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That moment when someone knows you so well they just send you this via WhatsApp.

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There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) (Remastered)

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Truth. Banditry is in a cat's very soul.

Cats understand "naughty". In fact I think they're the only animal who understands it. Dogs know "good" and "bad" but not Naughty. Same with theft. Cats know what theft is. They know when they are thieving and you can see it on their faces. Squirrels are thieves but they don't know that. They know "take" and "have" but they don't comprehend what it is to steal. Nor do raccoons or coyotes or any species of rodent. They may participate in theft but they are ignorant of the weight of what they do, the full meaning of it. Cats know what crime is and they do it on purpose.

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@vgriffindor this is what I was talking about a few weeks back!!😊

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Librarians are complete badasses. 💕

actually i firmly believe that libraries are some of the most sacred and necessary pillars of a community. they often offer as much solace as a church, care resources and shelter as a community center, knowledge miles beyond what most schools can afford and spaces for community to cultivate at any age. i’m glad to fully appreciate this privilege now that they’re beginning to reopen but if you have a local library you can support and give either time money or effort towards, i see it as a great place to start in community investment

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Unexpected.

I've had a hard few weeks, and writing has been heavy going under the weight of physical pain and ill health. But I never feel quite as alive as when I'm trying to evoke feeling through words, so I wrote this, with the intent to call up the feeling of being in love for the first time. That's a good tonic to feeling down, right?

I fall in love more each day. At first it was a nervy, fragile feeling. I traced my fingers over it lightly, barely connecting with it, afraid anything but the slightest pressure would crush it into dust. But the next day came and it was still there when I awoke, just as it had been when I closed my heavy eyelids, and I began to indulge in the glow of it in my shaking hands.

She was intensely surprising, a wild joke in a sombre setting, a deep flavour, honey-toned shoulders under a sweet smile. I didn’t really believe it. It couldn’t really be true. But each day, it was true, and each day more.

I was heavy hitting way out of my league, but I took a swing and each time the ball connected sweetly and flew the distance, one, two, three, four thousand miles into space and my heart flew with it.

Eventually I suspended disbelief and let the rest of me be tugged the distance to catch up with my flying heart. The disbelief was a heavy weight that held me back, and once I let it go, I realized it was the only thing doing that. She was a spur and incentive. She was a longed-for dream I didn’t know I had, a magnificent french kiss that thrummed into every atom of me.

Soft eyes that looked at me, reflecting how I felt. We bounced moments of connection between each other, revealing ourselves slowly, marvelling at how we could have spent so many years not knowing there was someone who thought so too, about so much.

The fragile feeling became steadier, my fingers were no longer frightened to touch it, and slowly it was sculpted into something much firmer and bolder. I worked on it daily, but I didn't do it alone. She ran her hands over it too, sometimes running those hands over mine, but every press and trace of a finger, every warm laugh I heard from her, every sultry word, everything about her gave me courage to be more myself.

I’ve often thought that love is wanting the best for someone, even if it doesn’t include you. The lingering traces of religion still sew self-sacrifice into my soul. I had come to assume that love would mean diminishment of who I am.

But I know now that I had never before been truly in love. I hadn’t felt desire and friendship and joy with no hint of shame or self-reproach. Now I wake every day a little bit more in love with an astonishing woman, who encourages me to be fully present in my life, and who I can marvel at as she blazes through her life. I want the best for her, but I don’t want to sacrifice myself to do it. I want to be the best, and I want her to know she inspires it.

Love is fragile, and exhilarating, and firm, and grounded. It’s surprising and familiar all at once. It grows, lives and sustains, and tomorrow I will learn something more about it, and her, and me.

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The tilt of the head in the second Gif! Almost imperceptible, yet more effective than a whole speech worth of dialogue in saying who Cormoran Strike is, and how he views the man in front of him. Peerless.

