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ghostsandmermaids · 1 month ago

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Podcasts To Listen To If You Like OFMD

Today is the anniversary of the finale of Our Flag Means Death season 2. One whole year without our favorite pirates :( But if you miss OFMD as much as I do, I have some podcast recommendations I think you'd enjoy!

If you want more queer pirates:

Trice Forgotten

Trice Forgotten is a found-family, pirating adventure. Alestes puts her head down working as a merchant, couriering deliveries and carrying travelers to destinations across the seas. Only, her travelers gradually become permanent crewmates, until she realises her ship has become a floating museum, laboratory, vault of repatriated ‘treasures’ and chef’s kitchen. After spending most of her life with the understanding that nothing changes, no matter how hard you fight, Alestes is faced with a choice: Will she use her new network of allies to build safe harbour and potentially a future for her new community, or will she once again put her head down and drown in her sea of excuses…

Queer neurodivergent pirates of color! Found family! Homoerotic sword fights! What else do you want? (And they even talk about OFMD in one of the Below Decks episodes!)

The Ballad of Anne & Mary

It's 1721, and London is abuzz with news of notorious pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, currently languishing in Newgate Prison. It’s the perfect time for debt-ridden journalist Nathaniel Mist to exploit the public appetite and ghost-write a sensational (and hopefully best-selling) history of pirates. But as the balladeers and gossips on the streets of London build myths around the blood-thirsty, perverse lady pirates, Mist is forced to reckon with the real Bonny & Read… Featuring musical sensation Christina Bianco, actress and comedian Sooz Kempner, Hamilton star Karl Queensborough, drag legend Le Gateau Chocolat, and more.

If you can't get enough of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, listen to this podcast musical about them!

If you want more queer comedies:

Welcome To Night Vale

Welcome To Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide.

Okay, it's a horror comedy and can be creepy at times, but it's also one of the few shows that have made me laugh as much as OFMD.

Starship Q Star

When a space agency sends the “first all woman and non-binary crew” on a blatant PR mission to Mars, they inadvertently end up the last six humans in the universe. Lead by Co-Captains (and exes) Aurelia and Sim, Starship Q Star follows this madcap crew on their quest across the galaxy in search of a new home… which is basically one hilarious mishap after the other.

I suppose if you found the absolutely two perfect ex-girlfriends and sent them to Mars, then they could potentially… co-captain?

If you want more queer historical comedies:

Fawx & Stallion

London, 1889. When the residents of 221B Baker Street leave town for the weekend to solve one of their most famous cases, no one is left to clear a poor housekeeper’s name of a crime she didn’t commit. Well, no one except for their neighbors at 224B…

Tonally, this is probably the closest to OFMD. I started this podcast yesterday and fell in love with it immediately. If you like OFMD and Sherlock Holmes, please check out Fawx & Stallion!

The Kingmaker Histories

On the 19th of February, 1911, in the Valorian Socialist Republic, an assistant tailor named Colette Geise experienced a migraine that ruined her life. This is a historical account of what happened next. THE KINGMAKER HISTORIES is a steampunk weird fiction podcast about being gay and doing crime, brought to you by the freaks who brought you Less Is Morgue.

Alternate history + magic + comedy + queerness. Do I need to say more?

If you want more (queer) rom-coms:

Me and AU

When Kate “ACunningPlan” Cunningham sparks up an online friendship with a fellow fanfiction writer it seems like the perfect distraction from a summer stuck in her hometown of Kamloops, B.C., not to mention the coming terrors of her final year of university and the Real Adult Future beyond. (Seriously, please don’t mention them.) After all, Hella--Enchanted is funny, smart and writes canon-divergent werewolf fic like no one else. She’s everything a fandom could ask for. But… what if she’s everything Kate could ask for, too?

Me and AU is not only an adorable sapphic rom-com, but also a love letter to fandom! Go listen to this, it's so cute!

Life With LEO(h)

A sci-fi(ish) romantic comedy podcast starring a repressed lawyer, a criminal client, a pesky sister and her fiance, an infuriatingly sexy coworker, and an android in the mood for love. Jeanine Bell is a robotics intelligence lawyer whose laser focus on her career has come at the expense of her romantic and social lives. After successfully keeping AI genius Penelope Lane out of prison, Jeanine receives the gift of LEO(h), an android with Synthetic Sentience. LEO(h) is Loving, Empathetic, Optimistic, and (only sorta) helpful. He's programmed to love Jeanine. He’s also very, very illegal.

I'm only two episodes in and already so invested in this story! Jeanine and LEO(h) are absolutely adorable.

(Note: as far as I know, the main romance isn't queer, but there are other queer characters in the show.)

If you want more queer found families:

Hello From The Hallowoods

Darker than your dreams, and farther North than you remember, there is a forest where life and death meet… Come walk between the black pines! In this award-winning queer fiction podcast, a cosmic narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. It's a bittersweet story that explores queer identity, horror genre tropes, and finding hope in humanity's last moments.

Did I only add HFTH to the list because it's my all-time favorite podcast and I want more people to listen to it? Maybe. But I also genuinely think that if you like OFMD, you are going to love some of these characters. Check out my fandom manifesto if you want to learn more!

Starfall

Starfall is a fantasy audio drama about the adventures of the Carouvel Traveling Acting Troupe - a theatre troupe that uses magical items to create illusions for their shows as they move around the Falstenian Empire. The story begins as the troupe is joined by Leona, a young warrior with a mysterious past and even more mysterious powers. With their new guardian in tow, the troupe traverses the continent, encountering the dangers of humans, fae, and greater forces alike, all while still trying to put on a good show.

Remember Stede's fuckery play in S1E6? Now you can listen to a fantasy theatre troupe put on magical plays! How cool is that?

If you want more of the cast:

Kisses in the Dark

Against the bright lights of Blackpool, a supernatural killer is at work and a dark and dangerous love affair begins… A sinister, disturbingly romantic seven part podcast drama written by Marty Ross (BBC’s Catch My Breath & Ghost Zone and Audible’s The Darkwater Bride) and starring Con O’Neill (Chernobyl, The Batman) and Rhiannon Clements. A contemporary Gothic horror tale set against a background of life on the narrow edge between Pleasure Beach and wild cold sea, between secret desire and a deadly evil. Also starring, Kyle Rowe, Pamela Mayoss, Steven Gidwaney, Patrick Price & Ryan Clayton.

Con O'Neill plays one of the main characters!

What Will Be Here?

In What Will Be Here?, five friends send a rocket to space with a collection of recordings on it that document the world’s decline, the stories they want to tell, and their efforts in building this rocket to get their message to the stars. They wonder what their world will have become by the time their message is listened to. At its core, this show is about living and creating when things feel pointless. It's a story that came out of the pandemic, and the landscape in which this story was written and produced greatly influenced how it turned out. What Will Be Here? is set on earth 200 years in the future, where large-scale crises are fully normalized. But despite the bleak backdrop, this story is one of hope - of overcoming challenges, of making things that might be temporary, but also things that might be launched into space and continue on forever.

Vico Ortiz plays one of the main characters!

Dungeon Masters

Dungeon Masters takes a behind-the-curtain look into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, told through the lenses of the creator of the game, Gary Gygax, played by Wil Wheaton and of private investigator, William Dear, played by Jon Hamm, a swashbuckling tough guy in 1979. Gygax guides the audience through this incredible true story as our Dungeon Master, as we follow Dear on his quest to find Dallas Egbert, a Michigan State student, who supposedly disappeared in the steam tunnels under his university while enacting a real-life version of D&D. What Dear encounters on this journey and ultimately discovers, defies all expectations, and changes the culture as we know it.

Kristian Nairn plays one of the main characters!

The Diaries of Netovicius the Vampire

Neto is an artist first, an immortal vampire second, but for now he's being kicked out of his Beacon Hill apartment in Boston Mass. That's where we begin, but more than a year into this audio-series I can't believe the journey Neto, and me, the creator have been on. But that's a longer story than I can get into here. For now, I hope there is something in this audio-series for you. It's about vampires, but ultimately it's about recovery, from trauma, from alcoholism, even from cults. It asks: Does time really heal all wounds? Featuring VAs known for Valorant, Diablo IV & Overwatch

Written and performed by Hugo Pierre Martin!

The Cryptid Factor

Three best buddies - Rhys Darby, Dan Schreiber, and Leon 'Buttons' Kirkbeck bring you The Cryptid Factor - a podcast dedicated to all things weird that are yet to be defined by science. Since 2008 they have passionately (and often awkwardly) been discussing 'cryptids' and monsters like Yeti, Chupacabra, Bigfoot and Nessie - as well as weird news of the world, UFO's, Time travellers, robots and space stuff. Though they take these pseudosciences as seriously as they can, they struggle to take themselves seriously at all. Hosted by comedian and actor Rhys Darby, star of top rating podcast 'No Such Thing as a Fish' Dan Schreiber - and Pulling it all together is their best friend, 'Buttons'. If anything goes wrong, it is probably his fault.

Rhys Darby is one of the hosts!

Date My Abuelita, First!

From Executive Producer Wilmer Valderrama comes a dating show that proves abuelita knows best! Host Vico Ortiz alongside our resident abuelita, Liliana are ready to meet their match! Three single contestants will compete for a date with one lucky guest. Through speed-dating rounds, hilarious games, wildly silly and genuinely heartfelt introspections, and grandmotherly love, one contestant will either be a step closer to love or be sent back to the apps. Abuelita holds all the cupid power, so let the chispas fly!

Vico Ortiz is one of the hosts!

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sergeantpixie · 5 months ago

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Thanks for tagging me @forasecondtherewedwon!

rules: list 5 of your favourite books on a poll, so your followers can vote which book they think captures your vibe the best

Tagging: @morocorra, @imperpetuallylost, @randomestfandoms, @woodswit, and anyone else who wants to!

Book summaries from Goodreads below the cut:

Libba Bray's The Diviners:

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer. As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho is hiding a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened…

Ami McKay's The Witches of New York:

The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, Adelaide Thom ('Moth' from The Virgin Cure) has left her life in the sideshow to open a tea shop with another young woman who feels it's finally safe enough to describe herself as a witch: a former medical student and "gardien de sorts" (keeper of spells), Eleanor St. Clair. Together they cater to Manhattan's high society ladies, specializing in cures, palmistry and potions--and in guarding the secrets of their clients.

All is well until one bright September afternoon, when an enchanting young woman named Beatrice Dunn arrives at their door seeking employment. Beatrice soon becomes indispensable as Eleanor's apprentice, but her new life with the witches is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead. Has she been touched by magic or is she simply losing her mind?

Eleanor wants to tread lightly and respect the magic manifest in the girl, but Adelaide sees a business opportunity. Working with Dr. Quinn Brody, a talented alienist, she submits Beatrice to a series of tests to see if she truly can talk to spirits. Amidst the witches' tug-of-war over what's best for her, Beatrice disappears, leaving them to wonder whether it was by choice or by force.

