#I had pneumonia for an entire summer

[justforbooks]

The word “great” is somewhat promiscuously applied to actors. But it was undoubtedly deserved by Sir Michael Gambon, who has died aged 82 after suffering from pneumonia.

He had weight, presence, authority, vocal power and a chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself from one role to another. He was a natural for heavyweight classic roles such as Lear and Othello. But what was truly remarkable was Gambon’s interpretative skill in the work of the best contemporary dramatists, including Harold Pinter, Alan Ayckbourn, David Hare, Caryl Churchill and Simon Gray.

Although he was a fine TV and film actor – and forever identified in the popular imagination with Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter franchise – the stage was his natural territory. It is also no accident that, in his private life, Gambon was an expert on, and assiduous collector of, machine tools and firearms for, as Peter Hall once said: “Fate gave him genius but he uses it as a craftsman.”

Off-stage, he was also a larger-than-life figure and a superb raconteur: a kind of green-room Falstaff. I have fond memories of an evening in a Turin restaurant in March 2006 on the eve of Pinter’s acceptance of the European Theatre prize. Gambon kept the table in a constant roar, not least with his oft-told tale of auditioning for Laurence Olivier as a young actor in 1963 and cheekily choosing to do a speech from Richard III; but the next night Gambon gave an explosive rendering of Pinter’s poem American Football that threatened to blow the roof off the Turin theatre.

However, Gambon’s bravura was also mixed with a certain modesty. In the summer of 2008 I met him for tea in London and found him eagerly studying the script of Pinter’s No Man’s Land, in which he was scheduled, several months later, to play Hirst. He told me that he had started work on it so soon because he found it difficult to learn lines at his age.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I sleep with a script under my pillow, or just carry it around in my raincoat pocket, in the hope the lines will rub off on me.” I think he was genuine; but with Gambon, one of life’s great leg-pullers, you were never entirely sure.

Gambon achieved greatness without either the formal training or genetic inheritance that are often considered indispensable.

He was born into a working-class Dublin family that had no artistic background; his mother, Mary (nee Hoare), was a seamstress, and his father, Edward, an engineer. When the family settled in Britain after the second world war, the young Gambon went to St Aloysius school for boys, in Somers Town, central London. On leaving at the age of 15 he signed a five-year apprenticeship with Vickers-Armstrongs, leading to a job as a tool-and-die maker. With his mechanical aptitude, he loved the work. But he also discovered a passion for amateur theatre and, having started by building sets, eventually moved into performing. “I want varoom!” he once said. “I thought, Jesus, this is for me.”

With typical chutzpah, he wrote to the Gate theatre in Dublin, creating a fantasy list of roles that he had played in London, including Marchbanks in Shaw’s Candida; in the end, he made his professional debut there in 1962 as the Second Gentleman in Othello. His best decision, however, on returning to London, was to sign up for an improvisational acting class run by William Gaskill at the Royal Court.

Gaskill was about to join the newly formed National Theatre company at the Old Vic and recommended Gambon for an audition: hence the celebrated story of Gambon’s first encounter with Olivier, which ended with the young actor, in his excess of zeal, banging his hand on a nail in an upstage column and bleeding profusely. Far from being the nail in Gambon’s coffin, this led to a productive four years with the National in which he progressed from walk-ons to substantial roles such as that of Swiss Cheese in Gaskill’s revival of Mother Courage.

On Olivier’s advice, however, Gambon left the National in 1967 to hone and pursue his craft at Birmingham rep – a shrewd move that saw him, at the astonishingly early age of 27, playing his first Othello. He moved on later to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1968 made his first foray into television with the leading role in a BBC adventure series called The Borderers.

However, it was through working on another TV series, The Challengers, that he made a contact that was to transform his career. His fellow actor Eric Thompson was moving into directing, and in 1975 was set to do an Ayckbourn trilogy, The Norman Conquests, at the Greenwich theatre. He cast Gambon, against type, as a dithering vet.

He revealed, for the first time, his shape-shifting gifts; and the sight of him, seated at a dinner table on a preposterously low stool with his head barely visible above the table’s edge, remains one of the great comic images of modern theatre.

This led to a highly productive working relationship with Ayckbourn including key roles in Just Between Ourselves (Queen’s theatre, London, 1977) and Sisterly Feelings (National, 1980).

At the same time, Gambon began an association with Gray by taking over, from Alan Bates, the role of the emotionally detached hero in Otherwise Engaged (Queen’s theatre, 1976).

That was directed by Pinter, for whom in 1978 Gambon created the part of Jerry in Betrayal at the National. It was a production beset by problems, including a strike that threatened to kibosh the first night, but Gambon’s mixture of physical power and emotional delicacy marked him out as a natural Pinter actor. That power, however, manifested itself in the 1980s in a series of performances that staked out Gambon’s claim to greatness.

First, in 1980, came Brecht’s Galileo at the National: a superbly triumphant performance that brought out the toughness, obduracy and ravening intellectual curiosity of Brecht’s hero. It was a measure of his breakthrough that, as Gambon returned to his dressing room after the first night, he found the other actors in the National’s internal courtyard were shouting and roaring their approval. Two years later, Gambon returned to the RSC to play both a monumental King Lear and a ravaged Antony opposite Helen Mirren’s Cleopatra.

But arguably the finest of all of Gambon’s 80s performances was his Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, directed by Ayckbourn at the National (1987). It helped that Gambon actually looked like Miller’s longshoreman-hero: big and barrel-chested with muscular forearms, he was plausibly a man who could work the Brooklyn docks.

Gambon also charted Eddie’s complex inner life through precise physical actions. He stabbed a table angrily with a fork on learning that his niece had got a job, let his eyes roam restlessly over a paper as the niece and the immigrant Rodolpho quietly spooned, and buckled visibly at the knees on realising that a fatal phone-call to the authorities had ensnared two other immigrants. In its power and melancholy, this towering performance justified the sobriquet once applied by Ralph Richardson of “the great Gambon”.

When you consider that the decade also saw Gambon playing the psoriasis-ravaged hero of Dennis Potter’s TV series The Singing Detective (1986), you realise his virtuosity and range.

And that became even clearer in 1990 when he played the mild-mannered hero of Ayckbourn’s Man of the Moment (Globe theatre, now Gielgud, London), had another crack at Othello for Ayckbourn in Scarborough and appeared, in 1989, as a romantically fixated espionage agent in Pinter’s TV adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day: that last performance, alternately sinister and shy, was one of Gambon’s finest for television and deserved a far wider showing.

In later years Gambon successfully balanced his stage career with an amazingly prolific one in film and television. In Hare’s Skylight at the National in 1995 he combined the bulk and weight of a prosperous restaurateur with a feathery lightness – a skipping post-coital dance across the stage with the balletic grace often possessed by heavily built men.

Gambon was equally brilliant as a disgusting, Dickensian, accent-shifting Davies in a revival of Pinter’s The Caretaker (Comedy theatre, 2000), as a perplexed bull of a father in Churchill’s A Number (Royal Court, 2002), as a Lear-like Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame (Albery, 2004) and as a brooding, alcoholic Hirst in Pinter’s No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s, 2008). Even if Gambon’s Falstaff in a 2005 National Theatre production of Henry IV Parts One and Two did not quite match expectations, his work for the theatre revealed an ability to combine volcanic power with psychological depth and physical delicacy.

Ill health and increasing memory problems forced him to retire from stage acting in 2015, but not before he had given memorable performances in two Beckett plays: Krapp’s Last Tape (Duchess, 2010) and All That Fall (Jermyn Street theatre, 2012), where he played, opposite Eileen Atkins, the sightless but stentorian Mr Rooney.

He also continued to work in television and film for as long as possible. He belied the whole notion of the small screen by giving large-scale performances as the black sheep of a big family in Stephen Poliakoff’s Perfect Strangers (2001) and as a reclusive plutocrat in the same writer’s Joe’s Palace (2007).

He was nominated for awards for his performances as Lyndon Johnson in an American TV movie, Path to War (2002), and as Mr Woodhouse in a BBC version of Jane Austen’s Emma (2009). Later TV series included The Casual Vacancy (2015), Fearless (2017) and Little Women (2017).

In film, he had a rich and varied career that ranged from the violent hero of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), to a heavyweight mafia boss in Mobsters (1991), the aged Lord Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (2008), a cantankerous old director in Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet (2012) and the bearded Hogwarts headteacher (whom he privately referred to as “Dumblebore”) in six of the eight Harry Potter films, taking over the role for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) following the death of Richard Harris.

He also provided the narration for the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016) and voiceovers for the two Paddington films (2014 and 2017).

But Gambon brought to everything he did, in life as well as art, enormous gusto, a sense of mischief and a concern with precision: he was almost as happy restoring old firearms as he was working on a new role.

In 1992 he was appointed CBE, and six years later was knighted.

He married Anne Miller in 1962, and they had a son, Fergus. From a subsequent relationship with Philippa Hart, whom he met on the set of Gosford Park, he had two sons, Michael and William.

He is survived by Anne and his three sons.

🔔 Michael Gambon, actor, born 19 October 1940; died 27 September 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[alatariel-gildaen]

Please help where you can....

I absolutely hate having to do this, I really do. But if anyone can help out a queer mother to a disabled child, that'd be incredible.

Our home is at the end of a long and steep dirt track. A 4x4 vehicle is utterly essential; it's hard enough getting up in summer but in winter, without a 4x4 we'd be stuck. Now, we technically can park on the street, but for a start the street doesn't come up to our front door, and because of how crowded our close is, you're lucky to find a space anyway.

We bought a 4x4 last year, and it has been literally life changing for us and our disabled son. Being able to guarantee that we can park outside our home means we can keep him safe.

The problem?

Our car is a literal piece of shit. Since we bought it, we've had to spend probably double the initial cost on repairs. Since January alone it's cost us over a thousand pounds. And it has broken down again.

My son's school is just under two miles away. It's at the bottom of an incredibly steep hill, and the pavements are ridiculously broken, meaning his wheelchair doesn't easily go over them. But because our home is about 50 metres within a 2 mile radius, we don't qualify for public transport, so my car is utterly essential.

I'm signed off work due to stress. I have ADHD and finding work is a nightmare in itself, but the last year (my husband being hospitalised with pneumonia, fighting the Local Authority for a SEN placement for my boy, our Freeholders dragging their feet over a black mould issue which caused my husband's pneumonia and left me asthmatic, my entire side of the family nearly being killed in a car crash, etc etc) has just had such a toll on my mental health that I can't work.

So I'm in a position where we can't afford to keep the car we have, but I really cannot live without a decent sized one that has the power to cope with the road that leads to our home. I could get another cheap piece of crap, but we'd just end up with the same problems.

I know we're all in a cost of living crisis, but who knows? Someone who follows you may know someone who knows someone who knows someone.

So please, if anyone can help me out by donating just a couple of quid, or by reblogging to signal boost, I'd be so grateful.

[dont-give-money-to-jkrowling]

some reactions to the first episode of fantasy high junior year

i haven't really looked at other fan reactions yet, this is all fresh shortly after watching!

starting in media res was an amazing idea, the night yorb thing arc still gets to shine while showing off how much the bad kids have progressed and their new combat abilities. as someone who is not a frequent dnd player though i do wish we got just a bit more info on what those new abilities were though, bc i spent the first ten minutes trying to figure out what silvery barbs were. although i think the battle episodes are always more enjoyable for the audience who does know more about dnd, so nothing really new here.

the introduction of the new disposible NPCs was also really funny. rip squeem, i can't believe he's gone so soon after all that he and gorgug went through. ecaf is fucking creepy though, im getting romaence pärtner flashbacks.

adaine has so many fucking companions now?? almost an overwhelming number, but im sure we'll learn more in the following episodes. it's really sweet that she has elementals like aelwyn now though :) curious about what we would have seen from her if she had stayed alive for the entire episode.

nothing more fabian than immediately failing a roll and being far away from the action for most of the fight. he's consistent. but he grew in confidence over the summer and it looks like he's not gonna catch pneumonia over it this time! we love growth.

not much to say about fig, gorgug and riz, seems like they were faithful to themselves and not too different from the last time we saw them. highlights included: fig stating being ayda's paramour is part of her identity now, gorgug being a Concerned Van Owner, and riz trying to look like a cool dude in front of balthazar (RIP)

uhhh really not taken with kristen's whole thing in this episode. yeah it wouldn't be realistic for her to immediately have solved all of her problems with religion, but this really felt like fhsy part 2 with little to no change, except that kristen has graduated to philosophy bro to gym bro. i hope she strays further from her previous seasons arc in the next episodes.

and that's it! overall still super hype, can't wait for the next episode bc i feel like that's when we're getting the real Start of the Story. i always cared about individual character arcs more than broader plot and combat when it comes to d20 (i think that's quite a common opinion) and i think we're going to see something really fun from the players :)

[bamfkeeper]

This is the first of my X-Men characters. She's a little overdeveloped, so we're just gonna talk about the minimal head canon debauchery :)

If it seems like there's a hole in the timeline or whatever, I promise it's complete in my head. But I can't share that here without explaining the entire multiversal shift I created for the sake of ✨lore :)). I have the power here :)))

---

Malieyah Maximoff; pronounced muh-leev-uh

Nickname: Mava; pronounced like Lava... but with an M...

Mava is the sibling of the Maximoff twins by full blood, and half-sister to Lorna Dane.

Mava's mutation manifested the summer before she turned fourteen. Wanda and Pietro had already manifested their spectacular abilities with no explanation. Mava expected it to be an effect of their twinhood (as if that made sense).

But after a bout of intense pneumonia, Mava realized she could feel the tug of magnetic fields around her. Every magnetic metal in their home pulled to her, luring her into their attractions. Over the following months, Mava discovered she could feel magnetic fields around her, as well as she discovered she could touch them. Play with them. Bend them to her will. Shortly later, her eyes developed a greener tint to them. What irises used to be a perfect heterochromatic hazel-blue now glistened an unnatural shade of green. To hide the color, she began wearing shades in public, no matter how rude one considered her to be.

Mava paid not much attention to her abilities for years. One thing she refuses to do is play with a technological device at the risk of manipulating the magnetic field so much to completely destroy the device. Eventually, she was able to save money for colored contacts that returned her irises to a more swallowable shade of dull hazel. She was able to blend in, able to meld with the outside population better than her siblings. Moving countries after an accident via Wanda helped to restart Mava's reputation. It's what she craved.

The man's face, who the siblings had good reason to believe was their father, was on national television every other month, sparking outcries for mutant revolution and defense against their persecution. The word "mutant" did not resonate with Mava for years more to come. She was not raised a "mutant". They could not be "mutants". They were special. Nothing wrong about that.

Then she met Lorna Dane. And with her, the Maximoff siblings unlocked the truth of their lineage.

Pushes for mutant registration and other marginalizing laws across the globe convinced Mava that her condition was something to be ashamed of. Something to fear and to hate. As a last ditch effort to flea the persecution of the human population surrounding her, she gained passage and moved to Genosha at the age of 18. Wanda and Pietro did not follow. They had made a life for themselves that could not so easily be uprooted.

The X-Men were stationed on the island nation at the time (for reasons). Mava had no intention of associating with the X-Men. She found them pretentious and were not going good things to give mutantkind a good reputation. She just craved a space to be Someone apart from the eyes and allure to polar charges.

Well well. Someone ruled Genosha who had been keeping a watchful eye on the four of them since the day they were born. He was not going to let her breeze by without notice. (does this mean he will come out and claim her? No that's crazy talk. We're gonna throw her in the Danger Room and hope something good comes out)

Fast forward two years, Mava is training in the X-Men compound to curate her powers, as well as schooling for biochemical engineering (pharmaceuticals, the technology behind the power dampening collars, the validity of the mutant cure, etc). Mava ditched the contacts, embracing her natural eyes sincerely. She has made good friends with one Nightcrawler and one Morph, both of whom are working to give her a reason to stay. Then comes along Mr. LeBeau.

Six years her senior and a fresh addition to the official team, Gambit represents everything Mava wishes she could see in herself. After weeks of pining and stolen glances at late parties, the two have a one night stand. Which turns into two nights. Three nights. Four nights. The attraction turns into something Mava never before had the chance to experience, which turns into meetings on the rooftop.

The couple continue on like this for a month until Magneto subtly threatens Gambit, and Mava realizes she kind of likes having him around to tick off the man who still refused to claim her as his kin.

(this, of course, is not their only motivation to be together. But it is a contributing factor)

Mava never gave herself a mutant alias. She never cared enough (and Lorna had already taken the cool one.) To this day, Mava has still refused to join the X-Men, short of using their training tech and the dedicated relationship to one of their best. The X-Men was never what she envisioned for herself. She just meant to fit. To find her people.

She's still looking. But until the X-Men move back to Charles Xavier's mansion, Genosha will have to do.

---

sorry this is so long. It could be longer

I have no shame :))))

SOOO your oc is incredible?? So thought out and the story is believable to be a legit mutant in the universe !

I love how much detail you put into it, connecting Mava with so many storylines and other characters. I love her. I love how complicated her story is with herself, the ups and downs of her past and lineage. I also really like how she is somewhat on her own, how she doesn't want to 'join' a team.

And that Gambit romance?? Yesss~

Also don't have any shame. I love hearing people gush about their ocs.

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

Thoughts about Wakanda Forever

Okay, now that the first weekend is over here are my spoilery thoughts. It's still tagged, but if you didn't watch opening weekend...

First of all, this movie is so... rich. Like, the world is so much deeper, not just because they introduced stuff like the Midnight Angels, but also because it feels so much more lived in. The entire world feels full.

I am really excited to see the Midnight Angels get a big screen introduction, and also REALLY didn't expect them to get one even though I knew Aneka was in this movie. Like, I REALLY didn't think Marvel would just actually introduce them like that. But I'm also torn, because I really wanted more Ayo and Aneka. And the head kiss just feels... empty? Like, you could assume they were just sisters or besties or something. I know Ayo called her "my love", but I wanted more. And IDK how I feel about it being Okoye and Aneka instead of Ayo and Aneka. I love Okoye, though, and she can do anything she wants to do.

That last battle, though! The Midnight Angels, Shuri's Black Panther, Ironheart all fighting Namor and Talokan!?!?! I said it before but it feels like this movie was written especially for me. When I was still in college, and later in grad school, these were characters I was reading in comics, and writing in fics (except the Midnight Angels, never wrote a fic with them), but kind of never expected to see them on the big screen. So, that moment was surreal in the way the 3 Spider-Mans was, for me. I was literally holding back screams in the theater!

This was for the comics fans, for sure. If you like these characters in the comics, this was pure fanservice.

On the grief. It was clear that phase 4 became the phase about grief, about moving on, about missing those who we love. And that makes perfect sense, in universe, because in many ways, the MCU and the fans lost so much in phase 3. It's a shame that we lost Chadwick in real life, but I feel like the phase would have taken this direction, either way. In the movies, we'd lost so much, too. And Coogler was saying how BP2 was going to be about grief, in its own way, even if Chadwick had never passed.

We all lost so much in real life, too. My father passed away this year. It's still very surreal and it still hurts and I can't... be without him.

In that sense, I felt Shuri so much in this movie. Losing someone so suddenly, so absolutely, and there being very little you can do about it. I watched my father go to the hospital thinking he had pneumonia, and die 40 days later from lung cancer. The pain Shuri was experiencing on screen, I experienced just this summer. It was surreal to watch, and also cathartic. She and I went through very many of the same emotions. Everything just feels like it doesn't fucking matter anymore. And I'm very angry. Very angry. All the time. I apologize for how it sometimes comes out, especially on here, but just know that I get Shuri's desire to burn the world.

Ramonda's death shocked me. I also may have numbed myself to it. My mom is all I have left, too, so I made Ramonda's death a story element, and tried to take it as nothing more than that. Outside of my own emotions, here's what I think about that death:

I feel like it was unnecessary. I know they wanted to give Shuri motivation to go after Namor. I also feel like they wanted to give her a reason to want to become the Black Panther, after she expressed no desire to bring back the herb. But I feel like attacking Wakanda was enough. Even bringing Ramonda to the brink of death would have been enough. She didn't even see her in the ancestral plane, so it wasn't necessary. It was just fridging, and frankly it was a copy of what they did with T'Chaka, which was T'Challa's motivation in Civil War.

I do like the choice to show her Killmonger instead of Ramonda or T'Chaka, though. In a perfect world, she could have seen T'Challa... Anyway, Killmonger was a good call out for her and also a great representation for how she was feeling. She felt the same pain that Erik felt when he came to Wakanda for the first time.

Going back a bit, I also love how RUTHLESS Ramonda is. I mean, maybe that's not the right word? But she is not taking any shit. She is not returning any shit. She will not sit by and have any shit.

