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bombshellsandbluebells · 4 years

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Hey @wolfheartgirl! responding to you here because boy that post is getting LONG

Thanks for joining the conversation! Always good to have more opinions! I’ll admit I also don’t agree with your points completely and I just in general have a different view of the characters and relationships I think. Also, being 110% honest here - I didn’t finish season 6 so I might be iffy on all the details and how they play out. At some point I just really could not bring myself to keep watching, not just because of what was happening but because of how bad the execution of the writing and the acting was. Let’s face it - no matter what ships or characters we like or what side of the fandom we’re on, we ALL deserved better than what we got execution wise. And that’s disappointing. :(

Anyways, onto some body-snatched Bellamy discussion!

1. The Monty Thing - completely fair points! I did forget that they reached out to Wells’ actor first and he was unavailable, which is a shame. But that’s a good reminder that sometimes writing gets dictated on television because of things like that the writers can’t control. I do think you’re correct here, and I was wrong when I said it didn’t make sense for it to be Monty. Monty appearing to Clarke was much more about his legacy and what he had asked them to do than it was about his relationship with Clarke. On second thought, yes he was the only one who really fit there.

What I WILL still argue is, even if it works with Clarke, it still WOULD have had more weight and emotion behind it if it was Bellamy. So basically, it’s fine as is in canon, might have worked BETTER if it was Bellamy.

2. Honesty hour. I don’t know....what Octavia did in season 6. I really don’t. I tried to follow. There was some quicksand and some time travel and I was just really lost and disinterested at that point and I stopped watching and I STILL don’t know what she did in the finale.

Octavia’s redemption is......iffy. As is. I love Octavia. I don’t always love Octavia’s writing. I really don’t like anything I saw of Octavia’s writing in s6 aside from getting paired with Diyoza, though even THAT fell flat for me. And I really don’t understand what role she played in this season at all.

So maybe she would have crossed lines trying to save Bellamy, but I also do think there is a possibility to do something fun with switching the dynamic to being “my brother, my responsibility” and her trying to make up for hurting him last season. Again, don’t know WHAT she did last season, so being part of the Save Bellamy Squad would have at least pulled her into the action a little more. (I know that Octavia’s time travelling quicksand adventures are supposed to help set up the whole s7 thing but honestly.....it’s way too confusing and disconnected from the rest of the season and would probably be better cut.)

3. Inside Man Murphy. Fair! Completely far! Murphy 100% would not have helped them he is ride or die for his family ESPECIALLY after last season. And true, his anger and growing indifference did lead to him helping Josephine! (I didn’t get to 6x11 lmao, but I am kind of glad to hear it was about Abby, not Clarke. That makes A LOT more sense for his character.) And I don’t think CLARKE saying she was proud was OOC - I more meant that in my opinion it doesn’t make a lot of sense for that to hold much weight with Murphy considering he DOESN’T care about Clarke or her opinion of him.

What I will say about this is that not every detail of how the season was written is going to work with Bellamy as the bodysnatched because it wasn’t written for Bellamy. It was written for Clarke to be bodysnatched and so all the details of that storyline are going to support that. The idea behind switching it was an attempt to try to fix some of the main character and relationship arc issues last season with one simple fix, though the entire execution of the plot would then have to be adjusted to fit Bellamy and not Clarke. So yeah, Murphy’s storyline as a WHOLE would probably have to be adjusted - if not completely changed - to make sense with his character.

I was thinking about this actually and I think in general most of Murphy’s storyline needs to change. For instance, why did his near death experience THEN suddenly spark this fear when he nearly died in the finale of s5. It wasn’t necessary to have him nearly die AGAIN just to convince us that Murphy is scared of dying. He always has been. That’s a core part of his character. It’s kind of redundant.

But I was thinking that the main arc Murphy goes on in s5 is that he feels worthless and that triggers his fears of being unloved and abandoned. This is a pretty core part of Murphy too so it makes a lot of sense. I didn’t think the resolution of this arc was the best, but Murphy choosing to save his family and being instrumental in doing so and then Monty and Bellamy risking their lives and the lives of everyone in the finale do a lot to prove to Murphy that he’s not worthless or expendable.

Rather than switching to a completely new arc for him in s6, it’d be nice to keep expanding on this idea. That might mean removing him from his current canon storyline completely (which, although I did like it and it IS in character, doesn’t add much more to his character since he’s already gone though many similar arcs)

What if instead he took on more of a leadership role in saving Bellamy? That’d be something new from him we haven’t seen before. It would echo back to moments in s5 when Bellamy asked for his opinion or he was the one to make a decision for the others. It would be a really exciting new adventure to take his character on and it’d just be new for him. Maybe then he could work closely with Clarke and we’d get an interesting new dynamic there. It’d also let Murphy continue his journey of realizing that he is not worthless, which is nice.

Just spitballing here. I do agree his current arc doesn’t at all work with bodysnatched Bellamy, so it would definitely have to change.

4/5. Ok, here’s where we won’t agree, haha. I’m not a Bellarke shipper at all. I don’t disagree that s6 was very centered on Bellarke. It was, absolutely. My issue is that that is directly at odds with s5. s5 set up Becho in the beginning, forced them through struggles and separated them for most of the season, but then reunited and reenforced their relationship at the end of s5. The clear takeaway seemed to be that Becho was here to stay and strong. Bellamy and Clarke’s dynamic was certainly important, but it wasn’t framed as romantic in s5 and wasn’t, to me, framed to be more important to Bellamy than Echo.

s6 then goes and completely flip-flops that with no development to get there. Becho goes from ending the season strong to finding over nonsense and then Bellamy being completely focused on Clarke. s6 absolutely frames Bellarke as more important, but it’s frustrating that it is so at odds with the season that came before it. If they wanted to switch from Becho to Bellarke - which I’ll admit, I’ll never be happy with - it at least needs to have more development. Because the last we’ve seen, Becho is happy and Bellamy and Clarke are not on the same page and dont’ have the same priorities. If they did want to change that, there just needs to be more growth between Bellamy and Clarke that isn’ reliant on what happened between them several seasons ago.

So frankly, I don’t think with EITHER of them bodysnatched that can happen. They don’t have the time to get to know each other again (remember, in canon, they haven’t seen each other in six years! you can absolutely re-fall in love with someone you knew, but it isn’t instant) which NEEDS to happen to sell that relationship. It isn’t good enough to me to rely on the development of early seasons when both characters have changed SO MUCH and been separated for so long.

I’m not going to argue whether the writers intend for Bellarke to be canonically romantic because honestly they have been so back and forth about it and unclear in the writing that I’m going to need some outright “I love you”s before I buy it. I do think they’re important to each other, I’m just going to need more recent development before I buy it, espeically after last season ended with Becho going strong.

6. Scrap the sheidheda storyline. Just scrap it. I really dislike it and it adds clutter to an already busy season. I don’t believe it really added anything of importance and just distracted from the other plotlines going on. You’re right it probably wouldn’t work with bodysnatched Bell but like.....I’m all for just getting rid of it. There’s more interesting ways to use Madi than whatever that nonsense was.

7. True! I actually talked to someone else about this. As it is currently written, the nightblood is a problem. However, like I said this plot and all it’s details was written to fit Clarke and it can easily be adjusted and re-written to fit Bellamy. Since bodysnatching and Sanctum was totally new this season, it doesn’t contradict anything previously established to just cut the nightblood thing out. A lot of other random details probably don’t fit for it to be Bellamy either because it just wasn’t written that way.

So yeah! Those are my thoughts :) Whew that was long.

I would also just really love to see everyone saving BELLAMY this time around since he’s always saving everyone else.

#the 100 #the 100 meta #bodysnatched bellamy

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thepersephonecabin · 4 years

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Legacy and Bullshit Mindfuckery (fic)

Summary: Luvander has two things for the Adamo’s first child: a gift and a wish.

Please see full tags and warnings AO3

Note: So... How did we get here? Well, basically, when I was writing A Very Adamo Christmas for @foxesonstilts for the @festivebastion exchange I meant to put in a short bit about a Luvander giving Laure and Adamo’s first child a very special gift, but forgot until after finishing FestiveBastion. So I told myself I was gonna write a small addition, and then my latent need to see the airmen recover after the war took over and suddenly I had a 4k+ luvander character study on my hands. And also about halfway through my if-i-dont-write-this-right-now-i-will-never-sleep craze a tiny part of my brain was like “you should make luvander a trans man for absolutely no reason” and I did and actually really liked the way it fit into the story.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy!

A day and a half following the birth of Rory Adamo, Luvander found himself on the doorstep of the Greylace Estate once again. Wrapped in one arm, he cradles a soft drawstring bag, cream in color with a light pink ribbon around the top.

He didn’t bother knocking as he shouldered his way through the doorway. Even though he still primarily lived out of the apartment above the hat shop, this place was dragon territory, and therefore as far as he was concerned, it was his home as well.

“Hello?” he called out, slipping his shoes off at the door. Maybe if he was really lucky, Rook would come in and pitch a fit about like he would in the good old days.

Balfour emerged from the lounge with a book cracked open in his hands and questioning eyes. “Oh, Luvander. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Luvander confirmed. “Where’s the chief and his young lady love? I had something I wanted to bring to them.”

“They’re in their bedroom, I think,” Balfour said before quickly amending, “Oh, no, not like that! I think it was just time to change her.”

“Ah,” Luvander said. “How is the not-so-little tyke anyway?”

Balfour smiled and began leading him up the stairs to Laure and Owen’s room as if Luvander hadn’t been there not two days ago. “Oh, you know. She sleeps and eats and poops and cries. Lucky the three of us don’t room up in the same area of the house as Chief Sergeant and Airlady Adamo or I’m sure we’d all be knackered already.

The three of us. Luvander knew he meant the three Second Wavers outside of Laure of course. Luvander felt a sick little spark of jealousy flare up in his stomach and not for the first time at their mention before he stamped it out with the guilt of it all.

Balfour continued, “Mom and Dad are still smitten with her though. I wager that by the sixth week in they might be out of the honeymoon stage.”

“Sixth? I don’t know if I could make it to the second,” Luvander said. Of course, he was happy to have a little niece to dote on, but Luvander had never seen much draw in the idea of having a baby you couldn’t return to its rightful owners when it began to shit itself.

Balfour laughed good-naturedly, “I think Adamo’s a bit more levelheaded than you, however.”

Luvander shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ll stick to my instinct and take you up on that bet.”

They’d reached the Adamo bedroom now, and throught the door Luvander thought he could hear the baby’s wordless vocalization (Did most newborns make this much noise when they weren’t crying or was this one just especially talkative, he wondered) paired with Laure’s laugh and the low tenor of Adamo’s voice.

Balfour turned to him, touching Luvander’s elbow softly through his coat. Balfour wasn’t wearing his gloves today, Luvander observed. Good, he thought, he shouldn’t feel like he needed to hide them, especially not here, not with family.

“Before you go in…” Balfour began, “I wanted to ask how you were doing. I know Ghislain sailed out.”

Luvander resisted the urge to grimace. He liked to tell himself he did an okay job of deflecting everyone else’s attention away from his persistent problems with loneliness. On the good days he cracked enough jokes and sarcastic witticisms to keep the people around him too entertained to notice. On the bad days he threw himself into overworking, holed up in his workroom with little sleep and becoming overly perfectionistic about whatever he was working on until he felt like tearing it all apart again. But on the best days Ghislain was home, in this place Ghislain didn’t even think of as his home, but the place Luvander was, which in Luvander’s mind designated it as Ghislain’s home nonetheless.

Balfour, however had always been the one he couldn’t fool, and it was a fact that needled at him constantly. He didn’t enjoy it when others looked past the mask he’d so carefully crafted for himself like one of his custom hats.

Not that Luvander had anyone but himself to blame for that. Balfour always suspected Luvander’s yearning for affection and attention and approval had been more than the average loneliness, but then Luvander just had to go and fuck it up even further.

It had been at least a year and a half or maybe even two when it happened. He, Raphael, Balfour, and Rook had been drinking (because of course they had) in Balfour’s room at the Greylace Estate. These rooms were a damn sight bigger and nicer than the ones in the Old Airman, a fact that Luvander could never parse out about whether he appreciated or was annoyed by. As such, Balfour had set up a couch and a few chairs to fill the space between his bed and the opposite wall. Ever since Raphael turned up again, they’d started having little get togethers one or twice a month, alternating whose place hosted.

Then Thom’d been offered a job as a professor (a real one this time) at the ‘Versity and Rook had come back to Thremedon bitching and complaining the whole way back from whatever adventure they’d been on when they received the letter. Apparently Thom had already begun writing a letter back declining the offer when Rook found out and through some well-intentioned bullying and ripping of half-finished correspondence got Thom to accept. From Luvander’s understanding, Thom had decided immediately to pass on the job in order to continue looking after his older brother, knowing that Rook had very important reasons for staying away from Thremedon. He couldn’t ask Rook to go back there, and he didn’t feel comfortable letting Rook travel alone without eventually winding up dead in a ditch from asphyxiating from his own vomit either. According to him, Rook’s mental health had markedly approved once the Dragonsoul was destroyed and th’Esar’s plans thwarted. He’d finally been able to properly grieve, Thom said, but that didn’t mean he was ready to part ways and risk Rook relapsing without him to drag him out of it.

Rook found all this out and stubbornly refused to go along with that “bullshit mindfuckery” Thom was always practicing on account of the fact that teaching at the University had always been Thom’s dream job, and he would be damned if his little brother threw it away for his sorry ass. After all, while the ‘Versity had improved in regards to letting in more students from poorer walks of life since Thom had been awarded for his work with the Airmen, the same improvement hadn’t come in regards to hiring choices. For all any of them knew, this might be the last time a mollyrat was offered a job at the Empire’s highest learning institution in a long, long time. So, back to Thremedon they came, and Luvander, Balfour and Raphael’s little survivor’s club had expanded from three to four members. (There had always been an open invitation to Adamo as well, but he only rarely took them up on it.)

So, anyway, they’d been drinking thoroughly and Luvander more thoroughly than the rest. It’d been months since Ghislain had come to port- not his fault, some jobs simply took longer than expected- and Luvander was in the pits. That said, he’d been holding it together pretty admirably that night, and it had all been fine until Rook and Raphael left. Raphael said he had Royal Guard duty the next day- it was a job offer Luvander, Ghislain and Raphael had all received from the Esarina herself after she’d almost died by her own guards that night when they’d had to rescue the Adamos. Raphael had been the only one to accept.