As Adelaide and Eleanor begin the desperate search for Beatrice, they're confronted by accusations and spectres from their own pasts. In a time when women were corseted, confined and committed for merely speaking their minds, were any of them safe?

Megan Abbott's Dare Me:

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls—until the young new coach arrives.

Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl"—both with the team and with Addy herself.

Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death—and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain.

Nina LaCour's Everything Leads to You:

A wunderkind young set designer, Emi has already started to find her way in the competitive Hollywood film world. Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic…. She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

Sarah Rees Brennan's Tell the Wind & Fire:

In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets.

Lucie Manette was born in the Dark half of the city, but careful manipulations won her a home in the Light, celebrity status, and a rich, loving boyfriend. Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men’s deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth.

Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herself?

#tag games #beloved mutuals #books #kind of annoying that the goodreads summary for wind & fire doesn't mention that it's a tale of two cities rewrite...#*singsongs* one of these things is not like the other!!!!#tonally nina lacour is so different from the other authors but idec #she is so good at creating comforting lived in settings #edit: not 3/5 of these books being set in nyc...#I stand by it tho #my favorite city in the world

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non-conventionnel · 6 months ago

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Excerpt from the historical novel, Memories of Recurrent Echoes by Anton Sammut

…On arrival at Orly Airport, Fritz and his sister Magda hired a taxi which drove them to the City of Paris. The first Parisian landmark that caught their eye was the majestic Eiffel Tower and in the background, on a distant hill, the white Church of Montmartre. They immediately opted that their hotel could wait and asked the driver to take them around the city, though they knew that this would cost them a whole day’s budget.

The River Seine fascinated them, too, with boatloads of tourists all eager to see as much as they could. They also admired a number of bridges amongst which the flamboyant Pont Alexandre III. The driver, a friendly, balding man of about fifty, with moustaches à la Clemenceau, informed them that quite nearby there’s the famous Pont Neuf which, ironically, was the first to be built way back in 1607. With very broken English, he explained that Paris was divided into twenty Arrondissements: from the Louvre, to the last one which contained the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery. On their way to the fifteenth quarter of Montparnasse, where they were to lodge, the driver affably explained which were the most interesting quarters, particularly the seventh one that hosted the Eiffel Tower and the Hôtel des Invalides, which guards Napoleon’s tomb. The eighth one was notorious, the seat of the haute couture as well as the area of the Champs Elysées. The ninth and tenth quarters were famous for the nightlife with countless cabarets, erotic clubs and bordellos concentrated mostly in Pigalle. The eighteenth quarter could be deemed as the tourists’ paradise, the notorious Montmartre, famous for its refined bistros and for what once was the Mecca of the great artists…

…In the meantime, Fritz and Magda arrived at their three-star hotel, appositely chosen for economical reasons. Once inside, Fritz rushed to the bathroom for a well-earned shower, knowing too well that were his sister to precede him he would have to wait ages before she came out.

At about seven in the evening, the twins took the metro, their destination the Champ de Mars, in the vicinity of the Eiffel Tower; dropped in at a bistro, and enjoyed a delightful meal à la Parisienne. At about nine, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated to vie with the silvery stars seemingly multicoloured light-bulbs lit on earth. Here they strolled for another two hours, at times stopping to light a cigarette, and then they headed for Pigalle, moved on to the Moulin Rouge, booked two tickets for the cabaret show on the following Saturday, and went to another nightclub where they spent the rest of the night in lascivious abandon. Magda hooked up with a pretty tourist-girl and when Fritz saw his sister revelling in that Dionysian oasis conveniently agreed to go his way and meet her later…

…They entered the hotel at almost dawn, physically exhausted, and woke up at four the next afternoon. In the evening they toured the Montparnasse area, then headed for Montmartre and visited other locations which had once hosted celebrated cabarets full of erotic dancers, some of whom were immortalised in paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec. That evening they hit it off with a group of friendly French bon vivants including a number of girls. Fritz was not going to miss his chance and he was soon making overtures to one of them called Colette. “…Vous êtes ravissante. Je voudrais faire votre connaissance. Voulez-vous venir avec moi pour un café?” Fritz didn’t seem to understand, but he was sure that she was all set to conquer him…

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thejazzera · 7 months ago

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Colette Couture

Vogue (Paris) Mars 1926

#fashion #1920s #magazine #advertising #art deco

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little-peril-stories · 10 months ago

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Character Backstory Playlist Tag

I was tagged in this post by @mysticstarlightduck. Thanks for the tag!

Rules: Pick 5 songs you feel represent/inspired your OCs' backstories, or just otherwise fit their past's vibe/aesthetic. Choose as many or as few OCs as you want.

I'm leaving this an OPEN TAG - please play if you want, and let me know if you do! 💕

So I did once make a playlist for The Prince of Thieves (find it here), but it is a typical WIP playlist - not backstory-focused. (I *did* steal a few songs from there, though.) So this was a fun challenge!

Will and Jamie Wardrew

Tough to be a Dreamer by Felix Hagan & The Family

I built my castle on broken dreams, and as time goes by, I must admit it seems that I was sold a lie.

In the Meantime by Randall Kent

You’ve got a friend when times get mean; yeah, in the meantime, I’m on your team.

Same Suit, Different Tie by The Maine

All done up in my hand-me-down clothes, shaking off the dust and assuming a pose. Well, these threads are so old, but they'll never know. No one will ever know.

Is It Really You? by Loathe and Sleep Token

Face away, deal with the pain your own way.

Some Days by Brent Morgan

Some days I'm overwhelmed. Some days I'm lost inside this hell.

Bree Cooper / Breanna Hatchett

Sleepless Nights by Faber Drive

Put yourself in her position; all she needs is recognition. Love's not enough when you say it. Don't you know you gotta mean it?

Because of You by Kelly Clarkson

I will not make the same mistakes that you did; I will not let myself cause my heart so much misery… I was so young; you should have known better than to lean on me.

Running Away by Midnight Hour

I'll never let you find me; I'm leaving you behind with the past. No, I won't look back.

All I've Ever Known from Hadestown

I was alone so long, I didn't even know that I was lonely. Out in the cold so long, I didn't even know that I was cold.

(Un)Lost by The Maine

And you are not allowed to be anybody else. Control what you can and confront what you can't, and always remember how lucky you are to have yourself.

Colette Meunier

Boulangerie by Recent Rumours

She's gone, she's gone, she's gone; she's not coming back.

The Man by Taylor Swift

I'm so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man.

mars by YUNGBLOOD

She can't be herself when she's somebody else... Do you feel like you're irrelevant?

Perfect by Simple Plan

Hey, Dad... Did I grow up according to plan? Now it's just too late, and we can't go back. I'm sorry I can't be perfect.

Safe by All Time Low

Gotta take your time, find your space.

Geoff Marks

3 Hours of White Noise

Bonus Songs

Jamie & Will: I Steal Everything from Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier

Want food, but got no money? I’m screwed, or so it would seem… That’s why I came up with this brilliant scheme! Just steal everything!

Bree & Colette: What the Hell by Avril Lavigne

All my life I've been good, but now I'm thinking, "What the hell?"

Will: I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie

In Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black, and I held my tongue as she told me, "Son, fear is the heart of love," so I never went back.

Will: Where Dreams Go to Die by The Downtown Fiction

Teacher thinks you're rude, says, "I don't like your attitude." Well, maybe you're just condescending. But bring us up to follow rules and throw us all in cubic rooms - but we're not gonna sit by idle.

Breanna H: According to You by Orianthi

According to you, I'm stupid, I'm useless, I can't do anything right

Me begging my sisters for song recs because I had NO CLUE…

#tag game #character backstory playlist #also if you're wondering why the banner looks different #like different fonts and stuff #I'm learning to use Photoshop! and I wanted to practice #so I didn't have access to my usual Canva fonts etc #anyway nobody talk about how often Twisted shows up as inspiration for me #I just love it. OKAY?#and on an administrative note: the songs for Bree are obviously applicable to Bree (TPOT) and Breanna (TQOL)#and actually there's so much overlap between Bree and Colette's backstories lmao #so a few of them are applicable to both gals #anyway this was really difficult because I mostly like cheesy love songs or cheesy emo PINING FOR LOVE songs #neither of which have anything to do with my characters' backstories #le sigh #despite that it was fun!

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foxofsunholt · 2 years ago

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Been re-reading info about the MC's potential kids with their respective LIS, and it made me wonder about how they'd handle the news when they first learn they're expecting?

Like how an expecting MC or the F!LIs deal with various effects that come with pregnancy, like food cravings, morning sickness, hormones, ect. (Although I imagine poor Camille would probably have the roughest time carrying twins.)

Or which of the possible M!LIs would dote on an expecting MC, how they would feel about becoming a dad, or potentially freaking out about the risks pregnancy can carry, and why are babies heads so soft?!

I don’t know how much of what I’ve said before is still accurate to what is being written now but I do know that I’ve changed around how the babies work here. Pregnancy shenanigans happen off screen, in the gap between act 2 and act 3. So, this is actually something that never gets answered in game! Also the MC is implied to be unable to bare children without the assistance of magic and/or surrogacy and/or in vitro ( and/or maybe there is some magical baby incubator idk) . Though, the game doesn’t get into the details of it, so whatever conception difficulties they encounter is up to the imagination. THAT SAID

Camille and Adelaide most certainly try to live their lives like they’re not pregnant at all. Camille still does her magic, Adelaide is holding court while actively in pain. It’s up to the MC to remind them to take breaks, slow down, take care of themselves. Camille has the worst of it, with magical twins wrestling inside of her. Colette, Adelaide and the MC’s daughter, is a great, easy birth. So sorry to Camille. Faith canonically does not want to be pregnant, so she does not go through this (she is very for adoption, should you want children).

All of the LIs, male or female, would dote on an expecting MC. In game, you can see how they reconcile with becoming a parent. Mars is, predictably, the one who is out here buying 50 parenting books and rocking back and forth with baby anxiety. Thank god there’s no google because he would be googling everything the baby did to check if it’s normal. The MC probably has to pull him out of a baby-health-panic rabbit hole. Sidney is the most “naturally good” parent, having raised his little sister and generally getting along well with kids. All of the Male LIs, assuming their MC went through labor, would be the one taking care of the demanding baby and letting their love get their rest and recover. Yoon may complain up and down about changing diapers but he is doing it! Yes, he sprays down the garbage with freshener so much that your house permanently smells like lemons now but he’s doing it! He is the most like “pffft, I can be a parent!” and then “oh god why is there so much puke”. AKA, the most clueless about what having a baby entails.

