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chandelier-s-notebook · 3 years ago

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Yoo! I’m back in with an 11 Chapter (subject to change) story. This was made for the TWB Fic Flip, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the whole thing by the deadline, but chap 1 is out.

Let me know if you wanna get tagged when I post new chapters. @sleepysnails.

Ao3 Link

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Techno Blade strode into the old gas station on the corner opposite the local mall. He winced at the harsh fluorescent lighting that welcomed him in from the crisp evening air.

He lowered his hood and ran his fingers through his short pink hair. His roots were coming in, he’d need to grab some dye as well tonight. Taking off his backpack, he began placing items in--trying to fit as much as possible: beef jerky, canned peaches, chocolate bars, a couple energy drinks a pack of Tic Tacs, and some box dye from the ends of the isle.

Techno glanced at the cashier. He liked when Tango was on shift; that guy didn’t give a shit about anything and cared more about Clash of Clans than whatever thievery Techno was doing whenever he came by.

“You plan on paying for that stuff?” Tango shouted across the room, still immersed in his game. “You know I don’t get commission if you steal it?”

“Of course!” Techno called back. He snorted to himself, it said a lot about his life that he and the cashier could joke about him stealing from the store. Techno grabbed another bag of beef jerky, slipping it into his steadily filling backpack. He heard the ding of Tango opening the till and the sound of coins splattering on the counter. “For Tommy,” he muttered, reminding himself why he was risking a criminal record.

There was an emergency exit he knew he could use down by the bathrooms. Techno studied the monitor that was supposed to display feeds from the four security cameras, but those were still busted from when those college seniors ransacked the place the week prior. Four different static patterns danced back at him. At least that would make his escape easier, not that Tango couldn’t point him out in a line up.

He grabbed a pack of gummy worms and put them at the top of his bag. “For Tommy to share with his friends.” He smiled to himself. Gosh he was going soft for the kid.

“Get down!” The front door was kicked open with so much force that the previously fractured glass shattered upon impact with the wall. “Hands where I can see them!” a male voice yelled.

Techno didn’t do that, his confrontation response telling him to stay put and out of it rather than submitting. Instead he crouched down and leaned his back against the aisle shelves, peaking out towards the counter. There were two guys pointing guns at Tango; one was ginger, black jacket, medium height, orange bandana peaking over his collar; the other was taller, but he was also less confident in his stance, blond, and he was wearing a purple sweatshirt--one that Techno was certain he had seen a thousand times before.

“Guys guys,” Tango said, trying to placate them. “I’m in the middle of something. Can this wait?”

“No. No it can’t,” he voice said again, clearly put off by Tango’s causal demeanor.

“Really? Cause I gotta get back to my Clan War…” he trailed off.

“Aren’t there more important things than a Clan War right now?” a new voice asked.

A voice that Techno recognized. If he thought the hoodie gave it away then the voice was the nail in the coffin. He let out an involuntary “Why?” before he could stop himself.

All three heads turn to him. “Like I said, in the middle of something; there’s a customer here.” Tango spoke slowly, as if the situation was finally dawning on him.

The ginger turned his gun towards the store. “Show yourself!” he demanded.

“Isn’t this place a little low profile for Las Nevadas?” Techno tried to joke. Eyes darting towards the door, Techno put his hands up. “I’m just shopping.”

“Not you’re not.” Fundy Soot smiled menacingly. “We’re doing a robbery, if you couldn’t tell. Take what you need and scram. Don’t call the cops either.”

“Got it.” Once Fundy turned his attention back to Tango, Techno grabbed a pack of M&Ms and shoved them in his backpack as well. He leaned down to zip it up, before tossing it over his shoulder and snagging a tube of toothpaste on his way out. Sue him, he needed a refill.

Techno carefully stepped over the shattered glass, and made his way out of the building. He regretted leaving Tango to deal with the gang, but sometimes he needed to put himself first. Always. Always put himself first. Techno vaguely wonders if he’s ever actually bought anything from this gas station.

“It’s immoral to steal,” yet another voice from the left side of the door called.

Techno whipped around and took in the man next to him. Techno first took notice of the red fabric folded neatly into a handkerchief pocket: a bandana. “You with those guys?” he asked, taking a step back.

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.”

“Then why aren’t you calling this in?”

“Why aren’t you?” the man countered.

Techno gave him a sarcastic look, the sides of his mouth twitching in displeasure. “Because the guy with the gun told me to run, so excuse me.” He pivoted to make his escape.

“Say I said I was with those guys,” he said before Techno could make his escape. “What would you do?”

“I would assume you are Wilbur Soot. Brown trench coats and fluffy hair are the signature look of that guy. Looks like you’re watching over your brother and the new kid.” He shifted uneasily on his feet, ready to bolt. “Las Nevadas, saw the marker, figured it was polite to ask.”

Wilbur nodded, a gleeful smile taking over his face. He held out his hand. “Gimme the bag.”

“I need this.”

“Give it here.”

“Please,” Techno said, taking another step closer to his car. “Why do you need to take my stuff? You have two guys in there with guns.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Wilbur opened his palm, getting impatient. “I just want the M&Ms, kid.”

Techno glared at him, but he nonetheless opened his bag and handed them to the man. At least he could keep everything else in the bag.

“Thanks.” Wilbur ripped open the packaging and tipped his head back, sliding half of the bag into his mouth.

Techno took a tentative step back and waited a second for Wilbur to wave him off. “Hope Tango’s okay,” he muttered to himself on the brisk, stiff walk back to his car.

He threw the bag into the passenger seat and rested his head against the steering wheel--trying to slow down his beating heart--for thirty seconds before remembering that there was a robbery taking place ten meters from him, and he did not want to deal with the police.

Techno snorted to himself, and turned on the engine. As if he hadn’t gone in there with the express purpose of stealing.

He sighed deeply as he took stock of himself. He didn’t get shot--which was great. He also had a lot more food to add to his stash. His and Tommy’s stash.

Techno groaned out loud. Tommy. The person in the purple sweatshirt was definitely the kid’s friend Purpled and now he was going around robbing gas stations with Las Nevadas. “Why? It could have been anything else, but no: he just had to go and join a gang.” Techno slammed on the gas pedal more than was necessary. Techno parked his car a couple streets away from his foster home. He waited for a few minutes to collect himself. “Eleven thirty,” he read off the car’s dashboard. “Gonna have to use the window.”

He arrived at the house. Through the ground floor window he could see that the lights were on at the back of the house. The house he was in is quite old, and he’d managed to snag a room in the attic with a bay window jutting out the side of the roof. He’d had it for as long as he could remember, in fact the Foster Bitch’s was the only house he’d ever had the displeasure of living in.

Unfortunately, Techno was in the circumstance of having had to do this a hundred times. He hopped up one of the columns holding the overhang above the porch, feet slotting into familiar grooves. Swinging himself up on the shingles and quickly making his way to the concave corner of the building, he used his momentum to push himself up the next two stories. Finding the familiar scruff marks on the window frame, he hoisted himself up to the top of the roof.

Techno looked out at the street below, it was a nice few all things considered. He went to open the window.

Locked.

Right. It had been storming the night before and he forgot to open it in his rush to get to school that morning.

Techno looked up at the sky. It was nice out, and he wasn’t one to be bothered about sleeping in day clothes--better than facing the wrath of the Foster Bitch for entering the house at such a late hour. He’d have to sleep on the side facing the backyard, he remembered what happened last time he slept on the roof.

Techno knocked on the window. Yes, Tommy should be asleep right now, but it didn’t hurt to check. After a minute he knocked once more.

Techno smiled at Tommy through the glass when the kid finally dragged himself out of bed to let his roommate in. The blond stuck out his tongue and opened the window. “Evening Blade,” he whispered. “What brings you back so late?”

“Sleep,” Techno said, slipping into the room. He snorted at the sleepy, unamused look Tommy gave him. “Stuff. Did you eat?”

“No. The other kids got to it first.” Tommy closed the window behind them, leaving the latch unlocked. “Like always.”

Techno hummed and unzipped his bag. He dumped the contents out and started organizing them.

“How did you get that?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Techno dug through the pile and pulled out a pack of beef jerky. He tossed it in the general direction of Tommy’s head. “Leave a slice for me.”

Tommy caught the bag and quickly tore it open. He watched Techno disperse the food around their shared room, taking note where each item would be. “Techno?” he called in a small voice.

“I know, Tommy. I’m careful.”

Tommy’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Techno if you’re caught they’re going to send you away!” he said, still a little distressed. “Then how am I going to survive here?”

“I won’t get caught.” Techno reassured him. “And if I do, I’m not getting sent away. If that was the case I’d have been gone before you even showed up here last year.” Techno hummed; he remembered that party. Some kid he’d never spoken to couldn’t afford to lose their scholarship so little seventh grade Techno had taken the blame for the alcohol serving party held at the house that night. He chuckled as he remembered gaslighting the whole community that it was his idea, not his finest moment, but one he was proud of nonetheless.

Being barred from the dinner buffet for two weeks had been worth the reputation points. Plus, he learnt valuable hoarding skills in that time. The Foster Bitch was fine--all things considered--but she was under the impression that if she put out a bunch of food on the table, everyone would get an equal portion in the mad dash for sustenance.

That wasn't the case. Techno could get food just fine, but Tommy was a gangly fourteen year old with too much height and not enough bulk; it was virtually impossible for him to grab food off the table.

“I’m not going to get caught.” Techno said putting the gummy worms on Tommy’s night stand. He held out his pinky, “I promise. I’m safe.”

“Techno,” Tommy whined, unhappy with the response--ignoring Techno’s hand. “That stash is bigger than normal.”

“I know.”

“Techno.”

“The cashier was busy with something else.”

Tommy’s voice took on a colder tone. “Techno.”

“Tommy.”

“What was the cashier busy with?”

“Stuff.”

Tommy huffed. “It wasn’t a Dream Team thing was it? You shouldn’t be hanging out with them.”

Techno snorted. “I’m older than you. Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to tell you to stop hanging out with the wrong crowd? Dream’s fine. Besides, you hang out with his little brother.”

“Well yeah!” Tommy’s voice got defensive. “But Tubbo’s Tubbo. Dream’s in the news for stealing and shit.” Tommy munched on his jerky angrily, even if he was going to stay oblivious: they both knew that Techno didn’t have the money to pay for this. Tommy dropped the friend’s point and moved to double down on the previous one. “What was the cashier busy with?”

“Stuff. Not Dream. Not death. Just stuff okay?”

“Not death?”

“Not death,” Techno agreed sagely.

“You aren’t going to tell me?”

Techno took off his hoodie and belt, but otherwise didn’t bother with pajamas. “Nope.” He settled into bed and held out his hand for Tommy to pass him the food.

Tommy stared him dead in the eye as he ate the last piece of beef jerky from that particular package. Techno rolled his eyes, but he understood; Tommy had heard that from Techno before: the not explaining where he’d been. He knew not to bother his foster brother, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

The next morning Techno and Tommy didn’t bother going to the kitchen for breakfast. Instead, they ate last night’s stolen granola bars in the comfort of their dingy penthouse suite--attic room--and listened to the thundering feet of the ten other foster’s in the house racing to get some food.

“If you want another, then take another.” It had taken a long time for Techno to teach Tommy that it was safe to take food from his stash; as far as he was concerned it was their stash. Hopefully, Tommy would stop feeling guilty about not asking, although that didn’t seem like it was happening any time soon.

Tommy sent him a half smile and scoffed down another bar. The two of them got ready for school, and were soon in Techno’s car. It was a ten minute drive to the high school, and Tommy sang along with the radio at the top of his lungs. It would be endearing if Techno wasn’t socially exhausted from the extrovert living in his room.

“I’m on top of the world, eh!” Tommy shouted, flipping off their foster siblings waiting at the bus station.

“Tommy.”

“What?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“ I’m on top of the world! ”

Techno kept his smile to himself.

He rolled the car to a stop in the school parking lot. Before Tommy could open the door and vault out, Techno spoke. “Today’s a ‘going to Bad’s after school’ type of day.”

“What? Why?”

“Hanging out with Dream.”

Tommy’s face soured.

“Come on, don't be like that.”

“It’s not that I don’t like Bad. I just don’t like Dream. He’s bad news, and in the news.”

“It’s just an English project. We need to make a PowerPoint on something or other.”

“Okay,” Tommy said stiffly.

“I don’t police your friends. You don’t police mine.”

“Tubbo’s not in the news. Neither is Purpled. And you can’t complain about Ranboo.”

Techno thinks back to last night with the Soot brothers and the new kid in a purple sweatshirt. “Put a pin in Purpled.”

“No!” Tommy looked appalled at the insinuation Techno just made about his friend. “Have some faith. Tubbo and Purpled won’t turn out like their older brothers. Crime isn’t a gene that runs in families!”

Techno smiled sadly. “I hope not. Get out.”

“What do you mean ‘put a pin in Purpled?’” Tommy demanded.

Techno shrugged him off. “Text me if you leave Bad’s, I’ll come pick you up later.”

Tommy harshly pulled at the car door. “Tubbo won’t be like Dream, and Purpled won’t be like Punz.”

“I never said Purpled was a mercenary!”

Tommy got out of the car, slammed the door, and flipped his brother off before marching away.

Techno was so glad that they didn’t share any DNA. Could you imagine that? But just because they were brother’s out of necessity and foster placement didn’t mean he didn’t care about the kid.

#Technoblade #TommyInnit #Purpled #Fundy #Wilbur Soot #These Streets Are Made For Walking

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 3 years ago

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so this morning, while scrolling through my fb feed, i came across an nyt opinion/advice piece from a 27yo (ie basically me lmao) who is obviously lucky, in a sense, to finally land their “dream job using my (their) skills” etc. like obvs i can’t read it bc of the stupid “you get one free article a month if you either don’t have an account or subscription” (my one free article was used up reading an article about adult adhd like last week)….. thing that nyt does.

but anyway. back on topic lol. the crux of the article in both the headline and the quote snippet was that the advice asker was really dissatisfied with the 40 hour work week that came with her “dream job”. with how having this 40hr workweek gave her no time to do her busy chores like house cleaning or laundry or didn’t even give her time to let her have her hobbies/creative pursuits (whatever they were/are).

however, in the comments on the article (and apparently from those who read the article on the comments, the advice/opinion column writer) a good bunch of like gen Xer’s and baby boomers (im assuming) were ganging up on the asker like “suck it up princess, it’s what life is!!! i work 70+ hours a week and LOVE IT and have just resigned myself to the fact that i have NO time left over to do my “chores”! learn to O U T S O U R C E these life admin tasks to someone else!!! everyone MUST LEARN this in america!!! it makes life so much easier ☺️” and such.

of course, there were plenty of the same bs comments that you see on anything about careers or home ownership towards millennials/gen Z’ers about “learn to go WITHOUT and save save save and squander your time so that you NEVER live and HAVE FUN or TIME FOR HOBBIES! my bet is that your parents did that and they survived just fine while also raising your ungrateful spiteful ass (not including any type of health issues they might have picked up from such long hours/shitty working conditions) so why can’t you just L E A R N to do the same you precious spoilt brat!!! because the reality of Real Life™️ is that you can’t have it both ways!!! then you’ll have early retirement guaranteed, hopefully!!! and know that hobbies really are time wasters most of the time ☺️ or at least they were for me!!! and your precious so-called “creative pursuits” most definitely are time wasters. no one needs THOSE.” and so on so forth.

they also had jibes for her bc the asker wanted to start a family at some point apparently… and apparently it’s “much worse” once you have kids. like. thanks geraldine and henry. you’ve just told us how much you’ve resented having your kids/family in one fell swoop. your opinion which you’ve framed as unhelpful, condescending advice is now voided.

like. i don’t know how rhonda or paul or deandra or philip could miss the point so fucking entirely. why the fuck should anyone- nay everyone (bc that’s what they make it sound like)- learn to outsource their busy chores like laundry/house cleaning/grocery shopping or god knows what else- to someone else???? why is that apparently a standard expected to be learnt in the US???

like why the fuck are you so desperate for people not to have free time to do these things (unless of course they live in some of those shitty nyc or other big city apartment blocks that don’t come with individual private laundries in the self-contained flats or a communal laundry on like the bottom floor or w/e for example) frank????

deidre why the hell are you so bitterly hankering about “be grateful that you have it easier than most and learn that hobbies mean jackshit and just sell your soul and time to your boss!!! when will the generation stopping being “me me me!!!” and “work life balance!” and think about the company’s bottom line!! learn that “work life balance” is never important! work like a slave for 50 years and see if your valuable experience is needed then! that’s when you’ll learn that those hours where you were never being lazy, instead of just expecting life to be handed to you, will have paid off!” or whatever other ridiculously toxic capitalist bullshit they were spitting out.

obviously there were FAR MORE people actually supporting the question asker and echoing the idea that the 40hr workweek is now redundant. they were also putting down the opinion/advice piece writer’s advice to the asker….. that was apparently similar to the all the bitter people on the comments saying that the 27yo was just “asking for too much” and had to “learn to suck it up instead of being a petulant and overly selfish dick!!” etc etc etc. we all know the spiel as thoroughly as the macarena now.

because whats so fucking wrong with wanting time to yourself and wanting time to do your busy chores??? why the fuck should i be outsourcing these to other people (unless of course you’re still living at home and your parents are still like “hey what clothes do you need washed i’m doing a load rn” or you have a partner that works from home or has some type of parental leave etc)???? i want to do my own laundry. i want to do my own gardening (ok lawn mowing or tree lopping (if needed) i’d actually outsource bc i can’t lift or push lawn mowers bc they’re heavy af for me or and i obvs can’t use a chainsaw)… but i want to do my own grocery shopping. i want to do my own cooking (although i would consider the meal kit services once i had job that allowed me to afford like $50 a month for one of those meal kits sub services) i want to do my own cleaning.

why, if i lived in the US and not australia, am i just expected to learn to outsource all of these tasks even if i don’t have the money for it??? like why the actual fuck are so many of you so fucking weirdly proud of being absolutely worked into the fucking ground for your “great country” (although this is actually bleeding through to australia too and i hate it); working like literally close to 100 hours a week???

because i wasn’t aware you had to be whatever the fuck his name is from 127 hours and cut your fucking limbs off just to fucking survive a job in either corporate america or just let alone any goddamned job in america….. all so they can supposedly “learn to like working for free and devaluing your worth even more to your employer through overworking yourself and always being available!!! mental health is for those who aren’t built for the Real Adult World™️!!! this person is a prime example of the younger generations being weak and dissatisfied with life so often because of their “oh poor little me!!! care for me!!” act. NO ONE CARES FOR YOU today. stop being so over-expectant/demanding and juvenile!!! only YOU care yourself and you should NEVER expect someone else to pick you up from YOUR bootstraps!!! you’re fucking whiny and conceited babies. the lot of you!!!”

because i honestly don’t know who the fuck would enjoy working 70+ hours week with no time to themselves to do what they enjoy doing…. or enjoy having zilch time to catch up on errands and life admin duties or just general house chores; especially if you’ve moved cities or an entire fucking state/s away from your family and support network. let alone doing the same thing on 40 hours a week.

and on top of everything, let’s not even get started on the time spent commuting to and from work or even commuting for life errands/tasks etc etc- especially if you’re like me and you’re nowhere near the capital city’s centre (ie sydney australia for me) for there to be reliable enough public transport and longer commute times to certain places in those cities (that i’ve bitched about plenty before on other posts on here about work/jobs).

get your head out of your asses warren and viola et al and realise that work life balance is literally NOT ASKING FOR MUCH and is asking employers to just have basic respect for their employees time if they work fulltime. it’s literally detrimental to ones health if they have to sacrifice what feels like (or what is literally like) their entire fucking existence to their employer just for meagre pay and just to fucking survive.

because i read a heart-breaking article last night from huffpost (posted by buzzfeed on fb) about a woman in the US who literally hid her having a second baby from her employer for an entire fucking year (literally the entire pregnancy and birth of the baby and the first 6 months post pushing the baby out) during the pandemic all because she was scared she would get demoted or lose her leading of a project and lose her bs “temp” job which had really turned into full time work although the employer never said anything about it being actually full time hours or whatever…. and plus the lady herself was apparently to scared to ask to be put on the books fulltime too for some weird reason.

like honestly. fuck capitalism. fuck thinking that “work life balance is just too hard for employers to add and regulate. it’s an excuse and ploy for workers to be unprofessional, unproductive and lazy!” or whatever the fuck. everyone deserves time to themselves to pursue their interests/hobbies and busy chores/life admin. no one deserves to waste their entire life working 70+ work weeks for those employers who literally have no respect for their employees personal lives and time.

and particularly during the time that is the pandemic as we’ve seen so many companies having to learn to wholeheartedly embrace working from home and more flexible schedules for their workers. worklife balance is absolutely fucking beneficial for everyone involved.

america fix your bullshit work ethic right now lmao.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #ilona’s job hunting thoughts and woes lmao

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justkeeptrekkin · 5 years ago

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A gift to all my followers!

