#those were certainly uh... choices... you made there... logic and stuff | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

memes-in-a-half-shell · 4 years ago

Text

Business AU - Working Late, Part 9

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8

Let’s fuck things up a bit, shall we?

She woke up peacefully, the soft warmth of the early sun washing over her naked body tangled in the bedsheets. As she stretched her limbs, she found herself to be alone in bed, lazily reaching for her glasses on the nightstand nearby only so she could have a clearer view of her surroundings. Donnie was nowhere to be seen, Vee taking this moment to sit in bed, envelopping her form in the sheets and just think about last night's events. What would that make out of them? No real declarations of any sorts had been made, but the feelings were there and real, that she couldn't deny. Sure, it wasn't the first time she had slept with someone without any real attachment, but never had she felt that way with someone before... Donnie was a tender and very attentive man. She had that feeling that whatever he'd say or do, it must be true to him. She wanted to believe he would wish for them to be more... But for now she laid her expectations to rest and simply reveled in whatever was happening between them. She felt good. She felt appreciated. And, to be frank, the sex had been amazing.

She heard footsteps approaching the room, along a rolling sound. The mutant soon came in view, accompanied by a small trolley that held two plates with food, empty mugs and a pot of coffee. He was only wearing black boxer briefs and his glasses, his whole self a delectable sight. As he noticed that the woman was awake, he playfully struck a little pose while saying:

“Breakfast in bed for madame.”

That brought a soft giggle from Vee, though touched by this attention given to her. Instead of handing a plate, Donnie moved to sit by the woman's side in bed, unable to resist cupping one of her cheeks, his thumb tenderly brushing her skin. His eyes kept scanning her, his joy blooming at the mere sight of her smile.

“… Can't believe there's such a beautiful woman in my bed this morning,” he softly said.

“Can't believe such a sexy man is bringing me breakfast in bed,” replied Vee.

“I can bring more than that.”

Remnants of last night's emotions still brought some sparks in the air, Donnie's motion fluid and met halfway by Vee. It was sweet and slow, a kiss that felt like a dream. As it kept going, the terrapin started to shift his position and Vee's; soon the covers out of the way and Donnie's frame over the woman, forever careful not to be too much of a weight. They couldn't let go of one another, this morning's laziness bringing each motions to a tender point. As the terrapin was kissing at the woman's neck, she did add in a soft tone:

“What about breakfast? It's gonna get cold, just like the food last night...”

“I don't mind cooking another one later. … I'd cook one for you everyday even.”

That brought a hushed chuckle out of Vee, but deep down she was touched by that small confession. The simplicity and tenderness of this moment brought such ease in her.

“Donnie, I-...”

She stopped herself, knowing exactly what her heart wanted to say, but knowing now was not the time. Their gaze crossed, Donnie patient and Vee trying to find the right words to say next.

“... I’m so happy right now. Being with you feels so nice,” she ended.

“It does feel nice, indeed,” first replied the terrapin in a sweet tone. “... I could spend the rest of my life like this.”

Vee felt speechless, trying her best to read his emotions. He did sound sincere, but maybe it was this honeymoon type of feeling that was talking as well.... In any case, she prefered to kiss him in answer, knowing she did think the same as well. It was much preferable to live in this present moment, rather than worry in speculations.... At least, only for this morning.

***

That Monday morning was as grey and rainy as it could get, the usual omen for a bad day and week to come, but in Vee’s mind and heart, it was as sunny as it could ever be. Her work started with the usual routine; reviewing the projects for the day and then handing the paperwork. Her step around the office was light, humming some tunes to herself as she distributed the documents among her team.

“You look awfully happy for a Monday morning,” started one of her coworker’s voice, a guy.

That broke her stride, turning around to the source. She noticed a small handful of employees grouped together, probably discussing first amongst themselves until they saw their manager. Vee recognized the man who had spoken, already going through her papers as she walked towards the small group.

“I had a nice weekend, that’s all,” she answered, handing him the work.

“What, you buttered up the boss enough for you to get a raise?” said the other, reluctantly taking his due.

Vee instantly frowned: “... Excuse me?”

“We saw you leave with that Donatello, Friday evening,” added another coworker, a woman. “You’re not fooling anyone. It’s been quite some time that you both have been hanging together.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that’s any of your concerns,” said Vee. “We’re friends, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

“Yah, sure, friends with benefits perhaps,” continued another person. “Soon you’ll benefit from a monetary gain while he benefits from your tits. Workplace logic.”

Vee was disgusted, knowing if she continued to argue, she’d make things worse: “I don’t know what’s wrong with you all, but you better mind your damn business.”

As she was walking away, she heard that last jab: “If I buy you a drink, will you give me a raise?” She did not stop, her step slightly getting faster instead. Her blood was boiling, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. At once, she wished she could simply disappear... Turning a corner, she abruptly bumped into someone, her remaining folders flying out of her hands and spilling to the floor. She felt strong hands hold her forearms, forbidding her to fall backward

“Woah there, easy. Are you alright?”

She met baby blue eyes surrounded by orange, quickly recognizing the presence as another one of her bosses: Michelangelo. She quickly nodded, trying to get a hold of her senses once more. Her eyes next scanned the floor, letting out a big sigh as she noticed the mess.

“Damn... I’m sorry,” she started. “I should’ve looked where I was going...”

“Nah, it’s fine,” smile the orange clad terrapin. “Next time I’ll be careful not to be on your war path!”

Both were already crouching down to pick up the fallen papers, Vee feeling so absent-minded by this meaningless task. All she wanted to do was to run away, to be quite frank. As Michelangelo handed her the last files, he did inquire again: “... You sure you’re alright?”

Vee faked a small smile, quick to dismiss his concern.

“Yes, I’m okay. No worries. Have a nice day, sir.”

As she got back on the move, her distress did not escape the mutant, although he did not try to push his questionning any further.

***

“What’s up, D, my man?”

Donnie paused his writing, glancing up towards his office’s entry. He saw Mikey standing there, the purple clad mutant huffing lightly as he then continued his task.

“I’m busy, Mikey.”

“You’re always busy, so any time to poke you is as good as any.”

The tall one rolled his eyes, although he did smile a little. He quickly gestured for his brother to come in.

“What’s up?” he asked as the other was taking a seat.

“Meh, I dunno man, just wanted to take some news from you,” shrugged Michelangelo. “You’ve been staying late a lot these days... How was your weekend?”

Donnie stopped writing once more, leaning back into his chair with a dreamy smile.

“It was hella nice.”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“Spent some time with a beautiful lady.”

“There yooouu gooo!” lightly laughed the youngest. “T’was about time you’d get some fun. Who is she?”

“Slow down, I’ll present her to you soon enough. ... We’re just taking some time to ourselves first, you know...”

Mikey was disappointed by the lack of details, but he did respect his brother’s choice: “Fair enough.” A thought came back to him, suddenly adding: “Oh, speaking of meeting ladies, before I got in here I bumped into one. I dunno what’s going on in the office, but she did look kinda distressed. ... She’s got nice green hair though! We don’t see lots of people with different hairstyles around here.”

Donnie slightly jumped in his chair as he heard the mention of ‘distress’ and then ‘green hair’. It had to be Vee.

“Where is she?” he instantly asked.

Mikey was surprised by his brother’s reaction, vaguely gesturing a direction.

“I, uh, I have no idea. Somewhere around those parts we don’t really have a use for.”

She must’ve went to the drawing room... Donatello did not waste any second, already on his feet and heading out.

“Sorry gotta go,” he quickly excused himself. “Talk to you later.”

Mikey didn’t even have time to place a word, still seated as he watched the other dart straight to a precise direction. “Oooookay...”

***

It didn’t take long for Donnie to reach the room in question, already hearing some quiet sobs when he was close to the entrance. As soon as he stepped in, he found Vee at one corner, by a table, her glasses removed as she tried to forbid tears to ruin her makeup. The woman jumped as she saw the terrapin’s form appear in, trying her best to gain a better posture and make herself more presentable as she put back on her glasses.

“Shit! D-Donnie, I-”

The turtle was already on the move, soon next to her and certainly preoccupied.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” tried to brush away Vee. “I’m not- ... fuck, I don’t want you to see me cry.”

“Don’t worry. Tell me what happened,” he asked again, his touch gentle as his thumb dried some faint trails on the woman’s cheek.

“It’s nothing,” she repeated. “I just heard some stuff I didn’t want to, that’s all. I’ll stop my bullshit soon enough and get back to work.”

Donnie tsked, not wasting any second to get a hold of her hips, barely giving any effort as he slightly lifted her up to sit on the table. At least now he wouldn’t need to lean down too much, his hands resting at her sides, on the table, now their eyes at the same level.

“Talk to me.”

She couldn’t hold his gaze long enough, a sigh escaping her first. ... It would be preferable to touch the subject anyway, before any rumors would start flowing around.

“I had some employees on my team this morning saying some ... stuff about us.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that makes it look as if I’m hanging out with you only so I can get a promotion or something like that to advance my career,” she added, her tone slightly harsh. She paused, trying to calm herself down quickly: “... Look, before you say anything, I want you to know that it’s not true. I’m not some kind of business leech that’ll try to flirt her way up. I work hard and-and- I do an honest job, and-”

“Don’t worry, I believe you,” cut Donnie gently, trying to have her look at him again.

When their gazes met, she did feel some relief.

“I don’t give a damn what they say,” he continued. “They don’t have the full details anyway, so their judgement is invalid.”

“I hope they don’t get all the details, I’d prefer to keep most of them to myself,” added Vee with some amusement.

“Me too,” he smiled.

He tried, and succeeded, to lift her morale by giving a sweet kiss on her lips. Vee couldn’t help bringing him into an embrace afterward, her arms resting around his neck. She wanted to stay like this forever... His strong arms around her were so reassuring.

“Don’t mind them,” softly said Donnie as he was nuzzling her hair. “There’s always gonna be some assholes everywhere we go... The best thing we can do is stand up to them and stay true to ourselves, okay?”

“I don’t think I’m ready to stand up to them today,” mumbled the woman against his scales.

“Alright, I’ll do it then.”

Vee instantly frowned, backing up a bit to give him a stern look.

“Don’t you dare! I don’t want anymore troubles.”

The terrapin chuckled: “Don’t worry, you don’t have to say names. ... I’m just gonna teach them all a little lesson. ... There’s no place for rivalry and petty discourses regarding matters they have no involvement with.”

“If things turn to hell, I blame you.”

“Deal!” he winked.

***

Time was passing by and Vee was somehow getting more and more anxious about what Donnie would do in regards to her team... She most certainly hoped he wouldn’t rub in the issue and ask the others to mind their own business. But at the same time she knew he could demonstrate tactfulness and would probably approach the matter at hand appropriately.

She first heard the squeak of small wheels, her attention shifting and soon noticing the terrapin walk in with a portable whiteboard. She groaned internally, tempted to melt on her chair and disappear under her desk...

Donnie attracted people’s attention by clearing his throat first, then adding: “Hi there! If you guys won’t mind, let’s have a talk.”

He removed the cap from an erasable pen he was holding, writing in big letters “TEAMWORK”. Vaguely gesturing the word, he started:

“What defines teamwork?”

Silence at first. At some point a woman shyly rose her hand, Donnie inviting her to speak:

“Please, don't be shy, no need to raise your hand. What do you have in mind?”

“Teamwork could be defined by good communication?”

“That's a good start, what else?” smiled the terrapin as he wrote “COMMUNICATION” on the whiteboard.

“Sharing the workload equally?” started another person.

“Efficiency!”

“Having a common goal.”

“Trust!”

Donnie lighted up at that word, circling it a couple of times for emphasis.

“Yes, trust!” he said. “Seeking a common end, resolving conflicts and frictions, having an open conversation about issues you might be experiencing in the workplace. All that trust you can put in your coworkers mirrors the trust you have in regards to their skills and abilities. A mutual trust is defined by a confidence between team members that each puts the best interest of the team ahead of individual priorities.”

“I guess it depends on the person and their position,” added in a guy.

Vee recognized him as the man who had first sparked the comments this morning. She tried to avoid his gaze, Donnie noticing the sudden tension.

“I suspect you have something on your mind,” started the terrapin calmly to the man. “What’s your name?”

“Ben.”

“What do you mean by ‘it depends on the person and their position’, Ben?”

The guy was obviously feeling some discomfort by being the center of interest.

“Well... when you see someone like, let’s say a manager, taking advantage of their position and time to advance themselves in the work place, it’s hard to put trust on them.”

Donnie clapsed his pen shut.

“Are those allegations founded? Have you spoken to that person and tried to see if that was actually the case? Miscommunication and misunderstanding can lead to a lack of trust, indeed.”

“When you see them hanging with higher ups, that kinda confirms some questioning,” continued Ben. “When she stays late at night and fraternizes with a boss, that does raise some concerns about the practices of this workplace.”

“There we go,” smiled Donnie, accentuating his words with a sharp point of his pen. “Now we’ve come to the source of your concern; first you mentionned a manager and now a ‘she’. Knowing there’s only one project manager for the creative team, I can suspect you have some concerns in regards to Véronique.”

“You’re just gonna defend her, why should we listen to you?” said the other.

“Because I’m not here to defend anyone,” shrugged the mutant. “I’m here to make you understand that you’re a team, and all its members shouldn’t feel afraid to speak to one another, instead of raising suspicions.” He gestured Vee, the woman only wanting to disappear. “Ever since Véronique started working here she has been spending countless hours in office to learn the ropes of this place and give the best of herself only so you can give the best of you all in return. I value her judgement and experience, and she has agreed, on her free will, to participate on a project I was personally struggling with. In return I have been helping her with her work, because that is how trust is built: by sharing the work-” he started to point the words on the board. “-being efficient, communicating, and having a common goal. ... And that’s something I want in this office, for its people to be open and help eachother - not because they feel they need to, but because they want to.”

That gave everyone a pause, somehow giving a feeling of accomplishment to the turtle.

“May that spark a friendship or not - when it does not involve this work environment and it’s out of office, it’s nothing to worry about afterward. ... Let that be food for thought.”

He looked a bit toward Vee’s position, giving her a quick wink. The woman did feel some relief by his speech, knowing he might have struck some chords here and there. She wasn’t fully convinced that everyone would be on that same line of thought, especially that Ben, but there was no denying that it would ease some tension somehow.

***

Vee had waited until work got back to a somewhat normal pace before she wrote that to the terrapin.

Her smile was tender, her fingers easily typing away.

Thinking about it also, today was one hell of a long and stressful Monday...

Probably one of the only good things today...

There it was again, that damn charm of his! She could feel the rush in her veins, remembering those moments with him. Frankly, she wanted more as well...

***

The following morning was as normal as it could get on a weekday, Donnie taking the opportunity to clean around his office. He was going through a filing cabinet, starting from the top drawer. Some papers did slip from his hold, the terrapin next crouching to get them off the floor. But at the same moment the entry door was harshly opened, a voice sternly calling his name. Donnie’s reaction was to jump straight back up, but that resulted in him hitting the top of his head on the previously opened drawer, getting a yelp out of him. He quickly diverted his gaze to the newcomer, rubbing his scales.

“Leo!” scolded the purple clad mutant as he saw his older brother. “The fuck?! Don’t you know how to knock or something?”

“We have to go.”

“Go where?”

“No time to explain, we’ve found them. We need to move right now before we lose their track again.”

Donnie instantly got serious as well, his posture straightening up.

“... Do we still have our backup gear in this building?” he asked.

“Yes,” confirmed the blue banded turtle. “Mikey and Raph are already aware as well. Get your stuff and we leave in fifteen minutes top.”

A simple nod in answer was good for Leonardo to get on the move again, leaving Donnie. There was no time to lose, the tall mutant rapidly tidying up his space before grabbing any personal items and exiting his office. His mind was running, thinking about what was to come. On his way he did notice Vee at her desk, somehow pausing only to bask into that view. At first she was focused on whatever she was working, but she did feel a gaze on her, her eyes lifting to meet Donnie. She first offered him a sweet smile, to which he briefly returned, then she saw him get back on the move - an expression of concern coloring his traits. That did confuse the woman, her eyes following his path and noticing that he was about to leave the building. She tried to shrug the feeling away, only telling herself that she’d poke him later about that...

((Part 10))

#it's-a-moi #business au #usual sorry for mistakes #that moment when I pump out drama a lil' faster than smut LOL #also note to self: DO NOT TRY TO EDIT/FIX ERRORS ON YOUR DAMN PHONE #stick to PC 😤#next chapter should come soon-ish as well - I'm pumped for this

33 notes · View notes

oddsnendsfanfics · 4 years ago

Text

Love, Uncle Sy

Genre: Fan Fiction (Sand Castle) Pairing: N/A Warnings: It’s so fluffy! Rating: G Length: Drabble Disclaimer: a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line. In no way am I affiliated to any of it.

A/N: I had fun with Sy and Willow, making Christmas cookies, so I brought them back for some adorable birthday fluff.

Henry Cavill Master List

Saturday morning, sun barely above the horizon and Sy was wide awake. As usual, his morning began in the kitchen, a pot of coffee perfuming the room while accompanied by the humid scent of dishwasher and frying bacon. He'd woke this morning, tossing and turning, a cold sweat cresting his brow. Nothing a shower and a soothing meditation tape wouldn't temporarily fix. Had he not been woke by the nightmares, Sy would have planned to sleep in – or his version of sleeping in, at least.

Waking from a nightmare on your birthday, should be criminal. Never the less, he had work to do once breakfast was over. In a few hours, he had to pack his truck with a few party favours and drive over to the local horse farm where his niece took lessons every Saturday morning. While Sy was turning older than he cared to remember, today was his niece's seventh birthday.

The grizzled Army vet loved all of his nieces and nephews, but Willow was certainly his favourite. She was his mini-me. His tiny partner in crime. His shadow, and the light of his life. From the moment Sy had held his birthday twin, he'd been in love. His heart was melting and there was nothing that he wouldn't do for that child.

Calling the dog back inside, he gave a scratch behind the ears. Plating his bacon and a piece of toast, saving a few pieces to cool as a treat for the faithful canine. Checking his watch, Sy frowned, 6AM was a little too early to call his birthday girl. He'd have to wait until he saw her later this morning, when he would also be presenting her with the most perfect present in the world.

Around 10AM Sy's truck was packed with a few birthday banners, balloons, cupcakes, and a giant pink sparkly bow. Willow's lesson ended at 11:30, if he wanted to get there and allow his sister time to set up then he had to hurry. Sy couldn't wait to see his niece's face, when he presented her with the present that he'd bought her. He could picture it now, her eyes shining and that adorable smile, ear to ear, squealing in pure delight.

Arriving while Willow was busy cleaning her tack, Sy managed to get somewhat set up. A kind parent helping to set up made it easier on Sy. One last thing to get from the truck and they were set. Sy shut the door, the case of cupcakes in his arm. Walking back to the surprise location, the last thing he'd expected when he stepped inside the barn was Willow running towards him, tears streaming down her face, sniffling and trying to contain the sobs of anguish. Stopping in his tracks, Sy removed his sunglasses, intercepting the little girl rushing towards him at the speed of light.

“Uncle Sy,” Willow rushed her uncle, tears in her eyes. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she sniffled.

“Hey Wispy, what's wrong Bub?” Sy stroked the back of her head, the braided pig tails messed from their time under her helmet.

“Oh Uncle Sy.” She wailed, bottom lip trembling. A child crying on their birthday was never a good sign. Squatting down to be the same height as his niece, Sy wiped her eyes. “Checkers.”

“What about him?”

“He's,” hiccup, “he...” she sobbed. “He's sold.”

Biting his bottom lip, Sy felt for the little girl. He wished they could have told her before now, but that would have ruined the entire birthday surprise. Of course her favourite pony had sold, the second Sy had heard that the striking spotted pony had a price tag, he called and negotiated the sale. Checkers had sold nearly two weeks ago, his new owner none the wiser that the pony even belonged to her – at her Uncle's request.

Aimee and Mike had been discussing buying their daughter her own pony, though funds and the right pony were never aligned. When Sy heard that the favourite lesson pony was going to be sold, he discussed it with his sister and knew what he had to do.

Seeing Willow sobbing uncontrollably was going to make the reveal that much sweeter. Even so, knowing something his niece did not, seeing her in such a state broke Sy's heart.

“Oh Wispy,” Sy soothed her, bringing her in for a tight hug. “I know it hurts now, but just think, Checkers is going to have a little girl of his very own. Don't ponies deserve a good home and all the love?”

“Yeah, but I'm going to miss him. I wish I could have him. I would love him forever, Uncle Sy.”

“I know bub, I know.” Gently giving her a squeeze, Sy let her go rubbing the tears away from her cheeks. “How 'bout you go finish putting your things away, then come find me and we can give Checkers some treats and tell him what a good pony he is?”

“Okay.” Willow nodded, hiccupping through a new batch of silent tears.

Close one. Sy stood, blowing out a heavy breath.

He had to hurry, if he wanted to be set up by the time Willow came back. He picked up the case of cupcakes. Delicately arranged in the shape of a pony, of course. Sy had worked hard baking, decorating, and creating the perfect birthday treat. Walking through the aisle of the small riding facility, Sy smiled seeing his sister and nephew waiting at the party site.

They had arranged to meet up after Willow's lesson, catching a few of her horsey friends before they left. Parents happy to wait for an extra hour to help the little girl celebrate her birthday. Sending Willow to the car to put her things away had been the only way Sy could get her far enough away to make their plan work.

“Sy, Happy birthday.” Aimee hugged her brother tightly. Careful not to squish the container of cupcakes that he held.

“Thank ya.” He kissed her cheek, smiling wide. Nodding to Ben, who would rather be anywhere else right now. “Wispy was pretty upset,” he commented glancing over at the pony who was standing in a holding paddock near by. “I nearly broke, Aim.”

“Oh god,” Aimee rolled her eyes, “who knew all it took to break the soldier was a crying child.”

“She's gutted,” He frowned, setting the cupcakes down on a small table decorated with a pink birthday sign, matching plates, and cups.

“Won't be for long,” Ben shrugged.

“Sure you and Mike are okay with this?” Eyeing his sister, Sy smirked adjusting his cap.

“Well, we kind of need to be. It's not like we've a choice.”

