#BUT I consider this an accomplishment because I usually have to polish all my pieces... urgh I mean I kinda did still. h. I tried

[winged-wolf-s-collection-of-arts]

That feeling that Something is lurking behind you and getting Closer

[spanishrose2002]

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

When I first started writing fanfic, there were a lot of people who would post things like “I’ll post the next chapter after X amount of reviews/comments.”   Boy, did I feel that one!  Everyone loves feedback on their stories.  There is nothing to help with motivation and drive better than comments, especially ones that engage with the story in some way and show that the person actually cares and is really reading the story!  

When I first started writing, I thought that feedback meant a fic was a success.  The more feedback you got, the more successful the story was.  Now, I’m not going to say feedback isn’t important, because it absolutely is, and lack of it can murder your feels for a story.  

What I will say, though, for other writers to keep in mind, as well, is that some fandom experiences led me to understand that there’s a lot more behind feedback (both the high numbers and the low numbers) than just true commentary on the quality of the story or the writing.  There’s far more at play than might first meet the eye.

Nowadays, I don’t think any of my stories are a “success” by modern fandom definitions of success.   However, my personal definitions of success are as follows: Did someone else get some joy from it?   I, of course, hope they did.  That’s why I bothered to polish it up and share it.  I would love if tons of people get joy from what I write, but I usually have to mostly hope for one or two (based on feedback) who might garner some pleasure from what I write.  Sometimes there’s not even that, so it leads me to my second definition. Did I get joy out of it? Did I tell a story that I wanted to tell?  Did I enjoy writing it?  Do I enjoy little pieces of it?  Does it bring me happiness and make me feel like I accomplished something positive?   If I did, then it’s better than not having written it at all, even though I may sometimes wonder why I bothered to share it.  LOL (Though, of course, I shared it just in case that particular someone comes along who gets some joy from it, too.)  

[designsfromtime]

How much did “Chintz” or “Calico” cottons cost in the 18th Century?

In this century, when we think of “calico” we more than likely envision a cotton with a small print a la Little House on the Prairie, but calico in the 18th century was just a name for printed cottons and had nothing to do with a specific pattern or design.

It’s interesting to note just “how” printed fabrics were accomplished. A wood carver would create a wooden block of a pattern - such as a cluster of flowers, etc. That block or “stamp” would then be brushed with mordant to make the dye adhere to the fabric. The artisan would then stamp the design on the fabric, then dye the whole piece. It would then be rinsed to reveal the stamped design.

Attached is a copy of a bill of goods from New York dated 1793. I needed to know how much a yard of printed cotton would cost for one of my novels that is set in 1773. As a writer, research of such minutiae is par for the course, but as a costumer I was doubly curious.

“Chintz” was a type of printed cotton produced in India, The Calico Acts (1700, 1721) banned the import of most cotton textiles into England, followed by the restriction of sale of most cotton textiles. It was a form of economic protectionism, largely in response to India (particularly Bengal), which dominated world cotton textile markets at the time. Parliament began to see a decline in domestic textile sales, and an increase in imported textiles from places like China and India. Seeing the East India Company and their textile importation as a threat to domestic textile businesses, Parliament passed the Calico Acts as an attack on textile importation. This is the same reasoning Elizabeth-1 enacted sumptuary statutes on “black dyed woolen hats.” But I leave that topic for another time! The point being is that protecting English trade by banning certain imports was not a new device.

During the 18th century the monetary system in the colonies was in pounds shilling and pence. There were 20 Shillings to the pound and 12 Pence per Shilling. Also at the same time each colony had their own currency system. For instance the New York pound was worth 30% less than British sterling, with a NY shilling equivalent to only 8 pence sterling instead of the usual 12. Among the list of goods purchased on the 7th of May 1793 according to the bill of sale pictured, is a 14 x yards length of ‘Fancy Chintz’. It cost 3 shillings 9 pence per yard with the total cost coming to two pounds, twelve shillings and 6 pence.

Now, do not quote me as an expert. I’ve drawn my information from several on-line sources and it’s been suggested that these prices are very likely listed at wholesale, or purchased for “cost,” as the buyers themselves were merchants and would mark it up to make a profit.

Let’s consider wages in the time period of 1773 thereabouts. According to what I’ve been able to source on-line, the average wage for a farmer would be about 10 pounds per year. A day laborer, or farm hand, would make about 6 shillings per month. When you work out the comparison using wages of each era and try to calculate how much ONE yard of chintz would cost, it appears that it was equivalent to approximately three quarters of a day’s wage (in 1793).

Depending on the width of the fabric a typical round gown, which is a gown that isn’t split up the front and worn with a decorative petticoat, would take about 6 yards or more. I’m making that estimate based on what “I” would purchase for a textile that is 45" wide. That means the cost of ONE gown would equal to about a week’s wages!  HOLY COW!

For us in 2021, cotton is an inexpensive textile. A polished cotton or chintz now days costs about $20 a yard. The brown and ivory fabric I used in the recent gown I shared cost about $19 a yard because it was a historical reproduction, but on average printed cottons cost about $10 a yard, while wool fetches a price of anywhere from $25 to $40 a yard! In the 18th century wool would have been much more affordable than cotton chintz or calico. 

I’ve included some of my FAVORITE cotton prints that I’m anxious to have an opportunity to use on a robe a’ la polonaise! They are ALL available on Spoonflower. They are NOT historical reproductions, but… close enough to pass some prints from the 18th Century.

You can view my full “collection” of cotton prints on my Pinterest page:https://www.pinterest.com/…/cotton-prints-historical…/

A blog I used for reference:  https://oldepatchart.com.au/…/11/18/yard-chintz-cost-1793/

Other sources were found on a Google search.

[katehuntington]

Title: Ride With Me (part twenty two) Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader Word count: ±7650 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family.  Summary part twenty two: Y/N is about to take the stage together with her horse Meadow, but stage fright is making it very difficult to bring the evening to a successful end. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: Opening scene: First Defeat - Noah Gundersen, Meadow’s freestyle: Stairway To Heaven, Immigrant Song, Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin. Follow ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Thank you @atc74​​, and @winchest09​​ for helping me. Also a special thanks to @jules-1999​​, who has offered me her knowledge about rodeo events like these, and @squirrelnotsam​​, who knows Arizona like the back of her hand.

Ride With Me Masterlist

     Y/N dips the sponge foaming with leather soap in a small bucket of water, and softly moves it in circles over the gullet of Meadow’s cognac colored saddle. Making sure to get into the little curves and edges of the beautifully decorated piece of craftsmanship, she picks up an old toothbrush and gently sweeps the dirt out of the grooves; it’s one of the older tricks in the book. 

     The maintenance does a lot of things besides calm the mind. It keeps the material supple, stops it from tearing, therefore saddles and bridles last longer. The leather will be soft on the horse’s coat and prevent sores and irritation of the skin. Clean and shiny tack says a lot about a person. They are usually precise, provident, and have a keen eye for detail. Often perfectionists who leave nothing to chance. Y/N is such a person.

     Dean watches her, adoration on his features. She hasn’t spotted him yet, too focused on the chore. His hands are buried in the front pockets of his jeans while he leans against the door of the makeshift tack room, where she’s working in silence. He notices how loose hairs have escaped her french braid, how she bites her lip while concentrating. He notices the black smear on her cheek, her hands grimy from the mixture of soap and dirt coming from the saddle. He notices all those little things, and all else he loves about her.

     There might be a soft smile on his lips, but his eyes give away how much his heart is hurting. He hasn’t been able to ban the haunting words from his thoughts, nor the realization that came with it; no matter how much time he puts between the past and present, he can’t outrun those dark days.      The troubled cowboy wishes he could tell her, but he doesn’t want to drag his girl into this. She would pity him, be disgusted. She would run as far away as she could, and he wouldn’t even blame her if she does just that. The fact that he is unable to be truthful, has him doubt everything they have accomplished. How can he ask her to trust him, when he can’t be honest with her? When he doesn’t even trust himself?

     Y/N rises from the small stool to get a cloth from her tack box in order to polish the saddle, when she notices a figure from the corner of her eye. For a second she startles, but then realizes it’s her boyfriend.      “How long have you been standing there?” she chuckles.      “For a little while,” he admits, the corner of his mouth pulling into a slightly bigger smile. “Didn’t mean to creep you out.”      “Don’t worry, you didn’t. Fergus MacLeod on the other hand…” Y/N comments, squirting some shine cream on the cloth. 

     Before she returns to her stool again to finish the dirty job, Dean steps closer and takes her hand. Desperate for her to ground him, he lets his fingers trace her stained knuckles, taking the cleaning product from her and putting it aside. He focuses on their hold and keeps quiet, being more tentative than conversational.      “Dean?”      Her voice is laced with confusion and worry, and when he looks up, he sees that her eyes match the warm sound. Willing to do anything to take those concerns away, he cups her face and gently pulls Y/N closer. His lips catch hers, sweetly at first. Dean cherishes the moment when she melts into his touch, deepening the kiss. It doesn’t unsettle him when she unwinds her fingers from his, because he can feel his cowboy hat leave his head, those same fingers now running through his short hair.

     Dean takes his time, eyes closed and his long lashes brushing against her cheek. He draws her in, moving his hand up her side as if he’s afraid she might slip away at any moment. There’s a hint of distress in the way he is kissing her, even though she can tell he is trying to hide it. Knowing that now is not the time to question his reasoning, she gives him what he needs so hopelessly. After a long, intimate minute, in the shelter of the small tack room, Dean parts from her. Y/N hopes to see a smile, but his eyes remain closed as he presses his forehead against hers.

     “What’s going on?” she encourages, gently.      “Nothin’. I’m alright,” he claims, but when she raises her eyebrows at him knowingly, he gives her an explanation, even though it’s not the whole truth. “Fergus MacLeod got under my skin with the way he spoke to you, is all.”      “Oh, you mean the pet names?” She scoffs, shaking her head at the memory. “I wouldn’t read into it. He’s an Englishman; they address women like that.”      “Still…” Dean rubs the pad of his thumb over her cheek, wiping away the grease. He is beginning to find his footing again. “I’m the only one who gets to call you that.”      “And you think I’m the jealous one,” Y/N jokes. “You never call me ‘darling’ or ‘love’ anyway.”      He grins at her mockery, especially when she overdoes the accent. His eyes are still sincere as ever.       “Because you’re my Yankee,” he says softly.

     Her smile becomes brighter, her nickname rolling from his tongue usually having that effect. And for just a second, Dean forgets about all the worry in the world. He kisses her once more, short and sweet this time, daring to take a hold of her gaze now that his mask fits again.      “You stood your ground when that stuck up made that offer on Meadow,” he compliments. “You basically told him to go fuck himself. That was pretty badass.”

     Shyly, Y/N shrugs. To her it didn’t cost her an ounce of bravery or willpower. She has gotten offers on her horse before, although never one this high. But Fergus could offer a billion, there is no way in hell she will ever let Meadow go.      “She’s priceless, Dean,” the cowgirl explains, simply. “I wouldn’t trade her for the world.”      “I know,” her boyfriend acknowledges. “All I’m saying is that many would have considered it. The fact that it’s not even an option for you, just shows how much she means to you.” He pauses, admiring the strong minded woman before him. “She’s your soul horse.”      “My what?” Y/N recalls, curiously.

     Dean chuckles, realizing that it’s not a widely known term. It was Ellen who told him about the special bond between human and horse, when he was younger. It became something that always stuck with him, words he never forgot.      “Every equestrian comes across that one horse in their life. The one that stands out from all the others, that captures you, takes up a huge space in here.” He taps two fingers on his chest, right where his heart is. “The one you have this unbreakable bond with, who you trust and trusts you. The one you will never forget,” he explains. “That’s your soul horse.”

     Y/N begins to glow, because every word he spoke sounds familiar. Dean is right; Meadow is her soul horse.      “I like that,” she says, thinking about his words for a second. 

     Content, she moves past Dean to pick up the polish, in order for her to return to the task she needs to finish.       “What else did the snobby Brit have to say?” she wonders, sitting back down on her stool, beginning to rub the cream onto the horn and the pommel of the saddle.      “He bought Jovi and Ringo, actually,” the cowboy elaborates, turning to the side to check out the perfectly clean bridle hanging from the tack box door. He’s giving himself something to focus on, feeling the soft leather under his fingers.      “Did he! That’s great, right?” she checks, noticing that her boyfriend isn’t exactly thrilled about the matter.      Dean glances at her, forcing a smile. “Yeah, the money is certainly welcome.”      “I bet Bobby is pleased,” Y/N assumes, wiping down the saddle one last time before she puts the cover back on. “Did he say anything about our dance last night?”      “He didn’t. I think he’s lettin’ it slide.” Dean shrugs. “He’s not someone to discuss this kinda stuff anyway, so I’m guessin’ no word about it is good.”      Y/N is willing to accept his reasoning. “Well, alright. If you’re sure it won’t get you into trouble.”      “I doubt it, and even if he’d give me a hard time, it’s worth the lecture.” Dean chuckles, glancing down at his boots. “Fergus made another business proposition, too.”      The cowgirl gets up and lifts the heavy saddle from its stand, carrying it to the tack box and storing it away. “What’s that?”      “He wants me to train one of his horses,” he tells her.      Her eyes grow wide as she shuts the door. “A stallion? Dean, that’s huge!”      The wrangler chuckles at her enthusiasm. “It’s just the one.” 

     “Do you realize that this could be the start of something very rewarding? He owns stables full of licensed stallions. It might be a great stepping stone. I mean, look at Jovi and Ringo; they were sold from under you before you could really shine with them,” Y/N brings to mind. “Riding a talented horse for an owner who has no desire to sell because of the money already coming in with stud fees, is really good for you. This could become your big break.”

     Dean hasn’t even looked at it that way, but he guesses it’s why his girlfriend is so good in her field. She always thinks five steps ahead, seeing opportunities where another person would just see a lot of work.      He remains realistic, though, not wanting to celebrate too quickly. “Well, apparently Cain is a handful, so we’ll see how it goes.”      “Wait… Cain?” She was already staring at him in astonishment, but now her jaw almost drops to the floor. “As in the Quarter sired by Dual Ray. The one that went for 1.2 million at the Derby auction?! Shut up!”

     “Someone watched the news.” Dean grins, the sight of her girlfriend so perplexed being quite amusing. “But, yeah. He’s arriving at the ranch next week. Depending on how bad his behavioral problems are, he’s staying or leaving. I have a feeling MacLeod isn’t telling the whole story.”      “Well, even if Cain’s issues are worse than Fergus let on--” She steps closer, slipping her arms around his neck. “- if anyone can fix him, it’s you.”

     The confidence she has in him astonishes the cowboy. He doesn’t deserve it, her never ending support, her faith. Even now, all he’s doing is bullshitting his way through this exchange. He hopes to God Y/N doesn’t pick up on his insecurities, because maybe if she doesn’t, they can stay in this bubble for a little while longer. 

     Another kiss is pressed on his lips and for just that moment, Dean forgets about the demons that so often torment his mind. Unable to resist her even if he tries, the cowboy reels her in. He can sense his Yankee smile against his mouth and he can’t help to copy her expression. When he can feel her weaken in his hold, however, it is quickly replaced with a look of concern.      “You okay?” he asks apprehensively, his grip on her firmer to make sure she doesn’t go down, but thankfully she steadies.      “Yeah, just a little lightheaded.” Y/N takes a breath. “I’m fine.”      “Did you eat today?” Dean requires, both stern and worried.      “No,” she admits. “I can’t eat before a competition. Nerves and all.”      “Are you kiddin’ me? You’re not up until 8 PM!” he returns, not having any of it. “Yankee, You gotta eat. I’ll buy you somethin’.”      “I wouldn’t be able to take even one bite, Dean. Don’t bother. I’ll have an energy drink before I get on Meadow.”      “Oh, hell no. You can’t do your run while low on fuel,” her boyfriend decides, carefully letting her go when he’s sure she has found her balance again. “How about yoghurt? Or some fruit? Did that really just come out of my mouth?”      Y/N snorts when she notices the double take at his own suggestions, his nose wrinkling in revulsion, as if he just said something vile and doesn’t even know himself anymore.      “Would a smoothie work? I saw a stand by the arena,” Dean offers.      She shrugs, appreciating his efforts and not wanting to deny him. “I could try.”      “Alright.” He leaves a quick kiss on her mouth and picks up his hat, before he intends to leave the tack room. In the doorway he turns around, his body language showing confusion, yet his eyes sparkle.      “I never in my life thought I was gonna say this, but I’m gonna buy a smoothie,” he announces, before shooting her a wink and disappearing.      Y/N laughs now, shaking her head at his comical ways. Bless him, at least he’s trying.

     7.00 PM. Y/N is back in the tack room where she spent most of her morning cleaning her gear. When there was absolutely nothing left to polish, every bit of brass on her saddle and bridle shining so bright it could quite possibly blind the judges once in the arena, she tried to distract herself another way. She did manage to consume the smoothie her boyfriend brought her, though, much to his delight. It helped, because the dizziness has passed, but a stress headache remains. She sat down for lunch with Benny, Jo and Dean, although she didn’t eat anything. Conversation moved past her like the Arizona autumn breeze that’s blowing across the show grounds. 

     Afterwards, she assisted Dean with his last ride of the day, this time in the ‘working cow horse’ class, which is a fun combination between reining and managing cattle. After feeding the horses and providing them with water, the crew went to the arena to watch some runs. It only triggered restlessness in her heart that seemed impossible to calm, and it didn’t take long before she returned to the stable. She spent some time with Meadow, her dance partner tonight, simply sitting in the corner of her box, watching the beautiful animal chew on her hay, completely at ease with her owner’s presence. 