This is something I whacked out a couple of weeks ago- just a thank you to all my followers who’ve stuck around, or who have just found me within the Good Omens fandom! It means the world to see you guys enjoy my fics. This is my gift to you guys, now that 2019 is coming to a close!

Enjoy! x

***

It’s hard to keep track of time when they're together on a good day. It’s even harder on the best of days.

The Ritz is busy. The lunch table is inappropriately large for just the two of them. They’re sat right next to each other. Champagne is bitter-sweet on Crowley’s tongue and he could watch Aziraphale for hours, listen to him talking for hours. He measures the way Aziraphale leans towards him with a hand stretched across the table, sharing a story. Eyes bright, typically taut posture unusually relaxed. Entire aura relaxed. The feeling in his own chest, relaxed.

And so it’s harder than usual to keep track of the time. People leave after tea; people arrive for dinner; people leave after dinner. The waiters stare at them from the kitchen doors, waiting for them to ask for the bill, which they don’t. Crowley barely has it in him to glare at them.

Their knees touch for almost the entire time.

For Crowley and Aziraphale, time has only ever been a construct. However, it has also, always, been bound by celestial responsibilities. Now, they have no such responsibilities. And they are no longer being watched.

The sky is darkening just a little when they finally leave. Green Park remains busy at-

Crowley checks the time on his phone.

-Greek Park remains busy at five thirty on a Tuesday night. People line up at the bus stop, heading home from work. Tourist stands filled with union jacks litter the streets outside the park. The colonnade of The Ritz shelters them from a light bit of drizzle.

Crowley slides his hands into his negligible pockets and considers what comes next. Dining at The Ritz has always comes with a time limit, and somewhere to go immediately afterwards. Some sort of agenda. He doesn’t know what that is now.

He looks over at Aziraphale, who hovers. Hovers and fiddles with his hands. Gaze flitting about as if he’s nervous, smile flickering on and off as if he doesn’t want Crowley to notice. He makes a feeble attempt at smiling again and gestures to the rain with a small nod. “Lovely weather we’re having, eh?” he says. It’s followed by a shaky half-laugh.

Crowley frowns at him, the bottom half of his face forming a smile. He feels as if he’s watching the Angel of the Eastern gate, introducing himself at Eden. And something about the sudden awkwardness fills him with intrigue- more than that, anticipation.

He leans back against a column, hands in pockets, and surveys Aziraphale’s anxious flapping.

“Well, go on, then,” Crowley prompts. “Something’s on your mind.”

“Not on my mind, per se,” Aziraphale concedes. His eyes darting up to the roof of the colonnade, to Heaven- a habit that may take some time to kick. “An idea of sorts.” “You’ve intrigued me,” Crowley drawls.

“Nothing exciting. Only.”

The look Aziraphale gives him in the brief moment of hesitation is heart-breaking. It’s filled with hope, and a healthy dollop of apprehension, too. As if Crowley would ever deny him anything. Crowley has experienced these moments of heart-shattering, heart-squashing, heart-pummelling love many times before, and he very much hopes that he’s done an alright job of concealing it from his expression.

He raises his eyebrows at Aziraphale and waits.

Aziraphale sighs, looking uncomfortable and apparently having no intention of expanding. He expects Crowley to make the move. Unsurprising.

“I could…” Crowley starts. Aziraphale looks at him in hope again. Christ on a bike I’m a pushover, he thinks. “I could. Invite you round to mine for a drink. If… you were thus inclined.” A great beaming smile. “Oh, you took the words right out of my mouth.” Crowley huffs an almost-laugh. They look at each other. And they both let the weight of that sink in. Slowly, like the rain that’s currently seeping into the stone pavement beyond the Ritz’s colonnade.

“Right,” he announces quickly, before thoughts can escalate any further. “Off we go, then?”

“Yes, just so. Tip top.”

Crowley conjures an umbrella. It’s not as if anyone would have noticed, he tells himself, though he sees the doorman at the Ritz recoil a little in shock. They share its shelter until Aziraphale miraculously hails a cab.

***

“Best idea you’ve had all week, angel- and that includes the body swapping nonsense.”

Aziraphale is sat on Crowley’s sofa. He has been handed a glass of wine. He holds it between cupped hands like he plans to take communion. His legs are hidden behind a tartan blanket. (Crowley will never admit that he conjured such a thing long, long ago, just in case something like this might happen. Something like Aziraphale staying for a movie night, or even, staying for the night. It had always seemed so unlikely. In fact, the moment he’d created said blanket, Crowley had been so infuriated by his blind hope of ‘having Aziraphale round’ that he’d burned it.

He’d restored the ashes to its original, tartaned form just a couple of hours later.)

“It seemed like the next logical thing,” Aziraphale explains pensively, brows raised and peering down into his Malbec. “If I had a ‘to do’ list, this is what I would put on it. I haven’t sat down and watched a movie all the way through in such a long time.” This may well be true, Crowley considers, as he rifles through his DVD collection, knees against polished concrete and painted nails tapping the spine of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Meanwhile, he’s simply marvelling at the fact that they’ve never sat down and watched a movie all the way through together, the two of them, ever. They’d always had more important things to be getting on with, like saving the world or performing miracles or negotiating the terms of their Agreement. And now. Now they can-

Now they can what?

He looks back over his shoulder at Aziraphale. Aziraphale is looking at him. The angel’s gaze flicks away instantly, staring back down into his wine. It hurts something in his chest. A nice kind of hurt, like a dash too much wasabi.

Crowley takes a moment to recover from this. Then- “You. You still haven’t given me any clues. What you in the mood for, angel?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen for the briefest moment as if he’s alarmed by this question, for whatever reason. Then he frowns to himself, purses his lips in thought. Casts his eyes around the room, for inspiration. “Something…” “If you say nice,” Crowley warns, knees hurting a little on the hard floor.

“I wasn’t going to,” Aziraphale retorts. He pauses. He adds, more quietly, “I was going to say fun.”

Crowley groans. Turns to the DVD cabinet.

“I don’t do fun,” he says slowly, emphatically.

“Alright, well. Something at least a bit light-hearted. I think saving the world rather calls for it, don’t you?” Crowley tilts his head from side to side in consideration. “It’s a fair point,” he concedes to himself more than Aziraphale. Pouts. “Don’t want to bring the mood down. Not sure I’d want to…”

The reason he doesn’t finish his sentence is because he’s just been, unfortunately, reacquainted with the more mushy end of his DVD collection. He’d forgotten that he has several Audrey Heburn films, as well as a couple of Julia Roberts classics. He glares at them. Hidden amongst the arthouse silent movies, they’re betraying just how soft he is. And Aziraphale’s watching.

The DVD boxes quiver under his stare.

“How about we start with discussing what you have,” Aziraphale tries, reasonably. “Since we can’t reach a consensus. We don’t even have to watch a DVD if you don’t want-”

“Netflix,” Crowley remembers, standing up abruptly and immediately closing the cabinet. Then, “Netflix! That’s a thing. That’s a thing that we can do.” “Oh yes- I’ve heard of that,” Aziraphale says chirpily.

“Oh, yes, well done, angel.”

Aziraphale glares.

And so the Netflix loading screen bongs into life, Crowley collapsing onto the sofa beside Aziraphale. The red wine is jostled; Aziraphale tuts. Crowley props his heels on the coffee table.

“Do you mind. I almost spilled Malbec on my shirt.” “Lots more choices now,” Crowley ignores him and begins flicking through. “Look, it’s all organised nicely in rows of genre. Love how tidy this is, look. And the search function is so much easier. Have you tried the search function on Amazon Prime, lately? Nightmare.” “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale replies lightly, spinning the wine in his glass like a whirlpool.

“Look, ‘s’got a whole section called ‘light-hearted movies’.”

“Very helpful.”

They flick through the row. They go through all of them without choosing, and end up at the beginning of the loop again. Crowley growls and hangs his head off the back of the sofa.

“Oh, pass it here,” Aziraphale sighs, putting down his wine with a decisive clink and picking up the remote. He holds it with one hand and presses the directional buttons with his other hand, as if it’s far more complicated and delicate a process than it actually is. Like an octogenarian trying to use an iPhone.

“How about this lovely looking Christmas film.“

"N- no. Anything but that. It’s October. And more importantly, no.”

“It looks ever so sweet, though. How lovely and romantic-”

“We are not watching The Christmas fucking-well Prince.”

He’d had a hand in inspiring that, and he’s too embarrassed to admit it even to himself. His evil deeds really are shit.

“No need to snap,” Aziraphale mutters.

“If you’re determined to watch something romantic and seasonal, I will accept The Holiday. If I must. Jack Black makes it bearable.”

Aziraphale lets the screen rest on the thumbnail of the movie. Then, quite thoughtfully, he says: “I like Kate Winslet. She seems like a nice woman.”

“Mm. Yeah, that’s. OK. I’m sure she is, angel.”

In all honesty, the idea of watching a rom-com with Aziraphale is border-line torture. It’s not quite as bad as waterboarding, but it’s close. More on the same level as those nightmares you get where you have to do a maths exam in your underwear, on stage, and all of your exes and crushes point and laugh at you. Not only are rom-coms pretty hit and miss- some influenced by Heaven, some by Hell, you never know what you’re going to get- they’re also a fantastic way of making Crowley feel incredibly exposed. Incredibly hot in the face from second-hand embarrassment. Incredibly aware that he’s meant to be sneering and heckling, when he’s just trying to concentrate on holding himself together. Stop the feelings from spurting out of his heart like water in a dam: feelings that he thinks are, embarrassingly, rather a lot like longing.

And yet, because it is Crowley, and this is what Crowley does, he lets Aziraphale select the movie and they watch The Holiday. They remark on the general cheesiness, the (at times) witty dialogue. The staggering amount of disbelief that has to be suspended for the plot to work. How nice Jude Law looks in glasses.

Crowley’s only sort of watching. He’s concentrating on Aziraphale. Not outright staring at him (although he does often do that, it’s a wonder he hasn’t noticed and told Crowley to sod off). Rather, letting his brain tick over the knowledge that he is right beside him. Too much of his daft, devil mind is unable to ignore the fact that Aziraphale is there.

Sometimes, it sends unhelpful thoughts his way. Like, you could touch his hand. Or, imagine feeding him popcorn- wouldn’t that be interesting. Or simply, there he is. He’s here. He’s with you. He’s chosen this.

About half-way through the film, Aziraphale starts with those sad sighing sounds, making woebegone eyes at the television- which tells Crowley that he’s getting peckish but doesn’t want to bother Crowley with it. So, Crowley casually announces that he’s heard there’s a good new Chinese restaurant around the corner, and Aziraphale brightens up again immediately. And they have to pause the film to choose what to eat, because Crowley reckons he might actually order something for himself this time, and Aziraphale ums and ahs about these things for hours anyway. And once they’ve ordered- over the app, thank God for avoiding human interaction- the food arrives, quite miraculously, three minutes later.

And once the food is gone, the film is almost finished. And Netflix seems to have decided what they should watch next, because it puts on the first episode of The Crown without asking them. Which they watch, although Crowley’s not really watching. And Aziraphale is complaining about the inaccuracies.

And at some point they end up sitting very close.

No. That makes it sound as if Crowley has no idea how they ended up that close. He knows exactly when this happened, because he hasn’t taken a breath since.

It happened like this.

They’re halfway through the first episode of The Crown, and Aziraphale has returned from the kitchen with a new bottle of red- a Pinot, this time- and he pours for both him and Crowley. Aziraphale has been sat on his own side of the sofa, and Crowley has been on his, draping his arms and legs wherever he sees fit. Now, as Aziraphale resettles on the sofa, he sits right beside him. The way Crowley is angled, his legs dangling off the arm of the sofa, means that he’s leaning in Aziraphale’s direction. Very obviously.

So he’s using all his (very little) core strength to keep himself sitting upright enough not to fall into his lap. Even if it would be very nice to let his head rest on Aziraphale’s lap. And even if he’d really like to relax a little bit and lean his shoulder against Aziraphale’s.

And for Heaven’s sake, it shouldn’t be an issue for a couple of six thousand year old beings to sit side-by-side on a sofa, and yet, here’s Crowley, having a crisis about it. It’s not as if he thought twice about pinning him against a wall.

Although he probably should have. That was a lot.

His eyes follow the way Aziraphale’s legs stretch in front of him, crossed over at the ankles. A little slouched on the sofa, shoes off. It’s about as relaxed as Crowley’s ever seen him.

“Why do you think they decided to make this TV series now, when the Queen is still alive,” Aziraphale remarks. It almost makes Crowley jump a little, so deep in thought that he’d forgotten time hadn’t stopped entirely.

“Whassat?” “Well, why do you think they’ve made the series now? It seems a bit-”

“Right,” Crowley says brain finally processing the question. “No- dunno, angel.” They both go quiet. Crowley’s hand grips the back of the sofa. The fear that he’s going to slip and lean against Aziraphale is too real. As nice as it would be-

Perfect. Miraculous. Wonderfully human.

-It would also be mortifying.

He can hear Aziraphale’s breathing. Slow. Precise and even, like he’s measuring out ingredients for a recipe. It makes Crowley’s mouth go dry with painful self-awareness.

“Do you remember,” Aziraphale starts quietly, “when you and I bumped into each other in Camden Town?” He takes a few seconds to pretend to think about this. “Yeah, ‘f course. Nineteen seventy-seven. What made you think of that?” Aziraphale shifts a little, looking at Crowley. Crowley doesn’t look back, watches the screen. If he turns towards Aziraphale, they’ll be-

“You were wearing that awful t-shirt.” That makes him laugh. A tipping-the-head-back laugh. “Oh yeah- my God Save the Queen t-shirt. Sex Pistols. Yeah, those were the days. Don’t knock ‘em, they were a good band.” “I’m sure they were.” “Don’t use that voice, they were. Anarchic music at its finest.” “I believe you, but bebop is still a little too baffling for me, I’m afraid.”

Crowley doesn’t expect it. He doesn’t know where it comes from- he thought he knew himself quite well at this point, but apparently not well enough. He feels something take over from out of nowhere. Rather, feels something erase everything else- a whiteboard rubber cleaning all the bullshit away.

And now he’s turned to Aziraphale without the babbling voice of anxiety in his head.

“It’s punk music, not bebop. And. I reckon you’d like it.” His voice is a murmur and his eyes are looking at Aziraphale’s lips. Thank Christ for sunglasses.

When he looks back up and meets Aziraphale’s gaze, he’s watching Crowley. Looking for something.

He feels his lips part, hears himself take a breath through his mouth.

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asks weakly. A small quirk in one eyebrow.

“Y-” Fucking Hell. His throat’s all dry and he’s forgotten what words are. And now Aziraphale is definitely looking at his mouth. Fuck fuck fuck fu- “Yeah. You’re a rebel now, after all. Sort of. Breaking all those rules.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale replies in a whisper. Then, regaining his voice, “I suppose that’s true.”

“S- uh- mm- w- some of the songs, anyway, not all of them. You’d uh- h- some of them are a bit explicit than others and you’d probably not. Not get on with those ones.”

“Crowley…?” That’s all it takes. Thousands of years of keeping his feelings to himself and taking it slow, and all it takes is that little inflection in Aziraphale’s hushed voice. That hesitant request, draped over the sound of his name. Crowley leans in and presses his lips gently against Aziraphale’s.

There’s that horrible moment when it stops, and everything else seems to stop, too. The what next? hangs in the air and Aziraphale stutters a shaky breath against Crowley’s skin.

“Too fast?” is what Crowley ends up asking. Just to break the pause.

And then the most dazzling, drunken smile spreads across Aziraphale’s face. Brows knit together. An expression that looks a lot like “To the world.”

“No,” he half laughs, shaking his head infinitesimally. “For once, no. We… we saved the world, I rather think we deserve this.”

Something in Crowley relaxes, unhinges, collapses. It lets all the feelings free and they flood him till he swears he almost goes blind. And that is how they both end up falling asleep on the sofa, still wearing the days’ clothes and kicking off a tartaned blanket. Wrapped up in each other- starting this new era as they mean to continue.

***

Crowley wakes up and finds his head on Aziraphale’s chest. He’s splayed on top of him, arm hanging off the edge of the sofa. He feels Aziraphale’s hand, warm between his shoulder blades.

“What would you like to do today?” Aziraphale asks with a smile in his voice.

That is how it starts. They think of the things they were too scared to do together, the things that they never found the time to do together, the things they always liked to do together.

They go for a walk through Hampstead Heath, just as the weather’s beginning to turn- their breathes steaming in front of their faces as they walk. They haven’t been here since 1815. They both try to avoid the muddy parts and fail spectacularly. They make fun of each other for the mess they’ve made of their shoes. They begin by hooking their fingers together, until they’re brave enough to hold hands completely.

They go home and cook together. It goes disastrously.

“What are we doing today?” Crowley asks the next morning, when they wake up on Crowley’s sofa again.

They go to some hipster bar in East London- Tobacco Docks, it’s called. They find that there’s good food, lots of good booze and an ice rink- which Crowley absolutely point-blank refuses to go on until Aziraphale makes that wide-eyed, pleading face. They have a tipsy and very clumsy skate around the rink before returning to their drinks. Crowley’s better at wine than ice rinks.

“What are we doing today?” Aziraphale asks, when they’ve woken up in Crowley’s bed. His white hair against his white sheets. A new part of the landscape of his room.

They end up doing very little. They read together on the sofa and make tea. Crowley introduces Aziraphale to the best music ever created- disco, of course. They dance in the living room in bare feet and laugh till they can’t see through the tears.

“What are we doing today?” Crowley asks the next morning.

“What are we doing today?” Aziraphale asks the next.

They’ve saved the world, and that still seems surreal. But there’s waking up on Crowley’s sofa after a movie marathon, too. A dinner date, or a night in.

And that feels perfectly real.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #fan fiction #fic prompt

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boogiewrites · 4 years ago

Text

Never Break the Chain Pt. 4

Part 4 of 5

Characters: Javier Peña x OFC

Summary: Esme is left with the harsh reality of her feelings with Javi and what loving him means. Lead by her heart and her gut she leaps into action to try to secure her hopes of having a future with him. But in their line of work, things can take a turn for the worse in a second.

Warnings/Tags: Injury. Canon Typical Violence. Life or Death.

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

To hold herself together in times of distress Esme had to fall apart from time to time when she was alone. Tonight was going to be one of those times. She secluded away in her small hideaway in the mountains. She had always enjoyed her own company, knowing the difference between being alone and being lonely, but the latter was heavy on her back as she sat red-eyed on the bed, looking out the plantation shuttered double doors in her bedroom.

Her mind couldn’t decide if talking to Javi had been a mistake or not. She felt every buried emotion in a rush that left her a sloppy, blotchy mess. There was no one around for kilometers to hear her, so she let it all out. The rosary she’d mentioned to Javi was occupying her hands as she bounced her legs, full of anxious energy.

Before, the consequences of knowing Javi were something she could deflect, although the coincidence of knowing a cop from over four thousand km away from her childhood would be a hard sell, she hadn’t worried drastically about it. The more intricate reality of how she felt about him was what she was wrestling with. The fact that she had seen him, touched him, talked to him were no longer what ifs’ or fantasies but hard facts. The fact she was struggling with most intensely was that she was still very much in love with him. Before he was a memory, a myth, a story to be told over drinks. He was now the man in the next town over, sharing her same sentiment in both love and life. They weren’t kids anymore, he’d been right about that. Which meant seeing their lives for what they were in the harsh light of day and not through rose-colored glasses. Where they had wanted to be was no longer a thing to strive for, it’d become a prison of their own making.

She didn’t know if it was her body getting worn or the years of repressed emotions that made her feel so damned exhausted. The thought of going back into the den of the same men that wanted her one love dead suddenly wasn’t as easy to sit with. There were real consequences now. For both of them.

Perhaps it was paranoia, but it’s kept her alive this long. She had her bug-out bag by the bed, rosary wrapped around her wrist, and slept with her shoes on. She rubbed the wooden beads like a worry stone; even though she hadn’t been sure what she believed in for many years. Especially not after the things she’d seen, or the things she’d done. There was a strange comfort knowing Javi had a similar sort of experience. Even if she wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. Maybe he would understand. Maybe he was just as tired as she was. Maybe… she had some hope for a future. She had to talk to him again. This time with a purpose, to ask him to leave with her instead of abandoning him again.

———

As she had following every breakdown, she’d dusted herself off and got back to it the next morning.

In a dress and heels that said, ‘Don't fucking question me.’ She walked into the stone-columned entryway in a powerful man's home. It was a nice morning, not a trace of her collapse the night before remained on her face. She sat poised, with understated jewels glinting in the sun. Yet, her favorite accessories were hidden in places the sun wouldn’t hit, those were her weapons.

She had been establishing herself to get to this client, networking, and performing feats to gain trust in a trust-less circle. Playing it cool, she kept her face set into a lovely neutral but curious. It was a grand promise of cash. She found herself in the right spot for the rule as old as time; supply and demand. If she could seize the articles that had been taken from their owners, she would be compensated with a bigger payday than she’d ever encountered. The sentimentality of the pieces, the danger in the retraction, and the previous failures of those that had come before her secured the pay to be something someone like her could not resist.

