#(<- stared at a drawing of joan of arc while making this)

[xejune]

"They speak only one language — that of violence. In this they will serve you well."

[lepus-arcticus]

52. Interlude

That night, wading through the undergrowth in the boreal chill, Walter Skinner believed. 

He saw it all and he believed; saw the ship slip from its shimmering veil, massive and magnificent in the endless, glittering night; saw the bodies rise; saw light, saw heat, saw his agent rapt and limp in the ecstasy of surrender. 

He saw it all, and he felt anew the awe and terror of Vietnam, the helicopters and the fire and MK-NAOMI, the sputter of an M60, khaki dark with blood. He saw it all, and he felt the quiet peace of inevitability, and then the sick sweetness of wonder, or perhaps the end of wondering. 

He stared into the sky as the tears gathered without falling, stared as the invaders blinked away into an abrupt and infinite void. He stared until there was nothing left but the slow creep of dawn’s mist, the sound of his own ragged breath. Stared until there was nothing left to do but stumble back through the pines to the car, to Mulder’s keys still dangling from the rental keyring in the ignition, to his jacket crumpled in the back seat. 

Walter sees it all, again and again. 

He closes his eyes, and he sees it all, sees nothing but his promise, made in earnest and then helplessly, flagrantly broken. 

-

When the sunrise begins to stain the wood paneling of his office, burning away the homey shadows in a flame of honey and bronze, he swills back the last of his whiskey and makes the trek, coatless, to the steaming coffee cart across the street. He is not drunk. He is never drunk, even after his best efforts, but the cool morning air slaps him sober anyway. 

He stands in line, pays the burly, ageless Serbian woman manning the cart her due, and wrestles a lid onto the paper cup. Black, no sugar, no cream. He stalks back through the wind with his coffee to the Hoover, picturing Scully at home in the great concrete belly of the building, tilting endlessly at her strange and unclassifiable work, reluctant to leave its orbit. 

He glances at his watch as he shoulders past security. He’s still got twenty ‘til their meeting. 

Jesus Christ, she shouldn’t even be here. It’s bad for the baby. She should be resting, goddamn it, should have her feet propped up on a pillow or three, should be eating fucking bonbons with her stubborn head wrapped up in a fluffy towel. She should at least be on desk duty, not running around Idaho brandishing scalpel and SIG-Sauer like some sort of modern day dual-wielding hedge knight. 

As usual, he abstains from the elevator, and takes the stairs back up. The mild exercise helps him squash his chivalrous irritation, helps him put it back into context. Maybe he’s just more of a sexist than he thought he was. Or maybe he just knows his agent. Maybe, that night in the hospital, he looked down into her wet blue eyes and saw rage and fear and unbridled joy as she wept, saw a woman, a lover, a mother. It was a revelation; he hadn’t even seen her cry when her sister was killed. 

She’s a warhorse, that one. She’s Joan of Arc. At the very least, she’s one hell of an agent. 

He guards himself against sentiment; he does not yearn. But in his weaker moments, he allows himself to wonder. He knows that he is no Fox Mulder, no crusader or revolutionary. War’s vicious hand had already beaten the thirst for adventure and glory out of him by the time Dana Scully was ten years old. He’s no longer the kind of man that could inspire the love and loyalty of a woman like her, and maybe he never was. 

But hell, he still believes in doing the right thing; believes in America, even after all he’s seen. He’s got the patience to play the game by the rules, the muscle to bend them. He knows his place, his role in all of this.

Some men are bound for greatness. Some must be content to be good. 

-

Nothing about Dana Scully has ever been cliché, but he can’t help but think that in this newly fertile iteration, she really does glow. Across from him, coolly delivering her account of the events in Burley, she’s pale and dewy, clearly fighting through a bout of morning sickness. He thinks she might be wearing less makeup. Her cheeks are beginning to fill out, her cider hair shines with health. She is beautiful beyond all reason, beyond all sense. When she finishes her narrative, he has to clear his throat in order to speak. 

“And Agent Doggett?” He prompts, watching her face carefully. He likes John Doggett, likes his weary moxie, his work ethic. He recognizes within him the familiar clarity of loneliness. 

Scully purses her lips for a quick moment, the only indication that he’s hit a soft spot. “He’s a good agent, sir,” she clips. “He’s thorough and seems to have a respect for what we—what I—do. But…” 

“But he’s no Mulder,” he finishes for her. 

She blinks, slowly, unevenly, and looks down at her hands, knotted together in her lap. 

“Listen, Agent Scully, I couldn’t very well leave you alone down there,” he says. “Not while you’re… not in your present condition.” He pries off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose, knowing that he sounds like the worst kind of man. “Not that you’re…” 

“It’s okay,” she says, saving him. “Thank you.” 

She still won’t meet his gaze. 

“Scully… off the record. We haven’t given up. We’re still working hard to find him,” he says, leaning forward, reaching for some sort of simpatico, some way to scale the wall between them. “Frohike—”

“Frohike can’t do a goddamned thing,” she interrupts, her voice thin and sharp. She lifts her shining eyes to his, trapping him in the vortex of their whirlpool blue. “If Mulder couldn’t bring me back when I was taken, then there’s nothing that any of us can do to bring him back now. We have to wait. I’ve been thinking. It’s the only way. I have to be—” 

“Exactly, Dana. Now is the time for patience.” The use of her first name seems to shock her back into herself. Her pink tongue darts out to wet her lips. 

“Your only job right now is to wait,” he continues. “To focus on your work, on your pregnancy. I won’t have you doing anything rash or stupid. That’s Agent Mulder’s job.” 

She can’t restrain a small, sad, girlish smile, and the sheepish pleasure and relief that rushes through him is entirely inappropriate. Juvenile. Undeserved. 

“Which, by the way, is waiting for him when he returns, once he is ready,” he says, forging onward. “Doggett’s position is temporary. I just feel better knowing that there is someone looking out for you, someone you can rely on, to turn to when you need something. John Doggett is a good man. You can count on him.” 

She does not respond. Silence fills the room. 

“I, uh, I have something for you,” he says. He rummages in a drawer, extracts an overstuffed manila envelope, slides it across the desk. She stares at it for a moment before claiming it, drawing it into her lap and unspooling the clasp. 

“The investigation no longer requires these items as evidence,” he says, by way of explanation. 

Scully reaches inside and pulls out a worn leather wallet. A badge. A ring of keys and a lockpick jackknife lashed together with a Liberty Bell keychain. 

She opens the badge and rubs her manicured thumb over Mulder’s photo. It’s an act so intimate and heartfelt that it hurts him to observe it. He studies his own hands instead, large and square and calloused from long, punishing hours in the Gold’s weight room down the block from his condo. 

There’s a soft metallic click. He looks up. 

There is a single key on his desk. 

“This is my apartment key,” Scully says. “Hold it for Mulder until he gets back, will you?” 

She stands, and her waist is still tiny, her secret still safe. She is proud, sweet, noble, peculiar. He is not in love with her, but he could be, if he let himself. “Thank you for looking out for me, Walter.” 

He watches her disappear through the door, back to the basement, back to the shadows. He savours the sound of his name on her lips.

- 

Incrementum

[heliosthegriffin]

Prodigy AU, Part II

AN: I’ll think of a proper name soon enough.

Part I

-------------

The young Jaune Arc had a affinity for the woods, to him, it was his special place. The were no rules in the woods, there were no older siblings to boss him around, and there were no parents to ignore him. It was just him and the woods.

He could run around till he was out of breathe, he could scream till his throat hurt, say all kinds of nasty mean words and names that would get him the spanking of his short life, and best of all there was no one out here to judge him, he was by himself, and he liked it that way. 

He had found out early in his life if he wanted to be alone, and to not snap at anybody, the best place to go was the woods. If he tried to go to his room there would either be someone waiting for him wanting him to do something for them, or they’d show up after he decided he wanted to be left alone. He loved his family, he didn’t really like them all the time though.

So like uncounted times before when he got frustrated at his family he returned to the woods, were he could feel like he belonged for a little while, where he didn’t have to feel bad about being different from his sisters.

Jaune never really had a direct path in the woods, but he often had a destination he’d find his way to, one way or after retracing his steps that way.

It was a large clearing maybe thirty feet across and letting more than fifteen feet wide. It was also covered in leaves, tree branches, and small trees and other brush. Occasionally a small animal or bird landed here, but by and large, this was Jaune’s hiding spot, this is where he laid lowed when he was mad or sad or anything in between.

Jaune looked over his clearing let out a small sigh of happiness, and then took off his shirt, revealing his bony, and surprising pale visage to the world. He then got looked around for his stick, there were many like it, but this was the one that was his.

His was a simple gnarled branch, thick as his wrist and longer than his leg, that had also had the bark shaved off and was shaped into a sword. He had done all the work himself, with a knife he borrowed from his dad’s toolshed... That he borrowed without asking.

Jaune didn’t have a name for his wooden sword, it was just his training sword till he could use Crocea Mors, the sword of his ancestor.

Jaune briefly dreamed of using Crocea Mors, of drawing it’s steel into the air and slaying entire hordes of Grimm, of using it’s shield to block canonfire and toss back Goliaths!

But, the feeling of rough wood in his hands brought him back to earth. He gripped it with both hands and did a simple overhand cut, creating a pleasant whistling sound to his ears.

It still felt a little heavy, but he liked it that way, and if it got too light, he’d replace it again like with the others.

Nodding to himself, Jaune got to work with his daily routine. He put aside his sword and went to work with the strengthening excersies he looked up. Starting with Jumping jacks, squats, lunges, and ending with some exercises to limber up before he did his sword practice.

Jaune felt a pleasent burn throughout his body, and took some deep breaths, his face red with excertion, but he powered through, and grabbed his wooden sword.

He gripped his sword and then began his training, raising his wood to the air he started with one hundred overhead strikes.

“One ... Two... Three...” Continuing till he reached his set. Then began his work at going through sideways strikes, diagonal cuts, and then working his way through various thrusts, doing a hundred of each, counting out each one and restarting if he slipped up.

Jaune let his practice sword fall to the ground, his arms shaky with fatigue and very sore. He took a seat against a mossy tree, and let his body do it’s magic, before he did his final set.

Jaune wasn’t sure why he did this everyday, he didn’t particularly like it, it was kinda boring, he wasn’t impressing anyone, and he was always so sore!

He leaned harder into the moss, and wasn’t like anyone was going to see him and be like ‘Oh, look at him he’s so awesome!’ He let out a sigh, his sweat soaked bangs falling over his face.

He was unable to quit though, even now with his body sore and aching, he could feel the call of the wild through him granting him energy again, something about being out in the woods just seemed to refresh him, his legs were shaking in place both from working out and from wanting to get moving again. Somedays, it just felt like he never ran out of energy till his head hit the pillow. 

Jaune looked at the dense woods around him, and wondered if it as just park of playing in the woods so much? That maybe spending so much time around around the wilderness it stained himself with it.

Tossing his head around, getting rib of cricks in his neck, looking up at the grey-toned autumn sky, he had to be honesty that it was just as much mental as physical. He enjoyed becoming stronger, even if nobody notice, just a couple of months ago he struggled picking up a twenty-five pound weight with two arms, and now he could pick it up with one arm, even if he struggled to do so. 

There was also that worming sensation in the back of his head too, that idea of trying out one more new move, or doing one more set, the idea that he could just push himself that little bit further and break his limits.

He rose on shake knees, and took a couple deep breaths, the cool air touching his hot lungs, burning nose and sore throat.

It burned in a good way though, soon the shaking settle, and smile came across his young face. He could get back too it now.

He picked up his wooden blade, ready to do another set, but his would be a different set. He set his eye on a tree, one with marred back, the one he had been practicing on.

‘Thwack-

 Thwack-

 Thwack-,’

Jaune began his assault on the tree practicing all the strikes he could thinks of, doing full sets of each before switching the next.

“Ouch!” Jaune said dropping the sword, his hands and wrists throbbing. The vibrations being sent down the wood, left his hands a little numb and sore.

He waved his hands in the airs, waiting to regain some feeling before he could continue.

Feeling fortunately came back soon, and he grabbed his weapon. Finishing his sets. Taking a break to catch his breath once he was done.

Now that he was done with that part came his favorite.

It wasn’t doing another set really, it was just him switching between different strikes and chaining them together different way.

His freestyling went on till he felt a fat raindrop hit his head, the cold water startling him.

He looked up, seeing darker clouds moving in with sheets of rain falling behind if. 

Jaune grimaced, he’d have to leave. 

He huffed a sigh, and then struck one last powerful blow against the tree, a loud cracking echoing out.

His wooden sword had a large crack darting down it’s center, Jaune looked at and did what his juvenile mind thought was the funnest. He slammed the sword again and again against the bark till it broke in two.

Jaune felt a degree of pride in breaking his wooden sword. But, then felt annoyance that he’d have to make another one.

The rain then started coming down as Jaune swiped his shirt back on, soaking it near instantly. 

He was already soaked, so Jaune decided to just meander his way home and instead of trying to beat the storm home.

---------

Jaune ran through the rain towards his back door, tossing open the door and slamming it closed as he got in.

“Jaune Arc! What have I told you about slamming the door!”

Jaune jumped as his mother yelled at him.

Jaune looked into the kitchen where his mother sat next to his father, and the rest of his family around the table.

His mother did not look pleased.

‘Uh-oh.’

“Um, you said not to do it?” Jaune said carefully.

His mother looked at him sharply, “I believe I said, I’d take a switch to your behind, if you did it again.”

Jaune looked at his mother and then at the door, weighing his options. One, take his mother anger, or two, go without dinner. 

His stomach growled, making the decision for him.

‘Traitor,’ He thought at himself.

Juniper Arc looked at her messy, dirty, and wet son.

Then sighed, “Go get cleaned up and then come down here for supper.”

Jaune looked somewhat surprised. His mother had never been one to shy away from punishment.

Juniper called out as Jaune walked up stares to the bathroom. “But, remember if you slam that damn door again, I will take a switch to your behind, understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

He thought he could hear his sisters laughing at him as he walked up stairs.

The shower was unsurprisingly cold, his sister took frequent showers and that had left him without hot water in the past, and he wasn’t allowed to use the master shower in his parents bedroom, as that was full of adult stuff.

By the time he got back to the table, his mother was doing dishes and his sisters were nowhere in sight, not even Joan, but she had become more and more out of sight over the last couple of months. Sometimes it felt like he was only one who realized he was still here.

Jaune ate his dinner silently, eating a large portion of roast beef, mash potatoes, greens, a couple rolls, and a couple pieces of blueberry cobbler.

He heard laughing.

He looked up to his mother.

“Boy, if you keep eating so much, I might have to charge ya.”

Jaune didn’t think it was that funny, but he faked a laugh. “If you don’t want me to eat so much, you shouldn’t cook so much!” Jaune said trying to play along.

“Heh, alright then,” His mother than looked over the table at the much emptier table. “Well, with you around at least the dishes are easier to clean, now are you ready to help your mom clean up?”

Jaune wanted to roll his eyes, as though it was ever a question on whether he’d help or not, it was an unwritten Arc family rule, that the last to the table helped clean it up.

Not that he mind spending time with his mother. 

Helping his mother do the dishes didn’t take long, the CCT connection was spotty on a good day, with a storm about it was near zero and what was left was being hogged by his sisters. So, Jaune busied himself with videos he had downloaded on his scroll, watching Hunters fight Grimm or Criminal.

He wanted to be like that one day.

AN: Most of these beginning chapter will be about training, how Jaune changes his training, and how he increases his training, but, it’ll also feature frequent time-skips, as I doubt anybody wants to read a hundred chapters of expostion on training and conditioning. I’ll try to do some stuff with the Arc family, but that kinda hard considering only Saphron really exists, and the other have no set personality. So I’ll either keep them to a minimum or make some OC’s.

[goose-books]

whoa, it sure is about time around here for a post, huh!

today i offer you 1.7k words about cressida and rory simply being soft. that’s all. this is the happiest thing i’ve ever written in the darkling canon and making this moodboard reminded me that it’s because these two are the only kind and friendly people in the entire book.

more details about cressida and rory’s home WIP, darkling, can be found here! (short version: it’s a speculative fiction king lear; there’s magic but it’s weird about being magic; half the characters are gay trans and neurodivergent because i said so.) this takes place about a year before the story starts; the two of them have just turned sixteen and seventeen, respectively!

also, i wrote all of this while listening to “kentucky” by hippo campus on repeat. the lyrics aren’t quite as relevant as the vibe. if you catch me yearning on main mind your own business /j

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

Beside them, Cressida is soaked, long golden hair and long white dress dripping. Rory rocks up onto their toes and back down, anxiety worming along the back of their neck like an itchy coat. This was not the plan. The plan was not “get caught in the rain and run through a storm for two blocks.” The plan was for the two of them to go walk by the river and - who knows, talk about Joan of Arc or the Kennedy assassination or something. Swap special interests. Maybe swap spit. Probably not, though. It’s not a date. It’s not not a date - but, like, Rory still does work for Cressida’s dad, so who knows how awkward things could get. Plus Cressida’s hard to read. She doesn’t really make facial expressions, and that’s usually fine, because Rory can’t really read facial expressions so it’s about the same to them, but in this particular situation -

“I trust you,” Cressida says, squeezing their hand, “but where are we going?”

The rain’s left Rory’s glasses fogged up enough to render them effectively blind. They take their glasses off and squint at the elevator buttons. They are still effectively blind.

“Is that a five or a six?” they say, pointing.

Cressida peers over their shoulder. “Which one do you want?”

“Five.”

Cressida presses the five button with her free hand. The elevator, which is about the size of a broom closet, jerks into unsteady, fitful motion.

The thing is that the apartment building is kind of - well, not a dump. It’s not horrible. There aren’t cockroaches. But Cressida lives in a manor, literally. Stayer Manor. Capital S, capital M. And there was never any sort of plan for today, even in the wildest of circumstances, that involved Rory bringing the city’s golden girl to a building the size of a shoebox. But then it was raining, and Cressida kept saying she didn’t mind the rain despite clearly minding because if she ruins her dress her dad will go rabid-dog on her, and Rory’s cognitive wheels were spinning like they were powered by a well-greased hamster, and none of the restaurants close enough to duck into were appropriate places for them to safely freak out about the thunder, and their apartment was only two blocks away.

So.

Here they are.

“Sorry,” Cressida says. “Where are we going?”

Rory attempts to dry their glasses on their soaked-through sweater, to little avail. “We are going,” they announce, “to a world of pure imagination.”

Outside, thunder cracks the sky. They know Cressida sees them flinch, because she squeezes their hand again.

The apartment is 505. Cressida waits as Rory digs around in their jacket pocket, shuffling past loose coins and two pairs of headphones and four melted Starbursts and way too many scraps of paper until they finally unearth their key. Their lock sticks - their lock always sticks - so once they’ve turned it, they have to drop Cressida’s hand and plant one wet Doc Marten on the wall and yank. The door swings open.

“Voila,” Rory says, performing jazz hands. “Willy Wonka wants what I have.”

Their apartment is purple. Not startlingly purple. Gently purple. Purple like it creeps up on you. Purple like you don’t realize exactly how purple it is until you realize everything - walls, gauzy flower-patterned curtains, plushy armchair, compass-rose-shaped clock, old-fashioned record player on the table - is the same shade of soft lavender.

There is at least one nail sticking up out of the hard-wood floor. Rory snags a sock on it every time they dance around with their headphones in.

Two people have been inside since Rory started renting the place a year ago. And that’s them and the landlord. This is their place, their safe haven, their nook, and it’s the size of Cressida’s bathroom, and rich pretty Cressida Stayer is standing, dripping, in the threshold.

“Don’t touch anything,” Rory says. Cressida draws her hands in like the walls might electrocute her. “That was a joke. You can touch things.”

“This is your apartment,” Cressida says.

“Indeed.”

“You live here.”

“That succeeds the first!” They give her an encouraging smile. “Subsequent statements! How cogently lucid of you!”

Cressida looks down. The hem of her dress is dripping onto the floor. “I don’t suppose you have a vent I could sit on…?”

“In fact I do!” Rory directs her, aircraft-marshall-style, to the heating vent on the floor. They’re jittering. They’re using way too much arm movement. They can’t get their heart to stop skidding around, because normally! They do not! Let people in here!

They stand and drip. Cressida sits and drips. She gazes around, and Rory gazes with her, trying to see it through her eyes.

“Where’s your bed?” she says.

Rory skips over to the closet and pulls the door open, with the grand gestures of a magician presenting a trick. The inside of the tiny closet is lined with a thick downy comforter; there are sheets and pillows scattered around atop it, and there are glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up all over the walls and ceiling.

Cressida gazes at it. “On purpose, right? Not because -”

“On purpose. Yes. I could have bought a bed. I just think it’s cozy.” Oh, Rory is going to lose it right here. Their foot is tapping the floor at about a million miles an hour. Granted, being in their apartment helps the overstimulation a little - just being where it’s safe and everything’s always the same and they control their space. That always helps. But it’s not like they can just curl up in their closet with their headphones in and the door shut, because Cressida is here -

Cressida, for her part, looks a little impressed.

“It’s nice,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You just live here? By yourself?”

Rory shrugs. “I’m emancipated,” they say, which isn’t strictly true, but they work for the most powerful man in the city, who has their back if anyone actually looks into their files, so it’s as true as it really needs to be - and then thunder roars outside again and Rory skitters sideways and falls over their armchair.

“Oh! Oh my God -” Cressida jumps to her feet.

Rory scrambles up from where they’ve tumbled to the floor. “Sorry sorry sorry!” they say, except really they yell it because they have their shaking hands over their ears. “Sorrysorrysorry, I - I really don’t like loud - I d-don’t -”

“Can I -” All of a sudden Cressida’s in front of them. Rory doesn’t move away, just stands there, chest heaving, and Cressida slides her still-damp hands very gently up both of their arms, and she very gently pulls their hands off their ears.