And even though you learn this in game, a little explanation of how every LI feels about being a parent:

Adelaide — WORRIED

Camille — WORRIED

Faith — WORRIED

Mars — WORRIED

Sid — WORRIED

Yoon — WORRIED

Hope this answers your question!

#asks

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 1 year ago

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2023 Movie Journey: Masterlist

if you’ve known me for any time at all, you should know by now that i will not watch very many movies this year. i’ll aspire to, i’ll think it’s a good idea, but it’s just not that likely to happen. however, that shouldn’t stop me from the fun of trying!

my goal was to average one movie a week so by year’s end i’d have seen more than 50. that didn’t come close to happening, but i’ll keep reviewing them here and check them off my watchlist as i go. (this list just keeps getting longer but i enjoyed updating it for 2023.)

last year’s list is here, with every movie i reviewed linked now, in case anybody wants to read those and hasn’t before.

4th man out (2015)

12 years a slave (2013)

80 for brady (2023)

a family man (2016)

a haunting in venice (2023)

a man called otto (2023)

a room with a view (1985)

a simple favor (2018)

a single man (2009)

a wrinkle in time (2018)

about time (2013)

admission (2013)

after yang (2021)

all the bright places (2020)

always be my maybe (2019)

american fiction (2023)

american gangster (2007)

ammonite (2020)

amsterdam (2022)

an education (2009)

ant man (2015)

ant man and the wasp (2018)

ant man and the wasp: quantumania (2023)

anyone but you (2023)

anything’s possible (2022)

aquaman (2018)

are you there god? it’s me margaret (2023)

arrival (2016)

atonement (2007)

august: osage county (2013)

babylon (2023)

bad education (2019)

barbie (2023)

be kind rewind (2008)

bedazzled (2000)

begin again (2013)

big eyes (2014)

billy elliot (2000)

blockers (2018)

bohemian rhapsody (2018)

bowfinger (1999)

boy erased (2018)

breaking (2022)

brideshead revisited (2008)

bright young things (2003)

burn burn burn (2015)

cairo time (2009)

call jane (2022)

can you ever forgive me? (2018)

catherine called birdy (2022)

chef (2014)

clemency (2019)

coco (2017)

colette (2018)

crazy rich asians (2018)

creed (2015)

creed 2 (2018)

creed 3 (2023)

crouching tiger, hidden dragon (2000)

crush (2022)

cyrano (2021)

damsel (2023)

daughter of the bride (2023)

dazed and confused (1993)

demolition man (1993)

devil’s knot (2013)

die hard 2 (1990)

die hard with a vengeance (1995)

dog day afternoon (1975)

dual (2022)

earth girls are easy (1988)

effie gray (2014)

ella mckay (?)

elvis (2022)

eurovision song contest: the story of fire saga (2020)

fast color (2018)

fighting with my family (2019)

fright night (2011)

galaxy quest (1999)

girls trip (2017)

glass onion: a knives out mystery (2022)

gone girl (2014)

good luck to you, leo grande (2022)

goodbye christopher robin (2017)

gosford park (2001)

gunpowder milkshake (2021)

happy death day (2017)

happy death day 2u (2019)

happy texas (1999)

heart of stone (2023)

her smell (2018)

holes (2003)

honk for jesus. save your soul. (2022)

honor society (2022)

how to talk to girls at parties (2017)

how to train your dragon (2010)

hysteria (2011)

i am not your negro (2017)

i don’t feel at home in this world anymore (2017)

i, tonya (2017)

if beale street could talk (2018)

inception (2010)

indiana jones and the dial of destiny (2023)

infinitely polar bear (2014)

jackie (2016)

jane got a gun (2015)

joyful noise (2012)

judas and the black messiah (2021)

judy blume forever (2023)

junebug (2005)

jupiter ascending (2015)

just mercy (2019)

kajillionaire (2020)

keeping mum (2005)

knife fight (2012)

kubo and the two strings (2016)

laggies (2014)

last holiday (2006)

late night (2019)

legally blonde (2001)

lemonade mouth (2011)

little (2019)

live free or die hard (2007)

logan lucky (2017)

love, simon (2018)

m3gan (2022)

ma rainey’s black bottom (2020)

magic mike xxl (2015)

magic mike: last dance (2023)

mansfield park (1999)

mars attacks! (1996)

mary queen of scots (2018)

master (2022)

master gardener (2022)

me and earl and the dying girl (2015)

meet the robinsons (2007)

megamind (2010)

memento (2000)

men in black international (2019)

mermaids (1990)

midsommar (2019)

migration (2023)

miss pettigrew lives for a day (2008)

miss sloane (2016)

missing (2023)

monkey business (1952)

monuments men (2014)

moonlight (2016)

moonrise kingdom (2012)

moonshot (2022)

moving on (2022)

mr. magorium’s wonder emporium (2007)

mr. mom (1983)

much ado about nothing (2011)

muriel’s wedding (1994)

nancy drew and the hidden staircase (2019)

nanny mcphee (2005)

nanny mcphee returns (2010)

never let me go (2010)

newsies (1992)

no time to die (2021)

nope (2022)

northanger abbey (2007)

not okay (2022)

obvious child (2014)

on the come up (2022)

oppenheimer (2023)

other people (2016)

overboard (2018)

pacific rim (2013)

palm springs (2020)

parasite (2019)

paris is burning (1990)

passing (2021)

penelope (2007)

pete’s dragon (2016)

pirate radio (2009)

please stand by (2017)

polite society (2023)

pride (2014)

pride and prejudice and zombies (2016)

professor marston and the wonder women (2016)

return to oz (1985)

rise of the guardians (2012)

rita moreno: just a girl who decided to go for it (2021)

rocketman (2019)

roll bounce (2005)

rosaline (2022)

saving face (2004)

say anything (1989)

scream (2022)

scream 6 (2023)

see how they run (2022)

seeking a friend for the end of the world (2012)

she said (2022)

shoplifters (2018)

short term 12 (2013)

sing street (2016)

sleeping with other people (2015)

someone great (2019)

sorry to bother you (2018)

soul (2020)

spiderman: far from home (2019)

spiderman: homecoming (2017)

spiderman: into the spiderverse (2018)

spiderman: no way home (2021)

spin me round (2022)

spotlight (2015)

spy kids (2001)

stage fright (2014)

step up (2006)

talk to me (2023)

teeth (2007)

the 355 (2022)

the age of innocence (1993)

the anniversary party (2001)

the batman (2022)

the best exotic marigold hotel (2012)

the breadwinner (2017)

the children act (2017)

the color purple (2023)

the craft: legacy (2020)

the disaster artist (2017)

the divine order (2017)

the emperor’s new groove (2000)

the eyes of tammy faye (2021)

the fall (2006)

the fallout (2022)

the fighting temptations (2003)

the five year engagement (2012)

the gentlemen (2020)

the godfather (1972)

the godfather part 2 (1974)

the godfather part 3 (1990)

the great gatsby (2013)

the hunchback of notre dame (1996)

the hunger games: the ballad of songbirds and snakes (2023)

the hunt (2020)

the iron lady (2011)

the kill room (2023)

the legend of tarzan (2016)

the little mermaid (2023)

the lost city (2022)

the marvels (2023)

the master (2012)

the matrix resurrections (2021)

the menu (2022)

the notebook (2004)

the old guard (2020)

the outfit (2022)

the photograph (2020)

the prestige (2006)

the prince of egypt (1998)

the prom (2020)

the queen (2006)

the royal hotel (2023)

the second best exotic marigold hotel (2016)

the secret garden (2020)

the skeleton twins (2014)

the spy who dumped me (2018)

the suicide squad (2021)

the super mario bros. movie (2023)

the trial of the chicago 7 (2020)

the truman show (1998)

the unbearable weight of massive talent (2022)

the united states vs. billie holiday (2021)

the velocipastor (2018)

the way he looks (2014)

the woman king (2022)

the wonder (2022)

their finest (2016)

this means war (2012)

tootsie (1982)

treasure planet (2002)

troop zero (2019)

two lovers and a bear (2016)

us (2019)

valley girl (2020)

velvet goldmine (1998)

violent night (2022)

venom (2018)

venom: let there be carnage (2021)

victoria & abdul (2017)

walk the line (2005)

wet hot american summer (2001)

what happens later (2023)

what we do in the shadows (2014)

where’d you go, bernadette (2019)

widows (2018)

wild target (2010)

wish (2023)

women talking (2022)

wonka (2023)

yesterday (2019)

young adult (2011)

zombieland: double tap (2019)

#2023 movie journey

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uwuthrad · 2 years ago

Text

Hi I made a thing

Inspired by @nerevar-quote-and-star suffering for our sins by a writing a no-doubt deeply cathartic fic about a Bishop/LDB/Ulfric “love” triangle, I finished writing this thing yesterday evening, wherein Bishop gets very, very dead.

I meant for it to be silly and funny, but it’s Bishop so it got slightly dark and stalkerish. Please don’t take any of this too seriously.

On Tirdas, Onmund woke up to the full weight of Brelyna Maryon dropping onto his stomach.

His recollection of the following events was, unsurprisingly, rather confused, though Onmund did remember lurching upright, wheezing something about being under attack, then his right buttock being pricked rather sharply by a mean set of claws, Brelyna laughing, and finding himself belatedly throwing a sheet over J’zargo very naked, very present body.

"Um", Onmund said, which was about as eloquent as you were ever likely to get out of him, if he was completely honest with himself.

J’zargo’s claws dug deeper into his backside, and he winced.

"Yes, yes", Brelyna waived airily, "you and J’zargo’s very secret, very illicit love affair that nobody knows anything about. That’s not important right now." She paused, possibly for dramatic effect, though was it dramatized was the need for Onmund to cast a healing spell somewhere Colette could never see. Brelyna leaned forward, like a child sharing a secret: "Léonie’s here! And she has a man with her!"

Onmund raised his eyebrows - both of them, because he never quite got the hand of raising just the one, no matter how long he spent practicing in the mirror. Even the digging in his arse took on a bit of a doubtful quality. The Archmage might spend a fair bit of time running about, but she was around on an almost-weekly basis, so he didn’t quite get how her coming might warrant such an exuberant reaction first thing in the morning.

And as for "a man"…Léonie was almost always accompanied, and often by that short blond scholar from Cyrodiil, the one whose talking speed always made Onmund feel dizzy. Perfectly good company, though, once you got an ale into him, just to mellow him out a bit.

Onmund was kind of wishing for an ale right at the moment too, no matter that he’d barely even begun to wake up. "What’s with the man, then?", he asked, hazarding a guess.