“They were in my family... generations ago… before their family decided to fuck over mine we were joined by marriage, then by blood. We have not been able to get them through legal or... other means. But you, Estelle, I believe you have a chance to be successful.”

It was flattering but she was already decided by her motives. Enough money to run. And far. Not to mention a comfortable life on the other side when she sold what she’d accumulated over the years and combined with her savings. She’d played it smart the last few years and pulled the plug on the extravagant lifestyle that had beckoned her to this sort of work in the first place. She saw it as a sign, a dazzling neon one directing her to do it. So with a smile and a handshake, she did.

These people she operated with were not the cartel, but that did not make them just as dangerous. They had their hands in every sort of money stream and political influence. They couldn’t go into this location she was to infiltrate guns blazing, they had to have more finesse and mystery. Which is why they hired out. No connections made for less chance of blowback and made it easier to deny the job was them. And by the time they had to worry about such things, she’d be long gone.

She was being personable, enjoying a cocktail by a sapphire-blue pool and eavesdropping on the conversations around her. While ignoring the guy trying to impress her that had perched next to her she was tuned in to the young man that had a two-way radio by the stone fence that enclosed the pool.

They spoke English from time to time which she found unusual. But if they were looking to not be understood it wasn’t the worst approach. The staff here wouldn’t be able to understand them. Most of the men presumably wouldn’t recognize it either. Esme however spoke fluent English. She was raised by a Mexican mother who pushed her to speak English to fit in in Texas. At home, she was one person, a fluent tongue, and outside she was the brown girl that was berated with “HABLA ENGLAISH?” By every white woman she ran into. It had saved her more than once; when she was younger and especially now.

“The pigs are out today.” A statement she knew wasn’t about the animal was caught.

“Pigs are out every day.”

“They think they’re up to something.”

Esme knew that the people that were being referred to were the drug runners. These mining types didn’t pay much mind to cops, they paid them off when they needed and they were mostly left alone. When you have the foresight to build a public image with legal means of income, it’s easier to hide the sketchy shit.

“The gringo is asking questions.”

One of the white boys must have been trying to gather intel in the force. It could be Javier's partner but she couldn’t know for sure.

“Boss? Do we need to let the boys in town know? Is there going to be anything we don’t want them getting mixed up in?”

He thinks for a moment, Esme seeing him out of the corner of her eye, a squint down the mountain and onto the sprawling city below. “Our boys are in the east today, yes?” a pause and a nod of acknowledgment. “Tell them to come home.”

With that order, her jaw tightens. Esme knew something was going to happen. These men might not be narco’s but they certainly knew them, and ordinarily, they would tip the other off to trouble. Business going as usual was best for all involved. Normally she’d head back to her hideaway, let it all play out. But she knew if there was some trap that Javi’s partner might be falling into, that meant trouble for Javi. She couldn’t stand by idly and wait with that knowledge.

She remained composed, finishing her drink before a schmoozy goodbye, a promise to catch up as soon as plans were made. She acted nonchalant until she was past all the checkpoints, she knew better than to act in any sort of rush. Her little cabana was tucked away out of sight from the road between the deeply nooked mountain homes of powerful men and the city. She tried calling into town, a risk she was willing to take while she scurried to change her clothes and add a gun to her ensemble. She asked for Pena first. When she was informed he was not there she asked for his partner, and the same answer found her. She hung up swiftly, heavily armed but light on information. She knew the east side of the city would be the smallest area she could narrow it down to. She hoped her mind didn’t fail her at calculating where to go.

On her motorbike she darted about the streets, eyes peeled, heading by Javi’s place and finding his car gone, and the oil spots now dry, in its wake. He hadn’t been home in a while. Was it the smartest idea to break into an officer’s apartment? No. But was she? Yes. Javi had always been a researcher, if they were going to be zeroing in on a place, he would’ve been to it already. He was an active learner, not passive. He’d never be satisfied with being told what to do, he had to get in and see, touch, taste, and smell for his own opinion to be formed. She took a quick loop around, finding nothing out of the ordinary and circling back to the front door. The place was nicer than she’d expected, it did smell like liquor and cigarettes but so did he off hours. A little mirror and a catch-all basket by the door on a small table was her target, and inside were matchbooks, places she’d watched him go before buried beneath but one she wasn’t as familiar with on top. A pool hall, which wasn’t Javier’s style, sat like a sore thumb. She took the hint, this must’ve been the place they were headed, or at least close to it. She pulled her hair back and looked at herself once in the mirror before a nod to reassure herself and once again she was back out among the busy streets.

She pulled up and parked by a small marketplace, a casual place to leave her bike while she set off on foot, eyes behind her glasses ready to pick up any little nuance. Sadly seeing a guy with an automatic rifle wasn’t automatically a tell for narco behavior, this part of town was rough, you had to defend yourself. The uptick in the number of guys sauntering in the streets with them did however raise a red flag. She took to the rooftops with light feet, sneaking about and hopping from ledge to tin roof, shimmying up pipes and broken walls to scan. Not many were out on their rooftops, making it easy for her to cover lots of space fast, but that was also a bad sign. Like before a natural disaster happens, the animals clear out. The sentiment was the same.

She found a nice place to camp out, shaded by the sun and out of sight of the street on a corner near the pool hall. She could hear the static of a two-way radio a few buildings over from time to time, each time it made her jolt and she was growing impatient. The only thing that kept her calm was that she hadn’t heard any gunshots, and even that was grasping at straws. She eyes a few streets down, higher-end vehicles in red and blue, one after another. This meant one of two things, narcos or cops. She leaves the safety of her cubbyhole and crawls about to find a way to move quickly. She wasn’t being the most stealthy, leaping from ledges, but she had to follow the cars. Her instincts had been right.

Men in and out of uniform pile out, talking quietly, moving swiftly. Now she had to worry about staying out of sight as she got closer. She saw men on the rooftops she hadn’t noticed before, with sights on their guns and she would bet itchy trigger fingers. The static of a distant radio blurts out, a hushed voice in Spanish says “They’re here. Moving into position.”

It was a trap. The situation made her stomach drop and her pulse quicken. She wanted to be close, to warn them… well, to warn Javi. She was about to insert herself into the narco’s game and that would put a huge target on her back. It would potentially ruin her chances of booking this career-ending job she’d landed. She pulls out her gun, switching the safety off, and lowering herself with burning thighs as she used all her slyness. She could get away with it if she was smart about it... and killed all the witnesses.

She knew between the choices of standing by and watching Javi die, or intervening and getting ousted, she could only live with herself in one of those situations. Better to go out fighting for someone she loved than to be a coward and die with regrets. She jumps ahead, closer to where they seemed to be funneling to, various bursts of static around her as she studies to keep a close eye on not coming across anyone lurking.

She sees that shiny, coiffed head of black hair she’d wanted to run her hands through just days before, the lean build and tight jeans wrapped up in a bulletproof vest. His head was on a swivel, she knew he could look after himself but wasn’t about to take chances. She finds a man on his stomach, gun through a small slot in the wall, and aimed in their direction. She takes her moment patiently, padding foot over foot closer and closer with her gun drawn and her knife at the ready in the other hand. He wore no identifying markings, he wasn’t one of them, he might’ve heard her if he was. He was too zeroed in, potentially coked up so she had to act discreetly. She paused until that coke nose of his itched, hand off the trigger for only a few seconds before she latched and covered his mouth, head back and stabbing in deep to keep him making any sounds. It’s not that she wanted to kill him, she just saw no other way for this interaction to go down.

From here she had a better vantage point and was trying hard to look away from Javi and keep her eyes on every alley and rooftop. She lines up her eye with the scope, seeing it was aimed right at the group, she notices a man across from her, just a slight bit of an angle, an accomplice she assumed. The group moved forward, inching closer to being in between the two guns' direct line of sight. There wasn’t even a need for the sights at this point, a spray could take most of them out in a few seconds. These were calculated kills.

“Dibs on the gringo.” a crackle over the radio in Spanish, then another, “Which? There’s so many.” a hiss of laughter and she hears it from the other side of a half wall. They must’ve had multiple men camped out, she knew they intended to kill as many as possible. She couldn’t scream out, she couldn’t shoot them, she had to find that millisecond between when they would shoot and let their position be known. “When they get to the cars. Wait. Then fire.”

“What if I don’t fuckin’ want to? I want to shoot this smug look off this mother fucker’s face.”

“We won’t get them all if you don’t wait.”

She had pieces of information and tried to see the whole picture. She believed in the car there was a remote bomb being held by one of these sicarios. It’d take a good piece of them out and render them blind. It was a plan that had worked many times, but this time she’d be happy to fuck up a well-laid plan.

“Get the white boy, he’s been snooping. I got the mustache. Asshole fucked my sister.” If this had been any other situation it would’ve made her laugh, or at least crack a smile. But now it gave her a target, a plan of action.

“Maybe if your sister wasn’t a whore.” one laughs then a hiss follows throughout the rooftops among the static.

“Fuck you, man. Shut up or I’ll make sure you get shot today too.”

She moved as quickly as she could, having to backtrack to not be seen and climb over the wall to sneak up on the boy who was claiming Javi as a prize. She hunched over him, taking a chance at being seen, but since she couldn’t make out the placements of any of the other voices, she took her chances. A tension-filled hush fell across the street, no one but the cops out now. She waited for the man to readjust his arm, a sure sign of pulling the trigger shortly. They were holding their breath for the bomb, and she was assuming it was the double-parked cars, waiting for the group to get between them and hit them from all angles.

He swallowed, then popped his neck, settling down, face away from the hole he aimed out of and she took only a second to make up her mind. She shot him in the head as he braced himself.

“TRAP!” she screamed with all the force she could manage, tasting blood as she hit the ground, the cops now on high alert to the rooftops, and the guns fired. She’d given them enough time to duck for cover, having to take out the gunfire from one side of the street herself. She heard the bullets whizzing by as she hunched and ran down to the street, an alleyway where Javi had huddled down a moment before she saw the men barrel down the stairs opposite them. They’d had the same idea. “JAVI!” she screams, gun out and trying to peak from behind a dumpster.

His eyes were wild for the second he met hers. Confusion is all that read on his face, unable to answer under the gunfire.

“FOLLOW ME!” she shouted, firing off rounds to cover him as she motioned him towards her.

“You wanna explain-?” He’s caught off by the bombs in the street going off, knocking him back.

“SHUT UP AND RUN!” she shouts, shoving him forward, “You’re surrounded. Head West!” it’s all they needed, him hitting the pavement as hard as he could and her grabbing him by the vest to jerk him the way she needed. She hoisted him up against walls, all while hearing the men shouting and the stray spray of bullets hitting the corners they’d just passed. She knew they weren’t concentrated west, the men would instinctively run east towards the station, towards the backup, but she knew better.

She raced ahead, a small blocked-off space high up is what she yanks him down into. They don’t speak for a moment, catching their breath and her pushing him down to look out to see if anyone had been able to keep up with them.

“Now can I ask a fucking question?!” he rasps out.

“I got wind of something going down in the east today. So I came. And you should be kissing my ass for saving yours!”

“We were about to-”

“About to get blown the fuck up. Whatever you thought that was, it was a trap.”

“How did you know?” his eyes narrowed at her accusingly.

“I know that look and no, I’m not working with the narcos. I overheard some cronies at my meeting this morning. I narrowed down the options, ran across town and scoped it out, took out two guys, and then...lit the keg and ran.”

He blinks rapidly in response, processing the information.

“Yeah, you’re welcome. They wanted to kill you and your partner pretty bad.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Apparently you fucked one of their sisters?”

"I stand by my response.”

She smiles at him, something he doesn’t expect. He doesn’t have time to react until a few stray bullets hit something near them causing them to hunker down again.

“You could’ve gotten killed you know.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.” she rolls her eyes.

“I’m serious.” he grabs her wrist. “I have to deal with you being with these other... assholes and not the ones I deal with. Don’t make me worry twice about you.”

“I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I promise. I wasn’t about to let you walk into an ambush.” she states defensively.

“I’ve made it out before.” he huffs defensively.

“You will until one day you won’t.” when she meets his eyes again, after seeing his soot-covered knuckles wrapped around her wrist, she adds “If I can keep your ungrateful ass around long enough to make up for all the shit I put you through I’m gonna do it.”

He looks her up and down, but not how he had countless times with women, but biding his time to figure out what about that statement he wanted to ask her first. “What do you want me around for if you’re not gonna be there?” It was direct and hurtful, but also a fair point.

She stops looking out and meets his dark eyes to hers, she looked almost offended. “I want to be around,” she says softly. “I just wasn’t sure how.”

“Stay with me. Stop running. I’ll keep you safe.” he moves his hand from her wrist to interlock his fingers into hers.

“Over 20 years and you still haven’t come up with anything else?” she jokes and squeezes his hand. “I did want to talk to you about it. About… us...” she spoke softly and paused, ears perked up to the movement outside.

“What do y-”

“Shh.” a quick and low serious squeeze of his hand. “Someone’s close.”

“Where the fuck are you Javi?” blares out over his radio on his chest. Not a second later, bullets are coming through the back of their hiding spot, scrambling to get out, despite her fighting him, he covers her.

“Rooftop. West.” is grunted out as he and Esme wrestle to be the one to shoot the perpetrator.

She hits his chest and then right in the head, falling in a slump before she notices Javi is no longer hovering and trying to keep her down. A quick turn, intaking the rest of the space, knowing more would be on their way soon, and whether they were cops or sicarios she couldn’t let them find her. In her rush she hasn’t noticed Javi on the ground, she sees his face for only a second, slightly confused before looking at up her the moment she sees his side and hands covered in blood.

“Oh fuck, Javi... no.” She spits out and immediately ducks over him

“S’not... good news sweetheart.” He gives her a smirk, one she’d seen a thousand times on a younger version of his face. She knew with that expression alone it was indeed not good.

She doesn’t get time to react, to even breathe before more shots make her go into survival mode. She covers him, dragging him to a nearby brick wall to at least be safe from one side while she covered the others.

“Can you watch behind me while I look at this?”

“Yeah.” A pause while he holds his gun out. “I can try.”

“Was that your partner on the radio?”

“Yeah should be here soon.”

“Let’s hope so.” She grits her teeth and can’t tell if the shot went straight through, which meant he would probably be okay if it hit in and was now embedded in his stomach. Either way, this wasn’t ideal, to say the least.

“There’s-“

Before he gets it out she’s turned and shooting more men trying to get on the roof, none having the foreign blonde hair and pale skin of his partner.

“You should get out of here... y’know. They’ll ask questions.”

“I’m not leaving you.” She applies pressure to his side and he lets his head fall back to the wall with a heavy breath.

“Now is a hell of a time to start.”

She gives him a hard brow but would normally laugh because he had a point. “I never... ugh.” She grunts in frustration, shooting another man a few rooftops over. “I never wanted to leave you.” She continues trying to figure out the best way to slow the bleeding down. “It's the last thing I wanted to do. You know that right?” She asks to receive no response.

She sees he’s lost consciousness. Now it was proving to be worse than she had hoped. Cursing under her breathe, fighting back tears, the burning making a splitting headache form in her forehead, she uses the only thing in sight she can, taking her shirt off and ripping it tie a makeshift tourniquet around him.

She hears a bark from a man that sounds almost familiar and a dead giveaway as a cop. His partner was almost there. “You’ll be fine Javi.” She whispers, not knowing if she believed it or if he could even hear her. She kisses his cheek and holds his head close for a moment. A few seconds of kissing his hair, trying to forge a deep memory from a rushed moment. Just in case.

“JAVI?!” She hears shouted.

“UP HERE!” she shouts, knowing she had to get away but wasn’t going to leave him until she had to. She was soon not given a choice when orders were barked at her on sight.

She used her savvy, knowing how to get away, even if it was a stretch. “He’s shot.” She says backing away with her hands up to the edge of the roof. “Murphy, please don’t let him die.” She begs as the man’s face softens for a moment, she recognized he must have understood who she was.

The man coming up behind him however didn’t. He fires off a shot, hitting her and forcing her to make an abrupt jump from the rooftop.

“SHIT!” Murphy barks again and shoves the other man’s gun to aim down at the ground. “Don’t shoot HER!” He shouts in the man’s face. “She was helping him! Can’t you see that?!” He runs to the edge, looking down and seeing nothing but a dumpster and a few drops of blood on the pavement. Javi had been right. She was good.

@jaegeeeeer @likedovesinthewnd @inkededucatednnerdy @biharryjames @ladamari68 @past-romantic @weliketomoveit @shikin83

#Javier Pena #Javier Pena Fanfic #javier pena x reader #javier pena fic #javier pena fan fic

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waterboysokka · 4 years ago

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What You Look Like; ATLA oneshot

Summary: It was easier when Zuko never had to explain why he had his scar. It was easier whenever everyone took to the common theme to never ask. It's harder to avoid a blind girl who doesn't even know it's there. (Three weeks post-canon)

Word count: 3,882

Note: Hii! Welcome to the first ATLA fic related thing I’ve posted on here so far :) This is a one shot that basically is deep 5am talks with Zuko and Toph. I dunno, I love their friendship and I felt like it had the potential to be so deep and intellectual. Soooo, that’s what this is! It’s basically Toph asking about Zuko’s scar (I saw a fic rec list of this prompt somewhere but now I can’t find it?? I would link it if I could!) Anyways, I listened to disney lullaby songs while writing this bc it just?? fit? Idk, it’s soft and kinda sad... But besides all of that, I hope you guys like it!! It’ll also be up on my AO3, which is linked in my bio!

Toph groaned as she rolled over once more in the bed that she could tell was just all-too big for her. She hadn’t asked for a separate room, she actually didn’t mind sleeping with the rest of the group, but Zuko's maids had insisted on each of them getting their own room since there were so many to go around.

It had been only three weeks since the defeat of Ozai and Zuko’s overtaken the role of Fire Lord. She continued to forget that he wasn’t just a prince anymore, he now had responsibilities- bigger than any of them had realized.

So when he had asked them to stay with him until things got in order, none of them were opposed. Maybe it was because they weren't quite ready to adjust to their new life in totality yet, or maybe they were fearful about losing their friend to the immense amount of stress that he had just been put under.

Whichever it was, it didn’t matter, because they were still here as a team for Zuko.

But all of that didn’t change that the bed that she was put in was incredibly uncomfy for it to be owned by royalty. She felt like she was drowning in sheets and slowly getting devoured by the mattress itself.

Frustrated, Toph groaned and pushed herself out of bed. She needed tea. After being here for a couple of weeks, she was finally able to understand the layout of the palace without being attached to Aang or Sokka’s arm, as she used to be. She knew it was thirty-two steps down the hall to the right, then down the stairs, and one hundred and twelve steps to the kitchen- not counting the columns she’d have to dodge.

She hummed softly as she counted in her head the steps confidently, knowing she didn’t miscalculate considering that this was the fifth time she’d done this walk to get tea since they’d arrived.

“Toph?”

The voice startled her- not because she couldn’t sense someone there, but because she didn’t expect anyone to be awake. All the other times she had done this she had been the only one.

“Zuko?” She asked and raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t expect you to be awake.” “I could say the same thing to you,” Zuko replied.

“Well, I’m just down here to get some tea and then I’m leaving,” Toph explained nonchalantly and walked around the bar, feeling her way down the long, cool counter to the tea kettle (which Iroh conveniently pulled back out at night once the maids left for her after she told him about her occurrences). As she got closer to the tea kettle, the counter got increasingly hotter until she jerked her hand back in shock.

“Did you make tea?” She asked Zuko, who she could tell was now sitting at the long table.

“Mhm,” He murmured, and she heard him take a long sip of it.

Toph rolled her eyes, already knowing that Zuko’s tea was nothing in comparison to Iroh’s. Luckily, she had learned from Iroh about the best way to make tea for herself and it sufficed. Zuko’s wouldn’t- it was basically hot leaf water.

“Are you dumping it out?” Zuko asked, perplexed. His voice wasn’t raspy, which was a hint to Toph that he had been awake much longer than she had realized. Had he even gone to sleep?

“I’m not drinking hot leaf water,” Toph answered with a shrug and began the stove up again to make a much better mixture.

It was silent for a while after that while she worked. She could tell that Zuko was still there, just sitting and silently sipping his tea. He was stressed, he was anxious. She deduced that this probably had something to do with the reason why he wasn’t asleep, and she couldn’t blame him.

Even after the hard time she had given Zuko, she still knew that being the Fire Lord wasn’t a breeze even though he liked to surface-level it to everyone. No one believed what he said, not even for a minute. Which was another running contender for their prolonged stay.

The tea kettle began to hiss, and she immediately took it off of the stove, cautious not to wake anyone else up, and poured herself a cup. She got ready to leave when something in the back of her mind tugged at her to sit with Zuko, just for a minute.

