#the only exception being the Amelia project because it was that interesting from the get go: hot cocoa will do that

[iintervallum]

ive been listening to the grotto and 1) it's really good, the production is something that stuck out to me immediately and i was pretty much hooked in after listening to the first two episodes

2) the concept of endangering yourself to view a hallucination of your ex just reminds me of twilight, i now half wonder if there will be sparkly vampires appearing in the near future of this show/j

#aster.txt #the grotto #it always takes me at least two episodes of anything to get me to get fully immersed #almost every audio drama I've listened to i only became a full fan after the first 2 eps #the only exception being the Amelia project because it was that interesting from the get go: hot cocoa will do that #more people should listen to the amelia project its super good- i really need to catch up at some point #but yes the grotto that's what the post is about lol #i was immediately intrigued because of how ep 2 started off with Emily's perspective and her being alive #that just made the whole show do a 180 and challenged my initial first impression of what this show would be like #the woe.begone inspirations are very markedly obvious but only for the first ep really #ep 2 and onwards cements it as its own thing and i like that #also athans music is very nice i now want there to be more music in podcasts i didn't realize that was a thing i would want #it works for nightvale so it's surprising how not that many other shows have used that aspect #like the weather intermissions are one of my favorite parts of the episodes because of how varied they are #anyways please do listen to the grotto it's just started and it's pretty good!!

[idkaguyorsomething]

Doctor Who Fic Recs

¡The specials are nigh upon us (or maybe the first one will already be out by the time I finish writing this, who knows)! Over the course of 60 years, there’s been quite a few absolute gems that some anonymous, talented souls have put out for our enjoyment. So here’s some of the highlights, scraped together from various corners of the internet:

This one is centered around Nine, after his regeneration. He has to confront his trauma as he goes on a journey through his past, traveling through his memories and meeting his past selves. It goes really deep into a lot of lore surrounding the daleks and Classic Who, so if you don’t know a lot about that this probably isn’t for you. It also came out before the 50th anniversary special, so there’s no War Doctor, and it has its own interpretation of the last moments of the Time War. But if that’s not a dealbreaker, definitely check this one out, because it’s got a fantastic story about regret and identity.

This story is a prequel to both series set on Gallifrey, with some rare Doctor/Master/Rani shipping, a very eldritch approach to Time Lord society, and a really interesting fusion of TARDISes with daemons. If you’re not familiar with the concept of daemons, this story really isn’t a good starting point, plus there are some references to the Big Finish audio stories that are rather important. It’s not exactly a story as much as it is a bunch of fragments set in the same universe exploring a lot of the ideas it introduces. A must-read if you enjoy Doctor Nyarlathotep.

A personal favorite of mine, centering around the unexpected pairing of Martha Jones and Lucy Saxon. It deals with the fallout of a certain couple of Time Lord’s actions during The Year That Never Was and is very short, but manages to squeeze in a lot of emotions. It will make you understand how this pairing could work while doing justice to Martha’s character.

Drop whatever it is you’re doing. Go read this. Now. It is one of the most well-written fics you will ever find, period, and probably the best Academy Era fanfic out there. The author has an excellent grasp on how an unlikely friendship would develop into something more and then break down, making it one of the most compelling and believable explorations of the Doctor and the Master’s relationship before they were the Doctor and the Master. It can get pretty dark (we’re talking self-inflicted regeneration) but if you can stomach those topics then you’ll find something amazingly well-written.

¿Do you wish that we could’ve seen tiny Amelia as a child companion on the TARDIS instead of her adult self? ¿Are you a fan of platonic fluff? ¿Are you in the mood to have your heart explode from a cuteness overload? ¡Then check this one out! The only possible complaint is that it’s too short.

Wherein Rose decides to haul around the dalek from Van Statten’s bunker instead of Adam. ¡Very funny and enjoyable and underrated! It has a dalek named Pedro and Nine being enjoyably grumpy until he decides he can make an exception against hating all daleks just this once. ¿What more could you possibly want?

This one is a short piece about Martha and Ten going to watch a supernova, but what makes it extra special is that it’s a real supernova and the fic was written by an irl astronomer. Their passion for their work really bleeds through into their writing, and it helps to emphasize the sense of wonder and exploration that Doctor Who at its best can bring.

¿Remember Jethro from Midnight? ¿The guy who looked like Merlin? ¿No? You will after reading this.

Mostly crack that doesn’t take itself too seriously and isn’t afraid to poke fun at some of the classic sci-fi setting fanfic cliches. ¡¡Number one shipper TARDIS, sex pollen, and Martha Jones having a good time abound (¿have you figured out which companion is my favorite yet?)!!

https://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=53318 Set during the Day of the Doctor, this little oneshot is just a slight au where we get to see every Doctor (up to that point) play their part in saving Gallifrey. Obviously they couldn’t have done anything like that in the show itself without resorting to dubious CGI necromancy bullshit, but man does it make you wish they could’ve had something similar.

And last but not least, ¡some classic Donna and the Doctor friendship! This is pretty much the distilled essence of everything everyone loved about their dynamic, being sweet, silly, and sad. It leans more on emotions than action or humor, but with the upcoming specials it is well worth a read just to remind yourself of everything they went through.

#phew finally done #waaaaay after the first special finally came out #this list easily could’ve been twice as long but it turns out there’s a limit to how many links you can add to a post #shout out to that one user that helped me find my drafts #you’re a lifesaver #lemme know if any of you want a part 2 #doctor who #doctor who fic #fic rec #my laptop broke so i can’t write a lot of shit #time to live up to the other half of my thing ig

[barkspawn]

If you’re still doing one shot requests, could you do one for Sebastian? This is so specific, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but maybe something based around his opening sentiment of “you’re new? Why would you choose Pelican Town, of all places?” (Obvi not his exact wording, but you get it)

I think I’m projecting because I’ve found myself careening towards a similar situation as our dear farmer lol. But I think it’d be interesting nonetheless.

*also sorry for any poor English, it is not my first language >_>

It's weird. I feel like Its been 20 years lol

There's a weird space that just wants to drink my tears

Thanks again for your patience. I hope you enjoy 💜

Amelia had spent the entire week meeting mostly everyone. The only person she knew that she was missing was Robin’s son Sebastian.

He apparently hardly ever left his room except to smoke or go to the saloon on Fridays with Sam and Abigail.

Amelia went to the mines on Friday this time. She'd had a particularly difficult morning and decided to go to the mines for some ore.

Unfortunately for her, the monsters were a little extra feisty tonight. She'd eaten probably five field snacks and it was getting late anyway.

She leans against the wall in the elevator, holding her shirt to the bleeding cut on her forehead. Thankfully, she layered a camisole under her shirt for warmth in the mines. She sighed as she walked out of the entrance, her backpack slung over her shoulder.

As she crossed the footbridge, heading to make her way to the mountain path. She walked down, shifting to adjust her backpack, dropping with a yell as a figure by the lake startled her.

“Shit,” she mumbled as she realized she had to pick up a bunch of stuff, “you scared the hell out of me.”

She hadn't even seen who was there, figuring it was Linus. When she looked up, she saw a taller guy who had longer dark hair, paired with all dark clothes.

“Oh, sorry. I didn't know… Well, this is a great first impression. I'd shake your hand but, well, mud and blood.”

“Uh, do you need help or something? I can call Harvey if–”

“No, no. Sorry. Let me start over. I'm coming from the mines, where I seem to have gotten a little in over my head.”

The man failed to suppress a smirk, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette upwards, “I see that. I'm Sebastian.”

“Well, hello Sebastian. I'm Amelia.”

“Oh. You just moved in, right? Cool.”

She laughed quietly, nodding, “that's a word for it.”

He gave a small nod, his eyebrows raised, “okay, I've got to ask. Out of all the places you could live, you chose Pelican Town?”

“It sounds like someone isn't the biggest fan of life here,” she laughed, shifting to adjust the cloth on her head, “it was my grandfather's farm. He died and left it to me a long time ago apparently. I lived in Zuzu… Well, it's a long story.”

He seemed to perk up at the mention of Zuzu, “what was it like living there?”

She offered a small smile, joking, “depends. Do you have an hour?”

“Well, yeah,” he responded, serious. She watched him turn to lean against the tree nearby, “I'm not asking you for personal info… I just like the idea of living there, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. But honestly? It wasn't everything I wanted it to be. I'm, well, I like to keep to myself. I thought moving to the city would be great for my independence and I could just… Have my own space.”

Sebastian nodded, like everything she was saying made perfect sense. He was listening rather intently, “sounds perfect. Why would you leave?”

“Because it ended up being overwhelming. I had a shit job because I couldn't find any that suited what I wanted to do. Rent is fucking expensive. I had to stay with two roommates and still pay 1000 gold monthly. Note that roommates are definitely not helpful if you want to be independent. It also doesn't help if the jobs pay like shit.”

Sebastian frowned, considering, “yeah, but you're still on your own. With all of those people you just blend into the crowd. I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find a studio apartment for relatively cheap.”

“I wish I could say you're right,” she sighed, pulling the shirt from her face as it was thankfully hardly bleeding now. Sebastian gave her a look as if pointing out how she looks like hell, “I'm good. Listen, if you find an apartment for that cost, you're going to be in a bad area or have to use communal bathrooms. Trust me, neither situation is worth it.” she watched as Sebastian frowned, “also, I'm sorry but that's not what being in a crowd does. In my experience, being around all of those people is terrifying. You don't know who is judging you or if someone is going to hurt or steal from you. I also just don't like being in crowds and being touched by strangers.”

There was a long pause as Sebastian lit another cigarette. He never really chain-smoked, but somehow he needed another tonight.

“That's perfectly reassuring, thanks,” Sebastian deadpanned after a long drag.

“Hey, I'm not trying to piss in your cereal or anything. I just know how it is to want something so badly that I ignore the bad.”

His eyebrow arched, a small smirk growing as she spoke. He was going to stress about Zuzu now and it's not like he could move right now anyway. So, he avoided the topic.

“Piss in my cereal?”

“You know, like ruin your day or whatever.”

“‘Piss in your cereal’ is definitely more interesting.”

Amelia laughed and shook her head looking over at him, “you know Sam warned me you'd make fun of me if you thought I was cool.”

Sebastian’s smile fell, “Sam is such an asshole,” he sighed.

Amelia laughed and held the shirt to her head again, “pleasure meeting you, Sebastian.”

She turned and gathered her backpack, hoisting it over her shoulder. She heard him mumble something, likely still embarrassed about Sam’s comment.

“Oh, and Sebastian?”

He turned, eyebrows raised, “what's up?”

“My experience in Zuzu doesn't mean yours will be the same. If you have any questions or want advice, you know where my farm is… I think.”

Sebastian paused for a long moment, “thanks, Amelia. I guess you're cool.”

She laughed and turned to leave, “thank Yoba.”

#stardew valley #sdv #stardew valley fanfic #stardew #sdv fanfic #sebastian sdv #sebastian stardew valley #stardew fanfic #stardew sebastian #sdv sebastian #barkspawn oneshots #barkspawn

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Hunter Deno, Power Rangers Dino Fury

Having booked her first commercial on her first birthday, actress Hunter Deno was destined for a future in the entertainment industry. After focusing on modeling for a few years, she decided to get serious about pursuing television and film, moved to LA in 2019, and landed the series regular role of the Pink Power Ranger on Nickelodeon’s new Power Rangers season, Dino Fury. We sat down with Hunter to discuss Power Rangers, fanfiction, acting, and other big philosophical questions. Check it out:

How are you? Seriously, how’re you doing?

Thank you for asking! I’m doing great, actually, besides being a bit homesick. I recently relocated to New Zealand for a project and had to leave everyone and everything I know and love. I started completely fresh here, and it has been a little rough. BUT everyone here and everyone involved in this process has made it a lot easier.

What are you working on right now?

I am currently filming a TV show here in New Zealand; I'm playing Amelia Jones, the next Pink Power Ranger in Nickelodeon’s Power Rangers Dino Fury. Wow. That is one statement I never knew I’d be saying.

What meme or piece of internet culture do you relate to the most?

Most recently, I feel like I relate to that video of the little girl on the beach. She’s crying, and she says, “I’m gonna take a nap. I’m gonna take a nap right here. Goodnight.” I’ve always loved that one, but I love how she just says what she wants and does it.

You’re also a model. Can you share your top tip for looking fab in a photo?

Oh my. What a question. I don’t really have a routine before a photoshoot. Except, the only thing I HAVE to do, is get a good night’s sleep. You know, what they call “beauty sleep”.

Have you ever read Power Rangers fanfiction? If you were to write a Power Rangers Dino Fury fanfiction, what would it be called and who would it be about?

I have read some Power Ranger fanfiction, but I haven’t dove deep into it. I think if I were to write my own, it would be about my character, Amelia, and her quest to find answers about the paranormal. After the first episode aired, the hashtag #GiveAmeliaAGhost started to go around, and I think I’d want to run with that. I’m not sure where that would take her. Maybe she’d get the answers she was hoping for. Maybe she would find a love interest that has the same beliefs. Maybe she would find something else that would take her quest in a different direction. Maybe being the Pink Power Ranger helps her find some answers she’s been longing for her entire life. Who knows. And then I think I’d have to name it like it is, #GiveAmeliaAGhost.

What is something that you could use the Pink Ranger’s help for?

My philosophy in life is to be kind. I think I would want the Pink Ranger to go after bullies instead of monsters. Because the truth is, bullies are the real monsters in life.

Can you show us a funny photo from your camera roll that you haven’t shared before, and tell us the backstory?

I’m not going to lie, I share a lot of embarrassing photos of myself as it is. So it was hard to find one I haven’t posted yet. I had to reach out to a few friends to see if they had any. But the photo I have chosen is a good one that I haven’t posted. I might find it a little more funny than anyone else would, though. Back home, I have 30+ cows. I am very close with them, considering we don’t eat or milk them; they’re pets. So close that I can feed them from my mouth. This is a picture of me and my bull, Titan. He sure loves his carrots, and occasionally missing the carrot and licking my face.

What is the first thing you’re going to do post-pandemic?

Over Christmas break here in NZ, I actually reached out to production about setting up some volunteer work for me. I really wanted to do something to give back. They really tried, but the majority of shelters and other places weren't accepting any volunteers. We reached out to a few kids’ hospitals to make appearances to put a smile on their faces, but due to COVID, that wasn’t allowed. While we understood the condition these kids were in, I was very upset that we couldn’t do ANYTHING to help anyone. I volunteer at a place back home called Give Kids The World, and going back is at the top of my list, post-pandemic.

How do you get into character, and how do you stay in character?

I think Amelia and I are very, very, very alike. So to get in and out of character doesn’t take much. We are both very loving, confident, optimistic go-getters. Honestly, there are times where we film a scene, and I find myself just playing me rather than Amelia. When it comes to my character’s paranormal side, that is where I definitely have to be Amelia and not Hunter. While I love all things horror, I don’t have the same passion for finding the answers she’s looking for. There’s a method to her madness, and I can’t say too much without giving it away. You’ll have to watch to find out more.

You have the chance to ask an all-knowing being one question. What do you ask?

What a loaded question this is. Is there life on other planets? Is earth the only planet out there that’s inhabitable for any life form?

Thanks for taking the time, Hunter! Catch Power Rangers Dino Fury on Nickelodeon.

#entertainment spotlight #power rangers dino fury #hunter deno #GiveAmeliaAGhost

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Devil Comes Courting. By Courtney Milan. Self-Published (?), 2021.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Worth Saga #3

Summary: Captain Grayson Hunter knows the battle to complete the first worldwide telegraphic network will be fierce, and he intends to win it by any means necessary. When he hears about a reclusive genius who has figured out how to slash the cost of telegraphic transmissions, he vows to do whatever it takes to get the man in his employ. Except the reclusive genius is not a man, and she’s not looking for employment. Amelia Smith was born in Shanghai, and taken in by English missionaries. She’s not interested in Captain Hunter’s promises or his ambitions. But the harder he tries to convince her, the more she realizes that there is something she wants from him: She wants everything. And she’ll have to crack the frozen shell he’s made of his heart to get it.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: graphic sexual content, racism (mostly microaggressions), references to child abduction

Overview: I'm a simple girl. I see a new Courtney Milan book, I read it. I was expecting this book to be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be so raw, emotional, and satisfying in almost every way. If I had to quibble, I would say that I would have liked to see a stronger focus on developing the romance, but as it stands, The Devil Comes Courting is an engaging read that deftly deals with topics such as colonialism, racism, grief, and family.

Writing: Milan's prose, as always, feels effortless while delivering a lot of information. It balances telling and showing well, and evokes a lot of emotion without feeling burdened by flowery language.

The only criticism I have is that in the first half of the book, there are some phrases that characters use that start to feel repetitive. It isn't a big deal, as they're supposed to be repeated (as a way for characters to remind themselves of things), but as a reader, I felt a little irritated. Luckily, this repetition clears up by the second half of the book, so if you also feel annoyed, you don't have to wait long.

Plot: The plot of this novel revolves around Grayson Hunter, a Black man intent on connecting China to America via a transpacific telegraph network, and Amelia Smith, a Chinese woman raised by an English missionary and who has invented a way to transmit Chinese characters via wire.

The first half of the book follows Grayson as he convinces Amelia to abandon her mother's plans to marry her off. Appealing to Amelia's ambition, he convinces her to come to Shanghai to work for him, all while building up her confidence and inspiring her. The second half more or less focuses on the development of the telegraph line as well as Amelia's longing for her Chinese mother, Grayson's obsession with work to avoid confronting his feelings of grief, and the budding relationship between the two.

I really loved this plot. It showed us Milan's nerdy interest in a topic (the telegraph line) while also exploring complex emotions connected to the history of colonialism. I loved how Milan handled Amelia's feelings of being torn between cultures, all without excusing the actions of those who participated in colonialism; despite Amelia having complicated reactions to her past, Milan does come down hard on what's right and doesn't try to redeem people who refuse to admit they have done wrong.

If I had any criticism of the plot, I think I would have personally liked to see arcs more strongly defined. There were some moments when I felt like I was just following characters in their day-to-day activities, and while some of it was interesting, there were times when I was wondering what larger goal the plot was heading towards. This is a minor criticism, however; because of the rich character exploration, I didn't mind following Amelia and Grayson, but if you're a plot person (rather than a character person), you may disagree.

