#i made this one that looks fantastic from the exterior but inside it’s ridiculous. it’s a massive building and there are only 5 bedrooms

[fingertipsmp3]

Going to play the sims high, will report back

[jades-typurriter]

Taurniture

A fun little thing based on me and a friend Being Normal about ridiculously large plushie taurs, and some discussion about living plushies that are built for lounging around on.

“...Well, I got a fantastic deal on ‘em through the website!”

…

“”No, yeah, I’m at the apartment already.”

…

“No, I didn’t need help getting them here, it’s not like I needed to rent a EweHaul or anything, they just—some of the employees had to help me pack ‘em into the car.”

…

“Well, they were, uh. They were bigger than the listing made them seem.”

…

“How much? Uh,” you stutter, turning away from your cell phone and twisting to look at the backseat of your car. Staring back at you, vacuum-sealed up to its neck to save space, is a living plushie, its simple form constructed in the shape of a taur. It It was advertised on the big-box furniture store’s website as a “cushy companion”, a sort of halfway-pet-halfway-roommate who would find small ways to make you more comfortable throughout your daily routine at home. It took up most of your backseat, even when squeezed down by its packaging; when it was walked out to you in the store, it was at least ten feet tall from its paws to its upper shoulders, and a good deal longer than that from its chest to its tail.

“Yeah, man it’s uh, it’s pretty big,” you finally reply to your actual roommate. “We’re gonna need to make some room.”

…

“I mean, we’re not gonna need the couch for much anyway, with these guys running around.”

…

“Look, okay, I know the living room already wasn’t that big, but I couldn’t just say no to them!”

Looking once again over your shoulder, you lock eyes with the second plushtaur, curled up in the hatchback trunk of your car (it had blocked the entire rear window on the ride home).The clerk at the store had told you that these two had bonded with each other; adopting only the one would have been like separating members of the same litter!

…

“...”

…

“Yeah, they made me pay for the second one, too. But they gave me the same deal as with the first one!”

…

“Alright, dude, look, you don’t have to go all the way to name-calling!”

…

“Fuckin’, whatever, I’ll move all the furniture around to get ‘em inside. See you after your shift.”

Click.

Prick. It’s not like he was even paying anything for them! Sure, he’d probably have to chip in to feed them and clean them, same as any shared pet, but they’d be worth it!

You climb out of the driver’s seat and run inside to grab a pair of scissors—ordinarily a major bonehead maneuver, but you didn’t want to leave them stuck in the car for too long. You pop open the back door and slide the first taur out onto the sidewalk in front of your building, then scurry around to the tailgate and do the same for the second. Slipping the scissors in at the neckline (carefully, so as not to accidentally snip any of the cloth that formed their bodies), you carve them free of their plastic prisons, watching as they shake and stretch themselves out. The way they puff up, they look like dogs fluffing their fur after a bath and a blow-dry. It’s cute! You loved theseg goobers the second you laid eyes on them.

You make kissy noises at them, leading them inside and up the stairs (they squeeze up the narrow walls of the flights, but even with all the friction, this was WAY easier than trying to stuff them into the elevator). Unlocking the door to your apartment, you usher them inside (which is to say, you shove them through the door one by one, pushing with your whole body as though you were trying to wrestle a bounce house). They’re every bit as soft as they seemed on the website and in the store; honestly, you could take a load off standing halfway up, leaning against one of them! Their fabric exteriors are pleasantly fuzzy, and the foam underneath has enough give to really nestle into.

Shimmying past them, you move the couch and table to the walls of the living room, tilting them up on their ends to get the absolute most space out of the cramped quarter that you can. You whistle one of the taurs over and motion for it to make itself comfortable in the spot the couch used to occupy, and like a dog tamping down a blanket, it paws at your carpet before flopping over with all the grace (and the muffled whomp) of a beanbag chair. You scratch it affectionately under its chin, grinning as it leans into your touch, and clamber onto its back. It’s a bit more of a climb than hopping onto a couch, but it’s worth it: you sink several inches into its memory foam flank, like if a bed could pull you into a hug. Combined with the gentle rumble of a massive, purring animal, you had half a mind to take a nap right there!

You would have, too, if the plushie’s buddy didn’t decide that it would also be comfortable in that spot. Padding over the flattened bit of carpet on which the table once sat, it rears up on its two back paws (bumping its head harmlessly against the ceiling) and drapes its whole lower body across you and your bed-buddy. It would be an awkward position for a critter of flesh and blood, but with no skeleton to speak of, the splayed limbs and oddly-arched back cause it about as much trouble as being haphazardly placed on a chair might cause a pile of laundry. You briefly protest, try to scramble your way out of the affectionate avalanche, but honestly? It’s nice and warm between the two of them; the second taur’s body smushed atop your own is like a massive weighted blanket. Fuck it, you’ll get cozy. This’ll show your roommate, anyway—as soon as he sees how comfy you are in here, he’ll be hauling the couch and table out of here himself! Hell, the two of you don’t even need beds with these big fellas around.

Well, maybe you can keep the beds. He could’ve said it a hell of a lot more nicely, but they were gonna be expensive to keep. Keeping the mattresses around to feed them might save you a lot of money on plushie chow. At least, y’know, for about a week.

Screw him. Still worth it.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Put Me In a Movie

Keanu Reeves x reader (A/n- The past week has been hectic and tough, but we made it! Anyways, this may be the last update for this one for a couple weeks. Maybe. Finals are staring tomorrow, so I’ll only be posting things that I’ve managed to complete over the past two weeks or so. However, the exams are online and open book this semester, with way more time to complete them, so maybeeeee, I’ll sneak something in)

Summary Prologue  1   2   3  4  5  6

Warnings- Very, very slight smut

Chapter 7- Behind The Scenes

"And cut!" Jackson yelled, and after a minute of delay, Y/n along with everyone else in the scene stopped, some breathing sighs of relief, others diving straight into conversation. She'd been fretting against bindings on her arms and legs, though, upon his call, Y/n's muscles relaxed and a small group came to help out of the restraints that bound her to an old iron chair, which in actuality wasn't that old, in an abandoned warehouse, which really happened to be a section of the studio decked to look differently. 

From the minute the last of the rope was undone, Y/n stood, stretching her muscles. She'd been sitting in the same position for an hour. Just then, Keanu came over, wide grin plastered on his ruggedly handsome features, "Don't tell me I missed you being bound and gagged?" He teased, low enough so they wouldn't be discovered. While she'd been tied up, much like your typical kidnap victim, Keanu had been in the thick of his fight scene just a few feet off.

"Just by a bit," Y/n teased playfully. She was about to say more when Jackson approached them, his hair a wild, disheveled mess as it usually was and his grey button up was wrinkled to match his skittish, eccentric persona.

"There are my stars," he grabbed their shoulders, "I just wanted to let you two know, whatever’s changed between you two, I’m loving it. The chemistry is fantastic! Keep going like this and people will start thinking that you’re actually a couple!” As usual, Jackson seemed to completely forget about social cues, walking off before either of them could respond.

“Its….almost….like we’re actually a couple,” Y/n cocked her head to the side, a teasing glimmer twinkling in her bright eyes. Slowly, they started towards the entrance, close enough so her shoulder would occasionally brush Keanu’s arm, though not touching intentionally.

“I know,” Keanu scoffed, shaking his head, “It’s wild,” he chuckled, holding the door open so Y/n could exit first. The minute they were both outside, Keanu took a quick look around, before hastily shifting until he’d had Y/n backed up into the outer, grey painted wall of the studio, his front pressed firmly to hers. He looked down at her, feeling himself react to her coy, sultry grin, “I mean think about it; a girl like you, and I get to do this,” Keanu’s hands skimmed up her thighs, slow enough so his touch would send tingles up her spine as it made his way to her hips, slipping beneath the hem of her tattered, light blue blouse.

“I know right,” Y/n giggled, standing on her toes, “A guy like you, and I get to do this,” her fingers tangled in the ends of his soft, dark locks, twirling them between her fingers as she reached up to capture his lips in a kiss that quickly became heated. “We’re gonna get caught,” Y/n mumbled against his lips when he reached for the button of her jeans.

“You started it,” Keanu accused, pressing his denim clad hard on into her.

“Well,” Y/n giggled between passionate pecks, “Why don’t we finish this in my trailer?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“So,” they were huddled on the sofa, basking in the afterglow of their pleasure, "We're gonna be off for a month from next week. Got anything planned?" That was actually Keanu's way of asking Y/n if she'd be spending any time with him. It was illogical, but some part of his mind was worried that what they were doing was exclusive only to Chicago.

They weren't calling it a relationship. At least not yet. It was as if they were scared to.

Y/n shrugged in his embrace, absently tracing circles into Keanu's chest. "I don't really know yet," she thought for a moment more, "I'm definitely gonna spend some time with my dad, maybe I'll fly out to see my aunt," chuckling quietly, she eventually added, "And I'm dating this guy, he’s probably gonna want me to spend some time with him too.”

“Sounds needy,” Keanu played along, his fingers tangled in the ends of her hair, his other hand splayed on Y/n’s back.

Y/n made a little sound of disagreement, “He’s more of a control freak, especially in the bedroom,” she shifted so Keanu could see when she rolled her eyes, the gesture completely exaggerated, and when Keanu smacked her ass, Y/n yelped in surprise, “Ow!”  Her shoulders shook as she erupted in a fit of giggles.

“What about your mom?” Keanu probed when the mood settled as they lapsed into yet another somber bout. Up until then, Y/n never talked about her mother, she’d mentioned her father a couple times, never by name and only briefly. But never her mother.

Y/n didn’t make any move to respond immediately and Keanu was beginning to think that she hadn’t heard him. Or perhaps she’d wanted nothing to do with the question. Though, Y/n eventually gave in, feeling the weight of her silence press down on them, “What about her?”

“You aren’t going to see her too?” Really, it probably wasn’t his business, Keanu was mostly sure that Y/n would tell him about her family life if she wanted too.

Shrugging again, Y/n maintained her facade of indifference and if there was any turmoil swirling beneath her exterior, Keanu couldn’t readily identify it. Of all the women he’d met, all the women he could never figure out, Y/n was by far the most difficult. She was an enigma of sorts. Maybe that was what had made her so alluring. She was so quiet and reserved that an air of mystery followed her like plumes of smoke signaled fire and her demure disposition was perfectly enticing, her obvious innocence making Keanu want to show her things. Ruin her even. But only in the best ways. 

Y/n was the embodiment of a paradox, the thought; the more she told him, the less he knew. And her silences were typically quite telling. Much like the one she’d just sunk into. Her relationship with her mother was clearly a sore subject, and Keanu was about to remind her that she didn’t need to tell him more than she wanted to when Y/n spoke up, “I’m not, we haven’t spoken since I was fifteen.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, cuddling Y/n closer. Again, he wanted to know more. Yet, he didn’t know if it was even his place to prod around; Y/n didn’t exactly come across as the type that wanted to open just out of the blue like that. Still, he felt compelled to put it out there, “You can talk about it, if you want ”

On his chest, Y/n folded her arms, propping her chin there so she could almost meet his gaze, “I don’t want,” she rejected, already disinterested in the topic, “So, what about you; what are you doing with the time off. Any hot girls to keep you busy?”

Chortling quietly, Keanu let his rough palms inch lower, reaching her thighs and urging her legs open, “Oh,” he cocked a devilish grin, “Just one.”

It had been a while since she’d been there, but still, Y/n knew the place like the back of her hand. Her father’s beachfront home on the Malibu stretch was the perfect reflection of contemporary luxury; thirty two hundred square feet of modern architecture situated on thick round posts, holding the house nearly four feet off the pale sand. When tides were high, water would invade the space beneath the house, and unless you were willing to wade through a foot worth of ocean, then you’d be stuck there until the water receded. 

Inside, large panes of glass, lightly colored hardwood and white marble dominated. Natural lighting filtered in from several places, though transparent walls and awning windows, negating the need for bulbs during the day and the view from the living room was spectacular; the vast blue was straight ahead, just past an infinity pool that hung daringly over the shore. 

An open floor plan allowed one to still see the sparkling water even from the small kitchen, which was nearer to the front door. Y/n and Roger had spent most of their evening there, preparing dinner together. Or course, it might have been easier to order in or maybe even let one of the house keepers do it for them, but cooking together was something they enjoyed. It made Y/n feel normal; in the kitchen she wasn’t a rising actress and her father wasn’t an acclaimed director. It was just a father and his daughter, most of the time floundering around a recipe that was far too complicated for their sub par talents put together. 

That night, Y/n was on pasta duty while her father sauteed scallops in a white wine sauce, both often referring to the recipes on their phones. “I think I’m doing this wrong,” he eventually admitted, when for some reason beyond comprehension, the sauce started to dry down without the shellfish taking on the golden color it was supposed to.

