she loves Leia very much. I am always a sucker for Leia fics, especially Leia fic about her relationship with her parents, the adoptive ones who were her family and the biological ones that she never really knew, but was shaped by anyway. The way Padme’s influence is still present, even when she’s not really understood, is lovely and I liked the balance between her and Bail/Breha in Leia’s life. It was a nice look at the characters I really love. ✦ The Wisdomless Cadet by Ignite the Stars, thrawn & eli, 1.2k Eli Vanto isn’t very happy when he is informed that officers are required to have their Wisdom Teeth removed before commissioning. Features Cadet Vanto on drugs and Thrawn making sure he follows the post-op instructions. This is based on the new Thrawn novel and it fits together with the characters and their relationship in this really solid, enjoyable way! It was entirely easy to see both characters just as I did when reading the book and they’re both spot on characterization wise and I really love the way the relationship was written, that it might have been more under the surface, but it’s a bit up to the reader to decide. Which is pretty much exactly how I saw them in the book, too. This is a fun, almost fluffy kind of piece, and yet it works perfectly well with these characters and is one of those moments I could easily see slipping between the pages of canon. ✦ Split the Night by Zinga763, obi-wan & anakin/padme & ahsoka & maul & cast, 3.3k wip Darth Maul knows exactly how to break Kenobi. In which Maul targets someone other than Satine, and it changes Obi-Wan and Anakin’s lives, along with the galaxy’s. This fic has only just begun, so right now it’s mostly Anakin being angry at Obi-Wan, then cuddling with Padme, but eventually it will be a story about Maul targetting Anakin instead of Satine and I have been WAITING for someone to tackle that idea because, oh, man, the potential for the storyline is super delicious, especially if it’s after the Rako Hardeen arc, where Anakin thinks Obi-Wan doesn’t care about him, but Obi-Wan absolutely does. And so far the fic has been lovely about showing why both sides are understanable, there’s a lovely lack of preachiness in the writing, instead it’s characters reacting to how they feel and how others act, so that makes it me feel for them like a hundred times more. Watching Anakin be so tightly wound and unable to let go of his hurt makes me sad, too. Watching Obi-Wan not know what to say to Anakin to get him to unclench again makes me sad as well. I am ALL FOR the feelings this fic is going to give me, bring them on! ✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & waxer & cast, 11.8k wip For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him. Chapter 4: Should I wait until there are at least two chapters before doing an update? Probably. Am I going to? No, because I have to flail about chapter 4, which is more of Obi-Wan and Waxer interaction in that way that I love, that it takes two characters who don’t necessarily have a ton of canon interaction and brings them together in such a natural fit, like it’s so easy to see this branching off canon and it has a really organic sort of feel to it, it makes sense and there’s a reason why it had to be these two characters, all while also building a friendship there, that it’s charming and solidly done. I could read a hundred thousand words of Obi-Wan wandering around the galaxy, with a mildly despairing Waxer in tow, where he kind of knows where he’s going, but also is just kind of letting the Force tell him where to stop, but there’s such a surety in who Obi-Wan is and how he acts, even a surety in when he’s not sure where he’s going, that even when potentially galaxy-shaking events are happening and he’s possibly making a lot of this up as he goes along, Obi-Wan is settled in his own skin. But also it’s the fun of two characters forming a friendship as they go along, it’s the intriguing details of the planet they stop on, why they stopped there, what it gains them, what it will mean, and of course that Anakin is still trying to find them and Waxer is a mix of “oh what the fuck” and “I’d follow him into hell if he asked” about it and Obi-Wan is that perfect mix of mild humor and seriousness, that he’s reckless but never an unconsidered reckless. It’s lovely all the way around and one of the fics I most look forward to updating these days!

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #obikin #leia organa #ahsoka tano #star wars fic recs #fic recs

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thedoctorisadhd · 7 years

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what's once on this island about?

i hope ur happy anon, bc this took me literally like six hours im not exaggerating even a little

short answer: so u take the original plot of the littlest mermaid and u plunk it down rIGHT in the middle of 1920s haiti, right

long answer (like, REALLY long answer. like REALLY long. im sorry i dont know how to summarize when there are so many good things):

“there is an island where rivers run deep…”

“where the sea, sparkling in the sun, earns it the name, ‘jewel of the antilles.’”

“an island where the poorest of peasants labor —”

“— and the wealthiest of the grand hommes lay.”

“two different worlds on one island!”

“the grand hommes, owners of the land and masters of their own fates.”

“and the peasants, eternally at the mercy of the wind and sea, would pray constantly to the gods.”

those are the four storytellers, beginning the play. lydia started the first line, then abby, then dori, then natalie, and repeat.

(oh yeah, also this is the jr version. also, i dont know everything bc i was backstage the majority of the time)

so the gods that the beach people / peasants are dancing to, theres 4 of them. asaka (played by lavanya in our production) is the goddess of the earth, erzulie (played by luke who’s closeted, so i change it to a god, erzulio) beautiful goddess of love. agwe (played by ian) is the god of the sea, and papa ge (eli, of course, and it’s literally pronounced papa gay), my personal favorite, is the sly demon of death

and this is all described in the first number “we dance”

stay tuned yo it gets better.

(its so good. dont ever listen to any version besides the chatham one i can guarantee you that any non-eli papa ge, any non-luke erzulie / erzulio, any non-lavanya asaka, any non-ian agwe, any non-lydia / dori / abby / natalie storyteller will not be as good)

so basically theres this storm, and in this storm is a little girl and the gods are like “no papa ge we’re not killing her you fuck” and they irresponsibly plunk her down in a tree

and so tonton julien (ben) and mama euralie (izzy) come along & are like “holy shit a kid” (and this girl is crying her eyes out of course bc as mr adam creatively put it to the girl who played young ti moune, “you were just dropped in a tree by some randos you’ve never seen before in your entire life”) but like theyre poor and dont have a lotta food and shit so they try to leave but the gods, showing some small modicum of responsibility, like, use the force to pull them back. so these peasants adopt ti moune and name her ti moune and theres a whole big number about her growing up called “one small girl” which i quite like actually

then ti moune is grown up (sammie) and she sings about like “whats my destiny yo” all naive in “waiting for life” and sees a car which is a big ol lead-in to the next number. which brings us to

so in the beginning of “rain” theres this HILARIOUS section of dialogue with the gods picking mangos and here it is bc i cant not include it man

asaka: 🎵 pick a mango! 🎵

agwe: 🎵 a juicy mango! 🎵

erizulie: 🎵 a lovely mango! 🎵

papa ge, being Himself: 🎶 a poison mango! 😈 🎶

[all of the other gods look at papa ge]

anyway, after that theyre all proposing things to do to get ti moune less naive, with such wonderful suggestions from these dumbasses as “splash her with a wave” and “scare her half to death”. and then erzulie is like “yeah u do that imma give her what she wants bye” and the other gods are like “????????????” and shes just like “You Heard Me” and just goes like “Love Can Conquer Anything!!!!!!! :)))))))) ❤️💞💕💚💛💙💜💝💘💗💖❣️” and papa ge is like “that’s bullshit this whole thing is bullshit that’s a scam fuck the love here’s like two reasons why” and they argue (and asaka remarks that this is “more amusing than mangos”) and the gods are all “HMMMM🤔🤔” and then they all go “A BET!”

and the gods all start like pitching in to set up this bet, so like erzulie gives her strength and asaka’s gonna guide her but then papa ge interrupts like “IM GONNA MAKE HER CHOOSE” and then johnny boy i mean ian i mean agwe then calls dibs on choosing the circumstances of the bet

and u remember that car right? well ian agwe is like “that. thats the place where the 2 worlds meet” and he creates a big ol storm and in the song he says (one of my favorite lines, actually) “rain makes the road such a dangerous place” (he did amazing in that song but i feel kinda bad bc like. he was overshadowed by the other gods who are all incredible singers, and parts of it were too low for him. like, eli can sing as high as he did, but ian really cant sing that low)

also they used the fish flags from the seussical two years ago when sammie’s sister sidne played the cat in the hat. i always found it hilarious that dori of all people they couldve chosen played a fish

ANYWAY. so the car is goin down the road and crash oh no a car accident. totally not what agwe was (shot)gunning for

and so ti moune pulls this guy outta the car right, and — by the way, now we’re in this super intense number called “pray” — and this song is real fuckin good alright.

my opinion upon this is based almost solely on the fact that within the first like ten lines of this epically long song a peasant, talking about the guy that got pulled outta the car (daniel, that’s his name), says, literally: “papa ge wants him!” i will remind you that papa ge is pronounced “papa gay” and what makes it even more astronomically fuckin funny is that both hank, the guy that played daniel, and eli, who as u may know played papa ge, are mlm.