Brelyna bounced on the mattress, which had some painful subterranean results and made Onmund wonder if he could get away with pretending the scars were from a sabercat. "He’s- it’s- oh, you’ve got to see it to believe it!" She bounced off and away, launching herself at the door with a vivacity she only ever exuded in the midst of a mugwort tea-induced high. "Just- get dressed, hurry, and, oh, go tell J’zargo to do the same and join us in the Hall of the Elements! Trust me", she said, which made Onmund lean back on some deeply ingrained self-preservation instinct, "this is gonna be great."

In true Brelyna fashion, it turned out the exact opposite.

Onmund would be willing to admit, under oath, that his first impression of the man they called Bishop was ever-so-slightly marred by the fact that he had his breeches stuffed full of cotton on the right-hand side and a snippy sort-of-lover on the left one. It had taken them months to work up to this, he mourned, and now J’zargo was refusing to even look his way.

So. Bishop.

He was, indeed, a man. (Brelyna got that right, at least, Onmund thought a little snippily, and then immediately felt bad about it. None of this was Brelyna’s fault. Well. Almost none of this.) A Nord, though on the shorter and slighter side, with about the right number of limbs and other appendages. Nothing wrong with him at first glance, except for the fact that his hair had clearly been carefully styled to look unstyled - Onmund’d know, he’d lived with a Khajiit for years now - using some strange shiny substance that had to be some sort of slime.

But truly, the mind-boggling fact about the man was that he… hovered. Over Léonie.

Over Léonie, who was, well, herself - resplendent, an old poem whispered at the back of Onmund’s mind, each day growing closer to something one might only call divine - but wearing her polite little bureaucrat’s smile, perfectly even and serene even as her eyes danced with magic and mischief.

Onmund knew that smile very well. She had worn it, too, in Labyrinthian, down into the guts of the ancient city that had swallowed a generation of their predecessors, and when Morokei had grumbled, one with the walls, You will never leave this tomb.

She had smiled as she had answered in kind, voice soft and melodic and resonant through the soles of Onmund’s feet: I beg your pardon, but on that matter we must agree to disagree.

Today, she smiled at Onmund’s baffled and wary face, an invitation to share in on a joke, and this was when Onmund knew Brelyna was wrong: this was going to be awful. He was going to come along anyway.

Léonie was held off from explaining until they were all seated on a boat headed for Windhelm, though Bishop, by nature, it seemed, beggared all explanation.

"This is Bishop", she said, nodding to the man across her on the boat. She had wedged herself firmly between Brelyna and J’zargo on one bench, leaving Onmund and Bishop to awkwardly share another. It was awkward for Onmund, in any case. Bishop was crossing and uncrossing his arms at an alarming rate, huffing and puffing like a fire struggling to kindle.

Onmund eyed the rather small and shabby seafaring vessel they were all currently squeezed on, and discreetly cast a waterwalking spell on himself. It might be spring everywhere else, but the Sea of Ghosts followed her own rules, which were generally pretty chilly.

"Yeah", Bishop interjected, before Léonie could add anything further. "And who are you sorry lot, huh?"

Léonie made a half-shrugging, sort of "see what I mean?" gesture. "Those", she said, very slowly, as if explaining to a child, "are respected scholars of the College of Winterhold, and my former classmates besides." A pause, where she tilted her head very slightly, stilling, bringing to Onmund’s mind the effigy of the old owl god for a moment, with its forever-face of serene stone. "They are all dear friends of mine."

From Bishop’s reaction to those words, you might as well have thought they were curses. "You- Ladyship, you would count those poncy robe-wearing wizards as your friends? Are you out of your mind?"

From Onmund’s place on the boat, he had the perfect vantage point to see J’zargo’s mouth drop ever-so-slightly open in shocked offense while Léonie only nodded thoughtfully, seemingly unsurprised. Brelyna mouthed the word Ladyship to herself, and Onmund experienced a nauseating flashback to the days where he would "borrow" his sister Sala’s romance novels to read in secret.

He was not ashamed of the fact that he had liked them now, wasn’t ashamed of liking romance now, even if it involved rather fewer roses and quite a bit more explosive substances than expected, but still. He tried imagining calling anyone "Ladyship" outside of, well, a countess or something, and almost crawled out of his skin in reflexive cringe.

"Oh, get this", Léonie added, then turned to address Bishop: "I am married. To a woman. Who, incidentally, happens to be a thousand-years-old vampire you’re very lucky is currently off to visit her mother in the Soul Cairn, or you would be short a pair of testicles and I a pair of eardrums."

Bishop leaned back - there was no other word for it - strutting his stuff. "You mean to tell you’d like to have a threesome? You’re the only woman for me now, wench. I’m not interested in what any other female has to offer."

Léonie spread her hands open on her lap. "You see it now", she said, bypassing Bishop’s contribution entirely. "First I believed this man to be cursed, and in search for a remedy I took him to every temple and healer I knew. I took him to the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun, and Danica Pure-Spring had him stand under the Gildergreen’s dusky shadow as she performed every cleansing rite she knew. She found nothing, so to the Temple of the Eight in Solitude we went, where the priests had him recite the prayers to each of the gods while attempting to cure him. This was no good either, so I tracked down the former priestess of Talos in Windhelm and convinced her to attempt helping him as well, though it was for naught. I left him in the care of the priests of Mara in Riften for seven days and seven nights - though, by this point, it was mostly because I needed to go get seriously drunk - and on the eighth day, I found him at the foot of my bed, waiting."

Onmund shivered. Léonie smiled thinly.

"I am not a little ashamed to admit I reacted violently. But I was startled, and the spell flew before I could stop it." She paused there, thoughtful. "You know me for what I am. The spell I used is one that felled dragons. Yet… on this man, it had no effect."

They, all in unison, turned to the subject of the conversation. He preened. "You know I can handle anything you throw at me, sweetness", he boasted.

"Quite", Léonie said dryly, while Brelyna mimicked throwing up over the side of the boat. Or maybe not mimicking at all, come to think of it. That’d be fair enough, honestly.

"I shall spare you the rest of our tour of Skyrim’s finest healers, priests and curse-breakers", Léonie waved. "Just know that I went as far as to sail all the way back to Solstheim to seek the Skald’s ancient wisdom, sought out the council of the Greybeards, and called upon a reformed daedric priest. All agreed: no curse, no ill was laid on this man, except perhaps for the one of ordinary dullness. But it was the last of these council who gave me this lead I am now pursuing: that Bishop here might not be cursed, but instead be the curse himself."

The…curse? winked at them. "Tough love with this one, ey", it leered.

Brelyna leaned forward, all eager interest - of the scientific, dissecting kind. "You think he’s a dremora? Sent by someone to torment you?"

"It’s possible", Léonie shrugged. "I did mightily piss off Hermaeus Mora with that Solstheim business, and you know how he holds a grudge."

Onmund did not, in fact, know, nor did he ever wish to.

"Oh, and there was Vaermina that one time, though that was a long time ago - anyway. Dremora are more Mehrunes Dagon’s realm - he might be mad at me as well, come to think of it, with that whole business with the razor-"

Onmund always liked talking with Léonie, he reflected, not just because she was good company, but also because she always reminded him that he was, in fact, quite content with his quiet little life as a scholar and his cozy little reading nook and his drinks with the colleagues on Loredas, none of which ever involved any daedric prince whatsoever.

"Right, the main problem with the dremora theory, mostly, is that I’ve tried every scrying technique and detection spell I know, and he shows up as human on every one. I’ve tested spells that might strip off a disguise - oh, please don’t-"

"Sweetheart, you know you don’t need any spell to make me strip for you", Bishop purred.

Léonie closed her eyes, briefly, visibly gathering her strength. "So", she continued through gritted teeth, "he’s either the work of something extremely skilled in illusion, or he’s genuinely a human man who has been cursed with cursing me." She opened her eyes again, a brilliant, dangerous tiger-green. "And whatever has him attached to me doesn’t allow me to lose his tail, reason with him, get rid of him or otherwise dispose of him", she ground out very quickly.

J’zargo perked up, the conversation back on familiar ground. "Has this one tried-"

"Yes", Léonie answered flatly. "I have tried. Everything. Every spell I know. I have had skilled warriors try to crush his skull, stab him in the chest, and pincushioning him with arrows. It all bounced off."

Silence. Léonie cleared her throat, suddenly looking bashful. "I hope you don’t think that.. Power’s getting to my head or something like that. I only tried all this after I was pretty sure it wouldn't do anything, and even then I’m… I’m just so tired."

Léonie suddenly looked alarmingly close to crying, which made Brelyna and Onmund - both equally helpless with emotional people - exchange a panicked look. J’zargo actually took the time to roll his eyes at them before enveloping Léonie in a side embrace that Onmund knew for a fact was sinfully comfy. Khajiit fur, man. You don’t get anything else like it.

"This one has been better than any of those who sit on this boat could claim to be", he rumbled chidingly. "This one has tried to help the other one, but she cannot; perhaps it is nobody can. But if this one cannot soothe his hurt, then it is time to stop him from causing her more pointless suffering. Together, we will solve this. Of this there is no doubt."

Onmund politely looked away when he heard her sniffle, giving her the illusion of privacy, only for his gaze to land on an entirely too-still statue beside him.

He raised his brows at Brelyna, who shrugged, unrepentant. "He looked about to cause a snit about J’zargo touching her", she sniffed, and showed off the gleaming paralysis rune on her palm. "It was that or throw him into the sea."

They arrived at Windhelm a couple minutes before Brelyna’s spell wore off, something Onmund felt reluctantly impressed by. He took great pleasure into rolling the man onto the shore like a barrel of mead.

The plan, Léonie had told them once her tears had dried, was to try and pawn him off to whatever entity would take him.

Alright, so perhaps Léonie had put it in slightly more elegant terms, but Onmund’s mind had sorted through the bit where she went "Boethiah owes me one, sorta, so I was hoping-" and gotten pretty stuck there.

They climbed a mountain. A small mountain, Léonie had claimed, at the top of which sat the shrine to Boethiah. Something she just happened to know. J’zargo and Onmund retreated to a safe distance while Brelyna (a dark elf and therefore culturally insane) and Léonie (functionally a dragon trapped into a human body and therefore bound to go insane eventually) lead the way up the path to the daedric shrine they were about to sacrifice a guy to.

This, Onmund reflected, this was why when people asked what Léonie was like, he always blanked out and said: You had to be there.

And really, you had to be there.

Bishop trudged along even further behind, painfully and confusedly, but to his inquiry as to whether they should just carry him, Léonie had just told him he’d find his way to her eventually. It was, as she said, inevitable.

They broke for lunch on the steps of the shrine, watching the black dot of Bishop grow, indeed, inexorably bigger.

"What happened here?", Onmund asked, upon seeing the remnants of what was clearly a long-abandoned encampment.

"Boethiah challenged her cultists to a fight to the death with me", Léonie said simply.

"Ah", Onmund said. "I assume they lost?"

