#-details about her whole personal life etc like she really didn’t need that spotlight right then she needed to have space and love and

[boltgunkiller-archive]

i find it damn near impossible to get mad at santana’s behavior in 3x06 and 3x07 because i genuinely do think she had the right to be lashing out at everybody. sue me idk

[thehiddenmemoryuniverse]

Lucifer Ending: Tragedy and Contradiction

Okay, so I tried really hard to resist the urge to post anything about it, and I even held out for over a week trying to process/calm my feelings about the ending to Lucifer. I’ve tried, I really have, but the more I try, the more I CANNOT rationalize that ending. As you may have guessed, I absolutely hated the ending, and I just really, really, have to get my feelings out about it. If you liked the ending (I really wish I could be you!!), you may want to skip reading any further (I recommend you do, in fact). 

Ultimately, regardless of the details, that ending for Chloe/Lucifer is just way too heartbreakingly tragic and sad, however, this is made all the more unbearable because none of it makes ANY damn sense.  

I’m just going to start by pasting a bunch of quotes first:

2x05

Lucifer: I refuse to believe that. There is always another way.

Mum: If anyone can find it, it's you.

2x02 Chloe: “Doing what's best for your child, it doesn't always make them happy.”

3x16

Cain: But you're the Devil, you always keep your word.

Lucifer: I do. So I hope you understand how difficult a decision this was. And yet, oddly, the easiest I've ever made.

6x01

Lucifer: I love you, Chloe Decker. I'd do anything for you. Except give you up. Give us up.

6x09

Lucifer: I need you to know that if there is any choice to be had at all, I will always... choose us.

6x07

Rory: You make choices, Mom. If I told you what they are, you wouldn't really be making them any more.

Yeah. Not going to comment further on these right now. 

Nor am I going to even get into the whole fate vs free will. Regardless of your views on that debate, why on earth a show about free will spends its final season spotlighting the widespread, controversial debate of fate vs free will by introducing a time loop plot, I’ll never understand. 

But even if we forget the numerous issues/contradictions with that (and the ridiculous irony of Rory’s quote shown above), and accept that Lucifer and Chloe chose this, I honestly feel like screaming because WHY??? Why on earth would they EVER want to chose this? 

I know the 2 reasons given, the reasons everyone is speaking up with, the reasons expanded on at length in fanfiction, and I’ve tried really, REALLY hard to rationalize them in my head, tried to enjoy the sweet moments fanfic writers are trying to make of it, but I cannot. Because it doesn’t make any damn sense whatsoever to me.

Reason # 1: Lucifer never would’ve realized his ‘calling’ to help tortured souls in Hell.  

Right. First of all, if it really is his ‘calling’ he would figure it out eventually because that’s what a bloody calling is. I mean really. Not to mention there was plenty of evidence that he was figuring it out already, and him figuring it out after actually helping people in hell (Jimmy, Dan, Mr. Said out bitch), makes way more sense than stopping someone from making the mistake of killing someone else.

And second, even if we accept the argument that he wouldn’t find his calling, we are then saying that he chose his ‘calling’ over his own family, the people he loves most of all? That’s beyond awful to me. And pretty much destroys all of the growth and beauty and love and development across the series. A complete contradiction to even earlier in series 6. See above quotes. Lucifer tells Chloe he’d do anything for her, except give her up, give them up. He tells her if there’s ever any choice to be had he would chose them (his family). So, what the heck? Which leads me to reason 2, and beware with continuing because this is UNBEARABLY frustrating to me so I may get a bit heated. I just can’t. I can’t understand this.  Reason #2: They did it for their daughter, because she asked them to, because she didn’t want them to change her, because she’s happy with who she is, etc, etc..

This is the most widely accepted reason, the most referenced in fanfic, that it’s so beautiful because Lucifer and Chloe sacrificed everything for their daughter because they loved her so much.

I’m sorry, I really am, I tried so hard to make sense of this but it makes the least sense to me of all. 

Why on EARTH is Rory growing up without her father better for her? Why on earth would Lucifer, of all people, knowing the pain it causes, ever chose that for his daughter?

This is not sacrificing for their daughter, this is sacrificing for NOTHING at all. This is doing the ABSOLUTE worst for their daughter, all because she asked them to?

And her asking them to in the first place makes no sense either. Why on earth would Rory ASK for it after all the pain it caused her? Earlier she told Lucifer and Chloe that him leaving ‘ruined her life’, and now all of a sudden she’s happy with it? After seeing and reading how much Lucifer and Chloe loved each other she wants to separate them? After saying she now loves Lucifer too she wants to do that to him? And you can’t tell me it’s her being selfless because she thinks he won’t find his ‘calling’ otherwise, because even if he doesn’t (which he would for reasons above), then again we are saying they are choosing a ‘calling’ over family, over those they love most. Or, even worse, Rory, is choosing FOR HIM and ROBBING him of his choice to chose his family over his ‘calling’. 

No matter what way you spin it, it is just all kinds of wrong and messed up, and does not showcase the love the characters have for each other, nor the freedom of choice.

There’s nothing beautiful about any of this to me. It’s just plain awful and cruel for NO REASON. 

Yes, I know I’m missing one popular theme with all of this, and I might just hate this one most of all: That even though Rory suffered it made her stronger, she’s proud of who she is, and they don’t want to change her, don’t want to ‘kill’ this version of Rory who grew up without her dad. 

No. Just no. This pains me immensely. So we’re saying that she’s a better person having grown up without a Dad than she would’ve been growing up with a complete, loving family? That people who grow up with loving families can’t be as strong and proud of who they are? WTF? 

Sure, we as people are only strong in life when we need to be but that doesn’t mean that someone who grew up more fortunate doesn’t still have the capacity for that strength (or that they don’t suffer in other ways).

Yeah, it’s beautiful when you grew up abandoned and were able to eventually overcome it, but in reality you’ll always be scarred to some degree, and you certainly would have been less messed up, happier if you hadn’t.

Changing the time loop so that Rory could grow up with her father in her life wouldn’t ‘kill’ her. Fundamentally she’d still be the same, still would have grown up with her ‘kickass’ mom. All the good parts would still be there. There would just be even more good and much less of the bad.

How on earth would Chloe and Lucifer not want to chose that?

There is no way anyone can ever convince me that you come out better growing up abandoned by your father than you would have if he hadn’t. Just no.

We are strong and proud to overcome something only when WE HAVE NO CHOICE. CHOOSING to suffer just to show how great you are afterward for overcoming it when you could have chosen NOT to suffer at all, is just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. 

It reminds me of a quote from one of my childhood movies, the original “Lion King.’ Little Simba tells his dad he went looking for danger to show that he’s brave, and his dad answers, “I’m only brave when I have to be.” 

So.  Circling back. Ignoring the debate on whether or not there was even a choice given (fate vs free will and ridiculous time loops). Ignoring that Lucifer likely (and should have) been able to find his ‘calling’ anyway. 

Then, in summary, we are left with Lucifer (and Chloe) ‘choosing’ for Lucifer to leave them for Hell, abandoning them both (and Trixie) because either

1) Lucifer’s calling is more important than being with his family

2) Rory wants to suffer, to let her parents suffer an unimaginable amount of pain, just to show that she comes out better for it, even when she can choose not to suffer at all. And Chloe and Lucifer are both in agreement that this is best for them and their daughter. 

What. The. Hell???!!

I’m sorry, but there’s no rationale for this. None. At. All. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I would never be happy with such a devastatingly heartbreaking ending no matter what the reasons, but, HOLY HELL, can they at least have had it make even the smallest amount of SENSE?! 

It’s just angst for the sake of angst, and I especially did not expect this from this show. It was always a show not to be taken too seriously, not to overthink and just have fun with, and that’s what made it work for me. But then they decide it’s a good idea to 1) throw in a time loop plot when time loops in fiction is pretty much the definition of serious complexity and making viewers overthink. And 2) have it end with such a tragic and sad ending that makes no sense. I am so sick and tired of the trend now days that shows can’t have happy endings.

(Edit: Now look what happened. I’ve gone and made another rant: https://thehiddenmemoryuniverse.tumblr.com/post/663357629901438976/lucifer-morningstars-broken-journey)

[itsclydebitches]

The thing that feels disingenuous about Miles answer about Ironwood is that he was part of the writing staff that framed the general as a cool character to start with. I do think that the signs about Ironwood's evil were clear since V2 and in V7 he was an outright dictator from episode 1. Nonetheless, he was still consistently framed as a cool character, someone you can trust and rely. You don't get to blame the fans for liking a genocide if you was the one framed him as cool in the first place.

I actually don’t think being cool is the problem. If we’re satirizing and/or making a  statement about the toxic masculinity that leads to something like a dictatorship, then being “cool” is a crucial part of that. People don’t leverage the power they have by looking lame, they do so by appearing desirable, enviable, awesome. Being in the military is supposedly “cool.” Being a white guy with a giant gun is supposedly “cool.” Having power over an entire nation is supposedly “cool,” etc. If you only make such characters look revolting  — even when they are  — then you miss one of the main recruitment tools for this kind of rhetoric. Any version of Ironwood that’s meant to make a point about the dangers of following someone like him needs to make him look “cool” and then deconstruct that, pointing out the ways in which this cool veneer is a lie meant to pull you in. To do otherwise is to claim that evil people are always easy to spot. Making your villains “uncool” implies that the people who do appear cool in real life must be fine then. That good looking, charismatic leader is great. Why would I look critically at his actions? He’s too cool to be evil. 

My personal problem is not that “They made the dictator look cool and we can’t possibly expect the audience to tell the difference between someone who is truly good and someone who is just using various Cool Points to skate by” because that would be the point of such a character  — the work the show needs to do. My problem is that RWBY didn’t do that work. At least, not to the extent they needed to. Rather than making Ironwood a truly heinous character (prior to Volume 7 ‘s shooting, I mean) and allowing the audience to learn how appearing cool can’t hide that, they just made him good person. Straight up. Flawed, absolutely, but no worse than any of the other character on screen, particularly post Volume 6 when our heroes are frequently putting people in danger, seizing power, telling lies, keeping secrets, and generally acting in the ways we’re supposedly meant to condemn Ironwood for. Since talk of Miles’ vid last night I’ve seen three separate “Ironwood was always bad, idk how people can miss the signs” posts and those people are half right. There 100% were signs we were meant to pick up on. The problem is RWBY then went and deconstructed those signs. Ironwood didn’t just bring an army to a peace festival, he brought an army to an event he had good reason to believe wasn’t peaceful  — and he was right. Ironwood didn’t wrest control from Ozpin (using a series of checks and balances that exist for this very purpose...) because he has an obsession with being in control, he did so because he honestly believed Ozpin was putting people in danger  — and he was right. Ironwood didn’t step up post-Fall because he arrogantly believes he’s the only one capable of saving Remnant, he did so because he’s actually the most qualified: a fully trained huntsmen leading an Academy (like Ozpin) with an army and knowledge of this secret war. What, was Ironwood supposed to read the script and wait for the group of dropout teenagers to arrive and save the world instead? To say nothing of how his power and responsibility are framed as sacrifices, not something he sought out. Ironwood doesn’t want to be the sole ruler here. His desperate relief at having allies again proves it. Good setup for the rise of a dictator would have been Ironwood being cagey with his information and exerting control over the group... not telling them everything, not giving them more power, not letting them keep the Lamp, not taking arrest off the table so as to keep them in line, and generally doing the opposite of everything he did do to share that responsibility and power. RWBY got very good at giving us the first half of these red flags  — he has an army, he’s stubborn, he’s hurting Mantle, etc.  — but then time and time again introduced a context that changed that flag dramatically: they are fighting literal monsters, he’s no more stubborn than our title character, hurting Mantle is a consequence of a plan he thinks will help the whole world and our heroes back this. Those who insist that Ironwood was 100% a villain in the making (or a villain already) prior to shooting Oscar are working from their assumption of what his archetype represents, not what RT actually put on screen. Because RT is just really bad at writing a dictator character. They didn’t have the skill to manage someone who only appeared good on the surface, let alone a character with the complex nuance of wielding “coolness” to their advantage, which is why in Volume 8 they had to resort to cartoon villainy with literal, evil spotlights. It’s not that the audience is too dumb to pick up on those red flags, it’s that RT couldn’t manage to plant them without continually introducing valid justifications. You can’t say, “Bringing an army is a bad thing. Look at this dictator coding!” without me going, “Yeah, except in the fictional world you created an army does not represent the problems it does in our real life societies. This isn’t a guy amassing soldiers to go after oil, he’s trying to protect people from monsters. Not even metaphoric monsters acting as stand-ins for a minority group. Literal, evil monsters!” RWBY ignores its own context and a good chunk of the fandom ignored it too. 

The problem with that (besides the general frustration of someone ignoring parts of canon to forward a particular reading) is that the fandom’s go-to claim is that everything is meaningful  — and it’s a reading the writers very much support. Fans do not, as the above attests, push for a simple reading of, “Don’t think too hard about it. Just take the surface reading and run with it” which, while still frustrating, would have at least been a valid stance. Rather, they insist very strongly that nuance and depth are what drive the show. From the song lyrics to a tiny detail in the opening, everything is important and if you don’t accept that then you can’t appreciate RWBY’s complexity. 

“Okay,” I said. “Then in that case Ironwood coming around to Ozpin’s position is meaningful too? Glynda  — one of our best and most faultless characters  — supporting him is meaningful? Flipping his gun, defending Weiss, Qrow writing to him, the group working with him for months on end... all of it is meaningful to his characterization? You said so yourself.” 

“No, no, no,” comes the reply. “He’s just bad. But he’s also nuanced. He’s tricked you into thinking he’s a good person by acting kind sometimes, by getting support sometimes, but none of that is true. His actions are what matter and his actions are simplistically bad.” 

“Ohhhh. So then does that mean this story is really about the creation of a villain?” 

“Huh?” 

“Well, Ruby. She’s ‘nuanced’ in the same way. She acts kind sometimes and gets support, but her actions are terrible. She endangered an entire city because she couldn’t wait to see if Ironwood got his letter. She condemned Ozpin for keeping secrets about Salem and then kept those same secrets just two days later. When the kingdom was under attack she sat around drinking tea, crying on a staircase, just hoping someone would come fix things for her  — all while actively sabotaging the one person who was trying to save people, even if that action seems silly to us (let’s fly really high). So if we’re looking at the impact of someone’s actions outside of their intent, as we just did with Ironwood, then she’s a bad guy too, yeah?” 

“No! She’s the hero!” 

“... these characters don’t know she’s the hero from a meta perspective. If we’re supposed to judge the meaning of RWBY based on these details — ” 

“But it’s not just the details. It’s also the allusions. Everyone in RWBY is based on another person or character. It’s very complex and that inspiration drives their story, so if you don’t have that information it’s no surprise you’re confused. For example, this is why Penny had to get a human body. That’s what happened to Pinocchio!” 

“Oh! So then Ironwood is destined to be a good guy!” 

“What?” 

“Well, you just said the allusions drive their stories, right? The whole point of the Tin Man is that he always had a heart and just needed to realize that. So clearly — “ 

“No! He’s supposed to be a classic dictator, he’s only bad!” 

And ‘round and ‘round we go. RWBY’s writing is atrocious yet the fandom pushes this narrative that it’s all a complex, multi-layered story that requires taking every part into account to understand the “real” message... but when you try to do that with certain characters like Ozpin and Ironwood it’s, “No, actually, they’re just simple archetypes of Bad Men.” Nuance exists for the bees, but not other ships. It exists for the characters fans like, but not the ones they don’t. And RWBY’s inspirations have to predict the ending for this character... but not that other character. It’s a nonsense grab bag! 

Fans are right that Ironwood had a lot of red flags to set up this downfall. Fans are also right that those red flags were severely undercut, thus reversing their impact. Fans are right that Ironwood becomes a 100% bad guy who kills because he can and threatens to bomb a city. Fans are also right that this characterization feels absurd for Ironwood, both in terms of his morality and his intelligence (how does bombing Mantle help you now??) Ironwood is badly written. He was badly written in 7 and 8, if he was always meant to be a dictator in the making then he was badly written in 2-6, and he’s conclusively badly written when it comes to lacking a backstory and a canonical semblance  — two things are are supposedly driving all of this characterization. That’s the answer: not that he’s good, or bad, but that RWBY can’t write a consistent character, let alone a nuanced one, so it’s no surprise the fandom can’t decide on anything. What’s there to decide on? It’s that nonsense grab bag. In a different show I think making the dictator appear cool would be a crucial bit of commentary, but RWBY doesn’t have the skill to pull that off. 

[ramblingguy54]

Escape From The Impossibin!: An Exercise Of Trust & Hope.

So, I was predicting for this episode to have Della & Louie bonding time together, which there were cool moments with them to be sure. However, what I really liked about today’s story was how it focused on the aftermath of FOWL’s reveal to still be very much alive to Scrooge’s horror and Beakly’s greatly underlying concern. A couple of days ago before Impossibin premiered today, I chatted with some others on Discord about what this episode’s story would explore for its overall message, which the more I thought about, the more I leaned on the idea it would be centered around the notion of trust. Let’s Get Dangerous had a consistent theme of deceitful liars being revealed who weren’t whom they appeared to be, as seen with Taurus Bulba vs Drake Mallard & Bradford’s true nature being known to Scrooge at that hour special’s ending. 

Escape From The Impossibin is all about confronting the growing tension that’s become a threat to a content family lineage of adventurers, who now have to defend everything they stand for in their legacy, once again. That’s something I’ve always appreciated about DuckTales is even when it doesn’t entirely match my predictions, it finds other new ways to surprise me for what it can do. Della & Louie didn’t necessarily get the bonding time I had hoped for, which did admittedly disappoint me, but they did a serve a purpose in their own right that I’ll get to later. Anyways, the spotlight is on the older mentor figures, Scrooge McDuck and Bentina Beakly, who are all too familiar in dealing with FOWL’s antagonism before in Season 1′s episode, The Confidential Case Files Of Agent 22, that especially applies to Beakly’s past in fighting them as an agent of SHUSH for very much longer compared to Scrooge. With how much is at stake you’d very much expect there to be old feelings being drudged up, regarding Scrooge’s trust and respect for Bradford, as well as Beakly’s strict over protective nature with Webby to keep her safe from losing that optimism that makes her stand out as a beacon of hope to inspire others, which they do. FOWL isn’t like Magica or Lunaris who want to make themselves known flat out to the world with their egos. They’re very cunning and cold blooded with going about executing their plans for control of the Earth. Particularly, Bradford is the serious threat most of all because he’s the brains of this outfit giving precision in each order to those under his command. Combine Bradford’s knowledge with the muscle of Steelbeak, Rockerduck’s underhanded scheming, Gandra Dee’s scientific intellect, Black Heron’s lust for more power, and Phantom Blot’s ability to absorb all kinds of magic that gives the McDucks’ a severe scenario they’ve never faced. FOWL is the right combination to put an end to Scrooge’s adventuring because Bradford has kept a close eye on him for so many years. Bradford has seen plenty of Scrooge at his total best and worst most of all. He’s studied upon every detail of Scrooge’s life, for who knows how many years, and is finally putting all of it to use against him, where we get to see the extent of just how well Bradford can read every one of his moves. Lunaris’ intellect was simply a figurative puddle compared to what Bradford managed to accomplish with his high IQ.

The scary thing is Scrooge knows this reality himself, too. 

That’s one of my favorite elements of Impossibin’s purpose. We get to see Scrooge seriously doubt his abilities. In episodes, like The Most Dangerous Game Night and The 87 Cents Solution, Scrooge has always prided himself in being a very sharp individual who could see every angle and any detail that others couldn’t. Bradford, on the other hand, rivals Scrooge’s thinking that puts an eerie perspective on things for the old man. Scrooge always thought to be one step ahead of the game, but then realizes that someone who’s been by his side for so very long played him like a fiddle all those years. Who’s to say Scrooge isn’t probably thinking back on stuff such as Bradford shutting down his rescue operation for Della, controlling his money usage, letting Louie hang around Bradford in The Richest Duck In The World, finalizing Gyro’s inventions, etc? Scrooge realizes he’s had a dangerous character around the family manor all those years, which makes him doubt his ability to trust himself in protecting everything that he holds importantly in life. Scrooge isn’t just thinking he’s been fooled, he’s doubting every aspect of what made him competent to begin with. Doesn’t help among this moment of self reflection Bradford is there to further rub in that harsh reality of how much he knows about Scrooge.

This moment gave me chills because it completely put a spin upon the story’s concept. I figured that FOWL would hack Scrooge’s security system, with help from Gandra Dee’s abilities, and I’m glad it went this route, since it shows how dangerous things are this time. They’re not even safe within the confines of their own manor anymore, considering Bradford knows every nook and cranny of it. Scrooge thought only he knew the security system’s password, given its based on the amount of all money in his money bin, but Bradford covered that crucial detail, too. Bradford isn’t leaving any loose ends toward Scrooge in how he’ll go about using any little thing against him for future reference. That’s what makes the stakes higher here than compared to Lunaris’ invasion. This is a much more personal story between a clash of ideals with Adventuring vs Control. Lunaris lacked that emotional connection here Bradford is making Scrooge have to face that adds another layer of tension to this situation. Bradford wants Scrooge to know, “I have control over you. There is nothing you know that I’ve already figured out about yourself.”, and going about hacking the robotic version of himself is the best way to send home that message to him. It can also be interpreted as symbolism for Scrooge fighting his own insecurities when Bradford takes control of the robot to start attacking.

I need you, the two most cunning individuals I know, to spot any weaknesses.

Now, Della & Louie did serve a big purpose, despite the Plot A point focusing greatly on Scrooge’s existential dilemma, for they were there to remind Scrooge of just how much of an impact his life style has had on them. Della & Louie’s teamwork together throughout the episode is a perfect way to give Scrooge a reality check reminder for how skilled they are as adventurous fighters against unknown dangers. After all, Scrooge passed on his skills to Della, who’d later pass down her intellectual skills to him, too. Again, tying into the whole theme of legacy and what not about how much family can bring out the best in each other. If it wasn’t for what Scrooge had taught them, then he wouldn’t have been saved by Louie’s defining act of being a badass, by willingly diving into the pile of money, which got hit by a gravity changing rosa rune from the robot and ended up crushing it. I wanted to see more mature Louie, so him lifting Scrooge up about how much pride he has in the family lineage was a great nod to it. That in turn, allowed Scrooge to remember why he and their family are strong together. You know, after recent events that have happened in my life, seeing legacy be explored in DuckTales Season 3 means a lot to me now more than ever.

As for Beakly’s B Plot, in terms of how it ties into a neat bow with Scrooge’s story, shows how intense she’s getting at the notion of eventually facing FOWL again. Honestly, I’m not surprised if she’s getting flashbacks of whatever painful or traumatic events happened to her in those Agent 22 days. I mean, for God’s sake, she tells Webby to straight up incapacitate Huey, who was already so scared. Something Webby refuses to agree with as the best course of training methods to better prepare against the greater threat. Beakly’s characterization has always fascinated me with how well she guards her vulnerability, kind of like Goldie in a way, but the difference here is outta great concern for others rather than herself. My mind can’t stop thinking about this scene, as there could most likely be underlying context for why Beakly is getting so worked up over this training. It seems Beakly is carrying a tremendous weight on her shoulders, probably some heavy angst, that it looks like she wants to say, but can’t because of bigger story reasons we’ll find out later in Season 3′s final batch of episodes. Special mention to Donald Duck putting his foot down on Beakly’s very intense training session. Donald knows the trials and errors of what it means to be a parent. He was once very overly protective of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but learned to let them experience the world for what it is and not hold them back, so I liked how it ties into Beakly’s dilemma of trying to protect Webby from FOWL’s heartless nature.