anyway no one wants to help daniel even tho he’s Actively Dying bc Fuck The Grand Hommes, Am I Right Guys We Cant Do Anything Were Peasants And There Is Sanctity That We Must Never Talk To Look At Or Think About A Single Grand Homme, Ever™ but ti mounes gonna help him bc Fuck You Guys and she keeps him alive while tonton julien goes to find the guys family after she’s Finally persuaded the guy to do this

and ti moune doesnt sleep for Three Fucken Days by the way. thats important in the next number

also daniel is supposed to be good looking so of course ti moune Falls In Love With Him despite never having seen him before in her entire life, and also hes unconcious the Whole time. i dont understand the heterosexuals

anyway, tonton juliens at the gate to daniels family hotel and he’s like “pls let me in i need to speak to monsieur beausome!” and the gatekeepers like “get the fuck away my guy” and hes like “no but its urgent!!” and the gatekeeper SLAPS BEN [LAST NAME REDACTED]*

so ben i mean tonton recovers and like seriously gets down on his knees and begs and the gatekeeper is still like “FUCK! NO!” and then ben fucking [last name redacted]* SCREAMS SAVAGELY “I HAVE FOUND HIS SON!” HOO BOY

and then at the end of pray you hear a long high note and then one specific girl takes it HIGHER ????????? idk who it is for sure but im willing to put my money on lavanya bc jesus christ can that girl sing

*people always say bens full name when referring to him for some reason, so it’s not ben bc which ben? it’s not ben b. it’s ben [last name redacted].

so pray goes ge STRAIGHT into forever yours. not the reprise, thats later.

so. forever yours. in a STUNNING turn of events (sarcasm. absolutely the least stunning thing after the whole “papa gay wants him” in pray), the VERY fucking FIRST LINE IN THIS WHOLE FUCKING STUPID HEARTFELT SONG is literally ti moune saying “i am a tree, holding away the storm”. are you fucking serious. are you kidding me. you waste the first line on that monstrosity,

anyway basically what happens in this is ti moune is singing about tending to daniel here it is

i am a tree holding away the stormhere in my arms i’ll keep u safe and warmeven the gods wont dare to cross this linewhere my life is forever yoursand you are mine

and on that last word, “mine”, papa ge joins in and it is fuckin CHILLING, not LEAST bc eli has the voice of a fuckin angel (and sammie too, but i think eli’s is just slightly better)

so eli stalks in and the first thing papa ge does, in a True demonstration of the gay / ge agenda, is Drag The Het.

(then he goes on to say “this boy is mine”)

so eli’s also got a knife (a fake one) and this is another Important Thing so yeah

anyway sammie ti moune should “TAKE MINE FOR HIS.” (her life she meant) and papa ge is SHOOK. he just … stops. “wot”

so yeah. ti moune, in one of The most IMPRESSIVE displays of heterosexual tomfoolery and ridiculousness i have Yet Seen (scene), trades her life for this Complete Fuckin Stranger she pulled out of the car wreck whomst has not as of yet spoken a Single word to her bc HE’S BEEN UNCONSCIOUS THE WHOLE TIME!?

and heres another good line, the first gay daddy nico diangelo himself eli papa gay papa ge has had since “wot”: i am the road / leading to no return

(and this is also where eli goes REALLY high. like not for basically everyone else, but for him)

then daniels two dads apparently, grant and hugh, pick him up and take him back to the hotel and ti moune is like “NOOOOOOO” and makes mama and tonton let her leave to go find daniel, and frankly i am not very interested in this specific part of the song so fuck that i skipped it lmao lets get to lavanyas fuckin SOLO

alright. “mama will provide”. exactly what it says on the tin, taking it into account that asaka would be mother earth i guess

really all this one is is lavanya’s fuckin angelic voice and What Exists In Nature, and i cant very well put lavanya’s voice down on the page for yinz to hear can i? the only notable thing i can really think of besides this next piece a dialogue will share w u is in the beginning theres a bunch of ensemble doing weird repeating acapella and some hopping in like frogs. “COO COO coo coo cOO COO COOO” “SHAH shaSHA-ah” “buuuuu BUM! BUM! bum” its sounds slightly weirder than it is

anyway here’s the best dialogue:

everyone: MOSQUITOS??

asaka: HA!

ACT TWO HERE WE FUCKIN GO ALRIGHT

ok, so ti moune finds daniel who doesnt know who she is bc, you know, he was unconscious the entire time. she gets him to know she was the one who nursed him tho. and they go to the front of the stage and ti moune sits and daniel puts his head on her lap. again, poor hank

now, “human heart”. jesus. i have literally cried over this song.

so erzulie goes out on stage to where hank is slowly suffering, probably, and sings this GODS DAMN BEAUTIFUL SONG about like, love n shit i guess. the storytellers and the other three gods act as a sort of choir. that’s pretty much all there is to say about human heart tho. moving on

ok so for “pray (reprise)” the gossipers (which are apparently supposed to be the storytellers, but fuck that thats lame, give my Cool Hoes lianna and taylor parts tbh) go out on stage and sing about how daniel is spending all his time w a peasant and shes a witch and yadda yadda yadda. and then theres some lame romance shit that i dont have fuckin time for

anyway, the song culminates with daniel’s father comin out on stage (lmao). which father, u ask? he had two of em? well that was grant and hugh, this one’s iain. conclusion: daniel has three polyamorous gay dads. this is the gayest production of a play ive ever seen. i mean papa ge? “papa ge wants him”? the fact that tonton means uncle so mama euralie and tonton julien arent married? “this boy is mine” coming from daddy gay himself? the fact that daniels last name means beautiful man? the “beautiful god of love” (as luke said, refusing to misgender himself in his introduction U GO LUKE)? the fact that out of the main cast (the 4 gods, the 4 storytellers, daniel, ti moune, andrea, mama euralie, and tonton julien) there are literally eight (8) actors who Arent straight (id bet that two others arent str8 and or / cis as well but im not sure)? just change daniel to danielle and itll be perfect

ayway daniel’s 3rd dad comes out on stage and tells him to stop this nonsense, young man ANYWAY NEXT SONG

in “some girls” the rich guys at the hotel all are doing a really lame colorless boring dance. then this girl andrea (ava) comes out and sings about the rumors about ti moune, that she’s stupid or wild, and daniel tells her to stop, then ti moune arrives and andrea really condescendingly asks her to dance for everyone and daniel encourages ti moune

so ti moune does a slow lame dance and then it gets loud and wild and fun! then when she’s done andrea goes to daniel and is like “she’s in love with you you oblivious fuck if you care at all you’ll tell her —” (unclear about what he’s caring about) and andrea is interrupted by ti moune who’s like “HI I HEARD MY NAME WHATCHA WANT ANDREA” and daniel goes and breaks her fuckin heart right

how he does this is he’s like “oops sorry i thought u would realize that we could never marry bc andrea and i are already engaged (since we were babies)”. daniel demonstrates an amazing amount of calmness about being forced to marry this girl he’s known all his life, and an incredible amount of insensitiveness bc TI MOUNE WAS NEVER FUCKIN TOLD THAT HE WAS ENGAGED. honestly i loathe literally every single character in this play except for the gods and the storytellers lmao

OK NOW FOR MY FAVORITE FUCKIN ONE WOW :~)

the reprise of forever mine.

so. ti moune is alone on stage and she goes like “gods please are u listening help me” and then. u hear. eli’s fucking amazing evil laugh and the gay himself appears

and he’s like u gotta keep ur promise ti moune im here to collect on that Soul

did i mention elis voice is beautiful? no i dont care, im sayin it again, eli [last name redacted] has the voice of an angel

anyway he’s like “u gave him ur soul, now u have to PAY” (the line he used here is “i am the price you’ll pay” and that sounds cool as shit)

and so “father homosexual,” as he was dubbed by luke, takes out his knife and sings “your life is forever mine” and holds the knife to ti mounes neck and ti moune yells “PLEASE DONT” and and and

he stops.

“trade your life for his.”

so papa ge gives her the knife and tells her to go stab daniel and he sings “i am the road that leads to no return” as he walks to the left side of the stage, and erzulie appears at the right side and sings human heart as papa ge continues with his verse from the first forever mine as ti moune struggles towards and away from daniel, straining, being pulled by opposite forces, love and death, and the two unite in singing “forever mine!” and ti moune casts the knife to the floor and screams “NO!”

and the music stops

and daniel sees the knife and picks it up

and says “why?!”

(fuckin bitch shoulda stabbed him when she had the chance)

and ti moune gets cast out and like, withers away at the gate neither eating nor sleeping, and then daniel comes to the gate with andrea at his wedding and sees ti moune and gives her a coin when she runs after him, and she collapses and the gods, sOMEHOW GAINING SOME MINISCULE VIEW OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR FUCKIN ACTIONS, all start CRYING. (erzulie won the bet) and erzulie hugs ti moune and papa ges probably off somewhere feeling sorry for himself bc you cant fuckin see him in the footage (nah, he’s off at the side of the stage with the other two gods neither of whomst you can see either), and mama euralie comes to sing this sad and pretty number “part of us” and then tonton and baby ti moune arrive as well for some fuckin reason,

and mama euralie says,

“and then the gods blessed her and turned her into —”

and then the gods hit their staffs on the floor (ian a bit gentlier bc his was falling apart bc he wouldnt stop fucking licking the fucking ribbons, ian) “a tree!”

and the tree comes up, forwards this time thankfully (phew) and and the tree fuckin cracks the walls of the hotel, get rekt scrubs, and the tree fuckin stalks daniel i guess, and daniels son sits by the tree and looks up and theres a peasant girl in its branches, and ti moune touches everyones hearts and also their livers, and everyone starts singing “why we tell the story”

also, fun story real quick, ive never actually seen eli dab i dont think (that’s something i need to accomplish real soon), and the dance he went off to the side and did with like, lydia, and agwe and ben [last name redacted] and daniels son and hugh — i guess all the boys in musical theater and also lydia, and the dance they have to do looks pretty damn like dabbing, and like, eli’s holding his staff so he cant do a true dab, really, but he can do a one armed one — but no. his dancing looks more like fuckin waving. ben [last name redacted] is dabbing, daniels son is dabbing, im like 80 percent sure ian’s dabbing directly behind eli, gloria’s dabbing in the back, but no, nOT ELI. im pretty sure he’s deliberately avoiding it smh

anyway

whOOP exciting parts over. now it’s time for Sad Half Circle Around Tree Girl i guess

“the stories that we weave,” and the storytellers and daniel’s son and the peasant girl in tree moune’s branches all come to the front and —

“there is an island where rivers run deep…”

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youreverycolor · 7 years

Text

Perception - Ch. 18: Stranger Than Fiction

A/N: Oh. My. God. I keep apologizing for the delay between chapters, but between losing my job, starting a new one, studying for the bar exam, and life in general, it was hard to write this one. To make up for it, I’m giving you almost 10,000 words. I really struggled with this chapter sometimes, because I’m dealing almost exclusively with everyone BUT Rafael, and he’s the most fun to write. But this chapter advances the plot in a major way, including - GASP - Lauren’s shocking secret. I hope you guys enjoy!

