#I have three different series outlines and all of them have different titles for these XD

[3min17sec]

WIP Titles Game~

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs as you please. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!

🚗: The Bobby Fic

🐈: The Hen Fic

📁: The Diazes Fic

🤝: The Athena Fic

⚡: The Buck Fic

👓: The Ravi Fic

Tagged by: @trombonechurchill <3 Tagging: Whoever would like to participate! <3

[haxkattpress]

Our Objective Remains Unchanged by @citrusses

"Harry Potter, returning member of the Oxford University Boat Club, has two goals for the spring of 2005: beat Cambridge, and beat Draco Malfoy. Perhaps not in that order."

This has to be one of the most creative and meticulously researched fics I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If you haven't read it yet, don't walk— run! Citrusses is an absolute genius, and kindly gave me permission to bind her masterpiece.

The cover of this bind is made out four different shades of Allure bookcloth cut by my Cameo 4, and the centerpiece is printed and hand foiled. The banners were machine foiled in gold and black with hand foiled rose gold shading. The endbands were hand sewn with Gutermann silk thread.

You can find more pictures and information about my process under the cut.

The amount of inspiration this fic gave me was overwhelming, and Citrusses' writing fully immersed me in the world of competitive rowing. While designing this bind, I was struck by the sheer wealth of Oxford rowing memorabilia available to me. I settled on this 1929 illustration from an official publication on the Oxford and Cambridge Centenary Boat Race for the cover.

"How hard could it possibly be?" I thought, foolishly. The answer was HARD, but I'll get into that later.

Due to the wealth of design options, I believe that this may be the best typeset I have created to date. Thanks to the help of my friend @tsurashi-bindery, I was able to learn the basics of InDesign (kicking and screaming all the way). There will be spoilers in the text of these photos, so try not to read them if you haven't finished the fic!

For the title page, I modified To See the Crews in Training by Charles Pears (1930). I believe that this was part of a series of advertisements for the race in the London Underground.

For the chapter headers, I redrew the crest from an Oxford Oars, Flags, and Arms postcard, presumably pre 1914. I also had some fun creating a mock email using La_Temperanza's How to Mimic Email Windows on Ao3. Cormac's email makes me laugh every time I read it, and Citrusses provided an appropriately pompous subject.

I also had lots of fun editing the oars from the official OUBC logo to serve as dividers and decorations for the page numbers.

Additionally, I got to edit a full newspaper page for the fic! I was very excited find an opportunity to slip Leyendecker's The Finish (1908) in.

The fic ended beautifully, so I wanted to include one last element at the end to capture the atmosphere. I settled on L'aviron (1932) by Milivoj Uzelac. It makes me feel as though Harry and Draco will continue rowing together long after I've closed the book.

I of course had lots of fun sewing the headbands, and got to do it with not one but TWO copies!

Things got tricky when I had to recreate the cover. I had a poor understanding of how vector images worked, and ended up having to redraw it three times. Once I finally cracked and taught myself how to use Illustrator, the program crashed...and I had to redraw it a fourth time!

I set the vector to cut on my Cameo 4, and I assembled the pieces together like a puzzle on my Silhouette mat. I used Allure's indigo, skylight, white, and black bookcloth in the process. I will be making a tutorial video on this method, so I will keep it brief here.

I also cut a piece of bookcloth to 8.5"x 11" and fed it through my inktank printer to print the center design. I then cut it out using the print and cut feature on my Cameo 4. Both of these methods were a first for me, and they were very scary!!

To be perfectly frank, the foiling was a nightmare and I don't want to get into it. I machine foiled the gold, and then foiled black lettering on top of it. I foiled the rose gold shading by hand, and then foiled a thin black outline along the edge of the banners to make them stand out more.

I hand foiled the spines (because I'm scared of measuring), painted the exposed board (to hide any gaps in the inlays), and used transfer tape to lift my design from the Silhouette mat and onto the cover.

One more fun detail— my copy and the author's copy are sisters! The dark blue and the light blue are inverted on the author's copy, making it distinguishable from mine. This is the first time I have made an author's copy for a fic, and I was admittedly incredibly nervous. I always worry about what authors will think of my work, but Citrusses gave me an incredible amount of encouragement and support throughout the process! Thank you for trusting me with your precious fic!

This story is a work of fanfiction and can be read on Ao3 for free. My bind and typeset are for personal use only and not for sale or profit. Keep fandom free!

[ladamedusoif]

Visiting - Chapter 12: If I Must Have A Future

(moodboard by @agentjackdaniels)

Pairing: Professor!Ben (College AU) x OFC Lydia/fem!Reader (reader POV/2nd POV)

Summary: Seeking a change of scenery after her life falls apart, Lydia crosses the Atlantic and arrives in a small New England town, to spend a year expanding her intellectual horizons as a visiting professor of art history at a small liberal arts college. Her growing friendship with Ben Morales, professor of Hispanic literature, forces Lydia to confront the fallout from her past - and raises unexpected questions about the future.

Chapter summary: Spring break comes to Barrow, and with it a European trip with major consequences for Ben and Lydia.

Word count: ~18k words (I'm so sorry but HEY LOOK THEY'RE BACK!)

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Warnings (chapter specific): Smut; quite a lot of smut really; oral sex (M and F receiving); unprotected but safe PiV sex; fingering; praise kink; very mild submission kink if you squint; self-esteem and body/weight insecurity; anxiety; angst; family dynamics; strong language; alcohol consumption; references to past instances of emotional abuse; fluff

A/N: Oh, boy. This was a labour of love. An incredibly important part of their story, and one that took me ages to get ‘right’. This is not the end of Visiting - I’m planning about three more chapters, which will not be as long as this one. So there is still more to come from Ben and Lydia.

I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who was so kind and excited about the little Christmas one-shots I wrote for this pair - sometimes I feel like my dorks are the last kind of characters people want in this fandom, and it was lovely to see that they have readers who actually care (and even miss them!). Thank you too to everyone who voted in the poll about the chapter length. You wanted the full-on 18,000 words - you’re getting it.

And a special word for @agentjackdaniels, who screamed with me when we got one of the most Benergetic red carpet looks I’ve ever seen at the Emmys, who made my gorgeous new header image, and who has helped me see more times than I’d care to admit over the last few months that I matter and make a difference, especially around here. I hope I have done the same, too.

See the Series Masterlist for an outline of Lydia’s story and background.

Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

Cross-posting to AO3 (and if you’re reading on there, too, and yelling along in the comments, love you!)

Further A/N at the end of the chapter.

The title of this chapter is a line from the Fontaines DC song “I Love You”, which is not terribly romantic, all told, but I heard it over the holidays and this lyric hit me hard: If I must have a future/I want it with you.

Taglist: FYI I’m retiring taglists as they are giving me so much trouble with people not getting notifications - follow me on @ladameecrit and turn on notifications. But just in case: @agentjackdaniels, @tessa-quayle , @vermillionwinter , @iamskyereads , @tieronecrush, @perennialdoll247 , @love-the-abyss, @javierisms, @fuckyeahdindjarin , @littlemisspascal , @khindahra , @pedrostories , @readingiskeepingmegoing , @rhoorl , @red-red-rogue , @princessanglophile , @katareyoudrilling @survivingandenduring , @trulybetty @fictionismyreality @sunnywithachanceofjavi , @joeldjarin , @lahoozaherr, @s-u-t, @its-nebuleuse

“We will shortly be beginning our descent. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”

You have never been one for sleeping on planes. Ben, on the other hand, has been snoozing away for the last two hours, the thin airline blanket comically small on his broad frame. 

You put a hand on his arm to gently rouse him. “Love? We’re almost there.” 

He blinks awake, eyes sleepy and hair askew, and stretches out his arms. “Mmmmfff. Hi, Lyd. You excited?”

“Yeah, I am. I’m really looking forward to seeing them.” 

You’d mentioned the trip shortly after Valentine’s, during a conversation after dinner about plans for the spring break. 

Your spring visit home had been booked since well before Christmas. A few days at home, visiting your family and catching up, and then to Paris for a week of tying up loose research ends and some vacation time. 

It sounded blissful at the time. Now, your anticipation was tempered with disappointment at the prospect of leaving him here. 

“So, uh, what are you doing for spring break, love? You going west, or…”

He shrugs. “Ordinarily I’d try to get a few days in San Francisco. But everyone’s got plans and is out of town on various trips, so there’s no point.” He looks a little resigned. “So it’s time catching up on work and my reading here, I guess. Maybe do some prep for directing the student play after the vacation. When are you back from your trip?”

There’s a nervous knot in your stomach. Just ask. Just do it. 

“Could you take your reading and directing prep on the road?”

He looks perplexed. You take a deep breath. 

“What if you came with me?” 

Ben’s eyes widen. “Come with you? To see your family?”

Oh, fuck. You’ve pushed your luck. This is too weird. 

“No, don’t worry about it.” You stand up from the table and pick up your plates. “I just knew I’d miss you but it’s probably too much. It’s fine. Forget I said it.”

He follows you into your tiny kitchen and leans against the doorframe. “What if I wanted to come?”

“Wanted? I mean, you seemed totally stunned that I’d even ask.”

He shakes his head and smiles gently. “Not stunned, as such. Surprised, maybe? But not in a bad way.”

“Why surprised, then?” You cross the small linoleum floor and wrap your arms around his waist. He blushes, tucking his chin against his chest bashfully. 

“I dunno. Just that you want to bring me home with you? It… it means a lot to me.”

“It means a lot to me just to ask you, love. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

He looks at you with those big dark eyes and you feel your heart swell. “But I think I’d like to. As long as that’s okay with your family, of course? I don’t want to be in the way.”

You laugh and raise your eyebrows. “In the way? I think they’d be more excited about seeing you than me.” You rest your head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “You know they think you’re great, you’ve been on the video calls. My mother asks me more about you than she does about myself.”

He wraps an arm around you and kisses the top of your head. “It’s different in person, sometimes.”

You shake your head. “Mmmm, I don’t think so in this case. You haven’t been dealing with daily queries about the welfare and wellbeing of Ben Morales. And no, she doesn’t yet seem to realise she can just call you by your first name.”

He chuckles and holds you closer. “Guess I’d better go book some flights, huh?”

Ben pushes the luggage cart towards the sliding doors and out into the bright, bustling Arrivals area, where families wait excitedly at the barrier to greet their loved ones. 

“LYDIAAAAAAAA!” 

You immediately spot your parents, standing right in the centre of the barrier, aligned with the sliding doors. It’s still very early in the morning and you wonder how long they’ve been here, waiting at the perfect spot to see the two of you emerge. 

You give Ben’s arm a reassuring squeeze as the two of you walk towards your excited family. “You’re not a stranger, love. They already love you. Remember that.”

Ben has barely exited the arrivals area when he’s enveloped in a warm embrace by your mother, who seems to have forgotten you entirely. Your father puts an arm around you and smiles widely while your mother coos over Ben. “And Ben Morales! Welcome, welcome. We’re so delighted to have you.”

Your mother has had her hair done and is dressed in an outfit that feels somewhere between “weekday lunch at a nice restaurant” and “Sunday best”. She’s also using what you and Kate refer to as her “telephone voice” when she speaks to Ben, more clipped and flatter than her usual tones. 

“Mom, he knows what you sound like normally, you don’t need to put on the fancy accent.” You hug your father tightly and notice that his eyes are shining. He’s similarly neatly dressed, wearing a nice smart-casual pair of pants and a matching shirt and v-neck light sweater. 

“I am talking normally!” your mother fires back, followed by a tinkly laugh as she tilts her head and smiles at Ben. He smiles broadly, though you know he’s shattered, and your mother gives you a look that says “See? Ben likes me.”

Your father shakes Ben’s hand before embracing him. “The two of you must be exhausted,” he says, arm still wrapped around Ben’s shoulders. “Let’s head to the car.”

Ben and your dad lead the way, your mother reaching for your hand and giving it a warm squeeze as you walk companionably a few steps behind. 

“Welcome home, pet. I’m delighted he’s here too. We’re so happy for you.” She looks ahead and appraises Ben’s broad frame as he pushes the luggage cart and chats to your father. 

“Grand big man, isn’t he?”, she says approvingly. “Don’t look at me like that, Lydia!”

“There’s milk there and bread and tea and coffee and a few biscuits and butter and a couple of bags of crisps and -“

“Mom, we’re fine. We’ll take care of ourselves. Okay?”

Your mother throws up her hands in resignation. “Alright! Just wanted to make sure you didn’t starve.” 

Kate, Marc, and their little girls have taken over your parents’ house for the duration of renovation works on their own home, and in the interests of space (and your sanity) you’d booked a small holiday flat in your hometown for the visit. Now, with Ben in tow, the privacy of the flat was even more welcome. 

“Thank you. I mean it. Now, can we please go and get some rest?” You hug her tightly and she kisses your cheek, before looking in Ben’s direction. 

“Of course. We’ll see you later, though? For something to eat? Kate and Marc and the girls are that excited to see you, I think they might burst.”

You stand beside Ben, bringing your hand to the small of his back, and wave your parents off as they return to the car. They’re not even out of earshot when you hear your father saying “He wouldn’t let her lift a single bag! Not one! Helped her all the time. Lovely chap. Very nice. Far cry from the other fucker…”

Subtlety has never been their strong point. You just hope Ben is too jet-lagged to have heard what they said.

A relaxed family meal, she said. Nothing special, she said. Come over in the early afternoon. It’s just like a Sunday lunch, she said. 

Your mother is reading Ben a list of menu options that’s longer than in some restaurants. His eyebrows rise and fall as he takes it in and considers the possibilities.

“Honestly, Mrs -“

“MARIE. I told you.”

“Honestly, Marie, I’ll just have whatever everyone else is having. It all sounds great. Do you need any help in the kitchen?”

“I most certainly do not. You can have whatever you want. You are the guest.” 

“Seriously. Whatever’s easiest.” He looks nervously at you and speaks in a low voice. “What is easiest?” 

You shrug. “Probably the beef.”

He beams at your mother and tells her he’ll have some beef. She tilts her head, smiles delightedly at him, and does that tinkly laugh again before returning to the kitchen. 

The meal is delicious but, inevitably, chaotic. Your three-year-old niece Cora, who had insisted on sitting between you and Ben (Benjamoo, as she persisted in calling him), realises quickly that the family-style service meant she could help herself to her favourite sides as and when she wanted, chubby little hands rapidly making a mark on the mashed potato and carrots. Your mother keeps asking if the food is hot enough. Kate and Marc try to talk to Ben while corralling little Evie and making sure she gets fed. 

Your father, meanwhile, veers between talking delightedly to the little girls and engaging Ben in a rapidly-shifting conversation that covers San Francisco, transatlantic flights, whether Ben liked sports, and a detailed description of the plot of a film he’d watched the week before. You couldn’t work out which film it was, but you knew it had Kevin Costner in it. Mostly because your dad kept referring to him as “Kevin Costner”, rather than by the character’s name. 

You rest a hand on Ben’s knee, under the solid dining table your father had made for the family home when you were barely two. 

“You doing okay? I know we’re a bit much…”

His warm hand covers yours and he smiles softly. 

“I’m great, Lyd. And you haven’t been to a Morales family meal yet - now that’s a bit much. Just you wait and see.”

You grin and lean your head affectionately on his shoulder for a moment, winding your fingers through his, never noticing the conspiratorial, knowing look exchanged between Kate and your mother. 

You and Ben insist on clearing the dishes, making short work of loading the dishwasher before your parents can tell you off for letting the guest do the chores. Through the kitchen window you see Cora running towards her little plastic play house, on temporary loan to your parents’ back garden while Kate and Marc’s building work is being completed. Kate follows swiftly behind, waving a soft fleece jacket at her daughter.

After wrangling Cora into her jacket, she appears at the back door. “Cora wants to know if Ben can come and visit her tea shop. Not you, Lyd. She was very clear about that. Only Benjamoo.”

He smiles happily and puts down his dish towel, before making a sympathetic face at you and kissing your cheek. “Sorry, Lyddie. I guess I better take up my invitation.” 

It’s a hilarious and adorable sight: Ben, sitting cross-legged on the mat beside Cora’s house, hair a bit messy and eyes still a little tired behind his glasses, broad-shouldered in his grey Berkeley sweatshirt and decidedly out of proportion to the pink-and-white plastic cottage. You can hear him giving Cora his order and talking rapturously about the “tea” she serves him in a little pink cup, while she giggles and claps her hands. 

Marc and your father arrive in the kitchen, your brother-in-law carrying little Evie in his arms. “Evie thinks she’s missing out on the fun with Ben and Cora,” he announces, opening the back door. “And we want to make sure Cora doesn’t try to force-feed mud cakes to your boyfriend.”

You’d been so nervous about this - not because you thought your family wouldn’t like Ben, or vice versa, but because by definition the first visit to your partner’s family feels a little like an audition of some kind. It has the potential to go horribly wrong, no matter how well prepared you are, or how many video calls you’ve had over the last couple of months.

But here he is, now, integrated happily into your close-knit family of origin, getting on famously with your parents, sister, and brother-in-law, and making your beloved little niece laugh like a drain as he pretends to drink from her toy teapot. Like he was always here. Or always meant to be here.

There’s a surge of emotions in your chest: deep love and affection, above all, but with it a reminder that your future together is by no means assured. Assuming, of course, that he wants a future together. 

“He’s good with kids, isn’t he?” 

Kate’s voice startles you. “Where did you come out of?”

“I’m stealthy when I want, Lyd. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.”

You throw a bombastic side eye in your younger sister’s direction. “I know what you’re getting at.”

Kate shrugs, the picture of innocence. “I’m just observing.”

“Ben is a wonderful uncle. Just as I am a wonderful aunt. We like that. And that’s one of the things I love about him.” You lean on the kitchen counter, voice quieter. “So…what do you think?”

Kate arches an eyebrow in your direction. Your mother arrives in the kitchen with impeccable timing, as ever. 

“What do I think of what?”

“You know what. Who. Him. Ben.”

Your mother laughs as she fills the kettle with water and puts it on to boil for some teas and coffees. She turns round to face her two daughters. “Well, Kate, I don’t know about you, but - he wouldn’t be for me.”

Your jaw drops. “Excuse me?”

Kate opens a cupboard and starts to take out some mugs. “I know what you mean, mom. Not really for me, either.”

“You know yourself, Kate,” your mother adds, finding a carton of milk in the fridge and filling a small milk jug, “Just not my thing at all.”

Anger spreads hot and warm across your face. “Good, because he’s not your fucking ‘thing’, he’s my thing and I can’t believe how two-faced you’re being. All sweetness and light and then saying he’s not really for you and -”

Your mother holds out a hand, expression deadpan. “Lydia, not everyone wants a man who’s kind and funny and genuine and clearly worships the ground his girlfriend walks on.”

“Exactly,” Kate chimes in. “Just because you love someone who’s really smart and nice and good with kids and is actually kind of cute in a dorky way doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”

For a moment, your confusion and anger doesn’t quite let you hear what they’re saying. “I’m not asking you to be in love with him, I’m just - oh. Oh.”

Marie and Kate burst out laughing. 

“Well, fuck the two of you. Forty-two years and you’re still winding me up.”

Your mother wraps you in a warm cuddle. “Ah, poor Lyd. We’re sorry. We just couldn’t resist.”

“He’s so lovely, Lyd,” Kate adds, embracing you from behind. “I mean it. Marc thinks so, too. I know I said at Christmas that he looked like he’d been engineered in a lab for you and it looks like I was right. And Ben’s even cuter in the flesh, not that I notice such things.” She coughs for dramatic effect. “What with being a married mother of two.”

“And he loves the bones of you, darling girl,” your mother whispers. “And sure, why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know about you, love, but I’m shattered.” 

Ben glances over at you and wraps his arm around your shoulders, bringing you in to nuzzle against his chest. He holds up his copy of the script for Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, multicoloured tabs fluttering like tiny flags. 

“I’m just going to work through one more scene, is that okay?”

You hum contentedly. “Of course, love. How’s it going, anyway?”

He flicks through a few pages, scanning his notes and annotations. The comparative literature students put on a play every year, towards the end of the second semester, and Ben had to step in at short notice as director after a colleague in French fell ill. “It’s a relief we’re doing it in the English translation, put it that way. I just don’t know why Jen thought I could take this on, after Michèle went on sick leave.” 

You idly rub his tummy and kiss his side through his old shirt. “Because she knows you’re great and talented and the students love you, Mr Director.”

He huffs a laugh, marks up another section, adds a tab, and closes the book before taking off his glasses and shuffling down the bed and wrapping his free arm around you. He kisses the top of your head and holds you tight. 

“Thank you for bringing me home with you.”

You open your eyes and glance up at him. “Sure they haven’t put you off?”

“It would take a lot to put me off, Lyd. Anyway, they’re great. It - it meant a lot, to be welcomed like that, by the people you love.”

He looks down at you, and you place a light kiss on his jaw, smiling at the bristle of his beard against your lips. His gaze is solemn and intense as he reaches for your hand.

“I’m serious about this, Lyd. About us. You know?”

“I know. I’m serious about us, too. Deadly serious, in fact.”

He smiles, eyes shining, and kisses you, soft and slow, pulling you closer and working a path of kisses down the side of your neck as your body writhes against his. Tiredness is forgotten, for the moment, as you slip your hand inside the waistband of his loose boxers and tug them down, fingers wrapping around his cock. Ben sighs against your chest as you stroke him, his mouth finding your nipples as his long fingers trace the wetness building between your legs. With one leg hitched across his, you angle your hips just so and guide him inside you as he whispers your name against your ear. 