Tom Burke as (not taking your shit) Cormoran Strike in Lethal White, Part One

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OOoo, that was interesting. The interviewer's question that Tom answered about it being the opposite to a RomCom, is exactly how I have described the book, so that's a fascinating thing to hear from someone who has seen it. Also, I LOVED what Ruth and Harry were saying about women on their own, and women being in spaces that were just them. @vgriffindor and I have had some really cool conversations about that recently. And can I just do some Tom-Appreciation in terms of his method. I adore listening to him and how he processed his character, and his description of 'Blond' as a cypher? SPOT ON.

Just listened to this interview all the way through. It is well worth it.

Seems clear to me that the film is not the book. Harry Wootliff talks about taking some themes from the book and discarding anything that would murky the waters, and Ruth Wilson and HW were clear that they see the protagonist as having agency and going for what she wants all the way through to the end, and the aspect of their interactions that gives rise to the drama, as Tom Burke puts it, is their position on the spectrum of compulsive to deliberate behaviour.

That would not be my reading of the book, but it's a perfectly valid thing to do, and I want to see this now so I can judge it for what it is, rather than how well it encapsulates the book, because I think the answer to the latter question is "Not at all."

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Joining in!

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I cannot express enough how this is not what I got from the book. I get why they might be going in the direction they are, and I would think a genuinely faithful adaptation may well be too bloody horrible to watch. But I'm really not sure a more sanitized version will do anything but contradict the horrors of the book. Still very, very ambivalent about watching it.

There may be spoilers ...

From the TIFF website:

This is a blurb written by Diana Sanchez (who is a senior organiser at TIFF, I believe).

A woman’s dreary life is forever changed after a risky sexual encounter in the latest from Harry Wootliff, starring Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke.

In the sleepy seaside town of Ramsgate, benefit claims worker Kate (Ruth Wilson) has her world upended by a chance glance and a grin from the cheeky man with dyed-blond hair (Tom Burke) seated across from her in the office. Fresh from a prison stint for minor delinquencies, the man swiftly seduces Kate in a parking lot with his confidence and charm, and though his clumsiness leaves Kate with a knocked head, the encounter enlivens her spirit.

Kate loses all commitment to her quotidian life, allowing her thoughts and attention to be invaded by this intoxicating infatuation despite pressure and judgement from friends and family to find some stability instead. Diving headfirst into lust with the hopes of encountering intimacy, Kate finds herself unmoored when her lover begins rationing affection and receding from view. But still, his smell, his touch... they linger.

In her faithful adaptation of Deborah Kay Davies’ novel, True Things About Me, co-writer and director Harry Wootliff deftly composes the sensual experience of being consumed, mind, body, and soul, by the ideal of an absent lover. The dizzying highs and the depressive lows constitute a familiar landscape in the archetypal interaction with the “bad boy.” Wilson’s convincingly relatable Kate captures a singular affair of undeniable, self-destructive magnetism that reverberates to the collective. In True Things, Wootliff and Wilson have partnered to produce an authentic,  cinematic vulnerability that will stir memories of devotion, desperation, and desire in us all.

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As this is now, finally complete, I thought it only right to honour both the artist who created the cover for us, @rouyn and my wonderful partner here @vgriffindor by putting the two together as one post. One of my most favourite things, ever!

The Musketeers Fanfic Book Covers: The Knight and The Wren by FallingFaintly (@fallingfaintlydown) and libraryv (@vgriffindor) on AO3

Full disclosure: I have watched BBC's The Musketeers from 2014, but that is the full extent of my Musketeers knowledge. However, when FF and Vee approached me about doing up a cover for their newest fanfic, I couldn't say no: they always write such lovely stories and a little change of scenery never hurt anyone (if we ignore the fact that Tom Burke is in both sceneries :) )

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Fic Asks and Answers

Had a go at one of these because I've got a bit of time on my hands. Shh, don't tell anyone.

How many works do you have on AO3?

I think it's about 90 across three accounts - 44 on FallingFaintly, 22 on CourtAndSpark and about 25 on the rather smuttier anon group account DenmarkStreetGutterClub.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

Last time I counted I think it was around 224,000

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I make it 7. Doctor Who, Strike, Good Omens, The Musketeers, Ashes to Ashes, Being Human, and I thunk there's a really ropey Castle effort somewhere too.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27961421 - Completing a circuit.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30302700/chapters/74689443 - Inside, Outside.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29034039 - Snowball.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30226728 - Making eyes at me.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29708667 - The Memory Man.

