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onsomenewsht · 8 months

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now playing: Colorado

< track 2 || track 4 >

》 Alexia Putellas x Reader

》 words count: +1k

》 I'd choose the devil I know over the heaven I don't

The end starts with you finding the ring.

“Alexia, I swear to your good knee, if you’re not ready I’m gonna sell your Ballon d’Or”, your announcement resonating through the rooms.

You’ve been ready for an entire hour now, beaming and excited for the opportunity to present with your teammates a special award named after your captain. The only thing missing is your perfectionist girlfriend still hidden in the bathroom.

When you open the door, you cannot believe your eyes.

Alexia’s tattooed back is exposed in the criminally low backless dress she’s in, sure, but her hair is still dripping wet and she’s fighting with a makeup brush. Clearly losing, her frown is a well known hint for you.

She’s not ready and now you have to find your way on the black market.

“Need help?”

“No”

“Yes, vamos a llegar tarde” (we’re late)

“No voy a llegar tarde si ni quiero ir” (I can’t be late if I don’t wanna go in the first place)

Your chuckle filling the room is enough to make the blonde smirk, but you know her well enough to read the subtle lines on her face. Her worries are clear, the reasons to be discovered and a solution to be found.

Taking place behind her figure, you set your hands on her sides and plant a couple of strategically placed kisses on her back and shoulders. Her fitted form relaxes right away under your lips.

When your eyes meet in the mirror it's like a story is being narrated, an understanding of each other that goes beyond big words and great gestures but holds the deep love shared.

Your fingers move to untangle the blonde’s wet hair, taking the time to dry and straighten each lock just as she likes.

“Lo siento” (I’m sorry)

Shy Alexia is a version of her few people meet, her stance a lot less intimidating than the one she portrays on the field or in front of hundreds of cameras.

“No tienes nada de que arrepentirte, mi corazón” (Nothing to be sorry for)

“I lost time in the gym and I lost time in the shower and I guess I just don’t wanna go”, the English sentence giving away how much thought she put into it.

The catalan turns to look directly into your eyes for the first time all day, you realise. She really doesn’t want to go to this event, but your excitement and anticipation must have helped hide it throughout the week.

“Eres preciosa, mi amor” (You’re beautiful), she simply states, taking in the perfectly ironed black dress you’re wearing and the meticulously braided hair framing your face.

You smile at her, you love her.

“I know you don’t like the idea of this award, I know you don’t want us handing it to you with a carefully drafted speech”

“¡Lo escribiste!” (You wrote it, didn’t you?)

“Jana helped, all the team did”

Alexia’s eyebrow rises and you don't miss the fact she has a little bit more makeup on than usual, a sight she’s putting an effort.

“I supervised, don’t worry”

“No es reconfortante” (It’s no reassuring)

But her shoulders are relaxed, her frown no longer creasing her beautiful face. The blonde is calmer now and you take it as a victory she never actually asked you to ditch the all thing and hide together under a blanket with a mindless dating show in the background.

“Lo leerás?” (Will you read it?)

“Banned me to even come close to a microphone”, to be fair, it was a single accident and they should’ve not let the anchor’s line open when you just won a championship and your girlfriend’s literally glowing.

She bursts out laughing and you know she’s ready.

Almost ready.

“Take me the white heels while I finish esto”, her fingers moving somehow awkwardly around her mouth, “Y estamos listos!” (And we’re ready to go).

You place a soft but firm kiss on her lips, leaving for her shoes rack.

You’re looking for a pair of heels, one she hates to wear but well designed and a perfect fit with her dress. One she doesn’t wear much so it’s probably hidden in a box in the back of the closet.

That’s why you’re looking for a hidden box of shoes.

That’s where you notice a velvet little box.

That’s how you find the ring.

It’s a beautiful ring. Stunning cut, your precise size. A modest but expertly crafted gem complementing the simple band. It’s the perfect ring.

You don’t like shiny thing, Alexia could ask you to marry her with paper or grass from Camp Nou and you’re gonna say yes regardless.

But that’s exactly the problem.

You love her, you really do. You love her so much you gladly do whatever she asks, if she wants it enough to ask. You keep her love above your own and that’s fine, you’re happy with it. What she loves comes before what you love, naturally following immediately after anyway.

And what she loves the most is usually you, so you never questioned it.

However, when her love starts coming despite yours, you realise you can’t keep doing it.

The shift is difficult to perceive, coming at such a silent but excruciating pace that’s impossible to predict and devastating to take in.

The bomb dropped on you in the form of a tiny jewellery box that detonated when opened, shining ring inside.

“Està Narnia?” (You found Narnia?)

Closing the box and effectively concealing the ring from your gaze it’s a switch off. The silence that usually preempts a devastating explosion is coming after it, this one time.

“I’m ready!”

When she walks out of the bathroom, stunning as ever, you just stare. You never loved someone as much as you love her, that is obvious for a while now.

You never loved and you will never love someone as much as you love her.

Not even yourself.

“Estás bien?” (Are you okay?)

“T’estimo” (I love you)

Shining eyes almost give away all the meaning behind your words, but the captain fondly kisses you and it’s all good again.

Alexia takes the heels from your hands, when you manage to find them is not clear in your head, and sits on the bed. Your fingers intertwine as you bend on your knees and carefully tie the long white laces around her ankles.

“You good?”, she holds one of your hands and her stare is searching straight through your soul.

She has a ring hidden in a box, how long ago did she buy it?

“Let’s get you this award, mi corazón”

She wants to marry you, when will she ask?

Both your holds are firm and kind, she is calmed and ready. Now, somehow, she’s even happy to go to this event if you keep holding her hand like that.

If she asks, you will say yes.

#alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas #woso x reader #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso #alexia #ap11 #here we go again #with a flashback i think #so theres fluff #my wo(rd)so #Spotify #now playing universe

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aita-blorbos · 8 months

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AITA for running away to California and leaving my boyfriend behind?

A few years ago, me (21 F) and my little sister (15 F, we’ll call her H) moved in with my boyfriend (21 M, we’ll call him E). My mom was incredibly neglectful, and as a result, I basically raised H. For a while, the situation worked out. Me and E make enough money to get by, and we’ve been planning to save up and eventually move to California.

However, a few weeks ago, H got into an accident at school. She was in a woodworking class, and to make a long story short, part of one of her fingers was cut off. She was rushed to the hospital, and they were able to re-attach the finger. Unfortunately, the hospital bill was… INSANELY expensive. We were barely getting by before, but now we have thousands of dollars in medical debt.

I’ve had to work extra hard lately, and so E was spending a lot of time with H. About two weeks ago, E came home with a fortune, and told me that he had earned that money from the stock market. I was elated for a while. He and H would go out daily, saying they were going to the stock market, as I was taking a class that took up most of my day.

Fast forward to yesterday. Things were going great, until something happened. I don’t know how to explain it, but H sent me some sort of… psychic signal? All I knew was that she was in trouble, and I needed to go help her. Somehow, I instinctively knew that she was at an abandoned roller rink downtown, and I rushed over there.

To make a VERY long and confusing story short, she has… some sort of powers. The abandoned roller rink was sort of a front for an underground fighting ring for people like her. E had been letting her fight, and the “stock market” money actually came from people bidding on the fights. I don’t know what exactly happened, but this… thing (??? M) was trying to kill her. She ended up being alright, but the organizer of the fighting ring was very.. impressed with H for winning the fight against that thing, and wanted her to continue fighting.

I was very angry with E for lying to me, and for being so irresponsible that he almost got my sister killed! And I knew that me and H were not safe staying where we were, especially with the organizer of the fighting ring after her. So, we packed our bags and I wrote a note to E explaining everything, and then we left.

I’m taking a break from driving to write this, because I feel a bit guilty for leaving E like that. But I had to protect H, even if it meant leaving my boyfriend.

So, AITA?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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jamies-rambles · 5 months

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The New Butler

Binero/RyanColdson, R5_Noel, fluff, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort

2000 words

Author's note: I wrote this for fun and giggles. If you are one of the people in the story, please do not feel offended. You should be honored that you have made it into a work of art like this :3

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Binero was having a wonderful day. He had not done a single thing except for hire other people to do work for him. As is should be, he thought to himself, as he walked through Market Square. He was a god of course. After arriving home, he found a book in his mailbox. Who could that be from?

The old man Ryan was offering his services as a butler. A personal assistant, that would be a good fit. He would need to interview him first, of course, since hiring a butler is no simple decision.

A knock on the door distracted him from his thoughts. He opened the door and saw a man he thought looked somewhat like the monopoly man. He was older, with a funky mustache and a monocle. His suit was freshly ironed and fit well with his hat. Binero liked to dress somewhat formal himself, but this guy took it to another level. "Hello gentleman, I hope my message found you well. Have you considered my application as your butler?" What great timing, Binero thought to himself. It was as if the man had read his mind, the way he showed up at that exact moment. "Please come in," he said, and showed the man to his office. It was right next to the kitchen, and the rest of the room was cluttered with barrels. Maybe he did really need a butler.

"Tell me, gentleman, what is your dream?" asked the man. Binero had to think on this for a moment, the question was so strange and unexpected. Did he have a dream? Of course he did, he had just forgotten what it was. Alinea was a busy place, and as its leader he had to keep up with all the changes. Every day people were asking for his attention, but nobody ever really payed attention to him. Everyone needed something from him, but did they really care how he was doing?

Suddenly he felt very tired. The man across from him seemed to notice this, and smiled slightly. It was a warm and friendly smile, one Binero wasn't used to seeing on people. "I am sorry if my question confused you, gentleman. I did not mean to make you sad. I wish to offer my services to you in any way you need." Now it was Binero's turn to smile. It wasn't every day he met someone so polite, who even wanted to be his personal assistant. "I have been thinking of hiring a butler," he said, "I need someone to help me clean up this place, and run errands for me." With some hesitation, he added: "The company would also be nice. It has been quiet around here lately."

The man smiled again. "That is wonderful, gentleman! I can start right away. Forgive me, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Ryan Coldson, it is a pleasure to meet you." "Where are you from?" asked Binero. "I am from Constantinople, the place where east meets west." East-European, Binero didn't know many people from there. He had never been there himself either, since he wasn't too keen on traveling. "Well, Ryan, I would like to hire you. You can start by getting my donkey ready."

"Than you gentleman, you will not regret this!" Ryan went in to shake Binero's hand. What happened, instead, was an explosion of items and a voice saying: "RyanColdson died trying to hurt Binero." Oh no, Binero thought, not again. People died around him a lot. I was the curse of being a god. Sometimes it was helpful, when malicious people tried to hurt him, but more often than it was an accident. It's why he didn't let people get to close to him. They would just get hurt. Ryan had respawned and had almost made his way back. Binero started to gather his items, wanting to keep them safe just in case. When Ryan walked in again, he couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty. "I'm sorry man, I should have warned you about that." "It is okay gentleman, it was my own fault," said Ryan. "I will get your donkey ready right away."