Song: Some People Change by Kenny Chesney

Nora flung open the door and glared at Eli as he pushed past her, uninvited, into the apartment. He was wearing the same suit he’d worn the day before, sans tie, and judging by his bloodshot eyes, he hadn’t slept.

“For the love of God, Eli, it is 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday. What the hell could you possibly-”

“THIS!” He slapped a large manila envelope onto the counter. “THIS is why you’re awake right now. THIS is what I stayed up all night reading. THIS is what we have to deal with now!” She stared at the envelope, nothing immediately registering.

“I’m not in the mood for guessing games, Eli, so why don’t you just tell me what THIS is?” She flipped on the switch on the coffee maker, silently thanking God that she’d prepared it the night before.

“THIS is the email you sent me from the investigator last Monday! You know, the one you didn’t comment on, mark as urgent, OR tell me about!” At that, Nora stopped what she was doing.

Shit, she thought. I forgot all about that. She had gotten distracted before she could review the email’s contents in detail, and had only barely managed to forward it to him in the meantime. It was her screw-up, and she knew it. But she knew that the best way to get Eli past his anger was to get him to focus on the solution. “I’m sorry, Eli. I dropped the ball. So what do you need me to do?”

He gestured toward the stack. “Sit. Read. Respond.” The coffee already filled the air, and she desperately wanted a cup before she dove into this, but she wasn’t in a bargaining position. So, she sat down, rubbed her still-sleepy eyes, and began to read.

It took her a good forty-five minutes to wade through all the details in the report - and there were MANY. Some were mundane, like college transcripts, parking tickets, various versions of her resume. But when she’d finished, she was absolutely dumbfounded. For once, she felt Eli’s panic was justified.

“Now do you get it? Do you understand?” She noticed the vein in his forehead that always pulsed when he got worried. It troubled her every time, because she was sure one day it might actually burst.

“So,” she said, “what do we do?” She tentatively stood up and ventured toward the coffee maker.

“We have several things we are going to do,” he replied, still visibly angry but a little less terrifying.

“Such as?”

“For starters, we’re going to wake Marissa up.”

“Eli, she-”

“MARISSA!” He bellowed. “Get out here!” He started down the hallway, but Nora placed a hand on his arm.

“Eli! She’s not here.”

He looked down at her hand and then at her, eyes burning. “What do you mean she’s not here?”

“I mean what I said. She isn’t here.” She looked both smug AND uncomfortable somehow, and Eli wanted to shake her off.

“It’s seven in the morning on a Saturday,” he said, growing more confused and irritated by the minute. “Where is she?”

“She's… at Sonny’s.”

The fire died from his eyes and he stared at her blankly, as though she wasn’t even there. He blinked a number of times. She wasn’t quite certain what to say, but she was trying very hard not to smile.

“I… what?” He finally sputtered.

She allowed the smile this time, but tried to couch it in empathy.

“She went to stay at Sonny’s place last night,” she said. When he didn’t reply, she continued. “Eli, it’s completely normal.”

“Like hell it is! She’s a child, and he’s-”

“Okay, first, she’s not a child. She’s a grown-ass woman, and he’s a perfectly nice lawyer.”

“Oh, stop that, just because he’s a lawyer and we’re Jewish-”

She snapped at him this time, something she very rarely did. “YOU stop it. You know that’s not what I meant. And you know I’m right.” The silence between them was hot, stifling. He looked at his arm. Her hand was still there. She seemed to realize it at the same time, and pulled back. Then, she softened her voice. “Eli, she just started speaking to you again. Do you really want to die on this hill?”

He sighed, defeated. “I just don’t trust him. He’s the idiot who posted that video, and I think if she’s going to insist on dating someone-” He watched her shake her head and chuckle. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I just can’t believe this,” she replied. “We have this absolutely enormous crisis in the campaign, and you’ve been sidetracked by your daughter’s boyfriend.”

That seemed to snap something in his brain. “Right,” he said. “Yes. So. What we need is either for Marissa to talk to Rafael or for Lauren to talk to me.”

“And how would either of those things ever happen? Lauren doesn’t even know you - and what little she knows makes you look like the lunatic you are - and Marissa isn’t going to talk to her boss about his girlfriend.”

“He won’t listen to me,” he said. “He’ll just get pissed and dig his heels in.”

“So you’d rather put Marissa in that situation?” She realized the coffee had finished brewing and poured two cups, shoving one toward him. To her surprise, he actually picked it up, though he didn’t stop pacing and flailing his other arm. Maybe the coffee wasn’t such a good idea after all, she thought.

“No,” he said, “that’s just it. She won’t be in that situation. For whatever reason, she can say the same thing I would and he’ll listen to her.”

“Eli, she isn’t going to do it. She’s already involved enough, and I can tell you, from experience, it is uncomfortable having to bring up anything related to your boss’s dating life.”

“Personal experience?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Need I remind you of Courtney Paige?” She mirrored his face. He looked somewhere between offended and shocked.

“When did you ever-”

“You think I didn’t have to make excuses for the noise coming out of your office?” She drank her coffee casually, but didn’t quite make eye contact.

He remembered that day and how embarrassed he had been by Nora’s stare when he and Courtney had emerged from his office, damp and dizzy. But it hadn’t occurred to him at the time that Nora might also have been embarrassed.

“Well,” he said, wanting to move away from the topic, “what do you think we should do then?”

She was almost unprepared for the question. It wasn’t like him to ask the opinion of others in a damage control situation. She proceeded with caution. “I think… I think your second suggestion is the more reasonable. Someone ought to go directly to Lauren.”

He walked into the living room, mug in hand, mulling over the idea. “Interesting. Do you think she might talk to you?”

“Me? Why me?” That hadn’t been her intention.

“Don’t you think this would be better coming from you?”

“Oh? You mean like when you wanted me to ask the intern if she was wearing panties?” She shook her head. “Not happening, Eli.”

“Well, SOMEONE has to do it. And as you said, she already hates me. She won’t take it well.”

“She’s not going to take it well either way,” she sighed. “What’s your ultimate goal here?”

He groaned and sat down on the couch. “What I’d LIKE and what I can GET are two different things.”

“Usually,” she replied, and sat down next to him.

“So what I’d LIKE doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Plan B, then,” she offered.

“Plan B is to get her to come clean and let me manage this as best we can.”

“So just reason with her. She obviously cares about Rafael. She won’t want to hurt him.” Her face didn’t quite match her words.

“What are you REALLY thinking?”

“I’m thinking that your coffee is cold and I need a shower,” she said. “When you figure out what you want to do, let me know.”

As she left the room, the realization that he had no idea how to handle this hit him. He thought he had seen it all. He’d dealt with lovers, call girls, all manner of sexual and romantic secrets. But not once in all his years of professional politics and crisis management had he seen anything this outrageous, complicated, and potentially campaign-ending.

“Good morning,” Sonny said, lifting his head slightly. Marissa was curled against him, almost halfway off the couch, but for Sonny’s arm around her waist holding her in place.

“Morning,” she replied, not even opening her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten,” he said, although he was barely able to see his watch through the sleep in his eyes. “Shoulda been at work half an hour ago.”

“Well, then you should probably-” He squeezed her, making no motion to get up.

“Already texted Liv. Called in sick.” He let out a very fake cough.

“Well, then, maybe I should be the one to go,” she said with a smile. “I wouldn’t want to catch it.”

“Too bad. Gonna guess you already caught it.” He grinned as she clumsily turned to face him.

“Damn.” He leaned forward, awkwardly craning his neck, and gave her a whisper of a kiss. Just as it had the night before, his touch left her skin tingling. “I need breakfast.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “If you’re gonna be sick, better keep up your strength. And as it turns out, breakfast is the one meal I can make.” He stretched and lifted himself off the couch - not an easy endeavor - and eased himself slowly upright. She sat up, rubbing her shoulder where she felt the telltale crick of a night on the couch, and tried in vain to smooth her unruly curls.

“You okay?” He clanged pots in the cupboard and finally retrieved the one frying pan he owned.

“Yeah, just a little stiff. I’m getting old.”

“If you’re old, I’m dead.” She heard eggs crack.

“What’s for breakfast?”

“Scrambled eggs?”