Léonie tilted her head thoughtfully, regarding him with that serene, faraway expression she sometimes wore when she looked at something far past you. "They fought to the death in the name of their god", she finally replied, simply. "I don’t think they would have seen it as losing."

"Right", Onmund muttered, and carefully didn’t ask any further questions.

"Well, Ladyship, this was quite a trek!", Bishop exclaimed, theatrically puffing out great breaths. He seemed to expect some sort of response to this. Possibly one of fawning admiration.

Léonie slammed the butt of her staff into the ground and hauled herself up. "Bishop", she said, very carefully. "I’m now going to try to kill you and bind your soul to a daedric lord. If that sounds at all unpleasant to you, please feel free to express it in words or gestures, or, if impossible, by turning around and leaving."

Bishop laughed. "Is this what it’s all about? My, my, I didn’t realize you were into these kinds of things, m’lady."

Léonie breathed out through her nose, audibly counting to ten. "Bishop, I am not playing a game. I am not joking."

He leered. "Oh, I know", he purred. "I’m all yours, wench."

Léonie looked heavenwards. "Let it be known", she called out, "that I tried everything."

The whole coterie of them trudged up the stairs, Bishop looking spectacularly unconcerned with the audience considering he seemed persuaded he was about to have some particularly kinky sex, but whatever. Not Onmund’s problem right about now. Or really, ever.

"This is the Pillar of Sacrifice", Léonie declared dully. "If you touch it, it will bind you and only I will have the power to release you. Which I will not do."

"Well-prepared, aren’t we, wench?" With one last uncomprehendingly victorious glance at both Onmund and J’zargo, he strutted up to the pillar and touched it.

It glowed blue. It did, indeed, bind him.

"Now I’m going to stab you with this ceremonial dagger", Léonie recited in a monotone, vaguely waving a wicked-looking blade. "Any objections?"

"Hit me with it, babe", Bishop replied.

So she did.

"This is the grossest suit of flesh I have ever inhabited", the strangely double-honed voice of what was apparently Boethiah declared grandly.

Just don’t think about it, Onmund. Just don’t.

"Tell me about it", Léonie muttered. She leaned her cheek against the graceful metal curve of the Staff of Magnus, eyes half-closed, looking more like a hungover student than someone facing down a daedric prince.

Don’t think about it, Onmund. Spare yourself.

Boethiah-as-Bishop sneered. "This is against the spirit of the agreement."

"Your whole sphere is acting against the spirit of the agreement", Léonie shot back sleepily. "If anything, I thought you’d be proud."

"Being proud has nothing to with being satisfied", the avatar of Boethiah currently wearing the corpse of Léonie’s stalker snarled.

That’s a new sentence if there ever was one, Onmund thought deliriously, and then promptly shut off that line of reasoning too.

Léonie shrugged. "Tough luck." She rolled her shoulders, straightening. She started counting off points off her fingers. "Person who trusted me, followed me willingly - even knowingly! - killed them in cold blood with the appropriate tool at the appropriate location…." She grinned up at the Daedra, swinging the staff around so it rested across her shoulders, leaning her elbows on it like she was carrying a frigging yoke. "So, you owe me something, Boethiah."

The spirit of Boethiah seemed to hesitate, then give in to some baser instinct and stomp its foot. Hard.

"I am not Clavicus Vile", it sneered once the ground had stopped shuddering, "to be bargained with, mortal!"

"And I am no mortal", Léonie replied, evenly, serenely, and for a moment the curve of her arms had the chilling grace of a dragon wing, opening to take flight. "But your words bind you, Boethiah, prince of plots, He-Who Destroys and She-Who-Erases, and here on your sanctified ground, with your sanctified blade, at your holy word, I have done the worst thing that I will ever do, and like the fire burns the ground, so must your deed follow your decree." She smiled thinly. "I am alive because this one is dead."

"Indeed", Boethiah murmured. "Fine. Have my artifact, be my champion, sow chaos and discord wherever you go, we all know you’ll do whatever you want anyway. I still think it’s against the rules that the thing you really want is also the thing you’re giving me-"

"Oh, just take him away, will you?"

When what used to be Bishop turned into ash and started to blow away with the western wind, Léonie sat down on her arse, like a child, and, like a child, wept.

Over the huddle formed by their covenant of four, three to shield the fourth from relief and sorrow intermingled, J’zargo’s clawed hand found Onmund’s, and held on tight.

#Skyrim romance mod #bishop #My writing #Léonie Twice-Blest #Skyrim #TES #Yes Onmund and J'zargo are in love and yes absolutely everybody knows #I like my dragonborns nice but just a little bit eldritch #The missus ain't gonna be happy about this - Léonie throughout all this #TW stalking

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apalestar · 1 year ago

Note

‘ what, from the bottom of my heart, the fuck. ’ // from Colette or Tavriel (:

@notyetfixed from various things spoken in adventuring parties.

The rage and fear boiled. The noose of his master felt about his neck. Tugging. Tugging him back, back to heel. The Gur hunter was a threat. A warning wrapped in cloth and armed with silver tipped arrows. His presence meant to terrorize him. Make him cower. A message sent on the point of a bow.

His mind blanked. His blades sang. He didn’t think behind the need to eliminate the threat. To keep himself safe. From being dragged back. Perhaps he could have drained him. Made use of him, but Astarion didn’t want a monster hunter’s foul blood in his throat.

Whether the shock or bloodloss ended the poor bastard’s life was hard to say. But marred in enough stab wounds no creature could survive. The tension eased from his shoulders. His jaw, however, remained stiff. Eyes narrowed, but not in bloodlust.

Paladins criticized. They always did. Why would she be any different?

“I don’t need your judgement. I did what I had to.” To keep himself safe. There wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do to keep himself free. Merciless slaughter? He’d never blink twice. “He would have taken me back to Cazador.”

#ask: penning the rogue #notyetfixed #verse: the road to baldur's gate #// excuse him for casually committing a murder #q

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morihaus · 1 year ago

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@profanetools tagged me in a tag game :)

describe one wip you’re planning to work on over the summer: my tesfest output has simultaneously been under my expectations and yet pretty much where i figured they'd be. i filled out what i'd like 2 do for each prompt and was quite happy with my ideas but i still have some i really really need to get a jump on... and even if its not done in time for tesfest i can always come back for em. anyway the next targets are "forgotten" about a certain emperor of tamriel's severed head and "teeth" which i had a really great sentence written about hunger and mundus but have not yet figured out how to expand it

recommend a book: the only thing ive been reading is moby dick. if you want to hear about the hidden gem ive been digging into over the summer im sorry to disappoint you. i've been reading about whales. i would not recommend it to the average person i'm doing this as part of a wider character research thing. would love to know more about the characters in the book and less about the length of a whale's skeleton if i'm being quite honest

recommend a fic: in the process of drawing @everybodyknows-everybodydies 's character kharish for artfight i dug into some writing on her and really really enjoyed this one abt mirabelle and fellow wizards... but if you dont want to read about restoration rearranging people's organs i highly recommend any fic involving kharish and colette on her blog. the greatest will-they won't-they in the history of tamriel

recommend music: firstly ive been getting a kick out of this site that lets you listen to radios of different countries in different time periods. been very handy during artfight. but as for specific songs that've been in my head lately:

The Theme from Big Wave by Tatsuro Yamashita

Stayed Away Too Long by The Littlest Man Band

Best Clockmaker on Mars by Sturgill Simpson

share a piece of advice: genuinely just writing myself a sentence for what I want to do with a piece has been an interesting and fun way of getting my writing brain in gear. you probably shouldn't wait weeks to start, admittedly. but it was fun to just put something down as a prompt to myself. got the ball rolling

tagging @everybodyknows-everybodydies bc i already did so why not <3 and @ayem can receive this in 2-3 business days, do as you please

#moriada

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scarabiaa · 2 years ago

Note

Sol, here's a question for you (to help keep your blog not completely dead /j): What's a song you think fits one of your twst oc ships (or multiple ships if you want!) the most?

THANK YOU FOR KEEPING MY BLOG ALIVE TARU (bc i am realizing just today that it is astro's bday and i skipped medi too so. Here we are.)

Medignis: Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars (while they're together). Why this song? Because I can guarantee you that at some point, Meditrina accidentally spills everything she's ever felt to Ignis and she's crying by the end but his resolve is to make her feel like she's enough. He wants her to know that she is enough for him, no matter what!

Post breakup (future): Just a Dream by Nelly, it's mainly on Ignis's part because he is the one that caused their breakup due to how he changed in their third year. But by the time they're out in the real world, he regrets it more than anything and above all, he is desperate to know if she's moved on or found someone knew. She hasn't but he doesn't know it yet.

Irnyx: Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, BUT it's mainly on Onyx's part, which makes it all so much more ironic. The lyrics "I just want you to know who I am" literally apply to him because she was the one who changed his entire life. She was the one who didn't take pity on him and instead decided to do something about it. Afterwards, he realizes how much she loves him (albeit platonically) and he falls for her quite quickly to the point where every second spent with her is a good one, one where he slowly lets down his walls around her.

Coletitus: No Hay Nadie Mas by Sebastian Yatra (the Spanish version). This song is specifically for them because Colette was practically kicked out of her family's hearts and she ran away, finding Titus. While he knew that she was innocent, naive and afraid, something drew him to her and he wanted to stay by his side. And so, he abandoned his relentlessly flirty ways to stay with her. No matter how hard it got, no matter how many times she tried not to break down, he stayed by her side. He always reassured her and when the day came of him saying that he couldn't ever think of replacing her when she was the only one for him, she completely lost it.

Ivyvil: Some Day My Prince Will Come. This one is more complicated but Ivy always dreamed of being a pretty princess and being treated like one. However, at the sight of Vil, she realized that wasn't her dream anymore. She was the one that wanted to save him, to protect him, to shield him from the horrors of his own mind. She wanted to take him away from everything so he wouldn't beat himself up anymore. In the song, it's mainly about finding the "prince" (the true love) and once they meet, it means finally having a better life, one that's much happier. The same could apply for both of them: Vil finally gets someone who loves every part of him, even the dark parts and Ivy gets someone who is more than willing to help her be the best version she can be. So in a sense, the song could be for both of them.

Jamivy: You & I (Nobody in the World) by John Legend. She's the one constantly hyping him up snd telling him he looks good, giving him all sorts of little compliments, especially when she knows he feels down. He feels as though when he's with her, everything is possible and while she is a bit chaotic, he can't help but feel peace inside of him. She's always fussing over him to make sure he's in tiptop shape and it's in these moments--when her eyes are worried about him instead of vice versa, like he always does--that he feels like there's no one else in the world but them.

