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artificialqueens · 4 years

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To New Hytes, 10/10 (Group fic) - Mac

AN: I’m truly at a loss for words. I can’t thank Meggie enough for all the work she has put into this. Betaing for me is not an easy task and she makes it look simple.

I started this fic exactly a year ago to this day and I never imagined I would finish it, let alone fall in love with it. I know that was so cheesy but it had to be said.

I hope you enjoy this last chapter!

Summary: Yvie finds out what Scarlet has been hiding, Vanessa gets a new opportunity, and Trixie finishes Katya’s book.

Yvie held her breath as the minutes ticked by.

Scarlet had asked her breathlessly over the phone to come to the studio as quickly as she could. Yvie had done so, telling her Uber driver she would tip him extra if he got there in half the time.

The parking lot was practically empty when they pulled up, save for Scarlet’s pristine white Lexus parked right next to the door.

Yvie’s heart hammered in her chest and she felt like she might throw up from nerves. Scarlet had sounded worried. Scared even.

As she approached the doors, she found them unlocked, and the pit of dread in her stomach threatened to suffocate her if she breathed too deeply.

She and Scarlet hadn’t talked, not about anything meaningful anyway. Yvie hadn’t mentioned the conversation she had overheard, or the fears she had, or the crippling feeling that she was about to be left.

Yvie, confrontation-loving Yvie, hadn’t said a thing because she was scared it would only accelerate the path to loneliness.

She had bitten her lip.

She bit her lip now too to keep from crying, the familiar studio setting doing nothing to keep her mind steady. The lights were all down, save for a flickering candle at the end of the narrow hallway. It was still light outside so the image wasn’t as creepy as it could have been.

She followed the path down the hall, noticing more and more candles lining the pathway as well as a sudden appearance of rose petals on the ground.

The unease in Yvie’s stomach waned a bit as confusion took over.

When she rounded the next corner, it suddenly hit her. Standing in the doorways of the numerous practice rooms were her friends and coworkers; her family at this point.

Nina and Monet smiled brightly, as they offered her a red rose each, Nina reaching out to squeeze Yvie’s hand in reassurance. Yvie couldn’t stop the tears from springing to her eyes as she continued down the hall. Trixie, Jinkx, and Violet were up next, handing her more roses and winking knowingly. Then Vanessa, A’keria, and Dela, who giggled as she passed. Blair and Kameron gave her full body hugs and the last two flowers.

Then there was Brooke. The face of the company that had brought her and Scarlet together. The person that had made their dreams a reality.

Brooke pulled Yvie close and held on tightly. “You deserve all the happiness in the world,” she whispered.

And if Yvie wasn’t crying already, that would have done it.

She held onto Brooke for dear life, her mind spinning on her neck from the overwhelming feelings building up inside her. She smiled into the older woman’s shoulder and tried to channel the years and years of gratitude, adoration, and love into a simple embrace.

“Thank you.”

It was two simple words.

But Brooke knew.

She always knew.

She pulled back to give Yvie a once over, smiling softly as she moved a piece of hair out of Yvie’s face.

“Now go get your girl.” Brooke nodded in the direction of the rehearsal room.

Yvie giggled through the tears in her eyes and squeezed Brooke’s shoulders once more before turning to enter the last door.

Scarlet stood in the middle of the wide room, surrounded on all sides by rose petals and candles, smiling so brightly Yvie swore she had to squint.

Their eyes met, and Yvie felt so incredibly stupid for ever doubting her. For doubting them.

Yvie didn’t hesitate, she walked right up to her girlfriend and pulled her in by the waist for a kiss. Scarlet chuckled, taken off guard at first, before relaxing into Yvie’s arms, sighing happily against her lips.

“Yes,” Yvie whispered against Scarlet’s smile.

Scarlet pulled back just enough so she could roll her eyes pointedly. “Let me do my speech first, stupid.”

Yvie chuckled and nodded her head a second later.

“Yvangeline.” Scarlet smiled, “The day I met you I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Fear.” She swallowed, and Yvie noticed her hands trembling the slightest bit as she took them in her own. “I was scared because you made me want to open up in a way I hadn’t done in a long while. And you just showed up with your loud laugh and your weird style and I couldn’t help but fall for you.”

“Naturally,” Yvie cracked, making Scarlet roll her eyes fondly.

“You saw the good in me when no one else would.” Scarlet flipped her hair over her shoulder dramatically. “And I’m pretty great so I dunno how they didn’t see it.”

Yvie laughed to keep from crying. “You are.” She smiled.

Scarlet beamed. “So, my partner in crime, my one true love, my Yvie,” she said, taking a knee. “Will you marry me?”

Yvie didn’t even have to think before tackling Scarlet to the ground.

She was distantly aware of shrieks of joy coming from behind them, but she tuned them out, content to breathe Scarlet in and out for the rest of her life.

…

Brooke didn’t know what she was doing here.

She had taken time off, said she needed space and a place to regroup. But Scarlet had called her in a frenzy, pleading for her help and advice. Brooke wasn’t about to turn her away.

So now here she was, sandwiched between Nina and Kameron who were doing their best to collectively bite their tongues at her sudden appearance.

Scarlet, like any good stage manager, had walked them through the process, telling each person the precise place they needed to stand and the exact second they needed to poke their heads out. Brooke chuckled to herself that even during one of the supposed ‘happiest moments of her life,’ Scarlet still had to micromanage.

Pot meet kettle, her mind shot back.

Yvie of course said yes, and the rest of the girls surrounded the couple, drowning them in hugs and congratulations.

The group migrated toward the adjacent practice room that had been set up for the afterparty. Food and drinks and music began to flow freely as lively conversation ensued.

Brooke stuck to Nina’s side like duct tape, avoiding making eye contact with anyone who might ask her questions, specifically one young gorgeous brunette that seemed to be absorbed in whatever hilarious thing A’keria had said.

Brooke had said she needed time to put things in perspective. She had meant that she hoped time would make her feel less crazy, less out of control. A place where things weren’t so intensely overwhelming.

All she had found in her three days of leave was that her bed felt slightly bigger.

Nothing monumental.

No grand epiphany under intense stress.

No flashing lights or dangerous circumstances.

No near-death experience.

Brooke’s bed just felt too big.

The hole in her chest felt even bigger.

That’s how she knew it was love. Because it came in the form of something so painfully ordinary that it made Brooke want to scream.

Brooke was sulking in the far corner when Monet came by to steal Nina away for some “picture editing business.” And by “picture editing business” Brooke knew that Monet actually meant that they were going to go make out in Brooke’s office.

She rolled her eyes at the two lovebirds, but bit back a smile as they disappeared down the hallway, giggling like highschoolers. It was then that she caught Vanessa’s eye over the crowd of people.

Vanessa spoke to the group beside her, eyes never leaving Brooke’s, as she excused herself. She approached slowly, giving Brooke ample time to run away.

But she didn’t. Not this time.

“Hey,” Vanessa spoke cautiously, nervous energy rolling off her stiff shoulders.

“Hey.”

They both stared at the floor.

“Wasn’t sure when you was comin’ back.”

“Yeah, me either.”

The silence stretched out between them

Vanessa sighed. “Well,” she coughed, “I just wanted to thank you for everythin’.”

Brooke’s head shot up at her oddly professional tone. “What do you mean?”

“Nina didn’t tell you?” Vanessa looked surprised.

Brooke shook her head.

“I got an offer from another studio.”

Brooke’s heart plummeted to her stomach.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Vanessa breathed shakily, her hands fidgeting by her sides the longer she stood in place.

She let the information linger in the air between them for a bit, dousing the conversation with an even more tense air, before finally meeting Brooke’s eyes.

“I’m not gonna be in your way no more.” Vanessa smiled sadly. “You’re free.”

Brooke shook her head. No. No. This wasn’t right.

“Vanessa—”

The younger woman cut her off. “I appreciate the experience, Ms. Hytes.”

Brooke had only seconds to act, her brain taking over in a split second to stop Vanessa’s retreat. Her arm darted out of its own volition and she grabbed Vanessa’s hands in her own. It was an act of desperation, Brooke not willing to lose Vanessa. Not again.

“Stay,” she blurted out.

Vanessa raised her eyes slowly, her guard up. “What?”

There was that ever-present wariness lingering in the back of Brooke’s mind, but she shook it off and cleared her throat, desperately trying to get a hold of herself. “I’m asking you to stay.”

Vanessa’s eyes hardened and she went to shake her head. “Brooke—”

“Not as your boss,” Brooke clarified, accentuating her point by squeezing Vanessa’s hands, holding them securely, close to her heart. “‘Nessa,” she said softly, “I want you to stay.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Vanessa nodded. It was measured, unyielding. “I wanna hear you say it.”

Brooke shook her head, smiling to herself. Of course, Vanessa had to push.

The memory of their first meeting flashed in front of her eyes. All the unfounded anger and snarkiness and passive-aggressive words echoed in her ears. But so did the sound of Vanessa’s even breaths as she slept, her full belly laughs at Brooke’s endless list of dad jokes, her quiet humming in the shower.

Brooke found that in this instance, after everything it had taken to get them here, she didn’t seem to mind the pushing all that much.

“Because I love you.”

There was a beat of silence, just enough time for Brooke’s rational thinking brain to kick on and begin to spiral that she had misread everything and overstepped.

“You drive a hard bargain, Hytes.” Vanessa let the corner of her mouth twitch up. “But I guess I could stick around a bit longer.”

…

Katya had been standing outside the bar for nearly ten minutes now.

Trixie watched her through the sweaty window panes, sipping what had been rum half an hour ago but was now just melted ice cubes. She was stalling, swirling the water droplets in the bottom of her glass around in circles, attempting to get lost in this feeling of limbo that wouldn’t last much longer.

Katya hadn’t noticed her yet but had been checking her phone every few minutes for a text that wasn’t coming.

Trixie didn’t know how to do this right. Still wasn’t entirely convinced she wanted to do this in the first place. But Katya was looking more worried by the second, and Trixie couldn’t put this off forever.

She downed the rest of her ice cubes and didn’t shiver at the cold that traveled the length of her throat.

Katya looked up at her appearance, joy and hesitation etched into the clean lines on her face.

“Wanna take a walk?” Trixie offered.

Katya just nodded, the same nervousness persisting just beneath the surface of her skin. But she took Trixie’s hand in her own, much colder one; the younger woman fought the urge to shake it off.

“I read your book.”

Read was more of an understatement.

Trixie had devoured Katya’s autobiography in one sitting. She had poured over the pages upon pages of intricate details, funny asides, and heartbreaking losses. And at the core of it, she had found something so incredibly human that it burned in the back of her throat when she finished. Face wet, eyes sore, mouth dry, her stomach burning with the kind of ache that she had only ever heard songs about.

It was a mess. Chaotic and unhinged and tragically beautiful.

Tragic, because at the end of it all, Trixie knew for sure that she would never be able to compete with Katya’s home.

No amount of love she had for the princess would be enough to keep her.

“You miss it?” Trixie asked. “Russia?”

Katya quirked an eyebrow up at the change of subject. “Why do you ask?”

Trixie sighed and let herself come to a stop on the sidewalk. “I think you should go back.”

“What?” Katya exclaimed, eyes were wide in surprise.

“I think you should go home.”

“That’s not my home anymore. It never was,” she insisted.

Trixie shook her head, sad smile set in place on her lips. “That’s not true. The way you talk about it, the things you wrote… You talk about it like a lost love.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Trixie countered. “You love it and you miss it. There’s no shame in that.”

“I value my freedom too much to go back.”

“Katya, you have the opportunity to make a change over there. Your people are waiting for you!”

“They aren’t my people!” Katya exclaimed. “They are just people. And I don’t even know them. They don’t even know me. How the hell am I supposed to lead people I don’t know?”

“The way you do everything else. With unbridled passion.”

Katya looked back at her, shoulders set, eyes wild, lips turned up at the sides. She looked… impressed.

“You know you have to go back.”

“I know.” Katya laughed, loud and brazen and full of so much sadness that Trixie’s heart nearly gave out at the sound. “I just wanted a chance to live a little first.”

“And how was it?” Trixie smiled sadly, pulling Katya closer, their fingers intertwining loosely.

“Oh, it was wonderful,” Katya said wistfully, her eyes never once leaving Trixie’s. “I only wish we had more time.”

Trixie nodded, eyes watering of their own volition. Katya shook her head slightly as she wiped away the tears at the corners of Trixie’s eyes.

They stood like that in the middle of the sidewalk, holding each other, for an immeasurable amount of time. Breathing in and out for as long as they could stand it.

Eventually, Trixie’s legs tired and her arms ached and she felt the alcohol in her system fade to nothingness.

She was the first to pull away.

Words failed her at that moment as she stared into the eyes of this woman, the princess of Russia, this crazy fucking woman that had turned her world upside down.

Luckily she didn’t have to think of what to say.

“I won’t forget you, myshka.” Katya whispered in the small space

Trixie shook her head. “Me either.”

…

On the Uber ride back to the studio, Trixie unlocked her phone to find three missed calls and twenty-some texts, half being pictures of Brooke and Vanjie sucking face at Yvie and Scarlet’s engagement party. Trixie chuckled to herself.

About time, she thought.

Trixie thanked her driver with a generous tip and watched until his car disappeared into the bustling city traffic of the night.

She turned back toward the familiar building, her suddenly heavy feet making the trek to the propped door that much slower. She let her mind slow to nothingness as she entered the studio, noting the music still playing clearly over the speakers.

She made her way down the hallway, tracing her fingertips along the framed photos on the wall. Their first night of shows as a company, their first-ever programs, their world tour announcement.

Trixie smiled instinctively at the memories, clear as the pictures themselves.

As she rounded the corner to the rehearsal room, she smiled that much wider.

There, spread out in a circle on the very expensive, very meticulously cleaned dance floor, was the entire cast of To New Hytes Dance Company.

They greeted Trixie with a collective squeal and before she could blink, she was pulled down into the circle and handed a cup of room temperature wine.

As Trixie surveyed the scene, she felt a familiar warmth pool in the base of her gut, one that lit her up from the inside out. The smiling faces of her friends filling her vision and making the hole in her chest feel just a bit fuller.

When everyone had a cup, Yvie attempted to clear her throat loudly. It only resulted in setting herself off into a coughing fit and causing the rest of the girls to fall into raucous laughter.

After the noise died down, Yvie tried again.

“To old friends!” She hollered.

“To fresh starts!” Scarlet called.

“To New Hytes!” Trixie cheered.

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mikeywheeler-kincare · 4 years

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Alright! Had to open notepad for this one. For the self-isolation asks, emojis 🎯💡and 🎟️. For the pretty word asks, words lover, galaxy, and honey. For the cat asks, words tabby, siamese, munchkin, ragdoll, and maine coone! - Blaire (I need song recommendations can you tell? lmao)

OOOO that’s a lot of questions!!! imma throw on a song so i can answer all these without my adhd trying to screm

🎯 if you could gain any skill instantly, what would it be?

aaa,, this is kinda expected for me ig??? but definitely the skill to draw good anatomy w/o reference--it’s so frustrating to be limited to poses that have been photographed!! i want to make intricate and weird stuff!!

💡 what hobby did you start doing most recently?

oooo!! okay this one’s kind of complicated--i’ve been playing piano on and off since i was like. really young . but i started picking it up more seriously (and by seriously i mean playing chords and shit to sing along to) very recently and i believe that’s my most recent hobby, unless my divination stuff counts--bc that’s a bit more recent!