“Course you do, if you don't want the pony, I am sure Checkers and I would get on fine.” laughing, Sy took a good look at the pony who was content to eat the hay he'd been given. The big sparkly pink bow around his neck didn't seem to hinder him any. “He's a good looking boy.”

“I'd like to see you on that pony.” Her laughing intensified, Aimee snorted slapping Sy in the arm.

Her giant of a brother would look insane on the pony, even if Checkers was on the bigger end of being a pony. Hell, the last time she'd seen Sy ride he was maybe twelve, before girls and other interests had taken over his attention. Back then he would have loved to have his own pony. Their parents had allowed Aimee to begin taking lessons, when Sy had tagged along, insisting that he be allowed to ride too. Fearless, the six year old climbed onto the horse assigned to him and didn't bother to look back. For a few years everyone had began to assume that he'd eventually end up in high school rodeo, after that he'd find a woman and settle down on a farm somewhere.

Heh. What a life that would have been. A wife and kids were evidently not in the cards for this Syverson. He loved his nieces and nephews, but the scars his life bore, it would be unfair to condemn a child to a father who was broken and haunted by war. Clouds settling in his mind, Sy cleared his throat bringing himself back to the present matter at hand. Tormenting his sister.

“I happen to be a fine rider.” Winking at Ben; Sy nudged his sister. “I remember being a much better rider than some others that I know.”

“Shut up, I was a good rider.” Defending herself, Aimee stuck her tongue out at him.

“I know you were, but I was better that's all.” grinning from ear to ear, Sy ruffled his sister's hair, checking his watch. Willow was still missing, unlike her. “Should I go find Wispy? Bring her over?”

“Uh, yeah. If you don't mind.” Aimee nodded, checking her watch. The car had been unlocked, there was no obvious reason for her daughter to be held up.

Walking to the parking area, Sy laid his sights on the suv belonging to his sister. The doors were all shut and no sign of Willow. His truck, parked beside it was also vacant. In the back of the suv, Willow's stuff was tossed in. It looked like she had thrown it and ran.

“Wispy?” his heart began to thump when the car was clear. Logically, Sy knew that she couldn't have gone far. The soldier in him told Sy that there was no need to panic. The uncle side tried to take over his wildest imagination. No, sir he was not allowing those thoughts in. Listening for a moment, he took a deep breath steadying his heart and calming the pounding in his veins. “Willow?”

Behind him, he could hear a rustling in the grass. All the dogs were around the back and this was too big to be a barn cat. Following the noise around the corner of the shed, Sy's heartbeat returned to normal finding Willow sitting in the grass. Knees to her chin, her face stained with tears, her jeans dirty, boots covered in dust.

“You coming, birthday girl?”

“Uncle Sy?” Willow sighed, rubbing her hands against her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“My heart hurts. Is this what it's like when you have a broken heart?”

“Wispy, bub.” Sinking down to sit beside her on the grass, Sy felt his chest tighten. Wishing that Aimee had never mentioned the sale.

“I miss him already.”

“I know, but for now he's still here and he wants those carrots that I brought.” Trying his best to encourage his tiny shadow, Sy smiled. “If we go see him now, it means we get to spend more time enjoying Checkers than worrying. We can't predict tomorrow.”

Leaning into her uncle, Willow sighed. “But why did he have to sell? I love him, I don't want him going to a new home and on my birthday.”

“Oh Wispy,” Sy kissed the top of her head. He wanted to tell her, reassure her that Checkers wasn't going anywhere, but he didn't want to ruin the surprise just yet. “Honestly, bub, I don't know what to tell you. What I can tell you is that it won't always hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Now, your ma is waiting for us. Some of your friends have stayed, too. There are cupcakes.”

“Really? But I thought we were going to feed Checkers.”

“We are, after. I wasn't supposed to tell you about the cupcakes, but I even made them myself for you. Come on, let's go enjoy the day. It's our birthday! No tears on our birthday.” Standing, Sy held his hand out to Willow.

Grasping her Uncle's hand, she squeaked when he grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder. Laughing hysterically, Willow flopped around on his back, bracing herself with her elbows as he walked through the yard.

Seeing Sy with Willow over his shoulder, Aimee instructed Ben to grab Checkers and have him ready for his sister. Whatever. Ben crawled through the wooden fence, clipping a pink lead line onto the pony and coaxing him away from he hay. His sister was about to lose her mind. Straightening the bow, Ben smiled fondly at the thought of how happy his little sister would be.

“Happy Birthday, Wispy!” Sy announced setting her down, back to Checkers.

“Is this all mine?” Willow's eyes were wide as she stared up at her uncle.

“Sure is.” Nodding, Sy smiled with pride.

A few of the kids who had stayed were giddy with anticipation. Wishing their friend a happy birthday, waiting for the big moment. Turning to look at her mom, Willow spotted her brother with the pony. More tears in her eyes, she began to loudly sob. Her body shaking, words escaping her. Kneeling down beside his niece, Sy sniffed back his own tears.

“Happy birthday, Willow. He's all yours.”

“M-mine?”

“Yeah sweetheart, Checkers is all yours. If you want him.”

“I do. I really do, I love him so much.” Willow rushed the gate, fumbling to undo the latch. Frustrated she darted under the fence, throwing her arms around the pony's neck, hugging him tightly. “My own pony,” She whispered, causing Ben to smile. Handing his sister the lead line, Ben took a step back allowing his mom to take photo of the moment.

“Send me a copy, will ya Aims.” Sy wiped his hand across his eyes, putting his sunglasses on to hide the tears.

“You big softie.” Aimee nudged him. “Go on, get in the photo with them.” She urged her brother.

Stepping into the small paddock, unlatching the gate – unlike his niece and nephew there was no way in hell Sy was darting through the fence boards. He stood next to Willow for a moment, stroking the spotted neck of the content pony. Whispering softly to Checkers about what a good sport he'd been.

“I can't believe it.” whispering, Willow looked up at her uncle. “He's all mine.”

“He sure is, bub.” Holding out his arms Sy smiled when Willow rushed into them. Hugging her uncle tightly. Scooping her up, Sy took the lead line from her, holding Checkers beside them while Aimee took some photos. “Happy birthday, Wispy.” Sy smiled kissing her cheek.

“Happy birthday, Uncle Sy. Sorry that I didn't get you a pony.” Willow kissed his cheek, hugging her arms around his neck.

#captain syverson #captain syverson fanfic #henry cavill #captain syverson imagine

125 notes · View notes

corpsentry · 5 years ago

Text

behind the taylor swift gundam was in fact another, smaller gundam: a brief inquiry into the events of june 2020

so back in june this year june and i got together and we made this motherfucker of a story with this motherfucker of a thread to keep track of it all. but you already know that! and i’ve already got one foot and three elbows in my grave, so i’ll spare you the long-winded stuff. you wanna know how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks? i’ll tell you how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks-

-by linking you guys to copies of my planning documents because i feel like those words speak louder than any words i can offer in the present day. these are long documents. but they are also historical artifacts. very interesting. very weird. very, uh, full of cussing. so anyway, here’s

BIG DADDY: THE ORIGINAL PLANNING DOCUMENT

for those, like me, who have no motivation left in life to do anything and rely on summaries from others to acquire new knowledge, it all started with a single line.

prince of a fallen kingdom atsumu tries to kill hinata but falls in love with him instead

june, april something, 2020

with that in mind i tested the concept out with a few paragraphs of text, which you can find at the bottom of the Big Daddy document in the graveyard segment, accidentally sold my soul to the image of hinata with epaulettes, and then worked backwards, structuring an entire plot around two images:

a) hinata getting the shit beat out of him, with snark b) hinata and atsumu dancing in an empty ballroom under the stars

if you want a betrayal, you have to have something worth losing. if you want to fall in love with someone you don’t know, you have to meet them. if you have to meet them, there has to be a reason for that meeting, and so somewhere in between atsumu became a sword instructor and hinata the prince with daddy issues. june and i used this method of glancing anxiously over your shoulder to see what you’d missed to fill out the blanks in the story, after which i tacked up a bunch of post-its, typed out the plot, consulted june, typed out the plot again, and then broke the characters down into a bunch of questions, like ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they have?’ and ‘what are they afraid of?’

with the plot more or less ironed out, i decided it was time to start writing, and then i decided that i was actually too scared to start writing after all, so instead i set a couple of timers using classroomtimers.com (15-20 minutes long) and i sat down and i wrote about the world that hinata and atsumu inhabited.

each warm-up was 300-500 words long, and for the first few days, i’d write one before getting into writing the story proper. later these evolved into simply picking a scene from the story and launching straight into it, which became useful for opening those scenes later when i got to them organically.

then i got lazy! so i stopped. but these shitty little exercises were really useful for me because, unfettered by plot, convention, or any kind of tradition hovering over my shoulder, i was able to fuck around loosely enough to realize what i wanted this story to be. it was a very contrived kind of trial-and-error, an exploration of the characters, the story, but most importantly, the tone.

RESEARCH, PLANNING, AND VICTORIAN BOUGIE FASHION

this is a loose map of the castle and Important Locations within it, which i drew up at the start so i could keep track of where everything was and how i could get my characters from point A to point B. i wanted the story to have Some kind of internal logic, you know, even if that logic amounted to ‘a compass would function normally in this world whereas kageyama tobio would not’.

99% of my planning and organizing within those five weeks took place in this lovely dotted cat journal which my sister gave me for my birthday and i repurposed into a metaphorical Diary of Suffering while working on juno. i used it for everything from keeping track of narrative threads to clothing consistency checks, but the main purpose was this: each day at about 10 pm i’d crack open the cat book to a fresh page, stamp the date and the day of suffering at the top, and then write down a list of things i wanted to write, address, or fix today. then i’d sit at my laptop and write like a madman until about 7 in the morning. with breaks, of course, for sitting in the bathroom and staring at the wall and sitting in the kitchen and staring at the wall, but mostly i was writing. and complaining about writing. you were there, you probably remember that.

anyway, here are some pages from the cat book.

aside from the fact that my handwriting is complete shit, you can see that i made zero effort for any of this to be presentable. it was mainly a way for me to keep track of my thoughts because i have the attention span of an ikea wardrobe and tend to forget things as soon as i think of them. the lack of structure also mirrored the way that i went about writing juno. while i did proceed, for the most part, in chronological order, i had a lot of weird and useless revelations during lunch, which by this point was happening around 2 am, and in the 5 minutes before the exhaustion finally hit and carried me down to hell. i changed A Lot. again, to understand exactly how much the story evolved from day one onwards, please consult the big daddy document.

in the meantime, here’s something else.

once june sent over hinata and atsumu’s character designs i sat down like the fucking fool i am and spent 2 hours poring over a document about victorian and other fashion movements of the past so i could assign a noun, adjective, and verb to each element of their outfits. i don’t know why i did this. i certainly could have not, but i attempted to make sense of their ‘fits from a logistical perspective and that went into the cat book too. everything went into the cat book. the cat book is a relic of the past now, stuffed with artifacts such as the birth of oikawa tooru, and also his demise.

MEDIUM DADDY: EDITING, PROOFREADING, AND CREEPY MURDER CATS

i finished writing on june 26th, 2020, approximately a month after i’d first started planning, somewhere around may 27th or 28th. at that point i had about 90,000 words’ worth of story and no sanity left whatsoever, so i took a day-long break to stare at a wall and listen to taylor swift’s enchanted on loop.

and then i made a new document, which you can look at using the link above, and i laid out everything i had to do. i’d discovered a fuck ton of plot inconsistencies and general errors while writing and lying awake in bed at 9 a.m., sleepless in seattle, and now that i was free of the demon egging me towards the first finish line, it was time to Deal with them. i speed-scrolled through the draft, which was 200+ pages compressed into one google doc, because i like to tempt god’s wrath, and fixed up all the plot issues over the course of a few days. this was the fun part.

the actual, hard editing was the extremely un-fun part. i reread the entire thing, paragraph by paragraph, line by damn line, from start to finish, paying especially close attention to awkward phrasing, incomplete dialogue, and moments which had fallen flat in my haste to get on to the next one. this was really fucking terrible. i spent more time lying facedown on the floor than actually editing anything, but after a long time (about a week), that, too was done.

SMALL DADDY: TITLES, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD FUCKING BYES

i spent a good eighty days thinking about the title, though hilariously enough we ended up with something that was a blend of our names. june + elmo = juno, which is, all things considered, pretty perfect, but the process of picking the title was Hell, and i Did Not Come Up With The Title until about 2 hours before posting. you can take a look at the haphazard clusterfuck of my title-selecting process in small daddy, which is linked above.

so the title was a last-minute choice. so was the summary. and the chapter divisions. and actually all the songs in the playlist for juno. the day we dropped juno onto planet earth like a newborn baby pitched out of the sky, i spent an hour hunched over my laptop, cutting my 213 page google doc into chapters based on nothing more than a Vibe. two days before that, i also attempted to voice-act the entirety of juno, an affair which ended at the 20,000 word mark with a sore throat and the kind of exhaustion one typically wants to sleep in a coffin for 23 years to get rid of. so in all honesty, i did very little editing, which is why there are definitely minor typos and/or mistakes hanging out somewhere on that chunky ao3 webpage. but whatever.

my attitude by july 5th (was it july 5th? or 4th? somewhere around there) was basically whatever. anything so i could get finish this damn thing, chuck it out of the window, and never see another google doc until the next century. i’ve been asked a few times how exactly i wrote at a rate of roughly 2000-3000 words per day for four weeks straight, and my answer has always been this: i died. what died, you ask? my soul. my spirit. my Will To Live. i’m a creature of fixations, and juno was my fixation for june. will i ever be able to do this again? would i recommend this experience to anyone? is god real? the answer to all of the above is probably no. juno was a fever dream, and so is my cat book. and so are all the lattes i had. and so was my 9 am to 4 pm sleep schedule.

but what we made is real. the research, oikawa tooru, the 4 am conversations in which i was like ‘how the fuck do i end this’ and june was like ‘jade proposal’ (the proposal was her idea. all rise for twitter user atsuhinas. she is the mastermind behind all of the Inch Resting moments in this story; i just flapped a korok leaf in her direction and made sure the air circulation was working properly) are real as fuck, and looking back, there’s a lot i’d change, but i’m lazy. and college is starting. and anyway, i did write 93,035 words in just under five weeks, four if you don’t count the week of Editing Hell, so i think that’s pretty cool.

thank you for reading this to the end, and for following us on our journey through the enigmatic taylor swift gundam fic which quite literally consumed my entire twitter account for the five weeks i spent working on it. retrospectively speaking i really was butt-obsessed so i am frankly incredibly impressed with everyone around me for putting up with a Husk of a Man for a month. thank you for doing that. thank you for indulging my vague tweeting, and our butterfly dns, and for reading 93 thousand words of gay fanfiction set in a high fantasy world with epaulettes and galettes. on behalf of june, once again, we are incredibly grateful for all your support.

if you have any questions about specific aspects of the writing process, or anything you’d like to know in general with reference to JUNO, feel free to drop me an ask through my tumblr inbox, or through my curiouscat over here. i’m aware i didn’t cover everything, but there’s frankly too much to put in a tumblr post without passing away somewhere around the 56% mark, so let me know what’s on your mind, and i’ll try to answer that to the best of my abilities. but anyway, before i go, here are some

TAKEAWAYS

one: don’t try to write 93,000 words in five weeks. seriously don’t fucking do it you will end up jittery and sleep-deprived and you will leave all your friends on read for a month. pace yourself. set realistic goals. you wrote 2k this week? that’s fantastic. you wrote 4k in a day? you absolute motherfucker. i hope you’re taking a long fucking break tomorrow. your story will not run away from you, but if you run too fast, you will get tired, and then you will pass away.

two: you don’t have to know everything about your story before you start writing. in fact if you have a single camera shot of two characters holding hands under a rose garden awning, i think that’s fucking wonderful. if you look at big daddy, you’ll realize that my initial plot draft, and all the ones following that, are not perfectly aligned with the final version of juno. i improvised over half of the scenes in this motherfucker, and to be completely honest, some of the improvised scenes were the best. fucking oikawa tooru was improvised out of nowhere. he only got written in way later, around chapter 8 or something, because i realized i needed a plot device and a source of information to keep the playing table from toppling over. i Sat Down one day and was like ‘okay, it’s time to write oikawa into the introduction. because he matters now. he didn’t matter last week but now he does, and soon he’s going to be the fulcrum of the entire story, because it’s like that with oikawa tooru’. it’s okay to change your mind halfway. it’s okay to go back and rewrite entire scenes or segments. it’s okay to highlight 4 pages of fresh, sentimental writing, and hit delete. writing is a fluid process, and you Will make discoveries as you progress through your story alongside your characters. be understanding of that iterative process. be kind to yourself.

three: You Are That Motherfucker. you, me, your dog, your dog’s friend, your dog’s enemy, all of us are that motherfucker. i never thought i’d be able to write anything longer than the great big map, which was a much simpler, linear story in which the other main character did not appear in the current timeline until like the eighth chapter. juno was different. juno was the motherfucker, and i was scared shitless of it, and to cope with that fear joked constantly while writing that it’d never see the light of day.

but it did. it was a rocky process, and i was awake for 48 hours after posting it because of the sheer adrenalin stuck in my skull, but i got through it. and i wouldn’t have been able to do it without june, who stepped in when i flopped over facedown on the floor and dragged me to my feet like the badass friend she is, and without everyone else in my life, who put up with me talking about The Thing that i couldn’t really talk about, but juno’s up there now. forever, or until the internet collapses and civilization goes extinct. and if the nineteen year old clown with the attention span of an ikea armchair and an a level certificate from hell wrote the 93,000 word long thing, so can you. i mean this completely unironically and with every ounce of genuine emotion i can summon from the cracked asshole of my heart.

writing is hard. writing is scary. writing is an investigation of the world around you and therefore, by extension, yourself, and that kind of honesty is freaky. it’s like going skinny-dipping next to the president’s mansion. who’s going to see you? what if they take a photo? what if you lose your spot at university?

but don’t think about that. our world is overrun with stories the way cereal bowls are full of cereal, but it’s those stories that keep us all sane in the disgusting day-to-day muck of reality, so think about your story. what’s haunting you today? what message do you want to leave printed in font size 666 comic sans across the southern hemisphere of the planet? what will you be tomorrow?

a writer. you’re going to be a motherfucking writer.

#my stuff

37 notes · View notes

mitigatedchaos · 5 years ago

Text

@learn-tilde-ath

Perhaps anon isn’t saying “it would be correct to view it in the opposite way” so much as “isn’t this flawed like the opposite world be”? Like, uh, what if neither coalition is particularly agentic, and, there’s not really anyone at the wheel?

To continue the grumpy post with another long, grumpy and uncharitable post (again ‘J’ key to skip),

“You can’t be racist against white people, because racism is prejudice plus power.”

By itself, that statement should be enough to realize that Social Justice is ideologically corrupt and that it shouldn’t be given power, including by listening to and following its pronouncements on who is and isn’t “racist.” I considered that obvious the first time I encountered this stuff. I’ll explain how.

The statement is incredibly racist. Or rather, because Left/Libs determine what “racist” is and have decided as a group that it isn’t racist, the statement is incredibly Alternative Racist, or alt-racist.

To end racism, it was supposed to be the case that no one was going to be allowed to, well, do racism. It’s true that “white people” “face less systemic oppression” in general. It is not true that they either never face systemic oppression, or that they never could face systemic oppression in the future. “White people” being allowed to call something “racism” is part of how they’re supposed to prevent the emergence of organized racism against them in the future, if it should come to that, and part of how they enforce the agreement to prevent the agreement’s gradual erosion. Removing the ability to declare racism just because it “isn’t needed” fundamentally disrespects the personhood of “white people” as a party to the agreement.

It is a violation of the agreement, and a pretty major one.

It doesn’t matter if “but it’s a sociological term.” We all know that “racism” in common use most certainly isn’t a sociological term, and that this redefinition is based on bad faith strategic equivocation to leverage the emotional load for the existing term “racism.”

Just about everything in Social Justice is like this.

Let’s take another example. “Lived experiences.” You aren’t supposed to dismiss “lived experiences.” I get what this is reacting against, which is also a logical fallacy - “statistically your group suffers less of this, therefore it can’t have happened to you”. However, it’s still bad epistemology. “Oppressed people” are said to have special information that overrides and is more important than statistics, and which “privileged people” fundamentally can’t understand.

Special information that outsiders can’t understand even if you tell them? That one can’t verify from observations? That sounds like a security exploit for your brain, doesn’t it?

All it takes is to apply just a small assumption of the possibility of bad faith.

“Privileged people can’t see their own privilege.”

Same deal. It’s not hard to notice. Why didn’t they?

Each one of these statements is questionable in itself, but of course they’re much worse when taken in the context of all the other statements.

Take, for instance, “all white people benefit from white supremacy.” (If you mean all white people benefit from e.g. throwing innocent black people in jail then no, that’s begging the question of their guilt. It costs almost one median national income to keep someone in jail, so unless you hate black folks already, keeping someone who wasn’t going to commit a crime penned up for the benefit of drug-planting Racist Louisiana Sheriff B. Adolf Higgins is a huge waste of money that just makes other people angry at you and your government.)

There’s no point making that kind of statement unless you’re trying to pin collective moral liability on the basis of race, presumably under the (broken) assumption that whoever you’re making the statement to can put pressure on Sheriff Higgins, even though Sheriff Higgins was already considered in the wrong at that time. It essentially presumes a racial command and control infrastructure. Going with the high-contextualizer mode that we’re supposed to apply to racism claims in order to detect subtle, hidden racism, otherwise, why even say it? It’s a claim “you’re receiving stolen goods, therefore you need to act (as we say) or you are guilty.”

But combine that with the constant talk about colonialism, conquest, and genocide, which are called “white supremacy,” and then combine that with talk about unearned “privilege.” Suddenly we have not only collective moral liability, but collective moral liability going back seventeen generations, extending to actions on multiple continents, many of which were quite bloody. Since “the benefit” is most of an entire continent, then “removing the unearned benefit” implies removing the continent, plus interest, plus an amount of suffering equivalent to every war waged by colonial European powers.

“Well they don’t really mean that,” one might say. But the thing about outwards-facing ideological rhetoric is that the next generation doesn’t get the joke.