“Sounds more like a question,” she said, making her way to his tiny kitchen - even smaller than hers - and watched him whisking the eggs in a bowl.

“Less a question, more a hope. I can make scrambled eggs because it’s what happens when I try to make anything else. But hey, when I said I can make breakfast, I wasn’t lying.”

Sonny may have been cocky about his abilities as a cop, and even as a lawyer, but with Marissa, he was always just slightly awkward and unsure. It was what endeared him to her. She even suspected that if she hadn’t made the first move, they never would have gotten here. He was a gentleman, sometimes to a fault.

“Scrambled eggs sound great,” she said. She leaned across the counter to watch him. “It’s more than my dad can make, and he’s been a bachelor way longer than you. Can there be coffee with the eggs?”

He motioned to his left, where Marissa saw a Keurig and a spinner with all kinds of pods.

“I get bored,” he said, noticing her raised eyebrow. “And it’s just me - well, usually.”

“You’re a cop AND a lawyer. I would think you’d drink it by the gallon. I’ve considered investing in an IV drip for Mr. Barba.” She perused the spinner and decided on a plain dark roast, which she had grown accustomed to from the office. Once upon a time, she had liked sweet, flavored roasts. These days, bitterness tasted better.

“You know you’re the only person who calls him that,” Sonny said, flipping the eggs over in the pan. “Everyone else just calls him Barba.”

“Yeah, but everyone else doesn’t work for him.”

“Hey, speaking of Barba,” he said, emphasizing the lack of title on the name, “how’s the campaign?”

“It's… weird. I haven’t really been working on it much.”

“You’re talking to your dad again, though, right?” He scraped the eggs onto two plates, grabbed the orange juice from the fridge, and set everything on the breakfast bar.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, he never really apologized, but that’s par for the course. I just don’t have the energy to be angry at people these days.”

They sat down across from each other, and Marissa could smell some sort of spice radiating from her plate. “What’d you put in these?”

“Secret,” he said. “Can’t just eat plain eggs every day. Like I said, I get bored. And you’re trying to change the subject.”

“So let me,” she said. “The eggs are good.”

“Thanks. So he didn’t apologize?”

Marissa knew Sonny well enough to know he didn’t let things go. Part of the detective in him, she suspected. So, she hedged.

“I offered him pie.”

At this, Sonny looked up from his already-half-empty plate. “You made him a pie?”

“No,” she corrected. “I made a pie, then offered to share.”

“Marissa…”

“Sonny, please,” she pleaded. “Just let it go.”

The night Eli had stormed out of the Hanukkah party was rough, and Sonny had borne the brunt of it. Marissa had disappeared into her bedroom after he’d left, and wouldn’t even let Nora in to talk to her. Sonny traded on his negotiating skills and managed to get her to go for a walk with him. She didn’t say much, but she held his hand and let him ramble about his law school days, the latest case at the department, his nieces. She liked the sound of his voice on any given day, but especially that night because it drowned out the sound of her father’s voice in her head. She had kissed him for the first time that night, slowly and carefully, almost so he knew she was considering her actions and not just acting on emotion.

“So, are you thinking we should finish the movie we slept through last night?” This was among the myriad reasons she liked him so much. He didn’t just listen; he actually heard her. She shrugged.

“We could,” she said, “but that’s going to require me to brush my teeth and shower. I refuse to be disgusting, even if we are just lying on the couch.”

“You wanna shower here? I got Aveda - I can’t use Old Spice or Axe or whatever crap they try to sell guys my age-” He started to get up, but she shook her head and he stayed in his seat.

“I need creature comforts. Give me a couple hours. I’ll run home, grab a quick shower and a change of clothes, and be back. Besides, I don’t have a toothbrush here… yet.” She smirked and gulped down the last of her coffee, brushing past him to grab her purse and coat from the rack near the door. He stopped her, extending his arm to catch her at the waist. “I said just give me a couple hours. Then, I’m all yours.”

He smiled up at her, only just noticing the way her grin made her cheeks even rounder and softer and her nose crinkle slightly.

Ditto, he thought.

Of all the sights Marissa never would have expected coming home to on a Saturday morning, first among them would have to be Eli and Nora sitting together on the couch so close together that if one of them turned their head, they might collide. At the sound of the door, it almost happened, as Eli’s head snapped up. Nora started to say something, but he was already charging toward Marissa.

“Where have you been?” He demanded.

“Why, good morning, father, it’s good to see you, too. Would you like me to get you that pie now?” Her voice was syrupy. Nora raised an eyebrow.

“Wasn’t that Sonny’s-”

“He doesn’t like key lime,” Marissa shot back, slightly defensively.

“Not now,” Eli said. “Anyway, we need your help.”

She tossed her coat and scarf on the bench near the door and breezed past him. “Sorry, I have plans today.”

“They’re canceled.”

“Hm, let me think about that.” She paused. “No.”

“That wasn’t a request,” he said, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nora give him a warning look. He bristled momentarily, and then softened his voice. “Look, if you don’t want to do it for me, then at least listen for a second if you care at all about Rafael.”

He used to use a similar tactic on Kalinda, the investigator who worked for Alicia’s first firm. Whenever he needed her to do anything for Peter, he would mention Alicia. Kalinda would inevitably break her “no-Peter” rule. He only hoped it would work on Marissa, too. She was studying him, probably for signs of deception. She tended to be a human lie detector. He had raised her to well in some respects.

“Talk,” she finally said, once again pushing past him. “You have ten minutes.” She sank into a rocking chair across from the couch.

“This may take a little longer than that,” he said, but from seemingly nowhere, Nora stepped in front of him.

“Long story short,” she said, “it involves Lauren.”

“What about her?” It was only then that she noticed the stacks of paper spread on the coffee table around the laptop.

“Well, it seems she isn’t exactly what - who - she said she is,” Nora said. “Or, at the very least, she left out a few key details.”

“What kind of details?”

Eli and Nora glanced at each other uncomfortably. “Well, from what we can tell, it seems that for a number of years, about 1998 until somewhere around 2003, she was…”

“A prostitute and a drug addict,” Eli finished, ripping the bandaid off the sentence. He was surprised at how flatly the words came out, actually. Maybe he’d spent so long panicking that he was all out of emotion. Meanwhile, Marissa simply shook her head.

“That’s not possible. She’s a lawyer. They don’t let hookers become lawyers. There are, like, thirty background checks you have to go through!”

“I’m guessing she told the admissions committee when she applied, but those proceedings would be sealed. No one would know about any sort of arrests unless she was fingerprinted for something. She also didn’t use her real name back then.”

“Well, if that’s the case, how did WE find out?” As if she didn’t already know.

“We hired a private investigator,” Eli replied.

“We had to,” Nora said, seeing the look of partial disgust on Marissa’s face. “You know we had to.”

“Anyway,” Eli continued, “we found out she had a couple of arrests when she was eighteen and twenty, all of which were plead out, she eventually got into rehab for a pretty nasty heroin-slash-cocaine addiction, and got cleaned up around 2005 or so. She managed to keep all this under wraps until now.”

Marissa was still having a hard time accepting all this. Lauren was poised, beautiful, professional, and accomplished. There was no way this could possibly be true. “She has a really common name,” she said shakily. “How do we know-”

Eli, sensing her next question, rifled through the stack of papers and handed her one. It was glossy between her fingers as she turned it over to study it. A black-and-white image of a woman stared back at her. She looked a lot like Lauren, only this woman was younger - although in some ways, she looked older - and she wore much more makeup than Lauren ever did. She also looked tired, strung out; her hair fell in thin, limp pieces around her sallow face, and her eyes were half-closed, as though she might fall asleep as the photo was taken.

She looked exactly like what Eli and Nora were saying Lauren was.

There was no real way to absorb any of this, other than to keep staring at the photo, trying to convince her brain to believe what her eyes were seeing. And then, an entirely new thought came to her, one that made her sick to her stomach: why would Mr. Barba have kept this all from them? They were spending all their time, energy, money on this campaign, and he held this back from them? What the hell was he thinking? What kind of stupid, amaetur move was this? And why wasn’t Eli more angry about it?

“Marissa, we don’t think he knew,” Nora said, and it took a second before Marissa realized she had gotten out of her chair and said all those things aloud. She stared at the two of them; she didn’t think she could contemplate for disbelief.

“What?”

“There’s no way he knew. He wouldn’t hold this back. You know he’s not that stupid.”

“Excuse me, you’re saying a candidate wouldn’t lie to you?” She shot him an incredulous look. “Need I remind you that Peter never told you he was banging his ethics attorney? You had to figure that one out for yourself.”

“Okay, point taken, but-”

“Rafael isn’t Peter,” Nora said. “He isn’t stupid. He’s too pragmatic to have done this, and frankly… we have less reason to trust her than we do him.” Marissa couldn’t believe what she was hearing: Nora was trying to justify this.

“I’m going to call her office and get a meeting scheduled with her next week,” Eli said. “I’m going to talk to her, and if I’m wrong, of course I’ll admit it, but-”

“Yeah, okay,” Marissa snorted. She started down the hallway toward her bedroom.

“-but I don’t think she’s told him, and I’m going to give her the chance to do it.” At that, she whirled around.

“You’re what?” Even Nora looked surprised. Last she knew, Eli’s plan had been to send her, or even to try and get Marissa to do it. Eli glanced away for a second, then nodded curtly.

