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lucyreviewcy · 3 years

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The Three Three Musketeers (or Where The F*ck Did All The Stupid Hats Go)

I read The Three Musketeers and then I watched the 1973, 1993 and 2011 adaptations. Which one wins tho?

Adaptation is a fascinating concept, especially of texts which are frequently adapted or parodied. After I rewatched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice I was reminded how weirdly divisive the two dominant adaptations of that book are. A lot of people consider the 2005 to be an inferior betrayal of the 1990s BBC version. I actually prefer the 2005 because I think Matthew McFadyen’s Mr Darcy is a wonderfully complex character. McFadyen imbues Darcy with social awkwardness and anxiety, which Lizzie misinterprets as his pride. To overcome the “Lizzie doesn’t fancy him ‘til she sees his house” debate, director Joe Wright includes a moment where Lizzie glimpses Darcy alone with his sister. He’s comfortable, his body language is completely different, and he’s smiling broadly. That moment really sold me on the entire film because it made Darcy a full character and was a really simple addition that rounded out the story. I still like the 90s version but for me, it’s the 2005 that takes first place. (Although an honourable mention for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is an excellent romp.)

Look: adaptation is always a complicated topic. You can’t untangle one adaptation from another, because it’s pretty rare that somebody adapting a classic text like Pride and Prejudice or The Three Musketeers is not already familiar with existing adaptations. The most recent adaptation of any classic text is not simply an adaptation of that text, but the next step in a flow chart that includes all the previous adaptations and the cultural context of the newly created product. These three adaptations of Dumas’ 1844 novel are all texturally and stylistically very different, and two of them diverge significantly from the original text. What I found truly fascinating was what all of them had in common, and what each new era (these were made at around 20 year intervals) decides to add or remove. What do all these movies agree are the essential parts of the story, and what are some adaptations more squeamish about including from Dumas’ original narrative?

Before we dive in, no I have not seen every single adaptation of the story, that would be a dissertation level of research and I do actually have things to do right now (although, I will admit...not many.) I’m looking at these three Hollywood adaptations because they all had star studded casts (for the era they were made in), they’re all English language, and (crucially) they were all easily available on the internet for me to stream.

What are the essential ingredients of a Three Musketeers adaptation?

Firstly, there should be at least three musketeers. Secondly, D’Artagnan (Michael York 1973, Chris O’Donnell 1993, Logan Lerman 2011) should be a young upstart who is introduced part way through a sword fight. He should also have silly hair. He is also consistently introduced to the musketeers in all three films by challenging them each individually to duels at noon, one o’clock and two o’clock.

The films all maintained some elements of the original “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, and featured the Queen, Milady and Constance. The characterisation of these three varied a lot.

Our villains in each case are invariably the Cardinal, his pal Rochefort (who always has an eyepatch, although this trope is not in the book and is actually attributable to the way Christopher Lee is styled in the 1973 film), and Milady de Winter. Satisfyingly, at least two of the villains usually wear red because they’re bad. Red is for bad.

All three are very swashbuckling in tone, have elements of physical comedy, and two of them include one of the three valet characters Dumas wrote into the original story, Planchet (1973 Roy Kinnear, 2011 James “ugh why” Corden). They also all bear the generic markings of the movies made during the same era, our 70s D’Artagnan feels like a prototype Luke Skywalker. The 90s version features a random martial arts performer. The 2011 version has CGI and James Corden in equal measure (read: far too much of both.)

What are the big differences?

I’m going to divide this category into three main segments: character, story and style. My own three musketeers, the three musketeers of movie making.

Character

D’Artagnan

D’artagnan in the book comes across as a pretty comical figure. He’s nineteen and there’s something satisfying about how similar Dumas’ caricature of a nineteen year old is to a modern character of the same age. He’s overconfident, has a simplistic but concrete set of morals, and falls in love with every woman he sees. If D’Artagnan were a 2021 character, he’d really hate The Last Jedi, is what I’m saying. He’d definitely have a tumblr blog, probably a lot like this one, but perhaps a scooch more earnest. He really loved The Lighthouse but he can’t explain why. Isn’t it nice to know that awkward nineteen year olds have been pretty much the same for the last three hundred years at least?

In all three films he’s kind of irritating, but at least in the 1973 this feels deliberate. This version has a certain “Carry On Musketeering” quality to it and D’Artagnan is your pantomime principal, he’s extremely naïve and he takes himself very seriously. This is the closest D’Artagnan to the book, and the 1973 is, in general, the film which adheres most faithfully to that source material.

The 1993, which is (spoiler alert) my least favourite adaptation, has Chris O’Donnell as the least likeable D’Artagnan I’ve come across. I’ve only seen O’Donnell in one other thing, the Al Pacino movie Scent of a Woman. He’s bearable in that because he’s opposite Al Pacino, and so his wide-eyed innocence makes sense as a contrast to Pacino’s aged hoo-ah cynicism. Rather than being introduced in a practice sword fight with his father, as in the other two films, D’Artagnan is fighting the brother of an ex-lover. This captures the problem with the film in general: this adaptation wants D’Artagnan to be cool. He is not. The comedy of the 1973, and indeed the book, comes from D’Artagnan being deeply uncool, and from his blind idolisation of the deeply flawed Musketeers who actually are cool, but not necessarily heroic, or even good people. Their moral greyness contrasts with D’Artagnan’s defined sense of right and wrong, but he still considers them to be role models and heroes.

2011′s version also suffers from “Cool D’Artagnan” syndrome, with the added annoyance of that most Marvel of tropes: the quip. One of the real issues with this film is that the dialogue has a lot of forced quippery that doesn’t quite land, and the editing slows the pace of the entire film. D’Artagnan’s first interaction with Constance is a bad attempt at wit which Constance points out isn’t very funny. The problem is that Constance has no personality so there’s no real indication that she’s in any position to judge his level of wit. She’s just vague, blonde and there: three characteristics which describe an entire pantheon of badly written female characters throughout the ages. Cool D’Artagnan also means that Constance should be additionally cool, because in the book, Constance is older than, smarter than and over-all more in charge than D’Artagnan.

Female Characters

Let’s go into this with an open mind that understands all these films were made in the sociological context of their decade. The 1973 version would absolutely not be made in the same way now. Constance is a clumsy cartoon character who is forever falling over and accidentally sticking her breasts out. This is not the character from the books, but does at least leave an impression on the viewer one way or another.

In contrast, the 1993 has a Constance so forgettable I literally cannot picture her. I think she holds D’Artagnan’s hand at the end. That’s all I can say on the subject.

The 2011 has Gabriella Wilde in the role, and absolutely wastes her. Anyone who’s seen her in Poldark knows that she can do sharp-tongued beautiful wit-princess with ease. It’s the writing of this film that lets her down, in general, that’s the problem with it. The storyline and design are great, but the actual dialogue lacks the pace and bite that a quip-ridden star vehicle needs. This Constance is given simultaneously more and less to do than the Constance of the original book, who demonstrates at every turn the superiority of her intellect over D’Artagnan, but doesn’t get to pretend to be a Musketeer and whip her hat off to show her flowing golden hair like she does in the 2011.

The best character, for my money, in The Three Musketeers is Milady de Winter. Even Dumas got so obsessed with her that there are full chapters of the book written from pretty much her perspective. In the book, she’s described as a terrifying genius with powers of persuasion so potent that any jailor she speaks to must be instantly replaced. My favourite Milady is absolutely Faye Dunaway from 1973. She’s ferocious and beautiful and ruthless, but potentially looks even better because the portrayals in the other films are so very bad.

The 1993 version has your typical blonde 90s baddie woman (Rebecca De Mornay), she wouldn’t look out of place as a scary girlfriend in an episode of Friends or Frasier. 2011 boasts Milla Jovovich who presents us a much more physical version of the character, even doing an awkwardly shoe-horned anachronistic hall of lasers a la Entrapment except instead of lasers its really thin pieces of glass? The “yeah but it looks cool” attitude to anachronism in this film is what makes it fun, and Jovovich’s Milady isn’t awful, she’s just let down by a plot point that she shares with 1993 Milady. Both these adaptations get really hooked on the fact that Athos used to be married to Milady at one time (conveniently leaving out the less justifiable character point that Athos TRIED TO HANG HER when he found out she had been branded as a thief - doesn’t wash so well with the modern audiences, I think.) Rather than hating/fearing Milady, the two modern adaptations suggest that Athos is still in love with her and pines for her. This detracts from Athos’ character just as much as it detracts from Milady’s. Interestingly, and I don’t know where this came from (if it was in the book I definitely missed it), both films feature a confrontation between the two where Athos points a gun at Milady but she pre-empts him by throwing herself off a cliff (or in the 2011, an air-ship.) I think both these versions were concerned that Milady was an anti-feminist character because she’s so wantonly evil, but I disagree. Equality means it is absolutely possible for Milady to be thoroughly evil and hated by the musketeers just as much as they hate Rochefort and the Cardinal. If you want to sort out the gender issues with this story, round Constance out and give her proper dialogue, don’t make Milady go weak at the knees because of whiny Athos (both Athos characters are exceedingly whiny, 1973 Athos is just...mashed).

The Musketeers

These guys are pretty important to get right in a film called The Three Musketeers. They have to be flawed, funny but kind of cool. Richard Chamberlain is an absolute dish in the 1973 version, capturing all those qualities in one. Is it clear which version is my favourite yet?

Athos is played variously by a totally hammered Oliver Reed (1973), a ginger-bearded Kiefer Sutherland (1993) and a badly bewigged Matthew McFadyen (2011). They all have in common the role of being the most level-headed character, but the focus on the relationship between Athos and Milady in the 93 and 11 editions undermines this a lot. Athos should be cool and aloof, instead of mooning over Milady the entire time. The 2011 gives Athos some painfully “edgy” lines like “I believe in this (points at wine) this (flicks coin) and this (stabs coin with knife.)...” which McFadyen ( once oh so perfect as Mr Darcy) doesn’t quite pull off.

Porthos seems to be the musketeer who is the most different between interpretations. A foppish dandy in the 1973, a pirate (!?!) in the 1993, and then just...large in 2011. I think the mistake made in the 2011 is that large alone does not a personality make. There are hints at Porthos’ characterisation from the book: his dependence on rich women for money and his love of fine clothing, but these are only included as part of his introduction and never crop up again through the rest of the film. Pirate Porthos in 1993 is... you know what, fine, you guys were clearly throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck.

Aramis is our dishy Richard Chamberlain in 1973, followed by womanising Charlie Sheen in 1993 and then strikingly suave Luke Evans in 2011. I actually didn’t mind Luke Evans’ interpretation, his dialogue is forgettable but his sleek charm stuck in my head. For some reason, this version has Aramis working as a parking attendant for horses, it worked for me as a fun A Knight’s Tale-esque bit of anachronistic character development. Charlie Sheen has never managed to appear likable or attractive to me and so his role in the 1993 falls flat. In fact, in that edition there’s not much distinction between the musketeers as characters and they’re all just very 90s and American. As anyone who’s read this blog before will expect, I think Keanu Reeves as Aramis would have really upped this film’s game. In fact, Keanu Reeves as Aramis, Brad Pitt as Athos and Will Smith as Porthos could have been the ultimate 90s adaptation, throw in DiCaprio as D’Artagnan and Roger Allam as the Cardinal and I’m fully sold.

The King and Queen

All three films try and do the “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, but only the 1973 actually includes the Queen’s affair with Buckingham. The queen, played by Geraldine Chaplin, is a tragic romantic figure (she doesn’t have a tonne to do besides being wistful and sighing over Lord Buckingham). The king is played as a frivolous idiot by Jean-Pierre Cassel (voice dubbed by Richard Briers). He doesn’t really think of the queen as a person, more as a possession that he doesn’t want Buckingham to have.

In the 1993 version, Buckingham doesn’t really feature, and it’s the queen’s refusal to get off with the Cardinal that prompts his fury at her. The book does touch on the Cardinal’s desire for the queen, but it’s placed front and centre in 1993. This is definitely the boobsiest version, with quite a lot of corsetry on show and a cardinal who hits on literally all the women. The king is shown as a stroppy teenage boy under the thumb of the cardinal, who just wants to ask the queen to the dance but doesn’t have the nerve. The king is, essentially, a Fall Out Boy lyric.

The 2011 also seems to be really squeamish about the idea of the queen having an extramarital affair. It paints Buckingham (played with excellent wig and aplomb by Orlando Bloom) as a stylish villain, who’s advances the queen has rejected. Like the 1993 version, the King is a feckless youth rendered speechless by the presence of his wife. Both these versions want the King and Queen to be happy together, while the 1973 doesn’t give a fuck.

The Cardinal and his Cronies

The cardinal is kind of universally an evil creepy guy. One of the characters from the 1973 version who actually left the least impression on me, played by Charlton Heston. I think he’s overshadowed in my recollection by cartoonishly evil Christopher Lee as Rochefort. Lee’s Rochefort is dark, mysterious and wonderfully bad, and so influential that all other incarnations’ design is based on him. The 1993 version had truly over the top Michael Wincott as a character I could honestly refer to as Darth Rochefort from the way he’s framed, while 2011 boasts a chronically underused Mads Mikkelsen in the role.

Cardinal-wise, 1993 was my favourite with Tim Curry in all his ecclesiastical splendour. It was disappointing that everything about this film, including the Cardinal’s sexual harassment of every single female character, really didn’t work for me. Tim Curry is a natural choice for this role and gives it his campy all.

2011 has not one but two trendy bond villain actors, with Mikkelsen working alongside Christoph Waltz who was...just kind of fine. I was really excited when he appeared but he didn’t really push the character far enough and left me cold.

Story

The story is where the different adaptations diverge most completely. 1973 follows the plot of the novel, D’Artagnan comes to Paris, befriends the Musketeers and becomes embroiled in a plot by the Cardinal to expose the Queen’s affair with Buckingham through the theft of two diamond studs. D’Artagnan, aided partially by the musketeers, must travel to London to retrieve the set of twelve studs gifted by the King to the Queen, and by the Queen to Buckingham. He does so, the plot is foiled, he’s made into a musketeer! Hurrah, tankards all round.

The 1993 version drops D’Artagnan into the story just as the Cardinal has disbanded the Musketeers. I found the plot of this one really hard to follow and I think at some point D’Artagnan ended up in the Bastille? There was this whole plot point about how Rochefort had killed D’Artagnan’s father. In the original, and in the 1973 version, D’Artagnan’s entire beef with Rochefort is rooted in a joke Rochefort makes about D’Artagnan’s horse. I guess for the producers of this one, a horse insult is not enough motivation for a lifelong grudge. That is really the problem with the entire film, it forgets that the story as told by Dumas is set in a world where men duel over such petty things as “criticising one’s horse”, “blocking one’s journey down a staircase” and “accusing one of having dropped a lady’s handkerchief.” The colour palette and styling are very 90s “fun fun fun”, but the portrayal of the cardinal and the endless angst about D’Artagnan’s father really dampen the mood.

The 2011 version, this is where the shit really hits the fan. We meet our musketeers as they collaborate with Milady to steal the blueprints for a flying ship (it’s like a piratecore zeppelin). Milady betrays them and gives the plans to Buckingham, they all become jaded and unemployed. D’Artagnan arrives on the scene (his American accent explained by the fact that he’s from a different part of France) and befriends the Musketeers. The cardinal tries to frame the queen for infidelity by having Milady steal her diamonds to hide them in Buckingham’s safe at the tower of London. Something something Constance, something something help me D’Artagnan you’re my only hope. MASSIVE AIRSHIP BATTLE. The king and queen have a dance. James Corden cracks wise.

It seems like as time has passed, producers, writers and directors have felt compelled to embellish the story. I think, specifically in the case of the two later versions, this is because they wanted the films to resemble the big successes of the period. Everybody knows no Disney hero can be in possession of both parents, so D’Artagnan is out to avenge his father like Simba or Luke Skywalker. In the 2011 version, the plot is overblown and overcomplicated in what seems like an attempt to replicate the success of both the Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. Remember the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? No, me neither.

Style

The style of these films grows increasingly wild along with the plots as time passes. The 1973 features a lot of slapstick comedy, some of which really made me cackle, and some of which was cringeworthily sexist (Constance’s boobs through the window of a litter.) That’s the 70s though! I love The Godfather but Diane Keaton’s character is unbelivably dull and annoying. Star Wars features a pretty good female character but she does end up in that bikini. The 70s seems to be a time of movies that were great except for their occasional headlong dive into misogyny. That doesn’t mean the entire movie is bad, it just means it’s suffering from the consequences of being made in the 70s. There were other consequences of this, I doubt many modern productions could get away with physically injuring so many of it’s cast members. From a glance down the IMDB trivia page, this film yielded a higher casualties to cast ratio than the My Chemical Romance Famous Last Words music video, and that’s a hard figure to top.

The 1993 version is a Disney feature and suffers from having a thin sheen (not Charlie in this instance) of “Disney Original Movie” pasted over every scene. It looks like The Parent Trap might be filming in the adjacent studio a lot of the time. The vibrancy of the colours makes the costumes look unrealistic, while the blandness of the female characters means this movie ends up a bit of a bland bro-fest. Also occasionally the sexual and violent moments really jar with the overall tone making it an uneven watch. One minute it’s Charlie Sheen cracking jokes about trying to get off with someone’s wife, the next minute you see Milady throw herself off a cliff and land on the rocks. Weird choices all round.

The 2011 version, as I’ve already mentioned, was trying to borrow its style from the success of Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean, with a little Ocean’s 11 thrown in. The soundtrack flips between not quite a Hans Zimmer score and not quite that other Hans Zimmer score, and after the success of Stardust it ends with a Take That song (for it to match up to the story it should have been Take That feat. Harry styles imho). Visually, there’s some fantastic travel by mapping going on, there’s far too much CGI (one of my friends pointed out that the canal in Venice seemed to be full of Flubber). Everyone is dressed in black leather, and there are not enough big hats at all. One of the best things about Musketeers films is that they’re an excuse for ridiculous hats, and in a film with a quite frankly insane visual style, I’m surprised the hats didn’t make it through. The cast, unfortunately, really lack chemistry which means the humorous dialogue is either stilted or James Corden, and the editing is just very strange. It’s one of those films that feels about as disjointed as an early morning dream, the one where you dream you’ve woken up, gotten dressed and fed the cat, but you actually are still in bed.

Conclusion

Adaptations focus on different things depending on the context they were created in. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice is deliberately “grittier” than its 1990s predecessor, at a stage when “grit” was everywhere (The Bourne Identity, Spooks, Constantine). The Musketeers adaptations demonstrate exactly the same thing: what people wanted in the 70s was bawdy comedy and slapstick with a likeable idiot hero, the 90s clearly called for... Charlie Sheen and bright colours, and the 2010s just want too much of everything and a soundtrack with lots of banging and crashing. The more modern adaptations simplified the female characters (although the 1973 version definitely is guilty of oversimplifying Constance) while over-complicating the plot. There’s a lot of embellishment going on in the 2011 version that suggests the film wasn’t very sure of itself, it pulls its plot punches while simultaneously blindly flailing its stylistic fists.

The film that works the best for me will always be the 1973 because it’s pretty straight down the line. Musketeers are good, Milady is evil, falling over is funny and the King’s an idiot. The later adaptations seem to be trying to fix problems with the story that the 1973 version just lets fly. The overcorrection of Milady and the under characterisation of Constance is the perfect example of this. If you want your Musketeers adaptation to be more feminist, don’t weaken Milady, strengthen Constance. Sometimes a competent female character is all that we need. A Constance who is like Florence Cassel from Death in Paradise or Ahn Young-yi from Misaeng could really pack a punch.

I adored the energy of the 2011 adaptation, I loved how madcap it was, I loved how it threw historical accuracy to the wind. I thought the king was adorable, and I really enjoyed seeing Orlando Bloom hamming it up as Buckingham. I was genuinely sad that the sequel the ending sets up for never came, because once they got out of the sticky dialogue and into the explosions, the film was great fun. It was a beautiful disaster that never quite came together, but I really enjoyed watching it. I love films that have a sense of wild chaos, some more successful examples are The Devil’s Advocate, Blow Dry and Lego Batman. I think the spirit of going all out on everything can sometimes result in the best cinematic experience, it’s just a shame the script wasn’t really up to muster for 2011 Musketeers.

I’m excited to see what the next big budget Musketeers adaptation brings, even if I’m going to have to wait another ten years to see it. I hope it’s directed by Chad Stahelski, that’d really float my boat (through the sky, like a zeppelin.)

#ThreeMusketeers #Three Musketeers #Adaptation #Movies #Film #The Three Musketeers

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camilliar · 4 years

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I've just reread ~get the wine pairings~ which is one of the best zimbits fics I've ever read and I was wondering if you're currently working/planning any new omgcp fics? I really love your writing 🙈

Ahhhhhhh wow thank you, there are so many Zimbits fics to choose from, and you chose the one I wrote while my OMGCP AO3 account was still a sock I never planned to link to because it was too many kinks pasted together. I’m very flattered. I’m still weirdly pleased with that fic!

To answer you question -- which I’m also very flattered anyone would ask? -- I've got two OMGCP fics that’ll be going up in the next, like, month:

You may have seen me insanely blogging about this AU where everyone’s getting MFAs at Samwell. In theory, ideally, I guess this would be like a loose collaborative series me and @tomatowrites both write in? (If she wants to/has time to?) I’ve very near done with the first fic in this series, like, one to five paragraphs away from being done and passing it on to a beta. It’s a PBJ sex fic set over Labor Day weekend; Bitty thinks he’s getting into one thing (group sex) but he’s actually getting into something else. It doesn’t get that much into the MFA part of things but I hope it does an okay job introducing the general themes around the Parse + Bitty stories in the AU? Lots of ???? because I’m just so excited about this entire thing. Please send me + Tomato asks about MFA stuff, I’m obsessed with and I want everyone else to be, also.

I’m also doing @omgcpheartbreakfest, and that fic is due on August 5 and should be posting ... a week later? Ish? Because it’s a blind fest I ought not divulge too much about it, but it’s an idea I’ve wanted to write out for a while, so I’m looking forward to finishing this over the next week or two.

and then OH GOD this list continues:

After those two I’ll probably switch gears to finish up this infamous South Park fic. Further afield, I did start an Ollie/Wicks fic that could be conceptually interesting but a) what is the audience? and b) do I really want to expend energy on digging into the tone and keeping the tone on point? More problematic is that these characters do not have personalities or even biographical information to transform into a story, so it’s tough to know what their relationship would even be like? I guess what I’m saying is I’m not sure if I want to follow through on this. Earlier today, actually, I took a look at it convinced I was going to scrap it -- but I also felt like there was something there that made me almost wistful for whatever conviction I had for this story when I started it. We’ll see where that goes.

