#also the fourth one when the master was literally eating people and ten was still going “🥺”

[ten-simm]

When you kept your best pal imprisoned for a whole year along with his friends while exterminating half of the earth's population in front of him and he is still looking at you like that.

[yostresswritinggirl]

100 Followers Special

(And how to participate) you don't need to be a follower to vote ack

~yostresswritinggirl

Hello AGAIN, with your back to back followers special! Exiled here, very tired, as I just closed the requests box for our 50 followers special. I asked for some recommendations and no one helped me so this is what I came up with!

Granted, it's nothing that special, I literally just dumped my notes into this so—

Please make sure to follow the guidelines and read this thoroughly to properly participate!

1. You will be given a long list of fic prompts specific to a character that I've come up with for weeks on end, please don't steal, as I will remove them after this event is done!

2. Voting! You now have the power to influence my writing schedule haha- what you need to do: is to pick three prompts from the list and send it to me; either through reblog tag, a reply, or in my ask box (not anon so we can count fairly, will not publish these answers tho so worry not)! Not in messages tho! It should be in this format:

1. Character - prompt or prompt title

2. Character - prompt or prompt title

3. Character - prompt or prompt title

example:

1. Albedo - Citrinitas

2. Zhongli - Braid

3. Xingqui - Author!Reader

The top three most voted prompt and character will be the next fics I'll publish after I'm done with the current reqs. Speaking of: Voting ends when I finish the current reqs. You'll know it's done once the counter in my blog desc reaches 12/12.

3. In addition to the three prompts, you also get to add your own prompt to it! My prompts list does not include ALL the characters that's why I wanted to give you this option too! Add a fourth number and specify a character, a prompt/idea, and the format of the fic! Format it this way:

4. Character - Prompt/Idea (Format)

4. Kaeya - What's under that eyepatch? (Scenario)

After I pooled the answers, I'll randomly pick between the bonus answers and write them last! So give it your best shot!

4. Tags-list! I thought this would be necessary for this kind of a whim special, so if you wanna be tagged, just put Tag Me! at the end of your vote. Please make sure that you're actually able to be tagged because I just tried and some users are not in my orbit huhu, look here

5. If a pocket watch/series prompt gets chosen, I will only post the first chapter, not the whole damn fic pls. Have mercy,,,

I will post a counter of the top three in my blog description and will be updated as frequently as possible. Any questions, please direct to this post or my dms <3

Without further ado, here is your choice list!

Xingqui - "My liege, would you care to accompany me on my reading break? I've picked up a romance novel and it reminded me of us."

-> Author!Reader: You met Xingqui at Wanwen Bookhouse when delivering a batch of your newly-published book. But as a ghost writer, no one knew it was you that authored such books. Safe to say it was cute watching the noble bookworm fanboy about you in front of you. [FLUFF] [FIC]

-> Headcanons with a reader older than Xingqui who's a close family friend of the Feiyun Commerce Guild. Fascinated after meeting you in a party, the noble boy aspires to become the best man for you despite the difference, promising to be the best suitable partner for you in the future. [FLUFF] [HEADCANON SCENARIO]

Childe - "Hey there, comrade! What a coincidence that we had a break at the same time, care to accompany me for a walk? I promise I won’t lead you to a fight haha... hey, don’t look at me like that!”

-> Antinomy -  The 10th Harbinger (You) and the little shit they had to mentor (Childe), this fic enumerates the trials of the 11th before he became a Harbinger under your care. From strangers to mentor to friends to love- Childe made a grave mistake, now you’re once again strangers. [FLANGST] [ONESHOT]

Albedo - "Ah, it's you. I've heard of fleeting rumors that you've been pestering a certain someone just to see me. Next time, just come directly to me, I wouldn't mind the assertiveness."

-> Refer to these three as well: Albedo Fic Ideas [FLUFF/FLANGST/FLANGST] [ONESHOT/ONESHOT/SERIES]

-> “You’re Enough”: A year into being the new Chief Alchemist of Mond, Albedo finds himself holed up in his room in the dead of night, haunted as he continuously comes out empty on his research to bring his master back, feeling inadequate. So you reminded him of what he’s capable of. [FLUFF?] [ONESHOT INSPIRED BY You Are Enough - Sleeping At Last]

-> Under the Artificial Sky: Michaelangelo Scenario focused on Albedo’s sketching aspect. Grand Master Varka and Acting Grand Master Jean figured Albedo needed a break and a change of scenery, and sent him off under the guise of a commission in Liyue. What he didn’t expect was another artist from Fontaine accompanying him in this big project.(Albedo and Reader are tasked to paint the new Jade Chamber within 7 days) [FLUFF] [SERIES - 7 CHAPTERS]

-> Albedo SMUT: I had this idea while laying wide awake at 3 AM. The alchemist had been trying all remedies to shake off the stress and fatigue in his system and they all seemed to fail, no amount of sketching or discoveries can pull him away from it. So when you offered a solution he hasn’t heard, he’d jump at it immediately. “You know, some people say having intercourse with someone is a good stress-reliever.” “Intercourse? If it’s true, then please, I wish to have intercourse with you.” “Wha- wait Albedo, do you not know what that is? It’s only done between lovers!” “Convenient, I love you, anything else?” (Two virgin dumbasses do the thing to relieve stress) [SMUT] [ONESHOT]

Xiao - “I’ve taken care of every threat around this area, you can relax now, I made sure of that.”

-> What is it with you and Qingxin flowers? The Traveler had once heard of Xiao’s affinity for Qingxin flowers, and they’re flying companion boldly asked this lingering question to the adepti himself. His pupils dilate and sharpen before Paimon could finish her sentence. (An origin story about his favorite flower, and his favorite person) [SLIGHT FLANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> Just how harmful is adeptal energy to normal humans? You both found out in the worst way possible: silently, deadly. (Slight spoiler: you fucking die) [ANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> Nightmares Taste Horrible: He’s seen that look in your eyes and the ancient soul within it; you’ve lived long ago, and the only thing your soul carried now was the nightmares of a macabre timeline. Was it him or was it demons that brought you that fear? No matter, he’ll protect you even from yourself. (eating the nightmare of a dead soul reincarnated to you) [FLANGST?] [ONESHOT]

-> Go for the throat: The seal that marked you had made it all too late for him to remedy. Bleeding eyes, growing fangs, it’s just another demon to vanquish just like he’s done for centuries. What makes it different was it was sealed in you. (Inspired from Melanie Martinez’s song uhu) [ANGST] [ONESHOT]

Zhongli - “Mortals are capable creatures that evolve and adapt for means of survival, but they advance in ways that changes the world around them. This retirement, may be harder to me than it is to them.”

 -> “In human history, there’s a certain noble and powerful connotation to rulers who braid their hair.” Convince to braid his hair using some historical braid trivia; that long hair behind his back should not be ignored for any longer. [PURE FLUFF] [DRABBLE]

-> History has its eyes on you: A traveling theatre hailing from the land of entertainment finds its way to Liyue for their last caravan. A certain Geo Vision man seems to resonate with your newest script: fighting and protecting your land, building up its nation, before being forced to let go of it. He resonates maybe a little too much. (Musical!Reader with heavy references to Hamilton hehe) [FLUFF] [ONESHOT]

Venti - "Can you hear the symphonies of the wind as it sings to you? That's me, guiding you and protecting you! Whenever you hear it, know that you're safe and sound under my protection!"

-> the one the bard once loved: like actual bard, you are the archer or smth, loved by Venti and Barbatos. Yandere!Barbatos undertones, very unhealthy relationship. This hurts the kokoro. [PURE ANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> The Caravan: (related to the Zhongli and Musical!Reader up there) Your caravan stops at Mondstadt for a whole week before it reaches its final destination. This new fanfare pulled in a peculiar bard who now wants to tag along for the fun of it. "I have no more responsibilities in this free land!" Just what kind of responsibilities does a broke bard have in the first place? [FLUFF] [ONESHOT/HEADCANON]

Diluc - "You look weary, and you still managed to pull yourself here. Here, a fresh and cold glass, on the house. A relieved smile should be enough payment."

-> Abandoned by The Altar: A timeline oriented story focused on your once perfect childhood relationship as Diluc's bride to be, soon becoming estranged after the death of his father and his neglect. You only wish now that he looks at you the same way he did when you heard you were supposed to be together forever when you were young. [FLANFF] (The ending gets better pls; Inspired by Still Into You - Paramore) [ONESHOT]

-> There are No Laws Against Homelessness in Mondstadt: My favorite title out of all of this ahahhaa- who says adventurers can't be broke? You're the living embodiment of that. (Good boi Diluc with a broke ass reader) [FLUFF] (Warning: homelessness) [ONESHOT]

Scaramouche - "Let's go already, the sun is setting and we're nowhere near our destination. If you wanted to linger just to spend more time with me, I would have indulged you behind closed doors anyways."

-> Scaramouche Finally Does the Fandango: Have you ever wondered how Scaramouche is like working with other people? His first assignment was to accompany you in your main region and he sees you in your natural habitat, entranced. [I dunno how to tag this, NORMAL?] [ONESHOT/SHORT]

-> Skincare bitch, how I headcanon Scaramouche as someone actually conscious and always tending to their skin. Look at that smooth skin, cute cheeks, let me pinch, eyeliner glory— In which case, that hat has more purpose than being a frisbee. (May or may not include reader. (based from a reblog convo with chels-void) [GOOD VIBES] [HEADCANONS]

-> Once Supreme: Before Scaramouche, there was someone else higher than him. Before Balladeer there was just a young man fighting for his beliefs and her Majesty. Before Mondstadt, his smile wasn't just for deception. "Someday, someone would take advantage of that smile, Scaramouche. It's not appropriate in this work environment." The day you break a man. (Harbinger!Reader again, and lots of HCs for Scaramouche, same format as Antinomy) [I also do not know how to call this, eventual ANGST] [ONESHOT]

Kaeya - "What are you doing out here in the dead of night? Citizens like you should be cozied up in bed and leaving the patrols to us Knights. Come, I'll accompany you back home."

-> Honey Whiskey: A mysterious band of dancers from Sumeru visits Mondstadt and its taverns to offer a night of alluring dances. What was supposed to be a night of drinking for Kaeya and his troops ended up becoming a tipsy surprise mission when the main dancer steps down from the stage— and ignores him?! How scandalous! (Slightly suggestive themes/You're a bad guy) [COOL?] [ONESHOT] [slightly inspired by song with the same name]

General:

-> A Musical!Reader but with a scenario with every other character, most probably headcanons master post.

-> Genshin Food prompts: From that one post, I ended up making a whole storyline of oneshots related to their special dishes. Oneshots connected to a bigger picture. By impulse you've ended up leaving your normal life behind to pursue your cooking career, starting from Mondstadt, to learn all the cuisines to establish the first ever international restaurant. With the implications of magic and peculiar customers, your simple dream turns into a harder goal. [GOOD SHIT] [SERIES] [CANON-COMPLIANT]

-> God of Time!Reader that hails from Fontaine. Do you wish to know more about their origins and their purpose in this world? [CANON-COMPLIANT] [HEADCANONS] (General since it deals with all the characters/interactions)

▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

Tagslist-for-my-thirsty-homies:

[manychocolatefactories]

CatCF Milk Chocolate: Part 1, the kids

About this version: Milk Chocolate was inspired originally by a mix of the book, the vibes of the 1971 movie and the Tim Burton movie aesthetic. A bit more goofier and whimsical than the other versions. In term of era, I thought of it as a mix of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

In this version seven Golden Tickets are spread throughout the world, and each time one is found the same female reporter (her character is a reference to the musical) goes to interview the children. Another recurring joke is that while the hunt is going on for the Tickets, there are all sorts of ridiculous debates on television such as: do the Golden Tickets really exist, or is this just a hoax ? Do the Golden Tickets give cancer? Can animals go on a tour like humans? What happens if a Golden Ticket winner dies before the tour? Are the Golden Tickets linked to the rise of youht delinquence? Are the Golden Tickets a proof of Wonka's alleagiance to the obscure sect of the Golden Bird?

  First Winner: Augustus Gloop

(Based on Augustus Gloop)

This Augustus was actually based on an idea Stained-by-the-sea allowed me to "borrow" a bit. Stained noted that Augustus always made him thought of this section from the movie "North", about Buck and the Texan parents. If you don't know what I am talking about, I'll leave links down there. And this is such a perfect matc I had to dig a bit down there.

This Augustus is basically a mix of all the archetypes associated with Texas and Nevada. But more precisely, he is basically "Buck" from North - a boy whose family (and his own mindset) embody the motto "bigger is better".

The Gloop family always thought that they should be "the biggest and the bests" and that "bigger is better". Ironically, the Gloop parents themselves are regular-sized people, but they clearly enforced this mentality on their son. Augustus is a big boy. Literally. He is tall, he is thick, he is fat, he is very, very big. He is probably one of the tallest, and definitively the largest boy on the tour (in fact, he once or twice gets stuck in the doors of Wonka factory). He eats ten meals per day, and we are not talking of regular sized meals. We are talking piles of ribs, kilos of potatoes, entire chickens... His parents also prepared for him a "big" and "best" future - paying the local sportive teams to claim he is a sports champion despite Augustus never setting a foot on a sports field, arranging his marriage with the local beauty queen of the state he lives in, already preparing the three different houses he will live with his fifteen kids... As a result, Augustus isn't just big and fat physically, he also has a massive and bloated ego. He thinks that he is the best at everything, and that he should have absolutely everything he wants.

The Gloops themselves are actually the masters of the state they live in, so to speak. They are the wealthiest and most influential industrials of the area: they built highways, casinos, hotels, private villas, they are cow-farmers, owing a lot of slaughterhouses, and also dig for oil and gold. They want their business to be the "biggest there ever was" and all they do is exaggerately big: their villas are enormous, their hotels are everywhere, their farms hosts several thousands cows, their mines are among the deepest in the world...

Trouble is that, due to their expansion and consumption of everything, they are a threat to the landscape and the environment - destroying forests to build their roads and buildings, drying out the lands to feed their farms... in fact, part of the reason why their state looks like the most desertic parts of Texas and Nevada is due to their actions.

Think... Buck from North. Think Art Land from Mar Attack. Think an evil (and obese) version of Clay Bailey from "Xiaolin Showdown". In fact, if I remember well in one episode Clay turns into a sumo for one of the Showdowns... this would probably be Augustus' appearance in this version: sumo Clay Bailey. (Edit: Yes, I checked out, it is episode 23 of the series).

