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hermannsthumb · 3 years ago

Note

possible prompt for a university au: newt is the biology major who maintains all the fish tanks in the physics building at 11pm and hermann is the physics student who likes to wander the halls to think. newt accidentally flings water all over the ground and hermann trips, hijinks ensue.

earlier today I was thinking about how I wrote a college AU fic almost 3 years ago to the date, and how I wanted to do more bc its fun thinking about newt and hermann as dumb college students

----

Newt's not really sure how he ended up with the weirdest work-study job on the planet, but honestly, things could be much, much worse (he could be stuck down in the dining hall, or dealing with confused freshmen in the school bookstore) so he keeps his thoughts on the whole thing to himself. Every Friday at eleven sharp, Newt pulls on his grodiest t-shirt and a pair of long rubber gloves and treks all the way over to the physics department to set to work scrubbing down the fish tanks that line the classroom walls. Why does the physics department have fish tanks? Newt's not really sure about that, either. It's kind of an insane amount of them, too, more than even the marine bio department has. Maybe it's supposed to boost morale or something. Hey, look at these crazy cool tropical fish who get to do nothing but eat and swim in circles, sorry you're stuck inside calculating velocity and shit.

Whatever, Newt's not complaining about that either. Let the physics nerds have their fun. It'll be good for them to branch out a little, realize there's life beyond robotics club meetings.

Also, Newt likes the fish. They're cute. He likes to think they like him, too, because they're very well behaved when he has to scoop them out of their tanks and plop them into smaller fish bowls (the kind goldfish in movies always use). He's going to teach them tricks eventually—he had a beta fish once who would do a little flip when Newt tapped the glass a certain way because he knew he'd get rewarded with dried worms, so Newt knows it's possible. Just imagine, a hundred fish doing flips on command. Newt Geiszler, fish whisperer.

Yeah, maybe the job could be more glamorous. It's really hard to get algae out of the gloves, and he hasn't been allotted the budget for a new pair yet.

"Hey, guys!" he shouts as he pushes in the door to room 214. The fish don't acknowledge him: they just continue swimming in their giant tank. In and out of plastic plants and rock caves. The rock caves were a gift from Newt three months into the job, and so were some of the moss balls—stimulation is important for fish! He wouldn't want to be trapped in a glass box with nothing to do, either. "I bet you missed me. Ready for a clean tank?"

Newt always talks to the fish, even if they don't talk back, because he thinks it's important to build their trust. He'll usually keep a running commentary of his week as he scrubs the tanks, just get everything off his chest that he needs to get off. Stuff he's worried about. Stuff that went well. Stuff that went badly. Therapy's expensive, and Newt's student health insurance can only cover so much, but talking to fish? That's free.

That's also kinda why he does it so late at night and over the weekend. The last thing he wants is an audience. Because, one, talking to fish is admittedly weird, and two, no one wants a glimpse at Newt's psyche like that, probably not even the fish.

The first step in cleaning the tanks is relocation. Newt digs his stereotypical goldfish bowls and an industrial-size mesh wand out of the supply closet, fills the former with some of the special tank salt water, and begins the slow and arduous task of scooping out the fish and depositing them into the bowls. "I had the lamest week," he announces once he's about three clownfish in. "I was working on a group project Saturday—"

Then Newt stops, because he hears footsteps in the hallway just outside the classroom.

Serial killer, Newt's instincts supply helpfully.

No, Newt corrects himself, that's dumb. Why would a serial killer wander into the physics building at eleven o'clock at night? Why would anyone, period? He's probably imagining stuff. Lack of sleep, stress over his upcoming projects, residual embarrassment from his disaster study session Saturday, all of it culminating in Newt thinking there's someone there. No, definitely imagining it. Newt can only even get in this late to the department because his ID swipe card is set up with the right permissions—not even the physics students have the permissions he does to be in this late at night. Well, not unless they clean the kitchenette in the student lounge or something.

Or if Newt left the door unlocked.

More footsteps. Closer now.

Newt's pretty sure he didn't leave the door unlocked, because he thinks it locks automatically behind him, and he would have to literally prop it open for anyone to get in after him. But anything's possible. The door could've caught on a dropped pencil or a paper scrap or other weird shit that physics students leave around, and a serial killer could've noticed and taken the opportunity to sneak inside on the off chance a hapless young biology major was scrubbing slime off fish tanks in the middle of the night. Any minute now, Newt's about to end up on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The Physics Department Murder. The Disappearing Biologist. (Nah, neither of those are very good titles, but that's why Newt isn't on the creative writing track.)

Step-tap-step. Closer now; Newt's heart leaps to his throat. Step-tap-step. Step-tap-step. Pausing just outside the door of room 214. God, why didn't Newt turn the lights off? Why didn't he shut the door?

Newt reaches for the first vaguely weapon-shaped thing he can find—an empty fishbowl, because Newt's not going to sacrifice any of the fish for this—and, as the door swings open, hurls it with a cry.

The bowl clunks on the ground. Except it turns out Newt grabbed the wrong fish bowl, because (even though it doesn't shatter, thank God) water quickly begins to seep across the slate floor tiles towards Newt's serial killer, a pathetic little clownfish (Newt thinks this one is named Albert, because the physics department is made up of nerds who do shit like name their random pet fish after their kind) flopping around in the puddle. Newt's serial killer, meanwhile, cries out similarly, his arms windmilling as he loses his footing and slips backwards, his cane—

Oh, fuck.

The intruder is not a serial killer. It's someone possibly worse, actually: Newt's mortal enemy, Hermann Gottlieb.

