#I read an essay about this book where people were trying to say this epic has no heroes buuuuuut Satan is definitely the hero here lol | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stellarboystyles · 4 years ago

Text

serendipity

ahhhh she’s finally done!! now i can rest my weary soul. thank you to my lover @bfharry for putting this lovely event together, and i’m sorry this late, i’m a mess.

7k pining, fluff and smut

friends to lovers college au // trigger warning - mentions of illness, family death and childhood trauma, mentions of alcohol use.

She was reaching as high as she could, desperately trying to get to the book on the shelf that was much too high for her to reach. She turns to Harry, who’s smirking down at her with crossed arms.

“Need a lift, sprout?”

She gives him a look of eloquence. “Please.”

She giggles as he dips down, wrapping his arms around her legs and lifting her up. Now, she’s happily at eye level with the desired shelf.

Her fingers skimming over the spines of all the hardbacks sitting comfortably on the wood surface. E...F...G...H...

“Found it!”

Once her eyes lock on the title, she pulls the book out as fast as she could.

“Okay, let me down.”

“Sure? Don’t like the view from up there? Know you’re not used to it-”

“No, now let me down before I bruise you like the peach that you are.”

“Ouch.” he snickered, setting you back down onto the ground beneath. “S’harsh.”

“Deserved it.” she teased before he sticks out his tongue in a playful response.

“What d’ya need the book for?”

“It’s for that analysis we have to do for poetry class.”

He blinks at her once, eyes widening slightly. “What analysis?”

She giggles at his expression. “You didn’t read your emails, did you?”

“Fuck!” he exclaims, voice slightly above a whisper, but it was enough to agitate the other students in the library who are trying to either study or get their own work done.

“Shhh!”

“Sorry, sorry.” he apologizes to the people around them before Y/N puts a hand on his bicep and he leans into her to hear her whispering words.

“You just have to pick a poetry book, analyze it, make a conclusion, all that stuff.”

“So it’s like an essay?”

“Kind of.” she follows Harry as he starts to examine the shelves for a book himself. “You know how Greene is, he’s super chill. He wants it to be more of a review, what you think of the book and the author.”

“So, like a review.”

She blinks at him. “That’s what I just said.”

“M’tired, gimme a break.” he sighs. “He never challenges us in that class.”

“I guess not.” she shrugs. “Easy grade, right?”

“Sounds like it.” he gives a casual nod. “When’s it due?”

“Tuesday.”

“Sweet.” he nods, eyes skimmed across the shelves before landing on a cornflower blue hardback. Harry chose books by their cover a lot. Not metaphorically, just literally.

“Ready?”

He nods again. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Once they’d both gotten their book signed out, they started down the path across the patch of grass, making their way to their next class that they had together.

“So you really didn’t check your phone all weekend?”

He shakes his head. “No, my phone was off ‘cos Gem was visiting over the weekend, remember?” he taps on the side of her head with one finger. “Helloooo, earth to Y/N, you were there.”

“Quit it!” she scolds, swatting his hand away. “Yeah, I think I remember her. She’s the least annoying Styles’ sibling, right?”

Harry unexpectedly clutches his chest, wincing in pain. “Ouch, ow!”

Panic rushed through her, the first thing popping into her mind was that he was having an asthma attack. “Haz, are you okay?” she drops her bag onto the ground so that she can help him. “You’re scaring me, do you need your inhaler?”

He leans over, eyes squeezed closed. One hand is resting on his knee, the other still grasping at his sternum.

“My ego...it hurts.”

As soon as the words registered, anger washed over her, jaw rippling before punching him in the bicep.

“You’re such a little shit.”

“Oi, tha’ hurt!” he laughs, which makes her even more angry, whisking her bag off the ground and walking away from him as quickly as possible.

He lets out a lighthearted sigh before starting to jog up to her. “C’mon, wait up.”

“Go away.” she grumbles, quickening the pace of her steps towards the building that their next class was in. Her hand was less than a foot away from reaching the door, about to push it open but she was no match for his longer legs as he jogged to catch up with her.

“Hey, hey.” he manages to get her hand in his grasp. She turns around in his grip, eyes fiery with vex.

“What.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” he frowns, moving so that he’s holding both of her hands in his as he stood in front of her. “Please? M’sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the brick wall behind her. “Yes you did.”

“Let me make it up to you?” he offers, resting his palm on the rough surface above her head.

“Whatever you want.”

The pounding heartbeat in her ears is deafening, but the prank that he’d just pulled wasn’t quickly forgotten.

“I’ll let you know when I think of something.” Pushing herself off the wall, she turns and pushes the door open to the classroom, leaving a sad Harry behind. He trudged along behind her, silently moping before sitting next to her. Not even a minute after they sat down, Harry was leaning over to her, trying to get her attention.

“Y/N, please.” he whines, laying his head on her shoulder. “M’sorry.”

The butterflies in her stomach were crumbling her resolve, and she lays her cheek on top of his curls. “It’s okay.” he can hear the smile in her quiet voice. He peers up at her, an endearing smile beaming back at her.

“Not mad at me anymore?” he clarifies, voice filled with hope.

“How long have we been best friends?” she laughs. “Y’know I can never stay mad at you.”

“We were babies, don’t you remember?” he snickers. “Like, actual babies.”

Neither of them really remember.

Harry and Y/N’s parents had been neighbors and friends for years before either of them were born, and when Harry was almost two, they’d given birth to a beautiful baby girl.

“Harry, look.” Anne coos to her son as he sits on her lap. “See the baby?”

He stops playing with his teddy, toddling over to the sound of his mummy’s voice and he’s so fascinated, probably because he’s never seen a real baby before.

“I hold her?”

The new mum says “of course” before she gives her baby to Anne, now holding her in Harry’s lap.

“I pet?”

He carefully lifts a chubby hand, places it on her tummy and pats gently at the pale lavender onesie.

“My sweet boy.” Anne kisses the top of his head, smoothing out his blonde bangs.

Harry leans down and pushes a soft kiss onto her cheek, and it’s safe to say both mums melt at the sight.

“They’ll be best friends for sure.”

He looks up at the baby’s mum. “She seepin’?”

She nods with a smile. “Yeah, she's sleepin’.”

He gives her another kiss on her cheek before speaking again, this time in a hushed voice.

“Night Night, baby.”

“Our mums are never gonna let us forget that day.” he groans, twisting open the cap of the drink in his hands.

“Or that you had a crush on me.”

He nearly chokes on his juice, making her split into a fit of giggles.

“Maybe I did.” he admits, leaning his elbows onto the desk. “So what?”

“You definitely did, remember when you kissed me?”

His cheeks heat up at her teasing, arms crossing on top of the desk before laying his head down in embarrassment. He cracks one eye open at her laughing. “y/nnnn.”

When Harry was five and Y/N was four, he asked if he could kiss her, at school.

“You’re the prettiest girl in the whole world.” Harry tells her as his fingers draw in the dirt.

“That’s what my mummy and daddy tells me!” she cheers, and he may only be five years old but he knows that no other girl on the playground would happily sit in the dirt with him like she would. Her cheeks are resting against her hands and Harry thinks that they’re the cutest cheeks he’s ever seen.

“Can we kiss now?”

She thinks for a moment before speaking.

“You can’t tell your mummy, because she might tell my mummy and we’ll be in trouble.”

“Won’t tell anyone, not even Niall.”

Her eyes go wide with a gasp. Niall was his best friend, he must really mean business.

“Really?”

“Promise.” he holds out his pinky for her to squeeze.

Unfortunately for them, while Y/N was over next door at Harry’s for a playdate Anne caught them kissing in the back garden and they were both forced into the friend zone. Y/N was super sad, and Harry didn’t like that one bit, so he tried to make her feel better.

“Don’t cry, someday when we’re grown ups we can kiss and hold hands anytime we want! We can be best friends ‘til then, okay?”

“The start of an epic friendship.” he reminisces, flashing her a wink.

“Good times and bad.” she nods, and the mood drifts to sad silence.

“We’ve really been there through everything, huh?” he acknowledges, meeting her gaze.

When Harry was twelve and Y/N was eleven, Harry’s dad left. Left his family with nothing and Harry was devastated.

“How could he? This isn’t fair to any of you.”

Y/N was standing in Anne’s kitchen listening to her painstakingly tell her what had just happened. He’d left while Anne was working and Gemma and Harry were at school, leaving the remainder of the family devastated.

“I know darling, but we’ll get through this. I’m worried about Harry, he ran off. He was so upset. Do you know where he could be?”

“I’ll find him.”

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

Her mind and legs worked together to pedal faster than she ever had before through the park behind their street. As soon as she crosses the bridge she sees him. He’s sitting under their favorite oak tree, knees dew up to his chest.

“Harry!”

She throws her bike down and sprints to him, falling next to him.

He looks up, releases the grip on his hair and reaches out, grasping her hands and she quickly pulls him into a hug and she’d never held anyone so tight in her entire life. Her own hot tears started to fall from her face at the sound of his heartbreaking cries and she doesn’t know how long they stayed there like that, slowly moving her fingers through his curls as she held him. He let out a whimper when she forced his face out of her neck, cradling his cheeks in her hands. He looked so defeated and she had to use every ounce of strength in her body not to sit there and cuddle him against this tree all night. His mum and sister needed him, and he needed them. Her fingers brushed across his wet cheeks and he leaned into her touch as she repeated the action.

“I’m so sorry, Haz.” another sob escapes him at her words. “You don’t have to talk about it. You can cry, scream and yell, whatever you want...but we gotta get home., it’s getting dark.”

“Don’t wanna go back there.” he shakes his head and tightens his hold on your shirt.

“H, your mum and sister need you, and you need them.”

“I need you.”

Y/N’s heart flutters and she’s not sure why, but she’s sure Harry can feel it because he’s still fisting her shirt.

“I’ll stay the night at yours, my mum won’t care.”

“What about your dad?”

“He’ll get over it.”

Understandably, of course her father wasn’t too fond of the idea of his daughter sleeping over at her best friend’s house, because he was a boy. But she reassured her dad countless times that “boys were gross” so he begrudgingly allowed it.

They’d cuddled countless times, that night was no different. She held him, stroking his hair some more as they talked. The mood is lightened after awhile. Even though the healing process hasn’t even really begun yet. Harry was gonna be okay, because he had Y/N.

“Gemma gets so jealous because she can’t have boys in her room.” he jokes, making her giggle.

“She’s also fifteen and has a boyfriend.” she reasons. “We’re just best friends.”

“True.”

Comfortable silence engulfed Harry’s room for a few moments, the vibe was mellow from each other’s presence before Y/N spoke again.

“It’s gonna be okay.” her voice was barely above a whisper, brushing the stray hairs away from his forehead.

“You don’t know that.” he whispers, peering up at her. The moonlight shining through the window is enough to illuminate their faces while they talk.

“Yeah I do.” she argues softly. “It’s bad right now, but it’ll be okay someday. Promise.”

When Y/N was seventeen, her world came crashing down.

“Harry, can you come down please?”

He quickly put down his phone, shoving it into his pocket when he heard the urgency in his mum’s voice coming from downstairs. Ever since his dad left he’d grown closer to his mum and sister, more protective.

He rushes downstairs, finding her in the kitchen.

“Mum? What's wrong?”

“I need you to go next door and check on Y/N, alright?”

His face fills with confusion and fear but Anne doesn’t give him any time to respond.

“I just got off the phone with Rachelle, she and Will had gone out to dinner and he started to have some terrible pain. They’re at the hospital now, they did some tests…they found something and they think it might be cancer.”

Harry’s face falls.

“Oh God, Mum—”

“I know, baby, I know.”

“Does she know? She had to work after school today, does she know?”

“Her mum said she was going to call her once she’d gotten home from work.”

“She gets off at eight thirty,” he pulls out his phone and sees that it’s nine fifteen. “She should be home by now.” He briskly walks over to the window that faces Y/N’s house.

“Her car’s there.” he reveals. “M’goin’ over there. I’ll be back.”

She agrees and without another word Harry’s at her front door.

Locked.

“Shit, shit, shit.” he mutters to himself before remembering the spare key under the flower pot by the door. Once it’s retrieved, his trembling hands fumble with the piece of metal before successfully unlocking the door and pushing it open. As soon as he’s inside, he hears muffled crying from upstairs and it’s all he needs to hear before he’s rushing upstairs and down the hall to her bedroom. Normally he would never just walk in her room uninvited, but when he saw the white wooden door decorated with silver stars all over, he wasn’t going to stop until he got to her. As soon as he pushes her bedroom door open, the sight alone is enough to make him cry. He watches her yank her desk chair out, screaming as she throws it as hard as she could across the floor.

“Y/N!”

He rushes to her, pulling her in the most protective hug he’s ever given. Her arms retreated to frightfully gripping the front of his shirt, knees buckling. They ended up crumpled on the floor, backs against the wall as he held her. Her gut wrenching cries were hushed by Harry’s embrace.

“Hey, hey—shhh. M’here, look at me, okay? Deep breaths, breathe with me, okay?”

“I can’t, it’s too much. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.” her cries made his heart ache, all he wanted to do was make it better, but he just couldn’t.

Needless to say, they’ve been there for each other through everything. Y/N’s dad passed away later that year, leaving everyone devastated. Harry waited a year to go to college to be there for Y/N and her mum.

“Are you excited for NYU?”

She tried to sound happy for him, but her voice was laced with sadness. His back was facing her so she couldn’t see his face as he glanced at the sunset out her window.

“M’not going.” he admits, voice small and her jaw goes slack.

“What? What d’you mean you’re not going?”

“Can’t leave you two here like this.” he turns around and tears are brimming his waterline. “Already talked it over with mum, and the bakery’s not really willin’ t’let me go yet.”

“Harry.” she warns.

“Hey,” it’s alright.” he pulls her into a protective hug. “We’ll get everything sorted out, okay? It’ll be nice to take a year off from school anyway.”

His lighthearted tone isn’t enough to soothe her anxiety. “You don’t have to put your life on hold for me.”

“I’m not.” he promises. “We’ve been there for each other through everything, yeah?” he pulls away slightly, giving her a warm smile. “That doesn’t just stop because we aren’t kids anymore.”

“We make a good team.”

Her words warm his heart and he turns to her, nodding with a sweet smile.

“Yeah, we do, don’t we?”

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

Her.

Admire her.

Tell her how the crinkles in her eyes are like crescent moons, glowing when she smiles.

Watch how she giggles at your jokes that aren’t funny, and how coy she gets when you’re sweet with her.

She couldn’t help but get lost in books like this. Somehow they managed to capture everything she’s ever been through, and everything she’s struggling with now. It was torture, really, being in love with her best friend, seeing him everyday, hiding her feelings from him in fear of their friendship being ruined forever. She couldn’t even fathom if that horror were to become her reality, she surely wouldn’t survive the heartbreak.

Touch her.

Tell her that the stretch marks that paint her skin are magnificent, and that her body is just one dazzling part of who she is.

Snuggle her with tender touches and soft fingertips, love on every curve of her body.

She found herself daydreaming at times like this—the midday sun beaming down on her through the window of the library as she sat in one of the lounge chairs, reading one of her favorite poetry books. She would think about how Harry would touch her if she were his. How he would caress her skin, what his lips could do, where his hands would go.

Adore her.

Cherish her.

Her reading was quickly interrupted, her vision obstructed by a pair of hands covering her eyes followed by a familiar voice.

“Guess who.”

“Uh...Bigfoot?”

“Heeeey.” he protests, moving to sit in the lounge chair next to hers. “S’mean.”

She giggles at his pouting, squeezing one of his cheeks. “Poor baby.”

“Ouch.” he brought his hand up to his face to rub the sore skin. “Like beatin’ up on me, do yeh?”

“Just a little.” she winks.

“Yeah, yeah.” he playfully rolls his eyes before turning his attention to the book in his best friend’s hands. “Whatcha readin’?”

Her heartbeat quickened as she realised that she had been caught, swiftly shutting the book and tucking it into her bag. “Nothing.”