Ivytrey: She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5. In every sense of the word, Ivy knows that, as much as he won't admit it, he wants to be taken care of. It's engrained in everyone and he'll constantly say he doesn't need to be taken care of, but she's insistent on it. Her insistence makes him realize how much she's sacrificed of herself over the years and as hyperactive as she is, as aggressively kind as she is, as much as she keeps a happy mask on, it's just that: a mask. He wants to take care of her, no matter how much it might be. To him, it's nothing at all. Compared to everyone else, he isn't anything special but the fact that she still goes after him is enough for him. He just wants to be her anchor, the one who grounds her and the one she can be truly vulnerable with.

#🪶.oc writing #the perfect healer: meditrina #the pretty dragon: ignis #the altering cyborg: onyx #the cold flower in the flames: iris #the elegant princess: colette #the itinerant knight: titus #the poisonous anarchist: ivy #i'm gonna be honest i forgot some of their tags for a sec ITS BEEN THAT LONG #'why didn't you add sebastian' bc my brain fried up at the thought #BUT THIS WAS VV CUTE TO THINK ABOUT TY TARU #no thoughts only ivyvil actually being open with each other and showing each other their darker sides #and the other's like 'slay but you need to go out with a pretty outfit if you're gonna be evil'

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nuagederose · 2 years ago

Text

As the Seasons Grey | Chapter Thirteen: Bones

ao3 link

“What’s that smell? Are you drunk?”

Christine had made her way out of the backstage area and back towards the bar area, where Eric, Greg, and Louie had already gathered drinks for themselves and took their spots one right after the other like a row of birds on a wire. Eric cracked a smirk at her once she emerged from the backstage area with her jacket slightly tugged down from over her shoulders and her hair disheveled.

“Are you drunk, Chris?” Louie asked her.

“No, I don’t think I am,” she replied with a slight hiccup. “If I was, I’d know.”

“You smell like wine,” Eric pointed out. “Like you just had a big glass of wine.”

“Okay, I had half a glass,” Christine corrected herself. “But I promise you fellas that I am not the least bit drunk, just a little bit buzzed is all.”

“Where did you get the wine?” Greg joined in, also with a sly smirk on his face.

“It’s a long story,” she assured him.

“Why do you look like you just walked right out of a wind tunnel?” Louie followed up.

“It’s an even longer story,” she assured him. Eric reached over to the table across from them for a fourth stool all for her, and she took her spot next to him. The stage had been all but set up there on the other side of the room right before them, complete with Alex’s bright blue guitar propped up on the stand next to the small drum kit. She had been promised to meet Nathan and Matt, his rhythm section, and yet she wondered as to when this would happen as she felt a tap on her shoulder.

She turned around and recognized Colette’s big Cheshire Cat smile almost immediately, as she styled her hair up with a slight part down one side of her head and accentuated it with a small bright red barrette. Christine dropped her gaze to her fitted white camisole underneath a black and white leather jacket and fitted black jeans with black leather Beatle boots.

“Hey!” Christine declared as she stood to her feet and put her arms around her.

“Hey!” Colette echoed her.

“I’m so glad you could make it, where are the other three?”

“Mar’s looking for a parking space, and Val and Sabrina are both outside talking to Alex,” Colette explained.

“Del Mar,” Eric chimed in.

“Har har,” Colette finished, and Greg and Louie chuckled behind her and Christine.

“Colette, right?” he asked her with a gesture to her.

“No, I’m Sabrina,” she joked, and Christine laughed out loud and clapped her hands. “‘Call Girl’ as Alex called me one time.”

Greg nearly spat out his drink at that, and Louie tilted his head back and cackled.

“At least he’s not calling you ‘Sluggo’ like with me,” Eric pointed out, and they erupted into more laughter. Sabrina and Valentina both then followed into the club together, both of them with slicked back hair and matching black and white jackets to Colette’s black and white leather. Once Marlene surfaced from right behind them, Christine found herself at a loss for words.

“You girls look like ice cream sundaes,” Louie remarked.

“The Sundaes, Lou,” Eric pointed out.

“The Sundaes!” Both Louie and Christine laughed at that; still with the smile on her face, the latter then turned her attention to the stage, where two men congregated together by the drum kit. She then realized it was Alex’s rhythm section, Nathan and Matt, and she hurried on over there to meet them before Alex himself surfaced from the backstage area.

Matt, a wiry man with curly blonde hair, nodded at her as he took his seat on the stool behind the drums, and then Nathan, the long-haired gentleman with a scraggly beard wrapped in a long black overcoat, turned towards her and nudged his round glasses up his nose. She noticed the wedding bands on both of their hands: if she didn’t know better, she swore that Alex was the bachelor of the band.

“You must be the infamous Christine Peck,” Matt said to her as part of his greeting.

“Wonder if you and I are related,” Nathan joked, and she shrugged.

“Not that I know of, but it’s a small world, though,” Christine explained, and she wondered as to just how much Alex had talked about her without her even knowing and without him even telling her as well. “I’m gonna be sitting right over there at the bar with those three boys and those four girls who look like ice cream sundaes.”

The two of them laughed at that.

“We gotta run that by Alex,” Matt suggested. “He’ll love that.”

“And that’s a nice little jam you got going on over there, too,” Nathan told her with a grin.

“We try our best,” Christine assured him.

“I think Matt’s got something for the whole gang over there to go nuts with.” He adjusted his glasses, and Matt nodded his head and held the stick in his left hand at an angle as if he played in a marching band rather than a jazz trio about to perform in a club. A few more people behind Christine filtered into the floor of the club, but she could care less, however: he tested the drums with the standard beat and then Nathan picked up his electric bass for a fledgling line, one with a bit of a groove to it: that coupled with the looks of determination on their faces made it seem as if they were to make her and the party of seven behind her dance as if it was that New Year’s Eve before the Twenty-First Century.

Before Matt could tap on the big splash cymbals to the right of his head, Alex all but stumbled out from behind the curtain off to the side as if he had had another glass of wine in the meantime. He ran his long lanky fingers through his black hair and nudged a few tendrils of the gray streak over the crown of his head.

“What’s going on out here?” he demanded, and he took off his glasses and shook his head about as if to jar himself awake.

“Just havin’ a little warm-up session,” Christine told him.

“A little warm-up before the real fun starts, eh?” He flashed her a wink, and more patrons took their spots behind her. She knew that the show was ready to start, especially since his rhythm section was already on the move. He then padded over to her and crouched down at the stage’s edge.

“Meet me backstage again afterwards,” he told her in a low voice.

“Round two?” she asked him, to which he nodded his head. Feeling warm, she then headed on back to the party at the bar right as more and more patrons flocked into the club: she took her seat between Eric and Colette once Alex picked up that blue guitar from the metal stand next to the small stack of amps there.

“Full house,” Eric remarked.

“Yeah, it is!”

The three men played light free jazz that seemed to wander and groove at the same time. Alex picked at the strings rather lightly and gracefully: he made it seem so easy and so simple without a second thought. The way that he moved about with Nathan and Matt made Christine want to get up and dance around.

Indeed, she could still feel the power of the wine within her. Only half a glass but it was enough for her to ride upon as she climbed up to her feet and took both Eric and Colette by the hands and began to dance with them right there at the bar. There was one song that they pulled forth for them, a song which Alex referred to as simply “Bollywood”, and Christine couldn’t help but close her eyes and visualize as she held Eric close to her. She had never done the tango but she could feel the dance within her.

Though she only wore her green coat over the white top, she imagined it to be a dress, complete with its long lacy black and white skirt lined with beads made of bone. She imagined Eric with a white lace shirt, even with the collar open to show off most of his chest to her: that long smooth black hair billowed back as if he had been mounted upon the back of a horse. The song may have been an homage to the world of Bollywood, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the tango as she and Eric took to the dance together in that small space.

She could feel another body next to her, and one that she knew didn’t belong to Alex.

The wine and the sensual feeling of the music swirled together into a hypnotic potion of sorts, a sort of super-aphrodisiac as the woman’s body next to her guided her away from Eric. It was a feeling that she couldn’t explain as Colette kept her hand on the small of her back and her breasts brushed up against her own.

It was as if she had dug down into the dirt below her feet and struck a large nugget of gold embedded within. She opened her eyes as Alex pulled double duties on his electric blond guitar and a little cherry red acoustic. Colette flashed her a wink; the lights from over the stage washed over her cherry lips to give them a bluish violet tinge on top. Christine thought about the girl crushes she had had in school, and she wondered if she could balance both Alex and a girl like Colette.

She was already neck deep in an affair with Alex, and thus, she wondered if there could be some loopholes in there as long as he was willing to undertake it as well.

Colette spun her in a twirl and sent her back to Eric right as Greg, Louie, and Sabrina clapped along with Matt’s steady drum beats. He put his arms around her and held her close to him. She wasn’t drunk but the feeling of his soft body next to her own made her believe that the wine had more juice in it than she had originally believed.

Alex nodded his head and kept it down so his hair spread over his face: his deep eyes were completely covered by that fuzzy soft black hair. To think that she had had sex with him in that back room not even some time before the show.

By the time Matt hit the big splash cymbal, Christine took her seat once again and raised her hands up over her head for a round of applause.

A little power trio that never became too loud and yet they seemed far too big for that room, especially with the way in which Alex would bend the strings and bring in some heavy doses of distortion every now and again. Every so often, he would raise his head to shake the hair from his eyes and show off the sweet smile on his face.

Christine thought about giving him a little kiss on the side of the neck once they were done with things as he launched into a slow and low solo over Nathan’s stand-up bass. He brought in distortion and low notes, and yet the whole thing was mellow and soft, as if she was about to curl up next to her parents and fall asleep right then and there.

Some days, she still felt like a young child, and as she watched Alex there with his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side as if he was a marionette puppet suspended from a series of strings up above, she could feel herself yearning to walk back home.

“We’re all just walking each other home,” as her mother had said.

Within time, he let his guitar fade out with the soft taps on the cymbals, and the room lit up for those three men. The party at the bar stood to their feet: Christine, warm from the feeling, thought about climbing up onto the stool to give him an extra dose of applause, but she knew that if she climbed up there, she wouldn’t be able to come on down again.

Instead, she bowed past Colette and Marlene for the side of the stage to catch up with Alex in the backstage area. She kept her head down low lest she be caught and thrown outside to the dark sidewalk and the cold of the November night. She skirted past the stage for the corridor to his dressing room: he stood there in the doorway with his hands upon his head as if he had just woken up from a hearty nap.

He let out a low whistle and turned towards her, and he showed her a smile.

“Hey, there you are!”

“Oh, my gosh, you guys were amazing!” she declared with a break in her voice: it was right then she wished that she had a big glass of water in hand.

“Aw, shucks, we try our best,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you see all of us dancing?” she asked him. “Me and Eric, and then me and Colette?”

“No, I wasn’t wearing my glasses,” he said with a shake of his head. “I think Nate and Matt did, though, I heard them laughing about it a couple of times.”

