#kind of. it goes along with it? it's just the description of the paralysis

[whateverdays-art]

Sleep Paralysis, Part 1

There was an IV in my right arm. I felt the anesthesia kick in. I couldn't move, but I was still conscious. I've woken up during surgeries before. "It's not generally recommended to start surgery before the patient is even out!" "I know what I'm doing! You think I don't know what I'm doing?" Initially, I had only come in for a x-ray of my ribs. The nurse had struggled to get a clear image. She had told me, "We're going to need to open you up to get a better view." She had sanitized and cut open my abdomen right there, and somehow that was normal. "Nope, not there," she said. I nodded. A different set of doctors were to take a closer look. I couldn't remember what we were looking for. "Give me the scalpel! You're not even wearing a mask--"

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

About this Series

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #23: Medusa

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms, today we’re making your sweet baby sister (and also kind of the oldest sister? It’s complicated), Medusa. Exile of the Shapeless Isle, Wielder of the Nameless Dagger, and just generally not well-explained at all, Medusa has a lot of skills, which we’ll break down into three goals.

The Obvious: Your mystic eyes can break down anyone you look at, up to and including turning them to stone.

The Not-So Obvious: You can summon a Pegasus by nicking your neck, and if we’re going through the effort to give you a Pegasus, by god you’re going to be good at riding it.

Chains and Whips Excite Me: Your Nameless Dagger is half dagger, half whip, and you’re good at using both ends.

As usual, a spreadsheet for this build can be found here, and there’s an explanation below the cut!

Race and Background:

Like your sister, you’rea Yuan-ti Pureblood, giving you +1 Int and +2 Charisma, Magic Resistance, 60′ of Darkvision, Poison Immunity, and free use of the Poison Spray cantrip and Animal Friendship (On snakes only), using Charisma for casting. Being an ex-god does have perks sometimes.

You’re not really and Archeologist, but you are old enough to tell ruins apart, so you’ll get proficiency with History and Survival. 

Stats: 

Put your highest score in Dexterity; you can move around the battlefield so fast you might get mistaken for an Assassin. Next is Charisma; you’re pretty intimidating, and we need to power up your mystic eyes. Wisdom is next, more for multiclassing than anything, though resisting the urge to punt your sisters into next week does fall under a wisdom save, I think. After that is Strength, which should be higher, but we need the other stats more, and we’ll be using Dexterity for attacking anyway. Pick Constitution next because we really don’t want to dump that, and that leaves us with Intelligence. You’re not dumb, we just really needed the other stats more.

Class Levels:

1. Monk 1: When you start as a monk, you gain proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, and two skills from the monk list. Grab Acrobatics and Stealth for more mobility. You also have Unarmored Defense, making your AC 10 + your Wisdom mod + you Dexterity mod. That’s not amazing at the moment, but we’re working on it. You also have Martial Arts, letting you replace unarmed strikes and monk weapon attacks with a d4, as well as use your dexterity instead of strength when attacking. You can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action after attacking normally.

2. Monk 2: At this level, you gain Unarmored Movement, giving another 10′ of movement as long as you aren’t wearing any armor or shields. You also gain Ki, which at this level can be spent to gain more attacks, dodge as a bonus action, or increase your mobility for a turn.

3. Monk 3: At third level your Innate Spellcasting kicks in again, letting you cast Suggestion once per long rest. You also learn to Deflect Missiles, catching arrows (or swords, I guess, depends who you’re fighting) out of the air and throw them back. You also pick a Monastic Tradition at this level, so get ready to be a Kensei. At this level, you get two Kensei Weapons. Pick Dagger, for the obvious reasons, and Sling, because we’re obliged to grab a ranged weapon. You also have an Agile Parry, letting you add 2 to your AC if you make an unarmed attack during your action, and a Kensei’s Shot, adding 1d4 to your ranged kensei weapon attacks.

4. Monk 4: Throw your ASI into Dexterity for more damage and AC, and also get Slow Fall, reducing your fall damage by 5x your monk level. You’ll need it for all those anime jumps you do.

5. Monk 5: You can use an Extra Attack each turn, and also get a Stunning Strike. Spend a ki point to force a Con save or your target is stunned until your next turn. Are you hitting them so hard bits of them turn to stone? Yeah, probably let’s go with that. Your Martial Arts die increases to a d6, making your everything just a little more deadly!

6. Monk 6: You now have Ki-Empowered Strikes and are One with the Blade, making your unarmed and Kensei attack magical. You can also use Deft Strikes, spending a ki to add an extra Martial Arts die to your attack. Your unarmored movement also increases, giving you another 5′ to work with. 

You also gain another Kensei Weapon, so pick up that Whip so you can fully use your Nameless Dagger. Now it’s time for your mask to come off and start learning some spells. 

7. Bard 1: When you switch over to Bard, you get one skill proficiency of your choice. Grab Intimidation, you’re a pretty scary person, even when you don’t want to be. Bards gain Spellcasting using their charisma, and Inspiration Dice that can help your friends with skill checks and saves. Right now those are d6. For spells, you get two cantrips and four 1st level spells. Grab Message to keep your master abreast of the situation, True Strike to improve ambushes, Earth Tremor to remind those humans why they should fear you, and Longstrider for even more mobility.  Start loosening up that mask a bit and let your mystic eyes start to boot up with Bane to weaken enemy saving throws and Dissonant Whispers to force them back.

8. Bard 2: You become a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency to any check you aren’t already proficient in, and gain a Song of Rest, adding an extra d6 of healing when people use their Hit Dice. This level, grab Healing Word for a bit of, you guessed it, healing, without having to sacrifice that cool whip/dagger fighting style you’ve got going on.

9. Bard 3: As a 3rd level Bard, you graduate from the College of Valor, giving you proficiency with martial weapons. You also get medium armor and shields, but we’re probably not using those. You also have Combat Inspiration, letting your friends add inspiration to their damage roll, or to their AC when they’re attacked. You also gain Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency in them. Pick Intimidation for maximum scariness, and Acrobatics for maximum mobility.

For your spell this turn, grab Hold Person to paralyze enemies. It’s not quite turning to stone, but we’re working our way up to that.

10. Bard 4: Use your ASI to round out your Dexterity and Wisdom for more damage, more armor, and harder Ki saves. For spells this turn, grab the Mending cantrip to keep your mask together (that’s important), and See Invisibility to make your eyes even more powerful.

11. Bard 5: Your Inspiration die increases to a d8, and you become a Font of Inspiration, regaining inspiration dice on short rests. Your mystic eyes continue to grow in power with Bestow Curse, adding one of a variety negative effects to a creature for up to a minute. There’s a whole list of them in the spell’s description, but you can even make up new ones if the DM goes along with it. Petrify their blood and lower their speed! Or remove their reactions for a minute! The sky’s the limit. Technically this is a touch spell, but shut up.

12. Bard 6: You gain the ability to perform a Countercharm, and also another extra attack. Both of these are useless for us, though.  For your spell this turn, grab Fear, because sometimes a +11 to Intimidate won’t be enough.

13. Bard 7: Seventh level bards don’t get much, aside from 4th level spells. Grab Freedom of Movement to help you or another creature ignore difficult terrain, which is great if you get a bit  Earth Tremor happy.

14. Bard 8: Grab the Mounted Combatant feat with this level’s ASI. This will make more sense in two levels, I swear. For now, you have advantage on melee attacks made against unmounted creatures smaller than your mount, if your mount is attacked you can redirect the hit to you instead, and your mount makes dexterity saves with Evasion, like you would have if you could’ve taken one more level of Monk. Ah well, hindsight.

For this level’s spell, grab Greater Invisibility so you can enter your spirit form.

15. Bard 9: Your song of rest becomes a d8, and you get another spell. Grab Hold Monster for more paralysis power. Stay calm, we’ll get real petrification soon enough.

16. Bard 10: Your inspiration dice become d10s, you get another round of Expertise, (pick Stealth and History) and you gain another cantrip! (Blade Ward) More importantly, you get Magical Secrets, two spells from any class. This boost in power needs fuel, so grab Enervation to drain some blood. Finally, grab the main event of this level, Find Greater Steed to summon Bellerophon into battle. You can also summon other creatures with this spell, but why would you?

17. Bard 11: Take a breather this level, you’re only getting a spell. Grab Eyebite for even more eye-based powers, letting you knock an enemy unconscious each round, frighten them, or sicken them, giving disadvantage on attacks and checks. Your pegasus can also get a copy of this spell if you’re mounted when casting it for double the fun.

18. Bard 12: Use your last ASI to improve your Charisma for more special eyes.

19. Bard 13: Your song of rest becomes a d10, and you learn Mirage Arcane, letting you make your Bloodfort Andromeda for the low, low, price of 10 minutes.

20. Bard 14: Cap off the build with Battle Magic, letting you make a weapon attack as a bonus action after using your regular action to cast a spell, and another round of Magical Secrets. Finally grab Flesh to Stone to do what you came here for, and make sure people remember you’re an earth goddess with Investiture of Stone, giving you barbarian style damage resistances, the ability to make small earthquakes around you, and the ability to walk straight through stone without issue, as long as you end your turn in an empty space.

Pros: Even ignoring your steed, you have high mobility, with 45′ of movement, extra dashes when you need them, and the ability to run straight through walls without stopping. Add to that the ability to fly (again, through walls) and that you’re using a reach weapon means that you’ll rarely have to worry about melee classes.

Cons: Rules as written mounted combat is a little bit awkward, as you can’t fly down to an enemy, hit them, and then fly back up. Also, you’ll be needing all that mobility, because you don’t have a whole lot of heath.

[lokilickedme]

Part 3 of Read By Loki Laufeyson - Fifty Shades of Grey

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own (no longer available there) 

Rating:  Mature

Archive Warning:  No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:  F/M

Fandom:  Loki - Fandom, Loki (Marvel) - Fandom, The Avengers (MarvelMovies), Tom Hiddleston - Fandom

Relationship:  Loki/His Book, Ana/Christian

Character:  Loki, Loki Laufeyson, Loki (Marvel), Ana Steele, Christian Grey

Additional Tags:  Explicit Language, this book deserves its own warning tag, one that says DON'T READ ME, Explicit Sexual Content, lame and exceedingly silly descriptions of sex acts

Series:  Part 3 of Read by Loki Laufeyson

Stats:  Originally Published 2016-02-27   Words: 3386 (original version)

Part One:  The Night Manager

Part Two:  High Rise

   50 Shades of Grey, Read By Loki Laufeyson by lokilickedme 

Summary:  Loki reads 50 Shades and throws up multiple times. I would offer my apologies to E.L. James, but she doesn't deserve it. 

Notes:  See the end of the work for notes  

  This shitshow gets on the shaky road with a dedication that made the right side of my face twitch before the story even got started.  It's dedicated to "the master of my universe" and as of right this very moment I'm ready to preemptively toss it into the bathroom, not as reading material for my next luxury soak, but as a replacement for the empty roll of toilet paper that I keep forgetting to run to the store for.  Fuck me people, she didn't even capitalize "master" and ANY GOOD SUB KNOWS THAT NOT CAPITALIZING MASTER IS A MASSIVE SHOW OF DISRESPECT AND YOU DESERVE THE ASS BEATING YOU GET FOR IT - WITH ZERO AFTERCARE.  Don't ask me how I know that, but go ahead and fight me, this is a hill I’m willing to die on.  If this person is writing a book that's touted as an even remotely accurate accounting of a Dom/sub relationship, I can tell you right now, she doesn't know jack shit. 

So I've read a couple of pages and I'm already looking around for my seizure meds when I realize I don't take seizure meds.  I will after this, I might as well go ahead and call it in.  I'm to the part about Wanda the Volkswagon when my anticipatory boner not only goes away, but retracts so far up into my scrotum as a result of the most horrendous writing I've seen this side of Thor's second grade book report on Anne of Green Gables that I'm thinking I might just be female now.  I mean seriously?  This hurts.  I’m not even exaggerating, if you have a penis it’s going to draw up into your gall bladder.  If you have a vulva it’s going to need a vat of Burt’s Bees Extra Moisture Replenishing Salve and a bottle of cranberry capsules.  I’m not even female at the moment and this thing gave me a flaming UTI.

 I’m not sure Wanda, my old VW Beetle, would make the journey in time.  Oh, the Merc is a fun drive, and the miles slip away as I floor the pedal to the metal. 

People, this is a published book.  Someone got paid for this.  It got made into a movie.  I haven't even gotten to the sex yet and I'm already Google mapping monasteries within a one-hundred mile radius because I'm ready to take my vows.  No, this book hasn't made me believe in a higher power.  It has taken away my will to ever get laid again.

 The elevator whisks me with terminal velocity to the twentieth floor. 

Holy fucking shitballs people, terminal velocity by its very definition means someone is going to die.  Is this person wearing a pressurized speed suit?  Do they hand them to you at the door before you go into the elevator?  How does the building tolerate the mechanics of generating that kind of speed?  And if by some random blessing by some random god who won't be getting any thanks from me she actually survived this trip to the twentieth floor, her brains would be leaking out her asshole.  That's not the way to make a good first impression, sweetheart.  Take the fucking stairs next time.

 It’s a stunning vista, and I’m momentarily paralyzed by the view.  Wow. 

Yes, wow.  Paralysis is rarely ever momentary darling, and it does ugly things to pretty girls.  Like, rendering you a jelly-like heap on the floor because your muscles don't continue working while you're paralyzed.  Paralysis sort of means your muscles have stopped working. 

I've begun highlighting every word I come across that the author obviously doesn't know the definition to.  Fake it till you make it, right darling?  Five pages in and my yellow pen has died a violent death.

 I push open the door and stumble through, tripping over my own feet, and falling head first into the office. Double crap – me and my two left feet! 

YOU. 

HAVE. 

GOT. 

TO. 

BE. 

FUCKING. 

KIDDING. 

ME.

In what universe is this ridiculous cutesy sort of shit thought to be amusing?  The cliches are giving me hemorrhoids.  Me and my two left feet?  Not that I'm an expert on Earth terminology and phrasing, but I'm fairly certain people stopped saying shit like that around 1962.  And...I can't believe I'm being forced to say this, but - double crap??  I was already calling my brother a bilgesnipe’s vagina by the time I could crawl, I'm pretty sure the last time I said something as immature and amateurishly silly as double crap I was still in the womb and cursing in Morse Code.  I may actually have even still been a sperm in my father's left testicle.  How old is this writer?

 “Um. Actually–” I mutter.  If this guy is over thirty then I’m a monkey’s uncle.  In a daze, I place my hand in his and we shake.  As our fingers touch, I feel an odd exhilarating shiver run through me.  I withdraw my hand hastily, embarrassed.  Must be static.  I blink rapidly, my eyelids matching my heart rate. 

I'm sorry but I really don't even know where to start.  The Um. Actually- ?  Or the I'm a monkey's uncle?  Maybe it's the staccato pacing?  The elementary school sentence structure?  The fact that all but one sentence of that paragraph has the word I in it, sometimes multiple times?  She placed her hand in his and they shook - sort of like I'm shaking right now.  It's the seizures this damn travesty has provoked, honestly I should sue the author for my prescription costs.  And if that girl's eyelids matched her heart rate then I'm just envisioning one of those blinky-eyed cupie dolls strapped to a paint mixing machine.

 “I own my company.  I don’t have to answer to a board.”  He raises an eyebrow at me.  I flush. 

Yes darling, always do a courtesy flush when the stench is really vomit-inducing.  Like now.  I'm not even going to ask if this conversation is taking place in a bathroom because I can tell you honestly, the bathroom is right where it belongs.

 His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel...or something. 

Something...like, maybe shit, perhaps?

 I shake my head to gather my wits. My heart is pounding a frantic tattoo - 

No darling, trust me, it's not.  A tattoo is something you draw on your body, there's no pounding involved unless you've done the drawing on your vagina.  And if you’re referring to the drum beat, then you should just say so because frankly this is meant to be a sex book and your readers aren’t going to be interested in Googling your sophomoric attempts at using interesting words.  And just as an aside, most humans are going to think of a Scottish marching band when you use that word in that context, and the last thing you want your readers thinking about while you’re sliding into a smut scene is men in plaid skirts blowing bagpipes.

 I am utterly thrown by the sight of him standing before me.  My memories of him did not do him justice.  He’s not merely good-looking – he’s the epitome of male beauty, breathtaking - 

Hold on a second, I wasn't aware I was in this book?  I must have been drunk.  I'm not sure that I would consent to this idiocy even if I was soused off my gourd, so I think I'm going to be filing a second lawsuit for character theft.

 - and he’s here.  Here in Clayton’s Hardware Store.  Go figure. 

Yes, go figure sweetiepie.  Everybody, even handsome people, need replacement U-joints for their toilets.  They come in handy when you're trying to flush books.

 Finally my cognitive functions are restored and reconnected with the rest of my body. 

Honey, cognitive functions aren't a part of your body, they're a part of your brain.  So unless your head fell off while you were walking around in Clayton's Hardware Store, I doubt this happened.  If it did, my condolences to Mr Clayton and the other shoppers, I know how traumatic that can be.

 And from a very tiny, underused part of my brain – 

You mean the whole thing?

 - probably located at the base of my medulla oblongata where my subconscious dwells – comes the thought: He’s here to see you. 

I just had another seizure.  It’s a sex book darling, stop trying to use seventy-five cent Merriam Webster words and settle for something along the lines of My fucking head exploded - trust me, at this point your readers will relate to that far more than to the concept of subconscious thought.  Or any thought at all.  And we all know it’s highly unlikely Miss Double Crap Wanda-driving headless-in-Clayton’s-Hardware store is capable of coming up with a term like medulla oblongata after that terminal velocity elevator ride.

 No way! I dismiss it immediately.  Why would this beautiful, powerful, urbane man want to see me?  The idea is preposterous, and I kick it out of my head.

 And now your head is completely empty, much like the author's, because that poorly constructed series of sentences was all that was rattling around in there. 

For the sake of moving this along, because I have something to say about literally every fucking sentence in this roll of rough-ass toilet paper, I'm going to skip to the first round of sex and see if anything improves.  Because that's what people do when things aren't going well, isn't it?  They have sex and see if it gets better?  And then if it doesn't, you kick them out and finish up with a fresh pack of batteries and a few minutes of Skinamax and when you wake up in the morning it'll be a whole new day, sunshine.  Because honestly, I just got to the part where her cheeks went the color of the Communist Manifesto and if I don't get to some penis and vagina action I'm going to kill myself.  Besides that, all this double crap inner monologue is starting to make my ballsack clench up. 

