#i. ┊ noah paris — character study.

[miahasahardname]

OK SO I FOUND A CONCEPT I MADE UP LIKE AGES AGO FOR A TD HIGHSCHOOL AU BUT LIKE. i made it scottish because that’s the only school system i’m used to,,,

i would spend time in computing class typing away in a google doc (literally titled ‘total drama mental illness’) instead of doing any coding…

so yeah here’s some of my old total drama highschool au stuff (copied from my doc)! (warning: OLD (kinda))

subjects chosen for highschool au (some of these choices were kinda random)

biology - noah, courtney, lindsay, cody, bridgette, heather, tyler, leshawna, dj

chemistry - izzy, cody, noah, duncan, courtney, owen, beth, geoff, trent, katie, sadie, justin

physics - gwen, noah, courtney, harold, cody, eva

french - cody, lindsay, beth, courtney, trent

german - noah, eva, izzy, duncan

mandarin - heather, harold, courtney

spanish - courtney, owen, justin, katie, sadie, tyler, bridgette, geoff, gwen, leshawna, dj

latin - noah, courtney, beth

(ancient) greek - harold

drama - heather, owen, izzy, cody, harold, leshawna, katie, sadie, justin, lindsay

music - leshawna, harold, justin, trent, cody, bridgette, courtney

art - cody, gwen, izzy, bridgette, owen, beth, justin, lindsay

rmps (religious moral philosophical studies) - dj, harold, noah, courtney

mods - noah, courtney

history - harold, trent, eva, leshawna, bridgette, beth, courtney, gwen

computing - noah, harold

technology - cody, owen

pe - tyler, eva, geoff, bridgette, duncan

accounting - trent (forced into it)

business studies - courtney, trent (also forced into it), owen

geography - harold, eva, owen, bridgette, trent, beth, lindsay

noah and courtney’s languages were chosen because they already knew a lot about the language and they kinda wanted to show off.

beth and lindsay chose french because they always wanted to go to paris.

jo is in tyler and eva’s and advanced higher pe class even though she’s a year below and should be doing nat 5s.

cody chose art for gwen. he didn’t end up with her, however, because she took advanced higher and he only took higher. cody cried when he discovered this.

trent’s dad forced him to take accounting.

cody, trent, justin and harold formed the drama brothers when they were assigned to work on a project in music together in s3. they’re all in the same AH class.

all of gen 1 are in the same form class. chris is their form teacher.

noah, ellody, courtney and emma are all key members of the student council.

izzy has accidentally set fire to the entire school twice.

sanders from ridonculous race is the headmistress because i refuse to beleive that sanders and macarthur are the same age as gen characters and because she’s better fit for this than a police job.

blaineley is a drama teacher.

kitty is an s3 in this au, while gen 1 is in s5.

izzy and duncan are the two pupils with the most detentions and suspensions. miraculously, neither of them have ever been expelled.

the lunch tables are separated by form classes.

owen takes business because he thought it would help him in his future endeavours of making a cookie business.

(so i had to take away a few of the things i wrote due to general stupidity of them or i just didn’t agree with those things anymore. i also did a little ‘teacher’s opinions’ thing that i will share if people want it? (but i doubt that). uhhh yeah basically i turn everything into an au. might make a post about orphans au, i dunno)

[jurassicworldtieindrpepper]

Reading List

to be updated constantly

Articles:

"Why Women Online Can’t Stop Reading Fairy Porn" by C.T. Jones for Rolling Stone

"They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars." by Brett Murphy for ProPublica

"‘I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!’" by Emily Gould for The Cut

"Woman in Retrograde" by Isabel Cristo for The Cut

"The unwanted Spanish soccer kiss is textbook male chauvinism. Don’t excuse it" by Moira Donegan for the Guardian

"I Started the Media Men List" by Moira Donegan for The Cut

"What Moira Donegan Did for Young Women Writers" by Jordana Rosenfeld for The Nation

"The Key Detail Missing From the Narrative About O.J. and Race" by Joel Anderson for Slate

"The Coiled Ferocity of Zendaya" by Matt Zoller Seitz for Vulture

"OJ Simpson died the comfortable death in old age that Nicole Brown should have had" by Moira Donegan for The Guardian

"Norm Macdonald Was the Hater O.J. Simpson Could Never Outrun" by Miles Klee for Rolling Stone

"Trans Stylists and Makeup Artists Are Reshaping Red Carpet Looks. Will They Get the Credit They’re Due?" by James Factora

"The ‘perfect Aryan’ child used in Nazi propaganda was actually Jewish" by Terrence McCoy for The Washington Post

"There Are Too Many Books; Or, Publishing Shouldn’t Be All About Quantity" by Maris Kreizman for Literary Hub

"An O.J. Juror on What The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong" by Ashley Reese for Vulture

"Super Cute Please Like" by Nicole Lipman for N + 1 Magazine

Essays:

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxanne Gay

Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba

"On Chappell Roan and Gen Z Pop" by Miranda Reinert

"In Memory of Nicole Brown Simpson" by Andrea Dworkin

"My Gender Is Dyke" by Alexandria Juarez for Autostraddle

"Columnists and Their Lives of Quiet Desperation" by Hamilton Nolan

Nonfiction:

Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women by Lyz Lenz

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz

The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams

Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs by David Bellos & Alexandre Montagu

The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton

University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education by Joshua Hunt

What it Feels Like for a Girl by Paris Lees

Female Masculinity by J. Jack Halberstam

The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird by Dan Schreiber

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper

Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration by Alejandra Oliva

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate by Anna Bogutskaya

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O'Meara

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement by Ashley Shew

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Fiction:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg

Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia

The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist by Ceinwen Langley

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera

Blackouts by Justin Torres

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

The Faithless by C.L. Clark

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Institute by Stephen King

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

[piraet-ed]

tags ii

[atpiraet]

tags

[faedawayyy]

next generation list. if i've removed a character you loved or really liked, i'm sorry! i just feel like i need a restart.

BRETT JACKSON, only son of dallas. 

- intp  - musician  - heterosexual  - moved from the springs to gold coast to be closer to ally - starting his singing career slowly  - definitely still has financial struggles thanks to dallas fc: jack gilinsky  >> ALLY, his girlfriend. very much in love with her. he’s moved academy’s so that they can work on their relationship.  >> HALEY, ally’s sister. they’re good friends and brett feels responsible for her in a weird way.  >> AMY, loaned money to him after finding out that he was broke, especially after quitting his job at sloan’s. however, he has no idea how he’s going to pay her back, especially from half way across the world.  >> ROMAN, an old friend of his. he used to work at sloan’s and the two boys got closer but then brett moved away. they’re still really good friends and brett sees him as a little brother.

PETER CARMICHAEL, son and youngest child of mason and kendall 

- entj  - athlete - heterosexual  - liberty academy, mason secretly paid for him to get in  - long distance relationship with bianca  - still kind of an asshole  fc: neels visser >> BIANCA, his girlfriend. things have got tougher since they’re living on different continents and going to different universities. he still loves her but is starting to realise it isn’t as amazing and easy as he thought it was at gallagher.  >> LOTTIE, a frenemy. he always knew of lottie but didn’t have much to do with her until they ended up in liberty together. he made a move on her while drunk at a party and she flat out rejected him. it’s definitely awkward now. >> VICTORIA, his sister. he can’t stand her. >> ADDY, his friend. peter has always felt bad about the treatment addy used to get with their friendship group and towards the end of high school, he always made an active effort to make her feel looked after and included. >> AMELIA knew that peter cheated his way into liberty and was going to get him kicked out, but he beat her too it. desperate for her not to have something over him, he found out about how she cheated her way into diamond bridge and they now go back and forth with blackmail.

FLEUR CARMICHAEL, daughter of disney and brody 

- estj  - model and designer  - heterosexual  - burgundy academy, dixie sabotaged her rosewell acceptance  - her sister is her biggest rival but also best friend  - plans to transfer to LA or paris  fc: kendall jenner >> ROMAN is one of fleur’s best friends and she always had a crush on him. however, so does dixie and they’re VERY competitive for his attention.  >> MADDIE is her best friend and roman’s ex girlfriend. fleur always tried to keep her feelings secret because she didn’t want to get in between the two of them. >> DIXIE is her twin sister. the two of them are so competitive and have always fought like sister’s do. the older they’ve grown, the worse it’s got. they’re constantly trying to outdo one another but weirdly enough, they’re also really good friends.  >> LOUISA is one of her best friends but they have a very competitive friendship and get jealous of one another easily.

JUDAH CRUZ-MENDOZA, middle child of blake and christelle 

- infp  - actor and model  - bisexual  - st judes, he’s really proud of his parents/how they met  - signed a contract with disney channel  - he’s just came out as bisexual (male pref) to his family  fc: booboo stewart  >> AVERY is his ex-crush. judah was completely infatuated by avery and had his first experience with a guy with him. avery always kept it secret, though, which was fine. however, he now feels like he’s actively avoiding him and trying to distance himself which hurts.  >> WHITNEY is his sister and probably the sibling he’s the closest with. he would have come out to her first and trusts her with everything. he’s definitely missing being as close to her because they’re getting their own identities and lives but he loves her all the same. >> AURORA is his best friend. the children of hensley, christelle and soraya had no choice but to grow up close and aurora is like an honorary sister to him.  >> ELIJAH is a new love interest of his. elijah hasn’t come out yet and can be slightly homophobic while judah is freshly open about his sexuality and enjoying it, so even though there’re feelings there, it is definitely a bit messy.

THEA CRUZ-MENDOZA, oldest child of blake and christelle 

- esfp  - singer (vc: jhene aiko)  - heterosexual  - west ivys, she wanted to be close to family but not too close LOL - she’s like the mum when christelle’s not around. way too bossy with her siblings but is also kinda the blue print. she was a mischievous kid for sure. - a third year, she graduated from springs park a while ago  fc: christina nadin  >> CAM is a good friend of hers, that she definitely feels something for and he feels something for her too. neither of them have admitted it to themselves, let alone each other. 

ETHAN HARWOOD, son of nate and imogen 

- entj  - athlete - heterosexual  - liberty academy  - he’s a fuckboy and still a fuckboy. some people peak in high school - he did - but he’s still riding out that peak. he’s also fallen out with jay, his old best friend. - addy’s ex; they still sometimes speak  fc: xavier serrano  >> ADDY is his ex-girlfriend. their relationship was quite manipulative and not good for either of them. he knows he still has a little bit of power over her though and really doesn’t want to see her move on.  >> JAY is a frenemy. the two of them have started to drift and fight over the smallest of things. their friendship has quickly fallen apart and it’s clear they’re not the same as they were in high school. >> YOUI he’s lowkey been flirting with her for ages now and it’s only intensified since he and addy broke up, but it’s always been touchy since she’s addy’s old best friend.

KITTY-LEE HENSHAW, youngest daughter of natasha and anthony 

- isfp  - actress and model  - lesbian  - academia burgundy  - she’s making a transfer to be closer to victoria, who she’s infatuated with - she transitioned at an early age and her whole family has always been accepting, there’s no secrets around it.  - she has a tendency to get jealous  fc: hunter schafer >> VICTORIA is her best friend and crush. kitty has had feelings for victoria for as long as she can remember. they’ve always been best friend’s but it’s always gone deeper than that for kitty. deep down, she knows victoria doesn’t feel the same but she’s going to keep trying.  >> ADDY is a frenemy. kitty really doesn’t like addy and it’s purely because of the group she was in at gallagher. kitty has never clicked with the popular kids and would actively go out of her way to avoid them, so when victoria took a liking to addy at the end of high school, it threw her world upside-down a little and she’s definitely jealous. 

ROWAN WEST, son of hensley and evan 

- esfp  - director and athlete - heterosexual  - gold coast academy - he’s kind of like, reformed. he’s still not the softest but he’s definitely grown a lot since high school and the bad rep he got for himself post-ally.  - always in trouble. always. he has the worst of both parents in him LOL  fc: chase stokes  >> MADDIE is his new love interest. he’s really invested in getting to know her even though they live quite far apart. he does his best to keep his past with ally a secret from her.  >> DAPHNE is an old friend of his. they used to clash quite a lot but have grown to really like each other.  >> ALLY is his ex-girlfriend. the two of them have a complicated history and that’s exactly where rowan wants her to stay - in his history. he realises where he went wrong with her but is ready to move on. the only problem is they go to the same school and both study sports, it’s only a matter of time before he has to confront her.  >> HARLOW was a rebound ex-girlfriend. after ally, there was harlow. he feels bad for calling her a rebound but that’s exactly what she was. he just needed to feel *something* after the mess and poor harlow was the first in-line. >>WHITNEY AND AURORA are his childhood friends. 

NICOLAS CASTILLO-HUGES, only son of natalie and ezra 

- intj - writer (for screen)  - bisexual  - diamond bridge academy - very bright and intuitive. despite the difficulties ezra and natalie went through raising him, he loves them both and thinks very highly of them. he’s very focused on his dreams.  fc: rome flynn 

YASMINE HERNANDEZ, daughter of yulia 

- infp - singer/actress - bisexual  - liberty academy  - yulia became infamous for being a home-wrecker and sleeping with lots of influential men when she left st judes. she quickly gained a bad reputation and people disregarded her talent because she was a ‘gold digger’. yasmine is often treated the same by students her age. fc: selena gomez  >> LOTTIE is her best friend. they met on the first day of liberty and are roommates. yasmine definitely clings to lottie and is one of the only friends she trusts due to her anxiety.  >> NOAH has an unrequited crush on her. yasmine finds it hard to trust people and is nervous with any form of romantic attention. even though noah’s crush is innocent and she likes him as a friend, she’s not sure how she feels about him yet. 

CALLIE CASTILLO, oldest daughter of maria 

- estj  - model  - heterosexual  - st judes academy  - she’s getting used to not having her former clique around her and doesn’t really know what to do now that her popularity hasn’t translated over into university. she’s really struggling tbh  fc: sofia jamora   >> CARTER is her boyfriend. for a long time, she still had feelings for peter - his younger brother - but she’s trying so hard to push those aside and focus on them. he’s always been understanding of her, no matter how bitchy she gets.  >> BIANCA AND YOUI are her best friends. even though they’re all doing their own things, she considers those two her best friends and it’s been that way since the beginning of high school.  >> ADDY is a frenemy. callie used to relentlessly bully addy throughout high school and she still treats her like a bit of an outsider. she lowkey hates seeing addy thriving in LA while she’s still stuck in her hometown.  >> PETER C is her ex boyfriend. they’re messy as heck and she’s still not quite over the fact he ultimate chose aurora, her distant cousin. 