Two big fics I have wanted to write in this fandom for a long, long time, like nearly as long as I’ve been in the fandom:

An AU where Jack’s OD is fatal, and a few years into the future his mother has established a foundation in his memory, to which she’s recruited Parse to sit on the board, which requires that he help fund the foundation. The foundation creates a scholarship for a hockey player at Samwell, and Parse is asked to advise the selection process, which results in Bitty being offered the inaugural award. The problem, however, is that Bitty is terrified of checking and if he doesn’t make it on this team, there’s a chance SMH might ultimately reject the gift -- and if this pilot program fails, Jack’s mom is gonna, like, have a breakdown. So Parse decides to intervene to make sure Bitty doesn’t get cut? Long story short, endgame Bitty/Parse, with the basic tension coming from what everyone’s lost if Jack isn’t in their lives: the team dynamic is totally different! Bitty thinks Jack is a selfish monster who ruined the lives of everyone around him, but Parse maintains that Bitty didn’t know him. The Bob/Alicia relationship is almost irreparably frayed and Parse finds himself in the middle of it because they both refuse to let him go! In a lot of ways it’s a story about Jack, although Jack is very dead for all of it. If done properly I would love to get into some of the tough politics around, like, money in US higher ed and some politics around wealth generally.

I have mentioned a few times that I want to write a “normal” not-edgelord Zimbits fic, and that would be an AU where Jack gets a PhD in history instead of going into the NHL -- so it’s basically canon-divergent from the start of Y2, where Jack decides that, for his own mental health, he can’t do professional hockey. The fic is set over the summer of 2017, at which point Jack is preparing to take his exams, write a dissertation prospectus, and start teaching in the fall. He’s at an impasse with his advisor, however, who doesn’t want him to write a social history of hockey because that’s a second book project, not a dissertation. While that’s happening, Bitty’s just graduated college and moved back in with his parents while Jack tries to find them an apartment in Boston -- which he’s having some trouble doing since Bitty doesn’t have a job lined up and Jack’s income is like, a graduate stipend. The conflicts in this story come from circumstances external to the Jack/Bitty relationship, and center around Jack’s doubts about his ability and desire to follow through on his stated goals, especially considering he’s deeply uncompromising. I’ve seen so many arguments that Jack would be so great at grad school or being a professional academic and it’s like, yes, in some ways, he would be; I can see him doing good archival research, or moving through the degree requirements in a PhD program, because he’s goal-oriented and willing to put the work in. But! He’s fucking awkward and so much of this field is just ... networking? Collaborating? Taking advice? Listening? Taking social cues? He had this idea about what kind of dissertation he was going to do, and why is he being told no? Can Jack take “no”? Can he adapt? A random woman has been showing up to his beer league games -- maybe this degree wasn’t the right path after all?

Then, all the way down at the bottom here, it’s like, I have sooo many incomplete Greerverse and lady Jack fics, many of them in the 500-3k range, but some of them in the 15k range, which is like, wow, that’s a lot of unfinished fic! The most profitable of these would be Jack and Bitty taking a 15-year anniversary vacation traveling around Europe for six weeks, which Jack unceremoniously kicks off by announcing a desire to transition--and then saying nothing about it for the duration of the trip while Bitty tries to work out how he feels about this, never mind what Jack even wants.

Aaaand last and probably also least, I’ve got like 15k each of an a/b/o fic I tried to write for Tomato and another 15k of a fic where a career- ending injury leads Jack to reassess his entire relationship with his body and therefore he winds up getting a little drag-curious, and it was fun writing about like, Jack moping around the house on crutches feeling sorry for himself, but also the fic has an OC who’s a big part of the story and I just didn’t feel that guy or care to write about him so I quit! Maybe I should scrap those things, along with the rest of this mpreg fic.

So that’s where I’m at ficwise right now! Who knows a) when the things further down this list would see the light of days, and b) which other crazy ideas will crop up that I have to write in the interim?

Thank you so much for asking! I love chatting about my fic, please ask any time.

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ladyreapermc · 5 years

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Fic: This isn’t a rom-com 7/?

Author’s notes: So this one is a little longer than usual, but not by much. Lot’s of stuff happening and I’d love feedback about the direction I’m taking this. I’m always open to suggestions!

Wordcount: 3524

Warnings: one F. bomb, but other than that, lots and lots of fluff.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Lilah was supposed finishing her breakfast and getting ready to go to work, but instead, she was browsing the New York Film Academy page, especially the Master of Arts in screenwriting and its admission application.

She didn’t even know why she was doing it. It wasn’t like Lilah was actually considering applying for it. She already had a master’s degree. Not only that, she already had a career that she spent the last ten years of her life investing in. This was just a stupid pipe dream and nothing more.

“Morning”, Isaac’s voice started Lilah out of her thoughts, and she hurried to close her laptop lid and turn to watch as he padded into the kitchen and poured himself some coffee, still on his PJs.

“Morning. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?” Usually, Isaac worked from 8 to five or later whenever needed.

“We had some night shooting yesterday and it wrapped up around six,” he replied yawning and dropping on the chair in front of her, cradling his mug. “I’ve just gotten back and I’m planning on sleeping all morning.”

“Jesus! That’s some horrible hours,” Lilah commented with a wince and Isaac just nodded.

“And I’m one of the lucky ones because all the runners take turns helping out while the others take a nap. I don’t know how Keanu does it. The guy is a machine. But this was my last day anyway.”

“Wait, what?” Lilah asked surprised. “You quitted?”

“Yeah. It was good money, but it was getting in the way of rehearsals, both theater, and band.”

“Band? What band?” Lilah looked at him confused. Why didn’t she know about this?

“Oh right! You didn’t come to my last gig,” Isaac said and there wasn’t any accusation on his tone, but Lilah still felt bad. She had been with Keanu last weekend and missed his performance. “These guys liked my vocals and asked me if I was interested in joining their band. I said yes.”

“But what about musical theater and the Hollywood dream?” she asked, her eyes wide. How come she missed such a change in her friend’s life? Isaac just shrugged.

“I’m still doing theater, but you know I love to be on the stage too and these guys have a great sound,” he said draining his mug and picking up Lilah’s breakfast dishes to bring to the kitchen. “And I can still take on Hollywood in a different way. But to do that, I need time to rehearsal. So as of Monday, you’re looking at the newest barista for Novelsy.”

Lilah was at a loss of words faced with so many changes in Isaac’s life in such a short period of time. She was being a lousy friend, focusing too much on her own issues and missing Isaac’s and Jean’s lives.

“Oh. I know that look,” he said with a frown. “It’s the ‘I’m having a freak out’ look. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” Isaac asked, tapping her temple gently.

“I just…” Lilah sighed. “I can’t believe I ended up missing so much in these last few weeks. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you have been a little self-absorbed lately,” Isaac pointed out with a small grimace. “But I get it. It’s the thrill of new love and all that.”

It was weird how Isaac’s words managed to be exactly right, but the truth behind them still took her by surprise. Because no matter how hard Lilah tried to fight it or pretend otherwise, she was in love with Keanu. Had been for a while now and it was both exhilarating and terrifying.

“Oh honey,” Isaac sighed, catching her wide-eyed gaze. “You’re one of the smartest people I know, but when it comes to your own feelings…”

And could she really argue with that? It was staring her in the face this whole time and Lilah didn’t see it. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right, was it? She refused to see it because she was afraid. Afraid of what it could be and where it would lead and how it would end.

And this was so no what Lilah signed up for when started this thing with Keanu. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself. She kept repeating that he was her friend and that was all but none of her friendships ever felt like this. And to be fair, considering how sweet, humble, caring, intelligent and amazing Keanu was, did she even stand a chance of not falling in love?

“Are we having a meltdown at this time in the morning?” Jean asked in a yawn and filling a cup of coffee for herself.

“The penny finally dropped on the Keanu thing,” Isaac informed.

“Thank fuck! The oblivious thing was cute at the beginning, but it was starting to get annoying,” Jean said, her harsh words shaking Lilah from her daze. “Also, not fun to get kicked off my own place so you could have your little ‘not a date’ with Keanu.”

“I never kicked you out of the apartment!” Lilah complained, glaring at her friend and Jean rolled her eyes.

“Right. Because I wanna be here when you two are making heart eyes at each other. No, thank you.”

“Jean!” Isaac chided cutting her off. “There were a dozen ways you could’ve said that without coming off like a bitch.”

From the corner of her eye, Lilah saw Jean cross her arms over her chest, her lips pulling in a thin line of displeasure. She hated to be called out over her bluntness.

“But even though she could have phrased better,” Isaac continued, looking over at Lilah. “Keanu has been coming over a lot. Not that I mind, but it does take away some of our privacy, you know?”

Lilah sighed and nodded. He had a point. They both did. Lilah never thought she would be one of those people that ditched her friends the second they started dating. Not that she was dating Keanu but…

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a shitty friend.”

“A little bit,” Jean agreed, but Lilah could see she was fighting a smile. “But we still love you.”

“We do,” Isaac agreed with a grin. “And you can start making up for the lost time by coming to my band’s gig this Friday night.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Lilah assured, kissing his cheek. “Now get your ass in bed! You look exhausted.”

Isaac nodded and waved at them both, before disappearing into his bedroom. Lilah hesitated for a moment, before glancing at Jean, who was inconspicuously avoiding looking her way.

“Are we ok?” Lilah asked and Jean nodded with a sigh.

“I missed my friend, you know? I missed talking to you, knowing what was going on in your life and sharing mine.”

“I’ve missed you too,” she said, dragging Jean for a hug. “How about tomorrow, after my class, you and I get some retail therapy? Novelsy’s costume contest is next week after all.”

“A girl after my own heart,” Jean joked with a grin. “It’s a date.”

“Alright,” Lilah replied with a chuckle as she got up and head to her own bedroom.

She went to turn off her laptop, Lilah was confronted once more with the New York Film Academy page, which made her pause. When she told Keanu how she considered going to film school as a teenager, Lilah didn’t give him the full picture.

The idea of being a writer, creating stories and universes, especially movies, had always been a dream. She remembered reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time and having that mix of fascination and jealousy of Tolkien for being able to create such a fantastic, magical universe that entertained so many people. Lilah wanted to do that too. Leave a mark in the world, tell a story, make people laugh and cry and love that thing she created.

But Lilah also remembered how her father reacted when she said she wanted to apply for film school. He had actually laughed because he thought she was joking. She knew he didn’t do it to hurt her. He was looking out for her, wanting her to be practical about her future.

What were the odds of Lilah making it in that industry? One in a million considering that she was a woman of color? Considering that it wasn’t all depending on hard work? Was she even good enough to begin with? Well, there was one quick way to find out.

Her eyes shifted back to the computer and Lilah took a seat, browsing her archives. Writing samples were required for submission, a fictional piece and a non-fictional.

She could use one of the reviews she wrote for Novelsy’s blog as a non-fiction sample. Lilah had gotten positive feedback from those. The fiction piece would give her a bit more trouble and after some more searching, Lilah decided on a fantasy story she wrote during college.

Lilah would need to work out a few kinks, but she really liked that one, so she put on her headphones blasting some of her favorite music as the story poured out of her, her fingers flying over the keyboard in a way she never managed to do whenever she was writing her dissertation.

By the end of the morning, Lilah had close to five thousand words written and any thought prepping her class for tomorrow slip her mind, but Lilah didn’t feel guilty at all. There was only excitement as she proofread her material.

After she annexed the documents, Lilah rechecked the application form, hesitating over the campus options. For a second, the cursor hovered over the LA option, before she selected the NY campus and submitted everything.

Lilah must be crazy for even considering LA. Even if for brief seconds. Her life was in New York. LA had nothing to offer her. Which was a lie, she knew, but fortunately, it was one easy to ignore.

Once that was taken care of, Lilah started to get ready to go to NYU. She had some data she needed to run through the analysis software and Lilah could only do it on campus. She was halfway through getting dressed when her phone rang, the screen showing Keanu’s name and selfie with the puppy beagle.

“Hey,” she greeted as how could Lilah have missed being in love with him for this long when just a phone call from him could brighten up her whole day? “How was filming last night?”

“It was good. Tiring, but good. Basil gave us the night off since we’re managing to keep up with the schedule,” Keanu replied, and Lilah could actually picture his proud smile. “I was thinking we could do something. Since I cut off our movie night short yesterday.”

“We don’t have to,” she said, reminded of Isaac’s comment earlier. “You must be exhausted.”

“A little bit, but…” he paused for a moment. “I want to see you.”

His voice was soft barely a whisper and it almost felt a little like a confession and it set the butterflies loose in her belly and she smiled.

“Well, we could watch something, get some pizza…”

“That sounds great. I’ll drop by later?”

“Sure, but promise to get some rest first?”

“I’m in bed right now. Don’t worry.”

And Lilah couldn’t help but conjure a picture of Keanu shirtless in bed, dark hair splayed over the pillow and hooded eyes. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Good,” she croaked as she tried recomposing herself. “Sleep well.”

It wasn’t until she hung up that Lilah realized what she had just done and winced. She was such a terrible friend, but now it was too late. She knew Isaac wouldn’t mind. He would be out rehearsing anyway, but Jean…

Lilah stepped out of the room, finding Jean cleaning the breakfast dishes. She hesitated by the counter, drumming her fingers on the top and Jean heaved a sigh.

“What did you do?” she asked, turning around, hands on her hips.

“I might have invited Keanu over,” Lilah replied with a grimace and Jean rolled her eyes. “Sorry!”

“Fine! But only because I have to do inventory anyway.” Lilah let out a happy squeal and squeezed Jean in a hug. “And you’re helping me with the Halloween contest! It was your idea after all.”

“I promise! Thank you!”

Lilah said her goodbyes to Jean and headed out, doing her best to push thoughts on Keanu and her brand-new revelation aside while she worked, managing to be somewhat successful until she got back home to find Keanu, browsing through her bookcase, dressing in a fitted jeans and a t-shirt so tight it seemed to be struggling to contain his biceps.

“Hi,” she greeted, and Keanu flashing her a warm smile.

“Hi. Isaac let me in. That’s ok, right?”

“Of course. I’ll be right with you. I’m just gonna take just a quick shower.”

“Sure.”

Lilah dropped her things in her bedroom and hurried to the bathroom that she shared with Isaac. There was only one suite in the apartment and Jean claimed it since the place was hers after all.

She went through her usual shower routine, but it wasn’t until Lilah was drying herself that she realized she didn’t bring any clothes with her. Lilah was just so used to shower and then go back to her room to change it kind of became a habit.

If it was Isaac or Jean outside, Lilah wouldn’t even hesitate to step out, but it wasn’t them. It was Keanu and she would have to walk past him to go back to her room.

There was nothing else she could do at this point, so with a deep breath, Lilah pulled the towel tighter against her body, making sure that there wasn’t anything showing before she walked out, refusing to look his way. She did, however, hear his sharp intake of breath disguised as a cough.

Once she was safe inside her room Lilah leaned against the door and let out a sigh. She just paraded in a towel in front of Keanu! Shit! Did he look? She wondered for a second but shook herself out of it. That would lead her nowhere. Instead, she focused on getting dressed, coming back to the living room to find Keanu on the phone. He gave her an apologetic smile as his attention returned to the call.

“My publicist. Sorry about that,” Keanu said, hanging up. “But I’m all yours now.” Lilah couldn’t help her wide grin at the way Keanu took a second to realize what he said and cursed under his breath. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” she chuckled. “It’s nice to be on the other side of those for a change.”

Keanu chuckled too, rubbing his nape in embarrassment and part of Lilah want to reach for him, pull him in a hug and a kiss, but that was a very dangerous line of thought so instead, she picked up the pizza menu.

“So, I have a very important thing to ask you,” she started with a somber voice. “It might define if this,” she gestured between them. “Will continue any further.”

“I’m already nervous,” he quipped, turning to look at her better.

“How do you feel about pineapple on pizza?” She inquired and Keanu shook his head in disbelief as he chuckled. “Oh, I’m serious. There is a right answer to this.”

“I don’t like it?” he replied with a hesitant smile and Lilah gaped at him in exaggerated horror

“And you call yourself Hawaiian!” she teased, clicking her tongue in disappointment and making Keanu laugh.

“You do know that Hawaiian pizza isn’t really Hawaiian, right?” He commented and she rolled her eyes.

“Fake Canadian then,” she shot back, sticking her tongue out at him and Keanu snorted in amusement. “Pepperoni?”

“Sure,” he agreed. Lilah called in their order before joining Keanu on the couch.

“So you’re going to Japan?” she asked curiously.

“Yeah. 47 Ronin’s premiere,” Keanu explained, and Lilah just hummed, avoiding his eyes. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You have a very expressive face, Bennett,” he said, and Lilah laughed.

“I don’t want to judge a movie based only on a trailer,” she started hesitantly.

“But you didn’t like it,” he completed with a chuckle.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just… Let’s just say Hollywood doesn’t exactly have a great track record on portraying other cultures.”

“You have a point,” Keanu relented, and Lilah was glad to see he didn’t seem upset with her comment. “We did our best to show respect for Japanese culture and the legend, though.”

“I’m sure you did. This is ok, right? Talking about your movies?”

“It’s fine. I like talking about what I do,” he assured, and she grinned.

“So, I can ask about John Wick? Because I still don’t know what’s about even though I’m technically in it?”

Keanu chuckled and quickly explained the general plot for the movie, hands waving around excitedly as he described the entire process behind getting the movie greenlighted and getting his friends Chad and David involved.

Lilah could tell not only how much Keanu loved what he did by the way he was smiling, by the eagerness in his voice, but she could also see that this wasn’t any movie for him. She hung onto every word of his, chin on her head and her chest felt about to burst at the overwhelming affection Lilah felt for him.

After a moment, Keanu fell silent and he once again did that ducked head, hand covering the mouth chuckle that Lilah learned to associate to him being shy or embarrassed about something.

And maybe he saw it in her eyes, so she quickly looked away. The last thing Lilah needed was Keanu catching on to her feelings and making everything awkward between them. She had come to enjoy their time together too much.

It was a bit of a relief when the pizza finally arrived because it gave them something else to focus on, beside themselves.

“You can try the Hawaiian if you want,” she offered after they moved to the couch to eat, a random movie playing on the TV just for noise. “I’m the only one who likes it in this house.”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure? It’s really good,” she said in a sing-song voice and Keanu snorted.

“You’re gonna annoy me into trying, aren’t you?” He asked with a sigh that really wasn’t annoyed at all. Lilah just nodded with a grin. “Fine. Give it here.”

Lilah didn’t know why she didn’t just hand him the slice. Instead, she moved closer and lifted it in front of him. Keanu hesitated briefly before he took a bite, lips brushing against her fingers as he did it. It sent shivers down her spine because Lilah hadn’t expected it to feel this intimate.

“And?” she asked, clearing her throat.

“It was better than I was expecting,” Keanu admitted sipping his beer and Lilah grinned. Small victories.

She brought the slice back to herself, but before she could take a bite, Keanu leaned forward and stole the last bit. The movement brought him so close his beard actually brushed again her cheek.

“Hey!” Lilah protested as he grinned smugly.

“You’re the one that wanted me to try it,” he pointed out, bumping his shoulder against hers. Lilah shook her head and picked up another slice, trying to hide her pleased grin.

They talked for a while longer, completely ignoring the TV. It was fun and comfortable, and Lilah knew she could probably spend the entire night like that, but it was getting late and she knew Keanu had to work tomorrow and so did she.

“I think we should call it a night,” she said, turning off the TV.

“We didn’t watch anything,” he pointed out and Lilah shrugged.

“It was still fun. I like just talking to you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Keanu replied, his lips tugging on a smile as he helped her clean up.

“So, Novelsy’s hosting its first costume contest next week. Afterward, Isaac’s theater group is reenacting Rocky Horror Picture Show in this bar. It’s basically a bunch of drunk people singing along to the songs, trying to remember their lines and failing miserably. It’s really fun, do you wanna come?”

“Sure,” Keanu agreed, and Lilah could see the doubt in his eyes, that was quickly replaced with a curious smile. “Are you gonna be in costume?”

“Definitely,” she replied, as she looked at him under her lashes. “Gotta be there to know what it is though.”

“Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

There was something in the way that Keanu said it, the way he was looking at her that just stole her breath, making her heart thunder in her chest and there was no way to see this as anything other than flirting.

“See you on Thursday, then,” she said, standing up to press a kiss on his cheek. She barely missed his lips and she really hoped Keanu noticed it was on purpose.

(tbc)

Go to part 8

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tolkien-in-beleriand · 4 years

Text

so a number of people is curious about PhD here in Brazil and as I have nothing else I want to do right now let me tell you about it

I’ll talk about the two processes I went through for my PhD (masters is kinda the same but a bit simpler)

as I already told you here in Brazil the best universities are free, it’s kinda hard to get in but if you do you have the best education available in the country and chances are you will get some kind of scholarship. in my case as I am poor as hell I had a scholarship since first year of grad school and also a place to live. yes, I was paid to live in a nice city away from my abusive family and to study in the best program of my field in Brazil

then came the masters in which I also had a scholarship

and then the nightmare begins

see as part of my scholarship I had to finish my masters in two years. what does it mean? it means that in my second year I was writing my masters dissertation, finishing papers, preparing for qualification, then argumentation, writing my PhD project and preparing for the PhD tests

and of course as you probably know by now I love complicating things so I applied for two PhDs programs. why? only God knows, but I did. now each university has its own way to deal with PhDs applications so I’ll tell you about the two kinds of tests I had to go through

first my home university:

first you write a project. 20 pages. must have: abstract, key words, title, introduction, methodology, cronogram of activities, bibliographic references. it must present a certain novelty in the idea, they want something new, a thesis (that I will later prove right or wrong in 200 to 300 pages). my thesis was basically “Fantasy is a literature genre and it IS NOT the same as fantastic literature (don’t get me started - I wrote a PhD thesis about it but I’m still bitter)”

you need to hand this project in September. then in October is the written test. in our field the written test (in this particular university, as I said it varies) is: they pick a literary topic, that is a surprise only reveled to us mortals the day and hour of the test, and we have four hours to write an essay about it, in a room like an exam, no researches allowed. the topic in my year was History and Literature. then they grade the essay 0-10 and you need at least a 7 to go to next phase.

fine, now the few people who got the 7 go to phase “analyzing the project”. you get a grade on that too. and you need a 7 to pass as well.

then if you are lucky enough to have your project accepted you go to phase “interview” when a board will make all kinds of questions about your study, project, plans, you know... to make sure you were the one who wrote the thing and know what you’re talking about (I just need to mention here that at my interview they said my project was perfect and made 0 questions because, and I quote, “we know your trajetory and we know what you are capable of and no one else studies Fantasy Literature here”)

then they grade the interview. if you didn’t get at least a 7 bye bye bird, it doesn’t matter if your project was perfect and you aced the written test, it’s goodbye

after this they add all the scores and divide by something and if your final score is below 7, that’s goodbye too.

then you need to do the language test because oh yes YOU DO NEED TO KNOW TWO FOREIGN LANGUAGES to be accepted in any PhD program here.

and that’s it for my first application. I passed first place. usually the good programs gets scholarships and our program was very good so we had like six scholarships every year for sure and then maybe more. they give the scholarships according to the final score so yep I got it

but... when I traveled for my second PhD application I still didn’t have any of my scores, I didn’t even know if I had passed the written test and let me tell you I was desperate and honest to God terrified I wouldn’t pass

anyway, now process number two:

they make things quite different there and they are way more demanding so I was just really terrifie that I would end the year with a crappy masters and no PhD perspective.

first test they do is the language one, a translation and ooooh boi do I hate translating stuff. but it was okay, I wasn’t worried about that part. the system there was very different. while at my home university the process was spread through months, here you had three days of tests and if you failed the first day you are not even invited for the next day. again, you need 7 to pass.

so first day: language test, 52 people applying. 20 passed for day two, me included.

second day, written test. I knew they had a different style from my home university but I was not prepared for that. they gave you 10 questions, all about literature. you had to pick five and answer. so you kinda had to write 5 mini essays on 5 different topics and the questions were like “in the page 25 of the essay Memory in Baudelaire by Walter Benjamin the author express a view on how experience play a central part in the story of the narrative genre. comment on that.”

one of them was to “comment on” the trajetory of the novel as a genre. I read the 10 questions then I started laughing. then I noticed the Professor in the class was the one I wanted as my supervisor there (she is like a big deal in Fantasy studies), the one who, in two months, would be in the board of my masters argumentation. I started crying. so much. I had to be escorted to the bathroom to “calm down”. well, I thought, it’s over, I better not even come back to the exam room and save me the embarrassment of looking the Professor in the eyes. but I couldn’t do that. I had to at least convince myself that I did everything I could. so I went back and started answering the ones I thought I had a shot at. we had four hours too and after doing my darnest to answer 4 questions I wanted to die before having to answer one more. so I chose the novel one because, you know it’s not that hard to trace a genealogy of the novel as a genre. but I was so tired. so incrediby tired and I thought I won’t pass anyway so I might as well have some fun. and friends, what did I do? I wrote a mini novel where my protagonist was the novel “living” through all its phases. I can’t remember a word of that but I did it.

when I was back to the hotel I started crying so much and felt so guilty, I was sure I would fail both programs. next morning the result would be on campus and honestly I only went there because I had spent too much money to just ignore the result, I would never have peace if I didn’t check. but I was really really sure I didn’t pass so I checked out the hotel, got into a taxi, asked him to take me to campus for two minutes, so I could check a thing, and then he could take me to the station

ooooh I have no words to describe my happiness when I looked to a list of FIVE names who had got through to the next phase and my name was there.