So alright people, I've got my lube and my right hand ready, let's get this party started shall we?

  "Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?”  Holy shit.  Did I just say that? 

Well it certainly wasn't me.  Having medulla oblongata issues again, are we sweetheart?

 His mouth drops open slightly, but he recovers quickly.  “No, Anastasia it doesn’t.  Firstly, I don’t make love.  I fuck... hard." 

Finally, someone steps up.  Is that the sound of zippers headed south I hear?

 "Secondly, there’s a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for.  You could still run for the hills.  Come, I want to show you my playroom.” 

Nope, my mistake.  Zippers firmly holding north.  How far is this fellow going to count?  Do people actually do that cheesy little “Firstly, secondly” speech tic all the way up to thirdly?  I usually only get to secondly before someone pops me in the mouth.  Somehow I have no trouble envisioning this obviously anal retentive Christian fellow proceeding right along to fourthly, fifthly, sixthly, seventhly...perhaps he has a numbers fetish to go along with that paperwork obsession of his.  If this is foreplay I'm leaving because math was never my strong point and I’ll be damned if I’m going to relive the hell of ninth grade just to get a two page smut scene.  If you want to have sex with me we get to firstly, I point to my zipper, and the game is on.  But he does get points for being forthright enough to come right out up front with the admission that he's such a rough fucker there have to be contracts involved.  Kudos my man.  Too bad he wrecked it by planting that playroom visual immediately after, because now all I can think about is a toybox full of Legos and a plastic xylophone.  Even I can't make anything kinky out of that.

 My mouth drops open.  Fuck hard!  Holy shit, that sounds so... hot.  But why are we looking at a playroom?  I am mystified.  “You want to play on your Xbox?” 

Yes darling, Fuck hard!  It sounds like a Bruce Willis movie, only this time he's not in an office building crawling through the ceiling or on an airplane fighting off terrorists, he's tied to a bed while Bonnie Bedelia drips hot wax on his scrotes.  It's a real shame we lost Alan Rickman, I'd give anything to see Hans Gruber standing at the foot of the bed in a leather corset intoning Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker just one more time.

As for playing on his Xbox, the Sims have a "whoo hoo" function.  That's all I'm going to say about that.

 - it feels like I’ve time-traveled back to the sixteenth century and the Spanish Inquisition.  Holy fuck. 

Ah yes, the good old days of the Inquisition.  I had quite a wonderful time during that era, it was a sado-masochistic wet dream.  And no, I wasn't an Inquisitor...I worked as a volunteer equipment tester for the Vatican.  There wasn't a steel spiked ball cage or 360-degree nipple twister that earned my seal of approval until I screamed for my mommy.  Something tells me this pansy-ass little ninny isn't going to make it past the electroshock vulva clamps before she's crying for every matriarchal figure in her family all the way back to the Charlemagne era.

 “It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you.  I will gain a great deal of pleasure, joy even, in your submission.  The more you submit, the greater my joy – it’s a very simple equation.”  “Okay, and what do I get out of this?”  He shrugs and looks almost apologetic.  “Me,” he says simply. 

Um...no. Just no.  Unequivocally NO.  That isn't how it works, E.L. James.  Not in the slightest.  In a true Dom/sub relationship the submissive receives every bit as much as the Dominant, and there is no two ways around that.  Anything less is bullshit and whoever you're trying to force-feed this lie to should leave running and punch you in the crotch on the way out.  I sincerely hope anyone reading this nonsense is doing so on a dare and not because they want to learn about D/s dynamics, because you're obviously not going to learn anything from this book except how to be a lip-biting ningnong who doesn't do much more than chat merrily with herself inside her medulla oblongata while mentally spouting double crap! on repeat every thirty-seven seconds.  And any respect I had for this Grey fellow for being up front about his sexual preferences just went out the window, which coincidentally is where the lip-biting ningnong should be headed.  Like he said - you could still run for the hills. 

Skipping ahead...skipping ahead...my god are these idiots ever going to do it?  I'm on page 194 and so far the closest they've come to coitus is when he almost ejaculated in his pants in an apoplectic rage when she told him she was a virgin.

 “Ah,” I groan. 

Ack, I puke.

 “You smell so good,” he murmurs and closes his eyes, a look of pure pleasure on his face, and I practically convulse.  He reaches up and tugs the duvet off the bed, then pushes me gently so I fall on to the mattress. 

I'm practically convulsing too darling, but unfortunately not with pleasure.  I need more anti-seizure meds, I've already gone through the entire bottle.  I'll be starting on the Xanax next and then it’s another call to my HMO.

 I’m panting... wanting. 

I'm vomiting...heaving.

 Not taking his eyes off mine, again he runs his tongue along my instep and then his teeth.  Shit.  I groan... how can I feel this, there? 

Hold up a second - this is a man who is so persnickety he pulls the duvet off the bed before he lets her set her ass on it, but now less than a page later he's just removed her sneaker and is licking the bottom of her sweaty all-day Converse encased foot?  My capacity for suspension of disbelief is not only wavering at this point, it’s pretty much died a slow and painful death.  Which is what I feel like I’m doing.  And if a man is holding eye contact while licking the bottom of your foot, he’s either upside down or your leg is so high up in the air he could be looking up your hooch and seeing himself through your left nostril.

“How do you make yourself come?  I want to see.”  I shake my head.  “I don’t,” I mumble.

I call bullshit.  She’s twenty-one, a virgin, and has never diddled herself?  That’s about as likely as me never having had intercourse with a horse.

“Let go, baby,” he murmurs.  His teeth close around my nipple, and his thumb and finger pull hard, and I fall apart in his hands, my body convulsing and shattering into a thousand pieces.

Huh.  And here all this time I’ve been laboring under the delusion that more was required than just two short paragraphs worth of nipple play.  This girl is a physical wonder, her nipples are clitorises.  Clitori?  Clitterati?  However you say multiple clits.  I know playing with them feels nice and I’ve made more than one maiden squirm with a few well placed sucks and a pinch or two, but this girl was climaxing before he even got her out of her brassiere.  Someone get her a job at the Kinsey Institute.

Suddenly, he sits up and tugs my panties off and throws them on the floor.

I hope they didn’t land on the duvet, he went to such trouble to keep it from getting mussed.

Pulling off his boxer briefs, his erection springs free.  Holy cow...

Rather like a jack-in-the-box, I’m envisioning.  Holy cow indeed.  Twist the handle and Pop Goes The Weasel plays while you wait in panicked anticipation for that horrid little clown to burst out of the hinged metal box and scare the shit out of you.  Well, he did say playroom, didn’t he.  Oh, and boxers and briefs are two entirely different things, my dear.  The further we get into this silly little tale the more convincing my sneaking suspicion that the author has never actually met a man before.

“I’m going to fuck you now, Miss Steele” he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex.

I’m sorry, I know I’m an adult and all but I’m giggling like a sixth grade girl that wandered into the wrong locker room at school.  And for the record, I know exactly what that sounds like because I’ve done it.  But this...this is just...holy fucking hell with twice the fire and ten times the brimstone, that sentence up there just chemically castrated me.  The head of his erection at the entrance of her sex.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume it means he put his cock on her pussy and we’ll call it fair and move along.

“Hard, he whispers, and he slams into me.  “Aargh!” I cry -

To quote Miss Steele, holy fuck!  His dick is so big it’s turned her into a pirate!

He speeds up.  I moan, and he pounds on, picking up speed, merciless, a relentless rhythm, and I keep up, meeting his thrusts.

Is anyone else envisioning these two jogging through the park playing bongos?  Just me?  Okay.  Oh and for future reference, because I assume this world isn’t lucky enough to escape at least three sequels to this travesty, no sentence should have as many commas as it has words unless the person speaking it is being punched in the mouth between each syllable.

Two orgasms...coming apart at the seams, like the spin cycle on a washing machine, wow.

Darling if the spin cycle on my washing machine made anything come apart at the seams I’d be at Home Depot demanding they make good on the warranty.  Which, something tells me, you should be doing with this new man of yours.

He increases the rhythm infinitesimally, and his breathing becomes more erratic.  My insides start quickening, and Christian picks up the rhythm.

I looked up infinitesimally, mainly because I’ve never actually seen it in print before and it’s such a strange looking word.  I laughed so hard my Xanax came out my nose when Google offered up this definition:  immeasurably small, exceedingly little, less than an assignable quantity.  To give it a meaning, it must usually be compared to another infinitesimal object in the same context.  Mr Grey, I do believe your tight coochied little virgin just called your dick tiny.

“You. Are. Mine.  Come for me, baby,” he growls.  His words are my undoing, tipping me over the precipice.  My body convulses around him, the precipice.  My body convulses around him, and I come, loudly calling out a garbled version of his name into the mattress.

Well damn, I have to say I’m impressed, both with the uncanny power this fellow’s voice has to make orgasms happen from out of thin air, as well as this girl’s ability to climax on demand after never having done so in her entire life previous to this encounter.  That’s three times now she’s “shattered into a million pieces” all over the fucking bed - thank god he had the presence of mind to toss the duvet on the floor, because those stains would never come out.  He’d probably be getting a visit from the local police as soon as Mrs Fratelli at the dry cleaners got a good look at it.  And I don’t know about anyone else but I really want to hear this “garbled version” of his name that she called out into the mattress.  No, really.  I want to hear it because I’m imagining something like what went down in the Caves of Caerbannog when the Knights were debating the pronunciation of the last word written on the wall.  Does that make Ana’s orgasms the sexual equivalent of the Black Beast of Argh?

I’ll wait for you to hit Google on that one.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  I’ve got all the time in the world.  I still have six hours of studio time booked and this travesty of a novel is now residing in stall #2 in the mens room and I’m sitting here playing with the roll of toilet paper I stole.  It was a worthwhile trade.  The word Charmin printed four million times on these little squares in infinitely more intellectually stimulating than that undigested goat’s dinner we were reading.

Fifty shades of TP’ing E.L. James’s house, anyone?

End Notes:  All passages in italics are the property of E.L. James, and as far as I’m concerned she can keep them.

[gabrielalexandebrubaker95]

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[octannibal-blake]

sad songs for dirty lovers 1/4

by: bellamysdelinquent rating: mature word count: 15,005 part: 1/4

based on a prompt from @whyclarke from months ago.

special thanks to @pensieve-foryour-thoughts for the awesome advice and edits! 

part i. we have scars to cover

May 2013

When Clarke Griffin imagines how she thought her senior year of high school would go, she didn’t imagine it would begin with a severe back injury and losing her best friend. She didn’t imagine it would be filled with whispers in the hallway about how it was actually her fault, that if she hadn’t gotten shit faced drunk at a party, walked in on her boyfriend with his face between another girl’s legs, and called him to come get her, Wells Jaha would have been alive to walk across the stage and receive his high school diploma. He would be well on his way to Stanford to become the best lawyer in the United States. According to the same whispers in the hallway, she took that all away.

It took her a majority of the year to realize Wells’ death hadn’t been her fault, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time. It took some therapy, some nights spent in the sheets with whoever she could find that was willing (girls, boys, she learned a long time ago she didn’t care), and  even more nights spent curled into her father's side, broken and afraid of the world. But she’s coping, or she’s trying, at least. In the fall she’ll be heading to Northwestern for her freshman year of college and to her, it’s a new beginning. It’s a new life.

Needless to say, the last thing she wants to do is spend her summer with her mother. Abigail Griffin is many things -- renowned surgeon, respected researcher, and benefactor to multiple non-profit organizations (though, Clarke knows this is more for image than for actually caring). Being a good mom? That’s not exactly in the same category. In fact, motherly skills is not something she could put on her list of accomplishments. Her parents divorced when she was ten years old, though it hadn’t come as a surprise. As far as Clarke is concerned, she was raised by her father. Her mom had spent countless hours at work, out of town for research shit and conferences and whatever else she could do to stay busy. Eventually, she decided to stay gone altogether. She moved to Boston, taking some prestigious job in a research center hoping to one day cure paralysis. Clarke and her dad stayed in Arkadia, the small town on the outskirts of Maryland. She had been fine with this arrangement.

But Jake Griffin ensured his daughter maintained some relationship with her mother, whether (it) be agreed visits over breaks or forced phone calls between the two of them to check in. She never liked them much, but it made her dad happy, so she would suffer on his behalf. Which is exactly how she finds herself in this predicament: currently standing in the middle of downtown Boston, lost and sweating her ass off. All because she loves her father.

“You need to get away from here,” he told her late last week, “And I know you’re going to Chicago in the fall, but it’s important for you to spend time with your mom.”

She had all but kicked and screamed to get out of it, though when asked she couldn’t provide any concrete reason not to go. She had learned to hate Arkadia and everyone in it, and she felt Wells’ ghost follow her everywhere she went, like some sort of reminder that she made it and he didn’t so she should be grateful. It’s the worst kind of haunted. She let him convince her, and in a moment of weakness, got on the plane.

She regrets it(coming to Boston), especially now that she’s become lost and is exactly the kind of person to refuse directions from anyone. When she arrived, her mom had been just as awkward as expected, but she has to give her credit for trying. She took the day off to show her around the city, give her a tour of the local hotspots and entertainment within walking distance. It turns out there are a lot of things within walking distance as her mom’s condo is located in the heart of Midtown. She isn’t surprised- Being a doctor means having money. Being a good doctor who is very well-known and respected? It means more having money than absolutely necessary. She can’t complain, she supposes. Her mom is at least paying for college. Some fucked up penance for child support over the years.

Their reunion had been short lived. The day after she arrived, Dr. Griffin had to go back to work and she’s only caught glimpses of her since. It’s been a whole week and she’s already to go the fuck home. She huffs in frustration as she turns the map in her hands again, trying to pinpoint exactly where she is. Realizing she just isn’t cut out for topography, she stuffs the map into her backpack and pulls out her phone, typing the nearest address into Google maps and finding her location. It’s a ten minute walk from the condo to her spot.

She’s making an effort to be active, even when all she wants to do is lie on her mom’s expensive sofa and binge watch Netflix on the big screen. That’s what she had done her first three days alone, wallowing in her own misery and silently cursing her father for putting this on her. But then she realized this is the first time she’s had true freedom and who the hell is she to sit around and waste it?

She checks out some of the local shops and galleries, feeling a particular pull to the small art studios. When she walks in, often times she’s ignored by the owner. They are, no doubt, pegging her to be some disruptive teen pretending to be a know it all for the sake of being pretentious. She feels a particular satisfaction when she asks the artist about their pieces and goes into a deep discussion of the technique and well-meaning behind them. She manages to walk away with invitations to local art shows and even the number of one of the shop owners. His name is Nyko, and she’s almost positive he was hitting on her. She’s also almost positive he’s in his thirties.

She stuffs the phone number into the back pocket of her jeans without a second thought and continues her journey around the city. She doesn’t get far before her stomach begins to growl aggressively. She tries to Google restaurants around the area, but decides instead to try out one of the food trucks parked on the curb. She finds one advertising a messy looking sandwich, filled with cheese and onions and her mouth practically drools. She steps up to the counter and orders. They prepare it fairly quickly and when she steps to the side to enjoy the Boston-take on the Philly Cheese Steak, she notices the looming building across the street.

Architecturally, it’s gorgeous, with ancient brick and large arched glass windows. Engraved at the top is: “Library of the City of Boston Built by the People and Dedicated to the Advancement of Learning”. It reminds her of something out of the Harry Potter books, if only for it’s long descriptive title It could have said Public Library and had the same effect.. She remembers hearing her mom mention the library to her in passing,  saying she would bring her here to show her around and perhaps give her an early start on pre-med books. She had been less than excited about it. But now, as she stands outside without her mom, it actually seems quite interesting.

When walks in, she understands why it has such a fancy title. The inside is something out of a regency period novel, perhaps even something out of a castle in kingdoms long ago. A soft, sand colored marble graces the floors and the walls, shining brightly as though they had just been polished. The ceiling arches over them, engraved with elegant designs and paints. Pillars are placed sporadically through the entrance hall, making it seem more daunting than anything. She runs her hands along the walls, where art flows freely around and up the stairs. She moves between galleries, admiring their respective themes and Googling any piece that seems unfamiliar. She likes knowing artists- It’s kind of her thing.

She isn’t sure how long she spends gazing at all the pieces, recognizing some from her high school art history classes and others from her dad’s old art books. She’s completely zoned out when someone startles her.

“This panel represents epic poetry,” a deep voice says from behind her, “it represents Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey. They’re crowning him.”

She turns to snap at the person who had taken it upon himself to pretentiously explain the art piece to her, but stops when she sees a nameplate, gold plated and bold name, staring back at her. She pauses, taking a good look at the owner of said nametag and notes he can’t be much older than her. Based on the BU  hoodie he has paired with his well-ironed khakis, he’s a college student. And he works here.

He nods at the painting, “It’s by an artist named ---”

“Puvis de Chavannes,” she finishes for him, “I know.”

It comes out a little sharper than she intends, but he seems not to mind. Instead, he moves to stand next to her and pulls her attention back to the other panels, “So, I’m assuming I don’t need to explain these to you, either?”

He’s looking at her with a crooked smile and renewed interest. He had clearly not been expecting her to know. It isn’t common pop culture knowledge by any means. She takes a good look at him, admiring the freckles that pepper his nose and the way his dark hair is all chaos in curls. When she locks eyes with him, dark, chocolate orbs, gleaming with something that almost looks like excitement. Like he truly enjoys talking about art history. She decides to humor him.

“No,” she says finally, “But I guess it’s your job to explain it to me, so go ahead.”

He laughs, and she finds she likes the way it sounds. It’s deep, rich, and sends a small tingle up her spine.

He then launches into a grandiose explanation of the rest of the panels, talking passionately with his hands about each piece and their historical significance. She finds it’s refreshing to  hear someone talk so passionately about art. She counters him a few times, telling him the correct facts about the artist and their techniques in painting it.  By the end of it she’s almost criticizing the pieces and he immediately becomes offended.

“Back then, this technique was popular!” he says in disbelief, “The lines are beautiful.”

She shrugs, “I don’t know...I just don’t think he captured the true emotion of the time, though.”

Bellamy scoffs, “I don’t think emotion is what he was going for. He was just recording history!”