It’s quite a gamble vs. just keeping individual moral liability and moral liability by ideological/political groups where membership is fluid. It’s also illiberal.

There are all sorts of other approaches. Free school lunches, afterschool programs, food stamps, and the like can reach the worst off, including when “worst off” is not evenly distributed, but don’t have this kind of spectacular potential failure mode. Likewise, demanding police reforms, even on the basis of being victims of racial prejudice, doesn’t require this.

Back when it came out, I thought it was just a few lunatics on the Internet. Then suddenly, it was everywhere. “Respectable,” “serious” people supported this kind of nonsense that was alt-racist against JAWs, and institutions started working this stuff into their rules. Not the full implications, of course. Just, say, hiring people on the basis of their “diversity” statements, as one UC school did, to take an example. (Or in the gender case, weakening standards of evidence for accusations of sex crimes... but in practice only against men.)

Going to Afghanistan could be interpreted as “reacting to” 9/11. Going into Iraq can’t really. Back during that era, Team Blue were “team” “science and reason” and “better than” those “dumb religious conservatives.” It was argued that they would get better outcomes because they had a better theory of knowledge, as demonstrated by not believing in the supernatural.

Then they went and gave power to an alt-racist cult that should have tripped their internal cult warnings before they even got close to it.

There was going to be a reaction to the first black President not immediately ending all racism, but deciding to attribute that to “white people” (actually JAWs, see e.g. “white-adjacent,” “people of more color”) instead of an ideological group (they have been blaming Republicans as racist for years, why not just keep doing that?) was a choice that they made.

So either they’re less cult-resistant, dumber, or more immoral than my initial judgments of them during the late Bush and early Obama administrations.

If both groups are stupid, evil, and culty, then it’s question of which stupid evil cult most suits my purposes at a given time, including which one is more threatening to me and my long-term interests.

#politics #longpost

25 notes · View notes

themazerunnergroupforever · 5 years ago

Text

Titanic || Newt Dawson

Part 1. The Back Of The Ship.

Pairing: Newt Dawson x Rose DeWitt Bukater, Cal Hockley x Rose DeWitt Bukater

Warnings: Mentions of suicide, mentions of rape (didn’t happen though, it was just assumed.) Pretty much just like the movie.

A/N: 2.5k words.

Requests: Open.

Summary: Rose was forced to go on the ship by her soon to be husband, Cal. She thought it was going to be like prison. She wanted to end things until Newt convinced her not to.

Today was the day I had to board the RMS Titanic. I was with my fiancée, Cal. I hated him, but nobody cared. I never did say it out loud. I made it obvious to my mother though. My mother was forcing me to marry him because he had money. She said it didn't matter if I loved him or not, he had the money so we could stay wealthy. That was the only thing she cared about. I looked at the massive boat in front of me, dreading getting onto it. I didn't want to be trapped on this ship. It was going to be like jail. Dressing up and acting proper every single day. It was going to be hell. Cal ordered some people to bring our stuff to our rooms. He went to my mother’s side escorting her onto the boat, while I followed behind them. As I stepped through the door, I hated everything I saw in front of me.

As everyone was helping us set up our rooms, I was getting out the paintings I had brought. One of the lady’s was helping me grab all the different pieces I had brought. “God not those finger paintings again. They certainly were a waist of money.” Cal said entering the room, watching me with all the artwork. “The difference between Cal’s taste in art and mine, is that I have some.” I said to no one in particular. I just wanted Cal to hear it. “They’re fascinating, like being inside a dream or something. There’s truth but no logic.” I said describing how I felt about the artwork. “What’s the artists name?” The lady who was helping me grab all the different paintings asked me. “Something Picasso.” I answered her. Cal chuckled. “Something Picasso. He wont amount to a thing.” He said. Cal continued to complain, but I walked into a different room so I could go hang up the paintings. The lady who was helping me followed me into the room as well.

We had went to sit at a small table with just a few people at it to talk and eat. “She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all of history and our master ship builder, Mr. Andrews here designed her from the keel plates up.” Mr. Ismay said. “I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay’s. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale and so luxurious in its appointments that its supremacy would never be challenged and here she is, willed into solid reality.” Mr. Andrews said. I lit a cigarette and started smoking it. My mother leaned over to me and said “You know I don't like that Rose” I blew the smoke right out into her face. “She knows” Cal said, as he took the cigarette out of my hand and put it out. I was annoyed by it, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't. The waiter came over and Cal ordered us both lamb. Didn't even bother to ask what I’d like. “You like lamb right sweet pea?” He asked me. I looked over and gave him the fakest smile ever. “You gonna cut her meat for her there too Cal?” Margaret Brown said, laughing. Cal glared at her.

“Hey, who thought of the name Titanic?” Margaret Brown asked. She looked over at Bruce and smiled. “Was it you Bruce?” She asked. “Well, yes, actually. I wanted to covey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength.” Bruce said. “Do you know of Mr. Freud, Mr. Ismay?” I asked. “His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.” I said. Margaret Brown was nodding her head smiling. Mr. Andrews tried not to laugh. My mother leaned over to me “What has gotten into you?” She whispered to me. “Excuse me” I said, getting up and leaving.

I had walked out onto ship deck, looking off at the water ahead of us. I looked down to notice a boy staring at me. He looked as if he was around my age, he had shaggy blonde hair. That was really all I could tell, he was a little ways from me, sitting down. I looked back at the water, but I could feel him still looking at me, so I looked back over again. Only for a split second. He was in the lower class, so I wouldn’t see him again. Cal came out, grabbing my arm. We argued a bit before I walked away from him. He followed right behind me after a second.

We had gone to dinner with a bunch of other wealthy people on the ship, as they spoke around me, I zooned out. I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice with no one to pull me back. No one who cared or even noticed.

I ran to the back of the ship. I didn't know why I was heading there, I just wanted to be away from all those people. I didn't want this to be my life, it couldn't be. I didn't know how to get away from it. As I ran, I was crying. The tears streaming down my face. I hit the back rail of the dock. That's when the idea hit me as I looked into the water. I looked around to see if anyone else was around and when I didn't see anyone I started climbing over the rail. My back was to the ship, and in front of me laid the deep dark ocean. This is how I was going to get away from it all. If I just jumped. Nobody would know. I would be lost at sea. Free from my future.

“Don't do it” Someone called from just behind me, it startled me, and I let out a gasp. He was the boy that I saw looking at me earlier. He had blonde shaggy hair, he was tall, he had a very deep British accent and he was quite handsome. “Stay back! Don't come any closer!” I said, He had his hands up, walking slowly closer to me. “Come on, just give me your hand. I’ll pull you back over” he said, waving his hand, gesturing for me to grab as he kept coming closer “No. Stay where you are. I mean it! I’ll let go!” I said. he showed he had a cigarette in his hands and showed that he wanted to throw it overboard. He moved closer to me, throwing it overboard, He now wasn't very far from my side. “No, you wont” He said. “What do you mean no I wont? Don't presume to tell me what I will or will not do, you don't know me!” I said to the stranger who was annoying me. “Well you would have done it already” He said softly. I hesitated for a second before I said, “You're distracting me, Go away!” “I can’t. I'm involved now. You let go and I’m gonna have to jump in there after you” He said, starting to take off his shoes. “Don't be absurd, you’ll be killed” I said, as I watched him. “I'm a good swimmer” He said. Untying his shoe. “The fall alone will kill you” I said, looking from him back to the water. “It would hurt, not saying it wouldn't. To tell you the truth, I'm a little more concerned about that water being so cold.” He said, looking up at me. “How cold?” I hesitated to ask. “Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over. you uh, you ever been to Wisconsin?” He asked me. “What?” I asked, confused as to where he was going with this. “Well they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there near Chippewa Falls. I remember when I was a kid, me and my father, we went ice fishing on Lake Wissota. Ice fishing is where you know-” He was saying, but I cut him off, annoyed that he thought I didn't know what ice fishing was. “I know what ice fishing is!” I yelled. I sighed heavily, annoyed. “Sorry! You just” he waved his hands at me gesturing about me. “Seem like you know, kinda an indoor girl” He said, giving a weird look. “Anyway, I uh, I fell through some thin ice. and I'm telling ya. Water that cold. like right down there, it hits you like a thousand knives, stabbing all over your body, you can’t breathe, you cant think, at least not anything but the pain” He said. I watched the water as he was talking, thinking about the feeling of it. I was starting to regret thinking about jumping in. “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in after ya. Like I said, I don't have a choice.” He said. “I guess I’m kinda hoping you'll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here.” He said, leaning a little over the rail to look at me. “You’re crazy!” I said. “That's what everybody says, but with all do respect miss, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship here.” He said “Come on. Come on, give me your hand. You don't want to do this” He said, I stopped for a second then reached over, grabbing his hand, I started turning slowly so I could face back around. I managed to turn around and I was facing him, he was even handsomer up close, “Whew” He said and smiled at me. “I'm Newt Dawson.” He said. “I'm Rose DeWitt Bukater” I said, “I'm gonna have to get you to write that one down” He said laughing a little. I laughed too. Then I smiled at him, “Come on” he said, I was about to step up to climb back over but as I stepped on the second bar I stepped on this stupid dress and slipped.

I screamed as the only thing keeping me from falling to my death was Newt. He grunted as he tried to get a better grip on me. “Come on, come on!” He said, as he started pulling me up more, but as I grabbed the railing I slipped again. I screamed again, as he only had me by one arm. “Help Please!” I screamed. “Please help me!” I screamed. “Listen to me!” He said. “I’ve got you, and I won’t let go. Now pull yourself up, come on!” He grunted as he pulled on me, I grabbed the railing pulling myself up too. I grabbed the top railing, struggling to keep pulling. “Come on!” he said again. “You can do it!” I got up just over the railing and he wrapped his arms around my back, pulling me completely over. “I got you” he said, and he turned trying to get my feet over, but we fell onto the ground, he landed on top of me. “What's all this?” One of the ship workers said as 3 of them made their way over to us. Newt jumped off me immediately. I was shaking, as the guy looked at me then back at Newt. “Stay back! and don't move an inch!” He yelled at Newt. Newt stood up, putting his hands in his pocket. The ship worker yelled something at the other guys.

They had wrapped me in a blanket and got me to sit down on one of the benches. Someone offered me a drink, but I shock my head. Newt was being put in handcuffs. “This is completely unacceptable” Cal yelled at Newt. “What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancée?” He said into Newt’s face. Newt looked over at me. “Look at me you filth!” Cal yelled grabbing Newt by the collar of his shirt. “Cal!” I said. “What do you think you are doing?” Cal said shaking Newt, who just stared at him. “Cal!” I yelled. walking over to him. “Stop!” I said grabbing him so he would stop shaking Newt. He was about to say something else when I said, “It was an accident!” Cal slightly laughed a bit shocked at what I just said. “An accident?” he repeated, he looked very confused. “It was” I said, “It was stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped!” I started “I was leaning far over to see the, uh uh uh the, uh uh” I was trying to figure out a word, I started waving my hands around in circles to see if he would get a word out of what I was trying to say, “Propellers?” He asked watching my hands. “Propellers! and I slipped!” I repeated, he rolled his eyes at me. “And I would have gone overboard, but Mr. Dawson here saved me, and almost went overboard himself!” I said, looking back at Cal. “You wanted to see- She wanted to see the propellers” he said laughing at my stupidity. “Like I said” One of the people there started, “Women and machinery do not mix” He was making his way around Cal and I over to Newt. “Was that the way of it?” The guy who had him cuffed asked him. Newt looked back over at me and I gave him a look saying to say it was true. He looked at Cal for a second. He nodded his head “Yeah. Yeah that was pretty much it” He said. “Well the boys a hero then. Good for you son. Well done. So, all is well. Back to our Brandi then eh?” He said with a laugh. The guy uncuffed Newt. I was looking at Newt when Cal started rubbing my arms. “Look at you, must be freezing! Let’s get you inside” He said, pulling me closer into him, starting to walk away. As we walked past the guy who said Newt was a hero he said. “Uh perhaps a little something for the boy?” Cal and I stopped. Looking back at Newt. “Of course,” Cal said. He turned “Uh Mr. Lovejoy, I think a 20 should do it” Cal said then went to turn again. I scoffed, “Is that the going rate for saving the women you love?” I said to him. Cal looked at me annoyed a bit. “Rose is displeased. What to do?” He said, thinking. “I know” he said to me, then walked over to Newt, who was putting his jacket back on. “Perhaps you can join us for dinner tomorrow evening? To regale our group with your heroic tale!” Cal offered. “Sure. Count me in” Newt said, staring at Cal. Cal glared at him, “Good, it’s settled then” he said. He walked back over to me with the other guy, “This should be interesting” I heard him say to the other guy. The guy nodded and said mhm. I watched Newt until Cal got to me grabbing me, turning me around and leading me back inside.

13 notes · View notes

jowritesthingss · 5 years ago

Text

A (Demi)Boy and His Demon: Prologue

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): LoSleep (Logic | Logan + Sleep | Remy)

Rating: Teen

Content Warning(s): lots of swearing, religion mention, demons mention, injury/blood (Remy gets a papercut)

Length: 1,418 words

Brief Summary: Sleep-deprived writer Remy accidentally summons a serious-and-seriously-fed-up demon named Logan. Prologue. In Which Remy Inadvertently Summons a Demon

Fic Masterlist!

In Remy’s defense, he hadn’t exactly meant to summon a demon in the middle of a coffee shop on just another typical Tuesday.

And they most certainly hadn’t meant to bind the poor sap to them for the rest of their (presumably now-shortened and miserable) life.

But there he was.

And that was exactly what he had done.

But—erm, well. We’ll get there.

“Remy!” a familiar voice chirped as said enby pushed the door open to his favorite haunt. “Do you how do?”

“Ugh. Like, horrible.” The answer was instinctual at this point. Usually it was just sarcastic, but on a deadline like this? Satan had nothing on the wrath of an editor.

The echo of the bell ringing bright through his ears, Remy walked over to the front counter, where his good friend and caffeine addiction enabler stood. They tried in vain to pretend that they were swaggering and not at all staggering from sleep deprivation and lack of caffeine.

“So it’ll be the usual for you, then, yeah?” Emile smiled, and god, for all the years they’ve spent working as a barista themselves, Remy would never understand how Emile could stay so upbeat while on-shift.

“You know it, gurl,” Remy answered, fishing out his wallet. “Although gimme the largest size this time, hun’.”

Emile clucked sympathetically, already turning and getting started on Remy’s iced coffee. “Deadline coming up?”

“Uh-huh. Tonight.” Remy sighed, slapping a ten dollar bill onto the counter. “I’m due to get the script for chapter sixty-nine to Remus, but like, he’s been too busy giggling over the number of the upcoming chapter to finish the one we’re supposed to publish tomorrow. Virgil’s on the warpath, and I’ve been roped into designing shit to make up for Remus falling behind.” He rolled his eyes.

“Golly, that sure sounds rough.” Emile slid some ice into Remy’s coffee before popping a lid on it, swirling it a couple times, and sliding it across the counter with some verbal sound effects to accompany it. He picked up the tenner and began to punch things into the cash register, counting out change for Remy. “But I believe in you!”

“Gurl, you shouldn’t. I don’t,” Remy snickered. They reached back into their bag, groping around for their reusable straw. Pulling it out, he popped it into his cup. “There’s a reason I’m the brains behind the writing of this operation, not the art. You think I’d be working with those idiots if I had a choice?”

“Yes, I do,” Emile said mildly. He handed over Remy’s change.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fair.” Shoving his change into the tips jar, Remy rolled his eyes. Again. They did that a lot. Which, how could he not, when he was surrounded by so many dorks?

“Anyways, I’ll be in my usual corner, I guess.” Remy jerked their head towards their usual corner table. “Lemme know if you need any help back there, babe. Or if any tea needs spilling.” They winked at Emile from behind their sunglasses before turning and heading to sit down.

Once seated, Remy pulled out his laptop and the battered spiral notebook that he kept most of his ideas for their comic in. Exchanging their sunglasses somewhat reluctantly for a pair of blue light glasses, he booted up his computer. Then, after setting everything up in its typical position and connecting to the wifi in the coffee shop, Remy allowed themself a moment to sit back and sip at their iced coffee.

The contrasting tastes of sweet white mocha and bitter coffee filled his mouth, and Remy felt his shoulders relax for what had to be the first time in twelve to twenty-four hours.

Classes earlier in the day had been an absolute nightmare of scribbling in margins and surreptitiously typing the script up on his phone when professors weren’t looking. Then the night before had been a horror-filled dream sequence of exhaustion and trying to write actual content down without falling asleep on the keyboard and waking up with the L key imprinted on their nose and sixteen pages of keysmashes.

So suffice to say, Remy was not having a good time. But the iced coffee? It warmed their gay little heart. It made things just a bit more bearable on days like this.

All too soon the buzzing of his phone reminded Remy of their subsequent impending deadline and doom, and he came crashing back down to earth.

Sipping once more at their iced coffee, Remy set it off to the side, slipping in his earbuds and focusing in on the Word document in front of him. They began to type.

Three hours and two refills later, Remy had finished chapter sixty-nine, had sent it to Virgil to look over, and had even started on chapter seventy for a good measure.

Until Virgil sent back his edits, Remy’s focus of the moment had shifted to designs for chapter sixty-six, which Remus should’ve started drawing a few days ago, but nooo, the asshat wasn’t even done shading sixty-five, which was supposed to be posted in...Remy consulted their phone...in roughly six hours now. Fuck.

Remy couldn’t draw for shit, but they could research like nobody’s business, and designing and sketching was simple enough, so he wasn’t entirely unused to getting dragged into stuff like physical character designs and the creation of symbols and outfits (Remus was far too oafish and uncoordinated when it came to fashion, anyway).

Shaky as Remy’s art was, Remus certainly knew how to pick out what he liked from Remy’s miserable excuses for sketches, at least, so their partnership worked well enough...even if Remy privately thought his similarly-named partner acted like a dolt and smelled like minute ramen (and not even the good kind! more like the shrimp kind, and what the fuck kind of imbecile eats shrimp-flavored microwave ramen).

Finally satisfied with the roughly-sketched summoning circle that they had copied from the web, Remy exited out of Google Images.

Summoning circles, Remy had to admit, were a new topic of research for him. Their story—a Good Omens-type comic centering around an angel and a demon trapped in the human world—had required plenty of research into religion and religious imagery, of which they had not been a fan, but for some reason summoning circles had never really cropped up on their radar.

Remy may not have been a fan of the concept of angels, but he certainly wasn’t a fan of the concept of demons and the occult, either, so digging through the ominously dark websites had been...interesting. Eventually they had just given up and straight-up copied a summoning circle at random. They could take that and go from there, adding their own flair to it.

Remy looked down at the shaky summoning circle he had sketched out before him. It was kinda lopsided, but it was whatever. It was also much too boring, if you asked him. When they sent Remus their final reference, they’d put a note in the margins telling him to add some of that weird gory imagery stuff he was obsessed with. “Creep would really like that, huh,” Remy muttered aloud to himself.

Scrutinizing the copied circle for a few more moments, Remy mentally listed out some of the changes they wanted to make—an extra line here, a circle there, take out that square—and they reached into their backpack for one of the random looseleaf sheets of paper he always had floating around in there. Only, they grabbed at the wrong corner of the paper.

Feeling the sheet of paper slice into their pointer finger, Remy quietly hissed out a breath. “Fuck.” He drew his finger out of the bag, pulling it up to his face to get a good look at the injury, and shit, the papercut was bad enough that it was actually bleeding.

“Goddammit,” Remy cursed as a few drops of crimson splattered onto the paper in front of them, blurring over the details of the summoning circle he had drawn.

Remy popped his finger into his mouth and sucked at the smidgen of blood leaking out. Deciding to actually look at what they were sticking their hand into this time, they turned to the left, fully intending to practically stick his head into his bag to find a napkin and that pesky sheet of paper both.

This was how they came to be aware of the person who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to stand to the side of their table.

Prologue || One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six

This was supposed to be a one-shot, but Remy told Logan to hold their coffee and then bullied me into making it a prologue and six chapters’ worth of useless gays. I accept my defeat with dignity and insist that it was, in fact, actually my decision in order to get used to writing multi-chap things again before I tackle my Big Bad AUs.

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

4 notes · View notes

gurguliare · 7 years ago

Text

Anyway I finally finally finished the TM post-mortem so have one last rundown

Really loved: Signet’s stupid relics runway show, Ali describing the Mirage/Splice resolution as “the most amazing Gift of the Magi fuckup,” and, oddly, Keith’s reflections on anarchism, though idk if enough of that made it legibly into the season---which is one of the ways Gig was underserved, I guess.

I also enjoyed and appreciated the discussion of TM’s utopianism as monumental artistic challenge. I obviously have criticisms wrt execution and I disagree with some of their analysis of TM’s failures and shortcomings, but I thought everyone was refreshingly honest about the sheer scale of the task, in a way that I often missed during the series proper---when the tone sometimes tended more toward “we’ve set ‘depicting a utopia’ as our goal, and of course we share a coherent (static) vision of what that entails, and know exactly how to get from here to there.”

I was dissatisfied at best with the conversation about redemption vs rehabilitation. I might be more convinced by the distinction if Austin had ever stopped saying “sin”... which, among other things, helps to selectively blur together abuse and other forms of violence. (I’ve given up on even dreaming of a world in which FATT covers its ass better in re: Christian-centric, frankly Catholic-centric readings of both morality and faith, and maybe it’s for the best that they lack the wherewithal to mask that.) That said, I think it’s very striking that Even Gardner’s violence and militarism seems dealt with in-story almost exclusively as a form of trauma and a thing that happens to Even Gardner, while Fourteen’s history with Castlerose is discussed (up to the time of the finale) almost exclusively in terms of Sins Fourteen Committed. I’m not saying those framings are ~flipped, but the ratio does seem off. Even has a fuckton of choices at every step of the way and experiences basically no material repercussions or visible change of heart, other than “once there are no Advent people left I’ll stop targeting Advent.” He’s also, notably, “brought back from the edge” by a played-straight romantic relationship, for some reason. Fourteen has like... half of a narrative about turning bad habits and even obsolete ideas to constructive ends, and half a narrative about reclaiming agency once safely away from your abuser, even at the cost of losing access to huge swathes of your life... but it’s an arc that goes so unacknowledged or unseen by the other characters that it never connects back up to the idea that, well, bound up in the problem of rehabilitation is the problem of forgiveness---or if we don’t like that language, then acceptance. It’s never clear on what terms Fourteen is judged and reintegrated into their community, and how and where their self-image aligns with others’ view of them.