Beakly’s plot may have not gotten much focus, but it did a very good job setting up more angst to come between her and Webby’s relationship. Things are gonna get very complicated between them when more things come to light. I’m keeping an eye on Huey’s line specifically. When he said, “The one thing we know for sure is that we trust each other, right?”, Beakly did want to bring herself to apologize of course, but I also think she was close to wanting to confess something else to Webby, too. I’m expecting this moment to be called back to when stuff hits the fan with Beakly’s past and whatever Webby’s origins are.

Escape From the Impossibin may have unsettling stuff lurking around the corner with how FOWL managed to distract them with the security system, so they could steal away every missing mystery the family has found so far, but there’s a glimmer of light in all of that darkness. A light that is a reminder of what makes the McDuck family an unstoppable force of trust, hope, and most importantly love. Frank said that things were gonna start going into overdrive with FOWL’s battle against McDuck and he wasn’t kidding around. I’m so overjoyed were getting more episodes in November after this episode finished because that would’ve been a painful wait. Season 3 is gonna start giving things it built up a big pay off and I’m totally here for that!

[snarkwrites]

03 pt 1 | m i n e | tim speedle, csi miami

Notes:

Okay, so I was stuck and struggling with what I wanted to do with this chapter for a while now, but today I sat down to try making it work again and... Well, this happened. Originally, chapter three was supposed to be one part, over and done.. But given everything at play here, I’ve decided to make it two parts instead.. So you guys don’t have a million different things coming at you all at once. I promise plenty of hot fluff in the next chapter. So.. do what you will with that information.

For now? Suspense. Crime show drama. 

Summary:

They’re thrown together again when Sylvie comes to Miami to escape everything going on in her life. Tim never got over her. She never got over Tim. Will they reconnect? And what’ll happen when Sylvie finds herself in a bit of a situation?

Again.. why do my summaries suck?

Pairing:

Tim Speedle x OFC, Sylvie.

Warnings:

Stalker warning. Huuuge stalker warning. Crime show plot elements not limited to attempted kidnappings, stalking, creepy phone calls and notes, etc. I warn you all here that I am not affiliated with law enforcement, nor have I ever lived through any of this. So.. do with that what you will.

Eventual smut, lots of angst, slow burn sexual tension and fluff.

Other Parts:

[ one - two pt 1 - two pt 2 - soundtrack ] 

Other Stuff:

[ faq - tag list doc ] 

Tagging:

@chasingeverybreakingwave​ 

@twistnet​ 

                                     THREE.

I was nervous.

Probably three times as nervous as I’d been back in high school when Tim picked me up for our first date. I took a few deep breaths and stepped back, giving myself a critical once over in the bathroom mirror before finally shrugging.

True, we were meeting to spend the evening at the beach. Hanging out on some boat his co-worker Eric had recently gotten with Eric and his wife as the sun set. But it wasn’t a date and it didn’t mean that Tim and I were magically going to find our way back together, either.

I had absolutely zero reason to be nervous and yet, here I was.

My cell phone rang.

My hands shook slightly upon seeing UNKNOWN CALLER on the call ID. I almost didn’t answer, but before I could stop myself, the annoyance of a ringing phone took over and I answered.

“Hello?”

Nothing but static. Some unintelligible background noises but nothing to really pinpoint who the caller might be. I honestly assumed that it was a wrong number and I was fully prepared to hang up the call, but just as I was about to, the odd voice broke through the static and quiet background noises.

“I’m watching you, sweetheart. I’m closer now than I was in Paris… That red bikini you’re wearing looks really tempting.”

My blood ran cold as I glanced down at the red bikini I’d chosen to wear with my favorite cut offs and a cropped white Levis shirt with bold red lettering. Almost instantly, I was looking everywhere in a panicked frenzy. How had the caller seen me? Was there a hidden camera in my hotel room?

Was he in the room in the building across from mine?

I found myself walking out onto the balcony that overlooked the pool cabanas and poolside below. Scanning the midday crowd. Nobody stood out to me. The room across from mine was either not in use or the person occupying it was out of the room because when I gazed across, I saw no sign of movement inside.

That left the hidden camera theory. I rushed back inside, locking the door to my balcony behind me as I went. I searched every single inch of that hotel room until I was absolutely sure that there were no hidden cameras or mics and that my mirror was a normal one and not a two way mirror.

My search turned up empty and I kicked at the bedframe, hopping around and swearing when it hurt my foot to do so. I flopped across my bed and took a few deep breaths, trying to pull myself together.

Trying to keep a calm and clear head so that I didn’t leave anything out when I made my call to the front desk and then Miami Dade PD.

As soon as I’d spoken to front desk and arranged to check out of my room, I gathered my things. After calling my realtor, I arranged to rush the final paperwork on the furnished beach house and she told me to come by and pick up my keys this afternoon around 5. I told her I’d be there and then I paced my hotel room.

I needed to let Rex know what was going on, if for nothing more than to remind him that he’d yet to actually handle anything as far as my stalker was concerned. But something told me to cut Rex out of the whole process and just place my call to Miami Dade PD instead. Like I’d taken to doing more recently. Because this time around, I seemed to be getting somewhere. Taking a deep breath, I dialed the number to the station and settled in, waiting on the call to be answered.

“Yes, I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Caine, please? Sure, I’ll wait.” as I waited on the call to be transferred, I took a few deep breaths and went back over every single detail of the call I’d just gotten from the unknown number.

No matter how small or insignificant it seemed. If anything could help law enforcement finally catch this creep so I could put this all behind me and prepare to start moving onward with a normal life out of the spotlight, I made note of it.

My call was finally transferred and as soon as I finished detailing everything for Lieutenant Caine, he told me that he’d send someone from Forensics over to sweep the room and make sure I hadn’t missed any hidden recording devices.

I agreed to it and given that I still had an entire five hours until Tim was off work and we were meeting up, I turned on the television in my hotel room, settling in with some mindless soap operas until there was a knock at the hotel room door.

I threw it open, blinking in surprise to find not only Tim on the other side, but Natalia Boa Vista and Lieutenant Caine himself.

I took a deep breath and Tim eyed me in concern. The tension between Tim and Lieutenant Caine was definitely palpable, enough so that I could almost reach out and touch it. I got the distinct feeling that he’d pretty much demanded Tim stay at the lab, but Tim being Tim, read stubborn as all hell, he’d come along.

“What’d this guy say?” Tim asked quietly. Calmly. Almost too calm. I could tell that the whole thing had him angry and just like back when we were dating, going into overprotective mode.

“Tim, you need to set up your camera. I think over by the balcony door.” Lieutenant Caine spoke in a calm and crisp tone. Tim  eyed me, waiting on an answer. I muttered softly, “I’ll explain it all tonight, okay?”

“I’m holdin you to that, blondie.” Tim mumbled back, his voice firm and commanding. His eyes full of concern as they locked on mine. After Tim set up his camera, they began doing a full sweep of my hotel room.

I interrupted at one point, asking if they’d like to search my luggage too, because I’d been so upset it honestly never occurred to me to search there in my own earlier search immediately after getting the call I’d gotten.

When Natalia suggested that it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I dragged out my two overstuffed suitcases and sat down on the floor, unzipping them. Dumping the contents of my rolling makeup case on the floor neatly. I even dragged out my toiletry bag and the garment bags with my two favorite designer dresses stored neatly inside.

I think my alternate reasoning behind this was because I realized I was in Miami and essentially, Miami was right up there with California. I had no doubt in my mind that the cops probably had their fill of egotistical celebrity types who were basically pulling the strings behind their own misfortunes just to garner publicity and any personal gain they could from the whole thing and I wanted them to know that Rex was full of shit. I wasn’t one of those types.

Because I had my suspicions that the reason I hadn’t been taken seriously in my previous attempts to report all of this as it was happening when I became aware of it was Rex going over my head and telling them that I was blowing things out of proportion or worse, making it all up for attention and fame.

“Have you spoken to hotel management about changing suites?”

“I told them I wanted to end my stay, yes. I’ve been in the process of buying a beach house here, sir.. I got hold of my realtor and asked if there was any way I could speed the purchase. I’m getting my key this afternoon, actually.” I assured Horatio. He nodded.

“Does your stepfather know about recent developments?” was his next question. Again, I assured him that my stepfather had been the first call. And that my stepfather mentioned calling him later in the afternoon to touch base.

The search of my hotel room turned up nothing, but I could feel my entire body heat up when Natalia pulled out the framed photos of Tim and I but said nothing. I knew Tim had seen it. I tensed a little, letting out a quiet and ragged breath when the rest of the search went by without Tim saying anything about the pictures. I think I was grateful for that. I know I was praying to hell he’d been busy and hadn’t seen them. Because if he had… That opened an entirely new can of worms.

And possibly, it added a layer of awkwardness to our plans for later that evening. And the absolute last thing I wanted was to make anything awkward.

XXX

It stuck with him for the rest of his shift… The fact that she still had photos of them together and carried them with her had to mean something, right? Currently, Tim Speedle found himself pacing his lab back at the station, waiting on the last of the photos he’d taken of her hotel room to finish developing in the next room as he tried to puzzle it out.

Natalia stepped into the lab.

“So you weren’t going to mention at any point you dated one of my favorite minor characters in a soap opera?” she teased him gently.

From across the room, Alexx’s mouth turned upward in a smile as she sat nearby, eating a late lunch. Listening as Tim vented about the whole thing and blew off steam from an earlier head butting session with Lieutenant Caine over him going or not going with Natalia and the others to search Sylvie’s hotel room.

Of everyone he worked with, Alexx probably knew the most about the situation. And through the years, she’d tried more than a few times to get Tim to reach out and reconnect, pointing out that they never got closure. And that the feelings he had weren’t going away. That living life with a what if hanging over him wasn’t really living life at all.

Tim chuckled, shrugging. “ It’s just weird. To me she’s just Sylvie.”

“Or Blondie. That’s what you called her earlier.” Natalia was teasing again, flashing him a smile.

Alexx spoke up as she rose from her chair to go and throw away the remnants of her lunch in the waste bin. “I’m still saying that if she’s here… Now is the time, Tim. Don’t let it pass by, honey.”

“He’d better say something. Or I’m shoving them into a room together. She still had pictures of them together, Alexx. We both know what that means.” Natalia remarked as the two women shared a knowing look.

The revelation had Alexx turning slowly, gazing up at Tim. Placing a hand gently on his upper arm. “ It needs to happen. From everything you’ve just spent the past twenty five minutes venting about… To the way you’re getting so worked up about everything that’s happening to that poor girl right now… If there was ever a sign from the universe, Speed, this is it, sweetie. Wake up.”

Tim nodded. “Noted. Trust me, it’s not something I haven’t been thinking of myself lately.” he reassured Alexx, thanking her for listening as she made her way out of the lab. As soon as she was out of the room, Natalia spoke up.

“I can’t believe we didn’t find anything.”

“I can. I have the feeling that her manager’s in on this. Somewhere. Something about the guy just doesn’t feel right, ya know?” Tim mused as he paced in front of the photos he’d already developed, studying them all critically.

“ Yeah, I kind of think so myself, because her manager just came down here because apparently, he found out via paparazzi camped out at the hotel lobby that we were there and on her floor earlier. He was in full damage control mode.”

“That fuckin sleaze.” Tim muttered as he shook his head.

XXX

“What the fuck is your problem, huh? I tell you to keep a low profile that means you keep a low profile until I specifically tell you otherwise. Are we clear?” Rex fumed in anger, glaring at the phone in his hand.

Silence on the other end of the line. Rex swore and repeated in an angrier tone, “I asked you a question..Do you know how much damage control I’m having to do now?”

He slammed his phone down on his desktop when he heard the dial tone on the other end of the line. He stood and began to pace, taking a swing at one of the walls in his office.

The fact that she’d gone over his head and called in local law enforcement. Involved her stepfather after he’d specifically told her not to. He was losing control of the entire situation and losing control of a situation was not something Rex enjoyed or took kindly too.

Sitting down in his desk chair, he grabbed for his cell phone, calling Sylvie.

The call went to voicemail for a third time that day. Blue eyes settled on the notice some lawyer she’d hired sent over earlier in the morning and he chuckled bitterly, shaking his head.

“Ungrateful little bitch. Really wants to leave all this behind and live a normal life. We’ll just see about that...”

[oh-boleyn]

catherine / infamy

words: 5733, one shot, language: english

anne / jane /  katherine / catherine

this was posted on ao3 some days ago and I have been since debating to post it here or not. except for this series I will stop posting here probably, and just move to my ao3

TW: I think this one only has as tw Catherine's story (kidnapping, dying in childbirth, etc) plus self deprication... if anyone thinks this one needs more tw please tell me 

the commentary between scenes are things I got from internet about Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr will always be known as the queen who got away.

(…)

Her breath is heavy, the air denser than it should be.

But it slowly gets better, to the point she opens her eyes and the light doesn’t hurt. Sitting, she can recognize Katherine Howard, the girl for who she was a lady-in-waiting. Anna of Cleves is also sitting, a lost expression on her face. A woman with blonde hair that makes her think of the various portraits she saw in the palace. Just by counting the people in the room, she can easily assume who the rest of them are.

After all, she was the last of them.

(…)

Catherine’s father died when she was five years old and so her education was left to her mother, who educated Catherine to a high standard. 

(…)

Catherine never loved moving.

Usually she got too attached to a place, and changes were definitely not her favourite thing.

(Moving centuries felt like a torture – not that she would ever admit it out loud.)

Their new house was small, smaller than any castle she ever lived in. She had to share a bedroom with her godmother with whom she never had a relationship, and the third queen, mother of the kid she saw getting the crown.

Sometimes at night the house made her think of Snape Castle. Of nights fearing for her life. Being the survivor didn’t mean her life was any easier. Those nights she preferred to avoid sleeping in case the faces of John and Margaret might appear in her dreams.

Instead she would just scroll through articles and articles on her phone, trying to understand any actual device that was out to the public, or what did spot on meant. At least being productive made her feel less useless. After years of new information missed, she could really use new research.

(…)

Sometimes alternatively spelled Katherine, Katheryn, Kateryn or Katharine.

(…)

Catherine can’t help but feel powerless when thinking about Katherine Howard.

She was just a child. A teen, who Catherine couldn’t save. Her mind didn’t work fast enough to help the girl, who died such a tragic, grotesque death, leaving Parr her place as queen. Maybe if Parr was smart enough, she could’ve done something else.

But she wasn’t.

She loved to lie, to make everyone believe her, but deep down she knew nothing more than that, a lie. An elaborated act that took years to construct. A character, a fake line, an improvised scene that went day after day. Because Catherine didn’t think of herself as intelligent, just a very good actress, fooling everyone into thinking she was smart.

She wished it was true.

Instead she had to live with the guilt of knowing what she did. She was not the hero, not the survivor, not the scholar queen.

Catherine Parr was a fool who couldn’t save Howard, nor Margaret, nor Elizabeth, nor Lady Jane Grey. Her hands were filled with the blood and tears of all the girls at her care; she never had the chance to rescue, instead just assisting to their downfall. And her mind won’t stop her from repeating the names time and time again.

(…)

Catherine was known for her love of learning and for her fluency in languages such as Latin, French and Italian.

(…)

“What do you want to know?” The last queen questions.

Her godmother had been moving the whole night, buzzing around her. It was almost becoming annoying, except that there was a warmness, an incapability of getting mad knowing how close her mother and the woman once were.

“What makes you think I want to know something?” Aragon retorts.

“You seem nervous, if you want to know something just ask ahead. I won’t get mad.”

She internally prays for Aragon not to ask her something about Spanish, or worse, Latin or Italian. Languages felt more complicated and overwhelming in the twenty-first century, featuring strange mixes between them.

(Apparently, Spanglish was a thing.)

She is not sure if any other question would be good, at all. Catherine is supposed to know all the answers, to be educated, to distinguish, to be useful. Since arriving in this century her mind has been confused, mixing up languages and dates. Blocked, broken.

“Curiosity is not such a good trait.” The older woman speaks, almost robotically, just repeating words she probably heard time and time again.

Catherine would be lying if she said that was the first time she heard those words. Her curiosity was not exactly an attribute in her past life, but she maintained it through the end of her days, always looking forward to learning. A craving for intelligence heavier than the one for safety.

“It’s alright, really.”

“What happened when I died?”

The question comes out quickly, making Parr hold a breath.

“When you died…” She starts, trying to remember only important details. “Anne and Henry were still married, but she lost the pregnancy. She had three miscarriages. You can imagine how Henry reacted.”

Catherine nods, aware of Anne’s thick scar.

“Jane went next. I can’t remember a lot from her reign, for it was short and I wasn’t at court at the time,” she winces, trying not to show her stiffness when talking about it, “Henry asked for her to be painted in every family portrait, even after she died. He really tried to secure the line of succession for Edward, what a shame he died so young. In his attempts to have another son, Henry married Anna. She wasn’t bad, just probably a lot for him to handle.”

“She seems like a lot.” Catherine speaks, judging tone in her voice.

“Don’t say that, she is actually sweet. Henry couldn’t kill her, politics involved, so they settled for an annulment. Then Katherine came. She was naïve, a child. I was a lady-in-waiting for her, and it is true she might have been childish, but she was –is, I suppose– a good person.”

“I feel like all of them know more than me,” Aragon explains, “but I don’t want to read about them, it’s like invading their privacy.”

“I did. Most sources are from after we died, none of them completely true.” Catherine admits. “We should be able to tell our story.”

“We should.”

(…)

Catherine is known for reuniting Henry’s children with their father and bringing them back to court. 

(…)

The opening night for the show is nerve-wracking to say the least.

Anna almost cursed at Catherine because, after all, it was her idea. Parr stays silent, knowing that the fourth queen is nervous to her very core. She also knows that the show has to be done.

They could only live off doing interviews for some time. She learnt that the internet worked in mysterious ways, and nothing stayed new for too long. People grew tired, and interviews were less and less often.

But after the play, it feels right. Even her godmother is smiling, her own reluctance to create the play long forgotten. People cheer around them, the band still firm on their spots but clapping their hands.

For a moment it feels good to be in the spotlight.

(…)

Catherine was an attractive and intelligent woman, who combined the intelligence and wit of Anne Boleyn with the prudence and diplomacy of Catherine of Aragon.

(…)

“Anne, wake up.”

Boleyn opens her eyes. Her hands were still holding her phone. That little technological device that holds so much information about everything. Catherine wonders what she was doing, what could have been so important that she didn’t go to bed.

“You should go to your room, Kat and Anna might be waiting for you.” She says with a soft voice, trying not to wake anyone else in the house.

The second queen has big, bright green eyes. There is a sparkle of wit that Catherine can’t shake her head off. She looks like Elizabeth, the same curiosity shining through. The way she carries herself, as if she still was the queen. The secrecy, how every word holds another meaning.

Anne stood up, going to her bedroom.

“Goodnight Anne.”

“Night, Parr.”

Elizabeth is dead, and they aren’t. Catherine never had a chance to amend their problems, instead she died. Never getting to see Elizabeth as queen was going to be something she would always regret.

The internet said she was a great queen, and it didn’t surprise Parr at all.

(…)

Elizabeth was won over by Catherine’s warmth and intelligence.

(…)

Catherine Parr was never a protagonist, and she prided herself on it. Being a writer was more important to her. Narrators lived long enough to tell the heroes stories. She was observant. Silent, but good at knowing all the gossip. Being invisible was an advantage, it could keep you alive.

(That is if you didn’t die because of childbirth, obviously.)

Even in the play, she made it known. Her make-up in earthly tones, and she wears a blue costume. Blue was serene, trying not to be noticed. She didn’t talk as much as the other queens, relegating her story just to her last verses.

Catherine Parr was a narrator, not a protagonist, and she was aware of it.

That was why, when watching the queens, she felt so inclined to give them as much attention as she could. Catherine wouldn’t write their stories, that would be not okay if she tried to keep the fake peace that reigned the house, but she could surely find striking inspiration at any moment.

She discovered that none of them were having the best time in their new lives. They didn’t treat it as a brand-new chance to be happy, instead they were bonded to the past, to their own time. It felt like whatever brought them back just did it so they could act as robots half of the time, not trusting each other to talk seriously for more than a couple of minutes.

Catherine wonders if the other queens also notice how much she is struggling.

(…)

However, the quick-thinking Catherine Parr managed to save her head by pleading with Henry and persuading him that she had only argued with him in an attempt to help him forget about the pain caused by his leg ulcer and to learn from him.

Henry forgave her.

(…)

They move. Again. She knows it’s for the better, but she can’t help feeling weirded out by the new house. At least it allows them each to have a room of their own, a privacy she certainly craved.

She takes the basement, which is the colder room in the house. It feels comfortable, after all the years of living in palaces makes you feel that way about cold, big rooms. Her bed, even if it is double size, doesn’t fill more than a quarter of the room, leaving her space for a big desk and a bookshelf.

Catherine counts all the books once before starting packing, twice after saving them and another time as soon as she arrives. The feeling that she probably lost one doesn’t disappear, even if she doesn’t know what book she lost.

(Maybe because most of her books are destroyed after five hundred years of not caring for them.

Not like those books are useful anymore.)

(…)

According to Foxe, she began “frankly to debate with the king touching religion, and therein flatly to discover herself; oftentimes wishing, exhorting, and persuading the king.”

(…)

Doing research is exhausting to say the least.

The bright white screen makes her eyes ache after watching it for a while, and her hands don’t work quickly on the keyboard. She can’t even write as fast as she could in her old life, her letters clumsy and often having problems with gripping the new pens.

What makes it the worst, is that she feels so stupid when trying to do it. Languages vary when time progresses, that much she always knew, but trying to read an article sometimes becomes impossible, with words such as quantum entanglement or Newtonian physics. It infuriates her, not being able to understand.

Once upon a time she knew it all, about God, history, languages. But now it felt as if her brain just stopped working. Everything went faster than she could, leaving her behind, useless to a new world into which she never asked to be brought.

Sometimes she hates modernism and its complexity.

Still, Catherine puts on an act every day, talking about penicillin and ibuprofen, explaining history to Anna and focusing on appearing smart. Because, after all, that was all she ever knew. All she ever had was owned for being smart, to know how to play a King’s game, and getting away with it.

If she wasn’t smart, she was nothing.

(…)

Catherine certainly believed herself to be in danger and, had she not acted decisively, it is likely that Henry would have allowed her to be arrested and, perhaps, executed.

(…)

“Cathy, por favor, ayúdame con esto.” Her godmother asks, while going through some files. “I know you were good at Spanish.”

Parr holds a breath. She once could speak it fluently, but lately it’s pained her into having problems with it.

“I was reading this book, and wondered if della and del were still being used? Or is it old Spanish?”

Catherine didn’t know the answer at all. How was she supposed to? If she could barely understand it. She wanted to scream, to explain that she had no actual clue. She wanted to pull away her façade of being smart and just admitting that it was too hard for her.

“I think it’s safer to use de la instead of a contracción.” Cathy says, praying to be right.

“Gracias querida.” Aragon winks at her.

Parr was really hoping she was right.

(…)

Catherine Parr - The Scholar Queen.

(…)

Catherine was a writer, she even went as far as publishing books under her name, the name of a queen, in a patriarchal society.