 Second Winner: Clarence Crump

(Based on: Clarence Crump)

Clarence didn't had any kind of personnality in the original drafts outside of a desire to prove he was right. As a result, I decided to have a lot of fun and create my own character.

The idea of vanity has already been touched several times with the other brats, but I wanted to give it its own character and kid. I also wanted to create a polar opposite of Augustus, denouncing the fact that being skinny can be just as bad as being fat when in excess. As a result, Clarence Crump is here a boy obsessed about being thin, and proud of being too skinny for his own good.

Mr. Crump is a pseudo-health guru that keeps writing phony and very dangerous diet books, the kind that will advice you to stop eating altogether to lose weight. As for Mrs. Crump, she is a beauty pageant champion (local and regional, and while she acts as if she was some national beauty champion, she always failed at nationals). From their union was born a child who inherited their vanity, pride and obsession with "health"

Black haired, very pale, very thin, very slender, to the point his bones show, Clarence delights in being skinny, and works as a teenager model promoting the "thin-fashion". He is also the embodiment of fat-shaming, never missing an occasion to insult fat people (in fact he often calls Augustus a big fat cow). He uses however the excuse of health for that (a trick his parents taught him) - promoting extreme thinness by talking about health and fat-shaming people in the name of health allows one to be much more horrible than normally accepted.

A good proof of how Clarence actually is just very vain and obsessed with being thin, and not at all defending health - Clarence condemns sports for being unhealthy, because according to him "muscles are unhealthy because they don't make you look beautiful, they make you look ugly".

He always wears short and black sleeveless tank-tops, the point being that he needs to show as much as his body to the world as possible, to be a "living example". He even wears his black short and tank-top during the tour (despite it being winte - the only thing he wears on top of his clothes to not get cold is a skunk fur coat).

  Third  Winner: Miranda Grope

(Based on: Miranda Grope)

This character was based on Dahl's own character of "Miranda Grope" from early drafts of the story, the horrible and atrocious girl allowed to do "whatever she wants".

In my version, the Grope parents are hippie-like people, the father having a very long beard and being covered in fleas, while the mother is covered in flowers and oss (plants that grew over her), and both always wearing rose-tinted glasses. They are the kind of parents that refuse authority and orders, seeing these (and social norms as a whole) as a "dictatorship". They prefer to trust their daughter to find her own way in the world, believing that experience is the best teacher in life. The result? They lazily raised her by telling her they would never forbid her anything and that she could do anything she wanted.

Miranda is a devilish little girl who does only what she wants, and becomes extremely violent when prevented from doing something. Or when people say something she doesn't want to hear. Or just when people she dislikes are near her. She shouts, the screams, she insult, she kicks, she hit, she throw enormous and terrifying tantrums. She has a very wide range of insults, and a truly evil mind : most of the things she wants to do are borderline crimes. It seems for her only chaos and destruction is "fun", a true little punk.

Miranda has a disastrous haircut because she cuts her hair herself, and she is always wearing the same clothes that she rarely washes): a white shirt, a blue sweater with long sleeves, and a plaid tiles skirt. An outfit that looks strikingly like a school uniform - but it is pure irony, because Miranda hates more than anything in the world school. She doesn't go to school, and the only time she went near one was to try to burn it down. (Her appearance is in fact based on Lauren Child's illustrations for Miranda, if you are wondering).

  Fourth Winner: Veruca Salt

(Based on: Veruca Salt)

For this Veruca, I wanted to do something slightly different... here, Veruca doesn't want everything just because she is a spoiled rich brat. She is still one, but she is also the product of post-WW2 consumerism.

This Veruca was born surrounded by advertisements, logos, slogans and product placements. On television, in the streets, in shops, in journals, at the radio... She grew up with them and was influenced, brainwashed by them. As a result, she is obsessed with obtaining everything that was advertised, and she herelf looks like a walking billboard since she is covered in big, flashy logo and keeps reciting different brands' slogans and mottos. As soon as she sees something she saw publicity of before, she needs to obtain it at once. She is a true zombie, only hearing the call of the shopping mall and of the television advertisements.

One idea I had was that the Salt parents actually worked for (or where at the head of) a wealthy advertisement company, known to produce, design and create all kinds of famous publicities and slogans - and that they used their daughter as a guinea pig for their tests, and delighted in Veruca being so addicted to consumerism. In fact, they may have named her Veruca because at the moment of her birth they were working on advertisements for an anti-wart product, so that's all they had in mind.

  Fifth winner:  Herpes Trout

(Based on: Mike Teavee)

I went with this version of Mikee Teavee with the focus on "violence" already present in the original work, but also heavily used in the opera (and touched a bit in the 2005 movie).

This Herpes Trout is the embodiment of the fear of kids becoming violent upon watching television and playing video games (his only two passions in life). He has a true fascination with guns and firearms - US soldiers shooting aliens, gangs shooting each other, cowboys shooting at bandits, it's all he ever plays and watches. Herpes worships violence, and is absolutely obsessed with war (here I am thinking of all the wars present from the 60s to the 80s, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars...). War propaganda and the fight being glorifyed heavily influenced him - as a result his biggest dream is to go at war in some foreign country to kill everyone there and come home a hero.

Herpes comes from a family of rednecks and hillbillies from the deep country. They are not poor however, they are wealthy enough to have television and several video games, but they are uneducated people full of stereotypes, discrimination and hate. They named their son Herpes because they ignored what it meant but just thought of it as an "intelligent" name. Herpes has everal brothers and sisters, and all have a disease name.

Herpes himself is a big and strong kid, who followed body-buildings process a la Charles Atlas and military training, becoming impressively muscular. However, he retained a soft, childish and chubby "baby face", which kind of ruins the effect of this massive, muscular, almost adult body. Always dressed in a military outfit, he carries everywhere with him guns and firearms, the question being: are they real? Or are they not?

  Sixth Winner: Violet Glockenberry

(Based on Violet Beauregarde)

I wanted with this version to take back the idea of a competitive and "sportive" girl obsessed with contesting and winning - introduced in the Tim Burton movie.

This Violet is a tall, muscular and strong girl. She won numerous sportive competitions, but this doesn't make her just arrogant and prideful like in the Tim Burton version. In my version she is also very aggressive and violent (a bit like in the original novel). She is a nasty and rude bully easily prone to anger (in fact, if she keeps chewing gum it is mostly to calm her down sot hat she doesn't punch everyone around). Her parents originally pushed her towards competitions to manage her anger issues, but sports only gave her more strength and destructive power. In fact, they became terrified of her, while she considers them losers here to serve her - she basically thinks of herself as self-made, literaly.

  Seventh Winner: Charlie Bucket

(Based on: Charlie Bucket)

For this Charlie, I wanted to go with a Charlie similar to the original illustrations of the character: blond hair, blue eyes, a white boy...

Basically, he is the original Charlie. Very sweet, very innocent, a gentle kid, the best of the group.

However I changed slightly his background. Charlie in this version is not the grandson of four grandparents, but rather the big brother of four younger siblings - and his family here struggles with trying to feed five children (and a total of seven mouths) despite having very humble and low-paid jobs. I think Charlie has taken the role of a parentive figure for the siblings, but at the same time him spending so much time with young children helped him keep in touch with his "childish" side.

[the-house-of-the-nine]

In Mind of Misery: Manipulation, Part 1

[ And so the journey begins.  Three Separate stories to tell here all happening Simultaneously.  Attacking from three fronts, is this the beginning of the end for The Nine?  Please Like, Share, and Follow us!  We are hoping to get new people coming our way, and could use the love!  Thank you everyone!!!!! ]

Cast:

[ L.K ] -  Lazarius Kashebahl, Marseille, Raelyndia Duskhollow

[ P.K ] - Kretus Dark

[ V.D ] - Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin

[ J ] - Jursol, Jimba, Mawa

[ T ] - Talisin aka The Boy

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The Hour was up ....

[ L. K ]   Marseille, Pame, and Jursol would break their separate ways to prepare however they would.  The Shaldorei knew this was going to be an exclusively hands on effort; he'd pack additional knives around a newly formatted belt holster just in case.  

Jursol would no doubt have prepared by readying her weapons for the hunt; voodoo rituals for prayer and protection; and plenty of needed items for her raptor companions.  

Pame was very much like the old elf; choosing to ready herself by getting all the necessary armor and weapons she'd need.

Lazarius and Verzatea spent their time with Brinys. Their accelerated ageless daughter that had not only been born into this world using the void and its magics, but also the darkness that came from a ritual Lazarius himself had forbid himself to use again.  

The oldest of companions would share one last embrace; and in a twisted turn of events even read and help one another tuck the young girl into her bed.  

Abbigael would be in charge of watching the young child as Kross and Koltun had made their way to Silithus in the hunt to find Pyravari.  Leaving only the younger sister Siida, to protect the Bastille.

The Hour was up.... Using their ability to walk through the bridged fourth dimension, Lazarius would pull their talismans to the Bastille and convert the energy to give them a straight gateway into Quel'thalas.  Lazarius and Verza easily blended in, as well as Mars who was giving Pame a disguise to help her look as much like one of his own.  Jursol would probably just give as many dirty looks to the snide little elves if they dared question the majestic Zandalari in their city.  

Regardless it would not be for long.  They weren't staying. From the large open gates of the city; Lazarius had organized a ride for them to caravan down through the southern parts of the Eversong Woods and into the Ghostlands.  

The push to find this hidden grotto that Raelyndia once kept along the shore was indeed dire.  

And Lazarius would waste no time getting them on the move.

In Tranquillen the party would disembark from their wagon and prepare to move through the still heavily dead infested lands.  They would need to move West to the Coast, then again further south.  

Lazarius' only means of navigation and reference was in a small passage he'd found in a book in the former Kashebahl Estate.  He'd know Rae kept this place secret; and it would be the first time he'd ever come this far.

[ T ]   As the group made it to Tranquillen and began to head westward, they'd find themselves being followed the minute the cobblestone paths began to end. However quiet the figure tried to be, blood elves are simply not made to traverse the leaf-litter and sticks as silently as lynxes can. There were painfully obvious crunches of dead foliage, which were a dead giveaway to anyone who could hear in general, for he was just over 40 yards away.

But hunger can drive people to do stupid things, it seems. But, he at least tried his very hardest. No older than fourteen, the boy did everything he could to attempt to hide as he followed - namely, he tried to break up his outline by smearing mud on his frail, thin body. His clothing consisted of what was once a plain linen shirt and pants, but was now rags, held together with strips of cloth that functioned as both bandages and a belt.

Sadly, mud camo was the only real tactic he knew to avoid being seen, and with how little he knew, it was a miracle that he hadn't been hunted down by a wayward lynx, stuck to the web of an enormous spider, or carried off by some overgrown bat. He was almost beginning to think they'd thought him too pathetic to even eat - he was underfed, scrawny, and decidedly mute.

Even his black hair somehow looked pathetic, the way it was always looking to be wet when in reality it was just that greasy and dirty. He was also missing the very tip of his left ear - no doubt there was some nasty, unpleasant story behind that. The scrawny little runt thought maybe he could snag some food by following the group. Or maybe get a quick and merciful death - whichever happened first.

[ V . D ]   The tingle from providing Brinys a last kiss goodnight lingered on the Confessors frowning lips as she moved at the pace of the traveling band. Misfits as they were, she couldn't deny the surge of confidence it brought to be in the company of such worthy and powerful companions. It brought her a glimmer of hope.

She stepped lightly, matching the pace of the grumpy kaldorei. But in truth, unlike the sour faced Pame, Tea truly seemed at peace in the great city of Quel'thalas, surely resembling just about any other tall, thin and graceful woman, but even with the lack of uniqueness there was a great swell of pride in Teas chest to see the majesty of the city once more.

She wore a most genuine smile through their trek, though she clutched the handle of the old black sword from the peak of her youth--  a simple short sword but one which had protected Tea all those years before she fully harnessed her magic.

It felt odd to.wear it again, but that certainly reminded Tea that perhaps she truly had become magic dependent. Alas, rather than linger on that thought she pushes forward and refocuses on the world around their group. Pame, herself, wasn't focused on a damn thing besides the world around them.

This included, as her long ears would twitch with every little step, the poorly disciplined stalker who followed them.

Her eyes move toward Marseille and Jursol, though she made no effort to speak up about the stalker. Surely they knew, though Pame hadn't a clue how to address the situation; If they even needed to address it. Instead, with a soft huff, the elf clutches her gloved hands into fists to still her rising suspicions of what lingered in the shadows.

She'd await for orders to break rank to investigate, but by the heavens didn't she have a mighty need to scold whatever followed them for being so reckless and clueless.

[ L. K ]   Through it all; Lazarius was stone faced and reserved.  With his Confessor at his side; it seemed all too familiar, the sight of the old miserable Kashebahl and the rapier wit Duskflame.  Laz and Tea had been down this road many of times, far too many to begin worrying about some little runt following them.  But Lazarius knew.  Perhaps not because Marseille, who also like his sister in arms Pame, heard the boy, but because Lazarius was sensing something entirely different.

The boy was giving off a large amount of energy; not magically or anything like that, but in the form of something else.  Lazarius was aware of everything around them; be it alive or dead he was detecting the force of gravitational decay on all things near by.  

He knew the boy was there and would have observed him by bending the physics of light entering his deadly poisonous iris of venom to see what was actually happening without ever needing to look behind.  

But a small finger raised and sent was all that was needed for Marseille.  As his Masters Shade, and Pame as well promoted to that position, both predators were cleared.

Jursol knew her job.  She was granted the seat on the council as not only a mistress of blood magic but also as a guardian.  Her and the raptors were primarily tasked with the outer defenses of the Bastille.  That massive gated doorway that bled into the Ruins of the Nerubian empire.  The tunnels that went miles and miles under the crust.  Jursol had teams to keep them cleaned, patrol and hunt for threats.  

She was literally the first line of defense, and as such Marseille did not give her orders but rather knew she would remain by both Verza and Lazarius’ side as he and the Kaldorei did what they did best, hunt.

Only a glance was given to Pame; they’d practiced this drill ten thousand times and ten thousand times more they would repeat it.  He broke left, and she broke right.  Swiftly moving from treetops and bushes, darting in and out of cover, blades at the ready.