People were criticizing her for sending Nakia and calling Namor, saying that it was a calculated move so that they could attack. Eh... it was more like a calculated move so that Nakia could get Shuri and Riri out without having to fight Talokan's strongest protector. The girl who got killed was an unfortunate casualty, but that was not planned. The girl was ABOUT TO KILL SHURI and there was no choice but to shoot her first. Also, I still maintain that Namor taking Shuri/threatening to hold her hostage was an act of war. I know she went willingly, but he was saying he would not let her leave... directly TO the queen. I looked it up just to make sure I wasn't wild, and yes, it's against the Geneva Convention . Which I'm well aware that Talokan is not privy to, but in any fantasy fiction with royalty, kidnapping a princess is an act of war. (Also, the girl wasn't literally Namor's child. He calls all of them "my child." Just like Okoye isn't Ramonda's daughter, though she calls her "mother" sometimes. Also, he called Namora "my child" too and she's his cousin.)

Namor, Namora, Attuma, all well done. I like these versions of these characters (I guess we don't get to know Attuma well, but he's a shit talker AND he's extremely noble, and I like that about him.)

Attuma giving his breathing apparatus to Shuri was so good, to me. It shows that the Talokanil are not bad guys. They aren't heartless. They are just trying to protect their own people. It was an act of humanity in a tense moment.

This! Namor! IS! SO! GOOD! I like him. I like that they didn't just make him a villain and forget any of the nuances that make Namor such an interesting character. When he killed the people in the helicopter as they tried to flee the ship attack, omg! I loved that. It perfectly illustrated his take no prisoners, leave no witnesses approach, and his utter disdain for the surface world. I also loved his introduction to Ramonda and Shuri. He sees Talokan in Wakanda. They are extremely similar and made similar choices to protect their people from the world. There's a reason he comes to Wakanda for allyship, and it's not just the shared interest in protecting vibranium/the shared importance it has to their cultures. It's because he assumes that they know all too well how dangerous countries like the US and France and the UK et al are. They both saw people like them enslaved, beaten, murdered, raped all for land and resources. They both did whatever it took to keep their prosperity a secret for those reasons.

OMG OMG Y'ALL. NAMOR IS OFFICIALLY THE FIRST NAMED MUTANT IN THE MCU. I mean, there have been a few other references and that little Easter egg in Ms. Marvel, but this is the first time a character said "I am a mutant."! NAMOR IS THE FIRST MUTANT! Just like he should be!

More thoughts under the jump.

Ross stuff was interesting, but got lost in all of the storytelling. Except as a great way to set up VAL as a big fucking problem in the future! I like Ross, though, and I want him to continue!

Okay, so... it looks like Shuri isn't taking the throne, maybe M'Baku is, but... is anyone else worried? Val mentioned taking down Wakanda through destabilization. Transitions of power are a really destabilizing time, and in the past decade, Wakanda has lost 3 monarchs. I feel like this could be a big problem coming up. I have confidence that Wakanda cam motherfucking SOLVE IT, but this is... a potential problem for the future.

MCU really don't like confirming ages unless the character is a teen bc it becomes more important, but they REALLY need to clarify Shuri's age. I think she's very easily like 23, based on the timeline we've been given post blip, but also, people keep saying she's "a teenager." I really don't think so? Like, even Peter Parker was 18 the last time we saw him, and I think that was still supposed to be the 2023/2024 school year, and he would have graduated that year. And Shuri is a bit older than him. IDK. It really felt like they were playing her older. The overprotectiveness was less because she's young and more because she is Ramonda's only living child and technically the heir to the throne. Ramonda both cannot stand to lose her and cannot afford to lose her only heir. (This movie definitely ends in 2025 or 2026, there's been too many "one year laters" and stuff, and it's post-blip.)

I like 19yo Riri instead of minor Riri. It's not a huge deal, but it gives you more room to play with that character. Although I'd love for this to be like... her senior year of college so she can still have been a prodigy that was in college early.

LITTLE T'CHALLA!!!!!! That was soo sweet, I was crying so much!

IDK if I have other thoughts. Everyone stan. I guess the last thing I wanna say is... I hope everyone doesn't hate Namor. That shipping fiasco really fucked me up. ISTG I don't even ship the shit that much, I was just feeling the very Disney prince/princess "let me show you my world" thing. It was also giving the guy from The Woman King who came to Benin and was gonna run off with main girl. That's what I meant by "oh, he was feeling her" and that it was fun to ship. The whole bit in the first half was very much giving "I can show you the world! Shining, shimmering, splendid! Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?" I very much think it was on purpose, and the moment where he kills her mother was meant to feel even worse BECAUSE they wanted you to think this was a potential romance. It's also why Namor says "This could have been different" at the end. When has ANY character ever said that NOT about romance? The reason why nobody shipped T'Challa with Zemo is because there were no such moments between them, and there was nothing to ship, really. Although usually someone ships any pairing you can think of, so there's probably some T'Challa/Zemo shit.

I really don't wanna be thought of as a shipper. From a story perspective, I 100% think this was intentional. Nobody would write something like that and not intend for you to read it as courting. He thought he could court her and entice her to his side. I saw a take that he was doing that on purpose to make her like him and coax her to agree to burn the world with him, and that, I can agree with. That's also really good storytelling. He probably thought "If I woo the princess, I win Wakanda's support." In a different type of royal fiction, he'd probably have asked for her hand in marriage for the same reason. Like I was saying the other day, you CANNOT have a kingdom that is lollipops and rainbows. 100% of them are shady and problematic, inherently violent and practice cruelty. Including Wakanda. And as benevolent as Namor seems, there's no way he's been king for nearly 500 years without being absolutely manipulative, cold, and calculating. Also, I'd argue that if Shuri was a white princess, all of y'all would have read this as him courting her, either genuinely, for allyship, or both. There's this idea that to protect black girls we gotta infantilize them AND we gotta desexualize them, but in some ways, that gets a little weird, too. Even if you don't "ship it", I don't know how it's hard to see that he was courting her. ESPECIALLY when you consider that for a long time, marriage was MAINLY used for alliances instead of love.

Shuri isn't interested in dating anyone, I think. I think she's still too hurt. Even Riri, who I think she really likes, isn't catching her eye that way. And I honestly think that's best, right now. Shuri needs time to heal and to figure herself out. But I love the Shuri x Riri dynamic, and I hope we get more of them together. I think they had Riri a little toooo... scared, shocked, audience stand-in character in some moments. But I loved her complete admiration for Shuri and I need more of it!

Chile but I didn't like the Ironheart suit in this one! I'm sure we'll get the sleeker suit in her series next year. And I hope we get some pink in the suit. This Riri doesn't seem like she'd be into it, I feel like she's not clamoring for a pink suit, but I love the pink elements in the comics suit.

Okay that's the real end. Stan Wakanda Forever. Watch multiple times if you can!

[shanie]

Hiii Shanie! (is that what I should call you? 🤔) I'm the guest from ao3 that sent you that long ass comment 😆😅

Just wanted to start of by saying how extremely sweet it was of you to do this and also how much I appreciated you taking the time out not once but twice to write back! Tbh yes my dumbass did not realise what "noodle incident" meant till you explained it so thank you for that 😊 clearly I'm a bit new to all of this. 😅

Honestly I'm extremely late to the party. I discovered zowens only a little after they won their tag titles last year. I had no idea who they were before that. I took a break from wrestling for about 13 years and only got back into it by accident because of Sami, then Kevin, then zowens. I was switching channels and stubbled upon zowens who happened to be on screen at the time.

So I've had to go back and do a bit of digging and now and then I'll find something that everyone already knew about yearsss ago 🙄😂 and I'll get all excited over it, but everyone else has already been there done that 😂 (also absolutely no one I know likes wrestling or really even knows about it 😭)

I know I've missed out on a LOT with these two (their "glory days") 😭 and I get only glimpses of the past here and there, but I guess as they say better late than never 😁 So I'm enjoying your stories so so much. It's pretty incredible the way you write and the journey you take us on through it.

Ta

🐨

PS. the draft this week..zowens..😌

Hello again, nonnie! 

Glad you could make it! 

I was hoping to hear from you. This mess of business with AO3. Bleh. Hope they get it straightened out soon. 

First off, don’t feel bad for not knowing what “noodle incident” meant. I don’t know if a ton of people do these days. TV Tropes as a website has sort of fallen into obscurity in the past decade or so and that’s where I got the term from. Looking it up, the definition on the site (found HERE) apparently comes from Calvin and Hobbes. Of note: The way I use the term isn’t exactly correct because I have explained the pneumonia incident a little, and will do so in upcoming writing more, but I use the term improperly anyway because it makes sense to me. 

Regardless, stay tuned for more info about the pneumonia incident!  I will warn you though, the current story it’s being written into, “Never Say Goodbye”, is VERY dark. I’m probably going to have to up the rating on it. I use my writing as therapy and I’m going through some stuff right now, so this is how it is manifesting. Hope this doesn’t make you or anyone else hate me, but just know that writing it is helping me cope with my pain and getting me to a better place. 

So yeah. Forgive me. 

Second, don’t feel bad about just discovering Zowens in 2023. Some of the best people just discovered Zowens in 2023! I don’t know how much of last year you’ve managed to see but there is a fair amount of stuff just between summer of 2022 and fall of 2023 that is epic. If you haven’t gotten to explore it yet, I recommend starting HERE. It’s an episode of The KO Show from back in May of 2022 that planted the seeds of the entire Zowens storyline that would go on to them becoming tag champions. That said, as another video reference, that episode of the KO Show would actually be followed up on in August 2022 to properly start the storyline... in a post-show segment after Smackdown in Montreal. Finding video of that post-show segment can be difficult, but HERE is a fan video that has most of the encounter, minus the section that involved Matt Riddle (and the Zowens hug he spurs on) 

Really though, if I had to offer some key highlights, just in WWE, I’d recommend the last ten minutes or so of NXT’s R-Evolution PPV, their match at Battleground 2016 (DEFINITELY Key viewing), The very end of Hell In A Cell 2017 (and the Zowens segment from the next episode of Smackdown), the 10/31/2020 episode of Talking Smack, The leadup and immediate aftermath of their WrestleMania 37 match, the clips I linked above from May and August 2022, Royal Rumble 2023 main event (OMG THAT), and most of all, the ENTIRTY of the 3/17/23 episode of Smackdown which, telling you now, as a Zowens shipper was like a friggin fever dream the night it happened. Cannot understate how that was some Joker Origin Story stuff that night, but the payoff was AMAZING.  

All that said? Like Kevin said at WrestleMania 37. They met, at this point, almost 22 years ago, and the journey has been nuts. If you want a good, easy-to-absorb rundown of those 22 years or so, I highly recommend Mithen’s substack Ring the Bell. It has so much information that starts from the beginning and goes step by step along the path. They’re writing a book too! Keep an eye out for that. 

Anyway, it’s great to see you here and if you need any more tips about how to dig further into the story, let me know. I know you said “Their glory days” but the truth is, in their own words, they’re “Destined to do this forever” and the glory days aren’t over yet. The story has been going on for over 2 decades but it hasn’t ended yet and I don’t believe it ever will. The Sami and Kevin show, and by extension, The Kevin Steen and El Generico show, will never end. 

Over 20 years and counting.  Long live Zowens/Steenerico 

Enjoy the ride. 

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Ok I have a small free time window in between exams which can only mean one thing:

MY PERSONAL PARACOSM - MASTERPOST

(An almost complete list of all narrative projects I've ever done in my life + personal commentary as I think back on my own writing. Documenting my personal evolution as a writer. From oldest to newest per each category.)

COMPLETED

NOVELS

Aside from my 3 chapter attempt about a year or two previously, I never wrote a novel until the age of 12 and a half, going on 13. It was one of the biggest milestones I had ever hit, and I wouldn't have gotten the confidence to start if it weren't for my mentor who encouraged me, using The Book Thief (1st the movie and then I read the book too) as a prompt. Alexandra, whatever you do, write, write, write! And so I did.

The Image through the Thick Glass (ITTG) - September 2013 - summer 2014 (aged 12-13)

My very first novel ever. 53k words.

The plot revolves around a certain Kaito Hayashi, whose life is genuinely miserable from start to finish. First he's an orphan, then he's bullied (because he's a weird kid, but also a child savant or something), then he suffers in love as it were, aka feels very rejected, he is in poor health and almost dies of pneumonia at some point (hiking trip gone wrong??). He eventually gets with the woman he loves (whose name is Kata but that's not an actual Japanese name)))))) but she kind of stops loving for some very arbitrary reason again relating to his health (ableism???). At this point they have a young kid so it's very sad too like the kid is like wants to spend time with his dad but his mom is like no, and at the end he dies... but it's not completely tragic I guess because some people do mourn for him namely his son and his brother.

The side characters are interesting too like Kaito's older brother, Chang (again that's not a Japanse name but ok) is very protective of him and generally a likeable character, though a stereotypical aloof type etc. And he even has a "meet an adventurous girl and learn to have fun" arc so he's got that going on for him. Kata has a sister, Miku (you can see my inspiration) who is married to an American guy, who is Christian which is a plot point but also kind of not. Like the Japanse characters are vaguely non-religious. Kata and Miku's grandpa is a recurring character; he lives in the mountains but for his granddaughter's wedding he does come to the city, and quite dramatically while he's at it.

Kata also has a neighbour kid who has a weird relationship with her as in... the kid remembers her fondly but Kata literally treats the kid like some sort of ghost because due to some misunderstanding she thought she had died (instead what happened is she got into a car accident and was hospitalised for a while... poor girl...). This was supposed to show how Kata had a crippling fear of death, which would be why she left her husband when he was at his worst health wise. But that's still very selfish??? But I think the other characters do call her out for it. Anyway she herself was disabled (had a severe accident as a child and her legs never healed the right way and she alternatively uses crutches or a wheelchair) so I don't even get where her attitude was coming from.

Kaito himself was my personal blorbo for my entire preteen section of my life. Although in retrospective he's just... sad. Like literally just miserable all the time except select scenes. In the first draft I remember having written him attempt suicide but my parents were like what! You know nothing about things such as depression and the such. And yeah they were right. So I didn't have him do that anymore. But he was still... depressed? And his only support was the fact that at least his brother cared for him, but even said brother, being a responsible adult TM didn't have much time. And Kaito had a job too I guess. He was supposed to be an architect. And as a hobby he was an artist and was a very creative person in general.

Some things I'm still pleased with to this day: the scene in which his bullies, now adults, randomly meet him again and see him spending time with his son, and they straight up apologise to him. And they even socialise in a friendly way with the kid. They had jobs and stuff etc. I like that it was neither the "bullies remain nasty abusive people forever" trope nor the "bullies are punished by fate by becoming homeless jobless deadbeats etc" trope. They just moved on with their lives, happened to meet the kid they used to bully and apologised. I think I wrote that because especially at that age, being bullied a lot, I secretly desired to have that kind of closure.

Another scene I like to this day is the "vacation" episode in which Kaito's son comes to visit him and they play in the snow and have an overall good time together, bonding time etc, but a shadow of sadness looms over because Kaito thinks to himself that he's getting worse with his health etc, but at least for the moment he is happy etc.

Another scene I find wholesome is Chang's date with Yume (that's the name of his girlfriend). Very nice dynamic between him who is very serious and stoic and her who is, to put it this way, office worker by day, adrenaline junkie by night. Her hobbies are very sporty and she even takes him out for a parachute ride of all things! The other side characters all have good relationships too. Miku and her husband get along great, and have a nice peaceful scene together (he comforts/ encourages her about something?? She is a doctor so it might've been her stressful job?). Only the main couple is kinda toxic. Though back in the day I liked drawing them together a lot.

The relationship between the main couple felt very much like. Him trying his best to win her love and her... straight up not doing the same. Like sure during the hiking trip gone wrong episode, she has one of those "Oh no you're hurt so now I realise I've loved you all along" moment, and there are times when they genuinely get along. And she even apologises to him at some point towards the end of the story (for not having been by side during his hospitalisation and other issues etc). But the lenghts he goes to just to impress her and... not even that... just to make her notice him, are quite staggering.

One very painful such episode is towards the end, when she's distancing from him a lot. She's doing laundry etc and some dress or whatever just flies off the window onto a tree or whatever. And here we have a (contrived) chase scene, in which he is very dramatically running after a flying piece of clothing, tripping (and hurting himself in the process) until he finally retrieves the dress. And she's like smh my head, it's dirty now. And man the book is full of such tear jerking scenes. (Another example is a scene in his childhood when he falls face first into the ground but it's treated realistically and he ends up splitting his lip open... which man why friccin describe how he was bleeding like that dude...) Like see how miserable this dude is? Even when he has what he wants it gets taken away from him, nobody loves him and he's dealing with chronic illness on top of it all!

And genuinely. What, girl... Like I appreciate the fact that it was my first novel, and I'm always glad I wrote it. I'll always cherish it and treasure the memories. But the story is not good, though. Or at least not as whole. The message at least is pretty messed up if you try to extract one. Like what is even the message? Fate is cruel? Life is meaningless? Or idk maybe some people live good lives but there are some particular people that literally nobody will love and that's just the way it is?

Thinking of it in a meta way. I think the message, subconsciously, was the last one. In life there are certain people that people arbitrarily will never love, or even outright hate. And yes this story was heavily influenced by the media I was consuming at the time, namely anime and more specifically very dramatic tear jerking anime like Clannad (after story was my main inspiration I think, especially for the latter scenes in which Kaito spends time with his son, but is also slowly dying etc). But even deeper in my subconscious than just my immediate memory of what I was consuming, there was the desperate cry of unloved unloved unloved. That's plastered all over this story. In September there'll be 10 years since I wrote this. It'll be interesting to see the retrospective. A mentor figure I had at the time told me this story feels like it was written by a very lonely person. At the time I rejected such "criticism". But girl that was NOT criticism. It was the truth. The whole story reads like a cry for help. No wonder my parents didn't want me writing this dude contemplate suicide.

Overall self assessment: nostalgia value because it's my very first long form original work, my first novel, my writing debut as it were. There are individual parts of the story that are really beautiful, but as a whole, it's a hopelessly bleak story without much of a purpose than venting, subtly crying unloved unloved unloved from between the lines.

The 5 Books of the Immortals - June 2015 - February 2016 (aged 14-15)

My second ever novel. 73k words. My beloved!!!! The characters from this work were my absolute blorbos, and sometimes still are. This is genuinely a monumental improvement over the 1st novel.

Debriefing. This is not a fantasy, despite the title. It was meant to be an illusion. Start as a fantasy and slowly fade into the real world as the "game"/ innocence of childhood faded away and was replaced by horror. The concept of course is great, and it still lives rent free in my head. One day, I hope to execute it in a way that does it justice. The fact that I didn't manage this is one of the biggest flaws of the novel ofc. But let me talk about the positive things because I genuinely loved writing this so so so much.

The story starts in a college in what we later learn is late 1930s Britain. The main character, Len (should more accurately be Lev but you get the point) is an extremely ambitious chemistry student, the "wizard" among his peers. Except for the dean's son, Zephyr, who is also a genius, but more serious, a foil to Len's rambunctiousness. They become besties tho, and as you can imagine Len gets his friend into trouble a lot. Zephyr has a tense relationship with his dad, which is explored later. Len also meets a girl, Eyline (supposed to be Eileen but bear with teen me and her name giving habits lmao), with whom he is soon quite smitten, and tries a lot of wacky magic tricks to catch her attention (magic tricks = chemical reactions and stuff. On the hallway????????) She's a med student. This info is a tool that we will use later *winks*. She's quite the introvert and a very serious person but she does like him too and find things in common with him. And they become friends which inevitably means wacky shenanigans, and fall in love over the course of the following college years. The scenes between them are just adorable, like one day they stay up late in the library and she just falls asleep with her head on his shoulder etc.

There is one scene at this point which I would totally change now because it went too far in terms of stakes. Len's hubris gets the better of him and he accidentally sets the friccin lab on fire????????????? And it's a very dramatic scene and apparently his sister (coincidentally his lab mate for said project) died?????? And he survived but... he got away with that like. 1 legally and 2. without crippling trauma?????????????? By all accounts this makes no sense and if I were to write this again I would never. I'm not saying he was not affected at all. He's very distraught and gets his own come-to-Jesus moment but... why have such a situation in the 1st place given the drama that is coming for these characters outside college. Anyway. What I was trying to show is that yeah Len is very wacky silly and fun as this over confident character, but his self confidence can get the worst of him and make him do stupid and dangerous things.

At the end of college he marries his beloved Eyline and they have a nice little 1st year of marriage, which to this day I love that montage I did. And now comes the "fantasy fades away" moment. Not by them falling out of love ofc. The fantasy is actually violently ripped away from them as Eyline sees Len, holding his head in his hands, burdened, looking at a letter. He was drafted!!!!!!!!