I still can’t believe it and until this day I wonder what kind of crap did people write because they considered my “novel is a protagonist of a novel” answer over other 15????

anyway so I was happy but fucked because I had checked out the hotel so I had no place to go and the interview would be only at 5pm so there I was full of bags wandering around the campus waiting for my interview.

interview time: board with two fucking specialists in the Fantasy field and an ass who thinks she is above this. I was very nervous, they asked a bunch of questions about my project (oh yeah I forgot to say you had to hand a project like in the other uni and it is considered part of your application as well) and then... last question... from the ass “why do you consider fantasy as literature” I froze, the other two smiled (they knew my reputation). I want to murder that woman. why do I consider fantasy as literature? WHY?? son of a motherfucking bitch. so I smile*** and ask “what do you study?” she answers “Goethe” with an air of superiority. I say “oh I love Goethe, he is magnificent and the way he.... bla bla bla” I was just showing off. then I say “now think about why you consider Goethe literature. that’s your answer.” I want to say that if I had a mic I would drop it but nah... if I had a mic I would probably make that bitch eat it.

they didn’t have score there, you only passed or failed. I passed. one of five. from 52. I got a scholarship there too, but I decided to stay home. my supervisor at my uni was amazing and a wonderful person and so so smart and funny and he is in a band and is super cool and nerdy, also one of my best friends and one of the most successful translators in Brazil

so yes. this is two of the possibles processes you can go through to get in a top PhD program. and that friends is the easy part. seriously, masters and doctorates are exhausting and it breaks you. neurotypicals get mental illnesses because of it and honest to God I don’t know how I managed it. neither does my doctors. no, actually I know. it was spite.

*** funny story: because of an incident in my masters interview, before my PhDs interviews my supervisor called me to “teach me how to interact with stupid people”. he basically told me I was not supposed to laugh at a stupid question, I was not supposed to death stare the board after a stupid question and, of course, I was not allowed to get up and leave. because I did all that in my masters interview and almost didn’t get into the program. then he made me pretend he was the board talking shit and I had to smile and take notes. his words “it doesn’t matter if you are writing a curse and planning that person’s murder, smile and take notes.”

in my defence I did all that because in my masters interview a Professor asked me if I knew that Tolkien was an author who died in the 70s and that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t just a movie. after I laughed and asked if she was joking she got mad and then I tried to explain that yes, I did in fact know that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born in January 3rd, 1892 and dead in September, 2nd, 1973, was an author and wrote the book called The Lord of the Rings who inspired Peter Jackson’s trilogy. then I pointed out that my study had nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings, book or movie. I was in fact studying Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” and how critics point out The Lord of the Rings as the base of moderny fantasy without noting that Tolkien himself wrote the theory I consider the foundation of fantasy as a genre. then she said “that was done before” and I said “no it wasn’t, surprisingly enough people never came to this conclusion until now” and she looked me in the eyes and asked “are you sure? did you do a deep and careful research on the matter?” and I said “yes I did” and I swear to God she asked “did you try google it?”

yep I just got up and left. did I try google??? are you fucking serious? yes I did, when I wasn’t even at the uni yet you moron. google. can you believe it? I was reading papers from Oxford and Cambridge and this ass ask me if I used google.

I had a very bad score at my masters interview but my supervisor loved it anyway.

so that’s it. I hope it helps to have an idea how things work around here.

#phdblr #phd #masters #academic life #long post #very loooong post

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writing-of-a-british-bitch · 5 years

Text

Not His Fucking Prostitute

silwrFandom: Queen/ Bohemian Rhapsody

Specified gender: Female

Pairing: Brian May X reader

TW: language, Freddie’s a fucking dick, slut-shaming I guess????

Genre: ANGST, tiny bit of fluff

Word Count: 1.6K

Requests: OPEN

A/N: So, this is more of a lazy write, because i wanted to get a fic out, considering that the last chapter of Child Of Mine is taking forever. Because it’s a lazy write, I kind of took my favourite scene from the movie. Sorry if this annoys anyone. This was fun to write and if y’all like it, I’ll probably write a part 2!

You clutched the two boys hands tightly as you were led into the living room by Paul. Your brother, Roger, let go of your hand as he wandered over to one of the chairs, collapsing into it lazily. You shook your head lightly before taking a seat next to your husband, Brian, but still close enough to Roger just in case either of you lashed out. There was a pit in the bottom of your stomach and you could tell that your bandmates felt exactly the same. Roger quickly lit a cigarette, taking a drag before handing it over to you. Brian sent Roger a disproving glance. He didn't care that both of you smoked, it was the fact that you shared cigarettes that he found peculiar. It was something you'd started doing in university. What was the point in wasting money buying two packs for two different people? You both pretty much went everywhere together anyway. Deacy was lounging on his seat, perching his head on his hand. Brian took your hand as you passed Roger the cigarette back after taking a drag. Suddenly, Freddie strolled in trying to look casual, but it was obvious he was on edge. Your fellow lead singer poured himself a drink as Paul took a seat in the corner with a cup of tea. Roger quickly extinguished the cigarette, placing it in the ashtray. Freddie kept his back to the band as he began to speak.

"MTV banned our video. The Youth of America. We helped give birth to MTV." Freddie announced, swiftly spinning on his heel to face you all, annoyance clear on his face.

"It's America. They're puritans in public, perverts in private." Brian reasoned, leaning back slightly.

"I'm never touring in the US again. And I'm the one being blamed for it. Not you dear, whose idea, I believe, it was to dress up in drag." Freddie gestured to you and Roger, who immediately exchanged glances " And not you." he looked at Brian " Not even you, who wrote the bloody thing."Deacy was next to be aggressively pointed at " No. Crazy, cross-dressing Freddie. Freddie the freak. Freddie the fag. I'm tired of touring, aren't you? Album, tour, album, tour. I want to do something different." Freddie huffed and your friends shot him an exasperated look.

"We're a band. That's what bands do. Album, tour, album, tour." Brian responded, raising an eyebrow

"Well, I need a break. I'm sick of it." Freddie turned to the window harshly.

"What are you saying, Freddie?" Deacy questioned, voice clear of any emotion. There was a pregnant pause, doing nothing to relieve any of your nerves.

"I've signed a deal with CBS records."He finally admitted. Everyone shot up in their seats, faces showing both surprise and anger

"You've done what?" Roger snapped, glaring daggers at Freddie's striped shirt.

"Without telling us?"You added, voice rough. Brian squeezed your hand. You had an identical temper to your brother. Short, explosive and sometimes terrifying.

"Look, I'm not saying we won't record or ever tour again. Queen will go on. But I need to do something different. Do you know what I mean? I need- I need to grow. What's-what-what's the song? "Fly Away"?" Freddie tried, swivelling around. Out the corner of your eye, you could see Paul's beady eyes watching the band's every move, his mole-like face failing to hide his joy.

"Spread my wings and fly away" Deacy quoted, his eyes narrowed slightly. You were shaking at this point, anger coursing through you. Brian was watching you carefully, just as Deaky was watching Roger. One Taylor's temper was one explosion on its own. But two? It was like a world war.

"Spread my wings and fly away" Freddie parroted, a small, awkward smile on his lips.

"A solo album?"Brian asked in disbelief, both his eyebrows raised. He couldn't believe that this was happening.

"Two, actually."Paul chimed in and your head snapped in his direction, fire in your eyes. However, Roger managed to voice his annoyance first

"Another word out of you and ill throw you out the bloody window." Roger barked, his hands formed into a fist

"But that's years Freddie. I mean that'll take years" Deacy stated, resting both his elbows on his knees.

"Ye of little faith, "Freddie remarked

"I don't believe this." Roger huffed and you twisted your torso to look at Freddie.

"How much?" You questioned, voice hard. Even Roger was scared, underneath his own fury. "What did they pay you?" You recieved no response, so you stood up, your knee catching the coffee table, causing it to scoot back. Roger stood up too, prepared to stop you if you tried to hit someone. "I wanna know how much they paid you!"

"4 million dollars!"Freddie yelled and your eyes widened and you began pacing, Roger close behind. He leant on the back of Deacy's seat and you were leaning on his shoulder

"That's more than any Queen deal." Deacy murmured, shock lacing his voice.

"Look the routine is killing us. I mean, you must all want a break from the arguments. I mean, whose song gets on the album, whose song's the single, who wrote what, who gets a bigger slice of the royalties, what's on the B-Side, all of it! You must need a break!"Freddie exclaimed, his tone surprisingly light

"Freddie we're a family."Brian snapped, edging on a hiss.

"No, we're not! We're not a family. You've all got families, children, wives! What have I got?"Freddie shouted suddenly, making you tense. He gestured at you as soon as he said wives, glaring at you slightly. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears as you gripped Roger's arm to stop yourself from doing anything irrational.

"You've got 4 million dollars, perhaps you can buy yourself a family," Deacy remarked, clearly trying to stand up for you considering that your vexation was rendering you speechless for the time being.

"I won't compromise my vision any longer."Freddie growled, bringing his cigarette to his lips as he snapped his body back to the window

"Compromise? Are you joking?" You piped in, unable to bite your tongue

"You were working at Heathrow before we gave you a chance!"Roger continued, usual soft voice turning bitingly cold

"And without me...you'd be a dentist, drumming 12/8- time blues at the weekend at the Crown in Anchor." Freddie stormed over to Roger, getting right up to his face " And you. Well, you would be Dr. Brian May, author of a fascinating dissertation on the cosmos, that no one ever reads." Your grip on Roger grew impossibly tight as Freddie began targeting your husband "And Deacy, for the life of me...nothing comes to mind."Freddie finished, letting out a small breath of air

"I studied electrical engineering, does that meet your standards?"Deaky sighed. You saw Paul hide a laugh. You really wished Roger had thrown him out the fucking window.

"That's perfect."Freddie chuckled before finally looking at you.

"And (Y/N). You'd be sharing an apartment with your brother in a failing theatrical career, standing on street corners to earn extra money. Because you wouldn't have Brian to feed on or to become his prostitute." You felt yourself falter. That's when Brian and Deacy stood up. Deacy held Roger's arms as he lunged at Freddie. Brian began walking over to the group. Brian had a lot of patients... but hearing someone who was supposed to be his and his wife's friend basically call her a slut... it put gasoline on an otherwise calm fire. That's when you suprised Brian. You reached up and landed a harsh slap to Freddie's cheek. Freddie's cheek burnt and he gave you a flabbergasted look.

"You can say a lot of things to me. But never, ever say that I'm using my husband just to get money or fame. Just because you haven't realized that that is precisely what someone is doing to you. There's a lot of things that I am. But I'm. Not. His. Fucking. Prostitute. The fame has gotten to your head Bulsara. " You hissed and Freddie simply replied with a blank stare before beginning to head to the door.

"You just killed Queen."Roger snapped before he could leave.

"Oh give it a kiss one day. She might wake up."Freddie stated cockily.

"You need us, Freddie. More than you know."Brian tried one last time.

"I don't need anyone."Freddie then took his leave. Paul followed, after putting his hand on Roger's should, which was instantly shoved off. Deacy finally let go of Roger who immediately pulled you into him.

"I should have fucking killed him,"Roger mumbled into your shoulder

"Yeah, I should've too," Brian replied and you could see on Deacy's face that he agreed.

"So what do we do now?" Deaky asked and you pulled back from Roger's hug.

"We can't make music without Fred. It wouldn't be the same. I suppose we just continue on with our lives as best we can." Brian sighed and you glanced between your three boys.

"I'm sorry guys. I shouldn't have gotten as angry as I did. And i shouldn't have hit him." You apologized quickly.

"Don't apologize (Y/N). Shit-faced or not, Freddie should never have said that. You have every right to be angry." Deacy replied, running a hand over his face.

"I guess we should probably get out of Freddie's house," Brian suggested and you all nodded in agreement. After leading yourselves out, you and Brian got in a cab, wishing Deacy and Roger goodbye. They were both heading back to their own families. As you and Brian began your journey home, he wrapped his arm around your waist, resting your head in his neck and placing his own head on top of yours. He loved you so much. Freddie could say whatever he wanted. But he was yours, just as you were his.

Tags: @dusthas-beenbitten @writingfortoomanyfandoms @queens-n-roses @silvver-rose @benhardyjones

i think tags are broken again. Also, i know this isn’t everyone but tumblr is super glitchy and and my google docs keeps crashing.

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moiraineswife · 6 years

Text

The Eye Of A Hurricane - A Widomauk Fic

i wrote this decades ago and in the haze of dissertation Stress completely forgot it existed until i unearthed it just now so like...enjoy y’all?

Title: The Eye Of A Hurricane

Summary: Set the night of the Zone of Truth scene from episode 14. Molly has trouble sleeping and remains awake alone in the empty common room of the Leaky Tap, drowning in the old feeling of emptiness dragged up by the group’s interrogation. Until Caleb finds him and keeps him company.

Teaser: ‘After a long moment, he said, “How much have you had to drink?” Molly considered the question. The answer, in his book, was set firmly between ‘far too much’ and ‘not nearly enough.’ His response to Caleb, however, was the vague semblance of a shrug.’

Link: AO3

***

“Mollymauk?”

The fire in the hearth was dying.

It had been struggling to cling to whatever feeble life it had left for as long as Molly had been watching it.

The tavern had emptied in that time. All of his friends had gone to bed. He had been alone. Alone with the grasping remains of a once roaring fire.

Seemed a shame to abandon it now just because someone had said his name.

His name...

Even that hadn’t been his until he had made it so. Gustav had given it to him in the carnival...The carnival that felt like a lifetime ago.

Movement in front of him. Something apart from the fire that, if he’d had any mercy in him, he’d have put out of its misery some time ago. It distracted him, making him blink as though emerging into bright light from a lifetime in darkness.

Caleb, failing to get an answer, had padded in front of him, Frumpkin trotting quietly at his heels like a small, furry ginger shadow. Apart from that he was alone. His other small, green, sticky-fingered shadow was nowhere to be seen.

Still, Molly didn’t look away from the fire. Caleb, following his gaze, frowned slightly, then asked softly, concern evident in his tone, “Are you cold?”

That tiny, distant part of his brain that was still somewhat connected to him thought vaguely, bless him.

The gaping, abyssal void he’d prayed never to know again just continued to stare at the ghost of the fire which seemed to have succumbed at last to the cold, dark oblivion Molly must have known once before, and would beg to take him back where he belonged. If he’d had any voice to beg.

Instead, he only stared.

A sudden flash of light illuminated the room and the grate burst into life once more. Flames danced merrily before him, uncaring of what had been before and a soft, welcome heat filled the room. It helped. Molly hadn’t realised it until Caleb’s fire had warmed him. He had been cold.

The fire roared happily and Molly gazed silently at it.

If only the wizard could bring him back as easily.

Someone, or something, once had. It had pulled him out of a grave 2 years ago. In the moment he wished it had left him there to sleep. At peace. Untroubled by the tragic monster it had instead created in him.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb repeated, quietly.

He came closer, but didn’t touch him. He was grateful for that. It seemed as though the lightest touch right now would burn him. Burn with a heat not even the Nine Hells could conceive of. Burn until he clawed the flesh from his bones just to let his blood flash to ice and soothe him. He couldn’t bear that right now. And he couldn’t bear Caleb to be the one to do it. He wasn’t sure...Why. But the instinct to protect Caleb from that was almost as strong as the desire to protect himself.

Gazing at Molly with the same intensity Molly still gazed at the fire with, Caleb said, sounding more worried, still, “Molly, can you hear me?”

Molly made himself nod.

It took a lot, as though his skull had been filled with lead and he was trying to drag it through a thick bog just to make it move. Any response from him at all seemed to cause Caleb to relax just slightly, however. Instead of staring fixedly at him, he inspected their surroundings.

After a long moment, he said, “How much have you had to drink?”

Molly considered the question. The answer, in his book, was set firmly between ‘far too much’ and ‘not nearly enough.’ His response to Caleb, however, was the vague semblance of a shrug.

The wizard’s question reminded him of the alcohol, however. He reached blindly for it. If death couldn’t be so good as to come and take him back, back to something that might feel like home in a way this damned, battered body barely ever had. The least the gods owed him, he figured, was a single night of dreamless, liquor-induced oblivion. Let him pretend for a little while, at least, until his watchful Moonweaver passed and gave him over to the care of the relentless, burning sun.

His fingers fumbled the smooth exterior of the glass for a moment before a hand far more agile and dextrous than his current, drunken, clumsy efforts, plucked it deftly from his reach.

“It will not help,” Caleb’s voice told him, with an aching gentleness that made Molly want to punch him for daring to be able to feel tenderness and pain, for being able to feel anything at all, while he felt like he was back, back in that grave where they had left him for what seemed a century.

Alone. Forgotten. Empty.

Something in the wizard’s tone made him pause for just a moment. Then, the desire to snap at him, to lash out, to take whatever this was out on him, to hurt him, just to see if it hurt him, too, if it made him feel anything at all, reared again, like a hidden serpent.

If he’d had the words, if he’d had the will, he’d have verbally eviscerated him. A part of him knew that he was only trying to help. The rest of him didn’t care. But as he had neither, so he slumped back in his seat instead.

Defeated. Somehow, judging by the look on Caleb’s face, this was worse.

Molly had gotten his wish after all. He’d hurt him. He still felt nothing.

Caleb stared at him for another long moment. Frumpkin did likewise. Molly ignored both of them.

Until, that was, Caleb got slowly to his feet beside him and said, voice low, and reassuring.

“I will be back in a moment,” he said, jerkily. He was fidgeting with that diamond again, the one he used in combat. Molly might have been amused, knowing what it was capable of, if he had been capable of that feeling. “I’m going to fetch Yasha for you,” he continued, gently.

He swept past Molly, but before he could make it more than a foot, Molly’s hand closed around his thin wrist, claws biting in so deep the warm rush told him he’d drawn blood, but he didn’t tear his eyes from Caleb’s face.

Still unable to speak, he shook his head jerkily. Yasha had seen him in this state before. While he was currently cursed to relive it, he had no desire for her to have to do the same.

“Alright,” Caleb said gently, clearly trying to defuse the desperate tension from the moment. “Alright,” he repeated, as though he was trying to soothe a terrified child after a nightmare.

Cautiously, like a wild animal being taught trust for the first time, he released Caleb’s wrist.

Slowly, he made to return to the chair at Molly’s side. Then he stopped.

“Would you like me to stay?” he asked softly.

Molly froze, stuck by the question. He tried to wrestle some kind of sense from the knotted mess of his emotions, but before he’d even begun, he found himself nodding. Fears of vulnerability, thoughts of the awkward conversation the morning might bring, and the desire to always appear in control were swept away, like a thin paper shield in the face of a hurricane.

There was only one truth that consumed his existence in this moment: he did not want to be alone. It felt like the impulse to spare Caleb had, earlier impulsive, and instinctual, transcending any kind of logic, or reason, or even emotion.

He realised he was still nodding frantically. Only when Caleb laid a gentle hand on his forearm and said softly, “I will stay with you, Mollymauk. I promise. I will stay with you until you ask me to leave. I won’t leave you, otherwise.”

The words draped over him like a warm blanket, bringing with them an inexpressible sense of comfort. He nodded again, but calmly this time, gratefully, and Caleb nodded in return.

They remained in silence for a long time. How long Molly didn’t know. Minutes. Hours. It didn’t seem important. Throughout, Caleb kept his hand resting, almost absently, on Molly’s forearm. Molly did not pull away. At some point, he beckoned jerkily to Frumpkin with a small, summoning flick of his wrist.

The cat had been curled in front of the still dancing fire, eyes on Caleb. At this, and without any obvious further prompting from the wizard, he rose, stretched, then trotted silently to Molly and leapt lightly into his lap.

With a slightly dazed feeling, Molly stroked the cat’s soft fur as he kneaded his trousers with his sharp claws. As he did so, Frumpkin began to purr loudly. Molly blinked at him. You better not be pitying me, you useless bag of fleas, he thought, irritably.

Another long beat of silence passed until Caleb quietly told his hands, “You know, I have some experience with this,” he motioned awkwardly towards Molly, “When the words just – Won’t come.”

Molly swallowed and nodded with difficulty, burying his hand deeply in Frumpkin’s thick, fluffy fur. “It has happened to you before, hasn’t it?” he said, quietly. Molly nodded stiffly again. “I am sorry,” Caleb said, softly.

And he was. Molly knew somehow, he truly was. Molly shrugged vaguely, one hand still gently stroking through Frumpkin’s soft fur.

“I can talk if you would like, or if you would rather-“ Molly nodded before he finished.

Caleb took a short breath, clasping his hands in his lap. “I am not as good a talker as you,” Caleb murmured. Molly’s lips twitched, as though, in another life, he might have smiled. “Today was quite intense for you,” Caleb said, softly, “I take it that is why-“

Molly jerkily shook his head before Caleb could finish. The last thing he wanted to hear about right now was that.