Characters: I love how this book proves that you can have a historical romance about people of color without focusing on suffering.

Amelia, a Chinese woman raised by an English missionary, is quirky in that she's scatter-brained, bright, and kind. I loved that she was portrayed as incredibly smart and ambitious, and that her main character flaw was needing to believe in herself. I also loved how she wrestled with her feelings about her past - Amelia longs to meet her Chinese mother and ask why she left her, and I loved how Milan used that longing to fuel her desire to connect China to the rest of the world via wire.

Grayson, a Black man who obsesses over the telegraph wire as a way to avoid coming to terms with his brothers' deaths, is similarly likeable in that he's ambitious and kind. I loved that he was ruthless in pursuing Amelia (to work for him) but also respected her boundaries and let her make decisions for herself (rather than manipulating her into doing something). I loved the way Milan handled Grayson's grief and how his work on the telegraph was both a worthy project and an externalization of his character flaws.

Side characters were charming as well as helpful for facilitating Amelia's and Grayson's character arcs. Benedict, who is a character from the previous two Worth books, was quite adorable and had a nice little arc of his own. I think Benedict's arc complimented Amelia's and Grayson's well, though it will have more significance if you've read the first two books in the series. I also liked Amelia's adopted brother, Leland, whose arc explores and exposes the immorality of missionary work. Grayson's cousin, Zed, was also delightful in that he pushed Grayson to spend time with his family, which was important for exploring Grayson's complex feelings about his mother.

The book's antagonist (if we can really call her that) is Amelia's adoptive English missionary mother, who I think exhibits the right combination of genuine love for her child and toxic, manipulative behavior. I liked that Milan wrote this character so complexly because it helped explore nuances in the actions of individual colonists. The subtle racism (microaggressions, superiority complex, etc.) worked better, in my opinion, than overt racism (slurs, etc.) because they painted a more realistic and interesting picture of someone who believes she is doing good while actually doing a lot of harm.

Romance: In my opinion, the romance in this book was less interesting than the independent development of the characters. Don't get me wrong - I loved Amelia's and Grayson's interactions. I loved how they teased each other, I loved how Grayson inspired Amelia to believe in herself, and I loved how Amelia pushed Grayson to find happiness. I also very much enjoyed the little numbered letters that they wrote to each other and how their character arcs paralleled one another (both had to do with family).

But personally, I didn't feel like the romantic aspect of this relationship was passionate enough. I got the vibe that Amelia and Grayson were close confidantes rather than lovers - but it may be my own tastes or even unconscious bias, so I don't think readers should take this as a damning criticism.

I did appreciate, however, that the romance didn't fit the mold of a lot of other romances. Amelia never asks Grayson to change re: settling down, and both respect each other's boundaries. They also both don't want children, and neither of them face pressure to change their minds. As a result, this romance felt unique, and the fact that neither character was an upper class person in England helped a lot, too.

TL;DR: The Devil Comes Courting is a rich, evocative romance that explores colonialism, family, and grief without wallowing in misery. The unique, likeable characters on their own are enough to love this novel, but the deviation from romance genre norms (such as setting, social class, etc.) will surely satisfy readers looking to expand their horizons.

[hawkland]

Dear Fandom5k Author

My AO3 account (sidewinder)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I’m excited to give this exchange a try for the first time and cannot wait to read what you can come up with for one of my requests. Please note I’d love any of them equally, no matter if I have more prompt ideas for one or the other. Some I seriously would love just about anything about since they are so rare, others I have more specific requests to scratch itches I haven’t seen written before (or that much.)

General Likes:

Soumates with a twist. I love soulmate/soulbond AUs, as long as it’s just not a shortcut to happily-ever, no-conflict fluff. I want there to be some difficulties or angst involved. For instance, I’d love seeing any fusion/inspired-by fics based off the concept of the AMC Soumates series - where there’s a newly-developed scientific test a person can choose to take to find their soulmate (if the other person out there has also taken the test). That way it’s a choice to find out or not. Would an already established couple want to take the test to find out if they’re really “meant” to be together or not? What if they find out other people are their “soulmates”? What about the possibility of platonic soulmates vs romantic? Discussions for the future if/when one partner dies before the other? I’d love to see these questions played out with one of my fave ships in either a  happy or somewhat angsty/dark way.

Vacation/travel stories. Being unable to travel this past year+ thanks to covid-19 has me desperate to explore and live vicariously through my favorite characters! So I’d love a story involving travel to somewhere new (to them). It could be a romantic getaway/honeymoon trip to somewhere special - and I love it when an author “takes me” to a favorite city/place of their own. Or two friends just going on an escapade together, maybe one sensing the other needs some time away from a stressful situation or workplace.

Smutty likes: I love extended kissing scenes, frottage, light restraint play, sharing-one-bed-for-~reasons~-ooops-how-did-we-wake-up-cuddling, bathing/caretaking an injured partner-turns-erotic, desperate/reunion sex.

Canon-divergent AUs - I’m always good with fix-its, shifts in canon that only change one thing and see what happens next or instead.

Do Not Wants:

A/B/O dynamics, mating heats. (I do like Supernatural fics that explore Castiel and the angels having bird-like behaviors and instincts, however.)

animal abuse/death

anything related to pregnancy/childbirth/kidfic (except for Jack in SPN)

formalized BDSM relationships

scat/watersports

unrequested alternative-universe scenarios such as high school/mundane/genderswap/coffee shop/fantasy/etc. There are a few ships/groups where I would enjoy specific AUs, and those are outlined below.

Completely sad endings/permanent character death or injury that isn’t part of canon

Rape/non-con between requested characters. Dubious consent is fine in situations like magic spells/possession/fuck-or-die, however.

Supernatural

AU - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Fix-it fic, Interpersonal Drama, Smut, Angst, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding, Horror

In general for SPN, I love canon-divergence AUs at pretty much any point in time (especially as they kept having so many dumb reasons in canon to keep Dean & Cas apart just when one or the other seriously needed support or TLC!) I’m okay with post-series Heaven fics as well as canon fix-its/completely ignoring the finale, and I like exploring both human!Cas as endgame or Cas keeping/getting his full angelic grace back (which is a slight preference to me, as he repeatedly seemed to genuinely value/want to be an angel? But exploring all possibilities in fic is cool for me.)

I’m a sucker for Castiel Whump/hurt!Cas in general, so long as the author remembers Cas is a bad ass and not just a baby in a trenchcoat. If he’s going to suffer, I want him to suffer stoically until he just cannot keep up the facade any longer.  

SPN-specific DNWs: mentions/implications of Wincest, past or present; extreme bashing/characterization of John and Mary Winchester, or Jimmy Nowak, as homophobic. 

Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester

Give me all the finale fix-it fics - no I’m still not over it, I’m still happy to read any new twist on how Cas got out of the Empty and got back together with Dean (and Sam). If Dean still dies early/ends up in Heaven, I’d like a story that explores what happens when one gets bored of peace-and-happiness-ever-after. (Yes, I’m a big fan of The Good Place and as such it makes me wonder if eternity with no conflict and everything you could ever want would just melt your brain and identity after a few millennia.) So what then?

I’m also stealing a Tumblr rant as a prompt I’d love to read, if you want to get into some good dirty smut:

ive had it up to here with fictional gays being like “i love you and if all i can ever have is that knowledge it’s enough for me” we need more “i have been struck down by horny insanity and i beg you to fuck me once. i’ve had three smirnoff ices and i’m gonna be crazy now. we can pretend it didn’t happen i don’t give a shit just gimme daddy’s blunt instrument” it’s more realistic [x]

Um so yeah. I’d love an au where, anywhere along the line when it’s been their/someone’s/the universe’s life on the life, Cas takes the initiative decides they’re gonna have crazy sex even if it’s just once before the end of the world/we die. But then, oops, we’ve survived, now we have to deal with it. ...Please?

For something different, maybe more romantic/fluffy, I’d really love a vacation/getaway story here, since they never really got anything like that of substance on the show. I want to see Cas take Dean somewhere beautiful and amazing in the world he’s never gotten to see before. Show him there’s more than just greasy diners and the landscape of America to enjoy and experience. If you want, they could stumble on a case/haunting/monster from another part of the world while they’re at it...but I just really want to see Dean having some mind-opening and expanding experiences beyond what’s he’s known and seen so far in life.

In specific with Cas/Dean + Sam, I love another tumblr idea I saw recently where Sam totally keeps bringing up the idea of “Sastiel” as a fun joke between him and Cas, and Cas plays along, and it drives Dean up the wall. Cas has to just keep re-assuring Dean that no, he doesn’t see Sam that way...but why does it bother Dean so much? A.k.a. Dean has to finally own up to the fact that it bothers him because he wants Cas to feel that way about him.

Castiel (Supernatural)

I just love Cas, period, end of story, he’s my One True Character of SPN. I love any stories that try to explore him more fully—be it his relationships in the past with other angels and being a BAMF commander/warrior of Heaven, or what specifically it is that keeps him so tied to the Winchesters. I love stories that feature his true-form in some fashion or try to dig into the alien/different nature of angels vs. humans.

Also, another Tumblr-musing-turned-prompt (I lost who posted it, sorry!) I'd love to see explored in a canon divergence fic focused on Cas. Specifically: 

"I would have loved an arc for Cas (after he got his grace back) where he wanted to help people, like he was helped. Spending time in soup kitchens or healing people, and through that developing a sense of self purpose, leading to his grace replenishing unexpectedly. Sort of fulfilling the traditional angel role (as we know it nowadays) by replacing his faith in heaven/dean with faith in himself, to redefine himself as a protector of humanity instead of heaven's soldier."

Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester & Jimmy Novak Group: Castiel & Jimmy Novak

We know Cas carried a lot of guilt for what happened to Jimmy and his whole family. So I'm interested in a post-finale, canon-compliant (I guess?) fic where Cas tries to reconcile things with Jimmy in Heaven. Maybe Jimmy & Amelia were one of his first "projects" or test cases in trying to build a new and better Heaven with Jack? (And it's what he was so busy with while Dean was still alive.) Or, is it weird in Heaven with Cas and Jimmy looking so similar? Does Cas still fight doubts as to whether Dean really loves him, or just desires this body/form that isn’t his own?

Otherwise, I've been thinking about Endverse!Cas, who had lost his grace/powers as the angels have all left and abandoned humankind. What happened to/where is Jimmy in all of that? (If we go by the canon that Jimmy was not killed, nor went to Heaven, until the end of Season 5, when Lucifer blew up that vessel and Cas was resurrected by Chuck.) Are they now two "mortal men"/souls trapped sharing one body? Is that why Cas is so messed up/always seeking an escape through drugs and sex? (Besides of course Dean having changed so much.) This is one prompt where I don’t mind a very dark/not-so-happily-ever-after ending.

The Police

Angst, Character Development, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Humor, Interpersonal Drama, Smut

Group: Sting/Stewart Copeland

Yeah I’ll always request these two together even though I know it’s a long shot to find anyone else as obsessed about them as I am. Really anything at all whatsoever would make me happy for this ship: Reunion Tour-era fic, early punk days before they grew successful, soulmate AUs...

I’d also love a spooky story where they’re on tour/on the road somewhere and end up in a haunted hotel. Or their tour bus/van breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they have to seek shelter in an abandoned house or farm or something...and supernatural weirdness ends up affecting them or bringing them together.

If you want to go the crack route: it wasn’t enough for Miles to take them all around the world to tour in “exotic” locations back in the day. He’s arranged for them now to go on the ultimate tour...of outer space and alien worlds.

Crossover Fandom

Action/Adventure, Character Development, Interpersonal Drama, Angst, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural

Group: Abe Morgan (Forever TV) & John Munch (L&O: SVU)

I’ve had a long running headcanon that these two could have been friends back in their respective 60s/early 70s hippie days. I’d love either a story set back then, “pre-canon”, or them running into each other in NYC later in life. Munch ending up in Abe’s antique shop, for instance, while on an investigation?  

Group: Dean Winchester (Supernatural) & Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone) Group: Castiel (Supernatural) & Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone)

I’m fascinated by the idea of crossing over these two canons. Even if there’s some conflict in their approach to Hell/Lucifer/demons, there’s still a lot in common. Dean & Ezekiel having both put in their time in Hell and being demon hunters, for instance, and their complicated relationships with (fallen) angels. I’d love to see them bonding over their experiences (Maybe they even meet in Hell? Time DOES work differently there…) Maybe somehow after Ezekiel completed his mission for the Devil, he did get his second chance at “life on Earth”…but the devil’s trick is that it’s not HIS Earth, it’s in a different dimension (Supernatural’s). I’m also curious how Ezekiel might respond to Castiel as an angel–perhaps he mistakes Cas for a demon at first, with his powers, but then they realize they are in fact hunting the same demon? Cas is stuck in an alternative dimension and recognizes Ezekiel as a similar soul to Dean’s, and seeks out his help?

Basically I’d love some kind of casefic/demon hunt here, with the characters bonding over their shared/similar past traumas, taking care of each other when/if injured on a hunt, and/or perhaps helping them sort out their complicated feelings for another (ie, background Cas/Dean and/or Zeke/the Devil are TOTALLY welcome here, as I ship both of those ships.)

Law & Order: SVU

Group: John Munch/Odafin "Fin" Tutuola

Character Development, Established Relationship, Humor, Getting Together, Interpersonal Drama, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural, Slice of Life, AU-Genre shift

Munch/Fin is one of my eternal OTPs so I’m always happy to see something new featuring them! I’m always good for procedural/case-fics. And this is one request where I’d love to read some AU-Genre or setting shift, reimagining the two in some other situations besides police work. I’ve always loved the idea of John hosting a conspiracy/weird news radio show or podcast, and Fin as someone completely skeptical but who gets wrapped up in one of John’s mysteries. Or John as the owner of a bar somewhere that Fin is one of his regulars, and over time their friendship develops/deepens into something more.

Supernatural RPF

Misha Collins/Jensen Ackles Established Relationship, Getting Together, Smut, Fluff, Slice of Life, Humor

It’s odd for me to be into an actor RPF fandom (I usually only fall for music/band-related ones), but what can I say...these two just make it almost impossible not to see the possibilities!

I was thinking I’d love something set post-Supernatural...their first time seeing each other again after a long time apart? (What with the show ending, covid, Misha’s surgery, etc etc.) Could be at a convention or maybe they get to go off on a getaway together somewhere private/romantic and it’s...kind of tense and maybe nervous/angsty at first? Like with doubts about whether they can/should go back to the way things were before.

Or: putting tin-hatty speculation about the “secret/real identity” of Alma Perpetua aside, I love their poetry and I’d love any “Cockles” fic using one of their poems as inspiration.

#fandom5k #dear author #exchange letter

[enbeast]

hey yall I noticed that there don't appear to be any transcripts for A Study In Ichor, so I figured I'd type some up, please note I am literally just going off the audio and I might get some stuff wrong.

mission 1

:readmore:

CLIP ONE

Workhouse Owner (WO): RUN FASTER, WORKER FIVE, THAT TREADMILL WON'T TURN ITSELF. As you can see, Master Yao, our workhouse not only provides food and shelter for three hundred inmates but makes a healthy profit too. For example, Worker Five has been running on one of Cubbad's “treadmills” for a mere twelve hours today and has already milled five hundred pounds of flour. Got the odd nail in it but it's good enough for the Rutherhive slums [laughs]

Sam Yao (SY): Twelve hours? Without a break?

WO: The alternative of life on the streets is an excellent motivator. And with your investment we will be able to build even more machinery, maybe even increase rations to three bowls of gruel a day.

SY: I want to use my inheritance for good, and if I'm honest, I have some concerns about your worker's wellbeing.

WO: Oooh I seee~ Yes, I suppose it is rather fashionable nowadays to worry about unfortunates, but I assure you Master Yao, once you've had to make your way in the world, like myself or your uncle, a fine man, you'll learn that revenue is the important thing, not how it's made.

(note, as Sam talks there approaching footsteps)

SY: Surely, there's a way to- OW!

WO: YOU THERE, IN THE CAP, watch where you're going, you just ran into a potential investor. Where's your worker number?

Pick pocket (PP): (in a stilted cockney accent) Sorry, Guv'ner.

SY: No, no, it's fine, I was in the way.

WO: It is not fine. Young lady, break time isn't for another three hours. Get back to work. (retreating footsteps from PP) I'm dreadfully sorry, Master Yao, this workhouse is full of ingrates.

SY: My watch! It's gone, the chain's been snapped...

WO: That worker stole it, she's a pickpocket! Worker Five get off that treadmill and chase after her DON'T COME BACK WITHOUT THAT WATCH!

SY: Uh, I'll come with you, Worker Five, I don't want to make a fuss, but that watch is important to me. Come on, let's run.

CLIP TWO:

SY: Hey, mind your step, Worker Five, I've heard about this, rows of people crushing animal bones to make fertiliser. Ugh, the smell is awful. Pickpocket just ran out into the street, we've got to follow her! Five, I hope you don't mind if I call you Five, through that door! (sound of door opening) There! I see her, she's heading towards the Temm's tunnel, it goes under the river from here to Whopee, an engineering marvel- a-apparently, my uncle's an engineer, he's building an underground railway. I try to keep up with the industry but... It doesn't come naturally... I mean, I-I know the tunnel was built using Bruno Cockren's tunnelling shield but I still barely understand what that even is, I don't ac-ARGH! Oh! (gasping) Five! If you hadn't pulled me aside that horse and cart would have run me over! Ugh, I-I'm sorry, I should have been paying attention, but well I-I don't often get to talk to anyone who isn't my uncle, or someone who's interested in my inheritance... Not that I need all that money, of course. I just want to be sure it's going to help people, it's what my parents would have wanted. That's why the watch is so important to me, it was the last thing they ever gave me before they died. Reminds me of what's important. If, if it was any other watch, I'd... just have let that pickpocket keep it, I'm sure she needs it more than I do... Ah, she's just hopped the barrier at the Temm's tunnel, it's in that round red brick building the entrance shaft is underneath, come on, Five, let's experience this engineering marvel first-hand, quickly, before we lose her!

