#important note that like people have also historically said nice things about my fics in tags and asks here not just comments

[elytrafemme]

i think CS broke me bc in some kind of asshole way i think i began to expect people to comment on it so seeing comments still made me go !!! but it was nowhere near how it used to feel. so posting a fic with a small kudos amount, in a living fandom but definitely nowhere near DSMP’s numbers back then & still now, has reminded me that getting an AO3 comment-- especially from a stranger-- is the best thing in the fucking world.

[lelenoir]

pairings: soulmate!na jaemin x reader and a small dash of mark lee x reader

word count: 5.3k+

warnings: profanities, one suggestive scene, also some historical inaccuracies [since i don’t know how to speak oldsey timesy english], if you feel like you’ve read this before it’s because you have, in my old blog.

synopsis: a person’s life is destined for a purpose. in this world, everyone revolves around one purpose and that purpose floats around one person, a soulmate. throughout the majority of a person’s life, they are all set to a journey to find their other halves. some lived to be hundreds of years old in their pursuit. but it was all worth it when two souls finally meet.

taglist: @mikasrecs

note: big big thank you to my future wife @jimjamjaemin for reading this fic in its baby days and to @jenoir for being one of my constant motivators and helping me fix my horrible grammar. i love u both :( 💕

Greece. 650 B.C.

A person’s life is destined for a purpose. In this world, everyone revolves around one purpose and that purpose floats around one person, a soulmate. Throughout the majority of a person’s life, they are all set to a journey to find their other halves. Some lived to be hundreds of years old in their pursuit. But it was all worth it when two souls finally meet.

Na Jaemin was a firm believer of the soulmate bonds. He was a sucker for it, often slipping into countless daydreams of him meeting his other half.

He imagined it to happen in a vast field of flowers, the sun shining bright with no one in sight but him and his soulmate. Every second would go in slow motion, with him savoring every moment of it. His mother often scolded him for it, telling him off whenever he over baked the bread or mixed up the customers’ orders due to him zoning out.

His best friend, an upper class, named Lee Jeno got his tattoo months before him. It made the younger boy giggle every time he recalled the memory. The way Jeno’s parents gasp at the words engraved on their son’s skin like it was an abomination. And in the traditions and beliefs of Ancient Greece, it was.

Before Jaemin could even stifle his chuckle, Jeno walked through the door of their shop. He sported a colorful tunic, a contrast to the plain white one the younger boy was wearing.

“Big day tomorrow,” Jeno remarked, a happy tone lacing his voice as he strolled towards the counter, eyeing the bread displayed all around.

Jaemin couldn’t help but beam at the thought. Tomorrow was his eighteenth birthday and in his world, eighteen is probably considered the most important age a person will turn to. It was the age of independence. The age where you are thrusted into a very long journey. For some that journey might last for a year, maybe five or ten. And those people are considered very lucky because for some that journey could stretch up to a hundred years. Because at eighteen is when you receive a tattoo. Not just any tattoo, but your soulmate bond.

After that, a person’s age will be stuck to eighteen until they meet their other half. Thus, the journey ensues.

“What do you think the sentence will be?” Jeno asked, throwing a glance over to the boy.

“As long as it’s better than yours then I’m good.” Jaemin teased, making the other scowl in return. It was an ongoing joke the pair had. The sentence written on Jeno’s wrist in bold were the words; ‘nice going, asshole!’ making the older feel embarrassed by the obscene words his soulmate will throw at him. Since then, he wore a long bracelet to cover the tattoo. “Anyways what do you need? Not like I can give you much since we only sell bread here.” Jaemin said, leaning his hands on the counter.

“Just the usual,” the older answered, “some relatives are stopping by.”

Jaemin nodded, going to the back where his mother bakes. The heat from the ovens made the boy readjust the tunic he was wearing. He took one of the white bread from the rack and wrapped it up for his friend.

“Thanks,” Jeno said, taking the food before giving the payment for it. “Goodluck tomorrow!” He called over his shoulder, offering one last smile before exiting the shop, leaving the boy to go back to daydreaming.

That night Jaemin couldn’t sleep. How could he? He waited his entire life for this moment. Carefully, he lit the small lamp on the table next to his makeshift bed. He watched as the light touched every part of his small room. The chilly breeze of the night crawling up to his back, making him shiver. He took the large blanket on his bed before wrapping it around his body.

His eyes bore on the skin of his wrist, waiting. He shifted, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. He turned his attention to the window to look at the glowing moon surrounded by its many stars. It should happen anytime now. He assured himself. Of course the onslaught of his anxiety didn’t stop after that. Every second felt like an hour to him and every hour felt like an eternity. His eyes shot fire to his wrist as he continued to stare intensely at it. The tapping of his foot grew more frantic by the minute.

He almost couldn’t contain himself as specks of black started to appear, the small tickling sensation making his lips part into an amazed 'o’. He pulled the cloth on his shoulders closer as the black swirled around the surface. His smile grew wider as time went by and the words started to become more distinguishable.

Jaemin could almost see it; the way his soulmate’s eyes would gleam, he could almost hear the sound of their laughter, and feel the electricity when their fingertips touch. Would you be as happy as him when you two meet? Would you even get the jokes he’d tell? How long will he wait for you?

He hoped it wouldn’t be long. But he also wouldn’t mind if it took a long time. He knew it was worth it. The simplest of questions ran through his mind but all of it stopped as the final word started to take form.

'you dropped your phone.’

His eyebrows furrow at the strange word. Phone? He can’t help but wonder what that was. Was it some kind of foreign food? He didn’t think so, but if it was then where was it made? The East? He heard a lot of exotic food was made there. There was a ship about to go on another expedition up north. Should he go now? Drop everything here to search for you? All that Jaemin could do was wonder. Happy thoughts filling his mind again once again, now that he thinks that he is one step closer to finding his soulmate; to finding you.

France. 1888.

“Come on, Mark!” You called out, dragging the boy as you marvelled at the tall unfinished tower. You hear the boy catch his breath next to you, resting his hand on his knees. You chuckled at his exhausted state before looking back to the sight in front of you. “How long do you think they’ll take to finish it?”

He looked confusedly at you before shifting his attention to the front. He scoffed, “probably a few more years. A hundred?”

You rolled your eyes at his answer. “Nonsense, Lee. You’ve seen how mankind has evolved a lot. Who knows? They might finish it next year.”

“You mean, you’ve seen how mankind has evolved.” He told you, putting more emphasis on the 'you’. “I’ve only been around for seventy years. That’s like a teaspoon compared to how long you’ve been alive.”

You hummed in reply, a sad smile settling in your features before quickly pulling yourself together.

True, it has been a long time since you were born. You’ve met so many people, practiced so many traditions and saw the world age right before your eyes. At this point you were slowly making your way around the globe; starting from your hometown and going west to whatever is out there.

You’ve met Mark in the ship that brought you here. The two of you hitting it off almost immediately. He told you about his life in Canada and about the happenings in the countries next to it. He was a young doctor, currently travelling the world to study medicine from different regions. On the way here, he gushed about the many plants, herbs and spices he had studied over the years. It was incredibly fascinating how he was so passionate about his work. You bet he could go on and on about his studies without ever going bored.

In exchange for the many information—and you know they were a lot—you told him about some of your very own adventures. You told him about the war you joined when you were nineteen and also told him about your time as a healer. You haven’t seen someone look so ready to take notes in your entire life. And you’ve been alive for years.

It was charming to say the least, the way the boy held onto your every word. You felt the first signs of subtle infatuation course through your veins whenever he looked at you. You wondered if this is what it felt like when you meet your soulmate: the loud pounding in your chest, the heat that spread across your head and lastly, the intoxicating feeling of having him around. It’s probably the loneliness speaking but you loved having him around.

This went on for days, the two of you hanging out wherever and whenever. It wasn’t new when the two of you headed out at night, the lights of Paris illuminating the streets as you and Mark walked along them. It’s only been a day but it felt like you’ve met him all your life. He loved sailing across the sea, he lived for the wind blowing against his face, and he had a passion for serving others and taking care of them.

You wondered what would happen if the whole soulmate ordeal wasn’t real. What if in this moment the both of you are just a bunch of runaway tourists bumping into each other. The first step to what could’ve been an amazing love story.

It was a funny thing, wasn’t it? The whole soulmate business. It punished you to no end but at the same time you wouldn’t have met Mark without it. You should be dead by now, you think. If it wasn’t for the partial immortality it gives, you would’ve died of old age. You wondered what would’ve been your life if it was.

Mark noticed your sudden quietness, his steps slowing down to meet yours as he looked up at you. Unaware of his stare, you continued to get lost in your own ocean of possibilities.

The touch he graced your shoulders made you jump, squeaking a bit as you looked at him in surprise. Mark chuckled at your response. He shook his head in amusement before finally having the nerve to call himself down. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You scoffed, smiling lightly at the boy. “Liked you’d ever spare anything for whatever’s going on in my head.”

“Well… why not?” He said nonchalantly. He pursed his lips together to further emphasise his point. “You’ve lived hundreds of years. I’m pretty sure everyone would like to know everything about you.”

You hummed, entertaining the thought a bit. “Are you?”

You don’t know where the boldness in your words came from but you thanked the stars for helping you build up your facade as you looked at Mark in anticipation.

He raised his eyebrow at you for a moment. His eyes showed you how much they scramble to gather his thoughts and make sense of your gaze and words. “Yes.”

Soon you found yourself locked with him in his room. Tongues moving against one another in a frenzy and hands gripping on any and every part of him. His lips tasted like honey while his touch felt like fire against your skin. His body set yours ablaze as he laid you down, sparking up every single desire he could find until you finally let him take you.

“Is this okay?” He asked. You nodded your head quickly while his fingers continued its job to untangle the knots of your dress. A sheepish smile adorning his face as he kissed you once again.

After that night, the two of you grew closer to one another. A sudden shift in the once platonic tide. The secret whispers and kisses shared when no one was looking. In another universe the two of you would’ve looked like a young couple in love. However you weren’t living in another universe. You were living in this one. One where kissing someone that isn’t your soulmate is forbidden. An insult to the gods. But you just couldn’t help but fall deeper. The world dizzying around you as you frolicked around this daydream with him. It was all wrong and you knew that. But why did every second with him feel so right?

The answer, however, slams into you as a cold harsh no. It wasn’t. And it never would. The universe, as cruel as it could be, broke you apart before you could savor it some more. Soon enough the two of you had to part ways, you were going to travel to the U.K. while he was going back to America. The both of you were unwilling to compromise so you found it best to separate.

In your last night together, Mark held you close to his chest. He whispered sweet nothings in your ears, those which were filled with hope and wistful promises. In another world, this would’ve lasted.

“In our next life,” he said, pressing a kiss on your forehead. “I hope it will be ours.”

There, as you wave your hand goodbye like someone would with their lover, Mark smiled down sadly from the ship. His hand held up as well to bid you farewell. The loud horn almost deafening as he began to drift away.

You stood by the docks frozen as the wind began to pick up. You pulled your coat closer, snapping yourself out of your trance. Turning your attention to the sea, the ship was now gone, taking Mark with it. Along with the soulmate bond, promises a lifetime of heartbreaks. You just never thought it would feel this harsh.

United States of America. 1989.

After the day he got his bond, Na Jaemin was even more determined. His life worked like a clock, his daily routines consisted of waking up, helping out in the bakery, sleep and repeat. His parents withered away while Jaemin remained the same. The regulars who came to the bakery changed as well with business slowly dwindling away, wars came and gone and Jaemin managed to live through it all. Jeno accompanied him across the years, both boys living up to the ages of old men but still appeared like they were just about to see the world. When in fact, they’ve seen it all. They travelled around it together, watched history play in front of their eyes, they got to see the world evolve into things they never imagined. But at one point, even Jeno had to leave him.

It was around 1989 in a land now called the United States of America, by this point the first handheld phone was invented. And once it did, no one was more excited for it than Na Jaemin. The words on his wrist finally making sense after years of questioning.

Jaemin didn’t miss any opportunity to subtly drop it whenever he could. This made Jeno laugh every time the phone would end up either broken or, even funnier, stolen. But on the rare instances that the stranger was not an asshole, it was always a “you dropped this” or “your phone dropped” or any version of the words written on his wrist but never those exact words. It was baffling how the universe seemed to love teasing him about who his soulmate is. He blamed himself for being such a hopeless romantic.

Jeno met his soulmate during one of their late night drives across Chicago. It just finished raining and the empty streets were filled with mud. The wind was cold, and the air was still a bit dense. Jaemin had told Jeno to put the roof down so he could recreate one of the scenes in a movie they recently saw. One of the best things people ever invented, he once said in the middle of one. The older just scoffed at his remark, recounting the different times Jaemin had said the same phrase about numerous other things.

Currently preoccupied, Jeno didn’t notice the person standing dangerously close to the edge of the sidewalk nor did he notice the huge puddle of mud he was about to cut through that, unfortunately, lay in front of the person’s feet. The car sped through it, causing a huge splash of brown to befall on the unlucky person.

Jeno abruptly stopped the car to apologise, only to be slapped back with a loud: “nice going, asshole!” before he could even utter out a word.

At that moment, Jeno was in love. Only whispering a small 'wow’ followed by a “you have no idea how long I’ve waited for someone to call me an asshole.” And the rest was history.

Soon Jeno began to age while Jaemin continued being eighteen. When his friend started to have a family of his own, he started trying to live by himself, no more depending on his friend. He hated to admit it but the hundreds of years of living in this world only became bearable to him because Jeno was there. He always thought he’d have his friend by his side no matter what but now that Jeno’s hair was turning gray, he couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of facing another hundred years all by himself.

United States of America. 2030

The time came when Jeno had to finally say goodbye. Jaemin stood next to his friend’s kids as they gently put the casket down. All the people that surrounded him were filled with Jeno’s spouse’s family and friends, some of them looking older than he is while the other half could pass off as his 'peers’. Jaemin was the only one there that was Jeno’s.

It felt odd. Standing amongst strangers that aren’t supposed to be strangers. They should be his friends, yet Jaemin never felt so alone in the middle of a crowd. They lowered Jeno’s coffin but before they could throw the first patch of dirt, Jaemin threw a few purple and blue hyacinths. A symbol for constancy and sincerity.

After the ceremony, Jaemin stared up at the sky. The stars made him feel small as tears escaped his eyes. Some scholars back in his day would often say that the stars were the souls of the dead. Jaemin liked to believe his friend was there. He took in a deep breath, preparing himself to face this world all over again. Only this time, he’d be all alone.

Japan. 2031.

Meanwhile, you were miles away. The day Jaemin lost his friend, you were on your way to make a talk at one of the top universities in the country of Japan and you’d been staying there ever since. It was now the year 2031 and it was rare for someone to live hundreds of years without their soulmate, even rarer that that person played a huge role in history.

The moment the words came to your wrists, the elders in your village knew you were destined to live a long life. You were a strong warrior who fought and defended your country from colonizers. You were also a healer during the revolution and helped some prominent figures in history.

After Mark, you continued to travel the world, mostly alone, and met a handful of friends. Although none of them stuck around long, you enjoyed the temporary company. Still, your mind would always drift back to the young doctor you’ve spent Paris with.

“Anyways, after this you have another talk in Chicago next week so you still have a few days to explore.” Your assistant, Donghyuck said as the two of you walk through the halls.

You scoffed lightly, “I’ve walked through Japan more times than anyone, I feel like I already know it at the back of my hand. In fact, I feel like I know the world at the back of my hand at this point!” You sighed out exhaustively.

“I-I’m sorry…” Donghyuck stuttered out. You frowned at yourself for taking your anger out on the boy. The hundreds of years you’ve walked in this Earth really took a toll on you. You were frustrated with how long this journey was taking, the friends you met through the years have all gone to the stars. The people you used to gush about and talk to have now withered away, leaving you to years of loneliness.

“No, I’m sorry Donghyuck.” You said, giving him an apologetic smile. “I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that… Let’s just get this over with.”

Donghyuck nodded his head. Although his lips were upturned to an encouraging smile, his eyebrows were furrowed in a small frown. A subtle sign of pity.

You couldn’t blame him really, even you would pity yourself if you were in his shoes. Most people meet their soulmate after at least five years after getting the bond—heck some meet theirs after a year if you’re lucky—and that could stretch to at least a hundred but that’s it. You hold the record of being on Earth for the longest time without finding your soulmate, the second one was a guy who lived during Ancient Greece. You don’t really know much about him since he tends to lay low. Unlike you, you liked the money. If you were gonna live for hundreds of years, you atleast want to spend it rich.

After the seminar, you slumped yourself on the comfort of your bed. Hands grabbing hold of the bottle of alcohol sitting on your nightstand. You took a long swig of the drink, the liquid burning down your throat as you swallowed it all. You wiped the spill off your lips, head already spinning and eyes threatening to shut. You wondered how your soulmate was doing, or if he even was alive by now. You could wait for another hundred years but you wished they’d come soon. In your haze, you let the alcohol consume you. Turning to your side as you let go of the bottle to the carpeted floor. You were getting tired of this life anyways.

United States of America. 2031

When you arrived in Chicago, you couldn’t hide the dull look that encompassed your features. A distinguishable difference to the boy next to you, Donghyuck couldn’t help but be giddy at being in a new country. You almost laughed when he ran out of the plane excitedly, jumping around and pointing at things he rarely saw when living in Korea. His reaction made you nostalgic on how you were when you first went to a foreign country. Now it just felt like nothing. The excitement was gone and all that was left was boredom.

You suddenly remembered Mark. He was buried around here. He found his soulmate three years after Paris. You received a letter from him, describing the ecstasy and the warmth and all the things you felt with him. He wished you all the good things, hoping for you to find yours soon just like he did. You spent days in the confines of your room, inconsolable. The world was an unfair place filled with unfair people. Everything, the universe, just loved to watch you burn. You wanted to scream at them, tell them how cruel they were for doing whatever they did. But you could never do that. Not to Mark. Never at Mark.

A year later, you found out he died of tuberculosis. The young doctor didn’t even get the chance to spend a whole lifetime with his soulmate. The world was an unfair place, even to someone like Mark.

“Hey Hyuck, do you know what time the seminar will start tomorrow?” You asked, walking side by side as you made your way to your car.

Donghyuck went silent for a moment, looking through his tablet mindlessly. “Around three pm,” he replied briefly. Ever since you went off on him the week before, you’ve noticed he’s been more cautious with his words around you. You took a mental note to talk to him later.

“Okay, I need to go somewhere beforehand. It’s really important.” You told him. He nodded in reply, muttering an “okay” before turning back to his tablet and continued to scroll through it.

Jaemin had been a wreck. It had been weeks without Jeno and the boy couldn’t even will himself to go outside. He almost didn’t know what the sun felt like on his skin anymore, having drawn his curtains down since the funeral. His supply of ramen, his only source of food at this point, was already starting to go nil which meant he had to get his ass up sooner or later. He groaned to himself, pushing his body off the couch. A strong surge of dizziness attacked his brain because of the sudden movement. His hands instinctively went to his head to ease the pain.

After the sensation faded, he turned to look at himself in the mirror, cringing at his paleness. He splashed water to his face to wash off the oil, grabbed his phone and wallet then left the dingy apartment he called home.

Walking around the city felt strange now. He didn’t know why but something felt different. He chuckled to himself, of course everything was different. The world changed hundreds of years ago when he and Jeno had fled Greece due to the many wars and invasions that were happening. The world changed when he was forced to forget all that he knew and grew up to leave everything behind in order to move forward. The world changed when the people changed, gone were the days when he could get by by just baking bread, now greed roamed rampant and he’d been doing jobs he never even imagined doing back when he was in Greece. His world changed the moment Jeno met his soulmate and he was suddenly thrusted into this world he’d lived all his life in but now felt so foreign. And finally, the world changed when Jeno died. Leaving him on his own while the world continued to move forward. He adapted this far, surely he could do it all again on his own now. Everything felt difficult now. When everything felt difficult back then, he had Jeno. But now Jeno is gone.

He sighed to himself, making a turn to one familiar alley. It felt weird coming back here after weeks. He could almost imagine the ghost of his friend walking alongside him as he made way to the cemetery.

The both of them used to loiter around here a lot, watch the people come and go as they try to decipher their stories. This was where they observed their behaviors; what to do and what not to when they first came here. It was one of the two reasons why they want to be buried here instead of in Greece. They pretty much knew a lot of the names in this cemetery. The people dating back to as early as the 18th century.

His legs felt like they had a mind of their own, dragging the sullen body of Jaemin with it until they’ve reached their destination.

“Hey there,” Jaemin whispered, eyes trained down to the gray slab of stone. “It feels weird not having you around anymore but I’ll be okay. I just stopped by because… Well to be honest I don’t know. I guess I missed you? There, I said it. You’re probably laughing in the sky now or whatever. But yeah I miss you, bud.” He continued to stare at it as if waiting for a response of some sort to come. He shifted in his feet every once in a while. He sighed, “I hope you’re doing okay… wherever you are.”

With that, he turned around, kicking the bunched up pebbles on the ground as he did so. He straightened out the hoodie he was wearing before setting off to leave.

Mark’s grave was located at the farthest point of the cemetery. His was one of the oldest and most well kept graves in the section since you try to visit him whenever you were in the country, which was about at least once every two years.

The wind felt soft against your skin, making you hum at the touch. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, adorned with white puffy clouds and a bright rayed sun. It was the perfect day. You could hardly remember when you felt this calm on such a day. Usually, these weather conditions made you nostalgic of how the world was back then but today felt different. You couldn’t quite put your finger as to why.

The leaves crunched with every step you took. You managed to look around the cemetery, seeing a handful of new gravestones as you walked. You could barely remember this part as an open field back then, now it was almost filled. However, in a field full of tombstones and dead leaves, one person stood on top of it. He was a bit far from you, almost a speck in the field. He had this weird aura around him, almost drawing you in without doing anything.

You found yourself hypnotised by the figure, your legs turning to the direction of the man. What was once a speck in the distance soon became a clear form of a sad man, and oh my god he was beautiful. He had blue hair, like the sky. His eyes, although you could barely catch a glimpse of it, looked like it could hold the sun with the way it shone. His lips, downturned to a frown, made you want to come up to him for a smile. You’ve never been so enthralled by a person before. Your heart pounded in your ribcage and you were afraid that he could hear it.

He straightened himself up, your eyes suddenly distracted to the thing that fell off from one of his pockets. You rushed to him just as he was about to leave, quickly grabbing the object then tapping his shoulder.

“You dropped your phone.”

Jaemin stopped in his tracks. He turned his head to the soft voice. His eyes took in every single feature of your face, taking in every freckle, mole, eyelash and all the small details. He wanted to memorize it all.

He couldn’t believe it. There you were, in front of him in all your glory. He could feel the tears well up in his eyes as he stared at you.

You smiled at him awkwardly, eyes shifting as you wonder what was happening. Your hand—the one that wasn’t holding his phone—made its way to the ends of his shoulders, snapping him back to reality. Although he wasn’t really sure if this was actually reality. He wondered if this was just one fucked up dream he’s having. Another cruel joke the universe decided to pull on him. He pinched himself just to check.

Your eyes furrowed at the action. An awkward laugh left your throat at the weird interaction. Any normal person would have left at this point already but you found yourself mounted on the spot. His magnetic aura pulls you in even at the scary behavior he’s exuding. Something about him felt familiar.

His hand took yours that was still on his shoulder. He held it with such gentleness, it almost made you blush, an electrifying feeling travelling up to your heart that was still pounding in your chest. His free hand then went to the side of your face, making you grip the phone that you were still holding. Your breath now caught in your throat as he stared at you with so much love, you felt the butterflies storming in your guts.

Was this what Mark meant in his letters? The familiarity? The magnetizing aura? All these ran through your head as you stared at the stranger in disbelief. Tears welled up on the sides of your eyes, a shaky breath leaving your lips. Suddenly, you felt his arms around your form, a relieved sigh leaving his lips as he held you. An overwhelming euphoria washed over your bodies as you hugged him back, closing your eyes to savor the feeling of having him in your arms.

“I’ve waited lifetimes for you to find me.”

No matter how long it takes and no matter what the circumstances may be. The phenomenon when two souls, meant for each other, finally meet is always worth it.

[mortimer-writes-sometimes]

AWF Outtakes: A Night With the Skelebros

I asked if anyone would be interested in reading some of the scenes I wrote for A Warm Feeling that didn't make the cut, and I got a pretty positive response! So, here's something I wrote out, decided didn't fit, and then decided I wouldn't be able to reuse later.

This takes place in the middle of chapter four! I'm a little impatient, so I ended up skipping a lot of Grillby actually staying with the brothers. This is the missing segment describing the first night! (Note that because this is an outtake, it picks up very abruptly. The paragraph that smoothly transitioned it into the fic no longer exists.)

Of course, just as Sans promised, Papyrus was just as insistent as his brother that Grillby stay the night. "Eating three meals a day is an important part of every monster's routine!" Papyrus declared. "Neglecting that need is unacceptable! You need not worry, however, my dear friend of Sans! I, the Great Papyrus, shall cook you all the spaghetti you can eat! Nyeh heh heh!" He dashed off to the kitchen to do just that, excited. They had a house guest! And it was one of Sans's friends!

Honestly, Papyrus had been worried about his brother lately. He never seemed to really talk to anyone, other than when he was hanging around that greasy bar. Papyrus had heard from others that even there, Sans was unusually quiet these days. The fact that Sans had brought home a friend that he seemed very close to was a good thing! Papyrus was just glad that his brother had someone to talk to. Sans… didn't really talk to him as much as he used to, these days. He needed a friend.

While Papyrus cooked, Grillby was still sitting on the couch (by order of Sans). Sans had turned on the TV and was spread out on the other end, watching some weird one-man play Mettaton was doing. The story was really hard to follow, but part of that could've been that Sans's attention kept drifting from the screen to the fire monster relaxing nearby.

Grillby looked more relaxed than Sans had seen him in ages. He was reading quietly, some sort of historical fiction book in his lap. The skeleton noticed that Grillby would occasionally tilt his head and adjust his glasses when he came across something that intrigued him. It was… cute.

When Sans saw the bartender adjust his glasses for the third time, he chuckled, accidentally giving himself away. Grillby looked up at him over the rim of his glasses, a small smile forming when Sans quickly redirected his gaze to the TV. Not quickly enough. "What's so funny?" the bartender asked, amused.

Sans shrugged. "I dunno. You, I guess. I mean, well um, it's that thing you do when you read."

Grillby looked confused. "What thing?"

"When you're reading, you tilt your head," Sans explained shyly, "And then you push your glasses up. Which is good, because they keep slipping down, heheh." Sans rubbed his neck again, looking up at Grillby with a nervous laugh. Grillby tilted his head and pushed up his glasses, making Sans snort. "You just did it again!"

Grillby blushed a bit. "What? Oh, I… I guess I did. I never noticed." He couldn't help chuckling to himself. He was surprised that Sans noticed that little habit. "I suppose it may be a little funny. Well, it's not like you don't have any quirks of your own."

"Like what?" Sans asked.

"Well," Grillby began to explain, "You rub the back of your neck when you feel awkward or shy. You do it every time I catch you staring."

If Sans had a stomach, it would have done a flip. "Staring? I wasn't staring. We just, uh, happened to look up at the same time. Yeah."

Grillby chuckled, then pointed to Sans's arm. "Told you so," he said mischievously.

Sure enough, Sans had moved to rub the back of his neck. "Heh, alright," the skeleton chuckled, "But that doesn't prove I was staring. And you have anxious ticks, too."

Grillby set his book aside and sat up, sitting cross-legged as he turned to face Sans. "Oh? Well, do go on."

For some reason, having Grillby's full attention made Sans feel almost flustered. The fire monster's expression had settled into a soft, amused smile, and his eyes were alight with more than the usual fire. They shone when genuine interest and amusement, his expression and body language gentle and at ease. It occurred to Sans that he'd never really seen Grillby in a casual setting. It was nice.

"Sans?"

Grillby broke the skeleton's train of thought, sounding slightly concerned. Oh yeah! He was still waiting for a response! Sans came back to the present and chucked. "Sorry, I was just thinking about what to call you out on first," he bluffed lightly. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling before beginning. "So, Grillby's nervous ticks. Where should I start? When you've had a lot of rude customers, you tend to flick your wrist a bit sharper when you mix drinks. When it starts getting really crowded sometimes you tap your pen against your notepad when you're taking a large order. You tap your foot when you're impatient and you kinda bounce on your heels a bit before you run off when you're in a rush…" Sans trailed off, looking at Grillby again to gauge his reaction to all that.

He'd expected Grillby to be amused, or maybe surprised. That wasn't quite the case, though. Grillby was blushing madly, covering a shy smile with one hand. "Well," the bartender mumbled slyly, "I didn't know you watched me so closely. Maybe you stare more often than I thought."

If Sans could blush, he would've been as red as Papyrus's spaghetti sauce. He pulled his hood up and pulled on the strings, tightening it to hide his face in embarrassment. "Grillby-!"

"I don't hear you denying it anymore." The bartender chuckled softly, leaning forward a bit. "Aww, Sans, don't be so embarrassed. I… I really don't mind."

Sans peeked out from his hoodie, cautious and shy. What the hell did Grillby mean by that? He liked the attention? Or… was it possible that he liked the attention specifically from Sans? "Heh, Grillbz… I–"

And then suddenly, the Great Papyrus appeared! "DINNER IS SERVED!" he declared loudly, balancing three plates of spaghetti in his arms. The monsters on the couch startled and jumped away from each other, back on their respective ends of the couch. Papyrus didn't seem to notice, passing out plates and sitting between Sans and Grillby. He turned to Grillby with a wide smile and an expectant look in his eyes, apparently eager for the bartender to try his pasta. "Now I know you prefer greasy foods," the skeleton said, "But trust me when I say that you will undoubtedly be won over when you try spaghetti made by none other than master chef Papyrus!"

Grillby picked up his fork as he considered the pile of noodles on his plate. He looked up to see that both of the skeletons were watching him then. "You're making me nervous," he chuckled.

Sans rolled his eyes. "Just try it already!"

"Alright, alright." The bartender lifted the fork to his mouth, feeling awkward under the attention. Finally, he took a bite of Papyrus's spaghetti.

It was… interesting…

Papyrus looked happy, though! "What a passionate expression! You must love it!"

Sans expected Grillby to make a comment that it wasn't good, or he wasn't hungry, or something else awful. He braced himself for the awkward conversation, but it never came. He was surprised to see Grillby pull a smile back on his face, despite the strong aftertaste that Sans was sure had to be lingering in the back of the fire monster's throat. "It has a very unique flavor," the bartender commented lightly. "I really appreciate you sharing your cooking with me."

Papyrus straightened up with pride. "Of course! I'm happy that you like it. There's plenty left, so don't be afraid to ask for seconds!" He picked up the remote and turned the volume of the TV up a bit, gleefully watching Mettaton do whatever it was that Mettaton was doing.

Once he was sure that Papyrus was focused on the television, Sans leaned forward and mouthed a quick 'thank you' to Grillby. Grillby responded with a small smile and a nod that made something warm spread through his chest. It was one thing to be kind to Sans… but it was a whole new level to be that kind to Papyrus.

After dinner, Papyrus took all the plates to the kitchen with him and started on washing dishes. Sans took the opportunity to move a bit closer to Grillby, hunched over a bit as he rested his elbows on his knees. "Hey… thanks for that."

Grillby looked away from the TV, confused. "For what?"

"For being nice to Papyrus," Sans said quietly, not wanting his brother to overhear. "I mean, people are polite enough talking to him, I guess, but he can be a little much for some monsters. I also know that his spaghetti is a little bit of an acquired taste, heh. I'm surprised you ate everything on your plate."

Grillby smiled a bit. "It wasn't that bad after you got used to the aftertaste, actually. Your brother is very… enthusiastic. I don't see anything wrong with that. So, you're welcome, I guess. I'm glad I made him happy tonight."

The two fell into a comfortable silence, a warm feeling settling over them both as they went back to watching TV. They were totally unaware of the tall skeleton spying on them from the kitchen, thankfully out of earshot. Papyrus wasn't sure what the two had been talking about, but Sans had looked very happy.

He'd missed seeing Sans happy.

Later that evening, Papyrus managed to find a shirt and some sweatpants for Grillby to sleep in. They were both too large, seeing as they belonged to Papyrus, but it was better than sleeping in the formal clothing that the bartender wore to work. The drawstring on the pants was pulled almost as tight as it would go, and the shirt hung off of him also like a nightgown. He looked small, under all that fabric.

Question was, where would Grillby sleep?

"He can have my bed," Sans immediately volunteered. There was no way he was going to make Grillby sleep on the couch when he wasn't feeling well. He'd been the one to bring Grillby home, so it made sense that he'd be the one to make room for him, right?

Papyrus frowned at that. "Sans, your 'bed' is just a mattress on the floor. You don't even have a sheet on it. He needs a proper place to sleep! He should take my bed!"

"Boys," Grillby interrupted with a nervous chuckle, "Thank you, but I really don't mind sleeping on the couch. I'm already feeling much better than I did this morning…" He trailed off into a yawn, blinking tiredly. Yeah, perfectly fine. Sure.

Sans huffed, a little irritated. He was getting tired of Grillby saying he was fine when he was obviously not fine. Was this how Papyrus felt when Sans dodged questions about why he was having so many nightmares? Sans made a mental note to be more honest with his brother as he took a deep breath. "Look, Grillbz, we both know that's bullshit. As much as I hate to admit it, Papyrus has a point. My mattress is barely better than this couch, anyway."

"Exactly!" Papyrus one hand on his hip, using the other to gesture at his door as he spoke. "I am more than happy to open my room to a friend of Sans, and a future friend of mine! And as poorly as Sans may speak of this couch, it can actually be quite comfortable when you find the right position."

Sans rolled his eyes, chuckling. "And sleeping on the couch means Papyrus has an excuse to stay up and watch Mettaton's late shows."