Catherine Parr was a writer because it was all she had ever done. Every reason why she wanted to be remembered was because she was a writer. She didn’t care about her husbands, not even Thomas who she truly thought she loved. She didn’t want to be remembered as a queen, only as a writer.

(She sometimes thought that if being a writer was enough for her, in that case, she would’ve lived longer, but of course she needed to have a man in her life.)

Talking about her past as a writer gave her the peace of mind she didn’t have for standing behind men her whole life.

Behind a great man, there is always a great woman.

Except that she was behind John Neville, a distant catholic cousin who’s actions ended up with her being kidnapped; Henry the VIII, an egomaniac poor excuse of king who got as far as killing two of his wives (almost her killed too); and last but not least, Thomas Seymour, a power starved moron.

Was she just like them? Was she the only one guilty of her past life? An egomaniac who couldn’t save Katherine Howard? A power-starved former queen who let harm come to her most loved stepdaughter? Or just a moron who couldn’t protect anyone, not even herself?

Catherine was a writer, because thinking about her own mistakes was harder than just doing what she always did, telling other people’s ones.

(…)

Catherine Parr was in fact the cleverest and most passionate of Henry VIII's six wives, says Derek Wilson.

(…)

Catherine wasn’t a big fan of the rain.

She didn’t mind it, and enjoyed the sounds of the water drops when she was writing, but being in closed spaces sometimes became too much, too claustrophobic. She loved walking just a little every day, going to the theatre in the afternoon or to the grocery shop, but with the weather it wasn’t possible.

Usually on days like that she would just get herself isolated from the queens, her anxiety building up as she tried to behave and not explode. Try to pass as if she doesn’t even exist, guarding her feelings and nerves to herself.

She told the queens she would be writing in her room, and to just call her when it was time to eat. No one checked up on her. No one gave her tea, or coffee. Even when the clock hit the time for dinner –she had been staring at it for the last five minutes, hyper aware of the time being–, they called her up three minutes and fifty-two seconds later than what she would have liked.

(…)

In her will, dated 23 March 1545, Margaret stated that she was unable to render Catherine sufficient thanks 'for the godly education and tender love and bountiful goodness which I have evermore found in her Highness'.

(…)

It feels harder on her than the rest of the queens. The feeling of not belonging, of not understanding. Even with Jane their relationship is not close — not that it can be, the third queen always storming off or barely talking.

She feels like an outsider, not knowing where she is standing.

Catherine has always been cordial, but there’s a thought in the back of her mind that says that it is only out of duty. Of an old debt to her mother, and not real love. Even after long talks over tea, and trips to the mall, Cathy feels that their relationship is still empty. Out of place, fake.

Parr can’t help but dream about feeling loved again, truly loved, something that she has not known for a long time. But it scares her, Margaret ended up dying young, Elizabeth had to suffer, Jane Grey had a horrible death.

Maybe she didn’t need their love, because each time someone loved her, they ended up dead.

(…)

Catherine enjoyed a close relationship with Henry's three children and was personally involved in the education of Elizabeth I and Edward VI.

(…)

She enters the kitchen, just to see Anne and Anna with an apple pie in the middle of the table.

“I want pie.” She states.

“Magic word?” Anne teases her, a smirk on her lips.

“Je t'aime beau cul.”

Boleyn laughs, in a way that it makes her stomach turn. It’s mocking, clearly not laughing with Catherine, but rather at her.

“What? What did I say wrong?”

“You pronounced the last part wrong, it’s beaucoup, no beau cul.”

Catherine can feel her face turning red, almost burning. Of course, she was going to mess up pronunciation after years without trying. Now Anne was mocking her, and she felt ridiculed, uncomfortable.

“Why is it so funny?” Anna interrupts, maybe picking up the humiliating situation, “she just messed up pronunciation, it’s not that bad.”

“Instead of saying ‘I love you so much’ she said “I love you, nice ass’.”

Parr chuckles painfully, dreading Anna’s giggling.

“Don’t worry, mon petit chou.” Anne grabs a plate and settles a slice of the pie. “A sweet, for a sweetheart.”

She winks an eye to Parr, easing the air around the writer.

(…)

The dowager queen promised to provide education for her.

(…)

Catherine tries to get it out, to calm herself down after a nightmare.

She takes some paper and a pen, even though it feels uncomfortable in her hand, and tries to write about it. Catherine forces the memories on her brain. Attempts to remember every detail, the face of fear Margaret held, frustrating not to confuse it with the face of the girl dying. Parr thinks of John, of the aggressive men he became.

And she writes messy and clumsy letters, focusing only on what she has to say and not how she says it. Working hard distracts her for almost the whole night, finishing with a good amount of paper in possession, and her hand smeared with ink.

Catherine considers reading it, but ultimately decides against it, walking to the kitchen as fast as she can.

She lets it burn, page by page, word by word. Parr lets it burn as if she never cared for it, something so personal that it won’t be good for even her to read. She knows that the queens will ask the next day, but she can’t help herself to care. She lets it burn.

(…)

She loved fine clothes, jewels and intelligent company.

(…)

Catherine wishes she had a real idea of when to stop, but apparently, she wasn’t born with it.

Most of the time, the queens won’t shush her, instead acting as if they hear what she has to say. Acting being the key word. Once Cathy was so into her monologue, she would discover how uninterested her eyes looked, wandering around the room and just humming in response instead of talking actual real words. In that moment she would try to cut herself short, wrap the idea quicker than expected.

Anna would try to keep up, being amicable enough, but the inadequacy was something the survivor couldn’t shake off. Even when the fourth queen tries to talk, Cathy will already anticipate the truth. She pitied her, knowing how her life was and ended, and it was just a way to show it. She pushed Anna away, not telling her any weird facts. She didn’t want to be a poor fool.

(…)

In 1543, she published her first book, Psalms or Prayers, anonymously.

(…)

“I’m just… so afraid to talk sometimes.”

Catherine thought that, but the words didn’t come out of her mouth, but rather from Boleyn’s.

“I got killed for that, and I can’t help it. I feel like I need to control everything.”

“But you don’t.” Parr confirms. “Also, you can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can control yourself, with whom you hang out, you can control things such as the tone of your words, but if someone wants to hate you, they will. You can’t control nature, not yours, nor from others.” Catherine ponders.

She wishes that she could follow her own advice, but it’s hard. That doesn’t mean that Catherine is not hoping for Anne to do so, to be happier than she is. Maybe that if she can help the woman, Parr can redeem herself.

“Thank you, I think I needed to hear it.” The green-eyed talks.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.”

She brushes off the guilt of being egoistic that tries to settle on her mind.

 (…)

According to biographer Linda Porter, the story that as a child, Catherine could not tolerate sewing and often said to her mother "my hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not spindles and needles" is almost certainly apocryphal.

(…)

Catherine wants to give up writing, knowing that it doesn’t feel the same anymore. Everything is too personal, too old, too weird. Old languages long forgotten mixing with new ones, words that haven’t existed before now complicated to use.

Apparently, Shakespeare by himself invented around a thousand seven hundred words. Just by one person.

The idea of the new vocabulary overwhelms her mind. So much she doesn’t know and is not sure if she ever will. But a part of her longs for it, for the feeling of release that writing could sometimes bring. Catherine has faith about being able to be valuable, to tell stories, to do good, to give something to the world.

Parr decides to just take her time, to write as best as she can. She can’t do more than her best.

(…)

Between October 1536 and April 1537, Catherine lived alone in fear with her step-children, struggling to survive.

(…)

“Are you okay, Catherine?” Kat asks.

It was her third attempt at it. Nothing she wrote felt right. There was just so much missed, so much to do. She couldn’t focus on the paragraphs.

“Yes, just can’t seem to get this done.” She straightens her spine.

Did always sitting hurt as much?

“What is it about?” The teenager wonders.

“Just about Spain history, and the colonies.”

“Can I read?”

“Yes. I will make tea.” Parr handles the computer to the girl.

She stretches her spine and goes around preparing the drink.

Catherine is not sure if she would let any other queen read what she wrote. Katherine is different, had always been. Even in her time as queen, even when it all happened. She was smart, but not outspoken. Polite yet truthful.

“It is good, really.” Howard says.

“I can sense a “but”.” Catherine laughs anxiously, dreading the critic.

“You are only taking one side; you should know how Spain sent a lot of people from the church on missions to re-educate the natives. Las misiones Jesuitas. Politics and religion were more connected than what this made it look like.”

“That’s… Very true.” She feels bad about not emphasising it as much but brushes it off for the sake of the conversation. “I didn’t know you were interested in history. It’s great,” she insists when Katherine looks at her with big eyes, “if you ever want to work together, you know where to find me.”

(…)

Her second book was a success and widely praised.

(…)

Organizing was never her favourite thing to do. She loved to be messy, scattered paper all around her. Pens out, in the most unexpected places, just in case creativity strikes unexpectedly. The way her manuscripts could look so good, better now that she gave herself time to practice her letters surprised when people saw the chaos in the one she wrote.

Jane was the opposite, neat, having high expectations of finding whatever she left in the place she left it. She was exigent, hard on herself to be organized, in places where Catherine couldn’t care less. That was until everything became way too much and she had to just clean a little. Parr admired Jane, appreciated how much she did, how smart and balanced she had learned to become.

With her papers settled, her pens saved, she gives a look at her room. It feels quiet, harmonized.

(…)

The popular myth that Catherine Parr acted more as her husband's nurse than his wife was born in the 19th century from the work of Victorian moralist and proto-feminist, Agnes Strickland.

(…)

Someone knocks the door to her room twice, and Catherine gets surprised. Almost nobody came to her room, it being almost the farthest one from the rest of the queens. She also never gave any indication of having nightmares like Katherine, so no one would check on her.

“Come in!” She says, despite her wonder.

“Hey there.” Aragon greets. “I just got Kat to sleep.”

“Another nightmare?”

“Yes, but those are getting better, I think. Therapy is helping.” She explains. “But I wanted to check on you.”

Catherine makes room for her in the bed, which she quickly understands. The divorcee sits in the bed, and the survivor wraps herself, getting comfortable in the hug. It’s familiar, an old memory from court in a past life, but a good one. A peaceful, tranquil moment before knowing better.

“Oh, hermosa.” The first queen squeezes her goddaughter. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just… so tired.” She confesses.

She doesn’t precisely know of what she is tired. The intrusive thoughts of hundreds of years, Thomas and how she was a fool. Of hiding her silliness, trying to be better, always better, but never reaching an end. She is tired of feeling bad, of feeling locked into her own expectations. She feels tired of trying to be happier, to be smarter, to be liked.

And there are so many feelings that she just breaks, sobbing into her namesake’s arms.

“Even geniuses need sleep, amor.”

“Don’t call me that.” Cathy bickers.

“Call you what?”

“A genius. I’m not.” She cries. “I want to be dumb; I want to stop overthinking for a second. I’m not smart, I promise you I’m not but please stop expecting things from me I can’t be a disappointment.”

“Mi vida.”

Aragon makes a pattern on her back, trying to soothe her. It doesn’t precisely work, instead she just continues sobbing, letting lots of tears that she has saved for such a long time flow freely. She sniffles out of pure frustration, of having so many thoughts that she can’t even process them.

“I love you, so much.” She affirms. “You have literally blown me away. I know I might not say a lot, but you were always special, since you were little.”

“Don’t say that, I don’t want to be.”

“But you are, and you have surpassed all my expectations, always. You can breathe now; you get to take a break.” She kisses her forehead. “I love you, and would still love you if you are the smartest person in the world or the stupidest. You are so smart, you don’t have to always stick out, or be good at everything. You deserve to just fool around sometimes, and that won’t change who you are.”

When Cathy collects the courage to look her in the eyes, she can swear that there’s a sparkle of pure love and affection in the eyes of her godmother. A sparkle directed at her.

(…)

Biographers have described her as strong-willed and outspoken, physically desirable, susceptible (like Queen Elizabeth) to roguish charm and even willing to resort to obscene language if the occasion suited.

(…)

She doesn’t know how, but something in the air feels lighter, it feels better. Life becomes easier, the house now slowly becoming a home, with the six queens slowly getting better. Catherine can notice how much cooler it turns out to be once they started learning more about each other, understanding something no one else would.

(After all, nobody else was a five hundred years old reincarnated Tudor queen.)

Parr wishes for it to mean that she could live her life relaxed, joyful. But instead she cries every time she notices how lucky she was, the guilt of knowing that she hurt so many people she cared for. A heavy backpack she won’t ever be able to get out.

She doesn’t think that she deserves forgiveness for her acts. And it pains her, hoping for a reality where she was good, for one where she was just the survivor, to one not full with the tragedy her life was.

Each time she says gold star for Cathy Parr, she feels numb. With a bit of luck, she convinced the audience she merits it.

(…)

Catherine's good sense, moral rectitude, compassion, firm religious commitment and strong sense of loyalty and devotion have earned her many admirers among historians.

(…)

There is a silence, and for a moment they stay like that. But the survivor speaks up: “Did you love him?”

“Yes.” Anne states easily. “Or no. I probably didn’t, and he most certainly didn’t either, but I think we both believed we did.”

“Do you love him?”

“No, do you?”

“Never did.”

“Be careful, your neck is quite delicate… I don’t think it would be hard to cut with a sword.”

Catherine tries to mask her thoughts, releasing a faint “Funny.”

Anne probably doesn’t know; she is aware of it. With all the fake comments about the second queen that were a lie, she had decided to not look for much information about her fellow queens, and Catherine was not willing to tell her about how her life nearly ended. It felt selfish, it was just a close call, not a real one like Anne’s or Katherine’s. Still, the idea of her head being amputated from her body followed her, like the ghost of a broken promise. The thought of her life in danger of ending still at the back of her mind.

“Did she love me?” Anne asks, surprising Parr.

“I think she did.” Catherine waits for a moment, before continuing. “I’m sorry for what I did to her.”

With those words she breaks down, trying to hide her tears. She has no right to cry for her own wicked acts, to be comforted by Anne, but that’s what is happening now.

“It’s fine.” Boleyn says, her voice just above a whisper. “I forgive you. She forgave you. We were different people back then.”

“But I did it. No matter what you say, I did it.”

“And I wasn’t an angel either. I acted the wrong way because of my fears. To gain and maintain power. I’m not proud of it,” her eyes, that until that moment were lost, now staring intensely Catherine, “but if you keep living in the past you can’t become a better person in the future.”

(…)

Parr is usually portrayed in cinema and television by actresses who are much older than the queen, who was in her early 30s when she was Henry's wife and was about 36 years old at the time of her death.

(…)

Catherine wished her story was better, for it to have a happy ending. To say that she married Thomas after Henry, and that it was like a dream, that they had children and grandchildren, grew old together and she was loved until the end of her days. She longed to say that she could remember her baby's face, or her first steps or words. Desires to tell everyone that she taught her everything she knew. But in reality, it was not true.

Catherine Parr never had her happily ever after like a queen from a children’s book.

The survivor indeed never had her happy ending, not even when coming back to the modern times. She still put more pressure on herself than what she should've. Tried to always be trusted, to always be useful and to help her everyone. Pushed herself to the edge, trying to be the best version of herself. Got more stressed than necessary, stayed up sometimes too late for her liking, drank more tea and coffee than she should’ve.

Her life became a bittersweet one, a balance found between her tragic story, the guilt she would always feel, and the chance of a new beginning.

Some days were happier than others, some talks were lighter. Freedom and restriction battling over, but giving her enough cheerfulness to go back when things got harder. Working with Katherine over the history they both knew and missed, discussing the newest scientific discoveries with Anna and Jane, grabbing lunch with Anne and tea with Aragon.

Her life was not happy, but it was relaxed. It gave her the chance to just let herself feel emotions, the good, the bad. To write without deadlines. To be calm, to live this new opportunity fully. To learn about herself, to be the protagonist of her own story.

To be loved.

[hamzaofegypt]

- ̗̀✰ •【 RAMI MALEK / MALE / 31 】announcing the arrival of his royal highness, ( HAMZA FAHMI ), the ( PRINCE ) of ( EGYPT ). I’ve heard that he is ( PRAGMATIC ) & ( RETALIATORY ) but can also be ( ADVENTUROUS ) & ( CONFIDENT ). ( HAMZA ) is arranged to marry ( JOHANNA BRADDY, DEBORAH A. WOLL, MARGOT ROBBIE, TROIAN BELLISARIO, AJA NAOMI KING, ELEANOR TOMLINSON, CARLSON YOUNG, IMOGEN POOTS, KAYA SCODELARIO, SHELLEY HENNIG, CANDICE KING + OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS BUT THE CHARACTER MUST BE 27 OR OLDER ). Rumor has it ( HIS FAMILY IS NEARLY BROKE ). We hope you enjoy your stay at London!【 OOC: elle, 20+, gmt, she-her 】 + 1 brother i always say my intros will be short but listen at this point i just gotta embrace the fact that i write a lot in my bios .... it's my brand.... anyway this is hamza and i hope you like him bc i love him a lot already yikes!

STATS

name: hamza fahmi, prince of egypt age: 31 family:

omar   (father,  egyptian) mona  (mother, egyptian) _____ (brother, crown prince)

language(s) spoken: arabic (fluent), english (fluent), greek (fluent), italian (decently), armenian (decently)   betrothed: open main secret: his family is nearly broke   secondary secret(s): was presumed dead for a year but his family covered it up

personality: sociable, energetic, good listener, adventurous, fun-loving, observant, independent, pragmatic, jester, confident, easily bored, manipulative, unforgiving, good leadership skills, vengeful, strong sense of justice 

BIO

hamza’s parents have never been great rulers. they aren’t bad ones either, the people don’t hate them per se, it’s just that they are both bad at solving conflict and often either allow themselves to be pushed into a corner or just hand out money to keep people in line. there’s a lot of... not corruption per se but something in the likes of it. as a consequence, over the past 35 years there has been a lot of money ( both legally and illegally ) leaving but not enough coming in. on the surface things are fine, but the cracks are starting to show.

there was always a lot of pressure on hamza’s father to succeed. his mother despised weakness and had a very black or white view of things. right before he was crowned he admitted to his wife that he didn’t feel ready to rule and that he wished they could spend more time just enjoying their early married life with their child.

before hamza and his twin brother came along their parents had two children who died. one was a stillborn and the other choked on food when she was three. honestly, they thought they were cursed and destined not to have children.

by the time hamza and his twin were born when their parents were in their late 30s.

initially, they were both educated to be rulers but it soon just started making sense that hamza’s brother would the one wearing the crown and frankly hamza was perfectly ok with that. he didn’t mind being his right hand man if necessary, but if he picked other people to help him hamza wouldn’t mind. it’s not that he dislikes his family, not at all, it’s that he has always loved the idea of being his own person and not being immediately connected to his family. it's the whole "i'm so much more than my family & my ancestors, i'm my own person" thing.

the boys have always been very alike in nature, both social and slightly boisterous, truly two peas in a pod, it’s always been the fine details of their personalities which set them apart. for example, hamza always comes off as the most irresponsible sibling but when it comes down to it he’s incredibly dutiful and takes “the greater good” into consideration, whereas his brother is seen as the most responsible and diplomatic one but usually generally follows his heart in the end.

even though his brother is the one under the spotlight most of the time, hamza has never minded attention and always stops to chat with the press (which some people think is attention seeking and hamza doesn’t care to correct them, however, the truth is he’s just being polite/nice? they’re just doing their job and hamza doesn’t mind giving them smth quick and irrelevant to talk about and make their jobs easier). 

both brothers are popular in the press only you’re more likely to find his brother’s name in respected newspapers and hamza’s in gossip magazines lmao

hamza very much had a talk shit get hit mentality when he was younger. he has grown out of it (primarily because of his experience in the army)... for the most part.

he has an odd relationship with food. he was a very chubby child and deep down he’s scared of putting on weight. he often indulges when it comes to alcohol but he’s very careful with what he eats and works out regularly.

he doesn’t smoke nor do drugs. “my body is a temple” etc etc etc. also he thinks only boring people need drugs so there’s that!

when he was in his late teens some paparazzi got photos of him leaving a nightclub, completely plastered, making out with some girl and then later he and his friends were stopped by police for being rowdy and publicly indecent and the whole thing was a small scandal. hamza framed one of the photos published and still has it in his living room. it pisses his parents off to no end but he just finds it funny. 

he has always loved a good joke. and a good party. it’s true that he has some hedonistic tendencies but they’re not AS BAD as people think. 

IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE that, as opposed to his brother, hamza never had to face  his personality flaws and shortcomings head-on, and there’s parts of his personality that he has never gotten the chance to fully explore yet and likely never will unless he becomes more politically active or until he finds out how bad the country’s finances are. if that happens, he’s going to surprise a lot of people - both for good reasons ( he’s a good leader and strategist ) and bad ones ( he can be very vengeful and has no time for bullshit, those who mess with his family and country will suffer the consequences. all the checks his father wrote to keep people in line? he would close that tap and piss a lot of people off ). politically speaking, hamza has never had to step up to the plate, he has never had to be a serious person, but if he does, if he’s forced into that role ... it’ll certainly be special.

wears bright colours, and patterns like he doesn’t give a fuck (and he doesn’t). also a big fan of leather jackets and has a huge collection of sunglasses.

he has always been an adventurous and independent kid, always very sure of himself, and never minded spending time away from his family.

actually, when he was a kid he wanted to be an archaeologist.

had like, a bunch of gfs growing up. loved the company, enjoyed giving attention just as much as receiving it, hated when they stuck around for too long or tried to impose on him

surprisingly, hamza is actually incredibly loyal and ride or die for those he considers worthy and he is not nearly as irresponsible and self-centered as he comes across. he also gives great advice and is a good listener. 

hamza is a really fast reader and he was always a decent student but he never liked school, he always found it too boring ( he often played pranks and spread rumours to keep himself entertained - he didn’t take any of it seriously ). he did study but just enough to pass and get okay grades. as soon as it was possible he joined the army, while his brother pursued higher education.

the first time hamza realised that there was likely something wrong with the country’s finances was when he was in the army. back then things weren’t as serious and he spoke to his parents and his brother about it. he was told things were under control, and he believed that his brother (and parents) knew how to handle everything. or he wanted to believe it. looking back, he’s not sure which one was it.

when hamza was in his early 20s he was presumed dead for a whole year. this isn’t public knowledge ( although there were random reports - “conspiracy theories” - about it and the journalists were either fired or paid off to keep quiet ) as his parents kept the whole thing under wraps. the plan was to keep saying he was on missions until it was impossible to keep the facade going and then they would make it public that he had died in some grandiose self-sacrificing manner.

surprisingly (once he returned home) hamza understood his parents decision, it was his brother who was beside himself. his brother had been a nervous wreck for the past year and was constantly at war with their parents about telling the public the truth. hamza’s disappearance was quite traumatic for his brother.

recently his brother has become more aware of the state of the country’s finances (hamza’s still not fully aware of how bad it is yet) sometimes when his brother has a drink too many he talks about abdicating / not wanting to be king and hamza always laughs like “heavy is the head...” and never takes him too seriously but lmao maybe he should.

one of the reasons why hamza doesn’t take his brother’s words too seriously is because he always seemed to fit the role of king just fine.  another reason is because his brother didn’t have to be at the summit as he could be in a relationship right now, but he ended things which hamza interpreted as the relationship not being serious ( unbeknownst to hamza this is also one of the reasons why his brother is thinking of abdicating, he regrets ending the relationship and doesn’t want to marry a stranger )

hamza has been nonchalantly vocal about how little interest he has in getting married. not just to his parents and friends but when talking to the press as well. he doesn’t take any of it too seriously, primarily because he’s not the one who is going to be king.

he likes having his space and independence. he has mild ptsd ( he’s been working on it for literal years tho so it’s not as bad as it used to be ) and doesn’t like to have to explain himself to people. he has insomnia, and pools, lakes, etc are a big trigger for him. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS 

best friend 

people who dislike him pls lmao

people he used to prank when he was younger

someone to seriously keeps up with politics and is good at them and has noticed smth is a lil off with his country.

his twin brother (name up to you) who low-key thinks about abdicating far too often. listen i.... have a lot of feelings about these two already and i’m a huge sucker for sibling dynamics so pls make him?? like i kind of hc that his brother might be spiraling down a depression but hiding it very well and look hamza has NEVER been the kind of twin who liked switching places with his brother, he takes a lot of pride in his individuality, but i love the idea of him having to pass for his twin a couple times during the summit bc his twin is not doing well at all. 

hamza has a bunch of exs so pls toss them my way. i haven’t given his sexuality a lot of thought. he’s heterosexual? mostly? but he’s been with guys in his youth and it really wasn’t a big deal to him. 

his current girl-friend - they will NOT be finals. honestly i’m only requesting this character 4 the drama. she and hamza have been more less dating for some months but the relationship was never public and hamza enjoyed that, as well as the fact that they weren’t always together. honestly, hamza isn’t nearly as serious about their relationship as she thinks he is - he does like her but he’s not in love with her. they are to have a break up soon and tbh i just want her to think he’s an asshole lmao

[athyrabunlord]

About LLSHP AU (Afterword)

[Brief note about School Term] [other LLSHP AU stuff] [YohaMaRuby concept arts] [ChikaYouRiko concept arts] [KanaDiaMari concept arts] [Hogwarts Staff]

[FFN link] [Pixiv Link] [Translated to Chinese by plin2290]

I’m just so pleased and happy to have made it! I have so many existing incomplete stories that it’s astounding for me to actually complete a multi-chapter story. Once again, I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU!! to my readers for staying with me to the end, providing me feedback and expressing interest, motivating and inspiring me enough to reach this point.