“Look. If I go right to Rafael, even with all of this evidence, he isn’t going to listen to me. He’ll just dig his heels in and do what all candidates do. He’ll shoot the messenger. So if I give her the chance to tell him herself, either she will, and he’ll end things out of anger or pragmatism, or she won’t, and she’ll just choose to disappear instead.”

Marissa rolled her eyes and continued into her bedroom, where she grabbed her duffel bag and started stuffing clothes into it. Nora followed after her, standing just outside Marissa’s bedroom.

“You forgot an option. What if she already HAS told him?”

“Oh, come on, Marissa, I know I said if I was wrong, I’d admit it, but we all know I’m not wrong!” He slapped a hand to the wall in frustration. “You know she hasn’t told him! Why are you still insisting otherwise?”

“Because I know you, and I know you’re just looking for any reason to go down there and scare her into going away!” The words came out of her mouth with a venom that surprised them all. Eli didn’t react, but Nora knew what damage the words had wreaked in his mind. He would never admit it, but he didn’t want his daughter to think what everyone else thought of him: the worst.

He sighed. “I won’t deny that I’d be thrilled if she just disappeared into the ether,” he said. “But I have a distinct feeling that she is a permanent problem, so I may as well cushion the inevitable blow as best as I can.”

“And,” Nora said, “he’ll handle it best if it comes directly from her.” She watched as Marissa moved between the bathroom, linen closet, and bedroom, shoving toiletries and clothes into her bag. She could tell Marissa was listening, even though she wasn’t making eye contact. Sometimes, her silences spoke volumes.

“So how exactly do you plan to go about this? Just show up in her office and go, ‘Hi Lauren, remember me? I’m the psycho from the Hanukkah party who manages your boyfriend’s campaign, and oh, by the way, did you used to bang people for money and/or drugs?’” She glanced down at the bag. Shampoo. Conditioner. Extra socks. Do I want to pack the condoms now, or wait til Dad leaves?

“Well, I’d probably leave out the psycho part, and I’d have an appointment, but the rest sounds about right.”

“I’ll help him figure out something to say that doesn’t make him SOUND like a complete psycho,” Nora offered. Her dark eyes implored Marissa to trust her, even if she didn’t quite trust her father. The two exchanged a long look, and Marissa finally nodded.

“How am I going to know if you’re lying to me?”

Nora looked to Eli. “I’m pretty sure that’s to you.”

He sighed. “Do you really have so little faith in me?”

“It’s not about faith. It’s about odds.” Another remark that Nora knew cut him, but he shrugged it off.

“Well, how would you like me to prove to you that she hasn’t told him? I can’t prove a negative!”

“You’re right,” she said, slinging the duffel over her shoulder. “I guess you can’t.” Nora’s eyebrows shot up as Marissa walked between the two of them, paying no attention to Eli’s demands for her to return. On any other day, with any other set of circumstances, she might. But she needed time to process everything. Eli and Nora had had all night and morning with all this information. How could they expect her to know what to do with it after just a few minutes?

She couldn’t remember if she’d packed body wash, but she’d be willing to use Sonny’s if it meant she could wash off the entire afternoon, as far away from the campaign as she could get.

In his decade-plus as a political operative, Eli had had all manner of uncomfortable, unnerving, and personal come-to-Jesus moments with candidates, their family members, and, yes, even their mistresses. But in all those years, he couldn’t remember ever having to discuss a candidate’s girlfriend’s history as a sex worker - let alone with the girlfriend herself. Not that he hadn’t dealt with his fair share of prostitute problems - Peter had been his most famous hooker rehab project - but he hadn’t ever had a candidate actually in a relationship with one. He wondered how he had managed to end up as the less gross and more attractive version of the Jason Alexander character in a real-life version of Pretty Woman.

The dull buzz of the law office where Lauren worked left an ache in his ears, although he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was that or the migraine he’d woken up with from the anxiety of the impending confrontation. He was well aware of all the ways in which this conversation could go wrong. It wasn’t as if he had made a spectacular first impression on Lauren when they had first met. She had absolutely no reason to even take this meeting with him. And, even assuming he got past that point, once he got the reason for the meeting across, she would likely either throw him out or throw something at him. Either way, he couldn’t imagine a scenario where this conversation ended in anything other than him being escorted out by security.

“Mr. Gold?” A slight, blonde woman appeared in the lobby carrying a tablet and only half-looking at him. He stood up from the overpriced, uncomfortable sofa. Why did law offices spend all their decorating money on floral decorations no one looked at and none of it on reasonably comfortable places for people to sit?

“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat.

“I’ll take you into Ms. Sullivan’s office now,” she replied, still looking between him and the tablet. “She’s late from a deposition so she asked me to have you wait for her there.”

“No problem.” He suddenly felt like everyone knew the reason he was here, even though that was both impossible and ridiculous. The blonde led him down a long hallway lined with brightly lit offices with glass-paneled doors - sexual harassment prophylaxis, Eli called those kind of offices - until they came to one that looked not unlike Alicia’s when she had worked as his liaison. It wasn’t quite as plush as a partner office, and was sparsely furnished with only a desk, two chairs, and a small bookcase. But it was still filled with plenty of natural sunlight from a large, western-facing window, and hints of personal touches Lauren had added to warm the space.

“You can have a seat here. Lauren will be back in a few minutes. Can I get you some coffee or tea while you wait?” He noticed that the woman was finally actually looking at him, so he simply shook his head and held up his hand. She nodded and closed the door behind her, leaving him to his own thoughts and Lauren’s things. He didn’t really feel like sitting in the silence, though, so he wandered over to the bookcase where he took the opportunity to learn what Lauren chose to display to the world about her life.

There were photos of her and some female friends, her and some children - he assumed friends’ children since she didn’t have any nieces or nephews - and some awards and plaques given by various bar associations, organizations, her employer, and her law school. Nothing really stood out to him until he took stock of what WASN’T there. There were no family photos, no indication that anyone outside her social and professional circle even existed. In fact, Eli’s background check had indicated that Lauren’s mother had died not long after Lauren graduated high school, but she had nothing to indicate the slightest connection to her mother anywhere. In an office containing photos of her friends’ children, he’d have thought a remembrance of her mother would have been an imperative.

Before he could dwell any more on why she wouldn’t want her mother’s memory hanging around, the door swung open and in strode Lauren, purposefully and as though Eli wasn’t even there.

“God, you would think that the only reason I even had to go to that deposition was to give them a warm body in a chair,” she snapped, tossing her briefcase on the desk in frustration. “Didn’t ask one damn question the entire time, but you damn well KNOW they’re going to bill for me. Ridiculous. I could have actually been accomplishing something for the last two hours…”

Eli didn’t quite know how to react, other than to be slightly concerned; this didn’t bode well for how she handled stress. Suddenly, she seemed to realize that there was another person in the room. Her expression changed completely, from anger to embarrassment. “Oh, Eli, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have- it’s just been one hell of a day,” she said.

“I can see that,” he replied. “I don’t miss the law.”

“You were a lawyer?” She gestured for him to have a seat across the desk from her. “Rafael never mentioned-”

“Come to think of it, I probably never actually told him,” he said, scrolling through his Rolodex of memories. “It was a short-lived period in my life. Joint MBA/JD type of thing. I didn’t really do well with… well, negotiating, believe it or not.”

“Really? I’d have thought you’d be great at that.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was great at getting my way with cases. It was just that my approach didn’t really work well with partners.” She laughed, and he cringed. He needed to cut off the friendly banter or he would never accomplish his objective.

“So, what can I do for you, Eli? Surely you don’t need a lawyer, so I assume this has something to do with Rafael.”

He nodded. “Yes, in a way. But actually, it has more to do with you.”

She saw that he was momentarily fiddling with his phone, so she turned toward her computer and started typing. “I hope you don’t mind if I work at the same time as we talk. I’m behind from that deposition today. But I promise, I can multitask with the best of them.”

“Not at all,” he said, tucking his phone back into his coat pocket. “But anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about something that may come up in the next few months. Well, actually, it WILL come up.”

“Well, to be honest, we - Rafael and I - thought this would come up eventually.”

He sat straight up in his chair and was thankful he didn’t get that coffee, because he probably would have spluttered it all over her. Was it possible that Rafael DID know about everything and simply hadn’t told him? No, he thought. He couldn’t possibly be that stupid. He swallowed hard and squinted at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we figured with the gay rumors still floating around - which I honestly don’t understand - instead of forcing Nora to be his date, or risking another scandal with his assistant-”

“-you mean my twenty-four year old daughter-”

“-that you’d probably just want me to step in for a photo op at some point or another.”

Eli would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so utterly dismal. She was being so casual, he realized that she actually couldn’t conceive of someone finding out about her history. He watched her for a minute as she pulled some manila files from her briefcase, type a little bit, and then check another stack of files. She said something to him that he didn’t quite clearly hear - something about attending a few functions, but only with advance notice - and then he heard himself blurt it out.

“Have you told anyone else that you were a prostitute and a drug addict?”

The click of the keyboard stopped and she knocked the briefcase to the floor with the motion she made to snap to attention. She stared at him wordlessly, her mouth just slightly open. Her left eyebrow twitched, and her eyes narrowed.

“What did you-”

“You heard me.” He suspected she was an expert at settlement negotiations; her face betrayed nothing. She swiveled her chair to face him and folded her hands on her desk.