Papyrus huffed. "That is absolute slander!" he cried. "I just so happened to have already decided I wanted to watch the late show tonight! And I do not need any excuse to do so!"

"Uh huh. Whatever you say, Paps."

"You are incorrigible!"

Sans glanced towards the couch and stopped. "Paps, shush."

Papyrus scoffed. "Do not shush me! The Great Papyrus will not be–"

"No, really," Sans cut him off. "Look." He nodded to the couch pointedly. When Papyrus looked, the reason for Sans's sudden concern about volume quickly made itself clear.

At some point during their bickering, Grillby had fallen asleep on the couch, breathing gentle and even. Sans chuckled. "Heh, I knew it. He can't fool me when he's tired." After a moment of consideration, the skeleton shrugged and turned Grillby blue, levitating him gently so he wouldn't be disturbed. Once he was sure the bartender wasn't about to wake up, he turned to Papyrus. "Why don't you go get ready for bed while I tuck this guy in?" Sans asked in a whisper.

Papyrus nodded, chuckling as he lowered the volume of his voice. "Agreed."

There's a LOT more deleted scenes where that came from. Like, over thirty pages of deleted scenes, and there's sure to be more as I go. Let me know if you want to see more! Thanks for reading!

[nevermindirah]

Ok it's Jewish Booker o'clock, I can no longer stop myself, let's do this!

Why Jewish Booker? Dude was born in Marseilles in 1770, which happens to be a FASCINATING time and place in Jewish history, and it adds ridiculous layers to his character (without excusing a damn thing). Alternately just because I think he’s neat :)

Jewish Booker headcanons that make me happy:

not to be all "real Jews do X" but Jews fuck with candles hard. Book of Nile thrives on old/modern analog/digital giggles. Booker lighting Shabbat candles, lighting yarzeit (memorial) candles for his wife and sons (sob), lighting a menorah, lighting candles just because he's feeling emotional even though it's not chag (a holiday) or a yarzeit and Nile thinks he's trying to be sexy but he's really just in his feelings. just like. so many candles.

maybe Booker was the person who punched Richard Spencer at Trump's inauguration, just bringing back that time somebody punched a famous neonazi in the street and said neonazi has all but stopped appearing in public after a few rounds of public punching

were the Old Guard in Charlottesville in 2017? how many times has Booker the Blond Jew infiltrated North American white nationalist / Klan type activities and then stolen their weapons and/or killed them? likewise there's plenty of horrifying white nationalist shit happening across Europe this century, how many Pim Fortuyn types has he been involved in taking down? (I Am Of Course Not Endorsing Violence TM ;) ;) )

SINGING. Mattias Schoenaerts sings in Away From the Madding Crowd but it's church shit, sigh, anyway he has a nice voice. a lot of Jewish prayer is sung/chanted (depending on when/where you are and the gender rules of the community you're in) and there’s been a lot of innovation to Jewish singing in Booker’s lifetime, and I just want Nile to overhear him singing to himself on Friday afternoons

Nile Freeman was four years old when The Prince of Egypt came out, she grew up on that shit, she would want to introduce her new family to that shit. Please join me in picturing Booker, Nicky, Joe, and Andy all shouting "that's not how it happened!!" throughout this beautiful nightmare of a movie with lovely animation and songs but where white people voice most of the Egyptian and Jewish characters, because Booker Nicky and Joe's religious texts all frame the Exodus story a little differently and Andy was probably there when it happened (except for how it didn't actually happen it's an important story but it's just a story pls just let me giggle about Andy being super old)

Read below the cut for sad Jewish Booker headcanons, French Jewish history (mostly sad), context on antisemitism (enraging/sad), and all the way to the very end for a himbo joke.

Jewish Booker headcanons, I made myself sad edition:

he is a forger. who was alive. in 1939. visas. VISAS. V I S A S. how many of us did he save? how many more could he have saved if he didn't sleep that night? how heavily does that weigh?

how do we think he BECAME a forger? most likely he was doing what he needed to do to support his family, which gets extra poignant if he was also trying to help his people, forging documents as well as money even during his mortal life

Booker raised Catholic by crypto-Jews adds ANOTHER layer to the forgery thing, no shit he'd get good at falsifying paperwork and coming up with plausible cover stories

do we know how Booker made it back home after his first death in 1812? his route between the Russian Empire and Provence in 1812 would've been a patchwork of laws about Jews, in case starvation and frostbite weren't enough for him to have to deal with, he's blond and could maybe get away with pretending not to be Jewish if he had to, alternately maybe synagogues and yeshivot took him in on his way home

the structural and sometimes-interpersonal dynamics of antisemitism cause many individual Jews to experience feelings of teetering on the fence between a valued member of a not-exclusively-Jewish community and a scapegoat/outcast/problem. HOLY SHIT BOOKER. "what do you know of all these years alone" is the most Jewish loneliness-in-a-crowd shit I've ever heard. fear that we're not wanted, or only wanted so long as we're useful — that's something that basically all people struggle with under capitalism, but it's especially poignant for many Jews because of the particular way antisemitism operates. (NOTE this can tip from a legit Jewish Booker reading to woobification of the sad white man who couldn't possibly be held responsible for his own actions because he's so sad, which, NOPE. it's very understandable for him to feel left out and misunderstood and not as wanted, as the youngest and not part of an immortal couple and maybe Jewish, but NONE OF THIS excuses his betrayal.)

Crusaders murdered a lot of Jews on their way to the ~holy land~. how many of Booker's people did Nicky kill on his way to kill Joe's people? has Booker ever actually talked to either of them about it?

I read this really beautiful fic about Joe needing to circumcise himself after getting run over by a cart (ouch) — this is a hell of a thing for Joe and Booker to have in common

just generally Jewish Booker adds more layers to him and Joe so clearly being such close friends, ugh that look Joe gives him when they're leaving the bar at the end of the movie, and I very much do not mean this in a gross Arab-Israeli-conflict way because Joe is Amazigh not Arab and Booker is Jewish not Israeli (and also a lot of Jews are Arabs) (but most importantly there's no ~eternal conflict~ between Muslims and Jews) (more about OP Is Not A Zionist below)

like, the UK and France (and to a certain extent Italy) carved up the former Ottoman Empire after WWI; among other things, the UK took Palestine, and they could've worked on eradicating European antisemitism so Jews wouldn't have to leave but instead they used their control of Palestine to encourage Zionist emigration of Jews out of Europe, and France took what is now Iraq, which has some pretty direct implications for US military involvement in that country in Nile's lifetime; France colonized Tunisia in the late 19th century and still held it during the Vichy era which means Tunisian Jews were subject to Nazi anti-Jewish laws which is just layers upon layers of colonial racist Islamophobic and antisemitic nightmares for Joe and Booker to live through

to be crystal clear before anybody gets ooh Muslim-Jewish conflict up in here, antisemitism is an invention of European Christians that they imported to the places they colonized, the European colonial powers encouraged Zionism because it was easier for them to encourage Jews to leave Europe and set us up as middle agents between the colonial powers and the ~scary brown people~, the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim governments historically have had a second-class citizenship category for non-Muslims that rankles my American first amendment freedom of religion sensibility but was very much not targeting Jews specifically, and these two men who've lived for a long-ass time through many varieties of geopolitical awfulness (and alongside a certain unwashed Crusader who has since learned his lesson) would have Things To Say about how our current mainstream discourses frame these things

getting off my soapbox and back to this action movie I'm trying to talk about, the ANGST of Booker's exile, which is simultaneously a very valid decision for Andy Joe and Nicky to make, an extremely long time for Nile who is only 26 years old to be separated from the one person on the planet in a position to really understand the crisis she's going through, and holy shit expelling a Jew from your group when he's already been expelled from mortality and his family and being expelled from places and continually having to start over somewhere new is THE curse of surviving through antisemitism, OUCH MY FEELINGS

Some French Jewish history:

France, like basically all of Europe, periodically expelled its Jews, but Provence (where Marseilles is) wasn't legally part of France during the expulsions up through 1398 so Provence had a continuous active Jewish community; about 3,000 Iberian Jewish refugees ended up in Provence after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s

the 1498 expulsion of French Jews DID apply to Provence but many "converted" to Christianity and reestablished a Jewish community when enforcement of the expulsion chilled out (which was in the government's interest because they were really into taxing Jews at higher rates, so much so that they taxed "new Christians" at higher rates once they realized expelling Jews meant they wouldn't be around to overtax, ffs) — by the mid-18th century Provence had notable communities of Jews and crypto-Jews (forced converts and their descendants who still kept some Jewish practices in secret)

Booker would've been 21 when revolutionary France granted equal legal rights to Jews in 1791 — his mortal life and first century of immortality happens to line up almost perfectly with the timeline of legal emancipation of Jews across Europe

the American and French Revolutions happened pretty much concurrently and took different approaches to religious freedom that make Book of Nile with Jewish Booker and canon Christian Nile extra interesting — French emancipation, at least from my American sensibility, is about secularism and religion not "interfering" (hence French Islamophobic shittiness about banning hijabs), whereas American religious freedom is more of "the government can't stop me from trying to evangelize / religiously harass people at my school/workplace/etc" — to be clear I think both countries' approaches to religious "freedom" are hegemonic as shit and have devastating flaws, but they're different models that emerged at the same time in Booker's youth and Christianity is clearly a source of emotional support for Nile and there's so much to explore here

Napoleon tried to ~liberate~ the Jews of places he conquered for his dumbass French Empire, but liberation from ghettos came with strings attached (like banning us from some of the only jobs we'd been legally allowed to have for centuries, and liberating us for the stated purpose of getting us to assimilate and stop being Jews) and many places that were briefly part of the French Empire reinstated their antisemitic laws after Napoleon was gone, can you imagine being a French Jew forced to fight and die in Russian winter for that jackass and then have to trudge back through a dozen countries whose antisemitism was all riled up by French interference?

Some facts about antisemitism:

antisemitism operates differently than many other oppressions, it doesn't economically oppress the target group in the same way as antiblackness or misogyny or ableism etc — the purpose of antisemitism is to create a scapegoat to blame when European peasants are mad at the king / the church / the people actually in charge, and structural antisemitism encourages a system where some Jews become visibly successful so that those individuals and our whole community are easier to make into scapegoats

one of the historical roots of antisemitism is stuff in the Christian Bible about moneylending as sinful — Jews in medieval Europe were often barred from owning land and Christians barred from moneylending, so some Jews found work in finance and some of us became very visibly successful for working with money — a few individual Jews running a particular bank or finding success as jewelry dealers turns into "Jews control global financial systems" scapegoating — a more recent example of this is the participation of nonblack Jews in white flight and the role of Jewish landlords doing the visible dirty work of non-Jewish institutions in American antiblack housing discrimination, Nile grew up on the South Side of Chicago and would have seen some shit along these lines and might repeat hurtful ideas out of a lack of knowledge, here's Ta Nahesi Coates on some of these dynamics

Booker canonically being a forger (specifically of coins in the comics?) needs a little extra care to avoid antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, I will happily answer good-faith asks about this if you want to check on something for a fic/etc

antisemitism in the United States where I live in October 2020 isn't institutional in the sense of targeting Jews for police violence or anything like that. it IS systemic, however, for example in all the antisemitic conspiracy theories the Trump administration and several other Republicans peddle (ie QAnon), and in how the Trump administration points to support for Israel as if that means support for Jews (it doesn't, it's evangelical Christians who push the US government to support the Israeli government because they think Jews need to be in the ~holy land~ for Jesus to come back that's literally why the United States funds Israel at the level it does). antisemitism also gets weaponized to encourage white Jews (those of us of European descent, who in the United States are definitely white because the foundation of US racism is slavery and antiblackness as well as anti-indigenous genocide, maybe European Jews aren't included in whiteness everywhere but we definitely are where I live) to side with white supremacy instead of building solidarity with other marginalized people (ie a lot of mainstream Jewish groups shit on the Movement for Black Lives because of its solidarity with Palestinians)

the Nation of Islam has a major presence in Chicago and its leader Louis Farrakhan who lives in Chicago has long spread a variety of antisemitic as well as homophobic bullshit but there are genuine good reasons many Black people find meaning/support in the Nation of Islam and Nile would've grown up with that mess in the air around her, this is a good take from a Black Jew about the nuance of all that

the way the Old Guard comics draw Yusuf al Kaysani is HOLY SHIT ANTISEMITISM BATMAN I hate it please summarize the comics for me because I DO NOT WANT to look at that unnecessarily caricatured nose why the fuck did they do that human noses are beautiful there is absolutely no need to draw Joe like a Nazi would

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a local NYC group that recently developed a fantastic resource for understanding and fighting antisemitism (pdf) 11/10 strongly recommend

Zionism disclaimer: A lot of Jews feel strongly that we need a Jewish-majority country in order to be safe from antisemitism. I strongly disagree with this idea on its merits (Jews disagree about who is a Jew and making Jewish status a government/immigration matter means some of us are going to get left out; also non-Jews aren't fundamentally dangerous and separatism isn't going to end antisemitism) but I have a lot of empathy for the very valid fear that leads a lot of my people to Zionism. Whether I want a Jewish-majority country or not, what Israel has done and continues to do to Palestinians is a deal breaker. Emotions run very high on this subject — I spend a lot of my not-Tumblr life talking to other Jews about Zionism and I'd rather not have this Jewish Booker headcanons post become yet another place where fellow Jews yell at me in bad faith. Block me if you need to, you're not going to change my mind. Call me self-hating if you want, I know I love us.

Racism in fandom disclaimer: I feel weird about increasing the volume of meta about Booker in this fandom. Nile Freeman is the main character and deserves lots of attention and adoration from the fandom — and she deserves emotional support from as many friends and orgasms from as many partners as she wants. I think Jewish Booker makes her friendship and potential romantic relationship with him even more interesting, hence this post. Ship what you ship, but be aware of the racist impact of focusing your fandom activity on, for example, shipping two white men while ignoring awesome characters of color especially the canon man of color one of those white dudes has already been with for a millennium. Please and thanks don't use my post for shenanigans like sidelining Joe so you can ship Booker with Nicky.

Oh and a non-disclaimer fun fact, Matthias Schoenaerts was born in Antwerp which apparently has one of the largest Jewish communities still remaining in Europe?? ~Jewish Booker headcanons intensify~

In conclusion: Jewish Booker! Just because it's fun! It exponentially increases the angst of his mortal lifetime and it puts his first century of immortality smack in the middle of the most intense changes to Jewish life since the fall of the Second Temple (aforementioned emancipation, also founding of Reform Judaism, the Haskalah, Zionism, and then of course the Holocaust). It makes his relationships with Nile, Joe, and Nicky more interesting and potentially angstier and with more intense commonalities and tenderness about their differences. It's very common for Jews to not believe in God (this confuses the shit out of a lot of Christians) and this would probably have further endeared him to Andy.

One more thing: Booker as golem. (A golem is basically an earthenware robot of Jewish folklore.) He's tall and blond and the most Steve Rogers-looking of all of them and from the Himbeaux region of France. THE trope of Book of Nile is he will do WHATEVER Nile wants or needs him to do. I was today years old when I learned that Modern Hebrew speakers use golem figuratively to mean "mindless lunk" and I'm choosing to squint and read that as "hot kind and dumb as rocks" because it amuses me.

[fondnesses]

roscoe’s notebook post

A while back I said I was going to write a post about the way I use notebooks for writing projects. This is the first of several posts about Writing Process I’ve been tossing around in my drafts for a little while as a result of conversations with friends, so bear with me.

I. Love. Notebooks. I genuinely would have to deeply overhaul my whole Process of writing anything on the longer side if I were to go paperless; I find physical paper pretty invaluable when I’m outlining, brainstorming, and researching, and I still probably write ¼-⅓ of all my actual content on paper first. (That proportion used to be a lot higher, but I’ve gotten better at being productive on a computer in recent years, which is great.) I’m a very visual person, so notebooks really help me visualize my ideas, story structure, etc. It’s very helpful to be able to use arrows and diagrams and physically strike things through, and the tactility is really soothing to me. If I show people my notebooks or talk about them, I often get a response like “this is so organized”, which is sort of true, but I have to stress that it’s “organization for a disorganized mind”; I can’t misplace ideas or notes if it all goes into the same physical object, vs. electronic notes, which are much more, like “Did I say that in a voice memo? PM it to myself on Discord? Leave it in a desktop sticky note? Write it directly into the Google Doc? Who knows! It’s lost to time!”. It’s very much an ADHD management strategy.

It helps that I’m a very neophyte stationery hobbyist and appreciate any excuse I have to use my pens, but I also will go off at any opportunity about how helpful I find them for writing projects, which is why I decided to just make a post about it. Right now I mostly use them for (fan and original) fiction projects, but I used a notebook for a very similar purpose when I was working on my undergrad thesis, and I have a slightly different but equally necessary-to-me approach to notebooks I use at work.

My typical structure for a notebook that’s devoted to one project only looks like this:

I always leave the first couple pages blank so I can go back and retroactively index bujo-style. I don’t always actually do the index, because sometimes I get too lazy, but I like having those blank pages there to give me the option. I also usually put epigraphs/inspo quotes on the first page.

After that, there’s often (but not always, I’ll talk about it) a couple pages at the start where I’m frantically jotting down loose brainstorming ideas before they've coagulated into a story structure. Just, like, vomiting into the void.

Stemming out of that, I usually write out about like 5-10 pages of outline-style notes in chronological order, laying out all the main story beats and charting out the story trajectory. This will inevitably get revised and rewritten many times, but I find the process of writing these wide-angle synopses really useful for dislodging ideas, making connections re: thematic threads, etc. from my brain.

I’ll devote a couple pages after that to specific things like "sex scene brainstorming", "random scene ideas/minor details that don't have a clear place in the outline right now but I'll turn to for inspo later" [this is what I refer to as “bits” in one of the later photos], "page where I just outline the Motifs And Themes", "research notes", "to-do list", "stuff to check on a second pass", "things to put in the a/n and AO3 tags", etc.--the specifics vary with the story.

Then, I skip ahead to approx. halfway through the notebook and cordon off the rest of the pages to be “free writing” space, AKA writing of actual content rather than planning, with the expectation there will be no internal organization and I’ll transcribe to laptop as I go. Writing on paper feels less binding than typing something on a computer; it’s like a little secret kept with myself, and it doesn’t need to go anywhere or be seen by anyone if I decide I don’t like it. Setting aside pages in the back half of the notebook means that, as more things come up re: planning, I can go back and add those in the rest of the pages that were intentionally left blank. This is how I avoid (for the most part) having the whole thing be a jumbled mess where there’s no separation between the notes and the actual story writing; I learned this the hard way via the first notebook I’ll show you in a second. I’ve recently gotten really into using Muji sticky note tabs to label any pages/sections of particular import that don't want to have to refer back to in the index and would rather just flip to instantly.

I do use notebooks that aren’t specific to any one project, but those are much less organized and less worth sharing.

Before I look at more recent stuff, here are some selections from my notebook for the project that got me into writing longfic, my Golden Kamuy canon divergence AU (with apologies for the bad photos, my phone’s camera is trash). I worked on this from Sept 2018-July 2019. It was a learning experience in a lot of ways, and notebook utilization was one of those. I’ve always used notebooks for keeping track of writing projects, as I said earlier, but before this it was largely without much organization or structure; just total chaos. Having a physical notebook became really important for this project because it was a sprawling multichapter story with rotating POVs and a lot of historical research. I also learned a lot about what not to do with a notebook, personally, or at least things that don’t work so well (for me). This was a college ruled spiral-bound Decomposition Book, for the record.

By the time I bought a notebook for it I already had a (very basic) plot outline in mind, so I wasn’t doing that very initial ground-zero brainstorming in here; I was copying out of my phone’s notes app, basically, and then going from there. 

This is one of the first pages in this notebook; I wanted to visualize the relationship web between the four central characters in the story in terms of how they feel about one another. The two colours correspond to the POV characters (Sugimoto in orange, Ogata in pink), and I used this colour-coding throughout the notebook with highlighters, etc. to keep track of information that was more relevant to one character than the other. Tsurumi and Yuusaku aren’t POV characters, but they’re prominent in the story and their presence impacts the central relationship between Sugimoto and Ogata, and it was helpful to me to map out the emotional ecosystem, as it were.

(There are coffee stains all over this, because I wrote the vast majority of the story in coffee shops because I didn’t want to be around my roommates, lol. This is part of why I never do fiction writing in notebooks that are too nice, I get neurotic about needing to keep them tidy. I can’t use ones that are too shit though, either, so it’s a bit of a narrow window. I’ll talk more about brands and paper quality etc. later.)

As you can see, this is the first page of many I set aside specifically for jotting down different pieces of historical information relevant to my story. It’s about fictional characters who are members of an army division that existed in real life, and both the canon and my fic involve a high level of attention to detail with regards to which divisions were present for which battles, etc., as well as general historical details specific to the Russo-Japanese War setting--what did people eat in the trenches? What did they do to fill time? How did they get through the winter? What did third party observers have to say about the conditions? What were the specs of their weaponry (particularly important because one of the POV characters is a sniper and gun nut)? I did a lot of reading (and watching of antique gun collector Youtube videos... the things I do for love, eh), and it came in handy so many times, because it turns out it’s much easier to write trench warfare slice of life if you have factual details to pull from when you don’t know what to do with a scene! Imagine that!

This is the first of three “grid outlines” I made; this is a way I sometimes like to visualize a story outline all on one page, with the columns representing chapters and the squares within the columns representing sections/scenes within the chapters. As you can see, early on I was hoping to get this done in five or even FOUR chapters (whatmakesyouhaha.mp3), with POV switches happening internally within the chapters. This proved to be unwieldy for many reasons, so I revised the outline:

Here I’d come to terms with the fact this story was going to have a lot more chapters than I’d planned, and I rearranged things so that it would happen in ten, with each chapter belonging to only one POV character. This also needed revising later, and in the end the story looked a bit more like this (though it did in fact end up being twelve chapters, but only because Chapter Ten was like, 12k, and needed to be split in two chunks):

I must have remembered to bring my fineliners to the coffee shop this time, lol, because as you can see it’s properly colour-coded this time. This outline was made when I was already four posted chapters into the fic, which hopefully gives you a sense of the way in which I am sort of a planner and a pantser; I can’t get into a longer project without an outline, but the outline inevitably changes many times throughout writing and I often end up with a finished product that looks pretty different from what I was intending. My creative M.O. as always is Do The Maximum! Amount! Of! Work! Possible!

This is what a “free writing” page looks like, for me. In this notebook I didn’t set aside any specific spaces for free writing so it’s strewn throughout the notebook in a really disorganized way and I was constantly flipping through looking for bits I’d written and forgotten to transcribe, and I decided to be more organized in future as a result of that. If something’s crossed through, that means I transcribed it. As you can see, they’re often small sections, sometimes just a coupled decontextualized sentences. About 3/4 of what I write in a notebook makes it into the story, I’d say; some of it never goes anywhere, and that’s OK. I have less of an issue killing my darlings if they never make it off the paper page.

A very brief, top-down chapter outline, where the goal was not to get too bogged down in details and just to visualize the beats and pin down what they’re trying to accomplish. Chapters for this fic typically ran about 6k, and five or six scenes per chapter was pretty common, so the average scene length was about 1-1.25k words/scene. IDK why I called it storyboarding when I didn’t make drawings. (Margin numbers are to keep track of word count, since I was using a daily word count tracker while writing this.)

This page was, as titled, for keeping track of the various balls in the air when I was about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the story and really feeling the pressure with regards to tying up the various loose ends. This was... a struggle. I hadn’t ever written anything longish (this fic ended up just under 70k) that had an action plot before, let alone a canon divergence scenario where I had to engage with and explain away various canon plot elements so I could maintain the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I learned various “things not to do” with my notebooks while working on that project. One of those lessons I learned is to be more realistic when assessing how big a project is likely to get, not least because I RAN OUT OF PAGES around the chapter 9-10 mark. In my defense though, that’s because I’d never written anything even half this long! But I know better now, and try not to be in denial. Finishing the notebook early was a way bigger problem than I’d anticipated, and was part of the reason the last few chapters took several grueling months to finish. The issue was that I needed to be able to use a notebook to maintain my workflow--attempting to do it only on a computer was dismal--but it seemed silly to start a notebook of a similar size to the one I’d finished (80pg, approximately B5 dimensions) when there was no way it would need that much space, especially since the reference pages, like the historical notes, didn’t need to be transcribed over. I was also pretty broke at the time and didn’t want to spend money unnecessarily, lol. I tried to get by using a Moleskine Cahier for a month or so because I had one lying around, but it was horrid; it was too small to be used comfortably, it wasn’t spiral-bound so it wouldn’t lay flat, the ghosting is terrible and I hate the way Moleskine paper feels, etc. Eventually I caved and went to Muji and bought a 30ish page A5 with closer to lay-flat binding, and I finished the story in there. I would take a comparative pic for you of the relative notebook sizes and include some of the scene staging diagrams, etc. I put in there, but I can’t find it :(

So I learned that specs really do matter, and it’s okay to be picky if the pickiness is going to make the difference between actually using a notebook or not. Things that are important to me in my notebooks:

Ruling (gotta have ruling, I can suffer through grid but blank or dot is a no-go)

Size (I can’t use anything smaller than at least a medium-large notebook, I find it claustrophobic and get miserly about page space)

Binding (twin ring is my preference because it looks and feels better than a classic spiral but has the same comfort of use with regards to bending the pages back to suit workspace size and laying flat with ease)

Paper quality and colour (I don’t like anything too slippery/smooth or with too much visible ghosting, and I strongly prefer an off-white paper to bleached paper--part of why I don’t use Decomposition Books anymore, the paper is scratchy and it’s too damn bleached!)

Pagecount relative to size of project

Portability (in non-COVID times; anything bigger than a B5 wouldn’t fit in the satchel I used to bring to work at my old job), etc.

But everyone’s taste is different in this respect, and the only way to figure out what works for you is through trial and error, I’m afraid. I also suspect I’m more neurotic and particular about the sensory experience of using a notebook than most people are, but I yam what I yam.

Now to talk about the notebooks for my current projects, where I’ve refined my approach somewhat. I’ve included less photos for these because they’re ongoing WIPs I don’t want to spoil completely, but I’ve tried to include some outline-type stuff to give you an idea.

My big bang fic is in the very ugly twin ring notebook on the right; I got it at a dollar store by my house because I needed something to work in and didn’t want to wait for an online order, but it’s been very serviceable for my needs. The paper isn’t even bad. The bigger notebook (B5) is my Sangcheng fic.

I wanted something with a lot of pages for this, because I knew it was going to be a long story, and for some reason the fact it’s smaller than my usual preference doesn’t bug me (I think it’s an A5?); it just fits this story, somehow. I’m not sure exactly how many sheets are in here but I’d guess about 150.

Because this notebook has upwards of 100 sheets, I made a lot of use of sticky-note tabs to label high-priority pages. The colour coding of these doesn’t mean anything, it was just whichever ones I had at hand at any given moment. These are those tabs from Muji I mentioned, I’m really obsessed with them--the shape makes them so much less obtrusive and more practical than conventional squares/rectangles OR flag shapes, IME.

My big bang story is nonlinear, so, similarly to what I did with colour coding for the two POVs for my GK fic, this story has two main colours corresponding to whether a given section takes place in the “before” or the “after” portions of the timeline, with blue as “after”, yellow as “before”. This is what the most current version of the outline looks like in there:

If you squint, you can see the alphanumeric notes in the top right of each section entry; I gave them each a code like “A3″ or “B5″ corresponding to their position in the story sequence (so, it goes A1, B1, A2, B2, etc., through to B9 and then the epilogue). [Unintentional that this schema overlaps with notebook size labeling and so is kind of confusing in the context of this post.] At first I was just keeping track of the sections via the highlighted titles, but it got confusing because I’d write down “Wedding” or “Yiling” in my notes and then refer to the notes later like “but there are multiple marriages?? and multiple scenes in Yiling??”. Stuff gets struck through with a straight line if it’s been written in a more-or-less complete form and crossed out with a squiggly line if it’s been cut from the outline or made redundant.

As I said earlier, I started out all the initial brainstorming for my Sangcheng fic in its notebook, instead of brainstorming it in someone’s DMs/my notes app/a voice memo/etc. and then transcribing it into the notebook in a somewhat more organized fashion, which is how my stories usually start out. Because of this, the first five-ish pages are basically just stream of consciousness rambling where I was trying to jot down every disconnected thought I had about the story concept. I don’t have photos for that because it’s too spoilerific for later developments in the fic, but I can show you some of the stages the outlines went through, once I was able to corral those initial notes into a story structure:

All the chapters in this fic have their own highlighter colour, so when I started trying to make sense of my initial brainstorm notes I just went through and highlighted stuff in the colour of the chapter it would make the most sense for, and then transcribed things more-or-less in chronological order into the relevant chapter outline. I later ended up rewriting all the chapter outlines AGAIN to refine them and divide them internally by the individual scenes, which makes them a lot more legible and less wall-of-text-y. They look like this now, with about four sheets per chapter:

Because this fic is on the longer side, I have some pages that are just for keeping track of other story elements, like this, where I refer back to whatever the fuck the “themes” are supposed to be whenever I forget what this fic is about:

It’s all about the visionboarding... Anyway, that’s most of what I have to offer, since most of these two notebooks is Forbidden Content.

With regards to brands/supplies, I really like this Kokuyo Campus Wide notebook that I’m writing Sangcheng in, it’s pretty perfect for me. I also like the B5 Muji twin rings, but those only come in 30 sheets, so I wouldn’t use it for anything above a ~20k project. The B5 Maruman Spiral Note 6.5mm ruled/80 sheet is another good one, though I wish it was twin ring instead of spiral. As you can tell, I like Japanese stationery brands because it’s easier to find decent paper quality and minimalist design without shelling out $$ than it is with American/European brands, at least IME. I like Rollbahns too. But honestly, I can usually find pretty serviceable random notebooks that aren’t brand-name from Asian dollar stores; it’s really not something where you need to shell out tons of money.

[iwannaholdyoutight-]

SUNLIGHT

Summary: Welcome to Mattina ed Estasi, an art gallery dedicated to show the art of seduction. This story is dedicated to the discover of true sex.

A/n: each day has a painting, please click on the link, likes and reblogged are love and if you come talk to me about it: I’ll love you forever. Please read end notes, it’s important

Find my masterlist HERE

Find the Pinterest page for this fic HERE

Somewhere in Italy, 1978…..

Day 1: Mattina ed Estasi https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Extasy/300907/4211239/view

Lavignia was going to have a syncope. She was sure of it. It was hot, hotter than any other summer she has ever lived in her 25 years of life upon this earth. Her pink loose dress was sticking like glue because of the heat and she was late for her first day at the new job.

Fucking amazing, right?

The bus was late and then she got lost because she should have turned right but she took a left and her Italian isn’t amazing enough to understand what the old lady was trying to explain her, she was speaking too fast and Lav was far too nervous to concentrate. 

But finally she saw the brick walls built in an elegant way. She saw the big stained glass with the mermaid. She had finally found Mattina ed Estasi, or “morning and ecstasy” in English. This is going to be her new job - new home- for at least the next 18 months (that was what the contract said, at least). 

Having graduated just a year ago from the University of Coimbrã with a major in arts and communication, Lavignia found herself without a job and without the possibility of asking for her folks to help since they didn’t want her to go to college at all (she had one job and that was to marry well…. and that’s clearly not what she did). 

But a friend of a friend told her one night about this gallery in Italy that needed someone to work there. This person had to speak English, to communicate with all of the tourist and had to know a lot about art. 

Thank god she knew both. 

Packing her bags, she dished her job at the bar and went to Italy on the morning train all the way from France. With all of her articles about art and the hope of a brand new start. 

Taking a deep breath she walked through the doors, coming face to face with a tall red head: “you must be Vanessa! Mrs. Lovelace told me you would be here. 

She was nervous, feeling short when standing side by side with this gorgeous woman. Her hair all messy from the wind and heat. But Vanessa, with a freckled face and very blue eyes, opened a smile and refused her hand shake, going for a hug. 

“Hello, Lavignia. Yes, Mrs. Lovelace has told me all about you, she seemed excited, she loved your article about the art movements as protest  against the military coups in Latin-America.” 

“I’m glad. And please, call me Lav” 

“Of course. Ready to begin our training?”

They started to walk around the gallery. An intimate space with golden artificial lights, a crew of men was working with all of the artwork for the new exposition: “Love and Sex”. 

“What do you know about our new work? I just need to know everything you were told so I can help you with the rest” 

“Well, I received a lot of books to study the theme on the last few days. Love and Sex is all about the the raw emotions of the human body, showing how much they are alike but also not so different. One complements the other but at the same time you can have sex without feeling in  love, and you can fall in love and not have sex.” She could feel the embarrassment from talking so much about this subject with someone she barely knows but since it was about art becomes more acceptable. 

“Yes. You are very correct. We are getting pieces from the renaissance era till the new paining by erotic artist Joan Semmel, our biggest conquest of this is actually her painting “Sunlight”, but Harry still has to bring that one”

“Nice. But who is Harry?” 

“Oh, didn’t Mrs. Lovelace told you about the owners of the shop?” 

Lavignia shook her head in a negative but said “only that she was one of them.”

“We have three owners. The first one is Jeannie Lovelace”  the one who interviewed Lavignia just 5 days before. She was around her late sixties, beautiful long silver hair and blue eyes. Very elegant lady always using nice bell pants and white shirts. “Well, first, never call her Mrs. Lovelace to her face, she doesn’t like being treated like she is elite, even if she is. Some people say that on her younger days she had an affair with Duke Elligton, can you imagine?” 

They laughed together, this beautiful old lady must have so much to tell if given the opportunity . 

“Anyway, she was the founding mother of this beautiful gallery. She never got married so her true love is art. She founded this gallery back in 1961 with the money she inherited from her father company back in the U.S”. 

“Nice. There is two others right?” She said while pointing to a board with the story of the gallery “This Harry you just told me about and Jesse right?” 

