#i remember when i first discovered his books in my early teens

[nyancrimew]

i think i need to go back to religiously re-reading carlos ruiz zafón books, it would fix me.. if only barcelona were a real city

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

ok last Wingfeather post (for tonight) I promise--

but I absolutely think that one of the main reasons I love the books so much is because of Janner, and how perfectly I feel like he encapsulates the experience of being an eldest sibling, especially in the midst of a somewhat-fraught family situation. before reading Wingfeather, I had never in my life discovered a character who seemed to feel the way I did about life with younger siblings, especially in my early teens. the way he struggled so much with the burden of responsibility, loving his siblings so dearly but sometimes chafing under the burden of care he felt like he could never escape--it was so real to me. especially the desire to be free of responsibility coupled with the shame of even wanting that sort of freedom. being so proud of being called "mature" and "leader" and "protector," yet sometimes inwardly raging against the fact that I could never make any mistakes without potentially dragging my younger siblings down with me, that I could never truly be my own person because I often felt more like Their Sister than I did Myself.

I remember saying to at least one person, I think it was my mom, "I have never read anything that so thoroughly understands what it's like to have siblings and be the oldest. this author just understands it. even the ugly parts that you don't want to admit to." I was completely in awe. I had never felt so seen.

and--I don't want to give away any spoilers for people who haven't yet read the books or who want to have the show as their first experience of this story, but--there's a moment in the fourth book where Tink gets to have a extremely special experience... an experience that Janner has always longed to have. and Janner is denied that privilege altogether. and I have such a vivid memory of pausing the audiobook while lying facedown on my bed, complete darkness all around me, far past the time I should've been asleep by, and sobbing. and it's one of the few times I remember genuinely crying because of a book. (I want to say a lot more about that moment in the series and what it means to me, but I'll have to do that in a separate post sometimes, because I cannot possibly avoid spoilers if I say anything else.)

I guess all I'm trying to say is--something about Janner's deep desire to be seen, to be known, to be understood for who he is and not only the role he plays, to receive the love he's always longed for from a father he's never been allowed to fully know, his constant struggle between a desire to lead and protect and his yearning for independence and freedom--all of that spoke so deeply to me when I first read the series, and even now I can feel the echoes of those emotions in how this story left its imprints on my heart. and I'm so excited for all the people who may find, for the first time, their own stories echoed in this series about three kids in a fantasy world overrun with toothy cows and birds with belly-buttons and singing dragons and slavering fanged lizards.

[valandhirwriter]

Pick 3 of your favorite characters. Tell us when and how you fell in love with them. Inquiring minds want to know :)

Then tag 3 or more people, hopefully who aren't shy :D.

3 of my favourite characters.... that's quite the challenge I have to admit. Because I read a lot and had a lot of favourite chars accordingly. But, here we go, I will try to give this a bit of bandwith, because I have character types that speak to me much easier than others.

Boromir of Gondor

When did I fall in love with this character? At about 13, when I first read Lord of the Rings. I remember reading through the story, and wondering why none of his companions would try and reach out to him. Legolas and Gimli waste time arguing whether bow or sword is the better weapon, while beside them their comrade is slowly drifting off into darkness. Boromir also had some vibes of Hagan of Tronege from the Niebelungenlied to me, also a character who is considered dark, fierce and also fiercely loyal. While many consider Hagen the bad guy of the story, I also liked him best. The early picture of Boromir that I had in my mind, was close to the book describtion, black hair, very tall, haunted grey eyes and a scar on his forehead. Naturally when the movies came along, my favourite actor Sean Bean had the role, and the picture changed around a little. Watching his interpretation of Boromir seeded the first ideas for a story arc about him in my brain, though it would take me another ten years to sit myself down and write the story. In that story i then explored many of the questions I had since first reading the novel: What drove Boromir to such extremes? What happened to Gondor? How did Aragorn leaving after the Umbar campaign impact Gondor long.term? Even after finishing that huge arc, I still love Boromir as a character. His story has been with me for a long time, and will hopefully remain with me for a long time still.

2. Raistlin Majere

I discovered the dragonlance books by accident in my teens. And while the quality of the novels can be called into question, their humour certainly still echoes with me. That and... Raistlin. He was the character I found fascinating at once, and not just because he was the only one in the group actually using his brain. Unfortunately the authors had set up his split from the group and later his "fall" in War of the Twins, instead of really exploring the character with more depth. There was so much potential there, so much aspects to tell a story. Raistlin had the potential to be one of those compelling dark characters, who casn make the heroes torn, because while not with them on principle, their help is still invaluable. I sometimes consider writing a story about him, beginning from before his trials at the Tower of Wayreth and building the AU from there. But I would have to take huge liberties, and have yet to find just the right story companion for him. What draw me to Raistlin is his intelligence, also his detachment, his ability to see the situation for what it is, and not need delusions about hope or good, to sustain himself. He sees what is, and doesn't despair but come up with a plan. That nickname "the sly one" hit me hard when I first read about him, because it told me how judgemental those friends of his were.

3. Eskel

Ciri arriving in Kaer Morhen, and getting frightened by one of Geralt's comrades, because his face is clawed up in some manner... I still remember reading that scene, some time in the 90ies. I was curios at once, especially as scarface, ahm Eskel, proved to be a nice guy in the few scenes he had in the book. I liked him, and I wanted to know more about him. I came up with several stories how he had gotten his scars, and who he was outside of just one of Geralt's brothers. Unfortunately the author never bothered to tell us more about him. Then came the games and I was only marginally enticed by them. Some aspects are good, others are meh... and I will honestly admit that I am still so-so about the Diedre tale. Then came Netflix... and wow was I pissed. Eskel needed his own heroic story I decided and well... it happened. He's still my favourite Witcher, and hopefully will remain so.

Honourable Mentions

Lan al Mandragoran

Wheel of time was another series I devoured in the late 90ies (and on as new books came out), and Lan was my favourite character in them. I was sure he would die in Tarmon Gai'don, but that did not hinder me devouring everything about him. And what a confrontation in the last battle. Reading that, i was sure, so sure, he'd not come out of this alive, and so happy when he did. I would love to write a story about him and Tam meeting at the Blood Snow and upsetting the entire applecart of events.

Athos

Athos from the Three Musketeers is another childhood hero, from reading the books (Three Musketeers/Twenty Years After/ The Viscount of Bragelonne) when I was a young teen. I like Athos, is aloofness, his honour, is utter reality-defying sticking with said honour, and also his haunted past. He was one of my first fanfic subjects (cringe, the stories were so bad) and i still adore him to this day.

Tagging @regis-favorite-raven, @do-androids-dream-ao3acc, @lohrendrell and @eskel-loves-lilbleater to talk about their favourite characters and how they encountered them.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

Context for the Adira fragment?

Okay! So, I can't remember how much I've talked about her story on here. But the basic summary is - first book (of which I've written an assorted quantity across... three different drafts, I think), she discovers a copy of the Bible, and that book is really her ascertaining truth, along with a great many other things. I have part of the second book also written, although it's legit such a time since I really worked with it that I can't remember clearly where the books separate. In the second (?) book, the authorities take her away (there's potentially a timeskip but I may write something in between I'm not certain) and try and break her and destroy the Christianity (which has been their goal for a while). At this point she and Tom are engaged. But not just take her away, the authorities stage it in a way I'm not 100% sure about yet, so that her friends and family don't even know where she is or if she's alive or dead.

(During this time, Tom uhhhh develops something of an eating disorder, her friend Emily* goes through a crisis of faith and nearly dies of hypothermia, and Adira herself is tortured and reasonably close to death on a number of occasions.)

There's also fun stuff with betrayal as well, which is what really messes up Adira and her family the most, but anyway. She ends up with a lot of trauma and physical injury which results in scarring (none self-inflicted, though it may look like it). After a long while, she and Tom finally get married when they are unexpectedly made to adopt children (I still need to work out the specifics of how that works with the altered plot since Vaniah's story was removed from this universe, but they are twins and their names are Faith and Hope). They have at least one biological child (another girl, this one named Joy). There's a bunch of persecution, but for Reasons (some of which I still have to work out) they aren't simply wiped out by the authorities, and most of them are not too traumatised or having to hide their entire existence.

Anyway, at some point Tom and Adira buy a house which I can picture perfectly and I've even seen a smol canyon (idk that's the wrong word) that was precisely what I was picturing, except plus the house. In that snippet they're lying on the grass outside their home, a few (?) years after they got married. Incidentally, the whole trauma thing combined with problems of Tom's that showed up (he has significant anger issues, has been reunited with childhood friends who rejected him due to an illness in his teens but who were extremely misogynistic which occasionally shows up in him despite his working on it and drinking his respect women juice ever since) nearly broke their engagement/marriage early on, but they've learned to sort that out with various help.

But they get along SO well all through (they first met when she was fourteen and he was ? (I need to tweak the ages, I started writing this years ago and the age gap at that point is Not It) due to sharing a class 'cause she was precocious and he was struggling) and I love them sm. I love how they can still remain lighthearted to some extent even through all the things they endure. Ultimately, theirs is a lighter and gentler connection than, say, Vaniah and his Emily, which has a lot more heaviness to it.

One of the reasons I haven't written a great deal of this lately (read: have touched only twice since a year and a quarter ago) is because I've been finding romance just not what I want to go near for some reason in writing for the most part (Emily and Vaniah are different because that's not really romance ig). But I love them and I love their dynamic, both when it was purely platonic and when it grew to include romance as well. In the first book, Tom struggles significantly with an illness - I need to work out the specifics, but I drew to some extent from chronic fatigue syndrome, which my dad suffered from when I was young and still suffers from in a reduced quantity. One thing I like about that is that it shows how singlemindedly driven Tom is for any goal of his, which feeds into the anger issues he has later on, and problems related to his somewhat obsessive nature. Which he doesn't entirely fix and he still has to deal with to some extent, but it much improves (and it's not *all* bad, there are good points to it too).

Anyway, yeah, I think that's most of the context off the top of my head. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything! I love talking about my characters. :)

*The Emily of Vaniah's story and this Emily were originally one and the same, but I ended up choosing to separate the stories. I'll probably change the name of Vaniah's Emily at some point, but haven't yet. In Adira's story Vaniah still exists, showing up precisely three times, but his ending is entirely different - while in his story he leaves his job and becomes friends with them and marries Emily and heals from his problems, in Adira's, he leaves his job but rather more explosively and choosing to save all the people he can before he is found out. He then commits suicide to avoid a long and painful death at the hands of the authorities (it's possible he could have done things differently and simply fled to join some of Adira's family and believers overseas, but he also entirely does not mind dying at that point). In Adira's story he is never named specifically, and his actual ending may or may not be specified in those books.

[spassyrabbit]

So Marvel Midnight Suns, the game not the comics, is out. And it's...eh? But this post isn't about that. This is about Nico Minoru which is the entire reason I got the game.

So, little background. Runaways was my first comic I ever got into and it was also the first place I encountered LGTB+ in media that wasn't blatently out there. It just was. Karolina was a lesbian and aside from Chase's surprise there was no pushback. At least not in the comics, I wasn't reading it when that issue first came out so I don't know about the fandom. As someone who would later come out herself I think that helped shaped me to be confident in the fact that I was asexual. Because for Karolina, and the Runaways, it just was.

Now what's that got to do with Nico? Well she was, is, my favorite character. (Pattern, Raven from Teen Titans is also my favorite). Karrie is great, an insperation, but to a younger me...bubbly and happy and connected with her parents (before the grand evil reveal). Things I was not. To little me Nico was closer to my own situation and thus my choice was made.

Now onto the game! Like I said I picked this up mostly for Nico. This is the first game I have seen that brought her in right away and not as "Sister Grimm". As Nico Minoru, confident, if still learning, badass. Less of the "dark gothic witch sterotype" "uwu" fucking bullshit. (Seriously, this girl made her own clothes that flowed in an older sorta 1700's style gothic and then some people continue to shove her in what amounts to gothic lolita). Anyway, beyond that.