She can’t hold in her laugh at the way he seems so offended by her opinion and this seems to soften him up a little bit.

She shakes her head at him, “I guess you’re the expert, huh?”

He gives her a mischievous grin before backing away from her slowly. It’s then she notices an abandoned cart full of books a few feet away. He grabs it and pushes it towards her, stopping when he’s next to her again, “I’m just the guy who puts away books.”

She nods, like it was the most obvious thing in the world (even though he had definitely convinced her he was the art guy), “Right. Next time I’ll be sure to find the actual art expert.”

He shrugs his shoulders and begins to push the cart away, but not without the last word, “Well, if you don’t want to be bored to tears, I’m here Monday through Friday...”

“I’ll keep that in mind…” she makes a show of squinting as his nametag, “Bellamy.”

“I’ll be sure to warn the so-called art experts about you…”

“Clarke.” she fills in for him.

“See you around then, Clarke.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to respond before he rolls away, leaving her thinking she might just have to visit the library on a regular basis. For the art, of course.

*

She falls into an easy routine. Her mom shows no signs of slowing down at work and she has eaten dinner more times alone than she would have liked. She can’t help but be a little perturbed by the whole thing. She had come to Boston with relatively low expectations  but even so, she can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment. To compensate for her mother’s lack of interest in hanging out with her daughter, Clarke has made it a goal to go out and at least try to have fun for the summer. Her dad had sent her here for a reason, whether it be to simply get away from her shit town or for her to find some way to fully heal and move on with her life. Somehow, she knows it was probably for both of those reasons.

Her routine begins with a morning walk around the neighborhood; she stops at the bakery to grab a cup of coffee and continues walking, mostly to people watch. She finds it  quite entertaining. Post cup of coffee, she’ll walk to the park and sketch. Drawing has always been her best outlet, the thing to keep her sane even when she felt the furthest thing from it. Over the months, she’s filled more sketchpads than ever in her entire life and though it didn’t cure her, it definitely helped. Her mom calls it a hobby, but it’s always felt like more than that. She gets lost and pours her soul into it.

Sketching will keep her busy until the afternoon at least. She’ll walk home, grab some food, and shower. Then, she’ll make her way back to the library to simply read. Something about it makes her feels safe. It gives her something to pass the time and their collection of old literature piled with old biology and anatomy records is quite interesting. Admittedly, during the hours she spends there, she checks out the book cart guy, Bellamy, while she’s there. She doesn’t see him everyday but when she does, it’s usually when he passes by her table, a squeaking cart in tow, and he comments on something she’s reading or offers a fun fact about one of the million art pieces located around the gallery. They’ll talk briefly and then he’ll bid her goodbye and move right on along.

When she talks to her friend, Raven, she can practically hear the girl roll her eyes through the phone, “Jesus, you would be the one to do some weird, artsy flirting with a librarian.”

Raven is a spitfire, part of what draws Clarke to her. She had been devastated to find out her boyfriend had been dating someone else at the same time (though, Clarke was the actual side chick), but it led her to Raven Reyes and she is actually pretty fucking grateful for that.

“I didn’t come all the way here to date,” she argued, “I’m not emotionally ready for that.”

“Well, at least make some friends while you’re there. You could use them.” Always count on Raven to put things in blunt perspective. It’s a blessing and a curse.

She isn’t sure how to make friends. Right now, Bellamy is the closes thing she has and she has no idea how to push that mere acquaintanceship into friend territory. Does she ask him to hang out? It seems like that could easily be misconstrued into a date, which is definitely not what she wants to happen. Though, she could probably make it clear that she only wants to be friends. She’s never been good at this stuff. Wells was always the more popular one of the two of them. She had just always been part of the deal with him.She doesn’t have to overthink it much more because as luck would have it, Bellamy makes the first effort.

She’s buried deep into an old anatomy book when she hears him clear his throat,“You do realize it's nine p.m on a Friday night and you're sitting in a library?”

She looks up from her book to find him leaning against her table, collar of his library issued polo unbuttoned and name tag missing. Off the clock, she assumes.

“I suppose there are better things to do?” she crosses her hands over the book she had been engrossed in and smiles sarcastically. There are probably a million things she could do that would be more appeasing than reading books about the human body, but going home to an empty house is not one of those. She doesn’t do well with silence and emptiness. That’s when her thoughts become the loudest.

He shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets, “Probably. I was about to meet some friends for a drink.”

She leans back and shuts the book with an aggressive thud before grabbing her bag off the back of her chair, “A nerd like you has friends? I figured you spent your free time talking to yourself about all the inaccuracies of the Hercules cartoon.”

He laughs at her dig, “I save that for weekdays.”

“Mmm, of course.”

She slings the bag over her shoulders and stands there awkwardly, fiddling with the straps. She wonders if he is actually trying to ask her to come out with him or if he’s just telling her his plans for the night. When the pause becomes a bit too overwhelming, she starts for the door.

“You in?” he asks, falling into step behind her.

She skids to a halt, her Keds making an uncomfortable screech against the polished marble. He stops too, eyebrow quirked, “Or not?”

She considers him for a moment. She's known him for a solid two weeks now. Granted, their relationship extends as far as first name basis and artistic opinions. But, it’s not like she has any other options available. It beats spending all night in an old ass library  (even if it is beautiful).

“Sounds great,” she finally answers. Raven would definitely tell her to go. Plus, she wants something to occupy here time. It’ll be good for her, too, to put herself out there. He’s fairly cute. Win-win.

She follows him out of the library, where he immediately untucks his shirt and runs a hand through his hair, pushing the curls into their natural chaotic look. All professionalism vanished from sight. The disheveled look works for him, she decides.

“So,” he says as they fall into step together, “What's your story?”

She tries to hide how uncomfortable that question makes her. She’s never been one to talk about herself, but now it’s become especially difficult. She decides to take a more sarcastic route.

“Oh, you want my biography?”

He shrugs, “Just the basics. So I know you aren't plotting to kill me or something.”

“Says the guy who lured me out of the library after dark,” she counters.

He doesn't respond and she takes that to mean he's waiting for an answer. She decides he probably isn’t a serial killer. Mostly because she just doesn’t get that vibe from him and she thinks she has a good judge of character. Plus, they’re on a well lit street so if he tries something, she should be able to escape pretty easily. She has a mace.

“Visiting for the summer,” she tells him finally, “Divorced parents. Different cities. Nothing crazy.”

“So that explains why you hang it out in a library for fun.”

“It's close and free.”

“Fair enough,” he concedes. She takes it as her opportunity to question him.

“And you?” she probes, desperate to take the attention off her, but also curious to learn about the mysterious librarian once he’s no longer in the library.

He seems to think about his answer carefully, “I live here full time. I go to BU. The library is a summer gig. My professor hooked me up.”

So he’s a student. It makes sense; It explains all the random history knowledge he seems to have stored in his brain and also the fact that he actually seems to enjoy working in the library. She doesn’t know many people this age who would find joy working in a place like that (though, she is part of the minority along with him.).

“Let me guess,” she taps her chin with her finger, “History major?”

Predictable.

He feigns shock at her assumption, “How did you know?”

She laughs and finds herself feeling more comfortable around him. He’s a bit intimidating, with his sharp wit and rugged good looks. She had planned to just admire him from a distance, which definitely sounds creepy but it isn’t. She figured he’d remain an anomaly she told Raven about -- just the cute guy in the library.  She hadn't thought they’d actually speak. She definitely expect him to ask her out, or well, whatever it is they’re doing.

“How about you?” he breaks her from her thoughts, “What's your major?”

She almost tells him she hasn't declared since she's only just starting. But then she doesn't because he's taking her out to, presumably, a bar and her ID says that she’s 21. Not that she has any interest in drinking, but she also doesn’t want miss out on this opportunity. This trip is about expanding comfort zones and putting herself back out there, at least, that’s what Raven told her to use it for.

“Pre-med,” is what she finally settles on. He lets out a low whistle.

“That explains all the anatomy books you've been checking out,” he says passively and she stops again, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Have you been stalking my check out record?”

He turns to face her, “Someone’s flattering themselves. You realize I can see what you’re reading when I pass by your table.”

“So you’re just creepy from afar then?”

“I think you’re projecting,” he scoffs, “Don’t act like you had any intention of coming back there until I so eloquently explained those art pieces to you.”

She finds herself having to bite back a smile, their banter coming quick and naturally. She’s already having fun, “I’m not the one that goes out of the way to walk by your table.”

He laughs at that, holding his hands up in surrender, “Fine. You caught me. I was trying to be smooth.”

“And why is that?”

He stops them in front of, what she can only presume to be, the bar they’re meeting his friends at. It’s got an old-time feel to it, with a sign hanging above a chipping wooden door. She can faintly hear music thumping from behind it.

“Cute girl who knows history?” he offers and this time she doesn’t bother to hold back her smile.

He doesn't give her a chance to respond and she's somewhat thankful because she isn't sure what to say. He pulls open the door and gestures for her to enter first. She mumbles a quick thank you.

The bar turns out to be an old pub. The Ark, it's called. It's cozy, reminiscent of the ones you'd see on a modern sitcom. Full of hipsters and draft beer choices. Every day of the week holding a special event: Trivia on Wednesdays, Karaoke on Thursdays and Fridays,live music on Saturdays. She can't say she's surprised.

She follows him over to a booth in the back where he is greeted warmly by a group of people, who are seemingly already a bit tipsy.

“Everyone, this is Clarke,” he announces, “She was reading biology books in the library for fun.”

“Anatomy,” she corrects without thinking. Her cheeks grow red when she does. Smooth.

She's met by choruses of ‘Hi Clarke!’ and ‘We love nerds.” which makes her feel slightly better about the whole thing. He pulls up a couple of chairs from a nearby table and she plops down next to him. She’s trying not to be awkward, but damn if it doesn’t come naturally. She pulls her phone from her back pocket and shoots a quick text to Raven.

Clarke: “I’m socializing. You should be proud of me.”

Raven: “Bloom, my beautiful flower”.

She giggles and stuffs her phone into her backpack. She wouldn’t say she’s an introvert by any means, but meeting new people has always been an awkward experience for her. She never really knows how to start. Luckily, Bellamy seems to sense her discomfort and introduces them one by one.

“That’s Miller,” he points at a scruffy guy currently sporting a beanie despite it being summer, “My roommate and a total dick.”

The guy, Miller, glares at his friend before extending a hand, “Nice to meet you. Also, he’s projecting his own insecurities onto me. He is the actual dick in the relationship.”

She smiles at that. The others get similar introductions: Harper, the peppy blonde, Gina, the kick ass bartender, Murphy, the kindest asshole she’ll ever meet, and Emori, the asshole’s equally asshole-y girlfriend (in a loving way).

“Bellamy, do you have a radar for finding lost souls?” Harper nudges him on the shoulder playfully.

“You know, I’d be careful,” Murphy comments, “With the way you target young, attractive, lonely people, you might start coming off like a serial killer.”

She decides to give the whole being friendly thing a go. She pipes in, “I definitely got serial killer vibes.”

Bellamy gives her a faux wounded look while the others laugh, “Don’t feed into it!”

She smirks back but finds herself questioning, “Does this happen often?”

“God, yes,” Miller groans. And that’s how they spend the next hour, trading each other’s stories about how they met Bellamy. Miller is the original friend (or OF as he calls it), having been friends with him since high school. They met after Miller had been subject to severe bullying when other kids found out he was into guys.

“Talk about fragile masculinity,” Miller rolls his eyes as he recounts the story, “Anyways, Bellamy here so valiantly defended my honor and punched one of the guys on the football team for using some pretty nasty slurs.”

“We spent the rest of high school as the mystery couple,” Bellamy confirms, “Some people figured he was my boyfriend and that’s why I got mad.”

“Best fake boyfriend ever,” Miller tilts his beer into the air and takes a long sip. Gina goes next, explaining that she had come to this bar, to drink her pain away after suffering a pretty nasty breakup. Bellamy forced her to sing karaoke and made sure she got home safely. They ended up dating for almost a month before both realized the romantic chemistry wasn’t there and stayed friends.

“You’re not a good real boyfriend,” Gina pats him on the shoulder, “But you’ll make a good mom.”

“Mother hen, Bellamy,” Murphy agrees, and launches into his hilariously unexciting story about how he had been the brooding freshman in their biology lab and after a long and painful semester of being forced to work together, Bellamy had ensured that Murphy passed Biology with flying colors. Though Murphy does seem to be the most cynical of the group, he does seem appreciative of his friend.

Harper is the last to go, “This is going to sound like some bad college PSA, but I got drunk at a frat party and I guess some douche tried to slip something in my drink while I wasn’t looking. I’m sure you can guess what happened.”

“He saved the day?” she asks, watching Bellamy with curiosity. His cheeks are glowing red, seemingly embarrassed by the sudden revelation of all the good deeds he’s ever done.

“He saved the fucking day,” Harper confirms, “Launched the guy right out of his own Frat house and called me an Uber to get back to the dorm.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that you have a savior complex?” she concludes. He chugs at least half of his beer he had poured from the table’s pitcher, smacking his lips at the end.

“Sure,” he responds shortly, and she watches something like annoyance pass through his eyes. Before she can think further into it, Miller seems to notice the slight exchange and changes the subject.

“So, you read anatomy books for fun?” The conversation flows easily after that, and she realizes this is the first time she’s truly had fun in a while.

“I had just watched Mary Poppins for the first time!” she’s defending herself, hours later, and the group laughs at her sheer idiocy. By the end of it, she nearly forgets they had all been strangers when she walks through the doors. She thinks making friends may not be a lost cause after all.

“Can we keep her?” Gina asks Bellamy as they all pack up to leave for the night. She pretends not to hear, fiddling with her backpack like she’s searching for something.

She has to keep herself from grinning when she hears his response.

“Definitely.”

*

“We’re going out for Gina’s birthday tonight.”

She is currently helping Bellamy sift through the return cart, reshelving the books in their appropriate sections. They have been working diligently for the last couple of hours and the cart seems to finally dwindling down. Over the last couple weeks, since Bellamy took her to meet his friends, they’ve managed to make a smooth transition into friendly territory. When she stopped by the library the next day, he sat with her on his break and they bickered over the value of reading medical books from the 1940s when medicine has made such big strides since then.

After that, it sort of became a part of the day.. He’d come over for breaks and they would chat, sometimes about the weather and other times about the meaning of life (he had been skimming the philosophy section on those particular days). She preferred keeping conversations light, away from personal territory.  The closest they had gotten is when they were in the theatre section placing the mere two returns for it, she mentioned that her ex-girlfriend’s favorite play had been Othello.

“I’m bi,” she had essentially word vomited, though he hadn’t even asked. He hadn’t even hinted at wanting to know her sexuality but she threw it at him anyways.

“Sorry,” she apologized, blush creeping into skin, “You didn’t ask.”

She expected him to just shrug it off and go on with the day. She had been surprised when he had offered a sympathetic smile and told her very nonchalantly that he also identifies as bi.

“You know, in case you ever wanna talk about,” he added. It’s not much in the way of revealing deeply personal things, but it makes her acutely aware that she’s struggling to keep him at arm's reach. That feeling bubbles up on occasion and when she’d begin to feel as if the conversation was turning too serious, too personal, she’d excused herself to the restroom or rapidly direct them back into the safe zone.

It wasn’t until a couple of days ago that she had offered to help with his work. He had passed by to let her know he was going to work through his break, a very cluttered cart being pulled behind him. He looked like he had been hard at work, his cheeks flush and curls sticking to the sweat beading on his forehead. She isn’t sure what possessed her to offer, but she shut her own book and followed him into the stacks to ask for the rundown on how to shelve them.

“You don’t have to help me with my job, Clarke,” was his first response, but she had shushed him and repeated her questions. With a defeated sigh, he reluctantly explained the catalog system and the shelving etiquette.

She’s currently shoving three copies of Fifty Shades of Grey onto the shelf with a smidge of aggressiveness.

“Can you believe people really read this shit?” she muses aloud, completely missing his previous statement. She likes erotica as much as the next person but that? (It’s )A monstrosity.

“Believe it or not, some people don’t care to read academically all the time,” he jokes and she gives him the finger in return.

“I was reading a regular book, earlier,” she argues and he rolls his eyes, pushing another book onto the shelf.

“I would consider trying to read any part of Infinite Jest academic reading as well.”

“There’s just no winning with you is there?”

“Nope,” he pops his lips dramatically on the word, “But as I was saying, you should come out with everyone tonight.”

She’s been out with the group a handful of times now. She was given a trial run on the trivia team, and as luck would have it, they scored first thanks to her unmatched knowledge on the human body. They had quickly extended a permanent invite to their savior. She accompanied Bellamy from the library to their usual weekend outings, whether it be to a movie or to the Ark just to hang out. She fits in well with them. Even Harper has made an effort to hang out with her, solo. They exchanged numbers and have gotten coffee a couple of times, Harper joining her on her morning walks. She finds that she really likes the girl, her positivity a much needed change in her life.She really is trying.

“Oh, should I?” she responds with a quirked eyebrow.

“I’m sure you have better things to do,” he says sarcastically. Of course, he knows she doesn’t. Hell, she’s made it pretty damn obvious by the amount of time she chooses to spend with him at the library. She even volunteered to help him work.

“I might,” she twists one of her blonde curls idly between her fingers, looking at him innocently enough.

He rolls his eyes, “Well, when you inevitably get bored doing whatever it is, you can meet me here at ten. Wear something nice.”

She doesn’t respond but he seems okay with that. They continue placing books side by side and she decides to take off once they finish. She begins to feel the familiar dull ache of her back and knows she should go home and take a hot bath and rest. Just as she’s pushing the door open, she hears him call behind her.

“See you at ten!”

*

She shows up at 945. She’s sitting on the stairs when he walks out, running a hand through his curls, no doubt to recreate the messy bed head look he’s learned to perfect. When he sees her, he shakes his ruefully.

“Shut up,” she grumbles before standing up. She swears she sees his eyes slide down her body, but he turns away quickly to cover it up. In his defense, she does look good. She hadn’t been intending to dress to the nines, but when she had called Raven for advice she had been fully advocating for the tightest pair of jeans she owns and the most revealing top. She settled somewhere in the middle, going for the jeans, but opting for a loose fitting, off the-shoulder blouse.  