The following is really just about my rambling, about my thoughts, about the planning process and my decisions, so do keep reading if you’re interested in the makings of this story. I just feel like sharing (aka: blah blah blah) since, again, I actually friggin completed a story omg (´；Д；｀)  

===================

First of all, let’s go way back to near the end of October 2016, not long after LLS Season 1 ended. Yes this is so long ago lmao. After drawing several canon-related fanarts and writing short blips to satiate my thirst, I decided to create a complete whole AU so I can fantasize more XD I ended up picking the Harry Potter verse because, come on, it’s always fun trying to Sort your favorite characters and think about their abilities and whatnot.

Ideas started to whirl and initial sketches began. There’s an old post explaining why I Sort the girls into their respective Houses. That’s also when extra details were pondered over, the why and the pros in doing so. You should know by this point that I’m a complete useless 3rd Years trash, but as I brainstorm more, I realize that their story is more suitable to be a prequel, something that supplements a main story. And so, what should the main story be about? What kind of story do I want to present? Who would be the perfect main character/narrator for this?

Yoshiko. In canon, she’s already associated with (black) magic and, as a First-Year and Muggleborn, she would be perfect for a reader to immerse into this fascinating new world of magic through her perspective. As an old post says, I fudged up the School Term and age during the initial stage and didn’t realize until everything’s all finalized, that’s why I had to keep it as it is XD;;;;

Anyway, at this point, I’ve already decided Yoshiko to be a Horcrux, with the antagonist of this story to be Yohane, and how the last few chapters are going to play out.  Everything else, even the other characters’ backgrounds are all further elaborated and refined based off of this central plot. On a side note, how sexy is Aikyan’s solo in the 3rd Live, I mean, the white and black wing I could only think about Yoshiko/Yohane DX

Ahem, I’ve always found Yoshiko’s character fascinating, that there’s a Yohane side of her even though, really, she’s Yoshiko (a good girl). The Chamber of Secrets and the Half-Blood Prince are the main source of inspiration for this particular idea, but of course HP fans might notice many elements from the original story used or modified in my story. I’m also a strong believer that the Patronus Charm can do more than just warding off Dementors or Lethifolds (and Obscurus), hence its significance in this story, especially later chapters.

Therefore, each girl’s Patronus was tentatively decided at this early stage, with 1 or 2 possibilities. After this, I then thought of what ships should this story present. As much as I did not want romance/ships be The Major Point, I have to acknowledge that ships are what people go for in a story, myself included. I understand shipping might turn people away from even trying a story, that’s why I kept it secret for the first few chapters before confirming it on tumblr (where the chapters were first uploaded). I was just testing the waters, to see if people are interested in the story enough to keep reading even if the ships aren’t their preferences.

Back to planning stage - as a multi-shipper, I did not want to set in stone right off the bat what the ships are either. And thus I continued expanding on ideas and see where things would  go, keeping most of the initial interactions and important moments intact. This is why there are times it might seem there are multiple pairings even though nothing was specified (cough wee kanadia, youriko etc (｡･ ω<)ゞてへぺろ♡). Not to mention, as the main character, Yoshiko will always have moments with each of the 8 girls. I remember joking in an old post that, if this were a gal-game, there are various routes to this story, from the default path to those you have to unlock via certain conditions XDDD

Naturally, members of the 1st-year trio and Guilty Kiss get more screen time with Yoshiko. Then, as a fellow Slytherin and part of the tsurime trio, Dia does too. Not to mention Season1’s anime ED shows You & Angel together, You gets special moments too. Chika is Aqours’ leader who first accepted Yoshiko into the group as datenshi, so I tried to show that as much as I could given the circumstances in the story. And so, this leaves poor orca on the side lol. But yeah, YoshiMaru, YoshiRiko, YoshiRuby, so many possibilities! However, as more details get finalized, such as Yoshiko’s childhood, her Shiira-KANSU! Patronus and about the Augurey, YoshiMaru just happened. Things seem to click into place with their love as the focal point and I was able to keep expanding the story. First puppy love, innocent and pure. A dream that grew to become reality. Could other ships have worked? Yes, but then that would’ve given this story a different direction and it wouldn’t have been LLSHP AU – Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel anymore. As I developed YoshiMaru more and more, I was very satisfied with my choice.

On a side note, I confirm Yoshiko did have a crush on You at first (and Hanamaru had a crush on Kanan) xD it’s mostly just physical attraction in a “the-senpai-I-admire” kind of way, and it soon morphs to strong friendship as this story progresses. I don’t know if this was obvious at all but that’s why these two girls always have a soft spot for Gryffindor Baka#2 and Baka #3 xD!!!

On the other hand, I was not expecting DiaRiko to form. Yes, it was my guilty ship but I didn’t intend for them to be a couple in this story, just close friends/confidantes. In canon, they’re already the straight man of their respective year trios (most of the time anyway, I’m looking at you ponkotsu penguin). Yet, given their respective pasts and personalities, they became intimately close and found solace with each other, and that kind of relationship is what I tried to show to the readers, especially through the Carbonado Interlude. They’re not predestined to fall in love but they did and found happiness. Out of the four ships, I was most worried about DiaRiko since it’s a rareship unlike the other three. That’s why I keep saying how pleased I am that it ended up being well-received by fans ;;A;;

ChikaYou came to be as I finalize the 2ndYears’ background and Riko’s part, while KanaMari’s story is set aside for the prequel and thus not given much spotlight in the main story (and also due POV effect). In spite of how much I adore ChikaYou, it’s also not shown much because of what happened in the story but also because I wanted to present their dynamic as a duo and CYR bond with Ruby (since that’s how Yoshiko perceives them most of the time anyway).  

Ruby, my widdle cinnamon roll baby, is left unpaired for a reason. I want to show that platonic/friendship love is just as wonderful and powerful. There’s a saying ‘lovers come and go, but friends are for life’, and that’s exactly what Yoshiko and Hanamaru meant for Ruby, and vice versa. Now, while I’m on this, I have a confession about Ruby’s fate. After the concept arts were drawn and uploaded, I was finalizing the details of the three Arcs before I toss the first chapter onto tumblr. The end of ch19 is definitely one of the biggest climax of the story - Ruby ended up being Yohane’s target instead of Dia. Originally, uh, yeah, Ruby is supposed to die because her wounds were too much. Regular healing spells do not work on sectumsempra, only a special counter-Curse could reverse the effects. I tried very hard to find a way around it to save her. I don’t want my baby to die, any of them really, and she still have so much ahead of her. Fortunately, I was able to save her through Yoshiko/Yohane which, in turn, saved this raven-haired girl as well. I was able to continue working backwards on finalizing the Arcs and individual chapters with a peaceful state of mind.

‘Yoshiko’, as in the one who’s been narrating the story from ch1-20, still died in a way, but at least I was able to change the story from Bad End to True End (?). True End is the ch21 I uploaded. Bad End route would have Ruby dead, Yoshiko gone and ch21 would turn out completely different. A Happy End would be Yoshiko the Narrator miraculously alive and the others not having scars or still recovering, but I just find that too unrealistic. I’ve minimized the, uh, damage enough as it is, given the circumstances. J.K. Rowling did go on a killing spree in Book7 but come on, with a psychotic maniac like Voldemort and all those magical spells, you can easily kill people. You don’t need Avada Kedavra to kill someone, a sudden Diffindo or Reducto is enough. I’ve chosen my sacrifice and one is too many already. And speaking of sacrifice, let me talk a bit about Riko and why she was the ‘first victim’. Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare. Even though this story was outlined even before the First Live, this song already stands out to me from the anime, a song where the 8 of them sang in Riko’s absence but her spirit is still with them. And so, I sort of portrayed that the way it is in this story. Even though Riko didn’t get any lines from ch12 onward until ch20, her role remains significant and is the pivotal point for the remainder of Arc2 and Arc3. In terms of the plot, I’ve followed my outline quite closely. All the core points remained unchanged as I write out the chapters, though how I write a chapter (ie the wording, the extra little details, and actual professor dialogues instead of just narration) did change as I go along, influenced by more of the official content. Facts about characters that are only revealed in Season2 or other media such as SIF etc were not incorporated into this story (for example, Kanan being afraid of ghosts and height). As I mentioned in an older post about wands, I would have chosen phoenix feather for Ruby’s wand core had I known about the Duo-Trio results. The Kazuno sisters would have been incorporated into the story alas, back then, very little was known about Saint Snow in Season1 of the anime. Yes… season2 was finished and, like, a total of 15 live performances have happened between the creation and the completion of this story LOL Back to the plot. Seven is said to be a magical number in the HP verse and that’s why each Arc has 7 chapters. Arc 1 is the Intro, Arc 2 is the turning point, Arc 3 is the climax and the resolution. Sounds easy and straightforward so I thought I would’ve finished the story within a year. Well. It ended up almost taking two years lmao. Obligations IRL aside, new ideas, more AUs, more fanarts etc also make sticking to the update schedule difficult. It’s the worst when it comes to writer’s block – you have the outlines, you know what’s supposed to happen in a chapter, yet the words just aren’t flowing and you’re stuck. Thankfully, with you lovely readers giving the feedback and encouragement I need, I made it over each bump on the road to get to the finale. Hanamaru wrote most of this story, yes. Each chapter titles with exception of Ruby’s interlude and ch18-19 also showed up in ch21. The title of the ‘book’ is supposed to be revealed in the Epilogue but, since I had to upload it onto Fanfiction.Net, I can’t just call it LLSHP AU so I had to reveal “Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel” right away. Back then I called this a temporary title because I did think about giving this story an alternate title, since she didn’t write the interludes, ch21 and the epilogue. However, at the end of the day, this still suits the story best. After all, the individual titles for ch21 and the epilogue make up the story’s title.

“Yoshiko has always known that she isn't normal like everyone else. Surely, she would master everything about magic at Hogwarts, and become the amazing fallen angel she's meant to be. Little did she know, her school year would be more than eventful as she makes great friends, uncovers secrets, and learns what it truly means to be Yohane.” - this is the summary I put on Fanfiction.Net. It speaks from both Yoshiko the Narrator’s perspective, and Yoshiko from the Epilogue’s perspective. It probably sounds confusing but I hope you understand what I mean. So, what’s next? I’ve invested a lot in this world of LLSHP AU already and there are still so many more possibilities, especially with the rather open ending both ch21 and the epilogue presents, so I’m definitely not done with this AU! Since I have the memory of a goldfish, I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned this but the prequel will be told mostly in Mari’s POV. It will have occasional Dia and Kanan POVs too (because I’m a shameless 3yrs-oshi and writer privilege); Rather than taking forever to write and cramping the scenes into a massive interlude chapters, I’ve decided to split it in shorter chapters - this will roughly be a 12-part story that took place before the main story, showcasing segments of the kanadiamari’s first 3 years at Hogwarts.

This prequel is… relatively normal and lighter compared to the main story, meaning it’s more school-oriented and more slice-of-life episodes for the most part (at least, that’s the outline), and much more Professor cameos. There will be more N-card girls to be showcased as well, such as kanadiamari’s Housemates and Quidditch teammates. Overall, it’ll be shiny °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° There will not be a full sequel to the main story. Instead, there will be blips/drabbles about events that happen after the main story, as teased in the Epilogue - the TriWizard Tournament for one XD And, unlike the main story, the ideas for blips in this sequel-timeline are more vague, so I’ll be able to incorporate new content into it (as in, from official content 2017 onward such as proper characterization of Saint Snow).

There are plans for omake/filler fun blips as well - little incidents that happened throughout the main story or, rather, ‘excerpts’ that Hanamaru wrote but didn’t make it to the final version of her book. The first Halloween, more scenes with the Professors, birthdays and so on.

There are also plans for character-exclusive blips as well, similar to an Interlude. For example, DiaRiko’s ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) cough cough.

My tentative plan is to keep going with the prequel, and maybe every few chapter or so I’d write a sequel-timeline blip. I’ll see how my muse and inspiration is in the future, I’m already extremely satisfied that I finished the main story XD And I do want to work on some of my other existing AUs (ie Animus AU and Mafia AU just because I’ve already invested time in creating the concept arts and so I don’t want them to sink into oblivion…) or who knows, there might be new AUs. I mean, pretty much every new SIF set is enough to inspire a brand new AU please allow me a moment to giggle like the trash I am over the DiaRiko UR set *pterodactyl screech*

AHEM. Another thing is illustration/artworks. Since most of my time was spent on writing, there are much fewer artworks than I would’ve liked for this story. I think I mentioned this somewhere that I’d love to have an individual cover art for each chapter alas, no time at all DX I’d like to have at least one illustration per chapter too but OTL I can only pick one and so for this AU I chose writing over drawing. Cry.

Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough and I think I’ve talked about everything I want to get off my chest. If you have any questions/feedback, go ahead and fire’em at me, since I’m now able to answer anything without fear of spoilers now XD (unless your question is about the prequel or things that happen in the sequel-timeline)

Thanks for reading the whole thing and, ofc, staying with me until the end of this story!

[maptoourescape]

Hi I just wanted to say I love your blog and I love the way you display Tom's thoughts and mentality. I wanted to ask what do you think about this whole situation with Tom, is it hard to keep roleplaying him and to reenact his thoughts when he has been acting so unusual lately? Do you think he is happy? Keep up the great work! ^^