And so their partnership started. Binero would ask Ryan to do simple chores, nothing too physically challenging of course, since the man was old and weak. He did his job well, however, and Binero noticed he felt much less stressed with the extra help. He was never truly alone either, and they spent many late nights talking at great lengths about life, the universe and everything. They had started to become very comfortable around each other.

One night they had stayed up more late than usual, and Ryan was clearly tired. "Binero, I hope you don't mind me asking, but... could I perhaps set my spawn here?" he asked. Binero's cheeks were always a bit pink, but now they became noticeably red. He felt conflicted. Should he let Ryan stay? He wanted him to, but was also scared of accidentally hurting him again. On the other hand, if he let him go home this late, the chance of him getting hurt by a zombie or skeleton was quite high as well. Letting him stay was the right thing to do. Yes, it was simply right. He wasn't letting him stay because of any personal reasons, it was simply morally correct. "Please do stay, Ryan," he said. "I'll get you some more comfortable clothes, I assume you don't sleep in your suit." Ryan chuckled. "No gentleman, I don't. Thank you for letting me spend the night." Binero left the room to get some spare clothes for the man, and so he wouldn't notice him blushing.

He had gotten an extra bed as well, since he wasn't about to make the man sleep in a bunk bed. Ryan had just gotten out of the bathroom. Binero had never seen him without his suit, and it felt strange to see him in such casual clothing. The pajama pants were a bit short for him, but it mostly fit. They were dark blue with a single white stripe. He didn't like striped clothes usually, but they looked nice on him. After washing up, they both got into bed. It felt intimate in a way, and Binero made sure to leave some space between them, worried about getting too close. Ryan did not seem worried. He looked comfortable. Binero was glad to see him that way. It was lonely sometimes, being as powerful as he was, and he was glad to have a friend with him. Not just a friend really, it was more than that. Ryan was one of the few people who really understood him.

He hadn't noticed how close they had gotten. He could hear Ryan's breathing, it was calm and comforting. He always had trouble sleeping and often just stayed awake for multiple days, but tonight he might actually be able to fall asleep. He closed his eyes, only to feel an arm wrap around him. His muscles tensed up for a second, but he didn't want to push him away. It was nice, actually, being held. He was always working hard and often it felt like he was carrying the entire world on his back. Now he could just relax and know Ryan was there for him.

He woke up the next morning to the smell of freshly baked veggie skewers. Ryan must have been awake for a while. He got dressed, put his hair in a messy bun and walked to the kitchen. Ryan was wearing his regular suit again, and smiled when he saw him. "Good morning gentleman, I have made us some breakfast. Did you sleep well?" "I did, thank you," he answered. "It smells great. I'm really hungry." "Well, you're in luck then, I have made plenty of skewers," Ryan said. They both ate their breakfast in comfortable silence. After they're done eating, Binero decides he doesn't want to work that day. "You should take the day off." Ryan gave him an odd look. "Did I do something wrong gentleman?" "No, you did nothing wrong! I just think we both deserve a day off. Maybe we could go see a film? There's one of them Shakespeare films in the theater now. The one with the element bending magic?" Ryan smiled at him. "Ah, yes, I have heard of that one. I would love to go see it."

They saw the film. It was confusing, the exposition was terrible and the visuals awkward. It didn't matter, because Binero could only think about Ryan and wanting to be close to him. He could no longer deny his feelings. Every time Ryan laughed, he felt his heart skip a beat. It had been a long time since he'd been this close to anyone. It was scary and he wasn't sure what to do. Should he tell him? What would he even say? He didn't usually have a problem with finding the right words to say, but this was different. This was Ryan.

After the film ended, they walked back to Binero's apartment above the Bluebin store. Noel was standing in front of the shop. "Hello Noel. Have you met my butler?" Noel looked at Ryan with his usual judgemental glare. "Where's he from?" he asked. "Hello gentleman, I am from the place where Europe meets Asia, the beautiful city of Constantinople," Ryan answered. "Would you like a drink?" He handed Noel a bottle. Noel looked at it with disdain. "I hate Eastern Europeans," he said. "And this drink looks disgusting. Binero, why did you hire this loser?" Binero saw tears welling up in Ryan's beautiful eyes, and felt very angry. "You're being mean Noel! He is a very good butler and a wonderful man!" In his anger, his godly power had lifted Noel up in the air, and he started floating away. Well, that solves that problem. As they walked away, he could hear Noel's yelling fading into the distance as he floated higher and higher.

Back in the apartment they both sat down at Binero's desk, since those were still the only chairs in his house. He should do something about that. Get a sofa maybe. "Is there anything I can get you, gentleman?" Ryan asked. "No, no, it's still your day off remember? I'll get us a drink." Binero got up and walked over to The Magic Chicken, the best shop in Coastle, to get some delicious hot chocolate with whipped cream. It was the best quality available, you could really taste the craftsmanship with which the cow had been mixed. He carried the mugs back home, careful not to spill anything. Ryan had found some cookies in one of the barrels and had arranged them neatly onto a plate. "Oh, you really didn't have to," Binero said. "I wanted to," Ryan insisted. "I enjoy working for you. Your smile makes me happy." Binero felt his cheeks get red again. He wasn't sure what to say. Ryan got up and walked to the kitchen. He should tell him, Binero thought to himself. If he didn't do it now, he might never. He was known to procrastinate. The big hole in district North was proof of that. "Ryan," he said, "I think we need to discuss the nature of our partnership." The man gave him a nervous smile. "Of course, gentleman. I apologize if I was a bit too forward last night. I may have feelings for you that are not entirely professional." "You weren't too forward," Binero said. "I feel the same way." This time it was Ryan's turn to blush. Binero got up and walked over to him. Facing the other man, he took his hands into his own. "You're the best butler I've ever had," he said. "The only one too, but that's besides the point." Ryan smiled at him. "You're the finest gentleman I've ever had the pleasure of working for." Binero smiled back. And then, softly and carefully, he kissed him.

#Old #Fic

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brokensenseofhumor · 3 months

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I wrote a backstory for Pimon becuz bro needs his flowers, and I’m sharing it to all of y’all for literally no reason. Enjoy his non-canonical trauma :]

Warnings for lots of death and an unholy amount of headcanons

So, Pimon was originally born in France, circa 1820s-30s. He was an only child, and he was raised in a middle-class household and his parents loved him very much. His parents owned a butcher shop, and Pimon would help out with it everyday.

Eventually, he and his family moved to London for economic reasons, and they kept on with life as usual, until…

Pimon’s mother died in a brutal accident, and he was left absolutely devastated and traumatized by the whole ordeal. It didn’t help either that his father kicked the bucket a few years later, leaving him all alone, with no one to help him with anything.

This all lead up to his encounter with the one and only Arthur Gray. They met in some alleyway, and they became inseparable best friends almost instantly. And when Arthur told Pimon of his plan to take over England through crime, Pimon accepted to help him with his plan, despite his better judgment.

And now, Pimon is in his 50-60s, he’s trying to keep up with both his black market and his now deceased family’s butcher shop, he’s still dealing with the trauma of his parents’ death, and his only friends besides Arthur are 4 lil shits that he’d very much rather having absolutely nothing to do with.

Fin.

#record of ragnarok #shuumatsu no valkyrie #Ror Pimon #snv Pimon

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mdhwrites · 2 years

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Thoughts on Boscha?

I’ve been posting random snippets here and there on Twitter and I’m still not sure how to format a full post on Boscha here so just... Asks about Boscha? Boscha related ideas, etc? With her getting so much attention, I know there are a lot of... really dumb takes about her but also a lot of renewed interest and as someone who wrote a metric crapton of stuff for her I have a lot of opinions. Some basic stuff though: Boscha isn’t a great person but she’s not the worst person ever. She obviously has decided that walls and control are the way to happiness or at least safety and seems to try to act like she doesn’t care about most people’s opinions. She mocks most of her friends but the moment they start to act like they don’t need her or want her, she takes it PERSONALLY. However, she doesn’t seem to ask for this to be a one way street. While she’ll mock you, it’s friendly teasing as loyalty is important to her. Remember, when Luz decided to protect her friends and be a good friend, it seemed almost like it spoke enough to Boscha to get her to drop her guard and say “Wow, you’re a really good friend,” before she had to raise them back up and keep to her word with “And a really good target.” I also refuse to believe she was EVER Willow’s main bully. Her teasing and bullying seems mostly motivated by opportunity (what seems like fun to her) and what helps further her goals, like when someone takes her spotlight. I mean, before King showed up in Once Upon a Swap, Boscha’s crew was mostly just trolling around the market and chilling. KING was the one who ramped it up to being an active nuisance to everyone. Better yet: If Boscha was already Willow’s main bully, how could she have suddenly become solely focused on Willow in Winging it Like Witches? Or how could it seem like Amity no longer bullying Willow be what allowed Willow to become popular now when before she was social cyanide? Wouldn’t Boscha’s influence still have been in effect then? Remember, Amity wasn’t a good person and that actually reflects in her and Boscha’s relationship. Boscha seemed to normally go to Amity for approval or to share things with her and Amity was the one who was able to shut Boscha down in their friend group. Amity was the one who stayed closed off and cold to her. If Boscha fell in love with the bitchy side of Amity instead of the ‘true’ side of Amity... That’s because that’s all Amity ever gave her. All Boscha ever knew. Communication and respect is a two way street and Amity asked that you give but she didn’t reciprocate and that fucked hard with Boscha when Boscha suddenly found herself without Amity and then without any of her friends. And for what? For behaving like their leader had? For being a teenager who wanted to be popular and did so with a bit of bullying, snark but also a lot of hard work on her skills and training so she could actually impress people. Meanwhile the fandom tells me that it’s okay for Luz to lie and break promises over and over again, including to her perfect, first girlfriend, but never gives Boscha slack for, you know... Being 14 too. Being a teenager who honestly just acts like a teenager. That actually all came together much more coherently and cohesively than I was meaning to make for this blog. I hope you liked this and, again, I’d love to be given an excuse to ramble more about Boscha because she’s a character with a weirdly high amount of depth that at this point I kind of have to assume is on accident that it comes together so well.

#TOH #Boscha #Ramble

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oonajaeadira · 2 years

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You make a really great point. Like for example, I specifically disclose its a female reader in most of my fics but provide no other physical disclosures. I absolutely try to make it inclusive, but almost none of us can say we never do those things. Especially with reader inserts, we typically imagine ourselves to varying degrees and so things slip in, like physical acts of running through your hair, or inferences to a reader who may not be thin, because accident or not, most of us will include descriptors beacuse its natural to do.

I don't subscribe to coming across reader attributes that arent matching to yourself and getting angry about it, beacuse most of them aren't done in malice or to be exclusionary. You are right that if you claim the reader has no descriptions then you should be more careful about how you write it, but when screw ups happen, people need to remember that we make mistakes and gently pointing it out so we can fix it and learn from it will ALWAYS be better then storming into the writers inbox with hateful rhetoric.