This is not the current comic book Nico we all know and love. Indeed, this Nico is so far back I'm surprised she's cast as an adult. Early in the game, after the second story mission, if I remember right, Nico drags Hunter to watch a movie. And during that movie you can ask background questions. Namely about The Runaways. Here's where it gets interesting.

Nico only talks about the initial Runaways, the six kids who discovered their parents were, as put in the game, capitial "E" Evil. Gert is dead but this where things go away from the comics. Karolina returned to Earth with Xavin the same night Gert died. In the game Nico says Karolina is in space to marry an alien princess. Meaning she has no idea Gert is dead or that the Runaways have essentially disbanded. Molly is at Xaiver's school and Nico and Chase had a falling out. Chase and Old Lace are in LA doing who knows what.

Alex, is of course, dead having chosen his parents' side like in the comics.

So from this we gather some things. This is not a Nico who meets Xavin. Who gets a warning from a future Gert and puts them on the path to Victor. Who goes back in time, gets tortured by an ancestor thus giving her a major power boost outside of the Staff, turns a cannibal into a vegan with The Staff of One, and rescues a child from an abusive marriage. Who looses Xavin to the depths of space in terms of peace, plunging Karolina, Nico's best friend, into grief. And this all just the first run of the comics.

Incidently this is also a Nico who never gets dragged to Murder World and all that resulting trauma. Never becomes part of the A-Force and meets Singularity. (Side note I would love to see something hilarous of the lines Blue showing up in the game and being overjoyed that Carol and Nico are working together). We don't yet know if Nico is aware that The Staff of One is another magic caster made into the staff by one of her ancestors. She's at least aware it's sentient in a way. (There's another time when you can discuss her powers and the Staff more and you claim her abilities as "powerful yet strange". Nico responds with saying both her and the Staff thank you for the compliment.)

This Nico has had some sort of training, has too, because the powers of the Staff would not be good in a card based combat system. Chaos magic, as the game puts it, is her magic, agumented and focused by the Staff. When and where and who she completed that training with hasn't been touched upon yet as far as I am in the game. In the comics Nico only started to using magic outside of the Staff after the time jaunt. And it wasn't until the last arc of The Runaways she appeared to have any training with using the Staff as a blunt force weapon.

So! All of that is to say is that if you pick up this game with any knowledge of Nico Minoru and The Runaways know this. We're dealing with an alternate timeline, drawn from the very core of The Runaways, and taken on a different path. I would love to see this expanded on but I highly doubt I will! But it's been an interesting path so far.

[essentiallyinfinite]

Okay. I am feeling, and have felt for so many years, a kind of fixation on ... figuring out a way to live well.

I was compulsive about books and knowledge. I think to a fault; I collected and accumulated more books than I could realistically hope to read and integrate in a lifetime, thinking I would somehow synthesize a "grand theory" of sorts. Something inclusive of science and spirituality...

I'm going to take some influence from Jasun Horsley and go through my evolution of influences, since I don't see a way to dissociate my life from my philosophy.

Early on ... I think in my early adolescence -- it must have been after my older brother by seven years had left home to live and work in a Camphill Community in Ireland (connected with Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy -- my parents and I went on a short vacation during March break to somewhere north in Ontario where there was still plenty enough snow to go snowshoeing and staid in a hotel. In that hotel, in the drawer of the sidetable next to the bed where ordinarily at that time one would find a copy of the bible I found "Conversations With God" by Neale Donald Walsh.

I hadn't thought too much about "God" before that, that I can remember. My parents hadn't taken us to church at all despite (or because of) my mom coming from a Catholic upbringing and my father's father being a minister (Presbyterian?). But something grabbed me and I devoured the book. I think it was the first time I was exposed to the idea of "God" as not a separate entity but as here and now present in our thoughts, feelings, ideas, circumstances and environment; that at some level we were all inherently divine by nature and that we were "God" experiencing Itself subjectively; a hidden Unity within an illusion of separateness. This struck me as such a beautiful, obvious truth.

My brother was influential, despite being physically absent during these seminal years as I approached adulthood. He had a spiritual inclination, and during this time in my teens I went through his bookshelf. Another book that I read and influenced me was "The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore," by Alan Cohen. I don't remember much specifically about this book now, other than that it was a bit "New Age-y" and was one of these narratives I'd come to recognise about a "typical" middle-class white Westerner "discovering" Eastern mysticism and getting taken in by some kind of guru/spiritual teacher. Similar to another book from my brother's shelf, "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass/Richard Alpert.

Also during this period and thanks to my brother's small library I began to discover Jack Kerouac, and read through a number of his semi-autobiographical novels like "On the Road," "Dharma Bums" and "Desolation Angels". I think this was also when I started to see more of the "shadow side" of things -- it was confusing at first to learn that Kerouac, despite being creative, successful, and "spiritual" had nonetheless still ended up essentially committing slow suicide and dying young through alcoholism. Despite this, I still picked up a distorted romanticized view of this lifestyle -- that one could be a "spiritual" artist/creator and also a hedonistic asshole.

This was further compounded by my reading "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller, who painted a picture of living in poverty, borrowing money to buy wine, writing and womanizing, which started to seem very cool to me -- I had little self-awareness and virtually no social skills. I had a few short-lived relationships that basically consisted of me fixating and obsessing with a girl and then (if and when they actually kind of reciprocated) they or I would distance ourselves or break things off.

I thrived briefly in a special program where 20 or so students got to work in a sort of outdoor education setting where we learned about deep ecology, Taoism, took turns cooking lunch and washing up, and had grade 4 and 5 students come for overnight field trips where we would put on activities and performances to teach about environmentalism stuff. Every semester two or three students were selected from applicants to continue as co-op helpers and intermediaries between the program instructors and the next semester of students. I wanted to do this and I believe was very close to being selected but was rejected because I'd struggled to hand in my final assignment on time. I didn't know that this was because of my ADHD neurotype. I thought I was just undisciplined and prone to procrastination. To this day this rejection haunts me and I feel like I lost part of myself in that moment. All of my close friends were selected into this role except me and I don't think I will ever forgive the teacher for his ignorance and lack of understanding. But he was basically a child himself, I think only in his late twenties, and at the time neurodivergency wasn't well-known or recognized like it is today. Still, the correct thing to do would have been to draw out my potential and help me improve rather than rejecting and shaming me.

Also during these years I had terrible self-esteem and would look at myself in the mirror and repeatedly punch myself in the face for being "ugly." Also, apparently in grade six I had started "cutting" myself or something but I don't remember doing that, and it's possible that the attention it got made me learn to be more discreet about my self-harming "meltdowns" -- they would always be in extreme states of emotional overwhelm and never deliberate. Always violent outbursts. Of course I felt immense shame and embarrassment about doing this sort of thing once I had calmed down.

....

[liaromancewriter]

Delicate

Premise: Max and Sienna plan to spend the day together and discover that they can still surprise each other.

Book: Open Heart

Pairing: Sienna Trinh x Max Valentine (OC)

Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff

Words: 1,745

View Series Masterlist

Max Valentine remembered exactly where he was the first time he heard the name, Sienna Trinh. He’d been unwinding in his Georgetown apartment after a long day at work, a scotch older than his father in one hand, and missing his twin sister, Cassie.

She had recently moved to Boston to start her three-year medical residency at Edenbrook Hospital, and he already hated it. This was the first time in their lives that they would be so far apart physically.

When she was at medical school at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore had been a quick run down the BW Parkway. With his work schedule, Boston would require more planning.

He was about to head off to bed when he got a text from her saying she was back at her closet of an apartment. Despite texting each other during the day, he really just wanted to hear her voice, so he hit the call button. She was a little tipsy and full of stories of other interns she’d met, and one Sienna Trinh who was her kindred spirit as a fellow dolphin.

In that moment, Max had known that he was no longer going to be his sister’s only best friend. And a part of him resented Sienna for taking his sibling from him. Almost three years later, he couldn’t imagine his life without Sienna Trinh being a part of it.

He surreptitiously checked his watch while listening with one ear to a supplier trying to negotiate their way early out of a five-year contract. His other ear was firmly fixed on the door to his temporary office as he waited for Sienna to join him.

Despite how often they texted, and how close they had become, they had only ever spent a handful of times in each other’s company. The last one at Thanksgiving in Newport would forever be etched in his memory.

That’s when he had finally admitted the truth to himself ─ when Valentines met the love of their life, there would never be anyone else for them. And he was very much a Valentine.

The soft knock on the door came at the same time as he unmuted himself to answer a question. From the corner of his eye, he watched her quietly enter the room, her booted feet silent on the carpeted floor.

He took in her appearance with a quick glance, noting the leather jacket and dark jeans paired with a v-neck green sweater. Her hair was in a loose ponytail instead of her usual braid, and the Dara necklace he’d sent her rested at the base of her throat.

Looking at her, he realized that he hadn’t really planned how they would spend the day, just that he wanted to cheer her up.

“Look, we can keep going round and round, but here’s the reality,” he said, tuning into what his counterpart on the screen was saying. His voice turned hard as he sought to bring an end to a discussion that had gone on long enough.

“You signed a five-year contract extension and we’re only one year in. The termination clause doesn’t kick in until year three or you have to reimburse us the full value of the deal. Your company doesn’t have the capital or line of funding to do that. We can either revisit this discussion in two years or you can file for Chapter 11 tomorrow. Let us know when you’ve made a decision.”

He ended the videoconference before the other party could respond.

“You’re definitely a shark.”

Crap. His particular style of negotiation was certainly not the way to impress a dolphin.

“Sorry, thought I’d be done before you got here,” he found himself explaining as she continued to watch him from across the desk. Her expression told him he had just confirmed something, but he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“I liked watching you work,” she said with a nervous laugh. “To me, you’re my friend Max. But I think I saw just now who Max Valentine is.”

“And?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“And you knew exactly what you wanted, and didn’t care about the rest,” she said simply as he came to stand beside her. His hand reached for hers, holding it loosely in an automatic gesture that neither saw for what it was.

“Not caring isn’t necessarily a good thing, Sienna,” he said evenly, wondering if this was what she really thought of him.

He watched her now, knowing how expressive her eyes were, giving away everything she was thinking. After all, he’d made a study of her face in Newport last fall. But for some reason today he couldn’t seem to quite get a read on her.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly, her face crestfallen.

“Forget it,” he said, dropping their clasped hands as he turned away to pack up his laptop.

He didn’t know why he was suddenly irritated, but he knew he had to shake it off if he didn’t want to make a complete mess of their limited time together.

“Max!”

He heard the distress in her voice and silently cursed. He wanted to apologize, laugh it off but nothing came out as they stared at each other.

And then she was walking towards him, closing the distance, her hands coming to rest on his. Her body moved against his as she buried her face into his chest. Her head tucked itself neatly under his chin as his arms wrapped around her.

“You’re the opposite of uncaring,” she murmured against his shirt. “No one knows that better than me. It was a thoughtless thing for me to say and I am so sorry.”

“I’m being stupid,” he admitted, inhaling a scent that was uniquely hers. “I know that’s not what you meant. That’s not what dolphins do, right?”

She giggled at his wry tone and shook her head no.

Crisis averted, they started to pull apart; she looked up at the same time that he looked down. Their faces so close that he could see the hazel flecks in her brown eyes. He heard her breath hitch, the sound loud in the bubble of anticipation surrounding them.

His hands cupped the sides of her face and she nuzzled against his palm, a small smile breaking across her lips. Later, he wasn’t sure which of them had moved first.

He bent his head and she stretched up, their lips connecting briefly as if unsure. It wasn’t enough. He hauled her close, angling his mouth over hers, giving her the chance to pull away.

She closed the distance instead, leaning up on her toes, drawing his head down.

Eyes wide open, she brushed her lips softly against his, memorizing the shape and feel of him. He saw his need reflected in her eyes and deepened the kiss. Her arms circled his neck, his wrapped low around her hips, both holding the other in place.

He felt a tremor pass through her body as his tongue met hers. Enough.

They broke apart before they did something they couldn’t come back from. Still, he rested his forehead against hers as he tried to catch his breath. She collapsed into him, letting him take her weight.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

He knew he was repeating himself, but damn if he knew what one said after kissing the love of one’s life and having it be everything one imagined.