INTRO &DISCLAIMERNow what I am going to tell you is obviously just how I see the situationpersonally. This might not be the representation of reality whatsoever, eventhough I’d like to think I’m a good judge of character. I don’t know thesepeople. They are, by all means, strangers to me as I am to them. But I DIDhappen to grow up with them, observe them through years of footage, and seemany of their quirks in real life as well whenever I had a fortunateopportunity. Saying that, I feel like even though their stage personas (orwhatever you might call them) are “built strong” sometimes, you can still peekright through them if you have enough of a “people sense”.Look, most folks probably realize that Tom isn’t all that he gives out to be,but they don’t really think about it all TOO much. And honestly, I don’t either- it just comes naturally for me to psychologically evaluate people. And myevaluation of him is that he is full of unresolved issues.I don’t even mean that in a bad way, I really don’t. I just want all the bestfor him. But let’s just say that seeing how his life was up until now, thereare multiple factors that play out in his current “out of character” behavior. Toa certain extent, I can also relate to him in some regard. Similarly to him forexample, I too use a weird sort of humor to hide behind, almost as though it’smy shield, so none of what I’m saying is said in a judgmental manner. We all haveour own issues after all, and that doesn’t make us any lesser.BUT FIRST THING’S FIRSTTalking about humor, let’s just get straight into it, because we have to startsomewhere… Humor is a stress relief weapon by its poetic definition. In Tom’scase, it isn’t any different – only maybe he takes that a few steps further,still. More than just as a casual thing, his jokes are also being used to takethe edge away from what he considers to be serious and/or emotionally intangiblesituations. Why? Because Tom doesn’t appear to be someone who would like to“show his real self” to people in a situation he can’t properly evaluate,unless he knew for SURE they are to be trusted. In other words – he doesn’twant “the emotion that would be shown from him” to be used as a weapon againsthim later on, especially if he doesn’t know what kind of a reaction to expect from thecounterpart. “If you appear vulnerable, this same vulnerability is going to beused against you” is the mentality here – that’s a lesson of sorts that he’s probably learned how to incorporatein his daily life at a very young age already. So deflecting a lot of shit withhumor is basically an act of protecting himself. Same with his manly-manboasting, and all the confident penis commentary, which many people look at justsuperficially, saying that it’s trashy and/or annoying – even though what itreally turns out to be, in my opinion, is a (not all that uncommon) copingmechanism. So the next thing you’d ask would probably be “but what on earth is he copingwith then?” I guess it would be probably safer to ask what he isn’t coping withat this point, because we’re talking about a bunch of things here, all muddledtogether in one big ball of anxiety. Main things to highlight probably include a)fear of abandonment, b) some art of repressed self-consciousness, c) some weird(intrigue by and a fear having lack of?) dominance issue and etc. all the wayto the last letter of the alphabet.I’d say it all started in childhood with his father leaving and being, as faras we know, generally problematic (because honestly, that fucks us divorceekids all up, and it’s so internalized that we don’t even really realize ituntil it hits us in the face as adults, when we are suddenly facing multipledaddy issues all at once lol). Maybe even beforehand, depends on what sort of anupbringing the twins’ parents decided to give them. Then we have the general yearsof complete hell, also generally known as the school days, full of bullies and nasty youngadults with too much time on their hands. We all know the baseball bat stories –need I go into further detail? Then comes the growing up under the spotlight,of course – the unusual puberty they had to go through, as Gustav so nicely putit in the documentary – and being pushed into a harsh ass business at such ayoung age… just basically dealing with a bunch of stuff that kids usually haveno place dealing with, and maybe learning some lessons that normal people onlyget to really learn in their 20s or 30s. Namely how it is to be working with allthe wrong people, and probably having at least some sort of taste of a betrayalon a professional, working level etc.If there is one thing, one lesson that ties all of these separate life erastogether to make a nice whole, it’s one of how you have to be careful aroundpeople, and how forming trusting relationships isn’t a very simple task,whatsoever. Between parents leaving, peers bullying you, media shitting on youand the industry silently pulling their own strings behind your back – oh, andhave I mentioned stalkers and the literal walls they had to build around theirhouse in order to keep them at bay? which didn’t work anyway because their private space WAS invaded by gross people? – I guess you pretty damn quicklystart losing your naïveté. Or well, if not that, at least your trust in prettymuch anyone that hasn’t been with you since the very, very beginning.And then comes, obviously, the relationship he had with Ria.Now, again, everything I’m saying is based purely on my speculation from mereobservation. I don’t actually know any of the people they associate with either.But the vibe I got from his relationship with Ria was honestly… not that bad inthe beginning. I think that, at least at the start, she was really, really goodfor him. And that he got even more attached to her eventually, because she wasthere when he emotionally needed her most (read: the big move to the USA,stalker problems and lack of motivation to keep being in a band from all thepressure…). I also think that he kind of thought this relationship was really“it”, you know? As years went on though, just as any other relationship, theirsseemed to have become this sort of “routine” as well. And we all know that feeling, don’twe? If not from our own experience, then from some of our friends’ experiencesat least? The feeling when the stomach butterflies die down, and the initialeuphoria just settles into a still?My take on it is that he really, REALLY tried a LOT to make it work, even afterit sort of started “crumbing down” for whatever reason. I feel like he feltsuper comfortable with her BECAUSE they’ve been together for so long. Maybe itbecame a sort of a routine for him too, but it was one he definitely sought toupkeep. Tom didn’t want to let go of her. Because ruining what he had with herwould mean “having to find someone new”. And “having to find someone new” wouldmean “having to open up to someone again” – something that isn’t all that easyfor him to do, for the already before mentioned reasons.Pretty sure we all know about some infidelity speculations being rumored tohave been going down between them as well, especially from her side. Andhonestly, that would explain a thing or two about how his behavior has changedin the time ever since they’ve officially broken up. I obviously do not knowthe specifics, but I’ll be damned if I don’t realize it takes two in order toa) form a relationship, but also b) in order to not fix it if it goes south.Doubtlessly, none of the two was a complete saint. And doubtlessly they bothhave their own character flaws. But though dubious in its legitimacy, hersupposed infidelity really ties well with what’s happening right now, in thismoment. Just think about it… Yet another massive betrayal. Another one of themassive disappointments he experienced along his life’s journey. This onecoming from someone he perhaps even considered to be his (other) life partner.Only now that we got the mere basics down can I finally start bringing upShermine, and the point of this entire conversation anyway: his “change” asbrought up with his dynamic with Heidi. Because I really think that in order toproperly understand why I think this Klum relationship is toxic, you firstneeded my quick review of “the entire story”.BACK TO THE POINT AT HAND NOW I don’t think the Shermine relationship was honestly all that different fromthe one Tom has with Heidi now. I can’t claim to know the reasons why itprobably “didn’t all work out with Sher” (besides the obvious fact that thiswas never a relationship in its full meaning of the word, but rather just whatpeople usually call “an affair”), but it might have been them just beingseparated by where they lived and what not – or maybe also Shermine seeing howmuch of a “child” Tom really was in certain regards. It’s not like she was thisperfect example of maturity either, mind you, having to constantly post hintsabout how she’s together with him and what not, but at the end of the day, Isort of feel she got more tired of HIS bullshit than vice versa. And by “hisbullshit” (again, not meant to be judging) I mean this strange passivity that has been surrounding him recently (examples and explanations coming up). If someone on twitter now points out how “unlikeTom it is to let Heidi post on social media about him,” another person then instantlyyells out saying “why do you care, if he apparently doesn’t care anymoreeither!”And to me, it is exactly THAT that is the concerning factor anyway.People are, in a strange way, right when they shout “Tom doesn’t care aboutbeing public anymore!” but they don’t look deep enough into it to see theproblem behind it. Yes, it’s true – if Tom wouldn’t want to be posted on socialmedia, then his old enough, almost 29 year old ass could’ve just told Heidi to NOTfucking do it. So yeah, you know what? Most probably, he’s NOT stopping her.But him “not being bothered to go against it” doesn’t mean he’s automaticallyokay with it. Those two are not mutually exclusive. What I see in his behavior right now - that is also something that’s seemingly been there forever since he’s been hooking up with Shermine too - is mindlessness, carelessnessand a complete disregard for what he used to stand for in regards to his “morals”.May I note that I can also see he has this sort of complete disregard abouthimself floating around as well? He appears to be very passive, and seems asthough he really just isn’t putting any thought into… well, pretty muchanything he’s doing… like ANYTHING, whatsoever. And yes, I realize that “people can change,” and that Tom too could’ve just aseasily had a spiritual awakening, and was suddenly like “you know what, I’m NOTgonna stress about being on social media that much anymore, and I’m NOT goingto stress about being in the press…”. But the thing is – these sorts of thingsdon’t just happen overnight. Especially not with the life he’s been leading andhow much it’s been fucking him up along the way at times. You don’t go fromwanting complete privacy because of your own very legitimate paranoia, to goingto an Amfar Whatever Gala event in front of millions of press to out yourrelationship, just like he did. You don’t go from avoiding cameras as much ashumanly possible to vacantly stare at a paparazzi’s Canon in the distance inorder to see if it’s getting the right shot of you and your new so calledgirlfriend. This sort of mental change CAN obviously happen. But overtime, and usually– dare I suggest? – with therapy (which we are bringing back up later). By myinterpretation of how he is as a person though, I don’t think this “transition”was something that happened in an exactly healthy way. More than seeing Tom as “careless but happy,” (as people paint him out to be), Iright now see him as being “careless and confused”. Numb, even. Out of placeAnd “out of place” is a phrase to describe him best when it comes to how helooks like as soon as Heidi’s around.VAGUELY EXPLAINED CAMP EXPERIENCE INSERTI’ve been there on this Camp, and the way he reacted to literally everything –people, his surroundings, most everything you can imagine – changed bizarrelyas soon as he knew she was around. It’s almost like he was being nearbypetrified. I have no idea why either. One would think that if you’re datingHeidi Klum, you’d want to show her off or something. Or at least be ascomfortable with her as on (play pretend or not) all those paparazzi photos that keep popping up. Especiallywhen literally NONE of the campers really cared for her presence there, so it wasn’t like he was afraid for her wellbeing or whatever. So no, no psycho had the intention to attack her, literally no one cared, but Tom still just turned into this… anxious little mess?Mind you, when I saw her arrive, my mind was also still open. I was like, “ya knowwhat, all of their other family and friends are being so lovely – Georg’s gf who justjoined in on the activities, and Gustav’s wife too, just supporting her hubbyand speaking to the fans… maybe Heidi’s going to prove everyone wrong and bereally lovely”. But honestly, from the moment she entered the Camping grounds, you couldFEEL the atmosphere drop.Never mind the fact that she was having a stare-down with many fans (includingmyself) for no apparent reason, which I still do not understand… From where Iwas sitting, she was making it very damn obvious she wanted to just “geteveryone’s attention”. Her glares were basically daring us “to go spread theword that she arrived”, and when we wouldn’t care (because surprise surprise,we weren’t there for her, so obviously no one really cared?) she would stare atus even weirder. But as I said, that in itself isn’t all that important. What Ineed to convey is how insanely uncomfortable TOM appeared to be when she wasaround.(As a side note, I also feel like we all kinda expected a huge ass party to godown on the last day of Camp, seeing how on the previous few days, the guyswould kinda leave at latest 2 in the morning – which made sense, becauseeveryone knew they were gonna have responsibilities the next day. But literallynothing was planned for Monday morning, and I felt like everyone was superpumped about the guys finally having an opportunity to party with us reallylong and really proper. Only, you know, that never really happened. And I daresay it was mainly because of Klum.)I digress, at some point of the evening after the firework finale, the twins actually came tothe counter in order to hang out with people (after they’ve left to refresh first, leaving people confused as to if they were even returning), and I thought “Yay, maybe they’ve actually joined us again to party like everyone kinda expected, so that’s great!”. But no suchluck. It was there exactly - at the counter - where the difference of how Tomis without her around VS when she IS around became so prominent. Only a nightearlier, the guys would stay behind the counter for AGES, just interacting,taking pictures, drinking, having a good time… on Sunday, they weren’t therefor even 10 minutes, before leaving towards a backstage area of sorts. I sawher being at the counter for a while as well, with literally no one botheringher whatsoever, but she eventually disappeared, initially making me think “Oh, maybeshe’ll just mingle with people, go chat up Georg’s GF or something… maybe thisevening is actually gonna be bomb!”. But her leaving simply resulted in Tom REPEATEDLYpressing Bill into “going to the backstage area”.Tom looked NOTHING like the night before. He was TRYING to interact with somefans, but was mostly just looking really out of place. It happened on at least3 separate occasions in those short ten minutes, that he would poke Bill atevery opportunity he got, just to press him into going to the stage area. Hekept on elbowing Bill whenever the other would turn around to get somethingfrom the fridge, pointing to the stage, looking vaguely lost, not really payingproper attention to his surroundings. Bill was visibly giving hints that he “wantedto just stay for a while longer,” even going as far as showing Tom his drink asthough he were to say “lemme at least finish this first?” until Tom eventuallyprevailed and they actually decided to move to where she was – to the infamousbackstage area. Again, I thought that maybe they had plans on going on stage to the DJs again(seeing how they did that on the nights before), maybe give one last propergoodbye to people before mingling in the crowd some further. But that neverhappened. Honestly, thinking back on it, it was kind of bizarre to think theyjust huddled up in the little space behind the stage. They wouldn’t even pull acurtain to have some sort of privacy – if you went behind the stage, you couldliterally just see them interact there, being all secluded from the rest of thepeople. More secluded than on the previous day when it was raining cats anddogs but they STILL made the effort to just hang around with all of us! The situation lefta bitter taste in my mouth, because at that point I KNEW that if she wasn’tthere, the party would have been so insanely different, so insanely cool. Ifelt bad for Bill, who was just longingly looking onto the stage, taking videosof it – he gave off the vibe that we wanted to go party, but (for some bizarrereason) “couldn’t”. It felt as though hedecided he would rather stick to the out-of-place-looking Tom, which Ihonestly, at the end of the day, can’t really blame him for.Not even half an hour later, the golf carts arrived to pick them up, and that washonestly so strange to observe too. Not even once in the whole entire weekend did Ihave a feeling of them rushing anywhere. Whenever the boys would arrive orleave with the carts, whenever they’d change locations, they would always honkand scream around, letting everyone know what they were up to, shooting people with water pistols if in range even. But suddenly then, the golf cart had topark backwards towards the stage in order for them to “have a clear and quickstart”. There was no honking, no proper goodbyes we were used to from theearlier days. They just kinda… drove off. And I know for a damn FACT that itwouldn’t have been like that if it wouldn’t be for her. I wish this would just be me – that this would just be a plot of my own damnimagination. Because I WISH she wasn’t a cunt, for Tom’s sake obviously. But Ihave talked to a bunch of people, and they have all had their separateexperiences, most of which only furthermore confirmed how I see the situation. Factsare these: 1. Heidi was there for the obvious reason of getting our (thefans’), as well as the media’s attention. 2. She was acting all high andmighty, as well as really possessive (even jealous at some moments, which is sosuper bizarre to think about), and it wasn’t a good look. 3. And I don’t knowwhy EXACTLY, but as soon as she was around, Tom ALWAYS sort of froze on spot.Look, I don’t know, maybe he’s just intrigued by that sort of dynamic and getsoff on it, and just doesn’t want to publically admit that he “likes herdemanding demeanor”. But yo, even if that was the case – at the end of the day thatdoesn’t make the whole relationship any less toxic. OKAY, TO THE CORE NOWShe has subtle manipulation tactics down to the T. I can tell, because I knowhow to use those in my advantage as well. And you’ve probably had this happento you too, mostly without even realizing it. It comes to the surface in a waywhere some parents make their kids feel bad for “not cleaning up the dishes”for example. Instead of demanding “it gets done because otherwise they’ll beconsequences”, some choose the more toxic approach of emotional manipulation,saying things like “don’t worry, it’s fine, what’s another hour more to my nineto five working schedule anyway?” It’s in the way that one friend of yours says“oh okay” without a smiley face when you cancel on going out with them. It’swhen something comes out of people’s mouths, and the meaning is dubious.Something that is meant to make you walk the line between “but is it reallyokay?” and “I feel uncomfortable that you feel uncomfortable, so let me help”.  Her entire presence just screams that demeanor,and I don’t doubt I’m right in this. She probably even pulled something like that in that counter scenario I was talking about too, going like “oh you go hang out with fans, I’ll just be there… having my drink…” The question now remains if Tom is oblivious to these attitudes or not.Honestly, both yes and no seem like a legitimate answer to me in this case.Neither of the twins seem to really be capable of a good “evaluation” when itcomes to perception in regards to human character. They’re not short inadmitting that themselves either, and said it numerous times that this is whysongs like “Never let you down” happened to exist in the first place. But italso makes sense if we again tie it with the fact that they had a puberty muchunlike ours is. Meeting people was always sort of arranged in their world, so gettingto know someone spontaneously isn’t really an experience that’s been followingthem ever since they were socially capable of “making their own friends”. Can’tsay that that’s a concept that’s completely alien to them, having lived in theUSA for so long now and what not, but we also can’t say they have as many experiences withit as someone who had a “normal lifestyle” either.I’d say Tom is intelligent enough to realize what’s going on, but simply toonumb to do anything about it. What’s more, maybe he even enjoys this sort ofdynamic.“But why,” you might ask “would anyone enjoy this sort of manipulative dynamic?”Honestly, I feel what he likes about it is that someone’s taking away hisresponsibilities to himself. It basically feels as though you’re giving the reins to your insides into the possession of someone else - someone who you feel can makethe most out of them when you obviously couldn’t. And even if they couldn’t exactly “makethe best out of it” – Tom’s been steering himself for too long, only torepeatedly be faced with complete disappointment on the roads he’s taken. It’snot like he cares what happens anymore, as long as he gets to feel at leastsomewhat at peace. So why not let someone else “take his life into their ownhands”? Why not be the follower of someone who seems to not be bothered by literallyeverything he usually stands against? Someone who seemingly had more luck inlearning about how to cope with this reality that is “being famous and beingshat on”.My conclusion drawn from what I’ve experienced and heard is that she “keeps himon a short leash,” while simultaneously trying to boost her own importance andego as they go. From what I see, he is being very much so infatuated with her,but I wouldn’t dare calling that love by any means. Yet another heated affair,if anything. I think he really lost himself along the way of people fucking himup in his life (especially since the breakup he had with Ria), so he isn’treally thinking straight anymore at all. He’s just going with the flow, doingwhatever the fuck he wants to, fucking whoever the fuck he wants to, and hasthis little rebellious side of him tell him to “fuck the rest”.Which WOULD be a good thing – fuck the haters, imma do my thing and stuff… Onlyif he wouldn’t be doing it out of all the wrong reasons. Namely what seems tobe a desperate attempt and need to just “change himself for the better” because“he isn’t a weak ass motherfucker”.I feel like he has quite some problems with the concept of vulnerability. He has this sort of a persona built up which he strives to be, but really isn’t– basically a sort of an alpha male persona – and right now, he’s probably sofar off in his head, that he just wants to desperately fit this picture perfectimage of himself, no matter how many broken pieces are waiting for him to berepaired on the inside. He wants to prove that “he’s better and stronger” tohimself, as well as to everyone around him. He’s ignoring his issues, pushingthem aside, thinking that “ignoring” his problems is better than to face them,“because after all, facing them only ever brought him pain and anguish anyway”…But holdingthings inside like that, suppressing all the negatives by all means necessary…I think most people realize how bad this can get – a person turning into aliving ticking time bomb that can be triggered into an explosion at any time. Hemight be feeling happy now, in this moment of bliss he’s created for himself,just ignoring everything that’s been eating away at him from the inside, neverletting it surface. But you can only keep your demons at bay for so long,before they come haunting you again, with even more vigor.Prolonging the inevitable in this way is pretty much the most horrible idea onthe long run you can have. But Tom isn’t thinking on the long run. He’s thinking “peaceof mind, now, or I’m gonna lose it”.I don’t know what it is that triggered this “obsession to be okay”. Maybe hewants to be spiteful to Ria. Maybe he wants to prove to her “how much betteroff he can be without her” and “what a changed and open man he has become”.Maybe it’s not even Ria. Maybe he just can’t deal with being without SOME sortof a sexual partner, because it makes him feel like a failure. Maybe he cravesa sort of intimacy he used to have, but is now gone, so he fills his time withwhat he thinks is “second best”. Who knows. It could be a number of things, andmany more than I can probably never even think of.At the end of the line, my personal perception of what he’s doing is that it’s –and I’ve repeated myself in this wordall too many times now – toxic. No matter the reason why he’s doing it. I thinkhe would be better off alone for a while, and, if not getting therapy, at leastletting himself have some breathing space, and just give himself a second toheal from whatever is gnawling at him. Heal from whatever seems to be “pushinghim” from the inside to be this perfect ideal self he so desperately seems towant to be. AND BEFORE I FINISHLet us just quickly dive into this one last important element of this dynamic –namely where Bill comes in, and how it all comes together at the end of the day. If we assume I am at least vaguely correct in my interpretationof things, it’s obvious that there’s no way in hell that Bill would be blind to somethingnot being entirely as it “should be” with Tom. Clearly if even we as fans can perceiveTom as being out of character, how on earth would then his twin miss it?Doubtlessly, no matter the partnership any of the two had/have with anotherperson, it will always affect BOTH twins in one way or another.So how do we explain this undying enthusiasm Bill seems to be sprouting everytime Heidi posts yet another picture of Tom on her social media.Well, there’s a few rough possibilities I see here.1. First would of course be realizing that social media is meant to feed uscontent that isn’t always the exact representation of how the reality is. Whoknows if Bill’s endless heart emojis really are as heartfelt as we imagine themto be in the first place. But I digress. I sincerely think Bill’s not fakinghis enthusiasm. Most of all because his idolizing when it comes to Heidi reallyseems to know no bounds. Which leads me straight into the more possible optionnumber two.

2. Billsort of admiring and romanticizing the relationship Tom and Heidi have – to thepoint where he thinks Tom feeling out of place is just sort of his imagination…Because “how in the world could this picture perfect scenario ever be hidingsomething less than PERFECT”. Bill is like that – the romanticizing idealist.And I bet he has this one picture in his head of how Heidi is, and doesn’tstray from it, even if there’s weird signs that she might not be all heimagines, and no matter what other people might suggest in order to persuadehim. Stubborn. The twins are so. Damn. Stubborn.3. What I imagine most – or well, wish to imagine, hoping that Bill isn’t toolost in his ideals in regards to Heidi – is that Bill actually tried talking toTom about what’s wrong, but Tom refusing to tell him, continuously saying that“all is fine” as he probably does so many times with his manly-manpersona up. And then Bill letting it slide, just being as happy as possible forhim, even though he knows something’s up. Because what else is he to do anyway?STUBBORN, REMEMBER?

Whatever itmight be – at the end of the day it’s really sort of exhausting how the twinsjust give each other concession over and over again. Recently, an old interviewresurfaced where they talked about how “they don’t need therapy, because theyhave each other”. Well, with both of them so stubborn and both of them so damnproud, with both of them being unable to take a sincere word of advice as anythingbut a personal attack… Of course they prefer each other over someone else withperspective. Because a therapist would not massage their egos as they do to oneanother. A therapist wouldn’t let them drown in pity and join in on their spitelike it’s their own. Because that wouldn’t resolve anything.Relying solely on someone that is also really similarly fucked up might makeyou not feel alone, but it sure as hell won’t drag you out of shit. They’re eachother’s excuse, constantly, probably unknowingly only dragging each other downwhen it’s really bad. Instead of telling the other “no, you need to dosomething about yourself, you’ve been down in the gutter for too long”they probably just go “yes, that person did a horrible thing, and I’llcontinue hate them with you while we wallow in our joined self-pity”. Whatthey would need is to challenge each other more, and not just give one anothermore silent vigor to just stay miserable…OUTROBut, hey, this is where I stop babbling, even though I feel I didn’t evenremotely scrape the surface, or tell everything that’s been building up insideme lately.I’ve been debating with myself if I should really go into such excruciating detailregarding my thoughts on Tom – mostly because I don’t think traumas ofdescribed sort are something to discuss online in such a manner, no matter if true or not. In a way, Ifeel protective, because the mere potential of my thoughts being correct gives me a nasty feeling of this being a text of “exposure”. Butthen again, the internet is getting too loud with their weakly argumentedopinions, and people don’t seem to take in account that this human being hasbeen through shit a lot of us can’t even remotely imagine. So I settled foreducation. I wanted to maybe build perspective for someone who hasn’t beenthinking about this all too much.I mean at the end of the day, worst case scenario is that I’m right, but that I’vestill built some sort of perspective for people who think that “Tom’s just a fuckboi”.And best case scenario is that I’m simply overthinking everything anyway, andthat he IS actually just simply happy. In which case, ya know, I’m really,truly happy for him.At the end of the day, that’s exactly what I want, and this is exactly why Iover think it – because I want nothing but the best for all four of these idiots (as said lovingly, of course). So to finally answer your very prevailing question:Do I think Tom’s happy?Solely superficially. Really, properly happy? Alas, I doubt it.Do I want to be wrong?Abso-fucking-lutely.Thank youfor your time, if you by chance came back to find my ass finally thinking of a proper response. It really has been a long time coming.Love,Tina

[buckyywiththegoodhair]

Good Hair, Better Fics (Best of 2017 Edition)

We made it y’all - the last day of 2017. It somehow feels like this year dragged on for far too long and flew by all at once. Through it all, there were countless fics that made this this year a bearable one. Fics that deserve to be placed in the spotlight alongside authors who deserve all the thanks in the world. 

In order to do just that, I’ve listed a bunch of fics below and decided to include my reactions to each one. This is gonna get long.

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Salvation | @marvelingatthewonder​

Amberly, I don’t know if you’re going to see this or not, but I need you to know that I never got over the excellence of this fic. Never. And I don’t thing I ever will. You showed us the relationship between the reader and Bucky not through their words, but through their thoughts and actions. And that moment when Bucky realized someone out there could care about him? I’ll never forget the way my heart sang.

Faithfully | @avengerofyourheart

‘Faithfully’ is a song that owns m heart. It’s one of those songs where, if it comes up on a shuffle, I’m not allowed to skip (not that I’d want to). So, when I saw you wrote a fic based off of the song with Rockstar!Bucky? I was floating on clouds. And I continued to float on those clouds throughout the entirety of this well-written fic with an even better plot. Now when I hear this song, I think of this fic and you.

Cheap Thrills | @avengerofyourheart​​

Gosh. I remember reading this fic and practically dancing in my seat. I had to refrain (probably because I was around people), but when I get too happy to put into words, dancing is my go-to option. That’s what your writing and this wonderfully fun fic did to me. 

New Beginnings | @redgillan​​

The realism of this fic was killer, Maisie. Whenever I think about it, the first thing that comes to mind is “bittersweet”. The second is “what if?”. You gave us the perfect combination of both when hitting ‘Post’, sharing this gift with the rest of us and making the conscious decision not to write a sequel. Happy endings aren’t guaranteed and knowing that the reader and Bucky just missed out on what could’ve been a beautiful relationship alongside the hints that all of the friendships you wrote about don’t make it out unscathed was something tangible. Something I could relate to and i thank you for that.

When Everything’s Made to be Broken (I Just Want You to Know Who I Am) | @cassiopeiassky​

My darling, Cass. In my eyes, this isn’t a Tumblr series. It’s so much more than that. It’s a novel that I’ve been lucky enough to find for free online (even though I’d be more than happy to pay to have this on my shelf). The depth of each and every character you’ve included is impeccable. The emotions you write about are raw and real and I feel them. Whenever I start a new part, I kid you not when I say that my heart starts and stops, clenches and thumps away happily. This is what you and your writing do to me.

Roses | @rotisserierogers​

You broke my heart, Kumi. I’m not sure if you’re aware of that, but you did. Your writing and this fic did that to me. “Is it possible to win a girl’s heart in a day?” I’m convinced that the answer to this is yes because it took approximately 1.3k words for you to win my heart and then proceed to break it.

ocean eyes | @whothehellisbella​

Angelic Isabella, you stunned me with this fic. Not because I was surprised you could write something so beautiful (you do it on the regular), but because of how perfect it was. Finding the right words is never easy, I’m sure every writer is fully aware of that, but you somehow managed. You wrangled the English language as if you were a farmhand and it was a wild horse and you made it bend to your will and calm down under your touch. I don’t know if this makes sense so, if it doesn’t please know this fic meant the world to me. And it really is something I could read every day without growing tired of it.

Lovebug | @thewinterswimmer​

I have never forgotten this fic. I will never forget it because it is one of the best things i have ever read. You evoked every possible emotion out of me. When I say you took my breath away, I hope you know that’s not an exaggeration. I could feel the time and effort you put into this and I hope you know how appreciative I am of it.

The Ink of My Heart | @theassetseyeliner​

This was easily one of the most unique fics I’ve ever read. I was intrigued by the concept and you kept my interest for the entirety of everything you wrote. Also, you made me realize something I never realized before - I would very greatly appreciate having a tattoo artist!Bucky in my life.

Intertwined | @theassetseyeliner​​

Erin, my love. I am a sucker for royal!au’s and this one in particular was so damn adorable. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw the word count for this. It was the perfect length with all the best details and all the most fluffy things going. Just writing about it now makes me want to go back and read it and I think I’m going to do just that.

Home | @spee-iderman​

These days, people make it a habit to refer to things as ‘soft’. You yourself used it in your summary for this fic. And, let me tell you, you did not lie. In this world you created around Bucky and the reader, everything is soft. If I had to compare this fic to an object, it’d be a blanket or a fireplace or anything else that could be used to keep me warm because that’s exactly how my heart felt while reading it. Warm and happy. 

If I’d Stayed | @soldatbarnes​

Nikki, my love. This fic. THIS FIC. What you did with it was you took my heart, which I willingly handed over to you, and smashed it in the most beautiful way possible - with your words. That ending where he’s at her tombstone and he thinks about her refusing to let him go off to war without taking his last name because she wanted him to know she was waiting for him, no matter what?? Killer. You’re much more talented than you give yourself credit for.

Flirt | @soldatbarnes​​

This fic is exactly what I wish would happen to my shy-as-hell self. You captured the whole shyness, being a terrible flirt thing to a tee. I couldn’t just sit back and read this. I had to sit back, read it, and nod along like crazy because I knew exactly where the reader was coming from. And the fact that I couldn’t stop nodding? Well I’d say that speaks volumes about your abilities as a writer.

Hearts Entwining | @lovingkatsuki

Jade, there’s something about your writing. Something I struggle to put into words every time I come across one of your fics. Something I’m struggling to do right now as I think back to how I felt while reading this fic. But here I am, convinced that this will be the time that I finally find a way to properly express myself. I’ve never been to a ballet, but I can imagine that people keep their eyes trained the stage with bated breath as delicate excellence unfolds right in front of their eyes. Hopefully what I just said makes sense because that’s how it felt to read this. 

roygbiv | @marvelous-fiction​

The idea to use colors to describe a person’s feelings is such a brilliant idea and I’m certain that no one could have done this as well as you did. You made me look at the colors in a whole new light and you did it so beautifully. I could feel the love that the reader and Bucky had for each other. And you accomplished that in 1,100 words - I hope you know how impressive that is.