Caleb blinked at him, confused. “You would like me to stop talking?” he asked, slowly.

Molly shook his head frantically, desperation and hopeless, frustrated panic started to claw at his chest. He had been alone down here in the silence for hours and it hadn’t bloody killed him. But right now, the thought of being engulfed by silence in this moment felt like he was drowning, and Caleb’s voice was the last bit of desperate air in his lungs that he couldn’t lose.

Caleb stared at him, lost, then he hastily searched through his satchel, then shoved pen, ink, and parchment into Molly’s hands.

“You can write, can’t you?” he said, suddenly concerned.

Molly shot him a filthy look and scrawled ‘fuck you’ in Infernal.

Caleb gave him a little half-smile as though well-aware of what had just been directed at him. Not having the patience for niceties he scrawled, in Common, Talk. But about something else. Then he thrust the paper towards him.

“Ah,” Caleb said, softly. He bit his lip, considering the scribbled command he was holding.

Finally, he said softly, “Have you ever been to the Zemni Fields?”

Molly shook his head.

Caleb smiled, a little sadly, “I could tell you about it?”

Molly motioned for the paper again and Caleb handed it over.

Home? He scrawled.

Caleb nodded.

Molly mirrored him.

Caleb gathered himself for a moment, closed his eyes, breathed, opened them again, then began to speak. “It is quite a poor area of the Empire. Life there can be very difficult. But it is peace, too, I think. And it is beautiful. The fields themselves are soft and gold, towering over the land. They are sometimes called pillars of gilded moonbeams. Or oceans of light that were gifted to mortals by Gods.”

Molly raised an eyebrow and scribbled down quickly. How poetic of you.

Caleb blushed and admitted, “It is actually from a song.”

Molly blinked and a memory drifted across his ravaged mind, with the clarify of an oasis in the desert.

Sitting on a cliff’s edge, a velvety blanket embedded with thousands of sparkling diamonds spread across the dark sky above him. A soft sea breeze ruffled the hair on his head. It was starting to grow in again. The salt stung in his eyes, but he didn’t close them.

Some buried instinct he shouldn’t have warns him of movement behind him. He turned to see a tiny figure creeping towards him, blonde hair billowing in a halo-like cloud around her young face.

“Molly,” Toya said in her soft little voice, clearly wanting to come nearer but afraid of the sheer cliff-edge.

He gave her a soft little smile, trying to look reassuring, though wondering how the fuck the face of a scarred, purple demon face could ever reassure a child.

Yet, miraculously, Toya gave him a tiny smile in return and timidly moved a little closer. She set down in the grass beside him, crossing her legs, not on the edge, as he was, but still at his side.

“Are you having another bad day, Molly?”

The name still felt a little strange. Wrong and right at the same time. Him and not him. He lived in a strange world.

He nodded jerkily.

“Would you like me to sing it again?” she asked, softly placing one of her small hands on his shoulder.

He nodded again. She gave him a little smile that might have shattered his heart, if his chest hadn’t been so empty.

She opened her mouth and the sweet, soothing music of her voice felt like a balm to his ravaged soul. He closed his eyes and let it wash over him like the soft sea breeze pressing its kisses to his fever-hot skin.

The ghost of a smile dared to tug at his lips.

Molly glanced at Caleb then wrote, Would you sing it for me?

Caleb flinched a little, “I do not have a very good voice, Mollymauk, I don’t think you want-“

Hand shaking, Molly scrawled a barely legible please on the sheet of paper Caleb had given him. Caleb looked down at the word, then up at Molly.

He frowned, wringing his hands in his lap, then said slowly, “It is a work song, sung in the fields, and should really be sung in Zemnian to-“ Molly was already nodding. “Alright, alright...” Caleb closed his eyes, lips moving soundlessly for a moment.

Then he began to sing, soft and halting for the first few bars, but old memories and instincts soon smoothed out. His voice was not the best Molly had ever heard, but the melody was simple, made as a driving rhythm for poor field-hands, and he carried it well.

Molly closed his eyes and breathed. Just breathed. As Caleb came to the second verse, a warmth built slowly in his chest, and he didn’t resist the gentle hum that vibrated from his throat, just as it had all those months ago with Toya.

Caleb stutterd for a moment, but managed to regain his flow. As they ended the song, more or less together. Molly felt a sense of peace it had seemed would never grace him again, settle over his chest, like a shroud.

As he glanced towards Caleb again, wanting to thank him, his eyes fell on the wizard’s wrist and the deep scarlet puncture marks he realised with a shock he had caused.

“Caleb.”

The wizard jumped at the sudden sound of his scratchy voice, the first word he’d spoken in hours.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb looked down to what he was gesturing at.

The cuts his claws had left in the human’s wrist had scabbed over by now, but they were red and raw. Thin rivers of red still ran from them, the tracks of dried blood evidence of the damage he’d done.

“Oh,” Caleb said, sounding surprised and blinking down at the marks as though he’d only just noticed them. “It is nothing,” he said, dismissively, waving his hand. “They are only scratches, they will be gone by morning, I’m sure.”

“I shouldn’t have-“ Molly began hoarsely, but Caleb cut him off.

“It’s nothing.”

Molly swallowed with difficulty, his throat feeling raw and dry, like sandpaper left in a desert. He licked his lips nervously. “Maybe we should still clean them, though-“

“Molly,” Caleb interrupted, tone almost stern, “I appreciate your fussing, but I assure you, I have had worse injuries from Frumpkin.”

Frumpkin, who was still curled contently in Molly’s lap, made a small noise of what seemed to be affirmation.

He couldn’t quite believe he was being ganged up on by a scrawny string bean of a wizard, and a cat. Or, more to the point, that it was working.

But it had been a very long, very exhausting day, so he let it. After a long pause, in which Molly scratched the bullying bag of fleas behind the ear, Caleb said tentatively, “Would you like to talk?”

Molly let out a bitter, humourless laugh. “There’s nothing to say,” he replied, irritated that the words had sounded more unconcerned in his head than they did out loud. “I just...Broke and-“

“No,” Caleb said very quietly.

“Excuse me?” Molly said, incredulously.

“No,” the wizard repeated, more quietly still, “You are not broken, Mollymauk. You will know if you are. It is not so easy to come back from.”

Molly frowned slightly, “What are you?” he demanded irritably, lounging back in his chair and staring over at the wizard, “An expert on broken people?”

“Yes,” Caleb replied simply.

Molly opened his mouth to say something but then shut it. The word had been a little too heavy, and the eyes behind it a little too haunted to allow him to spill the sharp words that had been on his tongue.

Instead, he diverted himself by soothing Frumpkin who had sat up, apparently sensing Caleb’s momentary distress.

“Well,” Molly said, finally, covering the pregnant silence left in the wake of that last word, “That makes two of us.”

Caleb looked up at him and he said softly, “I know what it feels like to be broken. And I know that it doesn’t feel like anger, or grief, or pain, or rage. It just feels like, like...”

“Nothing,” Caleb supplied in a hoarse whisper.

Molly nodded, his hands trembling slightly. He hastily stroked Frumpkin again, trying to hide it. Then decided that ‘fuck it’, Caleb had already seen enough to damn him, and he reached for the glass on the table in front of him.

This time, Caleb didn’t stop him. He drained it in a single swig, and refilled it again from the bottle, which he passed to Caleb. The wizard peered into it, sniffed it gingerly, winced, then sighed, apparently resigned, and swallowed a generous gulp himself.

Staring down into the deep amber liquid he had poured out, Molly swirled it in the glass, making a tiny whirlpool form in the middle, which he stared down into.

He found himself whispering softly, “I don’t want to be that way again, Caleb. I can’t, I can’t.”

He shook so violently again that the glass slipped from his hand and smashed on the floor, making both of them jump. Molly cursed viciously and bent to pick it up, forgetting for a moment that Frumpkin was curled in his lap, squashing him a little. A mumbled meow of protest brought him back to his senses.

“Wait,” Caleb said, catching Molly’s arm and halting him, “I will summon Schmidt to take care of it, so you don’t cut yourself.”

“I’d have earned it,” Molly muttered darkly, glancing down at Caleb’s wrist again, but he swallowed down his drink again.

He watched in silence as Caleb completed his ritual then, as the wizard relaxed and sat back, the glass began gathering itself up and shuffling towards the bar. Molly stared after it, “Quite something, that,” he muttered into his glass.

“I cannot imagine,” Caleb said, quietly, “Coming into the world as you did.”

“Oh,” Molly said, waving an airy hand, the effect somewhat ruined by the fact his hand shook as he did so, “Everyone came into the world the way I did, Caleb. Clawing their way out of darkness with no memory, in a haze of blood and confusion.”

Caleb smiled thinly, “A fine thought,” he said, quietly, “But not quite the same. I did not come into the world with-“ his eyes found some of Molly’s many scars and as soon as they did, he stopped what he was saying, reaching for the bottle and taking another sip to cover the awkward moment.

Molly smirked and rolled up a sleeve, displaying more of the thin silver bands, “Look all you like,” he shrugged, “They’re not going anywhere, and I’m not ashamed of them.”

Caleb flushed slightly, “I did not mean to imply that I thought you should be. I only meant that they...Hint at something. Something that came before. And-“ He paused, frowning slightly, struggling to express what he wanted to.

“I believe,” he said, finally, “That there is a difference between nothing and between emptiness.” Molly stiffened slightly in his seat, but only took another drink, and made no move to silence the wizard, who continued. “

We know nothing when we are born, we are blank, and quickly filled by the things the world around us has to offer. When we are empty...”

A muscle went in his jaw and he sipped at the bottle again, but went on, “When we are empty, we know there should be something there, we know we should be more, we know we should be...Something. That is...That is very different to simply being born with nothing.”

Caleb took another drink of the alcohol, which was not good, but did its job well, “I cannot imagine coming into the world as you did. I cannot imagine how I would have survived that.” He paused, considering the matter for a moment, then said, more softly still, “I would like to believe that I would. But I would be lying if I said I was sure.”

A thousand quick, witty remarks leapt to the tip of Molly’s tongue as a response to that. Instead he found himself swallowing hard past the tightening lump in his throat, shaking worse than ever and trying to find some semblance of composure.

Empty.

The word whispered through his mind again, like the spectre of the nightmare he had dragged himself from once, and knew he never could again, and it wrecked any chance he might have had at stopping the words that now tumbled from him.

“I couldn’t do it again,” he choked out, abruptly.

His eyes had wandered back to the fire the wizard had conjured. It had burned low, with the time they had sat talking, and the time before that Caleb had sat with him, but the flames still dance, casting their shadows onto the ash-stained brick wall behind it.

There was something hypnotising about them, and they coaxed the words from him almost against his will, “If it happens again,” he whispered, “If it ever happens to me again, if I ever lose myself again, I want you to kill me, Caleb. Kill me, rather than let me live like that again.”

The words had snapped out of him without conscious thought, and without permission, and a part of them wanted to take them back, to hoard them within himself again. But another part of him was relieved at finally having this great, dark secret prised from him again, and given to another that might be able to do something to relieve it in a way he never could.

Caleb started, spilling some of the drink Molly had given him, but Molly shook his head and gripped his arm, looking at him now, seized by this, “Promise me that. Promise me, Caleb. I can’t do that again.” He was shaking again as he looked at the wizard’s pale grey-blue eyes, slightly avoiding his, but present all the same. “You know,” he breathed softly, “You understand.”

“I do,” Caleb admitted, the words grudging. “Molly,” he said, softly, “I do not think it will be necessary.” He gently squeezed his wrist, “We will not let you get lost again, you know. We are not like whoever you were with before, who would just, just leave you in the ground like that and walk away.” He frowned slightly, “Well,” he amended, “Perhaps some of the others may be, but I would not be able to. And so you have the Mighty Nein with you now. And you have Yasha. She would certainly not let us leave you. We will keep you safe, and we will not let you get lost again, I promise.”

“Caleb,” Molly bit out, sharply.

“But,” he continued, as Molly’s tail began to lash back and forth in his agitation, “If it truly comes to it...I would do whatever you felt needed to be done.”

A grim smile tugged at Molly’s lips, baring his fangs. “I’d do the same for you, you know,” he said, casually, as though they were discussing sensible battle plans for a quick skirmish, “If there was anything that would tip you over the edge.”

Caleb stilled and sobered before he said, softly, “You will know if such a situation presents itself, I think.”

“Noted,” Molly replied, with another dark smile.

“Will you be alright?” Caleb asked quietly after a long, tense pause, peering owlishly over the glass he had scavenged from the table and had poured the alcohol into with a prim sense of unnecessary dignity.

Molly realised, with pleasure, that he was able to find a lazy smile to answer the wizard with, “Aren’t I always?” he said easily, cocking his head to one side, letting his smile broaden and, just for the heck of it, fluttering his eyelashes a little.

Caleb gave him an ironic smile in turn and said, “Ja, as I always am.”

Molly met his eyes for a moment and gave him a thin smirk. Then, without warning, he scooped Frumpkin up and he jumped to his feet, clapped his hands together, which made Caleb jump again, and announced in a business-like tone, “We should sleep.” He could tell Caleb was still processing this as he went on, “We have to descend into undead oblivion for The Gentleman tomorrow, we need our beauty rest.”

Molly deposited Frumpkin in the chair he had just left and the cat gave him a distinctly displeased look at the rough handling. Molly blew him a kiss.

“Are you sure?” Caleb said, looking surprised, and a little as though he’d just gotten whiplash from the speed of the interaction. “You are ready to just...Go back to bed and move on from all of this?” He gestured around them expansively. “You were...Not in a good place when I came down, Mollymauk.”

“I’m in a much better place now you’re in it,” Molly smirked, anticipating the overtly flirtatious tone to discomfort the wizard enough to make him drop the questions.

In truth, he had no idea if he would be alright. For all he knew, he would return to the darkness and silence of his room and break all over again. But he had already let Caleb get in too far, and see too many of his weak spots. He was no longer that shattered, desperate soul reaching out for any anchor point it could in the storm of annihilation that had built up and cast him back into the empty abyss he had stumbled into once more when he’d clawed himself from that shallow grave.

He was still teetering on the edge of it, to be fair, but he didn’t need Caleb, and he couldn’t summon the strength to allow himself to want him.

What he needed right now was the control firmly in his own hands again, without any strings connected to other people.

Caleb studied him for a long moment, apparently searching for any twitches or tells in his face. Then he said with characteristic bluntness, “And if I leave that place again? You’ll still be fine?”

“I’m fairly sure I won’t die without you, Caleb,” Molly grinned, clapping him on the shoulder, making him jolt slightly. “But I’m glad to see your self-confidence is improving in leaps and bounds.”

Caleb flushed slightly. “That is not what I was implying at all, Mollymauk,” he began, primly.

Molly cackled. “Oh, I know,” he said, winking. “C’mon, let’s get to bed. It’s been a damned long day.”

Caleb grunted, unable to disagree with that, and at last acquiesced.

Before they left the bar, Molly tossed the paper Caleb had given him to write on into the fire and watched it burn away to ashes as he climbed the stairs of the Leaky Tap.

Outside their respective rooms, Caleb took a breath, as though steeling himself, then said firmly, “Frumpkin will stay with you tonight.”

The cat meowed softly in assent, winding around Molly’s ankles. Apparently the thing was quite taken with him, for reasons Molly suspected had a lot more to do with the heat he naturally gave off as a tiefling, and a lot less to do with his sparkling personality. Damn thing just wanted to use him.

“I don’t think Fjord would appreciate that,” Molly shot back, grinning, even though he found himself rather tempted by the offer, as well as touched by it, given how fond of the cat the wizard was. Caleb’s face fell, clearly not having considered this, and Molly added, “But thank you for the offer. It was a very kind thought, I appreciate it.”

“You are welcome,” Caleb mumbled. Then, “Well,” he said, clasping his hands together and swinging them back and forth a little, “I suppose we should say goodnight, then.”

He turned to unlock the door to his room, but Molly said, “Caleb,” and he shuffled back to face him once again.

Standing on his toes and resisting the urge to yank on Caleb’s jacket to bring him closer to him, Molly leaned in and kissed his forehead.

Then he said, with all the sincerity he could muster, which was, as always, a relatively surprising amount, “Thank you.”

Caleb nodded, then, “Ja. That makes us even, now.”

“Even?” Molly repeated, head cocked, an eyebrow raised as he frowned at him.

“From the mines,” Caleb replied, as though this should have been obvious, “When you told me that there would be time for that later. You helped me get out when I-“ he waved a hand, frowning as though he didn’t like to remember what had happened.

Molly stared at him for a long moment. Then he laughed.

“Your mind works in strange and mysterious ways, Caleb Widogast,” he informed him, lightly, shaking his head.

“So I have been told,” the wizard replied, tone utterly serious. But there was a slight twinkle in his eye that made Molly wonder if the miraculous could have happened, and he might have actually told two jokes in a single day.

Molly smiled again.

“For the record,” he said, lazily, lightly jostling Caleb’s shoulder with his own, bracing a hand against the wall and leaning up again to whisper into his ear, “You didn’t owe me anything for what happened down in the mines.” He shrugged and added evenly as he drew back, “I just did what anyone would have done.”

“Except, ‘anyone’ did not do it,” Caleb replied, pedantically. “Only you.”

“I suppose that’s true enough,” Molly said, after considering it for a moment and not being able to come up with any kind of counter-argument to the wizard’s unnecessary but nevertheless impenetrable logic.

“You still didn’t owe me anything in my book, though. But,” he added, grinning lazily again, “If you want me to owe you for this, then consider it noted.”

“I mean,” Caleb said, “According to you, I only did what anyone would do.”

Molly smiled, “But it wasn’t anyone. Only you.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Caleb shot back with a shrug.

Molly grinned again, “Bad dreams?” The wizard shivered slightly but didn’t answer and Molly, feeling that he might be pushing things too far, said quickly, “But fair enough, if that’s the way you want this to work, that can easily be arranged.”

“No!” Caleb said, a little too quickly, “No I, I was teasing you, Molly, I do not actually want you to ‘owe’ me anything for this. I do not want this group to work that way.”

Molly grinned, “Good boy,” he said, giving Caleb a friendly pat on the cheek, “I don’t want it to work that way, either. World would be a much better place if everyone thought that way.”

“You are not wrong,” Caleb murmured.

His gaze grew distant for a moment before he abruptly pulled himself back together, blinking rather rapidly. He turned quickly to his room, unlocked it, and, just before he disappeared inside, he said, “Goodnight, Mollymauk.”

Molly waited until he heard the door click shut then said, too softly for Caleb to hear, “Night, Caleb.”

#widomauk #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #critical role #taliesin jaffe #liam o'brien #text post tag #widomauk fic #my fic #cr2 fic #cr2 #i forgot about this #and then i remembered #i was going to get it beta'd bc there were bits in it where i was like ??? is this ooc ????? idk #but then i found it and was just like FUCK IT #so now here it is #enjoy y'all #luca back at it with the angst/hurt/comfort widomauk fic #i've got a brand and i'm sticking to it

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storywool · 7 years

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Longing (part 1)

Summary: *SLOOOWWWWBURN* Y/n Y/L/n is a recent graduate from New York University and Sam Wilson’s life long best friend. She wrote her dissertation on a new experimental surgery that could alter the brain’s memory and speech patterns, a surgery that she plans to use on one of the most famous men in America: the Winter Soldier. Part 1 follows her plan to get the surgery approved and the first steps in the process to de-Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes. part 2 // part 3

Word Count: 7,760

“Which one, the green one or the beige one?” Y/n asked her best friend, holding up two distinctly different blouses over her bare chest. She had just gotten out of the shower, had her hair up in a towel, and nothing on but black pants and a bra. She quickly interchanged the two shirts. The green one was a sheer, long-sleeved v-neck that she often paired with a scarf, and the beige one was this peasant type shirt that Sam Wilson didn’t completely understand. But he eyed both of them carefully, knowing she needed his honest opinion.

“The beige one. Looks more professional.” He replied, taking a sip from his coffee. She nodded and roughly took the garment off the hanger. She forced the top over her towel headdress, and hurried back to her room when she pulled it over. Sam followed her and watched her open up her large makeup bag. She shuffled around in it. “You nervous?” He asked.

She scoffed, “Nah, I’m just meeting with Tony fucking Stark to propose a new, never been done before surgery to potentially ‘fix’ the guy who killed his parents.”

Y/n Y/l/n was a recent graduate from the New York University medical school; in undergraduate school, she majored in biology and psychology. She graduated top of her class with honors, and she had recently taken the year off to travel with Sam. She wasn’t sure what she was doing with her career currently, but after Sam joined the Avengers, and she heard all the stories about James Buchanan Barnes, she seemed to find her calling. She began her focus on neurological, experimental surgery and developed an idea to try on the cryogenically frozen superhero. After proposing the idea to a professor, getting his approval, and talking it over with Sam, she managed to get an interview with Stark (without the help of Sam). She had been preparing for this interview for weeks, and today was the day. Her nerves were absolutely shot and she felt like throwing up.

She laughed to herself. Despite being best friends with Sam and living with him for the past ten years or so, she hadn’t met a single member of the Avengers other than Steve Rogers. She was studying abroad in Norway when Steve and Natasha came to Sam for help, so she didn’t get to meet them then. She hadn’t met them not because she didn’t want to, but she was always busy when they weren’t, and vice versa. But she was about to meet Tony Stark, and terrified didn’t even begin to explain it.

“I can still come with you.” Sam offered.

She shook her head as she finished putting on mascara. “No, it’s fine. I want to get this because my science is sound, not because I know the right people.” Sam always had connections and was always using them to help her. She was thankful for that, but she wanted to do this on her own. She wanted to feel like she earned it.

Sam yawned loudly and stretched. “Well, I believe in you. I gotta go though.” He wrapped Y/n in a side hug so she wouldn’t have to stop putting on her makeup, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Gotta go play cards with Scott some more, you mean?” She smiled cheekily at him through the mirror. Since they didn’t have any cases currently, all Sam seemed to do was hang around Stark Towers and play cards with Scott Lang. But it paid the bills, and he was happy. After his tour with the army, he was never happy, so it was nice to see him this way.

He shot finger guns at her instead of responding. “Good luck!” He called down from the hallway. Y/n heard the front door open and then close.

Y/n finished her makeup, blow dried her hair, and threw on a pair of black heels. After throwing on a coat and hurriedly locking the door, she walked away from their shared house and headed toward the subway station. She took the train that would lead directly to Stark Towers. The whole ride, she rehearsed her ‘elevator pitch’ to herself over and over until she felt she could say it without shaking.

She exited the subway tunnels and entered the bustling New York City streets. Directly in front of her, was the landmark building- ‘Stark’ was written across the top in large, white letters. The building was a staggering 93-story high skyscraper separated into two sections, and lined with wide, blue windows. Y/n took a deep, shaky breath in and moved toward the door when a familiar hand reached out to grab it for her.