“Okay, Eli. I don’t know what fiction you’ve invented to get rid of me, but I can assure you, I am not-” At this, he shot up out of his seat and reached into his coat. He threw down a thick envelope of his own, letting it rest between them, a manila elephant in the room. She didn’t bother to pick it up.

“I’m sorry. All I have is a biography,” he shot back. She started to respond, but he cut her off. “Where do we start? The pimp you hooked for after you graduated high school? The drug addictions? Because there were several of those. And speaking of several, what about your multiple names? And the arrests under those names! There’s a great photo section, too, for that matter. Should we talk about rehab?”

Lauren felt like she might actually be sick all over her desk. She was overheated and blood pulsed in her ears. She somehow managed to pull herself out of her chair and to the door to close it. The last thing she needed was for any of the partners - or worse, the other associates - to overhear any of this. She really didn’t know how to respond, other than to simply deny it. But if that envelope contained photos… oh God, mugshots…

“Eli, please. Keep your voice down,” she begged. “It’s-”

“It’s what, a secret? Not for long!”

She turned back toward the shelves near the opposite wall and focused her eyes on the awards. Most of them didn’t mean all that much, really, in the grand scheme of life. They were recognitions of small achievements - law review, associate of the quarter at the firm, a thank-you from the animal shelter she sometimes volunteered at, some legal education certificate for a course she couldn’t even remember. These were things no other associate in any law office would care enough to keep at all, much less display. What good was it to work toward achievements, though, if you hid them all away?

“That isn’t me,” she said in a voice almost as quiet as the silence itself.

“Excuse me, but I can promise you-”

She whirled back around. “I mean, it’s not me anymore.” He couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or scream. Maybe both.

“Well, I realize that,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. “Obviously, you’ve managed to collect yourself since then. But it doesn’t matter, Lauren. If we found it-”

“How? How did you find it?” She sank back down into her chair, more defeated by the moment.

“We hired a private investigator,” he replied, as though this were an everyday occurrence. To his surprise, she didn’t freak out. She didn’t really react at all. She just nodded.

“And now what? What do you want me to do?” She asked the question, but she suspected she already knew the answer.

“Well, in an ideal world, you would go quietly into the good night,” he said, “but I’m guessing that Rafael won’t have that. So, speaking of him, does he know?”

She knew this was coming, but that didn’t mean she was going to go along with it. “No, he doesn’t. And he isn’t going to.”

“Oh, yes he is, and you’re going to tell him.” She stood up again, attempting to challenge him.

“And exactly why would I do that?”

“Because, as I have been trying to tell you,” he replied coolly, “if we found it, they will too. You aren’t going to be able to just disappear if you want to stay with him, so you have two options. Tell him, or break up with him.”

A lock of her unruly hair fell in front of her eyes and she barely made a motion to move it. It was almost unnerving to him how much she resembled Alicia in this moment. The same expressionless, emotionless face, the same chilly affect in what few words she spoke, all reminded him of the day Alicia threw a set of dishes at him because of something he’d confessed he’d done years before. The same blank stare that preceded that moment was now falling across Lauren’s face. Only this time, there were no plates and nothing to run from. He stood his ground and gave her his best death-squint back.

“And if I refuse?”

He swore he heard a hint of panic in her voice, and he knew he had her cornered. He buttoned his coat, preparing to leave. “If you won’t tell him, then I’ll find someone who will, and I promise I won’t soften anything. I’m giving you a chance to get in front of this with him, not because I particularly care about you, but I do care about Rafael. I don’t want him to be hurt by this, personally or professionally.”

“Eli, please-” she begged again. “I’m asking you to please… try not to… can’t you just keep this from…” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it. She knew Eli couldn’t keep it under wraps. She knew that this could all come out any day. Truthfully, she had ALWAYS known. But somehow, she had managed to convince herself otherwise. She had wanted to be with Rafael so badly that she told herself she didn’t need to be afraid of her past anymore, that he would protect her from it. She had been selfish, and now she would have to pay for it.

Eli snapped her back to the nightmarish reality that was now her life thanks to this stupid campaign, with the sound of her office door opening. “I’m serious, Lauren. You tell him, or I will.”

With that short, final warning, he walked out, not even bothering to close the door to let her hide. He had left the manila envelope on the desk, the supporting documentation to his threats. How long did she have before Eli made good on them? How long before she had to tell the man she’d grown to love that she had hidden this terrible, dark thing? One way or another, her world was about to explode. She just had to decide whether she could be the one to detonate the bomb.

For once, it was Nora pacing the floor in Eli’s office. “You’re sure?”

“I didn’t misunderstand. I asked her twice.”

“And she said no?”

“She didn’t say yes.”

“Have you told Marissa?”

“I called her. She’s on her way. I’m actually surprised she didn’t demand proof first.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure that’s the first thing she’ll ask for. I hope you conjured some up.” He didn’t respond, but it was a pointed silence, one with which she was intimately familiar. “Eli, what are you not telling me?”

He looked at his watch. “This is ridiculous, it doesn’t take an hour to get downtown from-”

As if he had conjured her, Marissa blew through the door like an incoming storm. It hadn’t been snowing out when Eli and Nora had gone into the office an hour earlier, but it must have been coming down pretty hard; there was a subway stop half a block from the building, and Marissa’s dark curls were still speckled with flakes. As usual, she got right to the point.

“Whatever you dragged me down here for better be good. I was just getting into a good rhythm with this chapter I was writing, and-”

“Sit down,” Eli said, in a voice that was clipped even for him. “We need to talk.”

She eyed him suspiciously, and then looked at Nora, who was leaning against the front of Eli’s desk with her arms crossed in front of her. She didn’t say anything, but the look on her face was darker than usual. Marissa flopped onto the couch on the side of the room, but she left her coat on; evidently, she wasn’t planning on staying long.

“Fine, happy? Now what’s this all about?”

Eli stood up from behind the desk, iPhone in hand. Behind him, through the thick glass windows that lined his office, she could see the IT nerds still wandering around, the pollsters still hunched over their desks. She noticed he wasn’t wearing a tie, which was odd, because for as long as she could remember, he insisted on wearing a tie when he was working. Somehow, it made him feel like he had more of a commanding presence in front of the underlings. He handed her the phone, which was opened to the voice memo app.

“The first one,” he said, with absolutely no context. She looked at the recordings. There were only two; one of them was labeled “Conference Call with Glenn,” which she made a mental note to ask Eli about later. The other one, at the top of the list and dated that day, didn’t have a real title. It was simply labeled “X.” She frowned.

“What is this?”

“Just listen to it, Marissa,” he replied, giving her a look that was half-pleading, half-exhausted. Grudgingly, she pressed play. She heard some rustling at the start, and then Lauren, clear as glass, asking if Eli minded if she multitasked. Eli said he wanted to talk to her about something, and Lauren said something about photo ops.

“What the hell, Dad?”

“Just shut up and listen!” He snapped. Something in his tone startled her into submission. And just as she closed her mouth, she heard it:

“Have you told anyone else that you were a prostitute and a drug addict?”

She didn’t quite register anything that was said immediately after that. Had he really just asked her that question in THAT way? Then again, she realized, there really isn’t a proper way to ask someone if they’ve ever sold themselves for money or had a drug addiction. She heard Lauren deny it at first - not entirely surprising - and then she heard the sound of what sounded like a book hitting the floor.

“I’m sorry. All I have is a biography. Where do we start? The pimp you hooked for after you graduated high school? The drug addictions? Because there were several of those. And speaking of several, what about your multiple names? And the arrests under those names! There’s a great photo section, too, for that matter. Should we talk about rehab?”

She closed her eyes while she listened to the continued exchange between Lauren and Eli. She tried to imagine herself in Lauren’s stilettos. Having someone she barely knew accuse her of these things, and not being able to deny them, must have been humiliating. But that was just with Eli. Of course she would deny it to him - she would want to talk to Rafael first, to see how he wanted to handle it.

Then, things got infinitely worse.

“And now what? What do you want me to do?” Now, Lauren didn’t sound at all like herself. Her voice was brittle and betrayed fear.

“Well, in an ideal world, you would go quietly into the good night, but I’m guessing that Rafael won’t have that. So, speaking of him, does he know?”

“No, he doesn’t. And he isn’t going to.”

“Oh, yes he is, and you’re going to tell him.”

“And exactly why would I do that?”

“Because, as I have been trying to tell you, if we found it, they will too. You aren’t going to be able to just disappear if you want to stay with him, so you have two options. Tell him, or break up with him.”

Marissa had heard enough. She closed the app and looked away, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Thoughts swirled and intersected; confusion was becoming her natural state of being these days. She had been sure Lauren had told Rafael. She had been so sure, in fact, that when Eli had first presented her this information, she had accused him of sabotaging his own campaign by withholding the information from them. She didn’t know Lauren well, but she had wanted to believe she was an honest person. Maybe, she thought, she just wanted to believe that people in general were still honest. Now, she didn’t know what was worse: that she had been wrong, or that she’d had such faith in someone in the first place.

“Ris,” Nora said gently, sitting down next to her, “I know this is a shock to you, but-” The implication in her words was clear: it was a shock to MARISSA. No one else was shocked at all.

“I was wrong,” Marissa said. “I’m sorry.”

In most other situations, Eli would have rubbed it in, even taken a small amount of pleasure in it. But the situation was bad enough; there was no need to make his daughter feel worse about herself or her instincts, which were usually good.