“Nooo, lemme see!”

He didn’t give her another chance to respond, knowing her all too well. She shied away from his words, cheeks splashing with pink.

“C’mon, pleeease?” he frowns, nudging her arm with his elbow. He notices her apprehension, not wanting to push her.

“S’just me.”

His voice is softer, giving her a fluttering feeling as he leans in closer. “Y’trust me, right?”

The close proximity made her heart thump in her chest. She gives him a slight nod before quietly replying. “Yeah.”

He gently bites down on his lower lip, his eyes flickering from her eyes, down to her lips.

Were they going to kiss?

“Why won’t you tell me what you were readin’?” he quirks with a small smile, tilting his head slightly. You can see the wheels turning. “S’it naughty?”

“No!” she gives him a look, as if to say stooooop, Haz.

He chuckles at her nervousness, patiently waiting as she keeps fumbling over her words, avoiding his captivating eyes. “No...no, no, it’s a...it’s just a book.”

“Obviously.” he blinks. “What kind of book.”

“Just poetry.” she mumbles, hoping he would drop the subject quickly.

“S’it for your poetry analysis thing? What kind of—”

“Harryyyyy.” she whines, hiding her face in her hands.

“M’not doin’ anything! Can’t I be interested in what you’re readin’?” he defends, resting his cheek in his hand, elbow leaning on the arm of the chair.

“M’only teasing.” he swipes his fingers across her heated cheeks as he speaks softly to her. “You’re bein’ so shy.”

It’s so adorable, he thinks to himself.

“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to.” he reassures. “M’starving. Did you still wanna go to lunch?”

She perked up at his question, the book in her bag eventually forgotten, just as she wished. “Please, I’m so hungry.”

“Can we get—”

“Chinese?” his face lights up. “Please please please?”

“We had that last weekend.”

“So? S’the best food ever, and since when do you turn down chinese food?” he rests his head on the table. “I’ll help you with French Lit.”

“Compelling argument, I didn’t know you were taking a debate class.”

“So funny.” he rolls his eyes. “C’mon, please?”

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

“I love chow mein so much.”

Y/N’s words barely register in his ears, let alone his brain as he admired the sight of her, eyes closed in bliss as she slurps another noodle.

She’s just so fucking cute.

“I love you so much.”

“What?”

He’s sure his heart had just dropped into his stomach and his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He hadn’t even realised he’d said it out loud!

“Didn’t say anything.” he mumbles, mentally cursing himself after feeling the heat radiating off his cheeks. He avoids her gaze as he shoves another spoonful of hot and sour soup into his mouth.

“So how’s your story for creative writing going?” she wonders, twirling some noodles with her fork, because no, she didn’t know how to use chopsticks, and yes, Harry never missed an opportunity to tease her about it.

“Awful.” he pouts, to which she mirrors his expression.

“You stuck?”

“Very.” he groans. “Just can’t seem to get the words out, y’know?”

“I’ve been there.” she nods. “Do you want some help?”

“Please.” he begged, giving her puppy eyes. “S’due next friday, been workin’ on it every night and still can’t get a single word out.”

“I think you just need to take a break, babes.” she offers. “Let’s have a sleepover this weekend and I’ll help you.”

He gives a sigh of relief, making her laugh. “You’re a gem. What would I do without you?”

“Your life would definitely be less exciting.” she notes, taking another bite.

He was silent for a moment, probably thinking of a comeba—

“At least I know how to use chopsticks.”

“You won’t teach me!” she pouts at his teasing. “Quit being mean.”

“Want me to teach you?” he perks, peering up at her.

“Yes.” she lets out a breathless giggle while nodding.

He playfully huffs, slightly rolling his eyes as he moves to sit behind her on her bed.

“Okay, so you hold them like this…”

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

Friday, October 12

Dear Diary,

I feel like I’m going crazy. I keep trying to finish this story for my creative writing class but I keep getting distracted...all I can think about is him. I can’t help it, he’s all I ever think about. How am I supposed to write a romance fiction piece when all I can think about is how I’m in love with my best friend? Harry is charming and sweet and funny and genuine, any girl would be lucky to be his. How did I get myself into this mess? Harry would never like me like that, ever. My heart hurts if I think about it too much. Sometimes I feel like I should just tell him, bite the bullet, rip off the band aid and hope to God that our friendship isn’t ruined forever. In a perfect world,

Y/N drops her pen at the vibration of her phone.

Harry is calling…

“Hello?”

“We’ve known each other for how long and you still answer with hello?”

She lets out a breathless laugh. “Are you having a bad day or are you just making fun of me for shits and giggles?”

“Lil bit of both, yeah?” she can hear the cheekiness in his voice. “We still havin’ a sleepover this weekend? Might have to do it at yours, Niall’s havin’ a party and I doubt we’ll get anything done.”

She could hear the sheepish tone in his voice. “Oh no, if you wanna be at the party we can totally reschedule.” she offers.

Harry scrunches up his nose. “Need to get this paper done, m’never gonna finish it with all the noise.” he’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Besides, I’d rather spend the weekend with you.”

She feels her heart flutter at his admission, cheeks tingling with heat.

“ Okay...can you bring some snacks?”

There were no two humans on earth that loved fruit more than Harry and Y/N. so around fifteen minutes later, when Harry showed up to Y/N’s door with two smoothies, she melted like sugar.

“Berry for you.” he hands you the icy purple smoothie in his left hand. “Strawberry banana for me.”

“Awh, thank you!” she gently pinches one of his cheeks. “You’re so sweet.”

“Oi, worse than my mum, aren’t you?” he rubs at the newly pink cheek.

“No.” she defends. “C’mon, I’ll help you with your story so you don’t drag it out all weekend.”

“I resent that.” he mutters, sitting beside her on her bed as he flips open his laptop.

“Do you have an idea of what you wanna write?”

“I have a little bit finished, now, about five thousand words. Wanna have a look?”

Y/N reads it over and it’s nothing short of a masterpiece so far. How can he be so pretty and talented at the same time?

“This is beautiful,” she gapes, turning to look up at him. “This is so good, H.”

“Oh, stop.” He sheepishly brushes off her praise. “Don’t think it’s bad so far, just need to come up with a conflict.”

“Just figure out what breaks your characters, what makes them the most vulnerable, what would completely crush them?”

“Losing each other.”

“More specific?” she tries, staring at the screen in front of her. “It’ll help with the details.”

“Rory’s afraid to tell Daisy that he’s in love with her.” he says. “He’s afraid that, if she finds out, it’ll ruin their friendship.”

Y/N’s lungs felt empty, like all the air had been sucked out by Harry’s words.

“Okay, um,” she gulps, trying to collect her thoughts. “So...write about that, and see where the story takes you.”

Three hours later

“Can we take a break?” he groans, laying back on the pillows of her bed. “M’starving.”

“Me too.” she pouts, fiddling with her hands. “Whatcha hungry for?”

“Mmm,” Harry thinks for a few moments before speaking up. “A veggie grill just opened up downtown, we should go there!”

“You’re making me crave nachos.”

“You always crave nachos.”

“Why do you always have to call me out?” she whines, giving him a bashful glance.

“S’fun, innit?” he smirks, nudging her shoulder with his bicep.

“No.” she giggles, lying down next to him. “I’m gonna go get a shower then we can go.”

“Okay.”

An endearing smile adorned his face as she snuggled slightly into the soft pillows. Her eyes leisurely blink at him, falling closed after a few seconds.

“Sleepy?”

“Mhm.”

“Thought you wanted a shower?” he hummed. Although, he wouldn’t mind staying here all night. “You can stay here, I’ll go pick up some food.”

“No, it’s okay.” she yawns, pushing herself up off the bed. “I’ll be quick.”

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

Harry gets bored easily, although his best friends room was much more lovely than his. He thinks his room is pretty basic; but Y/N’s room was much more charming. The walls were painted a pale ivory, decorated with fairy lights above her bed, which was dressed with a crisp white comforter and matching pillows. The knitted plum blanket that Harry had gotten her ages ago for Christmas was at the end of her bed. He vividly remembers when he had given it to her.

Her eyes were sparkling with joy as she pulled the blanket out of the box.

“Your mum helped me make it.” he mentions with a sheepish smile. “She was so patient, even though I had no idea what I was doing.”

“It’s beautiful.” she beams, pulling it close to her heart before looking up at him as they sat on the floor of Harry’s living room. “I love it.”

He gives her a soft smile, but he feels melancholic energy surrounding him. He keeps telling himself that he didn’t have a reason to be sad, because they weren’t together...but all he wanted was for her to be his. She was so cute, beanie snug on her head under the glow of the Christmas tree.

“Can I ask you somethin’?”

To which she nods. “Of course.”

“Do you think,” his lips are pressed together in thought for a moment. “Do you think that fate is real?”

“Like kismet?” she cocks her head with a smile and he nods, breaking into a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, like kismet.”

“I think,” she takes a moment, fumbling with her hands before looking up at him. “Yeah, I think it’s real.”

Ten thousand words. Harry has to write ten thousand words by next Friday and he doesn’t have a single word typed out. Creative writing was supposed to be fun, and he had to write a romance fiction piece? Harry didn’t exactly thrive when it came to love. In fact, his love life was bone dry, to put it lightly. Other girls were...boring, compared to Y/N. Harry was charming and romantic and sweet and loving—but he didn’t want some random girl, he wanted Y/N to be his girl. Pining over her was his full time job, always has been.

He walks over to her desk, admiring the pictures that graced the wall just above. One of the photos that catches his eye is Y/N, probably about three or four, and her dad is reading her a bedtime story, her mum most likely being the one taking the photo. Sorrow washes over him, because it never gets easier, does it?

His eyes float to a few photos of Harry and Y/N laying next to each other on their friend Jess’s parents house on the terrace. It was the first time they’d ever gotten drunk and they were trashed. The first photo is them attempting to sit up for a picture.

“You guys are so drunk.”

“M’not drunk.” Harry glances at Millie and Jess, who were behind the camera. “M’Harry! Who’s drunk?”

Harry’s rebuttal left both of them bursting into a fit of giggles.

“Haz, Jess wants a picture of us, pleeeeaaaase?”

Harry holds himself up by leaning back with one hand on the ground, the other arm slung around Y/N’s shoulder. He then turns to nuzzle his nose into her hair.

“Y’so pretty.” he murmurs drunkenly into her ear.

“Shut up, you’re drunk.”

“M’not, m’serious.”

The last one from that night was them cuddling on the sofa at the end of their night, Harry’s face nuzzled into her shoulder as they slept soundly well into the afternoon.

His fingertips brushed across his favorite photo of them. They were working together at the bakery, and Harry had just traced his flour dipped fingertips in a line across Y/N’s cheek before she retaliated by sweeping some icing across the bridge of his nose. He grins from ear to ear at the memory.

“Hey Y/N, guess what?”

She turned around to face him when he abruptly drew a line with his flour dipped fingertips across her cheek.

Her jaw went slack at his bold action before icing was swiped across the bridge of his nose.

“Now we’re even.” that is, until she flicks some of the remaining blue icing from her fingers onto his face.

“Aw, c’mon!” he wipes his face with his apron before narrowing his eyes. “Really?”

“You started it.” she pointed out and Harry gave her a shrug.

“I am so gonna get you back the next time we bake at my house.”

His eyes fall down to her desk, and he promises he didn’t mean to see it. It was his name, in her handwriting, written in purple gel pen inside an open book. Was it a journal?

Friday, October 12

Dear Diary,

Shit.

He looked away for a moment, lip caught between his teeth. Should he read it? No, but he couldn’t help himself.

I feel like I’m going crazy. I keep trying to finish this story for my creative writing class but I keep getting distracted...all I can think about is him.

Him? Who’s she talking about? Does she like someone? The empty feeling in his chest isn’t a good feeling by any means.

I can’t help it, he’s all I ever think about. How am I supposed to write a romance fiction piece when all I can think about is how I’m in love with my best friend?

All the color drains from Harry’s face.

“Is she talking about me?” he murmurs.

Harry is charming and sweet and funny and genuine, any girl would be lucky to be his.

His heart flutters at the mention of his name, aching at the next line.

How did I get myself into this mess? Harry would never like me like that, ever. My heart hurts if I think about it too much.

He felt like he was going to cry. How could this girl not know how much of a sucker he is for her? His heart thumped inside his chest and he could feel the heat radiating off his flushed cheeks.

Okay, don’t panic. Just calm down, don’t freak out.

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to process what he had just read whilst trying to decide what to do. Does he just tell her? Show her the page? No, she’ll be so angry that he read her diary, who does that?

In that moment, he chooses to do the only thing that makes sense.

He listens to his heart.

* 。˚ ˛ • 。* 。° 。 * 。 • ˚ ˛ 。* 。• ° 。* 。 • ˚

She’d just hopped out of the shower when she heard a knock on her bathroom door.

“Hey, s’just me.” Harry’s voice clarifies through the wood. “Already ordered some food, m’gonna go and pick it up, I’ll be back.”

“I can go with you if you want-”

“No, s’okay! Be back in fifteen.”

And he’s gone.

After exiting her bathroom, she changes into some comfy clothes before deciding to read something from her book collection until Harry gets back. WHen she turns to go over to her bookshelves, she sees it.

A familiar lavender book, her diary, was lying open on her desk, and her heart sinks. Had he read what she’d written earlier? That must be why he was in such a hurry to leave! She probably scared him off. Y/N’s heart was racing as she stepped closer and realised that the page the diary was open to wasn’t written in her handwriting.

It was Harry’s handwriting.

Hi lovie, it’s Harry.

I was too nervous to tell you this to your face, so I’m gonna write out my feelings.

You’re my best friend in the whole world, and I absolutely adore everything about you.

I love how you talk in your sleep, and yes, you do talk in your sleep. I know how much you love to snuggle when you’re sleepy or sad or you just want a cuddle...and how you still sleep with a night light on like when we were small. You always tell me it’s so you can see in case you need to get up and have a wee in the middle of the night, but I know it’s because you’re still scared of the dark.

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Was she dreaming?

I love how you crinkle your nose when you laugh, and how your smile glows like moonlight and how you play with your hands when you don’t know what to say. I love your love for books, and how much better your taste in music is than me. I love how you love to snuggle, especially when you’re...inebriated.

She giggles silently to herself, because he was so right. Not that he was any better.

I could go on forever, but I don’t wanna get caught writing this.

I am so in love with you, Y/N.

Love, H. x

Y/N didn’t know how to feel. Her heart was warm, but she was so nervous. What does this mean for them? How will this affect their friendship? Hundreds of questions run through her brain until she hears a knock on the door.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” she whispers. “Okay, just... be chill, please be chill.”

Trying to calm herself down in a matter of seconds was pointless. Walking over to the door, she took a deep breath in before opening the door.

“Hi.” he blinks at her, letting out a light laugh before setting down the two paper bags in his hands. “M’back. They didn’t have the-”

“I read it.”

He avoids her gaze and he feels frozen by her words, digging his vans into the carpet.

“Harry.” she breathes. “Say something.”

His eyes flicker to meet hers, taking a step forward.

“I...I love you.”

Y/N feels like a weight has been lifted off her chest, like she just came for air after being kept under water for too long.

“If this makes things weird, I’m sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry, but I love you to pieces and I-”

“I love you too.”

His smile is pure joy before he takes her hand in his, pulling her closer to him.

“Can I kiss you?” he begs, almost breathless. “Please.”

She nods, and he cradles her cheeks in his hands, pressing a sweet kiss to her lips.

His lips were so soft, moving with hers like they were made for each other.

Harry was sitting on the edge of her bed, her thighs straddling his hips and she sat across his lap. Her hands were in his hair, the fluttery tendrils twirled around her fingers. His hands are settled on her waist, slowly moving to her thighs.

“Is this okay?” he murmurs the serious question against her lips and she nods quickly. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” he breathes. “M’just checkin’.”

“It’s okay.” she laughs breathlessly against his lips. “Everything's okay.”

Reluctantly, he pulls back slightly to look at her, searching for any sort of doubt, but there was none.