Because it was actually 1939 all along. Yeyy? And so he prepares for war but Eyline pulls a Mulan and is like no, I'm going to fight alongside you, I cannot be separated from you etc. And he's like nooooo that's very dangerous etc honey you don't have to do this for my sake but she, the original girlboss, is like no, I'm coming because I want to be by your side. If you're going to die at least we die together (or something along those lines). So they went together. And they meet up with Zephyr too ofc. And then another character is introduced, Glinda, who registered as a volunteer out of personal conviction. Later down the line they meet a teen boy who totally lied about being 18 and now they adopt him. I don't make the rules. Adopt as in the found family sense, you get what I'm saying. They're on the battlefield still.

A lot of battles and stuff go down. There is this recurring character Gus who has a vendetta on them for whatever reason and honestly I would remove this character if I wrote this nowadays. This creep follows them around sometimes. Anyway I guess his whole spiel was to be the type of person that views war as licence to kill but... it doesn't really go that well idk. At some point they meet some girl who used to have a crush on Len and she works in the factory to produce weaponry now (which would be the 1st genuinely historically accurate detail so far lmao). But again why is this girl meddling like. This guy is taken. And also this drama has no place during... a war....

Anyway at some point Len catches a stomach disease and is bedridden for a while, which is very much treated as an almost death. Like he has a sort of going-to-Heaven type dream too. Anyway it is during this time that the others get to meet war veterns from ww1, who just so happen to know Zephyr's dad (also a vet). They get some neat little backstory with this occasion. It is also during this time that they meet the teen boy, named Günther (he is half German; he ran away from home for a yet undisclosed reason).

One interesting episode is when Günther meets a girl his age. But as it turns out, she had been coerced into becoming a spy (for the Germans that is), so this was all a ploy. Except she genuinely likes Günther and is friends with him so now he wants to protect him. But she gets caught by both sides as a spy. Günther is helpless to rescue her and she is killed off screen. Again I would write this differently nowadays. It was meant to be a shocking scene like oh no, this is what happens to a double agent. But poor girl was genuinely a victim of circumstance here. Günther is understandably extremely distraught by this.

One of my favourite episodes: Christmas time is coming, which means the soldiers stop by some village and camp etc. They are intent on celebrating. Zephyr meets his cousin, Miles, and they just so happen to stop by his hometown so they stay at his house. Miles is a skilled piano player. The gang has a bit of a breather moment, they play with snow like little kids and have an overall great time. Then ofc the scene gets dramatic real fast but the way I imagined it was always so cinematic. I even imagined using this scene as the trailer for the movie adaptation!!! Miles is playing a familiar Carol on the piano, the camera as it were zooms in on his hands and its almost silence and then BOOM. They actually get bombed, which is supposed to be this shocking scene but also one that (for the purposes of the trailer) sets the tone. Everybody survived except Miles, because that's the part of the house that collapsed. Ok again I would not kill him off if I wrote this today. After finding shelter from the raid etc the characters basically immediately have to go into battle again. It gets dramatic real fast.

Eyline is seriously injured and remains in the hospital for a long time. Len sulks, extremely worried, for a while, but at some point he gets the opportunity to volunteer to fight I'm Stalingrad.... being an ally and all... but remember he himself was Russian (yeah. See the above comment that he should be named Lev for accuracy). So it gets kinda personal. The chapter in which this happens is named... drumroll... the Land where winter never ends. Sound familiar? I thought so. Anyway my dude fights until a heavy snowstorm overcomes him and he gets lost. He remembers a lot of stuff, in a sort of life flashing before his eyes montage? He remembers a lot about his childhood etc. Anyway he survives this ordeal because his (not elderly enough not to fight) uncle was also there, in time to rescue him.

He spends some more time there. Meets a boy about Günther's age named Ivan, to whom he becomes a bit of a mentor figure. Ivan gets killed before his eyes which again is supposed to be for shock value bit dude this is a bit much. Len eventually returns, and, much to his delight, Eyline is alive and also managed to heal in the meantime.

Günther finds his hometown completely wiped off the face of the earth which is understandably very traumatic for him. He assumes both his parents died and deeply regrets having run away from home. He had run because he failed 10th grade + was expelled?? and was too ashamed to face his parents ever again (and he had been a problem student for a while already). I'm not sure I actually wrote this but in an adjacent comic I hinted that his getting failed was more or less due to his teacher being Antisemitic (in the actual text his mother is hinted to be Jewish. But like living in Britain I guess). But the real twist is that his father had gone away from home the night his son was gone in order to search for him.

Guys this is hands down my favourite arc in this story. Like I really like the wife so loyal she'll join the army arc too ofc. Chefs kiss. But father travelling the war torn country, putting his own life in danger to find his son who he has no evidence is even alive anymore? Crying on main my friends... Anyway his dad is crazy dedicated to his pursuit. One day he searches through a forest and falls into a valley, but a lumberjack living there rescues him in time, and takes care of him until his broken bone (arm??) heals. The lumberjack tells the story of how he isolated himself from society once he discovered his wife just up and married somebody else as soon as he was (falsely) declared dead back in the day. And now he's a miserable old man etc. But he is genuinely inspired by this father searching for his lost son, and examines his cynicism a bit.

Zephyr receives a letter from his dad which explains a lot about his own experience during ww1 and basically serves as an attempt to reconcile with his son. There is a nice moment in which Len and Eyline hide from the elements (it's raining hard etc) and have a moment to reflect on the past few years, how they met, how they ended up both going to war etc. It's maybe cheesy with the line delivery but I love the moment itself. They're just genuinely just grateful for each other. There is an interesting callback to a very early scene. Len is all like yeah falling in love is literally just chemical reactions (at the beginning of the story) and now he's like but staying in love that's a choice right here. And he is just genuinely so grateful that she chose to come with him. And she's just glad to be by his side through thick and thin. Guys I'm telling you, one of the couples of all time.

The war eventually ends. Len and Eyline go back home and have a cozy life for a while. They visit his parents (which again is weird in terms of historical accuracy because it wouldn't be very safe to just go to 1940s ussr but ok...). They make several plans for the future etc. Eyline is pregnant etc. Günther is staying with them and tries to find work etc (just what I was saying about them essentially adopting this kid). And everything is normal until suddenly that minor character Gus from earlier comes back with a vengeance and... out of nowhere, stabs Len when he sees him. Eyline and Günther try their best to get some help in time but Len dies and quite dramatically too. Eyline has to deal with the completely unhelpful doctors, and has to assert herself, because they don't take her seriously at all until they learn she was no ordinary doctor but a war medic veteran too. There's an extremely sad flashback/ dream sequence she gets immediately after dealing with his death, with of course the added stress of being ignored like that by the doctors etc. The following scenes are very sad too but I think I at least managed to show the mundane ways in which the characters deal with Len's absence in a meaningful way. The funeral scene is also very sad and Eyline's speech at the end is quite emotional etc. Zephyr crying over the death of his friend, too. But all is not bleak because it is during this event that Günther finally reunites with his dad, and honestly this scene is probably the most emotional of all.

The other characters move on with their lives step by step. Eyline gives birth to a daughter and raises her alone etc. Günther gets a job and takes care of his father as he ages etc. Glinda I think ends up travelling the world or some such. Zephyr reconciles with his father and continues his studies in order to become a professor. There's this moment of parallels between the old generation and the new one (and its more or less the same structure between Zephyr's friend group during the war and his dad's own friend group during the previous war, including the one of the friends dying tragically etc).

Overall assessment: in retrospective, this story was needlessly dark at times. Why kill off characters so quickly and just for shock value??? If I wrote this today I'd change many things, including never even making Gus a character in the 1st place. If Len has to die, it would be in battle. But I'd tend towards him not dying at all tbh. Because I remember quite clearly my mindset as I was writing this "it's not realistic if nobody dies, or if all main characters live". So I was equating tragedy with realism, as well as basically feeling pressured to write a sad ending to make my story more "meaningful". No man it was meaningful enough with its having a group of friends who genuinely love each other a lot, a main couple who are very loyal to each other and a father relentlessly searching for his lost son.

There is so much love and beauty in this story, and it didn't need to stoop to the common denominator of haha sad ending smart. Come on. The meaning is not in the tragedy, it's in the love. What I appreciate is that this story is by a large order of magnitude better than my first in terms of overall feel and message. The plot is more complex and interesting. It's an extremely dramatic story too. It wouldn't be a story written by me if it weren't. But it doesn't feel meaningless anymore. It still does reflect a very key flaw in my minset though, namely the believing that happy endings are too good to be true and in life you just have to get the rug pulled from under your feet just when you're the happiest. Also that happiness is unrealistic and tragedy is realistic. This is a mindset that I'm still trying to unlearn a lot, and it's obvious through the way I used to write and maybe even through the way I write now that I'm an extremely pessimistic person. But overall, this story was a beautiful one. Obviously it had its flaws. Just now I cringed at the sheer teenage way of wording my stuff. I understand that many parts are written immaturely, but hey I was literally 14-15. I love the characters first and foremost. The ideas for the plot could use some work but it's something to start from, its workable etc. I'm extremely happy I wrote this when I did.

My main inspirations were the sheer volume of war movies watched with dad as a child and teen. So any cliche present in those was here too. Also The Book Thief, my beloved!! I loved that book so so much. Generally I was quite happy at that age and I think that translated clearly into the overall tone of the work, as well as the choice of main character (very extroverted, confident, playful).

The Land of Eternal Winter (draft 1 - December 2019 - July 2020 - aged 18-19)

Anatoliy, a prince, namely the king's middle child, takes revenge for his father's death, but he kills an innocent person. This sends him completely spiraling, and he becomes desperate to fix what he did, and also to receive forgiveness from God and the people he's hurt)

Draft 1 available on deviantart and my sideblog in full (written directly in English). Main inspirations: draft 0 (yes, it's a self fanfiction as it were lmao), Hamlet, Crime and Punishment (but at the time I wrote these I basically only knew the sparknotes ver, not having read the actual books until later 2020). My mental space at that time was one of recovering from my depressive episode and finding hope, happiness, peace again etc. And also not having as many horrific intrusive thoughts and constant guilt. Especially my very recent experience with crippling guilt helped me write a guilt torn and forgiveness starved main character. 100% convinced my psyche always heavily influences my writing a lot. That's OK though. This book is very hopeful actually, not hopeless, and sends a good message. I'm currently working on rewriting this from scratch aka draft 2.

NOVELLAS AND SHORT STORIES

With the caveat that short stories is what I've been writing since the day I learned to write, buy actually even earlier because I think oral tradition counts too. As a small child, most of my storytelling was play-based, of course. In about 2009, aged 8, aka about the 2nd semester of 1st grade, I got my first notebook, on which I wrote my very first original pieces. Most of them are very very short but I want to mention a few that were more significant in my development as a future writer.

Short stories from my very first "writer notebook"

Very whimsy page long tales, usually about the "secret life of animals" (anthropomorphic bears, storks, insects and some are just random and others try to mimic a fable structure - mirroring the texts I was reading at school mostly. Many stories are blatant self inserts- a spy story which is just me and my baby brother, or one called "The Storyteller" which is about dad, which I find sweet (irl dad would always tell me and my baby brother all sorts of wacky insane stories that he just made up on the spot and we remembered them and it was a whole cinematic universe as it were). Many stories are very very very closely inspired by stuff I read or watched, like a longer story (3 pages))))) about mini planets which was a lot like Little Prince. Gradually I started doing actual fanfiction, long before I knew what that was.

Vasile Moldovenescu's life story (around 2012 - aged 11)

This was my second attempt at writing a play. It was a comedy. Basically this dude, who talks very much like a Moldovan stereotype (sorry guys I was 11 don't cancel me, love you). But Vasile, despite being seemingly dumb, is a very lovable character. He randomly runs into a pair of spies, Violeta (Romanian) and John (British), who are searching for Anonymous. Vasile is kind of clingy to them and they're annoyed at first but they let him follow along eventually. They also meet a woman only written as "the blonde" in the character list (she later introduces herself as Miruna, and she is rather stereotypical too, but not so much in the dumb sense as much as very tacky.

Vasile gets approached by his "ex" (woman he used to have a crush on) and she tells him he is literally wanted (in the way a criminal would?) in his home country. Vasile talks at lenght about his personal life, some details being inadvertently relevant, but the others assume he's just speaking nonsense. The man seemingly had a million different jobs in the past (he swears he never caused that inundation oh no! And also he is also doing translations from Chinese).

I'll take this moment to mention that John speaks fluent Romanian, but at some point another character enters the scene, tagged first as "The American", (and he later introduces himself as George; he is a fellow spy and works with John and Violeta) and he speaks in English. I was quite good at English even then lmao. George came to announce that Anonymous escaped and they have to catch him etc, with a sense of urgency.

Vasile annoys them one last time and they want to kick him to the curb, and Violeta, in a grand reveal, yells at him that they were secret agents all along. To which Vasile casually replies, oh I was in the FBI once, I have a timed bomb in my cellar btw.

Suddenly Vasile is reunited with his brother Ștefan, who he intentionally avoided all this time etc, they throw a random party (?) and play pocker etc but the brother leaves again. As if that wasn't enough, Violeta mean spiritedly tells him that if she were him she would just go far away such as Egypt, and he, with his bags already made, promptly does so. Violeta hurries to catch up with her teammates to catch Anonymous etc but suddenly receives a letter.

It is literally a letter of complaint on behalf of literally all citizens of Moldova, saying that, because of her, they lost their president, who was none other than Vasile. Curtain falls. Etc.

It is funny, especially by 11 year old standards lmao. But ofc more than that it's a charming story, because it's obviously written by a child. I had much fun rediscovering this one. I was also surprised by how much comedy I was trying to write as a child and how much I just... stopped. That says a lot about me I think.

Oh and see below for my 1st attempt at a play. Yes I did try to make my classmates act it. It didn't work out.

___

The next big step in my development as a writer was a shared imaginary universe between my boy cousins and I, which we used as a backdrop for our stick fights. So basically a sort of DnD. But the cousins only provided very basic details of the plot and their respective characters, while I actually took it very seriously and started writing actual narratives about it. My cousin called our paracosm The Immortals and he even designed an admittedly sick logo, and I kept that name. I was very into FF at the time so I was daydreaming about creating a never ending RPG game franchise. That is why the following are called just The Immortals + their respective number. Only a few have I actually completed, though I had planned like 20 entries for this franchise. At this point I barely took input from my cousins.

The Immortals 3 (summer 2013 - aged 12)

A story I wrote integrally on a sketchbook. A general, named Marshall, is sent out on some sort of rescue mission for a lost princess, which turns out to have been a scam, which annoys him very much. He is, however, stuck with the random girl he mistook for the princess, and they continue their journey together. She, named Barbara, is very much a sort of manic-pixie-dream-girl, and he very cold etc. Also I think there was quite the age gap between the two which... yeah. The two have a sort of enemies to lovers arc but not enemies, more like annoying strangers to lovers. The core conflict is less between the main couple, as between the two students (subordinates), one of them being his ally, and the other having rebelled against him and become the main villain (who lured his old mentor into a trap in the first place, and now intended to kill him). The last scene is a battle, and the heroes get injured etc but survive. The main character is like very regretful about the whole situation, feeling somewhat responsible. But other than that, he and his love interest basically live happily ever after.

The Immortals 4 (August-September 2013 - aged 12)

A stereotypical vampire story that I had very very much fun writing approximately late August - early September 2013. The story centers around a rebellious vampire prince, Vincent. His grandfather is the king, and he is evil. One day the grandfather captures a human girl, Ivy, and has her do menial tasks I guess. Vincent and Ivy have a bit of an enemies to lovers arc but again not at all enemies, they're actually each other's only allies, but in the sense of she doesn't trust him at first due to prejudice against vampires etc. He did like her from the first meeting and was kinda flirty from the start.

Anyways the two gradually become friends as they interact more. And ofc discover that they are allies against the evil grandpa. There are several "funny scenes" such as one day Ivy practices her combat skills aka shooting an arrow and Vincent volunteers to be a target - with an apple om his head. He was ofc overconfident etc. He promptly gets shot and Ivy nurses him back to health as it were, which is a bonding moment. They fall in love etc. They prepare to fight the evil grandpa but Vincent gets caught up in the sun because they didn't make it to the dark inside soon enough. So he literally burns up (not described in a gore way because I was 12 but yeah he doesn't just turn to dust but literally burn). But he dies in her arms so it's this tragic romance moment. And the sequel hook is that she has to fight the evil grandpa alone.

No I have never read twilight and at that age I think I would've actually been banned from it.

Train of thought (2015 - aged 14)

A short story in comic form, written in full on one of my sketchbooks.

This is a world in which the 4 Temperaments, as well as other categories (Pessimist, Optimist) are personified. There is more than one entity per category, and people are grouped into countries based on their category. The story starts with the Realist cynically observing the Pessimist and the Optimist waiting helplessly on the train tracks (both free, not tied up, also standing etc). The Optimist foolishly convinces himself no train will come, and the Pessimist is convinced they will die anyway so what's the point anyway. They get run over offscreen. The Realist, who is an absolutely emotionless being (he is supposed to represent Reason and is completely removed from and opposed to Emotion), so his reaction to seeing those two killed right before him looks like indifference, although he pities them (though with a bit of an attitude of superiority).

He was called to sort things out between the Temperaments, who have some level of international conflict. Specifically Choleric and Sanguine aren't allied anymore and are in some sort of conflict. Realist sides with Choleric and helps him rationalise the whole situation. Choleric comes to his senses and sorts things out with Sanguine and reconciles with her etc.

The problem is that the seemingly extremely rational Realist has been hearing voices all this time, and they grow louder and louder, and suddenly this world doesn't seem real anymore. The scene shifts immediately. It's a hospital room, and a man with the same physical appearance as Realist is in the hospital bed, looking as if having suffered a grave accident. The voice echoing is now clear: it was his wife calling him by his name, Richard, name that he doesn't recognise because he lost his memory due to his head injury.

Once awoken, he learns several shocking news regarding what had happened. The train he was on got derailed, causing a devastating accident. He is suddenly curious to know the other patients in the hospital (which is full of the injured from said accident). He meets at least 4 people with whom he is able to communicate and learn more about what happened. Those are Cole (the Choleric), Sandy (the Sanguine), Melvin (the Melancholic) and Felicia (the Phlegmatic). All four were businesspeople heading to a meeting in which to discuss the relationship between their respective businesses and negotiate trade etc etc.

Richard talks the most to Cole, with whom he is both annoyed, due to his abrasive attitude, but also gets along with eventually, finding a lot in common. Richard also gets a lot of information about everything, but is unable to actually remember it, which frustrates him. Richard falls asleep/ unconscious again and dreams the continuation of the same dream. The Choleric gets shot by somebody trying to overthrow the current government, but doesn't die. Despite the controversy, he once again allies with Sanguine. The Realist doesn't find his place in this world. Richard wakes up. He doesn't find his place in the real world either, with his not remembering anything, except the facts others tell him, which he has to take at face value.

During the following days he befriends the other patients and learns about their lives too. For example, Cole and Sandy were actually together but had a fight about something. Of course now that it was a life vs death situation, they put aside their differences. Richard himself finally gets his memory back when he remembers his wife, Sophia (who also appeared as a constant background character in the dreams too). She is very happy to have him back as it were, but she leaves eventually, in order to let him rest.

This time Richard cannot dream anymore and instead is plagued by (traumatic) memories. He remembers exactly what happened during the day of the accident. His co-workers (and friends, who in the dream appeared as the Optimist and the Pessimist) had actually died right then and there, in a thoughtless attempt to escape. This memory disturbed him a lot. He also remembered having interacted with all 4 of the survivors (that he had talked with at lenght) while on that train ride, as they were seated very close one to another and they even exchanged some words, enabling him to make a first impression of them (and explaining why he even dreamt about them too - for example in real life Richard directly saw how Cole was injured).

The next day they even watch the news and see that the accident is still being discussed. The others, such as Sandy, have other concerns however, such as Cole being rushed to the emergency room again (I'm not good at medicine and was even more so at 14 but bear with me) because his injury either got infected or there was some internal bleeding etc. Although the scene is kind of dramatic, he survives and makes a recovery.

All of them heal from their wounds over time, and, having become friends during this time of hardship, keep in touch etc. Richard ponders upon his tendency to judge people based on first impressions and stereotypes etc etc. Eventually he too goes home, happy to reunite with his wife.

My main inspirations include Inside out which I just saw recently at that time and was very normal about, thank you very much. I was interested in stuff about personality types and read a lot about it (and did every test out there lmao - yes MBTI too - I always get different stuff between INTJ, ENTJ, INFJ, ENFJ so for me it's not accurate but its fun as a concept). The actual starting point for my writing it was this dark joke I heard at the time: in a tunnel, the Optimist sees the light at the end, the Pessmist sees the dark, the Realist sees the train lights, and the train conductor sees 3 idiots on the train tracks. So yeah hearing that joke + my "psychology phase" at the time made me go into a several day writing binge. Ah those are always fun. I get struck by an idea and come back with a fully formed short story.