CLIP THREE

SY: Ah, this tunnel is incredible, can you believe we're RUNNING under the Temms, makes me feel a bit funny... Mind you, we're here now that it's safe, uh, some of the people that built it died in the flood... Oh! Maybe I should spend my inheritance on something that'll make projects like this safer for workers, what do you reckon Five? Oh, Oh no... The pickpocket's already climbing the stairs! Ah- she's getting away! (panting) Whopping's all alleys, if she slips down a back street, we'll never find her! Up the stairs! Run!

CLIP FOUR

SY: (panting) And we're out of the tunnel, the pickpocket just ducked down that alley, after her. (Running sounds) Uh, we've got you cornered, now please. Give me my watch back.

Amelia Spens, formerly known as the Pickpocket (AS): Oh, I don't think so. Lads! (sounds of several sets of footsteps closing in) You're surrounded.

SY: Five, it's a gang of pickpockets.

AS: I'd have been happy with just the watch, but since you followed me, allow me to introduce the Abel Street Gang, they're all over the rooftops and they've all got knives.

SY: Please, don't hurt us, Five here has nothing to do with this!

AS: There'll be no need for bloodshed as long as you both give me all the money you're carrying.

SY: Five doesn't have anything, but, uh, (mumbling, followed by the sound of a heavy bag of coins hitting the ground) That's all of mine.

AS: W-he-hell, aren't we the wealthy one.

SY: I-I've got more! Lots more! And I'll give it to you, I promise, just please return the watch. It's my most treasured possession.

AS: I see! Not an especially experienced negotiator, are you. Hmm, let's take a look at this watch, see what's so special about it. Hmm, pearl face, silver plating, and... an engraving...

SY: It's uh... it's Chinese, those are my parent's names, and that's mine. Sam Yao.

AS: Y-you're not even going to try and make up an identity? What- (laughing) You're lucky I'm just a pickpocket and not someone REALLY nefarious, I- Helloo, what's this? (music starts playing)

SY: There's a tiny music box behind the face, that melody was special to them.

AS: Ooh, a bit twee if you ask me.

SY: So you'll give it back?

AS: I might have sold it back to you for a few sovereigns before you told me who you were, but as my luck would have it there just happens to be something that only you can do for me, Sam Yao. Your uncle's digging a railway underneath London, isn't he?

SY: H-how did you know that?

AS: I read the Society Pages, in my line of work one needs to know who's on course to inherit what fortune, and which Saloons they're likely to fall out of after one too many brandies.

SY: My fortunes from my parents, not my uncle.

AS: Yes, but you're his ward, or at least you were until you came of age recently, correct?

SY: Yes.

AS: There's something I want to show you. Follow me and keep up the pace. There are far more unsavoury types than me in Whopping and they'll take more than your watch. Run!

CLIP FIVE

SY: What's your name?

AS: I'm not telling you my real one, but you can call me Amelia.

SY: Uh, if you don't mind me saying, Amelia, you're quite well spoken for a pickpocket.

AS: Well, even an educated woman is not replete with options in this day and age. We might have a woman on the throne but I had to choose between penury, marriage to a seventy year old rector, or this.

SY: Well, it's not easy for me either, I'm lucky I have money because, well, being Chinese, people have misconceptions.

AS: Yes, you really should choose your friends wisely. Down this side street.

SY: Ugh, Mm. What IS that smell?

AS: Cover your mouths with your handkerchiefs, both of you.

SY: It's alright, Five, you can use mine.

AS: The smell is coming from that huge pipe, you see the emblem embossed on it?

SY: Ah! It's from my uncle's engineering company!

AS: That's right. The pipe is a ventilation shaft from his railway tunnel, now let's get away from it so we can breathe.

SY: (Gasping) Whoah, Oh that's better. What is going on down there?

AS: That's what I want you to find out.

WO (distant): MASTER YAO! WORKER FIVE!

SY: Ugh, it's the workhouse owner.

WO: (approaching footsteps) (panting) Master Yao, I followed you all the way from Rutherhive, one of my workers told me this woman is actually part of the Abel Street Gang! She only came to the workhouse to target you.

AS: This worker, was he a handsome fellow? Smarmy grin?

WO: That's right!

AS: Brent. (Sigh) That'll teach me to use former paramours as spies. Fine. (gun clicking) Hands up!

SY: Amelia! Don't shoot him!

AS: I'm not not aiming it at him, Sam, I'm aiming it at you.

WO: Steady on!

AS: Mr Workhouse Owner, unless you want future investors to know you got this one killed, I'd advise you to stop following us. Sam, Five, come with me or I'll shoot you both. Run!

CLIP SIX

AS: We lost the Workhouse owner, time to put this away (clicking sound)

SY: We would have come with you, Amelia, there was no need for the gun!

AS: Don't tell me how to take a hostage. Now listen carefully, for reasons that elude me, not everyone who falls on hard times opts for criminality, some people would honestly rather perform manual labour, and your uncle happens to be a proliferate employer of such eccentrics. I wouldn't care, except that many of his employees have family in the Abel Street Gang.

SY: I can ask my uncle to pay them more. But... He doesn't really listen to me. I'm Rather naive, apparently.

AS: Well, fortunately I have no need of your dreadful negotiating skills, I need you to solve an even stickier problem. Several of your uncle's workers have gone missing. Even though I've repeatedly explained to my gang that it's a waste of time caring about anything besides one's self, they're refusing to work until they learn what's happened to their loved ones. It's hurting my bottom line.

SY: That's awful... For the workers.

AS: Ahh, they're probably dead. If WE can barely breathe the noxious fumes near the ventilation shafts, what do you think it's like underground?

SY: I can't imagine! Those poor people... I'll stop what's happening, I promise, even if I have to spend every last penny of my inheritance.

AS: Do that and I'll give you your watch back.

SY: It's a deal.

AS: Mm, my favourite words. Righto, well, if that's settled then I'm off. There's a debutante ball this evening and I need to be in good time if I'm going to harvest some pearls. (retreating footsteps)

SY: There she goes. Look, Five, ah, I feel a bit awkward asking you this, but, would you maybe consider working with me? You were quick out there, really impressive, I've just moved into a house by myself and I could do with a hand. I promise it'll be a lot easier than the workhouse. I know it's been a funny old day, but for me it's actually been nice having someone to talk to. Talk at. Sorry, I know I go on a bit. But if you want to let's shake on it. You did save my life. Great! Now, I'm starving, how about some steak and oyster pie? Maybe we'll come up with some ideas about what happened to those missing workers over dinner., then tomorrow, we'll visit my uncle. Lord Earnest Van Ark.

#A study in ichor #ASII #zr #s2s #master yao #sam yao #worker five #amelia spens #transcript #ASII M1

[dcmarqvis]

&&. announcing her grace, ( nicole jacqueline de marquis ), the ( 46 ) year old ( duchess ) of ( norfolk ). she is often confused with ( jennifer connelly ). some say that she is ( dishonest & domineering ), but she is actually ( tactful & engaging ). ( ooc: admin e )

nicole was the oldest of four daughters. all girls except for they youngest were born two years apart ( chantal was born one year after madeleine ). what this meant for young nicole was that she had to truly be something different in order to stand out. being the oldest wasn’t a great honor: it just meant that it was easy to outshine nicole. 

nicole could barely keep up with her sisters because the younger de marquis girls kept being exceptional compared to nicole. nicole was the oldest so it was expected that she could do certain things at a certain age. her younger siblings would copy their older sister and manage the same thing just six months later. it was difficult for nicole to stand out when her sisters were just as pretty and witty as she was... and all three had skills she did not have. the only thing that set her apart from the other de marquis girls was her right to a title. 

people outside of their family would describe the girls in such fashion: nicole, ah yes, the oldest de marquis girl ! amelia is the smart one, she makes such a wonderful dinner party guest ! madeleine can sing so beautifully, oh she’s really something ! chantal never forgets a single detail, she’s so considerate and wonderfully chatty ! 

nicole realized quickly enough that she was only known for being the oldest. she wasn’t exceptional, her sisters were. nicole wasn’t the perfect guest: she had a hard time keeping a conversation going because she always took too long to decide what to say. nicole was smart but she didn’t stand out: amelia was the one who had gotten unconditional offers from all of the universities she had applied to. nicole most certainly could not sing and there was no point in letting her play the piano when she wasn’t any better than the rest of the people in the room. she was average and that did not sit well with her competitive nature. 

during her first university year she decided something had to change. it was time to reinvent herself. she had picked oxford because amelia had spoken about dreaming of a spot at cambridge. nicole would have rather died than studied in the same city as her younger sister. nicole’s little transformation project began a bit after her 19th birthday in january. she started with the easiest aspect to alter: her style. she paid quite a lot of money to a stylist to curate her wardrobe. only the most fashionable pieces could  hang from her hangers. then nicole started to spend more time at the stables. not riding, even though it was her favourite pastime, but chatting. it was easy to learn how to be talkative and engaging when everyone wanted to talk about she knew a lot about: horses. the people who visited the same stables as she did were the crème de la crème through them, nicole found more influential people to befriend. within a year, everyone knew nicole de marquis, that beautiful tall girl who’ll become a duchess ! 

her second year in uni was much more pleasant. she got invited to every single soiree because everyone wanted at least one girl from her friend group to attend their party. her friend group’s stamp of approval really meant something. it wasn’t just because they were rich and pretty ( while that had a lot to do with it ) but all of them were smart. it was a dangerous collection of traits. the young women were all rather conceited though and the more powerful they felt, the more ambitious they got. nicole began feeling like there wasn’t a single thing that could get in her way. as long as she had a plan, she could do anything.

between finishing her undergraduate studies and starting her graduate level studies, she met the crown prince. young arthur windsor was something different. nicole got swept off her feet. he was the guest of honor at each one of her parties at the eynsham hall, a 20th century manor in oxfordshire she had splurged on when she had turned 21. then one thing lead to another and nicole realized she had become the prince’s mistress. it was an interesting title for sure. what it got her was plane tickets to exciting countries and invitations to the most glorious parties. arthur introduced her to other royals and aristocrats she only ever could have dreamed of meeting. 

a year before getting her master’s degree in history and english, she got married. cecil armistead was another oxford alumnus, although he was four years nicole’s senior. cecil was ‘simply wonderful’. he was the third son of an earl, his mother had a ( not-so-successful ) fashion label, and he had a master’s degree that was absolutely useless. he spent most of his times wandering around the ashmolean museum or walking around the university park. but luckily for cecil he was considerate, handsome and clever. he had to fight hard to catch nicole’s attention but when he finally did, he never really lost it.

but most importantly, cecil was piss poor, as was his whole family. it was why he was more than happy to marry nicole who was not only rich and powerful but lovely and entertaining. he was happy to marry her despite never really dating her. they just seemed like a wonderful match ! it was what his parents told him and hers confirmed. his parents were motivated by the money and influence while hers... nicole’s parents wanted their daughter married before the baby bump would start showing.

cecil was the only person who could have been the father aside from prince arthur. nicole had slept with her at one of her parties when arthur had failed to show up. she had been upset and feeling vindictive. to this day nicole thinks it’s pure luck that she slept with cecil that night: otherwise the lie never would have been an option and she would have had to come clean to cecil before even marrying him.

when natalia was born, everyone congratulated the newly weds and nicole became even more a talented actress. family life with cecil was easy. he had a lot of spare time as did she. they could invite other young families over and nicole soon realized that natalia was more than just her beautiful daughter: natalia was nicole’s ticket to new social circles. nicole hadn’t even realized how easy it was to connect with other aristocratic women when you had a child ! nicole stopped being the beauty queen of the campus and became the crown jewel of english housewives. 

a few years after arthur was crowned king, nicole decided to risk it all. she told everyone about natalia’s true parentage and made herself room at the english court as the mother of an english heir and the future duchess of norfolk. cecil, nicole and natalia moved to london so nicole could participate in politics. cecil stayed in the picture, he stayed loyal and relatively happy: he had not been blind to nicole and arthur’s special relationship. the lie about natalia hurt him though, he stopped smiling and talked less. he became passionate about writing. he still dreams of becoming a successful writer and nicole keeps that dream afloat despite hating everything he had ever written.

the past two decades nicole has concentrated on learning how to play people and how to succeed in the world of politics. she firmly believes natalia is her greatest asset. nicole doesn’t really care for money or power, she cares about beating everyone else. unfortunately for others, in nicole’s opinion success can only be measured in money and power. so she fights others, undermines others, ends careers, befriends powerful people... all because she cannot stand the idea of there being people who are above her. 

#hshqintro

[casualmaraudering]

after 2342394 years we have a second chapter

***

The bedroom is pitch black when Sirius wakes up. And right from the moment he opens his eyes, he feels like death.

His throat is dry and sore - as if he’s caught a nasty cold or spent the past two days drinking - and his eyes feel heavy and wet. He’s sweaty, there’s a rather painful squeeze to his stomach, and his head is pounding.

None of it comes as a surprise, really. He always feels like shit whenever his body decides to catch up on sleep - it’s funny, almost. When he doesn’t sleep at all - he feels awful. And then when he sleeps for more than absolutely necessary - he ends up just as bad, if not worse. A lose-lose situation, his sleeping habits.

There’s a moment of hesitation before he reluctantly reaches for his phone.

4.52AM

Undoubtedly, the worst part about his body catching up after bad episodes is how it fucks up his mood. The wrecking guilt for waisting 14 goddamn hours is already set heavy in his stomach. He’s wasted the whole evening - and in his current situation, he can’t fucking afford to do that. He could’ve gone shopping - there’s barely any food in the fridge - or done his schoolwork, or even just spend time with his brother.

And God, thinking about Regulus always manages to make Sirius feels even worse.

Cause he’s supposed to be better than the goddamn fuckup he currently is. He should be able to set a good example. But he can’t. Hell, he feels that Regulus is the one taking care of him more often than the other way around.

Sometimes, Sirius wonders whether he should’ve left Reg at Grimmauld. To live a privileged, rich life they were so used to, with cooks and maids and no worry in the world on his head. They’ve always liked Regulus better anyway - it’s Sirius who’s always been the rebel, the improper one, the hated one. The queer one, though that came a bit later (and it’s not like Sirius ever told anyone. That would’ve gotten him thrown out, and he couldn’t let that happen - he needed to leave on his own terms, with Regulus in tow). Maybe they never would’ve hit Regulus? He knows how to behave, after all.

Yet Sirius couldn’t bring himself to chance it. He can’t stomach the thought of his little brother alone in that godforsaken place. Even if Sirius fucks up at being an adult, at least he can assure Regulus grows up loved and without anyone ever raising their hand on him. It’s all he can do for now.

But, while Sirius would love to stay in bed for the rest of the day - or possibly the rest of time - and sink deeper into the pit of despair he’s fallen into, he can’t. Not when he’s got work at 8 and so many things to do before that. The disgusting mood will stay, just like it always does, but Sirius can just lie his way through the mental disarray he’s got going on. He might be a fuck up, but he’s a fuck up responsible for a human being that needs tending to. If it weren’t for Regulus, well… Sirius probably wouldn’t make it as far as today.

So, with a bit of difficulty, he gets up. Right away he gets overwhelmingly dizzy, and his stomach churns with discomfort. He groans in annoyance and sways towards the bathroom. What a way to start the day indeed.

After throwing up (and dry heaving for a bit, because he hasn’t eaten in a good while, so there’s not really much to vomit with), Sirius follows his usual routine of loo-teeth-shower-hair drying. It makes him feel a bit better, at least. He throws the clothes he fell asleep in into the hamper (he needs to do the laundry sometime today, he notes) and trots to his bedroom to look for something to wear.

He checks his phone while squeezing himself into his jeans (not as tight as he’d usually go for - he wants to be able to move comfortably at work) and finds he has several messages.

There’s a few from James - nothing important, either random things he did throughout the day or memes. One from Lily, telling him there’s Chinese in the fridge for when he wakes up and that if he tries to slip her the money for it, she’ll slit his throat (typical, but Sirius will find a way to pay her back anyway).

And then, there’s one that actually makes Sirius smile.

From: Remus

6.21PM

Hope you dream about something nice tonight.

Sirius wished he didn’t remember all the extremely embarrassing things he had said to Remus yesterday - declaring love after knowing the man for five minutes being icing on the cake - but they’re stuck in his memory, ready to taunt him tonight when he inevitably won’t be able to sleep. Though, seeing as Remus did send him a text, maybe not all is lost?

To: Remus

5.20AM

I had the nicest dream. Guess who was in it ;)

There’s no harm in hoping, at least.

****

After getting breakfast (and praising Lily for thoughtfulness, because of course, the fridge is empty), Sirius goes through as many chores as he can before he has to hurry off to work. He puts the laundry on, gets groceries - cringes at the bill extremely, but he can’t just feed his brother instant ramen - and even cleans the kitchen a bit. He puts some toast into the toaster (without the crusts, and leaves a kettle full of freshly boiled water next to a box of green tea) and goes to wake Regulus. It’s not that Sirius necessarily needs to - the kid has a phone with an alarm, after all - but he likes it. It makes him feel more involved; more like an actual responsible brother.

Upon knocking on his door, before even Sirius has a chance to enter, he hears a loud groan; Sirius chuckles at that as he steps inside. While he himself had always been an early riser, Regulus loathes mornings more than anything in the world.

“Rise and shine, Your Majesty,” Sirius says brightly, leaning against the doorway. He smiles as he watches Regulus pull the covers over his head.

“‘eout-”

“No can do, you have a maths test today. Out of bed, sir.”

“Mhmm.”

“If I don’t see you at breakfast in ten minutes, I’m dumping a bucket of cold water right on your head.”

“‘u w’ldn’t. You’d h’ve to clean.”

Sirius laughs, shaking his head slightly. “Ten minutes,” he only says, stepping back and closing the door again.

It’s fifteen minutes until Regulus, sleepy and visibly very grumpy, stomps into the kitchen and sits himself next to Sirius at the kitchen table (Sirius lets him have 20 minutes - if it’s more than that, he always finds he had fallen back asleep).

“I’ll be back from work at 6,” he says, passing a cup of tea to his brother, who takes it without even slight hesitation. “D’you wanna wait for me and have dinner then, or do you want to order in?”