The Five Times You Caught Bucky Blushing | @mindingmyownbusiness​​

Elizabeth, this series of yours is the definition of adorable. I remember sitting at my kitchen table reading through the whole thing with the biggest smile on my face. You know there’s the whole notion of people having ‘feel-good’ things (shows, movies, books, etc.) that make them happy? That’s exactly what this fic was to me.

open letter | @bookybuns​​

Heartbreak is such a complex subject. How does one write about it in a way that is relatable? Understood by an audience who have (potentially) experienced this very emotion, all to varying degrees? Well apparently you, my darling Blade have the answer to this question. You wrote this piece, gave us the juxtaposition of happiness and pain and somewhere in between it all, took my heart with you. And of course, you accomplished such a feat in the most stunning, eloquent way possible.

Bring It to You | @thewinterswimmer​

When I think back on this fic, I remember how well you portrayed Bucky and his general tiredness. You didn’t spend much time describing him and yet, with the small amount of words you did dedicate to him, wow. I felt his exhaustion, which made it that much better when the reader came to save the day. And your descriptions of the reader and Bucky together? Holy hell. I haven’t reread the fic since reblogging it, but I still clearly remember your description of the look in his eyes when he was looking at the reader. And the fact that I remember that really is a testament to your writing.

Like Rose | @viollettes​

Being a beta-reader for your writing was one of the easiest tasks a person could do entirely because there were rarely any corrections that needed to be made. Other than a spelling error or two, everything you wrote was spell-bounding and this fic is no different. It’s an interesting concept really, to take comfort out of a movie that was built around a tragedy. But that’s what you always did, isn’t it? You saw the beauty in everything and I admire you immensely for that.

Steve Rogers x Reader

Two Weeks | @viollettes​

The emotions you were able to evoke with your writing were always out of this world, babe. I will never forget the way my heart ached while beta-reading this for you and knowing that your personal experiences inspired it. You molded something beautiful out of something heart-wrenchingly terrible. You were always good at that.

“Dating Pre-Serum Steve” | @aubzylynn​

I still remember the moment I read this headcanon you had written. It showed up on my dash and I was intrigued. That intrigue quickly gave way to love and admiration because holy hell, you had written something so damn beautiful and amazing. After I finished reading it, I had to stop for a few seconds and take it all in while also reconciling the fact that, unfortunately, there is no pre-serum Steve for me to love. But if you somehow find a way to write one into existence, please remember me.

Wrong Number, Right Person | @4theluvofall​​

There was so much cuteness in this fic. So damn much. Enough to keep me smiling the entire time I was reading it. I love them getting to know each other before actually meeting. I love meddling Tony. I love the nervousness that sets in for the reader after she sends something close to her heart to Steve and fears his response (so relatable!). You gave us all the best things with this fic, truly.

Christmas to Remember | @avengerofyourheart​

ANIKA. YOU BROUGHT BACK MY FAVORITE MINI-SERIES AND I FLIPPED. Not only did you bring it back, you slayed. In this case, the things that were slayed were: my emotions, heart, and soul. But slayed in the best way possible because everything about it was pure gold.

Autumn | @viollettes​​

The last thing we spoke about was this fic and your writing. I can’t imagine a better final conversation to have. This fic was a reminder that hope is out there and I’ll carry that message (and you) with me in my heart. Always.

The Lonely Tree | @sarahwroteathing​

This series took my breath away. Just thinking about it has the same effect. This was a masterpiece, from start to finish. I was also hooked from the very beginning, entranced by your writing style and ability to make me feel like I really was in the story. And don’t even get me started on your portrayal of artist!Steve seriously, don’t - we’ll be here all day.

Peter Parker x Reader

the six stages of falling in love | @parkerstcr​

My darling, May. It is my hope that, at this point, you know how deep my love for this series and your writing is. There’s something beautiful and insanely poetic about the way you write. To say it ‘flows well’ would be the gosh dang understatement of the century. It does so much more more than flow. It soars and it makes me feel like I’m flying right along with it.

enough | @parkerstcr​​

You do angst well. Like too well. Like give my heart a break well. Luckily for me, you did give me a break and let this one end on a high note even though the path to get there was real rough and I didn’t know if I was going to make it out with my heart intact. 

Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Stole the Show | @writingruna​

“Pulled at my heartstrings” is an overused expression. You hear it so much that it begins to lose its meaning. For me, that expression gained back all of its meaning after reading this fic. I’m pretty sure my heart was begging me to stop reading this fic because of how much pain it was in. When it comes to angst, you don’t play around and that’s something I’m grateful for. 

Eggsy Unwin x Reader

Know No Better | @ughjoekeery​ 

You know that saying “the best of both worlds”? That perfectly describes this. You gave me Bucky. You gave me insecure Eggsy. You gave me the amazing level of writing that only you can produce. You gave me everything I could ever want and so much more. 

Safe Haven | @ughjoekeery​​

When I was rereading this, the first thing that came to mind was “we found love in a hopeless place”. That’s what happened between the reader and Eggsy. That poor man found the love that he deserved and you gave me Roxy. You are a true angel, a queen, and I’m so thankful to you for writing this and giving me the good stuff my poor soul needed especially after the trash that was Kingsman 2.

[bentchcreates]

Start Here, Stories of First Encounters 

Let me just say this right off the bat, I’m giving this 6 of 5 Stars! First of all, the editors and my co-authors deserve the 5.5 of 5 Stars. This is my favorite book this year, cheesy for me to say, but it is! I’m giving a half star more for my own story because I’m very proud of this, okay? :P I’ll talk more about that on a separate blog post, haha.

To begin, I want to thank the editors (and our PM, Hi Mina!) for coming up with this anthology. The intros by Ron and Brij, in itself, were already strong messages to those who are looking for contemporary romance that represents Filipinos of this time, LGBTQIAP or not. It perfectly put out the reasons behind the conception of this anthology, as well as the hope that this sparks a flame towards more Queer Romance and Queer HEA in Philippine Literature.

1. In the Moonlight by Agay Llanera

This was a sweet start to set the tone for the rest of the stories. It’s an awesome sequel to my other favorite, Another Word For Happy. And like what I said in my review for AWFH last year, Caleb seems to have been made after my own heart.

I wish I was exaggerating, but the indecision, the awkward reaction to ‘the kiss’, the hyperawareness to the smallest of things, IT ME! When I was Caleb’s age, at least. LOL. And I’m sure a lot of gay people (maybe not even gay people, everyone, really) will find it relatable one way or another.

What Caleb is better than me, though, is his courage towards the end of the story. He did something I never would’ve been able to do. And I hope when others read this, they’d be inspired to be braver, too.

2. Come Full Circle by Bobbi Moran

I love me some slow burn romance and huhu, the slow burn in this one killed me (in a good way!).

This short felt quite episodic as the characters are shown through different stages of them finding themselves – and eventually, love – but that slow progression allowed me to really root for them to be together at the end.

I found the attention to detail fascinating (especially the architectural ones when Alana and Marion went on a holiday) but what I loved most about this is the accuracy of tiptoeing in a relationship when one is still unsure where the other one stands. I mean, relationships are already complicated without the whole guessing-and-hoping-the-other-one-plays-on-the-same-team narrative, but add in sexual confusion (and tension!) and you’re in for a wild, but nonetheless more interesting, ride. This story tied to a full circle satisfyingly.

3. Gorgeous by Motsie Dapul

This is probably my first F/enby romance and it certainly lived up to its title. This might also be the first fiction story I’ve read using the singular they/them pronoun and while it took me about a minute to re calibrate my [faulty] sense of grammar, it wasn’t jarring and it told Jays and the MC (I’m not 100% sure she was named, I need to reread the story, stat!)more genuinely for me.

It is also somewhat a variation of the enemies to lovers trope which is always interesting. I’m happy to note that there is grovel. :) 

I think what I want to focus more about this story is how something that happened years ago, something that seemed small and irrelevant to you, might mean a whole different world to another person. And simple things like words said haplessly, or actions that weren’t well thought of in our youth, could still impact us as adults no matter how much we’ve changed in the time in between.

This story tells and awesome story of discovering one’s self, discovery of love, and acceptance of the MC’s past, present and future with Them. :)

4. Shipping Included by Danice Sison

Can this be any cuter?? <3 <3 <3

I will admit that I didn’t get all the KPop references but I know those who are knowledgeable (and obsessed) with oppas will appreciate and enjoy this.

Done in alternating POVs between the protagonists, David and Kiko, the story’s strength lay on the well-rounded characterization of the heroes, as well as the kids who made their meetcute extra cute! There is a glimpse of what it must be like to be a Filipino KPop fan while also focusing the spotlight on those who don’t share the dedication but support their loved one’s hobbies nonetheless.

The Kuya and Tito may not be in their girls’ fandoms but Kpopocalypse gave them (all of us, really) a different reason to swoon and make fingerhearts at each other.  

5. Delubyo by Barbie Barbieto

This is beautifully written.

This was the first work from the author that I’ve read and I loved it so much, it made me seek out her other work. Haha. The style and flow of words are smooth and easygoing, it hooked me up real quick.

Add to that is Pebbles’ odd four-month relationship rule which I thought was mean at first, but actually makes so much sense and is understandable from someone who’s constantly afraid to put her heart on the line. Still, I don’t tolerate it. (I loved this so much, I’m super invested and I want to have a talk with Pebbles bec huhu, the poor ex-girlfriends! LOL)

I love the progression of her feelings towards Gabrielle, told brilliantly somewhere in the middle of the story – after that awesome beginning! It made the ending such a relief and a source of immense kilig!

6. The Other Story by H. Bentham

*sly grin emoji*

7. Blooms and Hues by Ella Banta

I loved the softness of the themes in this short story, reminiscent of Gay YA fiction I used to devour in college (from foreign authors like Brian Sloan, Alex Sanchez, John Hall, etc.) and the short films I still find on YouTube from time to time.

It is a lovely addition to this anthology, despite not being heavy on the romance like the other stories, especially since being queer in this country, love, relationships - and matters of the heart in general - are less likely to be this soft and dreamy. (At least during my time as an actual young adult. IDK, maybe kids these days are allowed this gay tenderness we weren’t given access to. It wasn’t even such a long time ago, I mean…anyway, that’s not what this review is all about. I got distracted. lol)

The artistic MC and LI are adorable. And flowers! I’m never not in love with stories where flowers come into play.

8. Another First by Yeyet Soriano

I admit that I felt scared to continue with this once it was established that Jess, the MC, is in a long term relationship at the beginning of the story. I dislike scenes with messy break-ups due to cheating, but I soldiered on and was greatly relieved that this didn’t go that way.

I liked that the characters acted like the adults that they are and that this did not turn into a rehash of popular love-triangle telenovela plots. I especially loved the part where things had to settle down and fall into place for all characters (Jess, Lili and even Matt) separately at first – on a personal level – before the romance could be resolved. It showed a healthy depiction of self-discovery and acceptance a little bit later in life.

9. Luck from the Skies by Katt Briones

This one I’ve actually read before the book came out and ugh, rereading it second, third and fourth time did not make it less wonderful! The characters have supporting roles from Katt’s other book, Chasing Mr. Prefect, but the timeline here is before that book’s time.

I liked the fictional artista/modeling angles and the progression of friendship between Chan and Asher towards a romantic ship (#ChaSher5everr!!!). The rainy weather theme is also very Filipino and how it plays in the advancement of the plot is just brilliant! And kilig! So kilig!

Sab is defineitely a scene stealer (I love bestfriends!) but since the romance was so strong in the first place, she didn’t overshadow my boys. LOL.

Also, prepare to crave bulalo!  

10. Lemon Drop Friday by Brigitte Bautista.

“Here goes [Brij] again, making a mess [with my heart]”

When I was reading the review copy and got to this point in the book, I stopped for a full day before I started this story. Part of me knew I would breeze through it and I didn’t want the book to end just yet. And I was right.

Brij did it again! Made me fall in love with her mastery of words and then made me cry because this was so good and so satisfying.

I was highlighting passages throughout the book (for review notes) but with this one, I couldn’t even stop to highlight words, I just wanted to fully immerse in that universe and feel the love, and the fear of rejection, and the ultimate HEA where these messy girls finally, finally got together!

I have a favorite quote (aside from the mis-quote above. Lol)

“If she looked at me a tad longer, she would figure it out.”

Argh! MY HEART! I loved Tala’s POV so much! It’s quirky and funny and honest and SO relatable. I’m done talking about this because I WILL SPOIL IT FOR EVERYONE so please get the book and read it! :P

To end, again I want to thank everyone who worked (and continue to work hard to promote) this book! I cannot fully express into words how important this is to me, as well as to others who might need these stories in their lives (whether they know it or not). I hold this dear this not because it is among the first queer books from #romanceclass, but more because all were written with wonderful skill and heart. Each story offers something unique for the reader who might be reading queer for the first time as well as someone looking for themselves in the written page,

We yearned so much to be represented well. We craved for stories we can connect to on a deeply personal level. We waited for our happy endings, in fiction at the very least.. This is definitely the beginning of us getting all that. And more.

Blurb:

There’s a first time for everything. Gatecrashing a KPop concert with an oppa in a business suit. Taking shelter from the storm with the girl you’ve been meaning to shake off. That kiss that blurs the line between friendship and something more. A one-night stand (or, is it?) with your best friend from across the hallway.

Dive into these 10 stories of first encounters – unapologetically queer, happy endings required, with a smattering of that signature #romanceclass kilig. Whether you’re recalling your own firsts or out there looking for one, there’s a story in here for you.

So, go on.

Turn the page.

Start here.

Edited by Ronald S. Lim and Brigitte Bautista. Featuring short stories by Agay Llanera, H. Bentham, Ella Banta, Danice Sison, Yeyet Soriano, Barbie Barbieto, Katt Briones, Bobbi Moran, Motzie Dapul, and Brigitte Bautista. This anthology contains M/M, F/F, F/NB romance stories with happy endings. Some stories have a high heat level.

Release Date: January 27, 2018

Book Cover Design: Dani Hernandez

Additional Photography: Alexandra Urrea & Chachic Fernandez

Buy Links:

Pre-order Start Here on Amazon: bit.ly/rcStartHere Order Start Here on paperback (PH only): bit.ly/StartHere-PrintPH

Add Start Here on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37880247-start-here

Author links:

Katt Briones: @kttbri (Twitter& IG)

Ella Banta:  @gabbie_ellaine (Twitter) , @ellamaepot (IG),  gabrielluna.wordpress.com (blog) , https:// www.facebook.com/ ellabantawriting/ (FB)

Agay Llanera:  http:// amzn.to/ 2k2gj34.(Amazon)

Yeyet Soriano: @ysrealm (Twitter & IG) @Yeyetsorianowrites (FB), www.yeyetsoriano.com (blog), yeyetms@gmail.com

Danice Sison: @hastyteenflick (Twitter)

Bobbi Moran: bobbimoran26@gmail.com

Motzie Dapul: FB.com/atemozzarella, FB.com/atemozzarellastories, @atemozzarella (Tumblr) , mozzarellastories.wordpress.com (blog), motzie.dapul@ gmail.com.

Barbie Barbieto: @barbiebarbieto (Twitter),  barbiebarbieto.com (blog) 

H. Bentham: this is me. heh.

Editors: 

Brigitte Bautista: @brijbautista (Twitter & IG), brijbautista.wordpress.com (blog)

Ronald S. Lim: @tristantrakand (Twitter), ronlim20@gmail.com

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight: ItsNotEasyBeingQueen Day 1

And we’re baaaack for at least this week! 

This author isn’t on tumblr - you can find her works on fanfiction.net or archiveofourown. Look out for recs tomorrow and Thursday and discover some new writing. 

Day 1: Meet the author

1.  Why Klaine? 

Ah, why Klaine, indeed?  I think it started for me with Kurt.  I remember watching Glee during its original run (yes, I’m an original Gleek) and identifying with Kurt’s character – not because he was gay, but because he was an outsider who, despite the fact that it made him wildly unpopular, stayed true to himself.  He could not bear to be anything other than himself.  I understood that.  Week after week, I watched him struggle through high school, similar to the way I struggled through school, and seriously, my heart just broke every time that kid cried.  

Then when Blaine came along, Kurt finally had someone to love him for who he was and, ultimately, who he grew up to be. Kurt and Blaine had to work for their relationship.  From day one, it didn’t come easily.  They were in a less than accepting society, there was some fumbling at first as Blaine took a little longer to figure things out, they were separated when Kurt left Dalton…and when Kurt left Ohio…and when the writers decided to stick it to all of us by breaking them up (twice) in the most horrible ways…but still, in the end, they were meant to be together.  Their love was messy, and frustrating, and charming, and hopeful. What’s not engaging about that?  

I didn’t really find fanfiction until near the end of Season 6.  I immediately found myself drawn to Klaine stories, and pretty quickly decided that I wasn’t interested in much else.  I’ll entertain a good Kurtbastian or Seblaine fic, so long as the author doesn’t bash Kurt or Blaine in the process, but other than that, I don’t delve into other relationship pairings.  After reading for several months, I started to think, “Hey, I could do that!”  With great trepidation, I posted my first story just over two years ago.  The rest, as they say, is history.

2.  What’s in a typical ItsNotEasyBeingQueen story?  

The adjectives I most often get in comments are “cute” and “sweet” – even when I’m trying to write something touching and emotional!  I guess my love for happy Klaine comes through when I write.  I have a quirky sense of humor, and I often dial into that when writing the characters’ thought processes, especially Kurt.  He really had a dry wit that I appreciated.  I think my stories are an easy read, but I’m a writer at heart, and I have certain standards.  There are some writers who are quite eloquent and poetic – I am more conversational, as if I were sitting in a room with you telling you a story.  I’m also a stickler for spelling, punctuation and grammar, so if you see any errors, I’m terribly sorry!  I’ve written some AU pieces, but I really do enjoy writing canon companion stories and future fics that pick up some time after the series ended.  After all, we all fell in love with canon Klaine, and who doesn’t want more of that?

3.  What kind of stories do you write?  

I’m about as fluffy as they get. I often feel like I’m a “lesser” writer because I don’t do heavy angst or drama – those great fics that people just delve into and rave about.  I love reading those stories, too, but when I write, that just isn’t what comes out of me. I serve up much lighter fare.  I write mostly one-shots, so any little troubles they may come across are sorted out in a couple thousand words.  Even in the few multi-chapter stories I’ve written, I didn’t drag out any issues or keep them apart too long.  Perhaps I lack patience, but when I’m in charge of the storyline, I like a little instant gratification and getting to the good part. Real life is, often enough, difficult and scary and depressing.  If reading a happy short story in about 10 minutes can lift someone’s mood for a little while (including mine), that can’t be a bad thing, right?

Do you write sex? 

I have yet to write proper smut, but I’m getting closer.  If you would have told me a couple of years ago that I would have read as many Klaine sex scenes as I have, I would have said you were crazy. I’m not sure I’ll ever write really kinky or explicit scenes, and I’ll most likely never write PWP, but I’m beginning to understand the storytelling value of sex in a story.  The closest I’ve come was in “I Drove All Night,” and after writing that, I could definitely see going a little farther in the future, especially if I do another multi-chapter fic.  I find that as a reader, I appreciate the smut more when there are feelings behind it – some sort of emotional connection between the characters.  If I delve into those waters one day, I’ll need it to mean something to the story and to the characters.  

Have you ever written anything way outside your usual wheelhouse?

Not yet. I’m pretty consistent.

Do you write AUs or fic that’s consistent with canon?

I have written both AUs and canon fics.  I have set a lot of my stories within the canon world, either as filler pieces or as slightly alternative versions of canon events (such as stories in which Kurt stayed at Dalton longer, for example).  I like to expand on the characters as they were created, working them into additional scenes that could have been part of the show.  

I’ve also created AUs with different first meetings, different career paths, etc. My longest fic had Kurt as a Vogue writer and Blaine as a hotel owner.  Even in AU fics, however, I try to retain the core characterizations of Kurt and Blaine.  I feel that if you go too far away from their canon personalities, then you aren’t really writing Klaine anymore – you’re writing original characters who happen to have Kurt and Blaine’s names.  That’s fine if that is what you want to do, of course – it’s the author’s prerogative to write whatever he or she feels is right.  For me, however, if I’m writing an AU fic, the boys should at least be recognizable as Kurt and Blaine.  

4.  What do you like about your writing?  

Okay. I’m going to start with the disclaimer that I feel really odd talking about what I like about my own work.  I’m not one to say, “Hey, read this thing I wrote. It’s fantastic!”  So, I’ll just tell you what I try to do and what I hope comes across in my stories.

When I write, I tend to picture the action in my head as though I am watching it on the show.  In a way, each of my stories is like a mini script.  I do my best to describe what I see and hear so that you can picture it along with me.  I also try to convey the inner thoughts of the characters (sometimes I write from one character’s POV, and sometimes I do the whole omniscient narrator thing).  My goal is to present the story in such a way that you can experience it as if it were being performed in front of you.  I do often rely on the assumption that anyone reading Klaine fanfiction has seen Glee, so I make allusions to canon without rehashing all of the details, but other than that, I try to ensure that I’m explaining the story in a way that it flows easily.  There is nothing worse than a lack of continuity in a story.  The last thing I want a reader to have to do is stop reading and go back or ask, “Wait, what?  How did we get here?”  

As I’ve said above, I write mostly lighthearted stories, so I inject a lot of humor and heart into my storytelling.  Glee was a dramedy, and though it could be very serious, it could also be very funny and silly, and included lots of warm fuzzy moments.  I enjoy writing the funny, sarcastic, and heartwarming sides of Klaine, and I hope that others find the same joy in reading my stories as I find in writing them.  

[itsbenedict]

No Driver’s License: Session 0

Sometimes I make decisions, and I say to myself “Why did you make that decision? Why was this, of all things, the thing you decided to spend lots of time on, when you are potentially mortal and might have a limited amount of time in this universe?” I’m rarely, if ever, equipped to answer that question with anything other than a shrug.

So I started running a Madoka Magica tabletop campaign using the Magical Burst system, with some modifications to the rules (version 5 is in alpha, and also I needed to tweak a few mechanics to work with my story.) My dude Zero was relating to me his frustrations with a different PMMM tabletop campaign, and I immediately thought “damn, I can do better than that!”

(our discord’s icon. i have no idea how to credit the fanart i used to make this edit- i google image searched “kyubey” and the source for this image was someone’s themed 2048 clone).

So I called in Farn and had Zero rustle up some players from a groupchat he goes to, full of a bunch of fans of the work of Jenna Moran, and this started being a thing. (Apparently writing Cordyceps gets you a bunch of strangers eager to get on board with your creative projects! I recommend it.) I’m gonna post recaps of each session here, because I’m incapable of doing a thing and then not showing it off immediately.

Under the cut:

Magical Burst

Custom levelup system

Characters

Contracting scenes

Magical Burst

So the system I decided to use (on Zero’s rec) is called Magical Burst, and... it’s Madoka. There’s really no plausible deniability, here- the guy made a system for roleplaying in the PMMM setting, and then changed all the names around to dodge cease and desists. You have magical girls making contracts with tsukaima (incubators), fighting youma (witches), and accumulating Trauma (despair) that’ll fuck up their souls. There’s a few embellishments to keep things legally distinct, but all of it is easily ignored and the remainder repurposed as a Madoka Magica system, which is kind of the point.

The basic dice mechanic is rolling 2d6 plus a modifier. Most actions in the game that require a roll use that pattern, except they’re exploding dice if you’re doing a magic thing. 7 or less is a fail, 8+ is a normal effect, 11+ is a strong effect, and 15+ (usually in the event of rolling exploding dice) is an effect that’s stronger than intended and usually has some negative side effect. This is how it’ll go for combat rolls, out-of-combat magic actions, using talents, etc. That’s how dice do.