“This is a weird situation,” he said, trying to be helpful. “But there’s no time to feel bad about it. We need to figure out what to DO about it.”

Marissa shook her head. “What else can we do? We have to tell him.”

“We need to give her time to do it herself,” Nora said. “Eli only went to her today.”

“Are you joking?” Marissa said, incredulous. “She’s HAD time to tell him. She’s had MONTHS. There shouldn’t be anything to tell by now!”

Eli was taken aback. She sounded like him. “Marissa, we can’t be rash about this. We have to have a PLAN.”

She fixed her eyes on him, but wasn’t really focused on him. She felt herself looking through him, unable to hear anything he was saying because her ears were already too full of lies.

“Okay,” she said suddenly, wrapping her coat around her shoulders and heading toward the door. “You plan. I’m leaving.”

And then, like a crack of lightning, she was gone.

“Marissa!” He called after her. “Get back here!” But it was too late. Either she was already gone or she wasn’t listening to him.

He turned to Nora. “What the hell was THAT, Nora? You just let her walk out?”

“What was I supposed to do, Eli? Barricade the door with my body?”

“It would have been helpful!” He sunk down into the chair behind his desk.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Nora asked. He didn’t reply. Right now, he only knew two things: first, he needed antacid. And second, in the middle of a huge storm, thunder inevitably followed lightning. It was only a matter of time.

His head was throbbing. He could feel the spot where he’d been hit with the gun, right above his temple. But when he went to put his hand to it, to soothe it in some small way, he couldn’t move his hands. Or his arms. Or his legs, for that matter. He looked around. It looked like his bedroom, but turned inside out in a way. The colors weren’t quite right. There was no sign of Marbury, who would usually be laying right in the middle of the bed so that he couldn’t get any space. There were no paintings on the walls. His closet was left open, but his clothes all seemed to be missing.

Suddenly, William Lewis slipped out of the darkness and stood at the foot of the bed, staring at him with the same cruel look he’d given Olivia throughout the child. It was manic, almost as though he were high. His eyes darted over Rafael’s body - it wasn’t a sexual look, but it was just as perverse.

“Hello, Counselor.” Rafael had almost forgotten his voice. Soft, menacing, tortuous. “Oh, come on, now, Mr. Barba. We don’t want to be rude, do we? After all, you can see what happens when people are rude.”

Even though he was restrained, he could somehow lift himself far enough to see over the side of the bed, to where Lewis’s gaze fell. When he saw what Lewis was staring at, he felt the bile come up in his throat. “Olivia-” He croaked out.

And then everything started to burn.

The knock on his door woke him up so suddenly that he nearly fell off the couch out of shock. Quickly, he checked the room. Everything looked normal. Marbury meowed from the comfort of her cat tree in the corner, almost questioning him. He was uncomfortably warm, the sleep-induced sweat glistening on his forehead and the back of his neck, and the light felt just a little too bright. Maybe he had a migraine coming on. He glanced at the door, a little hesitant, which he knew was ridiculous - William Lewis had been dead for years - but, like the dreams themselves, fear didn’t always make sense.

Then there was a second knock, accompanied by a voice. “Mr. Barba?”

“Marissa?” He grabbed a tissue and wiped his brow and neck, then headed for the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry it’s so late.” He invited her in and led her to the couch. Her hair was windblown and her cheeks were bright pink. “You look like you were sleeping.”

“Oh, it’s all right. If I sleep all night on that couch, I’ll be walking like a zombie tomorrow. Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee?”

“Only you would offer me coffee at 8:30 at night,” she replied. “Anyway, I can’t stay long. I just- there’s something I need to talk to you about, and I didn’t want to do it in the office. It’s kind of personal.”

She looked incredibly uncomfortable, but also deadly serious. This was concerning. Marissa had only been to his apartment a handful of times, and those were work-related. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good. He sat down on the ottoman across from her and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you alright? Did something happen?”

“I- what?” For some reason, the way he asked the question caught her off-guard. She’d heard him use that voice before - when he was talking to Olivia, usually.

“Well, I know things haven’t been great between you and your Dad since the holidays, and I just want you to know that if the campaign is too much - personally or professionally - I will understand if you need to take a step back.” His eyes were soft, kind, understanding. Suddenly faced with her boss’s sincere concern for her wellbeing, she almost changed her mind about what she was about to tell him. How do you justify breaking someone’s world apart when their first concern was that yours was still in one piece?

“No - no, Mr. Barba, it’s nothing like that.” Her throat was dry. “Actually, maybe I could get a glass of-”

Before she could finish her sentence, he was basically in the kitchen, pouring a tall glass of water from a pitcher in the fridge. He brought it to her and watched her down the entire thing before he continued.

“So if it’s nothing like that, then what is it?”

“When I said it was personal, I meant it was personal for YOU.” It suddenly occurred to her that she had come all the way across town intent on telling him this secret, but had neglected to actually come up a plan for how to do that. Her eyes were locked on him, as though she could psychically communicate the message if she just thought hard enough: Your girlfriend was a prostitute. Your girlfriend was a prostitute.

“Okay, I’m sufficiently intrigued AND worried now,” he replied, growing frustrated.

She took a deep breath. “The first promise I made to you at the start of this campaign was that I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“I remember,” he said.

“And I want you to know that I’m not here under duress. My Dad probably would actually rather I NOT be here, and I’m frankly surprised he hasn’t come bursting through the door already, trying to stop me. Especially since I stole his phone.”

“You stole his- what? Why?”

She gave a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t very well ask him for it, could I?”

“What I MEAN is, why do you have it?”

She took a deep breath and turned the phone over and over in her hand. “I’m going to play something for you. And you need to listen to it very carefully. And please don’t shoot the messenger.” She typed in her father’s password - her birthday, of all things - and opened the same recording that she’d heard earlier that evening. Then she watched as his expression changed, from curiosity to confusion to disbelief. Then, as the last of the recording played - Tell him, or break up with him - Marissa saw something she hoped she would never see again: heartbreak, carved in the lines in his face.

He was silent, just staring at the phone’s screen long after it had turned black. His eyes were overcast, cloudy with doubt and anger. She was hesitant to say anything either, unsure of how he would react. Instead, she slipped the phone back into her pocket, then reached over and touched his forearm.

“Mr. Barba…”

Before he could say anything, there was another knock at the door. That seemed to snap him out of his haze. He stiffly stood up, marched to the door, and flung it open without even looking through the peephole. Marissa instinctively looked to see who the other late-night visitor was, half-expecting Eli.

“Rafael,” said Lauren. “Can I come in?”

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sorcererinthestars · 7 years

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1,3 and 47 for the oc thing

So my OCs (shared with @hugerez) are simple little loves named Fred and Fei Wu - the really simple rundown is that the story takes place in a world where multiple dimensions are possible and there’s a way to transport between them. So there’s this evil man who steals all the people who are destined to manipulate these parallel universes in some way to save them and brings them to this prison, ultimately manipulating the fates of all these parallel universes. The guards of this prison are stolen from their universes as well and brainwashed into thinking the inmates are Bad People who Must Be Punished. Fred is a guard who has broken through his brainwashing and Fei Wu is one of his prisoners and his girlfriend. They’re leading a resistance movement to bring everyone home.(I’m focusing on Fred.)

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything?

Fred’s full, real name, is Frei Dai Cheng but he goes by Fred Cheng. He’s from an Asian country on one of these parallel universes but when brought to the prison, his name was changed as part of the brainwashing techniques to “Fred” in order to remove any connection to his heritage and his home universe. Fred was easy to remember for the other guards and easy to pronounce. It also means “leader” or “King”, which is just amusing because we didn’t choose it specifically for that, just because we wanted a common name, but it fits him really well.

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

Fred’s childhood was pretty basic. He attended an Academy-like school with his best friend Jeb (Jei Eli, also changed for the same reason’s as above). Here, Fred slacked and didn’t do much work, pulled along solely by the work of Jeb who was quite a better student than he was. They were both somewhat bullied by a slightly older boy fondly named “Muscles”, who they both despised and who think only nasty things about. While Fred was never great at school (where his Father [Lyle] taught, which made things only more complicated), he excelled at fighting a dirty street-style kind of martial arts. He was never good at it as a child but enjoyed learning it even still. He has a brother, Keni, and a sister, Rae, and a mother (Marla) too. Keni is a few years younger and Rae a few years older. He has the same fond memories that every child has - playing with his friend Jeb, causing mischief and destruction everywhere he could, wreaking havoc with his siblings. General 9-12 year old boy antics. Bad memory was being captured and pulled off his universe by other prison guards at the age of 14 with his best friend Jeb after fleeing Muscle’s attempt at retribution for a prank. What was supposed to be harmless fun led to a serious, serious life-changing period. It’s arguable he never had a childhood after that.

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event?

Oh my god. I haven’t thought about a black tie/formal event at the prison although I’d imagine there were some. I’m sure there’s some sort of mandatory dress uniform for the guards where they have to look formal and Appropriate and he would wear that. Fred would absolutely despise it, would spend the entire morning before the event moaning and complaining and not know how to tie his tie or button all the fancy buttons and would have two left feet and just whine for hours. Fei Wu (his girlfriend and the woman who takes NONE of his shit EVER) would just fucking tell him to be quiet and fuss over him until he looks good enough. He’s always just on this side of “barely decent” for general clothing styles. Especially, since (as a prisoner) Fei Wu would never go to these events, Fred would be the most awkward human being in the goddamn world. Most of the guards don’t really get along well with them. They don’t know he’s friends with his prisoners or treats them nicely, but they know he’s Different and keep their distance. The other guards in the Resistance like him but would probably keep their distance as well as they don’t want to be seen with him too much lest it look like they were plotting something. So he would just hang with Jeb and their fellow guard friends Layla and Vinnie and just whine the whole night. Absolute loathe.