I think theres a tendancy to turn annoyance into outrage and claim that it comes from an negative place on the writers side when thats not true. We write readers to be inclusive, but if small mentions of things we may not even have noticed we wrote will upset someone so greatly, maybe they need to take some time away from reading fics and learn how to cope with that frustration, rather than taking it out on the writer. If I dont give any specifications about the reader one way or the other, it doesnt mean Im only targeting one type of person, it means I am trying to be as broad as possible and when there is a standout factor that matters more than others, I'll point it out beforehand (i.e female reader, plus size reader ect)

We as writers truly do our best to be inclusive but it will never be perfect, and I think the fandom needs to take a step back and rethink the tendancy to attack for small upsets to an aggressive degree as if they are ill intended. I just agreed with your take a lot beacuse sometimes writers in this fandom arent given the benefit of the doubt.

I agree with you. Nobody does this out of malice. And, *laughing at myself* I'm going to be honest here.

Sometimes I'm just frustrated because I have an instinct to reach out and help the author do better so their fic is better received.

In my day job, I assist new producers/writers/makers of theater. I help run an organization that helps put new work out into the public eye and we actually run marketing workshops. And one of the big things we teach new producers is how to correctly market their work.

If you promise something and don't deliver, or you pull a bait and switch, your audience may get upset because of that unmet expectation, and then you know what happens? Negative reviews.

The #1 way to please an audience (besides putting out stellar content), is to set up promises you can keep and fulfill any expectations you set before them.

So half of my frustration often sits not in that "hey, you offended me by not including me" it's in that "oof, this is bad practices for your art and you should not be setting up promises you can't keep" pet peeve of mine.

At the same time, as someone that's been making art for a long time, I still make the mistakes I warn new producers about. And as a fic writer I KNOW I've done these things. I am--as I believe everyone is from time to time--a raging hypocrite!

But. I think we're living in an age where any infraction is treated as a life-or-death situation and people can get really shouty about their criticisms. I understand that it's hard to see there's an individual behind the blog/counter/whatever and that emotions can us all feel like shouting at one person means everyone who should hear it will hear it. No.

And by that same token, it's easy to believe that everyone who comes to you with shouty, mean anons is attacking you and only you when in fact, they are just hurting and want someone to know it and fix it all.

That's why I wanted to clarify my post and say more here too. I think it's worth looking at myself and trying to see WHY I'm frustrated and where it comes from. And that any time I've been frustrated with an author that promises what they can't deliver, it's not a life and death situation. They're not doing it to personally offend me. They have learning and growing to do. I have learning and growing to do.

Gentleness is key. We should--as the post that's been circling lately says--approach every situation as if best intentions are meant. And be gentle with each other.

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petnews2day · 2 years

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The 'townies' guide to Norfolk's countryside

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-industry-news/pet-travel-news/the-townies-guide-to-norfolks-countryside/

The 'townies' guide to Norfolk's countryside

If you have ever wondered how birds can help plant forests, pondered the difference between hay and straw, puzzled over why a pet pig can’t eat kitchen scraps, or want to know which animal can be a tup, hogget, yeld and gimmer* then Norfolk’s Jill Mason can help.

Jill was one of Britain’s first female gamekeepers, and after a 30-year career now writes books about the countryside, illustrated by her gamekeeper-turned-photographer husband David.

Her first book was The Townies Guide to the Countryside and she went on to write about hares, rabbits, gamekeeping and rural history.

Now she has written Everything you wanted to know about the countryside (but didn’t dare ask.)

Jill, of Barton Bendish, near Downham Market, has lived and worked in the countryside all her life and wrote the book for people living in urban areas, or who have moved out of towns to live in villages, to help them better understand what is happening all around them, from ploughing to harvest and rare breeds to agri-business.

The book is not a misty-eyed retreat to a rural idyll, but a wide-ranging look at the modern British countryside, bringing in Brexit, Covid, food security, animal welfare and the environment as part of a state-of-the-nation tour of everything from animals to arable, horticulture to heritage and genetic modification to renewable energy.

“I find it very frustrating that so many people lack any in-depth knowledge as to how the countryside functions,” said Jill.

Her research took her from tiny hill crofts to huge lowland estates and involved conversations with farmers, fruit pickers, scientists, tech manufacturers and traditional country craftspeople including thatchers and hedge-layers.

From solar farms to hay meadows and cultivated land to conservation wilderness, Jill uncovers the way the countryside works.

She explains the role of arable, cattle, poultry and pig farmers, and as well as describing what happens in the countryside also tackles what might lie ahead for British farming.

Jill and David live in the Norfolk countryside between Downham Market and Swaffham but Jill grew up on a smallholding in Sussex.

“I knew I always wanted to work outside and couldn’t wait to leave school,” said Jill. “I didn’t really mind what I did as long as it was outdoors and involved the countryside.”

Her first jobs were working with poultry and on a small mixed farm – and then she became a gamekeeper almost by accident.

She and David met in Sussex, where he was a gamekeeper. “He had just started a new job as a single-handed gamekeeper when he damaged his knee so I temporarily took over his keepering duties and continued to be involved for the next 30 years,” she said.

At first, being a female gamekeeper was unusual but Jill said that is not so true today. “Times are changing, which is good,” she said.

After working on estates in Sussex and Hampshire David was keen to return to Norfolk, where he was born, and they moved to work on a large south Norfolk estate.

Jill began writing books and articles for magazines before she retired, 20 years ago, and said she and David had very much enjoyed travelling around Britain to research this latest book.

“We like anywhere wild and off the beaten track especially the Highlands and islands of Scotland. We have also particularly enjoyed meeting, and getting to know, the country folk who live in the Lake District many of whom have been hill farmers for generations,” she said.

They love rural Norfolk too. “The beautiful north Norfolk coast is one of our favourite places in winter when the tourists have departed and migratory birds have arrived,” said Jill.

And despite her decades of working in the countryside Jill is still learning.

“Two of the principal things I discovered when writing the book was the true extent of grants and subsidies available to agriculture, mostly for arable farmers, and the huge impact different methods of green energy production are having on the countryside,” said Jill.

The book’s subtitle refers to questions people might not have dared ask about the countryside. What might they be? “Mostly questions about some aspects of how animals are kept and how they are slaughtered,” said Jill. “It’s probably more a case of not actually wanting to be faced with the answers!”

Other questions she asks, and answers, range from who owns Britain’s wild land to how many crisps can be made from an acre of potatoes and whether Britain could become self-sufficient in food.

The answer to the second question is half a million. The answer to the third is “No,” said Jill, explaining, that we now expect a wide choice of food, much of which cannot be produced in the UK.

In fact, she believes we will need to import more. “The current financial situation with escalating costs for animal feed, fertilizer, transport, fuel and power will undoubtedly put some farmers out of business resulting in the probable need for an increase in imports,” said Jill.

There are lots more engaging and accessible farming facts, figures, explanations and pictures in Everything you wanted to know about the Countryside (but didn’t dare ask), published by Merle Unwin.

*Jays bury acorns – which they don’t always retrieve – meaning some grow into trees.

Hay is dried grass while straw is dried stalks of grain crops.

Pigs are not allowed to eat kitchen scraps because it is illegal to feed catering waste, including kitchen scraps, to farmed animals, including pet pigs.

Sheep can be a tup (ram), hogget (lamb in its second spring or summer), yeld (a ewe that is not pregnant) and gimmer (a ewe with her first lamb.)

#Pet Travel News

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hamliet · 2 years

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Hamliet, can you give me a brief idea of what 'romance' implies in sense of literature? When I tried to do my research I found two explanations, one it's a middle ground between tragedy and comedy, with elements from both. The other one being related to the romantic movement. I can vaguely work out the connection between the two explanations but for the most part, I am confused since I don't have much proper knowledge about literature.

No worries!

Genre fiction definition: romance stories. Same as like... fantasy, sci-fi, mystery genre. The primary focus of the story is about will this couple get together or won't they (almost always, yes). Many stories have elements of romance in them, but they aren't primarily marketed as romance.

Romantic movement: what you describe as "between comedy and tragedy" is actually part of the romantic movement, so those aren't separate definitions! Literary movements are a bit vague to define, but the basic idea is that the movement started in the late 1700s and focused on individuals, emotions, and beauty. It focused less on idealistic heroes and more on the average person, prioritizing experience. There's often (especially in poetry) a focus on nature as a symbol.

Also? The sublime is an aspect of it as well--and by that I mean an almost transcendental idea. Yes, the romantic literary story exists in the ordinary. But the beauty of an ordinary life is that it still matters. The sublime refers to that experience of being overwhelmed by the concept of something greater than just yourself--being a part of the world, of the beauty of being alive, etc.

The Romantic movement might be historical, but elements of romanticism as a philosophy incorporated into various works of literature very much exist today. I've talked about "romantic tragedy" before in RWBY, Attack on Titan, Romeo and Juliet, and other stories. Shakespeare wrote other stories that are directly called "romances" because of their mix of tragedy/comedy as well (I'd argue R+J fits romance as well as tragedy, maybe more so than tragedy, but beyond that play, there's Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, and The Tempest).

LOTR is romantic (most stories with "bittersweet" endings are). Dostoyevsky is a romantic. I strongly suspect ASOIAF, if it ever finishes, will be a romantic work (ie Dany will probably die, and be remembered by many as a mad queen who burned king's landing, but the reality is more likely that she will have burned KL in a horrible accident and go on to save the entire world--most won't know, most won't care, but that doesn't make her less of a hero, and her loved ones will know the truth).

I hope this helps. I may have just confused you more. If so, I'm sorry! Feel free to ask follow-ups!

#ask hamliet #romanticism #literary romanticism

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clandonnachaidh · 4 years

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Light Across The Seas That Severed

Read on AO3

It always surprised Jamie Fraser, the things that made him think of Claire Beauchamp. Along with the usual triggers—the gut punch when he caught a whiff of someone wearing her signature perfume, the seizing of his heart when his eyes were automatically drawn to messy brown curls on a stranger walking down the high street, the ache in his chest when someone walked past who had the same cadence as her laugh—it was the small, unexpected ones that hurt the most.

He could be walking into the village and see her hair in the colours of the water as it ruffled over the rocks in the burn, so real to him that it felt as though he could reach out and tangle it through his fingers. His carefully curated playlist would end and Spotify would betray him, blasting a song that he had kept at bay, conjuring memories of the two of them dancing like fools on the nights that they laughed so loud that it seemed even the walls shook as they brushed their teeth in the cramped bathroom of their dorm.

It was torture. A delicious kind, but torture nonetheless. One that he had thought to turn into prose—at the recommendation of his therapist. It had been explained to him that grief and loss were themes that could be explored in ourselves if we attempted to write them from another’s perspective. And so here he was now, years after she had left him, sitting at his late father’s desk with a whisky in one hand and a pen in the other, trying to make sense of what had happened and how he had ever been stupid enough to watch silently as her light, his Sorcha, slipped from his life.