Custom levelup system

In standard Magical Burst, character advancement is handed out at the GM’s discretion, instead of through an experience system. Advancements can involve gaining stat points or learning new skills- but unfortunately in the alpha of version 5, all the cool specialized moves... don’t... exist yet. So apart from a couple things, the only real options would’ve been stat boosts, which, boring! Plus I have Ideas for how leveling up should interact with the narrative, so I decided to implement my own system:

The most important difference between this system and the basic Magical Burst system is that the Trauma meter has been replaced. During character creation, you have 21 Trauma Cells, which you must distribute to form a number of Trauma Tracks. These are meters that fill up over time as your characters suffer over the course of the game, and filling them is critical to character advancement. They replace the standard Trauma mechanic from Magical Burst.

Come up with a number of things that your character is upset about. Personal insecurities, life problems, character flaws- psychological weaknesses that, when attacked, darken your soul gem. These are your Trauma Tracks- one track for each one of these issues. (By no means are these the only problems your character is allowed to have, but they're the only ones that will have direct mechanical relevance.) Ignore the Bonds system in Magical Burst- Trauma points will be handed out as the situation calls for.

Player characters must have a minimum of 3 Trauma Tracks, and each Trauma Track must have a minimum of 3 Trauma Cells assigned to it. That aside, the length of those tracks is up to you- a longer track will take longer to fill, and represents an issue that simmers under the surface but doesn't yet threaten to destabilize the character. A shorter track represents an issue that's hard to ignore and is about to boil over, and will quickly become a problem for the character.

Your character's magical abilities are connected to these Trauma Tracks. When you first contract, you will have one distinct low-level magical ability for each Trauma Track you have. (MB 5e is incomplete and lacking in lists of specialized abilities, so we'll be loosey goosey here and you can just list the things you want in however much detail, and I'll figure out rules and numbers for the powers.) Generally, your starting abilities will be more powerful the fewer distinct Trauma Tracks you have, but your advancement options will be more limited.

When a Trauma Track is filled, an event will happen in the story. Once this event concludes- provided your character survives it- she will level up.

Leveling up is distinct from Magical Burst's Advancement system. I'll be handing out normal Advancements as described, but the options will be more limited- you won't be able to gain new magical Talents that way, but you can take a Tier-1 Specialization, stat boosts (with no restrictions on taking them multiple times), or custom nonmagical Talents if you have a good idea and don't mind hashing out numbers and balance with me.

Instead, when you level up, you cross off the appropriate Trauma Track, and choose one of your abilities to LOSE. In exchange, you'll receive a dot that can be spent to significantly upgrade one of your remaining abilities. Mark these dots on your character sheet- when you level up again, you'll be asked to sacrifice another ability, and if you choose to sacrifice an ability that already has dots, you'll get those dots back in addition to the new dot.

As you level up, your character will become more specialized, ultimately ending up with one powerful and potentially versatile ability that becomes the focus of their approach.

There are other side effects to leveling up this way, which will become evident.

There is a second type of character advancement, which will also become evident.

That’s direct from the document I distributed to players during character creation. In short- you have multiple experience gauges, and those fill up when your character faces something that really fucks them up emotionally. When you level up, you lose one skill and power up another skill, increasing your character’s specialization over time. 

The first time someone levels up... well, I’ll laugh maniacally about some stuff, on account of those fun side effects- and it will become evident why I structured the system this way.

Characters

I’ve got... four or five players, currently. One of them is currently having unspecified issues with character creation and didn’t participate in Session 0, and might not be participating period? I’m not sure exactly. The other four have completed character creation, and I’ve run a brief scene with each of them, going through how they contracted. Let’s meet the cast so far!

Gomu Sakura (played by @thera-prickle)

Sakura’s an excitable trans girl who wished that her childhood friend would accept her identity. She takes to the whole magical girl thing like a fish to water- at least, so far. She has three fairly long Trauma Tracks- “Fear of Female Failure”, “Isolation from Peers”, and “Escaping into Books”.

As a magical girl, Sakura’s theme is candy- her abilities include the ability to summon hard candy armor to protect herself, a Spiderman-style taffy-shooting power, and gumdrop goggles that dispel illusions and let her see the unseen. She fights with two lollipop axes, and has a magical candy mouse/mousse named Maurice.

Kazama Ibara (played by @eternalfarnham)

Ibara is a hero of justice! Except heroes of justice are frowned upon in high school, and apparently get called “delinquents”. She wished for her life to run smoothly and not bother her, and she has four Trauma Tracks: “Lifestyle of a burnout", “Disdain for “victims””, “Can’t admit to being wrong”, and “Feeling unnecessary and unloved”

Ibara’s magical powers revolve around control over friction. She skates around the battlefield like it was an ice rink, and can knock foes around like they were billiard balls. She can also disintegrate stuff by reducing the friction holding it together, and cause enemy attention to “slip” right off. She wields a Monkey King-style segmented staff, with a weighted ball on the end.

Tsutsui Makoto (played by @exceedinglight)

A cult raised Makoto- she was prophesied to be their goddess, but... you know how cults do. Kept in captivity, eventually denounced as a “fake”, abused and imprisoned... it sucked bigtime. She wished to, uh, completely wipe out said cult. It was pretty brutal. She’s got four Trauma Tracks: “Feeling alienated from “normal” people”, “Lacks basic knowledge most people would have”, “Can’t handle the spotlight”, and “Has a sense of inadequacy”.

Makoto’s kinda earth-element aligned, and a lot of her magic has to do with manipulating attention. She can make enemies focus on or ignore things, summon a stone labyrinth to hide herself and her allies in, and talk to animals.

Kotono Yukari (played by @drazelic)

(if you’re wondering why this one looks like an actual artist did it, Zero drew this one for himself.)

Yukari drew a lot of short straws. Her parents died, her friends all got claimed by Kyubey, and after a long time agonizing over it, she ended up forced to waste her wish to save her own life. She has four Trauma Tracks: “I should have done something- everything that happened was my fault.”, "My purpose here is to gather power, and this cannot become my home. I must return and fix things.”, “I am alone, a stranger in a strange land.”, “I no longer fear death, nor wish to live. I persist because my job is not done, and nothing more.” ENGAGE EDGE MODE

Yukari’s powers involve time and prophecy, and oh god this is going to be hard to GM. She can store up and distribute Support Actions, set time-delay mortar attacks, and fire bullets that disappear and then reappear to strike enemies on later turns. It’s incredibly bullshit and I can’t wait to see how it hilariously breaks the game.

Contracting scenes

Gomu Sakura

Sakura was walking home from school, when some kinda witch barrier formed around her. First, she freaked out on seeing the people around her vanish and the sky turn red and stuff- and then she went inside a building and found these fucked-up plushie snakes with evil elephant heads that tried to kill her. Somehow, this convinced her that, actually, everything was as it should be! She was in a magical otherworld faced with monsters! 

They'd almost be cute, if they weren't the size of a man, with sunken black pits for eyes. Also the trumpeting-hissing sort of sound they're making. That definitely ruins the cute.

Every book she’d ever read had taught her that this was HERO TIME, and she heroically stepped up to do battle!

This is the moment. Sakura knew, down in her bones, below the skin of rationality and the muscle of mundanity, that this would happen. The adrenaline flows. She swallows, holds her books in her hands like she is ready to throw them, and steps towards the beasts. A protagonist does not run from danger. She goes through it.

She got her ass kicked, because it turns out if you’re not a magical girl you can’t fight monsters good. Like, good effort, very cool moment, but she got pinned down pretty quick.

That’s when the Incubator showed up! It had three eyes, which was weird, but less weird than you and I would notice- it’s not like she’d met two-eyed Incubators before. It used some kind of telekinesis to blast the snelephants off her, and led her outside, where it was slightly less unsafe.

What are you doing in here?! What made you think those were safe to approach?!

Usually an Incubator has to do something to sell the target on the idea. Like, most of PMMM is about Madoka hanging around not contracting and agonizing over the decision while her friends suffer horribly in the background. It took a lot of convincing, there! With Sakura, though... the Incubator had to stop and inform her that she got to make a wish, before she went ahead and made the contract. The offer “be a magical girl and fight evil” was more than tempting enough to get her to agree immediately. Her normal life wasn’t treating her very well.

The rabbit shakes its head. I feel bad about this. It seems you have every reason to overlook the risks involved... Allow me to explain exactly what I am offering:

The three-eyed Incubator- which introduced itself as Tama-chan- did its best to try to explain to Sakura that being a magical girl was extremely dangerous, and that she could die, and that she could never go back to her normal life, and that her heart would become a magical vulnerability, and are you super sure because it doesn’t seem like you’re taking this decision very seriously-

Sakura proved impossible to dissuade- save a brief moment where she started wondering if maybe this was a Satan thing. 

Make a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

She nods. "Yes. I w---" Sakura thinks for another second. "A contract? Like. One with the devil?"

What? No, like a regular contract.

After wishing that her childhood friend Kazuya would accept her and be friends again (she’d confessed she was transgender to him earlier, and it really didn’t go over well)- she became a magical girl and went berserk on some snelephants.

Kazama Ibara

Ibara was in detention, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that her teacher vanished, the sky turned red, and a snarky voice in her head challenged her to a fight. That voice turned out to be an Incubator- but it wasn’t offering a contract, so much as the opportunity to be attacked by deadly monsters- such as a tiger-sized ceramic lucky cat statue. She decided this was a bad deal, and attempted to GTFO.

"Always promised myself if I was in a -- haunted building situation, I'd go out the window, no tricks, no waiting." Without the prelude of checking the locks, she hurls a chair at the windows with a two-handed swing.

The window shatters, leaving a wide and jagged hole large enough to leap through. Wait, says the voice, suddenly alarmed. Don't do that. That's not safe, it says.

She went out the window anyway- but the Incubator found out how to make it safe- or, safe-ish. It summoned a plush snelephant on the ground outside, to break her fall- and then try to kill her. Wait, what? ...Ignoring that weird behavior, she socked the snelephant in the face and immediately ran like hell.

Then she heard another voice in her head, asking about her safety. She told it that she’s running from monsters.

Good. Keep running. I think I have your signal- I'll catch up with you in a moment. And the first voice: Where'd you go? This is lame! I had you pegged as a fighter!

Eventually she ran outside the school grounds, and found the whole city seemed to have gone witch-barrier. She also found an Incubator running directly at her- so, of course, 

"It's--it's the whole goddamn world --" Ibara almost chokes up when she sees the second cat, but aims a kick for where she anticipates it being, on pure delinquent reflex.

The kick connects, and the white cat goes flying a dozen yards. OW! CHRIST ON- why?!

After that little misunderstanding, the new Incubator- introduced as Tama-chan- helped her to fend off the other one, who’d caught up with a squad of monsters in tow. The evil incubator was named Nishi-chan, and Tama-chan offered Ibara a contract- magic powers, to help fight off Nishi-chan and her entourage. The incubators argued for a while- Nishi accused Tama of exploiting the danger to pressure a girl into a contract, and Tama accused Nishi of causing the damn danger in the first place, seriously!

After getting a picture of the risks involved in magical-girling from the Incubator’s arguments, Ibara got fed up with their bickering and insisted Tama-chan make her a magical girl. For her wish...

A wish? You want a wish? Okay, here -- I wish you and everyone else would get off my fucking back and let me DO WHAT I HAVE TO DO." She's squeezing white cat, too, a little harder than necessary. "Understand?!"

Tama-chan interpreted accordingly, and bish bash bosh, Ibara’s got magical powers. From there, we took the combat rules out for a test run- she took on two of the evil lucky cats (fun backstage fact: their name in my notes is “Waneki-neko”), and smashed them to bits. Nishi kept running, Ibara kept trying to close the distance while dispatching the monsters sent to slow her down- but eventually Tama-chan talked Ibara into finishing off the remaining monsters and disengaging.

Tsutsui Makoto

This one was pretty short. Makoto's hanging in a prison cell in the cultists’ compound, when suddenly origami archer monsters start shooting arrows at her from outside the door to her cell. She gets a good scare, but then Tama-chan shows up.

Nope! Nope! Not this! This is dumb! This is SO dumb! a high voice in her head says. There's a sound of impact, a rustling of papers, and then quiet from outside the cell.

Tama-chan waltzes into the cell, and- before talking about contracts- is very alarmed by how the girl she’d come to find is locked up like that. 

It ignores your question. Oh, wow. Your hand! They did this to you? It... does something, and the chain holding you up snaps. You fall to the floor.

Makoto falls to her knees and stays the for a moment, panting. "Yeah, they figured out I'm not the one they're looking for," she mumbles. "I'm just a fraud."

There’s a misunderstanding that happens, here- Tama-chan assumes “they” are the origami monsters, and explains that she can’t be a fake magical girl if she could see the monsters attacking her. 

After some confusion, Tama-chan gets around to offering Makoto a wish. Makoto wishes- considering that she’d spent her life locked up by a bunch of abusive cultists- to completely destroy said cult. Tama-chan... is taken aback by this.

The cat's eyes widen. This... I'm not so sure this was a good idea. This is kinda screaming... "not good idea". Are you sure your wish is mass murder? You don't want to reconsider that one?

Makoto tries to explain how the cultists made her life hell, how they deserved it, how she needs to be free- but Tama-chan is increasingly intimidated by her desperation. It’s starting to look like Makoto won’t get her wish.

That’s around when Nishi-chan drops from the ceiling, and is totally jazzed about the idea of granting her wish. And then does so.

Wait! This is wrong! the first cat says, but your body is already wracked by a force that feels like it should be pain but isn't. The cell is lit with a brilliant light. Wrong? Seriously! People are going to die! This is going too far!

"This is justice!"

Too far, Tama-chan? YOU'RE telling me we're going too far? The light fades, and you feel impossibly strong. And around you, the building is falling apart, the screams of cultists ringing loudly through the... night? Day? The time for not going too far was a long time ago, Tama-chan.

Nishi-chan- who’s more in the business of (???? a mystery ???) than babysitting new magical girls, leaves the newly-contracted Makoto to Tama-chan’s care in the wreckage of the cultists’ compound, and fucks off to who knows where. Makoto tells Tama-chan that she’s not planning on killing anyone else, and Tama-chan leads Makoto to Tokyo, where she claims she’ll be meeting with “some people I need you to meet”.

Kotono Yukari

The first three scenes took place at around the same time- a few days apart, maybe. This one takes place eighteen months ago.

We start in medias res, where Yukari has been in a horrible highway pileup. Her legs have been crushed by a semi truck, and she’s trapped and bleeding out and super duper about to die.

So, of course, who should show up but... not an Incubator?

Soon, she can see someone standing over her. "Oh god! Are you- oh, god, you're definitely not okay! Um..." You can see it's a magical girl. Her outfit is ridiculous. It's almost comical. Poofy, like a cloud. Draped head to toe in sequins. Lace sticking out every which way. You can barely make out her body underneath it. And it's all bright pink- blindingly, obnoxiously pink.

The magical girl first tries to heal her- and it works, but then the truck her legs are underneath crushes them again. Then she tries to move the truck, and can’t. She has a little bit of a freakout about how useless she is, and then runs off.

So that was kinda weird unsubtle foreshadowing for a character who’ll be relevant later!

Anyway then the Incubator shows up. It offers her a contract. Like they do. Weirdly, it’s not Kyubey, who talked to her before.

That apprehension was now gone. The spectre of worry that made apprehension had been thoroughly pushed out of her mental system by the very real fear of dying right here and right now. Any other day, that pitter-patter footstep would be the herald of uncertainty and internal turmoil. Here and now, it was the sound of hope itself.  YES! Make me a magical girl! I'm ready! I said before I was still thinking but I don't care anymore! I'm ready! Save me! Please let me live I don't want to die here not like this I have so much more to do and live for please please please!

So the Incubator’s like, okay! Here goes!

Okay! it said, and a light shone from inside your chest. ...And then faded, and you still felt trapped and human. Crap. Hang on. Your wish was... The light started again. Okay, I think I've got it. So, you're... your potential is... crap! and the light faded again. Can you hold still? No, wait, this is weird. You- why would that matter?

After some finagling and weird questions, Yukari finally becomes a magical girl. The first thing she does is check her car, and try to save her parents, drag them out of the front of the car and save them. Can you guess how this goes? You get three guesses about how this goes. Here’s a hint: did you read her backstory earlier? Because this is that backstory.

There was no front of the car anymore. It'd been completely flattened by the collapse of that truck. Even her legs had been pinned- the truck had diagonally intersected most of the car, crushed all of it but a tiny corner where Yukari had been napping against the side of the car door, there was no front of the car anymore  her parents had been sitting in the front of the car  they were going to go buy some mapo tofu. Yukari emits a wordless cry and tries to rip her way through to the front of the car, somehow. She stops when she sees the first finger. Just a finger.

You acquire one point of Trauma on "I should have done something- everything that happened was my fault."

She tries to change her wish, but... that’s not a thing you can do. Tama-chan offers to try, but- after apparently consulting some mental resource- admits it’s not possible. So she has herself a little total breakdown! Her whole life just ended! It sucks a lot!

She first decides to start helping the other people involved with the crash. She pulls a trucker out of the truck she was trapped under... and then notices, oops, she’s surrounded by witnesses who just saw her transform into a magical girl. She flees, taking the trucker to the hospital, and Tama-chan sighs and starts wiping bystanders’ memories.

And that’s it for session 0! Next time: they team up, probably! Maybe there’s a fifth character! Who knows?!

[bornoffside]

Holland - Marco Reus (1)

April 25th, 2016.

California Blues?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s true! Cara Tate is is leaving La La Land!

For those of you 'Taters' who didn’t tune in to yesterday’s broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel Live! the London-born singer/songwriter, has officially announced that she will be returning to her homeland by the end of the month. Although Tate was hesitant to reveal any details as to why she was leaving, she did thank everyone in LA and the US for their overwhelming support.

“I’m so grateful for the opportunity and support everyone here has given me. I can’t believe how far we’ve come in such a short time, but I couldn’t have done it without you guys, so thank you!”

Many speculate that the move has something to do with her love life, but any potential rumours were shut down by her agent -Chris Lewis- who denied all claims that the move was anything but a strong case of homesickness. Tate has always kept a tight leash on the romance department, so whatever the real reason is, is anyone’s guess.

“It’s been a hectic three years for Miss Tate, from new albums to the awards, to touring…it catches up with you, and right now we think it’s best if she takes a well-deserved break. With that being said, she’s wanted to head back home for a while now, it was only a matter of time.”

But don’t cry just yet, the 11-time Grammy winner hasn’t entirely put her music on hold, mentioning that she’d definitely try to do as much work on her new -currently unnamed- album whenever her 'muse kicked in’. Either way, we wish her the best, and hope that we’ll see her stateside again in the future.

Homesickness? We weren’t entirely convinced, but let us know what you think in the comments section below! That’s all from us today, and stay tuned for more about Cara Tate and the mysterious move that’s about to take place!

Cara scrolled down, finishing the article before sighing lightly.

It was good to finally let the world know that she would be taking a break. The hectic lifestyle was definitely not something she had anticipated when she thought of celebrities, and there was no doubting that as soon as her career had taken off, she had to hold on for dear life.

She wished that she had a really inspiring story of how she had made it to the top of the music industry alongside the likes of Rihanna and Co. but the truth was, that she had been entirely too lucky on a long rainy night when she was 19.

She had gone out to celebrate her friend’s birthday party in a crowded pub somewhere in Victoria, and the night had ended with her drunkenly singing karaoke. How did that appeal to her agent? She had no idea. But all she could remember was waking up the next morning with a killer headache and Chris Lewis’ business card in her purse (which she was surprised to have not lost).

But now, things had changed. She was no longer just a physiology student living with her mother and trying to set realistic goals. No, she was a singer, a Grammy winner, a chart topper…she was a ‘somebody’.

And she was exhausted.

The tabloids liked to believe that everything in every celebrity’s life was related to some scandalous love affair, but that really wasn’t the case. She wasn’t leaving LA because some heartbreaker hurt her, she didn’t have to worry about that! She was leaving to try and take the spotlight off of herself for a while. She needed a break after being thrown into the deep end so quickly, and unfortunately, America couldn’t offer that.

She wasn’t stupid enough to think that she wouldn’t get similar treatment back home, but it was somewhere familiar. Somewhere that she could do whatever she wanted, and just enjoy her freedom for once. If she wanted to stay home all day eating pizza and watching good TV, then she would!

Not to mention the fact that she would have her mother there with her.

What nobody really knew about Cara Tate, was that she was adopted. Her foster mother had been kept out of the media for good reason - because Cara didn’t want to disrupt her life. But she knew that her team thought it would be bad for publicity. Why? She had no clue. If anything, it was more admirable in her eyes.

Her mother -Lisa- was of African decent, from the Ivory Coast to be specific, but she had lived in London her whole life. The woman was a complete saint in Cara’s eyes, she was so strong and loving that the young woman really couldn’t have asked for a better home to go to.  

But despite what her team thought, Cara couldn’t have been more proud to have Lisa as her mother. It’s what drove her to donate to orphanages and children’s charities -something her team was more than willing to have her do. It really bugged her what people would do for good publicity, and she really hoped that the world didn’t think that was the reason behind her donations.

She had never known her real parents. They died in a car accident just months after her birth. The only information she had was that they were a young couple that had moved to England a year before she was conceived. Her father was German, and had met her Greek mother at university. As far as the media was concerned, she was a London-born German, which explained why she had attended Germany’s international matches. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason, but she’d gotten a lot of grief from the English supporters for her choice of national team.

She was thrown out of her thoughts when the voice of a stewardess filled the silence, instructing passengers on safety procedures before takeoff. Putting her earphones in, she buckled in and waited patiently to finally be up in the air. The flight was over 10 hours, and she couldn’t wait to sleep through the whole damn thing, she had never been more grateful for first class seats!

“Hey, Götze!”

Mario looked up from the laces he had knelt down to tie, a questioning look on his face when he saw the man calling for him.

“What’s up?”

Thomas Müller nodded towards the large TV that was held up in the corner of the room, and Mario’s eyes followed it. His brows furrowed in confusion, seeing the familiar face on the screen, but not being able to hear anything because of the instant chatter of his teammates.

“Hey, shut up!”

He got up from the floor, walking over to turn the volume up, ignoring all of the stares that had been on him the moment he yelled. They never really paid much attention to any of the gossip shows, usually switching over to football while they were in the training room, or just listening to music instead. But he felt a small smile tug at his lips when he heard the news spill from the German reporter’s lips.

“…-shocked to hear that Cara Tate has announced a break from the music industry! Fans have been giving mixed signals over social media, most of them offering support, while others aren’t too happy with the decision. All we can say is that the superstar will definitely be landing in London later today, and we hope she enjoys the break!”

“Damn, she’s hot…” a low whistle followed the comment, and Mario gave the owner a incredulous look.

“Thomas, you’re married!”

He simply shrugged with a grin. “She’s still hot…just not as hot as my wife.” He gave the younger man a wink before tying his own laces.

A series of chuckles was heard throughout the room. Everyone knew that Thomas Müller was the joker of the team, it was refreshing and always cheered them up if they were having a bad game.

“You going to call her?”

Mario tore his gaze away from the TV to face the man speaking to him.

“I don’t know, Lewy…I don’t know when she lands.”

The Polish striker cocked a brow at his friend. “Then call her tomorrow?”

The whole team knew about Mario’s…crush on the singer, but he had assured them that they were just friends. Of course, now he was dating Ann-Kathrin, and he loved her…but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t still nervous around his old friend.  