[ T ]   The runt was noticing the changes in the group; Children are often more perceptive than adults, in both magical and non magical affairs. Without thinking, he simply hid in a bush, and waited. The rustle of leaves was particularly loud...but to some, there was a slightly louder sound, too.

Fear is an excellent catalyst for magic at times, and this was one of those times. There was an odd, but familiar sound...it was not unlike a shrill whine. Not everyone could hear it, only those inclined to the forces of the elder gods.

It was a maddening sound that would threaten to unravel those who hear it for the first time. But this boy had heard it before; A lifetime of abuse and self-doubt had left him vulnerable to such forces.

Not only did this sound likely broadcast his location easily to others, but it also drew the ire of wild beasts. A small, ordinary bat driven to hatred began to swarm the voiceless child, who had begun to curl up in hopes the angry bat would stop biting him soon.

[ J ]   Jursol remained silent as she stayed near the others. Her steps far more silent then most. Long ears twitched as she listened to the tiny stalker. No threat was felt off it, so she remained on the path. Watching the others closely as she moved freely through the area.

Treetops, brush, it’s nothing to her. Honestly she was enjoying the area even though she was focused on the task at hand. Now and then she’d smirk thinking of how the Elves looked at her. It was clear many never saw anything like her before.

This amused her greatly. During the walk many wild animals seemed to look at her. They seemed confused but also some were drawn to her. Jimba was small but fierce. He heard the stalker and was nipping at Jursol to tell her. As she heard the child’s cry she turned to look at the others. Still silent as she gave a nod as if asking to check it out.

[ V . D ] The wonderful thing about Pames armor, in her honest opinion, was the darker shades of green and black. She had been prepared for this sort of drill, given she had spent a good twenty minutes brushing her thick hair down into a sleek updo, her hair braided tight and wound into a swirl bun center on the back of her head, pinned down to not move even a little.

It was meant to help conceal the majority of her scent as well ensure the long strands couldn't get caught up or distract her during a fight. But also... It helped especially during stealth operations. The moment she pulled her hood up and leapt clean from the ground to a nearby tree limb, she'd become one with nature.

Merely a a misplaced blur that disappears between the cracks of the leaves and the winding branches. This was where she was most at home. Bounding with the prowess of an amazonian among dense trees and thick foliage. In truth she wasn't as quiet as she could have desired.

But she stepped as lightly as she could, her balance superb with her sure footing (even if most of it was out of pure confidence and luck), carrying the heavy armor and weapons as gracefully as possible.

Thankfully her hours practicing her fighting became of useful sacrifice in the end, in exchange for her social life, given them beefy arms and thighs. Once she was close enough to the location of interest, and the person of interest, the maiden settled herself within a reasonable distance for to make good use of her throwing knives.

Without a hesitation to consider the situation, the kaldorei swiftly neutralizes the threat of the bats. Knives penetrated the bodies of the flying pests, ripping them straight from the air and pinning them to the ground. Of course she'd leave it at that, lingering in the darkness of the canopy whilst clutching another knife between her gloved fingers. Now she would monitor, to determine an appropriate way to neutralize this issue; Preferably without conflict.

Verzatea was oblivious. Not necessarily blind, simply unconcerned with the issue. She genuinely trusted in the abilities of those in their group for this mission; And so she invested her interest in the two remaining bodies near her  so the trio could get far enough away to engage in conversation.

"Have you two eaten in the last few hours? I brought a bit of bread and fruit!"

To be continued in “In Mind of Misery, Manipulation, Part 2″

@siidaraykashebahl

@frompage112

@pyravari-kashebahl

@zandalaridruidofgonk

@whatadarkbitch

@miss-irascible

[nvzblgrrl]

On the subject of old fics 1

Allegedly, A Gentleman’s Tale (published 1-6-2012) was my first fanfic ever (again, allegedly - will explain after a bit). It only exists now as a private copy at least one person has saved and a capture on the WayBackMachine (which thankfully covered the whole ten chapters of it), because I have a habit of... deleting stories that embarrass me after the fact. It’s something I’m trying to break myself of, mostly because there are a number of people who do enjoy my work even if most of what I see in it are the flaws and I would feel bad about taking away something they enjoyed.

The ‘allegedly’ part comes in in that, based on my memories of my One Piece OCs and stories (along with more concrete evidence from my tumblr), I had a few OCs with snippets of story (with one who had at least a few chapters worth of story that I have memorized in broad strokes) attached that preceded that by at least one or two years, even though the description of ‘my first fic’ was in the synopsis of the fic as it was posted. Unfortunately, it’s hard to trace that information thanks to the ‘destroy all the evidence of me embarrassing myself’ habit (I completely deactivated my deviantart account on account of ‘cringe’, that’s how bad it got) and the passage of time making it unclear which mutuals might have been around at that time or if they even remember those things.

Now, I still have the computers that I typed up those stories on (they’re hanging out in my basement), but - they haven’t worked in quite a while. I’m not sure if they’re completely bricked or not, but I haven’t had anything to do with them for a while and I know that at least one of them was replaced because it refused to turn on anymore. Someday, I might get the chance to pull out their hard-drives and get a look at the data there, but that’s not a ‘now’ solution so...

Anyway - got a bit distracted there -, thanks to the power of the WayBackMachine, I was able to reread this specific fic in its entirety.

‘A Gentleman’s Tale’ was a little thing that was pretty much Brook backstory wrapped up in the framing device of Luffy wanting a story to help him get to sleep. I was 18, had maybe a year or two of creative writing experience/interest under my belt, and a whole lot of Soul King Stan energy to spend on my favorite character despite being at the tail end of my high school career.

Surprisingly, it was not entirely awful for an alleged ‘first attempt’. The formatting was a little eh, the pacing was borked, and a lot of characters were fairly flat (and a few leaned too hard on certain stereotypes while a lot had Western order names for some reason), but other than that, it was actually palatable. Ten chapters, about 8000 words, not a whole lot to write home about or find objectionable outside of the odd grammatical error and the fact that alcohol is mentioned in almost. every. single. chapter.

Seriously, I have no idea why that was a thing for me 2012-2013ish (it ended up in Witt and Witticism a little bit - more heavily on the rewrites that never took off back in the day but a little present in the original too). I was 18-19. I’d never had alcohol. I still haven’t had alcohol. I’d never really been around drinking at that age, socially or not, beyond like, enjoying brew fries and eating chicken tenders at a bar one time because my shit father wanted to have lunch there for some reason. I just guess that I woke up at the start of 2012 and thought Drink Mixing and Booze were interesting things.

The story wasn’t much to write home about, but the characters are the real area of interest here, so let’s cover them and a few of my plans for handling them in the rewrite.

Brook - Starts out his backstory being seasick, gets to have five decent minutes when he meets Yorki, and then is immediately shoved into the wall-to-wall shitshow that’s his life as the battle convoy captain and resident responsible adult, despite 70% of the convoy being at least ten to fifteen years older than him. Somehow that makes his interest in getting black out drunk almost every single night sound reasonable. Seriously, that’s what he was doing in that story, according to what happened almost every other chapter of the fic (because pacing is for writers on their third or fourth story). That’s one reason why the timeline is being stretched out in the rewrite plans - so we don’t kill the main character through alcohol poisoning (though with the kind of stress he was under in that original cut, I can’t blame him for trying - he got saddled with three weird + constantly fighting teenagers and a dying military organization, snubbed by the king, publicly embarrassed in front of 90% of the kingdom’s nobility, and so on in the course of two to three days max). Honestly, in retrospect, I’m not sure how well this plays with the framing device of Brook relating his backstory 62 years later, because he should have lost so many brain cells to this nonsense.

Yorki - Starts his introduction by saying ‘hey, my name’s Yorki, i’m close, bi, and willing to take you on a whirlwind adventure literally two seconds after meeting you’ which Brook immediately responds to as the best thing that’s happened to him in the last (and probably next) month. Probably the only person in Brook’s life as of the fic not stressing him out or enabling his self-destructive coping habits, though that doesn’t stop him from being one of the better things Brook woke up to after one of his blackout drinking nights. Also got an incredibly shitty nickname thanks to me not knowing how that sort of thing works from his mom. In the rewrite, he’s from Ohio (because I and my Middle-Ground lingering Self-Insert are from Michigan and the opportunity for a struggle between ‘hey we’ve both being isekai’d into this weird place and have similar backgrounds/music tastes so we’re going to hang together based on that’ and ‘200 year old inter-state hatred turned into over the top sports rivalry and disliking the other state on principle’ was too good to pass up).

Luchere Gregg (Gregg being her surname) - junior member of the battle convoy. Incredibly thorny and violent personality, with very little respect for authority (outside of her father, probably) and a generally superior attitude towards literally everyone except her father, especially when she perceived someone as being weak and ‘uppity’ at the same time - Maysure was the main target of this (as was intended at the time of the writing), but considering that Luchere was taking a similar tone with Brook (which was probably intended to be for different reasons, but honestly reads very similarly almost ten years on, given that Brook’s everything is very much not in line with her ideal anything) but not Hana (who was ‘weak’ but definitely not trying to mess with Luchere’s preferred social order), I think I can get more development out of her in that dimension. Her everything was probably was cool and badass back when I was 18, but now she just strikes me as petulant and unpleasant brat.

Minalee Hana - Generic smart guy of the junior team, complete with ‘shy’ personality and ‘harmless cute’ look... which, in retrospect, makes it really confusing why she’d join a military force in the first place and just raises suspicions on the fact that she did. Honestly she could be a Government plant and I wouldn’t be surprised. Another ‘problem’ with Hana is that she was based on someone I was friends with at the time I wrote the fic, which kinda ended up helping me dislike her a lot on more recent rereads, just because of the nature of that real world ‘friendship’ and the way it blew up in the end (with a whole lot of ugly reveals along the way that went back to pretty much when I first met that person).

Maysure Semenov Tara Su-all Evony Taebory Celeste - was originally a parody of the Mary Sue archetype, as you may have guessed from the name. Flashy, overeager, desperate for acknowledgement, and not quite managing to act in ways appropriate to her age (15, directly stated in text), either being too cutesy with her speech pattern and body language or dressing in ways that would be suited for a very different profession than soldier. I ended up liking her the most out of the junior trio out on my most recent rereads, just because she’s the only member of the group that’s actually making an effort at anything (well, beyond Luchere being hostile + trying to make Brook leave), doesn’t go out of her way to be hostile or destructive, and isn’t vaguely there in a way that makes me suspicious. Apparently was the only one of the junior trio ever stated to have weapons training (with Luchere being an unarmed fighter and Hana... just being there) and was apparently dedicated enough to it to have the schedule for the different training drills memorized.

Captain Gregg - the former captain of the battle convoy. He was never seen, only ever referenced in the fic. Based on the content, he was pretty much Luchere 1.0 - crass, unpleasant, violent, and without a lot of tolerance for those that couldn’t deal with or keep up with the unfortunate matter of his everything. The notes on rewrite so far have him becoming a lot more pleasant and lot less generally awful person, though still a bit of a roughneck and unpleasant to be around if you aren’t cut from the same cloth or a similar weave. Was not inspired by Captain Clegg until I started imbibing pop culture in preparation for the various parts of the project.

Jeevenine - quartermaster of the battle convoy, bartender, and carrier of heavy butler vibes, which feels like it might have been intentional. Said to be a master of ‘improvisation combat’ but honestly seems to be the person most likely to have taught Brook his style of fencing (based on his speed and precision being noted as something Brook had difficulty keeping up with in text) and his gentlemanly ways, considering every other character I wrote into the convoy is some flavor of hot mess and either a bruiser or a gunman. Still loses points for enabling Brook’s blackout drinking habits and being passive-aggressive instead of properly helpful.

Jack Rackum and John Delacroix - sniper-spotter pair, as indicated by their nicknames of ‘Windward’ and ‘Leeward’ respectively. Highly implied to be in a long-standing romantic relationship with each other or at least in a long-term holding pattern of pining. Delacroix’s tendency to sleep in the nude is used as half of a ‘my eyes’ joke that Brook is the victim of (the other half is Maysure’s chosen nightclothes being both stereotypical of a ‘Mary Sue’ and vastly age inappropriate, which is a running gag with her). Rackum gets the most description out of the set, with his brown leather hat and green-grey hair being mentioned, along with his taste for fruity cocktails (he might also be an alcoholic, which isn’t really all that remarkable in this fic).

Kurotora Ren - Big Guy McHugeBeef. Also the guy responsible for keeping the battle convoy awash in homebrew booze. Almost kills Brook by accident during his introduction by clapping him on the back at the exact wrong moment. Doesn’t have a lot more detail than that, mostly because he slides into the background after that brief focus moment, but I like him for being genuinely sorry about the near-death thing on top of being friendly for real and not being duplicitous about his wants + thoughts.

Zest - noble. Stupid. Probably the closest thing that Brook has to a friend in his actual age range at the start of the story, which is really fucking sad considering Zest’s everything and the fact that Brook doesn’t enjoy his company at all. Somehow when I was 18, the idea of a guy who spent most of his time in some state of wasted and trying to get his ‘friend’ (who doesn’t even like him that much but seems to tolerate him more than literally everyone else Zest ever interacted with who wasn’t being paid) into a similar condition because of unrequited love or something was tragi-cute-slash-funny instead of pathetic and faintly disturbing (though I guess I might end up writing him as tragic again anyway just because it probably takes Some Shit to make a person like that). Spent 90% of his screen time in the old story making Brook’s life inconvenient and the remaining 10% fully aware that his own life is going nowhere. His personality is oddly similar to Maysure’s, which is... interesting, implications-wise. Holy Shit, is this guy going to be a trip to work with as an adult.

[missjosie27]

Year 1 Chapter 3- A Deadly Trap

The next day featured Transfiguration and Herbology for the first year Gryffindors. Professor McGonagall was every bit as strict as Snape, however, she was not cruel or vindictive and happy to assist any student who was in need of proper instruction. It was a difficult branch of magic to say the least, and by the time the class ended, only three of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had managed to achieve transfiguring their beetle into a button. Thankfully, David happened to be one of them, earning a brief moment of praise from his Head of House. He just hoped she hadn’t heard what happened with Snape.