On yet another night spent in the same position—the room dark with only a lamp beside him to illuminate the black moleskin notebook—he reclined, the chair creaking under his weight. His father’s old office chair, with it’s worn leather and rusty hinges, wasn’t built to accommodate a man of his size but he’d found that it actually helped to coax the words from his brain, as though the physical discomfort made his emotional pain easier to access. He seemed to need a little nudge to allow himself to sink deeper into parts of his past that he had spent so long trying to keep locked away.

When the whisky finally made him brave enough to open the door, the memories flooded out onto the paper: the sight of her pink lips pouted in frustration as she struggled to lift her belongings from the boot of the taxi on the first day of university, the first time she laughed at one of his terrible jokes (why do the French only use one egg to make an omelette, Sassenach? Because one is an oeuf!), the first time he helped her into her coat and his fingertips brushed the skin behind her ear (their maiden voyage to the on campus coffee house, faces taut in disgust as they realised that their unrelenting back and forth had caused their coffees to go cold). He wrote about falling in love with his best friend and why he had wasted so much time worrying about how to tell her.

Jamie had spent hours, days, months, sitting in his father’s chair, consumed by the fruitless pursuit of trying to plot the points of their relationship. Although he could vividly picture the scenes, he didn’t recognise the people anymore. He had been young, too young by half to know what he wanted out of life and she had been more than he could have dreamed of. He had fallen in love with her instantly, as he was sure most people did at the sight of one Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp. But that was years ago and they had both changed, she was living her life in Boston as a brilliant surgeon while Jamie languished in Lallybroch, living in his old bedroom while his sister and her family had the run of the house.

The burn of the whisky slipping down his throat was a pleasant distraction but the batch still made his eyes water slightly and he made a mental note to tell Ian that the recipe could still do with some tweaking before it could be sold under the Mac Dubh name. He had made a modest success of himself, that was true, now the creator of the fourth highest selling whisky in Scotland. Broch Tuarach had changed from a small farming village that nobody really knew of to the home of one of Scotland’s largest and most successful distilleries, and Jamie was often credited with bringing jobs and tourists to the village in numbers that hadn’t been seen before. There had been a boom in the local economy allowing the village to thrive and he was seen as a pillar of the community, people jokingly referring to him as Laird, or the more familiar Himself, when he passed them in the street although the official title was held by some landowner that lived down south somewhere and had only stepped foot in the area once.

Still, he thought, this batch wasn’t ready for marketing just yet. Jamie put the glass down, rubbed his tired eyes with his even more tired fingers and decided to call it a night, making his way down the hall to his bedroom. His limbs felt heavy as he went through the motions of getting ready for bed. Finally stripping off his shirt and jeans and crawling under the covers, he cast a cursory glance at the phone he had left charging on the bedside table.

Sassenach

Missed call 23.02

He screwed his eyes shut before opening them again as if to knock some sense into them but the notification was still there. The rough pad of his thumb hovered over it, almost afraid that if he attempted to open it, it would cease to exist. He pressed the lock button once to blacken the screen, paused, and then pressed it again to bring it into view and still it remained.

It must have been an accident, a slip of the hand while she was trying to call someone else. He reminded himself of the time difference, it would be the early evening where she was and she could be tired after a long day or maybe even rushing between surgeries. She probably hadn’t even noticed that she had called him. He had to fight his inflating ego when he considered the fact that she still had his number, but blushed in shame as he recalled the frightened face of the poor spotty teenage lad in the phone shop who he had made swear that he wouldn’t lose any contacts or photos when he upgraded to his new handset.

Realising that he was now sat straight up in his bed, his heart beating a slightly faster staccato than usual, he opened the notification. Just seeing her name (or rather, his name for her) on his screen again did things to his body that he wasn’t in control of. His hands felt clammy while his mouth was dry. This was different than just scanning her Facebook page in the dark, looking at her perfectly posed pictures that she chose to share, and lamenting the absence of candids that he had so loved taking when they were friends. She found one of them once, one he had snapped of her the day that they had taken the ferry over to the Isle of Arran for a few nights. Knowing that she didn’t have any remaining family, he had insisted that she spend the summer break from university at Lallybroch with his family and she had happily accepted. However, after a few nights in Jamie’s massive ancestral home, filled with more Fraser bodies than they could count, he promised to take her away for a few days of peace and had driven her to the ferry terminal at Claonaig without divulging their destination. They had been blessed with a beautiful summer’s day for the crossing to Lochranza and he’d thanked God that he managed to keep his breakfast in his stomach. Or rather, that he almost had until they were in sight of the island. Jamie had burst from his seat and had made it to the toilet just in time for his stomach to erupt, sweat dampening his brow until his wame was empty. Shivering and definitely worse for wear but at least grateful in the knowledge that there was nothing else to come up, he had returned to the deck of the ferry to see Claire out in the sun, her forearms resting on the railing as she looked out over the water. The way that her hair whipped up in the wind made Jamie’s chest tighten and before he knew it, he had taken out his phone and snapped a picture.

Months later, Claire had snagged his phone from the table of the bar that they were sat in, too quick for Jamie. She quipped an eyebrow at him in victory, chastising him that he had yet to show her pictures of his latest niece when she stumbled across the photo. He watched as her throat bobbed, swallowing emotion that he wished he could taste before looking at him straight in the eye. Without being asked, he told her that he couldn’t help himself. And she smiled shyly before cooing about Jenny’s new daughter.

The memory flooded his senses and Jamie closed his eyes, filling his lungs with a deep breath for a count of four, holding it for a count of four and then letting it out for six in a vain attempt at calming his racing mind. His whole body felt as though it was vibrating, alive for the first time in what he could remember at the mere <em>thought</em> of Claire Beauchamp.

It took Jamie a second to realise that the vibration wasn’t coming from his body. Or rather, it was, but from a specific part of his body. His hand, the one that was holding his phone, was shaking rhythmically, the screen bright against the darkness of the rest of the room.

Sassenach calling…

The breath jittered from his lungs as he tried to take a steady breath. Watching, almost as though someone else was moving his body as he thumb accepted the call and he slowly raised the phone to his ear.

“Claire?”

On the other end of the phone, he heard her let out a heavy breath. His heart seized as he listened to her break, all too familiar with the sound of her crying.

“Claire, are ye hurt? Tell me what’s—“

“Frank is dead.”

Ice fell heavy in his chest at the sound of her voice before he even took stock of the words that she had uttered. To hear her voice again.

“Oh, lass… Mo chridhe, I am so sorry,” he whispered the words, truly meaning them as he wished for nothing but her happiness. Anything to bring her from the pain that she was feeling.

“He— oh God, he’s dead. He’s really dead.”

He knew in that moment that he would cross oceans for her simply to bring her peace. He had always known the truth of what they shared, how he responded to her call but nothing had prepared him for the tsunami of pure need that he would experience when he heard her cry down the phone about her dead husband.

“I’m sorry, mo chridhe, I’m so sorry,” he repeated at the sound of her hyperventilating, his shoulders creeping up around his ears as he wished he could bear the pain for her, “What do you need, Claire? Anything.”

“He’s in the ground,” she whispered as though saying it out loud would make it more true, “God, Jamie, I don’t know what to do.”

Hearing his name fall from her lips was a balm that he didn’t know his soul needed. The hairs on his arms stood to attention as a shiver rippled through him, clenching his jaw to steady himself and give her his full attention.

“Do ye have people around ye, Claire? Have ye folk in Boston?”

#light across the seas that severed #clandonnachaidh #ao3 #outlander fanfic #jamie fraser #Claire beauchamp #outlander #modern au

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thechangeling · 2 years

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Ok this might be the pettiest rant i am to make, its really not bad i just want to lay this somewhere.

So I take cuatitative methods specialized in marketing and probability. Its a math elective i did not ask to take, they quite literally shoved me in there because i needed an extra math course to graduate and thought putting the kid running the humanities department in with the advanced math kids was a good idea/ j

I hate the class with my entire soul, but most of all I hate how its taught. I'm almost sure that class is an nd students worse nightmare, like if hell were a place itd be that classroom. The teachers not mean or anything (hes like, a standard dude. He exist, hes not mean or memorable hes just there)

But most of its just, he shows up, talks non stop for an hour and a half about math models and leaves. No interaction, nothing besides saying all the info and then class ends. He talks in a slow voice and explains math models verbally imagining i can just visualize the math concepts and its torture.

You sit in a hot room while he talks and yoire expected to draw diagrams but also i keep missing half the info hes saying and i cant see numbers. Plus i take that class last period after all my other hard classes (physics and ap calculus which im barely surviving)

So whenever i sit at that class and try to do anything, best I can do is not die because the way i get bored there is almost painful.

My friend kinda jokes that I should dtart taking it seriously, or that I at least wtite info but idk why i just cant do it. Ive tried to take notes but halfway through im listening suddenly i spaced out for 30 minutes and lost him. Most the time i cant even understand what he says.

I have a test tomorrow and im trying to study but truth is, Im failing because that class is hell and idk what to do. No matter how much i try i can never understand him because its difficukt eniugh to process what hes saying, and numbers make it worse. I accidently keep blacking out half the time. There is nothing to keep me engaged, and for some reason im even unable to pick up a pen and wrote amything.

And idk *how* to explain it to my friend that. Sometimes i wish i could just give people my brain for a second so i didnt have to explain because it *isnt* that im stupid i just *cant* function in that class.

I can baremy listen to a podcast about the enneagram which i genuinly like, do you THINK i can sit through 90 minutes of numbers?? Models?? Economics???

This is petty and useless but *shakes brain*

Oof. I can understand why you would be stressed. That's a shitty situation. I'm not sure if you want advice or just someone to comfort you. But if you want my advice, if you can get a tutor I would highly reccomend it. Also if you can, maybe asking your teacher for after school help if he offers it.

But it's shitty to be in a learning environment that doesn't support the way your brain works. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. ❤

#asks #mutuals!#zia!

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pretoriafics · 3 years

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Russian Roulette - Pt. 2

In this series, you will find Alternative Universe, Soulmate plot, Angst, Fluff. In this chapter, you will find: You met the creepy man from the black car, finally! But things began to get weird for you. Word count: 1.560 Pairings: Reader x Derek Original characters of this chapter: Bennie, your host mom; A weird ginger lady Warnings: English is not my main language <3 Yeah, it was based on Russian Roulette by Rihanna Russian Roulette series: Chapter One | Chapter Three RUSSIAN ROULETTE MASTERLIST TEEN WOLF MASTERLIST

You were without a sign of clues.

Well, you were pretty sure that the creepy guy who was talking with Scott and Stiles that day at the school had the answers you were asking for. However, you don't even know his name, and do this question to Scott and Stiles wasn't a viable option. They will never tell you anything about it. You have just one choice: To stay alert and watch things as close as you can.

But, you know, sometimes things happen funnily. The universe has a weird sense of humor.