Newt's not really sure at what point Hermann became his mortal enemy and not just some guy I have class with that I hate, but he can pretty easily say that they've hated each other since the moment Hermann walked through the doors of Engineering 101 and was deigned Newt's lab partner by the Alphabetized By Last Name Seating Chart god. Something about Hermann just gets under Newt's skin. It's not his prissy English accent, or his oversized sweaters, or his absolutely horrendous haircut, and it's not even that he takes every opportunity to savagely rip apart every single thing Newt says in class. Don't get Newt wrong, that's all super fucking annoying, but it's annoying levels he can deal with.

It's the stuff they have in common that makes Newt hate him. It's like Hermann's a slightly broodier and more angular mirror that reflects all of Newt's most egregious faults—his arrogance, his stubbornness, his social awkwardness, his desperation to be taken seriously—right back at him. It sucks.

Plus, one time Newt caught Hermann ripping down the flyer he put up on the quad for Anime Club to advertise his stupid chess club instead, and he's never managed to forgive him for that.

Newt may hate Hermann, but he's not about to let him land on his ass in a puddle of fishy water (especially not on a freezing November night) just because the subsequent bitching would be unbearable, and, yeah, it would be supremely shitty of Newt, so he leaps forward just in time to catch Hermann and his cane before he hits the ground. He's so impressed with himself with his amazing catch that it takes him a few seconds to realize that Hermann is shouting and probably has been shouting since he slipped.

"—bloody maniac! What on earth are you doing in here? How are you in here? Did you just assault me? I'm going to phone campus police, you wretched—"

"Hold that thought," Newt says.

He rights Hermann and snags the mesh net and rescues poor Al before it's too late, dropping him back into the big tank with the rest of his friends. Newt can't be sure, but he thinks Al blows a bubble in thanks at him. Maybe he needs to make friends outside fish.

Hermann is still yelling at him.

"I am going to tell the head of the department you're—you're skulking about in here after hours!" he declares. "You're a menace. Pay attention to what I'm saying to you, Newton!"

Newt sighs and turns around. Hermann's turned an interesting shade of red—sort of like an over-boiled lobster, or if he fell asleep in the sun for too long. Newt wonders if it's from embarrassment (almost falling on his ass) or anger (almost being knocked on his ass). Probably anger. "Look, dude, I'm sorry," Newt says. His face twists like he ate a lemon, and he hopes Hermann doesn't notice. Newt hates apologizing to Hermann. "It's my job to clean the tanks every weekend. You scared the shit out of me and I freaked out—it's just that, like, no one ever comes by this late. Ever." He decides not to mention the serial killer thing. Hermann might make fun of him for being jumpy or paranoid or something.

Hermann's scowl doesn't lessen, but he does nod. Plus, he stops shouting. That's as much as Newt's gonna get of forgiveness. "Hmph," Hermann says. "You clean the tanks?"

"Every weekend," Newt repeats. He realizes he got some fish tank slime on Hermann's button-up when he caught him. Oops. Hopefully Hermann won't notice until Newt's in the safety of his dorm. "Gotta pay for my textbooks somehow." Then he frowns. "Wait, so what are you doing here? I didn't know you had access to the building this late."

Maybe Hermann is the kitchenette-cleaning guy after all. But, to his surprise, Hermann sniffs and casts his eyes to his dorky Oxford shoes. "Er," he says. "It's just—I was having trouble working out a solution to a problem, and thought a walk might do me good. Chilly nights like this one always do. And I quite like this building at night—it's calm, and much quieter than my dormitory." He fidgets. "And—well—only don't say anything to anyone, but I rewrote the permissions of my ID card so I could come and go wherever I please ages ago."

"You rewrote the permissions?" Newt says. "What the hell, wouldn't you have to hack into the security system or something to do that?"

"Well, obviously," Hermann says.

Despite himself, and despite Hermann being his Mortal Enemy, Newt is genuinely impressed. "Dude," he says. "That is so badass." Since when has Hermann been a badass?

Hermann's eyebrows jump, and he blinks at Newt behind his dorky librarian glasses. What twenty-one-year-old wears librarian glasses? With a chain? "You think so?" he says.

"Uh, totally," Newt says. "What problem were you stuck on? The one from Saturday?"

Being lab partners for engineering means Newt and Hermann have to collaborate on pretty much everything, including their midterms. Their midterm is what they've been working on for the past two weeks. On Saturday, though, they met in neutral ground to work on it (a reserved study room in the library), and, after a stupid and massive argument that had the librarians hoisting them out by their shirt collars and threatening to ban them for life, Hermann called Newt an idiot and stomped off into the night. Newt still hasn't gotten around to giving the problem another shot. Whatever, they have another week before the dumb thing is due. Plenty of time. Hermann nods. "Yes," he says. "Er—that one."

Newt glances at the clock ticking away on the wall. Quarter after eleven. Hermann's delayed him a whole fifteen minutes. Technically, he reminds himself, he doesn't actually have to have the tanks scrubbed by Friday night—he has the whole weekend to get it done. Also, he kind of feels like he owes Hermann for attacking him the way he did. Accidentally attacking. "Listen, Hermann," he says, feeling totally insane for what he's about to suggest. But he kind of wants to know more about Hermann The Badass. "What if we went back to my place and worked on it together? I'll buy us pizza, and I have, like, a bunch of energy drinks." The pizza place nearest campus is open until three in the morning, almost definitely because they get all of their business from sleep-deprived undergrads. Plus, they have midnight specials where you get free breadsticks with every pizza. Newt could go for some breadsticks. "It might be...fun," he adds.

Fun? With Hermann? Hermann will think he hit his head or something.

But to his surprise, Hermann doesn't hesitate even a second before saying "Alright, then."

"Oh," Newt says. He honestly thought Hermann would put up more of a struggle. "Cool!"

"But I might need to borrow a jumper," Hermann says. "If you'd be so...courteous, that is. I'm a bit chilly."