The thunder, again. Like a cannon blast. This time Rory yelps a little. Cressida pulls them in close to her and sits both of them down on the vent, which, at the very least, is warm and also on the floor, so Rory can’t really trip over anything when they flinch.

“You don’t like loud,” Cressida repeats. She’s a good deal taller than they are - Rory’s exactly five-foot in their Docs - and so it makes logical sense for her to settle down with her chin on their head, probably.

“I don’t. I don’t. I really don’t.” They’ve started fluttering their hands a little; their voice is getting that shaky tilt it gets when they’re in sensory overload. “Fun story, back in high school we went on a field trip to this play where they used gunfire blanks for sound effects and I had a full-on crying-and-screaming public meltdown. I like to tell fun stories from high school like it wasn’t actual purgatory, because I cope through humor!”

“I know,” Cressida says simply, and she wraps her arms around them so they can lean back into her chest. The next thunder crash comes, and she tightens her grip. “Is this helping?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. A lot. Like a weighted blanket.” Rory tilts their head back to give her a shaky upside-down grin.

They don’t like making eye contact, so they don’t, but they are aware that Cressida’s gaze is resting pretty solidly on their face, which is - fine, and normal behavior for friends, and the fact that they’re cuddling on a vent and they can feel her heart beating against their spine is, like, normal also, probably -

“Rory,” Cressida says tentatively, “can I…”

Rory tilts their head. “Can you what?”

Cressida hesitates; then she leans in. It is a very very gentle kiss, almost hesitant; she pulls away after a second or so, to find Rory staring at her dumbfounded.

“Whoa,” they say, face assembling itself into what they’re fully aware is a stupid doofy grin. “Whoa. Hi. Hey. I - yeah! You can do that!”

They both cling to each other’s hands for a second; they both let out a breath that is, Rory thinks, equal parts relief and euphoria.

Then Rory leans in and kisses Cressida again, and this time neither of them pull away, and when the thunder crashes overhead Rory thinks they’ve never felt safer than they do right now.

[kittyanonymity]

A Ladybug in Gotham #3

Marinette reunites with some dear friends

Y’all. The response I’ve gotten to this fic has been just. SO much MORE than anything I ever could’ve imagined. I can’t say it enough, thank you for loving this so much??? It really caught me off guard, and I’m just glad there are people who are genuinely enjoying it. This chapter is over 9k, so I hope you guys are excited. 

Also like, you get to see my Ultimate Chloe this chapter, and I am just. SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO READ IT.

Also also, prepare for diabetes maybe??? I got a little nauseous writing this at times because it is disgusting levels of adorable, and I LOVE it. 