“Yes. Let me start with the worse: Jesse Fire. Firstly, I’m pretty sure that’s not his real name. He’s this elite lawyer and a jackass with everyone he doesn’t find worthy of his time. He only puts money on this gallery because it’s a good investment and makes him have a “intelectual image” for the tabloids. Don’t worry too much about him but if he ever appears just try to not talk to him, and you’ll be fine. He is on holiday and won’t return for another three months. And he lives in Rome, so even when he’s in the country he comes here only for big openings and our parties. We are all safe.” 

She opened a huge smile 

“Now, let’s talk about the last one: Harry. Do you happen to know H.E Styles?” 

“You mean the erotic poet and composer? The one people are always talking about his sexual escapades and charming ways” 

“That one. Well… that’s Harry. I mean, we all know Harry made his money with art and he likes to spend his money with more art. Shocking, right? He has the biggest collection of sensual masterpieces. From paintings to sculptures and even vintage sex toys: he has it all. Actually this exhibition was his idea. The main pieces will have a poem by him attached to it.” 

“And how many pieces are we hoping for?”

“Around 10. He’s going to write new poems for the main events, inspired by a few of the art pieces and will release a book at the end of everything. And that’s the reason why we still don’t have the painting by Semmel. He is struggling with that one and took home last Friday and promised to bring here today. 

“And it’s not here today” said a raspy slow voice from the back door. He was using a blue chiffon shirt almost completely  unbuttoned with a pair of high waisted white jeans and a glittery boot, with heels that gave him at least 3 inches more. “I am so glad to see my favorite red hair today. It was a tuff weekend” 

He got closer and she could finally see his face: green eyes, beautiful wavy brown hair and a nice crooked smile with dimples just to make it more adorable. And he had a mustache. Lav absolutely hates mustaches, but if it’s this handsome fellow that has one…. she wouldn’t complain. 

“What happened? Couldn’t find inspiration again?” Vanessa said while touching his arm. Of course a guy that hot would go for a girl like Nessa. They looked like a power couple together. 

“First I thought I could get inspiration if I could just stare at the painting. But it didn’t work so I called Daniel and Melissa, maybe with a fun three way party I could feel inspired, wrong. Then yesterday, I thought “maybe I need to see the world with different eyes” so I popped a few acid tablets… didn’t work. So now I’m here, on a Monday morning, asking you PLEASE let me have the painting for a few more days” 

It was too much information for Lav to take, in three days he had done more than she has done her whole life. That made her feel quite uneasy. 

“That depends, Styles… will you borrow your beach house for the summer so I can have my honeymoon with Cathy there?” 

Oh, she has a fiancée, thought Lavignia, how silly could she be, thinking they were a couple. 

“I was already going to offer you this and you know it. But of course, my Calihouse is yours for the time you want it for your honeymoon” he finally locked eyes with the brunette who was feeling like an outsider listening to private conversation: ��and who is this Dove? Is she the new curator you and Lovelace were talking about?” 

“Yes, Lavignia this is Harry. Harry this is Lavignia” 

 She gave him an awkward smile. 

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Styles”

She raised her hand to shook his that was already reaching out for her. But, instead of a shake, he took her hand and before giving a kiss he whispered to her hand “please, call me Harry.” He kissed her hand and let her hand go, using the tips of his fingers to caress her arm on the way down from its previous position. 

“She is actually going to create the sequence for the pieces and the artistic and historical explanation of the pieces from the the exhibition”. 

“I thought I was going to write this” 

“Yeah but she has the technical knowledge. So you are going to look at the art, find a meaning behind and she is going to write the explanation for the techniques and whatsoever and to the presentationwould be interesting if you guys worked together” 

That’s when it hit Lavignia: they had 6 days till the opening and absolutely zero idea of what they were going to produce. 

“Wait….. we have six days to plan this whole thing?”  

Harry laughed. 

“Yes, we have done a lot but still, we have a lot do. Right now the focus is to create a storyline to exhibit everything and it has to go well with the main theme. Welcome to our gallery” he said with a smile. “But I’m sure it’s going to be an easy job. Because love and sex are so inherent to the human being” 

That wasn’t going to be an easy job. She didn’t know much about love or sex. 

.

After their conversation, the day was just a blurry memory: checking the pieces, looking for articles and references about each one. Harry would once in a while come and check on Lav, ask her if she wanted anything and sometimes he would just look at her, like he was trying to memorize her face. 

It was already 7 pm and Lav and Nessa were getting their stuff to leave when Harry came up to talk to them: 

“Girls, Lovelace just called the office and asked if we want to have dinner at her place. I’m going, care to join?” 

“I can’t, have to meet Cathy. We have a dinner date to try and finally find a date that is good to get married” said Nessa “but I think it would be good for Lav so she can get a feel about how we work” 

“I can give you a ride if you want” Harry offered with a sweet smile, putting both of his hands on the reception table and getting closer to her face. 

“Uh, sure. Let me just get the rest of my stuff” 

“Sure, I’m waiting outside” 

Vanessa was looking down at her with cheeky eyes and knowing smile: “you are going to have the best fuck of your life” Lav eyes grew wide “oh me and my fiancée once had a threesome with Harry. A one time thing but didn’t he gave us the ride of our lives” 

“There will be no fu… mingling with the boss for me. Thank you very much” Lavignia said while getting the rest of her stuff and walking away with heavy steps and wide angry eyes. She was already out of the door but she could still listen to Vanessa’s laughter. 

She started looking for a nice and extravagant car but what she found was Harry leaning on a very red Harley Davidson. Picking at his nails, tearing off the nail polish in the process. 

“Hey. Ready?” She was shaking she had never walked on a motorcycle. 

“Kinda. Never been on a motorcycle before” 

“What a pleasure to be the your first ride then” Harry said giving her a blinking eye and a mischievous smile. “First let’s  put this thing on you” he got closer to her with a blue helmet with silver stars in hand. 

First he caressed her messy curls and then slided the helmet on her head, never taking his green eyes off of her: “you look perfect with this on, like you belonged on a fast ride, just like this ride I’m going to give you” 

She didn’t know how to answer that, she could just blush. 

“Let’s go?”  Nodding with her hand and getting onto the bike with Harry, Lavignia had this nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach: it burned. Every single time he turned a left she would end up brushing her front against his back that was covered by the thin blue shirt. She never felt this spark before, almost like something in her body was screaming for the feel of him. Maybe was the fact they spent the day in the middle of sensual pieces of arts, maybe was the fact that the smell of vanilla on his neck made her think of sex.

And she never thought of sex, never understanding what was the appeal to showcase something it was supposed to be so intimate, and he didn’t have any filter when it comes to it. Maybe the almost 4 years without someone between her legs have finally got her and she was going crazy.

After it felt like an eternity in a war with her own thoughts, they came to a stop on a small circle park with 5 houses surrounding the area . All of them were big and out of a art decor movie. They came to a stop in front of one of the houses: this one was yellow with high walls and a lot of plants all over the entrance. 

“This is Jeannie Lovelace house. My house is the other one on the other side of the park” Harry finally said, without taking his helmet off, pointing towards a house with a bright orange tone to it with rounded windows and a balcony that was exposed for the street, full red roses. “She is already expecting us, you can go inside, I’m just gonna drop my bike at my house. Do you live close?”

“No, I live close to the beach, close to that souvenir shop, you know? It’s about 30 bus stops from the gallery.”

“You can stay at my place, if you want” he said in a normal tone but a sparkle was found inside his eyes, maybe she wasn’t the only one that was left shook from their little trip standing so close together.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea” she could admire him, but she couldn't touch. She only knew him for a few hours but she knew it was trouble. And maybe her tone was quite condescending because Harry changed his posture and stopped smiling and just pronounced a small and guilty “okay” before driving towards his house, acting almost like he was feeling shameful. Before Knocking on the door there was only one thing in her mind: this was going to be an extressfull dinner. 

.

Day 2: Woman with the black stockings 

(Painting they talk about: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Schiele_-_Frau_mit_schwarzen_Strümpfen_-_1913.jpg )

“Darling, wake up” she could feel Jeannie elegant voice talking quietly “it’s almost 9, if you want to be on time to your meeting with Harry, you have to wake up now”

Meeting? When did she and Harry settled a meeting hour? Lav’s last memory was from getting another glass of the green drink because she was quite overwhelmed with the conversation topics. She didn’t even knew there was so much it could be talked about sex.

“Sorry” she said getting up “my head is killing me. Thank you for letting me crash here, I don’t even remember how I made it to this bed” she looked around, being in a big room with with walls and drawing of flowers all over it, Lovelace was standing right next to her holding a plate full of food. 

“Oh, darling there is nothing to be sorry for. You should thank Harry, he was the one who carried you over here” she said while settling the plate on her lap “but a little piece of advice? When it comes to absint you don’t drink more than 3 shots, now eat. Do you remember what we talked about last night?”

Oh God, she didn’t want to hear all of that AGAIN but she had to be honest: “after my third glass my mind is just a blackout. I’m so embarrassed”she said while getting the beautiful croissant and taking a bite of it and it was so good “You only know me for two days, you are my BOSS and I made a complete fool of myself”

“Again: nothing to be sorry for, everybody in the gallery is like family to me. Not counting Jesse, he is just someone that gives us money…. think of him like the awful uncle that everybody has to deal with” laughing at her own joke  “We just talked about the opening then me and Harry stared to exchange stories… that was when you started to drink a little too much.”

“I just… I hope this doesn’t get me fired but, you all just treat sex like it isn’t an act it should be kept in your bed and I got nervous yesterday with the topics of the conversation once we stopped talking business and especially Harry I mean…. I met him when he was talking about a menage he had in search for inspiration to write about an art piece” She said with open eyes and exasperated sigh

“Lavignia, sweetie, you know that this gallery is about sex right? We showcase pieces with a sensual and sexual background. Also we hold parties, books reading, music. Look at the name we gave it: MORNING AND EXTASE”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry Mrs. Lovelace, when we talked you only told me about this exposee we are doing and I thought that was it. I know that sensuality and art are two themes that often come together but ….”

“There is no problem, Lavignia” she said in a more serious tone, yeah, Lav was out of a job only on her second day, she was sure of it. “Look, I was so ecstatic to have someone with your resume that I only talked about what we are working on right now. Can I ask you something? Give us a chance, please? Especially Harry, he is a sweet guy who lives and feels everything, he gives himself whole in everything: art, friendship, love, sex. I wish I could have met someone like him when I was younger, I would be married, maybe.” She said with a sweet smile “When we are over with the planning of this, if you wish, you can let us go. But try and immerse yourself with us, there is more to the world than ‘waking up, growing old and dying’. If at the end of this you don’t wanna stay, I will find you a job at the most traditional art gallery. But, give us a chance, there is something behind your eyes that longs for something, I can see it, let us show you there is no shame in living.”

Looking at her hands, Laviginia thought about how she was never satisfied, leaving her parents home when they wanted her to get married to their neighbor, going to college in another country, then going to Paris to find a job and failing and now having this big opportunity in her hands: she couldn’t say no; so she nodded and got a big hug from the elegant old lady.

“Now, I asked Harry to get you a few clothes ‘cause I figured you wouldn’t want to be another entire day with the same ones.  He is already here with the clothes I’m going to get it for you. Take a shower. We’ll be waiting for you in the living room” Jeannie said getting up from her sitting down position in bed but before she could reached the door she turned to Lav and said “and another thing: don’t ever call me Mrs again, either Jeannie or Lovelace. Okay?” and with that she left the room and Lav went to shower, knowing she had a chance in her hands and the only person who could mess this chance up. 

.

After taking her shower Lavignia came back to the room to find not only clothes but shoes and underwear and even a perfume, on top there was a note: 

Lovelace would not forgive me if I got you clothes and didn’t bought you a perfume. According to her a woman is naked without a scent. I hope I got the sizing right. 

H.

PS: I would love to see you wearing the lingerie, this one was all Jeannie. 

Of course he would said something like that. The clothes consisted of a black mini dress with red little hearts and a high turtleneck, together with black boots and a thigh high black stockings. The lingerie was pretty, a set with a bright cherry color made of  lace and satin. She loved looking at the mirror using such a beautiful piece, there was something about her she didn’t knew it could be achievable: she looked quite sensual. She felt like she was Twiggy herself (even if she didn’t look at all like Twiggy).

Last but not least: the perfume. It was Paris by YSL and it smelled like richness and sex. Of course he wouldn’t give any less than something like this. But she couldn’t lie, she was grateful for him, Lav knew she was quite harsh to him just the night before with her judgmental looks and words, but even then he got out of this way to help someone he only knew for 24 hours. 

Getting down the stairs she could ear the light tone of their conversation, something about “opening yourself for love”, it seems like Lav was not the only one that was getting a preach from the one and only Jeannie Lovelace. 

With the sound of her footsteps getting closer, Harry turned around and smiled: “glad I got the sizing right. You look nice.” He was getting up and so was Jeannie

“I’m going to give you guys a ride and then I’m picking Nessa up, we are going to the train station”

“I thought we all were working together today” Harry said while walking side by side with both women toward the backdoor that lead to the garage. Jeannie gave them both a big smile:

“Early this morning I got the news: We got the Corregio” in that moment Harry lifted Jeannie up and started to kiss her cheeks while saying “I knew you could do it”.

Antonio da Corregio was an painter from the italian renaissance, being able to get one of his pieces to put on display outside from its home museum in Viena was almost impossible . Lav was looking at the interaction and saw it for the first time: Lovelace saw Harry like a son. They were a little happy family. What she didn’t expect was Harry to put Jeannie down and take her into his arms, giving a big hug and involving her in his smell all over again. 

“Now, let’s go kids. You two have to analyse the Schiele piece and me and Vanessa have a date with Corregio”. And so they left in a very lilac mercedes. 

.

Laviginia couldn’t stop sweating, she was standing side by side with Harry in front of a big painting of a woman sitting down, pushing her skirt up so she could show all of her private parts. With very red lips and nipples and black stockings, very similar to the ones Harry got her, and from his face, she was sure it was not a mere coincidence.

“What do you think we should do with this one?” Harry asked

“I think every piece of art tells a story and we have to discuss about this piece, what story does it tells us” Lav said getting away from the painting and closer to the books she had spread all over the table, looking for her bookmarks about Egon Shiele  and any piece of information about his painting The woman with black stockings.  She looked over at Harry and he looked relaxed with his with long sleeve shirt full of drawings on the sleeves and blue jeans. He was calm while waiting for her to tell him about whatever piece of information she found on the books. Her mind was going crazy, she was sweating through all of her pores, there was the same unfamiliar warmth in the pit of her stomach and there was Harry, changing his attention between her and the naked woman like they were talking about the weather. Finally she found the information she was looking for in one of the many bookmarks she made “This dates back to 1913, he got arrested countless time because of his art…”

“It’s ridiculous being arrested for making his art, especially one so intimate but I understand the time but so be it, I hate it when people make sex such a taboo. But please, continue with what you were telling me”

Cleaning her throat, she continued “according to this the reason behinds his arrests were his nude and semi-nude portrayals of his lovers. It also says those portrayls are so beguiling is quite simple: they have a filth quality to it. He likes to portrait his adoration towards woman and sex”

“Wow, that’s probably the most of dirty talk you have ever made in your life, I’m proud you got to reading all of this only blushing a bit” he looked at her with kind eyes and a smirk gracing his beautiful rosé lips “Okay, he wants to show devotion and rawness to it, right? There is this gorgeous woman spread open for him, longing for him as I hope he was longing to get between her legs and get so deep they don’t know when one ends and the other begins. I think that the theme of this is want, is the disinhibition, not being ashamed of wanting something that is so good” Lav felt like he was talking about her and not the painting “He has a dirty mind freakness, doesn’t only show people what he is seeing, he shows us his desire and let us get into his intimate for one reason: he painted his lovers, people he knew from inside out, people who must have some meaning to him. The fact that he can put together adoration and the most primal act of the human race, takes his art from merely beautiful to widely erotic”

“What does it feel like?” she asked him “being able to see and feel and talk about this without feeling like it’s wrong? Being able to let yourself go”

Harry looked at her and she had no idea what his face was telling her. He was sitting on the floor and pated the place in front of him in a silence request for her to join him. She sat in front of him, folding her legs and looking him in the eye

“I always felt like there was more to life than the one I was leading on, you know? My family came from money, but everything just felt the same, so one day, as soon as I turned 18, I went to Los Angeles, that was 10 years ago, ending of the 60s and beginning of the 70s, David Bowie was still becoming what he is now, Beatles had just broken up Fleetwood Mac didn’t have Stevie Nicks. There I met people who showed me more and more of living and then I started writing, becoming myself. It was with my art that made my own money and got kind of famous but I never actually showed my face to magazines till  I came to Italy when I heard that the gallery wasn’t doing very well, offered to help and I gained a second mother in Lovelace, she was there for me all the time and she was the first one to tell me that I didn’t have to be ashamed of who I was, if I like a bit of everything or if I dress quite flamboyant or anything.” Harry smiled “ That’s what she wants for everybody: have a fulfilling life like hers, without any fears. It’s all a learning you know, one day at the time, you get there.” Harry took her hand and gave it a kiss “tomorrow we’ll all be together to look at the Corregio, you can talk about whatever you are feeling, I promise you: no one is going to judge you.”

“You know it would be nice to just be able to talk about this without feeling like I’m going to hell and I don’t even believe there is a hell.”

“If hell is full of people who don’t care about labels and know how to have fun… I don’t wanna go to heaven “ Harry smiled “but you know, I’m a GREAT teacher, I would love to teach you how to be less awkward when it comes to the theme, after all you are working for a gallery about sex”

“I’m not having sex with you”

“God, Lav, don’t be such a pervert, I was talking about being less shy when it comes to talking about it. Come on repeat with me ‘fuck me’ without blushing”

“Fuck me”

“No, fuck me” 

“Fuck me” 

“No”

“Fuck me”

“Finally! That’s my girl.” Harry said giving a peck to her nose. “Now, how about we go eat a nice gelato, my treat. Then we can come back to talk about the painting”

.

Day 3: Jupiter and Aphrodite

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Correggio_028c.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Correggio_028c.jpg

“I crave your mouth, you voice, your hair/ Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets/ Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day/ I hunt for the the liquid measure of your steps” the words from the poem left Harry’s mouth like honey. When they both arrived early to the gallery, Harry sat on the floor with a poetry book and asked if she wanted him to read for him. “I hunger for you sleek laugh/ your hands the color of savage harvest/ hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails/ I want to eat your skin like a whole almond”

When Harry said that sentence he stopped briefly and looked at Lavignia, wanting to see her reaction. He didn’t choose that poem with no intend, he wanted her to see how sexuality and love could be show on poem, with such a easy passion, no shame. She was looking right at the pearls he was wearing around his neck, thinking he didn’t noticed the way she was staring at his chest and necklace, he licked his lips and continued: “I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body/ the sovereign of your arrogant face/ I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes.

The more Harry read, the more Lavignia was imagining he was doing all the the things quoted, adoring her body with such hunger, she was thanking God that he was close to finish his reading: “And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight/ Haunting for you, for your hot heart/ Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue” He closed the book and looked at her:” so, that was the Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda, what do you think of it?”

“It’s beautiful”

“Only beautiful? What do you feel when you listen to those words. Erotism can also come in form of beautiful words, to show those feelings and to have them returned are a bliss, if is a one night or a lifetime.”

She wanted to be like him, like everybody she met during those 3 days, so she trying to raise her voice and finally say something:

“I feel hunger. Hunger for life. I don’t want to feel like it’s wrong to desire someone”

Harry got closer to her, almost touching their knees together. The moment he walked through the door last monday he was captivated by the girl wearing the cherry tree print dress. He couldn't stop watching her every movement, how she would stare at each art piece with a passion observation yet timid eyes, how she would like at him like he was from mars, she had so much inside of her screaming to break out of the coffins of her mind and heart, and Lovelace made him promise he would help her, she saw so much of her in Lavignia. 

“Would you like to try and  live the life you always longed for?” he asked her.”You will never be judged here, that is a promise I make you, in the name of everybody”

She was hypnotized by his eyes and the thought of finally exploring whatever she felt since she was younger and everybody always told her how wrong it was: this hunger. Ever since she read the Betty Friedan book “The feminine mystique” and was shocked to find out that women also could find pleasure in sex just like men. Never having the courage but each day inside the gallery she could feel the same insistent pit in her stomach always asking for more” So she just nodded and Harry got even closer, so close she could see the blue and golden inside his eyes and could hear his breathing and smell the mint in his breath.

This guy that just this weekend was having threesomes was going to kiss her shamelessly inside  their workplace. And she was going to let him. 

“Good Morning darlings” said the elegant voice of Jeannie coming from the front door “I’m a little bit late but I got fresh macarons from the french bakery close to Nessa’s place. She is just parking the … oh” Finally looking at the young couple on the floor so close that it was unmistakable that they were about to kiss when the owner of the gallery busted through the door “well…. young passion, always a good feeling when you just can’t wait till you can get home and enjoy each other but please do whatever you were going to do away from the art pieces, we wouldn’t want another incident like the party we threw back in 75”

Harry gave Jeannie a cheeky smile while the only thing Lavignia could feel was shame, absolut and complete shame. Opening her mouth to defend the situation she found herself in: 

“But we weren’t going to…”

“Lavignia you know I’m the biggest and most precious work of art from our little gallery” Harry said at the same time she was trying to come up with any excuse, looking at her while getting up and offering his hand.

“Oh Harry if I was 30 years younger you wouldn’t scape me” Jeannie answered. Today she was using a elegant bright red dress and a scarf around her head and by the smile on her face, Lav understood what they were trying to do: they wanted her to feel comfortable so they were joking to show her there was no problem in whatever they were doing.

“Now, enough talking we have two pieces to figure it out today and Harry where the fuck is the Semmel?” Lovelace said taking her heels off and started to walk around, checking everything they had already done. There was still 3 pieces for them to figure out how they would showcase. 

.

They were all sitting on the bench Harry dragged to the middle of the room, with watchful eyes resting on Lavignia that was right in the middle of two art pieces. They all were waiting for her to begin her explanation: 

“So, if you look at my right, we have the famous Correggio painting: Jupiter and Io, dated back 1530. So, we all know the Romans saw Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek god Zeus. According to the tale, he was attracted to everything that was beautiful, especially Io, she was one of Hera’s priestess. Jupiter was always tempted by others beauty and would disguise himself to be closer to them. In the case of the Correggio” she said posting towards the bluish god that was encasing the woman in a sensual way “he took the form of a velvet fog to reach for Io” pointing through naked woman encased by the fog, she took a break, waiting to see if they wanted to add something but Jeannie just gave her a small smile, telling her to continue: “it’s from the Italian renaissance, as we all know and the technique is oil on canvas, it’s height is around 5’4 and is has been in the Austria museum since the XVI century” 

Harry raised his hand not wanting to disrupt her talking, he was quite fond of the way she lost all of her shyness and insecurities when it comes to art. When she was done she looked at Harry when he raised from his sitting position to get closer to the painting: 

“If we look next to her face, we can see a face form itself on the fog, that’s Jupiter, right? He is there taking her pleasure as his own and giving his pleasure to her as her own. It’s a mutual feeling, she isn’t dreaming about the fog, he is there. This is such an erotic turn, showing us this woman being involved with this fog, her face looks like she was being pleasured. It’s about the feeling of letting go, she was letting herself being encased by this fog, encased by desire” turning his face to the redhead sitting close to Lovelace he asked “what do you think, Nessa?” 

Crossing her long legs that were covered by a letter flared jumpsuit she stayed quiet, taking the pairing calmly. 

“I think I wanna hear about the Aphrodite before making a decision” 

Harry pinched Lavignia cheeks lightly as if saying: come on, we are waiting. 

Lavignia was looking at the piece. The three naked woman with no shame, laying together on top of the blue satin sheets: one was laying down with her hands above her head, the other was on her fours atop of the laying girl and the third was encasing the the same girl that has her eyes closed in delight. It was clear that she was the one they were intending to adore, she was Aphrodite. 

“Aphrodite is one of the famous goodness, she is the goodness of love and beauty, she was responsible for the perpetuation of life, pleasure and joy…” Lav lost her train of thoughts the moment she looked at Harry. 

He looked calm, standing so next to her, listening so attentive, as if every word that came from her mouth was precious to the subject. His eyes were extremely green thanks to the green and blue crochet vest he was wearing together with a high waisted jeans but everytime he raised his arms she could see a bit of his soft belly and what it seemed to be a butterfly tattoo. 

“Earth to Lavignia?” said the fant voice of Jeannie. Shaking her head a muttering a small ‘sorry’, she continued:

“Anyway, this illustration on paper was made for the Pierre Louys’s book, the artist is Maurice Ray, we don’t know the date but it’s from the 19th century, so it’s nearly not as old as the Correggio, so if we want to sort by date: we can’t. They are too far apart. We have to find the common ground beside both being created after myth. But we don’t have much on the creator of the illustration to help us built the story. It could be helpful” 

“You know” Harry started “it’s good when people don’t know the life of an artist. I mean, I don’t want people to read my poetry and think what inspired me. Like my “cherry” poem, and think “it’s about his last girlfriend who left his heart broken’, I want people to look at my art and take it as their own. The moment I give it to the world, it’s not mine anymore. Each person has their own claim for the piece, their own meaning, their own story. I look at those pieces and I don’t wanna know if the woman in Correggio was the one that got away, I wanna look and see what this makes me feel, how this tells me a story” 

Harry had a girlfriend who broke his heart? Does he always write from his own perspective? Where can she find one of his poems? She wants to know more about the boy who seemed to never look anything but a full rainbow with his colours and happiness. 

“So, we only have now to work with Sunlight to finish the preparations for the grant opening. Nessa is everything okay with the catering?” 

“Yes, I spoke to the cantina owner, you know, Angelo. He invited us to have dinner there today, so we can try everything he wants to bring” then opening her purse and getting a red notebook “I think we have everything covered: food, drinks, journalist to come, photographers, invitations has been send. I  think the only thing lacking is the Sunlight… Harry, where the fuck is the Sunlight?”

His eyes opened and he looked a little bit frightened at Vanessa: “shit, Nessa, don’t pull those eyes on me, I always get scared. I promise: it will be here, okay?” nervously he looked at both Jeannie and Vanessa, and then at Lavignia, in a suplic for a little help. 

“What time should we be at the cantina?” she changed the subject

“In a few hours, it’s only 2 pm now, maybe at 6, the music is going to start at 6 but we know nothing actually works on time here”

“Okay, so maybe let’s just revise everything? And maybe finally find the order we want to exhibit everything? Lav, do you have any idea?”

“I can only think the cliche: year and technique” 

“We have been here for the last four hours searching, reading, talking about those paintings. Can we do it tomorrow” Asked Nessa, raising her arms to stretch.

“Sure, how about you two go and write all that has been discussed today while me and Harry talk business in the office upstairs?” Lovelace said, taking Harry by the hand and leading him to the stairs that stood almost in a hidden part of the gallery.

When they were long gone, Vanessa questioned if she knew that they weren’t going talk business and when she didn’t respond, she continued:

“Harry ex-girlfriend cheated on him and then left with some french preppy guy saying he wasn’t the one because she could never deal with his ways. This was almost a year ago, he was pretty depressed, to be honest, cried a lot, never wanted to sleep alone” 

“Does he ever want to sleep alone?”

“You know, you are fast to judge people, when I think you are opening up to us... “ she stopped to get one of the posters for the gallery and pointed towards the front exit, needing help to put the poster in its place.

When Lavignia thought she wasn’t going to hear anymore of that, she finally continued the talk: “he hates being alone. He practically moved to Lovelace’s house for the first month, was always listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, crying. Actually, I think during those first three months he only took one person to bed and he cried during it. He started to get better when he wrote his book, travelled all around Asia, he vanished for maybe 45 days. When he got back, he was him again. Maybe a better version of himself”

“Why are you telling me all of this, you don’t even know if I’m going to stay at the gallery or I’m gonna take the other job”

“You know… I can see in your eyes, the sparkle when you talk about those pieces, when you let yourself go. But then, it's like something turns it on in your brain, almost like it’s short circuiting, and then… you stop, you blush and you give us judgmental stares”

“You know, I can’t help it”

“I know” Nessa said with a faint smile “but we can help you”

.

They were all laughing over bottles of chardonnay and pasta, Lovelace was in the middle of telling one of her many stories about the roaring 30 and all that she done back in New York. They got there half an hour ago, the music crew were beginning to put all the instruments over the small stage. The cantina was only two blocs from the gallery. They were sitting outside, in a round table with red and white tablecloth, with fairy lights to illuminate the place, trees that gave the place a certain fairy look.

When they arrived, there was a petite black woman with a sundress and braids on her hair, she recognized to be Nessa’s fiance, but she couldn’t bring herself to remember her name, no matter how much she tried.

When they sat, she was in the middle of Jeannie and Harry. She could feel his arms brushing her back every time he talked. 

“Guarda se non sei la donna più bella di tutto il nord italia” said a tall man, he must be around his sixties. Very blue eyes, gray hair and charming smile. He had honeyd voice, and man, she really needs to improve her Italian if she wants to stay.

“Quindi mi ci abituo, Angelo. E come sempre: il cibo è delizioso.”

They continued to talk for a bit, Lavignia ended up losing the conversation, looking at the small stage, that now had a singer, maybe she was finally going to be introduced to some good italian song besides Volare.

“Perdona la mia mancanza di istruzione” he looked at Lav “sei nueva qui, guisto?  La tua nuova ragazza, Harry? Che bella”

“Nei miel più grandi sogni, forse” God, Harry’s voice sounded even more charming in italian “Lavignia è il nuovo impiegato della galleria. Ma penso she dovremmo parlare in inglese”

“I am so sorry, my dearest” he said with a very strong accent “ I didn’t knew you didn’t speak Italian. It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Angelino and welcome to my humble restaurant”

“Thank you so much. I know a bit of Italian, but it’s the language I speak the least and with all the noise and people talking at the same time, it gets hard to understand”

In that moment, the song beguin to play “Our music guess is starting now, if you excuse me… Jeannie, mi concede questo ballo?” taking her hand he lead her to the dancefloor, followed by Nessa and Cathy, who she finally remembered the name.

“And then they were two” Harry whispered turning to her 

She took another bite of the pasta containing a moan while Harry finished his glass, getting another bottle and pouring  for both of them”

“It was my bad Italian or Jeannie and Mr. Charming over there were flirting?” Harry smirked with her statement:

“You are absolutely, right. They flirt all the fucking time. It’s cute but sometimes I just want to push them towards a bedroom with a very big bed and say they can only leave after they fucked their brains out”

The more they talked, the more Harry got closer. He asked about her life before Italy and she asked about his book. She told about how she was trapped with her parents even after she graduated, so she left. He told her about his traveling through Asia, the people he met, how he went to a David Bowie show in Japan, that each city he visited brought him back to himself. 

“You know, maybe...can I buy one of your books?” she asked, with a timid glint all over her eyes “I just want to know what type of art you write”

“Oh, my poetry is all about having sex and feeling sad”

“Well, I still want to. I might blush a lot and maybe won’t be able to look you in the eyes on the first few days, but then I’ll get over it”

“How about this, you dance with me and tomorrow I give you my book to read. Deal” 

“Deal” shaking hands then getting up towards the dancefloor. 

Putting both of his hands on her hips, Harry got closer. They could listen to the calming voice of the singer. Softly singin the chorus of the song, with his mouth close to her ear. 

Lavignia could smell his cologne and feel the heat from his body, almost like he was encasing her in a protection spell from the wind. 

“You seem to know the words to the song. Who is this guy?”

“Oh, he is Pino Daniele, right now he only performs at small bars, weddings. But all of his songs are so good, give him a few years and I’m sure he’ll be big, at least here in Italy. That’s for sure” 

After that they were quiet for a moment, she was trying to catch the words to the song. Feeling distracted by the environment they had: fairy lights, the jazz with a popish sound to it, people dancing without a care, everything so colorful. The heat of the summer night was disguised because of the slightly cold wind that came from being close to the beach. Harry cleaned his throat to get her attention:

“I need your help. The Joan Semmel painting is so hard for me to decipher and I think I know why, she painted from such a tender female point of view. And I know I could ask anyone to help me, but I love how in love with art you are. How you lose yourself describing and talking about the pieces” 

“Okay, I can help. But are you sure Jeannie and Nessa won’t be mad?” 

“I already talked to Jeannie and Nessa a little bit before we had to leave the gallery, actually” the slower song came to an end but they couldn’t let each other go. There was comfort in this embrace and light conversation. Almost like they had done this a thousand times before. 

“You could come by my place tomorrow. We can fix this, maybe I can read some of my poems, since you’re so curious” 

“Sure, what time?” 

“Around lunch? There is no hurry since it’s close to eight and I don’t think we’ll be going home anytime soon” 

She had a night full of dancing and wine ahead of her. She could only wonder what would happen tomorrow when the sun came out. 

Day 4: Office Love https://www.phillips.com/detail/A/NY040210/233

The sky was cloudy when Lavignia knocked on the mahogany door. The house from the outside was already beautiful, with vines all over the place, the orange color of the wall and big door. 

“Hey” Harry said while opening the door, dressed in just a satin robe “I was drawing, I lost track of time. Would you like to come in?” 

The door lead her to his living room, there was a big hello round couch, with red walls and a Indian tapestry. The red walls were full of art pieces - all of them pretty much leaning on the sensual side - the  three ceiling to floor windows gave a beautiful view of the street and grey sky. 

“Feel like you’re at your own home, okay? Please put your shoes over there” he said pointing towards a small cabinet “I’m just going to put on some clothes and I’m be back” 

With Harry upstairs, she was left alone to wander through the living room. There were magazines and vinyls all over the place as well as books about a few of the artists they were going to exhibit. He was doing his homework, apparently. 