(Unnamed) - what I now call draft 0 (may 2019 - aged 18)

The first story I wrote after my hiatus/ writer's block/ mental health break. 14 handwritten A4 pages so I'd say... 5k-7k words?? As an estimate.

A young, Elena, princess falls in love with her servant, Kęstas, who secretly turns out to have been a foreign prince all along. The two run away together from her dictatorial brother, the king Anatoliy. Once in the forest, Elena learns the truth about Kęstas, namely that her brother killed his parents, conquered his country and took him prisoner. The two get married in secret, but they cannot hide forever so they return, backed by the people, who revolt. Elena also frees her older sister, Svetlana, the rightful monarch, and they remove Anatoliy from power, sending him into exile. They reunite years later, Anatoliy now a humbled pig farmer. His older kneels to hug him, showing her forgiveness towards him. He sincerely apologises, saying he had been a madman.

The sole inspiration for this was the Hetalia fanfic A Blend of White and Red by SweetVerses (on ffn) that I read in April or may 2019 and it changed my brain chemistry. I was obsessed especially with the winter vibes and tried my best to emulate that. I rewrote the fic as a royal AU as it were, added some other details until it was my own thing and boom. Narratively satisfying ending too. That was certainly very procrastination fueled + inspiration of the moment. But it had been years since I'd last written a full story, and since I had allowed myself to just write without being perfect, so writing this was the single most liberating writing experience of my entire life.

Available on my sideblog but it's handwriting only so I summarised the complete plot here.

The Keeper of the Underwater Graveyard (2023 - aged almost 22)

My most recent piece of writing + most recent feverish writing binge. 20k words.

Žadgailas, a young merman, is treated as if he is a demigod, ruling over the sea and the dead buried in it, but he begins to doubt this and tries to learn the truth. He is very fascinated by the human world above, which he first ever visits on his 15th birthday, meeting a human girl, Lærke, to whom he swears he will never forget her and even search for her again. The two remain loyal to the other, eventually having to suport the other in finding some horrific truths.

Since this was written directly in English and is very available to read, I won't spoil anything else. The main inspirations are Eglė Queen of Serpents and The Little Mermaid, although I changed quite a lot and idk how much it can even be considered a retelling. But I was in a combination of extreme inspiration and extreme procrastination so I just cranked this in like a week. Oh well it happens to the best of us. I think it's a beautiful story in its own right but I think I'm going to inevitably find it flawed soon but oh well.

FANFICTION

I will first say that I've been writing fanfiction since the very beginning. I'm not sure which was first. I scrapped a lot of stuff I did as a tween, because in my early teens I was embarrassed of it, but now I really regret it. During about 2009-2010 I wrote one of my 1st fanfics, namely a Transformers (the Michael Bay one) rewrite + prequel + sequel. Told oh so so dramatically, but also kinda ironically. And a spin-off. I especially insisted upon the sibling rivalry dynamic between Skits and Mudflap... childhood blorbos lmao. I was also doing a lot of comic format fanfics, namely various scenes with Mario characters. One I loved very much but I can never find again, namely their playing football with FF1 characters. And another I even forgot the plot but at the time I was so so excited with it I could literally recite it to my brother.

The coolest adventure of Mario (2011-2012 ish? - aged 10-11)

My very first attempt at writing a play. Mario characters in a mega crossover with other characters, including Lego Ninjago, Transformers, Sonic etc. Peach and Daisy meet in a high-school setting and become friends. They are the popular girls. Kai (ninjago) gets in a fight with Bowser. Mario meets Kirby etc.

Peach throws a party and the villain characters aren't invited etc. The Paper Mario villains show up, as well as the fanon ones. Shadow Queen kidnaps Peach. Mario and Luigi learn of this and go save them etc.

Now the characters being in a more peace time, they go swimming at a water park. Another time they dress up as mafia guys (that one paper Mario thing etc). They compete in the Olympics etc.

But their fun doesn't last because the villains come for revenge so all the heroes team up, but the villains even brought Megatron??? Rosalina appears to help them out at some point. And they use all skills and tools from before, and all characters show up and contribute etc which I find cool. Setup payoff + that's what crossovers are for. Also Optimus casually destroys Megatron with a bazooka. Mario and Peach kiss , curtain falls etc. + party montage lmao.

I took this so so seriously. I did cast my classmates. Really did want to organise this. Some wanted to participate, others backed down. I casted myself as peach and my crush as Mario. The guy was creeped out at the last scene. A lot of kids already thought I was weird so. But hey at the time I did have the guts to straight up write a fanfic play and force my classmates to act in it lmao.

Unnamed FF13 fanfic (late 2012-early 2013 - aged 11-12)

Various retellings of Final Fantasy plots and characters. First one with White Mage and Black Mage from FF1 (as per that game with a Mario crossover). I shipped them a lot frrrr. My blorbos. Basically fluff + Mario crossover. Also a bunch of random drama.

The FF13 again mostly a retelling, but also mostly ship focused. A lot of Lightning + Hope (yeah bro I get it that it's problematic and nowadays I cringe at myself, but I didn't at the time) especially as per FF13-2 etc, a lot of them involving Lightning dying etc. Very dramatic overall. I scrapped a lot of it like legit ripped the pages, cut them up etc.

In my very dramatic phase, which translates into the type of story I liked to write. See my first original novel.

01&02 (2015 - aged 14)

Vocaloid fanfiction in comic form, all on my sketchbook. 50+ pages of comic pages of my longest running comic ever.

The Vocaloids are sentient robots living alongside humans. Rin remembers how she and Len were made by the same inventor a long time ago, and he gave them hearts, metaphorically speaking, as in made them sentient. This was later applied to all Vocaloids.

Fast forward much time later. They live their lives normally, being mostly preoccupied with their performance arts (singing + acting). Many vocaloid songs are reinterpreted as plays they perform, but some get integrated into the main plot. The robots are regularly maintained by the humans, and got them out of trouble etc. These humans were descendants of the original scientists (several generations down the line).

Rin is a gamer/ streamer and makes several online friends, including getting herself a boyfriend (a human tech nerd). But they eventually break up and it ends up badly down the line. In the meantime, Len has a crush on Miku, but she is seemingly more interested in Kaito etc. They even play in several plays together though (like Servant of Evil etc). At some point Miku is also with the same guy Rin used to be with and again it's not good for her etc. However, over time, Len and Miku get along increasingly better, and collaborate on some song/ ad (SPL) and Miku realises she likes him too etc so they get together too.

At this point the story seems like it's mostly romance drama but suddenly they realise something is wrong. The human guy was never so much interested in actual dating as much as gathering data. Now that he had all his resources, he created a virus that affected the vocaloids quite irreparably. It was quite slow acting, however. The human scientists try to find solutions but they don't really manage, despite their best efforts.

Len, Miku, Rin and the others spend a lot of time together like before, but are now more aware of their mortality as it were. Miku one day starts to feel the actual effects of the virus when her voice cracks and it's this shocking emotional moment etc. Len and Miku get married etc and this again is this emotional scene etc. Miku legit just dies. And soon enough every single one of them is infected with the virus with no hope of a cure and they kind of just die one by one. The humans are helpless to find solutions. And the vocaloids are just devastated at their newfound sense of mortality + loss of their friends.

Len dies too, and this affects Rin a lot. She knows she will die quite soon, too, so she sets out on an existential journey. She finally finds the place where her inventor first made her and Len. She looks through his old papers and computers etc, with no hope of finding a cure. She locates her "father's" grave and contemplates her life, the memories she formed with her friends, the miracle of having had this Heart, as well as appreciating life, as she feels closer and closer to death. She falls off her feet, on the ground, next to the graves, but she is smiling and seemingly shedding a small tear.

My main inspirations were: vocaloid songs: Kokoro + the Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, and also a film I saw as a kid about a robot who got more and more human organs until he became human and died. Permanently changed my brain chemistry etc (I loved that movie despite at the time being terrified of robots). I spent like all summer writing and drawing this fanfic, and had great great fun. Literally unrestrained summer fun.

Frozen Parody (april 2016- aged 15)

Frozen retelling as a modern ice skating competition. Comedy/ satire. Only like 10 comic pages so quite short.

Elsa is a child prodigy in ice skating, earning the title of the Ice Queen. However, she has a strained relationship with her sister Anna because of a childhood accident caused by her negligence. While ice skating, Anna broke her back (?) and remained paralysed from the neck down.

Now as adults, they are more independent etc. Elsa runs away to her castle which is actually a private hotel (??) .

Hans is introduced as a "villain" but only in the sense that he's a direct competitor and maybe overly confident that he will win/ a huge sore loser. His main characteristic is not being in power and manipulating others into thinking he's a nice guy, instead being characterised by over competitiveness. He and Anna are in a relationship, but it's very short lived because Anna herself is quite flighty (immature, indecisive) about relationships in general. She almost immediately gets with Kristoff after breaking up with Hans, which makes the latter very jealous.

Desperate to win the contest (as well as maybe out of petty revenge??) Hans cheats by creating a hidden hole in the ice. During the competition, it is Anna who falls in, Elsa having to jump in the cold water to save her (as Anna absolutely cannot swim etc). The day is thus saved. Hans is disqualified from the competition altogether.

Quick flash forward to the future, Anna and Kristoff are married, Elsa happy for them etc. They live at the Ice Hotel (r) (hotel firm owned by Elsa). I just found the notebook at man it's a bit of a mean satire but one joke that stands out is that the trolls (love experts) are refered to as Kristoff's doctor-therapist-fortuneteller parents. I think that should set the tone for how this story is like.

Yeah I was in my "Frozen is cringe and for kids" phase I guess. Ok though but nowadays I like it unironically. No need to mock it lmao. But I'll say only one thing. I gave Hans a more believable motivation in this spoof fanfic than the actual movie lmao.

Do you know what it feels like? (July 2019 - aged 18)

Hetalia human AU, mostly a LietBel ship fic. 14k words.

Two lonely and miserable people meet and think they can fix each other, which temporarily seems to work but it ultimately leads to a very toxic place. Available on my deviantart, ffn and tumblr, so not giving away more of the plot.

I wrote this right in between writing draft 0 and starting outlining draft 1, which was a nice breather (as well as a nice writing binge - I got this out in the span of about 2-3 weeks). I had just read seemingly all fanfic of this ship on ffn (not a lot of it) and was struck by an Idea so I had to write it down as fast as possible. I was in a good place at the time (was writing this in the week before and the one after I got baptised, and I was finally in the summer vacation after a brutal school year namely 11th grade). I think that this reflects in the fact of my writing a story with an optimistic ending, and, while very dramatic because it wouldn't be written by me if it weren't, still full of wholesome moments etc.

UNFINISHED/ ONGOING/ PARTIAL/ ABANDONED

NOVELS

Love is a Choice (summer/autumn 2017- abandoned sometime during mid/late 2018?? - aged 16-17)

My 3rd novel, but it never saw the light of day. It was supposed to be a Christian Victorian romance novel. I only wrote the first 2-3 chapters + a lot of disconnected scenes, outlines (redoing those outlines many times), research sheets etc, concept art etc.

The plot takes place in 1845, in a unnamed town in southern England, not very far from London. The main character is one Ernest, a 30 year old bachelor, the youngest son of a family from the lower nobility/ gentry (so upper middle class to upper class). He is made to marry a certain Jeannine, who comes from a seemingly poorer family but otherwise of significant aristocratic origin (her grandfather was a French marquis but fled France in 1793 due to very obvious reasons). Jeannine was 25 I think and her family was rushing her to get married too etc. Anyway they end up married despite being strangers etc. Ernest is a very neurotic individual, with a clear perfectionistic tendency and general "weird" aura about him. Jeannine is herself very shy and introverted (especially in comparison to her twin sister Georgette), but otherwise a much more relaxed person in comparison to Ernest. He is nerdy and he likes building mechanical stuff like cuckoo clocks etc and Jeannine has more artistic leanings.

Now the main plot was supposed to be their falling in love etc but try as I might I literally couldn't... write anything in the middle, at least not the main plot. There was zero actual chemistry between the two aside from my drawing cute art of them. But I wrote very extensively about the side characters which there were many of. Ernest had several servants, all of which had their own backstory, personality etc, and all of them got along with him very nicely. The main housekeeper/ admin was his old nanny, who just so happened to also be a French immigrant with a sad backstory like Jeannine's grandpa etc. She never had children of her own, but basically adopted Ernest. (The idea here is that Ernest's family was quite bad actually. The mom and dad hated each other. Ernest was never loved by his mother, despite that not being the case with his older siblings, and their father was very absent etc). The cook was married to the gardner, and there was also another couple among them (one of the maids and the stable keeper I think??). The cook's apprentice is an orphan teen that got taken under their wing (Ernest is a teacher figure to her, but he didn't adopt her etc). Generally the household is kind of a found family which is very wholesome. This is meant to contrast the tense situation of Ernest's biological family.

He also has a close friend, Jasper, who is a small business owner (he has an antique shop and I think that's actually how the two met because Ernest was trying to recondition an old clock and looking for parts). He has a wife Gabrielle (you guessed it - also French - I genuinely spent a lot of time researching every detail and yes apparently in the 1st half of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for there to be French immigrants in England, with the French Rebolution + subsequent revolutions + religious persection of the Huguenots) who is a seamstress. (OK now that I mentioned my very specific real world details that I included because I did some research: I imagined Gabrielle was raised Catholic and her parents gave her quite a hard time for having married a Protestant and herself having converted etc. Jeannine and her family I imagined to have been Huguenots - which are basically just Calvinists. Ernest I imagined to be a member of a Reformed Baptist church (at the time it was called Particular Baptist), despite not having been raised that way and ofc, that's just one more thing that his parents would give him trouble for. Given the time + location + already mentioned details, you can safely 100% imagine Ernest would attend Spurgeon's sermons in person).

Ernest had 3 older siblings, two brothers and a sister. The oldest, William, was 40 years old, had a wife Sophia and 5 kids. He was the owner of a factory and very financially successful, but, not unlike his father, was much more caught up in work rather than family etc. He also hung out the wrong kinds of company (doing gambling I think??) and was very much a smoking addict. At some point in the story his health takes a turn for the worse (he faints at some point and he fears that he is developing a heart problem, which scares him back to his senses as it were. He has his come-to-Jesus moment, and then tries to reconcile with his wife and children etc. There's even a montage in which he tries to become healthier so he runs around to lose weight or whatever). The other brother, Frederick, is 38 and is also married, to one Olivia, with whom he has 2 or 3 children I don't remember. He is a believer but his wife is not and that's the beginning of their conflict, but at some point she actually just... cheats on him with some dude. Undergoes a full on Hosea + Gomer arc (and quite explicitly based on that mind you). She realises that the lover she ran away with actually wants to harm her etc so she runs home to her husband, literally in rags etc. And of course he forgives her etc. The sister, Amelia, is 36 and she actually lives far away from the other siblings because she married a northerner. They also have several kids etc, and among all of the siblings, Amelia has the happiest marriage. She was meant to be the good example to the others as it were. During childhood, she was the closest to Ernest, the brothers being rather bullies to him (during adulthood their relationship improved however). The mother was very miserable and bitter despite living a life of comfort and luxury. The father was suffering from some sort of terminal disease (I imagined something like stomach cancer and yes I did google whether they knew cancer was a thing back then - turns out they did but ofc the only solution was to physically remove the tumour by surgery and hope they got it all out basically). The father had also been a very bad parent but now that he was closer to death he was reflecting on his life and feeling regretful etc.

Jeannine's family was much more normal. She had a twin sister, Georgette, who was also unmarried etc (but for some reason nobody rushed to find her a high-class match???) but at some point she falls in love with a gardner/ farmer guy and marries him. The parents were in a good relationship, and were reasonable in the way they raised their daughters. They had no other children aside from them (due to how complicated it was to give birth to twins??). I was undecided in my outlines whether to write the grandpa as still alive or not. Either way he would've been quite elderly at this point. His name was Yves and he ran away because of the Revolution, only fleeing once the king had died (he was very loyal etc). Jeannine's dad was his youngest child (or second to youngest - he had a large family) and he was raised in England his whole life.

Anyway, eventually Ernest and Jeannine fall in love and are finally more of a real couple etc. Part of what drew her to him was the closeness with his servants, and how by being Mistress of the household, she got to be part of this large family too. Most of Ernest's internal conflict was like "this woman I was forced to marry is objectively a good person in every single way but I still can't force myself to fall in love - am I in the wrong here and am I a terrible person for this etc? And he was generally very very very overthinking. Very perfectionistic. Also spending a lot of time feeling guilty over stuff and yeah. More on that later.

The big twist at the end, when Ernest's dad dies (and has a deathbed conversion), is that the reason Ernest was so marginalised as a child is because he was actually his mother's illegitimate son. His "dad" was resentful towards him because his wife cheated on him etc, and his mom hated him because he was a living reminder of her "helpless condition" (cannot just run away with her lover but has to raise child while still living with the husband she despises). However, re: deathbed conversion, Ernest's dad apologises to him and reconciles with him. Some time after the death, Ernest finds that he actually not only is part of the inheritance, but got an equal part to his siblings.

That's where the story ended, and the sequel hook was Ernest finding his biological father etc. On my sketchbooks I drew many scenes etc. But many were of the next generation as it were. The adventures of Ernest and Jeannine's children (4 of them: Alexander, the responsible eldest son, Ada, the rebellious daughter, Justin, also a kind of rebellious son, and Irene, the very sweet daughter. Alexander ended up getting married to Edith, one of Jasper's daughters. She had a crush on him since childhood etc. Irene, maybe by virtue of being the youngest, was closest to her parents. Justin, after finally becoming a responsible adult, got into Law school. Ada, after sorting out her vicious sibling rivalry with Alex, as well as becoming a responsible adult etc, got into journalism. She married a young widower and single father Frank, who ran an independent newspaper. Everybody kind of gets paired off together in some way. Justin is revealed to be the grandfather of Zephyr, from my 2nd novel. Talk about literary universe. Ernest builds a school whose principal he becomes etc. He teaches maths and physics, Jeannine teaches French and History (and over time they get more teachers to hire).

Aside from the unending family trees, the sequel gets very depressing very fast, as all beloved characters just die off one by one. William dies of a heart attack when he is in his mid 50s (despite all the changes he made to better his health??!!!), with a very emotional and gut wrenching scene in which his wife laments how others only find it tragic when a recently married wife gets widowed, but one that was married for 30 years, not so much, despite hurting her much more to know she lost the one she spent 3 decades with. Frederick dies in an accident (gets thrown by his horse). Ernest, now himself middle-aged, with his children grown up (some of them as I said rebellious in their youths, which makes him feel like a bad parent), and both his brothers dead etc, falls into a very deep depression out of which nobody can take him out, not even his beloved wife etc. There is this very dark scene in which he faints due to burnout from how much he had been over working himself, and Jeannine finds him unconscious on the floor etc. But due to how absolutely hopeless and miserable he had acted lately, Jeannine just immediately jumps to the conclusion that he committed suicide, which everybody else believes until Ernest himself wakes up to explain was not the case as he only just fainted after having been awake for several days in a row. He eventually heals after spending some time by the sea and relaxing from his work etc. But I never found a satisfying ending to the sequel. Is that all? Everybody is dead and Ernest doesn't get along with his family anymore? He only barely gets over his depression by hanging out by the sea for a bit?

And this is the moment where I analyse this from a meta perspective. It's almost embarrassing to what degree Ernest's development over the year that I wrote this mirrored my own mental state. At first, I focused on his attention to moral integrity - good! I too was trying to be good. Then I focused on his perfectionism, and guilt. He was feeling guilty for not being able to force himself to fall in love. He was very strict with every detail of his life - in one scene he rearranges his entire library because a book is out of order. Even though he literally commits absolutely no sin whatsoever during the entire narrative, he still acts so guilty like WHYYYY. Why make a character who is morally impeccable but still has the behaviour of one guilty for existing. Oh well he did have a bit of that illegitimate child complex but he didn't even know he was illegitimate until the end so like??? But now in retrospective I'm like oh. Oh. I was very well behaved, unnaturally well behaved for a 17 year old, and still felt the weight of the world with how guilty I felt all the time. I was dealing with horrific intrusive thoughts on the daily, on the hourly basically. I suppose I was aware even then that my Protagonist was basically me in many ways. But I never even allowed him bad thoughts!!! Not even a tiny little "but what if I just stabbed somebody" and have him react in horror or whatever. Which would've explained his guilty attitude etc. But no that's not clean enough for a Christian romance. Yes in hindsight I censored myself a lot in order to fit into that label. Very squeaky clean. No real conflict aside from the side characters who were interesting because they were allowed to have flaws and an actual character arc. But then I started getting art block. Writer's block. My head was literally empty. Except it was very full of all sorts of bad thoughts. But it was empty of my usual ideas etc. I began finding no purpose much less pleasure in my otherwise extremely treasured hobbies. When I did "get inspiration", it was to ruin my main character's happy ever after, make his siblings die tragically, his family life become dramatic and divided, and him be miserable, depressed, overworked and with a middle age crisis, and contemplating suicide. Although he didn't even do that. It would be too inappropriate. So he just fainted from exhaustion I guess. I wrote that scene in December 2017. And then in 2018 didn't manage to come up with much new. I stagnated completely, and almost completely stopped writing and drawing altogether. As you might already know 2018 was the worst year of my life. So it's no wonder I was literally unable to create anything. Sometimes I get sad when I look at my folders and see stuff like 2016 (70 items) 2017 (60 items) 2018 (30 items) 2019 (50 items) etc. Like the decline is so obvious and I know why. But at least, as that "if you have art block that's your brain trying to tell you to do studies", while my original stuff was plummeting, I have some genuine bangers in terms of studies from the summer of 2018.