“I’ll be back later too,” Regulus informs him, taking small sips of his tea (he takes his tea ridiculously hot, Sirius had learned, which he simply stopped questioning it after a while). “I have a project to do with a friend. I’ll be at her house.”

“A friend, huh?” Sirius’s mouth raises in a smirk. “And what’s that friend’s name?”

Regulus rolls his eyes and huffs. “Amelia.”

Sirius smiles harder. “And are you and Amelia good friends?”

“Oh stop that.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. ‘m not doing anything.”

“Yes you are!” Regulus says in frustration. “You’re doing the girls thing. She’s not my girlfriend or anything, I don’t like her like that. She’s just a friend.”

Sirius’s gaze softens, and he ends up ruffling Reg’s hair - something he knows Regulus extremely hates.

“I know, I’m just joking around.”

He trusts - and hopes - Regulus would tell him if he started being interested in someone. Both of them aren’t really the type to talk about things like that anyway. Regulus, of course, knows Sirius is gay, but Sirius rarely talks about any boyfriends. Though, that might be cause he doesn’t really do that. Not since they left their parents, anyway.

And it’s not he doesn’t want to; it just never seems like the right time. He’s far too busy with school and then work and then caring for his brother - there’s nowhere to squeeze in dates. And sure, every now and again James and Lily drag him out of the house for the evening, but he never ends up coming home with anybody either; the anxiety about leaving his brother alone for the night is too much. Regulus isn’t a little kid anymore, but Sirius feels he shouldn’t leave him alone for a whole night. Not just yet, at least.

“So when will you be home?” Sirius asks, leaving the table to get his gear on and look for his bike keys (he always manages to loose them, somehow). Thank God for his bike - if it weren't for her, Sirius would be late for work pretty much every day, with how late he leaves the house.

“At 8, maybe?”

“No later than 9, okay? And give me a call if you need me to pick you up.”

“Mhm.”

“You’re grounded if you’re here a second after nine.”

He hears Regulus snort in reply. He walks to the kitchen, ruffles his brother’s hair once again (and earns a very displeased noise in response) and makes his way out the door.

By that time, Sirius’s stomach has settled, and although his head is still throbbing, and he still feels like shit, he’s confident the day at work should pass swiftly. Or so he hopes, at least.

And an hour into the workday, he’s proven wrong.

Working as a mechanic is, obviously, incredibly messy and even more tiring, but today everything seems to go slightly wrong; fussy customers, parts falling onto his feet or hands, accidental burns, and an oil spill all over his trousers. And that’s just little over an hour since he clocked in.

If only he could quit, he would.

Except he has barely any cash in his bank account right now, and it’s not like he has Mummy and Daddy’s fortune to rely on anymore. There’s some savings in his account, but that’s only for emergencies, and it’s not like it’s much. Not enough for rent and utilities, anyway.

Thinking about that always makes Sirius’s stomach clench uncomfortably. He’s so damn tired all the time from constant work, and all his muscles ache at the end of the day, and then there’s always something left to do at home. There’s not really much he can do about that other than to suck it up. It always comes down to Regulus anyway. Sirius isn’t doing it for himself - he wants Reg to have a good life, a happy life, not to be miserable like Sirius had been back in their family home.

He just wants his brother to be happy and healthy, and if that means having to work a few too many hours, then be it.

Sirius’s day passes in a blur of oil spills, clunking of metal, and about four cups of coffee, before he can finally make his way back home and drop onto the couch in exhaustion. The tension in his shoulders aches deeply whenever he moves; the skin on his hands is irritated and red (he really should invest in some moisturizer), and his hair feels uncomfortably dirty even if he's washed it today morning. He could stay on the couch forever.

But of course, life calls. Or more like texts.

And by life, he means James.

From: Prongs 🥰

6.15PM

pub??? now???? come pls?? i miss you :(

Sirius sighs deeply (and probably far too dramatically). He’s exhausted, and sore, and he wouldn’t even be able to drink because Reggie might call him for a ride later. All he wants is to crawl into bed right now, and hope he can sleep for even just a little bit tonight.

But then, he hasn’t seen his friends in what feels like ages and he genuinely misses them. It might be a bad choice, but well... if there’s one thing Sirius is known for, it’s making bad choices. So he agrees.

He quickly cooks dinner, just so there’s something to heat up when Regulus is back, and leaves a post-it note on the counter in case Regulus is home before him. Then, just as he’s about to throw on his jacket again and rush out the door, a thought pops into his mind. 

He pulls out his phone, sends a quick texts, and leaves his flat.

To: Remus

6.21PM

any chance you wanna come down to Three Broomsticks for a pint? my treat

#sirius black #regulus black #the marauders #the marauders fanfiction #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #my tag #my writing #it has been.ages. whoops #caffeine for the heartache

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

So when I was an egg in high school, I created a self-insert OC named Yar Kramer. I used him for a bunch of RPs, and several works of fiction, only one of which I actually completed. There were like two sprite comics and one thing I made that was literally just "sprites + dialogue and descriptions of the action", plus an unpublished and incomplete novel.

RP

The original original roleplay was on a Hitchhiker's Guide website called the H2G2, created by Douglas Adams as an attempt at realizing the eponymous Guide (which has been largely supplanted by Wikipedia). My username was originally "Adolescent White American [wronggender] Who Likes 47" (I liked the number 47 to its frequency in Star Trek); people shortened this to "Yankee Kid, likes 47" and subsequently "YK-47" and just "YK", which I backronym'd to "Yaradovich Kramer"[sic], after Yaridovich from Super Mario RPG and Cid Kramer from Final Fantasy 8. He was originally a coolkid Jedi in a red jacket, but at some point I retconned it to generic "psychic powers."

I also roleplayed him on a few RP MUDs, but I don't really remember any details there.

The "Original" Story

The novel was going to be called "Red Jacket", I think. "Yar Kramer" was a witness-protection alias, and his original name was Daniel Lancaster (hmmmm, someone's primary identity doesn't match their birth name!); he and his family had been forced to work for an evil organization called Project Robinson, which intended to create genetically-engineered espers for reasons I'm not sure about now. Project Robinson was led by an evil scientist called Dr. Krause and a computer named Mother Brain; I justified stealing the name "Mother Brain" because there were three unrelated video games which featured a character by that name (Metroid, Phantasy Star II on the Genesis, and Chrono Trigger).

The Grim Reaper was a woman who talked in underlined dialogue, and whacked people over the head with her scythe rather than actually reaping. She'd changed her form in the 1960s because she found the whole "skeleton" deal to be depressing. She had a black motorcycle with a flame pattern and the text "Pale Horse", and the souls she collected traveled in a pink sidecar which said "Binky" on the side in Comic Sans (where "Binky" is obviously a Discworld reference). When I created this in the 00's, there was totally nothing significant about a character who'd clearly changed her gender, nuh-uh.

Yar's love interest was Mackenzie Robinson, one of Project Robinson's creation. Despite the fact that the gummint had an active hand in extracting Yar's family from Project Robinson, there was some FBI/CIA spook called Agent Pinkerton who hounded Mackenzie like Inspector Javert. I know he had a classmate named Eckhart, who was this ratty-faced jerk with a heart of gold, who was inspired by one of my RL classmates.

I also found a half-written script for a comic, which gets as far as a prologue, followed by a scene which estalishes the witness protection business. Yar jokingly introduces himself Trigun-style as "Yaradovich Halvorsen Thompson-Stryfe-Gainsborough Donatello Leonard Raphael Michelangelo Farnsworth Anderson-Smith Jean-Luc Jones Solo Pepper Tibloxley Amelia Fayette-Mahoney Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora Kramer I." Wow. Let's see, "Halvorsen" and "Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora" are clearly made from whol cloth, and I'm not sure where "Jones" came from, but other than that, I can see in order ... Trigun (Thompson and Stryfe), Final Fantasy VII (Strife and Gainsborough), all four Ninja Turtles, Futurama, The Matrix, Star Trek, Star Wars, Cowboy Bebop (re-engrished "Pepelu Tivruski"), and Slayers. Again, wow.

First Reality

The "main" sprite comic, which was a sort of Final Fantasy parody made mostly in RPG Maker, and which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Keenspace. Yar Kramer was a "Neo-Samurai" (basically a ripoff of SeeD from Final Fantasy 8), fighting alongside a dude named Shigeru 'Gary' Oak (Gary Oak except as an adult, with a gunblade and dressed as Seifer Almasy, with no sign of any pokemon), and Tina Branford (Terra Branford without her tragic backstory).

The setting was incomprehensible if you didn't have detailed knowledge of Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, and also Mega Man X; nearly every single place name was named after something from Final Fantasy except for Death Mountain, where they went to in order to get the Triforce (long story). A pink-haired goofy-and-hyperactive Celes Chere was the princess of Mysidia, and was a FF8-Sorceress; she frequently went in disguise as a thief named Fobby, and used a Reploid named Dancer as a body-double.

The main villain was named Darklumen, and his evil plan was to destroy the world by weakening the fabric of existence by leveraging sprite comic cliches, thus demonstrating that I have always been Like That. (The fact that I had a direct author avatar called the "Ultimate Guardian Force" with semi-omnipotent powers over the comic isn't even worth dwelling on, because omnipotent "author" characters are par for the course with sprite comics.)

The other party members: Kefka Palazzo, who was the court jester for Mysidia; Enerion Imusen, a half-Esper who was invented from whole cloth, who overcame his hangups about being half-esper with Tina's help before he got killed off by the bad guy; and "Rock Light" (because one of the reality-damaging sprite comic cliches was "Mega Man is present"), who was actually the Great Guardian Force Yu-Yevon in disguise for convoluted reasons.

In the ending, it's mentioned that Gary marries Princess Celes, and sort of vaguely implies that Yar ends up with Tina. (Tina made actual romantic overtures to Yar halfway through the comic, but they were interrupted by shallow comedy.)

I absolutely refused to let go of a running gag in which a male character would say something that broke the fourth wall, and at least one female character would immediately yell at him for doing so.

... I actually found some MIDI songs in the First Reality files which I personally composed. Well ... I say "composed", but the Darklumen final boss music was clearly based on the Super Smash Bros 1's Final Destination music with techno-twittering from All Your Base, one was based on a boss theme from Final Fantasy X combined with anime music, and Yar Kramer's personal themesong was chiefly based on Glyde's theme from The Misadventures of Tron Bonne.

YaraY

The other sprite comic, hosted on a subdirectory of First Reality's site. The name came from Yar's evil twin, Ray Remark ("Yar" and "Kramer" spelled backwards), and also from the Japanese expression "yare yare" (translated in JJBA "good grief").

It was a shallow Bob and George-esque thing with Mega Man sprites, and invovled Yar's shenanigans opposite Ray Remark; a straightlaced roommate with blue hair named Elbert Ssab (I don't know where I got "Elbert" from, but I came up with "Ssab" after noticing that "Elbert" backwards is "Treble"); a Reploid named Jive who was an orange recolor of Zero from Mega Man Zero; and a girl in a pink shirt named Kira, whose character concept began and ended with "hyperactive blonde girl." At one point, there was a comic which depicted First Reality as an actual console RPG being played by Kira; this comic was then ported directly to First Reality.

I abruptly stopped updating it in the middle of a story arc in which Jive went off with a group Maverick Hunters which inexplicably included Zio from Phantasy Star 4, who was just there to be generically evil rather than actually pursuing any of his canonical goals.

Super Adventure Yar

And finally, the "sprites plus dialogue" thing. It used whatever anime, video game, and internet characters I was interested in at any given moment, and there were inserts from several people I knew online. All of whom were basically overpowered in some respect, i.e. one of the friend-inserts was literally just a redheaded Goku in a trench coat, except his Saiyan name was "Suckarot". It was the most absurd and ridiculous of these things.

Yar was your basic inexplicably-overpowered action-shounen protagonist, and people kept going "What!? Why is he so powerful!?" (If there was going to be an explanation, I never got a chance to give it and I don't remember what it was, but I doubt there was anything reasonable.) Of course, this was also true of pretty much every protagonist.

His fighting style involved throwing energy blasts, and his signature move was named "Island King Kamehameha", because I knew the etymology of the Dragonball attack, but the kind of creative person I was at the time was that nuance, self-awareness, and "general understanding of what I was putting into my stories" were something that happened to other people.

Mayl Sakurai was impulsively violent with a squeaky-mallet.

At one point, while the protagonists were discussing a plot point which Mayl wasn't present for, she said, "What the hell are you talking about?" and then tossed an entire burger into her mouth.

Cut Man's NetNavi was FishMan.exe.

Yar bought Chii Chobits from Strong Bad, who ran an unbelievably shady second-hand electronics store; Chii's copycat tendencies extended to copying other peoples' magic and superpowers.

He also bought a generic NetNavi and expressed the intention to customize it, but all sign of NetNavis were dropped after a few episodes.

The "ageless faceless gender-neutral culturally-ambiguous adventuring person" (AFGNCAAP) from Zork/Enchanter was one of the main characters. They frequently used spells from Enchanter such as "gaspar" ("provide for your own resurrection" -- basically like a Final Fantasy "Auto-Life" spell, but AFGNCAAP was also able to use it on others), "vaxum" ("make hostile creature friendly", and every single target which it actually worked on promised to kill them after it wore off), "krebf" ("repair willful damage"), and "talcor" (healing; this seems to be something I made up myself, because I can't find any references to it in Enchanter canon).

I insisted on using "he/she" and the like instead of just the singular "they", wow I was deep in the egg in 2004. But they did say "I don't have a gender" at one point!

Magus/Janus from Chrono Trigger was trying to take over the world using robotic Sinistars. His minions were "the Terrible Trio", which consisted of Onslaught from Marvel vs. Capcom 1, Dalton from Chrono Trigger, and Dynamo from Mega Man X.

I stole the "now I'm wet and on fire!" joke from the webcomic Adventurers! during a fight between Dalton and AFGNCAAP.

Magus got a Vegeta-style "suddenly I happen to be on the same side of the heroes" redemption with the sudden arrival of, um, the Saiyans. Starting with Raditz as just a retread of Dragonball Z.

After Raditz was beaten, he sent a message to Vegeta and "Zappa", who was just Nappa but with a terrible wig and an atrocious southern accent; I have no idea what I was going for there.

The planet Arlia from Dragonball Z was populated by clones of Alia from Mega Man X5. It had the same fate as in the show, namely that Vegeta and Zappa just casually blew it up after going on a rescue-a-princess quest.

There was an "It's a gundam!" joke there.

The Goku-expy friend-insert taught Yar how to fly Hitchhiker's Guide-style ("throw yourself at the ground and miss"), and how to use bullet-time.

Mayl trained under Magus. At one point, while she was fighting a friend-insert with a sniper rifle (who'd previously stolen everyone's wallets for no apparent reason), Magus remarked that she had "hidden potential" and noted that in her hands, her squeaky mallet was just as powerful as the sniper rifle.

Vash the Stampede showed up, and the plot promptly started getting derailed as everyone around him dropped everything to try to claim his $60 billion bounty (Onslaught, to Dalton and Dynamo: "We'll split it 50-50-50!").

At one point, Vash ran off with Chii for reasons that only slightly made sense in context, and Yar chased them to a town called Las Eisley.

The three of them got into a bar fight at a "restaulant"[sic] (I thiiiink this was originally actual engrish from Trigun itself?) which completely wrecked the building.

After the bar fight, Yar called up AFGNCAAP to make repairs using the krebf spell; AFGNCAAP asked, "Was all the damage willful?" and Yar replied, "Well, I definitely proceeded in the full knowledge that massive destruction would occur." Due to the rules of sprite-comic comedy, this was enough for krebf to work.

There was a "Dear Strong Bad, how do you type with boxing gloves on?" joke.

In the middle of everything else, I started writing an episode introducing Valkyries and Loki -- which displayed a surprisingly deep knowledge of Norse mythology on 18-year-old-me's part -- but I never finished it and my files don't even have the sprites for the main Valkyrie character, who was another friend-insert.

... All of these continuities just feel amazing to me in retrospect, because this is the kind of thing that can only happen in fanfiction. Only something using existing characters, our existing associations with these characters, can possibly reach this level of ridiculousness.

Which isn't to say it's all fun and games, though. I was a particularly un-woke Rotten Egg, which meant that there was rampant sexism, and lowkey fanservice. The concept might look fun, but the execution was invariably "the worst parts of the sprite comic fandom."

#yar kramer #original character #fanfiction #trans stuff #my stuff #re: my stuff #meta #shenanigans #meta shenanigans #bob and george #violence mention #death mention #sexism mention #long post in link

[feynavaley]

Hetalia Miraculous Ladybug AU

(Or, I spent about 2 hours with an 11-year-old explaining me everything about this show so now you’re getting this.)

The characters aren’t completely like the ones from the show (which I haven’t even watched), I just thought about somebody who might cover a similar role, but their personalities are their own and presumably different from the ones of the canon characters. (Besides, keep in mind that all my knowledge comes from a brief look through the Wikia pages and the explanation of an 11-year-old. A very exhaustive explanation, but still.)

- Marinette/Ladybug: Michelle Bonnefoy (Seychelles). Daughter of a Parisian baker, Francis Bonnefoy (France) and a Seychellois woman (Angélique, an OC). She spent her early childhood in Seychelles and went back to Paris with her father after her mother’s death. Michelle has a great passion for fashion (inherited from her father, even if he eventually chose a different profession) and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She’s optimistic, friendly, and lively, with a positive view of people and the world in general. She never turns back from somebody in need and is always eager to be helpful in any way she can. She can be a bit shy when she first meets somebody, but once she opens up, she’s an extrovert. She would like to do loads of things at once but sometimes she doubts her abilities, she needs some encouragements. She can also be quite clumsy, at times. As Ladybug, she displays more confidence (which lets her intelligence and quick thinking shine, since she doesn’t let her insecurities sway her) and is extremely dedicated to her job.

