#I don’t even think Lauren was buff yet at this point

[blaithnne]

Her glow up is craaazy

[dcbutinamrev]

“Look me in the eyes and repeat what you just said.” 👀👀

Ask and ye shall recieve!

~~~

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton sits down at the aide-de-camp office with a grunt. He tries to remain his focus on his tasks at hand, completeing more corrospondences for General Washington, shuffling through Lafayette's rough drafts and occasionally checking any spelling errors as the Frenchman is still learning the American language. But he couldn't help but feel his eyes tick up towards the narrowed staircase a few feet behind him. His chest fills with fire, ready to burst.

Hamilton forces his eyes back down towards his papers in hand, yanking the quill near the new aide-de-camp, James McHenry, who was recently added to Washington's staff not long ago. A few days ago perhaps and Hamilton must admit it is a surprise, indeed, that he's caught up with the routine quite quickly. As quick as Laurens.

Hamilton scowls and shivers at the thought of Laurens, his words--hurtful words--echoes through his mind as he clutches onto the quill tightly. He presses his lips together and bites his tongue behind clenched teeth in hopes it would hold back the low growl cojming from the back of his throat. His fingers curl tighter around the stem of the quill as the tip scratches Washington's name near the bottom of the corrospondence.

"Hamilton?" a voice says, snapping him out of his thought. A Southern voice, might he add. It's not as distinct as Laurens' but Hamilton can hear a twinge of the South in the man's voice.

He ticks his eyes towards his peripheral, his brows furrowing together to form a crease in his forehead and swallows hard when he sees Richard Kidder Meade seated beside him with a worried expression upon his face and a hand clamped onto the Caribbean's shoulder. Hamilton relaxes at Meade's touch but still is somewhat tense.

"Kidder..." Hamilton sighs as he runs a hand through his dark red hair and puffs out a breath, his freckled cheeks puffing out as he does so.

Meade smiles softly as he pulls the wooden chair beside him out and slides on down next to him. He folds both arms over his chest and leans against the edge of the table with his head tilted to one shoulder. He presses his lips together, pondering what to say next before finally clearing his throat and leaning back, somewhat relaxed.

"Are you alright, my Little Lion?" Meade says affectionally. In all honesty, Hamilton loves it when his dear friends call him their little lion, especially by Laurens.

Hamilton sighs audibly through his nose, setting his quill down after signing his corrospondence. He shakes his head. "No. I...well...perhaps...."

"Perhaps?"

"Yes...it's just..." Hamilton shakes his head, glancing over his shoulder towards the stairs where Laurens still remains in the bedroom where they shared their last argument. A childish argument, Hamilton thinks. One of Betsey and one of his roles as a soldier and him insisiting I be locked up here like a woman.

"Alexander?" Meade tries again.

Hamilton sighs, finally explaining, "It's Laurens." A pause. Hamilton glances up at Meade, expecting him to question him but thankfully he doesn't. Hamilton continues. "He...he...he and I...we had argument..."

"Oh..." Meade says softly. Hamilton nods.

"Yes." A pause. "I just don't understand him, Kidder. Can't he see how much I care for him? As much as I care for her? As much..."

"Her?" Meade prompts, quirking an eyebrow, though he has a feeling he knows who the "her" is.

"Betsey," Hamilton says, taking a small sip of his coffee before setting it back down. A loopy grin on his face as he sees his beloved newly wedded wife before his eyes, her dark eyes on his, entrancing and almost like a bottomless pit, her dark hair--dark as chocolate--loose around her shoulders. Her pale blue dress down to her waist... "My wife..."

"Ah," Meade says, pating Hamilton's arm. "I'm sure he understands. He knows how much you care for him."

"Yes, but..." Hamilton sighs. "It's..." He glances back up at the stairs, his expression of what was once anger now disappiated into softness. "It's complicated, Kidder, between us." A short pause. "You wouldn't understand."

"I know," Meade says. Hamilton whips his head over his shoulder towards Meade with surprise, his face paling and his blood goes cold. Meade chuckles, causing Hamilton to frown with confusion and tilt his head to one shoulder. Meade, however, continues chuckling and and pats the redhead's shoulder. "I know. Oh, trust me, Alexander, I know. I know love when I see it."

Hamilton swallows but Meade only returns the expression with high, arched eyebrows. Hamilton glances back up at the stairs and instantly scoots his chair back, his chest squeezing as though a hand were clamped around his lungs.

Perhaps there was one.

Hamilton fumbles over the flaps of his buff blue Continental coat as he stumbles his way up the stairs towards his and Laurens' shared bedroom. He slams the door open rather ungentlemanly and marches two steps forward before slamming it shut behind him. He sees Laurens plopped down at the desk where Hamilton would usually work into the late night hours if he had extra work to finish, scribbling something onto paper.

"Stop," Hamilton says, catching his breath, breathing sharply in and out.

Laurens surprising stops without a protest, the tip of his quill hovering above the parchment. Laurens doesn't say anything.

Of course, he doesn't.

He's waiting for an answer. He's wanting Hamilton to answer.

"Stop it, John," Hamilton huffs.

Laurens lowers the quill scarily slowly yet gently as well and cranes his neck of his shoulder to glance at Hamilton before him, both eyebrows high and a small smirk of amusement? on his face.

"Oh? And why should I, Hamilton?" Laurens says. "You've made your point very clear."

As soon as Laurens turns around in his chair, Hamilton rushes forward and instantly dropping down to his knees and grasping both of Laurens's hands in his. Laurens freezes, his eyes narrowed at the paper before him and breathes in slowly, his breath hitched at his throat and holds it in place.

"Enough of this, John," Hamilton whispers, reaching out to tuck back a loose stray honey colored hair behind his ear. "You know where my heart lies."

"And it lies with that woman!" Laurens hisses, barks loud enough to be mistaken as a dog.

Hamilton flinches but tries to remain calm and steady. He never takes his eyes off his beloved Laurens' even though Laurens may take his eyes off of Hamilton himself, avoiding his gaze entierly. Hamilton shakes his head.

"No," he says, catching Laurens' attention. "It lies with you as well."

Laurens opens his mouth to protest but Hamilton promptly cuts him off.

"What is wrong with me loving another as much as I love you?" Hamilton whispers.

"That's not how relationships work, Alexander. You've never been in a relationship with anyone besides me. Haven't you? You don't know what heartbreak is like."

Hamilton feels his lips twist into a tight scowl and scoots foward onto his knees so he's in between Laurens' legs, his hands still clutched into his. He gives it a firm shake as he snarls, his eyes eyes twitching, "Look me in the eyes and repeat to me what you've just said."

Silence.

"I have experienced heartbreak throughout my childhood, John," Hamilton explains in a quick, hushed voice. Almost like a snake. "My father abandoned me when I was ten. My mother died because of an illness the doctors couldn't treat while I survived. My cousin committed suicide not long after my brother and I moved in with him. My brother, the only person I had left, was seperated from me. A hurricane destroyed my fucking home. Demolished it. Burned it to ashes! Killed thousands and thousands of people...innocent people...John."

A pause.

"So don't you dare tell me what heartbreak is like, I know what heartbreak is like."

"That's besides the point," Laurens growls. "That's different. I'm not talking about that. If you would just stop blabbering and just simply listen."

Hamilton growls low, yanking his hands off of Laurens and standing upright, placing his hands on his hips now. "Well then perhaps you should do the same."

Laurens pushes himself up from the chair and towers over Hamilton, so Hamilton has to shrink slightly. Laurens folds his arms over his chest.

"You did the exact same thing he did," Laurens growls as he shakes his head, blinking his eyes. His voice cracks, causing a spear to go through Hamilton's heart. "Claimed you loved me. Say that you loved me. And I thought you were mine, you said you were mine! I...I wanted..."

"And you are!" Hamilton whimpers, cupping both of Laurens' stubbled cheeks in his palms. He searches the blonde's face, his eyes ticking back and forth quickly. "You are, John! You are mine and you always will! I love you...so much...just as much as I love Betsey!"

"No!" Laurens snaps. "You stated yourself there was no one you loved but her!"

"I had to say that, John! I had too!" Hamilton cries. "We were surrounded by the others! You know..." Hamilton pinches the bridge of his nose and huffs out a breath, trying to calm himself. "John...I love you..."

"No," Laurens says instantly. Hamilton sniffs and glances back up at him. Laurens rests a strong hand onto Hamilton's freckled cheek, the pad of his thumb wiping away a stray tear Hamilton didn't realize had escaped. Laurens smiles, though the anger and annoyance is still clear in his bright blue eyes, and leans down to press a kiss to the edge of Hamilton's mouth, his nose nudging against his cheek. "You should be married." Hamilton lets his eyes flutter shut as Laurens pecks his earlobe and whispers, "For both of our sakes."

"Jack--" Hamilton begins but Laurens cuts him off with a sudden kiss.

Hamilton hisses sharply through his nose, taken aback and completely off-guard. He lets his eyes slip closed and slowly lifts both hands up to squish Laurens' cheeks together while Laurens lets his hand slide down Hamilton's sides and grip his wrist, pulling him close so his chest nearly touches the blonde's.

Laurens tilts his head, trying to find a perfect angle, letting his lips trail down the side of Hamilton's neck and up his jaw. Hamilton grips Laurens shoulders to keep himself steady as he tilts his head to the side to allow Laurens room. Laurens, however, gets a little greedy, needy and slams Hamilton against the closed bedroom door, pinning his arms to the side as he kisses the redhead's lips, his knee nudging agianst Hamilton's inner thigh, causing Hamilton gasp sharply with surprise. Laurens grins with triumph, the corners of his lips quirking up.

"John..." Hamilton gasps against Laurens' rough, yet soft rosy pink lips. "John!"

"My apologies," Laurens sighs as he pulls back, pressing his forehead against Hamilton's. "Do not leave me, my dear boy."

Hamilton hums, a small smile on his face, slowly opening those breathtaking deep blue eyes. Laurens' heart flutters and his breath hitches in his throat when he sees flecks of violet in those deep ocean blue irises.

"I won't leave you," Hamilton promises. He pauses, furrowing his brows in thought as he scratches Laurens' light stubble with his fingers. "But..." Laurens raises both eyebrows, gesturing him to continue. "You have to promise me not to leave me as well."

Laurens breathes in sharply. A curt nod.

"I promise."

That will be a lie.

[astralaffairs]

can i get number 29 from valentine's day prompts with laurens?

prompt 29: Secret Admirer

it took hella mental effort not to make this ridiculously tacky, and i cannot explain how it became 3.5k words. but pls someone explain to me why RA john is such a cutie??

————-

It had to be a crime for anyone to be up that early on a Sunday morning.

You’d spent your Saturday night out with Hercules and his clan of fellow grad students; you were still an undergrad, but he and you had always been surprisingly close for siblings, so when you entered his university just two years behind him, he’d adopted you into his friend group, who accepted you with open arms.

This, however, was three years later. You were a junior, and you’d spent the fall thanking your lucky stars that your friends had decided to stick around for grad school there, as, not only would you have missed them dearly, but just by chance, a few of them had ended up as teacher’s assistants for your year’s courses.

Them staying around also meant they could drag you to law school parties off-campus, and it meant you had them to thank for your hangover. You were lucky John had been the designated driver; as the RA of your floor, you and he were headed to the same place at the end of the night, which meant you had him to force you to drink a bottle of water and actually go to sleep in a bed, as opposed to passing out sloppy and wasted on the floor.

Who you really owed your thanks to, though, was whatever genius decided it’d be a good idea to come knocking on your door at 6 AM.

You let out a long, dramatic groan as you pulled yourself up. This was one of few times you were relieved not to have a roommate.

Despite the shrunken proportions of your dorm room, walking those eight feet to the door felt like walking eight miles that morning. It didn’t help when you opened the door to an empty hallway, no one standing before you. You were about to slam the door in a fury, seething quietly at whoever thought it’d be a funny idea to ding-dong-ditch you at the crack of dawn – you’d have guessed it was Alex, but you’d also be shocked if he wasn’t still lying fully unconscious on the floor of Lafayette’s apartment. That was when you noticed a small box sitting at your feet.

You did a double take down the hall around you; it was still deserted. Hesitantly, you picked up the package, praying it wasn’t anthrax. (You didn’t have many enemies, but surely there was someone who wanted to murder you quietly.) You checked around you one last time before retreating into your room, throwing yourself back onto the bed. As much as you wanted to go immediately back to sleep, your curiosity had the better of you that Sunday.

You eyed the little, plain cardboard box that you’d deposited at the foot of your bed warily. Surely if it contained a bomb, there was nothing you could do about it now, anyway, so what was the harm?