But so when Raphael stood up to leave and appropriate one of the Estate’s carriages Rook also decided to leave “before the Professor starts hyperventilating over me” and figured it would just be easier to go back in one carriage. It was, in sober retrospect, a suspiciously sensical thing to come out of Rook Molly’s mouth, but who knew anymore. Luvander didn’t know what kind of bullshit mindfuckery Thom had exposed that man too while they were travelling, but Rook’d been all kinds of weird since they’d come back and by “weird” Luvander meant “vaguely decent.”

The two of them took their leave and after that the details grew fuzzy, but he did remember drunkenly confessing his depression about missing Ghislain to Balfour and Balfour being nothing but supportive as understanding.

“You’re so sweet,” Luvander had told him, slurring his words and cupping the other man’s cheek. “You know that? You’ve always been so sweet, Balfour. Sometimes I wonder how someone as sweet as you got mixed up with all of us selfish ingrates. You always deserved so much better than us. Hell, if you’d never met us assholes, you’d still have your hands.”

Balfour blushed and looked away. “My hands weren’t your guys fault, and even if I don’t have them, I have my girl and all of you. Besides, I’m not so inno-“

And that had been as far as he’d gotten before Luvander launched himself into Balfour’s lap and shoved their mouths together.

Now, it’s important to note that Luvander had always been a touchy drunk. He’s sure he’d made passes at all thirteen of the other airmen more times than he could count while trashed out of his mind. He even had one absolutely disastrous incident with Adamo that had gotten a very stern talking to about appropriate relationships between a superior officer and his subordinates the next morning. Luvander had deeply respected the things Adamo said to him at the time despite the massive hangover he was fighting his way through as he said it and the urge he had to hang himself rather than have this conversation at all. That didn’t mean he hadn’t brought up the irony of it in his speech at Laure and Adamo’s wedding, though.

Which was all to say that Luvander was no stranger to make-out sessions with his friends after a few too many drinks. In fact, drunken fooling around had been the bedrock upon which his entire relationship with Ghislain was founded. Even after Luvander and Ghislain were “official” they’d kept the relationship fairly open because Luvander wasn’t the sort to abstain from sex for months at a time while his lover was at sea. It had simply come with the condition that if anything that strayed from the “casual sex” territory and into the “feelings” territory had be to discussed- Ghislain wasn’t jealous about Luvander being with other people physically, but he was jealous about having to share Luvander’s heart and overprotective at times about the idea of someone taking advantage of Luvander’s emotions.

This had been different though. This kiss with Balfour hadn’t been borne of happy delirium or playfulness like most of his less-than-sober escapades were. This had been borne of deep, deep sorrow. A desperate effort to patch a leak in a dam ready to burst. The other reason it was different was because Balfour had only had had two drinks that night, and Luvander had had at least five times that.

On the bright side, if one had to have such a mortifying experience in their lives, Luvander could think of very few people better to have it with than Balfour Vallet.

The epitome of gentlemanly behavior, Balfour had gently broken off the kiss and softly and without malice told him that they couldn’t do this, not when Luvander was so intoxicated. Luvander had nodded and understood, but then broken into wracking sobs as he blubbered about how fucking alone he felt all the time. Balfour let him cling to him like a security blanket even though Luvander was still straddling him and repeatedly assured him that he didn’t care if Luvander covered his shirt with snot and tears.

Then Luvander woke up the next morning on Balfour’s couch with a blanket draped over him. His clothes were all intact with the exception of his shoes and his binder which he had a bad habit of sleeping in and Balfour knew it. Balfour must have peeled it off once Luvander had passed out along with the boots and then buttoned Luvander’s shirt back up and even replaced his signature scarf. Both binder and boots were now neatly laid out on the coffee table with care.

There were still a few bottles of alcohol too, and ordinarily he might have been tempted to drink them. This time though, he reckoned he’d done enough damage under the influence for one day.

That was about when Balfour appeared, already dressed for the day and carrying a tray of water and coffee. “Oh, you’re awake,” he’d said, kicking the door shut behind him. He sat next to Luvander on the couch and set the tray on the table. “I hope you don’t mind that I took off your…” he said awkwardly, wringing his hands like he always did.

It took Luvander a moment to understand he was talking about the binder. “Oh. Oh no, it’s- Balfour, I know you’d never do anything to me or go further than protecting my ribs from some rather tragic pain in the morning. And it’s not anything you haven’t seen in the showers before. If anything I think when it comes to invasions of peoples’ personal boundaries, I should be the one apologizing to you right now. What happened last night… the way I just went after like that was unconscionable and I promise it will never happen again. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest if you never wanted to see me again.”

Balfour looked shocked. “Of course, I don’t want that. What happened last night wasn’t ideal, obviously, but you were plastered and having a rough day. I get it.”

Luvander could’ve both laughed and cry at that. “But it wasn’t just a bad day. It was… Bal, I think I have a problem.” He could practically feel the bile coming up just from saying those words out loud, but he told himself that if there was ever the time to admit it to anyone, this was it so he continued: “I think maybe I always had. Even before Xi’an it was like this, just not as intense or constant. I don’t know how to be alone. I don’t know how to feel unimportant or like I’m not the center of attention without letting it control me. When there were fourteen of us I could ignore it, right? Because there was always someone around, but now…” He wiped away tears with his scarf and adjusted it anxiously. “And, like, the way this place just fucking tossed all of us out like yesterday’s trash the second they didn’t need us anymore and that blasted medal ceremony was over didn’t exactly help.”

Balfour nodded slowly. “I think I know the feeling or at least a fraction of it. I felt so isolated and broken at the end of the war, but even before that I… well, I suppose I always felt like I was second to Amery.”

Luvander felt another pang of guilt. None of them had been sure how to react when Balfour replaced his brother in the Corps, but Rook more than anyone. Before Amery died he’d been the one of them that Rook was closest to, so Balfour’s presence was anything but welcome to him. So, whenever Rook had a problem, Balfour was usually who he took it out on. And Luvander had always just let him. Because sometimes crossing Rook was like crossing god in that house, but it didn’t excuse how cowardly he’d been.

“Got feminine parts between his legs, airman’s honor.”

That’s what Rook had said about Balfour when he’d tried to be kind to Thom that first day when the Professor had them do introductions. Even then, Luvander, the real one with “feminine parts” among them was sitting right there, and he hadn’t said shit to stop Rook.

(Luvander had always felt Rook didn’t mind trans men as much as he minded trans women. Something about the way trying to be more masculine was seen as noble, while trying to be more feminine made you a Mary in a world where women were always seen as lesser. But he also felt like Rook’s somewhat backwards and begrudging acceptance of Luvander’s presence was conditional, like it was something that he was able to revoke at the barest hint of insubordination. Luvander was tolerated as long as he fought well and shut up and was cruel like him, but that didn’t mean it was real. At least Thom had seemed to have trained some of that out of Rook over the years, but it was still a nagging fear for Luvander.)

Luvander didn’t say any of that. He just said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it.” I don’t know how to fix me.

Balfour escorted him to the ‘Versity after that and made him talk to Thom about it. Thom being Thom, of course, looked at it as the academic he was. He talked about all kinds of fancy words like ‘schizoid’ and ‘histrionic’ and ‘dependent personality’. Basically, Thom said he couldn’t be sure exactly what the problem was without examining further. But he assured Luvander that there were coping mechanism they could try and that he had colleagues from the ‘Versity that he could ask for more medically focused advice as compared to Thom’s social theory perspectives.

Bullshit mindfuckery, Luvander remembered. As much as he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Thom “examining” his psyche, he was significantly less thrilled about a perfect stranger doing it. At least he could trust Thom. At least Thom knew jackshit about how the airmen worked beyond the court gossip and bards’ song and those fucking statues that made them war heroes and not real people anymore. At least Thom was there when he woke up on an infirmary bed unable to talk for how deep his throat had been slit only to find out that four out of fourteen of them had come back. Even if Thom had been beside himself with grief, unaware that number five, Rook, was still breathing somewhere out there, at least Thom had borne witness for himself what they’d gone through, and Luvander wasn’t about to have to hash all of that to someone new.

But he couldn’t sit on his hands and not accept help when it was offered. Because he’d made Balfour a promise. He’d promised that he would never kiss Balfour again without fair and honest consent, plastered or not, and he’d meant it. He had so few friends left in this world. He wasn’t about to lose another due to his own selfishness and stupidity.

And so, he gave himself into the bullshit mindfuckery. He’d been meeting with Thom once every one or two weeks (or more than that if something set him off and crisis called for it). It was helping, Luvander thought. Slowly but surely.

Back in the present, Luvander shrugged at Balfour noncommittally. “It sucks, but I’m seeing the Professor tomorrow. And I guess now if I need someone to keep me company I could come and let the baby keep me busy so Mom and Dad can have some alone time.”

Balfour smiled at him. “You could have come over anyway. Well, I won’t push for specifics, but if you want to talk later…”

“I know where to find you,” Luvander confirmed.

Balfour gave him a bigger smile now. “Okay. I’ll let you talk to them then,” he said, and began descending the stairs, leaving Luvander at the at the door to the Adamo’s room.

He knocked briskly on the door and heard the Chief say, “Come in,” from the other side.

When Luvander opened the door, he found Laure on the bed over the covers cradling not-so-little Rory and making faces at her. Adamo was over by the radiator holding a bottle over the heat.

“Ah, I thought I heard someone out there talking to Balfour,” Laure said. “I didn’t know you were coming over today, but then again, I don’t think the pregnancy brain is totally out of my system yet.”

Laved waved moved to sit on the bed at her feet and waved her off with a hand. “It was unannounced. I had a gift for the baby and thought I’d bring it over.”

“Oh, that was thoughtful of you,” Adamo remarked walking over. To his credit, he only let a sliver of the wariness of a man who put up with thirteen uncontrollable ever-pranking monsters with dubious respect for authority for Regina even knows how long it’s been slip into his voice.

Luvander took the drawstring bag from the crook of his elbow and held it in his lap. “Well, I started working on this once you announced she was on her way. I guess I could have given it to you earlier, but it just felt like I should wait to give it to Rory in person. And of course, I didn’t exactly know you would choose to go into labor in a blizzard, so I didn’t have it on me the other night.”

He had a million things to say, a million possible preambles he could make, but he figured it was best to just show them. So, he pulled open the drawstrings, reached in, and pulled the carefully constructed figure of silver-grey fabric and held it up for inspection.

Adamo looked too shocked to say anything. Laure’s mouth had dropped into a soft “o” shape. But Rory had caught sight of her new toy and vocalized with one hand in her mouth and the other reaching out toward him with demanding hands. Bossy, he thought, Like her dad.

“I’m not sure I got all the details right since I was working off memory, plus she never really let me get that close to her anyway, but… Here she is,” Luvander said, because in his hands was a very small plush dragon.

“Is that…” Laure began.

“Proudmouth,” Adamo breathed. “Can I see her?”

“Of course,” Luvander said.

Adamo took it from him as if squeezing too hard would make it turn to nothing in his hands, turning it from side to side to see all the craftsmanship Luvander had put into it. Embroidered patterns where Proudmouth’s metal had been engraved, carefully cut and stabilized fabric made to take the shape of gears, a brass-colored ribbon where brass-colored brass reigns would’ve been. Every detail down to the shape of her claws had taken hours to craft and even more hours of meditating and sifting through bittersweet memories to recover. And here were the fruits of his labor all pieced together. Finally, Adamo let out a breath and said, “Looks just like her.”

“Well when you two starting talking about having kids, I wanted think of something special I could pass down to them, and eventually thought, well, every Adamo needs a dragon, right?” Luvander said. “So, I settled myself of making a different for each of your kids, if you have more that is. And it felt important that Rory got Proudmouth as your firstborn. I think… I think if things had turned out differently than they did Proudmouth could have been her birthright what with the way Anastasia picked two Vallets in a row to ride her.”

Adamo’s face as always was had to read, but somehow with a dragon in his hands, he looked years younger, and Luvander could tell whatever he was feeling he was feeling a lot of it.

Then Adamo smiled and said, “Thank you. It’s perfect, Luvander, really. I guess we should give Rory her girl and see if they choose each other.”

He passed the dragon to his daughter’s grasping hands, and they all watched as Rory immediately pulled Proudmouth to her chest.

“I think that’s your answer,” Laure laughed, dabbing at her eyes.

And in that moment, it seemed to Luvander that the world shone brighter. Welcoming a new generation was always hard, especially when the old one had lost so much, but it felt nice to be able to give the Airmen a proper legacy- one that wasn’t bronzed in statues, written in theses, or whispered behind hands at palace balls. But one that was simple- from father to daughter. And wrapped up in that gifted legacy was a wish, the most powerful wish Luvander had ever made, sewn into every stitch and seam: I wish that the ones who come after us won’t need our bullshit mindfuckery in the first place.

And then, Rook ruined the moment when they all heard a loud bang of the front door opened way too forcefully, followed by “BASTION FUCKING DAMNIT, WHO LEFT THEIR BOOTS IN THE DAMNED DOORWAY, I THOUGHT I DIDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT ANYMORE!”

Laure, Owen, and Luvander all looked at each other, and all at once they burst into laughter.

#volstovic cycle #havemercy #the oc's #rebloggable #my fic #screams into the void im actually so proud of this fic and i dont know why #also i know janie isn't on tumblr anymore but i just think of her every time i write about luvander so im wondering if it would be weird to #hey remember me? probably not we talked like 2 times but i wrote a fic about luvander and i miss seeing you in the fandom because i dont ha #ve a pillowfort

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twinfanfics · 5 years

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The tale of the three head beast. The marching fishes (21/22)

WE ARE BACK!!

Fandom: Digimon GoT au.

Charaters: All the choosen children from Adventure, 02, Tamer and sometimes Frontier.

Ships: Taiyama, Joumi, Daiken, Takary, TakatoxYuri, RikaxRyo …

Second part of the tale of the three head beast series, you can read the first part The chosen children Here and here, or look for the tag 3t3hb on this blog.

Resume: Three years had pased since Taichi won the hand of princess Sora and both get crowned King and Queen of the living land, now they must faced the duty of the monarchs, but the King is must worried about cover his affair with the royal guard. The war started on the Honest Island, does the King Joe would manage it?. Mean while at the other side of the sea Takato and Ruki stronger their forces.