“Don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, okay?”

His voice is cautious. “M’not goin’ anywhere, ever. Don’t have to rush anything.”

“Just go with the flow, H.” she murmurs, sliding her hands up his clothed biceps.

“Sorry, who are you?” he raises his eyebrows, a baffled expression on his face. “Since when do you ever go with the flow?”

“A lot of things have changed today.” she confesses, hands resting on his shoulders. “Why not?”

They’d always felt so safe with each other, so now was no different.

They both dived back into the kiss. Harry’s tongue swiped across her bottom lip, testing the waters before lips and tongue worked together to deepen the kiss.

“Wanna ride my thigh?” he wonders, mumbling against her lips. “Don’t have to if-”

“Yeah. yes.” she gulps, moving to slide her shorts down while he shuffles out of his jeans. Once they were both without pants, they didn’t waste anymore time.

“C’mere, darlin’.” he flicked his fingers, encouraging her back onto his lap.

“Just feel my touch.”

The tone of his voice was unbelievably hot, raspy and low as their lips continuously brushed. His hands grip her hips, guiding her movements.

“Feel good?” he suckles on her bottom lip, drawing a whimper past her lips. She’s rocking against his bare thigh, coarse hair stimulating her even closer to the edge.

“Feels so good, Harry.”

Her moans are nothing short of melodic, chasing her orgasm through the lace. He pushes her t-shirt up, kisses are decorated down her neck until his mouth is on one of her breasts. She tilts her head back at the suckling sensation with another moan, and it’s so fucking intoxicating to Harry. His tongue flicks her nipple a few more times before lifting his head.

“Like that?” he hums, moving to cup her breasts. She nods and his thumbs start to tweak her nipples and she arches her back at the feeling.

“Harry.” she whimpers, gripping the material of his shirt in her fists. “Please.”

“Whatcha need, tell me darlin’.”

“M’gonna come, m’gonna come.”

He gives a thick moan, hands moving to hold her backside. “Know you are. C’mon angel, you can let go.”

His sweet words coax her through her orgasm as she’s coming down, and she feels like she’s floating.

“Did you like that?”

“Mhm.” she nods, her eyes fluttering closed as Harry’s hand brushes some baby hairs off her forehead. “Wanna keep going.”

“Jeez, at least let me take you out to dinner first.”

#boyfriendathon #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut

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maxmagi · 4 years ago

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A List of My OTPs

because it's 11 and I can't sleep.

Enjolras x Grantaire a.k.a. Enjoltaire a.k.a. ExR- Les Mis

How I fell into this I don't remember now. I vaguely remember reading a crackfic of this and then everything just went sideways.

This was also the fandom that helped me realize that I wasn't exactly straight and that it's okay to not be loud about my sexuality, that I can just be.

I think that explains my attachment to this ship, not to mention just the movie's Grantaire (played by George Blagden) also shipped the characters and played his character like how he thought it should be, Grantaire loving and pining after Enjolras without the revolutionary knowing it.

Except in the fan fics, Enjolras returns his feelings and they work it out, even though it's not easy because they're both stubborn as mules. Ah, ultimate fantasy I guess. And the number of great fics here, *whistle*

Also, the Les Amis? Is amazing? Especially in the modern AUs? Like they're great friends? I love this fandom so much! Permets-tu!

Shen Wei x Zhao Yunlan - Guardian / Zhen Hun

C'mon, Zhu Yilong & Bai Yu's performance and emotions? Plus just the fact the fanfic writers of this ship are absolutely amazing? Please, escape from this pairing is impossible!

Best opposites attract trope for me. An academic by day, superhero by night in love with a roguish police chief who has no powers but whose charisma, wit, and heart can get him to toe to toe with the legends.

Also, Professor Shen Wei constantly acting like an innocent civilian and lying badly? Gold!

Loki x Tony Stark a.k.a. FrostIron - Avengers

How did I honestly get to this ship? I really can't remember what started it all. I think it must have been a Loki redemption fic where Tony Stark and Pepper broke up and something something happened. Let me tell you, the writers of this ship have written sagas and ballads of epic and sometimes confusing proportions, and that is why I fell deeper into the pit. I mean, they gotta give justice to two brilliant but chaotic characters, right? Angst. This ship has sooooooooo much angst.

Eiji x Ash - Banana Fish

My god, if you want to keep your heart intact and not be reminded of all that's ugly in the world, DON'T WATCH OR READ BANANA FISH. YOUR HEART WILL NEVER HEAL!

If you're gonna watch/read it anyway, make sure to watch something fluffy and sweet after. There's a reason that people from this fandom go, "If you've seen Banana Fish's ending, then you can handle whatever angsty show you're watching now." ~ or something to that effect. Another thing we like to say in this fandom is, "Other fandoms: Let's write a Mafia AU! Banana Fish fandom: We are the Mafia AU." Yes, all of us in this fandom is dramatic af.

Yuuri x Viktor - Yuuri!!! on Ice

Uh, does this really need an explanation? Aside from the fact that you will surprisingly find a lot of Mafia AUs here because we all know that hiding behind that beautiful face of Viktor Nikiforov is a devil capable of... tearing down your self-confidence, like WTF Viktor, don't make Yuuri cry! Also, their dance together at the end, such beautiful love.

Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood aka Malec - Shadowhunters

I never read the books and have no plans to in the near future. I just saw a video on Youtube about why Malec is life and now here I am, still reading some Malec fics from time to time.

Some stuff on the show were WTF but overall they were a really good couple who supported each other. Plus, they're a Power Couple.

Erwin x Levi aka Eruri - Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin

Not to be confused with Ereri, which is Eren x Levi, which I don't generally ship except for that one time when a writer wrote an epic fanfic series with Eren in his mid 20s and Levi in his late 20s/early 30s, reincarnation AU. Boy was that one a surprise. I did not expect that.

Anyway, I'm an Eruri fan through and through. Especially with that promise that Levi made to Erwin. And the reason he gave the serum to Armin. HE DIDN'T DO IT FOR THE KIDS YKNOW. HE DID IT FOR ERWIN. Plus, Levi, Erwin, and Hange are my special trio. Erwin's batch was really amazing.

Also, I really like the fact that the shorter and slighter person is the more badass fighter while the taller, bigger one is the more calculating and strategic one. Rocks the boat of stereotypes and all that. Bonus: how these two met. My god, what a meet-cute! 😂

Dani x Jamie aka The Au Pair and the Gardener - The Haunting of Bly Manor

It really is more of a love story than a ghost story. I dunno how to feel about this. I loved these two characters so much and I wished they had a better ending but I wasn't SO surprised because it was a horror series (Like, I was still hoping at the end that they'd be together forever but yknow...). In any case, Jamie was just awesome. And her nickname for Dani? Poppins?! God, what a lover and fighter. She was not afraid to cock a gun in a ghost's face.

... and now for my flexible BROTPs

Merlin x Arthur aka Merthur - BBC Merlin

Yeah, my brain is so chaotic multiple OTPs and BROTPs of the same pairing exist at the same time without clashing with one another or having major identity crises.

I actually really like BROTP Merlin and Arthur and also like reading OTP Merthur.

And when Merlin is paired with Morgana or Freya or sometimes even Gwaine, that's fine with me too. As long as his bromance with Arthur stays intact, because that's what drew me to the show in the first place. Personal preference. I see them as platonic soulmates.

*Shout-out to the Merthur writers though, you kept me sane during my "Post-Merlin Depression," which is actually a term thrown around in the fandom because of that horrid final season (not saying it's a good term but it's what it was called). A lot of amazing fics here, too, both Magic Reveal and Modern AU ones. Full of action and adventure too! I mean, there are boy-band-looking Knights and magic-wielding badasses!

Tim Drake x Conner Kent/Kon-El aka Red Robin x Super Boy - DC Comics

More like flexible otp. I dig Stephanie Brown and Tim Drake BUT I really really also dig Tim Drake and Conner Kent. When they're TimKon, it's like an entirely different entity from TimSteph. Ugh, hard to explain.

I mean, Kon telling Tim, "You'll always be my Robin" and Tim telling Kon, "And you'll always be my clone boy" is the shit. Also when Kon could pick out/recognize Tim's heartbeat. And when Tim nearly went mad scientist trying to bring his bestie back. Like, dudes, wtf. And at the same time, hell yeah.

Liu Kang x Kung Lao aka LiuLao - Mortal Kombat

- I see these two as more like ride or die best friends connected by fate/platonic soulmates. But also like their dynamic is so awesome, cute, sweet, badass, can't-live-without-you vibes.

Basically the same way I feel about Merthur. I like reading both romantic and platonic relationships between these two characters. Like, the LiuLao fan creators peeling off the layers of this relationship and exposing every raw nerve is beautiful.

They love diving into the characters' psyche, emotions, motivations, fears, and doubts and you get really amazed because... Aren't they just characters from a video game, you ask? Well yeah, but MK video game has several interesting storylines and the Mortal Kombat 2021 movie was just the perfect jumpstarter to this beautiful blaze.

I mean, "We swore that if we were to die, it would be together"? Hell no, you're not dropping that on us and not expecting us to create our very own spin-offs and 12-page essays on that shit. That's what we fans do, baby. And also, really, we need a shaolin monks/white lotus spin-off/prequel. We're starving here.

As this ship is the newest one on my list, it's the one I'm looking forward to the most. Not enough fan content, I tell you. Not enough. One of these days, I just might add my own.

But right now, it's past 1 and so I shall attempt to sleep.

***No images for TimKon and LiuLao coz apparently I've gone past my 10-images allowance 😤

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timothypines · 4 years ago

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The Fire of Achilles (Essay)

“He was like a flame himself. He glittered, drew eyes.” (pg. 43, Miller) Throughout the novel The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and the epic poem The Iliad, Achilles is often compared to fire. In The Iliad he is referred to as “brilliant Achilles”—meaning to sparkle with light or luster; however, this comparison is not always positive, as the destructive side of fire is not forgotten when describing his unstoppable rage. The double-sided nature of fire perfectly encapsulates Achilles. The brightness and openness he emulates, much like the welcoming of a controlled fire, attracts the soldiers to him, while uncontrolled his rage can destroy armies like a forest fire pushed by rushing wind. But while most people can only see the war in him, the rage in him, he would never have gotten as far as he had without his gentle warmth.

The Song of Achilles shows much more of the softer side of Achilles’ flame, however, I do not think this makes Madeline Miller’s interpretation any more or less correct in the characterization of Achilles; rather, it deepens what is shown to us in The Iliad. In the early moments of the book (The Song of Achilles), it is shown that just as Achilles speaks his mind freely and absolutely, he expects the same from all others; this leads to him being overly trusting in many ways. “He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?” (pg. 44, Miller). This is seen in The Iliad also, in his rage against Agamemnon when the king refused to return the priest’s daughter after the priest offered ransom. Most would never speak such things against a king, but he did not fear a thing, no, he was completely honest with Agamemnon, reminding the king that it was he who was needed, he who was asked to fight, “It wasn’t the Trojan spearmen who brought me here to fight. The Trojans never did me damage… we all followed you, to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans.” (pg. 82, Book 1: The Rage of Achilles, Homer). Yes, the dishonoring of him is what causes this great rage, but his honesty is part of that too. But even though this rage appears to come from unbreakable pride, I feel that it came not from a place of pride, but rather rage at Agamemnon for not being at all reasonable. While he keeps his honor close to him, he is not prideful of his abilities. “‘I will be the best warrior of my generation.’ It sounded like something a child would claim, in make-believe. But he said it as simply as if he were giving his name.” (pg. 38, Miller). In this sense, I agree with Miller’s interpretation of Achilles’ feeling in this moment and how even though his honor is important to him, he is not particularly prideful. This rage, I feel, comes more from a great feeling of unfairness, which Achilles seems to value more than anyone else in the army. Agamemnon made the mistake of not returning the priest’s daughter, out of his unyielding pride, and now he is unwilling to admit to his mistake and is instead punishing Achilles, who was the only one trying to end the great plague. I am in no way saying that Achilles’ actions to call the gods to punish the entire army so relentlessly were justified, however, his feelings of rage toward Agamemnon cannot be blamed on just himself, and therefore, neither can the punishment that falls upon the army.

It seems silly to try to talk about Achilles and leave out what he loves most. Now, in The Iliad, before we get to the aftermath of the death of Patroclus, it could be fair to assume that what Achilles loves most is his honor; damage to his honor is what caused him to call for the army’s suffering and destruction, the very army he had been fighting with for nine years. However, it is very clear that after the death of Patroclus that it is he whom he loves most. Once Patroclus has died, Achilles does not care to act honorably, he does not care if Agamemnon apologizes, he simply wants the person who took his love from him to suffer. Even his own life does not seem precious to him anymore. For the brief moments that Patroclus is shown in the epic, his character is made very clear. He appears to be kind, gentle, to carry himself with a strong grace. No one has ill-will towards him; he is a good man universally in the eyes of the kings and soldiers. This is what makes his death so impactful. This version of Patroclus that we see in The Iliad I feel is lacking when reading The Song of Achilles. In the epic, Patroclus can fight, he is quite good at it and it does not feel a surprise, “And then and there the Achaeans might have taken Troy, her towering gates toppling under Patroclus’ power heading the vanguard, storming on with his spear.” (pg. 435, Book 16: Patroclus Fights and Dies, Homer). The Patroclus we find in The Song of Achilles is awkward, unwilling to fight, even just before this moment at Troy, “The wheels gave a little lurch, and I staggered, my spears rattling. ‘Balance them,’ he told me. ‘It will be easier.’ Everyone waited as I awkwardly transferred one spear to my left hand, swiping my helmet askew as I did so.” (pg. 327, Miller) When reading The Iliad, I felt none of this from Patroclus. While it may have been surprising that he ended up at the wall of Troy, it certainly wasn’t surprising that he had fought and fought well. I will say that both works made it heart-wrenching to see Patroclus slaughtering people, however, the epic held more integrity than the novel had. This can especially be seen when Patroclus and Hector meet on the battlefield. This is the interaction we get from The Iliad, “‘Hector! Now is your time to glory to the skies… now the victory is yours. A gift of the son of Cronus, Zeus—Apollo too—they brought me down with all their deathless ease, they are the ones who tore the armor off my back… You came third, and all you could do was finish off my life…” (pg. 440, Book 16: Patroclus Fights and Dies, Homer). And this is what we get from The Song of Achilles, “He is coming to kill me. Hector… He must live because his life, I think as I scrape backwards over the grass, is the final dam before Achilles’ own blood will flow. Desperately, I turn to the men around me and scrabble at their knees. Please, I croak. Please.” (pg. 334-335, Miller). Although Achilles’ stubbornness killed both versions of Patroclus, at least in The Iliad Patroclus died strong in himself, while the Patroclus from The Song of Achilles died a shell, lacking any self, just filled with thoughts of the fire that is Achilles.

One thing that no version of the story could ever take away is how much Achilles loves Patroclus (even if they decide to make them simply cousins for some reason). It is devastating to read Achilles discover that his lover is dead; this is not lacking in either version of the war. Something I especially enjoyed from The Song of Achilles is how much more deeply Miller built the relationship. While reading I could really tell that Patroclus was Achilles’ heart; he was the only one who was immune to Achilles’ rage and the only one who had a chance of getting through to him. “I had found a way through the endless corridors of his pride and fury. I would save the men; I would save him from himself.” (pg. 325, Miller). The building of their relationship before this moment where Patroclus begs for Achilles to fight made for a deeper understanding as to why, after so long, after so much suffering of the Achaeans, Achilles was willing to do something to help, no matter what that was. In The Iliad we are given a mention of how close they are and that is supposed to reason Achilles’ willingness to bend slightly. This deeper understanding of their relationship also makes Achilles’ reaction to Patroclus’ death all the more painful to watch happen and his actions during the beginning of his morning also make more sense to the reader.