“Maybe you didn’t put in enough liquid?” It was no doubt more of a question than sage advice, and Y/n was too busy trying to finely chop a handful of parsley to pay attention to whatever Roger’s troubles were anyway.

“You’re right,” he hummed, grabbing the bottle of Pinot Gris next to the stove, pouring a generous amount into the pot, “Wine makes everything better,” he chuckled. Y/n just shook her head, rolling her eyes absently at his ridiculous quip. “So,” Roger began once he seemed to get everything under control, just as Y/n finished draining a potful of al dente penne pasta, “How are things in Chicago?”

What he really meant was; did you ever work things out with Luke and he who had never been named?

“They’re good,” Y/n started up her own sauce, trying to follow every direction to the letter, unlike like her father, who usually preferred to add his own touch, even if his culinary skill set was next to nil, “Filming has been lots of fun, I’ve been…..hanging out with….people,” just one person really.

“You’ve been hanging out?” Roger seemed surprised, if he knew his daughter as well as he thought he did, and without fail, he really did, he knew for a fact that Y/n wasn’t the ‘hanging out’ type. She’d always been more reserved, keeping an alarmingly small friend circle and almost everyone at an arm's length. There was only a privileged few that had seen her for the sweet girl she really was, with an overly sensitive heart and an open mind. Most people, the ones that didn’t really know her often, though she was stand-offish and too prissy to hold them in conversation. “Are these people real?”

Y/n’s dismay came in the form of a huff, contained in her throat and an annoyed rendition of the classic, “Dad!” Huffing again, she continued the task as hand, measuring out the right amounts of stock before pouring it into the pasta, following that up with a generous handful of basil.

“Can you blame me?” Roger took a lengthy sip from his beer, proceeding to lower the lower the flame on his burner, letting their entree simmer. When Y/n just scoffed, he continued, determined to wean what he wanted out of her, “So, did you ever work things out with Luke?”

For a minute, Y/n considered pretending to not hear him, but there weren’t really any disruptive noises, unless you counted the crashing of waves muffled by the walls. Besides, she’d just feel guilty about ignoring him anyway. “No,” she breathed reluctantly.

Roger nodded slowly, regarding Y/n curiously, “But you’re seeing someone, aren’t you?” 

Why’d he have to know her so well?

Well, there was no point in lying anyway. “Yeah, we’ve been going out for about two months now. He’s nice.”

“Yeah? Nice enough for me to like him?” Of course her father would want to meet that man she was dating. Curse him for being so involved! 

Y/n just shook her shoulders, wishing that there was a way for her to just slither out of that conversation. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of dating Keanu or anything like that, but she still wasn’t really sure of what they were doing. He’d never called himself her boyfriend, and she had even considered that she might be his girlfriend. It felt even juvenile to have to think about something as frivolous as labels, but for the first time, Y/n understood Luke’s desire to have them. Labels were easy and unambiguous. There was no toeing around the subject or wondering where you stood. 

But on the flip side, Y/n wasn’t even sure if she wanted Keanu to be her boyfriend. He was a little confusing, serious most of the time but humorous at others and she constantly felt like he was holding out on her, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And worst yet, Y/n didn’t think she’d exactly call herself ‘girlfriend material’, she was a little too self-concerned sometimes and found that she couldn’t always empathize when she was stuck in her own thoughts and feelings. Who wanted that for a partner? 

“Well?” Roger probed, awaiting an answer. Why was it so confusing? Because despite both their obvious flaws and incompatibilities, Y/n wanted things to work with Keanu. She thought she could want them to work in the forever kind of way, even if he didn’t seem like the kind of man interested in forever, even if part of her knew that she probably shouldn’t. 

“I don’t think we’re ready for that yet,” the mood changed and Y/n gave the pasta one last stir before turning the stove off, “We’re just…..”

“Seeing where things go?” He chuckled quietly, shaking his head, getting a couple dishes out of the overhead cabinet mounted to the wall over the sink, “Why are you young people always doing that? Seeing where things go? When I was your age, people dated for a future, for marriage.” Which was probably how he’d ended up with her mother.

At a loss for words, Y/n just raised her brows in unspoken annoyance as she took a generous swing from her own tinted bottle. She didn't really want to broach the whole ‘Keanu wasn't really her age’ part of her answer, "I don't know what to tell you dad. I'm just not looking for that right now," she shrugged, helping him with plating their dinner. Afterwards, he grabbed a couple of stemless wine glasses and Y/n grabbed a bottle of white from the refrigerator, following her father out to the balcony where they'd be having dinner.

 "What about him?" Their talk was starting to feel like an interrogation.

"What about him?" Y/n shook her shoulders, using the toe of her black ballet pump to shove the screen door open. When she saw the warning eye, scolding her sass, coming from her father's direction, Y/n sighed internally, relenting, "He's not looking for anything too serious either."

Y/n could see the worry in his gaze, nearly boring into the side of her head. Maybe it was the turmoil of her parents' marriage, maybe it was just her nature, but Y/n was proving to be repellent to stable relationships, not wanting to get too serious or go the whole mile. She knew that he'd probably blame himself for part of it, but she wouldn't. She'd cut that offender out of her life the second she could. They set everything down at the table that looked over the infinity pool and the ocean beyond. "Well, who is he?"

Ugh

Y/n was growing tired of the conversation. The less she gave, the more Roger wanted to know. Even if he hadn't been around a lot when she was younger, he always tried to be involved. Usually Y/n didn't mind, he was her go to for parental advice and a listening ear, but as of then, her dating life was a complicated mess and the last thing she wanted was for dad to give her a lecture on why she shouldn't be with Keanu. "It's the guy from Chicago," she evaded, "The one I told you about."

"I thought he didn't feel the same way?" He quoted. 

Pushing some food around with her fork, she shrugged childishly, staring at her glass, the chill of the wine fogging it over, "I guess I was wrong."

"You don't want to talk about this," he finally assessed, "But you know I don't mean to be overbearing, I just don't want you to get hurt again."

"I know," she nodded, "I won't," it was a baseless promise, Y/n had no idea on where things were going with Keanu, and it was likely to end badly, even if she was hoping for the best. 

Their silence stretched on for a while, but when Y/n broke it, she was adamant on shifting gears and getting them to talk about something else. "So, are you reading any new scripts?"

After a lengthy conversation about her confusing dating life, Y/n and her dad had spent the rest of their dinner talking about work. She'd left his place at around nine that Friday night, and after nearly three months of not driving on an actual street, she drove back to her place, a cushy condo in West Hollywood. 

Keanu had called and they'd talked for about an hour, in the end deciding that he'd come to her place that Saturday evening, just after sunset. And, as promised, he'd showed up at around seven, "Hey," he cocked a crooked grin, his motorcycle helmet chucked under his arm and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his dark jeans and his leather jacket zipped up. 

"Hi," Y/n pulled one of the heavy doors open a bit wider, wordlessly inviting him in through one side of the double entryway. The minute she closed the door and turned the lock, Keanu discarded his helmet on the counter of her moderately sized kitchen, just a few feet off from the entrance, laying his hands on her hips. He pressed a searing kiss to her lips, letting one arm circle her waist. 

"I missed you," he mumbled against her lips, his salt and pepper scruff rough and ticklish on her skin. As they lingered like that, Keanu tilted his head again, his calloused touch inching beneath the hem of her loose, cotton tank top. 

Y/n giggled softly, the musical sound muffled by his lips smooshed on hers, "We saw each other two days ago."

"Two days too long," he growled, tugging her closer that Y/n thought was possible. Really, he was right; in Chicago they saw each other every day, they had sex everyday. 

Y/n's hands skimmed the cool leather of his coat, sliding them upwards until her fingers were tangled in his ends of his shaggy, dark locks, tangling them around her little fingers, “You really missed me, didn’t you?” Y/n teasingly rubbed against his jean clad erection, smiling at how he hissed appreciatively. 

“Baby,” his husky voice was low and rich, the simple word making her feel things, “You have no idea.” Kissing her again, heated and hungry, Keanu pushed Y/n deeper into her apartment, just past a thick rectangular post, where the electronic fireplace was embedded and the television mounted above it. There was an armchair near the unlit fireplace, with soft white upholstering, complemented by black accent pillows, and as they reached it, Keanu slid his palms down the curve of her ass, hoisting her up in his arms. As he sank down into the chair, Y/n straddled him, eager to undo the zipper of his jacket before pushing it off, unabashedly moving on to undo the fastenings on his jeans. 

Groping her ass one last time, Keanu’s hands resumed their former task, traveling up the inside of her worn, grey top, his touch igniting shocks. His lips ravished her neck, probably leaving behind purplish bites and beard burn. Y/n ground in Keanu’s lap, moaning eagerly when he reached around to fondle her unrestrained breasts. Clumsily, she reached between them to free his hardened cock, when a startled obscenity erupting from near the kitchen interrupted them. 

Keanu’s hold on her boobs was still firm as sirens went off in Y/n’s head. “Dad!” Y/n shrieked, more horrified than she’d ever been.

“What?” Keanu furrowed his brows, confused at her alarm, and why she’d stopped. Turning and craning his head to see who she was seeing, his eyes went wide, his jaw hanging slack. Just when he thought a situation couldn’t get much worse than sleeping with a woman and then having brunch with her and her boyfriend, Keanu was reminded that it always could. An uncomfortable and awkward brunch was certainly better than getting caught with his hands up the top of an old friend’s daughter. “Roger?”

“Keanu?” Needless to say, Y/n wasn’t the only one absolutely mortified with the situation. Almost immediately after, though still not nearly soon enough, Keanu dropped his hands, not really sure of where they should go from there on. 

It took another minute or two, but eventually, Y/n was scurrying out of Keanu’s lap, tugging at her tank top and loose, grey booty shorts. So much for hiding her somewhat complicated relationship from her father. Though, that wasn’t the issue hot on Y/n’s frazzled mind, “You two know each other?”

Red in face, Y/n stood, barefoot on the fluffy, off-white rug, unconsciously curling her toes into the fabric. Neither of the men made a move to answer and the sheer horror of the moment seemed to be mirrored three ways. Everyone was at a loss for words and tension was on a continuous rise; embarrassment, awkwardness and bubbling anger from at least one person. The room suddenly felt much smaller than it actually was, and though there was at least ten feet and one piece of furniture between Keanu and Roger, anyone could tell that whatever friendship was shared between them, wasn’t going to be there much longer. 

As seconds ticked by, and everyone processed what had just happened, it felt like time was passing too slowly for anything to make sense. Though, when the kettle finally whistled, the noise was piercing and what happened next was not what Y/n was hoping for. 

His face was beet read with anger and his fists were clenched at his side as Roger strode up to Keanu in long steps, “You’re fucking my daughter!”

“Dad!” Y/n screamed, and the rest of it was a blur.  

*****

Tagging- @harrisongslimited​  @paanchu786​  @thesadvampire​  @fanficsrusz​  @fickensteinn​  @ladyreapermc​  @babygirltaina​  @septimaseverina​  @snatchedbylele​  @omg-imagine @21stcenturyyfoxx​  @magnificentclodpiebanana @allie1804-fan  @keandrews @greenmanalishi​

[outranks]

Hello! For the smut prompts #53 👀

thank you so much for requesting, this was a lot of fun to write!! and I hope it was the right prompt bc the numbers show up differently depending on if I’m on mobile or desktop ;alsdk’a. so I went with “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.” ❤️❤️❤️

John Seed / Female Deputy

—

There are a lot of benefits to sleeping with John Seed. The fully stocked kitchen is one of them, the water pressure in his ridiculously elaborate shower is another. And those things alone would be enough just to keep Rook coming back, again and again, but then there’s also, somehow, John himself. Deep down, past the prickly exterior and the religious fanaticism, is a man she actually enjoys spending time with. 

As it turns out, after their first, somewhat awful, meeting they actually got along pretty well.

Eventually, one night, before Rook could talk herself into leaving, she’d kissed him instead. It all felt a lot like an inevitable conclusion to everything they’d been building up to. Especially when the night ended with John between her legs, making her reconsider her stance on God. 

Being with John is great, it’s fantastic, it’s a little frustrating that after months of this he never wants to talk about what their relationship might actually be. 

“I’m just saying, penguins, you know?”

John pauses as he’s crouched on the floor beside the bed, pulling Rook’s jeans off of her. “What?”

“They mate for life.”

“Is that true?” he asks, getting her jeans the rest of the way off and discarding them somewhere behind him on the floor. 

Rook sits up just enough to get out of her bra— her shirt already left somewhere between the staircase and the bedroom. “I think so,” she says, less sure now than she’d been a few moments ago. “I think I read that somewhere.” It definitely doesn’t feel like something she made up, but things have been weird since moving to Hope County, so she’s not entirely sure. “But isn’t it interesting? It really makes you think about things, doesn’t it?”

“The thing you aren’t sure is real?” John frowns, shifting to get a better position between her legs before he ducks down to swipe his tongue over her clit. 