You eased the flaps on the top apart, and the first thing you saw was a paper, folded up to the size of your thumb and, for whatever reason, taped onto a box even smaller than the original. You opened it and were surprised to see it’d been typed up.

Y/N–

Okay, so at least you knew you weren’t gonna find anyone fuming later on because they’d left their girlfriend’s Valentines gift by the wrong door.

I’ve never been good with words – though, I guess that’s why you’re the English major instead of me – so I’ll keep this short & sweet, much like you ;)

You rolled your eyes at that. You didn’t know who this letter-writer thought they were, but waking you up at six in the morning to call you short wasn’t what you’d call suave. (You weren’t short, anyway, and you’d stand by that until the day you died. Though, unfortunately, you may have had to stand slightly below that until the day you died – you weren’t sure you could reach.) You ignored how the last line made your pulse jump.

I think you’ll find the contents of the box fill the same role.

Yours.

That was it? Yours? Not, ‘yours, the cute stranger down the hall,’ not, ‘yours, the buff TA from Accounting Law,’ not even, ‘yours, the guy you pass in the elevator at the gym every Thursday who knows very well you’ve been eyeing him all semester.’

Just, yours.

You opened the box to find a slice of strawberry shortcake, and again, you rolled your eyes. How clever. You had to force yourself not to be endeared by who was apparently now ‘your’ mystery, but you couldn’t fight your smile at the sheer audacity.

——–———–

Predictably, you brought it up to everyone you knew within the next few days, and unfortunately, they seemed every bit as stumped as you were. At that point, you didn’t know what to do but ignore it.

So, you went on with your week, and the next Sunday, you were again awoken at first light.

Your groan this time wasn’t any less annoyed at the knock on the door; this time, the note made a jab at your dancing skills, said that ‘you still made being sloppy drunk look cute.’ You furrowed your brow. If this was someone’s way of trying to unlock your heart, this wasn’t exactly the key. However, if your being sloppy drunk was on their mind, it had to have been someone at the frat party you went to the night prior. Or, someone you passed in your building on the way back. Which narrowed it down to approximately half of campus.

Again, the letter was simply signed as 'yours.’ You didn’t know what to make of it all.

The contents of the box made you smile, though: a water bottle and a pack of Tylenol. It wasn’t exactly the height of romance, but something about the hangover care package made it feel more thoughtful yet.

You popped a Tylenol and went back to sleep. You’d be better at overanalyzing after you’d gotten at least six hours.

Those six hours turned out to be six more hours, though, and you emerged from your room just after noon. You stifled a yawn as you made your way out to the common area, still in your pajama shorts and the sweatshirt you’d pilfered from someone’s floor, to find Angelica on one of the couches eating boxed mac-and-cheese.

She was one of your oldest friends at your university; she’d been your roommate freshman and sophomore year before she ultimately elected to move in with her boyfriend. She raised an eyebrow as you entered, wearing a knowing smile that you couldn’t decipher the meaning behind.

“Hey, Ang,” you said wearily, making your way to the cupboard to pull out one of the instant ramen cups you’d kindly labeled 'Y/N ONLY.’

“Hey.” She eyed you, amusement dancing in her eyes, and when you continued to stare blankly at her, she spoke again. “Did you seriously manage to get another noise complaint today? That’s, like, the fifth this month. You’ve really been busy since I moved out, huh?”

While she looked smug, her words just had you confused. Unless it was from you snoring too loudly (which, in hindsight, was very plausible), there was no way you’d have ended up with a noise complaint that night. You furrowed your brow. “What?”

“What?” She shrugged as you put your noodles in the microwave. “Didn’t you? I mean, I saw Laurens walking away from your room this morning and just kind of assumed.”

You chuckled. “No, he was just my ride back from a party last night. Unfortunately, not one where I managed to get laid.”

“And you got back at 6 AM?” She looked surprised, and your confusion only mounted.

“No?” you said, your voice hesitant. “Wait, what are you talking about? 'Cause it’s obviously not the same thing I’m talking about.”

She shifted on the couch to face you where you stood near the microwave. “When I got back from my run this morning, I came back up to my and my John’s room–” John Church, her long-term boyfriend and inaugural junior-year roommate, “and I saw Laurens coming back from, like, right by your door. Not at three AM, or whenever it was that you got back from the frat house.”

It took you about that long to connect the dots. John at 6 AM, coming back from your room, the knock that’d woken you up bright and early – no way that could be a coincidence. Your eyes widened; you started down the hall toward the RA dorm without a second thought. “I’ll be right back,” you muttered. Angelica’s brows shot toward her hairline.

“Wait, Y/N, what about the microwave?” she called after you. You’d slipped too far into your tunnel vision to care. “Y/N, your noodles!”

You reached the end of the hallway and promptly banged on the door before you. John emerged in a matter of seconds, whether it was because he happened to be up or because of how aggressively you were trying to get in.

“Y/N?” He sounded surprised to see you. You didn’t humor him.

“Did you leave that box outside my door this morning?”

Slowly, his mask of confusion cracked, a grin adorning his lips as he leaned against the side of the doorway. “Busted.”

However, your brow knit at the immediate admission, trying to suppress a smile despite your shock. “Wait, so you left me those little… 'secret admirer’ notes?” You hesitated; he raised an eyebrow. “What… why did you–”

“Hold up, I don’t know anything about any notes,” he cut you off, holding up his hands as if to claim innocence. “Don’t shoot the messenger; I dropped those boxes off because someone asked for an assist.”

You paused, taken aback. You hoped he didn’t notice when your face visibly fell. “Wait, so if it wasn’t you…” you trailed off, pondering his words. You raised an expectant eyebrow. “Then you know who sent me those!”

His smile again graced his lips at that; he raked a hand through his hair as he chuckled. “Now you’ve really caught me,” he said, tone teasing. You could only roll your eyes.

“Who is it, then?”

“It wouldn’t be a secret admirer if I just told you!” He put a hand on his heart, his expression a caricature of scandalization, and when you glared, he chuckled. “I promise it’s not rocket science, Y/N; just figure it out.”

You scowled. “It’d be so much easier for everyone if you just told me,” you whined, and he gave you a mock pout.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he sighed, “Now that you put it like that, I guess I’ll have to tell you.”

Your eyes lit up. “Really?”

“No.”

You huffed, folding your arms and stomping your foot like a toddler, and he reached out to ruffle your hair with a laugh. You yelped as you ducked away from his hand, and his grin only grew. “You’re an absolute clown, you know that?”

He shrugged, looking as though he was entertaining the thought. “Maybe, but I’m your absolute clown.”

Something in the phrase struck you as being familiar.

——————-

Your noodles were ruined, and you spent the rest of the afternoon sulking about it. Perhaps Angelica was onto something when she said you needed to listen to her more often (though, you hadn’t quite heard the reasoning behind it). Moreover, you were growing increasingly frustrated with the secret admirer notes. After making yourself a fresh cup of noodles (and cleaning the microwave; your first cup had exploded), you spent your Sunday absentmindedly watching Netflix and overanalyzing everything you could take away from the secret admirer notes. You’d come to only a few conclusions.

1. If they were working through John, it had to be someone who lived on your floor, someone who knew you well, or someone who knew John well. That provided very little input.

2. If they’d managed to create and get the second box to you between 3 AM and 6 AM the previous night (morning, really), then it had to be someone who you went to the frat party with who also lived in your dorm – again, a fairly deep pool of prospects.

3. They felt comfortable enough with you to call you short, make fun of your dancing, and note that you couldn’t hold your alcohol. That was telling – it had to be someone you knew well who also lived in your dorm.

However, you didn’t get the chance to conduct a thorough examination of all your friends in the building; you still had three readings and a paper due the next day that you hadn’t done because you were, as your pursuer so elegantly put it, busy 'getting sloppy drunk.’ So you went through the motions – you did your work, you went to your classes the next day, and you arrived back at your dorm to the unexpected: another box.

There was a week between the first and second of them; a third already being on your figurative doorstep was unprecedented. You didn’t hesitate to open this one, and its contents immediately had you grinning: four cups of instant ramen and a note. This one wasn’t typed.

Heard I ruined your noods, so it seemed only fair to send you some of my own. I showed you mine, now you show me yours?

Yours ;)

The handwriting was immediately recognizable, and you couldn’t help but think that was the idea. You marched down to John’s room with the letter and knocked every bit as aggressively as you had before. Again, he opened it immediately.

“Y/N?” He raised an eyebrow. “Finally figure out who’s been sending you those notes?”

You stuck the letter in his face. “This is your handwriting,” you accused him. He took it from you, looked at it mildly for only a moment, and shrugged.

“Sure seems to be.”

“So you wrote this!”

“Looks like it.” His nonchalant expression had your head spinning.

“Can you stop with the vague answers for one minute?” you huffed, and he raised his eyebrows, pushing himself off of the doorframe. It appeared he could tell that this was genuinely beginning to trouble you. “I cannot deal with whatever it is you’re playing at with these.” You snatched the note back, waved it at him. “Just explain.”

A small smile was beginning to form on his lips by that point. “Well,” he began, voice soft, “Seems pretty clear to me. Both the conclusions you came breaking down my door with were apt.”

“So you wrote these, then?” He nodded, and you pursed your lips. “Which means what, exactly? What am I supposed to take from that? That you’re an incredible accomplice for whoever dreamed this up?” His smile began to grow as you began to rant, seemingly becoming more amused with each word. “That it was you leaving the packages? Because, John, I need answers, and this is really just starting to mess with my head.”

When your voice softened, your shell of anger cracking around the edges to reveal the slightest bit of vulnerability, John was hit with a pang of guilt. He hadn’t meant to mess with you. “Y'know, I thought I was being painfully obvious from the first one.”

“You… ?”

“I figured you’d open it, bring it to me, and we’d have a good laugh. Just that.” He shrugged, eyeing your stunned expression before continuing, “Maybe I just didn’t realize quite how drunk you were.”

“What d'you mean?”

“The morning I left the first note, you’d spent thirty minutes on the ride home telling me how you’d absolutely die for strawberry shortcake right then, and then you tried to shove me outta my own car when I called you a shortcake in response.” He grinned, and you just looked dumbstruck. “The second one didn’t even require any knowledge of the night before. Gotta say, I’m a little disappointed.” He sighed, falsely wistful, but cut himself off when he caught wind of your wide eyes. You were still struggling to believe his words.

John, who had spent the past three years making fun of your eating habits, chewing you out for showing up late because you went to three different drugstores to find the right bottle of $6 wine; John, who groaned every time Hercules dragged you to him, letting him know you’d been throwing up in the bathroom, but who drove you home without a second thought, always came to check on you in the morning. John was your secret admirer? The whole thing felt backwards.

“When you came to confront me yesterday, I knew I had to fess up sometime soon.” He rolled his eyes, as though exasperated with your incompetence. You were still shocked beyond a shadow of a doubt.

John was a generally caring person. It was why they gave him RA status, it was why he brought bakery to the commons area every Thursday afternoon, knowing that the professors there were notorious for Friday morning tests, it was why he kept a first aid kit stocked with everything imaginable outside his door – bandaids, Tylenol, pads, tampons, even chocolate.

He’d always been caring. His behavior toward you just felt like part of the pattern.

“Why?” you breathed, unsure of yourself. “Why’d you start leaving them?”

He considered himself, tongue in cheek. “Well, the first wasn’t meant to be quite so elusive. I spent half an hour refusing to pull over at the nearest bakery; I thought it’d be nice to bring you what you asked for when you weren’t dangerously tipsy. Honestly, didn’t even mean for it to be such a puzzle. Just a little gift.”

“But apparently, someone can’t take a hint.” You scowled as he ruffled your hair, and he just chuckled. His gaze was soft, his smile wide. “When you showed up here with the second note, I didn’t mean to deny it. But then, you sounded mildly ticked.”

“I wasn’t annoyed,” you protested mildly, cheeks burning when he raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway, here I was thinking I had more game than that, so I lied. Just a little.” He shrugged. “But then you looked so disappointed, so maybe I did have game afterall, hm?”

“Why wouldn’t you just come talk to me about it?” you asked softly, and the amusement in his gaze didn’t subside as he raised an eyebrow. Part of you struggled to believe he’d missed the way you spent the past three years looking at him. That he’d missed how, no, you weren’t an affectionate drunk – he was just the one driving you home.

Finally, he spoke. “Now, why would I do that, when I could bring you here to come talk to me about it?”

You frowned, though there was no malice behind it. “Coward,” you accused playfully, jabbing at his chest.

“Maybe.” Again he shrugged, before a wide grin split his mask of nonchalance. “But your coward.”

You huffed out a laugh, surprised by the teasing words. “My oblivious coward, apparently.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Half the campus has a thing for you, John,” you scoffed. His smile was soft, then.