You were driving through the city in the afternoon, going to get the girls from ballet, and thinking about a plan or something that you could do. Beacon Hills was a tiny city, so if you find out the name of that guy, you could look for a few pieces of information about him. Actually, you were so absorbed in your own thoughts that you just didn't saw the traffic lights become red. The car in front of you stopped, but you didn't stop the car. In fact, when you saw the red light, your eyes got wider and you stepped into the car brake. The loud sound of the tire sliding in the asphalt echoed through the entire street, and your car crashed in the back of the car in front of you.

God, you were so fucked up! You had just screwed the car of your host family! Sebastian and Barbara will be so upset with you!

Immediately, you come out of the car with your face red with anxiety and anger. How could you be so inattentive? But when you saw a man coming out of the car, the color of your face changed from red to white in fear.

You'd just hitten in a black car. A Camaro, you thought without sure. The man was that creepy guy, who you saw talking with Scott and Stiles. Oh, God. You felt your stomach fell in fear, and you froze. He will take a gun to point of you, you are pretty sure about it!

But instead of it, he just looked at you, watching you attentively. His face still looks serious.

"You okay?"

Well, at least he is a polite criminal. Which market does he work at? Is he a drug dealer? A killer? Or he's some kind of... pimp? But why Scott and Stiles would get into a deal or something like that with a pimp?

He doesn't sound like a pimp for you. Actually, he seems like a killer. Maybe he is a killer and a drug dealer...

You breathe in deeply and finally replies him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry! I don't have so much time with a driver's license. You okay?"

"I noticed that." His eyes become narrowed, and he gave you a discreet smile "Don't worry about me, I'm okay."

He looks at the damage done, and you follow his gaze. Fortunately, you stepped into the car brake soon enough to get just a little smash on both cars. Of course, your low speed helped to minimize the damage.

"Oh, God." You complain, letting out a long sigh. "Wait."

You went back to your car and took a pen and a post-it from the glove compartment. You weren't giving him your phone number just for being fair with him about the accident. It was just an excuse to, finally, find out his name. Quickly, you wrote your name with your phone number and gave the post-it for him.

"Could you give me your phone number? I'll fix your car, don't worry." He told you the numbers, slowly, and you could make the one million dollar question. "Okay. What's your name?"

"Derek Hale."

Oh my gosh, now you know his name! You would finally find out what the heck is going on.

"Alright. I'll send you a message to talk about the car. And sorry!"

Well, you were a lucky Au Pair. Your host family didn't get angry with you. Actually, they were happy you were okay and said that you don't have to worry about the car fix costs. It was great because 200 dollars per week as a salary really wasn't too much money. They just asked you to be careful while driving.

After taking a look at the girls, you ran to your room on the second floor, the last room in the corridor. Quickly, you took the laptop and begun to search on the internet about Derek. You found a piece of news, who was talking about a fire in a house. Reading that news, you found out that it was his house. Almost everybody died, except for Derek and his uncle, Peter, who is actually hospitalized in a clinic, with his whole body burnt.

Well... Maybe you were being unfair to him. It is such a sad history! But you need to continue your search. You need to prove yourself he isn't a criminal or some sort of it because, in the end, you need to protect your boys.

The next day, you were at a restaurant, lunching with Barbara, your host mom, and boss. You call her lovingly Bennie, and she was born and raised in Beacon Hills. If there's one that probably would know about Derek, that person would be her.

"So, Bennie... What about the car fixing?"

"Oh, dear, don't worry about that." She looks at you with a soft smile. "I'd talked with Hale about it. Everything is solved."

"Uh, really? That's great! And what do you know about him?"

Barbara was more than a boss. She was your friend, your second mom. And, sometimes, like every mom, she had the power to let you embarrassed. She was doing it right now, looking at you suggestively.

"Oh, you're interested in him? Why you didn't tell me before? I would talk with him about you! I don't judge you, I mean, all that bad boy kind... Wow! Don't lose this opportunity, girl!"

Bennie has the amazingly cringe-worthy manner ever: she loves to show you a few guys, telling you to call them to date. It wasn't being different now that you're asking her questions about Hale.

"Gosh, Bennie!" You laugh "Luckily Sebastian is not here."

"Well, I met Derek's mom once. He reminds me of her... You know, with all of that 'sweet' personality." Bennie gave a soft smile for you. "But she was a good person. Her name was Talia. Derek was out of the town since a few time ago but seems he came back. I didn't know about it." Bennie narrowed her eyes and gave you a large smile "And you know what? I think Talia would love to meet you!"

"Jesus Christ, Bennie, stop!" You hide your face with one of your hands, blushing while Bennie laughs about your reaction.

"You!"

A female voice came out of nowhere. A ginger woman, with a red dress, approaches you and Bennie. She seems so... Impressed. And she was looking at you.

"Can I help you?" You said, confused.

"I know what are you looking for, (Y/N)."

You froze. How did she know about your name? You had never, ever seen that woman in your entire life.

"...I'm sorry, I don't know-"

"Look for Haytham." She took a pen from her bag and wrote an address on a napkin from the table. A cold shiver ran down your spine when you noticed that her eyes were so empty and distant as a dead body's eyes. "He's a priest. But look at me, child: You are in a decisive moment of your life. You have two paths to choose from. If you continue to look for answers, you will know the truth and the truth is not what you're expecting. This truth will change your life forever, and your life will become a truly Russian roulette, girl. But if you give up on the call of Selene, and give up on your search, your life will be peaceful, but you will spend the entire life knowing that you lost something and you will never know what it is. You will look for something for the rest of your life that you know it's yours, but you will never find it. The choice is yours."

At this moment, you were so terrified, that you have cringed in the chair. Bennie was equally scared, and she was already looking around for some help. Everyone was looking at the table you were on.

Suddenly, after look at you with her dead eyes, the woman fell to the floor, unconscious. Bennie got up from the chair while everybody was looking at the woman, terrified and worried. Bennie instructed you.

"Call an ambulance!"

Terrified and with your hands shaking, you followed her ask while Bennie was watching the lady. As a doctor, Bennie could give her first aid until the ambulance comes in. But when Bennie took the woman's wrist, she contracted her lips in anxiety. Immediately, Bennie put her hands in the woman's chest and...

Oh, Gosh, she was trying to resuscitate the woman.

Bennie was doing a few chest compressions on the woman, which is obviously wasn't a good sign. After a few trying, Bennie shakes her head negatively. Nervous, you asked for her.

"She will be okay?"

Bennie contracts her lips.

"No, (Y/N). She's dead."

#teen wolf imagine #teen wolf imagines #teen wolf fanfics #teen wolf fics #teen wolf fanfic #derek hale imagine #derek hale imagines #derek hale x reader #derek hale fanfics #derek hale fanfic #derek hale x you #derek hale x y/n

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michyreadsthenwrites · 3 years

Text

Plain Bad Heroines - Let Me Give You My Thoughts On This (Character Analysis)

**major maaaaajor spoilers ahead**

(Here we begin with the handful of characters from Danforth’s sophomore novel that have found their way into my heart and apparently, this Word document. It didn’t hurt that they were all women that love women. And I mean, they really loved women.)

· Merritt Emmons is easily my favorite character. She’s got that dry, sarcastic humor and air around her that makes it really easy to love her and hate her guts all at the same time. (If she were here, she’d tell us that this was a talent, not a flaw.) I felt personally affronted when characters in PBH didn’t like Merritt, like they were overlooking the diamond in the rough right in front of their faces. Then, like most things, it became pretty clear: Merritt Emmons could be one hell of a bitch at times. But it really only made me love her more. I realized that I identified with her. Yes, about being a queer woman that really fucking loves other women, but also because she was a writer that wanted her writing to stay true to how she wrote it, especially with so many people traipsing all over it and trying to make it into something it’s not. That was where I realized I loved her early on; when she pitched a genuine fit over who was to play Clara Broward. It was something so petty and childish, something so very me to throw a fit in a packed room of professionals when you have no idea about that kind of world and what it demands. But she fought for what she believed in, alright. Until she didn’t. This made me love her some more, incidentally. We got to see Merritt’s character development throughout the novel, and more specifically, we got to watch her bounce back and forth between the person she was too scared to be but wanted more than she could ever admit, and the person she spent twenty long years being; the person she was oh-so-tired of introducing to people. This constant shift between new-Merritt and old, crabby, prickly-Merritt was a very raw and vulnerable thing for us to experience as an audience. Merritt was certainly a lot more refreshing than every one of the overdone-Hollywood-types we became acquainted with within the book. She was mean and arrogant and wildly insecure, yet somehow confident and sure of herself, when it came to her work or her knowledge or anything that had to do with any book written, ever. A walking paradox, that one. Merritt was a good way to remember that real people, not built-and-put-together-by-Hollywood-people don’t always have their shit together, and they can’t always get it together by the end of a novel, albeit a long, six-hundred-page one. I think I’ll cut myself off here, friends. Not that I want to, but I feel we have a lot to get to in these pages, and Merritt Emmons can’t be the star of all of them (lord knows I’d let her, though). To sum it up: Merritt Emmons was the star of this book, for me at least. And I hope for you too. (This means go get your ass over to your closest B&N and buy the damn thing).

· Harper Harper is somewhat of a mystery to me. She was a major character in the story, as well as one of our three protagonists, our three heroines, and yet I have trouble finding her as authentic and outlandish as she tries to come across. What I’m still having trouble deciphering is if this is an intentional character flaw created by our Miss Danforth, or if Harper Harper really has nothing to her besides being completely reinvented and marketed by Hollywood. Even in saying this, I know I have to give Harper credit where it’s due. She’s a proud queer woman in the movie industry, as well as openly queer online and really with just anyone and everyone she meets. She’s known for various flings and love-interests of the week, which is still a gross misrepresentation and stereotype of (masc?) lesbians and how they’re emotionally unavailable and unfaithful, which again is a possibility of the author’s intentional writing, something that we can leave for further discussion. We do get a bit of a glimpse into Harper’s life – her real-life – about how her mother is struggling with her sobriety, how her little brother seems to be caught in the middle of her mother’s messy relationships, and how she really has mixed feelings about how she fits into her new movie-star life. That’s about all we get from Harper, though. And it really is almost enough realness to take away from the fact that everyone else in the world sees Harper as the face of Hollywood, as this thing of beauty and money and badassery instead of a real person. But still not enough. And I could be wrong, friends. I could be pulling all of this out of my ass because Harper Harper is a badass queer woman that took over the movie industry with barely any experience under her belt. Harper Harper took every room she walked into by storm, and she made everybody pay attention to her, and she became the character we had a little crush on, simply because she was that big of a deal. But nothing of substance, not really. Not ever. But perhaps she had been her most real self with Merritt Emmons, in between the quiet pages that we didn’t get to read entirely. Merritt, our dry and arrogant and favorite heroine, had been Harper’s favorite, too. The most credit that I find myself giving Harper is her aid in Merritt’s character development. She brought Merritt out of her shell in a massive way, though at times she did have a hand in driving her back into the said shell. It was flawed, their relationship, which is another authentic Harper Harper insight we saw, as little of it there was. They were hot and cold, on and off, but always so enthralled with each other. And while Harper seemed to have had an impact on Merritt (among other factors), it doesn’t seem like Merritt had the same effect on Harper. I could be wrong and do feel free to correct me, friends, but Harper Harper did not come out the other end of PBH a changed woman. She was not burdened with the weight of a life-changing revelation. She was Harper Harper, as she always was, floating and untouchable, the kind of woman you wished to know, maybe to be, but also the kind you see right through. They’re transparent, friends, that’s what I’m trying to get at here. And they tend to stay that way. And I realize as I’m nearing the end of this, that I sound harsh in my critiques and analysis of Harper. I don’t mean to come off that way, friends, I really don’t. The truth is I love Harper, she’s everything we wish we could be. She’s gorgeous and sought after, can land any girl she wants with the bat of her eyelashes and a lazy smile. But you have to remember, she’s everything we’re not. I can only speak for myself, friends, and I encourage you to speak for yourselves if you find you have anything to add. I never related with Harper the way I did with Merritt’s character, but that doesn’t mean that Harper isn’t a beautiful enigma waiting to be unwrapped. I just don’t happen to be the kind of reader that would know where to begin unwrapping her, if that makes sense. And because I’m afraid it doesn’t, I do believe it’s time to stop with the metaphors and wrap this up nicely for you, friends: Harper Harper is number two on my list of favorite characters from PBH, and that is not something done lightly or by accident. She was one of our three heroines, after all. And a proper heroine she was, friends. Don’t you ever forget it.