Overall, the story was supposed to be heartwarming but ended up depressing. It does have all the blueprints to be a beautiful and uplifting one though! The love between characters is still palpable. It only needed to be more real ie not so censored that the main character literally has no flaws, and more of a conflict. Also the sequel was just literally me ruining the source material so I would completely scrap that or at least change it a lot. I'm sometimes very emotional about this unfinished novel. Oh, it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its development mirrors my mental state at the time quite accurately. One day I wish to rewrite this. Maybe when I get all my existential questions sorted out, and being more mature I am able to look back at all of this and make sense of it. But I would make it a less squeaky clean story too. I would make Ernest have serious questions about his faith, not this lowkey legalistic lifestyle being treated as "just being a good Christian, let's not ask many questions etc".

The main inspirations were all those period drama films where the woman is married to a husband she isn't in love with so she cheats on him with somebody she is in love with. Trying my absolute best to go the opposite direction of that. Had been reading the Rose of Versailles manga at the time + watching a lot of period dramas. Inspirations from the history I read etc.

NOVELLAS/ SHORT STORIES

The Hacker (October 2013 - with the last additions during spring 2016 - aged 12-15)

A movie script idea I had been writing on and off.

The main premise is a hacker (for whatever reason) trying to create a virus that infects the whole Internet, but one day he passes out in exhaustion in front of his computer and suddenly finds himself in the virtual world. Every app has a human form etc.

The main character, villain-protagonist is a guy named Hans, and the antagonist, arguably a more moral individual, is the mysterious Mr. G. The latter is supposed to be a representation of the entire Internet but a later reveal is that everybody in that virtual world is an isekai'd actual human. And the elusive Mr. G? Is Hans's programmer neighbour, Gerhard. (At first I chose Hans' name arbitrary but then I decided this is actually taking place in Germany because one of the songs I was listening to a lot for inspiration was Berlin by the Piano Guys).

In the virtual world, the virus created by Hans took actual form (it was a black goo/ wave that engulfed everything it touched, destroying it. Whatever it touched, started glitching green then black 0s and 1s, making the characters turn to dust not unlike in infinity war + endgame). The problem was that Mr. G and the others were basically convinced that if they got infected by the virus they would get killed irl too. Said Mr G had two children (teens - the girl representing social media and the boy representing video platforms). Over the course of the story, they both get engulfed by the virus, basically dying. The boy, right before his father's eyes, and the girl, right before Hans' eyes, and he is helpless to stop it, although he had made the virus in the first place. The scene of confrontation between Mr. G and Hans (which I wrote in 2016) hits extremely hard. The rage I drew on his face, as well as the sorrow like man... and if you think about it yeah, this dude really killed Mr. G's children...

At any rate both remember their lives back in the real world (in an early version there was a memory room which showed their flashbacks in video format). Gerhard was a single dad, his wife having left him for whatever reason (mostly to do with his workaholic tendencies). Hans had a girlfriend too and she does make an appearance in the virtual world too, as a sort of mercenary figure (she kind of opposes Hans but not really. She tries to help Mr. G's daughter too but with no success). At the very end, the virus spreads so far that almost everything is destroyed. Mr. G is dying (literally fading away) and shares some last words with Hans. He dies immediately afterwards too.

The two wake up back in the real world, their respective computers not only completely ruined, but literally on fire too. Thankfully, their death in the virtual world doesn't translate into their death irl. But the two still are in danger because the apartments caught fire and they have to escape etc. They make it out alive and mostly uninjured. Gerhard reunites with his children (and his ex is there too, to tell him he cannot look after the kids etc but that gets solved too). Hans goes to prison etc. However, fortunately, it is clear to him that Gerhard finally forgave him. It is implied Hans will get out eventually and resume his life etc, and they'll be friends etc.

The main inspirations were (movies that I had watched for the 1st time in my life at the age of 12 and literally had my mind blown) the Matrix + Inception. I already mentioned the song Berlin by the Piano Guys being used as inspiration etc. And most importantly, because I wouldn't have started writing it if it weren't for reading those, two short stories I read in a Romanian Christian magazine for college students from the early 2000s. One of them was about hacking and the other was about a college student metaphorically rotting away in his dorm room for decades, which to me seemed both horrifying but also a great source of inspiration for the "darker tone" I was going for with my story.

It is unfinished in the sense that I never actually sat down and wrote the script itself. But I finalised the outline back in 2016 so...

Fairy worldbuilding project (starting 2017 ish - aged 16)

Not much of a story but I loved doing worldbuilding. There are fairies who are based on several insects, and each species has a country, its Queen etc. Butterflies are considered frivolous etc but they carry the textile industry. Bees are the hardworking ones etc - food industry. Flies, Moths and Fireflies are nocturnal so they hold meetings at odd hours in order to adjust to the timezone of the others. Ie international meeting between Butterflies and Moths: 10 am but its very early for the Butterfly and very late for the Moth etc. Ladybugs!!! Just all bugs basically fall here. Including scarabs which are like super buff. Actual bugs are stereotyped as dirty etc. Flies are kinda tricksters etc. They get along ish but not really.

The plot if it had one would be internal political conflict in the Butterfly Kingdom. The Queen refuses to step down and let her niece rule. Matriarchal society etc. The Butterfly Queen rules over the others Kingdoms as well etc so it's kind of an Empire. But Ants for example, being mostly terrestrial and wingless, are separate.

This mostly makes sense by looking at the actual artwork. Not much else here. Ongoing forever maybe, it's just for fun. My baby cousins loved watching me draw these.

VAGUE IDEAS

NOVELS

Yet unnamed (January 2023 - aged almost 22)

I wish to rewrite that fanfiction Do you know what it feels like? as an original piece.

NOVELLAS/ SHORT STORIES

Many ideas throughout 2016-2019 but ofc not only.

Untitled medieval story (summer 2019 - aged 18)

Arranged marriage between a prince and a princess. They don't get along at first but eventually fall in love. He was a bit arrogant at first but got better. He had some scars from smallpox as a child etc which is how she gets him to talk about his backstory. He even gets wounded in battle at some point, and by that point she already cared about him etc etc.

In Memoriam (2020/2021 ish - aged 19-20)

A story from the perspective of an old woman seeing her whole life before her eyes. She faints/ almost dies of a heart attack when she looks at the 21 December 1989 memorial, and has a lot of flashbacks in chronological order or not. We learn that she was fervently loyal to the communist party and there seems to be feeling subconsciously guilty over something. The rest would be a spoiler - I genuinely want to write this one day.

I want this to be part of a volume for other short stories, Red Shadows, all in some way related to Romanian communist or post-communist history, all of the characters being at least tangentially connected in some way, thereby unifying the narratives within the volume.

FANFICTION

Untitled (2016/2017 ish - aged 15-16)

A Derpy and Dr. Whooves ship fanfic. Basically combining a human AU with the Pony world. The two meet irl, him being a time traveller, fall in love etc, start a family, but the interdimensional police eventually come after him and catch him, forcibly separating the two. She ends up in the pony world and spends many years there, raising Dinky etc. But one day she manages to reach an interdimensional warp zone and find her long lost husband etc but the police kill him. Thankfully by now she already knew to operate time travel tech so she rewinds time etc before he gets shot and by a combo of time stops, also redirects the bullets etc. They manage to escape from them forever, and live happily etc.

I wish I had written this when I first thought of it, but I basically just daydreamt it and left it.

Betrayed (2018 ish - aged 17)

A Hans fanfic (Frozen) which recontectualises his villain turn not as a random thing neither as a planned thing, but as him going insane from so much betrayal during his lifetime. He tells Anna if only there were somebody to love you not to be cruel, but to make a bitter jab at the fact that he believes her to be cheating on him with Kristoff. Basically Anna's engagement song is taken seriously and not as a joke and Hans is like how can you abandon me so fast etc. He does succumb to madness as it were etc and the events go down and he gets imprisoned etc see the Frozen fever short. So the story would end tragically with him catching some sort of disease, a literal deadly fever, and some nurse being the last person he sees. For a brief moment he remembers the good times with Anna and as he lay dying he calls her name. The nurse, for the sake of comforting a dying man, pretends to recognise him etc and tells him some encouraging words etc. He dies but kind of imagining a more happy version of events in which he just happened to fall sick but at least he saw his fiancee during his last moments.

I did make myself cry with this concept lmao but I never sat down to write it.

The Red Plague (2019 - aged 18)

Hetalia historical fanfic. There is a mysterious lab disease called the red plague. Russia is the first to get sick etc. The plague is supposed to mirror the spread of communism etc and the symptoms are supposed to be both physical but especially psychological, the other characters being horrified at how much their friends chanted for the worse etc.

Yet untitled (january 2023 - aged almost 22)

Maybe I will try that Hamlet with a happy ending lmao why not. I should at least try

____

Of course, there are so so many more stories I have not included, especially the older ones. I will update this every now and again. I hope you enjoy this. I will post pictures too. This masterpost is merely an introduction.

[heliads]

LISA! i'm so sorry is taking me so long to come here, things have been crazy this year but i had to tell you I'M GOING TO THE ERAS TOUR

i'm so happy!!!! i couldn't believe i got the tickets, it was so chaotic. but she's finally coming to brazil and i'll be able to go and it'll be like 2 weeks before my birthday so it's the best gift ever!!

i hope you're having a nice summer vacation!! get some rest and have fun, i'm sending a lot of love <3

about shadow and bone, i agree, season 2 was so disappointing. the cast is everything i dreamed about, i love them so much, but everything else... i still can't believed they combined s&s and r&r and somehow managed to erase half of alina's story. i think it's so disrespectful with the fans and even with jessie mei li, we lost a lot of character depth and all of her internal battle, i was pissed

and there's some things that were just so ???

i mean, nikolai is this incredible privateer and tolya and tamar are great and they have so much sea experience, but still they decided to go walking with alina, mal and 3 other guys into that little cavern to try and kill something called the sea whip, a million years mythological monster. it doesnt make any sense.

all of genya's arc was messed up, i was so mad that they kept the king during all of vasily's dinner but they had to kill him there so she wouldn't be able to do the "i'm not ruined, i'm ruination" moment. and yes, she confronted the queen, but it's SUCH a moment in the book when she gathers up confidence to confront the man who abused her for years and we were robbed. also, they gave her like, two scars

the darkling looked like he was dying the whole season, if alina didn't kill him, he would've died of pneumonia in two weeks lol

and they did the crows so dirty, if we do get the spin off i wonder how the hell they're going to justify inej's return. she has absolutely no reason to join the heist, she's already free and in a ship living her best life

and yes, mal as sturmhond was traumatizing. and so was the little hint at tolya and inej possibly being a couple. i wanted to cry.

but sujaya was so pretty and her little wink when zoya is talking to alina made me faint so that was great. paddy as nikolai had me in a chokehold the entire time and honestly, every single actor is so good in that show

OMG ERAS TOUR!!! tell me EVERYTHING when you go, the video clips i've seen of her past performances look INCREDIBLE. does this mean you get to see sabrina carpenter too??

and yes, all of your shadow and bone thoughts are so correct. i mean it KILLS me because the show should be so good! their casting was incredible and the costumes are fantastic and the cgi is good and the locations are great... and the source material worked just fine... but no, they butchered everything. there was no reason to do that! i know shows are getting canceled left and right so they felt like they had to streamline it so they could get to everything but girl... WHY

it was so great to hear from you!! hoping you're doing well too xoxo

[sunspray-peak]

Ch. 27: The Dance of the Moonlight Jellies

SUNDAY - SUMMER 28

Achilles had a late start the next morning, having stayed up all night writing. But even so, he found some time in his not-so-busy schedule to brave the aisles of Joja to purchase a radio and a dual battery and hand-powered lantern. 

At least let someone who doesn’t go to bed at 7pm know you’re out there drifting about the Gem Sea, will you?

He stuck his note inside the shopping bag with a dramatic flourish witnessed by nobody before shoving his purchases into the Mullner’s mailbox and walking away with a satisfied dust of his hands.

*****

To a rather significant degree of surprise, Achilles had received a text that afternoon from none other than Shane asking if he wanted to head down to the beach with him and Jas for tonight’s festival. 

He met the pair down by Marnie’s ranch (Marnie herself had gone down earlier to, supposedly, assist Lewis with the set up), and with a small nod, asked Shane, “How have things been?” 

An empty beat filled only by the soft thump of Jas’ footsteps as she ran ahead. Shane watched her spritely sprint down the path before taking another moment to wipe his chin and responding with his usual sloppy shrug, “Not bad. Or at least, better, I guess…” 

“Good. You look good.” 

And he did. The bloat had almost entirely disappeared from Shane’s face and the hand grasping a can of cola was sure and steady. Even the bags under his eyes seemed lighter, and his stubble was as neatly shaved as Achilles had ever seen it. 

“Welp… thanks.”

 He had addressed the ground, but Achilles knew him well enough at this point not to take the lack of eye contact as a sign that Shane considered the conversation over. “Everything going all okay with Joja?” 

“Buh.” Shane fiddled with the ties of his blue Joja hoodie—for someone who hated the company as much as he did, he sure provided them with plenty of free advertising. “Same old soul crushing crushing-ness… But I’ve gotten better at coping, that’s somethin’ right? Just taking it day by day…”

Soul crushing… Once again, those words seemed to ring a bell in Achilles’ head. But this time, now out of the hazy, pneumonia-clouded woods, he quickly recognized why the phrase was so familiar. 

“That’s how I felt. At BRLO,” Achilles said, more for his own benefit and clarification than Shane’s. “It’s wild how different I felt after I quit… lighter…” 

“Oh yeah?” Shane now turned to look beadily up at him. A small crunching noise revealed Shane had gripped the can of cola just a smidge tighter. “Welp… some of us don’t have that luxury…”  

“Fuck, sorry, that’s not what I meant.” You idiot. But maybe he could redeem himself, for an idea had just struck him. Oh, perhaps he ought to take some time to think more about it… oh, who cares, why the hell not? 

“Actually—well. Shane, you mentioned once you wanted to get into farming. I… clearly do not use my farm. Would you be interested in doing anything with it? I’d pay for any equipment, any seeds, you’d be free to use the land however. We could maybe split the profit, say… 65/35?” 

Shane froze mid step. The can of cola in his hand completely crushed in his grip, rivulets trickling down his fingers.  

Achilles had pulled the percentage out of his ass. This was what happened when one was impulsive… had he just offended Shane with his offer? What was a typical rate? “The 65 would go to you, just to be clear. I mean, if you don’t think that’s fair, I’m happy to negotiate—”

“No, that’s… Do you mean it?” 

“Oh. Yeah, for sure. Of course. I’m not using any of it, and Pierre and Lewis are always giving me shit for “denying the valley fresh produce”—which, for the record, I don’t really understand, you’d think they’d be used to it since the Valley hasn’t had that since my grandpa moved out like 20 years ago… Just tell me what you need, come by anytime. Perhaps we can work out a schedule.” 

“Ah yes. Maybe a Sacred To-Do List, too?” 

It seemed Achilles wasn’t the only one with a good poker face, though Shane’s nostrils were still flaring slightly as the man struggled to hold back one of his usual one-note chuckles. Achilles shot him a goodhearted glare. 

“Sure. Why not. Fall’s coming up tomorrow—I’ll actually be out all day, but just let me know what you need…” 

Shane snorted and resumed walking, a new bounce in each of his steps. It was small—barely perceptible—but it was there. 

“Thanks. This is great. Thanks a lot.” 

*****

Alex had said the “Dance of the Moonlight Jellies” (who had come up with the name? Lewis?) wasn’t the most popular of festivals, but even so, the docks and beach were crowded with a still-impressive number of tourists. Mostly older folk, as Alex had mentioned, although Achilles also took note of the high percentage of nervous young couples. 

“Over here!” came a cry. 

They glanced over to Elliott who was waving to them both from one of the emptier docks. 

“Best views over here reserved for townsfolk family and friends!” 

They gently pushed their way through, stepping on a couple of toes in the process. Shane followed Jas to stand by Jodie and Vincent. Most of the villagers hadn’t yet arrived. Why bother, Achilles supposed, if their spots were reserved.

There was Pierre, his arm around Caroline, while Abigail huddled around a lantern with Sebastian and Sam. Penny was also there early, holding hands with a man Achilles didn’t recognize. Huh. Good for her. 

 Achilles made his way over to Elliott who clasped him on the back. 

“This is my most favorite festival,” the man said. “The most glorious, majestic of sights… I had to arrive early to obtain for us the utmost, best seats on the dock. I’ve purchased lanterns here for us and Leah so we can make sure to get a prime look at the jellyfish. Water soluble they are, of course—all the lanterns for the event are. Specially designed by Miss Maru and Demetrius—we’ve got to keep pollution out of the sea!” 

The sun began its descent and the beach continued to slowly fill up. Leah joined them shortly, but with her own custom decorated lantern, to Elliott’s slight chagrin.

Alex arrived, as Achilles knew he would, with Tanya, the two of them taking spaces behind Pierre and Caroline. Her arm was clasped tightly around his, although Alex, who Achilles had most definitely noticed awhile ago was generally a fairly touchy person, looked a little stiff. Though perhaps, he thought to himself with a wry smile, you’re overthinking it. 

Haley, who had arrived shortly after them, caught Achilles watching the pair and shot him the most dramatic eye roll. Although whether that was at him or in solidarity with him (given her thoughts on Tanya)… with Haley, he was never quite sure. 

Just as the sun disappeared over the horizon, a cascade of candlelight and accompanying gasps flickered across the edge of the docks and down the sandy shore, illuminating everyone and everything in a soft, warm glimmer.  

Lewis cleared his throat and began to make his way towards a tiny stage that had been set up right by the water, a torch in his hand. 

Elliott suddenly squeezed Achilles’ hand in anticipation. “Oh, this never fails to disappoint! Prepare your lanterns, my friend!” 

Lewis had reached the shore where, after gesturing for everyone to quiet down, he untied a tiny boat—scarcely a foot long—with a candlestick inside, and set it off into the sea. At this signal, the lucky folks who had brought their own lanterns sent theirs drifting into the waters as well. 

“Just a few minutes more,” Elliott whispered, “But they’ll be here soon! Oh, my dear friend, I cannot wait for you to see them!”

Achilles hadn’t shared that he had technically already seen them the day before—swam with them, actually. It would break his heart to spoil Elliott’s secondhand excitement. The man was now bouncing on his heels and clasping Achilles’ forearm in both his hands. 

Eagle eyed Jas saw the first jellies bobbing from the horizon. Illuminated by the pale candlelight, their shimmering bodies flickered and glowed, ranging in colors from creamy white to pale blue to indigo and violet as they swam just inches beneath the waves. Gasps and oohs and aahs swept across the beach, but they quickly subsided as the onlookers moved to observe in wondrous silence. 

Elliott had chosen a most perfect spot—they were as close as they could be, just a few feet away from the gentle jellies floating underneath their feet. Even through the cracks of the dock, Achilles could make out their neon luminescence.  

It was beautiful. There was absolutely no denying that. A unique, shared moment of calm among a crowd as all observed the hypnotizing allure of the vibrant jellies’ slow, pulsating motion under the silvery light of the full moon. 

And yet, Achilles couldn’t help think to himself, none of it quite captured the same magic he had felt swimming in the golden glow of yesterday’s sunset with Alex. 

As if he heard his thoughts, Alex, whose arm was now around Tanya’s shoulders, broke his gaze from the waters to turn and catch Achilles’ eye.

In response, Achilles nodded to Tanya and flashed him an inquiring look, to which Alex merely winked and, grinning, gave a one shouldered shrug before turning back to the jellies. It was a brief interaction, just something small between them two. Nobody else seemed to have noticed it. 

Well, at least not Elliott, that was for sure. The sight if the jellies was too much for the man, who, despite this being his fifth year of residence in Stardew Valley, had withdrawn a handkerchief and was now struggling to blow his nose softly. 

“Oh how Mother Nature blesses us! It is all just… so beautiful,” he whispered to Achilles, a crack in his voice. “The romance of it all…” 

Ah yes, the romance of it all. Achilles had to stop himself from laughing at the sight of Elliott dabbing his eyes, and instead snuck another glance at Alex and Tanya, who was now resting her head on Alex’s shoulder. 