Which is very, very lonely, and raises huge questions for me about the whole issue of Fourteen as ~disability representation and specifically as a test case for what terminal illness might look like in a utopia. It is just not clear what anyone’s goals were, as far as showing Fourteen supported in a systemic way and not just on the level of relationships. It’s very odd. I’m still puzzled by Jack and Austin’s remarks on this, especially the focus on what Jack had or hadn’t done with Fourteen in play. Literally every NPC (who has a stance on the issue at all) responds to Fourteen with undisguised horror at their memory dysfunction---the most sympathetic version of this is a lecture about integrating assistive technology into their daily routine! and the least sympathetic is the point-blank statement that Fourteen not remembering who they’ve killed is worse than killing those people in the first place. Like, what the hell? That’s a vision of morality that is entirely premised on repentance, and on the idea that expiation for a crime only comes with appropriate helpings of guilt. And it never really receives an in-universe challenge.

It was also weird to me that Grand didn’t come up at all in that part of the discussion. But then again it seemed like no one wanted to comment seriously on Grand’s arc in general; maybe Art was making really sad faces on the call or something. It’s a shame though, since you’d think it would be a good opportunity to go on some bullshit about “salvation NOT through good works,” or rather, salvation definitely through good works but everyone feels a little weird about it. Three bombs? Three bombs?

Finally, it is important that I dissect all remarks on shipping. I was a little perturbed by the discussion of Fourteen/Tender; I thought Ali’s IC reasons were perfectly valid but I found Jack’s slightly suspect, because I don’t think, uh, “this person flirts all the time but is too busy dying to pursue new romantic projects” really jives---either with Fourteen’s profound, active engagement with others (more active and deeper engagement the longer the season went on) or with Jack’s stated goal of presenting a dying person who, without being embroiled in regret or bitterness in the face of death, still loves their life. Obviously I don’t think romantic relationships are a requirement for that, but the blanket statement that Fourteen is Not That Person gave me trouble. Also, I just don’t think you can drop the “platonic relationship representation is so important” line in there without a LOT more unpacking of the pros and cons of that---who are the characters involved in that relationship, and are they people for whom nonsexual relationships are a top-of-the-line representation deficit? Also, is nonsexual vs sexual really the paradigm you want to cleave to here, in a discussion of the chemistry between an internet goddess and a hunk of data?

I’m a hypocrite though bc when they got to echogrand and went on about how it was important that Echo’s arc not center on romance I was like RIGHT ON

...

Okay. One more thing. Janine shooting down Signet/Blueberry; I was fond of this, though I obviously do not care about her opinion and will continue to do what I want---I don’t like “parental” as the trajectory for a dynamic whose foundational moment is the younger weaker party saving the older, that doesn’t do it for me. Of course children can save their parents, but they shouldn’t have to, and that certainly shouldn’t be the pattern that defines the relationship. And for Signet and Blueberry I think it really is; Signet offers Blueberry apologies, Blueberry offers Signet things Signet actually needs. That’s not parental. Nevertheless, I was fond bc it made me think about what a wealth of fun mentorship dynamics this season offered otherwise---with Tender and Morning’s Observation, and Fourteen and Sho, there are these really precious internal movements, or moments of slippage, from distrust to empathy and from faith to disillusionment, that I treasured as real, organic, slippery pieces of character writing and of writing about growth... My favorite example of this is when Morning’s Observation is FURIOUS with Tender after the fucking... rooftop debacle early on in the Wind’s Poem arc. And then again, more seriously, later, after he’s been essentially abandoned and has to save the day by drawing on parts of himself he wanted to give up. That feels like a moment of roleswap between “guardian” and “child” that is presented as appropriately bittersweet, pivotal, and rupturing, and which therefore preserves the logic of the original relationship even as it expands it. And I also love Grand’s awkward interference there, haha... esp in the context of Grand managing to disappoint Morning separately later on, when by that point it’s lost most of its oomph just because Morning has learned not to have expectations of these fucking geniuses. Which is its own mixed result.

(I wish there had been a bit more followup with Morning in the finale, actually, I don’t think he really got resolution on some stuff and I think “happy at the Brink with his moms” is more avoidant copout than anything, though not implausible or unreasonable avoidance from a character perspective. But like, the fucking... part in the Feast of Patina where it becomes increasingly apparent, throughout Morning’s glad monologue, that he did, in fact, do many of the same things as Grand? He betrayed former allies for an enemy faction in the name of convenience! That’s not all Grand did, but it’s not nothing. And everyone has to fall back on “but the Advent Group are fascists! Morning didn’t turn coat and join fascists!” when it’s like, well, would he have, if they had offered him spaghetti?

Not that I think Morning’s and Grand’s choices are remotely equivalent. But it was a very funny parallel for them to try to wriggle out of on the fly, and I wish they hadn’t---I wish they’d leaned into Morning’s lingering doubts, which would if anything have served to highlight that he does have good reason to stay. It’s just that those reasons don’t cancel out the doubts.)

#friends at the table #twilight mirage #ok i said last but i already feel another post boiling up in me about some comparisons austin made between c/w and tm but #i think i'll save that #for another time.

14 notes · View notes

amarauder · 7 years ago

Text

chapter twenty ❥ original

it’s a hate-love thing original version.

james potter x reader.

"I do think that people should've at least known that our O.W.L.s were near," commented y/n, staring as a hysterical Frieda Lawrence was carried off to the Hospital Wing on an invisible stretcher, guided by a sulking Mark Goldstein.

Remus smiled. "Well, you know, y/n, you're the one who's actually been studying for the O.W.L.s."

"And you haven't?"

"Er—well, don't tell Jenny that I have," he pleaded.

"All right, everyone, I guess this is the end of our meeting," said Teresa loudly. "I'm afraid, without our Ravenclaw prefects, that we can't accomplish anything. You are dismissed."

"That was such a waste of time," muttered y/n, as they exited the Prefect's Lounge. "We didn't accomplish a single bloody thing! I mean, what's there to be afraid of for the O.W.L.s? She could've studied! But, oh, they're drawing so near!"

"We have to memorize so many facts and spells and—oh, Merlin, my head's bursting just thinking about those bloody O.W.L.s," said Remus despairingly.

"Did someone mention O.W.L.s?" said Frank, one of the sixth year prefects, leaning curiously at the Gryffindor prefects. "Oh, I remember last year when we had to take it..." He groaned.

"It wasn't that bad, Frankie," argued Alice. "All right, History of Magic was a complete failure, but the rest were all right, I suppose."

"I failed Divination," informed Frank, nodding at Y/n and Remus. "I couldn't see a single bloody thing in that stupid crystal ball, so I made stuff up. Trelawney definitely wasn't convinced. I got a 'D' in it when my O.W.L. results came."

"You see, this is why I didn't take Divination. I took Arithmancy instead, and it turned out to be a very good choice, if I do say so myself." Alice drew herself up in dignity.

Y/n still didn't look very convinced, and she chewed her nails in worry. Alice saw this immediately and took charge by grabbing Y/n's hands away from her mouth.

" Y/n L/n, what do you think you are doing?"

"Oh, Alice, I can't help it! I always chew my nails when I'm nervous."

Remus gave an odd bark-like laugh that was very similar to Sirius'. "Y/n, you've gotten mostly O's and a few E's on your homework this year, and you're still worried? You'll do fine!"

"The worst of it is, Potter and Sirius never study, and they still do just as well!" she continued, rambling furiously.

"It is aggravating," admitted Alice. "I do know exactly how you feel. You see, Frank here has always gotten exceptional grades, and he doesn't even look at a textbook! How he got to be a prefect when McGonagall could've chosen Sturges Diggle from his dorm is beyond me—"

"Hey! For your information, I'm much smarter than Diggle, and I'm prettier."

Y/n and Alice giggled, while Remus and Frank shared looks that clearly said, "We men will never understand women."

"Moony!" exclaimed Sirius, bounding along the corridor tailed closely behind by James and Peter. "I see you're back early."

"Yes, Padfoot," said Remus, rolling his eyes. "You've just stated the obvious."

"How did you know that we were let out one hour earlier?" asked Y/n in wonder.

"So, what happened that made Teresa change her mind about the meeting?" continued Sirius, ignoring Y/n's question.

"Frieda Lawrence had a nervous breakdown and went into hysterics," explained Remus, chuckling slightly at the memory. "Mark had to take her to the Hospital Wing. Teresa decided it best to cancel the meeting, as our Ravenclaws were indisposed."

"It was a complete waste of time," said Y/n angrily. "I could've done my Charms homework in those fifteen minutes!"

James rolled his eyes. "Are you still thinking about those stupid O.W.L.s, L/n? Surely you know that someone like you will obviously do well in them. You'll probably get all the O.W.L.s you need to become an Auror."

"How did you know I wanted to become an Auror?" asked Y/n. "You Marauders are full of surprises every day."

"Our little secret," murmured Sirius, winking impetuously.

"Alice and I are going to become Aurors as well," reported Frank, beaming. "They're very elite, of course, but we've already got all the O.W.L.s we need for it. All we have to do is to get the N.E.W.T.s that are required to become one. Oh, and to pass all those tests during Auror training."

"But the bad part," said Peter mournfully, "is that we have to do Potions for our sixth and seventh year, since it's very useful for Aurors."

James groaned. "Don't remind me, Wormtail. Potions with Hurst for an extra two years...what WAS I thinking? But I really do need to become an Auror, so I suppose I just have to face the music."

"I hear that Hurst is only going to accept people with an 'O' on their Potions O.W.L.," remarked Y/n, her nerves getting the better of her again.

"Don't worry, you'll get into Potions class next year," reassured Alice, smiling. "I mean, Frank and I managed to scrape an 'O' in our O.W.L.s last year, but boy, it definitely wasn't easy—"

"We studied an extra four hours on Potions," said Frank heavily.

"You actually spent precious time doing that?" said James incredulously.

"Hey, Alice made me, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Jamie, when you're in love, you tend to do anything the love of your life wants you to do."

"That's not fair." James frowned.

"So that means Prongs will jump off the London Bridge, since he's in love with—OUCH! Merlin's beard, what did you do that for, Moony?" Sirius glared at Remus.

"Padfoot, I do believe you need to reconsider finishing that," said James, through gritted teeth.

"What the—oh yeah, whoops, what was I thinking?" Sirius laughed nervously.

"Er—" Frank, Alice, and Y/n raised their eyebrows at the foursome, and then shrugging. After all, the Marauders had their strange moments very often.

"So how many hours did you spend studying for your O.W.L.s?" asked Y/n, as they proceeded to the Fat Lady's portrait on the seventh floor.

"Oh, I'd say, maybe eight to twelve hours," replied Alice casually. Noticing the five fifth years' stares, she added, "It wasn't too long, some people spent nearly twenty-four hours a day studying."

"Merlin," whispered Sirius hoarsely. "Twelve bloody hours? That's complete hell!"

"We spent a third of the time on Potions, and the other two-thirds on the rest of the subjects. I suggested to study an extra two hours at night, but Frank wouldn't hear of it."

"Surely not!" cried the four Marauders.

"We're not even going to study, period," added James.

Frank and Alice both stared at them without blinking, as if trying to comprehend James' comment.

"Not study?" choked the latter. "You'll fail, then!"

"So let it be," said Sirius nonchalantly. "What difference will it make? Of course, Prefect Moony will study, since he's such a goody-two-shoes..."

"Padfoot," warned Remus, looking irritated.

"Oh, so sorry, Prefect Moony."

"Padfoot, shove it."

"You guys are so immature," said Alice, sighing. "Frank, I do pity you for being neighbors with Potter."

"I send you my condolences, Frank," agreed Y/n, wincing at the very thought of having James as a neighbor, let alone classmate.

"Thank you, ladies," said Frank, smiling amusedly, "but, really, once you get to know James, he's a nice guy and a romantic at heart..."

"Frank," mumbled James, turning rather red at the ears. The other three Marauders sniggered.

"Oh, what does he do, Frank?" queried Sirius eagerly. "Write love poems for Y/n?"

"Well, I don't know why you're all laughing," said Alice defiantly. "I think it's rather sweet." She smiled at a very scarlet Y/n.

"I was just joshing, James." The sixth year grinned and ruffled James' already-untidy hair affectionately.

"Hey!"

"What? You always make your hair messier than it already is, so I may as well help you. Oh yeah, and I don't know what the girls think, but I don't really think that messy hair attracts females."

"It certainly doesn't attract me," put in Alice.

"But you see, Alice," whispered Sirius, so that only she could hear it, "Jamie wants to impress Y/n and Y/n only—"

Alice's mouth curved upwards into a wide grin as her blue eyes glinted evilly at Y/n and James, who were now blushing furiously.

"Padfoot, shut up!" said the very crimson latter.

"Aww...but why, Prongs? Annoying the hell out of you is fun!"

"Padfoot," chided Remus, sighing helplessly. "Some people just never change..."

"Well, why should I?"

"Why do you guys have those funny nicknames anyway?" said Alice curiously.

"Er—" The four Marauders looked at each other, wide-eyed.

"Well, c'mon, you can tell us!" she urged.

"Uh..."

"Well, you see, it's a secret," said James.

"A secret?" repeated Alice blankly.

"Oh, yes, a secret. You see, it all began when Moony was just a wee baby—"

"All right, we get the point, Potter," snapped Y/n impatiently. "Don't even try to get answers out of them, Alice. They never give you a direct one, no matter how simple the question is."

Alice giggled. "Thanks for the note there, n/n."

"Y/n, where were you?" said Arabella, nearly bouncing on top of Y/n, followed shortly by Jennifer and Violet. "Sirius told us that you guys came out early from the meeting..."

"Yeah, Lawrence fainted," said Remus. "Pressure of the O.W.L.s, we all think."

"Don't tease," scolded Jennifer. "The O.W.L.s are pressuring."

"But you see," said Y/n logically, "if you guys studied beforehand, you wouldn't be so nervous."

"Like you?" asked James acrimoniously.

"Like me."

"And you thought I was an patronizing git."

"You are."

"Ha! Well, what about you? You just said that you aren't nervous, and now you're bragging to your own friends that you studied beforehand. At least I don't brag to Sirius, Remus, or Peter."

"You do too!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do n—"

"Oh, will you please put a cork on it?" yelled Frank, narrowing his eyes.

"I'll help you, Frank," said a demure voice from the portrait hole, and sure enough, Trish Vance preceded and put a Silencing Charm on Y/n and James, causing them to argue, though with no effect whatsoever.

"Hello Trish," greeted Frank, smiling. "How are you today?"

Y/n was mouthing furiously, and Arabella said the counter-curse, allowing Y/n and James to speak again.

"Why did you do that for?" the former exclaimed. "You could've told us to stop, and we would have!"

"Well, I do love to do it more professionally, you know," replied Trish, batting her eyelashes at Frank.

Alice narrowed her eyes and whispered to Y/n, "That's Trish Vance. She's in Gryffindor, and in the same year as Frank and I. She's in my dorm as well, and what an idiot she is. It's been old news that Trish has been trying to get Frank since fourth year. But unfortunately, it's obvious that she hasn't."

Y/n grinned and stifled a laugh. "Frank doesn't seem to mind flirting with her."

"Well, Frank has always been intimidated by her, though he constantly tells me that he loves me and he'd never dump me for a girl like her. But what do guys know? They only go for the good-looking girls with a brain the size of a Knut."

"Oh, Lise, Frank does love you! That Trish would never get him."

"I hope so," said Alice, sighing, watching helplessly as Trish grabbed Frank's hand and pressed it firmly with her own, "I hope so."

"Well, it's the first time you've ever been wrong, Y/n," said Alice furiously, as she collapsed into an armchair. It was the Easter holidays now, and the weather was warming up considerably. Most of the Gryffindors had gone home for the holidays, but the Marauders, the girls, and a few older students decided to stay at Hogwarts, as usual.

"What happened, Al?" asked Arabella, concerned.

"Frank dumped me for that bi—idiot," spat Alice, burying her head into her arms. "My life is now officially over. Frank specifically told me that he'd always be with me and he'd never dump me for another girl, because there's no one else he'd rather be with than me. And what does he do? He dumps me right then and there! Of course, I'm not going to cry, since that's so stupid. Why cry over Frank anyway? He wasn't much good. 'Sides, I got a new boyfriend."

"Already?" said Y/n, surprised.

"Yeah. Apparently, Sturges Diggle has had a crush on me since third year, and he asked me out straight away after the news spread that Frank Longbottom and Alice Hart have officially broke up."

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Diggle's a sweet and nice guy, and he would never dump you, would he? Since he's carried a torch for you for three years."

"Yeah, Sturges is awesome. But"—Alice sighed—"he's not Frank."

"Look," said Arabella excitedly, beaming at the older girl, "I have a plan that'll put Frank in shame that he ever dumped you."

Alice looked up, her eyebrows raised. "Oh?"

"Yep. Now, all you have to do is be all fluffy and—you know, to Sturges, and then Frank will get jealous and then he'll apologize, and you'll be back together in no time! Oh, and there's dumping Sturges, but he'll understand, I'm sure..."

"So you want me to use poor Sturges? Oh, no, not that. I really do like Sturges, and I don't want to hurt the poor boy. Who knows? Maybe Alice Diggle sounds better than Alice Longbottom."

"Actually, I really don't think it does," said James casually, appearing out of nowhere. "I heard about you and Frank."

"And?"

"You guys make the perfect couple, and you should get back together again."

"No WAY, James Potter. Frank is now a distant acquaintance to me. Who knew he'd break a promise so sacred and full of love? Now I've realized that he's a complete prat, and that Sturges is much better than he is. I don't know what I was thinking when I started to date him in fourth year."

"'Cause you love him, Al," said Sirius quietly, standing next to James.

"I do not! He's an insufferable git!"

"Alice?" whispered Frank, coming down from the sixth year boys' dormitory. "Alice, I think we need to talk."

Alice stood up abruptly. "Oh, do you? Well, let me tell you something, Longbottom. You are nothing but a prat and a promise-breaker. You're nothing more to me now. I'm with Sturges, and you can have your beloved Trish after wanting her for so many years. I know Sturges can make me happy; much happier than you can make me!" She marched into her dorm and slammed the door behind her.

Frank sighed and ran a hand through his light brown curls distractedly.

"You know you deserve it, Frank," said Sirius seriously (no pun intended).

"What? I know. But—oh, it's so confusing! What was I thinking, dumping my beautiful and wonderful Alice for that idiot Trish? Now Lisa will never forgive me. I may as well start preparing for her wedding with Diggle."

Surprisingly, James smiled. "You know that's not true. Alice still loves you, Frank. I know how you feel, being rejected when all you want to do is give love instead of taking it away."

Everyone fell silent. They had never heard James talk so emotionally, and Y/n was especially surprised. Though she wasn't aware of it, her hatred for James began its process of thawing.

Frank smiled back. "You know, James, it wouldn't kill to get a girlfriend yourself. Unless if you're still pining for—er—her."

James nodded sadly, and the Marauders and Frank grinned, while the girls exchanged looks of perplexity. The high and mighty James Potter, pining for a girl that's playing hard-to-get? It was very unbelievable indeed.

"Who's 'her'?" they asked simultaneously.

Sirius grinned. "I'm afraid we cannot tell you four lovely ladies."

"Why not?" demanded Arabella.

"Bella, I don't trust you to keep my mate's secret."

"Why not?"

"'Cause..."

"It's between us guys," supplemented Frank.

"Besides, you'd tell the girl if you knew," said James softly, looking to Arabella's eyes, and she instantly understood.

"Oh, James, you finally realize it, do you?" she said, smiling widely.

James turned red. "Don't mock," he ordered.

"What are you all talking about?" said Y/n impatiently. "What girl?"

Arabella rolled her eyes at Jennifer and Violet, and all three of them giggled. The Marauders (excluding Peter) and Frank shook their heads, muttering, "Girls."

"Y/n, I do think it's obvious, don't you?" said Remus, smiling very slightly.

"Oh, Remus, I thought you'd have the common sense of the group? What are you guys talking about?"

"Don't tell her," ordered James.

"I wasn't going to, Prongs. I was merely going to—let's say—give her a hint, shall we? We do want to make your life easier, you know."

Y/n still stared at them with confusion. What kind of girl is Potter pining for? Is it Violet? She's single. Ugh, stupid Potter! Why, I'm so much better than Vi. Wait a minute, what am I thinking? This has to be from lack of sleep.

"Hello? L/n?"

"W-What?"

James raised his eyebrows. "I was wondering if you can help me with a Silencing Charm."

"Potter, we've learned that at the beginning of the year!"

"Yeah, well, it's not my fault I stink at Charms. Besides, you're so good, and I know you can help me get it right!"

Y/n smiled, unable to restrain it back any longer. Everyone else looked at her in surprise. They had expected her to start yelling at James again. The three Marauders and girls exchanged joyful looks with each other.

"Oh, fine, Ja—Potter. Let's go then."

James beamed and followed her to a table, feeling as though his birthday, Christmas, and summer vacation had come early.

"Now," began Y/n, "the Silencing Charm is a sharp jab, so don't do a light swish or anything. And try not to cause an accident; Bella nearly took an eye out from the frog she was practicing on once."

He chuckled and stared at Y/n, muttering, "Silencio!" To his disappointment, Lily continued to talk incessantly.

"What did I do wrong?" he whined.

"Potter, I told you to do a sharp jab. Think of it like you're about to poke me in the eye or something, but don't—er—actually do it."

"Silencio!" cried James, and nearly stabbed Y/n with the end of his wand. However, he did accomplish the charm, for Y/n was mouthing silently, without uttering a word out loud. "I did it!"

Y/n was still mouthing furiously, and she frowned and started to mouth silently, pointing to her mouth.

"What is it, L/n? Oh, right! The counter-curse—erm—"

"Talkitus," said Frank, pointing his wand at Y/n. She smiled in relief.

"Thanks, Frank."

"No problem."