And you can read all past chapters of the marching fishes in the links below or in AO3

ACT 1. ESCENE 1: THE RAIN

ACT 1. ESCENE 2: THE WILL

ACT 1. ESCENE 3: THE TRIP

ACT 1. ESCENE 4:THE SON

ACT 2. SCENE 1: THE ARRIVAL

ACT 2. SCENE 2: BROTHERHOOD

ACT 2. SCENE 3: MOTHER | **warning suicide attempt**

ACT 2. SCENE 4: THE BATTLE OF THE IKKAKU ISLAND

ACT 3. SCENE 1: THE INTERROGATION

ACT 3. ESCENE 2: DELIVERY

ACT 3. ESCENE 3: RED DRESS

ACT 4. ESCENE 1:TRIAL

ACT 4. ESCENE 2: THE SAINT QUEEN

ACT 4. ESCENE 3:THE SPY

ACT 4. ESCENE 4: INTRUDERS

ACT 4: SCENE 5: THE BROKEN SWORD

ACT 5: SCENE 1: THE WIDOW

ACT 5: SCENE 2: WELCOME HOME

ACT 5 : SCENE 3: FAITH

ACT 5: SCENE 4: LIONHEART

ACT 5: SCENE 5: THE PRICE TO PARADISE

One day past, and then another, and another, and another.

All he want was to back to normality, back to the long days haunting on the forest and the short nights on the arms of his lover.

But all he get from Yamato was silence, coldness, indifference, sometimes even fear.

At the begining Taichi thought that he only needed time, a few nights to cry over his lost friend, that at some point the both would talk about it, but that time never came.

And everyday that past the air felt thicker between them, he want to scream and run and fight, but they put him against an enemy he would never beat, a bigger obstacule than Yamato´s bitterners

His sister talked and whispered and sang, always the same nonsense, Hikari continues all day every day, she join him for breakfast and dinner, she walked him around the halls of the castle and in the meetings with the council; and when she was not there, Koushiro was, and when they disappear and he finally could breath it was night, and he was left alone on his room with his wife.

And Yamato guarded the room

And Sora looked at him demanding something that he refuse to give

And everything he could think about was Yamato outside the room

And the woman inside the room grew impatient, but also proud; she wasn´t going to beg and he wasn´t going to bend.

In the morning Hikari was waiting for him outside the room, and Yamato looked at the floor and Taichi died for explain him that nothing happened, that he never touch her as he had touch him, but his little sister smile at him, and the routine begins again.

Days and nights, thoughts that what could be tormented him, he should stay on the island for the execution of Iory and Ken; he should never come back for the war; sometimes he wonder if it was bad luck that Kouji stroke that arrow...

“What a wonderful moon” Hikari exclaim when the same cheerful voice, maybe a little bit cheerful that the usual “you should rest, go to bed earlier tonight”

As if he want that, between the eyes of the lights and the lies of the crown it was the Kingdom, if something allowed him not to drown was his duty, his work, the only vow that he hadn't broken, so he devoted himself, he worked late, hardly and constand.

“ If you need rest go to your room” he smiled stacking a pile of papers that could totally wait until next morning “ This is important Hikari” He lied, in the corner of his eye it was Yamato, of course, silence Yamato guarding the door in the room when only he and his sister where, if only, if this time she would let them alone

“Is not as important brother, you know...” a little red appear on her sister cheeks “this moon is a powerful augury, this night could be the night”

“The night?”

“You know…” It was not the presence of his sister what bothered him, sometimes he felt that Hikari did not exist anymore, they had somehow replaced the sweet girl who was scared of the shadows, the annoying young woman who scolded him about his manners, who joked, who laughed, for one more of them, an endless recital of light proverbs, a tool for their scams “because it such a beautiful full moon” she mamble

“ the moon?” but behind her rosy cheeks Taichi somehow saw a glimpse of his little sister “ should I let my work because of the moon?”

“Brother!” Hikari was there “You may not know, but the moon is a light vessel, its dictade the fluctuations of the soul, enlight the spirit, especially those from women” she avoided his eyes “and I don't ask you to quit your job, just to focus on one of greater importance”

Taichi late a minute to catch up on her words “What you want Kari?”

“Is not about what a i want brother! is more about what I know” she lowered her voice Was she trying to prevent Yamato from listening to them?

“I dont think you know as much as you think”

“I have been studying the texts, I have looked at the stars, I have prayed every day since your return, I have ..." she stuttered "I have monitored the fluctuations in the queen's body, believe me, toning must be the night” the knight at the door turn around

He stand up, livid in anger and shame “you have no right!”

“Brother!”

“Dont you dare!” he feels the rage burning his skin “Dont call me brother when you act like nothing more that a priest!”

“I only want the best for you!”

“The best for me? is this the best for me? did I look like the best I had been? HOW?! How you have time for stars and book and prayers when you are watching me all day?!”

“I´m not…”

“Yes you are! Do you think i don´t know? that I´m stupid?! You are here talking about trues and life and you lie and kill”

“I never…”

“You are killing me Hikari, don´t you see? all this pat that your light draw end with my death” he laughs, sitting again “ you are just like the rest of them, are you still my sister Hikari? are something of you still there?”

“What do you mean? of course im your sister”

“Then talk to me, ask me if I want any of this, act as if you care when I´m suffering!”

“Of course I care! but brother you must know, suffering is how we gains forgiveness, sacrifice will give us the eternal paradise, is the only way for The Light to enter in our souls “ the words of a priest, Hikari spoke with such a devotion, Taichi was sure she believes every single line “Only through suffering can we atone our sins”

“what do you know about my sins?”

she said nothing but her eyes move to the door

“Live me alone sister” His voice drop a shadow between them

“I cant…I have orders ”

“orders from who? You are nothing more than a lady of the court”

“I´m a sister of The Light!”

“No you are not! you are a tool! a pretty face that they train to recitate old passage! They haven't even let you give the votes!, did you know why? “ he stand up “because you are the princess of the mountains, you are the key to our parents titles and everything than you are doing to me sister, they are gonna force on you too! and I remind you I'm still the damn King of all the living land and I command you to leave me alone!”

She shook and tremble, her little body looked like it would broke

“Yes your majesty” a little bow, not a single tear “ I must inform you that the queen is waiting for you on your chamber” she walk out, not before calling Yamato to follow her, finally leaving him alone.

And felt alone indeed, not Hikari or Yamato turn back to looked at him when they walk away, he knew he had lost his sister, it was not sudden; slowly the claws of The Light had dragged her for years until they took control of her entire body, there was nothing he could do to get her back, but Yamato …

Taichi leaves his study and walked with the head up and stop in front of the door with no guards, sacrifice would bring him paradise.

Sora was sitting near to the window, holding a book she wasn't reading, it wasn´t even midnight when her husband appear.

“You are late” you stupid, stupid man

“I know” she didn't expect him to talk back, he never did, He took so long but finally walked until her and took her hand, one knee on the floor “I need to know, did you want a son? is really your wish or is a mandate of The Light?”

She move with confusion, only Taichi ever ask for what she want

“I want a heir, I don't want the legacy of my father to died with me” he expect sincerity “and I… I wish for a baby, I want to be a mother it has nothing to do with The Light”

“ fine, then I'm gonna need your word”

“My word?” she was used to be ignore by him, but this? Taichi suddenly care and for onces she was completely lost

“Yes, the promise that you won't kill me as soon as you have a heir”

“I would never do that!” she rush and dear heaven he touch her shoulder; he had no right, when was the last time anyone touch her? was that his fear? that was what was holding him back? a hope that she thought dead blooms

“Promise me that you won't let them kill him” a stupid woman for a stupid man “Promise me….”

“And what about the promises you made to me? what about your lies? how you dare to ask me for anything!”

“You need it to be my son” who was that men? why the sudden confidence? “promise me that you won't let them kill him” he repeat “promise me that Yamato would be alright” the audacy

She thought in refuse, but only the fools fight a battle already lost.

“You have my word” she didn't need his heart anyway, she only needs his body, his touch, his hands, his strong arms took her and carried to their bed “But you must never lie to me again”

That's smile, he closed his eyes and stroked her skin, what a horrible way to be a gentleman, if only she care, if only they had not already passed the point of no return.

She undress herself, he do the same.

If it was a defeat, she hope every failure in life feels that good

#the tale of the three head beast #the marching fishes #digimon fanfiction #digimon GoT au #taichi yagami #hikari yagami #Sora Takenouchi

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reddreadmarstons · 5 years

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Jack Marston x f!reader: Cleaning up nicely. Word count ~2000

Prompt 38: "Only in front of you do I want to look this cool always." (Note: This prompts wording is awkward, and "cool" was not used as slang in the early 20th century from what I understand, so I am changing it to " Only for you do I want to look this good.")

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You got him. After a bloody battle with his men, you chased this bastard in to the caves of Nekoti Rock, and tackled him to the ground. As you were hogtying him and preparing to pick him up, you hear a voice behind you.

“ Well, shit, ya beat me to him.”

You were used to men trying to steal your bounties from you, so without thinking, you turn around and pull your revolver on him. “Unless you want to be tied up too, I suggest you get the fuck away from me!”

“Woah, miss!”, He chuckled nervously, putting his hands up, “ as fun as that sounds, I ain't gonna take him from you, you got him fair and square!” Although a bit scared, Jack also couldn't help being attracted by the combination of your beauty and your boldness.

As you calmed down, you noticed that it was Jack Marston, the son of the famous John Marston. He had a reputation for trying to be a stoic, tough guy, but you saw him for the first time acting nervous and making jokes. It was cute, in a way.

“Sorry, Mr. Marston,” you sighed in relief, “I'm so used to having men try to take from me, that it's my first response.”

“Don't I know it,” he nods. He is not surprised that she knows who he is, given the legacy his family left behind, "and you can call me Jack. You're like my ma was, a woman living in a mans world. My pa taught me to admire that sort of fearlessness in a woman.”

You blushed and looked away, “ W-Well, I mean, your pa was a smart man. I sure can look after myself, with no man to protect me.”

“Oh, I doubt don’t it,” he responds, with a wink and a smile. He was not normally so confident around women, but being held at gunpoint made him feel like he had nothing to lose, and he could feel some chemistry between the two of you after that. You were flustered yourself, for once. You usually had your guard up, but something about Jack made you feel safe.

“Oh, get a room!” The bounty shouts, agitated that he’s been caught and is still lying there.

Jack responds by kicking him in the head. “Hey, I'm talking to the lady here!”, which causes you to giggle. “Well, I ain't much of a lady, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now come on, I gotta get this son of a bitch to Blackwater jail”.

As you were putting the guy on your horse, you fell over as you heard a loud growl, and the horses ran away in fear. You were caught off guard when you saw a large grizzly running towards you.

“Miss!” Jack shouted, and without a second thought, dived in front of you to protect you. Quickly, he pulled out his buffalo rifle and killed it with a single shot to the head. You both breathed heavily, holding each other tight in panic over what had just happened. “You okay Miss?”

“Yeah...I'm okay. Thank you.” The two of you break apart, and Jack takes your hand and lifts you up. He looks down at the ground, somberly. “If only Pa could see me now,” he sighs. You put your hand on his shoulder and smile, “I'm sure he would be proud….” then switching to teasing, “although I'm sorry to say, you couldn't tell him you killed the legendary Umas, because I got him first.”

“Show off,” he smirks, gently nudging your shoulder, “come on, let's get out of here, I’ll ride with you to Blackwater.” Jack picks up the bounty, who is still cursing them out, while you retrieve the horses. He puts the bounty on the back of your horse and the two of you ride to Blackwater in silence, ignoring the angry man that's hogtied behind you.

The two of you arrive at Blackwater jail, and the marshal gives you $400. You give $200 to Jack.

“here,” you offer, putting the money in his hand, “I think you earned this for saving my life”.

“Well, it was my pleasure, Miss, uh...”

“ Y/N”, you reply, “ call me ‘Y/N’”

“Well, Y/N”, he smiles, “how ‘bout I buy us a drink to celebrate?” You laugh at his offer, “you mean with the money I gave you?”

“So is that a yes?” Jack jokingly asks, putting his arm out for you to take. You roll your eyes, link your arm with his, and walk over to the saloon together. “Maybe just one or two drinks”, you answer. You were both dirty, and you were covered in blood, but at that point neither of your particularly cared. However, you knew that it rarely stops at one or two, and next thing you know you've both had five shots of whiskey.

A couple of hours go by, and you are just loving this man’s company. He tells you stories about his adventures with his pa, with bounty hunting, about his time in a gang when he was a boy. You wonder if he would have told you any of this were he not drunk, but damm, was he interesting. You tell him stories about your own life, your own experiences, what made you decide to become a bounty hunter.

“Well, damn,” he says with a lustful look in his eyes, “you're a hell of a woman, y/n."

That look he gave you was just too much for you. Without even thinking, you cup his face in your hands and kiss his lips with intense passion. He jumps back, surprised at first, then closes his eyes and eagerly kisses you back, resting his hands on your shoulders. You pull apart for a second, look at each other with fire in your eyes.

“Well then,” Jack chuckles. You jump into his lap, and wrap your arms around his neck, leaning in for another deep kiss. It was so passionate, fiery, and just amazing. It was how you always wanted to be kissed. You feel him getting hard against you. He pulls away from you and leans his forehead against yours. “How about we go somewhere more private?” You nod, and he scoops you up and carries you to his room upstairs. You are already wet from anticipation.

When you get upstairs, he throws you on the bed and undresses you slowly, leaving kisses all over you as he makes it lower down your body. After taking off his clothes, he turns you on your stomach and gives you a sharp smack on the ass, causing you to yelp. You were not prepared for that.

“That was for pointing a gun at me!" he scolds, giving you another smack. “Now, I'm going to take charge.”

“Only because I'm letting you, Mr. Marston.” you sass back, and arch your back so he can fuck you from behind. You decided to let your guard down and do what he wants with you, for once, you let a man be in charge. Again, only because you let him.

He grabs your hips and enters you from the back. He thrusts back and forth roughly for a few minutes, which you had no idea you would enjoy so much. “Fuck,” you whine, “I'm close’.

Jack suddenly pulls out, turns you on your back, and renters you from the front.

“I want to see you cum,” he taunts. You claw his hands into his back and start to scream. “FUCK”. He covers your mouth while continuing to fuck you. “Ya want everyone to hear us?” You continue to scream with his hand muffled over your mouth as you feel your orgasm wash over you. You feel at peace as he remains inside you. “my turn…” he whispers in your ear. You kiss him deeply, and then he pulls out and cums all over the bed, moaning quietly as he does it. You lay next to each other, both on your backs, sweating.