Achilles’ relationship with the war of Troy is somehow both extremely complicated and overly simple. It is complicated in terms of what he should bring into the war, what he owes Menelaus and Agamemnon, and how fate plays into it all. It is simple, however, when it comes to him having to perform the act of war itself. I feel that what Miller added to the story regarding this area really deepened and strengthened Achilles’ character; she really tried to show the struggle in Achilles when he was dealing with all of these complexities that came with the politics of the war, between both the mortals and gods. This is the war he was fated to have such a large part of; he was to kill the Trojan’s greatest hero, Hector. But fate isn’t the only thing forcing him to back and fight in the war against Troy, the Achaean kings he fights along side with also feel entitled to him and his abilities. In the end, however, Achilles does not feel attached to the war in actuality. “‘The Trojans never did me damage.’” (pg. 82, Book 1: The Rage of Achilles, Homer). He doesn’t hold any rage toward the Trojans, that is until Hector kills Patroclus, and even then, his true rage is only toward Hector, it is only the magnitude of it that takes down the mountains of Trojans he slaughters. He is in a war he was expected to be in simply because of that fact, he was expected to fight. When discussing the war with Patroclus, Patroclus asks if he is afraid to fight, Achilles answers, “‘No… This is what I was born for.’” (pg. 220, Miller). So, if he was fated to be in the war, the Achaeans can only win if he fights, and every Greek kingdom expects him to fight, then what does he owe to his fellow Greeks? To Menelaus and Agamemnon? Simply put, in reality he owes them nothing, his father doesn’t even force him to go, telling him it’s his choice (The Song of Achilles), however, the issue and complexity doesn’t come from what he actually owes the kings, but from what they believe he owes them. Here are two interactions between Achilles and Agamemnon from both works. “Agamemnon stepped forward. He opened his hands in a gesture of welcome and stood regally expectant, waiting for the bows, obeisance, and oaths of loyalty he was owed. It was Achilles’ place to kneel and offer them. He did not kneel. He did not call out a greeting to the great king, or incline his head or offer a gift. He did nothing but stand straight, chin proudly lifted, before them all. Agamemnon’s jaw tightened.” (pg. 194, Miller). “‘This soldier wants to tower over the armies, he wants to rule over all, to lord it over all, give out orders to every man in sight. Well, there’s one, I trust, who will never yield to him! What if the everlasting gods have made a spearman of him? Have they entitled him to hurl abuse at me?’

‘Yes!’—blazing Achilles broke in quickly— ‘What a worthless, burnt-out coward I’d be called if I would submit to you and all your orders, whatever you blurt out.’” (pg. 87, Book 1: The Rage of Achilles, Homer). It doesn’t just matter what Achilles feels he owes Agamemnon because the king feels he is owed not only Achilles’ spear, but his total loyalty and an oath of such.

Despite this complexity with his motivations and responsibility to fight, when it comes to the fighting itself, it is as simple as breathing for him. As told in The Song of Achilles, “What he lived for were the charges, a cohort of men thundering towards him. There, amidst twenty stabbing swords he could finally, truly fight… With a fevered impossible grace he fought off ten, fifteen, twenty-five men. This, at last, is what I can really do.” (pg. 240, Miller). The war wasn’t truly a conflict for him, the true war was in the politics of men and gods; this notion agrees with what is shown in the epic.

While the men in power may not particularly like Achilles, the soldiers of the Achaean army do indeed, from the very beginning (at least in the interpretation that is The Song of Achilles). Here is the moment he introduces himself to the entire army, “‘I am Achilles, son of Peleus, god-born, best of the Greeks,’ he said. ‘I have come to bring you victory.’ A second startled silence, then the men roared their approval. Pride became us—heroes were never modest.” (pg. 194, Miller). Miller choosing to have the soldiers have these types of feelings towards Achilles makes sense. Up until the moment he declares he will no longer fight for the Achaeans, he is their hero, the one they look to and follow; in a society that values glory and heroes above almost all else, second only to the gods, he most-likely would have been viewed that way by the general public, those uninvolved in politics. An example of how deep this goes is shown just before the war begins, as the Phthians are sailing towards Troy’s beaches, “We stood at the prow with Phoinix and Automedon, watching the shore draw closer. Idly, Achilles tossed and caught his spear. The oarsmen had begun to set their strokes by it, the steady, repetitive slap of wood against his palm.” (pg. 212, Miller). Even subconsciously the men are following Achilles’ spear.

Achilles isn’t the only person for whom Miller develops a good relationship with the common soldiers—this is done for Patroclus as well. I also agree with her decision to do this; it helps solidify the emotions the people feel toward Patroclus which are only mentioned and implied in The Iliad. Miller decided to make Patroclus a healer, “I developed a reputation, a standing in the camp. I was asked for, known for my quick hands and how little pain I caused… I began to surprise Achilles, calling out to these men as we walked through the camp. I was always gratified at how they would raise a hand in return, point to a scar that had healed over well.” (pg. 261, Miller). This use of his character makes sense in my mind when regarding the character shown to us in the epic; being a gentle and kind man. It also makes his motivations when trying to convince Achilles to fight all the more authentic, “All around me are men carrying fallen comrades, limping on makeshift crutches, or crawling through the sand, dragging broken limbs behind them. I know them—their torsos full of scars my ointments have packed and sealed.” (pg. 319, Miller). So, even though I do disapprove of Miller’s decision to make Patroclus seem too awkward and weak to fight, I cannot say her making a healer of Patroclus is without any merit.

“What has Hector ever done to me?” This phrase is echoed throughout The Song of Achilles, creating a sort of foreshadowing sprinkled throughout the novel. This sentiment rings familiar from The Iliad where he expresses that he holds no feelings of hatred nor resentment towards the Trojans. The role that Hector plays in The Song of Achilles is slightly different than seen in the epic, though this is unsurprising as the novel is from the perspective of Patroclus and therefore cannot show much of Hector. Despite the lack of Hector, however, Miller included moments that are reminiscent of what we saw of Hector in The Iliad. Here is a domestic moment shared between Hector and his family when he returns from fighting, “shining Hector reached down for his son—but the boy recoiled, cringing against his nurse’s full breast, screaming out at the sight of his own father, terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest, the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror—so it struck his eyes. And his loving father laughed, his mother laughed as well, and glorious Hector, quickly lifting the helmet from his head, set it down on the ground, fiery in the sunlight, and raising his son he kissed him,” (pg. 211, Book 6: Hector Returns to Troy, Homer). Now here is a moment between Achilles and Patroclus when Achilles is coming back from battle, “I woke to his nose on mine, pressing insistently against me as I struggled from the webbing of my dreams. He smelled sharp and strange, and for a moment I was almost revolted at this creature that clung to me and shoved its face against mine. But then he sat back on his heels and was Achilles again.” (pg. 222, Miller). These are two moments of domesticity between warriors, great heroes, and the loved ones they returned to. In these moments war is more real, and it is harder to separate the men on the field and the men that return home.

None the less, the phrase “what has Hector ever done to me?” is also meant to show Achilles’ active struggle against his fate that came with the war. He wants glory but is unwilling to make sacrifices to gain it. It is only once Hector does personally harm him by killing Patroclus that he does not care to avoid fate, in fact he does not care about glory or honor after this. In a way, it is Patroclus’ sacrifice that gives Achilles glory, which is ironic seeing as he does not fight for glory anymore, but revenge. This can be best seen in how he treats Hector’s body after he defeats him. “He rises at dawn to drag Hector’s body around the walls of the city for all of Troy to see. He does it again at midday, and again at evening. He does not see the Greeks begin to avert their eyes from him. He does not see the lips thinning in disapproval as he passes.” (pg. 346, Miller). “The memories flooded over him, live tears flowing, and now he’d lie on his side, now flat on his back, now facedown again. At last he’d leap to his feet, wander in anguish, aimless along the surf, and dawn on dawn flaming over the sea and shore would find him pacing. Then he’d yoke his racing team to the chariot-harness, lash the corpse of Hector behind the car for dragging and haul him three times round the dead Patroclus’ tomb, and then he’d rest again in his tents and leave the body sprawled facedown in the dust. But Apollo pitied Hector—dead man though he was—and warded all corruption off from Hector’s corpse…” (pg. 589, Book 24: Achilles and Priam, Homer). In The Song of Achilles the Greeks, and gods, are not pleased. In The Iliad the gods see this as a disgrace.

Where Achilles redeems himself greatly in The Iliad is not as significant in The Song of Achilles which left me extremely disappointed. The moment when Achilles is meant to show what a great character he is and how willing he is to forgive, even after such a significant loss, is in Book 24: Achilles and Priam. It is here when Priam and Achilles share a very vulnerable moment with each other in which they hold no contempt towards one another and the people they have taken from each other, but they cry, together, for the horrible losses they have endured in this long war. Miller makes this moment so much less vulnerable and emotional, making it feel significantly less important and character defining as it had been in the epic. Here is the moment as shared in The Iliad, “‘I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.’ Those words stirred withing Achilles a deep desire to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man’s hand he gently moved him back. And overpowered by memory both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely for man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself, now for his father, now for Patroclus once again, and their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.” (pg. 605, Book 24: Achilles and Priam, Homer). And this is the very same interaction as written in The Song of Achilles, “‘…it is worth my life, if there is a chance my son’s soul may be at rest.’ Achilles’ eyes fill; he looks away so the old man will not see.” (pg. 350, Miller). In Miller’s version there is not even a mention of the agreement that is come to in the epic that allows Priam to host a full funeral for Hector. This left Achilles feeling cold and unfeeling, which goes completely against his entire characterization in both the novel and the epic. For me, the watering down and diminishing of the conversation between Achilles and Priam was the biggest misstep in Miller’s novel and was a major disappointment especially since I felt she characterized Achilles so well for the majority of the novel.

“His anger was incandescent, a fire under his skin.” (pg. 283, Miller) The comparing of Achilles to flame and fire strikes most true. He is never an emotionless man, never achieving a moment of utter stillness, instead he is always flickering under the surface. Even in times of calm he radiates warmth, and in times of great anger he rages in a great blaze. It is fire that is the perfect essence of Achilles. But this is what also makes him so controversial in the eyes of modern men. Some today still find themselves drawn to his wild flame and the brilliance of it, while others see the ash trails of his destruction and feel he is no good man, no hero. Achilles himself, I think, would agree with the sentiment that he isn’t a hero. In the end with Priam he felt shame for how he treated Hector’s body, his greatest love died because he couldn’t let go of his honor. In class people questioned why Achilles is remembered the hero and not Hector or Diomedes. I think Achilles achieved the fame he has because he is a good man who let his emotions drive him to do bad things, things looked down upon even in times of war. However, in the end, he redeems himself. He is a brilliant, shining character with intense emotions who manages to redeem himself—of course he has become the main hero of the story. Madeline Miller, in my opinion, did a very good job with the interpretation of his character, however, there were a few missteps with him and other things that were very important to his development. But despite these missteps, she has managed to bring Achilles’ light back into the lives of modern people, which is a wonderful thing. “As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.” (pg. 47, Miller)

#essay #literary #writing #greek mythology #achilles #the song of achilles #the iliad #literary critique #homer #madeleine miller

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whiskynottea · 5 years ago

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An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics Ficlet -- The Future is Near

A/N: A week ago I got a message by @wickedgoodbooks asking for a wee ficlet about her favourite goofballs. Coincidentally, it was only the previous day that I was thinking of these two too!

So here is a not-so-wee fluffy ficlet. I loved going back to this AU and I hope you will enjoy reading this!