He had expected to feel irked at the sight, or, at the very least, a little sad. But instead, he felt… fine. Good, even. Perhaps last night’s peculiarly good mood hadn’t yet fully seen itself out. 

He was, after all, never going to actually be with Alex—not in that way. He had known from the beginning, his feelings had been instinctual—as physical attraction often was. And even though he had since fallen in love now, well—he still didn’t think himself ready for a relationship, and the fact of that matter was, Alex was straight anyway.

Logically, there was no reason for any late night pining or journaled manifestations or heartfelt confessions. He had always refused to let his mind go anywhere down those paths—what was the point? No, there had only ever been a message in a bottle. Nothing more. Nothing reciprocated. And that was fine with him. Yes, Achilles was, for once, grateful for what he had here. 

The festival was short, scarcely half an hour, for, as Elliott explained, they ought not disturb the jellies on their journey home for too long. And so, Achilles bid him farewell, returning to the farm by way of Cindersap with Leah, Shane, Marnie, and Jas. 

His Summer of rest, relaxation, and recreation was over. He had learned how to swim. Nice! He had gotten pneumonia. Not so nice. Quite a few post it notes could be checked off with a smiley face. 

He had had a whole season to stop and smell the flowers, and yet, he wasn’t sure what exactly, if anything, he had learned from it. The feeling of dread that had plagued him at the end of Spring was beginning to stir again. It was time for business, he supposed—although what the business would be, he still wasn’t entirely sure. 

Perusing the notebook in which he had been scrawling his various “self-discovery” lists proved fruitless. There was simply nothing there with potential. Oh those lucky few, who were actually good at what they liked… 

But a Summer’s worth of nothing had already been far too much nothing. It was time to cast aside any remaining delusions of grandeur and commit to at least something for the “meantime.” He had told Elliott that sometimes one ought to just plow ahead, even through the shit, to overcome writer’s block. Perhaps it was the same with life. Perhaps it was time to get a job. 

Perhaps Camille could help him sort himself out. She was good at that, if you could get her to do it. Yes, he had, at the very least, concrete plans for tomorrow. Seeing her would be good. 

All being said, he went to bed with relative peace of mind, given the circumstances, although the same couldn’t be said for his subconscious. 

Was it simply simmering anxiety that was cause for the whispers and wraiths and shadowy figures that weaved through his nightmares that night? Or was it something else that was lurking in the wings of his mind as Summer quickly faded into Fall?  

Ultimately, it didn’t matter—for when he woke the next morning to Shane knocking on his door at the crack of dawn, he had already long forgotten his dreams. 

[subtletruamadumping]

The Epilogue

______________________________________________________________

A short-form work that I wrote while struggling to keep myself from falling into doomerism about the world. I find myself often fighting between giving all of myself to the point of exhaustion or giving up all hope entirely when all that effort makes little to no immediate difference.

Written on April 7th, 2023

______________________________________________________________

“Don't you think it's a little messed up? Us just laying here? Watching it happen? Pretending we're watching a sunset or the stars or something?”

“We are not pretending. At least, I'm not. It's happening and I've at least come to terms with it. It's over. We lost.”

“I feel like it's a little bit sadistic. We're just relaxing here on a hill among the flowers, like it's a pleasant afternoon at the park while the sky burns above us.”

“Probably more masochistic than anything.”

“It feels so wrong. It's just... I can't believe it's over just like that. After fighting for so long.”

“That's life, I guess.”

“I don't understand how you could possibly laugh about this.”

“It’s an anxious laugh. You know I hate sitting here, doing nothing. I know it’s over but I can’t help but feel guilty to just… be still. Watching the world end instead of doing something to try and stop it.”

“What else can we do? Look at it. We couldn't do anything else if we tried. We gave it all we got. We did all we could.”

“Did we?”

“I did. Didn't you?”

“I mean, I took that summer off.”

“You had pneumonia.”

“We didn’t go to every protest we could have.”

“It’s physically impossible to be in two places at once. Even for you.”

“We're just laying here right now… ”

“There is legitimately nothing else we can do. It's already started. I wouldn't be surprised if there's only a few minutes before we are gone, too.”

“I just… I wanted to go down fighting. It feels wrong. Like we're just surrendering, just letting it happen. I wanted to fight until the end.”

“You were at the Capitol yesterday.”

“I mean the very end. Fighting until the very last breath.”

“We did fight until the end. The end already happened. This is after the end.”

“The epilogue?”

“Something like that.”

“It looks like it's getting closer.”

“It is.”

“How much longer, do you think?”

“I don't know, but I bet we'll be able to feel it when time is running out. We'll know when it's here.”

“That's what we said years ago. We should have been able to stop it. I should have fought more.”

“You couldn’t have possibly carried the whole world on your shoulders. We did what we could. We did everything right. We fought to a detriment to ourselves and we still wound up here. Like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's just that there's so much of our lives that we'll never get back. All those late nights crossing borders, march after march, screaming our throats raw… sometimes I just think about everything we missed out on.”

“There were more important things.”

“I know, I know.”

“It was the literal fate of the world.”

“I know, but… We could have gotten married, even if we had to do it in secret. We could have gone to other countries, seen the world together. We could have simply been together more. Lay together on a hill just like this and watch birds and clouds go by, not the apocalypse.”

“I always knew I would go out in a fiery blaze of glory.”

“I always wanted us to grow old together.”

“We don't always get what we want and sometimes what we want isn't what will be good for the world. That's just life.”

“Is it or is it just what our lives ended up having to be?”

“You regret it?”

“Of course not. It's just... A tough pillow swallow, I guess. We sacrificed so much and it amounted to nothing.”

“It wasn't nothing. We helped so many people. We were a small role, sure, but it was the right thing to do.”

“We were a small role, but it played such a large role in our lives. We were apart for months at a time.You had to stop seeing your family altogether.”

“Yes, and in return we helped other families and reunited other couples. We took down laws and corrupt politicians.”

“Just for this to happen? It's not fair. How could all of our hard work amount to nothing? We were doing the right thing. Why are we getting punished? Why is the entire world suffering because of a few rich assholes who had no respect for human life?”

“I mean, that dickhead up on that podium was lying through his teeth for years to gain the power he accumulated. It was rigged from the jump, just like we always thought.”

“But why did so many people believe him? Why couldn't they hear us?”

“Some did.”

“Not enough to make a difference, in the end.”

“It made a difference to the ones who got to escape. The ones who didn’t end up in jail of six feet under, back when we had enough time to bury people. It made a difference to the ones we were able to change, to show them exactly how harmful their views were. We made a difference. We were what someone needed, at one point or another.”

“At our own expense.”

“You do regret it, then.”

“I regret not having more time with you, never the things we did to help others. I guess we were just too selfless for our own good.”

“Now who’s the one laughing at the end of the world?”

“I'm laughing at the irony of the situation.”

“Yeah, so we're laughing at the end of the world.”

“You know, we've said that so many times and yet it still seems so surreal. ‘You'll destroy the world. You're gonna kill us all. The end is near.’ We were basically those street-corner, doom and gloom preachers by the end.”

“To be fair, that is really off putting to some people. I know we were desperate, but I think we might have had more luck if we–”

“Well, they said it too. They knew damn well what they were doing. They told us they didn't care. He stood up on that stage and so proudly announced that he was going to be the last person ever with his kind of power. He would rather kill us all than give up his title. And he did. I don't understand how people could watch him do what he did, hear him say the words from his very own mouth, and still deny that anything was wrong. He told us that. He said it into a microphone and broadcasted it to the entire world.”

“Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

“Ew, are you really quoting movies at a time like this?”

“Ew, are you really participating in cringe culture at a time like this?”

“The aliens that find the ruins of this place are going to find our signatures on so many petitions.”

“I don't think any petitions are going to survive this, honestly. I don't even think they'll be much of anything for anybody to find. Probably a good thing. We mostly just fucked shit up, anyway, and not in a good way. ‘We’ as in humanity as a whole. I feel like we, you and I, were pretty alright people.”

“We missed your mom's last birthday.”

“But we saved that boy's life.”

“By sacrificing our own?”

“Come on, we still had a few years to live after that. We’re still alive… for now.”

“Metaphorically. Sacrificed having a stable, comfortable life.”

“It didn't even feel like a sacrifice, at the time.”

“Did it when she passed?”

“It was war. Even if the media didn't call it that. Even if the weapons are used for legislature, speeches, disinformation, witchunts... It was a war.”

“I don't know if it was. More like a murder-suicide. They wanted to die with their power and they took the rest of us out with them.”

“Insanity.”

“What else could it have been?”

“I wonder how many more people would have taken. How many more people could we have pleaded, debated, and talked with to save it. How many more marches and protests do you think would have been enough to save us? One? 10? 100?”

“None.”

“Really? You think there was nothing we could have done to stop it from happening?”

“I don't know. I always kind of felt like we were screaming into the void. I can only see so many people ignoring so much death and destruction for so long before it gets to the point where it's hard to have any hope.”

“I can't think like that. It makes my stomach churn. I have to believe there was something we could have done.”

“That seems so much worse to me. That there was a chance we just didn't give enough.”

“It's better than feeling like we gave so much for nothing. Because I did want that life. You know I did. I wanted to be able to settle down with you, buy our own place. Hell, you could have even swayed me on the kids thing. It just wasn’t in the cards for us. It’s fine, though. I loved every second of us. It was a good life. Short and sweet.”

“It could have been long and sweet. Or still short, but sweeter.”

“How? If we had sat back and done nothing, sure, we would have been able to enjoy those moments, but then we wouldn't have gotten to make all the changes that we did.”

“Do you think we could have been happy if we hadn't gotten involved?”

“Were you not happy?”

“I was. I am. But do you think if we had just moved somewhere else, put ourselves first, we might have been able to live a little more?”

“I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had turned a blind eye. I don't know if I would have ever gotten over the shame of running away like that.”

“I'm not saying we would have just ignored it all, just gotten a little more distance. Tried to spend more time focusing on all of the joy we could have had instead of constantly serving ourselves and suffering in the name of helping.”

“We were where we needed to be to help the most people. It would have been so much harder from further away.”

“But it still would have been possible and a lot safer. A lot less hectic.”

“We might have grown complacent.”

“I don't think you have the ability to be complacent.”

“I am now. Just letting it all come crumbling down, viewing it as if it's just entertainment to distract us from the end.”

“It is quite beautiful, as horrible as that is to say.”

“A lovely disaster.”

“A tragic spectacle.”

“An artistic… crap, I'm all out of synonyms.”

“Really? With all of that poetry you read? None of that is helping you out right now?”

“Damn. Excuse me but I've got other things on my mind right now.”

“You never wrote that book.”

“Real life was taking up too much of my time. Didn't have the bandwidth for a fictional one, too.”

“That's sad.”

“Nah, It's fine. Probably wouldn't have been any good anyway.”

“It would have been amazing.”

“It would have been wordy and boring and no one would have read it.”

“I would have.”

“And you would have hated it.”

“But I would have still read it. It would have been a part of you and I would have loved it because it was a part of you. Can't promise I would have liked the plot though. I would definitely have kept it on the coffee table so everyone who came in would see it.”

“Like putting a little kid’s artwork up on the fridge.”

“Something like that.”

“We should have gotten married.”

“I've been telling you that for years.”

“Will you marry me?”

“It takes the actual end of the world for you to finally propose?”

“Will you?”

“It's too late now. I don't think the last few minutes we have will be any different whether we’re engaged or not.”

“It doesn't matter if it means nothing in the end. It could mean something to us now.”

“It's just the two of us. We've been together for all this time without it, already. We don’t need it. We're fine just as we are right now. I just want to let right now happen. Let us just be us for as long as we have left.”

“I know I should have asked sooner. I sorry–”

“Don’t do that. Please. Not now.”

“You’re right, it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing we can do about it now.”

“We did what we could with what we had.”

“Like we are now? Doing what we can with the time we have left?”

“That's just who we are, I guess.”

“A match made in heaven.”

“Something like that.”

“Do you feel it?”

“I'm starting to.”

“Not much longer.”

“It’s okay.”

“It's coming so fast. I don't know what to do.”

“Don't do anything. Just stay here with me. Hold my hand?”

“Of course.”

“For all the times we couldn't?”

“And for all the times we did it anyway.”

“Do you think it'll hurt?”

“Probably, but not for long.”

“I’m scared.”

“So am I.”

“Promise to meet again in the next life?”

“If there is one.”

“Love you.”

“Love

[prankprincess123]

I know intellectually that most women are insecure about their bodies at multiple points in their life, and that it merely being a teenage girl thing is a untrue stereotype. But as a teenager is when I was the most confident about my body.

Between 12 and 16yo I grew 6in and 60lbs; I went from a 5'2" 60lbs matchstick to 5'8" 120lbs and able to carry around someone equal my weight for an hour and barely notice. I had a six pack, could swim an entire lap before I needed to come up for air, was training for triathlons 6 days a week, and considered a 10km bikeride a light workout. I was ripped, had great hair, and rarely ever had pimples. I was absolutely stunning, and I knew it. I even worked in the fashion industry one summer.

But now I'm in my 20s, and physically can't exercise anywhere near how much I want to. I got whats called walking pneumonia, that the doctors didn't identify till I'd been sick for 6 months, at which point I'd coughed so hard I'd broken 3 ribs and had severe scarring in my lungs that I'm still in physio for 8y later. I messed up my knee in a biking accident, and 7y later the doctors still don't know what I did or how to fix it beyond prescribing more physio. Add in several concussions, and you guessed it more physio each time, as well as increasing lengths of time before being allowed to go back to sports. And then a severely broken elbow, and yep, more physio! And between school eating my time and the pain from these injuries, physiotherapy often ends up the only regular exercise I get. I've both gained weight and lost insane amounts of muscle. The muscles in my right arm especially atrophied after being in various casts and slings for 3 months this year. Even with both arms I couldn't even lift my 7yo brother (🐻) from the lake onto the boat this summer, and almost cried. Intelectually I know I'm still gorgeous regardless, and I know I'm still fairly fit even, and my clothing sizes haven't even changed just how they fit has, but I've never been more insecure about my body in my life.

It used to be that even the most fitted shirt on me was tight in the arms and shoulders and giant in the torso, and now I'm purposely picking baggy shirts and/or high waisted jeans to try and hide the little bit of a tummy I now have. I used to be super proud of the stretch marks on my thighs because they were from how much my muscles grew, but seeing them on sagging flab rather than tight muscle makes me shy away from wearing swimsuits without shorts or a skirt overtop.

And I hate it.

Not in a body shaming way, cause dang can you look good with any body shape/size if you carry yourself with pride and know how to dress for your body, but in that I don't feel like ME anymore with my new figure.

And I know I physically can't be exercising the same way or amounts anymore, and that's why my body composition has drastically changed, but that almost makes it worse because I can't do anything to fix it. I'm vibrating with energy I need to burn, but I can't. I'm starving for the endorphins and dopamine rush of a good workout, but I can't. I'm uncomfortable in my own skin and desperately want to fix it and know exactly how to, but I can't. I need to be able to move - fast and constantly - for both my mental and physical health, but I can't. And it is so freaking painful that I can't.

[elviratheepic]

Idk if I'll stick with this, but I've been in hospital for over a week now and I can feel my brain turning to mush, so I'm thinking it might be good to post like a journal thingy here. I can just throw my thoughts to the void and if anyone feels like throwing any thoughts back at me, maybe I'll reminded what human interaction is lol

And who knows, maybe some bits and pieces of my experiences rn might be handy to someone who ends up seeing it. This is a weird time for me, maybe someone else around here's having, has had or will have some similar weird times and we'll have made a little connection even if we don't speak :)

I mentioned it briefly in a post on my art blog, but to flesh it out a bit, I've been generally run down and really quite unwell like all summer and now into autumn. Been back and forth to the doctor, told I have chest infections, possible asthma, etc. I get booked in for an xray and then something looks weird so a ct scan, still thinking it's pneumonia with some odd symptoms, then a couple days later I get a call from my doctor telling me i am going to the hospital asap, there's a bunch of fluid in my chest that should not be there and also they need to check for lymphoma. I've never been to hospital for more than an orthodontist appointment and while not as surprised as I could be expected to be by the thought of cancer due to having had a weird anxiety fixation thing on the idea for a while (fun coincidence), it was still a bit of an ordeal lol. This was 10 days ago and I have not been home since. I've been coping pretty well considering the wild lack of control I feel over literally anything rn. The steroids they've got me on rn while I wait for further treatment have me feeling better than I have in a long while, and mentally the worst I've been dealing with is some fairly mild dissociation. Just kind of taking things as they come for now, rolling with things as best I can especially while so many things are kind of a bit up in the air and subject to change.

But I mean drama aside, the current diagnosis for me is pretty good. The cancer as it appears right now is treatable and has a pretty great cure rate. It's a "primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma" according to the leaflet I've got. It's high grade, so fast acting and aggressive but that actually makes these easier to get rid of than low grade slower working ones. It's hanging out next to my heart so that's the reason I've had all these bullshit symptoms in my chest cuz it's just been fuckin shit up in there and irritating its roommates. They've got me booked in for a pet scan day after tomorrow cuz the scanner was having issues so they couldn't get me in sooner, then the plan is to start chemotherapy the next day. Which will be an experience. The treatment plan we've basically already decided is 6 21-day cycles of chemo where I'll be in hospital for about 5 days getting monitored and adjusted treatment, then going home for the rest and coming back to start the cycle again. It's not going to be the most fun and easy experience of my life but tbh I've done hard things before and I know I'm capable of doing this. Not that this kind of thing can ever really come at a "good" time, but I think that personally I'm pretty lucky this came along at the point in my life it did. I've been able to spend the last couple years basically building myself back up from feeling entirely lost, shattered and directionless after a pretty traumatic attempt at university durring covid lockdowns. I'm maybe lacking in some life experience people my age tend to have, but ultimately I have confidence, strength and self-awareness now that I do not take for granted. Basically I got the chance to reinforce my foundations in unkowing preparation for this whole thing. Honestly, I'm kind of just curious who I'll be on the other side of this experience - wherever that may be.

My main concern has been my siblings. I'm the oldest of 3 and we're all very close, spend a lot of time together and are at the core of eachothers' support systems. One of them's got college stress and deadlines, the other's out of school with anxiety issues rn, and my instinct is to be there as a support. And of course they would be supporting me too, it's not all give, they're amazing at being there for me too especially while I've been unwell (I love them so so much and I'm proud of everything they do can you tell lol). But while they have been visiting when they can, we don't get so much time together rn with me being in hospital and I feel like it's hard to get a gauge on how things really are with eachother at the moment which is rough with there being so much change going on rn. I know we'll figure things out, but I can't help worrying about them a bit, I feel like it's kind of my job lol

Oof can you tell it's getting late and my brain's going sleepy ramble mode? Idk if I'm even making much sense but hey

The ward I've been moved to for this is good. It's a cancer ward for teens and young adults with a common room area funded by the teenage cancer trust. There's guitars, a ps4, craft supplies and free snacks. It feels so weird that like that space is for me to use, like I'm kinda tresspassing on something for people who need it more than I do. But the ward's fairly quiet and not so busy at the moment, so when my siblings and briefly my friend came to visit me today, we basically had free reign of the space without having to disturb anyone. I feel more comfortable in there than I did, and I think it's a good space for my siblings to be when they come visit. I'm really greatful they get to use it with me - even if I feel kind of like others deserve the space more (ik im being silly), seeing them get good use and some fun out of it today was good and reassuring. It's reassuring to hear people talking about there being support systems for siblings too should they need them. Especially when it feels like I can't look out for them so much in the ways I normally would.

But yeah, I think that's about all that's in my brain for right now. I'll look back on this tomorrow and realise none of this actually made any sense lol

But yeah basically got thrown a bit of a curveball lately as life tends to do, but there's answers now where there wasn't before, and the path ahead's starting to make itself visible. It sucks, but I've been worse. I'm not just saying that for the sake of offsetting the fact that it sucks, I'm just taking the the little wins where i can cuz I know that's gotten me through plenty rough and sucky times before.

Some little wins:

Woke up to magpies outside the window this morning. One came right up to the glass to say hi, but I couldn't snap a picture in time lol <3

My friend brought me a rainbow sensory slug companion, and I made a pipecleaner creature named Spigley while my siblings were here. They are friends and will be my chemo companions :)

(Idk if that's a mouth or a moustache but i think it suits him either way)

[gloryintheflowers]

I miss you so much I can’t breathe (and I mean that literally)

My dearest aunt barb,

How are you? Where are you? And what is it like there?