Rook gasps, twisting the sheets in her hands and pulling one of her legs up to dig her heel into the mattress. “Yeah,” she says, though it comes out a lot more breathy than she intends. She really wants to be subtle about this, maybe ease John into the idea of talking about what they are to each other instead of leaving her to guess for months on end. “They find their perfect match and then they just stay together, forever. Like they’re married.”

John places one hand on her thigh and sits back on his heels. “Do you really want to talk about this right now?”

“I just think it’s interesting.”

“Okay,” John says, voice heavy with confusion. “It’s— okay, penguins.” He stands, having given up with his first plan and instead strips out of his own clothes without any of his usual care or affected finesse, which at least is a nice change from their normal routine. There’s a look in his eyes that’s half amused, half fond in a way that makes Rook all warm and fuzzy inside, like he’s just happy to be there with her. 

It’s exactly what she wants and what neither of them have ever bothered to talk about. 

“I’ve got more facts,” Rook says, grabbing for John to pull him in for a kiss. “I know all about birds and… other animals.” That’s a lie; the penguin thing was already stretching the limits of her knowledge in that area, but at least she thinks John is already aware of that. She hooks one leg over his hips and lets her eyes slip closed at the first press of his cock to her entrance as he lines himself up. “I am a well of all knowledge.”

“Rook,” John says, pushing in slow, and letting her adjust to the hard drag of him against her walls. “Is this really the time for that? Really?”

“Just thought I’d share some information with you, for being such a great friend.”

“A great friend?” John presses her leg up, nearly bending Rook in half so he can hit a deeper angle. “You’ve been riding my dick for months.”

Rook pats him on the shoulder. “A good pal.”

“You’ve practically moved into my house.”

“My favorite buddy,” she says, reaching down to rub at her clit as John sets a hard pace, making her breath catch and her muscles shake. She’d squirm if she had the leverage to do so, but all she can do is hold on while John hits that perfect spot inside of her. 

“Rook, we’re more than friends and you fucking know it.” John kisses her again, more biting and rough, taking her apart with each rock of his hips. His fingers are pressed into the meat of her thigh, hard enough to leave bruises later and Rook loves it. 

She looks at John’s face, at the sweat running down his temple, then at his eyes. “Do I know it?”

“Yeah,” John says, “yes, we live together—”

“Your house is kinda big, maybe you were getting lonely.”

“You’ve met my family—”

“Technically, I had no choice in that.”

“We’re having sex right now.” John snaps his hips forward for emphasis, like he thinks Rook might have forgotten about the cock inside of her.

“Friends do this, too.”

“I love you.”

“Platonically?”

“Rook.”

“Okay,” Rook says, gripping the back of John’s neck and pulling him down into a kiss. “I love you too, you know.” She really does, which is a little scary to think about. “But maybe next time we should have this conversation sooner? I was starting to think you weren’t that interested.”

John’s mouth opens like he’s going to argue, but then he just shakes his head with a sigh. “I really hope we don’t have this conversation again,” he mutters, adjusting his angle to fuck her harder. 

The faster pace makes Rook moan, working her own fingers harder and clenching down around John. They really should talk more, but for the moment she’s too distracted to string a full sentence together as all of her focus is between her legs and the feeling of John inside of her. The stretch of his cock has her squirming with each snap of his hips, scrambling for purchase and desperate to hold on.

She’s wet and needy, and without them talking the only sounds in the room are the obscene noises as John fucks her, punctuated by her own soft gasps. 

“Come on,” John says, starting to lose whatever rhythm he had, getting more single-minded with each moment. He bats Rook’s hand away from her clit, replacing it with his own and that’s it. That’s all it takes.

Rook comes with a cry, rocking her hips down like she can take John in deeper. All of her muscles tense as she shakes through her orgasm, her back arching as he continues to fuck her through it, ringing out every last wave of her pleasure. It makes her breath hitch, mouth dropping open like that will help her suck in more air while she’s coming apart. 

She barely even notices when John stutters to a stop, his whole body going still and he pressing in close as he comes. 

Rook counts the seconds, waiting for an acceptable moment to speak again. “I guess you really do like me, huh.”

[peachywise]

nullify part 3

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader

- part iii: the difference between truths and lies || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ part vi ⋆ more parts to be released

- synopsis: Klaus may have terrified your neighbour, broken an unspoken contract, and overall just acted like an absolute ass, but hell. That wasn't anything compared to how shitty your first meeting went when you met the rest of his family.

- notes: Sorry, this chapter took a little longer to get up than expected! Then again, it was delayed because I got a puppy, so yeah man I'm not that sorry lmao. Hope you enjoy! Swearing and minor violence TW.

link on ao3 

________________________

“Did you break my lamp?”

Looking over his shoulder, Klaus peered at the tall beige light lying haphazardly on your floor, its shade squished to shit with little pieces of broken light bulb scattered around. It also just so happened to be right beside the window he had crawled in to get here.

“Would you believe me if I said it was like that when I got here?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. Patience. You had to have patience. Granted, that would be easier to achieve if you also had a lamp that was intact.

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, it made a loud enough crash and you didn’t even wake up. Would have thought you were dead if I wasn’t such a brilliant expert on the subject already.” Crossing the room to stand in front of you, he lowered his voice slightly, asking, “what pills do you take for it? Never seen anything like it.”

“Nothing. Just the sheer anger and exhaustion that comes from having been born,” you bluntly stated, only half-joking.

He tilted his head in a funny nod. “Ah, yes. That would do the trick.”  Shaking your head, a little amused despite it all, you brushed past him to grab one of your canvas bags hanging by the front door. In doing so, Klaus’s eyes fell down to your hand, only just noticing the object clasped in your grasp. His face contorted in confusion “Are you actually bringing that clock with you? I was joking when I suggested it, sweetheart.”

Slipping the clock in the bag—which was little more than a defensive weapon now—you snorted. “I’m not taking any chances.” You’d already had a plate thrown at you, a spoon, and a pot dropped on your stomach, and that was all in less than twenty-four hours. If they were going to keep tossing ridiculous objects your way, then the clock was yours to use freely as far as you were concerned.

You almost wanted to smack him over the head with it again to avenge your fallen lamp. At least that’s why you told yourself you wanted to.

“Remind me why I agreed to go meet them, again?” You muttered, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you slipped some sneakers on. Klaus moved back over to your window, gingerly stepping over your lamp like he was afraid of damaging it more than he already had. How nice of him.

“Because I’m incredibly charming. And if you’re thinking of backing out, you aren’t going to get the ice cream cone I was going to treat you too on our midday stroll.”

Well, shit. Couldn’t say no to that.

“Let’s go, then."

Klaus’s grin was way too big, his face a little too excited. It was the same as that almost anticipative, hopeful look in his eyes you saw when you first met. The near intensity that he looked at you was enough to unnerve even the most confident of people. It was confusing. You had begun to think about what they could need. Clearly, they weren’t as interested in your forcefields ability of simple defense, given Five’s early dismissal of it. He was way more interested in learning you could nullify powers. At the very least you knew you could cancel out Klaus’s. Most likely they just needed you to do that with someone else. The question was, who was it?

Moving to unlock your door, you heard a familiar swish and click of a window. Turning back around, you noticed Klaus trying to squeeze himself through it, his body already halfway out.

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re doing that to be funny, or because you forgot we could leave out the front door.”

Stalling just before he stuck his second foot out on your fire escape, he stayed still for a beat then backtracked, maneuvering himself inside the apartment once more. Clearing his throat as he stood upright, he murmured, “I was just following Ben’s lead,” walking past you to swing the front door open. “Well come on, we haven’t got all day. Early bird gets the worm and all that."

Patting Klaus’s arm condescendingly, you stated a little loudly simply in hopes ghost boy was actually still in the room, “with how much I assume Klaus pins his stupid stunts on you, it's a travesty that you haven't been anointed to sainthood, Ben.”

“Please,” Klaus scoffed, throwing his arm over your shoulder as you moved out in the hallway, closing the door and locking it behind you. “You can’t even hear him and you believe him over me?”

Shrugging his arm off, you span around and walked backward, facing him. “Are you kidding? Currently, he’s my favourite because I can’t hear him. It’s blissful.”

Klaus was about to shoot something back at you, his face lighting with the knowing signs of amusement, but stopped himself before he could begin. Oh, so no clever come back? You’d gotten so used to the rapport you were almost disappointed, despite what you had just previously stated about the quiet.

But then you heard another voice behind you, and Christ, you already dreaded having to explain the presence of your rather scantily clad, eccentrically distinctive acquaintance.  

“Honey, are you okay? I heard some noises coming from your apartment and I was just on my way to check.”

Spinning back around, you gave a tight smile in welcome to your elderly neighbour, Eliza Carr. She was a sweet little woman, albeit nosy as all hell. Shrunken to about 4’9 with overly long grey hair pinned up in a tight bun, you always wondered if she did it too stretch her wrinkles in a make do facelift. Ingenious, really. She’d always kind of reminded you of a fairy. Odd comparison, but it worked when you considered they were often pleasant under the guise cover an impish exterior.

Once you had even caught her looking through your mail. You were pretty sure she had taken a pizza coupon from the stack and hid it in her bra.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Carr. I was just—”

“With me,” Klaus interjected, stepping beside you and looping his arm through yours, pressing you closer to his side as he put on his fake little polite act.

Shit.

Why he interrupted, you had no idea. Maybe it was just his incessant need to hear his own voice, or his need to make his presence known lest he disappears like the invisible ghost who trailed along after him.

“Believe me, I tried to quiet them down but they just can’t keep their hands off! Didn’t help that they ball-gagged me and had my hands and feet tied together, but that’s pretty tame compared to last night.”

Maybe he interrupted because this truly was hell and Klaus was a literal fucking demon given the duty to torment you in every sense of the word. Then Eliza’s hand went to her chest, and you had decided he was actually the grim reaper who just tried to kill the poor old bat.

Widening your eyes, you were completely stunned into silence, unable to cough even the slightest noise or retaliate against his words. Then Eliza dropped her hand and took a small, concerned step forward, reaching that hand out to place it on your forearm in a comforting, though at the moment mortifying, gesture. “Why don’t you come to church with me on Sunday, Hun? I think—”

Sidestepping away from her grasp, you gripped Klaus’s wrist as you finally found your voice again. “Sorry, gotta go! Late for an appointment!” Before she could try to convince you that you needed Jesus—someone who inevitably must have abandoned the earth the moment your present companion was born—you pulled Klaus behind you in your frantic attempt to escape. Then he turned just slightly to yell back at the woman, “we’re trying to adopt! I think we’ll make fantastic parents," as you turned down the hall and raced down the few flights of stairs. Klaus snickered the whole way down.

As soon as you reached the landing of your lobby, musty and welcoming with its stained emerald carpet and all, you dropped his wrist and indignantly ignored him as you exited the building. He trailed behind you like the world’s worst trained mutt. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, will ya?” He huffed, as you walked down the concrete steps and on to the sidewalk. “I’m still a little winded from having that ball gag in my—”

Sticking your leg out casually as he descended from the final step, he comically tripped over it and fell to the ground just as gratifyingly as you had imagined it.  

“Do that again and I’ll shove coal so far down your throat you’ll be shitting diamonds for years to come.”

“You promise?” He smiled, pushing himself off the ground and wiping the gravel from his hands on to his pants. Not like those things could really get any dirtier. “Also, that’s an oddly specific threat. You pick it up from Five? Sounds like him, though it’s a little crude.”

“Do you get off on making a random strangers life hell?” You questioned, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared at him indignantly.

Klaus stepped beside you and bumped his shoulder with yours. Smirking as he bent his face lower to your level, he groaned out, “come on, you had to find it a little funny. That woman probably isn’t a saint herself. Seen plenty of grannies reading Fifty Shades of Grey on the bus. Think she’d want to give it a go with me?”

Okay. It was a little funny.

Taking your silence and the slight upturn of your mouth as a win, he poked your arm as if the last attempt to coax you out of grumpiness. You let out a small laugh. “Fine, whatever,” you conceded, “It was a little funny. But seriously, don’t do it again. She’s tried to get me to go to her church so many times that I think next time she’ll just knock me out and drag me there in her car.”

Chuckling back, he sprang into action as he began walking down the street, calling back, “come on, let’s go get that ice cream.”

“I can’t believe you,” you muttered, pulling the vibrantly pink sunglasses down off your head to cover your eyes, despite being inside.

Klaus turned to glance through his matching pair.

“What? I told you. It will present us as a united front.”

“Not the glasses,” you said, taking another lick of the ice cream. You know, the ice cream that you paid for despite him saying it was his treat? Yeah. At this point, you were just ashamed that you had even believed him. And to trick you with the promise of ice cream, of all things! He was truly and most undoubtedly heinous. “When you say you’re going to treat someone to ice cream, typically that means you’ll pay for it, not just order mine and one for yourself, then look me dead in the eye to tell me to pay the man.”