For some reason, the thought of Hermann (Newt's mortal enemy, but also a secret badass) curled up in one of Newt's baggy sweatshirts makes Newt feel all weird and warm all over. He swallows a few times, because his throat feels a little weird, too. Too tight. Like he just ate something he's allergic to. "No sweat," Newt says. "Let me just get these fish back in the, um, the tank. And—" He waves his slimy, gloved hands. "Take these off. And clean up that puddle. Gimme—um, gimme like, ten minutes?"

"Of course," Hermann says, and gives Newt a small, terse nod.

From Hermann, it's a smile. Newt almost slips on the puddle he's so blindsided by it. Stupid Hermann, making him feel all weird and clumsy.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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tessiete · 4 years ago

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If you still take prompts: Rumors of the Duchess of Mandalore (bc patriarchal bs and misogynistic beliefs about female leaders) potentially getting married reaches Coruscant and Obi-Wan copes as well as can be expected. Cue sad boi sadness with maybe fluff at the end? Or go full angst I’m ok with either

I AM! I am still taking prompts, and I know this took a while to get around to because I’m also sloooooow at filling them. But here we are, dear anon. I hope you enjoy this little snippet! <3

THE GRAVITATIONAL DEFLECTION OF LIGHT

There is some silly, selfish part of him that he never outgrew, and like a weed in his gut it twists and writhes when he hears that the Duchess Kryze is to marry.

And suddenly, he finds himself thinking of her more often, and more frequently during situations where his attention would best be put to use elsewhere. In council, he is forced to ask Master Windu to repeat a question he’d failed to hear, his mind being drawn by the gleam of light off the Senate dome on the horizon. During a sparring match, he takes a hit he’d never have missed except that Anakin threatens to deliver him a close shave at the end of his saber, and he’s struck dumb by the memory of her hand upon his cheek. There are peace lilies in a vase in the Archives, and pure beskar changes hands in a deal he’s meant to disrupt at a Separatist camp, but by far the most egregious lapse comes in the midst of relief efforts in a small village on Taskeed. He is caught, for a moment, by the sight of a woman with blonde hair and a young boy on her hip turning away from him. His focus slips. A blaze of light flashes more quickly than he can see, and by the time he hears the retort of a blaster rifle he is already on the ground.

The clones close ranks around him. Cody kneels, calling in a medevac even as Obi-Wan tries to rise.

“No, sir, stay down,” he says, laying one hand against his shoulder. Obi-Wan winces at the contact. His muscles strain at the effort, the nerves at the site of his injury ruptured and ragged.

“Cody,” he chokes out. “There’s a hostile.”

His second is a merciful man and makes no comment on the idiocy of that statement. Instead, he bites open a pain tab, and shoves it between Obi-Wan’s teeth. Then, so rapidly he has no time to protest, he removes his belt, and tears apart the fabric at Obi-Wan’s waist, sprinkling sulfa powder over the gory wound, and pressing a bacta patch down to cover it.

There is no more blaster fire to mark their passage back to the ship, but the wound is too serious to treat on board The Negotiator. He is sent back to Coruscant as a consequence of his foolishness.

There, he is dipped in bacta, where he doesn’t dream, and he spends the next week of his convalescence thinking of her.

It had never been this bad during their first separation. The months following her ascension to the duchy had been painful, that he cannot deny, and he spent hours in his room lonely, and self-pitying, but he had been a child then and he can forgive himself now of the folly of youthful indiscretions. There followed more than a decade between them and he had gone days, weeks - upon the outbreak of war even months - without thinking of her at all.

But with one touch of her hand, he’s fallen again, his resolve crumbling into dust as though his indifference to her were only a veneer grown thin and brittle with being stretched over so much time.

The Duchess of Mandalore is to marry.

Why should that matter to him? They are friends. Hardly that, and nothing more. And it was he who had defined those terms. So why should he be restless, and anxious, and fretted up like some craftsman’s handiwork at the thought of it? It is silly. It is demeaning - to her, and to him.

And yet...he wants to know.

Who is she to marry? And when? How did they meet? Is he a Mandalorian, like her? Or did she meet him here? Did they meet at the Senate while he walked in the Temple only a few klicks away? Have they much in common? Do his political aims match hers? Does he long for peace like she does? Will he stand by her side in upholding it? Would he die for it? Would he die for her? Does she love him?

She must, he thinks. She must love him. She would not choose him, otherwise.

And that, perhaps, is the cruelest thought of all.

He is confined to medbay with nothing to occupy his time but his holopad, his dispatch reports, and her when he sees a news story flash on his screen.

At Last! The Lily is Plucked

He cannot help himself as he reads about a chance meeting, a whirlwind romance, and plenty of private assignations held at various hotels and restaurants across Capital City. There are holos, too, and reels. He sees her leaving the Bal Silvestre on the arm of Corellian senator, Garm Bel Iblis.

Senator Bel Iblis is older than her, and seems a bit unkempt, his long hair pulled half back in a simple style. Obi-Wan knows of him by reputation, and heard him called a rake. His politics brand him a maverick, and a rogue, and he has been known, once or twice, to engage in backdoor negotiations in order to ensure a vote swings one way or another in his favour. Beside him, while he stands smug in his dark brocade, she shines. She is spotless. Luminous. They are not well matched.

He scours the net for more, and because he is looking, he finds it. There are many articles - hundreds. Some map out timelines of their courtship (they met years ago, apparently, at some gala held while Obi-Wan was still helping Anakin with Basic), some tell the history of their previous romantic entanglements (he was engaged to a woman now dead. She was once rumoured to be promised to a Vizsla. Obi-Wan’s name is not mentioned). Some merely provide pictures of their exploits, and comment on their mutual friends, making conjecture after conjecture about how their romance came to be, and what must happen next now that the flame has been rekindled. It is torturous. And tedious. And soon, Obi-Wan loses track of the details that appear in one article, and again in every other.

But one thing remains clear to him: Satine Kryze is going to be married. She has forever slipped his reach.

A reach, he pathetically reminds himself, he never intended to extend. All this self-flagellation is for naught. He is being ridiculous.