After you’ve made love, Ben falls asleep mid-cuddle, and you tuck yourself against him and close your eyes. But sleep doesn’t come easy. You should be delighted, after the beautiful day you’d had. But there’s an anxiety building in the back of your mind that you can’t quite shake. 

Serious this relationship may be, but spring will soon turn to summer, and with it the prospect of being separated indefinitely by an entire ocean and several time zones. Kate was wont to remind you that you “could just do distance for a while”, and she meant well. It was intended to reassure you. 

The problem was, the more you thought about what that option would actually mean, the less comfort it provided.

Over the next couple of days, you introduce Ben to the world of your hometown, to the places and people that shaped you. It is strange, at first, to see him, whole and present, in the spaces that defined your childhood. But it is a beautifully intimate thing, sharing memories with someone you love. You lay yourself even more bare before them, revealing the you that was before they knew you. 

The two of you have, of course, shared so much about yourselves and your pasts with each other in the time since you met. But this was different. Walking with him, pointing out your old schools, old haunts, swapping memories and stories, introducing him to random relations you meet in the streets: you are quietly knotting the strands of your past - with all its love, loss, joy and sorrow - with the man who, you hope, represents your future. 

Kate and Marc insist on bringing you to dinner one night. “It’d be wrong not to,” Marc had explained as you sat in your parents’ living room, Ben playing peek-a-boo with Evie while your mother looked on approvingly. “Sure we have built-in babysitting while we’re staying with Joe and Marie.” 

Your mother’s expression shifted instantaneously, shooting daggers at your brother-in-law. “Cheeky.”

Your hometown is not known for haute cuisine, but Kate booked a table at the nicest restaurant in town and it has been a perfect evening: good food, decent wine, and the pleasure of seeing how well Ben, Kate, and Marc are getting along. You and Kate go to the bathroom at one point, and she eyeballs you as you top up your lipstick, side by side, in the mirror. 

“Think he’s passed the audition, Lyd.” She pouts and blows a kiss at her reflection. “Oh, and guess what? We’ve got a special immersive cultural experience planned for the rest of the night.”

You swivel and glare at her. “And what does that involve, exactly?”

Kate picks up her handbag and does a little shimmy on the spot. “The Roxy, Lyd. The ultimate method of integrating your lovely Benjamin into your native place.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

The Roxy was once the town’s cinema, built in the 1940s and made redundant by the coming of the multiplex in the 1990s. Its owners had moved swiftly, though, and transformed the Roxy into a nightclub. It was a site of memorable nights out dancing with your friends, of crying in the bathrooms when you realised your crush was interested in someone else, of bad kissing, of telling random men to fuck off when they told you to smile, of screaming with glee when “Hey Ya” came on.

 If the Roxy was a taste, it would be peach schnapps and orange squash. Its smell, meanwhile, had lodged permanently in your memory: old cigarettes, sticky carpets, cheap aftershave, vanilla musk body spray. 

She was not kidding. You and Kate sit on some banquette seating in a corner of the Roxy’s lounge - which was just a separate floor with slightly better, more old-school music - and take in the completely incongruous sight of Ben, followed by Marc, weaving his way through the habitual crowd of locals with your drinks in hand. 

“Vodka tonic for Lyddie, gin and tonic for Kate.” Ben places the glasses on the table and nestles in beside you, giving your thigh a little squeeze. He reaches for his bottle of beer and raises it slightly. “Uh, cheers, I guess?”

Kate enthusiastically clinks her swimming pool-sized glass of gin and tonic off Ben’s drink. “Cheers! Now, you have to promise me you’ll dance. Otherwise it’s not full assimilation.”

You groan audibly and stir your drink with the straw as Ben chuckles. “C’mon, Lyd, you’ve got moves.” He raises an eyebrow at you mischievously. 

You manage to stave off the inevitable for a while, finishing your first vodka tonic and about to suggest you go to the bar when a familiar opening melody sends Kate leaping out of her seat, excitedly grabbing her husband and beckoning to you. 

“AS IT WAS?!? COME OOOONNNN LYYYYD!” Kate bellows back to you and Ben from the tiny dancefloor, where Marc is already showing off a move you can only describe as “rhythmic shuffling” while mouthing Harry Styles’ lyrics.

You look at Ben. He stands, removes his jacket, and offers you his hand, smiling expectantly. His hand rests gently on the small of your back as you join your sister and brother-in-law on the dancefloor, and he pulls you in to whisper in your ear. 

“We can do better than them, can’t we?”

You laugh, leaning in as he wraps an arm around your waist, takes your hand, and helps you exorcise all those demons of heartbreak long past on the dancefloor. 

As she clambers into a taxi in the early hours of the morning, Kate turns and yells “I’m telling mom you’re bringing a boy home with you from the Roxy!”, before collapsing in hysterics as Marc takes her hand and pulls her into the car. They grin and wave at you and Ben as it disappears up the street and back towards your parents’ house.

You lean against Ben as you walk back towards the little flat you’d rented for your stay at home, sighing contentedly as he drapes an arm around your shoulders. 

“She’s right, though,” you giggle, “I’m actually bringing the hot boy home with me from the Roxy. I’ve come a long way from endless rejection and the odd bit of bad kissing.”

Ben huffs a laugh as you open the main door of the building and climb the stairs to the apartment. “Well, fuckin’ good.” He adds a sassy little head movement for emphasis. 

“Excuse me?”

“Fuckin’ good. Because what would have happened to me if you’d been swept off your feet by one of those bad kissing boys back then?” He follows you into the little entrance hall and, for all his joking tone, there’s a vulnerability lurking in his beautiful eyes.

You cradle his face in your hands. “I’d have found you one way or another, Benjamin.” A coy smile crosses your lips as you take him in - danced out, hair mussed, and so stupidly sexy you still can’t quite believe he’s real. 

Your fingers hook inside his waistband as you pull him tight to you, leading him into the living room and pushing him against the wall as you bring a hand to his crotch. “And I’d like to make the most of bringing the hottest man home from the club for once in my life, if you don’t mind. Especially seeing as he was worth the wait.”

Ben’s eyes widen and he half gasps, half chuckles as you undo his jeans and slip a hand inside his boxers, stroking his cock as you pepper his throat with tiny kisses. He leans down slightly to bring a hand under the skirt of your dress, hitching up the fabric and slipping two fingers into your panties to play with your clit as he kisses you: hungry, urgent, wanting. 

But you’ve had something else on your mind all night. You break the kiss and begin to sink to your knees, hands around Ben’s waist for balance. 

Your eyes flit up to meet his. “Let me make you feel good, darling.”

His breath hitches as he takes you in: hair a little messy, eyes wide and wild, lips slightly parted, the soft flesh of your tits rising and falling with your breathing. 

“Fuck, Lyd, you’re amazing.”

“That a yes?”

He swallows hard and nods rapidly. “Fuck. Yes. Yes. Please.”

You lick your lips and smile as you carefully tug down the waistband of his boxer briefs. Your mouth presses into the softest, most sensitive parts of him: a kiss, a lick, a little nip to his belly; a course plotted down from his abdomen to the hardening cock you hold in your hand. You take him into your mouth, tongue swirling gently over the tip as you stroke him, revelling in the sensation and the moans of pleasure you’re pulling from the gorgeous man above you. Ben rests his hand on the back of your head and leans back against the wall, panting harder as you find your rhythm. 

The ache between your thighs builds with his every grunt and groan. Your fingertips find your clit, rubbing little circles over it in a fruitless bid to find some relief. You ease his cock out of your mouth with a pop and Ben helps you to your feet before you take his hand and guide him to the couch.

You slip off your panties and encourage him to lie back on the sofa as you gather the skirt of your dress around your waist and straddle him. “Need to fuck you, my love.” 

He grips the flesh of your hips and thighs, fingers pressing into your body as you take him inside you and begin to ride him, relishing the slow drag of his cock as you come undone. He looks beautiful underneath you, eyes wide and shining as he watches every move of your body.

“Fuck, Lyd,” he pants, smiling up at you. “You look incredible.” He reaches up and pulls down your neckline, groping your breasts and gazing at you like you’re the sexiest thing he’s ever seen: head thrown back, eyes closed, and vocal. 

He begins to thrust up into you, finding a rhythm that complements yours, intensifying the sensation so much that you can’t help but cry out with pleasure. 

“Yes, baby…fuck, that’s so fucking good, Ben, that’s fucking it, fuck!”

“Take it, Lyddie.” His dark eyes stare into yours, hands still gripping you firmly. “Ride me, take what you need…fuck, good fucking girl. I’ll give you whatever you need, whatever you want.”

And he knows what you need, in that moment. His thick fingers slip between your thighs and find your clit, circling it over and over as you keep on fucking him. 

You come hard, the last flutters of your orgasm still working through you when Ben follows suit. He’s still inside as you bend forward to kiss him, trailing your hands over his beautiful face and through his damp hair. You rest on his chest and let the sound of his breathing start to steady you as he holds you close for a couple of moments.

“I love you so much, Lyddie,” he pants quietly, chuckling to himself. “You’re a hell of a woman.”

For your last day, Ben suggests that he might make dinner at the flat, as a gesture of thanks for your family’s hospitality. You suggest lasagne with some sides as a general crowdpleaser, borrow some dishes from your mother, and Ben gets to work while you lay the place settings. 

The lasagne is cooking away happily when your mother arrives with Kate, Marc, and the girls. You look puzzled. 

“Where’s Dad?”

Your mother rolls her eyes as Cora goes tearing off around the flat, Kate following swiftly behind. “He insisted he had to go to the football match tonight. Of course. Anyway, he said he’ll be here shortly.”

Ben emerges from the kitchen, clad in a navy and white striped apron you’d used back when you (briefly) did home economics at school. He kisses your mother and Kate on the cheek and hugs Marc, before bending down to give a delighted Cora a high five. 

“I made you a present,” she says quietly, suddenly shy. 

Ben brings himself down to her level. “A present? For me? That’s amazing.”

Kate rummages in her bag and produces a rolled-up piece of paper, handing it to Ben. “She did it all herself. Mostly.”

You stand beside him as he unfurls it and Cora looks down at her toes. The drawing features a large figure with a mop of dark wavy hair and a wide smile - “Benjamoo”, Cora points out helpfully - standing close beside a slightly smaller figure immediately recognisable as you. “Auntie Lyd,” she adds seriously, in case you weren’t aware. 

The figures’ stick arms are touching. “Holding hands,” Cora says. 

Ben looks at Cora, then up at you, and back to the little girl. “This is the best art anyone’s ever given me. I’m going to put it on my wall when I get home.” He stands, and reaches for your hand, noticing the tears threatening in your eyes. “Auntie Lyd will help. Won’t you?”

You nod and squeeze his hand. Cora starts to giggle and points at you and Ben. 

“See? Holding hands.”

Ben and Marc pop out to the nearest supermarket shortly afterwards, when you realise you had neglected to buy garlic bread. You sit in the open-plan kitchen and dining area with your mother while Kate plays with her daughters in the living room. 

“You alright, love?” Marie notices how you fiddle with the place settings and rub your fingers together, sure signs that something’s on your mind. 

“Mmm? Sorry, I was miles away. Yeah, I’m… I think so.” You exhale. “I don’t know.”

Your mother gives you a little breathing room, waiting to see if you’ll open up more. 

“It’s just… fuck. I don’t know. I - what the fuck are we going to do?”

She sighs softly and pats the back of your hand. “You and Ben?” 

“Me and Ben. It’s spring break. And there’s no clear pathway about what we’ll do when my year in Barrow ends and I have to come back to my job over this side of the ocean.”

“Well, I mean… I know you hate the thoughts of it, Lyd, but have you talked about it? Kate’s right, you could always do long-distance for a while, until you knew what you both really wanted.”

You put your head in your hands. “We’ve said that we’re very serious about the relationship.” 

“So then! There’s your answer. No?”

You look up at her mournfully. “Yes and no. Yes, we’re serious about each other. No, that doesn’t mean we have any idea how to manage the distance.”

Marie adjusts the salt and pepper cruets in the middle of the table. “People do it, Lyd. It’s a commitment but they make it work.”

You nod slowly. “I just don’t know if that’s what I want, at this stage in my life. We see each other every day. We’re practically living together.”

Your mother fans herself in mock horror. “And not a hint of a ring on the finger, goodness!”

You roll your eyes good-naturedly. “Forty-two, mother dear. But yeah. I don’t know if I could go from that to not seeing Ben for weeks or a month or more at a time. Not now.”

“So what does that mean?”

You swallow hard. “I don’t know. One of us moves. He moves for me. I move for him. But that means trying to find a permanent academic job and in both places that’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“And if there’s no job? Distance as a temporary measure?”

You bite your lip. “But what if that’s still too hard?”

“So move.”

“But that means him giving up his life for me, or me uprooting for him, and being so far from all of you and from here and…” You look up at your mother, feeling like a scared little girl again.

“I love him so much, Mom. I never thought I’d love anyone like that. Never thought I’d even meet someone like that. And for him to love me in return…fuck.”

Marie shifts closer and wraps her arm around your shoulders. “I know, love. I know. You love the bones of each other. And it’s real love. Everyone can see it.”

“What do we do?”

“Lydia, I can’t tell you what to do one way or the other. Only you know what’s right for the two of you.”

You lean your head on your mother’s shoulder and she gives your hand a squeeze. “I know. It’s just - fuck, why does it have to be hard? Don’t I deserve things to work out, for once?”

“You do, pet. Of course you do. No one deserves it more.”

“Sometimes it feels crazy, y’know? This time last year I didn’t know Ben existed, and now -”

“Now it’s like you’ve known each other forever? Like you can’t imagine life without him?”

You turn to face her, and smile. “Exactly.”

“That’s love for you.” Marie purses her lips, thinking. “I’m only going to say one more thing. Your happiness.”

“Huh?”

“Lyd, for years you prioritised someone else’s happiness over your own. I know, I know, that fucker moved for you when you got the job away, I know that. But apart from that…it was all you. All you, trying to keep someone else happy and cracking under the strain.” She inhales and exhales, trying to curb the fury that still burns in her when she remembers how you were treated. 

“All I’m going to say is this: don’t worry about anyone else, Lyd. Not me, not Dad, not Kate, Marc, the girls, your job - nobody. Well, worry about Ben. But above all, prioritise your happiness. We have ours over here. It’s time for you to find yours.”

You hug her tightly. “One final question.”

She nods and waits. 

“What does Dad think of Ben? I know it wouldn’t change my feelings but given everything from the shitshow, I’d like to know he doesn’t absolutely loathe him.”

She looks at her phone and pushes away from the table, walking into the living room and opening the door of the flat. “Ask him yourself, Lyd. Here he is now.”

Your father comes into the kitchen, talking about something that happened at the local football match he’d attended that afternoon and eyes already locked on the kettle, his mind focused on making a cup of tea. 

“Joe? Lyd wants to ask you something.”

You roll your eyes at your mother. “It’s not a big deal.”

He turns around, tea caddy in hand. He’s been to this flat twice, you think, and he knows exactly where all the tea-making equipment is kept. 

 “Alright. Ask away, Lyd. Are you alright? Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I just - Dad, what do you think?”

“What do I think of what?”

“Ben. Me and Ben, specifically. But also just Ben.”

Joe switches on the kettle and leans against the kitchen counter. “Sure, my opinion isn’t what matters. What matters is how you feel. Isn’t that right?” He looks to your mother for backup. 

“I said that to her, but she said she wanted to hear from you.”

He takes a mug out of the cupboard and drops a square teabag into it. “Lydia, is everything okay? Are you having any doubts about him, is that it?”

You laugh and shake your head. “Not a one.”

“And you don’t think he’s having any doubts about you? Because if he is I’ll fucking -“

“No, Dad. He… he’s very clear about how he feels.”

Your father nods in satisfaction. “Well, that’s reassuring. Would be strange if he wasn’t, given how he is with you. At least, what we’ve seen here.” He pours the freshly boiled water over the teabag and opens the fridge in search of milk. “But the point stands. You love each other, don’t you?”

You aren’t sure if your father has ever been so open or explicit with you in asking about a romantic relationship. Perhaps, you wonder, he regretted not being more honest about his concerns over the years of your longest one. 

“We do.” Your eyes fill with tears, unexpectedly. You swallow hard. “We love each other very, very much.”

“Okay then.” He stirs his tea vigorously, the metal of the teaspoon clinking off the stoneware mug. 

“But I still want to know what you think. It matters to me. Especially - especially after the last time.”

Joe pulls out a chair and settles at the table, your mother reaching automatically for a coaster and sliding it under the mug. “Lyd, you know what I’ve always said. There’s not one person walking this earth who deserves our lovely Lydia. Not one.”

Your heart sinks a little, and you nod. You’ve heard this a lot since your ex cheated and fucked off. You never really believe it. 

“But.” Your father pauses and sips his tea. 

“But?”

He looks at you and reaches out to touch your hand. “But - that lovely man you brought home definitely comes very close indeed.”

Right on cue, the front door opens and you can hear Ben and Marc chatting companionably and laughing together. Marc does a silly little dance into the kitchen, waving the garlic bread around like glow sticks.

“Now, please don’t destroy the garlic bread before it’s even gone into the oven, Marc!”

As your mother grabs the bread and sneaks a peek at the lasagne, now browned to perfection, Ben pulls you in for a quiet word.

“Lyddie, are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”

You lean against his chest as he wraps his arms around you. “I’m okay, darling. I just needed this. Needed you.” The oven timer pings and you look at him. “Time for Professor Morales to serve us his delicious lasagne. C’mon, we can plate up before my mother takes over.”

You thought goodbyes would get easier the longer you worked away from home, but the opposite turned out to be true. Your parents are doing their usual brave face routine at the airport: Joe clearly trying not to cry, Marie overdoing the levity to distract you and stave off her own sadness at seeing you go. 

“Paris in the springtime, Lyd! It’ll be gorgeous. She’s a great tour guide, Ben, she knows it all.” 

“She’s brilliant, Marie. But you knew that before the rest of us found out.” He reaches for your hand, holding it tightly as you start to feel the tears prickling. 

He only lets go as you both embrace your parents in turn, Ben thanking them repeatedly for their kindness. Then, his fingers curl around yours again, holding you strong and steady at the entrance to departures. 

“I love you both so much, you know? We’re so grateful.”

Your mother can’t hold back her tears any more, and her wet cheek presses against yours as she pulls you in for a final hug. “We love you so much. Both of you.” 

She pulls away and holds your gaze. “Both of you. Remember what I said to you, Lydia. Remember that.”

You nod and give Ben’s hand a little squeeze. “We should probably head on through. Safe home - message me when you get back, okay? We’ll see you soon.”

You keep waving back with every sharp turn you take in the queue for security, until eventually your parents’ faces are obscured by the crowd behind you, and you face forward into the security area, still holding Ben’s hand.

“Paris par train ou Paris par bus?”

Ben shrugs as he pushes the luggage trolley. “You’re the expert, Lyddie. What’s easiest?”

You summon up the mental map of Parisian transport options that is always ticking over at the back of your mind. “Train is quicker but involves a change at Châtelet Les Halles - ugh - and then again at Bastille. Bus gets us to Opéra which means we can get right on to line 8.”

“Bus?”

“Bus.”

Ben stacks your bags carefully in one of the Roissybus’s luggage areas and exhales as he takes a seat beside you. “You know it’s been almost thirty years since I was in Paris?”

“Excusez-moi?”

He chuckles. “Came up on a very poorly-thought-out visit with some friends while I was on exchange in Málaga. Overnight trains, hostels, no money, cheap wine. I barely saw the Eiffel Tower, let alone anything else.”

The bus pulls out of Charles de Gaulle Airport and onto the motorway. You squeeze Ben’s thigh affectionately. “Isn’t it a good thing that you’ve come to Paris with a ready-made guide, then?”

He smirks and arches an eyebrow suggestively. “Oh, I’m really looking forward to doing some, er, exploring with her.” 

“Is that so?” You move your hand ever so slightly up his thigh, smiling with satisfaction as Ben gasps a little and shifts in the seat. “I always like to try out new pleasures here, you know?”

A wiggle of your eyebrows has you both giggling, leaning against each other as the bus makes good progress towards the périphérique, the motorway that rings the city, and into Paris proper. You start to point out landmarks, locations, shifting into a stream of consciousness that spans history, personal memories, places to visit, and random observations. 

Ben smiles to himself as he watches and listens, delighting in your joy and excitement as you prepare to see your old friend - to walk her streets, listen to her voice, and write another chapter in your long love story.

The advantage of Parisian connections: your friend Sophie offered you her apartment in the 11th arrondissement for the duration of your stay, as she was away in the south of France. You meet her upstairs neighbour outside the narrow, early nineteenth-century building on a quiet street just off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine and collect Sophie’s key, taking note of the door codes. 

“Holy shit. Look at this place!”

Ben has carried the bags up the stairs - thankfully, Sophie’s flat is on the first floor - and followed you into the little apartment. You turn and grin when you notice how entranced he looks, staring up at the wooden beams in the tiny hallway, peeking out into the communal courtyard, tilting his head this way and that to check out the books on Sophie’s shelves. 

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” You pick up your suitcase and lead the way into the bedroom, sitting on the end of the bed as you take off your shoes and wriggle your toes happily.