“well, ain't that something” you laugh, as you snuggle up into his chest.

“I guess so,” he replies with a content smile on his face. “that was the most fun I've had in some time.” He wraps his arm around you, pecks you on the lips, and drifts off to sleep. You kiss his cheek and fall asleep soon after.

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You both wake up the next morning, still wrapped around each other. You only remember parts of what happened after you started drinking, and he doesn't remember much of anything. That was okay, though. You both felt calm and safe. Jack admittedly was a little confused at first, but you just laughed to yourself.

“It looks like we had quite a night, didn't we, Jack?” you tease.

Jack was blushing, somewhat embarrassed. “yeah...uh, I guess we did.” He surprised himself. It was not the first time he woke up next to a woman after a night of drinking, but it was the first time that he had no regrets, and actually wanted to see the woman again.

You rest his head on his chest and snuggle in closer. “listen, whether you remember what happened last night or not, I hope it is isn't the last time we see each other, because I really do like you.” You chose to be upfront about your feelings, because you did not want him to think you were not interested after he potentially remembered nothing.

Jack was shocked. He couldn't believe this. He gave into his feelings and held her tight, “I think...I think I want to see you again too. But can I take you out for dinner and a movie next time, you know, like a gentleman?”

You laugh and smile, “Yes, I would love that. A real date with Jack Marston. Ain't I a lucky girl.” He smiles back and you give each other a quick kiss.

The two of you get dressed, and have breakfast downstairs. He then rides with you back to your cabin at Manzanita Post. “Tomorrow at 6 pm? I'll come and pick you up.”

“It would be your pleasure” you tease.

“See you then, madam.” He kisses your hand and rides off on his horse.

You were both so nervous, even though you neither of you were likely to admit it. You knew you did not need a man, and you did not have to be pretty for anyone, but you wanted this man, and you wanted to be pretty for him. You took a bath, styled your hair, put on some lipstick, and a silk green dress. You rarely wore dresses these days, as they weren’t practical for bounty hunting. People would tell you that you would never find a husband when you dress and act the way you do, but you did not give a shit, because you lived for adventure before you lived for some idea of what your life should be. Still, there was something about Jack that made you want to try looking like a lady, if only for him.

On the other side, Jack had stopped caring about his appearance after all of the shit he went through. He knew though that he was going on an actual date, and for the first time in a while, felt that he needed to dress to impress. He went to Blackwater to get a haircut and a shave. He put on an elegant suit that his father used to own. He always felt lucky when wearing it, like he could cheat at poker and not get caught.

At 5:30 pm, he got on his horse and rode off to Manzanita Post to pick up his date. You came outside and he was stunned by how well you cleaned up. You were beautiful before, but he was so flattered that you put in this much effort for him. Likewise, you couldn't believe how handsome he was when he took care of his appearance. You held each others hands, and looked into each others eyes.

“Wow,” he took a deep breath, “you're so beautiful.” You can't help but blush.

“Only for you do I look this good,” you chuckle. “ Don’t let that get to your head, though. From the way it looks, I'd say you put in all this effort just for me too.

“You're right about that, Miss Y/N” he smiles, lifts up your chin and gently kisses your lips. “Oh, is it okay for me to kiss you before the date starts?”

You roll your eyes and gently nudge his arm. “I didn't know there were rules for this kind of thing, Marston”. You both laugh, as he took your hand and helped you climb onto his horse. You loved how he was so rough in the bedroom, yet such a sweetheart otherwise. You wrap your arms around his waist tightly and lean your head on his shoulder as you ride into Blackwater for the evening.

#jack marston x reader #jack marston #i cant believe i wrote this #john marston #my post #jack marston x f!reader #fluff

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oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch · 5 years

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“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” Movie Review

It’s been 5 years since our screens were last graced with the presences of Hiccup and Toothless, the dynamic and impossible not to love duo of the How to Train Your Dragon films. At the end of How to Train Your Dragon 2, audiences were left off seeing Toothless taking position as the alpha of the dragons, and Hiccup accepting the call to be chief of Berk, as his father had wished him to be. With the beginning of The Hidden World, Berk has become the world’s first-ever dragon-Viking utopia, and Hiccup and friends conduct raids on armadas of ships, freeing all manner of dragons from captivity all across the world. But with the presence of a new night fury dragon, as well as a new enemy called Grimmel, Berk is once again in danger, the relationship at this series’ center is tested, and both Hiccup and Toothless must learn that eventually, some things must come to an end, as we learn to let go.

I’ve talked ad nauseum about the How to Train Your Dragon movies and what they mean to be both as a film lover and as a visual storytelling junkie, and I will continue to talk about them until the day I die. The first film is my favorite animated movie of all time (and rightfully so) with a brilliant script, astounding animation (especially for its time), one of the greatest animated film scores of all time, and a narrative that’s both sharply plotted and perfectly paced. The second HTTYD movie followed that up with a story that was more mature, if not quite as naturalistic in its dialogue and pacing, with animation that had advanced during that four-year wait to the height of its capabilities. The Hidden World, then, aims to be that rare trilogy capper that takes the series out on a high note, and for the most part, it does. I just wish the rest of the film, the stuff that wasn’t part of the finale, held up as well as the finale (and the other two movies) did.

See, I did like this film, but I wanted to love it. The adventures of Hiccup and Toothless are some of my favorites of all time, and while with that legacy comes (understandably) a lot of weight that may be difficult to hold, I’ve seen this series hold that weight before with ease. Those first two films have some of the most perfect pacing in any animated features, so the fact that the first two acts of this one are actually kind of dull apart from a handful of moments shared between the light fury and Toothless, as well as a barely 5 minute segment within the title location, is disappointing regardless of how well-animated the action and lighting is. Your mileage may vary on that front, but for me, things just seemed a little bit off what with the intro not including the usual title theme, or “this is berk” introduction by Hiccup until about 6 or 8 minutes in. Those two elements are not necessarily huge missteps for the film, but Dragon devotees like myself will notice their absence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from one to endorse pure fan-service as replacement or non-tertiary strengthener for narrative storytelling, but The Hidden World doesn’t quite have as many callbacks to the first or second films as it probably should when considering it’s meant to be the closer to a trilogy nearly ten years running.

In addition to this, whole swaths of the movie go by where not much actually happens at a plot level. Yes, the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless is tested, and Hiccup’s role as chief is challenged somewhat, but both of these things barely have any effect on the overall narrative as it stands. The large driving force of the plot is that Grimmel presents such a huge threat to Berk that they’ll have to relocate, and maybe the dragons will have to relocate too, but the threat he’s meant to represent honestly isn’t all that compelling. Grimmel’s character is not only under-written, but generically so, and doesn’t have anything quite as affecting to him on a character level as Drago being a fellow disabled person because of dragons in the second film. The script tries to do something with him that parallels a real-world anti-immigration allegory, but while the effort is notable, it ultimately feels underwritten, like they introduced the idea, but then didn’t really know where to go with it, and so it just fades into the background.

In fact, this movie has a character development issue that was bothering me for most of its runtime. Hiccup grows and learns something, but virtually no one else does. No one except Hiccup changes at all from the beginning to the end of the film, and while that’s all well and good that he undergoes a transformation (albeit only in one spoiler-ish respect) this time around, one of the greatest strengths of these movies is that most of the supporting characters change along with him, learning their own lessons along the way. The supporting characters in this movie, though, are relegated to small roles usually designed to deliver a low-level joke one too many times or scout something or tell Hiccup he’s better than his self-doubt. They’re no longer characters in their own right; they’re crutches by which to tell the story (apart from a couple of sweet Stoick flashback scenes) and move the plot along, which is sad considering how richly detailed they’ve been in the last two installments.

There is enough to like about the film, however, that despite being kind of let down by it overall, I still had a good time watching it play out. The animal courtship between the light fury and Toothless is one of the strongest aspects of the movie, and plays out in often simultaneously hilarious and adorable fashion. There are some new things she teaches him that come in very handy during the film’s thrilling (if a bit generic) final sequence, and the results are truly marvelous to behold. While she remains unnamed for the entirety of the film, she will be one of the characters audiences walk away remembering the most. The movie is also fantastically animated, and while The Hidden World plays it pretty safe in terms of shot selection (seriously, where did all the rest of the wide shots and flying intensity go?), what’s up on screen is incredibly detailed and looks gorgeous in its coloration and lighting design, particularly in that 5 minute title sequence. The hidden dragon world is a stunning piece of animation that will go down as one of the greatest ever committed to film. It may feel a bit strange to say that about an animated feature, but if you’ve seen the other two films, you know I don’t exaggerate. Some reviews are also touting John Powell’s score as a major strength, and while it does feel weaker than the other two overall (and doesn’t really enhance the film much), I can almost tell what they mean when listening to it on its own.

The Hidden World’s greatest strength, though, is its finale. Sure, the first two acts may be a bit dull and underdeveloped, but once this movie decides to turn on the emotional gauge, it dials it up to 100 and never looks back. Despite feeling like the overall movie wasn’t quite as good as the first two, this finale is by far the best since the original. Writer and director Dean DeBlois has gone on record several times as saying he never wanted to make anything more than a trilogy for this series, and for that level of integrity, I respect him immensely. Film trilogies are quite rare in this modern, franchise-crazed movie landscape, and to get a finale that makes it so hard to say goodbye to these characters and this world despite its gradually diluting quality, is something truly special and remarkable. (Yes, I was absolutely in tears by the end, and you will be too.)

Overall, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a heartfelt and sincere, but somewhat flawed finale to what remains a great motion picture trilogy. While I found the supporting cast underwritten and the villain uncompelling, I still had fun watching the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless be tested, and seeing where the characters ended up. The first two acts are really just fine (if not super affecting), and it may be the weakest of all three so far, but this trilogy conclusion also has some of the best moments of the whole overall set, not the least of which is its grippingly emotional finale.

I have loved getting to watch these movies over the past 9 years. I have loved growing with them and re-watching them in anticipation of each entry. I have loved taking this journey which has brought me such joy, laughter, and at times, wonderful sorrow. It is bittersweet for me to say goodbye. Farewell, citizens and dragons of Berk. It has been an honor watching you.

I’m giving “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” a 7.8/10.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Read an Exclusive Excerpt From Charlie Jane Anders’ YA Debut

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We need hopeful, critical, and empathetic voices in speculative fiction now more than ever, and Charlie Jane Anders is one of the best. The io9 co-founder who has gone on to write Hugo-nominated speculative fiction novels All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, is coming out with her first young adult novel, and we couldn’t be more excited. The upcoming science fiction adventure is called Victories Greater Than Death, and it’s being billed as perfect for fans of Star Wars (us) and Doctor Who (also us). We’re honored to bring you an exclusive excerpt from the novel—but, first, the synopsis:

THE UNIVERSE IS CALLING—and time is running out. Tina has always known her destiny is outside the norm—after all, she is the human clone of the most brilliant alien commander in all the galaxies (even if the rest of the world is still deciding whether aliens exist). But she is tired of waiting for her life to begin. And then it does—and maybe Tina should have been more prepared. At least she has a crew around her that she can trust—and her best friend at her side. Now, they just have to save the world.

And now for the exclusive sneak peek…

I have a ball of starlight inside me. A globe, containing a billion bright pinpricks. It’s always been there, since I was a baby—but lately I’ve been chewing up the inside of my own mouth waiting for it to burst out of me. Sometimes I feel all these little suns whirling, like they’re getting ready to emerge from the hollow of my collarbone. My whole life has been leading up to this, and I can’t stand the waiting.

I’m dangling by my waist from the side of the highway bridge. All the blood rushes to my head as a sixteen-wheeler truck rushes past, so close that I can feel the air disturbance and smell the fumes. The bridge quivers, and so does my heart. I feel like I’m going to pass out.

“Anything?” asks Rachael Townsend, who’s holding my belt in her strong grip.

“Nothing,” I gasp.

“Maybe you’re not scared enough,” Rachael says.

“I’m definitely scared enough. This . . . isn’t working.”

Rachael helps me pull myself upward, back behind the rusted old railing. I collapse on the hot cement walkway, next to a graffiti tag with a picture of a snarling puma.

“Okay.” Rachael smiles, sitting cross-legged on the walkway with her eyes looking wide and extra green in the midday sun. She’s dressed like a fourth-grader, as usual, in corduroy overalls and a long-sleeved stripy shirt.

“So it’s not reacting to fear. Or adrenaline.”

“And we know it’s not triggered by anger,” I say, “or it would have activated when Lauren Bose put dirt in Zuleikha Marshall’s new shoes. For sure.”

“Is Lauren Bose still harassing Zuleikha Marshall? And the school is doing nothing?” Rachael shakes her head. “This is why I’m being homeschooled.”

“Yeah. And yeah, the administration is both-sidesing the hell out of it. Makes me want to scream.”

“Okay.” Rachael reaches into her backpack and pulls out a folder. “So I’ve personally seen your rescue beacon light up on three separate occasions, and you’ve told me about four other times.” She shows me a chart, with beautiful handwriting and amazing doodles showing different versions of me with a bright blue-tinged glow coming from my sternum. Because Rachael is the greatest artist of all time.

Each cartoon version of me is labeled with things like:

1. Tina about to go to junior prom with Rob Langford 2. Tina right after cops broke up our flashmob outside the slumlord offices 3. Tina finds out she flunked trig midterm

“I got a D on that trig test,” I protest. “I did not flunk!”

“So I don’t see a huge pattern,” Rachael says. “I mean, it’s supposed to turn on when you’re old enough for the aliens to come get you, right?”

“They’re taking their sweet time.” I drag myself to my feet. “My mom keeps saying it might not happen until I turn eighteen, or even twenty-one. She just doesn’t want me to leave. As if it would be better for me to just stay trapped here forever.”

Rachael stands up too, and we walk back toward her rust-colored old Dodge hatchback. She’s being quiet again, which . . . a lot of being friends with Rachael is learning to interpret her many flavors of silence.

Like, there’s the “I’m mad at you and you won’t find out why for a week” silence. Or the “I’m figuring something out in my own head” silence. The most common is the “I need to be alone” silence, because Rachael has major hermit tendencies. But this silence is none of those, I’m pretty sure.