· Libbie Packard broke my heart more times than I count, friends. You’ll notice I have kept her maiden name, then. This is intentional, friends, for our Libbie never wanted to be a Brookhants, not really. It wasn’t towards the end of PBH that we learned much of what we now know about Libbie, and how it came about that she had been married (to a man no less!), as well as the very young principal of an all-girls school. Throughout their chapters in the book, Libbie and Alex, her Alex, were seemingly at each other’s throats constantly. There seemed to be a mysterious tension that we as an audience weren’t privy to – but it didn’t stop us from speculating. I found myself drawn to Libbie more than I did her counterpart, and I still can’t point my finger as to why. Libbie seemed sad, right from our first introduction, and Alex always seemed angry and cynical (as a queer woman in 1902, is there any other way to seem?). This might serve as a dual character analysis yet, friends. I’m not sure how much I’ll have to say about our Alexandra Trills, but Libbie Packard deserves a long sentence, or two. You know when something finally clicks into place and you can’t help but just let out a long “ooohhhhhhh”? That’s a recreation of how I looked when I read the explanation of how Libbie Packard became Libbie Brookhants. Learning that she had become pregnant with a baby she didn’t want was mind-blowing enough, and it filled in the blanks of how young, gorgeous Libbie had become the wife of a rich, old, old man. Libbie gave up her child was because she didn’t want to be a mother, and she had originally rejected Harold Brookhants offer of marriage because she didn’t want to be a wife, regardless of false the marriage was. And for a while, Libbie’s new life was amazing; she got to live with her Alex in a beautiful house and became the principal of a promising school. This was the life she’d always wanted. Or was that just what we wanted to believe, friends? Only at the end did we learn that Libbie had rejected Harold Brookhants offer (to live a quiet, queer life with her lover and without the child she clearly didn’t want) because she didn’t want to be tied down; not to Harold, not to anyone. If you think about it, friends, this was exactly the life that she had been living for years to come now. The tension with Alex had much to do with the circumstances surrounding them at Brookhants and the evil that was unfolding before them, but it seemingly had even more to do with the fact that Libbie Packard felt smothered. She was hiding secrets from Alex, secrets that she felt could destroy this already fragile relationship that they had between them. How vastly different it was to read and experience their relationship at the beginning of their love; playful and full of joy, both women giddy with the promise of something new and exciting. To compare that kind of love to the broken, tight-lipped, empty vessel of the relationship they now pretend to have is heartbreaking. And yet, completely understandable. Alex had fallen in love with the Libbie she wanted her to be, not the Libbie she was. Our Libbie wanted to be eternally young; playful and happy, bouncing from city to city with Sara Dahlgren in a sea of eligible bachelors (and bachelorettes!). It was almost a shock to discover that this life Libbie tried so hard to defend and protect was not a life she had ever wanted for herself. Despite this, she loved her Alex and her students, and devoted her life to them. There was that whole business with cheating on Alex with Adelaide the housemaid (don’t even get me started on that broad) but I’d like to extend to you, friends, the fact that I won’t comment on this. Queer relationships in 1902 are definitely not what they are now, complete with century-old curses and dead schoolgirls. Libbie Packard became the 1902-lesbian-headmistress version of our stereotypical bored housewife, stuck in a marriage that she secretly wishes she could be free from. And my heart broke for her, friends, it really did. But she was a heroine all on her own. A deeply intelligent and remarkable woman. Make no mistake, friends. Libbie Packard and Libbie Brookhants differ by more than just a surname. Our young, vivacious Libbie disappeared the moment she accepted Harold Brookhants’ offer, and this is indeed the sad truth of it, friends: Libbie Packard was gone before she could ever find herself. But Libbie Brookhants was our gorgeous, brilliant, queer heroine that never got what she deserved. So, friends, let’s all have a moment of silence for our dearly departed Libbie Brookhants… wherever she is.

· Alexandra Trills is a character that I don’t know where to begin with. Her end is not one that I saw coming, at least not in the gruesome and deranged circumstances that came to surround it. Or maybe, friends, I just didn’t want to acknowledge the clear downwards spiral that our Miss Trills had seemed to be heading towards. Her steadfast and growing obsession with the death of Florence Hartshorn and Clara Broward was apparent in every page we turned, and the following death of Eleanor Faderman did not aid in absolving Alex of her obsession with the one, single copy of a book they had all possessed at one point: The Story of Mary McLane. Alex grew hysterical in her investigation of the novel and whatever evil she believed it had brought to the students of her school. I remember feeling a bit hysterical myself at times, following along with Alex’s scrambled train of thought that never seemed to find a place to stop. She was right, you know, my friends. And now what does she have to show for it? A gruesome death and an eternity of haunting the same grounds, day in and day out? I may not have liked her, and felt like she had been the reason Libbie was so unhappy and stuck in a life that she did not want, but the way Alex’s story had ended really did take me by surprise and break my heart. She deserved a better ending than what she got; she deserved to reconcile and fix her strained relationship with Libbie. Damn it, they deserved to live quiet, happy lives with each other. Neither of them got the endings that they deserved, and God, did they deserve plenty. This, friends, is the hill I choose to die on tonight.

Alright, friends, this is it for my character analysis of Emily Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines! I have a special place in my heart for book characters that you can relate with (or characters that just really make you love them). The way that Emily Danforth brought our heroines to life was remarkable and highly impressive (I say this because it’s decidedly been a while since any book character(s) have weaseled their fictional way into my little heart). It’s rare that I give a book five stars (check out my Goodreads reviews) (oh god, please don’t), and yet halfway through PBH, I knew that this book deserved it. Good book characters are the ones that stick with you long after you’ve closed the book on them, and our heroines are stuck with me. And believe me, friends, I’m certainly not complaining.

#plain bad heroines #emily danforth #book review #book reviews #character analysis #books #literature #lgbtq #wlw #queer #writing blog

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justsomeoneunordinary · 4 years

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angst 3 for winteriron pretty please

Hi Ava, thank you so much for sending this prompt in. Finally I finished it, after… 3 months. I also used it for the WinterIron Week (which I am so much behind for, it’s not even funny). I still have no clue if this really warrants as ‘angst’, cause it feels more dull to me than angsty, but oh well. It is what it is.

Now, the whole organizational stuff (aka the pain in my ass):

On Crossing Paths

Prompt is from this list: “You promised you’d stop drinking.” — “And you promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”

Day 3 of @winteriron-week: Angst & “But I did it”

And since this got way out of hand anyway, combined with:

Day 4 of @winteriron-week: Tony needs a hug (Bucky too) & Forgiveness

(Nvm, I wrote something for day 4 anyway)

M, 5.2k, Alcoholism TW, Angst (-ish), Canon Divergence, Tony Feels, Emotional Hurt, Falling In Love, Hopeful Ending | AO3

(Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 4)

—

Tony meets James for the first time in a seedy bar in Brooklyn on the night of December 17th, 1991.

Twelve hours before that first meeting, he listens with deaf ears to the police telling him his parents died in a car accident.

Ten hours before that first meeting, he cries on Obie’s shoulder while Obie pats him on his head and tells him “everything would be fine”.

Seven hours before that first meeting, he speaks to Rhodey on the phone and makes him promise not to jeopardize his military career by showing up without permission.

Five hours before that first meeting, he drives to the scene of the accident where he screams into the godforsaken void from the top of his lungs, curses Howard and then has a mental breakdown in the middle of the street.

Two hours before that first meeting, he finds himself driving through the city with no destination in mind until he decides that he needs a drink.

Or rather ten.

Which is how he ends up at “Cheryl’s” where no one even bats an eye at the face of today’s headline and sole heir of a multi-billion company entering the bar. It’s too dark inside, the strong stench of sweat and smoke penetrates his nostrils on the spot, and Tony is pretty sure that the mold behind the counter is just about to build its own ecosystem.

He orders whiskey and gets a Jack. Not exactly what he wanted, but it will do.

There’s a glint out of the corner of his eye that gains his attention and when he turns, his gaze falls on the metal hand of a man with the saddest eyes he has ever seen. What once must’ve been a wild grey is now the lifeless stare of someone who’s been haunted by ghosts for a long while. A frigid expression on a pretty face framed by strands of long brown hair and cherry red lips made to be kissed. Wrapped up in an outfit that might as well be from a BDSM scene.

Tony likes what he sees. Very much so. He imagines dragging the guy into the bathroom, pulling those tight leather pants off and giving him the best blowjob of his life. It certainly would take his mind off other things. Like the fact that he’s an orphan now.

So he does, what he does best: he flirts. But this time it’s a challenge. It takes him three attempts until the stranger takes his eyes off the wall and looks at him, a tiny frown between his brows—but no other sign of acknowledgment.

“Finally got your attention, Handsome! You’re not much of a talker, hm? No worries, I can talk for both of us.” Which Tony then does. He talks and drinks and flirts—a wink here, a featherlight touch on the guy’s biceps there—and drinks and speaks of DUM-E and Rhodey and all their pranks during MIT, watches with fascination how that dead look in the stranger’s eyes slowly forms into curiosity, beams in delight when he gets a snort out of him, drinks some more, slides closer with each drink and puts a hand on his thigh, slowly caressing it up and down.

“You got a name, Handsome?”

The guy seems to hesitate for a while until he answers in a deep, raspy voice, “James.” Tony is pretty sure it’s a lie, but then again—he doesn’t need to know the name when he’s got his mouth full of dick.