     Now, it’s time to prepare herself. Meadow is already tacked up, waiting in her stall until Y/N is ready, one hind hoof resting on its toe, preserving energy. It’s like the animal knows, since she normally is quite impatient, but right before a competition, she prefers to nap on her feet.      It’s a huge contrast to her human, who has trouble controlling her anxiety. The smoothie she had earlier is bubbling inside Y/N, her stomach unsettled. Trying to calm herself by making sure that everything is perfect, she goes through the familiar checklist in her head while the soundtrack of her freestyle plays on her phone. 

     Dean helped her work out the new routine, thankfully. After setting the bar way too high in her first draft, almost making herself cry when she realized just how impossible it was, he suggested more simple lines, but combinations of the patterns. This is supposed to kick up the degree of difficulty without the floorplan being a tangled mess, and highlights Meadow’s strengths. What she had to figure out next, was what kind of music she wanted to ride to.

     Her boyfriend contacted Ash, who was more than willing to edit the tunes for the intern. When she offered Dean the idea, she knew it was a hit when she saw his eyes twinkle. They took the request to the former ranch hand, who went to work and knocked it out of the park. Honestly, a part of Y/N cannot wait to ride her new freestyle, but she’s also downright petrified. What if she screws up? What if she forgets her routine? What if she doesn’t nail it, with Congress only two weeks away? What if she fails?

     Everything is ready, all she needs to do is change into her show outfit. Y/N strips down, switching her blue jeans and plaid shirt for black. The back of her button up is decorated with golden studs in the shape of a guitar, and so are the cuffs and shoulders. During a freestyle the rider is allowed to ‘dress up’ and add elements in the arena, make a show of it. Although she’s not a fan of the whole circus act, and much rather prefers to let her performance do the talking and convincing, she wasn’t resenting the idea Ash offered when they listened to the soundtrack. Ellen helped her sow on the miniature pyramid-shaped beads, and the end result is better than Y/N could have hoped for.

     The focused competitor slips into her onyx chaps which she just took out, and laces the leather strap through the belt loop of her jeans. She then continues to unpack her cowboy boots, which are the same color as Meadow’s fiery brown tack, shining just as bright. Her brass spurs follow, the rowel jingling when she turns to take a round box from the top, unzipping the lid. The beautiful Milano hat inside has her smile down on the crafted head piece; it was a Christmas gift from her parents. One she received right before her first show with the Quarter mare, the horse who gives her so much more than she could ever hope for.      She picks it up by the crown and places it on her smooth hair which Jo braided earlier, the action raising a sense of pride in her chest. The hat makes the outfit, but it comes along with so much more. It gives back some of the confidence her insecurities took away. She’s a cowgirl, in heart and soul.

     Last but not least, she takes an object from the same container that safeguarded the Milano. Reminiscing, Y/N draws her thumb over the gold plated metal, feeling the edges of the letters and symbols under her fingertip; it’s her State Championship belt buckle. She closes her eyes, the memories of that epic run flooding her thoughts welcomingly. The stadium spotlights, the roaring crowd, her name in bright letters on the scoreboard. And then that indescribable feeling of horse and rider becoming one, the thrill of coming down that centerline and just knowing that this was going to be their moment, the ride of their lives. She will be in seventh heaven if she manages to get even remotely close to the pinnacle they reached that day.

     Footsteps draw her back to reality, the dry ground crunching under heavy boots in the alleyway between the stables. Y/N doesn’t question who it is, Dean promised to help her with the warmup, and since she has stated in her very detailed schedule that she is going to get on her horse ten minutes from now, she is expecting his arrival. Turning around, she meets his astonished gaze in the doorway, his jaw slightly ajar.      “Do you think I’d be showing off if I wear this?” she wonders, offering him a look at the coveted buckle.

     But Dean only has eyes for a different prize. He needs a moment to recover from the sight of his girlfriend. She’s drop dead gorgeous after a morning muck out, with hay in her messy locks and dust sticking to her damp skin. But now, dressed in her black show outfit, her hair braided and her make-up bringing out the color of her eyes even more, he can’t help but stammer.      He chuckles warmly, a blush on his cheeks. “You look - you look amazing.”

     His reaction draws a smile on her lips, but she’s too anxious to really appreciate the compliment. There is a time schedule to be considered after all.      “My State Champion buckle, or a simple one?” she asks him again, not daring to make the call herself.      Dean takes the shiny object, tilting it to admire the award. ‘AQHA State Champion - Maine, 2008’ it says, the inscription curved around a horse’s head, edged in silver and gold.      “Wear it,” he decides. “You won that championship fair and square.”      “Yeah, I know, it’s just that--” She pauses, fiddling to close the buttons on her cuffs. “I don’t wanna fail to meet everyone's expectations.”      The cowboy looks up at her from under his lashes, his green eyes reading her for a second. “Everyone’s expectations? Or your own?”

     Dean has a solid point, but evaluating thought processes is not something she needs right now. She sighs and tries to bury her frustrations, very much aware that she snaps easily when she’s on edge like she is now. It wouldn’t be the first time that she loses her cool with someone who is actually there to support her, it usually being either her parents or her brothers. She doesn’t want her boyfriend to endure the same unreasonable behavior, and so she shrugs at that.      “I don’t know, really. I mean, yes, I expect a lot from myself, but the thought that people on the sideline, like Bobby, Jody, Donna… you, will judge my every move,” she pauses, letting an anxious sigh fall from her lips. “It honestly makes me feel sick.”

     “You shouldn’t let it get to you like that,” Dean suggests, handing her back the buckle.      “Yeah, well, that’s easier said than done,” she returns, the edge of her voice much sharper than she meant to come out. While pulling her belt through the loops, she briefly looks up, noticing his head cocked back slightly while his brows meet his hairline, which triggers her to mutter an apology. “Sorry.”

     He can see the embarrassment in her stance as she turns her gaze to the floor. The slight offense he took desolates, making room for sympathy. He can tell she’s struggling to cope with the nerves and the pressure she is under, pressure she shouldn’t even be experiencing. This competition is a practice run, an environment to test her new freestyle and get back into the rhythm of the shows after a long break. However, he understands that downgrading this event will not do her any good. What he needs to convince her of, is to believe in herself, like he believes in her.

     “Yankee, you’re never gonna fail my expectations. The way I see you doesn’t stand or fall with this performance, or any.” He takes her hands in his, squeezing them softly in order to prevent her from getting lost in that dark forest of negative thoughts. “I get that you want to prove yourself, but it ain’t necessary. The girls already love you, and the fact that Bobby didn’t rip me a new one for kissing you last night proves a point too. All that won’t change after today’s run.”

     Carefully, Y/N glances up, met by the sight of empathy swimming in mystic green eyes.      “I’m here to back you up, okay? I’ll help you with the warm up, and Jo will be there to assist. It’s gonna be fine. Your horse is awesome, your freestyle is awesome, you are awesome,” he reassures, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Now get your fine butt on that horse.”      She takes a slow breath, the smile that his words surface saying just how much that means to her. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

     With Meadow’s bridle in hand, she exits the tack room, feeling somewhat lighter than she did ten minutes ago. Dean’s kind words and endless support doesn’t take away the anxiety entirely, but it has enough of an effect to have her believe that maybe, just maybe, she is going to survive this evening. At least he is by her side, not just as her man, but as her trainer as well, and with the way he has been with her so far, she can already tell how different he is from her former instructor. No list of exercises she needs to go through during the warm up, no ‘do this’ or ‘don’t do that’ while she’s preparing to get on her horse. It’s a huge contrast, but one for the better. Maybe Dean is right, maybe it is going to be fine.

     Dean looks up when he notices someone approaching from the corner of his eye, the small framed silhouette with a dancing ponytail unmistakably Jo’s. She has a bucket half full with water in one hand with a sponge floating on the surface, a rag hanging from her back pocket and a groom bag over her shoulder.      “You ready, sis?” she asks, popping her head over the stable door.      “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Y/N sighs, tightening the sinch.      “You’re gonna do great. Especially with your lover whispering in your ear.” She hands them both a headset, one with a small microphone for Dean and one with an earpiece for her best friend. “Keep it clean, no heavy breathing. The poor girl needs to stay focused.”

     The cowboy glares at his cousin, but he bites his tongue, simply because the comment made his girl let out a laugh. Instead he turns on the small device and pushes it in his pocket, secures the mic to the collar of his shirt.      Y/N clips the headset behind her belt as well and pushes the bud into her ear. After holding the bit in front of Meadow’s mouth for her to accept, her owner pulls the crown piece of the bridle over her horse’s ears, securing the straps. Focused on her task at hand, she notices a crucial element missing.      “Crap, Grandpa’s pendant,” she realizes, pushing the reins into Jo’s hand before rushing back into the tack box. 

     A moment later, she returns with a small suede bag in her hand, from which she carefully allows a piece of jewelry to roll into her hand. Curious, Dean watches her pick it up between her delicate fingers, after which she attaches it to Meadow’s bridle. Two beads are laced onto a thin leather cord, and the way she handles the small yet precious object, he can tell it holds much value.      “Is that your good luck charm?” Jo wonders.      “Yeah,” the rider acknowledges, taking back the reins from her friend and leading Meadow out of the stable. “My grandfather gave it to me on my very first show when I was seven.” 

     Y/N has never ridden a test without the jewel, and she can’t picture doing so in the future. The top bead is made from her birthstone, the one dangling underneath represents a guardian angel. While taking her horse outside, she rubs Meadow’s neck, tracing the charm for a second as the setting sun catches the gem. Before she had to say goodbye to the most influential person in her life, she never really pictured anyone when she saw the little figure with wings dangling from Meadow’s browband, but now she likes to think it is him, watching over her.

     A couple of minutes later, Y/N has taken a seat on Meadow’s back, who excitedly walks towards the warm up area with Dean and Jo in tow. Flanked by her trainer on her right side and her groom on the left, a hint of relief hits the cowgirl unexpectedly; she has never been surrounded by a team this solid.  

     The horse and rider enter the side arena, where a dozen others are warming up in what seems to be a whirlwind of sensories. Music reaches Y/N’s hearing, coming from the competition ring and mixing with loud cheers of the spectators. Trainers shout at their pupils from the sideline, the steward calling for the next on the list. In her first loop in a simple walk, someone cuts her off and Meadow pins her ears back, clearly not at ease in the chaos.

     “Can you hear me?” Dean asks through the headset, leaning over the fence of the training field.      The familiar warm yet gruff sound in her ear silences the distractions that have her dizzy in an instance. She looks over her shoulder at the head wrangler, nodding in response.      “Okay, good. Warm her up like you would do so at home. Try to seek a space where it’s not too crowded, you don’t have to use the entire area,” Dean advises, calmly. “Just focus on my voice, alright? Take a deep breath and focus on me.”

     Y/N closes her eyes for a short second and collects herself, doing precisely what he tells her to do. Throughout the warm up he never underlines what she’s doing wrong, but praises her for every right move, building her confidence. For a short period of time it has her wondering if he’s sugarcoating and isn’t giving it to her straight, but minute by minute, she finds it easier to let go of that thought. His encouraging words manage to cast away the fear of screwing up, and before she knows it, she has forgotten about the other riders in the arena, nor does she notice her distracting surroundings. All she hears is his soothing vocals, all she feels is the large animal underneath her, who seems to respond well to their trainer too. Meadow might not be able to hear Dean, but apparently senses the tension oozing from her rider, and becomes more relaxed with every stride.

     It’s five minutes until her starting time, when Y/N halts by the fence, next to Jo and Dean. Her friend and groom for the day takes her cue and approaches her with the bucket, wiping down Meadow’s sweaty skin with the sponge, cleaning the mare up before it’s her time to shine. Y/N takes out her ear buds, since she’s not allowed to compete with them, and hands the headset to Jo, trading it for a water bottle.      “She feels good, doesn’t she?” Dean checks, smiling up at her while he takes the plastic flask from his student.      The woman in the saddle nods. “She does.” 

     “Y/N Y/L/N! Two minutes!”      The rider feels the nerves find their traction again when she glances at the steward who called out her name. She nods in acknowledgement at the man holding a clipboard, and when Jo is done toweling Meadow down, she steers the Quarter towards the entrance of the main arena. The applause that the previous competitor receives grows louder as they approach, meeting the rider on their way over. He seems very pleased with his horse, and the first thing that comes to her mind is that he must have had a good score, a score she needs to beat.  The serene mindset the wrangler got her in, is threatened to be disturbed by the stage fright that grips her by the throat. Suddenly, it hits her; this is it.

     “Hey…” Dean lays his hand on her knee when he detects that he’s losing her again. “Yankee?”      The cowgirl snaps her gaze from the intimidating competition ground to her trainer, who meets her with the most relaxed expression he can muster, despite his worry about her current mental state. He can tell she’s downright scared, not to fall off her horse or anything, but to make a mistake, drop the ball and to have to leave the boxing ring defeated. Right now, the illuminated soil that is about to be her stage isn’t a dance floor to Y/N. No, her eyes tell him a different story, the one of a gladiator in a colosseum, being thrown into the pit for the lions, destined to be defeated, destined to fail.

     “When you go in there, I need you to forget about everything,” he starts off, earning a confused look.      “What do you mean?” she wonders.      “Forget the judges, forget the audience, hell, forget what I’ve told you,” Dean continues, his thumb rubbing her leg soothingly. “The only one you need to listen to, is Meadow. Feel what she tells you and trust your gut when you answer. Let go of all the rest, alright?”

     Y/N nods, wetting her dry lips, shooting another glance at the arena before she looks down on the man who has been able to ground her like only one other person has. Dean seems to know who is on her mind, because he reaches for the pendant attached to her horse’s bridle.      “He’s with you, and I will be waiting right here, no matter what. You got this, Yankee.” 

     The encouraging words close off her throat much like the anxiety did earlier, but this time the sentiment is welcoming. Dean’s pep talk helped her see what is truly important, and that this moment is just a short clip of a larger motion picture. She has Meadow, she has Dean, and she has the memory of her grandfather, along with all the wise life lessons that he taught her. Whatever happens in the coming five minutes, that will not change. She trusts the beacon of support that is the man by her side. But in this very moment, most importantly, she trusts Meadow.

     Y/N breathes in through her nose and exhales slowly, rubbing her horse’s shoulder, more confident than she has felt all week. The gatekeeper opens the fence for the horse and rider, nothing standing between them and the brightly lit competition ring. 

     “The next contestant of the evening is Y/N Y/L/N, all the way from Freeport, Maine. This young lady rides Meadowsweet, a nine year old mare sired by Gunner, and these two have made a name for themselves already. Folks, you are going to be watching the current State Champion and this pair has qualified for the prestigious All American Quarter Horse Congress in three weeks. This will be the premiere of their brand new freestyle, so get ready for a rock ‘n roll ride, y’all.”

     Y/N peers into the grand arena, tilting her hat forward just enough to keep the spotlights from blinding her. She can feel Dean’s fingers slip from her knee, setting her free now that she has taken control. Focused and determined, the cowgirl makes eye contact with the sound technician, raising her hand. Showtime.

     The first tones of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven begins to play, and Y/N enters the arena slowly. The timid music silences the crowd, suspense hanging thick in the air. Meadow moves down the centerline and halts, her head low and submissive, waiting for her cue. The intro finishes, the acoustic notes dying down and leaving a second long silence. Knowing the music by heart, the woman in the saddle squeezes her fist holding the reins slightly, preparing Meadow for what is about to come. Then, right as Immigrant Song rings in her ears, she sends her Quarterhorse into a spin.

With high speed and great technique, the mare revolves on the spot like a helicopter rotor, and after going full circle four times stops dead in her tracks, before doing the exact same movement, only this time turning right. The crowd goes absolutely ballistic, and it’s then that Y/N feels a wide smile spreading on her face; she’s gonna nail this run.

     One small aid is enough to push Meadow forward, the horse shooting down the centerline like an arrow leaving its bow. With only a few yards between the cowgirl and the judges, she sits back in the saddle, signalling Meadow to dig her hind legs into the ground and progress into an impressive sliding stop. It’s bold, because if the maneuver isn’t spot on, the panel will easily detect the error. The execution is perfect, however, and gathering from the entertained and impressed expressions on the judges’ faces, Y/N’s game plan is working. 

     With attitude, Meadow rolls back and races around the arena on a large circle, her long strides evenly powerful and rhythmic, this time to the soundtrack of Whole Lotta Love. With her left hand forward between the bay horse’s ears, the cowgirl peers down the path that’s to come, and after having gone full circle, she switches to a left canter through a flying change and mirrors the previous pattern. 

     The buzz ignited by both the thrilling ride and the response of the audience only fuels her confidence. When she exits the last full speed circle, she transitions into a lope, a collected gate Meadow masters well. The horse and rider combination crosses the arena through a neat half pass. It’s a sideways movement right in front of the judges, the talented mare showing off her reach and finesse. 

     Not once does Y/N have to correct her dancing partner, every small cue effective. Meadow follows the instructions without question, unable to give a damn about the vibrant ambiance. It’s almost as if the animal can read her owner’s mind, a telepathic connection which can only be established when human and horse have that click and share an unique bond. This is what horse riding is all about, this is the ultimate goal. Two hearts beating as one. 