🎟 what are some artists/bands whose music brings back childhood memories for you?

OH BOY UR JUST ASKING FOR ALL THE EMO BANDS LMAO,, okay but for real, it’s not all emo bands. all time low is the first one to come to mind, but as a kid i was also a huge taylor swift fan (and i still love her music, it’s more of a guilty pleasure now tho,,)--and like anything from before the 90s brings back childhood memories of my mom trying to force me to listen to it!! i hated it back then, but now i’ve gained a new appreciation for all sorts of music, and the only thing i don’t really like is certain jazz singers,, don’t really know any names LMAO but i really do recommend all time low if you wanna listen to some music!!! my fav songs by them are dancing with a wolf and remembering sunday!

lover: what’s your favourite song?

oh this changes like every 10 seconds i’m not gonna lie--but at the moment it’s a russian song!! i’ll just drop the spotify link:: > click me !

galaxy: your favourite and least favourite films?

OH THAT’S A HARD ONE,,, i don’t watch a lot of movies/films,,, but i think my favorites have to be the it movies from 2017 and 2019 (so chapter 1 and chapter 2) [and generally anything that finn wolfhard stars in ? he’s fuckin amazingngngngngng he’s actually my special interest rn ,,,] and,, a least favorite would probably be um,,, poltergeist i guess? i love horror movies but i fell asleep watching it when i was younger and it never really interested me!!

honey: what’s your favourite memory?

OMG my favorite memory is totally breaking my arm about a year ago!! the whole experience was so surreal, and it was fuckin hilarious!! i don’t wanna post the whole story here since this post is getting,, really long but. if you wanna hear abt that just inbox me again and i’ll laugh my ass off typing it all up!!!

tabby: do you have any weird/hidden/obscure talents?

YES I DO--for one i can move my pinky toes individually, and on my right foot i can move my fourth toe as well (but not on my left?) !!! i can also do that thing where u stretch ur thumb all the way back OR forward (depends on which hand we’re talking abt) to touch ur wrist lmAO!! i’m also an avid horseback rider!! well,, i was before i broke my arm, but i do want to get back in the saddle!! there’s just a lot going on with the healing process right now, broken titanium plate and all that,,, will post abt that if you want me to as well!!

siamese: any tattoos/piercings? (if so: which? if not: which would you get?)

OOO LOVE THIS!!!! for piercings, i have an industrial bar on my left ear, and my lobes are stretched to 12g !! my parents said i can’t go any bigger til i’m an adult but i plan on going all the way to 0g, maybe slightly bigger? idk ! and i don’t have any tattoos yet, BUT i know my first tattoo is gonna be a treble/bass clef heart with a heart monitor line through it on my left wrist!! i want my second tat to be my favorite horse (and the one that broke my arm) running between the surgery scars on my left arm!! and then for a third tattoo, on my right wrist i want to get something to match with my mom. she’s got a dopamine molecule tattoo so i was thinking i’d get serotonin to match !! we’re avid psychology lovers,, and i also want a whole plethora of piercings (none of which are inappropriate i promise that sounds painful no thank u) but i can go into that later lmAO

munchkin: top 10 songs rn!

OOOO HELLA HELLA they’re in no particular order bc i’m so indecisive abt my favorite songs,,,

that russian song

i will follow you into the dark - death cab for cutie

boats & birds - gregory and the hawk

the bird and the worm - the used

you n’ i - rainlord.

i want you to want me - chase holfelder

every breath you take - chase holfelder (i live for his minor key versions of things don’t judge me)

murder - boyinaband (TW FOR THIS ONE IT’S SUPER MORBID I JUST REALLY LIKE IT HHH,,,)

prom queen - beach bunny

notice me - alli simpson

as you can see, my music taste is all over the got damn place but it’s alrighT LMAO

ragdoll: what’s something you wish you could like or get into, but you just can’t?

eee definitely anime and manga!! i’ve always been very intrigued by a lot of the plots and stuff, but i can never sit down and get really invested in it. and it makes me kinda sad, bc i’d like to add more sources to this blog,,!!

maine coone: do you have any strange/odd/obscure interests? (what are they?)

I DOOOOOO i’m both autistic and the adhd king (diagnosed when i was 5 for both of em) so i have plenty of fixations to talk about. some of the bigger interests of mine include finn wolfhard (but that’s not really obscure, lots of ppl love him), stranger things (also not obscure), and kin stuff in general (also not obscure)! BUT to get obscure, we have to dive deep!! i love psychology, i love poetry (and i mean like. really obscure strange free-verse poetry like i write that kinda stuff), and i’m particularly obsessed with wicca/witchcraft to the point where i’ve even become a baby witch!! i feel very connected to everything i’ve been doing with that, and i even got over a crush and rejection duo by making myself a sigil that i kept in my phone case for months! it’s,,, so much funnnn!!! divination is my favorite part honestly,,

anyway!! i hope this answered all of your questions, blaire, and i’m really excited to get more asks for these games!! this was seriously a lot of fun!!!! i love getting to know my followers and i love when my followers wanna get to know me !

thanks again for asking!!

- mod mike

#mod mike talks #not a request #ask game #long post

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birdlord · 4 years

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Every Book I Read in 2018

Again, better late than never??

01 On the Town; Marshall Berman - A freewheeling personal and general history of Times Square, which had some great historical tidbits I’d never read before. I think I would have got more out of it if I were interested in Broadway musicals...

02 Stephen Florida; Gabe Habash - A slim little book that follows a college wrestler. One of those books that is described as muscular, when what they mean is brutal.

03 Green Grass, Running Water; Thomas King - Four plot lines intertwine in a story blending mythology, creation, and modern First Nations people dealing with massive transformational change to their lands. I did sometimes feel like I would have enjoyed it more as an audio storytelling experience.

04 People who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman; Richard Lloyd Parry - I don’t often read books like this, but this is essentially a true-crime sort of story, about the murder of a British woman who works as a bar hostess in Japan. Parry covers not just her story, but the whole aftermath, which even pulls in Tony Blair, eventually.

05 My Brother’s Husband; Gengoroh Tagame - Weirdly, two Japan-related books in a row! Another culture-clash tale, when the Canadian husband visits his deceased husband Ryoji’s single-parent brother. The couple had never been to Japan while Ryoji was alive, and so the story of slow acceptance (helped along by little Kana’s openhearted curiosity) is suffused with sadness.

06 Ghosts of the Tsunami: Life & Death in Japan’s Disaster Zone; Richard Lloyd Parry - And, let’s make it three! When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I remember thinking that the reaction seemed so orderly, so...Japanese. But this examination puts you right in the various affected communities, following different people, including schoolchildren from Okawa primary. Like with the other Parry book above, we hear about all of the grief, ghosts and lawsuits that follow the disaster.

07 Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History; Rhonda K. Garelick - Once she became famous, Coco Chanel built a scaffolding of lies about her past, and the purpose of this biography is to attempt to see the truth behind them. Garelick concentrates heavily on Chanel’s collaboration with the Nazis, which must have been a challenge given that her company still exists, under her name.

08 Kubrick; Michael Herr - “They speak about the dumbing of America as a foregone thing, already completed, but, duh, it’s a process, and we haven’t seen anything yet. The contemplation of this culture isn’t for sissies, and speaking about it without becoming shrill is increasingly difficult, maybe impossible.” Whoa!

09 Call Me by Your Name; Andre Aciman - I did read this after seeing the film, so as usual it was hard to divorce it from the movie experience.

10 The Left Hand of Darkness; Ursula K LeGuin - A thought experiment about a genderless world, seen from the perspective of an off-planet envoy, who has a range of reactions to the world’s inhabitants. The most enduring section of the book involves a brutal 3-month expedition undertaken by the exiled envoy and a local, a trial by ice, wind and snow. A winter read.

11 Stamped from the Beginning; Ibram X. Kendi - I don’t think I’d really fully grokked the idea that southern white supremacy built itself in order to prevent an uprising of the black and white underclasses, together. The basic rubric of this book is separating American movements, parties and individuals’ thinking into one of three categories: assimilationist, segregationist or genuinely antiracist. Supporting results like abolitionism does NOT make one antiracist, since support could come those with less pure motivations. I highly recommend this one, though it was copy-edited in a pretty haphazard manner!

12 Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers; Barbara Ehrenreich & Dierdre English - A short book charting a couple of parallel stories, of women healers in Europe being dismissed as witches, and the masculinization of medicine (particularly midwifery and the medicine of birth) in the USA.

13 Her Body and Other Parties; Carmen Maria Machado - Short stories skirting the edge of a lot of genres; horror, science fiction, dark comedy. These are women’s stories, that refuse to be dismissed as chick lit. It didn’t connect with me as deeply as it has for some, but I see the appeal.

14 Look Alive Out There; Sloane Crosley - Largely comedic set of essays by a writer whose earlier work I read, about a decade back. It’s a strange experience, to return to someone who has written memoir that seemed to exemplify that late-2000s era and discover that she - and you - have grown.

15 Homesick for Another World; Otessa Moshfegh - Moshfegh’s choice of words (not to mention her characters themselves) remain utterly revolting. I often found myself looking up, shaking my head as if to say THIS BOOK. Considerably funnier than Eileen, which was the first of hers that I read.

16 My Year of Rest & Relaxation; Otessa Moshfegh - After reading this, I found out that Moshfegh basically set out to get her work noticed by populating it with these vile young women. Well, it worked! Your tolerance for unlikeable main characters will be tested by this rich Columbia grad who decides to prescribe herself into a virtual coma within her NY apartment, at the turn of the millennium. And yes, it ends where you think it does.

17 They Can’t Kill us Until They Kill Us; Hanif Abdurraquabi - This collection of music-related writing is wildly far-ranging, poetic and emotional. For myself, I did find I was more interested in those that were related to bands or musicians I had some experience with myself , which was not always the case.

18 The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully; Aaron Carroll and Nina Teicholtz - If you’re a reader of the food media, most of what’s in here will be familiar to you, debunking fears of meat, GMOs, gluten, MSG. The authors keep their own experience, taste and interests very much in the forefront, which ends up feeling smug and irritating.

19 The Mere Wife: A Novel; Maria Dahvana Headley - My knowledge of Beowulf is scant at best, but this retelling stood very much on its own two feet, set in a tony suburb and comparing the experience of two very different mothers of two very different sons.

20 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays; Alexander Chee - I’m very much On The Record as being against writers writing about writing, but this might just be an exception.

21 Vancouver Special; Charles Demers - A sort of update on Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass, a book I loved and reread many times. This one has both a more historical bent, and an actual political viewpoint, contrasting with Coupland’s Gen X remoteness.

22 Crudo; Olivia Laing - A rushing frantic little novel, incorporating Trump tweets and Kathy Acker quotes throughout. A difficult read so close to the events described, but I can see this being an amazing window into this weird time, once a few years have passed.

23 Hits & Misses; Simon Rich - This might also be on the line of “writers writing about writing” but Rich manages to do so in a charmingly self-deprecating way.

24 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the US; Jeffrey Lewis - Speculative fiction written as a government report, responding, as we all have been doing, to the endlessly unprecedented Trump presidency. It all started with a tweet, of course...

25 A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; Rebecca Solnit - This book is intended to counter the idea that disasters (“natural” and otherwise) lead people to indulge their worst sides. Solnit looks at the aftermath of some 20th C disasters like the Halifax Explosion, 9/11 and various earthquakes to find examples of people banding together to help the wounded and homeless, even taking the opportunity to create new institutions when authorities fail to do so. A tonic for a world in which disasters are likely to become increasingly common.

26 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them; Jason Stanley - When I lived in Scotland in 2010, I went to an anti-fascist rally in Edinburgh, and I remember feeling like those attitudes were closer to the surface over there, where at home in Canada they felt abstract. This book traces how fascist policies lurk within democratic frameworks, and can sometimes metastasize to take over the host. Suffice it to say I was probably wrong then, and I’m definitely wrong now.

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flawsomesims · 4 years

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Flawsome Sims 🦙 Masterlist

♜ Last updated; 01/10/20

♢ What is this?

I feel like I need a masterlist, with everything linked in one place, in a post, for mobile users. So, I went through and made a mega post with all the links and information you will need to navigate this Simblr! Please note that my Wordpress is always updated first and follows a schedule, but my Simblr is on random uploads in the queue! If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to drop me a message here or on the forums (both are linked below). Thanks! ^~^/

By the way, I decided only to include the link to wordpress for the ToC instead of the chapters. Actually, I might remove the ToC from the information posts and just update them here 🤔 Thoughts?

♢ Navigation;

Send me an ask on Tumblr~

Follow my main blog on Wordpress~

Say hi to me on the Sims forums~

Learn a bit about me on Wordpress~

See my Simlit Schedule on Wordpress~

Bookmark my table of contents on the Forums~

Origin ID; AnnoyingTiger888

See my text posts here~

See my non-sim posts here~

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♢ Series & Playthroughs;

Type: Journal/Simlit

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: Asylum Challenge

Warnings: Language, Mental Issues

Genre: Drama, Friendship, Mystery

❝ Aspen Winterbrook thinks she’s a pretty average young adult – she just prefers to spend her time reading rather than interacting with others. Being on the gloomier side of life certainly doesn’t help that and her parents are tired of waiting for her to change, so they send her off to EndEr ASylum * to get the help she doesn’t even need. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 / 02

Type: Playthrough

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: 100 Baby Challenge

Warnings: Language, Child Neglect

Genre: Slice of Life, Magic, Comedy

❝ Eden Kraus, a half-sorceress half-succubus, has big dreams of becoming the number one spellcaster in the world. In this world, the more kin you have, the stronger your bloodline becomes, so she undertakes the task of having 100 children to boost her magical prowess. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09

Type: Simlit

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: Completionist Challenge

Warnings: Murder, Chaos, Evil Sim, Cult Ideals

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Slice of Life

❝ Blaise McLoughlin grew up in an orphanage and then turned to crime when she discovered the infamous criminal, Jim Pickens. Now she’s on a journey to find him and keep his legend alive by creating chaos in his name! ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08

Type: Simlit/Playthrough

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: Avengers Legacy Challenge

Warnings: None

Genre: Family, Slice of Life, Drama

❝ Ronnie Marvello has two wishes in life – the first is to find his soulmate and the second is to make the world a better place. He believes that simciety needs more commonplace heroes that are just trying to do good in the world, so he’s decided to step up and fulfill that role. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01

Type: Playthrough/Commentary

Status: Completed (still uploading)

Challenge?: Black Widow Challenge

Warnings: Language, Murder, Cheating, Emoji Abuse

Genre: Comedy/Crack, Drama (if you squint)

❝ Mischief Westfall cares only for money, so when she’s provided the challenge of marrying and killing ten spouses to take their money, she leaps at the chance! However, when a mysterious man awakens feelings within her, her life will take on a whole new meaning. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26

Type: Simlit/Narration/Playthrough

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: x

Warnings: None

Genre: Family, Self-Discovery, Magic

❝ Betty Barlow has finally returned to her birthplace – the islands of Sulani. They welcome her back with open arms, but the islands are growing weaker each day. She must pick up where her mother left off and fight to return the peace to the islands before it’s too late. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01

Type: Simlit

Status: Coming Soon

Challenge?: x

Warnings: Language

Genre: Sci-Fi, Family, Conspiracy, Drama, Mystery

❝ Blair Wilson was raised by a single mother who told her that she had no idea who her father is, but her mother was full of secrets. When she dies during a workplace accident, Blair decides to join the military in order to cope with her death and, in doing so, she finally finds her father – his name is Trevor and he’s living in a place called StrangerVille. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 /

Type: Letters/Simlit

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: Pen Pal Project

Warnings: None

Genre: Slice of Life, Friendship

❝ Jennifer Plevins is a loner that finds it hard to interact with other sims. She lives in Willow Creek with her mother but she has big dreams of one day moving to San Myshuno to pursue her dream of being a bestselling author. For now, though, she is between jobs and hopes to use the pen pal project to make friends and grow as a person. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 (from: kc) (to: kc)

Type: Simlit

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: Legacy Challenge

Warnings: Anxiety, Self-Doubt

Genre: Slice of Life, Drama, Fluff, Family

❝ When her godmother dies, Jen Winchester finds herself without a home or a family. She leaves her childhood home in Oasis Springs to find solace on the island of Widenburg where she begins to build a life for herself and the generations to come. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11

Type: Playthrough

Status: On-Going

Challenge?: x

Warnings: None

Genre: Slice of Life, Mystery, Drama

❝ There’s one thing that Tonya O’Connell has wanted since she was a small child – to explore the world around her and go where no sim has gone before! So when she learns of a country called Selvadorada, whose dangerous jungles have never been successfully explored, she jumps at the chance to tackle the challenge and make a name for herself. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01

Type: Simlit

Status: Coming Soon

Challenge?: x

Warnings: Language, Arranged Marriage, Abusive Relationship

Genre: Crime, Slice of Life, Drama

❝ Tori Berges was sold to a big-time crime lord to settle her father’s debt. Now the fiance of Rhys Hastings, he forces her to enroll in the villainy course at Britechester University in order to keep up with his family. She doesn’t fight him because it’s a chance to get away from her new home, but she doesn’t want to be a villain. ❞

⌲ Information (wordpress) / (tumblr) ⌲ Chapter One ⌲ Latest Chapter ⌲ Table of Contents ~ 01

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♢ Short Stories;

Browse the Short Stories tag.