“Maybe, but I don’t care about half of campus.” Tentatively, he took a step closer to you, tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. “I care about you.”

You bit your lip, staring back up at him hesitantly. Your heart seemed to have stopped. John’s hand fell to your cheek, cradling your face. “John?” You finally said.

“Hm?”

“Can I kiss you?” The words were hardly a whisper, and before you could do anything else, he was reacting, taking a final step forward to snake his arm around your waist, pull you to him as he finally pressed his lips against yours. Your hands found their way to the back of his neck. Though the kiss was chaste, no more than lips against lips, it left you breathless, chest heaving against his when you finally pulled away.

You looked surprised, and he gave you a wry smile. “That’s a yes, for the record.”

You couldn’t help your grin. “Hey, so about that note…” He raised an eyebrow, and you reached up to tug at the collar of his shirt. “What was that, about, 'I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’?” Mischief seeped into your tone, and he looked stunned, his smile one of entertained disbelief.

He didn’t even bother to respond, moving quickly backward into his dorm room, tugging you with him, and you jerked forward with a squeak. He gave you a sly grin. “Lock the door.”

[ponett]

Welp... it’s over. After nine years, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is over. I just got done watching the series finale with Anthony and, just like I knew I would, when the credits rolled, I cried my eyes out

I should probably say something, huh. I’ve been sharing thoughts like this mostly on Twitter lately, but I started using Tumblr to blog about MLP, so I don’t think it would be right to post this anywhere else

I have a complicated relationship with MLP:FiM. It’s a show that got really hit or miss after the second season, and it has a fandom so toxic and so full of edgy libertarians that it scared me off from formally participating in fandoms for the rest of my life. But it’s also probably my favorite TV show of all time. There are other shows that are much better written, that have more to say, that are more consistent, even including several other cartoons from the same decade. But I think I’d be lying to myself if I said it wasn’t my favorite show

No other piece of media has had as massive of an impact on my life as My Little Pony

I grew closer to some of my closest high school friends because of our shared enthusiasm for the show. I started PonyPokey with Jake and Derek and made a bunch of bad videos and got invited to be on a wildly disorganized BronyCon panel with Jenny Nicholson in 2012. (We went on stage immediately after Lauren Faust’s panel. I barely said a word due to stage fright.)

After years of being too afraid to share my art online, I started putting more effort into learning digital art so that I could draw ponies. It started out rough, but with the drive to improve, I quickly got better. I started Fluttershy Replies. For the first time, I had an audience. I had people who cared about my work and supported me. Even as times have changed, many of you have been following me since way back then

Around the time I came out as bi in 2012, I got really into MLP shipping. Writing sappy comics and drawing sappy art became an outlet for my years of pent up feelings, and helped me sort out a lot of stuff. My Little Pony also completely changed the views on femininity that had been beaten into my skull since childhood. Suddenly, it wasn’t this strange, alien thing to be afraid of. MLP, at its heart, is a show about how there’s no wrong way to be a girl. That’s an incredibly powerful message. Rarity wasn’t a vapid snob. Fluttershy wasn’t a background character who got made into the butt of the joke. Pinkie wasn’t a ditz. These were characters written to be empathized with. And writing about my own feelings from the perspective of Fluttershy felt... right. It took me a few years to fully process those feelings, but eventually, I realized the truth. I was a trans woman. And a cartoon about horses was the first step on my path to realizing this

In 2013, one of the roughest years of my life, I decided to download RPG Maker on a whim to give myself a distraction. Naturally, my first instinct was to make a game where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash kiss. What was initially supposed to be a short, Fantastic Game-esque playground of silly little jokes spiraled out of control and became Super Lesbian Horse RPG, a game that I poured my heart and soul into over the course of a year. And then, a couple years later, my desire to preserve the ideas from my copyright-infringing fangame also spiraled out of control, as all my creative projects do, and became SLHRPG’s successor: Super Lesbian Animal RPG. SLARPG isn’t really a reskinned MLP fangame anymore--it’s more like a new game inspired in part by my old project. The story has been drastically rewritten, the characters changed, the levels and gameplay redesigned. Most of the cast of the new game wasn’t in the original project in any form. There’s much, much, much, much, much more new content than old left in the game. And the original game had already strayed so far from the canon anyway. But I’m also not sure it would exist without MLP

I made a bunch of friends online, including close friends I still have to this day. I met the people like Bee and Thomas who I’m still working with on SLARPG. Most importantly, because we both blogged about MLP and had some mutual friends, I met Anthony, the love of my life. We’ve been together for five years now and supported each other through good times and bad. This is the lamest, corniest, stupidest thing I will ever say in my life, but he’s the Rainbow Dash to my Fluttershy

...

So what about the finale itself? (spoilers, obviously)

I have... mixed feelings on the finale. There were some things that really annoyed me in there. But also, like I said, I cried, so I think it’s safe to say they did good overall

I think the thing that stuck in my craw the most was Discord. Which I guess shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve been saying for years now how I hate Discord, how he spits in the face of everything the show stands for. He’s an obnoxious elderly manchild who constantly causes problems on purpose and torments his so-called friends the second they stop paying attention to him. But they have to put up with him and give him infinite second chances, because he’s a god and Celestia said they had to reform him

The overarching plot of the final season is that Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, Tirek, and Cozy Glow (a Darla Dimple-esque filly villain from season 8) had teamed up with Grogar, a “new” villain taken from G1. While this goes on in the background, Twilight is making her preparations to become Celestia’s successor, as we’d known would be her destiny since the day she got wings six years ago. The villain team-up stuff was genuinely fun, and a highlight of the season for me. But then, in the three-part finale, it’s revealed that Grogar was actually Discord in disguise, and that he’d been intentionally trying to orchestrate a big attack on Twilight’s coronation so that she and her friends could save the day and get a big confidence boost going into her reign as princess. This is like... one of the most bafflingly stupid plot twist of all time. It’s literally the end of the show, and Discord has learned nothing. He’s “nice” now, but he’s still intentionally causing huge problems and putting everyone’s lives in danger to solve his problems. He freed four different villains they’d already defeated just so Twilight could beat them again, and in the process they literally blew up the goddamn castle in Canterlot and nearly killed everyone. And yet... they still forgive him, because they have to

I did, however, think that the last two-part adventure episode was fun overall. It tied a nice bow on much of the series, bringing back a bunch of old friends (including cameos from the movie cast!) to band together and save the day. Of course, in the end, they beat the bad guys with a big rainbow laser and sealed them in a statue. You know, even though a previous season finale was all about how solving their problems with a friendship laser and sealing the villains away never worked. Also, Cozy Glow might be evil, but she’s still literally a child? And now her petrified body is on display in the center of Canterlot? What the fuck????

I’m complaining a lot, but again. It was fun overall. It was nice to have one last big adventure, and to have the mane six reflect on how they’d grown since Twilight moved to Ponyville

...

And then we got the actual final episode. And boy did this one hit me HARD

I’m so glad that they ended on a quieter episode about the main cast’s friendships, because that’s what the show is actually about. The two-part adventures to save Equestria every season are fun, but that’s not the real show. We all came back every week for Twilight and her friends

There are things I can complain about here, too. Spike being a buff adult dragon with the voice of a child is fucked up. I’m still not used to seeing Twilight be Celestia’s size. But more than anything, I was always worried that we’d get a Harry Potter ending, where all the characters are paired off into arbitrary marriages so they can all have kids. Thankfully, this didn’t really happen. The only one who had a kid was Pinkie, who apparently got married to Cheese Sandwich (Weird Al’s character) at some point. Like, they literally shared two episodes together, with no hint of romance? But then they got married and had a kid off-screen??? What the fuck???? A lot of people also think that Fluttershy ended up with Discord, and I know I’m massively biased against that ship, but... I mean, they teased the FlutterCord shippers, but there wasn’t really any actual textual evidence that they were any closer than they had been previously. Y’all weirdos who ship Fluttershy with an obnoxious elderly man can interpret that as being “canon” if you want, I guess, but it’s not

The other relationship that shocked everyone in the finale was Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who... appear to be a couple? It’s definitely hinted at. I have... very, very mixed feelings about this. I mean, okay, obivously I’m the big FlutterDash fangirl. But I think AppleDash is cute, too! The problem is that, like... they’ve barely interacted in years? Like, they had a lot of episodes together in the first two seasons, but then the writers barely ever had them interact past that point. I can’t even remember when the last time we got an actual episode focusing on them was. And no, the one where Rainbow takes Granny Smith to pony Vegas doesn’t count

Like... yeah, it’s cute. It’s a nice gesture. Lyra and Bon Bon getting married in the background was also cute. But we can do so, so much better in 2019. We have so many explicitly canon lesbian couples in cartoons. Couples that actually kissed, or got married, or showed feelings for each other. Rainbow and AJ barely even fucking talked to each other in the final few seasons. I dunno, it just feels very hollow to me. Even the Equestria Girls crew admitting they were pushing RariJack felt more substantial to me, because at least they were given on-screen chemistry and lots of canon interaction

But in the end, complaints aside, the finale was about Twilight moving back to Canterlot, and worrying that her friendships would fade because of it. Honestly, I think this is what the finale of the show always would’ve been. It was the perfect story to end on. And boy, it hit really close to home

And then the last song happens, reflecting on how things have changed, but how they’re all still friends. And we see all the other friends they made along the way. And the camera zooms out, and the book from the opening of the very first episode closes, bringing the entire nine-year saga full circle

And then I started sobbing really hard in Anthony’s arms

...

I dunno. I just got done nitpicking a lot, but I still think that the last episode was a good and very emotional ending for the show

I’m going to miss this show dearly. I know it will be back in a new form, and that the leaks indicate that it’ll still star slightly different versions of the Mane Six. I’m also used to shows like this getting rebooted. Hasbro cartoons are honestly lucky to last past three seasons. FiM, on the other hand, got over 200 episodes, a theatrical film, a few specials, some shorts, a bunch of comics (which I still need to read), and a spinoff human AU series that was also really great. There’s no shortage of content, and I’m sure I’ll be returning to the series for years to come. I’m also glad that the show managed to go out on a high note

But still. It was a constant presence in my life for nearly nine years. Even as the quality got really hit or miss, even as they took the premise in strange directions, even as the crew of the show grew more and more dominated by men, it was still a show I could rely on to always be there, 26 episodes a year. I’ll miss it. I hope what comes next is just as good, if not even better. I also hope it’s gayer

I was going to end my ask blog, Fluttershy Replies, around the time the show ended. I’m not sure if I’ll do that just yet. I don’t know. I think that might be a bit much for me to process emotionally. Too many doors closing in my life in quick succession. But I do want to do more with it. These characters will be special to me for the rest of my life

I mean shit, I haven’t even drawn StarTrix yet. I’ve still got a lot of work to do with these horses, folks

[wintersongstress]

Writer’s Questionnaire

tagged by: @a-shakespearean-in-paris - Whew, girl, this tag was hard. I don’t think I’m smart enough to do it but I love talking about writing more than actually doing it so strap in...

EDIT [1/5/19]: @the-darklings Thank you for tagging me as well! 

Short stories, novels, or poems?

POETRY?! #TRIGGERED 

Ya’ll I want to talk about poetry. That Illuminati Cryptology. 

On the one hand, I’m actually quite decent with writing poetry. I like the poems I’ve written. I’m proud of my sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and free verse. Albeit, the restrictions of closed forms and writing in iambic pentameter grinds the gears in the computer science part of my brain, but I can do it. Some of my best lines are poetry. Poetry is what resonates the deepest, what loops through my head when I think about writing. Its the ultimate mastery of words that makes your work endure.  

Look at Peonies at Dusk by Jane Kenyon. Nice poem, right? Lovely imagery, the tone is somber and sweet. But, you have to remember, poetry is a puzzle. You have to put the pieces together to understand the picture. 

Kenyon arranged her poem in tercet stanzas to link it to the Holy Trinity. (???)This was because she found God during the time so wrote this poem and wanted to pay tribute to how it grounded her life by grounding her poem the same way. In the final stanza, the narrator bending to smell the peony is supposed to be the narrator bending over to take care of someone who is bedridden with cancer. Propping them up with stakes and twine- taking care of a sick loved one. Peonies were also known for their medicinal properties, as well as them withering being an omen for disaster and death. The fading of light and the dusk is all blatantly symbolic. JUST. POETRY PISSES ME OFF SOMETIMES. AND I HATE THAT I KIND OF LIKE HOW CONVOLUTED IT IS ONCE I FIGURE IT OUT. 

tl:dr; I prefer short stories and novels when it comes to reading for the obvious reasons why we love novels. Ya’ll already know why novels are good. When it comes to writing I usually do short stories and poems. I haven’t been able to tackle a novel yet. 

What genre do you prefer reading? 

I’ve always enjoyed fantasy, historical fiction, and of course, romance. I like a good contemporary every once in a while, too.