The large figure smiled down at her as he held the door open. Y/n looked up at the blonde-haired man and returned the grin. Steve Rogers was looking dapper as ever in a white t-shirt, black skinny jeans, and leather jacket. Y/n mentally laughed at the Captain America patch on the pocket. He looked healthy, considering everything that had happened recently. She couldn’t help but feel her anxiety wash away as she looked up at her friend. Sam was always the one to make her smile and laugh, but Steve always made her feel safe and at home. Part of it was because they were both from Brooklyn and she felt a sense of home in his presence, but he also saved Y/n’s life a few months back. She trusted him ever since.

“Mornin’ beautiful.” He beamed. His voice was chipper, even for him.

“Back at ya, handsome.” She entered the building and walked with Steve to the front desk. “You’re in a good mood.”

“I had my date last night.” He had been talking about this date with Sharon for weeks, and it had finally happened. Y/n wasn’t entirely sure what happened but it was obviously good.

Y/n smiled and gasp lightly, “Yay, finally! I can’t wait to hear all about it. You seein’ her again soon?” She handed the receptionist her I.D.

“What brings you here today?” The receptionist asked.

“Tomorrow night.” Steve replied at the same time.

“Oh fun!” She said to Steve first, and then turned to the receptionist, “I have a meeting with Tony Stark at 9:00.” The receptionist ran her name through the computer, printed out a fancy I.D. badge, and handed the badge and her license back to Y/n. Y/n thanked the woman, and walked toward the elevators with Steve.

“Meeting for what?” He raised an eyebrow and pressed the up button. Y/n swallowed; she hadn’t told Steve about the operation yet because she didn’t want to get his hopes up if she couldn’t fix his best friend. Y/n mulled over whether to answer the question truthfully or not. She didn’t want to mention Bucky, only for Stark to say no.

She cleared her throat, “Uh, I wanted to talk to him about a possible internship.” It wasn’t a total lie. After that, she acted like she was too busy marveling the beauty of the building to answer in depth; again, not a total lie. The lobby was enough to take anyone’s breath away; it had vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, and all the latest technology displayed on all the walls. The Stark Tower was very much like the old S.H.I.E.L.D tower, except it was a bit smaller and fewer people traveled in and out the doors. Even the elevator was awe inspiring with its glass walls.

“I looked just like that when I first came here.” Steve whispered to her on the packed elevator.

Y/n made light conversation with Steve the rest of the way up. They talked about Steve’s date a little and whether they were going to do their weekly Monday lunch with Sam or not. They agreed that they would, and that she’d meet him on the 60th floor after her interview. He got off and wished her luck. Once he was gone, her anxiety returned immediately, and only rose as the elevator did.

On the 93rd floor, she exited the elevator and entered a waiting room type area. At the front desk sat a brunette woman, who Y/n informed that she was here to meet with Mr. Stark. The receptionist replied curtly, “He’s very busy. Impress him in the first minute or he won’t hear you out.” Y/n nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat, and took a seat. She drummed the folder in her lap with her fingers and bounced her leg up and down. Five minutes passed when the elevator doors opened up and the infamous Tony Stark marched out. He was wearing a tight, black suit; his face was clean shaven despite a few scraps from a possibly recent battle. He said hello to his receptionist and hesitated when he saw Y/n.

She stood up and stuck her hand out to shake his. “Who’s this?” He asked.

“Your nine o’clock, sir.” The receptionist replied.

“Also known as Y/n Y/l/n…sir.” Y/n blushed slightly.

Stark eyed her up and down before turning on his heel. “Y/n, I’m sorry but I don’t have a lot of time. Talk fast.”

Y/n began to panic. Everything she had planned to say was thrown out the window. She stuttered along her words as she tried to follow Stark as best as she could. “I think I uh-” As they walked, several assistants came up to Stark and asked him to sign here, initial there, smile at the camera, etc. Y/n recognized one of the women as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark’s girlfriend. Y/n couldn’t seem to get a word in. “I spoke with my former research professor and-” Y/n stammered as she was interrupted by more people. Stark held up a finger at her to tell her to wait. Y/n could feel her panic and anger rising. He was being completely unprofessional and Y/n did not appreciate it.

She stopped walking and realized Stark didn’t even know she wasn’t following. He was continuing on farther into the distance. Y/n swallowed her pride, gathered her breath, and shouted over the noise and chatter, “I found a way to fix Bucky!”

Stark stopped moving and turned back to face her slowly. The noise around them died down as her words sunk in. Y/n’s face turned a bright red and she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cry.

“You what?” He whispered. Y/n couldn’t tell if the whisper was cynical or surprised. She was shaking. Stark could feel his own heartbeat increase slightly. No one outside of the Avengers and the few remaining people from S.H.I.E.L.D knew what happened in Siberia between him, Steve, and Bucky, and even fewer people knew that Bucky went back on the ice.

“I-uh- think I know how to fix Buck- Sergeant Barnes.” She stuttered. She fidgeted with the folder and held it out for him. He quickly swiped it from her hands, and him and Pepper read over the files inside. The folder contained a detailed explanation of the operation, a twenty page research paper, and the cited works. Pepper oh’d and awed as she skimmed the paperwork.

Y/n cleared her throat and continued, “I have a theory that instead of picturing Barnes’ brain as a whole, imagine it as the parts it is.”

She paused to gauge Stark’s reaction. He bit his lip and continued reading. “Come with me.” He said once finished with the files. He slapped the folder close and moved for the door. He held it open for Pepper and Y/n, and she entered what she assumed was Stark’s warehouse/ research lab. He handed the folder to a floating robot that Stark seemed to talk to like it was human. Once the robot scanned the files, he motioned his arm to bring up an electric, holographic copy of the paper. “Continue.”

Y/n cleared her throat again, “Uh, well, you see, the reason he keeps reverting to his Winter Soldier self is because of the sequence of words: Longing, rusted, furnace, daybreak, seventeen, benign, nine, homecoming, one, and freight car. If you remove the significance of those words, especially in that order, theoretically the Winter Soldier side of him can’t be activated.”

“How do you know about all of this?” Pepper asked.

“How do we do that?” Stark asked at the same time.

Y/n decided to answer Stark’s question first. “Well, Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe is responsible for understanding language and the parietal lobe interprets language. If you operate on those areas and basically rearrange the wiring, it might make him forget those words and the significance of that sequence.”

“Wouldn’t he theoretically forget how to speak?” Stark questioned. He flipped through the holographic research paper and noted points in her paper.

She nodded, “Yes, most likely he’d have to relearn everything. According to my research, he might remember how to speak English since that was his first language, but it’s not a guarantee.”

“Technically none of this is a guarantee.” Pepper mumbled. Y/n tried to suppress giving her the side eye, but let it show slightly.

Y/n ignored it and continued, “Operating on the temporal lobe would also affect his memory…if we could target the right memories, we could remove the meaning behind those words that trigger him.” Y/n finished and felt utterly proud of herself. It did not go as smooth as she hoped, but she did it.

“We? Ms…” Pepper peered at the name on top of her paper, “Y/n, you shouldn’t even know about this stuff. This is classified information.”

Y/n sighed. She didn’t want to have to name drop, but here she was. “I’m Sam Wilson’s childhood best friend and roommate. He told me all about Bucky, and I researched it in depth. Everyone who has tried to look into this topic has been thinking about Bucky as a whole, not as parts. His whole brain isn’t what’s the problem…those words are.”

They both stared at her. Stark absentmindedly bit his thumb as he thought. Her plans were detailed and her science was sound, it was just the experimentation of it all. He couldn’t attempt a never been done before surgery on Steve’s best friend. He couldn’t be responsible if it didn’t work. His mind was racing with thoughts and he was barely paying attention to the conversation. He heard Y/n say she was best friends with Sam and Steve, that they hadn’t met yet because of poor timing, and that she came up with the idea after a drunken night with Steve.

“Pepper, can you fetch Bruce?” He asked suddenly, knocking Pepper off her momentary soap box. She rolled her eyes and stormed out of the room. Once the doors closed behind her, Stark sighed. “She’s so worried about the politics and logistics. I don’t care how you know this information. I just care about your science.”

He looked Y/n up and down. She looked so nervous and absolutely terrified. It was then that Stark realized he hadn’t said any encouraging words to her yet. He hadn’t said anything to calm her nerves. Y/n was, Stark noticed, a very pretty girl with an obvious brain between her ears. She was of average height, long hair, wide and anxious eyes, and a nervous smile. She was wearing a partially see through top, and Stark could see an arm tattoo poking through. It was typewriter like writing, but Stark couldn’t make out the word.

“What’s your arm tattoo say?”

Y/n yelped slightly and stared down at her arm. “Oh, it uh, says ‘longing’…which I realize is kind of funny now that I’m trying to fix the Winter Soldier whose first trigger word is ‘longing’.” She rubbed the spot on her arm and smiled slightly. The look on Stark’s face told her to continue, “My dad was a writer before he joined the Army. My favorite poem he ever wrote was called ‘Longing’ and he wrote it after his tour. I thought the poem was about love, but after he committed suicide, I realized what it was about. It’s kind of my goodbye to him.”

Stark’s heart sank slightly. He learned so much about Y/n in those few sentences. He felt for her, too because she lost her father, and that was always a hard thing for anyone to face. He cleared his throat. “I’m getting Dr. Banner to review your plans. I think they look pretty solid, but I need another pair of eyes.”

Y/n felt her insides swell. Tony Stark, son of legend Howard Stark, just said her plans looked good! If she were alone, she would have started dancing. “Wait, seriously?” She couldn’t help but say. A wide smile broke across her face. Stark grinned too. She was adorable, for lack of a better word. She reminded him of a girl version of Sam, which would make sense with them being best friends and all.

The doors opened and Bruce Banner entered the room. His hair was an absolute mess, he was wearing a purple button up and gray slacks, and his glasses sat crookedly on his face. His eyes searched the room, stopping only briefly on the holograph projections before laying on Y/n. She stuck her hand out and he shook it firmly as they exchanged introductions.

“Bruce, look through these files.” Stark handed him the physical folder because he preferred paper over electronics. Stark gave him 10 minutes to read over it. Y/n found a chair nearby and pulled up a seat. Stark offered her a drink, and she requested a coffee. She hadn’t had her morning cup yet, and it was catching up to her.

Bruce took off his glasses and bit the end of them when he was finished reading. “It’s sound science…good science at that.” Stark pulled Bruce off to the side and they spoke in hushed whispers. They were talking about the best way to go about the situation. Y/n heard them whisper about rats and test subjects and how to get Bucky to agree. She cleared her throat and the two men turned to her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I did come up with the idea after all.”

They stared at her for a second, and then Stark broke out laughing. He shrugged his shoulder. “I guess you’re right.” He paused and walked over to Y/n. “What do we need to do next?”

She blinked rapidly, not entirely sure what to say. She hadn’t thought past the interview itself. She guessed that they’d need to get approval from someone to do this research, they’d have to get a team that could work on it together, and they’d have to get something to test the surgery on. And then they’d still have to get Bucky out of the ice and get his approval. She explained this to them, and they agreed. It was set that Tony would file paperwork with the United Nations (per the Sokovia Accords), and then they’d go from there.

“I’ll give you a call when I get word from the U.N. Until then, you should come work here. I could use a brain like yours.” Tony said. She nodded excitedly at the prospect of working at Stark Tower with the Avengers. Tony grinned widely and told Y/n to be back tomorrow.

She left the room, headed to the elevator, and moved down to the floor where Steve said he’d be. She felt absolutely elated. She couldn’t wait to tell Sam, but that also meant telling Steve. She exited the elevator and came face to face with the whole Avengers crew. Wanda and Vision were talking in the corner, Sam and Scott were playing cards (typical), Steve was reading Harry Potter per Y/n’s request, and Natasha and Clint were playing chess. Y/n noted that Thor wasn’t there, though. She chuckled at how…normal they all looked. They stared up at her as the elevator opened.

Sam jumped up from his spot immediately and practically skipped over to her. “How’d it go?”

She beamed up at him and whispered, “Stark’s sending the paperwork to the U.N. to get approval. Until then, he gave me a job working with him!”

Sam yelped and pulled Y/n into a bone crushing hug. “I’m so proud of you!” Sam let her go and turned back to the group. “Guys, this is my best friend Y/n. Y/n, these are the guys.”

Y/n waved nervously as Natasha said, “So you’re the infamous Y/n Steve and Sam keep talking about.” She rose from her seat and shook Y/n’s hand. She smiled warmly. Y/n wished in that moment that she had met Natasha earlier. She seemed like such a nice person.

The rest of the Avengers greeted her as she made her rounds before she made her way over to Steve. He put his book down when she got to him. “By the look on your face, I’d say it’s good news.” He chuckled. Y/n found herself suddenly very nervous.

“Can we go for a walk?” She asked. Steve raised an eyebrow, but nodded nonetheless. She turned back to Sam and told him the plan. He offered to be there, but Y/n knew she needed to tell Steve alone.

They entered the surprisingly empty elevator. Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Y/n cut him off. “Not yet.” Y/n said. He closed his mouth and kept his eyes fixed on the door. Y/n could feel her heart beat in her throat and found herself biting her nails nervously. Steve could sense her unease, and realized he too was growing anxious.

They exited Stark Towers, walked a few blocks east, and came to their favorite coffee shop. This shop was the birthplace of Steve and Y/n’s friendship, and the foreground of several wonderful memories. The most recent memory being the day Steve finally asked Sharon out. Sam and Y/n yelled so loudly that they were almost kicked out.

Today’s news would either bring Steve joy or terror, and both responses scared Y/n. They ordered lattes from the barista and found seats away from everyone else. They sat down and Y/n sighed. She looked around at her surroundings and thought of what to say to him.

“So…how’d your date with Sharon go?”

He laughed, knowing she was stalling. “It was really nice. I picked her up from her apartment, we went to that restaurant you suggested,” Y/n chuckled at that additive, “and then we went for a walk in Central Park. I showed her all of the places that were there when I was a teenager and that are still standing. And then we went back to my place and…”

Y/n squealed, “Steve Rogers you dirty grandpa! I never would have pegged you for a sex on the first date kinda guy!”

Steve sipped his coffee before replying. He couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. “Well, she’s not your average girl, so I didn’t think what I usually did was the right way to go.” Y/n felt herself blush and her heart swim. She was so happy for Steve.

“I want details.” Steve told her all the nasty, probably too-much-information moments shared between Sharon and Steve last night. She loved that she could have these kinds of conversations with Steve, despite how conservative he usually was about relationship stuff.

Once their moment passed and Y/n was completely caught up on the night before, and Steve assumed Y/n was ready to talk, he cleared his throat, “So, is everything okay?”

Y/n smiled sheepishly. “Yes and no.” She took a deep breath. “So I got a job with Stark to work on a new operation.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and grinned. “That’s incredible! So why the long face?”

She thumbed the side of her warm coffee. “The operation is to basically rewire the parts of the brain that deal with speech while leaving the other parts not tampered with. We’re basically going to remove the meaning behind words and re-teach the patient how to speech, essentially. It’s never been done before and there are a lot of things that could go wrong, and Stark and Banner seem optimistic. But-”

Steve’s face dropped. “But,” he paused, “who’s the patient?”

Y/n hesitated. Steve reached out his hand for hers and squeezed it. She didn’t know whether to build up to the name drop or just go for it. Either way, Steve would have questions.

“It’s Bucky.”

Silence fell over the table. Her gaze fell to the table as Steve retracted his hand from Y/n’s. He left his mouth agape. He frowned. Y/n swallowed the lump in her throat and felt like she was going to cry if Steve didn’t say anything. But Steve was too dumbfounded to speak. Y/n hurried to formulate sentences in her mind to ease the tension growing between them.

“The only way to get him off the ice is to find some way to get rid of his Winter Soldier side. At least that’s what you told me. Since that night, I’ve been thinking of ways to…” She paused, searching for the right word but came up short, “I guess, fix him?” She glanced up at Steve and his expression was unchanged. Y/n reached out her hand this time and spoke to him, not at him. She stared into his eyes as she spoke, “I know how much he means to you. You’ve done so much for me, and all I want to do is repay those favors.”

“And you thought a never been done surgery would do that?” He snapped. Y/n was taken aback. She couldn’t believe his response.

“Steve, you know just as well as I do that the only way to help Bucky is to do things that have never been done before.” She scoffed and crossed her arms. She was thought about what to say next. She didn’t really want to tell him what inspired her to help, but it was the only way to get him to understand. “You told me about him and who he was before he fell off that train, and my heart hurt because of how much you cared about him. I’ve never seen anyone care about someone else so damn much, and if anyone cared about me that much, I’d do whatever it took to get them back. All I want to do is bring him back. After you told me all about him, before and after the Winter Soldier, I changed my major in school so I was better suited to help him. I’ve literally been preparing for this since I graduated from undergrad.” She didn’t mean to say it so viciously, but she felt like Steve doubted her abilities. She also felt embarrassed at her admission. While she had Sam, and Steve cared enough, she never had anyone love her like Steve loved Bucky. It didn’t necessarily make her jealous, but a large part of her wanted someone who would give life and limb for her.

Steve diverted his eyes and bit his lip. He was ashamed that he went off on Y/n the way he did. But he was scared, and he wasn’t sure how to admit that. The thought of getting Bucky back only to have him disappear again was too much to handle. He couldn’t leave his best friend up to chance. He trusted Y/n. He didn’t trust fate.

Steve cleared his throat and turned his attention back to Y/n. “How will it work?”

Y/n stared at Steve and blinked tears from her eyes. She was certain Steve wasn’t going to allow them to go through with it. She explained the possibility of him forgetting how to speak, the way they could change some of his memories, and the likelihood of recovery. She reiterated that Stark’s technology is unlike any in a standard hospital, and that she would not be performing the surgery directly.

“Obviously, this all ultimately hinges on approval from the U.N. and if Bucky says yes.” She finished. They had finished their coffees and almost an hour had passed. Steve was visibly processing her words still, parsing each and every sentence she said. They left the coffee shop and headed back to Stark Towers. They got back on the elevator, which was empty. They hadn’t exchanged words since they left the coffee shop, until they were halfway back to the 60th floor.

“By the way, you do have people who care about you as much as I do about Buck. You got me after all.” Steve whispered to Y/n, and reached out his hand to take hers. They intertwined their fingers, and he squeezed lightly. Steve smiled down at her. She suddenly felt better about everything that had happened.

That night, Sam and Y/n were bundled up on the couch and sharing a cheese pizza. They were watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones when Sam paused the TV. He turned his body to face Y/n and cleared his throat. He gave her a look that said ‘we need to talk’.

“Oh god, why that face?” She asked, throwing down her plate.

Sam held up his hands in mock surrender, “I’m just worried about this whole thing.”

“What whole thing?” Y/n crossed her arms and sat up higher in her seat. She, of course, knew what Sam was referring to, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“The Bucky thing-” Y/n tried to interject, but Sam kept on, “I’m not worried about you at all. I trust you more than my own doctor, who’s a Jewish man in his fifties and has been a doctor for the latter half of his life. I’m worried about Bucky.”

Y/n raised her eyebrow, “Why?”

He laid his head on the arm he had stretched on the back of the couch. “You know why…he’s dangerous, Y/n. People think of him as the bad guy, and I don’t know what he’ll do when he comes out of the ice.”

Y/n reached out and grabbed his hand. She squeezed lightly. “A risk I’m willing to take.”

A week had passed, and Y/n was now officially a Stark Industries employee (paperwork took longer to process than expected). She returned to Stark Towers with Sam, just like Stark had instructed. It was a little after ten when they arrived. It was later than usual, but since they worked on their own schedules, it wasn’t a big deal. She waited on the 60th floor with the rest of the Avengers until Stark came and got her. She talked to Steve about his night with Sharon, and they tiptoed around the one conversation they really wanted to have. Sam could feel the awkward tension. He ignored it though, chalked it up to misinterpretation.

The Avengers talked about their nights as they all settled in for the day. Sam and Y/n saw the new Wonder Woman movie, Steve went on his date, and Scott got to see his daughter for a while. The rest of them reported nothing interesting, so they spent the time talking about Wonder Woman and how badass she was.

A voice spoke over the PA for Y/n to come to Stark’s office. The group oh’d like kids in a classroom, and one of them just got called to the principal’s office. Y/n rolled her eyes, bid ado, and headed to her first day at her new job.

As soon as she exited the elevator, Stark greeted her. He handed her a folder immediately. He turned to walk away, and Y/n followed closely. “Your file…while I prefer electronic everything, we kept paperback-ups. I didn’t put your name on it because didn’t know your title.” He explained.

Y/n smiled down at her manila envelope and opened it. Inside were standard documents like her birth certificate, resume, and photo copies of her license. “Oh, it’s Doctor Y/n Y/l/n.”

Stark stopped in his tracks. “Why didn’t you correct me when I called you ‘Ms.’?”

She laughed lightly. She got that question so often. “It’s just a title-”

“A title that you worked on for years.” Stark cut her off, and laughed. Y/n shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t go to medical school for a title; she went to help people.

Stark continued to walk and show Y/n around the office. He pointed to a room that was his office and told her to go there whenever she needed anything. He then informed her that her personal office was on the 61st floor, right next to Bruce’s office. Stark handed her an I.D. badge to use for all the doors she would need access to.

They reached the lab, and Y/n noticed that it was messier than last time. Bruce was already there too, sitting at the table and reading over a letter.

“As fun as it’s been showing you around, we need to get down to business.” Stark said, clapping his hands together as he did so. Bruce handed her the paper. At the top was the United Nation’s logo. Y/n glanced up at Stark and Bruce expectantly, and then hurriedly read over the paper.

“We have granted permission for your team to pursue this research on the condition that no other humans are given the treatment until further approval.” She read aloud. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears, she felt like she was screaming. They got approval! She squealed then looked back up at the two men. “I’m gonna give myself ten seconds to celebrate, so cover your ears.”

They plugged their ears with their fingers and Stark held up his watch to count the seconds. Their fingers in their ears did nothing to block out Y/n’s piercing screams. She danced in her spot, and jumped up and down. As soon as Stark signaled that her ten seconds were up, she shut her mouth and stopped jumping, but couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. Bruce and Stark grinned widely, too.

“So what do we do next?” She asked. She drummed her hands on the table in excitement.

“We wake Bucky up.” Stark replied.

Good feeling gone.

“Already?” She questioned nervously. She knew this day would come, but did not anticipate it being today.

Stark shrugged, “No point in doing anything else if he says no.”

Y/n thought for a moment and absentmindedly thumbed her necklace. She cleared her throat and nodded, “I’ll go get Steve.”

Steve tapped his foot nervously. He bit his thumbnail and exhaled loudly. Y/n glanced up at him, wrapped her arm through his crossed ones, and squeezed his forearm. They stood with their arms interlocked as Stark’s team of scientists rushed around the room to prepare for Bucky’s ‘unthawing’.

They stood in an open room with white ceilings and floors. The doctors wore white lab coats and they walked around with white clipboards and white glasses. Y/n noted how sterile everything seemed, and how unease it all made her. She was nervous for obvious reasons, but the severity and rigidness of the room, which was so unlike the rest of Stark Towers, was the number one cause for concern.