We drive for a while, without even any music. I’m one-quarter wondering what’s up with Rachael, but three-quarters obsessing about my rescue beacon and why it won’t just spill all the stars already.

At last, when we’re stopped at an intersection near the upscale mall and the tech campus, Rachael glances my way and says, “I wish I could go too. When the aliens come to collect you. I wish I could come along.”

I just stare at her. I don’t even know what to say.

“I know, I know.” Rachael raises her hands from the steering wheel.

“It would be ridiculous, and I would be useless up there in space, and there would be creatures trying to kill us, and it’s your destiny, not mine. But still. I wish.”

I want to tell Rachael that she’ll have a way better life down here on Earth. She’ll go to art school, find a new boyfriend to replace that loser Sven, publish tons of comics, and win awards. She’ll have adventures that don’t involve things like an alien murder team trying to kill her. She has plenty of reasons to stay.

Unlike me. I don’t have any real friends at high school, since Rachael dropped out. And the only thing I have to look forward to here on Earth is more people talking down to me. More bullies and creepers at school. More feeling like a bottomless pit, crammed with garbage emotions.

When Rachael drops me at my house, I just say, “I wish you could come too.”

“Yeah.” She smiles and hands me the folder. “Here. You should have this. Maybe it’ll help.”

She drives away. While I stare at a painstakingly annotated chart full of cartoon Tinas—each one bursting with pure dazzling light.

A few hours later, Rachael and I are already chatting again:

Chat log, Aug 19: Trashstar [5:36 pm]: its gonna happen soon. i can tell. the beacon. it’s gonna light up. Inkflinger [5:36 pm]: thats what u said last spring. and last winter. and five other times. Trashstar [5:37 pm]: its different this time i swear Trashstar [5:37 pm]: my mom is doing that thing again where she just stares at nothing Inkflinger [5:38 pm]: oh man, i’m sorry Inkflinger [5:38 pm]: what do u really think will happen when it lights up???? [Trashstar is typing] [Trashstar is typing] [Trashstar is typing] Inkflinger [5:40 pm]: helloooo?! Trashstar [5:40 pm]: i dont know Trashstar [5:41 pm]: they didnt tell my mom much when they dropped me off Trashstar [5:41 pm]: just . . . alien baby. massive legacy. evil murder team. Inkflinger [5:41 pm]: i hope there’s a dragon that u get to ride on Trashstar [5:41 pm]: like my own personal dragon Inkflinger [5:41 pm]: ur personal dragon that u share with me Trashstar [5:42 pm]: i’m pretty sure there will be at least a suit of armor Trashstar [5:42 pm]: rocket boots!!!! Trashstar [5:42 pm]: my theory is i’m the heir to a space casino Inkflinger [5:42 pm]: u’ve had YEARS to think about this Inkflinger [5:42 pm]: and space casino is the best u’ve come up with???? Trashstar [5:42 pm]: or maybe a wizard school Inkflinger [5:43 pm]: its definitely either casino or wizard academy Trashstar [5:43 pm]: pretty sure i’ve narrowed it down to those 2 options yea

This beacon is a part of me, like my liver or kidneys. Except sometimes at night, a faint growl wakes me—and I feel like I have a pacemaker, or some other foreign object, jammed inside my chest. And then I remember that my body isn’t the same as literally everyone else’s.

I fill our electric teakettle, with the switch jammed in the “on” position. And then I lean all the way over the side of my bed, so the steam is hitting the exact spot where the beacon is located. Mostly, the steam gets up in my nostrils and makes me choke.

My mom hears the kettle squealing. “What are you doing in there?” She peels back the curtain that separates my “bedroom” from the rest of the apartment. “Stop messing around. This is ridiculous.”

“It likes the steam! I can feel it reacting.” I cough and sputter.

“It’s an interplanetary rescue beacon, not a pork bun.” My mom turns the kettle off.

“I’m just so sick of ‘almost.’” I flop back onto my bed and bury my face in my knees.

Lately, my mom spends her time either trying to hide her tears from me, or acting like I’m already gone. Last week, I caught her folding the��same shirt for five minutes, just creasing and tucking over and over until it looked like a paper football. She’s started calling up friends she hasn’t seen in ages, signing herself up for adult education classes, working on ways to move on with her life without me. But then, she’ll blow off some social plan that she spent hours making, just so she can sit at home staring into a Public Radio mug full of Chablis. I want to comfort her, or reassure her, but I don’t know how.

For all we know, the people who left me on Earth as a baby are all gone, and there’ll be nobody to answer the beacon when it does come to life.

“You could just stay here on Earth and have an amazing life.” She stares at her refrigerator door, with all the old photos and the terrible artwork I did in fifth grade. “You’re already helping people down here,” she says with the full force of her midwestern Presbyterian earnestness. “All of the things that you do with the Lasagna Hats, everything you make happen . . . Nothing could ever make me prouder of you than I already am.”

“Yeah.” I stare at the floor. I don’t know what to say. My mom knows I want this, more than anything, even though it’s going to destroy her.

My mom sighs and drinks from her wine-mug. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

For once, we are actually looking at each other. Her red hair has wiry streaks of gray, and her eyes have new lines around them.

“When the beacon lights up, you have to run.” Her eyes blaze, out of nowhere, with an intensity I’ve almost never seen before. “Run as if armies were chasing you. Because I’ve told you, the moment your beacon activates, monsters from beyond our world will try to kill you. They won’t stop. Keep running, until you’re sure you’re being rescued for real. Promise me.”

I kind of shrug it off, but my mom grabs my wrist. So I say, “Yeah, yeah. Of course. I promise. Jeez.”

That night I wake up, and there’s someone next to my bed.

All I can see at first is a pair of coal-black eyes, glinting in the moonlight filtered through the branches of the yew tree outside my tiny window.

Then I make out his face. Pale, like a ghost. Grinning, like a serial killer.

Something lights up in his hands. I glimpse a shiny metal tube with four wings on all sides, and an opening, full of bottomless darkness, aimed right at me. Somehow I know this is a weapon.

He stands over me, huge as a mountain, blocking out everything else. Even if I had the strength to rise, I would still be a speck next to him.

“I take no pleasure from killing you.” The giant speaks in a low purr. “Satisfaction, certainly. And an adrenaline rush. And oh yes, a sense of vindication. Your death will probably give me closure. But still, I feel sad that it came to this.”

My skin is so cold, my hands are numb and my arms feel prickly. I can’t breathe.

“I want you to know that I feel nothing but pity for your miserable state.” The huge figure raises the gun to my head.

I scream until my throat hurts.

The gun hisses. I’m about to be burned down to nothing.

I’m so cold, I can’t stand this cold.

The word “miserable” rings in my ears as I scream and brace myself for death.

The next thing I know, my mom is shaking me and yelling my name. “Tina!”

My mom wraps my quilt tight around me. “Tina, are you okay? Talk to me.”

I still can’t breathe. “He was here,” I wheeze. “He was right here. He wasn’t even human. He was about to kill me.”

“Honey, it’s okay,” my mom says. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re here with me, it’s only human beings ’round these parts. I promise.”

“I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

That sentence takes me several breaths to say, with all the shivering. The quilt (with squares containing famous women who fought against oppression) helps a little. So does my mom, whispering reassurances in my ear.

That wasn’t just a random hallucination, or a dream. It was a memory. A memory of the person I used to be. Whoever that was. Don’t ask how, but I just know this was a glimpse of her life. The rescue beacon whirs inside me.

“I’m glad you saw that,” my mom says, “because I keep trying to tell you. The moment that beacon activates, they’ll be coming. I only saw a glimpse, and that was enough to make my skin crawl.”

My stomach flutters. “Tell me again.”

My mom hesitates, then nods. “I had just failed another infertility treatment, and they showed up at my apartment. They had a baby, with skin the color of fresh-picked lavender, and big round eyes, and they said you were a clone of someone who had just died, someone important. They took some of my DNA and used it to make you look like my daughter, so I could watch you until they were ready to come get you. They showed me a hologram of the monsters that I needed to keep you hidden from, and it was like seeing an army sent by death itself.”

My mom leans on my quilted shoulder, like she’s about to start crying.

Then she takes a deep breath instead. “Let’s do something fun tomorrow. I have a day off. Worthington Garden Party?”

“Wow. What? Really? We haven’t played Worthington Garden Party in forever.”

The beacon goes back to sleep behind my breastbone.

“Oh! There’s that brand-new mall near the tech campus that we haven’t even been to yet. I can wear my church-lady hat!” My mom laughs, and rubs her hands together, and I can’t help smiling too.

But after she leaves, I close my eyes again, and I still see the pale giant leering at me. Raising that terrible gun. I feel frozen to the marrow, like I’ve waded neck-deep into a lake on the bleakest day of winter.

Worthington Garden Party is a game my mom and I invented, where we go through the mall looking at things we could never afford to buy, and we pretend that we’re planning a fancy garden party for the Worthingtons (who don’t exist, just in case it wasn’t already obvious).

My mom puts on her scariest hat, with the carnations and the pink ribbon, and I wear bright apricot capri pants. And we drive to the new shopping center, over on the rich side of town.

The kitchen store has this red-chrome machine that turns fresh fruit into a decorative fountain, and you can program it to spray a few different patterns. “I don’t know,” my mom says, in a very serious voice. “The Worthingtons are quite particular about their juice formations. We wouldn’t want to have a fruit salute that lacks proper parabolas.” My mom says the words “fruit salute” with a straight face.

“Yes, yes,” I say. “I mean, the Worthingtons. How many times have they said they prefer their papaya juice to really soar? So many times.”

My mom nods gravely. “Yes. The Worthingtons have strong opinions about properly aerodynamic papaya juice.” Over in the corner, the salesperson is hiding her giggles behind her hand.

This is the mom I’ve been missing lately. The one who decided that she and I would treat everything like a grand ridiculous adventure, the two of us against the universe. Even when we went camping and set fire to our tent, and got ourselves menaced by beavers. (They were really terrifying. I swear.)

“I always knew that you were going to be taken away from me,” my mom told me a while ago. “I thought about taking you off the grid, or trying to find people to train you in survival skills. But I decided it was better for you to have some good memories of your time as a human being. However long that lasts.”

We keep moving through the mall, along marble floors that are so shiny, I see a murky ghost of myself reflected in them. We gaze upon shiny shoes, in a riot of colors, that cost nearly a month’s rent. These kid-leather saddle shoes, with peacock feather heads all around the sides, might be just the thing to help the Worthingtons launch the season. “Mundane,” my mother proclaims, squinting at them. “Frightfully mundane.”

The only thing we actually buy is a basket of truffle fries, which we eat in the food court. They smell of rich oils and spices, but they taste like regular fries, just a little sweeter.

My mom chatters about the book club she keeps missing, and I let myself breathe. It’s okay. Only humans ’round these parts.

Then I look away for a second, and see the pale man, standing near the video game store. Watching us. His lip curls upward, and he pats the ugly gun attached to his dark tunic.

When I look again, a second later, the pale man is gone.

The next day at Clinton High, someone has posted a slut-shaming video about Samantha Kinnock, and it has a hundred likes already. Only thirty seconds long, just a close-up of Samantha’s ass in this pair of booty shorts that she decided to wear one weekend, with ugly messages popping up. I hear Lauren Bose and her other friends whisper about it in the hallway.

It never stops. The cycle just keeps going and going. People only feel like their footing is secure when they can step on someone else’s head.

Why would I even want to be human?

I step into Lauren’s path and the rage settles onto me, like armor.

“Leave Samantha alone.”

I get tunnel vision, and my nerves are jangling, and Lauren’s dimply smirk gets under my skin—and the beacon wakes up. Something to add to Rachael’s chart of cartoon Tinas.

This ball of light throbs and pounds against the wall of my chest like a trapped animal, pale glow showing through my hoodie. And I think, It’s happening, damn damn damn, I’ll finally be who I was meant to be.

One of Lauren’s friends, maybe Kayla, sticks out her foot, and trips me. I fall face-first onto the tile floor, hard enough to scrape my palms. Everyone is laughing and chattering and aiming their phones.

The beacon sputters.

All at once, I’m not picking myself up off the hallway of Clinton High. I’m raising myself, painfully, off an opaque black surface made out of glass, or plastic. The floor quakes under my hands and knees—and all around me is nothing but darkness, peppered with tiny lights.

Stars to my left, stars to my right, stars all around.

I’m standing on top of a spaceship, in deep space.

And my skin has turned purple. Not grape-soda purple, more like a pale, bluish purple that shimmers as it catches the starlight. I’m wearing a crimson suit, or some kind of uniform, with a river of lights on the left sleeve and a picture of a strange mask, like for an opera singer, on the right. My violet palms are cupped around a holographic message that I somehow know is telling me this spaceship is about to explode.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” says a voice like the rustling of dead leaves in the wind. “You were always doomed to fail.” The giant from my bedroom turns his depthless black eyes toward me. He’s wearing a bloodred sash across his long dark tunic.

His face looks wrong, even besides the paleness and the big dark eye pools. I can’t figure it out at first, but then I realize: he’s too perfect. No flaws, no blemishes. The two sides of his face are exactly the same, like a mirror image. His dark hair is cropped short across his white scalp.

“Marrant, even if you kill me, that doesn’t mean I’ve failed,” I hear myself say. “There are victories greater than death. I might not live to see justice done, but I can see it coming. Also, that sash makes you look like a third-rate CrudePink singer.”

The giant—Marrant?—snarls and lunges forward, and his right hand holds the same weapon as in my vision from the other night. I’ve never even seen a regular gun up close, but at this range, I can tell this one will rip my entire body in half.

The darkness in Marrant’s eyes makes me feel tiny, weak, a speck of nothing.

Then reality comes crashing back. My skin is back to its usual shade of pale cream. I’m standing there in the hallway, trembling, and the bell is ringing, and I’m about to be late for class. My legs won’t budge, no matter how hard I try to make them.

Saturday morning, the sunlight invades my tiny curtained-off “bedroom” and wakes me from a clammy bad dream. Even awake, I keep remembering Marrant’s creepy voice—and I startle, as if I had more layers of nightmare to wake from.

My phone is jittering with all the gossip from Waymaker fandom and random updates about some Clinton High drama that I barely noticed in the midst of my Marrant obsession . . . and then there’s a message from Rachael on the Lasagna Hats server.

Monday Barker. It’s happening: disco party! Coming to pick you up at noon.