“Did I not hand it to you? I treated you. It's not my fault you thought I had money.”

Wow. He truly would have thrived in high school debate. How disappointing he was raised to be a freakin’ con man instead.

“You know what? The glasses I was fine paying for. They’re cool. But to make me buy you ice cream, taking back an unspoken contract? Despicable.”

You couldn’t tell if the offended look on Klaus’s face was real or a weak attempt to hide the pleasure you knew he was truly taking from this mindless argument.

“Unspoken contract!” He snorted, exiting the elevator on one of the higher levels of an apartment complex way nicer than your own. “Why are we even having this conversation? We both have ice cream, do we not? I call that a win-win.”

“That’s because you're stupid,” you jeered back, reaching over to take a bite of his ice cream like a passive-aggressive child. He gasped in what seemed like true horror. “Hey, you have your own!” Klaus whined, lifting his ice cream high up like that would actually stop you. You gave him a cheery grin—downright innocent. “I bought it. Both are mine.”

Klaus stopped in front of one of the apartment doors, not even bothering to knock as he swung the door open and entered inside. You followed behind him.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called out, then turned his attention back to you, swooping down to take a bite out of your ice cream in return. You gasped, recoiling back as if he had just tried to take your most precious possession. Man, now you knew how Gollum felt. “Not fair!” You laughed loudly, Klaus’s eyes crinkling as he returned the laughter in kind.  

Then the thunk of something planting itself in the wall right beside your ear had your laughter cutting off rather fast, and you dropped your ice cream too the nicely tiled floor in shock.

Oh, hell no.

“Diego, what did I say?” Echoed a baritone voice from around the corner. Turning your head slightly to stare directly down the hall, you lifted the sunglasses back on your head and made eye contact with one of the family, Diego. Luther soon followed into view and tugged him back.

Klaus muttered a small “uh oh,” beside you.

Peering from the corner of your eye at the knife he had just thrown at you, narrowly missing your head by a fraction of an inch, you turned your attention fully back to Number Two, squinting as you did.

“I am not a fucking steak!” You yelled at him, getting really tired the cutlery this family just kept throwing at you. So tired, in fact, that you ignored the man’s inquisitive look in favour of scrounging in your bag, pulling out your broken clock and throwing it with the intent to clock him on the head, no pun intended. Instead, it just bounced enthusiastically off his chest, falling to the floor and cracking its glass face.

Everything went quiet. Well, apart from the snort Klaus tried so hard to mask by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t see any force field. I told you I don’t trust them,” Diego sneered to Luther, turning back around the corridor with a lasting, “we don’t need to involve anyone else.” You weren't necessarily going to dispute that, but man, he was a bitter boy.

Klaus leaned down close to your ear, whispering, “that was Diego. A ray of sunshine, isn’t he?”

Absolutely delightful.

Luther took that opportune moment to advance towards you too. While his disposition tried to read friendly, you knew underneath it all he was scrutinizing you just as much as the trigger-happy Diego had. Reaching out a gloved hand, you tried hard not to let his intimidating size spook you. When the fuck did he get that big?

“I’m Luther,” he introduced himself, as you shook his hand firmly but briefly.

“I know who you are,” you commented back, dropping his hand and taking a tiny step back. “Care to explain what’s going on?”

A look of confusion fell over his face. “Wait, no one told you?” Wow, the whole family was smart, weren’t they? “Klaus, you were supposed to tell her,” he sighed, turning towards his brother.

“Probably best he didn’t. He’s not the most reliable source for information,” came another voice, slightly higher pitched and overly familiar. Five moved to stand in front of you. “Nice to see you again. Was that a clock you threw?”

“Yes. Probably looks a little different from the Disney themed one you have beside your race car bed, so I understand your confusion.”

The only tell he had of his annoyance was the slightest tick at the corner of his eye. “Are you done and ready to talk like an adult now?”

“What, looking for practice? Can’t remember the last time I played house. Maybe kindergarten.” You were going to milk this as long as you could. It wasn’t just that you were trying to avoid whatever weird, nearly cult-like thing this had evolved into in your mind. It was also because you wanted to see just how much you could push the little tyke’s buttons until he snapped.

And then he snapped.

Giving a small huff, a knowing, almost winning look crossing his features. “And that was before your house burned down with you in it, right? If I recall correctly, that was when you were ten.”

This motherfucker. He knew. He knew everything.

Judging by the perplexed look on Luther’s face, and Klaus’s small exclamation of, “what?” it seemed that he was the only one who did. At that moment, it was the only thing stopping you from falling into a spiraling descent of panic and unbelievable ire.

This wasn’t worth it. No matter your curiosity, this was far from worth it.

Turning to Klaus, you bit out, “I think you need to set the kid down for his afternoon nap. He turns into the world’s biggest asshole when he’s tired,” and then swiftly moved to open the apartment door, slamming it behind you as you left without even saying goodbye.  

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Gabe!

You have been accepted for the role of non-biography character CORA CHITTOCK with the faceclaim of Hunter Schafer! We were thrilled to see a veela character in a non-fanon way and can’t wait to see what you bring to the veela lore! We are so excited to see what you do with Cora! 

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Gabe

AGE: Still 22!

TIMEZONE: GMT-3

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Pretty solid, eh? I always go missing in the weekends because it’s Official Socializing Time, but then I make up for it during the week, mostly

ANYTHING ELSE: Nope!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Cora Chittock

BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood/Half-Breed (Veela)

AGE: 18

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Trans girl, she/her/hers, lesbian. She can’t imagine her transition is anyone’s business, so I wouldn’t think that is something she’ll talk about at all these days, but her sexuality is definitely public knowledge, as she makes it her mission to make it obvious whenever the opportunity for it presents itself. She’s heard it too many times before that her interest in women is simply another cheap tactic to rebel against veela expectations, and she likes to assure everyone that nope, the 12-year-old knew what she was talking about, and she’s still very much gay.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

ANY CHANGES: I wrote this myself, so nope!

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Cora is an avocado – soft on the outside, hard on the inside. Some may argue – and she would argue with those some – that she doesn’t even have a soft exterior at all. Nothing is what it seems with her. There was no hesitance from the Sorting Hat when it sent her straight into Slytherin, its booming voice making the announcement as soon as it touched the first strand of hair on her head, much to her sister’s dismay.

        Being a veela wasn’t something she was conscious of until somewhere around third year. Or, at least, it wasn’t something that bothered her before that. It wasn’t hard to fit in right from the first day at Hogwarts, life was easy to navigate as an eleven-year-old that almost everyone feels inclined to like; Cora used to love the attention. She had many friends, teachers liked her, there was nothing to complain about! That’s what most people think about veela, anyway, and it might be true for a while, but only until you’re no longer a child. People’s intentions change. Her classmates’ friendly smiles and high-fives became inappropriate remarks and catcalls down the hallway. She went from Good Friend to Object of Desire in what felt like the blink of an eye and she despised it.

And no one cared, she quickly learned, about the veela complaining about getting too much attention, being too liked. It’s like complaining you have too much food to eat, or a bed too comfortable to sleep in! At least it’s how everyone saw it. Even her family refused to acknowledge the issue. Get used to it, they’d say. Welcome to the real world!

Cora isn’t one to sit idly by while someone has to deal with any sort of abuse – not herself, not anyone else. She learned quickly that no one else seemed to care about her fight, but she wasn’t gonna fight any less because of it. She just had to become her own fortress.

Her charisma and charm are still there, but now, every time she smiles, she’s baring her teeth. Every flip of hair is weaponized, every bat of eyelashes is a threat. She learned how to defend herself before anyone had a chance to do something more than hide behind catcalls and love letters. There are several expectations when it comes to veela, and she’s willing to break every single one of them, if she can. She’s still friendly and flirty when she wants to be, but she’s loud. Self-assertive to the point of brashiness, energetic and sarcastic, with the mouth of a sailor and a tongue sharp enough to kill. Every bit of her is a quiet armor, the pieces carefully collected and glued together over the years, though she still sees everything with unbeatable humor. Her skin is as soft as her edges are sharp and she’ll always throw the first punch. She refuses to be the fragile little fairy-thing made to cater to the fetishizing ideal of acceptable half-breed, and she won’t apologize for it.

She still keeps her fair deal of friends around, even though nowadays she prefers those who don’t seem to react to her much. Her defenses are up so high that it’s become a problem – maybe she has thrown a couple fireballs at one or two innocent people who she thought were following her, yes, can you blame the girl? –, but she’s pleasant company when she’s not climbing up on any tables and delivering speeches about half-breed rights that no one wants to hear.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

The Chittock sisters never really met their mother. It’s a complicated story, really – at least that’s what Cora heard all her life. Their father, an eccentric wizard devastated by the loss of his beloved veela companion, never told his daughters what really happened. When they were little, he would tell them these crazy fantastic stories of how their mother was and why she had to leave, but that only lasted a couple of years, until the girls grew up and realized these were products of his mind. And terribly inconsistent stories, at that.

He’s not crazy, Cora would say, but he’s, perhaps, not the most sane man she’s ever laid her eyes upon, sure. He’s a conspiracist and a bit of a nutcase, but he has a heart bigger than his body, and that’s how he raised his daughters to be. He loves them more than anything, and they know it.

Cora has a good relationship with her family, through and through. She loves her sister, even if they pick fights with each other sometimes, and she loves her dad even if he insists on cooking and burning the dinner every single night. They’re not too supportive of her feisty ways, and they would surely lose all the hairs on their head if they knew about her finding her way into the Order, but she’s not planning on telling.

Despite the absent mother and the lack of explanation that comes with it, the girl has never felt like anything was missing from her family. In fact, before she was even a teenager she’d already stopped asking questions about her mom’s fate, knowing it would only sadden her father and get her some nonsense response in return. Her family’s not a big one, but it’s perfect, as far as she knows. They’re as good of a support system as any, she thinks.

OCCUPATION:

Cora works at Eeylops Owl Emporium, at Diagon Alley. It wouldn’t be hard to get any sort of part-time job with the Veela charm turned all the way up, and while Glenda chose a much more artistic path with her own show, Cora decided she didn’t want all of that attention. No, instead, as soon as she was out of school, she marched right up to her favorite shop in Diagon Alley, and sweet talked until they gave her a position in there. It’s her dream job, for the moment, even if it pays terribly. Her family is quite wealthy and she doesn’t plan on moving out immediately, so it’s not like she needs piles of money. Here, she gets to hang out with the pretty little birds for most of her day, and it’s incredibly soothing. She thinks it might be the Veela bird-like tendencies that make her feel so comforted to be surrounded by the little winged animals, but she won’t question it. The owls keep her calm, and they seem happy to have her around, and she gets to help little eleven-year-olds to pick new friends. It’s a pretty fun job.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Cora still feels a little out of place in the order, but only because she’s new and hasn’t quite figured out who she can trust yet. She remembers some of these faces from school, but back then she’d been so busy perfecting her skills and learning defenses and dodging creeps that she would rather forget that time entirely, start fresh. The tiny self-conscious part of her worries she might be too brash for the crowd her age and too young for the older people, and that she’ll float somewhere in between, but she’s willing to make her presence known either way. She believes in their fight. She also, perhaps selfishly, believes she can have more of a voice if she has a group like this to back her up, and maybe she can convince them to join some rallies for half-breed and veela rights, while she’s at it. She certainly has been trying to make that happen for a while now. Cora sees the war for how heavy it is, and she knows how easily the tides could change against her, as a half-breed. As much as she vowed to fight her own battles, now she seeks protection, too. She knows no one is gonna survive on their own and if she can do something to help this end quicker, then it’s her duty to do so.

SURVIVAL:

Cora still lives with her family, and doesn’t plan on changing that anytime soon. Her father may be a nutcase, but their little hut in the middle of nowhere might also be the safest place she knows. She doesn’t know what it is about it that makes it feel so secure, but it does, at least for them (he told her once that her mother had enchanted it before she left, but he also said a number of ridiculous things, so she doesn’t believe it). She’s easily overlooked when it comes to this war. She’s a half-breed, but an acceptable one, one that society may praise from time to time, when it fits them. It’s just her and Glenda’s luck. Most people don’t seem to care about what the half-Veela are up to, and the rest who do, only care because they feel enchanted by them, so it’s mostly a win-win when it comes to hiding.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Cora doesn’t do relationships all that much. She’s never had a romantic relationship with anyone, nothing that ever went beyond some meaningless fooling around – even though there was and still is a lot of that. She likes the affection, she craves a human connection like that, but she doesn’t feel like she can have it until she learns to reel in all of her Veela charm. She’s still too young, too insecure. Even if she’s learned to keep most of her unwanted charm in, nowadays, she knows some people can still be affected. And how can she trust their affection, then? How can she know if the pretty girl who wants to date her won’t lose all of her interest suddenly, the day Cora learns to control her abilities better? She can’t. The line is blurry between someone loving you for the energy you put out, loving how you make them feel, or really loving you for who you are. She’s not willing to take any risks.