TAMMY CASTILLO, youngest daughter of maria 

- enfp  - singer (rosalia)  - bisexual (female pref)  - gold coast academy  - sick of living in calie’s shadow, she’s branched out to get an identity all of her own. she’s your typical party girl type.  fc: val mercado  >> ALLY is her best friend. they’ve got really close at gold coast and are practically inseparable.  >> they were in a long term relationship until he found out that he was a father. this really hurt her and she hasn’t forgiven him, despite still being in love with him. 

DELILAH CALLOWAY, daughter of eloise 

- istj  - actress  - bicurious  - wilow house academy - she’s the opposite of eloise. eloise let herself be pushed around by her sisters and forgotten about to an extent. delilah has made it clear that she’ll be the trailblazer for the ‘calloways’ in this generation and will happily walk all over her cousins if she has to.  fc: sommer ray  >> AALIYAH is her best friend. they both met at willow house and delilah took a shine to her confidence. the girls really got along well and they’ve also started to hook up. delilah is bicurious and unsure of her sexuality so relies a lot on aliyah to take the lead.  >> ADDY is her cousin. they never grew up in one anothers lives but delilah has always known of her aunts and cousins. the girls have reunited through the talent academy competition and are getting to know each other.

AIDEN NILSEN, son of kristofer - REVAMPED bc i feel like he only existed as haley’s on/off bf.

- infj - model  - bisexual  - st judes  - kristofer moved the family out to los angeles, so aiden is now based there. he still has an incredibly addictive personality. after haley moved out to gold coast, he kind of wiped his hands of her from the time being and has taken on a more artsy/friendly persona but that doesn’t mean he is.  fc: willy cartier 

>> HALEY is his on-again and off-again girlfriend. their relationship is toxic and when he found out she transferred to gold coast, he’s mainly just looking to rub her face in the fact he’s not with her anymore. 

CHESTER JACKSON, son of margo 

- esfp  - actor  - bisexual  - blossom bell  - he has the same chaotic energy that margo has, but he’s not as much of an asshole :’) he just loves the attention. he was diagnosed with ADHD quite late in life but at this point, he can’t even put it down to that. he went to gallagher and got kicked out in his third year so he probably hasn’t been around for a bit.  fc: dylan o’brien  >> DIXIE AND FLEUR are family friends. he’s been good friends with dixie for a while and is like a brother figure to her.

SABRINA HUGHES, daughter of ezra 

- infp  - singer/actress - bisexual  - burgundy academy  - she was never the cool girl in high school and has always struggled to find her place in social settings. she’s trying to grow her confidence and make an identity for herself but she does get jealous when friends and people close to her get more attention or something that she wanted. fc: halle bailey (i’ll write more when i cbb)

>> BRIELLE is her girlfriend. the two of them are trying to balance a healthy relationship and achieve their own personal dreams.

[bennyboyjones]

THE GETAWAY (Ben Hardy FanFic) Prologue

A/N: Hi! So, here is the prologue to my Ben Hardy  AU Fanfic! There are currently several chapters written, which you can find on Wattpad if you click on the link below, but I’ve decided to also upload it here as well. It might be a bit behind, but you’ll still get all the chaps eventually. 

What it is: basically, a girl from a small town who is bored of her life decides to take a trip to Nice where she runs into ben, who is also running away from some shit and some romance ensues. 

Word count: 1.6k

In this chapter: just some background to get us started. You probably don’t have to read this to understand what comes after, but it will help you understand the main character better. 

WATTPAD LINK IF YOU WANT TO READ AHEAD

Here we go:

prologue

I brushed my thumb over the twenty year old bonds clutched between my fingers. My eyes swept over the bank tellers, my weight switching back and forth from my right to my left foot. These people were taking forever; I figured it would be slow since it was a Monday morning, but apparently this was when all of the housewives did their banking. I had been next in line for the past fifteen minutes and as time went on, my nerve was steadily draining out of me. 

Last night, after a bottle of wine, I sat on the floor of my bedroom and reached under my bed for the manilla folder that held the contents of what I would consider the best six months of my life.  The folder was worn, soft, had both coffee and wine stains, and looked way too aged for something that had only come into existence a year ago. I placed my glass next to me, on the equally stained gray carpet, and pulled out endless postcards, bookmarks, pamphlets, plane tickets, museum and park and exhibit passes, and polaroids. I sifted through them, running fingers over my best friends’ smiling faces, rereading postcards to my family I had already memorized, focusing on guides to museums in Copenhagen, Paris, and London as if studying them could magically teleport me back. Instead, I was stuck here, in Rye, a small town that I was so, so bored of. 

I had lived here my entire life, and so had my parents. We went to the same elementary school and high school, we lived a thirty-second drive and a five minute walk from where my dad grew up. Everyone I had gone to school with had parents who graduated with or around the same time as mine. I felt so suffocated by sameness, by the ordinariness, and was terrified of repeating the pattern of monotony. 

When it was time to go to college, I was sure I would end up in New York City—somewhere not too far, but far enough, different enough from everything I wanted to get away from. When I was in high school, I decided that I was made to live there. For nine months out of the year, I’m a New Yorker—but during the summer I’m always back in Rye because apparently it’s financially irresponsible to take out loans to dorm over the summer and I can’t afford an apartment on a waitress’s salary, nor do I have the time to take up a second job and go to school full time, so Rye it is.

I only ever missed New York seasonally, but I missed London all the time. 

I missed living in London. I missed walking the three blocks from Queen Mary to the Co-Op to grab mushrooms, flapjacks, and a bottle of wine. I missed sitting on the Central Line at 11:30pm drunk, with Sarah and Annie on our way to our favorite club near Tottenham Court Road. I missed walking to Rinkoff’s hungover and grabbing a cronut. I missed Brick Lane on Sunday mornings. I missed a past life. 

For the past year, I’ve been saving up to get it back. When I came home last June, I worked a waitressing job at a small restaurant on our main street, as many doubles as I could—six days a week—and I refused to spend a single dime of it. I worked part time the past two semesters and saved as much as I could, but metro cards were expensive and a girl needed to eat, and also have a social life, and instead of “throwing away” my left over aid money on spring break vacations like my friends did, I hoarded that $1,231 and pretended I wasn’t bothered by the Miami Beach pictures even though I knew I was missing out. 

London was expensive, that much was clear; the only way I survived six months on $6,000 was because my financial aid paid for my housing and tuition, traveling around Europe while living in Europe is cheap, and my mom was sending me $100 a week for groceries because she was worried that all the jokes I made about not eating so I could afford to party (or financial drinking, as it’s been called) were serious (they were, and often the money that was supposed to be meant for groceries went to more fucking around—you only go abroad like that once in your entire life and I was so not going to waste it). And still, despite the weekly allowance from my mom, I still came home with $82 left in my bank account. Towards the end of the six months I was barely hanging on financially. Basically, what I’m saying is that I knew going back was going to cost me a lot of money, especially since I knew I wouldn’t have the same kind of help that I had the last time around. 

So, I saved and refused to do the math to figure out how much I would need to go back to London for at least two weeks. Well, last night, I did the math—and, oh boy, I am not going back to London until I have at least a few thousand more dollars to my name. That crushing disappointment is what led me to that manilla folder. 

The past few months, going back to Europe was all I could think about; I was graduating in December and this was my last summer to really do whatever I wanted before I had to be a real adult. Granted, I was planning on going straight into grad school, but the statement still stands. 

I took another sip of the cheap-ass red I regretted buying before grabbing my photos from Nice. I slowly went through them, and my eyes misted at the landscapes, the crooked self portraits taken on both disposables and my barely functioning digital, the photos of food, and coffees perfectly placed next to pages of my open journal. 

It was the one place that I had gone alone, in the middle of January, for only three days. It was a trip I took out of convenience (student visa issues) and I had only chosen Nice because it was both relatively cheap and small, but it ended up being my favorite place. The place I named first when people asked where I went, the place I talked about the most, and the place that meant the most to me. 

I put the photos down and opened my laptop. I opened a tab for SkyScanner, one for AirBnb, and one for TripAdvisor and started doing the math.

Flight: $1,214 (round trip)

AirBnb: $2,056

Other Expenses: $3,000

Approx. Total: $6,270

I knew how much I had in my savings and knew I had bonds somewhere from my baptism or some other religious sacrament I was forced to endure that I could cash for some extra money. I had enough for three weeks, but didn’t have much of a financial cushion should I need it. 

I downed what was left in my glass and booked my trip. I felt my hands shaking as I took them off my keyboard to rest them on my cheeks. My face was flush from both the wine and the excitement. I wiped my feet against the carpet, the nervous sweat on their bottoms making me uncomfortable. I was never one for impulsivity; I was a planner, a control freak, a perfectionist—a full blown virgo for fuck’s sake and the longer I sat there, staring at the confirmation page before me, the more nauseous I felt. I refused to let the regret set in, the doubt, and the fear. Instead, I stood up, hopped down the stairs with my empty glass in hand, and upon refilling, announced to my mom that in three weeks time, I would be on a plane to France. 

Earlier this morning, she rifled through the safe in the back of her closet in search of the bonds. When I told her about what I had done, she didn’t have much of a reply—she simply raised her glass to me and muttered a soft, “Jesus Christ”. I knew she was slightly concerned, but also excited for me and I really couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. She was a supportive mom, always, no matter how questionable her children’s choices were (and mine and my brothers’ choices were always questionable). 

Once she found them shoved into an envelope from the ‘90s, I got in the car with my younger brother and went to the bank. 

“You need to chill out. You’re going to make everyone in there nervous if you go in there all shaky and sweaty. You’re making yourself look like a criminal,” Noah said as he put his crappy car in park. 

“I’m just nervous. I know this is a stupid idea, isn’t it? I should just keep saving and go back in, like, another year when I really have the money, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes, “No. I think you need to do this now. It’s all you ever fucking talk about, and honestly, visiting you last year was the best thing I’ve ever done and it was the happiest I saw you. Just stop being a dumb bitch and go in there and get your money.”

Ignoring the “bitch” comment, I pushed the car door open with a loud creaking and clutched the bonds so tight they folded in my hands. 

When it was finally (finally!) my turn to be helped, I stepped up and handed the bonds over, crumpled and slightly damp with sweat, “I’d like to cash these, please.”

[chiefnooniensingh]

I Won’t Hesitate (for you) Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Do not try me, devil devil

In this chapter: We meet Detective Valenti who tries to solve the Rosa Ortecho case. In the present day, we'll find out the source of the screaming and Alex's three day holiday is cancelled. Alex and the young doctor Kyle team up. A connection is found.

A/n: A special thanks to Aileen (@acomebackstory​), Callie (@callieramics​), @hm-arn​, @royalshadowhunter​ and @ladymajavader​ over on Tumblr for their continued support and cheerleading. I don't know if I would've finished it without you guys!

Last week's chapter was titled "Oh take me back (to the night we met)" and it was taken from the song "The Night We Met" by Lord Huron and Phoebe Bridgers. This was guessed correctly by @hmd23 (on AO3)!

Can anyone guess this week's title AND performing artist?

also on: ao3

other chapters: 1 2

October, 1920

Almost a month after the kidnap and murder of Rosa Ortecho, Detective Valenti still had no solid leads. The poor girl’s body was completely clean of traces. Not even a hair was out of place on her body; it was as if she’d gone to sleep and simply never woke up again. Yet her windpipe was crushed, so Detective Valenti knew it was murder.

What he didn’t know, was who did it.

There were several tips from the local community. Most of it was false, Jim Valenti knew. Several people had reported a homeless veteran. He was supposedly sighted near the Ortecho residence around the time of the kidnap. Jim did his job, brought the man in, and released him the same day. War had destroyed the poor man’s mind and had taken his body with it. This man was neither mentally nor physically capable of planning a kidnap and murder without leaving any trace. Detective Valenti gave the man the address of his wife’s organization, that helped down-on-their-luck veterans get back on their feet. He doubted the man would go, but it was all he could do for the poor man.

The first real lead came a fortnight after the body had been discovered. Several of Chef Ortecho’s regulars had seen a young man fighting with Chef Ortecho one evening, about a month before the kidnapping took place. None of the stories matched on what they were fighting over, but they all ended the same; with the young man storming off and yelling, “You’re going to regret this, Ortecho!”

So Detective Valenti went to pick up the young man, who refused to identify himself and did not seem to have any legal documents to speak off. Jim suspected he was a recent immigrant still waiting for his papers. Or perhaps an illegal. It did not matter. He wasn’t border police; he was trying to solve a murder in his town.

The man steadfastly denied any involvement or knowledge, no matter what tactics Valenti and his department threw at him.

Apparently, the argument had been about a job Chef Ortecho had denied him. Tempers had run high, and the young man had said some unwise things. “I would never hurt anyone, Detective Valenti. I swear this.”

“I would be more inclined to belief you if you told us your name.” Detective Valenti said coldly. It was the third day of interrogation and he was beginning to lose patience. Either this man really did not know anything, or he was toying with them all. Either way, it was a frustrating process.

The young man shook his head, dark eyes glittering in the interrogation room’s half-light. “I cannot. I have no papers to prove myself, no real way to prove who I am. If I tell you my name, you will use all available measures to besmirch my name. I will never find any work. I’m sorry, Detective. I wish it were different.”

Five days Detective Valenti held the man in custody. Any and all legal tactics (and sometimes slightly illegal ones) were thrown at the man. Nothing yielded any results. The state’s capital was putting pressure on the sheriff’s department to just accuse this man, but Jim refused. He knew the state liked the young man as a suspect because he was dark-skinned and had no papers to speak off. To them it didn’t matter. He was guilty of being non-white, and that was good enough for them. Jim Valenti refused to participate in such barbaric practices. He wanted the real murderer, not some ponzi people could use to justify their racism.

So on the sixth day, Detective Valenti let the man go, with the Sheriff’s Department’s sincerest apologies.

They were back to square one.

Cursing profusely, Jim Valenti sat at his desk and stared at the picture of Rosa Ortecho from when she was found in the forest. He wanted justice for this poor young girl who was taken before her time.

But it was looking more and more as if that justice would never come.

Present day, 20th of October, 1935

Alex Manes sat bold upright, as the shriek from the cabin next to him continued and changed to hysterical sobs. There was shouting outside his cabin and hurried footsteps up and down the corridor. Several more people screamed or cursed.

As fast as his bad knee would allow, Alex dressed himself just enough to be decent and then yanked open his cabin door.