“It’s incredible. Exactly what you might imagine a Parisian apartment to be.” He drops his own bags in the corner and joins you on the bed, flopping back onto the mattress and yawning.

You lie back and turn to face him, resting a hand on his stomach. “Let’s do some exploring. I know we’re tired, but I want to show you around, get some dinner, buy some wine…”

The featherlight touch of his fingers, working their way under your denim blouse and stroking the soft skin of your waist, sends delicious shivers through you.

“We could do some exploring here, right now…?” he asks, eyes twinkling and a smile on his lips. 

“You know how tempting that offer is, Benjamin, but let’s restore our energy first, hmmm?”

Dinner is Vietnamese food from a tiny restaurant just around the corner, a staple favourite from your time living in the city, followed by a walk around the neighbourhood and a stop at a nearby supermarket, to stock up on some essentials and a bottle of wine. As you climb the stairs to the apartment, the fatigue from a day of travel and the underlying, gnawing anxiety about your future starts to hit you. 

You should just say it to him. Ask him outright what he wants to happen.

You push the thought down, down, as deep as it will go as you settle on Sophie’s tiny sofa and watch Ben uncork the wine in the coin cuisine, the little kitchenette tucked into a corner of the living room. You spot a portable speaker tucked on one of the bookshelves and connect it to your phone, scrolling through your playlists until you find what you want. 

“Never let it be said that you don’t cultivate an atmosphere, Lyd,” he says, handing you a glass of the purple-red wine and joining you on the couch. “Let me guess: this is a Paris-specific playlist?”

You hide your face behind one hand and peek at him through your fingers as he laughs, leaning in to kiss your cheek as Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘La chanson de Prévert’ starts to play.

He rests his head on your shoulder as you listen to the song together. It’s a favourite of yours regardless, but tonight, with the man you love so deeply but still fear losing nestled in beside you, Gainbourg’s plaintive melody and lyrics about lost love are like a punch to the gut.

“Lyddie?”

Ben is sitting up, looking at you with concern. “You look so sad, all of a sudden - you okay?”

“It’s just the song, it’s so –” You halt yourself. No. Time to say it.

“I guess I’m just really feeling how close I am to the end of my time in Barrow, that’s all.”

His chocolate-brown eyes soften and he wraps you in a warm embrace. “Still got plenty of time, Lyddie.”

“And then?”

“And then…?”

“What happens? To us, I mean.”

He looks surprised at the question. “We’ll be okay, one way or the other. Right?”

But what does that mean?

You’re too tired to ask the question, you tell yourself. In truth, you’re too scared to - not because you fear his reaction, not at all. Rather, it’s because you fear that your concerns might upset him.

Ben’s head has barely hit the pillow before he’s sound asleep, one arm draped loosely around your waist. For you, though, sleep is elusive, arriving only as the dawn starts to break over the city of light. 

You wake, exhausted, to the aroma of fresh coffee brewing and the sound of Ben pottering around the apartment, humming the melody of “La chanson de Prévert” to himself. With a groan, you remember you’d planned to do some research today and force yourself out of bed.

“Bonjour, la belle Lyddie! Du café?” Ben waves a little espresso mug at you and you nod weakly. 

He is bright and cheerful as he moves around the kitchenette, pouring the coffee and joining you at the tiny dining table that acts as a kind of divider between the kitchen and the rest of the living area. 

“Did you sleep okay?”

You look up, and his face falls when he spies the telltale redness in your eyes. “I’m taking that as a no. What’s going on, Lyd?”

A fortifying sip of the strong coffee. You sit upright and look at him, studying his beautiful face. “Darling, I meant what I said last night. About how anxious I am, how scared of what comes next, the…uncertainty of it all.”

“But we know we’re serious about each other? We talked about it,” he replies, sipping his own coffee. “You know that. Don’t you?”

“I do. I really do. And we are, but -” you pause to gather your thoughts. “But that doesn’t mean there’s an answer for what happens when I have to go home, and that’s eating away at me.”

He looks at you kindly, but you can see the confusion written all over his face. “What do you mean, exactly, Lyd? Surely we can see if circumstances change over the summer, and if not then we do distance until stuff gets figured out. Right? Things are going to be just fine.”

It’s so tempting to smile and agree, but you can’t. You owe him honesty, as much as you want clarity. 

“Is that really what you want?”

“Distance? It’s not ideal, but if it comes to it I think we can make it work and - Lyd?”

You have closed your eyes, fearful of tears falling. 

Say it. Say it. Be honest with him.

“I - I don’t think I want a long-distance relationship.”

Ben makes no effort to hide his shock. “You don’t want a long-distance thing?” He shakes his head in amazement. “Even if that’s the only option for the moment?”

“I just want certainty, not constantly saying everything would be okay or we’d see what happens when we don’t know that things will be okay, or what’s going to happen. I want you, love. I want a life with you, you know that. Don’t you?”

“But you don’t want long-distance with me.” His brow furrows and his jaw ticks as he stares at the floor. 

“I don’t know, I mean I just want what we have now, I don’t know if I could cope with the implications of that kind of distance and -”

He exhales sharply, exasperated, and reaches for his light cotton jacket. “So it’s all or nothing. You would rather have no relationship than even try distance, is that it?”

Fury and sadness mingle and build in your chest. “Ben, that’s not what I fucking said.” Your hands fall to your sides, defeated. “I’m just - fuck, I’m not finding the words right now.” 

“Well, if you find them later let me know.” He opens the door of the apartment and pauses for a moment. “See you, Lyddie.”

You sit staring into space for a good half hour at your appointed desk in the print room at the Bibliothèque nationale, before you open the grey archive box of lithographs you’d called up for the day. 

The ritual of research is familiar and soothing, a useful distraction from the memory of the argument that morning. You set out your camera and prepare your customary scraps of paper inscribed with the call number of the collection, to make it easier for you to match up images with notes when you return to the materials at home. Wherever the hell “home” is supposed to be, now. 

Assess each print. Study it. Immerse yourself in the details before photographing it and writing up your observations on your laptop. Repeat over and over, add to your research materials and stave off the metaphorical wolves circling in your brain. 

Your stomach starts to rumble just before one o’clock. The garden courtyard outside the building that houses the print room is busy, with researchers and visitors taking an al fresco lunch and chatting over coffee. Salad consumed, you take your phone out of the transparent plastic briefcase you are required to use inside the library. 

No message from him. Nothing. 

You decide to make a call. She should be on her lunch now, too. 

“Lyd! How are you? How’s Pareeeeee?” Kate’s voice is cheery and comforting, and exactly what you needed to hear. 

“Hiya… um, can you talk for a few minutes?”

She immediately knows there’s something wrong and her tone shifts. “Of course, always… Lyd, what’s happened? Are you okay?”

Deep breaths. “Kate, I think I need to make a decision and I’m fucking terrified.”

Kate pauses, aware that she doesn’t need to ask you what this is about. “Okay. Talk to me. Let’s work through it.”

BEN: When do you think you’ll be finished for the day? We should talk. I’m so sorry about this morning x

LYDIA: Probably by 4.30 or so. Do you want me to come meet you?

BEN: I’ll come to you. You want food? It’s a nice day for a picnic dinner. 

LYDIA: It is. Dinner is your choice. Meet me at the rue Vivienne exit at 4.30 or so? x

BEN: You say that as if I know where that is… I’ll find it. See you soon, Lyddie. Love you. 

Ben Morales leans against the railings of the Bibliothèque nationale and looks at his watch. He’s early, so he meanders across the street and wanders into the Galerie Vivienne, admiring the fine detail of the mosaic floors and brass light fittings that adorn the nineteenth-century covered arcade. He pauses at an antiquarian bookstore and print shop, perusing the selection of vintage postcards displayed in wooden crates outside. 

He’s standing at the entrance to the arcade when he looks up and sees you coming through the gates of the library, somehow managing to carry a backpack, tote bag, and small cross-body handbag all at once. 

You don’t notice him at first, instead turning your head in both directions as you look for him. Ben’s heart soars when he sees you, in spite of the nagging ache he’s felt in the pit of his stomach ever since the argument you’d had that morning. 

He calls out to you from across the street, raising his hand in an enthusiastic wave, and a warm, delighted smile spreads across your face when you realise he’s there, waiting for you. He’s as impossibly handsome as ever in his navy blue shirt jacket, white tshirt, and jeans, tote bag slung over one shoulder. 

You keep Kate’s words from your lunchtime conversation in the forefront of your mind. “You know what you want, Lyd. You know what you need to do.”

“Sorry, I got delayed on the way out of the print room and then it always takes longer to pack up than I’d anticipated and then I thought I should pop to the bathroom before I left and then -”

Ben interrupts your explanation with a kiss and a hug. “I’m so sorry, Lyddie. I’m sorry about this morning.” He pulls away and holds out a small, flat brown paper bag. “A peace offering.”

The bag contains a selection of vintage postcards of Paris, postmarked in the early years of the twentieth century: Notre-Dame, photographed from the Left Bank; the place de la Bastille; the facade of the Bibliotheque nationale you’d just left. 

“Some of your favourite places, right?”

You reach for his hand and lean in for a kiss. “You know me so well. Thank you, my love, they’re beautiful.” You spot a larger brown paper carrier bag in his other hand. “Dinner?”

Ben smiles, holding out the bag for your approval. “I ended up getting a selection of stuff from one of the Asian takeout places near here. And I picked up a bottle of chilled white wine, and some paper cups. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect. Let’s go, Benjamin - dinner at the Palais-Royal awaits.”

“I have to admit, I did wonder when you said we were going to a royal palace. Didn’t seem very…Lyddie.”

Ben quirks an eyebrow in your direction. You giggle as you reach into the bag of takeout and retrieve boxes of rice, steamed buns, gyoza, and nems. 

“I mean, technically it was a royal residence. But the gardens - where we are now - were public, as were the arcades and shops.” You set the boxes of food on a green metal park chair, serving as a makeshift table in front of your bench. “And it was an important location in the revolutionary period, so…”

He grins and opens the bottle of wine. “Ah! There it is. That’s my Lyd.”

His Lyd. Affection surges in your chest, and you place a hand on Ben’s knee, giving it a light squeeze as he pours some of the white wine into a paper cup and hands it to you.

He raises his own cup in your direction. “To my clever, revolutionary girl.”

You swap stories about your respective days as you dig into the food: Ben describing his informal solo tour of literary locations on the Left Bank, you talking through your finds in the print room. He shows you photos he took of Richard Wright’s apartment building, of the original site of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company, and a selfie of himself looking completely perplexed at the plaque on the rue du Cardinal-Lemoine that refers to James Joyce as a “British writer of Irish origin.”

You burst out laughing at that one. “I’m so glad you found that. It annoys me every time I see it.”

“I sent it to Evan. He was not impressed.” He slips his phone back into his pocket and reaches for another spring roll. “And then I went and sat in the Luxembourg Gardens for a bit, worked over a little more of the play, thought about Beckett in Paris, watched the world go by. I remembered you said it was one of your favourite places to just sit and think.” 

He smiles softly, almost shyly, at you, and with a pang you remember that some serious conversation lies ahead, no matter how tempting it is to sit here forever in the Palais-Royal, eating your picnic dinner and drinking your wine surrounded by the ghosts of writers and lovers and revolutionaries long past. 

Lemon-scented wipes remove the residual traces of nems and dipping sauces from your fingers, and Ben stacks the empty food containers in the brown paper bag before topping up your paper cup of wine. You rest your head on his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around you to hold you close. 

He sips his wine and takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk about earlier.” 

You raise your head, turn to him, and nod. He rests a hand on your thigh, tracing circles with his index finger on your leg. 

“I’m sorry if it ever felt like I was dismissing your worries, Lydia. I - well, I guess I was avoiding the issue. Like if I kept saying things would work out, they’d just… work out.”

You smile gently and reach for his hand. “Without having to make the hard call.”

He squeezes your hand and nods. “Exactly. But I did a lot of thinking about that today. About the future, about what I want - what you want.” He gives you a nervous glance.

“You were right, Lyd, long-distance couldn’t give us…I don’t want long-distance with you, either. I couldn’t, Lyd. I want what you said you want - a life, us, together. Like now.” He caresses your cheek with his thumb. “I can’t imagine anything else.”

You bring your hand to rest on his and close your eyes, feeling tears prickling against your eyelids. 

He takes a deep breath. “Lyd, look at me.” Your eyes meet his, dark and warm and serious all at once. “Lyd, I - I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s all I want, and - fuck, I think I’ve known I wanted that for a while now.”

You open your mouth to respond and he shakes his head gently. “Lyddie - Lydia - I want to be with you, no matter what it takes.” Another deep breath. “And that’s why - if you want, of course, only if you want - I’ll move back with you at the end of the year. I’ve got some job alerts set up, I’ll find something, you know? I - I just want to be with you.”

“You can’t give up your whole life, darling.” Your voice is quiet as you take in the significance of what he’s telling you, what he’s offering. To his astonishment, you burst out laughing.

“What’s funny, Lyd?”

“I did a lot of thinking today, too. You know you’re all I want, don’t you?” You look at him expectantly, and he nods. “And I was going to tell you that - if you wanted - I would try to stay in the US, so that I could be with you. So that we could make a life together, plan our future.” You turn to him and grin. “But now it seems we’re still going to be on opposite sides of the pond, just with swapped continents.”

Laughter rises from Ben’s chest, emerging as a bright, wide smile and eyes crinkling with delight. He cups your face with his hands and kisses you, over and over, before pulling away abruptly. 

“Wait. You said I couldn’t give up my life, but you want to give up yours? And you know Barrow doesn’t do partner or spousal hires…”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be giving up my life. It would be living the life I want to live, with the man I adore. That’s better, no?” You reach over to brush an errant curl off his forehead. “Anyway, I can look for a position within commuting distance, right? I’d rather that than feel I had got a job I didn’t really deserve.”

He blushes slightly and looks at you from under his lashes. “Even so. I meant it, I would follow you anywhere. I’ll go wherever you want me to be, wherever you want to be.”

“Okay. How about this?” You sit up a little straighter, hands resting on his. “We’re clearly both prepared to move. So…we both start looking for jobs, you near my place and me around Barrow, and whoever gets an appointment first - that’s where we go.”

Ben looks into the middle distance and nods, turning over the proposal in his head. “That sounds like a plan, baby.” 

“Then it’s a deal?”

He grins and kisses you softly. “It’s a deal.”

The evening is bright and warm as you meander hand in hand through the narrow streets of the Marais, heading east, homeward bound. 

You spot a buzzy corner café and nudge Ben. “How about a drink, darling? Something bubbly, maybe?”

He smiles, and you know his eyes are sparkling behind his sunglasses as he squeezes your hand and follows your lead towards one of the small round tables arranged outside the café. The server is typically Parisian: efficient, polite but not overly familiar, and they take your order and return promptly with two glasses of champagne and little dishes of olives and mixed nuts. 

“À nous deux, Paris!” Ben clinks his glass to yours and you giggle as the first sip sends bubbles bursting on your tongue. 

“Quoting Balzac in the original French?! Where were you all my life, Benjamin?”

He shrugs and smiles to himself. “Could ask you the same question.”

Long, thick fingers begin to rub circles on the flesh of your thigh, feeling the heat of your skin through the light fabric of the button down sky blue shirt dress you’re wearing. You echo the gesture, tracing patterns on the back of his hand, and your expression becomes more serious, more intense, your voice quieter.

“I love you, Ben.” 

He squeezes your thigh gently. “I love you, Lyd.” 

Sipping champagne and nibbling on the snacks, you watch the world go by, content and cosy in the little bubble that is just you and him. You’re checking your appearance in the bathroom mirror when a realisation sweeps through you. Your eyes widen, mouth forming into a little “o” before stretching into a happy smile as you ascend the stairs from the basement to the main café and rejoin Ben at the table.

“So something occurred to me.”

He chases the last olive around the dish with a cocktail stick. “Mmmmm?”

“We’re doing this, aren’t we? We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. That’s what we’ve said we want. Right? I didn’t imagine that?”

Ben lifts his head, puts down the cocktail stick, and looks into your eyes with a bemused smile on his face. “No, you didn’t. And yes, we are.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles broadly. “And isn’t it fucking wonderful?”

You nod excitedly and a surge of laughter erupts from both of you, quietened only by a warm, passionate kiss. You break away and run your fingers through the messy strands of hair around his forehead.

“I know people might think it’s soon, love. But… it’s not. I know.”

“I know too, Lyddie. When you know, you know.” He reaches for your hand and brings it to his lips. “And to be honest, I don’t think anyone who knows us will think it’s too soon.”

The server returns to take the empty glasses and dishes. “Autre chose?” [Something else?]

Ben winks at you mischievously and orders two more glasses of champagne. 

The walk back to the apartment should have taken about twenty minutes. Or at least, it would have had you not both been tipsy, incredibly happy, and unable to keep your hands off each other. 

It takes just under an hour for you to get from the Marais back into the heart of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, stopping here and there along the way to indulge in some making out in quiet side streets and passageways. 

“I’m so glad there’s only one flight of stairs,” you hiss theatrically, Ben trailing a hand over your ass as you reach the landing and the door to the flat. 

Once inside, you pull him tight to you and move swiftly in the direction of the small bedroom, fingers already hooked inside the waistband of his jeans as he holds your face in his hands and kisses you deeply, tongues sweeping over each other and lips pressed together so hard you swear they’ll be bruised by morning.

“Sit on the end of the bed, baby.” He nods and follows your instructions, undoing his jeans as he watches you standing before him. 

You start to unbutton your dress, keeping your eyes on him as you ease it off and let it fall to the floor. Ben’s eyes roam slowly over you, mouth falling open slightly as he takes in the floral print of your panties, the light blue lace of your bra, the softness and curves of your body. 

You move closer to him, standing between his legs as he wraps his arms around your lower back and buries his face against your breasts while you languidly trail your fingers through his hair. 

You pull back and look at him, immediately giggling. He still has his glasses on, and those coffee-brown eyes are half-hidden behind a fog on the lenses. 

“Let’s take these off, shall we, Professor Morales?”

The combination of champagne and a decision about your future together has made you joyful, more confident - and more direct. 

“You’re so fucking hot, you know that, baby?” 

Ben raises his eyebrows and his ears flush pink. “I don’t really think…uh…”

You kiss him, his hands moving to grab the flesh of your ass and pull you tight to his body. 

“I think you’re hot as fuck, Ben Morales, and I’m going to tell you. And show you.” You wrap your arms around his neck and encourage him to move backwards a little, so that you can straddle him. “Lemme show you how gorgeous you are to me, my love. Hmmm?”

He grins, nods, and moans as his mouth passes over the velvet skin of your heavy tits. You help him out of his white T-shirt, and pause to take in the sight of him: your thighs framing his hips and waist, his hands resting on them; his tummy, somehow both broad and solid and yet soft, pressed deliciously against your own belly; his beautiful face, eyes filled with desire, and mouth begging to devour and be devoured. 

The temptation is too strong, your hands moving to caress his face as your lips meet his again. You keep your forehead pressed to his as you break the kiss and whisper to him, murmuring about how his dark gaze can make you ache for him, what it feels like to have his lips pressed to your body. 

Your hands move slowly across his shoulders and down his back, feeling the warmth of his golden skin, the strength underneath the surface. “This beautiful body, baby,” you murmur, placing tiny kisses to his collarbone. “When you’re above me, fucking me, or about to, and I look up and see you so fucking broad and solid…”

His breathing hitches as your mouth works its way down his chest and towards his tummy, lips and tongue picking out those little patches of freckles that you love so much, teeth sometimes scraping lightly over his warm, solid middle as you carefully move your body off his and onto the floor between his legs.

“You know how fucking sexy this tummy is, baby. Told you the first night we were together.” He looks sceptical and your hands roam over the warm softness of his skin, your cunt positively aching with need at the sensation. 

“I’m serious, Ben. It’s so fucking hot, the way your body looks, the feeling of your tummy against mine…” You whine as you roll your hips and clench your thighs, and he sits up slightly to drag down his jeans and underwear, a hand wrapping around his cock as he seeks some relief of his own. 

You reach for his other hand, holding it gently as you suck each finger in turn. “I love these hands, baby.” You kiss his palm and he gasps. “I love the sight of them, the feeling of them on me, in me, the things they do to me.”

His eyes are wide and dark with lust and adoration. “Fucking hell, Lyd, you’re incredible.”

And then your fingers join his, working the base of his cock and making Ben gasp with sheer pleasure. He moves his hands up to grope and caress your breasts, long fingers slipping under the lace of your bra to play with your nipples. 

“Touch yourself,” he hisses, hands full as he massages the soft weight of your tits. You obey the instruction, keeping your eyes locked on him as you bring one hand to part your soaking folds while the other continues to jerk him off. 

Ben watches for a moment as you rub small, firm circles over the aching bundle of nerves while pleasuring him simultaneously. “Fuck, baby, this is so fucking hot. You’re so good to me.”

You’re on your knees, now, and your mouth is actually watering at the sight before you. “Can I suck your cock, baby?”

He grunts his consent. “This…” You flick your tongue over the tip. “This is fucking gorgeous.” 

“Please, Lyd.” You look up at him and he whines a little, completely turned on by the sight of you between his legs, one hand now caressing the firm muscles of his calf and the other holding his cock in place. You oblige, expertly trailing your tongue along his full length before beginning to take him, bit by bit, inside your wet mouth. 