Professor Sprout was much more akin to Flitwick, not quite as jolly, but extremely good natured and fair. It was easy to see why she was Head of Hufflepuff house, who were also a solid lot and certainly the most outgoing. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs tended to get along the most so they said. The subject itself was more intensive than wand work, but it did everyone a chance to move around as opposed to sitting in a desk all day.

With the exception of potions master, who more or less hated everyone, David got the feeling most of his teachers liked him thus far, which made the prospect of Potions with Snape a less daunting task and the sting of the lost points lessened.

Angelica, however, still expected him to get those points back and she reminded him as much when she presented a letter to him at lunch.

“Snape sent you this,” she said to him as he sat eating extra large sandwiches with Rowan, Ben, and Charlie.

“What, he can’t tell me in person? I’m insulted.”

“Just open it, Grant,” she half ordered, half sighed.

David did so, all the while wondering just what Snape wanted. Nothing good he supposed.

Grant,

It has come to my attention that your potion yesterday may have been tampered with. As such, I am allowing you a chance to regain the points you lost. Fetch me a jar of picked slugs from the Potions on the 5th floor and I will consider restoring them.

Professor Snape

As he read it aloud, Angelica’s eyes widened with opportunity.

“This is your chance to make things right,” she pressed him. “You have to get those points back.”

“I’ll go with you,” Rowan offered. “I’m only a first year but I know the castle pretty well already. Plus, we did make that potion together it’s only right I help.”

“Thanks, mate.”

“You sure this is a good idea?” Charlie asked. “Bill’s told me all about Snape. He’s never one to give points back once he’s taken them. Especially for Gryffindors.”

“Whatever the reason, you have to take the chance he’s sincere,” Angelica insisted.

David shrugged.

“I suppose I have no choice. Couldn’t hurt anyway.”

“Let’s go right now.”

And the two boys set off, hoping that their Potions professor was not quite as bad as the first impression led them to believe.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“You know, I always thought the Potions storeroom was on the tapestry corridor,” Rowan mused to himself as they finally reached their desired destination. “I suppose there must be more than one.”

“Who the heck knows where they put things around here,” David shrugged. “Let’s just get this jar before we have to go to our next class.”

Nodding to each other, they opened the door and upon entering the room couldn’t help but notice how dark it was, nearly pitch black.

“Cast lumos, Dave, I can’t see a thing.”

Just then, a small *click could be heard behind which only meant one thing.

“Uh, Rowan, why on earth did you lock the door?”

The Indian boy swallowed.

“I didn’t.”

“I did.”

The voice was muffled and came from the other side of the door, but there was no mistaking that nasty, arrogant tone.

“Merula.”

“Now you’re catching on,” came the haughty reply. “Oh, I’d use that lighting charm as soon as you can. It might be the only thing that saves you from the Devil’s Snare.”

That caused Rowan to get quite jumpy.

“D-Devil’s Snare?!”

“Some fourth year showed it to me the other day,” Merula told them. “Figured it was just wasting away all alone in year and could use some company.”

David, his body racked with fury, slammed on the door with both of his fists.

“Merula, are you kidding?! Let us out of here!”

“No can do, Grant,” came her vindictive response. “I told you would regret talking to me that way in Potions and all it took was one fake letter from Snape to get you right where I wanted. Enjoy!”

Just as she finished that sentence, a slimy tentacle slithered up his pant leg, causing him to jump back.

“AGH! Lumos!”

The wand lighting charm only served to show them just how much danger they were in. The room was packed head to toe with the deadly plant and it was making its way towards them.

“David, I don’t suppose you know what Devil’s Snare does to people it comes in contact with,” Rowan said, his voice shaking.

“Yeah, it strangles them until they’re blue in the face and dead!”

“What do we do?”

David had to shrug off more of the vines that were attempting to grab him. Only a few were active at the moment but more would be coming.

“Keep yelling for help and hope for a miracle. I’ll hold it off for as long as I can.”

He tried to sound confident as he said it, but none of the two boys had any real practical defense or offense against the killer plant. The only thing either could do was keep waving light at it, which would cause the vines to retreat momentarily, but they would always come back. Finally, the vines became so numerous it was impossible to prevent oneself from being ensnared in their grip.

One of them grabbed David by the ankle, causing him to crash hard to the floor.

“ROWAN!”

“Dave!”

As he slid towards the horrifying mass of green in front of him, David couldn’t help but wonder if this was truly the way he was going to go out: age eleven on his second day of Hogwarts.

Killed by Devil’s snare, tricked by a fake letter. They’re going to write that on my bloody tombstone.

Just as Rowan was about to grab his hand in an effort to prevent him from sinking into the abyss of Devil’s Snare a miracle happened, literally.

The door to the room was suddenly burst open, so violently it nearly broke clean off its hinges. Standing in the doorway was the largest man either boy had ever seen in their young lives. He was close to ten feet tall and had width to match. He donned a thick, brown beard along with small, beetle like eyes and wore an enormous trench coat that surely would have dwarfed another human being.

“Gulpin’ Gargoyles!” the man thundered. “Get away from that Devil’s Snare! Yer scarin’ it!”

“Oh sure, I’m the one scaring it,” Dave yelled as he struggled to prevent the vines from securing a hold around his neck.

“Alrigh’ don’t panic. Tha’ just makes it worse,” the half man, half giant said more calmly. “Here ya go.”

Without even so much as an effort, he picked both him and Rowan off the ground, the vines snapping as he did so, placed them outside into the corridor and pulled the door shut once more.

Pausing to catch their collective breaths, it was only once the danger had passed that David and Rowan could properly acknowledge their savior…and truly gain perspective as to just how big he was.

“You saved our lives, mister…uh…”

“No need to call me, mister,” the man laughed. “Rubeus Hagrid at your service. Keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts.”

“Well, thank you Hagrid,” David said sincerely knowing he was the only reason that he was still breathing. “I’m David, David Grant.”

“Aye, yer the one everyone’s been talking about,” the gamekeeper said with an inquisitive eye. “I hope trouble doesn’t run in yer family. Even most firs’ years know not to get tangled up in Devil’s Snare. How’d you two end up in there anyway?”

“We were tricked,” Rowan admitted, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“Merula Snyde,” David said, venom practically dripping off his voice. “She sent us a fake letter pretending to be Snape.”

“Blimey! Well tha’s certainly not righ’. What are yer plannin’ ter do?”

“I figured a good hex to the mouth might do the trick.”

Hagrid began shaking his massive head.

“Yer upset, which I understand. But I’m tellin ya, getting back at her will only make things worse. Yer riskin worse punishment then she’ll ever get.”

“He’s right, Dave,” Rowan agreed. “I’m just as upset as you are, but imagine if we lost more points trying to get even. Angelica will have our heads.”

David considered himself a very easy going person by nature, quick with a joke and slow to anger but Merula Snyde was currently testing the limits of his patience. Nevertheless, he complied.

“Alright. Thank you for your help, Hagrid. We would have been dead meat in there without you.”

“No problem, Dave,” Hagrid said, a warm smile discernable underneath his shaggy beard. “Feel free ter come visit me in me hut anytime. In the meantime, you’ll be wantin ter change out of them robes.”

They said their respective goodbyes and headed back to the common room, both boys remarking just how lucky it was Hagrid showed up in the nick of time, not to mention admiring his huge size.

When they returned to Gryffindor Tower, however, there were a large contingent of people present. All eyes turned to focus on them and their torn, disgruntled appearance.

“Merlin’s beard! What happened?” Angelica asked them, heading through the crowd. “You two looked like you were almost mauled by a Chimera.”

“Devil’s Snare actually,” David said with a hollow chuckle.

“But wait, what happened with Snape?”

“There was no Snape. We were fooled by Merula and locked in a room with the stuff.”

Immediately, dark whisperings began circulating through the crowd, though no one looked angry at them. On the contrary, several instances of the word ‘Slytherins’ could be heard. Apparently, this was just another day in the rivalry between the two houses.

“This girl is a menace,” Angelica said, her face hardening into a scowl. “I’m going to tell Professor McGonagall about this. You could have been seriously hurt or worse.”

“Leave it,” David said quietly. Enough fuss had been made about his time here already. He wasn’t about to encourage drawing any more attention to himself. “She just hates me because I’m the only first year who stood up to her. That’s what I’ll continue to do, for better or worse.”

Several of the older students nodded their heads in respect, though a few looked as though they already had retaliation on their minds.

Thankfully, Angelica didn’t press the issue.

“Alright. But at least go and change out of those robes. You can’t go around looking like that.”

Just as he was about to go upstairs, she called out to him one more time.

“Grant. You did the right thing. Some things are worth more than house points.”

Nodding, he continued on his way, somewhat relieved that he had gotten on the good side of his prefect and his house, but one irrevocable fact overshadowed that accomplishment.

He had a bona fide enemy in just two days at Hogwarts and her named was Merula Snyde. He had a feeling their feud would not be ending any time soon.

[ayearofpike]

Magic Fire

Pocket Books, 1999 226 pages, 18 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-02057-9 LOC: CPB Box no. 1726 vol. 8 OCLC: 41501833 Released June 1, 1999 (per Amazon; pretty sure B&N has a typo)

It takes pressure and friction to make a spark. Mark Charm has plenty of both, egged along by the mysterious and lovely new girl at school pushing him for more than he expected in a relationship, and not helped by the death of his mother. Of course, for most people this doesn’t manifest in an actual fire, to say nothing of one that engulfs a major metropolis. And as Mark starts to realize that he has more control over the spark and the flame than he knew, he also learns how he might be under control himself.

We’ve talked about misleading back copy before, but this one goes in so many directions after we meet the characters that there’s just no way it could nail it down. Still, to my mind, it doesn’t even come close. Sure, Mark is a pyromaniac, but he’s burning things to relieve tension in his own mind, not “just ‘cause.” And before I get too far ahead, I’ll just say that there’s more going on than what is in Mark’s own head.

This book marks a MAJOR turn for Pike in terms of thematic content. Like, maybe he noticed just how much of his writing was starting to follow the same patterns and tropes, and realized that it was time to do something completely different. The meditation guided through understandings of Eastern religion is still there, but: no powerful blood, no time travel, no genetic memories, no saviors of light, no burial in one’s own grave, not even ONE fourth-dimensional space lizard. Two books from the end of his contract, he’s finally giving us an entirely new story.

And it’s kind of a choppy one. I mentioned how it jumps all over the place, and we’ll get there in the recap. This was another book that I didn’t remember, that has a tight binding that indicates maybe I only read it once. (Although you may note the bite mark in the corner ... at the very least a dog, probably the puppy my parents got not long after this book came out, was interested in it.) As such, I started to get annoyed about not following the narrative and why it was making so many unexpected and unforeshadowed turns. But slowly, as I read, I started to remember the twist. It’s a big one (but maybe not so big if you were up on sci-fi in 1999) and it does a lot to justify why this narrative arc has so many loop-de-loops, some of which flatly don’t make any sense.

The story takes place in an alternate near-future Los Angeles, which isn’t really specified but we get senses of being out of time through the character’s words and actions. Mark is in a theater watching the new girl, Jessa Welling, star in a play about a witch. She’s such a good actress and such a good fit for the role that Mark starts to wonder if she wrote the play. But that’s not the only reason he hopes to get to know her better. In fact, he’s here at the play’s closing performance to try to talk to her. And he does, and she’s receptive, but he kind of flubs it and leaves too soon. He does want to go see his mom, though, who is sick in the hospital with cancer. And these two events, back to back, create this tension that he has to relieve somehow.

So he fills up a gas can and burns down a house. One that’s under construction  — Mark is always very careful to avoid hurting people when he sets fires. He’s been doing it for a while now, as his mother gets worse and he feels his life spiraling out of control. Maybe it’s ironic, or maybe there’s some deeper psychology at play, because his dad was a firefighter who was killed in action when he was ten. But this time Mark lights the fire in the upstairs master bedroom, and realizes as it spreads quickly that he has to get out, only maybe he won’t. But he does ... weirdly, it’s almost like the fire moves out of his way so he can.

Jessa catches up with him at school the next day, while he’s eating a turkey sandwich. (Oh yeah, I forgot that’s a Pike pattern, all the turkey sandwiches.) She’s smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer — ON CAMPUS — so it shouldn’t surprise him that she wants him to ditch school with her and go to the beach. It also shouldn’t surprise him that she has a harder drug to share with him. The drug, MAZE, is a psychoactive hallucinogen similar to LSD. Mark knows this, but doesn’t remember at first until Jessa reminds him. The gap in his memory bothers him, but not enough to not smoke it. Then he starts seeing aliens harvesting brains from humans and putting them in tanks of blue liquid on his TV, but the TV is off. He also has the overwhelming feeling that the world is not what it seems, and that Jessa knows a lot more than she’s letting on, and that she should just be forthcoming and honest with it. She cries and tells him that all she wants is him, and that she wants to tell him her story while she has him.

Mark wakes up in the middle of the night, and Jessa is gone, and he doesn’t remember anything they said or did after climbing into bed, least of all her story. What he does remember is that he hasn’t talked to his mom at all during the day, and so he figures he’ll drop in on the hospital and check on her while she’s sleeping. Only she’s not in her room — the nurse baldly and candidly and pitilessly tells him that Mrs. Charm died that evening. And if seeing her labor to sleep the night before was hard, it’s even worse that she died and Mark wasn’t with her. So now he has to burn something big. And what’s bigger than a city?

He’s thought it out. He knows where to steal a gas truck, where to drive it to cause the most damage, how to get the fire going. But he doesn’t have his lighter with him, weirdly. So he steals a bike and rides it home, where Jessa is waiting on the steps. And she knows he lights fires, and she wants to help him with this one. What happened to not hurting people? Well, if there’s one thing Jessa has said without fail since they started talking, it’s that it’s not possible for either of them or anyone else to get hurt through their actions. How can she know this? We’ll get there.

They drench the bushes along the side of an access road that surrounds his neighborhood, but when he lights the gas at one end the fire stops before it runs the whole trail. He races to the break and lights the next section, but then there’s another break a farther distance away, and now the fire at the first part is threatening the fumes of the empty tanker truck. The pressure is building, though, to keep the fire going, and as he thinks it the fire jumps the gap and races down the whole road. He doesn’t get back to the truck in time to stop it exploding, though. Jessa is thrown clear, but her legs are badly burned and she can’t walk. So now Mark has to carry her out of this neighborhood, which is literally SURROUNDED by fire. He finds a drainage tunnel in a valley and they hide out in it, but she can’t crawl and he can’t carry her and it heats up and they pass out, figuring they’re goners.