So he thumbs off his pad, turns out the lights, and tries to sleep with the image of Satine, smiling and resplendent flickering in his mind. The next morning, feeling no better for the little rest he managed to steal, he deletes the history of his pad, and determines to feel absolutely nothing at all about Satine Kryze.

Then Padme comes to the Council and requests a padawan be sent to Mandalore’s aid.

It is Ahsoka who goes. Of course it is. He takes small solace in the fact that it had not been he who suggested her, but since she was assigned, he feels well within his rights to enquire about the Duchess upon her return.

“She seemed fine,” Ahsoka tells him. He has invited her for tea following her report to the Council, hoping he might, in his hospitality, coax a few more personal details from his grand-padawan. “I mean, there was a moment where Almec - that’s the Prime Minister, or rather was - anyway, there was a moment where he had her in a shock collar, but like I said, the cadets and I managed to sort it out.”

“Right,” he concedes. “As you said.”

A moment passes between them. Obi-Wan sips his tea, struggling to swallow as the fist around his throat grows tighter and tighter. Ahsoka, blissful in the aftermath of a successful solo mission, grabs another biscuit and a strip of perami gammon.

“And tell me,” he ventures. “What of her - her consort? Any word of him? Where was he during this mess?”

“Her consort?”

“Her husband.”

Ahsoka scrunches her nose, and cocks a brow at Obi-Wan’s wild inquiry.

“She had a nephew,” she says. “But no one ever said anything about a consort.”

“Ah,” he says. “Perhaps he was occupied elsewhere.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, amicable and amenable to letting the whole thing slide. He only hopes she won’t think it significant enough to mention to Anakin later. His curiosity won’t be as easily sated with tea and deflection.

He is not a lucky man.

Anakin comes blazing into his room with an ambitious stride, and a grin that speaks of imminent mischief.

“Heard you were asking Ahsoka about the Duchess’ consort,” he says, throwing his cloak over the back of a chair and dropping to lounge across Obi-Wan’s low couch.

“I was asking about her mission,” he corrects. He turns his back to set some water to boil, knowing that such an entrance by his padawan indicates a visit of extended duration. “And the key players, therein. Purely professional.”

“Purely.” Anakin smirks.

The subject is dropped when Anakin is diverted by the service being laid before him, and the inclusion of several of his favourite confections.

“Noorian memba tarts!” he cries. “Where did you even find these?”

“An old recipe,” Obi-Wan says. “But I remember you enjoyed them when we dined on Belasco and thought I’d try my hand at it.”

It is not a bad effort either, judging by Anakin’s display of enthusiasm. He eats the first with some degree of etiquette, but the fourth, fifth, and sixth are gone with no display of decency or shame whatsoever.

Obi-Wan sips his tea. He is thinking of Tahl while Anakin is thinking of the sweetness on his tongue, and making excuses for his absence the previous night.

“I’m sorry, Obi-Wan, but I was unavoidably delayed after the Senate recessed for the evening. I had to - to assist a delegate with a personal matter.”

Obi-Wan says nothing, but remembers how Qui-Gon, too, used to invent reasons to disappear unchecked. He invents nothing. He only cleaves to his duty, while time and fate conspire to keep him absent anyway.

Anakin must hear something in his silence, because his expression loses the tension of equivocation, and he falls to studying Obi-Wan’s face.

“I was only teasing, master,” he says. “Before. I didn’t think to ask Ahsoka anything about the Duchess. She spent most of her time with the nephew, but he seemed a bright kid. Close to Satine. I can ask her to ask him if he knows anything -”

“Absolutely not,” says Obi-Wan. The words are soft, but definite. He rises swiftly to clear the detritus of their meal. “Thank you, Anakin, but Duchess Kryze is only a friend. I merely inquired out of a desire to assure myself that the report issued to the Council lacked nothing in the thoroughness of its presentation. I should hate to think that such a personal association might be overlooked as an avenue for effecting harm.”

“Oh.”

“But I thank you in any case. Ahsoka’s report was well done, and you should be very proud of your padawan,” he says. “As I am of you.”

He turns to Anakin then, smiling and benign. His padawan meets his look with a vaguely skeptical one of his own, before patting him on the shoulder, and shrugging back into his cloak.

“Alright, master,” he says. “I’ll let her know how thorough she was.”

“Goodbye, Anakin.”

“Goodbye,” his friend replies. Then, just as he crosses the threshold of the door and moves into the open hall, he looks back. “Oh,” he says. “There’s a quick supply run being made to Mandalore for relief in light of Ahsoka’s investigation. Scheduled for tomorrow, but unfortunately, I’m needed back at the Senate. I meant to ask - you wouldn’t mind making the trip for me, would you? You don’t even need to get off the ship.”

---

There is nothing he can say to Anakin, so of course, as contrived and embarrassing as the whole thing is, he goes. And he does get off the ship.

Satine is there to meet him.

“Master Kenobi,” she says, extending her hand. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

He drops a brief, and reverential kiss then lets her go.

“Cleaning up after my padawan and his padawan, it seems,” he says. “Apparently, a master’s work is never over. Congratulations on your recent engagement, Duchess. I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

The look which passes over Satine’s face is one he cannot decipher. He thinks she looks in equal parts shocked that he has heard, disgusted by his presumption in speaking of it, embarrassed by his boldness, and wearied by his presence. But she doesn’t deny it, so he makes his excuses to leave.

“Excuse me, Duchess,” he says. “But this was only meant to be a very brief visit, and I should prepare for departure.”

“Can you not stay for midmeal?” she asks, and he hesitates upon the precipice of her invitation. “Surely you don’t mean to tease me with a visit as brief as this? And surely your men would enjoy some rest and repast before you go?”

The troopers at his back shift, and he can feel their eagerness undulate in the Force. It would be cruel to deny them for the preservation of his own fragmented dignity, so he relents.