Ao3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 :HERE: Part 4 Part 5

Enjoy my dears!!! <3 <3

~~~~~~

The tour was nice, and Damian pointed things out to her that Dick glossed over during his talk; but Marinette found herself fascinated with the architecture and layout of the building. So many twists and turns, and hiding spots; how could anyone ever find their way?

Damian shrugged, “Well, it’s meant to be a little confusing for people who aren’t used to being here. Makes it easier for the people who are here to hide in the event of a situation.” Marinette nodded, remembering how high the crime rate was in Gotham. She paused to regard a statue against the wall, releasing his hand, and Damian watched as she pulled a pocket sized sketchbook from her bag. Her sketch was done in under a minute, and he noticed her writing some things off to the side.

She offered him a sheepish smile after she zipped the book away into her bag once again.

“Sorry, inspiration strikes at the oddest times.” Damian simply smiled, and took her hand in his once again as they continued behind the class.

“That’s ok. What were you drawing?” Marinette nodded her head back towards the statue.

“That’s Joan of Arc. I like to design clothes, and seeing her made me think of the gown I want to make for the Gala at the end of the month.” Damian hummed.

“Ah, the Wayne Charity Gala, right? Father mentioned that he’d invited your school.” Marinette nodded, a wide smile on her face.

“Yep! I didn’t have anything at home that I thought was appropriate, so I decided I’d see what Gotham had to offer,” she shrugged a shoulder, her smile growing just a bit, “and I have to say, I haven’t been disappointed.” Damian hesitated for a moment, before he frowned slightly.

“Even after what happened yesterday?”

The smile on Marinette’s face froze, and Damian immediately regretted opening his dumb mouth, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, angel. I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s ok.” Her grip on his hand tightened a bit, and the smile she gave him was sincere, “It was the first time I’ve had a proper gun pointed at me, so it was a bit horrifying. But, it’s not that unusual. Some of the akumas in Paris have been more deadly, but not quite so terrifying.”

Damian frowned, “I meant to ask earlier, but it didn’t seem like the right time; but what are akumas?” Marinette’s eyes grew wide as she looked at him, and she felt Tikki and Kaalki jolt in her purse.

“You mean you don’t know??” Seeing how alarmed she was, Damian grew concerned; but he still shook his head. Marinette blinked a few times, before she sighed.

“Well, it is only in Paris, I can’t say I’m surprised…” She looked back at him, and started, “Paris has its own problems. We deal with a supervillain named Hawkmoth, and his accomplice Mayura. Hawkmoth uses akuma, little dark butterflies, to control people when they’re having a bad day.” She paused, “And it doesn’t have to be a major negative emotion. A baby was akumatized because he had a nightmare. Likewise, a grieving mother was akumatized when she thought her child died in a car accident,” Damian could feel the tension running through her arms as she continued on, “A girl flooded Paris, killing millions, and it was Hawkmoth who had her do it. He preys on you when you’re weak, saying whatever it is you want to hear to get you.” Damian stared at her in shock.

“How does the world not know about this, Marinette? Paris flooding, millions dead? It should’ve been all over the news.” Marinette smiled, but it was brittle.

“That would be Ladybug. Paris has its own heroes, Ladybug, Cha-Hornet, Ryuuko, and Viperion. At first, four years ago, it was only Ladybug and Chat Noir against Hawkmoth, but the others were recruited with time. You see, Ladybug can undo any damage done with her Miraculous Cure. Flooded Paris? Fixed. Hundreds of thousands dead? Fixed. She’s the embodiment of Creation while her partner, Chat, was Destruction.” Marinette shrugged, “We’ve all just learned to live with it. It’s why I have such a hard time expressing myself nowadays. We can’t be allowed to feel any of the negative things in our lives without being preyed on. It’s miserable at best, and agonizing at its worst.”

Damian was struck silent, staring at the girl next to him. Nearly a head shorter than him, and she was dealing with all of this as a civilian. No suit to help protect her at all. His mind wandered back to the three strange creatures he’d seen in her hotel room the previous night, but what could they be? He cleared his throat.

“Have you ever been… akumatized?” Marinette’s smile fell just a bit, and she looked forward towards the class, at Lila.

“...Not yet, no. I’ve had a few close calls over the years, and Hawkmoth has specifically targeted me a few times; but I have a support system that helps me keep my negative emotions under control.” She turned towards him, her smile growing just a bit, “It’ll be fine though; Ladybug’s really close to finding him finally.” Damian’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but he nodded.

“You have a lot of faith in her, angel.” A heavy aura fell over her shoulders, and he noticed her smile was a bit strained.

“You misunderstood me, I think. It’s not that I have faith in her exactly, but…” And there it was again, the fire in her blue bell eyes, “She cannot fail. If she fails, Paris dies. She has to win, or she…” Marinette looked away, her voice soft, “or she dies, and so does her family, her friends.”

Damian frowned, gently slowing to a stop, and before he stopped to consider his actions, Damian brought his free hand up, and cupped her cheek softly, turning her to look up at him. Her eyes were glassy, teeming with unshed tears.

“Angel, are you ok?”

Marinette took a deep breath, willing her voice to be steady, “I’m so sorry, I swear I’m not trying to dump this on you, after all you’re one of the first friends I’ve made in four years-” Damian’s eyes grew steely, and he glanced in her class’s direction, “but it-it’s so hard to not talk about it now that I’m in a place away from him; away from Hawkmoth. I-”

“Angel, please don’t apologize.” Looking up at him in surprise, Marinette stared at him, her lips parted slightly. Damian gave her a small smile, wiping away a trail of her tears with the pad of his thumb, “From what I’ve gathered, this man has been holding your city hostage for at least four years; that’s four years of pent up negativity. I won’t lie, I’m amazed at the amount of resilience and mental fortitude you have to possess to go through that, and still be, well…” His smile grew a bit, “you.”

The blood rushed to Marinette’s head so fast that she thought she’d faint, and she was just now noticing how intimate their position must look.

Just in time for someone to clear their throat.

Marinette yelped, clutching the hand Damian was cradling her face with, before she whirled to her right.

Chloe gave her a coy grin where she stood with her arms crossed, watching them. Alix lowered her phone, laughing as she skated over to Marinette. The pink haired girl wrapped an arm around her friend, a teasing grin on her lips.

“Looks like you guys are getting pretty chummy~.”

Marinette immediately started stammering, switching to french fluidly as she spoke to Alix quickly. Damian could catch bits and pieces, but he was busy staring at Chloe. Marinette’s best friend regarded him with surprisingly kind eyes, and after a moment she sighed, walking over. She passed behind Damian casually, but he felt her pat him on the shoulder.

“Don’t hurt her.”

Damian flushed brightly, opening his mouth and closing it again as Chloe circled around him to also tease Marinette; and Damian realized that while his right hand was no longer on her cheek, she was still clutching his left. Marinette’s cheeks were still bright red, and she was switching between looking at Alix, who rested her chin on Marinette’s shoulder with a devious smile; and Chloe, who was standing a bit off to the side, looking far too pleased with herself. Finally, Marinette sighed, and looked back at him, and Damian saw her cheeks brighten a little more while she rubbed the tears from her face.

“S-sorry about them, they just… get like that sometimes.” Chloe snorted off to the side, before giving her and Damian a grin.

“Of course we do, we have to make sure you get only the best, Mari-bear.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she began walking in the direction of the tour and their class. Alix gave Marinette a wink as she skated after the blonde, and Marinette groaned, her face falling towards the floor. Damian felt his lips twitch up into a small grin.

“Angel?”

Marinette shook her head, “Nope, I can’t, cannot look at you right now, or I am going to DIE. Is that what you want, Damian? You want your new friend to die of embarrassment? Because that is what it sounds like.” Between her rambling, and the overly dramatic way she was talking, Damian really couldn’t blame himself when he started laughing.

Her head whipped up at the sound, and Marinette watched his shoulders shake with the force of his laughter. Her blush faded a bit, but she smiled, a small, private little thing. He looked amazing when he laughed, and she hoped she could get him to do it more. Finally, Damian calmed down, and wiped at the tears that had gathered in his eyes.

Marinette pouted as he looked back at her, a grin on his face, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, but…” He snorted, covering his mouth with his free hand, “I just didn’t expect that.” Marinette huffed, turning and following after Chloe, and Alix; he followed dutifully, still holding her hand. It was hardly noticed by them at this point.

“Well, look out, cause I am going to make sure to catch you off guard all the time then.” She turned to look at him, and when she smiled, Damian felt all the air leave the room. It felt like his world stopped, and his heart soared, “I love it when you laugh, Damian; so if I can see that, it’ll be worth it I think.”

How had he ever had the luck to run into such a remarkably sincere young woman like herself? She saves his niece her first day, fends off the Joker, and now she’s slipped past all of his carefully built walls like they were non-existent. He had never felt so comfortable, so at home with someone he really had no business feeling that for. And the intensity was alarming, said the rational side of Damian’s brain; but the other, the long ignored until just the last couple years… Well.

He was pining.

He was unaware of the similar turmoil rolling around in Marinette’s mind, her head and heart at complete odds with each other. Tikki had told her last night that due to being partners with Chat for so long, she would be overcome with love and affection for her real Black Cat when she found him; but right now, she wasn’t thinking about that conversation as Damian gave her the softest smile she’d seen yet. Her heart thundered in her chest wildly, but she didn’t feel overwhelmed.

“Thank you, angel.”

Dick was staring at him when they finally got closer to the tour once again, and Damian was sure his older brother had heard him laughing given the acoustics in the building. His eyes narrowed at his brother, and Dick continued to stare at him before he glanced at Marinette.

The grin that came across Dick’s face meant nothing but trouble for Damian, and the young man rolled his eyes, groaning. Marinette looked at him.

“Damian, are you ok?” He sighed.

“My idiot brother is going to make my life hell for the foreseeable future.” He grimaced, looking back at her, “Also, you’re probably going to have to deal with the rest of my idiot brothers at lunch. Please remember, they were dropped on their heads as children, and I bear no blood relation with any of them.” His deadpan delivery had her breaking out into shocked laughter, and Damian was thrilled he could make her so happy. His brothers constantly told him his sense of humor was awful, but at least Marinette appreciated it.

“Aww, now that hurts demon spawn.”

Damian tensed, and Marinette was already turning around; and looking up.

Whoa this dude was tall.

Damian groaned as he turned around, “Jason, why are you here?”

Marinette watched the man shrug, a grin on his face, “Well, to see my baby brother of course,” And then he was looking at Marinette, “And to meet your little girlfriend. Who knew you could laugh, demon spawn?”

Damian flushed, and Marinette felt her cheeks warm as well; but she still smiled, and held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Marinette. It’s nice to meet you!” Jason’s grin grew, and Damian rolled his eyes while they shook hands.

“Jason Todd, it’s nice to meet you too, kiddo. Saw what you did on the news,” Damian tensed, glaring at his brother, “The families really grateful.” Marinette’s cheeks pinkened all over again, and she shook her head, looking only slightly uncomfortable.

“Really, it was nothing. I’m just glad I was able to keep her safe.” Jason shook his head, grinning still.

“I see now why your paper won your class this trip. It was a good read, and I can’t say I’m surprised at the kind of person you are.” Marinette’s eyes grew wide.

“You read my paper?” Jason nodded, tucking his hands in his pockets.

“We all did, pixie pop. You’re a good kid.” His grin grew snarky, and he nodded at Damian, “Figured I’d make sure he hadn’t kidnapped you.” Damian frowned, but Marinette laughed, covering her mouth.

“I-I promise he hasn’t kidnapped me, Mr. Todd. I’m really enjoying my time with him actually. He’s very funny.” Jason was staring at Marinette with glee before his gaze swivelled to Damian. Damian rolled his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, he is, is he? Are you sure he didn’t pay you to say that, short stack?” Damian felt the atmosphere shift, and glanced up, finding Marinette glaring at Jason. Her tone was nothing but polite, cordial even, as she spoke, but the coolness of it...

“Don’t be rude, please. Damian has been nothing but kind, and helpful to me since we met. I don’t like what you’re implying.” Damian felt his jaw drop, while Jason’s grin just grew.

“Good answer, pixie pop.” Before Marinette could react, Jason reached out and ruffled her hair; she batted his hand away with a huff as he looked at Damian.

“She’ll be a good friend for you, demon spawn; don’t fuck it up.” Damian scoffed, looking at him unimpressed.

“I don’t need you to tell me that, Jason. I already know.”

“Mari-bear, is this guy bothering you?”

Marinette froze, and turned back around to see Chloe and Alix, who had noticed them stop. Chloe was staring at Jason with distaste, arms crossed. Jason held his hands up in surrender.

“Just came to make sure my kid brother is playing nice, I swear.” Chloe’s eyes widened in recognition as she looked the man up and down.

“You’re Jason Todd.” Jason looked surprised.

“You know me?” Chloe scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“I know you’re a delinquent with no fashion sense, yes.” Jason laughed, and now it was Marinette’s turn to sigh. Damian smirked a bit as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Oh god, here we go…” She mumbled, and Damian snorted, a chuckle falling from his lips. Jason’s mouth immediately closed, cutting off whatever retort he had; he stared at Damian, eyes wide.

“Holy shit, Grayson was right.” Damian’s face instantly fell into a scowl as he regarded Jason, who was looking for too pleased with the situation to be safe. His older brother looked back at Marinette.

“You’re coming to dinner tonight, right? Cause Alfred needs to see him laugh. He’s been trying for years and all he’s gotten have been amused huffs of air.” Marinette blushed, but she couldn’t help but laugh; Chloe looked at Marinette and arched an eyebrow.

“What dinner, Mari-bear?” Still chuckling, Marinette handed over the invitation from Damian’s father.

“S-sorry, Chlo, I still haven’t decided if I’m going yet.” Chloe’s eyes flicked over the paper quickly, her smile growing before she handed it back.

“Marinette, you have to go! It’s dinner at the Wayne Manor! I would lose credit as your best friend if you don’t go! Honestly!” Chloé rolled her eyes, and shared a commiserating look with Jason of all people, “I swear I raised her better than this. She’ll be ready by 7:30, I’ll make sure of it.”

Marinette laughed, batting at Chloe’s arm playfully, “Hey, since when were you my mom, Bee?” Chloé flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“No one can compare to Sabine, DC, you know that.” Jason laughed, shaking his head.

“You two are really close huh?” Alix snorted.

“That’s the understatement of the century. They go everywhere together, even-“

“The bathroom!” Everyone looked at Marinette, who was clutching her phone in her hand. She looked up at Chloe, eyes wide, and took Chloe’s hand. “I need to talk to Chloé about something super important, so we’ll be back!” And just like that, Marinette was hauling Chloe down the hallway and into the bathroom they’d passed. After a moment of staring after them, Jason and Damian both turned to Alix, who just shrugged.

“It happens all the time. Marinette has pretty bad anxiety, and Chloe usually helps her with it.” An alert from Alix’s phone had her eyes widening, and she scrambled to unlock it and pull up an app.

“No way! There’s an akuma on the Seine!” Jason and Damian watched as the rest of the class all got out their phones as multiple alerts began chiming, the students clamoring excitedly.

Damian and Jason leaned over, watching a livestream on Alix’s phone. A man stood on the Seine, trash swirling around his legs while the water thrashed violently.

“I am the Recycler! The Seine is tired of your trash Paris, and I will make sure to exact revenge in its honor!” 

Damian watched as the water of the river swelled, spilling over the walls. He felt sick as he watched people get caught up in the wave, people going under, and not resurfacing. Screams rang through the tiny speakers, echoing poorly around the hallway.

There was a red blur.

“Ladybug is here! And she’s brought Hornet with her!”

Frowning, Damian saw two young women drop down, insect themed wings beating behind them. One was dressed entirely in red, with sections of black from her hips to her knees, and wrapped around her ribs; she had to be Ladybug if the spots were any indication. Her partner, Hornet, was dressed mostly in a rusty kind of orange with black stripes and patches, with yellow accents; her hair was interesting, being fully black except for the yellow tip of her ponytail, and gods, it was long.

Damian watched as the two sprung into action, working together flawlessly. It was clear Hornet was the offensive, while Ladybug played more to defense and strategy. It was over in under five minutes, with Hornet grabbing a trash net and snapping it over her leg. The black butterfly that fluttered out was retrieved by Ladybug’s- Damian’s eyes widened.

Yo-yo.

Ladybug’s weapon of choice was a yo-yo.

All of the pieces fell into place as he watched Ladybug - Marinette - purify the butterfly, and send it on its way. He watched as she crouched next to the young man left in the place of the akuma; watched as her magic brought back all those he’d just seen die.

He expected name calling when the crowd gathered around the heroes and the victim. Damian was shocked when they all closed ranks and took turns calming the young man down. The camera came closer, coming up to Ladybug as she spoke with the victim in hushed tones; she noticed the camera, and looked over.

“Ladybug! What would you say to Hawkmoth should he be watching? It’s been nearly five years since the start of this!”

If Damian had doubted her identity before then, he certainly no longer could. Her eyes held the same fire he’d seen from her now three times, and it was far too recognizable paired with her dark hair and blue eyes. She took the microphone, staring into the camera.

“Paris is strong. We are united. And I would tell him to be afraid.” Her eyes narrowed, and her grip on the mic tightened, “I have a lead on your identity, little butterfly, and you will not hold us hostage much longer. The dawn is coming, and I am coming for you.” Her voice sent chills down his spine, the sheer tenacity making his pulse spike; he couldn't help but feel his cheeks warm.

Damian jumped as the class broke into cheers up the hallway, but he didn’t take his eyes off the video as Ladybug handed back the microphone. With a flick of her wings, she was gone, Hornet waving, and following closely behind her.

And if Marinette was Ladybug, then Hornet must be-.

Damian’s thoughts cut off as Marinette and Chloe came walking up, having left the bathroom; Damian had to commend them. Chloe had not a hair out of place, and Marinette’s red face could easily be explained away as an aftereffect of a panic attack. He should be looking at Jason, trying to find out if his brother has caught on, trying to figure out how they got to PARIS; but all Damian can do is stare at Marinette.

Who is smiling at him, a look so full of sincere trust and amusement. And she has been going through this for the last five years, running off at a moment’s notice to put her life on the line for the people of her city. Watching people she knows and loves, die, only to be brought back at the end of her battle.

Damian frowns as his heart aches, bringing up a hand to his chest. Warm fingers wrap around his other hand, and he glances over to find Marinette looking at him, an open expression of concern on her face.

“Damian? Are you ok?”

And Damian smiles. Because of course Ladybug is Marinette Dupain-Cheng; who else could it have possibly been?

“I’m fine, angel. How about you?”

Marinette jolts, her free hand falling to her purse as it twitched; violently. Her cheeks grew pink, so Damian pretended not to notice. Now that he was looking for it, she really wasn’t subtle.

“I-I’m fine, really! Chloe talked me through it.” Her smile was genuine, “I’m lucky to have her.” Marinette looked back at him, and Damian realized he still had his hand over his heart; she bit her lip, “Are you sure you’re ok? It looked like you were in pain.” Damian smirked a bit, and winked.

“I was struck by your beauty and couldn’t breathe, angel.”

Damian laughed a bit as Marinette’s face grew red quite quickly, and she smacked his arm with her free hand.

“You can’t just-! SAY things like that! Oh my god!” She was starting to giggle though, so Damian counted that as a win. Maybe he was better at this than he thought.

“Wow, I cannot believe you just said that Demon spawn.”

Damian sighed, a long drawn out exclamation, and his smile fell. He turned to see Jason grinning in glee, holding his phone up. Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“Jason, what. Are you doing?” Jason shrugged, lowering his phone and typing away at something real quick.

“Oh, you know, just getting Alfred proof you do have emotions.” Jason’s grin grew, “I’m sure he’ll love the video I got of you two.”

Damian rolled his eyes; in all honesty, he’d completely forgotten about Jason’s presence given the gravity of what he’d realized. Marinette was a fucking superhero. Ignoring whatever rambling nonsense Jason was now spewing, Damian casually turned, and guided Marinette away from his idiot brother who was exchanging words with Chloe and Alix. Admittedly, he was leading her towards his other idiot brother, but Dick was busy showing the class the cafeteria for lunch; and he was sure Marinette would be hungry.

“Sorry about him, angel; he’s a bit much at times. Are you hungry?” Marinette giggled, gripping his hand just a bit tighter.

“He seems fun, actually. I like him. And, yes, I’m starving.” She grimaced, holding her bag tighter, “I uh, skipped breakfast after all.” Damian’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her teacher.

That’s right, they’d left her behind.

He gave Marinette a smile while he got out his phone with his left hand, and sent his father a quick text.

“Well the cafeteria is outfitted with anything you could possibly want. Father makes sure his employees and guests are well taken care of.” Marinette smiled as they passed Dick, entering the cafeteria; she could hear Chloe and Alix talking behind them, likely with Jason still.

Eyes wide, Marinette looked around the cafeteria in awe. They had a full three course buffet, and the amount of staff milling about, checking the quality of the food, was astounding. Damian laughed a bit.

“He spares no expense.” Marinette nodded, letting Damian lead her to a starting place. She finally breathed.

“This is breathtaking for a cafeteria. And he doesn’t charge for it?” Damian shook his head while he handed her a plate.

“That’s right. Father thinks everyone deserves the right to good food. Everything not eaten is donated, and during the evenings on the weekends, the cafeteria is opened to the homeless.” Marinette looked around the cafeteria with a newfound respect for their sponsor.

“Your father sounds like a good man, Damian; it sounds like you respect him a lot.” Damian smiled, filling up his plate; when he turned, he found Marinette ready and waiting for him, her plate stacked nearly as tall as his. He smiled.

“He’s alright; don’t tell him I said that though.”

Marinette laughed while Damian led her over to a minimally populated table, and not shortly after they’d sat down did Chloe and Alix join, Jason conspicuously absent. Alix sat on Marinette’s left side, while Chloe sat across from the three of them. Alix grinned.

“Dude, this cafeteria is amazing. It’s got everything!” Chloé sighed as she had a bite of her honey baked salmon.

“That is delicious. Damian dear, what company does your father have staff the kitchen? I have to have this salmon at home.” Damian chuckled, cutting into his steak. He shrugged a shoulder.

“I don’t think he uses a company. As far as I know, the staff are all locals.”

There was a snort from down the table, and they all turned to see a young man not much older than him hunched over his laptop. Damian sighed.

“Hello, Tim. Glad to see you’re coherent today.” Tim looked over and held up the mug in his hand.

“Thank the coffee.” He nodded in greeting to the others while he took a sip. “Bruce would never let you oversee staffing; you’re too… you,” Damian frowned, listening to Marinette giggle, “but you are correct. All the staff in the building is local.”

Chloe pouted, looking at her salmon mournfully, “Well, damn.”

Marinette snorted, saying something to Chloe in French; but Damian felt himself get distracted when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He looked behind him to find Jason standing there.

“Hey, let’s talk kid.” Damian sighed, and when Marinette looked over, noticing Jason, Damian gave her a smile.