The Lasagna Hats started as a backchannel group for Waymaker players—until the game had one gross update too many, and then we started just chatting about whatever. And somehow it turned into a place to organize pranks and disruptions against all of the world’s scuzziest creeps.

I grab my backpack, dump out all my school stuff, and cram it full of noisemakers, glitter, and my mom’s old costume stuff. I’m already snapping out of my anxiety spiral.

The back seat of Rachael’s car is covered with art supplies and sketchpads, and I can tell at a glance that she’s leveled up since I last saw her works in progress. As soon as I get in her car, Rachael chatters to me about Monday Barker—that online “personality” who says that girls are naturally bad at science and math, and women should never have gotten the vote.

Then Rachael trails off, because she can tell I’m only half listening.

“Okay,” she says. “What’s wrong with you?” I can barely find the words to tell her I’ve started having hallucinations about an alien serial killer.

The artwork on Rachael’s back seat includes a hand-colored drawing of a zebra wearing a ruffly collar and velvet jacket, raising a sword and riding a narwhal across the clouds. Somehow this image gives me the courage to explain about Marrant.

“Pretty sure these were actual memories from . . . before,” I say. “I think this means it’s going to light up soon.”

“That’s great.” Rachael glances at my face. “Wait. Why isn’t that great?”

“It is. Except . . . I’ve been waiting and dreaming for so long, and now it’s suddenly a real thing. And . . . what if there’s nothing out there but the evil murder team? What if all the friendly aliens are dead? Or don’t bother to show up?”

“Huh.” She drives onto the highway and merges into traffic without slowing down. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

I close my eyes, and remember that oily voice: You were always doomed to fail.

“Maybe I can’t do this.” I suck in a deep breath through my teeth. “Maybe I’m just out of my league and I’m going to die. Maybe I’m just not strong enough.”

Rachael glances at me again, and shrugs. “Maybe,” is all she says.

She doesn’t talk again for ages. I think this is the “working something out in her own head” silence.

We make a pit stop at a convenience store, and Rachael pauses in the parking lot. “Remember when you decked Walter Gough for calling me an orca in a smock?” (It wasn’t a smock, it was a nice chemise from Torrid, and Walter deserved worse.) “Remember the great lunch lady war, and that Frito pie costume you wore?”

I nod.

“The entire time I’ve known you, people have kept telling you to stop being such an obnoxious pain in the butt,” Rachael says with a gleam in her eye. “But here you are, preparing to put on a ridiculous costume and prank Monday Barker. This is who you are. So . . . if some alien murder team shows up to test you, I feel sorry for them.”

Rachael smiles at me. Everything suddenly feels extremely heavy and lighter than air, at the same time.

“Oh my god,” I say. “Can I hug you? I know you don’t always like to be touched, but—”

Rachael nods, and I pull her into a bear hug. She smells of fancy soap and acetone, and her arms wrap around me super gently.

Then she lets go of me, and I let go too, and we go to buy some extra-spicy chips and ultra-caffeinated sodas, the perfect fuel for confronting asshattery (ass-millinery?). I keep thinking of what Rachael just said, and a sugar rush spreads throughout my whole body.

I feel like I almost forgot something massively important, but then my best friend was there to remind me.

Monday Barker is scheduled to speak at the Lions Club in Islington, and we’re setting up at the park across the street. Bette and Turtle have a glitter mist machine and a big disco ball, and a dozen other people, mostly my age, have brought sparkly decorations. I wander around helping people to figure out the best place to set up, since this “disco party” was sort of my idea.

“We got this,” says Turtle, buttoning their white suit jacket over a red shirt. “Why don’t you get yourself ready?” They’ve put pink streaks into their hair-swoosh.

In other words, Stop trying to micromanage everyone. Message received.

I retreat to Rachael’s car, where I rummage in my knapsack and put on a bright red spangly tuxedo shirt and a big fluffy pink skirt I stole from my mom, plus shoes covered with sequins.

Rachael sets to work finishing some signs she was making, which are full of rainbows and stars and shiny Day-Glo paint. I pull out the tubes of glitter-goop I brought with me, and she lets me spread some around the edges using a popsicle stick.

I coax Rachael into telling me about the comic she’s working on right now. “It’s about a group of animals living on a boat. They thought they were getting on Noah’s Ark, but the guy they thought was Noah skipped out on them, and now they’re just stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean alone. There’s a pair of giraffes, and a poly triad of walruses. They have to teach themselves to sail, and maybe they’re going to become pirates who only steal fresh produce. Once I have enough of it, I might put it online.”

“Hell yeah,” I say. “The world deserves to learn how excellent you are.”

She just nods and keeps adding more sparkle.

I wish the bullies hadn’t driven Rachael away from school. She just made too easy a target for ass-millinery: her parents are nudists, she’s a super-introvert who sometimes talks to herself when she gets stressed, and she wears loose rayon clothing to hide all her curves.

The rich kids, whose parents worked at the tech campus, took her picture and used filters to make her look like an actual dog. Kids “accidentally” tripped her up as she walked into school, or shoved her in the girls’ room. One time, someone dumped a can of coffee grounds from the teacher’s lounge on her head. I tried to protect her, but I couldn’t be there all the time.

So . . . homeschooling. And me never seeing Rachael during the week anymore.

Soon there are about twenty of us across the street from the Lions Club, everybody feeding off everyone else’s energy and hoisting Rachael’s glorious awning. And a pro–Monday Barker crowd is already gathered across the street, on the front walk of this old one-story brick meeting hall with flaking paint on its wooden sign.

A town car pulls up, and Monday Barker gets out, flanked by two beefy men in dark suits holding walkie-talkies. Monday Barker is about my mom’s age, with sideburns enclosing his round face, and a huge crown of upswept hair. He waves in a robotic motion, and his fans scream and freak out.

Someone on our side fires up a big speaker on wheels, playing old disco music. The handful of cops between us and the Lions Club tense up, but we’re not trying to start anything. We’re just having an impromptu dance party.

The brick wall of the savings and trust bank seems to shiver. I catch a glimpse of Marrant, the giant with the scary-perfect face and the sneering thin lips, staring at me.

But I remember what I said to him in that vision: There are victories greater than death. I can see justice coming. And then I think about Rachael saying, If an alien murder team shows up, I feel sorry for them.

The throbbing grows stronger . . . but Marrant is gone. The brick wall is just a wall again.

The Monday Barker fans—mostly white boys with bad hair—are chanting something, but I can’t hear them over our music. Rachael and I look at each other and whoop. Someone starts the whole crowd singing along with that song about how we are family. I know, I know. But I get kind of choked up.

We keep on, chanting disco lyrics and holding hands, until Monday Barker’s supporters vanish inside the Lions Club to listen to their idol explain why girls shouldn’t learn to read. Out here, on the disco side of the line, we all start high-fiving each other and jumping up and down.

Afterward, we all head to the 23-Hour Coffee Bomb. Turtle, Bette, and the others all go inside the coffee place, but I pause out in the parking lot, with its scenic view of the wind-beaten sign for the Little Darlings strip club. Rachael sees me and hangs back too.

“I started to get another one of those hallucinations.” I look down at the white gravel. “During the disco party. Snow-white serial killer, staring me down. And this time . . . I faced it. I didn’t get scared. And I could feel the star ball respond to that, like it was powering up.”

“Hmm.” Rachael turns away from the door and looks at me. “Maybe that’s the key. That’s how you get the rescue beacon to switch on.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. Makes total sense. When you can confront that scary vision of your past life or whatever, then it proves you’re ready.” She comes closer and reaches out with one hand. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I want to be here to see this.” She grins.

I swallow and shiver for a moment, then I clasp her hand and concentrate. Probably better to do this before I lose my nerve, right?

I remember Marrant and his bottomless dark eyes, and the exploding spaceship, and that curdled blob of helplessness inside me. And I catch sight of him again, striding across the road with his death-cannon raised. The icy feeling grows from my core outward, and I clench my free hand into a fist.

Then . . . I start to shake. I can actually see the dark tendrils gathering inside that gun barrel. Pure concentrated death. My heart pounds so loud I can’t even think straight. I couldn’t even help Rachael feel safe at Clinton High. How could I possibly be ready to face Marrant?

“I can’t,” I choke out. “I can’t. I . . . I just can’t.”

“Okay,” Rachael says. “Doesn’t have to be today, right? But I know you got this. Just think of disco and glitter and the look in Monday Barker’s eyes when he tried so damn hard not to notice us in all our finery.”

She squeezes my hand tighter. I look down at the ridiculous skirt I’m still wearing. And I focus on the person I am in those visions—the person who can see justice coming, even on the brink of death. That’s who I’ve always wanted to be.

I’m ready. I know I can do this.

I growl in my throat, and feel a sympathetic thrumming from the top of my rib cage.

The parking lot and the strip-club billboard melt away, and I’m once again standing on top of a spaceship, and my free hand is cupped around a warning that we’re about to blow up. The stars whirl around so fast that I get dizzy, and Marrant is aiming his weapon at point-blank range.

But I can still feel Rachael’s hand wrapped around mine.

I gather myself together, step forward, and smile.

I can’t see what happens next, because a white light floods my eyes, so bright it burns.

Rachael squeezes my hand tighter and says, “Holy bloody hell.”

A million stars flow out of me, inside a globe the size of a tennis ball. I can only stand to look at them through my fingers, all of these red and blue and yellow lights whirling around, with clouds of gas and comets and pulsars.

Way more stars than I’ve ever seen in the sky.

All of my senses feel extra sharp: the burnt-tire smell of the coffee, the whoosh of traffic going past, the jangle of classic rock from inside the café, the tiny rocks under my feet.

Everybody inside the coffee shop is staring and yelling. I catch Turtle’s eye, and they look freaked out. Rachael has her phone out and is taking as many pictures as she can.

As soon as the ball leaves my body, it gets bigger, until I can see more of the individual stars. So many tiny hearts of light, I can’t even count. The sphere expands until I’m surrounded. Stars overhead, stars underfoot. This parking lot has become a planetarium.

I can’t help laughing, yelling, swirling my hands through the star-trails. Feels like I’ve been waiting forever to bathe in this stardust.

Used with permission from Tor Teen, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates; a trade division of Macmillan Publishers. Copyright Charlie Jane Anders 2021.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Victories Greater Than Death will hit bookshelves on April 14th, 2021. You can find out more about Victories Greater Than Death, including how to pre-order, here.

As a kid, all I wanted was for aliens to show up and take me away from this planet. So I put that dream into a new YA book, #VictoriesGreaterThanDeath. Now there's a brand new pre-order page, with links to all the places! Pre-ordering is awesomely heroic!https://t.co/K9v5vUsiSV

— Charlie Jane Anders *Victories Greater than Death* (@charliejane) November 18, 2020

The post Read an Exclusive Excerpt From Charlie Jane Anders’ YA Debut appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3qk1QwT

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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noodlerama · 7 years

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Out of curiosity, can you explain your negative impressions of Movie 20? Not trying to judge you or saying your opinions are invalid, but going by a guy who shared his in-depth impressions this is really sounding like a movie that focuses on Ash and Pikachu first and foremost, with stuff like that dumb 'talking scene' making sense in the narrative, and I'd like to know your counterpoint going by impressions.

If this movie was actually focused on Ash and Pikachu solo adventures with him discovering the mysteries of Ho-oh I would’ve been totally fine with that, based on the summaries it mostly kinda is but we have to deal with dumb extraneous characters that I, personally, don’t care about and fucking idiotic plot points that happen in the movie’s later half (yes yes I know not every detail might be correct in ceartain summary recollections but overall the same general story events happen which I dont like anyway so yeah). Like Makoto and Shouji don’t seem to offer anything substantial in this movie, they seem like they’re just there to stand around and be advertisements, this is what they replaced Misty and Brock for and it pisses me off.. I feel like this movie wants to have its cake and eat it too, it tries to celebrate the 20th anniversary but it’s all shallow surface level imagery with no real heart to any of it, and it also wants to be yet another generic, nothing Pokemon movie that only exists to market whatever is popular right now so we got Lucario, Piplup and Marshadow being lazily shoved in at the cost of a proper anniversary film, for Gods sake not even TEAM ROCKET can get decent treatment in this movie, the don’t even interact with Ash! What kind of bullshit is that.???.

It just seems so terrible in its execution and so heart breaking in its disrespect to the legacy that you feel like the writers wanted to just make a typical SM movie to advertise that but they hastily rembered it was the 20th anniversary so cobbled together this nonsense. People call me, and others who are not happy with this movie, entitled 20-somethings nostalgic fanboys that hate change when its not that at all (for the most part) it’s just that we’re tired of this anime not living up to its full potential, we’re tired as people who love and adore and stuck with the anime for THIS LONG be treated as if we don’t matter, as if ONLY the children matter (and don’t feed me this bullshit that they only care about attracting the kids, if they did they wouldn’t have made a fucking 20th anniversary movie filled with nostalgic imagery the older fans would resonate with).

The MAIN POKEMON GAME SERIES acknowledges that the demographic has changed, they are aware that children and adults alike play these games and shows both demographics love and attention, but the anime staff just seem stubbornly set in their ways and refuse to acknowledge that. It happened with the Kalos League when they refuse to let Ash advance as a character, they showed that with XY’s lack of continuity, and now the 20th Movie is the culmination of all of that and it SUCKS. They refuse to let the anime grow because they just wanna keep pretending kids watch it only when that’s NOT TRUE. (Im leaving the SM anime alone because it’s it’s own weird thing separate from this larger issue I have with the anime staff).

Ive just been so disillusioned with a anime I could gladly call my favorite a year ago and now im just so disconnected and detached and it makes me SAD. Ive been looking to stuff like HxH and BNHA because I needed something to fill that hole that it left behind, I REALLY wanted this movie to be good and bring me back to loving the anime again but that was my own fault, I just cant remember the last time I was really looking forward to something in the anime and it met my expectations with no bullshit, I miss that feeling

#pokeani #m20 #m20 salt #im sorry I just have a lot of feeligns

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puckish-saint · 7 years

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as you said i can request it so... i would like the hanzo and genji s/o inspired by the story of this song, in the case I refer to girl perspective(the name of the song is Muteki no Soldier) feel free to change anything to make easier to fit in the overwatch universe, but i would like if you maintain the principal aspect of this character, the regret of her own blindness for not see that her master dont intent to kill her and her becoming the new "invincible soldier"

Link to the songHanzo

The mind is a strange thing, prone tomaking the unlikeliest connections. The sight of blood doesn'tdisturb you, but left handed people do, always leaving you with anunshakeable hunch you're being deceived. Being confronted with youractions, good or ill, now impose dread never known before. You keepout of the public eye not out of humility but because you fearattention. Few people understand how to live with the constantpressure of thoughts traveling through a scarred network of neurons,getting lost or changed on the way. Only those who've experienced itfirsthand really know the feeling.