But then something got hold of her attention: it was a black and white photograph. It seemed like it was an office, a typical American one. With two big windows and a rectangular desk but there, laying at the same desk, there was a barely dressed woman with her breast out and a man -completely dressed- devouring the woman’s chest. 

“Do you like the work of Helmut Newton?” She heard Harry’s voice just behind her, when she turned around there he was with a graphic white t shirt full of little watermelons drawings and jeans shorts. 

“You scared me, you walked down the stairs really quiet” 

“I wasn’t quiet, you were just really paying attention to the photograph. So do you like Helmuts job?” 

“I never heard of him ‘till today” 

“Well… he is a German photographer and is known for his studies of the female body. He worked a lot with Yves Saint Laurent and that was actually how I met him, I loved his fashions editorials of the brand. Then when I was at the fine arts museum in Boston last year, I saw this photograph. He was touring with his new exhibition when I bought this one. But it only arrived last month, when the tour was done” 

He was side by side with her, looking at the piece for a few seconds before continuing his explanation: “the name of this photograph is Office Love. When I had the chance to talk to him he said he wanted his photographs to arouse. And they do, because he so boldly explores his longings. But, in my personal opinion, what makes his art so sexy is his obvious belief that sex in the most important thing in the world” he looked at Lavignia “so, what do you think?” 

She looked at him with wide eyes and open mouth. 

“You don’t have to say anything to me, okay? But think about this painting when you’re alone. I lost the count of how many times I sat on this same couch looking at her and imaging it was me on the picture. Especially this week” did he said what she thinks he said? “Anyway, would you like to eat something before we start? I brought my book with me, thought we could eat a peanut butter sandwich and I’ll read something”. When she nodded, Harry took her hand and lead her towards the kitchen. 

.

His kitchen was all black and white: black and white tiled floor, black electrical appliance with white walls. Black table with white chairs. 

He made the sandwiches and got them a glass full of water. When they were halfway done, he got one his book and asked what type of poem she would like to hear. 

“Anything. Just want to get to know your art” 

“I’ll just open randomly then…” and when he did, his smile flared a little bit, maybe this poem represents a sad moment in his life. When she was close to telling him that there was no need for him to read if it hurted him, he cleared his throat and said: “this is The cherry sonet” 

Along with the cherry trees came hopeless sorrow

The cherry color reminds me that I’ll still hurt tomorrow

Dreams of you erupted in my waking 

My broken heart is still yours for the taking 

When you met him, did he called you ‘cherriè’?

When you kissed him, did you remembered me? 

And when you left me

Did you feel like you were finally free? 

But don’t you call him baby 

Don’t you dare 

To call him what you used to call me 

But don’t you call him baby 

Don’t you dare

To call him what you used to call him 

She felt tears in her eyes, that was the first time he was avoiding looking at her. Closing the book he gave her and whispered “it’s yours. Take care of it” 

“Harry, I’m so sorry. No one deserves to feel this heartbreak” 

“It was a long time ago. I don’t miss her, I don’t even love her anymore. But every time I remember what she done to me and how much pain I went through my hearts remembers the heartbreak.” 

“I understand if you don’t wanna talk about it, but, who was she?” 

“Her name doesn’t matter. She lived here for a while, I fell in love so deeply, I don’t think I was ever in love before her. It was like the world gained color and I didn’t have to be so lonely, anymore. I was still trying to figure it out where I stood in the world, and for that to work out, I tried to be the perfect match for her. I think i lost a bit of me when I lost her. But that was never truly me, you know” he paused to drink some water “ She didn’t like how I treated matters of privacy. She didn’t like the theme of the gallery and she didn’t like Lovelace either. Said she was a bad influence. So to prove her I could work with other themes, I made this work with a French gallery owner. She cheated on me with him.” 

“Harry… I don’t know what to say to you. I never fell in love and don’t even remember liking someone that liked me back, you know? I don’t know much about you, but I can see that you’re good and you don’t deserve any of that” 

He got her hand that was over the table and took in his. Not saying anything but it was like their conversation was happening without needing any words. 

“I think we need to work on the Semmel. Do you want me to bring here or would you mind if we go to my music room. I left it there” 

.

The music room consists of a place full of music instruments, more vinyls and more books. With pillows and tapestry all over the floor, there was no couch or chair. If you wanted to sit, you had to sit on the floor. On the far left of the room there was a painting with a purple bed sheet covering everything. 

“Ready?” He pulled the sheet and she was left marvelous. 

Joan Semmel is a New Yorker painter and writer. Most of her works are about the female point of view. But, even with the knowledge about the artist’s life, nothing could prepare Lav for the pairing ahead of her: it was a woman sitting down on her bed, relaxed and completely naked. She was touching her body and her body was golden from the sunlight. You couldn’t see her face, she was painting from her point of view. 

“You know I can write about any perspective but I’m having trouble with this one because it shows such a intimate view of the woman’s body. I called Lovelace to help me as soon as we got the thing but she said “darling I’m too old to remember the feeling of looking down at a younger version of my body” 

Lavignia couldn’t mutter a word, she was too much hypnotized by the work. And also jealous: she doesn’t know what it is to be naked on her own bed just taking in her own body. She didn’t knew that could be so much freedom when you’re “normal”. Because one thing is too see Bowie and Jagger preaching sexual freedom. She thought it was made for the ones that had an unusual life. But here she was meeting people that had no problem with showing themselves to her. 

“So, what do you think?” Harry asked her. 

“She has a classic technique of color mixing and…”

“Darling I know all of that part. I need your take about the painting, what’s the feeling behind that and what it compares to true life, and then, together, we can figure it out how to fit inside the theme, how to display it and finally decide the story we are going to tell with Love and Sex because, I’m sorry, my dove, but we have such an unique gallery and exhibit that I don’t want to waste it with cliche display options, I know we only have two days but if we think something NOW, we have tomorrow and the entire morning of saturday to fix it.”

It was too much. It was too much. It was too much. 

This isn’t right. This isn’t right. This isn’t right. 

So Lavignia almost screamed without having second thoughts: 

“That’s not right, I can’t go on and talk about that! She had her thoughts while doing this piece, but there must exist this lack of control when people make such works. Life HAS to have control, Harry. YES it’s a wonderful piece but I don’t feel anything while looking at it” 

“You’re lying. I can tell when you’re looking at me like that” Harry said with a sad yet  angry look upon his eyes “your problem is that you never let yourself lose control. You don’t think I notice... but I do. You give everyone the same staring eyes, judgmental eyes when you remember about your ‘lack of control’. When Jeannie asked us to give you a chance, I went with an open heart. I just undressed my soul to you while reading that poem, I thought you were different from her, she judged me and left me. And here you are judging me. How many days till you walk away from the gallery? When we are on the day of the opening and you leave us with all of the work it should be also yours? We are a family down at the gallery and you have no right to fuck that up with your precious control” his voice started to raise “but let me tell you one thing: one day you are going to have a cock so deep in you that you’ll feel it on your tummy, fingers messing with your button and a tongue down your throat and you’re going to find down there is more to life than your precious control” 

He turned his back and finally said: “Get out of my house, I’ll call Lovelace and ask her to fix the Semmel for me.  I don’t think I will go to the gallery until the opening, I can’t look at you when you’re looking at me like I’m sick. If you want to stay, we all are going to welcome you with open arms. If you still  want to learn how to let go of your prejudice like you said it to me yourself: I’m here. But as long as you are judging us and messing with people's hard work: I can’t look at you.” He gave her one final look and opened his mouth one last time: “do me a favor and only go Saturday if you are willing to try. If that’s not what you want it’s not fair to you to continue to suffer what our daily works entails. And it’s not fair to us to be kept on the fence if you’ll stay or not. And it’s not fair to me to be lead on and think I have a chance of  you being mine” 

And with that he left the room. Letting Lavinia alone with her own thoughts. She had to get of his house. She need to talk with someone. 

She needed Jeannie Lovelace. 

.

She knocked one time. 

Nothing.

Another.

Nothing.

One more time and Lavignia would go home and pack.

The door was opened. 

“Darling, are you alright?” Said Jeannie Lovelace. She was with a beautiful black silk skirt, barefoot and a simple white shirt: “I thought you and Harry were going to spend the day together. Come in, come in” 

She went inside still paralyzed. Jeannie lead her towards the nearest couch (the heart shaped one) and said: “Laviginia, do you want a hug?”

She hugged the old lady that smelled like lavender. She felt at home. She cried.

“What happened? Do I need to go and kill Harry?”

“I think I’m the one that needs the killing” and so she begging the story. From the time they met, to all the flirst, how Harry tried to help her to feel at home and more comfortable with her own skin and nature. Told about the flirting and the night before. And then… told her about what happened just a few minutes ago. When she was done, Jeannie looked at her and finally started to talk: 

“Lav, I don’t think he was right to say those things, but I don’t think you were right to judge so harshly. You know, we are what life made us” she paused “I can’t talk about you, I just met you. I hired you not only because of your knowledge and because we needed someone with your background, I could easily get somenome from Rome for that. But it was because I trust my instincts and it felt like there was a little fairy whispering to me ‘she’s the one you need’. I don’t know how much do you want to open up, but I’m here” 

Lavignia opened her mouth without even thinking “do you know why I was in Paris? Because after I graduated my father told me that now that I could say I was educated and fulfilled my ‘feminist dream’ I should go back to real life and marry. He wanted me to marry the neighbor, by the way. When I said no, he just told me to leave. I still had a bit of money and one of my classmates was French, so that’s where I went.” 

“You know, for someone that is so afraid of life, you are quite brave” 

“So I’ve been told” she paused “but… how will this fix the shit Ihave done to him?” 

“My darling, he is no stranger to heartbreak. He is a free spirit, yes, but he longs to have someone to be free with him. There was something about you that made him feel enchanted, the same way he was some time ago with that girl… but she wasn’t the one for him”

“But I have done the same thing: I was quick to me judgmental with him” 

“There is a huge quote by the one and only Anaïs Nin that goes like this: ‘You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken’. Do you understand that, darling?”

“I do. How do you remember so much of this big quote?”

“Because it was thanks to this book that I woke up. You see, my family had same expectations for me. But imagine that 40 years ago… women barely could go to university. It was - still is, sadly - a man’s world. But, day by day, we can get our space. And that’s in everything, including sex. Don’t be ashamed to own your power. Own your body. Give your life everything what it deserves. Think of you first. And… when you find out who you are and if that person wants people like us as your friends, will be here. If you want Harry to be with you, he will be. And he will take you on your craziest adventures because come on… he’s an aquarius” 

“I’m a Libra” 

“It’s a good match” Lovelace laughed “would you like some wine? I was about to drink some rosé?” 

One hour later they had bruschetta and one bottle of wine almost finished. She was listening to Lovelace talk about her adventures and, unlike last Monday, she was lovin’ it. That woman had such good stories. 

Maybe was the wine but Lavignia finally had the courage to ask: “Do you think Harry will forgive me?” 

“Darling, the moment you said yes to the wine, I know he will forgive you” 

“Why?”

“Because you stayed”

.

Day 5: sunlight 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Semmel#/media/File%3AThe_Jewish_Museum's_Wikipedia_Edit-a-Thon_20.jpg

Lavignia woke up with the rays of the sun hitting her face. She looked at the window and it was completely opened. Didn’t she close it last night? 

After all the drinking and talking with Jeannie, she called her a taxi so she didn’t have to ride the bus alone and slightly intoxicated. 

Looking at the clock she had beside the mattress on the floor - she really didn’t have time to make her complete move just yet so her small loft was quite simple: off white walls, a dresser, a kitchen, her mattress and a little door to the bathroom with a a bathtub. There were boxes all over the floor, the Sunday after the opening she would fix everything, maybe paint the walls and get a few posters: one of Stevie Nicks, one of Frida Khalo and one of Bridget Bardot: her most divine life examples. 

Looking at her door, she saw her blue knee high boots and her purse and inside her purse she could see just a little bit of the light pink and blue book cover. 

Maybe … she could? 

She really didn’t want to get up so she crawled towards her purse and got the book. She could imagine his reaction to her crawling for something of his. 

Back to her bed, Lavignia was lost looking at the book cover, trying to catch all of the details. One side was blue and the other pink. The front cover he had the name “Fine Line” and there was a drawing of him laying down, naked. But you couldn’t see nothing, just the contour lines. Nothing else. At the back of the book there was a simple quote: 

This is a story about my journey. 

The one where I found and lost love. 

But I found myself. 

Do you know who you are? 

As soon as the book was opened, Lavignia found the dedication, it was for his mother and Jeannie - who he calls his American mother. Then, there was a list of 15 poems and prose with the number of pages next to it: the cherry tree sonet, I saw an angel; from the hallway I write you this poem; don’t call me baby, again; the fruits of your body; the lights; golden as the sun; adoration; sex is medicine; summertime and butterflies; from Tokyo, with love; the little gallery. 

What was better? Reading the book from the beginning or do just like Harry did not even 24 hour ago and choose randomly. Lavignia went with the later. This time it was a little prose:

Adoration 

I like the love language our eyes share. When we are so together laying in bed with the sounds of the city having a conversation behind the windows. We are so close that I can feel our lashes touch. Do you know I adore you? 

There are words you can’t say yet. And I understand, darling. You don’t have to say you love me. But I have to tell you: I adore you. 

Please, let me adore you

I adore you 

I love you 

Reading this made her understand more about him. Lovelace wasn’t lying when she said Harry feels everything to its maximum. He was so pure when it comes to the matter of the heart. She felt so guilty for how she treated him. But she knows that at the time she was a different person than she is now, just a day later. All thanks to Jeannie and her Anaïs Nin quote. Wanting to read another, she opened the book in a random page, this time it was a poem: 

The fruits of your body 

From the tangerine smell of your body 

To the dreams I have of your lipstick 

It’s strawberry lick, isn’t?

From the way you hold my body 

To the way you make me love it

It’s sultriness, isn’t? 

From taste of watermelon 

That slips all the way down your legs 

I suck it all up. Don’t I? 

From the way you make me grow

To the way you make me shiver 

I’m at your feet

Yours. 

Yours while you’ll have me. 

Yours. 

As long as the fruit season lasts. 

I hope it lasts forever

The more she read, hotter she felt. It was never like this. She ripped her dress off. She ripped her underwear off. She wanted to get off. For the first time. 

But how? 

And then she remembered something a certain curly haired man with a mustache told her: “think about it when you’re alone”. 

That painting. That damn painting. All of the art pieces she looked this week. The smell of him. The way his body moved. The way he looked at her. She was on fire. The sunlight coming from the window ignited the fire on her body. She was finally on fire. 

Looking down at her body, knowing she was treasure map, ready to be discovered. So her journey begins:

A light touch to her neck, with the tip of her finger. The heat grows inside. Her breast so full of desire: she grabbed them. Massages them. Pinching each one of her nipples. Changed the pressure. Moaned and arched her body. She needed more but she didn’t want to stop her exploring, so she raised to her knees, getting one of her pillows. 

Right between her legs. With her hands getting acquainted with herself she rolled her hip and thought of green eyes watching her. Would he have a smile on his face? She hopes so. Because she is so fucking proud of herself. She was a queen in search of the pleasure she never had the right before. 

Her body. Her pleasure. Her orgasm. 

When she got tired from riding the pillow she laid down again. Her hands went to her heat. And she touched and touched and touched. 

And then… sunlight. She was covered in light. She was the sunlight. Her body reactions is like a morning light: beautiful and so unique. 

When she had finally calmed herself she looked around. And something just clicked. 

Getting up and taking a shower was the first thing she needed to do. Then… Lavignia would run as fast as she could to the gallery: she knew what to do about the opening. 

Day 6: perfume  https://fineartamerica.com/featured/perfume-1910-luigi-russolo.html

Lavignia was going to have a syncope. She was sure of it. The sun was finally setting but it was still hot. Hotter than ever. And if she didn’t hurry she was going to be late for the opening. 

The silk white dress Lovelace gave her was from her own wardrobe. “From my peach days” she called. The dress had thin straps and it reached mid thigh with a fringe assuming the rest of the outfit till it reached her ankle. It was a true fastidious dress from the 30s. And she felt in character. 

Just the day before Laviginia stayed back at the gallery till almost 3am together with Jeannie and Vanessa (and Cathy, she got there with dinner for them and stayed to help). 

It was hard but the moment she told her idea, Jeannie and Vanessa fell in love with it. It was original and so in touch with everything the gallery stood for. 

Sitting on the bus she looked at the the street. It was almost night time and people were starting to begin their Saturdays festivities. Lavignia felt her stomach turn and turn, the closer she got to the bus stop the more her nerves were making her crazy. 

She was going to do the presentation. Yes, that was Jeannie and/or Harry’s job. But well… it would be a miracle if he showed up today and Lovelace said it was all Lavignia, so she is the one that making all the talking. 

Getting out of the bus was easy. Finding her around the streets that lead to Mattina ed Estasi was easy. There was music and people talking loudly. From the window of an old building she could see the shadow of a couple making love. 

But the moment she saw the red Harley, nothing was easy. Her heart was beating fast. Harry was already there. He probably saw the way they fixed everything. Just the paintings with a small description to it. The order didn’t offer any technical logic. Maybe he was mad. Maybe he was curious. Maybe he was just as anxious as she. 

But Lavignia knew she wouldn’t get her answer if she just stood there. She had to walk through those doors and face everything. 

She was ready. 

.

The moment she was inside the gallery she felt so proud of herself. Looking at all the pieces circling the space. Forming a cycle. A love and sex cycle. And four of those pieces where on the center stage: first is Sunlight, followed by Correggio and the Aphrodite, the gods and goodness deserved to be together. And, finally, the one she was so afraid on her second day of work but became one of Lav’s favorite art pieces to ever exist: the women with the black stockings. 

When she dressed today, she was inspired by the painting. But, instead of black, it was white. White lace and see through lingerie her friend from France gave her but she never had the courage to wear - till today - with white stocking. A little innocent gif, if Harry was willing to open when the night is over. 

And by the way… where is Harry? The opening was only for another hour and she knows she was the last one here. 

“Oh, you’re finally here. Good” she heard Nessa’s low voice. Dressed in a black glittery jumpsuit with wide legs and a heart shaped cut in the chest area. Looking like the disco goodness she was “Lovelace was getting worried. You look beautiful, by the way” giving her a small kiss on the cheek she continued “I have to go and see if all of the catering is ready but Lovelace and Harry are upstarts. Any second now… okay?” 

And she was alone again. But not for long. 

She could smell him before she could actually see him. The same vanilla and tobacco. But if Lavignia thought she was feeling a little bit woozy with his smell. Nothing could prepare her for the outfit he choose: white trousers and tank top with a white blazer. Something John Travolta would wear. He had a bit of scruff but his mustache was still the first thing she noticed in his face, together with the pink sunglasses. 

Harry was looking at her, frozen at the top of the copper stairs.  

“We match” she said about the all white assembly they both were wearing. 

“You came” 

And he gave her a small smile. Maybe not everything was lost. 

.

Even with their little exchange, Harry hasn’t talked to her. The opening was keeping everybody busy. There was photographers and journalist to entertain. A lot of people from the villa, too. 

From the corner of her eye, she could see Jeannie in her bright pink spaghetti dress talking to Angelino. He was wearing a blue velvet suit. They fitted together. 

The clock read 8:47 pm, more 13 minutes and she would go to the little stage and do the presentation. She was nervous. Lavignia was in need of a drink. 

As if he heard her thoughts, Harry got closer to her for the first time in the evening with a champagne glass:

“You look nervous. Everything is perfect, you can relax” he said, with a faint smile. Up close she could see the birds tattooed in his chest “and don’t you look quite dazzling tonight” 

“Thanks. You look quite handsome yourself” accepting the glass and taking a big gulp, her shoulders finally relaxing a bit “I’m nervous about the presentation” 

“Don’t be. Lovelace always dazzles everyone. And I’m quite curious to find out why she chose this order to present the works” 

He didn’t know. 

“She didn’t. I did. And I’m doing the presentation. I’m so nervous” Harry looked at her with shocked eyes. Then he looked around. Then back at her, finally taking his glasses off and looking right inside her eyes: 

“Then can you help me make sense of everything?”

“I think I’ll let you find out with the rest of the people here” 

“Why are you teasing me so much? I wouldn’t do that” 

“No, you would do worse” she looked at him with a glint inside the honey color of her eyes “actually, I think you will do worse to me, one way or another” 

“Depends, if you’re a good girl then it won’t exist any teasing. So come on… enlighten me. Tell me why everything is organized like this” 

“It’s a story. And that’s everything I’m gonna tell you right now” even with their light conversation, Lavignia felt like there was an elephant in the room, so she finally decided to talk about it “can we talk? You know… about what happened?” 

“After this, maybe?” 

“Why aren’t you upset with me? I thought I would have to get on my knees and beg for you to talk to me today” 

“You stayed. The moment you decided to stay, I decided to give you a little bit of my heart. But after the presentation, we can steal a bottle of champagne and go to the office upstairs” he took the bit of her hair that was loose and fixed behind her ear “about getting on your knees: you still can, darling” smiling he gave her his own glass “and there is my favorite embarrassed little girl. Now drink, Jeannie is going to the stage right now,  your presentation will start soon. 

The anticipation she felt about the promise of an “later” with Harry was only bigger than the wheels that were turning inside her stomach. Lovelace was getting up on the stage, god she was going to die. 

“Ladies, gentlemen and everything that is in between, good night and welcome to our new exhibition: Love and Sex” people were clapping and shouting “Before telling the story behind those pieces, I wanna thank Angelino, from Villaggio dell’amore, for making such a delicious dinner for us. Also I would like to thank Vanessa, she works for the gallery since 1975 and since she got here, we only got better the same goes to Harry “she said posting her glass towards Nessa then Harry “you not only came here and invested in our little gallery but you gave us so much more, most of the pieces from today wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. You had this idea and with our little help, we created this magic. So thank you” he raised his glass and say something in Italian that she couldn’t quite pinpoint with all the clapping. 

“Now, not long ago our family got a new member. She came here with her doubts but the moment she allowed the pleasure behind the art envolve her completely, she changed this exhibit for the better and today she’s going to be the one to talk to you. Graduated in Arts in Communication and my new adoptive daughter: Lavignia” 

Harry gave her a small pat on the but like saying “you’re up”. 

When Lavignia climbed the three steps to the little stage, she could feel like she was shaking. When she hugged Lovelace, she was shaking. The moment she saw all of those people faces, she was shaking. But when she saw his smile, she wasn’t shaking. He gave her peace of mind. 

“Thank you, Jeannie, for the lovely introduction” he gave her a not “Welcome to Love and Sex, today, we are going to tell you a little story” 

“From the start of the day, we have this huge Sunlight, a piece from Joan Semmel. Sunlight here isn’t only the signal of a new day that begins. When we talk about Love and Sex, we also talk about the discover of yourself. Know your pleasure, own your pleasure. Make love to your own body. You will never get the meaning of true love or sex, unless you become acquainted with yourself. Inside out. That’s what Sunlight is about: is the vision of the artist upon her own body. When she loves what she see and knows each part of her; what makes her quiver and long. When she makes her own body shake with love and sex is when she is ready to discover the world. Because the moment you understand yourself, you can understand others without any prejudice or pride. The moment you allow yourself is when you can finally deliver yourself to the fogs of pleasure, so well represented by Correggio’s Jupiter. Because here Jupiter is desire, is temptation, it’s the deliver. It’s when you embrace the feeling of bliss. That’s actually why we put gods and goodness together, because when you look at Aphrodite, you want to be inside the piece, you want to be this woman that not only represents beauty but also love. It’s when the pleasure you search it’s at its peak. Orgasm. High. Whatever word you might want to call it” 

Harry was looking at her with attentive eyes. A proud smile. A promise of an later. Everything about the way he looked at her made her feel anything but ashamed for the things she was saying. She had a speech prepared. But she remembers nothing of it because the moment she was on stage nothing else mattered beside her feelings towards the pieces, at the end everything is about feelings. 

“And then, we finally have The woman with the black stockings; because sometimes you have the chance to find people whose intensity matches yours and you just want that person. You dream and you desire, because now, sex is not only sex but is also love. You fuck at 10 am but have slow sex in the evening. Whatever this person wants, is theirs. You are opening yourself. Not only literally but metaphorically, as well. And you can only hope this person doesn’t get scared only because you’re so open” 

The whole moment she was talking, people were walking around the artworks. But now, they were all looking at her. Now was the time to close her explanation and kiss her man, the same man that was so attentively looking at her and helping her since the first day. 

“If love is a prose, sex is poetry. From all the artworks I just told you all about it, they all share the same theme but are shown in a different way. From the fog that encapsulates the young woman in Jupiter to the woman with her open legs showing to her lover that everything that is hers is also his. Giving him the privilege to see her in such a tender yet sensual way. Because love and sex are privileges. You can have one without the other, but together they are powerful. Is a privilege because you can’t find that in others so easily. The ones that can see what pleasure is all about, that there is no shame in longing, in wanting, in quivering for someone but also recognize than when you do it all of this with love: Is irreplaceable”

Looking around she saw people with tears in their eyes. Lavignia was so proud of herself. 

“Is a privilege because not everybody can find that. A few people spend all of their lives without knowing the true pleasures of the flesh and others spend their lives wanting to be loved, waiting for someone to fit inside of them just like a puzzle. But, sometimes, all you need is you. The world is quite boring but some people know how to make it colorful, just like those artist that shows us the most inherent sentiment of the human race with the most primal desire of the human race. 

This, is love and sex. Enjoy your night. Thank you.” 

Lavignia could hear the applause. Lovelace went to give her a kiss on the cheek, Nessa and Cathy were hugging her, welcoming her to the family. Journalist wanted to talk to to her. She could see cameras flashing and unknown faces congratulating her. But her focus was in looking for him, and she found him: at the top of the stairs, with a bottle on his hand, he gave her a nod, pointing toward the office door. Lovelace, that was standing right beside her told her to go. 

.

The office had baby blue and white walls. That was the first thing she noticed. There was a bathroom and a big window showing the hot Italian summer night. In the middle of the room was a desk and sitting on that same desk, there was a man picking at his nails with a champagne bottle next to him. When he heard the door, he gave her a smile and stood up. 

“I thought you were going to ditch me” 

“No. Just had a lot of people wanting to talk. Sorry” 

“Nothing to be sorry for” he took a step closer to her “can I just start by saying how I’m so fucking proud of you? You gave such a nice speech and you made the theme so much better than what we initially thought. Cheers to that” he gave her a small smile and the bottle. Taking from his hands and drinking a big gulp, the sweet taste of the champagne that had notes of cherry filled her tastes buds. She gave him the bottle back so he could drink and asked him: 

“What was the message you took from everything?” 

“That love and sex is to let yourself go. As you said, it’s a privilege… and what a nice privilege” they were standing in the middle of the room, the sound of the party downstairs was nothing compared to the silent conversation that was happening behind every word they exchanged. 

Harry thought Lavignia looked beautiful with the lights from the night sky illuminating her beautiful face. It was only then and the moon. Their only witness was the moon. He wanted to get a paper and write everything he was thinking. Maybe he would named Her and the moon and would say something among the lines: even the moon takes chances in betting that our love begins tonight. Strong or weak. Happy or sad. 

But they still had so much to talk. So Harry decided to begin: “why were you so harsh to judge? Not only me but everybody here, actually” 

“I think I was intimidated by you. You came telling about your weekend and I could only think ‘he has done more in three days that I have done my entire life. And I don’t know I think when you mix that with the unknown, I ended up misjudging you. More than once. Even when you were always so open to me” she got the champagne, drinking some more “I’m so ashamed for how I treated everybody here. You and Nessa and even Lovelace that first night, drinking everything and passing out.”

“You don’t have to be ashamed, we are family here. And family forgives, right?” he pinched her nose “And yeah, I understand what you mean, we tend to fear the unknown. Were you really discussed by me? And the fact I like a little bit of everything?”

“I think I was jealous,actually.  And I hated myself for the feeling you gave me since last Monday when I saw you walk through the door. But I don’t think I was actually discussed, you know? Not at you, at least. Maybe at myself. It was hard to understand all the feelings I was having  and also understand that feeling all of this is okay” 

“I thought you were beautiful, you know? I was captivated by you since the first day. And we were always on and off during the week. There were days I thought you were finally understanding us and days I was sad because you looked at us as if we were monsters... exept when you start talking about art. That’s beautiful. You lose yourself in it.” 

She was so closer to him now, playing with his rings. Harry noticed little lines on her forehead, like she was thinking about something. 

“You seem like you want to ask me something”

“Do you still want to get to know me? Or have I missed my chance?” He laughed at that. 

“Of course I wanna get to know you.”

In that moment, both of them let go a relieved breath. It was crazy to think about how much could change in one week. Lavignia always thought you could only feel like she was feeling was you know someone for years, but sometimes you have the privilege. 

It was a brand new start, the Sunlight was a reborn for her. And now they were on the same page. They were both open. They both wanted a real chance. 

“Will you be patient with me?” She asked him 

“Always.”

“When are you going to kiss me?”

“When I’m finally inside of you”

“And when is that?”

“In a few hours from now, when the party has died down a little bit”

“I was thinking you were going to kiss me now.”

“Well... we can do other stuff, you know?”

“Like the painting at your house? It’s quite sensual” 

“Look at you. How do you managed to be able to talk like this in just two days”

“You can’t  see it because of the lack of light but I’m blushing right now but... you are right. I had to discover myself. Actually one of your poems helped me, and all of those paintings, they created a good picture in my head.”

“Are you saying you got off to one of my poems?”

She nodded her head. Affirmative. 

“Which one?”

“The one about the fruits”

“Fuck... you are making real hard for me not to kiss you right now”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m going to. Just not now. If I’m going to kiss you I’m going to do it right. Laying on my bed, with me inside of you. But it doesn’t mean I can’t do something to help you. I can see you’re squishing your thighs.” getting closer to her, he looked right inside her eyes, making her feel dizzy. 

“Tell me, darling. Ever heard about voyeurism?” Harry asked with his deep voice just above a whisper.

She was feeling dizzy. His perfume was increasing all of her nerves. The smell of vanilla marking her melt while the notes of  tobacco was igniting a fire within herself she never felt before”

He got closer again and grabbed her hips “I’m not going to ask again... ever hear of voyeurism?” 

She nodded her head. A negative. 

“Well...it’s when you have satisfaction of watching people engage in sexual situations” he said in a low whisper close to her ear, she was shaking. Harry was walking her backwards till her back was against the desk “I would love to see you hump this pretty table till you get lost in the feeling of a delicious high. And then I’ll take your wet panties from you and put it on my front pocket, close to the part that is aching the most to get to know you” he raised her to sit on the desk, opening her legs in a position her clit was resting on the cold and hard surface “then we are going to mingle. People are going to come to you and talk about how good your speech was. Cathy and Nessa are going to want to take photographs. Poor them, little they know my little girl is without any underwear, wet and waiting for us to get home” he started to help her move her hips on the desk. The first few waves of pleasure passing through her body like little flicks of energy “and then I’ll take you home and fuck you properly for the first time in your life, would you like that, darling?” She nodded her head and he gave her a peck in one of her eyelids “good. But, for all of that to happen I need you to do me a favor and come” 

“Won’t people hear me?” 

“And what’s the matter of that. We are not working anymore. We are enjoying a very sensual party, just like everyone else. And I can promise what we are doing here... everybody down there had done at least two times worse” she was hypnotized by him and his damn perfume “fuck it, right?” 

Fuck it 

Lavignia felt her hips moving more and more. Her toes were turning inside her boots. Harry was whispering dirty nothings close to her ear, leaving light kisses across all of her neck and chest. Holding her tights open, helping her move, sometimes moving his hips closer to her just so she could feel the promise of later. 

Harry let go her trembling body so he could watch her. Taking two steps back he admired her, her body was moving like an erotic dance, one of the straps of her dress was falling of her shoulder, showing him a little bit of the left breast that was covered by the thin fabric of the bra. And then… that was when he saw it: the white stockings. 

“Aren’t you a work of art.. I wish I could paint you right now, make Shiele quiver with jealousy that he didn’t get to capture you” 

She could feel her orgasm approaching, the little flicks of pleasure growing stronger the harder she rolled her hips on the hardwood table. 

“When we get home, I’m going to spread you open, I’m going to kiss and lick every single part of you. I might have to sell my soul just to not come to soon because my body it’s so hot for you. So so hot. Come on, little darling. Come for me” 

And she came.

 Like an avalanche starting from between her legs and making her whole body treble, forming incoherent words and losing its strength. But before she could fall off the desk, his body was back, holding her close and telling her to breath. Taking care of her. 

When she came down completely of her high he took her panties off. She was wide eyes when he smelled and said to himself something among the lines of “delicious”. 

This was only the start of tonight.

.

The wind was hitting Lavignia in the face, getting closer to his neck. His Harley was running around the Italian streets. She no longer felt ashamed for the thoughts going round her head in comparison to their first ride together. 

After their little encounter at the office they went downstairs holding hands. Getting funny looks and a thumbs up from Nessa and Cathy and a smile from Lovelace. 

They danced with people, looked at all of the artwork together for the billionth time, Harry introduced her to a designer that was at the opening and a few other people. When they noticed it was close to 2 am and people were leaving. 

They stayed to help to dismount the stage and be sure nothing happened to the pieces but Lovelace told them to go home. 

So now it was 3 am and Lavignia was taking advantages of her position behind Harry to stuck her nose in his hair and take in his smell. Maybe she needed to see a doctor. She was addicted to his perfume. 

When they finally reached his place, Harry gave her his key to open a little gate so he could park the motorcycle. She noticed that he had a very yellow BMW. 

“Not that I don’t like the Harley but how come you never drive this beauty?” 

“The gallery is so close from my place that I don’t see a reason why. But, I’ll take you for a ride anyday. How ‘bout that?”

She nodded her head while still looking at the car but the moment Harry touched her back, indicating to go in through the backdoor, she stopped everything to follow him. 

