#nev reads surviving romance

[ladyloveandjustice]

We return to chapter 64, where Hisui turns her insatiable desire to have an Important Haircut into the sickest burn.

[rosegoldrosieee]

so high school

while flesh-eating walkers had seemingly crushed your long-held dreams of experiencing romance as a teenager, carl grimes made you feel so high school.

♡ carl x f!reader, fluff, implied suggestiveness, friends to lovers (sorta), ambiguously alexandria, reader has a spine

a/n: wrote this yesterday hiding in the bathroom during lunch on my school-licensed chromebook for maximum immersion

it was times like these, standing outside on someone’s back porch to get away from boisterous conversations and forced interactions, that reminded you of stupid high school chick flicks with cheesy one-liners, twenty-something actors playing sixteen-year-olds, and predictable love triangles.

you never got to navigate and, most importantly, surmount pubescent awkwardness, nor gush about crushes at sleepovers, because by your twelfth birthday, the dead somehow began to roam the earth.

out of sheer necessity, you’d eschewed any shot at teenage romance for survival skills, and effectively turned into a wallflower when you rejoined civilized society.

a gentle tap on your shoulder snapped you out of your reverie.

“hey.”

there stood the very reason you were even thinking about early-2000s romance movies in the first place: a chronically flannel-clad, one-eyed cowboy, notorious for merely sharing the same last name as the de facto leader of alexandria, now two feet in front of you holding a shot glass of fruit punch.

“didn’t mean to scare you.” he says with a sheepish grin plastered on his face.

“the only thing that’s scaring me is what you’re using as a vessel for your fruit punch.”

“everyone used up all the solo cups so i had to dig around in the cabinets,” he replies nonchalantly, holding up the glass. “why are you out here?”

why were you out here?

…

you can’t even remember.

“i don’t know.”

it’s hard to think, much less remember, anything when carl’s looking at you like that, arms crossed and leaning forward onto the banister, blue eyes boring into your own.

“did you even hear me?” he taps your hand that’s resting on the ledge gently, his lips quirking up with the ghost of an amused smile.

your eyes flick up to meet his attentively. “…what?”

“wow, you’re really out of it today,” he laughs, sipping from his shot glass. “forget it.”

you shift your weight, shaking your head. “well, i’m listening now, so tell me.”

his fingers are fidgeting with yours, you realize. tapping gently on your knuckles. intentionally, unintentionally? it was cute either way.

he tilts his head. “i just want to know what you’re thinking about.”

you shrug, as dismissively as you possibly can. swallowing down the butterflies that threatened to crawl into your throat.

“getting away from this stupid ass party.”

he raises an eyebrow, tone skeptical. “and?”

you narrow your eyes. it was a bad habit, using vitriol to mask your emotions. you were well aware. “what do you mean, ‘and’?”

“‘cause you’re smart,” his lips curl into a smirk. “that’s not all you’re thinking about. you’re never all…spaced out, like this.”

fuck you, carl grimes.

“i’m just tired,” you fib. your eyes drift to your hand, intertwined with carl’s, before quickly looking away. “you’re reading into it too much.”

“only because you’re not acting normal,” he teases, a dimpled grin gracing his features before he adds, “and you definitely would’ve pulled away by now if you didn’t want this.”

you steal a glance at your entangled hands again, heat rising to your face before you ask, skeptical, “what are you trying to do, exactly?”

“what do you think i’m trying to do?”

you glance to the side furtively, tongue-tied, still able to hear the muffled revelry through the shut screen door, before your eyes trace over his features again.

you wanted to wipe that shit-eating grin off his face so badly.

tugging at the collar of his unbuttoned flannel, you shift your weight to the balls of your feet, connecting your lips to his fruit-punch-stained ones.

you swear you’ll never drink hawaiian punch, or any drink with red-40 in the ingredients list, again without imagining the taste of him lingering on your lips.

expression tinged with a gradient of conflicting emotions when you pull away, you open your mouth to say something— and then he pulls you in this time, words dying in your throat with a soft whimper.

the party fades into an afterthought until you hear the screen door open just around the corner, thudding against the frame. quickly, you disentangle yourself from his arms, faces still flushed.

it’s rick, his rugged, stubbled face and piercing gaze (so it must be hereditary, you wagered) flickering between the two of you suspiciously, nodding at you curtly.