Outside, it was pandemonium. All the passengers were crowded around the Bracken’s cabin, from which hysterical sobs were still floating. “Move!” Alex shouted, and he started pushing a tall man he had not seen before aside. Beth and Mr Otto realized who was doing the pushing and immediately forced everyone further back, away from the door to clear a path for him. Alex reached the cabin door, which was closed. He tried the handle, but it was no use. It was locked. “Michael!” he yelled loudly, and the man appeared immediately, looking half-terrified and half-apprehensive. “Keys,” Alex said shortly, no time for pleasantries. Michael handed over the keys and Alex jammed the master key in the lock. Within seconds, he yanked open the door. His breath caught in his throat, and several people behind him gasped. Isobel Bracken was on the floor, her body flung over the still body of her husband, who was…drenched in blood.

“Mrs Bracken!” Alex said in astonishment. Behind him, someone had begun to sob.

Isobel looked up, her eyes red and her face wet from tears. “He’s dead!” she screeched. “Someone killed him! My husband!!” She was covered in his blood; her nightgown was soaked through and her blonde hair had stained pink in some places.

“Isobel, you need to come away from there now,” Alex said as calm as he could, even as his blood ran cold. A man was murdered in a locked cabin on a moving train. Worst – or maybe best, depending how one looked at it – of all, the carriage was locked at night.

Meaning the murderer was still in their midst.

This train ride had just become a murder scene.

“Out of the way, out of the way! What’s going on here?”

“Director Manes, there’s been a murder!” That was Mimi DeLuca’s voice, weaker than it had been last night and constricted with barely contained emotion.

“A murder? Wha – ?” Jesse Manes appeared in the doorway, looked in and cursed profusely. “That’s Noah Bracken, the director of the biggest oil company in the Midwest!”

Alex rolled his eyes. He knew his father was already thinking of the death of his reputation instead of the literal death that had happened here. Making a snap decision, he turned around. “A murder, yes, Director Manes. Alright, I need everyone to go back to their cabins, immediately please.”

Shocked and muttering amongst themselves, the small crowd dispersed.

“Michael!” Alex called, not even thinking about it. Michael was beside him immediately, looking grim. “Please take Mrs Bracken out of this cabin. Take her to the dining carriage, close it to the public. Keep the other door closed as well. Instruct the train staff that meals will be served in the cabins until further notice.” Michael nodded and began prying a still hysterical Isobel from her husband’s body.

As Michael wrestled her out the cabin, Jesse Manes grabbed Alex’s upper arm quite roughly. Alex flashed back to his youth momentarily, before yanking his arm from the grip and turning around to face his father. “What do you think you’re doing, Alex?” Jesse Manes hissed.

Alex leaned in close. “Solving your problem for you,” he hissed. Then he straightened. “Dr Kyle!” he called to the front of the carriage.

Kyle came out of his cabin, white as a sheet and looking shocked. “Yes?”

“Am I correct in assuming you covered forensic examinations in your studies?”

Kyle trotted over and swallowed hard. “You are, though it is not my specialty.”

“It will have to do. I will assist with any knowledge I have acquired over the years. But we need to examine this body and do it quickly. This was a murder and we need to find the murderer before we arrive in Paris, or we lose them forever,” Alex said, his logical brain going as fast as possible. Kyle nodded and returned to his cabin for his medical bag. Alex turned to his father, who was white with barely controlled fury. Some vindictive part of his brain thoroughly enjoyed seeing his father like this, but Alex had no time to dwell. “Director Manes, I need all the passengers to be kept in their cabins until further notice. I need a staff member from another car to stand guard. Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to venture out alone, especially not when we are at a station. The doors to the other cars were locked all night, yes?”

“That is procedure, yes,” Jesse Manes said, his jaw clenched hard. He was not used to being ordered around.

“That means that you and the rest of the staff can be discounted as suspects. So our suspect pool consists of 7 people. Eight,” he corrected himself as he saw Michael making his way towards them, his uniform stained with blood and his hair dishevelled. “Everyone who was present in this carriage after the doors were locked to the moment Mrs Bracken first discovered her husband to be dead.”

“Don’t you mean nine?” Jesse Manes said nastily. “You were present as well.”

Alex saw red with fury for a moment. “If you believe me capable of cold-blooded murder, you’re an even worse judge of character than I thought. Besides, if I were to murder someone, there is only one man for whom I hold enough hatred.” The vague threat hung in the air between them, as Jesse Manes blanched completely, then turned red with an impressive speed.

“You insolent little – ”

“Not so little anymore, father. Your precious army saw to that,” Alex spat, getting as close to his father as he felt capable.

“Alex,” a soft voice broke into his red haze, and a warm hand on his arm pulled him a step back. He looked at the hand and recognized it immediately. Michael. He looked up at him, and the man was looking at him in a way Alex hadn’t been looked at in close to ten years. Just like that, he was back to being that 16-year-old kid, spending his afternoons with Michael under their tree.

He shook his head to clear the image and took another step back, brushing his own hand to Michael’s ever so lightly in gratitude. Michael broke his gaze and stepped back, looking at Jesse Manes with contempt. “I’m going to solve this murder, father. You can either assist or get the hell out of my way.” He turned to Kyle, who was wearing gloves and carrying his bag, looking awkwardly between the three of them. Colour had somewhat returned to his cheeks and he looked determined. “Are you ready, doctor?” Alex refused to give the situation any more attention that it’d already gotten. They had, after all, a murder to solve.

At Kyle’s nod, Alex turned his back on his father completely and preceded Kyle into the cabin.

The first thing Alex noticed was that it was icy cold in the cabin. The window was open, letting in the crisp morning air. Alex immediately filed this away as odd. He didn’t think the Brackens would have opened that during the night. Which meant it might have been done by the murderer. “Michael, did we stop during the night?”

“Yes, we made a short stop in Vinkovci. It was only ten minutes though. I think it was around 3am?”

Alex nodded. “Can you fetch me my notebook, please? Top drawer of my nightstand.” Michael nodded and vanished, returning almost immediately with the book and a pencil. Alex scribbled down the information on a fresh page, headlining the page with MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. It was a stupid habit but naming all his cases helped him remember them all the better.

Kyle had kneeled down next to Noah Bracken, and Alex now turned his attention fully to the body as well. The man’s dark skin had turned a noticeable shade of pale, his mouth had sagged open and his eyes were closed.

His eyes were closed.

“He never woke up,” Alex said out loud, frowning deeply. Kyle, Michael and Director Manes looked at him in surprise. “If he was murdered in his sleep, he would’ve woken up, even for a moment, an automatic reaction to the pain sensation. His eyes are closed. He never woke up.”

“What does that mean?” Michael asked, stepping closer. At Alex’s raised hand, he stopped and stepped back again.

“It means he was probably drugged before he was murdered. Maybe hours before. Maybe just before. Either way, the murderer went out of their way to make sure he made no sound.” Alex looked around and saw a teacup on the floor, chipped. He picked it up with his handkerchief and took a sniff. He coughed. “Yes, barbital.” Clever, really. If Noah Bracken had made even the slightest noise, Isobel would’ve woken up and the murderer would’ve been apprehended before being able to escape.

“Barbital?” Kyle said, incredulously. “That’s a very heavy sedative, how on earth did someone get hold of that?”

Alex shrugged. It was hardly the first time he’d seen a person drugged by barbital. It had even happened to him once. It had not been a pleasant experience. “It’s usually given for heavy anxieties, for people who cannot go outside on account of fear. And since women are often seen as hysterical and anxious…they get their hands on it quite easily, I assure you, Doctor.”

Kyle clicked his tongue. “Ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you tell your prejudiced colleagues, Doctor?” Alex said, putting the cup down gently and scanning the rest of the cabin for more clues.

Kyle flushed a bit, then straightened himself. “I’m ready to begin examination, Alex. Would you join me?” Alex went to his knees next to him, ignoring the painful twinge in his leg. The two men nodded to each other and Kyle went to work. “Alright, I’m removing the night shirt.”

“Careful,” Alex said, “That might be evidence.”

To his credit, Kyle was very careful to push the shirt out of the way only as much as was necessary for the wounds to reveal themselves. And wounds it was. Kyle and Alex both inhaled sharply. There were at least a dozen stab wounds on Noah Bracken’s torso. “It seemed the murderer wanted to make sure he was dead,” Kyle said, after a moment, his voice slightly constricted. Alex nodded mutely, counting the wounds and making a note of them in his book. “I’m going to take his temperature now.”

While Kyle went to work, Alex looked around the cabin. It was a mess. Isobel had evidently knocked over some stuff as she was trying to get to her husband. A pair of glasses, a book, a water glass, an old pocket watch. Frowning, Alex took out his kerchief again and picked up the watch. It was grievously damaged, its face shattered as if a knife had pierced it at great speed. Which, Alex realized, was probably exactly what happened. The hands were still, set at just a few minutes past 3AM. Would that be the time of the murder? Alex wondered, examining the watch curiously.

“Alright, internal temperature is about…32 degrees,” Kyle piped up, drawing Alex’s attention back to him. “That would put the time of death around…” He checked his own watch. Alex already knew what he was going to say, and so they said it in unison, “Three AM.” Kyle looked at him, surprised. Alex held up the watch, showing three AM.

“Two sources are better than one, my professor always said,” Kyle said, with an attempt at a smile. Alex inclined his head in agreement and made another note in his notebook.

“What can you tell me of the wounds, doctor?” Alex said, wrapping his hand tightly around the watch.

Kyle returned to the body and bent over the wounds to examine them closely. “Well, whoever it was, the murder was not business. Some of these wounds are very ragged, as if someone stabbed him quickly and roughly, as if in anger. Then again, these two,” his gloved pinkie finger pointed out a wound near the heart and on the lower left side, “look more precise. Deliberate. In fact, these two may have been the two that killed him instantly. That’s the heart and that’s the large intestine. The heart is the obvious killer, but if that one hadn’t killed him, this one would have. This much damage to the large intestine releases toxins and waste into the body. It kills a person slow, but it will kill.” He looked at the wounds again and frowned. “Odd. Some wounds go deeper than others, as if the murderer lost their strength halfway through.” Kyle sat back on his heels, frowning deeply. “Detective Manes, nothing makes sense about these wounds. They appear completely random and yet deliberate. Made by passion and yet with cold precision.”

Alex wrote it all down, frowning deeply. “Do you have an explanation?”

Kyle blew out his breath. “If I was a forensic examiner by trade, I might have had. But I’m a doctor. I deal with the living, not the dead. I can only tell you what I see, but not the why.”

Alex nodded. He wished he had his favourite forensic examiner with him from the NYPD. The man was a genius and had, at this point, seen everything. But he didn’t, so it was no point dwelling on the matter. “Any theories on the murder weapon?”

“A knife. It was a sharp blade, no ridges or blemishes to speak of. Military, perhaps. That’s about as precise as I can get.” Kyle rose to his feet, taking off the gloves and running his hands through his hair. He looked pale again. “Nasty business. And his poor wife. They’d only been married for a year, you know. To be widowed so soon is a crying shame.”

Alex nodded, barely registering Kyle’s words, still engrossed in his notebook as he tried to make sense of the details he had so far. A murder that was not planned yet performed deliberately? Nothing indeed made sense. “Thank you, Dr Kyle, that will be all for now. Please return to your cabin and stay there until otherwise instructed.”

Wordlessly, Kyle packed up his bag and left the room. Alex remained behind, engrossed in the details and in the room. Slowly, he backed away to the cabin door, so he could have a complete overview of the cabin. Sticking from beneath Noah Bracken’s bed was a newspaper clipping, faded yellow and looking as though it did not belong. Going laboriously to his knees again, he picked it up and examined it. It was only a headline, and incomplete at that, as it was half-burned.

… Ortecho (11). Her body was disc…

Alex froze. Ortecho. It couldn’t be. Looking up slowly, he looked at Noah Bracken’s face, then back at the newspaper clipping. Could this be…? Noah Bracken had the complexion, but Alex knew that was by far not enough. However, now that he looked really well, the man before him looked suspiciously like the man Detective Valenti had brought in for questioning. The only real suspect the sheriff’s department had ever had.

“Rosa Ortecho,” he said out loud.

“Excuse me?” said Michael and Jesse Manes in unison, making Alex jump. He had completely forgotten they were still there.

Alex showed them the newspaper clipping. “Rosa Ortecho. The girl that was kidnapped and murdered in Roswell, remember? This was the man who did it, or at least the police suspected he did. Noah Bracken, the young immigrant sheriff Valenti once questioned and cleared of all charges on grounds of no evidence. When I made the switch to private investigator, I reviewed the details of the case, see if there was anything the detectives missed back then. I remember the picture of the immigrant man they brought in. It was him,” Alex said, pointed to Noah Bracken. “This wasn’t a random murder at all. This was revenge. For Rosa Ortecho.”

Michael stared in shock at Alex, and Director Manes narrowed his eyes. Alex turned back to the body. Rosa Ortecho’s murderer. Finally found, and now a victim of a murder himself.

Alex nearly scoffed. This case was going to be the toughest one he’d taken yet.

[fruit-teeth]

Showtime

Alternate title: Spy’s first backstab (sort of)

/(I’m doing another one of these since folks liked the one about Sniper! This one isn’t my best, but it’s all right, I suppose...just a warning, though, there’s a lot of blood towards the end, so if that bothers you please read with caution or just skip this one, thanks!)/

“Is today the day?” Rene murmured to his reflection.

His reflection stared back, and he took stock of himself: he was still a boy, only seventeen, but he looked so tired. Redness still tinged his eyes, those blue eyes that matched his mother’s—he knew the answer in his heart.

“Yes,” he nodded, rising and taking a breath.

It was about eight in the evening. His mother was up in her bedroom, likely listening to the radio, and his stepfather was in the kitchen, drinking from his flask while he read the paper. Rene passed by the room which had once been the study, and he stood in the doorway.

The room was dark, but the walls were painted in a sickly pastel pink that reminded him of his mother’s perfume bottles. Little paintings of zoo animals and Noah’s Ark decorated the walls, and in the center of the room sat his sister’s bassinet. She’d been born just a few days earlier, and Rene knew this was the child his mother always wanted.

In fact, this was the future Amelie had always wanted: she’d been married young, too young, to an older man who passed away shortly afterward. She’d given birth to Rene, and then promptly forced into the life of a working single mother. But now, later in her life, she’d been graced with a new man whom she loved, and now they’d had a daughter. Rene had never seen his mother so happy in all her life, and he knew his presence in her life was only a reminder of the heartache she had suffered through. For her sake, and for his own, he knew he had to leave.

Despite everything, Rene chose to bid his newborn sister goodbye. He entered the room and knelt beside her bassinet, reaching inside to brush her cheek gently.

“I’m leaving now, Cadence,” he spoke softly, placing a hand on her head. “It was nice meeting you…I hope I’ll see you again, someday,”

His stepfather barked from the kitchen, “Let your sister rest, you stupid boy!”