Ben cries out your name as you continue your ministrations, looking down at you with his eyes blown wide. “I‘ll come if you keep going, baby,” he hisses. “Wanna fuck you, please. Please. Need you.”

You swirl your tongue around the tip one last time before releasing him, bringing your hands to rest again on his legs, fingers massaging the muscles of his thighs as you hum in satisfaction. 

“C’mon, Lyddie.” He gestures with his head and you stand. He pulls you to him with one hand, palm and fingers splayed across the small of your back as he tugs down your panties with the other. Two thick fingers slide into you with ease, and his eyebrows quirk with surprise.

“You’re fucking soaking?” 

The tone of his voice makes you laugh, and he chuckles against the warm softness of your belly before kissing it, over and over, as your fingers wind through his curls. 

“I told you, love, you’re so fucking hot. Don’t even have to touch me and I’m ready for you.”

Ben grins wickedly as you push him back onto the bed and straddle him again, reaching down and stroking his cock a couple of times before you ease him into you and sink down, moaning loudly as he stretches you, fills you, takes you. You’ve had each other so many times now, and yet the sensation of him inside you remains new and thrilling. 

You start to move, shifting and rolling your hips in a careful, deliberate rhythm that has the two of you sighing and gasping with deep, delicious pleasure. You lean forward to come closer to him, desperate for his touch, for the warmth of his chest against yours. He eases down the straps of your bra a little and caresses your tits as he starts to fuck up into you, meeting your movements. 

He lifts his head up, greedily seeking your lips. His hands trace the curve of your back down to your hips and ass as he watches your bodies moving together, and he smiles wistfully as he brings a finger to your clit. “God, I love fucking you, Lyd.”

You giggle and cry out at his touch, riding him harder still as you edge closer to coming. His finger draws firm, tight circles over the swollen bud, tracing the familiar path he has carved out in you so many times. “Fuck me, baby - gonna come, don’t fucking stop - you gonna come?”

He closes his eyes tightly as the fingers of his other hand press hard into your thigh, breath hitching and voice raw. “Mmmmhmm. I’m so fucking close. Hold on, can you?”

You nod and try to temporarily quell the orgasm that’s been building in you since you got him home, Ben slowing his finger’s steady movements over your soaking clit.

And then the pace increases again, and you’re there, and he’s there. Together. 

Morning announces itself with a rustle of paper and a delicious, buttery aroma. Eyes blinking open, you become conscious of Ben’s soft lips on the nape of your neck - and aware that the enticing smell is right under your nose. 

“Bonjour, Lyd.” Ben is holding an open paper bag just under your nose. “Croissant?”

You turn to face him properly and sit up in bed beside him. “Hi, darling. How long are you up?”

He reaches into the bag and takes out a croissant, before placing it on a plate and handing it to you. “Not that long. You looked so beautiful and content, I didn’t want to wake you.”

The flaky, buttery pastry melts in your mouth as you sigh with pleasure. “Jesus fucking Christ. Nothing compares.”

Ben stops just as he’s about to bite into his own croissant, throwing you a cheeky glance. “Nothing? Nothing compares? You’re sure about that?”

You rest your head on his shoulder, the cotton of his long sleeved T-shirt soft and comforting against your face. 

“Nothing compares… in the world of baked goods.”

 He nods, satisfied, and takes a mouthful of the golden viennoiserie. 

“Oh, fuck. Maybe you’re right, Lyd.”

You giggle. “Thanks for these, love. You’re so kind.”

Ben shakes his head. “As if you wouldn’t have done the same.” He chews thoughtfully on the pastry. “Anyway, I feel like I still need to make it up to you. Yesterday morning, I mean.”

“You apologised, love, and we sorted things out. It’s fine.”

He shrugs. “I just feel bad. I shouldn’t have made you feel bad. Should have known by now that you struggle with this kind of uncertainty.” Ben reaches for your left hand, bringing it to his lips. “I’m sorry, Lyd.”

“Thank you, Ben. But we’re fine. I mean it. That’s what makes a relationship work, isn’t it? Learning about each other and knowing when we need to learn or listen more.”

He nods. “Exactly. And that’s why I’m so excited to spend the rest of my life with you. No matter where that is.”

The rest of the week is spent partly in research libraries, at least in your case, but mostly in the streets and cafés and galleries and museums of the city you love so much with the man you adore. 

You watch with quiet joy as he sees Manet’s Olympia in real life for the first time, shaking his head in admiration and awe as he takes in the painting. He steps back and folds his arms. 

“She’s really something.”

“She sure is. I’d be that confident too, if I was as gorgeous as her.”

He arches an eyebrow and looks at you. “You are. Much more so.” 

You huff a laugh as you link his arm and wander off to see Courbet’s Burial at Ornans. “You want me to pose like one of Manet’s French girls, Ben?”

“Wouldn’t say no, Lyd.”

At Harry’s New York Bar, the legendary cocktail bar near the Opéra, you cuddle up in a cosy corner of the piano lounge in the basement, and drink French 75 cocktails while the resident pianist plays Gershwin late into the night. You follow your own tailor-made walking tours, spotting literary landmarks and movie locations. A night in a Saint-Germain bar ends with a visit to the late-night bookstore L’Écume des Pages (and an inevitable bag full of newly-purchased books). Ben oohs and aahs over the bouquinistes’ boxes that line the walls overlooking the Seine, unable to resist a quick perusal of their selection of rare books and vintage magazines. You share a Paris-Brest pastry from Angelina, moaning appreciatively as you devour the delicious dessert. Together, you drink coffee and sip wine and talk and laugh and people-watch to your heart’s content. 

You could never tire of Paris. Even so, Ben’s wide-eyed excitement and enthusiasm makes everything new: the landmarks, the streetscapes, the food, the drink, the sounds and smells.

And you. He has made you new, too.

You feel it in the way he looks at you when you wave your hands and wax lyrical about god knows what painting or book or historical event. It’s in the reassuring weight of his arm around your shoulders as you wander through the narrow back streets, feeling like you’re ten feet tall. It’s there in the hundreds of little opportunities he finds during each day to touch you: the small of your back as you enter a building, the back of your hand as you sit together on the Métro, the side of your mouth as he brushes away an errant croissant flake. 

It is in the moments when you stop on the street and pull him to you for a kiss, unconcerned by the Parisians tut-tutting as they have to walk around the two of you. It’s in the moans he pulls from you, and you from him, when you are tangled in bedsheets at night, or in the morning, or even - after a lunchtime trip to the movies that escalated into some heated back-row kisses - in the middle of the afternoon, languidly stretched out naked for him on the bed. 

Just like one of Manet’s French girls, he joked.

Most of all, it’s there in the light that always seems to be shining in your eyes whenever you look at him, knowing that he is yours and you his. 

“You’re a tolerant man, Ben Morales,” you say with a chuckle as you walk through the imposing gates of Père Lachaise cemetery one bright morning. “Willing to hang out in Parisian cemeteries with me as I fangirl over the tombs of people no one has cared about for a hundred years or more.”

Ben looks at the list of names on the cemetery map and smiles at you, squinting slightly behind his sunglasses. “I rather like your Gothic side, Lyddie. And I appreciate this too, you know - I want to find Balzac and Proust’s tombs, while we’re here.” He drapes an arm across your shoulders as you climb steadily up one of the winding paths leading through the oldest part of the cemetery, stopping here and there to look at some of the more unusual tombs and memorials. 

There’s a certain part of Père Lachaise, its highest point, where you can look out and see the city unfolding below. You lead him there and sit on a bench, keen for him to take in the view. Other visitors and tourists meander past with their maps, chatting in various languages about Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison or any number of the luminaries whose remains lie alongside those of many more ordinary Parisians in this leafy enclave. 

And then it’s just the two of you, side by side, contemplative. Little birds chirp and chatter in the trees, their song a moment of peaceful stillness in the bustling city. 

Paris has a tendency to look particularly magical when you’re entering into the final hours of a visit. This evening, the fading spring sunlight cuts a path along the street below, gleaming off the windows and shop signs that line the ancient thoroughfare.

“My heart always breaks a little when I have to leave.”

Ben finishes combing back his hair, still damp from the shower and curls starting to form at the nape of his neck. He turns from the mirror just inside the door of the apartment, adjusting the collar of his white shirt. 

“This isn’t the last time, Lyddie. Not for you, not for us.”

You nod sadly, picking up your purse and slipping into a pair of dark red patent ballet flats. “I know. I’ve been telling myself that for twenty-odd years, but it never gets easier. Stupid, huh.”

He shakes his head as he reaches for your hand. “Not stupid. You love this place, and twenty-odd years is a long time to be in love.” He looks you up and down admiringly. “You’re all fancy.”

You cock your hip and strike a pose as Ben laughs. “I like to dress up for my long-term lover, the city of Paris, Monsieur Morales. Anyway, you’re all fancy too.”

“Not like you, I’m not. You look…” He exhales as he takes you in. “You look like you walked out of a perfect French movie.”

Even you have to admit he’s got a point. Sure, the outfit had been a bit of a splurge, a treat to yourself from the BHV department store. But a classic, knee-length little black dress would never go out of style. At least, that’s how you justified it. That, and the fact that it hugged your body just so, working wonders with your curves, somehow narrowing your middle and accentuating your tits and hips in a manner that was impossibly elegant and incredibly sexy. It was a marvel. 

For once, you got a flash of what Ben always told you he saw when he looked at you. It made for a pleasant change.

This evening you have accessorised with a vintage brooch and chunky brass earrings, the gold necklace Ben gave you for Valentine’s Day a permanent fixture around your neck. The spring evening is warm enough for you to get away with a dark red pashmina shawl in lieu of a jacket, though you worried bare legs might be a step too far and decided not to forego your black hold-up fishnet stockings.

Ben slips into his olive green suit jacket and you squeeze his hand. “Thank you, my love. You look beautiful, too.” 

He does. But then, he always does: his beauty is easy, natural, effortless; as obvious to you when he’s bleary-eyed and bed-headed in his old t-shirts and pyjama bottoms as it is now, with him suited and booted and looking every inch the debonair Parisian intellectual in his clear-framed glasses.

For an instant you wish you could travel back to your broken-hearted self all those years before, to tell her that a better day would come, that real love would find you when and where you least expected it, and that it would arrive in the form of a man as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside.

Most people would say the two of you are a little overdressed for your dinner destination. But then, you aren’t most people.

You catch a glimpse of the two of you reflected in a shop window as you walk along boulevard Henri IV. You, black dress and red accessories; Ben, green suit with his top shirt buttons undone, hair combed back and starting to form soft waves a little as it dries. The fact that you are both wearing sunglasses only enhances the sense of slightly retro European chic. 

“Look at us. Not bad, hmmm?” 

Ben stops, puts down the wicker basket he’s carrying, and winds his arms around your waist, kissing the side of your neck. “Perfect.”

You stroll past a little park near the river, pointing out a reconstructed bit of the Bastille to him, and wander in the direction of the Pont Marie and onto the Île Saint-Louis. It’s a little out of the way for where you’re going, but you have a good reason. He asked you a couple of days ago what your favourite view of the city was, and you intend to show him. 

The evening sky is streaked with a palette of pale blues, pinks, oranges and reds as you reach the Pont de la Tournelle and stop to lean on the parapet of the bridge. 

“This is it.”

He stands beside you and rests his hands on the parapet, following your gaze westwards along the river, taking in the silhouette of Notre-Dame - still obscured by scaffolding - painted against the vibrant canvas of the sunset, and the curve of the quaysides as the Seine splits around the Île de la Cité. 

“This is my spot. When I stand here I feel as though I could wrap my arms around the city and as though it wraps its arms around me.” You look at Ben, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. That’s a bit weird, I know. I am aware that it is a city and I cannot hug it, please don’t run away.”

He looks at you with affectionate bemusement. “You know how beautiful that is, to have those feelings and be able to articulate them like that?” He reaches for your hand. “It isn’t weird. It’s you, and it’s wonderful.”

You rest your head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand. “The first time I came to Paris after…everything, I came here the first night. I stood here and I looked at the cathedral and the city.” You pause as the memory resurfaces. “And then I had a massive cry. See? Weird.”

Ben shakes his head and chuckles, pulling you close to him. “Not weird. Catharsis.”

“I guess it was. I was still here. Notre-Dame was still here. Paris was still here. It gave me a sense of hope, I think, for the first time. Like, I knew things would get better.”

“I’m so fucking proud of you, you know?” He kisses your forehead and leans in to murmur, cheekily, in your ear: “So did things get better?”

You wrap your arm around his waist, slipping it under his jacket so you can feel the strong muscles of his back under his shirt. “Eh, I guess you could say that.”

Dinner is simple: a baguette, a selection of cheeses and charcuterie, and a bottle of champagne. But you’ve made the effort to bring proper glasses and plates from the apartment, and you can’t fault the location: watching the river from the Quai Saint-Bernard on the left bank, waving at the people on the big tourist boats - the bateaux-mouches - as they pass. 

“Hell of a view,” Ben muses in between mouthfuls of baguette and Brillat-Savarin cheese. 

You gaze across the river at the Île Saint-Louis and smile contentedly. “It is perfection.”

He chuckles and leans in to kiss you. “I was talking about you. But Paris isn’t too bad, either.”

He looks back at the river, a smile playing on his lips, and you take a moment to admire a perfect view of your own: Ben’s handsome face in profile, hair moving gently in the breeze, the light tan he had acquired after a week of wandering in Parisian spring sunshine complementing the patches of grey-white hair at the hinge of his jaw. 

You can’t help but marvel a little at how fucking gorgeous he is. Well done, Lyd. In that instant, as you take him in, you concentrate on the wonderful feeling of calm and safety that suffuses your body when you’re with him. 

You’d only realised after the abrupt end of your last relationship that you’d spent a decade and a half walking on eggshells, constantly anxious and never wholly comfortable - even with someone who claimed to love you. You feared suggesting the simplest thing: a movie, a dinner, a holiday, lest it prompt a negative reaction or criticism.

With Ben, though? Even with the ongoing uncertainty about where, exactly, your future would be, you had never felt anything other than safe. With a clearer path ahead agreed together, the residual anxiety faded, too. 

It was a new and marvellous feeling. 

As the evening draws in, a little group of musicians set up nearby on the quay, accompanied by a cluster of couples who immediately began to dance to the band. Ben turns and smiles at the spectacle.

“They do this as soon as the weather gets warm here,” you explain, smiling widely as the dancers move around an open area on the quayside. “Sometimes it’s French classics, sometimes American big band, sometimes Latin, sometimes a more contemporary mix, like tonight.”

Ben stands up, dusts off his pants, picks up the picnic basket and extends his hand to you. 

“Would you like to dance, Lyddie?”

How can you refuse, when he’s looking like that and asking you in that voice and smiling at you with such love and affection? 

“I’m not good at this sort of thing, Ben, I warn you.”

He rolls his eyes affectionately. “Bullshit. Now: dance with me, Lyd.”

You get to your feet and he leads you in the direction of the makeshift dancefloor, leaving the picnic basket to one side as he brings you into a dance hold and begins to move, pulling you close to his body as the band and its female lead singer begin a cover of Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine”.

The rest of the city falls away as you dance with him, nuzzling against his neck as his hips sway gently, rhythmically against you in time to the slower tempo of the music. Ben’s lips press softly to the top of your head, and you hum in absolute contentment. 

“I love this song, you know.”

He chuckles. “I do. You sing it very beautifully in the shower, sometimes.”

“I doubt it’s beautiful.”

“Trust me. It’s beautiful.”

You nestle against him and sing along, joining in with the lyric that always made you think of him, of how he had broken through your sturdy defences, smoothing and healing the jagged, broken pieces of your soul: “My baby, here on earth/Showed me what my heart was worth”. 

You sing the words quietly against his chest, feeling the vibrations from your voice meeting the rhythm of his heartbeat in a curious music made of two lovers. As the song draws to a close, Ben tenderly lifts your chin and kisses you, enveloping you in those strong arms. Cologne, coffee, bread, paper, something that is just his: his scent, the scent of love and safety.

His big hands skim appreciatively over your figure in the new black dress as he inhales your own perfume, nose buried in the crook of your neck. “Delicious, gorgeous girl,” he murmurs against your velvet skin. “You look incredible tonight, you know?”

Ben pulls your body even tighter to his and you whine softly, the press of his broad form to yours enough to send a rush of wetness to your core. 

“I think we need to get back to the apartment, my love.”

Ben sits at the end of the bed, wearing his shirt and boxers, watching as you take off your jewellery in front of the bedroom mirror. There’s something fascinating about the ritual: how you take out your earrings and put them in their box; the way you tilt your head forward as you remove your necklace.

He still can’t believe it, sometimes, the kind of love he has with you. He’s been desperate to get you home ever since you danced close and slow on the riverbank. That fucking black dress. Driving him slowly crazy all night, every time he looked at you. It’s the way it hugs your hips, accentuates the ample, full curves of your tits, and reveals just enough of your skin to make him want to ease it off your soft, welcoming body. 

His cock twitches at the thought. 

He stands up and crosses the floor, standing behind you. His hands gently caress you as you smile at the reflection of the two of you in the mirror.

“I love this.”

Ben kisses the top of your arm. “I love this, too.”

His lips find their way along the line of your shoulder until they reach the crook of your neck. A little tug to the zipper of the dress and his mouth moves downwards, kissing and sucking at the back of your neck, hands roaming over your body and grabbing handfuls of you as he goes.

He’s pressed against your back, murmuring your name. The extent of his desire is already very much in evidence.

“Fuck, Lyddie.” His breath is warm and urgent against your neck.

“Mmmm?”

“I’ve wanted to take this off since the minute I saw you in it.”

You chuckle. “Looks that bad, huh?”

Lips still on your neck, he caresses your breasts as he shakes his head. “Looks too good on you.”

Ben licks a stripe up the side of your neck and you whine with pleasure, closing your eyes and reaching to caress his face.

“Can I take it off, my love?” His voice is lower, smokier.

You nod, locking your eyes on his. A frisson of excitement courses through your body as Ben eases down the rest of the zipper and eases you out of your little black dress, letting it pool at your feet. 

“Oh, fuck me. These new?”

When you bought the dress, you’d bought new lingerie, too. A bra in caramel and black lace whose delicacy belied its incredible construction, supporting your breasts perfectly. Matching underwear, high-waisted and full but completely sheer, made out of the same black lace that trimmed your bra.

And of course: the stockings.

You nod and close your eyes, trying to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror. You looked alright in the dress, but you still can’t quite face the body underneath it. Ben’s breath ghosts across your shoulder blades as he fondles your tits and kisses the top of your spine. 

“Open your eyes, Lyd.”

You hesitate.

“Lyd. Open your eyes.”

You obey. But you keep your gaze fixed on him, afraid of your own reflection, of a body that you still cannot believe anyone like him would ever really want. 

“Lyddie, please look.” Ben’s voice is firm but pleading. “Look at your beautiful face. Look at this gorgeous, sexy body.” 

He trails a finger along the contours of your breasts, tracing the lace trim of the bra. He brings his hands to your waist, to your hips, pulling you back against him ever so slightly so that you can feel how hard he is. 

You don’t think you’ll ever love your body. But, watching Ben drinking you in with his eyes, running his fingers over the black Parisian lace that clings to the most sensitive and sensual parts of you, you understand that you love the way he loves your body.

“This is what you do to me, Lyd, and I will tell you every day for the rest of our lives that you are the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” You turn to face him, his hands cupping your face as he kisses you deeply. 

He breaks away and looks into your eyes, dark irises searching yours. There’s a vulnerability there, a hint of doubt, lingering in spite of his words. 

“What is it, Lyd?”

You shrug, fingers lightly caressing the curls and waves that cluster around his ears. “I love that you think I’m beautiful. I… still don’t know if I ever will.”

He kisses you again, softer this time. “Can I at least try to convince you? Show you?”

You smile against his lips and wrap your arms around his neck. “I’d like that. Could… could you, like, take charge? For tonight?”

He quirks an eyebrow and returns your kiss, humming against your mouth. “Take charge?”

You feel embarrassment rising in your throat. You’d never really felt able to just ask for what you needed like this before. Old habits die hard.

“Ben, I never felt safe enough to ask a partner to take the lead like this…not before you.”

His expression softens. “I’d give you anything, Lyd. Anything you want.” He wraps his arms around you and pulls you to him, chin resting on your shoulder. “And I feel safe with you, too.”

You tilt your head to kiss him. “So…?”

“So, I’m going to take charge and show you exactly how fucking beautiful you are, how sexy you are, how fucking happy I am that I get to be with you.” He pauses to kiss you again. “And if I have to, like I said - I’ll do this every day for the rest of time, if necessary, until you see what a perfect goddess you are.”

Another, deeper kiss; the sensation of his broad hands on the soft skin of your tits and belly, pulling you tight to him, the press of his erection against you as he guides you to lean back against the wall and slips his fingers under the crotch of your panties, parting your folds and working your clit and pussy until you’re panting with desire and need. 

For a moment, you think he’s going to fuck you. But then slowly, steadily, Ben sinks to the ground in front of you, mouth and teeth and tongue finding the softest, most yielding parts of your body as he works his way to his knees. 

Ben looks up at you, eyes glittering with lust and adoration. He is a supplicant before you, ready to worship, to seek and give a pleasure as sacred as it is profane. He venerates your body with his mouth. His tongue traces the outline of your hips, his lips kiss the softness of your lower belly, his teeth scrape across the thick flesh of your upper thighs. He tugs the panties down completely, parting your legs and helping you out of the garment. 