They wheeled Bucky’s sleeping chamber out onto the main floor where Steve and Y/n waited. Steve’s breath hitched in his throat upon laying his eyes on Bucky’s cryogenically frozen body. Y/n felt her heart stop too. She heard the stories, saw the news, but seeing him in person was something completely different. Seeing his closed eyes, his peaceful face, and his non-ageing body in person was unreal. She even felt a little guilty for thinking he was attractive.

Stark turned back to Steve and Y/n. “Ready?”

Y/n nodded and Stark dipped his head slightly. Steve wasn’t really ready, but he was as ready as he was ever going to be. On the bright side, he’d have his best friend again, but at what cost? Stark moved his attention back to the control panel in front of him. He twisted and flipped some buttons, and with a lot less pomp and circumstance than Y/n imagined, the machine hissed with the sound of thawing ice. The latch on the door turned as the door moved to open itself, exposing Bucky’s body to the fresh air.

As the ice thawed and the hissing grew quieter, time seemed to stop. They all waited in anticipation for that moment when Bucky would take his first breath and he’d open his eyes. And as much as Y/n wanted to watch this moment happen, she couldn’t help but watch her best friend instead. She knew this whole thing was taking a toll on Steve, and he was being such a good sport about it all, but being in the moment was something completely new. Y/n watched Steve’s heartbroken eyes as she heard Bucky’s first inhale. Steve squeezed her hand tighter, and he seemed to start shaking under her touch.

It was when Bucky started coughing loudly that Y/n turned her attention to him. He sat up in his seat so he could see; his flesh hand covered his mouth as he coughed. He eyed the room around him, but calmed down when he recognized his surroundings and most importantly, recognized Steve. His eyes seemed to soften at the sight of his best friend. “Steve…” Bucky whispered. Steve unwrapped himself from Y/n and ran over to Bucky. He sat up in the chamber and wrapped Steve in a tight hug.

“How long was I under?” Bucky asked Steve. Y/n traded a glance with Tony and noticed his rigid stance and nervous expression. The air was tense, and Y/n didn’t know which side of the tension she belonged on.

“A little over two years.” They separated and a man brought Bucky a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants to change into. Bucky hurriedly pulled the shirt over his bare chest and the sweatpants over his boxers. Steve helped him out of the chamber. Bucky wavered slightly, as he wasn’t used to using his legs. He wrapped his metal arm over Steve’s shoulders, and Steve wrapped his arm around Bucky’s waist.

“Why am I back? Did you find a way to fix me?” Y/n’s heart sank at Bucky’s phrasing. He was scared of himself, and Y/n couldn’t imagine what that must be like.

“We think we did.” Steve replied. He motioned back to Y/n, who stood awkwardly in the background with a clipboard and nervous expression. Steve moved Bucky over to her. She put out her hand for him to shake; his touch was cold, but his skin was soft. Y/n’s cheeks reddened and her stomach twisted.

“This is Dr. Y/n Y/l/n: genius, comedian, beauty, and your savior.”

Y/n rolled her eyes and smiled. “Genius is a bit much, but the rest is pretty accurate.” That made Bucky chuckle and Y/n felt slightly better.

“Ah, a Brooklyn gal?” He joked. Bucky studied Y/n from her black boots up to her eager eyes and kind smile. Her homely presence and gentle touch gave Bucky a weird sense of calmness. Bucky noted her awkward cuteness, and grinned.

“Born and raised. Steve and I actually met each other in Brooklyn one day when Sam came to visit my family in Brooklyn.” She traded a glance with Steve, “Anyways, it’s wonderful to meet you. Steve’s told me all about you.”

“Y/n’s been working on a new operation with Stark and Banner.” Steve added.

Bucky did not take his eyes off of Y/n. “What you got for me, Doll?” He asked Y/n, adding a wink at the end for good measure. Y/n remembered Steve telling her that his catchphrase was ‘doll’. She was glad to see that that hadn’t changed.

She laughed, “Well it’s a lot actually. Why don’t we move somewhere more comfortable?” She turned to Tony and nodded at him to follow. Steve, Bucky, Tony, and Y/n moved toward the elevator to head to the top floor. On the elevator, Bucky and Steve chatted the whole way up. Bucky asked about girls, and Y/n was prepared to hear his rant about Sharon that Y/n got months ago, but came up short. He gave a short ‘no’ and Y/n laughed.

The boys turned to her. Bucky leaned against the elevator wall and eyed her. He knew Steve wasn’t being completely honest with him, and Y/n’s laugh gave that away. But he didn’t press the issue; he’d only been out of the ice for five minutes, no point in pissing people off. “What about you, Y/n? You got anybody?”

“I live with Sam. That’s enough to keep anyone from settling down.” She said, making Bucky chuckle again. She told him about how she knew Sam since elementary school, how they’ve been best friends since middle school, and how they’ve been living together since her senior year of high school (really since her dad died, but she wasn’t about to share that).

The elevator reached their designated floor, and everyone filed out one by one. Steve grabbed Y/n’s arm to hold her back as Bucky and Tony moved to the lab.

“What’s wrong?” Y/n questioned, worry lacing her words. Steve waited until they were completely out of ear shot.

“I’m worried about him.”

“What do you mean?”

He crossed his arms, “He hasn’t acted like this since before he fell. I’m afraid that the honeymoon will pass and he’ll snap.”

Y/n reached out and rubbed his bicep. She sighed- she totally understood his fear, but the constant comments from Sam and Steve about Bucky being ‘dangerous’ were starting to piss her off. She swallowed her annoyance and paid attention to her friend. He was so worried about his best friend. Y/n wasn’t completely sure what to say to qualm his anxiety. She grabbed his arm, pulled him into a hug, wrapped her arm around his waist, and squeezed. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed too. Y/n sighed again. She loved his hugs.

“I know you’re worried. But give him time- give us time. We’ll get him back to the old him.”

They separated and Steve placed a light kiss on her forehead. “I trust you.”

Y/n grinned, “I know. Now, let’s go convince him.”

They walked into the room, and Bucky and Tony were not speaking, which they expected. Bucky was tinkering with a piece of technology that he shouldn’t have been touching and Tony was off in the distance, preparing for their meeting. Y/n noticed Bruce in the corner peering over a computer screen.

“He’s been touching stuff since he got in here.” Bruce said, pointing over to Bucky.

Steve scoffed, “Well he’s a person, not a dog.” Bruce smiled sarcastically. Y/n sat her stuff down on the table and moved over to Bucky. He reached out to touch a laser pointer that definitely would have severed a finger if he’d gotten any closer.

“Don’t touch that.” Y/n yelped. She grabbed his hand and pulled it away from the machine. “If you want to keep what fingers you have left I mean.” She explained at his confused face. She smiled, hoping he’d laugh at her feeble attempt at a joke; he did, wide and unapologetic. She thought it was curious that he seemed so jovial when everyone kept telling her he was the opposite.

He stared at the equipment in front of him, and Y/n stared at him. “Bucky, Y/n.” Steve said. They turned to him sitting at the table, Tony and Bruce patiently waiting. Tony had a file prepared for Bucky and sat it in front of him. Y/n stood at the head of the table with Tony. She suddenly felt super nervous again.

Tony pulled up some of the holographic images again. The first image was a picture of Bucky’s brain, with the temporal lobe highlighted. Y/n cleared her throat and looked at Bucky, “So I’m gonna start off by saying that I came up with these ideas, but I won’t actually be performing the surgery.” She chuckled. Bucky did not react, but she expected that much.

She went through the surgery process, what to expect, how he might forget how to speak for a while, and how Tony and Bruce knew what they were doing. Y/n felt Bucky’s apprehension rise. Tony was going on some tangent about the surgery, when Y/n held up a hand to cut him off.

“What questions do you have?” She asked Bucky at his confused face. His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled, and Y/n’s heart swelled slightly.

He forced a laugh, “I guess I just don’t understand how a surgery’s gonna fix everything.”

“To be completely honest, it won’t. Part of the treatment is doing therapy a few times a week…with me.” Steve’s eyes widened a bit, he didn’t know about this part, “Part of what we will do is figure out the meaning behind your trigger words, and try to help you heal from the trauma you’ve experienced. Bucky,” She spread her hands on the table and leaned forward to talk directly to him, “you’ve been through a shit ton-”

Tony held his hand up to stop her, “The idea being that to cope with these issues, you need to talk about these issues.”

Y/n shrugged and tugged at the end of her sleeves. Bucky assumed it was a nervous tick of hers. “What I was going to say, but more eloquent.” Bucky thumbed through the papers in the folder, reading over the fine print and scientific jargon to see if he could understand the operation more. “You don’t have to make a decision today. Read over the file tonight, we’ll answer any remaining questions in the morning, and then we can go from there.” Y/n responded, rubbing her hands together and trading glances with the men in the room.

Steve sat forward in his seat and clasped his hands together on the table. “I’ll show Bucky where his room his. We’ll just meet in the morning.”

They all agreed and parted ways. Bucky, head buried in the file, walked with Steve to the elevator to go to the 50th floor where Bucky would be staying. Steve requested that Tony prepare the room next to Bucky’s for himself; that way he could be close to Bucky in the off chance something happened. Y/n finished up some last minute work with Tony and Bruce before retiring to the 60th floor to pick Sam up.

“How’s my favorite scientist?” Sam asked upon seeing Y/n.

“Stark’s upstairs.” She sarcastically replied. She grabbed the coat from Sam’s outstretched hand and threw it over her shoulders. She sighed loudly as she did so.

“Rough day?”

She nodded, “I don’t know who’s stressing me out more, Bucky or Steve.”

#marvel #marvel imagine #marvel fan fiction #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers #sam wilson #scott lang #marvel imagines #marvel fan fic #bruce banner #tony stark #post civil war #marvel au #bucky barnes au #slowburn #very slowburn

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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Hello! I have been a huge history nerd for most of my life and recently decided i would like to pursue history as a possible career, by I've recently been discouraged. I've had career counselors at my school and my parents and friends say that I should look to other careers because history simply isn't a lucrative job. I'd really like to know your thoughts since you're a historian. Btw I really look up to you and love your blog! So, thoughts on careers/colleges and the sort?

Aww, haha. You are sweet.

First, I will caveat at the outset that academia is a stressful and often stupid profession, nor is it, indeed, very lucrative. Nobody gets into it because they are expecting to make it rain, or because they enjoy not being constantly in doubt about their future/how things are going to string together/where they are going to end up next/if they will possibly have a full-time job by the time they are in their mid-thirties/etc. For example, I finish my PhD next summer, at which point I will need to immediately start applying for either postdoctoral fellowships, or see if I’m lucky enough to stumble upon that one junior lecturer/assistant research position that wants my exact research interests. Postdoc fellowships could be anywhere from three months to three years. Visiting/junior lectureships are usually for a contract of one or two years. You can string any number of these together (if you’re lucky) until/if you get a permanent position somewhere. This could also and probably will involve moving every year or two, so you don’t really get to settle down for a while. You will have to keep up your career/participation in academia, work to publish papers/go to conferences etc, while also paying the bills somehow. Sometimes the right opportunity falls into your lap, sometimes it doesn’t. You just have to keep grinding and hope that it does.

(And no, the pay is not anything to aspire to. I’m currently junior/doctoral student faculty in the department, teaching one class a semester, and yeah. It’s better if you’re salaried or getting a stipend, and I’m lucky enough to have my full tuition fees paid by scholarship. So if you want to be rich, this is not the job for you. But as ever, it improves as you go, and if you get a permanent position, you will be paid at least enough to live on. So we’re not talking cardboard-box-under-a-bridge levels of poverty.)

If that hasn’t scared you off, then we can go on to what I regard as the most important part. I’m always of the opinion that life is way too short to be doing anything other than what you love and are good at, and if you deliberately pick something you don’t like and don’t have passion for, on the expectation that it will make you money… well, that’s one way to live, and I’m sure people do well for themselves by it. But it sounds exhausting, horrible, and eventually soul-crushing to me, and which is why, despite all the clearly enunciated drawbacks listed above, I’d still rather be doing this than anything else. You don’t get to final-year PhD status (and the clutches of incipient insanity, but never mind that) without really loving it, and I do. I stumbled a bit ass backwardly into doing it as a career, but it really gives me a rush and an enjoyment and a delight which I have to hang onto during the hard sloggy bits or no-money bits or the “oh god it’s 11pm and I’ve been working on my thesis for the last ten hours” bits. And part of that is because in my view, in this current world, historians are more fucking important than ever, and this work really, really matters.

We’ve all remarked upon the way “historical accuracy” is used to justify bad treatment of women in period dramas, or the way narratives of an imagined medieval past are used by right-wing nationalists, or how “that’s totally medieval” is used as a synonym for something barbaric, etc. I always like to say that it astounds me how much people are totally confident they know what the medieval era was like, despite never having learned a thing about it. I’m also a medievalist of the generation that is pushing back and deconstructing medieval history’s previous reputation as a safe place for straight, white, Christian men to write a straight, white, Christian man’s history. I just got the syllabus the other day for the class I’m teaching in the spring semester, and I was totally delighted, because it’s basically the class I would have designed myself. It’s about medieval narratives in the modern world, and touches upon (among other things) the relevance/use of the crusades in the “war on terror,” the treatment of women in medieval fantasy dramas (a la Game of Thrones), the connection to right-wing nationalism and claimed histories and etc – all subjects on which I have written and thought about a lot and also posted about frequently on here. So yes, I can teach the shit out of that class, and trust me, it’s a good feeling when you can walk into work every day and know that you are doing something, however you can, about the terrifying and idiotic shitstorm that is the world right now. You are teaching people how to think about and identify these things and push back on them, and they in turn will teach other people how to do it. It’s an awfully small step, but we have to start somewhere.

History as a career also requires a major educational commitment – 4 years for a bachelor’s degree, 2 years for a master’s, and at least 3 for a PhD. That’s almost ten years at the minimum, assuming you have the means to study full time, and it will involve a lot of writing; I wrote a senior thesis (25 pages/10k words), a master’s thesis (60 pages/20k words), and I’m now working on a doctoral dissertation (~270 pages/100k words), after going through a program that emphasized writing, so I was doing 25-30 page papers for every class as an undergraduate. Especially as you move into postgraduate level, you have to be good about motivating yourself, because your time will be less structured. It is up to you to be the one to make it count, and you will also have to have a memory or at least the capability to use something to remember tons of tiny details. It will involve a lot of close reading of obscure texts, and probably language learning (in my case it’s been Latin and French, also Latin is terrible and nobody likes it and if I was smart, I would have avoided it, but hey). You will also have to have a thick hide, both for constructive criticism and for the constant rejection that comes with it. You will not get positions or university offers or scholarships or awards that you really, really wanted, and it takes a certain resilience to be able to move past that and not let it reflect personally on you and your abilities. It does, however, happen to everyone, so at least we can swallow the bitter Moral of the Story pill together?

Overall, my assessment is that we badly need more intelligent, trained, socially aware, and intersectional historians, and if you want to do it, the constant “but it’s not lucrative!!!” protests shouldn’t put you off. As I said above, it’s a serious commitment, it’s weird and stressful and work-intensive, and if you can see yourself being happy in any other career, you should probably do that instead. Doing something academically and professionally isn’t the same as doing it as a hobby, of course, but it does start with a love of the subject and the ability to see yourself doing it intensively and long-term, and as I said, I just feel like life’s far too short to pick something you only think will make you rich (since if you hate it, that’s years of your life you can’t get back, and it might not work out anyway).

I’m always happy to answer questions to the best of my ability, if you want to drop back in. And happy historinerding.

#history #luleraina #ask

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crimethinc · 7 years

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UNControllables: The Story of an Anarchist Student Group And How to Organize Your Own

It’s that time of year again, when students head back to school. With the government lurching towards tyranny and fascists killing people on the streets, it has never been more pressing to organize on campuses to promote self-determination and collective defense against oppression. This is especially pressing because from Berkeley to Charlottesville, the far-right has set their sites on campuses as a place to recruit future stormtroopers and suppress critiques of authoritarian power. If you are a student yourself, now is the time to lay your plans—whether that means founding a formal student group, coordinating an informal network, or at least preparing to distribute literature. To do our part, we will be publishing a series of articles exploring different examples of student organizing. In this account, a veteran student organizer relates the story of how an anarchist student organization got off the ground and everything you need to know to do it yourself, from filling out paperwork to organizing a Radical Rush.

In the Beginning

The idea for an anarchist student group ranked pretty low in my ambitions when I was accepted to the University of North Carolina. It wasn’t because I shared the long-term career goals of my classmates, nor their short-term goals of getting fucked up every weekend. The thing is, I had already been an anarchist for over a decade. In terms of my social life and political priorities, I was an anarchist first and a student second. Plus, the radical student groups I had encountered turned me off—they were short-lived carousels focused on intra-university reforms. I wasn’t invested in democratizing the university; I wanted to loot it and redistribute its resources for revolutionary purposes.

“On the other hand,” I told myself, “if I’m going to spend most of my time on campus anyway, I may as well make the most of it.” Besides, we had a good name: The UNControllables.

The UNControllables didn’t start as your typical student group. Three of us had spent a decade doing the DIY traveler thing. We only became students as a kind of late twenties punk retirement, the age at which better grants are available. The fourth person behind our idea was a spiritual omnivore graduate student that we met through Occupy who was doing his dissertation on Christian video games—in other words, a total freak. We didn’t operate with the same goals as other student groups. We weren’t about building campus campaigns or recruiting as many students as possible. We had our eyes on the money. Literally: Student Congress funds.

Before the group was even officially registered, the punks dipped out. It felt like a bad joke—a collective of two? As the last punk left, I felt especially betrayed. Hadn’t we spent the majority of our teens and twenties scamming and stealing? Compared to that, what was filling out a few forms to get our hands on potentially thousands of dollars? Perhaps it wasn’t a sufficiently antagonistic form of wealth redistribution for the punks, or perhaps they had joined the list, thousands long, of punks who really do treat college as a kind of retirement. In any case, then there were two.

Every group has to start somewhere. A traditional introduction to campus organizing would focus on collective practices: outreach, consensus decision-making, vision and strategy. Anarchism has a rich, diverse history regarding the question of organization, but for this account to be honest I have to admit that in the beginning we relied on a different kind of anarchism—the kind that values the initiative, the will, the irreducible self of that taboo subject that haunts anarchist history: the individual!

Click above for a downloadable PDF.

Basic guides to campus organizing presume you have a crew who are all down to collaborate and participate equally with you. If you do, that’s great! Unfortunately, sometimes there’s just one crazy firebrand and maybe their sidekick friend who has an idealistic opinion about Bitcoin and is into the Carlos miniseries on Netflix. Or maybe there are a number of student radicals who identify as anarchists, but choose to dedicate their time and effort to specific campaigns, like sweatshop divestment or gender-non-discriminatory housing, and don’t have the time for another group. DO NOT LET THIS DETER YOU!

The anarchist valorization of the individual was important when there were only two of us. We didn’t allow lack of membership to hold us back from taking action. If participation only serves to legitimize activity that we want to carry out regardless, then the imagined mass of participants is simply another authority we need to bypass in order to act.

This is not to say that the UNControllables always relied on individual efforts. But for a six-month period at the beginning, it sure depended on the work of two of us! If we had decided to give up because there weren’t enough members, we never would have had a third member, and eventually a fourth. And then, eventually, dozens!

The measure of success for any anarchist group shouldn’t be how big it is, but rather how well it equips all of its participants to maximize their individual potential. It’s worth remembering this, even after more people join—lest the group suddenly be reduced to a collective of two again. No need to get all Britta Perry about that shit.

Paperwork

Actually registering our student group was a piece of cake, even with only two members! In our registration we had to write something about why our group was unique and relevant. We researched how many books about anarchism, by anarchists, or from anarchist publishers were in the library as a way to argue that the university had already demonstrated a vested interest in the subject. We also cited professors who had published works touching on anarchism, especially anything published by the university. Lastly, we touched on current events and the resurgence of “anarchist” as a household word. After we got approved, we had to submit our organization’s bylaws and constitution. Literally, all we did was copy the RNC Welcoming Committee’s “points of unity” and some instructions for consensus decision-making from the internet and pasted them into a word document. It was that easy. When any online form included a field for “organization president” or any other office, we simply wrote, “We are a non-hierarchical organization.” This came in handy later when we faced more institutional scrutiny, since one way administrators try to pressure radical groups is by pressuring its officers or the people otherwise most officially associated with the group.

Finding a faculty sponsor was easy for us, as one of the school’s professors was on the board of our local infoshop. However, this is one part of the process that has a lot of potential for problems. Ideally, you want a faculty sponsor to be three things: supportive, hands-off, and tenured. On rare occasions, you might want your faculty sponsor involved in the group itself, but in general they stand to lose more from being associated with a rowdy group of troublemakers than they have to gain. Involving a professor can lead to power imbalances within the group, in which the professional limits on your sponsor guide what the group decides to do or not. This is also why you want your sponsor to be tenured, so it’s less easy for the university to threaten them in order to pressure your group.

In the end, all we really accomplished in our first year was officially registering the group and holding an interest meeting, an anarchist FAQ event, and a Steal Something from Work Day film festival.

Radical Rush

Although we didn’t get a ton done in our first year, we did learn one thing: a little bit of détournement goes a long way on campus. People loved our name. So, for our next big idea we decided to employ more clever wordplay: Radical Rush Week. For those lucky enough to not know what a “rush week” is, it’s a week at the beginning of the semester during which fraternities and sororities recruit new members through ritual hazing, drunken oblivion, and competitive feats of conformity. It’s gross. On the other hand, we liked the idea of an intensive week of activity for new radicals at UNC to get acquainted with the rebel scenes on and off campus, so we dubbed our first big event Radical Rush Week.

Radical Rush Week was the UNControllables’ real debut onto the campus scene. We tried to organize with other student groups, reaching out and offering each a day of the week to fill with a workshop or activity of their choice. This didn’t really work. A lot of the groups were too disorganized to put anything together, but didn’t let us know that until it was time to publish the Radical Rush calendars. The one group that did take on a day—a “student power” communist front-group—didn’t reciprocate with ANY of their members attending our other events. Later on, we heard from a comrade who worked with them that their leadership was “terrified” of our organizing. Radical Rush Week was a success overall, but only in spite of the other student groups we reached out to.

On the other hand, including off-campus anarchist activities like our local Really Really Free Market, a workshop at our local infoshop, a books-to-prisoners packing day, and an off-campus punk show was an unqualified success. Throughout the UNControllables’ existence, drawing from the connections and experience of off-campus anarchists has been crucial. More experienced anarchists helped by suggesting speakers to invite and passed on lessons about organizing. Our off-campus connections also meant we had something unique to offer students, in contrast to groups who claim a radical view of the world but never step out of the university bubble.

When we organized Radical Rush Week the following year, we decided to fill it with events we wanted to see ourselves, rather than trying to make it representative of the campus activist scene as a whole. We were able to host the Stimulator from subMedia, an anarchist-feminist sex worker, anarchist panther Ashanti Alston, and a journalist who documented police surveillance of local anarchists—all on the university’s dime.