Rene sighed, quickly kissing Cadence’s head. “Goodbye—be strong,”

He didn’t say anything to his stepfather, and he went upstairs to gather his things together. He got together all the money he’d saved, all the trinkets he’d stored, and anything else that could potentially be worth selling, and he tucked as many clothes as he could fit into his suitcase.

Finally, at about midnight, Rene got everything he needed to leave on his own. He was scared, he almost felt sick—but he felt he had to do it. There was no place for him here.

As he walked out into the hallway, he took one last look at his mother and his stepfather asleep in their bed. For a moment, he thought about waking them up and bidding them goodbye, but he chose not to. Maybe, if there was no goodbye, they would just forget about him with ease.

It was snowing out when Rene had finished his trek to the train station. He bought a ticket, and when the train arrived, he boarded it without an issue.

He passed the conductor on his way inside, and the man asked, “Where is a young man like you headed on a night like this?”

Rene barely looked up. “Nowhere,” he replied simply.

He’d barely thought about where he was going to stay, but he had enough money to just get somewhere to sleep before he could get a job.

The train took him to a different part of the city, deep into Paris, where he wound up on a street corner. He dragged his suitcase behind him down the street, looking all around for somewhere to rest. It was early morning, now, and he eventually found a small diner. Hoping he could get breakfast, Rene stopped there.

However, when he entered the establishment, an older woman in a fur coat spotted him, and he took his arm.

“What’s a young boy like you doing here by yourself?” she spoke very sweetly to him, yet still maintained a vice-like grip on his arm. “You seem awfully far from home,”

Rene swallowed, tensing up. “I…I…” he took a breath. “I’m just here to get breakfast,”

“Mm,” the woman nodded in understanding. “Well, if you join my friends and I, we would pay for your food,”

“Really?” Rene perked up at the idea, but he was still wary of such an offer.

The woman went on. “But we would need a favor from you. Are you willing?”

Rene was about to just blindly agree, but he knew better. He cleared his throat. “What’s the favor, ma’am?”

“Oh, do not concern yourself with such a thing,” she waved him off. “You may call me Miss Tilda. Now, come along—there is a seat for you at our table,”

Sure enough, there was an empty seat at a table filled with sharply dressed men. They watched Rene silently as he approached as if they were taking in every small detail about him. He wanted to turn around and run away, but there was hardly any time for that as Miss Tilda guided him to sit at the table.

“Men,” she began. “I have found a young boy. Tell them your name, child,”

Rene felt himself break into a cold sweat. “Um…R-Rene,”

“Rene?” a large, suited man snorted. “What are you doing out of daycare, little boy?”

“I’m…seventeen,” Rene defended, his voice quivering.

“Yeah?” a taller, skinnier man leaned over the table. “I joined when I was eleven, and by the time I was your age I had already killed four men!”

Rene felt his heart hammering fast: what had he just gotten into?

“We don’t want to scare him off, Garner!” Miss Tilda snapped at the man, before turning her attention back to Rene. “Now, after breakfast, you will need to complete your first task. It requires you to act—can you do that?”

Rene tried to think of how to answer properly. “I…yes, I-I can act. I was in Romeo and Juliet in school—”

“Oh, of course, he was,” a red-haired man groaned. “You just had to get us a theatre kid, didn’t you, Tilda?”

“Please,” Tilda snorted. “That means he has experience. Come, now—our waitress is coming. Let us eat, shall we?”

After breakfast, the group drove off to a hotel, where they gave Rene a ‘script’: he was supposed to be a lost delivery boy, and he had to approach an older wealthy couple known as the Gerards with a request for directions to the fourth floor. Miss Tilda gave him a uniform and a crate filled with oranges, and then she pushed him into the hotel lobby.

Rene felt his hands shaking as he gipped the crate, but he tried to remember the exercises his stage director had taught him in school: breath, relax, let the character drop in. This wasn’t too different from playing a character on stage, right? He just had to pretend to be a lost delivery boy…that couldn’t be too hard. He tried not to think about why he was supposed to do this, and he also tried to ignore the fact that the men in suits were longer around him.

The Gerards passed into the lobby, wearing fine clothing and chatting as they dragged along their suitcases. Rene took a deep breath: showtime, he thought.

“Excuse me?” he spoke in a higher register, making himself sound younger and more innocent. “Excuse me, do you know where the fourth floor is?”

Mr. Gerard raised an eyebrow at him. “What, you can’t ask the staff? Don’t you work here?”

“Yes,” Rene hadn’t anticipated this question, so he tried to come up with something. “Yes, b-but I just started here, and they will not speak to me, and I know your room was on the fourth floor, so—”

“We were on the third floor,” Mrs. Gerard seemed to catch wind, and she turned to tug on her husband. “Pierre—”

Before anyone could do anything else, Miss Tilda was there, and she came and stood behind Mr. Gerard. “Sir,” she began, pressing something Rene couldn’t see into his back. “Come with us, and we will make this as quick as possible,”

One thing Rene would never forget was the look of fear in their faces when they were led outside by Tilda, and he also recalled later that he never knew what had happened to them. He didn’t even know what this was for—but that was the least of his worries when two suited men grabbed him and dragged him out the back wordlessly.

“You almost ruined that for us!” barked Garner once they were outside, and he shoved Rene up against the dumpster. “Oh, I knew we shouldn’t have listened to Tilda about you!”

“Garner, let the kid go,” sighed the other man, who Rene knew as Jacques. “He’s just an idiot, okay? We got what we wanted out of him,”

Garner wasn’t backing down, though, and he pulled out a knife from his coat pocket. It was a strange knife Rene had never seen before—it seemed to fold up, and it had handles so Garner could grip it properly.

“I should just carve you up and leave you here,” Garner hissed, a wild look in his eyes. “You don’t have a family; you don’t have anyone—who will miss you? Nobody!”

“Garner!” Jacques protested, yet made no move to help.

Rene’s heart was pounding in his eyes, and he was hyperventilating. Yet along with the fear, a feeling of rage welled up in him as Garner spoke, and it boiled over when the man turned to glare at Jacques.

“Shut up!” Garner snapped. “This little coward is going to learn today—”

Before Garner even had time to register what happened, Rene yanked the knife from his hand and plunged it into the back of his neck. Garner let out a yell and stumbled backward, but Rene wasn’t finished. In his frenzied anger, he attacked again, this time stabbing the knife directly into Garner’s chest and dragging it up to his throat, cleanly slicing him all the way up. Blood poured like a river—Rene had never seen so much blood in his life, and it scared him.

He gasped, dropping the knife, watching in horror as Garner wheezed desperately and dropped to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Garner writhed around to no avail, his chest heaving, choking sounds punching their way out of his throat until his movements stilled, and he fell silent. Rene didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead.

Rene caught his breath, and he braced himself, expecting Jacques to come after him next and kill him. However, Jacques just stared at him in silence, his eyes trailing from the dead body to Rene’s bewildered face. Jacques smiled after a moment, nodding at him.

“Good job,” he praised, taking a step forward. “How do you feel?”

Rene felt a flurry of emotions. He felt strangely proud over what he had done, yet at the same time, he was still terrified. But, most of all, he felt nauseous as he stared at the blood.

“Sick,” Rene mumbled, still shaking.

Jacques chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’ll go away. Here,” he knelt, picking up the knife and placing it in Rene’s hand. “This is yours, now—have you ever seen a butterfly knife?”

Rene just shook his head at he stared at the knife. “It’s still bloody…”

“That’s all right, I can show you how to wash it,” assured Jacques, taking Rene’s arm and leading him away from the sordid scene. “Also, you’ll need a suit. I can get you to a tailor tomorrow,”

“Uh-huh,” Rene nodded, turning up to look at Jacques’s face. “Why…why are you helping me?”

Jacques shrugged. “I never liked Garner. But, if I’m being more honest, it’s really because I think you have potential,” he met Rene’s eyes. “But you just need someone to teach you how to use it,”

“Okay…” Rene agreed quietly, watching as the knife glinted in his hands.

No one paid attention to the blood on their clothes as they walked down the street together, but unbeknownst to them, one tourist was watching from a rented car. She blew a puff of cigarette smoke, observing the way the boy traveled down the street with his new mentor, and then she drove away.

[puckermansarah]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ MAIA MITCHELL ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ SARAH PUCKERMAN ]. Damn, [ SHE ] looks good for [ 25 ], good thing that they’re [ BISEXUAL ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ SWEETHEART ] of the [ SOUTHSIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ COMPASSIONATE ] and [ HOPEFUL ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ OBSESSIVE ] and [ DEFENSIVE ]. Can’t wait to see what kind of trouble [ LOGAN/25/CST ] will bring.

01.  BASICS

Full Name: Sarah Parker Puckerman

Nickname: Little S, Princess

Sex/Gender: Cisfemale 

Birthday: July 25, 1994

Age: 25

Astrological Sign: Leo

Occupation: None currently

Spoken Languages: English, Hebrew, ASL

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Birthplace: Southside of Riverdale

Relationship status: Single

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Dark Brown

Eye Color: Dark Brown

Face Claim: Maia Mitchell

Height: 5’6

Weight: 119 lbs.

Tattoos: Star of David tattoo on the back of her neck and star and moon tattoo on her right wrist

Piercings: Both earlobes, septum, helix in left ear. She wears the septum the least.

Unique Attributes: She has a birthmark on her left thigh 

Defining Gestures/Movements: She drums her nails on hard surfaces a lot

Posture: Average. Not picture perfect, not utterly horrible 

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: Noisy eaters, when people sneeze or cough without covering their mouths, people biting their nails 

Hobbies/Interests: Singing, acting, modeling

Special Skills/Abilities: Acting

Likes: Magazines, deep dish pizza, shopping, video games

Dislikes: Shrimp, smoking, drugs

Insecurities: Not being good enough

Quirks/Eccentricities: She can be pretty jumpy

Strengths: Hopeful, kind hearted, hard working

Weaknesses: Defensive, naive, absent minded

Speaking Style: Casual, always seems to have an underlying tone of excitement

Temperament: Overall she’s pretty calm, but she does have a limit and when you get there, it’s not pretty

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Jason Puckerman (Father), Deborah Singleton (Mother), Noah Puckerman (Older Brother)

How do they feel about their family? She doesn’t remember her dad too much, Sarah was 4 when her mom took her to Chicago. Same with her brother. Growing up she was close to her mom, doing what she can to help. She came back to Riverdale to reconnect with her brother after finding out her mom was lying to her about what happened. 

How does their family feel about them? Her mother tried giving her a good life, though that involved lying to her. She just wanted her daughter away from her father and brother and away from Riverdale 

Pets: She has a cat back in Chicago named River

Where do they live? A one bedroom apartment on the Southside, temporary while she’s getting more money

Description of their home: It’s simple, she didn’t bring everything she owned with her but she has enough.

Description of their bedroom: Pretty plain right now, some paintings on the wall, very clean. 

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert?

Optimist or Pessimist?

Leader or Follower?

Confident or Self-Conscious?

Cautious or Careless?

Religious or Secular?

Passionate or Apathetic?

Book Smarts or Street Smarts?

Compliments or Insults?

Pajamas or Lingerie?

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Purple

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: Comfy but cute is how Sarah would describe her style. Skirts, jeans, off the shoulder tops, if she thinks it’s cute, it’s in her closet.

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: She is pretty open to most music, but pop is probably her favorite. She also loves musicals and listened to classical music when she was studying

Favorite Movies: Romantic comedies are her favorite, Pretty Woman, 10 Things I Hate About You, What’s Your Number, she’s a huge fan.

Favorite Books: Again, romance. Though it’s usually more YA romance than actual romance novels.

Favorite Foods/Drinks: Peanut butter and banana sandwich and lemonade is her favorite meal

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: She liked watching the baseball team at her school play

Favorite Time of Day: Morning

Favorite Weather/Season: Winter

Favorite Animal: Turtles

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: She believes in ghosts, but that’s about it

Political Views: Liberal

Addictions: None

Best School Subject: English 

Worst School Subject: Math

School Clubs/Sports: She was a cheerleader

How does he get money? Currently, she doesn’t have a job in Riverdale. But in Chicago after her porn career, she was a substitute teacher and a bartender

How is he with technology? Pretty good

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory: Playing games with Noah when she was younger 

Deepest, Darkest Secret: When she was 18, she needed a job to pay rent and help with school, so she got into the porn business.. Under the name Katie Loves, she did porn for about 4 years.

Dream Vacation: Paris, France

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Her cheerleading team winning Nationals

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Finding out her mom lied to her about what happened when they left Riverdale. 

What do they want to be when they grow up? Last she thought about it, she wanted to be a model. But she’s also thought about being a teacher to help kids. 

Perfect Date: Ice skating and hot chocolate

09. HEADCANONS

Sarah was 4 years old when her mom told her to pack her things and come with her to Chicago. When she asked about her brother, who was 7 at the time, her mom just told her that he was choosing to stay with their dad. And she believed her. 

She enjoyed growing up in Chicago, it was fun and she loved trips downtown and seeing all of the people and things to do. She went with her friends from cheerleading every weekend.

Sarah went to college and majored in education, but in order to help pay for it on top of paying rent, she needed another job on top of her waitressing. Luckily, she had a friend with a connection in the porn business. Sarah took the name Katie Loves, and she did porn all through school before having a quiet retirement. As far as she knows, only close friends know she did porn, but she has worried that someone will put two and two together and realize who she was.

It was only recently that Sarah found out about her mother’s lie. They were at her friend’s Christmas party and her mom was retelling the story to her friend, and Sarah overheard the truth. That Noah didn’t choose to stay behind, their mom just was sure he would end up like her father. After confronting her the next day, Sarah felt like she had to go to her hometown and see the brother she has had no contact with since she was 4 years old. 

She got some things together, not everything since she was planning on returning to Chicago at some point, and after getting a cheap apartment on the Southside of town, she took the next flight to Riverdale. Determined to reconnect and see her older brother. 

[wroughtbetwixtfanfic]

A Place To Call Home, Ch 6.

Fandom: Rosewell, New Mexico.

Summary: A canon divergent take on Roswell, New Mexico, and the relationships  between Isobel, Noah, and Rosa; later parts will shift the focus to  Michael and Alex, as well as Michael and Noah. What is it like to share a  body with another alien? Can broken trust be mended? Do the ends really  justify the means?  

Rating: M.

Tags: Canon divergence, minor  character death, not really character death, body sharing, polyamory,  hurt/comfort, addiction problems, sickfic, revenge, fix it, friends to  enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies to lovers, Noah is complicated, cw:  dubious age stuff for a little bit considering Nasedo/Noah is  who-the-hell-knows how old.