"I did try," insisted James, feeling a strong possessiveness to the redhead. "Please, L/n, don't hurt me."

"What gave you an idea that I was going to hurt you?" inquired Y/n, surprised.

"Well...weren't you?" James cocked his head sideways questioningly.

"Not particularly thinking of it, though I will be only too happy to do it if you want me to."

Frank chortled, clapping James on the back. "I'll be finding Alice now, Potter. Good luck with your girl." He disappeared into his dormitory.

"Your girl?" said Y/n, frowning.

"It's a secret," he said hastily, silently cursing Frank for saying it out loud.

"Oh? And I'm not going to be let in on it?"

"'Fraid not, L/n. Besides, you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, really?" Y/n placed her hands on her hips. "And why wouldn't I?"

"Because—" He sighed dismally, and looked away. "Because you don't care enough."

"Y/n, I love you," whispered an older James Potter, as he cradled Y/n into his chest. "No matter what happens, I'll always love you. You know that."

"I know, James, it's just that – I'm scared," whispered Y/n, hugging his neck.

"Y/n look at me," he ordered. "Whatever happens, nothing will stop us from loving each other. Voldemort's not going to tear us apart if I can help it."

"Oh, James! I love you, too. And – gosh, why are you so irresistible?"

He chuckled and kissed Y/n deeply and passionately. They broke off nearly a minute later, both breathless and with fluttering hearts.

"You're my flower, Y/n, and I'm never letting you go."

Y/n smiled at the engagement ring on her left hand, and kissed James lightly on his cheek. "You're so sweet, James. It seems impossible how only yesterday I told you to back off Snape. And now you're telling me all these wonderful things. I have no idea how you went through that change."

"It was because I finally realized that I was being a prat, and an egotistical one at that. I knew that a change was needed, especially since the Wizarding world needs Aurors like me to protect everyone from Voldemort. He's gaining so much power now."

"James, you're not an Auror yet," corrected Y/n smiling at her fiancé's determination.

"I know. But I also know that I'm going to be an Auror no matter what it takes."

"Now I know why I agreed to marry you. Two years ago, I would've hexed you into oblivion if you asked me for my hand in marriage. And now I'm the happiest woman on earth because I'm going to get married to the man I love and live as much of life as I can."

"Aww...n/n, you're too sweet." A single tear trickled down James' cheek, and a stunned Y/n wiped it off, hugging him closely.

"Aren't I though? But I do think I owe you an apology."

"For what?"

"For being such a stubborn prat these years. I've always loved you, ever since fifth year, and yet I've been trying to trick myself out of my love for you. I'm so sorry, James."

"Now, now, love, there's no reason to be sorry. I'm definitely not. I'm getting married to the most wonderful woman in the world soon. I can't be happier."

Y/n smiled and the two lovers held each other, oblivious to their surroundings. For their love was unconquerable, and they'd always have each other, no matter what.

Y/n woke up, sweat pouring down her face, as she breathed quickly and harshly. She had just woken up from another one of her visions, and it affected her more than any of the others.

"Y/n? You there?" Arabella sat up groggily, wiping her eyes and blinking at the blurry redhead.

"What's wrong?" asked Violet, concerned. "Did you have another vision again?"

"Yes."

"What was it about?" said Jennifer curiously.

"Oh, you won't believe it. Potter and I were sitting next to each other, and we were saying words of love. It was so sick, I swore I was going to throw up or do something drastic. Surprisingly, Potter was actually—I don't know—pleasant in the dream, and he was a romantic, just like Frank had said. What does it all mean?"

Arabella rolled her eyes. "Well, what do you think it means? James is going to change, obviously! He's going to grow out of hexing innocent people and strutting around the school like he's a king or something. Well, that's a good thought, at least."

Y/n snorted. "Impossible! Potter...changing? That's as unlikely as Gryffindors and Slytherins becoming chummy with each other."

"Don't think like that," warned Violet, shaking her head. "James is a nice guy, and you should give him a chance, Y/n. You never did let him change."

"Well, I hope he's not going to change for me! I just want him to change because he realizes that hexing people, especially Snape, doesn't do good, and it makes you stoop low to the same level as Slytherins."

Jennifer sighed, exchanging exasperated looks with Arabella and Violet. Suddenly, she gave a dazzling grin, showing off all her teeth, and it reminded Y/n strongly of Gilderoy Lockhart.

"What're you grinning at?" she demanded.

"You love Potter, that's what. Merlin's beard, you really do love him! Oh, this is brilliant!" Jennifer was nearly in hysterics.

"Well, of course she does, Jen," said Arabella matter-of-factly. "Where have you been?"

"No, no, not that. It's just that Y/n loves James. It's not just a simple crush; it's true love that's unbreakable in any way. It's a simple, pure, beautiful love."

"Yes," agreed Violet dreamily, her eyes shining. "It's so romantic."

"Vi!" Jennifer scoffed.

"What?"

"Don't be a goose. You're always in for romantic things."

"So are you! Ever since you started dating Remus, that is, in our second year. It's been three years and you two still haven't had a fight yet. Quite a miracle, in my opinion. Sirius and Bella have gotten into three fights and a million bickers."

"Don't jinx it, then. As I was saying before Vi rudely interrupted—"

"Y/n and James are madly in love," supplied Arabella.

"Oh, yes, right! Y/n, you and James are in love with each other. It's that simple. Don't look at me like that! There's nothing to argue over; it's so obvious."

"Why do you keep insisting that I love Potter? Do you love to torture me so?"

"Yes," replied the other three girls simultaneously. Y/n rolled her eyes and threw her pillow straight across the room, hitting Violet square on the face.

Soon there was a jumble of pillows flying about the room, while the four fifth year girls squealed and shouted, waking up nearly everyone in Gryffindor Tower. Girls from other dormitories dragged their sleeping belongings to their dorm, flustered and angry, and yelling for them to stop disturbing their "beauty sleep".

Finally, McGonagall had come into their dormitory with her usual stiff black hair in curlers and wearing a tartan nightdress. She squinted at them through her spectacles and her eyes widened when she realized that Y/n was one of the occupants.

"Ms. L/n!" she exclaimed in horror. "You are a prefect! You know better than to wake up Gryffindor Tower at one o'clock in the morning. I do expect better of you."

Y/n flushed. "Oh, please, Professor, I really didn't mean it. You won't deduct points from Gryffindor, will you?"

McGonagall sighed. "I suppose not, at least not today. But I do hope this won't happen again."

"No, Professor," the four girls chorused, amid snickers and finger-pointing.

"Well," began Jennifer, as everyone left, "that was interesting."

"Very."

The dreaded O.W.L.s were finally over with as the fifth years headed outside for a well-deserved break after their last exam. The Marauders and the girls went to different directions: the former to the shade under a tree and the latter next to the lake. The main reason for their ignorance with each other was because of Y/n and James, whom were both furious with the other.

Nearly two days ago, James had hexed Snape openly after an O.W.L. exam, and Y/n had intervened, having not able to stand the tyranny of the latter any longer. The result was not wonderful; Lily had not "deflated" James' head, and James got even more rejection from the girl he loved. Life was not going well for the both of them.

The Marauders had taken refuge under the very same tree where a famous trio would be under twenty years later. They were planning their summer, and decided to not have anything to do with the girls, for the two groups were not getting along well at all. Arabella and Jennifer were still Sirius and Remus' girlfriends, respectively, of course, but they weren't as close as they were before the lake incident. They did, however, agree that they should be over at James' house for one week that summer just to plan more havoc.

The girls had also agreed to a reunion during the summer, and it was decided that it would be at Arabella's house, since Jennifer's parents were going to France for their wedding anniversary. They readily decided not to invite the Marauders over, for there was still a stiff, unsettling tension between them now, and the chummy feelings were gone.

Now Y/n and James have come to an unsettled agreement and hadn't talked to each other ever since the "incident" with Snape. After Y/n had stalked off when James refused to listen to her and was planning to take off Snape's pants, they had started an argument in the common room that night. It had ended when Y/n finally shouted at James that Snape would hate Harry when he grew up because of the poor treatment James had given the former in their old school days. So now the two used-to-be-friendly groups were on in their own worlds, discussing topics unrelated to each other.

"Snivellus was lucky that L/n was there, or I would've done something even more drastic," said James, yawning, as he played with his Snitch carelessly, while Peter gasped and applauded once more.

"Definitely," agreed Sirius, sighing. "But I wish that the girls would speak to us; I mean, it's all over now, isn't it? Arabella won't even look at me when we pass in the corridors or something."

"Then that's her problem, isn't it? I don't know why they won't speak to us, Padfoot, since this is only between L/n and me. You guys should just go back to being good friends with each other."

"But they don't want to," put in Remus, looking rather wild at not having talked to Jennifer for more than he could stand.

"Well, like I said, it's their problem."

"Prongs, why don't you and Y/n become friends?" asked Peter, exasperated.

"Exactly my point," agreed Sirius. Remus nodded emphatically as well.

"Wormtail, you do know that I really like Y/n—maybe even love her. But she hates me. I may as well give up. I mean, how can she not hate me?"

Remus smiled. "That, Prongs, is called the process of deflating and becoming a gentleman."

"Excuse me?"

"No offense, Prongs, but your ego is a bit—er—"

"Bigger than it should be," finished Sirius.

"And that's the main reason why Y/n doesn't like you—or so she says. She's seeing the façade that you put on to hide your real self. You're seriously trying to belie yourself, Prongs. Show Y/n the real you...the James that was determined to help my transformations get better by going against the law and endangering yourselves. And the James that is caring and thoughtful and always helping whenever he can. That's the James you have to show Y/n in order for her to care for you."

"That was beautiful, Moony," croaked Sirius, his voice cracking.

"You're right, Moony," said James, smiling, afraid that tears were about to pour out of his eyes at any minute. "But how do I do all that?"

"We'll begin this September, when sixth year starts," said Remus, secretly happy that James was finally going to let go of that ego he possessed in great amounts.

"Thanks guys." James gave them all a brotherly hug. "I owe you for life."

"Nah, consider it a freebie favor," said Sirius, winking. They all chuckled at his antics.

Meanwhile, the girls were by the lake, dipping their feet into the cool water and feeling the tentacles of the giant squid touch their soles lightly.

"Finally, the evil O.W.L.s are over," said Arabella gratefully.

"Finally," echoed Jennifer and Violet.

"It wasn't that bad," said Y/n optimistically, "though the Divination one was a disaster, I tell you. Professor Marshbanks was looking at me like I was mad when I told her that she was suffer from heart pains for the rest of her life."

"I told Tofty that he'd lose all his money and that his lifeline was as short as his hair," said Arabella, shrugging. "He wasn't so happy about it, to tell you the truth."

"That's because you should've told him that he'd grown as old as Dumbledore and become rich," said Jennifer promptly. "That's what I told Tofty, and he started beaming at me like I was his granddaughter or something. It works with nearly everyone except for Trelawney."

"That's 'cause she's a miserable bat," said Violet gloomily. "I failed Potions too...I couldn't get the last ingredient for the Remedial Potion."

"It was leeches," said Y/n.

"Oh, was it? I said it was bat ears."

"Bats don't have ears, Vi," corrected Arabella, giggling.

"They do! How else are they supposed to fly so well?"

"With their eyes..."

"Bats are blind!"

"Now, now girls," chided Y/n. "We're almost at the end of our fifth year; you should at least be kind to each other."

"Yes, Mum."

"Well, well, well, if it isn't L/n, Figg, Dean, and Walker." Trish Vance sneered at them, while clutching Frank's arm painfully.

"Hello, Trish, Frank," greeted Y/n through gritted teeth. "I see you've been enjoying yourselves."

Frank sighed immediately, rolling his eyes, while Trish pretended not to notice and said, "Oh, we're having the time of our lives! Ever since Frank dumped that Hart girl, he's been happier than ever."

"Are you sure about that?" said Jennifer sharply.

"Of course I'm sure, Dean. Who wouldn't be happy with me?" She gave Jennifer a smug smile.

"I wouldn't," the latter muttered under her breath.

"Frankie? Why so quiet?"

"Don't call me that," he ordered.

"Why not? I think it's utterly cute!"

"It's—it's what Alice used to call me."

Trish narrowed her eyes. "You mean Hart? Well, at least she has fine taste in nicknames, I have to say—"

"Alice is better than you," interrupted Y/n, her green eyes blazing. "She's kind, considerate, smart, and she's a prefect. And you're just a low-life brat who's jealous of her! Yes, that's right! Jealous!"

"My dear L/n, I do believe you're raving," said Trish smoothly, though her delicate cheeks looked rather flustered. "Perhaps a bit of pumpkin juice will do the trick..."

"Leave her alone, Trish," said Frank quietly.

"Why should I?" she demanded angrily.

"Because she's right," said Arabella coolly. "Alice is so much better than you. You are just jealous—jealous that Alice has Frank and everything that you've ever wanted."

Trish snorted. "Hart doesn't have Frankie anymore. He dumped her, remember?"

The four girls looked at Frank expectantly, as if wanting him to say that he still loved Alice. But he remained silent, looking at his reflection on the lake. Trish huffed and stomped off back to the castle again.

"Why don't you get Alice back?" hissed Y/n.

"She hates me," was his only coherent reply.

"Well, I don't blame her. If you don't get her back, then...see you at her wedding."

"Wedding?" Frank spluttered.

"Yeah. Sturges is planning to ask her to marry him next year. So if you don't hurry up, she'll be Alice Diggle instead of Alice Longbottom."

With that said, Y/n led her friends back to the castle, leaving a stunned Frank Longbottom behind.

"Potter," said Y/n venomously. "You have to let us share this compartment! There's no where else to sit. The only one with space in it is occupied by Snape and his gang. C'mon, please?"

"I thought you rather favored Snape, since you so willingly stood up for him a few days ago," replied James coolly. "Go off with you now; we're not going to allow you the pleasure."

"James..."

Did L/n just call me James? James shook his head. Maybe I should give her a chance. After all, Moony told me that I had to start the process of deflation soon.

"Oh, fine, L/n, you can take this compartment. If it makes you any happier, I'll go and sit with the Slytherins so you can have my seat, since there aren't enough in this compartment."

Y/n looked surprised. "No, you don't have to, Potter, I'll just sit on the floor if I have to—"

"Oh, no, I do insist." With that said, James swept out of the compartment, not giving a single last glance.

"That was sweet of him," commented Jennifer, smiling. "I never knew James had it in him."

Remus grinned mischievously and exchanged delighted looks with Sirius and Peter, who understood James' whole plan of changing everything he was known for.

"All right, Remus Lupin, tell me what James is really planning," whispered Jennifer, frowning.

"He's started," said the werewolf briefly.

"Started what?"

"The process."

"The process of what? Remus!"

"Oh, just kidding, Jenny. Prongs—James—is starting the process of deflation. You know, deflating his ego, stuff like that. It's working, too."

"That's wonderful!"

"What's wonderful?" said Y/n suspiciously.

"Nothing," the couple replied automatically.

"Whatever."

Meanwhile, James was having bad luck in the Slytherins' compartment.

"You owe me, Potter," said Snape viciously. "You owe me your whole life."

"Sure, Snivellus," said James cheerfully. "Whatever you say! How are you today?"

"Absolutely spiffing," replied the greasy-haired boy sarcastically.

"Potter, tell us what you're doing here with us Slytherins when you should be conversing with your slimy Gryffindor friends," said Rosier, frowning.

"My dear Evan, don't be so sour! I want to be friends with you; don't you understand?"

Bellatrix and Narcissa snorted with disbelief, and Lestrange raised his eyebrows.

After the uneventful train ride, the eight of them met their parents. James grinned as he spotted his parents waving next to a Ministry car.

"You didn't come out of the same compartment as your friends," said Mr. Potter immediately.

"Yeah, the girls came to sit with us, and there wasn't enough room for Y/n, so I decided to—er—go to another compartment."

"That's so sweet, James," said Mrs. Potter tearfully. "I didn't know my son was such a gentleman!"

"You didn't sit with Hufflepuffs, did you?" Mr. Potter was thunderstruck.

"Er—no, actually, I sat with the Slytherins." James closed his eyes, waiting for the blow to come.

"WHAT?"

"It was the only compartment with space in it!"

Just then, Y/n left her parents and stood in front of James, her cheeks red.

"Yes?" said James curtly.

"C-Can I speak to you privately?"

As they reached a part of King's Cross that was inhabited, Y/n blurted, "Look, thanks."

"For what?"

"For giving me your seat in the train and having to sit with those awful Slytherins." Y/n made a face.

James laughed. "It's no problem, L/n—Y/n."

Y/n smiled and hugged James. "See you this September...James."

James looked dazed, watching Y/n go back with her parents again. She had called him by his first name, instead of "Potter"! He felt as though he could jump for joy, but fought the urge, as he went back to his parents again, beaming.

There's hope after all, he thought joyously, as he got into the car.

A/N: I'm so sorry that I kept you waiting for this chapter, but it's done, and I'm rather pleased with it...not. It's terrible again, I know, but I'm getting major Writer's Block! However, I do have stuff planned for Y/n and James' summers...especially for James. This summer is where he gets a new companion moving in with his family.

tags; @theredheadedwinchester

masterlist

#amarauder writings #it's a hate-love thing original version #james potter x reader

3 notes · View notes

missizzy · 4 years ago

Text

Fic: Agent Murdock, Part 14: Larry Cranston and Foggy Nelson(Daredevil)

(Read full work on AO3)

Matt's first day at Landman and Zack began with him just sitting around for half an hour in his new boss' office, while Larry Cranston kept him waiting. A couple of times he got up, ran his hands over the papers on the desk. But while he could've read them had he truly needed to, it would've taken a lot of time and concentration, and he didn't want Cranston, who no doubt had read up on his abilities, to start their acquaintance by demanding to know if he was trying to snoop.

Finally he heard his voice just outside, and he was on his feet, patting his hair down at the last moment, when he strode in. He stopped walking mid-step, and his heart jumped; Matt thought he hadn't remembered he'd just been provided with a new assistant. At least he remembered his name after a moment: "So you are Matthew Murdock? The enhanced spy who, being recently out of a job, has now decided he wants to become a lawyer instead?"

He did not need to feel affronted by this man yet, Matt reminded himself. It wasn't easy. "I was with S.H.I.E.L.D., and will be starting work on my JD in January, yes, sir." He was glad, now, that his acceptance to Columbia had come through three days ago. He wasn't sure Coulson hadn't literally been running around a few backrooms uptown to pull that one off.

"Well, you were not my choice of PA, of course. I'm afraid my first question simple must be: how are you going to be handling your enhanced hearing in our world? Because there are a lot of questions about ethical behavior that such an ability raises."

It was a fair question to ask, and Matt had already been expecting it. But there was an undertone there he didn't like at all. Still he gave the answer he'd prepared, "I'm not going to deliberately try to overhear things I'm not supposed to. There's some knowledge I won't be able to help, or my trying to get is going to be a very hard habit to break-my listening for deception whenever someone's heartbeat makes it detectable is probably the biggest thing. Generally I'm not going to find out much about anyone who's not in the same room with me unless I deliberately make the effort, which, as I said, I'm not going to do in violation of legal ethics."

This was certainly what he was going to say to anyone who asked. Matt was still hoping it would be true, too. But he supposed he couldn't know for sure whether he could resist temptation before he actually faced it.

"But what about the things you do find out? Words overheard by accident, drugs smelled on people's breath? Even lies detected; not everyone's going to know they can't lie around you." And now there was no mistaking it, the veiled hopefulness. Well, Matt had already known enough to know that if nothing else, this guy was the kind of lawyer he wanted to avoid becoming.

He let his voice turn cold as he replied, "What I do there I intend to determine on a case by case basis. However, for now, I don't think I'm likely to make use of much of the information I accidentally acquire here at Landman and Zack. I don't have as much grounding in legal ethics as I'm hoping to get in the future."

"Being conscientious, then." He would've concealed his disappointment had Matt only been able to hear his voice.

He didn't ask any more questions about the senses immediately, but instead went through more typical topics, telling Matt about his regular schedule and what he was likely to want from him when. He also gives him a rundown on some of his current cases. "There are a few affairs that I can't really let you be involved in, you understand," he said, and Matt would have, if he hadn't known better. "At least you won't have to do any extra work for those, though"â€ Well, he hadn't confirmed that he would, though he was starting to think so.

Matt was just starting to think Cranston would now ask if he had any questions, and he'd certainly had those prepared, when he instead said, "I am going to request you sit in on a meeting I've got this afternoon at two. It's with a private investigator who does most of the investigative work on my cases, but to be honest I've never completely trusted her. Of course I'm not asking you to do anything you consider unethical..."

"I might not be able to read her anyway," said Matt. "If people's job relies too much on deception I often can't."

"That could make things a lot simpler," said Cranston, half to himself, and the acceleration of his heartbeat there suggested all too much. "But I've got another meeting in half an hour that I'm going to have to attend alone. Meanwhile, could you take these files down to Lillian Sherbert on the first floor, fourth door to the right from the elevator? When you get back I'd like you to do some research on the latest building regulations over in Saratoga-you've got a laptop in your bag, right?"

He gestured over to where Matt had left his bag, which did indeed include a laptop. If Matt had been less experienced with his senses, he wouldn't have caught that. But he only said, "Yes, don't worry, I can do that," and took the pair of heavy folders Cranston brought over to him.

Matt took his time walking to the elevator, and to Ms. Sherbert's office from there, listening to the sounds of the building as he went. He almost always did that when in a place like this for the first time, especially if he was on a mission, and the offices of Landman and Zack were much less soundproofed than some of the places he'd been in. He'd listened to voice samples of the two partners and their main assistants, as well as a few other people high up in the firm, and he quickly had the location of both their offices. But he was also listening for the voice of Franklin Nelson, and when he was on the first floor, he heard it, saying, "I know, I know, I'll get it. You want sugar too?"

He got the files delivered quickly, and after that hurried up to the second floor. Some caffeine would do him good anyway.

Nelson was coaxing the coffee machine into giving him enough when Matt walked in. "Excuse me," he said, "but is this the second floor break room?"

"I think that would be obvious..." Nelson started in response, before he turned around and got a look at Matt. "Oh...uh, sorry."

"What for?" Matt asked.

"You're blind, right?"