- Alya: Amelia Jones (Nyo!America). A new classmate of Michelle’s, has been in France for just a few years and still misses America. Energic, headstrong, and with a strong sense of justice, she wants to one day become an investigative reporter because she thinks it would be a good way to bring to light important stories and make her contribution to the world (and she thinks it would be exciting, too). She stands up for Michelle against bullies and they become best friends from there, she’s very supportive and protective. In fact, she’s very friendly and open in general, a total extrovert. She can also be a bit too obstinate and overconfident at times, though. And the fact she always says what she thinks can be both a blessing and a curse. On a different note, she’s also extremely athletic – she has done lots of sports, with her last interest being kickboxing. Once Ladybug appears, Amelia starts investigating on her not only to cover the story but also because she wants to help and become a superhero herself (she eventually does earn a miraculous too).

- Adrien/Chat Noir: Matthew Kirkland (Canada – his surname has been changed for plot reasons.) Only son of the owners of a famous fashion brand and also one of their main models (even if not by his own choice). He grew up sheltered and isolated, not being allowed to have contact with his peers except for a few selected ones. He has been brought up to excel – advanced curriculum, several foreign languages, playing piano, fencing, and above all, impeccable manners. His father’s expectations and detached demeanour, united with his mother’s subtly oppressive and controlling one, made him develop an awfully low self-esteem. He’s polite, quiet, and kind-hearted, but quite clumsy and always doubting himself in social interactions as he isn’t used to it and tends to miss some clues/convince himself he’s missing clues even though he actually isn’t. Due to his strict upbringing, he also has trouble standing up for himself and letting the dorkier parts of his personality show as they were deemed ‘undesirable’ and ‘undignified’ by his mother (she said it in a much sweeter and apparently supportive way, but that was the meaning). As Chat Noir, he lets his dorky side shine because he thinks that’s how a superhero’s supposed to act (and that it’s cool – he doesn’t realize it makes him look like he isn’t taking things seriously). Extremely dedicated to Ladybug. He’s actually a good tactician but he’s so focused in his role of protecting Ladybug (and not confident enough in his intellect, on top) that he ends up acting mainly on instinct just to do that instead of coming up with plans.

- Gabriel Agreste/Hawkmoth: Arthur Kirkland (England). Owner and executive manager of an extremely famous fashion brand. He’s not the designer himself, though – that was his wife Marianne (Nyo!France) before her ‘mysterious’ disappearance. Growing up with distant parents and insecure, Arthur doesn’t know how to connect with Matthew and had always left the job to his wife, whom he felt was a much better person than himself. After Marianne got sick and later slipped into a coma due to the damaged Peacock miraculous, he donned the Butterfly miraculous in order to retrieve the Cat and Ladybug ones and get Marianne back at the cost of his own life (erroneously convinced he can decide the price of the wish on his own). The fact he’s planning to sacrifice himself is also part of the reason he’s so cold and stern with Matthew – he doesn’t want Matthew to get too attached to him. Yet, his love for Matthew (and feeling on inadequacy as a paternal figure) translate in him being extremely protective and controlling in order to keep Matthew safe. In addition, he tries to micro-manage every aspect of Matthew’s life as he’s convinced it’s the best to make his life as good as possible in the long run.

- Nathalie: Sakura Honda (Nyo!Japan). Arthur’s assistant. Always detached, formal, and extremely efficient, but she’s actually very fond of her boss (she admires his dedication) and ended up falling in love with him. She would go to great lengths to ensure his well-being and success, she doesn’t even hold back from using the Peacock miraculous (and damaging her own health) in order to help Arthur. Sakura also ended up becoming equally fond of Matthew; even if she isn’t able to express it outwardly (or even fully admit it to herself), she cares for him as if he were her own son, at this point.

- Nino: Carlos Machado (Cuba). Another classmate of Michelle’s – actually, he was one of the first people who welcomed her when she moved to Paris and they’re still good friends. He can’t stand any perceived injustice and is quick to anger in that sense, but unless he gets provoked, he’s very laid-back and welcoming. He sees the nervous wreck Matthew is and befriends him immediately because the poor dude deserves somebody being kind to him. Later, he basically adopts Matthew and gently tries to coax him into understanding that being his real self – even if it isn’t the perfect and flawless picture he tries to project in order to make his father proud – isn’t a bad thing. (Carlos has a very low opinion of Matthew’s father.) From day one, he’s also very supportive of the new superheroes and helps from the sidelines (which is the reason he eventually earns a miraculous himself).

- Chloé: Lavinia Vargas (Nyo!Romano). This one is probably very different from the show. Lavinia’s the spoiled eldest daughter of the major who uses her influence to bully other people – in particular, those she’s jealous of. Because Lavinia’s mother is one of Arthur’s senior designers but also self-centred to the point of narcissism – she doesn’t care for anybody but herself or those who could serve her. And Lavinia, who doesn’t have any artistic talent, doesn’t. The one who, instead, is artistically talented is Lavinia’s younger twin sister, Felicia (Nyo!Italy), who is, instead, very sweet and good-natured but doesn’t dare to go against Lavinia as she’s looking for her approval. (Lavinia has never made a mystery of her jealousy – masked as disdain – towards her twin.) Moreover, their mother has dragged Felicia around the world a lot to display her talent so she hasn’t had enough time to create strong bonds with other people – and instead ended up cementing Lavinia’s resentment towards Felicia and everybody else. The only person Lavinia’s kind to is Matthew, whom she has known since childhood and bonded with due to both of them being lonely and isolated.

- Kagami: Natalya Nikolaevna Arlovskaya (Belarus). Niece of one of Arthur’s major investors, Ivan Igorovich Braginsky (Russia). Since her father died before she was even born, she was raised by her mother Iryna (Ukraine) along with her uncle (Iryna’s younger brother), who instead isn’t married and has always been very close to his sister. Iryna is very sweet and maternal, but Natalya prefers following her uncle’s footsteps. She’s cold and competitive, always pushing herself to reach the top. Along with being academically gifted, she plays the violin, does ballet, and fencing (along with Matthew). Low-key convinced that friendship and social interactions are a waste of time unless she can get something out of them, she tries to pursue Matthew romantically because of the favourable connection that match would make (Matthew’s the heir to a fashion empire, after all). Yet, she ends up becoming genuinely fond of him once she realizes the determination and strength of character hidden behind his kindness.

I want to go more in-depth into some aspects but this post is already horribly long, so I’ll do it under a read more.

- Michelle initially doesn’t feel up to being Ladybug and tries to refuse it, but after some time, she starts growing into the role and gaining a bigger confidence that also bleeds into her daily life. Ladybug also helps her become more mindful of the consequences of her actions – one of Michelle’s flaws is that she tends not to be very far-sighted.

- The interaction between Michelle and Matthew could be similar to those of Marinette and Adrien – Michelle gets a crush on Matthew (due to his kind-hearted nature) but is convinced it’s not reciprocated so she doesn’t want to confess to him. Instead, she works on becoming his friend first and they eventually get quite close.

- On his part, Matthew is completely oblivious as his self-esteem is so low he doesn’t think anybody could truly like him as a person – those who claim they like him are actually only attracted to his popularity as a model (or money).

- About this, Matthew’s actually very insecure about his appearance. Because he looks like a model – so, while he’s athletic, he’s more on the skinny and delicate side. Only a ‘pretty boy’, while he would like to be a ‘real man’.

- Apparently, Chat Noir’s a flirt but I really cannot see Matthew doing that. He certainly lets go of some of his inhibitions while he’s behind the mask so he ends up being a dork (and the fact he’s a manga nerd, which shapes his perceptions of what’s cool, doesn’t help at all). He is smitten with Ladybug, this much is true, but he ends up acting starry-eyed and clumsy instead (when he isn’t focused on the job and they’re interacting more casually).

- Matthew isn’t so confident in being a superhero, either, but since he’s unable to say no, he immediately sets to do his best instead of complaining. As time goes on, he starts liking more and more being Chat Noir for the freedom it offers him and, in a way, the lack of expectations. (Yes, he has to save Paris, but nobody knows who he is behind the mask so it feels less personal than the criticism he receives when he’s himself. Moreover, the public eye tends to be more focused on Ladybug.)

- In her effort to be Michelle’s wingwoman, Amelia gets very close to Matthew as well. Maybe she manages to spend a lot of time with him using an excuse (research for an article or something) in order to try to steer him towards Michelle, but as she starts knowing him better, she becomes very fond of him herself. In particular, Amelia recognizes his kind-hearted nature and his inability to stand up for himself and basically appoints herself as his protector and older sister. (And they find common ground in their love for video-games and manga, too.)

- Amelia and Carlos actually don’t get along, but they’re in some sort of truce for the sake of Matthew and Michelle. They still keep bickering and teasing each other, but with time, they start growing fond of each other. (They don’t end up dating, though – more like a best frenemies.)

- Carlos is one of the first people who get to akumatized as he’s easy to anger. After that experience, he starts working on his quick temper and learns to channel his anger in a more positive way. He puts a lot of effort into it and improves a lot.

- Matthew is a lot closer to Lavinia than to Felicia because Felicia was always around the world following her mother. Felicia finally gets into school the same year as Matthew – and she finds herself isolated from her peers because of her connection to Lavinia. She loathes how Lavinia behaves but isn’t strong enough to stands up against her, which makes other people think she approves of Lavinia’s actions. (Moreover, they were already ill-disposed towards her as they thought Lavinia’s twin sister couldn’t be any better.)

- Lavinia eventually starts working through her trauma and insecurities as Matthew and Felicia start criticizing her behaviour. She does get the Bee miraculous – but she also goes through a positive growth. She never completely sheds her caustic and sarcastic exterior, but she does end up behaving a lot better.

- Natalya also starts loosening up after being touched not only by Matthew but also by Michelle’s, Amelia’s, and Carlos’s kindness/welcoming demeanour. She despises them at first, but after a bit, she starts becoming fond of them and appreciating them. In the end, she loses a bit of her pessimistic view on relationships and becomes their friend as well.

- Over the course of the school year, Matthew starts hanging around Michelle’s house and Francis basically adopts him because he can see the kid’s in desperate need of some human warmth and affection. Also, Francis builds a very negative picture of Arthur in his head based on Matthew’s defeated demeanour. And he doesn’t hold his tongue in the few cases he meets Arthur in person, managing to get under Arthur’s skin better than mostly everybody else (Matthew’s upbringing is a very delicate topic for Arthur – partly because it almost feels like somebody’s criticizing Marianne’s actions, and partly because he has no idea of how to do it. And he doesn’t like it at all). They loathe each other for some time.

- On the other hand, once Michelle becomes more comfortable around Matthew, she’s invited to some photoshoots (since she’s interested in fashion) and then she gets noticed by Arthur, who, in spite of not being a designer himself, has been around enough of them to recognize her talent. Besides, he doesn’t disapprove of her personality so he lets her hang around their house and Matthew and even personally interacts with her a few times. Michelle ends up forming the opinion (not completely wrong) that Arthur isn’t actually a bad father – he cares a lot for Matthew, but he’s out of his depths and doesn’t know how to express it.

- The ‘Final Boss’ – the one behind everything – is actually Marianne, not Arthur. Marianne was a talented fashion designer who dreamed of fame and power, and once she met Arthur – who came from a rich family and had the financial ability to realize her dream, but was very frail and in dire need of some affection – she manipulated him into falling in love with her and used his financial assets to establish her company. She was genuinely fond of Arthur, in part – but it was secondary to her goals. And even once she got rich and famous, she wasn’t satisfied. She came across some legends about the Miraculous and decided to investigate into the matter. She eventually came into possession of the Peacock and Butterfly ones and tried using them for her own gains. Her greed was so strong that she didn’t stop even after she realized the damaged Peacock was draining her health, but kept pushing herself until she fell into a coma. And Arthur, who had just lost his anchor and emotional stability (Marianne was very careful that Arthur, instead of developing healthy relationships and healing from his childhood, would remain completely dependent on her) decided to do everything to bring her back. And that’s how Hawkmoth was born.

- Arthur doesn’t enjoy fighting two children (Ladybug and Chat Noir) nor hurting people (that’s also why he never uses real traumas to create akumas but only mundane annoyances), but he thinks he doesn’t have any other option if he wants to bring back Marianne. Moreover, he’s fully aware that Ladybug’s powers always fix everything, which helps convince him that, given his goal, his actions are justified.

- Marianne was actually a very poor mother for Matthew, too. He has good memories of her, but only because that’s all he knows. She isolated him and was possessive, overbearing, and constantly resorted to emotional manipulation – she was happy and affectionated as long as Matthew behaved exactly the way she wanted,  but the moment he would stray even of an inch, she would act overdramatic and disappointed, making him feel awful. Essentially, she destroyed Matthew’s self-esteem. (And Arthur didn’t notice because he, instead, had grown up with distant and more openly abusive parents. So, he thought that as long as Marianne was affectionate, she was a good mother. Moreover, he didn’t witness how capricious she was or how she would guilt-trip Matthew because she would only behave like that when Arthur wasn’t around.) Marianne did care deeply for Matthew, in her own way, but she was just a horrible person. She treated him as an extension of herself and her property instead of his own person.

- Eventually, Arthur does get the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses – even if Matthew and Michelle escape and he doesn’t see their identities (nor do Matthew and Michelle discover who they are – because they had sworn they wouldn’t. So, they walk side-to-side as they try to plan what to do and don’t look.) Arthur wishes Marianne back, fully intentioned to return the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses to their rightful owners afterwards.

...But Marianne comes back and not only Arthur doesn’t die – there’s something wrong with Marianne. She wants to keep the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses (which Arthur and Sakura wrestle away from her and manage to give back, but barely), she’s undeniably hungry for power. Arthur starts thinking that something went wrong with the wish, but he loves Marianne too much to go against her. He – along with Sakura – instead pretends to be on her side while at the same time trying to help Ladybug and Chat Noir fight against her and trying to find a cure to fix her. (It’s a long time before Arthur realizes that that was Marianne all along – she doesn’t need fixing because she has always been like that, she only became more unhinged and less subtle after recovering.)

- One of the turning points in Arthur’s realization is seeing how Marianne treats Matthew. Arthur had granted him many liberties, and while he was sceptical at first, (also thanks to Sakura’s insight) he eventually had to admit that Matthew thrived in the company of his peers. Maybe the dangers are higher (Arthur’s overprotective, and what happened to Marianne doesn’t help) but they’re outweighed by how much happier Matthew is. But Marianne wants to take everything back, and she doesn’t hold back any punches. (When Matthew wants to spend time with his friends, she complains that he doesn’t love her anymore, acts all heartbroken because he isn’t truly happy she’s back – if he were, he would spend all his time with her, wouldn’t he? – says he doesn’t respect her opinion anymore when he wants to go back to school, etc.) Matthew is a wreck, he’s torn and he doesn’t know what to do or what to think anymore. (He is happy that is mother’s back, yet, he can’t help but realize that he was happier before, when he could spend time with his friends and go to school, which leaves him feeling horribly guilty and selfish.) He stops smiling, can’t sleep, stops eating when not prompted... he becomes a ghost of himself. He looks even worse than Arthur did when he was still living with his parents. And that’s when Arthur comes to the realization it’s just wrong. He still doesn’t want to blame everything on Marianne (he tries to convince himself her instability is due to her prolonged coma and she’ll get better) but he starts pulling his weight and argue with her to defend Matthew’s freedom. He even gets to swallowing his pride and revealing the situation to Francis in order to make sure Matthew has a safe place he can stay at when his mother goes overboard (and that’s how a tentative friendship starts forming between Arthur and Francis).

- This isn’t all there is about Matthew, though. Arthur thinks the wish comes without a price, in the end (or maybe, that the price is Marianne’s sanity, for how much he doesn’t like to admit it). But Arthur doesn’t see Matthew collapse in a faint just after the wish is granted. Matthew wakes up not long later and resumes fighting as if nothing’s wrong – and even if he’s very exhausted afterwards, he thinks nothing of it. But over the following weeks, he starts feeling worse and worse. It’s small, at first – just lingering exhaustion and weakness. But it never gets better, developing instead in more and more frequent dizzy spells. It’s particularly bad after he transforms – he starts passing out once it’s over. He now gets sick very easily, too. If he has to hold the transformation for a bit longer than usual, he gets flu-like symptoms afterwards – it eventually gets to the point he’s too sick and weak to leave the bed for days. His miraculous isn’t damaged, but the price of the wish is paid with Matthew developing the same illness that affected his mother.

- Once Arthur realizes this, all the pretences are dropped. He realizes the person Marianne is and lets her go, focusing instead on trying to find a cure for Matthew and defeat Marianne alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir (whom he doesn’t know is Matthew, yet, but he does realize it after Chat Noir displays symptoms too similar to Matthew’s. It really doesn’t help with how guilty Arthur’s feeling). (Sakura keeps staying by Arthur’s side, too, and Arthur eventually admits he reciprocates her feelings.)

...

And that’s it. This was long. 😅 I don’t know how much of it makes sense but... I just couldn’t help thinking about this as I walking home tonight.

#hetalia #aph seychelles #aph canada #aph england #aph america #nyo america #aph france #nyo france #aph japan #nyo japan #aph belarus #aph italy #nyo italy #aph romano #nyo romano #aph cuba #aph russia #feyna speaks #fic idea #miraculous ladybug au

[chaoskirin]

Book Review -- The Heartstrikers Series

This is a book review about the first three books in the Heartstrikers Series, which starts with Nice Dragons Finish Last.

I liked these books, but I didn’t love them. It's definitely a solid three stars, and I'll read the last two books to see where it goes. Overall, if you like fantasy with YA elements, you will probably enjoy this series.

This review will contain some minor spoilers in order to justify my rating, with some MAJOR spoilers at the end.

First, the good. The plot is absolutely solid and it's clear the the author had a good idea of what she was going to do before she wrote it. It has a very mobster-type feel which I would expect with the way the dragons are characterized. The writing is occasionally clever and the main character is likable, relatable, and I'm able to empathize with his situation. The author may be projecting a bit as Julius' situation can get a little heavy-handed, but the theme of a found family is definitely present and well-executed.

I love the world that's been created. I'm originally from Detroit, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the entire first book takes place in a sort of ghost-town version of it. I can picture the descriptions of the houses (I used to work in an old mansion converted in to an office, in fact!) and it's pretty clear that the author is from Detroit, or at least spent a lot of time there. Sometimes it got a little name-droppy as far as locations were concerned, but I kept hoping the author would namedrop the place where I'm from, so it's a fair trade. XD (She did not, sadly, but it was still fun to read about.)