They were back to the black and white kitchen. Harry took of his white blazer, now only with the white tank top and the trousers. She could finally see his tattoos now. The naked mermaid, the ship. Lavignia was so hypnotized by him that she didn’t move from the door. 

“See something that you like, darling?” He asked putting the pink glasses on the table together with his blazer. Lavignia didn’t answer anything, closing the door, she walked towards him. Taking off her shoes and putting her purse on the table as well. 

“Can I get you anything?” He asked “some wine” she hugged his middle and nodded her head in a negative “or maybe water? Something to eat?” She noticed his smirk, he was living to tease her, but it was a week long teasing “little darling, if you don’t say anything I’m just going to keep asking. Put those pretty red lips up to good use and tell me what you want” 

“You made me a promise early tonight…” 

“Hey, come on… to be shy on me now” he was so close, the heat of his body could be felt in her back, he was closer and closer till… oh, he was already hard? 

“You said you were going to kiss me…” 

“I was going to kiss when…” 

“You…” she could do it, she could say it “when you are finally inside of me” 

“That’s my girl, come up”

He lead her towards the stairs. Lavignia wanted to see every artwork he had around the house but she was too focused on him (and his damn perfume). Soon enough they were in front of a dark wood door. 

His room had light pink walls, tall floor to ceiling windows and in the middle of the room a huge bed with a canopy. He told her to feel comfortable and she went to sit on the bed with her feet barely touching the ground. 

“Don’t you look pristine sitting all straight and proper. You can get more comfortable darling, I swear the bed isn’t going to bite you” 

He was kneeling in front of her, with both arms at each side of her body. 

“Why are you on your knees?” 

“Because I’m going to pray”

“I didn’t know people prayed before having sex” she joked

“Darling you can’t be serious”  she laughed and he was stuck admiring her but then she stopped at looked at the painting he had on the wall 

“Is that the 1910 painting by Luigi Russollo?” 

“Yeah, I like the way he uses his synesthesia to make the most sensual paintings” he kissed her cheekbones and started making his way down her neck, using his hands to fiddle with her dress. But he wasn’t done yet, we wanted to make her blush a little more “so… can I begging my prayer?” 

When she nodded her head he attacked her left breast over the dress, she was lightly moaning and he was getting dizzy. She was the best type of drug, every little thing seemed to me a new feeling for her and he wanted to watch her while she discovered more and more of the pleasures of the flash. 

“It’s too hot” she said is a whisper 

“Can I take of your dress?” Giving him a small yes, she helped him take of her dress, now, only in her bras and white stocking. She looked like a goodness, deserving its place with next with the Aphrodite back in the gallery. 

Harry used his hands to make her lay and opened her legs. He they started to kiss her legs, going up to the inside of her thigh, when she could feel his breath, he went to her other leg and made the same path. 

When he felt like both of her legs were full of loving,  he kissed just above her little point of pleasure, just to see how she would react. She whispered a little “stay” and he couldn’t wait anymore, he has to pray, he couldn’t delay it anymore so he just gave a full lick from her opening to her mound. Playing with her labia but never touching her clit, he wanted her swollen for him. Anxious for his lips, longing for his cock. 

Using the tip of his fingers, he was playing with her opening, but never actually penetrating her. When he thought she was getting loud enough, he started to suck at her clit the same moment his middle finger entered her. Using a come here motion, he found the button inside of her. 

Lavignia felt like she was in heaven, she was being adored by this man’s mouth and hands. She wanted more, she needed more. Trying to move her hips towards his mouth to get an even better feeling. 

Normally, Harry would hold the person down, but Lavignia looked like an angel and she had such a sweet taste. He just couldn’t so he gave her everything he could and let her take anything she wanted from his mouth and fingers. 

It didn’t take long till she was a trembling mess. Her release was sweet like honey and the most enjoyable thing to watch. 

While she was calming down from her high, Harry got up and took of his shirt, he was sweating too much. Then he help her up the bed and started to kiss her eyelids and comp his finger through her hair. 

“Hi” she said 

“Hey” he gave her a peck on the tip of her nose “do you want anything? Maybe water?” 

“No” she used her leg to press the tent that was appearing in his crotch area “I want what you promised me”

“Are you sure? We can do it tomorrow, I don’t mind if you’re tired. You came pretty hard” 

“Please, I want to feel you” 

“Okay” 

He was hers. Anything she wanted, he would give to her. So, her wish was his command. He stood on his knees and opened his pants never taking his eyes off of her. 

Lavignia was feeling her body burn so much. She was close to the point of hyperventilating, the moment she saw his member spread free. 

“No underwear?” 

“It gets in the way” 

When they were both fully naked (with the exception of her white stocking, “this one stays” he told her) and he was on top of her, he took one of her hands and asked if she has done that before. 

“A few times, almost five years ago” 

“I’ll go slow. Please, hold my hand and tell me if it hurts too badly” 

When she nodded, Harry got hold of himself and started to massage her with it, her clit, her labia, trying to get himself wet with her moisture. That’s when he remembered “on that nightstand I have a lube, it’s water based and smells like orange. Would you mind if I used a bit on both of us? It might help to ease myself into you” 

“Sure” she said with har breath starting to pick up again. So Harry for the bottle and warned her it might be a bit cold. 

Using the gel with both of his fingers, he got in easy, making the same come here movements and sliding his finger out with a “pop” sound. 

When he went to pass on his own dick, she stopped him and with a shy voice asked if she could do it for him. And he said yes. 

So she used both of her hands to be able to get his entire shaft and massaged him, up and down, squeezing when she got to the base and using the top of her finger when it was the head, all following his instructions. 

“Stop” he told her “if you continue I’ll come before we even start and I don’t think I can’t handle anymore” 

So, they were back to the same position as before, he on top of her, both of her legs were intertwined with his, his left hand on her right hand and they mouths finally close to each other.

When he started to enter her, she felt a small burn. It wasnt bad, but she isn’t didn’t knew if it was good. He was slowly easing himself and after a while she decided that it was a good type of burn. 

When Harry was all the way in he finally said: “I’m gonna kiss you now, okay?” 

It was a weird first kiss, but it was perfect. He was inside of her in more ways than he could explain. People say that when you have sex, even if it’s a one night stand, your essence connects with person, and they were connecting in a way that it was rare in any galaxy. 

Then he started to move, painfully slow, they didn’t have anywhere to go, that was no reason to rush. 

“You know, it’s not going to be good for my ego if I come too soon” he told her 

“After a week of reading I was hope for you to blow my mind not to blow your shot too soon” 

“Heeeet, that’s mean” 

He was loving it, he was having sex with the most amazing girl and they were still able to have that banter he loved so much. God, he was going to fall in love with her. He could feel it. 

After that, they let their bodies to the talking. She was moaning and so was he. It was sweet. It was hot. It was everything love and sex is all about. 

When they were done, Harry got them water from the kitchen and a banana. Then she wanted to do it again, so they did it, this time against the bedpost. When they were done, they talked for hours, finally getting to know each other. They feel asleep the sun was already high in the sky and there wasn’t any worry  or shame for her neither any pain for him. They were cured and were ready to begin another journey, this time with one another, another day, another sunlight. 

Day 7: a balcony in Italy https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Paintings-Bedroom-Balcony-In-Italy/1131921/4490457/view

She woke up alone inside the bed, completely naked with the exception of the satin sheets. There was a single sunflower resting on top of the tiny desk next to the bed with a simple paper that read: 

Good morning, bunny 

Get out of the room and take a left. You will find a round wooden stairs that will lead you to the balcony. I’m waiting you for breakfast. 

Getting a purple robe that smelled just like Harry she went upstairs, finding a suspended garden with all types of flowers she could think. There was an old table  that looked from 1930, on top of the same table there was fruits and pancakes. The sunlight was shining from the big balcony, letting the Italian summer fill their lungs and eyes. 

She found Harry sitting  on one of the chairs, wearing a green and white striped shirt with washed blue jeans. She could see he had shaven because there was no scruff but his mustache was still there.  Just from looking at it she feels a chill running down from her back till it reaches her most private parts at the memory of the same mustache passing across all of her body in his always there teasing manner. 

Harry didn’t see Lav at first, but he did listened to her footsteps. Writing something in his journal, not touching his food. Waiting for her. 

“You know... how long are you planning on staring at me? Should I get naked to make it better for you?” He said with a smile on his face, finally looking at her with a shine inside his eyes. One that hasn’t left since they made up yesterday. 

“Sorry I didn’t...”

“Bunny you can stare at me all you want. But I bet you’re hungry, so why don’t you come here and eat with me?”

Lavignia started to walk towards Harry but he stopped her: 

“Naked” that made her pause all of her movements. “Take of your robe love, and come and sit on my lap. Let’s eat together, shall we? I wanna be close to you” Messing with her tangled curls she looked around and at the balcony: what if someone sees me? 

But it only took one look at Harry to know that there is no problem because even if someone sees them: fuck it, right? Isn’t that what she learned from this crazy week?

So she took off her robe, trying to look Harry in the eyes, no matter how much she wanted to look at the ground. Walking towards him, she won a beautiful smile as a present for her courage. 

Now, on his lap, with her back against his front, she relaxed. Maybe was his smell - the fant reminder of the perfume and sex - or the way he kissed the back of her neck and passed his hands through her hair. 

“So what do you want?  We have coffee,orange juice. Bread and eggs. Pancakes and fruits.” 

“Isn’t a bit late to be eating breakfast? It’s almost 3 pm” 

“I mean... we did go to bed almost 8 am. And I see there is nothing bad with having breakfast for lunch” 

With that Harry served her first (she wanted strawberries and pancakes) and then choose a slide of watermelon to start his meal - god knows how much they needed to eat after the night rolling around the bed. 

“How did you have the time to make such a big breakfast?” 

“Oh, I only made the pancakes” he said using his free hand to caress her right thigh “was planning on getting you breakfast in bed, and all of that. You know how smitten I am with you, bunny” he gave her a pitch on the cheek but continued talking: “But Lovelace sent this big breakfast as a thank you for the success that was the opening night yesterday. So I thought: change of plans. Organized everything here and left the note for you. But it didn’t take long because I don’t think I waited more than 20 minutes till you showed up using the robe even if I was very clear that you should come naked” he said giving her a funny look, pretending to be disappointed. 

“Well... I don’t see you being naked” 

“That can be arranged in 30 seconds, if you want” 

She laughed and they continued to eat, the only sounds they could listen was the birds and the faint radio from someone outside, playing a romantic yet cheesy Italian song none of them ever heard. 

Harry was using his free hand to tease her. Pressing his leg upon her mound. She was getting wet, feeling the heat of June so much hotter than actually way,  like she was inside a stove. 

“So, is here that you and your...” Lavignia was curious about his miscellany in bed, but she didn’t want him to feel mad or think she was jealous, she was just curious “guests “yeah, she choose the right word “here to refresh?” 

Harry laughed: “my guests never actually even been here or my bedroom” 

“Oh, so I’m different from all of them?” 

Harry turned her around on his lap,  with both of her legs each side of his waist. He took her head in both hands with a serious look: 

“From the moment I saw you I was captivated. When I noticed how different you were I was so afraid you wouldn’t give me a chance because I have had my fair share of broken heart: from being cheated on to people who just said I can’t imagine the father of my children dressing the way you do all of that hurts, you know? I always give everything of me to the world but I never see the return of something that could be meaningful. And I think you mean something. I know you for only a week but there is a piece of me that wants to get to know you, fuck, even if you didn’t wanted to try and open up for life I would still find a way to be in your life either way. There is something inside those honey colored eyes that made me get so lost inside of them that I started to talk so much nonsense the day we met” he shook his head in a sign of denial “ I know I am a bit out of the usual guy but the first thing you heard from me was about a three way I had just the weekend before, that is no way to met someone you would wanna take out on a date, right” 

“No. I was intimidated. I still am. There is so much I don’t know about the world and I only found out when I walked through that gallery door.” 

“I think we balance each other and I can’t wait to figure it out more of us. If you want” 

“I would like that” 

“So, can I take you out on a date?” 

“Isn’t this a date?” 

“No, I wanna proper wine and dine you. Maybe take you to the movies. Fleetwood Mac is coming to Rome next month, we can have a little weekend getaway together” 

“Okay. You can take me on a date” 

He kissed her with fire in his soul after this. He was so used to being used just for his body or people with the dream of being one of his muses. And now he finally had a chance to start something amazing with this shy girl who is thrust so much in him. 

“Good. Now that is settled, I wanna try something.” 

He raised her up to her feet, opening his pants just enough to free his semi erect cock: “come and sit on me” 

She looked at him with questioning in his eyes: “what about breakfast?” 

“We are going to eat breakfast, come on” and with that she carefully sat on him. Both of them growling. 

He took her plate and gave her a bite of the pancake. Everything seemed surreal for her: he was growing bigger inside of her and she was getting wetter. Every time she tried to move to get a bit of friction he would stop her. So there was only one thing for her to do: accept the food in her mouth and watch when he took bites of his watermelon looking at her. There was just something so erotic about everything. 

“You know” Lavignia said when they were done and Harry rested their plate on the table “you are stuffing me full both ways right now” with that joke they started to laugh together 

“One week ago you wouldn’t say this” Harry noted “I’m proud of you bunny. So proud that I’m going to give you a reward. 

She looked at him, questioning. But he just took his hand and tapped her lips saying: 

“Open up” she opened her mouth “tongue out” 

And he did what she wasn’t expecting but it wasn’t a surprise at all: he sucked her to the inside of his mouth. Using his right hand to pull her hair while the other was getting down her body. 

“Tastes just like strawberries, so fitting for this summer evening” He said before going in for more. 

They started to kiss and his fingers were playing lightly with her clit. Never giving the pleasure necessary but always there... remembering her of the feeling of him inside and outside of her. 

The more they kissed faster he would move his hand in her intimate parts while the other was manhandling her, with a strong grip on her hair, she couldn’t move. She was completely at his mercy. 

When they both couldn’t take it anymore, Harry got hold of her hips, lifting her up and slamming her down his body, sending sparks through both of their bodies. 

In that moment, she was stuck with the feeling of him he was the only thing that mattered. If someone could see them from the balcony: so be it. Even being on top, he was the one making her move. She couldn’t wait till the day she’d have the courage to be the one in charge. 

“I’m not gonna last long” said Harry “sorry” 

“It’s okay...” she said moaning. She was close to coming but from the sounds and the beating of Harry’s heart against her own: he was closer. Following her instinct she started to roll her hips every time he slammed her down, biting his neck and moaning in his ear: just for him. 

It didn’t take long till Harry’s movements got a bit out rhythm so she said: “fill me up, come on. I need to feel you, to see you” 

Harry was a goner. Closing his eyes and opening his mouth. He looked like an angel, if angels could be naughty as him. 

When he opened his eyes, there was this adoration inside the way he looked at her. It was so loving that Lavignia said a little “oh” when he simply got up with her on his lap,used his hand to get whatever was on his way and her threw her on the desk, in the middle of the food, books, flowers. 

He got down on his knees, looked at her through hooded eyes, mouth close to where she needed him the most and said: “second breakfast”

And third. 

And forth. 

The end

Oh, God, this was almost one moth of work and I’m so glad it all turned out just like I wanted, but first, i need to thank someone.

This fic exists thanks to the book “Woman, myth and godness”, it’s a book about the represetation of the woman inside arts, literature. It was how I found out about Sunlight, and fell in love with the concept.

And last but not least: I decided to use an OC because she had such a strong personality I needed to give her a name. If anyone is curious the faceclaim is a south american singer from the 70s called Gal Costa, so yaaay for poc charecter.

Anyway, I hope you guys like it!

[alj4890]

Choices September Challenge

Day 16 I'm Sorry

(Thomas Hunt x oc*Amanda) in a Choices Red Carpet Diaries/The Royal Romance Crossover drabble.

A/N This is actually a fic I have had sitting in my draft folders forever. Someone a while back requested another first time meeting gone horribly wrong for this OTP and I kept getting stuck on the ending. Once more, let’s get these two stubborn people together, LOL!

@choicesseptemberchallenge20​ @xjustin-ethansgirliex​ @lovealexhunt@lxaah11​   @alleksa16​   @penguininapinktuxedo​   @blackcoffee85​   @stopforamoment​     @hopelessromantic1352​     @krsnlove​     @annekebbphotography​        @hopelessromantic1352​   . @sunflowergirl05​   @desireepow-1986​  @greywitchyshots​   @moodyvalentinestories​  @emceesynonymroll​   @my-heart-beats-for-ya​ @aworldoffandoms​   @ab1901​     @lolablackwrites​     @flyawayboo​   @i-bloody-love-drake-walker​   . @trappedinfandoms​   @kate-mckenzie​

Masterlist

Great Expectations

Olivia quirked an eyebrow in question as Amanda walked into her suite.

Instead of the usual calm, sweet greeting followed by an attempt to coerce her into doing something fun, Amanda threw her purse across the room and let out a strange, strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like a string of curse words trying to be smothered by guilt.

"I would ask what is wrong, but I assume you are about to tell me." Olivia drily remarked.

"Remember when I was excited that Maxwell invited us all to come here and see how The Royal Romance movie was going?" Amanda asked.

"I believe I recall you skipping down the palace halls." Olivia responded.

Amanda narrowed her eyes at her. "Well, the skipping is done." She flopped face down on Olivia's couch. "I hate everything here." She mumbled into the cushions.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Must we succumb to overly dramatic behavior?"

Amanda turned her face toward her. "Are you seriously asking me this when just last week you threatened to throw every dagger you had at the waiter for accidentally calling you Madeleine?"

Olivia flicked her hand dismissively. "Details." She sat down in a chair across from her friend. "What happened?"

Amanda closed her eyes. "It all started this morning."

****************

Around 8 a.m., The Beverly Wilshire...

"Wake up!" Maxwell burst into Amanda's suite and proceeded to jump on her bed.

"Wha?" Amanda rolled off of it in a tangle of blankets. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to get ready and go to the studio." He leaped off her bed and went straight to her closet. "Hmm." He pulled one dress out after another. "Is this all you packed?"

Amanda stumbled over to the closet. "Why are you going through my clothes?"

He finally settled on a skirt and sweater. "I need you to go to the studio and give this to Thomas Hunt.” He held up a large manila envelope. "Within this lies the very heart of The Royal Romance."

She blinked sleepily a few times. "Why do I have to do this?" She gestured toward his body. "You're already dressed and fully compos mentis."

His dimples deepened with his grin. "You shouldn't use Latin if you are trying to get out of this with the excuse that you are dumb with sleep." He gently pushed her into the bathroom. "Get ready. I arranged a surprise for you."

"What kind of sur--" her words were cut off by him shutting the door.

She dropped her head back in frustration while going through a list of reasons why she shouldn't crawl back into bed. It was then followed by a list of reasons of what Maxwell would do to get her to do this. After a quick three minutes of debate, she reluctantly started the shower.

****************

Olivia’s suite

"So, this is about making you get up early this morning?" Olivia snorted. "This is why I don't give my room keys to anyone."

"It wasn't that horrific event that cemented this burning hatred of mine." Amanda turned over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. "It was that jerk, Thomas Hunt."

Olivia did not bother to hide her surprise. "Wasn't he the reason you had that little hop to your skipping?"

Amanda closed her eyes. "They say never meet your heroes."

"He's a hero?!" Olivia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Does the man even know how to fight?"

"I don't mean that kind of hero!" Amanda muttered. She let out another strangled, frustrated sound. "I admired him. His movies are some of my favorites."

"And you certainly never shied away from admiring his underwear modeling days." Olivia artfully dodged to the right when Amanda threw a decorative pillow at her. "Wasn't there a poster in your bedroom at one point?"

“FINE! I THOUGHT HE WAS ATTRACTIVE!" Amanda shouted. "Today proved differently."

"Was he not in his underwear?" Olivia easily batted a second throw pillow away that was aimed for her face. "What did he do?"

****************

Earlier that day, at the studio…

"I've seen your picture in magazines."

Amanda smiled at the intern escorting her toward Thomas Hunt's office. "Hopefully, I didn't look like I normally do." She shuddered. "I take horrible photographs."

"I thought you looked pretty." The hopeful actress replied. "You and Queen Riley were laughing at Maxwell Beaumont."

Amanda chuckled at that. "So, a normal day was photographed?"

The girl's phone vibrated. "I have to go handle this." She apologized to the duchess. "Mr. Hunt's office is the last door on the left."

"Thank you." Amanda watched her leave, then pulled out Maxwell's packet for the script. "Why did I agree to deliver this?" She mumbled as she continued down the long hallway.

When she reached the door, she paused before knocking. Voices raised in what sounded like anger could be heard.

Not wanting to walk in on an argument, Amanda checked to make certain no one else was in the hallway. She then pressed her ear to the door.

******************

"You know I don't have time to cater to a rich, spoiled woman! Maxwell is now suggesting that I take this--" Thomas checked the text message once more. "This Lady Amanda on not only a more in-depth tour of the studio but also to some of the historical sites around Los Angeles." He slammed a drawer shut to help rid himself of his mounting irritation. "If I ever act remotely interested in another story from some playboy royal, you have my permission to have me committed to the nearest asylum."

Holly rolled her eyes at his dramatic outburst. "Then don't take her out. It's a simple fix."

"If Maxwell's unhappy then the studio heads will become upset." He explained. "Next, it rolls downhill on us." He glared out the window. "What right does this duchess have to demand I take her around as her glorified tour guide?!"

"It might not be so bad." Addison pointed out. "She must be important to Maxwell if he asked you to do this."

"Apparently she is his bff or whatever acronym he used." Thomas spat. "I would rather deal with practically anyone else on this planet than babysit some snobbish, probably doesn't even know how to act in public, idiotic woman."

******************

Amanda took a step bac from his door. Her heart sank at discovering the director she had so admired was in truth a spoiled jerk.

Her lips firmed in a frown as her anger slowly took over her sadness. 

“He--I’ll show--oohhh!” She gasped, unable to get a complete insult out. 

She took a deep breath and returned to the receptionist desk. “Something has come up.” Amanda explained. “Would you mind giving Maxwell’s notes to Mr. Hunt?” She nearly strangled on his name.

“No problem.” The young intern replied. She tilted her head in question. “Are you okay?”

Amanda nodded quickly. “I am.” Or at least I will be once I get away from here, she thought. I will NEVER spend a moment in that loathsome man’s company.

******************

"I don't think I have ever seen you this angry." Olivia's eyebrows were lifted in surprise as she observed Amanda pacing about the suite. "Why didn't you confront him?"

"Because I don't do that kind of thing." Amanda snapped. She quickly apologized to her friend. "You know I try and be nice to everyone." Her eyes narrowed. "Something about that man got under my skin. How dare he judge me without meeting me?!"

Olivia's lips turned up somewhat. "What will you do when we are all at the set tomorrow?"

"Maybe I shouldn't go." Amanda muttered. "I can't embarrass Maxwell by setting Thomas Hunt straight."

"Now I'm making you go." Olivia announced. "I think it's time you felt that sweet relief of finally unleashing your temper." Her smile grew. "You don't know what you have been missing all these years."

“We’ll see.” Amanda murmured. “Do you know where Maxwell is?”

“No. Why?”

“Because I am going to make sure that I am never put in the path of Thomas Hunt again.”

*************

The Blvd restaurant, The Beverly Wilshire...

"There you are." Amanda said between clenched teeth.

Maxwell looked up. "Hey! How did the meeting go?"

She sat down across from him. "Why did you decide to ask Thomas Hunt of all people to give me a tour?!"

His blue eyes widened when he realized she was upset. "Because you've always been crazy about him."

"I have not." She snapped, refusing to accept she remotely found the director anything other than repulsive.

"Really?" Maxwell folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. "I would like to present to the jury, exhibit A: The Calvin Klein poster of one man, Thomas Hunt, in nothing but boxer briefs." He shuddered at the memory. "I still suffer from PTSD whenever I see your closet door cracked open."

Angry spots of color appeared on her cheeks. "I was young and stupid and had horrible taste in men."

"Exhibit B: You own all his movies, including the one he has a brief cameo in." Maxwell continued.

"I own a lot of movies." Amanda muttered. "He just happens to make some."

"Exhibit C:," Maxwell pointed out. "When I told you, I had been offered a chance to have The Royal Romance turned into a film, you literally chanted that Thomas Hunt needs to direct until I talked to my agent."

"I wanted your story to earn critical acclaim." Amanda averted her eyes.

"Exhibit D--"

"Enough!" Amanda hissed. "I get it, okay?" She leaned forward, looking directly into his eyes. "Don't ever force me to--"

"Thomas!" Maxwell yelled out, waving toward the director.

Amanda felt her stomach drop when she felt his angry presence pause behind her right shoulder.

"Maxwell." Thomas greeted curtly. “I waited for as long as I could on your,” his tone hardened, “Lady Amanda, but she never showed up.”

Maxwell turned his attention to her. “You didn’t deliver my notes?”

"I did." Amanda snapped, her eyes darted to Thomas. "But I didn’t want to spend a single second in your company."

His eyes widened. "I beg your pardon, what--"

"I refuse to spend the day with a man who so readily judges a person without meeting them." Her chin lifted. "You made it quite clear this morning what you think of me."

Thomas remembered his intern bringing in Maxwell's notes. "You were the one who came by today." His temper snapped. "On top of everything, you listened in on a conversation that wasn't any of your business. Why am I not surprised?" He mocked.

Amanda moved quickly out of the booth until she was standing directly in front of him. Her eyes flashed as heated color flooded her cheeks. "It wasn't hard since you were yelling like a petulant child." Her mocking smile appeared. "I'm grateful that I found out what type of egotistical, judgmental, miserable old man you truly are before being forced to accept your escort anywhere."

"Nowhere nearly as much as I am." Thomas barked, stung by her insults. "I wouldn't escort you a single inch across this room. You've proven that I should continue to trust my gut instinct when it comes to people like you." He bowed in an exagerated insult. "Thank you, Lady Amanda, it has been a pleasure that I hope is never repeated."

Unable to think of a proper insult, Amanda’s eyes sparked with unshed tears. She didn’t want to give this wretched man the satisfaction of thinking he had hurt her to the point of crying.

Without a word, she shoved past him and quickly left the restaurant.

"I had that going differently in my mind." Maxwell said once Thomas sat down. "Maybe after she cools off, the two of you could--"

"Maxwell, there will never be the two of us if Amanda is a part of that equation." Thomas stated firmly. "I will never spend a moment alone with her."

****************

Olivia’s suite, again…

"You should have used one of the butter knives on him." Olivia told her. "I've trained you in the places on the human body that will cause the most pain."

Amanda sighed.

"At least you stood up for yourself." Olivia continued.

Amanda nodded silently.

"Don't tell me you regret this?" Olivia prodded at the lack of verbal response.

"I'm exhausted." Amanda finally said. "I haven't lost my temper like that in years." She ran her hands over her face. "I just stopped by to let you know I'm not going out tonight." She got up and gave a swift hug to Olivia. "Thank you for letting me vent again."

"Don't let that man keep you from going out." Olivia ordered. "Take a nap. I'll make certain you're not disturbed, and we can join everyone else for dinner."

Amanda neither agreed nor disagreed. She gave a halfhearted smile and left.

****************

That night...

"I want everyone who has a spare key to my suite to return them." Amanda announced at dinner.

Maxwell and Olivia ignored her request.

Drake quirked an eyebrow at her. "How many keys were you given?"

"I thought just one." Her eyes narrowed. "Yet, I've had no less than four people enter my room today."

Hana blushed and handed her key card over. "Maxwell told me to help with picking out a dress or two."

Riley slid hers over. "Me too."

"I appreciate the concern." She narrowed her eyes on Maxwell as he raised his menu up to hide his face. "But it is not necessary." Her bitterness then settled on Olivia. "Nor was the wakeup call."

The red head merely shrugged. "I'm not going to allow you to lock yourself away to wallow in guilt and misery over Thomas Hunt."

"I wasn't wallowing!" Amanda snapped. "I was sleeping because Maxwell woke me up after at practically the crack of dawn!"

"As soon as you awoke, you would have started the misery and guilt trip." Olivia calmly stated. "It never fails to happen once you lose your temper."

"It's true." Maxwell added.

Amanda slumped in her chair. All the fight left her. She knew they were right.

“Don’t worry about Thomas.” Maxwell told her. “Tomorrow, he’ll be so busy with the movie that he won’t even notice you’re there.”

*****************

The next day...

Thomas surreptitiously peeked over the script each time he heard Amanda's voice or laughter. Seeing her this way made sense that she was friends with the group whose story he was filming.

She wasn't the irrational shrew he had unleashed the day before.

She looked like a different person. Gone was her insulting temper. For some reason, he was puzzled by her appearance. She hadn't bothered to wear any jewelry other than a watch, which she kept glancing at. He expected her to dress according to her station. Yet she looked like she would easily blend in with a crowd.

He suspected that he would have spotted her immediately.

His eyes moved down her figure when the group followed Addison, leaving him to review today's schedule. Since their altercation, he had been unable to get her off his mind. He had even dreamed about her.

It was disturbing that he woke up in a cold sweat over her. The dream had him ending their fight differently. That was the last thing he wanted to do with her.

Thomas couldn't hear what she was saying, but the entire group were laughing at an observation she made.

He swallowed the last of his coffee and decided to get another cup as the group moved closer to craft services.

"Where are you going?" Holly asked.

"Coffee." He muttered, wondering why Amanda wouldn't look his way. He had expected glares the entire time, not being completely ignored.

“Three cups of coffee wasn’t enough?” she asked.

"What?" He asked.

"You've had three cups." Holly pointed out. "You never have more than that in the morning."

He couldn't think of a clever enough retort, so he walked off without a response.

"This might be my favorite part of filmmaking." Maxwell teased as he reached for one of the fresh pastries Addison offered.

Amanda's smile disappeared when Thomas approached. She moved away from the table, pretending interest in a prop, when he came along next to her for the coffee pot.

He glanced at her back, deciding to force her to acknowledge his presence. "Is there anything I can get you, Lady Bridgerton?"

Her shoulders stiffened. Without looking at him, she automatically responded. "No thank you." Before Thomas could say anything else, she quickly walked over to the set that was a recreation of the palace's hedge maze lit by moonlight.

Her lips curved. She was impressed with the attention to detail the film crew had done. She walked the familiar path, turning to see the swing she had spent a great deal of her childhood on.

Thomas appeared beside her.

She stubbornly looked straight ahead.

"What do you think?" He prodded.

"About what?" She responded, folding her arms across her chest.

"The soundstage? The sets?" He motioned around. "I know you were wanting to tour a studio. Does this meet your approval?"

"It does." She couldn't quite hide her excitement at seeing something like this in person. "I find it fascinating."

He blinked at her words. "I'm…glad."

She stiffened once more at having inadvertently complimented him and tried to get around the hateful man. "If you will excuse me,"

"Perhaps I can--"He began, surprised at the thought of trying to rectify her opinion of him.

“Good day, Mr. Hunt." She tried to escape yet saw that he blocked her path. When he seemed unable to move, she squeezed past.

Their bodies brushed one another, causing her to pause.

Their eyes met and she quickly wiggled free.

He watched her hurry off to rejoin the others.

Thomas tossed his untouched coffee in the garbage and returned to work.

*******************

A few days later, they bumped into each other inside the hotel.

"Lady Bridgerton." He gently grasped her arms. "Nice to see you again."

She grit her teeth. "Please stop calling me Lady." Her eyes narrowed. "Since I discovered your opinion on nobles, I know you mean it as a verbal jab."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Then what should I call you?"

"Amanda." She replied. "But I don't believe I will hear it often since we will never spend more time together." She smirked and left him.

He knew he was supposed to meet with Maxwell, but instead decided to follow her into the hotel's restaurant.

He talked the hostess into seating him in a booth beside Amanda's. He couldn't recall a time in his life when he desired to annoy anyone as much as he did her.

He settled his gaze on her after ordering a drink.

Amanda gripped her menu and purposefully kept her eyes averted.

After a few moments, she dropped her head into her hands. "Why are you trying to drive me crazy?" She practically pleaded. "You can’t stand me, yet you sit there on purpose to stare!"

"You never allow me to finish what I’m saying.” He countered, scooting around his booth.

“Why should I?” she snapped. “You are only going to hurl more insults my way.”

“How do you know?” He asked. “Do you dare presume to know my mind?”

She scooted closer, eyes narrowing. "You don't like me!" She hissed. "And I'm not too fond of you." Her eyes searched his. "Why are you trying to talk to me? I made certain to not bother you at the studio and have not returned each day when the others have."

Thomas propped his arm on the seat and leaned closer to her. "I don't know." His eyes touched on her hair softly curling toward her cheek, guiding his eyes to her lips. "But you have been on my mind." His eyes lifted to hers. "Perhaps it is because I have yet to meet the real you. I’ve seen you at your worst, and yet with those you care for…you’re a completely different person. Who is the real, Lady Amanda?"

"I assure you; this is the real me. Regardless of how irritated I am at the moment this is me!" She quickly thanked the waitress for her drink. "Now, I think we--"

"That we should eat together, I agree." Thomas rose and told the waitress he would be joining Amanda.

He slid into the booth, bumping into the shocked duchess. "I recommend the lobster frittata."

"I'm allergic to shellfish." She said in a stunned voice.

"Then I will order something else." He remarked. "I'll have the steak and eggs." He handed his menu to the waitress. "Shall we have a bottle of champagne with brunch?"

Amanda absentmindedly ordered the cheeseburger. Once they were alone, she settled back against the seat, intent on pretending she was dining alone.

"I'm considering taking time off once filming wraps up." Thomas announced.

"What about the sequels?" Amanda forgot about her plan to ignore him. "You aren't going to let someone else direct, are you?"

He shook his head, turning more toward her. "The screenplay for the second part hasn't been completed yet. Ryan and Chris both have obligations to other directors that they will complete in between the first and second part."

"I see." She tried to ease away from being so close beside him, but her skirt was caught under his leg. He apparently was not inclined to give up his hold on her.

"Amanda, have you been on any other tours?" He asked when she became stubbornly silent again.