But they’re not! Mark wakes up in a fancy penthouse apartment, with windows facing his area of destruction. Jessa is beside him in bed, and they’ve both been cleaned up and bandaged. Before he has too much time to think about it, a man in black walks in and says he’s saved them, for the reason that Mark has power over fire and he needs his help. To prove his power, the man in black pulls out a tube of cream and heals Mark’s burns instantly, saying that he’ll do the same for Jessa once they work for him. So they ride out to the desert, to this nondescript compound two hours from anywhere, where Mark can start to hone his ability.

What do they need Mark to do? Well, apparently there’s been an alien invasion, and the aliens hide among us and are manipulating us, and his fire can burn out their computers and put a stop to it. How can he do it from the desert? Well, the computer is closer than he thinks, everyone says, but also he’ll be able to do it psychically from a distance. He just has to think of the thing he wants to burn and it’ll burn. But how can he think of something he doesn’t know and has never seen? Well, it turns out — as Mark seems to see ahead into the meta-narrative and feels like all of this was already written, like everyone, even he, knew the fire would work because it was so prescribed — that Jessa knew who he was, that she coaxed him into feeling his power, and that she’s now using her own pain to help the Man in Black manipulate Mark. Because she’s been recruited to the cause already, and her power is that not only can she see into somewhere else but that she can take people along with her. And that’s how they’re going to see the computer so Mark can destroy it.

Still, she beseeches, just because she works for this shadowy organization doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love Mark. She tells him a little more about the invasion: apparently it happened ten years ago (or maybe two; she slips a little bit, making Mark think she’s still lying) and the aliens are more all-seeing than anyone could know. And as they get into the alien center to see where they need to be, it becomes clear just how much. The alien center, you see, is a vast complex of blue tanks full of human brains. Our brains. Mark’s brain, in particular, which bobs up next to him and he just knows it’s his. It’s what he saw on MAZE, made painfully real. And this is what Jessa meant in it not being possible for them to get hurt: they have no bodies to hurt and no environment to hurt them.

I talked about Pike predating The Matrix before, with his roof-running helicopter-stealing Last Vampire. By the time this book was released, the movie had been out a couple months, but to my memory it would still take a few more before we really started to appreciate what it had done for sci-fi storytelling. The idea of reality taking place inside our brains certainly wasn’t new, but it’s interesting that these two stories would take such a similar approach to it. Mark quickly learns that yes, by human perception the invasion was ten years ago, but the aliens probably froze us before returning to their planet some 420 light-years away. Now, in what’s probably closer to the 26th century ECE (Earth Common Era) than the 21st, what we know as Earth is what it likely would have continued as if we had corporeality and were still on the planet, but in a simulation that is more controllable by the aliens — who, by the way, planted primitive versions of themselves on various planets to see and study how they might grow and evolve in such an environment. Yes: they are us and we are them.

So if Mark kills the computer, he’s basically killing human society. He is disabling the mechanism by which these billions of brains continue to function as people. Does he have that right? The Man in Black (or should I just start calling him Morpheus?) argues that it’s a responsibility: that we should save our race from being manipulated by these higher aliens because no matter what we might think or feel, our lives are not our own. Jessa agrees, but she also has a plan to overtake the bodies of the two computer techs minding the simulation, so that she and Mark won’t go down with the ship, and they can stay together. There aren’t a whole lot of options, she says — to which Mark responds that it’s kind of like being trapped in a maze.

It takes a little more convincing that I’m glossing over, but Mark eventually agrees to this plan. Jessa’s psychic ability allows her to force the tech’s souls out of their bodies so she and Mark can jump in, and then instead of disabling the computer he uses his fire to boil the tanks, making sure that no brains survive and the aliens can’t keep the experiment going. There’s a brief inquiry, but nobody believes that either of these two highly-placed scientists would have ruined their experiment on purpose, so they’re sent home.

Mark and Jessa do inherit the latent memories of the bodies they occupy, so they know that they’re a couple with a young child. But neither of them really seems to know what that means until she gets home from school. Mark is surprised by the depth of his love for the kid, and taken aback at how Jessa apparently has none. In fact, she immediately starts planning to book a spaceship and fly BACK to Earth, WITHOUT the child, so that they can be free and alone together. It’s going to involve hijacking a powerful science vessel and remote-burning the brains of all the crew to get home, but Jessa is insistent. Mark eventually convinces her that they need to bring the child because otherwise it’ll be suspicious, and another 420 years of extended hibernation later they land on the island that used to be Los Angeles.

It’s not habitable without the tech from the ship, but Jessa wants to make it so, to get to a point where they don’t need “alien” help as soon as possible. In fact, she often goes into the wilderness, where the animals have taken over and become more populous, without any high-tech way to defend herself or call for help. It’s on one of these trips that their daughter dies, slipping and falling into the ocean and being dashed against a concrete pillar by a huge wave. Of course Mark wasn’t with them, so he didn’t see it. But now he’s starting to see more than she wanted him to ... more than he should, even. He sees that everything he’s seen so far has only been what she wanted him to see, even in the desert and on the alien planet and in the spaceships. And how could that be unless she had constructed the very existence around them? And if all of this is a construct, how is it possible to be happy? Is that what Jessa meant the whole time about not getting hurt?

She knows. She acknowledges. But she won’t leave with him.

And suddenly Mark is waking up in a dingy clinic in Mexico in 2010, with wires coming out of his head and his younger sister warning him not to come back too quickly. The clinic, it turns out, is called MAZE: Mental Alteration Zeitgeist Expansion. It’s a technology that allows you to bypass your senses and have information sent directly to your brain, to escape reality and live in a simulation of your mind’s own making. Jessa has been under for a year, and she’s slowly dying, and Mark went into her simulation to try to get her out. Only she wouldn’t come: she would rather die in her fantasy than survive in reality.

So everything we’ve read, this whole story, was constructed by Jessa for the inside of Mark’s brain based on what she already knew about him — not just the narrative arc, but the mother dying (even though his mom is fine), the pyromania and pyrokinesis (because he liked watching fires), the love for a child (that resembles his sister), all of it. Only here in the epilogue do we get Mark’s actual brain bemoaning Jessa’s end and wondering why it was so critical that he not have anyone but her ... but also questioning his own reality a little bit.

And the Matrix goes deeper. I hadn’t seen it at the time I read this — but I HAD read Grant Naylor’s Better Than Life, which posited a similar technology and built the narrative in a similar way, so I wasn’t totally blown away by the twist ending. If I hadn’t read that one, though, I probably would have been super pissed here. Talk about your St. Elsewhere ending, the “it was all a dream” completely wiping out all that came before. Sure, it’s justified once you get there, but Pike doesn’t give quite enough time and description to show how MAZE might be desirable, or ESPECIALLY what it was about Jessa, what happened to her, that made her want to escape into her own mind. And he could have: he teases at her story early on, but it never comes back. Like, this is top-five among his longest YA books, and he only gives five pages (if that) to “here’s what actually happened,” and it’s ALL MARK. (Die Softly, the longest, gives a lot more credence to what the villain thought and where she was coming from in the end.) He's acknowledged the end is rushed, too ... I wonder if we can chalk that up to more publisher politics.

There’s some contextual homework to do to really understand and appreciate Magic Fire. I’m not mad at this book — in fact, it’s quite admirable that Pike wove so many layers into the story of how-deep-does-the-simulation-go in a YA book. Still, this was 1999, and we were already starting to see the effect Harry Potter had on youth literature. There was room to go even deeper and explore more about this climate, context, and rationale that put Mark and Jessa into such a tenuous situation. If Pike had done that, maybe he’d have been able to keep up his presence as an author. But maybe he couldn’t, or maybe he just didn’t want to. 

[beautifulletdownfics]

‘Someday, Someday’ :: Tumblr Edition, #6

To be given the full attention of a teenager is both a gift and a privilege.

But the ability to hold and maintain the full attention of a teenager was a skill I was having trouble mastering.

Whoever decided it was a good idea to have an ensemble rehearsal on Friday afternoons obviously hadn’t spent much time in the real world, with real teenagers. And they certainly hadn’t tried to run a productive rehearsal under such conditions.

“Can we finish early today?” Jo, a sixth-form trumpeter asked as soon as she walked into the room at four o’clock.

“Um, we’ll see how far we get, I guess,” I answered vaguely, shuffling through the score we were working on.

After the customary fifteen minutes of set up and gossip amongst cries of split reeds and missing drum sticks, the seventeen students I had this afternoon finally settled into their spots. The comforting thing was that these were players who knew their instruments well, and I knew when they put their heads down and worked hard they were bloody good. Some weeks though, they really made me work for the twenty-five pound an hour I was getting paid.

“Circle of fourths,” I instructed quickly, “Come on guys,” I pleaded, tired from a restless night and then full day of my own uni classes.

Begrudgingly, they worked their way through the warm ups, adjusting their instruments where they needed to and eventually filling out a full, satisfying sound that I was happy with. After half an hour we were well and truly into the grove of working together and they were taking my instruction well, they really weren’t a bad group of kids—they just struggled to focus at five o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Anyone would.

“If I give you a three minute water break do you promise to be back in no less than ten?” I asked after a run through that sounded near perfect.

“Cross our hearts,” A percussionist stood up and literally crossed his index finger over his heart.

I laughed, “Okay then, ten minute break,” I stressed. “And maybe we’ll get out before six.”

There was movement across the room around me, but I trained my eyes down on the score before me, trying to figure out ways to get the result I needed from the musicians I had. They were good players, they just weren’t particularly good at focussing until they absolutely had to. And the problem with teenagers is they wanted to be the best, but they also had a tendency to be lazy. They needed to be pushed into practicing, and pushed into seeing the worth of it as well.

I let out a deep sigh, deciding maybe it was unreasonable to expect more from them today. I lowered myself onto a plastic, classroom chair behind me and pulled my phone out of my pocket. If we did a few more run throughs and I highlighted all the places they needed to work on, maybe by next week there would be progress.

Or maybe not. But by the time they were all seated in front of me I could taste the weekend as well, and I didn’t have the heart to hold them hostage any longer. With a few instructions to keep practicing and a stern word about how waiting for something to become easy breeds laziness and complacency, I finished the rehearsal with a fond, ‘Get lost, band geeks.’

By the time I left the school grounds however, it was starting to get darker, and I pulled the lapels of my jacket further around my body, readjusting my heavy backpack.

The most annoying thing about working the schools that I did was that they were both private ones in North London. We lived on the other side of the park, and because the tube system was flawed in the way it was virtually impossible to go from west to east across the city, I had a nearly eighty minute commute home, even though it probably would have been no less that twenty minutes if there was a direct line.

When I finally did get home, only Max was there.

“Hello,” I greeted breathlessly, pulling out the kitchen chair next to him and lowering my bag onto it, “Been home long?”

Max pulled his eyes away from his laptop screen, “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes? Have you eaten?”

“I was just going to do eggs on toast, will I make you some too?”

He shook his head, “Rodg and I are going to the pub. Did you want to—

“—No, thanks,” I shook my head quickly, swallowing thickly when I knew I’d failed to be subtle.

I hadn’t left the house for anything other than going to class or a teaching job in weeks. I still couldn't shake the feel of a strangers’ hands all over me. I needed the security of being home; of knowing I could control who was in my space and who I engaged with.

Max didn’t push it, he’d been the one Harry called in the alley-way of the venue.

Max was the one who got a cab home with me when I couldn’t bear the thought of catching a packed train home. He sat outside the bathroom while I had a shower because it was the only way I could trust no one would come in. Much later that night, Max sat up on my bed, his back against the headboard as he silently waited for me to fall asleep. And he was there to wake me up from the dreams I had where I was back at the start of the gig, watching the music yet knowing what was coming later on and having no way to stop it.

Harry wasn’t there in the dreams.

Neither were Rodger or Max half the time. It was just me, a room full of anonymous people and a chillingly recognisable voice.

I’m saving you from another night as a wallflower, sweetheart.

I jumped when Max’s chair scraped against the tiles, the front door slammed half a second later and I cringed again.

“It’s about to start pissing down,” Rodger yelled down the hall, “Ants are going mental all over the steps.”

“Right, well let’s get going straight away then,” I watched Max tap the back pocket of his jeans to check for his wallet, he pushed the home button on his phone to check the time, “We’ll be early but it’s not like us to not be able to kill time at the pub, hey?”

Rodger had an easy smile on his face and he was nodding at Max’s words as he strolled into the kitchen, “Too right you are, Maximillion. Beers. Killing time equals more beers. Hey, Nina,” He bumped my shoulder with his elbow as he distributed his work gear all over the rest of the kitchen table, “You staying in tonight?”

I’m not sure why he asked, but I graced him with a response nonetheless, “Trying to get ahead with my course work.”

“Ha,” Rodger laughed cheerily, “At this rate you must be almost graduated then!”

“Laugh it up, Rodger,” I smiled, “If you come home so drunk you can’t work the front door I’m not coming down to open it for you.”

“Good thing he’s got me then! Right, mate?” Max interjected, puffing out his chest comically and pointing to himself.

Rodger rolled his eyes, “I’m fucking doomed.”

“What!” Max yelped, pulling his umbrella from out of the rack in the corner of the room, “I can work a bloody door.”

“Max, mate,” Rodger slapped a hand over his friend’s shoulder, “You’re a giggly drunk, you’d stand on the front step having a right old laugh about how this tall piece of wood was stopping you from going inside.”

I watched on as Max tried to rebut Rodger’s comment but couldn't because we all knew it was true.

“Whatever,” He finally grumbled, “I’m leaving, you twat.”

******

If you rise early enough, it’s possible to get almost the entire way across central London before the proverbial hum of a still morning lifts. You can scurry through the Tube and dodge the early foot traffic, getting yourself anywhere you want to be in less than twenty minutes. It was a whole city of peaceful moments at that time of the day, apart from the two or three faces who were frantically trying to get themselves home after not managing to arrive there the night before. For the most part though, at that time, I existed before everybody else.

Saturday was my favourite day of the week for this very reason; everyone else slept late and I could get to my weekend job in a calm and collected manner.

Saturdays were also my favourite because of all my teaching gigs, I found this one most rewarding. Initially, it was a hard environment to walk into as it was nothing like what my experience of Primary School had been. Devonshire House Preparatory School in North Hampstead was a far cry from Blackpool State School, and I’d been bold enough to assume the worst about the sorts of people that would associate with one of London’s best prep schools.