The point in all this is that whileeveryone else in the dingy bar remains oblivious, you recognise apanic attack when you see one.

The man sits in a corner booth, anuntouched drink in front of him, observing the other patrons. Nothingappears out of the ordinary, but that is exactly the impression he'strying to give. He moves too little, fears he'll flinch or twitch,stares straight ahead to avoid being seen darting furtive glances tothe exits and the throng of people. As a stranger, and a potentiallydangerous one at that, it would be unwise to approach him, but youhelp in your own way, diverting the attention of the waitress goinghis way and keeping an eye out for trouble.

Nothing comes forward and after a fewminutes he relaxes minutely and makes his way to the restrooms. Lateryou won’t be able to explain why you followed, why even the fear ofa set of piercing eyes on you - caught red-handed, you’re donefor, you can’t match his skill, not yet, you were supposed to havemore time - isn’t enough to keep you in the safe background.

He leans against the sink, handsunmoving under the water. He must have noticed you enter but doesn’tlook up, keeps gazing down at the stream with a faraway look. Fromafar he had an air of nobility contained in a flawless frame but upclose the cracks in the facade show. The clothes he wears must havebeen custom made but the hems are frayed, the fabric discoloured withstains that won’t wash out. He pulled his hair back into a strictponytail but it can’t hide the split ends and dullness that comesfrom a bad diet.

This is the last chance to slip awayquietly, to do the job that’s in front of you - forge your ownpath he said but how could you, with his legacy seeping away into thesoil beneath the fatal wound - and never think of this man, orany other, again. Instead you say, voice hoarse from disuse:“Areyou going to be alright?”

And what a picture this makes, when helooks up at you, startled and wide-eyed like a pup that fears theboot, you trying and failing to appear like you talk to people everyday, like this isn’t the first time you take a chance on someone.Both of you trying, and failing, to appear human.

“Excuse me?” he says, rememberingthe proper thing to do when a stranger approaches you in a publicbathroom, which is to act with incredulity.

“Panic attacks can be draining. Youhave money for food?”

He scoffs, turns off the tap and goesto dry his hands, turning his back to you but watching through themirror.

“Do not insult me.” he says andthere it is again, that layer of nobility imposed on a fragile frame.

“Suit yourself.” You hesitate andwonder why but in the end you give him the address of the apartmentyou’re staying at, giving away information you normally guard likea dragon guards its hoard.

You fully expect the offer to expirewithout ever seeing him again but at half past two in the morning,when you just dragged yourself to sleep, he taps at the window like aspectre come to haunt you.

“I have a door.” you say as you lethim in and suppress a yawn. He looks around, curls his lips in vaguedistaste at his surroundings.

“You don’t have anything. Iexpected better from a person with your reputation.”

“Oh?” You raise an eyebrow, tiltyour head towards the balcony with the clear message that you mayhave invited him in but you can invite him out just as easily.

“I inquired about you. They call youthe Invincible Soldier, say you’re the best in the business. All Isee is a lowlife and a squatter.”

It takes something, guts or arrogance,to insult your host while you take advantage of their hospitality,but something tells you he isn’t overly concerned with good mannersanymore.

“A lowlife who’s sleeping under aroof, thank you. You want your burrito warmed up?”

At his questioning glance you point toa paper bag with fast food, gone cold hours ago, a small batterypowered microwave next to it. He shakes his head.

Hanzo, as he introduces himself, eatswith the desperation of a man who has gone without burritos too long.He tries to keep table manners for all but ten seconds before heabandons all poise to shove food into his mouth like you’re goingto take it away if he’s not fast enough.

“There’s plenty of work for askilled marksman.” you say conversationally, surprised at how easyit comes. In a way talking to Hanzo is like talking to a feral dog,there’s little pressure and much gain.

“I may be recognised.”

“People are hunting you?”

He may have hesitated if he stoppedlong enough between bites. A flicker of a glare is all he gives youto work with.

Talking is overrated anyway and you canthink of better things to do than prying into his personal life.Going to bed for example.

He brought his own sleeping bag, whichcounts for something you suppose, and you extend an offer to stay thenight by throwing a spare pillow in his general direction.

Neither of you sleeps much that night,wary of the other’s movement, fearing an attack at any second.

Despite that he stays, despite that youlet him and before you know it you’re a team. Just like old times,a tiny bitter part of you thinks.

You accept the bounties, both of youwork together and share the reward. Weeks, then months pass and Hanzono longer looks hungry all the time and your voice doesn’t crackanymore when you speak. Just like old times, the phrase repeatsitself again and again, often in the middle of the night when you andHanzo watch each other, unable to find sleep.

“I knew an Invincible Soldier once.”he says on one such night, deep in thoughts as if he’s not talkingto you at all. “But he was not you.”“No.” you say softly.“He wasn’t.”

The question stays written on his face,clear and unspoken.

“I killed him.” you clarify,summing up in three words a story that would take a lifetime to tell.

“You regret it.” It’s not aquestion but you nod anyway.

“I do.”

“You loved him?”

“In a way.”

It’s fairer to say that he loved youand it destroyed him in the end, long before you could ask if hislove was that of a father, a brother or a man. Some part of youalways feared the answer. “I killed someone, too.” Hanzosays, offering a little bit of himself for a little bit of you.

“Someone you loved?”“In away.”

The night passes and you rarely speakof it, nor of the things you confessed. You reached some kind ofunderstanding, something that makes it impossible to leave. Forbetter or worse, and some days you’re not sure which, you’re tiedtogether now. Wherever redemption lies, you’ll have to go theretogether.

Genji

You buy him his first drink, yearsbefore he is legally allowed to.

“Perks of vigilantism.” you say asyou toast your lives, free from responsibility and full ofpossibilities. His family calls you a thief and a lowlife and younever dispute it, even when he tries to defend you.

“They’re right, I am athief. The only thing they got wrong is thinking calling me one wouldinsult me.”

Take the insults and choose to beflattered by them, that’s always been your way and Genji adopts itjust fine. Disappointment becomes his family’s problem when he nolonger makes an effort to live up to their expectations. It’s hardto feel bad for failing when you never tried at all.

He wears his heart on his sleeve andshares, over the first stretch of your friendship, everything thereis to know about him. When you get to the kissing part only weekslater he has no secrets left. You make up for it by keeping enoughfor two. That’s the way it should be, the way things work betweenyou. You’re the dashing rogue sneaking into his bedchambers, he’sthe spoiled prince dreaming of freedom. It’s easy to forget thatwith all his naivety and playful attitude he’s also cunning as theycome.

You forget, as he undoubtedly planned,and one day find yourself drunk and sprawling on his bed while he,only slightly tipsy, works to rid you of every story you never toldhim.

“Where’d you get that sword?” heasks, not for the first time, but knowing that now he’s torn yourdefenses down.

“Took it off a guy I killed.” yousay, stroking the fine leather of the scabbard.

“You killed a lot of people?” Hiseyes shine, eager to hear stories of your adventures. He fancieshimself a yakuza boss, despite never having done anything worthwhilefor his clan. He still imagines the world out there to be a story,nothing different from a video game or a comic.

“Sure.” You indulge him, at thatpoint still believing talking is your idea, and sit up to pull himinto your lap. He goes willingly, arches against you, offering youhis perfect body in exchange for a few measly stories. Had you been alittle more sober you’d have known he wants you more than you wanthim, but comfortably dizzy all you know is that the trade seems fair.

“Been a thief all my life. If somepeople fought back I’d kill them and steal their clothes, too.”

He laughs obediently at your bad joke,bats his eyelashes, making you feel like you’re the mostinteresting person in the world.

“And the sword? Who did you kill toget that?”

You shrug, clouding the memory with theusual mist of aloofness.

“Some guy I ran with for a while.Gullible fool, but he wasn’t too bad with the blade. Always went onand on about how I should make something of myself. ‘You’re abetter person than you give yourself credit for.’ Hah. Idiot.Took his sword and his name.” you say, scoffing and waving thememory away. It’s not worth dwelling on.

“Sounds like my father.”

“He was exactly like your father.Couldn’t see the truth if it mooned him.”

Drunken affection makes you plant a wetkiss on his cheek, before you fall back, pulling him with you. Themattress is soft enough to nearly swallow you whole, threatening themost comfortable suffocation death you can think of.

“You and I.” you say, pulling apillow under your head with one hand, holding Genji tight on top ofyou with the other. “You and I are the same. We’re adventurers.They’ll never tame us.”

Waking up with a hangover to match theGods has taught you a lesson or two about drinking in his company,but somehow he still manages to get the odd story out of you everynow and then. Never as personal, as intimate, as the story of how yougot that sword, of how you got the moniker that’s whispered in theright, and sometimes the wrong, circles. Invincible though they callyou, it’s not what you are when Genji finds you one night, out ofbreath and crying. He was the one to establish the rule of noemotional bonding but all the same you give him shelter and listen tohis stuttered report of overhearing the order the clan elders gavehis brother.

Kill your lowlife of a brother, theysaid and it must have been the same voice ringing in your mentor’shead the day he found you stealing. It never would have ended thesame way. Hanzo fights just as well with his left hand.

There’s little to do except run andrun you do, Genji and you, hand in hand and never looking back. Orrarely, anyway.

“Do you think he would have done it?”Genji asks once, when you’re so far away from Japan that speakingHanzo’s name no longer threatens to summon the devil to your home.

You nod. “Pretty sure.”

It’s not what Genji wanted to hearand by now you care for him more than you care for your reputation.When he averts his eyes you gently grasp his chin and make him lookat you.

“But he would have regretted it. Iknow I do.”

He glances at the sword, listens at thepart of the story not even lethal amounts of alcohol could flush outof you.

“He couldn’t live with my blood onhis hands. So he made me live with his on mine. It would havedestroyed your brother having to lift a hand against you. Maybesomeday he’ll realise that.”

For Genji and him there still is asomeday. And reaching it is worth using a painful memory as a lessonso that someday when the brothers reunite they will do it in thislife, rather than hoping for the next, like you have no other choicebut doing.

#overwatch imagines #hanzo #genji #reader insert #overwatch song recs #Anonymous

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

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Inspiration from 7 Up, Lauren Oliver, Julien Baker, and More