I never used to think much about what happened after death. Even when I was suicidal, I could only think of my pain ending— I never put a lot of thought into what would happen after. I didn’t have much of an opinion— sometimes I would think that you might live on somehow. Other times I would think that you became worm food. And then Evie told me that you died and I immediately changed my mind, suddenly of the strong opinion that there is some sort of life after death. I’m biased now, I know that. But I have to believe you still exist somewhere; that you are among the people you love who have died; that you are still you, that you still love all of us and that you can feel our love, too. That you are with us in our pain and in our joy. That you are still here, even if we can’t see you, or touch you, or hear your voice.

I’ve been missing you pretty terribly today. Which isn’t that different from how much I miss you every day. But today has been one of those days where I’ve felt it down to my bones with every breath. Saturday was exactly 4 weeks since we spoke, and Sunday was three weeks since we buried you, and today was 4 weeks since it happened. A month this Saturday. I can’t believe it’s been this long. It feels like time is passing so quickly and I can’t bear it. Every day that passes brings me further away from you— from your voice and your smile and your love. It takes me further away from what feels like a different life entirely, a life where you were here and you loved me, a life where talking to you was the best part of my day and could make me smile no matter what. My life shifted on its axis when you died and I still feel wildly disoriented— kind of like when you go away to summer camp, or you move to a new apartment, or start high school or university— equal parts dizzy and homesick.

Speaking of being sick— I’ve been feeling like complete and utter shit since you died, but the last two weeks especially I’ve been feeling like fresh garbage, and it keeps getting worse. I had the flu or something last week (not covid, unless my four rapid tests were all wrong), and I thought it was getting better but then the cough came back with a vengeance. It’s been getting worse every day, and the last few days I’ve had fevers on and off, a vicious cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, the whole shebang. I had a chest x-ray and we’re assuming it’s bronchitis and I’m using an inhaler and trying to take it easy and hoping it doesn’t turn into pneumonia. The cough is awful but the shortness of breath is the worst part— sometimes it gets bad enough that I get dizzy and my heart starts racing and I really have to focus on getting air in. My friends and my mom keep telling me to go to the ER if this continues to worsen but I would rather avoid it. I just…don’t care, sort of? Like obviously I don’t want to feel like shit, but if I pass out…I don’t know, maybe being unconscious for a while wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If I stopped breathing entirely in my sleep…well, I promise you I’m not actively suicidal, even if that’s only because you’d kill me if I did that. But I do feel…mildly apathetic? Like, I don’t necessarily want to die, I’m certainly not going to attempt to die, but if it just happened, maybe while I was sleeping, so similarly to how it happened for you…maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It is so difficult to navigate this world as a disabled person. I have been trying very hard to do so anyway. But without you here life has lost all of its colour and all of its joy. It just doesn’t feel worth the effort anymore. Especially not when I feel so sick. Maybe this is what I get for thinking “I miss you so much I can’t fucking breathe” about ten times a day since it happened. But missing you does make it hard to breathe. In fact, this shortness of breath reminds me of the moments and hours after Evie told me on that crisp, sunny October morning. My breath came in rapid gasps, I vomited into my Auntie Glenna’s flower bushes, and sat by their fire pit— a little bit away from the main house so as to have a little bit of privacy— crouched into myself, struggling to inhale, sobbing in a way that sounded like heaving, choking, gasping for air. Dizzy with shock and grief. It was similar before the funeral— i woke up at 5am having such a bad panic attack that I ended the night curled up on the bathroom floor and crying to my mother on the phone, traumatized by my own imagination which had made me dream of you dead, still and silent, looking nothing like yourself, being cleansed, being prayed over, being shrouded. Imagining you in a casket being flown across the country. Dreaming of your hands— those hands that I loved so deeply, that held mine so often and without hesitation, that introduced me to the idea that physical touch could make me feel loved— could make me feel like I was somehow worthy of love. Those hands that squeezed mine, that ran your fingers through my hair, that rubbed my back as I cried. I kept imagining them cold and stiff and still, never to hold mine again. It made me feel like my throat was closing. I had to take several Xanax just to get off the floor. So you see, you being dead does steal my breath. Bronchitis just does it a little differently.

A few years ago, in summer 2020, Jade and I took a course through Western called “The Psychology of Physical Health,” and in that course there was a chapter on psychoneuroimmunology— or basically, the study of how our psychological state impacts our immune system and our overall state of health. It’s a growing field and I remember finding it interesting. Like, did you know that depression can make you more likely to succumb to cancer or develop heart disease? Or that anxiety can trigger autoimmune disease, or cause it to flare up? And did you know that grief affects your body in several ways— including releasing stress hormones that, among other things, cripple your immune system?

What I’m trying to say is that when I looked over at your photo the other day after a painful coughing fit and croaked out “I’m blaming you for this, by the way,” the science backs me up on that.

(And also, I was joking. Mostly. I would take this a thousand times over if it would bring you back.)

(Please come back to me.)

It’s not surprising that grief and being ill don’t exactly make each other better. A few nights ago my fever spiked. I dreamt of you, as I often do, but this fever dream felt so real that when I woke up into this hellish reality where you are dead, I was immediately launched into a bad panic attack. I took a Xanax and went onto my balcony for cold, fresh air and I tried to steady my breathing, which despite my breathlessness was trying to form sobs. Whenever I feel, for even a moment, the full truth of this— that you are gone forever, that I will never hear your voice again, that this is not temporary and I will never hug you again— I violently push those thoughts to the back of my mind. If I let myself really think about it I think I’d go mad. I think I’d start to scream and never stop. I think I’d want to die too.

You never told me that so much of surviving grief is trying not to think about it. You also never told me how impossible that feels.

Today, everything has reminded me of you. I came home after being out for a few hours and feeling awful and exhausted and my first thought was “I can’t wait to just go lie down and call Aunt Barb.” And then my breath caught in my chest as I remembered. Small things kept cropping up— like when I’d think of something I wanted to tell you, or when I passed the greeting card aisle at the drugstore and remembered the birthday card I already bought for you that is still sitting on my desk. Or when my dad and I talked and my first thought after hanging up was that you’d probably have something interesting to say about some of the things he said. And when he told me just to be grateful for the time I did have for you. I wanted to scream— because I’m so grateful for you, and I was just as grateful when you were here. But I can be grateful for the time I was so lucky to have with you and also miss you more than I can bear. I can be grateful for nearly ten years feeling so loved by you, while simultaneously needing more time with you. And I know you’d understand that. So when he said that to me it made me ache. I never thought you’d be the first one to go, you know? Somehow I was always sure it would be one of my other grandparents. I feel like a horrible person for saying it but I wish it was. My Baba, talking about you, told me “I never thought I’d outlive her. She was healthier and stronger.” And I’m not proud of it, but my first thought was— I thought so too— I’d hoped so, even. Obviously I’d have rather no one died at all, but I always kind of took for granted that I would have you there as a source of love and comfort when I experienced my first real loss as an adult. You have taught me so much about grief, but I still kind of thought you’d be there to help guide me through it when I lost someone myself.

I never thought it was likely that you’d be that someone. It happened so suddenly. No one was expecting it. I’m sure you weren’t either. Did you know, in that moment, that you were dying? Did it hurt? Were you afraid?

I didn’t take much with you for granted, other than, apparently, the belief that we had more time. I know you know this. I felt such love and gratitude for you— still do, always will— and I thanked G-d every day for the incredible gift of having you in my life. There is very little that brings me comfort when it comes to you being gone. I know I should take comfort in the fact that you lived a long, full life and that you died quickly and didn’t suffer. I’m sure those things will bring me comfort, eventually, when I’m less shell-shocked. What I do take comfort in is the fact that, when it comes to the things that are most important, there were no words left unsaid between us. You know what you mean to me and vice versa. I do have regrets, and I won’t get into them now, but they’re smaller. I know that when you died you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how loved you were by so many people. How loved you are by me. I can at least take comfort in that.

I dreamt of you today. I couldn’t sleep last night (can I ever?) but I’m so sick I’m just exhausted and I basically slept through the day. I dreamt of you, as I have often both before and after— well. Both before and after. This was the first time I dreamt of you actively dying since it happened. You were in a hospice (although that hospice room looked a whole lot like the porch I slept on when I would come to visit). David and Evie were there. You were breathing but not really conscious. I kept begging you to stay with me. There was no response. Waking up was a rollercoaster ride; my first thought was “oh thank G-d that was just a dream”; my second thought was “Is it a good time to give her a call?” It took a good long moment this time for my brain to catch up to reality and when it did I wanted to die. I couldn’t cry so my jaw just dropped in a silent scream. It was waking from a nightmare and into a night terror. I’m so glad you were never sick or suffering like that. I’m so glad you lived in that home you loved until the end. I’m so glad for those things. But that was a dream and this is reality. You can wake up from a dream. There is no escape from this. And days like today— four weeks without you, feeling so far from you, wanting— no, needing— to talk to you, missing you so acutely I can’t bear it, my fever making everything feel worse— I would do just about anything to escape.

I don’t know how you did this. I always knew you were stronger than I am. I could’ve done without this clear demonstration.

I miss you so much. I love you so much. Please, please come back to me. In any form. Show me you’re still here. I can’t feel you. You’re like a dream. I don’t know who I am— I never realized that you were such a significant part of my identity. I feel like a stranger to myself. I miss you. Please make this end. Please.

I love you forever

Emily

[ofbeastsandwizards]

THIS IS MY MESS [prt one] - avengers x reader

next chapter ->

a/n: here it is! the moment you’ve all been waiting for!! the first chapter of my timm rewrite!! I made sure to tag everyone I could find who asked to be tagged!! im so excited to finally re-release this jsjsjsjd anyways i didnt proof read this so ignore any mistakes.

pairing: avengers x teen! reader platonic

word count: 2550

warnings: use of ‘she/her’ pronouns on reader, a few curse words here and there, mention of parent death, near-death experience, heights

series summary: A 16 year old from Harlem finds herself ensnared in a tangle of problems when she literally falls into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the object of her absolute affection.

chapter summary: [Y/n] [L/n] usually likes to mind her own business. Especially after retrieving her favorite movies. But today, she took a different path, that may have changed her entire universe.

———

OUR UNIVERSE - PRESENT DAY NYC

[Y/n] [L/n] was a frequent visitor of Mel’s Comics, a ragtag little comic book shop in the heart of Harlem, New York.

Just a skip and a hop from her Grandmother’s apartment, it was one of the only places [Y/n] felt at home, it was a place she could feel herself, a place where expectation melted away like ice cream on warm summer’s day. It was her sanctuary.

And so, it was no surprise that Mel’s was also her supplier of all her Marvel needs. They kept their racks fully stocked, and it was the only comic book store she could find that housed the full collection of rentable Marvel Cinematic Universe content.

Of course, the MCU movies rarely lined the shelves with how often [Y/n] made it her mission to rent them to the very last second. Today was no different.

A mish-mash of movie phases were squished in her arms as she approached the checkout counter. The man running the counter, Jeremy, a lanky man in his thirties, with bleach-blonde hair and wire-rimmed spectacles, was a close friend of the young teenager.

Although they often only talked when [Y/n] spent her time occupying the peeling walls of Mel’s Comics, they got along splendidly.

Jeremy tilted his glasses away from his nose, and offered the young girl a kind smile. “Got another haul today, [N/n]?”

[Y/n] gave him a wide grin, nodding her head as she lugged the DVD’s onto the countertop.

Jeremy let out a dry laugh. “Geez, [Y/n], how many times are you going to watch these things? You know you can buy them, right?”

[Y/n] waved her hand dismissively. “Psh. Why take away the magic of coming here to rent them every week?”

Jeremy hummed, and continued to ring up the movies, and tapped away at his computer. [Y/n]’s name was always the first to pull up in the rental system, as she was oftentimes the only one to consistently rent the movies.

“Alrighty. With the family and friends discount, that’ll be-“

“Ten fifty.” [Y/n] finished, pulling out a wad of cash from her front jean pocket. Jeremy pulled the green paper out of her hands and counted it out, removing a few dollars from the cash register and handing it to [Y/n].

“I got my backpack today, so I think I can pass on the bag.” [Y/n] informed, and Jeremy nodded, pushing the stack of movies towards her. She pulled the backpack off her back, and shuffled the plastic containers into the large pocket of her bag, and zipped it closed. “Thanks, Jer!”

“Sure thing. And be careful out there, kid. It’s a bit icy today.”

[Y/n] laughed. “When am I not careful?” She pushed open the glass door, a small bell chiming as she exited the tiny shop. She stood outside for a moment, sucking in a deep breath of autumn air.

Ah, that fresh, tangy, New York air.

[Y/n]’s marvel obsession stretched far beyond her frequent stops at Mel’s, or reading the latest comic addition. Her obsession fueled her entire childhood, and the characters of the marvel universe acted as compensation for the many struggles she had met early on in life.

At only age 10, her father passed away from a severe case of pneumonia. He was a talented criminal investigator, who caught the sickness unexpectedly.

When [Y/n] was very little, she wanted to follow in her fathers footsteps, and had little interest in make-believe heroes. Why would she? Her father was already a real life hero in her eyes.

But life often has other plans. When her father died, her hope of real life heroes died with him. She began to doubt the goodness of the world, and she had nobody to run to.

With her mother out of the picture, all she had left was her grandmother, who was as feisty as they came. She could take care of herself, so she had no problem declaring guardianship over young [Y/n].

When she finally began to piece her life back together, she became fixated on the marvel universe. It offered an escape, a new outlook. A world where heroes really did exist. A world, where [Y/n] could finally see good again.

Clearing her head, she began to make her trek back home. Jeremy was right, the ground had a thin layer of cracked ice all over it, coating the side-walk in a death-trap of colder months.

Taking extra caution to avoid these icy patches, she slowed to a crawl, weaving her way around tourists, and everyday commuters.

She pulled her phone out from her pocket, earbuds already connected by the plug, and unlocked it. She scrolled through her music, careful not to become too absorbed in the screen of her phone.

Then, like a bolt of lightning shooting down the sidewalk, [Y/n] felt herself being shoved to the side by a shadowy figure. Her phone went flying to the ground, and she hit the brick wall of one the storefronts beside her.

Annoyance bubbling inside her, she quickly regained her composure. “Hey! Watch it!” She barked, but the figure was already booking it down the sidewalk. Her nose crinkled, and she bent down to retrieve her cracked phone.

Great.

When she stood back up, she noticed the figure disappearing into an alleyway, and she could feel curiosity begin to grow inside her.

Before she could stop herself, her feet began to carry her in their wake, and she slipped into the same alley. Finding it empty, save for a trash bin and a few empty beer cans, she became determined to locate the mysterious stranger.

Her eyes traced the walls of the alleyway, before landing on a ladder, connected to the fire-escape of the building to her right. It lead right up to the roof, and as she tilted her head upwards, she could see the figure slink out of view above her.

With a quick once over of her surroundings, she followed suit, cold hands gripping the rusted metal bars of the ladder, and she hoisted herself up, quickly ascending the tall height of the building.

With a quick glance down, which frightened her beyond what she could ever imagine, she continued her way up, slightly out of breath once she reached the top.

There was nothing but silence at the top of the building, besides the quiet whirring of the air conditioning units that supplied cool air to the apartments below.

Ahead of her, the figure, dawning all black clothing with a saggy hood pulled over their head, climbed the scaffolding-like ladder of a crane position just a few meters from the other side of the building.

“What the hell are they doing?” [Y/n] muttered under her breath, already making her way towards the crane. Some part of her brain was screaming “Stop!” At the top of it’s lungs, only the worst possibilities of what this person could possibly do at the top of a crane, 7 stories up, came to [Y/n]’s mind.

And so, reluctantly, her brain allowed her to give chase. She neared the crane, which she would have to make a bit of a jump for, and she could feel her heart beating out of her chest.

Inside her head, a war broke out.

I’m going to die. What am I doing? I need to go back.

But what if they’re going to jump? What if they’re going to sabotage the crane? What if somebody gets hurt, and you could have prevented it?

What if I get hurt?

What if you do, but you save a life?

The ever persistent vigilante inside her won the battle. She wrapped her fingers around the bars, leaning over the edge of the building, and pulling herself over with a heave and a sharp beat of her heart. She could swear she was falling to her death, when she realized she had made it safely onto the oddly designed ladder to the top.

She picked up her pace, clawing her way up the yellow colored crane, just a few paces behind the mysterious person.

Wanting to stop them before they hurt themself, or caused any damage, she decided to call out for them.

“Hey! Wait!”

They turned only for a moment at her words, but their face was hidden beneath a mask pulled up over their nose, but their eyes bore a striking resemblance to [Y/n]’s. They hesitated for only a second, before speeding towards the top, and disappearing over the edge.

Shit!

Biting down on her lower lip in frustration, she began to climb her way further up the crane, until her shivering body clawed itself onto the flattened area above. The figure was walking precariously down the narrow bridge of the crane, and [Y/n] clung to the bars of the bridge.

“Hey! What are you doing?” She called, voice quaking.

The figure did not turn this time, and only looked down at their wrist, as if checking the time.

“Oh God.” She whispered. She sucked in a breath, and pushed herself away from the only thing holding her high above the ground. She stood up. “Please, get down from here, you’re gonna get hurt.”

They turned around at this, and their eyes widened at [Y/n]. She was shaking like a leaf. Legs splayed out, trying to maximize the amount of balance she had. Her arms reached out to her sides to steady her. The person eyed her, and they seemed to want to pull forward and comfort the young girl, but instead, they squeezed their eyes shut.

The bars creaked under [Y/n]’s weight, and she could feel herself growing more and more light-headed.

“No. No, you need to get down. Please. It’s dangerous.” Their voice was low, but rang with power.

“Come on, please. You could fall.”

They held a hand out, as if trying to stop [Y/n] from talking. “Kid, you don’t know what you’re doing. You need to turn around, and get back down to safety.”

[Y/n] shook her head. “Not without you.”

“Kid, you’re just going to get yourself hurt.”

“Oh.” [Y/n] held back a sour chuckle. “That’s rich, considering you’re the one who came up here in the first place.”

They stood there for a moment, before checking their wrist again. [Y/n] noticed the clean, square surface attached to their wrist, and noted it was probably some sort of smart watch.

“I don’t have much time.” Their eyes didn’t leave the watch. A loud crack made their eyes snap upwards, paired with the startled scream leaving [Y/n]’s mouth.

The crane’s bars that were propping her up gave out, and now, clinging desperately to the rusted metal, she was hanging there, only a slip away from death.

For a moment, time stopped for the black-clad stranger. They watched as [Y/n] eyes shut in terror, and whimpers of fear escaped her lips. They felt themself being tugged towards her, wanting desperately to save them. But the clock was ticking.

They let out a struggled breath, and balanced their weight on the bars, shuffling back to where [Y/n] clung for dear life. They bent down to her level and their voice softened.

“Hey. Hey, open your eyes, okay? Take a deep breath for me.” [Y/n]’s body was quivering, but she complied, cracking open her eyes and letting the light flood in.

They tilted their head. “Look at me, okay?”

[Y/n] did as told, but still, fear, and confusion flooded her brain. Reaching a hand up to their face, they removed their mask, pulling it down under their chin.

What [Y/n] saw might have killed her right then and there, if it weren’t for the adrenaline already coursing through her veins.

It was her. Her face, on the stranger’s. Yes, older, and more sodden, but it was hers. A scar ran deeply over the corner of her lip, and bags clung to her eyes, but [Y/n] would know herself. And this was her.

Eyes wide, [Y/n]’s mind struggled desperately to wrap itself around this. Somebody who looked like her? Doppelgänger? Coincidence?

No. [Y/n] knew that there was no such thing as coincidence. Not like this, anyway.

Her identical, as [Y/n] mentally decided upon calling her, furrowed her brows in concern and placed her gloves hands over [Y/n]’s.

[Y/n]’s lips parted. “Who are you?” She managed.

“You shouldn’t have followed me. You let curiosity get the best of you.” She looked away. “I know how that is.”

[Y/n] shook her head. “I’m scared.”

“I’m running out of time, okay? You need to take my hand.”

“I can’t- I can’t.”

[Y/n] watched as her eyes narrowed. “I am on a mission, okay? A mission I cannot miss. I have ten seconds to get you down, and if you don’t take my hand, I’m going to leave you here.”

This frightened [Y/n] more, and the sound of snapping metal filled her ears. She could feel all her emotions building like a waterfall inside her, and tears began to sprout in her eyes. Her doppelgänger backed away after a few seconds.

With a tight-lipped frown, she said, “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

[Y/n]’s eyes opened, and she watched as she went back to her perch at the edge of the crane. Fear began to fill [Y/n]’s core, and she let out any sound that came to her.

[Y/n]’s screams filled her identical’s ears, and she tried her best to block it out. The seconds ticked away, before she tore her gaze off her stopwatch as her alarm sounded. Sparks filled the air below, turning everything a vibrant green color. They zapped and cracked like electricity, before they snapped apart to reveal a glowing portal, hovering above the ground, just below where [Y/n]’s identical stood.