So, that’s what she did.

Toph approached the table and felt around the chair sides and pulled it out for herself. She placed the drink on the table in front of her and plopped down into the seat, adjusting herself to where her tea was placed promptly in front of her for convenient drinking.

“I feel weird asking this, but how ya been holding up?” Toph said as she took a sip of her tea, she took a long sip of it, even though it had definitely burnt her tongue because she hadn’t waited long enough for it to cool.

“Good,” Zuko replied. It was a short reply, one that she definitely expected from him.

Silence hit again. She wasn’t very good at opening up to people on her own, let alone having other people do it with her. But she felt like she understood Zuko in a better way than some of the others, and she couldn’t depict why- she hadn’t ever asked about his past or even what his plans were for the future… or even what he looked like.

“I bet it’s hard,” Toph said, “getting thrown into running an entire Nation.”

“Yeah,” Zuko replied with a sigh. “But it’s what I expected. It’s what I was born to do.”

Another hit of silence. Toph blew on her tea to cool it off and heard Zuko do the same.

“How, though?” Toph asked bluntly. It was her only move she knew to continue the conversation. She was curious.

Zuko hadn’t spilled much of his life to anyone except for Aang, and while they were all incredibly close now, it had never seemed to come up about his past- just like it hadn’t ever come up about her’s or Suki’s. They were all too busy fighting and defeating Ozai that they had forgotten that they didn’t know much about each other.

Zuko sighed and she watched his outline run his hand through his hair (she presumed he had hair, unlike Aang, who she’d been notified to be bald).

“What do you mean how? Azula’s younger than me,” Zuko explained. Toph could tell he was bordering defensiveness. She pressed on anyways.

“You wouldn’t have wanted to fight your dad or your sister if there wasn’t a reason,” Toph said. “It just doesn’t add up like that.”

Zuko’s heart rate quickened. He wasn’t speaking. Toph knew this all too well- the attempt to create a lie that threw off the actual answer. He should really have known by now that that wasn’t going to work.

“Don’t lie. I can tell you’re trying to,” Toph bluntly pointed out. She took another sip of her tea and then placed it down in front of her again.

“I was banished. I had to find the Avatar to restore what I thought was my honor. I did that for three years before deciding it wasn’t right and my destiny was to join Aang,” Zuko explained in an overly-simplified, overly-glazed way. Toph rolled her eyes. “I already know that part. I’m talking about before that. I wanna know why you were banished.”

“Why? I thought you were going back to sleep.”

As much as he had worked on letting people in, this unexpected press of information of his past- from Toph of all people- was close to stepping over the line. He didn’t have time for this. He had things to do, orders to get through with, staff and guards and armies to command. He had his job to do once dawn broke.

Toph didn’t answer and took another long sip of her tea.

“I said something I shouldn’t have in a meeting.”

“And?”

“There is no ‘and’. I said something I shouldn’t have, it upset him, and he banished me.”

“Just like that?” Toph raised an eyebrow. This conversation was going nowhere fast, and she knew it. She could bail out now and go and sleep until the sun rose in a few hours before she started asking the big question.

“Mhm.”

She rolled the idea around in her head in the silence and opted against it. This question had nagged at her for a long time, and although it seemed to be like pulling eye teeth, it needed to be asked. She wasn’t sure if she could even go back to sleep anyways.

“What does Aang look like?” She asked. She started simple- one she knew that he could answer in a breeze. She felt his heart rate drop down to a more normal rate and his body relaxed.

“Hmm,” Zuko thought. He didn’t say anything for a minute, as if to gather the best explanation of his friend as possible. As much as it probably shouldn’t have been, it was a lot of pressure to describe one of their closest comrades to her. He hadn’t ever really thought about what Aang looked like- he just knew. He could just see him and know that, well… he was Aang.

“Well, ah… He’s short. Yeah, just a little bit taller than you, actually. He’s bald, obvious- well, maybe not obviously… sorry,” Zuko stuttered. “He has really big blue eyes. Like huge. There’s always like an adventure behind them, too. You can just tell that he’s always looking ahead- looking forward to something. He has his Airbender tattoos that are light blue and they’re, ah… they’re arrows. They start at his forehead and travel round his arms and wrists and stuff… it’s cool. He’s super thin, but I don’t know if you can see that- well, not see, but I didn’t know if that was important, er… maybe not.

He smiles really big, too. His whole face is centered around his smile. Katara told me that when he grew his hair out, it was brown, but I’ve never seen it… he wears lots of oranges and yellows, too. It’s pretty standard Air-Nomad colors.

I can’t really think of anything else… I think… I think that may be all.” Zuko breathed a sigh of relief as he tapered off what seemed to be his one long run-on sentence. He was known to do that when he was uncomfortable, or even under pressure. Hell, sometimes tired, too. These were all things he was feeling. He glanced up at a Toph who was looking up- not necessarily across the table to him. Just… up. A small smile was planted on her lips.

“I hope that helped some,” Zuko said and took another sip of his tea. He didn’t even realize how dry his mouth had gotten. It shouldn’t have been a difficult task describing Aang, but it was deemed to hold a lot more responsibility than just some random bystander looking for the Avatar. He knew he had to do it justice for Toph.

“Okay, now Katara,” Toph said as she flicked her gaze back down to reality. She took her teacup in her hands and cradled it to give her hands warmth. Zuko’s eyes widened for a second at the realization that she was going to go through the entire group. He cleared his throat and thought for a couple minutes, just like he had with Aang. “Well, she’s taller than you and Aang. But, she’s not really tall… just- average. She’s just average height. She has long, ah… dark brown hair? Sorry, I don’t know hair colors that well. Anyways, she also has big eyes, but not in the same way as Aang’s. You can kinda just… read her whole past in her eyes if you wanted to. You can see the pain and the fear that she’s… yeah. Uh, and they’re blue- like, deep, icy water blue. Her lips are naturally downturned- I think, but… you know how Katara is. She also has these two… what’d Sokka call them? These two… hair loopies that come down and… I dunno… frame her face? Her and Sokka have kinda ah… like a golden complexion? Not like gold- please, don’t think they’re gold- but it’s a deep tanned shade… I guess. I don’t know, it’s hard to say without sounding weird or… The colors that her and Sokka wear are the ones of the Water Tribe, so lots of blues and whites and stuff… they complement their eye colors and skin tone, too… Katara kinda has this disposition where she could hug you or fight you at the same time if that helps… I don’t know.”

He ran his fingers through the divots of the wood carved out in the table from wear-and-tear over time. They were smooth curves now, no rigid edges or stray wood to prick his fingers like they used to when he was a kid. It was his distraction, ultimately, from his stumble of a description of his friends, and mostly, Toph’s reaction.

There was no talk again for a minute, only the faint sound of fire igniting briefly for Zuko to heat up both of their teas. He wasn’t sure of the time anymore, but they had been sitting long enough for their drinks to no longer carry any warmth, which signified a significant length of time.

“Sokka?” Toph asked. He watched as her gaze, just as before, leveled back out with where her head was positioned.

“He… well, he looks like Katara, except… if Katara was a guy. They are siblings so it makes sense. He’s, ah… how do I say this- he’s not built. He’s super… think like a piece of wood. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing I think it kinda fits him, I guess. Oh, he’s taller than Katara and shorter than me… I wish I had a better visual to give you besides just the in-between height of Katara and I. His eyes are the same type of blue as Katara’s but instead of pain, they hold curiosity and… thrill, maybe? It doesn’t mean there isn’t any hurt in his eyes- in Aang’s either- but in Katara’s, it’s kind of hard to navigate around her hurt… yeah. Believe it or not, but Sokka’s hair is kinda long… I guess he used to shave the sides or something, but now it’s all grown out and stuff so he just pulls it back. He has this smug attitude that’s kinda just… all over his face? He always looks like he’s ready to do something or maybe even that he’s hiding something… But there’s also seriousness that hides in his face, too. He wears the same kind of blues and whites like Katara does, again, standard for the Water Tribe… ”

He waited hesitantly for her reply. It was a lot harder than he thought to describe these people who he’d become so close with. He just hoped he hadn’t messed up any of her visions of them. He wasn’t sure what her plan was for all of these descriptions, or why she'd even asked him.

He knew the others could do it better- make it more poetic and imaginary. But he wasn’t that person. He was the Fire Lord- and even before he was the Fire Lord, he was a silenced Prince. Creativity didn’t flow through him like it did the others. He wished it did, sometimes. Maybe then he’d be able to give Toph illusive descriptions of the people that mattered most to her.

“I hope those were okay,” He said, and rubbed his eyes with the bottom of his palms and pressed in hard so he could see dots. He was getting tired, but he couldn’t sleep even if he was. He hadn’t been able to. He had gotten comfortable with tiredness. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, but adjusting to the new role was harder than he thought.

“They were,” Toph reassured him quietly. It was sincere- he had no doubt. Toph, who was usually loud and stubborn and a tough fighter, was more reserved at night than Zuko would have thought. Maybe it was because she was tired, or because she had seen her friends in full bloom for the first time. Whichever it was, he couldn’t tell.

They sat there in silence again, moments of tea being sipped were exchanged, but mostly just quiet. It was solemn, and peaceful. Nothing was in a rush to be said, no battles to fight or rebuild plans to do- it was nice.

“Zuko,” Toph sighed. “What do you look like?”

Zuko’s breath hitched in his throat as his heart rate sped up again. He didn’t know where to begin or what to say, and surely he was stupid for believing that she wasn’t going to just let him slide. He couldn't just ignore the brutality that slashed half his face. He couldn’t sit with the guilt that she didn’t know it was there because he didn’t tell her.

His eyes widened slowly as he came to a sudden realization of what Toph was doing. It was comical, truthfully. He almost laughed. This was her way of getting the story. He wasn’t sure how she knew that his banishment had something to do with his cosmetic looks, but he gave her props for it nonetheless.

He took a deep breath and locked his gaze on the wood table as an anchor.

“I’m tall. Tallest, actually. I have really pale skin, but that’s just a Fire Nation thing… I don’t consider myself to be… built? I’m not exactly like Sokka but I'm not crazy buff either if that helps. My eyes aren’t as big or… full of adventure as the others have. I don’t know what all you can see, but I know they don’t have that. They’re brown, but almost everyone in the Fire Nation has brown eyes. It’s nothing special. I have shaggy hair- well, it’s black, and I have to pull it back for Fire Lord stuff, so I guess shaggy is the best way to describe it. I like it, I guess. I don’t feel confined with it. I wear a lot of reds and golds and blacks, which are Fire Nation colors. Right now I’m just wearing a… red shirt and black pants? Black slippers? I don’t know if that part helps or not… I also always look dissatisfied. At least, that’s what Sokka tells me. I don’t really know what he means by that…”

Zuko paused for a minute. Toph was staring across to him now as if she could recognize where he was. Her eyebrows were stitched together as if attempting to put his puzzle pieces together.

“And then there’s my… my scar.”

Deep breath.

“It covers my entire left eye… It doesn’t even open fully anymore. It bleeds out around to my ear and stops just before my jawline. It doesn’t hurt anymore, in case you’re wondering. It’s healed. It’s been since I was banished, so… three years. But, it’s there.

There was more to that story, by the way. My banishment. I didn’t just say something and was kicked out. I didn’t back down from an Agni Kai to… well, to prove to m- … Ozai, that I was stronger than he thought I was. That I deserved to be in the meeting. I didn’t think it’d be my own father I’d fight. I pleaded for some kind of relief and reprieve. All I got was a burn so deep that my skin almost melted off…”

There was silence.

No tea sips, no shifting in chairs. There wasn’t even really the sound of breathing anymore. It was still air.

This story had the ability to do that.

“Can I feel it?”

Zuko didn’t question it, or back away. He nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see it.

He pushed himself out of the chair and walked around the table. He slowly crouched down until he was level with Toph, his hand steadying himself on the corner of the table, his fingers circling the divots so smoothly carved once more.

He took Toph’s hand, almost twice the size more compact of his own, and gingerly placed it on his cheekbone. He swallowed and shut his eyes, allowing her small, calloused hand to run slowly over it.

Toph wasn’t a gentle person by nature. But the minute that her hand touched his scar she felt his pain a thousand times over- intense and deep and wretched. She moved her hand slowly across his face, the ridges telling each their own thread of agony and grievance. Her hand roamed, unsure of where or if it ever was going to stop. If the story of his pain was ever going to cease. She blinked back tears as she finally reached his jawline. Untouched and human. Boyish and youthful. Peace.

She took her hand off of his face and cleared her throat, unsure of what else to do. She had gotten herself to this point- to this level. Now what?

She felt his presence leave due to the shift in cold air that shuffled in and heard him sit back down across from her, respectively.

Again, there was silence.

Not the same kind of silence where it was stilted, or even tense. It was an understood silence. An ‘I know your pain’ silence. It was gentle and welcomed and fluid.

So, they sat there for a minute. Neither unsure of how else to go on or continue their conversation. They sipped their tea in offbeat patterns. Long, slow, drawls of tea.

As the sun began to rise, Zuko realized that his job was beginning. He wasn’t a banished prince anymore, or a kid with an uncontrollable rage and fear of his father. Although that kid still existed in him, it wasn’t center stage. Fire Lord Zuko was. And as the dawn rose, so did he.

He gathered the two pieces of china from the table, both now completely empty of their tea. He put them on the counter for a maid to clean later.

Zuko glanced back at Toph- still sitting at the table, only this time, she was looking at the sunrise from the fully-bloomed windows in front of her. He knew she wasn’t looking at the sunrise, but he hoped that maybe she was picturing her friends in the same ways he had said- hopefully, even better. There was a small smile on her face, too. One of understanding.

He knew then that although she wanted to know his past, there was a part of her that wanted to be able to see her friends, too. He’d never know why she had asked him rather than asking a more creative mind, or even a closer friend, but he knew he would always be appreciative of being the one who did it for her.

Zuko’s lips upturned slightly and he turned to leave, carefully in an attempt to not disturb Toph’s somewhat mediation.

“Hey, Zuko?” He looked back over his shoulder to the girl, her face and gaze unmoving from the now more evident daybreak.

“Thank you.”

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the-coconut-asado · 4 years ago

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Our Golden Girl’s Kitchen

A couple of years back, my cousin Doro announced she was going to publish a book of our grandmother’s recipes. It set all the cousins off on an odyssey of frenzied WhatsApps swapping memories, and in my case a mad dash to storage to find yet another of mum’s old scrapbooks, stuffed with fragments of recipes typed up on that onion-skin paper of the Mad Men era.

Slowly but surely, recipes surfaced for Granny’s steak and kidney pudding (to this day, the name of our family WhatsApp group), tallarines (fettuccine by any other name) and more cakes and tarts than a whole series of Masterchef pressure tests.

But Doro’s job was made much easier by someone else who had kept Granny’s legacy alive all these years. The person who, while Granny was a distant memory for many of us, was the biggest influence on our lives. At the end of the book, Doro wrote a dedication to her: “ Auntie Joan, I remember you, sometime before Christmas, making us stir the plum pudding and saying “don’t forget to make a wish!”; the chicken pie or Irish stew with dumplings you prepared when I used to come for lunch after university classes; the plum ice cream you always had in your “ancient” fridge and the smell of scones and cake on our birthdays.’

Last week, Auntie Joan died. 99 years of love, wisdom and many a raised eyebrow at each of us at one time or another. She had a delicious smile that hinted at secrets she might share with you some day, and even up to her mid-nineties kept a ramrod straight back, figure to die for and effortless elegance that prompted a 28 year old male friend to comment at my wedding that she was the only 68 year old he had ever fancied.Cheeky, but at the same time, kudos.

If I’ve made her sound like a warm embrace of a woman, she was. She was also a ninja. For most of her working life, Auntie Joan - Joan Nolan MBE - was Vice Consul at the British Embassy in Rosario, and later in Buenos Aires. She started volunteering there during the war, and eventually they started to pay her (nice of them), then promote her.

This had upsides - her influence to help others (a guiding principle of her life), the opportunity to travel, and the people she met. She once told me of an Embassy cocktail party on board a ship attended by Eva and Juan Peron. She had little time for Peron, but was a little flattered when having started to leave down the gangplank he abruptly turned back, sought Auntie Joan out, kissed her hand and apologised profusely for not having said goodbye. Manners counted for a lot with her, so the apparently off-hand Eva was barely mentioned in despatches.

Her job also had downsides: held at gunpoint more than once, and in the constant company of a bodyguard after her boss was kidnapped (the inspiration for Graham Greene’s novel The Honorary Consul). One day a masked gang raided the embassy, rounded up all the staff, tied them up and locked them in the bathroom. But the ringleader treated Joan with weird courtesy, politely requested she enter the bathroom but left her unbound. Joan said afterwards: “ I think that man knew me. And if I ever see those eyes again, I will know who he was.” She kept looking but never did, but she did show us the hail of bullet holes the gang had let off at the outer wall of the embassy before they left.

30 years on, at 85, clearly feeling she had been down this road before, she wrestled an armed thief trying to steal her friend’s car. ‘ Dear, I knew the gun was a toy’, she said breezily when I had my WTAF! Moment on a phone call with her.

Though all this time she looked after my grandparents and my great aunt until their deaths - pretty thankless and back-breakingly hard as they all survived to their nineties and in my great aunt’s case to 101 - as well as her husband Stanley who died when she was still young. Yet she still made time to feed, nurture and look out for her nieces and nephews as they travelled through her flat en route to school, college and work - and then her grand nieces and nephews as they repeated the cycle.

Living in London, I didn’t see as much of Joan as my cousins, but felt just as close to her thanks to her copious letters. And it was her trips to London I remember most. Wafting glamorously into Gatwick in her boucle red overcoat, nipping up to Newcastle for the day to have lunch with a friend (when Dad retold the story, he always added, untruthfully, ‘And the friend wasn’t even at home!”), leaving a cloud of delicate rose scent in her wake, a perfume that always reminded me of her apartment in Rosario. A bit like Buenos Aires itself, Auntie Joan was an evocation of the best bits of 1930’s Europe.

And despite eating like a mouse in her own home - spreading her morning toast with what looked and tasted like wallpaper paste but was actually zero cholesterol cream cheese - her kitchen with its pots and pans, scoured and gleaming within an inch of their lives, was in a constant hiatus of puddings, pies and roasts for the family as well as that iconic plum pudding at Christmas. And when we took her out to eat the appetite she kept hidden at home came tumbling out. I once witnessed her demolish a whole sea bass, noodles and a quarter of a peking duck when we took her to a restaurant in Chinatown. Unlike the rest of my family, she was unafraid of spice and heat.

Serene, always; sassy, sometimes. After all, Joan’s favourite TV programme when she came to visit us in London was The Golden Girls. In a life where everyone depended on her, she was someone comfortable with not needing to depend on anyone else - until old age meant she had to. I used to smile to myself when, in later years, she would end all of her stories with ‘And they said, “Joan, you are the ONLY one who could have done/ solved/ sorted/ this’’. And yet, if we don’t tell the world how talented, determined and capable we are - who else is going to? #thiswomancould

So here are two dishes that we all eat thanks to Auntie Joan - her plum ice cream (with some added spice from cinnamon) and her Spanish Cake, a delicate and sweet treat that evokes those high teas that are still a family tradition. And finally, a dish that evokes the memory of lemon chicken, the dish that she and my daughter Lara would love to make together.

Hasta luego, nuestra querida tia. We were so lucky to have you as long as we did.

Plum ice cream

I have never eaten plum ice cream other than at Auntie Joan’s house and I have no idea why it isn’t a popular flavour commercially. My version only tweaks her original recipe - two egg whites rather than one, a stick of cinnamon and the seeds of a vanilla pod added to the plums as they poach. The brilliant thing about this ice cream - aside from it’s taste of autumn, log fires and sticky crumble - is that you don’t need an ice cream maker.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

300g red-skinned plums

175g caster sugar

¾ cup water

1 cinnamon stick

Seeds from one vanilla pod

Juice of half a lemon

300g double cream

2 egg whites

How to make

Seed and quarter the plums and pop into a pan with the sugar, cinnamon stick, vanilla seeds and water. Bring to a simmer, cover and continue to simmer on a low heat until the plums are soft and the liquid has become syrupy. Turn off the heat and leave for another 10 minutes - you really want the spices and the red skin of the plums to seep into the syrup.

Turn the plums into a sieve and extract as much syrup and pulp as you can into a clean bowl, using the back of a spatula. Cover and chill for at least an hour.

In two separate bowls, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks (be careful not to overbeat or it will turn into butter) and the egg whites until they form firm peaks.

Alternate folding the cream, then the egg whites, then cream, then egg whites into the plum pulp.

Pour into a freezer container - or just use an oblong cake tin, cover and freeze overnight. Remember to take out of the fridge for 15 mins before serving.

Spanish Cake

This is the perfect cake to eat with a cup of tea or coffee. Light and delicate from texture to flavour. Simple dust of icing sugar on the top and you are good to go. Auntie Joan’s original recipe as typed - which features in Doro’s book - is as spare with detail as one of Bake Off’s technical challenges. Fortunately I featured it in a column I wrote for Choice magazine a few years ago, so have filled in the gaps. Makes 12-16 squares.