Type: Simlit

Status: Complete ✓

Challenge?: “Firsts”

Warnings: Mentions loss of pet, Spoilers for IABWB

Genre: Family, Fluff, Slice of Life

❝ Vilbert Straud never thought about owning a pet until his classmate brought his pet frog in for show-n-tell. Now he wants one of his own but living with Vladislaus as a father tends to make such normal things difficult. Can his mother convince the ancient vampire to allow a pet into their home? ❞

⌲ Read the Story on Wordpress. ⌲ Read the Story on Tumblr.

Type: Simlit

Status: Complete ✓

Challenge?: “Is there any particular reason you’re not wearing pants?” “The monster under my bed had a date.”

Warnings: None

Genre: Slice of Life, Family, Comedy

❝ Harley just wants to enjoy a few hours of peace while she listens to classical music and paints her worries away, but when her son announces that he’s going to the park without pants and her daughter wakes up sobbing, her day ends up doing a bit of a flip. ❞

⌲ Read the Story on Wordpress ⌲ Read the Story on Tumblr.

Type: Simlit

Status: Complete ✓

Challenge?: x

Warnings: None

Genre: Friendship, Fluff

❝ When Addi and Adrian meet under the cherry tree at the park, they instantly connect with each other over their love of anti-heroes and superheroes, but when Addi is forced to move for her father’s job, she’s sure she’ll never meet him again. A year passes and she has returned to her hometown. ❞

⌲ Read the Story on Wordpress. ⌲ Read the Story on Tumblr.

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♢ Monthly Simlit Short Stories;

Browse the MSLSSC tag.

Type: Simlit

Status: Complete ✓

Challenge?: “Family”, November/December

Warnings: None

Genre: Family, Holidays, Fluff, Slice of Life

❝ Shawn Perkins is a single father doing his best to raise his teenage daughter and, most of the time, he’s a cheerful guy just going through life, but when Winterfest rolls around, he finds himself feeling gloomy because he can’t decorate the house like the neighbors can or buy a bunch of presents for his daughter. Blaire doesn’t mind this, though, and teaches her dad a lesson about what Winterfest is all about. ❞

⌲ Read the Story on Wordpress. ⌲ Read the Story on Tumblr.

Type: Simlit

Status: Complete ✓

Challenge?: “New”, January ‘20

Warnings: None

Genre: Biography, Family, Slice of Life

❝ Meet CJ Bonnaview, a sim with a big attitude and an ego to match! He wants to be rich and famous with sims worshipping the ground he walks on, but when his father kicks him out, he realizes that life can be a real biotch. Learn even more about this spoiled rich kid in this short story/biography. ❞

⌲ Read the Story on Wordpress. ⌲ Read the Story on Tumblr.

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#sims 4 #the sims 4 #s4 #ts4 #sims #the sims #simblr #simlit #playthroughs #masterlist #flawsome sims #mobile

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migleefulmoments · 5 years

Note

"I was trying to think of an example of a couple who hate each other and still film hots scenes." On One Tree Hill, Sophia Bush had to act with Chad Michael Murray for several years after their divorce. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic played in love on Castle but in reality couldn't stand each other.

YES- Chad and Sophia. I didn’t know that about Nathan and Stana- I looked it up. Sounds like maybe nobody liked Nathan if this is to be believed (X).

I Googled “TV couples who. can’t stand each other” and look who came up as #1

1. Mark Salling and Naya Rivera, Glee

Noah Puckerman and Santana Lopez on Glee | AMC

Puck and Santana were hardly the romantic focal point of Glee, but their love-hate relationship certainly heightened the dramatic tension on the series from time to time. The same can be said of the actors who played the football player and cheerleader, Mark Salling and Naya Rivera.

The two reportedly got involved during Glee‘s first season — and the relationship didn’t exactly end amicably. After Salling began seeing other women, Rivera allegedly worked through her jealousy by keying and egging his car. Time definitely didn’t heal the wounds between the two, either. Salling was arrested in 2015 on child pornography charges, and in Rivera’s 2016 memoir she made a point to let the world know she wasn’t surprised at his abhorrent behavior.

3. Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush, One Tree Hill

Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush on One Tree Hill | The WB

Sometimes, when there’s a spark between two characters on-screen, that’s because there’s also something going on between the actors in real life. For One Tree Hill‘s Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush, that was the case — at least for a while.

While their characters, Lucas and Brooke, were navigating the rocky waters of young love, the actors also formed a bond. They dated for just five months before marrying in 2005, but the relationship quickly fell apart. In 2006, Bush filed for an annulment, which was denied, and the two later divorced.

After that, they were considerably more icy toward one another on set. While no specific reason has ever been given for their split, Bush later said that the two had “no business” being married to one another. Unlike their characters, who remained friends even after their split, Bush has no qualms about reminding fans that she and Murray no longer get along at all.

4. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic, Castle

Beckett and Castle | ABC

The love-hate relationship between Beckett and Castle was a “will they or won’t they?” for the ages. Unfortunately, Castle‘s two stars skewed toward the hate and not the love when it came to their off-screen relationship.

Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic definitely proved their salt as actors on the series, because according to most reports, they couldn’t stand one another. The animosity between them became so severe that Katic ultimately ended up leaving Castle. Despite rumors of their on-set friction, both Katic and Fillion remained professional in the public eye. Her representative denied the rumors that she’d left the series because of her dislike of Fillion, and he tweeted out a message of support to his co-star after her exit.

5. Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson, Gilmore Girls

Lorelai and Luke on Gilmore Girls | The WB

When it comes to TV love stories, there are few that have been as fun to watch unfold as Luke and Lorelai on Gilmore Girls. It was a slow-burn relationship, and one full of smart and snarky banter and a whole lot of love.

But fans might be disappointed to know that according to some, the real-life relationship between Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson wasn’t quite as rosy. Some reports claim that the two never entirely warmed to each other, a theory that Graham bolstered in a recent interview.

When asked if she and Patterson were best friends, she answered with a resounding “No.” That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re enemies, though — they’ve both dispelled those rumors. It just means that there’s a very firm line between fiction and reality as far as these two are concerned.

6. Charlie Sheen and Selma Blair, Anger Management

Charlie and Kate on Anger Management | FX

Charlie Sheen is no stranger to controversy, and his relationship with Anger Managementco-star, Selma Blair is no exception to that rule. They played rival therapists and eventual lovers on the series until early in the second season when Blair was abruptly dropped from the cast.

Rumors flew that her dismissal was Sheen’s doing, and that he was upset that she’d complained about his work ethic on set. Sheen swore that her exit was due to changes in the direction for Anger Management. Blair’s team, on the other hand, reported that she had learned she was fired via a text message from Sheen. Wherever the truth lies, it’s pretty clear that the Anger Management set was far from peaceful.

9. Jason Alexander and Heidi Swedberg, Seinfeld

George and Susan on Seinfeld | NBC

Seinfeld never shied away from introducing its viewers to characters that were equal parts engaging and annoying. Susan, George’s on-again-off-again girlfriend and eventual fiancé was more the latter than the former, but at the very least she kept things interesting in his life. That is, until she died after licking too many poisonous envelopes.

Fans may have thought her departure at the end of Season 7 was a bit abrupt, but it turned out to be due to the fact that Jason Alexander found it “impossible” to work with actress Heidi Swedberg.

It wasn’t a case of clashing personalities so much as different working methods, according to the actor. Nevertheless, he — along with other members of the Seinfeld cast — hated doing scenes with Swedberg so much that they asked Larry David to write her off the show.

10. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, The X-Files

The X-Files | FOX

For many TV fans, Mulder and Scully are about as close to soulmates as a fictional pair can get. And it’s clear that these days, actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson truly enjoy working together, given their commitment to last year’s series reboot.

But back in the ’90s, when the series was reaching peak popularity on Fox, the actors had a hard time even being in the same room. According to Duchovny, there was a point at which they were so sick of one another that they argued all the time and “couldn’t stand the sight” of one another. He chalked their contempt up to long working hours and the amount of time they had to spend together, and acknowledged that high emotions can come from just about any close relationship.

Follow Katherine Webb on Twitter @prufrox

Check out Entertainment Cheat Sheet on Facebook!

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fuzzballsheltiepants · 6 years

Text

The Forging of the Wolf, Chapter 20

So...this one has a little discussion of women’s rights, and a little PTSD-y flashback to the episode from Chapter 5. Nothing graphic, but I wanted to g ive fair warning. As always, comments, feedback, and reblogs are greatly appreciated! Tagging: @manoncrochanblackbeak @mylifeisafangirl @bluephoenix222 Read the rest: Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. Chapter 17. Chapter 18. Chapter 19.

It was the cramp in her lower back that woke Delaney up, and she had a moment of panic when she couldn’t feel her left leg. Bolting upright in the dark room, she realized Avis had fallen asleep on it, and she felt her heartbeat slow as the terror receded. Gently, she slid a hand under her sister’s head and slipped out from underneath her, shoving a pillow under her cheek before limping awkwardly out of the bedroom.

Maida was asleep on the couch, and she shook her head at Mikkal sprawled uncomfortably in one of the chairs. By the time she had returned from the bathing room, he was blinking blearily at her, and she sat down in the adjacent seat.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said quietly.

He shrugged and rubbed his face. “She was comfortable.”

Shaking her head, Delaney carefully lifted Maida off the couch. Her baby sister stirred but only to snuggle in closer as she carried her into the bedroom and set her down next to Avis. Then she pulled a blanket over the pair of them before joining them. She was too awake despite the silence that had settled over the city, and she watched her sisters’ peaceful faces and listened to their steady breathing until finally she was able to close her eyes and join them.

When the bed shifted, Delaney was awake and on her feet before Avis could finish untangling herself from the blanket. Maida also stirred, looking briefly startled by her change in location. Avis gave them both a searching look before heading towards the door but Delaney blocked her exit. “No,” Delaney said firmly. “You don’t leave until you tell me what is going on.”

Avis crossed her arms and flayed her with a look. “I’m not sure why you care all of a sudden.”

“I always cared,” Delaney snapped, done with Avis’s attitude, done with the guilt. “I wrote you, I wanted to get you out a year ago. Raedan tried to get you out too. So don’t give me that bullshit, and let me help you.”

“You can’t help me,” Avis said, and Delaney could hear the defeat behind the anger in her voice.

“How do you know that?”

Avis glanced at Maida, who looked back at her steadily. With a gesture from Avis, Maida wrapped the blanket around herself and headed for the door. Delaney let her past with a quick squeeze to her shoulder. When Delaney faced her again, Avis squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “I’m pregnant,” she said scathingly.

If it weren’t for the door behind her, Delaney would have fallen. A buzzing rose in her ears and there were spots in front of her eyes before she blinked them away. She took one gasping breath, then another. On the third, her head cleared, and with the fourth, she asked, “How?”

The look Avis gave her could have flayed flesh from bone.

“No, that’s…I guess I meant who?”

After a long pause, Avis answered reluctantly, “You don’t know him.” Delaney waited for a long moment for her to elaborate.

When nothing further was forthcoming, Delaney decided to cut to the heart of it. “Do you want to keep it?”

Avis gaped at her. “What?”

Delaney had thought she’d been clear. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said. Avis’s face had gone completely blank, and Delaney rushed to put a hand on her arm. “I will help you, I promise.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Avis finally choked out.

“Have you seen a healer?” Avis nodded confirmation. “And they didn’t…” Delaney blew out a frustrated breath. “There are herbs and medicines they can give you if you’re not too far along to force a miscarriage. If that’s what you want.” She still couldn’t read Avis’s face. “If you want to keep it, honey, I will help you in any way I can. It will be all right.”

Avis moved suddenly, grabbing Delaney’s arms with a bruising grip. “You’re telling me the truth? If you’re giving me false hope…”

Delaney shook her head. “I think it does depend on how far along you are, so we should take you to a healer and find out as soon as possible.”

“Today?”

“Today.”

It was hours later when they staggered back into the empty apartment, exhausted, with Cherise solemn at their heels. She had accompanied them as they sought out the healer that Ophelie from the bakery had used, and it had been Cherise, not Delaney, who had handed the healer the necessary coins. The healer had been kind and thorough and explained all the potential risks before handing over the small bottle. Avis had taken it from the woman with a shaking hand, and stared at it for nearly a minute before tucking it into her small bag.

Avis pulled it out now and set it on the table in the living area. Maida squeezed into the chair next to her, wrapping her thin arms around her. Delaney didn’t know how much of this Maida understood but suspected too much. All four of them stared at it as if they expected it to explode.

“What are you going to do?” Delaney finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Avis whispered.

When the light began to dim through the windows, Cherise stood up to light one of the lamps. The movement was enough to break the silent vigil, and suddenly they were all on their feet discussing what to do for dinner. Mikkal came in then and they crowded into the kitchen to cook. Cherise set Maida laughing, leaping back from the chicken sizzling in the pan as if she were afraid of it and adding seasoning with exaggerated movements. Only the fact that everyone’s eyes kept straying to the unremarkable amber bottle in unguarded moments gave any indication that Avis’ choice was sitting quietly in their midst.