“I..” she said, stopping.

“Hmm. I…” she started again only to close her mouth and look away. His arms fell away as she pulled back.

They moved apart, both shuffling backward until the distance between them was half the room.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” he said, scratching his head as if to guage how far was far enough for him to not yank her into his arms.

“Maybe a few more steps,” she said, starting to take a step back.

“Sienna, if you moved back any further, you’d end up in the Charles River,” he said, exasperation showing.

They both looked at the length of the carpeted floor between them and then they were laughing as the ridiculousness of the situation dawned on them.

“I want to say I’m sorry,” he said once they managed to control themselves, “but I wouldn’t mean it.”

“I’m not sorry either,” she admitted. “I’ve wondered what it would be like since Thanksgiving.”

“But we have a plan?” he half asked.

“Yes,” she nodded unenthusiastically. “We have a plan.”

“Speaking of plans, I didn’t actually make any for our day out.”

“Is it okay if we don’t do anything?” she asked, her voice hesitant. “Just stay in. No work, no boards, just us.”

He crossed the floor to stand in front of her once again. He held out his hand for her, smiling when she took it.

“A quiet day in with you sounds perfect to me,” he said, feeling his heart lighten when a huge smile broke across her face.

“Do you want to stay here or go back to the apartment?” she asked, reaching for the handbag she had dropped during their kissing session.

“Definitely the apartment,” he declared. “If I stay here, I guarantee that we will not have any peace. See?” he added when there was a loud knock on the door.

Eventually, they made their way out of the office and through the busy hotel lobby. Max slung his left arm over her shoulder when Sienna nestled closer as they navigated the large crowd of guests congregated near the entrance.

“Let’s stop at the grocery store,” he said once they were outside. “It’s almost lunch time and it’s time I showed you breakfast isn’t the only thing I’m good at.”

“Hmm. I’m in the mood for the pasta,” she mused, trying to think of ways to bring his ego down a peg. “Freshly made of course, none of that dry stuff.”

“Of course,” he smirked, recognizing a challenge when he heard it. “Come on. There’s an organic grocery a couple of blocks away. They should have everything we need.”

As they walked toward the store on a wide pathway free from crowds, neither noticed that his arm was still over her shoulder while hers was hooked around his waist.

They might have a plan, thought Max once they were seated in the backseat of a taxi, groceries in the trunk, but plans were meant to be changed. One just had to be delicate about it.

Perma-tags: @jamespotterthefirst @starryeyedrookie @genevievemd @forallthatitsworth @queencarb @ohchoices @coffeeheartaddict​ @openheartfan @udishaman @danijimenezv @potionsprefect @quixoticdreamer16 @schnitzelbutterfingers @mainstreetreader @tsrookie @bex-la-get @chaoticchopshopheart @headoverheelsforramsey @thegreentwin @dorisz @silma-words @custaroonie @pixelnutrookie @adiehardfan @parisa-kh @takemyopenheart @dickgraysonsscrumptiousbooty @jerzwriter @choiceskatie @mia143 @mm2305 @a-crepusculo @barbean @beastlyinstrument @electroniccreatorwerewolf @rosebudde @lucy-268 @sarcastic01lily @blainehellyes @crazy-loca-blog @writer-ish @pixelberrygirl @wanderingamongthewildflowers @trappedinfanfiction

Max & Sienna only: @alj4890 @cordonianruby @gryffindordaughterofathena @utterlyinevitable @katrinegrey

[creativeashproductions]

Curiosity // Luke Patterson

Summary: After filling up another journal designed his songbook Luke is left empty handed. With the offer to a shelf of blanket journals is given he’s immediately choosing. But Luke’s curiosity leads him to a discovery. In other words Luke finds Perfect Harmony in Reader’s bedroom.

Requested: Yes by @averyharrypotterlife​ 

Warnings: None.

Words: 1.7 (including lyrics)

A/N: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the 5000+ followers whether it was years ago and you didn’t unfollow or in the future. Thank you for enjoying and interacting in something I’ve always loved: writing.

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX PLEASE!

Masterlist

Luke’s always been a curious person going as far back as his early childhood. The most consistent evidence being during the Christmas holidays. Until he was ten, yes, he’s aware that his friends stopped believing in Santa way earlier. The young lad would stay up hidden in the living room waiting to catch Santa. Without fail, Luke would wake up in his outer space planet sheets having fallen asleep in his mission.

When he was twelve years old, he was left at his aunt and uncle’s house for the weekend due to a work-related thing. His older cousin was eighteen at the time and at college, so Luke stayed in his bedroom. Luke couldn’t help but snoop through Bryan’s personal items, and in a drawer with a false bottom, he discovered magazines.

Luke had a lot of fun that weekend diligently going through the magazines his mother would skin his hide even knowing about them. He may have had to use the excuse of having a cold for the entire box of Kleenex missing. No one was the wiser on that weekend.

Now when Luke was fourteen years old, he had snuck into the Rated R film Candyman with Alex and Reggie. Luke’s parents had been strict in their rules and definitely had shot down the question of seeing the film. The three didn’t sleep with the lights out for a month after that, and the truth came out when no lie was sufficient to their concerned parents.

Luke Patterson didn’t care about boundaries. Why ask for permission when you can just ask for forgiveness? It worked with going through Julie’s dream box, but all personal items got hidden from the ghostly guitarist.

“No!” Luke exclaimed flipping through his song journal once more in hopes of a blank page. The frustration in his body snapping the pencil he had been using.

“You good?” You questioned glancing up from the essay you graded as a teacher’s assistant for an AP course. Luke’s frustrated brown met yours with a cute pout on his lips.

“I’ve filled my journal up. I hate using loose-leaf, but no money means no buying things.” Luke roughly scrubbed one hand on his face.

“You could always just forever borrow one from the- “Luke quickly shot that down with a look of absolute horror, “Okay…so stealing a no.”

“I did listen to my parents on certain aspects. I would never steal anything, other than the food when we didn’t have enough cash.” Luke’s brown hue had softened back into the hazel that caused flutters in your heart, “I have no respect for thieves.”

You nodded before scribbling a suggestion on the paper in dark red, “I have a shelf in my room dedicated solely to blank journals. If you want to, you can take one free of charge.”

With a quick smile, Luke disappeared from the room to your personal domain he sometimes hung out with you in. You had no misgivings on the teen finding solace in your room and gave him free rein; your prized possessions hidden very well.

Luke appeared in the soft blue and lilac bedroom with the queen white iron wrought style bed in the middle. A white desk in the corner with a multitude of bookcases and shelves in the room. The desk chair neatly pushed into the desk as well he went straight to the shelf.

Journals of all colours and styles with a label on the shelf noting them as empty. It was packed with dozens, but it was the midnight blue one that called to the boy. In his reach, he bumped an emerald green one off the edge. It opened having hit the edge of the desk.

As he leaned down, he noticed notations in the margins, now remember how Luke is a curious guy? He only hesitated a second before he was reading the pages of words in your signature script.

The guilt flared for a second before he justified it as being on the shelf you declared free game. So Luke settled sitting criss-cross against the side of your bed reading the words so eloquently written. Even notes allowed Luke to hear the melody in his mind.

Assignment: Write a piece of literature from two points of views. Genre doesn’t matter as long as it is a minimum of one page and not exceed eight.

Step into my world

Bittersweet love story ’bout a girl

Shook me to the core

Voice like an angel

I’ve never heard before

The words took his breath away, recalling a moment he gushed to Alex on how he had caught you singing. He had described your voice as being angelic, and it took him by complete surprise. He remembered Julie, and you entered the room shortly after with a nervous feeling if you had heard. Now Luke had his answer. His phantom heart pounded in anticipation for the reply to this first point of view.

Here in front of me

They’re shining so much brighter

Than I have ever seen

Life can be so mean

But when he goes, I know he doesn’t leave

The smile threatened to split his face with the elation as he continued reading with a subconscious hum. His fingers tapping the sides of the paper as his hazel irises tinged green ate up the words.

The truth is finally breaking through

Two worlds collide when I’m with you

Our voices rise and soar so high

We come to life when we’re

In perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

The world faded as Luke distinctly heard your angelic voice singing the parts he could easily recognize as perfect for you. There was something so powerful in this incredibly personal song only intended for your eyes and your teachers.

The next handful of lines left him breathless and astonished as he visualized not sitting across from each other. But engaging in another art form that can be so incredibly intimate for people; he imagined singing this while holding you in his arms.

You set me free

You and me together is more than chemistry

Love me as I am

I’ll hold your music here inside my hands

We say we’re friends, we play pretend

You’re more to me, we’re everything

Our voices rise and soar so high

 We come to life when we’re

 In perfect harmony

 Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

 Perfect harmony

 Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

 Perfect harmony

Luke went from humming to softly singing to the heartfelt tune with a flutter of butterflies deep in his stomach. When Julie saw Unsaid Emily, he had denied it as an experiment, and it was the truth. Luke wrote rock anthems and rock-pop with his living friend. He never dabbled into romantic ones.

He’d never read something so poetically beautiful it felt him weeping at the sheer amount of feelings.

I feel your rhythm in my heart

Yeah yeah yeah

You are my brightest burning star

Whoah whoah oh

I never knew a love so real (so real)

We’re heaven on earth

Melody and words

When we’re together we’re

In perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

We say we’re friends (we play pretend)

You’re more to me (we create)

Perfect harmony

His eyes found the last line of the song setting him back in a dead silence returning to the start to reread it. On his third read, he found the notes from your teacher on a separate page.

Y/N, in my years of teaching, I’ve never read something with such meaning behind it. The longing, passion, respect and love you artfully encapsulated is rare. To have written, this means you’ve felt this. No corrects needed, and I felt compelled to not mark on the piece. Thank you for being vulnerable with me, for letting me step inside your mind and please never let this emotion fade.

Your grade is A+.

Luke’s lips pulled apart at the genuine words your teacher had written because it indeed was a word of art. Carefully Luke returned the notebook back to the shelf to retrieve the blue one that caught his attention. AS he turned, he found you leaning against the door frame with a soft smile.

“I am so sor-“

“No.” You replied, walking into the room, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I told you any notebook on that shelf. I can’t get mad, and I’ve seen you can’t leave something half-read.”

“Probably why my book reports were insanely well done in school.” Luke joked as you stepped in his personal space. The tension faded from his shoulders as he took in your features, “You got a perfect grade.”

“I did.” You simply spoke, staring up into his eyes, “You helped me with it.”

“How?”

“You told Alex what you felt about my voice. You looked nervous when I walked in, so I let it go. It wasn’t the time to bring it up. It’s called Perfect Harmony.” You told the ghost gently grazing your fingertips on his hand. The feeling sends shudders down his spine.

“I guess it just wasn’t the right time. With the band and-“

“-the whole soul owning thing. Too much but now that you’ve read that…what do you feel?” You hesitantly asked because reading it and discovering how someone feels is another to if the feelings are reciprocated back.

“That I was always meant to live in 2020. That I was meant to love you with every atom in my very being.” Luke murmured before he crashed his lips onto your own in a searing kiss that had your toe-curling.

The midnight blue journal dropped to the floor as his large calloused hands cupped your face to feel the warmth. The very journal would be filled with songs all about this person, Luke adored not matter his state as a ghost. Two worlds collided just as two souls came together in perfect harmony.

So, wrapped up in each other Luke didn’t notice something magical encased in the warm love. In the bedroom, the two teens were kissing in had two distinct heartbeats with a glow emanating from Luke Patterson.

Tag List (PLEASE SEND AN INBOX TO BE ADDED! I CANNOT GUARANTEE YOU WILL BE ON THE LIST VIA POST COMMENTS!)