Ingredients

125g melted unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

2 eggs, separated

125ml milk

600g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp mixed spice

Icing sugar to serve

How to Make

Heat the oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm square cake tin and line with baking parchment.

Whisk the sugar with the butter until thick and pale. Add the egg yolks and continue to beat for a couple of minutes.

Add the milk and beat again. Finally, sift in the flour, baking powder and spices and mix gently until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the cake batter.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. The cake is ready when the top is golden and a toothpick or sate stick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the cake tine for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. When cool, dust the surface with icing sugar, cut into squares and serve.

Quick Chicken with kale, haricots and caramelised lemon

Auntie Joan loved chicken, and when we visited Buenos Aires when my daughter Lara was little, she and Auntie Joan would love to make lemon chicken together. Am sure she would have loved this flavour-packed little number, courtesy of Alison Roman in the NY Times.

Ingredients

1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed

1 shallot, peeled and cut into 8

6-8 chicken thighs

1 400g can of haricot or cannellini beans

1 bunch kale, leaves only (discard ribs)

1tblspn sunflower oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for dressing

How to make

Toss the lemon slices and shallots in a small bowl and season.

Heat a large frying pan or skillet, add the sunflower oil, then add the chicken, skin side down. Press the chicken down with a spatula to ensure the maximum surface gets nice and brown. Cook for 5-8 minutes, then cook on the other side for a further 8-10 minutes until cooked through and the chicken skin is nice and crispy. Transfer the chicken to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan.

Add the lemon and shallot to the hot pan - stand pack as it will probably spit and sizzle. Cook, stirring gently, until the lemon has started to caramelise - about 3-5 minutes.

Add the drained beans to the pan and season. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans soak up that caramelised chicken fat - about 4 mins. Working in batches, add kale and toss to wilt, seasoning again as you go.

Return the chicken to the pan, along with the juices that have collected on the plate, and cook for a couple of minutes more.

Serve, drizzled with a little olive oil, and accompany with some crusty bread.

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writing-with-olive · 5 years ago

Text

How I plot/plan my novels (starting from a basic idea)

so I’ve seen various people wonder how to plot novels, so I decided to share my method. As usual, the steps without the attached descriptions and examples will be posted at the bottom for people who want to copy-paste

this method works for a single storyline/single POV. if there are two storylines or povs, you may have to alter some of the steps near the end of this process to fit your needs.

Spoiler warning: I use examples from both the Hunger Games and The Martian

1. Have an idea.

This can range from a general vibe, or something more concrete, such as plot points. The easy thing about this step is it doesn’t really need to be super specific, just a general idea of the direction you want to go.

2. Start writing down the things you know.

Start creating a list/brainstorm of all the ideas you have at this point. For me, this is usually an assortment of dialogue clips, worldbuilding, character vibes, plot points, things like that. You will likely find that you have a lot stronger grasp on some of these things, and a lot weaker grasp on others. This is perfectly okay. (for example, when I did this for my current WIP, I knew a lot more than I expected about the worldbuilding, but the characters didn’t have as much detail to them. The more time you spend brainstorming here, the easier it will be moving forward. To make it easier, I usually catagorize this stuff into the catagories of: plot, characters, worldbuilding, other.

3. Identify your main character.

You may already have a character in mind, but you will want to identify who that person is, and in a very basic sense of what they’re like. At this point in the process, it doesn’t really matter if they’re not fully developed/one or two dementional. You just need to know who is leading your story

4. Create a scaffolding outline.

NOTE: this will likely not be the same outline you end up with, but having a basic idea is going to be helpful when you start worldbuilding.

You should have a sentence/bullet point for each plot point, but not much more than that. Remember - this is going to be more of scaffolding than your final outline, and it’s more to give you a sense of where the story might be headed. If it helps you to think about the story in terms of acts, each of the three acts has two of the plotpoints listed below; one near the beginning of the act, and the other at the very end. Below, the -- indecates the seperation between each act.

The catagories you should fill out are:

Enciting incedent: this is the thing that first rocks your character’s world.

No return: your protagonist makes a decision (or has a decision forced upon them) that they cannot return from - no matter if they succeed or fail, they will not be able to go back to the same life they had.

Midpoint: (this actually comes half way through the second act, rather than being positioned near the beginning) This is a turning point, and something that will test your characters. This will be one of the most intense points in your book to your character, other than the climax and breaking point.

examples:

in The Martian, the airlock broke, and all the food was frozen. Unless this problem is solved, starvation is imminant.

in The Hunger Games, Katniss has to choose between dropping the Trackerjacker nest on her enemies, or not to.

Breaking point: something really bad happens, and this is your character’s lowest point in the book.

Climax: This is where your protagonist finally confronts the antagonist.

Resolution: This is the aftermath of the climax, and the determiner if your book has a happy ending or a sad one.

5. Worldbuilding: Brainstorming

Now that you have a scaffolding outline, think about what places might need to exist in your world. Does your Inciting incident plotpoint involve your protagonist finding a dragon in the forest? If that’s the case, you need to have a forest. Dragons are probably rare if this is the first time your protagonist has found one. Maybe they’re unheard of. Think about the implications of each of your plotpoints and add them to your brainstorming list that you started in step 2. The more you do here, the easier the next step will be.

6. Worldbuilding: Figuring stuff out.

This is the harder of the two worldbuilding steps. Figure out things such as climate, weather, animal/plant life, commerce, social norms, magic system, whether or not there’s a religeous system, etc. I strongly recommend this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3IgxY7dbU - Worldbuilding Basics) by Jenna Moreci. What I did was take notes about all of the questions she posed, and then copy-pasted it onto a google doc and filled it in from there. Rather than answer questions in order, it’s far easier to answer with what you know first, because that will influence your other answers. As you answer more and more things, other answers will get easier - you’ll be filling in gaps, rather than creating things out of nowhere.

This is also a great time to make world or town maps. Two resources that worked really well for me on this front (for fantasy) are: this tutorial (for making worldmaps), and this tutorial (for town maps)

character development, skeleton outline, create a story, organize your cards, fill in holes, more details (optional) all under the break

7. Character Development.

Starting with your main character, start to turn people from cardboard cutouts into 3-d characters. You can use this questionaire that I made based off of two of Jenna Moreci’s character development videos, and a video by a professional editor Ellen Brock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tup43nRDKqM - (Jenna Moreci)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQcQ-As2BU0 - (Also Jenna Moreci)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MozMgyppTjM (Ellen Brock)

I would strongly recommend watching all three of these videos

8. Skeleton Outline.

Now that you’ve got a sense for who the characters are - and how they will likely play into the story, go back to your scaffolding outline. You will likely find that that outline is no longer realistic for your characters. Repeat step four, thinking about what the character’s goals are, and how that’s going to affect their decisionmaking - and therefore the plot.

9. Create a story

I find it easiest to do this step with notecards on my bedroom floor, rather than on a computer, but if you find that doing the following on a computer works better for you, go for it.

Write down your six main plotpoints on notecards and set them aside. then, on more notecards, brainstorm events that you want to happen in the story, writing one thing per card (I usually like to sum it up in no more than six words, with the occasional card going beyond that). You may find later that you’ve left stuff out, or that multiple notecards will fit into one scene, and that’s okay. For now, don’t worry about it. Write down all the events of the story you can think of - and you don’t have to write them down in order, or even know the order yet. Ideally, you’ll end up with 50+ cards.

10. Organize your cards.

I like to start by seeing which events fit into which acts/before or after which of the main plotpoints. To do this, I set out the major plotpoint cards that I made at the beginning of last step, and line them up in a column. Then I take the other notecards and put them next to the major plotpoint they come after. It’s fine if they are mixed up in these catagories. If there are a handful of events that happen before your enciting incident (there shouldn’t be more than three or four tops), but them above your inciting incedent section.

Important: remember that in most books, your character is going to be more reactive to things during the first half of the middle (second act). This means that they will react to problems, but not have too many plans of their own to solve them. Your Midpoint will split up the first and second half of yoru middle/second act. After your midpoint, your characters are going to be a lot more proactive - creating plans, to better their situation, rather than just react.

example:

in The Hunger Games, Katniss spends the first part of the games reacting to things like dehydration or getting attacked

the midpoint is when she chooses whether or not to drop the trackerjacker nest on her competitors

in the second half of the middle is more proactive - she and rue make plans to win, such as a plan to blow up the Career’s supply pile

If your characters are doing something more reactive, it’s probably a better idea to put it before your midpoint. If it’s more proactive, it’s probably better to put it after.

After you have this done, now you’re going to turn the collection of cards into a pretty good outline. Going row by row, organize the cards so that they are in chronological order in your story.

11. Fill in the holes

At this point, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the plot looks like. Now you’re going to type up your current outline in a google doc or other processer. Then you’re going to create scenes, using the goal>>decision cycle. Basically, that cycle goes as follows:

goal scenes:

goal: your character starts the scene with a goal.

conflict: there is something in the way of your character getting that goal

disaster: either your character does not achieve their goal, or, by achieving it, they create unseen consequences. (or both)

this brings you to...

decision scenes

reaction: your character is going to have an emotional reaction to whatever the disaster is. Depending on the disaster and your character, the emotion could range from mild annoyance to a full-blown meltdown

options: after your character gets through the main emotional reaction, they are faced with two or more options, ideally none of them good. In any case, the default options are to do something, or do nothing.

resolution: your character makes a decision. What they choose to do will be their goal in the next scene.

Your first scene is going going be a goal scene. Go through, scene by scene, alternating between goal and reaction. Some cards will be part of a single scene. This is the time to combine them. If you discover a hole, create the scenes you will need to bridge that gap, and fill in either the goal or decision scene details, depending on which one that scene is. In the scene outline, you may also choose to include notes, or various details that you want to include or avoid as you write the scene. When you’re done with this step, you will have a solid outline!!!

12. More details (optional)

Personally, I don’t do this step, but some people like more detailed outlines. This is the time where you might want to include all of the other details you think you’ll need/want as your write.

++++++++++++

Recap of the steps:

1. have an idea.

2. start writing down the things you know.

3. identify your main character.

4. create a scaffolding outline.

5. worldbuilding: brainstorming.

6. worldbuilding: figuring stuff out.

7. character development.

8. skeleton outline.

9. create a story.

10. organize your cards.

11. fill in holes.

12. more details (optional).

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ziracona · 4 years ago

Note

Same writing anon as before! Tysm for the long post, it was really clarifying and good to read. It's started having some stuff make sense and revealed some stuff I need to rework. Do you have any advice on writing bare-bones like, general plot lines?

Hey! I’m so glad to hear that. 💙

I’m not 100% sure what you mean—advice on making your plot lines engaging, on figuring them out period, on how and when to structure them, on how to make them original, how to make them further the scenes you want to write instead of just be there as a support column for them, etc, so sorry if I misinterpret this question. I think I’m probably overthinking this, and you just mean “advice on how to come up with them/lay them out in the first place,” so that’s what I’ll answer. Sorry if that isn’t what you meant. TuT

So, writers all have different processes, but for most of us, it is very much not plotline first. Often you’ll get a great vague idea, or a scene you don’t know the total context for, or a character you like, or a finale, or a specific crisis, etc, and start there. Similarly when writing fanfic, a lot of the time you start with a very basic concept like “I want to see these people interact” or “I want this character to get to kill the person who destroyed their life” or “I want C character to get a happy ending,” and you build from there.

Honestly, there isn’t just one way to do structuring that works. Some people like a bare bones outline before they start, some like hugely detailed outlines, and some get a vague concept for how it will end, and then just start writing. And they can all work! I will say though, if you’re writing something heavily solution-based (like your characters spend the whole story trying to escape a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean, or are trying to fix a time paradox to keep themselves from being erased), it’s highly, highly recommended you know what that solution is before you begin. I don’t know that you /can’t/ figure out on the fly, but it will be so much easier for you as a writer to work towards a solution you already have, than to fly blind. Especially because most solution-heavy plots pick up elements to their solution along the way. This isn’t always necessary—like if the problem is it’s a horror script and there is a serial killer chasing them. “How do you kill a human” has infinite answers, so you don’t really need to pick out specifically how your protag finally takes them out ahead of time if you don’t want. If it’s like, Nightmare on Elm Street though, and your monster almost can’t be killed, you really gonna want to know how to put it in the dirt before you start, though.

That said, I’d recommend doing at least a bare-bones outline, personally for anything very long! It’s totally good and recommended even to edit that outline as you go, to add or subtract or alter upcoming content, but I find it helps a lot to have a vague idea of how much is left, and what the next step will be. It’s kind of reassuring. Again though, not everyone does this. Some skip outlines altogether.

As far as plotting itself goes, I would say start, again, with what you want to write—this might seem counter-intuitive, but trust me. Do you want to write a friendship, or a romance, or a personal journey for a character that leaves them feeling whole? Okay, well, even though most of those don’t seem very plot-creating, consider two factors: what would make this thing you want to have happen happen? And why do you want to write this thing?

For example, I wrote a horror comedy feature script, and my initial idea for it was just a gimmick—the main character can hear the OST, and uses that to help her stay alive. Okay, well, what’s the plot to that? There isn’t one—yet. But why do I like horror comedy in general—why pick that genre? Because horror comedy tends to be a deconstruction/reflective of horror as a whole, and a lot of those commentaries are very meaningful to me. Okay, well, what about horror am /I/ interested in reflecting on? And there’s a lot I’m interested in reflecting on, tbh, but at the time, the big answer for me was casual dehumanization. So, I know my topic/theme, and I know I am picking a wild world for that (as in, I want to write about not dehumanizing people, but I’m setting it in a world where the MC can literally hear the soundtrack to her story), but that can help, honestly, because if you can carry your point with a disadvantage, that’s even better. So I know my gimmick, I know my core issue, and I know my main character. Now, if I want to talk about dehumanization, that means it’s got to be what my killer is doing, and to an even more extreme extent than murder in general, so they must know the victims personally. From there, I worked out who would be best to cast as antagonist and a motive for them (considering other people not as significant as them/ethics are just created by humans mentality, justifying murdering even friends in order to gain serial killer immortality fame), and went from there to okay, so how would they (the killer) do this? And there’s a lot of ways to approach that scene detail plotting. Usually, I just kind of daydream. I make a cast first, then try to figure out what scenes would work well, and once I have a couple in line with my whole plot, string together an outline that supports all of them, and from there carve out a solid start to finish storyline—like, uh, like whittling down a carving, or chipping away to make a statue, kind of. Think of the starting process as a little like solving a mystery by taking clues and working through them to the next logical deduction, I guess, haha.

You can start from a bunch of different places though, not just concept/theme. For ILM, my original thought was just, “I want the survivors to get to escape, but HOW could they do it?” And I tried to solve that problem. Once I had a solution, which was genuinely one of the first things I found, I was like, okay, but it shouldn’t just be about that, because that’s got no real meat—it’s just an ending. What else do I want to see in a story about them? And Wraith was my favorite killer by far, so I thought, “I want to see Philip get to redeem himself and befriend the survivors and be kind and happy,” and that was it. From there, I worked out first where I wanted Philip at as a person/his motivation for how he ended up where he was, which plus some research created the resets for him, and then I worked out how it would start for him, if he was going to befriend survivors. I picked out relationships I wanted to see furthered, and decided if I wanted them to get a happy ending in hell and give Wraith redemption and peace, that meant I was writing a hope punk plotline for sure, and then with a basic idea of how I got from A-Z, started writing. A lot of individual plot lines—Laurie, Quentin, Jeff and Legion, Tapp, Anna, etc, I had not worked out before I began—maybe I had a kind of vague idea what I wanted for them (Laurie to regain her will to live and be able to save her brother too/get him to save herself, Quentin to get closure, Anna to find humanity, etc), but mostly I kind of brainstormed each the character arcs when I hit their first POV chapter, and crafted their personal story arcs there, then adjusted some as ideas grew.

Which was a super different process form my feature. While my feature more or less hit “what’s the theme/core concept” right off the bat in planning, ILM was “What’s the goal” and didn’t hit theme really until partway through writing, so the process won’t even always be the same for you as a writer. But I definitely recommend, no matter what you’re starting with, to go about it by looking at what makes you want to write what you are writing. For New Dawn Fades, my initial starting point was literally just wanting to write a scene between Quentin and Joey—that was it. I had no framework, or theme, or story goal—just a scene. But I was like, okay, well, if you need a story to back this once scene and further it, not just give it an excuse to happen, what is the story? Well, the reason I wanted to write the scene was because I liked how Joey and Quentin interacted. Quentin’s a bit of a martyr and constantly overwhelmed with guilt and trauma and had to grow up way too fast, and Joey’s a decent person at heart that has let himself slip way too much into bad territory out of fear, and together, they kind of bring out the best in or for each other; Joey is like, the single most likely character in DbD to be able to remind Quentin he’s legit just a teenager actually and should cut lose and just be okay for at least like fifteen damn minutes a day, and might actually be able to get him to do it, and Quentin’s the right mix of uncompromisingly ethical and genuinely forgiving to get Joey to look at and reevaluate his choices without spiraling into hopelessness and self-hate instead of self-improvement. So the answer was I wanted them to get to help each other. From that starting place, I just kind of went step by step with “Okay, how could they logically meet in such a way they are forced to spend time together and it gives them a chance to reach some of this,” and the rest came pretty easy. A lot comes step by step too, I find, and sometimes I have a whole super solid outline before writing and sometimes I don’t know beyond the next chapter except in the most general of terms. So what I would basically always recommend with making a general plotline is consider why you want to write what you want to write, and move from there to, “Okay well how do I get it.” And that process will be wildly different from story to story, but as a basic start, it helps me a lot. I wanted to see Claudette reach out to Wraith? Okay, why would she do that, and how? How would he react—what are the consequences, both from other people, each other, and the Entity? I guess I kind of go at plotlines like a puzzle. If this happens, what are the characters’ next choices? Which would they pick? And if I know where I want them to end, how do I steer their situation towards that point? For doing this, I highly recommend listening to music and daydreaming/just watching and trying scenes out some in your head. Also, if you get stuck, watch or read similar stories and let that inspire you! I don’t mean you gotta or should like, trace over someone else’s scene or something, but all fiction is intertextual, and that’s a good thing. We write based on our existing knowledge and love or ambivalence or distaste for other stories, and in communication with them, and it can add a lot. Stuff with Laurie & Michael in ILM didn’t end up like a single Halloween film in any of the six+ damn timelines, but I /did/ draw inspiration from the H20 line, and H2, which were the closest those two ever got. Watched the end of H20 and went, okay, if they’d had a better chance sooner, what could have happened, and played with that. Watching a lot of well-made fight scenes is also great inspiration for writing action—highly recommend.

I’m not entirely sure how helpful all of this will be, because plotting techniques tend to be pretty varied from writer to writer, but I hope it helps. If it hasn’t, here’s a quick compilation of more technical-side based tips that hopefully wil:

One technique I see recommended a lot and that can help/has before, is to start with your core concept. Now, I would disagree that you must always start here, but it can be a very good place. The idea is to be able to sum up in one line what the meaning of the story is. Like, for the film Holes, it would be something like, “Evil in this world is caused by treating people inhumanly, and the only way to break that curse is to treat your fellow man with decency and value and love.” Basically every plotline in the film backs this idea—Kissing Kate, who is a kind and happy woman until the man she loves, Sam, is murdered by her town for being a black man in a relationship with her, a white woman. That inhuman act drives her to become an outlaw. You have the Yelnats, who get cursed to be followed by misfortune forever when Stanley doesn’t honor his promise to Madame Zaroni, none of which would have happened if he had listened to her in the first place & not gone after a girl based solely on her looks, or if she had cared who either suitor was as a person, and could have been avoided had Madame Zaroni been more to Stanley than a means to an end. You have a whole cast of delinquent boys being mistreated and not at all healed by a juvie system that treats them all like they’re no longer humans worth anything. You have Zero, not even treated as human by juvie standards because he doesn’t talk, isolating himself—all of which stems from growing up on the streets impoverished with a mom struggling to do her best and failing. Stanley is falsely convicted for a crime he didn’t commit and mistreated over it, and has his life ruined. Even Grace, the main antagonist, is who she is because her family has been obsessed and abusive for generations, and she grew up a tool to her father. Then in the end, almost every one of these wrongs, even the ancient wrong of Sam’s murder, is corrected by people choosing to be better and break—in two cases quite literally—the curses on them and others by just being kind and choosing to love and treat others with respect and care. Stanley chooses to befriend Zero to be nice, and Zero reciprocates. Then when Zero runs off, Stanley runs off to help him because he’s afraid he will die, and simply because he loves him as a person, fulfills his family’s ancient promise unknowingly by carrying Zero up a mountain in search of water to save his life. This gives his family and him luck again, and ends up saving everyone. Zero tells Stanley the truth about himself and stops self isolating and being just sad and alone because he had a friend who treats him with value, all the boys end up okay and semi adopted by Stanley’s family in the end and out of abuse and juvie and treated well and live up to that faith put in them, and justice being finally brought breaks Kate’s curse and lets it rain again for the first time since Sam’s death and gives Kate’s spirit peace. —and that’s the idea. To have all your arcs and themes back your one core concept. Now, sometimes people find this super helpful, sometimes they find it overwhelming, but it can be worth a lot.