What genre do you prefer writing?

Same as what I prefer to read. I absolutely love exploring settings and writing the relationships between characters and how they transform and develop them.

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

I like to make an outline at the beginning of a new project just to have some semblance of order and to know what the journey is going to look like. This helps a lot in my Research stage because I’m able to identify what I don’t know and what tools I’m going to need. 

What music do you listen to while writing?

Video game soundtracks mostly. They’re designed to keep you engaged and I don’t want to focus on anything else but my work, I just need a little white noise. Jeremy Soule’s compositions are great for setting the mood, as well as Debussy. I also like those nature ambiance videos on YouTube, crackling fire, forest/river sounds, etc. 

Fave books/movies?

Amazing. This question never fails to make me forget every piece of media I have ever consumed. 😂

I’m kind of at a stand point right now because I’m 20 and I don’t read YA books anymore and that’s the bulk of my personal library. (Sorry Sarah J. Maas and Cassandra Clare!). I used to read a COLOSSAL amount of YA; I’m talking 15 books a month, 2 books a day sometimes and I used to do arc (advanced reader copy) reviews through Macmillan for Miss Literati. Looking back now though, there are some novels I read that I still stand by.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness - amazing, stream of consciousness writing at its best.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - my favorite writing style. Period. 

Half Bad by Salle Green - just brilliant.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - fight me okay.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Passion by Lauren Kate - This book was just, everything I wanted. 😭

The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix - the first series that REALLY got me into reading.

List of my favorite films I like to tell people to impress them:

The Sixth Sense

The Last Samurai

Brokeback Mountain

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Rear Window

 List of my favorite films when life is sad:

Confessions of a Shopaholic

The Mummy

Star Wars

Back to the Future

Some Like It Hot

The Princess Bride

Forrest Gump

Romancing the Stone

As you can see,  I’m not a huge film buff (though sometimes I wish I were...)

I’m sure I’m forgetting some...

Any current WIPs?

gee let’s look at my documents folder... 

This is gonna sound silly but  the majority of my personal WIPs are actually games I want to write. I know, I know, but I want to go into narrative design, possibly even creative direction. Much to my mother’s chagrin. So I don’t write novels per say, I write scripts and game concept documents. I do write short stories but my longstanding projects I am not talented enough to start writing.  I write ideas for scenes while I let the rest stew in my head, like a bubbling cauldron of ideas that is constantly simmering. I’ll get there, eventually. 

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

My standard get-up is high-waisted jeans, Blundstones, and an over-sized knitted sweater. God I love winter.

Create a character description for yourself:

Hi,my name is Isabell. My worst nightmares include getting C’s, being late for work, and getting back together with my ex-boyfriend from 9th grade. 

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

The best writers are thieves, and I steal a lot of details of real people into my writing. Patterns of speech, outfits, unique traits, that sort of thing. I pay a lot of attention to the people around me, especially strangers. So I don’t incorporate actual people I know, rather, the strangers I see and who I think they are or could be in the context of story. 

Are you kill-happy with characters?

By all means, I will put them in near death circumstances and give them critical injuries. However, I rarely kill them. So, no. I don’t happily kill my characters. 

Coffee or tea while writing?

Self-proclaimed Chai tea slut.

Slow or fast writer?

Slow’er than the molasses in January. 

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Ideas strike anywhere, anytime. I could be standing in the check-out line at the grocery store and get an idea. However, most of my inspiration comes from consuming other stories. Video games have honestly been the most inspiring and immersive mediums for storytelling. I find inspiration from learning new things, especially in history. A lot of stuff from myth and history inspires me. 

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

I’d like to think I would be an adventurer, but let’s be real I’d probably be an Alchemist’s apprentice. Or a sculptor. Maybe even a tutor. 

Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

Hero/Villain Ships. Enemies to lovers. dYING CONFESSIONS OF LOVE.

Wait, are those cliches? As for what I hate...Oh, I don’t know. I hate the reckless heroine. I just hate reading about girls who make stupid decisions and think they’re the right ones. Not to say they can’t make mistakes, but you know, other characters are like, don’t do the thing, and they do it anyway. 

Fave scenes to write?

SMUT. FIRST KISSES. Yeah. Been writing that sort of thing since I was 11. I had one of those notebooks with a cover that made a zippery sound when you scratched it and it was my first foray into fanfiction and smut lmao. Good stuff. Pandora’s box, though. 

I love writing scenery descriptions. I’m acutely tuned to setting and creating atmosphere and I love determining the specific details that take you exactly where I want the reader to be. The mise-en-scene, if you will.

Most productive time of day for writing?

Dead of night or the wee hours of morning, when the world is quiet. 

Reason for writing?

Because when I write, I feel like I belong. I write because I have a certain taste, and I’m the only one who knows how to capture that. I write because storytelling is intrinsic to me and a part of myself I can never deny, forget, or neglect. I write because my mind has always been full of ideas and worlds I want to explore. I write because deep down I know I’m meant to. 

_

Tagging: 

I’m gonna keep it chill because this tag takes more than 2 minutes to do, but I would love to see your guys’ responses!: @shadows-echoes || @sunstrain || @connorshero || @deviantsupporter

This tag is totally 100% optional! 

[primatechnosynthpop]

A rose shall bloom (and then shall fade)- part 1

When it came to the various applications of her healing powers, there was one thing that never really crossed Claire's mind. She was just a teenager when her ability manifested, so mortality or lack thereof was the last thing on her mind. She didn't stop to consider whether or not her power would allow her to live forever until she heard from Hiro about the ancient samurai named Adam Monroe who stayed alive for centuries without aging. However, once she learned about this, it was hard not to think about. And once she started thinking about the prospect of never aging, never naturally dying, her mind went to places that she wished it wouldn't.

Would she outlive everyone around her?

She would, of course, outlive her parents. That was normal, regardless of how much it sucked. She'd probably also outlive Peter and most of his friends--Mohinder, Matt, Tracy, Hiro. But by how long--a few years? A couple decades? Would she outlive Gretchen? Lyle? Would she end up outliving her own children, if she ever had any? What if she outlasted everyone by centuries?

She didn't have the answers for any of those questions, and that really scared her. As time went by, these questions weighed ever heavier on her mind. She tried talking to Peter about it, thinking he would understand. He ruffled her hair and told her not to worry about it.

"It's okay, Claire," he told her earnestly. "I'm not going anywhere for a long time."

"I know," she said. "I just... what if I end up having to watch everyone around me grow old and die?"

Peter didn't have an answer for that; nobody did.

-

A few months went by, and eventually a few years. Claire graduated from college, getting a masters in social sciences and a minor in biology. She still had no real idea as to where she wanted to take her life. Funny as it was, part of her had always figured she wouldn't make it to adulthood, but she was here now, and she felt completely lost. Her family assured her that it was normal for girls her age to feel that way, and that she could take her time figuring herself out.

She and Gretchen moved into a small apartment together, and she started looking for a lasting job. One day, Sandra called her up asking for help changing a light bulb. Claire, who hadn't seen her mother much lately and was eager to accept any opportunity to pay her a visit, drove across town to Sandra's house. When she pulled up in the driveway, she was surprised not to hear any barking coming from inside.

She walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. Still no barking. That was odd. Sandra answered the door and her face lit up upon seeing Claire. She pulled her into a tight hug and then pulled apart to coo over how adult Claire looked. Claire winced when she noticed the extra wrinkles decorating her mother's face which hadn't been there before.

"How are you doing, sweetie?" Sandra asked as they stood in the doorway. "Is everything going okay for you at the apartment?"

"It's going great," Claire said. Looking over her mother's shoulder into the unusually quiet house, she scanned the hall for a little ball of fur scampering toward them. She saw nothing. "We should probably close the door," she said, ignoring the creeping suspicion that she knew the reason for the absence of barking. "We don't want Mr. Muggles to get out."

As soon as she said this, Sandra's face fell in just such a way that Claire's suspicions were instantly confirmed.

"Oh, honey, I guess I forgot to tell you," she murmured. "Mr. Muggles isn't around anymore. He got really sick a couple months back, and he had to be put down."

"Oh..." Claire faltered, unsure of how to react. Rationally speaking, she supported it made sense; if humans couldn't live forever, then dogs sure as hell couldn't. "I'm sorry, Mom," she said after a beat. "That must have been really hard for you."

"It was," Sandra sighed. Glancing back down the empty hallway, she stepped aside and gestured for Claire to come inside. "But anyway, let me show you the light you came to fix..."

Nodding, Claire followed her mother down the hall to a lightbulb which was screwed in crookedly. She felt kind of numb. Even though Mr. Muggles had just been a dog, to her it felt like a sign. It was the first of many family members she would outlive. (She didn't count her biological parents, because as much as their deaths had hurt, it hadn't been from natural causes.) It was probably stupid to look at it that way, but she couldn't help it.

-

Claire wound up getting a retail job at a clothing store. To say it was a grueling job would be an understatement, but she needed to provide for herself while she and Gretchen hunted for better jobs. She was pleased to discover that Tracy worked at the same establishment. Sometimes they hung out together after work, going to get coffee or something similar. Occasionally Claire, Gretchen, and Tracy would get together with Lauren Gilmore and Peter's girlfriend Emma for a girl's night. Claire tried inviting Angela to come along a couple times, but she laughed and said that she was much too old. Claire wanted to disagree, but looking at her grandmother, she was shocked to realize just how old and frail Angela was beginning to look.

One winter, Claire decided to talk to her dad about her potential immortality. He had become more and more withdrawn in recent years, but she finally got the chance to talk to him when they attended a holiday party at the Petrellis' house together. Getting together with friends and relatives always rubbed her the wrong way. They kept getting older, and she didn't seem to be aging at all.

"Hey, Dad," she said apprehensively when she approached him at the event. "You used to be friends with a guy who had a power like mine, right?"

Noah glanced up at her from where he was sitting on the couch next to a couple other guys, raising his eyebrows. "I don't know if I'd say Monroe and I were ever friends," he said. "But I certainly knew of him. Why do you ask, Claire-bear?"

"Well, I've kind of been thinking..." Claire scrunched up her face as the other people sitting with Noah looked up at her inquisitively. She had nothing against them, but this wasn't something she wanted anyone to overhear. She put on a cheery smile and thought of a different, less personal subject. "Um, do you want to see the pictures I took at PodCon?"

"Oh, sure," Noah said. "You went as the orc lady and her lizard wife from that dnd podcast you like, right?"

Claire nodded. It had taken a lot of body paint to make the cosplay work, and even after all that her girlfriend wasn't quite buff enough to pull the look off, but they had still had a good time. While she showed her dad the photos, she shoved her worries about outliving people to the back of her mind. What was she even worried about? She had no way of knowing if that was even going to happen to her. And even if it did, she wouldn't have to worry about it for a long time.

However, as much as she told herself not to worry, she couldn't help it. Even just looking at Noah now, she was distressed by how much his hair was thinning, and how the creases on his face deepened more every day.

-

Claire couldn't get drunk, and Gretchen couldn't handle alcohol at all, so they didn't go out drinking together often. The one time they did go out to a bar to celebrate Claire getting promoted, Claire got ID'd. She realized that, despite being in her mid twenties, she still looked like a teenager. This didn't phase her nearly as much as the adjacent fact that Gretchen didn't get ID'd along with her. It was like what Claire had been afraid of: her girlfriend was aging, and she wasn't.

From that point, Claire started checking the mirror every day, searching for any signs of the natural progression of time. Day after day, week after week, there wasn't a wrinkle or even a single gray hair in sight.

"Well, of course there's no gray hairs," Gretchen said to her once. "You're not old yet!"

"You're right," Claire said, forcing a giggle, because that was what Gretchen wanted to hear. Everybody wanted her to be just fine, and not constantly on the verge of freaking out because she was going to outlive everyone she loved and damn it, why her, why did she have to be-- "I guess I'm worried about nothing."

"Just wait until you reach forty," Gretchen teased. "There'll be plenty of gray hairs by then."

"God, I hope not," Claire lied.

-

One spring, during a rainy spell, Claire's phone rang. She picked it up without checking to see who was calling, and was initially pleased to hear the voice of her uncle.

"Hi, Claire," Peter said. He sounded tired. "Are you doing alright?"

"I'm fine," Claire said. "How about you? Is everything okay?"

Peter hesitated. Over the phone, Claire heard him gulp. When he spoke up again, there was pain in his voice.

"Mom is in the hospital," he said. "She had a stroke. We..." his voice faltered; Claire waited breathlessly for what she already knew he would say next. "...We're not sure if she's going to make it."

Claire drew in a shaky breath. "What hospital is she at?" she asked. "I'll drive right over."