He would come home late and Fei Wu would be waiting in his bed and would not let him climb in and cuddle until he spills every single sordid detail to her, because she is a piece of shit and loves to fuck with him at every opportunity she gets.

Fred hates formal events.

#oc ask #i love this #ask me more about my babies #you can't have fred without having jeb and fei wu and ying #it just doesn't happen #bless their little hearts #kayden #kristyn #Anonymous

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brendanmoviedate · 7 years

Text

"Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture."

All through 2015, I’d been hearing about people doing a new-movie-a-day challenge starting January 1st and ending December 31. It seemed like a great idea for clearing through my watch list and an excuse to get out to the theatre more.

So for 2016, I decided part way into January that I was going to go for it. By that point, I was only a few movies behind, so how hard would it be to catch up and get to 366 (I just had to pick a leap year for this) by December 31? Well, by April, I was about 15 movies behind, and this was with watching three or more films every Saturday while my girlfriend was in class. Still, I was confident - my girlfriend would be going to school in London starting in September, so I’d have lots of free time to cram in some extra movies.

Flashforward to October, and an outdoorsy summer and month-long trip to the UK found me around 80 movies behind pace. Not good. I thought about giving up, but I’m too stubborn and foolish to let go of stupid things like this. October was rough. I watched movies all weekend, every weekend. I found the movies on my list that were less than 90 minutes, so as to pile on an extra film or two. By the end of the month, I had watched 100 films in 30 days. Halfway through December I reached 366, capping out at 374.

What did I learn?

This type of challenge really fucks up your decision-making abilities

When trying to decide between going out and watching a movie, or reading and watching a movie, or doing chores and watching a movie, or grabbing a meal at a restaurant and watching a movie, watching a movie always seemed like the right choice, just to get me closer to that goal of 366. Every time I chose to do something other than watch a movie, I felt anxious that this could have been the one movie keeping me from reaching my goal. It was rough. I’m only now getting over this feeling and it’s already March (spoilers: I’m never going to do this again).

The “only new movies” clause really stung

There were so many times when I wanted to watch a recent favourite, but couldn’t justify it. Mad Max: Fury Road, 22 Jump Street, Nightcrawler, Sicario, et al. kept beckoning me, but I would invariably choose something new.

Peak TV takes a backseat

With only a few minor excpetions (Veep, Silicon Valley, Game of Thrones), my TV watching for the year plummeted. I was already behind on shows like The Americans, Orphan Black, and Fargo that I really wanted to watch, but multi-episode seasons would eat up too much prime movie-watching time.

You don’t always watch what’s good, only what’s available

Netflix is so diluted at this point with direct-to-video releases and Netflix originals starring Adam Sandler that finding something of quality to watch was always difficult. Often I’d find myself watching a mid-2000s action movie instead something from my iMDB list just because it was on Netflix. Other times, even if I film I’d wanted to watch was on Netflix, like Son of Saul or Leviathan, I’d watch The Book of Eli because I was already too worn out by a day’s worth of watching movies.

A movie-a-day only really makes sense for those who can watch a movie a day

Work+girlfriend+dodgeball+hockey+friends meant I had only two or three days a week to squeeze in movies, necessitating regular marathons. It really defeats the purpose of the challenge and wears out the viewer on a physical and psychological level.

Korean thrillers are awesome

I watched a number of excellent films from some of Korea’s best directors, mostly in the horror and/or thriller genres. Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of a Murder and The Host, Kim Jee-woon’s The Age of Shadows, Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan all explored well-trodden movie tropes from fresh perspectives and made choices that North American filmmakers would normally shy away from. All of these films are classics that I can see myself revisiting over and over again. Of these films, Memories of a Murder is probably my favourite, serving as a Zodiac-like look into the futility of murder investigations. I should also mention Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden here, but I’ve talked about that masterpiece twice already.

Brian De Palma is an underrated master

Unabashedly fixated on voyeurism in his films, De Palma constructs tightly scripted, twisty plots that focus on peeping, spying, surveilling, and stalking as a means of telling a vast breadth of stories. His films are sleazy in all the right ways, but he brings to his low, almost uncomfortable, subject matter a brilliant technical understanding of film. Raising Cain, Body Double, and Dressed to Kill are all great examples of his craft, but it’s 1981′s Blow Out, starring a never-better John Travolta that is the perfect synthesis of his methods and methodology. The use of sound, split-screen, and split-diopters to focus on foreground and background at the same time is as captivating as the plot.

The worst movies were unfunny comedies

This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, but the worst kind of movie is an unfunny comedy. Not necessarily comedies with unfunny jokes (which, don’t get me wrong, are also nigh unwatchable), but comedies without jokes whatsoever. The films I’m talking about are those that are considered comedies because they weren’t serious enough to be dramas or tense enough to be thrillers, but instead just some stuff happens to the characters that provides a minor conflict or misunderstanding before an uninspired resolution. Fortunately, I only saw a couple of these, but they were painful enough to leave scars - The Overnight and the deliberately ironically titled The Comedy. The less said about The Overnight, the better, but I’ll at least faintly praise The Comedy for being a deliberate joke on its audience by being so gleefully unfunny.

I’m finally on board for the Fast & Furious franchise

After a meh first instalment and a horrible sequel, this franchise was as good as dead to me. With Furious 7 dominating the box office and positive word of mouth for the series finally drowning out my doubts, I decided to hop back into the franchise with the third instalment, Tokyo Drift. This film wasn’t by any means great, but it was engaging and personal in the way that the first two weren’t. When the next film cut back to Vin Diesel and company, I was slightly disappointed, as the band of thieves dynamic didn’t really meet my needs. However, it was Fast 5, when the franchise got a Dwayne Johnson injection, that it became an over-the-top superhero team-up movie. This film was absolutely insane, culminating in a getaway chase with a giant vault tied behind the vehicles demolishing half of Rio. The next two films failed to live up to Fast 5, but still featured cartoonish lunacy in the form of a wedge car vaulting other vehicles into the air and Dwayne Johnson flexing out of a cast.

The films of the 70′s and early 80′s continue to impress me

We’ve all heard that the 1970′s were the true golden age of cinema. Godfather this, Annie Hall that. But there’s so much more of value than the masterpieces everyone lauds. Sorcerer, Possession, The Warriors, Marathon Man, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three are all vastly different films, but all have incredible performances, perfect pacing, and are utterly captivating. Sorcerer, about a group of drivers carrying unstable dynamite through treacherous jungles, and Possession, featuring Sam Neill as a spy watching his wife’s character slowing change into something else, both stayed me long after they were over, due to their incredible suspense and shocking outcomes.

Lilo & Stitch might be my favourite Disney movie

The Disney Renaissance died after the release of Mulan, with Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire failing to capture imaginations the same way Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast did. Combining this decline with my bumbling journey through adolescence, it’s only natural that I’d didn’t give them a chance. So it’s with great regret that I did not see Lilo & Stitch until 2016. This film has all the heart and morals of a typical Disney film, but it’s incredibly funny as well. This was one of the movies I laughed at the hardest last year, mostly due to the antics of Stitch, who seems part koala and part centipede. This will easily get a rewatch over any of the Renaissance films. I wonder if a live action remake is in the works.

Return to Sleepaway Camp is as boring and tone deaf as Sleepaway Camp is fun and outrageous

Sleepaway Camp is a notorious cult classic, featuring campy performances and low tech slasher violence as well as one of the most genuinely shocking and disgusting reveals I’ve ever seen in a film. The image of it's final frame is forever burned into my brain. Naturally, the film garnered a few poorly conceived sequels with no one from the first film involved, which were easy enough to ignore. However, what I couldn’t help but be intrigued by was a “true” sequel from the original writer-director, featuring at least a handful of the original cast. If ever I regret watching a movie, it’s this one. Return to Sleepaway Camp reeked of desperation and ineptitude, from a director who had been far removed from filmmaking for the 25 years since his debut was released. It’s shrill, loud, derivative, boring, and featuring a twist so outrageously apparent for the whole film, it felt like a big “fuck you” to whomever watched and liked the first film.

The Purge movies are getting increasingly closer to being worthy of their own premise.

The first film in the Purge series was a missed opportunity. Setting up a brilliant premise, where all crime is legal for one night a year, the filmmakers foolishly decided to confine the film to within a single house for an uninspired home invasion thriller. The Purge: Anarchy brought the action to the streets for some expanded world building and introduced Frank Grillo as the new face of the franchise. But it wasn’t until the third film that real characters and an interesting plot developed. The Purge: Election Year is topical, disturbing, and more visually interesting than the previous films; if the series continues in this upward direction, I’ll be completely on board for the annual purge.

As I said earlier, this experiment was taxing, making me feel the crunch of a deadline for an entire year. But despite those struggles, I’d qualify it as a success. For each bad and mediocre film I watched, I watched two that I liked. I found a bunch of classics that I’ll be sure to return to over and over, and a bunch of directors whose filmographies I can make my way through.

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