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Thoreau on happiness Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder. Henry David Thoreau I spent a lot of years of my life chasing happiness, believing that I could somehow build a happy life. What I learned is that such an endeavor is basically impossible. Instead, you should try to build a life thats in line with what your values and principles are, and what youll find is that happiness naturally bubbles up as you get closer and closer to that destination. Happiness is a side effect of doing something worthwhile. When you do worthwhile things, happiness occurs naturally. If you chase happiness for happinesss sake, youll never actually catch it. [embedded content] From the Wikipedia entry on the series: The Up Series is a series of documentary filmsproduced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. So far the documentary has had eight episodes spanning 49 years (one episode every seven years) and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC. In a 2005 Channel 4 programme, the series topped the list of The 50 Greatest Documentaries. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each childs social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films material from those of the fourteen who choose to participate. The last installment, 56 Up, premiered in May 2012; Apted has stated that filming for 63 Up will occur in late 2018, for release in spring 2019. Apted has also been reported as saying: I hope to do 84 Up when Ill be 99. The aim of the series is stated at the beginning of 7 Up as: Why do we bring these children together? Because we want to get a glimpse of England in the year 2000. The shop steward and the executive of the year 2000 are now seven years old. The video embedded above (if you cant see it, you can reach it by clicking on the link) is the full documentary 7 Up, which covers the fourteen children as they were in 1964, as seven year olds. Each subsequent entry in the series revisits most of the children at seven year intervals in their lives, as things go in different directions for them. I watched these for the first time as a marathon in around 2002, when 42 Up was the newest entry available; I watched the entire series again a few years later after 49 Up was released, and yet again with the making of 56 Up. Each time it utterly charmed me and left me thinking about the fragility and difficulty and beauty of human lives. A few days ago, a friend of mine pointed out that all of the films were freely available on Youtube, so theres no reason not to dive in. This Youtube list contains the entire series, starting with 7 Up and continuing through 56 Up, the most recent entry. 3. Lauren Oliver on the whole of people I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people; to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole. Lauren Oliver I feel like this is a good quote to pair with 7 Up, actually. In that series and in fact, throughout our lives we get only relatively small glances at these people. We see only little slivers of their lives. Even with the best efforts of the filmmakers, this would be true; a filmmaker visiting a person for a few days once every seven years cannot capture their true nature. Yet, as I watch those films, I cant help but draw some conclusions. I think I would be friends with some of them, and Id probably avoid other ones. Those quick takes may or may not be accurate. Im making them based on really limited information about a person. I might be seeing that person at their best or at their worst. I might be seeing a quirky moment thats not emblematic of them as a whole. Its impossible to really tell. What I do know is this: some of the worst mistakes Ive made in life have been due to snap judgments about people, almost all of them more negative than they ever should have been. I drew some very negative conclusions about people and guided my behavior regarding them based on very little information mixed in with my own ideas and assumptions, and it has cost me many potential dear relationships over the years. The tiny part of a person that you actually see is a pretty poor representative of the whole. This article by Jason Fagone chronicles the store of Jerry and Marge Selbee, who, in their retirement, discovered and then exploited holes in the Michigan and Massachusetts state lottery systems. I found myself reading this article one evening while Sarah was busy grading papers, and I couldnt help but mention to her that this is literally the kind of thing that I can see us doing in retirement. Were both curious people who like to understand how systems work. We arent afraid to take big leaps of faith on things that we feel certain about. Id like to think that Sarah and I, in our later years, will go on a lot of quirky adventures, like Jerry and Marge. Im also sharing this because its just a fun story, a well written one by Jason Fagone. This ones really worth your time. 5. Benjamin Franklin on apologies Never ruin an apology with an excuse. Benjamin Franklin One of the hardest things to do is to genuinely apologize when youve made a mistake and not turn it into an excuse or an avenue for blaming others. Anything beyond I messed up is simply a way to deflect blame off of yourself and, in the process, make the apology a lot less valuable. An apology that ends up being nothing more than a redirection of blame or an excuse of a mistake is a worthless apology; in fact, youre often leaving things in an even worse state because the other person perceives that you wont own up to your mistakes. When you mess up, apologize sincerely without excusing your mistake or blaming others. Admit that you messed up, state that youre sorry for it, and that you want to do what you can to make it right and to make sure it wont happen again. Make it clear that its on you, not on anyone else. Its hard to do that. Its much easier to just shovel the blame onto someone or something else. If you do that, though, you eliminate virtually all of the meaning of the apology and look pretty weak to boot. [embedded content] From the description: Do you know what you want when you die? Do you know how you want to be remembered? In a candid, heartfelt talk about a subject most of us would rather not discuss, Michelle Knox asks each of us to reflect on our core values around death and share them with our loved ones, so they can make informed decisions without fear of having failed to honor our legacies. Life would be a lot easier to live if we talked about death now, Knox says. We need to discuss these issues when we are fit and healthy so we can take the emotion out of it and then we can learn not just what is important, but why its important. This whole video harkens back to a big theme Ive come to really understand in my life in the last few years. The best time to talk about something is when youre as far away from emotion as possible regarding that thing. So, for example, dont talk about death when youre sick. Talk about it when youre healthy and vibrant, so theres as little emotion as possible in the subject. When youre talking to your parents about aging, dont do it at their moment of weakness. Wait for a time of strength, when theyre feeling as healthy and unemotional as possible, and then have that discussion. Dont talk about a marital problem when youre both riding the wave of that problem. Talk about it when youre getting along well and youre far away from that problematic area emotionally. This is a key life lesson, one that has stuck with me over the years, and this video really highlights that idea. 7. Roy T. Bennett on self-improvement and criticism Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticize others. Roy T. Bennett Unless criticism is asked for, criticism of others is rarely a worthwhile endeavor. It achieves very little and often has the opposite effect of what you desire, with the recipient ignoring the content of what youre saying and just being upset with you. Hold it in. If you dont have something worthwhile to say, then dont say it at all. That doesnt mean that one should never criticize. A person should definitely criticize from time to time, but it should generally be at the invitation of the person who seeks criticism and is looking for ways to improve. Brutal honesty doesnt achieve anything worthwhile. [embedded content] From the description: In March of 2016, just a handful of months after her debut album Sprained Ankle was released, Julien Baker came and played a quiet, thoughtful Tiny Desk concert that went on to become one of our most popular and certainly one of the most-talked-about Tiny Desk Concerts of the year. (Its now approaching two million views on YouTube alone.) Fast forward to the summer of 2017, when I heard that a new record was imminent. I dont usually ask an artist back for a second Tiny Desk Concert simply because they have a new release but for Julien, I had to make an exception. With all the love that surrounded her first visit to the NPR offices, I reached out to ask if she would be willing to do something different this time around. Last fall, she delivered. All the songs for her return to the Tiny Desk come from last years Turn Out The Lights. Just a few weeks before the albums release, she came to Washington; we tuned our piano, she brought violinist Camille Faulkner. The first two songs, Hurt Less and Even, were accompanied by Camille, with Julien on piano for the opening tune and acoustic guitar on the second. Its quite stunning, as she sings: Putting my fist through the plaster in the bathroom of a Motel 6 I must have pictured it all a thousand times I swear to God I think Im gonna die I know you were right I cant be fixed, so help me For the last, Julien put together an arrangement of Appointments that begins on electric guitar, which then was looped as a backdrop to her on piano and voice. Julien Baker is a massively talented songwriter with a deeply caring heart and a perfectionist streak all of which delivered to her a career-making year. We are so thrilled to have her return. Set List Hurt Less Even Appointments Shes just fantastic. Well worth a listen. 9. Inspirational notes For the last several months, about once a week or so, Ill stick a note inside of one of my childrens backpacks. Its a note card in an envelope with their name on the front, and on the inside, I just write a short note saying something I admire about their character and how I hope they share that with the world. It takes me about ten minutes or so to do this. I just stop for a little bit, think of some truly worthwhile characteristic that one of my children possesses, and then Ill write about it. Ill tell a quick anecdote about when I saw that characteristic used in a positive way, how I am incredibly proud that Im their parent when I see them using that aspect of themselves, a gentle encouragement to use that characteristic in other aspects of their life, and a general reminder that I love them. Thats it nothing fancy. I know that my kids have read the notes because of comments Ive overheard, but not one of them has said a word about them to me. I do know that theyre read, though, and I do know that theyre thought about, and thats enough. Will it make a positive difference? Maybe. I think it will, given enough time. Dont just get inspired. Be an inspiration. 10. Muhammad Ali on the pebble in your shoe It isnt the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; its the pebble in your shoe. Muhammad Ali Its often one or two little details that make the difference between success and failure. You might be able to perfectly nail everything else you need for a diet, but its that mid-afternoon wave of hunger that you thoughtlessly indulge that undoes things. You might have perfect control over your spending except for that one little linchpin. Maybes its online spending at a particular website, or maybe its regular splurging on food. Whatever it is, theres often some little detail that puts a big scratch on the beautiful surface of your progress. The thing is, its far more meaningful to stop and pull that pebble out of your shoe than to keep on running for a little bit longer and just quit. Fix the little problems before they become big ones. [embedded content] From the description: When trying to come up with a new idea, we all have times when we get stuck. But according to research by behavioral and learning scientist Marily Oppezzo, getting up and going for a walk might be all it takes to get your creative juices flowing. In this fun, fast talk, she explains how walking could help you get the most out of your next brainstorm. Going on walks is unquestionably my most powerful creative tool. I dont have anything else in my repertoire that really compares to it. Its part of the reason why winters are often very hard in terms of writing productivity the weather rarely cooperates with the kind of long outdoor walk that I enjoy. While I enjoy winter in small doses, I wouldnt be surprised at all to find Sarah and I living further south in the winter months when we are older. I think it agrees much better with both of us. Still, I cant laud walking enough if youre trying to piece through a difficult idea in your head or youre trying to brainstorm some solutions. 12. JFK on strength Do not pray for easy lives, my friends. Pray to be stronger men. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Hoping that the future will become easier wont really help very much. Its very likely that the future wont become easier. Instead, recognize that your life right now probably is easier than it will be in the future and plan accordingly. Work a little harder today so you dont have to work quite as hard tomorrow. Save a little money today so you dont have to scramble tomorrow. Dont hope for an easier life. Work for a stronger you. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/inspiration-from-7-up-lauren-oliver-julien-baker-and-more/

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Wilmer Cabrera, loyal lieutenant in Colombia’s dream team, thriving in MLS

Houstons new head coach was a stable presence in the maverick Colombian team of the 1990s and hes brought calm and clarity to the MLS pacesetters

Glory and brutality were companions in Colombian football during the 1990s as the national team reached three World Cups amid a bloody drug war that did not spare sport. If Carlos Valderrama, Rene Higuita and Tino Asprilla were the maverick stars, Wilmer Cabrera was a more stable and less erratic presence.

Cabrera has brought calmness and a clarity of vision to his post-playing careers, first in a role where those qualities are indispensable as a helicopter pilot then in a febrile sphere where they are less common. In a measured rise over 14 years he has progressed from coaching youth teams in New York to his current role in charge of an MLS pacesetter in the embryonic 2017 season.

The Houston Dynamo have two wins from two games, like their opponents this Saturday, the Portland Timbers. Its the style as much as the results that have drawn attention: Cabrera deployed a rambunctious 4-3-3 in a 2-1 opening-weekend win over last years MLS Cup champions, the Seattle Sounders, and a 3-1 victory over the Columbus Crew.

There were handsome goals from the Honduran winger, Romell Quioto, and the Mexican striker Erick Torres, who arrived as a costly Designated Player in 2015 and finally found the net against Seattle after 22 fruitless MLS appearances. He also scored against Columbus.

Talking this week at the Dynamos training ground, Cabrera painted himself as above all a pragmatist, ready to adapt his tactics to his resources. Under a predecessor, the former Bolton and Burnley manager, Owen Coyle, the reverse seemed true.

I dont want to force our players to play the possession, team-oriented [approach] that I used to play because they dont feel that way, the personalities are different, Cabrera said. They like to run, they have speed and they want to attack. Our transition is quick from defending to attacking so whyre we going to change? The players are the ones that are dictating what is the best for them and right now, so far, this is the way were going to play because this is the type of player that we have.

Born in Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast, Cabrera spent most of his 20s with Amrica de Cali and won 48 caps for Colombia. The defender was an unused squad member in Italia 90, missed USA 94 through injury but played in every minute of all three of his countrys matches in France four years later.

Before 1990, Colombia had only once reached a World Cup in 1962. But their 1990s sides had personalities as big as their hair, little turnover of key players, technical excellence, an inspired creator in Valderrama and an effervescent style that lifted the nation. The team had a carefree quality despite the bloody unrest being wreaked by drug lords such as Pablo Escobar, which seeped into soccer.

We were very naive in a lot of aspects. It was just playing soccer the way we felt how to play soccer, Cabrera said. Rene Higuitas scorpion kick famously illuminated a dull goalless draw with England in a friendly at Wembley in 1995.

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Less well remembered, at least in England: the goalkeeper was released the year before after seven months in prison when he was accused of acting as a go-between to help arrange the release of a girl kidnapped in a drug cartel feud. Asprilla, the gun-toting former Newcastle forward, reportedly moved to Europe after death threats.

Cabrera said that it was not until he moved to the US and saw outside media narratives about his countrys troubles that he fully understood the turbulence. Definitely it was an unbelievable time. When I talk with my kids about it, when I talk with people about it, they are amazed, Cabrera said. We didnt realise until now, when you start looking back, and you realise that it was a very rough, very tough moment and a very dangerous environment to be playing soccer.

The defender Andres Escobar was murdered outside a Medellin nightclub 10 days after scoring an own goal in a 2-1 defeat by the US in the 1994 tournament, perhaps because of the result and his blunder.

It just changed your perspective in all aspects because you never imagine that playing soccer brings you into a threatening environment, Cabrera said. For us it was fun, for us it was the way we used to live it was our lifestyle. It became a little bit difficult, it became complicated.

Wilmer Cabrera takes on Michael Owen during the Colombia-England game in 1998. Photograph: Olivier Morin/EPA

Cabrera hoped to follow Valderrama into MLS but a move never materialised. He finally arrived in New York in 2003 with a view to working as a helicopter pilot, a skill he had learned in Colombia and one that aligns with the seemingly-contradictory parts of his character and coaching strategy: cool rationality with a spirit of adventure.

He was sucked back into football, joined the Long Island Rough Riders, took coaching qualifications and rose through the ranks of the American game, including a stint as a fan development manager for MLS. I started to work on soccer from the moment I arrived, tried to learn the language, start from the bottom, and its been quite a long journey but its been very positive for me because Ive been able to work at all the levels here in the United States, he said.

In 2012-13 he was an assistant at the Colorado Rapids under his friend and former international teammate, Oscar Pareja, who is now at FC Dallas. In 2014 the 49-year-old won plaudits for the exercise in damage limitation that was life as head coach of Chivas USA in their final MLS season, which included coaxing a 15-goal campaign from Torres.

Last year, he worked for a Dynamo affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros. They reached the United Soccer League playoffs, going a league-record 758 minutes without conceding a goal.

He was picked by Houston ahead of their interim head coach, Wade Barrett, who lifted the team to levels of obduracy and organisation reminiscent of Dominic Kinnear, Coyles long-tenured predecessor, without notably improving results. In 2016 the Dynamo finished bottom of the Western Conference.

Amid the cooing over Houstons exciting debut it has been overlooked that in their first two MLS fixtures last year they drew 3-3 with the New England Revolution then battered Dallas, 5-0. But Coyle left in May (soon surfacing in Blackburn, albeit fleetingly) during a second season of muddled performances and mixed results.

A real strength of Wilmers is that hes very clear with what he expects from the guys positionally and within the framework of the team and he knows that those points need to be reinforced on a very regular basis. I think what stands out with Wilmer is hes just as much a teacher as a coach and thats something that is really important in our league, said Matt Jordan, the Dynamo vice-president/general manager.

Cabreras bilingualism and background was a plus for US Soccer when it appointed him in 2007 to be the first Hispanic head coach of a male American national side the under-17s. The obvious influence of South American is something that weighed into our decision, Sunil Gulati, the US Soccer Federation president, told Soccer America.

It also helps in Houston, where the Dynamo play in a city that is roughly 40% Hispanic and have a roster that features eleven players born in South or Central America.

Guys from England are always, I guess, going to bring in the most money and earn the most money, but if you want to win youve got to look elsewhere. You can only have three DPs on a team so its about finding the other role players, said AJ DeLaGarza, an off-season signing from the Los Angeles Galaxy.

First of all, you want to look for good players whose characteristics translate to Major League Soccer and historically, players from countries like Honduras and Colombia and Argentina and Costa Rica and Panama, those are markets that the players transition well to our league, Jordan said.

Its an added bonus that those profiles fit the demographics of our city. On top of that, when you look at the climate here, the conditions that we have to play in here, we want players to embrace that and feel very comfortable here.

Like Parejas Dallas, Houston aim to be devastating on the counter-attack. Still, when fatigue and summer heat bite, theres the question of how an aging back line will cope against fast, incisive opponents, especially since a three-man midfield offers limited protection down the flanks. The back four against Seattle was DeLaGarza (29), Adolfo Machado (32), Leonardo (29) and DaMarcus Beasley (34). The only starters under 28 were the three forwards: Alberth Elis (21), Torres (24) and Quioto (25). But the Sounders XI was no younger.

The Dynamo had only 36% of possession against Seattle and 40% against Columbus, according to league statistics. Broken down into five-minute intervals, Houston had more of the ball than their opponents for just 25 minutes of those 180.

The bright side is were winning and were still not playing, I would say, very well. Were very dynamic going forward but defending and keeping the ball we know we have to get better, and playing a full 90-plus minutes, said DeLaGarza.

Coyle made energetic and sincere attempts to embrace MLS but ended up as another statistic confirming the truism that the leagues idiosyncratic some might say arcane nature makes it all but impregnable to outsiders.

If Cabrera thrives in Texas it will be as much a tribute to the American development system as to the legacy of the experiences he absorbed in his native land. Im a local coach like any other coach, he said. Ive lived here in the United States for 14 years, so now my lifestyle is American style. Im an American coach.