"Yeah, so they tell me," Matt said, and broke the friendly grin out. "I'll be better about it once I've been here a few days."

"So I've finally found someone newer here than I am, besides the other interns." Nelson sounded all too delighted.

"Please to meet you, then." Matt held out his hand. "I just started as a PA. My name's Matt Murdock."

"Foggy Nelson..." The other man started, then stopped. "Wait...Matt Murdock?" He, too, had read about him, it seemed. That didn't necessarily mean anything, of course.

But then he asked, "Are you...you're not from Hell's Kitchen are you?"

"Yeah," said Matt. "Born there, lived there until I was ten, and now I just moved back there again."

"I've lived there my entire live." Rarely had a man's grin resounded so loudly in his tone. "Yeah, I heard about you when you were a kid, what you did, saving that guy crossing the street, even before you tried to go make a career out of saving people...you're practically a superhero, aren't you?"

"That's going a little far," Matt said, feeling genuinely embarrassed. "I mean, especially considering..."

"Yeah, okay, your bosses turned out to be a little evil. But still, getting your peepers knocked out and the rest of your senses cranked up to eleven saving that old dude? Classic superhero stuff, way before they got involved."

"They didn't get knocked out." That was a weak deflection, he knew.

It worked, though. He even heard Nelson's chest heave slightly as he said, "Good, because that would be...a little freaky. But no offense," he hastily added.

"None taken," Matt assured him. Then, because he wanted to get this established with anyone he got friendly with anyway, he said, "A lot of people seem to think the senses alone turn me into a freak, did even in S.H.I.E.L.D. Or they dance around me like I'm made of glass, which I hate even more."

"Yeah," Nelson said readily, "You're just a guy, right? A really, really, good-looking guy."

"Uh..." He should have read Nelson's signals already, he chided himself; his heartbeat alone gave away the attraction. But he didn't always think to check for that with men. This also brought up the option, of course, of honeypotting him. Matt in his long S.H.I.E.L.D. career had done that only twice, both times with women whom he'd only slept with once. In the old days, he probably wouldn't have in this case. But he had a lot more options back then. Now, they had to consider any possible advantage on hand.

He'd been silent long enough for Nelson to form the most logical conclusion, and he hastily added, "I mean, women must love that, the whole wounded, handsome duck thing, am I right?"

"Right..." He ought to keep the honeypot option open, but it was just too easy to go along with it. "Yeah, it's been known to happen."

"In that case..." Nelson seemed to remember in that moment what he'd come in there for, because he turned back to the machine. But a moment later, he continued, "Don't suppose you're free tonight? Or some other night? I now officially want to hang out with you at least once. See what kind of women it gets talking to me, you know?"

He could have any number of reasons for the offer. So could Matt. Even if he was innocent, as Sharpe's son, it would be useful to befriend him. "Sure," he grinned, "I don't have any plans."

"You want to come out with me, then? How long have you been back? Get a chance to see how the old neighborhood's changed yet?"

"Not yet," said Matt. "And I probably should do it soon, since I'll be starting law school in January, up at Columbia."

He got the reaction he wanted: "Columbia? That's where I went! I can tell you about the campus, where to get the best coffee...it'll be great! Listen, I'd better get these to the bosses, but you want to meet down in the lobby at, uh six-thirtyish?"

When Matt nodded, Nelson hurried out. He continued to listen to him as he made his way back upstairs, a little worried he'd have made him late and gotten him in trouble, but thankfully Nelson didn't get himself yelled at.

He felt kind of strange, like someone had grabbed him and whirled him all around, leaving him uncertain which direction he was currently facing in. But while normally there was little he disliked more, at that moment, he instead felt cheered by it. In a place like this, one that threw cold reality into his dream of becoming a lawyer, he had taken an extra turn into a break room and found something and someone that his long years of experience had firmly declared good, and Matt trusted his judgement there, even when it wasn't at all what he had expected.

Six-thirtyish

They were both a little late. They were both very understanding about that sort of thing. As soon as they were safely out of the building, they already had stories to exchange about the demands their new bosses were making on them. Matt attempts at reading Cranston had gotten rather derailed that afternoon by what had happened after their meeting with the investigator.

Matt had honestly not been able to discern much about Ms. Jones, aside from that she had an alcohol problem and may have suffered some sort of heavy trauma recently. Cranston had asked him to do research on her work. He'd stated firmly he didn't care about her teen years and the whole thing where she'd been fostered by Patsy Walker and her mother after her family was killed. But when Matt had returned with a dearth of information on an investigations practice set up too recently for there to be much and a little more about a the murder of a less than reputable boyfriend, Cranston had chewed him out for not looking at her involvement in the more scandalous corners of the Walker family saga.

"Cranston was actually at Columbia a year ahead of me," said Foggy-he had already insisted Matt call him that. "Always knew he was going to be the sort of lawyer who gets our profession villainized."

"And you, I trust, have every intention of not being that," Matt said, keep his tone light and easy.

"Of course I won't!" said Foggy. "Though I am hoping to make money, but, you know, I pride myself that I can avoid doing anything truly evil, you know?"

Every physical response Matt knew how to read confirmed his sincerity. But he did need to be thorough about this, so he said, "I did hear one thing today, though, from one of the other PAs. I, uh, mean no offense, and maybe he was wrong, but he talked about your mother..."

"My biomom, you mean," sighed Foggy. "Yeah, she's a bit of a..." He stopped himself for a moment, then said, "Honestly, I don't think I even know half of what she does. But I think a lot of it must be bad."

And with that all almost certainly the truth, he was pretty much cleared. And he might not be as useful a source of information as some might have hoped, but Matt was relieved for that, too. He would much rather Foggy be his friend.

But he still had the responsibility to get what little information Foggy had, so he then asked, "Anything in particular stand out from what you have seen? I mean, I hope she hasn't done anything to seriously scare you or anything like that."

"Not scare me, exactly, but...I actually never even saw much of her before these most recent months. I never even heard from her much before I got into her alma mater, after which she started emailing me a lot. But now I've been to her offices, especially right before I started here, and well, I'm wondering about who some of her friends are. And I'm not even talking about her clients; I mostly know who they are. These are guys that came in there that she just described as her 'associates' and I don't know what it is, but something about the way they talk...it's like I get the feeling they would commit mass murder if they thought they could get away with it. Or maybe they even had."

They almost certainly had, but Matt still responded with, "You sure that's not just paranoia? I mean, it doesn't even sound like they introduced themselves to you, even. Afraid if you got their names, you'd look them up, maybe?"

"You know, they didn't, but I did get a few of their names anyway. We could look them up once we're sitting down, if you really want to."

Matt just smiled, and said, "If we have time. You promised to tell me all about Columbia, remember." He would try to make sure they had the time, but if he needed to he could always set up another meeting, especially since he wanted continuous ones anyway.

So they left off that subject for a while, especially when Foggy decided they should actually take the trip uptown and eat at one of the many dirty but dirt-cheap places that had kept Foggy himself fed during this student years. The whole sensory experience, from the train ride to the place itself, definitely wasn't pleasant, but Foggy was a very good anchor. He didn't say a word about Matt clinging to his arm on the train even when they were sitting down, and he seemed to know when it was good for him to talk to Matt and when it wasn't.

The food was a little better. Well-cooked, if a little heavy on the additives. Perhaps Matt shouldn't have gone for the chowder, but he'd always liked its texture, even when the flavoring got downright unpleasant, which this was not. He told Foggy that when asked, and laughed when Foggy replied that he'd known a place in the area where they bragged about how their chowder was so thick some diners used knives on it. "Little out of my price range, though, so I have only their word for it."

"Don't get much money from the rich mother?" Matt asked, mostly out of sympathy.

"Biomom," Foggy said sharply. "My actual mother runs a deli with my father, and he didn't really get anything in the divorce. Okay, I can't say Ms. Sharpe's never helped me, especially not recently. But she's always been stingy and alway put me down and usually been a terrible person to my parents especially."

"Of course," said Matt, who certainly understood the difference between biological parents and actual parents, even if he hadn't actually rejected a former. He even added, "I don't even have any memories of my own birth mother. I think my leaked profile had most of what I know about her..."

"Oh, I didn't read that!" Foggy sounded positively scandalized. "I read about your abilities and skimmed your professional record and that's all. Reading the rest would've been invasive, and weird, and seriously, they should've limited what they leaked. I suppose the likes of the Black Widow doesn't think about things like personal privacy. Honestly, Matt, I wonder about some of the things even the loyal members of S.H.I.E.L.D. did. The whole culture of your old company, you know?"

Matt thought about his secret current colleagues, and all the things they were doing this guy would probably object to. He had to remember that being a good guy didn't mean they were going to understand. So he simply said, "They were very good to me. I assume you read enough to know that they got me basically able to function in the world as a kid, and they always made it clear I was under no obligation to stay with them."

"You wanted to, then." Foggy didn't sound judgemental, exactly, but he did sound like he was trying to figure Matt out there. "And you kept wanting to, until..."

"It's different now," said Matt, because it very much was. "Not even just because of Hydra, really, though obviously that's a big part of it, just..." He'd never felt able to talk like this to anyone, not even Karen, so he had to think it through to find the words. "It...it just changed way I saw everything I had in my life, and it's sort of like...like that also allowed me to take a figurative look even at things that had been exactly what I'd thought they were and still see them differently. Or maybe...maybe it just let me face that the plan I'd formed as a teenager and gotten comfortable with, to be an agent until I got too old for the field and then do law school, wasn't entirely what I wanted anymore."

"Sounds like an important epiphany to have," said Foggy. "Make sure you hold onto it, keep it in mind."

It was better advice than he even knew. "Thanks," Matt told him. "And I do agree there were records maybe they didn't need to leak. Although while I don't suppose anyone besides herself knows what goes on in Agent Romanov's head, I do wonder if she didn't trust herself to make any judgements there. I mean...I'm not sure I would have. I've done some pretty nasty things in my time. You can and should definitely read all about those." It was still hard to actually say that, to not only accept that others would know but push them to, but he made himself do it. If he had to tell lies to this man in one way, he wanted to be honest with him in every other.

At least Karen's profile wasn't out there anymore. That made it just a little easier to let his own be.

"If you say so," said Foggy, and he sounded hesitant. He'd probably look in the end, though. He wouldn't be much of a lawyer if he didn't do his research.

They were nearly done eating, and Matt found he didn't really want to leave Foggy's company yet. He might look up those names and find something useful, too, though that wasn't really his reason. "Anything else you want to show me?"

Foggy considered it for a moment, then said, "Well, I don't suppose it matter much if you see the campus by day or night, does it?"

"Nope," Matt said cheerfully. "You said the main law building was at one end, right next to Morningside Park?"

It wasn't that long a walk before they were standing together, close enough to the building that Matt can easily map it out, and Foggy even commented, "You can probably discern more about this place than I can right now. The smell's never been my favorite thing in the world either..."

"Right now it mostly smells of cleaning. So way better than most of New York." Matt listens to Foggy laugh, which is kind of becoming a sound he wants to keep hearing in his life. Though the distraction made it a little harder to map the building out, especially with noone currently in the hallways, though at least it wasn't actually empty.

The hum of Columbia's nighttime campus was also a more welcome sound than not. Being a college campus, some of the voices were loud, and so were some of the other sounds, but nothing he couldn't easily deal with after his many years of training. He mostly tuned it back out as he said, "Anything else you want to show me?"

Foggy did. Over the next half an hour, Matt was given a chance to take in a few buildings where Foggy happened to know some interesting history, and also the dorm building he'd spent his first year there in. Despite the chilly night they found themselves lingering, finally sitting down on what Foggy called the Low Steps, as the latter said, "There are other things I can tell you about, too. I'd start with whose classes you want to take and whose you want to avoid if you can, but honestly, I get started on that, we'll be here all night."

"Then maybe we could meet some other time?" Matt suggested. "I might even get lucky and be free for lunch sometime next week."

"Under Cranston? I doubt it. And even if you do, that'll probably be the day when I have to spend ten long hours copying things. But we could do another dinner. Or if you're as broke as I am right now, we could just steal the firm's free bagels and go somewhere nice to eat them."

By then, Matt ruefully thought, they will have lost their freshness, and while Foggy might not care, his heightened senses will. Still, this man's company might just make him mind that less. So he just said, "If you really don't have money for anything else. Do you want me to call or email you?"

They ended up exchanging phone numbers and emails both, before heading back to the metro station together, and Foggy even managed to spot a relatively empty car for them to ride back to Hell's Kitchen in. "I'm currently crashing at my family's place," he told Matt. "I'm holding out hope of getting my own place by the end of the year, but even with the Incident depressing all the prices..."

"The Incident," Matt repeated. It was obvious enough exactly what incident Foggy was talking about. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"Look, buddy," Foggy sighed, "not all of us have spent our entirely life dealing with things like aliens invading our home town. Some people have to use a simple term to refer to aliens invading our home town because we're not up to thinking too much about the fact that aliens invaded our home town. So if you're going to live among us, do everyone a favor and get with the lingo, kapeesh?"

"Fair enough," Matt said. "Any other local terms I should know?"

They parted outside Penn Station, and all the way back to his apartment, Matt Murdock found the chilly evening was a little less cold.

#Daredevil #agents of shield #marvel cinematic universe #matt murdock #foggy nelson

0 notes

thethespacecoyote · 8 years ago

Text

Just some soft Rhysothy ABO mpreg fluff I started last night c:

Interested in Commissions? Message me! | Or leave a tip if you like!

Tim had never been truly understood how bizarre and prevalent alpha and omegas stereotypes were until he had started working from home.

To him, it had seemed the most logical choice. He and Rhys had talked it over for a couple of weeks after learning that the omega was pregnant, and after seeing just how much Rhys thrived in his job it had been an easy trade-off.

Honestly, Tim had mostly had his fill of corporate environments. Sure, being in the thick of working for Hyperion had had its perks, and the money that had flowed in—especially those bonuses he had been awarded for doing things that were, uh, exterior to the terms of his contract—had given him a home and a cat and had certainly helped him with the little gifts and dinners it had taken to win Rhys over. But Tim had long grown tired of constantly having to watch his back for the next wall-climber in line trying to slit his throat.

Besides, Timothy had always dreamed of being a freelance writer, and he wasn’t about to give up the chance to finally pursue that. Rhys had just been promoted at Atlas, and his new position made more than enough to provide for their growing family until Timothy got his footing.

Both of them felt satisfied with their choices, and so far—aside from the usual morning sickness and hormonal changes—everything was going fine.

And yet nearly every one who Tim had let in on his decision seemed to have their own, archaic opinion about it. In fact, his former boss Jack’s response—of a tidy final bonus and a crass encouragement to stuff his mate full of pups—had been the least offensive of the bunch, and that was saying something. Tim was sure that most of them had good intentions, but it didn’t stop the questions from becoming annoying after awhile, and he had started to lose patience with anyone who tried to bring up the fact that yes he was staying home to work, and eventually care for the newborns during the day. Especially after a particularly smarmy underling alpha had insinuated that Tim was stupid for leaving his omega “unprotected” at work instead of home where he belonged Jack’s last kindness to Tim had been firing that asshole on the spot.

Though he had the instinctive urges that all alphas did, Tim managed to rein them in and was pretty confident Rhys didn’t need protecting. However, that didn’t mean that Rhys had escaped similar scrutiny to what Tim had been subjected to. From what the omega had huffed to him in his post-workday rants, Tim understood that nearly everyone on his floor, subordinates and peers alike, seemed to have an opinion on how he should be dealing with his pregnancy, even condescendingly insinuating that he should stay home and out of the office or touching him. Rhys had angrily told Tim that the next person to put their hand on his belly without asking was going to lose it.

Tim tried to put the opinions of the naysayers out of his mind as he set about choosing furniture for the freshly painted nursery on a warm spring morning.

Sleeping in had become something of a myth to Tim since working for Hyperion, and now that he was free to choose his own schedule the idea of napping until ten o’clock was absolutely divine. He had awaken to the sunlight filtering through his room, gently kissing his body with warmth as he had stretched his arms with a yawn.

A fresh cup of tea and some fresh fruit and turkey bacon later, and Tim was seated at the small dining room table, looking through cribs and blankets and rocking chairs on his tablet.

It still shook him to the core with pride that he and Rhys were having twins—something that had been completely out of the blue, with nary a history of multiple births on either side of their family. It certainly wasn’t unheard of for an omega to have more than one child without a genetic predisposition, but it was certainly rarer. Tim smirked at himself in the quiet of the morning, pledging to enjoy it while he could before these daylight hours were filled with emergency feedings and diaper changing.

He bookmarked a couple of soft blankets and pretty, dark-wood cribs for Rhys’ to look at and give final approval on later. Ever since Tim had bought gallons of goldenrod paint instead of royal yellow, he’d learned that Rhys’ input was needed on absolutely everything baby related.

The rest of the day was spent checking up on some freelance projects, followed by grocery shopping and a bit of light cleaning before Tim decided he wanted to surprise his omega with a special treat. Pulling up Rhys’ favorite recipe for iced strawberry-lemon cake, Tim quickly set to work, putting on a nice soothing music playlist as he bounced about the kitchen.

Two tins of cake were baking in the oven when Tim heard the click of the front door open, followed by Rhys’ tired, yet undeniably relieved greeting.

“Heyyy, sweetie,” Tim cooed as he approached his omega, helping Rhys’ out of his light jacket and hanging it on the coat rack. Rhys sent him a soft smile as Tim welcomed him into his arms, holding him close. Rhys let out a content sigh as he nuzzled upwards into Tim’s jaw, hands supporting his swollen belly as he leaned into his alpha.

“All right day at work?” Tim asked, one hand sliding down to support Rhys’ lower back while the other rested on his stomach as he scented along his hairline. Sure, their entire apartment smelled heavily of the omega, but it still paled in comparison to the real thing.

“Yeah….pretty all right…I snarled at Jeanine when she tried to touch my stomach, so hopefully she gets the picture…” Rhys chuffed softly, idly sniffing at Timothy’s skin before he caught wind of the treats baking in the oven.

“Ooooh, is that…is that what I think it is?” Rhys wiggled in excitement, and Tim laughed as the omega’s belly audibly gurgled.

“Yes, but it’s still baking, honey, and I don’t want you burning yourself like last time you tried to eat your treats before they cooled.” Tim said sweetly as he helped Rhys over to the couch. He retrieved the omega’s favorite sweater and loose shorts from the bedroom, helping Rhys’ out of his collared shirt and dress pants, fussing at the tightness of his extended waistband.

“Don’t say it, I know,” Rhys groaned as his mate helped him slip into more comfortable clothes, “fashion isn’t long for this world…” He glared accusingly at his round belly. Tim chuckled softly, giving Rhys’ middle a soft pat, resting his palm there until he felt a gentle kick.

“It’s not so bad, sweetie…just think of it like you’re giving more room to grow for our babies.” Tim purrs gently as he plants a kiss on his mate’s stomach.

“Ooooor more room for cake, huh?” Rhys grinned as he stroked his fingers through Tim’s hair. The alpha chuckled, nuzzling Rhys’ stomach as he felt one of the babies shift underneath his cheek.

“You’re gonna eat us out of house and home before the kids even arrive, honey.” Tim felt happily dazed as he snuggled close to his mate, the smell of Rhys and the baking treats filling the house with warmth.

Maybe other alphas didn’t understand his choices, but they didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was keeping Rhys fed and safe under a well-kept roof, one would someday soon also protect his newborns. So he had sacrificed some corporate platitudes and alpha grandstanding—he’d much rather spend his days honing his writing, putting together the nursery, and baking for his sweet pregnant mate.

The smile and happy purr that Rhys gave him as he bit into that first slice of warm, heavenly cake, was all that Tim needed to remind him he’d made the right decision.

#text #rhysothy #omegaverse #mpreg #fanfic #fluffy fluff #just some nonsense #real world AU #non canon

31 notes · View notes

autumngracy · 8 years ago

Note

can i just say that i appreciat that ur open about ur atheism? i've been an atheist for around a decade but the majority of my friends including ppl that i'm pretty close w/ are very religious and i've always been a little scared to tell them that i'm atheist. i don't want them to think less of me for it. so i really, really appreciate ur courage about your beliefs.

Oh, man, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I still feel uncomfortable telling people too, sometimes, because I don’t know how they’ll take it. Console yourself, at least, that even if they did reject that aspect of you, it only indicates that they are closed-minded, and not that there is something wrong with you. It’s more of a “their problem, not yours” kind of thing, but I know it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way when you’re the one facing the consequences.

Like a lot of other things, visibility is critical for acceptance and understanding. So I’ve been trying to be more blaséabout stuff lately (mental illness, sexuality, political opinions, etc). Even so, religion is the one thing that remains very hard for me to discuss with people! Especially because of how complicated things actually are for me.

(this got long, so, uh, ramble under the cut)

I was raised Methodist. My dad taught an adult version of Sunday school. My family was religious, but only in an observational sense, and a “I’ll pray for people” sense, not in like a bigoted or strict way. Very casual stuff.

But even then I was afraid to question things openly. It’s very ironic how you can have people who really don’t read their own holy texts, or really know very much about their own religion, but who will snap and defend it tooth and nail when (deeply) questioned on stuff like logic, even when they’re clearly not 100% sure what they’re defending. And that’s just the laid-back types. God help you (haha) if you actually try to have a meaningful theological conversation with a born-again, literalist type.

My brother became an atheist at some point early on, and I always had a vague disquiet about observing certain religious things, or the stories we were supposed to believe. I like knowing the reasons behind everything, so even as a kid I hunted for facts and origins of stuff. Simply through researching the origins of modern holiday traditions I ended up finding paganism, and for many, many years quietly sought information about many different sides/types of religion.

When I was doing this it felt extremely taboo, because I approached it with a willingly open mind, and not simply as a Christian. I actually read through the first half of the bible at the ripe old age of like, uh, 13 or 14, trying to better understand the religion–and hilariously THAT was an even bigger factor in me becoming an atheist. Many people share that sentiment, too. When you actually sit down and read the source materials for these things, it just … well. Things become clear.

Anyway. My unease with Abrahamic faiths, and some other major faiths, combined with my curiosity and love of the occult led me to become at first a “Christian Wiccan” (ugh), then (quickly thereafter) just a Wiccan, and then, after a long deliberation, an atheist.