“Finished the all important task you were doing then?” He says instead as they descend the stairs on their way to...wherever the hell they’re going. She assumes it's not to the usual bar. He would have never told her to dress her up. She’s certain she’s seen people dressed in pajamas sitting at the bar which she is totally fan of.

“Yeah, I managed to pencil this into my busy schedule.”

“Oh, I'm so glad you made time for us peasants, Princess,” he tells her sarcastically  and she shoves him playfully on the shoulder. Another new element to their relationship -- playful touches.

“I try to be kind royalty,” she smiles before changing the subject, “So where are you dragging me, anyways?”

He scoffs, “Dragging, is that what I'm doing?”

She gives him a pointed stare.

“Gina likes going to more...I don't know how to describe it. Club-y type places?” his voice rises at the end.

“Like the ones with the obnoxious music and douchebags wearing polos?”

He snaps his fingers, “Those are the one.”

Her mouth twitches, “I guess you'll fit right in.”

It takes her statement a moment to catch and then he realizes that he is, in fact, wearing a polo. And khakis.

“Miller is bringing me an extra shirt, thank you very much.”

They arrive at a place called Ground Bar. She can hear the music as they approach the doors, the windows vibrating with every bass drop. She can say, for certain, she’s never been to this kind of place before. She assumes it’s the sort place exclusive to big cities, not towns like Arkadia. The closest thing she had come to had been her Junior Prom.

“Oh this kind of music,” she remarks. She doesn't hate EDM.  She has a few songs on her jogging playlist. But she can practically feel the migraine coming on. It’s then she realizes she has no idea how to do this.

“Yeah,” he agrees to her insinuation before pulling out his wallet, “Ready to sweat your ass off and pay ridiculous drink prices?”

As if to answer, she pulls her shirt down a little further, revealing a small bit of her cleavage, “I’m ready to make other people pay ridiculous drink prices, if that's what you mean.”

She watches him try to avoid looking, though she can tell he wants to. Maybe she's teasing him a little bit, but it's fun. Just fun.

“That's not fair,” he mutters.

When they enter the club, they manage to spot their group of friends crowded around one of the standing tables, clinking glasses and shouting into the void.

“You made it!” Gina yells, clearly already having had a couple of drinks. She throws her arms around Bellamy, planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

He doesn't seemed fazed by it, instead laughing and turning to the rest of the group, “Really? You started her off with tequila?”

Gina turns to her and throws her arms around her neck, causing her to stumble back slightly. She slurs something about being happy she made it and she can’t help but smile back, feeling genuinely complimented that the girl actually wanted her to be a part of it.

“Happy birthday!” she yells over the thumping music.

Clarke settles in next to Harper, who is still mostly sober. The blonde greets her with an enthusiastic half-hug, “You look great!”

She tugs on her hair self-consciously, the curls already beginning to frizz in the humidity of the bar. She had put a little product in it, in the hopes it would stay relatively tame. She can tell it was a failed attempt. She returns Harper’s compliments, commenting on the dress she picked out. It’s a tight fitting black dress that reaches to mid-thigh and hugs her fit figure in all the right spots. She’s paired it with a pair of blue heels and she tosses her long, blonde hair over her shoulder to model for her. She laughs at the girls antics before turning her attention back to the table. Somewhere in the midst of their greetings, he’s managed to change into a more comfortable looking t-shirt. It’s just a simple dark blue shirt, but it compliments him.

He sneaks off to the bar and she listens intently as Gina starts rambling on about the asshole she had been seeing that won’t call her back.

“I’m a great catch,” she slurs, leaning into Miller’s shoulder.

“Yes, you are.” he reassures with a pat on her shoulder.

“Maybe...” Gina’s voice lowers as she pulls her head in towards the group, “Maybe I’m an awful hookup.”

The group attempts to soothe her, even Emori offering a half-hearted, “No, I’m sure you’re great.”

When Bellamy makes his way back to the table, sipping from his overflowing beer, she proceeds to bombard him.

“Be honest!” Gina jabs his chest with her index finger, “Was I bad in bed?”

Clarke finds herself having to purse her lips to suppress a laugh. He looks completely blindsided by the question. More than that, very much unsure of how to answer. His gaze finds hers and she jerks her head towards Gina. The girl is waiting for an answer.

“No!” and she has to give him credit, whether he believes she is or not, his answer seems to brighten her up.

“It’s him then,” she concludes, smacking her palm on the table and rattling their drinks, “He did weird things with his tongue.”

“That’s why girls are better,” Harper offers and Clarke can’t help but high five her on that one. In her experience, girls are more self-aware of what they’re doing. And more apt to take direction.

This launches everyone into the great debate and Harper announces she needs a drink. Clarke decides to follow her to the bar, if only to get away from the drunken attempt at figuring out who’s better at sex. In all honesty, she’s a firm believer that gender has nothing to do with sexual prowess. It’s definitely based on the person, at least, that’s been her experience.

Harper takes her hand and guides her through the crowd and she finds herself having to squeeze in between bodies and having to take a couple of elbows to the boob in the process. Somehow they manage to squeeze into an open spot at the bar and Harper flags down the bartender. She orders a gin and tonic before turning to her.

“Clarke!” she yells to get her attention, “What do you want?”

This is where she didn’t think it through. She doesn’t drink. Not anymore. The whole idea of it makes her sick to her stomach, no doubt residual guilt eating away at her when she even contemplates picking up a drink. Every time she’s gone out with them, thus far, she’s ordered her own drinks at the bar. Usually a coke or a red bull. People just assume they’re alcoholic and she doesn’t feel like correcting them. As for now, she could just order a coke. She doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. But instead she decides to take the safer route, the one that won’t end in a potential interrogation.

“Bourbon and coke,” she announces. From behind Harper, she watches a greasy looking man admires her ass as she leans over the bar and then turns his eyes on her. He’s definitely older than them, probably in his forties. His beard is hinting at gray and he’s wearing an excessive amount of hairgel, something people her age have learned not to do.

“15 dollars, ladies!” the bartender hollers. Clarke makes a show of beginning to dig in her small purse for cash and she feels a rough hand touch her wrist.

“I got it, sweetie,” he says and tells the bartender to put it on his tab. She tries to keep her eye rolling at a minimal and instead offers as sweet a smile as she can give.

“Thanks!” she grabs Harper’s free wrist and drags her away before the creep can try to latch onto them.

It still amazes her how there still seems to be the assumption that if you buy a girl a drink, she’s suddenly in debt to you. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson. At least they got a free drink out of it.

“Was it free?” Bellamy asks when she moves into the spot next to him. She slides the drink to him and he gives her a confused look.

“Free for me, free for you,” she offers without explanation, “Bourbon and coke.”

She sees something pass across his face briefly, but she isn’t quite sure how to place it. Morbid curiosity? Gratitude?.

“You trying to get me drunk?” he has a charm about him, she can admit. The way he carries himself confidently but self-aware. He knows he’s good looking and he knows how to use it. She can’t complain.

They’re teetering into flirtatious territory and she feels herself going along with it, moving a bit closer to him and placing a light hand on his arm, “Definitely.”

She isn’t opposed to flirting with him. In fact, she’s opened up that gate multiple times. There’s just something about him that continues to draw her in without notice. It’s like she tries to remain friendly and distant, but he’s determined to make it as difficult as possible, though she isn’t sure he’s even aware he’s doing it. Based on all his interactions, he’s just a friendly guy. He’s affectionate with all of his friends, constantly teasing them and it could easily be misconstrued as flirting. Maybe that’s what’s happening here?

Their moment is short lived. Gina manages to nearly yank her shoulder out of socket trying to drag her to the dance floor. She practically orders everyone else to follow suit. Bellamy and Miller are the only exceptions, expressing just how vehemently against dancing they are. They prefer to watch the poor souls who don’t have rhythm make fools of themselves.

Clarke has nothing against dancing. She’s always enjoys it when she gets the chance to do it. She doesn’t make a big show, just sways her hips with the music and follows the rhythm. She actually enjoys the song that’s playing so falling into the movement isn’t too difficult. The lights  are overwhelming, a kaleidoscope of colors surrounding them, but once she’s used to them she finds that likes them.

It doesn’t take long for Harper find someone to make out with. She moves into the crowd and Clarke does her best to keep at least a idea of her whereabouts. She’s watched too many true crime series to just let someone fade into the background without ensuring they’re safe. She and Gina are dancing with each other, though Gina is very much outdoing her, tossing her hair and twirling despite her balance being something close to awful. Emori and Murphy are dancing closely next to them, zoned in on one another like the rest of the floor doesn’t exist. The beat begins to pick up and she’s having fun throwing herself into the music until she feels hands grip at her hips.

She whips around to find the guy from the bar grinning at her lecherously. Her stomach takes a sharp turn.  She tries to move away subtly, turning to face him and backing into Gina. She gives him her best smile, like she hadn’t just rejected him but he seems determined. He places his hands on her hips again and pulls her towards him, grinding his pelvis into her. The whole thing feels dirty and strange. She’s done her fair share of bumping and grinding, but usually the consensual kind.This just feels forced and all around terrible.

She places her hand on his chest and pushes back and it’s then that he seems to register that she doesn’t actually want to dance with him. He puts his mouth to her ear, “You let me buy you a drink.”

She pulls back and has to fight the urge to knee him in the balls. She leans towards him, “You offered, I don’t owe you anything.”

He wraps an arm around her waist, the direct opposite of what she was trying to tell him. Gina seems to come to her senses, though she’s a little too tipsy to offer any sort of support. She gets credit for trying.

“She said back off, dude!” she yells, trying to pull Clarke away from him. It doesn’t do anything besides make him more irritated.

“No one asked you,” he yells at her before waving her off like a fly. To Clarke’s surprise, Gina just takes a step back before disappearing in the crowd. She tries to locate Murphy and Emori, but they seemed to have disappeared at some point. Trying to decide what next steps to take, she concludes that he is actual trash and being polite isn’t going to make him let go. So, she rationalizes her next move and as she leans into him and he gives her a sickening smile, she rears her knee back and gets him squarely in the dick. He let’s go immediately.

He bends over in front of her with a yelp and she places a hand on his shoulder before leaning down to get on his level yelling over the music, “Word of advice: when a someone says no, you fucking listen!”

Feeling satisfied with her work, she gives him a small push and he leaves the crowd with his tail tucked between his legs. When she turns around, she finds Bellamy watching her carefully.

He manages to snap his mouth shut and give her grin, “Gina said some guy was being a dick.”

She nods in understanding. She went for help. She gives the girl her credit back, glad that she hadn’t actually left her in the dust.

She lifts her chin, “I can handle myself.”

That only causes his smile to widen, “Clearly.”

She stands there awkwardly for a moment, trying to shrug off the whole incident. A new song has begun and it’s a slower. Seductive almost. Almost instinctively, she begins moving to beat again. She kinks her eyebrow, daring him to join her. She expects him to shake his head and walk away, but as she moves her hips from side to side, she notices the way his eyes darken ever so slightly and he begins to move with her.

Instinctively, she moves in closer to him. It makes her feel a little more comfortable and she expects that no one else will attempt to dance with her, at the least. He seems hesitant at first, his hand only grazing her side. She feels like she’s in a trance. They’re watching each other intently, and she grabs his hand to place it firmly on her hip. Permission granted.

She leans in with a coy smile, “I thought you didn’t dance?”

He places a finger to his lips, “Don’t ruin this once in lifetime opportunity.”

He places his other hand on her and he’s holding her as she moves, letting himself follow her lead. It feels vastly different from her previous encounter. It’s tentative, but they gravitate towards one another. Her hand slides onto his neck, playing with the hairs at the nape and his arm slips around her waist. They press into each other, hips meeting and chests flush together. She’s feeling warm, all of a sudden, heat flooding her cheeks and her stomach. She doesn’t know when the last time she had been this close to someone. But what she does know is that this, the way he’s moving with her and watching her likes she’s something special, is something she doesn’t want to end.

As if thinking the same thing, he leans his forehead onto hers and their breaths mingle with the heat of the dance floor. She licks her lips in anticipation. There is only a second of hesitation as the song begins to fade into something new before he closes the short distance between them and presses his lips against hers. It’s chaste at first, just lips on lips but she tilts her head slightly and when he runs his tongue teasingly at the seam of her lips, she quickly grants him access.

He’s a good kisser, is the first thing that she registers. She gets lost in him almost immediately, the rest of the world completely drowned out, her own racing thoughts silenced. They’re testing the waters, teasing tongues and soft touches. They could be there for moments or hours, she isn’t sure but when they break apart, suddenly everything is too loud.

.

“I need some air,” she breathes and pulls away, trying to make her way from the crowd. Her heart is beginning to race and she feels herself beginning to panic. Her chest is vibrating under the bass and her head feels like it’s pounding. She forces her way out the door, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

Damn, he’s a good kisser.

Her head is a flurry of thoughts, wanting more but also wary of what it means. She leans against the brick building and closes her eyes, trying to ground herself. The air isn’t cool by any means, but there’s a light breeze that’s helping the fire burn low on her cheeks. She’s hears approaching footsteps and doesn’t even open her eyes to see who they belong to. She knows. And she isn’t surprised one bit.

He leans against the wall next to her, shoving his hands in his pocket and just gazing into the parking lot. They stand in silence, both taking in the meaning of the moment on the dance floor. What does it mean, if anything? Where do they go from here?

“Did I fuck up?” he asks finally, his voice low and contemplative.

“No!” she says immediately, her cheeks flaring once again in embarrassment, “You didn't do anything wrong. It was nice…”

Nice is an understatement. It was amazing. Mind-numbing, even. She can’t remember the last time her mind had ever been that quiet, That focused.

“But?” he can already tell there’s more to the statement. There is a but. A very big but. How does she explain it without going into her history? She’s not ready to reveal that part of herself to him, after all, they're nothing but strangers. Intimate strangers.

“I leave for Chicago in August,” she settles, revealing the least personal of reasons why kissing him was a bad idea, “I...I can’t commit to anything.”

He finally looks at her, shaking his head with a grimace, “It was a kiss, Clarke.”

She doesn’t say anything so he continues, turning his body towards her and relaxing against the wall, “I’m not asking for anything. I like you and it can mean whatever you want it to mean.”

What does she want it to mean? She likes him too, she knows that. But can it really be that simple? Like a friends with benefits type thing? They’re hardly friends. But maybe that’s what makes it a good thing.

“How can you like me? You barely know me...”

“Maybe so. Does it matter?”

She thinks about it carefully. If she had any interest in dating him, maybe it would. She'd want him to know everything about her -- her birthday, her history. She’d tell him about Wells. She'd want him to know the finer details. But she can't date him. She has three months in the city and then they're both on were their respective lives. Yet he’s making her an offer-they can just do what they want to do, summer fling. She always thought those were movie cliches but it doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. They’re pretty much together all the time, anyways.

“I guess it doesn't,” is her final answer.

“I know you’re smart, you’re kind of funny, and tough as nails,” he lists them off like they’re no big deal. Like he wasn't complimenting the hell out of her. She realizes that nothing really has to change from what they’re already doing. They had been flirting since they met.

“Kind of funny?” she raises an eyebrow and she swears she sees his shoulders sag in relief. He seems to understand that it’s her way accepting his offer...or whatever it is.

“You’re hot, so it makes up for the lack of humor,” he deadpans and she pinches his arm. He gives her another smile and she decides to go for it. What does she have to lose?

“So, what happens now?” she asks, inching closer to him, lips curving upwards as she grazes her fingers against his arm.

He offers a shy laugh, bringing his hand to the curve of her hip, “Well, for starters, if I kiss you again, are you going to run away?”

She smiles then, “No.”

“Good,” he replies, a slides his other hand onto her cheek and pulls her forward. Their lips are inches apart, “I like kissing you.”

She doesn’t respond, just closes the distance between them. The world goes silent again, her mind a comfortable quiet she could find solace in. It’s the happiest she’s felt in months.

June 2013

Two things change after Gina’s birthday. The first being that she now has everyone’s number and has been added to every chat group known to man. And they talk a lot. It's endearing but also annoying as her phone is constantly buzzing with activity.  The second being that her and Bellamy are friends who make out on occasion. Or all the time. That’s a better description.

She continues to see him in the library and they put away books together, talking about  anything they can, usually keeping the topic neutral and not very personal. She had told him that after a particularly intense make-out session outside of the Ark and he had been cool with it. The less they know about each other, the more casual they can keep it.

They talk about Harper’s currently dating crisis -- apparently the girl from the bar (Roma was her name) is extremely into her and really wants to date her, but Harper also really wanted to play the field this summer. They also talk about school, he tells her about some of his classes and his aspirations. Nothing out of the ordinary for friends. Perfectly comfortable.

At first, she had been wary on how to act with him while they were around his friends, seemingly not wanting to give the wrong impression.They’re all cool and don’t seem like the judgmental type, but she still hadn't been sure.  Bellamy took the reigns on that one after particularly intense game of darts with Emori and Murphy, he snatched her into a victory kiss and  no one cared. They seemed pretty unsurprised by it, in fact. She figures they know Bellamy well enough to know that relationships aren’t his thing, after all they’ve talked about it quite a bit. His longest relationship had been with a girl named Echo and that lasted about three months before he decided it wasn’t for him.

“Maybe I’m just picky,” he defended himself, but everyone chided him on his inability to connect emotionally. It’s somewhat of a relief to know that about him and it’s perhaps why he so willingly agreed to remain as distant as possible. She can’t complain, it makes staying unattached pretty simple.

“Do you know who Two Door Cinema Club is?” he asks her one day as they lounge in one of the book stacks of the library. They’re taking a well deserved break after shelving a large amount of encyclopedias and she has her head resting on his thigh, thumbing through one of the 1940 editions. He’s currently tracing idle circles into her scalp.

“Sure,” she tells him. Wells had always been her musically inclined friend, introducing her to bands and insisting she listen. They had been one of the few groups/bands she found herself actually enjoying.

“I have tickets to their concert tonight,” he tells her and she doesn’t think much of it. Maybe he’s trying to brag. He likes to do that, she’s learned. He plays the cocky asshole well.

“That’s cool.”

“Miller was supposed to come with me,” he continues, “But he went home.”

Miller’s family lives in Amherst, the most boring town in the world according to Bellamy, but she’s noticed he seems to be a bit dramatic.

“Everything okay?” she asks. She imagines he wouldn’t ditch without good reason. If there’s anything she’s learned about Miller it’s that he’s reliable.

“His dog is sick. He’s old,  so you know...”