*****

The collection of buildings was a surprise as they made their way down the mountain. Then again, each little village was unexpected out here. There were no maps that marked anything but the largest towns, so places like this were generally known only to locals and merchants.

Cathal scanned the buildings for a blacksmith. Blair’s horse had been dealing with a loose shoe for the past mile or so, and if they didn’t get it fixed he’d be lamed. He spotted a small house with an adjacent building with a forge, though there was no one in sight. They reined in their horses and dismounted to wait.

A few minutes later a young man, somewhere between Aedion’s and Cathal’s ages, popped out of the house. Taking in the four soldiers in front of him, he bowed awkwardly. “May I help you?” he asked, in a more muted accent than was typical of this region.

Blair explained the problem, and the young man took a careful look at the horse then grabbed his tools and pulled the shoe. It was bent and one of the clips had sprung, necessitating replacement rather than just resetting. As he was stoking up the forge, a wizened old man hobbled out.

“Get away from that horse, boy,” the old man snapped, “before you lame him for good.” He turned to Cathal and bowed deeply. “My apologies, sir, the boy’s not ready to shoe horses yet. I’ll take care of you.” With efficient movements, he trimmed the foot and began fitting a shoe under Blair’s watchful eye. Cathal, on the other hand, couldn’t help but watch the young man, who was red-faced to the roots of his mousy hair as he handed his mentor tools on demand.

After a few minutes, Cathal wandered into the building that housed the forge, casually examining the rows of farming equipment and horse shoes. In the far back corner, gleaming even in the dim light, were weapons. Fighting and throwing knives and stilettos, to be precise. He hefted a dagger and twirled it through his fingers, admiring the perfect balance of it. The hilt was not ornate but it sat comfortably in the hand. He tested the edge carefully with his thumb and studied the blood that welled with the slightest pressure.

These knives were far finer than his own, than any he had seen in the armory at camp. He looked back in the direction of the forge to see the younger man’s eyes on him, expression wary. Beneath the caution, Cathal thought he could detect a note of pride.

He continued his lap of the shed to the music of hammering as the blacksmith shaped the shoe. Hay was talking to the old man when speech was possible, leading the conversation skillfully to find out if he knew any rumors of a gathering of soldiers. Cathal left him to it, having learned that the garrulous soldier was their best bet at getting information without raising suspicion. Instead, he stopped next to the younger man.

“Those are some fine weapons your master makes,” he said, watching the man’s reaction, catching the slight flicker in his cheek, the hard swallow, the brief tightening of his hands.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the man replied, looking away.

His suspicions confirmed, Cathal turned his attention back to the old man where he was applying the shoe with efficient strokes of the hammer. Once finished, Blair jogged the horse up and down the street for a moment before the blacksmith declared himself satisfied. Cathal paid him and he disappeared back into the house, while the younger man began sweeping up.

“We’re looking for a weapons-maker,” Cathal said abruptly. There was a brief pause in the sweeping before it resumed with vigor. “We could use you.”

“You mean my master,” the man said quietly.

Cathal cocked his head. “No, I’m pretty sure I mean you. You’re the one who made those knives after all.”

There was tension in the young man’s shoulders as he attacked the hoof trimmings with unnecessary violence. “I’m apprenticed, sir.”

“If you weren’t, would you come with us?” Cathal held his breath while he waited, and at the slight nod went and knocked on the door.

Half an hour and a dozen gold pieces later, a bemused Conor Shaw was following them on a bony nag as Hay relayed what he’d heard from the blacksmith. They turned north as soon as the path allowed, Kemp cursing under his breath. Evidently a village on the western edge of the Allsbrook lands had been taken over by soldiers after the surrender. It was not twenty miles to the north, practically in Kemp’s family’s backyard.

It was early afternoon the next day when Cathal, Kemp, and Hay wound their way into a shallow valley and the pines on either side of them began to clear. They had left Blair and Shaw to camp back at the previous fork, on the off chance of a problem. As they passed a few houses and headed towards a square, men began stepping out into the rocky road behind them. All were armed and moved with a practiced aggression Cathal recognized, but he ignored them for now. He knew he was safe from these men, having the advantage of being on horseback. Chance hated having his bridle grabbed; should someone try to stop him they would get a hoof in their face in a hurry. It was why he had kept the horse all these years; it was how he had survived the last battle with Adarlan when Luthias had not.

They stopped in the square, Kemp on his left hip and Hay on his right, and waited. There was a chill in the air that had nothing to do with the gray sky overhead signaling an early winter, and his instinctive tension was proved justified as they were surrounded by several hundred men. When a grizzled man, graying at the temples, stepped up in front of him he recognized Colonel Millar.

Cathal had never been close enough to Millar to look him in the eye until now, had only seen him from afar at the head of a company of soldiers. Millar held himself with calm certainty as he stopped a couple of yards shy of the three visitors, one hand resting on his ornate sword hilt. He had fought under Orlon himself in decades past, and though age had no doubt slowed him some it had not robbed him of any of his strength of will. The steel in his eyes rivaled Darrow’s and set Cathal’s teeth on edge. He tightened his grip on his reins, earning a head toss from his horse.

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the jingling as Kemp’s horse chewed his bit and the slight rustling of the men around them. Finally, Cathal decided to break it. “I am Captain Cathal Rosach,” he said, as respectfully as he could muster, “and this is Allyn Hay and Tristian Kemp.” They all three bowed as best they could on horseback. Aedion had warned him to keep it respectful, to seek a joining, not a takeover.

“Cathal Rosach,” Millar said thoughtfully. “I think I remember that name.”

“I served you under Major Ward, sir,” Cathal clarified.

“Ah, yes, I remember now. I heard you had gone insane.”

Cathal could feel Kemp’s and Hay’s eyes flick to him and he bit the inside of his cheek before replying, “And I had heard you were dead, sir. I’m certain you know not to believe everything you hear.”

Millar laughed as his men shifted uneasily. “Well, what brings you to me, then, Captain?” The sneer on the last word had Kemp stiffening to his left. “Have you come to join?”

“In a way, sir,” Cathal said with strained politeness. “You may have heard that Prince Aedion Ashryver has returned to Terrasen.” Millar nodded, but all amusement had left his face at Aedion’s name. “He is gathering the Bane, and we are interested in joining with you to increase the strength of our forces.”

“Ashryver, the Bastard Prince,” Millar said, his voice dripping with scorn. “Ashryver, who is a pawn of Adarlan, is he not?”

Hay spoke up in his affable way. “He is an officer of Adarlan but not a pawn, sir.”

Millar snorted. “So you three have bought what he’s selling, eh? I’m disappointed some of my former soldiers could be so gullible.” He was staring at Cathal as he said it. Cathal stared back as impassively as he could manage.

“Perhaps if you met with him, sir, you would understand,” Cathal said. Chance tossed his head again and Cathal forced himself to soften his fingers.

“Meet with him. You want me to meet with a seventeen year old brat who according to reports has killed his own men in a fit of temper? He’s not a leader, Rosach, he just fancies himself such because Rhoe Galathynius pumped him full of his own importance for a decade. And I’m surprised, after what I heard happened to you, that you’d turn yourself over to him so easily.”

“Sir, I don’t know what rumors you’re referring to,” Kemp said before Cathal could respond, “but I’ve been with Colonel Ashryver for five months now, sir. I can assure you, he is indeed a man worth following.”

This. This was why he’d wanted Kemp, a serious-minded veteran, along with him. Cathal gave Kemp a slight nod before adding, “We’re not asking you to commit to anything, sir. But Ashryver has an idea for how to keep Terrasen losses from continuing, and we would love if you would meet with him to hear him out.”

Millar closed the distance between them, and Cathal angled Chance away, just in case. “I can assure you all that you have come a long way for nothing,” the colonel spat. “I won’t surrender my men to Adarlan. I won’t discuss anything of the kind with your precious prince. If he wishes to surrender to me, return with that message - and I mean you, Rosach - and then we can have a conversation. Otherwise, if he comes here, it will be seen as an act of war. Now get out. If you are not out of this valley in thirty minutes, we will kill you and see what Ashryver makes of that.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for your time, sir,” Cathal ground out, the words bitter on his tongue. He carefully reined Chance around, followed by Hay and Kemp, and the three of them jogged out of the valley the way they had entered it.

*****

Mikkal awoke to the sound of furtive footsteps, followed by the soft scrape of glass on wood, the light rustle of fabric, the quiet creak of a chair. Opening his eyes he could see one of the girls settling in, wrapped in a blanket. It was too dark to see her face, but the figure was too tall to be Maida, too slight to be Delaney. Avis then.

There was just enough light from the moon outside the window to earn a faint glimmer off the bottle she was holding. Not wanting to startle her or spy on her, he stretched to catch her attention. She stiffened and her head shot up, her eyes gleaming catlike in the dark. When she realized he was looking at her she started to rise but he put a hand up. “No, no, it’s all right, you can stay there.”

Over the past few days Avis had gone from pretending Mikkal was invisible to beginning to talk to him here and there during general conversation. Nevertheless he was surprised when she asked, in a voice so remote she might almost have been talking to herself, “Have you ever gotten a girl pregnant?”

He knew, of course; Delaney had told him about Avis’s situation, about her impending decision. “No,” he answered. “I told you when we met that I prefer men.”

“Have you ever bedded a woman?”

“A few times.” He didn’t know why she was asking, but he had nothing to hide.

“Did you tell her you loved her?”

“No. No, it was never about love with them, not for either of us.”

She snorted, sounding so much older than her age. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t tell her that.”

He sat up then, keeping the blanket wrapped around him. “Honestly, I never cared enough to lie.”

“Then why did you bed them?”

Mikkal had to think about how to answer that. “I…I wanted to see if I liked it. If I could like it, I guess.”

He still couldn’t see her face, but she was leaning forward and he could feel her eyes pinned on him. “You said…” She paused for a long moment. “Were…were you in love with Aedion?”

“Yes,” he said, unhesitating.

“Then why?” She must have felt his quizzical look, or perhaps the light showed enough of his face. “Why did you want to see if you liked women?”

“Oh. Oh, that was before I met Aedion. I guess part of me wished I could like women.”

“I don’t understand.”

No, he didn’t expect her to. Gods, she was so young, too young for this conversation. Too young to be sitting in that chair with an embryo in her womb and that tonic in her hands. He rubbed his mutilated hand over his face. He wanted to strangle the man responsible for this. “My mother…I suppose no parent wants to know their child will never raise a child of their own. She was always trying to introduce me to women. I hated to disappoint her.”

Another cynical snort sounded from the chair. “My mother never gave a damn. I’m not sure she’s even realized we’re gone.”

Mikkal shoved down another surge of useless anger. “Want some tea?” he asked, standing. She got up and followed him into the kitchen while he lit a lamp and started some water heating. He pulled out his chamomile-lavender mix and spooned some into his teapot. Once the water was ready he filled the pot, pulling down mugs while it steeped. Avis sat on one of the stools in silence, not watching him, just staring at nothing. He poured the tea and leaned against the counter as Avis wrapped her hands tightly around her mug.

“Do you want to be a mother?” he finally asked gently.

She started as if she’d forgotten he was there. “I don’t know. I’m not… I don’t want to be like my mother, you know? I don’t want to resent a child the way she does with us.”

Mikkal nodded, unsure of how to respond. After sipping his tea for a moment, he asked, “Then why not take it?” He gestured with his mug at the bottle now sitting next to her on the counter.

She picked it up and studied it again. “He said…he told me he loved me. He said I’d be an officer’s wife someday, his wife.” She looked up at Mikkal, such anguish in her eyes. “That’s why I agreed, you see. I wasn’t really ready, the other girls had told me it hurt and that it… changed things, and I wasn’t ready for that. But he said he loved me, and that if I loved him back I’d do it.” There were tears rolling down her face now, but she made no move to wipe them away. “So it doesn’t seem right.”

A lot of things didn’t seem right to Mikkal, so he had to ask what she meant.

“Getting rid of the only thing he ever gave me.”

The buzzing in his ears in response to that was so loud he didn’t hear what she said next. She repeated it hesitantly. “Was your mother upset?”

After taking several large mental steps backwards, he understood. “Only that Aedion and I were going to be separated,” he said, laughing a little at the memory, at himself, at his stupidity. “She only wants me to be happy.”

Avis didn’t say anything as she finished her tea, then got off her stool and went back to the bedroom. Mikkal returned to his couch, but not to sleep. The subtle ticking of the clock was loud in his ears as he lay and stared at the ceiling, watching the moonlight shift as the night drifted into morning.

He was making breakfast as the girls prepared for their day when he noticed the little amber bottle was gone.

*****

Marcra shifted under Aedion as Kelso came at him, sword swinging. The horse had obviously never been fought off of, and only Aedion’s iron leg against his side kept him from shying sideways. He pinned his ears but stood firm as Aedion blocked the blow and shoved back with force. Kelso’s blade dropped and he cursed, while Aedion gave Marcra’s neck a good scratch as a reward.

“He’s getting better, eh?” Gillies commented as he rode over. “He might never be as aggressive as your mare was but two weeks ago you couldn’t even draw a sword on him.”

Aedion grinned. He couldn’t help but be pleased with the gelding’s progress. “He’s coming along for sure.” They began another drill, asking Marcra to spin on his haunches so Aedion could attack on either side. As he turned to the left, he saw movement in the distance. Horsemen.

Calling a halt to the session, Aedion sheathed his sword and sent Marcra into a canter towards the newcomers. Kelso was right behind him, Gillies a few strides back. As they neared, Aedion felt a smile spreading across his face when he recognized Cathal’s horse at the front.

“You’re back early, you lazy bums,” he called, even as he took in the unfamiliar young man at the back and the grim expressions on his men’s faces. Once they got close enough for Gillies to identify them, he peeled off back towards the camp. Kelso remained, though Aedion wasn’t sure why.

Aedion fell in next to Cathal, glancing over his shoulder to the stranger at the back of the group. “You brought me a gift?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as he gestured.

Cathal’s lips twitched up, almost against his will. “I did,” he said, pulling a dagger and flipping it over to him. Aedion caught it easily and examined it, giving a low whistle at the quality, the perfect balance. “Not just the dagger, but the man who made it.”

“You’re kidding.” Aedion twisted in his saddle to better study the man. He looked utterly exhausted, utterly ordinary, and so young. Aedion wondered briefly if he looked this young to other people. He turned Marcra around and waited until the man and his underfed horse reached him.

“Welcome,” he said, nodding at the stranger.

The man quickly averted his eyes and ducked his head. “Thank you, sir,” he said hoarsely.

“This is a beautiful weapon,” Aedion said, holding up the dagger by the blade. “Where did you learn to make them?”

The man gulped, his face the color of whey, before replying, “My father, sir.” Aedion waited and the man seemed to realize he was supposed to elaborate. “He was a weapons maker in Orynth before the fall, sir.”

Aedion was pretty sure the man was going to faint off his horse if he kept talking to him, so he nodded and jogged Marcra back to Cathal. “Interesting young man,” he said.

Cathal gave him a sideways look. “Not sure you can comment on his age, he’s about two years older than you.” Then he laughed when Aedion cursed under his breath. “I’m sure he has quite a story, though we’ve barely gotten him to talk the whole trip.”

“We’ll give him to Raedan,” Aedion said, laughing himself. “He’ll talk, he won’t have a choice.”

“Now, that’s just mean.”