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[winns-stuff]

Hi! Firstly I wanna say thank you so much for letting folks submit asks here, it's super fun!I have two main things I would like to share in regards to both the fandom and the content of LO itself.About the fandom,I've seen many people defend the questionable age gap and portrayal of relationships the comic perpetuates with stating that the audience are adults and would know not to practice the actions prepetuated by LO. And I for one would like to call cap, there are people in their 20s and 30s who enjoy LO ,yes, but webtoon itself is generally directed towards a young audience, children,teens and young adults.I saw in one of your posts that you discovered the comic when you were 11 and took it that you're currently still a minor.I am a minor as well, and when I was actually fond of the webtoon I've seen many many young people in the fandom that were minors or just 18,19,hell the idea of persephone being 19 is most likely meant to make her easier for the aforementioned young audience to relate to.I'm pretty sure if the legal age for adulthood was 17 ,RS would've made her 18(that's just an assumption though) RS KNOWS young people read her work and markets her work as a "coming of age" story which makes the problematic ideas portrayed in lo seem all the more irresponsible and gross .Also I remember you saying the relationship between h×p is very saccharin and by god I couldn't agree more,don't get me wrong couples who are very sweet and affectionate with one another are cute, but... even the healthiest couples still argue and can think critically and negatively of the other's actions .h×p have never argued apart from that one scene where they kiss after and that part where she got mad at him for owning slaves .Other than that they seem to put each other on a pedestal which is not at all healthy .it honestly seems more like a middle school girl's idea of what a healthy relationship actually is ,even though the author was someone in her late20s/early 30s when they first wrote it.

Anyway,love your takes, hope you're doing fine, toodles✌🏻❤

Alright firstly you’re very welcome! I enjoy answering questions so I’m so excited to even be answering this one especially since it’s so thought out and well articulated! But yeah, I don’t believe that there are only adults in the fandom because there’s been tons of teens and kids who have found Lore Olympus and has been attracted to the book, and amazing detective work! I am still a minor and I’m surprised you figured that out, but I agree with all of your points HxP don’t argue and he doesn’t abuse her or anything but the overall dynamic of the relationship is very creepy and pretty unbalanced, and your last point was amazing because I think the exact same thing. It does really feel like a kiddy middle school sort of relationship honestly. But thank you so much for this sorry if it was a little late but I am so grateful that you appreciate my takes, I hope you’re doing great and thank you so much for submitting! Really made my day <3

[onlydylanobrien]

There are still new fans of this show discovering it all the time. What do you think gave it such staying power?

".... Also, I think Scott and Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) plays a big part in it because that dude and I are still best friends. I kick it with him all the time. He is the love of my life. And that was since day one, since the day we met in the audition process. It was like we were meant to be, or we had met each other in a different life. We were both 18 years old, both wearing skateboard brand T-shirts, and I looked at him and I felt like I knew him. And he felt the same way. That’s only gotten stronger over the years. I’m getting emotional, right now! [Laughs] Our relationship has only gotten stronger, the respect and the love. I think that played a big part in why the show is fun to watch because that relationship is the most authentic thing on TV. I compare it to Supernatural, because those guys are great buddies, too, and people love that show. I think that makes a big difference."

In those early days of the show, did you have any sense of how huge it would become?

"I did. One thing weird about me is that I’ve had this foresight of my life since I was a kid. I don’t know if it’s a spiritual connection to the universe, or what! But as soon as we booked the show, I remember Dylan and I were sitting in his car and he said, “How long do you think this show is going to go for, realistically? A couple of months?” And I said, “I don’t know, homie. I think this show could go until we’re 25 years old.” At that point, we were 18 — and that’s when the show wrapped. We were 25 or 26. ...."

What do you remember most about your first days on set? Does anything stand out to you about that time?

"Me and Dylan. We shot a pilot presentation, which was half of the pilot, and then we went back and filmed the rest of the pilot months later. So, me, Dylan, Crystal [Reed], [Tyler] Hoechlin, Colton [Haynes], and Holland [Roden] all went to Atlanta. We were there for about nine days of filming, which is crazy for a half-hour. We were in a hotel, and Dylan and I hung out the entire time. We didn’t leave each other’s rooms. I remember being in the cold and none of us complaining, just being so happy to be there and grateful and stoked, but the biggest thing was me and Dylan just laughing until seven in the morning in his hotel room. It was like I was hanging out with a soulmate I hadn’t seen in five lifetimes. It was the greatest. It was me and Dylan all the way — that’s what I remember the most."

[differenceonlyyoucanmake]

12 Dancing Princesses Thoughts/ Headcanons/ Assorted Stuff that Came to Me in a Dream

I’m kind of tired, so this may be incomplete. I wanted to put it out there, though. My dreams have mostly been from Courtney’s perspective, not an omniscient one. Because of this, there may be some gaps.

Ashlyn:

- Deserved so much better

- It actually makes me upset. I woke up from one of my 12dp dreams in TEARS because she deserved so much better.

- After Isabella passed, Ashlyn took on the role of being a maternal presence to her sisters. She did this extremely well, but it’s also heartbreaking how she pushed herself to grow up.

- Randolph was not a capable father during the lowest periods of his grief, and Ashlyn definitely had to compensate for this.

- Randolph... could have been kinder to her, especially after the queen died. He couldn’t look Ashlyn in the eyes. She reminded him too much of his late wife.

- Isabella wanted Ashlyn to inherit her belongings and position, but Randolph had his own favorites (I promise I don’t think he was an evil person, but he could have done better).

- I think Ashlyn would identify as bisexual.

- She knew several instruments, but was most attached to the flute. Her most treasured memories involved Isabella giving her flute lessons.

- She was expected to be the mature one all the time, so she repressed a lot of her own frustrations in favor of caring for others.

- She was closest to Blair and Courtney.

- She was a little soft spoken, and one of the most “ladylike”; Ashlyn was one of the sisters who struggled least with Rowena’s lessons.

- The younger sisters had a hard time remembering that she was a person capable of all sorts of feelings. They expected parental behavior from her, and got really confused when she expressed negative emotions.

- Some of the sisters assumed Ashlyn didn’t care for sweets, because she would offer hers to the others whenever they got any. In reality, she thought this was kind behavior. She showed sacrifice in several, seemingly inconsequential, ways.

- Despite seeming so mature, she always felt as if she stopped growing up after her mother passed.

- As the sisters grew up, Ashlyn really struggled with finding her purpose. She didn’t get the power her mother promised her. She put her own ideas and prospects aside to care for her sisters. She ended up floating from kingdom to kingdom, with varying success in several different courts. She eventually came  to live with the other eldest sisters.

- Despite being (in my view) cheated out of her kingdom, Ashlyn seldom expressed frustration or resentment. She adopted the attitude of a retired noble early in life, spending a lot of time on composing music and serene hobbies.

Blair

- horse.... horses..... sleeping in the stables...... with the horses

- I’m kidding! Mostly!

- Blair was bold and opinionated. She also loved witty conversation and comedy.

- What else did she love? Horses.

- She would sneak out all the time to ride.

- Her favorite horse was black and very tall.

- She was closest to Ashlyn and Courtney.

- Blair was sick in childhood.

- Though the older sisters were known for being more refined and elegant, Blair pushed this notion plenty.

- She loved adventure.

- All of the sisters missed the golden pavilion, but Blair struggled with this a lot.

- She didn’t have as many problems with Randolph, but sometimes she would CAUSE problems on purpose (mostly defending Ashlyn and calling out his favoritism).

- She turned her own estate later in life into a close replica of the pavilion. The grounds were massive.

- She was intelligent, but struggled with many academic tasks. If she needed to read something that was challenging, she would often hand it to Courtney for help. She would only have motivation to read if it was about subjects she loved.

- This is ironic, because she later came to be a published writer. I believe these were short works, similar to pamphlets.

- Blair enjoyed throwing and attending large balls and gatherings. She was still chasing the thrill of the magical visits she’d make with her sisters.

- Blair was considered extremely beautiful, and drew admirers wherever she went. She accumulated many pieces of ruby jewelry this way.

- She also liked wearing capes and cloaks.

Courtney

- Generally shy, Courtney made an exception when she stood up for Ashlyn.

- Courtney longed to travel, and books provided her with a form of escapism until she was able to.

- She had a health scare after the events of the movie, and this somehow tarnished her standing in society??

- She wasn’t straight, probably a lesbian.

- She was well read on political matters and the history of their kingdom, and would often be the first one to noticed Randolph’s incompetence in certain areas.

- She was a young teen when she first started rewriting her father’s treaties in her spare time. She learned after the first time not to bring her drafts to him.

- When Ashlyn and Blair left home, she grew closer with Fallon. Both had a streak of wanderlust, and gravitated towards the romantic.

- Courtney published poetry under a pseudonym starting at a young age. This probably helped her somewhat. As she grew up, her poems grew in notoriety, and many debated who their true writer was. A significant portion focused on love between women and feeling trapped.

- I think she had been to Apollonia (Antonio’s kingdom in Island Princess) several times, and knew both Luciana and Antonio from an early age. I think this was the case for many of the older sisters.

- After their mother died, the girls traveled less, and met less new people. Courtney was bothered by this.

- She was generally thought of as calm and quiet, but she felt emotions deeply ( even if she didn’t always express them).

Delia

- Athletic and spunky

- Delia enjoyed more structured sports.

- She was prone to sunburns.

- Delia was enamored with the sun and light. She would hang prisms next to her windows to watch the light refract.

- She was closest with her twin, Edeline. They enjoyed playing croquet together and (though it was usually harmless) gossiping.

- Delia had a temper. She would deal with guilt afterwards if she lashed out at someone.

- Her emotional regulation issues came to light after her mother died.

- Delia dealt with a lot of guilt in general. She didn’t feel as put-together as her older sisters, or as carefree as the younger ones. She felt guilty for not fitting in, and expressed feeling like an inconvenience to those around her.

- Outsiders thought she was dim-witted, and she internalized this.

- Delia often had a problem of interrupting people or speaking loudly, so it was advised that she stay quiet when visitors came. This really hurt her self esteem, since she was always happy to make new friends.

- Rowena had offended her when she was a young girl, and Delia never forgot this.

- Delia liked birds, and hummingbirds fascinated her.

- She had to learn to accept herself later in life. 

- She discovered people who appreciated her for who she was, and finally left her inhibitions behind. 

- After that, she became known for her charisma and charm.

Edeline:

- Edeline shared a lot of interests with her twin, such as sports and outdoor activities.

- She enjoyed making others laugh.

- Once Genevieve married Derek, Edeline took it as her cue to BULLY that poor man.

- Seriously, it probably warded off suitors for her other sisters.

- It was usually in good fun, though.

- Edeline disliked rules and structure.

- She was closest with Delia.

- She often stood up for her twin.

- Edeline had a good ear for gossip, and had her own methods of fact checking stories she’d heard.

- Something happened with her at Genevieve’s wedding?? Maybe she broke something??

- Edeline traveled some, but found her way back home eventually.

- She DESPISED Rowena. None of the sisters liked her, but Edeline couldn’t stand her from the beginning.

- Edeline would have loved to know about the concept of roast humor.

- She liked to have sleepover-like setups in their bedroom. She would build forts and encourage the others to come tell ghost stories. When the memories of her mother came to her, she felt the need to DO something, even if the action wasn’t necessarily related.

- She became known for her humor.

Fallon

- Fallon was pretty much independent, until she and Courtney bonded.

- Fallon always wanted pets, and was jealous that only Genevieve was allowed to have one (besides....bugs and the horses, who were kept outside).

- She would try to befriend wild animals, and nursed some injured animals back to health.

- I don’t think Fallon was straight.

- Fallon was sensitive, and had a hard time dealing with Rowena’s harsh treatment.

- Fallon had nightmares, and would often go to her older sisters for comfort.

- She enjoyed the company of others. She would spend time with servants and other people considered to be below her station.

- Fallon played the harp.

- She loved the softer aspects of life. 

- She devoted time to charitable causes.

- I just know that she did that classic princess trope of posing as a commoner. That’s such a her thing to do.

- She gained a reputation for being eccentrically kind. She had a large family of animals, who she took EXCELLENT care of.

Genevieve

- You may have noticed that the older sisters were generally closer with each other. Well, Genevieve wasn’t, and she made it that way.

- She.... liked to act like she was in charge. She often undermined Ashlyn’s efforts.

- She was Randolph’s favorite.

- Genevieve got along better with the younger sisters, especially Lacey.