AO3

(You can find the main story here and on AO3)

~~~~~~

I liked Saturday mornings in the library the best. It was quiet, beautiful, and it made me feel like the concept of time disappeared and clocks lost their power in this place. With so few people around, I always imagined that the books were snuggling into their warm leather covers, peacefully asleep.

I opened the Word document on my laptop and blinked at the cursor that was blinking back at me. Having started a few days ago, I was four pages in and had hardly covered one-third of the subject.

Way to go, Claire.

I checked my notes again, looking for the paper mentioning the case of a forty-two-year-old man with infective endocarditis and proceeded with writing down the modified Duke criteria used to establish a diagnosis of the infection.

Major criteria

Positive blood culture with typical IE microorganism, defined as one of the following:

Typical microorganism consistent with IE from two separate blood cultures (Viridans-group streptococci, or Streptococcus bovis including nutritional variant strains, or HACEK group, or Staphylococcus aureus, or Community-acquired enterococci, in the absence of a primary focus)

Microorganisms consistent with IE from persistently positive blood cultures (two positive cultures of blood samples drawn >12 hours apart, or three or a majority of ≥four separate blood cultures with first and last sample drawn at least one hour apart, Coxiella burnetii detected by at least one positive blood culture, or IgG antibody titer for Q fever phase 1 antigen >1:800)

My phone buzzed against the heavy wooden table.

Scot: Where are you, Sassenach?

I blinked at the message, double-checking the time. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Which meant that it was four at night in Michigan and as far as I knew, Jamie had gone to bed early last night.

Sassenach: Why aren’t you sleeping?

Scot: Why aren’t you in your dorm?

What? I stupidly looked around as though Jamie would pop from between the imposing shelves. How the hell did he know?

Seeing as no red-headed towering Scot was to be spotted, I stared back at my phone in confusion.

Scot: Go back to your room.

Sassenach: And why would I do that?

Scot: Because Mary stopped talking to me and just stares at her hands.

My heart leapt into my throat and I banged my knee on the table leg while jumping from my seat.

Scot: I think she’ll die of embarrassment because we’re less than two feet apart and when she opened the door she almost attacked me with the table lamp.

I swallowed my chuckle out of respect for the books that surrounded me.

Sassenach: YOU’RE HERE?

Scot: Where are you?

Sassenach: Library.

Scot: COMING

Sassenach: The Bodleian Library.

I took a few deep breaths while smiling like a loon and sat down again, trying to focus on the essay.

What was I doing? Right. The major criteria.

Evidence of endocardial involvement with positive echocardiogram defined as…

I was still smiling. And thinking of Jamie instead of infective endocarditis.

I shook my head and tried to focus on the words I was typing.

Oscillating intracardiac mass on valve or supporting structures…

I was sure that oscillating intracardiac mass was bound to mean something, something different than the constant chanting in my mind that went like: Jamie is here, Jamie is here, he is here, here, here. Jamie is hereee.

Continuing was a lost cause. I packed my notes and my laptop and left the empty library with a wide grin, belatedly realising that Jamie was coming to me and I shouldn’t leave the place.

Well, I knew the way back home. I would meet him halfway.

I forced my feet not to break into a run. Or a dance. It was two months since I’d last touched him, since I was engulfed by his arms, since I bit that bottom lip of his just to hear the groan that always followed.

Maybe not a run, but a trot was surely acceptable. I took my phone from my pocket and called him.

“Making calls from the library?” he asked as soon as he picked up.

“I’m not in the library anymore.”

“Sassenach,” he grunted. “I’m heading to the library.”

“Well, it’s eighteen minutes away and I thought we could split the distance.”

“Yeah, eighteen minutes because you couldn’t just go to the LMH library which is next to your place.”

“It doesn’t feel the same,” I explained and heard him sighing.

“Aye, I ken. Ye’ve said so about one million times.”

I laughed. My love for the Bodleian library was certainly no secret. “I missed you, Jamie.”

“Not for much longer,” he said and I could hear the impatience in his voice.

“You’re crazy, by the way. What are you doing here?”

“Coach gave me a week.”

“And?”

“And I couldn’t spend it in Michigan, away from ye. Do I take Parks Road or Banbury Road?”

“You’re already there?”

“Aye.”

“Are you running?”

“Well, not now that we’re talking.”

Crazy, stupid Scot.

“I love you. Take Parks. I’ll meet you halfway.” I ended the call and started walking even faster.

Two months wasn’t that long, considering that we lived in different continents, but my heart was thumping loud and cheerful in my chest at the thought that I would soon kiss him again.

After our epic breakup when Jamie convinced himself that being apart would hurt less than going through years of a long-distance relationship, he’d realised – the ugly way – that nothing could be worse than losing each other and coming back asking for one more chance.

I gave it to him and never regretted it. Day after day, call after call, text after text, Jamie took the pain of those twenty-six days of our separation away and made me believe in him again. He gained my trust with every little gesture, with every big surprise.

He was there, always. In the good days, in the bad days. In the days I found my purpose, in the days I lost my courage. In the days I was so exhausted I thought reading one more page would make my brain explode. In the days I felt I had chosen the only profession that could make me fulfil my dreams. Jamie was there to listen, to commiserate, to encourage, to love.

And I hoped I was there for him, too. Life wasn’t perfect but our love was enough.

We’d found a routine when we stopped being freshmen intimidated by expectations and we made sure to manage our schedules so that we had time for each other. Not that everything always worked out and we never fought or screamed at each other through our phones when reality and distance crushed us. But there was no fight we couldn’t overcome, no obstacle in our path big enough to break us.

And when I saw him on Parks Road running towards me, I knew that we had chosen each other, each day, each moment.

“Sassenach,” he breathed close to my ear and took me in his arms, spinning me around as though I weighed nothing. “Oh, babe, I missed ye so much.”

His lips were soft on mine, his tongue tempting as it traced my mouth to make me open to him. One hand found its way down to my arse, and he squeezed in a possessive strike.

“That plump arse will be the death of me,” he murmured against my lips.

“Not plump,” I corrected even though I knew he kept saying that to tease me.

“Plump, and perfect, and mine.”

“Mine,” I corrected.

“Ye’re mine, Sassenach,” he growled and a bicycle bell rang from the road next to us, to celebrate or reprimand the inappropriateness of our actions, I wasn’t sure.

“Jamie…” I tried, and failed, to stop him.

“Ah Dhia,” he groaned. “Mary in the room, people here. I need to get ye somewhere and have ye all to myself.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I booked an airbnb.”

Before I could reply his mouth was on mine and he was kissing me like a thirsty man who just found an oasis full of springs in the desert. With a hand still on my arse and the other lost in my curls, he pulled me closer until I melted into him, his chest hard, and solid, and warm, and there. Close. Tangible.

“Let’s go,” he said and withdrew with eyes closed and a pained expression on his face. “God, it hurts not to touch ye.”

“Is it too early for check-in?” I asked and he nodded his assent. “Then you have to be patient,” I murmured. “Coffee?”

He held my hand in his as though it was a lifeline and we started walking down the street towards my favourite cafe.

“Why didn’t you say you were coming?” I asked with a frown.

“I wanted to wake you up and surprise you, Sassenach, but you made it impossible.”

“Sorry,” I replied, not looking remorseful at all.

“It doesna matter.” He grinned and pulled me closer, planting a kiss on my head. “Ye ken, Sassenach,” he started in a hesitating voice.

“Yes?”

“‘Tis Saturday.”

“Mhmm. I’ve heard.”

“And tomorrow it’s Sunday.”

“Aren’t you just brilliant?” I replied with a mocking grin and he made a silly face.

“And the room I booked?”

“The one you’re supposed to check-in later?”

“Aye, that one.”

“What about that?”

“I booked it for Monday.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “What?” I asked stupefied. “Why?”

“I was thinking… Well, I thought…”

“Jamie…”

“Aye, aye. ‘Tis the weekend and ye dinna have classes, so I thought I could kidnap ye and take ye for a trip to Edinburgh. What do ye say, Sassenach? Jenny keeps nagging that it’s been ages since she last saw both of us.”

“Edinburgh?”

“Aye. I ken ye have the essay ye’re working on, but I thought it’d be nice to go back.”

Edinburgh. It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was a really, really good idea.

“Okay,” I said with a smile.

“Aye?”

“Aye, you insufferable Scot. Let’s go to Edinburgh. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Jenny kicking your arse.”

He looked at me with wide eyes, feigning surprise. “And here I thought ye like my arse!”

We went back to my dorm where I quickly packed my toothbrush and a change of clothes and ran to the train station. It was a six-hours trip that I was never excited to make, but having Jamie sitting next to me changed everything. The destination didn’t matter anymore – it was the journey and the time we would spend together that was important.

The train rolled on the rails and Jamie wrapped his arm around me, pulling me impossibly close. I laid my head on his chest and closed my eyes, the scent of his cologne permeated my senses. We fell in a comfortable silence thick with love and contentment, two ships finding haven in a deserted island.

When I opened my eyes I was greeted by the British landscape and a small tilt of my head revealed that Jamie had fallen asleep. Locks of auburn hair had fallen on his forehead and a soft smile was curving up his lips.

It was happiness that filled my lungs with my next breath. So simple, so pure.

It seemed that I fell asleep as well and we both woke up because of the commotion when we reached Sheffield. With the confusion granted by awakenings, we looked out the window for a moment until Jamie yawned and hugged me tighter.

“I’d forgotten how long this trip is,” he said in a gruff, sleepy voice.

“At least we were sleeping during the first half of it.”

“Aye. I was exhausted. Didna manage to sleep enough on the plane.”

“Mmm, you never do.”

“In contrast to other people, I’m not mentioning any names mind you, who sleep in airports and almost miss their flights!”

“I happened only once, okay?”

“Are ye sure? Because I remember you running to your gate –”

“Hey!” I interrupted, elbowing his stomach. Not that he would feel anything with the six-pack he’d made for himself through training. “The other two times –”

“Three.”

I huffed in indignation. “Three times,” I consented, narrowing my eyes at him, “These times I wasn’t sleeping. I was just distracted!”

“Still. It counts.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Ye were reading yer books and got so engrossed in them that you almost lost yer connecting flight. It counts.”

“Fuck you,” I whispered in his ear because there was a mother with a sweet little boy at the seats in front of ours, but I was smiling and he must have heard it.

“Only with you. And I canna wait.” He placed an opened mouth kiss on my neck and I bit back a moan.

“I hate you, Jamie Fraser,” I keened, unable to imbue my voice with the strength the sentiment owed to have.

Jamie, his eyes on my heaving chest, murmured back, “I’m looking forward to ye hating me a bit more.”

“I’ll punish you for that,” I vowed and ran my hand up his tight, stopping exactly where he didn’t want me to.

His groan made a shiver ran down my spine.

To distract ourselves from images of savouring each other, we bought salt and vinegar crisps, jaffa cakes and hobnobs. Jamie devoured half of them before I had even finished my handful of crisps.

“I thought you professionals had to watch your diet,” I mumbled, still chewing.

Jamie looked semi-embarrassed for a moment, then shrugged. “Cheat day.”

“Okay, if that’s the label you put on your sins…”

“These are totally healthy Sassenach,” he said with a crooked smile. “Vegetables.” He raised the package of crisps and shook it between us. “These have oats and oats are verra nutritious,” he said with a nudge at the hobnobs and these…” he hesitated for a moment.

“Have orange jam so it’s like eating fruits?” I suggested.

“See?” He grinned. “You get me.”

I laughed and took one of the jaffa cakes before they all disappeared into the giant’s mouth.

I hoped we didn’t smell like oranges when we arrived in Edinburgh.

“I hope we won’t smell like oranges when we arrive in Edinburgh,” Jamie echoed my thought and I turned to look at him, wide-eyed and incredulous.

“Why?” I asked before he had enough time to think what he just said.

“Because Jenny –” he stopped abruptly. “Shite.”

“Oh my god.”

“Ye ken?”

“You know too?”

We gaped at each other, unsure how to proceed.

“Jenny hates oranges as of late,” I stated.

“Aye.”

“Do you know why?”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” I confessed feeling a smile curving up the corners of my mouth.

“I will kill her!” Jamie exclaimed and started typing furiously on his phone before he asked me to pose for an angry selfie.

“She says she wanted to check how long we would keep it from each other!” he exclaimed in frustration a moment later. “That evil…”

I barked a laugh, shaking my head. “This sister of yours is unbelievable.”

“Aye, she reminds me of yer best friend,” he retorted.

“So this was why you wanted to go to Edinburgh?” I asked and saw his eyes soften and his lips mirror mine in a grin.

“I will be an uncle, Sassenach!”

“I know! It was the best news! Although, now that I think about it, it was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

“She said it wasna exactly planned, but they were so happy when we talked. Ian has even started building a crib because he wants something special for the baby.”

“Ian is the sweetest,” I said and the screen of Jamie’s phone lit up with a new message from Jenny. It was a picture of her and Ian laughing and below it wrote, ‘We love you! All three of us!”

“Do they know we’re on the way?”

Jamie smiled mischievously and shook his head.

“Suits them right.”

We finished eating while speculating about the baby’s sex, Jenny and Ian’s wedding and the possibility of Ian failing in his endeavour to build a crib on his own.

In eight months, Jenny would be a mum. It felt surreal and yet so right.

The future wasn’t that far away, it seemed.

“I was talking to Maisri the other day. About you.”

“Aye?” His voice was low but I felt the question vibrating through his body.

“About your dream of getting your own swimming pool and teaching children with intellectual disabilities. When you told me that John wanted to be your partner and invest in your plan once you both come back to the UK, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maisri wants to be a psychiatrist, you know. She said it’s a brilliant idea. She’d read a review published a few years ago that claimed that hydrotherapy shows potential as a treatment method for social interactions and behaviours in children with autism spectrum disorders. And we were thinking that muscle building will also help with balance and mobility.”

“‘Tis still a dream, ye ken that, aye?”

“I know. I’m just reminding you that it’s a great dream.”

Jamie chuckled and gently tucked an errant curl behind my ear. “Thank ye, mo ghraidh.” A soft kiss on my temple. “But first, I have one more year in the US and I want to make it to the Senior Gold Squad of the Scottish Swimming National Squad Selections.”

“Mmm,” I agreed with a kiss on his chest. “I’m sure you will. You’re one of the top competitive swimmers in your uni and you’ve already won medals. They’ll be fools not to have you.”

“And then I will be an hour away, Sassenach. An hour away,” he repeated. “Can you imagine?”

“An hour by plane. Six hours by car.”

“Even so. I will be able to come to see you at weekends. Every. Single. Weekend.”

It was that moment when it hit me.

“I have to find a place,” I said, frowning.

Jamie mirrored my expression. “Ye dinna want to?”

I was silent, thinking about it, considering my options and the budget I could afford, but apparently Jamie perceived my silence as a denial. “I guess I can book a room when I’m in Oxford if you want to stay with Mary.” There was a bitterness in his voice that he didn’t manage to conceal.

“No, I don’t. It’s not that. “ He didn’t seem convinced. He turned slightly and gazed out the window. “Jamie…”

“‘Tis fine,” he said in a low voice.

“No, it’s not. Look at me.” When he didn’t, I cupped his face with both hands until his eyes were on mine. “Will you stop jumping into conclusions? I didn’t reply immediately because I hadn’t considered finding a place of my own before. I’ll talk to uncle Lamb.”

“Ye don’t have to if ye dinna want it, Sassenach.”

I could almost taste his disappointment and I wanted to kiss him until he knew that I didn’t have any second thoughts about that.

“Who said I don’t want it?” When he didn’t reply I pulled his head down so that his lips were on mine. “A place of my own?” I whispered on his mouth. “To be with my stubborn Scot every weekend?” I licked his lips and they opened for me. “Hell yes,” I said and kissed him until we were gasping for breath.

When we broke apart, we were both smiling. The future wasn’t that far away anymore.

#thermodynamics #the first law of thermodynamics #jamie x claire #high school AU #college AU #ficlet #thermo ficlet #the future is near #outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction

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sinagrace · 4 years ago