“Did you want to—finish what you and I had started earlier?” she asked him with a fluttering of her eyelashes at him.

“I don’t really know, I’m pretty knackered at the moment,” he confessed to her with a shrug of his shoulders: indeed, she could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “I can meet up with you tomorrow, though. I’ll come and get you, and then you and I can hang out and have some fun together.”

“You know where I live, right?”

“Of course. About ten minutes up the spine of Long Island from me in the heart of Queens. Being a teacher does have its perks, let me tell you.”

“Cute little brick building, second door on the left on the second floor,” she told him.

“I’ll remember that.”

“And could I at least have a kiss good night, though?” she asked him, and he leaned in closer to her for a kiss on the lips without a second thought. Christine put her arms around his waist and pressed her chest against his to feel his heartbeat. His lips were as soft and smooth as ever, and it seemed as though his body had been tenderized by all that performing up on the stage given he felt much softer than from before.

“Mmm, thank you, baby,” she whispered into his lips.

“No bones about it, my dear,” he whispered back with glee. He ran his fingers through his black hair again and cleared his throat. “Run along now, my Strawberry Girl.”

Christine scurried back to the party at the bar where Colette and Eric waited for her. The three of them followed Greg, Louie, Marlene, Valentina, and Sabrina outside to the cold night and a loud whirring in their ears, and not even the feeling of thirst could erase the memory of Alex’s lips on her own.

Eric took her home, and he flashed her a wink before she climbed out to the sidewalk.

There was so much love that she had to think about, and none of which she had any idea as to how to tell either Wendy or Nelly when she saw either one again.

She woke up the next morning with her mouth dry and her body refreshed, and she realized that Alex had never said as to when he would meet with her on that day. Quickly, and after she had brushed her teeth and took a large drink of water from the fridge, Christine dressed in a blue long-sleeved shirt, faded jeans, and her long green coat, especially when she knew that the rain could come in yet again for another round.

She had ran a brush through her hair and laced up her Chuck Taylors when she heard a knock on the door.

She opened the door and there he was, donned in that green Ireland shirt under a heavy black windbreaker as well as his faded blue jeans and with a corsage of blue and white flowers in hand.

“It’s like you’re taking me to prom,” she said with a chuckle.

“In a way, I kind of am,” he insisted with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders: he had brushed his black hair to utmost smoothness, and his gray streak spread down from the crown like a plume of white smoke. His eyes seemed to sparkle from their deep blue depths as he showed her that sweet lopsided smile.

Christine showed him her left wrist to which he slipped the corsage on over her hand. The smooth glass beads of the bracelet fit her just right, and she clasped a hand to her wrist.

“Shall we?” he asked her. She reached for her bag and her keys, and she strode up next to him. She shut the door behind her and locked it, and then she returned to him.

“We shall,” she declared.

The apartment across the hall was silent, but she knew that she would have to introduce Alex to Wendy at some point. They walked side by side to the stairs together, and all the while, Christine kept her hand down by her waist. Once they reached the front door of the building, she tucked her hands into her coat pockets. The feeling of rain lingered in the air over them, and she wished to protect those little flowers from any torrential rain around them.

“I just got paid last night after that gig so breakfast is on me,” he told her over the noise of the street.

“That is so sweet of you,” she said as they reached his car. A few raindrops fell upon her head, but she knew that she would be warm and dry in there with him. She climbed into the front seat first, to which she could tell that Captain Howdy had sat there a fair number of times before. Nevertheless, she nestled down in the seat and buckled herself in as Alex shut the door next to him.

He fired it up right as the rain began to fall again in a fine drizzle from the cold gray overhead.

“It’s cold,” he noted as he rubbed his hands together. “Think it’ll snow here sometime today?”

“It’s possible,” she assured him with a shrug.

They rolled up to the far end of the block, past Eric, Greg, and Louie’s building, but rather than making the turn for the diner by the cemetery, Alex took the opposite way all to head on back to Brooklyn. A few more bits of drizzle on the windshield turned into bigger rounder droplets of rain, and Christine huddled closer to Alex.

“Are you cold?” he asked her.

“Nah, just feeling cozy,” she replied, and he chuckled at that. He reached for the heater dial and turned on the heat at a low level.

“This’ll make things so much cozier,” he promised her.

“I find it so interesting that you never got married,” she remarked.

“I actually was married at one point, but… it went nowhere.”

She gaped at him as they pulled up to a stop sign. “Really? It went nowhere with you?”

“A complete dead end,” he proclaimed with a shrug of his shoulders and a glimpse up and down the street. “I realized that I didn’t love her and we weren’t on the same wavelength, either. She wanted children whereas I wasn’t in that state of mind—I’m still not in that mindset.”

Christine adjusted the lapels of her jacket. “Me, neither,” she assured him, and they bowed ahead to the next block. They were in his neighborhood.

“It’s funny because I’ve sometimes wondered how life could have been had I found someone I loved enough to father children with, though. To have an intimate family life…” His voice trailed off for a second, and Christine glanced over at him and the blank look on his face. She wondered if there were any secrets that he had never told anyone, be they Nathan or Matt, or even Captain Howdy. She knew that she had secrets that she never told her parents before.

The second she thought this, he cleared his throat and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

“Keep this between you and me for me,” he told her in a low voice, and they turned left to the narrow driveway outside a small bakery on the corner.

She raised a hand as if she was taking an oath of allegiance. “I vow to,” she said.

“I have been in love with a woman—like really in love, I wanted to marry her—” He held up two fingers.

“Twice!” Christine declared. “Did you?”

Alex nibbled on his bottom lip.

“You didn’t,” she softly said.

“I couldn’t,” he told her as he took the spot under the tall oak tree two rows from the front door.

“You couldn’t?” He pulled the parking brake and switched off the car, and then he glanced over at her and shook his head. “What do you mean, you couldn’t?”

“I simply didn’t have the courage to ask them to be with me,” he confessed. “It’s a big problem that I have that I often feel I can’t seem to fix no matter what I do. For years, I felt like I’m just not good enough to get with someone I truly love and start a family with them. Like I said that night you hid out in my closet, I had always struck out with women, and especially with women I had fallen deeply in love with.”

Puzzled, Christine adjusted herself in the seat and moved in closer to his face.

“I don’t understand, though, like… you and I had sex with each other,” she pointed out. “Twice, actually. At your place and at the jazz club. At the jazz club, you quite literally had your dick inside of me, Alex. You pulled out but you were there.”

“See, that’s the thing is I said ‘for years’, meaning… as I’ve gotten older and realized that it’s not the be-all, end-all of life, I’m a lot more relaxed about it. It’s really funny how it works, if I’m honest.”

“Because you realize that you’re past that age,” she followed along; the rain fell harder on the roof and yet she was still warm from the heater.

“Right, right. I don’t really regret it, either, like I made peace with it a long time ago and just went ahead with my career in music. I went ahead to be the very best ‘me’ I could with the guitars rested on my back.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” she said.

“And you would be right,” he chuckled. “But… I do think of being married, though. I’m getting older and sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to marry someone I really love. I may not want kids, but I see senior citizens getting married from time to time.”

Christine thought about the incident with Captain Howdy back in the apartment, how she said Matt and Nathan couldn’t be ushers. She frowned as she thought about what he probably wasn’t telling her. They slowed to a near stop with the cars before them doing the same. Five o’clock on a Monday in the heart of New York City.

“Alex… are you and her engaged?” she asked him.

“Yes and no,” he replied with a deep sigh through his nose and a closing of his eyes.

“Yes and no?”

“Yes, because… I asked her to marry me… about five or six years ago, I don’t even remember now because the honeymoon ended around that time. And no, because neither she nor I have had the resources or the time or—in my case—the balls to even so much as go through with it.”

“The balls? Alex, you have the balls, I have felt them.” He snickered at that. “It’s not a joke! I have felt your balls.”

“You have felt them, haven’t you,” he chuckled, and then his smile faded as the traffic lurched ahead. “I also never had the chance to buy her a ring, either.”

Christine resisted the urge to laugh at that.

“I did set aside money to buy her a wedding ring,” he continued, “but then I saw this really cool book about meteorology and I had to get it, though. She’s always like ‘you never buy me things’, even though I have. Many times.”

“So, let me see if I can get this straight,” Christine began. “You asked her to marry you… years ago.”

“Yeah.”

“And yet, you failed to buy her a ring and you told me that the feelings for her have gone away.”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you still with her if she very clearly doesn’t make you happy anymore, Alex?” Christine demanded, slightly frustrated. “Why destroy yourself like that?”

He pursed his lips and merged over to the right lane for the Upper West Side and Nelly’s neighborhood.

“Because… I still love her to death,” he confessed. “I still feel something there. I still want to treat her well, even after she slapped me and threw the flowers I gave her on the floor. I still want to make it right with her.”

“Alex, she’s going to keep hitting you no matter what you do,” Christine told him. “She is going to continually use you and bury the truth between you by refusing a picture with you and letting you get fuller and rounder when you don’t intend to. She is going to constantly haunt you, climb inside your head and guide you like Pinocchio. She may seem perfect to you but I see the Mark of the Beast on her forehead from outer space without even knowing what she looks like.”

All the while, Alex remained silent, complete with a blank look on his face. Christine put her fingers up on the handle next to the top of the door and closed her eyes. She knew that she had done something wrong by saying that to him as the rain swelled for a moment before it backed down to a light shower. She opened her eyes to find him staring out the windshield, at the little rivers formed on the outside, as if the sky was bleeding for him, for the two of them.

“That was too much, I’m sorry,” she quipped with a shake of her head. “I take it all back—”

“No,” he flatly said. Christine stopped, and she looked over at him. He turned his head to her and showed her the stoic, serious look on his face. She opened her mouth as if to say something to him but he pressed a finger to those lips. The noise of the rain filled the void of silence around them for what felt like forever, until he spoke again.

“No. Don’t you dare.”

He dropped his finger down from her lips, and he stroked the round shape of her chin, followed by the interior of her neck. His blue eyes, as blue and rich as the ocean waters, gazed back at her: though the rain continued to fall, the clouds broke and the morning sun shone through to make the back of his head glow. It was as if he had a head of pure platinum, a ring of preciousness all for her just to spite the one who was bringing him pain.

He then leaned into her face: he nudged her bangs apart for a soft kiss on the forehead, and she curled her toes inside of her shoes.

“I may still love her, but she is a stone cold bitch who doesn’t care as to how she makes her nut,” he told her as he leaned back a bit. “Never mind… everything else you’ve pointed out and witnessed about her. She’s pretentious, for one thing, and I don’t know if it’s just an architect thing, either. She expects me to buy her things, too, like for her birthday or for Christmas, and I always want to treat myself instead, and she ends up making me feel bad for it, too, like I’m somehow not allowed to feel pleasure every now and again. And she’s supposedly all about… being yourself and shit like that, but it always comes out all stilted, like she’s phoning it in or something. It’s really hard to put into words.”