“I want you to keep the stockings on, okay?”

You nod your assent. Those perfect dark eyes find yours, a flash of mischief crossing his gaze as he gently pushes a finger inside you before placing both hands firmly on your hips, pressing into your flesh. 

And then he tilts his head, just so, and you cry out as he brings his lips to your wet pussy, mouth and tongue working your entrance as his nose rubs with precision against your clit. You buck slightly against him but he holds you in place, grunting and groaning with pleasure as he goes down on you. The warmth of his breath against your core makes your cunt clench around nothing, desperate for him.

You wind your fingers through the soft waves of his hair, holding him in position and throwing your head back as you revel in every lap of his tongue, every brush of his beard against the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, every nudge of that beautiful nose against your clit. He’s eating you out like you’re his last meal, your moans and writhing body seemingly only serving to spur him on. 

Even so, Ben senses that you’re holding back. The position is incredible, the sight of him, the sound of him, the feel of him making you want to come harder than you’ve ever done before. But you worry about whether your legs will give way - whether you’ll hurt him if you fall forward. 

“I’ve got you, Lyd,” he murmurs, face still buried between your thighs. “Let go. I’ve got you. You’re so close. Come for me. Want you to come like this.”

With his fingers fucking you and his lips sucking and licking at your clit, your body yields and you cry out as you come against his face. 

He stays on his knees as you ride out the orgasm, thumbs rubbing a gentle circle against your hips, before scrambling to his feet and wrapping you in his strong arms. Your legs are still trembling as you lean in and kiss him like your lives depend on it, tasting yourself on his lips. He manoeuvres you to the bed, laying you down with the utmost care. 

You look up at him as he shifts into position above you, the low light catching the traces of your release that glisten across his face and his beautiful eyes flitting greedily over your face and body. You reach up to unbutton his shirt and he shucks off his undervest. An electrical current of desire courses through you as you rake your hands over his broad shoulders and down to that soft tummy you love so much. His eyes are warm and wanting: your darling, your lover, your partner. You are safe in his hands, and you are ready to give yourself entirely to him.  

A little smile quirks at his mouth as he lies down beside you, turning on his side and trailing his long fingers across the velvet skin of your tits, still enclosed in the delicate lace of your bra. 

“Do you know how much I want you, Lyd?” he murmurs, mouth working hot, needy kisses across your breasts. 

“Tell me.”

“Want you all the time.” You can feel his cock hard against you. “Want to have all of you, want to touch and kiss and fuck every last inch of you. I’m going to use my mouth on you now, baby, okay?”

He nips and sucks at the soft flesh of your belly as you moan, pussy aching for him. “And the more I have you, the more I want you.” He finds your soaking folds again and drags two fingers through the slick, bringing them to your lips so you can suck them clean. “I love you. And I can’t get enough of you.”

You let out a half-laugh, half-groan as he pulls you to him and quickly takes off your bra, mouth finding your breasts and tongue swirling over your nipples. You slip a hand between the two of you, tugging down his boxer briefs and wrapping your fingers around his cock as you stroke him, feeling him becoming fully hard under your careful touch.

“Do you think you have another in you, my love?” 

You nod. 

“Use your words, Lyd.”

“Yes. I think so…fuck, yes sir.”

He groans loudly against you and slips his fingers back through your soaking folds, chuckling a little at the whine of pleasure you let out as his warm breath ghosts against your ear. “Fucking hell, Lyd. You look so fucking beautiful. Such a beautiful woman.” He hooks his fingers against the perfect spot inside you and you buck against him, hand still working his dick. “And such a pretty pussy, so tight and so wet for me.”

He eases you into a different position, your back against his chest as his erection nudges against you. First his hands, then - with a shuffle down the bed - his mouth caresses the plump flesh of your ass, lips and teeth scraping over the sensitive skin as you whimper. He shifts your leg up and nestles himself into position.

“Can I have you, darling?”

You whine into the bed, feeling your orgasm building and building. “Please, baby, I need you inside me - fuck, baby, please…”

“I thought I was in charge?” 

His voice is low, honeyed, hot as he whispers in your ear. It tips you closer and closer to the edge. 

“You are… I just want you so fucking much.”

“You want me to fuck you, is that it?”

“Please. Fuck me, my love. Hard as you want to.”

“Fuck, Lyd.” With a groan and some muttered expletives, Ben sinks inside you, pausing for a moment to enjoy the sensation. “Always feels so incredible inside you, baby,” he pants, one arm holding you around your tits and the other against your belly. “Just - oh, fuck - just perfect.” 

It is perfect - perfect angle, perfect feeling of him stretching you, of his hands on you. He drags himself out of your cunt slowly, steadily, making you whimper at the loss of him. A snap of his hips and he’s buried inside you again, beginning a hard rhythm that has you crying his name into the bed as he fucks you, fast and deep, the softness of your ass cushioning his thrusts as he showers you with praise. His good girl. His beautiful woman. His love. 

His. His. Only his. Repeated. Possessive. Perfect.

He shifts his hand from your belly to your pussy, working tight circles over the swollen nub of your clit as you get closer and closer, mouth sucking on the delicate flesh of your neck, never letting up the rhythm until you cry out and come on his cock, the wetness audible as he fucks you through it. 

“Good, baby?” He pulls out as you’re still coming down, easing you onto your back and settling himself on top of you, carefully parting your legs. 

You look up at him, cockdrunk, seeing stars, and with no way to express how you feel other than a satisfied whine as you pull him to you for a hungry, sloppy kiss. Ben smiles and chuckles against your lips as he reaches down to gently hook an arm under your knee as he sinks back into you with a guttural moan. 

He picks up the pace again quickly, taking you harder now, rougher, even, and gripping the headboard of the bed with his free hand. His hair is dishevelled, errant short curls falling over his brow as sweat runs in rivulets over the freckles scattered underneath the hollow of his throat and lips finding yours as you start to babble to him incoherently, surrendering to the sensation. 

He drops his hand from the headboard to find yours, pressing your hand and arm into the mattress as he holds you down while he fucks you. 

“Talk to me, Lyd. Tell me. See how much I want you? Tell me.”

You mutter filthily about how deep he is, how big he is, how you love having him inside of you, how much you want him - need him - to fill you up. But then you look at him - at his beautiful face, screwed up and teeth gritted as he makes love to you - and another urge takes over, displacing the dirty talk with something no less intense, but softer, all the same.

“I fucking love you, Ben - fuck, keep going, that’s so good, fuck…”

He groans and reaches for your breast, groping it as he nears his own release. “You’re mine, Lyddie. All mine.”

“Yours, Ben. Every bit of me. Yours, forever, like you’re fucking mine.”

“My woman…my - oh, fuck - my good fucking girl.” You know he’s really close. “Keep talking, Lyd. Want to hear it.”

“You’re mine, baby - oh god, Ben, that’s so fucking good - all mine. I’ll give you anything. Everything.”

Ben rests his head against your neck, panting and moaning as his rhythm falters. “I’m all yours, Lydia, always - f-fuck, I’m gonna…”

You hold him tight, hands across the breadth of his back. “You’ll never be alone again, baby - fuck, Ben! - gonna take care of you, gonna be our own little family…”

He positively growls as he comes inside you, your head knocking against the headboard as he snaps his hips against yours before collapsing against your body. You hold him tight, gentle, slow, one hand winding through his curls and the other reaching for his hand as you plant soft kisses along his hairline.

He eases himself out of you with a final kiss and flops back onto the mattress beside you, still trying to catch his breath and with the most beautifully blissed-out expression on his face.

“I’m just going to clean up and take these stockings off, my love,” you murmur, shifting your body to the edge of the bed. “You okay?”

Ben grins and giggles to himself as he looks at you. “I am fantastic. Don’t know my name or what year it is, but I am fucking fantastic.”

You pad back from the bathroom as quickly as you can, discarding your stockings and climbing back into bed beside him. He’s reaching for you before you’ve even settled your body on the mattress, broad hands gently rubbing your belly, your hips, the line of your breasts. His breath is steadier now, face and body completely relaxed in the gorgeous afterglow.

“You are such a beautiful man.”

Ben opens one eye and meets your gaze. “Hmmmph?”

“I said, you are such a beautiful man. Don’t dare deny it.” 

He smiles softly, closing his eyes again as your fingertips trace the line of his nose, brush against an errant curl, find the outline of the little bare patches on the side of his jaw. Your thumb swipes gently across his lower lip, fingers seeking out the texture of his moustache. 

You go to speak, and stop yourself. 

“What were you going to say, Lyddie?” His voice is heavy, sleep beckoning him.

“Nothing, I was just - no, it’s stupid.”

“Nothing stupid could ever come out of your pretty mouth.”

You giggle quietly and bring yourself even closer to him, resting your hand on his chest. He reaches up to hold it. 

“It’s just that… I don’t know. When I look at you like this, at all the little things that are just uniquely you, it feels like everything fits. You know?”

He opens his eyes again. “Everything fits?”

“It’s like, ‘aha. Yes. That.’ Like I was always meant to be looking at this face. Like there was a bit of me that I didn’t even know I was missing and it just was…it was you. Even if I didn’t know it.”

He smiles and leans in for a soft kiss. “And now everything fits.”

He wakes her with coffee and kisses, knowing how much she hates prising herself from the warmth of their shared bed. A little incentive, a way to help her avoid panic later in the morning, one of those tiny acts of love they perform for each other every day. 

She orders a taxi for a couple of hours’ time and strips the bedsheets, casting an eye over their shared luggage waiting for departure as she joins him in the living area. Having put the sheets on a wash-dry cycle, her hands rest lightly on his broad shoulders as she quickly kisses him on the cheek and heads for the bathroom to shower. Instinctively, she gathers all but their essentials - toothbrushes and paste, shower gel - and slips them in a ziploc bag, ready to go into one of their cases. 

Once he’s showered, they continue their seamless little ballet of co-operation and partnership as they prepare to depart: a reminder to empty the trash here, an almost-forgotten phone charger spotted there, last few belongings squished into their hand luggage, and a final check on their passports and tickets. She checks every drawer and cupboard one more time while he places their trash bag in the small communal dumpster in the building’s courtyard. 

It is a banal ritual: unthinking, unrehearsed, instinctive. But there’s something in the way they slot together so neatly, the way they complement each other, the easy, naturalness of it all, that speaks to a sense of partnership that works as well in the routines of everyday life as it does in the bedroom. 

He carries the cases down to the main hallway as she checks the apartment’s small windows and locks up, following him downstairs after she drops off the key to Sophie’s neighbour. 

He’s outside, standing with the bags on the pavement outside the building. The G7 taxi pulls up almost immediately, and he can’t help but smile with pride when he hears her confidently chatting away in French to the driver as they load the trunk with their luggage. 

Her hand finds his in the backseat, head resting against his shoulder. Partners. A team.

As the car heads northwards towards the edge of the city, he casts a glance at his phone. Two new job alerts, for positions at institutions in Europe. 

He resolves to check them out properly once they get home. For now, though, just a squeeze of her hand, a kiss to the top of her head, and a silent resolution that he’d follow her to the ends of the earth. 

*******

Further A/N: I'm going to make a separate post with more details on the music, the locations, and the food in this chapter...

[crystalverse-project]

hello, welcome to my mcyt blog, except it's only about one youtuber and it's not about the youtuber but only the character

this post is about the graphic novel trayaurus and the enchanted crystal. or to be more specific the fact i've found and bought two foreign language versions just to compare them both because i think translations are cool and interesting and i have autism and nobody's documented this and i have autism and the next thousand reasons consist of i have autism

trayaurus y el diamante encantado (spanish)

trayaurus et le cristal enchanté (french)

so i didn't even know this book got translated at all until a few months ago. and i managed to find both of these on amazon for reasonable prices, except the french one came with a broken spine and the only remaining spanish one is now demanding several hundred pounds for the only one left last time i checked.

i don't have a way of getting scans of this for preservation, so my phone camera's going to have to do. i also don't have an english copy anymore but i do have pictures of the pages to cross reference. this is what happens when you have a special interest guys you start cross referencing three versions of the same book at the same when you only know one language. (i haven't translated it all yet so i was looking at visual differences right now)

NOTE: all uses of "english" version refer to the original uk release. i've seen us releases that are so different they could be a different blogpost

back covers

for some reason the spanish copy is a lot less thick as the french and english ones? they all have the same pages so idk why that is. i can't remember which is the original way this spine faced, but everything is the same except the publisher logos.

according to copyright info the spanish version released in 2018, french 2017. i don't want to go past the picture limit so i'll just say there was an error on the spanish version where it said original title, it was written 'trayaurus and the enchanted cristal'. in the book the crystal is specifcally a diamond in spanish

in the introduction all the character names are white outlined with black in french, this wasn't a thing in english

the sound effects were translated in spanish and left english in french

various other text translations, in spanish one part was just blank

the two most interesting changes/errors:

the sign for trayaurus' office is translated in french but in spanish it's in english but in a different squished font? i'm not sure why they'd change that, i had to go get the pictures i took of the english one just to check i wasn't going insane

and here's a silly error i noticed on one page...in the french version the speech bubbles just went randomly off course

soon i'm going to try translate all the text to see if it's accurate/different, what i can make out now is pretty much the same.

we've found two other translations of this book, but for...political reasons i don't feel comfortable talking about them. if things were different in the world i would absolutely, because one of them is possibly bootleg and the other one has a flipped reading style so the whole book is the other way around. we HAVE found a full version of one but i don't want to offend or alienate anyone, so i won't talk about them.

i could, however, make more blog posts about the book, because it's inspired me so much. just not in a completely positive way. the story and characters i of course LOVED in the book, it's dantdm, favourite series in the whole world, my comfort series. the illustrations in the book though...um

i also found it being sold on a japanese site, but it wasn't translated. but i did see some of the tube heroes figures being sold on yahoo auctions in japan. i would try get a closer look but it's blocked in the uk and i don't have a vpn... ;-;

BONUS, ON THE TOPIC OF TRANSLATIONS:

before you ask, no, this is not ai generated, or a fandub.

there was this canadian kids show called "gaming show in my parents' garage" which was just stuff about kids playing video games and getting guest appearances, dan was in a few episodes!! but also it was dubbed and broadcast in central europe on a channel called megamax, this is a clip of the romanian dub. the guy doing dan's voice i found out is called alexandru rusu, and he does a lot of romanian dubbing for other shows. for just a few examples, he did the narration on this same show, cyborg on teen titans, geoff in total drama, the bus dude in fireman sam and the narrator in thomas the tank engine in the seasons where it wasn't cgi

[eriexplosion]

Bad Batch Season 3 Episode Title Predictions

Okay, so I've poked at the trailer enough that I think I can do a series of predictions that is likely to topple like a house of cards immediately but hey what else is this month of waiting for? Here is my very rough outline of what I'd love to see in season 3 based on nothing but the trailer and Vibes.

Episodes 1-3, "Confined" "Paths Unknown" & "Shadows of Tantiss"

These three seem pretty obvious, we'll likely catch up with Omega and Crosshair first in Confined, which is likely where we'll see these clips from the trailer:

As well as probably the (SAD AS HELL) discussion between Omega and Crosshair shown in the Celebrations trailer. Mix their scenes in with catching up on Hunter, Wrecker, & Echo - I'm actually really attached to the idea that Echo is searching for Tech, having not given up on him. This also parallels to Omega talking to Crosshair, about not giving up - I think that's going to be a theme this season. Can't run away, can't give up. But if Echo is searching for Tech then it might just be Hunter and Wrecker right now, likely giving us a few of their action shots together.

I do think that Omega and Crosshair's escape attempt is going to be relatively early in the season - either at the end of Paths Unknown or the very beginning of Shadows of Tantiss. I went into it more in this post and paired up a few shots of Tantiss' defense systems as well as the crashed ship with Omega and Crosshair. From the look of it, they likely don't make it off planet due to the damage and crash land and have to try to escape and, in the process, are split up and lose each other. Possibly they are able to contact the batch, who are on the way to try and get them when things go wrong.

My guess is that by the end of this three parter we'll have Crosshair reunited with the batch, or about to be, Omega on her own trying to evade Hemlock and his men, and somewhere along the line our reveal that Tech is alive because at this point I can't see them not aiming at a comeback with how hard they're trying to keep his 'death' on all our minds.

Episode 4 - "A Different Approach"

If Crosshair didn't meet up with the batch by the end of the previous three, then probably he does it here, I just get the sense that he's been gone for so long that we need to get him zipped up with the others early in the season, especially since we'll have several reunions to get to by the end of the series.

With Omega still separated but hopefully out of Tantiss at this point, they have to adjust how they plan to find her. She's now a moving target, because she's on the run still and likely unable to contact them. Echo will meet back up with them here, I think, maybe with info on wherever Tech is (my prediction: still on Eriadu in some fashion, either held with the good old pirates & smugglers or possibly by Tarkin himself, but I'm hoping the pirates & smugglers) and Rex will likely come too. I do think that they have their exchange about losing brothers here but rather than being about Tech, as the trailer implied, it's about Nemec or Fireball (or both) who possibly died getting the information. I just feel like those two are not long for this world, unfortunately.

We'll also follow Omega here, now completely alone for the first time. Previously she always had the batch, then she at the very least had Crosshair. Now she has neither and she has to try and figure out what to do. The title does dual work here, both the batch and Omega have to find a different approach in order to try and reunite.

Episode 5 - "The Return"

I feel like this is going to be a mostly Omega centered episode. Where is she returning to is the question, I still think that this refers to a place rather than a person returning. Pet theory - Cid put out several bounties on her to try and get her tracked down and rescued and she gets a blast from the past when she's grabbed by Bane a second time and taken to Ord Mantell. She of course is Not trusting Grandma Crimes anymore, but Cid is trying to redeem herself and fix what she broke.

While this is going on, the parallel return is the batch getting to Eriadu in order to set up the two parter.

Episode 6 & 7 - "Infiltration" & "Extraction

With the batch set up, they're ready to go get Tech from wherever he's been stuck! These two are likely more action oriented, with a little bit of Difficulty between Crosshair and the others after so long apart, but they find their footing well enough and begin to work together in order to get Tech out. They're 5/6ths of the way to a full family, they just have one more to get a hold of!

Episode 8 - "Bad Territory"

Getting fully into Pet Theories here but I think that this shot from the trailer

is Batuu - going mostly from the distinctive looking spires here. Another possible Omega focused episode, Cid is taking her to Batuu to cash in a favor. Not one owed to her - one owed to Omega, by Roland Durand. (LISTEN HERE'S HOW INFESTED BEING RELEVANT CAN STILL WIN-)

Anyway the focus here is on Roland trying to link her up with the batch. This might be a good place for Fennec to make her reappearance too, working from the Batch's end.

Episode 9 - "The Harbinger"

I'll be real I have no idea, my ideas started getting thin right about here, but I will say the title sounds like a great place for Ventress and the Teth monastery to make their appearance (I'm assuming they'll be together) but how they would actually play into the plot if they appeared here is unclear. I do think that we'll finally get everyone together though or at least be on our way to it, in order to bring us to our next two parter.

Episode 10 & 11 - "Identity Crisis" & "Point of No Return

The team is back together and all is not well, because everyone is still suffering a severe case of the Issues. No one can agree on what to do, where to go, with the identity crisis being the batch unsure of how to move forward together. Omega of course gets immediately stressed out by it all because it seems like she finally got her family back together only for it to immediately start falling apart. Wrecker is probably right there with her. Tech & Phee have their moment together, Echo still thinks they need to fight and I think that Crosshair is going to tend towards that too. Hunter at least absolutely wants to retire to Pabu right now immediately, but as the show has been trying to demonstrate, avoiding things won't be an option because-

Point of No Return is the dreaded invasion of Pabu. The Empire followed them here in order to retrieve Omega, and they barely escape, evacuating as many of Pabu's residents as possible. Shep doesn't make it out and is imprisoned.

Episode 12 - "Juggernaut"

This is where like a full quarter of the trailer comes from because they can show us several exterior tank shots without showing who's in the damn tank. I think the point of this one will be to get Shep back, since it does look like him that Wrecker is carrying. We know that Crosshair, Hunter, and Wrecker at a minimum will go in, but I think likely Omega and Echo are there (likely together thus being why we don't see much of Echo in the trailer) and Tech might be with Phee.

Episodes 13-15 - "Into the Breach" "Flash Strike" "The Calvary Has Arrived"

Grouping these three together because I have no idea what happens here except that we're likely going to be mounting an attack to take down Hemlock and, hopefully, free all of the clones that he's been experimenting on. The time for hiding is over, they have to take a stand against the Empire. Not because they're soldiers, but because they're a family, and the other clones are still their brothers.

For the first time, we don't leave our own behind can get followed and they're going in.

The Calvary Has Arrived is not a title I can see going dark to be quite honest, it's more of a full circle moment, it's the Batch becoming who they're meant to be, a family that fights for each other and for the other clones, I will cling to the idea of a happy ending (hopefully one that sets up a continuation that might focus more on Rex and his clone rebellion) until it's ripped from my cold dead hands thank you very much. I think that after the family has spent two seasons absolutely torn apart, becoming increasingly fractured, the best ending is one that has them finally united, all six of them, for the first time.

Like Omega said. They're more than soldiers. They're a family.