     The music builds up to its zenith and shifts to the finishing electric guitar solo in Stairway To Heaven, by the same famous rock band that has been the backing track to this epic performance. On the diagonal, Meadow picks up speed again, her strong muscles rippling under her copper colored coat. The thousand pound being reaches a speed of forty-five miles an hour, accelerating until the opposite corner, where she performs another perfect stop followed by a roll back. There is not a speck of hesitation or doubt, nor any sign of fatigue, despite a sequential series of maneuvers. 

     After a third stop, she has executed the mandatory patterns, and all that’s left is to go out with a bang. Y/N sends Meadow into one final spin, the tremendous momentum having her dizzy. The sheer power radiating from under her only heightens the high the cowgirl is experiencing, the adrenaline coursing through her veins with the same speed as her horse is turning. After the rapid pirouettes, Meadow breaks off the maneuver on cue in the dead center of the arena, facing the judges. The cheering and whistling crowd almost overrules the dying sound of the guitar strings that are the last notes of the freestyle. Unable to comprehend what just happened, Y/N drops the reins, spreads her arms and folds them around her horse’s neck. Overcome with emotion she hugs her four-legged friend, without words thanking her for the ride of her life.

      Only then the cowgirl realizes the roar coming from the spectators, many of them having risen to their feet. As the commentator praises her performance, she circles Meadow back toward the exit of the ring, waving at the enthusiastic kids on the first row. In that four minute run, Y/N and Meadow have stolen the hearts of everyone who is here to witness the definition of horsemanship. She can’t stop herself from smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt while her horse walks along the bleachers, the mare looking at the applauding audience, seeming to understand that it’s for her. 

     As they approach the gate, the rider hears one girl squeal above all others. Y/N hasn’t even looked in the direction of where the sound came from, but she already knows it’s Jo. Dancing on her feet in absolute delight, she meets her by the fence and high fives her best friend.      “God damn, Sis! You rocked out there!” she exclaims, patting Meadow on her neck as well.

     Y/N laughs full heartedly at her giddy friend, the ecstasy of her perfect run still in full effect. But when her gaze meets Dean’s, that happiness becomes overwhelming. The handsome cowboy is waiting for her, just like he promised. Gleaming eyes match his sly smirk, but there’s more to the expression, sentiment swimming in his emerald greens. The sight of him breaks something inside of her, and she’s unable to keep the tears at bay.

     It’s then that Meadow halts, and just outside of the main arena, Dean steps towards his girl and pulls her into a hug. With her left hand still holding the reins, Y/N embraces the man who she owes so much gratitude. After all, if it wasn’t for him, the freestyle wouldn’t have turned out remotely as good, not to mention that the stress would have done her in. Today he was more than just a trainer or her boyfriend. He was the anchor that kept her grounded, the rock that wouldn’t budge when the waves crashed against her, and the sign that she needed to get out of the maze of self-doubt.      She can feel Dean nuzzle his nose into her hair. “I’m so damn proud of you,” he whispers, words only meant for her to hear.      Moved by his words, she hugs him a little tighter before she lets him go and wipes away her happy tears. A smile that reaches his ears is still there when she pulls herself together again.      “She - she was absolutely amazing,” Y/N stammers, combing her fingers through Meadow’s mane. “The feeling she gave me… I can’t explain it. It was like we were flying.”      “That’s because you were, Amelia Earhart,” Jo quips, clearly over the moon for her friend. “Want me to cool Meadow down so you can wait here for your score?”

     Y/N nods, feeling her horse’s flanks expand rather rapidly every time the large animal inhales; she really gave it her everything. Once the cowgirl has both feet planted on solid ground, she scratches the mare’s favorite spot behind her ear, facing the beautiful Quarter. Meadow presses her large head against her owner’s chest, more to get rid of an itch than to return the love, making her human giggle. Then the rider hands over the reins to Jo, who takes the bay horse away from the commotion. 

     Still stunned, Y/N takes another breath, glancing back into the arena. “Did they call the points yet?”      Dean comes to stand next to her, gazing at the board in the corner, above the bleachers. “No, I didn’t hear anything.”      With her hands placed on her waist, she breathes in, trying to ignore her stomach, which begins to do backflips again. This time, there is not much she can do to influence the outcome, however. Meadow did the best she could and she didn’t make a single mistake; Y/N couldn’t have wished for more. But the new freestyle hasn’t been graded yet, so how the judges will reward the music and the degree of difficulty is still a mystery. The rider tries to tell herself that no matter what number will appear on the screen, she’s satisfied with today’s performance. But as seconds tick by, the suspense builds and eats at her composure.

     She can feel Dean’s hand on the small of her back, fingertips tracing soft, calming circles. The motion helps her to pull her gaze away from the digital board, and she glances at the man by her side. Focusing on him has worked so far, so as the tension rises, she tries that tactic again. The world around her stops, her own breathing the only sound she hears, Dean’s touch the only sensation she feels. For a moment, time slows down. But when her trainer’s eyes widen and his jaw falls slack in disbelief, she’s almost too afraid to look at the definite white numbers that can make or break her evening.

     It’s only when the crowd erupts that she dares to face the verdict, and what she witnesses, triggers her to clasp her hand over her mouth. Completely stunned, her eyes stay locked on the score, convinced that if she blinks, the numbers will change. She barely registers her boyfriend letting out a cheer, pumping his fists into the air and bouncing on his feet like a little kid. Her view is obstructed when strong arms wrap around her middle and lift her off the ground, but when her gaze locks on the display again, it still tells the same story of victory.

     220.5 points.

     Unknowingly, she holds her breath, her heart still beating against her chest so wildly, that her cowboy must be able to feel it too. It’s not just a personal best; it tops her old record by three whole points. She broke through the two-twenties, something she only ever dreamed of accomplishing, yet here she is. Shutting her eyes, her thoughts go out to her grandfather, realizing that she has done her guardian angel proud once more.

     Dean must have sensed that she got lost in her own head, because he brings her back down from the heavens to their world with a gentle touch upon her cheek. He wipes a stray tear away with the pad of his thumb and takes off her hat, looking at her with so much adoration. His hand slips to the nape of her neck, his forehead bowing to gently rest against hers. Radiant light touches everything in reach, leaving what’s behind them in darkness, together with all the worries and fears. The audience doesn’t seem to be applauding the high score anymore, the wolf whistles and bellows of encouragement instead directed at the couple in the spotlight. Dean didn’t need any more motivation, his lips encasing hers in a soft kiss. 

     Closing her eyes, she cherishes the moment and smiles against his mouth when Dean uses her cowboy hat to shield them away from all the extra attention. It is in this instance the equestrian realizes something; out of all the rides that she experienced, either in the saddle or in life, this is the one that will go down in memory.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part twenty-tree here

[mangolover]

Hi! Can I request prompt 10 with Kaeya from genshim impact? Gender neutral. Thank you!

Hey, thank you so much for requesting for the event. You’re the first one that got their request done (mostly because I main this man and love him and love thinking about all the posibble ways he could be a villain)

I actually got inspiration for this during my online class and wrote in my notebook so I have no idea how gramatically correct everything is (english is not even close to my native language)

Anyways, here is your request, I really hope you enjoy it!

50 Followers Drabble Event, prompt #10 with Kaeya 

If you wish to check out the offical “50 Followers Drabble Event”, press here

Title: Sketch Worth a Toast

Prompt:  “Cheers, I’ll drink to that.” “You drink to everything.” “Cheers!”

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Kaeya x gn! reader

Genre: Fluff (kinda)

Warnings: consumption of alcohol

Spoilers: from some of his basic voice lines (his favourite drink)

Word Count: 600+

Description: You made a quick sketch of your boyfriend from your memory today while you were on a break from your research with Albedo and your boyfriend thinks it’s the perfect opportunity for a toast.

As stated in the story, reader is assumed to be of legal drinking age so the relationship is completely legal

Also I am aware that drabble is supposed to be under 100 words, but I consider it to be under 1000 words

Sketch Worth a Toast

You just entered Angel’s Share with a piece of paper folded in half in one of your hands and was greeted by the owner Diluc, your friend and your boyfriend’s brother.

“Hey Diluc, I’ll take the- “

“The usual?” Diluc said and lifted his gaze from the glass he was polishing, “you know where to find him. I’ll bring you your apple cider vinegar shortly.”

“Thank you Diluc, you’re amazing!” You said and smiled to the handsome redhead before making your way to the far corner of the tavern where your boyfriend was drinking some Death After Noon. He was currently drinking and charming some gentlemen, probably trying to get some information from them. You waited for a moment before his blue eye caught the sight of you. In an instant there was a smile, charming as ever, on his face and he lifted his hand to wave you over. You made your way to him and greeted the gentlemen, only for them to quickly excuse themselves so they don’t interrupt your date.

“Sorry for interfering with your work,” you said and gave Kaeya an apologetic look, your lips formed into a small frown.

“Don’t worry about it dear,” he put an arm around your waist since you sat next to him, “I already found out everything I wanted.”

“Oh, that’s good then” a smile finally formed on your lips and that earned you a quick peck on the top of your head.

You talked a bit about Kaeya’s day before he finally pointed with his chin at the paper in your hands, asking what it is.

“Oh this? This is just some quick sketch I did with Albedo today when we took a little break from researching.”

“Can I see it?”

“Of course! That’s why I brought it with me!” A wide smile was now resting on your face as you handed the sketch to him. He gently unfolded it and glanced at it.

“I finally learned how to draw facial features anatomically correct, Albedo said I’m improving in both alchemy and drawing” there was clear pride in your voice, you were proud of yourself because you received compliment from your superior that you highly respected and that made Kaeya smile with pure happiness and affection for you. But he could clearly see that you’ve sketched him from your memory and that made his blue-lilac eye shine with pride.

“You know what, this deserves a celebration.” This left you a bit taken aback. And you only found your voice when Diluc came and left your apple cider vinegar with a straw (because you loved drinking it like that) at your table. You quickly thanked him and he just nodded. You were legally allowed to drink alcohol, you just preferred to stay sober in case Kaeya went overboard with his strong wine.

“So, shall we toast to this accomplishment?” Kaeya lifted his glass full of wine in the air and looked at you with a smirk on his face, his other hand found it’s way around your shoulders and you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks.

“You’re proposing a toast because I learned how to draw faces and Albedo said I’m improving?” You lifted an eyebrow and gave him a quizzical look. You knew that he was a laid-back person that liked to have fun, but this was a bit ridiculous.

“Cheers, I’ll drink to that.”

“You drink to everything.”

“Cheers!” Kaeya let out a small chuckle and you couldn’t help but raise your beverage up to his and clicking the glasses softly. It may have been ridiculous to toast to something so random, but it was important to Kaeya because it was important to you.

And just like that, you two decided to be ridiculous together as you let laughter spill from you and toasted to every small, but important thing to either of you.

[astoldbygingersnaps]

Harper’s 2020 Fic Wrap-Up

my very good friend and incredibly talented felow writer @sagemoderocklee came up with the idea of doing an end of the year fic wrapup in an attempt to polish the turd known as 2020, and since i actually managed to get some writing done this year i figured, why not jump on the bandwagon? 

a lot of super duper fucking shitty things happened in 2020, but i will always be proud that in this incredibly chaotic, stressful, and challenging year i managed to produce almost 180k of content (and that’s not even counting the writing i started in 2020 but haven’t published yet). so, to celebrate what’s been a pretty big achievement for me, i wanted to go through the various projects i’ve spent the last twelve months working on and give a preview of my plans for 2021.

let’s jump in!

projects i worked on/completed in 2020:

first off, let’s start with the beast to end all beasts, my personal baby, and honestly probably the reason most people follow me -- star trek au:

something bigger than the sky (shiita; 44,163 words; completed): 

i’ve said this before, but the whole idea for star trek au was literally just a joke between me and my-then girlfriend, now-fiancee, and eternal shiita enabler alexa aka @durintrash (by the way, if you follow me for my fics and you DON’T follow alexa for her corresponding art WHAT, exactly, are you doing with your life????) where i sat in a space-themed diner and said ‘haha imagine itachi as a vulcan.’ but then i blinked and suddenly somehow i’d written the prologue and the first chapter of SBTTS in the span of a week. it’s like i was possessed by a fanfic demon.

it sounds super cheesy but i honestly can’t say enough how important this fic has been to me and how much it’s pushed me to be a more productive and more dedicated writer. previously i spent a lot of time Thinking about writing and occasionally i’d put a few words on the page and then i’d go... do... something... else. but star trek au was the first idea i loved enough that it actually pushed me to write and keep writing and not give up even when i was confronted with things like writer’s block and worry over the quality of my writing. so thank you, star trek au, for being the light in a very dark year for me. 

by the end of SBTTS, i felt like i accomplished everything i wanted to do with the story’s beginning installment: i introduced all the characters and set the groundwork for their development; i showed what life on the corvus was like and how starfleet, the federation, and the universe functioned; and, more than anything, i was able to sketch out both the main protagonists -- itachi and shisui -- with all their strengths and flaws, show their relationship to one another, and hint at how that relationship would progress. 

all the stars are closer (shiita; 75,195 words; completed)

considering how slow i used to be at writing, i thought it would be, like, twelve years before i managed to get to the second part in the series. BUT then covid happened and i half-lost, half-quit my job, and like a lot of people this year i ended up with a lot of free time on my hands. and so, like a fucking demon, i finished this part in two and a half months. 

when i originally planned this part out, i really thought it would be a lot shorter and a lot lighter atmosphere-wise than it turned out. instead, this second section of the story ended up being pretty meaty in terms of length and in subject.

that said, overall, i’m really happy with how ATSAC turned out. i loved the way the characters progressed, how the relationships deepened, and how we were able to see this universe grow bigger and more complicated. and i’m very satisifed with how it set the stage for part three, which takes us to...

lovers alone wear sunlight (shiita; 41,518 words; in progress)

there’s... a lot about this part that i just can’t talk about yet, a) because it isn’t finished and b) because it contains some of the biggest plot points in the entire series thus far. if you’ve been keeping up with the stardates thus far (which i encourage you to do!) you know what part three is leading up to: itachi leaving the corvus and the dissolution of shisui and itachi’s growing relationship. 

with that in mind, i’m... more than a little terrified about writing part three, which is why the third chapter has been languishing in my google drive for months now. (and also why i started not one, but TWO new fics to cope with my writer’s block. whoops.) chapter three is where all the parts come together and shit hits the fan, and i can only hope that everyone will be as excited to read it as i am to publish it. 

next up, the two other projects i began this year:

salvation comes only in our dreams (shiita; canon divergence; 16,835 words; in progress)

for a long time, i’ve wanted to write something that’s actually set in the naruto universe and works to correct a lot of the flaws that i see in the series. there are a lot of things that bother me about naruto, but i think one of the things that frustrates me the most is the really messy and in some ways offensive resolution to the uchiha coup plot thread, and i wanted to write a story that dealt with the complicated themes of the series--imperialism, oppression, genocide, child soldiers--but, like, didn’t suck and completely drop the ball. thus, the massacre au was born. 

my main goal was to tell a story that showed a lot of these characters in ways we’ve never seen them before, specifically itachi. i didn’t want to write itachi as just an idealist who suffers and Suffers AND SUFFERS for konoha yet still remains loyal to the village for some unfathomable reason like he is in the series. i wanted to write an itachi that was sharper, more jaded, and more suspicious of the world around him, but overall was still a good person with a kind heart. and for shisui, well... obviously there’s a lot going on there, too. 

this is easily the darkest story i’ve ever written, and as the plot thickens it will certainly get darker with relationship dynamics that are complicated and unhealthy At Best. i hope that as the story goes on it’s a ride people continue to enjoy, as i was super pleasantly surprised at how popular this fic became (compared to my usual stats, at least) 

oceans between us (shiita; alternate universe; 15,039 words; in progress)

it’s good to know that i continue to be the most ridiculously niche version of myself as yes, i wrote a fucking shiita atonement au. 

with each fic i write i try to have a very specific voice that suits the particular piece and distinguishes it from other stories that include the same characters. for example, star trek au chapters tend to be more fun and light-hearted (especially shisui POV chapters) and lean more into the action movie and sci-fi adventure feel of the star trek universe, while the massacre au is written in a way that’s much heavier and guided by itachi’s emotions and experiences. my main goal with this story was to give it the same romantic, operatic, almost hazy quality that the movie has, which reflects the period setting and also the nature of this grand tragic love story. 

i knew from the beginning that there were going to be a lot of things that i cut from the film in my retelling, like the lola subplot and obviously the setting of pre-wwii england. i also knew i wanted to explore some of the aspects of the film that were implied more than outright stated, like the themes of classism and upper-class privileges. and more than anything i wanted to structure this piece around this idea of tension building and building until it finally snaps and there’s just a world of mess and hurt and loss that affects these two characters in two very different ways. 

also, the sex scene. i haven’t written a sex scene for anything in, like, a decade, so that was a lot of pressure. but i’m happy with how it came out and i think it ended up being an aspect of the story that felt like both a natural progression and necessary to show the affection these two people have for one another.

originally i was just going to end the story with shisui going to jail, but when i told alexa this i genuinely thought she was going to kill me. so, that didn’t happen lmao. but the more i tried to imagine what a second chapter would look like, the more i realized she was right, and it would have been a terrible idea to end the fic there. as for whether or not the final chapter will keep That Ending... who can say?

goals i have for 2021:

finishing lovers alone wear sunlight and, if i’m very lucky, beginning the fourth and second to last part of star trek au (yes, as it currently stands this 160k+ word series is only halfway finished. sorry not sorry)

publishing the next chapter of salvation comes only in our dreams (i don’t know when it will drop. i don’t know anything about this fic. please do not @ me) 

completing oceans between us (the second and final chapter is currently sitting at about 4k words and will probably end up at about 15k in total)

completing and publishing a new fic i’ve started at the very end of 2020, which is the shiita jurassic world au nobody but me and alexa knew they wanted. it’s essentially a 90s romcom with dinosaurs and i cannot Wait to share it. (it’s at about 9k right now and will probably end up being around 20k to 23k in total... maybe...)