The spirits and how they exist is also very interesting. Algonquin is an amazing villain in the second ant third books, and I can't wait to read more about her and the other spirits in the last two books.

There's also a great amount of action interspersed with the narrative, so that kept things interesting! Some books tend to either get lost in endless exposition or endless action sequences, but this book balances them very well.

Now for the not-so-good.

I picked up the first book expecting dragons. The title is "Nice Dragons Finish Last," after all, and while it's very clear from the description that the main character, Julius, is "sealed," I had hoped that there would be at least some mythological creature action. This is kept to an absolute minimum, though, in favor of dragons in their human shape. It's even a rather contrived "rule" in Detroit that dragons aren't allowed to be there. This trope has become outright cliche... I've been reading books for years and this was a common theme way back in the days of Dragonlance--take an incredibly powerful being and shove them into human shape, but add a coolness factor by calling them a dragon. (I wrote this part after the first book: there's much more ACTUAL dragon action in books 2 and 3. I still wish there was more.)

But they aren't really dragons. They think like humans, they act like humans, they seem to have the same emotions as humans... Except for another fantasy trope, which is taking every member of a species and shoving them into a single alignment (lawful evil in this case). Julius is the one exception, so it's a very Drizzt Do'urden situation and it's always been odd to me that every member of a species could be evil/good just because of what they are. (this is especially a problem with goblins and rampant antisemitism, but that's another discussion entirely.)

It's a problem that allows justified racism. If the entirety of one species is mean, it's really easy to make everyone hate them, and you lose the nuance of what real racism is. I would suggest that people not write about racism unless they've either experienced it or they've consulted with members of their community who have been the target of it. This becomes more of a problem in the second and third books when Julius is trying to prove that Not All Dragons Are Bad. And it becomes clear that both humans and spirits are very racist against dragons, but it completely lacks the reality of what racism really is. As one poster on tumblr said, "racism isn't just one species being mean to another."

Essentially, it puts all dragons on an uphill battle against everyone else, fails to become a proper allegory, and discards depth and warmth.

A small problem that I should mention is that sometimes plot points sort of fade? There was a situation where Julius' mom visits and he was very mean to Marci, and she was very upset about that, but it's never actually addressed. It sort of fizzles and ends and then everything moves on. It should have at least been mentioned and tied up.

Another problem is repetitiveness or filler text. When I'm going through beta reading for my books, I ask my readers to tell me ANY TIME they skim over text. When your readers are skimming, what you've written isn't interesting, and it has to be changed. I found myself doing this a lot in this book. I forced myself to read back and see what I've skimmed over, and it was usually information I'd already read being presented in a slightly different way. My advice would be to allow the readers to infer information without explaining it into the ground. One thing I would avoid is the discussion of plans before executing said plans--even if they ultimately go wrong. It's enough to say that your protagonist HAS a plan, then let the text speak for itself. These planning phases were what I tended to skip the most.

I can supply one sample of repetitiveness without spoiling the story too badly: One of the main characters is talking with a dragon character about a plan at the beginning-ish of book 3. And breaking the text down to its basics, it goes like this:

Amelia: You have to. Marci: I don't know... Amelia: But you have to. Marci: I don't know... Amelia: You really should do this. Marci: I don't know... Amelia: It's a good idea. Marci: Okay I'll do it. Amelia: Are you sure? Marci: Yes I'll do it. Amelia: Are you sure???

And the argument became VERY spread out over the whole chapter, interspersed with the same explanation of why Marci Should Do The thing, most of which I ended up skimming to the part where Marci ultimately accepted Amelia's idea.

Another chapter I skipped was in book 3 where two human characters had lunch with Marci. And as soon as it became clear they were discussing stuff Marci basically already knew, I just skipped the whole chapter. It was an unnecessary bit of writing that could have been summarized in one or two paragraphs instead. I went back and actually read it later. I didn't miss anything.

(my examples are from the third book because I just finished it and it's the freshest in my mind, but this is an issue in the first two books as well.)

I think there's a certain amount of realism in conversations like this. The problem is that your readers have already figured out where something is going, and they want to get there. If the author reads this, my suggestion would be this: Sometimes it's okay to cut events out when they're uninteresting. If you hate writing it, and your beta readers hate reading it, it can go. I wouldn't follow the advice that you should cut out EVERYTHING irrelevant to the plot, because sometimes it's fun to have fun, but the extra boring tedium can be safely summarized.

Next, Marci.

I first want to state here that my PREFERENCE is writing female characters. Most of my characters are women. And I understand there are a lot of readers who outright dislike all female characters, but I'm not one of them. I feel like that's an important thing to state before going into more detail about my issues with Marci.

I wanted to read more of the series before posting this review, because I felt Marci was a shallow character after book one. She felt like a female character who was STRONG, but NOT a strong female character.

And through the first book, she felt like a prop to the other main character, Julius, instead of a character all her own. (And to be fair, her ENTIRE story from the first book is sort of... hand-waved in books 2 and 3.)

In the first book, Marci isn't really written with a story arc. She's a sort of deus ex machina for Julius; she appears into his life mysteriously as he's looking for a mage, first of all. And while it SEEMS that she does have her own arc, it becomes clear by the end of the story that she's only a catalyst for the dragons' stories. The thing she's protecting eventually ends up in the hands of the dragons; she's essentially just a walking suitcase for them. She's a roadblock for the villains. And there's not even a true explanation of Why She Has The Thing They Want except that it's really cool and she wants it.

This alone may have prevented me from reading the rest of the series, but I'm VERY glad I did--While Marci has a slow start, her story does pick up in the second and third books and she becomes much more likeable. She still feels like a prop at times (other characters refer to her as a "weapon" even) but within that description, she's fighting her own battles and has become much less shallow.

I do wish she had more agency. I wish her decisions truly felt like hers, instead of the manipulations/machinations of those with higher power. But she's not the worst-written female character I've ever read, and the author makes it clear in the second and third books that she knows how to write good female characters (cough chelsie cough) so I can forgive Marci's shortcomings.

There's one Bad thing that I want to address, too, which mostly came up at the end of book 2 and throughout book 3. And this is a fairly major spoiler, I'm sorry.

You don't give a tyrannical dictator power after you defeat her. You just don't. Julius could have banished his mother if he refused to kill her. He could have let someone else kill her. He could have done any number of things. But the first thing he does is give her a seat on the new council and is just like "yes you still get to make decisions." And as you can imagine, this goes very wrong.

And book 3 is FULL of Julius refusing to let his brothers and sisters kill anyone, even when it's justified. This has always been a trope that rankled... You can't write about a coup and then have nobody die. It suggests that genocidal dictators Can Change If You Give Them The Right Opportunities, and we all know from real life that that doesn't happen. Tyrannical people in power will fight to keep that power. They don't learn. And props to the author for showing that these people don't learn, but... seriously, you don't keep people around who actively want to kill you.

I was so annoyed with Julius by the end of book 3, and the hoops the writing had to jump through to show his decision was good and right. He felt naive and almost stupid. And (VERY major spoiler here, just stop reading if you don't want the end of book 3 spoiled!)

...

...

...

...

...

...

Julius' mother had enslaved his sister for hundreds of years. When the sister was released, she immediately tried to kill her mother.

This would have justified ALL of Julius' actions up until that point if he'd just LET HER. Bethesda hurt Chelsie the most out of ANY Of her children. It would have been a PERFECT way to allow Chelsie to get her well-deserved revenge AND end the problem of Bethesda (who REALLY deserves to die.) And Julius made her stop, because That's Not How We're Doing Things Anymore.

I don't like that Bethesda is effectively not paying for the thousands of atrocities she committed over the last thousand years because the main character is a pacifist. It just doesn't sit right. And IDK if the author is building to Bethesda's death in the last couple books or not, but letting Chelsie kill her would have been the PERFECT end, and I'm really disappointed. No end for Bethesda would have been better than that.

Anyway.

As I said at the beginning of this review, I still recommend reading the series. It's a really interesting urban fantasy-type book, and while it crosses into YA territory, the fantasy aspect is interesting enough to keep me reading.

#book review #heartstrikers series #nice dragons finish last #fantasy #young adult fiction #not bestiary

[the-writerly-night-owl]

Something About a Legacy

Desire and Decorum/ Inspired by the main story and minor MC x Ernest 

Summary: 4 girls, a few of the descendants of Clara and Ernest discover just how their ancestors met and where the Sinclaire family is in the future. 

Authors Note: so they mention where Duke Richard’s Karlington is in the 21st Century (Madeleine and Godfrey) and I wanted to write something where we see what happened to the Earl of Edgewater title. 41 Days of Cheer day 10 Ancestor. This was actually super long and this really condensed from what it originally was. Also yes this is my OH MC, I intended her to be a descendant. 

I’m probably not going to get many notes for this but happy reading!  

Clarissa Sinclaire had been to London before, in fact she had done a project studying her family here. So this wasn’t new to her. It was exciting to meet the family she had never met before. After all this was the Sinclaire family reunion.

Outside of the impressive mansion (boy was it big!) stood another family member aimlessly texting on her phone.

Someone at the door was already ushering them in. It was even prettier on the inside as they stopped in the foyer. Clarissa tried to remember the details of the email. Everyone finally gathered in the main living room as she glanced around. Besides her cousin Hannah she didn’t know anyone else. She went to Hartfeld too as the two hugged. She couldn’t help but feel horrible for Hannah as her brother Jonathon had died in a car accident.

“Are you okay Hannah?” she asked as she squeezed her hand.

“I’m good,” she said as they turned attention to those around them.

“Now, I say let’s go around and get to know each other,” said the girl as she grinned at them. “Um, just to get better acquainted, me, my sister, and my brothers are your grandpa’s brother’s grandkids.” She gestured to the slightly younger girl as she grinned widely. “I’m Lizzie Sinclaire, Elizabeth if you’re my mother and angry with me. I sit in parliament, I have a law degree and all.  Oh and I’m getting married at the end of August.”

She gestured for her sister to go next as she took that as a sign to introduce herself.

“I’m Paige Sinclaire,” she said as she clapped her hands together. “Um, I’m a certified midwife and obgyn.” She made a face as she tried to think of something else to describe herself. “I enjoy meat lovers pizza.”

The rest of the girls smiled as Paige laughed at herself for thinking of something completely random. She nodded to the next person as she seemed to be relaxed and confident.

“Clarissa Sinclaire,” she said smoothly.  “I’m a doctor at Edenbrook Hospital in Boston. I’m married and have two kids but couldn’t really bring them. Ethan is a doctor too and has a schedule that’s a little bit stricter than mine.”

She nodded to Hannah as she seemed to be last.

“I’m Hannah Sinclaire,” she said feeling a little foolish adding her last name, everyone had that last name. “I also graduated from Hartfeld too, except my undergrad is in history. I’m going back to get my graduate degree in psychology though.”

It was relaxed as everyone seemed to know each other a little better. Lizzie started to pass around a paper.

“Alright so I figured since we’re here for a few weeks setting up and the reunion. We could have some fun. We have a few items to find but that’s about it. The list is what we need.”

She peered at it and grinned. Perfect, just a few ancestral items that they’d display during the reunion.

 The list of what they were looking for passed around as she folded hers and stuck it in her back pocket. The others started to pair off to make things easier. There were only four of them and two to a few rooms didn’t sound horrible. Hannah and Lizzie started toward one wing. Paige and Clarissa in the other direction.

Ledford was beautiful, she thought, as they looked down at the list.

“So, we’re looking for a few different items, it looks like we already have a pocket watch engraved with a message from Lydia Sinclaire on it. Then a tiara dating back to William the Conqueror? Dang, I didn’t know we had that family far back. We’re looking for a sword, a WWI medal…” She listed off each item as she best as she could and the note saying that they could keep whatever caught their fancy. Neat.

For the next half hour or so the girls swiftly cleared out as many rooms as they could. Finally she and Paige found themselves in a small office area with books on one shelf and the window overlooking the front.

Curious Clarissa studied the books on the shelf. Each of them had a name engraved on the side of different names: Hannah, Marie, Lydia, Clara, Josephine. The books stretched on depending on the name. Hannah had roughly thirty books, meanwhile Emma had two. What kind of books were these, she thought, before pulling the one at the top of the shelf off.

Clarissa guessed that all the books were in order as she dusted off the shelf. Everything in this room hadn’t been touched anytime recently. Her fingers ran over the spines as she pulled out the first one with the name Clara on it. She pulled it out curious as that was her middle name.

She went and started to read those forgetting that she was supposed to be cleaning.

Good afternoon, morning, night, or whenever you may be reading this. Thank you for taking time to read my writing and what advice that I must give to you. The next mistress of Ledford will be my son’s wife, I trust that you will take care of him and love him just as much as I do. I am not with child yet, but I hope to be soon. I always wanted a big family and I think Ernest would love a few sons.

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Clara Sinclaire (nee Mills) and I am fifteen years old – I only jest – I am really twenty. I will take the first few pages of my journal to introduce myself and then clear up all the misunderstanding that has surrounded me for nearly a year now. I hope the next mistress reading this will understand the truth and what I have gone through. To start I will let you know that my father was the Earl of Edgewater, Vincent. My mother an opera singer, Mary Mills.

Time went by fast as she got enraptured with the story.

“Clarissa are you okay?” asked Heather as she saw her. Cleaning was pretty much done for the first day and they were talking about sightseeing tomorrow. Since she had been to London before she could show them some of her favorite spots.

“Yea, I’m just reading these old diaries left behind from our great however many grandmothers. They have all these cool and interesting stories. I mean listen to some of this stuff.”

She turned and flipped to a page and started to read:

Ernest and I had an amazing wedding night. Just thinking about it makes my skin quiver in joy. He had taken me to our room. And we stripped bare down to nothing. The way he touched me made me feel a warmth between my legs I’ve never felt before. He had used his cravat to tie my hands above my head as he just wanted to touch me. Closing my eyes I let him.

Being frank the way he entered me and to feel his manhood enter me just wanted to make me scream and I did. I couldn’t wait to make him feel…”

The rest of the girls gasped and shared excited looks.

“Hot damn.”

“You go girl let him work his magic,” said Clarissa with a smirk. “Sounds like me and Ethan.”

“Oh my gosh this is a gold mine,” said Hannah. “Look! This moment sounds so sweet listen.”

Ernest and I held our new baby in our arms nearly the entire night. I probably slept for only a few hours. I already learned how to help change him and rock him to sleep. We have chosen to name him Vincent after my father. We probably would have never met without him.”

Together all the girls visibly awed at the thought. Then flipped through the pages as carefully as possible picking out passages to read to each other.

Ernest and I had celebrated ten years married together! That’s right ten years and we have so much to be thankful for. We have many children that would make my father proud and Lady Grandmother appalled at the sheer number. I feel loved and happy to live to see each new day. I can’t wait for 1827 and what it will bring for us this new year’s. I can’t wait to tell him that I am with child once again.

Again, another aww echoed through the room as they picked out another passage.

I watched Vincent marry Bishop Monroe’s niece with pride in my eyes and squeezed Ernest’s hand. He could only smile back and assure me in my ear that everything was perfect. But that nothing would outdo our wedding. We had never felt prouder as we exchanged a rather chaste kiss. Later we would resume that action later.

I, Clara Sinclaire, do declare that I only want my children to marry for love. I want them to feel just as strong emotions and me and Ernest do. Vincent and Amelia are great friends and even better with each other. This is how I feel about my husband and my friends with their partners.”

“You know this is rather cool to learn about our ancestors this way. I wonder if we’ll ever share our legacy like this,” said Clarissa. “Maybe one day, I’m glad that my kids last names are Ramsey-Sinclaire.”

“I wish we could meet them,” said Hannah. “I mean Clara sounds like fun.”

“Yea, why don’t we display these books?” asked Paige, “Just like a part of their story and how we came to be. I vote for when she kicked duke Richards in the nuts at some point.”

The girls burst out into laughter and nodded that was one of the best parts next to the wedding.

“Yes, that has to be displayed. I mean why not?” said Lizzie. “Just think 200 years later they have a family still standing with a title and everything.”

“True although why couldn’t our grandfather be the earl?” teased Hannah.

“Because he wasn’t born first,” said Lizzie shaking her head but smiling all the same. “That’s my dad that’s earl of Edgewater and my older brother will get that title next. And then my nephew, wow, that seems so surreal.”

They found a good place to display some of the pages and only looked on at the other souvenirs of their family with pride. Clara and Ernest Sinclaire had well over hundreds of descendants who would never know their ancestors. This was just that special connection that brought them all together. Many would come over the next couple of days to see just how cool their ancestors really were.

Tag list: @flyawayboo @fluffy-cat-whisper @am-i-invisible777 @adrianadmirer @melodyofgraves @symonde @paisleylovergirl @elainew13 @itsbrindleybinch @brightpinkpeppercorn @darley1101 @mfackenthal @jlpplays1 @writerapprentice @indescribablechoices @wildsayeed @princess-geek @perriewinklenerdie @lilyofchoices 

Of possible interest: @hellooliviaolivia @noeschoices 

#choices desire and decorum #desire and decorum #choices: desire and decorum #ernest x mc #ernest sinclaire #Mr. Ernest Sinclaire #mc X ernest sinclaire #mr ernest sinclaire #Mr. Sinclaire #mr sinclaire #Mr. Sinclair #D&D fanfic #choices d&d #d&d mc #choices: d&d #choices d&d MC #playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #d&d choices #choices stories you play #choices: stories you play #choices #choices fanfiction #41daysofcheer #41daysofcheerchallenge

[truthofherdreams]

softest hearts (#2)

also on ao3

“Harvey, would you be a dear and grab those jars?”

Harvey immediately stands up from his seat at the kitchen table, textbooks and papers scattered all over it, to help Aunt Hilda with her jam making. He barely has to rise on his tiptoes to grab said jars, and delicately put them down on the kitchen counter with a smile toward Aunt Hilda.

She replies in kind, and squeezes his chin between two fingers. “It’s so nice having someone tall to help around the house.”

“Hey, I’m tall!” Ambrose protests. He sits in a corner, feet on a side table as he peels an apple with a blunt knife.

“Tall and willing to help.”

He points the knife at Hilda with a wink. “You got me there.”