“carl.”

thank god for your quick reflexes — those, at least, hadn’t deteriorated just because you were sheltered by alexandria.

carl swallows, freckled face flushed as he quickly looks at you, panic etched on his face. the evidence of your little affair conveniently disguised by the shadow of his cowboy hat and the darkness of the night.

“dad, can’t we stay a little longer?”

“think the party’s ‘bout over.”

you peer into the ajar casement windows, abandoned solo cups decorating the vacant living room, watching abraham stagger into the mudroom and nearly take a shelf with him when he topples forward. rosita, unamused, rolls her eyes, grumbling something unintelligible before dragging him along.

before the grimes family gets into a fight, you take it upon yourself to leave first, retrieving your cardigan that was hanging on the banister. “see you around, carl. bye, mr. grimes.”

both of them wave as you disappear into tree-lined streets, intermittently illuminated by uniform streetlights.

as soon as you’re out of earshot and out of sight, you let out a pleasant sigh, smiling from ear to ear like an absolute idiot as your hands reached up to feel your flushed cheeks, still hot to the touch as you giggle to yourself at the incredulity of it all.

at home, once the high had worn off, or more realistically, ebbed for the time being, you shed your cardigan, scrutinizing the crimson patches blooming on the side of your neck in the mirror, smiling like a fool.

these were the only kind of bites you’d ever tolerate.

[aethericsea]

IRENEVE GUILLAUMONT, FFXIV Elezen

  Ireneve grew up surrounded by family on a sheep farm in the Coerthan highlands. Whether it be shearing season or otherwise, they all had a hand in the business that kept food on their tables, and, during hols, she would sometimes visit her wealthier cousins in Ishgard, those of the Guillaumont clan more closely related to the Dzemael line.

  Nev is innately curious. Given enough time and interest, she will pick something apart to its most base elements to discover what secrets it may hold. This trait leads her to a fascination with archaeology and her Echo further draws her focus toward Allagan technology. She has a strong sense of justice and though she is careful with her words, she will speak her mind if something rubs up against her moral code in the wrong way.

  Perhaps because of her childhood, Ireneve is quick to adopt people as family. The Scions feel like siblings to her, for example. This does, however, get in the way of potential romances at times. That kind of love simply isn’t at the forefront of her mind and she most certainly doesn’t view herself as someone desirable.

  The Calamity takes place when she is 14. Though her home is destroyed by the resulting freeze, she and her uncle miraculously survive -- only to find more obstacles in their path. From there, her Fate changes drastically based on which verse you find her in. Read below for a general idea of each as well as links to headcanon and timeline tags!

Allag’s Echo;   This verse is Ireneve’s "default” canon.   With her uncle, Ireneve goes to Ishgard to seek help. They are aided by their cousins for a time, though, eventually, faced with life in the Brume or joining the army, she decides the military is her better option. She excels with a lance and even catches the eye of her superiors as a Dragoon candidate. However, killing is not something she enjoys. She deserts to Gridania. Then, after a fashion, she find herself unearthing Allagan artifacts in Cartineau, and, from there, she meets Minfilia, who recognizes her as another Echo-bearer.   In ARR, she is primarily Urianger’s assistant. After Heavensward, she takes a seat in the House of Lords. In Shadowbringers, she is “called” with Y’shtola and Urianger, staying in the Crystarium to wait for others’ arrivals and act as a go-between.    Having adopted Ga Bu instead of leaving him with the Maelstrom, her goal outside of the Scions very much becomes initiating cooperation between the beast tribes and the nations of Eorzea.  Canon WoL/WoD: @vierandancer​  Canon Ships: Hilda/Ireneve, Artoirel/Ireneve, Frey/Meiko/Sidurgu  Writing Partner Wishlist: non-WoL FFXIV OCs, FFXIV NPCs

Garlemald’s Bounty;   This is Ireneve’s primary alt. WoL verse.   Cid asks Yugiri to help him find someone. There have been many rumors as to her true origin and the nature of her knowledge, but none of that matters when faced with the reality of the situation: Garlemald wants to use her to unlock the secrets of Allag. The danger this poses is no laughing matter. Unfortunately, Yugiri finds her too late. This is where your quest begins. Go with Yugiri and her agents to Garlemald, find this woman, and save her before her ability can be used for ill.   Writing Partner Wishlist: your WoL/WoD!