Another is to just kind of try the dartboard model, which is getting an idea you like to start with (like uhhh, Dogfighting dog is injured so it is going to be put down, but it escapes it’s master and runs off into the woods. Out there, it wanders until happening on an injured human child). Okay, so the plot is about a dog that has been abused choosing to connect to a human in spite of that, and probably about how the kid survives getting out of the woods with the dog’s help. But what actually happens? Dartboard method is just come up with a bunch of potential scenarios for the two characters and play them out in your head, keep your favorites, and then see if you can find a way to string those scenes together. You like a scene where the dog fights off a mountain lion, a scene where the kid and dog huddle together for warmth in a cave during a storm and the kid gets to be the one doing the looking out because the dog is terrified of thunder, and you like a scene where the kid is walking with a branch to help them keep going, sees a road up ahead which means help finally, but passes out from exhaustion, so the panicked dog has to deal with intentionally attracting the attention of adult humans after the abuse it has suffered, in the hope it can lead them to the kid and get help? Great. Okay, what basic order do these scenes go in, what can fill the gaps between X and Z? A lot of thing, you’ll have fun scenes you end up having to reject, because they don’t fit, but it’s a pretty laid back if chaotic method.

Then of course there’s just the classic. Outline. As in, take whatever idea you have, and force yourself to pitch a complete A-Z set of steps like you’re in a writing class. IE:

Dog is introduced. — Dog is inured and going to be put down. —Owner is distracted by a fight breaking out, and dog manages to jerk leash free and escape. — dog flees to woods. — Dog is alone and skittish. There is a storm and it freaks out and holes up. — Next morning, after the storm, Dog hears human crying & is afraid, but curious. Goes to peek. Sees kid who has must have been out here in the storm because a branch snapped and has pinned them by the leg — Dog wants to help because dog instincts, but is afraid of even small human. Eventually peeks head out. — Kid is terrified too, because scary huge scarred dog and they can’t run. Dog scared because human. — Eventually, kid gets over fear and tries to call to dog, and it comes out. Kid pets it and it’s afraid to be touched, but then accepts the affection. — Dog tries to help kid out by digging their leg free. Kid, who hand not thought of that, helps, and gets free.

(Usually you do this more branching and pretty, IE: Scene 1: Dog is in a dogfighting match.

—1A: Dog loses fight and suffers a bad infury to its eye, making it no longer fight for fights.

—1B: Dog’s master angrily comes to collect them. Dog tries to get affection, but he’s mad at it for failing & mutters about putting it down.

Scene 2: Owner takes dog out back to put down.

But that would take up a ton of space on this already massively long post.). There’s also a more simplified version of this, where you just kind of go like Chapter 1: Dog is introduced, loses fight, then escapes being put down and flees. Chapter 2: Dog is terrified of a thunderstorm and from having been almost killed & forced to fight for so long. Runs out of town to the woods as the storm breaks. Hides out under bush. Chapter 3: Dog wakes up to hear human crying. Goes to investigate hesitantly. Finds human kid trapped unde fallen branch. Kid is afraid of dog, dog afraid of kid, but eventually kid coaxes dog to come over and befriends it. Dog tries to help kid and dig them out, and together they get the kid free from tree.

As you can see, that basically gets the same information across, it’s just much shorter, but also has less solidly set as far as details of how stuff happens. Again though, if you go for an outline method, please don’t feel like you have to be married to it. It’s just a resource to try to help you, not actually the story itself, and stoeiws pretty much always evolve as you go, so it’s normal and also kinda fun and good to have to adjust outlines.

Anyway, this was already a mouthful, but I hope it helps, or at least some of it does! For me personally, the best techniques have always been to daydream scenes and events, and to approach writing things I get stuck on either like a deductive puzzle of “Well if She does This, then her friend can do either X, Y, or Z, and Z makes the most sense. Now, I need to figure out a way for them to escape the building. What are th options? Window, door, roof? Technically they could bust down a wall. They’ll never make the roof in time, so that’s out. They have about two minutes before dying, and one of them is injured, so they can’t go fast. The arsonist is going to be watching the front door and the windows carefully though, just in case, so they need a diversion or—Wait—the cat door in the garage. Perfect.” —or by trying to get very into the headspace of whoever is running the scene, and just literally think through why they want and are feeling and going to do. (Though again, I personally approach writing from a very acting-heavy standpoint). Anyway! Hope this helps some, and you find what works best for you. If you want clarity on any of this ramble, or I misinterpreted the questions feel free to let me know! TuT 💙

#ask #anonymous #writing #writing advice #long post #sorry this is such a lengthy hulking thing—theres jsut SO many ways to do plotting it takes a long time to list and describe even a handful #TuT #hope it helps though

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gwenbrightly · 5 years ago

Text

Ninjago Christmas Fic #1 - Decorations

Ahhh, it’s that time of year when I speed write Christmas fics because it’s fun! Crossposted from ffnet. Takes place after MOTO.

“Let’s see what everyone was able to snag for the monastery,” Lloyd suggested enthusiastically. Having never celebrated Christmas in the monastery of spinjitzu before, the ninja had been horrified to discover that Wu hadn’t thought to invest in decorations for the holiday season. Not prone to giving up easily, they had spent several days searching high and low for trees, wreaths, lights, and anything else they could get their hands on.

“Ma and pa sent some lights they swear still work properly. Left most of em outside. There’s also a bunch of garlands that look like they’re in pretty decent shape. Perks of living in a junkyard, I guess. And uh, I think this used to be an angel?” Jay stated, holding up a sparkly hunk of metal with appendages shaped vaguely like wings. He glanced sideways at it, trying to decide if it was worth keeping.

“I… can try to fix it later, if you want?” offered Kai, “I got a lot of practice with metalworking while Nya and I were visiting mom and dad yesterday. And the whole remaking the Golden Weapons thing probably helps too, heheh.”

His sister rolled her eyes at his self satisfied smirk. Jay nodded, handing Kai the mangled decoration.

“If you think she’s savable, go for it!”

“Speaking of mom and dad, they gave us a box of Christmas ornaments and some other stuff, too.” Nya added holding up the blue orb with swirly designs she’d just grabbed from the uppermost layer of the cardboard box she was kneeling next to.

“We couldda brought some tinsel, too, but we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea after last year…” she continued. They all shuddered.

“Dad convinced the tree farm that sponsors the Royal Blacksmiths to sell him a tree for super cheap. He said he’d drop it off in a little bit.” Cole informed them, not wanting to dwell on the incident.

“Dude! That’s awesome!” Exclaimed Lloyd, his eyes lighting up. The others smiled. They’d never been able to have a live tree before. Zane nodded in agreement.

“Indeed. I’m sure it will look lovely in the living room. I managed to locate a wreath my father built. It’s made mostly from old gears, and I know that’s not very traditional, but I’d like to put it up somewhere. If you don’t mind?”

“Of course, Zane. I’m sure we can find a good place for it.” Cole assured his friend. He understood what it was like to miss a family member during this time of year.

“Yeah. I mean this place is huge. We need all the decorations we can get!” Kai reminded them.

“We had better get started, then.” Pixal interjected, eager to finally be celebrating the holidays without being confined to a screen (or her wonderful soulmate’s head) this year.

“Heck yeah! So where should we start?” asked Nya. They glanced around at the heaps of miscellaneous decorations, considering their options.

“Maybe we should tackle the lights outside first? I’d rather do that before it gets too cold out.” proposed Jay. Although it had not yet snowed, the weather had been growing increasingly colder.

“I vote yes to that idea. It’s usually better to test anything the Walkers give us as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary explosions. No offense, Jay.” Cole said, giving the master of lightning an apologetic grin. Jay punched his shoulder lightly.

“None taken. We do tend to end up with... Surprises pretty often when ma and pa gift us stuff.”

“Okay, then. Outside it is. Just… try to keep the dangerous hijinks to a minimum? I don’t wanna worry Uncle Wu.” Lloyd told them, heading for the front door.

The next hour was spent watching Jay zap each strand of lights or light up decoration with his powers as he tested them to see if they worked, waiting for the inevitable explosion. Surprisingly, they made it through 5 whole strands, two light up snowman, and a reindeer before coming across their first exploding decoration. No one could be sure if the shattering of every single bulb on the rainbow strand of lights was due to Jay’s parents tampering with the wires, or the master of lightning himself sending too much electricity into it, but the display of rainbow colored shards flying through the air was impressive to say the least. After cleaning up their mess and testing the remaining decorations, the group began the actual decorating part of the process. Pixal and Zane wrapped lights around the columns that lined the entrance to the monastery, creating elaborate patterns. Cole and Jay worked together to lift an ornate sleigh complete with reindeer onto the roof via airjitzu. Meanwhile, Nya simply tried to keep Lloyd and Kai from killing each other with additional decorations. Seeing her brother wrap the green ninja in lights, she cried, “Kai no!” in exasperation.

“Cmon, sis! You’ve gotta admit he’d make a great Christmas tree!” He defended, before launching into singing oh Lloydie tree, oh Lloydie tree, how lovely are your branches! And receiving dirty looks from his victim.

“Listen to Nya, Kai.” Cole shouted from above them. The master of fire relented, muttering about how no one appreciated his brilliance as he unwound his brother. Their hard work was interrupted by the sounds of a (much less irritating) Christmas carol floating into the courtyard from just beyond the gate.

“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!” Sang Lou and his quartet as they lugged a ginormous tree inside.

“Hey, pop!” Cole greeted. He left the lofty heights of the roof, followed by Jay.

“Hello, son! You’re doing a lovely job with this place!”

“Thanks!” Jay said, “You just missed the explosion!”

“… The what?” Lou started.

“So, how was your drive?” Cole inquired, cutting him off. His father gave him a strange look, but didn’t push the topic further.

“It was fine. Building that driveway was a wonderful idea. I can’t imagine how much of a hassle it would’ve been to carry this thing up so many steps.” he answered.

“It really has made life easier for all of us.” Zane agreed.

“This tree is beautiful! Thank you so much for hooking us up!” Added Lloyd, staring admiringly at their

“It was no trouble, Lloyd.” Lou told him, smiling warmly.

“Wanna come inside for some hot cocoa? We were about ready to take a break anyway.” offered Cole.

“I would love to, but unfortunately we need to get going. We have a concert at the hospital to attend. Can’t disappoint the kids, you know.” the older man replied regretfully. The master of earth shrugged. Christmas was always a busy time for the Royal Blacksmiths.

“Okay. Next time, then. Break a leg, and thanks again!”

“Goodbye son!” Lou called as his companions burst into sing again.

“Now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding and bring some right here!”

“What even is figgy pudding?” Lloyd wondered aloud.

“No clue.” Kai shrugged.

“Let’s get this bad boy inside.” Prompted Jay, rubbing his hands together and grinning in a way that was only a little bit maniacal. It took a fair amount of maneuvering, but they eventually managed to get the tree situated in the living room.

“Wow, I hope we have enough ornaments for this thing.” Nya commented. The tree looked even bigger now that it was upright.

“We’ll think of something if we don’t. Maybe we can just put Jay to work making paper snowflakes again.” Lloyd plotted.

“I’m down for that. I don’t get why you guys think I’m the only one who’s deserving of this honor, though.” said Jay. He had never quite understood why the others were so fascinated by his ability to make paper snowflakes with such ease.

“Because you’re better at it than we are and we like the way they look.” Nya stated simply, hanging the ornament she’d discovered earlier on the tree. Jay leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

Kai rolled his eyes at them and set about digging through the boxes looking for more ornaments. He pulled out anything that looked like it was still functional, tossing a few broken ones into the garbage.

“This one is neat!”

“Oooh shiny!” Lloyd noted. He snatched the ornament from Kai before he could protest. The master of fire decided it wasn’t worth fighting and returned to his rummaging. Kai managed to protect a few of the ornaments from Lloyd’s watchful eye, sneaking them onto the tree when he wasn’t looking.

“Wait… how did that get there?” Lloyd asked, finally noticing one of the extra sparkly ornaments Kai had hidden from him.

“I swear Lloyd, you’re as bad as a cat when you get like this.” Nya told him, stifling a smile.

“Like what?” he replied innocently. Cole watched Lloyd stare longingly at another ornament.

“All oooh shiny every time you see something cool.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that stems from having a dragon for a grandmother.” Lloyd reminded them.

“Hmmm that’s a good point.” Confirmed Zane.

“Kai, I am almost completely certain that Santa was not intended to be a part of this nativity!” Pixal scolded, frantically trying to prevent the master of fire from ruining the decoration he was currently setting out on the mantle.

“Well, he is now!” Kai retorted, not caring about historical accuracy. Pixal sighed loudly.

“Can we at least discuss fixing the sheep so they don’t look like they’re fighting to the death?”

“Gee, Pix! It’s not like they’re real,” he reminded her indignantly before smiling a devious smile, “Hmmm I should add one of Lloyd’s dragon figurines...”

“Kai no! That is the most horrible idea ever.” she protested, horrified.

“What you call horrible I call brilliant!”

“Okaaay maybe it’s time for a break before Uncle Wu comes in here and questions our collective sanity again.” Lloyd said awkwardly pushing between the irate ninja and samurai.

“There’s hot cocoa in the kitchen, remember?” added Nya.

“Hmmm okay, sure. Hot cocoa does sound good.” Kai admitted (totally not planning on sneaking back later to mess with the nativity some more).

“Yeah! Let’s go eat way too much whipped cream and marshmallows!” agreed Jay.

“Looks like we’re off to another chaotic Christmas.” Lloyd commented to Nya as they headed for refreshments.

“Yeah, but you know you love it.” She told him with a laugh. The blonde shrugged, saying,

“I do. Somehow this never gets old.”

“That’s the magic of Christmas for you. Or… something like that, anyway. Now cmon, let’s get some hot coco before the others drink it all.”

#ninjago fanfiction #my fics #ninjago christmas #decorating #its the most wonderful time of the year #decorations and mayhem #ninjago #Kai's an idiot basically the entire time #Pixal doesn't approve of the way he builds nativities #okay yes I included that #don't judge

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teeseforestrunner · 5 years ago

Text

Sandwiches and Demons

I wrote the first part of this back in October and just finished the second part. It was posted to AO3 as a two-chapter work but is here in its entirety. I hope you enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207722

Ship: Logicality

Word Count: 2236

Summary: Patton is making a sandwich when an unexpected handsome visitor appears. How will it turn out when he develops a crush on the visitor?

Patton thought he knew what to expect from today, but he couldn't have been more wrong if he tried. It was a normal day; he woke up early to feed and walk his dog, ate a healthy breakfast (sugary cereal and way too buttery toast is totally good for you, so thanks Virgil), and got some work done in his garden since it was his day off. To be honest, it didn't get weird until he started to make lunch.

He is squirting the squeezable jelly onto his peanut butter and jelly sandwich while trying to sing along with the anime opening he was watching in the background when it happens.

Suddenly a loud voice and a column of smoke comes from behind him and says, "What do you require, foolish mortal? I am a very busy demon and have much to do."

Patton whirls around to look at the unknown visitor behind him. The voice belongs to a humanoid creature that appears to be a man who could pass for a high school teacher, complete with khaki pants and black polo with an immaculate tie. What made him stand out, though, is his long pointed horns and bat-like wings that look like they could stretch across his kitchen and not brush the walls.

"Hello," Patton says undisturbed by his unique guest's menacing presence, "who are you, friend-o?"

With a raised eyebrow the figure states, "I am known by many names in many different languages, however, you may refer to me as Logan since it should be the easiest for you to pronounce. Now back to the first topic, why did you summon me?"

Patton tilts his head to the side, " I didn't mean to summon you... I was just making lunch though so if you would like some you can have it."

As he says this Patton holds out the now finished sandwich to Logan. A look of confusion passes across the demon's face before reluctantly taking the sandwich from the strangely calm man.

"How in the world did you summon a demon on accident? You don't have my circle anywhere nor do I see any text that would inform you of the words needed to bring forth a demon of my caliber."

"I guess I really messed up the lyrics to that song I was jamming to," Patton says pointing at the show still playing in the background, while Logan rolls his eyes at what he could only assume was a pun. "And I like to make weird fun shapes with my condiments when I make my food. My friends even got me squeeze bottles to put my jellies in to make it easier for me."

To show his point Patton starts to make a new sandwich. Logan watches him from over his shoulder as Patton make a sun with the jelly bottle. Then he adds more shapes to the circle until it looks like a complicated summoning circle to the demon.

"That explains it," Logan mutters under his breath as he absent-mindedly takes a bite out of the sandwich in his hand. He doesn't even need to eat so he could not explain why he does it, but as soon as he tastes it he lights up. "What is in this sandwich?" he asks.

"Oh, it is just Crofter's jelly with peanut butter on white bread."

"This jelly is some of the best mortal food I have tasted in my entire existence..." he trails off in bliss as he scarves down the rest of the sandwich.

"If you like it so much you can come back any time for some. All I ask is you don't make trouble while you're here," Patton says with a smile to the demon.

With a straight face, Logan replies, "That sounds satisfactory. If that is all I will depart since it seems you do not require any deals with me. I will inform you when I am free by a letter, so you are sure to have plenty of this Crofter's jelly for consumption."

"Thanks for that, I wouldn't want to be put in a jam." As Patton says this Logan disappears with a groan and puff of smoke. Patton decides to stock up on plenty of different flavors of the fruit spread for next time he sees the demon

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Soon it became a habit for Patton to leave out his newest jar of Crofter's for Logan. As he soon learns, Logan would show up at the exact same time every other week without fail. Like clockwork, each alternating Friday, at precisely noon, the demon would rise out of the corner of Patton's kitchen ready for some delicious Crofter's. It was weird for a while but the human quickly got used to the way Logan would suddenly appear in his home.

He soon got curious about his demonic friend's existence. The first thing Patton says learns about is the demonic friend is that unfortunately, Logan was not really one for small talk; which makes his goal of learning much more about Logan extremely difficult.

The first few times his demon companion visits, any time Patton tried to break the ice the demon would either ignore him or scoff at him. (It probably didn't help that Logan didn't seem to care for puns, which are ninety percent of Pat's openers.) Patton swears to himself that he will never give up trying to make the Logan his friend. Eventually, his persistence (and the tasty fruit spread) wears down Logan's defenses, and soon the two would actually hold conversations at every meeting.

Then slowly Logan starts to visit the human more often. Patton hopes that this means that the demon is starting to feel comfortable in his home.

Suddenly Patton comes to a realization one day, he has started to fall in love with Logan. Which normally Patton would be ecstatic and confess to Logan the very next time he sees the demon, but the demon specifically said to him once that demons could not feel any emotions. This had bummed Pat out at the time and now it really makes Pat sad. So Patton does what he does best and bottles up his emotions and feelings.

It seems to work, Logan never acts any different when he is there, but eventually Patton's best friend, Virgil takes notice of Pat being a bit more withdrawn. That was a fun conversation to have. At first, Virgil was confused as to why Patton would be so calm with a freaking demon coming to visit every few weeks, but then he remembers how big a heart Patton has which makes more sense. Though how Patton fell in love with said demon still doesn't compute, but Virgil convenes Patton to at least try to tell the jelly loving demon how he feels.

After the pep talk from Virgil, Patton starts to make a plan to sweep his demon off his feet. He starts off with a classic, pick-up lines. The next time Logan came, Patton put phase one into action.

"Are you a dictionary?" Patton starts with after presenting Logan with his Crofter's sandwich.

"What?" Logan questions with his mouth full. He tilts his head to the side like a confused dog and if Patton wasn't already head over heels for the demon he would be now.

"Cause you're adding meaning to my life!"

The two just stare at each other in silence after Patton says that. After a few minutes, Logan just shakes his head before he continues to eat his sandwich. Patton deflates a little at the lack of reaction but pushes on anyway.

"You must be a broom, 'cause you just swept me off my feet."

"...Patton, you are sitting down." Logan side-eyes the human as he says this, a look of understanding on his face for a split second that Patton misses.

"There must be something wrong with my eyes, I can't seem to take them off of you."

"If there is something wrong with your eyesight you should go to an ophthalmologist then," Logan states with the smallest hint of a smirk on his lips that goes unnoticed by the human. Patton is starting to get disheartened by Logan's apparent misunderstanding of his intentions.

However, Patton has saved his best for last. With the most sensual voice Patton can muster he drawls, "Is it hot in here or is it just you?"

Logan's eyes go wide at this but other than that he shows no outward reaction to what Patton said, and Patton looks away. Logan quickly finishes the food and disappear in his normal puff of smoke without another word passed between the two.