FINALLY starting my dream project: the shiita olympics au i’ve been planning for years, where itachi is a figure skater and shisui is a hockey player (i’d like to keep this under 150k but at this point trying to keep my stories at a managable word count is a losing battle)

anyway, that’s it! if you managed to get this far in this very self-indulgent and shameless bit of self promotion, congrats! also, a very big thank you to everyone who’s read my fics, left me kudos and comments, and spent their time on my work, because it really does mean the world to me. 

here’s hoping 2021 is a much healthier and happier year for us all! 

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

How do you like NaNo so far?

Okay tea! It’s going okay! Honestly, it’s not going as well as I expected but also going... better than I expected (simultaneously lol)!

I’ve been tracking a LOT of things, so on my MyWriteClub, I track if I’ve written that day (I’ve written 12/19 days of the month so far), and I’ve also been tracking on NaNoWriMo’s website (I’ve written just over 4300 words this month). This is a pretty solid streak, and I’ve definitely been writing WAY more often than I usually do, and enjoying it WAY more because of where I’m at in the book.

Y’all, I gotta say it... I love Feeding Habits. I’ve got a huge, huge problem with writing a book, loving it, then feeling embarrassed by it after a few weeks of finishing it, and with Feeding Habits, I’ve been extra hard on it. It’s not that I feel embarrassed by it like I do Moth Work (this is a whole other issue), it’s just been two moods: grueling to write, or magnificent. Most of the time, it’s been grueling, and I have a really hard time not enjoying drafting because it’s my favourite thing about writing and so that affects my mental health, etc, etc. So when I, in this moment, am saying I love Feeding Habits, I just want myself to fully, 100% feel this way, because I know, with the last few books I’ve written, it doesn’t last (not to be pessimistic, but to be grateful for where I am).

NaNo is actually not all that different to me usually writing proces. I actually always think about writing every day, it’s just about 1/7 days a week I may actually do it, more if I’m in a good patch. I can’t give NaNo full credit for my productivity, however. I am in a really great place in Feeding Habits right now, and NaNo occurred right at the start of that, so it was really coincidence and timing that I’m currently doing okay in the book, and therefore, able to produce. I’ve mentioned that I just can’t write when I’m mentally unwell, and that not writing furthers that mental unwellness and so I’m really, really happy with how this month is going with writing right now. I don’t feel heavy, I feel I’ve written a lot of great (and very gay <3) stuff, and I’m so pleased.

I am only tracking NaNo progress for Feeding Habits specifically because I wanted to put more attention on it, and I definitely think it has been successful in that regard! I’ve been doing tons of other writing though, either for classes, or personal stuff (do not ask me how submitting a poem at 11:59pm on the day of the deadline went hahaha), so I feel like I’m... thriving??

Excerpts from Feeding Habits stuff I’ve been working on recently under the cut!

This is the boys’ first ever conversation in months and in the book:

A canoe-rental kiosk ruching the Hudson River. Harrison pays for a two-hour time slot with the last of his savings and lugs it to the shoreline by himself. It is nearly midnight, the sky clogged with fog and moonlight.

Lonan will not enter the water. Back near the kiosk, he fiddles with a beachstone, bathing in tungsten from the streetlamp above him. He gave no reason for his rejection, just picked stones as they walked along the boardwalk, through the parking lot, to the kiosk. As if he’d polish them, feed them through a rock tumbler as if he has patience for that, tend to them like infants, shape, polish, burnish, sell them for thirty dollars a piece and donate the money, as if has the mind to.

Harrison shifts the canoe perpendicular to the water and steps in. The boat cranks under his weight, its coldness seeping through his jeans.

Lonan stoops for more stones. His knees luminescing in white sand. His hair oilslick, cropped to his scalp like blunt grass. His fingers arrowing through sand, a raven filching seed. He unearths the stones with urgency, a paleontologist, a gravedigger.

“You’ll never make a sale on those,” Harrison shouts from the canoe. His voice splinters the night and puffs with the sand.

Lonan nearly drops his handful of stones. It takes him a moment to look up, and when he does, he searches the treeline first, the windows of a parked SUV, the gaps between a thicket of lifejackets before reaching Harrison, and he’s so deerlike, Harrison thinks, he’s so limp, so feeble, so susceptible. His hair jutting briefly from his scalp like an accordion, badly cut probably because Eliza likes it that way. His skin nearly lilac in places, a gauntness in his face, a hunger.

“My mother tells me you like her cooking,” he continues. “That you’re here for your sister. That you’re here alone.”

Lonan reaches for another stone.

“Eliza wants you to look like a deacon.” Harrison frills a hand toward his hair, snaps his fingers like scissors. “So holy. I could ordain you right now. Make you born-again. There’s so much water.”

“I don’t swim,” Lonan says. He reaches for another stone, then another so his palms turn into one.

“You don’t? You’re a land mammal. Rhinoceros. Hippopotamus. Is it the stones? You’re afraid they’ll sink you?”

CANOE SHENANIGANS (#BOYSINABOAT):

Harrison shuffles forward until their knees touch. He reaches. He makes contact. He touches his skin. He touches his ear. He touches cheek. He touches eyes, fingerprints his irises, wrings the tears from his eyelashes, pulls his face by the jaw, cradling his land mammal. He is crying. They should both cry. They are both crying. Their own lake puddling in Harrison’s palm. Theirs as Harrison dips his free hand into the water. Theirs as he hushes Lonan’s writhing. Theirs as he christens him, the water gorging his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Theirs as he promises it will be okay. Theirs as he says he will get to know this stranger. Theirs as they promise to both regrow. Theirs as Harrison jerks the canoe. Theirs as they capsize. Theirs as they reunite in fizzing tide, caught in the river, both animals trapped in amber.

Some context for this next excerpt: Lonan and Harrison get into shenanigans the night before, Harrison ~robs Lonan, abandons him, and yeets himself to the barn mentioned in chapter six where he falls asleep for the night. Here, he wakes up at dawn and is coming up with an excuse to explain why he’s there early to the homeowners. He decides, since they hired him to fix up their barn, he’ll just say he was trying to be a good worker:

Harrison fixes himself in the reflection of an overturned wheelbarrow, its silver belly clouded with rust. He exists the barn dry, well-rested, a richer, more fashionable man.

Before he even finishes ascending the veranda of the Harvey house, Sharleen opens the door. Her white hair is pearled into a bun. She wears a paisley patterned apron, chartreuse.

“Raspberry danishes,” Harrison says. “All I wanted was to bring you some fresh raspberry danishes, but all the bakeries were closed.”

Sharleen rolls up her sleeves. Her hands are caked with flour and fat.

“I considered tulips, but realized I’ve never asked for your favourite flower. Is it tulips? Hydrangeas? Chrysanthemums?”

Sharleen juts open the screen door and holds it open for him. He enters the foyer, and it smells like cinnamon, like sugar.

“I’ve heard marigolds are helpful for warding off squirrels,” he says, taking the hand she offers for his jacket. Sharleen doesn’t jump when he runs his finger across her wedding band and pecks her knuckles with his mouth. She doesn’t even speak. “Is that true?” as they usher toward the kitchen. “Pretty and purposeful. Sounds fake.”

Sharleen dusts her hands on her apron and jars open the kitchen door.

“Could be a double whammy. Or a scam. Or an old wives’ tale,” Harrison says as they walk into the kitchen, so occupied with the marigolds he does not notice when Sharleen returns to the stove to flip a pancake, so occupied, when he turns to the kitchen table, expecting only Harvey but seeing Lonan, all he says is, “Sounds too good to be true.”

The embarrassing aftermath of that lmfao :)

Harrison eats his pancakes on the porch. The Harveys’ dog joins him, a golden retriever named Leila. He cuts her a rift of cake and slots it into her mouth when she whines. One bite for him, another for Leila. Him, Leila, him, Leila. The good news is since he fixed their coffee machine, he now drinks drip.

It does not take long for Lonan to follow him outside. Harrison’s known this was inevitable and has dreaded the last five minutes because of it. He slits another triangle of pancake and feeds it to the dog.

It’s too cold to be out without a jacket. Wind nips Harrison’s ears and icicles his fingertips. Lonan’s shirt, the pale blue button-up he nabbed knowing he’d have cash, brays under the breeze, barely denser than a tissue.

So, after Harrison knocks them into the water (lol), this happens. My favourite description of Lonan: grass, and speck. (TW murder-y??):

“Pull me under,” Lonan said, spitting water, his voice grating under pressure. He trembled, his limbs his betrayal, tremoloing in the waves.

And Harrison did. Dousing him by the shoulders and holding him under so only he floated in the miniscule gap of air, Lonan a sunken, thrashing speck. It was thrilling, holding a body in his hands, determining its fate. And equally as thrilling to hold it as he lulled Lonan back up and over his shoulder where he deflated, gasping. At first Lonan coughed, once twice, heaving saltwater and saliva. But then a birdlike sound, compact but jittering, the wisp of a laugh, and Harrison couldn’t help but wonder if he was thrilled, too

“Do you feel accomplished, Harrison?” Lonan asked, his teeth prattling like an accordion. His hand trailed up the tail of his jacket, scrawling along the soaked leather. Lonan shifted, his body dead weight nearly drowned. And there was the sound again, chirping, “You’re not the first person who’s tried to kill me this year. Congratulations.”

So the tea is that Harrison robs Lonan by swapping shirts with him (tea tea tea), so here’s that scene where they re-swap and Harrison pesters Lonan about not marrying Eliza:

“Why won’t you marry her?” Harrison asks. “You could have children. A honeymoon.”

Lonan stuffs his free hand into his pocket. His breath fogs with every exhale, his nose pinkish with cold. Harrison doesn’t feel any of it, the breath, the cold, his hands. He doesn’t move to button up his flannel. He doesn’t want to move.

“You’re going back to her. You’re here to check on Reeve, and then you’re going back. To get married. To have children. To honeymoon forever.”

Lonan’s hair is awful. Spoking from his scalp like a raven’s wings, some sections ragged, uneven. Not a haircut, but punishment.

“You’re perfect,” Harrison says. He should being shivering, be freezing, but he feels nothing. “Why can’t you say you’re perfect?”

Lonan moves first. They could reabsorb. Go back to blue. But he only reaches for the flannel with his free hand and drapes it around Harrison’s shoulders. Arm by arm, slotting them through the sleeves. Button by button, securing it up his abdomen, his chest, right up to his throat. If Harrison looks closely, one of his eyes is rimmed with scarlet, like a vessel there popped, and a pool of lilac simmers, almost undetectable, across his temple.

“You could’ve married her,” Harrison says. His voice has dropped to a whisper. Lonan swings his jacket around his shoulders, securing his arms through each loop of leather, one, two. Zipping so his exposed skin may rewarm.

“I need to take you home,” Lonan says. Lonan with the broken eye. Lonan with the blackberry skin. Lonan with the teeth-shorn shirt. Lonan with the mowed hair. Lonan with the burned palms. Lonan with the wedding ring that was never really a wedding ring. Lonan who looks as if he’s always prepared to blink, just in case something comes out to get him.

(lonan’s dialogue IS SO SOFT gay PINING said WHOMST i did i am whomst)

god i want to share more but I need to save stuff for the writing update, here’s one MORE THEN I AM GONE:

Harrison sleeps in the car on his way back and doesn’t wake until the next day. In that time, Suzanna slots takeout boxes through the unrolled window, three full meals: sweet corn and tomato fusilli, beef stifado, meatless cassoulet. What she doesn’t know is they sit, untouched, under the passenger’s seat, not because Lonan is averted by her cooking, but because he’s saving them to share, just in case. She brings a vacuum sealed bag of extra comforters the first evening when flurries dot the windshield, Harrison is swathed in them all by the time the snow reaches half an inch. One lined with Sherpa closest to his skin when he stirs, the bulbs of fabric like cottage cheese. In the time he’s in the car he dreams. Of driving into the ocean. Of haircuts. Marriage.

OK BYE

[nya-minister]

[Fic] Second Declension

“Er... I don’t think the Prime Minister’s got as far as the second declension...” - Bernard, in “The National Education Service”

Jim tries to prove he's not a philistine, for the noble purpose of getting in Humphrey's pants. [1704 words]

(With apologies to anyone who actually speaks Latin, because I do not!)

It was late on a Wednesday, and Jim Hacker had just made the dreadful mistake of misusing a Latin idiom. At least, he thought it was an idiom.

Bernard's eyes lit up, as they always did when an opportunity to talk about linguistics presented itself, and indeed, often when it didn't.

"Ah, actually Prime Minister, I believe you meant to say a posteriori evidence, not a priori. You see, a priori evidence relies on axiomatic truths - it is of course a latin phrase, meaning 'from the earlier', while a posteriori, which in Latin means "from the later", describes evidence derived from empirical evidence. Now, in Latin, this..." the young man barely seemed to take a breath, and Jim decided he ought to cut in to stop him from suffocating.

"Alright! Alright. Yes, thank you Bernard, very informative. Now, moving on, the matter of the-" he stopped himself. "Actually, Bernard..."

"Yes, Prime Minister?

"You know, I've been thinking. I really ought to- Well, I would like to- ...could you teach me some Latin?"

"Ah. Why, certainly, Prime Minister!" A slightly cheeky expression crossed Bernard's face. "Never too late to begin one's educat- Er. Sorry... What did you have in mind?"

"Have in mind?"

"Well, er, what did you plan to use it for?"

"Use it for! Right, of course."

A series of concerned expressions played across Jim's face as he considered the question. In truth, he was planning to use it to seduce Bernard's boss, but he couldn't very well say that. Really, this was Humphrey's fault for being so bloody difficult.

For the last few weeks, he and the Cabinet Secretary had been involved in some sort of romantic entanglement. Probably. At least, Jim was fairly confident. They had kissed (briefly) and had sex (somewhat less briefly) and done all manner of things which would imply the presence of a romantic relationship, but apparently not confirm it. Perhaps it was really only sex, just a relief of tension, but that thought didn't sit right with Jim. There was something so delicate and vulnerable about the way Humphrey laid his head on Jim's shoulder, pressing their bodies together in that perfect moment between climax and his almost immediate pivot into a lecture about commercial zoning laws.

Since then, Jim had been trying to charm him into opening up. His usual tactics (dreadful pickup lines and a winning smile) had failed, but perhaps Humphrey needed something a little more intellectual. Thus, Jim had formulated a plan to take him out to dinner and dazzle him with wit... or at least, something smutty that also proved he could, in fact, speak Latin at a third grade level.

"Er... Prime Minister?"

"I'm sorry, what was the question? Ah- right, yes, well. I was just curious. That's all. And the leader of the country ought to know these things."

"Well then, I would be glad to indulge your curiosity! Shall we start with basic grammar?"

"Right, yes, grammar. That shouldn't be so bad."

"Now, as I'm sure you recall, Latin is a highly inflected language. This allows for a more flexible sentence structure, but also requires that words be modified according to various factors, such as their case - that is, their function in a sentence. Now, there are six cases in Latin, which are: the Nominative - the subject, the Genitive - possessive, or to express an object that is "of" something, the Dative - the indirect object, the Accusative - the direct object, the Ablative-"  "Prime Minister? Is everything alright?"

Jim narrowed his eyes.

"Bernard... do you think you could give me a sort of... executive summary of all that, perhaps?"

"Ah, well, I think it all boils down to Latin being a highly inflected language, which allows for a more flexible sentence structure, but also requires that words be modified according to various factors, such as..."

"Yes, I see." Jim said, in his most scholarly tone of voice. "Right."

"Erm, Prime Minister, if I may be so bold as to ask. This wouldn't have anything to do with Sir Humphrey, would it?"

"Humphrey?!" Jim's eyes went wide in panic. Was Bernard wise to his scheme? How could he have figured out- "Oh, because of our little tiff over Latin in schools! No, no, no. Well, Bernard, if you must know, it's my wife's anniversary - er, our anniversary - next weekend, and, well, I thought she might find it charming if I were to... In another language, that is."

"Oh... Oh! In that case, you have nothing to worry about. Your anniversary isn't for another eight months."

"It is? Wait, how do you know that?"

"Well, I marked it in your diary. You do remember a few years back, when we had you double booked - or triple booked, in fact, and, well, I thought it was better we didn't repeat that disaster."

"Yes, yes, alright. I can see what you mean."

"But if you did want to learn how to say something, erm, romantic."

"Yes?"

Jim took out a little notebook and started scratching at it in shorthand.

"And, erm, Bernard, how would you say..." Jim wasn't quite sure he could say it out loud, so he made an obscene gesture with his hands, which on mature reflection was certainly far worse.

"Oh! Oh, my. I think Sir H-Mrs. Hacker"

"Mrs. Hacker." Jim corrected sternly.