- She probably did have leadership skills, but a lot of them came from acting like she did.

- Like I’ve implied above, she got a lot of power after she married, instead of Ashlyn.

- Derek wasn’t a bad person, but he was a COBBLER. How did she get more political power by marrying a COBBLER?

- She butted heads with Blair and Courtney quite often after the events of the movie.

- Basically, she had Main Character Disease dsfghjk

- She traveled less than the other older sisters.

- Admittedly, she wasn’t a poor leader.

- I have a feeling she adopted a lot of children later in life.

- She and Derek had a pretty long transitional period after they married, meaning they spent more time really figuring out who they were as a couple rather than jumping into their duties right away.

- Genevieve kind of symbolized the cutoff for the sisters who had lots of solid memories about their mother and those who didn’t.

- She was one of the best dancers out of the sisters.

- She was brave and self-assured.

- She knew what she wanted, and she would get it.

- After Twyla, she got some other cats. They were mostly orange and/or long haired.

- She never quite shook her habit of being late.

Hadley

- Hadley was closest to their twin, Isla.

- As Hadley grew up, they became more comfortable being gender nonconforming. They may have been trans, but I don’t remember.

- Hadley enjoyed fencing.

- Stilts were Hadley’s first love, and led to appreciation for other daring activities.

- Hadley also loved the ocean. Many of their adventures involved being at sea. They spent years sailing longside their twin on a ship Genevieve gifted them.

- Rumors swirled that they were a pirate. Though these weren’t true, Hadley didn’t mind.

- Hadley was energetic and intuitive.

- Hadley was an athletic risk-taker. They enjoyed acrobatics and other feats of the human body.

- Hadley became known for their adventurous exploits and fencing prowess.

- Though Hadley initially idolized Genevieve, she eventually sided with Ashlyn and the other older sisters once she learned the whole story.

- Hadley stayed with the older sisters after whatever scary thing happened with Courtney.

- Hadley mentored people, and may have been a teacher.

- She really missed the times when all of their sisters got along.

- There were rumors that Hadley was affiliated with darker forces, when in reality Hadley was one of the most well-adjusted.

Isla

- Isla was closest to Hadley.

- Isla liked adventure, but she was less daring than Hadley.

- Isla stayed our of most business involving the older sisters, preferring to spend time with her twin.

- She loved swimming.

- Isla had a collection of maps.

- She was known for being easy going. 

- She sometimes had to bring Hadley down from an idea that seemed too dangerous.

- Isla was the voice of reason in some situations.

- She never lost her passion for dance, and learned new styles through their travels.

- Isla had pet birds.

- She was admired for her grace and acrobatic talent.

- Isla enjoyed circus-like acts.

- She was more bothered by the pirate rumors than Hadley.

- Isla enjoyed researching magic, and trying to find a way back to the magic pavilion. 

- Isla was non-confrontational.

- She tried many forms of artistic expression, from writing to painting.

- Isla was loyal to Hadley, and would be there for her twin no matter what.

Janessa

- Janessa maintained her love of insects.

- Since they were so young when it happened, none of the triplets remember details of the magic pavilion. If their sisters weren’t there to confirm their memories, they would have thought it was a dream.

- Janessa grew up to be very interested in science.

- Janessa found the proper way to care for insects, and took pride in how well she did it.

- She was prone to worrying.

- She often lamented the fact that she was so young when they visited the pavilion.

- Janessa was considered obedient and passive.

- Janessa heard how much she looked like her mother (though not as much as Ashlyn). She had mixed feelings about this, because she couldn’t really remember what her mother looked like.

- Janessa was closest to Kathleen.

- She became close with Edeline and Delia when she got older.

- Janessa knew she wasn’t Randolph’s favorite, and took this personally. She tried, especially in her youth, to gain his approval.

- She also knew that Genevieve preferred Lacey, even though all the triplets looked up to Genevieve.

- Janessa balanced her love for science with her royal duties, and used what power she had to provide exposure and resources to research institutes.

Kathleen

- Kathleen was creative and unconventional.

- She was closest with Janessa, and became close with Isla later in life.

- Kathleen was known for her paintings.

- She started out painting things like landscapes, then moved into less traditional subjects.

- Her royal portraits were renowned in particular. They captured royalty doing activities that were important to them, or in significant fantasy settings.

- She painted portraits of her siblings and father. These became their favorites. She captured: a relaxed Ashlyn writing music, Blair on horseback in mid-air, Courtney in her library, Delia in the sunlight, Edeline in a fantastical outdoor scene, Fallon with her animals, Genevieve dancing, Hadley fencing, Isla swimming, Janessa surrounded by flying insects in the sky, and Lacey at work.

- Though she tried many times, Kathleen was not satisfied with her attempts of painting her mother. She felt like she was simply copying pre-existing portraits.

- The only painting of her mother she was somewhat pleased with was one of Queen Isabella walking away, her back to the viewer as she walked into a golden pavilion.

- Kathleen tried to paint the magic pavilion, and these painting had a fuzzy, dream-like quality.

- Her art gained a significant following.

Lacey

- She was Randolph’s second favorite.

-Lacey was unshakably loyal to Genevieve. She didn’t understand why the older sisters were upset about her being given power and land.

- Lacey struggled with illness as a child. She was inspired by the healing water at the pavilion to study medicine.

- Lacey struggled with muscle strength and coordination well into adulthood.

- Despite this, she continued dancing.

- She looked very similar to Randolph’s relatives.

- She felt the need to defend Genevieve, and would often challenge her older sisters because of this.

- Although Ashlyn never challenged her, Lacey harbored resentment towards her. She blamed Ashlyn for the fact that Genevieve’s approval wasn’t universal.

- Lacey was interested in scientifically based medicine, as well as magical remedies.

- Lacey was always closest with Genevieve, and lived with her for a long time.

- Lacey idolized Genevieve and Derek’s relationship, often heralding it as the pinnacle of romance.

- She searched for a way back to the magical world, believing it contained the key to eternal youth and immortality.

- Lacey didn’t care for travel as much as some of her sisters, but she usually enjoyed when she did leave her own kingdom.

- She grew up to be Genevieve’s closest adviser, and an accomplished healer.

Canon Noncompliant Things

- The sisters left the pavilion by dancing in birth order. Although Derek did leave by dancing with Genevieve, they weren’t responsible for leaving in the first place. Once again, Ashlyn doesn’t get the credit she deserves dfghjk

- Genevieve had an actual wedding, not whatever that was that was shown at the end of the movie. It was smaller than a lot of royal weddings (because Derek didn’t have many connections or people to invite), but it was a serious affair. 

[dykeseinfeld]

u asked someone to remind you to post about your pjo dual protagonist thalia/bianca au and i am SO intrigued by this idea please say more

anon asked: hey queen hope your homework went good yesterday 🌸…now what were you saying about thalia and bianca 😳 ?

ok y’all i’m here...the moment almost none of y’all have been waiting for....bianca/thalia protagonists with alternating pov’s au

warning it’s kind of super long and may or may not read like a 2nd grader’s semi-coherent game of pretend so under the cut it goes!

so the main things you need to know about this au are 1. thalia survives and 2. annabeth’s + luke’s ages are a lil diff bc canon is my sandbox 3. i can’t decide if percy exists in this au or not (maybe y’all can help me decide?)

so the first book:

would start a few months after grover brought thalia (12), luke (13), and annabeth (10, not 7)  to camp half blood. they were chased by monsters sent by hades on the way, and thalia almost didn’t survive, but ultimately she got lucky and managed to send a bolt of lightning through her spear for the first time and they made it into camp

it’s been some time so annabeth is happy as a clam in the athena cabin doing her 10-year-old-with-severe-mommy-issues thing and luke is actually pretty popular with the hermes cabin bc he actually Met Their Dad Holy Shit and also he’s getting pretty good with a sword

at the same time, thalia is alone in the zeus cabin. everyone has been freaking out bc they all saw the huge bolt of lightning that incinerated a couple hellhounds as they made their grand entrance and What The Fuck Child Of The Big Three???

she’s also further isolated because chiron will take her for private training sessions sometimes, since she is clearly really powerful already and also Hades Himself was trying to kill her (chiron told her the reason was the big three’s pledge not to have kids, and maybe about the great prophecy? if he tells her that then she’s sworn to secrecy)

once grover leaves on another protector assignment, thalia mostly hangs out with luke, and annabeth. luke + annabeth both will try to eat meals with her at the zeus table but annabeth doesn’t want to get in trouble and luke is genuinely making friends in the hermes cabin so thalia will feel bad sometimes and send him back

kronos, seeing this bitter isolated child of the big three’s dreams: it’s free real estate

MEANWHILE

hades is Pissed that thalia survived and zeus got to break their oath And get the glory of a prophecy child

so he sends someone to take bianca (12) and nico (10) out of the lotus hotel and casino a little early.

grover is still their protector, but since the Stirring hasn’t begun in earnest yet and hades is lowkey determined to keep them safe, they make it back to camp half blood with no escort/incident

bianca + nico are put into the hermes cabin, and luke kinda takes them under his wing bc while he’s not bitter he still needs therapy bc this 14 year old has never met a pre-teen he couldn’t try to parent

luke introduces nico and annabeth since they’re the same age and they become really good friends!! she Loves mythomagic and he thinks her dagger is super cool and they’re both just really excited about camp <3

bianca is more reserved and resistant to the whole thing, and she wanders around alone exploring and runs into thalia in the zeus cabin

at this first meeting they get into a bit of a fight bc bianca is still in shock/denial about the gods being real, but thalia at this point has zero patience for this

anyway after that and maybe another scuffle during capture the flag or something they hit it off and become best friends in the way girls can, especially bonding over how they’ve both had to take on raising annabeth and nico basically on their own at the age of 12

~QUEST TIME~

thalia is given a quest for [unspecific reason] and chooses bianca and luke, they go off leaving annabeth and nico frustrated at home

quest hijinks etc, bianca is trying to figure out her parentage + her weird mysterious powers? and thalia is arguing with luke because he’s settling into camp/hero life really well actually but she’s getting progressively angrier with the gods for trying to kill her and also keeps getting dreams from kronos and doesn’t get why he doesn’t seem to remember all of the shit that the gods have put him through

bianca + thalia have las-vegas-style-heart-to-hearts where thalia shares her tragic backstory about her mother and her brother and how hades tried to kill her and even about the great prophecy and how she’s trying on this quest bc of that and her dad but at the same time these dreams are making her suspicious that he might’ve been responsible for her mom’s death.

bianca then shares her own stuff, about how terrified she was being on her own with nico having to protect him but also not remembering most of her childhood and not remembering her parents or how she ended up in the care of this lawyer and just the absolute mindfuckery that her memories/past are

luke is asleep in those scenes i guess lol 🧍‍♂️

anyway eventually they finish their quest in this massive climactic battle where bianca discovers her powers in a huge-showy-”i’m the ghost prince”-way and is formally claimed by hades which thalia sees as this Massive Betrayal obviously and bianca is horrified too because she knows what hades did to thalia but at the same time she’s just so happy to finally understand at least part of her past

thalia just reaches a breaking point though because everyone around her just doesn’t understand her anger and just when she thought she had found another sympathetic person who understood what she was going through she joins hades??? no. no fucking way. kronos reveals that he’s the one who has been sending her dreams, prob by sending some messenger who he possesses or smthing and when he offers thalia the chance to join him? she does (dun dun dun)

main beats of the rest of the series:

thalia and bianca on opposite sides of the war training to be the prophecy child, they come together a Lot and have like melodramatic fight scenes where they talk out their anger and try to get the other to join them bc they don’t want to kill each other

luke is extremely conflicted/betrayed and there’s a titan’s curse moment prob towards the end of the third book where they’re fighting and thalia is trying to get her to go with him but here he actually does go to join her (gasp!!) and is evil for at least one book but his heart’s not in it and he goes back to the good side eventually

by the point of luke’s betrayal, annabeth and nico are growing and developing and old enough to go on quests w bianca and by the last book they’re a main trio of sorts and their hypothetical character development is already making me emotional

there’s just a lot of general sexiness with foils and inner conflicts and bianca doesn’t even want to be the prophecy child but she needs to for the fate of the world and bianca is so angry at thalia bc thalia is a daughter of zeus and could control her powers and is perfect and just meant to be the prophecy kid, not some daughter of hades who they didn’t even have a cabin for before

hm maybe by either the last or second-to-last book thalia + bianca are close to reconciling or at least their interests are aligned for the moment and they read the text of the prophecy together and things go Wild bc they both think “single choice shall end his days” either is about luke or nico and it turns up the gas to their fighting both of them care about both of them and yeah

and then i can’t decide if there’s romantic arcs at all but if there were it would go like this:

just a dash of thaluke where at first it was luke having a one-sided crush but thalia misses him a Lot after she goes to kronos and wonders if it’s that she misses him or if it’s something More until to get him to defect there’s like a melodramatic moment in the fight where thalia kisses him and they go off to be Evil Together but it ends bc luke doesn’t believe in the cause and only joined her in hopes of getting thalia back to his side

once luke leaves/is kicked out thalia realizes that she didn’t love luke she just wanted a family and also in the second half of the series she realizes she’s a lesbian as a parallel to her redemption arc

bianca meanwhile is unconcerned w romance until she has her botl-hoe-moment where within one book she 1. runs into the hunters on a quest and has a thing with zoe nightshade who tries to get her to join plus tells her about that time she met thalia, 2. she goes to calypso’s island and falls in love w her in the moonlight or w/e and has her what-if moment, and 3. when they meet up that book thalia somehow knew abt zoe + calypso and seems almost angrier abt them  than the war?? weird bc bianca knows that thalia is Totally Straight right??