Word Count: 3936

June 8th was graduation. In two weeks and a handful of days, everything would begin to change, and neither Nasedo nor Isobel knew how. It all depended on Rosa, and what path she decided to take. They tried not to expect anything. Rosa was human, after all, and it wasn't like they'd been together all that long. Still. Extraordinary things happened sometimes, didn't they? It was obvious they had a connection. Nasedo could sense it between the three of them. Rosa seemed to love them, and they knew they loved her. Nasedo knew that love wasn't always enough. If Rosa decided she couldn't trust them enough to leave Roswell with them, there was little they could do besides wait. Wait, and hope for the best.

It was one more reason why it was essential to figure out what she knew in regards to Valenti. The man was dangerous. If she saw him as a father figure, she might fall too easily under his sway, and then it would be a one way ticket to a laboratory somewhere. But how to ask about it, without prying and rousing Rosa's suspicion? It took a bit to cook up a plan, but it was simple. Direct, without being confrontational. All it took was Isobel's beautiful smile and a little lie. "I'm doing a project," Isobel said as they lounged under the bridge. Rosa was making some new stencils, her hair pulled up out of her face in the late-spring heat; she was gorgeous, and they hated to risk spoiling the moment, but it had to be done. "It's a paper regarding the 1947 crash. That guy you were gonna go see, didn't you say his name was Valenti?" Rosa peered up. "Yeah. Jim Valenti. Why?" "Oh, curiosity's sake. I read that his father was actually there that night. I guess their family has a long history in the military." "I knew he seemed like the type, but I didn't..." Rosa frowned, leaning back and studying her fingernails. "Do you think his family had something to do with killing your people?" "We have no way of knowing for sure, but it's possible." "I had no idea. He didn't tell me anything, except that he was sheriff for a while and was an alcoholic, like me. But if he was involved..." Isobel kept her tone docile, casual. "I trust you. I know you won't tell him." The look of disgust on Rosa's face said it all. She muttered something in Spanish about cops and the military, and returned to her artwork. Nasedo and Isobel relaxed, satisfied. She hadn't known about the connection, and now that she did, she knew to be careful. At least, that's what they hoped. Nasedo had an uncanny way of knowing if someone was lying. As far as he knew, Rosa was telling the truth. Once they got out of Roswell, it wouldn't matter anymore, anyways; they'd go somewhere no one knew them, and start over. Once night fell and gave them a reprieve from the incoming summer, Isobel drove them back out to the turquoise mines. Nasedo had discovered a small cave near his own, and decided to gift it to Rosa. It was up a hill and hidden behind some rocks, with smooth walls begging to be canvases. When Rosa saw it, her eyes lit up; Nasedo knew she was thinking the same thing. "But why me?" Rosa wondered, awe in her voice as her fingers traced the fractures in the rock. "Why don't you use it?" Isobel rested a hand on Rosa's back. "Nasedo has one. I don't need it. But you like having secret spots, right? Places to go when you need to be alone? We thought maybe it would be useful when you need to escape for a while." Rosa tackled them in a tight hug. "It's perfect. Thank you." She spun away from them, running her hands along the walls. "I can paint these, have candles here, maybe put a little space for books and art supplies over there..." It took Rosa a couple days to 'move in'. Once she was ready to share, Rosa brought them to the cave; it was a little bit gothic, a little bit romantic, and it suited her perfectly. There were flowers and lyrics painted all along the walls, plush pillows along the floor, and books. Treasures. The lit candles made shadows dance along the walls. It was warm, cozy. There was a faint smell of incense in the air, and it felt like a home. "You can come here whenever you want," Rosa said as Isobel explored the space. "I get you intended it to be for me, but I like sharing with you. And I get the feeling sometimes Nasedo needs to get away from Max." Isobel let out a little snort as Nasedo chuckled from the back of her mind. "Well, you're not wrong there. Thank you." They curled up on some of the pillows with Rosa, shoulder touching as they leaned against one another. Isobel peeked over at Rosa, who was glancing at Isobel's lips. "Can I kiss you?" Rosa grinned and nodded. She slid her hand behind Isobel's neck, leaning in; it was a short kiss, affectionate and pleasant, but it left butterflies in their stomach. Isobel was poised to tease Rosa about how much she was blushing, but then Isobel caught a whiff of something on Rosa's breath. Alcohol. Faint, but there was no doubt. She'd been drinking. Before Isobel could comment, Rosa was pulling out a small atlas with cheer alight in her expression. "I've come up with a list of places I want to visit someday. Wanna see?" "Of course." Maybe I was wrong, Isobel thought to herself. Nasedo didn't agree, but Isobel refused to broach the subject. She couldn't smell it anymore, and Rosa was bubbling over traveling to California, New York, and Paris someday, and how she would take them with her. She was genuinely happy. Why ruin the mood? They would ask her about it later. The way Rosa spoke, it was like she was planning to leave Roswell with them. She didn't say anything for sure, but that was alright; there was still time until graduation, after all. In the meantime, they wrote her little notes. Sometimes it was sweet sentiments, or a little doodle, or a bit of poetry or lyrics that they thought Rosa would enjoy. They slipped the notes into her jacket pocket or the covers of the books she was packing so that she would find them later, when she was settling into her hideaway. They signed the notes 'Ophiuchus'. At first, Rosa seemed thrilled. As time went on, though, the joy on Rosa's face faded. "I have something to do after work," Rosa said when Nasedo called her one night. "Maybe we can plan for something tomorrow?" Nasedo frowned. Something was wrong; there was a note of distress in Rosa's tone. "Are you alright?" "Yeah, yeah. My dad's really getting on my nerves, you know? Let's get together tomorrow." They went to the movies the next day, with dinner after. Isobel knew Rosa well enough to see that she was distracted. Agitated. She didn't seem angry, but she did seem nervous, and jittery. Isobel caught the distinct sour, heavy scent of booze on her. They waited until they were back in the car before Nasedo took over, wording what he was about to say with every ounce of care possible. "Rosa," he said, gentling his voice, "I'm glad we got to spend time together. I noticed you've been having a hard time tonight, though. Do you want to talk?" "No. I've got it under control. I just wanna have fun tonight." "Alright. If you change your mind, I'll be here for you." "Yeah." Rosa fell silent for a time, then sighed. "I've been drinking again. I know, I know. I suck. But things have been awful, and these people are trying to push me back into dealing. They've been hounding me since prom, right? It's been hell." Nasedo resisted the urge to growl. "Who are these people?" "It's okay. I'll handle it." "But if you're relapsing--" "I said I can handle it! What are you, my father?" Opening his mouth, Nasedo shut it again. "I'm sorry, Rosa. I'm sorry that I upset you." "No, don't apologize." Rosa shook her head. "I'm sorry, too. Let's go home. I should try and get some sleep or something, maybe I'll be less cranky tomorrow." And that's how it was. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Everything would be better tomorrow, somehow, but they couldn't deny that Rosa was crashing. Something had happened, but she wouldn't tell them what. When she stopped responding to their texts, they went looking for her. Not at the school, not at work, not anywhere she'd normally be. Nasedo took them out to the turquoise mines, where they found her in her cave. She was curled up around a bottle of whiskey, half empty. "Rosa?" "Go away." Her words were slurred. "Wanna be alone." "I want to help. Please." "Can help by going away. Don't wanna talk right now." "You have been dodging us for almost a week, Rosa. How did you even get out here? There's no car." When she didn't reply, Nasedo felt a tremor of desperation. He lifted his hand and clenched it into a fist, pulling the arm back; the bottle of booze yanked from Rosa's hands and moved into his other hand. "Rosa, I can't let you destroy yourself. Please, talk to me." Rosa stared at Nasedo, her eyes suddenly sober. "What the fuck? Why did you do that?" "Because you're relapsing, hard, and I care about you too much to watch you kill yourself when we're so close to escaping from this place. It's so close to graduation." "I never said I was leaving with you." "You..." It felt like a slap in the face, but they had only been together for two months. It made sense that Rosa wasn't ready yet. "Okay. That's fair. But do you really want to stay here?" "Just get out. Leave me alone. If I need help, I'll fucking ask for it." "At least let me drive you back into town." Rosa slumped. She nodded, struggling to her feet and cursing under her breath; Nasedo reached out to steady her, but she yanked away and kept walking. They didn't speak on the way to the Crashdown. That was the way of things, though. Addicts hated confrontation, hated being made to face their addiction. They couldn't force her to let them help, so they took her to the cafe, waited for her to get inside, and left. "We'll give her a day or two to calm down," Isobel said soothingly as they got ready for bed. "I'm sure once she's slept it off, we'll be able to talk to her. There are some clinics in town. If we find a place for her to go, they might help her." "And if she won't?" "Then we love her, and support her until she chooses to accept help." Nasedo frowned, brushing out their hair. "I'm scared for her. I think, what if it was you? What if it was you, and you wouldn't let me help you? And it hurts. If I lost either of you, I'd..." "Hey. You won't lose either of us. Drugs and alcohol make you say and do some really mean things. You'll see. We'll visit her tomorrow, and things will be better." It was a comfort. It was also false. Isobel dressed them in black before they headed to the Crashdown. It made them look sleek, powerful, sexy, and they felt stronger in it. Isobel had written down the name and number of a drug and alcohol clinic nearby, and she had a speech prepared in her head. The next day was graduation, and after that they could focus fully on trying to keep Rosa safe. For now, they could at least try to talk some sense into her, if she was sober. By the time they got to the cafe, though, it was clear that things weren't going to go as planned. Standing in the back alley, Rosa was staring at her car, crying into her hands. Isobel glanced it over, realizing that someone had vandalized it. "Rosa?" "Not now." "Who did this?" "It was Kate and Jasmine. They're pissed that I stopped partying." Rosa sniffled, leaning against Isobel as she walked over. "They've been threatening to turn my dad over to ICE, and if he gets deported I don't know what we'll do." Nasedo pushed his way forward, taking over the body through pure, raw fury. "They're threatening your family? They're threatening you?" "Look, it doesn't matter. I don't I don't want Liz to see this, okay? She said that she needed the car this afternoon, and I just don't want her to worry." "At least let me help you clean it up." Her voice was odd. Cold, distant. "Don't. I'm fine. I don't need your help." "Hey. Did I do something wrong? I understand that yesterday sucked, but I didn't mean to scare you." "No, you didn't. Life just sucks. I thought Kate was my friend, but I guess I'm only her supplier. And my mom sucks, and Liz is gonna leave, and I found out that my dad..." Sighing, Rosa closed her eyes as Nasedo reached out. She let him touch her check, but then seemed to shake him off. Rosa looked up at him. She frowned, drawing away and curling her arms around herself as she backed towards the cafe. "You know, you're just, you're a lot. You're too much, and I can't... I can't handle it." Rosa turned and bolted into the cafe, the door slamming and locking behind her. Nasedo's hand still hung in the air; he dropped it to their side, staring at the spot where Rosa had stood mere moments before. She was scared. Overwhelmed. But he hadn't done anything wrong, right? He'd only been trying to help. He loved her. He'd do anything to keep her safe. Didn't she understand that? Anything. ... Anything. Nasedo turned on his heels and stormed towards their car, throwing himself behind the driver's seat and heading out to the road. He knew what he had to do. What must be done. All he had to do was find them. A Saturday night in Roswell? There was only one place. A small, pleading voice registered from the back of their mind. "Nasedo." "Quiet, Isobel." "Nasedo, whatever you're planning--" He gathered his strength and pushed her out. She didn't need to be there for this. She didn't need to see what was about to happen. She would only get in the way. Nasedo parked at the drive in movie theater, reclining in the warmth and waiting. It didn't take long, not in comparison to decades of rotting away in a pod. The horizon in the east turned dark, and the sunset in the west splashed gold and crimson and purple across the sky. That was when his attention landed on a pair of giggling, vapid humans. Smiling to himself, Nasedo got out of the car and crossed the parking lot towards them. "Hey Kate. Jasmine." Kate was the one to look over first. Her face was fair enough, but the sneer on her face revealed her ugliness. "Evans." She crossed her arms. "What do you want?" Nasedo shrugged. "Heard you were having some trouble getting your fix." "So? Aren't you friends with that little Mexican bitch?" "I thought maybe I'd help you out instead." "You?" Jasmine let out a bark of a laugh. "You do drugs?" Smiling, Nasedo twirled a lock of hair around his finger. "I know how to have a good time." The girls glanced at each other. Kate shrugged, which was all the convincing Jasmine needed. It was easy enough to lure them out into the desert, towards the mines. No one noticed two silly teenagers going off in the night. It was harder getting them to follow him, but the promise of fun proved too alluring. Well, it wasn't his fault they assumed it would be fun for them. It was almost too easy. He waited until they were ahead of him, and he used his power to twist their bones. Cut off their oxygen and blood. Jasmine was first, her neck breaking like so much glass under the sharp strike of a hammer. Kate turned in time to see it happen. Good. The horror on her face, the scent of it rushing through her energy, was electrifying. "Jasmine! What did you do to her?!" Nasedo grinned, baring his teeth as he prowled towards Kate. "The same thing I'm going to do to you." There was a moment of realization in Kate's eyes, but he flicked his wrist before she even blinked, and it was over. The air was silent. Still. Nasedo took in the sight of the bodies, trembling as he breathed in a rush of power. He'd never felt anything similar. Not that it was a psychological rush, or emotional even, but... Physical. He felt it in his body. It was like a weight lifting off his chest, or being able to breathe after struggling underwater. Something was different. But what? A sound made Nasedo pause. A sound, but farther away. It wouldn't have been audible to a human's sense of hearing, but he would recognize the sound anywhere. Crying. Distress. He turned his head towards the mines, pursing his lips. Rosa. Nasedo left the bodies where they lay, running towards Rosa's cave. Had she seen? Heard? Was she hurt? Countless scenarios went through his head. But as he got closer, the mystery only deepened. Rosa was throwing things around, growling. "What the hell? Where is it?!" She spun around when she spotted Nasedo. Her hands balled into fists, and there was fury rolling off her in waves. "Did you steal my backpack?" "We didn't steal anything from you." "You're the only ones who knew it was here! Damn it, I need to find it. Now." "I swear, we didn't take it. Why is it so important?" "Look..." Running her hands through her hair, Rosa hung her head and let out a slow exhale. "I get that you care about me, but I have to leave on my own. I need to get clean on my own. I got a ticket to go see Valenti, and I'm going to have him help me. He promised to help with my dad's citizenship, too." "Even after everything his family has done? You know what he'd do to us if he found out." "So I won't mention you. He'll help me. He's my real father, okay? He cheated with my mom, and she had me. That's why he wants to see me so bad. He's my father." The words hung in the air. Nasedo stared at Rosa, searching her face and energy for any sort of deception. None. It seemed laughable, but Rosa was avoiding his eyes. She was serious. "So you're going to trust what he says. A cheater and a liar." "I know that you don't want me to go, but I have to. I won't tell him anything, it's...I just need to figure things out in case Kate and Jasmine do something." Unwise words formed on his tongue. "What if they were out of the picture? If you didn't have to worry?" "What do you mean?" "If they were gone, would you stay?" "Gone." Rosa finally locked her gaze with his. "What do you mean by gone? What did you do to them?" Nasedo opened his mouth to answer, but he faltered. Why was it so hard to say it? It had felt so good, so right, at the time. Now he wasn't so sure. "Rosa, they wanted to hurt you. I felt it off them. So I hurt them first." Before he could say anything else, Rosa bolted. He ran after her, knowing that if she got too far outside the cave, she would see the bodies. No, no... But it was too late. She'd frozen a few yards from them, her hands covering her mouth as she let out a cry. Nasedo tried to understand, but he couldn't. She hated them. They hated her. They had planned to hurt her and her family. Why was she upset? "They're dead," Rosa choked out. She turned to him, tears in her eyes. "You killed them." "I wanted to protect you. I wanted to keep you safe." "You don't do that by murdering people!" "Please, Rosa. If they hurt you or your family when I was capable of doing something..." Nasedo stepped forward, and Rosa stepped backward. He hesitated. "You don't have to be scared of me, Rosa. I promise. Just come back, and I'll take care of this and we can talk. I'll even take you to Valenti if you want. Just come back." Rosa skittered away from the bodies, wiping her face with her hand. "Okay," she whimpered. "Okay. I'll come back with you. Let's go talk." But when she reached out to take his hand, Nasedo could feel it. Fear, disgust. Deception. "You're lying." His hand tightened around her wrist. "Why are you lying to me? What are you hiding?" "Let go of me, Nasedo." "You're going to tell him, aren't you?" "I don't know what you're talking about!" "Valenti!" Nasedo yelled, yanking Rosa to him. "You're going to run off and tell him. You promised, Rosa! You promised to keep our secret." "You killed two people! How can I trust you when you're a murderer?" "I did it for you!" Rosa struggled, scratching at him to try and get away. She was going to tell. She was going to tell, and there was only one option left. Nasedo felt his eyes sting as he pulled Rosa to his chest, one hand around her neck and the other over her mouth. She was trying to fight, but it didn't matter. He had her. It would be over soon. Isobel was fighting for control, screaming for him to stop. Oh, stars, his heart was shattering. "I did it for you," he whispered as his throat squeezed shut and tears slid down his cheeks. He didn't know if he was talking to Rosa, Isobel, or both. "Everything I did, I did for you." His hand glowed red as searing heat tore through his body, flowing into Rosa and curling through her brain and heart. One heartbeat, two, and her body went limp. Her eyes, so beautiful, gazed sightless towards the stars. Nasedo felt a sob catch in his chest, his head throbbing with pain as Isobel fought against him with everything in her. Something was changing inside them. Breaking. There was movement in front of him. A familiar form, staring at him in shock. "Isobel?" Michael called out. Nasedo's head shook, just a touch; Michael took in a sharp breath, and Nasedo sensed that he had figured it out, somehow. Michael didn't move closer, but he didn't back away, either. He just stared at Rosa's body with something like sorrow on his face. "What happened?" "She couldn't be trusted." He was losing control of the body, and so Nasedo did the only thing he knew to do. The one small, merciful thing, the last act of love he could manage before he was thrown out completely. Nasedo reached deep into Isobel's mind, and erased everything. Closing his eyes, he fell into the black pit of unconsciousness.