[desultory-novice]

Nintendo Dream May 2023

Return to Dream Land DX Interview w/ the Staff

[Note: This was 8 pages long. I bought it the moment I could and wrote down/quickly summarized everything I could find that was of interest while reading through it. I didn’t even edit it or spellcheck it ^^ It’s not a full translation, there could be some bits I misinterpreted, and there’s some technical stuff about the development and staff that I left untouched, but this should be all the good stuff!]

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They spent a long time debating whether the game (in Japanese) should still be called "Kirby Wii" but decided that since it WAS "Kirby Wii" it should keep the name.

They originally thought of giving RtDL a title like the novel version had.

Giving the characters the outlines took a hefty amount of processing power.

Even among the staff, RtDL is considered the origin point of modern Kirby.

Kumazaki's keyword to the staff was "nostalgia filter" - to not just remake the game as is, but to add enough features that it was even better than how people remembered the original.

They didn't force themselves to release all three games (Forgotten Land, Dream Buffet, DX) for the 30th anniversary, but they considered being able to do so ideal. As such, they began working on it while FL was still in development.

As to the borders, they knew it was difficult to introduce a new visual element to a series midway through, but they regretted how easy it was to loose sight of the characters in Star Allies, which is why they added them in. That and the fact that it make the characters look more like they were artwork, as well as fitting in with RtDL's naturally more fantastic and cartoony look, which also helped visually distinguish it from SA that used a lot of similar looking locales to RtDL

As for Dedede's redesign, they mention that he's partly redesigned to best represent what he's used for in each game. In TDX, he was an enemy and an ally, so he was meant to look cool. In Star Allies, he was friendly and a bit goofy. In FL, he was designed to fit with the look of the Beast Pack. DX's Dedede is meant to kind of mix FL and Star Allies, partly because FL Dedede became so popular and had such recognition. (They also note that, regrettably, RtDL's original Dedede had to have his body made smaller because of bounding box issues.) They weren't able to make him the "large and in charge" powerful type they wanted before now.

All the voices were rerecorded for this game, including the masks.

In regards to the opening animation, they talk about how there was no specific situation in mind, but note that Waddle Dee looks like he was sent flying. The reason is because Waddle Dees were still considered generic enemies at that point, and so it made sense that something had sent this random Waddle Dee flying off, which is why it happened. (They also note that because of the timing, it looks like Meta Knight was the one responsible, but it's just a random enemy thing.)

"Helper Magolor" started out from the idea that Watanabe and Tanifuji both had young kids and they wanted a game that their children could play, without sacrificing the depth that veteran gamers enjoy. Kirby is made as an entry game for gamers of all levels, and they feel they opened it up to even more players with this. Really young kids, and people who aren't good at action games but want to enjoy the story. (They were a little surprised at how much the little kids struggled with FL's 3D action elements. While it's natural for us to use inhale and then swallow for a copy ability, little kids and gaming newcomers would forget about that, thus, the auto-copy feature.)

It made sense to make Magolor the helper because he was the key character in the story, and that it would seem he was giving you assistance for you helping him fix his ship.

They debated between some 60 different ideas for new copy abilities before settling on the two that they did. The deciding factor was abilities that seemed like they would belong in Kirby but also be fresh and new.

"Festival" is back not just because it's an anniversary game, but because it fit the feeling of a 4-player adventure. (And also, with Helper Magolor on, it gives a way to increase Magolor's presence in the game.)

They mention that Kumazaki rewrote all the ability descriptions and added all the pause screen lore. That they did like the figure-based methods of lore in FL but wanted to stick with the classic style for RtDL DX. (Also, Watanabe mentions that Kumazaki is a very fast writer. What Watanabe would've taken a day, Kumazaki finished in only an hour. Maybe even faster than than that, Watanabe adds!)

Originally, they only planned for about 40 dress-up masks. Then Kumazaki decided to ask for 86, mostly to please the fans. They choose things that would be easiest, such as characters who already had a 3D model, characters that would make fans the happiest to see, or characters who were simple to make. They chose masks instead of just making them playable because they didn't want to disrupt the setting of RtDL. (And also, because souvenirs like that are a staple of theme parks.)

One question is "Why did Magolor build Magoland in Dream Land?" (For those wondering if it was really in Dream Land or not. Kumazaki answers that you  have to understand Magolor's character. He's someone that loves making things and also loves surprising people. When the idea of turning the sub-games to attractions came up, and which Kirby universe character would be responsible, it just had to be Magolor who made them. Magolor has become a character that's really easy to involve in the series. "If something is making something particularly entertaining in the Kirby series, it's Magolor's turn," says Kumazaki. "Magolor has both magic and technological abilities, which he uses to make things with."

As for the "when" and "where" of Magoland, Kumazaki notes you can kind of get the real picture if you play the game till the very end, but if you're not too concerned with the details, it's okay to just think "So, he made an amusement park at some point!" That said, he implies it supposed to be a bit of a mystery/a bit up in the air. Did he want to make something Kirby and the others would enjoy after all his experiences with them? It's up to the player's interpretation.

The possibility of putting Magolor on the original box art existed, but since he was "just a one game character in a series of games" they left him off to focus on the four person appeal of the original game. But Magolor appeared in more and more things and became popular enough that he finally earned his place on the box art.

Kumazaki mentions that every character starts out as an unknown. Even mega popular characters like Meta Knight were once just a lone boss in a "new" game. His becoming a major player thanks to "Revenge of Meta Knight" and being a character who fulfills an important role helped him to become more recognizable. Magolor has stopped being one of these "newcomer" characters and evolved into his own fully-fledged character with this game.

Kumazaki confirms that in general there's not a straight, forward-flowing timeline in Kirby as much as there is a series of loose connections. And that in-between events, the characters are generally imagined to be living peaceful, ordinary lives - just like in the opening movie. "There, Kirby has a cake and is being chased by Dedede. There were all sorts of fights before then. And maybe King Dedede was causing trouble again and Kirby had to stop him and that led to them running off with the cake...The details are left up to the imagination."

The interviewer mentions that competing over cake makes it seem like it's continuing off of Squeak Squad. Kumazaki notes that though Kirby and Dedede fight with each other, generally speaking, they get along well. As far as the relationships with the characters and how they interact, Kumazaki says, "there are times where, if the Halberd becomes necessary for a game, it's more natural to just make it the Halberd than to have a brand new unknown battleship appear out of nowhere."

"We don't have a story/timeline" he quotes himself, while noting that the truths that have spread among the players as well as the relationships between the characters and their quirks have to be preserved to a certain degree or it's like you're meeting a new cast each time. So they DO keep certain truths and relationships in mind as they make the series. Sometimes this means putting the role of the "bad guy" on King Dedede, but that doesn't change the fact that he and Kirby are "rivals." (But that he will occasionally be unfair too...) That's a fairly recent, "unchanging fact" of the Kirby world. They mention that even Bandanna Waddle Dee goes from being Dedede's vassal to a friend of the group. though recently he's been recognized more and more as "one of the group."

Meta Knight is the same as Dedede. He's someone who will fight Kirby if circumstances call for it. Like how here, in the opening, he's calmly reading a book in between his sword-training, but he pauses to see if Dedede is causing trouble, or if something threatens the peace of Dream Land.

Kumazaki says, noting the inclusion of Magolor's theme park in this game technically makes RtDL DX an alternate universe to the original RtDL. But the information you learn after 100%ing the game challenges the idea of a single flow of time. With the existence of "Another Dimension" that can cross over both space and time, players are free to see that the passage of time does not lead to one single result. That should also help explain why Kirby and the others are able to warp between Magoland, which exists in its own faraway universe, to the main game.

He adds that this is mostly for people who are concerned about the fact that main mode Magolor is depressed about his ship but Magoland Magolor is happily running his theme park.

There's also a note at the end that Landia was named "Landia" instead of something like "Dark Dragon" to make it seem more natural that they could become an ally. They were also designed to look like they could be friendly. (There's also a comment - not from the dev staff - in the "Games Magolor has been in" page that "Magolor uses the same sword as Kirby! Proof that they're friends?!)

Finally....

THE INTERVIEW WILL CONTINUE NEXT MONTH! (Where they'll discuss more about Merry Magoland and the Magolor Epilogue!! Also, Kumazaki will be looking back over the 30 years of Kirby!)

[lespetitesmortsde]

For the asks thing: 4, 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, 20, 22?

A couple of these I've already answered, so I'll link the previous answers - that's on me because I was slow responding to these asks!

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

Oh god, actual WIPs? Well, posted I have... six for Imodna and one for supercorp. If we include docs that have chapters partially written? Then it goes up to I think 11 for imodna and four for supercorp.

TECHNICALLY. However, I am lowkey working on new chapters for Eyes on Me and Let the Pieces Fall into Place which make it eight posted WIPs for imodna, or 13 total WIPs for imodna.

7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

Answered here!

8. What project(s) are you currently working on?

Imodna first:

All the posted WIPs: When the Stars Go Out, Dolcissimo, Set the World on Fire, Before the Body Decays, All I Want for Winter's Crest, and Let's Get Out of This Town.

Then there's Eyes on Me and Let the Pieces Fall into Place which are unofficial WIPs. Technically, they're oneshots and complete, but their docs have new content under new chapters so. We'll see.

Finally, the secret ones I'm working on:

Supercorp-wise:

Slow It Down (the only one posted so far), Shatter Me (just needs another round of editing), En Garde (sidenote I love fencing and I hope to find a different title), Three, Working Title I (I'll just say: tattoos), and Working Title II (angst. much angst).

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

Depends on the fic and depends on the chapter. When I first start a fic, sometimes I need an outline doc right away and I'll work on that until I've exhausted the initial idea and spark, just try to use that fire while I can. Sometimes the fic gets away from me and then I need to make an outline doc later instead of a handful of notes at the end of the fic doc.

In terms of sitting down to write a chapter, sometimes I have a series of bullet points of things to hit in the chapter, but more often than not, there's a line or two of notes at the end of the doc to remind me what I want to include/where I'm going and that's enough.

Lots of research happens as I go, though, which I think some people do in advance and thus might constitute planning, but I prefer to do in the moment.

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

Answered here!

16. At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

Oh boy. Okay. The rarest point of all is at the beginning, but once in a blue moon it happens. In general, I prefer to come up with them at the end - harder for a multi-chapter situation where I try to find something that embodies the overall vibe. When the Stars Go Out is such a long title, but it fit the vibe of what I want the fic to be, and I stumbled into it trying to think romantic and philosophical thoughts when I'd finished the first chapter. Dolcissimo on the other hand has been titled since the outlining stage where I got deep into a glossary of music notation terms and promptly titled the fic, each chapter, and the sequel and its chapters.

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

If/Then for sure because it kind of fell into my lap after some trial and error and it fits SO WELL. In my humble opinion, of course.

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

In general, yes. Some fics I have a specific vision and others there might be a particular scene or an emotion I want the reader to come away with. Do I know every detail about the ending? Absolutely not. I haven't seen in-depth a ton of others' processes, but I think I write from a fairly bare bones outline. The act of writing - the typing and the finding the words as I go - really impacts and shapes what comes out. Like. Something happens during the times where my fingers clicky clack against the keyboard and I can't really explain it, but I have, often, a vague goal and my keystrokes get me there. Sometimes far later or after many more words than anticipated.

Are you curious about something? You can ask me stuff, too! Here's the list of questions, but my ask box is always open!

[cowboyhorsegirl]

End/Start of the year! Means it’s time for an end of year self rec list! If you want.

A top 3-5 list OR rank all the fics you have done this year in a full, completely arbitrary, ranked list of all the ones from this year! Would love to hear your thoughts on your own work :)

Is it too late to answer this or does the almost-end of February still count as "the start of the year" lol

In any case, this was my first year writing fanfic! Writing any fiction at all even, save for the obligatory short-lived YA dystopian novel series my friends and I outlined in the 6th grade together. All that said, I've loved SteveTony for close to a decade now, and I really, really loved getting to explore them even more through my own writing. I'm very excited to practice and create more for them over the coming year :)

Hands down, my favorite fic that I wrote last year was Paradise Blue in 1872, which was written in a fugue state three days after reading the 1872 comics and promptly devouring all the existing 1872 fic on ao3. I love the 1872 verse so dearly (it was the first comic I ever read! biiiiig year for docdracula fandom firsts in 2022), and I had a lot of fun imagining what the nature of Steve's feelings towards Tony might have been before the actual events of the story began. I hadn't really intended to make Steve's devotion to Tony a conceit for religion, but religion tends to come up naturally in my writing a bit anyways so I just leaned into it extra hard for this one. Paradise is definitely the fic I reread the most from my own work by a very large margin, and I think it's some of my best writing, so I'd highly recommend it (and bonus! you don't need to know anything about the 1872-verse to enjoy & understand it other than the fact that Steve is a postbellum cowboy sheriff and that Tony likes to sing to him outside his jailhouse).

Lie de The (Memory Serves Me) is another favorite of mine, a kind of concise summation of the events of Phases 1-3 of the MCU from Tony's 2nd-person POV. I quite enjoyed the more poetic meter and the repeating phrases in this fic. I remember writing this fic in chronological order, largely over the course of one afternoon, and I recall delighting in trying to tie together the later sections with motifs I'd introduced in the earlier ones. It was also a treat to have an idea that I wanted to develop from Tony's POV. I tend to gravitate towards writing Steve's POV, and as far as I'm aware, the only times I've ever written Tony's POV have been in 2nd person. Let's not examine that too closely.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Twilight is another fic that I both loved writing and enjoy rereading! I just feel like there aren't nearly enough stories out there about Steve and Morgan, and more broadly, stories that focus on the fact that Steve has known three different generations of Starks. I feel like there's definitely a lot of inspiration there to wrestle with, if anyone was so inclined to explore those relationships and the way they interconnect further. This was just my small contribution to that endeavor. (And fun fact! The title comes from this ink. The color changes from dusky blue to a deep vibrant mauve with each additional layer of saturation. New meaning with repeating timelines and lifetimes and what not, you know?)

Burn Baby, Burn. I just get a kick out of this one lol. It came to me almost completely fully-formed in an almost divine revelation as I myself was applying sunscreen one morning during the SteveTonyGames. Also make sure you all are wearing sunscreen all year long & don't forget to reapply every couple of hours throughout the day xoxo <3

Stuff Happens was purely a self-indulgent AU of a bollywood movie I used to watch several times a week between the critical ages of like 3-6 years old and which definitely dealt me some form of queer awakening the likes of which I would not be consciously privy to until high school. It was a fun time stevetonifying it :) I will say I know for a fact that this one is criminally underrated bc for the first 12 hours it was up, I had fucked up the tags (Steve Rogers & Tony Stark instead of Steve Rogers/Tony Stark :/ ). So if you're interested in some college AU fluff, I can almost 100% guarantee that you haven't read this one yet.

Blue Black. Another 2nd person Tony Stark POV fic, this time set in the aftermath of 1872. I'll be honest, I only wrote this fic because the line "But so too do his handprints still paint your hips from the last time he touched you." popped into my head unbidden and I couldn't just not do something with that.

I'm putting Growth, Freshly Squeezed Sunshine, and Stand By Me all in the same category of fics I'm happy to have written but that I personally do not revisit at all. These are all stories that I don't think I executed as well as I could have, but I'm glad that there are other people out there who have enjoyed reading them <3 Extra love goes to Growth because it was my first fic, I wrote and uploaded it the day I got my ao3 account, which is certainly a fond memory for me. :)

Thanks for the ask anon! Here's to many more years of writing! <3

[rickie-does-random-stuff]

Planning out my 2025 (in writing + content creation)

Writing can feel like juggling with fire — exciting, daring, and more than a little chaotic.

My personal problem currently has been that I feel like I have so many ideas and not enough time to do anything real with them. I start stuff and it takes forever to actually come up with a smooth conclusion. And now that I post my work online, I have the added pressure of followers/readers that follow some of my stories. Which is cool, but it is another important thing to keep in mind. It's easy to become overwhelmed. Lately, for me, it seems as though there is so much to think about that it is hard to move forward and know what to do next.

I do know that my main goal right now is to finish something, and actually have a refined and polished result in the end, and not a decent but rather rough outline of a story (which is essentially what the majority of my "finished" projects are. Like the Steph's Crew trilogy, for example. Technically it is "finished," but I wouldn't say it is publishing ready at all). Only thing is, I have multiple projects that I want to finish... I think I'll just tackle them one at a time, to prevent myself from burning out.

Here are all my WIPs and writing projects, ordered in prioritisation, I guess.

1. Artificial Galaxy

This is a collection of interconnected poems and short stories that weave together themes of technology, city life, relationships, regrets, loneliness, hope, and just musings about this futuristic world. It’s my experimental dive into lyrical storytelling, and it’s near the top of my list because it’s so different from anything I've ever done, making it the most exciting to me.

2. Zeke Coleman’s Guide on How to be Hopeless (previously known as Untitled Teen Romcom)

A deeply personal, humorous, and heartfelt novel following the titular Zeke Coleman as he navigates life’s absurdities and his own doubts. It’s quirky, messy, and full of life—everything I want in a character-driven story. My sister gave me the idea to write this, so I'm dedicating this project to her!

3. The Threadweaver’s Pattern

I came up with this idea while reading Narnia (I still haven't finished the series... but I got a lot of inspiration from the fantasy world and all the symbolism in the books. It's beautifully written). This is a fantasy novella that centers around a realm where destiny is crafted with literal threads (which, now that I think about it, is a lot like the plot of that Disney show "Evermore". If you don't know what I'm talking about, then feel free to look it up. I wasn't conscious of this similarity when I initially came up with this story idea, I promise), and it follows the tumultuous journey of a weaver in training who tries to change her fate, and the group of misfits she encounters and befriends along the way. I’m excited for its blend of magic, rebellion, and intricate world-building.

4. Hope Kamani’s Uni Sequel (not the official title, don't worry)

The sequel to Zeke Coleman’s story, told through the perspective of his frenemy/crush, Hope Kamani. It’s a parallel narrative with its own voice and arc, making it both challenging and fun to write as I outline and build it alongside Zeke’s story. Technically, this should be number three, since my thing with sequels/series is that I kind of plan/outline/write all books in a series at around the same time or consecutively side by side. But I wanted to give a bit of space between the two stories this time around. It's good to shake things up every once in a while.

5. Behind Closed Doors

I've already posted about this one on my main blog (@rickie-the-storyteller). This is the one that I'm arguably the most passionate about right now (and simultaneously the most apprehensive about). It has everything that I'm into as a reader — a complex tale of love, friendship, resilience, and redemption that explores deep social and personal issues. The reason I'm putting it last on this list is because I want to give myself as much time as possible to kind of sit and ponder upon the ideas for this one. I have already planned and outlined the full story and plotted it out, and I have even done dialogue plans for it like how I did with Steph's Crew (planning to start posting those in December on my main blog). But there's no official first draft yet. It's basically ready for me to start writing it, but I'm going to give myself a minute or two to prepare for it first.

I aim to finish these projects one at a time, and then publish them for others to read! Either on here, Wattpad (although I'm kind of losing my patience with Wattpad to be honest... I'm seriously thinking of deleting my account on there soon), KDP or whatever else I end up deciding to use as a platform for my work. I'll figure it out eventually.

Aside from all that, though, we also have to deal with this:

The "Steph’s Crew" Trilogy:

I made it clear before that I definitely do want to get this series published once I was done with it. My mind hasn't really changed on that... I see a lot of potential with it, I guess. Plus, I've spent the longest amount of time with this one (it was the first story I started sharing when I first began sharing my work online), and I started it when I was in a rough spot and needed escapism lol. It would be nice to be done with it. Not in a bad way... just to draw the final curtain of that chapter of this segment of my story, you know?

I want to seriously think more about that after I'm done with university, which won't be for a few years yet. This means I have a bit of time to polish it up and make it ready for other to read in its entirety!

1. The Misfit Manifesto

A gritty, heartfelt dive into the lives of a ragtag group of teens facing their final year of secondary school and all the drama that comes with it. This trilogy opener sets the tone for all the craziness to come in the future instalments.

2. Unreported Violent Crimes

Yet another sequel of mine that happens to be set in university! The stakes are higher, the crimes bigger, the past reveals itself to be darker, the relationship drama is crazier, and the lines between right and wrong blur as the story deepens. This sequel ramps up the tension and tests the characters’ loyalties.

3. Story of a Broken Thing

The final section in the trilogy, where they all do a ton of travelling around the world (it ends up lowkey being a theme that ties a lot of the main characters together even though they are mostly separate in this last instalment. Travelling to different countries outside the UK. And breaking the law, but that's kind of a given). It's a epic world tour grand finale that brings closure, resolution, and the ultimate test of each character’s growth and principles.

Other Miscellaneous Content...

I love connecting with readers in a more spontaneous way on these platforms. Expect everything from fanfics to my AU series, to even rewriting stories that I think need a fresh spin (which I guess also counts as fanfiction. I don't know, I've never done fanfiction writing before. But I do have a lot of ideas for it... I've often watched shows and stuff and wondered if I'd be able to do as good a job or a better job at writing certain scenes, arcs and plot points) These side projects keep my creative muscles flexed between major drafts.

Each of these projects fuels my passion in unique ways. By tackling them one at a time, I hope to pour my best into each story and share that magic with others.

(BTW - I plan to make a separate unique themed logo for each of these! Like the one on my main blog for Artificial Galaxy for example. Its just a fun little thing to do)

I might make a part 2 post discussing my ideas further.