Do you respond to comments, and why or why not?

I try to, but I often get a little overwhelmed and I'm not online much now.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I think Torque is pretty angsty, all things considered. But really, it has to be Fused on the DenmarkStreetGutterClub AO3 account because there's a major character death.

Do you write crossovers?

Sometimes, if the idea is strong. I wrote https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196753 - The First Day of the Rest of the World with the wonderful eticatka which is Strike/Good Omens crossover

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think I got some bitchy comments about some smut years ago, but other than that, no.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yup. Romantic, comedy, fluffy, intense, angsty, mild BDSM, slightly scarier BDSM once. I'm happy to give most things a try except non-consensual stuff because eww.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have no idea.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not as far as I know!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, as mentioned with eticatka. Digitalization has many authors. And @vgriffindor and I are inches away from posting the last chapter of https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082947/chapters/74091570 - The Knight and The Wren.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I adore Strike and Robin, but I still have an enormous soft spot for the Doctor and River Song.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I think it's probably https://archiveofourown.org/works/30964337 - one for two. I love what it became, having started out as a silly dare to try and write a plausible Strike/Robin threesome, and there is so much of it written that it's almost there, but I'm just not sure I'll ever get round to it.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and visual imagination.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Using far too many commas and having to go back to tidy up. Forgetting to eat.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I'd give it a go, but it's not my forte.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Doctor Who.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31485959 - The Butterfly and The Wolf because it was so effectively in-character, but allowed me to create something completely new, too. Plus the research was a lot of fun.

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You can’t hurt me. Westley and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords. THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) dir. Rob Reiner

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Ooo, bit more nervous about this than I was. He's supposed to be horrible, not rogueishly charming 😕 I know it's only a brief clip, but I'm not picking up the book's sense of 'this guy is obviously utter scum and she is deluding herself that he's all exciting charm'. I will likely watch it, but if they don't get that aspect, it's not an adaptation of True Things About Me. Reserving judgement, though, as Burke can definitely do truly awful, so this brief clip might not be representative.

{News} first clip of Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke in TRUE THINGS

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Some days are so hard, they wheel all the way around and become sweet, gentle and peaceful. Today was one of those. Love is a spiky, inexplicable, powerful thing.

The way you feel about any two people can be truly love, but a character of love almost incomparable to the other. I love each of my children differently. I love each of my friends differently.

Today I saw someone I love be brave with people he loves, and be rewarded with their kindness and love in return. I listened to someone I love share her frustrations and fears and simply listening was love enough to help her heal. I shared all too brief messages with someone who has taught me things about love I was oblivious to, and even the gaps in between the messages were comfort.

I am laying down to sleep now, spent and weary, but surrounded and infused with a thousand different kinds of love and a marrow-deep peace that only happens in the tough spots.

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I always think a birthday is a good time to remind yourself about the unique gift to existence someone is, and so I'm going to re-read this fantastic story by the amazing @vgriffindor who is my very good friend, sometime writing partner and general good egg, and be tremendously happy she exists!

Happy Birthday!🥳

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Esurience

Devouring your delights like an epicure,

The tang of grapefruit,

Zest and sugar juicy flesh.

Lush mangoes weeping honey wetly

Against my tastebuds.

Coffee hot, dark, intense,

Eyes closed then open fully.

Strawberries succulent to the bite down,

Sucking sweet liquor from ruddy ripeness.

Fresh cream, tongue whipped

Smooth, soft, yielding.

Dipping deep into richness

Thick, slick relish I lick from my fingers.

Forking into linguine, buttery and lavish, 

Curling around, trussed loosely,

Slurped up and engulfed,

Murmurs and hums 

Savouring sybaritic satisfaction.

Reclining sated, 

Breathless gourmand enthusiasm,

Taking a sip 

Of oaky-sweet aureate rum from your lips 

To finish.