[sowhatisthisfor]

My Top 50 movies of 2019

Of the 145 movies I watched this year, here are my top 50 picks:

50. Pihu [Kapri Vinod, 2018, India]

Heartbreaking torture. Although I feel like it could have ended better. 6.5/10

49. Green Book [Peter Farrelly, 2018, United States]

Flawed yet entertaining – not sure if it’s good or bad though. 6.5/10

48. 4 Latas [Gerardo Olivares, 2019, Spain]

For all its nonsense, I enjoyed it. 7/10

47. First They Killed my Father [Angelina Jolie, 2017, United States, Cambodia] 

sincerely and sensitively paints a portrait of a country’s tragic history. 7/10

46. Dear Ex [Chih-Yen Hsu, 2018, Taiwan] 

Features odd but genuine kind of love. It is funny, heartfelt, and charming all at the same time. 7/10

45. UnTrue [Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, 2019, Philippines] 

to put it simply, UnTrue is a thrilling rollercoaster ride. 7/10

44. The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbrunch [Michael Steiner, 2019, Switzerland, Germany] 

A funny glimpse at a life of an Orthodox Jewish man with a chemistry that gives you a hopeful ending. 7.5/10

43. Furie [Le Van Kiet, 2019, Vietnam] 

With great performance and thrilling choreography, Furie is one of the best action films of 2019. 7.5/10

42. Kaptn Oskar [Tom Lass, 2013, Germany] 

Only basic virtue - it is a beautiful film. Not only for its comfort. But for the old poetry of dust emotions. 7.5/10

41. Giant Little Ones [Keith Berhman, 2019, United States] 

An honest road to knowing your own self in the eyes of a boy transitioning to adolescence. 7.5/10

40. Contratiempo (The Invisible Guest) [Oriol Paulo, 2017, Spain] 

offers an outstanding and enjoyable thrilling ride. 7.5/10

39. My Days of Mercy [Tali Shalom Ezer, 2019, United States] 

There is a bewitching chemistry between the two leads despite the coldness of it all. 7.5/10

38. A Land Imagined [Chris Yeo, 2018, Singapore, France, Netherlands] 

An unsettling noir mystery that questions people's notion of truth. 

37. The Two Popes [Fernando Mereilles, 2019, UK, US, Italy, Argentina] 

Features two outstanding performances that redeemed it from all its dragging moments. 7.5/10

36. Sovdargari (The Trader) [Tamta Gabrichidze, 2018, Georgia]

Emotionally intense depiction of rural poverty. 7.5/10

35. If Beale Street Could Talk [Barry Jenkins, 2019, United States]

The kind that even though you are hopeful, you know from the start that it's going to be tough. 8/10

34. Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga [Shelly Dhar, 2019, India] 

Not a first in world cinema, but is still a groundbreaking moviemaking in the context of India. 8/10

33. Brother of the Year [Witthaya Thongyooyong, 2018, Thailand] 

For all its simplicity and bleak storyline, it still offers an abundance of emotion and a sense of realism. 8/10

32. Kuwaresma [Erik Matti, 2019, Philippines] 

Is a multilayer of social commentaries which were good before they too contradict themselves. 8.5/10

31. Berlin Calling [Hannes Stohr, 2008, Germany]

a movie that lives in the present paced in such rhythmic beat, it is dazzling from start to end. 8.5/10

30. Margarita with a Straw [Nilesh Maniyar, Shonali Bose, India, 2016] 

An unusual take on sexual exploration and self discovery. It somehow lost its focus towards the end but still a delightful watch overall. 8.5/10

29. Fuccbois [Eduardo Roy Jr, 2019, Philippines] 

Amazing storytelling and editing of a narrative so strange yet so eclectic. 8.5/10

28. First Reformed [Paul Schrader, 2019, United States] 

an astounding character study that questions the politics of religion. 9/10

27. La Luciernaga (The Firefly) [Ana Maria Hermida, 2015, Colombia] 

is about finding love in grief, beauty in ugly. And though there are some directorial decisions I don’t necessarily agree with, the chemistry its leads bring onscreen is too tangible for me to pay attention about its flaws. 9/10

26. Eerie [Mikhail Red, 2018, Philippines] 

More than its excellent scare tactics, what I love about it most is its clever storytelling and use of metaphors. 9/10

25. Widows [Steve McQueen, 2018, United States] 

How can something so traditionally formal feel so modern at the same time? Steve McQueen knows. 9/10

24. Paglisan [Carl Papa, 2018, Philippines] 

A heartbreaking test of sympathy. Stop-motion at its most affecting with a storytelling that reminds me of Farhadi. 9/10

23. Paris is Burning [Jennie Livingston, 1991, United States] 

is a little documentary that stays. 9/10

 22. Mamu and a Mother Too [Rod Singh, 2018, Philippines]

Why it scared me, I don’t know. It could be because it’s unpredictable, it’s non-cliche, and it’s gentle in ways you don’t expect. I love it. 9/10

21. PK [Rajkumar Hirani, 2014, India] 

a courageous film that wittingly pokes fun of religious beliefs. 9/10

20. The White Helmets [Orlando Von Eisiedel, 2016, United Kingdom, Syria] 

A heartrending glimpse at the life of true heroes in violence-stricken Syria. 9/10

19. Us [Jordan Peele, 2019, United States] 

It is as if every element in this film is smartly placed there to serve a deeper purpose, it's a movie in search of greater meaning. 9.5/10

18. Incendies [Dennis Villanueve, 2011, Canada] 

With such expert direction, it's elementally strong in more aspect than one. 9.5/10

17. The Wife [Bjorn Runge, 2018, Belgium] 

Glenn Close is mesmerizing. There is no need to say more. 10/10

16. Avengers: Endgame [Russo brothers, 2019, United States] 

Raises the bar so high, is probably the most entertaining superhero movie to date. 10/10

15. Ulan [Irene Villamor, 2019, Philippines] 

Is a fuck you to societal norms, so profound, it is a love story that involves only one. 10/10

14. Marriage Story [Noah Baumbach, 2019, United States] 

My favourite performance of the year belong to these two leads whose portrayal of lovers going through divorce is rock solid heartbreaking. 10/10

13. I Lost My Body [Jeremy Clapin, 2019, France] 

gives an absolute strange reason to cry, it's extraordinarily cathartic. 10/10

12. Edward [Thop Nazareno, 2019, Philippines] 

I am so amazed at how this film shows struggles after struggles after struggles without spoonfeeding emotions. It’s a movie so simple yet so despairing. Everything of it is in the right place, it’s sublime. 10/10

11. The Favourite [Yorgos Lanthimos, 2019, Greece, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States] 

a dark period comedy oddly fused with sophisticated costume and production design for a strange yet striking visual treat. 10/10

10. Metamorphosis [JE Tiglao, 2019, Philippines] 

Not your ordinary coming-of-age movie. This one comes with such importance and inclusivity, everyone needs to see. 10/10

9. Atlantique [Mati Diop, 2019, France] 

Such a bewitching tale of love, lost, and longing. A film told with such raw elegance, it’s enchanting. 10/10

8. The Third Wife [Ash Mayfair, 2019, Vietnam] 

possibly has one of the best visual stories this year with a contrast of hauntingly sensual tension and dreamlike composition, it’s strangely beautiful. 10/10

7. John Denver Trending [Arden Rod Condez, 2019, Philippines] 

Aside from its central theme of mental health awareness, it also has an excellent juxtaposition of the culture of bullying and cyberbullying and its correlation with how the nature of superstitions and religions shapes a country’s humanity. 10/10

6. Capernaum [Nadine Labaki, 2018, Lebanon] 

it’s not just about a boy in an unjust world, it is more about an implausibly unjust world where everyone is a victim and no one is an actual villain. 10/10

5. Shéhérazade [Jean-Bernard Marlin, 2018, France] 

a gritty narrative of an unusual young love with such depressing yet charming emotional pull. 10/10

4. Kanarie [Christiaan Olwagen, 2018, South Africa] 

Has one of the most poignant and critically-observed approach to self-awareness and acceptance. 10/10

3. Las Herederas (The Heiresses) [Marcelo Martinessi, 2019, Paraguay] 

compellingly melancholic in its silence and uncertainty. It's a blossoming, a self-discovery, a thorny journey towards maturity. 10/10

2. Parasite [Bong Joon-ho, 2019, South Korea] 

You can watch it in many different ways, perspective, and angle, and everything is just as clever. 10/10

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire [Celine Sciamma, 2019, France] 

a film of magnificent visuals, intoxicating sound design, and a screenplay of jawdropping surprises -- definitely on top of my 2019 movie list. 10/10

Here’s the trailer: 

Related links:

All movies: 2019

Top 50 of 2018

Top 50 of 2017

[creativeashproductions]

Bundle of Joy // Noah Centineo

Summary: Days into marriage you find a revelation that changes everything your honeymoon entailed. Definitely not an inconvenience in any means other than an early present in more ways than one.

Characters: Noah Centineo x Reader, Kelle Centineo, Greg Centineo and Taylor Centineo

Words: 1.7k

Disclaimer: This is only a fictional take on the Centineo family. Do not repost our work anywhere without our explicit consent.

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, and a smidgen of angst.

A/N: It’s hard to come back to a website that’s turned to shit lately and when nobody really makes an attempt to talk to us. Don’t expect any works without actual interaction. We love to talk to people, but I’ve started to turn to Quotev seeing as we get no feedback.

Master list

Prompt List

ASK US A QUESTION LIST

On your honeymoon, you had expected lots of wine, sex and relaxation for once in a hectic lifestyle you had chosen from that first date of some now defunct dating app. Five years later you hadn't expected the honeymoon to consist of pregnancy tests, saltine crackers and puking. Despite feeling ill, you had decided to keep your suspicions to yourself and keep having fun because these few weeks are the only ones Noah had been stress-free for awhile.

"Babe!" Noah exclaimed peeking his head back into the bungalow with a bright smile, "Are you feeling better?"

"I think that fast food I had, had given me food poisoning." You moaned from the king-sized fluffy bed. The padding of his bare feet sounded first before he settled on the mattress next to you.

"Should be head back home?"

"No." You shook your head quickly, "I'll be fine. I'll just take it easy. Help me up?"

Noah gently grasped your hands in his as he shifted you into his arms to bring you out into the sunny day that England offered finally. In a few days, you would head to Paris, France for the last leg of the honeymoon before returning to your jobs.

"I love you." You sighed leaning into his body more with a beaming smile despite nausea you still felt settled into a less intense feeling, "I'm so happy you married me."

"How could I not with that beautiful smile, caring personality and my gorgeous counterpart." Noah chuckled to himself as the sunrise over the small lake side retreat you had chosen months ago.

Maybe when you returned home in a few weeks, you would have news for Noah about a possible little bean joining the family. Early in the marriage, actually a few years sooner than planned, but there was no doubt that Noah would take the new life in strides. He was born to be a father.

"Do you think anyone would mind if we went for a little swim." Noah's husky voice asked barely a breathe away from your ear as his arms crossed over your midsection.

"Seeing as you booked the entire retreat and the employees signed Non-Disclosure Agreements I think it's safe to say we can." You winked before shedding the camisole you wore to bed last night from a suitcase of lingerie your friends had all bought as a bachelorette party gift.