“I’ll be right back angel.” She nodded, returning his smile, before she turned back to the conversation with her friends, and apparently Tim now.

Jason and Damian walked a little ways away, closer to the wall, and out of hearing range from the class. Jason turned to him.

“What was going on in that broadcast? You were as confused as I was until they showed that girl in red.” Jason crossed his arms, “You figured something out.” Damian shrugged.

“It’s nothing.” Jason’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh yeah? So it has nothing to do with the fact you’re little girlfriend took the Joker down in the same manner as that chick in the video?” Damian frowned, but Jason wasn’t done, “You think she’s a superhero.”

“I don’t think, I know, Jason.” Damian cursed his big mouth as Jason grinned.

“And how do you know, brat? Cause there’s no way she told you.” Damian flushed, averting his eyes, and Jason laughed. With a huff, Damian glared at his brother.

“I recognized her, in the video. I saw the look in her eyes and knew, ok?” Jason’s grin softened just a bit, and he reached out, mussing Damian’s hair. The young man swatted at him, frowning, but Jason just laughed again.

“Careful, brat, or we’re gonna start thinking you’re falling for her.” Jason expected Damian to scoff, to dismiss the fact entirely; he didn’t expect the thoughtful look on his brother’s face as he glanced back towards Marinette.

“It’s too early for that, but… I definitely like her more than I should.” Damian frowned, “Normally I’d be suspicious, but not once has she been less than sincere with me.” All Jason could do was stare.

“Holy shit, you’re serious.” Damian turned back to his brother with a scowl.

“When have you ever known me to be any different?” Jason snorted.

“Today, right now in fact. If I’d insinuated yesterday that you were falling for a girl you’d just met, you’d have tried to take my head off,”

...He was still thinking about it anyway.

Oh, Jason was still talking. Huh.

“And now, you’re just casually accepting it as a possibility? You didn’t even laugh when you and Raven were together, and she kicked ass.” Damian frowned as Jason brought up his ex.

He and Raven had had an amicable breakup; after all, he just didn’t have the parts she was looking for, which she’d learned over the course of their relationship. Last he knew, Raven was searching for a girlfriend, and still liked to brag about how much more action she got than he did.

“Raven and I were very similar in many ways, Jason. I don’t share all that much in terms of hobbies with Marinette, and her outlook on things is… refreshing.” Jason pointed at him.

“Yesterday, you would’ve said she’s naive, and gullible.” Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“And I would’ve been wrong, Jason. What’s the point of this? I’m getting to know her like a human being, and you’re acting like I’ve lost my mind.” Jason threw his hands up in the air.

“That’s cause it’s a little weird! Usually you compile an entire dossier on someone before you even attempt to talk to them; but you decided to come see the class this morning based only off the information Tim got for us. That’s not like you, brat.” Damian went to reply, but Jason’s head rose sharply.

“Looks like we got a problem, kid.” Damian was already turning when he heard a commotion. He paused when he saw one of Marinette’s classmates, a blonde boy, with his hand wrapped tight around her arm, hauling her out of her chair.

Damian saw red.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette watched Jason and Damian walk away for a moment before she turned back to Chloe.

“I hope he’s not in trouble…” Chloe scoffed, having another bite of her fish.

“Why would he be in trouble, DC?” Marinette shrugged, playing with her food.

“I don’t know, I’m just worried.” Down the table, Tim snorted.

“It’s more amazing actually.” The three girls peered down at him.

“What do you mean?” Alix asked around her sandwich. Tim shrugged.

“Damian is the youngest out of all of us, but he’s generally the coldest.” He looked at Marinette, and smiled, “We’ve seen him smile more around you than we’ve seen in the last 8 years he’s lived with us. Hell, you got him to laugh, and you've barely known him a day.” Tim chuckled, “That’s enough to warrant some kind of reward honestly. The family is just trying to adjust to this new reality where Damian is actually happy.”

Marinette flushed, “He’s been nothing but kind.” Tim laughed, nodding.

“Yeah, but that’s what’s weird. Something sets you apart from anyone else,” Tim grinned, pointing from her to Chloe and Alix, “You, and the people you care about. He wants to be kind to you. That’s a big deal when it comes to Damian.”

Chloe’s eyes lit up in recognition, “You’re Tim Drake, the third son, right?” Tim gave her a short laugh.

“Wow, I’m honored. Not many people realize it.” Chloe shrugged a shoulder.

“I’m rich, of course I know about other rich people. My father has been trying to partner with the French branch of Wayne Enterprises for way too long.” Marinette laughed, reaching for her drink to her right when someone’s hand wrapped around hers. She froze, looking over and up. Her heart was beating too fast, her hands getting clammy.

Adrien smiled down at her, his grip tightening ever so slightly over her hand.

“Hey, Mari can we talk?” Chloe looked about five seconds from throwing a fit, and Marinette couldn’t see Alix given that the girl was on her left. She stared at Adrien, seeing the clear expectation of her cooperation; it burned her up.

She took her hand out from under his, bringing it to her chest.

“No, we can’t. Leave me alone, Adrien.” Marinette turned away from him, heart beating in her ears. She closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.

‘Calm down, it’s fine, you did it! He’ll leave-’

“Marinette, please, I really need to talk to you.” She tensed as he gripped her upper arm insistently.

Oh god, why wasn’t he leaving? She said no!

“I said, NO Adrien. Get away from me.” There, she said it again. He wouldn’t be so bold as Adrien, not with the class-

Marinette yelped as she felt herself get hauled to her feet, and out of her chair.

“Just for a minute, Mari-!” She scratched at where his hand held her arm, glaring at him. Her eyes were welling with tears.

“Let me GO, Adrien!” Chloe was over the table, three inch stilettos be damned, and Alix was already coming in behind him, having circled around. Chloe beat her to the mark, hitting Adrien across the cheek with a sharp hit as she leapt off the table, tackling him, but then Kim and Ivan were there too. Kim pulled Chloe off of Adrien, after getting a good hold on her; and Ivan pulled Adrien to his feet, looking at him in disgust. Alix came over to Marinette who was staring at the floor, trying to breathe, arms wrapped around herself. Alix put her hands on the girls cheeks, startled at how cold she was.

“Marinette, hey, DC, I need you to breathe with me ok. Shh, deep breaths.” Marinette shook her head, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t, couldn’t breathe, oh god-

“Marinette?”

Marinette turned, Alix’s hands falling from her face, and then there was Damian. He took one of her hands, holding it tight, and Marinette grabbed the other one too, struggling to ground herself. Was he saying something?

“Angel, you need to breathe. You’re hyperventilating.” Oh. That’s why she felt fluttery. She nodded, closing her eyes, and for once, surrendered herself to her Ladybug senses; it would help her focus. Everything faded out, all the shouting around her, the voices, all the faces, until only Damian’s remained; she could hear his pulse if she tried hard enough, and Marinette focused on it, breathed with it. And when she opened her eyes, she gave him a tired smile.

“Thank you Damian.”

He smiled back at her, his thumb stroking her hand idly.

“Ivan, let go of me, damnit! Marinette, please, I just wanted to talk to you!” She flinched, and Damian watched her eyes narrow dangerously. She stepped around him, and Damian turned to see her storm up to where her classmate, Ivan, held her ex. Marinette stopped in front of the blonde, arms crossed.

“I said no, Adrien. I meant it. I don’t want anything to do with you. It’s been over for nearly a year now, you need to let this go.” Adrien frowned, forgetting how many of his classmates were around.

“But Mari, you love me! We were great together!” Marinette frowned.

“Adrien, I loved you so much, I was stupid about it. I would’ve done anything for you,” She choked a bit, clearing her throat, “And you wouldn’t even let the class know that we were dating. I had to tell Chloe secretly just so I had someone to talk to about it.” Adrien turned wide eyes to Chloe, who snarled at him; Kim kept a tight grip around the girls’ waist just in case. “Adrien, you never stood up for me, you never even cared enough to try. And I deserve better.” Adrien sneered, and Marinette hated the expression on his face; it looked so wrong.

“What, and he’s better?” Adrien nodded his head towards Damian, and he arched a brow in response. Marinette turned and regarded him for a moment before she smiled, and turned back to Adrien.

“I don’t know if Damian would be a better boyfriend than you Adrien, but I can tell you, he’s already a much better friend.” Adrien looked stricken, eyes watery as he looked between Marinette and Damian. Then security was there, being led by Dick who went and stood next to Jason. Three security officers took Adrien over to a table where they had him sit while Madame Bustier was found. The class was whispering amongst themselves, and Damian noticed how torn everyone was. Several of her classmates looked like they wanted to try and comfort Marinette, but weren’t sure how anymore. The first one to make up their mind was the bulky boy with blonde bangs who had been holding Chloe back.

He walked over, and placed a hand on Marinette’s shoulder, “Hey, Nette, are you ok?”

Marinette looked over and up at him, and Damian could see she was crying. He tensed when she threw her arms around the boy.

“I missed you, Kim…” The boy, Kim, frowned, before he returned the hug.

“Yeah, I missed you too, Nette.” Damian glanced at Alix and Chloe who were talking nearby. He had to admit, he was impressed. He couldn’t remember seeing many women go up and over a cafeteria table in stilettos, and then follow it up with such a nice right cross. If Adrien’s cheek wasn’t broken, it was surely fractured; Chloe was a force to be reckoned with. The two girls didn’t seem concerned with this particular classmate interacting with Marinette, so he stood by while she spoke to the boy, thanking him. Kim stayed at her side while Marinette thanked Ivan for getting Adrien away from her; Ivan just frowned.

“You don’t deserve to be treated that way, Mari. He should’ve been proud to have you.” Marinette had flushed and thanked him before he went back to his and Mylene’s table. Finally Marinette sighed and sat back down. Damian reclaimed his seat next to her, surprised to see Kim sit next to Chloe across the table; not a moment later did another new face show up. Damian regarded the boy and robot warily, looking at Alix and Chloe’s reactions once more. Seeing the two of them unbothered, Damian returned his attention to Marinette, who smiled at the newcomer.

“Hi, Max, hey Markov, how’re you guys doing?” Damian watched the boy and robot share a look, before the boy, Max, frowned.

“I uh, just wanted to see if you needed bandages or anything. Markov is fully equipped for first aid, Mari.” Max fixed his glasses while he pulled a spare chair over, “Adrien had no right putting his hands on you like that. I can’t fight like Kim, but I can make sure the bruising is kept to a minimum.” The smile Marinette gave him would’ve blinded a lesser man, Damian was sure.

“I would really appreciate that, Max. Thank you very much.” Max pursed his lips, nodding.

“It’s the least I can do.”

They all tensed as Marinette shrugged her right arm out of her hoodie. Chloe growled, eyes swivelling to the table where security was speaking with Miss Bustier and Dick; her gaze found Adrien who was staring at them in horror.

Oh, so he could see the bruises from over there.

Alix gasped, hands covering her mouth, and Kim scowled, his hands clenching. The only one who remained largely unaffected was Max. Markov had already analyzed the grip Adrien had had on Marinette’s arm, and had warned Max it would be bad. He still wasn’t quite prepared for it.

The outline of Adrien’s hand was obvious, rubbed red from the force; but the most telling parts were where his fingers had dug into her skin. His nails had bitten through skin in some places, and there was a bit of blood to clean up; underneath the blood were the bruises, already dark purples and yellows taking up space on her skin. Max tried to focus on his breathing, and helping the girl he once considered a dear friend. God, did he even have the right to think that anymore?

“Thank you for this Max, Markov. I’m glad to see you guys again.” Max looked up from her arm, and flushed when she smiled at him. He swallowed, and nodded, returning the smile hesitantly.

“Me too, Nette.” He got back to work on her arm again, pulling some alcohol swabs from a small compartment on Markov. They really didn’t deserve Marinette; they never had.

Damian was struggling to breathe the second Marinette’s arm left her jacket, and he joined Chloe in scowling at the blonde across the cafeteria. Staring at the dark, bleeding marks on her arm would not make him or her feel any better; but maybe beating the living hell out of the boy who caused them would…

He turned his attention back to Max and Marinette as the boy started cleaning the marks left by Adrien’s nails. Damian was tense, feeling a restless energy in himself he hadn't felt for some time. He glanced at her jacket, where it hung off her shoulder, and he frowned.

She wasn’t going to tell anyone about the pain. She was going to go right back to her lunch like nothing happened.

...Was this the first time a situation like this had happened?  

Damian reached over and took her free hand in his, staring at their hands as he laced their fingers together. Her hands were calloused, years of fights and work marking her skin; her hands seemed so small in his, yet they were just as strong. Marinette looked over, observing him as he rubbed idle circles into her hand, and flushed when he finally looked up at her. He gave her a teasing smile, a surprisingly gentle thing.

“There’s never a boring moment with you is there, angel?”

Silence fell around the table, and for a moment, Damian panicked, worried he’d said the wrong thing; but then Marinette was laughing, shoulder shaking before she winced in pain. She smacked at his hand playfully before taking hold of it once more.

“Ow, don’t make me laugh, Damian.” She fought to keep her giggles under control, careful of where Markov sprayed disinfectant on her scratches. It was easier if she didn’t look, pretended the marks weren’t there. Damian grimaced.

“Sorry, angel. You still up for that dinner tonight? I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to just rest.” Marinette shook her head with a frown, her eyes narrowing.

“I am definitely still coming to dinner. I’m not letting that asshole ruin my day.” Chloe gasped, scandalized.

“Mari-bear, you can’t cuss! Who taught you that vile word?” Marinette rolled her eyes, giving Chloe a deadpan look over her shoulder that had the blonde laughing.

“I am allowed to cuss. Just you watch me. Bitches.” Damian snorted, while Alix cackled; Damian thought he even heard Tim snickering to himself down the table. The tension in the air wasn't gone, but it had surely lessened. Max finished with her arm shortly after that, wrapping it in an ace bandage. He fidgeted with his phone for a moment before he sighed.

“Marinette, could I have your phone number, please? Markov took pictures of your marks in case you want to press charges, and I'd like to send them to you.” Marinette blinked, her face growing pale.

“P-press charges?? Oh god, but-” Tim interrupted her.

“Kid, you should definitely press charges. That’s assault.” Marinette stared at Tim for a moment before she turned back to Max, handing him her phone. Damian could see her biting her lip, and he knew she was considering it.

“I’ll… think about it.”

An obnoxiously loud giggle from one of the nearby tables drew her attention, and Marinette glanced over to see Lila sitting with Alya, Rose, Juleka, Sabrina, and Nathaniel; Nino was noticeably absent, and Marinette frowned.

“That’s right! My Damiboo just loves taking me out around the town. Last night’s dinner was so much fun!” Alya grinned, nudging Lila’s shoulder with her own. Marinette rolled her eyes, and turned back to the table after Max handed her phone back. She smiled as Max went around the table, sitting next to Kim, and snuggling into his side. Kim gave his boyfriend a wide grin before dropping a kiss on the boy’s forehead; Markov hovered behind them, and rolled his eyes. Marinette was about to return to her food when she heard Alya respond.

“Girl, I cannot believe you’re dating Damian Wayne! That’s so damn cool!”

Marinette choked on her drink, trying and failing to conceal her laughter. She glanced to her right, where Damian was sat, and she started coughing; he looked so insulted!

“Angel, who is that?” Marinette cleared her throat, getting control of her breathing, and offered her friend an apologetic smile.

“Sorry about that, that’s uh, Lila Rossi. She-” Alix leaned around from her left with a flat look,

“She’s a lying ho, that’s all you need to know.” Marinette turned to her.

“Alix! You shouldn’t say that.” Chloe scoffed from the other side of the table; she had her nail file out, fixing the nail she’d broken on Adrien’s face. She pointed the file at Marinette with a smirk.

“We just call it like we see it, Mari-bear.” Chloe’s smile fell as she glanced in Adrien’s direction, who was still talking with Madame Bustier and Dick. A new man had joined them, and Chloe felt her levels of glee rise; the man was dressed in a smart business suit, and wow, he was built.

Bruce Wayne cut an imposing figure as he scowled at their teacher.

Chloe turned back to Marinette, “Are you ok, DC?” Marinette blinked at her, shocked.

“Yeah, but I’m more worried about you. You didn’t twist your ankle or anything did you? I know you hate moving like that in your heels.” Chloe rolled her eyes, and flicked a piece of her salmon across the table at Marinette; it didn’t quite make it.

“Stop worrying about me; your ex just assaulted your pretty ass, and you’re worried about my ankles? Ridiculous!” She looked at Damian, gesturing to Marinette, “You see what I deal with, Damian? I swear.” Chloe watched the young man tear his glare away from Lila’s table and focus back on Marinette; the smile that came to his face filled Chloe with confidence. He liked their everyday Ladybug.

She knew she’d been right.

“Chloe has a point, angel; you should really worry more about yourself right now.” Marinette scowled up at him, but it really looked cuter than anything; which is how Damian knew she didn’t mean it, and was teasing him. He remembered quite vividly what her eyes looked like when she was serious.

“I can worry about whoever I want, thank you very much.” Damian chuckled, holding the hand of her injured arm gently. He offered Chloe an unapologetic shrug.

“Sorry, can’t argue with that logic.” Chloe clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes.

“You are no help to me.” Alix snorted, giving her a grin.

“Is anyone?” Kim laughed while Max rolled his eyes; Chloe gave her an almost feral grin, but before she could speak, someone else did.

“M-Marinette?”

Chloe’s eyes narrowed as her smile fell into a scowl, and her reaction had Damian turning. Two girls, two of the ones from the liar’s table, stood there. The small blonde one clutched the taller girl’s hand like a lifeline; both looked more than a little ashamed of themselves, but also angry. The smaller one spoke again.

“I-I, um, I mean, we just wanted to check and see if you were… ok.” Marinette regarded them, her expression a bit guarded.

“I’ve got some bruising, and a few cuts; but otherwise I’m fine.” She gave them a smile, and Damian watched the taller girl bite her lip, “Thanks for asking Rose, Juleka.”

Marinette went to turn back around when the dark haired one, Juleka, spoke.

“Marinette, I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Marinette paused, her eyes wide. Juleka frowned, glancing back towards the table her and Rose had come from; just in time to see the others turn back around quickly. She scowled, and Rose tightened her hold on her hand in reassurance. Juleka looked back at Marinette.

“I didn’t realize for so long that it was never you bullying Lila; it was always the other way around. I-” Marinette gasped, standing up as tears rolled down Juleka’s cheeks, “I didn’t realize, but I should have! You a-always went out of your way for us, for all of us. We didn’t even try-” Rose wasn’t much better, tears rolling down her face in steady streams.

“Guys, please don’t cry! You didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that they didn’t help. That they didn’t believe you.” Marinette turned to Chloe, who was looking at Rose and Juleka with unconcealed skepticism. She switched her gaze to Marinette, “What do you think, DC?” Marinette frowned and turned back to the girls in front of her. She sighed, considering.

“We don’t deserve your forgiveness, Marinette.” Said girl looked up in surprise, watching Juleka wipe at her tears in vain; more just took their place. “Chloe’s right, we weren’t there for you; not like you were for us. And there’s nothing to be done for that.” Marinette nodded after a moment.

“That’s true,” Rose’s shoulders shuddered as her tears fell with more force, and Juleka bit her lip; Marinette smiled, “But you’re here now, aren’t you?”

Rose sobbed, and Marinette soon found herself with an armful of blonde; Rose hugged her tight, mindful of her injury, and buried her face in Marinette’s shirt.

“I-I’m so sorry Nettie!” Marinette felt her eyes get misty as Juleka joined the hug, and she did her best to wrap her arms around both girls.

“Guys, you’re gonna make me cry…” Rose shook her head, clutching Marinette tighter.

“No, you can’t cry anymore, i-it’s illegal…” Marinette laughed, and then she was crying too, holding the girls closer to her.

The three of them stood together for a moment, gathering themselves. Finally, after a minute or two, they separated. Rose offered Juleka a tissue she pulled from her bag, before handing another one to Marinette. The two left for the bathroom to clean up, since Juleka’s makeup had been ruined, and the shoulder of Rose’s shirt had suffered for it. Juleka hesitated before they left.

“When we come back…” Marinette smiled, encouraging her, and Juleka flushed, “Could we maybe… sit with you guys?” Damian watched as Marinette seemed to glow at the thought, her smile brightening.

“Of course.” And then the two girls were gone, off to the stalls.

Marinette slumped back into her seat with a sigh, a tired but pleased smile on her face. Alix smiled a bit.

“You look exhausted.” Marinette groaned, using one of her napkins to clean up her face some more.

“A lot has happened, and it’s not even one o’ clock, Alix. We still have the Pier to go to today.” She cleared her throat, taking a drink of her drink; crying was exhausting. “I’m kind of terrified of anything else happening.”

“Rest assured, miss Dupain-Cheng, I am doing everything I can to make sure nothing else happens.”

Marinette jolted, her knee slamming into the underside of the table, and she groaned as Chloe began to laugh; Alix and Kim shared a grin while Max sighed. Damian turned and glared up at his father.

“Father, what are you doing here?”

Bruce smiled down at the students, offering Marinette an amused grimace.

“I apologize for startling you. Are you ok?” Marinette flushed, waving off his concern even as her knee pulsed in agony. Gods, she felt dumb.

“It’s fine, sir! I’ve had worse, I promise! I just didn’t hear you come up. And please, call me Marinette.” Bruce looked oddly concerned at the promise of her having had worse, but he merely filed it away for later. He gave her a smile.

“Marinette, then. I wanted to reassure you that I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you’re able to enjoy the rest of your day.” The blood rushed to Marinette’s head so fast she got dizzy.

“S-sir, you don’t have to do anything like that! There’s no reason for you to! I’ll be fine, I swear.” Bruce shook his head, holding his hand up.

“Nonsense, I owe you a great debt, Marinette; whether you think so or not. The fact remains that I sponsored this trip, and you saved my granddaughter. You have more than earned the right to a good time.” He smiled, nodding at Damian, “I trust my son has been good to you?”

Chloe covered her mouth as she snorted, and Marinette flushed; Damian sighed. Marinette couldn’t help her smile as she nodded.

“Yes, sir! Damian has been nothing but wonderful since we met! He has a lot of respect for you.” Damian stared at her, scandalized.

“Angel!” Marinette laughed.

“I never said I wouldn’t tell him!”

Bruce watched the two interact with a fond smile, seeing his son blush for what he’s certain is the first time. He cleared his throat, and smirked when Damian glared at him.

“I trust you’ll still join us for dinner tonight? If not, we can do it another time.” Marinette nodded, a smile on her face.

“I would love to, sir. Thank you very much.” Bruce smiled, and held his hand out. She shook it, giving him a startlingly sweet smile.

“Please, call me Bruce.” He stepped back, and regarded her friends, “Forgive me, but it’ll take some time to arrange a meal to accommodate all of you. I should be able to schedule it for sometime next week. Would that be alright?”

Most of the kids stared at him in shock, but Chloe merely smiled, flipping her hair.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Wayne. We’d love to.” Bruce chuckled a bit, nodding.

“Excellent. Damian,” He looked back at his son, thoroughly enjoying the aggravated look he was given, “I’d like you to stay with Marinette during their time at the pier. Keep the… riff raff away.” Damian scoffed.

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Bruce smirked, and raised a brow.

“I know.” Leaving his son embarrassed and glaring, Bruce waved at the kids before turning and leaving, heading back towards the teacher and security. He sighed, looking at the blonde boy who had caused this situation.

Always another problem to take care of...