For that reason, she’s been known to still deliberately use her charisma here and there to get what she wants, but she tries to keep close to people who aren’t affected by her blood status at all. At least, those, she knows she can trust. Some specifics:

REGULUS BLACK: It’s not like they’re childhood friends or anything, but Cora might risk saying they were the closest friend she had in Hogwarts. It was a confusing, chaotic time back then, and when people started reacting differently to her, she found comfort in Regulus’ blatant indifference. She’s not fully convinced they even like her at all, as a friend or general company, but she still likes to hang out with them when she can.

DORCAS MEADOWES: They met because of Cora’s brief panic in fifth year, when a poor, sweet boy asked to be her date on a trip to Hogsmeade and she was too tired to be mean or blunt, as she usually was. Dorcas happened to be walking by, and Cora took the opportunity to grab her hand and yank her over before declaring she couldn’t accept the invitation, as she’d be going with this Hufflepuff, instead. She paid Dorcas back for any inconvenience by buying her some Pepper Imp on the trip, and she still occasionally helps distract her from her job nowadays, by visiting Flourish and Blotts and bringing candy.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: Cora/women is what I ship and Cora/dudes is the anti-ship, that’s pretty much it. Let my lesbian daughter thrive.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Cora’s fatal flaw when it comes to biases is probably the fact that she wants to be an advocate for half-breed rights, but the truth is that she has no idea what that even means. She might wave that flag around and call people out, and she may get mad if anyone trashtalks any type of half-breed around her, but has she ever stopped to listen to another half-breed? Absolutely not.

Her concerns are very personal and Veela-focused, she doesn’t know what the other species are going through in the current society, and certainly not in this war, either. She wants to help everyone, genuinely, but she’s too caught up in the stuff Veela have to go through. They’re a particular type of half-breed, the model minority type, they are the ones who get invited to parties and get to escape from the general population’s scrutiny. On the other hand, they’re also victims to a lot of abuse and prejudice, and that’s the battle she’s (wrongly) focusing on. She says her fight is for all of the half-breeds because she knows her voice will have more of a reach that way, and she genuinely thinks it’s the right thing to do, to try and help others.

That being said, she is still a pretty sheltered half-Veela girl who lives a good, wealthy life, she’s never even seen many of the half-breeds she claims to be trying to help. She’d still be wary of a half-giant, and twist her nose at a half-goblin’s appearance.

Almost the same goes for her view of muggleborns, too. Circumstantially, the majority of her friends – and fellow housemates, back in her Hogwarts years – are purebloods or half-bloods, which means she hasn’t really ever heard from the muggleborns what they go through, and what they want. She’s angry, and loud, and she wants to be an activist for everyone, but she isn’t great at studying her causes.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Absolutely NOTHING, I’ve heard this place is horrible!!! Yuck!!!! Delete my number!!!!! No but on a serious note, I’m dying to explore all of the Veela world and create a sensible, more inclusive lore for it (suck it, JKR). And this character is one that I’ve had in mind for months now, in sort of an abstract form, living somewhere in my brain in the room of Characters That Already Have a Voice But No Background Or Story. So I’m looking forward to finally flesh it out and write her!

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

I’m terrible at these BUT I’d be down for the Order wanting to use her Veela charm for something, like use her as bait or a distraction, because she would probably hate the idea of doing that and i’d love to watch her get pissy.

Also any opportunity to get her to use the fire hands, obviously, that’d be amazing.

ANYTHING ELSE?

A Headcanon:

Not really into sports at all but tried to get into the Slytherin Quidditch team out of sheer spite because everyone kept saying Veela were only good for mascots, not for playing. She almost made it in as a Beater, which she’ll deem good enough to prove people wrong as long as she doesn’t have to ever do that again. Yes, she’s still bitter about it.

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST:

Cora Chittock grew up to be pretty alright, all things considered. Despite her absent mother, her father and sister were all the family she needed, and she lived a sheltered life until she entered Hogwarts. There was where she discovered what being half-Veela really meant – and how she would have to try her best to repress that part of herself, if she wanted to stay safe. As a good Slytherin, of course, it was bite or get bitten. The charm and charisma that she flaunted as a child quickly turned into unwanted attention from her peers the second that hormones came into play. Everyone thought she was spoiled to complain, a rebel without a cause, but they didn’t know what it was like, to receive all these looks from people she had no interest in, people she didn’t like. She had all the attention she could possibly want, but loneliness still stung. Learning to be part Veela was learning to handle the harassment that came with it, and that was a hard lesson to learn.

PRESENT:

School had been hell for Cora, but now she’s finally found her footing. She worked hard to perfect her abilities to the point where her Veela charm is mostly controlled nowadays, and it makes her feel more confident than ever; she knows when she can, and should, display it around freely. That doesn’t mean all the past years haven’t left a bitter taste in her mouth. Now that she graduated Hogwarts, she wants to make sure people understand and listen to her side of things, too. Her people are still harassed every day, she’s not letting anyone forget that. These days, she can easily be found trying to organize marches and protests for half-breed rights, even if most of them fall through. She snuck her way into the Order as soon as she heard rumours of a resistance group existing at all, and she’s ready to give everything to fight this war. She believes in the group, she trusts her peers and she’s got her combat boots laced up and ready. Finally, she’s making the difference she wants to make in the world, right?

FC CHOICES: Hunter Schafer (truly my one and only, love of my life, but also to add other good names to the list because other rps need more representation anyway: ), Loiza Lamers, Hari Nef

[letterboxd]

Tristan Oliver Q&A.

“We have had far more problems shooting on a 5D than we ever did on film. The sheer absurdity of the throwaway society and obsolescence leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”

Cinematographer Tristan Oliver takes us behind the scenes of the Wallace & Gromit train-chase scene, a flood on Isle of Dogs, and the time he acted with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Cary Elwes in 80s British romance Another Country.

Oliver was the man behind many of the cameras on stop motion films including Isle of Dogs, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, ParaNorman and Chicken Run. He also filmed the Academy Award-nominated Loving Vincent.

We asked him some of your questions and some of our own (but we did not ask him “what is Wes Anderson like?”—read on to find out why).

Several Letterboxd members (including ReiJr, Curtis and Nicolas Inard) want to know what drew you to animation cinematography over live action, and what makes it interesting for you?

Well, obviously it’s a ridiculous way to make a living by any definition and I don’t think I ever really, actively wanted to do it. I just kind of fell into it. I was shooting some pop promos for friends and needed to borrow some lights and I knew a couple of people at Aardman—at that time it was literally a couple of dozen people. They said “Oh great, what are you doing next week?”

It was so great—they never used to schedule anything. They just used to ask you in and you’d stay until the job finished a few weeks later. So I stayed as a freelancer with them for a very long time. At the same time, I had a child, so I needed some regular income. I stuck at it at Aardman and I was good at it and they liked me.

It was an exciting time inasmuch as they were reinventing the entire look of stop-frame [animation], because stop-frame really was kids’ TV up until that time—it was super quick and rough and very crudely photographed. Big, soft lights and go home and forget about it. So what we started to do was create a very cinematic look for it, and make it into a much bigger canvas and bigger screen. Our driving motivation was that we made no concession at all to the fact that it was animation, we just tried to make it look nice.

[Animation] was a genre that was neglectful of its cinematography, and even now, I meet animators who don’t really care about it. It’s all about puppets as far as they’re concerned, and I think generally anyone watching the films doesn’t really care about cinematography. It’s the Cinderella department. People are all over the props and puppets.

Immediately getting a little more technical, how does one pull off a rack focus with moving stop motion elements in the shot? —Gina

That’s very interesting because of course stop motion isn’t moving. It’s entirely static until you move it. So a rack focus is just broken down into as many frames as you want it to take place over. So if it’s a twelve-frame or an eight-frame rack focus, in one way you can put a piece of tape over the lens and you move it one notch each frame. Or, we use a motion control computer to do it, which we do these days because it’s much smoother. The animator will press a button, the camera takes a frame, the motion control computer moves—and the animation software will trigger what needs to be triggered.

Although the camera move is conceived in real time, you know, A-to-B, if it takes four seconds you can run it at four seconds or you can run it at a frame a time—now move your puppet and off it goes. So the puppet follows the camera, as it were.

Motion control is one of the things that really liberated us. When we were setting up Chicken Run, that was suddenly a film that needed to play out on a cinema screen rather than a television screen, and moving the camera through space was one of the ways to expand that space. We kind of take it for granted that we can do that now.

Cinematographer Tristan Oliver on set

I was wondering how different lighting a set for a stop motion film is compared to a live-action film and maybe what some challenges of lighting a stop-motion film are? Thanks, I love your work! —Ben

Thank you Ben! Well. I would say that aesthetically there should be no difference because, coming back to my original point, one’s aim should be to make something look beautiful and not really concede in any way to the fact that you are shooting animation.

But there are some issues. Primarily of course the size of what you’re shooting—and this means that relative to the characters you’re shooting, the camera is very, very large. The camera is kind of the size of a small car inside a domestic environment. It’s normally as tall as the character, so you do have issues lighting the character without the camera getting in way. You also have enormous issues with depth of focus because normally we are working right up to the minimum [focal point] of the lens. So to get stuff looking natural, you have to work at a very tiny aperture to get the depth of field that you’d find acceptable in live action.

A puppet’s head might only be the size of the top of my thumb and if I focus on its eye I might find that its nose and ears are unacceptably out of focus. So we are really asking the lenses to do something they were never really designed to do well, which is to work at tiny stops. Most lenses are optimized around ƒ/4, ƒ/5, ƒ/6 and we typically use them around ƒ/14. We really do beat them into submission.

The other issue is heat, of course. We don’t want to be cooking the animators or the puppets or the environments. Luckily, we don’t need a huge amount of intensity with light because we can vary our shutter speed, because we are taking shots one frame at a time. But we do need to keep sets comfortable. We do occasionally use large lights—especially if we’re shooting daylight exteriors—because you very quickly give away that they’re models [if] the shadows fan out, and real shadows don’t do that. They remain parallel, or “coherent” as we call it.

Has LED lighting changed DOP work for stop motion? —Tim

Yes, LED has in many ways transformed our world. The reason being that it’s very tiny so you can hide it and it’s very cool so it doesn’t produce any heat, and also you can dim it without the colour changing.

As an example, on Isle of Dogs we have a large theater set which is all painted with red and black lacquer in the Japanese style and it is lit by paper lanterns (which are actually made out of painted resin). Each of those lanterns contains a very small incandescent bulb, so when you dim those the colour gets very warm and orange. But then we have other [LED] fixtures in that environment and they can be dimmed right down but their colour doesn’t change, so you can keep a very dim but pure light point and that makes the warm stuff read warmer. It’s all about showing the eye where the light is. LEDs just have that purity of colour which doesn’t change with intensity.

And the other thing I wanted to say is the main difference is the sheer number of units we’re shooting on. We typically run between 40 and 50 units, and I’m having to be across all of those in terms of how the film looks. So I’m personally hands-on lighting a lot of those but I can’t do all of them. I have a couple of other guys who help me out and they work to my brief so that it looks like one person did it.

It is a huge, very busy environment in a very large stage with a lot of people running around. I think people’s impression of animation is a very ponderous, dull thing but actually, although it takes a long time, they’re working as quickly as they can. And they’re all working on their own.

Wes Anderson with his Isle of Dogs cast

What type of personality do you think you need to work in stop motion? There’s a stereotype that you must have to be very patient, but the reality is quite different?

I think the idea of “patience” is... I don’t even know where that comes from. That is what we call one of the “top five questions”. That, along with “tell us what is one of the most difficult things you had to do on the film” and “what is Wes Anderson like?”.

I don’t know what anyone’s being patient about, really. Where’s the patience? An animator is animating. He (or she) is working as fast as he possibly can, doing a very complicated performance through the medium of a puppet. So he is undergoing a degree of concentration it would be impossible to imagine and around him sets are being built, painted, lit, set up.

In all respects it is exactly like a live action department—it’s very busy, there is no downtime. So this concept of patience is entirely erroneous. What you actually need is stamina. Not patience. Because this is five or six days a week, 60-hour weeks for two years. And it’s intensely busy. Because of the length of time it takes to shoot, we’re in a rolling process of pre-production even when we’re in production. People are constantly losing their temper and constantly screaming and running out of the studio. To think there’s some kind of monkish, trappist environment… [shakes head].

Which villain did you find more terrifying from the films you worked on? —Manny

They’re not that scary are they, because they’re puppets, but I guess the best villain is Feathers McGraw from The Wrong Trousers, because it’s a penguin and it never speaks, and yet it has a sense of menace to it that is so thorough. It hasn’t even got pupils! It does occasionally blink but it mostly just sits there and... looks. It’s amazing how well it works.