my main point is that bianca/thalia is our friends-to-enemies-to-lovers endgame thank you i will take my pulitzer now

[doyelikehaggis]

Ooh, may I ask about “Where Rainbows End in Beacon Hills” and/or “Sirens the Sequel”?? 👀

You absolutely may! "Where Rainbows End in Beaon Hills" is a Teen Wolf Scydia AU based on one of my all-time favourite books, Where Rainbows End (people may know the movie better, "Love, Rosie")

For anyone who doesn't know the plot of the book or the movie, the two main characters (Alex and Rosie, but in our case, they're Scott and Lydia), are best friends from childhood and fall in love with each other throughout the years, but of course there are complications when they become teenagers. Like Lydia getting drunk at her 18th birthday part and kissing Scott. Then not remembering any of it and asking Scott to just forget about the entire night, making him think she does remember and he just regrets it. So, he agrees and dates someone else, and Lydia gets jealous, resulting in her sleeping with another guy. They're still friends though and they're meant to be going to college together! Only, Lydia discovers she's pregnant. A lot more angst and conflict ensues, but I don't want to give away Too much more, so that's all you get summary-wise for now! Now, I'll give you a snippet from a chapter I've already written:

Lydia is never going to speak to him again because his dog ruined her birthday. And then Stiles is also not going to speak to him for at least a week if not two because Scott has just ruined any chance Stiles has of being best friends with Lydia himself.

He officially hates the number seven.

When Lydia's mom finally comes back to the party, she's wearing a thin smile that a lot of grownups tend to have. But she once again assures his mom that's it's really okay, it's no problem, they had another cake for tomorrow. Scott only feels worse when he hears that, because he remembers Lydia telling him that she was going to get a second birthday party tomorrow; a smaller one, with just her parents and her gran.

Now he's ruined that as well.

Scott doesn't even want to stay until the end of the party now, but when his mom tries to suggest that they leave early, Mrs Martin tells her not to be silly. So, they stay. Scott wants the earth to swallow him whole the entire time because Jackson keeps looking at him all funny now like he's done something wrong.

Stiles elbows him in the ribs, and quietly says, "Don't pay attention to him. It's fine. Lydia's not mad at you."

"Everyone else is," Scott mumbles, but pretty much everyone else is happy enough because they still have cake. If they hadn't, then that would probably be another story.

And even though he knows that Stiles is probably right about Lydia not being mad at him, he doesn't believe him. Especially because she doesn't talk to him for the rest of the party, and when they're leaving, he doesn't get the chance to say goodbye to her. His dad's already waiting for them, and he's honking the horn, which is making his mom go all red and flustered, so they leave quickly.

Scott just lays in his bed when he gets home, feeling stupid and upset. If he had just kept a better eye on Roxy, it would have been fine. Or he should have just listened in the first place and not brought her at all. Why did he have to make such a fuss about it?

Roxy wouldn't have cared, and Lydia's party wouldn't have been ruined, and she really wouldn't be mad at him. At least Stiles is still talking to him. He promised that if anyone said anything about it at school, he'd tell them off for him. Scott isn't sure that would help, but he appreciates knowing it.

Scrubbing at the tears stinging his eyes, Scott rolls over and tries to go to sleep. His chest is a bit tight, so it takes a while, but he drifts off eventually. His dreams are confusing and scrambled like dreams always are, but he clings onto the part with the mermaid and the evil sea witch who has paws at the end of her tentacles, and the prince who has to stop her. He isn't the prince. He was a piece of the ship that they were fighting on. But when he wakes up, part of him wishes he had been the prince.

I forgot to do “Sirens the Sequel!” Here we go, so basic summary, I like the idea of Legacies dealing with sirens as well. And isn’t it just fun to add some methan angst in there? So, MG thinking Ethan is in trouble, going to save him... only to run right into some sirens. I don’t have a snippet for this one at the moment but I might soon...

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 9

AO3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite

Curious question: why do you think the creature Benedict owed a debt to chose Jesse over Thomas?

‘Why is Mario Kart so difficult?’ Cordelia groaned.

‘It’s not difficult, you just need to play more often,’ Lucie said.

Alastair and Cordelia hadn’t really grown up playing video games, and Lucie had discovered both sucked at playing Mario Kart. Lucie was typically more of a Legend of Zelda fan, but they couldn’t play that together, so she’d suggested Mario Kart instead.

They spent most of their time in and around the house, taking the occasional walk. Lucie hadn’t seen Jesse again, despite searching for him, nor had they gotten any closer to discovering what was going on. They’d visited the ruins of a castle nearby one day, but it hadn’t worked as a distraction. Steve’s body had been found and the lake was open for swimming again, but Lucie wasn’t sure she wanted to. What had happened to the child could easily happen to them.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get good at this,’ Cordelia said as she drove her kart of the track again.

If anything, Lucie was glad to be able to spend more time with Cordelia, even under such circumstances. Lucie still had no plan on how to tell Cordelia how she really felt, but then neither did Thomas have one for Alastair despite their daily walks and obvious affection on Alastair’s side. Alastair was mostly with the Lightwoods, trying to get into Gideon’s memory and find out what Benedict really had been up to.

‘This is nothing. James and I used to play Mario Kart on the wii and I think that version of Rainbow Road is the most difficult track they ever made.’

‘I don’t think I want to know,’ Cordelia announced.

Cordelia checked her phone once they’d finished the race and scrolled through several messages.

‘Alastair said they haven’t figured out yet what creature Benedict made a deal with, but Thomas went into the village to the grocery store and there he saw his aunt Tatiana,’ Cordelia said.

Lucie checked her phone for any additional messages, but she’d received the same messages. Thomas apparently had made a Whatsapp group titled ‘Making sure I don’t die’ where they were writing out all the information they had. He’d made a secondary group called ‘spam’ without their parents in there where they could talk about things that weren’t essential or make plans, to keep the other group clean. Lucie guessed that made sense. Cordelia changed the name of the first group to “Essential information to save Thomas”.

‘That’s a better name,’ Lucie commented out loud.

‘Exactly,’ Cordelia said. ‘Now we have one place we dump all useful information and can easily find everything, with a fitting name.’

‘I wonder why Tatiana would be here,’ Lucie said. ‘Thomas seeing her and Jesse appearing after years, that can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps Jesse is wherever she’s staying, perhaps there I could talk to him.’

‘Would she let you in though?’ Cordelia asked.

‘Probably not,’ Lucie said, but she had an idea. ‘We could break in.’

‘We don’t even know where she’s staying,’ Cordelia pointed out. ‘That is a terrible idea.’

‘Uncle Gideon is looking into where she’s staying right now,’ Lucie said. ‘Perhaps if he finds out where she is, we can go take a look. In the meantime though…’

‘Please no more Mario Kart,’ Cordelia begged.

Lucie ended up introducing Cordelia to Legend of Zelda after all, opting to watch her play through the beginning of Breath of the Wild. It was clear Cordelia wasn’t used to gaming at all, but she did seem to enjoy it, even if she fell off several cliffs and died a few times because she didn’t remember in time which button was for attacking.

Lucie regularly checked her phone, until Thomas texted her his father had returned, and had found Tatiana. Apparently she was staying at a hotel, but had gotten very angry when she’d seen her brother. Lucie wondered if she knew they were all staying here. It seemed too much of a coincidence.

She googled the hotel Thomas had named and realized she’d seen it on the drive here. There was a restaurant downstairs, and Lucie figured that might be a way in. They had several vegan options too. If she and Cordelia had dinner there, they might be able to sneak inside the hotel itself. Getting inside a room without making too much noise could prove challenging though. Although Cordelia carried cortana and that sword was said to be able to cut through anything. Perhaps she could cut into a lock. That’d be suspicious when Tatiana found out, but she didn’t know about cortana, did she?

‘I have a plan,’ Lucie announced. ‘We’re going to have dinner at the restaurant of the hotel Tatiana is staying.’

‘Do you think Jesse will show up in the middle of a restaurant?’ Cordelia asked.

‘Not really,’ Lucie said. ‘But from there we can sneak into the hotel, and break into Tatiana’s room.’

Cordelia frowned. ‘And if we get caught? We could get in serious trouble.’

Lucie had to admit Cordelia had a point. Neither of them were skilled at breaking in.

‘If we’re only in the corridor, we could always say we got lost,’ Lucie speculated.

‘I’m not so sure they would believe me,’ Cordelia said. ‘Although if you go without me, perhaps you could claim you were looking for a bathroom. Still, going there without actually breaking in anywhere might be a good idea to get a sense of the place, see if anything unusual is going on simply because Tatiana’s there.’

Lucie understood why Cordelia wasn’t willing to take such risks, they were a lot less likely to believe she’d simply gotten lost as a woman of color. She had to admit, her plan was a bit reckless, so perhaps it was a good thing Cordelia was here to talk some sense into her. Still, Lucie was determined to find a way to speak to Jesse. Who knew, maybe he would show up at the restaurant if his mother was there. Or perhaps not, perhaps he haunted the woods instead. Ghosts were nothing if not inconsistent.

‘Good point,’ Lucie said. ‘I don’t think my mother would be very happy if we broke in either.’

‘Alastair would murder us,’ Cordelia added.

‘Good thing he’s with Thomas,’ Lucie said, and she texted to Thomas that he should invite Alastair over for dinner. Lucie wasn’t so sure he would without some encouragement even if he very much wanted Alastair to stay.

Lucie wondered if Thomas was making any progress with him, perhaps that was difficult considering the circumstances. On the other hand, if Lucie had learnt anything from her favorite books was that a crisis was the perfect time to find love. What could possibly be more romantic than Alastair saving Thomas’ life? Lucie thought for a moment and then texted Thomas again.

Lucie: Have you kissed him yet?

Thomas: No, of course not. I don’t even know if he likes me!!!

Lucie: You could ask.

Lucie knew she was being hypocritical, she hadn’t yet told Cordelia how she felt about her. However, Thomas’ chances with Alastair were much better than her chances with Cordelia. Alastair was openly gay and Lucie had caught him staring at Thomas with both affection and desire.

Thomas: How am I supposed to do that???

Thomas: I did invite him over for dinner though. He accepted and my parents are very happy that he did.

Lucie: Time to make your move (;

‘Alastair is staying with Thomas for dinner,’ Lucie said.

‘I’m glad they’re spending time together,’ Cordelia said. ‘Alastair has so few friends. For most of his life he only knew how to antagonize people or push them away.’

‘Yes, he and Thomas seem to like each other,’ Lucie said. ‘Alastair broke up with his boyfriend not so long ago, right?’