It was dark on the other side, the sound of pattering rain present, mixed in with the unstable sound of crackling. She looked over her shoulder at [Y/n] who pleaded for mercy. Her right hand gave way as the bar snapped. Piercing screams filled the air and she began crying out for help.

[Y/n]’s identical was not as callous as she presented herself to be. She was not emotionless, as many of her colleagues in her world saw her as. She had a heart. She could feel pain, just as anyone could.

And the screams that her younger double was making broke her to the bone. She could stand it no longer, and with a harsh breath inward, and a curse under her breath, she lifted her hands, her power flowing through her finger tips.

She latched onto the portal through her energy, and she threw it towards [Y/n], whose grip was weakening, and she hastily positioned it beneath her flailing body.

With one last, “Fuck my life,” the powerful [Y/n] counterpart sealed the deal, as [Y/n] lost her hold and fell backwards, directly into the portal.

She watched as it sealed behind her, her alarm ringing from her watch

Damn. Working with the multiverse is hard.

———

tags:

@amillionworlds @ewitsceleste @ximaginx @purplekitten30 @inhumanwithpowers @lazyloversblog @xcharlottemikaelsonx @tired-butterfly @xoxmariaxox @mysticalcollectionheartme @xreaderandshits @lizlil @kai-writes-fan-fiction @bxby-riah

i apologize to those who no-longer wish to be on the tag list. pls message me if you don’t want to be included anymore :)

[aftqrglow]

A Blessing, Beautiful And True

pairing: bucky x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

warnings: use of she/her pronouns; swearing if you squint; mentions of death; mentions of food

a/n: this is a rewrite of one of my old fics that i absolutely hated with my entire being. i hate this a little bit less djaksjsjs also pls ignore how i literally cannot write a good ending to save my life.

dedicated to @xsamsharons for lending me her name. i hope i did it justice mi amor ily <3

Bucky learnt to value things.

Not the great, terribly material things people around him seemed to rush after. Not money, not even when he was barely getting by.

No, for Bucky, it was the small, seemingly insignificant things.

The tiny toy WWII soldier figurine he found at a yard sale one Tuesday afternoon, the one with the missing arm. The near-exact model of the car his father used to drive—rusted around the tiny steel axel, the rubber wheels worn from use. That yellow screwdriver set that sat at the very back of the tool cabinet in the garage, unusable because of the cracked plastic handles and rusted steel, that looked exactly like the kit he had once used to fix up the plumbing in his first apartment.

Bucky was used to valuing the broken little things.

He never truly understood what loving something whole, something complete felt like—not until he met you.

You, in your white sweater and blue jeans, hair tossed up in a braid. You, your eyes that dancing with unbroken light, like the rays of the sun on the ocean on a bright summer’s day. You, with the sort of kindness he never truly thought he would ever be worthy of, not until you showed him that he was.

You, the girl he fell in love with before he could ever truly know what love was.

Steve might’ve been the first to notice. He was with him that day, the day he first saw you. They had been hunting for a Christmas present for Tony, and even though Bucky wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to attend, he wasn’t about to show up empty handed.  

Steve didn’t even realize that the sly-footed assassin wasn’t by his side until he had walked the two blocks from the mall to his car. Hands ghosting over the gun tucked into the holster hooked into his waistband, Steve retraced his steps, his heart thundering in his throat.

Until he heard Bucky’s laugh.

Not the obviously fake chuckles he used to placate those around him. No, this was the laugh he remembered, the laugh he thought Bucky had lost.

This was Bucky’s laugh—his Bucky’s laugh, before the world stole him away. Pure and innocent.

Happy—so undeniably, inexplicably happy.

The tension eased from his shoulders when he saw you. Steve knew who you were, of course. Everyone did—or at least, everyone who had been around after the Battle of New York. Everyone who had seen you walk among the rubble, bleeding through your jeans, helping dig survivors out of the rubble, guiding them to shelters. Everyone who had seen you do everything you could help those who needed it more than you did, until your legs finally gave way and the only reason you didn’t collapse to the floor was because Steve caught you.

But Steve also happened to know why you’d done it. Because you were kind. Because you were selfless. Because you knew what it was like to lose everyone you loved, and to garner the strength to build yourself up anyway.

You’d lost people too—everyone you loved, killed during the Battle. Your family. Your friends. It might’ve seemed cruel to be spared. Might’ve seemed like a cold, dark twist of fate—and for a time, it did.

Steve had never known anyone to be resilient the way you were.

And maybe, just maybe, he thought to himself, as he watched his friend from through the glass, maybe you would teach him to hold on to the tiniest sliver of hope too.

—

Bucky didn’t even like books.

The only book he’d read—aside from the coursework assigned to him in his school days—was The Hobbit. And even that had taken him an ungodly amount of time to finish.

So yeah, Bucky didn’t exactly like books.

But he still visited the tiny bookstore on the corner every day.

He didn’t even buy anything. He just looked around, running his fingertips over the spines of the books that jutted out of the wooden shelves, the sunlight turning his eyes into uncharted waters of the oceans, swimming with undiscovered secrets and untold lies.

You would talk to him. All the time, and with no trace of the usual pity or sympathy that he heard when he spoke to people. You talked to him in a way that made him feel like himself, in a way that made him feel like he just might rediscover the man he used to be.

That first time he’d seen you was burned into the back of his brain, the image of you standing there with a hip braced against a bookshelf, dressed in a white sweater and jeans, your hair pulled into a braid over your shoulder. He had watched as a strand escaped, falling into your face.

And him—he'd stood there, watching you talk to another woman he couldn't recall because really, how could he look at anything else but you? Bucky was certain he looked like a gaping idiot, both wanting your attention to turn to him, and dreading the fact that he would surely make a fool of himself if you so much as looked at him.

Back in the 40s, things would've been so much easier. He would already have said something witty to make you laugh, he would already have been telling you about the carnival down at the beach and asking if you wanted to go with him.

But when your friend left, and you asked him if there was anything you could help him with, his voice sounded strange to his own ears as he croaked, "Books?"

You had laughed—and he found himself laughing along. A true laugh—for the first time in a long time, the sound didn’t sound fake to his own ears. For the first time in a long time, he felt like himself.

Bucky had taught himself to value that which wasn’t whole—because he wasn’t, either. Love was give and take. Love was equal.

If he was to deserve your love, he would have to be whole again. If he was to deserve your love, he would make himself whole again.

—

There was a sudden shift in the way Bucky viewed the world.

It had been three days since he last saw you, but he walked in through those doors anyway. He had no cause, no reason—he just couldn’t go any longer without seeing you.

You were sitting by the bay window at the very back, reading a book. He took a second just to take you in, to get used to the fact that you weren’t just a figment of his imagination.

The second you looked up, your face split into a grin, like you were truly, genuinely happy to see him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at him that way. “Hey, you’re back! It’s Bucky, right?”

He nodded. He couldn't trust himself to speak, not when he was sure he would stumble over his words, not when he couldn't bring himself to string together a coherent sentence in your presence. 

"What can I help you with today?" you asked, snapping your book shut and placing it on the table. 

"Uh... What're you reading?"

You glanced down at your book before looking up to meet his eyes again. Blue, you thought, supressing a smile. Icy blue, but warm nonetheless—familiar in the way most things aren’t. "Wuthering Heights. You've never read it?"

He shook his head no. "Never been much of a reader, no. Is it any good?"

"It's one of my favourites," was your answer, watching as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The light caught the steel of the chain around his neck—the chain of one of those military-issue dog tags.

And maybe that was how it started—on that dreary cold Wednesday, when you'd stood next to the bookshelf by the window, telling him about your favourite book, but really all he could focus on was the late afternoon sun rendering the hue of your eyes several shades lighter, the soft slope of your nose, the fullness of your mouth. Every little detail about you was etched permanently into his mind—and he wanted to learn more.

He wanted to know everything there was to know about you. 

It was about closing time when he decided he had to go. Not because he wanted to, but because he had promised he would have dinner with Sam and Steve. And as much as Bucky wanted to stay, he was a man of his word.

Which is why when he promised you he would come see you as soon as he finished reading the book, you knew he meant it.

—

And you were right.

Two days later, he was back. 

It was raining that day, early in the morning when you were just about to open up. And there, standing under the awning in the freezing rain, was Bucky, the collar of his coat turned up against the wind, drenched to the bone.

"What're you doing here?" you asked, eyes wide.

"I just... I don't know," he said. Because he didn't. Bucky didn't even like books—but he did like being around you. There was a strange sort of calm about you, a sense of peace he'd only known in Wakanda. Around you, he was just Bucky—not Sargent Barnes, not the Winter Soldier—just Bucky. 

He liked being just Bucky.

You shook your head, but he could've sworn he saw the corner of your mouth tilt upwards as you fished your keys out of your pocket and unlocked the door. "Well, come on inside. I'll turn up the heat and get you something warm to drink. Christ, Buck, you could get pneumonia or something.”

He only nodded once. It didn't matter that he wouldn't get sick—not when the serum in his veins healed his body faster than normal. It didn’t matter that even if he could sick, he wouldn’t have cared, not when you were looking at him like that, with concern in your eyes for something other than your own safety.

You had a coffee machine in the back room, you told him. He followed you, lingering in the doorway as you bustled about, humming a tune under your breath. He recognized it as a song from that one Marvin Gaye album Sam couldn’t stop talking about. He recognized it as a song he wanted to listen to for the rest of his life, if only you were the one singing it.

He recognized that, for better or for worse, you would be his undoing.

—

After that, he came to see you every day.

When the weather got colder still, he brought you steaming cups of hot chocolate from your friend Bella’s café down the street. And on the days when he didn’t, he would head into the back room and make you coffee. You’d never had to tell him how you took it—after that in the rain, he’d somehow remembered what you liked.

You weren’t about to tell him, but you remembered what he liked too.

It started out simple—plum cider that you found on your weekly trip to the farmer’s market. An old vintage copy of The Hobbit from the forties. Rubber silencers for his dog tags that he never used but carried around in his pocket anyway—until eventually, you had something new for him every week, some insignificant thing that he looked at with the kind of childlike awe that made your heart twist into knots in your chest.

He walked you home too. Every evening, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, slowing his stride so that he could walk alongside you. He would stand outside, across the street, hands in his pockets, waiting for you to walk into the apartment you shared with Bella. Only leaving when the lights came on and he knew you were safe.

Bucky wasn’t much of a talker—you learnt that about him. He would spend all day sitting quietly in a corner of your store, reading one of the books he found on the shelf of used copies you kept in the back of the room.

He seemed to love those used books more than the new ones—books someone had already read, books that had already been loved.

He felt a little that way sometimes, too. A little too used for love, not loved enough for use.

But never when he was with you.

And you—you were falling for Bucky Barnes. A little by little, day by day, without even realizing it—not until it all came rushing to you one afternoon, like a dam breaking, like the ocean of his eyes pulling you under, especially when you felt his gaze on you from time to time, watching you as you worked.

That afternoon, a new shipment of books came in. You didn’t even have to ask him for help—he was already on his feet, snapping his copy of Anna Karenina shut, mumbling a soft, “I’ve got it,” as you signed for the order. Hefted the two cartons of books like they weighed nothing at all, and carried them inside.

There was a strange tightness in your stomach as you watched him, standing in the middle of your store—the only thing the Battle of New York hadn’t taken away from you—and you wondered just how it took so damn long to realize that the feeling of familiarity didn’t lie among these books, but rather, in Bucky himself.

—

It was a slow day, so the two of you spent the rest of the afternoon restocking the shelves. He asked you about each of the books, watching your eyes light up as you talked about your favourite ones, until conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence, the two of you basking in each other’s company as you worked.

You didn't even realize how much time had passed until you heard the door open and your friend Bella breezed in. She'd been here the first day Bucky had walked in, had noticed the way your eyes shifted to him mid-conversation like you couldn’t focus on much else when he was around. “Ready for lunch, y/n?”

You looked at Bucky, opening your mouth to ask if he wanted to come along. Not because you didn’t trust him to be alone at the store, but because you wanted his company. Because being around him felt like coming home.

He only waved you off. "Go ahead. I've got plans with Stevie. I'll be here when you're back though."

You believed him. You believed that he would always be around, for as long as you wanted. And you wanted forever.

"Was that the guy from before?" Bella asked, looping an arm through yours as you left the store, walking down the street. She brushed her fiery hair out of her eyes, turning her head slightly to look at you, yellow-green eyes filled with curiosity. “What’s his name?”

"Bucky. He... He's a friend," you said. 

"Well," Bella said. "He sure doesn't feel the same way."

"What do you mean?" you asked, confused.

"Y/n, he looks at you like you put the stars in his sky. Are you sure he's just a friend?"

"I... I don't know, Bella."

Because you didn't know what else to call him. Because you and him weren't friends in the way people usually are—you had always been more.

Bucky was always more.

—

"I've barely seen you," Steve said, picking up his can of Diet Pepsi and taking a sip. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Bucky mumbled. Because how could he explain why he was spending so much time at the bookstore with someone he'd only just met? How could he explain the magnetic pull he felt toward you, the inexplicable desire to just be around you?

How could he explain the way you made him feel like himself again?

But Steve knew. Steve always knew. He saw the growing stack of novels on his friend's bedside table, saw him reading at the kitchen table, book propped up against the jug of milk.

He also knew that all this was because of y/n. Because Bucky mumbled that name when he was too exhausted to even know what he was saying. Because Bucky talked in his sleep—and Steve could hear him calling that name through the thin walls that separated their rooms. "You've been at the bookstore?"

Bucky set his drink down. There was so use denying it—his friend would see right through him. Steve had known him for too damn long to believe in his lies. "She's so... I can't even put it into words. She makes me believe that there's good in this world. That all the things I did wrong don't even matter—not when I'm with her. It’s the way she looks at things, the way she’s capable of finding a little bit of good in everything. Like she found something good in me, Steve."

Steve knew it was true. Because he hadn’t seen Bucky this way for a very long time. Because he hadn’t seen that light in his friend’s eyes in a very long time, and ever since he met you, it hadn’t gone away.

—

Bucky had to leave for a couple of days.

He didn't tell you why—just that it was a work thing. How long would he be gone? He didn't know.

"I'll be back soon," he said. "I promise."

And he was. Five days later.

But Bucky was quiet—quieter than usual. 

It was a Sunday, and you’d somehow managed to drag him along to the farmer’s market with you. He walked alongside you, hands in his pockets, like he was aching to reach out and touch you but desperately holding himself back.

He’d almost gotten himself killed on that mission.

You took up too many thoughts in his head, too much space in his heart. And when the bullet narrowly missed him, grazing his ribs, his only thought was whether or not you’d miss him if he was gone.

You deserved better than someone who’s life was tied to the death of others. Someone who didn’t have so much blood on his hands.

A few paces ahead of you, Bella walked hand-in-hand with Bucky’s friend Sam. You were glad that Bucky had introduced them, glad that Sam made Bella happy in ways you’d never really known or understood before.

“Look at them,” you said, watching with a smile on your face as Sam quietly slipped a couple of oranges into Bella’s bag. “They look real happy.”

Then, turning to look at him, you smiled, and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. Because you might deserve better, but he was selfish and stubborn, and the only thing he had wanted in so goddamn long was you you you.

“Go out with me,” he blurted, every thread of self-control he had so carefully cultivated to keep his head in your presence snapping. He felt like he was taken back to that December evening he saw you for the first time, when the words refused to leave his mouth, when you’d rendered him tongue-tied and helpless. Only this time, he couldn’t stop the words from coming out, not as he said, “One date, y/n. One date, and if you don’t have a good time, we can just forget it ever happened and move on.”

His heart shuttered when he saw the small frown creasing your brow, your voice soft as you asked, “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want to do this for the rest of my life with you, y/n,” he said quietly. “But for now, I’ll take that date.”

“Okay,” you said, nodding slowly. “Okay, Bucky, I’ll go out with you.”

He couldn’t help it. Bucky wrapped his arms around your waist, drawing you to him, lifting you off your feet and spinning you around until you were both laughing, childlike and breathless, blissfully unconscious of the knowing look on Sam and Bella’s faces.

Because really, how could he see anything but you? You had been it from the first day he saw, and you were it now—a blessing, beautiful and true.

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[belettewrites]

To say that the rain had caught them by surprise would be a lie. No, the sky had been giving them warnings for an hour before the rain had started to fall, forcing them to hide under a tree, Jaskier laughing and Geralt as silent as ever.

The last past days had been hot, almost too hot to bear, and Geralt knew that they would sooner or later have to face a rainstorm. He had been hoping that they would be in the safety of a room in an inn, but they had had no such luck. Story of his life.

Even if he had been alone he couldn’t have had ridden under such a rain. Mutated eyesight or no, he could barely see what was a few meters ahead of him, and the road had become a torrent, dry dirt refusing to absorb such an amount of water. Roach could slip if he made her walk on this, and that was something he was definitely trying to avoid.

So he and Jaskier had gone to hide under a tree. It was a nice tree, a large elm; its leaves where protecting them from the rain, and its trunk was wide enough for both of them to lean against.

They were sharing rations of smoked meat; despite the almost darkness around them, brought by the dark clouds that had been looming over them for a while, it was only midday, and they hadn’t had the chance to eat before it had started to rain.

“So now we just- wait?”

Jaskier’s voice was nearly drowned out by the sounds caused by the rain; water hitting the ground, the leaves, or the puddles that had formed; wind whirling at the top of the trees.

“Hmm.”

They needed to. Maybe Jaskier wouldn’t be too affected by the rain – elves, or half-elves, didn’t tend to get colds, or pneumonia – but it would ruin his doublet and Geralt wouldn’t hear the end of it. It had happened before.

(And maybe. just maybe. Geralt wanted to enjoy a soft moment, a short break from the path, just sitting there with Jaskier next to him.)

“You know, this would be a great opportunity for me to play-”

Geralt snorted. Jaskier was always playing, even while walking; it always was the moment to play. Though Jaskier had complained enough times about the rain and how it was bad for his lute, so Geralt waited to see what Jaskier really wanted to do. Surely damaging his adored lute wasn’t on the list. Jaskier was impulsive sometimes, but not stupid, and getting his lute out of its case during a rainstorm wasn’t something he would seriously consider.

“-but I think I’ll just try to rest for a moment, if you don’t mind making sure I’m not eaten by a fox.”

Geralt didn’t reply anything, waiting for what would inevitably happen next.

“Foxes are so cute, though; I know they’re deadly, Geralt, don’t give me that look. But the babies? I actually nearly adopted one when I was younger, but Eliza, you know, our cook, told me that I couldn’t keep it and that my mom would be furious.”

Geralt thought that for that to happen, Jaskier’s mom would need to pay attention to what her son was doing, but he didn’t say anything. No need to spoil such a nice afternoon with bitter thoughts about Jaskier’s childhood. Geralt wished he could have some words with the woman, though; and with her husband, while he was at it.

“So I had to set him free. I was sad for a day, but then Marta – one of the servants, as you know – told me that a cat had had kitten in the barn, so of course I slipped away during one of my lessons that day and went to see them.”

And then one of the kitten didn’t let him leave, and that’s how Jaskier got Sir Cuddles.

“Anyway – you won’t mind if I rest my eyes shortly, would you? I performed until late last night, and you woke me up before dawn this morning- yes you did, don’t frown at me. Even poor Roach was still asleep.”

“You can rest.”

Of course he could. Jaskier asked that as if Geralt wouldn’t gladly die for him. Not that he had told Jaskier, or planned to.

“Thank you dear!” Jaskier beamed. “I trust you’ll keep watch.”

And then, instead of using his lute case as a pillow, Jaskier –

Jaskier snuggled against Geralt, put his head on his shoulder, and promptly fell asleep.

Roach neighed quietly, and Geralt got the very distinct feeling that his own horse was laughing at him.

They weren’t strangers to being close like this. They shared beds at inns (even when Jaskier complained that Geralt was too warm, I swear it’s like sleeping next to a fire except it’s the middle of summer or when, in autumn, Jaskier’s cold feet would find Geralt’s legs and if you keep me too warm in summer you can handle that in autumn, really, don’t you dare say anything), but this – this was entirely different.

They weren’t at an inn, for starters, and it wasn’t the night. And Jaskier had had a choice, and he had gone for Geralt, and was now breathing softly next to his ear, brown hair tickling Geralt’s chin.

Gradually, Geralt let himself relax and enjoy the proximity. It was nice, to be trusted like this. He couldn’t understand why Jaskier would, but still, it was nice, to trust and to be trusted.

Jaskier sighed in his sleep and snuggled closer, and Geralt smiled despite himself. It was a small, fond smile; one that you had to look for if you wanted to see it; one that didn’t show much on his lips, but that could be read in his eyes.

I love him, Geralt thought, not for the first time, but just as fond. I love him.

And, with Jaskier next to him, one hand on Geralt’s knee as if to be as close as possible, asleep in the haven that had become the elm, Geralt thought it wasn’t impossible that Jaskier might love him, too.