If she remembers correctly, his dog had been his screensaver on his phone and he had drunkenly told her all about him. His name is Ammo and he’s pretty fucking cute. It’s also adorable how much Miller cares about him. He’d had him since he was a kid.

“Poor guy.”

Bellamy hums and pulls his clipboard over to idly scratch out the returns he’s shelved, “What I’m trying to say is, I have an extra ticket if you’re interested.”

Oh. It sounds vaguely like a date. Her heart thumps aggressively against her ribcage at the thought.

“It’s not a date,” he seems to read her mind, “It’s just convenient that you like them and I have a ticket already paid for.”

“And you want to go with me?” she wishes she weren’t so self-deprecating.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s very obvious now that he enjoys her company, and only partially because she’s a good kisser. Or so she assumes. She’s never had anyone else tell her otherwise.

“You were definitely my last choice.”

“Well, in that case,” she leans up to give him a pointed stare, “I’d hate for you to have to go alone. Knowing you, you’d probably find some unsuspecting introvert to prey on.”

The venue isn’t far from Midtown, so they make plans to meet at her mom’s place. She gives him the address and she watches his eyebrows shoot into his hairline.

“You're kidding,” he deadpans and she sighs, praying that he’s not another person who will decide to judge her based on wealth.

“We can leave around 6:30,” is all she responds.

“Damn,” he whistles when he shows up at the apartment, “You weren’t kidding.”

He’s fiddling with one of her mom’s weird fake plants while she slips on her shoes.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing,” she practically shoves him out the door, not wanting him to spend too much time going over the historical artifacts lying around the apartment. She’s also not a fan of showing off money, which her mom’s apartment does quite a bit. It’s Not her thing.

They make it to the venue about thirty minutes before the concert, thanks to a very new Uber driver taking the wrong route and getting them lost. She thinks it’s funny, but doesn’t mind when the driver tells them to forget the payment and drives off.

“I’m not really big into standing at the front anyways,” Bellamy says when they walk inside to see a fairly decent crowd smashed against the stage.

“Me either,” she agrees, “Grab a drink and hang in the back?”

“You’re speaking my language.”

That’s how they spend the entire concert, leaning against a table and nodding along to the music. She dances a little, enjoying the infectious rhythm of their songs. When they play her favorite song, Sun, she can’t help but join into the jumping and maybe one or two hair whip’s makes it out. She wore her hair down for a reason.

He watches her amused, though makes no effort to join in. He did tell her the dancing was a rare thing for him. It’s fine, she enjoys dancing alone anyways.

When he steps away to grab a drink during a small break, the band has an issue with an instrument and arere in the process of tuning their back up. She’s fairly engrossed in watching them until she turns to make a comment to Bellamy and realizes he hasn’t come back. When she turns towards the bar, she sees him engaged in conversation with a tall brunette who’s putting on all the stops. She throws her head back with a laugh, looking like she belongs in a Crest commercial, and places a hand on his shoulder. Clarke feels something pull at her stomach but does her best to ignore it. He has every right in the world to flirt and have fun. They’re friends. Friends who like to kiss sometimes and she’s perfectly content with that.

She decides to move slightly closer to the crowd and engage a little more. They seem like a calm bunch. There’s been minimal pushing and some fairly tame dancing. She’ll fit right in. The next song starts and it’s one of their older ones. The crowd goes wild and she finds herself engrossed in the fist pumping, mouthing the words along with the person standing next to her.

When she feels a hand on the small of her back, she nearly pulls up her knee in reflex. But then she sees dark curls out of the corner of her eye and relaxes.

“Couldn’t resist, huh?” Bellamy says into her ear, her original idea of hanging out in the back and watching long lost. She gives him an innocent shrug. She ignores the fact that the knot that had been sitting in her stomach releases at the sight of him. It’s no big deal. He rolls his eyes but to her surprise, he starts to dance with her. It’s nothing much, just bobbing his head and swaying, but seeing him dance is not as rare an occurrence as he claimed. She tries not to feel satisfied by that.

They spend the rest of their night in the crowd and by the time they leave, they’re a sweaty mess. She pulls her hair up into the bun, desperate to get the hair from sticking to her neck. She hates the way it feels.

“They were amazing,” she gushes, pushing a loose hair from her forehead. He nods in a agreement and watches the crowd begin to scatter. She pulls out her phone to order the Uber and hesitates.

“Would it be easier to drop you off first or me?” she asks. She plans on paying for it, to equalize the fact that he brought her along, so she finds a solution that makes sense, “You, probably.”

“You could come home with me,” he says and she nearly snaps her neck looking up from where she had been typing the address in. He watches her reaction warily, “If you want.”

They haven’t crossed that line yet. They have only hung out in the presence of others, whether the general public or his close friends. It’s not like she hasn’t thought about it. In fact, when his tongue is down her throat and his hands are splayed across the small of her back, she thinks about it quite a lot. She’s trying to make better choices, to stop resolving her issues with sex and drinking and whatever destructive behavior she can come up with. None of those things would bring Wells back. Would stop people from hurting her.

But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel the temptation. She thinks about going home, to the dark and empty home, to another cold pizza on the counter from her mom, trying to make up for her absence. She thinks about the aching loneliness she feels when she’s stuck inside with nothing to distract her from reality. She looks at him and he’s watching her with reserved hopefulness and suddenly the answer is easy.

“Sure,” she finally says and types his address into the Uber destination bar. They stand in a comfortable silence waiting for it to pull up. Not ten minutes later are they in the back of the car and he’s debating the ethics of surge prices. He had caught a glimpse of her phone and saw the “3x” symbol next to the pricing and decided that this particular Uber driver deserved to hear his lecture on price gouging.

“Bellamy, it’s fine,” she groans, sensing the discomfort of the driver, “Write a letter to the CEO or something!”

He concedes with a dramatic sigh and she pats his leg sympathetically. She’s learned that he tends to work himself up about the smallest things, but she’s happy he’s easy to redirect. She slides her hand from his thigh and twines her fingers into his to give them another reassuring squeeze. That’s the thing about Bellamy. He’s an affectionate guy, free with his touches and often times has no semblance of personal space. He’s that way with all of his friends, often times hanging an arm around Miller or placing a chaste kiss on Harper’s forehead. He enjoys the contact of others and she can’t say she’s opposed.

There surge price debate becomes forgotten. The drive isn’t long and they pull up to a small brick house in a quiet neighborhood, vastly different from what she’s experienced thus far in the city. She likes it.

“It’s not much,” he says as he unlocks the front door and pushes it open, “But it’s home.”

It’s not big by any means. A two bedroom, single floor house. It’s a bit run down, paint chipping from the walls but well decorated and clean. She follows him through the hallway and into the living room, where it is joined with the small kitchen. She’s impressed by how well matched everything is. Most college students have mismatched cheap furniture. They haveat least  put thought into their living room set.

“Most of it is Miller’s,” he breaks the silence, “He’s a bargain hunter. Got the couch and the chair for like 200 bucks on Craigslist.”

“Smart guy,” she responds. She moves to settle on the couch and grabs the book currently lying open on the coffee table.

“Are you seriously reading this again?” it’s a tattered copy of The Iliad, a book that she knows he’s read at least ten times- He’s told her as much.

“I like it,” he counters and snatches from her hands, delicately marking his page and placing it on the bookshelf next to the tv. She’s not surprised to see the shelf is filled with books, some clearly textbooks and others well read editions of classics. He seriously is a nerd but it’s kind of endearing.

When he flops onto the couch next to her, he picks up the remote to mess with the TV, “What do you want to watch?”

“Just turn something on,” she says casually and decides she might as well lay it all out on the table, “We probably won’t watch it much anyway.”

“Are you insinuating a Netflix and chill?” he asks sounding appalled, though his eyes seem to hold a sparkle when he looks at her.

“Don’t you have to have Netflix for that?” she asks dryly.

“Yeah,” he replies, “But Hulu and chill just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

He finds a show on the front page of Hulu and clicks play, “Did you know Nick Offerman has his own woodworking shop in real life?”

The familiar theme song of Parks and Rec begins to play and smiles slightly, “You don’t say.”

He sets the remotes on the table and glances at her, “He’s also a skilled saxophone player.”

He’s nervous. She peeks at him through her peripherals and he’s stared fixedly at the television, habitually picking at his nails. That’s his tell. His sudden anxiety gives her a bit of her own. Maybe he hadn’t brought her over here for anything other than to hang out. Maybe she had misread the whole situation. But then she thinks about the way he kisses her, like he wants to consume her completely. The way he touches her so freely, like it's the most natural thing in the world. They’ve already agreed upon a no strings relationship, even if it was only in reference to kissing and heavy groping. She imagines that going further will be under the same rules.

She humors him and turns her attention back to the television, pretending to be fascinated by what Andy’s currently doing. She laughs, because dammit Andy Dwyer is hilarious. She hears him chuckle as well.

“Did you know he was only supposed to be in season one?”

The fact that he knows so much about the show doesn’t surprise her. He seems like the kind of guy to get on IMDB and read the trivia facts, which, she’s not judging because she has admittedly done the same. But is now really the time? She scoots closer to him so that their thighs are pressing together.

“It was supposed to be a spinoff of the Office,” his voice deepens a little and she sees his throat bob nervously.

“Bellamy,” she finally says, exasperation clear in her voice. Finally he looks at her, and she notices the way his pupils have gone dark, the way they did when they had been dancing. He’s definitely interested.

She hears the familiar voice of Tom Haverford and Bellamy points at the screen half-heartedly, “He went to business school.”

Deciding that she might as well make the first move, she moves into his lap placing her thighs on either side of his so she’s straddling his legs. She feels his hands slide onto her hips, “I am basically offering myself on a silver platter here and you want to tell me Parks and Rec trivia?”

He leans his forehead against hers, lips dangerously close, “I didn’t want it to seem like I brought you here just to hook up.”

She snorts, “Even though you did.”

“Whatever,” he says, “I’m trying to be a gentleman, Clarke.”

The last thing she says before crushing her lips to his is, “Fucking nerd.”

Seriously, she could kiss him for hours. Not only for the solace it gives her, but also because he’s very skilled with his lips. He can go from lazy to passionate to sensual in about three seconds flat and honestly, he could, quite possibly be the best kiss she’s ever had. She won’t confirm that, though. She wouldn’t want to stroke his ego any more.

However, when she thought it couldn’t get much better, it turns out he had been holding out. Being in the privacy of his own place without fear of interruption or the stigma surrounding PDA, he’s much hungrier. He nips at her lower lip before moving his own to the hollow of her throat and the sensitive parts of her neck. She can’t help the moan that escapes when he finds a sweet spot just behind her ear. The sound seems to drive him more.

She can feel his building excitement between her legs and she finds that she’s not worried or intimidated by it. It actually causes her own to grow. It amazes her how he’s able to drive her to this point with his lips alone. Instinctively, she grinds down into him and he sucks her bottom lip in between his teeth, grazing it and driving her completely mad.  When she pulls back, her lips are red and swollen from the large amount of attention they’ve received but she isn’t quite ready to let them rest. When he seems ready to say something, she leaves a hot and wet kiss on his jawline. His hand creeps under her shirt and she flinches as his thumb nearly grazes the puckered scar on her back.

“Sorry…” he says quickly, snatching his hand from its place on her bare back. She gives him an apologetic smile.

“It’s fine,” she reassures him. It caught her by surprise and though she may be ready to cross some boundaries with him, letting him feel that part of her isn’t one of them. She feels her mind beginning to race again, thoughts of that night beginning to flash through her mind. She kisses him fiercely, trying to drown them out once more. He lets his hands travel her body, though this time remaining firmly above the shirt. He grazes her breasts and she feels her self-control begin to waiver. A want she’s never felt before settles into her stomach.

“Bellamy,” she groans when his hand brushes her breast and she feels them harden at the slightest touch.

“Tell me what you want,” he growls into her ear, lust coating his voice..

She stops thinking at this point, letting herself follow the moment for what it is. She’s picking up what he’s laying down, he’s putting the ball in her court.

“You,” she breathes, “To touch me. Everywhere.”

She lets out a loud yelp when he stands up, gripping her ass in his hands to keep her firmly attached to him. She wraps her legs around his waist and allows him to carry her off to, she presumes, his bedroom. She nuzzles his shoulder and lets out a giddy laugh when he drops her on his bed and she takes a couple bounces. The room is illuminated only by the dim lights coming through the blinds. She finds comfort in the dark,. They can be strangers here.

“Miller would kill me if I tainted the couch,” he explains and pulls his shirt over his head and though her eyes are still adjusting, she can see the smoothness of his chest and the tone of his abdomen. She can see the muscle definition and the way it disappears below his waistline. She does her best not to drool.

“Like what you see?” he asks smugly, her desire clearly written on her face.

“Eh,” she responds, trying her best to sound unfazed. He climbs on top of her and attaches his lips to her neck, sucking the spot he knows drives her absolutely mad.

“You’re alright,” she says half-heartedly and he grinds into her for good measure.

He leans up and she moves with him, lifting her arms in the air indicating she wants her shirt off. He obliges and pulls the offending piece of fabric off, tossing it  to the floor with a soft thump. Thank God she wore her good bra today.

He watches her for a moment, taking it all in and runs his hands along her sides. Goosebumps follow the trail of his finger and he leans down to kiss her, slower this time.

“Have I mentioned you’re fucking beautiful?” he asks and the reverie in which he says it stuns her for a moment. Of course he’s called her cute plenty of times, but the way he says this feels...intimate. Like he really finds her to be the most beautiful creature on the Earth. It’s a bit intimidating and she tries to pretend her heart doesn’t flutter in her chest when he says it.

She twines her fingers into his hair scraping at the curls on his neck and then they’re kissing again while their hands are everywhere. She slides hers into the waistband of his jeans, tracing along his hip bones and she swears she feels him shudder under her fingertips. He reaches behind her back and skillfully unhooks her bra with one hand, finally allowing her chest to be free. He wastes no time, first palming at her breasts and  replacing his hand(s?) with lips. He swirls his tongue around her nipple and she almost comes from that contact alone. He pays equal amount of attention to both nipples.breasts/etc and she’s forced to rub her thighs together to get some sort of friction down there. She’s already on the edge and he hasn’t even fully touched her yet.

She tries to hasten the process of clothes removal by reaching down to unbutton her own jeans and he takes the hint, hooking his own fingers into her belt loops and sliding them down her thighs along with her underwear. She’s fully exposed to him now and he looks nothing short of amazed. He reaches in between them and touches her gently, causing her legs to twitch. His touches are soft, first running a gently thumb over her folds and she can’t help but groan in frustration.

“You wet for me?” he’s smirking now, loving the way her body begs for him.

“Yes,” she breathes, “Please just…”

“What do you want, Clarke?” he applies more pressure to her now and she pulls her hips up to meet him as he begins to circle her clit.

“Fuck!” is all she manages to get out but he seems to understand perfectly.

He pushes her thighs apart, his thumb still working her and slides down on the bed, kissing her hip bone as he goes, “Just so you know, I’m really into foreplay.”

She doesn’t have a chance to respond before he replaces his finger with his mouth. Just as suspected, he’s just as good with his mouth down there. His tongue slides smoothly along her sex while his fingers move in and out. She slides a hand into his hair, gripping it a little tighter than she means to when he grazes his teeth along her. Apparently, he appreciates her enthusiasm because he buries his face further into her and she’s falling apart with a loud moan.  He takes her through the entire orgasm, lapping up her juices like he’s never tasted anything  like it.  When he leans up, he wipes his mouth with the back of his arm before giving her a proud smile.

“Really into foreplay,” he reiterates and she offers a weak laugh before pulling him down for a kiss. She can taste herself on his lips. Deciding he deserves a similar show of affection for his effort, she perks up to her knees and gently pushes his shoulders back.

“Well, in that case,” she husks and reaches down to pop the button on his jeans. He helps her get them off and his erection springs free, waiting for her next move. She wraps a delicate hand around him, feeling him out for the first time. Not that she has a whole lot to compare it to, but she can already see he’s well equipped. She wraps her hand around him and slides it up and down slowly, testing him out. His hand grips the bed a little tighter. She should be more nervous than she is, after all this isn’t something she normally does, but she can’t remember ever being this turned on. She hardly has time to think and finds herself doing what comes naturally. In this case, she doesn’t hesitate to run her lips along the length of his erection before completely taking him in.

“Fuck,” he growls out, threading his fingers in her hair. She’s not very experienced in the blow job department, but she also never had any complaints. Either way, she wants to pleasure him as much as he pleasured her.

“Tell me what you like.” She says, pulling up for a moment to give him another seductive smile.

And he does. When she does something he likes, he makes sure she knows. Whether it’s grunting in pleasure or telling her how much he likes seeing her with his cock in her mouth. When he’s not reacting at all, she knows it’s not for him. She continues for a solid five minutes before he pulls her up.

“Not that...I mean I’m not expecting,” he’s the one having trouble forming coherent sentences now and she can’t help but feel satisfied with her work, “Guys don’t rebound like girls do.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about so he tries to clarify, “I’m...close and I don’t want it to be over...you know, before we get started?”

He’s getting flustered and she can’t help but laugh. He groans, clearly frustrated by his lack of cohesiveness.

“I’m just trying to say if you want to have sex and good sex, you shouldn’t keep going.”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, and not really because she doesn’t know what to say but because her mind is pretty hazy as well. She was perfectly content to finish him this way, letting him cum in her mouth because she knows it would blow his mind and she doesn’t really have an aversion to it.  But, selfishly, she definitely wants to know what he feels like inside of her.  

“Did I fuck up? I mentioned sex...fuck. I don’t want you to think that’s all I want….I,” she kisses him mid ramble.

“Relax,” she says when she pulls away, “I’m happy with sex or I’m happy to finish you off like this. What do you want?”

He considers her for a moment before he grips her hip firmly, “I really want to fuck you.”

She never thought she’d be into the dirty talk, but damn if he didn’t sound good when he told her all the filthy things he wanted to do to her.

“Condoms?” she asks and he points to his nightstand. She fumbles around in the drawer, keeping one hand firmly around his shaft so he stays hard, and pulls one from the drawer. She tears the wrapper open with her teeth and he moans at the sight. She just grins as she rolls the condom onto him. Just as she’s about to sink down on top of him, he flips her onto her back.

“I said I want to fuck you,” he clarifies and sinks into her with one long push. And it feels better than she could have ever imagined.