‘He did, but maybe don’t mention that in his presence,’ Cordelia said. ‘It was a very bad and unhealthy relationship and Alastair is still struggling with coming to terms with that. He doesn’t often want to talk about it, and only on his terms.’

Lucie imagined that might make it more difficult for him and Thomas. In her favorite books, a good relationship usually fixed any trauma from a previous bad one, but she knew that in real life that wasn’t the case. Of course, in books it wasn’t uncommon for the new “better” relationship to still be pretty toxic, with the main difference that it was unintentional on the author’s part and therefore never acknowledged.

Lucie herself had made such mistakes in her own stories before, writing relationships she later realized were very toxic. In her early teens people would always tell her boys were mean to her because they liked her and she’d believed that until she’d discussed that with her mother, who disagreed.

‘I’m sorry that happened to him,’ Lucie said.

‘Yes, me too,’ Cordelia said. ‘Wait, do you think Alastair likes Thomas? Is that why you keep trying to get them to spend time together?’

‘At least I think they would be good friends, since they have such similar interests,’ Lucie said. ‘But it’s definitely possible Alastair likes Thomas. I wouldn’t blame him, Thomas is a sweet guy and has nice shoulders. Legendary shoulders, in fact.’

Cordelia started laughing. ‘Legendary shoulders.’

‘Precisely. As a lesbian, I can be very objective when it comes to men’s shoulders.’

Cordelia frowned, but Lucie insisted that made perfect sense. Since she didn’t feel attracted to men or fall in love with them, she had a very objective view and didn’t play favorites with the ones she did like.

‘A year ago I might have favored James,’ Cordelia mused. ‘I don’t think we were well suited though.’

Lucie loved her brother, and they’d always gotten along well, but James could be an idiot. She understood James didn’t like Alastair considering their history, but he simply didn’t understand that he should not bring Cordelia, who loved her brother and worried for him, into their history and that he shouldn’t say bad things about him in Cordelia’s presence. Perhaps Cordelia and James might have worked out better if their complicated feelings towards Alastair weren’t in the way. Alastair was Cordelia’s brother and James should have respected that.

‘Perhaps not,’ Lucie said. ‘I’m glad you can still be around each other though, and aren’t ready to murder each other at any given time like some exes. That would have been awkward.’

‘He apologized, a few months after we broke up. A bit late, but I think all your advice finally got through,’ Cordelia said. ‘I don’t resent him, and I understand why he doesn’t like Alastair, but next time I date anyone it will be someone who at least can be polite to brother.’

Lucie was fairly certain she could meet that criteria. She understood that Alastair hadn’t always been the best, but he had rescued her from bullies several times when he’d gone to school with her. If it was out of guilt towards James, or loyalty to Cordelia, Lucie wasn’t sure but she was grateful to him either way.

‘You have anyone in mind?’ Lucie asked, hoping there wasn’t anyone.

‘Not right now. James’ friend Matthew asked me out not so long ago, but I don’t think I like him that way. Besides, that would have guaranteed the same drama with Alastair, and now that I know what my brother has been through it’s hurtful to hear people say bad things about him. With James, I often let it slide because I often just didn’t want to argue or was scared he wouldn’t like me anymore, but he took that as me agreeing with him and giving him permission to complain as much as he liked.’

Lucie asked her father about her and Lucie having dinner in the village, claiming that way he and her mother could have some romantic alone time. That argument usually worked well on her father, along with Lucie promising she could pay for the meal herself, which her father claimed wasn’t necessary, he’d give her some money.

Her father even offered to drive her. It was a bit of a walk to the village but it was doable and the restaurant was on the side of the town where they’d enter, so Lucie decided she didn’t want to trouble her father.

Lucie changed into a longer red dress with a cardigan tied around her waist so she could put it on when it became too cold for short sleeves, and then she and Cordelia left, walking to the village.

They both kept their eyes open as they walked, although if there was something out there, without Thomas they wouldn’t be guaranteed to see it. Still, their chances of seeing something were better than those of the average mortal. There were no ghosts or other strange creatures to be seen though.

The restaurant wasn’t too busy, which was good because Lucie never did well in loud, busy places. They found a nice table in the corner from which Lucie could keep her eye on everything. Tatiana wasn’t in the restaurant. Would she recognize Lucie after all these years? She’d grown quite a bit and cut her hair after all.

Lucie ordered the vegan burger and Cordelia a curry. Eating vegan in Scotland was surprisingly easy nowadays, and many restaurants offered at least one vegan option. Lucie always made sure to check beforehand though. She knew at some places it was possible to ask for something vegan, but she didn’t want to go through that kind of trouble and risk having waiters not understand what she could and couldn’t eat.

They had almost finished their food by the time they saw Tatiana, Cordelia stealing the occasional chip from her plate. She came down from the stairs, glancing around. She didn’t seem to notice Lucie though. She was wearing a gray hat that resembled a witch hat, except less tall, and decorated with feathers in several colors. There was a girl behind her who matched the description Thomas had given. Around sixteen, very pretty in an unearthly way. Her hair was pale silvery blonde, Lucie didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone with hair naturally that color.

She trailed after Tatiana, a helpless look on her face. Lucie wondered if she wanted to be here, and who she was. Thomas had said they couldn’t make sense of her and weren’t sure if she was mortal or not. Lucie didn’t know either.

There was someone else trailing behind Tatiana though. Jesse was there, but he was leaving, following Tatiana. Lucie put the last bite of food into her mouth and quickly handed Cordelia the money her father had given her.

‘What are you doing?’ Cordelia asked.

‘Jesse is there,’ she said. ‘I’m going after him. Can you pay the bill with this? It should be plenty.’

Cordelia didn’t have time to protest as Lucie slipped out and went after Tatiana, making sure to keep a decent distance. Tatiana didn’t look around much, and Lucie didn’t think she’d been stopped. She tried to get Jesse’s attention, but he wasn’t looking back either. Tatiana left the village, following a path that led into the woods. Lucie didn’t want to follow her all the way along, not knowing where she’d end up, but she needed to speak with Jesse.

She quickly checked her phone, Cordelia had texted. She’d paid the bill and was outside, where was she? Lucie texted her live location and returned her attention to Tatiana, who kept a steady pace. The blonde girl did look back, and when her eyes went wide Lucie realized she’d been spotted. She ducked behind the tree, keeping her eyes on what happened in front, but the girl didn’t say anything and Tatiana didn’t turn around to confront her. If only Jesse would spot her and come talk.

Lucie continued following them, hoping Jesse would spot her. The blonde girl saw her once more, and gestured quickly, a worried look on her face. Lucie interpreted it as go away, you’re getting yourself in trouble. She knew what she was doing was dangerous, but with Thomas’ life possibly on the line, Lucie was going to take some risks. At least following someone into the woods wasn’t illegal. She wondered why the blonde girl was helping her. Lucie didn’t think she wanted to help Tatiana.

And why was Jesse following his mother? Could she see him, or was he trying to get her attention? When the blonde girl gestured to her a second time, Jesse finally noticed her. He glanced around at his mother and then made his way to her at top speed.

‘Lucie, what are you doing?’ he hissed.

‘Finally,��� she said. ‘I’ve been trying to get your attention. I need to talk to you.’

‘I need you to get out of the woods,’ Jesse said. ‘It’s dangerous here, alright?’

‘What is your mother up to? Who is that girl?’

‘Her name is Grace, that’s all I know. I think my mother might be blackmailing her somehow, I don’t think she wants to be here.’

‘Where have you been all these years?’ Lucie asked. ‘I never saw you before. I thought you’d moved on to the afterlife.’

‘I don’t know,’ Jesse said. ‘I don’t remember anything between dying and a few days ago. And I disappear all the time and have no idea where I go. I wanted to talk to you in the woods, I’d finally made my way from the hotel, but then I disappeared.’

That wasn’t something Lucie had ever encountered before. ‘What is your mother doing?’

‘I think she’s trying to reverse what happened,’ Jesse said. ‘She doesn’t tell me her plans, but I think it’s all about me. She often goes into the woods to speak with something, but I can’t come along.’

‘And she can see you?’

‘Yes,’ Jesse said. ‘Grace can too. Other people can’t see me. None except you. Is it because we knew each other when I was alive?’

‘I’ve always seen ghosts,’ Lucie said. ‘When you died, I searched for you everywhere and when I didn’t find you, I believed you’d moved on. I’ve never heard of ghosts returning from where they went after death. Or ghosts randomly disappearing and not remembering.’

‘I don’t understand it either,’ Jesse said. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. All I know is I am dead and I can’t be sure for how long. You’ve grown so much, Lucie.’

Lucie frowned. ‘Do you remember dying?’

‘I remember the woods. I remember something stalking me, but I could only catch glimpses of something. I’d never been so scared in my life and I thought I needed to get home as fast as I could. But no matter what path I took, I ended up where I started. The creature stalking me never quite caught up. I spent days in the woods, looking for a way out, until I died of exhaustion.’

‘People searched. Did you not see them, or hear them?’

‘There was no one,’ Jesse said. ‘I screamed and screamed for someone to help me, but no one came, and then everything was gone.’

‘Jesse!’ called a strict female voice. Tatiana. ‘Jesse, come along now! You must not stray in these woods. Even for you it can be dangerous.’

‘I must go,’ Jesse whispered. ‘Do not follow me.’

Lucie nodded, and returned, following the path back until she was at the edge of the woods. She didn’t see Cordelia and checked her phone, where she found several missed calls and missed messages from her friend.

Lucie called back, and Cordelia immediately picked up. ‘Lucie, where are you!’ Cordelia yelled. ‘Never do that to me again.’

‘Didn’t you get my location?’ Lucie asked.

‘Stupid thing didn’t work, you kept jumping all over town and whenever I caught up you weren’t there. What have you been up to, you have been gone for an hour!’

‘No, that’s impossible,’ Lucie said. ‘It was ten, fifteen minutes max.’

‘I don’t know how you sense of time is, but it’s been an hour,’ Cordelia insisted. ‘Where are you now?’

‘At the edge of the forest. I’ll return to the restaurant, might be easier to find.’

‘Alright, I’ll see you there,’ Cordelia said. ‘Bye.’

Cordelia hung up and Lucie returned to the restaurant, where Cordelia was waiting.

‘I knew you were reckless, Lu,’ Cordelia said. ‘But please never do this again.’

‘It hasn’t been an hour,’ Lucie insisted. ‘It can’t have been.’

‘Check the time,’ Cordelia said. ‘You texted me your location shortly after you left, which was an hour ago.’

Lucie checked the time stamp on Cordelia’s texts and realized she was right.

‘But how?’ she asked. ‘I wasn’t gone for that long.’

‘Did you at least speak to Jesse?’ Cordelia asked.

‘For a little while. It was all very odd. Jesse had disappeared until recently, he doesn’t remember where he’s been and at times he still disappears. He thinks his mother is trying to reverse what happened, he’s not sure exactly but she’s up to dangerous things. She can see him, and that girl too. Jesse said her name was Grace, but he doesn’t know what she is. He thinks Tatiana is blackmailing her somehow.’ Lucie paused, her father was calling her.

‘It’s getting late, Lulu, are you and Cordelia still at the restaurant?’ he asked when she picked up.

‘No, we left, but we’re still in the village,’ Lucie said. ‘It’s a bit of a long story, I’ll explain when we get home.’

‘I’ll come pick you up,’ her father said. ‘It’s getting late. You can explain in the car.’

If he was upset, she didn’t hear it. Lucie had always been told she got her recklessness from her father, and it was usually her mother who got upset with her when she did something like this.

‘We’re still near the restaurant,’ Lucie said and she hung up. ‘My father is coming to pick us up.’

‘Is he mad?’ Cordelia asked.

Lucie shook her head. ‘My father never really gets mad with me.’

Cordelia tilted her head. ‘Mine doesn’t either, at least not with me. My mother is the one with a temper, usually. And Alastair. But I guess my father just wasn’t really there.’

Lucie imagined it had to be difficult to discover such a terrible secret about your father after loving him for so long, after not seeing there was something not right at home.