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Iceman’s been back on my mind lately. It started with the internet rumor that Shia Labeouf was being considered to play the role of Bobby Drake in a Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the X-Men. My DMs and @Mentions on social media were a mixture of intense reaction and then asking my take on who would make a great Bobby Drake (for the record: in my head I always saw him as a younger Antoni Porowski with a theater background, ‘cuz playing the funny guy with a vulnerable streak requires serious acting shops). My mind went back to the time of BC, when I was doing a lot of touring, and answering this very question because of my work on the Iceman book at Marvel. One thing led to another, and I decided to take a trip further down memory lane to look at my favorite volume of the series: Amazing Friends. Now, I know I’ve spent equal amounts of time publicly stating what a gift working on Iceman was, while also calling out the challenges that came with the experience, but the third volume really was a pure blessing. I was able to take every valuable lesson I learned as a writer, and apply it to telling a story that would be interesting to one person: Me. I’ve been a lifelong X-Men fan, I live and breathe comics, so my own expectations for a return to the series seemed like the only ones to really worry about meeting/ surpassing. The first two volumes had been so bogged down by rotating editors, complex continuity, company-wide events, multiple artists… The third volume was my chance to focus on what an Iceman series was outside of so much context. All that mattered was challenging myself to do an X-Men story that focused on the aspects of the franchise I felt were valuable and relevant, meaning: excuses to have Emma Frost be an asshole and finding an opportunity to make fun of Kitty Pryde’s haircut. Before moving on from Marvel, Axel Alonso made time to call me for a pep talk about the series. I wanted to get the series extended, and he wanted to help me succeed with the ten issues he could commit to. First, he offered an eleventh issue to give me more time on the stands. He took a look at everything I had planned, and basically told me to restructure with an eye for ramping up the pace. My writing background comes from prose and essays/ think pieces… both of which are methodical and provide some allowance from the reader to really take your time and set up the world before diving into the meat. That’s not the case with comics. You gotta work fast. Especially in today’s market, there is less and less room for a retailer to say, “give it two volumes, because shit starts really coming together by the third trade.” That was literally my speech for hooking people on such iconic series as Invincible, Fables, and Strangers in Paradise. Nowadays, every single issue is not a brick to be laid down as foundation so much as a bullet in your gun. Conflicting imagery, but that’s the point. Axel told me to think about the Big Moments in my life and sort out how to inject the mutant metaphor into it and make the most compelling comic book story I could. This was epic advice that I took with me into the new arc, but I struggled a bit with what could be bigger than the “coming out” storyline in volume one. Love was off the table because I wanted to keep Bobby single and ready to mingle. Death was off the table too, because my editor felt like we’d done enough with Bobby’s parents in the first two volumes. Upon looking at my own life, and considering the stuff me and my friends were dealing with, I landed on something a bit more reflective than LIFE or DEATH. I wanted to focus on that moment when a gay guy looks outside of himself and realizes the folks around him may not have it so easy. After everything we’ve been dealing with this summer, Iceman’s “big issue” of the arc feels oddly prescient. Bobby Drake had to reconcile his accidental complicit role in keeping the Morlocks down, and he has to investigate new approaches to being a better ally to those who don’t want to or can’t live under the protection of the X-Men. I used the Morlocks to allegorically speak to the issues that the trans/ NB community face today. Considering that trans folks are facing higher rates of homelessness and murder than other members of the LGBTQIA+ community, all I needed to do was find a perfect villain to treat the Morlocks as “lesser-than.” Cue Mister Sinister, who I wrote as particularly Darwinist with a major flair for interactive theater. While Amazing Friends definitely is the most fun I’ve had working on the book, it was also full of the heaviest shit I’ve written about. I’m so grateful that my editor let me use Emma Frost for a story about the trauma of gay conversion therapy with her brother Christian, but I’m still annoyed he wouldn’t let me put her in a sickening Givenchy outfit for her reveal. Similarly, creating the Madin character required that I chat with several mental healthcare professionals and members of the NB community to respectfully portray them as a resilient and fleshed out hero. I included personal lessons that I learned from years of the therapy (the sandcastle / sea image, a Jay Edidin fave moment). My editor and I weren’t always aligned, but we definitely were on each other’s side. He understood what I was trying to do and asked questions when something flew over his head, and he even had the good instincts to stop me from going too heavy handed with the ending. My original idea for the arc’s finale was to have Bobby become permanently scarred in his fight with Sinister, where he’d have a cool ice gash running across his face or something, a la Squall from Final Fantasy 8. The goal was to show Iceman stripping himself of his ability to pass as non-mutant to save the Morlocks, but the Mutant Pride fight scene being a stand-in for the Stonewall Riots kind of already made enough of a statement. Plus, no one in editorial wanted to deal with remembering to track his scar in other books. At first I tried to balk at his point of view, but when I looked over my original notes for the series, the point was to focus on optimism and hope. Giving Bobby a permanent scar and emphasizing the notion of sacrifice was too bleak a message for a series wherein the hero carbo-loads hoagies while riding an ice scooter and mutant drag queens emcee local festivals. Of course, the crowning achievement of the series… my mutant drag queen :) I’ve witnessed a lot when it comes to the world of pop culture and myth-making, and I 100% believe that you can’t plan the success of something. I’ve seen bands forced into breaking up because labels spend six figures failing at making listeners connect with an album. I witnessed firsthand how The Walking Dead was built from relatively humble beginnings as a buzzy cable drama into a literal international phenomenon over the course of its first three seasons. Everyone hopes for the best, but you never know how something will land with audiences. When the Shade character took off, I was truly astounded. Things I posted on Instagram while half-asleep became official quotes on major news sites. Queens and cosplayers were interpreting her like Margot Robbie had unveiled a new Harley Quinn lewk. The impact was so legit and immediate that we had to jump in and give Shade a proper Marvel hero alias, to truly welcome her into the X-Men canon. Hence the name change to Darkveil. (Funny story: I tried to fight hard for Madame X as an alias, but CB didn’t want another Agent X / “X-Name” character. Three months later, Madonna announced the Madame X album. Phew!) There was a time where I felt uncertain that the folks in charge at Marvel would bring Darkveil into any stories outside of the ones I wrote. My understanding was that Hickman was like the Cylons and had A Plan-- one that didn’t include her character. I made peace with my contribution to the Marvel Universe being contained, but then someone on social media pointed out that Darkveil showed up in an issue of Marvel Voices. After breaking down and reading Hickman’s House of X, I saw that his Plan was one of endless possibilities, and that he was moving EVERY character into new and dynamic places. I have hope now that he sees the possibilities with Darkveil, and takes advantage of her and all of her many body pouches. Amazing Friends really is my favorite thing I’ve done for the Big Two. I made a lifelong friend out of artist Nate Stockman (DC, please hire us for a Plasticman book), and I got to run a victory lap with the most encouraging and supportive readers out there. It was worth every dreadful conversation, every shitty thing a person said to me online, and all of the fun nonsense that goes into being creative for a living. Being stuck at home in quarantine has given me a lot of time to reflect on the gift that my career to date has been, and I feel so grateful to be where I am today. Other people may groan when they have to talk about something they’ve moved on from, but not me. I made people happier, I got to work with my favorite characters at Marvel, and and I'll say it again: it’s a frickin’ gift to make people move from your work. So, I will engage every tweet or message asking me my thoughts about who should play Bobby Drake in the Marvel Cinematic Universe… I’ll just never have a good answer.

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thedeaditeslayer · 4 years ago

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Bruce Campbell talks ‘Evil Dead,’ ‘Spider-Man,’ ‘Xena’

The first time Bruce Campbell came across Sam Raimi, they were students at Michigan’s West Maple Junior High School.

“Sam was a year younger than me,” Campbell recalls, “and I remember him dressed as Sherlock Holmes playing with dolls in the middle of the floor. And I remember going way around him. And I found out later that it was Sam Raimi. We didn’t really come into contact until we got until high school.”

What a connection they made. After bonding over D.I.Y. filmmaking, Campbell and Raimi went on to do 1978 shoestring horror-short “Within the Woods” together, which they evolved into 1981 demonic thriller “Evil Dead.”

Campbell would periodically reprise signature “Evil Dead” character Ash Williams in various sequels and offshoots. And appear in Raimi-produced “Xena: Warrior Princess,” portraying slippery “king of thieves” Autolycus on that ’90s-iconic TV fantasy epic.

And then there’s Campbell’s memorable cameos in Raimi’s blockbuster, Tobey Maguire-starring “Spider-Man” film trilogy: the ring announced in the first, 2002 film, “snooty usher” in the 2004 sequel and a maître d’ in 2007′s “Spider-Man 3.”

Of course, Campbell’s made a mark outside that dynamic duo. He drew raves for his portrayal of a nursing-home-bound Elvis Presley in 2002 indie comedy-horror gem, “Bubba Ho-Tep.” Then there’s his role of Sam Axe on USA Network spy drama “Burn Notice.” Not to mention numerous other film, TV, voice acting and even video-game work.

The cult-fave actor will make his first ever trip to Huntsville this week, for Oct. 24 events at Von Braun Center’s Mark C. Smith Concert Hall featuring “Evil Dead” screenings followed by a Campbell-led chat about the film, his life as an actor and beyond. Tickets for these 3 and 7:30 p.m. events start at $32, via ticketmaster.com.

His upcoming projects include a comedy album with actor Ted Raimi, Sam’s brother, called “The Lost Recordings.” Campbell also is readying a book of essays called “The Cool Side of My Pillow,” which finds him riffing on subjects ranging from noise to the environment. He hopes to have both released by the end of this year. More info at bruce-campbell.com. On a recent afternoon, Campbell checked in from his Oregon home for a phone interview. Edited excerpts are below.

Bruce, when you do an “Evil Dead” screening event, do your discussions turn up new things about the film or that you haven’t thought of in a long time?

Every show turns up something new because it puts you on the spot. Someone will say something that will then trigger something that you had forgot. I just sat down the other day before one of these shows with my guy who is my frontman and I was like, “OK, l’m just going to tell the story of making this movie.” It’s not for questions I’m just going to tell you basically what you’re about to see. But yeah, every show triggers some new thing. I’ve seen the movie. I know how it ends. But that is the challenge, finding some new, weird tidbits.

Back in high school how did you and Sam Raimi first bond? Did you share a class or something?

Basically I got into typing class, that’s what started it. I could not believe I was stuck in this stupid class where everyone around me seemed to know how to type. I’m like, “How do you know this?” It was very frustrating. So I went to a counselor for the first time ever – I’d never gone to try to get out of anything.

So I go there and I say, “Hey can I drop this dumb typing class?” She goes, "Yeah, what do you want? I go, “What do you got?” So she comes up with “radio speech.” And I’m like, “Radio speech? Wait they do the morning announcements (at school) and stuff?” and I’m like yeah let me get all over that.

So I got into a class and Sam Raimi was also in the class. And the guy who taught radio speech also directed all the plays. We didn’t know how critical that was. The first year I couldn’t get in anything in my high school. I was auditioning for everything but I didn’t have a class with this guy. By the next year I had a class with him, and then me and Sam were in basically all the plays after that. We found out how the deal worked.

So I met him in radio speech and we’d do the morning announcements together and got to talking about what we do in our neighborhoods. I was making little regular-8 (millimeter film) movies and Sam was making Super-8 movies. So we started to join forces during the course of that high school run, that two or three years in there.

We were very productive. We didn’t really get into trouble because we were too busy like filming parties. We wouldn’t go to the parties we’d film the parties and use them in some way in our little films so it was a great guerrilla filmmaking period.

A celeb or well-known person you were surprised to learn they’re an “Evil Dead” fan?

I heard Charlie Sheen, one of his favorite things was to smoke a doobie and watch “Evil Dead 2,” and Alice Cooper’s favorite horror movie is “Evil Dead.”

If it’s good enough for Alice Cooper it’s good enough for me. You host the quiz show “Last Fan Standing.” What do you make of the mainstreaming of nerd-culture?

Every generation has its deal. In the ’40s most moviegoers were in their 40s and so the actors were in their 40s. Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy and all the guys were in their 40s. You didn’t have to be 21. And then as the audience got younger the actors got younger and the people who run the companies get younger and so they’re really just catering to what’s popular.

Comic books have always been popular but now they’re really popular. Not really sure what that’s all about but yeah social media has certainly helped but I think it’s another form of escapism. Whenever times get weird, people want escapism. During The Depression they did the Busby Berkeley splashy musicals where everyone was happy all the time, when life was really miserable. And some decades where we’re really doing okay, the movies turned introspective and we go after ourselves and figure out why we’re like this and like that. And so I think we’re in a phase where we just want to be taken away to another galaxy and Marvel is very happy to help.

And you’ve been a part of that. In Sam’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, which of your cameos did you have the most fun with?

Well I don’t know it’s hard to lineate because they’re so critical. The first one I named Spider-Man. If I wasn’t in the movie a billion dollar franchise would be called The Human Spider. He wants to get in the theater in the second one, past the snooty usher who won’t let him in because he’s late, because it will spoil the illusion, so I think I’m technically the only character who’s ever defeated Spider-Man. And in part three, a superhero comes to a mortal for help. He wants me to help him propose to his girlfriend so it’s sort of a landmark case where a superhero goes to a mortal for help which is pretty rare. So I can’t delineate because they’re all critical to the “Spider-Man” universe.

Do you have any cool mementos from "Evil Dead or elsewhere from your career? Maybe something like the chainsaw from “Evil Dead 2”?

You know, it’s weird I’m not a hoarder, I’m not a collector. My brother, he has the shotgun from “Evil Dead,” but not because he loves movie trivia, he just likes guns. My brother also has I think the set of keys to the original cabin. That’s a pretty good one. Not sure how he got that one.

I have weirder ones. Like I have a prop from a 1989 movie called “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat.” I have Van Helsing’s holy bottle where he shakes the holy water at them. And I have what I call my tchotchke shelf, where most people would look at it and they couldn’t identify what importance each item is, but there’s a story for each one.

Some of your favorite actors outside the horror genre?

Oh, I l love a lot of the old time actors. William Holden, he starred in “Bridge on The River Kwai” one of my favorite movies. I like the guys who had to work a lot. In the old days and actor would finish a job on Friday he was under contract, he took two weeks off and started a new movie a couple weeks later. Actors kind of just do one or two movies a year if they’re lucky these days and it doesn’t help them refine their craft.

I feel like the guys who worked a lot got good because they got really used to the process. I’m a fan of the studio system. Not all movies were good and not every actor was happy under the studio system, but I think a busy actor’s a good actor.

For your role in “Bubba Ho-Tep,” what was your process for tapping into Elvis’s vibe?

What guy doesn’t want to be Elvis, you know? So I worked with an Elvis impersonator for about a half an hour and then he gave up on me. He goes, “Look, man, you’re never going to get it.” I’m like, “Wow either I suck or you suck as a teacher but somebody here sucks.”

No, but I watched a bunch of footage and documentaries. There’s a good one, all his Memphis Mafia who worked with him, a filmmaker basically got them all drunk one night and interviewed them all and that’s where the good stories are. You learn a little more of the human side of him. But that’s pretty much it. I’ve never been a stage performer so mercifully there wasn’t that much of it, just in quick flashbacks.

And there’s a part of me, in the back of my mind, I want to know that Elvis' descendants, somebody, a daughter, niece, somebody has watched that movie and approved. We’ll see.

I thought it was a cool creative take on that whole Elvis thing.

I agree. That’s why I did it. It was one of the weirdest scripts I’ve ever read But yet it wraps up though. It has a weird premise but it has a really interesting theme of what do you do with old people. Do we forget these old people? And are they still useful in society, old people? And I thought it had a sweet ending, that these two old guys they kind of rally themselves one more time.

What’s a well-known role you’ve turned down?

Turned down? I don’t have a lot of those. I don’t operate in that rarified air of saying, “Oh I turned ‘Titanic’ down.” I tried to get a part in a studio movie called “The Phantom” and Billy Zane wound up getting the part." And it was down to me and Billy, I was number two for the job, but I didn’t really enjoy the process very much because it seemed more political than actually acting. It was amazing how many people you had to audition for, and you had to go up the ranks and each time it got a little more tense as you move up. So I’m good doing these weirdo little movies.

I read the budget for “Within the Woods,” the predecessor of “Evil Dead,” was a princely 1,600 bucks. What was the most expensive line item, you think?

Food and probably fake blood. Tom Sullivan, who did the special effects, probably needed to mold a few things, so he probably spent a couple hundred bucks on molds. A lot of it was footage because Sam Raimi likes to shoot footage, so we probably bought a lot of rolls of film. And we did go to a cabin to shoot it, so had to get in the car and travel so maybe a little gas money in there too. That’s about it.

What can you tell us about the status of the next installment of the “Evil Dead” franchise?

We’re honing-in, circling the building now trying to lock in a partner. We have a couple of bidders and we’re trying to just find the correct suitor and we have a script written and a director picked. Sam Raimi hand -picked a guy named Lee Cronin, who’s a very good Irish filmmaker. And it’s got a very good modern tale. It’s a modern-day urban “Evil Dead,” it’s called “Evil Dead Rise.” And we’re hoping to do that next year.

You were a producer on 2013 “Evil Dead” remake. What’s the key to making a reboot effective?

Well rebooting can be very confusing and frustrating and not always successful. Reboot, sequel, remake we have all these crazy terms. What we’re doing now is we’re saying," Look, this is another ‘Evil Dead’ movie and that book gets around, a lot of people run into it and it’s another story." The main key with “Evil Dead” is they’re just regular people who are battling what seems to be a very unstoppable evil, and so that’s where the horror comes from. It’s not someone who’s skilled. They’re not fighting a soldier. They’re not fighting a scientist. They’re not fighting anybody more than your average neighbor. This one is going to be a similar thing. We’re going to have a heroine, a woman in charge, and she’s going to try and save her family.

Speaking of a female protagonist, when you’re at a con or meet fans somewhere, who has the most passionate superfans: “Evil Dead” or “Xena”?

“Xena” hits them at an emotional level. Like, they’ll come up to me and Lucy Lawless (the actor who played the show’s title role) and just burst into tears, because her character helped them get through a difficult time. “Xena” is more representative of overcoming your struggles in life. “Evil Dead” fans are pretty fervent but they don’t cry as much.

#Bruce Campbell #Evil Dead Rise

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livinginsunnyhell · 4 years ago

Note

Ask game for fanfic writers! ⌨️🖊📓📝

1. What fandoms do you write for?

2. What pairings do you write for?

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

4. Do you write original stories as well?

5. What fanfic of yours should everyone have read?

6. What is a fandom you will never write for?

7. What is a ship you will never write for?

8. Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, Wattpad, Tumblr, etc. which platform do you prefer?

9. What are your favorite fanfics?

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

12. Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

13. What is your planning process?

14. What have others criticized about your fanfic?

15. OCs or no OCs?

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

18. What is your favorite writing prompt?

19. Dead or overused tropes?

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

21. What’s your shortest fanfic?

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

26. First-person-narrative or third-person-narrative?

27. Do you take requests?

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

29. What’s more difficult? Fanfics or original work?

30. What writing software do you use?

31. Do you use beta/sensitivity readers?

32. Past or present tense?

33. Do friends and family know that you write fanfics?

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

35. What is your favorite review?

36. Did you ever delete a work of yours?

37. Did your work ever get plagiarized?

38. Do you partake in any fanfic/writing events? (Big bangs, zines, NaNoWriMo, etc?)

39. Collaborations or working solo?