Harvey snorts a laugh even as he grabs another set of jars, then closes the cupboard’s door. He shares an amused glance with Sabrina, before she focuses back on her history homework. The essay is due next week, but it’s never a bad thing to wrap things up early.

She does keep an eye of Harvey though, a habit grown during the past year and a half of him living with the Spellmans. Her aunts got a lot better very quickly at adapting their language in front of him, but one is never too far from the eventual slip up.

“Thank you for you help, by the way,” Harvey grins down at Aunt Hilda. “Got a A+ on my essay about Emily Bronte!”

“Oh my dear, that’s wonderful!”

“What is?”

Aunt Zelda appears from downstairs, Sabrina and Harvey pulling twin grimaces of disgust at the apron and matching gloves she still wears. She rips one off her hand and makes for grabbing a cigarette, before she glances at Harvey and thinks better of it.

“Got a good grade on my essay about Bronte,” Harvey explains.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Aunt Hilda adds.

Aunt Zelda makes a face. “Bronte? That righteous bi–brilliant author. Great. Well done.”

Ambrose crunches on his apple to muffle his chuckle, while Sabrina finds her history essay suddenly more fascinating than it was a mere ten seconds ago. Motherhood and appreciation have never come easy to Zelda, but it is particularly obvious every time she interacts with Harvey. She is trying, which is more than anyone else was expecting at first, but it always comes out as cold and distant. Thankfully Harvey doesn’t notice, or care all that much. Or perhaps he’s too polite to point out Zelda’s behaviour toward him, too grateful the woman took him in to be picky about the way she doesn’t seem to warm up to him.

Or maybe he’s even more pure than Sabrina believes, because he sits back at the table, by her side, with a proud smile. When she raises an eyebrow to him in a silent question, he leans forward as to whisper, “She gave me a compliment!”

Sabrina’s heart melts, just a little.

…

Freshman year only serves to highlight how unconventional Sabrina’s friendship with Harvey is – if one could even use such a word to describe what transpires between the two of them. If nobody was really caring about the situation when they were in middle school, accepting Harvey’s presence in the Spellmans’ household without much questioning, high school is an entire story altogether.

It was to be expected, of course. Teenagers are nosy creatures, running on gossip and juicy stories, and theirs is offered on a silver platter. The two of them arriving at school and leaving together, always sitting next to each other at lunch, sharing some AP classes and group projects. Even Susie and Roz as buffers in their group of friends doesn’t change one simple fact: a boy and a girl live together, and it’s making people talk.

Sabrina stops counting the number of times other girls come and ask her if they have a shot at asking Harvey out, if he’s taken, if they are dating. Sabrina denies everything, as it is the truth. Harvey never asked her out, or even showed any kind of interest in her, at home or otherwise. He is her best friend, and it’s fair game for other girls to be flirty at him and try their luck.

She wouldn’t be upset if he started dating another girl.

Nope. Not at all. She’d be fine.

Really.

Which makes David Anderson asking her out for the Winter Wonderland all the more surprising, because Sabrina was so focused on the idea of Amelia Cooper asking Harvey that. Well. It didn’t even cross her mind that anyone could or would be asking her.

It leaves her staring at David, mouth agape despite no sound coming out of it as she fails to find a way out of the situation. She doesn’t like David – hell, she doesn’t even know him – and she’s planned on going with Susie and Roz as friends anyway. No pressure of not finding a date, just a fun night out with her friends and a pretty dress.

“Huh – I – I mean,” she stammers.

Nobody ever told her how to reject a boy, mainly because Zelda is above that, Hilda is not the biggest catch, and Ambrose would never reject anyone. She has no idea what to do in that situation. How to react. What to say.

“Hey Brina,” comes Harvey’s voice by her side, his arm solid as it wraps around her shoulders. “We still on for a study session at Cerberus tonight?”

David’s eyes travel between her and Harvey several time, and she wonders what he sees. What so many people see when Harvey casual hangs out next to her locker or walks her to class even if his room is halfway across the building, or gets the last bag of vinegar chips because they’re her favourites. Everything that she dismisses as Harvey just being a good friend, but can be interpreted so differently.

“Spanish test tomorrow, remember?” Harvey adds when she doesn’t answer. Then, as if only now noticing she isn’t alone, “Hey Anderson, what’s up?”

It’s David’s turn to stammer a little. “Huh – not much – meeting with Mr Peterson in a bit, better keep going.”

He doesn’t quite run away, but it’s a close thing. Sabrina waits until he’s disappeared around the corner to slap Harvey’s chest as hard as she can with the back of her hand. He finally lets go of her, if only to rub the spot theatrically.

“What was that for?”

“You know why!”

“I really don’t!”

And she believes him, almost. Perhaps it’s easier if she believes him, if she convinces herself that Harvey really doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing or the message he sends other boys when he stands too close to her, when he looks at her with his kind, sad eyes, when he leans as close as possible to whisper a joke in her ear. Maybe he doesn’t know, for real.

Except.

Except there’s the ghost of a smirk on his lips.

It sends her heart racing.

…

“We need Harvey out of the house.”

Zelda’s statement is met by stunned silence from the other three Spellmans. Not even Hilda, Harvey’s number one supporter in the house, seems to be able to come to the boy’s defense.

It is only after long seconds of lack of reaction that Zelda looks up from the cigarette she’s lighting, only to meet three wide pairs of eyes.

“Oh, will you quit it already! The High Priest is coming for dinner on Saturday, and the boy can’t be here, is all.”

Sabrina deflates like a balloon as she lets out a long sigh, and it’s as if everyone in the room is breathing properly again. Some of the tension remains – as always when the High Priest is involved or mentionned – but it is not as awkward as a few seconds ago.

“You need to stop doing that, Aunt Z,” Ambrose comments.

“As if I would get rid of the boy! He’s the only one standing between us and those dreadful Mormons.”

Sabrina can’t help but snort, just a little. For years now a pair of Mormons have been visiting them, showing up out of nowhere every two months like clockwork. Despite Zelda’s – and Ambrose’s – best effort, they never ran away or were put off by the Spellman household.

And then Harvey decided on a new tactic. They couldn’t open their mouth to deliver their well-rehearsed speech without him singing something out of the musical that was inspired by their religion, louder than them. They would quiet down and so would he, only to start singing again every time they opened their mouth.

It’s been over eight months now and they are yet to show their faces again. Even Zelda was silently impressed.

“But why is the High Priest visiting us, sister?” Hilda asks.

Sabrina points in her direction with a nod of the head, a silent agreement to her aunt’s question. As far as she remembers, she’s only ever met the High Priest once a year, during the Feast of Feasts. He never bothers visiting, especially not the Spellmans. There is a reason why they are not active in the coven’s social life, after all. For him to visit is a pretty big deal.

Zelda sighs as she sits at her end of the kitchen table, before she takes a long drag of her cigarette.

“Sabrina’s Dark Baptism is almost a year away, as we all know. He wants to make sure her education is not lacking, despite her not attending the Academy, so that she will not fall behind once her sixteenth birthday has come. It’s nothing more than a homeschool check, really.” Another drag of her cigarette, before she looks at Sabrina. “I want you to work on your spells as much as possible until Saturday evening, so that you will not put us to shame. And we need Harvey out of the house, obviously. We can’t have the High Priest question why we are keeping a human pet.”

Ambrose hides his snort of laughter behind a magazine, while Sabrina doesn’t quite manage to hide her own expression of surprise. But it is, as often, Hilda who replies to her sister. “Once again, he’s a guest, not a pet,” she singsongs.

“We feed him and house him without expecting anything in return. The three of you even show affection to him. That’s a pet.”

Sabrina can’t help but turn toward her cousin, a faux air of outrage on her face as she folds her arms on her chest. “You show affection to him?” she accuses him, while her aunts are busy with a bickering of their own beside her.

Ambrose inspects his nails carefully, theatrically pretending to be nonchalant about it. “Well, I’m only taking care of him because you aren’t.”

Her gasp of indignation isn’t so fake this time. Ambrose challenges her with a raise of his eyebrows, tongue poking between his teeth. It doesn’t take much more for Sabrina to throw herself at him with a growl. He’s faster of course, running away from her with a laugh that only grows louder when she runs after him; first through the living room, them up the stairs to his bedroom.

She chases him around the room before he dashes away and starts pouncing on Harvey’s door. It’s only a few seconds before Harvey opens, headphones still on his ears and an expression of surprise on his face when Ambrose throws himself behind him with a loud “Save me!”

Harvey is such a good sport, Sabrina will give him that, as he puts his hands on each side of the doorframe to prevent her from entering his bedroom, an easy smile on his lips. It clashes painfully with Ambrose’s own smirk of victory, which makes the sight in front of her all the more entertaining.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t stop you.”

Oh, she has so many.

But only a handful she can say out loud without dying of embarrassment, looking at Harvey in the eyes, with Ambrose watching. In the end, she settles on a happy middle, stepping closer to Harvey with a sweet smile. His eyes drop to her lips, just for a second, and he swallows; Sabrina’s own heart beats faster in reply.

“I’ll buy you fries at the cafeteria tomorrow.”

He hesitates.

Just for a second.

“Yeah, he’s all yours,” he announces as he steps aside.

Ambrose is so offended Sabrina has to laugh. “Traitor!” he throws at Harvey, before he pushes past Sabrina and runs away. She entertains the idea to run after him once more, only for a few seconds, before she gives up and instead leans against Harvey’s door frame.

He grins at her, that cute dopey smile that never fails to make her light-headed. Sometimes she wonders, if he knows how deadly that smile is, if he’s aware of the effect he has on her by just before so soft all the time. She’s never understood Hollywood’s thing with bad boys, when boys like Harvey can melt her heart in an instant.

“What was that even about?” he asks.

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to remember what even started it all, until Ambrose’s words of silliness come back to her mind. She shrugs then, both because it is not that important all things considered, and because there is no way she could explain Harvey. “Doesn’t matter, really.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “What are you working on?”

He’s been gathering quite the collection of art supplies through the past few months, all of them piling up on his desk. He’s got some drawings on the walls as well as in folders, character designs and landscape sketches and quick doodles of a hand, a flurry of fabric, a light reflection. Sabrina didn’t know someone could have so much talent, until Harvey started showing her his notebooks.

“Oh, just cleaning some designs, really,” he tells her as he moves closer to his desk. Sabrina follows him in, closing the door behind her as a second thought, wave of the hand behind her back. Zelda did tell her to practice, after all. “I need to practice with ink a little bit more, my shading isn’t quite there yet.”

“It looks amazing,” she breathes out.

It really does, the drawing of a werewolf almost jumping at you out of the page. The details of the fur, and the teeth, really are what is catching Sabrina’s attention. And maybe she should worry, that he watches so many horror movies with Ambrose and always draws about monsters, vampires and other supernatural themes. But it all looks too great to question.

“You think so?”

“Yes, of course!”

He grins once more, bumping his shoulder against her to hide how awkward he is every time she pays him a compliment. Aunt Zelda explained it to her once, that it’s normal for people who grew up in difficult environment to accept compliments, because all they expect is criticism, and it broke Sabrina’s heart. She doesn’t know how to make it clear to Harvey, how amazing she thinks he is.

“Maybe you should do a portrait of me,” she teases instead.

He snorts, a little louder than usual. “Yeah, no.”

She turns toward him, and has to look up to meet his eyes, even as he looks away. “And why’s that?”

He’s blushing now, red high on his cheeks and the tip of his ears, still refusing to look at her. “Because it’s harder, when the model is pretty. More chances to mess it up.”

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to really understand what he means, before she’s blushing furiously too. In all of her years of being friend with Harvey, and the past few months of seeing him as potentially-more-than-friends, she doesn’t remember a single instance of a compliment that was casual but flirty, no theatrics, no joke to cover it under. Just a compliment, raw and heartfelt.

She’s the one to look away then, under the pretence of shuffling some of the papers around so she can look at his other drawings. Her ears play tricks on her, because she swears Harvey sighs a little before he takes a step back, then another until he sits on his bed. She still won’t look at him, not until her face isn’t on fire anymore and her heart doesn’t race like she just ran a marathon.

“Hey so, fun fact,” Harvey breaks the silence between them after a couple of minutes. “Dr Cee is going to his comics convention this weekend, and he wants me to come with him.”

Dr Cerberus is the reason why Harvey started drawing so much. Hours spent at the bookstore, reading comics and sipping milkshakes, have made Harvey quite friendly with the quirky owner. Dr Cee even promised Harvey a part-time job, once he will be old enough, and told him he would gladly see some sketches ideas for new posters around the store.

He’s also, though unknowingly, the perfect excuse for Sabrina to have Harvey out.

“Oh, you should definitely go!” she exclaims, finally turning to face him.

Harvey seems taken aback by her sudden burst of cheerfulness, not that she can blame him for it. It’s quite the whiplash from a few seconds ago.

“You think?”

“Definitely.” She goes to sit next to him, one leg under her so she can face him, close without being intimate. “You could even take a few drawings with you to show around. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to art school?”

“I mean, yeah, but like when you say you want to be an astronaut. It would be cool, but it’s not entirely doable.”

“Why not? You’re talented and hard-working, and you want it so badly. You can do whatever you want.”

The sky is his limit, whereas Sabrina’s path was chosen for her before she was even born. A few years of human high school, followed by a witchy diploma at the Academy, followed by years in the coven where everyone says she belongs. No choice but to follow in her father’s footsteps, to hide in the shadow of his greatness.

She envies Harvey’s freedom to do as he wants, to have the liberty to make mistakes and try again. As the daughter of Edward Spellman, she will never be granted that chance.

“Maybe you’re right,” Harvey says after a while. “Will you help me pick my best drawings?”

“Sure!” she beams. “How about some tea to get us started?”

He nods, before he grabs one of his folders, and Sabrina takes it as her cue to go downstairs. Only Aunt Zelda is in the kitchen, smoking and reading a book. If she listens carefully, she can hear Hilda in the living room and Ambrose downstairs, tending to their latest client.

She grabs a couple of mugs, dropping twin bags of tea in the before she turns the kettle on. No need to look behind her shoulder to feel the weight of Zelda’s stare on her.

“He’ll be gone, don’t worry.”

“Good,” is all her aunt’s answer.

…

Sabrina wants the record to state that she doesn’t have a date for the Winter Wonderland. Susie, Roz, Harvey and she all agreed to go together, as friends. It just so happens that Harvey and she arrived together because, well, they do live together so it wouldn’t be logical for them to arrive at different times. And she dances with all three of them; sometimes together as a group, screaming the lyrics of an old song or messing a choreography so badly from laughing too much. Roz forces her into a duet when an old Beyoncé song starts playing, and she spends some quality time with Susie in a corner, since Susie doesn’t like dancing all that much.

If she so happens to dance a couple of songs with Harvey too, well.

They did come together. As a group. As friends.

It’s not weird for friends to have fun together, right? It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything, and it’s not as if other guys are lining up to ask her to dance, or other girls are taking Harvey aside to flirt with him. Everyone else is busy doing their own thing, which is fine. Sabrina only needs her group of friends to enjoy herself anyway.

And then the Bruno Mars song she was dancing to with Harvey turns into a slow balad by Adele, and she isn’t so certain anymore. Harvey’s arms fall back at his sides, before he swings them back and forth then clasps his hands in front of him with a little pout.

Sabrina is certain he’s trying to find a polite way out, which makes it all the more surprising when he softly asks, “Wanna dance, Brina?”

Her smile splits up her face, so much so that she can only nod in reply as she takes a step closer to him. One of her hands hands on his shoulder, while he puts his on her hips, and for a moment she’s thrown off-balance by the unfamiliarity of this all. But then he’s pulling her closer, and her other hand find the back of his neck as they sway to the music.

She presses her cheek against his collarbone, eye closing, a sigh on her lips. This is nice. Better than nice, even, because Harvey is warm and solid against her, his hands anchoring her to the here and there. In his arms, she can almost forget the High Priest wants her to start at the Academy in January, a good nine months before her Dark Baptism.

They want her to start her education as early as possible, to put her on the path to greatness, but Sabrina isn’t ready to say goodbye to her human life yet. Her high school, her friends, her teachers. Harvey. They are yet to discuss what will happen to him, once she no longer goes to Baxter High. Once they will no longer be able to hide the truth from him.

“This is nice,” she whispers.

She isn’t sure he heard her, but then he’s pulling her closer, arms crossed against her back, so maybe he did. Maybe he’s feeling the same. Maybe this is it, finally.

The song ends with fading notes on a piano, replacing by something equally soft and romantic that Sabrina doesn’t recognise. She doesn’t care, not when Harvey is still holding her close, his cheek pressed against the top of her head and his heart beating against her ear. She wants to stay in that moment forever, him and her and beautiful music. Nothing else.

“Do you want to go home?” he asks her when a third song comes to an end and they still haven’t stopped.

She looks up at him, soft smile and even softer eyes, a look of wonder on his face. His hand moves up to cup her face, his thumb barely more than a caress on her cheek. He doesn’t do anything else, anything more, so she nods her approval and lets him guide her outside the school’s gym hall.

She catches Susie’s eyes on the way out, her friend brandishing two happy thumbs up at her before she disappears into the crowd. Everything is silent and cold outside, winter settling in on Greendale. Harvey shrugs off his jacket, so he can put it on her shoulders, keeping his arm here too so he can pull her against him.

That’s how they make their way back home, walking side by side and sharing body heat, Harvey pointing constellations out at her and telling her what they mean. The icy ground scrunches under their feet, an owl hooting quietly in the background. Peaceful. Perfect.

Finally making it home is a bit of a relief, if only because the warmth of inside bites at her cold cheeks and brings some life back to her legs. Harvey tells her to go and change, that he will be up with hot chocolates in five minutes, so she does just that.

Runs to her room and wipes the makeup off her face, slips off her dress and puts on warm, comfortable PJs instead. She’s waiting for Harvey by the door, which makes it all the more surprising when there is a knock on her window.

They figured out quickly enough that they could sneak through their windows to sit on the roof together, and have done so multiple times since Harvey moved in. Mostly at night, when one of them is kept awake by nightmares and needs company. A knock at the window when he dreams of his father, when her nights are nothing but blood and ash, and here they are. Comfort in the dead of the night.