"Yes, well, she would be. Um. Well, it's rather a complicated question - you see, in Latin, and indeed Greek, when proposing sexual acts, one's choice of word often depends on the gender of the parties involved and on whether the speaker is in the, erm, active or passive role. Even this component is not entirely cut and dry, as these acts are, on a grammatical level, handled quite differently to their english-language counterparts. Irrumare, which is a passive verb in English - that is to receive fellatio, is in fact an active verb in Latin - something which one actively does. Of course, one would typically use some degree of innuendo while discussing such topics, and Latin has a wide array of interesting options, which, as in most languages, evolved over time such that ordinarily innocent words acquired sexual connotations. As a rather amusing anecdote, officium, which can be loosely translated as "duty" or "service", though it also refers to "office" - that is, a political office - gained the connotation of pathic behavior - which means that the latin term for permanent undersecretary - princeps officii - sounds rather like-"

"Yes, thank you Bernard! That will be all!" Jim said, still reeling from the apparent depth and breadth of Bernard's sexual vocabulary. "Erm... Do you have a dictionary I can borrow? I think I shall figure the rest of it out on my own."

"Oh, of course." he said, pulling out a gigantic tome that looked old enough to have been penned by a native speaker.

Jim sighed, and got to work.

***

It was easy enough to get the Cabinet Secretary to dinner. He loved a good meal at an expensive restaurant, especially when someone else was paying. Plus, they had plenty of work matters to discuss, and that was before they even began to address their impossible-to-define pseudo-romance nonsense. Humphrey's true intentions were hard to read even without bringing something as perplexing as romance into the mixture, so it was little wonder that Jim never knew whether he was coming or going. He rather hoped tonight it would be the former.

This evening, Humphrey was dressed in a very sharp three-piece ensemble with a purple tie and matching pocket square and his hair coiffed just so. He looked terribly handsome, and Jim briefly entertained the thought that perhaps Humphrey had dressed up for his sake. He smiled at the idea, even though it probably wasn't true.

Owing to the possibility of official secrets being discussed, and simply to their stature, they were seated in a closed off area of the restaurant, out of sight and earshot of the other patrons. Discretion was still of the utmost importance, but even if it weren't, Humphrey would still have gone on about the most mundane of topics for the first hour or so. It was always an heroic effort to get him onto casual conversation.

By the time they polished off the main course, Humphrey's posture had relaxed ever so slightly, and Jim - who was by this point a couple of drinkies in - seized his chance.

Humphrey's eyes went wide, and for a moment, he was speechless.

"I... Good Lord... Latin?" he stammered out, a sweet little flush colouring his cheeks. A curl of his hair seemed to jump out of place of its own volition. Mission accomplished!

"Yes it is!" he giggled. "Bet you didn't expect that!"

"No, I certainly did not... And neither would the Romans. his voice dropped almost to a whisper, "Make would go...." his voice dropped almost to a whisper "insert?" Is that supposed to be something vulgar?"

"O... oh, dear. I must have gotten my declensions mixed up. I thought I had it down. Where are my notes?"

"Notes?!"

"Well, you see, it was my first time learning a language, and the... In English, it was supposed to be- ah, I'll tell you later. Here comes dessert."

Humphrey found a sudden fascination with his pastry, while Jim was left to stew in silence.

Finally, Humphrey looked up.

"Right, well. We'll not be having any more of that nonsense, Prime Minister."

"No, no... Of course not. I apologize."

"As you should. A most dreadful butchery of the language. Besides. I think a more appropriate phrase would be..."

Humphrey said something in Latin, and Jim nodded sagely in the hopes that it would look like he understood it.

"And, of course, in English, that would be..."

Humphrey glanced furtively to his left and right, then leaned in, close enough that his lips were almost touching Jim's neck. Then, he whispered something quite unexpected.

"Oh, my, Humphrey!" Jim said, far louder than he intended, then quickly silenced himself. "With... with me?" he mouthed, "Tonight?"

Humphrey seemed to drink in the sight of Jim floundering, a predatory light gleaming in his dark brown eyes. He smiled, in an infuriatingly self-satisfied manner, which was unfortunately also very attractive.

"Ita vero, Prime Minister." 

================================================

================================================

Notes:

Clearly I don’t speak Latin, so any jokes at Jim’s expense are also at my own. That said, I did a lot of googling for this, and so, some fun facts: it turns out there isn’t a word for “yes” (or no) in Latin, though “Ita vero” (closer to “indeed” or “certainly”) is commonly used. Humphrey’s classic “yes and no” answer would probably be translated as “Sic et non” ([it is] thus and [it is] not). At least... I think so. If anyone reads this, please do send me corrections!

Regarding Bernard’s speech about smutty Latin: ever since his fabulous “Oh, could we! [subsidize sex]” line, I’ve headcanoned him as a bit of a quiet achiever in that department. He knows exactly what his bosses are up to, and could probably save them months of romantic angst and mutual pining with a couple of off the cuff remarks. The officium/officii/officiosi thing relies on my incredibly shaky understanding of grammar, and from this passage I found in a book from the 80s about smutty latin slang:

(Pathic/patientia is an old-fashioned way of saying “bottom/bottoming”.)

[cloud9consultive]

Mystery Pickup Artist: Mystery Method 2021 (How To Pick Up Women)

Here’s a list of 10 key components in the Mystery Method updated for 2021:

1) NIGHT GAME: The Mystery Method is primarily focused on picking up women in bars and nightclubs.

If you would like to meet party girls or young women, bars, nightclubs, gentlemen’s clubs, and hangouts around universities are perfect.

Prospecting efforts should be focused on the type of woman you would like to meet.

Here are few good places to meet women:

– Anything near a hair salon or beauty shop – Book store – Mall – Home décor store – Coffee shop – Grocery store – Health food store – Healthy restaurant (Panera Bread is a great place to meet women) – Yogurt shop – Ask yourself what groups she is a member of and join them (meetup.com is a good resource) – Ask yourself what charities she supports and support them – Ask yourself what events in your city she frequents and attend them (wine tasting, restaurant opening, bridal shows)

2) PEACOCKING: To dress and behave in an over-the-top and flashy manner, for the purpose of drawing attention and attracting women.

If wearing a fuzzy top hat, goggles, multiple wristwatches, garish earrings, black nail polish, and flamboyant clothing is congruent with your style and who you really are, then by all means… peacock away.

But peacocking doesn’t have to be loud to be effective. The key to peacocking is to make strong style choices. 

Interesting clothes with a few pieces of subtle but visible jewelry will do the trick.  

Personally, I prefer to use my vibe to attract women anytime, anywhere, no matter what I’m wearing.

When it comes to attracting women, vibe outweighs wardrobe 1000 to 1.

3) THREE SECOND RULE: Approach within 3 seconds of seeing someone you like.

If you don’t know how to follow your intuition, I agree, you should consider approaching someone you’re interested in immediately.

But once you develop your intuition, use it to determine who and when to approach.

Intuition is never wrong, so I always use it when prospecting.

As a result, I meet the right women, at the right time, in a serendipitous manner...  Which is the best way to meet women.

If you decide to use the 3-second rule as your primary decision-making tool, you will inevitably create awkward and uncomfortable situations for yourself and your target.

4) NEGGING: The act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise flirtatious remark to another person to undermine their confidence and increase their need for the manipulator's approval.

I am 100% against negging. Here’s an easy 2 step filter to use when communicating with anyone, not just women… Before speaking ask yourself if what you are about to say passes the TK Test:

(1)  Is it True? (2)  Is it Kind?

If what you are about to say doesn’t pass this 2-question filter, keep it to yourself.

I only turn this filter off when hanging out with my best, closest guy friends.

We make fun of each other constantly…  Not to be mean, but for good times and laughs.

Guys you know… it’s just something we do.

Enough said. Let’s move on…

 5) CANNED OPENERS: Field-tested lines and routines a PUA (pick up artist) uses repeatedly to open sets and start an interaction.

I have no problem with being prepared to open set.  In fact, I believe in being ready to start an interesting conversation at any time, in any situation… As long as the opener passes the TK Test above.

 6) FALSE TIME CONSTRAINT: A PUA statement used when opening set to reassure the target he will not take up much of her time. (Example: I can’t stay long. I have to get back to my friends, but…)

I believe you should communicate a time constraint during a set. But again, use a time constraint that passes the TK Test.

 7) BODY ROCKING: A form of non-verbal false time constraint used by a PUA to convey he is not needy and therefore may leave the set at any time.

An example of Body Rocking would be to slightly turn away from a set as if you were just about to leave.

This is one of many body language techniques you can use to help execute a success set.

I define a successful set as one that results in your desired outcome or “Close”.

There are many different Closes.  You can: Number Close, Kiss Close, Sex Close, Shop Close, Meet Up Close, Bounce Back Close, Immediate Date Close... Just to name a few...

 8) DEMONSTRATE HIGH VALUE (DHV): An action taken by a PUA to make himself appear or come across as a person of high status, thus making himself more desirable to women.

There are many different ways to DHV and they can all be extremely effective… Including one-liners, questions, routines, demos (demonstrations), games, quizzes, jokes, assumptions, stories, and humor.

Mystery used magic (which is a demo), stories, routines, and cocky funny humor.

While I love using humor, I’m not a big fan of cocky funny humor in general because you can easily come across as a prick.

 9) AMOGing: Tactics used to negate attempts to block advances towards your target.

In short, an AMOG (Alpha Male Of the Group) is a hater who’s trying to cockblock you.

An AMOG can be any member of the group who stands in the way of successfully closing the target. 

It could be the target’s BF or an aggressive male who is competing for the attention of your target.

If left unchecked, the AMOG will try to destroy your game, usually by challenging your material.

Occasionally, an AMOG may even turn to physical intimidation or violence.

That’s why you should focus your attention on building a bond with the AMOG first, before approaching your target.

The AMOG must be won over, defeated, and diffused before approaching women in the group.

To accomplish this, open the AMOG first.

Then ask, “how do you all know each other,” to open the rest of the group and ultimately your target.

 10) PHASE-SHIFT: To transition from the Comfort to the Seduction stage of pickup.

Phase-Shifting can be done by increasing kino (touching) and turning up the sexual tension with the use of a story.

If done correctly, this will lead to kissing which is a pathway to intimacy.

Personally, I like to use Staging and Tantra to make the shift to intimacy effortless and natural.

There you have it… 10 key components of the Mystery Method updated for 2021. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. Goodbye, and God Bless!

[squidpro-quo]

oh my god oh my god please give more blind kaito im literally crying?? i wanna see him in Action

Oh my goodness, I tried my best! I hope it’s alright, I switched up the perspectives for this one! Thank you so much for asking, I had fun getting back to this!

Part 3

A tone sounded in Kaito’s ear, then the soft, barely perceptible tick of the seconds left behind before his performance began. He crouched in the grate, elbow braced against the side and kept his breathing even while he ran over what needed to happen in the next few seconds. He’d cut it close this time, leaving himself only nine hours to figure everything out fully and then to memorize it all as well. But if nothing else, tonight would bring a victory one way or another, with the added challenge of Hakuba’s close scrutiny focused on his every move it would make the exhilaration of escape even sweeter, and perhaps temper the disappointment the Ballerina’s Ballad would likely bring. 

The thought of Hakuba made him settle, which was a betrayal to his thief’s sensibilities if there ever was one. As soon as he’d heard of the detective joining their class he’d expected it to be the perfect way to spy on one of his accomplished pursuers in close quarters, but then Hakuba had to go and be so damn polite, and yet so sharp at the same time. Sharp enough to cut through any pretenses Kaito feigned at for every hazard and barb he put before Hakuba, and sharp enough to consider something no one else, not even the most crazy fans, had ever considered: that Kaito KID, the elusive moonlit phantom, might be blind. 

And that first accusation had sent his heart racing, not least because of the tone Hakuba had used, so determined and passionate about the truth of his conclusion, that Kaito had fought to keep his poker face instead of letting his smile melt into something more touched. From there, it had just kept going. The need to pull Hakuba careening towards him, testing whether it had been just a momentary delusion or something real, and then the date he’d never expected to be asked on, it was all good fun until he’d realized that in the process of trying to trip Hakuba up, he’d been swept off his own feet. He didn’t miss how Hakuba’s touch sent a shiver through him, nor the genuine excitement over the suggestion of dancing with him—hell, he’d even used the sound of Hakuba’s watch ticking as the audio for his countdown. He was well and truly caught, in one definition of the word and he had a feeling it wouldn’t be too long until Hakuba caught him out in another way too. But he was willing to play with fire, to feel the warmth that came from being near him and with him. 

The last ten seconds started and Kaito tensed, laying his hands on the cold metal in readiness and wishing fingerless gloves went better with his top-hat and cape. In the beginning, he’d worn the gloves his father had, but with so much of what he did reliant on touch, it was best not to forgo that sense on top of everything else. 

Three…

Two…

One…

Kaito flung himself into the darkness that descended on the ballroom outside his post, a wide grin spreading across his face as he heard the startled yells of alarm and the call for flashlights went up in Nakamori’s familiar boom. From the edge of the grate, it took only four long strides for him to reach the corner of the platform and another two steps along it to reach the first square that had to be triggered. 

He had to hand it to the police squad, or more accurately, the ballet director, for thinking up this kind of security instead of a conventional method of lock and key. It had certainly required more than his usual methods to ascertain the combination, but trust Nakamori to be willing to show him the way with a conveniently placed positioning tracker. Aoko’s father had never been one to forgo asking his opinion in times of quandary and the physicality of Nakamori’s fondness was one he’d always appreciated. Taking advantage of it had given him just the slightest tinge of guilt, considering how much it meant when only his mother’s voice reached him from overseas, but for the sake of his goal, he’d brushed the reticence aside. 

As for the sequence, after memorizing the dimensions of so many floor plans and furniture layouts, both for heists and for general school use, it was simply a matter of practice before he could have completed the steps in his sleep. He’d spent the last few hours of his preparation running through it over and over again on the floor of the lair, making sure he didn’t hit the bounds or overshoot his trajectory on the jumps. 

Just as he heard the lights click back on, he reached the display case and was greeted by one of the best sounds in the world: the gasps of the task force as they realized he already had the jewel in hand. It was a true pleasure to catch them off-kilter, even when he’d specifically warned them ahead of time, there was just a thrill to it. 

“KID!” And that voice, Hakuba’s yell that only made his grin grow wider as he tipped his hat in the direction it had come from. “Stop right there!”

“You underestimated my dancing prowess I see, but a magician should be as good with his feet as he is with his hands.” 

He froze in the center pretending to admire the shine of the beryl as he held it up to the newly restored light, instead listening to the sound of the approaching rush of guards and estimating just how far away they were. As soon as the first officer’s footstep changed tone, from the dull thud on polished wood to the sharp clap on the dance parquet, Kaito braced his leg on top of the case and jumped. 

His already upraised hand sprouted a grapple that snaked up to snag on the smooth ceiling, pulling him aloft at the apex of his jump and swinging him towards the door he’d marked ahead of time for an easier exit. The pile of officers that had doubtless formed behind him shouted and swore but the trap that they had so expertly set for him had sprung on them instead. 

He knew his next moves down to the inch: the door was exactly forty-five feet from the parquet, a small lobby beyond fifteen feet wide with couches arranged in a diamond pattern leaving a clean route straight through to another door twenty feet ahead opening onto a corridor. From there it would be a simple escape through a side entrance fifty feet to the right. Anyone who found him outside the building would be treated to a frail old man hobbling along on his walker. 

Confident in his path, he slid along the waxed floor when he landed and held out a hand to tap the door as he passed, starting the stride count in his head. Three feet, six feet, ni—his elbow caught the edge of something as he passed through the middle of the lobby, a pedestal he didn’t remember from his orientation of the room. It shouldn’t have been there, he wasn’t one to miss something so obviously in his path and he’d certainly made his rounds thoroughly that afternoon. Nevertheless, it had been in his way and he should’ve been able to avoid it. He twisted, hands finding the edge of the pedestal and searching for something to grab and right into place but whatever had been on it smashed to the floor a second later, the pieces raining over his shoes and the pristine tiles. 

“KID?” Hakuba’s voice sounded from far too close, somewhere to his left and Kaito startled, a shard of the mystery object crunching under his feet. He didn’t have any time to dwell on this, Hakuba was already a liability from having too many suspicions, there was no reason to give him an opportunity to have any more. Orienting himself again with a swift pivot of the heel, he raced for the corridor again, tossing a pair of smoke bombs behind him as a parting gift. 

A few seconds later, he’d divested himself of his cape and hat, donning the sweater vest and loafers of his disguise and the fire escape opened under his hands quietly and easily. He stepped into the crisp night air to let himself blend into the audience of onlookers congregated near the front of the building, the gem heavy in his pocket, waiting with possibility. But despite the success of the evening, the thought still kept coming back to him, unbidden and unnerving: how much had Hakuba seen? 

Part 5

If you want to know more, prompt me here

[fanfiction-builds-character]

CRAFTING A GREAT ONE SHOT

One shots are amazing.  They're easy to read quickly, you can typically knock one out in a day and feel a sense of accomplishment, and on most occasions, they give you the opportunity to explore something about your work (or someone else's) that just didn't have a place in the original work.

I love getting prompt requests.  Almost always, a reader has picked up on something that was never even (consciously) on my radar, and now I get to poke around and try it out.

First and arguably most important:  Unless the exercise calls for a specific length, don't decide how many words it will be ahead of time.  Sometimes 400 words can be a full blown symphony and they're all you need.  Sometimes 3k words pop up from nowhere.  Unless length is part of the exercise, just let them.

I always begin with the classics: Who/What/When/Where/Why

Who's in the one shot?  Seems obvious, but double check this one. Are you including people you don't need?  Are you excluding a potential plot device?