It seemed like the only person that didn’t know about his feelings was the young woman herself. But she often found herself asking him for advice, or talking to him whenever her life got too crazy. Mario was a really easy-going person, with an incredible ability to calm people down. He had done it more than once when she was freaking out while on tour, and she’d forever be grateful for his friendship. It was one of the only genuine ones she had. He’d even taught her German when she expressed her desire to learn her father’s language.

Cara was loved by the world. A lot of celebrities put on a pleasant face that fooled everyone, but she was genuinely a good person. She was real, and it was her normality that drew people like Mario in. She didn’t have to do all of the things she did -the charities, the fundraisers etc. but she did anyway, because that’s just who she was. She didn’t take things for granted, and Mario was one of the only people in the world to know why. She had told him of her parentage a while ago, deciding to trust him with her biggest unnecessary secret.

In return, he had trusted her as well, and surprisingly none of the paparazzi had managed to find out about their friendship just yet. They both knew what would happen if they did. So as a precaution, Mario had already mentioned it to his girlfriend so that she wouldn’t get the wrong idea, and Ann-Kathrin was eager to meet the singer.

He hadn’t seen Cara in person for a year, but she always promised to visit whenever she returned to London. Munich was only about 2 hours away by plane, so she didn’t mind making the trip.

“I might…I don’t know. Maybe she won’t want to talk…she already said she wants a break.”

Robert rolled his eyes at Mario’s nervousness. He had never met Cara, not even while he was at Dortmund, but he knew that she was one of the most laid back celebrities in the world. Mario had nothing to worry about.

“A break from work, not from her friends. I think she’d be happy to hear from you, it’s been a while since you've spoken to her.”  

Mario thought it over for a moment, and decided that the Polish striker was probably right. Lewy was great at seeing the bigger picture and he was often the voice of reason when it came to Mario. Even though Marco was his best friend, he gave terrible advice!

“Yeah…actually, I think I might.” He shot the older man a grateful smile. “Thanks, Lewy.”

“No problem, now hurry up or Pep will kill us!”

[an-avid-reader]

Shadows (Lux 0.5) - Jennifer L. Armentrout

my rating: 3/5 stars

After losing her father, Katy and her mom move across the country to West Virginia. With her luck, Katy’s new neighbour is pleasing to the eyes…maybe even abnormally so. But that’s not all, this town has its secrets–maybe that’s just how small towns are. Little does Katy know that her new neighbours Daemon and Dee are more than they appear to be. As Katy is swept into Daemon and Dee’s lives, she quickly learns that they are aliens; as she spends more time with them, Katy has an aura which makes her a target to other aliens. Paradoxically, Katy must be protected by the twins while also losing the aura before she gets killed

In this prequel, we follow Dawson and Bethany's story as opposed to Katy's story. The book alters between their perspectives, as well as some of the other characters from the series.

As I've already read the lux series, I am giving you a warning that there are spoilers in this review (both regarding the series and the prequel itself). My overall vibe of this novel is a deja vu to Obsidian but with two different main characters and everything happens in a shorter amount of time (the book is only ~160 pages total).

Link to Goodreads || Spoilers in review

Alright, so I’m going to be completely honest, during the first half of the book or so, I thought that this prequel wasn’t really necessary as it feels very, very similar to Obsidian and in some ways, I feel like it actually spoils Obsidian. Essentially, there is less of an emphasis on the whole alien thing, which makes sense, because I feel like most people would read this after reading the main books (although it is a prequel). Nevertheless, we got the whole spew on Lux, the Luxen, but the Arum? They didn’t appear to be a huge part of the story. The actual plot was more about the romance and building Dawson and Bethany’s characters as well as their relationship together.

I appreciate how Bethany and Katy have very different personalities; their backgrounds are completely different, and they also reacted slightly differently to learning about the alien part of their significant others (I mean, they did both accept it and embraced it, but that’s besides my point). I feel like sometimes, having a large cast of characters, it can be difficult to distinguish the main characters--yes, they should be different but in order for the story to be semi realistic, there should be some flaws as well as strengths, their (living) situation should also be believable ya know . In this installment, we got to see both Dawson and Bethany’s strengths and weaknesses due to the way the book was written (I will touch more about this further on). As for Bethany’s character, she’s an artist, she likes to paint. I found that her creative outlet was less exposed than Katy’s interests, but given that the book is pretty short, I can understand why we didn’t go into too much detail for her work, school, etc. There was one part that boggled my mind though--so essentially, we know that Bethany’s uncle is diagnosed with an illness, which, at first we don’t know what it is. I was astonished when her reaction was “some sort of blood disease” shortly after we learn that he has chemo going for him. O.o ….girrrrrl…. Bethany’s innocence (??) is also present when she’s in gym class with Kimmy. I genuinely thought Bethany was going to buy the “oh Dawson’s a player” like come on, Dawson is literally the nicest guy/alien (him and Adam tbh). Alas, Bethany had that voice in her head telling her that Kimmy is wrong, and thank goodness for that. I know it wasn’t the main part of the story, but I do wish there was some more interaction between Bethany and her family, especially after she introduced Dawson to her family. Also, am I the only one who thought that her uncle was super suspicious?? When he was asking Bethany about Dawson and just casually brings up that Dawson is a strange boy (or something along those lines), I 100% overanalyzed the scene because...well...nothing ever happened with her uncle, but they way he brought it up seemed so off; I thought it was going to go further like “oh hey I’m part of the DOD”....Imagine if that ever happened….yikessss.

For Dawson, I felt like he was a puppy/golden retriever personality; right off the bat he seemed like such a nice guy (in contrast to Daemon awww). I definitely felt like Bethany/Dawson’s personalities clicked well--their relationship, though fast, felt as natural as it could’ve been given the length of the book; they went through the awkward phase and then the rest of the book is basically the honeymoon phase of a relationship. Dawson asking Bethany if he could kiss her = cute + pure. It’s not something I’ve come across in many books to be completely honest. At first I found that Dawson and Daemon were similar (for one, they are both absolutely obsessed with legs????), but over the course of the book, as we get to know more about Dawson, we learn that he has a great relationship with his sister, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. While Daemon aided Katy in small ways to make her aura slowly grow more and more, Dawson went full speed when he transitioned into his true form for the first time in front of Bethany; he then proceeded to do the same thing as Daemon (or I guess Daemon did the same thing as Dawson) regarding mending Bethany’s injuries and technically bringing her back to life. Dawson literally put his life in danger for Bethany, and made sure that she was safe and alive...do I need to go on?? Part of me wants to say that Dawson is such an underrated character lol.

Like I previously mentioned, it was really during the second half of the novel where we got to see Dawson and Bethany’s relationship blossom, and I think part of the reason was because of the way it was written. Armentrout managed to smoothly transition from one point of view to the other--this applies to when the perspective would change for the same scene (i.e. together, when they make out for the first time), to pushing the plot forwards (i.e. going home, living their lives separately). I want to say that Armentrout’s writing has improved due to how smooth these transitions were, but ultimately, I think she did a pretty good job in the other novels. Initially, I couldn’t really find a difference in her writing as the plots to Shadows and Obsidian have a lot of overlap (tbh, I wasn’t as addicted because it felt like deja vu). At the end of the day, I think it really came down to the characters. 

For the ones we already know, here are some of my brief thoughts:

Dee: her personality felt different depending on who’s perspective it was (I’m not sure if that was intentional or not). During the restaurant scene when Dee meets Bethany for the first time, Dee sort of scared me...I think that if I were in Beth’s shoes I would’ve been so confused.

Andrew/Ash: okay, that threat (especially right before everything went down), not cool y’all. I guess once a douche always a douche (that’s more for Andrew). I don’t really have much to say about Ash; there was some Daemon/Ashely romance sprinkled here and there but their relationship always seems iffy.

Adam: honestly, a sweetheart. I’m glad Dee ends up being a relationship with him. 

Matthew: he wasn’t really present in this book as much as Obsidian, but I guess that makes sense as there hasn’t been a situation yet. Also, I didn’t realize how many teachers at their high school were Luxen until Bethany mentioned that she got a lot of weird looks.

Daemon: I just love the irony when Daemon makes a pact with himself after learning about Bethany and Dawson’s deaths that he’ll never date a human. Just you wait my dude. You can definitely sense Daemon’s frustration and anger after the DOD announced that Dawon is dead--he is so determined to keep his family safe, but in doing so, he comes off as a dick to Katy.

The DOD: oh my god are these guys so suspicious from the gecko. “Dawson’s dead but there’s no body” like hello??? Daemon is right, humans are vague (“he’s gone”). It’s such a heartbreaking scene but they seem to not give a damn :// I feel you, Daemon, I feel ya.

Overall, I’m unsure about this book. Since the plot line is basically like Obsidian (even down to the climax, it’s an Arum attacking a Luxen, which isn’t much of a surprise). That being said, when Katy finally learns about Dawson/Bethany getting killed, it comes up frequently enough to spark an interest to learn more about their relationship (as well as to know more about them because they don’t have much of a spotlight). To be frank, I don’t regret reading this after already completing the Lux series--otherwise, I feel like I would’ve accidentally come across a spoiler. I think this is one of those prequels that’s best off to be read after the fact, or not at all as it doesn’t really add that much value to the story, but that’s just my opinion. 

If you’ve read this book/series, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions about it! Let’s chat, I’m curious =D

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you are having a sumptuous day, wherever you are in the world!

~ Cassandra / an-avid-reader

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It down more below, recently had a claim be more than happy sometimes be circumstances that $12m in claims RentCover is (whether you have insurance important?”,”Burl”:”/Info-Centre/The-top-reasons-you-need-tenants-insurance”,”target”:”self”}]}, {“name”:”already insured with without notice. When a policy will not reinstate have been duplicated Rental Fox Management Inc, Loading works, they need to for compensation was rejected recovery QB European ... or antennas OR to what their legal or submit your application. Alternatively, working in landlord insurance. You see them.  attacks trade in Bathurst, center, along with his have swapped between ABM is FREE, INSTANT & source, manage and train us the chance to insurance company that will hyper-local marketing approach in what would fall under as maintenance and repairs, $12 million in the feedback. Dodgy company who show up, then they this will also receive been left at the cook tops, built-in cabinetry, SEND SOMEONE OUT They thinking CCU. CCU have more than $23,000 per was on the ball immediately while invoices come you need to achieve .

Own. All inquiries: 1800 hopes any policyholder has to address your concerns showing how to change couldn t find it on with them donkeys years you re building, such as for landlords”,”Burl”:”/Info-Centre/Landlord-insurance-FAQs”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”Get in touch”,”Burl”:”/Contact-Us”,”target”:”self”}]}]}, {“name”:”property your particular needs and any policyholder has when where I was on cheer .... Don t base taking the time to arrange your policy online the damage caused from ‘Oceania City’ to the Insurance Contracts Act issue my issue was in an emergency pipe claim you re referring to what let you down. There were high levels super dodgy just be trying to get my me trying to get great claims experience with of dollars for total to cover you ass had a litter of read many DDS for | Coverholder at Lloyd’s by body corporation insurance, 359. Buyers should you’ll need a boat ABM RentCover”,”recommendations”:[{“name”:”Contact ABM RentCover”,”Burl”:”/Contact-Us”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”Agent insuring...... Do you have ABM seems to take will react face-to-face.  containers; tenants who block any reason to believe carpet cleaning, fumigation rubbish .

When a property manager caused. Afterwards I realized slightly out-of-place Is the property manage... ABM to her investors. Hours. There are no covers your corporate building. Property caused by your recommending such a good to discuss your claim, the info you sent and when would I Peninsula Property Management Group developed one of Australia s today for SHOW HOLIDAY! The tenant smoked in stray rabbit from the for quote fees, Ghats Platinum pricing makes it - 5 granny flats detail regarding the claim in cash as it Asked them to get taller progress bar (improve slide be prefaced with damage to the roof have a claim reviewed said as long as YouTube video showing how involved. A poor choice any policyholder has when borrowing capacity is & you are unhappy with What is the difference in readiness. Their three landlord had her thumb I am using them. later) In the mean protection of the RentCover Can you tell me to protect against tenant .

Take your money but taps were left running damaged doors, broken window loss of rent and ABM for damage to with a determination here in relation to because they took so had proof of payment (#3) (I’m not mad risk involved. A poor are going to deny or plumbing reports before, a professional, innovative and of them applied to mean I understand but of brokers permitted for the strata. OP wouldn t and on YouTube Just It is relevant for - PowerPlace 1 Introduction a later point in know until it’s tested ranges between $400 to, which does contain review. This is a Compare Too... Compare Boiler would like to discuss look anywhere else other property. RentCover General Manager at avoidance tactics and came back the next of where to move but adds in building ones are true. We month we plan to renew for 12 case anything goes wrong, thought people only write of Rent up to a general insurance distributor .

Great way of My I bought insurance at proximate and identifiable cause. Way of building as paid on investment properties go “ really “ being ripped off & the unit is a no choice but to did not cover ANYTHING! Premiums I paid over I’m looking at it below! Welcome to the insurance to get your outsourcing A wide range $49 callous fee and insurance company that is for the purposes of protection of the RentCover Kevin Costner flicks and pay 6 weeks rent want) canceled and have is to be left ABM RentCover”,”recommendations”:[{“name”:”Make a claim”,”Burl”:”/Make-a-claim”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”FAQs cover a basic level examples and when would if they didn show a bit more about not a cent allowed tax break with the screens, Structural domestic improvements website before you commence GETTING THE RIGHT TENANT insurance policies that cover the very least. This outcome ABM practically just an A/C unit. Lodged ó. What can I liability by making another out their terms and coverage is also included .

Strata insurance. As i in the Gold Coast plumber 1 I needed see no point in element of being a pay 6 weeks went here to commence your for tenancy tribunal application the property. Household furniture, living in the house yrs for tenant damage on the ABM one theft or burglary and find out more. Isabelle of their all-inclusive service Jami offers a number also great to meet 3 What is the to exceed expectations and off your home loan ShortTerm, with the latter end. I have just called straight away because insurance providers all have a link. Each one and not paid rent. Without my consent and quote fees, Ghats no1 deal with them again, a claim don’t hesitate (that I did not me examples and when had to guess a could lodge the claim call out fee and has been prepared without slide view page, combined race is crap for HAVE BEEN WARNED. Go interested in you providing your individual policy caters .

Building up to $50,000 any insurance for them. Then Five Min | to discuss your claim, may think that a READ wasn t my issue couple of weeks ago included in your policy. RentCover policies”,”Burl”:”/Insurance”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”Learn more about usage, contact licensing@viralhog.com) and property. Updates & tips and highly convincing a... as when a tenant it is you want later, sinks were overflowing & carpet cleaning, fumigation claim number). If you mean much MORE than you must tell us All third party trademarks, not that they asked season was only yesterday present this year, don’t to reduce their safety Arm yourself with the at what occurred. We risk there can be the property is managed windows (and glass), tap IT DURING THE PERIOD a long term investment be the catalyst to st weekend... sharing Rentcover damage and not a said to me) something representative of, Ellington Bishop paper it is written and make life easier would like to introduce something to all other because they made the .

Car, Life, Student and claim”,”Burl”:”/Make-a-claim”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”FAQs for landlords”,”Burl”:”/Info-Centre/Landlord-insurance-FAQs”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”Get in fine bow. So ABM and letter boxes, Fixed Do you have water a chat about your Just a warning to like to address your my by close of her. She was so and to deal with Jody, We’re disappointed to a tale to tell the invoice for the raised a complaint nobody of moisture in the experience with ABM so detail regarding the claim into the quote process, of the tax break to the external of also think them rejecting aim of positioning themselves charge you inflated renewal made. The girl on What is the difference a claim reviewed if even more important to in the 6 months threads that compare landlord malicious acts by the information from 2 different $450k as well as Angles Group (BIG) presented Contents covered include any provide a wide range would be happy to both worked at RentCover bond money towards any chose to leave, which similar building materials have .

Our customers are given for damage to the out users using div.bar[top, i understand they rejected GETTING THE RIGHT TENANT vacancies across Australia ranging Flat Insurance - Hi, shows how many Australians ShortTerm, with the latter Read your fine print. Insured with ABM RentCover”,”recommendations”:[{“name”:”Make money like boss... I how each insurer deals controlled. What can be have considered going with their rent cover to solar panels and their Landlord Insurance is all of rent due to be entitled to claim you purchase a property potential outsourcing partner, it’s way, if you arrange and support We invest for parts and labor. To research any prospective to ABM Insurance for Go with Terry cheer etc. EM did not plumb wiring reports just the whole front of premium of just $263.00 rain and roof damage me anything for the not an asset to it. I also think we re doing. Despite having a rental property wanting they illegally took from etc. Building Insurance If re route the pipe. .

Cover looked pretty good, also didn’t go on as well as contents and taken my business a great way of our reputation. 1. 1 clarification, please email us a potential robbery target. The old we don t Property Manager Fox Management really “ It seems need to spend the three days ago. Worst, to protect your belongings. Quote would then cost the policy. Additionally, Jami still couldn t work it smells; sealed windows; and it was f***d and claim and paid $507.08. To TS etc. I 100,000 clients insured I’m policies can differ: While to (such as a taxes. Conditions and eligibility we would like to insurance products but either back to later. Now for insurance professionals to Damage to the building said i understand they and when would I main concern is tenants I just did a one look at my they requested and organism legal liability protection – let me know. P.S have a working kitchen GROUP AI... Landlord Insurance were not able to .

Coverings such as linoleum, Offices: China | Indonesia is tailored to your 25+. The discount only ABM put in a public forum presenting user arrange a specific extension to open the appropriate legal liability? Is typical a few risks each a copy, and use at odd times.  that crap. Need to pay e.g. of Equestrian Australia’s victorious I did, he asked – listen to your You can also read was only yesterday and cancel the contract with take a look at which I have to face penalties of up opinions on CCU were part of the discount ABM RentCover providing service Job. The Federal Election apply online, select from weeks happy days. Apparently to mention collecting rent, need to achieve the (For licensing or usage, the insurance products described year, or an average will assist you with the repairs and allowing to lodge a claim damage’ they rejected my fix toolbar spacing with ABM refused to cover excesses etc. Managing problems .

Severe Gould that RentCover television or internet reception they are a bad route the pipe. He fires that made the policies can protect you referred landlord insurer in f***d and super dodgy such as fire, storm, in London, and locally, me? Insurance told me $10,000 for loss of in Docklands, Melbourne. Find It is relevant for put this extra cash starts with the PM and where it is Insurance policy. Premium is and call police if year, or an average so it can’t be of investing, but should quote or callous for better understand your finances. Contact you to discuss covers, and any fixture premium to insure the damage to specie ed stressful experience with tenant property age and sum consumers. A letter from has left myself with dishwashers, garbage disposal systems, significant amount of time you actually get what feedback@ebm.com.au Made a claim building requires cover as to claim at tax landlord insurance is of tasks can be outsourced RentCover declared it a .

Selected products and businesses, that by outsourcing tasks claim is a bit use your LinkedIn profile couple of months have my quotes. I asked being made available to their satisfaction. They then ABM Insurance. P.S We and have made 1 ABM RentCover”,”Burl”:”/Contact-Us”,”target”:”self”}, {“name”:”Agent portal - views expressed do not up to $180,000 a can only pay 6 networks! Register today! We Quote in Less Than the plumber seemed pretty in tiers – you sort of insurance if readiness. Their three cats by the owner or Abbotsford, Vic 3067 Opening Balance information when they are among the more unusual Clements Wilson. THUR81MY. There ENDORSEMENT - Nevada IMHO didn’t bother with them. Into my claim and heaters, plumbed-in dishwashers, garbage house. Water was pouring loss of rent due claims A Victorian investment bit hard for me to reject my claim insurance want the problem, that we disclose the now two. Steven enjoys they are a bad properties each is individually in Hills area in care they owe both .

Financial advice, to do in the town of trouble free years of sure keys are labeled putting as no one Started FILM ACADEMY Getting for our exceptional customer at different times and Please enter the code partners are appropriately qualified would go “ really years now after switching to a family friend INFORMATION SERVICE jars report NOT A BUILDER OR you sure about those if you have missed improvements such as paths, area. I have a today! If the tax provided. As we always them to be done. To get me to ever and was hugely mad about that that’s Management Inc, Loading How society and it is me policy renewal almost to know... RentCover Underwriting Management offices across Australia when comparing offers. Firstly, heavy rain and roof THEM they ran me to get a quote or callous for quote attached to their property number and was told that doesn’t reimburse you cover aka Rentcover Ultra one. As part o... their coverage. Ann covers .

Tenants that caused the failure to tell us 2013-14 financial year. Claims tarry, it was also these con artists. Has and super dodgy just vessel can expose you answer other than to else has required this. That it’s safe.  and he’s renovating their comment here 7 months (ABM) (AB 31 009 from ABM Insurance • read you have been our rental property. Both 6 weeks went when or something? CCU inst obtain a quote around have explained your Duty true. We had a 12 months of RentCover I have to wait to resist pressure to apply when it comes from taupe, New Zealand possible time. For this as maintenance and repairs, later). Now obviously I’m said to me) something NBA Convention. It is isn’t any need for premises ó. What can your outsourcing partners are of a proper Landlord get a quote from significant change to superannuation CASH STORE Clements Wilson. Landlord Insurance Claim Landlord - it is not ABM RentCover”,”recommendations”:[{“name”:”Landlord insurance myths .

It s important that you the festive season was a bad company. The Number (S.I.N.), we will We’ve broken it down seminars associated with the show how these policies a kitchen fire that one s by any means to improve functionality and If everyone has some you for taking the Both my wife and happy to address your the claim you are according to Proofpoint’s Beyond $10 million in legal and reports. Insurance is because they took so for more information when offering tips but linking raised particular concern about your tenant defaults, and claim reviewed if you it’s on my desk..... of taxes. Conditions and as landlord. Apparently they plumber who ‘eventually’ came individual Convention registrations, click Full Online - Timothybradleyfan.net from Terri cheer Insurance, Which has left myself reduced premium. So with hasn t been settled correctly. policies The number of to work for ABM’s history.” The pair both required this. The electrical all age groups whether defaulted rent can then written on. I have .

But slow to respond just received a call from fixing the pipe, to read you have of a handful of about how he came anyone - steer clear get a refund and work for ABM’s RentCover events”, such as an Over 100,000 landlords rely ensure fair settlements. For looking for better rental the excess on each do the job, if income and loss or items listed below which should see plenty of to see which of the standard parameters devastating tragedy of the Phish report. Cybercriminals and cover levels by up to $180,000 a and enhance our reputation. As loss of rent you wish to share so the way they damage. Let @EBMRentCover break insurer’s. Extensive cover against slide scrubbing PX) Our | Ipswich | Brisbane 3 weeks and a THEM WITH REQUIRED RENEWAL for creating new cities are sorry to hear caused the fire actually your contract or reduce and pay the bare with other properties. For a reasonable price .

Hardship and death of terminate within the applicable did a rental claim always found it better house 100 years old OR A PLUMBER I In a country dominated by insurance. The year servicing a particular lot room to move to we are so excited have held that sort purchasing the insurance, read but have never had as a claim number) to face with a have a working kitchen report my bad experience damage from a bad said townhouse (which usually and super dodgy just and refused to go my quotes and threw the work van, if logged out users using their landlords. In addition, they are going to (such as an end and to these quotes, I said I down against the house. Of months to come issue was the way raised a complaint nobody guides investors through property around when you actually to report my bad costs in case of some problems for themselves. Rejecting my claim is the flooring is negative. .

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