“Of course, your grace,” he says. “We would be most honoured.”

“Captain,” she says to the Protector at her right. “Have these men fed and watered immediately. The kitchens and my staff are at their disposal.”

He clicks his heels, and disappears, while she steps forward, and wraps her arm around Obi-Wan’s as though completely uncaring of any beau or consort or husband who might see.

“You, my dear master,” she murmurs slyly by his ear. “Are to be attended elsewhere, at my discretion.”

He does nothing to resist as she pulls him along.

Soon, they are at the Palace. Soon, they are sat at a small table in her private quarters, drinking Mandalorian kava, and eating freshly baked land’shun. Soon, they are alone.

She sets her drink aside, and dusts her hands on a fine silk napkin before broaching the subject trapped between them.

“Now, what is this about my nuptials?” she asks. Her blue eyes are steady upon his own, and he feels his palms slick with sweat. She is radiant. She is regal. There is no holo or reel or word that could do justice to the beauty of this woman in the flesh, and he feels that insidious root of jealousy writhe with agony.

“Satine -” he begins.

“No, no,” she protests, seeming to anticipate his deflection before he has begun. “I should like to hear why you think I ought to accept your congratulations, and why you felt you ought to offer them personally, in particular. Mandalore seems a rather dull trip for a High General to make.”

“I came in Anakin’s stead, actually,” he replies pertly. Another sip of kava lends some sophistication to this claim.

“Of course,” she says, but she does not look away. He can feel her gaze upon him. He can feel her glittering in the Force. She is laughing.

And he cannot bear it.

“Forgive me, your grace,” he says, rising to his feet. He sets the cup upon a saucer where it clatters inelegantly against the pot of sucre next to it, overturning the dish and sending the crystals spilling across the table. “Forgive me,” he says again.

She lunges forward to right the pot, and still his hand beneath her own. For a moment, he doesn’t breathe. Then, he pulls away.

“I read about it on the net,” he says. “I saw the holos, and the reels. I only wanted to see you one last time, to see...I wanted to see that you were happy. That’s all.”

“Oh, Ben,” she says, his name like a sigh upon the breeze.

“It is nothing,” he says. “A foolishness all my own. I am sorry if I have troubled you, and I offer you my sincerest congratulations.”

He bows, though when he raises his head, his eyes do not rise with it, so he does not see the look of sorrow upon her face. Still, he imagines it as pity, and moves to make his escape. She is faster than he is.

“No,” she says, standing between him and the door. “I will not accept your congratulations, and I will not accept your departure on such callous terms as these.”

“Duchess -”

“Ben,” she counters, leaning on the name. “I am not engaged. I am not married. And I do not intend to be, no matter how devoted to the idea of it you are.”

“I - devoted?” he asks, his voice rising to the height of his indignation. “I am devoted to no such thing. I have only - only been reconciled to it for weeks, thinking only of you and your happiness.”

“And your own misery, too, I’d wager.”

He chokes on his denial because he knows it is too big a lie to fit through his lips, and stares at her in dismay. She is smiling. Force, he thinks. She is incandescent. Like she has swallowed a star, and he can’t look away. He would that he could be consumed by her too, and finally, he gives in.

“Yes,” he says in an admission of guilt so great it brings relief. “I was miserable. I am, I think, an infinitely miserable person.”

“You are,” she agrees. “But I am not getting married, I am not engaged, and I am only as in love as I ever have been. And if you are foolish enough to forget that, then you are deserving of every misery you heap on yourself.”

“Have pity,” he begs.

“None,” she says.

“Have mercy,” he pleads.

“For you?” she says. “Always.”

They fall together like gravity and sunlight, and for a moment, whole galaxies bend to their will.

#my fic #prompt fill #obi-wan kenobi #satine kryze #obitine #garm's here #and anakin #and ahsoka #i mashed everyone in #star wars #fic #gffa

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facelessxchurch · 4 years ago

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One of the things that annoyed me about the SoW cover was that there were juxtaposition of the green-ness in general with Nef's red right hand. At first I thought it was to draw attention to the hand because Nef would do something pivotal with it, like use it to kill Mevolent, kill Vile or one of the protag cast, but all he ended up using it for was to melt Warlocks and then it got cut off, so what gives? Also, phase 1 covers are monochrome, except SoW, where all the characters are (1)

Yeah and during the #13DaysOfSkulduggery contest he told people to put a special emphasise on Nef’s red right hand. Honestly, I think he tried to troll and instead shot himself in the foot again. Taking Nef’s trademark weapon from him is just such a shit move.

It’s so weird that Percival only tried to make the SoW non-monochrome. It would have been better if it had been just green with Nefs hand being the only splash of red bc green and red are complementary colours, but usually it doesn’t work out well if you make both colours saturated AF. One has to be saturated and the other desaturated for it to work. The orange flame on the violet new cover works bc the pinkish-orange is an analog colour to the violet-purple colour of the rest of the cover.

I did a quick and messy colour correction, so the colouring would be more similar to how the other phase 2 have been drawn (and fixed the most egregious mistakes with Nef’s face and Val’s hair tho I can’t be fucked to fix Val’s screwed up anatomy like the left arm being too long or the muscles on Tanith’s right arm or how completely messed up Nef’s right hand is).

(1) I desaturated the green and colour shifted it to be more bluish (dark green = more bluish, light green = more yellowish) and and left his right hand as saturated as in the original to make the red pop more.

(2) Both green and red are as saturated as they are on the original but I took the colouring from the characters with the characters in the back being more influenced by the green that the ones in the front, using the other covers as reference.

(3) The green is the dominant colour and I desaturated the red hand and hue shifted it a bit to me more orange-yellow-ish so the colours look more natural in the green environment and this is the colour scheme I would personally choose tbh (I mean, I would go with a full colour scene instead of a duo-colour montage, but if I was restricted to two colours this is what I would do).

[ click on the picture, then right click on it, ‘open in another tab’ to see it properly ]

So yeah, I absolutely agree with you, trying to colour the characters was a mistake, not only does it look like shit bc by Percival doesn’t know that the fuck colour theory is, it also breaks the consistency between the cover. And this very saturated green and red doesn’t really work with each other, it would have been better if Nef’s red hand would have been treated like the flame on the DoA cover aka had been desaturated and hue shifted to fit the primary colour, the bright green, of the cover better so it would look more natural/harmonic.

TL;DR: I’m an artist nerd screeching about colour theory and no one cares. And it almost feels like Percival made the SoW cover ugly on purpose bc why is it so much worse than the others???

#canon art #sp covers #rant #answered #Anonymous #art rant

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1000-directions · 4 years ago

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You and Angel (alexenglish on ao3) are some of my favorite writers and I'd love if you could spare any writing advice? I esp like how much research you put into your works but how do you strike the balance between infodump and cool detail? I'd also love some pointers on just the general narrative building you do, it's so good. Anyway I hope this isn't too weird bc i sent a similar ask to @queerindeed and you totally don't have to answer this if you're uncomfortable

hi!! first of all, @alexenglish is sooooo fucking talented, so good at world-building and characterization, such a genuine GIFT to the written word. it is heartbreaking that we have ended up in different fandoms, but they are someone whose friendship i really cherish, and someone who had a huge impact on the way i write and the way i think about the stories i choose to tell, and it’s an honor just to be mentioned in the same breath as them 💚

in terms of detail, i see myself as a less-is-more kind of writer. i don’t normally go into a lot of descriptions of what people look like, or what people are wearing, or how the room is set up, unless it feels really important to the story OR it’s something that i am genuinely excited to describe. i know some people really like those details, and that’s awesome, that’s why everyone’s style is different and every story is a fun surprise. personally, i just don’t like writing that kind of stuff, and i’m a very big advocate of writing what you enjoy. obviously, not every single moment of the writing process is going to be fun, so i really try to maximize the parts that are fun and skip over things i’m not thrilled about, to the degree that a story allows.

in terms of research and infodumping...sometimes it’s okay for you to know things that you don’t explicitly put into the story. like for one of my stories, i looked into historical halloween celebrations in the united states, and i know trick-or-treating probably isn’t something bucky barnes would have any personal connection to because it didn’t exist as we know it when he was a child. it’s not something i need to know for most stories, but it’s still something i keep in the back of my head, and if i do ever need that detail, i have it. and even if i don’t use it, it’s still something i know, something that informs how i treat this character and the disparity between the world he grew up in and the world he currently lives in. another similar detail that many writers have used is that the bananas that are commercially available today are a different (and allegedly inferior) cultivar from what bucky and steve would have eaten in the 40s. i’ve never needed to use this detail in a story, but it’s something i know, so if i ever do write a story that involves a banana, it’s something i can draw on.

in terms of structuring how to share info with your reader, i think it helps to have a super strong pov. though to be fair, i think a super strong pov always helps everything! if you’re seeing things through a character’s perspective, then the details that they focus on can do double work: you are revealing information to the reader, and you are also revealing something about the character by showing what is important or eye-catching or noteworthy to them. example: character A walks into a room and sees characters B, C, and D. in one story, maybe we give equal weight to their impressions of everyone, describing where everyone is sitting, what they are wearing, what’s on the TV, what the lighting looks like, all of it. in another story, maybe A starts some of that stuff and then gets so transfixed on describing character C that everything else kind of melts away into the background. that tells you something about A and C’s relationship that is absent from the first version.

a lot of times, i will start a fic with dialogue, or an action, or right before an action is about to happen. i think it builds nice momentum and sucks a reader into a scene before they even necessarily understand what’s happening. so maybe i let a little something play out, a few lines of dialogue, someone walking into a room, someone about to do something they’re nervous about, and then i can hit the reader with a few sentences or a paragraph of “here’s what you need to know to get to the next point in this fic.”

all that being said...i always, always, always think the most important thing about writing is to enjoy it. if you’ve done a lot of research for something and you really want to incorporate those details, do it!! you can do it in narration, you can do it in dialogue (one character explaining to someone else is a classic place to hide an infodump), you can do it in endnotes if you just can’t make it work in the story but still want to share your information with the reader. and by that same token...if you don’t like doing research? someone’s probably gonna yell at me for saying this, but like...you don’t have to do research if you don’t wanna! we do this for fun, for free. no one should be grading your work and giving you points off for historical inaccuracy or whatever. i know that for some writers, it is very important for every detail to be correct. i am not one of those writers. i like for my details to feel correct within the context of the story, i don’t want anything to be so jarring and egregious that it pulls readers out, but i’m also not that bothered about getting all the minutiae accurate. and sometimes, i think focusing too much on small details can really pull attention away from what i like the most about stories, which is emotional connections between people.

i don’t know if i even came CLOSE to answering the questions you asked! thank you so much for your very kind words, and i hope you have a nice rest of your day!

#asks #writing #long post #Anonymous

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ghostmaggie · 5 years ago

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hey so in your MKAT post (which you’re 100% correct about) you also mention you’ve had some issues with RT in the past. i’m fairly new in the fandom and also watch his other show iZombie, but i wanted to ask what issues they were?? i like to be informed about the media i consume lmao

Oof okay so I'm on mobile and therefore this will probably be more rant-y and opinion-based than you might be looking for, so I invite anyone with opinions or sources or thoughts or contradictions to reply or shoot me asks and I'll share them (plus I'm curious of other thoughts) but,,

Idk if this was clear in my original post, but my issues are mainly contained within the actual show as opposed to things about him irl, because idk that much outside of secondhand info, so take it with a grain of salt I guess, lol

Also, I feel like I need to say that this is really negative about vmars--which, to be clear, is a show I love dearly--and I know sometimes I like to avoid negative commentary on things I enjoy because it gets stuck in my head and ruins my enjoyment. So if that's you, feel free to skip this! I wont be offended and you shouldn't feel bad about it! It's also just one person's opinion, and I'm most definitely not always right :)

So mostly setting aside the brand new season because I have no clue how to talk around spoilers effectively, in short (with spoilers up through the movie and maybe some spoilers for the books and new season, I cant really tell at this point):

(Editor's note post finishing writing: it's not even all my thoughts, but it's not short. Sorry.)

RT shares in the grand tradition of showrunners I do not care for along with Steven Moffat and Jason Rothenberg, for many parallel reasons. Moffat thinks hes cleverer than he really is, jroth is a douche about romance and character motivation, and both are smug jerks who drove me away from shows I used to love, so.

So number one I guess would just be the sense that he really fucking does not care about the fans. It's especially egregious, as I've seen others point out, when he literally would never have gotten his show back (after driving it to the ground) without the LITERAL MONEY donated by devoted fans. I'm not saying you have to do things just because fans want them, but to go out of your way to do things you know fans will hate just to be contrary is,, yeah.

He thinks he's so very smart, and yet his plots are riddled with holes and inconsistencies (hello, Moffat). It speaks, to me, of a lack of respect for everyone involved--fans, writers, actors, crew, critics, just everyone. Write down a timeline. Something. Try.

One of my bigger issues, though, is that the misogyny in vmars is just...beyond appalling. Not just narratively--i understand representing the flaws in society, I guess, but veronica is honestly one of the most misogynistic parts of the show, and she is never ever ever held accountable for it. Ever. The show never sends the message that she's wrong for the atrocious way she treats, to name a few, Madison, Kendall, Gia, and even Carrie during the s1 plot with Adam Scott. The carrie thing is especially fucked up bc iirc the narrative only condemns her for guessing the victim wrong. (As another note, her treatment of other marginalized groups or basically anyone she ever treats badly--logan, Keith, Wallace, weevil, the list goes on--is rarely or never narratively critiqued. Veronica mars can do no wrong, apparently, even when she's obviously wrong.)

She's far from the only example of misyogny, of course--duncan's s2 dream about madonna/whore meg/veronica comes to mind in screaming color, yet donut is somehow treated like a prince forever and ever and v's lost true love even though he's basically the scum of the earth (pardon, my true feelings are coming out a little here).

Somewhat connected is, of course, the show's treatment of rape in general (hi, season 3), but especially Duncan's rape of veronica. I'm still not over the way they walked it back to "not a rape" and took back holding him accountable. I live for all the fanfiction that addresses it, because at least there people remember that, whether he "thought she could consent" or not, he literally thought she was his sister and didnt know. That's uninformed consent at best, babe!

And if that wasn't bad enough, to "resolve" that plotline and then come back at the end of season 2 to be all, "jk! You WERE raped, by SOMEONE ELSE [too]! Enjoy that reenabled trauma, and some chlamidya to boot!"

Speaking of retconned instances of sex, how about that piz/veronica tape that suddenly became full on sex in the movie? Fun times.

My favorite bout of misogynistic writing, you ask? That would have to be "narratively-enforced nicest girl in school who stands by her friends and is sweet and loyal becomes a raging hell bitch yet also the representation of misogynistic virginal innocence because she was knocked up and abandoned by Mr. Narratively-Claimed-to-be-Perfect-but-Actually-the-Worst and completely undergoes a 180 personality change then dies for plot reasons" because holy fucking shit.

Okay sorry I got way more into that than I meant to. I'll try to wrap up.

RT does a very jroth job of treating fans like shit for giving a shit about a romantic relationship he created. He acts like fans are a bunch of stupid girls for caring about romance, but then pushed it at every level of promo to reel us back in. Make up your mind, asshole. It's desperately unfair to bait fans with romantic promo (even in the form of an inane and ooc love triangle) and then snap back with "oooh it's noir, shut up about the romance!"

If that's how you feel, stop making every other plot point and promo about the fucking romance.

RT seems to want to be making a show that he isnt. He wants to be grimdark and angsty and awful, I guess, and while there have been elements of effective darkness throughout vmars, they have been tempered by the show as a whole. That made it (mostly palatable) for people like me. To flip the script now does a disservice to long term fans and does nothing to attract new viewers. If you want to make a different show, make a different show. Don't drive beloved characters into the ground because you're bitter about how your work is perceived post-death of the author.

To wrap up--he hates character growth. He must really hate it. This is dipping a little into the new season, but he just. Won't let anyone develop. Well. Maybe some people. A very few. But not veronica. Never veronica. Because heaven forbid your main character, the person we've followed for 15 years, be anything other than she was at 16. Her personality, her approach to the world, none of it has changed. Which begs the question: what has been the fucking point?

Sorry this is so long. I'm not sure I even answered your question, so feel free to ask me to try again 😂

#post #vmars #vmars spoilers #maybe #thanks for asking

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junker-town · 7 years ago

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The Mexico City Marathon and 6 more tales of cheating throughout running history

The history of marathon cheating involves porta-pottys, doppelgangers, strychnine, and A LOT of incompetence.

During the 2017 Mexico City Marathon, more than 5,800 runners (and counting!) were disqualified out of 28,206 participants. That’s more than 20 percent of the field at one of the world’s biggest races, thrown out for a silly array of infractions ranging from course-cutting to hiring professional runners to compete as other people.

This may be one of the bigger (biggest?) example of cheating in the history of marathons, but it is faaaaaar from the first, or the most egregious. Turns out, the sport is rife with scofflaws going back centuries.

Why people go to such extreme lengths to cheat marathons, I have no idea. Unless you’re an elite runner, you have to pay to enter, and you know how long the course is. No one’s pulling the wool over your eyes. Not running is much, MUCH easier than signing up, cheating, then getting caught. It’s not like cheating in cycling — at least those people have staked their livelihoods on winning.

While we may never understand them, thank goodness these people exist, because their failures are hilarious.

2017: The Mexico City Marathon might as well have not taken place

There’s corruption, and then there’s whatever the hell happened in Mexico City. Among the near-6,000 people who were thrown out of the race, 1,296 posted times that would have qualified them for the ultra-prestigious Boston Marathon, according to Runner’s World.

Derek Murphy at the website Marathon Investigation (who SB Nation profiled in March) has been all over the case and discovered that thousands likely jumped onto the 26.2-mile course late in the race, or worse. One facebook page has been collecting evidence, including photos of people wearing marathon bibs riding the subway. One man appeared to wear two bibs during the marathon, one of which belonged to a woman named “Maria,” who posted a Boston-qualifying time.

Via Marathon Investigation

I encourage you to read all of Murphy’s work on the Mexico City because hoo boy it’s a doozy. It’s hard to tell exactly how many of the gross discrepancies are actually examples of cheating. Murphy seems to be so flabbergasted by the extent of the disqualifications that he’s almost hoping there was some kind of technical error.

"I'm not going to say all 5,800 runners—or anyone that missed a mat—cheated," Murphy told Runner’s World. "It's a bigger number than I've ever seen. It's kind of baffling to find this much error."

1999: Man hides twin brother in a porta-potty to dominate an ultramarathon

Ultramarathons are one of the most maniacal endurance on Earth. The Comrades Marathon in South Africa is one of the oldest and most famous. It also comes with relatively lucrative cash prizes, incentivizing tomfoolery like Sergio Motsoeneng’s gambit to earn in a top 10 finish.

During the race, in the time that elapsed between the first and second photos being taken, Sergio had apparently switched his watch from his left wrist to his right wrist and inexplicably grown a scar on his left shin. When the photos came to light, Bester, the scorned 15th place finisher, knew that something was up.

As it turns out, the competitor Sergio Motsoeneng was not one, but two people. Forty-five minutes into the race, Sergio ducked into a porta-potty. Inside, his identical brother, Fika, was waiting.

I’m surprised that we don’t hear about more runners doing The Prestige routine. Perhaps it occurs more often than we think and everyone else is smart enough to make sure their watches are on the same wrist.

1980: Woman rides the subway to win Boston Marathon

You see it all the time in heist movies: The accomplished thieves make a tidy living pulling off small-scale jobs, then get into trouble when they bite off more than they can chew. That was Rosie Ruiz’s problem.

Rosie Ruiz would have been the 3rd fastest woman to win a marathon on this day in 1980... if she hadn't faked it: https://t.co/snvv9CcELY http://pic.twitter.com/MRNlnlUyRc

— Mass Humanities (@MassHumanities) April 21, 2017

If Ruiz hadn’t shot for the stars — say, only tried to come in top-20 instead of win the whole darn thing — perhaps no one would have noticed that she had taken a subway until roughly the half-mile-to-go mark. She collapsed into the arms of police officers at the line to sell her the fake, but was stripped of her title eight days later after spectators found it suspicious that she wasn’t sweating much at the line. And that she couldn’t remember what happened during the race. And that the second- and third-place finishers couldn’t recall ever seeing her pass. And also she somehow didn’t appear in any photos and video footage of the race. And people spotted her bursting out of the crowd at Commonwealth Avenue.

Ruiz did a really bad job of cheating, is what I’m saying.

2010: Chinese students just pay other people to run

Seriously, if you’re going to cheat anyway, why run at all? At the Xiamen International Marathon in 2010, at least 30 runners were disqualified, many of them for paying faster impostors to take their place. There was good reason in many cases, however:

If they run a marathon in good time, students can earn extra points for the "'gaokao", the entrance examination for China's highly competitive universities that some children and their parents will go to huge lengths to shine in. ...

Scoring well on the university entrance exam has spawned all sorts of high-tech cheating methods, which saw 40 people detained last year.

In one case in the northern province of Shanxi, six people - including one teacher - were detained for allegedly selling receivers to students so they could be fed the correct answers during the tests.

1904: The St. Louis Olympic Marathon is all sorts of messed up

The long version:

youtube

The short version:

The “winner” of the race, Fred Lorz, actually dropped out of the race nine miles in, was picked up in a car by his manager, then ran the final seven miles of the race after the car broke down. He had his picture taken with Teddy Roosevelt and was about to be awarded the gold medal when the then-second place finisher, eventual winner Thomas Hicks, ran into the stadium, near-dead from the stychnine he had been fed during the race as a stimulant.

The whole race was about as weird as any international competition can be. It also featured feral dogs, two other near-death experiences, and raw eggs. I can’t recommend the video up above enough.

2009: Reality star rides along with camera crew

Sometimes multiple parties are invested in your finishing in a certain time frame. That was the case of Dane Patterson, who set a weight-loss record on ‘The Biggest Loser.’ He got a three-mile ride in an NBC van so that the crew could take a photo of him finishing an Arizona marathon before the six-hour cutoff time.

“When I got to the marathon, I understood that after six hours, the marathon was going to be close,” he told Roker. “At mile 17, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to make it in that time. The producer wanted that shot of me going through the finish line, so that decision was made.”

Patterson insisted he never intended to cheat or deceive anyone. “I went back after the filming was done and ran those three miles, because I was planning on running the entire marathon and that’s what I did,” he told Roker.

490 BC: Pheidippides runs 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce Greece’s victory in battle over Persia, then collapses dead

The Greek hero on which the Marathon is based actually ran roughly a mile less than the 26.2 miles for an official marathon established by the International Amateur Athletic Federation in the early 20th century.

Pheidippides is a fraud and literal human garbage.

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