They rode through the gates and headed straight to the corrals and the finally finished stable. Aedion did, in fact, turn the new weapons maker over to Raedan for a tour while he dragged the others into the meeting room to meet with all the officers.

Nobody took Cathal’s story well. “I should have gone,” Aedion said, shaking his head, frustration flooding his veins.

“No,” Cathal snapped. “If you had been there blood would have been shed, and there is far too much likelihood that it would’ve been yours.”

A debate erupted then about the next best step and Aedion sat back and let it wash over him, though he couldn’t keep himself from drumming his fingers on his knee. Hay took a rare stand that going back to attempt further negotiations was a very poor idea, and even Dewar accepted that. Grant bemoaned the fact that he hadn’t gone personally, and Aedion advised him it wasn’t worth the risk, neatly ignoring that it was the same admonishment Cathal had just given him.

The meeting broke up, and Aedion remained behind to draft a letter to Adarlan. Cathal waited with him, though a quick look showed him sagging. By the time Aedion was sealing the envelope, gentle snores were emanating from the chair next to him. Feeling a bit guilty, he put a hand on Cathal’s shoulder, startling him awake.

“Come on, let’s get some food into you and then you can get some sleep.”

With Cathal staggering after him, they made their way to the mess hall. Raedan joined them shortly after they sat, talking before he’d even slid into his chair. “Boy, Cathal, if I hadn’t known your life had always been shit I would’ve asked you what lucky star you were born under.” Aedion kicked Raedan gently under the table but Cathal just looked confused. Raedan went on, grinning so widely it was a miracle his face didn’t split in half. “Conor Shaw.”

“That name sounds familiar,” Aedion said, at the same time Cathal said, “Yeah?”

“The new weapons master,” Raedan said to Aedion. “He said you’d know his father, Weston Shaw.”

An image of a wizened man with skin like leather and burns criss-crossing his forearms came into Aedion’s head at the name. “You’re joking.” Raedan shook his head as he chewed on a mouthful of bread. “You have to be.”

“Nope,” Raedan said as soon as he swallowed. “He just about pissed himself when he saw you.”

Cathal looked between them in confusion. “Am I going to get this story or do I need to drag it out of you?”

“Weston Shaw was my uncle’s preferred weapons maker,” Aedion said slowly. “Conor…he was always around the castle. You could say we grew up together, though really I only spoke to him a handful of times.” He shook his head, remembering tussles in the stables with the other boys after they had mocked him or Aelin. Conor was usually on the sidelines, always quick to break things up. He dug his short nails into his palm, irritated he hadn’t recognized him. He should have recognized him. “How the hell did he end up in the middle of nowhere apprenticing for a village blacksmith?”

“Evidently everything went to shit after the takeover. He didn’t say it quite like that, but…”

After Weston had gone to the butchering blocks, no doubt. It was actually a miracle Conor hadn’t followed him. Aedion felt like the floor was shifting under his feet, but he tried to rise anyway. Raedan grabbed his sleeve. “Leave him for tonight, brother.” It was rare for Raedan to call him that, and Cathal’s quick eyes looked between them. Aedion settled back into his chair, a thousand memories plucking at him as he finished his meal in silence.

Cathal stopped so abruptly when they left the mess hall that Aedion almost crashed into him. Raedan snickered behind them. “Sorry, I forgot the tent was gone,” Cathal said.

“You must be tired,” Aedion replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize before.” Cathal flipped him off and he laughed. “This way.” Aedion turned and led him to the newly finished house.

“What…no, Aedion,” Cathal said, stopping at the steps. Aedion turned and they stared at each other for a long moment. Grant approached then, murmured something unintelligible, and pushed past them into the house.

“There are four bedrooms,” Aedion said quietly. “Right now, Dewar and his wife, Grant, and I each have one, and one is empty. If you really don’t want it, I’ll put someone else there because we need as much space as possible in the barracks, but I’d prefer not to have to.”

He wished he knew how to interpret Cathal’s expression; it looked almost pained. But all he said was, “Why?”

“Because I trust you.” That didn’t seem to help whatever was bothering Cathal, but he followed Aedion up the steps and inside. Aedion pointed out Cathal’s room, which already contained the meager possessions he had brought with him from Orynth. Once Cathal had headed into the bathroom they shared, Aedion snagged Grant from down the hall and dragged him back to the meeting room. Raedan was there with some ale; Kelso joined them not long after; and they spent the next couple of hours batting around ideas about the Millar situation.

There was a bite in the night air when Aedion returned to his room; the camp smelled like snow. He could hear Cathal’s slow, regular breathing through the door, and used the bathing room as quietly as possible before settling into his own bed. He awoke in the wee hours as he usually did, and when it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep he lit the lamp and pulled out one of his books.

He hadn’t read much when he heard movement, and Cathal knocked once before walking in through the open bathroom door. “Sorry,” Aedion said, getting to his feet so he could turn out the light. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Cathal replied with a shrug. “I’ve been awake for a bit, and I saw your light come on.”

Aedion turned to face him, leaving the light on. They had slept in the same tent for months, but somehow this felt different, felt new. He wanted to close the space between him, but he didn’t know how to interpret the battle he could see in Cathal’s eyes as they ran over his shirtless torso. “I’m not sure what I owe you for not making me hunt you down in a blizzard,” he finally said.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Which of them made the first move he was never sure. Perhaps they moved at the same time. All he knew was the press of wind-roughened lips against his own, the feel of fingers tangling in his overlong hair, the warm solidness of that strong body under his hands.

He pulled back just for a moment to read Cathal’s face as he tugged gently at the worn shirt blocking his access. Cathal gave a small amused noise and yanked the shirt over his head. Aedion reached for him, sliding one hand around over the broad muscles of his back, the other up into the close-cropped hair at the back of his head. Cathal shivered a little under his touch but didn’t pull away. No, he leaned in closer until they were pressed against each other, all that careful distance they had always maintained vaporizing.

Desire roared through him when he felt Cathal’s response against his thigh, so fierce it bordered on need. So Aedion released him, stepping back slightly, before he could cross any unknown boundaries. He couldn’t help but grin briefly at the frustrated sound Cathal made, even as he bent to kiss him again.

“What do you want, Cathal,” he murmured against his lips.

“I don’t know,” Cathal admitted, shifting to press his mouth to Aedion’s jaw, then his throat. He stopped and looked up into Aedion’s face. “I haven’t…I haven’t been with anybody in a long time.” He paused, searching for words. “Three years.” Aedion reached up, cupping Cathal’s stubbled jaw in his hand, running a thumb over his cheek.

“I’m not in any rush, Cathal,” he said, ignoring the protest from his cock.

“I don’t want to stop,” Cathal whispered. His calloused hands slipped around Aedion’s waist, tugging him closer until they were chest to chest again.

Aedion’s own fingers began to explore, mapping out every muscle, every scar. “Can I touch you?” he asked, lips brushing the shell of Cathal’s ear.

“Only if I can touch you,” was his shuddering response.

That was all Aedion needed to hear. He backed towards the bed, towing Cathal with him, and then they were a tangle of limbs and lips and teeth. The throaty noise Cathal made as Aedion gripped him echoed in Aedion’s blood, setting him aflame. He was lost in him, lost in them, wanting more, wanting this closeness and heat and mixed panting breaths to never end.

A hand on his ass, sliding down, spreading him, shot a bolt of panic through him and he was up and across the room with a snarl before anything else had registered. The man - Cathal - got to his feet slowly, warily, but all Aedion could see was that he was between himself and the door. They stared at each other for a long moment, everything in Aedion’s body screaming at him to get out get out get out. “I need to go,” he finally growled. Cathal didn’t move. “I’m trying very hard not to hurt you right now.”

“I know,” Cathal said, voice cracking. “I know. But you can’t go outside like that.” Aedion looked down, startled to find himself still naked, still hard. Cathal crouched down and picked up Aedion’s pants, tossing them at him. By the time Aedion had pulled them on, a shirt had landed at his feet, and he yanked that on as well. Cathal stepped nimbly out of the way and Aedion was gone, down the stairs and out of the small house without being aware of anything but his own movement.

The cold air was a slap, and it brought him back to himself. Tiny snowflakes were falling, only to disappear into the grass that glimmered silver in the moonlight. The ropes he had felt digging into his arms were dissolving with each blink, each breath, until he was free. The frozen ground bit into his bare feet but he didn’t mind. This was real. This was real.

He heard a door open and close quietly behind him, and he could smell leather and pine resin. After several deep breaths, he turned, expecting to see pity or disgust or horror or guilt in Cathal’s eyes. Expecting something other than the flat pools of rage he found staring back at him. His breath caught for just a moment, not in fear but in recognition.

Cathal broke the silence first. “I’m guessing I have your lover to thank for dispatching the man responsible for this.” His voice held even more gravel than normal.

Aedion bared his teeth in his reply. “Mikkal killed one of them. I killed another one.”

“Another one.” The tension in his frame was building and he took a step closer to Aedion, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Aedion gave the barest of nods, not wanting to tell the whole story but needing to. “The third is still alive, as far as I know.”

“Three -” He broke off sharply, his swallow audible. “How the hell are you still alive.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Aedion answered anyway. “I was too sore to climb the watch tower.”

Cathal sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t what I meant, but thank you for the image. Now I have to figure out how the hell to get that out of my head.”

Aedion barked a laugh, surprising himself. The dead fury in Cathal’s eyes lessened slightly at the sound. “I should have told you before,” Aedion said, sliding a little closer. He remembered a small cottage on the edge of the woods, a healer with a light touch on his arm. Tell your lover, she had said. Only now did Aedion realize it was just as much for them as for himself.

Shaking his head, Cathal held up a hand as if to touch Aedion’s face then stopped himself. “I should’ve asked. I knew you’d been hurt, I just…it didn’t occur to me in the moment.” All the anger went out of him then, and it was like watching shed clothes drop to the floor, something human-shaped but empty. He turned away, arm falling to his side.

“No,” Aedion said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back. “Don’t do this, don’t walk away from me now.”

Cathal whipped around. “No,” he said fervently, pressing his palm against Aedion’s chest. “I’m not walking away from you, I thought… I thought you would want me gone.”

“Cathal.”

After a pause, he answered, “Yes?”

“Just…Don’t think.”

Cathal snorted. “If that’s your motto, I’m inclined to side with Colonel Millar.”

Aedion laughed and started walking back to the house, a sudden wave of cold exhaustion washing through him. “Come inside, before I get frostbite.”

“You really do take your own advice a bit too seriously,” Cathal said, evidently just noticing his bare feet.

Aedion sent a rude gesture over his shoulder as he opened the door as quietly as he could. Cathal hesitated at Aedion’s bedroom door until Aedion gestured him in. When the door was closed behind them, Aedion took Cathal’s face in his hands. “Will you stay with me?” he asked. “Just sleep, for tonight.”

Cathal’s lips twitched up and he stood up on his toes to caress Aedion’s lips with his own. “Only if you put socks on.”

When the sun came up a few hours later, Aedion woke up wrapped around someone for the first time in over a year. Cathal was already awake, or had never slept; his dark eyes were softer than Aedion had ever seen them. As his mind cleared, Aedion thought perhaps Cathal had been talking to him, there was a background of quiet words to what he remembered of his dreams. Gentle fingers pushed Aedion’s hair back off his face, then lips brushed his jaw before Cathal extracted himself and went through the shared bathing room into his own room. Aedion absent-mindedly touched the spot Cathal had kissed, feeling the small scar, the only visible mark he bore from that night.

*****

Cathal closed the door and leaned back against it. Gods, he thought he had cared about Aedion before. But now, after spending the last few hours listening to him breathe, feeling every twitch and jolt of his sleep, his warmth leaching through their clothes…

He had found himself talking, even knowing Aedion was asleep. Telling him the almost-forgotten stories from his childhood, from his grandmother before she had died and he had ended up on the street. Stories of fae warriors and kings and queens, tales of magic and forbidden love, legends of the forest. He didn’t know why, but the words wouldn’t stop falling from his tongue.

Three years ago he had awakened in an unfamiliar bright room with these same stories on his lips, and no knowledge of how he had gotten there. He still didn’t know how he had ended up here. How he had somehow ended up sharing a bed with Aedion after losing all right to that type of happiness so long ago. But it had never been like this, he had never felt quite like this. Never been quite so out of his depth.

He was in so much trouble.

#aedion #aedion ashryver #general aedion ashryver #the forging of the wolf #my writing #throne of glass #heir of fire #queen of shadows #empire of storms #fanfic #prequel #ptsd #allusion to rape #abortion #freedom of choice

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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“We Are Uncomfortable Being Uncomfortable”: Grieving During Covid-19

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/we-are-uncomfortable-being-uncomfortable-grieving-during-covid-19/

“We Are Uncomfortable Being Uncomfortable”: Grieving During Covid-19

Grief, often labeled as a “bad feeling” that we try to hide, is really just another part of the … [] human experience.

One of the things you might have noticed about our coping with the pandemic has been the Instagram-ification of it all. Sugar coated images that say: “Let’s bake bread and find ways to make the pandemic cute” or “Look, I am on my Peloton, I am doing self-care so well” fill our social media feeds, as if Covid-19 did not just surpass heart disease as the number one killer of people in the United States. They do this, perhaps, because it is easier to do something and try to cope, then to worry or to grieve. In fact, if we stop and admit what this experience actually is for all of us, it might be too hard to say out loud or really, to feel.

Nora McInerny, author of It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), creator of the Hot Young Widows Club, and host of the award-winning podcast “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” explains, “Right away, everyone wanted [the pandemic] to be something that it wasn’t. My social media feed was like, ‘this is how we’re making it fun and cute for us’ and like, I’m sorry, do you think our grandparents were like, ‘this is how I’m making this depression, cute?’ No. They were like ‘we are in a depression we have not eaten, you know, for several days.’” She explains that she once complimented a photo of her grandmother and while her grandmother thanked her for what she said, she also acknowledged that she was skinny in the photo because they did not have food at the time. Nora adds, “Our grandparents weren’t trying to life hack their way through a depression like, ‘here’s how I make content’.”

But, as Americans during Covid-19, especially for those with privilege, there is a desire to experience only those emotions deemed acceptable and good. As Nora puts it, “It is very rare that someone’s like ‘I don’t like that lady, she’s too happy’…No, No, No. People are like ‘I don’t like that woman she’s sad, she’s angry, it’s like get over it.’ ” Nora feels we, as a culture, have few acceptable emotions and grief isn’t one of them. We even like to pretend, as she points out highlighting our best selling book selections, that we can choose our attitudes and just “be happy.” She says, “It’s like, what if it were that easy?” We even try to look on the bright side of the more painful things in life like cancer diagnoses (Nora points to a book called Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich for more on this topic). News Flash: It doesn’t work.

Instead, Nora wonders what it would be like if we actually admitted the truth and said out loud that right now, during this pandemic, this is scary and no one knows what they are doing. We may all hate being uncomfortable, and feel like we should be using this time for some kind of self-growth, optimization, and even improvement, but, our actual goal, she says, is just to survive, and remain stable. She adds, however, that she does not want to negate people’s coping mechanisms, or judge them. She simply wants to highlight that while coping like this makes sense and she knows why people do it, it is often just a “a perpetual gaslight extravaganza.” She offers to remind people, “this does suck,” as often as they need it.