"I love when you talk dirty to me." Noah joked chasing after your form just as easily removing articles of clothing before he dove under the water to pop up in front of you.

"What can I say? Those years of studying were put to use somehow." You retorted pressing a kiss on his cheek before he nestled into your neck with little love bites and whispers of love.

"I can't wait to spend my life with you."

Paris was more romantic than movies had shown with delicious food, beautiful lights at night and the Eiffel Tower didn't disappoint. Noah returned to filming an upcoming series you hoped would be picked up due to the new arrival coming in May, your calculations were confirmed at the doctors for a due date. It Baby C stayed on schedule with no early appearances the due date would be on Noah's birthday.

The first thing you had to do was tell Noah about it but given that he was a man of detail and observation you had decided to just leave hints around the house. First, you planted a soother in the open box of condoms in his side table and swiping his new script to underline baby in the middle of it. It was only the first part of the plan.

The man himself wandered into the room with a spoon hanging from his mouth and a yogurt container in the other while reading a script. Sundays were never worked on with the lovely director of the film, he reserved those days for his own family.

"Did you pick up milk?" You questioned with a glance at your husband.

"Behind the other milk in the fridge." Noah replied setting his script down while placing the spoon in the dishwasher and the yogurt container in the garbage, "How are you?"

"Perfect." You grinned wrapping your arms around his neck with a cheeky glint in your eye.

"I'll make supper if you can get some veggies and fruits." Noah proposed already opening the fridge to see a platter of veggies, all of the items baby sized, with a chuckle, "I should have known you would have done that already."

The night passed with Noah not catching the little hints even when he had taken his watch off before bed to put in his side table. His eyes caught sight of the pacifier, but he assumed your friend had dropped it when she was helping you choose a new colour for the room. She had had a baby only a few months ago, so he had known she sometimes forgot items. You chuckled as he didn't even catch the underlined work in the script before he yawned.

"Can you hand me the bookmark?" He asked as you gently passed it over.

"Can you pick some things up from the store?" You questioned, "I'm not sure if I'll make it in time. I have that check up with the doctor."

"Sure. Give me a list."

"I have coupons actually." You spoke up leaning over your side to pick up the few coupons. Despite the excellent money Noah brought into the home from acting roles and your well-paying job you preferred using coupons to save money if you could.

"Flour, cookies, pickles, peanut butter, saltines, Doritos and clam chowder. Baby other than flour and cookies we never buy this stu-" Noah cut himself off at the last coupon in his hand in shock. Blatantly displayed was a coupon able to be redeemed in eight months, "Are you...?"

"That one can be put away for a few months." You giggled, "I took a few tests in England. It wasn't food poisoning."

"Little Centineo." He breathed dropping them to pounce on you to press kisses all over your face with a grin that outmatched even the one from your wedding, "Oh my gosh you're carrying my baby."

"You think that you can play some music on your guitar to the baby?"

"Of fucking course. I have to call my parents." He made a dash for the door before you called him back.

"Or we can let them sleep and keep the news to ourselves for a while. Besides don't you wanna know my due date?" You smirked to yourselves as you started to walk over to him.

"This is ama...babe no you should sit down." He guided you back to sit on the bed once more, "When's Lil C coming?"

"Your birthday party may need to move to the hospital if things go to plan."

"Our baby is coming on my birthday." Noah breathed before collapsing on the bed backwards, "I feel like I'm gonna combust. Y/N I literally thought I couldn't love anything more than I love you, but you just proved me wrong. I haven't even seen an ultrasound and wow."

"Tomorrow you will if you can make it to the appointment. I have already been to one to confirm the pregnancy, but I refused to look at the screen until I could with you. It will be a special moment." You turned to cuddle into his side.

True to your words Noah's birthday was spent in the hospital months later cradling his sleeping newborn daughter in his arms. Barely a day old she had almost made it to Noah's birthday but just born at 11:49 pm you knew she was perfect and would still be adamant of celebrating with Daddy. You just knew in your heart that Noah had a new best friend for life.

"Sweetheart?" Kellee spoke through the cracked door, "Are you sure we can come in?"

From the hospital bed, you waved them in just as the baby opened her eyes to stare up at Noah. Noah's parents and sister came into the room having only just arrived at the hospital after the long drive. Your family had already been in a few hours ago before leaving your little family to bond.

"Hey, Mom," Noah whispered scooting the chair closer to your bed.

"Oh my gosh."

"You have a healthy granddaughter." You grinned up at your in-laws.

"What's her name?" Greg questioned peering at the newborn Noah passed to Kellee.

"We would like you to meet Kenzie Taylor Centineo." You breathed keeping your eyes on the pink bundle now in Greg's arms.

"Taylor." Your sister in law gasped blinking slowly, "You gave her my name."

"Well had you not spilt your wine on my shirt in that restaurant I wouldn't have met your brother, my husband." You tearfully replied ushering her over with Kenzie in her arms, "Without a doubt in my mind I knew from the minute I saw Kenzie on the ultrasound that she had to be named after one of the strongest women I know. Noah agreed. Thank you so much for helping me find the love of my life."

"Aw." Taylor nearly sobbed as Kenzie gripped her pointer finger in her hand and cooed up at her, "Well little Kenzie Taylor I hope you know we're going to have a day monthly of ice cream together, but for now you grow up some."

Your life was complete for a few years before another bundle was passed around the room wrapped in another hospital blanket.

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[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[bbclesmis]

‘Valjean is like Spider-Man’

DOMINIC WEST FIGURES he's played his share of awful people. The serial killer Fred West in Appropriate Adult? Jimmy McNulty, the Baltimore cop in The Wire? A lovable rogue, but a rogue nonetheless. Noah Solloway, the lead in The Affair? "He's deeply silly," West contends. "Just a silly man!" In the film Colette (out this Friday), he plays a sadistic husband who locks his gifted wife (Keira Knightley) away and makes her write books for which he claims credit.

"As an actor, you do live with these people and experience what they're feeling," sighs the actor, 49. "If they're a******s, it's exhausting and ultimately degrading. So it was such a relief to play someone who's great." And he smiles that irascible smile, the one that makes you root for West even when he's playing murderers and pretentious, adulterous novelists.

Jean Valjean, West's character in the BBC's adaptation of Les Miserables, is not only "great" in the actor's eyes. He is nothing less than the "greatest hero in all literature": a superhero ex-convict who has spent 19 years in prison being tortured by Inspector Javert (David Oyelowo) for stealing a loaf of bread, but who determines on his release to be the best possible man he can be... with heartbreaking results.

West considers Victor Hugo's French revolutionary epic to be the "greatest novel ever written", too - "much better than War and Peace!" - and certainly much better than the famous musical (he's not a fan).

"Valjean is not just a good guy, he's an amazing guy. Like Spider-Man!" he beams. "He climbs up the sides of buildings to rescue kids. And he has the legitimacy of intense suffering; he's done 19 years of hard labour. That knocks Iron Man into a cocked hat! Then you get into the humanity of Valjean, his demons, his desperate need to redeem himself... He's trying not to be the brute that the prison has turned him into. You become a better person by spending time with someone like that."

He has asked me to his home, a converted brewery in Wiltshire that he shares with his wife, Catherine FitzGerald, and four children - Dora, 11, Senan, ten, Francis, nine, and Christabel, five - "I'm trying to cut down," he jokes. (He has another daughter, Martha, from his first marriage, who is studying English at Oxford and wants to act.) "I think all households should have a five-year-old girl running round," he says. "I just think it's better for children. Stops them from becoming little princesses. It's much harder to be a spoilt brat as one of four."

HE OPENS THE door unshaven and unkempt with a general air of bohemian bonhomie. He puts on a succession of silly voices as he leads me through to his kitchen. "Teas? Light refreshments? Do we want hot milk in our coffees? Yes?" He's such a chameleon as an actor that even his own accent sounds as if it's put on. He was educated at Eton, but his family isn't proper posh. His Irish father owned a plastics factory in Sheffield, his mother was an actor and he's the sixth of seven children.

The Wests have been doing up the house for about three years, but only moved in last summer - there are paintings waiting to be hung, pieces of Lego, mugs, antiques scattered around... The house used to be a "very manageable cottage next to a derelict brewery, but having decided to connect them all together they're only now getting used to the layout. "There are about five different doors to choose from. I didn't realise how spread out it would be. It's enormous!" They moved from west London to give the kids more space to range around when they're teenagers: "I want my kids to be around trees and animals more."

We take refuge in his office, up in the rafters of the old brewery, where he sinks into an armchair and resumes recounting his love affair with Les Miserables.

THE BBC VERSION is written by Andrew Davies and picks up more or less where his adaptation of War and Peace left off. It opens on the field of Waterloo in 1815 in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat. Back in Paris, the royalists are resurgent - but can't quell the forces unleashed by the Revolution.

In the first episode, we follow Valjean's ill-starred attempts at redemption after his nemesis, Javert, releases him; meanwhile, the grisette Fantine (Lily Collins) falls for a cad (Johnny Flynn) and becomes pregnant with little Cosette - whose path will cross with Valjean's in the future. Six episodes, much heartache and many improbable coincidences will take us all the way up to the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris.

West hadn't read the epic novel, but now that he has, he's a convert. He even loves Hugo's digressions into the design of the Paris sewers. "Actually, I'd have loved it if we could have made six seasons out of it," he says. 'There's more than enough material and it's all important and relevant. As with any great classic, it's big enough to handle any amount of interpretations."

Javert's antipathy to Valjean is one of the engines of the plot - but it's also something of a mystery. Why does Javert hate him so much? "I always like to trace motivations to sex," West says. "I said to David, 'Javert obviously fancies him!' But he thought that was crass."

Did the rivalry extend off-set? "You're never quite sure where the character ends and the actor starts," he laughs. "But the key to David is that he's actually royal. He's a prince in Nigeria. And he doesn't drink. He's very religious. He's been married to his wife since he was 19 and they have four beautiful children. I hadn't realised people like that existed in the acting world! He's a very inspiring guy."

The co-stars decided it was the shared trauma of being institutionalised that set their characters against one another. "Valjean doesn't think he deserves anything other than brutality. Javert is constantly reminding him he's just a common criminal who breaks rocks and murders people."

Oyelowo is one of a number of non-white actors in the cast, marking a departure from traditional costume-drama casting. West jokes that he really wanted to do it all with 'A1lo'Allo accents, but: "Like any classic, it's not a museum piece. It has relevance to modern life. Eponine and the girls all talk like modern London girls. And therefore it looks like modern Britain, too."

THE PRODUCTION LOOKS likely to make Collins, as Fantine, a star. "She's incredible," says West. "It's an exhausting part. So harrowing. Any actress who goes for it deserves all the accolades she gets..." The first scene they shot together was Fantine's death, filmed in a freezing manor house outside Brussels at 5am. "She really went for it. I was like, 'Oh my God! How did you do those spasm things?' She said, 'I just made it up'." I imagine it's reassuring to have West on set: he is very experienced, but doesn't take himself too seriously. Do the younger actors come to him for advice? "Pfah! No. I'm jaded and lazy."

The Wire was the show that brought him fame, as well as a credibility not usually open to Old Etonians. But originally he didn't want to be in it. "And it turns out to have been the one thing that everyone knows me for and it was one of the best shows ever made! I think [creator] David Simon is almost the Victor Hugo of our time... certainly the Charles Dickens."

The Affair offers more escapist pleasure, its marital rows interspersed with good-looking people having sex (even if he doesn't think much of Noah). The Wests are about to decamp to LA for the filming of the final season, but it will be without Ruth Wilson this time. Last February, she disclosed in a Radio Times interview that she was "sure" she earned less than West. "I don't want more money, I just want equal money," she added. Not long after that her character Alison Bailey was killed off. What was all that about? "Oh, not related!" West yelps.

He remains good friends with Wilson. The main point of contention on set was whose behind would be visible in the sex scenes. "We used to fight about it. 'You're on top this time', 'No! I was on top the last three times!'"

He'd never given much thought to who was paid what, he says. "I never asked what the money is on a show. It was more a question of if I wanted to do it. So it woke me up to the issue. I never realised the disparity and the injustice."

It's one of a number of changes he has noticed since the #MeToo movement gained ground. "One thing that's happened is a positive discrimination in favour of female directors. But the main thing is that unacceptable behaviour from male directors or actors is now either not possible, or you can call them out on it. There was one guy in particular whose behaviour was disgusting. Particularly to young females in minor roles. I tried to counter it on several occasions. But now it wouldn't be so hard to get rid of them."

'Treatment of women has taken a big step back in television'

He twists his face in derision at those who feel the feminists have gone "too far". "Treatment of women has taken a big step back in the past 20 years," he says, his voice rising. "Particularly in television, which has become more pornographic and the burden of that falls squarely on young women. Things like Game of Thrones, where you get a pair of bare breasts every five minutes... I mustn't say this, but..." Say it!

"I'm fairly sure that 20 years ago young actresses would not have had pressure put on them to take their clothes off. The parts young actresses get, particularly pretty ones, involve violent rape. When I think about my daughter going into the profession... I'm just really glad that #MeToo has started to counteract what has happened in the past 20 years."

He puts it down to internet porn - "It's made boys feel that women are sex objects who are easily available" - as well as social media. "If you can swipe someone's face because you don't think they're pretty and it costs you that little... I haven't done it myself, but it cheapens it."

HE's CONCERNED AT the turn the world is taking: he mentions Trump, climate change, teenage boys becoming addicted to the online game Fortnite. A wariness of modernity seems to have inspired the move to the countryside; he and his wife are "luddites", he confesses. "I'm not one of those people who say, 'How can you bring children into this world?' But I do want to spend a lot more time hanging out with my kids and running around in forests."

Once he has finished filming the last season of The Affair, he plans to hire an enormous camper van, bundle the entire family into it and spend a few months driving around the States.

"It's the last chance we have," he explains. "They're nearly teenagers, so they're not going to want to spend that much time with their old man for much longer. I've spent a long time away from them. So we're taking six months, four months of it travelling. I've taken them out of school - there are no big exams. We'll home school them. They'll read. No screens. You're not going to get a better education than that. If you travel with as little as possible, you get much more interesting experiences."

Radio Times 5-11 January 2019

[niki-writes-stuff]

Liist of my wip's! (August 2019)

Hello there! I'm Nicola! I mainly write contemporary YA stuff (mostly read that, too!), that feature all of the lgbt rep I'd like to see but don't :)

The following is a list of my current wip's, along with a quick summary of what they're about! If anything here interests you please don't hesitate to ask about it! I love talking about anything from characters to plot and it helps me build ideas when I'm talking to someone else :)

The History of Great Thing That Have Happened to Great People: Taylor, convinced of his extremely bad luck, isn't expecting to catch the eye of Patrick, who's extremely out of Taylor's league in every way that counts. Taylor is convinced their whirlwind summer romance will be regulated to just that: the summer, because with their insanely different lifestyles, coupled with living on opposite ends of the country, and Patrick's slightly obsessed ex, theirs no way they could make it work long term, right? Right?