in Noble Sleep;   While making her decision between life in the Brume or joining the army, Hilda approaches Ireneve, having a suspicion as to her identity. Hilda expresses her condolences for her uncle and, when things don’t line up, ends up revealing the true manner in which he died -- at the hands of hostile Temple Knights. Ireneve who had only been tangentially aware of the Temple Knights’ behavior is furious. She decides to stay in the Brume, eventually becoming Hilda’s right hand and befriending the DRK fam.   Canon Ship: Hilda/Ireneve   Writing Partner Wishlist: Hilda, Frey, Sidurgu, Rielle, Aymeric, DRK WoL

Heretical Heart;  On the way to Ishgard, Ireneve and her uncle are turned around. They do not make it in time to be some of the few allowed in. With their only haven sealed off, they are forced to seek shelter in the freeze. Ireneve’s uncle passes away but Nev herself is found by another group of survivors. Along the way, she meets Ysayle. Fast forward several years and Ysayle is now Lady Iceheart. Nev has followed alongside her, but she has concerns for her friend who has only grown more extreme in her efforts to end the war. When the other “Heretics” begin drinking Dragon’s blood, that’s the last straw.  Potential Ship: Ysayle/Ireneve  Writing Partner Wishlist: Ysayle!!

[patchoulisecrets]

Six months of reading (arranged in order of date completed):

January:

01-05 Zeyn Joukhadar, The Thirty Names of Night

01-09 Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

01-17 Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, The Map of Salt and Stars

01-21 Mickey Hart with Jay Stevens, Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion

01-24 Ian Rankin, A Song for the Dark Times

01-27 Aravind Adiga, Amnesty

February:

02-01 Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us (2nd Ed)

02-06 John le Carré [David John Moore Cornwell], The Little Drummer Girl

02-08 Mickey Hart and Fredric Lieberman, Planet Drum: A Celebration of Percussion and Rhythm

02-10 Michael Connelly, The Law of Innocence

02-16 Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

02-20 Heather McHugh, Muddy Matterhorn

02-22 John Connolly, Every Dead Thing

02-24 Algernon Charles Swinburne, Love's Cross-Currents: A Year's Letters

02-25 Chuck Klosterman, I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined)

March:

03-01 Robert Jones, Jr., The Prophets

03-04 Jessica Bruder, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

03-12 Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

03-19 Sasha Geffen, Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary

03-22 John Connolly, The Dirty South

03-25 Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Committed

03-29 Remy Boydell [art] and Michelle Perez [words], The Pervert

03-30 Willa Cather, My Ántonia

April:

04-03 Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland

04-06 S. A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland

04-08 Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

04-16 Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers

04-24 Willa Cather, One of Ours

04-26 Paisley Rekdal, Appropriate: A Provocation

May:

05-05 Dawnie Walton, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev: A Novel

05-08 Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

05-12 Stephen King, The Institute

05-18 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance

05-22 Elizabeth Siddall, My Ladys Soul: The Poems of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall

June:

06-08 Ann Patchett, Taft

06-11 Jessica Barry [Melissa Pimentel], Don't Turn Around

06-14 Rachilde [Marguerite Vallette-Eymery], Monsieur Vénus: A Materialist Novel

06-21 Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

06-24 Heath Fogg Davis, Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?

06-28 Karen Kondazian, The Whip

[socialsandi1-blog]

Watching films/movies is entertaing if you just want a chill out on the sofa or in a cinema.

I’ve watch loads of movies, some have been been good, bad and just interesting.   Below are some movie trailers have have been taken of YouTube that I’ve watched.

Die Hard

New York City policeman John McClane (Bruce Willis) is visiting his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia) and two daughters on Christmas Eve. He joins her at a holiday party in the headquarters of the Japanese-owned business she works for. But the festivities are interrupted by a group of terrorists who take over the exclusive high-rise, and everyone in it. Very soon McClane realizes that there’s no one to save the hostages — but him. 