40. Do you have any rituals before uploading a fic?

41. What is something you don’t like about your writing?

42. Rudest review?

43. Guilty pleasure tropes and scenarios?

44. Does fanart of your fanfic exist?

45. Do fanfics of your fanfic exist?

46. Few long essay reviews or many short reviews?

47. What fanfic of yours is truly underrated?

48. What is your favorite sentence that you’ve used in a fanfic?

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

50. Can we get a teaser for an upcoming chapter?

(Don't feel obligated to answer. Thought if you're into these kinda things, that'd be a nice ask. ;))

Oh this is so nice!! Thanks for sending this @annansmith

I chose a few of them to do.

1. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, I’m writing for Shameless (Gallavich) but I’ve written for:

Veronica Mars (LoVe), Veep (Amy/Dan), Arrow (Oliver/Felicity), Once Upon A Time (Hook/Emma), The Old Guard (Joe/Nicky), That 70′s show (Hyde/Jackie), Sons of Anarchy (Tara/Jax), Vampire Diaries (Klaroline), Hart of Dixie (Zoe/Wade), Gilmore Girls (Rory/Jess), X-men (Rogue/Pyro), One Tree Hill (Haley/Nathan), and a few others.

2. What pairings do you write for?

Now I write Gallavich.

But I’d say my top ones I love writing for now (my fanfiction writing has spanned about 14 years) are Dan/Amy, Veronica/Logan, Klaus/Caroline, Mickey/Ian.

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

My most popular fic on Ao3 is The Course of True Love (Arrow) and on FF Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic LoVe (Veronica Mars)

4. Do you write original stories as well?

Yes, I do. I’m working on a book, well, two books. But it’s going very slowly. The first is a memoir of my travels from around the world and the second is a vampire urban fantasy one. We’ll see how it goes, but I’d like to finish them by next year and see if I can get them published, but it’s hard so who knows.

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

Well, recently I’ve really been trying to finish everything I write. I have a lot of WIPs from years and years ago and even within the the last year, so this answer is pretty new. Basically, I focus on one fic at a time and write a little every day to stay motivated. Now, I try to update once a week on a certain day. I think comments/reviews and kudos and people being genuinely encouraging helps though. It’s also what’s gotten me considering finishing my older fics.

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic Love (over 165k)

13. What is your planning process?

Now, it’s different. I have a doc of ideas and I wait to see which one I can’t seem to shake. Then I plan out each chapter with a few sentences and I have a list of things I want to focus on in the story. Usually, each story now has a kind of theme to it and a main focus. I sometimes will just want to write a certain situation/scene/focus and the story is born from there. But what really helps is writing down chapter 1, 2, etc. and having a sentence or two for what I want to happen. It doesn’t always go according to plan, but I never get writers block or forget what happened in previous chapters now.

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

Probably a mixture of fandom (or my personal) headcanons. I don’t start with prompts unless it’s a challenge or sentence starters. Usually, I have a scene I already want to write in my head and then I sit down and write it.

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

Yes, I’ve read several books on writing. My undergrad was creative writing too, so I learned a lot there. I also follow writing instagram accounts which are helpful. I take everything I learn with a grain of salt and I see what is best for me. The best advice I heard recently was short sentences and so now I’m experimenting with that.

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

There’s a lot from many different fandoms. I used to be on FF.net as Psyc0gurl0 and now I’m ProstheticLoVe on a03. I like writing on ao3 better cause it’s easier and I love the tagging process. Plus the gallavich fandom on there is unreal. So to think about going back to ff.net to finish my WIPs seems like such a process now.

Currently though, I’m writing an Ian’s POV 5 chapter fic called Chocolate. It’s not out yet, but it’ll focus on Ian from 1x06 to 1x09 or so and how his feelings for Mickey change and evolve. It’s the second part to a series called Chocolate and Cigarettes. Mickey’s POV was Cigarettes.

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

Yes, I listen while writing but I need silence while editing. I have a Love (lol) playlist. It’s basically all the love songs that remind me of couples I ship. So for example, The Acid is in there a lot because their music is great, but also Basic Instinct is so haunting. Overall, I like all music except country, so sometimes I’ll listen to my larger playlists while writing.

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

So this has changed over the years. Initially, I wrote short chapters, then when I got back into fanfiction while writing klaroline they got a lot longer and now it’s just basically where the chapter has a natural ending. So the chapters are between 4 - 10k words depending. I try to get over 4k though. Right now, once I’m done with my current fic, I really want to write something over 100k.

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

A lot...none in Shameless though. Well, I guess my current one, but I haven’t posted that yet. I’d say I probs have about 10 WIPs spanning different fandoms. I know. But my goal for 2021 is to pick two and finish them.

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

Not all of them. Some of them are from years and years ago. But I’d like to finish the ones that I still get reviews on. So there’s a SOAs fic I want to finish cause that fandom is so lovely. I also want to finish a klaroline one cause that was fun to write. And my Amy/Dan ones I’d like to finish. I would like to finish my Veronica Mars ones (I have two) but they need a lot more attention, so when people message me about them I tell them the planned ending.

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

“Fuck, Mickey, I probably shouldn’t have had the third Hot Toddy,” Ian grimaced as the world around him spun.

Mickey laughed at him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Ian wanted to think his future husband just wanted to pull him closer, but he had a feeling it was to steady him.

“Probably should’ve cut you off earlier,” Mickey said tugging Ian closer.

Ian wobbled and plopped down on the back steps of the porch. Mickey followed suit a moment letter and they both looked out toward the backyard where the Gallaghers, Balls, and a few of the Milkovich cousins were alternatively huddling around a fire, drinking, and dancing.

“I blame Lip for making us have this stupid shared bachelor party in the first place,” Ian grumbled.

Mickey kissed him on the forehead as Ian lay his head on his shoulder. “It’s Sandy’s fault too.”

Ian hmmed in response and Mickey knew he was going to fall asleep any moment. He ran his hand up and down Ian’s arm and watched as Debbie bounced over to them.

“Jesus, you aren’t even married yet and you two are like an old married couple. Are you going to come dance or what?” she whined.

Mickey looked down at Ian, whose eyes were already closed, and then back up to Debbie. She was watching them with knowing eyes.

“We’ll dance at the wedding. Go grab Lip, I need his help to get Sleeping Beauty upstairs.”

Debbie turned to go get her eldest brother and Mickey looked back down at Ian. In his sleep, he nuzzled Mickey’s shoulder, breathed deeply, and a gentle smile appeared there.

3 more days and they’d officially be husbands.

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

I was about 10 and my cousin used to write a buffy the vampire slayer zine. There was a link to a site called buffyworld.com or something like that. And I found fanfic that way. There was a link on the site to ff.net and that’s how I stumbled across that. I stayed there for many many years until my second time in the veronica mars fandom around 2014 when I was lead to a03 and then I’ve been there ever since. On and off, my writing has fluctuated through the years based on my personal life.

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

Everywhere! omg. It’s insane. Gallavich I love writing for. There’s so many different facets to them, but truly everywhere I find inspiration. I have a whole doc of gallavich ideas that have stemmed from other fanfics, headcanons from me and other people, rewatching episodes, what’s going to happen in s11, cute moments i’d like to see happen, holidays, and just general life. I saw a pic of WW2 vets who were in a long term relationship and i was like mickey and ian! another idea is born.

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lilacandladybugs · 4 years ago

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What’s your current relationship with god? I’m very curious lmao

I’m sorry if this sounds incomprehensible and rambly and disjointed or pretentious. I care a lot more about this than almost anything else in the world and I wish I could do a better job of explaining myself. But I feel like why I believe in God or what my relationship with him is like is like trying to explain who I am. And I’m just the accumulation of everything I’ve ever experienced or that I think and I feel like it’s really important that I communicate it correctly so here is my attempt.

Here’s a video that’s really good that I think will give some good background information. If you don’t want to read all of this, the video is probably enough to explain.

youtube

TLDR: This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Death isn’t supposed to happen, it isn’t a part of the natural order of things. God loved us so much he died to fix it, and rose again to defeat death. God loves me and I love him, and I’ve never found peace or fulfillment like that in anything else.

I hope this makes sense anon let me know if you have any questions or if I misinterpreted your question.

TW suicide // grief // abuse // rape mention (not v bad or graphic or anything)

Long version:

I think I've always thought that there's something naturally (for lack of a better word) poetic about existing. Not really meaning that it's good, but kind of that everything feels really purposeful it seems to flow together like an old epic. Everything seems intensely meaningful to me.

I've always thought that life was tragic. That death is a fracture in the way things are, like we live in the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization.

And I've always thought that life seems like an incomprehensibly wonderful gift, because how can there be tragedy if there isn't anything worth losing? But somehow it seems like peace is the basic way things are, that normalcy isn't normal at all but like this status quo of goodness which makes bad things happening not only heart breaking but surprising.

Reconciling all of those ideas is really confusing.

I'm a strong proponent of thinking analytically about what you believe since the answer we choose to the question of whether or not God exists is like quite literally something we bet our lives on. We bet our life that God exists or that he doesn't, that things have meaning anchored in an external source or that they don't.

So while I grew up a Christian I've never felt really dead in it. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to be stubborn in asking questions and I don't have a problem with questioning authorities on why they believe what they believe—especially if they really confidently assert it. I want to be able to know things and understand them.

My junior year of high school three of my closest childhood friends died, and several others almost died. I remember sitting up at like two am listening to twenty one pilots self titled album just like seething and exhausted asking lord why would you abandon me like that?

Some other really horrible things happened to people that I cared about, I felt abandoned and rejected by Christians just for being broken, some of them caused it or contributed to the trauma and abuse. How could people who claimed the name of God do that?

My debate partner's best friend killed himself the same year that my friends died, and he became an atheist and I stayed a Christian. We fought about it a lot. I really seriously considered becoming an atheist.

The thing that I couldn't accept was the lack of eternality.

Really ironically I think I stayed a Christian for the same reason that my friend became an atheist. We were both asking why all of the living world is crying out in anguish. We both wanted to die. We both were angry. We both were horrified.

My friend thought that the question of “where is God?” was harder to answer than “why is there meaning to death?”

I'm a Christian because I'm horrified. He's an atheist for the same reason.

If you don’t feel like reading it, here’s the TLDR: there is no reason for someone to do something or not do something if God isn’t there to tell them to. There isn’t a moral grounding for law.

Arthur Leff was an atheist law professor at Yale in the eighties, and he wrote about the moral grounding for laws in his essay, Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law. The question he was asking was what can we do to ground morality? What can we do to prove objectively that there are things one ought to do and things one ought not do?

I am unwilling to accept that. There is something evil about abuse, neglect, rape, torture. There is something about these things that violates human rights, human dignity. There's something about them that goes against objective moral law.

But without God there is no moral law. So I wouldn't be able to say, "you should never rape someone, because rape is wrong." And everything that I had experienced flew in the face of that.

Dr. Leff wrote this about that question;

“All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless:

Napalming babies is bad.

Starving the poor is wicked.

Buying and selling each other is depraved.

Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.

Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.

There is in the world such a thing as evil.

[All together now:] Sez who?

God help us.”

In the end, it comes down to this; Do I believe that the complexity of the universe is because there was someone intelligent actively involved in its design, do I believe that information, reason, logic, emotion, and morality exist and are reliable because they have grounding in God’s identity? Do I believe that God is who he says he is?

And I guess the answer to those questions was yes.

I saw God. He was there in the stillness - in the sunrise and sunset and at 2 am after I couldn't cry anymore. I felt him. And I know part of his goodness that I wish I never had to know. I felt like I was lying breathless bleeding out in a gutter watching the stars. Almost like a pause - just a moment in time where I was hurt enough, still enough to hear his voice.

One of the most important things I learned is that life is not hopeless. If life is a story, then the last chapter of the book has already been written. This is the premise of the song It is Well with My Soul by Horatio G. Spafford.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul”

The powers of evil and darkness can take away my friends, my sanity, my family, and even my life, but God has already saved me, and I can find peace in spite of my circumstances. Three of my friends died, but God has already conquered death. I feel powerless, but God is powerful. I feel abandoned, but God loves me so much that he died a horrible torturous death for me. Living in light of that is peace.

Whenever I felt like I couldn’t keep going there would be something to stop me. I heard his voice in music, and in my friends that held me when I cried, and in morning glories on my morning walk. I kept lists of all of the times this happened, every time that someone encouraged me to keep going, every time that someone would quote a Bible verse when I was crying out for God to answer me, every time that the world paused. Everything asked me the same question, do you think it means nothing? Do you think that there is a direction that we’re going? Are we coming from nothing and going toward nowhere?

I had friends who heard him too. He was so gentle to us. I wasn’t able to go to church, I wasn’t able to listen to worship music but the LGBTQ+ community took care of me, they were isolated from church as well. There was enough for me in that God promised he would take care of me, and he did. He died for me. He talked to my trans friend and said, “listen, your parents have rejected you and said you’ll never be your son, but I am a good father. I love you. Be my son instead.”

God mourned with me. He saw everything and he was angry. I was able to breathe because I knew that in the end there will be justice for abuse victims, because God said that he is the holder of justice, and vengeance will be his.

When one of my friends was hospitalized I stood outside during the beginning of a thunderstorm and watched the clouds and the sky darken and lightning flash across the sky.

Even the wind and the sea obey him. He asked me if I trust him.

I guess my answer was yes.

In spite of everything that I went through, I was more thoroughly convinced that I ever was before that things matter. I was convinced that abuse is evil. I was convinced that death is an abomination. I was convinced that these laws of morality are woven into the fabric of the universe. I was convinced that God died to save us from that reality. I was convinced he loved me.

I still am

#asks #about #eslyea #religion tw #religion #christianity #christianity tw #suicide tw #grief tw #suicide #grief #rape #rape tw #just mentioned but still #thanks for asking #c:#hope this is coherent

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plays-the-thing · 4 years ago

Text

Netflix’s Witcher: What Makes a Good Adaptation? – A companion piece

If you’ve somehow found this without seeing the video first, here’s a link:

In this video I analyze the screen adaptations of Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Witcher series. I use the comparisons of the three to discuss what makes adaptations in general work and to explain why I feel the Witcher is heading down the road to mediocrity.

However, this is a hugely complicated subject, and the works themselves are also complex, especially Martin’s work. I make plenty of claims in the video that a reasonable person could disagree with without any explanation for why I think they are true. Unfortunately, if I were to go down every rabbit hole that I touch on the video would be hours long, so I have to gloss over some potentially confusing or controversial statements.

Enter this post. Here I will be attempting to pre-empt any questions that I think people may have, and go through my thought process on certain claims. I don’t recommend that you read the whole thing. Each explanation will be followed by a timestamp and relevant quote from the video that I am expanding upon so that you can quickly search the page and find what you are looking for.

I’m sure there will be things I don’t think to cover, or things that are poorly reasoned both here and in the video, so feel free to ask additional questions. Just please check to make sure you aren’t asking something that I already covered here.

I will also be attempting to give as much credit as possible to all the wonderful writers and creators who have influenced my thinking with regards to these works. I’ll be linking as much as possible to my sources, as well as to additional content that expands on ideas I mention. Also I’ve included some personal tidbits and commentary, just for fun.

Under a cut for length.

INTRODUCTION:

Huge props to the people who put together the behind-the-scenes footage of LOTR. I’ve watched all the bonus footage numerous times in my life. If you have any interest in the nitty-gritty of how movies get made, I can’t recommend it enough. It really shows all the work and complexity that goes into making movies. That they even get made at all is honestly incredible, especially massive undertakings like LOTR.

[3:30] And if you've ever wondered what the hell happened to The Hobbit, to me it seemed like they were indulging all of these worst impulses instead of catching themselves and editing them out like they did in LOTR.

As soon as I saw that they were making three Hobbit movies my hopes plummeted. It just reeked of executive meddling, and of trying to make the story into something it just isn’t. Lo and behold, that’s what we got: sticking in loads of unnecessary and thematically incoherent material to stretch out the runtime and make it more “epic.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch past the first one, but Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video series exploring in detail what went wrong with the trilogy.

PART ONE: LORD OF THE RINGS

[8:40] If you followed the events and the chronology of the book they would just hang out with Faramir for a little bit and then the movie would end