This whole transition was SUPER uncomfortable for multiple reasons. First, I felt uneasy, always looking over my shoulder, you know, either for angry people or an angry god. Secondly, my parents didn’t like it and tried to dissuade me, leading to many awkward conversations. Thirdly, my already atheist brother would express pride in my skepticism but at the same time tell me it was only inevitable that I would become an atheist, mocking me for keeping any ties to religion at all. If he hadn’t been one of those arrogant kind of atheists, and hadn’t made digs at me, I probably would have become an atheist even sooner tbh.

Even so I haven’t exactly severed all ties to tradition. I actually still consider myself an Eclectic Wiccan, but I’m an atheist one (just like how there are atheist Christians, atheist Muslims, etc). I’ve kind of looked at religion as a whole and done a lot of soul searching with it, pulling out what I thought the purpose and sentiment behind the traditions and stories were from multiple cultures (see the “eclectic” part). I examined the sentiments of things, and the way doing certain things made one feel, and why.

It’s really hard to explain what I think these days and why I do what I do. I guess it boils down to a mix of philosophy, anthropology/history, and community. I see the worth in certain aspects of religion, in the sense of them being stories with a moral. The moral is the important part. You know how in the bible Jesus would tell all these parables (moral stories obviously not based in reality) to get across an idea to prove a point? That’s literally how every religion is to me, They’re all parables. That’s the best way I can explain it to people like my mother, who want to understand but are firmly rooted in religion and don’t intend to change.

The problem these days with expressing skepticism is that people are very closed to it. Even if they can understand why YOU feel a certain way about something, they may never ask themselves the same questions in earnest.

So many people view atheism as a destruction of society, of morals, of all structure to life. Some people even see it as their own religion’s view of evil (Christians viewing atheists as Satan worshipers, for example. Sorry, but, uh … Satan is a Abrahamic concept?? lmao) People see atheists and they’ve been conditioned to either think “EVIL!” or “poor, lost soul in need of guidance”, when the reality is … neither.

There is this toxic problem of religion having a stranglehold on morality. “Only the religious can be ethical, understanding, humble, etc” … It’s so untrue. In fact in many ways atheists can be MORE understanding, humble, moral, etc. than those who strictly adhere to what they believe are divine laws. The general point of religion is to be this system of philosophy that is told through stories regarded as true, rather like a “morality for dummies” kind of book. But if you can understand the underlying principles of that morality, you don’t actually need the fictitious examples to go back to for reference.

The problem inherent in all religions is that they have become so complex in their iterations, so needlessly convoluted, that they begin to lose sight of their true purposes. They can even spur concepts that go AGAINST their true purpose, like racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, etc., and in those ways can be very damaging to society–a society they are meant to heal and bring together.

There are many people, even religious people, that are aware of that too. They gloss over certain bits of doctrine in favor of the larger picture of love and acceptance, and honestly, bless those people.

Anyway. I know I made this super long for no reason (but that’s just what happens when someone gets me going on theology). I guess what I’m wanting to say is, despite what many might think, there’s nothing wrong with being an atheist, nor should you be made to feel ashamed of it.

There’s a big stigma surrounding it because of so-called “intellectual elitism,” and people like to whine that only narcissists and assholes who think they’re smarter than everyone else are atheists, but that’s really unfair. There are certainly some atheists who openly mock religions, and are as bad as determined missionaries when it comes to converting people … but that’s their personality problem, not everyone’s.

Being an atheist doesn’t mean being an asshole (that’s a choice). Atheists can actually be some of the kindest people around. And it really does require a great deal of intelligence, empathy, and bravery, to work oneself past religious dogma, especially if you grew up indoctrinated with it.

So I understand why you feel you can’t safely disclose your beliefs (or lack thereof) to people, but I am proud of you anyway, and I don’t want you to feel like you should be embarrassed about it, okay? As long as you have a kind heart, it doesn’t really matter what you do or do not believe. Maybe if you approach the subject from those familiar angles, it will be easier to explain, and you can one day not have to hide anymore.

❤

8 notes · View notes

ravenmorganleigh · 8 years ago

Text

25 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PLOT

Previous iterations of the “25 Things” series:

25 Things Every Writer Should Know

25 Things You Should Know About Storytelling

25 Things You Should Know About Character

And now…

1. WHAT THE FIDDLY FUCK IS “PLOT,” ANYWAY?

A plot is the sequence of narrative events as witnessed by the audience.

2. THE WRONG QUESTION

Some folks will ask, incorrectly, “What’s the plot?” which, were you to answer them strictly, you would begin to recite for them a litany of events, each separated by a deep breath and the words, “And then…” They probably don’t want that. What they mean to ask is, “What’s the story?” or, “What’s this about?” Otherwise you’re just telling them what happened, start to finish. In other words: snore.

3. A GOOD PLOT IS LIKE A SKELETON: CRITICAL, YET INVISIBLE

A plot functions like a skeleton: it is both structural and supportive. Further, it isn’t entirely linear. A plot has many moving parts (sub-plots and pivot points) that act as limbs and joints. The best plots are plots we don’t see, or rather, that the audience never has to think about. As soon as we think about it, it’s like a needle manifests out of thin air and pops the balloon or lances that blister. Remember, we don’t walk around with our skeletons on the outside of our body, which is good because, ew. What are we, ants? So don’t show off your plot. Let the plot remain hidden, invisible.

4. SHIT’S GOTTA MAKE SENSE, SON

The biggest plot crime of them all is a plot that doesn’t make a lick of goddamn sense. That’s a one way ticket to plot jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 dollars. Do not drop the soap. The elegance of a great plot is that, when the events are all strung together, there exists a natural order as if this was the only way they could fit together. It’s like dominoes tumbling. Your plot is not a chimera: random parts mashed together because you didn’t think it through. Test the plot. Show people. Pull the pieces apart and ask, “Is there a better way?” Nonsense plots betray the potency of story.

5. THE QUINTESSENTIAL PLOT

The simplest motherfucker of a plot is this: things get worse until they get better. A straight-up escalation of conflict. It goes from “Uh-oh, that’s bad,” to, “Uh-oh, it’s getting worse,” to “Oh, holy shit, it can’t get any worse,” to, “I think I maybe maybe fixed it, or at least stopped it from being so totally and completely fucked.” When in doubt, just know that your next step as a storyteller is to bring the pain, amp the misery, and escalate the conflict. That’s what they mean by the advice, “Have a man with a gun walk through the door.” You can take that literally, sure, but what it means is: the bad news just got worse.

6. IN LIFE WE AVOID CONFLICT, IN FICTION WE SEEK IT

Fiction is driven by characters in conflict, or, put differently, the flame of fiction grows brighter through friction. A match-tip lights only when struck; so too is the mechanism by which a gun fires a bullet. Impact. Tension. Fear. Danger. Need to know what impels your plot forward? Look to the theme of Man Versus [fill-in-the-blank]. Man versus his fellow man. Woman versus nature. Man versus himself. Woman versus an angry badger riding a unicorn. Find the essential conflict and look for events that are emblematic to that.

7. WANT VERSUS FEAR

Of course, the essence of the essential conflict — the one below all that Wo/Man versus stuff — is a character’s wants versus a character’s fears. Plot grows from this fecund garden. The character wants life, revenge, children, a pony — and that which he fears must stand in his way. John McClane must battle terrorists to return to his wife. Indiana Jones must put up with snakes and irritating sidekicks to uncover the artifact. I must put up with walking downstairs to make myself a gin-and-tonic. Everything that stands in a character’s way — the speedbumps, roadblocks, knife-wielding monkeys, ninja clones, tornadoes, and sentient Krispy Kreme donuts sent from the future to destroy man via morbid obesity — are events in the greater narrative sequence: they are pieces of the plot.

8. GROW THE PLOT, DON’T BUILD IT

A plot grows within the story you’re telling. A story is all the important parts swirling together: world, character, theme, mood, and of course, plot. An artificial plot is something you have to wrestle into place, a structure you have to bend and mutilate and duct tape to get it to work — it is a square peg headbutted into a circle hole, and you’re the poor bastard doing all the headbutting.

9. THE TENSION AND RECOIL OF CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE

An organic plot grows like this: characters make decisions — sometimes bad decisions, other times decisions whose risks outweigh the rewards, and other times still decisions that are just plain uncertain in their outcome — and then characters must deal with the consequences of those decisions. A character gives up a baby. Or buys a gun. Or enters the dark forest to slay Lady Gaga. Anytime a character makes a choice, the narrative branches. Events unfold because she chose a path. That’s it. That’s plot. Choice and consequence tighten together, ratcheting tension, creating suspense. Choice begets event.

10. PLOT IS PROMISE

Plot offers the promise of Chekov and his gun, of Hitchcock and his bomb under the table. An event here leads to a choice there which spawns another event over there. Foreshadowing isn’t just a literary technique used sparingly: it lurks in the shadow of every plot turn. Plot promises pay-off. A good plot often betrays this promise and does something different than the audience expects. That’s not a bad thing. You don’t owe the audience anything but your best story. But a plot can also make hay by doing exactly what you expect: show them the gun and now they want to see it fire.

11. LET CHARACTERS DO THEY HEAVY LIFTING

Characters will tell you your plot. Even better: let them run and they’ll goddamn give it to you on a platter. Certainly plot can happen from an external locus of control — but you’re not charting the extinction of the dinosaurs or the lifecycle of the slow loris. Plot is like Soylent Green: it’s made of people. Characters say things, do things, and that creates plot. It really can be that simple. Authentic plot comes from internal emotions, not external mechanics.

12. CHART THE SHORTEST POINT BETWEEN BEGINNING AND END

One way to be shut of the nonsensical, untenable plot is to cut through all the knots. If we are to assume that a plot is motivated by the choices and actions of characters — and we must assume that, because who else acts as prime mover? — then we can also assume that characters will take the most direct path through the story as they can. That’s not to say it’ll be the smartest path, but it will be forthright as the character sees it. No character creates for himself a convoluted path. Complex, perhaps. Convoluted? Never. Characters want what they want and that means they will cut as clear a path to that goal as they can. A convoluted, needlessly complex plot is just the storyteller showing off how clever he is. And no audience wants that. Around these parts, we hunt and kill the preening peacocks and wear their tail-feathers as a headdress.

13. ON THE SUBJECT OF “PLOT HOLES”

Plot holes — where logic and good sense and comprehensible sequence fall into a sinking story-pit — happen for a handful of reasons. One, you weren’t paying attention. Two, your plot is too convoluted and its untenable nature cannot sustain itself. Three, you don’t know what the fuck is happening, and maybe also, you’re drunk. Four, the plot is artificial, not organic, and isn’t coming out naturally from what the characters need and want to do. Five, you offended Plot Jesus by not sacrificing a goat. You can’t just fix a plot hole by spackling it over. It’s like a busted pipe in a wall. You need to do some demo. Get in there. Rip out more than what’s broken. Fill in more than what’s missing.

13. IF THE CHARACTERS HAVE TO PLAN, SO DO YOU

Many writers don’t like to outline. Here’s how you know if you should, though: if your characters are required to plan and plot something — a heist, an attack on a moon bunker, a corporate take-over — then you’re a fool if you think these imaginary people have to plan but you don’t. This is doubly true of genre material. A murder mystery for example lives and dies by a compelling, sensible plot. So plan the plot, for Chrissakes. This isn’t improvisational dance. Take some fucking notes, will you?

14. SET UP YOUR TENTPOLES

A big tent is propped up by tentpoles. So too is your plot. Easy way to plan without getting crazy: find those events in your plot that are critical, that must happen for the whole story to come together. “Mary Meets Gordon. Belial Betrays Satan. An Earthquake Swallows Snooki.” Chart these half-dozen events. Know that you must get to them somehow.

15. THE HERKY JERKY PLOT SHUFFLE PIVOT POINT BOOGIE

You’ve seen Freytag’s Triangle. It’s fine. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. This is the Internet. This is the future. We have CGI. We have 3-D. Gaze upon the plot from the top-down. It isn’t a linear stomp up a steep mountain. It’s a zig-zagging quad ride through dunes and jungles, over rivers and across gulleys. You’re a hawk over the quad-rider’s shoulder — watch it jerk left, pull right, jump a log, squash a frog. More obstacles. Greater danger. Faster and faster. Every turn is a pivot point. A point when the narrative shifts, when the audience goes right and the story feints left.

16. PLOT IS THE BEAT THAT SETS THE STORY’S RHYTHM

Plot comprises beats. Each action, a new beat, a new bullet point in the sequence of events. These establish rhythm. Stories are paced according to the emotions and moods they are presently attempting to evoke. Plot is the drummer. Plot keeps the sizzling beat. Like Enrique “Kiki” Garcia, of Miami Sound Machine.

17. EVERY NIGHT NEEDS A SLOW DANCE

I know I said that plot, at its core, is how everything gets worse and worse and worse until it gets better. Overall, that’s true. But you need to pull back from that. Release the tension. Soften the recoil. Not constantly, but periodically. Learn to embrace the false victories, the fun & games, the momentary lapses of danger. If only to mess with the heads of the audience. Which, after all, is your totally awesome job.

18. THE NAME OF MY NEW BAND IS “BEAT SHEET MANIFESTO”

You can move well beyond the tentpoles. You can free-fall from the 30,000 foot view, smash into the earth, and get a macro-level micro-view of all the ants and the pill-bugs and the sprouts from seeds. What I mean is, you can track every single beat — every tiny action — that pops up in your plot. You don’t need to do this before you write, but you can and should do it after. You’ll see where stuff doesn’t make sense. You’ll see where plot holes occur. Also: wow. A Meat Beat Manifesto joke?

19. BEATS BECOME SCENES BECOME SEQUENCES BECOME ACTS

Plot is narrative, and narrative has units of measurement: momentary beats become scenes of a single place, scenes glom together to form whole sequences of action and event, and sequences elbow one another in the giant elevator known as an “act,” where the story manifests a single direction before zig-zagging to another (at which point, another act shifts). Think first in acts. Then sequences. Then scenes. And finally, beats. Again, take that 30,000 foot view, but then jump out of the plane and watch the ground come to meet you.

20. YOUR SEXY MISTRESS, THE SUBPLOT

In real life, don’t cheat on your spouse or lover. Not cool, man. Not cool. As a writer, you don’t cheat on your manuscript, either: while working on one script or novel, don’t go porking another one behind the shed. But inside the narrative? The laws change. You need to cheat on your primary plot. Have dalliances with sub-plots — this is a side-story, or the “B-story.” Lighter impact. Smaller significance. Highlights supporting characters. But the sub-plot always has the DNA of the larger plot and supports or runs parallel to the themes present. Better still is when the sub-plot affects, influences or dovetails with the larger plot.

21. BENEATH SUBPLOT, A NOUGATY LAYER OF MICRO-PLOT

Every little component of your story threatens — in a good way, like how storms threaten to give way to sun, or how a woman threatens to dress up as your favorite Farscape puppet and sex you down to galaxy-town — to spin off into its own plot. Your tale is unwittingly composed of tiny micro-plots: filaments woven together. A character needs to buy a gun but can’t pass the legal check. His dog runs away. He hasn’t paid his power bill. Small inciting incidents. Itty-bitty conflicts. They don’t overwhelm the story, but they exist just the same, enriching the whole. A big plot is in some ways just a lot of little plots lashed together and moving in a singular direction. Like a herd of stampeding marmots.

22. EXPOSITION IS SAND IN THE STORY’S PANTIES

Look at plot construction advice and you’ll see a portion set aside for “exposition.” Consider exposition a dirty word. It is a synonym for “info-dump,” and an info-dump is when you, the storyteller, squat over the audience’s mouth and expel your narrative waste into their open maw. Take the section reserved for exposition and fold it gently into the rest of the work as if you were baking a light and fluffy cake. Let information come out through action. Even better: withhold exposition as long as you can. Tantric storytelling, ladies and germs: deny the audience’s expectation ejaculation until you can do so no longer.

23. ON THE SUBJECT OF THE “PLOT TWIST”

A plot twist is the kid who’s too cool for school — ultimately shallow, without substance, and a total tool. It’s a gimmick. Let your story be magic, not a magic trick. Not to say plot twists can’t work, but they only work when they function as the only way the story could go from the get-go. Again: organic, not artificial.

24. THE ENDING IS THE ANSWER TO A VERY LONG EQUATION

Plot is math, except instead of numbers and variables it’s characters, events, themes, and yes, variables. The ending is one such variable. An ending should feel like it’s the only answer one can get when he adds up all parts of the plot. This actually isn’t true: you can try on any number of endings and you likely have a whole host that can work. But there’s one ending that works for you, and when it works for you, it works for them. And by “them” I don’t mean the men in the flower delivery van who are watching your every move. I mean “them” as in, the audience. P.S., don’t forget to wear your tinfoil hat because the flowers are listening.

25. PLOT IS ONLY MEANS TO AN END

Speaking of ends, plot is just a tool. A means to an end. Think of it as a character- and conflict-delivery-system. Plot is conveyance. It still needs to work, still needs to come together and make sense — but plot is rarely the reason someone cares about a story. They care about characters, about the way it makes them feel, about the thing you-as-storyteller are trying to say. Note, though, that the opposite is true: plot may not make them love a story, but it can damn sure make them hate it.

* * *

If you dig on the apeshit crazy-face no-holds-barred profanity-soaked writing advice found here at terribleminds, then you may want to take a wee bitty gander-peek at: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY, which is available now! Buy for Kindle (US), Kindle (UK), Nook, or PDF.

#Plotting #writing #moffiss pay attention

2 notes · View notes

paulisweeabootrash · 5 years ago

Text

New Year’s Mini-Review Pack 2019

Another year is over and I want to make the mini-review pack from last year a yearly tradition to announce it.

Sometimes I watch shows that I have something to say about, but I don't feel like writing a real review of them. Here are the five I want to highlight this year.

Happy New Year, nerds!

-----

1. Food Wars (2015)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: Hulu

Souma is in the family diner business, trained by his father on expert renditions of “low-class” foods. He expects to continue in the family business, and even rescues the diner (via cooking, naturally) from sabotage by a developer trying to pressure his father into selling the building so it can be replaced with high-rise apartments. But despite that, his father shuts down the restaurant “for a few years” to go abroad and sends Souma to a fancy boarding school for aspiring chefs. The school is sprawling and eclectic in a way only anime boarding schools can be. And, like any self-respecting anime boarding school, it naturally has three things: an absolutely nonsensical student government, an extraordinary level of old-school elitism, and most importantly, duels. Disputes can be settled through challenges of head-to-head Iron Chef-style cooking, with wagers riding on them ranging from "you have to join this club if you lose" to "you're expelled if you lose". As far as I’ve watched so far, there are a few episodes focused on setting up the premise and main characters and a few focused on these competitions between students. Although the latter concept can be tedious because I’m not much of a tournament show person, it is nevertheless fun because this show commits to its absurdity.

Classic W/A/S: 6 / 7 / 3

Weeb: Ludicrous school setups! The main character progressing through a series of duels! Tentacles! In-depth descriptions of Japanese food! It's not the kind of weeb that makes it incomprehensible to those not familiar with the tropes, but it's certainly very Japanese.

Ass: This show has been described to me by several people as "literal food porn", and... yeah. The cold open scene to the first episode contains... uh... basically tentacle porn. I'm sorry. The feelings of characters' pleasure (or revulsion) in food is depicted metaphorically and absolutely over-the-top, often with the pleasure of delicious food being heavily sexualized. And there's plenty of sexualization of both male and female characters even outside of these scenes, although it never crosses the line into full nudity.

Shit: Very well-drawn! The food is particularly gorgeous, as you'd expect, but the other imagery is creative, and the melodramatic writing and music are not bad, even fitting for so outlandish and cheesy a concept.

PS: I haven’t actually tried making it... yet... but the gag dish introduced in ep. 1, grilled squid with peanut butter, sounds good to me, despite the negative results you can easily find... and others seem to agree, since the concept predates the show. Just make a peanut-butter-based-sauce rather than just using peanut butter and it should be fine.

-----

2. Hinamatsuri (2018)

Episodes watched: 12

Platform: Crunchyroll

Hina, a time-traveling middle-school-aged psychic, arrives in our time, in the apartment of a very confused yakuza operative, Nitta Yoshifumi, who takes her in. Shenanigans ensue, mostly centering around hilarious misunderstandings and the dubious life lessons Yoshifumi and other mobsters impart. Mostly, the comedy and story are propelled by Hina and two other girls we meet early on: another time-traveler, Anzu, who is sent to retrieve her, fails, and gets stuck in our time, and Hitomi, whom Hina meets as a classmate when Yoshifumi enrolls Hina in school under the name Nitta Hina (claiming she is his daughter), and who gets intimidated into taking an after-school job as a bartender that she struggles to keep secret. The show's format is two segments per episode focusing on different slice of life-ish stories (though with solid continuity and more ongoing plot than you might expect for that characterization), and is usually comedic but also veers into drama and incredible sweetness. Hina is deadpan, bad at conversation, and unable to unable to understand the context or motives of what others are saying, in a way that honestly almost makes me think autism(?), but I'm guessing is probably supposed to just be "she was raised in the creepy time travel organization and they didn't train her to socialize". Anzu is a different outcome of the same deprivation: after not returning Hina to their own time, she moves into a homeless camp and quickly takes in the life lessons of the residents, becoming earnest, helpful, and incredibly resistant to spending money, but completely baffled and amazed at how our world works. Hitomi, the only "normal" one, is just... the best. The episode about her first becoming a bartender felt like a backdoor pilot, and if it were I would absolutely watch that spinoff. The first segment of ep. 10, also starring Hitomi, is the funniest "compounding misunderstandings"-style comedy I've seen in a while... and I'm a big Arrested Development fan, so that means something.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 2 / 3

Weeb: There are some distinctly Japanese traditions depicted, but most elements of the show could be moved to a different setting and "reskinned" for different cultures' organized crime, foods, shopping options, homeless camps, etc., without sacrificing any of the plot or comedy. Mostly, its distinctly Japanese features are that it relies on imagery and exaggerations that absolutely scream "comedy anime".

Ass: Sexual humor and references, occasionally, but not going to far. Recurring nudity, but not full and not for fanservice. Actually, it seems as if they've taken a cue from Terminator and assumed that, for whatever reason, you have to time-travel naked.