"I have." She replied. Her smile held a hint of mischief. "Ryan took me to some points of interest."

Thomas narrowed his eyes. "Did he?"

"Yes." She propped her chin on her hand, attempting to have a dreamy far off look. "He was a perfect gentleman."

"He's seeing someone." He informed her, wondering at this new irritation he felt.

Amanda shrugged. "Like I said, he was a perfect gentleman."

"I expect to hear news of his engagement at any moment." Thomas continued.

"Then perhaps you should be drinking champagne with him." She kept a pleasant smile on her face. "For you and I have nothing to celebrate over."

"I disagree." He countered.

"Of course, you do." She pointed at his shirt. "I would call this blue, but I'm positive you would say it was another color."

"I always thought it was more gray than blue." He said to purposefully needle her.

She ran her fingers through her hair. "Of course, you would."

Their food was brought out and each focused on eating while ignoring the emotions the other was causing.

He poured her a glass of champagne then lifted his in a toast. "To expectations."

She searched his eyes for some hidden meaning then tapped her glass to his. "Cheers."

"What are your plans today?" He asked.

She set her glass down. "I'm going to see a movie."

"Really?" He slowly smiled. "What will you be--"

"There you are!" Maxwell walked over, his dimples deepening with his delighted grin. "I must have forgotten we were to meet down here."

Amanda took that moment to jerk her skirt out from under Thomas' thigh. She smiled with her newfound freedom. "I was just on my way out." She wished them both a good afternoon and escaped.

"I knew you two would hit it off." Maxwell boasted.

"And when exactly is that supposed to happen?" Thomas asked.

************

A few nights later...

"Everyone knows the drill." Maxwell whispered.

"Yes." Hana reassured him. "I spill my drink on Amanda."

"I drop a plate in Thomas's lap." Addison whispered.

"They are both forced to go to the master bathroom because I have food poisoning in the hall bathroom." Riley added.

"I get everyone to move to our suite." Liam added.

"I turn everything off." Holly glanced over her shoulder to make certain no one was near enough to hear.

"And I lock them in the bedroom." Maxwell announced.

"What about the phone situation?" Ryan whispered.

"Bastien is confiscating everyone's phone for security purposes." Drake explained. "And I have already removed the hotel phones from the bedroom and living room."

"You all have your missions." Maxwell looked around at his group. "Good luck."

Addison and Hana nearly bounced with excitement as they took their places.

****************

Thomas sat down when Addison insisted yet again. "I still don't see how this helps the crick in your neck."

She rubbed the side while rolling her head. "Because it doesn’t hurt tilting it down, only up." She huffed. "You're too tall."

She eyed Hana and watched as the graceful lady stumbled, splashing her glass of wine down Amanda's dress.

"I'm so sorry!" Tears filled Hana's eyes. She grasped Amanda's hand and dragged her into the bedroom.

"I have something that will help get this out before it stains." Hana made Amanda remain in the bathroom. "It's in my room. I'll be right back."

Addison waited patiently, keeping Thomas talking. She then saw Hana give her the sign.

"...and then we should--" Thomas jumped to his feet when Addison dropped her plate.

"Oh my gosh!" She exclaimed. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to."

He brushed her hand away and went toward the bathroom. He heard Riley's sounds of sickness and quickly backtracked.

"There's a bathroom in the bedroom." Maxwell pushed him toward it.

"Thank you." Thomas stepped inside and opened the bathroom door.

Amanda whirled around. "You startled me."

He glanced down at the red stain on her peach colored dress. "My apologies. We both seem to be the ones with accident prone friends tonight."

She wet a rag for him. His fingers brushed hers when he reached for it. Their eyes lifted to one another's.

Amanda looked away first. "You should take your jacket off first."

He shrugged out of it, thanking her when she offered to hold it for him. Thomas brushed at the different stains on his shirt and tie.

She did the same with his jacket.

The two worked quietly.

"Do you hear that?" She asked once the water was turned off.

He stilled. "I don't hear anything."

"Exactly!" The two hurried to the bedroom door.

It wouldn't open.

Amanda knocked on it. "Maxwell! We're stuck in here!"

Thomas leaned his ear against it. "There's no noise out there."

"I'll call someone to--" she twirled around. "Where are the phones?"

They searched throughout the drawers and closets. Nothing except a pair of pajamas and a nightgown were in the drawers.

"What is going on?" Amanda wailed, slowly backing away.

"I think," Thomas began, recognizing his pajamas from home. "that Maxwell and the others want us to spend the night together."

**************

After changing their ruined clothes, the two sat down on the bed. It seemed that Maxwell had removed the chairs that had also resided there. He had also had the television removed.

"Now what do we do?" Amanda asked. "It's only eight thirty."

Thomas tried to keep from staring at her in her silk nightgown.

She guessed that Riley and Hana had taken it earlier that day when they kept having her try on dresses. His eyes traveled up her legs --

"Why don't we talk? Settle this...whatever this is between us?" He suggested as she stood up to pace.

Amanda quit her agitated movements and sat down in a breathless huff. She reclined on the pillows and attempted to not stare at how sexy Thomas looked in pajamas. That little bit of hair flopping over his forehead softened his angular features, making her want to run her fingers through his hair as his lips touched--

"I expected you to be different." Amanda began, lowering her eyes. "I think this might be as much my fault as yours."

Thomas stretched out beside her. "What do you mean about expecting me to be different?"

She ran a hand through her hair. "I guess I expected you to be nice." She grimaced. "I thought we would get along. Perhaps become friends or...something."

"I see." He said softly. "And I ruined that when you overheard, that I was expecting the worst."

"Yes, I mean," she dropped her head back on the pillow. "I was so disappointed that you were like so many people I have encountered at court. That you were so set on disliking me…I just thought why bother even trying to be nice."

“Ah.” He snorted softly. “And in my preconceived notions, I decided you had proven me right.”

“And now we are being tortured by our so-called friends.”

He turned his head toward her. "I don't feel tortured right now."

She turned too and realized how close their faces were. "You don't?"

He focused on her mouth. Perhaps he was being tortured. "No, I actually like being around you like this."

"So not hostile or hurling insults at you?" She teased.

He surprised her with a sudden smile. "If we must make that distinction, then yes, I prefer this version to any of the others I have encountered."

Her burst of laughter made him scoot closer to her.

“I must admit, it has been exhausting remaining angry around you.” Her warm smile was focused on him for the first time. “You sir, have kept me on my toes during every altercation.”

“You have been a worthy adversary.” Thomas chuckled when she solemnly thanked him. “I haven’t’ wanted to annoy any woman as much as I have you.”

The pair became quiet in thought after sharing another laugh.

Amanda turned on her side and studied his face. "Thomas?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do you think we have been snapping at each other all this time?"

"You've been doing most of the snapping lately." He reminded her.

"I suppose I have." She admitted. "Why have you been chasing after me though since I have been, you know?"

"Cruel?" He offered. "Cold? Mean?"

"I get the picture." She grumbled. "I apologize for my rudeness."

"I told you once before I wasn't certain what it is about you, but I think I might have solved the mystery." He inched closer.

"And that is?" She asked.

"I think we have some unresolved sexual tension." Thomas waited to see what her response might be.

He didn't expect laughter.

"Hold on.” she said once she saw he was serious. "You find me attractive?"

"I did even when I despised you." He admitted.

Amanda blinked. "Oh."

He cleared his throat. When she still remained silent, he prodded her. "Any chance you find me attractive?"

"I do." Was her hurried response. "I mean, I always thought you were handsome."

"Being thought handsome is not the same as being attractive." He reminded her. "Do you find Liam handsome?"

"Of course, I do." She sighed, knowing where he was going with this. "And no, I am not physically attracted to Liam."

Thomas gently placed his hand over hers. "Then, should we use this time to test out the waters? See if the fights can cease once and for all after we discover what this is?”

Amanda slowly nodded. Before she could think too hard about all the ways this could backfire, he had pulled her flush to him. Her breath caught as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

His fingertips slipped down her neck and over her shoulder, sliding down before coming back up. She closed her eyes as he caressed her skin. His eyes followed his hand before flickering up to her parted lips. He closed the distance and placed a tentative kiss to them.

And then they knew why they had been fighting so much.

**************

The next morning…

“There’s no noise.” Maxwell whispered. He had his ear pressed to the bedroom door.

“Either they are asleep, or they killed each other.” Olivia hissed. “I’m hoping he is at least bleeding out in there.” She smacked Maxwell on the back of the head. “Why did you persist in putting them together?”

“Because I know what I’m doing as a matchmaker.” He grumbled. “If you would only listen to me about you and Dra—“

She put her hand over his mouth. “I’m warning you, Maxwell. Do not ever link my name with his again.”

Addison pushed between them and pressed her ear to the door. “I say we leave their clothes here and quietly unlock the bedroom door. “I don’t want to walk in on something I shouldn’t see.”

“Good idea.” Maxwell carefully removed the chair he had wedged under the doorknob. He then unlocked the door and jumped back in case one decided to open it.

As his coconspirators sneaked out of the room, he quickly jotted down an apology in case he had been wrong and slipped it under the bedroom door.

Just as he was about to leave, the note was slipped back with a response written.

You better book another suite for yourself. This one is ours now.

Thanks for locking us in together,

A & T

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange Masterlist 

A huge thanks to every person who signed up for our gift exchange, we got 18 really wonderful fics! For anyone who isn’t sure what this was all about, this was a double blind gift exchange where each of our eighteen (18!!!) writers were assigned four tropes from an anonymous recipient, and were tasked with writing a fic that fit our holiday theme, and included all the tropes. The only guidance from their recipient were a couple of brief notes they included during the sign up, and both the writer and recipient were revealed when we shared all the fics! These fics, as with all our Chopped fics, were creative and unique, and found ways to utilise tropes that may seem so simple in really spectacular ways! If this gift exchange, or any of our other Chopped events, have sparked your interest, keep your eyes peeled on this page for some future events we have planned, and sign up to join the fun! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these wonderful holiday fics!

Love to everyone who participated, Bailey and Sara <3 

Let it Snow (And I’ll Get Sentimental) [G] (Memori) 

Written by @mylifeiskara, for @hostagetakerandhistraitor​. The four assigned tropes were 1) friends made a bet, 2) one character kisses the other and the one who got kissed is shocked still, 3) amnesia AU, 4) ark AU (or any other AU where the story takes place in space).

All John Murphy wants for Christmas is for Emori to remember who he is.

Won’t let you go [G] (Clurphy) 

Written by sapphictomaz, for @vmreed​. The four assigned tropes were 1) childhood friends-to-lover, 2) grounder au, 3) tattoos, and 4) body painting

There is nothing shared in Clarke and Murphy's lives. They come from opposite clans who have a history of warfare between them. She lives in the jungle, while he calls the mountainside home. She celebrates the holidays by dancing the year away, and he does so by claiming dominance on another year that has passed.

They meet, anyways, and realize that sometimes, you have to make your own traditions.

Contained Constant Chaos [T] (Murven)

Written by @vmreed, for sapphictomaz. The four assigned tropes were 1) Post-Apocalypse AU (different from canon), 2) Found Family, 3)Hurt/Comfort, and 4) "You're an asshole to everybody else, but you're nice to me"

“Please don’t kill me.” He said, stupidly.

She raised an eyebrow, saying nothing, but offering him a box of tampons.

and i’ll die by your side if you want me to [T] (Memori)

Written by @dylanobrienisbatman​, for @justbecauseyoubelievesomething. The four assigned tropes were 1) based on a tv show (author chose Timeless), 2) soulmate AU, 3) fake dating, and 4) timeloop/groundhog day AU.

Murphy got tapped to come work for a special project after he was arrested for stealing a military vehicle right off of the base (long story). Turns out the special project... involved time travel... so theres that. About 6 months after he signed on, it all went horribly sideways, and now they were chasing their friends across history, trying to stop them from making a horrible mistake.

Thats how they end up in the middle of World War I France on Christmas day in 1914. Thats how she dies.

And then... somehow... the day begins again. Can he figure out a way to stop The Blake Siblings from wrecking history forever and also save the girl?

This Christmas, You're All That I Want (Just Don't Tell Anyone) [G] (Bellarke)

Written by @bellarkestitchdelena​, for @captaindaddykru​. The four assigned tropes were 1) Joke kiss turned serious, 2) The main ship must share something (can literally be anything), 3) Two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks to an event, and 4) Secret Relationship.

It all starts trying to prove Murphy wrong

Season’s Grievances [G] (Multi)

Written by @hostagetakerandhistraitor​, for @teeandsnowflakes​. The four assigned tropes were 1) a terribly loud crash and one of the characters yelling ‘IM OKAY’ from another room, 2) huddle for warmth, 3) found family, and 4) one character is ‘icy’ and slowly defrosts. 

Bellamy and Raven have been best friends for over 3 years. They found each other at their low points and bonded to turn each other into better people. But when Bellamy starts dating Raven's ex, Echo, things get icy. This is a story of family, friendship, romance, betrayal, culinary inaptitude, with a slight zest of things I wanted to be canon. Also a Blake family Christmas party.

Kiss Me Babe, It's Christmas Time [M] (Bellarke)

Written by @eyessharpweaponshot, for @shen-gong-oops​. The four assigned tropes were 1) One character has a child, 2) Characters are not together but are mistaken for a couple, 3) Terribly loud crash and one character goes ‘oops’ in a casual voice, 4) Two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks of the same event.

How long have you been in love with him? Seven years now?’ ‘Eight’ Clarke corrects him, her voice muffled through her hands as she cups her face. She’s still trying to calm her heart rate down. Murphy simply laughs, his amusement of this clear as day. ‘Don’t know what you’re laughing at. You were in the same boat with Raven’ Clarke reminds him. ‘Not for eight years, I wasn’t.’ Clarke rolls her eyes. She should never have told Murphy. The results of too much wine and being the last ones standing after a night in Grounders a couple of years ago. ‘Look, all I’m saying is it might be worth telling him’ he shrugs, leaning against the broom in his hand. Clarke gives him a pointed look. ‘Nobody is telling Bellamy anything.’

Christmas time, a harbouring secret and a festive get-together. The perfect combination.

where the love light gleams [T] (Murven)

Written by @teeandsnowflakes, for @kuklash​. The four assigned tropes were 1) meet cute, 2) first kiss, 3) surprise proposal, 4) pregnancy AU.

Raven hadn't been home for Christmas in four years, but the one year she did, she met Murphy, new in town since she had last been there, and learns a very important lesson about the holidays.

i know you can feel the magic we don't need to talk about it [T] (Bellarke)

Written by @captaindaddykru , for @eyessharpweaponshot​. The four assigned tropes were 1) exes, 2) jealousy, 3) protectiveness, 4) modern au. 

Christmas eve, Clarke's sort-of-ex shows up at her door in the middle of an awkward family dinner and so she ends up flashing him. Holiday spirit and all.

Dance Your Way Home [T] (Becho)

Written by @justbecauseyoubelievesomething​, for @dylanobrienisbatman​. The four assigned tropes were 1) historical AU (1920′s or earlier), 2) almost kiss/interrupted kiss, 3) holiday party, and 4) sunrises.

“We need to get you home. You’re freezing.”

Home. She has no home.

Everyone Telling You Be of Good Cheer [G] (Clurphy)

Written by @kinetic-elaboration​, for @hopskipaway​. The four assigned tropes were 1) amnesia, 2) found family, 3) oblivious pining, and 4) and mistletoe kiss.

“Merry Christmas, by the way,” Clarke adds, which settles that.

“You too. Merry Christmas.” He takes down Bellamy’s NYU mug without thinking, tries to shake the feeling that he’s no more than an extra in Clarke’s amnesiac version of Groundhog’s Day. That this is, somehow, normal. That he is not wondering, the thought like an invasive little jingle in his ear, what she thinks yesterday was.

The day after Murphy, Clarke, Bellamy, and Raven return from disappointing family Christmases, Clarke wishes that they could have spent the holiday together instead. A fall down the stairs, a bout of amnesia—and suddenly it’s Christmas again. And again. And again. Reliving the day puts even Murphy into the holiday spirit, and helps him learn to open his heart to his friends, and to the possibility of love.

3 Times Murphy Lost a Fight, and 1 Time He Didn't  [M] (Clurphy)

Written by @kuklash​, for @mylifeiskara​. The four assigned tropes were 1) 3+1, 2) Oblivious Pining, 3) Work Party, and 4) First Kiss.

Dec. 20th, 2003

"This party is gonna fucking suck, Clarke."

"Of course it’s gonna suck, Murphy, but if you want this job you have to schmooze," the blonde said with an eye roll. "The best place to schmooze is the company Christmas party."

A Little Brighter [G] (Bellarke)

Written by @shen-gong-oops​, for @bellarkestitchdelena​. The four assigned tropes were 1) Rivals to Lovers, 2) Arranged Marriage AU, 3) Pregnancy, and 4) Sunsets.

Taking a deep breath, he turned towards Clarke. "If I were to take up your father's offer for knighthood, please know, I do not wish to be the knight to the princess of all Arkadia."

Or: Bellamy takes a really long time to realize he's being a hypocrite.

when i’m feelin' alone (you remind me of home) [G] (Clurphy)

Written by @hopskipaway​, for @probably-voldemort​. The four assigned tropes were 1) royalty au, 2) marriage pact, 3) clumsy character, and 4) roommates. 

Within the walls of the palace, Princess Clarke of Arkadia lives a quiet and lonesome life.

That is, until John Murphy waltzes into her life and changes it forever. She’s not complaining.

sweet dreams of holly and ribbon, mistakes are forgiven, and everythin' is icy and blue, and you would be there too

make my wish come true [T] (Murven)

Written by @probably-voldemort​, for @kinetic-elaboration​. The four assigned tropes were 1) almost kiss / interrupted kiss, 2) holiday movie (as in being in a holiday movie), 3) friends with benefits, and 4) band au. 

It's been ten years since the Delinquents went off air, so clearly it's time for a reunion in the form of a Christmas special. Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to Murphy, too, but he hadn't seen the crew since Raven's wedding a few years back, and he'd managed to convince Kane that his character should have a dog, so there was no way it could be all bad.

Right?

Last Christmas [NR] (Bellarke)

Written by @bellarkeshoe​, for @hiddenpolkadots​. The four assigned tropes were 1) Exes, 2) Fake dating, 3) Kiss under the mistletoe, and 4) Modern Au.

Bellamy Blake never thought he would see Clarke Griffin again in his life. At least, not after the way things ended. He wished that things had gone differently because well, he cared about her. He loved her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He never even really got the chance to tell her that.

Everything happened so fast. One moment he is as happy as he can be, enjoying his life as a professor with an amazing girlfriend, and just like that, his world came crumbling down and over one huge misunderstanding.

But when they ended it, they both said some things they didn’t mean, or well he hoped she didn’t mean what she had said, he knows he didn’t.

But that is all in the past now, he can never forget about her, he still thinks about her everyday, but there is nothing he can really do about it. Clarke hates him for some reason and he doesn’t know if he’s totally over the fact that she ended things.

He is sure she had a good reason to. I mean at least that’s what he hopes. If the love they felt for each other was genuine and real than she should have had a very good reason to end things, right?

your eyes outshine the town, they do [T] (Bellarke)

Written by @hiddenpolkadots​, for @thelittlefanpire. The four assigned tropes were 1) magic au, 2) competing businesses, 3) secret relationship, and 4) kiss in the snow.

“I’m going to make you enjoy Christmas,” she tells him, her confidence in herself almost overwhelming. “I can’t do anything about the weather but I’m pretty sure I can handle the rest. By the time the season is over you’re going to love Christmas.”

“I highly doubt that,” he says, staring at her hard. “I may just tolerate it at best.”

“I’ll take it,” she says, “Bellamy Blake, prepare to have the best Christmas of your life.

or, sometimes christmas is you and your rival falling into a snowbank together.

Taste of Arkadia [G] (Bellarke)

Written by @thelittlefanpire​, for @bellarkeshoe​. The four assigned tropes were 1) Rivals to Lovers, 2) Character A catches Character B crying, 3) Modern AU, and 4) Competing businesses (author’s choice).

Before Christmas, the Chancellor of Arkadia charges his son with the task of repurposing the city’s warehouse district into a cool, hip hub for commerce and camaraderie.

At its opening, an impromptu competition among the many businesses in the area begin for the best spot in the ARK.

Take a read! Leave a kudos/comment! These fics are so unique and fun and the authors worked so hard on them. Thanks so much!

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Mads!! I was wondering if you had some thoughts on Bi!Wyatt because you write him so well and he is, uh, at least 50000% more interesting than I Am Wyatt Logan And I Am Definitely Straight!Wyatt. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF BI!WYATT FEELS

Oh. Oh you wanna know about Bi!Wyatt. Oh ho ho. This. This is gonna be fun.

AKA the Why Wyatt is Bi Meta That I Probably Should’ve Written a Year Ago But Didn’t Because I’m Lazy. BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUPS. THIS IS A FUCKING MANIFESTO.

This will be in two parts. The first will be my arguing why I think Wyatt is bi (pointing out examples that support my argument) and the second will be musing on why taking a character like Wyatt and making him bi is a more creative and interesting writing choice and gives him depth and complexity as a character.

PROLOGUE

Okay before we get started, people are probably wondering why I’m putting so much goddamn effort into writing about the possible sexuality of a character that managed to royally piss us all off for two thirds of an entire season.

Two reasons:

The first is that as I’ve mentioned countless times previously, Wyatt Logan isn’t a malicious person. He’s not a villain. He’s had genuinely good and loving moments. His toxic behavior actually makes him a wonderful example to people watching because it shows how otherwise good men can exhibit this behavior, and in my fiction I love to give him a chance to overcome that behavior and be the good and loving person that he can be and was meant to be. @brassmama once said I should start tagging all my fic “The Emotional Redemption of Wyatt Logan” and frankly, she’s right. That’s what I set out to do. Because to me, just hating on Wyatt and wanting to set him on fire is fucking boring.

also the amount of hate some of you show is concerning me are you guys okay?

Why hate when you can stretch your writing skills and give a character a thorough and well-earned redemption arc? Because shocking news, a lot of the toxic people we meet in our lives are not one-dimensional villains that we can dismiss. It’s not our job to fix them but by golly don’t you hope that they grow past that and become better people? I know I do.

Second, my anger at Wyatt isn’t actually mostly at Wyatt. It’s at the writers. It’s at the shitty boring writers who decided to just hand him his happy ending instead of taking the golden opportunity before them to give him a nice deep and complex redemption arc. It’s at the writers who decided to make him a toxic asshole in the first place instead of taking all his potential in season one and putting it to damn good use and making him a character who was interesting for all the right reasons instead of making him one who was interesting because he pissed us off. Two strikes means you’re out in this particular game, writers.

So. I didn’t come onto this goddamn blue hellsite in order to adopt Wyatt motherfucking Logan of all characters but since I am his mother now I am going to make him interesting and I am going to give him his emotional redemption and one of the best ways to do that is to make him bi so without further ado, here is a) why I think he’s bi and b) why that matters.

PART THE FIRST: LA PREUVE!!!

Before we get into this, I suggest that you quickly read my meta on why I see Wyatt Logan as submissive rather than dominant. It touches on some moments I’ll be mentioning here and helps to further round out how I see his character.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? With our favorite British spy, Ian Fleming, in 1x04. This is Wyatt’s reaction when he learns that it’s Fleming they’re dealing with:

“NOT NOW BONER!”

“Oookay that’s hot, he’s hot.”

“Oh oh oh he’s funny and cute aaaahhh”

“LUCY LUCY LUCY DID YOU SEE OHMYGOD DID YOU SEE WHO THAT IS AAAAHHH!!!!” *puppy eyes*

What’s important to note here isn’t just Wyatt’s reaction, but Lucy’s. Lucy is looking at Wyatt with a bit of fond exasperation–she’s saying “seriously?” Rufus has a similar reaction a moment later (although it was too quick for a screengrab, dammit). It’s like they’re annoyed, in a gentle friend way, by Wyatt’s behavior.

Note that Lucy’s geeking out and hero worship is never greeted with suspicion or fond annoyance by Rufus, Wyatt, and later on Flynn. Lucy’s hero worship and knowledge of historical characters is considered one of her strengths, because it allows her to get close to them. So why are Lucy and Rufus reacting this way when Wyatt hero worships someone?

Maybe because it’s not hero worship but, rather, a crush. Lucy and Rufus’s reactions much better fit friends dealing with their friend and the object of his affection.

We see this again in 2x2 with Wendell Scott. Scott makes what can only be described as a ‘sexy entrance’, throwing a man out of his tent and striding out while rock music plays, the camera panning up his body. *fans self* Oh hello sailor.

And the camera goes immediately to Wyatt who has THIS expression on his face right before saying breathlessly, “that’s…”

Wyatt then rushes in to defend Scott (who is just… hhnngghhh… sorry I need a moment that man is a Lot…) and shakes Scott’s hand with this look on his face:

If this isn’t the definition of heart eyes I don’t know what is.

When Scott compliments Wyatt, Wyatt blushes and looks away, pleased and embarrassed. Wyatt then spends the entire episode gooey eyed over Scott, and in a telling moment, tells Scott about his abusive father–private and intimate information that not even Lucy, Wyatt’s official love interest, knows about. It would make far more sense for Wyatt to tell Lucy about all this since she and Rufus are clearly wondering why Wyatt’s so knowledgeable about cars, and Lucy is Wyatt’s chief confessor at this point. Out of everyone, you’d think he’d be most comfortable telling Lucy about something like this.

But instead, he tells Scott about his father, clearly wanting to connect with Scott and be closer to him. This is something you see people do all the time when they have a crush on someone or are attracted to them: we tell them intimate details about our life in order to grow closer to them, intended to speed up the relationship process and stimulate them to be intimate with us in return (since we want to know everything we can about the people with whom we are infatuated).

Moreover, Wyatt’s reactions to Scott contrast Rufus’s reactions. Rufus also greatly admires Scott, and their growing connection as two black men despite their differences based on the times they live in is central to the emotional plot of the episode. But once again, Lucy and Rufus are basically telling Wyatt to “cool it.” Why Wyatt and not Rufus? Because with Wyatt, they’re not telling him just to calm down, they’re telling him to keep it in his pants.

Another thing to note about Fleming in 1x04 is that Wyatt is envious of his interactions with Lucy. Here’s his reaction when Fleming kisses Lucy’s hand:

🎶HEY JEALOUSYYYYYYY 🎶

Not the best screengrab but he’s trying his damndest not to roll his eyes.

Now, we the audience are probably supposed to make the jump in logic that Wyatt is envious of Fleming i.e. Wyatt is attracted to Lucy. But in the previous episode, 1x03, Wyatt tried to use the telegram system at the Vegas hotel to warn Jess of her death and save her life. He’s still hung up on his dead wife and wants to save her (we see this again in 1x06 when Flynn states outright from the journal that Wyatt is ‘obsessed’ with Jess and bringing her back). At this point in the series, Wyatt is still in love with his wife and wants her back. There’s no reason for him, therefore, to feel possessive of Lucy in any way.

But Fleming is Wyatt’s hero, not Lucy’s. So if Wyatt is attracted to Fleming, his envy makes sense. He’s envious of Lucy for getting all of Fleming’s flirtation and attention.

However, conversely we see that Wyatt is uncomfortable around other men who might show him interest. In 1x16 at the gay club, we see that Wyatt is extremely discomforted and stated that he “feels like a piece of meat.” Wyatt has so far been perfectly comfortable with LGBT+ people such as Denise, and then he’s comfortable with Ethan Cahill later on, so this doesn’t stem from homophobia but specifically from gay men thinking Wyatt is gay. I admit I’m drawing from personal experience here but in said personal experience, men who react with such discomfort tend to be suppressing a few things themselves–most straight men I know would laugh it off or roll their eyes.

Wyatt, however, is outright skittish. He’s acting like he’s got something to hide. Our first indication is when Lucy says, “This is 1954. You could get arrested for being gay.”

I couldn’t get a good enough shot of Wyatt’s reaction but here’s the tail end of it. Wyatt reacts to this assertion with discomfort and self-consciousness. Why would he do that? It’s not like they’re talking about him… unless Lucy’s reminder that people think being gay isn’t okay has painfully reminded Wyatt of himself. Wyatt grew up in a small town in Texas. I doubt they were all that kind to LGBT+ people there.

This is Wyatt right after a guy checks him out:

Check out his face. Wyatt’s avoiding the guy’s eyes, shifting uncomfortably, looking at the ground. Look at those puppy eyes. He’s scared–but why would he be scared? He’s not going to get jumped or anything. What could he possibly be fearing? The only thing that makes sense is he fears being outed, somehow, by another gay man who might be perceptive enough to metaphorically back him into a corner and force Wyatt to reveal something that he’s not ready to reveal.

Wyatt then tries to blow it off, “he’s looking at me like I’m a piece of meat,” but if we actually look at the onceover the gay guy gives him… it’s not actually that objectifying. The man looks down, then looks Wyatt right in the eyes and smiles at him flirtatiously. There’s no sloooooow drag up Wyatt’s frame, no wink, no outright leering. It’s quite tame compared to how most men look at women. But Wyatt’s response is that he feels like a piece of meat. His discomfort is actually disproportionate to the action that sparks his reaction.

But of course, all of these examples pale in comparison to the main one. The piece de resistance, the most compelling set of reasons yet, I give you… (drumroll, please)…

GARCIA FLYNN

Wyatt’s reactions to Flynn are… extreme. Rufus and Lucy have more reason to dislike Flynn than Wyatt does, and yet Wyatt’s the one storming all over the place and acting like just being around Flynn gives him an allergic reaction. He’s constantly going out of his way to push Flynn away and show Flynn just how much Wyatt hates him. It’s like Wyatt needs to prove to Flynn–and to everyone else–just how much Wyatt dislikes him.

Like this moment in 2x06 when Wyatt demands that Flynn “keep them safe”:

Note that Flynn winks at him:

was this wink scripted Goran Goran hey hey was this wink scripted or did you do it in the moment because Certified Mess™ Flynn can’t resist flirting with Wyatt to knock him off his game Goran inquiring minds need to know GORAN I HAVE QUESTIONS

And Wyatt is caught off-guard by the wink and then has to turn around and collect himself, taking a deep steadying breath:

Or take this moment when Flynn walks into the bunker in 2x03…

…where Wyatt literally stands up and storms out of the room upon Flynn’s entrance, saying to keep Flynn on a leash. Wyatt can’t even handle being in the same room with Flynn, while Lucy and Rufus (y’know, the guy Flynn got shot in 1x15) manage to stay in the room and have much smaller reactions to Flynn.

Note: Flynn definitely checks out Wyatt’s ass as he leaves I’m just saying–

Wyatt might as well be waving a giant red flag going HEY! HEY! I HATE THIS GUY! IN CASE ANY OF YOU THOUGHT I MIGHT LIKE THIS GUY OR EVEN RESPECT HIM THE TINIEST BIT!

We get even more of this in 2x07 when Wyatt gets extremely aggressive and tells Flynn to stay away from Lucy:

…and they were roommates.

(Oh my God they were roommates.)

…I mean do I even need to talk about the homoerotic subtext in these screenshots?

Wyatt, however, has more reason than anyone besides Lucy to connect with Flynn. Not only because they mirror each other, but because Wyatt gets to see a vulnerable and personal side of Flynn that nobody else does. Flynn doesn’t tell Lucy about his family’s murder–he tells Wyatt. Lucy doesn’t see Flynn risk his own existence to save his brother’s life, Wyatt does. Why does Wyatt get to see these moments if not to set the two men up as a parallel, a mirror for one another, and frankly why does he keep insisting Flynn’s an asshole when Wyatt is privy to moments like these:

Quote: “He just saved your son’s life.”

Quote: “Every memory I have of you, you were always sad. I know what it is to lose a child. I didn’t want you to lose your son, not if I could stop it.”

Moments where we clearly see Wyatt realizing Flynn’s not such a bad guy and understanding that Flynn is complex and has layers and weaknesses and powerful, understandable motivation. Why would we a) get to see Wyatt with Flynn in these moments of vulnerability and intimacy but then b) see Wyatt go out of his way to continually push Flynn away more than anyone else?

This has no bearing on the whole bi thing but frankly, this is one of Wyatt’s best looks. 10/10 suit. Pretty pretty puppy.

There’s only one reason: he’s scared of Flynn getting too close to him. And why would he be scared of that? Same reason he’s scared of the gay men in the bar hitting on him: Flynn might see a secret that Wyatt isn’t ready to look at.

1x08 is Flynn at his third lowest point (second lowest being his suicide mission in 1x16 and lowest of all being the end of 1x10/beginning of 1x11 when he kidnaps Lucy). He is ready to erase his own existence to save his brother and make his mother happy. It would make the most sense for Flynn to be seen like this by Lucy, who is the only character who’s made any attempt to understand him or connect with him and is the one he’s making the most effort to reach out to, the one he says he’ll “make a great team” with someday. Not to mention that given the disappearance of Amy from existence, Lucy’s the one most poised to understand what Flynn’s doing: saving a sibling. And Lucy’s the one (prior to 1x16) with a good relationship with her mom, just like Flynn, and would feasibly understand wanting to do anything to make one’s mother smile. Wyatt’s mother is never even mentioned in canon.

But it’s not Lucy who sees him like this and gets this intimate glimpse into Flynn’s past and home life. It’s Wyatt. Wyatt gets to see that–and usually in fiction writing, the character who gets to see that is the romantic interest or the character who at least has some sort of romantic feeling for the person.

Hmmmmmmm.

But before the Space Race, there was an even more prolonged and intimate moment between the two men–the first real interaction they have and one that, for me, cemented Wyatt as a closeted bisexual.

I’ve left this one for last, since it’s our biggest piece of evidence: The Watergate Tape.

AKA Wyatt Logan Has a Brain Glitch, AKA Wyatt Logan Has a Bi Crisis and Discovers a New Kink, AKA In Which Wyatt Logan Realizes He is Kinkier and Gayer Than He Originally Planned

thank you to @extasiswings for the second title

Aaanyway.