And, she is right, it does suck. Studies estimate that for every Covid-19 death, a person leaves behind 9 family members bereaved. This means about 2 million people in this country will be grieving in 2020 and this number will only grow. Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, an internal medicine physician and the founder of End Well which is hosting a free, virtual event called Take 10 on December 10th featuring celebrities and everyday heroes on this very topic explains, “The pandemic has created a collective grief experience that we have not yet addressed as a nation (or as a world). I’m not sure we even have the right words to describe what it is that we’re going through. In order for us to move through this experience and find a place of healing, we need to address this, normalize the sadness and the pain that so many are feeling and create ways to support each other.”

One way, of course, is to name it and say out loud what we are feeling and not sugar coat it at all. Another is to understand what grief is and when we are experiencing it, and then, normalize it and learn how to help someone through it. For additional information and for a community on these topics, you can also register for free for Take 10 and hear Nora, as well as Andy Cohen, Taraji P Henson, Blair Underwood, Maria Shriver, Soledad O’Brien, Justin Baldoni, Biden Covid-19 Advisory Board member, Dr. Atul Gawande and many others speak virtually on December 10th.

Grief Is Not Just Death

Nora McInerny is a reluctant grief expert who co-founded the Hot Young Widows Club, an online … [] support group for an endlessly growing group of people around the world who have lost, what she calls, their person.

Nora, who in 2014 lost her second baby to miscarriage, her father to cancer, and her husband, Aaron, to a brain tumor within six weeks, says that when she first felt grief herself, she assumed it was something else. She says, “You will assume that you are just ungrateful, you will assume that you are somehow defective, that you’re not grateful enough for what you do have, if you are somehow experiencing the loss of what you no longer have.” But, in a way, she notes, grief is really not something that you understand until it happens to you. Even then it makes people, including those you admire, become “a bunch of amateurs.” With grief, she explains, “We will all be absolutely new to it, every time we experience it.”

This is especially true as you can grieve much more than death. Nora notes that she always believed that grief could only occur with death and didn’t extend much outside of the funeral, when she thought the emotion ceased to exist. When someone told her that she was grieving her husband’s brain cancer, she became angry. She felt like calling those experiences and feelings “grief,” somehow cancelled out all of the positive emotions she was still having with him while he was alive. She says, “It felt like grief was a huge blotter that just sort of, I don’t know, stamped out every other feeling, instead of something that coexists with every other part of your life. I was absolutely grieving when Aaron was diagnosed, was grieving for our entire marriage as I watched him, you know, suffer, and I watched him slip away, as I watched our friends and our family live the lives that we assumed that we would also get to live. That is also grief.”

In the pandemic, loss of in-person school or graduation or other milestones like bat mitzvahs or weddings, can also be grief. Nora explains that with her four children (4, 7, 14, 19), they are all grieving different things, like the fact that they left school and didn’t return without warning. But, even if we want to draw comparisons between our situations or play “who has it worse,” there is no “worse” or “more important” grief. For example, you can grieve not returning to school and that doesn’t mean you are saying it is worse than her husband dying. Nora feels no good conversations include the words just, only, but, or should, and that you can feel anything about your own situation, without immediately comparing it to someone else’s.

She adds, “It is like the Grinchiness of American emotionlessness to say, well there’s just only so much sadness to go around and it got all sucked up, so there’s no sadness left for, you know, my seven year old who moved to a new city and doesn’t get to go to school and make friends. Yeah, there is. And if you imagine everybody is a seven year old, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t do it to yourself [and] you wouldn’t do it to other people.”

Grief Has No Right Way Or No Timeline

There is also not a right or wrong way to grieve and everyone experiences it differently. Nora highlights that this is true even if everyone is living through the same thing, like a global pandemic. When her husband died, she was grieving the way she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him in it, while his mom was grieving the loss of her only son, his sister, her only brother, and their son, his only biological father. She also didn’t realize she was lucky to have had a funeral or time at the bedside until Covid-19 made restrictions to the mourning process and she has heard what that has been like for people. She says, “I wanted to isolate and I did a pretty good job of it, but I did not appreciate how optional it was for me and for some people (whom she has met in her Covid-19 specific group in the Hot Young Widows Club) it is not optional and that is just absolutely wrenching.”

Grief also has no timeline. Just because you want to stop feeling sad or want your friend or family member to “move on” doesn’t mean they can or should. Dr. Ungerleider explains, “If we can get away from the idea that grief is a linear, step-wise process —we may better understand the fact we can’t speed it up and “get over” it quickly. Grief is often something that lives with us forever and ebbs and flows throughout life.” Nora tells a story of how someone in her Club wrote in a post, “When my son died, people said call at any time, I’m here for you, that was 7 months ago. I called 10 people tonight and it went to voicemail.” Nora points out that if people are fatigued of hearing about someone’s son dying after 7 months, that is heartbreaking as that is really no time at all.

In fact, she still grieves Aaron even though she is happily remarried and it was just his 6-year death anniversary. Still, she had to even remind her own family to reach out on the day of. She previously would have felt like they just didn’t care or she was messed up for not being “over it” by now, but, she now thinks differently. She also knows that people aren’t often malicious and they just assume that their experience of grief must be someone else’s. For example, her family had left her alone because they thought it would make her sad to talk about Aaron as it makes them sad to talk about their Dad. But, grief and how you want to cope with it just isn’t the same for everyone.

So, How Do We Help Each Other Grieve?

It can be really hard to know what to say or how to say it when someone is suffering or grieving, especially a death. Dr. Ungerleider says that even though physical in person connection has been removed, we can “still show up for each other in other ways and listen and ‘be there’ for each other.” We may really want to fix everything, which Nora has seen too, but, Dr. Ungerleider points out that we need to get comfortable sitting with someone who is grieving and recognizing that we can’t solve their problem. Nora adds, “If you can say to your friend, ‘I don’t know what you need, but I’m going to be here. I’m going to mess up, [and] you can tell me to fuck off and it’s okay.” That is what can help someone through it. She adds, “empathy is just having a good imagination.”

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disappointingyet · 6 years

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This is a list of my favourite films of the year. That sounds like a simple statement, but in some quarters the long-running arguments about what is and isn’t a film got very heated in 2017. Even the year bit of that can get very messy.

But for at least this one last time, I’m keeping things simple: these are the films I enjoyed most out of the ones that were released in UK cinemas in 2017.*

There were plenty of films I didn’t see: some I wanted to but didn’t get round to – Colossal is the one that stands out. Others I just wasn’t drawn to – Detroit, Dunkirk (give money to Christopher Nolan and he’ll only keep making movies) and the critically adored Call Me By Your Name (the super-annoying title probably didn’t help).

There were lots of movies I did see and like, though, and that’s what we’re here to talk about…

*This decision was made simpler because I didn’t love any of the films that Netflix streamed without even giving a token cinema release, which included Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) and Sundance favourite I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore. The best of the bunch was The Incredible Jessica James.

1. Manchester By The Sea

Back in October 2016, I wrote: ‘If a better film is released in the UK in 2017, I’ll be very impressed.’ Well, I have been impressed by the excellent movies below on this list, but none of them beat Manchester By The Sea as far as I’m concerned. In outline, it sounds like nothing special: a story of some grim stuff happening to a fairly ordinary family, in particular a bloke who likes to pick fights in bars and his teenage nephew. But writer-director Kenneth Lonergan turns the ingredients for a predictable drama into something very special, not least by lacing this grief-laden story with lots of (appropriately) funny moments.

Full review here

2. The Handmaiden

A lot of the films on this list are fairly light on plot, so if you want a movie with scheming, counter-scheming and deception, not to mention pretty costumes, sex, cherry blossoms, perviness (its 18 certificate is richly earned) plus differing Korean views of their Japanese occupiers, this is the one. It’s directed by Park Chan-wook, best known for Old Boy, and loosely based on Sarah Waters’ Victorian-set melodrama Fingersmith, which turns out to be perfectly suited to Korea in the 1930s.

Full review here

3. Certain Women

Resolutely low-key collection of three slightly overlapping short stories set in wintery Montana. It’s a character piece, with Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and (the excellent, previously little-known) Lily Gladstone leading each segment. Director Kelly Reichardt knows exactly who these women are, and how the place they live shapes them. It seems modest at first, but it stuck in my mind long after flashier films had faded away.

Full review here

4. Moonlight

So much of what I read about Moonlight made it sound so much less interesting than it is. Around awards time, you could have easily formed the impression it was a heart-tugging issue movie, not helped by the campaign to get Naomi Harris an Oscar (‘Look! Pretty woman getting grubby to play junkie skank!’)**

What makes it a remarkable film – and it is a remarkable film – are the extraordinary cinematography and the telling of the story via often fragmentary scenes, and how little is explained, at least until the much more conventional, even theatrical (and thus slightly disappointing) final segment. Great moviemaking is about the how, not the what.

Full review here

**The classic awards-season tendency to grade performances by perceived difficulty points led to people talking about Harris rather than the way better Janelle Monae.

5. The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki

Lovely, bittersweet based-on-real-life tale of Mäki, a small man who was Finnish boxing’s big hope in the early 1960s. It’s not really a boxing film, more a story about two decent young people trying to work out what they want. Which probably doesn’t sound like the most gripping core of a film, but it works. My favourite Finnish film of the year, narrowly shading…

Full review here

6. The Other Side Of Hope

Why should social realism be the only way of looking at problems like the refugee crisis? Aki Kaurismäki brings his taste for dramatic lighting, deadpan acting and vintage rock’n’roll to this story of a young Syrian braving bureaucracy and street racism in Helsinki. Less funny than most Kaurismäki films, but I found it very moving.

Full review here

7. Spider-Man: Homecoming

I’ve had enough of super heroes on screen – Marvel’s The Defenders on Netflix was the last straw. I’m voting for a moratorium on them*** and gangsters. So it took a lot to persuade me to see yet another Spider-Man reboot. ‘Don’t think of it as an action movie, think of it as a high-school comedy,’ said my friend Jess, and she was right. It’s nimble and funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously – the best surprise of the year.

Full review here

***I’m totally prepared to believe that Thor: Ragnarok is enjoyable in a bonkers, proggy kind of way, but I’m not risking it. Too many people insisted Captain America: Civil War was good.

8. The Death Of Stalin

After dealing with the (by comparison small) monsters of the Blair era in The Thick Of It, Armando Iannucci turns to the worst – by at least one measure – men in history: Beria, Molotov and Uncle Joe himself.

I don’t think by portraying the farcical nature of the days after Stalin’s death the film is disrespectful to all those who died. I think humour has always been part of how we confront the horror.

The Death Of Stalin has the best ensemble cast of the year – Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, Jason Isaacs giving the performance of his career as Marshal Zhukov, and – best of all – Simon Russell Beale as Beria. And, crucially, it’s definitely a film, not a bit of TV that has snuck on to the big screen.

9. Daphne

Essentially, a classic US indie movie transplanted from Brooklyn to Walworth. The title character is a pretentious and self-centred 30-year-old failing to get her life together – she’s just like women I used to meet at parties in south London 10 or 15 years ago. That could make for a dull film, of course, but the writing, the feel for the place and Emily Beecham as Daphne make it funny and involving.

Full review here

10. After The Storm

Once promising writer with a gambling problem becomes low-rent PI and uses his new skills to keep tabs on his ex. If you think you can imagine how this film goes from that description, you’re probably miles from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s typically patient, generous-spirited and occasionally funny family drama.

Full review here

11. A Ghost Story

Or that one with the white-sheet-with-eye-holes phantom. A Ghost Story is definitely a film you either buy into or you don’t, an austere tale about grief and loss. I did, and found it sad and moving and pleasingly different.

Full review here

12. Neruda

It’s a playful movie about a playful title character – the Chilean poet and dilettante politician during his dramatic time on the run from the authorities – but Neruda has a melancholy underlying mood that rises to the surface as the film goes on. It’s a smart, complex and entertaining film.

Full review here

13. The Florida Project

A group of small kids living in a low-rent long-stay motel have adventures and misbehave a bit. And that’s mostly it, with a few dips into the struggles of the mother of one of the kids, plus a sense of the endless patience and generosity of spirit of the motel manager (Willem Dafoe, the sole big name in the cast). What’s impressive is the way Sean Baker maintains a tone that manages to dodge both ‘look at what grindingly terrible lives poor folk lead’ and being a whimsical adorable-kids-running-wild picture. It does drag a little about three quarters of the way in, but the ending pulls it back.

14. La La Land

First it was an instant masterpiece that was going to change the game, then it was a deflating bubble as the haters managed to shout louder than the lovers. So which take on this nostalgia-soaked showbiz musical do I agree with? Well, there are problems with the film – mostly to do with director Damien Chazelle’s continuing attempts to foist his rotten ideology of music on the rest of us via his movies – but I think the people who were swooning were closer to the truth than the raspberry blowers.

Full review here

15. Lady Macbeth

Bracingly bleak and at times hard to watch, this is very much in the anti-heritage industry counter-tradition of British period dramas. It’s about the rebellion of a young woman against a grim arranged marriage in Victorian Yorkshire, a struggle that makes strange and grim turns. Unpleasant, but an impressive and memorable piece of filmmaking.

Full review here

16. Blade Of The Immortal

‘Blood-drenched’ would be an understatement when it comes to this gleefully violent supernatural samurai tale in which an almost unkillable ronin is hired by a young girl to revenge her father’s death. If it doesn’t match up to veteran director Takashi Miike’s kinetic 2010 masterpiece 13 Assassins, Blade Of The Immortal is still full of staggering set pieces. Not for the squeamish.

Full review here

17. I Am Not Your Negro

In a variant on the title of this blog, I’d describe this documentary as kind of unsatisfactory yet powerful. It’s got a curious premise: it’s an ‘adaptation’ of a book that was only vaguely started: James Baldwin’s look at the meaning of the lives and deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

The result is a slightly rambling wander through what Baldwin wrote and said about black lives in America. The clips of Baldwin on TV and at the Oxford Union are electrifying. The chunks of his writing are beautifully read by Samuel L Jackson in a warm, wise deep oak-aged voice than sounds precisely nothing like either Samuel L Jackson or James Baldwin.

Dropped in around the place are news stills from the last couple of years by way of saying, ‘Yes, Obama made it to the presidency, but otherwise things are still fucked.’ That’s a bit clumsy and crude. What makes the film is Baldwin himself – a great writer (I’m still annoyed that someone nicked my copy of The Fire Next Time in 1991) but also a figure who confounds our condescension of past times: here was a black gay man who was an international public intellectual in the 1960s.

Best old films I saw on the big screen

Scarface

Not every rapper’s favourite movie – this is the terrific 1932 original, a ripped-from-the-headlines account of the rise of a ruthless Chicago gangster that’s as electrifyingly urgent as current organised-crime dramas are weary.

Full review here

Un Flic

Jean-Pierre Melville, whose career stretched from the 1940s to ’70s, made some of my favourite films ever – Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samurai, Army Of The Shadows – and the BFI showed all of them in a splendid full retrospective this autumn. Of the ones I’d never seen before, my favourite was Un Flic, his last film, a bleak, minimalist film in which a laconic, sadistic cop (Alain Delon) slowly gets on the trail of a heist crew. Moody, stylised and very cool.

Full review here

The Cobweb

Over the top, and unashamedly so, Vincente Minnelli’s undervalued mid-’50s melodrama is set in a psychiatric clinic, has a great cast and a plot in which the choice of a set of curtains causes all manner of scheming, bitching and betrayal.