Going all anarchist worked out much better for us. By organizing events that we ourselves wanted to see, rather than ones we thought would “bring out the most people,” those of us in the group still felt like we got something out of the events that didn’t have a huge attendance. Since the events were explicitly anarchist, seeing the same faces at multiple events throughout the week meant we were able to build relationships with people on that basis and invite them into the group. The people who were attracted to our group after our second Radical Rush were more enthusiastic about working with us specifically. The previous year, most of the new members split their energy between multiple student groups, leaving just a handful of us to do most of the work—not exactly a collective dynamic.

Click above for a downloadable PDF.

The membership in our second year demonstrated another advantage to having an anarchist presence on campus—we attracted folks from a different social body than other local anarchist groups. In North America, there aren’t a lot of spaces that produce new anarchists. Mostly, folks get into it through subcultural activity or street protests. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. The author of this piece would even go so far as to say that if we recognize that anarchist ideas and practices circulate within particular subcultures, we should put effort into keeping those spaces vibrant and rebellious. On the other hand, the fact that our group was made up of people who don’t fit the stereotype of young anarchists made it really special. All kinds of students flocked to our group: an adult student with a country drawl who fled the US to spend his teens and early 20s in China training in martial arts; the president of the school’s Muslim Student Association who learned about anarchism through a class on neoliberalism; a runaway from a fundamentalist Christian household who was squatting the university (he spent Thanksgiving break sleeping in the philosophy department); various students whose parents migrated to the US fleeing harsh conditions; and a local high school student who took advanced classes at UNC. We were our very own special kind of crew that didn’t fit into the popular culture on campus, but also didn’t fit the anarchist subcultural norm. On the other hand, most of our crew was white, which we eventually had to reckon with.

The DisOrientation Guide

After a few semesters, we learned two important lessons for campus organizing. One, the students’ workload grows as the semester proceeds; this makes it increasingly difficult to get things done. Two, the beginning of the fall semester is the sweet spot for attracting students to your group’s activities.

Consequently, we decided to pack the start of the fall semester with activity and outreach, even participating in boring official incoming student events—since we were, after all, an officially registered student organization. A word of advice: as wretched as official student outreach events are, it’s where a lot of disaffected students who don’t fit into the frat culture will end up. We met a lot of our members and collaborators at these functions. Table these events, get a good spot, be aggressive with your propaganda, sign people up to an email list. The main thing we handed out to students was a zine we compiled every summer called The Disorientation Guide. Seriously, a little wordplay goes a long way on campus.

The Disorientation Guide included the schedule of Radical Rush Week events, a map of town highlighting local DIY spaces and subversive projects, “ads” for local groups that folks could plug into, and—this UNControllable’s favorite part—a full summary of the last year of resistance in our local area. It was a perfect group project, since it involved clear tasks (writing, compiling information about local groups, layout, gathering art and images to use) that could be divided up and completed wherever each contributor spent summer break.

We include here a PDF of one of our Disorientation Guides as a template for other anarchist student groups:

Click above for a downloadable PDF.

The Money

Not all universities offer funding for student groups, but if yours does, GET IT. No offense to the young people reading this, but UNC had literal teenagers in charge of distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for student activities—it was easy to woo and impress them. Besides student government, there were a lot of other sources of grants and funding: individual departments, a body specifically for funding the activities of graduate students (including student groups they were involved in), the student union’s activity and entertainment board, and smaller funds for specific themes or topics that some of our events happened to fit. Each of these was hidden away on the internet in some nether URL and involved a slew of paperwork or electronic fields to complete, but they usually paid off.

The first semester that we asked for money, we had no idea what we were doing. Surprisingly, even though it was our first time, we did a lot better at correctly navigating the student congress bureaucracy than some groups that had existed for years. We came up with all the barely justifiable expenditures we could imagine within their funding-request fields: office space, office supplies, stipends for speakers, lodging for speakers, gas money, van rentals, printing funds, postage… you name it. We figured we’d make do with whatever money they were willing to give us.

In the end, we requested the second biggest budget of any group that year. Oops. Sorry not sorry.

Aiming high paid off. We got $4000 in funding that semester. Most of that money went toward paying for the visa applications and airfare for anarchists from Brazil to speak about the 2013 uprising there. Afterward, they were able to tour the east coast presenting on anarchism and popular struggles in Brazil. Funding wasn’t the only university resource we were able to support them with, either. Some faculty in the Latin American Studies department wrote up an official letter of invitation, which made it much easier for our comrades to secure visas.

Click above for a downloadable PDF.

But of course, haters gonna hate. Especially when those haters are College Republicans and they receive less funding than your anarchist group. That semester, Student Congress rejected a proposal by the College Republicans to bring a pro-fracking speaker to campus… bringing their approved budget down to a thousand dollars less than the UNControllables! This led to a ridiculous small-scale controversy in which they “protested” the next Student Congress hearing—pretty tamely by anarchist standards, we might add. They kind of just stood together in the far corner of the room, silently. Fox News eventually picked up the story, which allowed the College Republicans to crowdsource the funding for their speaker anyway. But we weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to humiliate whiny rich kids.

The following week, we sent out press releases announcing that, in a surprise turn of events, the UNControllables would be holding a fundraiser for the College Republicans in front of the Old Well, a drinking fountain inside a rotunda that is the symbol of the university. On the big day, we built a PVC “fracking rig” next to the Old Well and announced our scheme: “If the College Republicans want more money from UNC, why don’t we follow their advice and drill baby drill… starting right here at the heart of UNC! Frack the Old Well!” We held signs that said “Who needs clean drinking water anyway?” and handed out tinted, murky “fracked water” so passersby could experience the benefits of fracking first hand.

This stunt may sound dumb. It was definitely silly. But it was fun—and that little bit of fun went a long way for our group dynamics.

Here is our “Frack the Old Well” statement in full:

“Before we reveal our fundraising plan for the Republicans, we want to explain why an anarchist group would do something like this. In case you haven’t followed the ‘funding gate’ controversy, let me break it down for you. The College Republicans could not convince Student Congress that their events were worth more than our anarchist events. Specifically, student congress cut $5,000 for an event of theirs defending fracking, a method of natural gas extraction linked with cancer, polluted water, and climate change. Having had $10,000 cut from our own proposed budget, we felt their pain. It can be humiliating to grovel at the feet of government for a handout, while certain political bodies question whether you deserve access to such resources. The Republicans must truly understand now what it’s like for millions who are forced to turn to welfare to survive. Luckily for them, the College Republicans were quickly able to attract wealthy donors by complaining publicly about ‘funding gate,’ which got them twice what they were originally asking for from Student Congress. We applaud this solution, and encourage the Republicans to share the names and addresses of their rich donors so poor people everywhere can redistribute private wealth until nobody even needs government handouts. Obviously, the Republicans have access to corporate money to bring their pro-fracking speakers to campus anyway, but they would prefer to use money generated from the rest of us, especially if it takes away from radical causes. However, anarchists at UNC have brainstormed a lucrative fundraising scheme for the Republicans that achieves all these goals—frack the Old Well!

“If fracking is such a good idea, why not start right here at UNC with the center of UNC, the Old Well? Supporters of fracking like the College Republicans ignore the consequences of devastated land and polluted watersheds, since they’re not the ones with water coming out of their taps that you can literally set on fire. They emphasize the economic benefits for landowners and small businesses, who can gain a few temporary jobs in exchange for forcing the rest of us to kiss clean drinking water goodbye.

“By bringing hydro-fracking to UNC, we can allow the entire student body to enjoy the benefits of natural gas extraction: poisoned water, fire hazards, accidental spills, free floating carcinogens, and plenty of profit for the rich at the expense of you and me: something Republicans love. The College Republicans complain that Student Congress reveals a liberal bias, but when it comes to sacrificing our health and environment for short-term profit, Democrats and Republicans have put their differences aside to find common ground. The Obama administration has praised fracking, while Democrat governors from Jerry Brown to Earl Ray Tomblin are jockeying to see who can sell out their people and their land for the quickest buck.

“But we’re not just focused on the College Republicans here. If this fundraiser is successful, we’re going to bring a proposal to the Board of Governors that students in the entire UNC system can solve the budget crisis by fracking their own universities. The state legislature is far too busy to help students who will have to drop out if tuition keeps rising. Instead, they’re hard at work closing women’s health services and giving tax breaks to corporations. So let’s do our part by fracking the Old Well right here in Chapel Hill. Hope you’re stocked up on bottled water.

“Honestly though, the true rivalry brought out by ‘funding-gate’ is not between liberals and conservatives. The true rivalry is between the haves and the have-nots. The rich at this school, like the rich throughout the rest of society, are used to getting their way and used to getting our money. But things are changing at UNC the way things are changing in Turkey, in Brazil, in Spain and Greece and northern Africa. That’s why we applied for Student Congress money, to bring participants in these movements to come speak and help us understand how our struggles are connected throughout the world. People everywhere are standing up against exploitation and oppression, and if the College Republicans want to use our money to further advance the interests of the rich, at the expense of our land and our health, they better be prepared for a fight.”

Having Fun

Not only did it feel good to have fun together, but the “Frack the Old Well” event showed that a sense of humor was really healthy for our group overall. We carried out a number of other fun stunts. We organized a “march against bullshit,” we distributed call-and-response sheets to disorient the fundamentalist Christian preacher who would lambast sinners in the middle of campus, we sent loads of silly letters to the school newspaper. Yet the most over-the-top response we ever got was when we decided to troll the student union’s screening of The Purge: Anarchy.

One of the ways the university vainly tries to keep students from getting shit-faced obliterated every weekend is by offering free screenings of recently debuted movies. When we heard that The Purge: Anarchy was coming up, we felt like it was our personal duty to defend the good name of anarchy, or at least the good reasons for it to have a bad reputation. We wrote a letter to the editor announcing our intentions to troll hard and set up a table in the lobby with real anarchist riot porn. The following day, the assistant dean of students started calling the letter’s authors, and continued to do so each day up until the movie. We were getting nervous that the university was going to take this a little too seriously.

Then, another problem arose—we pirated a copy of the movie and it turned out that The Purge: Anarchy is actually pretty fucking good! It’s basically a class war movie where the protagonists side with an underground army of poor black revolutionaries set on overthrowing the oppressive, racist ruling class. Fuck yeah!

So, rather than trolling the movie as hard as we originally planned to, we took a cue from the A for Anarchy project and used the movie to promote our ideas. But we still trolled a little bit. We printed pamphlets with one anarcho-geek’s review of the movie on the inside, and an “audience participation” guide on the back.

When we showed up early to stake out a good spot for handing out flyers, we were surprised to witness a squad of armed police officers with bulletproof vests and a bomb-sniffing dog exiting the theater. The officer with the dog then confirmed with the ticket takers that everything was “clear.” The cops remained in the theater for the rest of the movie. It was so fucking weird. However, it did make for a lot of fun whenever our crew of anarchists and sympathizers, rolling deep by the way, cheered and applauded the “purging” of a government tool in the movie. The letters-to-the-editor section for the following week was filled with back-and-forth letters about whether the police presence was justified or “an unnecessary show of force… threatening violence and courting tragedy.”

And Then It Got Real

We were able to be so silly with The Purge: Anarchyand “Frack the Old Well” responses because they didn’t really matter to any other group. On the other hand, with the rising Black Lives Matter wave of actions in the fall of 2014, we found that we had to put more consideration into how we would interact with the other groups and people who were also invested in responding. At the beginning of the semester, a couple newer UNControllables reached out to some of the black student organizations on campus to put together a “Support Ferguson Resistance Rally.” The various organizations involved had different expectations about how it would go

When the rally turned into an unpermitted march that blocked the main intersection in town, one of the co-organizers from a black poetry group grabbed the crowd’s attention and shouted, “This is not in the spirit of Ferguson! It is a time for healing! We should be mourning!” After a tense moment, folks began to yell back:

“This is how Ferguson is mourning!” one protestor responded.

“In Ferguson they mourned by burning down the QT!” another said.

“This IS how I mourn!”

For the rest of the march, participants respectfully debated with each other about what kinds of responses were needed in the wake of police murders and popular rebellion. Looking back, this probably should have been how the rally began, rather than defaulting to anarchist habit and hurrying to march. Later that fall, at the rallies in response to the non-indictments of the cops who killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner, these discussions took place collectively before people stepped off from the rallying points. In one case, the discussion was limited to people of color. Not rushing to march and first holding an assembly over what to do meant these later marches had considerable more buy-in from participants for the confrontational tactics used at them, including highway blockades and scuffles with the police—way beyond simply blocking an intersection for a few minutes in a small college town.

While the face-to-face discussions towards the end of the Support Ferguson Resistance Rally were respectful and engaging, a Facebook thread of dismissive bickering appeared afterwards and got totally out of control. Both sides of the Facebook argument were left less willing to trust each other moving forward, including between UNControllables members. On the one hand, some UNControllables thought the march was hasty and the defense of it on Facebook disrespectful. On the other hand, one of the people who helped organize the march felt hung out to dry after putting in their best intentions and effort. Worse yet, the two sides of the Facebook argument seemed to run along racial lines, with one side blaming white anarchists for their discomforts with the march, and white anarchists on the other side posting defensive tirades. The division between the two sides ran deep and led to some members not speaking to each other for weeks.

In addition to the internal conflicts, this was the first semester that our group finally came up against the state and university authorities. We found out that the university copyshop where we made all our flyers was handing over copies of our materials to the police. The dean of students was harassing us and asking to speak to us individually. The Durham Police Department released a report after the Black Lives Matter marches blaming out-of-town anarchists for directing all of the illegal activity at the march, mentioning the UNControllables, by name, as part of this supposed cabal.

This signaled an uptick in surveillance. Not to say it was high quality surveillance: when it came to describing what exactly anarchists did at these marches, the Durham PD wrote that, “the anarchist element will commit acts of anarchy.” Ooookay? More frighteningly, a couple of people close to our group were arrested and ended the semester facing charges, although not for UNControllables-related activity.

Concluding / Beginning

We hope that this short history can inspire similar anarchist student groups, so it may seem counterintuitive to end this story on the dour note of repression from above, conflict between us, and bleak prospects ahead. But I want to end on this low point precisely because it wasn’t the end of our group. Through two years of collective organizing and mutual aid, the relationships within the UNControllables had grown to a point that we wanted to learn from our mistakes and improve our efforts together. Rather than abandoning the group when faced with conflict and repression, everyone chose to talk through the disagreements and support each other through the hard times.

In response to the fallout from the Support Ferguson Resistance Rally, we had an hours-long discussion to repair the relationships within our group and discuss how to interact with other groups in future organizing. Let me put that another way: instead of cold-shouldering each other and dismissively bickering over the internet, 21st century teenagers got together, in person, to talk out their disagreements! Also, some of us took away the lesson that if your chief goal with an anarchist student group is to appropriate resources, it’s best not to brand confrontational engagements of questionable legality with your group’s name.

Three years after this low point, the UNControllables is still around. In fact, when Trump won the election, the very same tactic that sparked conflict in the Support Ferguson Resistance Rally—occupying the main intersection in town—was the go-to tactic everyone used to demonstrate resistance against the Trump regime. This time, it lasted for hours. Pushing the envelope is not always popular or easy, but it can open the popular imagination to more ambitious possibilities, in preparation for times when everyone recognizes the importance of challenging the status quo.

Despite the rough patches, not to mention various embarrassing mistakes made in the course of being a young group with young members, the UNControllables was one of the easiest anarchist projects I’ve participated in, and it had direct results. We were able to redistribute resources in support of anarchist struggles all over the world. We attracted new anarchists from social bodies that had little-to-no recent anarchist presence. We opened up other rebel students’ imaginations about what resistance can look like.

We hope that this account will encourage anarchists who find themselves attending universities to do the same.

Appendix: Six Questions with Today’s UNControllables

To follow up on this history, we caught up with current members of the UNControllables and asked them a few questions.

Has the fact that the UNControllables has a five-year history done anything to help or hurt current organizing?

Our history as a student organization in many ways emboldens us to keep acting and keep fighting. We’ve been lucky enough to have past members pass down organizing knowledge while simultaneously acknowledging the ways the UNControllables has changed with different members and adjusting to different contemporary needs.

Speaking as a group that existed for a few years before the Trump era, and continues to exist now, what kind of advice would you give to others who want to start campus anarchist groups?

Know your history. Know the history of the university. Know the history of your town or city. Investigate deeper into what led to the problems we have now and how that relates to your specific context. There’s a lot going on right now, but grounding yourself in your place, diversifying your tactics, and collaborating with other groups can help a lot.

How do you balance your crazy, revolutionary aspirations with the banal, day-to-day rigmarole of accomplishing a university education?

Everyone has a different way of balancing university education and activism, but in general, we try to implement a division of labor where different members “bottomline” different tasks that they have time for, in order to work towards our goals and objectives. Volunteering for the role of bottomliner means holding the primary responsibility for making an event happen, hopefully with the assistance of whoever else is available and interested.

What can non-university, off-campus anarchists do to help spur the growth of anarchist student groups at their local universities?

The distribution of information about anarchism and liberation movements is one of the best way to help spur the growth of radical student organization, by giving students an introduction to radical politics. Beyond this, off-campus anarchists can help by collaborating with student groups on presentations, workshops, and skill-sharing sessions.

What role do you see student groups playing in the anarchist movement as a whole?

Radical student groups can act as an introduction to radical politics for students who haven’t been exposed to theses ideas before, as well as providing education and information to those who want to learn more. At the same time, they act as a catalyst for campus activism and provide an organizational structure for planning other kinds of action.

Being so funding-centered in terms of your organizing, did the money ever cause problems in the group?

Given the nature of our organization, the funding we receive from student government is always precarious. Even with the funding we get, it’s not uncommon for us to have to find ways to scrounge up more to cover all of our events and activities.

Contact: CarolinaUNControllables(at)gmail(dot)com

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sixmorningsafter · 7 years

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How Gabi Ruined Me: A SMA Review of Ch. 15

GUESS WHO’S BACK AND READY TO REVIEW THE EFF OUT OF THIS CHAPTER BECAUSE OMG THIS IS STRAIGHT GOLD.

It’s me, hi Gabi, you’re a blessing.

REPLY:

Hi Cassie, it’s me, you’re hysterical. Also, I’m going to start indenting my parts instead of y’alls parts because I’ve realized that’s way easier and I’m dumb.

Overall, I really like this “episode” style you’ve got going on. I know it’s problematic word-count-wise (it’s actually not a problem at all, I have no idea where you got that from, but if you say so). And your style is really unique, so it’s always a delight to see what you’ve created.

REPLY:

lmaoooo I’m glad you benefit from my misery. (No but real talk, this format’s new for me so I’m super happy it’s working for you, man.)

Steroline Sex

Nice. But also, unrelated to the actual sex, how you wrote it without being cringey or too graphic is a great feat. Like good job dude. And forget the sex again, but the intimacy was also nice. Like nice. Like, in the carnality of it, I find it interesting that in this moment, you read Stefan for who he is—the guy who looks for intimacy over physicality, the guy who craves the relational over the carnal. Like, nice, dude, A+ with extra credit. It’s hard to pull off, I think, but it so mirrors what the real world is like? Also your writing style, again, is some really great stuff. Like, maybe you should quit your day job?

REPLY:

LMAO idk why but every time you say nice I just imagine you doing this dude bro nod and the 👌 emoji and I love it. Tyler approves. But also, GIRL, writing smut was friggin’ uncharted adventure time for me so you don’t even know how happy this feedback makes me. I’ve been pulled right out of stories before because things suddenly take a really porny turn (and I start laughing because I’m an infant), so I really wanted to avoid that without skimping out too much on details. And gah, all of your notes on Stefan and his instinctive search for something deeper (even in the face of a sex contract and hot girl on his lap) are so perfect, and I’m happy as hell that’s what came across because that’s definitely what I was aiming for. And AW, girl, psh - right back at you re: writing style! Like I’m pretty sure this review is funnier and better written than the fic itself but whaaaaatever.

Beginning of the Bonkaimon (is this the right ship name???) Date

Kai’s apartment: lol, much like Damon, I was no expecting this Christmas wonderland (horror) either. But also, LOL at what Damon was expecting lol.

REPLY:

lololol I sat in Starbucks and stared blankly into space for like 20 minutes to come up with all the things someone might expect from Kai’s apartment, and I’m pretty sure I terrified at least three people because I’d just suddenly start villain cackling. Imagining a room full of nothing but shelves of blinking furbies made me laugh for like five minutes.

Kai + Pinterest: not a big factor, but I find it hilarious that he was even on it??? Like could imagine, between gutting a swan, he’s casually scrolling through DIY Christmas décor?

REPLY:

‘between gutting a swan, he enjoys casually scrolling through DIY Christmas décor’ is totally on his online dating profile somewhere

The Bamon back-and-forth is too much. Like way too much, in the best way possible. They are literally children. Bonnie’s “villian origin story” quip is literally my fav. Damon’s “our thing” is sooooooooooooo like him what the heck, you pegged it; Damon saying “Like I know we have a thing and all, but—“ just made me laugh so hard.

REPLY:

Aren’t they the dumbest? So happy you enjoyed that part because it was fun as hell to write. If writing was just zippy dialogue I’d have finished this fic 200 years ago.

KAI’S FREAK OUT ABOUT THE COATS: dude you did a good job with that. Like a really good job. You can really see the distraught.

Kai’s “the stuffed mushrooms are fluffy and delicious… just like me” bit was very cute, like too cute for a psychopath.

The chit-chat: yes, it was a sneak peek, no, it didn’t affect the hilarity of it within the chapter at all.

Sniper love, I kind of love it. Like that Kai has a date at all? Like how did he even manage that? Omg and is his date just as crazy as him? Idk if you watch B99, but Holt and Kevin lol, that’s what I’m imagining.

REPLY:

HOLT AND KEVIN YEEEESSS. Love that. I think in this case, Kai’s pretending to be breezy and confident about his date in front of Bonnie and Damon, like ‘happens all the time just another Saturday in Kai-town’, but he actually has literally no idea what he’s doing and is a little panicky about it, lololol. He was probably just at work looking all cute and brilliant and some hotshot sniper made the mistake of thinking he was just a quirky nerd instead of a legitimate threat to the planet. I have a plan for Kai in terms of romantic entanglements down the road that I think’ll show just how painfully awkward he is in those situations, loooool. Should be fun for sure.

Bonnie’s true self coming through, and Damon noticing? Damon noticing in general? My heart can’t handle it. You know bamon is my main ship, main otp, main everything? But like, this part is everything (and another part later). I like Bonnie’s true self tbh. Like yeah, she made some mistakes with it, but it’s also a little more interesting than the self she created.