So. In this episode, Flynn captures the Time Team and sends Rufus and Lucy to get information for him while he holds Wyatt hostage.

I think I’ve seen this porno.

Flynn then spends his time with Wyatt telling him about Lucy’s journal and how Lucy writes about Jessica Logan’s death–in fact this is how the audience finally finds out how Jess died–and that Wyatt is ‘obsessed’ with Jess’s death and needs to learn to move on. In return to earn Wyatt’s trust, Flynn tells Wyatt how Flynn’s wife and child were murdered by Rittenhouse (again, this is how the audience also learns the story).

It’s a startlingly intimate moment between the two men. Like with Scott, we’d expect to hear the story of Jess’s death through Wyatt talking to Lucy, the person to whom he is closest and the person who at this point he is starting to show sexual attraction towards (I personally think Wyatt started to really be attracted to Lucy in 1x05 after she steadies him at the Alamo during his PTSD attack but anyhow). But instead, we hear it in a painful and intimate exchange between these two.

Pay attention to how Wyatt gets super uncomfortable when Flynn gets close to him, how he looks up at Flynn through his lashes, how very submissive Wyatt is being with his body language.

“Raise my chin even more to look Flynn directly in the eye? Nah. Gonna do a half-head tilt so I’m giving him a sultry side-eye.”

Wyatt also throughout their exchange (before Flynn pushes Wyatt’s buttons and makes him angry) routinely gives Flynn these looks:

Hmm, where have we seen Wyatt have that facial expression? At Fleming, for one, and at Lucy, for another. It’s a flirtatious expression.

There’s no reason for this screencap I just think it’s preeeetty. Mmm. Bask in the pretty.

Actually this screencap does a good job of illustrating the use of this scene to parallel the two men’s lives and storylines and show how they mirror each other.

Also? Look at how Wyatt’s positioned.

He’s not just in a hugely submissive position, he’s in a sexually suggestive position. He’s tied to a chair, and Flynn is looming over him, both of which are submissive. And look at how his legs are spread. His feet aren’t tied, by the way–Wyatt is doing that subconsciously, which puts, ah, certain aspects on display and in another situation it might be manspreading but given the positioning of the rest of his body and the situation he’s in, I sure as hell wouldn’t be manspreading. Manspreading suggests confidence and relaxation. His life is in danger and when we’re in danger whether we like it or not we instinctively go to protect our ‘vulnerable bits’ including, especially for men, our junk. By spreading his legs like this, Wyatt isn’t asserting his relaxation or confidence, he’s displaying himself.

His legs are spread, he’s tied up, he’s looking up at Flynn through his lashes, and he’s wearing a shirt that’s stretching across his chest, drawing attention to it. Now, in day to day reality, we sometimes wear shirts that do this and it doesn’t mean anything. But this is fiction and that means a costumer put that actor in a shirt that they knew would stretch across his chest in that way and therefore make him look even more sexually suggestive and exposed, and they chose to undo his top buttons and expose more of his throat, making him look more vulnerable and suggestive through that as well.

If Wyatt was, say, hanging from his wrists, that would be submissive, but not sexually suggestive. This, however, is both. The way the two sit together, the way Flynn tries to get on his level, the soft lighting, the way the two are wearing a pastel version of each other’s colors (Flynn’s signature color is burgundy and Wyatt is wearing pink, Wyatt’s signature color is blue and Flynn is wearing pastel blue)… if Wyatt was a woman there’d be no doubt that we’re seeing a prelude to a romantic connection here.

Throughout the whole confrontation with Flynn, up until the point where Wyatt’s angry over Flynn bringing up Jess’s death, Wyatt is in a suggestive, submissive position, he’s giving Flynn flirtatious looks, he’s uncomfortable in a not now boner way when Flynn gets too close the same way he was with Fleming. The whole time Wyatt is acting like he’s uncomfortably aroused.

Wyatt then takes great pains to shove away any connection with Flynn. There’s no real attempt to reason with Flynn, or acknowledge their similarities. Instead he denies any connection between them and calls Flynn a sociopath. Why? Because you can’t let any man to whom you’re attracted too close or he might figure out those dark feelings you’re trying to deny and/or hide. Wyatt is practically allergic to Flynn’s overtures or even to Flynn’s presence, as we already covered in 2x03, 2x06, and so on. But he keeps being given reason to think Flynn isn’t such a bad guy (1x06, 1x08). His shoving Flynn away like this only makes sense if Wyatt is scared of what will happen if Flynn gets too close to him, physically or emotionally. And it all starts here with 1x06.

It was this conversation that led me to go hmmmm and then re-examine 1x04 and take a closer look at Wyatt’s behavior in subsequent episodes.

So, to recap:

Wyatt shows in 1x04 that he is capable of being attracted to a man given his behavior around Fleming and Lucy and Rufus’s reaction to Wyatt’s behavior (”ugh get a room buddy,” etc). This is seen yet again in 2x02. In 1x06, Wyatt has a long conversation with Flynn where it is in a vulnerable position emotionally and physically and is furthermore in a sexually suggestive and submissive position in relation to Flynn. In 1x08 he gets an intimate look into Flynn’s psyche and childhood and family. In 1x16, we see Wyatt is uncomfortable in a LGBT+ setting suggesting he is not comfortable with his own sexuality and is scared of being found out. For all of season two, he then goes out of his way to show Flynn and everyone else how much he absolutely hates Flynn, despite having the least reason to do so, since his only reason is vying for Lucy’s affection and Flynn doesn’t become a true threat to that until 2x06. But in 2x03, 2x06, and 2x07, we see Wyatt making sure Flynn knows he’s not wanted.

Conclusion: Wyatt is bi. Wyatt is uncomfortable with being bi and has not accepted that about himself or perhaps even admitted it to himself. Wyatt is attracted to Flynn, as seen in 1x06, and has tentative romantic feelings for him developed in 1x06 and 1x08 based on seeing Flynn in vulnerable moments and learning intimate details about Flynn’s life. Wyatt then pushes Flynn away in order to push his own bisexuality away and avoid confronting it.

Wyatt being attracted to Flynn is the only logical conclusion for Wyatt’s behavior towards Flynn pre-2x06, given that Lucy and Rufus have more reason to dislike Flynn than Wyatt does, and that Flynn is not a true contender for Lucy’s romantic affection until 2x06 (he is, but Wyatt has ZERO reason to know this until 2x06 when Wyatt sees Flynn and Lucy smiling and joking together and walking down the hallway together, presumably towards one of their bedrooms for a private conversation, and Lucy tells Wyatt how great Flynn was on the mission). Wyatt has no reason other than being attracted to Flynn.

Wyatt being bi is the only logical conclusion for his behavior towards Fleming and Scott, given that Lucy and Rufus also have characters they hero worship and are not treated by the other two the way that Wyatt is when he ‘hero worships’ Scott and Fleming. Compare and contrast Wyatt’s behavior towards Scott with Rufus’s behavior towards Scott.

Wyatt being bi is the only logical conclusion for his behavior at the gay club, given that he is otherwise shown to be comfortable with LGBT+ people and seems not only uncomfortable but genuinely afraid, which as a Delta force-trained man who can more than protect himself physically, he has no reason to be–unless he’s hiding his sexuality and is scared of exposure.

The proof is in the pudding. Wyatt is bi. At least, according to my headcanon he is.

We can’t say for sure what the writers intended for Wyatt’s sexuality, and I’m not saying with any of this that they were secretly writing him as bi the whole time. I’m certain that some of them definitely didn’t write him that way *cough* Arika *cough* but either way I would never presume to know about the secret or hidden agendas of the creative team. This isn’t me saying “the writers were going to reveal Wyatt as bi in season three!” or “they secretly wrote Wyatt to be a closeted bisexual!”

Rather, this is me showing you through screenshots and a breakdown of Wyatt’s behavior in the episodes that it is perfectly possible and even logical to conclude that he is bi, and that I can use the actual source text (in this case the episodes) to back up my assertion.

This got annoyingly long so you can read the rest here!

[athingofvikings]

It takes a certain--unfortunately widespread--brand of self-absorbed, self-congratulatory arrogance to leave a review so vile that every person that has looked at it has gone some variety of Ewwwww! and then, when defending it, managed to dig a deeper hole.  

And doing that digging by presenting themselves as objective and free from bias while using the r-slur, as well as casually implying that the author, who has taken great pains to be fair and not bash, is now and will be biased.  Quote, “I think you should be really careful with how you write Jews, especially after admitting to be one. While they had it pretty bad at the time I think you are making them too good“

This, among some other antisemitic comments I’ve gotten, just a few days after the latest synagogue shooting... yeah, I’m just tired.  

Meanwhile, I wanted to publicly thank @kalessinsdaughter​ and @primedoverlord​ for responding to the guy, because I didn’t have the spoons to do so.  

The asshole’s full review is under the cut, along with their replies:

[Asshole Username Redacted] chapter 84 . Apr 30

Well, I think I should finally drop a review here. I'm going to be honest, there are "fanfics" and then there are Fanfics and this one is of the latter. You know what I mean? One of those stories you want to read and which have you counting the days for the next update? Well, that's what you wrote. While sometimes I yearn for the setting to be more like "canon" in general I love what you did to this world, to tie together real life with HTTYD. I love the characters and the developments and even if some stuff is a little hard to believe in general I think the narrative works pretty well. Overall this is one of the few fics I would recommend to other people, especially for its historical fidelity. Now, I'm mostly happy with this story but there is some stuff that I don't quite like that much (not even saying it is objectively bad, just from personal preference). I think "progressive Berk" is nice but somewhere along the line you went a little too far. Not in the sense that it is distracting or bad, just that strains suspension of disbelief a little. Though you made efforts to show not all of Berk is that good, so it evens out mostly. Now, what I find actually somewhat annoying and can't decide if it is due to character bias or something supported by the narrative is in relation to the religion. I think your general depiction of Christianity is good enough, especially for the latest chapters as you show that the Church has a lot of problems but isn't cackling EVIL! Little things like the monk who helped the escaped serf or Henry the Black are good to show that Magnus and his people aren't the exception to the rule. I do think you are being overly generous with the Norse religion and culture. Moat European religions weren't very understanding in general and all had traditions or costumes we would found deplorable. This has the problem of making Hiccup come across as very hypocritical, especially when "burn rape and pillage" is considered a quick way to "heaven" for his religion. But of course this could be on purpose. I think you should be really careful with how you write Jews, especially after admitting to be one. While they had it pretty bad at the time I think you are making them too good and Fishlegs inner monologue doesn't help. Basically they are a universally good people who did no wrong ever and who don't have bad people period. They aren't any worse or better than anyone else but the story doesn't reflect this very well. I think Fishlegs should get rid of his pink tinted glasses sooner than later, even if he still cares deeply about his ancestor's people. Well, except for that I once again repeat that your story is superb and excitedly await for more chapters.

@primedoverlord chapter 84 . Apr 30

[Redacted] You say "be careful writing Jewish characters" and yet you tear into him for being honest? I honestly think you should re-read A Thing of Vikings, and pay really close attention to the tiny details you otherwise overlooked [redacted]. I also strongly recommend watching your wording, because the way you commented here makes you sound antisemitic and pretentious.

[Redacted] Apr 30

Hmmm, while I don't think it was that ambiguous I guess that as the one who wrote it my intent will always be clearer to me than to those reading it. So for the sake of avoiding q misunderstanding I can clarify what I was trying to say. No, I'm not saying something retarded as "dur dur jews are evulz" as my fellow commenter seems to imply I was doing. I was instead pointing out that you have shown that independent of their religion, nationality or ethnicity people are good or bad because of who they are and how they were raised. That your "identity" doesn't define who you are but only gives you a conext for your actions. This is important because as of yet you haven't shown this with only the Jewish people (mostly because we only have a few named characters and they happened to be good people) but that this added to Fishlegs basically fanboying over his heritage (I mean seriously, just look at the latest chapter) and that you declared yourself as part of this group males you come across as biased. Personally I don't think you are but as you may know appearances/ reality. So I was mostly saying this so you can avoid this kind of accusation and because it didn't completely fit with what we have seem of everyone else.

@kalessinsdaughter May 1

Just offering you some constructive criticism, [Redacted]: The wording you chose, "... be really careful with how you write Jews, especially after /admitting to be one/." (my emphasis) doesn't seem at all ambiguous. Rather, it comes across as offensive in that it suggests that being Jewish is something one "admits to", as if it were something bad. If you want to avoid appearing anti-semitic, I suggest that you consider rephrasing your statement using less negatively charged words. Also, you might want to revise your initial comment and the follow up reply for consistency, since they appear in part contradictory: If you do realise that there hasn't been time yet to develop the few Jewish characters for complexity in the story, then why did you criticise the—perfectly natural—lack of complexity in the first place? As it is, that inconsistency makes you come across as insincere. Another thing you might want to consider is expanding your analysis of Fishlegs' rosy tinted view of his ancestors' people, to give it some depth. I feel you are omitting two important issues: one is the almost mythical status of said ancestor in the tribe, and the other is the very short time he has had to really get to know any of the Jews he has befriended. That omission makes you seem overly eager to find fault with this particular story arc. I think you should take better care not to appear as one of those who hold non-Christian authors to higher standards than Christian authors, and whose response to minorities depicted from their own perspective is "How dare you not show this abused minority as being just as flawed as the majority?" Now, one thing I find quite refreshing is that you don't romanticise Norse religion the way so many people do. However, you seem to be disregarding the fact that the author has repeatedly pointed out that Berk in this story is an oddity, and in no way representative of Norse religion and culture in general. That makes your objection moot. Again, it's an omission that could easily be seen as a deliberate attempt to find fault, which is why I would advise you to consider revising that part of your criticism as well. On the whole, your objections on how different religions are depicted run the risk of sounding like you're counting the sprinkles on the cake frosting for "fairness", as it were, or like you're making a sort of generalised /tu quoque/ fallacy. You might want to avoid that kind of thing, if you really want to appear unbiased. On a final note, surrounding extensive, and very specific criticism with a few lines of general and nonspecific praise (some of which in itself contains disguised criticism) is a tactic I think you should avoid. While it can work sometimes, it more often signals an insincerity of purpose that is counterproductive. I hope you take my advice as it is intended: not to infer that you are insincere or biased, but rather to help you avoid such accusations.

[queen-scribbles]

Taking Liberties

For @pillarspromptsweekly​ fill 86: Fanfic. Adi and I had some fun with this one, seeing as she’s the only muse I could see doing something like this.

“So,” Adela began as she plunked down next to Sagani on her log perch away from the campfire, “how much of what you told Kana about Naasitaq was actually hokum?”

Sagani laughed. “Hardly any. Most of what he asked, I knew. There may be a few fudged details in there, but for the most part it’s the Hound’s own truth.”

“Alright, good.” Adela played with one of her rings. “‘Cause I think he’s serious about writing it all down and making a book, and if he does I want it to be right.”

This earned a skeptical look from the dwarf. “C’mon, Adi, you’re a scholar. You should know better than most that people rarely pass down history and cultural stuff completely correct.”

“Yeah, but that’s just more reason we should do our best to get it right when we can,” Adela said with a shrug. “Keep that to a minimum.”

Sagani raised an eyebrow, hands going still halfway through repairing her armor. “Are you tellin’ me that you, with your love of details and thirst to know everything, have never made somethin’ up to fill a gap?”

“Not that I’ve written down and presented as fact.” It was technically true.

Unfortunately for her, Sagani was uncannily perceptive about technicalities. She narrowed her eyes. “Adi.”

“Well,” Adela tugged on her necklace as heat rose in her cheeks. “There was a theory I was pretty attached to in school...”

“Adi.” Gods, she had a good Mom Voice. Which made sense.

Adela huffed at her bangs, which settled even more lopsided than they’d been originally. “Alright, alright. Auroch’s shadow, did your kids manage to keep anything secret from you?”

That earned a laugh as Sagani resumed patching the slashed hide armor. “Not much. Now spill, Watcher. This sounds like a good story.”

Adela glanced toward the others, all still busy setting camp or preparing food.  “Sure, why not. We have the time...”

~<><><>~

It was hard waiting for class to be over today, which was a first. Normally, Adela never wanted it to end. But today she had a question for Master Izel, and didn’t want to bog down the lesson for everyone else.

And so she took her time gathering her things after the teacher had ended class and given them their home assignments; carefully stacking books before sliding them into her satchel, repeating the process with her loose pages of notes. Finally, the other students had all left the room and she could ask her question without holding up anyone but her teacher.

“Master Izel?” she started as she approached his desk.

“Yes, Adela?” The grey-streaked orlan peered over his spectacles at her with a smile. He probably knew she had a question even before she started dawdling. She asked a lot, after all.

Adela rocked up on her toes, playing with the strap of her satchel. “That explorer you talked about yesterday, from the Vailian Republics, you never said what happened to her in the end.”

“Ilhana Guiserre?” Master Izel ran a hand over his hair with a wry smile. “That’s because no one knows what happened to her in the end.”

“Well, why not?” Adela gestured broadly to emphasize her point. “She was one of the foremost traders and explorers from the Republics’ founding, she discovered safer routes to Aedyr and the Deadfire; how did they not pay attention to what happened to her?!”

He chuckled, toying with an apple one of the other students had left on his desk as they passed. “The thing with being an explorer, Adela, is no one much cares unless you find something exciting. That’s why she briefly retired after her attempt to find Ukaizo; she came up empty handed on a quest that cost every pand she had, and no one found her a ‘worthwhile investment’ for quite some time.”

“I care!” Adela protested. “Everything’s important, because everything tells us something about the past or other kith, or both, and I just can’t believe the last mention of Captain Guiserre, Ilhana the Bold, is a footnote that her ‘retirement’ only lasted three years. It’s ridiculous.”

Master Izel smiled and reached over to pat her shoulder comfortingly. “A great many scholars share your frustration, believe me. Myself included, actually. But it remains that we don’t know. There are no answers, her fate is a mystery.”

That rankled, but it was clear Master Izel had no more to share, sympathetic as he was to her curiosity. So Adela headed home, but her desire for answers lingered, a near-maddening distraction as she did the rest of her readings and assignments. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer and started filling her free time with a much closer reading of anything she could find on Ilhana Guiserre. There wasn’t really anything to find that she hadn’t known already, which was far from satisfying.

Her solution was perhaps unorthodox, but in the end, very satisfying: she wrote her own ending.

It wasn’t proven truth, and she knew it. And she may have waxed poetic about these potential adventures, rather than dwell on the gritty side of them. But it was plausible, and after a week of dead ends and the book equivalent of shrugging, it was something.  Pulling from from what she knew of the woman and her history, Adela constructed her best guess at both what had pulled Guiserre from her retirement and her ultimate fate. She was so happy with her work--and with herself--that she showed her mother once it was done.

“Tell me what you think, Mama?” she asked hopefully. She was confident in her research and conclusions, but Mama had been a scholar even longer than she’d been alive. If there were holed to be poked, she would poke them, but gently.

“Is this an assignment for Master Izel?” Mama slid her spectacles down with one hand as she accepted the dog-eared papers with the other.

“No, I did it for fun,” Adela said, twirling an escaped lock of hair around her finger.

“I’ve seen you working on this for three days, dove.” Mama skimmed part of the first page. “It’s at least as well-written as half your school assignments.”

“Uh-huh.” Adela tugged the lock of hair. “I wanted an answer and none of my books had one. So I figured out what I think makes the most sense, and I just want you to check my reasoning.”

Mama smiled warmly and nodded. “Of course, darling. I don’t have any pressing studies right now, so I’ll dive right in and let you know what I think after dinner, hmm?”

“Sounds good. Thank you, Mama!” Adela gave her a slightly awkward sideways hug and skipped off to read a book. Mama would be honest with her, kind but fair, so she could go enjoy something else until the time came. Hovering wouldn’t change anything.

~<><><>~

“So... you wrote an ending to the life of your favorite explorer because nobody knew what happened to her?” Sagani said with an almost incredulous laugh.

“You know I hate unfinished stories,” Adela defended. “And I may have taken a few liberties, but I never claimed it as fact, just a theory on what happened to her. Also, I was fourteen, so, y’know, maybe that was how my rebellious phase manifested; not accepting widespread scholarly ignorance about an important historical figure-what?”

Sagani shook her head, still grinning. “Nothin’. What did your mom think of your, uh, theory?”

“Oh, she loved it.” Adela’s face warmed and she tugged on her necklace. “Didn’t find any flaws, and was, um, so impressed by the time and research I put into something I just did for fun, she mentioned it to Master Izel in passing during my review at the end of the school year.”

“What’d he think?” Sagani set aside the mended armor and flicked some jerky to Itumaak. “Since it was something that bothered him, too.”

“His interest was piqued and he asked if he could read it. He was a great teacher, who I admired and respected, so I made him a copy. He, uh,” her face went even warmer; positive this would sound like bragging(even more than the rest had), “he was so impressed he sent it to a Vailian academy, presenting it as a student’s essay on ‘the theoretical fate of Captain Ilhana Guiserre’. I... may have panicked a little when he told me. I wrote it more like a tale than a formal essay--it was for fun, after all--and was sure all they’d do was laugh. But Master Izel told me the format added charm more than damaging credibility, that it would be fine.” Adela dug the toe of her boot into the dirt. “He was right.”

Sagani’s eyebrows both rose. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She dragged her foot in an arc. “That was the Selona academy that asked me to come study for a year.”

“The one you turned down ‘cause your brothers kept getting sick.”

“Yes, that one.”

“You must’ve been a good writer,” Sagani teased.

Adela laughed. “Or maybe they just liked my ideas. Master Izel did say my frustration at the lack of detail available was a common sentiment.”

“Still, you impressed them somehow.” Sagani shrugged. “Thanks for sharing the story.”

“You’re welcome. It’s not one I like to bring up myself, ‘cause it sounds like I’m bragging, but you asked, so...”

“Just acknowledging your strengths isn’t braggin’, Adi,” Sagani said. Both of them cocked an ear at Kana hollering dinner was ready. “It’s all in your attitude. You’re so nice it’s easy to tell you’re not tryin’ to brag.”

“Reassuring.” Adela smiled as they stood and went to join the others.

“And, Adi, one thing,” Sagani grinned. “I’m still gonna fudge the occasional detail for Kana.”

Adela couldn’t resist a giggle. “As long as it’s just occasional.”

After all, everyone took liberties once in a while.

----------------------------------

Yes. Yes, Adi got invited to the Selona Academy off what was basically a piece of very well written, very well researched, plausible historical fanfic. (Bc I do what I want, and hey, Dante’s Inferno is basically fanfic and that’s considered a classic. :P)

In writing this, I’ve decided Adi renames her ship Ilhana in Deadfire. Now I need to go back through her Deadfire-era fics and change that when necessary. 

[brynwrites]

Conveying Worldbuilding Without Exposition!

(As requested by both an anon and @my-words-are-light​)

One of the hardest parts of writing speculative fiction is presenting readers with a world that’s interesting and different from our own in a way that’s both immersive and understandable at the same time. 

Thankfully, there are a few techniques that can help you present worldbuilding information to your readers in a natural way, as well as many tricks to tweaking the presentation until it’s just right.

Four basic techniques:

1. The ignorant character. 

By introducing a character who doesn’t know about the aspects of the world building you’re trying to convey, you can let the ignorant character voice the questions the reader naturally wants to ask. Traditionally, this is seen when the protagonist or (another character) is brought into a new world, society, organization. In cases where that’s the natural outcome of the plot, and the character has a purpose in the story outside of simply asking questions, it can be pulled off just fine. But there’s another aspect to this which writers don’t often consider: 

Every character is your ignorant character. 

In a realistic world, no person knows everything. Someone will be behind on the news. Someone won’t know all the facts. Many, many someones won’t have studied a common part of their society simply because they aren’t large part of that fraction or don’t have the time for it.

Instead of inserting an ignorant character and creating a stiff and annoying piece of expository dialogue, find the character already existing in the story who doesn’t know about the thing being learned.

2. Conflicting opinions.

A fantastic way to convey detailed world building concepts is to have characters with conflicting viewpoints discuss or argue about them. Unless you’re working with a brainwashed society, every character should hold their own set of religious, political, and social beliefs. 

Examples of this kind of dialogue:

“The goddess Irelle would never ask for such a sacrifice! That’s a blasphemous addition to the sacred texts that only a damned cultist would propose.”

“The new lamps in the cockpit might give off a funny light, but they’re entirely recyclable! Think of all the dumps we wouldn’t need back on Earth if everyone would just switch over. If we’re ever going to successfully repopulate the planet, we need to stop polluting it further!”

“This is a peaceful country, yes, but one build on blood and stolen land! If you left your worthless barn more often, you would see that. The rest of the empire is not as placated as you think.”

And as a nice bonus, the reader gets to learn something about the characters beliefs, how they communicate, and how open-minded (or stubborn) they are.

3. Historically and culturally significant places and objects.

Characters bringing up worldbuilding topics out of the blue can feel forced and disruptive, but giving them a reason to talk about a specific topic helps soften the blow. Strategically places buildings and objects can ease the conversation into historical, religious, scientific, or political discussions. Things like:

Religion: Temples, holy books, idols, imagery, religious leaders out for a walk, worshipers praying or singing.

History: Monuments, statues, ancient buildings, historical artifacts (likely replicas), culturally significant designs that arose from mythology, historical fiction novels. 

Science: New inventions being installed or tested out, academic buildings, seminar announcements, advertisements, hospitals.

Politics: Propaganda, reminders to vote, new laws being put into practice, angry citizens, protests, war preparations. 

(Note that many of these things could also be applied to magic systems!)

4. Ignore explanations entirely.

Sometimes the best way to convey how a world works is just to dive straight in. Let the reader learn about the world by watching the main character interact with it.

This method is also a great way to start out writing your first draft, because there will always be time to adjust and add in stronger explanations for things in later drafts.

Alternately, you could go for the opposite first draft method, and write exposition for everything during your first draft, and then cut it down the the bare necessities once you start editing and rewriting.

** Scroll up to point one to check for an update!

A long list of things to remember:

- Dialogue is better than internal monologue. Whenever possible, let your characters talk about something instead of thinking it through. This eliminates daunting chunks of text and allows the reader to learn more about the other character(s) in the conversation, and the character’s relationship(s) with each other.

- Sometimes you still need internal monologue. Don’t be afraid to slap in some extra sentences of explanation when the PoV character is in a position where they’d naturally think about such things. You can always take them out if readers say they understood without the addition.

- Not everything must be known upfront. Don’t force any concepts on your reader unless the reader absolutely needs to know in order to understand the current chapter.  

- Build your worldbuilding. Each concept and piece of information should build off what you’ve already establish. This means you give the very simplest concepts first, and develop them further as the story progresses.

- Use linguistics in your favor. To help your readers remember new names and terms, try giving related objects, places, ranks, etc, similar sounding words or an otherwise consistent naming scheme. 

- Keep the first chapter pure. Little to no exposition should be included in the first chapter, whenever possible. That being said, readers who were immersed in the first chapter and are eagerly starting the second are now much more likely to sit through exposition because they’re already connected with the story and characters.

- Immersion is good. (Drowning is bad.) Set your first chapter somewhere the read gets a decent view of what sort of world this is at its foundation. A lone character walking through the forest could live nearly anywhere, in any era, in any type of world, with any number (or lack) of friends of family. A character and their sibling leaving a steampunk pseudo-Japanese theater pressed up against the same forest says a lot more. 

But remember: not everything must be known upfront. Don’t try to introduce so much of the world that it becomes overwhelming.

- Little details say a lot. Things like architecture, curses and slang, styles of dress, typical food, even the objects a normal person carries with them, can all give major hints towards the worldbuilding, and they serve to make the world feel more real and immersive.

- Emotion is everything. How does your character feel about the world? 

How to they describe the parts of it they love? The parts they hate? 

What do they find scary about it? 

Are they intrigued by advances in technology and society, or do they cling to the old ways? 

Are they attracted to old toppling buildings with historic significance, or to new, beautiful constructs? 

Do they sneak past the market eagerly searching for imports from distant countries, or do they make a beeline for the family owned business that’s sold homecooked pies on that street corner for seven generations?

- Different genre, different expectations. Every genre has a different ‘norm’ for how much detail (and exposition) is acceptable in the worldbuilding. Hard science fiction and adult fantasy tends to involve huge amounts of lengthy explanations, where as young adult fantasy and soft sci fi are far more immersive, occasionally to such a point that you can get away with underdeveloped worlds. Know what’s expected in your genre (though don’t necessarily feel the need to follow it.)

- Unique isn’t always better. In spec fic there’s a myth the most unique and original worldbuilding will be the most successful. But the truth is that, while you should certainly include original concepts, the more of them you have and the more original they are, the harder it will be to make the reader understand them. Readers will try to relate every piece of worldbuilding to something they already know. If they can’t find anything else similar enough, they’re likely to either never understand it, or contort it to better match something they do understand.

- If your PoV character doesn’t need to know it, neither do the readers. This doesn’t mean you should never include information your PoV character doesn’t need to know, but rather that you shouldn’t try to shove in a detail about the world just because you have it written in your notes. If it’s not necessary and it don’t come up naturally, don’t force it. 

- The PoV character is the center of the world. Each character will see the world you created differently. The things they focus on, the opinions they hold about it, and the emotions it makes them feel will all be unique to that character. They aren’t simply a person living in a vast place you know a lot about, but rather a filter through which to put all the worldbuilding information through.

- Critique will save you. Worldbuilding is hard, and it will never be conveyed perfectly the first time. When you let people read your work, be sure to ask them specific questions about the worldbuilding. Having a reader describe your world in their own words will tell you a lot about whether or not you succeeded in immersing them in an understandable world. 

For more writing tips from Bryn, view the archive catalog or the complete tag.

Purchase Bryn’s debut novel, Our Bloody Pearl, today!

[shyanlibrary]

Hey there, I'm in the mood to be absolutely destroyed by some sad shit, so can you please give me some good, angsty tearing-my-fucking-heart out shyan fic recs? Give me as many as you have. I'd be very grateful (and hopefully devastated at the end of it heh)

Welcome to Sad Town, everyone ~ Please note that most of these either have Major Character Death warning or no Happy Ending.

The Body That Lies by Lafayette1777

Summary: Ryan is dead and haunting Shane. Because he misses him, of course.

But also to prove a point.

Rated: Not Rated (T)

Commentary: Ah, that beautiful Major Character Death that makes you wish you were the one dead. This fic destroyed me since the first time I read it and it’s also my favorite ghost story in the fandom. Like– we got some really good stuff with the AU, but this one is– like, kind of, the most realistic and human I’ve read so far.

It gives you a grief that resonates with you, your soul, it breaks your heart and makes you cry. It takes you from the extraordinary beginning to the human ending, and it makes you believe at the end. It’s wonderful.

contrapposto by spoopyy

Summary: Ryan works in a museum. Shane doesn’t understand art. They fall in love.

Rated: T

Commentary: Listen, if you wanna die, this is ya fic. Before I read it, I kept seeing in tumblr that it was the best story in the fandom, and when I finally found it while reading all the fics, I didn’t even look at the summary, the tags, the anything, I just went directly to read it.

Boy. Did that one scene that is gonna kill you destroyed me nicely.

I’m still not over this fic and I will never be. It worked me out in ways no story had before and it made me sob like a motherfucker. Never sobbed this much while reading a fanfic before, holy shit.

we dream of storms by adenophora

Summary: Ryan has the lighthouse, and he has the sea. He’s adapted to the solitude, even if he wasn’t built for it. And then there’s Shane.

Rated: T

Commentary: Because I love suffering and being dead, this is actually one of my favorite fanfics in the fandom. If you read my comment on it, you’ll notice I spend days thinking about it and overthinking about what it meant and the imagery of it. Hell, I even though– you know, that’s a spoiler. So. Read and come talk to me about it.

Dance Till You Drop by wheezebaby

Summary: In which Shane and Ryan are 16th-century painters, and Shane has a knack for dancing.

Rated: M (But it’s actually more like T)

Commentary: Based on that one time people dance until they died, this fic explores Shane and Ryan’s relationship in a very interesting way– it’s very well written, the historic background of it it’s well done and reserched, an interesting piece to read. I second this rec.

but i’m still here, i hope you know by BooyahFordhamYacht

Summary: he always wanted to get lost in it. that deep dark sea of believing in something more. he wanted to feel the surge of the waters accepting him, wanted to understand what was so addictive about it. shane never realized the price he’d have to pay to be pulled under the surface into the cold, unforgiving roaring swells of the ocean.

AN: so i promised some commenters on for you to be happy and loved that i would write some happy shyan after that heartbreak. This… this is not that. This may actually be worse. Don’t read if you don’t feel like crying.

Title from Keaton Henson’s amazing song Alright. Go listen to it and cry if you want.

Rated: T

Commentary: This author is fantastic, they write a world you can understand and imagine in such a poetic way, you are going to be sobbing from the start to the bottom. The way they describe grief is just… Man, this is good, this is very good. Kinda not very happy with Sara, though; I feel very sorry for her in this fic. Also, of course– Major Character Death. But with an S. This doesn’t have a happy ending.

Nana by InkStainsOnMyHands

Summary: I sat with you beside your bed and criedFor things that I wish I’d said

You still had your nose red

And if I live past seventy-two, I hope I’m half as cool as you

Ryan is ready.

Rated: Not Rated (I’ll say T)

Commentary: This should be rated DEATH FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES, because is a soul-destroyer fic. Dude, the ending. Dude, be prepared.

for another life time by Hugabug

Summary: "I’m scared.“

“Never. You were always brave for the both of us.”

Rated: G

Commentary: Also known as I Love Death And Being Dead, this fic killed me in the most amazing way. It’s as sweet as it is sad at the beginning, you will love it if your thing is to hurt but always end with a big smile.

Big God by fuckcitybitch

Summary: The time comes for Shane to stop running and reap what he carelessly sewed.