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

Patton decides on flowers for his next attempt. This is only partially because he has to leave to visit family for the holidays during their next scheduled meeting and partially because of how bad the last attempt went. Luckily his friend Roman works in a flower shop so he was more than happy to help Patton woo his mysterious crush.

Armed with a bouquet of asters, gardenia, and peonies, Patton readies his kitchen for when the demon will visit while he is away. He leaves a note explaining why he could not be there, the flowers, and Logan's favorite Crofter's on the counter next to were Logan normally appears and sets off for his dull holiday.

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

When Logan appears he notices the lack of his happy mortal first and foremost. Then he sees a beautiful bouquet of flowers next to a jar of Crofter's. As the demon approaches the counter he sees the note next to the jelly and reads it first.

It reads: Sorry I jam not here for our meeting Logan. Last time you left before I could remind you that Christmas was going to be during the time you normally visit but I still wanted you to have a sweet time out of hell so feel free to eat the jar of Crofter's I left out for you. :) I should be back for our next meeting so you butter show up! Sincerely Patton. Logan rolls his eyes at the note, of course, the mortal would forget to mention he would be gone. Logan did notice the mortal's flirting during the last meeting, but he did not know how to respond.

Logan examines the flowers next. While the note does not mention the reason behind this new addition, he figures he can figure it out. If he reminders right asters mean patience, and peony means bashfulness, but gardenia's meaning slips him memory. He just shrugs and makes a sandwich like the note said to do and takes it to the living room. On the coffee table there is a book of flower meaning, coincidentally opened to the one flower the demon could not place. Logan decides to read the passage and blushes at the meaning. Gardenia is said to symbolize purity and sweetness and indicate secret love, joy, and they are used to tell the receiver they are lovely. Was the mortal trying to say he liked the demon?

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

Patton hopes phase two worked well because he plans to push on to phase three anyway.

As he anxiously waits for his demonic crush, he makes special cookies his mom taught him to make when he was a kid. They are jelly topped, so of course, he uses the demon's favorite brand. Patton hopes to tell the demon his feelings out right this time, but he is still nervous that it will push away Logan.

"That smells really delicious Patton."

Patton gets startled out of his head as Logan states this from behind him. The mortal whips around and stares at the demon who seems to be more dressed up than usual.

"Thanks! It should be done in a few minutes." Silence follows as both awkwardly stare at the other, neither knowing what to say next. When the timer goes off both jump startled.

Patton retrieves the cookies from the oven as Logan takes a seat at the counter. The tension is so thick that they could cut it with a knife. While Patton plates the cookies he decides to break the silence.

"Logan..."

"Yes, Patton?"

"I know you told me before that demons do have emotions but..." Patton trails off as he turns to look Logan in the eye only to find a soft smile on the demon's face that renders him speechless.

"I think I might have miss spoke when I told you that Patton because lately have been feeling emotions. I just forgot what they felt like until I met you. I have deduced what you are planning to say from your actions over these last few visits and I would like to inform you I feel a deep romantic longing for you as well. It took the flowers you left out for me to realize it but I do...I am pretty sure I love you, Patton."

Patton's eyes fill with tears as Logan finishes his speech. At first, it concerns the demon, did he miss read the mortal's intentions? But before Logan can question it further Patton launches himself at the demon wrapping him in a strong embrace.

"I love you too, Logan," Patton states just before pressing a sweet kiss onto Logan's mouth. Patton tastes like the fruit spread that started all this and both couldn't be happier that Patton accidentally summoned Logan all those months ago.

#teesewrites #logan sanders #patton sanders #sanders sides #humans and demons au #logicality

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free-notion-alternative · 4 years ago

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Taskade is The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity

Forget email drafts, notes programs and to Do list supervisors: Taskade does everything and much more

Everything I have to keep my entire life is stored on line. Somewhere. I just can not think it is.

I'm discussing all of the account numbers, meeting notes, todo lists, contact info and column info I want to observe daily. And also the recipes I desire to cook, perfumes I want to decide to take to, also YouTube videos I should see. A number of the stuff resides within my email in box, and also even some in Google Docs. Then you can find really my Pinterest planks, miscellaneous bookmarks and also the Evernote accounts I cannot organize coherently.

In theory, the web can make it easier than ever before to maintain all I want a couple taps off. In fact, the world wide web has a method of fragmenting our own lives. It's like I wrote what in a laptop and got drunk, torn out every page and concealed them in various places around my property.

Taskade produces a excellent tool for simple todo lists, also also you're able to utilize photos, emojis and stock artwork to liven up them.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Over the last couple of weeks, an program named Taskade has let me turn chaos into order. Taskade combines a number of their most useful features of both all Google Docs, Excel and Dropbox, together with a great deal of task-management and organizational applications. Taskade Labs Chief Executive Ivan Zhao explains the product as"the next generation of Microsoft Office," that really can be really a small hyperbolic and much rough. Nonetheless, it's the very ideal life-organization tool I've tried.

Taskade combines the characteristics of a notetaking program, a task-management program and also a spreadsheet tool that the manner that Steve Jobs joined an I pod, a phone and an internet browser in to the iPhone: All the tools interact to make some thing more than its own parts.

I have to state that Taskade is quite costly: It features a small free routine, also costs $8 per month to get significant usage. Still, it may pay for itself from the programs that it stinks, and I've found it easily worth the price.

I finally have a full page together with of my airline and hotel devotion amounts at a bulleted list, above an image of my dental card and also an embedded map with instructions to my physician's office. I left data bases together with most of the current pictures, novels, TV shows, along with YouTube videos I want for at --each phone opens into a rich record along with my notes and thoughts.

Taskade includes each of the interviews, research outlines and material for my own columns. I am getting married soon and'm bogged down my nuptial todo list daily.

One of Taskade's brand new features is that a database application, that you are able to view like a desk, a calendar and much more.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

I was able to want five distinct programs to maintain all of this stuff directly. Now it has all in Taskade, a couple clicks or even a easy hunt off.

Block by Block

It may be a lot much simpler to believe about Taskade as being a super-simple site builder compared to a productivity program.

When you start a brand fresh page at the program, you are really creating a sterile grid on which you'll be able to set and arrange virtually anything. The program's basic element could be that your cube, which might possibly become considered described as a paragraph of text, a bulleted list, a desk, a graphic, a code snippet, a YouTube video, even a PDF plus much more. You add cubes using a faucet or computer short cut, then reorder and arrange them to a heart's content. You are able to very quickly alter the essence of a cube, too. As an example, you are able to choose a lot of text and then change it to a to do list. Taskade's basic part could be the cube, that carries many forms: links, text, graphics, bookmarks and much more. Click here Free Notion Competitor

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Taskade is similar to baseball: easy to learn, difficult to perfect. The program itself looks fairly comfortable, with a tap to the left and also your receptive page about the correct side. It's a couple of decorative niceties, just such as the solution to bring a cover photo to the peak of every page.

When you first start the program, though, it will not have enough to help you know what it could perform. Even with weeks of using Taskade each day, I'm just figuring out the best methods to accomplish things while attempting to stay clear of making layout decisions that are horrible. Can I actually require a fullpage photo inside my to do list? My information: Make substantial utilization of Taskade's templates, just since they assist you to set pages out and reveal what the program's effective at.

There are Indigenous Taskade programs for Windows, Mac and also iOS. Mr. Zhao states that a Android program ought to be available within fourteen days. The internet program works superbly on mobile and desktop, too, also it has the specific same experience whichever platform you are using.

Taskade is very determined by connectivity. It works off line just with pages you've opened recently while attached which means whatever you could do is cross your hands each single time you start Taskade onto a plane. On the up side, you are able to upload tweets and YouTube videos, also entire pages, in just a Taskade record.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Though I utilize Taskade to remain in addition to my work and life (and you must too),'' Taskade is created for business organizations. It gives collaborative editing, in line opinions and useful tools for managing permissions and delegating tasks. In the event you utilize Slack, then you could possibly get alarms whenever somebody comments changes or on that a Taskade document. It's not a replacement for Slack or even Salesforce, nonetheless nevertheless, it can replace lots of the various equipment therefore many businesses utilize to store and share advice.

One-stop Shop

Matt Galligan, creator of those Picks and Shovels Co., also a Crypto Currency providers startup, provided a useful adviser for Taskade. He says with the program is like buying Amazon. Earlier,"stores specialized," he stated,"and they did a good job." Subsequently Amazon came and aggregated every thing. It maybe was not the ideal store for almost just about any single thing, however the onestop advantage managed to get unbeatable.

That's simply itTaskade isn't as successful a translation instrument as Excel, also it generally does not always possess a number of those task-management features I need --if an activity is expected, I would prefer a alert, for example. (Taskade states that is forthcoming.) The program has let me whittle the regions I maintain down stuff to two. I can not prevent email from arriving ; I could put every thing in Taskade.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

There's many left to your own Taskade team todo, needless to say. Along with task alarms, additionally it is taking care of calendar sync, and PowerPoint-style demonstration features, a internet clipper, better off line service plus Android program. Additionally it is about to guide services like Zapier and If This Then That (IFTTT), that assists move data between programs. However, it does a lot more than some one of its competitors.

For years, I've slid around various notetaking programs and productivity programs, never quite pleased. Evernote makes it simple to catch information, however I liked the port. Google Docs and Keep do not provide enough capabilities. Trello, Asana along with other projectmanagement applications do not benefit notetaking.

Taskade combines the very greatest of every and every --along with many others --to some infrequent renaissance program, skillful in countless procedures of creation as well as company. I can not set a cost on the reassurance that originates in the unfragmented daily lifestyle. Waityes I will: It's eight bucks monthly.

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kumeko · 5 years ago

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winter’s end (monochrome)

Character/Pairing: Phosphophyllite, Antarcticite

A/N: written for the Antarcticite zine, Words Lost in Winter! I love Pho’s and Antarc’s relationship (the cute, the angst, the lingering pain).

Summary: Antarcticite could run a clock by Phosphophyllite’s complaints—the morning shovel, the afternoon ice-breaking, the midnight cleaning. Somehow, the already long list of chores felt never-ending in Phos’ company.

...

“Why is this so hard?” Phosphophyllite complained, their voice the only sound in the empty plain. Even the wind had died down, as though to listen in. With each word, they slowly dragged their feet forward, the snow crunching as they carved a path forward. A hand plunged into the snow and with a grimace, they shook it clean. “Every single day, we clear a path and every single day it fills back up. There’s something wrong here, right?”

Antarcticite ignored them. It was almost a daily thing at this point, as consistent as the sun rising or the ice flows gathering. A pattern or even a spectacle. They were half convinced that Phos just liked to complain—despite their words, Phos never backed down from any of the tasks and that couldn’t be out of any love for the job.

Phos puffed their cheeks, a pout in the making. Gathering a ball of snow, they threw it at Antarcticite. “Hey! Are you listening?”

It was a good thing gems couldn’t feel temperature. The snow slid down Antarcticite’s arm and they brushed the particles off distastefully. Babysitter. That was what they were, a glorified babysitter, and for a brief moment, Antarcticite wondered just who did this during the summer. There was no way anyone let Phos run around unsupervised. Casually slinging their sword over their shoulder, Antarcticite looked back at them. “You can just sleep.”

Far behind them, dozens of gems were asleep, swathed in white as though the snow had buried them as well. Most life had the common sense to hide when winter came, the bright flowers and cheerful birds of the summer long gone by now. Not that Antarcticite would know much about it, their world was a monochromatic one, broken only occasionally by the black of the night sky or sensei’s uniform.

Or now, for the first time, by Phos and their green eyes. Maybe the grass looked a little like that too, but it had been a long time since Antarcticite had seen spring, the small shoots of plants and budding flowers slowly growing after a particularly harsh winter. The memory of colour didn’t last long, fading within a hundred years until it was just another white memory.

Though, even if they did forget Phos’s colour, it’d be impossible to forget their behaviour. As though on schedule, Phos sighed, taking a small break as they flopped onto the snow and considered the offer. “You think so? My pillow is really fluffy.”

“You won’t disturb the others by joining them,” Antarcticite added. After a week, despite Phos’ stubbornness, they were useless in almost every task. Breaking ice flows, clearing paths, fixing things after sensei’s naps; the only thing that they could do was run and that was if there was as clear path. Of all the gems to stay awake in the winter, of course it was the most incompetent one. Antarcticite could just sigh at their bad luck. “And I’m sure Sensei would feel relieved.”

“I didn’t really get to wear the clothes Red Beryl made.” Phos cast a baleful stare at their headquarters before taking a deep breath and returning to the vast, white expanse ahead of them. Slowly, they got up. “I can already see Morganite’s expression.” Eyeing the snow distastefully, they cringed as they started to plow through it again. “I. Can. Do. This.” They walked forward several steps before sighing and planting their face into the snow. “Probably.”

“Really?” Antarcticite looked back the path they’d come. It was funny how different their two paths looked, one clean cut and the other a jagged line. There had been a time when Antarcticite had longed for other gems, a time long ago when Antarcticite had actually worked with others. Clearly, they had been wrong, it was far better to be alone than to deal with this. “We’re only 500 steps from home and you’ve already taken two breaks.”

Phos frowned. “500 long steps. I worked hard, you know.”

“That is debatable.” Antarcticite frowned. Running through their mental checklist of daily tasks, they started tallying the work left on their fingers. Ice flow cutting, snow cleaning, checking up on the gems, repairing any damage in headquarters. And they’d managed 500 steps. “We’re behind schedule.”

“The schedule is wrong,” Phos declared, brazen and confident.

They were heading to the ice flows now, it’d be easy to lose Phos and never recover the body. Sensei would understand. Eventually. “And the schedule still exists—keep walking.”

“Aye, aye.” Phos mock-saluted before trudging forward.

In the distance, something cracked, as loud as thunder. The earth vibrated under their feet and Antarcticite crossed their arms. Well, it had been unusually silent for the past hour and Sensei, despite their words, got terribly sleepy. It’d be easier on them if they just rested with the others.

It was a day that Antarcticite never wanted to come. “I hope Sensei will sit down this time.”

“I hope they didn’t break the table again,” Phos muttered, an annoyed look on their face. They glared back at the building as though Sensei could see or hear this conversation. “I just fixed it!”

Terribly, Antarcticite didn’t add. Tapping their chin, they considered the sound. “I think it’s a support column this time.”

“That’s…bad right?” Phos cast a worried look behind them, as though they expected their home to collapse any moment. Which, to be honest, could happen; this wouldn’t be the first time that Antarcticite had to make any emergency patch after Sensei had accidentally destroyed something important. Maybe they should have moved Sensei to a safer room before they left, somewhere close to the pond or the outer boundaries of the building.

They both stared back at the building, waiting to see if something would happen. After a moment, when not so much as a dust cloud appeared and it was apparent nothing would happen, Antarcticite shook their head and continued to march forward. “We can move Sensei when we come back.”

“That’s it?” Phos chased after them and if Antarcticite had known it would take curiosity to move Phos, they would have done it long ago. “We’re not going to check?”

“Nothing’s falling apart, it can hold up till we get back.” Antarcticite ploughed adamantly forward. This was their world, they knew every sound for what it was. “Sensei didn’t break anything important.”

Phos frowned, not entirely buying it. “What were you going to if it was? If…if the building had collapsed?”

“Go back and fix it with Sensei.” Antarcticite shrugged. When Phos opened their mouth, ready for another argument, Antarcticite rolled their eyes and added, “It wouldn’t just collapse, we’d have enough time to repair it before that.”

“How do you know—?” Phos paled, realization dawning. “That’s happened before, hasn’t it? I knew that Bort didn’t fix the hole they made!”

“Either way, it’s fine for now.” Antarcticite cut them off, sensing a long rant. “We’ll deal with it later.”

For all of five seconds, that shut up Phos. They actually made it another ten steps before Phos realized exactly what that meant. “Wait, that’s even more work.”

“It’s not like we’re on vacation,” Antarcticite pointed out, a little fed up by now. Silence. They missed the silence that matched the white, scenic expanses. Or maybe it wasn’t silent so much as quiet. The slash of a sword, the crack of ice, the crunch under their boot, all muted as though the white snow reflected sound as well as light.

“Didn’t look that way when you talked with Sensei,” Phos said slyly, a coy smile on their lips.

Silence. Quiet. Alone time with Sensei. Private alone time with Sensei. Antarcticite was a gem with few desires, but Phos was destroying every single one of them. Gritting their teeth, they ground out, “That. Is. Different.”

“Is it?” Phos waggled their brows.

“It. Is.” Antarcticite hoped the cracking they heard was from the snow and not from their own body breaking in anger. It’d be hard to explain to Rutile or Sensei, though they had a feeling they’d understand.

“If you say so.” Phos started to make another snowball, throwing it into the distance as they walked. “But seriously, this is really boring and really tiring and really lonely, how do you do this every year?”

“You get used to it.” Antarcticite shrugged. “Besides, it’s not that boring. There’s a lot to do.”

Phos looked at them like they had two heads. “You’re just saying that.”

“Sensei agreed with me,” Antarcticite muttered, cross. There wasn’t just shovelling and protecting in the winter; beyond the chores, there was a world that only Antarcticite knew. A world of snow drifts and specific weather patterns, a world that changed in only the smallest ways.

Unlike Phos, who’s every emotion and idea showed on their face like a beacon. It was easy to read them; right now, the twitches of their brow were a timer counting down the next syllable uttered. Another thunderous crack echoed in the air, breaking the countdown as Phos jumped. “How do you get used to that?”

“Time,” Antarcticite answered honestly, ignoring the face Phos made. Ahead of them, ice flows jutted into one another and they’d arrived. Finally. The walk felt so much longer with Phos. More interesting as well, but they’d never admit that aloud. Phos would just get a swollen head. “Ready?”

“For another break?” Phos suggested, a hopeful smile on their face. It was astounding how they could ask the same question over and over and expect a different result every time.

“After we’ve done our work.” Antarcticite pulled out their sword, swinging it high above their heads. Strength, power, mobility, the cold gave them many things, making up for what they lost in the summer. It even gave them a position that no one else could take.

“How about we just do half of the work?” Phos yanked out their sword awkwardly, still not used to the size and weight. “My sword is worse than yours, I have to work harder.”

“I think that’s more of an efficiency problem,” Antarcticite rebutted dryly, watching as Phos swayed with the weight.

They almost fell over before regaining their balance. Swinging it a few times in the air, Phos glared at the weapon. “No, it’s just worse than yours. I need a better one next winter.”

“Fine, fine.” Antarcticite conceded the point, rolling their eyes. It was sometimes easier to just agree and shut up. “I’ll ask Obsidian to make something better in the spring.”

“Ohhh. I finally get my own!” Phos’s eyes lit up and they bounced on their toes before dropping their weapon. “Oops.”

“…maybe they should make something small. Like a dagger.” Antarcticite winced as Phos narrowly avoided cutting off their own legs in an attempt to pick up the sword. “Or a needle.”

“I’m not that bad!” Phos triumphantly raised their sword, a proud smile on their face as though they’d actually done something instead of just picking up their weapon. “Next winter, you’ll see.”

“Right, right, next winter.” Antarcticite stopped cold there. Next winter. They’d never really considered ‘next’ before, each winter a repetition of the last one. Clearing snow, watching sleeping gems, tidying up after Sensei.

Working with Phos. Something new. Something to look forward to. ‘Next’ winter.

Perturbed by their thoughts, Antarcticite leaped forward. “Let’s go.”

“Ugh, you’re a monster,” Phos complained, charging at an ice flow despite their words. “Take this!”

As Phos bounced off the ice, Antarcticite resisted the urge to smile.

#land of the lustrous #houseki no kuni #phosphophyllite #antarcticite #phos #now I just need to write a piece for Cinn #and one for Sensei #and one for whoever Phos is at this point #antarc's final scene still haunts me #how can i get so attached to a character i only get for 1 or 2 eps

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pizza-is-my-buziness · 5 years ago

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Thanks for the prompt, anon! I have to say, I’m not really much of a smut writer so this fic is far from explicit. It’s definitely more implied. But I hope you like it anyway! Thanks again for the prompt and people should send me more prompts because I want to write more for this pairing so thanks!

They all go back to the Byers’ because it’s late and there’s the smell of rain on the lazy summer breeze and because El keeps sniffing and rubbing at her nose with the heel of her hand and Joyce keeps her wobbly lips pressed together in a thin line and keeps saying at random intervals “it’s okay” even though no one is asking and no one believes her. And because Nancy thinks it goes without saying that no one really wants to be alone right now.

Her body is tired. It’s sore. It’s hurting in ways that had previously gone unrealized because there hadn’t been time to sit and think and catalog. But now, sitting in the backseat of the car with Joyce driving, Nancy doesn’t have anything to do but sit and think and her body feels like one giant bruise that someone can’t stop poking. But her mind won’t shut up. It won’t rest, even though that’s all she’s wanted for the past several hours. For the past few days. She just wants to sleep, like she had been doing that night that the power went out and she didn’t have any understanding of rats eating fertilizer and people turning into a giant monster made of literal flesh.