“Well, James, you can call me Tony.” He flutters his eyelashes and bites teasingly on his lower lip before he drops his tone and asks, “So… your place or mine?”

After that Tony remembers the night only in a blur. He remembers passionate kisses in a dark alley, hands wandering everywhere, rising heat and grey eyes shimmering in pure lust. He remembers a hotel room and soft sheets and strong arms around his waist.

And then he wakes up, the taste of alcohol and James still lingering in his mouth.

When he opens his eyes, he finds James sitting in the chair at window, instead of lying in bed next to him, his entire focus solely on Tony. It should be creepy, but James’ gaze merely comes from curiosity, as if Tony was a machinery whose workings he is still trying to understand. It’s kind of endearing.

Tony gets up, disinterested in getting dressed, and pours himself two fingers of whiskey at the bar.

“This your breakfast?”

Tony grins smugly at the hoarse tone of James’ voice. “Nah, that’s just my mouthwash,” he answers and winks at him over his shoulder.

He eyes James for a moment while sipping on his drink, and then adds, “There’s a diner not far from here. Serves the best blueberry pancakes in all New York, I can vouch for that. What do you think, want to accompany me?”

It’s not Tony’s usual style. Otherwise, one-night stands will remain exactly what they are for him: one-night stands. But James has something that fascinates him immensely. It’s not just the overdeveloped prosthesis that can impossibly be on the market anywhere, and makes Tony wonder where he got it from, but also that look in his eyes of someone who has seen way too much. This emptiness that suddenly becomes filled with curiosity when it comes to small things. This enigmatic thing that surrounds him and whose code Tony wants to crack.

At the diner, Tony watches with amusement as James’ eyes widen in delight at the first bite of the heavenly pancakes and can’t help laughing when James pounces on them like a starving predator.

Since James is not much of a talker, Tony does the speaking. For one, because he can’t stand the silence, but for another, because he needs to distract himself. Because he doesn’t want to think about the death of his parents or how empty the mansion will be when he returns. So he talks about anything he can think of until he comes to a point where he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, but is pretty sure that somewhere in the torrent of words, he tried to explain James the exact details of his AI study.

When they’re about to part ways though, Tony only too well remembers the emptiness that will greet him when he comes home, and he doesn’t even finish thinking it through, before he invites James to come with him.

James does not only come with him, but he also stays.

—

Weeks pass and before Tony knows it, James has practically moved in with him. If you can call it moving in when James doesn’t seem to have a single thing that needed to be brought here. Tony doesn’t know James’ last name, nor does he have the slightest idea who he is, and with each passing day his suspicions grow that he must have taken a homeless man off the street.

It should be terrifying or at least worrying but Tony can’t find it in himself to care enough. He lost his parents—and Jarvis and Ana even earlier—and would be alone in this big mansion until the loneliness would overwhelm him. And James turns out to be an excellent guest. Or rather roommate at this point.

For all he knows, James could be a serial killer, and Tony still wouldn’t care. He needs the company and he uses James for it—in bed and outside of it.

The more time they spend, the more not only Tony seems to be learning about James, but James also about himself. He discovers a love of books, especially C. S. Lewis, and sometimes holes up in the library all day except when he goes looking for Tony to read his favorite passages to him.

Every time he discovers a new dish that he likes, Tony can watch James’ whole face glow and none of the shadows of his past can be seen in that moment.

His favorite reaction, however, is when he trusts James enough to show him his workshop. James’ eyes widen in amazement and a brilliant smile forms on his lips at the sight of scientific chaos there is. “It’s like Narnia!”

“What? Where do you get that from? Narnia is nature and talking animals. I don’t have any talking animals here.” What DUM-E understands as a cue to speak up and whereupon James gives him a smug ‘told you so’ grin.

In these situations, it’s easy to forget that all is not peace, joy and pancakes. As soon as Tony gets down to the jobs Obie gave him, he remembers again, and the alcohol finds its way to his liver to ease the pain. In the morning, noon and evening.

Sometimes at night too when James has one of his nightmares and Tony can’t help him because James doesn’t talk to him, not about who he is, not about his past—although Tony guesses with an almost certainity on veteran—and not even vaguely about it his nightmares.

But they are fine, they have a routine: talking during the day, fucking at night. Eat blueberry pancakes for breakfast at the diner once a week and fiddle with James’ arm whenever he has time.

It works perfectly well as it is.

—

It’s not until on a particular bright morning in March 1992 Tony realizes that he had fallen in love with James a long time ago—the day after he almost dies of alcohol poisoning.

He wakes up to see James laying next to him, still asleep. Long strands of hair cover his face and Tony gives into the urge to brush them to the side, so he can take James’ peaceful expression in.

It’s a picture he’d like to wake up every day to. The longer he thinks about it, the more Tony has to admit that he can’t imagine a life without James in it—and that’s when it hits him. That those are feelings beyond of sole sexual attraction, beyond cameradine or friendship.

The realization hits him like a slap in his face. He breaths in shakingly and his first instinct is to get up and get himself a glass of whiskey to calm down, but before he can do anything the heart monitor starts picking up and only then does Tony realize that he’s not at home but in a hospital.

James stirs awake at the sudden noise and immediately glares at Tony. “You fucking idiot.”

His eyes are red, indicating he must’ve cried, and Tony isn’t sure what is going on but he can tell it must be bad. But he’s still too overwhelmed with the realization of his feelings, so he just gapes at James, not being able to say a word.

“You fucking idiot,” James repeats. “How often did I already tell you that you drink too much? That you should stop?”

And before he can react to that, he’s being crushed in a sudden hug, James holding him tightly to his chest and tears streaming down his cheeks.

“For a genius you are so dumb,” James murmurs and Tony—for Tony it’s too much. He doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know what to say, so he blurts out without a second thought, “I love you.”

That brings James to a halt. Tony’s muscles tense up and he instinctively holds his breath.

James pulls back a little bit, so he can look at Tony, who rather focuses on the white sheets of the hospital bed. “Tony did you watch too many rom-coms? Confessing feelings after you almost died should’ve been my job in that case though.”

Tony needs a moment to register the words correctly. “Almost died?”

“Alcohol poisoning.”

Oh fuck. Even Tony knows that this is not good, that he definitely went too far this time.

James gently cups Tony’s face so that he’s forced to look into those gray eyes shimmer in a happiness. “Tony, I love you too.”

Faintly he registers the heart monitor rising up again, but he’s too distracted by the warmth that fills him from within to feel any embarrassment at that. He looks up at the wonder that James is and then surges forward to steal a kiss. He expects a nurse to barge in any moment now at the way his heart rate jumps off the charts, but that’s not stopping him from burying his hands in James’ hair and deepen the kiss further.

“Tony,” James laughs as he pulls off. He rests his forehead at Tony’s while they catch their breath and slowly morphs his sappy expression into a serious one.

“Tony,” he repeats. “I love you. And because I love you, I need you to promise me to stop with the drinking. I can’t watch you destroy your own life any further like that. Yesterday I had to find you passed out in the workshop. Have you any idea what I went through?” His hands wander all over Tony while talking, as if he needs to prove himself, that Tony’s still alive.

Tony thinks of SI and Obie and the expectations he has to live up to. He thinks of mama’s piano and how he hasn’t played on it since the accident. And with each thought the urge to get a drink intensifies. He gulps audibly and asks, “Will you help me?”

James’ quiet smile is more than enough for an answer. “Always.”

“Okay,” he breaths out and adds, more hastily, “okay, but you have to promise to never hurt me, James. I can’t, after mum died and Jarvis and—”

“Of course I will never hurt you, Tony.” James interrupts him and those words leave James lips so effortlessly and earnestly that Tony has not a single doubt in the truth of them.

And with James on his side, Tony believes he can make it. Not just getting sober, but living an actual life. Getting his shit together, looking forward.

He finally tells him of his plans of a new home in Malibu, those he was too afraid to talk about because James is bound to Brooklyn and Tony feared he wouldn’t come with him when the mansion’s constructions are finished. But James just laughs and says, “The only place I belong to is your side. So wherever you go? I will follow.”

Tony feels happy like never before. Things finally go well.

—

Until they don’t.

—

The Winter Soldier fights for the first time against his programming on the night of December 16th, 1991.

It’s the shocked “Sergeant Barnes?” Howard Stark gasps that evokes hidden memories from the back of his mind. Memories from war—gunshots, explosions, screams and the smell of fire and blood. Memories of a guy once tiny suddenly big. Somehow the same person, somehow not.

Memories that lead him to Brooklyn instead of the meeting point where he should deliver the serum to his handlers.

His legs walk him the entire day through the city, while he’s taking in each building—some he recognizes, most of them not. Until at night he looks up at a blinking light stating “Cheryl’s” and sees flashes of himself, hair shorter and a laugh on his face, dancing with another man and exchanging forbidden kisses in a dark corner.

He enters and not much later he meets the whirlwind that is Tony Stark.

With Tony the Winter Soldier becomes James and learns to feel again. Other emotions, besides constant rage and pain. Curiosity first, then amusement, lust, care, warmth and somewhere around March 1992 he knows it’s love.

He falls in love with Tony Stark who treats him like a human being rather than a tool, who talks and talks and makes him laugh, who touches him softly always and everywhere, who isn’t afraid of the metal arm but fascinated by it, who studies it without causing him any pain, who sings and laughs and dances and doesn’t shy away from James even once.

Tony Stark who drinks more than he should, reminding him of a man that might be his father coming home, reeking of alcohol, hitting a woman that might be his mother—bringing back memories that rather stayed forgotten. Tony who almost dies and promises to stop with the drinking. Tony who sometimes looks like a man carrying the entire world on his shoulders, dark bags under his eyes, a haunted expression in them and yet does his best to keep James’ sorrow’s away.

Tony Stark whose parents he killed as he realizes after a nightmare on November 24th in 1992.

—

In the morning of November 25th 1992 Tony wakes up alone in bed, a yellow sticky note on his nightstand and the words “I’m sorry, doll” scribbled on it.

—

Tony waits first, clinging onto the hope that he misinterpreted that note and that James will come back. All of James’ few things are still here—Tony checked.

But the longer he waits, the stronger the urge gets to wrap his fingers around a bottle of whiskey. So he gets up and starts looking. First at the diner, then the park, further to the Brooklyn Bridge, to “Cheryl’s” at last.

He returns to an empty home. Doesn’t sleep in the first night, neither the second nor the third and collapses on the fourth—his face buried in James’ favorite wool sweater, the bathroom reeking of his vomit.

And then he repeats that circle anew.

—

James doesn’t come back.

—

On December 1992 Tony moves to Malibu without looking back.

The bar in his new home is fully stocked.

—

The next sixteen years pass by in a rush. Tony drinks. A lot. He drinks and fucks, and then drinks and fucks even more in a desperate attempt to forget James. To forget his touch and smile, his smell and his taste. To forget James’ everything.

And he doesn’t care enough what happens around him during his wake of self-destruction.

Until it comes back to bite him in the ass.