What is it about penguins in animation? There are so many… Surf’s Up. Madagascar. Pingu…

Feathers McGraw and Wallace in Aardman Animation’s The Wrong Trousers

When stop motion films were first shot digitally, sensor noise was an issue that sometimes led to ‘crawling’ artefacts between frames. Has this been mitigated in newer camera hardware, or is it something you still need to watch out for? —Matthew

Do you know what? I read that question and I thought “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” I’m completely unaware of this as an issue. The only film I think that may have been an issue on was Corpse Bride. We did have issues with the 5D which was used as the default animation camera for about ten years. But those issues were to do with the chip heating up and causing fluctuations with the density and the contrast. But the camera I used for Isle of Dogs and also Aardman used for Early Man, which is the Canon 1D X, was pretty damn good. Pretty stable. So it’s kind of ironed out. I mean, you know, no camera on earth is designed to shoot stop-motion animation. I mean why would it be? So we’re always looking for the next camera.

I know that Pete Kozachik is an extreme fan of 30- to 40-second shutter speeds, which is frankly ludicrous. That may have resulted in excessive sensor noise, but that’s more to do with the shutter speed.

How do you handle having to start an insanely complex shot again after an error?

That’s a very interesting question and I’ll tell you why: because the only reason that we reshoot is if there’s an animation problem. Because nothing gets shot until everything is right. So everything is tested. The lighting, the motion control, set dressing, everything is run in front of the director to the point where they say yes, good to go.

The reason is: you can’t ask an animator to reshoot a shot if they’ve done nothing wrong because you’ve cocked it up. So only animation issues are reshot. And from that point of view, it doesn’t bother me in the least, because I just go in and make sure they’re good to go, and they just go again. It’s their loss of time, not my loss of time. They’re normally quite okay about it. Most animators don’t mind having a second go because it does give them the opportunity to improve.

If there’s a catastrophic tech error on the other hand… We did have a flood on Isle of Dogs. We had a massive hole in the roof and a torrential thunderstorm and we lost some stuff in that way. So that becomes an Act of God, a force majeure, and you just have to get on with it.

But also we do monitor what’s going on, so I tend to pop in and just make sure the animators are okay and do my daily rounds. If I see an animator has unwittingly missed a focus point or position because they hadn’t been concentrating, I would inform the first [assistant director] and say “we need to restart this shot”. But because of the critical mass of shooting on 40 to 50 units, if you have an issue, it’s not really an issue. It can be frustrating, that’s all.

Gromit and friends in Curse of the Were-Rabbit

What, if anything, do you miss about the 35mm Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit days?

There are things I miss about 35mm days. The structure of the day is far more coherent when you’re shooting on film, because you start your day looking at the rushes, looking at the dailies, then you go into the edit suite and you look at that material cut in, and then you go to the studio floor and address what needs addressing. Whereas when shooting digitally, every time someone finishes a shot you all have to go and look at it, get them turned over, and so on.

There is also far less downtime for animators and bizarrely I think they suffer from that because the process of sitting down and discussing shots and comparing notes is over. The experience of sitting in a green room and getting into a conversation with two or three old silverbacks of the industry is gone really.

The other thing is it’s no quicker shooting digitally. We shot Chicken Run in 78 weeks and we shot Isle of Dogs in 86 weeks, so it actually took longer.

A problem you get with digital is you suddenly have far too much choice. We would do everything in-camera on film. We would use painted backdrops for skies. Everything would be shot into camera, and now of course you can just shoot green screen and decide what your background’s going to look like later.

You’re giving yourself way too much choice because you can. So the amount of creative decision-making is thrown to the end of the movie. That seems like liberation but in fact it’s just putting off what could otherwise be a perfectly reasonable decision. And I think living with what you’ve done isn’t a bad way of working.

And the other thing—which has nothing to do with the practicalities of shooting—which appals me, is that every time we do a movie you have to buy new cameras, because they wear out, so they have a life, and they always stop manufacturing the damn things.

Halfway through Isle of Dogs they stopped making the camera we were shooting on! We had 50 and we had to find another 30 and we had to scour the world for them because Canon was no longer manufacturing them.

Whereas at Aardman, I could take a camera off the shelf that was made in 1928 and I’d know that I was using a piece of 70- or 80-year-old technology that was just going to keep going. We did not lose a shot on Curse of the Were-Rabbit or Chicken Run to a camera problem.

We have had far more problems shooting on a 5D than we ever did on film. The sheer absurdity of the throwaway society and obsolescence leaves a bad taste in the mouth. That at the beginning of every movie you have to spend $300,000–400,000 on new cameras.

At the end all those cameras are [sold on] eBay. The sheer fact of having to put all those cameras on eBay is absurd.

The famous train-chase scene in The Wrong Trousers

Can you tell us any good stories about the train-chase scene in The Wrong Trousers? (Emma guesses it must be the most challenging scene you’ve ever worked on, and there’s no doubt it is one of the best action scenes in a film, ever.)

Ha! Do you know how long ago that was? My daughter Sally was born the second week of shooting The Wrong Trousers and she’s just had her 26th birthday. However, I can tell you exactly about the train chase because it was a lot of fun, that particular segment.

So what you have, of course, is you have this chase that appears to take place in an infinitely huge environment, because the train is moving. We did some crude math and decided the train would be moving at 50mph if it was scaled up. So we did some tests and it looked really slow. So we just kept going up and up and up. And in fact it’s now moving at about 200mph scale-to-scale.

It’s tiny, absolutely minute, the train. We devised this method for shooting where you never see both ends of the train at the same time, so it’s either being pushed or it’s being pulled. It’s attached to the camera, [which is] on a crane hanging over the set. And the camera either had a rod that was pushing or a thread that was pulling. There is no motion control at all.

Laid on the floor is a tape measure and a pointer pointing at the tape measure. We’d hit the camera button—it had a two-second exposure—and we’d push the train 10cm [3.9in] along the track. So it’s moving at 10cm a frame. That’s a lot of distance to cover. And as the train is pulled or pushed, its wheels naturally go around on the track, so it self-animates its own spinning wheels as it goes along.

And we had a set that was a sort of long living room. It was Wallace’s living room but stretched, so it was about five meters long. At one end there was this huge sofa and the camera would go along following the train and it would go behind the sofa and as soon as it moved we’d pick the sofa up and take it down the other end of the set and the camera would move around the sofa and the train would keep going again.

And then when the penguin flies through the air, we actually mounted a sheet of glass in front of the camera—a big sheet of glass so you could see the set through it—and then the penguin was animated across that sheet of glass from right to left. So it looked like it was flying through the air, but the camera was still moving—everything was moving at 10cm a frame—so that’s 2.4 meters per second on double-0 gauge (if you know anything about trains). If you scale that up you’re moving at a hell of a lick!

So the penguin is stuck to the sheet of glass each time he is moved?

He’s had his back sliced off him so he’s like half a penguin, a bas-relief, if you like.

Then there are two other bits on that sequence. (It’s a very big sequence, obviously, there’s a lot to tell!) One is when the train goes around the corner. So for that I built this tiny dolly, which was a wedge of timber with four furniture casters on it and a massive Mitchell camera mounted on top of it. The track went under the camera, and I actually knelt on the set and hand dollied it round the bend.

I thought “this is fantastic!”. But when we actually shot it, what I had completely neglected to register is that as you hit the button the shutter goes around and it completely obscures the eye-piece—so I did it blind, really.

And the other shot is where the camera goes under the table. I can’t actually remember how we did that. I think we had a table that just broke away. But it’s all in-camera. There are no special effects at all.

We had a crew of six on that film. And only 150 shots in the whole movie. It’s amazing. The camera just sits there and watches what’s going on. It doesn’t cut, cut, cut. The camera sits there and you watch the whole sequence of penguin looking up at museum and all the other scenes.

Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs

Did you have a favorite moment on Isle of Dogs?

[Laughing] The last day! There are certain bits of Isle of Dogs that I greatly enjoyed bringing to the screen, but overall it was a slog. Working with a director who is an auteur gives you far less scope to exercise your own creative imagination, so you become reactive rather than proactive. That can be frustrating. That isn’t saying that the film isn’t fabulous and everyone will love it, but in terms of saying I loved that and I did that, it isn’t really my work. It’s something that I “enabled”, if you will.

There are some things that give you a degree of satisfaction. The problem with these movies is they are vast machines that roll on, so the intense personal satisfaction that I used to derive from shooting stuff like The Wrong Trousers is kinda lacking, because it’s such a huge thing.

I had a lot of fun shooting ParaNorman. By my own admission, I think I made a really, really good job of it and I think it looks fantastic. I enjoyed the directors, I enjoyed working at Laika. It was great.

What are five films you love for their cinematography?

I love Conrad Hall so I would always have Road to Perdition, his last movie, which I think is absolutely stunning. The beauty of shooting that film, dying and then getting a posthumous Academy Award is fantastic.

Seamus McGarvey is a great talent and I think Atonement is a beautiful looking film.

Casablanca is absolutely beautiful in black and white. That’s an astonishing looking movie. God, absolutely stunning.

I just think the standard of cinematography is so high at the moment. Production values just generally are so much better than they were 20 years ago—you can see a lot of bad movies but they’re very rarely badly shot.

The latest Blade Runner is fantastic. I’m so glad Roger [Deakins] won an award for that. Revolutionary Road, he did a fantastic job on that as well.

Any women cinematographers you have an eye on?

I realise that’s a prod, but Mudbound is a very handsome looking movie. I think [Rachel Morrison] did a fantastic job on Mudbound. Ask me in another ten years and I’m sure I’ll have many more names.

Did you ever meet Roger Deakins?

No, never. I met Jack Cardiff a couple of times, in his 90s. He was very twinkly. He’s a very naughty man—I think he had sex with nearly every leading woman that he worked with, which given that he is about five foot four is astonishing. He wrote a fantastic book called Magic Hour which has some absolutely awesome anecdotes in it. It’s well worth a read.

Could you have imagined in your wildest dreams that you’d spend a quarter of a century working in this field?

Tristan Oliver on set

My wildest dreams? Like some hideous nightmare! I mean, “no” is the answer. I think I’ve always kind of felt that I would be getting out of it at some point. You very rapidly become pigeonholed in this business. Because it’s what I do, it’s what I get asked to do. People are ludicrously conservative about this.

A case in point is Loving Vincent. The reason I got that job was because I knew about animation. But I actually shot a 90-minute, single-camera, live-action movie with a dolly, cranes, the works, in 16 days, which is pretty good going for a 90-minute movie. Then someone took it away and whilst I was shooting Isle of Dogs they painted all over it!

But isn’t it weird that I got the job because I knew about animation? That’s what the business is like—a crazy, slightly blinkered view. But all my films get seen by a lot of people. They’re proper big movies, they go all over the world.

What memories spring to mind when you think about Another Country all these years later? It must feel like another life.

Ha! 35 years later. The thing about that movie is that’s kind of what made me do what I do today. I didn’t really know anything about films until I did that movie, and I became very friendly with the camera crew [director of photography Peter Biziou, who later won an Academy Award for Mississippi Burning, and camera operator David Garfath, who also worked on The Empire Strikes Back]. I was really interested in it.

At secondary school I had done my exams in physics, biology and chemistry so I had a technical knowledge. I absolutely adored acting. I really, really, really enjoyed acting, but it just never happened for me. I had at one point to make a decision about whether I was going to live in a tiny flat by the seaside and do a couple of commercials and a pantomime every year and end up in a blazer and cravat, or do something that would make me a living. So I did spend a couple of schizophrenic years being a clapper loader and an actor, then I went to film school.

But my memories of that film are very intense and very fond. I mean, that was a real eye-opener for me. I’d never been in that environment before, surrounded by those sorts of people doing that job. It was deeply affecting. I think it damaged me for about five years. Although it was only a few weeks of my life, I then had to go back and finish my degree and the phone never rang. Everyone was interested in Rupert [Everett] and Colin [Firth], or Cary [Elwes]. Although only Colin really became a superstar.

In hindsight I’d have got myself a publicity agent and gone out there and sold myself. So I do this now. I lead a life of anonymity.

Look at an animated feature: in terms of awards, all it’ll be up for is best animated feature. The Annies don’t ever have a category for cinematography, and they have a category for everything, even an award for the floor sweeper! I wrote to them and asked them in the nicest possible way, why don’t you have a category for cinematography? And they went, ‘Oh it’s far too expensive to introduce new categories’. Then a year later they introduced two new categories. It’s absolutely absurd. We go very unconsidered in this world. Trying to gain membership of any professional organisation is impossible.

I’ve shot six movies and every one has been nominated or won an Academy Award. And I’ve shot short movies that have won or been nominated. They just go, ‘Yeah, it’s animation though isn’t it’.