“It’s akin to saying ‘that’s funny’ instead of genuinely laughing,” Christine suggested.

“Yes!” He smacked the rim of the steering wheel with both hands. “Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what it is!” He rested his hands in his lap.

“And sometimes I… feel like she doesn’t actually love me back, either. You know, we’ve never had sex.”

Christine gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. In fact, she barely touches me. I’ve seen her in her underwear, but—” He snickered and snorted.

“What?”

“I’ve had sex with you—twice. You aren’t even my girlfriend, either.” He shook his head. “It’s really weird to think about because her smiles are genuine. You think I’m full of contradictions.”

“No, I don’t,” Christine said.

“You don’t?”

“No. Humans are just messy, Alex. You seem contradictory because you’re a messy human who happens to have a relationship that brings him so much pain.”

“Not just bringing me pain,” he corrected her. “You’re lucky I’m even willing to talk about it.” He fetched up a sigh as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Her smiles are genuine?” she recalled as she picked up her purse from the floor. “You know who else had a genuine smile? Ted Bundy.”

He chuckled at that. “Jeffrey Dahmer, too. And John Wayne Gacy. And Charles Manson.”

“Nelly and I have been referring to her as Captain Howdy,” Christine confessed, and he laughed out loud at that. And then he stopped when he realized what she had said.

“Nelly? The lunch lady?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you this but,” she started, to which she cleared her throat. “—I’ve been talking about you with her, simply because I wanted to not feel as alone.”

“Man, you should have told me that sooner, I would have figured it out,” he confessed to her, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Figured what out?”

“She’s been acting almost avoidant towards me, like she’s hiding something,” he explained. “That’s probably why, too.” He then turned to her and took off his glasses. “I assume she knows that you told me about her knowing about all of this, too.”

“Yeah, I ran it by her and she very reluctantly agreed to it,” Christine assured him.

“At least it’s her and not one of those four girls who sit behind you in Mr. Hansen’s class,” he pointed out. “By the way, Matt and Nate were telling me that you and those three guys all called them—” He chuckled, a nice hearty deep one that came from deep within him. “—the Sundaes.”

“Because they literally looked like hot fudge ice cream sundaes,” she explained. “With their black and white leather jackets and red lips. They all loved it, though.”

“This bakery here has hot fudge donuts, I should probably tell you this now. They are ridiculously good, too.”

“You got your tummy from those, didn’t you,” she teased him.

“Nah, I got my tummy from a multitude of things,” he promised her with a gentle pat of his little belly. “One of those things is cannoli. Oh, god, get me away from cannoli!” He threw his hands up onto the ceiling and tilted his head back. “Help! I have a cannoli addiction! I have the problem with eating too many cannoli and getting too full in the belly I can’t seem to stop!”

Christine giggled at him, and he smoothed back his hair once more.

“Anyway, less talk more breakfast,” he declared, and the two of them climbed out together. The rain fell down over their heads in fine form, but it was enough for her to pull her hood over her head as they made their way inside for a pair of those donuts plus a pair of ham and cheese croissants fresh out of the oven. No bones about it, indeed.

She trusted him in that he could spoil her for the day, but she still thought about helping him again somewhere along the way, especially when he became so emotional on that morning back at the school. She thought about things he could worry about like his rent and of course, a potential wedding between him and Captain Howdy. She inwardly snickered at the thought of paying for a wedding all out of her pocket as a means of getting inside of Captain Howdy’s mind and fooling her that way, but she knew that she would have to save most of her money to even so much as pay for the catering.

After breakfast, Alex took her to a cute little bookstore up the street which also had a rack of movies for about a buck-fifty. He picked up one box from the rack and raised his eyebrows at the sight of it as Christine walked on over with a book about art glass tucked under her arm.

“What you got there?” she asked him.

“American Hot Wax—one of the movies that got me into music next to The Blues Brothers.” He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It’s mainly out of print, but sometimes, if it comes up in conversation, I’m there.”

“I’ve never even heard of it,” Christine confessed with a shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders. He turned to her and nibbled on his bottom lip.

“Here, I’ll get it for you,” he said without a second thought.

“No, no, Alex, I can’t,” she quipped. “I mean, you barely have any money on you right now.”

“No, I want you to have it. Don’t worry about the money, I’ll take care of it. Besides, it’s only a buck-fifty. It’s like a cup of coffee.”

Something caught her eye and she turned her head for a look at another picture disk there on the rack, right on full frontal display, and one with a photograph of a long row of people up on a stage dressed in formal clothes. At the center of it all was a tall man with a mop of curly black hair. Even at a small level, she recognized that plume of silver at the crown of the head.

“Is this you?” she asked him as she picked it off the shelf for a better look.

“That’s me. I was in Trans-Siberian Orchestra for a whole decade. You ever go to a show with a big band that almost sounds like an orchestra and the production is surprisingly vast?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Christine said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Oh my god! I have to take you to a show now. They tour every December into New Year’s.”

“Could I bring my parents?”

“You sure can! We’ve been on TV and performed in front of huge crowds like you wouldn’t believe. I’m glad you found that because it got me thinking about classical music, now. I really wanted to dance with you in that room, but I never could because we had no music on hand.”

Christine held the disk to her chest along with the book, both of which he was happy to buy for her.

When they climbed back into the car, the rain had stopped, but the cold only left her wanting to snuggle closer to him. She brought her lips up to his ear as if she was about to kiss him there.

“Come away with me,” she whispered right into his ear. “Come to the coast with me and Eric.”

He raised his eyebrows and put on his glasses once again.

“When are you guys leaving?”

“June third,” she said.

“Really! That far away.”

“Yup, we’re going to be out there for a full week.”

He swallowed, and she could see a glimmer of fear in his eyes from behind those lenses.

“If I get the full-time position and I start making some money, I’ll see if I can pitch in with you guys.”

“That is so sweet,” she told him with a hand to her chest. He fired up the car again and peered over his glasses at the clock on the dashboard.

“Ten-thirty…” He lifted his head and fixed his glasses.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him.

“Let me take you down to Coney Island,” he decreed.

“Right now? Alex, it’s November.”

“It’s open,” he pointed out with a shrug. “It’s Saturday so it’s open, plus there’s no one there.”

Christine sighed through her nose and showed him a smile.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

It wasn’t that much of a drive but the way down to Coney Island always felt like some kind of adventure for her, especially after her parents divorced and her father moved near there. Indeed, she pictured him there at the front gate as they took that sweet parking spot there at the very front.

Just as Alex had said, they were alone aside from a few vendors and the person who tended to the Teacups.

“Some churros, my Strawberry Girl?” he suggested to her.

“Ooh, yes, please!”

It was right then that she didn’t care how much she was eating or how much he was spending on her. And it was when the crispy fresh churro straight out of the fryer hit her tongue when she realized that she could do this forever.

They walked along the heavy, aged wooden boards of the Boardwalk, right along the rim of the cold Atlantic waters that seemed to stretch on for infinity right before her eyes.

“When things are better, we’ll ride the Teacups and the roller coasters,” he promised her.

“Together?” she asked him with her mouth full of churro.

“Together, of course.” He stopped at the one carnival game with the balloons on the board, and he handed the guy inside a dollar for four darts.

He held one by the fins and chucked it at the balloon closest to him, and it instead popped the neighboring one. The next one popped another one, followed by the third: he only missed one, but he still won her a bright purple teddy bear.

“So soft and sweet,” she said as she held it close to her chest.

“It was a cinch,” he assured her with a little gyration to his head; he thanked the guy behind the corner and they kept on walking towards the other end of the Boardwalk.

“My dad lives about a block from here,” she told him.

“Really?”

“Yeah. My mom lives right across the hall from me.”

“So cool that you’re close to your parents. She—you know—she—was always so turbulent with her parents, especially her father. Kind of explains everything to be honest…” His voice trailed off, and a gust of cold wind swept over them. The sky overhead swirled with the darkness of more rain and probably snow as well.

“The temperature dropped,” he declared, and he turned to her. “Did you feel it?”

“I did!”

“We better get our asses home,” he proclaimed.

“Good idea,” she replied as she tugged her hood over her head and tucked her teddy bear closer to her chest. She tossed the empty churro container into a nearby trash can and the two of them hurried back to the front gate. They passed the shuttered churro stand when the rain fell in sheets once again over their heads. They bowed out of there right as the rain turned into sleet. Alex nearly dropped the keys but he caught them with his thigh, and he unlocked the car as fast as he could.

Christine ducked inside of the front seat and shut the door before anything could get wet. Alex let out a low whistle and smoothed down his wet hair.

“Jesus—” he muttered. He started up the car and fired up the windshield wipers.

“It’s been some time since I’ve seen my dad, too,” she added.

“Wanna go over there real quick and say hi?” he suggested.

“I don’t see why not. I usually call him for his birthday and for Father’s Day, but he works long hours and I’m also in school, so it’s not like I’ve had too many opportunities to see him. I pretty much grew up as a daddy’s girl, too.”

He smiled at that and, very carefully, and by her direction, he drove her to his apartment complex, exactly one block away from Coney Island.

“This is where all the rich people live,” he noted. “And yes, I would totally know this, too.”

She chuckled as he brought her up to the front door, twin glass doors under a protective awning that looked to be made of paper over the walkway.

“Want me to just ring the buzzer and see if he’s there?” she suggested.

“Yeah, and if he’s home, I’ll find a place to park,” he told her. Christine rested her teddy bear on the center console between them and, with her hood over her head, she ducked out to the downpour, which had returned to straight rain; but she knew it would be snow soon enough. She strode along the walkway to the doors as well as the buzzer on the side.

She was about to reach up for his buzzer when a loud crack caught her off guard. A hole had opened in the awning right over her head and rain water fell through onto her head. At least she had her hood on.

“Holy shit!”

Shaking her hands about, she turned around back to the street, and Alex sprinted over to her, around the awning as most of it collapsed right then and there.

He put his arms around her and held her close, even though she was completely drenched.

“Are you okay?”

She breathed hard as though she had just ran a mile, but she was fixated on the warmth of his body despite the cold rain. His warmth in spite of the cold.

“Christine, are you okay?”

She lifted her head up to him as the raindrops fell in sheets over their heads and shoulders. His black hair spread over the sides of his face as if he had just been submerged in the ocean waters nearby there. The rims of his glasses were dotted with little droplets: his head protected her from any extra water that could come down through the hole in the awning over them.

She reached up and put her arms around his neck, and she stood up on her tiptoes to reach his face for the kiss in the rain. She held back for a look into his eyes.

“I take that as a ‘yes,’” he said in a soft enough voice for her to hear over the rain. “Come on, let’s go back to my place, get you dried off…”

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