~~~~~~~~~~

@wAYNEtechieBish

(½) Oh my god. I hope we host tours for

schools more i just got lunch *&* a show

at work. Like damn dude. #wayneenters

#dramaticasschildren #HOLYSHIT #WAIT

@wAYNEtechieBish

(2/2) Ths girl st8 went ovr the table at ths

dude!! SIS IS IN HEELS!! DAMN! N she

BUSTED his ass!! #gethimbb!! #godDAMN

#dudeiLOVEmyjob #dontfiremeplease

~~~~~~~~~~~

And that is chapter 3 my dudes!!!!! SURPRISE!!!!! So as much as I love the Batfam helping Mari out in these kinds of situations, I just wanted it to be her own friends for once. And Feral!Chloe is kind of my favorite Chloe; sorry, not sorry. ADRIEN YOU DONE FUCKED UP BOI. Like *DAMN*. Juleka and Rose were actually kind of an accident; they weren’t supposed to happen til later lol and the reason for their switching of sides will be revealed next time! ;D Where did Nino go??? WHO KNOWS! ;D (me, I KNOW)

This is the first time I’m writing any kind of romance, but HOLY SHIT it is SO MUCH FUN. ALSO NEXT TIME! THE PIER! RIDES! GAMES! A DATE????? MAYBE!! XD ....I really wanted it to be the dinner finally, but it’s still like,,,,,, early afternoon lmao and school trips always feature a pretty full day of activities (at least they did when I went). Anyway, I hope you guys liked this one as much as I do! I had a lot of fun writing this one! I haven’t started chapter 4 yet, but I usually spend my weekends writing, so as long as I maintain my current level of sick, I should be fine lmao

Until next time! <3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 :HERE: Part 4 Part 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TAG LIST BBS!!!! Tag list is :CLOSED: SORRY GUYS <3

@vgirl-10123  @crazylittlemunchkin  @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm  @bluerosette23  @casual-darkness  @2sunchild2  @ivymala07  @thequestionablyhuman  @northernbluetongue  @thenonsenseuniverse  @gingerdaile  @mystery-5-5  @vivilakitty  @zerotosiki  @da-tasuky  @seagulls-corner  @chez-pezeater  @dragonfruit2017  @sp0ngec4ke  @spicybelladonna  @mooshoon  @mochinek0  @poshplumcot  @theatreandcomicfreak  @fandomkitty8  @shreky-boi  @asianfrustration13  @goawayi-mreading  @mikantsume  @7-sage-7  @rogueptoridactyl @hypnosharkrebeldreamer  @mermaidofthelost  @michellemagic  @emjrabbitwolf  

[you-guys--are-losers]

57 for ship of choice

//Oooh… I like. I like this one. Oh, and the prompt too.;) Sorry it’s a bit short, but I like it. XD 

57: Breaking The Kiss To Say Something, Staying So Close That You’re Murmuring Into Each Other’s Mouths

Electrifying

Summary: In which MJ saves Peter from a supervillain and commits a serious feminist blunder.

Characters: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones

Wordcount: 1,218 

Warnings: Sarcasm, Subverted Tropes

He told her to get to safety. 

That’s all that Peter can think about as he looks at MJ, his breath heavy and gasping. He can’t tell if the roaring he hears is the sloshing of the water settling around him, seeping through the rocks beneath his feet, or if it’s the blood pounding in his ears. If he wasn’t so shocked, he would probably have been shivering, but the chill of the water that soaks him from head to toe doesn’t compare to the warmth that is spreading through his chest. 

He remembers seeing her dart out of his field of vision after the metallic, wriggling arms pierced out of the water, but he had been too busy fighting off the clawed blades that were trying to detach his head to do anything more than pray that she had made it to shelter. 

His prayers had not involved MJ electrifying the soaked, metal-clad villain with a taser filched from an unconscious police officer, but as he looks at her now he wonders if they should have. 

As Peter slowly regains his breath and his hearing, he can’t help but stare. MJ stands in the rocks a few feet away, taser clenched in her shaking hand. She looks even taller and more willowy than ever; her curls are soaked through and plastered to her head, neck, and shoulders, dripping all over her drenched clothing. The t-shirt Peter bought her (black, with “this is what a feminist looks like” in red lettering) hangs off of her, along with the beige jacket she loves so much. 

Her eyes, though slightly widened, are locked on his own, and fire blazes in them as she offers him a shaky grin from where she stands behind the twitching body of the fallen villain. 

Peter thinks she looks like Joan of Arc, and he can’t breathe. 

He doesn’t even look as the webs leave him, cocooning Doc Oc to the rocky shore. The roaring of his own heartbeat is fading, lost with the chill and with everything else as the world drops away. He doesn’t remember beginning to move across the rocks, swift and with intentionality that brings him to her side immediately. 

“MJ, I…” he trails off, unable to continue as he looks into her eyes. She does not look away, and she blinks several times as the grin fades away, leaving her lips slightly parted as she takes in the admiration that is written all over his face. 

“I just-” 

The sound of sirens, distant but droning louder against Peter’s super senses, snaps him back to reality. “Oh. Uh.” He glances at her, then over his shoulder, then back to her again. “Um, let me just-” 

Peter quickly begins to climb back onto the soaked bike path of the park they had been walking in, offering his hand to help her move quickly and safely over the treacherous terrain. She grips his forearm tightly, fingers wrapping around it as she picks her way over the rocks unsteadily. 

His heart pounds, and suddenly Peter is talking. 

“Um. That was… That was incredible. I didn’t– I’ve never seen– Uh, I just- I mean, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to intervene or anything, it’s just that Doc Oc– well, maybe one of her goons, I don’t really know– she hacked my suit, and then I couldn’t, uh, activate those taser webs. Or any webs, really. But I didn’t mean for you to be in danger, I was hoping you wouldn’t… Not that I think you need protecting, or anything! I mean, you kind of proved that, I just…” 

Peter swallows as she is silent behind him, and he can’t make himself look back to see if this is an amused silence or an unimpressed one. His heart hammers as he finally settles on, “…Thank you. I… I’m glad you’re okay.” 

In order to distract himself from the hammering of his heart and the awareness he suddenly has of her touch, he focuses on getting her onto the path, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as they move to steady ground. 

Once both of their feet are on soaked asphalt, Peter lets out a breath of relief, beginning to turn back to MJ. “So, uh the police are on their-” 

Her lips are on his, and Peter’s eyes drift shut before he even has a chance to speak. 

Peter’s back arches into the kiss immediately as her lips fit against his, knocking their teeth together lightly as he adjusts his footing so that his hips are facing hers. The taser clatters to the ground; her hands have risen to his face, one cupping his cheek while the other cradles the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his soaked curls. His hands freeze at first before drifting down to her waist instinctively as he leans into the kiss, resting chastely there. 

Several of her wet curls fall into his face, but Peter does not brush them away. The sirens in his ears are nothing compared to the absolute storm of firecrackers going off in his mind, sending sparks of warmth arcing down his body as he melts into her. Her lips are gentle and firm, and they do not leave his until Peter can tell that both he and Michelle need a moment to resurface from their moment.

When the kiss breaks, neither moves any farther than it takes to draw a breath. Their lips brush as Michelle parts hers slightly, inhaling carefully. Peter’s eyes are still closed as he breathes in the moment, heart pounding like the settling waves against the shore. 

“I’m a horrible feminist.” 

The words are breathed against his lips, and her mouth lightly brushes his cupid’s bow as he starts slightly in surprise, not moving away. 

“What?” he murmurs, eyes finally fluttering open to meet hers. They are warm and searching, scanning his face and lingering on his lips for a moment before rising back to his. The satisfaction in them is soft and warming; she is pleased with herself. 

If she isn’t careful with looks like that, she is going to get a really big head. 

Peter shoves the thought away, his hands carefully travelling so that one is cradling the small of her back and the other is cups her neck, lightly brushing his thumb along the edge of her jaw. He doesn’t make any move to step away, and neither does she as her eyes dance. 

“I’m a terrible… Feminist.” MJ draws in another breath, adjusting her positioning slightly so that her shoulders are relaxed as she maintains their close distance. Her words are whispered against his lips as she hums her explanation. 

“Interrupting someone by kissing them. Total sexist, hetero-normative trope.” 

A small, awed grin begins to spread across Peter’s lips, brushing them against hers with all the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing. The satisfied gleam in her eyes fades, replaced by something breathless and fragile as she takes in his expression of wonder.

“Well… On behalf of all the suffering, oppressed white males everywhere, I think I’ll forgive it just this once.” 

The laugh that leaves her lips at his breathless sarcasm is like music to Peter, and he hums in appreciation with the song of Michelle Jones as her lips meet his again.

[frgt-me-not]

Teenage Dirtbag ~ The Metro

Previous part // Part 5 // Next part

Word count: 1.1k

A/N: I know everything about this “mystery” performer is going to be obvious, so bare with me pls,, thx for reading btw, means a lot more than you thing — Roommate!Yoongi x reader, Social media/written au — Summary: Being an impulsive teenager was never really your kind of thing. At least, not until you stumble upon a craigslist ad for a cheap apartment in Seoul that seems almost too good to be true. Despite your family’s desperate pleads for you to stay away from the big city, you pack your bags and move across the country to find a roommate who isn’t everything you’d hoped for…

Instinctively, my hand curls around Namjoon’s upper arm, my nails digging into his skin. He shoots me a look and I loosen my grip slightly, but not enough for him to easily slip away from me. He guides me to the end of a short, black and rather creepy hallway where I spot a large steel door. The hallway has a vague smell of cigarette smoke and mold. I press my sleeve against my nose, blocking my nostrils from the unwelcome smell while I try not to imagine what is on the other side of the door. 

I turn my head slightly, as if that would make me hear better, but except for the wind outside and Joon’s breathing, I can’t hear anything. 

“You’re not trying to lure me into an abandoned place to murder me, are you?” I say, laughing at myself, even though I know a part of me is actually scared that somebody is waiting in the other room to kill me. 

He laughs, “Don’t worry, the door is just very sound proof.”

He reaches his hand out and touches a red button beside the door which I hadn’t previously noticed. Instantly, a slot in the door slides open, making my eyebrows furrow together - what the hell is this place? A secret Soviet organisation?

A set of eyes peer out at us before a deep voice utters: “Identification?” 

Joon lifts up his ID and the man nods. His eyes flash to me, and I quickly begin to rummage in my pockets for my wallet. With numb fingers I pull out my driver’s license and he stares at it long enough for me to become nervous, “I had a bad hair day that day,” I mutter and try to smile casually - it wouldn’t even surprise me if he denies me access because I’m about as nervous as a sixteen year old boy trying to buy beer. 

“Five bucks each,” the man says, and a breath of relief whistles through my teeth. 

“I got it,” Joon says and hands the man a ten dollar bill. The heavy-looking door opens with ease, and Joon has to drag me into another much smaller room. I can hear the distant sound of music and my eyes glance in that direction. Another door with a neon light above it which says “The Metro” makes all the hair on my body stand up. 

“No drugs, no violence and no sex, save that shit for when you’re home,” the man announces, a mantra he has clearly said over a hundred times. 

Namjoon nods sternly, and indicates for me to follow him, “Ready?” He whispers when I’m beside him, “No?” I reply grimly. 

He grabs my hand and squeezes it, “I’ve got you.”

My eardrums almost explode from the sudden loud music on the other end of the door, I shadow my eyes from the bright flashing lights and glance back at the now closing door to the entrance. And then there is no entrance because we’ve been swallowed up by the crowd. I slide behind Joon, hoping that he will guide us forward. 

Instead of focussing on where we’re going, I try to make sure I don’t fall over anything, but as I look down, I notice that a thick purple smoke makes it harder for me to see my feet - smoke machines, really? 

A voice booms out from the speakers and I redirect my attention to a woman in her mid-forties on the stage. I can barely make out her words because of all the sounds around me, so I don’t even bother. 

I move closer to Namjoon, and hope that tonight won’t be the night I die. 

I slam into his back as he suddenly stops, “You came!” Someone yells enthusiastically. I peer around him and spot a familiar face, Hoseok, I believe. Every once in a while he would join Namjoon during our skype sessions last year, I smile at him warmly. 

“y/n!” he calls at me, as if he’s known me for years and then his arms wrap around me in a warm hug, making me jump. 

Joon just chuckles and directs his attention to the stage where the lady has disappeared and in her place is a young girl with neon green and pink Joan of Arc style hair, singing in some language that sounds like a mix between Japanese and Russian. 

“She’s new,” Namjoon tells me, his mouth right next to my ear, and I nod - technically they’re all new to me. 

An idea pops into my head and I stare at Joon for a couple of seconds before opening my mouth, “Are you going to perform? Is that why you brought me here?”  

He has answered my question before he even opens his mouth, his lips vibrate before he cracks up, holding his stomach tight while he laughs. “It was a serious question, Joon,” I say sourly. 

“I’m just here to enjoy the show,” he nods at the stage, staring at the girl for about five seconds, seeming utterly disinterested.

“How long now?” He asks Hoseok, who’s in the middle of doing the sprinkler in front of some other guy, who I don’t know. 

Hoseok glances at his watch, “Not that long.”

And as if on queue the lady from before appears as the girl finishes her last song. “Are you ready?” She yells into the microphone, making everyone around scream incoherently back at her.

“Ready for what? A space invasion?” I murmur to myself, which neither I nor anyone around me can hear.

“Give it up for Gloss!” She practically screams into the microphone and I have to press my hands against my ears from the outbursts of screams and whistles around me. 

A sudden darkness settles over the large room, and the room grows silent. The sound of footsteps echos from the speakers as a dark figure in a black hoodie, denim jacket and a yankees cap walks to the center of the stage. The performers face is hidden behind a mask that looks like something straight out of the Purge; neon purple crosses over his eyes and a skull like mouth.  

The crowd draws in a collective breath as he lifts the neon green microphone to his lips. he breathes three times, causing the tension in the room to thicken until even I can’t deny that I’m intrigued. And then he explodes and the crowd becomes alive again; moving and breathing along with him. 

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[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamy 211 - Shiraishi shines as a friend of Asirpa and Kiro.

Work has been busy and I’ve had to put a lot of effort into things, so I apologize in advance if this isn’t quite as through as usual.  I’m currently at a point where I have to write my own performance review, that I will then give to someone else to write a formal performance review of me.  Yes, it is totally inefficient, but it takes up a lot of time to try to make it clear enough for that person to write a review.

I loved this chapter for the most part.  I have always liked Shiraishi’s character since he’s one of the few adults who isn’t traumatized from the war and does not see violence as the easy solution to problems and he’s grown so much as a character.  I’m so glad that Noda, decided to keep him around and really give him depth!

The title page does a great job of establishing the setting and timing.

It is clear that Shiraishi is returning to their inn after a night out on the town as a random woman has brought his very intoxicated self back.  Sugimoto is standing outside as the birds begin to chirp and Shiraishi is clearly functioning under drunken honesty.  He immediately comments that since Sugimoto is up so early that he’s been unable to sleep the night before meeting Tsurumi. 

This chapter sets up Shiraishi having what one would call “liquid courage” where an individual is intoxicated enough to say and do things that they would normally keep repressed.  He flat out tells Sugimoto that he’s just a pet of Tsurumi and he’s handing Asirpa over to him.  Sugimoto immediately gets incredibly flustered by this comment and lashes out at Shiraishi who doesn’t even listen him but keeps going.

Shiraishi even brings up the first time Sugimoto was captured by Tsurumi in Otaru (when he helped rescue him with Asirpa at poison arrow point) that he should have just started working for him then.  What was the entire point of fighting Tsurumi when he’s working for him anyways?

Shiraishi continues to lay into Sugimoto.  He tells the random woman that Sugimoto used to be a lone wolf and the random woman implies that Sugimoto was unable to pick a side in anything.  This further upsets Sugimoto as he tries to explain that things are different now.  He argues that he doesn’t care what Tsurumi does to Hokkaido!  He thinks that it is a better option for Asirpa to give Tsurumi the code b/c he won’t make Asirpa be the “Ainu Joan of Arc” with Hijikata.  He says if one thinks about it, it is the best option for Asirpa.

Shiraishi just shakes his head mocking Sugimoto by saying Asirpa - Asirpa.  He then asks Sugimoto what about the widow he needed the gold for?  He’s implying what about Sugimoto’s original reason to join the gold hunt - what happened to this woman he cared so much about that he was willing to do all of the crazy things up until this point.

This puts Sugimoto on the spot, he nervously replies that he “made a deal to get the money”  but he asked only for enough to help Umeko.  And then Shiraishi replies that Sugimoto may be happy with that “small” amount of money but, what about what happens for Shiraishi?  Does he get any of the money?  Keep in mind that Shiraishi joined with Sugimoto and Asirpa for a small sum of the money.  He’s risked his life for them to help them in the quest.  He should not be forgotten as a valuable team member!

Shiraishi is so angry that he lashes out at Sugimoto slapping him asking about his share.  Of course Sugimoto fights back that Shiraishi is making this all about money and slaps him back.  Sugimoto is cornered and he wants to devalue Shiraishi’s argument that he’s only in it for the money. 

After vomiting, Shiraishi keeps fighting back with words that Sugimoto is leading Asirpa on the right path?  That she’s not a family member or lover so what is their connection?  The random woman adds additional commentary that she dislikes people who old others down and Sugimoto snaps back at her to stay out of their argument. Shiraishi then presses on that Sugimoto has become so hung up on “protecting” Asirpa that he’s lost his focus on everything else.

This leads to the next page that I just adore!  Shiraishi summarizes what I have a reader have felt ever since they reunited.

Shiraishi was there to witness Asirpa on their journey in Karafuto.  He saw with his own eyes how she learned many things on the island and that she’s matured.  She is not the Asirpa that Sugimoto was separated from.

The then tells Sugimoto that Sugimoto may have reunited [physically] with Asirpa on Karafuto but they are still apart as they were before!  I melted at this line - this is a perfect summary of the shift in their friendship.  Sugimoto wanted things to stay the same between them but they are out of sync.  Sugimoto’s facial expression says it all - he’s sweating, he looks stressed, his lips are twisted a bit, an expression we don’t normally see from him! 

Shiraishi then goes on to say that Kiro taught her things that were real facts, not lies - he calls him an overly serious bastard who went to all the effort to get her to Karafuto so she could learn about the plight of her people.  She needed to see these things for herself. 

This all reaches a climax as Shiraishi grabs a shocked and pensive looking Sugimoto telling him that if she wants to carry the burden of the Ainu, she is allowed to carry that burden.

Ah, I love this so much!!!! Shiraishi flat out tells Sugimoto that Asirpa can make her own decisions and that it is her right to make her own decisions.  Since their relationship is not based on family, he’s implying that he doesn’t have the right to tell her what to do.  She can do whatever she wants to do.  Even though he said they were now equals when they reunited, Sugimoto has never actually followed through in that here in 192 - Contract Renewed.

Sugimoto has been saying one thing, but behaving another way.  It took a drunken Shiraishi to blurt all of this out and he’s right.  The last page of Shiraishi’s rant, is that if he saw her as a partner and equal that he’d gain back his own independence and not be a pet to Tsurumi.  Shiraishi vomits, collapses and then almost passes out as the woman casually strolls off.

The next day Tsurumi arrives on a naval vessel likely due to Koito Sr.’s permission with some basic facts about the ship and crew capacity.  It is clear that Tsurumi can only bring 16 men with him, not his entire group of loyal men of the 27th.

The group nervously waits for their arrival.  Shiraishi is hung over, Koito is in the foreground, and nervously states that “he’s here!”.  He’s got stress lines under his eyes, he’s sweating and he’s not sure how to react to Tsurumi.  Tanigaki is stiff in the back with Asirpa while Sugimoto looks quite deadpan.  Tsukishima is right behind Koito looking displeased and unhappy to ready with his rifle just like Sugimoto.

Tanigaki then speaks to Asirpa.

Tanigaki then tells her that when they return to Hokkaido, she should ask to see her Huci in Otaru with Tsurumi’s permission.  She doesn’t directly reply to his comment, instead she states she’ll know what type of man he is when she sees him.

So let’s take a pause - Tanigaki’s entire reason for questing for Asirpa has been for him to “return her to Huci.”.  All of a sudden he’s passed this onto Tsurumi!!!  What the hell Tanigaki?  You got involved in this to bring Asirpa back to Huci, you told Tsurumi you went to Karafuto to bring her back to Huci and now, now you are changing your side quest er I mean goal.  Really?  Really?  Reaaaaallllly?  Tanigaki are you that ready to trust her to Tsurumi?  Has he always been loyal to Tsurumi?  When he was severely injured and saved by Asirpa and nursed back to health by Huci, he said how Tsurumi took on the burden of the 27th.  It is clear that a part of him is still 100% okay with that even though he told Ogata that he left the 27th before their sniper battle and then in the swamp near Kushiro when Ogata saves him from the Ainu punishment.  Does this mean those statements were lies or was he just aligning with Tsurumi when it helped him?  What does Tanigaki want from all of this?  Has he found he prefers to be ordered around by Tsurumi b/c it is safer than thinking for himself?

Anyways, back to the chapter.  Tsurumi and his group that includes Kikuta and Usami approaches them.  He praises their performance as they have safely brought Asipra to him.  He tells Koito and Tsukishima along with Tanigaki and Sugimoto that they were the right men for the job.

Koito, blushes a little and has a bit of a smile and maybe a bit of a gasp.  Tsukishima looks unemotional.  Tanigaki frowns while Sugimoto is silent with his eyes covered and he also frowns.

As Tsurumi removes his cap, he asks if the young girl is Asirpa. Asirpa simply stares back at him as he remembers Wilk and Kiro from when he was in Russia, and also that he inspected Wilk’s body and eyes after he died at Abashiri.

Tsurumi then looks down upon her as he tells her that she certainly has his eyes.  She looks up him with determination ask her hair blows around her face.  Everyone is then distracted by Shiraishi vomiting as Tsurumi then notices him in the group.  Koito seems a bit surprised as he vomits and Usami looks over.  The panel ends with Sugimoto noticing something as Asirpa’s eyes are completely shaded black at the bottom of the panel!

As Asirpa’s eyes are shaded it implies she is about to do something and her intention is not completely clear.  With a deadpan expression of determination Asirpa draws forth several arrows at once from her quiver.  Her facial expression is similar to when she threatened Shiraishi back in Otaru to help her rescue Shiraishi!  Sugimoto is shocked!  He’s sweating, his eyes are white in suprise and shock and his heart is beating nervously.

She then ends the panel by getting Sugimoto’s attention by calling his name.

She then in with her normal eyes and facial expression tell hims that she will decide what happens to her, is a decision that she will make. She continues to draw the arrows back on the bow.  Tsurumi then notices and starts to try to talk to her as it moves to a panel of Tsukishima panicking as he yells at her in regards to what she’s doing.

Sugimoto pauses to look at her and in the final panel he nods at her in answer to her statement of self-determination.

The next page is a two page panel spread of her releasing her arrows into the air above them as other random members of the 27th look up at them.

Sugimoto then yells as the arrows start to fall back down that they are poison arrows.  Tsurumi’s men look on with shock at them.  Interestingly, Koito is close to Tsurumi but not as close to the other men, visually separating him from them.  Most of the men drop their rifles except for Usami, and Koito looks panicked at the arrows and NOT at Tsurumi!

As the arrows fall towards them, Tsukishima yells out to dodge them as Usami and jumps on Tsurumi to protect him.  Tanigaki just looks up in shock and fear!  As the arrows fall back to the ground it shows the men avoiding them.  Koito demonstrates his athletic skills as he slides down into a split to avoid being hit by an arrow.

Kikuta then asks if anyone is alright as Tsurumi is trapped under Usami and tries to wiggle out.

They then run off as Tsurumi yells that they are escaping.  As they are fleeing, Sugimoto asks Asirpa if the arrows are actually poisoned as he noticed they were simple arrowheads without the poison inserted in the cavity of the arrowhead.  He concluded that she was going to flee then.  She responds with a grin to confirm.  She then tells him that if they are partners (implying real partners) that he can’t tell her to not do things. This shows that she sees an equal partnership is based on supporting each other equally not by telling one to do something else.

She then tells him that she wants Sugimoto to be positive and optimistic, that they should “do this together!” implying communication between their partnership.

Oh yes!  Asirpa has learned how to not only express what she wants but that she wants Sugimoto to be equal in their partnership and that she wants him to approach it positively not negatively.

They then escape with a final page that in my opinion falls a bit flat and does a disservice to Shiraishi!  Sugimoto grins as he tells Asirpa that they should find the gold themselves.  And the final small panel shows Shiraishi with an arrowhead lodged in his head.

Why?  Shiraishi just gave Sugimoto the literal and metaphorical slap to the face to snap him to understand the situation and he’s used as a crass joke at the end of the chapter!  Does this mean Shiraishi will have to catch up to them?  Did they ditch him expecting him to catch up to him in their quest for the gold?  He may be hung over but that was a dick move.  He helped Sugimoto find perspective and Sugimoto and Asirpa ditched him with Tsurumi! I know many fans like to have a “golden trio” of Asirpa, Sugimoto and Shiraishi, but this implies that really isn’t a real trio as they would have brought Shiraishi along with them!

This makes me so angry!  It doesn’t come off as funny at all to me, just sad and pathetic.  I like Shiraishi, some of the jokes involving him are funny but some are just uncalled for.

Summary and random observations.

1.) Tsurumi has given away that he knows more about Wilk’s past.

By telling Asirpa that she has “his eyes” Tsurumi is subtly admitting he knows more about Wilk’s past.  Yes, he looked at his eyes on his dead body at Abashiri but that was for him to confirm that he was dead.  Saying that he recognizes his eyes in her implies that he knows more than he’s told most of his men.  I wonder who in the group present noticed this little comment?  Koito?  Tsukishima?  Kikuta?  Asirpa? etc.

2.) Koito’s worship of Tsurumi is over.

Koito looked nervous when Tsurumi approached.  His entire response to him was very calm and understated.  When Tsurumi praised him, he blushed a little.  That’s it.  Obviously, he’s still processing the information he found out from Tsukishima and Ogata.  Anyone would still like to be praised for a job well done and he may even be blushing b/c he now doesn’t know how to respond to Tsurumi and he’s just flustered.   Koito doesn’t hide his emotions well, this may be him awkwardly trying to stay calm.

What is more important is when the arrows fall back to the earth.  I personally would have expected Koito to try to protect Tsurumi with his own life.  Instead, he dodges them protecting only himself.  He’s also not upset at Usami protecting him.  Recall, that what Usami got the tattoos he was livid.  Now he’s just reacting to what happened and not even paying attention to Tsurumi!

Koito’s illusion surrounding Tsurumi has been destroyed.  It will be interesting to see how Tsurumi responds to him now that he’s back in the 27th.  Kiro took Asirpa to Karafuto to mature her.  Koito’s father sent him to Karafuto to mature him.  i wonder if Tsurumi will see a calmer Koito as a more mature Koito or if he’ll figure out something changed during his time there?

I really hope Koito breaks away from Tsurumi, he’ll make it much more interesting!  It has taken him awhile, but Koito is showing character growth and I hope it continues to keep things exciting!