What can be a tricky one, but I consider this the "what's going on" piece, and sometimes what/when/where become the same answer.  "They're having a lazy rainy Sunday morning in bed at Lexa's house because they haven't had a lot of time together of late" pretty much takes down all three of those at once. Bonus!

WHY is the big boy here, the main event of one shots in my opinion, and what separates the "this is giving me information" one shots from the "this is giving me life" one shots.

There's the obvious whys for the characters. WHY are they having the lazy Sunday? They've been working too hard and missing each other.  WHY are they at Lexa's house? So they can be totally alone. But there are a lot of whys for YOU that are less obvious.

Why did you choose this particular scene? Why is this exact combination of words and actions perfect for this prompt?  Why are the characters behaving the way they are? Are you writing this to have one of them say I love you? To show that one of them feels safe now?  Are you looking for a silly laugh?

Once you've jotted some notes on your W questions and you're ready to get going, keep in mind the recurring theme that your reader is smart.  You don't have to spend hundreds of words (or really any, most likely) on describing where they are if the reader has seen them here before.  You can start with what's different about the characters than usual rather than give the reader the run down of who's who again.  Their clothes (or lack thereof), their state (disheveled, polished, casual etc) can come at the forefront as a quick address to show that this is from something existing, and then you can jump right into what makes it special.

On your rough draft, once you've reached "the point" and you've written the why-you've-written-it, stop.

It's very likely that that's the end!

Go back and re-read with all of these things in mind, and fill in anything that needs attention.  If the end comes too quickly, make sure you've given all of the information and answered all of the whys.

Give it a try with some of your characters and see what you think!  Just because a piece is short, doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated with similar structure.

[flightsrsk]

hello hello all !!! my name is riley and this is my actual trash son maverick, aka the flight risk !!! i am so so hyped to get the ball rollin on this, so check out info on my kid under ze cut !!

warning: this got rlly mcfreaking long and i am so sorry fjdklsjs i am incapable of writing a short intro post

unfortunately i will not be able to be around for the official opening bc i’m on vacation w my fam and godparents, but i will try and intermittently read intros and chat to you guys about plots !!!! PLS feel free to bombard me through IMs or through discord if any plot sparks ur interest or u think mav could fit well in one of ur plots!!! :���)

THE BASICS

Name: Maverick Hobbes Braxton

Age: Twenty-one

Gender: Cismale

Pronouns: He/Him

Major & year: Philosophy, Third year

Faceclaim: Alex Fitzalan

Occupation: N/A

THE FLIGHT RISK

Maverick Braxton, as you might see, is an enigma—or rather, has evolved into one, slowly: a transformation that begun with his first breath. In his early years, the stage had been set for him, line by line. Act One: attend prep schools, excel in classes. Act Two: attend Covington, take center stage—you know, all of the things his older brother, Richard had accomplished with ease, just one year prior to all of his expectations. It was simple, really: a blueprint laid out ahead of him, with little to nothing in his way.

The only problem was that Maverick didn’t exactly see the point in choosing that path, that stage, that story. To him, it wasn’t challenging.

That, and the fact that the life laid out in front of him offered him absolutely nothing.

A series of banal expectations, unfair comparisons, and heartbreaking betrayals, and the traditional life of the Braxton child was thrown out the window—at least, in his brain, it was. See, Maverick Braxton, while independent, coy, and arrogant, isn’t stupid. He knows if he pleases his parents just enough, they’ll still distribute his trust fund and still bail him out of legal trouble when he inevitably tiptoes too far down the delicate line between ambition and rebellion. Perhaps it’s a bit selfish, but what does he owe to a family who paid him no attention, who never asked of his well-being, his own ambitions, his personal dreams?

He’s the kind of person to drive down the highway, windows rolled all the way down, cigarette lit—not because he necessarily likes the taste of nicotine, but because he likes the way the smoke creates clouds that obscure reality. He’ll surprise you in class when he interjects with a sarcastic but surprisingly salient point before throwing up his hood and retreating to the back corner for the rest of class. He’s the kind of person to start reading a book, flipping incessantly through the pages, both impatient by the pace of the plot, yet put it down before he reaches the final pages because he doesn’t want to be disappointed by the ending. He’s the kind of artist who rarely finishes a sketch, the writer who is never satisfied by a poem—for fear, of course, by deep-rooted insecurities that nothing that he will ever do will be enough.

A once-broken heart had taken time to mend, even though it seems ice-cold and whole from the outside. It’s why he has commitment issues: he doesn’t want to be burned again. He plays off his flirtatious bit as a personality trait, someone who is bored by the prospect of being tied down—and yet those who share his bed might consider him Covington’s most surprisingly deep pillow-talker.

An enigma, you see—one who doesn’t stick around long enough for anyone to truly understand, truly a Flight Risk.

BIOGRAPHY:

( You can read his full biography here! Still in the process of editing it a bit, but below are some important bullet points! )

Maverick was born the second of three children to the Braxton family—and as per usual with the Braxton children, he was born into a life filled to the absolute brim of expectation.

His father, a playwright, his mother, an actress. His brother, a theatre prodigy—what part did that leave him to play? The assumed expectations were to follow in his mother and brothers’ footsteps and take center stage; he excelled, for a while, but Maverick always felt lost.

Neighbors and family friends would always ask if he had measured up, in each and every shape and form: it was like the entire universe had a scoreboard with their names titling each section, and Maverick was always playing catch-up, never knowing where the finish line was.

For a while, he stuck to the script that was given to him: study, succeed, repeat. He tried to understand the ins and outs of his father’s work, of masterful acting techniques, trying to make a large enough splash to where his family would even notice the work he put into his life. Surprise: it didn’t.

It took him seventeen years to truly understand that his role in life was not exactly the story his parents had laid out for him, but rather, his sibling, instead.

Downcast emotions transformed quickly into cynicism. What used to make him feel sad now fueled a blue fire within Maverick’s chest, one that felt wronged by the system he was placed in: a complete first-world problem, but it was then and there when he decided to take advantage of his situation, given that he had spent his entire life dedicated to a part he wouldn’t play.

Hypocritical as he was, he still enjoyed the fruits of his parents’ work, cashing the unlimited checks with his name on them, as if it was some sort of sick version of love.

One piece of recognition that Maverick finally earned was an acceptance to Covington—and even that couldn’t be tainted by his brother’s success or his legacy status.

At Covington, Maverick has both lost and found his footing, multiple times. He’s quit acting, quit studying theater, in favor of a topic that stimulates his brain more than reading lines and

PERSONALITY:

Maverick Braxton is certainly a paradox. He’s charismatic, funny, and has a witty sense of humor –– and is generally appreciated by his peers because he’s able to move conversation and discussion without making topics seem dry.

Despite his apparent inferiority to his sibling, the Braxton family still breeds the cream of the crop. He’s certainly a bit arrogant sometimes, given that he’s intelligent, innovative, and clever, and wants to be recognized for it –– however, even if he might not show it on the outside, he appreciates a good challenger. He thinks it keeps his wit sharp, and of course, his ego would never show it, but he does appreciate learning from people. After all, his passion in philosophy, his current area of study, makes him certainly interested in how the world works.

Those who happen to get to know Maverick outside of the surface-level stuff, outside the initial cockiness and flirtatious front he puts on will know that he’s actually quite thoughtful. His lonely childhood has made him extremely loyal to those who have shown him similar trust and friendship –– he would never turn his back on them.

He asks probing questions, is a good listener –– perhaps because he’s interested in human decision making, but is also because he doesn’t quite know what it’s like to be loved unconditionally –– though he wants to.

Deep down, what almost no one knows is that he’s really quite soft. He passes his curiosity off as wanting to understand people, when really it’s a mechanism for hoping someone asks him questions in return, to give him the time of day he wished his parents ( and the rest of the goddamned universe ) had given him.

Despite his theatre prowess, he isn’t actually a particularly good liar. Those who spend enough time around him can hear his tone of voice incline slightly and see him scratch his brow.

AESTHETICS:

coffee-stained mugs, walking with headphones in but nothing playing, untied shoelaces, black hoodies, a cheeky smirk, small books in his back pocket, writing in the margins, unfinished poems, quoting old authors on a daily basis, incessant eye-rolling, pen ink stains, an unmade bed, mismatched socks, floral ties, empty bottles of liquor, rose thorn pricks, old worn poetry books, polished dress shoes, calloused fingers, unlit cigarettes between teeth.

HEADCANONS:

Funnily enough, Maverick’s name means ‘independent, a noncomformist’, which is exactly the path that he has taken to stray away from his family’s expectations.

He does have one strong connection to his family, though: his grandmother, on his father’s side. She understands the pressure he undergoes, who saw the pressure Maverick’s father endured to obtain the success he has. She is one of the only reasons that Maverick has not just jetted off to take on his own adventure. He loves her dearly, and wishes that her empathy and wisdom would rub off on the rest of his family.

Maverick has some form of synesthesia, which allows him to remember a lot more than the average person. He associates colors, smells, sounds, to words –– and allows him to efficiently study any subjects he doesn’t have immediate passion for.

In the privacy of his own bedroom, he sometimes writes poetry and sketches his thoughts and muses –– when he knows he’s in complete privacy. Faces and features that appear in his sketchbooks are often those he’s thinking of often, those who intrigue him. He’s actually quite good a sketching, maybe not quite as good at writing poetry.

His room is spotless –– evidence that he is a bit of a control freak sometimes. It shows that during his adolescence, he reveled in the parts of his life that he could control and perfect.

tw drugs. He more than dabbles in drug use, smoking marijuana maybe every other day, while partaking in harder drugs like cocaine and adderall and others probably once a week. He feels like he’s in control of his use, but it may start to get the best of him. end tw.

Maverick is left-handed. He hates that he gets pen ink stains when he draws, writes poetry, takes notes. His left palm is probably perennially covered with ink.

Though he’s often wearing headphones ( airpods, of course, the nerve of this rich kid ), half the time, nothing’s playing. Sometimes he forgets to press play on his phone, sometimes he purposely likes listening to decision-making and conversations of strangers. it lets him think about the nature of mankind.

Maverick’s favorite philosopher is Albert Camus, known for his work that heavily developed the idea of absurdism ( much to do with the meaning of life, and human inability to discern an answer ).

Maverick’s preferred method of transportation is his skateboard. he loved it first because his parents hated it: pushing himself around on a board like that would get him injured—besides, why not just take the car to school, the driver had been paid for anyway? It was his first taste of rebellion. Now at Covington, where skateboarding is far more efficient than walking across campus, it comes in handy when he sees someone he’d rather not stop and chat to.

Maverick could die with a poetry book nestled on his chest—it’s the one thing he got out of the impressive book collection his family owned. There was something daunting and beautiful about the way poems would transform metaphors into something fantastical, like the emotions were clearly there, but the words were skirting the issue. Kind of like how his parents would never really tell him they loved him.

Maverick often has headphones in when he walks to class. not particularly because he’s actually listening to music or a podcast, but rather because he’d just … rather not be bothered to stop and talk to people.

Maverick loves to draw. He’s mostly self-taught, with a bit of mentorship from his high school art teacher. Evidenced by the rest of his fleeting personality, he rarely finishes a sketch or painting. He claims he never has time to finish them, but the number of crumbled-up, half-finished sketches in his trash bin might say otherwise.

PLOTS

** see my wanted plots tag here too! // and my plots page here !!

* FIRST LOVE / OPEN.

It wouldn’t be easy to make Maverick feel like even more of a disappointment than he already had with his parents, his family—but your muse proved this feeling wrong. He loved them, more than he’d ever loved anything before. In the midst of confusion about where he belonged, he felt safe with your muse; he’d do anything for them. Things ended, he felt betrayed ( though the break-up could have easily been due to a fault of his ), and the split made him the one who now struggles fully with commitment. He doesn’t want to have his heart broken again. See: this entire pinterest board.

but also if u give me this ……………… i’ll name my firstborn after u

* BEST FRIEND / OPEN.

Those who go through similar childhood traumas are often able to understand each other –– that was how it worked with Maverick and your muse, at least. They’re thick as thieves — and have likely seen the ups and downs of Maverick’s life in real time.

* CHILDHOOD FRIENDS / OPEN.

Self explanatory—and also probably knows about the pressures the Braxton family imposes on their children.

* EX-FRIENDS / OPEN.

Friends who were close, close no longer. Maverick’s a real piece of work, and an asshole, too—there are myriad possibilities for why Maverick could have pushed them away. He wouldn’t openly admit that he misses being around your muse, but he certainly would feel a bit of guilt given that they’re no longer the closest of friends.

* MOMENT OF WEAKNESS / OPEN.

Your muse, in whatever unfortunate setting, saw a glimpse of Maverick’s soft side that hardly ever makes an appearance. He’s not going to let them tell the world about his vulnerabilities, though. Not a chance.

* DISLIKED / OPEN.

Maverick is sarcastic, cold, and sometimes emotionless. It’s not surprising that not everyone gets along with the middle Braxton. The possibilities are endless—throw in some sexual tension and I’d actually fall at ur feet.

* PREVIOUS ROOMMATES / OPEN.

Your muse, at one point, probably knew Maverick better than everyone else at Covington. They overheard some of his phone calls with his parents, saw his notes for how he was to achieve his life goals, heard him crying in the middle of the night when he thought your muse was asleep. They could be extremely close now, as in one of the few people Maverick opens up to, or could be distant friends who know about one anothers’ struggles. The possibilities are endless, tbh.

+ ANYTHING LEGITIMATELY ……… IF U THINK THERE’S POSSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING COOL W MAV AND UR MUSE. SIGN ME THE F UP. THANKS.

[vincent-marie]

The Oft Overlooked A BUG’S LIFE

A BUG’S LIFE…

What can I really say about this movie that other animation fans on the internet haven’t already? It was critically dubbed Pixar’s most mediocre film before the horror that is the CARS franchise.

I was about nine years old when this film came out, and I really liked it then. Honestly, I still kind of do, but admittedly some of it is nostalgia on my part and I’m well aware that it could have been better.

Like I said, this film has been talked about by other online critics about how it is okay, at best. That it was just the Pixar placeholder in between the first two TOY STORY movies. However for the purposes of this article I would actually like to highlight some of the good things about this movie, or at least my reasoning for why I still have a fondness for it.

Now before I continue I do feel like I should address two big elephants in the room: Namely, John Lasseter and Kevin Spacey. Knowing what we know now about them, if you can’t watch this movie without feeling uncomfortable, I totally understand. I’ll admit it makes me a wee bit uncomfortable to watch the film now, and more so the behind-the-scenes featurette on the DVD. (Wish I could blur their ugly faces when they’re being interviewed…)

However my opinions of this film on its own have nothing to do with them or whatever they contributed to the film, so they are irrelevant to what I have to say here. As far as I’m concerned if they hadn’t been involved in the film someone else would have taken their place, and those other people would have done just as good a job, if not better. Not to mention they would have been able to do it without being complete and utter creeps. To conclude, Lasseter can go suck a jellyfish and I hope Spacey rots in hell.

I’m going to primarily talk about the things I like about this movie, both then and now. But before I get to that I’m going to talk about why I agree with most critics who consider this one of Pixar’s lesser films.

A big problem with the movie is primarily the story and characters being a bit weak.

Part of that problem is the story’s initial structure. It’s clearly a retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI; village is being attacked by thugs, one villager leaves to get help in the form of warriors, villager brings back help, and they successfully fight off the invaders.

Probably the biggest difference in story is SAMURAI ended on a bittersweet note due to casualties among the samurai themselves, whereas BUG’S LIFE didn’t have any real casualties on the heroes’ side. That said, though, it’s funny that the ants seemed so damn certain there would be.

Initially modeling an original story off of a classic isn’t a bad thing in of itself. Back when I was in college it was something a lot of my writing and animation professors encouraged: learn from the classics. Not just film, but also literature and mythology.

The thing is SEVEN SAMURAI as a film was three to four hours long. It had time to accommodate for its fairly large cast, while still keeping its focus on a select few.

BUG’S LIFE, however, was only maybe an hour and fifteen minutes long. The writers probably could have stood to trim down some of the Bug Circus and take time to polish the story rather than try to give EVERYBODY an opportunity to have a funny line.

Having a couple ensembles in place isn’t a bad thing. They had that in TOY STORY with Andy’s toys, the Little Green Men in the claw machine, and the mutant toys. The groups, however, were smaller in that movie, and in the case of the Mutant Toys they had no speaking lines and had to convey everything with silent acting.

However something that’s been pointed out is that with Pixar films there was always a real progression in technical quality. That with each movie they got better and better with the tool of their trade that was CG animation.

Let’s look back at TOY STORY. The reason they made the characters plastic toys was because that’s just what their character models at the time always looked like. It would be a long way before they could even consider rendering complex fur textures for MONSTERS INC., and more complex still Merida’s tangled head of hair in BRAVE. It’s why the human characters in TOY STORY also look a bit weird and plasticky by today’s standards.

With TOY STORY they accomplished lively character animation in 3D. With TOY STORY 2 they managed to make better looking, less stiff human models like Al of Al’s Toy Barn, and slightly nicer fur textures on Buster the dog. MONSTERS, INC. had the aforementioned complex fur textures for Sully and some pretty decent early snow effects.

So what did BUG’S LIFE accomplish on a technical level?

Two words: textures, and lighting.

The last time I watched BUG’S LIFE I was absolutely FLOORED by how beautiful the set pieces were.

Take this scene of Flik giving Dot a pep-talk.