"No need," Peter said. "I can fly you there."

"No, you should stay with your mom," Claire insisted. "Come on, just give me directions and I'll be there in a few hours."

There was another long pause.

"...It's a hospital in New York," Peter said quietly. "If you drive up from LA, it might... it might take too long. By the time you get there, she might..."

Claire swallowed hard. She had known for a long time that Angela was nearing the end of her life, but at the same time, it felt like the kind of thing that was always "going to happen soon", but not something that would ever actually happen. And yet, according to Peter, Angela was currently on her deathbed.

Did she want to see Angela die? No, no, no she didn't. She didn't want to see anyone she cared about die. But she'd have to. In time, she would have to watch everyone die. She didn't want to have to see it, though. When Meredith had died, it had been in a fiery explosion which Claire had seen from a distance. She hadn't been there for Nathan's death at all. In fact, she had never seen anybody she cared about die--at least not permanently--in her life.

She didn't want to start now.

"Just give me the directions," she told Peter. "I'll make it there in time."

He reluctantly gave her directions, and she hopped in the car without telling Gretchen where she was going. Claire was halfway to New York when Peter called her again. Before he could say anything, she knew what he was calling to tell her. Even so, her heart shattered when he spoke the words aloud.

"She's gone, Claire."

"Shit," was all Claire could say.

She was relieved that she hadn't been there to see it.

-

It was odd, in a way, for Angela not to be alive anymore. Claire had never been very close to her grandmother. When Peter offered her the chance to speak at the funeral, Claire declined. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know exactly what to feel, either. She was sad, sure, but she didn’t feel as sad as she felt like she should have.

When Nathan had died, she’d had people to be angry at about it: Sylar for killing him, Angela for hiding the truth, and Nathan himself for having gotten killed in the first place. But in this case, the only thing to blame was the passage of time, with which Claire already had a complicated enough relationship. More than anything, she just felt numb.

It didn’t help that Noah and Sandra were getting older every day, edging ever closer to the same eventual fate. Noah’s hair thinned out, and he swapped out his signature horn-rimmed glasses for bifocals. Sandra began to lose her hearing, and her hair was slowly turning white. Their skin hung loose in some parts and was stretched tight in others. They looked less like Claire’s parents now and more like grandparents. And there she was, still looking like a fresh-faced college student.

Claire started keeping a syringe in the drawer on her bedside table. If anyone was ever in need of her blood’s healing properties, she could easily take a sample of it and give someone an injection. She didn’t tell Gretchen about this, thinking that her girlfriend wouldn’t understand. She just didn’t want anybody to die on her watch if they didn’t have to. She wanted to keep everyone alive for as long as possible to prolong the amount of time before she would end up alone.

-

More years went by. Claire was creeping up on thirty now. It was the time of life when most people began to fear getting old, but she feared the exact opposite. One day, she got home from a particularly stressful day of work to find Gretchen pacing back and forth, muttering to herself.

"Hey, babe," Claire said as she stpped into their apartment. "What's up?"

Gretchen locked eyes with her, blushing heavily. She looked almost like a teenage girl again--the way she'd looked when Claire had first met her--they way that Claire wished she didn't still look. They exchanged a brief, nervous smile. Claire didn't know what was going on, but it was clear that Gretchen had something important on her mind.

"You know, Claire, I've been thinking," she began. "We've been together for a long time now, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess we have," Claire muttered. She hadn't given it much thought, but looking at her girlfriend now, the passage of time hit her like a ton of bricks. "Why, are you going to break up with me or something?" she asked, only half-joking. With the way she had been acting lately, so on edge all the time, she wouldn't have blamed Gretchen for growing tired of her.

However, Gretchen shook her head. "Oh, gods, no," she said. "Claire, I... I want to marry you."

Claire blinked, stunned.

"I love you, Claire. I'll always love you," Gretchen went on. "I want us to spend the rest of our lives together."

"The rest of our lives?" Claire echoed.

The phrase rubbed her the wrong way. Gretchen could spend the rest of her life with Claire, but Claire wasn't so sure she could do the same. Still, marriage--it sounded like a dream come true. And regardless of how long either of them lived, Claire couldn't think of anyone else she wanted to marry more than her college girlfriend.

Getting down on one knee, Gretchen reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver ring. "Claire Bennet, will you be my wife?"

Despite everything, Claire grinned wider than she had in years. Tears sprung up in her eyes as she took in the visage of the woman she loved. No matter how much that face aged, it would always be beautiful.

"Yes," she whispered, barely more than a tiny breath escaping her lips. Then, louder, "yes! Gods, yes, I want to marry you!"

Laughing and crying, they embraced. Their engagement lasted for several months, during which Claire started working another part time job as a waitress and Gretchen started working night shifts at her job as a receptionist so that they could afford the wedding they wanted. The ceremony was held at Kirby Plaza, and they invited as many people as could fit in the venue. It was, and would long remain, the happiest day of Claire's life.

Claire just wished that she could live in that moment forever.

[ganymedesclock]

I know you stay 90% out of ships so you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. If Keith and Lance were to, sometime in the future, pursue a romantic relationship, under what circumstances could you see Lance being optimistic and Keith being pessimistic about whether it will work and vice versa?

....This is kind of an interesting question.

I think it’d depend a lot on the nature of their situation and what they went through. Mentalities are pretty fluid things, and Keith and Lance are both growing and changing individually as people.

As far as Lance is concerned

I mean, we’ve seen it suggested many times that as far as Lance is concerned, his only real romantic prospects are women, so, my personal two cents is if Lance was attracted to a guy, it’d be... a bit of an exercise in self-discovery for him. Not something he’d considered or conceptualized before. So that might motivate him to be a little sheepish and a little awkward- especially since, with his vlog, it feels a lot like Lance sort of tries to borrow from action movie ladykiller stereotypes vs. how he actually behaves about a crush.

Lance, smitten, is inclined to gush about the other person full-tilt; while I personally am skeptical his crush on Allura is going to go anywhere, it still stands that Lance in love runs at the mouth about how fantastic and pretty and wonderful his crush is, but tries to bluff over it by painting himself more as the receptacle of adoration than one who adores but is not necessarily adored himself. 

And it’s a bad stereotype, and it’s not who Lance is, but it’s who Lance sort of pretends to be a little bit in an area that’s rather vulnerable to him. And Lance potentially acknowledging and exploring crushes on men might damage that script, or just, force him to rethink in general what a romantic relationship means to him and how he wants to explore it, because... frankly all of Lance’s ladykiller talk is just. talk. He packages it in things like the “particle barrier” joke but in practice, when people have shown interest in Lance, he’s actually a very sweet person. He just believes that the one way to be romantic is to be a stereotypical action hero when he’d honestly get a lot further just being himself.

So if Lance has a crush on Keith, and realizes that’s what it is, I can see him kind of panicking because he’s not sure how to proceed- the stereotypical old school action movies he’s pulling off of usually don’t feature same sex attraction anywhere. And Keith is not. exactly. a stereotypical romantic anything. 

Honestly, I feel like that’s, if anything, a really interesting thread to explore that I don’t think gets done very often- I feel like a lot of times people ship Lance with other male characters with the idea that Lance is clearly comfortably bi, pan, or ply without any sort of reservations, knows this perfectly well, and maybe even prefers to hit on men when we’ve seen that Lance in love in general is actually a little sheepish and a little awkward, hence his reliance on what appears to be drawing from fictional heroes to buff up his confidence.

I think it’s pretty likely that Lance is gonna have feelings he doesn’t totally know what to do with, and he might’ve had sort of distant hero crushes in the past that he might not have realized were crushes (Canonically Lance did look up to Shiro in the Garrison, who is a handsome older man and I doubt it ever went, or would go anywhere, but I could see a take on Lance who doesn’t quite realize he’s attracted to men to not quite separate hero worship from a hero crush.)

I talked about this art from Lauren Montgomery before and how each sign has one character who appears to be there as a sort of support, and the two characters holding the sign, in the case of Keith-Hunk and Pidge-Allura, have both had meaningful interactions about the subject in question. Hunk with Keith in s2e9, where Hunk is the main person who helped Keith come to terms with being half-galra; and Allura with Pidge in s1e4 where Allura was the one who tried to encourage Pidge to be honest with her about Pidge’s gender because she really wanted to connect with Pidge over that.

And we see both Hunk and Allura have their arm around their sign buddy and seem more confident and encouraging, and Shiro’s positioned the same way towards Lance, who, much like Keith, doesn’t really look like he totally wants to be there.

So because of this, it’s led me to wonder if we’re going to get interactions between Lance and Shiro on the topic of sexuality, with Shiro taking a sort of mentoring role and helping encourage Lance and help him figure things out. Especially when it’s been stated by interviews that part of Lance’s arc is finding someone that he does click with romantically, that would seem to suggest that Lance is going to do a certain amount of introspection with how he relates to other characters.

Because the writers have made a significant issue of carefully showing that everyone Lance flirts with appears to be women, when that’s pretty obviously not a writing hangup- they had no qualms showing Blaytz flirting with a male galra servant. It’d be easy to insert androgynous or masculine aliens into groups Lance is flirting with, but they’ve specifically chosen not to and with this picture, and again- the fact that Lance looks just as nervous as Keith, when we know canonically Keith’s relationship with the “race” issue is something he very recently found out about himself- makes me wonder if we’re going to see Lance discovering and exploring this about himself within the context of the show.

And that’d be valuable insight for him, whether or not he ends up in an “endgame” relationship with a woman! We have canon sources of Lance himself saying he’s not ready for a real relationship at this point and the implication there is there’s some growing and self-discovery to do. It could be Lance is a biromantic ace who assumes that having a romantic relationship with someone has to be a sexual one as well. 

(Of course, this would also imply Shiro is some flavor of Not Straight himself and much more confident/established in that)

Concerning Keith

Keith, I don’t think would really have much concern about sexuality. We haven’t really seen him express obvious attraction in anybody, though in s1e6 he does seem to regard Rolo with interest and some have interpreted that as Keith checking him out- if that is the case, then it stands that attraction for Keith is a very quiet affair. If he experiences it for anyone, he probably knows it and doesn’t worry too much where his concept of being attracted to other people falls re: what is considered “normal”. If he likes guys, he likes guys. If he likes girls, he likes girls. If he likes NB people, that’s how it is, and any configuration therein is just how it is.

It could be a certain amount of social obliviousness combined with his own no-frills practical thinking means that Keith has pretty much no idea what’s the standard romantic “script”, and no desire to cultivate or pursue it at this point.

Because we’ve yet to see Keith dealing with an obvious crush, we thus have to kind of hypothesize here: would Keith’s insecurity and fear of rejection make him nervously want to “do it right” and thus seek other people’s advice when courting with someone, or would it be more like him to just be actively, bluntly honest about his feelings and not worry too much? I could see either, and, as I said before, it would depend a lot on where Keith is in his head.

Keith’s greatest demon would, I think, be the persistent, nagging suspicion that he doesn’t mean as much to other people as they do to him. That maybe if he really cares about this person he should let them pursue someone else they’ll be happier with instead of trying to ‘selfishly’ keep them to himself.

I think this would hit big time with someone like Lance who’s a social butterfly because people really do like Lance, a lot. He is legitimately charming and a sweet person. I can see Keith not really being jealous as much as- kind of getting lost in overthinking does he actually have a place here?

I have less to say about Keith but that’s because Keith is more straightforwards to me in this situation. 

[imbriums-blog]

hello my angels ! i’m sorry this is so late but i’m sarah & i’m 18 yrs old & live in the hellhole that is ohio so the est timezone ! i’m ur token harry potter nerd & lover of all things musical... anyways u can hear more about 5/10 of my problematic children under the cut ! i’m gonna try to keep it short but i lov to talk so we’ll see ! if you’re willing to plot give this post a big mf like & i’ll come crawlin��� to ur ims !

— ✯ | barbara delaney savenkov ! + pinterest board !

tw: death, murder

laura harrier, cisfemale, she/her — have you met barbara delaney savenkov yet ? the twenty-three year old is known for being both poised and enticing, but also very skeptical and deceiving. born in san francisco, barbie now lives in soho, waiting tables at the fork and assassinating people on the side for some extra cash. + wanted connections !

so barbara was born n raised in san francisco, california to a solidly middle class family. her parents were divorced growing up, although they were friendly & got along well enough to be friends & co-parent barbie. she’d always been quite an idealist like Yes The World Is Good but when she was twenty, her dad had died due to a rogue heart attack that seemingly happened for no reason & it completely shattered barbara.

that’s when a local gang found her, at her ultimate low, & roped her into their business. she stayed w them for two years or so & at some point or another barbara started to realize that she didn’t think this business & way to make money was a good one. eventually, they starting cutting pay & barbara started to feel like she was bein manipulated. working w the gang kind of made her give up her optimism & is what truly formed her into the stone cold but somehow still elegant & captivating barbie she is today ! her idealistic attitude & never-ending optimism died with all of the shady shit that gang made her do.