“Oh God,” she gasps as he fills her up, sinking her nails into his shoulder.  

He starts of with slow strokes, pushing in and out at a tantalizing speed. She never thought herself to be loud or anything, but her breath is coming out in raspy moans and they get a little louder as the momentum increases. She pulls her hips up to meet him, flexing her inner walls when he’s completely inside of her.

“You feel so good,” he’s whispering into her ear, face buried in her neck and one hand firmly wrapped around her back, “Amazing, Clarke, so fucking good.”

She hikes her leg up and he slides it over his shoulder and the angle causes her to nearly scream. She grips his arm as he picks up speed and before she even feels it building, she’s falling apart again, shaking beneath him and crying out his name into the dark room. It only takes him a couple more pushes before she feels him come undone as well and he collapses on top of her with a groan.

She runs a hand idly through his hair and he doesn’t move for a good minute or two. Finally, as though he has to muster up the rest of his strength he rolls off of her and removes the condom, idly searching for the trash can near his bed.

“Fuck.” he says when sinks back down into the pillows. It’s a simple statement. She isn’t sure what it means. Wow? I fucked up? Or maybe, You were amazing?

“Fuck.” she agrees. She isn’t sure what she means by it either. She’s satisfied and the usual guilt that comes from these sort of hookups doesn’t come. She doesn’t regret it.

He turns to look at her and gives her a lazy smile, “Was that okay?”

He isn’t asking if he was okay in bed or if she’s satisfied. He’s asking if they stepped over any boundaries. If they violated the terms of their unspoken agreement.

“I’m okay,” she answers firmly, “You?”

He lets out a low chuckle, “I’m great.”

Neither makes a move to get closer to the other, which is fine by her. Cuddling seems too intimate in this moment and she almost laughs at the contradiction of it all. She can have sex with someone and still feel far away. But if there is cuddling, well, that’s just not allowed. She leans up and finds her discarded shirt on the ground, pulling it over her head in one swift motion, determined to cover up. She feels all too exposed and uncertain. What happens now?

“Relax,” he tells her, again seemingly reading her mind with ease. She hates how well he can read her already. It’s not fair.

“I’m still not going to ask you to marry me, Clarke,” it’s a reference to the conversation they had when they first kissed, “We’re friends. We had sex. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

“You’re okay with that?” She feels like she has to ask. He hasn’t indicated anything to the contrary, but she can’t help but still be a little paranoid about it. The last thing she wants is to hurt him. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? She has a record of hurting people. She doesn’t want to add anymore names to the list.

“Getting laid on the regular without having to suffer through the relationship part that I know I’m not good at?” when she doesn’t respond, he clarifies, “I’m definitely okay with that.”

It doesn’t feel normal at this moment. That’s usually not something girls want to hear after sex, but to her, it’s a relief.

“Who said it’s happening again?”

He leans up onto his elbow, and opens his knees so that’s he’s practically posing for her, “You know you can’t resist.”

“You just think you’re hot shit, don’t you?” she teases, pushing his shoulders so that he’s on his back and she’s pinning him to the bed.

“Absolutely.”

“Well if you do manage to convince me to do it again,” she says dramatically, “Maybe it would be a good idea to set like...rules or something?”

He slides his hands onto her bare thighs and she has to suppress a shiver threatening to run up her spine, “What kind of rules?”

“I don’t know, to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“I’m listening.”

They manage to agree on three things.

No staying the night.

No cuddling (which he was reluctant to agree to because he likes cuddling almost as much as he likes foreplay.)

No falling in love (or feelings beyond lust.

He walks her out that night and gives her a chaste kiss on the cheek with a simple request that she let him know when she arrives safely home. She does. She crawls into bed, her body exhausted from the long day. Normally, it takes her hours to fall asleep. Her fear of the nightmares often keeping her awake long into the night.

She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow.

[allthepandasintheworld]

Quincy Li, the Transformer

Name: Quincy “Qinlin” (aka verdant forest) Li I named him Quincy bc of the visual of Q and bc of the ‘in’ part, not bc Qin sounds anything like Quin lmao

Occupation: mercenary employed by RED (sort of, more in his backstory)

Age: 26 (in 1970 so he’s like... the same age as scout...?)

Height: 5′8″ (standing)

Build: Average. His upper body and core strength is far better than his lower body strength. He is currently still undergoing physical therapy, so he’s working on it. His arms probably get buffer as time goes on simply because of the nature of his disability (paralysis below the knee if thats even a thing lmao either way it has to do with his legs and basically the whole point of his class).

Description: He has fairly standard Chinese features, and his skin is on the tanner side (bc seriously, don’t believe those commercials, far more Asians have darker skin than those vampires you see on TV--his skin tone is actually fairly close to my own). His hair is short, and he generally wears a beanie and fingerless gloves. He usually is found wearing a modified dress shirt with a maroon vest emblazoned with his class logo. He wears a small, stud earring on his left ear. 

Likes: Machines, programming, computers, technology, exploring, cars, motorcycles, listening to folktales

Dislikes: exercise, his physical therapy training, his crutches (even though he understands their necessity), his leg braces, his modified shoes, gender dysphoria

Alignment: True Neutral (gives zero fucks tbh)

Zodiac: Aquarius

DOB: February 2, 1944

Gender: Male

Orientation: I haven’t really thought about it yet tbh although I don’t think it will ever come into play should I ever end up rping as him at any point? but I have a feeling he’d end up bi/pan like most of my muses lmao

Voice: The sound of a 12 year old boy like the kind you meet in tf2 servers tbh His voice sounds gender neutral. Even if you listened very carefully, it is hard to discern whether his voice is that of a mature woman or a boy in his teens.

Languages: English, Mandarin Chinese

Education: He’s fresh outta college dude. Went to a 4 year for a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, then took a few years of grad school until he was taken to Mann Co, where he finished his education under Engie.

Nationality: Chinese American (he has an American passport bc he was born in the US, specifically, San Francisco)

Disorders: Mild PTSD

Habits: Tinkering with things that don’t belong to him. Prone to experimentation with machines, specifically cars and motorcycles. He loves motorcycles bc he can use them to great effect if he mods them a bit to accommodate for his legs. Plus, gotta go fast my dude, and motorcycles are the easiest way for him, a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, to get his fill of adrenaline (plus he’s a speed demon i mean what do you expect, being stuck to a wheelchair all day?). Likes trying to “sneak” around as best he can: it’s a habit he developed since childhood, and is especially a challenge bc of his disability.

Positive traits: Intelligent, confident (in some ways, at least), gives good advice despite not following it on his own

Neutral traits: Passive, impartial, talkative

Negative traits: Impulsive, immature/petty, uncaring, selfish, prideful

And, of course, an obligatory explanation of what the fuck this lil kid is doing with these hardened mercenaries:

His family was poor, having immigrated legally to the US after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 (see I do my history) before having him. His older brother, Chiyang Li (aka “scarlet sun” aka Charlie), worked in a factory to help support Quincy and his mother. His mother is a badass bitch okay, she came to the US by herself, while pregnant and caring for a preschooler (she came literally right before having the baby that is fucking insane she... is a fucking... badass, and remember, she came while she had to take care of Charlie, who was no more than 3-4 years old at the time). His father still lives in China, although he is working on securing a way into the US. Of his family, Quincy is the only one so far with an American passport. 

Quincy’s childhood was difficult, to say the least. His mother worked a laundry business, almost as soon as she was strong enough again to wash clothing. Quincy grew up being cared for primarily by his older brother, who also assisted in his mother’s laundry business. As they got older, Charlie quit high school to work in a local factory (I’m thinking San Leandro--they have all these big-ass warehouses, but idk either way they’re in the Bay Area) to get more money for the family and to put Quincy through college. Throughout grade school, Quincy also faced discrimination from his classmates for being the “weird Asian kid”. Although he was never severely bullied for a long span of time, the other children at the school did not like him very much since he was different. When he first entered school, he did not know a single word of English, and had to learn on the fly (since his mother and brother spoke Mandarin Chinese at home).

obligatory content warning for potentially triggering content including mentions of bullying, physical violence, racism, transphobia (mostly a combo of microaggressions and institutionalized misogyny), and body mutilation past this point. You have been warned.

During elementary school, a group of children decided one day to act on the racist stereotypes that many of them had grown up with. Along with the end of WWII, there was plenty of resentment towards those with Asian features. They were nasty, and all around horrible, but never threatened Quincy’s safety until they one day tried to break his legs and feet after teasing, mostly about women breaking and binding their feet, went too far (keep in mind, this was before Quincy realized he was trans, so his mother was dressing him in feminine clothing and hairstyles). They were successful, needless to say, and Quincy ended up with broken feet and lower legs that never healed correctly because his family could not afford to take him to a hospital. He still had to attend school the next day, with Charlie helping him to and from class. Eventually, Charlie and his mother managed to put together enough funds to find a wheelchair for Quincy before the end of that schoolyear. Since then, Quincy has been unable to walk without assistance, especially since that, without proper medical attention, his feet were permanently damaged (he does, however, eventually begin physical therapy, but that’s only after he earned money bc he joined RED).

At first, he was ashamed of himself. He felt odd and out of place, for more reasons than one. His body felt like more of an impairment than anything, especially with growing issues like... literally growing up with a body that didn’t match how he felt. Things like cars fascinated him, even though girls his age were encouraged to play with dolls and tea sets. He just wasn’t interested, and was more interested in playing cars with the other boys his age. In middle school, he began learning about cars and engines, and became fascinated by the idea of mechanical engineering, including space travel, having heard of the launch of Sputnik when he was 13. In high school, he began to study mechanical engineering in earnest, and started to see his wheelchair as more of an opportunity than an impairment. He began experimenting on it, adding things like controls and improving the efficiency of the wheels. Charlie supported him by taking him to the junkyard to try and find scrap materials.

In terms of being trans, he came out to his family at the beginning of high school after he refused to wear the female school uniform (bc I guess he attended one of those schools TM). His brother supported him, even though he didn’t really get it. His mother took a little longer to come around, and still has yet to fully accept/understand Quincy’s identity in the present time (1970). At the end of the day, it was Charlie who prepared Quincy the best and supported him in nearly everything, and that’s Quincy’s motive in joining Mann Co. They paid well, they asked no questions, and they promised him a job for a long time.

Alright, warning is over, feel free to continue reading now.

By the time Quincy graduated college, he had heavily customized the wheelchair (although not to the extent of his time at Mann Co, not yet). He had increased the efficiency of the wheels, created a custom steering system, as well as a get-out-of-jail-free engine thing, although at this point he still needed to manually wheel himself forward most of the time. It was because of this innovation, coupled with his impressive understanding of mechanical engineering demonstrated in college, that Redmond approached him halfway through his time at grad school and offered him a position at RED as the Transformer. He saw Quincy’s potential, and wanted to get a leg up on his brother, Blutarch (of course), and wanted to try investing in college students so he could guarantee a future for when the previous mercenaries retire (or some bs like that tbh i haven’t really thought this through...). He also thought that college students were easier to find and hire, and could therefore learn from the existing classes (or something of the sort). Since Engineer was the closest in profession to Quincy, Engie was sent to teach him (for now, it’ll just be a generic RED Engie that I’ll write on my own although other engies feel free to adopt my small nerdy boy), so Quincy finished his degree while working under RED. He also worked together with Engie to build his current wheelchair, which can transform into 3 forms (similar to how vaccinator can defend against 3 types of damage). The three forms are “Carp”, “Hare”,  and “Bull” (support, offense, and defense in order). They change his ability set (Carp gives him movement speed, hare gives him a charge, and bull gives him hp). It takes 5 seconds to go between forms bc the wheelchair needs to transform itself. He spawns in Carp form. He also has various weapons given to him by Mann Co to compliment his forms, although his loadout is meant to buff certain forms and nerf others (yadda yadda i’ll talk more about his mechanics later).

He is, however, horrified by the everyday violence, and its... Probably factored a lot into his preexisting PTSD stemming from what happened in his childhood. (After being separated from his wheelchair once and being unable to do anything for the rest of the battle until he went through respawn again, Quincy asked Engie to connect his life in Respawn to his wheelchair, so he would never feel the fear of being stranded with no mobility again... It was a bad time :( very angst. He’d rather go through respawn with his wheelchair than feel vulnerable like that again).

And that brings us to present day! Wooo!! backstoryyyyy!!!

[johannesviii]

The City of the Dead

Some A truckload of highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (The City of the Dead).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

Okay, so, just imagine. In a parallel universe, one day, Clive Barker decided to write a Doctor Who story, and even if he tried to seriously tone down his usual mix of strange gore + weird sex + unusual magic, the result was still a bit too much for the series, but so good the BBC published it anyway.

Wouldn't that be great?

Now stop imagining, because it's a book written by Lloyd Rose, and it exists.

It's flawed. Of course. What book isn't? It sidelines Fitz and Anji near the end. Its twist could have used a bit of foreshadowing. It delights a bit too much in torturing Eight. But who cares, honestly. It still transported me in a world where there's real danger, and cute cats, and dark magic, and sugar donuts, and blood spells, and awful and weird and wonderful characters, and nightmares, and laughter. It's an experience, to say the least, and probably not for everybody, but my god, what a ride. 10/10

Okay, so, the only thing I know about this book is that I’ve got one friend who really likes it. And it’s by Lloyd Rose, aka the writer of Caerdroia. Will this book be weird too?

APPARENTLY YES. YES IT WILL. What a start.

Doctor, that’s called sleep paralysis. It might be scary, but nothing bad will actually happen to you, okay? Breathe.

Okay now I’m kind of nervous too.

[Unexpected Scherzo flashbacks]

That’s one of the most unnerving descriptions of Eight I’ve ever seen. Wonderful.

"I believe”

Oh don't start with the Earth Arc feelings...

RELATABLE

Museum of Magic? Take me there.

Art goals.

And the price for best out-of-context sentence goes to...

Excuse me, that's way too cool.

Also, it instantly made me think of which kind of bone I'd cut if I ever wanted to do this. Probably a toe.

So, magic is now a thing in this series. Hasn't been the case since The Scarlett Empress, I believe. Why do I get the feeling I'm gonna say 'that's way too cool' a lot over the course of this story?

I'm cackling

He really doesn't want to admit something's wrong.

Wait wait wait wait. What? The bone charm was in the TARDIS?

Doctor no.

Eight being distracted by donuts in the middle of a discussion about a murder, everybody!

A very nice beach

Hmmm cute? Cute.

The exact kind of offerings I'd like to get once I'm dead.

So, this story seems to be a murder mystery, and the goal is to find who the Magician is. I like it.

The Magician found Eight, then. Maybe he's the source of the nightmares?

Meanwhile, Eight tries to go to a goth party, and it's very awkward and relatable.

And Fitz and Anji are visiting New Orleans at night with a guy who pretends to be a magician, and Fitz keeps ruining his groove.

Swan, you're like a parody of a Mary Sue

GO UP

Meanwhile, Anji and Fitz both want to punch Dupre on the nose and I gotta say... me too.

Every conversation in this fandom ever

Guess that puts Dupre on the suspects list, then.

That sounds like the kind of ludicrously aggressive death electro thing I listen to when I need to use violent lines and colours in a drawing.

I guess we can also put Teddy-weird-artist-Acree on the list of suspects (even though his fear of going downstairs is a pretty good alibi). Also, bonus cat.

THIS CONVERSATION HAS ONLY JUST STARTED AND IT'S ALREADY GOLD

Eight's like "Hmmmm what makes people feel  better, OH I KNOW. CATS. HERE. HAVE A CAT."

THIS IS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER BY THE MINUTE

(mid-liveblog update: I drew that scene before I even finished the book.)

He literally ran away haha.

Teddy Acree is cracking me up, seriously wtf

A perfectly reasonable suggestion, Doctor.

ASDFGHJFF He vaguely remembers the Daleks so he finds saltshakers 'sinister', I'm dead

UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS

SHIT, THAT HURTS

'What if I'm nuts?' 'I'm rather counting on it'

Interesting.

Eight already regrets starting a discussion with Dupre.

THE UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS ARE BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

Oh my f█cking god

♫ DO THE CREEP ♫

Aaaaaand I think we can also put Thales on the suspects list.

GOOD SHIT GOOD SHIT

Eight, this is a bad idea.

I love how he's dodging Dupre every time that weirdo tries to touch him.

Also, that's a very relatable reaction.

Eight is like "okay no, I'm way too asexual for this"

THE DOCTOR HAD DECIDED IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HIM TO LEAVE

'Hadn't he'

Something was actually summoned??

Can you imagine going home in a corset with spikes because you were stuck in it? Lucky he was here, poor her.

Mood

BIG MOOD

Not exactly a revolutionary development, but interesting nonetheless.

Oooooh. His nightmares are actually trying to take him somewhere?

FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT IN THE BOOKS, EIGHT IS VERY CLAUSTROPHOBIC SO I'M PANICKING A LITTLE BIT TOO

SHIT HE FOUND SEVEN IN HIS LOCKED MEMORIES

He has no way of knowing that was a past version of him, has he?

Okay so the Magician isn't Dupre. Which... isn't very surprising.

‘AN IMP WITH TERRIBLE EYES’

Hey look it's the best meme from 2016

HARSHER IN HI̟͔͈̻͓̱ͅN͓͇͉̗̜D̤̼̻͙S̮̤̱͓I͓G͔͉̱͓̩̦̠H͕̲̯T͖̰͎

10/10 conversation

Thank you for clarifying, Doctor

HOLY SHIT

THIS IS SO COOL

I MEAN I HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS A TAROT NERD AS A KID, AND AAAAH LOOK, THAT'S ALL THE CLASSIC DOCTORS AS MAJOR ARCANA

Of course Seven is the Hanged Man OF COURSE EIGHT IS THE TOWER ASDFGFFH THE FIRST MEANING IS 'BRUTAL CHANGE, DISASTER AND IMPENDING DOOM'

Now I want to draw all these cards with the Doctors on them, haha.

I keep thinking about Twelve putting like ten spoons of sugar in his coffee.

This book is starting to break the record for the most "asexual Doctor" moments. And I’m 100% okay with that.

YOU DON'T SAY.

He also vaguely remembers Faction Paradox!

I love how patient Fitz can be with him when he's not well.

He's in the past now and trying to find the source of the problem. That may be interesting. Or it will just make everything more confusing.

And I think that child might be the Magician.