‘If I’d done what you just did and told my mother, she would murder me for sure,’ Cordelia said, with a small smile. ‘Being a strict parent isn’t really effective though, Alastair and I just learnt to lie well. But I know she means well.’

‘Then you won’t mind not mentioning I’d followed Tatiana on my own?’ Lucie asked. ‘Instead, we went into the woods together, I spoke with Jesse, and when we returned suddenly an hour had passed.’

‘Sure,’ Cordelia said. ‘Honestly, I think your father believes anything I say.’

‘He does have a weakness for the Carstairs family,’ Lucie said.

Her father’s best friend was Jem Carstairs, Cordelia’s cousin. Her father had decided that by association, Cordelia and Alastair had to be just as amazing as Jem was. Lucie guessed that weak spot for the Carstairs had its downsides as well. Her father had idolized Elias as well as the other Carstairs, and learning of his addiction and abuse of his children had been quite a shock for him. Lucie suspected her father felt guilty for not seeing it sooner, for not doing anything to help.

When her father arrived, Lucie and Cordelia quickly got into the car, and Cordelia recounted the story of them going for a short walk following Jesse when suddenly an hour had passed and Lucie added in what Jesse had told her.

‘I knew Tatiana was up to something,’ Will said. ‘Reversing what happened, does that refer to Jesse’s death?’

Lucie guessed it would make sense for a mother to want to bring her child back. She had done something already, to bring him from something he didn’t remember back into this world.

‘So if she were to bring back Jesse,’ Cordelia said. ‘Would that mean Thomas dies in exchange for his life?’

Will looked grim. ‘If Benedict owed someone the soul of a grandchild and that creature took Jesse, I’m guessing Tatiana might attempt to exchange Thomas for Jesse. But it’ll probably cost more than just Thomas.’

[madzilla84]

new fandom smell

might as well talk about this here a bit huh!! otherwise this would be a LOT of tweets

(ofmd) (major spoilers) (long) (emotional) (not clickbait)

So there's no real fascinating backstory here - I saw the internet (and more importantly, my friends) losing their collective shit over Our Flag Means Death, and if my experience with Yuri on Ice taught me anything, I knew it would be something I'd end up liking - which was precisely why I was avoiding it a bit, somewhat unwilling to hand over my brain on a silver platter. I also hadn't watched What We Do In The Shadows or anything like that (I will, sometime), but then unexpectedly last week we watched the pilot during one of our phannie caracal watch sessions and well. That was the end for me, goodbye, game over. (If you wanna watch/rewatch the show too we've only watched the pilot so far; well we watched ep 2 yesterday but we're rewatching it tomorrow for those that couldn't make it)

Immediately obsessed. I 'acquired' the rest of the episodes through a very appropriately-named website (it's not yet available legitimately in the UK) and watched them all on Sunday evening (I was just gonna watch 1 or 2 to begin with, hahaha idiot) and I was Done For. It was sadder than I was expecting but I'm actually not completely sad about it because - you know what, we'll get to that later.

I knew a little bit about the real Stede Bonnet (and have since refreshed my memory, especially after discovering one of my fave youtubers Internet Historian made a feature-length video about his life a couple of years ago that I had somehow missed, YAY), courtesy of my late teens/early 20s pirate phase (didn't we all have one), mainly because I was 19 when the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out and I was o b s e s s e d. Anyway of course for all things pirates we must consult the ancient texts:

(Remember these?? I had all of these books. Dragonology was probably my favourite)

And yes, they're in it:

But anyway, yeah. Getting sidetracked. I mentioned YoI earlier and I brought it up because this feels quite a bit like when I finished watching that (I watched it during its run, but towards the end). It was such a nice, happy, positive feeling, just sort of - joyful that this thing exists and that I got to see it, and diving headfirst into all the theories and amazing art and gifs and wailing and squeeing and what-have-you.

People who are a lot better at wording this sort of thing than me have posted amazing things about how and why it's such great and important queer/POC representation and how it was such an antithesis to the queerbaiting we're all so used to, so I won't go too much into that, but I just loved everything - the acting, the writing, the music (day 3, still can't listen to perfect day without crying, i'm fine though, really, honestly, just fine), the characters, the cast, the fanart, the memes, it's just. It's really, really great, and it's a nice feeling to be so thoroughly brainrotted by something I'm enjoying so much. I haven't been grabbed by something new like this for quite a few years now (since getting into dnp in 2018, maybe?), so it's just. You all know how the New Fandom Smell is, it's the best.

I mentioned that I wasn't too sad at the way it ended and, well, obviously that isn't entirely accurate, it was totally heartbreaking - but like, when it *did* end I found myself feeling - excited? Also very sad obviously, because it was sad, but ... I find that I trust the writers and showrunner to take it to a good place, in the end (which is a weird and new and unique feeling), and the journey to get there might be a bit painful (it already is) but that's gonna make it so much sweeter when we finally get there. And that angsty and beautiful journey is gonna be so fuckin good!!

All of that is assuming, if course, that the show continues and that they get to tell the story they want to tell, which, COME ON, it has to. But you never know, I suppose, and of course if that doesn't end up being the case it would change how I feel about it a lot - where we left off was a wonderful place to leave off, there's so much promise and potential, but as an ending it would be pretty unsatisfying and sad, so. We shall see, I guess, but I'm hopeful. Maybe I'm just being a clown, as per usual... (I am here on tumblr dot gov, after all.)

anyway i could go on forever so i'll wrap it up with some random bulletpoints:

The Swede is precious and must be protected

I don't think for a moment that Lucius is dead; fully willing to eat my words but I just don't think so. I don't know if he'll turn up right away or after an absence but i DO know it will be funny. And the tension will be Pete dealing with his idol trying to kill his boyfriend, and of course however Stede feels about it

They separated all the couples at the end (Jim on the ship, Lucius and Stede wherever), which means so many reunion scenes; sad or not that is my favourite shit I cannot WAITTTTT

Obviously fell in love with Taika Waititi; yeah yeah I know the internet has been in love with him for years, but somehow I have managed to get this far in my life without seeing anything he's been in or has made, which clearly was an Error, he's delightful and I have no idea how he does that with his eyes, like a damn Pixar character

Beards don't usually do much for me so I have NO idea how Ed managed to be equally hot and beautiful as full-beard leather version and clean-shaven ethereal doe-eyed anime prince version and angery leather facepaint stubble version, hOW

Same with Rhys Darby; not having watched WWDITS I hadn't seen him in anything either (although? I have the vaguest of vague memories of seeing his standup at some point yeeeeeeears ago on TV, though I don't remember anything about it) - obviously since watching the show I've hunted down many a clip of him/them doing interviews both recently and years ago and it's so lovely to see how funny they are and what good friends they are. They have such insane chemistry, and you can tell they love each other (albeit platonically) in real life. But yes, I absolutely loved him/Stede from the first moment, he's so lovely and endearing and it was such a wonderful performance, especially because it wasn't just comedic, it was so full of depth and emotion and *all* of those things were done so brilliantly, by him and Taika and all the cast, really. How is it his *first* lead?? He's amazing! And Stede is just - extremely relatable, to me at least. (And yes, I got him in that 'which character are you' quiz.) Long may he roam. :_)

The cast!! The characters are just amazing, but so are the cast, at least the ones I've encountered so far; I followed David Jenkins on twitter and twitter was like 'would you like to follow these other 12 people' and i was like 'sure i guess' and they're just wonderful so far. Special shout out to Con O'Neill (Izzy) whose twitter seems to be half him retweeting horny fanart and half hating the Tories. Truly iconic.

And Vico Ortiz (Jim) who went to a ren faire with Samba Schutte (Roach) last weekend and cosplayed as Izzy with blue hair XD. And Samba who cooks IRL and actually made the 40-orange cake!! They all seem like very good eggs.

Spanish Jackie do you need to replenish your spouse numbers or-

Me, a twat, trying to figure out who 'Menozes' was before I realised Jackie was talking about the nose jar. ffs XD

There were so SO many good moments actually I would need a whole separate post or 12

the MUSIC fuck MEEEEEE such good music choices! It was actually the song at the end of the first episode (high on a rocky ledge) that left me with the Longing TM to watch the rest of the episodes IMMEDIATELY (as well as, you know, everything else). I already mentioned I can't listen to perfect day without crying now - it was already a beautiful song, but now? And if you listen to the lyrics? Fuck off??? ;_; and the rest, of course. That Spotify playlist's gonna get some action, I think, heh.

I'll stop here partly because it's super late and this is already so long and partly because tungl's text editing is el shit but man. I'm so glad I found this show, so glad they made it. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts to share soon, I have only watched it once through so far but obviously I'm gonna rewatch.

[grandhotelabyss]

The answer to this, no matter how prescriptive, can only be disguised autobiography. In one of the only “scientifically” useful things I ever posted to this website in 10 years, I recalled to the best of my ability what I was actually assigned to read in high-school English in a massive suburban public high school in the mid-to-late 1990s. I thought posting actual information would be better than the crude generalizations people (including me) usually make on this subjects. I was 17 between 11th and 12th grades, so you can see from the list what I read in school: 20th-century American literature at the end of 11th grade and a very selective world-literature curriculum in 12th grade consisting mainly of Sophocles, Beowulf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare.

Extracurricularly, I think of the summer between 11th and 12th grade—so the summer of my 17th year—as one of the most important in my reading life. This was where I made the final break with childish things. I had read comic books and genre fiction (not always but often very good: Ray Bradbury, Alan Moore) and a smattering of popular realism (Johns Steinbeck and Irving for preference) until then. But in that late spring and early summer, partially in school but mostly out of it, that I read not only Hemingway and Fitzgerald but also Melville (“Bartleby,” Billy Budd), Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury), Morrison (Beloved, Paradise), Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet, The Satanic Verses), and DeLillo (Underworld). 

These novels—along with the poetry I enjoyed (Keats, Eliot) and the monumental example set by Shakespeare (above all Hamlet and Lear)—ruined me forever for both fantasy and realism in their popular forms. I made instead a compact with the broad modernist tradition, which I can explain using that ever-“problematic” form/content distinction. Literature’s proper content is experience, life, history, reality, “a shout in the street,” not a wholly fantasized invention, not some other world that you “build”; form is your true arena of invention, the place you transfigure the real with your own sensibility and give the audience something new. This is what I learned on that magical, torrid, stormy summer; as I’ve recalled elsewhere, a storm put the power out for three days in July, so for three sweaty days in July I read Underworld by candlelight. 

In this period I also began reading literary criticism seriously. The Western Canon was useful encouragement—I don’t buy Bloom’s theory overall, but he was always good to me as a rhapsode—and, more importantly, Sexual Personae, though I might have discovered that one at the beginning of my 18th year, I don’t quite remember the winter month. If the modernists from Melville to DeLillo shaped my commitments and concerns as a writer, I would say Paglia in concert with Morrison determined my social and political sensibility. They assured that I would never properly be right-wing or left-wing: the one side consisting of metaphysicians who would bar whole categories of person from the universe, the other side cultists of the demiurge who believe there is no limit whatsoever to reason’s design on nature and the spirit. 

Now would I recommend that course of reading to a 17-year-old? Not any one book in particular, though in my years teaching in an English department, often to high-school students taking college courses, I introduced Shakespeare, Melville, Morrison, and DeLillo to many a 17-year-old (see my syllabi here and my online lectures here). More important is the level of reading; I hate when teachers patronize students, giving out what are essentially children’s books, or, worse, crude political polemics, in the first year of college. 

The replies to the Tweet are dire in this regard—so many recommendations of the wretched Vonnegut. I couldn’t stand him as a teen and only forced my way through one of his books a few years ago so I could cogently explain why I hated it. His homespun nihilism and smug pseudo-naive prose make me vomit. I didn’t care for Salinger or Kerouac as a kid either. I came to appreciate them later but suspect at this late date they require a historical sensibility to enjoy. The world might be too different now for their styles to register to youth as immediate critique or relevant vitalism. For that kind of thing, I imagine today’s teens rely on online schizoposts. I like those too; just make sure you get to Hamlet eventually; hell, he schizoposts four or five times in that play.