then barbara was offered a job as an assassin for a powerful man doin some shady shit & she was unable to refuse even tho her first instinct was to turn it down – it offered great money & stability, & with the impression that she’d only be hurting people who deserved it, barbara shakily accepted the deal & left the gang !

she’s not pleased w the fact that she’s murdering ppl for a living, obviously, but she tries to make do with what she has & tells herself that the ppl she’s killing deserve it but !! messy !

personality-wise, barbara comes off as super intimidating at first n like she just doesn’t have feelings… super proper n always sitting upright n stiff as fuck… scares ppl away bc she seems like a robot at first

she's that kid who studies for the test like 3 weeks before it actually happens and has color coordinated highlighting and bullet journals.. she wants to be on top of everything, constantly – she doesn’t like feeling unorganized or like she’s falling apart ? i think it’s partially bc she tends to over perfect areas of her life like that, and like color coordinating her closet and making sure everything is tidy to make up for the Mess that is her secret career ??

one of the most annoying things ever is how perfect she seems on the surface ?? like, she likes everybody n is probably the type of person who rescues stray kittens from trees n sings as little birdies fly down & comb her hair or some shit but anyone close to barbie in real life knows she is a hardcore mess

that friend who’s like “oh my god i look so fat in this picture” n literally everybody groans bc shut the fuck up karen ur perfect

could literally say “fuck off” to somebody n the tone of voice she uses would make them think she was complimenting them

— ✯ | cordelia esther king ! + pinterest board !

alycia debnam-carey, cisfemale, she/her — have you met cordelia esther king yet ? the twenty-two year old is known for being both affable and buoyant, but also very whimsical and corybantic. born in salem, delia now lives in lambeth, working as a wedding planner and forming unrealistic expectations of true love.

so ngl cordelia is very inspired by jane from 27 dresses but w/ some twists so i’m not completely unoriginal

she was born to a pastor for a father in salem aka witch town ! cordelia was raised as kind of a perfect goody goody two shoes u know.. classic girl next door who sleeps w a teddy bear even at twenty-two & her entire room is covered in pink, she spends her spare time baking n blushing over boys smiling at her wtvr... she was always strong-willed & opinionated but shut up out of fear of being made fun of u know, kids these days r mean

so then when cordelia is old enough to leave her parents house ( let’s say like a year ago ) she decides that she’s tired of being the nice girl in the shadows & that she wants to live life more on the edge so she vows to start living life dangerously & being badass... whatever that means

it’s actually kind of funny, because she’ll stroll into a bar & bat her eyelashes at the bartender & single ppl in the room to try & get them to order a drink for her solely bc she doesn’t know the names of any drinks... has no common sense & is too naive for her own good ( what is a handjob... what does “on the rocks” mean ) but the girl’s trying to [ troy bolton vc ] break free so who am i to judge ?

she’s a wedding planner who’s actually in love with the idea of love & has watched the notebook 1 too many times... despite her being wildt nowadays she’s still into the whole “when i meet the one for me my foot will pop when we kiss & i’ll feel fireworks” thing.. it’s cute but also sad but ! cute !

personality-wise... she’s outspoken & friendly & incredibly flirty, but at the same time she probably either assumes you’re flirting w her when you’re really not or has no clue that you’re hitting on her when ur literally kissing her

is totally sandy at the end of grease when she’s like “tell me about it, stud” acting all badass but then doesn’t know what to do w her cigarette butt & looks nervously at her friends like WTF DO I DO

please come corrupt her or fuck her up... or be nice 2 her & teach her how to be a human being

— ✯ | dexter leroy bates ! + pinterest board !

torrance coombs, cismale, he/him — have you met dexter leroy bates yet ? the thirty-one year old is known for being both inventive and idealistic, but also very farouche and indecisive. born in hackney, dex now lives in croydon, editing badly filmed videos and gluing himself to a camera 24/7.

basically a nerdy starving artist based on mark from rent with a lil bit of peter parker in him

a broke ass bitch living in croydon trying his best to make it as a photographer / film maker

he has huge dreams of hollywood but his films r probably kinda bad... but he tries his best n i love him for it

kinda nerdy & word vomit-y... super cute... would die for his friends but also would kill u for insulting one of them

is that nerd that is actually hot n buff n shit but u never notice bc he wears hoodies n hides behind a camera bc i lov stereotyping apparently

i don’t really have his backstory worked out yet tbfh so really ? go wild w connections for my son

— ✯ | davina leigh cordero ! + pinterest board !

lauren jauregui, cisfemale, she/her — have you met davina leigh cordero yet ? the twenty-one year old is known for being both intuitive and diligent, but also very seclusive and obstinate. born in whitby, davina now lives in soho, studying journalism and avoiding as much human interaction as possible.

100% based on rory gilmore bc apparently even tho i’m on season 2 i luv the characters Too Much

basically everything i aspire 2 be in a person... hardworking as fuck, loves school so fricking much, antisocial as hell ! 

davina is deadass brilliant & her idea of wild is staying up past 11 on a school night or waiting to do her homework on saturday instead of friday

sweet, a lil bit awkward, but the cutest ever n i would die for her

would much rather be chillin w her books than anything else tbh & doesn’t know how to hold proper interactions but it’s more charming than anything else

grew up with only her dad mostly, since her mom worked full time & lived out of town for reasons but they both love her a ton. her dad would give her the whole world if he could, & owns a quaint little coffee shop in whitby & is constantly calling davina to check up on her... when she got older her mom moved back in w her dad so since then she’s gotten a lot closer to her but there’s still just such a bond between her dad & her u know

what is romance ? davina doesn’t know

come fuck her up

— ✯ | sawyer maisie pitman ! + pinterest board !

josefine frida pettersen, cisfemale, she/her — have you met sawyer maisie pitman yet ? the twenty year old is known for being both undaunted and driven, but also very apathetic and blunt. born in bristol, sawyer now lives in wandsworth, being a tragically pathetic starving artist & student.

so sawyer was adopted as a baby, unnamed, to two moms who love her more than anything in the world. one’s a publisher & one’s an english professor, & they’re both huge fricking nerds, so she was named after tom sawyer !

as soon as she could walk she was talented with art & everything that had to do with it & not long after entering high school she decided that that’s what she wanted to do & nothing was going to get in the way of it

now, as a student & hopeful artist, sawyer is dead set on getting where she wants to be & has no tolerance for bullshit... like if u ain’t helping her further her career, ur unimportant to her

relationships ? cancelled. romance is a DISTRACTION from her work & only complicates her life !

blunt as fuck & doesn’t sugar coat things. she says things like they are & expects others to do the same bc she has no time for drama or whatnot

stubborn as fuck & nearly impossible to talk to sometimes bc she’s so set in her ways but hey love me a strong woman amirite

sharp-tongued & sarcastic as fuck but can be incredibly kind when the time is right !

[tableandteaspoon]

Monday Merriment

Infusing grandeur into otherwise drab days with five ideas for the week.

I.  Confession: I’ve had a bit of an unruly sweet tooth as of late. I’m blaming it - like absolutely everything else right now - on the pandemic. Pre-house arrest, I’d successfully resisted all sweets and carbs (other than the occasional cocktail clearly) for three months. Truth be told, it wasn’t difficult. So to lapse swiftly back into the arms of my saccharine lover has been a bit alarming. Finding ice cream too heavy and candy too basic, I’ve found my sweet spot in sorbets. Growing tired of my go-to Talenti Roman Raspberry, I remembered a recipe I developed near the beginning of this blog circa 2010. Fresh mint, Gewurztraminer, and citrus combine to hit all the right notes, without overwhelming your palate. Give the Pink Mint Sorbet a try - I promise it’ll be the easiest thing you’ve concocted during COVID.

II.  The very first thing I did once the shock of WFH for the foreseeable future wore off was order a pair of delicious house slippers. As a pre-pandemic stiletto aficionado, I figured my feet deserved a break while sheltering in place - but I couldn’t bear the thought of forgoing the feeling of sliding them into something luxurious in the meantime. While all of that sounds marginally dramatic, I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to have the comforting new routine. Here are my favorites for both men and women in hi/lo price points. Male: hi and lo. Female: hi and lo.

III.  As the days sluggishly inch by, it’s become abundantly clear that many will be forced to forgo their dream weddings in 2020. Sad though it may seem, there are a handful of benefits to the newly minted “Micro Weddings” that will replace the big blowouts the rest of the year. Beyond the obvious intimacy you’ll be able to share with your loved ones in a smaller setting, you’ll also be able to redirect budget and resources to offer a more unique feel to your special day. If you and your partner are foodies, think of how much more elaborate you can make your menu with fewer attendees. Is music more your vibe? It’ll be easier to get your favorite band or DJ locked down now that touring is effectively over. Or, if you’re like me, and delight in decor, the possibilities have multiplied exponentially. For example, renting 250 vintage chairs for your ceremony is both expensive and logistically complicated. But renting 10-50 is more than doable - and oh so striking for an outdoor ceremony. In Northern California, One True Love Vintage is my favorite. There are plenty of vintage vendors nationwide, so turn to trusty Google to learn more about availability in your area. 

IV.  My junior year in high school, I made the last-minute decision to try out for the spring musical. I was last to audition out of nearly a hundred wannabe actors, and to say that I was ill-prepared next to my seasoned theater-buff peers would be a gross understatement. We could only sing roughly sixty-seconds of a song, so I opted for “Let Me Entertain You” from the same musical I was trying out for, Gypsy. Shockingly, I won the major role of Dainty June, and spent the rest of the semester singing and dancing on stage with an oversized cow in ringlet curls and a gingham hoop skirt. In hindsight, the part I love about this story is that the song I chose foreshadowed my ultimate profession. Letting me entertain you (and helping others do the same) has become my life’s mission. Which is why I was delighted to learn that one of my hostessing idols, Stephanie Booth Shafran, just released her book on all things entertaining at home, You’re Invited: Classic Elegant Entertaining. Even better, my hero fashion house and master of all things stylish, Oscar de la Renta, designed the toile cover. I can’t imagine a chicer hostess gift for your ultimate host.

V.  This is one of those rare occasions where I’ve truly saved the best for last. I remember meeting Maximilian Sinsteden like it was yesterday. My friend Melissa asked me to join her at Balboa Cafe so that she could introduce me to her childhood friend Jordan, but instead I spent the entire evening mesmerized by his effervescent and talented partner, Max. (For the romantics among you, see their wedding announcement/hopeful love story here in the New York Times). Since our meeting, I’ve followed Max on both his personal Instagram (along with the likes of Town & Country and Vogue’s legendary Lauren Santo Domingo) and his interior design firm Olasky & Sinsteden (@oandsltd). While I knew the second I met him that he was one of those people who effortlessly leaves everything he touches more beautiful, I’ve been utterly dumbfounded by his creations during COVID. I kid you not, every single meal he and Jordan have prepared since March has been served on a different, yet equally glamorous, tablescape. Max’s genius tablecloths range from clearance bin IKEA to the whimsical French curtain panel pictured here that he found while traveling in England. If you’re not yet sold, the food that the couple serves on said tablescapes should satiate you. This particular weekday meal was carbonara with piped pasta, leek salad with walnuts, Parmesan, and homemade vinaigrette, plus twenty layer Mille Crêpes cake inspired by New York’s Lady M for dessert. To be blunt, if you don’t follow Max immediately, I’ll forever regard you as a person without an ounce of good taste.

Have a wonderful week! xx tt

[gunsandfics]

Do you think you could write a soulmate au for lafayette/hamilton/laurens/hercules/reader? Something with a happy ending and lots of fluff. Smut is up to you (sorry for so many characters!) Or a bodyguard!Reader/ward!Philip, like, she needs to protect him since he's the secretary of the treasury's kid? Ok, one last idea. SugarDaddy!Hercules/Reader. She's a broke college student and he loves to have someone to take care of. He makes her the most beautiful dresses and spoils her rotten? :-D

I hope this is alright uwu

A soulmate au with the reader and poly!hamilsquad (Al, Herc, John, Laf)

The soul mark is a star, and most people get the whole star instantly as they meet their soulmate, but for some reason, when (Name) meets her soulmate, only one spoke fills in…and it’s the same for him, too.

Enjoy!

Five-Spoked Star (Laf/Herc/Reader/John/Alex)

 Your mother says her star mark, the half star that she had had all her life, suddenly formed another half the second she met your father, and the same went for him. Your best friend, Thomas, swears that his star tingled and he could genuinely feel it forming on his skin the instant he met James. Your other best friend, Aaron, admits that his heart was pounding when he met Theodosia. Eliza promises that she got a fluttering feeling in her stomach the moment she laid eyes on Maria. 