Die Hard 1 

Die Hard 2

Die Hard 3 

Die Hard 4 

      Terminator

Disguised as a human, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) travels from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Sent to protect Sarah is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who divulges the coming of Skynet, an artificial intelligence system that will spark a nuclear holocaust. Sarah is targeted because Skynet knows that her unborn son will lead the fight against them. With the virtually unstoppable Terminator in hot pursuit, she and Kyle attempt to escape  

Terminator 1 

Terminator 2

Terminator 3

      Quarantine

Reporter Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) are doing a story on night-shift firefighters for a reality-TV program. A late-night distress call takes them to a Los Angeles apartment building, where the police are investigating a report of horrific screams. The TV team and emergency workers find an old woman, who suddenly attacks with teeth bared. What’s more, Angela and company find that the building has been sealed by CDC workers. Then the attacks really begin  

Quarantine 1

Quarantine 2

    Tremors

Repairmen Val McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) are tired of their dull lives in the small desert town of Perfection, Nev. But just as the two try to skip town, they happen upon a series of mysterious deaths and a concerned seismologist (Finn Carter) studying unnatural readings below the ground. With the help of an eccentric couple (Reba McEntire, Michael Gross), the group fights for survival against giant, worm-like monsters hungry for human flesh. 

 Tremors 1

Tremors 2

Tremors 3

    Two days before his wedding, Doug (Justin Bartha) and three friends (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis) drive to Las Vegas for a wild and memorable stag party. In fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can’t remember a thing; nor can they find Doug. With little time to spare, the three hazy pals try to re-trace their steps and find Doug so they can get him back to Los Angeles in time to walk down the aisle. 

Hangover 1

Hangover 2

Hangover 3

    Jurassic Park

In Steven Spielberg’s massive blockbuster, paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt. 

Jurassic Park 1

Jurassic Park 2

Jurassic Park 3

JurassicPark 4

    Speed

Los Angeles police officer Jack (Keanu Reeves) angers retired bomb squad member Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper) by foiling his attempt at taking hostages. In revenge, Payne arms a bus with a bomb that will explode if it drops below 50 miles per hour. With the help of spunky passenger Annie (Sandra Bullock), Jack and his partner Harry (Jeff Daniels) try to save the people on the bus before the bomb goes off, while also trying to figure out how Payne is monitoring them. 

Speed 1

Speed 2

    Greace

Experience the friendships, romances and adventures of a group of high school kids in the 1950s. Welcome to the singing and dancing world of “Grease,” the most successful movie musical of all time. A wholesome exchange student (Olivia Newton-John) and a leather-clad Danny (John Travolta) have a summer romance, but will it cross clique lines?  

Grease 1

Grease 2 

    Jaws

When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to close the beaches, but mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) overrules him, fearing that the loss of tourist revenue will cripple the town. Ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled ship captain Quint (Robert Shaw) offer to help Brody capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs. nature.

    Bridget Jones

At the start of the New Year, 32-year-old Bridget (Renée Zellweger) decides it’s time to take control of her life — and start keeping a diary. Now, the most provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she’s writing. With a taste for adventure, and an opinion on every subject – from exercise to men to food to sex and everything in between – she’s turning the page on a whole new life. 

    Movie Entertainment Watching films/movies is entertaing if you just want a chill out on the sofa or in a cinema.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Rina was able to go "well who cares if my personality was pre written, I'm me" but she'd probably honestly be in the minority if someone really did discover they were fictional. It's terrifying to realize your personality is not someone you created, but something that's there to make a story work better. Being a self sacrificing character would be especially galling. All the times you bent over backwards to help others and put yourself last weren't because YOU wanted to, but for the author's convenience. Who even are you if you're not serving the author?

[ladyloveandjustice]

oof, good point. That is essentially it. Though you could also turn it on it's head and say people who shut themselves off from Hisui don't want her to see who they really are.

Heeeere we go! I was wondering if anyone would resent Hisui for the bad things she made happen to them as a characters. EVERY AUTHOR'S WORST FEAR. But it's not just that Hisui had them hurt for the sake of the story, it's that she didn't even care about the supporting characters enough to remember what she did to them.