LOOK AT MY FAVORITE IDIOTS BEING HAPPY FOR ONCE

it won't last long

'Your blood smells funny'

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT she’s some sort of spirit what

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE WEEK

I'd say 'somebody do something' but I'm sorry this is way too funny.

Probably.

Oh shit what the fuck. Is he planning to sacrifice him or something?

UH

UH

WHY DO I GET THE FEELING THIS SCENE WILL MAKE THE NUMBER OF LINES IN MY "EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THE EIGHTH DOCTOR" GOOGLE SHEET SKYROCKET

Eight might be the champion of gallows humor... but he's still starting to panic a little bit

The thing with the Doctor is, you know he can't die permanently since it would be the end of the series, but because he can't, they set the damage limit veeeery high, so a scene like this one is wayyy more stressful than it would be with a human main character.

Please be scared by the double heartbeat thing & let him go because I'm also starting to panic there.

THIS SCENE IS BOTH HORRIBLY STRESSFUL AND VERY FUNNY THIS IS CONFUSING

Meanwhile: what the f█ck is Fitz doing

Doctor please try to concentrate on a way to get the hell out of here

HE STILL HASN'T ESCAPED AND FITZ AND ANJI ARE WAY TOO FAR AWAY

UGH STOP MAKING ME LAUGH I'M TOO STRESSED FOR THAT

I SAID STOP IT

EIGHT STOP MAKING ME LAUGH THIS IS BAD

Meanwhile Fitz has decided to investigate a grave in the middle of the night, because why not, also I'm too stressed for that right now, go back to Eight

WHAT THE F█CK ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T GO DOWNSTAIRS WHAT THE F█CK

SHIT SHIT SHIT F█CK HE ACTUALLY DID IT F█CK

TEDDY YOU BASTARD

AQZSDFGHJGFFG F█CK

Meanwhile in the cemetery: I have a new suspect

Okay okay now back to Eight being sacrificed because holy shit

I was about to say 'if he could have done something, he would have done it sooner', but I just realised he expects the invocation to work, and call the thing which is chasing him in his nightmares.

Okay. Okay. That worked. Dupre's dead. Good. F█ck. That was so stressful. Also Eight is probably still bleeding all over the floor, but at least it's over.

TEDDY YOU LITTLE SHIT COME BACK & UNTIE HIM

ASDFGHJKHF

Was it really so difficult to tell the police someone was trying to sacrifice you for some bullshit ceremony? I'm sure they've seen worse.

HAHAHA THAT WHOLE HORRIBLE ORDEAL WAS WORTH IT JUST FOR THIS SCENE

Doctor, no

Asexual Doctor moment number 74612

Fair enough.

HE WAS STILL HIDING IN THE HOUSE

OH NO HAHA

GOOD. Thank you.

If the reveal is something like "hey it was the guy who died at the beginning" I'm gonna be angry.

I must admit no other character we saw so far is the right age to be the kid from the destroyed house. This is getting complicated.

SHIT. SHIT. I completely overlooked that. Good twist.

BAD TIMING BAD TIMING

Wait what the f█ck, if the Magician is attacking Eight right now, he can't be Thales. Who the hell is he, then.

WELL THIS IS NEW

And here we have Fitz trying to pretend he's interested in architecture.

Understandable after the recent events.

OUCH Were these feelings really necessary? I mean this book is intense enough as it is

Teddy is a little shit and at the same time it's impossible to 100% hate the guy, he's like a non-murderous version of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

He was too obviously weird to be the Magician anyway.

Yeah, we know, Teddy, we watch that show

This whole conversation is gold.

OH SHIT

PLEASE TELL US WHO IT IS, THE SUSPECTS LIST IS NOW VERY THIN.

Wait, it's gonna be someone who already died, isn't it.

Perfectly confusing sentence, thank you Doctor.

Okay so, it's 100% confirmed, it's not Teddy. Not a surprise, but good.

STILL TOO SOON AFTER 23 BOOKS

Are they getting sidelined for the finale? Not sure I like that.

I'm cackling again

WHO IS IT

WHAT

WHAT

HE'S NOT THE RIGHT AGE TO BE THE KID OR THE FATHER WHAT

WHAT THE F█CK HE WASN'T EVEN ON MY RADAR

WELL PLAYED

Oooooooh, he sacrificed his lifespan and so he looks older. Nice trick. Well played.

ALSO I JUST REALISED IT'S THE SAME TWIST THAT THE GAME 'HEAVY RAIN' PULLED AND I FINISHED IT ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING BUT NO

Ah yes, clearly there wasn't enough physical pain in this book already.

"You don't sound very certain”

This book is so weird, in the best way possible.

Woah the Magician's house nearly works like a TARDIS.

I just had a revelation. Of course I love this book. It's almost a Clive Barker book.

WE FINALLY KNOW WHAT THE TATTOO WAS

I love this f█cking book so much.

I also love Eight's reaction to that reveal.

OH SHIT WHAT

RUST IS USING HIM AS A WEAPON TO CONTINUE HIS VENGEANCE AND RETRIEVE THE AMULET I LOVE THIS

HOLY SHIT EIGHT

He's gonna leave him to... weird swamp creatures which are supposed to guard him while Rust is away, and I'm sure everything is gonna be fine RIGHT

'It's as if there were somebody else living in here with me'

I KNEW IT THAT WAS A BAD IDEA

WHAT THE F█CK did the swamp things trapped him in an imaginary world?

How long has he been there??

Everytime there's a good scene about the contents of the Doctor's pockets in these books, there's a better one in one of the next books, I swear. But I still doubt this one can be beaten.

That explains so much about the random cup of tea Twelve had in the middle of Skaro in The Witch's Familiar, too.

Third screen about the contents of the Doctor's pocket, because I'm still not tired of that.

Mrs Flood has access to this place. Is it an actual place then?

Asexual Doctor moment number 87454

Mrs Flood, NO.

Wait a second, is this place some sort of fairy realm? Is that why he refuses to eat anything here except what's in his own pockets?

Are... are you attempting to escape this realm by walking

Oooh isn't that the cover of the book?

Good point. Also I'm glad they're back in the plot.

I'M HOWLING

FITZ NO

AZSDFGHJ ANJI NO

OH SHIT SHE GUESSED WHO THE MAGICIAN WAS?! GOOD JOB ANJI

Friendly reminder: I love these two idiots.

FITZ TRYING TO PILOT THE TARDIS, EVERYBODY

THEY ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED

So it WAS some sort of fairy realm, woah.

WAIT WHAT

SECOND TWIST WHAT

RUST ISN'T THE KID EIGHT HAS SAVED?

THALES? IT'S THALES??

Wait wait wait, Teddy said Thales wasn't human either, didn't he?

Ooooh Thales is another Naiad!!

OH SHIT OH F█CK OH LORD

EIGHT, PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN

So he really was using the Void to track Eight, after all. The nightmares about Nothing chasing him were entirely justified and not a metaphor at all!

HOLY SHIT EIGHT NO BAD PLAN

The finale of this book is literally the concept of Nothing saving the day while Eight literally yells into the uncaring infinity of the Void. What can I even say about that.

He doesn't belong in the Void after all, so it can't really claim him. That should convince him he's not a complete monster, after all. Good. Good and nice ending.

Oh that's even better.

Good.

[anythingstephenking]

Multiverse Overload

It seems unreasonable to think I was finishing up Nightmares & Dreamscapes yesterday morning and a little over 24 hours later I am back, having just finished one of King’s longest novels, Insomnia, in one cycle of sleep. But here I am. Let’s get into it.

I suppose I wasn’t kidding that I was ready for a novel but I didn’t realize how hungry for this story it was. Or maybe call it boredom - 3 day weekends with 95+ degree temperatures don’t lend themselves to my pasty irish ass spending any time anywhere other than the couch.

I knew little of this story headed in. Actually a little embarrassed to say I thought it somehow related to the Christopher Nolan movie of the same name. Once I cracked the spine and read the teaser copy, I knew this was not true. Also, I was worried. Really, really worried. Exhibit A:

Ralph Roberts is seeing some strange happenings in Derry, Maine.

He sees auras around human beings that show him the horror threatening them.

He sees a nice young research chemist like Ed Deepneau turn into a savage wife beater.

He sees Charlie Pickering with blood in his eyes and a gleaming knife in his hand.

And he sees three little bald doctors in the homes of the dying - and he begins to suspect who they really are.

No wonder Ralph stays awake all night. You would too.

INSOMNIA

“JFC, if I’m stepping into another Tommyknockers I’m going to scream” I said to the cat, who was chasing a bug around the hotel room and has no fucking clue what the Tommyknockers are. Little bald men. Aliens for sure, right?

Well I was, thankfully, wrong in my assumptions. Making an ass outta u & me, or however that old saying goes. I’ve complained before about whoever is responsible for writing these teasers, deceiving readers into believing that Gerald’s Game was a spooky bedtime story, Pet Sematary scared King himself, or that Insomnia is about a dude with, well, insomnia.

In reality, this book is as close to a Dark Tower book as it could get without actually being one. I’d rack it against The Talisman in Dark Tower adjacency, and although not as an enthralling tale as The Tailsman, a good chapter in the mythology all the same.

Ralph Roberts, a senior citizen residing in our favorite vacation destination, Derry, Maine, loses his wife to cancer and spills into a depression as one would do when your companion of 45 years is snuffed out of the living. What begins as minor bouts of insomnia quickly evolves into an inability to catch more than 2 hours a night. As someone who has suffered from depression-induced insomnia and sleep paralysis, a terrifying phenomenon I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, I feel for Ralph. Sleep deprivation is no joke, even if you’re awake watching Arrested Development for the 400th time at 3am. Ralph’s understandably exhausted, and assumes his mind is going when he starts seeing brightly colored auras surrounding humans, objects, street lights, you name it.

(Side story: Once I went on a date with a guy who - after I expressed discomfort in discussing the difference between irony and paradox 5 minutes into our first date - told me I had an unclean aura. I told him to go fuck himself (certainly something someone who’s aura is a little dirty would say) and he gathered his coat and left without a word. Anytime someone mentions auras I can’t help think of this guy - do you think he ever found a gal with a nice looking aura and the ability to discern the difference between irony and paradox? We will never know.)

In any case, Ralph does find himself a lady by the name of Lois, who in fact, does have a real pretty aura. And turns out she’s caught the insomnia and can see the auras too, along with other things that most humans can’t process. Turns out insomnia in Derry can flip a switch to entering worlds that aren’t our own.

Without going too far down the rabbit hole that is the plot of this novel (which squarely lies in the top ten of longest King tomes - say that 10x fast), Ralph and Lois team up on a quest against evil, as so many of King’s protagonists do. I was obviously committed to learning how it ended as I stayed up past my bedtime last night and reached for my paperback copy before I had even poured myself a cup of coffee this morning.

The key conflict in Derry of 1994 revolves around a war between pro-lifers and pro-choicers over a feminist speaking in town about women’s rights. Probably the hardest part of this story to swallow - the realization that 25 years later we’re still having the same argument in America with similar violent and tragic results.

This book is not without it’s faults - King called it “stiff & trying too hard” which is pretty accurate. It is way too long. It reads like a first draft that probably needed a stronger editor hand (or two or three) before publication that it just did not get. King’s ability to paint a picture in your mind is, as always, on point; but the writing describing the aural states seem to clog up the storytelling every ten pages or so. The initial painting of these ethereal halos was beautiful; after the 15th or so description they were just in the way. The use of italics for dialogue was distracting; I had to work to keep my eyes from skimming to the dialogue lines and ignoring the rest of the text on the page.

But it also had so many of my favorite things. For one, the connections to other King stories was strong in this one. Like when I am watching Castle Rock, it makes me feel like an insider to notice the little things that connect King’s worlds together. Like a hipster that listens to a band “before they were cool” - don’t you hate those people? Yeah me too. But here we are.

Derry, and all it’s history covered in depth in the pages of IT is rehashed here. We have mentions of the sewers, the Black Spot Fire, the post-Pennywise storm of 1985. The darkness that hangs over this town lingers, even though we were hoping that the Loser’s Club vanquished the darkness in the mid 80s.

Because something else dark is connected to Derry. The Dark Tower lore sits squarely and open here; we see Roland in children’s drawings and travel between worlds like in The Drawing of The Three. We also are introduced to The Crimson King; the guardian of The Dark Tower, Roland’s adversary and ruler of the highest level. He appears here in our world first as Ralph’s dead mother then as a catfish. I mean, IT was a clown living in a macroverse created by a barfing turtle, so I guess that all makes sense. We also learn Ralph and Lois’s quest is to save a young boy named Patrick Danville, who we’re told is very important in the land-o-the-tower. God, I can’t wait to get to the fourth Dark Tower book.

Other than the obvious references to IT and the DT books, we get a quick mention of the untimely death of Gage Creed in Ludlow. There is also a mention of “Aunt Sadie” in Dallas, and my mind wandered to lovely Sadie Dunhill of 11/22/63. I don’t know if King had the foresight (or the initial manuscript) to reference a character that wouldn’t hit the bookstores for another 17 years, but if so, Bravo Mr. King. Bravo.

By far my favorite photo of King that I’ve randomly stumbled upon on the internet.

My remaining questions are really around the nature of Derry - how can Pennywise and The Crimson King exist (in whatever universe) in or around Derry, without bumping into each other? Why so much evil in this one little town? Are they somehow connected? Are they the same person? Like my friend that claimed my aura needed a good washing, we may never know.

7/10

First Line: No one - least of all Dr. Litchfield - came right out and told Ralph Roberts that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood without needing to be told.

Last Line: And she saw, the long white scar on his right forearm was gone.

Adaptations:

None to speak of - another one of King’s works that’s been discussed in depth but never pushed into any kind of actionable development. All the best I think - a movie version could very easily veer into LSD trip territory.

[lluxzero]

don’t let me be gone;;

summary: au in which myungsoo ends up in the coma, and not his sister. when: december 13th, 2016, up until the present. warnings: car accident, descriptions of blood, hospitalisation, death. and just angst man.. seriously 2000 words of pure angst

the first thing his ears pick up.. is the sound of muffled screaming and panic. like he’s hearing it against something.. like there’s cloth blocking his ears and making everything fuzzy. come to think of it, his body feels a lot lighter too. strange.

he doesn’t dare to open his eyes yet, figuring it was just the last remaining shreds of a dream slowly slipping away. a bad dream, definitely. but the surface beneath him doesn’t feel like a bed, and the more aware he becomes, the less muffled everything seems. the less the sounds are dulled, and the more it all slowly comes to the boys realisation what the true issue was here. what the real incident and accident was. that none of this was a dream.

the idols eyes shoot open then, blown wide in panic as he pushes himself up-- almost hesitantly. the scene he sees before him though.. is one of a nightmare than he wishes he’d been in.

it looks like the aftermath of a car chase scene in some action movie. the one when the bad guys get flipped and spun out, thrown into other cars and blown up. only this wasn’t that, because this was reality and the scene was true. because there were cars piled up everywhere. glass strewn from windshields blown out all over the road from the collisions. blood was splattered too, over ground and cars as the casualties rose, and even then he could still ear the tell tale signs of cars coming to screeching halts, ambulance and police sirens appearing in the background, rushing to the scene of devastation.

he forces himself up then, on week and shaky limbs that somehow still know how to hold him up right. he forces himself over to the nearest vehicle. wrecked. he backs off almost as soon as he gets there though, fighting the urge to throw up at the scene inside. there was so much blood. so muc red painting the walls of the car and glass scraped everywhere. a woman-- maybe she was a business woman, rushing home from work to greet her kids, her husband-- the ones she loved. the boy didn’t want to think about the thought that she might never get to do that again.

he’s crying and he knows it, but it’s coming back to him now and even if he feels like falling down and screaming at the world, he knows that his family are around here somewhere. he must’ve been thrown out the car, right? it was a good enough reason to why he was on the ground when he woke up.. but he doesn’t think to question why he feels no pain, why the world still feels lighter and why everything feels just that little bit off. instead, he keeps on forcing him forward until he sees the car. his car. his mother’s car that’s now being attended to by emergency services.