I was wrong.

Sure, the place smelt like old money and heritage, but kids were kids at the end of the day, regardless of how much money their parents earned. And kids who played instruments were ones I could relate to.

I felt like I had something worthwhile to offer them for the two hours on Saturday mornings I taught five to eleven year-olds to read a completely different language to the one they used in their classroom during the week. I taught them how shapes on a stave could direct a sound coming out of an instrument they controlled.

When I walked out of the gates this Saturday I had a text from Max instructing me to call him once I was finished.

“Max, I didn’t hear you come home last night.”

“Is that an accusation, or an appreciative comment on the fact I didn’t trip over the hallway rug and wake you up this time?” He replied quickly.

“Always appreciative, Max,” I laughed.

I could hear the smile in his next words, “Great! Then you’ll appreciate spending a fun night eating and hanging out with me.”

“I’m sure I will appreciate that, Max. I’m on the way home now, do you want me to pick anything up?”

“So you’re agreeing then?” He let the last word drag out and I caught onto an ulterior motive, or a layer to our conversation that I was missing.

I stopped in my tracks, half way to the Tube station, “Max.”

“Nina, you haven’t done anything social and out of the house in weeks and—

—Oh, what so going to work and uni and the supermarket aren’t out of the house?” I butted in over the top of him.

“I’m not dignifying that with a response,” Max said firmly, “Anyway, no, you can’t bring anything home because I’m not there … We’re spending the afternoon at Harry’s, he just got a new BBQ and is breaking it in.”

I stopped my walking to wait at a set of pedestrian lights, “Harry …” I let the name linger from my lips, assuming who Max was talking about but not wanting to refer to Max’s friend by his full name. The idea of that felt strange.

Max laughed, “Harry Styles?”

“No,” I backtracked, “I knew who you meant—

“—I’m standing in the guy’s kitchen, what other Harry do we know?”

I let out a long sigh, “Max.”

“I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, Nina. I will physically come and remove you from our house if you refuse.”

"I'll come," I said quietly, immediately regretting it.

"Oh," I could tell Max was stumbling over what his next arguing point was going to be, but now that he didn't need to there was a moment of pause, "Great, Nina. I'll um, I'll text you the address. It's not too tricky to get to. Call me when you're out the front though and I'll come let you in?"

"Sure," I agreed, "What should I bring?"

Max's next words we're repeated slowly and away from his phone, as if he was talking into the room around him, "What should Nina bring?" There was a beat of silence, mumbling in the background and then Max repeated what had been said to him, "Absolutely nothing, just your lovely self."

“Send me the address,” I said abruptly, briskly walking across the street and hoping with each gulping breath I’d conjure some gall. “I’ll see you soon.”

Distractedly, Max hung up the call and it was during the time I waited for his text with Harry’s address that I found myself wandering into a Tescos not far from the Tube station. No sense going and waiting on a platform only to find I’d be headed in the wrong direction.

I found supermarkets soothing, that everything had its place and category, and that everyone inside had a purpose and a sense of accomplishment.

All sense of purpose and accomplishment vanished though, as I stood at Harry’s front gate waiting for Max. I felt the space between my tummy and the top of my rib cage shrivel into something half its size and was suddenly very aware that I hadn’t any clue what I was walking myself into.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Harry since the night we all went to the Regina Spektor gig. My last memory of him is a hushed conversation between Harry and Max outside the cab just before Max jumped in with me and stayed by my side until morning. I had no idea what they’d said, but it was about me, that much I was sure. Harry had kept his head low to Max’s but it was the way his eyes kept darting back to where I was, and that his arms kept gesturing towards me in some way.

Whatever the words, it was clear I’d completely freaked out Harry Styles.

“Nina!” Max gave me a bright smile before bouncing his way straight into my personal space for a hug, “Well behaved maggots today?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, stepping through the heavy timber gate and into the front garden. “Perfect pupils this morning.”

We walked up a few sets of steps and around a bit of a garden before the front door became visible. The house was huge, all white and very English looking. There was a four-door garage to one side and three storeys worth of windows on either side of the dark blue door.

“Ah, shit,” Max cursed once he had led me up the front steps, “Bloody door closed on me, locked us out. Never mind,” He leaned across me and rang the door bell. I kicked my ankles together nervously.

I turned and looked back where we had walked. The road was barely visible through the shrubs and trunks of four large trees. Though I guess that would be the intention. A black Range Rover was parked in front of the garage along with an identical one in white.

It was Rodger who opened the door for us, he leant against the frame and gave Max a look, “Do you see what I mean about doors, Max? Completely useless.”

“Shut up, dickhead.”

Rodger only laughed and got out of Max’s way, “Hey, Nina.”

“Hi.”

His eyes fell to the plastic bag in my hand, I was more concerned about juggling two professional grade instruments on one arm, “You brought something.”

I shrugged awkwardly, “Yeah.”

“C’mon,” He waved me in.

I followed him dumbly through the house, trying not to look too hard at any one thing, my being here felt like intrusion enough. To the right was a formal looking leather couch suit and a few end tables arranged in a very refined manner. But to the left was a more casual kind of space. Comfy couches, a TV and a bookcases of novels and movies lined the wall that opened out to the backyard. The end of the lounge area led to the entrance to what I assumed was his kitchen.

I saw Max standing on the garden deck, and it seemed that all the other guests were out there with him.

“Put the bag in the kitchen and come out, yeah?” He grinned and nodded in the direction I should go. I couldn’t help but feel a little deserted but moved to do as Rodger suggested.

The kitchen was beautiful, open and airy. My step halted for a second to take it in, it was a far cry from the little kitchen in Rodger, Max and I’s place. It looked like it was from a magazine and I wondered for a second if that’s exactly where Harry had selected it from.

Harry trotted out of the far right corner carrying two handfuls of food items, surprising me, “Oh."

He turned around quickly at the sound and his neutral expression turned upward, “Hello, Nina.”

"Hi, sorry ... I ... I didn't realise you were in here." My words didn't stick together in sentences like I wanted them to, Harry kept a kind smile on his face as he carefully placed three vials of herbs, a jar of minced garlic and two loafs of bread on his kitchen bench.

He wiped his hands on his trousers and then took a few hearty steps toward me, "It's great to see you again, thanks for coming."

I was going to speak, I really was but then I caught on to his intention and before I knew it I was being briefly but tightly held to his chest in a greeting hug, "You've got bags," He continued, creasing his brow slightly when he noticed both the instrument cases I was carrying, the backpack slung over my shoulder and the Tescos supermarket bag,  "Let me show you where you can a put them."

And then I was following Harry through his house, trying to keep up with his explanations for each room or the reasons why he had to have "bloody ghastly" green cushions on his sofa; because his mother had liked the painting on the wall and they were the only thing that tied the piece to the rest of the room.

"Does in here look okay?" Harry was standing in the doorway and I had to brush past him to see inside. We must have been right at the back of the house, I could hear laughter from outside.

It was a small room, lit up completely by the day's sun which came in through a large bay window looking out over a horribly gorgeous garden. The only furniture in the room was a day bed covered in boxes and a bookcase that looked like Harry was using it as more of a filing cabinet, sheets of paper were in stacks and strewn all up and down it. I wondered what all the papers were, but I could tell even from the door that most of them seemed to be receipts and financial documents.

"Here," Harry's voice was gentle and he slipped the fingers of both hands through the handles of both my trumpet and saxophone cases and lifted their weight from me, "I doubt I have to tell you to remember to take them with you."

I caught myself before I said something dumb but then he smiled and I forgot myself for a moment, "That's still the trumpet I learned to play on, the mouthpiece I use now is worth more than the whole instrument. Same with the sax too, although it's the classical mouthpiece that's worth the most, the wider, jazz mouthpiece wasn't too much. And I mean," I paused when I caught Harry's eyes widen, either at my outburst or with interest at the lesson I just gave in mouthpieces. I doubted the latter, "Sorry. Sorry, this is perfect. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” Harry laughed, but there was something about it that told me he wasn't laughing at me, “But don't apologise for speaking.”

It was then that I noticed the plastic bag getting twisted between my fingers to within an inch of its life, "This is for you."

Harry looked completely surprised by my thrusting the thing his way, taking it carefully and then opening it to peek inside, "Oh, Nina, you didn't have to—

“—It's lame, sorry. But I just didn't know—

“—No," Harry interrupted bluntly, holding out a palm to silence me, "No, strawberries are great. Thank you. You didn't need to bring anything, but thank you."

I tugged at the straps of my backpack when I had nothing to do with my hands anymore. Harry was just standing in front of me still looking down at my fruit offering, "My mum was the one who would send me over to the other kids' houses with a fruit platter on play dates ... Sort of humiliating at the time." I babbled, "Guess I bring it on myself now though, hey?"

Harry's neck snapped up so he could look at me, eyes wide and head shaking, "Don't be humiliated. You've been so generous, thank you."

I let my bag slip from my shoulders and placed it on the floor painfully gently so as not to make any intrusive thumping noise. My attempt at keeping the room quiet was short lived though when a strong, male voice bellowed Harry's name through the house.

"Mate! I'm coming right back!" Harry shouted back, "Shut up, you needy idiot" He muttered to himself, shaking his head and giving me a smile as he held his arm up to the door like he'd follow me out.

Harry led me all the way outside then, as soon as he was distracted by whoever had needed him I shuffled myself around to stand behind Rodger at the table. There was a vacant seat beside him, but I wasn't sure if it was only empt because someone had just left for a moment.

"Take a seat, Nina," Rodger said, not looking away from the conversation he was in but slightly pulling the chair away from the table for me.

I only sat in my own silence for a few moments before everyone started moving around their spots at the large table on Harry’s deck. He had finished his conversation and then announced he was going inside to get the food. There were a few cheers and a couple of girls got up to go with him to help.

“Shit, sorry,” The chair next to me bumped against the arm of mine, and whoever had moved it burst out a happy apology, “These things aren’t made for sideways movements.”

“That’s fine,” I smiled, not bothered too much.

“I’m Joe,” The guy leaned over a bit and held out a friendly hand, “Are you Nina? I work with Rodger.”

“Yeah, I am,” I shook his hand, “Are you the Joe who doesn’t believe in loose leaf tea?”

He laughed at that, sprawling his hand across his heart, “My reputation precedes me. Yes, I’m Teabag Dependant Joe.”

I shrugged, hoping he didn’t notice my shaking hands picking at the seam of my jeans in my lap, “Loose leaf can be a bit of a faff sometimes.”

It would seem that was all I needed to do to cease standing out like a sore thumb in a social setting. Joe introduced me to the few people was directly talking to, without making a big deal about it, and then I was able to just sit back and pretend to partake. They were mostly people who worked with Rodger and subsequently, Harry. A few musicians and two writers.  

Their conversations were loud, but fond. And eventually, once the food was served and everyone was eating, the conversation opened up to be one that somehow included all fifteen or so people that were eating off Harry’s white china.

From what I could gather today's social festivities were born off the back of the drinks everyone went for last night. I hadn't been all that bothered with whoever Rodger and Max were meeting, but as it turned out there would've been a lot of the same faces as was here. It had been a successful day in the studio yesterday, someone threw out the idea that Harry’s "next million maker" had been born.

One of the girls had scoffed at that, and Harry leant over and punched her in the arm with pink cheeks at the mention of "mum would tell you off for bragging”. I immediately saw the family resemblance.

I wasn't sure how, but the next time I snuck a look at my watch almost an hour had passed since we sat down to eat. It had been an hour of my sitting switching my neck back and forth across the table, smiling politely and pretending to be involved. Harry had cleared the plates and brought out new drinks for everyone at some point, but it wasn't until someone suggested moving the deck chairs over into the sun that everyone started moving.

All those bodies moving around was the perfect opportunity for me to escape for a few minutes.

I ducked my head down and snuck around to the glass sliding doors back into the house. Then, I headed straight for the kitchen.

It was strange, I thought, the way kitchens were somehow universal. Everyone seemed to keep things in roughly the same place; detergent under the sink, plug sitting on the window sill, tea towels in the third draw.  Harry's was perfectly predictable.

The window over the sink looked out into the same part of the garden as the sunroom had, and although I could hear everyone outside I couldn't see them from this angle. I was happier in this moment, where I could hear the loud friendships without having to publicly react. Half the problem with being someone who didn't feel the need to say a lot was the expectation other people put on you to at least appear correctly amused or interested. A feat that was much harder at the moment, when my body was only just allowing me to sleep properly—three weeks after the panic attack Harry saw.

"Nina, what are you doing?"

I jumped at the sound of his voice and turned around to face him with bubbly hands holding a half cleaned plate, "Nothing. I ... I mean, I thought I get a go on this for you."

Harry frowned at me, but somehow he was still smiling, "I know you though that, but I've got a dishwasher. And you're a guest."

I briefly wondered if he had seen me leave the group what must've been almost twenty minutes ago now, "I ..."

"I thought maybe you were looking for the loo," He grinned, taking steps and ending up right next to me, "Was checking to make sure you weren't lost ... Or locked in, the door handle can be tricky."

"Oh, no ... No, I was—”

"Making yourself comfortable in my kitchen," He finished for me, and I startled again when he bent down and I felt is hand on my knee, "Excuse me, just need this draw."

I stepped to the side and watched him pull out a tea towel, "You don't need to dry, they'll air," I said quietly.

Harry laughed, "If you can unnecessarily wash the dishes then I can unnecessarily dry them, thank you very much."

I swallowed and then forced myself to keep going, in a horrifying turn of events Harry stayed quiet as he started drying. I wondered if he wished I would talk, or the air wasn't so pregnant with awkwardness.

I was still sort of reeling from the whole event of being here in Harry’s house. With him cooking for everyone, playing host and looking like he genuinely wanted his back garden full of his friends. It was so surreal to just see him pottering around in jeans, a floppy jumper and sneakers. The whole place was clean and airy, and Harry was some sort of perfect centre piece to it all; happy and rested and kind. I couldn’t help but think how I looked in comparison, what terrible shades of muddy brown my corner of the painting might be.

"Oops, sorry," Harry apologised loudly for the splash of cold water that came up my sleeve, "Your water is so sudsy."

He had pulled the tap around over the smaller side of the sink and had tried to rinse the next plate before he dried it.