—

In 2008, after 3 months of captivity, Tony returns to the New York mansion for the first time since moving out. There on the night stand of his old room are still the photos of him and James from the photo booth they once took.

Tony blows the dust away and looks at the old pictures, a wistful expression on his face. He soaks James’ soft smile and bright glint in those beautiful eyes in, remembers how those pouty lips felt on his own, remembers the sound of James’ laugh, the taste of his mouth, his body pressed against Tony’s.

In all this time J.A.R.V.I.S. was never able to find even a trace of James. It was, as if he disappeared from earth. Chances are, he died. Because how far can a guy with a metal arm get without the most advanced AI of the world being able to find him? But even though he doesn’t believe in ever seeing James again, Tony thinks of him and the promise they gave each other when he empties his bar down the sink.

The photos end up in his workshop, next to the arc reactor’s glass case Pepper gave him. Tony finally starts looking ahead.

—

Years pass and Tony lives his life again.

He also almost dies some countless times, and every single time he thinks of Pepper, with a lingering memory of James’ laugh.

—

And then in 2016 Johannesburg happens and with Johannesburg the Sokovia Accords follow.

—

Over the years Tony imagined countless scenarios where he would see James again. Not in one of those could he have imagined it to go this bad.

“I know that road.”

—

Fourteen hours after the whole Siberia debacle Tony pulls the old photos from the drawer in the workshop and sets them aflame. He watches with a grim satisfaction as they slowly crumble to ashes and takes his first sip of whiskey in years. Directly from the bottle.

DUM-E’s distressed efforts at saving anything from the photos with the fire extinguisher are just a tad bit too late.

Nothing is left.

—

Tony starts drinking again.

—

In 2016, despite careful avoidance, Bucky does meet Tony again—in a HYDRA bunker of all places. And his heart aches at the sight of Tony’s shock.

Tony might’ve aged and changed, but those eyes are still the same. Big and expressive and at that very moment filled with sadness and anger and disbelief. And worst of all, it’s Bucky’s fault.

He doesn’t plan to fight and neither does he want to leave Tony behind, but he doesn’t believe Tony wants him anywhere near—Bucky had already done more than enough.

So he goes with Steve and goes back into cryostasis, hoping to stay there forever. Only to be woken up a few months later and informed that they got rid of his trigger words and Tony made sure that the Avengers were allowed to return to the States.

Bucky included.

It seems surreal to him to enter the Avengers compound; as if he was dreaming. As if there was a catch that would strike later because he doesn’t deserve to be here.

And then, in the kitchen waits none other than Tony, his eyes hidden behind colored sunglasses, his fake media smile on his face and a whiskey glass in his hand, the sight of which freezes Bucky’s blood in his veins. He’d like nothing more than to take the glass out of his hand and hug Tony tightly.

Which is a privilege he no longer has.

“Ah, the fossil duo! Welcome back,” Tony couldn’t sound more unwelcome if he tried. “Everything is still as you left it, Rogers. You can show Barnes yourself where everything is.” With these words he mockingly salutes them, turns around at his heel and disappears from the kitchen again without giving Bucky a single look.

A chill runs down Bucky’s spine at the sound of his last name from Tony’s mouth. It’s so… wrong. To Tony, he has always been just James. If affectionate or angry or laughing, James was the name Tony would call him with. This single, condescending “Barnes” feels like a thousand knife stabs in his heart. It’s only thanks to his training that he stays composed and doesn’t go running after Tony in a desperate attempt to try talking to him.

The next few weeks pass similarly. If he and Tony even see each other, which is a rarity in itself, even though they live in the same building—he has the suspicious feeling that Tony is deliberately avoiding him with F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s help—then Tony ignores him as if he were not here at all.

Bucky knows, he deserves worse than just the cold shoulder, but that still doesn’t make it easy. Especially not when he keeps finding empty alcohol bottles scattered around somewhere and can do absolutely nothing about this problem.

His only bright spot is Rhodes, who looks at the bottles with just as much loathing as he does. It means that at least one person keeps an eye on Tony’s consumption, since Bucky himself cannot. Bucky never had a chance to meet Rhodes twenty-five years ago, and Bucky is pretty sure Tony hasn’t told him anything, otherwise Rhodes wouldn’t be content with shooting him deathly looks only.

That’s why he doesn’t say anything to Steve either, no matter how hard he questions him, because he sees that there is something between him and Tony that he doesn’t know about. If Tony doesn’t want to tell anyone about their past together, then Bucky won’t either.

Bucky keeps the distance that Tony obviously wants from him.

Until two months after his arrival at the compound on a Tuesday morning F.R.I.D.A.Y. sends an urgent distress signal, and Bucky is on his way so quickly that the other Avengers don’t have a chance to follow him directly even if they tried.

—

Tony wakes up in a hospital with a throbbing pounding in his head and aching bones all over his body—James’ worried face hovering over him. It’s the shittiest déjà-vu he’s ever had.

At least the circumstances aren’t quite the same. Rhodey diluted Tony’s alcohol every time he thought no one would see him. So that something like alcohol poisoning wouldn’t happen again. Tony is grateful and annoyed at the same time.

No, this time he just flew drunk in his Iron Man armor, lost the connection to F.R.I.D.A.Y., which he has to get to the bottom of as quickly as possible, and then fell. So, waking up in the hospital makes sense.

But that James is here instead of Rhodey or Happy or Pepper or anyone else is both, surprising and unwanted.

James opens and closes his mouth several times, seemingly unable to decide what to say before croaking out, “You promised you’d stop drinking.” His voice sounds suspiciously as if he had cried recently, and Tony almost laughs at the irony of the situation.

But then he remembers the day he woke up without James at his side. Remembers searching everywhere for him, waiting, not being able to sleep for days, and how miserable he felt without him, not knowing what happened, not knowing where he had gone.

He remembers that James had fucked him—no, made love with him—knowing he had killed Tony’s mother. And he feels the blood boil in his veins in anger at that. How dare James after all these years, after all that happened, now talk about that promise?

So he throws him a deadly look, his hand clenched into a fist and growls, “And you promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”

James visibly flinches at that and takes a step back, his eyes wandering everywhere but at Tony. Then he takes a deep breath and looks Tony straight in the eye as he says, “You’re right. I promised you that I would never hurt you. But I did it. I have—”

“Why did you do it?” Tony interrupts, because that’s what he wants to know. What he had asked himself over and over again over the years—the why.

Bucky blinks at him in bewilderment and asks: “Why what exactly?”

“Everything!” Tony throws his arms in the air in frustration, ignoring the ailment of his broken ribs over the sudden action. “Why you suddenly left me overnight, why you never told me anything about yourself, not even vaguely hinting at who you are and what happened to you, why you let me fall in love with you when it was you, who killed my mother and were therefore to blame for my misery!” The last part comes out much more honest than Tony wanted it to be and he quickly looks ashamed to the side to blink away the rising tears of anger.

He hears a deep sigh from the side and out of the corner of his eye he can see James drop into the visitor’s chair.

“Tony, I didn’t know who you were or that my mission had been your parents when we met in the bar,” James begins hesitantly to explain. “Howard… his words brought a few memories to the fore. Just blurry, barely recognizable images. I didn’t even know my own name when you asked me for it—I just named the one that was at the tip of my tongue.

“During the time we were together, my memories have only gradually returned. I had no idea about your parents until a nightmare reminded me of it.” This is where James looks up from his hands for the first time, straight into Tony’s eyes, his gaze steadfast and honest. “And then I realized I had broken my promise—I had already hurt you.”

James sighs and runs his hand through his hair and swallows hard. “I understood that it was only a matter of time before HYDRA found me. We were lucky before that because no one suspected I could be with you. But under no circumstances did I want them to get you. I knew I had to go. That is why I did it.”

Tony nods slowly. “And then what? You just decided to go back to HYDRA?”

James laughs dryly, without a trace of humor in his voice. “Of course not. I went on the run. But in the end, no matter what I do, they always find me, don’t they?” His mouth twists into a grimace of self-hatred and resignation.

Not under my watch, no, Tony thinks to himself. Instead he says, “You broke my heart.” Because as reluctant as he is to show his vulnerability, this is James. And he’s always been able to be honest with James.

“I’m sorry,” James says in all earnestness.

“I’m not forgiving you for what you have done.”

“I understand.”

“Not yet at least.”

At that James’ gaze shoots up in surprise.

Tony clears his throat slightly shy. “I—I understand that the… brainwashing and stuff. That it wasn’t you. I just… I just need some time.” And it’s true. Tony had read the Winter Soldier’s files; he saw what they did to him and he understands on a completely rational level that it’s not James who is responsible for all those deaths.

He only needs his emotions to come to that understanding too and then he would truly be able to forgive him.

And really, as much as he always claims that he worked to bring the Avengers back together was because the world needed them, he knows the real motivations for it had been for James only. When Pepper had broken up with him because “there was someone else occupying his heart she could never reach” he hadn’t been able to contradict her. Seeing James again after all that time has only proven her right too.

“Tony…”

“Great, now that that’s settled, take my tablet and read me something,” Tony interrupts James before he can go any further, because there is only so much emotional talk Tony can handle in one day and that line has been exceeded a long while ago.

“I… what?”

“Read me something. I am a poor injured soul deserving to be properly pampered. And I want a good-night story.”

And as James slowly smiles brightly at him, gray eyes glinting in hope and wonder, it’s like not a single day has gone by since he disappeared on him.

Tony is still wary. Remembers only too well those days after James had left him. Can’t forget the Winter Soldier’s hand around his mother’s neck. His fingers itch with the urge to hold a drink, but he snuggles deeper into bed, letting James’ soothing voice and the story of a girl who finds a wonderland in a closet lull him into contentment.

Tony meets James for the first time in December 1991 in a seedy bar in Brooklyn and then a second time in 2016 in a Siberian bunker. He thinks that if against all odds their paths cross not only once, but twice, then maybe they should take a step forward together and see, where the path will lead them to.

And if they just believe strong enough in it, they might even find their wonderland for a second time too.

#may writes #may's moodboards #winteriron #buckytony #starkbucks #tony stark #bucky barnes #WI WEEK 2020 #WinterIron Week #angxlsgrxce #may answers #fucking finally finished this fic :)))#nothing went as it should've :)))#i am absolutely not happy at all how it turned out but at this point idc anymore <3 #wish this fic was a person so i could strangle it to death <3 #shall it burn in hell <3 #but yay! i finished it! :D

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Jill Mason's new countryside book 2022

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Jill Mason's new countryside book 2022

Jill was one of Britain’s first female gamekeepers, and after a 30-year career now writes books about the countryside, illustrated by her gamekeeper-turned-photographer husband David.

Her first book was The Townies Guide to the Countryside and she went on to write about hares, rabbits, gamekeeping and rural history.

Now she has written Everything you wanted to know about the countryside (but didn’t dare ask.)

Everything you wanted to know about the countryside (but didn’t dare ask) by Jill Mason – Credit: Merle Unwin

Jill Mason – Credit: David Mason