All that detailing in the blades of grass in the background, the pebbles on the ground, the textures on the pebbles, the textures on Flik’s contraption, and even the textures on the characters. It blows my mind trying to imagine how long it took to create those models, differentiate between the more see-through nature of the grass blades and the opacity of everything else, and arrange them in a way that makes for a convincing bug’s eye view of a patch of grass.

Then there’s the scene of the grasshoppers breaking into the anthill.

TOY STORY had some decent lighting that helped establish the needed atmosphere, but I don’t recall it being nearly this crisp.

Once again, there’s the textures on the objects and characters. As a kid, while I was aware the film was CG animated, I found myself speculating if the grasshoppers’ muzzles were made of foam rubber.

These were all things I took for granted as a kid, because I did not yet have the experience to know just how much work and skill it takes to make 3D animation.

This is a still from a minute-long film I made in a 3D computer animation class. I was given maybe only a couple months to make it. That included having to navigate my way through these complex computer programs I was completely unfamiliar with, and technical difficulties like the textures not grafting onto the models right. Let me tell you, it was a pain in the ass.

I look at the backdrops for BUG’S LIFE and I’m left to ask: “How many computers CRASHED trying to render all that?” Because, believe me, that happens. A lot.

Also, here’s the thing. When technical elements of a film are done well, such as lighting or camera focus, the audience LITERALLY doesn’t notice it. They’re too swept up in the story because the visual storytelling keeps up the illusion for them. The audience only notices important technical details like this when they’re done BADLY, hence a lot of people outside the film industry really take for granted just how much work and skill is taken into making a film that looks good.

(It’s why I think everyone should watch FOOD FIGHT at least once in their lives, especially animation fans.)

Okay, while it is inevitable that I would bring up Dreamworks’ ANTZ, I’m not going to talk too much about it. (It’s like the Cola Wars; everyone inevitably picks a side.) All I’ll say for now is I’ve always preferred BUG’S LIFE because it’s nicer-looking design-wise and its content and execution is more family-appropriate. (Also, in 1998 we didn’t know at the time Kevin Spacey was a creep, but everyone and their DOG knew Woody Allen was. Nice job, Dreamworks!)

It’s been pointed out that there’s a distinct casting difference between ANTZ and BUG’S LIFE. ANTZ had a cast of recognizable movie actors, while BUG’S LIFE had a cast of recognizable television actors.

For BUG’S LIFE that’s not necessarily a bad thing. One of the things that bothers me about celeb casting in animated movies is that oftentimes it feels like a flimsy attempt at star-power when said stars don’t have the power to elevate the characters. Actors who might be good front of a camera but bring nothing to a recording booth.

However for the most part Pixar has been really good at casting well-known actors who actually fit their characters and add some personality to them. BUG’S LIFE was no exception.

In fact, quite a few of them had loaned their voices to animation before this film, and some damn good performances too.

And I can name at least one BUG’S LIFE alum who graduated from funny performance to heartfelt performance with Pixar…

(… I’m not crying! YOU’RE crying!)

But I digress. I consider the casting for this movie pretty solid. (With the obvious exception of Kevin Spacey.)

What’s more, growing up I remember a lot of the TV spots for Pixar films usually down-played the celeb cast and let the product speak for itself. The celeb casting was less of a selling point for the films and more like a fun little Easter egg for the parents who had to take their kids to the theater.

Earlier I stated that the story and characters in BUG’S LIFE are a bit weak, and I stand by that. However there are a couple characters I’d like to highlight here as I’ve always found them interesting and memorable in their own ways.

First, let me talk about Hopper for a minute.

(I’ve already stated that Kevin Spacey can rot in hell, so there will be no more of that.)

I’ve heard criticism about Hopper as a character that he was a very bland, one-dimensional villain. To be fair, they’re not wrong.

But the thing I always liked about Hopper is that his one and only goal is to hold dominion over the ant colony. To keep them under his foot, both literally and figuratively, and he wasn’t afraid to use deadly force to do that. He was willing to kill a few of his own goons just to illustrate a point. That’s how threatening he was.

In a lot of children’s media I had seen up to that point, there were several bully characters that were often portrayed as the bigger kids who would demand your lunch money. They were usually ineffectual doofuses like Bulk and Skull from POWER RANGERS, or kids with serious insecurities like Binky Barnes from ARTHUR. While not the first of his kind, Hopper was one of the first characters I had ever encountered as being a prime illustration of not just a bully, but one who had the makings of a dictator.

With his rather one-note motivation, I can see why audiences found him bland, but given his violent means of staying in power, I’m glad they didn’t try to make him “complex” or give him any sympathetic character traits.

Frankly, we live in an age where horrible people are romanticized in the media as being “misunderstood”. I feel like, unlike those media outlets or the upcoming JOKER movie, BUG’S LIFE gets it. They don’t deserve to be portrayed with humanity. These people are monsters. Nothing more.

Maybe if Pixar hadn’t felt the need to rush the production maybe Hopper is one of many characters that could have been polished up a bit in the writing process. Give him some more distinct, memorable traits as a character. Maybe hints at a backstory of Hopper having a long-standing history of using and abusing others, and always getting away with it.

(When I put it that way, we can just say Hopper is the John Lasseter Story. Just draw a pair of glasses and a tacky shirt on the guy and it’s a spitting image.)

The other thing I’ve always liked about this movie was the portrayal of Princess Atta.

Besides being the first Pixar Princess, I always liked how, unlike the Disney Princess pantheon up to date in the late 90s, Atta actually had a bit of a character arc related to the fact that… well, she’s royalty! She’s going to have to take over the colony eventually as queen.

We see this from the beginning as she’s overseeing the harvest and going into a panic when things go even slightly wrong. Also, I find it interesting that it’s a guy that screws everything up when Flik accidentally destroys the food offering, yet she’s the one who gets blamed for it. (Ironic commentary coming from the studio led by an egotistic creep who wouldn’t let women in on meetings.)

But what I loved about her as a kid was that her personality and approach to things was a lot more real and down-to-earth than your average glamorous Disney Princess. She felt less like fairy tale royalty and more like a woman up for promotion at a big company. From a pragmatic standpoint that can be just as scary, stressful and daunting.

(It also feels appropriate in hindsight considering her voice actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus would later star on VEEP…)

My friend @baxterfilms and I have had a lot of discussions about this movie, and we agreed that Atta should have been the protagonist. She actually has a character arc of her own of being unsure of herself at the start of the film, taking charge in the second act, and eventually standing up to Hopper in the third.

Remove Flik entirely, and have her go on a journey to find reinforcements against the grasshoppers. Have her realize that Hopper’s demands are impossible, she’s sick of having to adhere to him, and have her sneak out to get help. When she finds out she literally brought home a bunch of clowns, she understandably freaks out. She has to figure out a resolution because there is a lot of pressure on her to make things right and free the colony from bondage.

Strangely enough, with that version of the story you could still probably have all the indulgent fun of the celebrity cast. It’s just the very core of the film’s story needed some serious tightening up, and maybe Dave Foley as Flik would have fared better as a comic relief sidekick.

With all that said, I thank you for taking the time to read this. I really do think that this film is highly under-appreciated in the animation community. There might have been trouble in the writing room, but the technical achievements in this film were still there and helped Pixar hone their craft into making their animated features as stunning as they are heartwarming.

I have to say, though, I find it funny that there’s almost a pattern to these insect-driven animated movies. Going all the way back to MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN, they usually have rather weak leading characters, and the supporting cast winds up leaving more of an impression.

Weird, huh?

[genesisofsadness]

Farmyard, norwich: ‘for the maximum element, it works’ – restaurant overview

They do drop some catches here, but the commendable ambition makes all of it worthwhile

bistronomy in st benedicts avenue: chef andrew jones (left) at farmyard, norwich. Bistronomy in st benedicts road: chef andrew jones (left) at farmyard, norwich. Photo: chris ridley/the observer farmyard, 23 st benedicts street, norwich nr2 4pf (01603 733 188). Snacks £3. 50, starters £7-£nine, mains £thirteen-£26, cakes £7, wines from £19. 50

farmyard in norwich is the form of restaurant that brings out the maternal in me. Reading the menu makes me feel like one of those dad and mom status in the wings all through the auditions for britain’s got skills, watching my children, ant and dec’s palms lightly on my shoulders for moral guide. I am determined for the kitchen to prevail. I want to hug them all to my bosom and inform them the whole thing could be ok. I’m additionally terrified they’ll drop the capture. It's far for eating place goers who are glad to provide the kitchen permission to try only a little harder that is a grossly patronising issue to say to a team of skilled cooks. However the menu is so ambitiously everywhere in the area, is any such random, swooping series of dishes, i'm able to’t pretty help myself. It’s no longer a lot stressed as at the run. Say hello to cooking which attracts its thought from mexico or japan, north africa or spain, and a gaggle of locations in-among. It demands so many competencies, so much know-how of the way various techniques, spices and dishes sit inside a way of life, that misfires seem almost guaranteed. A number of it is actually down to the language used. On the menu they describe what they do as “bistronomy”, a venerable word first coined in paris inside the early 90s with the aid of professional chefs bored with the puckered and stiff atmosphere within the city’s grandest garlanded gastro palaces. They desired to retain being creative, adventurous cooks, however inside the body of a comfy bistro, with the encouraging pricing that suggests. This brilliant and secure area with its business ducted ceiling, strand board floors, and partly open white tiled kitchen, in reality can't be accused of pretension. For the proctologically challenged, be aware: there are padded banquettes.

‘the chips preserve plenty of their bite’: ham, egg and chips. Facebooktwitterpinterest ‘the chips keep lots in their chunk’: ham, egg and chips. Image: chris ridley/the observer the menu language is a little greater trying. A wonton as served here is really just a dumpling or folded piece of pasta by means of every other misused call? A beetroot “wine gum” is honestly a piece of partially dehydrated beetroot. You may determine to be profoundly irritated through this mangling of the lexicon, or you may decide the meals at the plate. I’m going with the latter due to the fact, for the most element, it works. There are misfires. The batter of salt and pepper squid, from the part of the menu headed “snacks”, doesn’t appear particularly interested by staying attached to its host. However it handiest costs £3. 50 so it’s hard to roll your eyes for lengthy. Those beetroot “wine gums”, candy and chewy, are served with a dollop of horseradish cream to drag them through. They depart strawberry-colored ribbons via the dulux whiteness, and are lots better. A few dish names are a gentle funny story constructed round understatement. Ham, egg and chips are lumps of smoky, salty, collapsing ham hock, with a cured egg yolk and a massive knot of deep-fried, spiralised potato. The latter seems at the beginning a touch difficult and underneath cooked, but there is a limpid hammy broth at the lowest of the bowl. The “chips” maintain a great deal in their bite as they shatter into it with a whack of the fork.

“highly spiced carrot wonton” are, as i recommended, simply any other word for folded-over ravioli, and not specifically highly spiced. However there's a thick celeriac purée here, and some roasted carrots to preserve the interest. It may not quite match as much as its billing, however it’s a solid and dependable little bit of cooking. As is a £sixteen important route of a roasted hen leg, with a boneless, breaded and deep-fried wing, on a thick truffle purée and fowl jus. 1/2 a roasted leek, singed in various places, slumps across it, languorously. It’s a roast fowl dinner that has polished its shoes and combed its hair. To head along we have a bowl of shredded brassicas, thru which both toasted almonds and a pokey salsa verde have been spooned. It’s a cheery act of interest to detail. A potato “terrine” is some other model of spuds sliced and pressed and cooked, then cut into rectangles and deep fried, which, at bubala some months back, were described erroneously as latkes. Regardless of the call, they may be usually welcome.

‘no longer particularly spicy’: spicy carrot wonton. A vegetable ramen is a dish i discover myself nodding at admiringly, in preference to adoring. There's a effective intensity to the broth, and the dozens of toasted barley buried in its steaming depths along a load of different veg, make certain no person will pass hungry. But the noodles are replaced through spiralised carrot. It’s an unusual call. That is partially due to the fact the usage of noodles could not have impacted the meat-unfastened nature of the dish. They could have introduced a little extra starch to the broth and might additionally have justified calling it a ramen. But more often than not it’s an bizarre name because it makes it appear as if proudly owning a spiralizer is an entirely affordable existence preference, when of path they're implements that deserve to be pointed and laughed at with such malice that they subsequently throw themselves into the bin out of embarrassment. Even bearing in mind the unevenness of that dish i ought to consider myself back here trying their version of a multi-layered mole poblano with bbq lamb and blue corn tacos, simply to look whether or not they may without a doubt pull it off, or the roast hake with paprika chickpea stew. This farmyard is decided to fatten up its residents. Cakes turn among the outrageous and the outrageously comforting. The former is defined as a “white chocolate bar”. It’s a sizable block of smooth, sticky white chocolate ganache. It would be teeth-achingly sweet were it no longer for the bold saltiness of the miso caramel slathered across the pinnacle, the scattering of peanuts and the intense dark chocolate sorbet. It’s a re-engineered snickers bar, possibly with the aid of a person who lately kicked a first-rate crystal meth addiction and is now searching out a socially suited manner by way of which to get off their face. With the aid of contrast a steamed ginger pudding, perched on earrings of gently spiced pineapple with a coconut sorbet is a gentle all-in-one hug and back rub.

‘re-engineered snickers’: white chocolate-miso bar. Facebooktwitterpinterest ‘re-engineered snickers’: white chocolate-miso bar. Photo: chris ridley/the observer right here at farmyard they may now not usually gain every one among their goals. Some of those catches really are dropped. However on foot lower back along the norwich lane it calls domestic, exceeded unremarkable pizzerias and dependable looking bistros and cocktail bars designed for a friday night time, the area of interest it fills became apparent. It's miles for restaurant goers who're happy to offer the kitchen permission to try just a little harder and strive only a little extra. And honestly, couldn’t we all do with a eating place like that? Information bites

proper now you may now not be thinking about travelling restaurants, but you may accomplish that once more. In the spirit of assist for the eating place quarter, this column will retain making tips. Simply over at the norfolk coast from farmyard isn't any 1 cromer, which belongs to chef galton blackiston of morston hall. Downstairs it’s a first-rate carpenter and ice cream bar. Upstairs, there’s a globe-trotting bistro which takes in the whole thing from fish tacos to hoisin duck pancakes, tandoori fowl naan and a massaman vegan curry. It’s bold but, usually it works (no1cromer. Com). Till the cease of april heston blumenthal’s three michelin celebrity fats duck in bray is reducing the price of its menu by using £seventy five. It’s nevertheless a stonking £250 with the cut price. At time of writing there are some lunchtime tables to be had within the moderately spaced eating room. This will be the instant to strive it (thefatduck. Co. Uk). Oisin rogers, who's the nearest factor london has to a celeb publican, is to take a second boozer underneath his wing, alongside the guinea grill in mayfair, famed for its beefy menu of steaks and claret. He’s revamping the close by windmill, and bringing in dishes together with pork cheek and oyster pie, and excellent fish and chips. Our journalism is open for all… … and could continue to be so. Now extra than ever, the father or mother is dedicated to delivering first-rate, responsible journalism each and every day. In those terrific instances, when anxiety and uncertainty abound, the guardian’s measured, authoritative reporting has never been so important. We will stay with you, turning in exceptional journalism so we can all make critical choices approximately our lives, health and protection – based on fact, no longer fiction. We believe every one folks deserves equal access to accurate news and calm clarification. So, not like many others, we made a specific choice: to keep father or mother journalism open for all, regardless of wherein they stay or what they can find the money for to pay. This would now not be viable with out the generosity of readers, who now assist our work from one hundred eighty nations around the sector. We have upheld our editorial independence inside the face of the disintegration of traditional media – with social systems giving rise to incorrect information, the seemingly unstoppable upward thrust of massive tech and independent voices being squashed by commercial possession. The mother or father’s independence method we are able to set our personal agenda and voice our personal evaluations. Our journalism is free from industrial and political bias – in no way inspired by using billionaire owners or shareholders. This makes us exceptional. It manner we will task the effective with out worry and provide a voice to the ones less heard. Your financial support has intended we can preserve investigating, disentangling and interrogating. It has covered our independence, which has by no means been so crucial. We're so grateful.

[marshmallowgoop]

Kill la Kill Books!

Got a small haul of Kill la Kill books the other day!

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL has been a glaring omission from my collection, so when I saw a listing of the book for 3,600 yen—which usually goes for 10,000+ these days—I bought it right away.

And I figured I might as well pick up a few more things while I was at it, right? To make the shipping more cost effective?

That’s definitely the only reason.

But anyway, my growing mass of Kill la Kill books and magazines has now reached 36 items.

And I’ve talked about some of this merch before; you can find my post about the Febri volume 21 issue here, my post about Fractal 10 here, my post about the Talking About Composite books, The Complete Script Book, and The Art of KLK Vol. 3 here (and I have a whole tag for the script book, #klk-script-book), and I yammer on about the nine Blu-ray key art collection and artboard books here. I also have several essays discussing the official manga adaptation: 

Kill la Kill Manga Chapter 7

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3, Chapters 8-17: Thoughts and Impressions

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Translation Notes, Anime Differences

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Worth it?

Manga Differences

And now, I wanna briefly (lol) yap about the six new additions to my collection.

Because I have a lot of love in my heart for this ridiculous, ridiculous anime.

SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL

So, I got this book for cheap because it was allegedly in poor shape and “not suitable for collection.”

(My reaction to “not suitable for collection” is always, “It’s suitable for my garbage collection! I’ll give your ‘ugly’ copies a loving home!”)