Here he is tonight, twin mugs of hot chocolate in one hand as he helps her out the window and onto the roof. He waits until she’s seated to do the same, and to hand her the drink. The burning mug is soothing against her cold fingers, and she scoots closer to Harvey so he will keep her warm.

“Tonight was fun,” she comments softly.

“Yeah, it was nice.” He pauses, then, “We should do it more often.”

“Have fun? Damn, Harvey, and here I thought we had fun all the time.”

His chuckle is low and awkward, and he looks away from her. There is another moment of silence, before he squares his shoulders against her, as if preparing himself for battle. An intake of breath, before he says, “No, I mean. Dancing. Going out. We should do – do that again. Together if – if you want.”

Her cheeks might hurt from smiling too much, her heart painful where it drums against her ribcage. She can barely speaks through her grin when she asks, “Are you asking me out?”

He still won’t look at her, this gentle, beautiful, awkward boy. “May–maybe? I know it’s not – like that between us and – you can definitely say no but – you know…”

“Yes,” she whispers. His head turns so fast she’s afraid he hurt himself, his eyes so wide it makes her laugh. “Yes, Harvey, I’ll go out with you.”

“For… for real?”

She’s really laughing now, one of her hand letting go of the mug so she can cup his face, angle it so he will look into her eyes. There is more incredule wonder than anything else on his features, which makes the situation all the more delightfully ridiculous. Here she was, thinking Harvey would never look at her in a romantic light, unaware that he thought the exact same thing about her.

Here they are now, on the precipice of something new and utterly terrifying.

“Yeah, for real.”

He nods, to himself more than anything else, and licks his lips. It’s another moment of nothing, of just staring into each other’s eyes – her smiling and him looking determined – before he says, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

And, by Satan, he does.

#harvina #sarvey #the chilling adventures of sabrina #sabrina spellman #harvey kinkle #fanfic #ff: caos #ff: softest hearts

[thesffcorner]

Her Royal Highness

Her Royal Highness is the second book in the Royals series, written by Rachel Hawkins. It’s more of a companion novel, following entirely different characters, and though I personally would recommend reading Prince Charming first, you don’t have to. This book follows Amelia or Millie, a 17 year old girl from Texas, who gets a scholarship to MacGregorston, a Private College in Scotland. Once she gets there, she realizes that in addition to dealing with the new timezone, weather and school system, she also has to deal with her roommate: Her Royal Highness Flora, the Princess of Scotland. The reason I say you should read Prince Charming first, is because you might be a little confused as to what kind of parallel universe this is where Scotland has a Queen; well in this book series both England and Scotland have royal families, and we follow the Scottish one, which is really like our real world British Royal Family. This whole series for me comes with a caveat; if you are like me, and you are not interested or have mixed to negative opinions on royalty, the British royal family or tax draining monarchy in general, you still might like this series, because shockingly, though at no point condemning the royals, Hawkins is at least critical of them, and there are many instances in the book where actual important things are discussed. It also helps, that in both books, the lead characters isn’t obsessed or even interested in royalty; both Daisy, and here Millie are very oblivious and sometimes outright hostile to the glamour and strangeness of that kind of living, which presented itself as a nice ‘straight man’ to the still very patriarchal, very imperialist royal family. So let’s talk about this book. Unlike the first book, which focused more on Daisy getting to know the family, lifestyle, and her relationship with her sister, here the focus is the relationship between Millie and Flora, and their gradual move from enemies, to friends to lovers. As such I ended up really enjoying their romance. Hawkins excels at enemies to lovers; there was a perfect amount of time devoted to each section of the relationship, and at no point did I think that things were moving to fast or dragging. Even when Millie and Flora and Millie are ‘enemies’, their rivalry is mostly just petty, like speaking loudly on the phone, putting tape to separate their dresser, or insulting each other with supremely dorky insults. The parts where Flora does do things that are extreme, and could put Millie into physical danger or in danger of expulsion/losing her academic scholarship, are treated as serious events, and Flora is always called out on her behavior and suffers consequences. Since this book is so focused on the characters, I’ll talk about them first. Let’s start with the supporting cast: Sakshi, Perry, Sherbert and Sebastian. Sebastian and Sherbert we met in the last book; Seb is Flora’s twin brother, and Sherbert is part of his friend group, a boy who is dating the Crown Prince of Greece (I think. Or maybe he’s just the son of a wealthy Greek businessman). If you’ve read book 1, there is not much difference between how Seb is there, and how he’s here; he’s his usual charming self, a bit of a hot mess, and his little scuffle at the end of the last book doesn’t seem to have done much damage to his reputation, or even his relationship with his siblings. I really liked his and Flora’s dynamic; they are very similar, except as it tends to go, Seb is allowed to get away with a lot more things than Flora is, which I felt was both intentional and frustrating. They are however ready to throw down for each other at any point, and I liked that Seb got to be the one who makes Millie see the error of her actions in the end. Perry was not a character that had a lot to do; he hates the school because his parents forced him to go there, and he has a crush on Sakshi. There were some funny bits with him, like ordering the wrong kind of beer for Seb out of spite, or his conversation with Sakshi about whether he’s been gay the whole time they had been friends. Overall he was the gloomier foil to Sakshi’s bubbly, larger than life personality. Sakshi was my absolute favorite character. I need the next book to be about her, she was amazing. She is extremely feminine and sharp, while also being physically imposing at 6ft tall. I loved her friendship with Flora, loved how supportive and genuine she was with her, and I even enjoyed her ‘project’ to ‘fix’ Seb, so she can marry a prince and have the biggest philanthropy/charity platform in the UK, which falls away when it turns out that he’s a Harts fan. Even her being an Arsenal fan couldn’t deter my love for her character. As for our leads, let’s start with Flora. I liked Flora a lot; at first she’s the typical mean girl/snobby girl, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s not just catty; she’s willing to throw down and cause some physical and property damage, in her bid to get expelled. She has a very strained relationship to her mother, and to the expectations put on her by royal life. I found this very interesting, and I wish it was explored more; as is the book just doesn’t have time to properly address this relationship, mostly because we are seeing it from Millie’s perspective. I liked that Flora was the more active and willing participant in the relationship between her and Millie, and their banter was hilarious. The things I didn’t like about Flora, like her stubbornness and her willingness to disregard the well being of others for her own personal goals were addressed in the book, by the other characters and she changes by the end, to be less flippant. Millie was the character I liked least. It’s not that I hated her, but she was a pale comparison to Daisy who I related to a whole lot more, and found just simply funnier. Millie was a bit grating, very much a goody two shoes; she’s never broken a rule, she’s obsessed with geology, she only cares about school, avoids conflict. She also has this almost… fetishistic fascination with Scotland? Like she’s obsessed with Scotland, but doesn’t actually know anything about Scottish history or politics other than the most stereotypical things like Braveheart? She does improve significantly, and I like that for a change it was actually her that messed things up. When her fight with Flora begun, I really didn't understand what her big deal was; I still don’t understand why it matters whether Flora broke up with her ex, or her ex did; Flora not wanting to be just a secret to her ex is a perfectly valid reason to break up with someone, regardless. Whatever went down in her previous relationship has no bearing on her current one, and Millie blindly believing what a trashy tabloid writes was really dumb, for someone who’s portrayed as otherwise a sharp and sensible character. The only thing I did agree with Millie on, was Flora paying her tuition. Flora shouldn’t have done it at all, let alone done it without consulting and asking permission from Millie. We get hints on this class inequality between the girls, but it should have been a clearer examination on how their opposing view on money clashes. Flora is a princess, money means nothing to her (even though her money come from unfair taxes, and seizure of lands that should be public property, but this is a kids book, so maybe we can ignore socialism for a bit), so paying for someone she cares about it just that; a nice gesture. But when you don’t have money, or have very little, like Millie, every cent someone gives you feels like you are now in their debt, and you may never be able to repay it. It could have been a genuinely complex argument, but like Flora’s relationship to her mother, the book doesn’t devote enough time to it. The ending too felt a little rushed; while it is in Millie’s character to rush into things and do self-sabotaging things for a person they love (like not wanting to go to Scotland because she has a girlfriend), it still wasn’t great. It doesn’t help that the book just ends; we don’t get any resolution on things like Millie and Jude, Flora and her mom, or the scholarship. Regardless of the flaws, I still think this book is super enjoyable and fun. I really loved reading it, and I think if you liked the first book, or even if you just want a cute sapphic love story, this is the book for you. I will definitely read whatever else Rachel Hawkins has published because she’s convinced me that she’s a really solid, very funny author.

#her royal highness #her royal highness review #book review #moni talks

[lodessa]

Responding to @talsi74656 in regards to that starting line(s) of your last 10 published fics meme.  I thought I’d propose a mirror image one:

List the first lines of your oldest 10 published stories. See if there are any patterns yourself, or have other people say what they notice. Tag up to 10 friends!

I once again excluded anything under 2000 words to get to actual fics (which eliminated a lot of my Harry Potter stuff) and posted the whole first paragraph.  Additionally I limited this to works I’d actually pulled over to AO3 (I didn’t try to go back to my original pseud I had back in high school).

One interesting thing is that these ten fics happen to align with college and the year afterward pretty exactly, cutting off right before I met my now husband.

But, @talsi74656 it’s pretty clear my way of starting stories has changed.

1. The Different Pieces (Harry Potter, June 2005)

Neville thought it was late when he got back to the boys dormitory after spending the evening wandering the grounds with Luna, but when he arrived everyone else, except Harry, was still out. Harry was perched by the window, cheek pressed up against the glass. He looked up when he heard Neville enter, which was easily noticed because Neville had managed to bump into the corner of Dean's bed and cursed in response. Harry's eyes looked glassy and Neville wondered what Harry was doing sitting up here all by himself.

2. Tryst (Veronica Mars, December 2005)

Weevil thought he probably should have been suspicious when Logan suggested the meeting place. He probably should have suspected a trap... after all he had burned down the boy's house and scared him pretty damn bad. He wasn't though, for some unknown reason, and that was what frightened him most of all. Any sane person would have told a friend where he was going, just in case. That was the kind of shit they taught you as a kid wasn't it? Problem was, Weevil didn't have any friends... and even if he did, he wouldn't have been able to tell them he was going to meet up with Logan Echolls. Of course, if he'd had friends he could tell about his rendezvous with Logan, he wouldn't need to be meeting him in the first place.

3. Eli, (Veronica Mars, February 2006)

When Eli comes home, limping and on foot, it's clear that he's lost a lot more than the bike. His grandmother must be able to see it too; because, she doesn't comment about his failure to pick up his little cousin Maria. He thinks that maybe this kindness only makes it worse. If she was lecturing he'd have something to fight against, not that he ever talked back to his grandmother verbally but at least there would be a defense in his head. Instead there is only a plate of homemade cooking, set in front of him silently. He wants to tell her what happened, but there are already too many things he has to hide from her to ever come clean; the less she knows about that part of his life the better, he's always said. It stings to think that "that part of his life" has been forever destroyed. He'd thought it was something he'd have forever... well not forever but, fuck, he certainly hadn't thought it would end like this. It makes him wonder if maybe he should have listened more to his grandmother when she brought home those brochures about colleges and trade schools. "You were always such a bright boy Eli" she used to say. Eli remembers when he was 9. His teacher, Mrs. Lockwood, had recommended him for the special advanced math group; by the time he was in 9th Grade, he had been in special math again, but on the other end of the spectrum this time. Eli brushes the thought aside. It's a useless, traitorous, thought, and he's had more than enough treachery today.

4. An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Veronica Mars, March 2006)

Veronica is surprised when Clarence Weidman shows up in her living room one afternoon, a few months after they tracked down Amelia DeLongprey's murderous ex-boyfriend and she expected she'd seen the last of him. There he is though, fingers elegantly laced together across his lap, looking like they could not be used to strangle and break, looking like he wasn't uninvited. She tells herself the sudden tightness in her chest is surprise. What was Kane software's head of security doing sitting on her couch? Duncan. It had to be about Duncan. Veronica thinks, not for the first time, that Clarence Weidman is more of the Kane Family Head of Security than that Kane Software one.

5. Unlike Minds (Veronica Mars, May 2006)

Group projects were the devil. Everyone knew that. Teachers always paired you up with whoever's work habits were least like your own and linked your grades together to provide the most awkward and uncomfortable experience possible. Today was no exception, Mac thought as she trudged across the classroom.

"Ummm… hi." Mac said, walking awkwardly up to Lizzie Manning. Her fraying t-shirt felt glaringly discordant beside Lizzie's $300 top, which could easily have been intended to be lingerie.

"Hi…" Lizzie replied distractedly, absorbed with her image as displayed by her compact mirror.

Mac couldn't really blame her; if she had Barbie doll looks like Lizzie, she'd probably spend all her time glued to the mirror too.

6. Unfinished (Angel the Series, June 2006)

It is to be expected that, after returning from a hell dimension like Pylea, the world as Wesley Wyndam-Price knew it looked better, that he appreciated it more. However, it was not the case. The world as he knew it was filled with just as much catastrophe as it always had been. In fact, things might have been worse. The moment they had walked back into the hotel and seen Willow, the brilliance of the initial return was lost and things only got worse from there.

7. Longing (Veronica Mars, July 2006)

Veronica awoke with a start, covered in sweat, to find herself in Logan's suite at the Neptune Grand. It was the third time this week that Veronica had woken from dreams about Clarence Wiedman… hot, steamy, sex dreams about Clarence Wiedman. Clarence Wiedman was a cold blooded killer, and Veronica didn't even want to know what else, and in her waking life it wasn't like Veronica found that at all sexy. Sure she might have to admit that, after they worked together to solve Amelia Delongpre's murder, she admired his cool collected calm, but that didn't mean anything other than professional respect. So these dreams, the ones where his hands had skills other than breaking and maiming, skills that had Veronica shuddering in ecstasy, they didn't have anything to do with reality of course. Still Veronica flushed just remembering the sensations she'd experienced in her latest dream, when the Head of Security for Kane Software had taken her, up on a ledge while they were hiding from mobsters. Veronica reminded herself that it was a dream, and had nothing to do with the reality of the man she was with in it, that she had no way of knowing that he actually tasted of cloves and mouthwash; for all she knew, Clarence Wiedman was gay.

8. Failed Crusades (Angel the Series / Firefly, July 2006)

Lindsey knew he shouldn’t be surprised that he wasn’t able to escape Wolfram & Hart’s grasp, that they’d found a way to make his blackmail useless. In retrospect, he supposed, he should be glad that they didn’t toss him in a hell dimension for a couple millennia to wash the traitorous urges right out of him. Of course, this ‘verse, as the people around him referred to it, might as well have been a hell dimension Lindsey suspected. He sort of wondered whether the reason that Earth wasn’t around anymore was the firm’s beloved apocalypse and whether Angel had gone evil after all. It didn’t really matter though, because much had remained the same in the world and Lindsey still had clients to deal with, just now he was on a space station instead of located in LA. The government… Alliance as it was called, had some part to play in the senior partner’s newest death and brimstone party plan, and Lindsey has been instructed to give them whatever they needed. Apparently, what they needed at the moment was some waifish girl. The girl was supposedly some sort of man-made telepath. Wolfram & Hart still specialized in the paranormal in this distant future.

9. Gravel (Harry Potter, August 2006)

He'd known she would come, his ever watchful sister-in-law with eyes that burned like embers. She was feverish to know everything that concerned their Lord; so, when Lucius noticed her watching Him pass the diary to him, he'd known she'd come looking for it. So he laid in wait. He was not disappointed either: as the sun set blood red she came creeping into his study, not the main study, but the one concealed behind the bookcases. He said nothing as he watched her steal in, crimson robes trailing on rich eastern carpets. He said nothing as she lifted the diary from its place on the desk and sat down on the floor, laying it open in her lap to examine. Her hands stroked its surfaces almost lovingly, searching for its secret. Unable to discover one, Bellatrix retrieved a knife from his desk drawer; Lucius did not wonder how she'd known exactly were he kept the little scythe-shaped ceremonial one. Laying her arm onto the diary , Bellatrix split her wrist open with a whispered incantation and the blood swirled through its pages. Bellatrix's eyes lit up and Lucius knew that the blood sacrifice had worked, despite being overkill. As her eyes glazed over, he couldn't help creeping out from his hiding place to see what the diary was showing her.

10. 5 Reasons Weevil is Unhappy Veronica is Dating Logan Again (Veronica Mars, November 2006)

It doesn't take any sort of personal grudge or long drawn out history to get that dating Logan Fucking Echolls is a dumb idea. It's pretty much a fact, not an opinion, as far as Weevil's concerned. He cheats, he lies, he's more than a little arrogant and self satisfied. He's a waste of the fucking riches bestowed upon him for no good reason and the opportunity he's not taking any fucking advantage of. Weevil totally buys that Logan's a fucking train wreck: his girlfriend murdered by his now assassinated father, mother jumped off a goddamned bridge. Boy definitely has issues. Weevil's got grounds for issues too: father who disappeared, mother who overdosed, feelings that never should have formed for a spoiled little rich girl who never knew when to call it quits and ended up dead, gang turned traitorous, and a felony conviction on his record. Yeah, Weevil gets the fodder for bitching and moaning, and maybe if he had millions and nothing but time on his hands he'd be crying about the injustice. He doesn't, though, and if he did he certainly wouldn't think himself worth any chick, let alone someone like Veronica. Not that the girl doesn't have scars of her own, but she doesn't deserve any more. He thinks she should get that but she doesn't, keeps dating assholes like Logan. He has to assume that if she were healthy enough to deal with it she wouldn't be. V's got her whole life ahead of her, open and waiting, and dating Logan is like giving all of that up and going to her worst and most pathetic self. It's a fucking shame. Seems to be the motherfucking way of the world. Anita's new boyfriend isn't any better than her last. He guesses that's what their father taught them to expect. He doesn't think he treats women like shit, though, and he doesn't know where Veronica leaned that kind of crap; because, the sheriff really seems like he's there for her one hundred percent. It seems fucked up and unfair and it makes Weevil want to hit things.

Tagging: @talsi74656, @pixiedane, @sophia-helix, @austennerdita2533, @liminal-zone, @electricbluebutterflies, @emmikamikatze, and anyone else who wants to do this.

#writing #meme