REPLY:

Bonnie’s such a messy tangle of flaws and virtues, and I think her problem is that she’s spent so much of her life living in extremes. Like she’s either pure light or a total eclipse - she’s never actually let herself exist as a collage of light and shadow, or rather, doesn’t realize she even can. I think a lot of that has to do with the degree to which she indulged in her darkness during that teen rebel phase, like her anger and hurt were so all-consuming (and the people she surrounded herself with were so intent on stoking the flames of it) that she feels like she can’t let any part of that in without it taking over. She’s afraid of that darkness being all that she really is, and that’s why her mom left, that’s why her dad was a checked out alcoholic - they somehow saw that in her and it’s only a matter of time before everyone else does, too. I think where Damon comes to play is that he’s an instinctive observer of people, and he’s obviously taken an interest in Bonnie and making sense of her. So far, he’s picked up on the light (brave, empathetic, optimistic, kind, a fierce instinct to help) and he’s picked up on the dark (angry, self-sabotaging, competitive, a taste for danger) and at first glance, the two seem so wildly different that he’s like ‘which one’s real’. But I think what I’m really trying to build toward with Bonnie is that she’s not one or the other, she’s both. In harmony. And that ultimately, letting in her ‘dark side’ wouldn’t take anything away from her compassion and optimism and impassioned drive to make the world a better place - if anything, it’d just make her light side shine even brighter, you know?

And likewise, Damon’s a character with a similar but inverted complex - he’s somehow grown up with the idea that he’s not a good guy and doesn’t care about anything, but he’s actually done some pretty heroic shit? Like, he turned in his own parents because of the things they were doing to people - parents who grown ass hardened criminals were terrified of. And he was ten. He went through foster home after foster home of neglect and abuse, all of which calcified his alleged numbness to the world, and yet couldn’t help himself from becoming a constant buffer between Tyler and his abusive dad. He was more in love with Katherine than she ever was with him and yet his awareness of that never stopped him from being there for her, even when he kind of hated her, because the weight of their shitty lives mattered more than the weight of his feelings. When he accidentally pushed Bonnie into a spiral, he dove in to deal with it, in large part because it was his fault, but also because he knew he was the best option for her, and he didn’t want to see Caroline and Stefan take that on. And there’s more hero-revealing things ahead for him in the story, which kind of begs the question, ‘why are you so convinced you’re this hedonist who doesn’t care when you actually do more good than a lot of people who do care?’ And Bonnie is absolutely starting to piece this all together, so it’s a similar dynamic on either side. Anyway, that’s my dissertation on how to go into an entirely unsolicited rambling meta in response to wonderful and pertinent feedback.

Kai’s “you two must have a crazy sex life”, I think it’s funny ‘cause he could have left it at that and gotten away with it, but continuing with details just killed those chances (and it also killed me).

REPLY:

looool right? Kai’s one of those characters that’s always right on the cusp of having a normal moment and then nope, never mind, hail mary throw to loony land right at the last second.

Caroline’s Freakout

I love how chaotic you write Caroline’s internal struggle. Because, like she realizes, she’s being irrational, and that’s exactly how her thoughts come across. Excellent work with that. “Everything about him was a goddamn error,” superb line, dude. That’s how exactly how I pegged the sma Steroline relationship (and the sma Bamon one, but on the side of Bonnie being the error anomaly to Damon). Like, honestly, when Caroline’s like “he’d known what he was doing”, I’m like,” y’all were having sex? You must’ve looked like you were liking it???” Caroline frustrates me sometimes, but like, she’s frustrating herself (and Stefan), so that makes sense and also kudos.

And then she lashes out at Stefan, and Stefan’s like, “I know”. Yikes.com. And I like how she realizes the physicality of what they did isn’t much different from what she and other guys did. It’s just him that’s different. And oh man, I love how Stefan’s like, “I didn’t mean to hurt you”, and she’s like “dude wait stop you’re not supposed to apologize for this”.

So many emotions dude. Mainly ‘cause I can relate to avoidance thing (yikes), but also ‘cause you can tell she’s trying to figure herself out, trying to correct her behavior (kinda), but then she reverts. A+.

REPLY:

Gaaah, all of that makes me so happy because that’s exactly what I was going for. You’re frustrated with her, but you know you’re supposed to be frustrated with her ‘cause even she’s frustrated with herself, you know? I’ve always found that I’m really forgiving of flawed characters when they’re aware of their flaws (and when other people are allowed to get fed up with their shit), so going into that scene, that’s what I tried to keep in mind - she’s going to be irrational and defensive and I need to make sure everyone knows that I know that this isn’t cool. It isn’t intriguing or exciting. It’s frustrating and repetitive and I know it, Caroline knows it, and Stefan knows it, and because of that, it’ll be confronted, you know? And yeah, that ‘he knew what he was doing’ line was exactly for that reason - Caroline clearly played a role in what happened, like it takes two to tango gurl, so I hoped that would hammer in how unreliable her narration was in that second. That, and the fact that when he starts apologizing, like you said, she’s like ‘stop’ because obviously he really didn’t do anything that bad and she knows that. Super, super stoked that the scene played out for you the way it did, man. Best feedback ever. Eloquent af. A+ goes to you.

Bamon’s first trip to Wine Cellar

Touching + promixity + commentary = horny Bonnie + smug Damon + heaps of hilarity

REPLY:

They’re like X-rated toddlers.

“You’ve been in love?” conversation was really good. I mean it was short, but I loved it. Like, called out much?

REPLY:

I literally had no idea I was going to write that until it just showed up on the word doc, but it ended up being one of my fave exchanges, so I’m so happy you liked it, too!

And then the “earthworm” argument: LOL.

“Like your entire face is rebelling against it—you look like you’re about to have a stroke.” LOLOLOLOLOLOL. What’s even funnier is I imagine Damon coming back with a doctor comment lol.

REPLY:

‘Uh-oh, better give me a full physical.’

The kiss/attack. Kai’s probably right, their sex life is will probably be crazy.

REPLY:

Definitely won’t get bored.

Bonnie’s flashback. Gotta know more dude. Like, in theory, you wrote it out a bit, but more more more.

REPLY:

More ahead! I have an ask about it that I’m going to answer but more’s coming in the actual fic, too. I think. So excited you want to know more, though!

“Merriam Webster” lol

OKAY HERE’S THE OTHER LIFE-GIVING PART: “Are you worried about me?” and “She turned around to leave and he caught her wrist again./’Seriously. Anything at all.’” YOU’RE MURDERING ME GABI HOW DARE YOU (please keep it coming).

Jesus Crisco lololololololol

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Soon-to-Be Ms. Cuddles

It’s kind of scary how much of myself I see in Caroline lol (that’s kind of fucked up right?) especially when her eyes are shut because the cat is near her omg.

REPLY:

lmaoooo a little scary but she turns out alright so *bonnie voice* there’s hope for you.

My heart at “none of it was worth it”. At first, I was like Caroline’s not worth it? But then he’s like Caroline’s fear/hurt isn’t worth it, and I’m like, Stefan you IDIOT STOP HURTING ME.

REPLY:

LMAO ISN’T HE THE WORST.

And then him realizing what the real issue is with “Like maybe that contract hadn’t just been for him”.

But then him fucking it up with “something stupidly, recklessly hopeful”. BOY BYE WITH THIS DISNEY PRINCE-NESS.

REPLY:

Disney Prince-tervention. 8 o’ clock. Scott McCall can come too.

“It means is there anything on the planet you don’t avoid dealing with?” YIKES STEFAN DO YOU LIKE PLAYING WITH YOUR LIFE LIKE THIS OR

REPLY:

LOLOLOL I laughed when I wrote that line. I was like eating Smart Pop and going ‘BOY’ as if I wasn’t the one writing it, it was all super sane.

Avoiding!Caroline #relatable dude.

“Easy to mistake for serial killers” LOL STEFAN AGAIN ARE YOU READY TO DIE OR

REPLY:

Danger Zone Stefan.

The part with the cat coming near her, lol, is so damsel-in-distress, and it makes me laugh so much at how cliched/tropey this is, but I also love it, and I tried to imagine her with either Bonnie or Damon in the same situation, and Bonnie being similar to Stefan but taking her out of her misery, but Damon being a shithead about it. Ah yes.

REPLY:

LMAO that scene is pure, unadulterated, damsel-ly TROPENESS and I love forcing Caroline I’m a Force to be Reckoned With and Need No One Forbes into those scenes because she tries so hard not to be that way and like, for what? Girl, be afraid of the dark. Run away from cats. Be jumpy and hide behind people. None of that means you can’t singlehandedly take down the Emory football administration, you know? You can run away from spider-rat hybrids in the same stilettos you slam into the toes of drunk dudes harassing girls on the subway. Do you. And LOOOL to Bonnie and Damon in Stefan’s place - Bonnie would definitely let it go but would be subtly trolly about it, like putting the cat on her bed when she’s in the shower or buying it a bunch of costumes to wear around the apartment. Damon would probs be every inch as insufferable as you’d imagine.

The Not-All-Animals conversation. You don’t have to answer this, but is this supposed to be a foreshadowing, because the window was wide open for you (or Stefan) to state it clearly. And lol I cried when he says “there’s a cuddly little fur ball who seems really interested in getting to know you” and I’m imagining him talking about himself *dies of laughter*

“You’re going to love this cat”. Subtle, Stefan. Subtle.

REPLY:

CAN YOU IMAGINE HIM CALLING HIMSELF A CUDDLE LITTLE FUR BALL ON PURPOSE #BYE. I mean, it’s true, but still. I did the parallel on purpose, which I’m sure you know by now because I take forever to reply and have answered tat a few times, but I think it was more subconscious on Stefan’s part. Like his dedication to getting her to open up to the cat was definitely motivated by his own frustrations with her in that department, but I don’t think he saw the direct parallel or anything. Muahaha. I kind of want him to now though because CUDDLY LITTLE FUR BALL. That’s his street name.

Bonkai/Damon’s return from the cellar

Kai flirting

Bonnie feeling bad for Kai for not having any friends. (can I just note that Kai doesn’t seem bothered that he doesn’t really have friends—or rather, he seems the type not to mind it. Like I’m sure there’ll be a part when Kai says something ‘jeez Bon, stop being so obsessed with me’ when she tries to be his friend)

AKA ME now feeling bad for Kai, just in general (or that might be the copious amounts of Bonkai fics I’ve been reading recently…)

Bonnie teaching Kai to “flirt” AKA just be a human being

REPLY:

lololol Kai’s just a dude doing his best impersonation of humaning and failing miserably and not being too bothered about it.

“Maybe a little less… carnivorous” lol

Damon calling Kai “bud” (like, him actually picking up on the fact Kai enjoyed that). Too sweet.

REPLY:

I didn’t get a chance to get too into it in 15, but if all goes according to plan, Kai x Damon should be a pretty unexpectedly adorable brotp, so I’m super happy you picked up on that!

Bamon kiss #3 : “his stare was dark, humming, glinting with a hint of self-satisfaction” hehehehehe

“but I feel like maybe I should’ve asked you instead. Cool move.” lmfao Kai is a cutie pie (I know what I said, I’m not taking it back).

“Honestly, he could go back to the murder cellar now” lolololol. You’ve got a lot of golden lines in this one.

Almost Bamon kiss #4: nice

“She exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the buried, messy part of her that was turned on by the idea, that buzzed from the risk of it all.” Same, Bon.

Bless Bonnie’s insane self-control.

REPLY:

Damon’s a smug little shit. There’s just no getting around it, tbh. And YAY for cutie pie Kai (it even rhymes! Destiny.) - definitely trying to hone in on the more delightful sides of him from canon. And lmao, Bonnie must be so tired.

Caroline vs. the Cat

Obsessive Caroline is something familiar and safe to all. I like obsessive Caroline a lot lol.

Okay, unrelated, but can you expand a little bit on the Maroline situation again because, from what you’ve already explained (sorry if this is ruining the story, you obviously don’t have to explain if it is) Matt was sweet when it suited him, not sweet when he was angry or whatever. So, like, Stefan has none of these telltale features, like not even lowkey. I mean, he gets mad at her that one time, but it’s not malicious, you know? But it also triggered her to breakdown, but I read that as she’s already dealing with internal shit, so the internal is being external, and has very little to do with Stefan. So, I guess my question is, why is she not realizing Stefan is a Disney prince and he’ll always be one? Or is it just the overwhelming fear that’s clouding her judgement? I’m rambling.

REPLY:

GIRL, join the club. Rambling is a way of life. Re: Matt, I think a key thing I haven’t gotten to in the fic yet is that Matt started off as a bit of a Disney Prince, too. He was this humble, small-town star quarterback who was a little shy around girls and didn’t know what to do with all the attention on him, and when he met/got to know Caroline, he fell hard. Like haaaard. She was this confident, brash, outgoing ray of light that drew him in and made him laugh and added so much joy to his life, and he was just totally smitten. Built her things, wrote her crappy love letters that made her smile, etc., and for a year or so, they were this fairytale of a couple that everyone in town loved. And then Vicky got into drugs and his family situation went from not great to really bad - his mom was constantly off with some new guy, so a lot of the responsibility fell on him - and things just slowly started changing. He was angrier. Stressed out all the time, and he wasn’t someone who did well under pressure. He started checking out from school more and more because he didn’t see it as a priority. And in that context, larger-than-life Caroline with her sunny optimism and big ambitions went from endearing and inspiring to naive and a lowkey reminder of everything he didn’t have the luxury of being. Resentment started creeping in, and it’d come in the form of him being snide or putting her down, and it just kind of spiraled from there. Like you said, it wasn’t all the time, he could still be every inch as sweet and loving as he was when she first met him, but the bad moments started cropping up more and more often, and Caroline was just kind of frozen because they had years of magical history to indicate that this wasn’t the real him, and she just needed to wait it out and be supportive. And if she’d only done that to a certain degree, I think she would’ve been okay, but she stayed for way, way longer than she ever thought she would’ve. And she started coming up with insane ways to justify everything because their relationship meant so much to her. And all in all, that’s the real damage for her - the fact that she can’t trust herself to one: see people for they are when she has feelings for them, and two: know when to get out of something. Not when she’s in love. Any other context, sure, deuces, bye, but she doesn’t trust herself in love. So that’s why Stefan, without really showing any real Matt-like flaws, is scaring the hell out of her, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKING OF RAMBLING HI HELLO YES WHERE IS THE SUPPORT GROUP

Caroline and the cat is really cute. We don’t see many soft moments of Caroline, except the baroline apology scene, so it’s cute to see her just calm down a little bit. Calm in the storm.

And her being like “You’re lucky Stefan’s here.” Oh, dude, that really got me. Like, before she goes into the physicality of him/them, I read that line as like, “he’ll take care of you, he’ll be good for you” and that struck me.

REPLY:

So happy you liked that softer side of Caroline! Definitely going to be seeing more of that now that she’s gotten most of the defensiveness out of her system (in large part because I’m just tired of writing it, lmaaaaaoooooo #authoroftheyear). And yeah, that’s exactly how she meant that line, which I think shows just how much her opinion has changed of him over these past few days. Progress!

“And it was terrifying, because for that brief glitter of a moment, for better or for worse, she’d been Caroline Forbes in all her complete, defenseless, messy glory”: nice.

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👌

“And closed hearts, apparently”, awwwwwwww. You know my general feels about steroline, but this fic, man. Well played, Gabi, well played.

REPLY:

lmao you know mine too. thanks, boo.

Bamon Snooping

Initial and overarching reaction: LOL

Damon saving Bonnie’s life: *heart eyes*

“I’m not talking to you”/”Why ‘cause I didn’t feel you up in the kitchen?” LOL Damon knooooooows, Damon’s got you cornered (you’d like that wouldn’t you, Bonnie) (but also, same)

REPLY:

#READ

Like this idiot really thinks she’s fooling anyone? She’d totally like that. Let’s make another support group.

The flamingo tarts LOL

AND AND AND “Stefan’s not even going to be able to look at yo—“ crying

Kai going to hunt swan. Again.

REPLY:

So rude, pulling the judgy Stefan card. And yeah, Kai’s really into casual evening strolls with crossbows.

The snooping. Okay, so first, Bonnie’s reaction of “yeeeeeeeeee” and Damon’s reaction of “k let’s do it”. I love it so so so much. This is a moment I can see Matt Daddario being Damon (I started watching Shadowhunters, pardon me). But also the things they find??? Like, if this were a tv show (where’s the petition, my pen is ready), then this would be that one weird/sci-fi episode. Like a musical episode, but sci-fi-y.

Damon “how much you want to bet one of these opens a hidden passageway”/I’m a big nerd too Fell/Whitmore (who tf is this guy)

REPLY:

LMAO coming up with the things they find was another case of me staring dead-eyed into space for 20 minutes and cackling at random, so I’m glad it was entertaining. And yessss, I can totally see Matt pulling off that line. I see him as a slightly sleepier Damon, like his blithe charm goes from obnoxious to a little slyer and lowkey, and he has more of a playful laziness about him. It’s a really fun/unique fit, especially since some of the other actors I’ve imagined as Damon have more of a brash/sharp quality to them that would enhance the showman aspect instead of downplaying it.

Bamon talking about Damon’s job: real bonding about real things!

REPLY:

WOOT. More of that ahead :)

Steroline Avoiding

“He could navigate picky eaters like a pro”: I love that you made him this way, and that you made her that way, and that their ways are like puzzle pieces.

REPLY:

Ahhh, I love that you put it that way. That’s their new tag line.

And also for this beaut: “the Human Grimace” lmfao.

“I feel annoyed”/”Why?”/”I don’t know.” – is that their tag line or?

REPLY:

JK that’s definitely their tag line.

Steroline bonding in general, bless.

“I can’t do this”: yikes. At first, I thought this was going to be a repeat of every sexytimez moment these two had before the ultimate one

but I really like how you placed that bit about Elena in there. Nice. Like how he can’t handle not knowing, and that’s very Caroline of him, and he could just tell her this please that’d help everyone???? I’m not ranting.

REPLY:

IF EVERYONE COULD JUST TALK IN THIS GODFORSAKEN FIC IT WOULD’VE ENDED TEN CHAPTERS AGO AND MADE MY LIFE SO MUCH EASIER. lmao but I’m glad you liked the Elena nuance - I’m trying to build their experiences in bits and pieces so that when they finally talk about everything re: the exes, it’s not too much of an information dump.

Damon’s Panic Attack

Jesus Christ, Gabi. Right in the heart, dude. Like chill out. His avoidance of the very inevitable killed me. And Bonnie not picking up on the signs. Omg and Damon’s “I’m fine”, parallel to Caroline’s, and the whole “I can do this, I can get through this, I’ve only had myself before, and I only need myself now”, but Bonnie’s there and she’s all “I got you, you can do this, we’ll get through this together” and she’s talking him through, but he’s doesn’t want to even talk and she’s just trying to bring him out of him successfully, but ultimately fails and goes with the distracting that is an old Stefonnie story. BUT THEN, her fourth-grade poem reminded me of The Punisher’s “one batch, two batch, penny and dime” in Daredevil (you watched that right?) and I was like oh shoot, you right. What you were right about, not sure, but it worked, and Bonnie did a good job (but also YOU), and Damon’s “she was a ridiculous person./Tangled and dark and simple and light.” And my heart wept. “He let himself stay”. Oh my poor baby. You wrecked me, Gabi, you really did.

REPLY:

‘and I was like oh shoot, you right. What you were right about, not sure, but it worked’ - LMAOOOOOO, dead. Like 50% of my excitement for posting this review is just people reading it and realizing how hilarious you are and then going to check out B&B. (GO AND CHECK OUT B&B). For real though, gaaaaah, everything about this is making my friggin’ day because this is always the toughest stuff to write for me. I never know if I’m building it well or if the emotions are transitioning fluidly and it makes me want to break my laptop (jk it’s already broken JOKE’S ON ME), so I’M SO HAPPY I WRECKED YOU. All of your observations are perfect. I didn’t even think about The Punisher but shoot, YOU RIGHT, that’s such a great parallel. I’ve always found that angsty situations are super unpredictable in real life, like the things you expect to happen seldom do and it’s always the most random thing that ends up shifting the mood, so I tried to translate that into this scene. Like Bonnie’s pulling out all the stops, all the things she’s trained to do, but what ends up cutting through the air is a random ass poem from fourth grade. And it’s just thoughtful and spastic enough to grab his attention, especially once he realizes why she went for poetry, and suddenly, the situation’s quelling. So I’m super, super happy that it worked for you, and that the ‘tangler and dark and simple and light’ stood out. I think that’s one of the first instances of him starting to realize she’s not one or the other, she’s both at the same time, so yeah, this feedback is all wonderful and now you’re wrecking me so we’re even.

Steroline Confronting

Is Caroline… confronting the problem? Is Caroline… actually fixing this? Is Caroline… actually being a person? Nice, good job, I’m proud of you, girl. Slay.

REPLY:

LOOK AT HER GOOOOO.

I like how she gets how fucked up the whole thing is. Like, she knows she’s being irrational, and that he shouldn’t have to put up with this mess, and damn, I feel for her.

REPLY:

Yesssss, totally what I was going for. Like the person most done with her shit is herself, and she’s likely going to be way harder on herself about it than you or me or Stefan or anyone else, really. So happy that came across.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that wasn’t the first time that’s happened to me?”

“What did you do? Actually—don’t tell me now.”/“I’m not telling you ever.”

”Tell me when it doesn’t hit so close to home.”/”Or never.”

”It’s still too soon.”/”It’ll always be too soon.”

These are gems.

REPLY:

Gotta sneak some fluff into every scene you know how I roll.

Oh goodness, but Stefan wanting to know her as a person. Ughhhhhh.

And the ruse of “for the sake of Bonnie.” I’m calling bullshit.

“Who was he, Nicholas Sparks?” Lol, I mean, it worked out, though, dude.

REPLY:

Stefan’s a lost cause.

As always, my friend, you’ve done a phenomenal job. Your writing style is so unique and fabulous, and it just adds to the storyline itself, like, it’s own entity in this whole thing. Bless. So excited for the next chapter. Did I hear more sexytimez for the bamon babes?

REPLY:

GIRL I COULD SAY THE SAME DAMN THING ABOUT YOURS. Like even in this review alone - hysterical and eloquent af. I know you probably know this, but no one ever thinks that of their own writing (or at least I don’t think they do lmao, if they do LEMME HAVE A HIT OF THAT CONFIDENCE BOO ‘cause I didn’t even know I had a style), so it’s legit amazing to hear that the style stands out to you, and know that I’m boomeranging that comment right back atcha. Next chapter is sloooowly chugging along, by which I mean I’m writing at a regular pace but I’m trying to cram a legitimately concerning/insane amount of scenes into it. Like 15. LMAO. RIP Gabi. But hopefully it won’t take me too long! Also, it’s the last of the intensely emotional chapters for a while (just a lot of big moments I need to get right), so even if this takes forever, the rest should be a little faster. I feel like I say this after every chapter and nothing changes, looooool. BUT ANYWAY, you’re a marvel, this review is everything, I’m feelsy, you’re hilarious, write a book, bye.

#reply #six mornings after #review #15 #sma bamon #sma maroline #sma steroline #sma matt #sma bonnie #sma damon #sma caroline #lmao I have to tag so much because I launched into so many unnecessary metas #I must be stopped #anyway this is glorious and cassie's glorious it's fine #also this took me no joke two hours to respond to #like my laptop started lagging behind my typing in protest #I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SO SLOW GUYS BUT I'M TRYING #submission

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