One More Minute: Kat signs up for a competition that wins her an hour long skype date with her celebrity crush, Harley. Kat can hardly believe it- clearly this is a sign they were meant to be together. Battling demons of her own while being forced to maintain her public image all at the age of 19, Harley is infatuated with Kat from the first minute they spend talking, but she's reluctant to drag the starry eyed, optimistic girl into her world.

For The Throne: The unprecedented assassination of her brother, Jude, just days before his wedding, leaves Genevieve in the position she never envied him: Atop the most powerful and coveted throne in the world. As her relationship with American journalist Eva Letman comes to light, Genevieve faces opposition from both outside and within the palace, forcing her to question her place as a Monarch and her ability to rule. Jude's widowed wife, Sarah, carrying his alleged unborn son, is the power hungry daughter of the Prime Minister, and she's determined to regain her position in the palace, whatever it takes. As the investigation into Jude's death goes underway, and England is sent into a disarray over Genevieve's reign, old and new secrets begin to reveal themselves, threatening to bring down the entire Monarcy down with them.

Title TBD: Hedley knows vampires exist: they have to. She's spent her entire life learning everything she can about them, and in the depths of her research she found solace from her life in a children's home. As she turns 18 and the system prepares to spit her out onto the streets, Hedley goes to the only place she's ever felt at peace: Hartman's Hallow, rumored to be home to the last existing vampire coven in North America.

Title TBD: Skye Nolan has a plan. He's counting down the days until he can start HRT, while trying to survive living with his father and soon to be step-mom after his mother's career takes her to New Zealand. It probably wouldn't have been so difficult, except he also has to handle having a crush on his long time friend, Caden Montgomery, who Skye isn't willing to risk losing over anything. Skye is convinced that a relationship with Caden is completely out of the question- until suddenly, it's not. Caden returns from music camp with the news that he's broken up with his boyfriend, and his sudden availability pushes him and Skye to testing the boundaries of their frriendship.

Who We Were: Noah Hapstall's plans to enjoy his freshman year of university take a sharp turn for the worst when his ex girlfriend reappears in his life after being gone for over a year. Melanie had previously been nothing more than the embodiment of everything Noah despised, the wounds she left cut deep and not even his current seemingly iddylic relationship could heal them. He swore he would never let her back in, but his parents' divorce and the increasing distance between him and his boyfriend, who's currently studying in another state, leaves him vulnerable to Melanie and her typical manipulation. As Noah unwittingly becomes more involved in her life, he is forced to remove his rose tinted glasses and examine the world as it really is, for all the lies, secrets, and pain it holds.

Who We Want To Be: Sylvie Montgomery has had enough of living in the shadow of her celebrity father, her perfect twin brother, her genius best friend and even prodigy violinist younger sister. She doesn't know who she is without the people around her always overshadowing her, and so she jumps at the opportunity to find out when she's offered an internship far away from home: in the city of love, Paris.

Where We Began: Tessa had her heart broken when her girlfriend of two years broke things off out of the blue. But now Hanna's back, begging for a second chance, and Tessa is unbelievably close to giving in. She never really got over Hanna, and maybe they can make things work again, if only they could get over all the baggage their history brings with it.

Rules of The Road: Five best friends go on a cross country road trip the summer before departing for college. They must navigate the rules of road while discovering things about themselves, and each other, that will either tear them apart for good or make them stronger than ever.

Rules of The Game: High strung student body president Sophie ends up tutoring Oren Black, the school's laid back, fun loving quarterback.

Rules of the Heart: After coming out as gay, Alexa goes to live with her father in Oregon and ends up falling for Harley, who recently got out of an abusive relationship.

Title TBD: Broadway actress Olivia (Liz) Chandler meets Tomi Reign, the socialite daughter of Liz's new director. Sparks fly immediately, and supposed-to-be straight Liz can't deny that she has feelings for Tomi. Tomi herself is intrigued by Liz, who's cheeky and flirty personality is far from Tomi's usual type. But her usual type.... usually leaves her heartbroken and alone. She's more than happy to play along and be Liz's pet project as she explores her sexuality. It's not like she has anything better to do. Except things take a turn when real feelings begin to get involved, and neither of them really knows how to react to it.

All We Have (8 part series): Follows the life of childhood best friends, Aaliyah, Nicky, and Ryan, as they navigate their tumultuous familial, platonic and romantic relationships. Spans over the course of several years, from their early teens to their late 20's.

The Other Life: Penelope Carmichael has lived in the shadow of her best friend Kris Johnson for as long as she can remember. Kris is popular, beautiful, and perfect, and while Penn tries to be happy for Kris' success', she finds it difficult to shake her jealousy. On the eve of their 17th birthday, Penn and Kris get into a car accident, and Penn wakes up several weeks later to find herself in Kris' body, and her own nowhere to be found. As months go by and Penn remains trapped, with the real Kris seemingly gone forever, she slowly allows herself to adapt the life of the girl she always envied. However, Penn quickly begins to realize that Kris' reality may have been far off from the one everyone believed her to have, and that underneath her facade of perfection lies the haunting and tragic truth of a girl Penn realizes she never really knew.

UnSavior (stand-in title): 5 years after saving her world from imminent doom at the age of 16, Lina packs up and transports herself to another dimension: Earth, with the sole purpose of having a normal life where she isn't regarded as a Hero. However, her arrival to Earth has consequences. Lina doesn't realize that her absence from Ethera sparks an uprising amongst the warring nation of Xaida, who lost the Battle 5 years ago. Furious at the way they've been treated since and determined to avenge their fallen, those left of Xaida want to secure a better future for themselves, and they see Lina's absence as their opportunity. As Lina becomes more and more infatuated with her new life on Earth, caught up in the new experiences and friends it brings, a full out war is on the brink of breaking out in Ethera, and her old mentor Azi attempts to seek her out to draw her home to stop it before it has a chance to begin. But Lina has other plans; she still hasn't fully recovered from the scars the Battle left her with, and she doesn't want to leave Earth and the sanctuary she found there. As a revolution stirs up in Ethera, Lina must question everything: her identity, her loyalty to her nation, and the very people who made her who she is.

Title TBD: 4 college students recieve a series of mysterious emails from an anonymous sender, instructing them to commit several atrocious acts over the course of one night (12 hours) or risk having their secrets, each more damning than the last, revealed to the world.

[imnot-reddieforthis]

💫reddie family💫

note : lol I need sleep and also I’m craving married reddie so here you go

———

- reddie are the first losers to get married

- Eddie and Richie just locked eyes when they were watching the news and gay marriage became legal

- So thy just stared at each other for a minute and then Richie was like “ get in the car we’re getting rings right now”

- So that’s the start of their epic family life

- The decide to adopt a kid after 2 years of marriage .

- Eddie has always wanted kids but he was scared that Richie wouldn’t want to , judging by his aloof personality

- On the other hand Richie really wanted kids but the way his father was to him made him feel really insecure about being a father himself

- my poor boy

- So one night they just have too much wine and eddie kinda brings it up and then Richie breaks down sobbing and they just hug it out and cry together

- What do you know , they’re making their way to an adoption agency the next day

- They adopt a little boy named Noah . He’s a bit of a troublemaker but the kind that cries because they feel guilty when they get caught

- Richie and Eddie both see a little bit of themselves in their son

- He’s a very kind child . One day when Eddie and him were out in the park , 3 year old Noah just came up to a girl that hit her foot on the concrete and was crying and gave her a little bandaid with Disney characters on it

- Now you might ask . Where did he get a bandaid ? Well the answer is right in his miniature Fanny pack, Eddie got his son for Christmas

- “ it’s highly practical “

- “ no it’s not , but it is adorable”

- So yes , little Noah has a little light blue fanny pack that he treasures more than anything on this earth . When he first got it , he wouldn’t take it off and would even cry when his dads told him that he can’t take baths with it on .

- The losers think that Noah is the best thing that ever happened to this world

- Stan and Noah surprisingly get along the best

- Uncle Stan™ tells him about birds and Noah finds all of their pretty colors fascinating and I’m crying bye

- Stan is Noah’s favorite uncle cause as Noah go older they would just chill together reading books .

- Noah is a bit of a nerd but quite popular in school as he grows older .

- When Noah was three , Richie and Eddie adopted two girls ; Lily and Hazel .

- They were only planning to get one more kid but they were told that they would be separating the two girls and they couldn’t bear that so they adopted both of them .

- When they adopt the girls Noah is three , lily is 3 as well and Hazel is 5 . So now they have the cutest family ever .

- Even tho hazel is the eldest , Noah calls her his little sister cause he thinks that whoever was adopted first is the eldest .

- Lily is Richie’s little angel , she can do no wrong in his eyes . He’s wrong tho cause Lily is the embodiment of Richie at its finest .

- She’s a Trashmouth ( but classy ) and a trouble maker who unlike her brother would deny her involvement to her last breath .

- She learned the fact that her brother can’t stand to feel guilty during one of their early pranks when they switched over their dad’s clothes . So eddie’s closet had Richie’s clothes and Richie’s had Eddie’s .

- Richie found it hilarious and an grade A prank and Eddie did too but when Eddie couldn’t find his tie for work that morning he got a little pissed and Noah ran in confessing to everything and then dumping all the blame on Lily.

- She never let him be the part of her pranks ever again .

- Hazel is the most popular girl out of the whole family , everybody in school wants to be her friend because of how cool she is .

- She has the best 80s aesthetic you can find ( of course inspired by her dads cause Eddie and Richie are 80s hoes )

- She would go thrift shopping with both of her dads and they would help her pick out clothes .

- She’s really creative and loves her aunt Bev who inspired her to become a fashion designer

- Hazel doesn’t just dress herself , she DRESSES herself . Head to toe style icon - Eddie is proud .

- Hazel is the sneaky one

- She’s an angel when it come fro her papa Eddie , she helps around the house and brings food to his late shifts at the hospital and voila , she’s going to that party next weekend .

- Then she goes to her dad Richie and talks to him about 80s rock music , they have banter about cool trends , she tells him he’s the coolest dad - “ of course you can go to the concert with all of your guy friends next week sweety”

- When she first had sex , Lily freaked and screamed “ you had sEx?” , really loud so in a matter of time the whole fam was in their room .

- Richie is the kind of dad who tossed some condoms onto Noah’s bed one day and walked out but with Hazel he went into protective dad mode and started talking to her . Eddie was kinda chill , kinda not amused .Lily was cackling .

- Richie is your “cool dad” who tells you to go out and live a little but then spies from the bushes with binoculars on .

- Eddie is the protective dad , not as much as his mum of course but he’s the one setting curfews .

- They don’t have the good cop , bad cop policy in their house but with certain kids their is a certain strict parent .

- To Noah and Lily is usually Richie cause even tho he’s quite aloof , it’s hard to play all cute and innocent with him , especially in Lily’s case ; who’s legit him , and he knows himself well .

- Eddie can’t say no to Noah and Lily and him have the kind of relationship where he only sees the good in her , even though he does know she’s a little monster like her dad .

- Eddie gets strict with Hazel , he’s the one she has to ask permission for in most cases . But in other cases there pretty chill cause she’s smooth and good at getting herself out of situations .

- Every year the fam goes out for a “field trip” where they drive to a specific city and explore it head to toe . They love traveling abroad and the kids love to sign up for volunteering programs abroad , especially Hazel who started studying French so that she could live there one day and go away for studies .

- She does end up living in Paris and marrying a lovely Japanese girl . They go all around the world and have a great life.

- Noah and his bf stay in US whilst Lily goes away to Asia to work for UNESCO .

- They’re a great fam , all talented and beautiful and smart and accepting of one another . Love love love I’m dead.

[hadarlaskey]

Playlist

Nine Antico’s debut feature opens with black-and-white shots from within a wagon on the Paris Métro Line 3bis arriving at the Saint Fargeau station. The camera almost appears to be people watching, which is the most exciting activity you can participate in when riding the Paris Métro.

Vocals from Daniel Johnston’s ‘True Love Will Find You in the End’ traipse across the shot, paired with the deep voice of a melancholy French man who begins his film-long narration, “As children, life looked like a long expanse of love […] It turned out things would not be so simple.”

Finally, the shot isolates its prime subject, lingering on our protagonist, Sophie (Sara Forestier), whose place I have been in too many times before, leaning against the carriage door as she witnesses a brawl between two men, one headbutting the other before making his escape when the train screeches to a halt.

It is clear from the outset that Playlist is working towards more of a character study than a high-stakes drama. Sophie starts out as a waitress in her late twenties with little prospect of a career tied to her true passion: art. Beyond her ennui in her professional life, Sophie also feels unfulfilled in her love life, rather in line with the hammy eulogy for romance that the narrator has been dragging on from the beginning; her co-worker Jean (Pierre Lottin), who she has been sleeping with, rather bluntly confesses that he is in love with her when she tells him she is pregnant with his baby.

This sequence plays out in a borderline comedic fashion, kicking off a domino effect of unfortunate events that just sort of happen to Sophie, whereas she would much rather be the one affecting the world around her. Her luck begins to change, if only for a short while, when she is hired at a prestigious graphic novel publishing house on minimum wage, with a self-proclaimed “asshole” for a boss.

Playlist is nothing if not stylish, reminiscent of Noah Baumbach’s indie darling Frances Ha, its focus being a millennial woman who absolutely does not have her shit together. Antico’s film is messy in other, unintended ways, however, and its strength is undermined by a misguided desire to turn it into a rom-com.

Despite its title, the film’s use of music is surprisingly uninspired, as the soundtrack is tied to the narrative through coded moments: for example, the aforementioned track is repeated whenever we are led to believe that Sophie is thinking about love. Or, perhaps she is romanticising a life that is not hers through the potential suitors that she comes across (some more serious than others).

Misguided, wandering, and searching for a purpose, Sophie spends the remainder of the film looking for answers. The dénouement, however, is not fulfilling for her or the audience, sacrificing a potential emotional breakthrough for the story’s weak undercurrent of a quest for love.

ANTICIPATION. Black-and-white cinematography, cool soundtrack, millennial ennui… This sounds familiar. 2

ENJOYMENT. Passivity from the protagonist mean the 84-minute runtime drags. 2

IN RETROSPECT. Overdone plot elements with little novelty to glean. 2

Directed by Nine Antico

Starring Sara Forestier, Bertrand Belin, Laetitia Dosch

The post Playlist appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/reviews/playlist/

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