Full review here

La Vérité

An uncharacteristically meaty role for Brigitte Bardot is at the centre of this courtroom drama from Henri-Georges Clouzot. BB plays a beatnik girl on trial for murder, but what made her do it and can a patriarchal justice system treat her fairly? I suspect this felt dated when it appeared in nouvelle vague-era Paris, but it seems pretty relevant now.

Full review here

Salesman

Extraordinary documentary about a group of travelling salesman doing their damnedest to flog absurdly overpriced Bibles to low income Catholics in a late 1960s US where the Age of Aquarius most definitely isn’t in effect.

Full review here

And DYB’s films of:

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

#films of 2017 #Films of the year #movies of 2017 #2017 #manchester by the sea

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 7th July 2019

I have been cooped up sick for the past week so I am so glad I can have a pretty easy episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS this week, in fact, I have a really easy week ‘cause nothing really happened. I can pretty much play catch-up and that’s been great. I’ve even been more active on Twitter because of it. Anyway, time for another round of relatively family-friendly lame pop music ramblings.

Top 10

“I Don’t Care” by Ed Sheeran featuring Justin Bieber is still at the top spot for its eighth week and its only competition is the five other Ed Sheeran singles from his No. 6 Collaborations Project. Oversaturation is not a word Ed Sheeran understands, and I’ll get back to that when I talk about his second of three songs in the top ten right now.

“Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello is steady at number-two but Thog don’t caare

We have our highest new entry on the chart this week at number-three, the... third newest Ed Sheeran single from the project and by the time you’re probably reading these, fourth-newest (Seriously, Ed’s ran himself into a corner if he wants that mini-album bomb considering by now he should damn well know UK chart rules). It’s “Beautiful People” featuring Khalid, but we’ll talk about it later. It’s Sheeran’s 40th(!) UK Top 40 hit, and 24th Top 10 (That’s a pretty great ratio), and Khalid’s twelfth UK Top 40 as well as his fifth Top 10 (Slightly less great ratio).

Up a single space from the debut last week is “Crown” by Stormzy at number-four.

Unfortunately, that means he brought Lewis Capaldi’s “Hold Me While You Wait” with him up to number-five.

Oh, hey, it’s Ed Sheeran, I haven’t seen him in two spots. I was starting to worry about him – I mean he might be falling off. Sigh, “Cross Me” featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock is down two spaces to number-six. To be fair, I like this song.

“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus is surprisingly pretty stagnant at number-seven.

Mabel’s “Mad Love” is of course up five spaces to number-eight, and looking like a pretty promising Summer hit, as well as being her third UK Top 10.

“Wish You Well” by Sigala featuring Becky Hill is sadly up three spots to number-nine. It’s Sigala’s seventh UK Top 10 and Hill’s third (second as a credited artist).

Finally, we have the unfortunate rebound for “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi up four spaces back to #10.

Climbers

It’s not all bad though, my favourite song on the chart right now, “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey, meets the top 20 at #16, up five from last week, becoming his fourth Top 20 hit. Elsewhere on the chart, “Thiago Silva” with Dave has debuted at #56 despite being three years old because of a crazed fan at Glastonbury rapping the words (near-)perfectly, but that’s not in the top 40, so Alex’s 15 minutes of fame won’t get covered here. Dominic Fike also gets his first top 20 with “3 Nights” up six spots to #20, which is an incredible song too. “Strike a Pose” by Young T & Bugsey and Aitch is up five to #22 and “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy is also venturing up the charts, specifically seven spots, at #26. “Find U Again” by Mark Ronson featuring Camila Cabello is up six to #31 off the debut and “Location” by Dave featuring Burna Boy has a chance at a second wind up five to #34. Wow, these are all great songs. Sure, there’s nothing promising in the new arrivals really, and we can safely ignore “Mother’s Daughter” by Miley Cyrus getting a video push up seven placements to #33, but this Summer has some pretty great hits so far and I’m glad it does because otherwise my end-of-year lists would be dry as hell.

Fallers

Most of these fallers this week are also pretty bad songs so it seems to me that the rubbish we kept in Spring is slowly being pushed out finally, as well as some unfortunate losses and songs that debuted high but collapsed afterwards. That last category includes songs like “You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift down five to #15, “Bounce Back” by Little Mix down eight to #25 and “Mocking It” by JAY1 down eight to #27 off the debut despite an EP release. “Easier” by 5 Seconds of Summer stops wasting everyone’s time with its sloppy Nine Inch Nails sample down six to #37. Stormzy’s streaming cuts have finally cut the power of “Vossi Bop”, however, which is a great song, down a whopping 11 spaces, but thankfully only to #14, and the pretty good “Kilos” by Bugzy Malone featuring Aitch is down 10 off of the disproportionally high debut considering both artists’ current popularity last week to #30.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

My only response to this first drop-out is ferocious laughter, as Taylor Swift’s “ME!” featuring Panic! at the Disco has dropped out from #30 after a mere nine weeks on the chart and never hitting #1 or even #2, with a flailing single barely on the charts to save her album release from completely going under. In terms of other drop-outs, there really aren’t any to speak of, except more ferocious laughter, as “MEGATRON” by Nicki Minaj drops out from #34, which was its DEBUT. This means it’s below both “Shotgun” by George Ezra (A song that’s been in the top 75 for 67 weeks), “Thiago Silva” and freakin’ “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers (Which also re-entered outside of the top 40 because of Glastonbury)! Otherwise, we have some drop outs for UK hip-hop, as “Mr Sheeen” by Russ splash and Digga D is out from the debut at #28, and “Shine Girl” by MoStack featuring Stormzy is out from #36. They’re both not particularly great songs, but they had some promise.

We have one returning entry for once, which is “Giant” by Calvin Harris and Rag’n’Bone Man to #40 after it dropped out from that exact space two weeks ago. Sure.

NEW ARRIVALS

#36 – “Higher Love” – Kygo and Whitney Houston

Produced by Kygo and Narada Michael Walden – Peaked at #2 in Norway and #63 in the US

So, Whitney Houston was an incredible singer and sadly passed away at age 48 in February 2012, after a decades-long career being wrapped up in personal struggles that soon overshadowed her music, especially her marriage with Bobby Brown, cocaine usage, but still eleven Hot 100 number-ones to her name, including some of the most iconic hit songs of all time such as “I Will Always Love You”, and the novelty of being one of, if not the, first African-American female singer to appear on MTV. You all know that. Posthumous releases have been few and far between, mostly consisting of cash-grab compilation albums, reissues and box sets, but there have been four posthumous releases as singles before this, most of which are just from a movie she starred in before she died, including duets with Jordin Sparks and... R. Kelly. Huh. None of them charted, then in 2016, some Malaysian dude sampled her in a cover of a mid-1960s progressive rock song... and that leads to this. I feel I should clarify that this is a Steve Winwood cover (Mostly because he and his co-writer are getting all of the royalties off of this, not even Kygo is credited as a songwriter), since this was his first #1, featuring (uncredited) vocals from Chaka Khan, from 1986, but then Whitney Houston covered it in 1990 for the deluxe Japanese version of her third album (Which explains the Walden guy’s production credit). Somehow, Kygo found the isolated vocals for this deluxe Japanese bonus track (We needed that dude on the Clockman search, I swear – or maybe he just has trunkloads of money) and made it a tropical house song, and it’s actually pretty good.

This is Houston’s 32nd(!) UK Top 40 hit and Kygo’s eighth, and it has no right to be this good. You’d think Whitney wouldn’t be putting this much effort into a Japanese bonus track, but her vocals don’t sound strained or tired here, they’re just as beautiful as her biggest hits, you’d think she was planning for a single release. The lyrical content isn’t anything special but with the grandiosity of the piano and trumpets that build up to a relaxed vocaloid drop that seems anti-climactic until it hits you again with a much more epic drop, you can really feel how desperate Whitney is in the lyrics, even when mangled to hell and back in the vocal fragments. I have nothing to talk about with this song really, and it may be a tad overlong for my taste, but this is decent, especially considering Kygo’s recent efforts and this being a tropical house remix of a Steve Winwood cover that was released exclusively to Japan in 1990 – you wouldn’t expect quality out of this, let alone choir vocals in the second drop that really make the song feel pretty religious for... no reason, but I guess Winwood’s song was always up for interpretation and he must have given this the thumbs-up at the time. The dude’s never going to complain about free royalties from some EDM DJ, he didn’t back in 2004 when Eric Prydz did it.. which, by the way, had a video that even the Prime Minister at the time admitted to being aroused to—okay, why is Steve Winwood the person who I found the most interesting here? It’s a good song, let’s leave it at that before I go on an essay-length ramble about Steve Winwood, Tony Blair and Japanese Whitney Houston songs.

#29 – “Don’t Check on Me” – Chris Brown featuring Justin Bieber and Ink

Produced by Sheldon Ferguson – Peaked at #13 in New Zealand and #67 in the US

Alright, so, yeah, I’ve used all of my energy up for that first song because I have nothing to talk about for this one or the song afterwards. It’s Brown’s 36th Top 40 hit here in the UK, which is about 35 too many (Yeah, I liked his last one, “No Guidance” featuring Drake, and I’m not exactly proud to say that). It’s Bieber’s 45th (Holy moly) and this Ink woman’s first, mostly because she has never released solo material and doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. Ink sounds good on the song, but Bieber’s boring as he always is and Brown’s vocals are incredibly overproduced, especially for this tone of song. In fact, I’m not going to go in any more depth than I need to, and just leave you with this. This song is a stripped-down acoustic ballad fronted by Chris Brown. That’s all you need to know.

#3 – “Beautiful People” – Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid

Produced by Ed Sheeran, Max Martin, Shellback, Fred Gibson and Alex Gibson (Did this song really need this many producers?) – Peaked at #2 in Ireland and Slovakia, and #26 in the US

I always feel like the highest debuts each week are the ones I have the least to say about, but maybe that’s because I’ve heard discourse about them all week and I don’t care for them enough to go on about how the new Taylor Swift song misses the point of Pride Month or how Chris Brown is an abuser who made up with Drake after a year-long fued that ended anti-climactically, or how Lewis Capaldi makes me want to eat Kermit the Frog’s insides. This song I’ve seen little to no discourse on however, and that’s pretty telling when all is considered, considering these guys are the two biggest male singer-songwriters out right now, but I think maybe that’s because the song has little to no discourse to be provoked from it. I mean, the lyrical content is interesting, mostly because it’s about how Sheeran and Khalid don’t want to become have their perspective on life clouded by the money and fame... which is very convenient for these guys since that’s their whole appeal – they’re down-to-earth lads who sing over a couple guitar&B instrumentals despite being some of the richest entertainers on Earth, and while nothing can really tell me otherwise that these guys are genuine, I can’t help but to think the lyrics are less of a genuine message and more just fitting in line with the public appearances they’ve established for themselves over the past decade. It doesn’t help that the overproduced instrumental is stodgy and cluttered with nasal vocal samples over some fake handclaps, bumping 808s and... chanting vocals? Also, I’m pretty sure that Fred Gibson guy snuck his “Fred again” tag into this song as well, during a really janky part in the first verse? That means there are two Ed Sheeran songs with a producer tag. Huh, at least this one doesn’t have a PNB Rock verse. The hook is catchy but it breaks momentum with the post-chorus chanting that’s just dumb as hell, and I’m pretty underwhelmed with Khalid in comparison to Ed here, where it would usually be a complete wash, but I’m pretty sure that’s because Khalid doesn’t care enough about perpetuating Ed Sheeran’s image of “Haha, I don’t fit in with the current pop scene of flashy clothes and extravagant music videos!” First of all, that isn’t the current pop scene at all, it was in 2013 when Ed came on the scene but that has switched entirely, mostly to his benefit, and second of all, I’m sure Khalid has no issue at all with wearing a suit to a couple awards shows. He’s barely in his 20s for goodness’ sake.

EDIT: “I Don’t Care” does not have the “Fred again” tag. “Cross Me” still does, but I’m just glad Fred Gibson hasn’t put his claws on everything he touches.

Conclusion

What a shoddy week. Uh, Best of the Week goes to Kygo and Whitney Houston for “Higher Love” and while “Don’t Check on Me” isn’t really worthy of my commentary, I honestly think “Beautiful People” annoys me more, so sadly I’ll have to give Worst of the Week to Ed Sheeran and Khalid. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music ramblings and I’ll see you next week!

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jam2289 · 5 years

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Making Speeches for the Harry Potter Festival - Part 5 of ?

Potter in the Park is tomorrow. I'm going to go over a number of logistical issues (the boring part), and then the presentations themselves (the exciting part).

The woman that manages the event seems way overwhelmed. She started this thing a number of years ago and I think it's probably surprised her how large it is getting now. She kept telling me that she would answer my questions later because she was busy. That went on for a few months. For about a week now she hasn't responded to, or even looked at, my messages. So, I don't know if I can get into the event early, which is kind of important because early admission is at noon and I give a speech at 12:15, which is before the general admission at 12:30. I don't know if there is an MC or if I will get introduced. I don't know if I will have a handheld microphone or a headset. Basically, I have none of the information that you would like to have if you were giving a presentation at an event. But, I do like to have my presentations half set and half created in the moment, apparently the whole event is like that.

Since Rebecca never found out if the real muzzleloaders could be used at the event, I ordered and am bringing cap guns, but they are ones that look like classic dueling pistols, they look good. Since she never got back to me about if anyone is introducing me, or if I just wander up on stage at my time and take over, I should probably go in with the plan that no one is introducing me. That's probably for the best anyway. I'll obviously have to figure out the microphone situation when I get there. Hopefully the tech people will be on it, hopefully there are tech people.

I did notice that the schedule was released a few days ago. Here are the times for my presentations.

- - - - - - -

12:15 - Muggle Studies: The Great Gnome Conspiracy of the 18th and 19th Centuries

3:30 - Muggle Studies: A Short History of Muggle Dueling

4:45 - Muggle studies: Muggle Encounters with Dragons Through the Ages

6:30 - Muggle Studies: Further Research on the Many Uses of the Rubber Duck

- - - - - - -

I don't know how much prep time I get, and I don't know if there's any way to keep track of my presentation time while on stage. Good things to know beforehand, but since I have a lack of communication coming my way, I'll have to figure these out on the fly. (I wonder if all of the presenters are completely in the dark on all of this stuff, or if there's a list I wasn't put on, or if I was blacklisted.)

The world is full of logistical issues, but I do have a lot of things going well.

I inked my own tattoos and they turned out pretty well. Better than I expected. I have the Dark Mark on the inside of my left forearm (from my impertinent youth as a gullible young wizard). I have the Deathly Hallows on the back of my right hand. (I also have 42 on my left hand. I find it odd that no one has asked why. It's not from Harry Potter, it's the answer the ultimate question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I feel like someone will say something tomorrow.)

I carved my own wand, and it looks decent. It is definitely unique. I don't really need it for anything, but hey, I have it.

I have a bag of rubber ducks. They're for the presentation about rubber ducks. And, they're better than I expected. They just arrived today. There are six, and they are different sizes. The big one will be great for people to see from farther away, and they will all be good for throwing.