Rather than try and close her eyes and coax herself into sleep, Nancy just rests her forehead on the window, watching the blurry dark of Hawkins pass by.

Everyone is crammed into the car so Jonathan’s thigh is pressing against hers and between him and the car door, Nancy has little room to maneuver, not that she minds. On Jonathan’s other side, there’s Mike and El and Nancy tries to focus on those things, the few little details that could possibly bring her comfort right now when she hurts and she’s tired and all she wants to do is close her eyes and imagine all this away. Her brother is safe. Jonathan is too. Nancy figures that she can count on those things to help her keep her hands steady enough to start putting the pieces of this shattered night back together.

Finally Joyce pulls into the driveway of the house and it’s dark, the porch light trying its vaillant best to welcome them back with a weak glow. Will gets out of the front seat to go around and open the back of the car for everyone else and it almost strikes Nancy as funny, how everyone sort of tumbles out of the back like they’re in a sort of clown car but she swallows her impulse to laugh. It’s easy enough, looking at the weary faces of the kids who used to be the bane of her existence when they were all younger and they thought the greatest thing in the world was sneaking around and trying to read her diary or otherwise annoy her.

They move silently into the house, weary soldiers, and Joyce methodically goes through all the rooms, switching on every single light. It might be dark outside but there’s an artificial day inside the Byers’ home and Nancy tries to take comfort in that. Even if the house itself, and the memories that come with it, aren’t exactly comforting. At least, over the past few months, she’s been able to make new memories here: family dinners with Joyce and Will and Jonathan or board games that no one really liked to play but Will but somehow his excitement made them almost fun. Or nights spent with Jonathan, when they thought they were being sneaky and quiet as they laughed and whispered under his covers or when they learned new ways to understand and orient themselves to one another's bodies.

This will just be one other memory to add to the “bad” column: all these tired and hurt faces and the things that aren’t being said. The names they aren’t being mentioned. Max, who keeps working her thumbnail between her teeth, looking skittish in the glowing lights of the living room. And El, who hasn’t said anything to anyone.

The younger kids get the living room, with Joyce talking enough for all of them, trying to fill the space and just making the silence echo even more. She lays down pillows and blankets, making a pallet and seemingly unable to keep her hand from lighting bird-like across the tops of everyone’s heads, like she needs the continual reassure that they’re all still there.

Robin and Steve get pointed in the direction of Will’s room, already bickering about who will take the bed and who gets the floor, volleying arguments back and forth at one another in a way that does more to lighten the mood than Joyce’s nonsense chatter ever could. Nancy feels her lips twitch into a small as she watches them, wishing that the rumors that she’d heard about Robin weren’t true, if only so Steve could find someone that made him forget things for a least a little while.

All the nights that she’s snuck into Jonathan’s room, either through his window or down the hallway in the dark, her feet trained to know which spots on the floor creaked, don’t seem to matter much anymore because no one, not even Joyce, gives them a second glance when Nancy follows Jonathan to his room. Maybe the rules are different. Maybe things like maintaining a facade stopped mattering when rats started eating chemicals and crawling into old ladies’ basements.

Jonathan eases the door closed behind them and locks it, though Nancy doesn’t know if that’s out of habit or some misguided idea that doing so is going to keep them safe against whatever might still be lurking out there.

Nancy doesn’t want to think about that. Doesn’t want to think about the uselessness of locked doors or parents who can’t really protect you or small towns that are supposed to be safe and the rules that she’d thought she could count on. Instead, she wants to pretend like the lock on the door will make a difference. That there’s someone out there who can keep her safe. That she doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore except coming up with a convincing lie about where she’s been, if her parents were to ask in the morning.

Instead, Nancy sits on the edge of Jonathan’s bed, feeling out of place and awkward, like she isn’t familiar with the space, isn’t comfortable with every inch of the room the way that she’s comfortable with every inch of the person who inhabits it. The fight that she had with Jonathan doesn’t matter anymore, if it ever really did, and Nancy doesn’t feel like they have to do that dance around each other, that what-are-we-now-I-didn’t-really-mean-I-still-care-about-you dance that she would have demanded self-righteously from him just twenty-four hours ago.

Nancy feels like the uncomfortable uncertainty that she feels settling over her shoulders comes more from herself and how she’s not entirely sure how to feel in her own body anymore. How everything still has that heightened-sharpened quality and how she aches all the way down to her toes and how her skin feels too tight and her eyes too dry and her heart suddenly too weak.

Jonathan does what Joyce had done, switching on every lamp in the bathroom, before turning to face Nancy and she can feel the awkwardness in him too, the uncertainty that keeps him standing a few feet from where she sits on the edge of the bed.

“What do we-”

“I guess we should-”

Just like they rushed to fill the silence at the same time, they both fall silent simultaneously, looking at one another in an encouragement to finish their statement.

“You go ahead,” Nancy says, just as Jonathan gestures at her to continue and she rolls her eyes because if she’s going to be awake all night long this is not how she’s going to spend her time. “I was just going to ask what you thought we should do now. I mean...what are we supposed to do? Just...try and go to sleep like everything is fine now? Just...pretend?”

Jonathan shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s pretending. I think it’s just doing what we always do...keep going.”

Nancy sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s total bullshit that this keeps happening. Like at what point do we get to have a normal year?”

Jonathan gives her a half smile. “How about a normal life? I think we’ve had more excitement than most people.”

Exhaling, Nancy flops onto her back, staring up at the ceiling of Jonathan’s room with her hands laced over her stomach. “As soon as I graduate, I’m getting out of this piece of shit town.”

“Then who will be around to shoot the giant monsters?”

Nancy knows that Jonathan means it as a joke but the idea makes her eyes wide and resigned horror settle over her like a way that makes her feel impossibly heavy. The idea that that could be her role, her purpose, for the rest of her life...it almost makes it hard to breathe.

“Hey, I was kidding,” Jonathan says quickly, sitting down on the bed beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t be trying to joke right now...I mean I’m not great at it under normal circumstances so…”

“No, you’re not,” Nancy says but there’s a hint of a smile on her face and it makes Jonathan smile too and that makes it a little easier to breathe again. “But I’ll let it slide.”

“How generous.”

It feels as stilted as it does normal and Nancy wishes that she could hold the two halves of these things in her hands and fit them back together the way she had tried to do once, when she was ten and Mike was six and he’d broken a lamp when she was supposed to be watching him and she’d desperately tried to glue it back together before their parents got home.

She’s having about as much success now as she had then.

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” Nancy says quietly, closing her eyes so that she stops tracing the whorls and divets on the ceiling behind Jonathan’s head. “I wish I could stop feeling like everything in my life was just a before and an after.”

“I think it’s always going to be like that,” Jonathan says. “With everything. All these little beginnings and endings.”

Nancy opens her eyes, pushing herself into a sitting position. “Can we maybe save the existential conversation for tomorrow morning? Can we maybe...try the pretending thing for a while?”

Jonathan blinks at her and she shouldn’t find his cluelessness as endearing as she does. “What do you mean?”

“I just want to pretend it’s like it was the other day,” she says, reaching out a hand to curl around the nape of his neck. “When all we had to worry about was that shitty internship at the paper.”

“To be fair, it wasn’t that shitty.”

Nancy furrows her brow. “Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one stuck getting coffee all the-”

Nancy forgives Jonathan for taking so long to get her point when he finally gets it and leans close enough to kiss her. And she forgives him for interrupting her because the feeling of his lips against hers still makes her feel a bit like how she imagines a star might feel: fizzy and bright and shining bright enough to be seen from millions of miles away. And it makes her feel like those two pieces of her life have snapped back into place, leaving one whole Nancy behind.

With Jonathan kissing her, with his hands on her shoulders and the curve of her neck and the small of her back, it’s easier for Nancy to believe all those things that she realized weren’t true when Barb died. With Jonathan holding her close, his breath whispering in her ear, his heart beating beneath her palm, she can believe that the world is safe, that there’s someone who will protect her so that she can lay the weight down, that the only monsters are the imagined ones under the bed that disappear when you shine a flashlight into the corners.

Nancy pushes everything else out of her mind. She forgets that her brother is in the living room with the rest of his friends because they’re all too afraid and too sad to be alone. She forgets that people have died, that she almost died, that she nearly lost everything. She forgets that the bad things never really die or go away, that only the good people do, and that there’s nothing that can ever really be done about that.

Instead, she pretends.

She pretends to be just a girl, in love with a boy, living in a world where nothing is stronger than that.

Nancy doesn’t protest when Jonathan’s fingers fumble to undress her, just lifts her hips enough to help him or pulls away long enough for them to tug their shirts over their heads and add them to the growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor. Nancy is certain that her skin smells of sweat and sulfur and fear and maybe even a little like that greasy mall food court smell, but with Jonathan kissing his way down her shoulders and collarbone and breasts and stomach, it’s easy to ignore all that too. It’s easy to pretend like this is the only thing her body has done, that her fingers were made only to twine in his hair or press half-moon marks into his shoulder blades. That her hands were made only to draw him closer to her. Her legs made only for him to fit between. Her skin made only to be blemished by his lips and teeth.

The routine is normal, developed and patented and practiced over nights spent in secret, when lazy kisses and careless touching turned into more but Nancy feels like there’s never anything routine about the way Jonathan kisses her, the way his lips against hers swallows up the sounds she makes or the way that he presses his face against her shoulder so her skin can do the same. Especially now, when everything is still sharp and heightened and her body aches in a decidedly more delicious way now, Nancy feels like she’s nothing more than just a girl. She never wants Jonathan to stop, to be any less close to her then he is in this moment, never wants to be without his arms around her and his lips against her skin and his weight on top of her.

She doesn’t want the world to exist outside of this room.

Their bodies stay tangled together, even as their movements slow and still and the only sound is Jonathan’s heavy breaths against the hollow of Nancy’s throat. Nancy closes her eyes, pressing her nose against Jonathan’s temple, breathing in the heady smells of him that make her feel safe and protected, the way his arms and weight do. Nancy threads her fingers through Jonathan’s hair and hopes that she does the same for him.

Nancy tries to hold onto those feelings later, after they’ve untangled and she’s dressed in a tee-shirt of his that’s too big but smells like him when she presses her nose to the collar. Jonathan brings her a glass of water and a report that their brothers and the rest of the kids are asleep in the living room, even Erica, sprawled out amidst the blankets and pillows and the coffee table.

The image makes Nancy smile around the rim of the glass and when Jonathan eases himself into bed beside her, she turns to him, tucking her body against his. The way that Jonathan’s fingers slide through her hair, tickling the nape of her neck, make Nancy’s mind feel tired in a way she had worried it never would again. Her body feels loose and heavy and instead of feeling like a bruise, she just feels like a girl who wears the memory of her boyfriend’s touch against her skin.

“Jonathan?”

“Hmm?” He already sounds half asleep, his chest vibrating against her ear, his lips against the crown of her head.

Nancy says, “Nothing,” because she’s not sure what she wanted to say after that, what his name was a precursor to.

Though, she thinks, maybe there was nothing she wanted to say. Maybe she just wanted to say his name and have him answer and know, with a certainty, that he was there. Still.

And, in a few hours, when they wake up and they have to stop pretending and she won’t be just a girl anymore and there will be a world outside of this room, Nancy knows that he’ll be there for that too.

#jancy #nancy/jonathan #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #stranger things #stranger things spoilers #fic #I love them and I'm not sorry and I want to keep writing fic about them and #I'm not sorry about that either

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blogandtricks · 5 years ago

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How To Start a Blog and make money

Learn how you can start a blog today. What is good than following your passion and make money. People start blogging for reasons, like this:

Making money

Sharing the new learnings

Free travel

Review gadgets

Free travel

Etc.. I think your one of the above or some other reasons, blogging could help you achieve your goal. A few things: This is the total guide with some theory and practical knowledge. A little bit of reading, and a little bit to follow the step to start your blog. This is the first thing you would like before we start:

The name of your domain.

Note: you'll always change your name within the future if you want. Ready to start a blog. Here are the steps to start a blog:

Step 1: Picking the blog topic Step 2: Select the blogging platform Step 3: Pick select domain name & hosting for your blog Step 4: Setup the design of the blog Step 5: Write your first blog post Step 6: Share your writeup with the world Step 7: Monetize your blog Step 8: Drive traffic and gain more exposure

Note: To make it easier for you to take action, I’m suggesting only those options in terms of platform, hosting which are working for everyone.

How to start a blog free

Step 1: Choose a Blog name & domain name for your blog

1. Easy to remember 2.Easy to pronounce. 3.Easy to type Just remember this 3-factor when you picking a domain name for your blog. The name of your blog is that the most important part of success. A domain name is the URL of a blog that a visitor will use to open a blog. For example; www.blogandtricks.in A custom domain name is like www.blogandtricks.in, for which we need to pay $9/year = ₹599/year. However, I have shared a trick above which will help you save this $9/year = ₹599/year on domain purchase. Now, there are rules which will help you to pick the best name for your new blog. Prefer your suitable domain as my suggestion you have to select .com, .in, .org. Your domain name should be easy to pronounce and simple to type. Make sure your domain name should not be confusing to the listener. You can use the Namechk.com for domain suggestion to check if your domain name is available or not. Simply enter any word that you simply have picked for your blog and it'll also show you available domain name suggestions. My suggestion is to follow the 3 rules I shared below. Here are these things you should not do when selecting the domain name for your new blog:

Don’t use a too long domain name. Try to keep it lower than 14 characters. Ex: blogandtricks

I always prefer and suggest to use a domain name extension like .com, .in or .org.

The first answer you must have is, where must you create your blog?

There are many blogging platforms is there, and people have different opinions about each and every blog of them.

Most of the Bloggers start blogging on the Wordpress platform or Blogger platform.

Blogger is popular because it’s easy to use and Wordpress also.

Here is an interesting fact: 35% of the websites in the world are powered by WordPress.

Once complete crossed the testing period, you're ready for doing something more meaningful. Get a blogger blog or WordPress blog, and don’t confuse yourself with WordPress.com and Blogspot.com.

Blogger Hosted by Google so no installation issues. WordPress.com may be a freemium blog service that mixes the free WordPress blogging platform and premium hosting in one package.

How to start a blog in india

Free = $0 for life

Includes a WordPress.com subdomain, basic design customization, and 3GB Storage to get you started.

Personal = $2.99 per month, $36 billed yearly

Includes a free custom domain name, 6GB Storage, and removes all WordPress.com advertising.

Premium = $8.25 per month, $99 billed yearly

Includes advanced design tools, CSS editing, 13GB Storage for audio and video, plus the choice to monetize your site with ads.

Business = $24.92 per month, $299 billed yearly

Includes SEO Tools, Google Analytics support, Unlimited Storage, plus the option to install third-party themes and plugins, and remove the WordPress.com branding.

Step 3: What your blog is Niche? (About) The very very first thing you wish to try to do is to find the niche of your blog. By niche, I mean finding a topic that your blog goes to be about Or search on google blog niche ideas. I hope you don’t plane about your blog about every random thing and make money. This doesn’t work in 2020 and your chances of success are better when you blog on a single topic. You might be a jack of all trades, and need to start out a blog on multiple topics, but it'll not be fruitful, as people like this topic and subscribe a blog, which is an authority on a selected topic. Moreover, Google which is that the biggest search engine prefers a web site that's built on one single topic. For example, Blogandtricks topic is “blogging and tricks” related which is how you found us. Now, the big question is how to find the topic of your blog? Here are some tips which will help to get started: Find a topic that you just know better than anyone else. It doesn’t have to be the job you are doing, and it could be anything. Try to think about your topic that you simply most prefer to talk about, and you'll comfortably talk about it for hours. The good idea is to select a topic that you simply usually know about that. The topic which you read about all the time is some things that interest you. Also, confirm you've got a keen interest during a particular topic, and you'll add values together with your own insight. For newbies, I always recommend to require the help of pen-paper and write down the topics in several columns that you simply like. For example:- Motivation, Fashion, Technology, Finance, Photography, Scientific research, Babycare, health care and so on. Now, try and write 5 post ideas for those different columns. When you are writing the post title, think about what you'll write without taking reference. By the end of the 5th article, it will help you to find the topic (Niche) that you like the most. This is a critical step before starting a blog because it will help you to choose a new topic that you simply are most strongly passionate about that topic. This will make sure that you'll not give out when your blog goes live. If you're picking a topic that you simply like talk about and write on, it'll make sure that your give out period will never come. So, I assume you've got selected the niche for your blog which may make some money for you. Conclusion- Selecting the suitable niche is that the first and therefore the important step for starting a brand new blog.

Design of your blog Blogging platform? *Done* Blog niche? *Done* Domain name? *Done* “The first impression is that the last impression”, that’s the Lines we follow for our blog. Blog design is that the important aspect of your blog because a decent design will make sure that your visitors will love your blog. In fact, that's how your readers will remember your blog. Imagine your blog design as you with some good outfit. In Blogger, there is a concept called “Blogger templates”(themes). These are ready-made designs that are available for every type of blogs. There are many Free and premium Blogger templates(themes) out there. I always recommend to use that kind of theme suitable to your blog and makeover, you will have a quality design for your blog. Here I am given you some link of blogger templets(themes) to use templets which I would recommend you to start with this templets. You need to download templets(themes), and skin to make it suitable for you. You can pick from the ready-made template and your blog design will be ready within several minutes. Read: How to upload templets in blogger

How to plan your blog content

Plan your content

Before you start writing your first blog post in your blogger, you should make a content plan. You can use a Trello board. This is a free Trello content planning board that you simply could use. Content planning board This Trello board also comes with a checklist help you write the proper article. Click on more on the right sidebar and click on the copy board. In the article ideas, write down all your content that you simply could write down . You can also create an outline of the content if you like. It’s a good idea to do this in one sitting and next time you can start writing your content (one at a time).

How to start a blog writing

The real fun begins now, writing your first post. I shall share some tips the articles link below to get you started, but here are little tips which can make sure you don’t make mistakes new bloggers usually make: When you are writing your content, imagine there's a person sitting next to you, and you're talking to the person. Write within the first-person tone, because there's one that is reading your blog. as an example, you're reading this blog post alone. that's why you may notice, my tone is “I” and “You”. Your content should cover all the aspects of the topic you're writing about. be happy to write down 1200+ words. Do not copy images from Google or the other sources. Rather use these sites to download free to use images. You can also embed videos from YouTube. this can be a tutorial on how to embed videos on your blog. If you wanna skip the overall crowd and level up your blogging game, then read my guide SEO copywriting. this may ensure whatever you'll write will assist you to drive great traffic from search engines. These are some of the important pages, which you should have on your blog. About page: Contains detail about your blog, and you. Contact page: A page with a contact form. You can use free contact form 7 or Jetpack contact form feature to create a contact form on WordPress. Media kit page: You don’t need it now, but you should know about it. This page is where you will write about your blog traffic and available advertising options.

Now, the next step is to driving traffic. Follow the steps mentioned here and that will help your blog to be visible in Google search. Now, there are many techniques that you can use to get traffic to your newly created blog. Getting social Once you've got established your blog, make your blog social so your readers can join your community. You just no need to stress, because I’m here to guide you with the resources. To get social with your blog, Create this account Facebook page, Instagram account, a Twitter account. Now, Make money from blogging in easy steps:-

Make money blogging There are some ways by which your blog can earn passive income for you.

How to start a blog and make money

Here are some of the most popular ways: Google AdSense Media.net info links Affiliate marketing Amazon affiliate program Direct ad sales Own digital products like eBooks, Online course I am covering all these aspects of blogging money in this exclusive article: Make money from blogger What Else you need to reach the next level of Blogging:

Learn SEO to drive free traffic SEO means search engine optimization. This is an advanced topic and it’s hard to complete it in a single article. Many bloggers try not to concentrate on search engine optimization, and This is a big mistake. SEO helps you to drive targeted traffic from organic search, which successively makes extra money for you. There are three parts of SEO(search engine optimization): On-page SEO: Your content quality, Keyword placement, etc. On-Site SEO: Crawling, indexing of your website. Off-Site SEO: Get do-follow backlinks from other sites. Evolution of SEO, I also like to add two more here: Social signals: Social media plays a good role in improving your blog ranking. Google plus is proven to be the most effective social networking site to boost ranking. User experience: New search engine optimization is all about giving a good user experience. Some of the key aspects of good user experience: Navigation, site loading, website design, readability so on. If you've got done everything as mentioned above, you'll start getting organic and traffic from social media sites. Now, here I’m sharing a number of the chosen posts to assist you drive more traffic to your website. One difference between the normal blog and a good blog is the detailing. An A-list blogger usually takes of every small detail about to ensure that users subscribe to his blog, they like to be a part of this blog. This can be what we call turning one time visitors into readers. below some of the advance and less talked techniques.this techniques to take your blog to the new level:- Get more blog readers and keep them No one is read your blog and how can make them read In the world of blogging, we always wish that there was someone who can guide to how to start a blog of your own.

#Learn blogger

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