3.) Shiraishi knocks some sense into Sugimoto.

I loved how brutally honest Shiraishi was with Sugimoto this chapter.  He was right to act the way he did.  Asirpa couldn’t have said those things to Sugimoto directly, he would have just ignored it b/c he would see it a part of him protecting her and her purity.  Shiraishi has become much more invested in things including the situation the Ainu are in!  He didn’t understand why Kiro had to die when he did.  He was in shock as he buried Kiro.  He’s had time to think about things as they traveled south and as he mourned.  This shows through his reunion with Sugimoto and Asirpa as it fell short - he had in his own way taken on the burden that Kiro was fighting.  Yes, he wants to bet on Asirpa and Sugimoto to get the gold but he learned along with Asirpa and Ogata as Kiro took them north to Akou.  He willingly helped Sofia escape and was on the path to going to Russia and become a partisan even if he didn’t actively seek it out.

Since Shiraishi has a different role in the quest - his words carry more weight than say, Tanigaki.  He emotionally connects with others and has gained an outsider’s perspective.  He as a previously selfish person was able to point out Sugimoto’s own selfishness that he was using to rationalize his behavior with Tsurumi.  Most of all, Shiraishi points out how cheap he was to sell out to Tsurumi.  He could have asked for more money and valued his friends more but instead he only thought of himself - not even Asirpa!

4.) Did Asirpa overhear their argument? 

Or did Shiraishi tell her about it?  Either way, Asirpa was confident enough to tell Sugimoto to trust her.

Asirpa is amazing in this chapter.  She sticks to her own moral code and compass and finds a clever way to escape. 

Her importance in looking into Tsurumi’s eyes is key - it indicates that she can read an individual and his or her intentions by this act.  What is it that she exactly saw?  Unclear at this point in time.  Hopefully, this will be explained or elaborated on later.

I’m still guessing if Asirpa has told Sugimoto the key yet.  He states that they will find the key themselves but without the skins they are stuck.  I really wish we knew more about how their argument ended after the film!

5.) Who is the random woman?

I can’t help but feel like she will play a role in this.  I wonder if she will pass information along to others - like Ogata, or Vasily?

Where has Vasya gone off to?  He can’t be far away and I can’t help but seeing him fall under the sway of Tsurumi.  We know he tells men what they want with his “sweet lies”.  He speaks Russian and he could promise Vasily the chance to face Ogata again.  . ..

That is all I have for now.  I’m a bit too busy to go into my usual depth but I’m hoping that these new events are the start of a new arc.  Hopefully, once I’m done dealing with my performance review I’ll be less distracted.

[andavs]

So there’s this long list of prompts, and I love all of them, so I’m going to do a bunch of them completely unprompted.

Number One: “The skirt is supposed to be this short.”

“I can’t believe this is your dirty secret.”

Boyd raised his eyebrows, adjusting his belt. “What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know, scrapbooking? Ballroom dance? Secret piccolo prodigy?” Stiles tried to shimmy the massive wedgie out of his buttcrack, but it just slipped in further. God damn it. He was wearing way too many layers to go after it, at least two of them chainmail.

“Piccolo?” Boyd’s tone itself wasn’t threatening, but picking up a broadsword and sheathing it on his belt certainly was. It was much bigger than Stiles’ sword, that was for sure.

“Come on, dude. Do you really not see the irony of a literal werewolf LARPing? And not as a werewolf? You wouldn’t even need prosthetics!”

“It’s not roleplaying if you’re just being yourself.”

“Okay, but why roleplay when you’re already a badass? Let’s face it, if anyone here should be roleplaying, it’s the pack human who doesn't have superpowers.”

“They aren't superpowers!” Derek’s usual reflex response came from behind the curtain, and then he added, “Are you sure you didn’t give me Kira’s outfit?”

Boyd rolled his eyes like they were the ones being unreasonable here. “Yes, I’m still sure. Come out.”

Stiles couldn’t actually hear it, but it was like a sixth sense by now; he knew Derek sighed before yanking back the crookedly hanging sheet that served as a dressing room in a corner of their massive canvas pack tent.

“So, the skirt is supposed to be this short.”

Stiles slapped his hand over his gleeful smile so hard he might’ve broken his own nose. Derek glared. Boyd was as unflappable as usual.

“Kilt. And yes, it’s supposed to look like that.”

Derek looked down at his outfit, at the stitched leather vest and gauntlets, the plaid kilt (that did look a little short over his knees), and very...rustic boots.

“I look ridiculous.”

“No, you don’t.” Boyd held out a small jar that said RED on the lid. “You just don’t get the full effect without the face paint.”

Stiles squeaked behind his hand, while Derek somehow managed to glare harder.

“No. No face paint. Stop laughing,” he ordered, pointing a threatening finger at Stiles that really wasn’t the least bit threatening while he was blushing up to his ears under that beard.

“Braveheart,” Stiles whispered giddily in response, and Derek’s eyes actually flashed red.

“Don’t think that fake chainmail can protect you from me.”

Stiles snorted. “Big words from a man in a dress.”

“It's a kilt,” Derek growled through his teeth.

“Guys,” Boyd interrupted with a sigh. “Derek, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. I can try to find you something else.” He said it so sincerely that it was almost believable that he didn’t know exactly what kind of guilt trip he was laying down.

It’d taken five years for the pack to get an honest answer to, “What do you want to do for your birthday this year, Boyd?” and none of them were going to refuse him anything on this, admittedly, unexpected adventure they now found themselves on. At the Beacon County Fairgrounds, of all places. Even Lydia had joined in, looking like a flawless Joan of Arc in her armor, because if she did anything, she did it perfectly and with a shocking dedication to historical accuracy, apparently.

So no, Derek was not going to make Boyd find him something else. Stiles communicated this with his eyes, and Derek quickly composed himself.

“It’s fine,” he said with a little less attitude, while still looking a little like a pouting toddler. Stiles wanted to pinch his adorable pink cheeks.

“Seriously, we can leave, it’s cool,” Boyd continued, laying it on thick.

“We’re staying.” Derek grabbed the jar of face paint out of his hand and unscrewed the lid, frowning down at it. “What do I do.”

“Uh, I think you’re supposed to paint your face,” Stiles suggested shittily, and when Derek glared, he added, “just a guess.”

He felt a little bit bad when Boyd gave him a knock it off look. Boyd was usually the adult in the room.

“I’ll do it.” He took the jar back. “Don’t worry, it’ll look badass.” He dipped a finger into the paint, raised it to Derek's face, and then Scott appeared at the open tent flap, eyes wide with panic. His chainmail was crooked and all bunched up in some places, while still stretched near to the point of breaking in others.

“Dude, can you help me with this? I think it might be backwards, but I don’t know how to get it off without ripping it!”

Boyd was up in an instant, maybe actually supernaturally fast, because he'd put a shocking amount of work into helping them with their costumes, and he was meticulous about taking care of them. He dropped the jar of paint into Stiles’ hand without thought, and followed Scott outside their big canvas tent.

He just left.

Just gave Stiles that kind of power, and left him unsupervised.

“I'll do it myself,” Derek said, but Stiles was waiting for it and immediately countered with,

“Got a mirror hidden somewhere up your kilt?” The only mirrors on the fairgrounds he knew of were in the constantly-in-use porta potties across the field. Boyd was part of a hardcore LARPer guild-thing, no non-emergency tech or modern comforts allowed.

“I’ll take my chances without one.”

“And ruin Boyd's hard work? Just stand still, I got this.”

Stiles couldn't predict what he would do with that cheap shot, but apparently the value of Boyd's happiness on his birthday hadn’t dwindled, because Derek sighed and resigned himself to his fate. Aside from a growled warning of,

“Don’t draw a dick.”

“I’m not gonna draw a dick.” Stiles was almost offended by the assumption, but mostly disappointed that he was juuuust too good of a person to actually do that to Derek.

“And don’t do Braveheart.”

“I’m not gonna do Braveheart. Trust me, it’ll be cool.”

Derek didn’t look like trusted him at all, but Stiles ignored him, dipped two fingers in the red paint, and dragged it down the right side of Derek’s face, from his hairline down onto his neck. He held out his hands to signal that his masterpiece was complete, and that Derek could unclench.

Derek blinked at him, deadpan. “You did Thor, didn’t you.”

“Yeah, I did, and you look awesome.” He actually did look awesome, and Stiles was really hoping chainmail could hide a boner.

Derek considered it for a brief moment, like he was trying to picture it on himself and reluctantly agreed. Then he gave Stiles a shitty smile, and plucked the paint out of his hand. “Your turn.”

That took the wind right out of his sails.

“Actually, I think I’m good,” Stiles stammered, debating how embarrassing it would be to make a grab for the paint and miss when Derek inevitably pulled it out of reach with werewolf speed. Derek liked to pretend he was the unaffected adult when others were around to witness, but he had a pranking streak a mile wide where Stiles was concerned. He was petty and he was ruthless.

“Come on, don’t you want the full effect?” He asked patronizingly.

“I think the effect is plenty full enough already.” Stiles took a step back and Derek followed. Oh god, he was going to write kick me across his forehead, or virgin, he could probably fit ask me about my ED if he used his pinky.

“Look, I already look dumb enough, I don’t need a poop emoji on my forehead to make it worse.”

Crap, now he was giving him ideas.

Derek rolled his eyes. “You look fine, hold still,” he said, pressing his palm against Stiles’ jaw to hold his head, and Stiles realized just how much power Derek really did hold here. No mirrors, no way to check his face, he could only feel what Derek was doing and hope he wasn’t drawing daisies down his cheek.

“Don’t draw a dick,” he joked weakly, and Derek’s face softened.

“I’m not going to draw a dick. Turn your head.”

Stiles obliged and stared at the back of the tent, at the sun peaking through the canvas, while he waited for Derek to make up his mind. Whatever he was planning, it was taking forever, and Stiles was only getting more nervous about it. Oh god, it was going to be complex, and Stiles was going to look ridiculous.

“You know it’s not supposed to be the Mona—”

He couldn’t have finished even if he’d been able to overcome the shock of Derek pressing his right hand against the side of Stiles’ face, this time with something definitely wet between them; Derek’s thumb was laying across his mouth, and Stiles was pretty sure trying to talk would only get face paint on his teeth too.

Stiles blinked at him through his fingers, processing the fact that he was definitely going to have a giant red handprint over half his face.

Derek pressed a little harder, like he was trying to seal it, before letting go completely, leaving Stiles’ face cold where his hands had been. He stepped back, considering his work, and nodded to himself.

Stiles stared at him, still processing, trying to cobble together a reaction. Having Derek Hale’s hands on his face wasn't a situation he'd prepared himself to experience in this lifetime.

“I feel like that orc guy with the handprint,” he tried, and Derek blinked at him. “Lord of the Rings? Killed Boromir? Nevermind.”

Derek screwed the lid back on the jar of face paint, trying to keep as much red off the jar as he could when his entire hand was covered.

“Lurtz,” he said quietly. “And he’s Uruk-hai.”

This time it was Stiles who could only blink. “Wait, what?”

Derek looked up, clearly regretting his words and trying to look innocent.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, you just corrected my Lord of the Rings reference.”

This time Derek huffed, brushing it off. “It’s not hard to tell the difference, anyone who’s seen the movies would know that.”

“I didn’t even know you knew the movies existed!”

“They were everywhere when I was in middle school, how would I not have seen them? Everyone saw them.”

“Yeah, but not everyone knows the name of that one specific Uruk-hai who barely has any lines! Wait,” Stiles’ entire life was shifting, “did you read the books too?”

Derek looked back down at the jar in his hands and almost muttered, “He wasn’t in the books.”

Stiles gaped.

He knew Derek had lots of books, read constantly, but it was always historical stuff. Very specific subjects, like Russian playwrights of the late 19th century, or journals of a guy who owned a farm in Idaho in 1934, biographies of people who really didn’t contribute to any great change in the world—that kind of boring stuff. Never anything actually interesting. Never fantasy.

Derek continued to fiddle with the face paint, avoiding eye contact.

“Oh my god, you’re totally a fantasy nerd, aren’t you?”

He continued to avoid eye contact.

“This is totally your kind of place, isn’t it? Why didn’t you make your costume?” The only reason he was stuck with the kilt was that he’d been too stubborn and standoffish throughout the entire process for Boyd to get chainmail and armor that would fit him properly (and he refused to eyeball it, he was adamant that his pack not look sloppy among his LARPing peers).

“I didn’t want to.”

“You did. You totally did. And we are totally coming back next year so you can look like the badass alpha you are. Something about the kilt just doesn’t say power.” Stiles took a step back and squinted at him, trying to picture a quintessentially Derek outfit. “I think you need a crown.”

Derek huffed, but he looked like he was blushing again.

“Seriously, man, if you want to do this, you should. Boyd would be thrilled. Or, as thrilled as he ever is. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.” Stiles was pretty sure he was having a good time with them all there, but Boyd’s happy smirk was pretty close to his you guys are unbelievably stupid smirk. Though with everything he’d put up with throughout this whole process, his current smirks probably fell somewhere in between.

Derek picked at the red paint on his hand for a second, then, “Maybe.”

“Not a no!” Stiles crowed, and Derek rolled his eyes, but Stiles could tell he was secretly happy.

Probably.

Stiles had his handprint on his face, the guy better be happy.

Hearing a break in their conversation (god, the entire pack could probably hear them outside), Kira shouted for them to hurry up, and Derek started to look a little nervous. Stiles clapped him on the shoulder, and handed him his sword.

“Let’s do this. I saw seven Highlanders on the walk from the car alone, you’ve got work to do.”

That got a grin out of him as he accepted the sword, even if it did have an eyeroll accompanying it.

“Get used to it, man, once we get your cloak on, you are literally a hotter Connor MacLeod. Like him and Thor in one. You’re going to have a fanclub of elven barmaids following you around.”

“My dream,” Derek deadpanned, clearly the last thing he wanted. Stiles couldn’t say that was a problem he’d personally had, but having witnessed it in Derek’s life, yeah, it did look like it got annoying when it wasn’t wanted.

“Don’t worry, my dear alpha.” Stiles unsheathed his sword with some difficulty—it was longer than he thought and it hit the top of the tent, then the main post, then his own knee. He would definitely be sticking to his bat and mountain ash for any actual fighting. “If anyone tries to touch you, I’ll challenge them for your honor. And I’ve fought a literal dragon before, all these nerds are going down.”

“It wasn’t a dragon,” Derek dutifully countered, as usual.

“It was basically a dragon.”

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

Normandy

(long post warning)

It was a short train ride from Paris to Rouen, but the atmosphere completely changed from one city to another. Instead of the stately Haussmannian apartments and broad, straight boulevards, Rouen had narrow cobblestone streets and rickety-looking half-timbered houses.  Our Airbnb studio adhered to Rouen’s dress code: it had exposed beams, exposed brick, and wide windows. It was as cozy as a hobbit hole and perfect for the carryout pizza dinner we ate there on our first night.

We got up early to begin exploring Rouen the next morning. It was sunny but chilly and foggy. Because of our visit to the Monet museum in Paris, we knew that Monet had painted a cathedral in Rouen several times. Within five minutes, we found a church that looked just like the paintings we had seen. We strolled around the quiet courtyard, enjoying the hint of mystery that the fog gave the church. After consulting our map, though, we realized the cathedral that Monet painted was still a half-mile away. We felt silly for the mistake, but still really enjoyed this church (which was actually an abbey), and wondered how the cathedral could be any more awe-inspiring than this place. When we visited the actual cathedral, we didn’t fully appreciate it because we were spending all our attention on avoiding an aggressive panhandler who was accosting each and every person in the square. So, the abbey holds a fonder place in my memory than the cathedral does.

In my preparation for the trip, I learned that Joan of Arc spent some time in Rouen, and that she played a significant role in Rouen’s tourism industry. But apart from the vague memory of a Wishbone episode about her, I knew next to nothing about Joan of Arc before coming to Rouen. We saw a few plaques around the city inscribed with things like “This is where Joan of Arc’s abjuration happened,” and “This is where Joan of Arc was imprisoned,” so little by little we learned more about her story. Then, we went to a museum (for lack of a better word) about her life. The building itself was where part of her trial took place, but that was the only thing about the museum that was authentic to the time period. Her story was told by videos of reenactors, projected so that they looked like they were really moving about the space. The idea was that we were watching Joan of Arc’s posthumous second trial, where witnesses were called and arguments were made to determine whether she was really a heretic or just wrongfully sentenced. I almost always prefer authentic artifacts over copies or reconstructions in history museums. But I thought this “museum” did a great job of compensating for its lack of extant artifacts from Joan of Arc’s life with engaging storytelling. I left the museum wanting to know a lot more about her life. I guess Nicolas did too, because he checked out an ebook about her that same night.

Our second full day in Rouen was dedicated to hiking and enjoying the outdoors. After spending our Christmas break in exclusively big cities, I realized that hiking is one of my very favorite types of sightseeing, and it was something I wanted to try to do more of in this trip. The trouble, though, is transportation. Before the trip, I spent more time and energy than I care to admit poring over maps and timetables to try to find the simplest way to some trailheads near Rouen. Every bit of the preparation was necessary. Two of the four bus stops we used were displaced from their normal spot because of construction going on nearby. Once we were riding the bus, I obsessively switched between Rouen’s public transit app and my hiking app to make absolutely sure that we got off on the right stop. We made it through the whole day with no transportation crises, which felt like a major accomplishment. And the hikes were wonderful!  We walked up a hill to see a panoramic view of the city, and as we were going up the path, I realized that it had been quite a while since my feet had walked on grass. On our second hike, we walked through the cutest village, passing a chapel, horse farms, and bed and breakfasts until we entered some nearby woods. We could almost trick ourselves into believing that we were walking through a slightly flatter Kentucky.

Towards the end of our hike, we entered a still-smaller village composed solely of very expensive-looking homes. As we walked by a hedgerow, a prissy little dog bounded through a gap in the hedges to greet us. We said hi to the dog as we passed, and kept walking. But the little dog followed us, all the way to the next house. I thought the dog would eventually return home, but Nicolas was worried that the dog would get lost, or that we would be accused of dog-napping. We decided to turn back and try to quietly coax the dog back into its yard. The dog, smiling stupidly all the time, refused to acquiesce at first, but we finally got the dog to go home.

This dog episode, and the few other times I have interacted with people’s pets in France, always reminds me that I have no clue how to talk to dogs in a foreign language. Surely “Bonjour” is too formal to say to a dog? But then again, if I’ve never met the dog before, is “Salut” or “Coucou” too presumptuous? Of course, a dog can neither speak French nor English, so what difference does it make? But if a French person hears me, will they be weirded out to hear me speaking English to their dog? It’s a conundrum.

After Rouen, our next stop was Le Havre. It was much less charming than Rouen, but then again, it was a beach town in the off season. We stayed in a slightly shabby beach condo, which we especially appreciated for its free washer and dryer. We spent one of our days in Le Havre sightseeing: we visited its impressive modern art museum and its public library, which looks exactly like a giant roll of toilet paper. 

The other day we spent taking a daytrip to the nearby town of Étretat, known for its white cliffs immortalized in some Monet paintings. Étretat was quaint and tiny; we saw most of it in a 30-minute walk around town. We brought a picnic to the rocky beach and ate it under the watchful eyes of the seagulls. We spent a lot of time staring up at the sheer white cliffs. Several times now we’ve recognized a building or landscape from a famous painting, and it’s an experience that never gets old for me. I especially enjoy seeing the places depicted in impressionist paintings. So much of impressionism is based in the idea of representing a fleeting moment in time—the weather, the time of day, the effect of the wind and the light—rather than a thing or a place. So in this sense, I still can’t say I’ve seen what Monet or Pissarro saw and painted, because I wasn’t present for that exact moment 100 years ago. Nevertheless, it feels very special to have captured my own fleeting moment in my brain, a moment that still has an element in common with something Monet saw with his own eyes. After lunch, we took the trail up the hill to the top of the cliffs. It was a beautiful, breathtaking walk. And the weather was better than we could ever have asked for. We even felt the need to put on sunscreen!

The last place we stayed was Caen. Nicolas was feeling a little dizzy and nauseous the day we arrived there, and we were both tired of constantly walking around, so we scrapped our itinerary for the day and stayed in our Airbnb. It was a tiny loft under the eaves of an old apartment building in the historic district. We kept hitting our heads on the sloped ceilings, but the views from the skylight windows were amazing. We spent the day relaxing on the pullout couch. Given my overachiever, workaholic tendencies, it pains me sometimes to deviate from the plan, or to not do all the things in a new place. But it felt good to be a little spontaneous and listen to our bodies’ need for rest. Because of this change of plans, I can’t say I know very much about the city of Caen. But when we went out to buy some groceries for dinner that evening, we got to see two abbeys built by William the Conqueror. These religious buildings were a lot different from the ones we had seen elsewhere in France. The stone looked orange in the evening sunlight and the steeples were really, uh, steep. According to the sign in front, William wanted to marry his first cousin, but the Church didn’t like that, so he offered to build the abbeys in exchange for the Church’s approval of the marriage. The marriage happened, and the abbeys survive to this day. I’m sure there’s more to Caen than one-limbed family trees and bribery, but that’s all we got the chance to learn about.

The next day, we set of for the train station early in the morning, and we took a 15-minute train ride to Bayeux, a neighboring small town. There, we saw a medieval tapestry recounting the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings (why does that sound like a Harry Potter spinoff?). From what I had been exposed to at UK, I knew that I wasn’t super interested in medieval studies, but the tapestry (as well as some medieval things we saw in Paris that I didn’t write about) rekindled my interest in that time period. It’s worth mentioning first that the tapestry is less of a tapestry—there’s no weaving involved—and more of an embroidered comic strip. It was displayed in a dimly lit, V-shaped room long enough to display all 230 feet of the embroidery. An audioguide explained what each panel depicted, occasionally drawing our attention to certain details of the construction of the embroidery. At the end, there were more exhibits explaining the context of the “tapestry”: how it was made, how it is preserved today, what else was going on in France in the time period, etc. All in all, it was much cooler than I expected. The embroidery itself is an impressive work of art, and it tells the story of William the Conqueror in a dramatic fashion. The novelty of it was part of the fun, too. No disrespect to altarpieces, but we’ve seen enough of them to last us a long time; a thousand-year-old history text in the form of a proto-comic book, by contrast, was quite the sight to behold.

After lunch in Bayeux, we took a guided tour to the nearby beaches of Normandy. The tour was intended for Americans, as it was conducted in English and went to three main American points of interest: the American cemetery, the Pointe du Hoc, and Omaha Beach. On the tour, we met three women from Tampa who were taking a “girls trip” around Europe. We had been hearing snippets of American tourists’ conversations all around Paris, but it felt good to finally socialize with some of our own for a few hours. Our guide was a Dutch-Indonesian man who told us a little bit about the Battle of Normandy and told us a lot about the moderately successful Dutch hip-hop group he was in during the 80s and 90s. I did learn some new things, though, especially at Pointe du Hoc. It was the site of a German stronghold that American Rangers captured by scaling the seaside cliffs and taking out German heavy artillery stationed there. When we visited, we got to explore an underground German bunker, something I never expected to be able to do in my life. Above ground, the craters left by aerial attacks were still there, but grass and yellow wildflowers had regrown over them, giving the place the sloping, manicured look of a golf course rather than a battlefield. Together with the seaside and the cliffs, the whole place was eerily beautiful. To me it was a physical representation of the axiom that time (maybe with the help of tourism money) heals all wounds.

Our final day of sightseeing was spent at Mont-Saint-Michel, the village that becomes an island at high tide. We took a Flixbus there from Caen. It was hard to see the road from our seats, but based on the amount of times the driver honked at other people on the road, I think our lives may have been in danger a time or two. We arrived safely, however, then walked about 45 minutes from the parking lot to the town itself. We stopped several times as we walked to admire the view: a rocky hill jutting up from the flat floodplain into the sky, the spire of the abbey at the top reaching ever upward. The view was stunning, but the strong winds on the plains carried the even stronger smell of cow patties with them. After a few minutes the smell became overpowering, but at least it reminded us of home.

The commune itself was a quirky place. The narrow streets, lined with quaint-looking but overpriced little restaurants and shops, spiraled upwards to the abbey at the top of the mount. My favorite part was walking around the ramparts, which allowed us a little more room to breathe, and gave us views of the farms on one side and the English Channel on the other.  There were seagulls everywhere, and they sometimes flew against the wind so that they hovered in place like a kite. We spent the first little while wandering around and enjoying the atmosphere: whimsical, as if such an impossible place could only exist by magic…and yet, intentionally made to seem that way. I did my best to suspend my disbelief.

Our day at Mont-Saint-Michel was, amazingly, our only rainy day in our two weeks of traveling. We spent as much time as we could indoors as we explored the abbey, but eventually we ran out of inside activities we could do that we were willing to pay for. We decided to head back a little early to the welcome center on the mainland. We took the opportunity to sit somewhere soft, decompress, and use some free wifi (which our Airbnb in Caen lacked). Rivers in the desert.

Our day of travel back to our home in the Alps was supposed to be a long one, but I didn’t mind this because we enjoy reading, writing, or watching Netflix on the trains. I had also planned for us to arrive back in Cluses early enough that we could take a bus back home rather than walking. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men.  Halfway through our first train ride, we were delayed because of an electrical malfunction at a station further down the line. The conductor came on the loudspeaker several times telling us several different estimations of waiting times. We transferred to trains on parallel tracks four different times as the plan changed. When all was said and done, we arrived in Paris two hours and 46 minutes later than we had anticipated, which meant that we had missed our train going from Paris to the Alps. Our train was not the only one to be delayed, so we waited in many lines to talk to many customer service representatives about getting home.  Because it was winter vacation—high season for alpine skiing—our options for returning home weren’t great. Eventually, we decided to wait two hours for the next train, where I would get a seat but Nicolas would have to stand. On this second train, there was yet another delay of about 20 minutes. This put us in danger of missing our connection to our third train. Fortunately, however, the conductor let us know as we approached our stop that the third train was guaranteed to wait at the station for people with connections. This was the last of the difficulty, and we arrived at Cluses safe and sound. Needless to say, we missed the last bus home by a long shot, so we had to walk the two miles to our apartment instead. 