[petermorwood]

Over the course of 18+ novels, mostly my own but some co-written with @dduane - including "The Romulan Way", * written on what should have been our honeymoon - I've usually employed ~10K-word chapters totalling a 10-chapter, ~100K-word book.

Each of those chapters gets sub-divided, the break usually indicated in manuscript with three asterisks between two empty lines, to indicate change of location, change of POV etc.

(This between-section symbol actually has a name. It's called a dinkus, and in published books may still be three asterisks, or something more decorative such as a fleuron or dingbat.)

I could have made each break its own separate chapter, but that would have resulted in the Patterson style under discussion. I've never read any of his stuff, but have read other books with similar short chapters, resulting in scores of them. They've always seemed excessively fussy, but that's just me.

(I don't like it when a short story has titled chapter-breaks either. It looks pretentious in something that's only as long as a novel chapter, though again that's just me.)

On the flip side, it took me a while to get used to Terry Pratchett's non-chapter books. Like a lot of people I was accustomed to the "read to the end of the chapter then stop / sleep / whatever" approach, but it quite soon became "Just keep a bookmark handy".

*****

* "The Romulan Way" is is a classic demonstration of why outlining beats pantsing, especially when writing franchise material and even when the writer owns the franchise.

DD's carefully constructed outline...

...was what had been accepted and approved by license-holder Paramount in the first place, so had an Official Green Light (more about that in a minute);

...was plot-precise enough that when the situation required, it could be written at speed (in 16 days, chapter about);

...was used to refute a stupid (and IMO malicious) accusation that "RomWay" wasn't Real Star Trek, just an unsellable SF story with Trek characters plugged in. Paramount's on-record approval of the outline confirmed it was real enough for them to pay for, and that was that.

Finally, why was it written so fast?

Long version here, but the short version is because DD was story-editing an animation series at the same time ("Dinosaucers"), the show's finance and scheduling got mucked up, when clearances finally came through the studio still wanted all episodes by The Due Date despite now having only a third of the production time, and "RomWay" also had a hard publication date.

So I got thrown in at the deep end, transitioning from a typewriter with a UK layout to a PC with a US layout (the differences are Small But Significant) in a matter of hours and then starting work.

Doing that work without the outline would have been impossible for either of us.

*****

Until I wrote my first screenplay (an episode of "Batman: The Animated Series") I hadn't realised that even in my very first novel, chapter and section breaks had been almost exactly equivalent to <FADE IN>, <FADE OUT>, <CUT TO> and other screenplay instructions. I'd even used <MATCH CUT> in both visual and dialogue forms... :->

There are lots of screenplay websites on-line: looking at Famous Movie Scripts will show how visual drama is set up on the page before it reaches the screen. It works just as well when writing prose, which has no budget limit for the location shooting and SFX.

*****

IMO a "chapter" that's excessively short isn't a chapter at all, and calling it so doesn't make it so, any more than calling a dairy cow a racehorse doesn't mean it can win the Grand National.

YMMV, of course. There are millions of readers who don't mind short chapters.

And after all, a famous fictional cow once jumped over the moon...

;->

Hi, Diane, I have a technical writing question for you: How do you decide how long a chapter is?

I've noticed a trend among mass market books of authors adopting the James Patterson style of chapters lasting a page & a half to three pages, but sometimes not even half a page. It's infuriating, especially when action on a single scene is split amongst them. I grew up learning that a chapter is an association of scenes, & that breaks were left for major scene and/or expository changes. If a book had 30 chapters, it'd be 400 pages long. Now I have 215-pages novels with 45 chapters!

You've always delivered a really good, fairly even, page & word per chapter count. So what's your thoughts on how it should be defined, & perhaps any on this metastasizing trend?

I haven't been entirely clear about what to do about this since I first started seeing this divergence of chapter lengths happening. (And bear in mind, this is a wide spectrum to be dealing with. There are books of Terry Pratchett's that have no clearly defined chapter breaks at all.)

My own take on it in the short term has varied depending on what book I was writing, and what rhythm the interactions among the characters were expressing. Sometimes written character business can happen very quickly, over a few pages: sometimes it has to happen more slowly, as it does among real people—a series of interactions, a pause, then further ripening developments and interactions.

Patterson is well known (I think) for having a house style... because I'm sure it'll have been a good while since he wrote anything but the high points of any given book himself. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the house style reinforces his own preferences, which would seem to be for very short interactions... that "short attention span" we've seen being discussed for so long, and getting shorter and shorter all the time.

I think it's safe to say I refuse to go that road. I want to allow readers time to sit in the characters' business (as it were) and think about what might happen next. I'm not afraid to allow the readership time to speculate about what might be about to occur before the next sequence of events sets in.

Is Patterson afraid to allow this? (sigh) I may have been a psych nurse, but I decline to attempt to read another writer's mind: that's a sure path to a headache. Is it possible that writers are as susceptible as their readers to that short-attention-span problem... and unwilling to attempt to slow it down for fear of being seen as somehow "behind the times?"

Damned if I know. Again, I decline to judge. But I sure as hell know how I'll behave on my own ground.

...Let me suggest a possibility to you, looking forward. Patterson's rhythms have all become the same because his (for certain values of "his") books have all become the same. ...And who's to blame for that? Readers are well known, in the industry, for wanting to read the same thing again and again, just a little bit different. That's not the readers' fault any more. They've been trained to it. And the market reflects their training.

You, meanwhile, get to set your own rhythms, and (ideally) allow the reader to settle into them, if they find other aspects of your voice congenial. Just because the Patterson modality seems to be all over the place at the moment, doesn't mean that it will continue to be. The market, gods help us, is all about the New. Someday (gasp) Patterson will be Old. And then what? Will slow slowly start to become cool? Tough to tell.

For myself, I write in a lot of different modes (gods help me, right now over on Bluesky we're discussing the possibility of a paranormal travel agency German [or maybe Swiss] Christmas market cozy murder mystery); and every single one of them requires a different rhythm according to the subject matter, the thought processes of the characters, the rhythm of the story itself and of the characters making their way through it, the way the action expresses itself throughout this story, etc etc. I can't imagine what doing it the same way all the time, regardless of the story's and the characters' imperatives, would feel like. Deadening, at the very least. And isn't writing about being, and becoming, more alive, not less??

If I've got a message, it's this: Let Patterson go his own way (for whatever values of "his"). None of us are going to be him, any time soon.*

I think you should write in the rhythm, and with the chapter breaks, that best suit the story you're telling. If some of your readers don't like those... fine. Others will. Whether they like to hear it or not—and some of them won't—like books, readers too are ephemera: they come and go. Your job is to be faithful to the story as you conceive it, and the rhythms and chapter breaks you feel it needs. The story has no one else to depend on.

So: get busy being God in your own creative universe, and ignore what other gods are doing in theirs.

HTH!

ETA: Historically I've had a tendency to use the "shopping list" method described over here for my outlining, and that's routinely determined chapter lengths to some extent. (i.e., if there were ten items on the list, and [thereafter] ten chapters in a 100K-word book, then that means 10K chapters.)

...Except when I feel a chapter needs to be subdivided, or combined with another one and then the whole thing chopped into three. Or when more entries get added to the master list. I look to see how a chapter "feels" when weighed in the hand of the mind: too long? too heavy? too short? too rushed?—and then adjust its length accordingly.

So briefly: my own basic rules are guidelines, to be broken when necessary. Yours should be, too. Only experience will teach you when this is necessary. But that's just another part of the Craft. "We learn by doing..." :)

*Though do we want to be?

[allisonreader]

The Hidden Royals… playing with the outline.

The thing is that I have the main pieces that I have posted and I just haven’t been able to expand upon them. And I feel like I can’t really write James' story without better fleshing out his parents and Daniel's. It being hard because I don’t really want to write more before Roland's takeover, but that’s really jumping right into the action.

I really have been thinking about this in the back of my mind the last few days. Funnily enough reading The Selection series has only strengthened this. Probably because it’s about royalty itself. Though The Hidden Royals will be extremely different in tone. Particularly when I think about the first part/book, which I’m pretty sure (at least at this point) I’m going to call The Devoted Servant. It just fits with that part of the story which really will mostly be about Daniel.

Now that has just given me a thought. Maybe I will have to break the story into three or more parts. The Devoted Servant focusing in on Daniel and his perspective of Roland’s takeover. The maybe what part two will actually end up being is The focus on Theodore and Elizabeth fleeing for their lives and starting to get set up in Shadowfen. Then the third one would be where the series title comes from with The Hidden Royals which would detail James' story of him learning of his princely heritage and being taken by Roland's men. This one would also have the only hint of real romance story in it. All other parts would essentially already have established relationships, where there’d be a hinted to obvious one for James.

I also just had the thought of how I could potentially incorporate Lalawa just a little bit more into the tapestry of the story. Mostly by including her in more of the prequel short story idea that I have. Where Lalawa helps pick out the next heir to the throne when that answer isn’t quite so clear cut as it should have been. (Lalawa likes Theo's grandfather more than Roland’s grandfather or father.)

Just so you’re aware. This has been sitting in my drafts the last few days and has been added to a couple of different times as thoughts come to mind. So if anything has felt disconnected, that’s why.

I bemoan the fact that there’s so much that I could potentially do with this story and I just don’t know how to go about it beyond what I already sort of have written.

[twicesonnet]

hellooo, how about #1, #4, #49?

hi! thanks for the ask!

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

This is hard because I obviously want to recommend something that I think has the best writing, and so some of my older stuff wouldn’t technically make the cut. But I would be remiss not to tell people to start with my Miseducation of Cameron Post series. It’s the book that got me into writing and publishing fic, and I’m still proud of it. For a bit more craft, I think “what haunts a ghost” is perfect because it deals in a lot of the stuff I usually write about, family (found and not), and strong but vulnerable female characters. 

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

I’m unduly proud of all of my andor stories, and I feel like my Cinta-centric fic didn’t get as much love as the other ones so I’ll drop an excerpt of “what the future wants” here. its a future fic with some flashbacks to aldaani, but I really liked writing a spies perspective of the time after endor, and I enjoyed setting the scene in coruscant. 

She shoves Kleya lightly in the shoulder when she sees her, rumpling the perfect pleating of her pinafore, and eliciting that sharp unhappy sound that Cinta once loved to bully out of her. Coruscant is bright with fireworks, which Cinta thinks is inadvisable, but the effect cannot be understated. Luthen’s shop, with only the back room lights on, glimmers with refracting light.

“You used my real name.”

“It was an encrypted channel.”

Cinta hums. “You would have never done that before. Something really is different.”

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

I’m currently working on the beast that is my leia and vader time travel angst fest, and some off-shoots of that, as well as a fantasy-au vel and cinta thing that I’ve mostly just outlined!  here’s a line from both:

this place loves what it eats: “She thinks if she sees them she would collapse, cut loose from everything she’s tied herself to, Wild Space, the unfamiliar, Vader’s weirdly human face. Her parents would disarm her of all of it, and she would go to them, and sit at their feet for the rest of her time here.”

my lady (tentative title): “It began when Cinta spotted the men one morning while gathering water for the horses. There were three of them in uniform, lazy in their affect but not their movement, bringing equipment efficiently out of about a dozen tarp-covered carts.”

[bonefall]

Bonefall Rewrite Masterpost

uh

HELLO THIS IS UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION. PARDON THE DUST.

“So what exactly is the Bonefall Rewrite?”

It is a fix-it redux of the Warriors books, sticking to the canonical order of events while making the narrative stronger and eliminating pointlessly uncomfortable aspects.

Full disclosure, it is mostly notes, outlines, and thoughts because I’m tired all the time

There are three FOUR goals;

To make a more thematically consistent WC series with a more conclusive stance on anti-authoritarianism and consistent politics for both Clans and the individual cats that constitute them.

To flesh out the culture of the clans, as well as those of the groups they interact with.

To expand on related supernatural elements including StarClan, nature entities, nature gods like Midnight and Rock, and the Dark Forest

NEW! To be cool as hell and add better battles, deaths, and dramatic scenes.

All of this is being attempted while following the ‘iconic‘ events of the main series and allowing the clans to still be flawed while textually addressing their problematic elements. I’m trying to limit massive changes; the point is to tell a more compelling version of the WC series with the same skeleton.

To that end I’m avoiding creating OCs and re-namings when possible. The exception being duplicate names because I will NOT allow there to be four Robinwings, three Milkfurs, or two Ashfurs

Other ‘fixes‘ include stretching out the timeline, shuffling around litter orders to diversify sibling dynamics, a reworked Lake map, and MASSIVELY untangling the family tree to allow for better genetic diversity and generally make the canonical pairings less gross.

“Sounds cool, where should I start?“

With this HISTORY LESSON! It’s a mega truncated guide to how each arc affects the future ones politically, just mentioning the biggest changes I’ve done to each arc so far.

Other important ‘meta’ changes you may wanna start with,

Here is my redux of the Warrior Code

I try to avoid renamings, but here is every character with a name difference from canon. Conflicts, saved kits, honor titles... (if you ever don’t recognize a name and it’s not on the wiki, check here!)

Better reasons for the scarred cats to be named like that (looking at you, Crookedjaw)

The first draft of the reworked Lake Territory map

Color-coded version

Rules and Guidelines for Family Tree reworks

StarClan’s shifting morality and a redux of the Dark Forest

After that, you can search the tag #Bonefall Rewrite, or, check these links below! I tried to sort everything that’s relevant into sections (so please lmk if I missed something you think should be here)

Family Tree Changes

(re-posted link from above) Rules and Guidelines for Family Tree reworks

First draft of the reworked ThunderClan family tree

Second draft of the reworked ThunderClan family tree (focuses on modern ThunderClan)

Assessment of WindClan

Assessment of ShadowClan

Initial thoughts for ShadowClan

Individual Cats + Reworked Relationships

Initial thoughts on The Daisy Chain (her and her family)

Spottedleaf is a rogue StarClan warrior WITHOUT that weird crush angle, and Redtail is rule-obsessed

Redtail was a strict and disciplined deputy in life, and mates with Runningwind

More examples of Spottedleaf and Redtail’s dynamic

Runningwind, Redtail, and how they as parents have affected their children, Longtail and Sandstorm

Spottedleaf’s ghost is channeled with tarspot-blighted sycamore leaves; further principles on how I approach Redtail and Spotty

Redtail would HATE being a spirit guide

Graypool is the sister of Willowbreeze from an OLDER litter (Diversifying sibling ages in general; Longtail is the older brother of Sandstorm, Tigerheart is younger than Dawn and Flame)

Spirituality Overhauls

(Reposted from above!) StarClan’s shifting morality and a redux of the Dark Forest

StarClan/Dark Forest Reply Roundup

The Dark Forest can ALSO grant lives

Why Thistleclaw walks the Dark Forest

Antpelt’s second death is an accident because they don’t know the living can kill spirits.

Sol, Rock, Midnight, and Sharptooth are gods of the four seasons

Harry is Possessed by Sol; Cinders was a lie

(Continued)

Sol meets Midnight and Proposes a Game

Through Sol’s trickery, Hollyleaf IS Fallen Leaves

Outside Groups Redone

Tribe of Rushing Water Redux

  Plus a possible replacement of the naming system and governance of the Wards

  Plus expansion on the religious customs

BloodClan Redux

MAIN ARCS REDONE

ShadowClan from the era of Yellowfang’s Secret up to TPB is MASSIVELY overhauled, Brokenstar is no longer born evil

Crookedstar’s Promise redux initial thoughts

Follow-up with more solid ideas

Bluestar’s Prophecy redux

Bonefall TPB

Firestar’s Quest redux

Bonefall TNP

construction

Bonefall Po3

construction 

Bonefall OotS

construction 

Bonefall AVoS

construction 

Bonefall TBC

SUPER EDITIONS AND NOVELLAS

Ripplestar’s Rot

Stormpaw’s Demon

Bluestar’s Flowers

Brokenstar’s Cataclysm

Firestar’s Quietus

Cloudtail’s Vow

Sol’s Game

Hollyleaf’s Century

Squirrelflight’s Horror

  #Forget-Me-Not AU

Bluestar has a friend from each clan and the group meets in secret. These friends are Oakheart, Lizardstripe, Barley, Ashfoot, and Deadfoot! There are also now two Barleys; Senior, and his nephew, Junior. They symbolize their friend group with forget-me-not flowers.

  #Father!Lionblaze AU

Lionblaze and Cinderheart are now the parents of Ivypool and Dovewing. Birchfall is Dovewing’s beloved mentor, Ivypool is the apprentice of Brightheart. Ivypool’s role is also greatly expanded in TBC, actually taking Bristlefrost’s place in some events.

This post will be continuously updated as I keep working on the rewrite, so keep checking back!

[basicallyjaywalker]

Deep inhale. Well since you asked so nicely :D

On Razed Ground

Current WIP, takes place between S4 and S5 with some minor canon divergences (Pixal has a body already, Morro does not return in the same way) and is a three line story following the ninja, Pixal, and Ronin and Skylor respectively. Zombie AU! Telltale's Walking Dead inspired but I mostly wanna focus on the terrible human tragedy of an apocalypse (do you guys ever think about death?) and am going to draw on other zombie/apocalypse media (most of which was recommended by the very cool @finn-m-corvex ).

It's actually in the process of a semi-rework, taking my first outline and draft and doing a little extra planning. First thing I'm actually doing a full big plan for before writing because I want things to be really, really good

Broader Zombie AUs from that

And now, because ADHD is a menace, I have about 3 different other Zombie AUs that are scrapped ORG ideas.

One is the apocalypse happens at the very start of the series and all of the seasons/the pilots are rewritten with that as a change. So basically the day Nya would've been kidnapped is the day the outbreak hit their village

One is zombie apocalypse with the previous generation of EMs, not much aside from that, just a concept

And the last is just a series of unrelated one shots that mostly deal with death, grief, and ethical quandaries and will probably be the grab bag of any scrapped ORG ideas or scenes (because I have a lot of ideas but there's only one way someone can die)

The Grand College AU

What started as cute silly lesbian fluff spiraled into three separate storylines. Help

The first one is a Nya x Jasmine (OC) story. Both are workaholics whose friends encourage them to join one of the theatre groups on their campus to chill tf out. Jasmine is a sound and lights girlie, Nya is a minor actress, they both fall fast and hard and pine for weeks. Shenanigans ensue!

Then there's the polycule Jay fucked around and found himself in after he and Nya (amicably) broke up after graduation. Jay gets three boyfriends through autism rizz and it is similarly silly. Dumbassshipping + Kyle (OC).

And finally there's a cute friendship between Lloyd and his new roommate, Nataly (OC). Which I have one full scene thought out and it's them hashing out complicated feelings about their parents, and the rest is them getting into misadventure!

Overall a very silly AU. There's also Pixane but it's mostly Pixal being an exhausted wingman for Nya and Jasmine and she makes Zane watch movies with her after to decompress (he enjoys it)

Hallmark Movie (WIP title)

Another current WIP!

Another silly romance one! This is Kai x Hannah (OC) wherein they are both trying to get their shit together after some life fuckups.

Hannah moves into a new town after a breakup with her long-term girlfriend. There, she meets this annoying guy named Kai. Neither can stand each other at first, but they come together to restore an old building in town they have a connection with. They procees to slowly inch towards love in the process.

New Americana Inspired AU

Bruise celebrity AU! Jay was raised by Cliff and is groomed to be a child star. Hates this lifestyle. Cole has a similar backstory to canon, including running away from home and living with this weird old guy who runs a tea shop with his nephew. Lou still pushed him to be a dancer and Cole became famous for a bit before running away and disappearing off the face of the earth. They have a chance meeting and begin a forbidden romance. Themes of self-discovery and independence ensue! The finale is planned in my head

Scooby Doo AU aka Ninja Mystery Solvers

Monster Living AU

Fan season fan season! The basic idea is what if the people who ran Mega Monster Amusement Park were an evil megacorp and decided to make entire towns where everyone in them works for the Corp and the Corp controls everything in their lives! Very WIP

Kai, Nya, Pixal, Jay, and Cole are the Scooby Doo gang and I reimagine seasons/plotlines through the lens of Scooby Doo

Jay and Cole are Scooby and Shaggy (who has whose energy changes)

Nya is Daphne

Pixal is Velma

Kai is Fred

No planned ships other than some possible side character crushes and would mostly be a collection of the sillies

Original Masters AU

Story where the original elemental masters/embodiments of the elements are like gods. Some of them come back to Ninjago and try to make everything anew, disliking the direction the FSM's creation has taken. Problem being they have very little regard for life! Oops. There's also a possible crime drama/ace attorney scene in this. Because I can. Because it's fun

Other horrors include the masters having the ability to possess the current EMs and use their abilities. This requires having physical access to both the EM and the EM being extremely weakened though, as their powers naturally fend off the possession when at the level of strength that would interest one of these gods

And yeah that's about it! I have a few others but none of them are really fleshed out enough to talk about here

ANYONE that has a Ninjago AU omfg, please spill, I really want to hear ur guys’ ideas, AUs are so awesome and it’s so cool that creativity can bring so much insane stuff, DROP THEM NEOWWWWWW (and if u reblog don’t put it in tags…😞) I want to read them, I’m curious…

[babyboiboyega]

These Shadows of Mine (pt. 2)

Previously known as “Inventory and Tea”

These Shadows of Mine (pt.2)

Steven Grant (eventual Marc Spector) x reader

Content: angst, feelings of rejection, fluff near the end

Word Count: 3.8k

Babyboiboyega's Marvel Masterlist

Babyboiboyega's Masterlist of Masterlists

A/N: NEW TITLE! "Inventory and Tea" literally started off as a one-shot in my mind, but after thinking about it, I decided to make it into a short series/re-write of MK as a reader insert!