When Harry pulled way I turned the tap back on, "We'll just fill this side too and I'll rinse them for you.”

"I've only got one plug," Harry pointed out.

"Well I'm not sure how to help you then," I gave my shoulders what I hoped looked like a playful little shrug and did my best to conjure a light tone, "Even though this is the exact same dilemma my parents work through nightly."  

I wasn't expecting Harry's quick response, "Your parents are together then?"

I paused with my hands in the water, "Yes."

"You're one of the lucky ones then," He said lightly.

The notion hit me hard somewhere in the centre of my chest, because even though Harry had said it causally, there was something about the far off look in his eyes and the way he forced a poised smile told me that it was a hurt he carried with him. I didn't know what to say.

"Were you very young?" I asked carefully, finding that the questions that always flew around my head whenever Harry was the person I was talking to were almost impossible to restrict.

He turned toward me and leant his hip against the side of the kitchen counter, "I guess?" He began, "Yeah, I was young. Young enough not to properly remember before. But I convinced myself that everyone was happier ... When my parents were together and my mum didn't have to work so hard and I actually saw my dad, you know?"

I didn't. So I stayed quiet.

"My loyalty fell with my mum," He coughed awkwardly and for the first time since I'd known him I thought Harry might be avoiding my eye contact, "She's the one who raised me and I suppose ... In a sense I saw it all from her perspective. There's nothing that bothers me more than the that, the thought of my mum struggling. But I also know, as an adult, that they were living an unhappy marriage so it's best they did divorce."

"I can't imagine," I finally managed to say.

Harry made what was meant to be a dismissive face, but he continued to talk regardless, "You go through waves of understanding. Because I remember being a teenager and wondering why they couldn't have tried harder. By that stage they were both happy with other people and I got angry because, I mean, why couldn't they have tried harder to have that together? That's an immature way to view things though."

"It's hopeful, I like that."

“It’s selfish,” He smiled, and it was a true smile—or as true I could measure by my experience with Harry’s smiles—that made him look humble, and well, “Just because they’re the two people that made me, doesn’t mean their lives have to fold to make mine neater. It didn’t alter how much my parents love me, so it shouldn't alter how much I love them.”

“That’s … I’ve never heard it put like that before,” I struggled with the words, completely floored by his sentiment.

“Had a lot of time to mull it over,” He replied, not sounding troubled in the slightest if only for a lingering sense of thoughtfulness that must have stirred up old memories.

It was at the mention of time that I felt a weariness wash over me. And I hated it, that just the simple mention of something that measured the space I occupied made my bones heavy and eyes droop with weariness; I wished that time was something I had a hold on but the truth was that it wasn’t.

It wasn’t an easy thing to explain, but for a regular day everything makes sense because of rest. And it’s only when sleeping at the end of a day, and waking up at the beginning of a new one is taken away from you that you consider it. I was still trying to get a grip of a any kind of sleep pattern since the night a stranger decided they could force themselves into my personal space, and my head.

“Nina.”

I caught myself at Harry’s concerned word, my elbows resting against the sink in a way I couldn't recall moving them myself, “Sorry.”

“Do you need to sit? You look …” His eyes were moving over my face, and he didn’t look able to place just how I looked.

“I’m just tired, sorry. Got carried away in my thoughts.”

“Oh.”

He looked disappointed for a second, or like if he gave one extra second of a meaningful look then maybe he would understand exactly what I meant.

“Probably more exhausted, actually,” I appeased, not sure about why I was talking but again, finding it impossible not to. “I haven’t been sleeping much.”

I watched Harry take a quick, deep breath, “Since …”

“Yeah,” I confirmed quietly.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “About that, I … I wanted to call you or … I wanted to make sure that you were alright, but I had no way of contacting you and I wasn’t sure if you’d rather I didn’t serve as a reminder—

“Harry,” He paused instantly when I said his name, “I’m fine, I didn’t expect you to do anything.”

He briefly shut his eyes when I said I was fine, “To be honest I’m still pretty shaken by what I saw, Nina. For how I saw you, I mean … I’ve got friends who get a bit panicky in crowds or don’t like hearing other people scream but I’ve never seen an attack before.”

I winced at the words, “It’s okay, Harry.”

“Does it happen very often?” His question was clear and he spoke without a hint of hesitation behind the words.

I smiled, “You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to go nutty on you here, Harry.”

Harry frowned, “Don’t say it like that, are you okay?”

His question wasn’t meant to be restricted to this moment on this day in my life, it’s border was much broader. Harry Styles was asking about my general state of well being, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready to give him such a huge answer.

But in the smallest sense possible there was a fragile truth, “I’m doing well today.”

Something of the furrowed unease on his face seemed to settle with my honesty, “Why did you come today, I didn’t think it sounded like you would when you were on the phone to Max.”

“He went all sweet on me about how we hadn’t had a laugh together in ages,” I explained, stopping my movements in his sink, lightly twirling the mug I had around in my fingers. “Never hedge your bets against anyone in direct competition with Max’s sweet side.”

Harry barked out a lovely laugh, “I’ll have to remember that.”

I picked up the already clean mug out of the soapy water and rested it on the drainage board next to me, hoping the way I didn’t carry on with a response of my own wouldn’t upset Harry. It didn’t seem to.

All too soon the distraction of the dishes ran out, and I spend a few too many minute watching the dirty water get sucked down the drain.

“Harry!”

“Kitchen,” Harry yelled back to the voice, popping me out of the bubble inside my head. I turned around in time to see his sister turn the corner into view.

“Hi,” She smiled kindly upon seeing me, the sincerity one I recognised from her brother.

“Hello,” I tried to muster a deserving smile in response.

“Gem, this is Nina. Nina, my sister, Gemma … Nina lives with Rodger and Max.”

“Oh! Right, of course, yeah, Harry said,” Gemma shook her head like that was something Harry shouldn’t have had to remind her of. “Sorry, just the girls are leaving now, Harry. Can I borrow your car to take them to Paddington?”

Harry patted his pocket, “Go ahead, the keys are somewhere … Dining table or hall table?”

“Great, thanks, H. Lovely to meet you, Nina.”

“You too!” I called back as she left, my voice a little too loud and a little too high.

Harry turned away then, striding to the fridge and verbally instructing me on where I could find some large plates. I watched silently as he plucked fruits from containers and bags, expertly slicing whatever he thought needed it and simply arranging the rest together in a beautiful explosion of colour.

I wanted to be colourful too.

“Watching you with that knife is terrifying,” I said slowly, mesmerised by the precision and speed at which he was working. It was surprising.

He looked up and the skin around his eyes crinkled brilliantly, “Why’s that? I’m an excellent cook. Chopping is a basic kitchen skill, lesson one even.”

“Eyes down, please,” I asked earnestly, feeling a little buoyant from the laugh my comment got from him.

“Can you carry one for me? I’ll get the other” Harry asked referring to the fruit plates but momentarily distracted by trying to shut the fridge door and hold a few drinks under his arm at the same time.

“Sure.”

“Perfect, thanks, Nina.”

[chaosmagetwin]

The Wild Adventures of Ashley and Paul: Chapter 2

Lot’s to cover in this chapter! If you just want the story, but don’t want to get accidentally spoiled, don’t read the prompt list, or the Extra Errata (all in one link below). The Prologue and Chapter 1 are also linked below, so you can catch up on the story, or refresh yourself, if you are interested.

Enjoy!

The Prompt list with extra errata! : http://chaosmagetwin.tumblr.com/post/157916938995/100-dialogue-prompts-part-2

Prologue: http://chaosmagetwin.tumblr.com/post/157921576040/the-wild-adventures-of-ashley-and-paul-prologue

Chapter 1: http://chaosmagetwin.tumblr.com/post/157956747605/the-wild-adventures-of-ashley-and-paul-chapter-1

“Listen, I know you’re upset, but please put the baking soda down before someone gets hurt.”

“But, Paul! I can’t live without you! Once this baking soda hits the vinegar, carbon dioxide will fill this chamber, and we’ll die together! Free from the constraints of society!”

“Melissa, I am not the man you should be dying for. For you see... I am half machine! My lungs are steel, and your scheme would never fulfill it’s intended purpose.”

Ashley sighed, staring with glazed eyes at the old film from nearly a hundred years prior. Paul, the lead character, wore tinfoil and had a riveted steel body beneath his clothes, but otherwise looked like a walking trashcan. The science fiction story was supposed to be a classic in romantic tragedy. The woman, not caring that Paul wouldn’t die after he admitted he didn’t like her, commit suicide in the end. Paul would lament at the loss of the love of his life that he hadn’t realized he loved at the end. All in all, it was the most boring character study she’d ever been forced to watch by her ‘Genre’ Teacher. 

In fact, she was pretty certain the only reason they were being forced to watch it was because of her and Paul. Mr. Albrexek liked that sort of thing. He also enjoyed cringe-worthy line delivery and ancient movies with cliche characters. 

She looked over at Paul and saw him raise an eyebrow at her. “You’re not planning on trying to kill us both with a five year old’s volcano, are you?” They both grinned widely as the class burst out. 

“Yes. For my grand master plan, I must first visit the courts, and change my name to Melissa-”

“Quiet during the movie, please.” She bit her tongue and sighed. She had such a great joke lined up, too. She looked back at the movie, and felt like putting her head through her desk. These lines were going to kill her brain cells.

Ashley yawned as the English class ended, her brain feeling.... fuzzy. She watched as Paul stooped to exit the classroom door, feeling drained amusement as he struggled to hit his shoulder through as well. The people behind him were looking slightly frustrated; that was the days last class for Character High, and they just wanted to get home. 

A few moments of bemusement later, and he was finally through, with only minor damage to the frame of the door. She followed as they quietly headed for the exit. 

“Look, about the monkey...” Ashley blinked when she realized he was talking. “I was thinking maybe we could save some up for that new game you wanted. Maybe play co-op together or something?”

“... The monkey?” She asked, confused, her tired brain wheeling while trying to understand. Save up... monkey. For a game? Was there a game where they had to collect monkeys in order to unlock co-op?

“No, money. Money, Ash. The green. The coins. Da monah.” He raised an eyebrow at her as she realized what he had said. She flushed slightly and shrugged. “Wow, you are really out of it,” he said with a grin. “Want to grab some coffee before we go home, or just go and take a nap?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t need caffeine. How do you want to save up? I mean... according to our now dead author, we should be going out to eat.”

He grinned. “Yeah, but, I’ve never tried cooking before, and who knows, maybe I’m good at it. No reason to not try. We just keep on doing what we were doing already.”

She nodded. “I get the feeling, though, that you won’t be any better at cooking than me. He seemed pretty resolute that we should be going out.”

“Yeah, I get the feeling we both did things he didn’t like.”

She tapped a finger against her thigh for a moment, before saying “Do you think he wanted stereotypical characters? I mean, we’re... not exactly normal. You’re an emotional and intellectual cyborg who likes reading, and I’m a half demon-”

“Half devil.”

“.... Are we really going to argue over the semantics of my heritage? Half-demon girl who doesn’t worship Satan and make blood sacrifices to the old gods or whatever.”

“Also, you’re actually nice, not a ‘soul’ sucker, and you don’t get irrationally angry or try to make plans to take over the world. As far as I know.”

She grinned. “As far as you know. “ She pushed open the glass door to the exit and put her face into the sunlight to bask in the warmth. A beautiful spring day, the scent of flowers on the wind, with just the right amount of humidity to promise rain later in the afternoon. It was a lie, but it still felt nice. It was, technically speaking, winter, and South California didn’t exactly get rain too much. 

She flinched as the door crunched behind her, and she turned to look with an exasperated expression. Paul stood with his arm through the door, an embarrased look on his face, a single finger pointed forward. “I don’t understand! I only used a finger! A finger shouldn’t break glass doors.”

“It’s not as hard as you think, I promise.” She said through her face-palm. “You have a steel finger, and you used your entire arm.. not a single finger. You just... condensed the force of your entire arm into the finger. Come on, man, you know physics as well as I do.”

He sighed and carefully pushed on the bar to open the door and stepped onto the broken glass. “I took it slow and everything.” A moment later, a teacher poked their head around the corner. “Oh, boy.”

“NOT AGAIN! You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s the fourth time this week! What is it with you students and breaking doors?! Just OPEN them! Why is that so hard?!” Her shrill voice echoed in the concrete courtyard. “Just... get out of here. And be more careful! I swear, if i ONLY put students who broke doors into detention, I’d have a full class after school every day!” Ashley stepped back from the teacher and motioned for Paul to follow while she ranted. 

“Yeah... let’s... let’s be more careful about that. She looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm or something...”

“Come on, come on, go go go, NOOO! Damn!” Paul raised an eyebrow at the living room on the other side of the wall from the Kitchen. Ashley was obviously trying to beat something on one of her games. “Okay, now, this time, DON’T JUMP OFF THE CLIFF! Just... walk. Straight. NO! Straight! Now dodge! DODGE DAMN IT. Fuck! I HATE THESE CONTROLS!” He smirked as she vented her frustrations. Black Spirit 3 was giving her as much trouble as he expected it would. Still, she was already better at it than he was. He never was very good at action type games. Plus, if he got too focused on the game, controllers tended to break by virtue of accidentally increasing his grip a thousand-fold while trying to press a button harder or something. 

While she struggled with beating a couple of enemies, he struggled with cooking. He could watch videos on the internet literally while he was standing in the kitchen trying to cook what they were showing him, but it wasn’t helping his skill. The meatloaf he was trying to make had eggshells in it, and the various spatula’s he was trying to use instead of his hands weren’t doing the job of mixing the meat very well. He was seriously considering just ordering take-out and giving up for the night. He shuddered at the imagined feel of eggshell while he bit into what should have been tasty meatloaf. Gross. He checked the clock. Six. He had an hour before he thought Sarah, Karen, and Keith showed up, but that wasn’t enough time to cook the meatloaf and eat. 

“I’m going to order take-out!” He yelled from the kitchen. 

“Okay! What kind?”

“Chinese?” 

“Sure. Uhh.... Kung Pao. DAMN. No! Just... GIVE ME MY SPIRITS BACK, you ROLLING SKELETON FUCKS! THIEFS! AMBUSHERS IN THE NIGHT! I WILL END YOU!”

He grinned. “Just don’t curse the television, okay? Or the console!”