This last day of vacation was clearly not my favorite day we’ve spent in France so far. But I was very thankful that this whole ordeal happened towards the end of our time here and not at the beginning. At this point, I have a good understanding of how trains and train stations work here, and I’m more comfortable using my French in complicated situations.  Several times throughout the day I tried to imagine my reaction if this had happened on our first day in France while we were lugging around our big suitcases and trying to get to our town for the first time. I probably would have cried, died, and/or gotten on the next plane back home.  We had a bad day, but at least it showed me the ways I’ve learned and grown.

[alphaflyer]

FICLET:  Echo

For @cassiesinsanity, who gave me the prompt “That was a perfect example of how not to do things.”  Warning for politics...

                                                Echo

Steve really, really hates it when someone looks over his shoulder, especially while he’s trying to type on his iPad.  Those stupid electronic keys weren’t exactly made for serum-enhanced fingers and he always feels a little clumsy and self-conscious -- particularly when the someone is Tony Stark, whose own fingers can make any electronic device perform a Scott Joplin rag. 

“Do you mind?” he snaps at Tony, to absolutely no effect. Instead of scatting, the man draws closer.   Much closer.  Steve can feel his breath on his neck, warm and damp and smelling slightly – no, a lot – of beer.

“Hey, assassin people,” Tony says right beside Steve’s ear, his voice pitched high in amusement.  “Did you know that Captain America is contributing to the comment sections?” 

“Do you mind?”  Steve says again, this time with a proper don’t-fuck-with-me snarl.  “Or have all notions of privacy and personal dignity gone out the window since I went under the ice?” 

“Commenting on what?” Natasha wants to know, while Barton just utters a lazy but definitive, “Ee-yup.” 

The two former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents peel themselves off their couch in unison and head over to Steve’s side of the room on silent feet.  He is about to shush them off when he sees Barton unceremoniously shove Tony aside, a move that deserves to be rewarded with some momentary tolerance. 

And so Steve says nothing when Barton drapes himself over the back of his armchair, while Natasha settles gracefully on the armrest and leans in. Her perfume is the same as the one she was wearing on the Lemurian Star; for a moment Steve flashes back to the night when his world had started to fall apart, except he hadn’t known it then. Not yet.

“Whoa,” Barton says as he digests the contents of the page Steve has been looking at.  (Why do they call it a page when you can go down it endlessly – shouldn’t that be a scroll?) He taps off the keyboards without asking, so he can see the whole article, not just the comment window, and moves the cursor up.  He whistles softly. 

“That is some fucked up shit you’re lookin’ at, Cap.”

Steve nods, inexplicably comforted by the validation, however crudely delivered. 

“These people are either Nazis, or nuts,” he replies.  “The stories are bad enough, especially the ones by that Greek guy.  But the comments people leave?  My word.” 

He shakes his head as he watches the text flit by under Barton’s calloused finger; for a former carnie, the man reads surprisingly fast. 

“I suppose me and Bucky and the others, we fought a whole war so these jerks could keep the right to open their mouths, but I sure don’t have to like what comes out.” 

“And so you comment back.”   Barton nods approvingly and stops his scrolling.   “Righteous use of force and all that - do your Cap thing and hit those suckers where it hurts.  Makes perfect sense.”

If it makes sense, then why does Steve feel so mentally exhausted by the process?  He tries to explain, for his own benefit as much as the others’.

“For some reason, though, no one on the Internet seems to actually want a rational discussion. They just … pile on with insults, as soon as I make a perfectly reasonable, fact-based point. By the way, does anyone know what’s a ‘libtard’, or a ‘cuck’?”

“Well, what do you expect?” Natasha sounds amused possibly at some joke that only she – and maybe Barton – understands.  Someday Steve will figure out how they do that, this reading each other’s thoughts.  

“Sorry to break it to you, Steve, but you are on the Breitbart site.” 

“Breitbart?”  Apparently, Stark was insufficiently offended by the Barton shove; he hasn’t left the common room, he’s just gone to pour himself a Scotch. He takes a deep swallow and shudders.  “Abandon all rational thought, ye who enter there.” 

Steve’s chair currently being occupied by three people leaning over one iPad, Tony steers to the couch opposite from it as if that had always been his destination.  He plunks himself down and puts his feet on the coffee table, carefully placed in between the empty Chinese food containers and the beer steins.

“Seriously, Cap, piece of friendly advice?  You need to avoid that kind of site if you want to stay sane. Don’t let yourself be baited.  I mean, would you walk into one of Doctor von Doom’s toxic slime factories on purpose?  Let me tell you, I wouldn’t.”  He considers for a moment.  “I’d send Thor.” 

Tony probably has a point, if the angry churning in Steve’s gut is any indication.  Not about sending for a Norse God to do the mucky jobs, of course, but about maybe better avoiding political aggravation altogether.  Lord knows it’s bad enough waking up thinking you’ve won the war only to learn Hydra’s been there all along – and now, all these morons are crawling out of the woodwork, waving the Constitution just so they can burn it to ashes? 

“So what do you suggest I do, Tony?  Stay off the internet?”

“Works for me,” Barton shrugs.  “All’s ever there is pictures of kittens and the criminally stupid, trying to tell people not to vaccinate their kids.”   

He scrunches up his face, and looks over at Natasha for a second.   

“Well, I suppose there’s porn.  Say, Cap, you discover porn yet?” 

Natasha is fixated on Stark, who has gone uncharacteristically quiet.

“Tony?”  Her voice is soft, yet threatening.  “Are you thinking again?”

Steve shakes his head.

“I can’t give up on the internet altogether.  Still too much catching up to do.  Wikipedia…”  

He lets his voice peter out as Tony sets down his Scotch glass – a man who’s had an epiphany.  Tony looks up at the ceiling, like Joan of Arc calling out to her voices. 

“Friday?” he says, his speech a little slurred from all that beer and Scotch.  “I need you to write me an algorithm.  Something that separates sane from stupid.  Filter out all the Nazi junk, so that our good Captain here can cruise the web without going bonkers.  Can you do that?”

The melodious voice comes out of the ceiling somewhere, a fraction of a second later.

“As you wish, sir.  Would you like the algorithm to be applicable only to Captain Rogers’ personal browsing patterns, or to be more generally available?” 

Steve wants to say something to the effect that this isn’t necessary, that he’s a man and can take a little bullying on occasion, in fact needs it so he can feel useful when he whacks it down.  Besides, the word ‘algorithm’ gives him the shivers a bit.

But Stark gets there first.

“I think we can save everyone a lot of hassle by limiting all that unnecessary friction between people.  I say, just go for it, Friday.  Whole hog.”

                                                      …..

At first there isn’t much change, but after a couple of weeks Steve notices that his Facebook page and Twitter are much more pleasant places to spend time on.  His feeds seem mostly to show links to articles that are more interesting than annoying, with even the occasional science piece thrown in.  He even finds himself agreeing with most of the posts, and when the occasional commenter says something incendiary or abysmally ignorant, enough people shout him down so Steve no longer feels compelled to.

It’s all working pretty well, actually; even Sam agrees, and he is even more cynical than Stark.  In fact, Steve finds himself looking into the future with more confidence than he’s had since those helicarriers dropped into the Potomac. 

Yes, things are going very well, until … 

The team watches incredulously as the electoral district counter goes ever deeper in the red and PA, Wisconsin and Michigan get declared for Trump.  Even Tony, who’s been raised at the teat of billionaires and can identify with the dollar signs in the candidate’s eyes, shakes his head in disgust.

“Are they fucking serious?”  

Barton stares at the screen, where a handful of pundits are shouting over one another in horrified alarm. 

“Wonder why nobody saw that coming?” 

Natasha looks at her half-empty champagne glass, in which the bubbles have long since gone flat. 

“Maybe because we stopped talking to people with different points of view?  And stopped seeing them?” she says slowly.  “If the Red Room taught me one thing, it’s that building walls around your own thoughts can make your mind seem like a comfortable place to be, but it can only make you blind.”

She looks at Tony.

“And as for that algorithm of yours, Stark?  That was a perfect example of how not to do things.”

[mehlsbells]

Introducing characters is an art form. I’ve been working on a TV pilot and while we’ve had the plot arcs nailed for months, making sure we get the characters across economically while being interesting and not too expository and using action while fitting them seamlessly into the plot and explaining how they relate to other characters without having them say something like “Oh hello there, my boyfriend!” etc . . . is not easy.

In film, you have a very small window. If your story isn’t about the character discovering themselves (Jason Bourne, Orlando) or if the character isn’t an established icon (James Bond, Elle Woods), you need to introduce them not just in a short span of time, but while keeping it interesting and establishing what this character is like for the audience.

As many ways exist as characters.

You can introduce them with assets other than their face:

  You can do it with animation and title sequences:

You can do it with epic entrances, you can be cheeky about hiding their face in shadows or under cowls like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, you can have other characters hype them and then subvert it by introducing someone completely unlike the description, you can have them introduce themselves, you can do it via one of the greatest montages. Here’s a video essay of several ways.

And you can do it like Johnny Guitar, which is what we’re going to break down today.

The whole intro is in the top video. This slideshow breaks down the first several shots discussed below in #s 1 and 2.

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  1. The Situation: Standoff

The film’s opening 10 minutes have shown us Johnny Guitar (Sterling Haden) and given us a quick rundown of the history between the lead character Vienna (Joan Crawford) and the mob members. Vienna has given a 5-minute diatribe but Johnny has only ordered a drink, so we know their respective communicative styles. Then a group of four led by the Dancin’ Kid stumble through the saloon doors, and everything gets tense.

The shots show us the respective groups; tense, with the youngest gunslinger’s slightly trembling hand hanging over his gun, the groups staring at each other but grouped in seperate shots. Each cut goes back and forth from the sides of the room, and thus the direction the characters are staring: left, right, left, right.

  2. Heeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny

In a medium wide, as Vienna glares, a background character coughs and turns towards the bar. The edit cuts on his turn (this whole film cuts on the action or on the blink very well) to a medium shot of him theatrically pouring and slugging a shot of whiskey, then putting the glass down on the bar.

The glass rolls, we get a somewhat humorous wide-eyed stare of panic from a posse member (not the last time the film will use a character in such a way), and then the glass rolls towards the edge, closer and closer until . . .

Look at everything this shot accomplishes:

– A great little dolly-and-pan to go from closeup of glass to medium of character’s face.

– It brings into the scene a character who until now was sitting quietly minding his own business as the rest of the characters faced off.

– It shows he has quick hands (we don’t know it yet, because he doesn’t even carry a gun, but he’s a quick draw and quicker shot).

– He does it all without spilling a drop of coffee.

Then he literally steps between the two groups.

  3. Cutting the Tension

He sizes up the situation.

Asks one dangerous man for a cigarette.

Asks another for a light. (And if you don’t think that’s sexual . . . !)

Waxes rhapsodic about coffee and smokes.

Gives us his name. “Johnny Guitar.”

Then when scoffed at, coolly delivers a line which is technically a question but definitely a challenge: “Anybody care to change it?”

Besides looking good and generating tension of all sorts, what has this scene accomplished? It’s set two groups against each other for the rest of the film, and put a mysterious out-of-towner in the middle, where he’ll stay for the rest of the film. It’s told us his name, but more importantly who he is: a man not afraid, who’d rather defuse a situation but is confident in his ability to use brute force if he has to. A man with quick hands and a quick wit, who likes the little pleasures in life. Despite his words, his eyes tell us he loves whiskey and women. And we’re convinced he can handle all comers.

A perfect character introduction; expedient, effective, and elegant.

  #SceneStudy: Johnny Guitar. Now THIS is how you introduce a character. Introducing characters is an art form. I've been working on a TV pilot and while we've had the plot arcs nailed for months, making sure we get the characters across economically while being interesting and not too expository and using action while fitting them seamlessly into the plot and explaining how they relate to other characters without having them say something like "Oh hello there, my boyfriend!" etc .

[topmixtrends]

THE FINAL PASSAGE of Joan Bauer’s Hope Was Here contains one of the finest analogies I’ve ever read. The eponymous protagonist, whose stepfather has just died, is working one of her last shifts in his diner before she heads off to college:

People say it’s so awful that I only had a real father for less than two years and then had to lose him. I wish like anything he was still here, but it’s like getting an extraordinary meal after you’ve been eating junk food for a long time. The taste just sweeps through your sensibilities, bringing all-out contentment, and the sheer goodness of it makes up for every bad meal you’ve ever had.

Hope Was Here was published in 2000, and since then I’ve searched, mostly in vain, for novels that washed away the taste of poorly written contemporary fiction that did nothing for my mind, even less for my soul. Not one, but two new exemplary short story collections have renewed my faith in American fiction. Sweet and Low by Nick White and Fight No More by Lydia Millet employ a seldom-used conceit: the stories revolve around a cast of characters, and each collection is devoted to a specific geographic locale. White’s incisive exploration of the South — you can practically hear the scrape of a wooden chair across a dusty floor, the rustles of swampy groves, the flies buzzing over a dead dog’s carcass — is beautifully tempered with sincerity and irony, while Millet, choosing present-day Los Angeles for her tightly woven trove of adults and teenagers slowly losing and finding their minds, breathes more life and texture into life into sun-baked Southern California than anything since Robert Altman’s Short Cuts.

A central shtick that alters the expectations of short stories can be a clever method for soliciting a reader’s respect; for example, the minimalism of Lydia Davis’s short stories netted her adulation and a Man Booker Prize. Melded narratives and characters is a tricky feint, but when done well it allows characters to blossom and expand the ways in which they relate to one another and the reader. In fairness to White’s and Millet’s work, neither collection demands that the reader sit down and trace the presence of each story’s DNA in the tale that follows. Both authors are aware, however, of the richness embodied by each of their characters, and if you do grab a pen, as I did, and map out how and where the people in their stories overlap, you’ll be rewarded.

While the first four stories in Sweet and Low do not partake in the central universe conceit, they do share one important, and fatal, story arc: knowledge is power, and more than a little knowledge has the power to unmake you. (“Bird-Headed Monster,” a taut and mordant tale in Fight No More, follows a similar path: a young woman is touring a house in Los Angeles when she learns that her wealthy boyfriend is buying it not for them, but for himself and his fiancée.) Rosemary is the widow of Dr. Arnie Greenlee, and in “The Lovers” she runs into a young man named Hank in an airport. He promptly faints due to low blood sugar — a result of his diabetes, which was first diagnosed by the late doctor, who had also begun an affair with Hank, and took the latter’s grandfather’s watch to be repaired. But Arnie died before the watch could be restored to its owner. Only the reader and Hank know about the affair; Rosemary only knows that her indifference in the bedroom following their only child’s birth helped her grant Arnie permission to have affairs. She does not, however, know about her husband’s fondness for male sexual partners. A meandering terror wraps itself up in White’s prose:

She drives on, thinking.

At the airport, he mumbled something about a watch. Her brain makes some connections. A month or so after Arnie’s death, she was in the bathroom cleaning out his cabinet. […] If she remembers correctly, initials had been carved into the back of it, but she couldn’t make them out, which frustrated her.

[…]

Home from following Hank, she retrieves the watch and holds it in the palm of her hand. It ticks. There are things in this world, she decides, you keep for no particular reason, the things you haven’t yet found a language for.

Arnie’s secret bisexuality isn’t nearly as much of a shock to the reader as the terse, oblique hypothesis about Rosemary’s dual nature, the same nature that happily permitted Arnie to have affairs without her needing to disclose that:

Say, just for conversation, there once lived a girl who was one person — one complete person, not a person for the world and a person for herself. They were one and the same. Then, let’s say, it’s her first week at college, and a boy she trusted, a boy from her hometown even, pushed his way inside her bottom-floor dorm room while her roommate was out. Say he did things to her that split her in two. Right down the middle. Years later, this same girl met a boy who was sweet and unassuming and never curious about the other girl behind the girl, the one she hid so fiercely.

Hank and Rosemary are two very different people bonded by a loss, but there’s just enough precarity in their incipient acquaintance that they lose sight of one another, and ultimately, must seek closure on their own. White has a profound talent, one writers decades senior to him frequently lack, for imbuing his prose with bombs of shock that land with ferocity and precision, leaving a devastation far greater than might be successful in longer stories and many novels. The reader may feel no pity for Pete in “Cottonmouth, Trapjaw, Water Moccasin” — he’d “run off his faggot of a son” many years ago — and that he’s trapped under his lawn mower after a fall, “one leg crushed under the back end” of the machine feels like karma for a bigot. There are, however, horrors in Pete’s own childhood that caused me to stop reading and draw a deep breath before I could continue. After Pete’s mother died, Pete’s father would take him snake hunting:

He was lucky being a boy — his sisters, after their mother died, had to deal with things much worse […] This usually happened late on summer weekends when his father was high on corn whiskey. His sisters slept in the room next to his, and on those nights, he could hear the terrible grunting coming through the walls.

That a snake slowly slithers into the crevasse in which Pete is pinned feels like the literal manifestation of his failure to defend his sisters and accept his son. He tries, in vain, to aim handfuls of soil at the snake, but it remains unmoved, “refusing to be anything but predator.” Dying is easy. Staring down near-certain death is much harder.

The title story — which also opens the latter two-thirds of the book, a section titled “The Exaggerations” that focuses mostly on the Culpepper family, emigrants from Illinois to and residents of an unnamed town in Mississippi — posits a simple but ambitious theme: our families influence, and often dictate, everything about us. Forney Culpepper’s father Reuben died of a heart attack — weak hearts run in the family — so his widow Felicia decides to give stardom a shot with her beautiful voice. When she prepares to audition for a talent scout in Memphis, a 10-year-old Forney finds himself at the helm of a quest for self-awareness:           

The two of them — mother and son — gaze at the reflection of themselves wearing their new getups. Like different people, Forney thinks. Happier people. But is he happy? Or on the way to happiness? This singing stuff makes her happy, and he guesses he’s happy that she’s happy. But is he?

In the six stories that constitute most of Sweet and Low, the perils of being a writer are given attentive, and often hilarious, consideration. Buck Dickerson, Felicia’s music teacher and a sugar-addicted radio host, reveals to Forney that his son, a member of the Peace Corps, harbors literary ambitions: “My son says he wants to be a poet. Can you believe that? I didn’t know people decided to be poets. […] Thought it just happened to them, or something, like a car wreck.”

White unfolds the tales of Forney’s Aunt Mavis and Uncle Lucas with such care that reading about them is one of the purest abject pleasures in the book. Told in the first person, the story picks up once Forney lives full-time with his aunt and uncle, after his mother leaves for Nashville to pursue stardom full-time: “We were, for better or worse, a family. We had long dinners together […] we saw plays and ballets in Jackson […] took weekend vacations to Biloxi and Memphis and New Orleans.”

But for all their cultural excursions, the Culpepper family has its share of disappointments too:

In her younger days […] [Mavis] fancied herself something of a poet. She […] had plans of attending graduate school, but after graduation, my grandfather suddenly died, so she stayed behind to “see about things” for a while. Twenty years later and she was still seeing about things and remained single.

Nina the real estate agent is single too; she is our foyer into Fight No More. In “Libertines,” she is showing a house to a group of three men, one of whom, she thinks she was told by a colleague, is an African dictator. Millet has a knack for two specific, brilliant devices. First, infusing her prose with the part-confident, part-bored, part-ironic intonation of upper middle-class conversation in Los Angeles:

Had the person who lived in the house died?

Well yes, in fact, she’d wanted to say, because that’s the only way anyone ever leaves a house this stunning.

Second, trading from the beginning on the necessary maintenance of fact as fiction. Business cannot be conducted if apparent flaws are pointed out with loudspeakers and fluorescent flags:

This house always seemed to be waiting for the mudslide that would drag it down the cliff, snagging those giant, spiky plants as it fell. Chunks of frame and plaster would be dangling off plant stalks as beds and espresso makers tumbled down the hillside. Till that day came: 2.8 million, if you don’t mind.

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” might be one of the best short stories I’ve read in the last 10 years. Millet dances between first and second person in the story, an interesting effort given the speaker is Jeremy, approximately age 16, who has decided to cut school and openly masturbate in his bedroom, knowing the real estate agent will be bringing a family on a tour through his house. For all his boorish antics, Jeremy’s internal musings are peppered with Latin, and he is concerned about his mother, who is reeling in the aftermath of the boy’s father leaving to start a family with a younger woman. Still, he celebrates when Marnie and the prospective buyers walk in on him during his orgasm, then rush out: “Murmurs outside the door. He felt a grin spreading. Reached for the Kleenex. There you go. Veni, vidi, vici. Julius Caesar shit.”

Later, Jeremy starts to roam the empty house. At his mother’s vanity, he does something he tends to avoid: he lets himself reach for a memory. Millet’s prose here is charmingly graceful, a turn from the obscenity-laced monologue from moments before:

He used to watch her put up her hair. Like in the movies: rich kids watched their mothers get ready. Good feeling. Dinner parties and evening wear. She’d been so deft with bobby pins it looked like sleight of hand. Magic, he called it then. He flashed to one time when her long hair, in the space of a few seconds, was transformed into a great shining round atop her head.

That shit looked elegant. Audrey Hepburn. “Magic mama.” She picked him up and twirled him. He’d been so small. Hard to believe.

Jeremy’s actions and their consequences create a breathtaking paradigm for Fight No More. One of the buyers, who sees right through his bullshit and tells him so, causes him to look back on his childhood, which in turn exposes a brief glimpse of his truth: there’s a difference between anger and hatred, and what he felt was anger at the “paterfamilias […] sowing his seed in younger soil.” The sardonic humor of the teen boy masturbating as a stunt is not forgotten, because Jeremy, in order to do something nice but not melodramatic for his mother, decides to use her credit card to fill the house with flowers. When his new stepmother — pregnant with his soon-to-be half-sibling — invites him to dinner, he is forced to examine the reality of his new existence. Being a teenager, Jeremy masks exploration of a new family dynamic as “a movie [that] could really crack you up,” but each step he takes as a new stepson, the child of a newly divorced couple, the grandson of a woman exhibiting signs of dementia, he reconsiders. Millet isn’t out to provide redemption, but she is interested in how people change when they finally come to terms with change. Jeremy remembers a cousin’s baptism he’d attended:

In the church she was dressed in a snow-white robe and smiled without end. She beamed. His whole life, he could swear, he’d never seen anyone look that happy.

Do you renounce Satan, the author and prince of sin?

I do.

“I renounce him,” he muttered under his breath […]

And all his works?

I do.

Jeremy wasn’t alone in his bedroom when Nina and her clients walked in. He was getting off to a cam girl named Lexie, living in Carpinteria, almost certainly underage. The small degree of respect he affords her — “She wasn’t dumb” — is important because, in “Stockholm,” the reader receives a visceral look inside Lexie’s mind. Her stepbrothers are meth dealers, her mother a drunk, and her stepfather has been raping her since she was 16. There is something astonishing, even electrifying, about Jeremy’s offer for her to come to Los Angeles and be au pair to his new stepsister; it energizes the book. Lexie’s other duty will be to keep an eye on Aleska, Jeremy’s paternal grandmother, a retired professor of the art and propaganda of fascism, who is selling her home to live in the guest house on her son’s property. “Jem” gives the new babysitter a quick rundown about Professor Korczak:

[D]on’t be fake Christian, she’s Jewish, well, kind of, but she was raised by some kind of missionaries so she’ll see through it. Tell her about your trashy family. I mean, don’t mention the Internet sex biz […] just try to be a straight-shooter. She won’t mind the white-trash part, as long as you’re smart and not rude. She likes an edge but she really doesn’t like rudeness. Treat her with respect, she’s had a hard life. Her whole family died in the Holocaust when she was six.

Aleska has experienced other losses too, namely her husband to suicide. It’s unclear when this happened — later in the book it’s hinted that Paul was still a child — but his widow does not dwell on what cannot be changed. In many ways, “Gram” is the hero of Fight No More. Her wry, self-possessed manner, her request for stiff cocktails in the evening, her general determination to keep track of her marbles before biology takes over and slowly sends them spinning off, one by one, into the darkness of senility, is nothing short of fearless. Some of the book’s best dollops of humor come from a woman whose framed posters of swastikas unnerve her new daughter-in-law.

Members of Lexie’s family, residents of Carpinteria, turn up in Los Angeles too. A content warning should be issued for “I Can’t Go On.” I don’t fault Millet or the publisher for not providing it, but anyone who has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a relative/family friend should proceed with caution.

Both White and Millet are keen observers of the interpersonal expectations between people who are sure of themselves and people who aren’t. The chasm that separates fully functioning adulthood and reality is often invisible to characters in both books. “The Men” in Fight No More is a dizzyingly paranoid but mildly comic tale about a group of male midgets who are performing repairs on a house. Its resident, a production executive who “otherwise leads a normal life” but whose husband has left her, becomes unnerved “when the midgets grew into regular-sized men overnight.” Nina, the agent selling the house, wonders if she’s become “a magnet for eccentrics” in the aftermath of a lover’s death. The unnamed narrator of “Break” in Sweet and Low is befriended in college by a girl named Regan and her boyfriend, Forney Culpepper. The latter is by now an aspiring poet, but hasn’t written any poems yet. “Instead, he spent his mornings retyping the work of other poets — Ginsberg, Stevens — on a sky-blue IBM Correcting Selectric II […] When I asked him about it, he said, ‘I’ve not found the right words for me yet, so I’m using other people’s until then.’”