Well, what keeps getting you up in the morning, in terms of what you do?What do you think is the role of storytellers such as yourself and the teams you work with in our society?

Stories are what separate us from the beasts. We are the only animal capable of projecting abstract thoughts into the future or into the past and drawing analogies in that way. I think it’s what makes us human: the ability to tell stories. There’s no anything without story. People ask me what makes a great movie and I go “the script”.

People love to watch people acting stuff out. It’s peculiar. It’s not something that any other animal does. It’s very deep within us, this need to tell stories. In fact they’ve now decided that the way these neolithic cave illustrations have been structured, with animals with multiple legs, is because when they were lit by candlelight it gave the impression of running. As the candlelight flickered, these things galloped. It’s all about story.

Finally, tell us why we ought to visit Bristol, the home of Aardman Animation?

Why would one visit Bristol?! Well, it has a thriving arts and animation scene. It’s a little bit laid-back. It’s rather like Portland in that respect. If you were in the UK and you wanted a day out I’m sure it’s right up there with Bath. It’s next door to Bath so you could probably do both in a weekend. But the thing about Bristol is it’s so nice, it’s so comfortable, that people used to go there and never leave.

I’ve experienced this many times because when I was crewing up Fantastic Mr. Fox—and indeed Isle of Dogs—I asked some of my old crew from Aardman to come and work with me. And they were all incredibly reluctant and it’s only 110 miles away! They were happier to be unemployed in Bristol than come to London, which terrifies them because there’s too many people there. Portland is where young people to go to retire and Bristol is the graveyard of ambition.

Our thanks to Tristan Oliver for his time and energy and to Fox for arranging the interview. See the accompanying list of favorite cinematographers and the questions thread.

[woshivn]

The light of Quentyn’s torch washed over scales of dark green

SACRAMENTO Calif. He has eighteen wives, half nike air max thea atomic pink of them stolen on raids. “I always try, on the contrary, to be as open as I can, and you will perhaps be convinced of that this evening. A scout. Maybe if city counsel considered affordable housing important more would be built. I would, too. I need this man, Dany reminded herself. "And then on the car ride home, I realized if it weren't for her allowing me to coach boys lacrosse with Scott Kopicko in 2001, I would not have had coaching fever. Half the men in the hall had stolen glances at her, but not Xaro. Xaro gave a languid shrug. Grandfather was tired and breathing hard, but he still hurried on, running. As to your having to be so much of a slave, I am sorry for you; you ought to be freed. The next most important things are your interest and strengths. I decided there was really no need to conceal anything in my affairs from Masloboev. For I knew for a fact he had not taken it with him but had thrust it under another paper when nike air vortex desert sand he got up from the table. The light of Quentyn’s torch washed over scales of dark green, the green of moss in the deep woods at dusk, just before the last light fades. But her look of bdsm puma hopelessness, as she trembled with fear before him, touched him. For example: I will use all my knowledge and skills to the betterment and growth of the company. One day when the war is done and King Stannis sits the Iron Throne and has no more need of onion knights. Sixteen years ago, he had a quadruple bypass. For me, it always seemed like Disneyland or something. This is only the seventh Kiehl's store nationwide. He hasn been out there for us lately, but when his number was called, he came up big for us. "Yes, I think I could have been the same player," he said. That message about sexual violence against women and men is one that doesn't get discussed much, he said, and he hopes the event will generate more catalog cercei aur turcia discussion. Paco asked us to call out our home towns: One for South Korea, one for Washington and four for Las Vegas. The gadgets arm of the CIA dusted the inside of a diving suit with fungus that caused a chronic skin disease, and put tuberculosis in the breathing apparatus. We increased the diameter to 2 " and it now works every time.. The flagon shattered underneath him as the floor came up to smack him in the head. Having given some account of what sort of statutes are to be found on the law-books of slavery, the reader will hardly be satisfied without knowing what sort of trials are held under them. "This scooter is a blast to ride, it's 100% green and it is the fastest accelerating scooter in the 500W class with no insurance or licensing required. And still the snow was falling, drifting down in silence from a windless sky. Her grandchildren are Michael (Natalie) Kratcha, Donna Kratcha, Dan (special friend Sara) Kratcha, David (Lynn) Kratcha, Debbie (Jerry) Waller, Lawrence (Leslie) Kraus, Laurie (Mark) Diederichs, Dennis (Amy) Kraus, Tom (special friend Juan) Kraus, Diane (Mike) Kitchen, Bill (Rachel) Kraus and Sheri (Keith Dieter) Kraus, Ann (Michael) Leighton, Lisa (Brett) Liljegren, and Dr. But being stuck here, I have to make due.. They estimate this would shave nearly one degree Fahrenheit off warming projected to occur by mid century.. But the ray of sunshine had died away; the frost grew sharper, and began to nip one’s nose: the twilight deepened; gas flared from the shops. This mode is rather more expensive to me than that of weekly rations, but more comfortable to the servants. She was extraordinary woman; consider all the circumstances, her romanticism, all that star-gazing nonsense in it’s wildest and craziest form. And a long way from the ships, should Her Grace wish to leave us, but … aye, she could live there, though it will be years before the place looks a proper castle. We have a problem. It misleads the popular mind as to the real issue of casquette ny kaki mère the subject. Today's business world is more competitive than ever before and most sales people think that price is the only motivating buying factor. What absolutely must be kept in mind is something I mentioned earlier: the Node 605 supports a lot of different hardware, but it does not necessarily support it all at once. The value of being a pixel in that image is as great as it's ever been.". Stephanie. But her look of hopelessness, as she trembled with fear before him, touched him. The dwarf was so stuffed that he had to undo his belt and the topmost laces on his breeches. Remember this when first we next spy some slaver’s sails. Bob Corker (R TN). Knot the two sides on the sheet on top of your shoulder. About 60 percent of those vendors on Sunday were first timers like Jan Neal, the Schroeders said an all time high. Her skin was white as mare’s milk, her hair so thin that he gioco cubo di rubik amazon could see the scalp beneath. When she asked Ser Justin if Suggs had always been that way, he grimaced. Paul маратонки puma mercedes amg says made nothing perfect. Last year, the IPL brand value was down to $3.67 billion (around Rs 16,632.4 crore then), thanks to poor governance and transparency issues. “Where is my baby boy?” Lady Gwynesse only wanted to know when Lord Rodrik would return. 18 to Tennessee), Ohio State's Gareon Conley (No. Moss Coane was sent to boarding school herself, placed adidas mariposas in remedial reading classes, and never really found her academic stride. After approaching the railway we were told that it was something they had thought about, but never had the spare money to consider, so we both thought we shall raise some money for it.. Located along nike sb prod x Pacific Flyway. A writer in England has sneeringly remarked that such a man as Uncle Tom might be imported as a missionary to teach the most cultivated in England or America the true nature of religion. I got the generals in, who are fantastic. Dinnertime becomes an opportunity to practice life skills, build healthy eating habits and practice good food safety. The SurfaceThe Lighthouse . "At Akagera National Park, they have this fenced off area with all the confiscated stuff they taken from the poachers," Alger fekete táska női Meyer said. “Cracked black pepper from Volantis, nothing finer. Burgess, Taylor & Co., Sun Iron Building, send us a copy of a work of imposing exterior, a handsome work of nearly six hundred pages, from the pen of Rev. If they can do the job like a man and carry their own weight, they shouldn be here. She fumbled in the water, found a stone the size of her fist, pulled it from the mud. Come here by me, lad. The ridiculous notion of charging for a single checked bag has created unwanted consequences. “You will want to be careful with Nurse,” said Sweets when the overseer had departed. Sally and her four children. Satin helped them back into their cloaks. In all the Young Wolf’s battles, White Harbor and the Twins fought side by side beneath his banners. Davis threw a complete game, striking out 10. Insects buzzed around her, lazy dragonflies and glistening green wasps and stinging midges almost too small to see.

[bbcphile]

Prompt: Horatio, Archie and Will cooking something.

Ok, so, um, this happened! :D

(Thanks to @girabbit for the amazing prompt and for @velarapproximant for being a fantastic beta!!)

Fandom: Hornblower (TV) (Harboured & Encompassed AU)

Pairing: Hornblower/Kennedy/Bush

Title: The Best is Yet to Come (A.K.A. Having Your Cake and Eating it, Too)

Summary: The only thing sweeter than the cake Archie and Horatio tried to make for Will in honour of their anniversary is their devotion to each other. And Archie’s judicious application of music, of course.

AO3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12422991

***The Best is Yet to Come (a.k.a. Having Your Cake and Eating it, Too)

“I’m home! Happy anniversary, love!”

Horatio looked up from his laptop. Archie was leaning against the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, a giant grin on his face, and two dozen red roses, elegantly wrapped in purple paper, in his arms.

Horatio blinked. “You’re back early!”

Archie raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m not. It’s 5:30. I even texted to say I was running late, so you could start the decorating without me.”

Horatio frowned down at his phone where it lay on the dining room table. The message from Archie stared back at him. His heart started thumping more rapidly. How had he lost track of time? Now they wouldn’t have time to decorate the cake before Will got home–

The cake.

Oh, God, the cake.

Archie wrinkled his nose, then took a step back into the kitchen, placing the roses on the kitchen counter. “What’s that smell? Is … is that the cake?”

The smoke detectors began to blare around them.

“Damn!” Horatio lept to his feet and sprinted past Archie into the kitchen. He turned off the temperature, wrenched open the door, and leaned forward, his hands reaching out to the cake pan that lay in the middle of the oven rack.

“Mitts!” Archie yelped, pressing their HMS Surprise oven mitts firmly against Horatio’s chest to stop the impending disaster.

Horatio blinked as he stared down at the ships on his chest. “Oh. Erm. Of course. I was just–”

“–About to repeat the mistake from last month?” Archie said with a grin.  

Horatio rolled his eyes. “Just … open the windows, will you?”

“As you wish, love.” Archie pressed a quick kiss to Horatio’s lips before jogging out of Horatio’s sight.

Horatio slid the ridiculous mitts on, then leaned down again to carefully pull out the cake pan. He glowered at the blackened mass within, wishing the force of his glare could return the dough to its original raw state. Perhaps he should have left the baking to Will after all.

After a moment, Archie draped an arm over his shoulder. “It’s a sorry business, isn’t it?” He sighed dramatically. “Rest in peace, dear cake. We hardly knew ye. You shall be buried with all the consideration due to your station. In the old Scottish tradition, I shall sing thee to thy rest. ‘Amaaaaaazing Grace, How sweet–’”

Horatio scowled and elbowed him in the ribs.

“–Alright, love, alright,” Archie said, laughing, as he rubbed his side. “I’ll stop. Funeral’s cancelled.”

Horatio bristled. “It’s still edible.”

Archie nodded sagely. “Absolutely. In fact, the NHS designated charcoal as the newest superfood, so we should have several servings each day–”

Horatio rolled his eyes. “Archie, be serious.”

Archie smiled. “Fine. We can eat it if you want. But I thought you preferred your cake to be moist and fluffy rather than … well … than this.” He poked it with the cake tester. It didn’t make a dent. He frowned and pushed harder. The metal penetrated the burned exterior with a crunch.

Horatio winced.

Archie stared at the former pudding. “How long did you leave it in for?”

Horatio glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Erm .  . . a little over an hour?”

Archie raised an eyebrow as the corners of his lips started to twitch. “Overshot the mark, then?”

Horatio ducked his head. “Perhaps a bit.”

“Should I ask?”

“I was researching. I must have dismissed the timer on my phone without realizing it.” He sighed. “I merely wished to surprise Will. He always does the food preparation.”

Archie stepped in front of him, cutting off his view of the cake, and put a hand on each shoulder. “And we still will. We can start over.  Everyone’s burned at least a cake or three in their time. Mum once nearly set the oven on fire trying to make Yorkshire puddings. No one’s hurt, nothing’s damaged, we don’t have to buy a new stove like we did when the pressure cooker overheated, and no one’s having flashbacks. As kitchen disasters go, this one hardly counts for us.”

Horatio frowned. Even the horror of discovering their oven crumpled and the pressure cooker’s lid embedded in the ceiling had paled in comparison with the sheer terror on Will’s face at the bang of the explosion itself. He shuddered. Archie was right. This was a fixable problem.

He cleared his throat. “Right. No use in sitting idly by when there’s work to do. We should be able to at least mix the ingredients again before he comes home.” He turned the oven back on to preheat and prepared to examine the recipe again.

Archie grinned. “I’ll go get more chocolate.” He kissed Horatio quickly on the lips, then spun around to rummage in the cabinets.

Horatio chuckled and rolled his eyes. “As long as you save some for the cake.”

Archie stuck his head out of the cabinet to smile at Horatio, his eyes twinkling. “I’m actually rather good at sharing, as you may remember. Unless you or Will have any complaints.”