If that was the case, why hadn’t your damn star completed fully when you met Alexander Hamilton?

As soon as he walked into the near-enough empty common room, pen in his mouth and piles of books and notebooks encased in his arms, as soon as his gaze locked with yours, as soon as he froze up, hastily placed his writing supplies on an overstuffed armchair and crossed the room to you in mere seconds, work-roughened hands reaching up to cup your face, you felt it. The tingling on your wrist as the black markings pushed their way to the surface, the fluttering feeling in your ribcage, the all-too-loud pounding of your heart. He was familiar, despite you never seeing him before in your life.

In that moment, he kissed you, and although he was a literal stranger, although you had never even laid eyes on him, let alone spoken to him, you let him, kissing back happily because here he is, the guy you’ve been waiting for your whole life! The guy who was made for you! 

When he pulled back, intelligent, beautiful eyes shining as he drank in the sight of you like a man dying of thirst, you couldn’t help but smile back. 

That is, until you noticed the jet-black star on his wrist was not a star. It was…two triangles. Two kites?

You pulled back fully, frowning, and slowly lowered your gaze to your own wrist. The same for you.

As you looked up unsurely, eyes locking with his, you said your first words to your soulmate.

“Why aren’t our stars stars?”

And he had looked down, examining his star with a furrowed brow and his mouth set in a straight line.

“I…don’t know.” He had said. His voice was higher than you thought.

“Are we broken?” You had whispered, voice coming out cracked because how could we be broken already, we’ve only just found each other and he had swiped his thumb over your cheek, catching the tears already beginning to fall as he let out soft sounds of no, no shh, we’re okay, we’re fine, I love you.

And you had sobbed and clung to him like a lifeboat, like he was your lifeboat, because you’d only just met him, only said two sentences to him and for Christ’s sake you didn’t even know his name but you loved him, he was yours, you were his. You were literally made for each other.

In the months that followed, you moved out of your college dorm - who am I kidding, you hadn’t even set foot in it yet, you met him on your very first day - and into his little, college-funded house in town. It was small, but you were deliriously in love and you didn’t even care what your living conditions were as long as you were together.

The second you moved in together, Alexander began research. Of why your stars only had two points, one for you and one for him.

Google had no answers.

Bing even less.

He Skyped with professors and soulmate scientists, vying for an answer.

It all came up blank.

Until one day, a year after you met.

You had just gone to sleep, curling up in Alexander’s hoodie like it was your comfort blanket.

A blinding light awoke you, and you winced into the lightness as you felt Alexander frantically climb into bed with you, pulling you close and peppering your face with kisses.

“Urg…Alex…its two a.m.” You protested sleepily. “We needta…go to sleep…got classes…”

“I’ve cracked it.” He said urgently, lips trailing down your neck.

“Mmm…what’ve you cracked now, baby…?”

“Our stars.”

That woke you up.

“Wha…”

“We’re not broken, (Name)!” His eyes were alight with excitement. “I was reading this article online, and it was about this woman who only had two thirds of a star when she met her soulmate. Her soulmate also only had two thirds.”

“And?” You were fully awake by that point, eyes glittering as he explained the solution.

“She didn’t know why, until she met this other guy at her new job and the rest of her star formed.”

You blinked, morning mind fogging over what this meant, until it clicked and your eyes opened wide. “You mean-”

“Two. She had two soulmates, honey.” He held his wrist next to yours and tenderly stroked your mark. “We’ve only got two fifths of a star each, so that means we’ve got three more soulmates to go. Three! That means there’s five of us!”

“Yes, I can do basic maths, baby.” You said wearily. “Five of us? What if your three remaining soulmates are different to mine?  It can happen that someone can have an unrequited soulmate." Poor Angelica. Why couldn’t she have been one of your five soulmates, Alex…?

"I…” He paused, pursing his lips. “I don’t know.”

“Well…” You grinned at him. “It’s like before I met you, all over again. Searching for soulmates.”

He laughed. “Sure is.”

You spent literal weeks looking for your remaining soulmates, to no avail. 

Each day you came up empty handed, you grew a little more depressed.

One weekend, your best friend Aaron literally dragged you out of bed, grumbling under his breath.

“Enough with this trying to find your soulmates already. I’m going to take you to have coffee, and we can have a heart to heart.”

He took you to the local cafe, buying you a (favourite drink) and sitting you down. You sighed.

“Alright, alright. What therapeutic methods are you going to try on me now?” You asked with a smirk.

Aaron opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by a loud yell.

“If it ain’t the prodigy!” Called a man’s voice, and three handsome men popped up behind Aaron. As soon as they did-

Oh. There it was, the heart pounding, the fluttering, the tingling. Only much, much stronger. You glanced down at your mark, and grinned as you saw the remainder of the black ink pushing its way to the surface. Your star was complete.

You looked up at the three men who were jesting around with a very irritated Aaron, and frowned. You needed to get their attention.

“Excuse me.” You called. The buff one with short, bandana’d hair glanced at you and held his gaze as he realised who you were. “What do you three, my soulmates, think you’re doing with my best friend?" 

That caught their attention. The other two fixed their eyes on you and gazed, transfixed.

"Oh shit,” said the freckled one, grinning. “We’ve found one, guys.” He walked towards you, grabbing your hand and raising it to his lips.  "John Laurens, at your service.“

The buff one, the one who noticed you first, walked to John’s side and placed a strong-yet-gentle hand on your shoulder.  "Hercules Mulligan.” He said lowly.

“Don’t be scared of him. He’s a teddy bear.” John smiled up at Hercules, leaning slightly into him.

“Et je m'appelle Lafayette.” The last one, with a crazy puff of hair in a bun, came to John’s other side and reached for your free hand.

Aaron looked between the four of you, a slow, steady smile crossing his face. “Should'a seen it coming.”

“Oh!” You gasped, causing your three soulmates to jump. “I have to introduce you to Alexander! He’s…the last puzzle piece.”

“Lead the way.”

Alex was, predictably, clacking away on his laptop when you got back. As you stepped in the front door and saw him, back turned, you could see Lafayette, John and Hercules visibly freeze up. You grinned.

“Alex…” You said, voice sweet as sugar.

“Hmmm?” He let out a vague noise of acknowledgement.

“I have some people you need to meet.”

“Ah, um. Honey, can it wait? I’ve really got to do this paper…”

“Baby, you’ve got two weeks to finish that paper and you’re halfway through already. Take a break." When this gets no response, you sigh. "I found them, Alex. They’re right here.”

“Who are?" 

"Our other soulmates.”

Alexander jolts as though your words have pierced him, and spins around in his wheelie chair faster than you can say seven-eight-nine. He gets up as though in a trance, and before you know it you are crushed in a huge, five-way hug.

“Our stars are finished,” He mumbles thickly. “We’re not broken.”

“We’re not.” You agree, sniffling.

The hug is drawn back, and you stand, grinning, between them as they all introduce themselves.

You feel happier than you ever have in your life.

 Kinda feel like doing a sequel to this.

I’ll tell you what, if this gets enough reblogs, captioned with something along the lines of ‘Please do a sequel’, I will.

[sebeth]

Legion of Super-Heroes #7

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

The issue opens with an unhappy Vyrkos: “Contain them within the dungeon…do not engage.  Contain them within the dungeon.  Do not engage.  Do Not Engage!  What kind of a hold do these worms have on Mordru?  Why do the ex-Legionnaires merit such special treatment?  They threatened the Lord Emperor – they’ve been beaten – they’re helpless.  Why are they being spared?  The very least he could do is allow me to feed on one of them!”

Vyrkos’ ranting is interrupted by the arrival of Laurel Gand.  

An excited Vyrkos states “So, then…perhaps I will enjoy the thrill of battle today!  After all, Mordru gave no order pertaining to her! She’s attacking.  I must defend the palace.  It is my duty to take on the Daxamite woman…to do battle with the great Laurel Gand.”

Lauren discovers a now mouthless Rond Vidar.   Vyrkos ambushes Laurel before she can free Rond.  A wall-breaking rumble begins.

We switch to a dinner between Mordru and a freaked-out Rokk: “Dinner.  My God, he’s feeding me dinner!  God, I’m having dinner with Mordru!  I should be dead.  Instead he cleans me, shaves me, perfumes me.  What the hell is his game?  Good God, he could kill me with a flick of his finger.  Why the hell hasn’t he?  There must be something he wants from us.  He’s just toying with us before the end, isn’t he?  Like a child plucking the legs off a dying insect…Come on, Rokk – play the hand.  Carefully. Diplomatically.  Play the game.  He can’t know I’m thrashing about in the dark.  If he does, it’s over – it’s all over.  Don’t flinch.  Keep fishing – fishing among the piranha.  I’ve got something on my side – got to figure out what it is, play it at exactly the right time.”

The Mordru Dinner is Cosmic Boy’s defining moment.  A de-powered Rokk goes one-on-one with one of the Legion’s three most powerful foes. In a battle of wits, no less.  The Mordru Dinner is where we are shown why Reep felt a de-powered Rokk was essential to the re-formation of the Legion.

The Legion had a variety of leaders but never a strategist like Batman, Captain America, or Cyclops. Brainiac 5 would have come closest but most of his solutions were science-oriented.  I can’t see Brainy having the patience to play mind games with Mordru.    Reep’s another choice for team strategist but he seemed to be content in the detective role.  The only other Legionnaires I see as possibilities for the Mordru dinner would be Saturn Girl, Dream Girl, or Projectra.

One of the best features of the “Five Years Later” run is character development.  Many characters were fleshed out and expanded on.  Rokk is a great example.  

Before “5YL”:

1)      Athlete from poor planet

2)      Legion founder and occasional leader

3)      Romance with Night Girl

4)      History Buff

5)      Odd costume choices (Grell era)

6)      Slaps Ayla

7)      Terror bombing kills mother and injures father and brother

“5YL”:

1)      Reep considers Rokk to be the backbone of the Legion

2)      PTSD, physical injuries, and loss of powers from the Braal-Imsk War

3)      Guilt over Pol’s death.

4)      Married to Night Girl, soon to be father

5)      Desperately wants to properly provide for Lydda and his unborn child

6)      Previously unseen strategic skills

All this in only seven issues.  The “backbone of the Legion” and strategic skills would carry over into the re-boot, three-boot, and retro-boot.

Reep, Jo, and Kono regain consciousness and they don’t appreciate their attire.

Reep: “What the nass kind of outfit is this?!”

Jo: “What the grief? What’s that racket? Why are we dressed in these goofy?” Kono: “Somebody is going to die!  I swear!  Somebody is going to die!”  And if one of you bozos so much as thinks about laughing…”

Jo: “Hey, zip it, Kono. We’re not all here!  Where’s Rokk? Where’s Wolf?”

I wonder if Jo realizes his slip of the tongue.  Brin has been “Furball” up until this point.  For whatever reason, Brin doesn’t want the rest of the Legionnaires aware of his condition.  I’m surprised Reep didn’t notice but he may have been too frazzled with the Mordru situation to catch the slip.

Kono searches for Brin and finds him in a stable: “Buncha jackasses! Treating Wolf like an animal! Whatever they doped us up with, they gave to him in spades.  Guess they didn’t want him tearing up their luxury accommodations.”

Kono’s clearly in on Brin’s true identity.

The Laurel-Vyrkos brawl crashes into Reep and Jo’s room.  

Vyrkos warns the Legionnaires: “Stay out of this Legionnaires!  This is between me and her!”

Reep responds: “Buddy, when you fight one of us, you fight all of us.”

Yeah, there’s no way Jo would stay out of that fight.

Kono ends the fight by collapsing the roof on Vyrkos.

Vyrkos’ in a snit over the interrupted fight: “I knew they were going to get involved. Damnation!  I just knew it!  My one chance to feed off a Daxamite!  My one chance to drink the precious blood of a dying race…to feel its unparalleled power rushing through my veins!  Mordru’s insane coddling of these children!  The humiliation I must endure at their hands!  And to lose the Daxamite’s blood when I was so close!  Those little insects!  Those damnable little insects!  By the Dark Prince – they’ll pay.  Yesss.  They can defend each other…but they can’t defend somebody they don’t know is under attack.  And the Emperor gave no order protecting the Green Lantern!”

Mysa ruminates: “This is all because of me.  I know they came for me.  That’s why they’re here.  That’s why they endured that horrible pain – because of me.  And he’ll kill them…or worse…probably worse…like he’s done to me. Gods, the torment in Mordru’s soul, the rage, he tries to control it…he wants to but we fail him.  Our weaknesses unleash the demon in him.  We imagined we could tame the demon.  I dared to hope for an idyllic life as first wife to an emperor.  And nothing – nothing tortures me like the memory of that hope.  Damn him!  I was a Legionnaire!  A Legionnaire!  Has he taken that from me, too?  Yes. If I let Mordru kill them, he’s taken that from me, too.  I have no choice.  I have to do this…no matter what he’s done to me…or what he’ll do to me.”