“mum! dad! minhee!” the young boys voice shouts over screaming as he runs, practically falling when he gets there and sees the tragedy that’s unfolded. still, he dares to go closer, to the side his sisters on, eyes blown wide and scared. the door doesn’t budge. “y-y-you’ll be okay..  they’re coming-- c-coming to help--” he doesn’t know that his voice falls on death ears as his sister keeps whimpering and crying out in pain. she doesn’t see her brother, but he doesn’t know that.

he skids over to a paramedic instead that’s talking on the phone, updating on a situation. “you need to h-h-help them.. pl-please.. sir--” he cries reaching out to dug on the mans sleeve. he doesn’t flinch, and suddenly the kid feels hysterical as he practically screams at him to come and help. but the man doesn’t move, doesn’t even spare a glance at him. shaky hands retreat then, as he stumbles back a few steps because why wasn’t he helping? why wasn’t he listening? why--

his breath hitches when he hears his name being spoken behind him in hushed whispers from two paramedics. he doesn’t want to turn around, but he still does.

when you see yourself, blood covered, wounded more than you can even describe and.. broken.. lifeless on the cold ground-- there are no thoughts that go through his head. instead, he feels his body let go, like gravity has a tighter hold on him and pulls him down to the ground, knees scraping off concrete.

he can’t describe his thoughts then. can’t describe anything, only that he doesn’t want to believe it.

the idol looks down at himself then. at his hands, his arms, his clothes. everything. it’s only then he notices that nothing about himself seems wrong. there’s no blood, no tears,no injuries. there’s nothing. no sign of him being in any sort of accident. but the boy in front of him being tended to by three paramedics now as they carefully manage to move his body, making the boy flinch as he watches-- it’s the same boy. it’s him. and even after pinching himself to wake up because this wasn’t real, and this wasn’t fair. he knows that it’s not a dream.

it’s like he’s taking in the scene completely again, only through new eyes as he watches the men and woman run off to help others. to help the woman and children, men, students, families-- to help everyone that had been caught in the sudden accident. and it’s all an accident-- he finds it scary.. to think something to simple as a van filled with over eager fans, can cause a catastrophe as bad as this. and the boy does scream them. hands fisting the ground as they rip from his throat, falling on deaf ears because no one can hear him, no one can see him-- is he dead?

his eyes close then, and when they open this time, he’s still in the same position but in the floor of a hallways. a hospital.

red eyes glance around and take in everything. from the steady beeps, the the quiet conversations coming from the different wards and patients. nurses with their smiles to the awakened, and doctors with their hushed whispers. the unspoken words.

using his sleeve to wipe at his eyes (not that it helps much), the boy manages to get himself up with the help of the cold wall, forcing himself to take steady steps down the hallways. glancing into rooms and back. he still tries to avoid walking into people.. but he realises then that it doesn’t matter. but is he dead?

he finds her first. his sister. she’s unconscious and there’s doctors and nurses around her setting up some kind of machines. his head tilts as he watches, but he sits by the bed long after they leave, glancing at the sixteen year olds face, over the cuts and bruises, and the broken bones. if she didn’t look so pale, he’d have said she was sleeping.

when he leaves her, he finds his mother and father in two rooms opposite each other. his mothers awake, panicked and red eyed just like he had been, but at the same time he can tell that she doesn’t know fully what’s happened.

the son catches onto words spoken by doctors outside the room though. paralysis. and stands, arms wrapped around himself outside the room as he thinks about what that means and suddenly how it’ll affect his mother then. and just.. that she doesn’t deserve this. none of them did.

he hears about his fathers memory loss before he even sees the man though, and this time he doesn’t dare to go past the threshold because the sight he sees his heartbreaking enough. it’s the sight of a man that doesn’t understand anything, and is too stubborn to believe what he’s being told. he doesn’t believe the car crash. he doesn’t believe he’s forgotten things. he doesn’t believe that his family have been hurt. he doesn’t believe any of it. and the boy then feels like he can’t breathe because watching a sight like that is too painful to bear.

and then.. he finds himself last. he watches first, from the viewing area of an operating room. watches as the doctors and nurses work in unison before he’s moved out to an intensive care unit himself. he manages to slip in, walking side by side with himself still on a bed. and he sits next to a lifeless body that he doesn’t want to believe is his own. and he just sits and stares. he doesn’t dare to reach out, and no matter how much he tries to will himself back into his own body, it doesn’t happen.

a day goes by, or maybe it’s a few hours, before he hears the commotion outside the unit, and he sits himself up a little more to peer out through the glass. when he sees the face of his brother, his group mates, and some other friends that have tagged along. it starts him off again and he fights back the urge to scream out because he understands now they can’t hear him. so instead he just watches as they battle with nurses to get into the unit, because they can see him, see him clearly through the glass doors leading in. they can’t hear the beeping or the voices the speak behind the panels, but they can still see what’s going on.

he’s glad for when someone comes over and closes the curtain though to conceal him, his own frail body then curling in on itself in the seat as his arms wrap around himself. he can still hear them, but at least now he doesn’t have to see.

weeks go by and he’s been moved from the unit to a ward where others can visit. he doesn’t know how many times he’s heard the same things over and over as he sits on the windowsill instead of by the bed.  just watches over like a ghost - well he supposes that’s what he is now - as his mother, father and sister all manage to be helped into the room to see him. the group mates and friends, his brother, that had all tried to get in before now come and go freely, are allowed in as much as possible. and the room fills up slowly with gifts and cards and balloons. some fan presents and wishes, but mostly those from the ones he cares about and many more.

he’s given up on trying to talk to anyone too, because he’s come to understand that they can’t speak back to him, and none of them will ever notice his presence. he’s alone in a world where he can view everyone else. like there’s a screen between life and himself, and he’s only allowed to watch. and he still can’t put into words or thoughts how he feels as he continues observing the days going going by, and the people that come and go again. he doesn’t listen to anything about the accident either. any facts or figures or deaths. nothing. he doesn’t want to know it.. he doesn’t want to hear it-- so he’s glad when the tv in his room is never turned on.

it’s a few more weeks later that he feels an invisible force tugging on him, tugging at his skin and his mind and he’s almost tempted to say it hurts. but it forces his body to move for once, something he rarely sees the point in doing now. he drifts towards the door and out. he keeps drifting, past the night nurses in the dimly lit hallway and the doctors still working overtime to help out patients that need them. he just keeps walking, letting the tugging sensation guide him away.

if he were to be asked then, or spoken to again, he’d say that the pull of death was a pleasant one. there was no life reel showing him everything that had happened up until this point. there was no angel to guide him or devil to bring him into hell. there was nothing but.. peace-- and silence. it was just himself, walking until the darkness took over.

it’ll be announced then on the news a few days later. the death of pan, bang myungsoo, twenty year old and still far too young, dying on the seventh of march, twenty seventeen, just a few minutes after midnight.

he’ll never see the reactions. he’ll never see any of his life again.

he’s just.. gone.

[galbraithneil92]

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[1nebest]

Upgrade tells the story of a Grey Trace, a man in the near future who’s left quadriplegic after a car accident and mugging.

Following an interlude that sees Grey struggling with his new disability, an experimental computer chip called Stem is placed in his spinal cord, which it doesn’t just allow him control of his limbs again — it turns him into something close to a superhero, ready to track down the men who paralyzed him and murdered his wife.

The film, which comes out today in the United States, may sound like a straightforward revenge plot, but it was written and directed by Leigh Wannell, who’s best known for writing Saw and Insidious. (More recently, he made his directorial debut with Insidious 3.) He explained that he wasn’t interested in turning this into a superhero movie. Instead, he wanted to tell the “Taxi Driver version” of this story.

Without getting into details, it’s fair to say that Upgrade doesn’t feel that far removed from Wannell’s horror films. It also includes plenty of visceral action scenes and touches on bigger questions about our relationship with technology.

I met with Wannell in New York City last week to discuss the film, and an edited transcript of our conversation follows. There’s one passage that gets a little spoiler-y, but I’ll warn you so you can skip ahead.

Wannell shot Upgrade in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, so we started off by talking about the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.

Leigh Wannell

Leigh Wannell: I’ve lived in L.A. for 12 years now, so I no longer care about Sydney-Melbourne. We shot this film in Melbourne but we actually edited in Sydney.

I was in Sydney for a few months and I absolutely loved it. I insisted on living in an apartment on Bondi Beach, which was not practical at all to the location of the editing room, but I didn’t care because I was like, “Look, if I was going to walk on ice, then I’m going to tap dance.” If I’m going to live in Sydney, I want to live on Bondi Beach.

TechCrunch: So the big science fictional idea of Stem, where did that come from?

Wannell: The idea really just came into my head, the way all my ideas do. It’s a very random process, and in its randomness it’s frustrating, because I feel like I’m always trying to think of movie ideas. And most of the ideas aren’t good, and they instantly get filed away in the drawer for terrible ideas.

Every now and again, something will pop into my head when I’m driving or I’m in the shower, you’ll just get an image and it stays with you. It doesn’t have to be much, it doesn’t have to be a story, it could just be an image. But it won’t leave your head and that’s when you know you’ve got something.

That’s how this started. It wasn’t like I read a magazine article about where tech is going. I was in my backyard, I remember that, and it was a nice day like this, and I just suddenly had this image of a quadriplegic in a wheelchair who stood up out of the chair and was being controlled from the neck down by a computer. That image and that scenario wouldn’t leave my head and I started reverse engineering a story into it. I kept writing away and making notes and then, cut to many years later, I’m sitting here talking with you.

TechCrunch: It’s interesting that it came from your imagination, because in some ways it feels very prescient. We had our own robotics event a couple of weeks ago and one of the big moments on-stage was someone in a wheelchair who was able to take a few steps thanks to an exoskeleton.

Wannell: So the exoskeleton that helps people with paralysis walk and move, this movie is the internalized version of that, where it goes one step further and there’s nothing exterior. It’s a chip.

It has been interesting to watch the world catch up to my script. Because when I wrote the first draft of this script, automated cars and smart kitchens were still science fiction. And in the ensuing years, they’ve become ubiquitous. I mean, my wife’s car parks itself and talks to her. And my daughter thinks it’s perfectly normal to have a voice talking to her in the kitchen, and she asks it to play songs and it does. So in a way I feel like I’m living in the world of the movie I wrote all those years ago.

TechCrunch: And when was that?

Wannell: God, the first draft was probably at least six years ago.

TechCrunch: You said a lot of ideas will come to you, and you’ll think: Some of these are bad, some of these are good.  Obviously, you’re known for horror, so in this case, when you think of a science fiction idea, does that create any trepidation?

Wannell: There was a bit of trepidation on my part as I was gearing up to direct the movie. Not so much when I was writing it. But I started to worry about science fiction fans because I’m very well-versed with horror fans, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a lot of them, I feel like I’m in that community, and I was a horror fan myself. But I realized that science fiction has its own community of these staunch fans who pick apart things like Star Trek and Star Wars. And I did remember having a moment where I thought, wow, are they going to see this and think that I’m a fraud, that I’m a tourist in this world?

I’ve just gone through a two week trip around the country, screening the movie in different cities, and afterwards I’ll always chat to people. And in the acceptance of the movie, I realize that these genres, they’re not the province of any one type of person. What I feel like science fiction fans respond to is just people trying to hit them with something new, something they haven’t seen. And if you do that you’ll be okay.

TechCrunch: When you were directing, did you feel like you were using a different skillset?

Wannell: The mechanics of making a horror film are so specific that I obviously wasn’t using any of that. Those quiet moments in a horror film where you really lean on the anticipation of things, this movie wasn’t using any of that. But I felt like some of the rhythms and filmmaking beats that I’d learned in horror, I think they’re just naturally ingrained in me.

So, for instance, I liked creating moments of silence that were suddenly punctuated by action. And I think I must be subconsciously looking for that vocal reaction that you get from a horror film. It’s almost like I was putting those horror beats into a sci-fi context: Build, build, catharsis. Build, build, catharsis. So maybe that’s in there, just ingrained.

[Skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t want to be spoiled for an early scene in Upgrade, as well as the general direction of the film.]

TechCrunch: That’s certainly true to my experience. For a lot of it I was incredibly tense, and the moment when his head gets cut open, I just screamed.

Wannell: [laughs] In the operation?

TechCrunch: No, in the first kill.

Wannell: Ah, yes, the Pez dispenser!

TechCrunch: God, yeah. That was very upsetting.

Wannell: If you look at that scene and you analyze the structure, there is kind of a horror-esque metronome to it, where it’s quiet, it’s tense, and then there’s an explosion of something.

And in watching it, it’s been interesting to see that that scene gets a vocal reaction. It’s not the same reaction that a horror movie gets, that sort of scream in the audience, but it’s almost like an adrenaline rush, and when he gets up off the floor, I see people clapping along. I’m like, “Oh cool, this is a spectator sport, they’re getting into it as participants.”

TechCrunch: When I read the description of the film — obviously, the marketing is emphasizing this dystopian, almost horrific element, but you still think, “Oh, he’s basically going to become this superhero, and there’s maybe going to be this dark side to it, but it’s still going to be this ultimately triumphant story.” Whereas throughout the whole film, there’s this darker undertone that feels very different.

Wannell: I feel like the superhero version of this movie where somebody is given something — a power or a computer chip, whatever it is — that’s been done, especially in this age we live in, it’s been done a lot. So I found what was more interesting was to do the Taxi Driver version of this, to do the version where you realize the bad guy is in your body and the fight is not between you and external forces. It’s actually two entities fighting over the same physical body. That was interesting to me.

[End spoilers]

TechCrunch: One of the things you also mentioned in the press materials was this idea of having the freedom of an independent film but also having the scope of a larger science fiction film. I don’t know what the budget was, but I assume it wasn’t Avengers-scale.

Wannell: [laughs] Very low.

TechCrunch: What was the overall approach you took to saying, “Well, we don’t have all that money but we’re still going to try to build a world that has scope”?

Wannell: It’s just been a real goal and a dream of mine to do that. To make a movie that enjoyed the worldbuilding of sci-fi but took advantage of the creative freedom of an independent. The problem is that one is supposed to cancel the other out. You’re supposed to need studio money if you’re going to go off and make the future-set action movie. So I really was trying to have my cake and eat it, but I was obsessed with doing it.

As a model, I used ‘80s sci-fi films that I grew up with. I used the original Terminator as a great example, because if you really study that movie scene-by-scene, the science fiction and the tech is doled out very judiciously and sparingly. It’s kind of this lean-and-mean, slash-and-stalk movie that is dressed in this sci-fi skin. And I loved that.

I feel like, if they can achieve that sort of sleight of hand in the ’80s, then we could do it now. Especially with the new advantage that they didn’t even have back then of CG. We could use CG to augment some of the scenes. We couldn’t go bananas with it, but we could utilize it at certain moments. And I guess I’m too close to the movie, I’ve spent too long with it to know if we really succeeded, but I’m hoping that audiences feel like they’re watching a bigger movie, you know? That they’re part of a bigger world.

TechCrunch: Right, and there’s a couple of things in the beginning that feel very big —

Wannell: Like, here’s the world!

TechCrunch: Which, if I go back clinically and watched it, I would see that those are doled out very strategically. But it does the job. And it also is an interesting constraint because it means that in a lot of the other scenes, you have one or two science fictional elements, but you’re using primarily a real world location or set, rather than a created world.

Wannell: Absolutely, and that was something that was a very conscious decision. Not just budgetary, but a creative decision for me was: Let’s set this movie in the very near future. Let’s build a world that the audience can see themselves in.

Also, the world doesn’t change completely overnight, it happens incrementally. In 30 years time, you’ll still have buildings from the 1800s in New York City. They’re not going to knock them down and build a glass tower. So what you’re going to end up in 30, 40 years is a landscape in Manhattan that is the future sort of jammed on top of the past and it’ll be this hybrid.

And people will still be driving older cars! That’s another thing that you see in a lot of future movies, all of a sudden everyone on the road is driving the future car. And I’m like, well no, there will still be people 20 years from now driving around in early ’90s Hondas, crappy cars, you know? That scaling of the world was important, but a bonus prize was that it helped us budgetarily.

TechCrunch: You mentioned that this is something that you started writing six years ago. In that time, the technology has evolved, but also the ways in which we talk or think about disability, and the ways we talk about being quadriplegic or paraplegic has changed. To what extent was that part of your research, things like talking to disability activists?

Wannell: I didn’t talk so much to activists. When I was writing the film, I wanted the idea that a chip could cure paralysis, I wanted that to be a tangible thing and I talked to a surgeon and he said, “Look, what you’re talking about is hypothetical, but in theory, it could be done. That gap between our brain and our nerve endings could be bridged by a computer.” And that was great to walk away with, the knowledge that the tech was credible.

Certainly when we were preparing to shoot the film, we took the quadriplegic side of it very seriously. Logan [Marshall-Green], who plays Gray, he worked with a guy who was a quadriplegic who was nice enough to spend a lot of time with Logan, share his life with him, talk to Logan, let Logan see what his daily rituals were like, let him actually use a chair.

And Logan had a lot of integrity about that. He felt he owed this gentleman that he had worked with the responsibility of portraying that realistically, and he was really watching it, the way he held his hands. It’s not a long moment in the film that he spends as a quadriplegic, but it was important for us for that moment to have as much integrity as anything else in the film. Especially with something that in real life, people are experiencing. You don’t want to push back at them some wonky cinematic version of the real thing.

TechCrunch: Part of what I’m getting at is, is there’s this opening image that you mentioned of him rising out of the chair. It’s this incredibly moving scene for him because you’ve been through all of these terrible things with him. But at the same time, you can imagine somebody who is quadriplegic watching the film and you don’t necessarily want them to look at themselves and think —

Wannell: Them thinking, “Oh, you’re presenting this as triumphant, as if that’s much better.” Yeah, that’s interesting, that is part-and-parcel of putting films out into the world, isn’t it? The world reflects back at you and I think you just have to take those slings and arrows. Nothing was done with any malice.

And I don’t think we were trying to present the idea that quadriplegia is this hellish situation that only being able-bodied can cure. What I think we were doing is speaking to the story of a guy who hates technology becomes technology. The way that we were enabled to do that in the story was through his condition, his quadriplegia. So it’s the result of an accident, he’s given this chip, and now he’s completely reliant on it, you know? It’s totally a story point for us.

TechCrunch: And again, without getting into too many spoilers, you said that this is the Taxi Driver version of the story. How much of that was trying to express your own concerns about people becoming more automated?

Wannell: I think a lot of it. First and foremost, I’m trying to tell this genre story, I’m trying to build a unique movie. And then the themes and the questions of the film sit underneath it.

But I have a foot in both camps with technology. Especially in researching the script and reading books by Ray Kurzweil and authors that talk about the Singularity and the point at which humans and tech will merge. Because I didn’t want to make a robot film. A robot film has been done before and I wasn’t really interested in that. I was interested in human beings putting tech into their bodies voluntarily. That was something I felt I hadn’t seen a lot of.

Through my research and reading these books, I saw both sides. I saw the wonderful side of our reliance on tech in regards to medicine. If we can install something in our bloodstream or our bodies that cures cancer, that’s obviously going to be an amazing, wonderful thing. But there’s the other foot in the other camp, which is our overreliance on automation. I’m wondering if our cars do the driving for us and our kitchens do the cooking, are we actually designing ourselves into irrelevance? That’s an interesting road to look down. It seems to me the human instinct is to always make things easier. We’re always leaping towards convenience: “Oh, wouldn’t it be better if a machine could do that?”

I’m wondering where that road ends. The movie was definitely a reflection of that, too.

TechCrunch: The last thing I’m going to ask, which I think I’m sort of required to ask, is to what extent is this meant to be a completely standalone experience? Have you thought about a potential sequel?

Wannell: I haven’t. The thought enters my mind and I push it away. Because this is an independent film, and it’s really hard in today’s media landscape to get people to pay attention to things. We’re releasing the movie in summer, surrounded by giant movies. I can’t imagine what the marketing budget for the new Han Solo movie is. To compete against that is almost foolhardy, so I feel like planning a sequel is an assumption of success that I’m not ready for.

Sitting there being vexed about where to go with a sequel would be a great problem to have.

TechCrunch: Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like a movie that was written with a sequel in mind.

Wannell: No, it definitely wasn’t. I remember when James Wan and I did the first Saw movie, a lot of people would say to us, “Well, you left the door open for a sequel.” And we would say, “No, we literally closed the door!” We thought it was a nice ending. Little did we know that the producers had other ideas once the film was a hit.

To us, the ending to that movie, in our opinion, was the very definition of a cut to black, no more story. But then we got a lesson in commerce.