(This is making me cringe because I do give a very very minor character a leg injury in my book to generate some conflict, and I don't care about him. Hope he doesn't come for me in the night. I mean at least I remember doing it. That will be my defense.)

It's not really bad for an author not to care about every single character, imo. I know authors are supposed to ~love all their characters~ but tbh I think the authors that actually manage to do that are not the norm. Sometimes you use very minor characters to cause conflict or make the plot work or drive a certain point in and no, you don't care about them or think about them too much, and that's fine.

The problem with Hisui's story that probably made it, to be frank, not very good, is that she only REALLY cared about her leads, and her caring was rooted in them being fantasies she could project herself onto. Doing that isn't wrong or bad--in fact I myself has argued self-insert fantasy characters in a well-built world with a good supporting cast are just fine and in fact, comprise a good chunk of comics and classic lit and people only start hating them when they're women and/or a minority--but it does make for a pretty sucky story (SEE MOST OTHER ISEKAI). And if you did have to meet those supporting characters who were all there just to prop your fantasy up and make your self-insert look better, they'd probably be pretty pissed.

[ladyloveandjustice]

TRULY.

Rina has really put her whole heart into being the dashing protector with Minwoo as the fragile damsel, and I love that for her. She's probably going to gallantly put her jacket down so he can walk over puddles of blood without soiling his delicate feet.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Hisui really does see the girls as autonomous people now, regardless of whether that trust her. She's gotten to know their wants and needs, and she knows they all have traits she never wrote for them, and she loves them as people, not as characters, and wants to save them so they can live their own rights. Hopefully this speech will convince Jihyeon not only to not sacrifice herself, but to see that Hisui has changes, and doesn't see her as an extra.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Ladies carrying ladies! Ladies carrying ladies! While being shadowy silhouettes, but still! This story is determined to deliver on all my fronts.

[ladyloveandjustice]

But WAIT! It turns out Huisu's not alone either! All the surviving girls who were with her with Cheiren explained her Master Plan now know the reality of this world and gained a will to travel back and reset too! I was wondering if that was a possibility, that one of them would gain a soul eventually, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly! Huisu's struggles were not for naught, and she's not alone in remembering them-- her bonds persist, including her bond with Mihui. And she'll have help convincing everyone and winning their trust this time! A very happy twist!

And we finally get to what the story had been hinting at the whole time- these aren't supporting characters, they each have their own story and their own will, way beyond the marginal roles Huisu wrote for them. They're people, not extras, and they can change the narrative.

[ladyloveandjustice]

It's the second verse, same as the first! Actually slightly different that the first, hopefully they won't die this time.

[ladyloveandjustice]

More evidence that other characters are starting to remember the previous timelines. She might have spent the whole previous timeline wanting to tell Huisu sorry after she got to know her, and that's bleeding into things right now.

But yeah, it is pretty awkward to find you're self saying "sorry I bullied you, even though you specifically created me to bully you(r self-insert)."

[ladyloveandjustice]

wow. we've officially gone full anime rom com cliche. Rina's shoujo lead career has officially launched.

Though I have to say as far as the "omg accidental kiss" trope goes it coming about because "this woman is too fucking jacked to actually fall in this scenario, also the boy trying to "save" her is significantly smaller and less jacked" is probably the explanation that I find the most likeable. Even if I'm not sure it makes logical sense physics wise.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Jihyeon's figured out Hisui's secret, and it's bad because she's realized this secret might put her in danger.

Though you know, there are actual conditions where people can't recognize facial features, imagine being this mean to someone who couldn't do that. "You have prosopagnosia? GUESS YOU'RE NOT REALLY TRYING TO PROTECT US, YOU MONSTER!"

[ladyloveandjustice]

Whatever she did as an author, Hisui does think of Jihyeon as not only a complex human being and a dear friend now. But though she's come a long way, some fears still hold her back. She's afraid even if she says this, Jihyeon might not ever like and trust her like she did in the previous timeline.

I wonder if what Hisui needs to do is let go of this idea of main characters and supporting characters and needing to turn them. Even though she does genuinely see them as a people, she's still stuck in that mindset. If she gets out of it, she might be able to see everyone's face, whether they trust her or not. Like Jihyeon said, their humanity shouldn't be contingent on their bond with her.