Mysa’s exhibiting clear signs of battered woman syndrome – blaming herself for the actions of her abuser. She’s clearly been beaten down – the White Witch would never have let Rond suffer without intervening.  I don’t believe Mordru has ever tried to control his rage or demons – he’s perfectly content being an all-powerful dictator.  It took a magical whammy for Mordru to act like a decent person – that should’ve been the first clue for Mysa – and the rest of the sorcerers – that it wouldn’t end well.

Rokk and Mordru continue their game of mental chess.

Rokk questions Mordru: “And as for the Green Lantern…while it’s true he attacked you, perhaps his actions should be judged in an impartial court…Well, sir, for a great leader, it’s not enough to simply not abuse your power.  You must avoid the appearance of such an abuse.  Meaning…if the rest of the free world saw you serving as judge, jury, and executioner of your acknowledged enemies, you could find yourself facing…well…In other words, you have to watch your actions, sir, or you will provide every ex-Legionnaire and every free world with reason to rise up against you.  Can you afford to provoke an all-out attack now, sir?  Are you ready for that?”

Nice all-in-one manipulation, threat, and bluff.

Mysa attempts to help Rond: “Rond? Yes, Rond.  Good. If nothing else, at least I can help him…the one I’ve betrayed more than all the others…if half the rumors I’ve heard about his punishments are true…it’s as bad as I knew it would be…and all this time…I just waited.”

“It’ll be okay, Rond…I can help you.  Just please forgive me for not doing this sooner.  I wanted to, Rond, I really did – but I just couldn’t.”

Vyrkos interrupts Mysa: “No! This one does not get spared!”

Half the issue is Vyrkos being unable to finish his meals.

The rest of the Legionnaires are trying to find an exit.

Kono: “You know, with all the super-peepers in this crowd, you’d think we could find a damn exit. If nothing else, you’d think we could just follow the holes in the wall!”

The Legionnaires stumble onto Vyrkos, Mysa, and Rond.  

Vyrkos taunts the Legionnaires: “You assume this is the White Witch but you’re wrong!  Mordru has crushed the White Witch…left nothing behind but this simpering shell!  One more step…and I take her throat out!  Eh-eh-eh, look at her, Legionnaires…look at her…beaten, disgraced…not even willing to defend herself!  She is no longer one of you!”

A humiliated Mysa thinks to herself: “Please…not in front of them…spare me that…Not in front of them!”

Mysa’s eyes flash red and Vyrkos disintegrates in a flash of light.

Rokk continues his bluff with Mordru: “And you know that we can’t back down.  We have to have what we came for.  Yes, this is difficult for you, sir, but you can’t afford to give the Legionnaires, or the universe, a collection of martyrs right now.  An understanding between us is possible, sir. We can avoid that final battle, a fight neither of us is ready for…a fight neither of us can win...No, sir, you’re nowhere near full power.  You’ve got the Khunds to deal with, a planet to control.  And there’s always Glorith…You can’t afford to go to war now.”

Mordru capitulates: “If I release my beloved Mysa to you, if I free the Green Lantern, will you leave peacefully?”

Mordru studies Rokk: “An enigma.  A worthy opponent – one who’s remained true to everything I compromised to achieve my power.  A combination that can’t exist.  And yet, there he is.”

Rokk’s manipulation of Mordru is truly impressive.  The United Planets are in no position to threaten Mordru – they are battling the dual threats of the Khunds and the Dominators.  The Legion?  What Legion? All active members are on Tharn. The former Legionnaires wouldn’t be of much use – let’s do a quick round-up:

Sun Boy – Spokesman for the Dominator-led Earth.

Polar Boy, Invisible Kid II, the Legion of Subs – Either arrested or fugitives on Earth.

Night Girl – Very, very pregnant.

Mon-El & Shadow Lass – on the very edge of known space

Element Lad – isolated on Trom

Blok – murdered

Brainiac 5 – in his lab

Wildfire, Dawnstar – missing in action, fate unknown

Matter-Eater Lad – Senator on Bismoll

Star Boy – sports coach

Dream Girl & Sensor Girl – leaders of their respective planets

Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Lightning Lass, Shrinking Violet – on Winath, Saturn Girl is also pregnant

Colossal Boy – Science Police

Duo Damsel & Bouncing Boy – United Planets Military

Pregnancy eliminates Night Girl and Saturn Girl.  Let’s assume Sun Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Dream Girl, Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Duo Damsel, and Bouncing Boy can’t participate due to the planets/organizations they represent.  Polar Boy, the Subs, and Invisible Kid are prisoners/fugitives.  Element Lad is in seclusion and no one knows the location of Mon-El and Shadow Lass. That leaves us with Star Boy, Brainiac 5, Lighting Lad, Lightning Lass, and Shrinking Violet.  Not a bad team but Rokk’s team had Jo, Kono, and Laurel Gand and they were spanked.

Rokk not only didn’t have a winning hand but he had no hand!  And he still manipulated Mordu into surrendering!

Trom:  Jan informs Celeste, Bounty, and Devlin they are heading to Winath.

Celeste: “You know, Jan, Earthgov didn’t hire us to pay our respects to Blok, they hired us to find his killer.”

Jan: “Winath is as logical a place as any to start looking.  That’s where he sent the body, isn’t it?  But that’s not the point…a hero, a friend, has died.  Allow me to show him the proper respect.”

Mordru contemplates his encounter with the Legion: “So they fought me to a draw.  They get the Lantern and I get precious time.  A fair trade, I suppose.  But this business of compromising…I must confess, that Rokk Krinn lad was a revelation!  How can one be so powerless, and yet be the most powerful of them all?  Ah, if only my minions possessed that kind of courage and character.  Almost makes me regret my little farewell gift…heh-heh…You old stinker!  Yes, that’s what you are, all right!  Stranding them on Grocz – days from civilization, even for the Daxamite!”

One of Mordru’s minions informs him that the Dark Priestess says Vrykos can be saved.

Mordru thinks to himself: “Hmmm…The memories of this day – they will not fade quickly…especially of Rokk Krinn.  His youthful bravado, his bold parting words…”

Watch out, Rokk – you may have replaced Mysa as Mordru’s favorite Legionnaire!

The J586 Research Station at Yucatan VII:  Scientists are tracking a unique form of energy.  It’s left Earth, headed for Trom, and now changed course to Winath.

[wellhiyouitsme]

Gather round people, let’s have some tea

I must warn you that this is a pointless post.

Okay now I get it, why Laurens been avoiding camila or camren like the plague. You see, I have found a receipt that Camila might have known about Tyren all along. 😂

Camila attempting to show her dominance by performing this awkward twerking against Lauren's sugar daddy a.k.a Ty$ (sorry not sorry i still havent figured out how to write his name). Camila must had put so much feels into that one push that it made even a thug like Ty$ stumbled his way. She's trying to be sexy yet came off hella awkward. Is she spasming? Oh camila, my precious, adorable, awkward canola, why must you try so hard? 

Jokes aside. I don't see why camren shippers are against the idea of Tyren so much? Sure, i still dont see his appeal. Lose the dreadlocks and Ty is quite possibly, kind of a catch ya know. He's a hunk, he's buff, he's rich, probs has a top notch weed supply (cause apparently that is what Lauren's into nowadays according to tumblr and wattpad), a collection of sport cars and would you look at his eyes.. Planet green eyes attack you (pun intended). Yea anyway, i dont know if it's just me but i'm starting to think that shippers/ fans are so deep into denial because of the fact that lauren is now dating a man, a dude, a bro instead of girls.That's the whole fucking point of BI in BI-SEXUAL. I dont see much fucks given when Lauren and Lucy came out as a couple a few months back and even some camren shippers embraced it and, dare I say, jumped on board to the Laucy ship (based on a survey I did on wattpad. see, i have no life). So let Lauren date whoever the hell she wants. 

Look, Im a self proclaimed camren shipper in my bitter, sarcastic and realistic kind of way. Even with all the facts that Tyren is real right under my nose, I can’t still get fucking over Camren. BUT Liking the same artwork or quotes does not necessarily mean you are/ were in a secret relationship. I mean, Lauren reblogged or liked the same post I reblogged from a mutual on tumblr. Why no one ship me with Lauren? (seriously why?) Where are my shippers?  Anyway, as many would say, embrace the truth and it will set you free. And the truth is Ty$ and lauren are mating or dating or whatever the hell they call their relationship. 

P.S: i honestly dont think camila's album has anything to do with Lauren, but I'd love to see shippers attempts to decode and overanalyze every words of the lyrics to find any connections with Lauren. I live for these delusions and many nights I lowkey pray to jesus these delusions become reality, well of course aside from praying for those who’s living in poverty and hunger.

Sorry if the tea’s too hot.

[thesecretbookstore]

This Week’s Expert Picks

Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280 is a crime/mystery novel with an introspection of a psychopath’s mind. Thompson’s prose is exceptionally strong, I’ve read a number of his books and believe this to be his strongest. Thinking of when this book was written in 1964 is wild. The book utilizes subtle jokes to point out the racism, classism, and sexism of American society in the 1960s.

Much of his stories deal with people on the fringes of society, sociopaths and psychopaths, and rarely feature characters that are good. What Thompson often employs is a Hamlet-Esque trope of a sheriff presenting himself as a simpleton, harmless, always willing to help but in reality, is a methodical psychopath that manipulates people to his will and pulls off several murders.

Pop. 1280 is told first-person through unreliable narrator sheriff Nick Corey who appears as a small town amiable personality but is a stone-cold killer and manipulator. The book covers some of the problems that Nick deals with including his difficult marriage, local pimps, upcoming sheriff election, and several women that adore him. CJH

Callahan J. Herrig is a writer from Iowa. He is here to tell you more about nothing and less about everything. He owns CallahanCreative.

Obviously Christy Brown is mostly known for his autobiography My Left Foot, which was turned into a major motion picture with Daniel Day Lewis winning on Oscar for his role, but his poems have captivated the souls of Ireland and beyond for many years. The book captured my attention with its voice and cadence, as well as the themes of each page, each poem, each line, pounding into my heart like a hammer. This posthumous compilation comprises his three published volumes of poetry ["Come Softly to My Wake", "Background Music", and "Of Snails and Skylarks"], which is characterized by vigor and passion. Severely disabled, Christy Brown writes densely layered intimate glimpses into the human spirit and its drive to dream beyond physical boundaries. At a young age, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and learned how to draw and write using his left foot, but you would never know if you just picked up this book (which is what I did, at a bookstore in Midtown Manhattan, because I needed something to read on my lunch break) and dive into its poetic complexities combined with strife, strength, and romantic reaches of rich character. RB

Ryan Buynak is a rock & roll poet and the author of a number of poetry collections. In his latest collaboration, he facilitated a poetry writing workshop in early 2019. Grammatical Siblings documents 8 weeks where 3 students became poets, 1 teacher found his purpose, and 4 people left as lifelong friends.

Heller’s Catch-22 was the first novel I read cover-to-cover in school when I was supposed to read a novel cover-to-cover in school. I think it was my senior year in high school? It was also the last book I read cover-to-cover in school and I’ve since gone on to earn a Graduate Degree. In my defense, I like to think of myself as being somewhat efficient, not to mention somewhat of a juggler (metaphorically speaking), and if Cliffs Notes exist why waste time reading something word-for-word like Jane Eyre?

With that being said, this is one of the most hilarious books I have ever read (...although nothing will ever top Ellis’ American Psycho). Granted, it’s a dark humor, but I challenge anyone to find a more poignant commentary on society as it has been known to generally function to this day. And though I’ve not served even one second of Military Service nor am I necessarily affiliated with the US Military in any way, I cannot get enough Military and Government jokes (Exhibit A) and this title is chock full. Need a more compelling and topical reason? In light of recent events (*cough* THE PANDEMIC *cough*), I triple-dog-dare you to find me someone who cannot personally relate to this story’s protagonist at this point.

All in-depth analysis and commentaries aside (you simply aren’t worthy of that if you haven’t yet read this one, and if you have, you already know), this is a novel history buffs and great fiction readers alike will adore. You don’t have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of World War II. If you catch the Easter Eggs you’ll be blown out of the water, however, if you simply enjoy a quick-moving narrative, compelling characters and biting humor, you’ll more than appreciate this lively and award-winning read. LAW

Lauren is a humorist and owner of both The Secret Bookstore and Paradisiac Publishing. Grab a copy of her latest essay collection if you’re into essay collections and LOL’s.