“Nothing springs to mind,” Horatio said with a grin. “Although you can give a practical demonstration after dinner, if you feel so inclined.”

Archie smirked. “Aye aye, Captain Hornblower.”

Horatio cleared his throat and tried to focus on the recipe in front of him. The oven was supposed to be heating up, not him. “But … erm  … perhaps we should focus on making this first.”

Archie chuckled as he stood up, dark chocolate bars in hand. “Make cake, then love. Got it. And we should wait for Will anyway.” He paused, then grinned. “But I wouldn’t say no to another kiss.”

Horatio smiled. “That could be arranged,” he said, placing the recipe on the counter and walking over to where Archie waited for him. He put his hands on Archie’s hips, letting his thumb slip under his untucked shirt to brush lightly against his skin. Archie’s breath hitched and his eyes fluttered shut. Horatio leaned forward, his own pulse speeding up in answer, and gently pressed their lips together, savoring the warm, loving touch as much now as he did with their first kiss.

“Happy anniversary, my love,” Horatio murmured when they finally pulled apart.

“Happy anniversary,” Archie answered, stroking his thumb slowly across Horatio’s cheekbone. “Now, let’s bake a cake.”

***

Will paused, his hand on the doorknob, as the faint smell of chocolate wafted out of their flat. So that’s what Horatio’d been so secretive about. He must’ve been planning to make a cake for at least the last week.

Good thing he’d bought a bottle of port for them to share instead of making a cake himself.

He shook his head, a fond smile on his lips, remembering the last time Horatio’d tried to bake anything. At least they’d managed to air out the house out before Archie came home from rehearsal.

He opened the door. The faint sounds of Van Morrison greeted him.

Will raised an eyebrow as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Archie usually sang along to showtunes while they made dinner. He shrugged and sat down on the bench in the mudroom to take off his shoes.

Archie’s high-pitched giggle briefly drowned out the slow string and piano accompaniment.

“What did I do this time?” Horatio asked, his smile carrying around the corner along with his voice.

“Oh, nothing. You just stepped on my foot again.”

Horatio huffed out a laugh. “If people were meant to dance in such close formation, they’d all have smaller feet.”

Archie snorted. “Now who’s being absurd?”

Will chuckled quietly as he stood up and padded over to the kitchen. Horatio dancing? Victoria always claimed that someone’d have to put a gun to his head to get him to try.

But then again, when Archie was involved, the normal rules didn’t apply.

He rounded the corner of the mudroom into the kitchen, set the port down quietly on the counter, and stood mostly out of the line of sight to watch.

Horatio and Archie were smiling at each other in the kitchen, flour dusting their clothes, novelty aprons, and hair, oblivious to everything but their arms around each other.

Horatio’s amused exasperation softened into something more tender as he reached out to smooth away a loose strand of Archie’s hair that had fallen in front of his eyes again.

Archie turned his head to kiss Horatio’s palm, then took a step closer, pressing their bodies against each other, and wrapping his arms around Horatio. “Ready for another go?” he murmured, his voice low as he gazed up at Horatio.

Horatio nodded with an impossibly fond smile as he put his arms around Archie’s waist. “For you? Always.”

Will leaned back against the counter with a smile as he watched them close their eyes and sway back and forth to the music in silence. It was good to see them happy again. The trial had been hard on them all. Archie especially.

After a few verses, Archie closed his eyes, and began to sing along.

“I’ve been travellin’ a hard road Lookin’ for someone exactly like you. I’ve been carryin’ my heavy load, Waiting for the light to come shining through.

Someone like you makes it all worthwhile. Someone like you keeps me satisfied.

Someone exactly like you.”

Horatio held Archie more tightly. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice almost shaking.

“I love you, too,” Archie murmured back.

Will swallowed, his throat feeling oddly thick.

Archie paused, tilted his head, then opened his eyes and turned to smile over his shoulder at Will. “Same goes for you, Will. Happy anniversary, love.”

Will stilled. He hadn’t meant to interrupt them.

Horatio’s eyes flew open and he turned to look at the entrance. “Oh! Will! Welcome home! Why didn’t you say something?”

Will shrugged. “I liked watching you.”

“Well, William James Bush” Archie said, a twinkle in his eye, “Time to do more than watch. It’s your turn for a dance. Horatio, do you mind?”

Horatio smiled and shook his head. “Not at all,” he said, and stepped back to gesture for Will to take his place.

Will blinked. Dancing wasn’t particularly something he’d done much of since  … well, since the injury.

Archie smirked. “And in honour of your secret love of Van Morrison, I’ll start the track over again.”

Will raised an eyebrow as Archie reached over to his phone on the counter to restart ‘Someone Like You.’ Only Cathy and Victoria knew that he sometimes listened to Van Morrison. So, who’d told him?

Horatio frowned. “But … this doesn’t sound like punk. The rhythm’s off.”

“That’s because it’s not. But Cathy told me it’s one of Will’s favorites, so I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

Will smiled and shook his head. “I should have guessed.”

“Probably,” Archie grinned. “Now, come dance with me, love.” He held out his hand and beckoned.

With a shrug and a faint smile, Will walked over and took his hand.

Archie smirked and pulled him in close. “Now, what’s this I hear about you joining Anne for dance lessons once upon a time?”

Horatio’s eyes went wide. “Will?”

Will raised an eyebrow, trying to keep as neutral an expression as possible. “It was almost a decade ago. I don’t remember a thing.”

Archie shrugged. “That’s alright, I can lead. But, seeing as I have a ridiculously attractive man in my arms and his favorite music playing on my phone, it seems a waste not to–”

A tilted, dry smile was the only warning Will gave Archie before pulling him into a low dip. “Better?” Will asked, his lips hovering mere centimeters away.

Archie swallowed, his pupils blown wide. “Will, if you don’t kiss me right now, I swear to God–”

Will grinned, then kissed him as soundly as he could while keeping his balance. Of course Archie tasted like chocolate. “Happy anniversary,” he said, when they finally pulled apart.

Archie smiled dazedly. “Happy anniversary, love. Looks like you do remember some moves after all.” His grin widened as he slid his hand up to Will’s bicep. “Sexy, by the way. Convenient, too. How long do you think you could hold me up like this?”

Will huffed out a laugh as his arms started to shake from holding Archie up. “About another minute. Not long enough for what you have in mind.”

Archie grinned again. “I suppose that’s for the best. Horatio hasn’t had his kiss yet.”

“That’s quite alright,” Horatio said from his spot near the fridge. “I’m enjoying the performance.”

“Well, show’s over, love. It’s your turn now.” Archie said with a wink as Will pulled him back to his feet, his hands lingering on Archie’s waist.

Horatio glanced at Will’s hands, then smiled. “No need to move on my account. I have a better idea. Stay there.”

“Oh God, no, not an idea. Run, Will! Save yourself!” Archie said in mock horror as he gripped Will’s shoulders.

Will snorted. “I’m fine right where I am,” he said, wrapping his arms around Archie again.

Horatio smiled and rolled his eyes as he walked toward them. “I’m glad one of you listens to me occasionally.”

Archie nodded seriously and looked over his shoulder at Horatio. “We have to take it in turns, you see. Equal distribution of power, and all that. It’s written into the polyamory byelaws.”

Will snorted again.

“You’re ridiculous,” Horatio said, putting his arms around both Archie and Will.

“And you love every second of it,” Archie said with a smile. “Now, if we agree you don’t have to dance, will you stop stalling and get your kiss from Will?”

Horatio grinned. “I could be persuaded.”

Will raised an eyebrow as Horatio rose up on his tiptoes to reach his head over Archie’s shoulders and press a long, lingering kiss against his lips. Will’s lips tingled pleasantly long after Horatio pulled back with a smug smile.

“Was that to your satisfaction, gentlemen?” Horatio asked knowingly.

“Can’t complain,” Will said with a smile.

“I can. Why am I always in the middle?” Archie teased as he snuggled further into the hug.

Horatio’s soft huff of laughter brushed against Will’s lips as he pulled back and pressed a kiss against Archie’s neck, just below his ear. “Because my arms are the longest,” he murmured, holding them both more tightly.

“What’s your excuse, Will?” Archie asked, his hand snaking up to Will’s shoulders to give him a massage.

“Horatio’s too bony,” Will answered with a dry smile.

Archie snorted.

Horatio spluttered indignantly.

“It’s fine, H’ratio,” Archie said, craning his head around to glance at Horatio out of the corner of his eye. “You know he loves you.” He paused, then grinned, a familiar mischievous gleam in his eyes. “In fact, I would say he made that rather vocally apparent the other night. Well done, by the way, Will. Impressive stamina.”

Horatio blushed and ducked his head as he failed to fight back a smirk.

Will chuckled. “I aim to please.”

Archie snorted. “And you have excellent aim, judging by the noises Horatio was making.”

Will swallowed back a laugh.

Horatio groaned and buried his face in Archie’s shoulder. “Archie!”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, love. It’s good to hear you two enjoying yourselves.” Archie hesitated, licked his lips, and met Will’s eyes. “In fact, I thought, if you’re in the mood, that I’d  … join in tonight.”

Will felt himself start to harden instantly. It had been weeks since Archie’d felt up for more than kissing and falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Horatio lifted his head, his eyes wide and eager. “Really?”

Archie nodded. “We can try, at least. And also, I got something you might like.” He grinned, then let go of Will to reach into his back pocket, and pulled out a rather chunky beige-colored tube.

Horatio tilted his head, his forehead wrinkled. “Sparkly deodorant?”

Archie beamed. “It’s body glitter, love. Rainbow coloured. I figured we could have some fun with it. We need to wash the sheets anyway.”

Horatio’s eyes grew wide as he stared at it in rapt attention, tilting his head back and forth to make the sparkles catch the light. “It’s  … beautiful.”

Archie’s grin shone as brightly as the glitter. “You think it’s beautiful now, just wait ’til you put it on me.”

Horatio looked up, his eyes wide as saucers. “How much time until our dinner’s delivered?”

Archie laughed. “Not enough time, sadly. And we shouldn’t leave the oven alone; your timer will be going off soon. We don’t want to burn the pudding again.”

Horatio blinked. “Oh. Yes. Of course.”

Will glanced over at the mixer and the dishes on the counter, then at the oven itself. The chocolate scent started to smell rather familiar. “Is that  … . my mum’s chocolate cake recipe in the oven?”

Archie and Horatio grinned in unison.

“Anne sent it to us,” Horatio answered.

“Only the best for our Will,” Archie chimed in.

Will smiled and dipped his head, feeling suddenly warm.

“–Or at least a close approximation of the best, given our piss-poor baking skills,” Archie finished.

Will looked up and glanced around, his lips twitching. “But nothing’s on fire this time. Well done.”

Horatio rolled his eyes.

Archie chuckled. “Why, thank you, love. I’m rather proud of us as well.”

Will glanced over at the counter again. Oddly, the cream didn’t seem to be out. “How’s the icing coming?”

Horatio cleared his throat. “Er … we  … became sidetracked.”

Archie grinned. “Dancing, as you can see.”

“I can take over,” Will said with a smile.

Archie turned his head to look at Horatio. “Horatio, I think we’ve been found derelict in our duty and are being relieved of our confectionary commands. We’ll never survive the shame.”

Horatio kissed him on the neck. “Maybe we should mutiny.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “What if I add caramel and coffee flavour to the icing?”

Archie nodded. “Effective bargaining, Will. You know your audience’s hearts and stomachs. Ready, Horatio?” He craned his head to look over his shoulder at him. “Um … you’ll have to move first, love, unless you’d like me to reenact your first meeting with Will by bowling him over. And seeing as linoleum is less cushioned than carpet, I can’t say I’d recommend it.”

Horatio rolled his eyes, pressed one more kiss to Archie’s neck, then stepped back and shook his head to focus. He glanced about him, nodding to himself as he surveyed the scene, the snapped to attention. “Right. Will, you start on the icing. Archie, you and I will see if the cake is ready. If it is, then I’ll set up the cooling racks while Archie practices his penmanship for the writing on the top of the cake. Archie, I hereby give you full artistic license regarding colors, words, and designs, but, for the love of God, have it be something suitable for the pictures we’ll send to our families.”

Archie glanced at Will and smirked. Will fought back the smile and gave a slight nod.

“Aye aye, Captain Hornblower,” Archie said with a wink.

Horatio blushed, rolled his eyes, and busied himself with picking the oven mitts off the counter.

Will took a saucepan from the drying rack and brought it, the butter, and sugar over to the stove to prepare the caramel. As he measured out the sugar, he heard Archie’s voice merge with Van Morrison’s for the final verse.

“I’ve been all around the world Marching to the beat of a different drum. But just lately I have realised The best is yet to come.”

Will smiled as he poured the sugar in. He couldn’t have imagined this over a year ago. Certainly not three, when he was invalided home, unable to walk, and assumed love was something happened to others.

He grinned. Then again, he’d never been known for his imagination.