Shit: This show is practically made of reaction images. Although it's not the best animated, it's very consistent, clean, and expressive. They do well with how they did it. The show practically demands a second season in its last episode, and I think it could make it all the way down to a score of 2 or even 1 on here if they do so and upgrade the animation a bit. The characters are distinctly and pleasantly designed and rarely does a scene go by that isn't hilarious not because of some kind of rapid-fire jokes thing but because each segment is set up so well and characters play off each other. Hina's lack of affect gets a little tiresome, but the other characters are great, and usually get a large chunk of an episode's screentime.

-----

3. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Arrow of the Orion (2019)

Episodes watched: n.a. — movie

Platform: in theater

Picking up sometime between the first and second seasons of the main series of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon (or Danmachi for short, derived from the Japanese title), this follows the main cast of Bell Cranel and his ragtag dungeon-crawling party on a new quest. Artemis, Greek goddess of chastity and hunting, is in search, via Hermes, of an adventurer who can wield "the Orion" (a drastically OP spear with the power to kill gods themselves) to destroy Antares, a monster who keeps wiping out adventuring parties and has become a threat to the entire world because [spoiler]. A love... square... ensues between Bell, Hestia, Lili, and Artemis, and other various shenanigans happen that will make much more sense if you've seen the main show and its companion/spinoff, Sword Oratoria. I personally didn't find the affection between Bell and Artemis particularly believable, and I didn't expect the ending to go quite the way it did, but I try not to complain about a story not being the story I wanted it to be. Watch it if you're already a Danmachi fan or really really like weird takes on classical mythology. Skip if not.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 4 / 4

Weeb: Prior knowledge of Danmachi helps immensely, but is not strictly required as there is a and although the show is another "what if we just mix a bunch of mythologies together?" and "what if a real world functioned on RPG logic?" premise, it does occasionally have an idea thrown in that will be foreign to much of the American audience (even if not distinctly Japanese), such as the Buddhist idea of gods themselves being reincarnated (something that also came up in Noragami).

Ass: As the after-credits interview feature says, they wondered whether or not they should keep -sigh- the panty shot. And they went with "yes". Also, peeping on women bathing has, unfortunately, become a running joke whenever Hermes appears in Danmachi, so be prepared for that. Without giving spoilers, though, let me just say I hope not all of the nudity comes off as sexual.

Shit: The monsters are hit-or-miss CGI, sometimes blending with the 2D animation of the rest, sometimes looking so jarring it's actually funny. The 2D art is usually beautiful, though, and as much as I love the show, this is definitely an art upgrade overall. The plot has a few dumb elements, honestly, or at least not well-enough-developed ones, that make me wonder if it could have worked better as a story arc in the show itself (actually developing a relationship between Artemis and Bell). The score is a mix of reused tracks from the show plus some new stuff that sounds pretty Jurassic Park-era John Williams to me. A few subtitle choices are noticeably different from the show, but not consequential to understanding things. There were a lot of ugly audio glitches, especially early on, but I hope that's a problem with the equipment at the theater I went to and not the editing of the movie.

-----

4. Supernatural the Animation (2011)

Episodes watched: 1.

Platform: Hulu.

This show follows Sam and Dean Winchester, who -- yup, you're on the right blog, and yup, that's "Supernatural" as in the long-running American live action series. For those not familiar, the original is a sprawling drama set in basically "our world except all mythologies and folklores are true", and follows the aforementioned Winchester brothers, who hunt monsters in situations that range from their straightforward monster-of-the-week investigations to meta-humor to multi-season story arcs involving multiple trips to Hell itself. My wife is a huge fan, so I've seen a lot of episodes just incidentally, and enjoyed some of them, but haven't really followed the show. She assures me, though, that this anime adaptation is loosely based on the first two seasons. So loosely that at first she thought it was some sort of interquel or sidestory. The first episode comes off feeling like you're supposed to already be familiar with the main characters -- that they're brothers, that they're monster hunters, why they're looking for their missing father -- because not much actually gets explained. It’s unremarkable and badly-executed and ugh.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 1? / 7

Weeb: Although the source material is American (and further back, European and Middle Eastern, given the influence of European folklore traditions and the Abrahamic religions on the choice and depiction of monsters), it's presented in a very Japanese style. This is especially true in reworking the original's horror tendencies -- the blood splatter from offscreen and the writhing, lurching body horror that is the shapeshifter seem much more like what little I've seen of Japanese horror than American.

Ass: I forgot to write anything for this immediately after I watched it and I don't care enough to go back and check but I don't remember anything that would fall under the headings of fanservice or general nudity.

Shit: Variable. There are occasional moments of bad CG, occasional low-frame-rate weirdness, and disjointed storytelling compared to what I've seen of the original. The art style is pretty interesting, though, because it's not something you see animated much -- its angular faces and stark shadows remind me of the darker end of American superhero comics. Although it's certainly not the technically worst show I've reviewed in either story or art, I find it extremely unpleasant and do not want to continue past one episode. If you feel like doing so, feel free to tell me if it gets any better.

Content: Violence and horror imagery is somehow both less extreme and more successfully unsettling (at least to me) than those in the original live-action show.

#Food Wars #Hinamatsuri #Danmachi #Arrow of the Orion #Supernatural #Supernatural the Animation #weeaboo trash #mini-reviews #happy new year

0 notes

kinetic-elaboration · 7 years ago

Text

March 8: Thoughts on 1x10 I Am Become Death

Friday tomorrow. Watching I Am Become Death tonight instead of sleeping.

I don’t think I ever noticed the random severed arm in the Exodus ship wreckage before. Or the random ribs.

I hate to say it but I semi-side with Finn re: the Grounders but he’s otherwise annoying. “Clarke shouldn’t be out here” blah blah whatever--you clearly don’t know her at all because obviously she’d be out there first. Raven gets her better and Raven/Clarke should have been a thing.

“Why they’re coming doesn’t matter anymore”--lol truer words were never spoken. Seriously. And it’s quite sad.

“We move in formation”--what an actual army.

This is one of Jasper’s more annoying scenes, telling the bridge story, but at least he’s acting 15, which I appreciate; also Octavia is semi-more annoying (that’s your friend lol, get over your grumpiness); and also it’s all worth it for the lines “Let us have this” and “my boy’s a folk hero.” (I’m hearing my and you can’t stop me, Netflix subtitles that say the.)

Why would these bozos shoot into the woods when they know they have people out there? I’m surprised they didn’t all friendly-fire themselves to death in season 1.

Remember when this show was creative enough to do stuff like bio warfare? Good times. What happened to that?

I don’t feel remotely bad for anyone who got sick in this episode either (other than Murphy) because banishing him was Grade A stupid and they deserved what they got.

Speaking of not-shining moments, Bellamy’s (completely unbelievable) desire to shoot Murphy dead in the middle of the dropship is ridiculous. I say unbelievable because he absolutely would not have done it and ridiculous because yet again, hate to say it, but Finn and Clarke are right and Bellamy’s position is silliness. Also really dogmatic in an Ark-like way: we said we’d kill in this circumstance so I guess we gotta do it! Not a rebel king moment for sure.

“After we interrogate him we send him back out in the woods, repeating the exact same mistake we already made and that has led to our secrets being shared with our enemy.” LOL nevermind Clarke’s dumb as rocks too. Who wrote this and why do they hate all the characters?

I am not going to talk about the Harper scene because it’s past midnight and I’m trying to be less of a masochist but suffice it to say most people who talk about this scene could stand to, I don’t know, crazy, out there idea here, actually watch it before spouting off their big mouths. Not that I’m BITTER at all or anything.

Also: Monty’s a slut in the making and kind of sexist, he is bad at minding his own business, I want Jasper’s shoes. I may have Jasper’s shoes, just as low tops.

I lied I am talking about it. The way Monty’s expression changes when Jasper tells him to float himself and his sad “I’m just telling you the truth” IS Monty in a nutshell. You ever wondered what the definitive Monty line is? It’s that one. He has no tact and the emotional intelligence of a brick. It’s the truth so what’s wrong with telling it?? Right???

Also here we have an early example of Jasper (a child with emotional intelligence beyond his years) knowing just how to push buttons and show cruelty. Fuck this was quite possibly the best written character on the show and then they drove him into a ditch and I’m so angry. He simultaneously did a 180 in character, and also stayed IC. That’s like the writing dream.

I want a deleted scene where Bellamy gifts Jasper the tent (also btw to people who were simultaneously Bellamy stans and Jasper haters and who like to point to the bridge scene as a knock against my favorite awkward bisexual: Bellamy thought he did the right thing and actually rewarded him for it so...go float yourself as they say). Because I think Jasper, with his Obvious Bellamy Crush, probably almost fainted.

One minute of Clarke/Raven interaction and I get all on the edge of my seat. They get so little.

Few images more iconic than Clarke crying blood.

This Murphy + Clarke + Bellamy scene is Clarke at her finest, and a good example of Bellamy being all-emotion, no-logic tbqh. He’s sure looking fine though.

The Mountain Man in Lincoln’s notebook...

Clarke is so sneaky and gives no fucks. Telling Bellamy she’ll keep O on the third floor and then immediately sending her back out. I mean, again, smart, but one of those moments when I just sincerely wonder how anyone, even Bellamy, can ever REALLY trust her.

Lincoln wants to go “East, to the sea, then across it.” He’s not...really discussing crossing the Atlantic is he? He’s gotta be talking about a different sea. Does he mean like the Chesapeake Bay?? That’s gotta be it. Also Luna’s rig is most decidedly not in Europe or Africa lol.

Dude I think I might have just seen Manny Jacinto. Wild.

Clarke with her blood-eyes and humongous weaponry firing shots into the air is surprisingly hot; this distresses me.

It’s weird how I technically ship Bellarke and quite hard at that but these flirting scenes, or B knocking out the guy threatening Clarke, aren’t doing anything for me. Perhaps because I’m finding Bellamy rather obnoxious--IC but obnoxious--in this particular ep.

I think when Octavia starts helping the sick delinquents is when she decides not to leave with Lincoln but bounces back to feeling an affiliation with the 100.

This is such a deja vu moment for me but I always laugh at Finn’s “you don’t know me very well.” UH YOU THINK?

I’m sorry but Finn doesn’t get enough credit for the blowing up the bridge idea. I know it ended up being a lot more violent than he wanted it to be (tbh this would have been better if he’d been more staunchly pacifist from the get go and then upset when lives were lost to his plan but whatever)--but it was still a good plan.

I guess I can see how people can interpret Monty’s reaction to Jasper’s “flirting” with Harper as jealousy but IMO this is a stretch because if he WERE interested in her why was his main message to his best friend in the earlier scene “You should fuck that pussy”? The more obvious interpretation is that Jasper, who does not have an interest in Harper, is “flirting” with her to mess with Monty and that Monty realizes that or that Jasper isn’t flirting, just actually being nice (I KNOW! A boy! NICE?!?!?) and Monty is interpreting it as a jab at him because he’s in a sour mood and they’re fighting. Regardless, Harper--a character we have literally never seen before this episode--is literally just a pawn for their relationship growth let’s not forget that.

“That’s cute.”

Finn won’t pick up a gun--probably the best evidence that he’s actively a pacifist. Shame an actively pacifistic character hasn’t really existed on this show after S1.

“The men who built the A-bomb thought they were peacemakers too. How’d that work out for them?” Oh how I miss the idea that this show would consider humanity’s rush to its own self-destruction! Or just frankly the framing of the universe as the after-effect of the real choices we really made and are making in the real world, drawn out to their ultimate conclusions. The ALIE story line is, in this sense, even worse than the atrocity of S4 because the retcon just all but elided humanity’s responsibility for its destruction and that just...boils my blood tbqh.

This scene, where Bellamy tells Jasper to take the shot at the bridge, is a great example of Devon Bostick’s Face. Kid has great bones. (He’s actually real life younger than me so I’m allowed to call him a Kid indefinitely that’s the rule.)

Bellamy falling into the tent = me in law school. Also p. sure Jasper’s immune but Bellamy’s concern is nevertheless touching.

Bellamy and O are no Elliot and Darlene but they have their moments.

The Dramatic Zoom In on Finn’s face when Monty tells him that Raven took the bomb is Grade A Hilarious.

Jasper breaks first in the Jonty fight, as I’m sure he always does. No one holds a grudge like Monty. Or is vicious like Monty. “Why don’t you ask your new friends?” is a touch catty and probably the gayest thing he’s ever done (sorry but the boy is canonically straight and always has been...queer him as you wish, I certainly do, but let’s not pretend it’s an interpretation grounded in the text lol.) (What a tangent.)

This is a good Bellarke scene, though. I especially like Clarke’s “Trust? No. I do believe in second chances though”--a good line to remember when trying to keep her IC. (Though I maintain that the idea of second chances and being less judgmental is something she learned in S1, not a pre-pilot trait; see: Wells); and Bellamy’s “Maybe if we close all the doors the Grounders will think we’re not home” like I love that sense of humor.

They’re so rude about Finn and Jasper. Jasper’s a good shot asshats--he saw those Grounders in the last ep. before Bellamy did so suck on that.

Raven with the hydrazine on the bridge is also me in law school.

Jasper and Monty could have been an iconic couple if only this fandom (and this show) were not so dumb.

While I love this Oppenheimer exchange (Bellamy’s voice lol), it bugs me a little that, first, Clarke didn’t build that bomb, shoot it, come up with the idea, or involve herself in the plan at all so cool your jets sick lady you’re not destroying any worlds, and second, it’s not Oppenheimer, it’s Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita and I don’t know why that’s so important to me to remember but it really really is. Bugs me every time.

The Mountain Men reference. I guess they saw the mushroom cloud and learn of the delinquents through it...but they already shot down the Exodus Ship. How’d they know about that but not the Dropship? And why didn’t they notice the flares? Why is Lincoln so sure that the cloud will do it?

Lincoln’s got some books in there.

Raven’s comparison of Finn rushing to help Clarke versus hesitating about the bomb isn’t really fair tbqh. I mean it doesn’t matter because their relationship is obviously a farce and she needs to cut him loose, and if that’s what it took, that’s fine. But catching someone who’s falling is an instinct and I don’t think it necessarily has much to do with love or devotion. Whereas Bellamy’s question was about the future and there was no immediate someone-will-crack-their-head-open-on-the-ground-in-a-second danger about it. It wasn’t really an instinctual moment in the same way. Still, drop that dead weight my closet lesbian.

“It’s hard running things” is obviously a call back “It’s not easy being in charge.”

WHY AM I STILL AWAKE IT’S SO LATE.

#the year 2018 #2018: the 100 s1 #2018: fandom thoughts #the 100

1 note · View note

graceivers · 8 years ago

Text

Review #17 - Risking It All

Risking It All Author: Tessa Bailey Genre: Contemporary Romance, Criminals, Law Enforcement Rating: ★★★★½ Recommendation: give it a shot; would read again Summary: Sera Newsom wants revenge and recklessly goes undercover to get evidence against the crime boss responsible for her brother’s death. Bowen Driscol, another crime boss, is more or less persuaded by the police commissioner to keep an eye out for Sera and protect her until she can safely return with said evidence. There’s angst galore.

Female Lead: I didn’t dislike Sera’s character; there were just a number of things that didn’t quite match or add up. Despite Bailey giving us background information about this character, I still have questions. Like what was the transition like from working as a nurse at MGH in Boston to NYPD detective? How long did that take? How seamless was that transition? I’m not in either profession, but I don’t think there a lot of transferrable skills from nursing to police officer. I understood Sera’s motive in changing careers because she wanted to avenge her brother’s death. I also understood why Bailey wrote that Sera was previously a nurse because her caregiving skills was a way in for her undercover persona. Maybe it wasn’t important, maybe I missed it when reading, and maybe it’s only me, but I found that switch difficult to wrap my head around.

Likewise, I felt there was a lot of strange wavering with Sera’s character. Personally, I didn’t think there was a lot of logic or common sense to her thinking—not when she rashly decided to go undercover basically without telling anyone, not when she was fighting her attraction to Bowen, and certainly not when she found out Bowen knew she was an undercover detective. Was she in a difficult position with her life on the line? Yes, absolutely. But did she really think this whole solo undercover op out before diving in? No, not really. It’s kind of evident that Bailey cared much more about the attraction and relationship between Sera and Bowen than anything else, and that’s okay. I just wished with all the information we were given about Sera’s character that it made her a cohesive character instead of what I felt to be random puzzle pieces that didn’t always fit together.

Kudos to Bailey for choosing a name that accurately fits the character. If you look up Sera—short for Seraphina—up, it means seraphim, which in turns means: an angelic being, regarded in traditional Christian angelology as belonging to the highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy, associated with light, ardor, and purity. For all intents and purposes and certainly through Bowen’s eyes, Sera is definitely the pure and light one. Tie that in with her whole Catholic background, and it all fits so neatly. Serious props to Bailey on this name choice and giving it meaning.  Male Lead: Jesus, this man. Bailey really laid it on thick trying to make us feel sympathetic towards Bowen. And she has to because he is the heir of a crime enterprise and certainly no saint. But oh, this man is a tortured soul. Bowen doesn’t necessary want this lifestyle, but he goes along with it because that’s what his father taught him growing up and he doesn’t know anything else. The job is darkness and makes him numb, and Sera is his light, and oh, how Bowen struggles. He struggles with his attraction to Sera, his feelings for her, the need to protect her when he still has another illegal job to do, life with and without her, what he could and would do to keep her. It’s overwhelming, really, his perspective and the internal battle he fights.

There’s so much angst in his character, and Bailey really sells it as much as she can. It’s probably the only way readers can back Bowen as a character. It was the only way I cared about Bowen as much as I did when I usually avoid any and all books involved in mob/mafia/gang related stuff. I personally thought Bailey wrote Bowen’s character a lot better than Sera’s. His troubles are a little more simpler though he lives a dangerous lifestyle, but again, they are so prominent and deep, especially when related to Sera, that I was sucked into it. He knows he’s a bad guy, a broken and dead soul, and he knows he’s no good for Sera when she’s never truly been touched by all the foul things in his life, but he struggles so hard with the idea that he has to let something good—something good that seems to want him and care about him—go when instead he could stay with Sera forever and shield her from all those bad thing. God, this guy. Plot & Writing: This book is ANGST GALORE. But, oh, it was so good! I’m a sucker for angst, and this was actually perfect for me. Seriously, the way Bailey wrote Bowen’s struggles did something to me. I really, really, felt for him and his tortured soul, and that’s what made this a page turner for me—not the suspense element of Sera putting her life at risk or the inevitable conflict when Sera finds out that Bowen knows she’s actually a cop and how a relationship between a detective and a crime boss would ever work out, but how Bowen doesn’t know what to do with himself because he wants nothing more than to leave his horrid life behind and stay with Sera even though he adamantly believes that she deserves someone else much better than him. But then he’s an alpha male who is clearly so protective and possessive of Sera that he can’t seem to let go either. Seriously. The struggle goes round and round, and it’s everything.

The only slight snag in the relationship between Sera and Bowen is the timeline. We’re given that up front before they even meet: this whole arrangement Bowen has with the police commissioner is that he is to protect Sera for a week tops before getting her out of there. Was it love at first sight for Bowen? Maybe, possibly. It was more lust at first sight to me, and Sera certainly wasn’t receptive to his first impression, though she too was obviously attracted to him. So, if it’s not love at first sight, can I honestly believe that they fell in love with each other within a span of a week? So much that Sera didn’t leave when she could’ve with the evidence she went undercover to get and instead decided to stay with Bowen? This goes back to Bailey’s characterization. On Bowen’s end, yeah, sure, I’m willing to accept the idea given how deeply Bailey writes his feelings. But for Sera? I’m not as on board. There’s personally a difference to me between love at first sight and instalove. I think the relationship between Sera and Bowen falls into the latter category and is mostly convincing but not thoroughly so.

Another thing. I read this on Overdrive, so I think all the printing/writing logistics should be real, but the way Bailey shifted perspectives? There was zero indication. One paragraph in the middle of a chapter is from Sera’s POV and literally the next indent is in Bowen’s perspective. To say the least, it was a a little confusing because half the time I didn’t even realize the change until I was partway through a POV shift. I don’t have a problem with switching perspectives, and I don’t even need blatant headers at the top of every chapter or whatever, but it would’ve been nice to give a little mark/notation when changing POVs so the difference perspectives get across as you wanted to. Unless… Bailey wanted readers to get a little mixed up regarding the perspectives… Secondary Characters & Plots: Uh, I actually really liked Connor. I mean, we were led to believe he was going to be a shady dude given his familial ties to Hogan, who killed Sera’s brother, but he turned out to be cool. I thought his interactions with Bowen were pretty funny at times, especially when Sera first sarcastically commented about a budding friendship between the two guys. And then Connor’s “I’m Batman” comment towards the end. That was great.

All the other secondary characters I didn’t really care about—Ruby, Troy, Wayne, all the mob/mafia dudes. Yeah, they were necessary for the plot, and they served their purpose. Other than that, I didn’t care about them. And Sera’s uncle, the police commissioner? His little plot twist/involvement in the plot? Geez, buddy. Way to look out for yourself over your niece in danger and letting her stay there for your own benefit. Favorite Part(s): Bowen’s angst. Which was most of the book. But seriously, I love some good angst and Bailey delivered it for me. When Bowen freaks out that Sera’s been living in a broom closet, sleeps in a stairwell so he can be close just in case something happens, and when he couldn’t find her at first going back into that room? Wow. And then the morning after they had sex for the first time, when again he can’t find her and freaks the hell out and calls his cop associate or whatever and demands to know if they’ve taken her away from him? WOW. Yeah, Bowen’s super possessive of Sera, but I was so into it. Final Thoughts: Like Officer Off Limits, I had zero expectations when I decided to read this book because I was super bored and didn’t have my long to-read list on hand. And like that other Bailey book, Risking It All funnily enough captivated me way more than I anticipated. If you’re okay with instalove and criminals/law enforcement and have a thing for angst, this is actually a solid read. It’s a quick read and definitely meant to be more about the sexytimes than anything else, but seriously, I enjoyed it.

#book: risking it all #author: tessa bailey #genre: contemporary romance #genre: criminals #genre: law enforcement #rating: four and a half stars

0 notes