So sorry it took as long as it did for this next part to come out. I have a tendency to completely plan out a piece of work, and then when I finally start to write it, I completely venture off that plan I had initially set...and that is exactly what happened for this part. I had it all planned out. I sit down to write and find myself not sticking to my outline at all!

BUT ANYWAY! I hope you all enjoy this second part as much as you enjoyed the first part! And without further ado: "These Shadows of Mine (Pt. 2) !

Part 1, Part 2

RECAP

“Goodnight, Steven. I’ll see you tomorrow…and get some rest.” You gave him a smile before turning completely and starting your short trek home. You could feel his eyes on your retreating figure, and you were glad that your back was to him; it allowed your smile to grow incredibly giddy and allowed you to come to the realization that maybe…just maybe… this wasn’t just a little crush.

Whatever it was only seemed to grow, especially as you arrived the next morning only to stumble upon a small, blue and silver tin in your locker in the break room. 

Eyebrows furrowing in both confusion and recognition, you picked up the familiar tin. A note was taped to the top of it, but you already had a suspicion as to who it was from…and it only made that same, stupid, giddy smile appear on your face.

We need more people in the world like you. Thank you for helping me.

xxSteven

********

Finding the tin had only been the beginning of you and Steven’s budding…relationship? It honestly seemed like the best word for what had developed between you two. 

Whatever it was had been completely wholesome and enjoyable as it grew in ways that only further confirmed how much you enjoyed each other’s presence. Whether it be going to a comfortable cafe or just having a night in with take-out, every time you were in each other’s presence, you both made sure to make the most out of it.

Officially, you two had only been on three dates, but with how much fun you had had on those other outings, they might as well have been called dates. The events you were currently getting ready for were considered a date, and you couldn’t be more excited. 

Every date had excited you, but this one, in particular, was special. You two had taken turns in choosing what kind of date it would be…well, choosing as in sometimes you chose where you two went, and other times, he’d suggest something he knew you’d enjoy and you’d go along with it; but this time, after insisting he pick somewhere he had always wanted to go, no matter where or what it was, he had finally picked a place that he had excitedly told you about one day at work. 

The memory of him quickly explaining what and where it was, a big smile gracing his features, made you even more excited as you found yourself walking up the steps to the building where the date would take place. 

The front of the building was covered in glass windows, allowing passer-bys an unobscured look into the events taking place inside. It was easy to see the easels that held varying sizes of canvases. Each canvas was being painted on by a couple, yet each partner had their own. You watched as, for one minute, they each painted different patterns and pictures on their canvases before switching them with their partner’s the next minute. 

You couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on your face as you excitedly looked around, eyes roaming those who walked around you. Certain you’d recognize Steven as soon as you saw him, you climbed the steps to the front door of the studio before sitting in one of the small chairs that sat outside. However…that’s the furthest you got during the entire night.

Eventually, an hour passed. Then an hour and a half…then exactly two hours from when your date was supposed to start, you finally lifted yourself with a huff. You blinked quickly as you looked at your home screen. It was void of notifications from Steven despite your multiple messages and calls to him. 

There was a growing feeling in the pit of your stomach, and it made your eyebrows furrow. It took a while to recognize it as a mixture of worry, confusion, and…well…acute rejection. With your thoughts racing on an unpredictable path, you started walking, letting your feet guide you to your flat. 

You knew Steven well enough to know that he wouldn’t just…stand you up. He had more than enough dates to do that, but for some reason, he’d picked the one date that he had planned himself? Everything had been going great up to this point; so great, in fact, that tonight’s events had you momentarily second-guessing whether you and Steven’s intentions were the same. Of course, you knew whatever Steven’s intentions were, they absolutely couldn’t be harmful; it wasn’t the type of person he was.

That lead to you questioning if something maybe kept him from showing up, which only lead you down a road full of more worrying. 

There was a brief lull in your thoughts where you remembered Steven’s “sleeping problems”, as he called it. It only made your worry grow.

What if he had been so tired that he’d somehow gotten hurt? What if he had passed out somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, and was in a tough situation? 

You tried Steven’s cell one more time, letting out a soft curse as it went to voicemail yet again. Only when you hung up the phone did you finally stop walking, and it only showed that, without you realizing, you had started making your way to Steven’s place instead of your own. 

The buildings looked vaguely familiar, as you had only been to his flat about a handful of times. But the building that he lived in was completely familiar as it stood on the corner, tenants walking in and out. 

You found yourself quickly running for the door that was closing slowly behind an elderly woman, grabbing it right before it met its frame and locked you out. Before you could talk yourself out of going up, you stepped into the dimly lit lobby, following behind the woman as she made her way to the elevator.

Was this too much? Was this crossing a line?

You had only ever been to his place with him at your side, leading you upstairs while excitedly talking the entire time. Not once had you taken it upon yourself to just show up, unannounced. While you would have loved to be at that level in your relationship, you didn’t want to make Steven uncomfortable. 

But there was something about tonight that just made you forget about potentially crossing that line in lieu of making sure he was okay. 

He’d surely understand…right?

The loud ding of the elevator cut your thoughts off, signaling that you had finally made it to Steven’s floor, yet for the first few seconds, you didn’t move. You stayed in the elevator, eyes traveling down the hall to land on his door before you hesitantly stepped out of the elevator. 

The entire, short walk down the hall was filled with you second-guessing your actions. Several “what if” questions raced through your mind, becoming more frantic the closer you got to his door. 

You didn’t hesitate to knock on it once it stood in front of you, absolutely sure that if you had allowed yourself to dwell on it for too long, you wouldn’t have knocked. However, once your knocks echoed through the hallway, you froze.

A few seconds passed without any sound, and you briefly chastised yourself for assuming that he’d be here. But as soon as you had finally concluded that maybe he wasn’t at home and turned to make your leave, a dull thud came from the other side of the door. 

Stepping closer, your eyebrows furrowed. You knocked once again, your previous worries about him being in danger being forgotten and now being replaced with that feeling of acute rejection. As you stood there, listening for any other indication of Steven being home, the sound of something falling and a hushed voice cursing softly reached your ears. You sighed. 

“Steven? I just wanted to swing by because….well, you didn’t show up for our date, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

At the sound of your voice, all noises on the other side of the door stopped abruptly. Silence descended, in which you came to a realization that…maybe you shouldn’t have done this. 

Steven’s efforts to make it appear as if he wasn’t home spoke volumes despite his best efforts to keep quiet.

“I…I hope I didn’t cross a line coming here. I was just worried that something was wrong…but now I realize that I probably shouldn’t have come.”

Silence. 

You took a deep breath and tried to shove that rising feeling of frustration and embarrassment down before it could cloud your thoughts. You were still giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it was all growing rather thin now.

Your voice was soft despite the hard edge your words had. 

“Look, if you didn’t want to go out tonight, you could have just told me. I’d understand. I know about your insomnia, and you know I’d understand if you were too tired or something…but just not showing up-”

The door opened quickly, and it had you stepping back quickly. Your eyes widened as they landed on Steven.

Eyes quickly taking him in, you were quick to come to the conclusion that…something was different. Aside from the fact that he was looking at you from behind a half-cracked door, there was something in the way he looked at you.

Steven’s eyebrows were furrowed, and despite the dark circles he constantly had under his eyes still being there, there was a hardness to his eyes that you never saw; a certain guardedness. Especially when he looked at you. 

His lips that were almost always set into a small grin when around you were now set in a hard frown, completely concealing his laugh lines that you always appreciated. 

“Steven! I…is everything okay? You didn’t answer any of my texts or calls- I thought something was wrong.”

He quickly shook his head, his eyes roaming around your face and the surrounding hallway. 

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Did he…was that it?

You knew that you weren’t the clingy one in the relationship; it was something you took pride in sometimes. Neither was Steven, but Steven’s completely different demeanor coupled with his nonchalance at being fine and standing you up was making your frustration build. Your eyes narrowed.

“You’re ‘fine’? You’re completely fine and just…forgot about our plans for tonight?”

He wordlessly nodded, and you didn’t offer a response at first. You were still adjusting to this new demeanor of his; a demeanor that you found odd and completely out of character for Steven.

No. Something was wrong. 

Taking a deep breath, attempting to keep your voice soft and unaccusing, you stepped forward. If his hands hadn’t been behind the door, you would have reached for them. Instead, you settled on offering a small, reassuring smile.

“Steven, you know you can talk to me. Really…is everything okay? I’m…I’m not mad, I’m just worried about you. You didn’t show up for hours and you didn’t answer your phone for hours; surely you can see why I’m worried, yeah?”

You hadn’t expected him to completely bare his entire soul to you, but you definitely expected more than just the forced smile and head nod he sent you. Maybe even an “I’m sorry for not letting you know I was okay”.

Your smile faded at his silence, and you could feel your shoulders drop in dejection. A heavy sigh left your mouth and you stepped back once more, nodding in understanding.

“I’m still worried about you. Just…let me know when you’re ready to…communicate the way partners should. I’m glad you’re okay,” at least as okay as you say you are, you had half a mind to add, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

He looked as if he had wanted to say something as you turned away, but you continued without giving him another glance. You hadn’t even made it to the elevator when you heard his door close with a soft click, and you hadn’t even made it to the elevator when tears of frustration sprung to your eyes. 

You allowed a few of them to fall before wiping furiously at them. 

You had had a feeling when you first started seeing each other, that the relationship wouldn’t be as normal as other relationships. You couldn’t help but wonder if this was the beginning of something that would only progress further. 

**********

Quite ironically, the weather outside matched your mood to a T. The clouds were dark grey and filled with water just ready to pummel the streets below and any person who would be caught in the downpour. The rough winds pushed those clouds across the sky quickly, and you begrudgingly likened them to the unsavory thoughts swirling around in your mind.

All of the thoughts had one thing in common, or rather, one person: Steven.

Not hearing from him for half of the weekend meant days of dwelling on what was going on with him while also living your own life. 

It wasn’t a question of if something was going on, it was just a matter of finding out what was going on. It was rather easy to see that something was happening, especially remembering that the Steven you had talked to a few days ago before half of the weekend had flown by was in fact not your Steven. 

You found yourself wondering if Steven would be back to normal- or as normal as he usually was- as you ascended the steps to the museum. 

Thankful to be out of the dreary weather, you offered a small smile and a greeting to the security guards in the front lobby before taking the usual route to the employee’s room. Of course, the “usual route” lead you right past the counter Steven was usually stationed behind; the counter that was now empty as you passed by. A quick glance at the clock showed that Steven should have been at his station, and his absence made your eyebrows furrow. 

Plastering your usual “welcoming tour guide” smile on your face, you nodded at the museum-goers who caught your eye before finally making it to where the break room was, though, you never made it quite into the room. 

Admittedly, your mind was preoccupied with coming up with potential words you could use when- if- you saw Steven in the room; so preoccupied that you didn't notice the door already opening as you reached for it. 

The door was replaced by a body that you promptly ran into, making your bag fall onto the ground. 

“Oh! God, I’m so sorry.”

Your bag was all but forgotten as you heard Steven’s voice. Instead of reaching to pick it up, you could only look at him in confusion as his endearing rambling started.

“I’m so sorry, I’m all thumbs this morning. Don’t think the coffees kicked in yet.”

All of those potential words that had been flying around in your brain had completely disappeared as he spoke to you as if…the entire weekend hadn’t happened. As if he hadn’t been so nonchalant and dismissive about missing a date that he had planned. 

“Hopefully it’ll kick in before…well, before our date tonight.”

If possible, his words had confused you even more. 

You continued standing there as he leaned down, gingerly picking up your bag before handing it to you with a smile on his face. You’d pay to see your own expression, and you wondered if it conveyed exactly how confused you were. 

“‘Date’?” 

His smile faded rather quickly at your question and at your expression. The softness that constantly resided in his eyes when looking at you took on a tinge of hesitancy and dejection. 

His head nodded slightly as you took your bag from his hands. 

“Y-yeah, for our date, that we planned- or well, that I planned. For tonight. The place I was telling you about….right?”

You couldn’t ignore the way your chest tightened as he became more uncertain the longer he spoke. His eyes, which had once been focused on you, now flitted about your face and your surroundings in nervousness. You were instantly taken back to two nights ago, Friday night, when he had been hesitant to look you in the eye. Then, his eyes flitted around as if he was in a rush and desperate to get the conversation other with. This time was completely and utterly different. 

It only took a few seconds of really looking at him for you to come to the realization that he was just as - if not more - confused than you were at this moment. 

His hands, no longer having your bag to occupy his hands, now fidgeted with each other before switching to the buttons on his shirt.

“Steven…our date was this past Friday. Today is Sunday.”

His head quickly lifted, alarm evident in his eyes at your words. His head shook quicker this time, almost as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“No…it…today’s Sunday? That can’t be. We just spoke yesterday- on Thursday.”

The feeling of rejection you had been feeling was instantly replaced by sympathy as you watched Steven. You could practically see his mind coming up with questions he, himself, couldn’t even answer. 

You only knew so much about his sleeping condition; you couldn’t imagine what else he was going through behind closed doors. It was evidently enough to make him miss events and get entire days mixed up. 

Attempting a small, reassuring smile, you hiked your bag onto your shoulder once more before reaching forward and placing a hand on his arm. Almost subconsciously, one of his hands raised and landed on top of yours. He squeezed at your fingers, and you had no problem being the person who could help ground him. 

“Steven, we can always schedule another day. But…” your smile faded, yet you kept your hand where it was, appreciating not only his grip but the fact that he hadn’t pulled away. “Are we gonna…talk about what happened Friday night?”

The pure panic that took over his features had your eyes widening and your head quickly shaking. You rushed to reassure him but he was already talking in a hurried manner, his hands gesturing wildly.

“W-whatever I did, I’m terribly sorry. Sometimes I…sometimes I forget things- honestly, not just things. I- God, I’m sorry. I’ll do anything to make it up-whatever I did.”

Without hesitation, you took the hand that held yours and led him further down the hallway and around a corner, out of sight of whoever happened to venture down the hallway. The last thing either of you needed was Donna sticking her head into your business. 

You prayed to whoever was listening that you sounded more reassuring than patronizing, because that wasn’t what you were trying to do at all. You’d never want Steven to feel like you were talking down to him. In reality, it was pretty hard to talk to him about his sleeping problems as neither of you really understood what was going on.

To your understanding, and according to a medical journal’s website, he had some sort of chronic insomnia. But with this new, albeit vague, piece of information, you didn’t know if chronic insomnia was the right diagnosis. It was rather hard to come to the correct one when neither of you were doctors. 

“Steven, it’s okay, I promise. I forgive you.” You said that just for the sake of giving him peace of mind. In all honesty, there was nothing to forgive him for. Sure, you had been frustrated, and sure he had seemed to be a totally different person when you had spoken to him before not hearing from him for a few days, but it was obvious that there was something deeper going on. 

It was obvious he didn’t know exactly what was going on, and you couldn’t even imagine what it felt like; waking up with entire days’ worth of memories just…not there. 

Gently taking his other hand, you held both of them between your bodies. 

“Its okay. We can try to go again sometime this week, yeah? And then…maybe we can talk about what’s been going on? Only if you want to, of course! But I do want you to know that I’m here to listen. I understand you may not want to just divulge all of your business to me at once, I totally get that, but I also want you to know that…I want you to talk to me, but at your own pace.”

The panic on his features had slowly smoothed out into an unreadable expression as he gazed at you. His hands, which couldn’t seem to be keep still a few minutes ago, now rested dormant in your own. He had turned his hands around to hold yours, and now one of his thumbs ghosted gently across your knuckles. 

The longer you stood there, the more convinced you became that you had to figure out some way to help Steven. But you could only do so much as just a partner of his. 

“I want to talk to you, I just…I just don’t really know whats happening myself.” A short, mirthless laugh escaped his mouth as his shoulders lifted in a shrug. His smile faded as he became more serious.

“But I want to talk to you- I really do. I just…don’t know where to start. It’s been going on for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if I just need a good, long nap, or if I’m broken, or what.”

Subconsciously, your hands tightened around his at his words. Your head shook quickly, and your distressed expression must have been screaming the words you were thinking, because then he was shaking his head quickly. It almost seemed as if he had a new resolve after seeing how his own words had affected your feelings. 

Typical Steven. 

Leave it to him to put someone else before him, even when discussing his own mental health. It made you want to cry and kiss him simultaneously. 

“No, no, no- I’m not broken. I just…need a little help, ‘s all.” 

It took less than a second for you to wrap your arms around his being, and it took even less than that for him to reciprocate the embrace. 

You could feel his chest rise and fall with a deep breath, his breath brushing against the side of your neck. 

You tried to convey all that you wanted and needed to say in that embrace. There would come a time where you’d eventually figure out the words you wanted to say; right now, you could only hold him tighter to you as you both stood in an empty hallway. 

He wasn’t broken. Far from it, in fact. And you were hellbent on helping as much as you could. 

******************************

Once again, I hope you all enjoyed this part just as much as the first! I'll try my hardest to get the next part out, and this series will eventually start following the events of the show (very soon, actually)!

Please like, reblog, and/or comment! Waking up to y'all's comments is one of the best things ever, and I really appreciate it!

I will be tagging this series as “These Shadows of Mine” and “TSOM” on my page so that they’re easier to find! I’ll also be linking the parts on my Main Masterlist and my Marvel Masterlist! :)

Stay safe, y'all! <3

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

The City is Ours ; WIP Intro

Genre/Setting

modern/low sci-fi, superheroes ; set in a big city that I'm cautiously giving the placeholder name Henderson, somewhere north on a US coast

Playlist

POV

third person limited, multiple characters

Status and Length

outlining and planning ; five book series (hopefully)

Tropes and Themes

found family but they’re all dumbasses, chaotic teenagers with superpowers, a little bit of romance on the side, villain arcs and redemption arcs, forgiveness, are you the hero or the villain, what’s the difference between good and evil, reluctant villains, queer representation, POC representation, disabled and neurodivergent representation, Jewish and Muslim representation

Warnings and rating

violence, potential torture, mild cussing, guns, blood, potential depictions of discrimination and bigotry (towards super-powered people mostly), trauma and mental health issues, and lots of angst ; Teen and Up

Main Characters

Nickelle AKA The Icicle (she/her) *main POV*

Team Leader

Ice Powers

AroAce

Japanese American

Lead Singer of a local Band

Asher AKA The Flashlight (he/him)

Team Dad

Light and Shadow Powers

Gay Christian

Latino American

LEGO and Star Wars nerd

Gabriella *no superhero name, not known to public* (she/her)

Team Cheerleader/Fashion Designer

No Powers

White American

CisHet

Blonde Bimbo

Kylee AKA Now-Ya-See-Her-Girl (she/they)

Youngest Teammate

Speed and Invisibility Powers

Redhead White American

PanAce

Nonspeaking Autistic

Bryson AKA The Healer (he/him)

Team Medic

Healing Powers *the only person he can't use his powers on is himself*

African American

CisHet (but he's on thin ice)

Will lecture you if you get injured doing something stupid or reckless

(not official yet I'm just considering it) Has Type 1 diabetes

Vira "V" AKA Morph (they/them)

Team Big Sibling

Shapeshifting Powers

Nonbinary Lesbian

Muslim

Soccer and Softball Player

Cocky and impulsive

Jason AKA The Hotshot (he/him)

Team Asshole

Fire Powers

White American

CisHet

Thinks he's special because his dad is rich

Chase AKA TechGuy (he/him)

Team Tech and Hacker

No Powers

American Romani

PanAro

Jewish

*possibly* Bipolar Disorder and or OCD

Anxiety and Depression

Antagonists

Black Hole- the first big bad. alien from space who's just trying to get some extra credit so they don't fail their AP Planet Domination Class

Miss Recluse- One of Black Hole's three sidekicks. Full tilt diva

The Magician- Black Hole's second sidekick. Besties with Miss Recluse.

Mr. Cyanide- Black Hole's third sidekick that becomes a bigger threat villain. Mad scientist with a deadly knack for chemistry.

The Snow Queen- Big bad in the last three books. Mainly uses her ice to control tech and people. Only an urban myth until the last two books.

Boss Lady- Mafia boss who's working for/with the Snow Queen. Big stronk woman with the muscles of a strongman

Blood Debt- Mainly a loner vigilante anti-hero that kills people who have done wrong. Does jobs for the Snow Queen. The Grim Reaper if he were in a biker gang.

Nightmare- small time villain that doesn't actually hurt anyone. Her powers can put people to sleep and she's a really smart engineer. More of an anti-hero side character if you squint

Plot

A bunch of rookie teenage superheroes and their journey to becoming family, protectors of the city, and eventually defenders of the world over the course of five years and five books- following their adventures in crime-fighting, chore rotations, grocery shopping, fighting and protecting each other like siblings, and saving the world.

Extra Stuff

Been working on this one for a while, but I didn't want to introduce it until i figured out an official name. The title might change later but I wouldn't mind if it stuck. I have a feeling Nickelle and Kylee are going to become my favorites

~~~

Tagging a couple of people and my mutuals that I hope will be interested or at least help get it to others:

@rose-bookblood @memento-morri-writes @bloodlessheirbyjacques @kjscottwrites @fiercely-raging-writer @emelkae @wip-nook @friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn