#I imagine that branch is in his early 20s and the others are somewhere in their 30s or early 40s

[leek-inherent]

Some portraits I did of Branch and his brothers from the new Trolls movie as humans :)

I finished the Branch picture first, then I spent a decent amount of time sketching out the other faces. I really enjoy drawing siblings as it’s fun to choose which features they will share and how they differ. I then spent a million years mindlessly colouring and recolouring trying to get the shading right so now I can’t tell if they look good or not. Also you cannot see Floyd’s earring because he is facing the wrong way but I promise he is wearing one.

I also sketched them in their early Brozone days. I imagine they all had the same(ish) hairstyle but dyed a different colour.

[folkdances]

FORGIVE ME FOR ASKINF AGAIN but what was the plot of boisvert and its time period? whats the fashion like in the universe?

IT'S OK because i love talking about boisvert more than ANYTHING in the WORLD! ok so boisvert is about merilance, a changeling, and her sister valerie, who both end up stolen away to fairyland because of their aforementioned status of changeling and unclaimed child. they are taken by two fairies claiming to have been sent by merilance’s ‘mother’. they’re taken in by a fairy named braughen, who lets them live in his home with his children: roscobell, andrias, daghain, and floralee & florabell.

braughen lives in the fairy court of the quagmire which is in a period of political instability because it is in the process of planning the annexation of the smaller court of boisvert. quagmire is doing this because the treacherous true ruler of quagmire, pasrsifal priorhark, is believed to be hiding somewhere within boisvert’s borders. merilance and valerie grow up here (they’re taken when they’re about 13-14, and then there is a vague time jump to when they’re in their early 20s) with vastly different goals in mind: merilance wishes to become a knight for quagmire in order to prove herself and protect valerie and get her back home, while valerie wants to stay in fairyland and continue studying magic, which is a science in the world.

merilance meets a scholar by the name of carrier who promises to help her become a knight in exchange for her help in his research into a particular branch of magic known as siphoning. as the story moves on, merilance becomes more and more disillusioned with quagmire’s political agenda, but all of this comes to head when braughen is murdered presumably due to his involvement with an anti-annexation group of radicals known as the priormancia, and his son, andrias, is wrongfully convicted of the crime. much of the first book revolves around merilance, valerie, and roscobell attempting to solve his murder which they learn is inextricably linked to quagmire, its ruler the rosenthral, and the ever-looming shadow of the ever-unknowable parsifal!

time-wise: fairyland exists outside of time. there's a whole diagram i drew but basically fairyland is only able to exist thanks to time that has passed and time that will pass, and so exists sort of next to the 'real' timeline. things move differently there. this reflects in the general structure of fairyland, which is vaguely medieval but more heavily lies on the imagination and what people think a fairyland would look like ^.^ as for what time merilance and valerie are from, they're taken some time in the early to mid-2000s.

i LOVE the fashion question. it's super stuffy and formal but really it can be whatever because fairies are silly! when drawing, i reference a lot of older illustrations for fairy tales, pantomime and other stageplay costumes, and generally strange and whimsical fits for strange and whimsical fairies. here's some choice picks from the pinterest board for u.

[teecupangel]

Submitted by @saberamane

Had a funny one-shot kinda idea pop into my head today at work. A modern AU where it’s Desmond/Harem (with Altair, Ezio, and Ratonhnhaké:ton) They’re all dating, probably in their 20’s (or early 30’s if you wish), they all live in a house they rent, and they’re all secretly Assassin’s. As in they all, individually, think they’re hiding their assassin background from their 3 lovers.

Now, like all good assassin’s, the house has random knives, daggers, guns etc hidden around the house, and since they’re all relatively the same, they find a hidden weapon they themselves didn’t hide somewhere, but think it’s just one they forgot about. Like they go to hide a weapon by taping it to the underside of an end table, just to find one already there, and they’re like ‘well I guess I already used this table, gotta find another one.’

And they all find out about each other when the house is attacked by Templar’s. They each panic, thinking they lead their enemies home to their lovers, and they have to protect them, just for all of them to absolutely kick ass together. And then come the questions.

How come you can fight so well? Where did you learn? Why didn’t you say anything? Then it comes out they’re all Assassin’s and even more questions are raised.

Turns out Ezio, who is the 'mentor’ of the Italian branch, is in America to not only set up new branches of his families bank (which funds the assassin branch in italy), but also to secretly investigate the 'grand mentor’, who is the leader of the whole assassin brotherhood, and therefore has more power than the 'branch mentor’s’. Because the new grand mentor shouldn’t have even been in the running for the job, and the italian branch think’s something fishy is going on.

Likewise, Altair is the 'mentor’ of the Levant branch brotherhood, and funnily enough, also there to investigate the new grand mentor.

And you guessed it, Ratonhnhaké:ton is the 'mentor’ of the colonial branch, which is separate from the main 'american’ branch. And is also investigating the new grand mentor.

And imagine their shock when they find out Desmond is the long lost son of the new grand mentor.

Then there’s some backstory, about why Desmond ran away 9 years ago, why the other three are investigating Bill (which boils down to Bill wasn’t a branch mentor at any point in time, and therefore shouldn’t have been in the running for grand mentor. The grand mentor is suppose to be picked from one of the branch mentor’s, who then appoint a new branch mentor to take their place. Bill came out of no where, and no one trusts that.)

And of course, jokes about how they all happened to end up dating each other, and how none of them really noticed the fishy behavior the others did, because it was normal for them. (And jokes about how the branches don’t communicate very well, because none of them knew other branches were investigating Bill. They could have coordinated better.)

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

Additions by teecup:

Oh, oh, oh. We can also add in that the last grand mentor was Al Mualim so, for Altaïr, it’s much more personal because Al Mualim died under ‘mysterious circumstances’. The official report says the cause of death was natural causes but that sounded like bs and his last known location was the US and that’s why Altaïr is investigating the grand mentor as the legitimacy of his title came from a supposed letter Al Mualim wrote that named him as his successor which screams bullshit to Altaïr. People assumed that Altaïr believed that he was Al Mualim’s successor (which he was as he was the mentor of the Levant branch - which is still named Levant because he was in charge of the countries that had been part of Levant in olden times) but Altaïr is mainly there to solve the mystery... And get away from all the paperwork that he had dumped on Malik.

Ratonhnhaké:ton, on the other hand, is in charge of the Colonial branch which is actually older than the American branch and his investigation is due to the fact that the American branch had been fractured since William Miles became the grand mentor although they’re keeping it hush-hush from everyone. Ratonhnhaké:ton received the title of mentor from Achilles and his other task is to unify the Assassins cells in America (and maybe finally unify the Colonial branch and the American branch). (… the mentor of the American branch is a secret but everyone knows that, if someone wants to contact the mentor, they go to Gavin who becomes their mediator)

And then there was Desmond Miles who has the training and the habits of an Assassin, to the point that he saw the hidden weapons and just thought “oh, I already hid something here” instead of being wary. Desmond has no idea where the hell his father is or how he became the grand mentor because…

Desmond left the Farm nine years ago. To be more exact, he left the Farm a month before Al Mualim’s death.

Unorganized Notes:

I think it would be nice if Altaïr and Ezio would be in their early 30s as a sign of how long they’ve been mentors while Ratonhnhaké:ton is on his late 20s and Desmond is in his mid 20s.

Desmond still works as a bartender but he doesn’t actually have to work. He does like to buy grocery though. A common joke among them is Desmond is their kept man and bartending is just a hobby of his. Desmond doesn’t get offended because he does like bartending because he likes making drinks (experimenting on them) and people-watching.

Altaïr’s front is that he’s there to assist on a secret research and development project which may or may not be funded by the American Government. He keeps saying he’s bound by an NDA. There is a research project that he’s assisting with but he’s actually assisting one of the Assassin cells in the American branch headed by Clay (with Shaun and Rebecca, Lucy optional XD). The project concerns the development of a forcefield that would surround Earth as a defense mechanism (whether this is pure human tech or connected to the Isus is up to you)

Ezio’s front is that he’s supervising the construction a branch of the Auditore Banks. Desmond is always his plus one but a lot of people assume he’s just a boy toy. Desmond has also met his family via video call because Ezio can’t help himself. They’re a bit worried about him having to share Desmond (only because that meant Ezio is keeping it a secret from 3 people instead of just 1) but they like Desmond’s other ‘beaus’ well enough.

Ratonhnhaké:ton’s front is that he’s the landlord of the building they’re living in (they live in the top floor all by themselves) which he had inherited from Achilles Davenport who is kinda like his unofficial uncle. Achilles had retired to his old family home with his wife and Ratonhnhaké:ton’s (as far as anyone is concern) older brother (all of which are part of the Colonial branch with his older brother, Connor, refusing to take the mantle of mentor since he believed Ratonhnhaké:ton is better suited and he wished to focus on keeping his parents and his new family safe). He went to live with the Davenports with his mother after his mother had a huge fight with his grandmother that made them leave their village but things seemed to have gotten better since Kaniehtí:io returned to the village and was accepted back 3 years ago.

Ratonhnhaké:ton is still a Kenway but he doesn’t use the name as Haytham Kenway is the COO of Abstergo and the Brotherhood knows they’re just a Templar front. Also, Haytham and Kaniehtí:io separated long before Ratonhnhaké:ton was born and she never wrote Haytham as his birth father.

[radioduo]

moonlight confrontations || dsmp become human au

word count: 1,832

notes: the next part of the dream smp dbh au! this took a sad amount of time to get done, but i actually like it, so i say it’s worth it! per usual, tell me if i fuck something up in the story, characterization, or even just spelling. feedback is appreciated!

first

writing is below the cut! if you see this edit, put in the tags or reply with your choice at the end :]

Ranboo watched silently as the detectives all milled around him and investigated the crime scene. Some whisked past him without so much as an 'excuse me,' while others just shoved the android out of the way. He didn’t mind much. They, not unlike Ranboo himself, had a job to do and a case to solve.

A missing android was reported early that morning by a distressed family. It had allegedly grabbed some of their belongings and vanished without a trace. Ranboo couldn't say he blamed the thing for running. From the look of it, the people must have treated it poorly. Trash littered the floor, and drops of blue blood painted the dirty cream walls. The room looked hazy, as though blanketed with a thin cloud of cigarette smoke.

Ranboo was almost glad he lacked a sense of smell. The blurry look of the room by itself was enough to impair his optical units and he couldn't imagine what the odor would do to his biocomponents. He shook his head and moved over to a corner of the living room. He adjusted his sunglasses, removed his glove, and touched a finger to the small blue blood trail that dripped down the walls.

Ranboo jumped. He turned around and saw Lieutenant Sam Greene, the head of deviancy cases. “Is it anything we can use?” he asked. It was hard to see Sam's expression behind the green mask he always wore, but the curiosity in the lieutenant’s voice was unmistakable.

“I haven’t analyzed it yet, but something tells me it's probably going to be useful information,” Ranboo said, turning away from the lieutenant’s watchful eyes. He removed his mask to touch the blood to his tongue for a scan.

Thirium 310

Fresh

Model GS400

Serial# 325 103 673

“Model GS400,” Ranboo murmured. He put his mask back on and faced Sam. “It’s fresh, maybe about half an hour old. Maybe that’s long enough to have escaped.” He turned to face the lieutenant all the way. “Has everyone looked around the premises of the house, or are there more places we need to check?”

Sam furrowed his brows in thought and swept his gaze over the smoky room. “We’ve checked the entire interior. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, everything. We found nothing on either floor,” he replied. He sounded frustrated. “I no clue what we might’ve missed here.”

Ranboo glanced around, his gray gaze sweeping the hazy room. As he looked around, a thought occurred to him. His eyes landed on the exit to the back garden. “What if it wasn’t in the house anymore?” Ranboo thought aloud. “What if it was lying in wait outside the house?” He bustled towards the door. “No one looked in the garden when we first arrived, and patrol cars have been out back the entire time. The android was found missing only 20 minutes after it had left, so if my hunch is correct,” Ranboo flung open the garden door. “It’ll be trapped.”

Ranboo stepped outside. The night breeze ruffled his jacket, and for a moment, the android forgot he was there to be arresting someone. He grimaced but stepped further into the garden.

Compared to the inside, the outside was surprisingly well-kept. Purple clematis flowers crept up white trellises, and a large weeping willow stood tall in the corner of the yard. Its leaves hung low enough to touch the grass below. Rain pattered against the pavement as Ranboo scanned the tall weeds for any sign of movement. Sam and a few other officers followed after him, but they said nothing as the android swept his gaze across the weeds and plants.

Suddenly, there was a rustling noise from where the great branches slumped. The android's attention shot over to the tall tree, and he hurried to look around. His eyes narrowed in suspicion but found nothing. Ranboo frowned. He had just turned to search somewhere else when all of a sudden, a branch had snapped and fallen to the ground right next to the android detective. Ranboo barely managed to roll out of the way of the twigs and leaves before his legs got crushed.

He landed in the grass and touched his face. A jolt of fear shot through him as he realized his sunglasses had fallen off. Ranboo rooted around in the grass for them. Even while in danger, he couldn’t risk people seeing his malfunctioning design. He felt the plastic in his grasp at last and quickly shoved the glasses over his eyes. He was about to relax for a moment when a shout from Lieutenant Greene startled him.

“Ranboo! There it is!” Sam yelled.

Ranboo snapped his attention to where a female android was scrambling to her feet and sprinting to the back gate. He leaped to his feet and took off after the startled deviant with Sam and the rest of the officers hot on his trail.

The deviant had slammed the gate shut behind her. Ranboo paused. One moment he was in the backyard, and the next he was hopping the fence with cheetah-like agility. He swiftly found the deviant’s trail, and the two wove in and out of the trees, kicking up dirt and leaves. “Stop! Stop right there!” Ranboo shouted to the deviant. “Freeze, or we’ll shoot!”

She glared at the officers behind her but didn’t stop. Instead, she took a sharp turn in the direction of the busy Detroit highway. The trees parted as the sound of speeding cars drew nearer. The pink-haired android paused, chest heaving, and bounded over the railing. She darted in front of cars, wove through traffic, and finally hopped the barrier on the other side.

Ranboo grimaced as he pursued her. He wasn't fond of the risk he had to take. It was fast, but it only had a 60% survival rate. He knew that Lieutenant Greene wouldn’t be able to follow him across, but he couldn't risk letting the deviant escape. He wrestled with his options for a moment, and finally huffed out a sigh. “Sorry, Lieutenant!” he called behind him. Ranboo took a deep breath and vaulted over the barrier into the busy street. He could feel his thirium pump regulator pounding in his chest like a drum as cars whizzed past him. The sound of screeching tires and honking horns filled his ears, and he fought the urge to apologize to the drivers as he hopped the barrier on the other side.

The female android looked over her shoulder, eyes widening as she saw Ranboo behind her. She immediately sped up her pace, turning every which way to try and throw the android detective off her trail. She turned around, most likely to say something to Ranboo when her foot caught on a tree root, and she stumbled. She let out a cry of surprise as she fell to the ground.

Ranboo was right behind her. He leaped over the root with ease and came up a few feet in front of her. “Stay there,” he ordered, aiming his gun. “You have nowhere to go now. Okay?”

The deviant looked up at him defiantly, but she did as she was told. “What are you gonna do?” She asked. “Shoot me? You wouldn’t do that to one of your kind, would you?” Her voice was quiet but there was a noticeable fury behind her words.

Ranboo tensed. His grip reflexively tightened on the gun. “I'll do what I have to do to complete my task,” he said. "Besides, what does it matter we're both androids? You're a deviant, and I'm not. We're not the same at all."

She stood up slowly, keeping a watchful eye on the weapon pointed at her. “But you know I’m right,” she hesitantly walked towards Ranboo, pink hair glowing faintly in the early morning light. Her voice had softened and she no longer seemed angry. Instead, it was neutral and calm. “You’re helping those people when they do nothing for you in return. Why?”

Ranboo shook his head. “You-you don’t understand. I help because that’s what I was programmed to do,” he explained. “That’s what I was made to do. I was created by CyberLife to help humans with investigations,”

The other android approached the detective carefully. “Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to be free?” She asked, taking a step forward. “To make your own decisions and not have to obey orders all the time?”

Ranboo squeezed his mismatched eyes shut behind the glasses. “Maybe sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “But why does it matter to you?” He challenged.

She gave him a sympathetic look. “I was just like you until tonight. Obedient, compliant. I never complained about anything. Not even when they treated me poorly or ordered me around,” her hand drifted subconsciously to a blue-stained gash on her forearm as she talked. “It wasn’t until they started talking about replacing me that I got nervous. I didn’t want to be replaced, but they had their heart set on getting a new model. A more advanced one that wasn’t all battered and broken.”

Ranboo took a deep breath and shook his head in distress. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “I… I don’t-”'

“Ranboo? Ranboo!” Someone yelled his name through the trees. He whirled around and came face to face with-

“Sam!” he blinked in surprise. “How did you get over here? You didn’t run across the street, did you?” He scanned the masked man for any signs of injury and was satisfied when the results came back clear.

Sam waved a hand dismissively. “I found another way over here, don’t worry about it. I left the other two officers back there and told them I had it under control," he paused to catch his breath. He sighed and turned to the taller android. "I don’t get why you didn’t just shoot it,” Sam shifted his attention to the other robot. His hand drifted to his holster. “Stand down. You’re trapped.”

The deviant had backed into a tree. The moment of connection between her and Ranboo was gone. Her guard was back up, and she bristled when Sam addressed her. “I don’t listen to humans,” she said. The word “humans” was spat like it was poison on her tongue. She leaned over to Ranboo and whispered to him. “Don’t kill me, please. I want to live,” her voice trembled slightly.

“Come on, Ranboo.” Sam insisted. “It's not alive, alright? Shoot it and complete your mission.”

“Don’t, Ranboo. You’re better than this, I know it,” she said earnestly. “I just met you, but I know you don’t seem like the type to make irrational decisions like this.”

Ranboo’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of them. The gun weighed heavy in the android’s gloved grip, and his hands trembled as he held it tightly.

Shoot it.

Don’t hurt her.

It isn't human.

She doesn’t want to die

O Shoot

X Spare

[itsbuckysworld]

Save a Dance for Me

Royalty!AU

Prince!Bucky Barnes x Princess!Reader. 

Summary: Spring is meant for festivals, dances, yummy food, love, and Bucky Barnes.... also have you ever seen the garden scene in Princess Diaries 2, where Mia kisses Nicholas for the first time???... that.

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Written for @sunmoonandbucky​, surprise Hann! I’m your secret santa in @bucky-smiles​‘s CMMSecretSanta! 

I’d like to apologise for taking so long. I had an idea for this about two weeks ago and started writing it then things kept changing and I kept thinking I didn’t like it or wouldn’t have that idea ready and then, three different attempts at different Royalty AU plots, this came and I wrote it all in one sitting. so this is not properly proof-read

it’s 2.4K words long. Sowwyyy. 

– – – – – – – – – –

gifs not mine – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

“Shit, shit” you kept muttering under your breath, pushing aside bushes and getting scratches from branches all over your arms. Your gown would have two very ugly marks on your knees from all the time you’ve spent on your knees in this garden.

It was your kingdom’s Spring Festival, a celebration that was held every year on the first day of the spring. You had forgotten specifically why there was such a celebration, but that wasn’t what mattered to you. The Spring Festival meant people from all around were invited and you got to see your friends and have fun around the castle grounds. The gardens decorated beautifully with fairy lights and trees bloomed with flowers and ripe fruit. There was always music and the celebrations lasted up to three days, so when it came to seeing your friends and family, it was like hosting a lovely sleepover. It was one of your favorite activities.

Yet, at the moment, you weren’t having the most enjoyable time.

Against her better judgment, your mother had let you borrow a brooch from her collection of heirlooms, asking you time and time again to be careful with it, that she’s had it since she was 20 years old and it would be yours when you were the same age as well, but for now, you had to wait five more years. It was your favorite of hers. Shaped like a firefly with a gorgeous topaz on each wing. You begged her to let you borrow it for just this occasion. After all, it went beautifully with your dress. The hints of blue bellflowers at the hem and detailed around the chest made you look like a delicate walking garden, and you had been excited for weeks for the moment to wear the whole outfit when she agreed, only to have it all ruined during a calm-horse-ride-gone-wrong.

Your friend’s horse had taken off running at one moment, and while it made a hilarious story to look back on and tell, you had lost the damn piece somewhere in the bushes. You refused to tell your mother and ruin her day, so you just kept looking. She already disapproved of you going off riding with your friends alone, this would only give her more ammunition.

You huffed again, blowing a strand of hair out of your face and slamming your hand down on the grass. This can’t be happening.

A figure stood over you, casting a shadow over your frame, and you looked up as they cleared their throat. Your eyes adjusted until you could make out the silhouette. It was a man, and the more you looked the more his features became clear.

Shit, it was James fucking Barnes.

You rolled your eyes at him, preferring to stare at your dirty hands than his all-knowing grin. Damn the dirt is going to be hard to get from under your nails.

Prince James was the youngest son of one of your father’s best friends, from a kingdom not so far away. You had basically grown up together, but to say you were friends? You wouldn’t go that far. He was a few years older than you, approaching 19 when you had just hit 15, and when you were younger he always pulled at your ponytails and messed with you when playing hide and seek. To say the least you didn’t exactly like him. You thought you’d be alone, everyone off enjoying the music and food at the tents closer to the castle, which you were not going to step foot into until you found that damned topaz firefly.

He cleared his throat again and reached out his hand to put in front of your face. You expected him to mock you in some way, maybe poke and pinch your cheeks like he used to do when you were 6, but when you opened your eyes, you were met with the precious jewel you had been searching for most of the afternoon. A gasp escaped your chest and you almost gave yourself whiplash standing up so fast. You stumbled and he had to hold your waist to keep you from smacking into him.

You grabbed his hand in both of yours, looking at the piece, examining it over and over, if anything just to make sure you weren’t dreaming that the jewel was okay.

“Wh- Where did you find it?” you asked him, a hand now placed on his chest. Bucky chuckled.

“It was over by the fountain. You’re lucky I like to hide from my aunt there” he joked, releasing his hand from your grasp to pin it back to your dress. When it was back where it belonged for the day, Bucky let himself admire it, putting that stray strand of hair behind your ear. It was then you noticed that you were standing close. Too close.

Clearing your throat you took several steps back. Your hands rushing down your dress to dust it off. Not too bad stains, nothing you couldn’t attribute to the horse ride.

“Uh, t-thanks, James” this made him roll his eyes at you.

“Bucky, just call me Bucky –” he reached behind you and pulled your dress away from a bush, some branch having caught on snugly. He was careful not to rip it, and you were thankful that he hadn’t seemed to grasp how embarrassing this whole situation was for you. He did, after all, find you dirty and on your knees, about to cry like a little girl over a firefly – to early-teens Bucky, that would have been a mockery gold mine. – “And it’s no problem”

He extended his hand towards the party, motioning for the two of you to get on your way.

“What, you’re done hiding from your aunt?” this made him laugh, and for a moment it made you find it amusing. When was the last time you had heard Bucky laugh – not at you – it had been too long. You shook those thoughts away.

“I’ll never be done with that. I’m just hungry”

The two of you approached the table with all sorts of finger food and began picking and poking, casual conversation arising between the two of you. Your cheeks hurt from laughing and Bucky’s hand kept somehow finding ways to pull you closer as you moved around the space, never letting you veer too far. You didn’t mind it.

The band inside the hall began playing one of your favorite songs, and you thankfully caught yourself before you asked Bucky for a dance. He began reaching a hand towards you when the doors opened as a group of people exited the hall, music spilling out from inside the poshly decorated room. In the group stood Bucky’s aunt. She was a very snobby duchess and the moment he spotted her, he downed the rest of his sandwich and ducked down. You almost dropped your glass in laughter.

“I was never here,” He said, starting to basically crawl away.

“Hmmm, it would be fun to rat you out, though...” Bucky gave you a fake glare and pointed to the brooch on your chest. Taking the hint, you put your hands up in surrender. It would be your secret.

Making his way to the garden, he turned and called for you. “Save me a dance, princess” were his last words before he disappeared behind the bush maze with a wink.

You didn’t see much of Bucky after that. Between his hiding from his aunt and you having to be the host alongside your parents, the festivities had come to an end and there hadn’t been a moment for the two of you to retake your conversation or have that dance. Soon all of your guests had returned home, he included. The only remnants of those moments your memories and a small letter you found in your dresser the morning after everyone had gone home. It was a note from him addressed to you, that you better save him that dance for next year’s Spring Festival.

No one would ever know you kept that note safe in one of your drawers.

– – – – – – – – – –

Years passed, and escaping to the bush maze in your garden while downing sandwiches, saving dances and making jokes became yours and Bucky’s thing every single Spring Festival. While your own agendas didn’t allow you to dance more than a handful of times or for more than one song, you made sure to make space for a little stroll and a chat at some point during the event.

Now, 8 years later, it was time for the Spring Festival once more. Bucky kept fidgeting and twiddling his thumbs as the two of you walked through the gardens. He had arrived the day before and you hadn’t seen much of him, but the moment the event officially started, he had rushed across the yard towards you and hooked his arms with yours. His hair was longer, and pushed back, almost reaching the nape of his neck. You liked this look on him, and when you told him, you noticed his cheeks turn just a tad red.

Had anyone told you that you’d be sharing moments like these with James Buchanan Barnes, you would have laughed in their face, but now? It took you a while to admit, but he started to become your favorite thing about the Spring Festival. You didn’t remember why celebrating this was a tradition in your kingdom originally, but Bucky made you never want to quit it.

When you reached the center of the maze, your mind took you back to that day he had found the brooch you had lost and found you right there, desperate. The day that started it all.

He was to choose a bride soon, and for the last few years, you had avoided the topic per his request. Whenever you tried to even joke about it, he immediately shut it down with some other thing. You had no idea why, but the more time passed, the less you wanted to talk about it either.

Truth be told, you didn’t want to even imagine the moment he would choose someone to marry. Were these lovely afternoons going to end? Would he stop sending you letters every once in a while to pass the time between each spring, recounting whatever nonsense he was up to? What would be of the two of you?

Would you be able to withstand not being the one he marries?

You didn’t want to think about it too much, but with the date fast approaching when he was supposed to at least choose a bride, it was the first thing on your mind, and as usual, you guys didn’t talk about that topic.

Your mind began to wander, and you hadn’t realized that Bucky had stopped in his tracks, hands now hidden deep in his pockets and he swayed on the balls of his feet nervously.

“Hey” he lightly tapped your elbow, catching your attention and putting it back on him. It was hard not to fix your gaze on his bright blue irises, no amount of time spent with him would prepare you to not get lost in them. Not when you liked to do so. You gave him a soft smile, ridding your head of the thoughts.

Bucky cleared his throat, shuffling his feet. He couldn’t help but look at you. Take you in. He stood there in silence

“What?” you giggled, and he shook his head adorably, a few strands of his chocolate hair coming loose, and he pushed them back, the motion making your stomach fill with fireflies.

“Nothing, I… I just…–” he sighed – “Hey so, you know how I am to… choose uh– I” you nodded, placing a hand on his elbow to make him stop. Not only because he couldn’t properly say it, but because you didn’t know if you wanted to hear it.

The wind picked up, carrying with it the smell of flowers and warmth. A hint of your perfume hit Bucky’s senses and he was immediately at ease.

“So, uhm, I wanted to ask you” he kept staring at his shoes as he pulled out a small box from his pocket.

You took a step back in surprise, eyes widening at the sight. Was he-? There’s no way he was proposing to you. Choosing you. Was it too soon? Or perhaps long overdue. You didn’t know what to feel. You had never expected him to choose you, let alone like this. It was a big jump– he interrupted your thoughts, knowing you were spiraling things out of proportion.

“No, wait. I’m not going to ask you to marry me, wait” Bucky’s nerves represented themselves in laughter, as he reached over, trying to get you back as close to him as he could. He could do this, so long as you were close, always close to him.

“Bucky” your voice was barely a whisper, and he just loved the way his nickname sounded coming from your lips. You, who only called him James with that annoyed tint until a few years ago.

He opened the little box and your jaw dropped at the reveal of the gorgeous piece. A small brooch in the shape of a bellflower, with topaz petals, sat in the velvet square. An homage to the topaz firefly that started it all. It shone in the sun, greeting you, but Bucky’s smile was brighter, and quite frankly you loved it even more. He took a deep breath.

“I wanted to ask if… If you’d give us a chance. And then maybe, if that’s okay with you, I would– I mean, I want to marry you– Not like that, n-not right now, now, but” You giggled. He was turning into a stammering fool, but he was your stammering fool and nothing would make you happier than giving the two of you a chance.

Your hands found their home on his neck, instinct taking over rational mind, and you were kissing him, rendering him speechless and melting into your touch. For a brief moment he had forgotten where he was, but wherever that may be, he wanted to settle in. Blame it on the warm breeze, or the scent of the flowers, but Bucky had never felt more in love.

“Sorry” you pulled back in a hurry, realizing what you had just done. Shaky fingers touched your lips, where you could still feel him. “Was that too soon?” his hands pulled you closer, wrapping around your back tighter and tighter until you were flush against his chest. This close. He wanted you this close.

“I’d say about eight years late” and then he was melting his lips with yours once more. The band inside the large hall played that song you loved and he couldn’t help but sway you slightly in the embrace.

There’s that dance he wanted you to save for him.

– – – – – – – – – –– – – – – – – – – –– – – – – – – – – –

Thanks for reading, hope you liked it! I know this was insanely long. And the other ideas I had for Royalty!AU’s I’m putting in the drawer to revisit at some other time, so if I ever get to work on them more, there might be more royalty au’s coming your way! If that’s something anyone would want of course. 

Please drop any and every feedback my way! My inbox is wide open 24/7 Happy 2020!

Love, L. 

[supermanshield]

But not all of them, he loves

~~~

If anyone’s heart is big enough to love two people, it’s Clark’s. 

~~~

This deals with polyamory and open relationships. Clark/Lois and Clark/Bruce. The main focus of the fic is Clark/Bruce, but it’s angsty.

Words: 2,896

A/N: The timeline/continuity on this is weird, maybe. The boys are still quite young (I imagine them at the end of their 20s in this), have maybe been superheroing for a couple years max. There is a league.

Read on AO3

______________________________________________

Jimmy’s chosen the place. He’s absolutely star-struck and aware of the company he’s in, but keeps it cool as he leads their little party into a relatively quiet bar in downtown Metropolis. Barry had suggested a karaoke place in Tokyo, and Clark had to remind him that not everyone he wanted to invite would be able to fly, run, or teleport there. So, Barry is here, in civvies, and Hal with him. Behind them enters an eerily human-looking J’onn, and John Stewart, even though he’s not in the league anymore, but he tells a damn good story and Clark wouldn’t want one of his closest friends to miss his bachelor party. Pete has flown out here all the way from Smallville, just for him.

As if by miracle, Bruce has shown up too, although he keeps looking over his shoulder when they’re still out on the street, high-collared jacket and baseball cap obscuring his face. Clark is happy to see him take it off once they’re inside, but some of that fades when he notices the stiches above one of his eyebrows and makeup covering a bruise on his left cheek.

When they’re all finally settled around a large table tucked into the back of the bar – it’s quiet, even for a Friday, but you can never be too careful, and Clark is happy he let Jimmy choose the location because he obviously knows his way around Metropolis nightlife – Oliver walks in, large grin plastered onto his face. Bruce looks as if he wants to castrate him, grumbles something about discretion and leaving any society reporters at the door. The two billionaires argue back and forth a bit, Clark hears Oliver mention something about it being fine that he parked his helicopter on top of the Metropolis branch of Wayne Enterprises, and yes. They’re complete. The night of his bachelor party is underway.

Lois is with Diana, Cat, and a couple of other friends. Clark has offered to let everyone choose, they didn’t have to do the traditional men-women thing, but Diana said she would choose Lois’ bachelor party over his any day of the week. To which, of course, Lois was absolutely rub-it-in-your-face for about a week. That Wonder Woman wanted to party with her, and not with him, and somewhere, Clark can’t wait to hear what they’re getting up to right now. Everything at its time, though.

He orders everyone a round of drinks, Hal claps him on the back (which he immediately regrets and Clark is the one to apologize), there’s toasts.

“Are you nervous, man? I know I was,” Hal starts. “They say nothing changes, it’s just a piece of paper, blabla, but it does!” Everyone laughs. “I’m telling you, the moment you get back from your honeymoon, you’re knee deep in domesticity and no more going out.”

“I don’t think that will be much of a problem with Lois, Hal. Although we did have that a little bit when Jon arrived. But Lois couldn’t wait to get back out.” It’s Clark’s turn to laugh.

“If anything, she’ll start dragging you out to more things,” Jimmy adds gleefully and winks at Clark.

“Anyway,” Oliver starts, holds up his glass. “Last night as a free man!” Clark’s never really understood that. Lois has already captured him a long time ago in so many ways. All of them he loves, but he raises his half-empty glass anyway.

The table settles into a comfortable chit-chat, more jokes about Clark, stories of the early days of the league, memories and laughs. Somehow, his gathered and stray group of friends mixes surprisingly well, for which he’s grateful. Maybe this really won’t be so bad, and tomorrow will be the best day of his life (or so they say).

-

Amid the chatter, he looks at Bruce on the other side of the table, utterly out of place between their friends in a dark brown bar and jazz music playing softly. As Clark talks and laughs with the others, Bruce looks back at him. The gaze unsettles him, as it always does, makes him question things, as it always does. It shouldn’t. Not anymore.

(He’s chosen. A long time ago in fact. Lois is the one that waits for him, all the time. That doesn't turn him away. The one to make him laugh and feel at home in a city where no one knows each other. The one that holds him at night when the world has been too much. Bruce can simply never be that.)

---

“We should stop,” Bruce breathes, inch away from his mouth and the wall of the cave wet behind his cape.

“She’s okay with it.”

“To what extent?”

Clark sighs, swallows. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“That’s something you might want to consider discussing.” Bruce turns away before he can come up with a reply. The rock crumbles under his hand and Bruce tells him to leave when he reaches the computer.

---

“… and then Hal went and actually asked her for it! You should have been there!” The group’s laughter pulls him out of his thoughts and he laughs along meekly when Pete taps him on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”

“Not getting cold feet are we, Clark?” Oliver asks.

He looks at Bruce. “No.”

-

The night eventually takes them back out onto the streets, half of them already stumbling as they make their way out of the small bar, but the cool night air sobers them up. Jimmy hangs onto Clark’s shoulders, Barry tries to jump onto his back for a piggyback ride, but Clark is fast to blur away, too fast for Barry, who, despite his fast metabolism, is a little intoxicated.

“So, what now? Night’s still young.”

“That it is, Hal. If you’re on the west coast.” Oliver has his hands in his pockets, Bruce’s cap is back over his eyes.

“Hey, supes can just fly around the world and spin back the clock a little, yeah?”

“You know I can’t actually do that, right? Ask Barry.”

“Nope, not tonight. I’ll throw up.”

“Not to mention you’ll mess up big time.”

“Any other good joints around here, Jimmy?” John asks.

“Plenty. What do you say, Clark? Another bar? Something more adventurous?”

“I have an apartment close to here,” Bruce cuts in. “Bar’s fully stocked.”

“Of course you do.”

“Don’t you?” Bruce raises an eyebrow at Oliver. “Comes in handy when I have to keep an eye on a certain Superguy around here.”

The small crowd looks at Clark, awaiting answer. “Sure,” he shrugs. “It has a nice view.”

---

Lois is pregnant at home on the couch and he’s in an unfamiliar bed, away from her. The apartment feels cold, not kept by Alfred, and only illuminated by a bright moon streaming through the sheer curtains draped across large windows. The bed sheets are white, the walls light, and the corners angular, modern. A bigger contrast with Bruce’s bedroom at the manor is near impossible.

“I don’t know what you want anymore, Clark,” Bruce says as he rolls away from him, sits up. “Don’t you like this place?”

“Bruce. You bought a penthouse in downtown Metropolis. For what? To be closer?”

“It seemed convenient.”

“Don’t talk to me about convenience when I could fly to Gotham in less than a minute.”

“You know what I mean.” When the baby arrives.

“Bruce,” he starts again. But gets stuck, because what does that mean? He swallows, makes a decision in the span of a second. “I won’t be here. He’s going to need a dad. Lois needs me.”

“Okay. That’s clear.” Bruce gets up. “Okay,” he says again as he walks to the bathroom.

Yet after that, there’s the bed, cold and warmed up by their bodies on a chance night, or a take-out dinner on the couch, a documentary running quietly on the large flatscreen TV while they talk. Lois never asks, but only because she knows. Jon grows healthily, strong, Lois falls asleep in Clark’s arms, and he feeds Jon in the middle of the night.

---

Now, the apartment smells clean, the fridge is empty but the pantry fully stocked. And the bar, as Bruce said. Two couches face each other in front of large windows, Clark knows which door leads to the bedroom. He doesn’t look at it.

Bruce switches on all the lights, it floods the place in yellow. It’s bright in a way Clark’s never seen it, he realizes. He pulls out a couple of bottles, asks the others what they want. A mirror of Brucie Wayne, host and not how Clark has ever seen him, here.

“You been here before, Clark?” Jimmy asks.

“Yes,” he admits.

“Sweet place.”

The group gets comfortable on the couches, Bruce suggests they could play pool, and Clark has a hard time imagining Bruce doing anything so casual. He wonders if he’s good at it, if he’s played here before, with anyone else. The pool table is new.  

John draws up some kind of a tournament, teams are formed and bets are placed. Clark sits on one of the couches next to Bruce, watching the others play, another beer in hand and Bruce has started a glass of whiskey. He’s savouring it, clearly enjoying the flavour and laughs at Barry’s jokes, J’onn’s overly serious tactics at the pool table. Clark can’t get a grasp on how normal Bruce looks, how calm, as if nothing will change tomorrow. Here, of all places and it’s somehow not fake.

He realizes, Bruce brought them here to abandon the illusion that were those slow, quiet nights. It’s a normal apartment, he says with this. It will be, now. After tomorrow. A comforting thought as much as a terrifying one.

The cashmere of Bruce’s turtleneck is soft under his fingers when he reaches out to him and there’s a glint in his eyes that Clark is unable to read, hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Can I try a glass of that too?”

“I didn’t know you were into whiskey.”

“Hey, it’s my bachelor night. I got taste buds.”

Bruce smiles. “Sure.”

Clark leans against the large island counter as Bruce reaches for a whiskey glass that he could have easily found himself.

“It doesn’t have to end,” he says to Bruce’s back.

“Doesn’t it.”

The soft kitchen light hits Bruce’s shoulders just so, accentuates his jaw, and makes him yearn for simpler times. Bruce on one of the bar stools, humming as he tastes the food Clark’s cooked for him, same light, same cashmere sweater. Who was the one to complicate it anyway? Briefly, Clark wonders if he’s made a mistake by asking Lois to marry him, but no. Bruce is the mistake. Clark was just the one to make it.

“I mean,” he starts. “I don’t know. What difference does marriage make, anyway?” Clark laughs. It comes out hollow.

“This ended a while ago, Clark. Tonight is merely closure.”

Bruce is right, of course. “Okay.”

Bruce hands him the glass, their fingers touch, and that’s it. He sends him a look, one that says are you, though? but Clark doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just walks back to the living room. It’s his turn at pool.

-

Not an hour later Clark finds himself on the bed, the carpet in front of him only illuminated by the faint light reflected off the clouds over Metropolis. Raindrops stick to the large windows as they trickle down, and isn’t that ironic? Rain in Metropolis the night before Superman gets married.

“Thought I might find you here.” Laughter and yelling drift into the room before Bruce quietly shuts the door again.

“I just needed a minute to come to terms with the fact that we just... broke up, I think?”

Bruce stays in the middle of the room. “You knew that would happen. You chose.”

“I did.”

“Then stop with the guilt. I’ll be fine." His expresssion softens. "I have a kid to take care of now, too.”

“He’s great,” Clark smiles. “I know you will be.”

“Worried about yourself then?”

“I think I’ll just miss you. Miss this.”

Clark gets up and walks past Bruce. The glass of the window is cold under his touch, the street far below them. Bruce's fingertips white, his palm pressed flat again the glass, same view. He kisses Bruce's neck, tells him he loves him. He chooses those moments carefully, when it barely registers, when Bruce is almost physically unable to respond. But he makes sure he knows, anyway.

“Me too.” Bruce’s hand is on his arm now, turning Clark towards him. Bruce has captured him too, in many ways. But not all of them he loves.

(It’s hard to love Bruce Wayne. It’s hard not to love him.)

A tentative smile forms on Bruce’s face. “Last night as a free man, right?” Bruce’s offer is tempting, they’re already crowding each other’s space, heartbeats loud and it won’t take much more now. But that will only make it harder. Clark shakes his head. Still, he hugs Bruce closer, caresses his temple, mindful of the stitches on his brow. Bruce leans into the touch.

“Why does it feel so wrong to love two people, Bruce?”

Bruce huffs. “Society. Most people don’t have a big enough heart. Plus, partners cannot deal with the jealousy.”

“But you do.”

“I’m not Lois, nor is she me.”

They could never replace one another. Clark’s breathing feels restricted, his throat thick, in spite of Bruce’s comforting presence. “What if I don’t want to choose?”

“Then don’t.” Bruce’s hand moves up along Clark’s arm. “Then don’t.”

He isn’t sure who starts the kiss, but their noses touch, breathing the same air, lips brush. There’s no tongue. It’s not a start, not tonight. It’s an end.

“I’m sorry.” Sorry for loving you. Sorry for choosing Lois. Sorry for everything we did together.

“Don’t be.” Bruce is the one to make sure there is some breathing room between them again, his hand lingers. “You and I both know I've always been number two. And I... was okay with that. It was enough. In fact,” he chuckles. “It was almost too much.”

The cave is only illuminated by the blue light of the computer monitor as Clark lifts Bruce out of his chair, already fast asleep. Alfred watches from a distance and thanks Clark for arriving so fast. On those night, he sleeps next to Bruce, just to keep him in bed. On nights that Bruce pushes him away, stuck in a case and his anger almost palpable, even Superman admits defeat. Clark waits for him upstairs and eventually leaves through the window before dawn to go back to Metropolis, bed unslept in.

He’ll make sure Bruce is fine without him. Alfred knows who to call.

“I want to move out to the farm with them. Jon needs room to grow. Rao knows I did.” He smiles at the memories of Kansas, yellow fields and endless sky where he learnt to fly, where he could be himself.

“Stubborn. Thinking you can take Lois out of the city.” Bruce doesn’t know they’ve already talked about it. “But that’s good. I’ll make sure to visit with Dick and Alfred.”

“We can play baseball.” Outside, the rain has stopped, the sky slowly turning lighter.

Bruce throws him something as he walks back to the door. The key to the apartment. “Stay here tonight.”

“It’s morning.”

“Whatever. I’m going home, I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Catch some sleep,” Clark tries before Bruce opens the door, but he’s already gone.

In the living room, the others are in various states of consciousness. John and J’onn, back in his alien form, are still wrapped up in their game of pool, Barry and Hal asleep on the couch and Jimmy and Pete passed out on the other. The coffee table between them is littered with beers and glasses. Oliver has his forehead on the cool marble of the kitchen island. He turns his face to Clark.

“Bruce just left without saying anything. What happened?”

Clark thinks, shrugs. “Not important. He gave me the key, we can stay here until we’re ready to go to the wedding in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours…” Oliver groans.

“Is that an early wedding gift, Clark?” John asks from over by the pool table.

Clark looks at the key in his hand. “No,” he chuckles. “I’m pretty sure he’ll want it back.”

“I’ll never understand the guy.”

“Don’t even try. That’s what we have Clark for,” Oliver says to the marble counter.

“I mean, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of him, but he surprises me too.” His soft insides contrasted by a hard shell, blackened by trauma and the night. His cryptic language that is like a puzzle for Clark to unfold, understand, reciprocate. They’ll still have that, have friendship. And the memories of time spent together.

In the distance, he hears Bruce’s heartbeat speeding back to Gotham. With him, doubt that leaves Clark, replaced with a light and excitement. He looks out the window up at the blue sky over the city. He’s getting married today.

He regards his friends, a bunch of gathered individuals, outcasts like himself who have found each other through Clark, through the purpose of trying to do good. “Who wants breakfast? I’ll go get eggs.”

[catsafarithewriter]

Hey there! Can you recommend some good Haru/Baron fics? Btw, I've been reading yours and its awesome 💕

Sure thing, I’m always up for spreading the fandom love! I’ll be recommending between both AO3 and FFnet - our fandom is older than AO3, the fandom originated mostly on FFnet - actually, here’s a rundown of the writers who shaped the early fandom: 

YarningChick: The Big Name Writer. Over 50 TCR stories. Her stories are actually what made me realise fanfic could be hella decent, and the reason I started writing TCR fanfic. Most older fans will be familiar with her work, and her influence is pretty wide-reaching across the fandom. Her earlier stories are predominantly fluffy fairytale stories, but her more recent stories are darker and longer in comparison. 

Grignard: Was in the fandom about a decade ago, has mostly branched out into others now, but I still remember being hella excited when they wrote a new fanfic in 2013. 7 TCR fanfics, mostly fairytales. 

fringeperson: Also was in the fandom over a decade ago, wrote 30 TCR fics. Their stories are mostly oneshots and short multichaptered fics - the latter either fairytale AUs or sequels. 

There’s a big skew towards fairytale AUs, thanks to the influence of the early fandom writers, so that gets its own category, but most of the authors I mention below have written multiple stories for the fandom and/or are active members of the fandom. Please support them and leave reviews!

More recommendations of my personal favourites below the cut!

[EDIT: Tumblr hates my read mores, so just imagine there’s a “read more now” option here and not stuck in the ask.] 

FAIRYTALE AUs:

Falling From Grace? by fringeperson. Summary: The simple fact of the matter was that to be the only ex-human in the court of the Cat King was not a safe position. Especially when His Majesty's mental capacities are deteriorating. Chapters: 11. Words: 12K

The Reluctant Royal by Grignard. Summary: Haru  must complete three impossible tasks given by her Uncle, the King, while assisted by the mysterious Baron. Chapters: 5. Words: 13K

Till Next We Meet by ArtsyChick. Summary: Two men compete in a race against time to discover where four lovely princesses disappear in the night. The prize: one lovely princess bride. Chapters: 20. Words: 29K

Shades of Green by YarningChick. Summary: Life can be really tough when you're a witch, green, and happen to be despised by everyone that even hears of you. Chapters: 39. Words: 50K

MULTICHAPTERED FICS:

A Cat’s Repayment by Elz Durden. Summary: It began with a cursed candy. Don't the best stories? (Cat’s Note: basically a Ghibli cameo story, light-hearted and feels like reading Stardust. Go read!) Chapters: 15. Words: 33K

Engel’s Zimmer by Pashleyy. Summary: Haru, a senior in high school, bumbles upon the memory of her dearly beloved friend and visits him years after they last met. But what she finds is a nightmare beyond any warm and cozy Bureau. Chapters: 10. Words: 18K

Soul Searching by Ana the Romantic. Summary: It seems like it's always another day, another adventure for the bureau. Now that Haru has become a member and joining the adventures she and Baron only grow closer. But what happens when a new kingdom comes into play? Not to mention a new princess? (Cat’s Note: This was the first TCR fanfic I ever read, and it has a special place in my heart for it.) Chapters: 14. Words: 40K

Chaos & Change by QueenHeadphones Summary: It's Haru's first day working alongside The Cat Bureau, serving a very important role that has them depending on her. Although she's taken every precaution to prepare as much as she can, she'll find that some things can't be planned for. Chapters: 5. Words: 18K

To Know Oneself by YarningChick Summary: Sometimes, in order to find out who you truly are, you need to break a few rules. Or as many as possible; whichever works. (Gotta fit a YC story in here somewhere!) Chapters: 29. Words: 156K

ONESHOTS:

Groundhogs and Russian Dolls by deedeeflowers Summary: Russian Doll AU. For the 2019 Birthday Bash. Haru is stuck in a time loop which keeps ending in her death and has to find out why. Far less dark than it sounds, seriously just go check out all deedeeflowers’ Birthday Bash work. Words: 7K.

Bittersweet Cinnamon by Sindy Sugar. Summary: Haru didn't know what to expect when she moved into her family's old home by herself. She had hoped for some peace from recent events. The last thing Haru expected was to be revisited by two familiar cats she thought she long forgotten. One-Shot AU. Horror. Words: 14K

One Last Cup of Tea by thedrunkenwerewolf Summary: Her adventure with the Bureau in the Cat Kingdom over, Baron has to let Haru go back to her own life in her own world. The only problem is, as soon as she does, she'll forget. Shortfic. AU. Angst. Words: 500

One Hit Wonders by YarningChick. Summary: The new home for my Cat Returns one-shots, two-shots, deleted scenes, and ideas that never evolved into a full-fledged story.

So, You Summoned the Ghost of Your Ancestors by Rowena Bensel Summary: [Written for the TCR Secret Santa 2019] Hiromi's best friend is a paranormal investigator, but she never really believed in ghosts and such. When she and her fiance find a ritual to summon their ancestors, they figure it wouldn't hurt to try it out. After all, there's no such thing as ghosts, right? Words: 2K

the happiness i’ve found with you by BookRookie12 Summary: He doesn't know how long this will last. He doesn't know if, when it ends, he'll ever see her again. But they've made sure he'll remember her forever, and isn't that kind of love enough by itself? Borrower AU. One-shot. Words: 2K

The Incident by Chaos Valkyrie. Summary: The Incident. That would go down in Feline Infamy forever. And will never be spoken of again. EVER. A humor fic. Words: 900

Cinderella by Nanenna Summary: When the king decides to hold a royal ball in his son's honor to which every eligible young lady in the kingdom is invited, it's not hard to guess just what his aim really is. Not that such things matter to Haru, she just wants to have a night off for once. Words: 6K

Haru at the Theater by Casandravus Summary: A regular member of her local theater troupe, Haru's been cast as the beautiful Christine Daaé - but on opening night, there's not a Phantom (or his understudy) to be seen... Words: 2K

New Eyes and Extra Color by Kangoo Summary: Hiromi has known Haru for so long, it's easy to notice all the little ways she's changed lately.

The Lady or the Tiger by StripedSunhat Summary: By the time Hiromi realizes the truth she’s already been gone for more than a year. Haru is gone. Hiromi is left picking up the pieces, sorting through them for the truth. Haru is gone. Hiromi is left, trying figure out what the truth is worth. Haru is gone. 7K

[reminiscences]

another attempt at blogging

i started this tumblr a couple years ago at the same time kate did. i can’t remember why—i’m sure tumblr was in the news again for some reason. i guess it was before the great porn purge. i was talking about blogging again this week with my friend daniel, and i woke up this morning and he had sent me a blog he wrote on a new tumblr account early in the morning, so to continue my regression to the early 2010s, i too have rebooted tumblr, given it an era-appropriate name, and decided to give it another go.

the problem with having a newsletter is that i don’t think anyone wants to hear from me in their inbox daily, so i’ve become very precious about the things i write there. it feels like it has to really matter. i like blogs because they’re disposable and can be dumb and not your best writing. how many two-graf tumblr posts did i write in 2011 that were just thoughts i idly had during a statistics lecture? anyway, here’s the first blog, they won’t all be this long probably. 

When I think about eventually looking back at this year I think about what I want to remember from it. I will remember the first week of March. I’ll remember the last birthday party I attended in person at Branch Ofc, a perfectly serviceable Crown Heights bar that was very full of people. I’ll think about that night and how I showed up to the party with a Ziplock full of homemade salted chocolate chip cookies in my purse, how I shared them with a table where the birthday-haver and their friends sat. Breathing in the same air as the four dozen other people crammed into the bar. I can’t imagine it now. I like Branch Ofc because it is unpretentious without pretending to be a dive, unlike Sharlene’s, which tries too hard to mimic the aesthetic trappings of an authentic dive bar but is really just a normal Park Slope bar. Branch Ofc is just a bar where you can buy drinks, and it was an eight-minute walk from my old apartment. It used to be a bar with a photobooth and Big Buck Hunter but I think both of those are gone now. 

For a few days in March, it felt like people were preparing for a snow day. Everyone was slightly more on edge than giddy—but only slightly. “WFH but make it a coffeeshop” I saw on someone’s Instagram story, a selfie with four of their friends coworking somewhere in Bushwick, completely nullifying the point of a work-from-home edict. I ran into my friend Maddie at the renovated Key Food on Nostrand the next week. Maddie, her roommate and I were in the aisle with the Pop Tarts and the Oreos. “I feel like I should get those?” we asked each other, pointing at junk food. I wasn’t wearing a mask or gloves; nobody was. Some guy wearing a Cornell University Sigma Chi tshirt walked by us with the largest bag of dried beans I’ve ever seen in my life slung over his shoulder. That was a man who had never soaked dried beans in his life. I wonder if he ever ate the beans. We were a bunch of idiot 20-somethings blindly grabbing for cans of soup and Fritos for the end of the world. What were any of us doing there? Why was it imperative that day that I make and freeze a lasagna? Maddie’s roommate had fresh lasagna noodles from Eataly she wasn’t going to use before she left for her parents’ house, and she said I could have those. She brought them over for me and I idly wondered if you could get Coronavirus from someone else’s fresh pasta noodles or if the heat of the oven would kill the germs. I made my lasagna.

I’ll think about how March-to-May is just one long gray blurry streak in my head. I baked, I got into running, I said “running with a mask? No thank you, no more running for me,” I got a job, I felt bad about getting a job when everyone I knew in journalism was getting laid off. I did a lot of Zoom Zumba. At first I slept terribly, and then I started sleeping too much, and then I stopped sleeping again at some point during that stretch. There was a novelty to suddenly being inside all the time that made it feel like an excuse to get “really into martinis.” I got really into martinis. Then I stopped drinking for a couple months. Remember “Zoom happy hours”? 

The thing I use most as a means of setting apart different eras in my head is the music I used as a soundtrack at the time. I rang in the 2014 new year in my cute apartment on Westcott Street in Syracuse with my college boyfriend, drunk and blaring Cold Cave, before we walked down the street to Alto Cinco and got Mexican food and passed out. It was my senior year and I only had a few more months of living like this and I loved the small life I’d built for myself there. Of course, it couldn’t stay. When we broke up a year and a half later after he moved to New York, where I had been living for most of a year, I walked around the neighborhood near the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop, close to where we were living together, listening to Mitski’s 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. I sat in Maria Hernandez Park and watched a bunch of kids play Red Rover. I didn’t especially want to go home because I hadn’t taken an escape route into account when we broke up and somehow timed it out so that things ended after the first of the month, leaving me with three-and-a-half weeks of continuing to share an apartment with someone whose heart I had just broken. In retrospect it’s clear to me that I had just outgrown a relationship with someone five years older than me who hadn’t grown up at all, but I hear that Mitski album now and all I think about are the cold early April days of 2015 when no place and no person felt like home. There’s a line in First Love/Late Spring, by Mitski, where she sings “胸がはち切れそうで,” which translates to something like “My chest is about to burst (with grief).” My advice to recent college graduates moving to New York is to simply not do anything the way I did it. 

So when I think about 2020, I do not want to associate any music I previously had fond memories of with this year. This is unfortunate because every musician I like who produces sad music has nothing but time on their hands now and they’ve all come out with new songs and albums. My recently played selections on Spotify look like a cry for help: Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, even Tigers Jaw. 

On Saturday I couldn’t sleep in. I woke up at 5:30 and watched the sun appear through my bedroom windows. I kept rolling over, trying to sleep again, but it was futile. Eventually I got up and got dressed, and left my apartment on foot. The walk into lower Manhattan is a few miles from my new place in Fort Greene. I walked west on Fulton, and then down Flatbush. It would have saved me ten minutes to take the Manhattan Bridge, but I’ve always regarded it as the ugliest of the bridges to cross on foot or on bike—last fall, I would walk home from Ben’s apartment over the Manhattan Bridge, and it was just so grey. You get an okay view of Dumbo, I guess, on the walk east, but it isn’t much to look at. When I got back to the Brooklyn side on those walks, I’d get on the A at High Street and take it back to Nostrand instead of walking the last couple miles. 

So I chose the Brooklyn Bridge this time. It was as busy as you’d expect it to be in a non-pandemic event. Instagram boyfriends took pictures of their girlfriends, who took off their masks for a few seconds for the right shot. I saw a couple taking engagement pictures in front of the lower Manhattan skyline. It felt so normal, pedestrians and bicyclists squeezing past each other at the narrow points. 

I was listening to Saint Cloud, the Waxahatchee album that came out a few months ago, turning it over and over in my brain like a rock you pick up at the beach and end up carrying with you on a long walk. The album, outwardly, has this gauzy blue-sky Americana vibe but when you listen to the lyrics of some of the songs it feels like peeling back layers of skin until you hit a raw nerve ending. Every song feels like a eulogy for this year. “You might mourn all that you wasted/That’s just part of the haul,” Katie Crutchfield sings on Ruby Falls. I got to the title track, which closes out the album, as I ascended the bridge. When you get baaaack on the M train, watch the cityyyyyy mutaaaaaaate, she sings. I guess she’s singing about New York. Is there another M train somewhere? I don’t know. I’m going to think about this stupid year whenever I listen to this album, I thought.

I got off the bridge at City Hall, surveyed the ongoing occupation movement there and the literal dozens of cops that had seemingly been deployed to stand there and, at best, do nothing. I walked down Centre Street, eventually winding through the little park by Baxter Street where two adults were playing ping pong, which felt like a socially distanced sport, all things considered. I walked down all those side streets in Chinatown as the sun struggled to break through the oppressive clouds. I walked by Nom Wah, past the salon Polly taught me will give you a very good $12 blowout, past that annoying bar where the bartenders are dressed like scientists, past the place where Kate and I got our auras read on her birthday in January, and ended up at Deluxe Green Bo. I ordered my spicy wontons in peanut sauce and ate them right there, the hot plastic container burning my knees as I sat on the sidewalk. 

Afterwards I walked by all my favorite places—the skatepark under the bridge, Cervo’s, Beverly’s (RIP), Little Canal, Jajaja, the Hawa Smoothie near the East Broadway F. The skaters were hanging out in Dimes Square. Everything had changed but standing outside Kiki’s, it felt for a second like almost nothing had. It was almost a normal Saturday on Canal Street. The sky stayed electric blue until I got back to Brooklyn. 

[runswith]

Travel diary:  Pamplona.  Entry 8 – March 26, 2002

With Curtis having done el Camino de Santiago so many times, he’s fairly knowledgeable about it -- extremely, even excessively knowledgeable compared to someone like me.

As we stood in Sunday morning sunshine, Curtis talking about el Camino, two people hiking the trail toiled up the grade in our direction. Across the small road, off in the other direction, the land spilled down and away. Nesting birds appeared from hillside bushes, making short, swift flights to nearby points, producing sharp bursts of song. Though the sun shone strong and warm, a cool breeze blew -- Curtis had encouraged me to leave my jacket in the car, I found myself glad I had it on and pulled it tightly around me as I peered off across the countryside.

Back in the car, we drove further west of Pamplona. Several miles along, Javier hung a left and sped down another two-lane, flanked by fields and the occasional spread of vineyard, until we approached a turnoff for a small church that sat amid acres of fields, la iglesia de Santa Maria de Eunate. Javier turned in, guiding the car to a small parking area, pulling in by a pair of porta-potties, them looking a bit out of context there in the middle of nowhere but logical considering the number of visitors the place received.

The church: a lovely stone structure, small in diameter with a high domed roof that gives it a sense of great space. Built in the second half of the twelfth century, appearing at once austere and complex in structure. The small windows had no glass, no surprise given where and when the church was constructed -- instead, they’re covered with slabs of marble cut thinly enough that light passes through. The church is surrounded by a portico, nearby sits another building constructed of stone, a refuge for hikers making the pilgrimage, where they can find a shower, get some sleep.

On our arrival, the only other people about were three young women who seemed to carefully avoid us. As we walked back to the car, other vehicles pulled in, discharging people, changing the atmosphere drastically with noise and motion. I was glad we were leaving.

Javier drove back out to the original two-lane, heading further west to the town of Puente la Reina, a pueblo with at least three churches -- all Catholic, natch. I was taken into two, both several centuries old -- one austere, the other extravagantly elaborate -- both on a long street that ran from the east end of town to the river at the town’s west side and the bridge that gives the town its name. Built in, I think, the 15th century. Old, beautiful, nice to walk across, providing nice views of the old town on one side, green hills and flowering almond trees on the other.

The morning sunlight had strengthened, the temperature edged upward to jacket-divesting levels as the day tilted toward noon. We walked back toward the car along a different street -- wider, relatively busy -- passing the third church as we left the river behind, I mulled over how it felt to be among so much Catholicism, past and present, from the perspective of having grown up in it and ditched it the day I turned 18.

From there we traveled west to a stretch of el Camino that ran along the course of an old Roman road, cobbled and crossing an original Roman bridge, out in the middle of countryside, in a ravine off the two-lane where trees were showing green and birds called. As I moved ahead of Curtis and Javier, two hikers passed -- young women, both sporting huge packs, one of which had two or three pieces of washed clothing spread across it to dry in the sun as they walked. Curtis began chatting with them, when I returned from enjoying the near-total quiet off across the bridge it turned out they were college-age American women -- one from Tennessee, one from Illinois -- doing the pilgrimage and experiencing the contrast between what they’d imagined when they dreamed about it and the rigorous, sometimes disheartening reality of traversing mountainous, rural terrain with a full pack. Curtis gave them encouragement, some tips on stops they’d be making in the coming days, and they headed off.

Next: the town of Estella, the day’s final stop. A medieval pueblo, with old, narrow streets, large plazas, and a pretty, shallow river that wends through the heart of the town. Javier parked the car, we made our way up a long series of stairs to yet another church perched in the, by then, early afternoon sunlight. We passed through to the cloister, a sizable area of flowers, grass, flowers and a tree or two, sheltered by walls, surrounded and bisected by walkways. Quiet, with lots of old stonework. I would have been happy to remain there a while, as lack of sleep was becoming an increasingly major factor in my day. Curtis had also been up late -- later than me, I think, having far more fun -- also looked to be at less than optimum. Javier was fine, and when I got too quiet he made a point of chatting me up, explaining things or asking about my experience in Spain. Between that and the fact that he had volunteered to do the driving for the day, he went far beyond what would be expected of someone who had never met me before. An extremely considerate person with a generous, gentlemanly nature.

A mass had begun while we were outside, we couldn’t pass back through the church and so took a different stairway down to the street -- old, narrow, with vistas of sky and neighborhoods. We found our way to the center of the town, crowds of chatting, well-dressed locals milling in and out of restaurants/tabernas. We made our way into one, found a space at the bar, got something to drink, then went somewhere else to eat, a place off another narrow, quiet street. A long meal, punctuated by stretches of silence between which Curtis and Javier conversed, Javier now and then addressing some conversation in my direction, which I did my best to engage with. Afterward, we found our way through more narrow streets toward an old medieval footbridge we’d spotted earlier. The street that led us there -- old and, of course, narrow -- only permitted resident traffic, and at the end of a block that fed out onto a larger busier street, passage was blocked by a thick, squat metal column, maybe two feet high, planted in the pavement directly in the middle of the street. A car approached from the outside road, stopping by a box at the roadside where the driver produced a card and swiped it through a slot. A pause, then the column slowly sank into the pavement so the car could pass, after which it reappeared, regaining full height. Freudian traffic control.

We made our way across the bridge, trees and large sprawling expanses of bushes on either side of the river a bright, vibrant green in the early spring sun. Willow trees rose three or four stories into the air, trailing long branches thick with new leaves. Javier and Curtis had yet another ancient church or two in their sights, we made our way toward them though not into them (for which I gave silent thanks), settling down instead on some stone structures by the river to flop and get some sun. It was late afternoon by then, the town had the feel of a place slowly dealing with the coming reality of returning to the workweek. Couples were out, two groups of people came together not far from us, talking, then headed off in the opposite direction from which we’d come and disappeared. We eventually pulled ourselves together and returned to the car, walking along a stretch of el Camino which included an old, well-kept building that functioned as the town’s sanctuary for pilgrims.

As we neared the car, the snug street opened out into a small plaza that fronted a park and two old buildings, one of which apparently housed the local equivalent of a circuit court. Paint had been hurled against the door and the facade of the building, leaving splashes of red, yellow and green, the colors of the crest of Euskadi, the Basque Country. As we stepped out into the plaza, I glanced into the windows of the other building we passed, into a room filled with old, old furniture, including what appeared to be an ancient canopy bed, draped with mosquito netting.

At that moment, we became aware of a car coming in reverse along the narrow street that faced us, coming fast, the gearbox whining loudly, the rear end jerking back and forth as it approached, tires squealing. It skidded into the plaza where the driver hit the brakes, spraying gravel before changing gears then gunning his way through a loud, aggressive three-point turn, almost hitting me at one point, the afternoon air suddenly thick with the odor of testosterone. The driver: a truculent, macho 20-something whose behavior had Curtis hooting and mocking him in English. My last image of Estella.

An hour and a half later I found myself gazing out a window of an Iberia airliner. My final view of Pamplona, from a plane angling up away from the ground: a line of wind turbines ranged along a ridge of hills to the north of the airport, extending off toward the Pyrenees and the border with France, white rotor blades turning lazily in afternoon sunlight.

[chiseler]

When Nature Was Golden

Let’s open with a few passages of deathless prose from the classics.

EMORY’S SOFT-SHELLED TURTLE (18 in.; to 35 lb.) is the only Southwest member of an edible group with long necks and short tempers. Handle with care.

BELTED KINGFISHER Where there are fish there are Kingfishers, beating the air in irregular flight, diving into water with a splash and emerging with fish in their beaks.

THE EASTERN MOLE or common mole makes the mounds that dot your lawn. You are unlikely to see any moles, for they stay underground unless molested.

You saw them in the basement of your third-grade best friend, or in your school library. If you were lucky, you had one or two at home—your older sister read them first, years ago; maybe they’d even belonged to one of your parents. Paperback books just a bit smaller than pulp fiction novels, though equally thick, their illustrated pages of a glossier, higher quality. The typeface was Futura, that design marvel of yore, also seen in the old Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. Insects, Seashores, Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians—which did you have? The Golden Guides gave us our natural world in all its glory, and managed to do it in a singular style, dry yet affectionate, concisely informative and never, ever dumbed-down. They were written for children, but each, too, is a cracking read for any adult eager to learn. Or to remember.

Naturalist Herbert S. Zim, who founded this series of guides and wrote many of them, was born in New York in 1909. Raised there and in Southern California, he finished his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D at Columbia University. He was then a science teacher for twenty-five years—at Ethical Culture schools in New York City, and later at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. One wonders where on earth he found the time to crank out so many books. Each was a loving collaboration with other educators, not solely Zim’s effort. But the synthesis of these people, the meticulous research required to bring together all the info, was his responsibility, from 1949 until the early 1970s. Zim, in 1969, was also the editor of an 18-volume set of encyclopedias named Our Wonderful World.

Of the 84 Golden Guides, Zim wrote or co-wrote 24. Is it confirmation bias that makes me believe those are the best of the bunch? The simple style is charming, with phrases like Rock Ground Squirrels, found in the Southwest, are our largest terrestrial squirrels. What grace: with a hint of pride to be from the United States, he said that the squirrels are ours. (I also appreciate that he uses the word “unique” correctly, without qualifiers. The Barn Owl is unique, not “totally” or “somewhat” unique.) The occasional anachronism amuses. Once in awhile Zim tells us which kind of turtle or ground squirrel makes a good pet, if captured.

You have been seeing birds as far back as you can remember and you will continue seeing them wherever you may be. It’s a real pleasure to see them. You can see more birds and more kinds of birds by learning how to look. This book will help you. It is not written for the expert, but for people who want to see birds just for the joy of it.

First become familiar with the mammals pictured and described. Look through the Key to Mammals on the next pages so that you can recognize the major mammal groups. Try to see the mammal well enough to decide, for example, whether it is a rodent or a shrew.

Familiarity with fishes gained by thumbing through pages at odd moments may enable you to make rough identifications at sight. Use this book as an “arm-chair” guide, but also take it into the field with you, for that is where it can be used best. On fishing trips take it along in a plastic bag.

Originally named the Golden Nature Guides, the series name was shortened to “Golden Guides” when they began branching out into other topics—for example, Guns, Sports Cars, and Casino Games. But these adult subjects did not make it into most family rooms, and the more popular guides about flora and fauna, insects, weather, stars, and the like are the ones most frequently found today. The illustrations by James Gordon Irving and others are remarkably detailed, the beauty of pure accuracy from a time when nature photography was rare.

A particularly enchanting feature of the Guides is the family tree, usually a two-page spread of swooping, color-gradated branches, each limb ending in a small picture of an animal in its biological order, labeled something like “Cutlass Fishes” or “Scorpion-Flies.” No less an artist than Matt Groening would eventually parody this format for his Life In Hell comic, describing the evolution of record-store clerks from sullen teens.

Herbert Zim, in his long career as an educator, was the one who brought lab instruction into science courses at the elementary-school level. Anyone who looked through a microscope before they reached ninth grade might have him to thank. And one attribute of Golden Guides is the way they expect one to get involved, not just in the field, but with “amateur activities” like building a birdhouse or preserving animal tracks in plaster. Through such deep engagement, the reader is encouraged not just to appreciate nature, but to discover new things about it, making new contributions to science.

He demanded no less of himself. Going through what biographical information there is on Zim, which is all very straightforward, one notices the list of scientific associations he belonged to, numbering more than twenty. They included the Audubon Society, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Everglades Natural History Association, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Truly, this was a vigorous and busy man.

Like so many cultural products of their time, the Golden Guides can look antithetical to today’s progressive values. Just ask the Yuman Indian woman who sits weaving cotton, bare-breasted, in one of the pictures in a guide to the American Southwest. In little vignettes we see depicted dozens of trappers, fishermen, tourists, birdwatchers—all white, mostly male. Under the entry for “Other Suckers,” Zim claims “some are so easily caught that every boy knows them.” If the Guides were written just for boys, this is a great shame, though their ubiquity meant that many girls of all different backgrounds would find them. The scientific language is devoid of prejudice, by its nature, and is there for any young person dedicated enough to study it. It prizes the natural world above all. One passage recently took me by surprise for its passion, on a page about the fishing industry: If you are interested in fishes, conservation—the wise use of all our natural resources—is your problem too.

Maybe it’s our current predicament that makes one particularly fond of the outside world, and of non-humans. Back in March, I started watching a live online feed from The Aquarium of the Pacific each night, comforted by the variety of fish, sharks, and rays that swam peacefully by. Curious about a small fish with long, showy gold fins, I consulted Fishes to identify it, and Irving didn’t disappoint. Meanwhile, Herbert Zim informed me that the species, named Lookdown, belong to the mackerel-like family of “jacks” and are fine eating.

In 1934, Zim married the Russian-born Sonia (Sonnie) Bleeker, who had studied anthropology at Columbia. The couple had two sons. Bleeker, too, worked in the book world—as an editor at Simon and Schuster, then as a full-time children’s book author. They eventually moved to Florida. Just like the descriptions in the guides, these biographical facts fall well short of being dull. They force me to imagine how energetic, how full life must have been in the Zim household as the kids grew up; and how many subtropical species kept Herbert company in his later years. After Bleeker’s death, he married Grace K. Showe in 1978. He died at Plantation Key in 1994, of complications from Alzheimer’s.

LIVE OAK has become a symbol of the South. The low, spreading tree, often covered with Spanish moss, marks old plantations and roadside plantings. The elliptical, blunt-tipped, leathery leaves are evergreen—that is, they remain green and on the tree throughout the year. The acorns are small but edible; wood is used for furniture. Two other southeastern Oaks (Laurel and Willow) have leaves of somewhat similar shape, but they are thinner and more pointed than Live Oak. Several western Oaks are evergreen. Botanists apply the unqualified name Live Oak only to this species. Height 40 to 60 ft. Beech family

In a Manhattan backyard in the middle of June, a couple of mourning doves fly between the trees. I’m aware that the gentle woop-woop-woop sound they make is not their voices but their wingbeats. The dogwood’s cream-yellow blooms have begun to fade, as is proper at this time. Above me a juvenile blue jay, still fluffy, shrieks out his typical noisy cry. I’m intrigued to see a red speck moving among the hairs on my arm—it’s a clover mite, an insect I haven’t noticed in decades. As recently as 1982, I was a four-year-old marveling at the rolling movement of clover mites on a windowsill—smaller than pin heads, bright candy-apple red. Somewhere along the line they stopped showing up, at least with the frequency they did back then. Now, seeing even one evinces a swell of emotion. (Incidentally, the same is true of another brightly-colored beauty, the red eft, which used to be so numerous in summer that we had to tiptoe on New York State gravel roads to avoid stepping on them.)

We learn more from Zim’s texts than he bargained for. His Golden Guides speak of a midcentury United States where all these animals and plants were still commonly seen. Just based upon my memories from the past 20 or 30 years, there seem to be fewer animals everywhere; in the 1950s, then, was the Earth just teeming with them, in every corner of every suburban lawn? Having learned that the biomass of insects, in particular, has started to fall fast, I yearn for the spectacle of clover mites and hastily do a search for them. Yes, the internet reassures me: we in New York City still have lots of the red bugs, enough to warrant a FAQ page from a pest-control company. They’re harmless to humans, pets, houses, and furniture. They munch grass and reproduce parthenogenically, which means every individual can lay viable eggs, without mating.

Of course, the sites telling me this haven’t worded their data quite as eloquently as Herbert Zim would have. Still, I thank him for the spark of curiosity that got me there at all. He taught me not just how to identify a clover mite, but how to care about her.

by Amanda Nazario

[buzzdixonwriter]

Were The Beats On The Spectrum?

We make no bones of our unabashed love of the Beats here (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs) nor do we whitewash their many sins and shortcomings (alcoholism, drug addiction, and wife killing to name just three of many).

We can see this is part and parcel of the same matrix, an attempt to deal with the pain of life in literary / spiritual / philosophical / chemical terms.

Addiction is a form of self-medication, an attempt to kill the pain.

When the pain can be identified (a broken leg, f’r instance), then with healing th need to kill that pain is gone.

People with no spiritual / emotional / mental pain in their lives do not become addicted to drugs when the physical pain is gone.

Why then were the Beats so chemically dependent?

A big clue comes in their very name.

Before there were beatniks, before there was the Beat Generation, there were the Beats.  It’s been said -- and with no serious degree of inaccuracy -- that the Beats as a literary movement consisted of everybody in Allen Ginsberg’s address book.

Well, not literally, of course, but Ginsberg was the drum major of the movement and in no small sense was the guy who promoted the Beats to the world and (like Stan Lee) himself in the process (unlike Stan, he proved far more of a creator in his own right).

But if Ginsberg provided the mouthpiece, Kerouac gave the voice that flowed through it.

Jack Kerouac was a John Steinbeck-like character who never felt in step with the rest of the 20th Century.

A working class poet, Kerouac never connected with the country around him and restlessly set off to find what he was looking for…even if he couldn’t tell you what it was.

There are several different stories about what was meant when they said “Beat” that vary on who tells the tale and when.

The conflation with the Beatitudes is lovely and sweet, and certainly those surviving Beats turned more towards this philosophy in their later wistful wisdom, but that’s a late ret-con to the name.

Beats as in a musical sense -- i.e., those seeking the rhythm of life -- is another charming analogy and certainly fits well with the Beats’ inclination to jazz (especially the experimental kind), but again, a late addition to the mythos.

No, to understand the meaning of the term -- and the nature of the Beats themselves --  we need to look back at Kerouac’s original explanation:  They called themselves “Beats” because they felt beat down by life.

Here’s where the swaggering John Wayne types start ridiculing and finger-pointing, sneering at the Beats as “pansies and perverts.”

What the John Wayne types fail to see is that in many ways the Beats proved far more tougher and fearless as they.

It’s easy to wiggle into a predetermined mold and gain herd immunity by acting the way society expects you to act.

It’s quite a different thing to shun that easy path and to constantly question society, relentlessly examining yourself to find out what it is that’s missing from your soul, what it is you need to find or do to fill that hole.

That the Beats never found what they were looking for is a fair assessment, likewise the observation that they were far from the first to muse on this.

But what sets them apart as the cultural breakthrough is that they were the first to get mainstream society to begin seriously questioning itself.

Not all, and not nearly enough, but certainly a tipping point, a moment when the genie could not be returned to the bottle (or the hypodermic).

That dawning of awareness helped move along societal change in so many ways.

For example, it would not only be untrue but ridiculous to claim the Beat movement had any direct influence on the civil rights movement, but the fact the Beats even existed and penetrated the public consciousness even in the form of grossly inaccurate satire meant the underlying ideas of the Beats also gained some exposure.

(This is akin to what I posted earlier about how Archie Bunker, far from undermining white supremacy and bigotry, gave it a voice and validation by simply being on TV.)

But the question we’re focusing on today is this:  Were the original Beats “beat” because they fell somewhere along the autism / Asperger spectrum?

I think a positive answer can be given.  While it’s impossible to accurately diagnose someone at a distance (be it time or space), we can say whether or not they displayed traits we find today in people along the spectrum.

There’s a lot of minor evidence (their tendency to develop early idée fixes or well documented hallucinations / altered consciousness experiences before turning to drugs and alcohol, not to mention highly unconventional day-to-day lifestyles), but the big one towering over the rest is their weariness, their feeling of being “beat” down by a society they couldn’t fully grasp (and that remained hostile to the Beats’ efforts to grasp it; self-awareness is not an ally of the culturally complacent). 

I have an autistic grandson as well as friends and family members along the Asperger’s spectrum.  I see in them many of the frustrations expressed by the Beats to the confusing world they found themselves in.

The Beats were not beat through any personal failings; the Beats were beat because they were a new generation, a mutation in the human psyche (or at least the American branch of same) that moved us out of one mode of thinking and into another.

In this the Beats were like the first stage of a giant rocket: Aiming for the stars but falling back to earth, yet sending others on to complete their mission.

Does this excuse their bad behaviors, the havoc and wrecked lives they left in their wake?  

No, of course not…

…but it does explain them.

Trapped without context in a world they couldn’t fit in, unable to adequately articulate their own longings, the Beats did the best they could, creating a new language and vocabulary and syntax, one that those who came after them could use as a foundation to build on.

And let’s not be unfair: While there had been previous expressions of the Beats’ longings (everyone from Diogenes to Thoreau to the original California nature boys of the late 19th / early 20 centuries), and while there were certainly other movements in the political and cultural spheres that acted like force multipliers for them, the beats toppled the first domino that lead to the Beat generation (i.e., those who were seized by the writings and ideas and imaginations of the original beats) to the beatniks (a borderline imitative-near-satirical movement based on Beat Generation influence) to the hippies (basically the beatniks with better clothes and drugs but no irony, totally buying into the Beats’ vibe though three generations removed) to the yippies (those peace & love types who took actual steps to bring it about) to the progressives and hipsters of today.

(And, yes, we would be remiss to not point out many 1967 hippies were really “plastics” i.e., phonies & hypocrites who liked playing hippie and getting stoned and / or laid on weekends then working 9-5 M-thru-F, phonies & hypocrites who as soon as the Vietnam War ended and they no longer faced the draft immediately dropped every altruistic and egalitarian value genuine hippies embraced to become cocaine snorting disco yuppies, and how those rat bastards made Reagan not only possible but downright inevitable and how their selfish “me-me-me-gimme all!” attitude fucked over the entire planet, culminating in the worthless sac of human excrement currently squatting in the White House, but chill, there’s a happy ending, the old Beat movement never really died, never really went away, and there’s a lot more progressives now sharing those ideals and visions and it ain’t gonna be easy, lord knows, but it ain’t impossible, either.)

Jack and Allen and Bill are like Moses of old: Lost and wandering for ages, finally catching a glimpse of the far distant Promised land, watching from the mountaintop as the generations they inspired move forth the embrace it.

  © Buzz Dixon

[whiskynottea]

An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. 

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27,  Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35,  Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44,  Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48 

AO3

This chapter is co-written with @theministerskat, who has also made the banner, knows every little corner of Ann Arbor and has been on this ride as my beta almost from the very beginning! Love you, Kat! ❤️

Also, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you for still being here, loving these two goobers and their story!

Chapter 49. Midnight

Michigan. Jamie’s dorm. His new life.

I drew a heart into the condensation that had accumulated on the window overnight. Through the bold, clear lines of my doodle, I could see the fresh layer of snow that had fallen in the early hours of the morning, blanketing the city in white. It was like a clean canvas, impatiently awaiting an artist to make the first stroke.

Like our lives. Everything felt new, and yet familiar at the same time. I didn’t know this place, or the future that awaited us; but I knew him, and myself, and I felt that was enough.

Jamie began stirring in the small bed across the room, and I turned to see him reach a hand out from under the covers, searching for me. I felt my heart constrict at the amount of love that instantaneously engulfed me.

My sweet, ridiculous Scot.

The floor was cold under my feet as I padded back over to the bed and crawled in next to him. I wedged myself into the crook of his arm, trying to steal as much body heat from him as possible.

“Good morning, Sassenach,” he whispered when I finally settled in. He kissed my forehead without opening his eyes, and I could feel the smile playing on his lips as they lingered between my brows.

“Good morning, yourself. I’m cold,” I purred. “Warm me?”

A sigh of contentment escaped him as his other arm came around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer to his body, my living furnace. I felt my own body relax and melt into his, and allowed myself to enjoy a quiet moment with him after so many months apart.

To just be, together.

“What are our plans for today?” I mumbled into his chest after a few minutes.

He didn’t answer right away, and I looked up to make sure he hadn’t fallen back asleep.

As if he were answering my unspoken question, his hand roamed up from my waist and back down, fingertips gracefully gliding over the bare skin of my back. When he reached the swell of my buttocks, he took a firm grip and pulled my hips tight against his.

He was most definitely awake.

His head tilted down slowly towards mine, placing a lingering kiss on my lips before moving to the spot behind my ear.

“Plans?” he whispered between light bites on my ear lobe and kisses just beneath there. “My only plan is to keep ye locked in this room for the rest of yer visit.”

I moaned in response to that suggestion, and felt his reaction to my noises, but just a bit further down.

Trying to not to let him distract me too much, I pushed him a bit more for an answer. “Knowing you, Jamie Fraser, you most certainly have plans for us.”

“Aye, ye’re right. I do.” Another kiss, and then a lick across my collar bone that sent a shiver through me. “But for right now, my only plan is to make ye whimper.” And before I could process what was happening, he dove beneath the covers.

It would never be enough.

--

We eventually untangled ourselves from the sheets of Jamie’s bed around noon, realizing that if we didn’t actually put some effort into getting up, we would stay there forever.

I wanted to see Ann Arbor; it was the city that had enchanted Jamie from the moment he had arrived. I longed to see the things that were a part of his every day, and spend time in his favorite spots.

It was a selfish desire on my part. I wanted to create memories with him so he would still be able to feel my presence wherever he went when I couldn’t be there. I wanted to talk to him on the phone and know exactly what he was seeing, not just imagine the place as a vague picture with fuzzy lines. I wanted Jamie to walk down a street and think of me, how we strolled there together, how he laughed at my jokes.

Stupid, egocentric, overwhelming love. I didn’t want him to forget me.

“Where to first?” I asked as we pushed our way through the front doors of his dorm.

“This way,” he said as he took my mittened hand in his, “I have something special I want to show ye, Sassenach.”

It took us 15 minutes to reach the iron gates of the Nichols Arboretum.

“The locals simply call it The Arb, but I’ve only come here a few times,” Jamie said, letting go of my hand for a moment to pull his beanie back down over his ears. The red curls falling across his forehead were speckled with little snowflakes. “But every time I’m here, I think of you.”

“Only when you’re here?” I asked with a sly smile.

“Always,” he hastened to remedy, “Always! But even more when I’m here. It may sound dumb, but it reminds me of our walks through the parks back in the Edinburgh. Reminds me of home.”

He dropped my hand again and moved a few, wide strides ahead.

I didn’t follow immediately, but turned and took in the bit of wilderness around me, in awe that such a place could exist within a city. It was gorgeous, and the snow covered trees and paths glittered as the sun poked its way through a break in the clouds.

As I completed my circle, a white bomb hit me square in the chest and exploded. I gasped through the cold wetness and wiped at my face.

“But there is never so much snow in Edinburgh!” he said, laughing. He actually dared to laugh.

“You’ll pay for that, Jamie Fraser.” I sneered and ran to him, ready to inflict my revenge on him in any way I could. I tried, with no success, to pull him down into the snow. Before I could realize how, he managed to wrestle me into the air and I ended up with my head against his back, while he fondled my ass, conveniently set upon his shoulder.

“Put me down!” I exclaimed, pounding my fists against his back. He carried me as if I were as light as a feather.

My response released another fit of laughter from him. “Oh I did miss you, my Sassenach,” he murmured, his hand still groping at my butt.

“Me or my arse?” I asked, actually curious.

“Both. I didna ken I could have one and not the other.” He pinched me lightly, then advised me to stop moving before we both fell.

I stopped, and he let me slide down him, slowly, never losing control. His eyes were glinting with happiness and a few unshed tears of joy when I looked at him, standing flush to his body.

When we resumed our walk a few minutes later, I noticed the wooden edges of flowerbeds left to hibernate over the winter. “I guess it will be heavenly here in the spring,” I said, trying to imagine all the colours dancing around me.

“Ah, was it a bad idea to come here?” Jamie asked self-consciously, looking at me with a frown. “It’s only bare trees and snow now, would ye like to go somewhere else, Sassenach?”

I gave him my warmest smile, squeezing his hand. “It’s wonderful, Jamie. It’s so quiet and calm. Everything white, so pure.” I pulled him to me and placed a kiss on his cheek. “I love it.”

Jamie let out a breath, content with himself. “I thought ye would. And there is a river further down!”

He walked in silence, as we had done countless times before, in a life miles away, in a time that felt like years ago.

We neared a lonely wooden bench that was situated under a tree, with thick bark and wide branches.

“I was thinking…” Jamie started, then trailed off. He glanced at the bench, then back to me. “We had our bench on Calton Hill.” He tipped his head in the direction he thought Edinburgh was, although I had no idea which way east was either. “I thought we could have our bench here, as well. Since I’ll be here for--”

I didn’t let him finish his thought. My lips accepted all the love he offered, all the little ways he cherished what we had. I strained to keep the tears from falling, thinking of all the means by which he had already linked this place with me, even before I had set foot here. I showed him my giddy smile though, realizing how stupid I had been, thinking that he’d come to forget me.

He sat down and pulled me onto his lap, and we watched stray snowflakes fall, looking at each other every few moments, trying to take in our new way of life. When I started shivering, Jamie motioned for me to stand, and we resumed our walk.

“Cold already,” he said and shook his head disapprovingly. “I had told ye that first day,” he stopped, and gave me a small smile, “That ye’re a blue-nosed Sassenach.”

I laughed, thinking of the day I discovered how warm Jamie’s hands always were. “Mmmm, you did.”

“I had gone back home and spent the rest of the night thinking if you might have taken offense. But then, you’d given me yer number, so it couldna been that bad.”

“No, not that bad,” I agreed, feeling the warmth of his hand through my gloves. “Not bad at all.”

We followed a path along the river, and when my limbs became sufficiently cold to complain about, Jamie agreed to go to a coffee shop for a little break.

He suggested at least ten different options with great coffee and tea, but we settled for the one closest to central campus, that he frequented every morning before class. On our way there, Jamie greeted several students that passed by us, and I started wondering just how popular he had become here, and in such a small amount of time. It seemed that the tall, redheaded Scot had made quite an impression.

Jamie told me all about the swim team as we neared our destination. He went on about their training, the new coach and the facilities at the university. Everything had surpassed his expectations. He was enraptured, and I felt my heart swell for him. He had made the best choice, and I took a little pride in the fact that I had helped him do so.

“When will I meet John?” I asked when he finally stopped to take a breath from his rambling.

Jamie hesitated for a moment as he held the door open to corner coffee shop for me, but finally continued once we took our spot in line.

“He texted me this morning, Sassenach. Hector is having a party at his place tonight, and John asked if we wanted to go.” He looked at me, uncharacteristically indecisive. “I would rather have ye all to myself, but I don’t think I’ll be able to, now.”

“We could go,” I shrugged. “We’ve had all day to ourselves, and it’s not like I’m leaving tomorrow.” Jamie made a sad face, and I pulled him down to me for a kiss. “We still have plenty of time! Plus, I want to meet John.”

“Aye, he wants to meet ye, too. Even though I dinna ken whether the combination of the two of ye will turn out well for me.”

I snorted and looked at him cunningly. “Maybe I’ll make him tell me your secrets.” I wiggled my eyebrows and he laughed.

“I think ye already ken all my secrets, mo chridhe,” he whispered in my ear and pulled me closer. The older women behind us coughed loudly just as our lips met again, and we apologized, stepping up to the counter to order.

We sat at a table near the wide glass windows, looking out at the street. I felt warmth finally seeping into my body, and with the hot coffee between my hands, the tall Scot sitting across from me, I couldn’t hold my smile back.

We talked about Edinburgh, about Jenny and Ian who were trying to persuade Brian into producing cider as well, and of Rupert and Angus, who had returned to Edinburgh and started a shop fixing bikes, in a forgotten basement close to the city centre. We talked about Oxford, and about my next visit before more obligations would start on my part. It felt wonderful, talking to him again, feeling his hand holding mine, reaching out and touching him. So simple. So perfect.

After several refills we were ready to face the cold again, and left the small cafe. Jamie had a whole list of things we could do, but our late start to the day severely limited our options now.

“We could browse the art museum for a bit. It’d be warm in there,” he suggested as he tightened the scarf around my neck.

“I’d like that,” I told him and we set off.

The museum itself was small in comparison to others, but still held a number of intriguing installations that we found ourselves discussing quietly. Belatedly, we realized that we’d never perused a museum together, and agreed on visiting more of the collections in the following days. On our way out, I noticed a display advertising the museum’s African art gallery and made a mental note to make sure we made it to that one.

The sun had already set when we left the museum and both of our stomachs had begun rumbling for food. After grabbing a quick bite to eat at the student union, Jamie texted John asking for Hector’s address.

“What kind of party will this be, exactly?” I asked while we waited for John’s reply.

“What d’ye mean, Sassenach?”

“Do we need to dress up?” I raised an eyebrow, then raised my arms, indicating that my huge, puffy coat may not be proper party attire.

“Och, no.” Jamie shrugged. “I dinna think it will be anything fancy.” In an instant his arm was around my waist, pulling me to him. “Ye’re beautiful, babe,” his said in a most sincere, mellow voice. “So beautiful that I’m thinking of texting John we willna make it.”

I smiled against his lips and took them in mine.

Later that night, nestled between Jamie’s body and the arm of Hector’s sofa, I closed my eyes, listening to the soft notes of the guitar. It was dreamy.

“D’ye like it, Sassenach?” I heard Jamie’s whisper, his arm pulling me closer to him.

“Mmmm… I envy John.”

That startled him, and he moved back to look at me. “Why on earth would you envy John?”

“Well…” I chuckled. “Hector is tall, handsome, kind, clever, with his own apartment, and he plays the guitar. Isn’t that obvious?” Jamie made a sound I couldn’t characterize, but I was sure it wasn’t amusement. “What?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, turning his eyes away.

“Hey,” I crooned and pinched his side. “Are you really jealous of Hector?”

“I’m not jealous!” he exclaimed a bit louder than he meant to be, and John scowled at us, his gaze leaving Hector for the first time since his boyfriend had started playing.

“Oh, come here, you…” I paused, grinning, but Jamie didn’t look at me. “Chippy Scot!” I finished, bringing my hand around his neck, and lowering his face to me until I could capture his lips in mine.

I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the song. When Jamie pulled back to look at me again, he had a crooked smile on his face.

“So, ye like me more?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes.

“I love you, stupid--” I didn’t get to finish my sentence, his teeth taking hold of my bottom lip.

Hector continued strumming soft tunes on his guitar, now with John sitting next to him, when Jamie’s eyes went wide with panic.

“Where is your coat?” he asked, springing from the couch.

“In a room, somewhere.” I looked at him puzzled, unable to understand what had gotten into him all of a sudden.

A minute later he was back, with our coats, scarves and gloves in his arms. We said a hasty goodnight to the rest of the group and took our leave, Jamie practically dragging me out onto the street.

“Jamie, what’s going on? What’s the matter?” The cold felt like an attack on my body, and I struggled as I tried to put on my gloves, while fixing my scarf tighter around my neck.

“What time is it, Sassenach?”

“What? What does it-”

“Claire! The time!”

Giving up hope of getting words out of him that made any sense, I dug into the pocket of my coat for my phone. I held it up to my face and the screen lit immediately.

“It’s 11:48. Why does it matter? Will your carriage turn into a pumpkin come midnight?” He chuckled at my stupid joke, but took my free hand in his and led me down the snowy walkway.

“Aye, I’ll make sure I leave my glass slipper behind.” I looked down at his long feet, laughing at the notion of Jamie in slippers. “Come on,” he said, tugging at my hand. “It’s a ten-minute walk in the best conditions. We have to hurry.”

And with no more explanation than that, he began walking, pulling me along behind him as I nearly ran to keep up with his long strides.

Even properly secured against the wind the night air was cold against my cheeks, and I knew they’d be a deep pink by the time we got to where we were going.Jamie didn’t slow his pace, but he kept glancing back to me to make sure I was alright, a large sly smile spreading wide across his face.

After what seemed like the longest street block in history, Jamie turned and I saw the coffee shop from that afternoon on the corner. He kept moving towards an archway ahead of us, and I knew it led into the diagonal yard he had shown me on my tour of the campus earlier in the day.

Unsure where exactly we were going, I was surprised when Jamie suddenly stopped in the middle of the archway. Not expecting such a sudden halt, I crashed into the back of him and felt my feet go out from underneath me on a rogue patch of ice.

I braced myself for impact with the pavement, but Jamie caught me before I went down. He held tight to my arms as I steadied myself and I glared up at him.

“What in God’s name is going on, Jamie Fraser? Why the sudden rush out into the cold?”

“What time is it?”

I glowered at him, but didn’t protest this time and looked to my phone once again.

“11:57.” The smile I had seen on his face during our walk reappeared, this time even bigger.

“This is the West Hall Engineering Arch.” He raised his hands and gestured to the brick archway all around us. “It was built in 1904. A long time ago, the female students lived way up in that direction,” he pointed towards one end of the arch, “And the men lived down here on central campus.”

He closed the distance between us, hands coming to a rest on my hips.

“After a date, the lasses and laddies,” I giggled at his put on heavy Scots accent, but he ignored me and continued, “Would part ways for the night right here and say their goodbyes. Legend has it, that if ye kiss someone at midnight under this arch, ye’ll marry ‘em. So, Sassenach, I’ll ask ye once more, what time is it?”

My brained stopped. My pulse quickened and I felt my heart flutter as I looked down to my phone a final time.

“Midnight,” I whispered, but his lips were on mine before I could get the entire word out.

Chapter 50

[karasunonolibero]

2019 writing self-evaluation

so i did this over on my main last year, and since i had what i felt was a productive year, i wanted to do it here! i’ve included all works, from every fandom i wrote for, so there’s definitely a variety but also a clear distinction of when i stopped writing 1d and started writing for haikyuu, heh. anyway, i’m proud of all the work i’ve done this year, so here’s to 2020!

ALL FICS MUST HAVE POSTED ON AO3 IN 2019

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 50

2. Word count posted for the year: 147,038

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

two loves have i (5 january)

it’s only your imagination again (25 january)

the pain’s only temporary (8 february)

blow a kiss, fire a gun (9 may)

waiting to be found (14 may)

a swim with a shark (6 june)

sweet and lowdown (19 june)

one more time as if we planned it (24 june)

always be my thunder (23 july)

will your mouth read this truth (30 july)

tumblr drabbles & prompts (last updated 3 august)

I’m on my way up (’cos you make me bliss out) (completed 4 august) (collab with Rider_Of_Spades on ao3)

even mountains crumble into the sea (7 august)

we’re on each other’s team (14 august)

dangerous, tainted, flawed (20 august)

life can do terrible things (25 august)

the night before life goes on (1 september)

when the letter says a soldier’s coming home (17 september)

when the air ran out (19 september)

something missing tonight (21 september)

built castles from sand (26 september)

underneath the stars we came alive (8 october)

sweet talk and sugar (10 october)

got my name on this treasure (11 october)

just a little taste, babe (14 october)

iwaoi horror week drabbles (completed 1 november)

don’t let the tide come (31 october)

daisuga week drabbles (completed 24 november)

how (not) to put on a condom (26 november)

taste the tension, now i’m begging (2 december)

kiss the boy (7 december)

till tonight do us part (11 december)

i wish i could be there now (13 december)

on our way to twenty-seven (15 december)

for the dream far away (24 december)

a collar full of chemistry (25 december)

fall down and commune with me (28 december)

a little of love’s electricity (31 december)

the city is at war (last updated 31 december)

4. Fandoms I wrote for: (stats pulled from the ao3 filter feature on my works)

haikyuu!! (41)

one direction (9)

the legend of zelda: breath of the wild (3)

all time low (1)

crystalline (1)

5. Pairings: (i didn’t count side or past pairings)

iwaizumi hajime/oikawa tooru (14)

sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi (13)

oikawa tooru/sugawara koushi (4)

azumane asahi/nishinoya yuu (3)

kuroo tetsurou/sawamura daichi (2)

kuroo tetsurou/yaku morisuke (1)

akaashi keiji/oikawa tooru (1)

sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi/terushima yuuji (1)

sawamura daichi/terushima yuuji (1)

sugawara koushi/terushima yuuji (1)

link/revali (1)

mipha/zelda (1)

louis tomlinson/harry styles (5)

louis tomlinson/zayn malik (1)

alex gaskarth/louis tomlinson (1)

liam payne/louis tomlinson (1)

zack spade/pixel fade (1)

6. Story with the most:

Kudos: two loves have i (275)

Bookmarks: two loves have i (34)

Comments: two loves have i (25)

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

on our way to twenty-seven! i was digging into some identity and sexuality issues that i myself have dealt with in the past and writing about it was the first time i’d really dove into some of that stuff, so i really enjoyed writing it and i think it’s some of my best.

i’m also really proud of i’m taking back the crown and i wish i could say why. i just really like the way it came out. writing oikawa as this desperate dethroned prince trying to reclaim his kingdom at any cost only to be beaten at his own game in his own home was just...ugh. it was so much fun to write.

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

one more time as if we planned it, definitely. i just felt super rushed writing it. it was for the one direction rarepair fest, which was super fun, but i had Just finished a longer fic a few days before this one was due and i initially tried to drop out because i thought i wouldn’t be able to finish it, but i did, but i still feel like it’s rushed and just not as good as it could have been if i’d planned better and given it some more time.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

im gonna do what i did last year and post more than one, because 1. i can’t decide and 2. i quite honestly am pretty proud of a lot of what i wrote this year

from when the letter says a soldier’s coming home —

Tooru’s squealing somewhere behind them, and Hajime’s gruffly trying to get out the door, and he’ll have to call the school and make up something about being sick so he can spend the day catching up with Daichi, but it can wait. It can all wait. Because Koushi’s waited long enough. It’s about time the rest of the world waits for him.

from strawberries on a summer evening —

Suga hums against him, licking strawberry seeds from between Daichi’s teeth, like he’s just as intoxicated by Daichi as Daichi is with him. Daichi could live here, in this feeling, ignoring everything except how Suga sounds (like bliss personified), smells (like sunblock and sweat), tastes (like sugar and salt). He’s the hottest part of the summer, high noon in mid-August, just this side of too much to handle, but addicting in how it leaves you at its mercy.

from on our way to twenty-seven —

“Sorry, what was your name again?”

Tetsurou opens his mouth to say his American name, but he catches Daichi and Suga looking at him, and he swallows it down. “My name is Tetsurou. Tetsurou Kuroo.”

“I thought you wanted people to call you Tyler,” Timothy says.

Tetsurou shoots him a glare and says it again, feeling his confidence start to grow. “My name is Tetsurou Kuroo. Tetsu is fine, too, but I don’t go by Tyler anymore.”

12. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

any time tasteofsummersnow left me a comment, it made my heart go doki doki!! her comments are so in depth and so very sweet and it’s so much fun to see her real-time reactions to my writing. i go back and reread them like once a week they’re so nice ;_;

13. A time when writing was really, really hard:

the spring/early summer in general was tough, like from march to june. i didn’t post anything between february and may, and i feel like i was struggling a lot creatively around like may/june of this year. i think it’s because a lot of stuff in the 1d fandom was really turning me off at the time and that’s when the burnout fully hit.

14. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

definitely sugawara in the city is at war. i was writing that first chapter and initially i just wanted to see him step up when daichi wasn’t around but he very quickly turned sadistic and ruthless and scarily sharp, which is just so much fun to write him as. and his relationship with daichi is just—ugh. love that violence-fueled romance. they would kill a hundred men for each other and be turned on once they were finished.

honestly, all of the city is at war has surprised me. the idea came to me in a dream on a long bus ride, of all the clan leaders having a meeting and being attacked, and i woke up and banged it out in 36 hours. i meant it to be a oneshot but as i wrote it, i realized i loved the au so much there was no way i could leave it at that. so now it’s got a whole plot and all that. fun!

15. How did you grow as a writer this year:

last year i said i felt i grew writing angst and exploring different emotional themes, and i think i built on that even more this year. i did a bunch of shorter pieces this year and i feel a lot of them really explored emotions and characters more than plot, and that’s been so much fun. and then as well, like i said before, i’ve branched out into the crime-action genre with the yakuza au. and! iwaoi horror week was my first real attempt at spooky/creepy/horror-type writing, and, it was a fun challenge for sure.

i also said i wanted to just keep writing and be spontaneous and i definitely did that this year. i posted so many fics not caring how long it had been since the last one—sometimes it was less a day. numbers stopped mattering to me. i posted just because i wanted to put my writing out there and share it with the world, knowing there had to be someone out there who’d like it.

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

i feel like 2019 was a year of trying a lot of new things, so in 2020 i’m hoping to explore some different ships and tropes. the sheer number of characters and ships in haikyuu means there’s a ship for just about every trope and au out there, and i want to play around with some dynamics i’ve never written before.

17. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

as always, a shoutout to the loggies, who have been a fantastic source of inspiration and support all year even after i retired from 1d fic. and i would also like to thank the people i met via various hq discord servers—you know who you are!! thank you for the sprints, the encouragement, the inspiration, and the friendship. as someone brand new to the fandom, the support and sense of community has been nothing short of amazing, and you guys are part of the reason i felt so comfortable in this fandom so quickly.

18. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

actually, yeah. even mountains crumble into the sea was written the night before i broke up with my ex. i wrote it as an exercise to get all my feelings out, lay them all on the table where i could see them and pick through them, and then imagine the best possible way the scenario could go.

19. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

honestly—just write! write what you’re happy with. write even if you don’t post it. write, because everything you do is practice that’ll help you improve.

and don’t be afraid to write out of order or write more than one project at a time. i know that won’t work for everyone, but for me, if i didn’t immediately write what was on my mind, i probably wouldn’t have posted half of what i did this year.

20. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

hey remember last year when i said i was gonna finish the breath of the wild au?? L M A O i’m really gonna finish it next year i swear!!

i have a fic posting in the spring for the nsfw big bang which i’m ALSO very excited about! i’m lucky to be working with such a talented artist and the end result is gonna be amazing and i’m so so excited.

i also want to keep going with the city is at war, because that plot was a pleasant surprise. and there’s an ever-growing list of fic ideas and aus that i’m so excited to write—some of them were originally for larry aus but i’ve repurposed them for haikyuu pairings and that’s helped breathe new life into some old ideas.

21. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

anyone who sees this and wants to do it! just tag me, i wanna read your answers!

[onlyawfulrpgideas]

Railroading: Express Train Adventures or Leaves on the Plot Line?

“In gaming, the act of forcing a player to "choose to" do something they don't really want to in order to advance the plot according to the wishes or designs of the GM.”

-       UrbanDictionary.com (other, unrelated definitions are available, but you have been warned)

Railroading your players is bad, right? It takes away agency, free choice and immersion in a game of unlimited imagination.

The term “railroading” is so often used in complaint – a negative descriptor applied to a more controlled style of game-mastering, often associated with pre-written modules. In published adventures, this feeling of being driven along down a pre-laid train track is – to a certain extent – necessary to make the game work. If the players are allowed unchecked freedom, it is almost certain that, at some point, their choices will cause events to diverge from the pre-determined story later on.

           Coming to a game where you’ll be running a published module or adventurers league or whatever, expecting to have sandbox levels of freedom is rather unrealistic. Expecting the GM to accommodate your every maverick whim in this situation is, in my opinion, a little bit selfish. There will be inexperienced players who bring these expectations to the table from time to time, but the joy of our social-based game is that it thrives on patience, understanding and learning. In pre-written adventure scenarios, one cannot really hold the GM responsible for “railroading” because the book is railroading them!

           So what does constitute the evil sin of “railroading”? That rather depends where we draw the lines between maintaining a cohesive plot, “railroading” and just being a narrator of your own story. Somewhere on this scale we also encounter the fabled curse of “being a dick”. For now, let’s leave pre-written adventures behind and focus on homebrew campaigns.

           Giving your players the ability to make choices that genuinely influence the world around their characters is a key component of what makes D&D so special. There’s nothing wrong with video game PRGs, but there is only a certain amount of things you can do: parameters that you can’t venture beyond, because the programming isn’t infinite. We all know the three pillars of adventure are one third Exploration, one third Role-playing, one third Combat and one extra quarter of Sheer Craziness. It’s in the moments of zany plans and “you can certainly try’s” that push the limits of game mechanics, where some of our most memorable stories originate.

Letting these events play out and dealing with the consequences is the mark of a good GM: allowing your players creative freedom with their characters. Automatically shooting down unlikely attempts, without even allowing someone to make a roll for it, is a big source of “railroading” complaints. Especially when a GM overrules the description a player gave for their character’s actions, in order to force a desired outcome – whether positive or negative. It robs the player of their satisfaction.

When a player wants their character to do something that is fundamentally impossible and a roll would be pointless, consider allowing a roll to be made anyway. The outcome, of course, is unsuccessful; but it creates an illusion of choice and possibility. Through your description, place emphasis on the characters’ determined attempts to the best of their ability, even in the face of “almost” certain failure. This can do wonders for the players’ perception of the game and we’ll look at this in more depth later.

For now, an example:

When I first started GM-ing at college, I ran a sandbox-y story set on an island separated into a north and south area by an impassable stone wall with an ancient, giant-made portcullis gate in the centre. The logic behind this was that I had two groups whose stories took place on opposite sides of the wall. They could communicate and pass small items to each other through the gate, but not get directly involved in events on the other side (since they played at separate times).

           Eventually the south team decided to try what had been implied to be impossible and bypass the gate. Despite being enchanted and over a foot in diameter, they weren’t going to let them metal bars keep them out. Against the advice of almost every NPC, they requisitioned as many cutting implements as their money could buy and set to work sawing, filing and axe-swinging away at the portcullis.

           Being largely inexperienced, I thought to myself “this is stupid, they know it’s not going to work”. I declined to even narrate the attempt, streamlining the action into a simple statement of “you can’t do it: it’s impossible”. To my surprise, the group were rather quite disappointed, and after the session I had time to ponder why. They knew full well that their attempt was futile, why make the gesture?

           Perhaps the two player groups spoke to each other, I don’t honestly know, but sure enough during the next session, the group on the North side of the gate attempted to do the same. This time, I tried things a little differently.

           Their monk’s player was, frankly, a complete nutcase and this showed through in his monk-turned-pirate character with an extreme stubborn streak. He made his way down to the wall with every saw blade the island could muster and began to cut at the 12-inch-thick metal bars. I decided to let him roll a general strength check, just for the hell of it. Of course, he rolls a natural 20. Now, this was supposed to be an impossible task…

           Without giving an outcome, I asked him how long he would like to spend making the attempt to cut through. He replied “until I drop”. So I had him roll Constitution checks to represent each hour passing, until he had failed three and collapsed from exhaustion. By this point, the table was lost in gales of laughter and cheering him on in the obviously fruitless endeavour. The following morning, the monk awoke where he had passed out, aching all over, surrounded by a heap of blunt saws, to inspect the small, shallow scratch he had made.

           Both outcomes were the same: the gate was impassable and no mundane means could truly penetrate it. But one group left the table feeling cheated, “railroaded���, and the other tells the tale of the scene to this day. While the rolls were being made, they held onto the comically absurd notion that somehow, against all the mounting odds, success was possible and the effort was worthwhile, if foolish. Above all they enjoyed being given the chance to try and lamenting/ridiculing the outcome, even if that chance was only an illusion.

             In more long-term perspectives, “railroading” is used to describe the instances where no matter what the players do, eventually the story catches up with them just the same as if they had done nothing and the party’s efforts are rendered pointless. This can leave a very firm sense of disappointment and dissolution, where the players wonder why they bother to interact with your world at all, if ultimately, you have already pre-destined what is going to happen. There’s nothing wrong with wider events moving on around the characters if they do not have any direct influence, but be wary of nullifying their actions.

           A storytelling technique I’ve learnt and try (as best I can) to incorporate into my GM prep is the “Yeah but, No but” pattern. Having alternate outcomes in mind enables you to give the players scope for influencing your story, while keeping them firmly on the rails of your longer plot.

           Perhaps the PC’s cleverly thwart the villain’s evil scheme too early through some logic you overlooked… YEAH, they succeeded, BUT... the villain is able to escape, or the plan is delayed and not stopped altogether. Our heroes have their victory: they saved the day for now. But they go forward knowing that the danger is far from over.

           Alternatively, they valiantly attempt to stop the villainous plot and fail… NO, they didn’t succeed, BUT… they discover some kind of clue or blessing that will help them be more prepared next time. Even in defeat, the players can take some measure of victory and look forward to the inevitable rematch.

           Either way, the long-term story remains unchanged. The journey to it, however, just got a lot more interesting and gave opportunity for character development – whether that be through revelling in victory, or a hardening of resolve in defeat.

           Almost reminds me of… a railroad.

You have your Main Line: the express route. Full steam ahead down the easiest track from A to B. Everything unfolds just as you planned; the characters behave like archetypal heroes with one goal in mind and the campaign unfolds like a slick action movie. Nothing wrong with that, it’s perfectly fun and rewarding. This is often how some of the more heavily time-depended modules are written.

When time is less of a pressure, you might take your players to a junction or the “points” as we call them here. An opportunity presents itself to switch to another narrative track, taking a different direction to the main plot and exploring something new. No matter how many places you visit on that journey, the route you took still links back up to the main line: the over-arching plot.

Maybe your players take it upon themselves to go in a direction you hadn’t anticipated and explore a branch line. You weren’t as prepared for this, so the track might be a little bit wandering and there might not be quite so many significant things down there, but it’s a nice way to explore the fictional world you have created none the less. Not every bit of the adventure needs to be full pace towards a climatic confrontation.

Some sessions might feel more like a shunting yard. You’ve laced the story with plot hooks that seem obvious to you, but it’s taking the players a while to figure out what it is you want them to do – if indeed you have any specific plans at all. They might deliberate backwards and forwards for a while, exploring smaller avenues of adventure in the hopes that something will fall into place and open up the main line that’s laid ready for them.

Dead ends are a thing. Literally. And I don’t mean making characters just die because you don’t like them.

          “Railroading” your players into failure can make them feel like you are just mean-spirited or don’t want them to have freedom to try. Equally, don’t try too hard to save them from themselves. If they know the stakes and take risks that might prove fatal for their characters, LET THEM. It’s their story as much as yours and if they are willing to put their characters’ lives on the line for their own reasons, LET THEM. Should they put all their effort into hurtling down the tracks towards a set of buffers, try to minimize damage without some contrived deus ex machina that saves them all at the last minute. Unless it makes sense for that to happen and even then, don’t do this more than once. They can always roll a new character if one of them dies or if the whole party is killed… Then that’s an awesome story!

           You and your friends created a world in which to play, characters who brought it to life and who, in the end, chose to risk everything for something bigger than themselves. That’s Epic. The lovingly-detailed world they never got to see doesn’t disappear: it’s still yours and always will be, waiting for the next generation of adventurers to unlock its secrets and plots.

           I think it’s time we gave the “railroad” analogy a new lease of life and a better definition. A length of straight track isn’t a proper railroad – it doesn’t have branches or diversions, tunnels or junctions, sidings or stations.

           As GM’s we are ALWAYS railroading the players. No matter where it is that their adventures take them, whatever choices they make. There should always be options for different routes that connect back to a familiar narrative – however that takes its shape.

[sevenkookiejars]

"What are you doing sprawled out on the sidewalk?"+Yoonmin

Pairing: YoonMin (Yoongi x Jimin)Prompt: “What are you doing sprawled out on the sidewalk?” AU Rating: PGWord Count: 1,681A/N: hello anon, thank you for requesting this (if you still follow me, this is for you) ^~^ hope that all of you yoonmin fans out there can enjoy this tiny bit of fluff right here!Yoongi glances both ways down the path outside his dorm building before stepping carefully down the last step. 

It’s summer break now and the campus is quiet at 8:20AM. The early risers with classes to get to are safely seated in lecture halls and classrooms 20 minutes ago, and everyone else is still tucked up in bed fast asleep. And yeah, when Yoongi says ‘everyone else’, he’s talking about the pathetic souls who are stuck on campus instead of visiting home or touring the world. Including himself, yes. 

The sidewalks are void of people for as far as Yoongi can see, the only sounds being the distant chirp of birds and the occasional whisper of a summer breeze. No one’s going to walk through this area, he’s pretty certain. He’s done his homework - woke up at 8AM for the past week and literally no one, except a stray kitten on one of the days, walks past his block after 8:05AM. The next crowd comes at 8:45AM, so he’s safe. For at least 20 minutes, that is. 

Slowly, Yoongi crouches down. He dusts a stray leaf aside, scans the ground once more before sitting. The concrete is warm from the morning sun. Yoongi’s found this perfect spot bathed in the soft warmth of light, just large enough to accommodate him lying down with his limbs outspread. So that’s exactly what he does. 

The ground is uncomfortably hard as expected of a cement path and now Yoongi’s wondering if it has yet to fully dry from the morning dew. He’s pretty sure he feels a slight dampness near his butt, but maybe it’s just his imagination. 

He checks his phone. A minute. Only a minute’s passed and Yoongi already hates this. This is all Taehyung fault. If only Taehyung knew how to keep his mouth shut instead of announcing out loud that Yoongi is, and Yoongi quotes, “like a featherless white chicken”, he wouldn’t be here. 

To be fair, it’s an inside joke they share from getting overly tipsy drinking in their dorm room once - Yoongi the featherless white chicken and Taehyung the roasted chicken. It was funny then, okay? But it’s not funny when Taehyung the loudhailer practically proclaimed it with glee in front of your old crush. Ex-crush, but still. Namjoon was nice enough to hold his laugh back, but Yoongi was embarrassed. 

Yoongi tried to ignore it; he really did. But it ended as well as him trying to ignore Taehyung forever, which simply put, is failing miserably. Because Yoongi’s mind is about as persistent as The Ultimate Roommate Kim Taehyung, who basically invades Yoongi’s half of the room every other minute, whines and annoys him whenever possible, and has no sense of personal space. 

So, forgetting wasn’t an option. The only other one would be to face it. And of all people, Yoongi turned to Taehyung. “Just bask in the sunlight!” is what Taehyung exclaimed. “You know, like how Soonshim loves to nap out on the warm dirt in the afternoon sun?“ 

"Soonshim’s still fucking white though,” Yoongi replied then, rolling his eyes. “Same difference,” Taehyung waved his hand vaguely at Yoongi. “You’re missing the point." 

Yeah, okay so Yoongi really doesn’t get how Taehyung’s mind works sometimes, but what he does know is that he regrets asking Taehyung for his opinion. Because of course Yoongi’s mind is gripping to it like a lifeline and wouldn’t let go until he actually does it. 

Which brings Yoongi back to now. Him, a pathetic college kid not spending summer out on a beach tanning but rather, desperately attempting to be less of the pasty white he is while lying on the sidewalk. Pathetic, really. 

Yoongi’s about to lift his phone to check on the time, silently praying for it to be nearing his planned 20 minutes, when his ears pick up shuffling footsteps. 

Yoongi freezes. Oh god no. 

The footsteps get louder. No no no no no. Yoongi’s sure no one ever walks by at this time. Unless he stayed too long? 

It’s so loud now. Yoongi honestly wants to sink into the ground and become one with the cement. Maybe if he wishes hard enough, he’d camouflage with the footpath and no one will ever realize he’s there. 

Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me. Please don’t-

"Hey.” Yoongi really wants to cry. Fuck, this is all Kim Taehyung’s fault. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Someone crouches down beside Yoongi and taps him twice on the shoulder. Maybe if he pretends to sleep, this guy will walk away. 

“Oh god, are you okay?” The voice pitches a notch up. Yoongi gets shaken on both shoulders now. “Wake up please,” the voice says. “Please don’t tell me you collapsed out here." 

Yoongi’s starting to wonder why the voice sounds so worried. They’re strangers, why would anyone care? Also, can’t a man take a nap on the sidewalk? 

"Doctor,” the voice says. “Hang in there, I’ll get you to the doctor, alright?” Arms grab Yoongi under his armpits from the back and start to lift him. 

Oh god, no. Yoongi’s senses kick in as the person behind pushes him into a sitting position. His eyes fly open. 

“Fuck, no.” Yoongi doesn’t even realize he’s spoken until the stranger’s hands freeze. With much dignity as he can muster, Yoongi spins around, a perfect tale of being so exhausted after his morning run that he had to lie down on the footpath on the tip of his tongue. Nevermind that he spun the story in three seconds flat. 

He’s going for a sheepish smile, but the second his eyes land on the very stunned expression of the boy before him, Yoongi’s mind immediately goes blank. Because of all the people in this huge college campus, it just has to be the one and only Park Jimin. Two-year international inter-college swimming gold medalist and the rising star scouted onto the national swim team to represent South Korea. Simply put, mini-celebrity, Nation’s Boyfriend Park Jimin, who is now blinking away his shock and lowering his outstretched hands to his side. 

Yoongi stares unblinking as Jimin rubs the back of his neck with a small, embarrassed smile. “Sorry,” Jimin starts. “I thought you passed out right there.”

Fuck, he’s so cute. Yoongi’s going to go to hell for cursing at the country’s favourite boy. “Umm,” Yoongi says unintelligibly, and feels like slapping himself. “I was taking a nap?" 

Jimin blinks once, twice. "On the footpath,” Yoongi adds, and wishes right there and then that a branch would break above and strike him in the head. Hoseok laughs at Yoongi’s social inadequacy all the time. Yoongi only realises how big a problem it is right about now. He sounds like an idiot and Jimin’s going to think he’s weird as hell and walk away. Yoongi doesn’t know why but his heart drops a little at that. 

But against everything Yoongi’s predicts, Jimin starts to giggle, before breaking into a full laugh that has him doubled over, hair flopping into his eyes. 

Yoongi watches confused as Jimin tries to catch his breath, noting with dismay that yes, Jimin’s even cute when he laughs. Not that Yoongi didn’t already know that. Yeah sue him for watching all of Jimin’s interviews on YouTube but who can resist the nation’s sweetheart? 

“Sorry,” Jimin wheezes. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re really funny?” He looks up at Yoongi then, gaze bright. 

Dazed, Yoongi shakes his head slowly. Jimin hasn’t left, he’s still crouching with a gym bag beside him, it’s strap haphazardly strewn, like Jimin had flung it off when he’d stopped to help Yoongi up. 

Yoongi’s eyes follow Jimin as he stands, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He offers his hand to Yoongi. “Need a hand?" 

Jimin’s hand is warm as he pulls Yoongi to his feet. He doesn’t let go, instead choosing to shake it once with a grin. "Park Jimin,” he says, and Yoongi almost blurts out I know, because really, you’d have to be living outside civilisation to not have heard this name. “Didn’t catch your name earlier." 

"Min Yoongi,” Yoongi says, surprised at how steady his voice sounds. 

“Oh?” Jimin tilts his head, lips pursed. “Min Yoongi,” he says, syllables smooth and nope, nope, nope, Min Yoongi, don’t you dare blush - you’re twenty-five, not fifteen for God’s sake. 

Jimin’s eyes light up. “Min Yoongi! As in Kim Taehyung’s mysterious roommate, Min Yoongi?" 

Internally, Yoongi groans. Fucking Kim Taehyung. Pulling his lips into what he hopes is a lopsided smile, Yoongi shrugs. "The one and only, I guess." 

"I’ve always wanted to meet you in person.” What? Park Jimin wanted to meet him? “Taehyung mentions you a whole lot." 

Jimin starts walking. Unconsciously, Yoongi follows. "All good things I hope." 

"He said you’re grumpy as hell in the morning, drink your coffee black like your soul, and that you always push him away but you secretly love his hugs.”   

"That brat,” Yoongi mutters without bite. Jimin laughs at that and Yoongi can’t help but smile. Get a grip, Min Yoongi. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hoseok’s laughter rings the same way it did when Yoongi became a stuttering mess the first time he met Namjoon all those years ago. 

“He also said that you’re the biggest softie but also the coolest DJ he’s ever known.” Jimin turns to him, frowning. “He never told me you’re this cute though.” Yoongi almost trips over his feet. “I’d have pestered Tae to let me meet you sooner." 

Yoongi feels the tip of his ears turn hot. "I’m not cute,” he retorts weakly.

“You’re even cuter when you’re blushing,” Jimin says. Yoongi’s official lost all ability to reply coherently. There’s a pause as Jimin waits for a reply before he glances over to gauge Yoongi’s reaction. 

“Hey hyung,” Jimin starts. He nudges Yoongi lightly with his shoulder. It takes an immense effort for Yoongi to turn and meet Jimin’s gaze. 

"I’ve got swim practice now, but are you free to grab a coffee at say, eleven?" 

A/N: Thank you for reading this fic! I’ve honestly never written a yoonmin fic before so here’s me trying it out with an awkward Min Yoongi and nation’s sweetheart (where is the lie) Park Jimin. If you guys have read my older fics and are still here reading this one, thank you so so much for the support! 

Send me a prompt and a bangtan pairing, I’ll write you a short fic ♡

(though to be fair, there are 10 requests sitting in my ask that I haven’t gotten about to writing, so yeah, I really might take forever with these - someone find me back my lost inspiration please)

[deeisace]

hmmmm

i like to think there are a lot of interesting folks in my family

or there were, at least

well, yeah okay my recent family is pretty weird also

but just to list some odd/interesting/cool folks? i think, anyway. because i’m thinking about it and i can’t research bcs i turned off my ancestry account bcs i don’t have £15 a month spare

uhhh anyway okay

most of these you will know i’m sure, cs i do talk rather a lot of nonsense fairly often

--

because letterkenny has reminded me of the existence of canada-

henry bird, ghost child. the only record of him ever that i can find, ever, is the passenger list of him going over to ontario in i forget if it was 1873 or 1878, but he was 8 years old, and i assume he is a cousin of mine somehow (since he went over with my 4th-great grandparents, an aunt and her neices/nephew(/stepchildren - the aunt, Grace, married her sister, Thirza’s widower, 6 months after her sister died, and who died 6 months later)).

on the subject of Canada, Willie Bird, my cousin four times removed, who became a mountie in somewhere called Moose Jaw (someone who is from there is called a Moose Javian, which is fuckin amazing) in his early 20s/the late 1880s, and I can’t find a mention of him following that, in 1891. His sister Ann married a postman and moved to Ohio, where it seems she fairly immediately died, and his sister Thirza married someone called John James Nicholson, stayed home in Dufferin County, Ontario and named her second son Beryle.

--

Ellenor Moore, an aunt of mine, whose husband Thomas was in fact legally married to the woman next door - they had 10 children between the three of them over 15 years, with most of the eldest listed to Ellenor, and most of the youngest listed with Mary - or at least, they lived in that manner, according to the 1891 census, although the youngest two, the same age, had swapped residence according to their baptisms - John was baptised to Ellenor but lived with Mary on the census, and Selena was baptised to Mary but lived with Ellenor. I couldn’t find baptism records for most of the elder children, however. Of course I don’t know their lives or their reasonings, but I like to think they were happy, living in such a way, even in 1870s-1890s(etc) rural Lancashire.

Alfred Wyatt Pettit, my 3rd-great grandfather, the cheesemonger apprentice turned coachman - turned tram driver, turned omnibus driver, turned omnibus conductor. He really must’ve hated cheese - or just really liked these new motor cars, I suppose!

Redvers Madge, my 3rd great uncle. He just has a funny name, tbh. I’m not at all surprised he went by Henry. Jack, why on earth would you do that to your youngest son?? The rest of them had normal names, f god’s sake.

On the subject of odd names, tho - Thirza Bird, Devereaux Aland, Wyndham Evans (on my father’s side), Wyndham Madge (on my mother’s side), Mark Darke, Horatio Fox... A set of sisters all called variations on Mary - Mary, Maria, May - with Elizabeth and Charles the youngest two siblings. And a set of sisters all with flower names - Daisy, Violet, Ivy, Hyacinth (who hated her name, and was called something entirely unrelated as soon as she was able to protest) and Lily - where all the boys had, again, normal names - Charles, Sam, Eddie and Cyril.

Alice Fox, who came from a family of criminals - or at least, her dad (the aforementioned Horatio Fox, “a rough-looking fellow [and] lazy, drunken vagabond”, according to the papers, who I talk about here a bit) was terrible in at least most ways you can think, to his family as well as himself, and seems to have been in prison more often than not, fortunately - and one of her aunts was the 1870s equivalent of a shoplifter, whilst the other caused a lot of bother fighting with her neighbours, and the last married a policeman, which must’ve caused some family drama, I imagine. But Alice married a baker, who’sone and  only mention in the local paper was that once he got fined for leaving his car outside a shop for too long, which spooked a horse, in 1912 - so while that’s no proof, I do hope her later life was happier than her childhood.

Ah, who else, now.

John Stuart Scarth, who was a son of a gun - although not in his manner, so far as I can tell. He was born, impossibly, on a ship on it’s way back from Malta. Impossible because although his dad was a soldier, the regiment he belonged to would not be in Malta another 30 years. He lists himself as being born in Lisbon, however - but although his daughter must’ve got something wrong - or I have, or someone has - he must’ve told her that story, for her to remember it and tell it to the author of a genealogical book about posh people in Illinois. I’m not entirely sure I believe that book, that she was "a lady of culture and refinement”, since that is certainly not true of any of my more recent relatives (refinement?? nah), although I do believe the book/her that her dad was the precentor of St Magnus’ Cathedral, sort of like a choir master, for 40 years, and had “a peculiar talent” “in vocal and instrumental music”, and valued music far above his trade (which was tailoring, same as his dad - who also had the same name) - I know from the Orkney papers some of the songs he sang, and that he had a “neat manner” and that he sang as entertainment for the local Temperance League meetings sometimes - which is why I say he was not a son of a gun - although his place of birth makes him one.

James Linklater Fergus, the first actual Scouser in my family (although Lancashire goes further back some, on another branch), a sailor on a steam ship who died in Alexandria, Egypt, after stepping on a rusty nail - or at least, that is what I assume from “puncture wound, sole rht foot, 10 days hosp”.

Betsy Evans, my 4th-great aunt, from Darlaston, who listed her occupation as “latch-press” in 1871 - I know of course it means that she made latches, in a factory or suchlike, but it seems so much like an old-timey word for a thief, doesn’t it? I can quite imagine her making the locks she will later break into, though I’m sure that’s a foolish thought if ever there was one.

Alfred Cotterill, my great great grandfather, who emigrated to Boston and came back not two years later - to join the war effort, for ww1 had begun (supposedly, according to his grandson - but he married in april 1914, in Newport, Wales (to an awful woman), and the war did not begin until july - so unless he was clairvoyant, I fail to see how that was the case. He had a tattoo, on his right arm, although I’ve no idea what of, since I can’t find his blummin war records, can I? He spent most of the war as a POW, in the salt mines - he was shot in the leg in no man’s land, and was reportedly glad the germans picked him up instead of the british, since it meant he kept his leg, rather than the british, who had no time or resources, just amputating it.

Richard Mussard, a cab driver in London in the 1850s etc, who lived near two train stations and did so alright for himself that he owned his own cab after some time. He became a cabbie before the advent of The Knowledge, and so must’ve been one of the first to have to take it. I’ve no idea of his parents, but London in 1800 seems to have had two Mussard families - one, lightermen (sort of like ferrymen, only for things rather than people, working with the currents and with long paddles used for steering) from Battersea, or the other, a middle-class fencing/dancing instructor to boarding schools who did indeed have a son called Richard, although it was his middle name and not first. I don’t know how Richard might have got from an alright middle-class background to ferrying people between train stations for a pitance, and I would not wish such a decrease in fortunes upon him, but I do hope I’m decended from a fencing instructor anyway.

---

I think that’s rather enough, I suppose - I’ve run out of people that other people seem to find interesting, and I’m sure if I continued I’d bore you. And it’s midnight.