“Yeah, yeah... You know what the internet says when I look on it for help, or strategies? GET GOOD. Like thats helpful. Fuckers.”

“Hey, careful.Let’s try and keep the demon cursing to a minimum. Last thing we need is your brother showing up.”

“Ha, ha, very funny. HAH! TAKE THAT! BESTOC BUFFS! EAT MY SHINY METAL-” he ignored the rest of the sentence as he carefully typed in the numbers on his phone for the chinese resteraunt. 

“Ash, I’m on the phone in a bit.”

“And! Okay. I’ll be quiet now.” She lowered her shouting at the game to what he imagined was some angry muttering. 

A few minutes of talking on the phone, cleaning up his failure of a dinner, and getting the gunk out of the joints on his fingers, he sat down on the couch next to Ashley, careful not to come down too hard. She was furiously mashing buttons in a timed rhythm that somehow got her derpy looking anime character to dodge-roll a massive bosses swings and then poke it with a long, but exceedingly thin sword. The numbers were unimpressive at best, considering how much was being shaved off at a time. 

He could actually hear the moment she mistimed the dodge and got flattened into a pancake. 

“Okay.... I think I’m done for tonight. I can’t handle anymore.” She put the controller down and shook her head with a deep breath. She looked over him and raised an eyebrow, her eyes lighting up. “So... what do you want to do now?”

He blushed and quickly said “We have guests over in like... ten minutes. And the food will be here soon.”

She laughed raucously. “Okay, fair.” She leaned closer to him and seemed about to say something when the door knocked. Her face immediately darkened. “Darnit,” she muttered and got up.

He could only titter in response. Whenever Ashley got flirty, his mind didn’t work so good. Actually, it felt like the distinct impressions of a blue screen, without the actual crash. 

“Ah, thanks. Here you go... oh, wow, this smells great. THANK YOU!” She yelled as the car was already pulling away. He had barely realized she had actually made it to the door. He shook his head to clear it. She reappeared at the door, and set the take-out boxes on the coffee table. “So, uhm, question.” She was heading for the door again as he opened one of the boxes. “Why did you invite Keith?”

“To mess with you. Besides, the guy could probably use some friends, too.” He broke his chopsticks carefully along the seam and stirred the food. “He’s not that different from me. He’s just trying to fit in.”

“Yeah, but...” She sighed from the kitchen. Something clattered as well. “I dunno. You’re right, of course, it’s just that I don’t like him. He’s not funny, or knowledgeable like you. I’m not even sure what House he’s from.”

“He’s from Side Character Dorm, not a house.”

“Oh. Well, that explains a little bit, I guess. Still... are you sure?”

Paul nodded as she came back in with a couple plates. 

They’d been eating for a few minutes when a light knock sounded from the door. Ashley got up again, still chewing. 

“Agh! Kairn! Come onh en. Ah, sorry.” Karen giggled and and the two showed up at the entryway again. “Sorry, we’re still eating.”

“No problem! Hey Paul!” He waved carefully, his mouth still full from his own bite. He raised an eyebrow at her in a silent question.

“What?”

Ashley grinned. “You said you would bring pajamas, but I don’t think he thought you meant that you would only bring pajamas.” He nodded. It wasn’t that he minded. Karen was a tall but cute blonde-haired witch. Her pajama’s were simple ones with chibi anime witches patterned on it. Strangely, she still had her witches hat and a wand was stuck in the waistband of the pajama bottoms on her hip. 

“Also,” he said after swallowing, “didn’t you say you were bringing some others?”

She nodded, and made a small shrug. “The two I invited declined. They said something about needing a lizard-mammal, but... i don’t know what that is.”

“A lizard mammal?” Ashley and Paul echoed.

“Hey, I don’t pretend to understand. I asked my Magical Creatures teacher, but she didn’t know about anything like that besides a Chimera. The way they were talking about it, it sounded small, so... unless they were trying to get babies? I dunno. What are you guys up to?”

“Well, I was going to try mackin’ on my boy, but common decency, limited time, and food interrupted.” Ashley said quickly, her eyes darting to watch his face turn red. Karen giggled with a hint of nervousness. 

“Oh, uh, sorry to interrupt.” 

“Nah, it’s fine. Why’d you need to get out of your house?” Karen’s face darkened. 

“Ugh. My roommate. He’s a total douche. He keeps using scrying spells and and he tries spells he finds on the internet every few days. The last one turned him into a newt.”

“A newt?”

“Yeah. It’s unfortunate, but he got better. I just needed to get out for awhile, you know?”

Ashley nodded. “Wild House is pretty quiet, usually.”

“Except for the shouting at T.V. screens.” Paul added. Ashley shrugged in response. “I’ll grab you a chair or something.”

The door knocked again as Paul got up. “I got it. Might as well grab a few more chairs while you’re at it.” Ashley said as she went for the door again. “Sarah! Hi. Come on in.”

Paul snickered as he heard the response while digging in the hall closet. “Well, this is what I call a hell of a night!” Ashley groaned loudly. “Also, I passed by the school on the way here. Any of you guys see what happened?”

“See what?” Came Karen. 

“The schools gone. Just gone, like.. it’s an empty lot.”

Paul and Ashley spoke at the same time. “That’s impossible.”

Ashley continued. “How could an entire school just disappear?” Paul returned to the living room with three fold out chairs with cushions on them as Sarah shrugged. 

“How would I know? I’m from Murder Mystery House, not ‘School Disappearing Mystery House’. I would say one of our stories started, but the Magical Girls still go to school.”

“Yeah, but Magical Girls tend to have their stories in school.” Was Karen’s response.

“Says the magical girl.” Paul set the chairs up as he spoke. 

“Uhm, I’m a witch, thanks. Totally different.”

“... Unh hunh,” Everyone replied.

[justastormie]

I’m doing two, because I can. 

Ancient Historical meme from my drafts;

First things first: What’s their name and when and where did they live? If there are any/ you have one, add your favourite picture of them. 

Erwin Johannes Eugene Rommel (1891-1944), Germany, lived around Württemberg for most of his life, the occasional world war aside. Of historical note for being a masterful tactician, writing an important book of military theory about wwi and commanding the german forces in the north african campaign of wwii. 

Napoleon (1769-1821), France technically but had a great deal of fun on camping trips all over Europe. Of historical note for one-uping Alexander the Great. Created landmark legal, military and social organizations. List of fuckups is longer than most people’s list of accomplishments. One of the most enduring military and political legends of the modern era. Bees.

1. How and when did you first hear about them?

Rommel- I honestly can’t remember. My father is a wwii nut so i was raised on the stuff. I got serious in my interest of him about 12/13 when I first read the collection of his papers translated into English. 

Napoleon- fourth grade (about ten years old). We had a section of world history, dismal though it was. In one of the little “fun facts” thing they had a tiny little box describing Nap’s return from Elba with an itty-bitty reproduction of Steben’s Returned From Elba. I thought that sounded like the most badass thing I had ever heard, and was also a little in disbelief because surely someone can’t just walk back and reclaim their kingdom. Like, that shit didn’t happen in real life. So I bought my first biography to find out the real story. 

2. What do you like most about them?

Rommel

he tempered his ambition and leadership with compassion and a fierce sense of honor

genuinely seems to have been a nice dude

he and his wife are cute as fuck 

was later cute as fuck about his son Manfred 

was incredibly clever

was a peach eating lunatic adventurer masquerading as a srs prussian soldier 

he was a romantic both in the age of chivalry sense and the modern sense

Napoleon

SUCH A BADASS, oh my god

was an over-invested mono-maniac at all times, which I can related to

incredibly capable in many fields

i have been napoleon and josephine trash since day one

crowning himself. i just love that moment.

was really smart. on a ‘holy shit’ level. (even if he did some massively stupid shit sometimes)

meritocratic promotion structures

hamilton WISHES he were this non-stop. 

never gave up, never gave in. even on st. helena he started dedicated his energies to preserving his legend and legacy, to great effect. 

3. Is there anything about them that makes you angry or that you don’t like at all?

Rommel 

literally worked for nazis

pretty sexist

there’s a lot i disagree with him about, but very few things that make me truly pissed off. ie he was of the period opinion that military men shouldn’t be involved in politics, as he thought that would mean the military as an organization would start defining germany’s political future which would turn into military rule and he was catagorically against that. which i think is both wrong and allowed him, and others in the german army, to disclaim responsibility for political shit they didn’t agree with that was being done by their government. but i can absolutely see where he was coming from, and i think his concerns were reasonable and legitimate. 

so yeah. a lot of disagreements, but very few things that just piss me off.

Napoleon

w h e r e   d o   I   b e g i n

allowed his obsession with legend and conquest overwhelm his moral values 

sold his honor and his moral principles in order to maintain power

frequently only took into account the human cost of warfare way too fucking late

rampant misogyny

really fucked over Junot

really fucked over tons and tons of people who were loyal to him, from close friends to the soldiers who followed him

got a truly staggering number of people killed on account of his own short-sighted obsessions

to paraphrase the old tv show Wiseguy, You don’t get to shove people around just because your fire burns brighter, no matter how brilliant that fire is. 

never gave up, never gave in. even when he fucking should have, looking at you reasonable peace terms of 1813. 

4. If you had one day with them in our present time - what would you do together?

Rommel - Aviation museum, he’d absolutely love it. I’d get him to pick some German place to eat and interrogate him ruthlessly about what inter-war rural Germany was like.��

Napoleon- Smack him repeatedly in the face for invading Spain  Walk and talk. Have him show me around Paris and have a debate over legal systems. Nerd out over Ossain. Show him a modern bookstore. Let him see how much of his work has survived into the present day. Shove him into at least one shrubbery.

5. What would you like to talk about with them?

Rommel - Engineering, aviation, dogs and funny army stories

Napoleon- All of the things. I can only imagine the conversation would be a pinball game of madness as to topics covered. And okay. I’d have to ask about Waterloo. I’d be that person. I don’t think he’d do it, but I’d love to hear him talk about Corsica. 

6. In which way do you identify most with them or a figure they created?

Rommel - He was an intensely practical man who tried very hard to do the right thing and frequently failed. I hope that one day I’ll have the strength of character to try to rectify my mistakes as he did his. 

Napoleon - I too am an over-invested, bossy weirdo. 

7. Thoughts about their death? E.g.:Was it too early, was it deserved, woud you have tried to prevent it and how? 

Rommel- oh god TOO EARLY, UNDESERVED, that poor brave bastard. I mean the fact that he was murdered because of his role in a plot to overthrow hitler and make peace with the allies is reason enough. would have definitely tried to prevent it, but would need like. the a-team to stop it. because you’d have to rescue not only rommel but his family that was being used as leverage against him. unless you’re allowed to go really far back and then i’d just start slapping the shit out of everyone at the versailles peace conference.

Napoleon - hoooo boy. uuuuuuuh. i mean. do i like it how he died? no. does that dislike come from a rational place? ...nooo. best case scenario for me would be he gets shot before the last charge of waterloo. hell if i had my way i’d go back and convince him what REALLY needed done was him personally leading the imperial guard up the hill. heroic, dramatic death and historians get to fight over wellsley actually beat napoleon for the rest of forever. europe also gets a break from napoleonic insanity. which doesn’t happen if napoleon gets to live. once more if you’re allowed further back, i slap the shit out of him before he invades Spain and point out that Ireland is lovely this time of year (it’d still be a clusterfuck, but less of one).

8. Is there a book or movie etc. you would recommend to someone who’s new to the person and would like to learn more about them?  

Rommel - The Rommel Papers is a good place to start, there are frequent letters to his wife but the content is primarily military. 

Napoleon - Shannon Selin’s website and book. The book is fiction but she is the lord our god in this fandom for her mad research skills. She provides sources for everything, which makes her the perfect jumping off point. (Now if I can just convince her that what she REALLY needs to do is write another book starring josephine) 

9. What can we learn from them? 

Rommel - when in doubt, bluff like a motherfucker right action is not a mystical, obvious thing at all times, we must do what we believe is right to the best of our abilities while being willing to let compassion guide us onto different paths.

Napoleon - 

human beings are capable of astonishing intellectual and physical feats, and the best of our stories can still be written, they are not confined to antiquity. 

find friends who will support your goals and then listen to their good advice even when it challenges your ego. 

if loud, bossy weirdos can find devoted friends and romantic partners than we’ve got a pretty good shot too.

don’t invade spain

propaganda is half the battle

love, in all its forms, is a resilient motherfucker

don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake

strive to be so badass that hundreds of years later, the historical fiction that is all about fighting you has their characters become complete fanboys any time you actually show up (ft. Richard Sharpe in Down With The Tyrant But OMG Harper Look It’s Napoleon *SWOON*, hon. mention also goes to William “Why Aren’t I French” Laurence). 

a willingness to take charge is half the battle for power

bees are a cute fashion accessory and go with anything  

10. Would you want to be friends with them if they were still alive? 

Rommel - I think he’d be a good Dad Friend to have. Someone to ask for advice and go to reenactments with. A good person for moral/personal advice even if their political/social views are outdated. Definite bonding over dogs.

Napoleon - Would entirely depend on how we met. I feel like we’re similar enough on a personal level that it’d be very easy for our personalities to clash, and we’d have to declare ourselves mortal enemies and neither of us would back down from that because what is admitting you might have been hasty. Or, if fate were kind, we’d get on splendidly with constant low levels of dry sarcasm and prank wars. There would also be lots of emotions everywhere, at all times. People would hide. I have to admit I’d still stab somebody if it meant I got to be a Marshal. 

11. The most powerful quote by or about them?

Rommel - have  short one and a long one

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general." 

- Winston Churchill during 1942. During the fucking war. I mean damn, it doesn’t get better. Though since this is easily the most famous quote about him, have a personal favorite;

“Living legends, they project, each in his way, the classic image of a the warrior: brave, vigorous, sharp of eye and mind, rapid in decision, alert in danger, faster and bolder in the fight than his enemies. of this extraordinary brotherhood is Rommel-the brotherhood of Hector, of Rupert of the Rhine, of those who can only be described as heroes; and it is curious that so determinedly practical a modernist as Rommel-the least fanciful of men- should have joined a company so bonded by myth.” 

-David Fraser from Knight’s Cross: A Live of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Napoleon - 

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

i mean; 

History is a set of lies agreed upon. 

- Napoleon at some point, i’m not sure. But i’ve always loved it and found it apt.