I picked up the LARP staffs and swords today from The Griffin's Rest in Muskegon. They will be used in the dueling demonstration, along with the pistols. I told Kiel to pick them out for me and just told him that I was doing a dueling demonstration at a Harry Potter festival. I assumed I would end up with normal looking staffs and crazy swords for some reason. I was completely backwards, I have crazy looking staffs and normal looking swords. I've been thinking about how to use that, and I think it'll work great.

I'm hoping that some people will record the presentations and send me the videos. We'll see.

I may try to get a chiropractic adjustment tomorrow after teaching and before heading to Sparta. I'm not sure I can fit it in though. I should get there early because parking is usually an issue in Sparta, and I'll have to store stuff in my car and retrieve it for my presentations.

Since I'm a professor, I can carry a notebook on stage, so I'll probably do that. I don't usually use notes, and in general I really dislike it, but it makes sense in this situation. It will be more difficult if I have to use a handheld mic, so I'll be flexible on that tomorrow.

Since we're assuming I'll be introducing myself I'll probably do something similar at the beginning of each presentation. I don't want to dive right into the main part of my presentation unless someone else introduces me, or a lot of people will miss the first line. That's the main difference between being introduced and introducing yourself.

I'll probably do something like:

- - - - - - -

My name is Jeffrey Alexander Martin. I'm a writer at JeffThinks.com. I am a visiting lecturer here at the Sparta Institute for Muggle Studies, the current Assistant Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the former Professor of Muggle Studies at Ilvernmorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is MUG 207 - Muggles in Real Life, and today we'll be going over...(depends on the speech).

Now, let me ask you this...(start speech).

- - - - - - -

Something like that. It will change in the moment, because that's how I like to do it.

Alright, let's tackle the speeches in order. Gnomes first.

- - - - - - -

Have you ever seen a muggle lawn gnome?

Just a few years ago - doing research door to door - saw a few of these weird little things and asked about them.

The real story - first used in muggle book in 1753.

1794 book "A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain. Volume the Eighth. Containing Pope, Gay, Pattifon, Hammond, Savage, Hill, Tickell, Somervile, Broome, Pitt & Blair."

Canto IV of "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope

Swift on his footy pinions flits the gnome,

And in a vapour reach'd the difmal dome.

Seen as magical by muggles, who caught them for various reasons. Hotly debated, some saw it as good, others opposed. Political meeting where fight broke out.

Small group launched a conspiracy to get muggles to think that gnomes were fictional creatures and to replace them with different kinds of wooden and stone statues.

Problem still ongoing. Muggle encounter with a gnome that I saw.

The next time that you see a gnome on a muggles lawn, know that there is more to the story.

- - - - - - -

I reserve the right to change any of this at any moment. There is a balance here to being between a professor and a speaker.

Next, dueling.

- - - - - - -

Laura in crowd.

"Have you ever seen muggles fight?"

Story of seeing muggle fight.

Story of starting research, connecting with a history buff that's a reenactor.

Call up Laura - Professor Whitestone, who teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The Griffin's Rest of Muskegon lent us muggle training instruments.

Staff - trade blows in kneeling position, Jeff down. (Only one written record of such a type of duel. Look at notes to seem like I'm reading instructions.)

Sword - classic kid's style, Laura down.

Gun - get the crowd involved. Back to back 10 paces, turn and fire. Split crowd, one half says pow and one half says boom. Jeff down. Laura comes to check.

Ongoing research is important. The next time you see muggles in an argument, ask them if you can watch them duel.

- - - - - - -

And... dragons!

- - - - - - -

Have you ever heard muggles talking about dragons?

First time I saw a dragon, fly over at quidditch tournament as kid.

First time I heard muggles talking about dragons, at least that I noticed, doing research on dueling, of course. Seemed like they thought they were real.

Did door to door research to determine what muggles thought of dragons. (When I found out about muggle lawn gnomes.)

Most thought fake, some thought real as an archetype. Explain archetype psychology.

George and the Dragon, what people know and what's real.

Specific organizations handle these incidents. Plane, boat, and car accidents. Example.

The next time you hear muggles talking about dragons, ask them if they think they're real.

- - - - - - -

Finally, the rubber ducks.

- - - - - - -

My first accidental encounter with a rubber duck as a child.

Reading Arthur Weasley's paper on "The Many Uses of the Rubber Duck" while in school at Ilvermorny.

A teenage adventure to try to observe a rubber duck in action. (factory and/or family)

What the research has revealed: humor, entertainment, child training in animal interaction, water transportation, distraction, possible growth into hunting decoys, relation to the rubber chicken, play as life preparation.

Questions fielded from the class. (Possibly hundreds of people from a large crowd in front of the main stage.)

Homework assignments.

- - - - - - -

Somewhere in there I'm going to throw some rubber ducks into the crowd.

I may or may not do homework assignments and questions in any of the presentations. That will depend on how the situation is going. If I get hecklers I will probably just take points away from their house, which will never be from the best house, which is Ravenclaw.

Well, that's the basic idea anyway. I'll learn a lot about how the event is going to go in that first speech. That should allow me to work out a lot of the logistical details for the later speeches. It's going to be pretty crazy.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

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jodiwalker · 7 years

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These Are the Best Things Happening on ‘Game of Thrones’ Right Now, Part II

Hey y'all, something bad is coming on Game of Thrones, so just real quick, let's remember the good times in episodes 3 and 4, when teenage assassins were reuniniting with their teenage ruler sisters and teenage psychic brothers. When Littlefinger was getting ragged on so hard. When Jon and Davos had nothing better to do than chalk up the cave walls of Dragonstone with little bitty zombie drawings to prove a point and flirt with Missandei, respectively.

There were Catspaw Dagger references for the most careful of watchers, Jon saying "I'm not a Stark" as a Targaryen dragon flies overhead for the mildly observant viewer, and there's Jon and Dany touching each other's wrists in caves for everyone else who's just like, I don't understand what's happening here, I've never understood what's happening here, I don't care what's happening here, but I will be here until it's all over and Dany has married her nephew, SO HELP ME R'HLLOR.

So, once again, this is not a recap, not a review, just a simple, definitive, and all-encompassing list of The Best Things Happening on Game of Thrones right now (which is to say last week and the week before):

Almost Everyone Playing the Game of Thrones Is a Baby-Child

It suddenly became clear in episode 3 that while the lead characters in Game of Thrones don't seem particularly young when they are commanding their armies and large, magic animals—when they come face to face in a throne room, they suddenly seem like two particularly formidable and hormonal teenagers facing off at a Model United Nations simulation. Except, y'know, one of them recently died and was resurrected by a thousand year old sexy priestess, and the other has a bunch of giant toddler dragons and, like, ended slavery, I think.

I'm, of course, speaking of Dany and Jon, the two most popular rulers at Westeros High. Now, since Kit Harrington and Emelia Clarke are each 30, you wouldn’t think they would seem that young…but they're also both, like, 5'1 if they're an inch, so when they first came face-to-face in episode 3, they more often resembled a couple of adorable Shiba Unus tussling over a Kong ball and sniffing each other's butts, instead of two rulers arguing over getting to save the world in the specific way they want to.

In that sense, their first meeting was a particularly precious reminder of how young they still are. Yes, all the GoT kids were aged up three or four years from the books at the start of the series, but Dany and Jon are still only 22 or 23 as they fight to save the world from heretofore unknown evils—and by that, I of course mean Queen Cersei making ever woman get her goofy pageboy haircut.

When Missandei announces Dany like one of Blair Waldorf's be-headbanded lackeys, Game of Thrones briefly turned into a Disney Channel Original movie, bringing along all the clashing dynamics of darkness and precociousness a DCOM denotes. You can practically hear Missy saying, "You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn, President of the Student Council, rightful member of the A/B Honor Roll, rightful owner of a used Ford Prius she got as a reward for said A/B Honor Roll, Haver of an Afterschool Volunteer Internship at a Veterinary Office, Breaker of Bullies, the Sister of a College Sophomore Who Lets Her Wear His Old Fraternity Formal Shirts So People Think She's Cool, Voted Most Likely to Play with Fire and Like It a Little Too Much, and the Survivor of a Particularly Bad Case of Strep Throat Last Year.

You scared yet Jon Snow, you creepy-loner-who-doesn't-know-he's-hot-and-smokes-cigarettes-behind-the-school-but-secretly-makes-all-As-and-has-a-heart-of-gold-Patrick-Verona-lookin'-ass, you?

If Dany hasn't stood up on the Iron Throne and tearfully choked her way through a rendition of the "10 Things I Hate About Jon Snow" by the end of all this, I will be shocked. Because, as we will discuss later, Dany doesn't hate King Jon (King Snow? No, that doesn't sound right, does it Davos)…not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

The Stark Children Are Happy…Well, As Happy As a Live Stark Child Can Be

Of course that's not even mentioning the actual children roaming around Winterfell with severe PTSD and a recently developed case of the huggies. Sansa's running the Stark show at Winterfell while Jon is away at Dragostone giving up all his weapons and doing arts and crafts in the underground caves, and in her time as a prisoner of various evil families, she seems to have picked up quite a knack for organizing grain supplies and commanding that leather be added to armor because the dipshits apparently haven't heard that WINTER HAS COME.

I thought Sansa would be cool for like an episode or two and then go back to being dreadful, but her recent transition from Little Sister to Big Sister inside the walls of Winterfell seems to be suiting her well. When Meera finally brings Brann back home and after dragging his 6'4 ass all over the North, she gets exactly zero sibling hugs because her brother died protecting Brann—justice (and a warm shower) for Meera—but the newly minted Three Eyed Raven gets a sweet embrace from big sister Sansa.

He returns the love by informing Sansa that now he can see everything that's ever happened in the world, including the worst night of her life when she was forced to marry Ramsay and he raped her.

Hey Brann, I know it's not your fault that Jaime Lannister pushed you out of a window, and your dad got beheaded, and Theon fake-torched you, all setting you on a fan-least-favorite path toward becoming the Three Eyed Raven but—you totally suck! Someone else can tell Jon he's a Targaryen if it means you having to be all weird to your sisters now that you're finally, gloriously, wonderfully reunited. In this extended high school analogy I've been drawing, Brann is the kid who took one philosophy class at the community college for extra credit and thinks he knows everything now. You don't know shit, Brann!

Okay, fine, Brann knows some shit, and is obviously intended for some higher purpose in this game of thrones or he surely wouldn't have been—quite literally—dragged through all seven seasons. I just wish that purpose was being a nice supportive brother to his super-survivor sisters, which brings us to…

ARYA IS BACK AT WINTERFELL AND SHE SPARRED WITH BRIENNE AND MAYBE THEY CAN GO LADY-ARMOR SHOPPING TOGETHER NOW, WHAT'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD?!

As it turns out, the already disparate Stark children have become even more contrasted with time and (grueling, awful, traumatic, painful, oftentimes unbelievable) circumstances. Sansa, who was a pretty girl who wanted to marry a prince, is now the Wardeness of Westeros' largest region with a keen political mind and a dude who would fucking love to marry her that she's constantly mocking. Arya was a tomboy who had a real good time at her afterschool swordsmanship lessons, and has since grown into a stone-cold assassin who cuts people's faces off and magic-pastes them onto her own face, then feeds those recipient of the face-cutting to his own family, and then also kills that entire family. Brann has turned from a boy who liked to ride horses into Westeros' creepy Miss Cleo, and also, he no longer goes by Brann, and also, is a pretty constant dick to the women in his life.

That all kind of made me love their reunions even more though. Arya saying, "Do I have to call you Lady Stark?" as her first greeting to Sansa was incredible. Sansa replying, "Yes," very much in the way of Old Sansa, but then turning around and hugging Arya and bonding with her about how much pain they've lived through and how everything they used to know is dead except for each other was even better. And Sansa telling Arya that "Brann has visions," in the same tone of voice you might warn a guest that your little brother has recently gotten really into making his own chainmail was EVEN BETTER. There was also Jon all the way over at Dragonstone being all "She's startin' to let on" when Tyrion says that Sansa is smarter than she lets on—love those two, sure hope Littlefinger doesn't turn them against each other and shatter my heart into a million pieces!

But simply the best was watching those three rough and tumble Starks wheel and walk their way back from the Weirwood tree and into their home at Winterfell, down a couple family members, not really sure of who they've become, and probably on the brink of being murdered by ice zombies, sure…but they're also together—three lone wolves restored to a pack—and, for now, they're alive.

Of course, it is hard to ignore all that side eye Sansa was giving Arya as she sorted that out that Lil' Sis super-duper was not kidding about having a murder list. But Sansa isn't on said murder list, and hey, she also once fed a dude to his (canine) children, so maybe this girl gets it. Maybe everything will be fine and once Jon and Dany save the world, they can all go in on a family beach house together and parasail on dragons. Speaking of…

THAS-A-MUTHAFUGGIN-LOOT-TRAAAAAAAIN

I've always thought of Weiss and Benioff as kind of cool young dudes who were surprisingly hot and surprisingly married to Amanda Peet (which I would want to brag about in Emmy speeches too, no shade). But for some reason, recently, they've started to seem more and more to me like kind of clueless dads who, were we ever to see their legs in the after-show interviews, would be wearing pristine New Balances with loosely fitted light-wash jeans.

I don't know if it's because I recently fell into a deep dark YouTube black hole where I watched clips of a panel where Sophie Tuner and Maisie Williams interviewed B&W and just keep making fun of them for being old (of note, Sophie Turner is really funny). Or if it's because they're quite literally getting older and making this show where they have to spend three million dollars to light 20 real people on fire in order to make it look like 1,000 fake people are being lit on fire has probably aged them an extra decade.

But mostly I think it's because now that they're out from under the shadow of GRRM they can stop pretending they're dead inside and let their TV pathos flags fly, and that alone makes them seem a lot less hard than they used to. Them talking about how Dany and Jon it's so obvious Jon and Dany have developed feelings for each in the cave scene was just adorable. Guys! They've had like, two conversations, and neither one has made a single inappropriate "bend the knee" joke which they obviously would if they were two real life 19-year olds falling in luv in a cave.

All this is to say that, I am so thankful to them for bringing GoT to my television, but truly, only two dumb dads could have taken this insane, explosive, dragon-fueled battle and called it…"The Loot Train Attack." Or as I prefer to call it: the mutha fuckin' LOOOOOT TRAAAAAAIN!!!

There is nothing that I can personally write that would make the battle where Dany brought dragons to a sword fight at the counsel of Jon any better than it already was, so I'll be brief: It is in episode 4 of season 7, at the end of the Loot Train—LOOT TRAAAAAAAIN!—battle, as Jaime charges Daenerys with a giant spear, that it became clear just how impossibly complex this web of character has become. It used to be impossible to root for anyone because they were all either evil or definitely going to die in the next episode exactly because they weren't evil. No more.

I had no idea who I would choose to live and die between Jaime and Dany. And that is perhaps unique to me because in this game of thrones, everyone can choose their own winner and we can all be simultaneously right and wrong. Just as the people of Westeros are born into certain houses, we all have our allegiances. But the time is coming for us to also make important choices, because things can only be happy reunions and convenient river dives and spare Sand Snake killings and flirty-cave-fun-times for so long. Sides will be chosen, alliances will be made, and main characters will start getting their heads chopped off again. Weiss and Bennioff might be out dads, but if TV has taught me anything—and it has taught me literally everything—it's that tough love is the most rewarding form of parenting.

And also that women always keep their bra on during sex—except for right here on H-B-O!

#game of thrones #game of thrones recap #loot train attack

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