But, like? There are a couple of dents and folded corners, but the condition is really not bad at all. The art is completely intact and beautiful.

Sushio—who is the character designer for Kill la Kill—has shared much of this book on his Twitter, and I would definitely recommend fans of the series to scroll through his photos and have a look. There’s such a cute, sweet charm to Sushio’s work, and along with the polished, colored pages from LOVE LOVE that he shares online, he also shares sketches of his own fanart for the series, too.

(Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly the best demonstration of Sushio’s absolutely precious artwork, but. It’s one of my favorites from the book. Ryuko resorting to such wild extremes to be with Senketsu again is just. My heart. Kill la Kill is actually adorable.)

In any case, I don’t think any of the content in LOVE LOVE was new to me, but there’s just really something about having the book in my hands. I know there’s such a strong desire for digital media these days, but call me old-fashioned—there’s nothing quite like holding this art and really seeing every stroke and line in person.

Being able to physically flip through the pages also makes me notice things I didn’t before. For instance, I found myself charmed by the little detail of Barazo, Mako’s father, loving and adoring Sukuyo, Mako’s mother.

I mean, aw? It’s stuff like this that really makes me wish Kill la Kill were a kids’ show (as Sushio himself seemed to want!) Barazo is so much more likeable when there aren’t any signs of his less-than-pleasant behavior and he’s a loving, supportive husband and father.

Seriously!

Another thing I notice from having the book now is the order in which the pages are organized. Like, I couldn’t help but be amused about how Ryuko gets her own page here...

(Smiling for her Starketsu in the sky, right? Just like he asks her to in “Till I Die”?)

...and then the next pages have Satsuki beside Nonon and Mako (and Mataro) beside Ira...

...which strikes me as a bit funny because this isn’t exactly how Sushio organized his Tweets of these images. There, Satsuki was next to Ryuko, Nonon was next to no one, Mako and Mataro were next to Ira, and Uzu was next to Houka:

So, in LOVE LOVE, is Sushio deliberately trying to say something with the changed placement? Especially when it comes to the direction of the ladies’ eyes? 

Yeah???

I kid, I kid.

(But really, it looks much better to give Ryuko her own page and not have Nonon standing next to nobody.)

Also, one of the first things that popped out to me about LOVE LOVE is how Senketsu’s pages are right next to Ryuko’s pages. As they should be.

They belong together, okay?!

And speaking of Senketsu and Ryuko, I remember a comment years back that said you could probably find pics of your OTP with matching expressions in this book.

But, uh. Just compare Senketsu posing to Ryuko posing...

They’re kind of different types of people, lol.

But hey, they do both make cute sneezy faces.

As a final note about my copy of LOVE LOVE, I will say that my only disappointment is that I received the version with print errors. As such, this page of Nui...

...was accidentally printed twice, and I miss out on this page of Nui as a result:

There are also some minor goofs, like Mako’s arm getting cut off by the background here:

But considering I got this beautiful thing for only 3,600 yen, I really can’t complain!

Now I just need Sushiotan 2 to complete my Sushio Kill la Kill doujin collection....

Takepro

This charming little volume is a collection of animator fanart for the show (and other shows). The book includes a short profile for each featured artist, and their big Kill la Kill pieces are—like all titles in Kill la Kill—named after classic Japanese pop songs. You can read and see more about Takepro here.

It’s hard to pick favorites from this doujin because there is so much adorable and wonderful artwork, but I especially love Naoki Takeda’s “ここに幸あり,” or “Here is My Happiness,” named after the song by Yoshitsu Ootsu.

The picture features Ryuko, Mako, and Satsuki sitting together, all having a good time, and there’s just something so sweet about seeing happy Satsuki.

I also found an English translation of the song’s lyrics, courtesy of beast-senior 810:

The storm breaks and the rain falls Thorny as the women's path might be I would still keep on living with you And my happiness is here in the blue sky 

I could not tell anybody of my scars A bird of love that resided in my chest If only I wander about crying and evading A sorrowful night wind will blow through the streets 

I call out your name from the bottom of my heart Who will be awaiting me at the end of the echoes? Snuggle up to you and cheerfully look up to your face And my happiness is here in the white clouds 

Aw. This song is so Satsuki.

And speaking of Satsuki, I can’t get over how cute she and Ryuko look on the cover of this book. Like??

Aw! 

I also am quite fond of a small piece by Syuichi Iseki, which is in a super-deformed style and features Satsuki comforting Nonon after her uniform is destroyed during the Naturals Election. Nonon cries, and Satsuki pats her head. In the background, Ira looks distressed at the display, Houka seems to be deciphering it, and Mako smiles. It’s really, really cute.

Yoshie Endo’s “僕笑っちゃいます,” or “I’m Laughing,” named for the song by Shingo Kazami, is also real cute. It depicts Mataro holding up Guts, who licks his face. It’s another one of those, “I-so-wish-Kill-la-Kill-were-a-kids’-show” kinda pieces....

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Doujin

Admittedly, I don’t actually know the title of this one, but it’s a very small doujin by Kill la Kill director Hiroyuki Imaishi. There isn’t too much Kill la Kill content, but there are two pages of Ryuko and Satsuki in their respective Kamui, accompanied by some text.

I thought the text might be something about the show, but it seems like it’s actually about Imaishi’s experience working on the show. And... it’s rather sad? He talks about how he’s able to accomplish more now, but he also has to consider a lot more as well, and he doesn’t have the time and energy that he used to. It’s a lot about aging and growing old.

At least, I think that’s what’s being communicated. Here’s a transcription, though:

なんだろう。

初会社役員とか。

昔よりやれることは増えたが考えなきゃいけないことも増えて時間と体力は足りなくなっていく。

年相応とも言える。

だけどいつまでも大人気なく生きていきたいものだ。

One last interesting thing about this doujin is the material it’s made from; it’s different than any other book in my collection. I’m not an artist, so forgive me if I sound totally ignorant here, but the paper reminds me watercolor paper. It definitely took me by surprise!

SL Sketch 3

SL Sketch 3 is a small fan doujin by Buzin. You can find most of the art in this book on their Tumblr!

Sketch 3 is a really fun collection of sketches, and I especially love the cover. I’m so desperate for art where Senketsu is acknowledged as an actual person that I’m just all heart eyes over Ryuko smiling at him here.

March 2014 Newtype

Okay, so this one’s really a magazine, not a book, but wow. I was taken aback by what’s inside!

I’ll definitely have to look at this issue in more depth because there are a bunch of Kill la Kill goodies in here that I didn’t even expect. And I don’t think most of it has been translated at all!

I also realized that I’ve been mixing up my Newtypes and will have to fix my resources page. But on the bright side, there is so much to love about this issue.

Like, the Elite Four Light Novel got reprinted in the Kamui Bansho, but it’s way better here because it has pictures!

I also love how Nonon, out of all the Elite Four, is the only one who stands beside Satsuki in these illustrations.

And I don’t even know what this is (VR or something with Ami Koshimizu, Ryuko’s VA?), but it’s cute and got me smiling:

And Ryo Akizuki, the mangaka for the official Kill la Kill manga, made a small comic about his experience working on the project. I like the little title panel with Ryuko, Senketsu, and Mako a lot:

Plus, there’s a shiny ad for the manga’s second volume, too:

One of the things that most caught my interest, though, is an article about the second opening song for Kill la Kill, GARNiDELiA’s “ambiguous”:

I got so curious about this bit because I’ve heard varying, conflicting information regarding the meaning behind the song’s lyrics. On the one hand, I’ve heard that half of the song is from Ryuko to Senketsu, and the other half is from Satsuki to Ryuko. On the other hand, I’ve heard that the whole song is from Satsuki to Ryuko. But I’ve never found any concrete sources for either of these claims!

So, I was hoping the Newtype article would help, but it’ll take a lot more digging into. Still, briefly looking over the page, I did find this bit: 

そんな私の思いと歌詞が一致しました。 『キルラキル』でいう流子ちゃんと神衣・鮮血の関係に近いかもしれませんね。 

Roughly, it says, “As such, my thoughts about the song agreed with its lyrics. You might say it’s like the relationship between Ryuko and Kamui Senketsu in Kill la Kill.”

I’m not totally sure about the context here—and I admittedly don’t even know the author’s involvement in the making of "ambiguous”—but this article might explain where the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song came from. It’s definitely something I’d like to delve into more.

Because I really love the Ryuko-and-Senketsu reading of the song, okay, and I’d love some actually official backup for it!

Finally, another favorite part of the Newtype is simply all the art. Takafumi Hori’s spread is particularly great:

(You can find a cleaner image here.)

Just... dang. I wish I got a little poster of this instead of the ones actually included in the Newtype! The artwork is just stunning.

And one of the cutest things about the Newtype is all the fanart from its readers! I particularly love the little Valentine’s Day special; there’s an illustration of Ryuko giving Senketsu chocolate, and there’s also a Ryumako piece, too!

Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01

Finally, one of my favorites from this haul is the Kill la Kill Storyboard Ep. 01. The book was included as a shop bonus for the original Japanese Blu-ray/DVD release, though I was able to win it by itself in an auction. I do think I overpaid a bit, but gosh, it’s a lovely addition to my collection. It’s just really neat to see the production process of an anime in action. I wish there were storyboard books for every episode in the show!

Hiroyuki Imaishi’s storyboards are also just super amusing. Here is a small sampling of some of my faves (because there is so much gold in here, my goodness):

And that’s all for now!

...I guess this really wasn’t so brief at all, huh?

Shocker.

[yasbxxgie]

As a child entering primary school, I struggled figuring out what it meant to be Canadian. It was a somewhat amorphous word, and besides standing up for the anthem every morning and seeing the red and white flag wave in the school parking lot, I really didn’t know what qualified as Canadian. But as I was exposed to different people and different ideas throughout my childhood, I figured out quickly that the primary criteria one needed to fill to be Canadian was this: whiteness.

The Construct of Whiteness

Now, when I say ‘white’, I’m not talking about Caucasians. It’s important we understand that whiteness is a highly politicized construct that doesn’t apply to all people who have light skin. There are plenty of Caucasians — say, people from the near and middle east — whose skin tones vary greatly, but who for all intents and purposes, are not white.

This is because the concept of whiteness is not necessarily one of skin colour (although it can be), but rather, a concept of power. For example, although in North America we may consider Polish and Ukrainian immigrants to be ‘white’, they are heavily racialized in Britain and other Western European countries. South-eastern European immigrants from Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania are considered undesirable in Switzerland compared to immigrants from Western and Northern European countries.

A Macedonian acquaintance with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, whose husband was living and working in Switzerland, was not granted residency until she acquired a non-Macedonian passport. Her family had some roots in non-Balkan countries, so she was able to leverage this, and after two long years living away from her husband, she was finally granted entry into Switzerland.

My point here is that whiteness is relative and often used to establish power dynamics. If you are the child of immigrants, as I and at least a third of my classmates were, you weren’t really Canadian, but something in between. It was like being the adopted child in a well-to-do family that constantly reminded you that your birth parents weren’t respectable enough to keep you. The more obviously different your parents were — perhaps through their appearance, dress, or way of speaking — the more you were coded as foreign, and by extension of that, privileged to be in Canada.

The Trauma of Migration

My parents left their country of birth in the 1980s, when my father anticipated its collapse in the years to come. I was born once they’d already settled into Canadian society, but from the moment I had enough self-awareness to read social cues, I knew we were different.

My mom wasn’t like the other moms. When my classmates got picked up from school, I saw women with straight, shoulder-length hair — usually blonde or light brown, sometimes with highlights. They wore fashionable clothing, clutched fancy purses with manicured nails, and masked their imperfections with flawless makeup.

But my mom didn’t care about fashion. She wore the same sets of clothing day in and day out and carried a giant, ratty old leather bag wherever she went. She had untamed, curly black hair and olive skin, spoke English with a harsh accent, rarely painted her nails, and hardly ever wore makeup.

Now, you might wonder what hair dye, makeup, and fashion have to do with whiteness. Generally, there isn’t much of a relationship; anyone can choose to look and dress a certain way.

However, when you’re born to parents who left a politically tumultuous homeland, you very quickly realize they suffer from a kind of survivor’s guilt. They carry shame for having abandoned their own parents and siblings for what they believed would be a better life. They don’t believe they deserve to have nice things, or that they can afford them (even when they can).

Every moment is haunted by the potential of loss. Tomorrow could be the day they lose everything, so nothing of excess is ever worth wasting precious resources on.

Simply put, many immigrants are traumatized by the very act of migration.

Often, immigrants struggle with economic and social disadvantage. Many immigrant families simply don’t have the luxury to look nice, and so for the immigrant child, even superficial things like clothing, nail polish, makeup, and hair dye on certain bodies can become important signifiers of not just class, but also whiteness.

My mother was too stressed and overworked, alienated and depressed to care about fashion. She didn’t have any friends and felt uncomfortable with white women — partly for cultural reasons, and partly because of her accent. In fact, she was so self-conscious about her accent, she didn’t speak a word of English to me until I went to kindergarten. She didn’t want me to learn English from her because she was afraid I’d learn her accent, so she instead waited until I could learn ‘proper’ English from my teachers and classmates.

Her goal was to make sure that I was assimilated and that I fit in at all costs, and this desire was directly informed by her own feelings of alienation in Canadian society. Whatever differences I observed between her and the other moms must have been amplified ten-fold for her.

But I learned that my mom wasn’t the only one who was different. I was different too, and I struggled relating to other kids. I wasn’t exposed to the same media and culture that they were. I didn’t wear the same clothes, eat the same food, and I didn’t tell the same jokes, anecdotes or stories. It became very clear that I was a foreigner, even though I was living only a few kilometers from the hospital I’d been born in.

A Chimera Trying to be a Chameleon

When I was seven years old, I had my first play-date with a white classmate — let’s call her Karen. Karen’s family was some nth generation Canadian, with a clear family tree of every ancestor from the past few centuries. Karen had stunning, pale blue eyes and strawberry blonde locks that I desperately yearned for. During summer, I’d spend hours in the sun hoping that my dark hair would lighten.

“Am I turning blonde yet?” I’d excitedly ask my mother after spending a day in Karen’s yard.

Yet all that accomplished was sunburns for Karen and brown skin for me.

“Oh my God, you look like a Sri Lankan!” Karen’s mother and aunt laughed when they saw me.

At the time, I didn’t know that Sri Lankan was an ethnicity. I didn’t know what the comment meant or why it felt bad, but I had the impression that there was something funny or embarrassing about how dark my skin had turned seemingly overnight. There shouldn’t be anything embarrassing about looking like a certain ethnicity, but the tone with which I’d been told made me feel like I was somehow wrong.

Although I always knew my ethnicity, I didn’t learn about my muddled racial heritage until much later. I know that I am mixed race, but I’ll never know the extent of it, because imperial legacy does a wonderful job of erasing records and lineages.

While most people of Western European descent have the luxury of knowing where their ancestors are from — which great-grandparent was German, French, or British — people whose ancestors hail from Africa, the Middle East, or the Balkans can only speculate based on limited records and oral history.

Where there is empire, there is a deep loss for the children who are born after that empire crumbles. We want to know our roots. We want to know what our heritage is and where we belong. All I know is that I have diverse roots that have molded me into someone who is sometimes coded as white, and sometimes as something else.

The Universal Woman is White

These were my first encounters with soft racism, but even as they happened, I learned that there was far worse. I didn’t think what was happening to me was racism. As a kid, I assumed racism could only happen to black people, because everyone in my predominantly white neighbourhood seemed to have opinions about black people.

I remember overhearing Karen’s mother say that she would never want her son to date a black woman.

“They’re aggressive,” she argued, “and their butts look weird.”

“Really?” Karen’s aunt replied. “I think they have gorgeous bodies — such nice curves.”

In this brief exchange I had been exposed to two immensely toxic ideas:

First, that what mattered in a woman before all else was how well she conformed to white standards of beauty; and second, that black women are either dangerous and to be avoided, or exotic objects to be fetishized.

Of course, I didn’t have the language I do now to describe these ideas, but it would be a lie to say I didn’t understand them. Even as a third grader, I knew implicitly what these statements meant, and they affected how I understood myself as a girl and an immigrant, and how I understood other women of colour.

It entrenched in me an unconscious drive to be as white as possible. Until I was in my late teens, I kept dying my hair blonde, dieting, and begging my mother to let me wear coloured contacts. I wasn’t intentionally trying to whitewash myself, but I had internalized the standards of white beauty to such a degree that I genuinely believed I would look better with Keira Knightley’s frame, blonde hair, and green eyes.

And yet through it all, whenever someone asked me if I was white, I’d balefully reply that I was, in fact, beige.

***

I mentioned in an earlier piece, A Critique Privilege, Oppression, and Other Such Loaded Concepts, that calling myself ‘beige’ became my way of creating a space for myself. I knew from an early age that ‘white’ didn’t fit. But I also didn’t identify with any of the more established minorities in my neighbourhood. Rather, I occupied an ambiguous space where my race became subject to debate depending on my context.

Beige’ is my way of honouring my experiences of soft racism, of alienation, liminality, and of my family’s sacrifices. It’s a way to ensure I never forget the violent and complicated legacy of imperialism. It’s a reminder that whiteness is often oversimplified and too easily thrown around without consideration. This oversimplification is not just unfair to white-passing people of colour; it obscures exploitation and oppression that hinges on whiteness as a tool of power, wielded by a certain group of people. Without proper nuance, whiteness becomes too sweeping, too general — and something that speaks of everything fails to actually speak about anything at all.