Rated: T

Commentary: More than angst, this is pure horror and fear, and that’s exactly why it will destroy your soul. It has NO happy ending, Major Character Death, horror, dead babies, all you need to not sleep and cry like a baby. 

But for real, what a wonderful story. It’s so well done, so well writen. I love this author, they are one of the bests and this fic is just incredible.

Metacommunication by americanchemicals

Summary: Communication is important in any relationship. Metacommunication, or communicating about communicating, was equally as important. Because when there are misunderstandings, things quickly go downhill.

Rated: T

Commentary: Dear Lord, the angst in this one is just damn frustrating. So many things could had been avoided with better communication... and it’s so good to read... these two grown ass men being idiots in love... it hurts so much. Love this fic.

You Are on the Fastest Available Route by InkStainsOnMyHands

Summary: “It’s in the light.“

[Based on the Local 58 YouTube Series]

Rated: T

Commentary: BOY. I fell in love with this fanfic. It may seem weird for some people, it may get scary at some point (hint: it fucking is), but there’s something so incredible about it. It’s everything, I guess. This fanfic is the kind of stuff I would put my students to comment on Creative Writing Workshop, it’s THAT good.

when the tide comes by AnastasiaYu

Summary: the disappearance of ryan bergara.

Rated: T

Commentary: To quote Luke Skyalker, “this is not going to end the way you think”. This is… so sad. The ending is, wow, one of my favorites. The original ending. Althought the second ending is also good. But the first! So sad! So good!

may i say i loved you more by luntian

Summary: He felt Ryan’s warm palm on his shoulder. By then he knew he couldn’t lie anymore.“I—well, uh…” Shane inhaled deeply, “Promise me you’ll believe.

”Ryan was puzzled, but he nodded almost immediately.

After a long pause, Shane finally continued, “I’m not human.”

“What?” Ryan whispered. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, I was human, then—and then I died.” Ryan stared. Shane realized he was making no sense. He sighed, “Okay, listen. I am an angel.” Shane glanced at Ryan, trying to see his reaction but he saw no expression on his face. “I was sent on Earth to, uh, complete some mission.”

“You’re an alien?!”

“I’m an angel!”

/or/

Shane is an angel with a time limit. And a boyfriend.

Rated: Not Rated (T)

Commentary: Angel Shane AU that for a second seems to be all happy– then it’s not. I cried a lot.

we match by hugabug

Summary: “I love you in grey.“

Rated: G

Commentary: Now, this is pure pain. Someone dies. The other one is left old and sad. I fucking cried.

and he takes and he takes by cooliohoolio

Summary: Shane wants to say I will be dead within the next year. He wants to say the flowers in my lungs are there because of you. He wants to say I’m in love with you and it’s killing me.

Rated: Not Rated (T)

Commentary: Hanahaki is always the real deal here, it’s 100% suffering and in this fandom, it always ends sad. And ironic. This fic in particular writes the ficitonal condition as something more than it usually is, it uses it in a poetic way that allows to explore the depth of Shane’s feelings and also allows us to die a little bit more with each word. Such a great fanfic, so well writen, so well characterized, so well peppered with the best kind of angst.

I Miss You by KnittingGuru1984

Summary: Shane had never believed in the supernatural. That was Ryan’s department. When Ryan is suddenly taken from him in an accident, Shane has his life turned upside down.

Rated: G

Commentary: Oh, this one is hard to take. It’s sad, it really is. And it doesn’t end well either, it’s… also kinda scary. The ending gave me the chills because… oh God. You gotta read it, I’m not spoiling it, lol.

with shortness of breath (you explained the infinite) by hugabug

Summary: "Shane?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Rated: T

Commentary: Part of this series that literally estroyed my life, in this one we… we find out how those five years of Shane alone started. Man. It is freakin’ sad.

But if it’s Not Right (What Can I Do?) by InkStainsOnMyHands

Summary: Ryan Bergara, host of True Crime on Buzzfeed Radio, attracts the wrong person’s attention.

A twisted version of Pichiba’s radio!au.

Rated: T

Commentary: I LOVE FUCKED UP SHIT, and this one is one of the bests in the fandom. For real, I love this AU and I love how well Joey wrote the sick part of it all. The ending just jfbnfdinfir gave me the chills, it’s damn amazing.

Oblivion by InkStainsOnMyHands

Summary: Tragic consequences typically follow when a god falls in love with a human. Typically…

Based on the comment:“My theory is that Shane is the devil and was just super bored. Then one day he chanced upon a poor scared Ryan and thought “this is pretty fun” and now follows him to supernatural sights to have a giggle at his expense. But that’s also why they never capture anything on video, because the evil spirits and demons know Shane for who he really is and are too afraid to mess with him.”

Rated: M

Chapters: 3/3

Commentary: This fic means a lot to me. It has been one of my favorites for a long time and I feel like I’m going to love it forever. Because it has such a powerful feeling to it and the way they are characterized and put together in this fic is very unique and original, and no fic will ever top it. It deserves all the love, my man, it’s incredible.

[loracarol]

I may or may not do a Proper Review of the Twisted Tales series at a later date, but here’s my brief summary/review of the first three. This WILL contain spoilers. 

Also @fantastic-nonsense​, have you heard of/read any of these? I know that fairy tales are kind of your jam. :V

A Whole New World

Easily my favorite of the three by far

Really leans in to the whole “the same Disney Movie You Know but with One Twist” thing they claim to have going on

Jafar gets the lamp

And that’s where it all goes to shit

Everything builds off of this one singular change in the timeline - while things are built up/expanded in the past, frankly it’s nothing that goes against the actual movie. 

For example, the King being little more then a man-child ignoring the problems in his city. Not specifically mentioned in the movie but given the King’s personality/the slums we see, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. 

Building on Aladdin’s past friendships - again, not something we actually see in movie, but not necessarily ooc either.

Also Jafar kills the Sultan, uses magic to raise the dead (the genie can’t do it, but Jafar uses his newfound power to look for a way around that.) 

BUT YEAH there are zombies all of a sudden, including children. 

This book was baller, 10/10 would recommend, even if just for the Holy Shit What The Fuck-ness of it.  

Once Upon A Dream

Middle of the pack IMO. 

I don’t actually have anything against the idea of the plot.

Aurora is highly different from her movie counterpart. It’s not necessarily bad IMO, but it was Distracting. 

Aurora and Philip were cute, though. 

Aurora’s parent’s get killed before she gets a chance to meet them. :( 

But then?? She/the plot seems to agree with Maleficent that it was all their fault for sending their child away?? 

And, of course, ~Maleficent~ wouldn’t ever do something like that

Ignoring for the moment that they sent her away because Maleficent had put a curse on a fucking baby that was supposed to kill her 

and it was only because another fairy intervened that she didn’t die

Maleficent, you don’t get to police how other people deal with that shit when it’s your fault  they have to deal with it

And also you killed them and it’s your fault Aurora never got to meet her parents. 

I was worried they were going to pull a Maleficent at the beginning with the framing device that Maleficent was the good guy and the three good fairies/the King and Queen were the bad guy, but the twist was nice

Not my fav, and while I did laugh out loud at some parts, I ended up feeling like I was reading about two OC’s who’d snuck into the plot rather then the Disney versions of the characters. 

This was especially annoying bc the part where the book “twisted” the tale was around Aurora pricking her finger/Maleficent dying - aka the end of the friggen movie.  

6/10 wouldn’t recommend but wouldn’t anti-recommend either. 

As Old As Time

This book was very... Yikes

Yikes Yikes Yikes

Okay, maybe I’m overthinking this - I’m not actually Jewish, but it felt like this book appropriated/exploited a lot of Jewish historical suffering? 

This one is under a cut bc potential antisemitism

Twist is that Belle’s mother was the Enchantress, but honestly, that didn’t feel like enough of a twist to justify everything that happens in the book

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a kingdom. This kingdom had many people within it’s borders, including a number of Jewish people magical folk. Belle’s mother is one of those Jewish people magical folk, only she’s a good Jew magical person with her “Aryan” looks blonde hair and light eyes (tbh I can’t remember if they were green or blue). 

Among Maurice’s companions include a man who hates his Jewish heritage magical abilities and thinks of magic as unnecessary/evil. 

Belle’s mother settles down with Maurice and has a baby with him, but things are starting to go poorly for the Jewish magical people. A plague arrives and the magical people (you get the point so I’m going to stop now) are blamed for it. Belle’s mom goes to the castle to try and bargain for help and because she is a Good Magical Person she casts a spell of protection on all of the children in the castle. 

Meanwhile, magical folk are disappearing, but no one knows where to. To combat this, a series of people - including Mr. Potts - run a smuggling ring to get magical people out of the country. This is Important as things are continuing to go Wrong and the magical people are being blamed for all the countries ills. 

In the end, the bad guy is the man who hated his magical abilities. He’s also Monsieur D’Arque - the asylum owner. He experimented on his brain (like, actual brain surgery) to get rid of his powers, and he’s been kidnapping and torturing magical beings since in order to try and figure out how to destroy all magical beings. Let me be clear, he is pretty much a Disney Fanfic Version of Josef Mengele. His experiments were horrible. Belle’s mom was one of those taken*, and she was tortured so badly... It’s horrifying, reading the description. 

*As one of her last spells, she had removed everyone’s memories of her connection to Belle & Maurice to protect them, and that’s why D’Arque didn’t go after them at first. 

There are other things, too, little bits here and there that really made me feel uncomfortable, like the book was appropriating this historical persecution of Jewish people for it’s own ends, but again, I’m not Jewish, and therefore not qualified to make A Statement on Antisemitism. I’m just noting the things I noticed.

That’s my Number One Big Problem with the book, and why I’d probably give it 1/5 stars, if that. That being said, that wasn’t my only problem with the book. The thing is, it wasn’t a good book that used unfortunate metaphors, it just felt like really really really bad fanfic on top of that. I don’t mention the following because I think they’re equal to what I noted above, I mention the following because these were other things that really annoyed me, and I wanted to rant about it:

Who the fuck are you, and what have you done with the beast? 

You know how, in the movie, when the Beast knows that Belle is a chance to break the curse, and he still is an angry asshole to her even though realistically being kind would be more likely to cause her to fall in love with him & to break the spell.  

Yeah, forget all that. 

Belle touches the rose, learns about the curse, remembers her mother, and knows that she’s unlikely to fall in love with him now that she knows she “has” to.

The Beast, in return, turns into Bad!Fanfic!Draco/Zuko. You know, the kinds that show up in bad Dramaione/Zutara fics. (I’m not saying they’re all bad, but come on, you know what I mean when I refer to Bad Versions Of Those Fics. 

You know the archetype. 

Despite finding out that he may be Cursed Forever he puts on a tablecloth like an apron and helps Belle cook. 

................................Yeah. 

I read a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic that was Beauty and the Beast and something similar-ish occurred, but there it made sense. There it was in-character. 

Also there’s a scene where the Beast is literally groveling on his hands and knees to get Gaston’s help.

Do you see what I mean about “bad fanfic”? 

Anticlimax

The whole mob @ the asylum ends because LeFou recognizes his aunt (?) as one of the patients and that’s pretty much all it takes to turn people’s minds around. Maybe this could have worked with better set-up (LeFou’s POV book?) but... Yeah............

Anticlimactic Gaston

You know all that power he had over people in the village? How he was so well-liked he had his own theme song? How he was able to get everyone to set up a wedding in like... A day? How he had girls swooning over him? How the tavern was his house of worship? How he was able to get a mob going to attack a Dangerous Beast by sheer virtue of Who He Was in the village? How it took him plunging to his death to stop his cruelty? 

Yeah, there’s none of that in this book. 

People start recognizing the people in the asylum, and that’s just... It. They don’t turn on him, but they do turn away from him, and he just kind of... Takes it. It’s like they gave canon!Gaston valium. Why wasn’t he angry when he lost control? Why didn’t he rage when people betrayed him? Those are canon actions even before Belle meets the Beast! It just doesn’t make any sense that he’d just lie down and take it. 

And the Furries Rejoiced 

Belle doesn’t break the curse, but her mother has enough power to break part of it. The Beast somehow Stops Losing His Humanity because Luv (??) but that’s not enough to actually break the curse. The Beast asks the enchantress to break the curse on his people instead, and she does, leaving the Beast totally fine with being trapped in an alien, monstrous body. There is hope - if they can gather other fairy tale creatures to his palace*, they might be able to band together to break it. And like, I get it. People seem to have a hard on for the beastly form, but the book totally glosses over his canonical frustration with his inhuman form. See again, the cooking, and turning into LeatherPants!Draco/Zuko. It’s frustrating - again, that’s something that could have genuinely be fascinating, but it just felt like a cop-out so that the book could end with him still a furry. 

Like, do that if you want, but actually make it a consequence with some emotion behind it rather then just being kind of... Meh.   

* His palace was magically hidden & that part of the curse didn’t break meaning that it has the potential to become a haven for persecuted magical beings.

[graciecatfamilyband]

To the reviewer of Just A Little of that Human Touch on AO3 who wrote:

YES YES YES to your portrayal of Alderaan as a liberal feminist society with sex education and Leia being a crusader of that! THIS feels real. THIS feels like the kind of society Breha Organa and Leia by extension would have cultivated. 

I already thanked you for your review, but I wanted to add (and the comment box on AO3 didn’t feel like it was the right place to do so)-

A lot of time we fanfic authors borrow from Earth and its history as we conceptualize societies in the GFFA. There's a lot of fun royal customs that people like to explore in relation to Alderaan. A lot of us grew up reading about the British monarchy and other European monarchies (what can I say, a lot of us are nerds! Raise your hands if you read those Royal Diaries books growing up? Other historical fiction dealing with this stuff? How many we got in the house?), and that seems to have inspired a lot of Alderaanian customs in fic, which is cool!  

Personally I'm interested in how Alderaan as a matriarchal planet with at least a traditionally female power structure (although I like headcanons that Alderaan moved long ago towards a real gender equality model rather than actually denying men opportunities, including to rule!) might differ from a lot of the patriarchal monarchies in our Western history. Virginity and female-centered sexual purity focus makes a lot more sense when the heir of the throne needs to be related to the King (and the heir of any given family needs to be related to the father); much less so when traditionally the heir needs to be related to the Queen (and the heir of any given family related to the mother- if Alderaan even has such a concept of family heirs!). And then of course with Leia's open adoption (in the sense that the people know about it- and I think they must because she is not the same ethnicity as her parents, although I've seen some takes on it where its like an open/fake secret that work well), that seems to indicate modern-day Alderaan may not give an F about biological lineage anyway. Which I think also says some things about the society and how it views sex and reproduction. 

That, combined with our knowledge of Alderaan as a place that puts such a high degree of value on education (and a good sexual education is an important part of ensuring people have access to all those other kinds of higher education, as babies too early really can make that so much harder) as well as the value the society places on art and, in my head canon at least, the well-being of children (parents having children too early is also associated with very poor outcomes for children; parents having unstable or abusive relationships also is associated with very poor outcomes for children)- well, it just makes sense to me that Alderaan would care deeply about good sexual education that involves, as Leia said, not just contraception but things like healthy relationship skills. Important elements that are too often left out of a discussion of practices that take place in the context of relationships! 

So yes, I agree that this approach seems to fit Bail and Breha’s personalities well (and Leia’s for that matter!), but also think that this is the kind of society that likely shaped those personalities, you know? 

And of course Leia never shies away from pushing envelopes galaxy-wide, and supporting such an organization would (hopefully- although fascist regimes get weird about this sort of thing!) be a way for her to advocate for something she believes in that is valuable, and, while pushing the envelope, actually do-able (as opposed to openly advocating for overthrowing the Empire).

I received an anon message about how I was ruining Star Wars and Star Wars fanfiction with my naked sociopolitical agenda, and how its absurd to apply Earth morality to Star Wars in- any? such a?- way. At the time I didn’t want to post it, but it seems relevant to mention here. Honestly, what “hurts”- other than the fact that someone felt the need to go out of their way to share this opinion with me without signing their name- is that it implies I have no “legitimate” thought process behind this choice for the story. I believe that I have sound reasons why I think Alderaan was this way. Sure, it’s in line with my own points of view- but that’s in part because I think Alderaan is intended by George Lucas to be a beacon of democratic values under a repressive regime, and a symbol of all that is nurturing in the Galaxy, and to me that fits with these ideas. Other people may disagree with my interpretation of Alderaan, as well as how democratic values and a value placed on life would translate into sexual mores. Other people do disagree, and write it differently! That’s fine. But I don’t feel that I’m drawing it out of nowhere. And as usual, this is only a critique when the Earth morality we’re drawing from is “progressive”- no one feels the need to go into the inbox of authors who wrIte about Alderaanian courtiers planning to check Leia’s hymen before her wedding night to tell them not to project specific Earth cultural practices onto the GFFA.  Their incorporation of Earth history is seen as well thought-out, valuable, and detailed world-building; mine is considered a cheap trick. 

And no one should go bother those writers either! Their stories have something to offer, just as I believe mine does. (And I know fanfiction is free, amateur authors, blah blah blah- but honestly, fanfiction being free isn’t the primary reason to behave supportively and decently toward people who make themselves available on the internet. Sure, you can post a negative review of Claudia Gray’s books on your own blog- and sure, you really should not do that with fanfiction, because its unnecessarily mean for people who hare having fun in their free time and doing what’s meaningful to them- but its still rude to go to Claudia Gray directly and tell her she’s ruining Han and Leia, or Star Wars, or how much you hated her stuff! Direct-to-author contact should always be polite, whatever the context.) I believe strongly that everyone should be able to bring whats interesting and meaningful to them to the stories they want to tell in fanfiction, and I personally think there should be room for both approaches!

From my perspective, there has been a lot of handwringing lately about fanfic being ruined by “overly political” agendas and about authors (mis?)using Han and Leia to work out “ideas about female empowerment.” (Although perhaps that perspective is colored by the anon message!) I’d be lying if I said that didn’t dull my enthusiasm about writing Han and Leia, period- no matter how light or fluffy or smutty or “divorced from real-life”. Because even if my past pieces are not considered to fall into that category, that atmosphere makes me feel stifled, like I’m no longer writing for me but like I’m writing to prove that I am still valuable in this community by coloring in the right lines. So while the entire bones of the story were written in August, as I “colored it in”, it did come to include more sociopolitical elements than I originally conceived of it having. I only did so in ways, however, that I felt enhanced the human story at the core, rather than took away from it. They came to me naturally, organically, as the story unfolded, rather than me sitting back and trying to find places to jam them in. Another kind reviewer whose words are etched in my heart noted that “it's all the details that really make it, that tell the story,” and while she was referring to things like body language, I like to think that these details were no less a part of that, and added to rather than drew from the story. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have included them. People may of disagree about whether or not I succeeded, and its possible that my own skill deficit was part of that! But, while I may have failed, I don’t like the idea that they couldn’t have been included in such a story in a way that was relevant. 

I do affectionately like to think of this- even if I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek/ironic- as my “political screed” fic, because a) I recognized upfront that I was powerless to stop it from being taken that way, even if I took out every possibly “political” element, simply because it involved Leia having previous partners; b) it’s as “political” as I think I’m capable of getting, which is to say (to me)- not very!  its a story about the characters above everything, so it gave me a chuckle to call it political; c) it was a way to prepare myself for a comment like the one I received, which I thought was probably inevitable; and d) it was my way of proving to myself that I did not need to live in fear of writing a “wrong” fic and being tossed out on my ass. I can continue to write whatever is meaningful to me and take whatever response I get. If many people don't want to read it but are still down to read my other stuff, that’s great! If some people don’t want a voice like mine around at all, its better that I know that now rather than worrying about it for the next eight months before finally gathering the courage to publish a prompt I promised to write for a friend, and having my heart broken all over again after spending a lot of time and energy mending it.

And honestly, the overall response has just been so heartening. So many people have recognized it as fundamentally a story about Han and Leia connecting with each other and it just warms me to my toes to hear that it resonated. The recipient who it was for was thrilled to see some of her own headcanons included too, so I feel like I’ve done my job and gained a meaningful writing experience (that prompt- “and we never talked after that”- was really hard to right a nice, hopeful Han/Leia story for!).

So thanks, dear reviewer(s), and I hope I added something interesting to your comments about Alderaan!  💚💙💚💙

[fangirlandtheories]

Can you write a fic where something makes Eve start being cold and mean to Ezekiel?

I am so sorry. A. For being the worst ever and taking months to complete this, but B. For this fic in general. Note: I cried while writing it. 

She didn’t mean it. It had just slipped out in a moment of irritation. She felt horrible. His face! He trusted her and she betrayed him. Eve released a shaky breath as she raised a hand to the door in front of her. She gave a quick, hard knock, rattling the light door beneath her fist.

“Go away.” The voice inside groaned.

“You don’t even know who it is!” Eve answered, furrowing her brow. The door swung open, revealing an annoyed Ezekiel.

“Oh, Baird, what a surprise.” He gave a wide, fake smile. “Go away.” With that he slammed the door shut. Eve gasped lightly, before huffing and began knocking again. That’s when she heard multiple locks slide into place. Naturally he would have a million and a half locks to keep his competition from breaking in.

“Look, Ezekiel, you know I didn’t mean it. It just slipped out and I’m sorry! Just let me in so we can talk.” She practically begged.

“Eve, please. Just go.” Ezekiel said quietly through the crack of the door. Eve felt numb as she heard his steps lead away from the door. She had no choice but to go.

Stupid.

She had no idea where it came from but it did. It had happened during their last mission. It wasn’t even that difficult of a task, but none of them had gotten much sleep so they were all vaguely annoyed to begin with. Ezekiel with his never-ending energy seemed to be perfectly alright, even a bit too hyper. Turns out he had a double shot of espresso before joining them. Ezekiel on his own was hyper enough, but with added caffeine he was going off like a rocket. That’s not good when you’re around three other people who are very tired. They were trying to sneak through the Victoria & Albert Museum in London so that they could find Da Vinci’s notebooks. This was case more built for Jake and Cassandra’s caliber. That’s the only sensible reasoning she could come up with.  Essentially, Ezekiel was there to get them through the door and to grab the notebooks out of the display.

It had happened at the notebooks. He had the case opened and they were looking at Da Vinci’s drawing of attachable wings. Jake was completely engulfed in the artistry of the sketch, while Cassandra concentrated on the science behind making the wings work. Ezekiel… well he was bored.

“I don’t get it. Why would he write backwards?” He asked, leaning over Jake’s shoulder.

“Because, Jones,” Jake huffed in irritation. “He didn’t want people to steal his ideas. If they couldn’t read it, they couldn’t understand it.”

“Maybe he should’ve locked it up tighter.” Ezekiel shrugged.

“Locked it up tig- Baird! Why is he still here?” Jake turned to Eve in frustration.

“We wouldn’t have the notebooks without him.” Eve reminded, trying to amend the situation. “Even if he doesn’t understand the importance of them.”

“Woah woah woah…” Ezekiel turned around to her quickly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well I just mean… This isn’t really your thing. You’re more modern so in comparison to Jake, Flynn, or Cassandra you’re kinda stupid with the historical stuff.” There it went. Flying out of her mouth faster than her brain could process the thought. The room suddenly turned tense and silent. Ezekiel’s eyes fell to the floor as Cassandra and Jake watched cautiously.

“Oh…” Ezekiel mumbled. “I see.”

“Ezekiel I didn’t mean it like-” Eve began but was cut off.

“It’s fine. No harm done.” He faked a smile. “If you all will excuse me, I just remembered I made plans for tonight so I gotta jet. Enjoy the notebooks.” With his hands in his pockets and his head down, he began to walk towards the door.

“Ezekiel, wait.” Cassandra sighed, beginning to walk after him, but he was already gone. He had gone back through the backdoor and was probably headed home by that point.

“Baird… That wasn’t…” Jake started, unable to even finish his thought.

“I know. I’ll talk to him later. Right now let’s just finish this case.” She sighed, still staring at the door that he had quickly walked out of. She needed to set this right.

That’s why she was standing outside of his apartment. Her heart felt heavy as she thought about the fact that if he had so many locks to only open his front door, how many would he have to have to open his heart? She saw the sliver of light extinguish from the door crack and she knew she wasn’t going to get to speak with him that night. Still, she was going to press her luck.

“Ezekiel? If you can still hear me, I’m going to come back tomorrow, except I’ll ask Jenkins to make your front door the destination for the back door so you can’t lock me out. I’ll be here at 8 am sharp. If you come see me before that, however, we won’t need to go through the trouble of invading your privacy.” She sighed softly. “I really am sorry.” Then she left.

Ezekiel stood on the other side of the door, listening intently. “They always are.” He mumbled as he drove the heels of his hands into his eyes. It sounded like he was going to need to wake up early tomorrow. It was 7:45. His plan was to leave just before she got there, just to make it more frustrating for her to return to the Annex and find him there. He drove across town to a building under the bridge, and waited.

“Ezekiel?!” Eve yelled, back at his apartment. “That little son of a-” She stopped her sudden realization as she looked around. He had a pretty nice house. It was very cozy. A little unexpected actually. She walked into his kitchen and smiled. On the refrigerator was pictures of him as a child, hugging who she presumed was his mother. There was another picture of him with other kids, some older, some younger. She knew some of them had to be siblings based on the drawings, or scribbles really, that also hung on the doors. They were addressed very lovingly to “Uncle Zeke” with little hearts and rainbows drawn around them.

Her heart lurched a bit when she turned to the table to find a college level history book open on the table, turned to a page about the Renaissance. She knew that he had only looked at it that night, because the first article on the page it was open to was about Da Vinci. She sighed, pulling out her phone and dialing his number.

“Where are you?” She asked when she heard him pick up the other line.

“I’m at the Annex.” She could hear a smug smile forming on his face. “Where are you?”

“I’m at your house.” She deadpanned.

“Now what would you be doing there?” He asked with fake sweetness. She could hear the anger he still felt bubbling deep down.

“Looking through your pictures, Uncle Zeke.” Suddenly his end got silent.

“Yeah well… A mission just popped up for me. So sorry to cut this conversation short but I really must go and save the world. Ta ta.” He ended the call quickly.

“Ezekiel, no! I need to come with you.” She yelled back, but he was already gone. Anytime a Librarian performed a mission without a guardian, the likelihood of death increased exponentially.  Baird ran back towards the door, hoping to get there before he used the backdoor. She ripped open the door, only to find the hallway staring back at her. She was too late.

When she finally got back to the Annex she was greeted by a grave sight. She had gotten back as quickly as possible, but it still took her about 30 minutes to make it back. That was, apparently, enough time for Ezekiel to get himself into huge trouble. She was greeted by a teary Cassandra and a stressed looking Jake, Jenkins nowhere in sight.

“What’s going on?” She asked. “What happened.” Then she noticed the blood on the floor, on the table, everywhere.

“Ezekiel… he-” Cassandra began before choking on her own tears.

“He doesn’t look so good Baird. Jenkins was worried. This doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well for him.” Jake told her solemnly.

“No. You’re Librarians. You don’t think like that. You have hope where there is none. What exactly happened?” She asked shakily.

“He was shot by a poisonous arrow. He was bleeding really heavily and he was kinda green. He’s back there with Jenkins.” Cassandra whispered, fearing that if she spoke too loudly, something awful might happen to her favorite thief. Eve heard the word shot and poison and began racing towards Jenkins’ lab.

“Jenkins! Is he going to be okay? What can I do?” She asked as she ripped open the door. Ezekiel lay on the cot, whiter than she had ever seen him. His eyes were sunken and she could hear his shallow, labored breaths. His side was red and sticky with blood. Fear ran through Eve’s thoughts. He was shot in his abdomen, which is a. The most painful place to be shot but also B. The area that is most likely to become infected.

“Colonel, it’s… it’s not looking good. I’ve done everything I can to turn the effects of the poison but nothing is working. I fear the worst.” He gave her the most honest answer, yet she refused to accept it.

“No… there has to be something… anything. Don’t we have any magical healing juice?” She asked frantically.

“I’ve tried everything we have. It’s too powerful.” He answered quietly. He had always hated being the bearer of the news but it was worse because this was Ezekiel. Everyone’s immature little brother so to speak. He was quick, uncatchable, nothing like this should’ve ever happened to him.

“What about the ‘break the glass only in emergency’ potion. You said it heals everything.” She turned, with tears in her eyes.

“Colonel…” Jenkins whispered. “I couldn’t subject him to that. You know the side effects of that potion. He’d be alive, yes, but he’d be paralyzed for the rest of his life. That’s not Ezekiel.”

“Dying isn’t Ezekiel either! I am the Guardian and it is my duty to keep him alive.” She argued.

“He wouldn’t be alive!” Jenkins snapped. “Don’t you understand? He’d be breathing and living but he’d never be the Ezekiel we all know and love. He’d be miserable and depressed and I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, let alone someone who we all care so much about.” Jenkins’ yelling was cut off by a beep. A long, hard beep, coming from the heart monitor. Ezekiel was gone. They whipped their heads around to him to find his pale skin to have sunken to an off grayish color, his chest no longer rising and falling.

“Nonononono.” Eve said quickly through tears. “We have to do something! CPR! Defibrillate him! Anything!”

“Colonel.” Jenkins waited, but he could tell she didn’t hear him. “Eve.” Her head snapped up at him. “We’d be prolonging the inevitable. He’s gone. I’m so sorry I failed. I wish I could’ve done more.” He spoke calmly and gently, face full of emotion, but no tears. He couldn’t cry over death anymore, it had become the only constant in the immortal’s life.

“Will you… tell the others? I don’t think I can and I need a moment to myself.” She sighed, wiping away some of her tears. Jenkins nodded before exiting the room, leaving her alone with Ezekiel. Their annoying, cocky, sweet, selfless thief was dead. Their was nothing she could do. As she thought back on their time, she remembered the immense pride she felt for him. He always managed to make her smile and amaze her with his vast knowledge. He’s the nicest criminal she knows. Knew.  Her latest memory wasn’t so great. She called him stupid. He was so hurt and now he was gone. She’ll never get him to forgive her. No matter how many times she apologizes, it’ll never be enough because it was all her fault. He looked at her like a mother and she directly insulted him and put no faith into him.  A new thought spiked through her like a dagger made of ice.

Oh God, His family.

Uncle Zeke.

His mother… his actual mother.

She had to tell them. Face to face. It was the only way. She stood slowly, moving towards the door, before pausing and looking back at Ezekiel. It felt so wrong to leave him so vulnerable, so exposed, so she covered him with his blanket. As she fired up the door for a small town in Australia, she heard the sobs of Jake and Cassandra and knew that Jenkins had to have given the news. It was her job to tell his family.

She walked though the door to a small trailer park on the bad side of a small town. Windchimes clanged against themselves, breaking the eerie silence. A place like this wasn’t for Ezekiel. The people in places like these tended to stay safe in their one spot forever. Ezekiel couldn’t be placed in a box like that. She glanced down at the file she had brought with her that told her all she needed to know about his previous life and found his house number. She searched around until she found a broken down mobile home with the paint chipping off. She knocked and a heavily pregnant woman answered the door.

“Hi, I’m Colonel Baird, I’m looking for the family of Ezekiel Jones…” She asked.

“Oh… a colonel. Mama!” She had a thick Australian accent as she yelled into the home. “There’s a soldier from the States looking to talk to us about Zeke.” Eve heard a fork drop onto a plate before seeing the same woman from Ezekiel’s photo appear.

“Now you listen here, Missy, I don’t care who you are or where you’re from, but you are not getting my son involved in any more of those missions.” She spoke before Eve could even open her mouth. “He’s just a child! Have some humanity! Wait… Aren’t MI6 operatives meant to be British?”

“You must be his mother. Please, allow me to explain. I’m Colonel Eve Baird and I work alongside Ezekiel at his current job and-” She began.

“You’re Eve?” His mother beamed. “Well why didn’t you say so? He talks about you all the time.” She pulled Eve into a tight embrace. “Thank you for taking care of my son.” It was like a punch to the stomach. How could she tell her after that?

“Can we sit down and chat? I have some news for you.” So Eve sat down and explained. She’d never seen anyone so brokenhearted in her entire life.

“You know,” His mother sniffled. “He never knew that I knew he was a thief. He always made up some story about where all the money he was giving us had come from, so I played along, for his sake. He was such a good kid.”

“I know, I only wish I had gotten to know him more.” Baird told her sincerely.

“Was he happy around you?” She asked.

“He seemed to be, yes.” Colonel answered.

“Cherish that smile. The mischievous glint in his eye. You gave him everything he wanted out of this world: The opportunity to use his gift to make a difference, to save the world every week, twice before friday.” Eve turned to the woman in shock and smiled when she winked at her. “He was never good at keeping secrets from me.”

Eve spent the rest of the night with Ezekiel’s family, crying and laughing and reminiscing. As night fell, she felt that it was time to return home to see how the others were coping. She exchanged numbers with his mother and promised to keep in touch about all the arrangements.

She walked into an empty Annex, her own footsteps the only sound. She walked across the room, about to head upstairs, when she heard a voice.

“So… you talked to my mother.” It was cocky and arrogant and smug and Eve burst into tears immediately as she ran down the staircase, to the mirror in the middle of the room. His face was splayed across the surface, eating pizza. Of course.

“You… you…” She stuttered.

“Yeah.” He smirked. “If Judson can do it, why can’t I?”

“Ezekiel… I’m so sorry. I never ever meant a word of what I said.” She cried into his reflection.

“I should be pissed, but the first thing you did after I died was go see my family, so I guess you’re evened out.” He smiled a real smile. They spent the rest of the evening talking. About love, life, everything. It was almost as though he was alive again. As the years went by, he was always there. He laughed alongside Eve and Flynn’s kids, helped Cassandra pick out the perfect outfit for a date with her girlfriends, Lucy and Estrella, and of course, pranked Jake. His life left a permanent mark on the Library and on everyone’s lives. He was the only Librarian besides Judson to become one with the Library. Despite not being able to leave the Annex, he still helped save the world every week, and twice before Friday.