Very rarely in modern American literature is the reader afforded an opportunity to so fully absorb a character that it feels like he’s sitting right next to you. Forney Culpepper is such a creation. I understood his confusion when he glimpses Uncle Lucas kissing his best friend Buddy Cooper’s neck. I respected his reluctance to hear Aunt Mavis untangle the truth from the exaggerations, but appreciated his need for facts. I teared up for him during “The Curator,” White’s tour de force and the penultimate story in Sweet and Low. If you’re from a certain part of the South and you’re immersed in literature, at some point you have to contend with William Faulkner. His name doesn’t appear in White’s book, but we can safely guess that “the Author,” referred to only by that title and capital A, as the force manipulating lives in an unnamed Mississippi town where Forney lives as an adult, is a stand-in for Faulkner’s towering presence as the literary legend associated with the South.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles and I was partly raised in the South, so I appreciated the lack of myopia in both White and Millet’s prose. Both areas function as characters because everyone in “The Exaggerations” is stagnating, paralyzed by circumstance and expectations lowered over time. Aunt Mavis never went to graduate school; Uncle Lucas moved out, took a trip to Canada, died of a heart attack. Homosexuality — repressed, concealed, unidentified — is as common in the South as ostensibly cool and collected facades are in Los Angeles. The sun hangs heavy over both sets of stories, only the one in the Delta is intimidating, and bossy, and the one in Southern California is part of the glossy psychological veneer of the region. And both books end with the yearnings of elderly women.

Sweet and Low and Fight No More share a brutal lesson about human frailty: we are flawed because we want so much more than what we have. This want, this hunger — financial, sexual, physiological, emotional — turns into a blind spot, and often our Achilles’ heel. Attempting to meet that want can take a lifetime, and even then that feeling, the comforting realization that overtakes you as gently as a cotton sheet over your body on a summer night, that we’re sated and at peace, may never come. The only reassurances we’ll ever get are momentary. Fleeting precious seconds of calm and security. By the time we learn this, it’s too late.

¤

Nandini Balial is a writer and copy editor whose work has appeared in the AV Club, the New Republic, Vice, The Week, among others. She lives and works in Texas.

The post Resurrection of the American Short Story: Nick White’s “Sweet and Low” and Lydia Millet’s “Fight No More” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2nd4zsU

[patriziapoli]

Kindergarten

Now you know what I do, I put on my coat and cap, sit on the bench in the locker room, and wait for mom. Please, please, Lord, make so that that Mom comes to pick me up! At least to eat. The dough is soft, the egg sucks. Yesterday I threw up, they made me get up, they took me to the center of the room, left me standing there alone while they went to get something to clean me, because I had the apron all dirty of vomit. I called Mom, I was wet, I was ashamed because they were all staring at me, pointing their fingers at me, laughing with those toothless faces. Why mom does not come for me? So I go home and eat purè, which mother makes good, and then watch TV. This morning they gave me a paper and a pencil. “Draw, Gina,” they said. I pointed the pencil on the paper, I drew an arc with one hand. The one who gave me the paper asked: “What is it, Gina?” “It’s a bridge, all right?” I said. So, if nothing else, they stop forcing me to draw. I cannot draw, I do not like to draw. I wish they would let me read all the books they have in that room over there. But perhaps I cannot read. Yesterday they made us sit in a circle. “Gina, tell us something about you,” they said. I did not come with anything to say, I seemed to have a shoe box for a head. I was sweating. “Fear not, Gina, here you have lots of new friends.” Mom told me that two people become friends when they have known each other for a long time and they love. I do not know how long I have been here. I’m here, but these are not my friends and I do not love anyone. No, really, these are not my friends, they stink and piss on themselves. If I get close, they give me a push. One told me: “Go away, bitch.” Mom does not want me to say certain words, she does not want me to listen to them either. Mom, please, come. ***”

“We smoke a cigarette, Joan?” “Yes, Angela, but in a haste, because soon the director will be here.” Joan and Angela rely on the external glass and smoke quickly, inhaling large gulps. The air is refreshing, the sun goes down and hides behind the hills. A third nurse passes close to them pushing an empty wheelchair. “Hurry up, the viper is coming.” “How did you see them today?” Asked Joan. “Well … as usual, some peaceful, others not.” “It ’s absurd how bad they can be at their age. They hate Gina, poor thing, they push her aside. ” “Gina says little, does not open, it is not collaborative … “ “Yeah, today I tried to make her draw, but nothing.” A bell rings, the two nurses quickly extinguish their cigarettes under the soles of their shoes. “Come on, let’s work.” Back in the big common room. “Do you empty the pans?” says Angela, in a loud voice to be heard by the director who, at that moment, is coming down the stairs from upper floors. ”Yes, and you go get the diapers, medium and large size, please.” The director has stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Joan, Angela,” she says with a snake smile, “our guests need you. You are not here to have fun. This is not a kindergarten, girls, remember, is a nursing home."

Patrizia Poli

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

7 Castles You MUST See in France

Did you really click on that clickbaity title? Come on! Really? I guess these cheesy headlines do work! Maybe I should title all my posts like Buzzfeed?

Ha ha, no, I’m just kidding. I would never do that. That’s just terrible. I just wanted to see what happened if I did it. 🙂

But, seriously, let’s talk châteaux (large country houses or castles, plural of château). In June, I went to France for my birthday to explore the famed Loire Valley, with its rolling hills, exquisite wineries, wide rivers, and grandiose castles.

This region of fertile land was the seat of royal power during early French history. Kings, queens, and other royalty built grand palaces here as they cemented their rule of this vital trade region. But by the middle of the 16th century, power shifted to Paris, as kings spent less time wandering the kingdom and more time there (and who wouldn’t want to spend more time in Paris?).

However, French royalty still expended considerable money building beautiful châteaux. The Loire Valley has over 80, and it would take a lot more of my limited time to see them all. But I did manage to visit a bunch — and find out ways to do so on budget! Here are the highlights:

Chambord

This castle is one of the most popular in the region, thanks to its grandeur, detailed façade, intricate decorations, and large gardens. It was original built by Francis I in 1519 as a hunting retreat. However, he died that same year, and the castle remained half built. It fell into disrepair for nearly 80 years until Louis XIV visited in 1639. He ordered it finished based on the original plans. (Note: This is a running theme for a lot of châteaux in the region.)

Entering the castle grounds and seeing this massive ornate structure elicited an audible “wow” from my mouth. I marveled at the building’s intricate masonry and beautiful spires. The interior’s massive double-helix staircase inspired by Leonardo da Vinci creates a focal point that draws your attention as you move through the house. I loved the symmetry of the large halls and old paintings of royalty.

This place was gigantic and took hours to see. There are incredible views from the roof, but my favorite moments were mostly in the gardens, just staring at every inch of this palace. Truly fit for a king — or at least a zillion daily tourists!

Tip: I highly recommend the audio tour. It’s given on an iPad that allows you to zoom in on paintings and artifacts, provides an overlay of what the room would have looked in the 17th and 18th centuries (even including images of what it looked like being built), and gives tons of detailed information. Worth every euro!

How to get there – You can take a 25 minute shuttle or taxi from the nearby city of Bloise.

Villandry

Built into the side of a hill, this château was originally a keep (fortified tower) constructed in the 14th century for King Philip Augustus. When the place was acquired by a local nobleman in the early 16th century, the original keep was preserved, the rest of the structure was razed, and a fortress was erected (with a cool moat!). During the French Revolution, the property was confiscated by the state, and in the early 19th century, Emperor Napoleon gave it to his brother, Jérôme Bonaparte. In 1906, the Carvallo family (the current owners) purchased the property and poured an enormous amount of time and money into it to make it what it is today.

However, despite the grand exterior of the castle, I found the interior lacking, and I moved through it pretty quickly. Other than the ornately decorated first rooms, the interior is very bland (and kind of worth skipping all together).

The main draw of this château is its famous Renaissance gardens, which include a water garden, ornamental flower gardens, and vegetable gardens, altogether containing over 60,000 vegetables and 45,000 bedding plants! These are laid out in formal, geometric patterns separated with low box hedges. It’s a beautiful place to wander and relax, with a stream running through it and many spots to sit and contemplate. There’s also an adjacent woods with a few trails that not many people wander around, so you have them all to yourself! Overall, the gardens and woods are the best part of this castle, and that’s where your time should be spent!

How to get there – There’s a bus from Tours on Wednesday and Saturday. If you go any other day of the week, you’ll need a car.

Blois

Since you have to stop in Blois to see Chambord, the town castle makes an easy addition. Originally a medieval fortress built in the 9th century, it was taken over by Louis XII in 1498 and transformed into a palace in the Gothic style that was a center of power for centuries. (Fun fact: In 1429, Joan of Arc was blessed here before going to fight the British in Orléans.)

There’s not much left of the medieval fortress. The main part of the castle was built in 1515 by François I in Renaissance style and includes a famous buttressed circular staircase leading to the private sleeping rooms and ballrooms.

While this castle is small and the exterior less ornate than others in the region, I found the interior to be second to none, with intricately restored rooms, detailed information plaques, and stunning period furniture. Outside, you get sweeping views of the town and river. It was a really lovely castle.

How to get there – From Paris, you can take a two-hour train. From Tours, it’s about 45 minutes.

Amboise

This was my overall favorite castle. It may not be as ornate or large as the others, but it’s the total package: a fairy-tale-like structure with stunning interiors, beautiful gardens, and great views of the Loire River. Confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century, it became a favored royal residence and was extensively rebuilt by King Charles XIII (who died here in 1498 after hitting his head on a door (seriously)). It was built into a lavish Renaissance palace by his successors but eventually fell into decline in the second half of the 16th century. It was greatly damaged in the French Revolution before being renovated in the 19th century.

That is what I really loved about the palace: the mix of architectural styles. You had the Gothic portion with its vaulted roofs, the Renaissance sleeping chambers and exteriors, and the grandly designed rooms from the 19th century. You can see the mark of history throughout the palace. I also loved the large, winding carriage ramp that descended from the castle into the town and the terraced gardens filled with oak trees. There’s also the church that contains the remains of Leonardo da Vinci! Really, this place is top-notch!

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 10 minute walk from the station.

Clos Luce

Built by Hugues d’Amboise in the middle of the 15th century, this château was acquired in 1490 by Charles VIII. There aren’t many rooms to explore, but they do retain that Renaissance charm. What makes it famous was that Leonardo da Vinci lived here from 1516 to 1519. Today, the castle is a testament to him, with marvelously restored rooms and a basement filled with replicas of his famous inventions. Additionally, be sure to go outside and look up, as the exterior has tons of Italian influences. The grounds are stunning and contain a restaurant, mill, and several ponds. The extensive gardens, complete with geese, streams, and many walking trails and places to escape and reflect, were an amazing addition, and it’s easy to imagine Leonardo walking around, looking for inspiration.

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 30 minute walk from the station.

Azay le Rideau

Originally built in the 12th century, the castle was burned to the ground in 1418 by Charles VII. It remained in ruins until 1518 when it was rebuilt by a local noble. However, the French king Francis I confiscated the unfinished château in 1535 and gave it to one of his knights as a reward for his service, who then left it half built. The castle’s condition deteriorated through the centuries until, in the 1820s, the new owner undertook extensive alteration work to make it the beauty it is today.

A lot of the place was (still) under construction when I was there, so not all the rooms were open. The interior was simple and well explained by signs but lacked any ornate furniture, paintings, or fixtures. This place had my favorite exterior, though. I loved the square configuration, with its turrets overlooking the garden; the fact that it’s built on a pond; and the long cobblestone driveway leading in from town. It’s easy to imagine royalty trotting down in their carriages to the wrought-iron gates on their way to attend a ball.

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 20 minute walk from the station.

Chenonceau

Chenonceau is one of the best-known châteaux in the Loire Valley. It was built in 1514 on the foundations of an old mill. In 1535, it was seized by King Francis I for unpaid debts. Then in 1547, Henry II gave it as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers (now one of the most famous women in French history). Diane oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens. In fact, the gardens are still laid out in her original design.

After Henry died, his widow Catherine de’ Medici (also one of the most famous women in French history) forced Diane out of the castle and made Chenonceau her residence. (Fun fact: In 1560, the first-ever fireworks display seen in France took place here.) In 1577, she extended the grand gallery across the entire river, making the château what it is today. After she died, the castle bounced around various royalty and their mistresses, was luckily spared destruction in the Revolution, and then was renovated and sold a bunch more times before it became a state property.

Walking through a forest that opens up on two gardens (still maintained in their old style), you see this beautiful, thin castle that spans a river. The interior is quite small (it’s longer than it is wide), and while the rooms are well preserved, they are often very crowded since they are so small. They’re beautiful, but it’s rather nice to go into the gallery and stare out across the river. The gardens were cool to see in bloom, and there’s even a little maze on the grounds (though it’s easy to get out). (Another fun fact: This castle divided Vichy and German-controlled France and was often used to smuggle Jews to safety.)

How to get there – The castle is a 35 minute train ride from Tours.

Tips for visiting the châteaux

So how do you visit all these beautiful castles (and the 70+ not listed here)? They are pretty easy to visit — all but a handful are accessible by bus or train, and those that aren’t are usually only about a 20-30-minute bike ride from the nearest town. But admission fees of 10 euros a pop can really add up and make castle-hopping a really un-budget activity. However, there are a few ways to save money on the castle experience:

The tourism office in Tours sells discounted tickets, so it’s best to buy many of your tickets there. They are 1 to 2 euros off the price at the castles.

Most of the castles are near train stations (the farthest I walked was 20 minutes to the Azay castle), so there is no need to take one of the expensive tours that whisk you to a bunch of châteaux in a short period of time. Plan your visit around the trains and buses.

For castles not near the train station, you can rent bikes near the tourism offices. A bike is 15 euros for the day.

If you want to drive, this region is best explored by car so you can see everything. Car rentals cost about 30-40 euros per day.

Most of the castles sell food that’s overpriced, even by French standards. However, you can bring your own food and water, so take a little picnic to eat on the grounds and save yourself a ton of money!

My only regret is that I didn’t have more time to see even more castles. It can be crazy spending 20-30 euros a day just on castles, but I found each one beautiful, unique, and filled with history that gave me a greater understanding of the region. Even if you’re not as castle-hungry as I am, be sure to visit some of these majestic places. Even the popular ones are worth the crowds.

You can visit many on a day trip from Paris, but I suggest roaming the region for at least a few days, taking in the castles, drinking an obscene amount of wine at an outdoor café, and soaking up some of the history, charm, and culture that makes France the special place that is.

The post 7 Castles You MUST See in France appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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7 Castles You MUST See in France

Did you really click on that clickbaity title? Come on! Really? I guess these cheesy headlines do work! Maybe I should title all my posts like Buzzfeed?

Ha ha, no, I’m just kidding. I would never do that. That’s just terrible. I just wanted to see what happened if I did it. 🙂

But, seriously, let’s talk châteaux (large country houses or castles, plural of château). In June, I went to France for my birthday to explore the famed Loire Valley, with its rolling hills, exquisite wineries, wide rivers, and grandiose castles.

This region of fertile land was the seat of royal power during early French history. Kings, queens, and other royalty built grand palaces here as they cemented their rule of this vital trade region. But by the middle of the 16th century, power shifted to Paris, as kings spent less time wandering the kingdom and more time there (and who wouldn’t want to spend more time in Paris?).

However, French royalty still expended considerable money building beautiful châteaux. The Loire Valley has over 80, and it would take a lot more of my limited time to see them all. But I did manage to visit a bunch — and find out ways to do so on budget! Here are the highlights:

Chambord

This castle is one of the most popular in the region, thanks to its grandeur, detailed façade, intricate decorations, and large gardens. It was original built by Francis I in 1519 as a hunting retreat. However, he died that same year, and the castle remained half built. It fell into disrepair for nearly 80 years until Louis XIV visited in 1639. He ordered it finished based on the original plans. (Note: This is a running theme for a lot of châteaux in the region.)

Entering the castle grounds and seeing this massive ornate structure elicited an audible “wow” from my mouth. I marveled at the building’s intricate masonry and beautiful spires. The interior’s massive double-helix staircase inspired by Leonardo da Vinci creates a focal point that draws your attention as you move through the house. I loved the symmetry of the large halls and old paintings of royalty.

This place was gigantic and took hours to see. There are incredible views from the roof, but my favorite moments were mostly in the gardens, just staring at every inch of this palace. Truly fit for a king — or at least a zillion daily tourists!

Tip: I highly recommend the audio tour. It’s given on an iPad that allows you to zoom in on paintings and artifacts, provides an overlay of what the room would have looked in the 17th and 18th centuries (even including images of what it looked like being built), and gives tons of detailed information. Worth every euro!

How to get there – You can take a 25 minute shuttle or taxi from the nearby city of Bloise.

Villandry

Built into the side of a hill, this château was originally a keep (fortified tower) constructed in the 14th century for King Philip Augustus. When the place was acquired by a local nobleman in the early 16th century, the original keep was preserved, the rest of the structure was razed, and a fortress was erected (with a cool moat!). During the French Revolution, the property was confiscated by the state, and in the early 19th century, Emperor Napoleon gave it to his brother, Jérôme Bonaparte. In 1906, the Carvallo family (the current owners) purchased the property and poured an enormous amount of time and money into it to make it what it is today.

However, despite the grand exterior of the castle, I found the interior lacking, and I moved through it pretty quickly. Other than the ornately decorated first rooms, the interior is very bland (and kind of worth skipping all together).

The main draw of this château is its famous Renaissance gardens, which include a water garden, ornamental flower gardens, and vegetable gardens, altogether containing over 60,000 vegetables and 45,000 bedding plants! These are laid out in formal, geometric patterns separated with low box hedges. It’s a beautiful place to wander and relax, with a stream running through it and many spots to sit and contemplate. There’s also an adjacent woods with a few trails that not many people wander around, so you have them all to yourself! Overall, the gardens and woods are the best part of this castle, and that’s where your time should be spent!

How to get there – There’s a bus from Tours on Wednesday and Saturday. If you go any other day of the week, you’ll need a car.

Blois

Since you have to stop in Blois to see Chambord, the town castle makes an easy addition. Originally a medieval fortress built in the 9th century, it was taken over by Louis XII in 1498 and transformed into a palace in the Gothic style that was a center of power for centuries. (Fun fact: In 1429, Joan of Arc was blessed here before going to fight the British in Orléans.)

There’s not much left of the medieval fortress. The main part of the castle was built in 1515 by François I in Renaissance style and includes a famous buttressed circular staircase leading to the private sleeping rooms and ballrooms.

While this castle is small and the exterior less ornate than others in the region, I found the interior to be second to none, with intricately restored rooms, detailed information plaques, and stunning period furniture. Outside, you get sweeping views of the town and river. It was a really lovely castle.

How to get there – From Paris, you can take a two-hour train. From Tours, it’s about 45 minutes.

Amboise

This was my overall favorite castle. It may not be as ornate or large as the others, but it’s the total package: a fairy-tale-like structure with stunning interiors, beautiful gardens, and great views of the Loire River. Confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century, it became a favored royal residence and was extensively rebuilt by King Charles XIII (who died here in 1498 after hitting his head on a door (seriously)). It was built into a lavish Renaissance palace by his successors but eventually fell into decline in the second half of the 16th century. It was greatly damaged in the French Revolution before being renovated in the 19th century.

That is what I really loved about the palace: the mix of architectural styles. You had the Gothic portion with its vaulted roofs, the Renaissance sleeping chambers and exteriors, and the grandly designed rooms from the 19th century. You can see the mark of history throughout the palace. I also loved the large, winding carriage ramp that descended from the castle into the town and the terraced gardens filled with oak trees. There’s also the church that contains the remains of Leonardo da Vinci! Really, this place is top-notch!

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 10 minute walk from the station.

Clos Luce

Built by Hugues d’Amboise in the middle of the 15th century, this château was acquired in 1490 by Charles VIII. There aren’t many rooms to explore, but they do retain that Renaissance charm. What makes it famous was that Leonardo da Vinci lived here from 1516 to 1519. Today, the castle is a testament to him, with marvelously restored rooms and a basement filled with replicas of his famous inventions. Additionally, be sure to go outside and look up, as the exterior has tons of Italian influences. The grounds are stunning and contain a restaurant, mill, and several ponds. The extensive gardens, complete with geese, streams, and many walking trails and places to escape and reflect, were an amazing addition, and it’s easy to imagine Leonardo walking around, looking for inspiration.

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 30 minute walk from the station.

Azay le Rideau

Originally built in the 12th century, the castle was burned to the ground in 1418 by Charles VII. It remained in ruins until 1518 when it was rebuilt by a local noble. However, the French king Francis I confiscated the unfinished château in 1535 and gave it to one of his knights as a reward for his service, who then left it half built. The castle’s condition deteriorated through the centuries until, in the 1820s, the new owner undertook extensive alteration work to make it the beauty it is today.

A lot of the place was (still) under construction when I was there, so not all the rooms were open. The interior was simple and well explained by signs but lacked any ornate furniture, paintings, or fixtures. This place had my favorite exterior, though. I loved the square configuration, with its turrets overlooking the garden; the fact that it’s built on a pond; and the long cobblestone driveway leading in from town. It’s easy to imagine royalty trotting down in their carriages to the wrought-iron gates on their way to attend a ball.

How to get there – You can take a thirty minute train ride from Tours. The castle is a 20 minute walk from the station.

Chenonceau

Chenonceau is one of the best-known châteaux in the Loire Valley. It was built in 1514 on the foundations of an old mill. In 1535, it was seized by King Francis I for unpaid debts. Then in 1547, Henry II gave it as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers (now one of the most famous women in French history). Diane oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens. In fact, the gardens are still laid out in her original design.

After Henry died, his widow Catherine de’ Medici (also one of the most famous women in French history) forced Diane out of the castle and made Chenonceau her residence. (Fun fact: In 1560, the first-ever fireworks display seen in France took place here.) In 1577, she extended the grand gallery across the entire river, making the château what it is today. After she died, the castle bounced around various royalty and their mistresses, was luckily spared destruction in the Revolution, and then was renovated and sold a bunch more times before it became a state property.

Walking through a forest that opens up on two gardens (still maintained in their old style), you see this beautiful, thin castle that spans a river. The interior is quite small (it’s longer than it is wide), and while the rooms are well preserved, they are often very crowded since they are so small. They’re beautiful, but it’s rather nice to go into the gallery and stare out across the river. The gardens were cool to see in bloom, and there’s even a little maze on the grounds (though it’s easy to get out). (Another fun fact: This castle divided Vichy and German-controlled France and was often used to smuggle Jews to safety.)

How to get there – The castle is a 35 minute train ride from Tours.

Tips for visiting the châteaux

So how do you visit all these beautiful castles (and the 70+ not listed here)? They are pretty easy to visit — all but a handful are accessible by bus or train, and those that aren’t are usually only about a 20-30-minute bike ride from the nearest town. But admission fees of 10 euros a pop can really add up and make castle-hopping a really un-budget activity. However, there are a few ways to save money on the castle experience:

The tourism office in Tours sells discounted tickets, so it’s best to buy many of your tickets there. They are 1 to 2 euros off the price at the castles.

Most of the castles are near train stations (the farthest I walked was 20 minutes to the Azay castle), so there is no need to take one of the expensive tours that whisk you to a bunch of châteaux in a short period of time. Plan your visit around the trains and buses.

For castles not near the train station, you can rent bikes near the tourism offices. A bike is 15 euros for the day.

If you want to drive, this region is best explored by car so you can see everything. Car rentals cost about 30-40 euros per day.

Most of the castles sell food that’s overpriced, even by French standards. However, you can bring your own food and water, so take a little picnic to eat on the grounds and save yourself a ton of money!

My only regret is that I didn’t have more time to see even more castles. It can be crazy spending 20-30 euros a day just on castles, but I found each one beautiful, unique, and filled with history that gave me a greater understanding of the region. Even if you’re not as castle-hungry as I am, be sure to visit some of these majestic places. Even the popular ones are worth the crowds.

You can visit many on a day trip from Paris, but I suggest roaming the region for at least a few days, taking in the castles, drinking an obscene amount of wine at an outdoor café, and soaking up some of the history, charm, and culture that makes France the special place that is.

The post 7 Castles You MUST See in France appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.