Technically it’s more complicated than this because that’s already following the revised movie timeline. In reality, Frodo would have just left the Black Gate. They *are* moving the events around to some extent, usually by a few of days here and there, but they can’t move stuff together that takes place weeks apart or the whole timeline would crumble.

[9:55] You can call it the theme, the soul, the spirit, the point, or whatever else you want, but the great works of fiction have something at their core that pulls everything together and elevates it into art. It’s a difficult thing to describe, but I think this scene perfectly tapped into the soul of Tolkien’s work.

Huge shout out to Bob Case and his video “Blame of Thrones” for first introducing me to this concept and the language of the “spirit” of a work to describe this phenomenon. In many ways the first two parts of this video are merely building on the LOTR-GOT comparison that he makes in that video, digging a little deeper and looking at more specific and concrete (and spoileriffic) examples of what he’s talking about so that we can apply these ideas to the Witcher…and beyond. Like all his work, it’s excellent. His YouTube is pretty much inactive these days, but he also occasionally writes content for Shamus Young’s blog if you want more of his work.

PART TWO: GAME OF THRONES

Alright, here it is: the section that really caused me to want to make this companion piece. Earlier I mentioned that I have sympathy for the GoT showrunners, and I really do. Martin’s work is incredibly complex, and so this section dominates the blogpost because there is so much to explain and no way that I could explain it all in the video without incredible bloat.

First I should mention that I, and all the writers I am going to credit here, share a very specific interpretation of Martin’s work. This isn’t the only interpretation. I doubt it’s the interpretation of the majority of readers. Obviously, I fully believe it is the correct interpretation, but the showrunners clearly had a wildly different one.

People who have this interpretation express it in different ways. Joannalannister collects hers in her tag #the-meaning-of-asoiaf. PoorQuentyn expresses it here, and in his analysis of Davos, Quentyn, and Tyrion. Other writers express it in their own ways.

With my lit degree hanging over my head, I can’t help but see it as a problem of competing artistic movements. To me, HBO’s Game of Thrones is part of the art movement of the past few decades, namely postmodernism. Art movements are complex, but basically postmodernism is the cynical reaction to the sincerity of modernism which came before it. Cynicism is, I think, the defining trait of Game of Thrones.

But it is NOT the defining trait of the books. In my view, Martin’s ASOIAF is part of the art movement that we are moving towards, which is starting to become known as metamodernism. Metamodernism is a reaction to the nihilistic pessimism and cynicism of postmodernism, and replaces it not with the unbridled sincerity of modernism, but rather oscillation between the two modes. It can be both ironic and sincere, deconstructionist and constructionist, apathetic and affectual. Once you have peeled back all the layers however, it is ultimately hopeful and optimistic. It embraces a sense of radical optimism. In metamodernist works optimism is often radical because the world the characters live in can be so dark. But that darkness serves only to highlight those characters that can hold fast to virtue amidst such darkness.

So, be warned. If you believe that Martin’s work is all about controlling the Iron Throne, and believe that cynicism is for the wise and honor is for fools, we just aren’t going to see eye to eye.

[12:45] Ned is a competent northern politician who has some trouble adapting to southern culture. Through a combination of bad luck, some understandable mistakes, and a misconception about his position, he fails in his goals.

The show didn’t invent the idea of Stupid Honorable Ned. Plenty of people believed this, even before the show. Obviously I believe they are wrong. If you would like to read more about it I would suggest Steven Attewell’s analysis of Ned’s chapters that he does on his blog, particularly Eddard XI and Eddard XIII. Steven does a much better job of analyzing Ned as a political actor than I ever could.

[13:00] Most of these changes are subtle…the best example is the council debate about whether or not to assassinate Daenerys.

Many of the ideas in this section are pulled from two essays by turtle-paced: Poor Doomed Ned and The Argument to Assassinate Daenerys. Turtle goes deep into the details of the differences between the Ned Stark of the books and the show, and I skimmed some of their comparisons for my argument. Steven Attewell’s analysis of this chapter is also worth reading.

[14:09] It’s a good argument, and I think in the books we are expected to mostly agree with Ned, both morally and politically.

When I say “expected” I mean from the authors point of view, which of course relies on me being correct about my interpretation of Martin’s work. Obviously I think I’m right, but if you don’t agree with my interpretation you may not agree with this statement.

[14:16] Notice also that the supporters of the assassination: Littlefinger, Varys, Renly, and Pycelle are all villains (all except Pycelle are trying to destabilize the kingdom), and the people who oppose it, Ned and Barristan, are heroes.

Each of them represents a different sort of evil. Littlefinger is a scheming sociopathic villain. Varys is a well-intentioned extremist whose willingness to commit utterly heinous acts in the pursuit of his goals makes him a villain. This is because, as Huxley puts it, “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.” Renly is narcissistic ambitious evil, willing to throw a realm into war to satisfy his own ego, and is totally uncaring about the lives of other people. It isn’t precisely correct to say that Pycelle is a villain because he represents the banality of evil. He thinks he’s just doing his job, but he’s morally bankrupt and politically corrupt.

[16:40] It would take too long to list all the ways that Tywin is awful, and everyone knows it.

To clarify, I mean that everyone in-universe knows it. For some god-forsaken reason, some readers seem to think that Tywin was just being effective after he unleashed the Mountain on the Riverlands and violated every military and political norm in Westeros.

If you are going to say that he is “Machiavellian” I would encourage you to actually read The Prince, where Machiavelli says “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred” and goes into the reasons why.

[17:17] Tywin on the other hand accomplished a lot of short-term gains by being as treacherous and dishonorable as possible. But this has a cost: by proving themselves fair-weather allies they surround themselves with the same. Nobody trusts them, and so their allies scheme and betray them.

Oberyn and Doran are both scheming in their own way to revenge themselves on the Lannisters for the deaths of Elia and her children. The Tyrells poison Joffrey and scheme to spirit Sansa away to Highgarden.

[17:36] Ned failed due to a couple of minor mistakes, some bad luck, and treachery.

I mention a few times that Ned, and more broadly the Starks, get “unlucky.” Again, Steven Attewell does an excellent job of documenting this with his keen eye for how GRRM cheats political realities, but I’ll note a few of the many ways George has to bend over backward to screw the Starks.

In AGoT Catelyn leaves King’s Landing roughly around the same time that Tyrion leaves the wall, and both are on horseback. In order for them to meet at the Inn at the Crossroads Tyrion has to travel roughly 2,000 miles in the same time that Catelyn travels 400 miles. This is basically impossible, but necessary for the plot so that Catelyn can lose Tyrion at the Eyrie. If she had caught him somewhere further north she could have simply chucked him into her own dungeons and managed his trial herself.

Cersei has been trying to kill Robert for goodness knows how long with just as unreliable methods as “get him drunk on a hunt.” In order for Ned to get screwed she has to succeed in killing Robert at precisely that moment. If it had failed like every one of her other attempts she is most likely dead, because Ned would tell Robert the truth about her children as soon as he got back.

In order for Theon to take Winterfell, veteran military man and castellan Ser Rodrik Cassell has to stupidly empty the Winterfell garrison while he knows that Ironborn raiders are running loose in the North, not even leaving behind a mere twenty-five to fifty men that would have completely thrashed Theon’s assault. If Theon can’t take Winterfell, the Red Wedding doesn’t happen (as Martin has told us that the real inciting incident of the Red Wedding was the fall of Winterfell).

[17:41] However, killing him was a terrible idea, and backfired on the Lannisters instantly.

Continuing this theme, the Lannisters were in an absolutely horrible position at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings. They pretty much just have their bannerman in the Westerlands. Stannis seems to have the support of most of the Crownlands, and he and Renly are splitting the lords of the Reach and the Stormlands (with Renly having the larger chunk). The Starks have all the support of the North and the Riverlands combined. The Lannisters are surrounded by enemies who outnumber them on all sides. Killing Ned immediately jumpstarts a war that will almost certainly crush the Lannisters. That it didn’t took some very thin plotting and improbable developments at times, but overall George made it work. For more analysis of this, again check out Steven Attewell Blog: Race for the Iron Throne.

[17:48] Tywin was killed by both a guest whom he considered his ally, and his son.

I firmly believe Oberyn poisoned Tywin. Here’s a good rundown of the evidence. Beyond simple means, motive, and opportunity it also provides neat answers to lingering odd questions like why Tywin rotted so oddly and aggressively, why Tyrion knew he would find him in the privy, why Oberyn was willing to chuck his life away for a confession before seeming to have secured revenge against Tywin.

It’s also thematically juicy. I love the idea that Tywin, who so egregiously violated Westerosi norms culminating in the total breach of the social contract at the Red Wedding, was a victim of contrapasso. He can’t be protected by social norms, so he gets poisoned by his guest and ally. Did Tyrion know he was dying? Had he put it all together? Was that bolt really an act of mercy? Perhaps it was one final service to the Lannisters, to keep the dream of their alliance with the Martells alive. Who knows, but boy is it interesting to consider.

[18:13] his alliances fall to pieces, and his children are abandoned by even their own family.

I’m referring here to the infighting between the Tyrells and Lannisters (and Martells, though they never had any intent of staying true to the alliance) after Tywin’s death (though there was some before as well, just intensified after Cersei takes over from Tywin). Kevan forces Cersei to take the walk of shame, and Jaime and the rest of the Lannisters abandon her to that fate.

[19:41] Just like Lord of the Rings, and the Witcher, ASOIAF is clearly dedicated to anti-violence. Not pacifism: all three works have heroes dealing out retributive violence in order to try and restore justice.

I understand it might be odd to suggest that three works which feature so much violence can be dedicated to anti-violence, but depicting something is not the same as endorsing it. I would argue in the case of Martin’s work in particular that his depiction of violence, so un-romantically brutal and direct, is intentionally revolting, and therefore is designed to be anti-violence. Martin purposefully makes you want revenge on certain characters, gives it to you, and then forces you to stare at the inhumanity of this thing you thought you wanted. Yeah I wanted Theon to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I wanted Cersei to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I want the Freys to pay, but I don’t think I’m going to like what Stoneheart is going to do to them.

There is a certain amount of this in the Witcher as well. I can specifically think of one scene in The Blood of Elves, but I promised no Witcher spoilers.

The violence in LOTR is much more romanticized, but as Faramir says: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” The hero is still Frodo, who doesn’t fight anyone or anything in the whole story. Frodo is a pacifist, but his pacifism is enabled by others who are willing to fight.

[20:07] In a Dance with Dragons Daenerys allows the old slave-holding class to maintain too much power and so they immediately attempt to continue the old violence of slavery. Daenerys did not commit enough violence against the slave-owners, so they were allowed to continue existing, and as long as they existed they were always going to abuse and oppress the ex-slaves.

A couple years after the release of ADWD, an obnoxiously wrong and poisonous idea began to creep into the ASOIAF fandom: Daenerys’ violence against the slaveowners in Slaver’s Bay is dangerous and immoral, and peace is the better option. This idea was most persuasively argued in the Meereenese Blot’s series of essays.

I’ll quote some of the conclusion here:

“They are supposed to feel this generic distrust for everyone, and to fail to grasp that their peaces were actually quite successful. Dany is supposed to conclude — wrongly — that her behavior through most of the book was silly and foolish. And if you came away with those impressions too, it’s perfectly understandable…The whole plotline is designed to maneuver Dany into a mental place where she’ll decide to sideline her concerns for innocent life, and take what she wants with fire and blood.”

This idea, much like the idea that Daenerys is some sort of unhinged fascist just waiting for the right trigger, makes me unbelievably angry. This idea that I am supposed to value the life of the slaveowner and the slave equally, and that maintaining a “peaceful” slave-owning society is an acceptable alternative to violent revolution is so fundamentally revolting to me, that it turns my stomach even to write that sentence.

Some fans went even as far as to suggest that Daenerys’ occupation of Meereen was a parallel to the US occupation of Iraq, and that she was engaged in erasing an authentic slave-owning culture that she despised. If you read the above series of essays, you can see that they are, at the least, enabling that kind of thinking.

To be clear, I do not consider any slave society to be worth a damn thing. Anything that continues it is evil and all that attempts to destroy it is good. That being said, once again Steven Attewell does a better job than I ever could of rebutting the ideas of the Meereneese Blot, and explaining how the correct parallel of Daenerys’ actions in Meereen is the American mistake of abandoning radical reconstruction. He describes her actions in Meereen as abandoning a revolution half complete. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you are American.

Martin is not a pacifist. He has said he would have fought in WWII. He demonstrated against Vietnam. As far as I know, the first time George ever used the words “Fire and Blood” was in a book released in 1982 called Fevre Dream:

“I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”

Daenerys is a slave-freeing, slave-owner-killing Hero with a capital H. She has made mistakes. I weep for the lives of the slaves that she has thrown away by abandoning her revolution, by failing to give the people of Astapor the strength to defend themselves, by maintaining a false peace that allows the Meereneese KKK to kill ex-slaves in the night. I shed no tears for the slaveowners that she has killed. When you treat other human beings as property you forfeit your right to Prosperity, Freedom, and Life. Preferably in that order—I would prefer that a slave society could peacefully transition, that those who attempted to continue it could be locked up, and that bloodshed could be avoided. But sometimes violence is necessary.

Daenerys will make more mistakes, I am sure. I believe that she will swing too far in the other direction, temporarily. But that’s a topic for another time.

[20:57] She comforts the hound even as he threatens her and helps him on his path from violence to peace.

Sandor did not die, despite what the Elder Brother told Brienne. He uses his words very carefully, to suggest that the Hound is dead, but that Sandor Clegane the man is simply “at rest.” He has become a brother of the isle.

“On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame.” - Brienne VI, AFFC

[21:40] If they don’t understand why Tywin is a villain then of course they won’t understand why the Others are the main villains of the series, and will probably replace them with some blonde queen. And if you don’t understand that the cold of the human heart is the real enemy than of course you’ll think you can stop winter by just stabbing it. Like Tywin would.

In the books the Others are the villains. They are what the whole story is building towards, much like in LOTR the story builds towards Frodo casting the ring into the Fire. Martin has said that he thinks that the finishing chapters of LOTR, like the Scouring of the Shire, were important, so we may see something like that, but the clear emphasis will be on the existential evil, and cleaning up Cersei or Aegon “Targaryen’s” mess will be a clear step down in importance. It’s something that the heroes have grown beyond, but still need to handle, just like Saruman in the Shire.

[22:04] There’s nothing wrong with liking Game of Thrones, or disliking Lord of the Rings, or anything else.

I really do mean this. I am going to be critical of things you like, and am going to praise things you love. People are different, that’s to be expected. I am not here to pretend that people should only like the things I like. I’m interested in what makes these stories work. I said much the same thing in my last video about some of the new Star Wars properties. People tend to get really attached to the media they like (I’m no exception) and that can color our perception of criticism. Do try to keep in mind that if you like something I criticize it isn’t an attack on you. You have a sacred and personal relationship to the things you enjoy that no one can take from you. I like all kinds of stuff that other people might consider bad, and that’s okay. Actually it’s great, because it gives us something to talk about.

I may genuinely hate Game of Thrones because it butchers something I came to love, but that doesn’t mean I have anything against the people who do like it for their own reasons. We’re all just out here enjoying what we like.

PART THREE: THE WITCHER

There is less in this section for two reasons. First, I promised not to spoil anything past the material covered in the show and I’ll stick to that here. Second—full disclosure here—I haven’t read all of the books because after Blood of Elves I got pretty bored and from what I had heard they did not improve in quality, and if anything got worse. Having already felt that going from the anthologies to Blood I was happy to end my reading there.

If something I say is contradicted by a later book that I didn’t read feel free to let me know.

[23:31] First I should mention that Sapkowski’s works are not on the same level as Tolkien’s and Martin’s, who are the best and second-best fantasy authors of all time. I have enjoyed the Witcher books that I have read, but they are not anywhere near as complex or beautifully written.

This is just my opinion, see above paragraph. I really do think that it’s a pretty common opinion though. I’ve read it before, and you often see people recommend the first two Witcher anthologies in a “if you like it maybe see if you like the rest of them?” sort of way. Book sales numbers also support this, though by all accounts they are exploding in the wake of the show.

But, one potential issue is that I’m reading a translation so I have no idea how good Sapkowski’s prose actually is. You get a lot of sentences in the US edition like: “it must be both bothersome and irritating.” Translation is art, not science, and passages like these make me worry that the translator is just translating each phrase without worrying about all the subtlety that makes language beautiful. These are minor examples of course, but they worry me about what else might be changed. So take my criticism of his writing with a giant, translated, grain of salt, in that I don’t read Polish.

[23:58] Despite this, Geralt the Witcher has been worming his way into popular culture for years, interestingly on the back of a series of video games

Google trends clearly show that the video games are what primarily generated interest in the character before the show. There were no English editions until around the time the games started coming out, and the US editions all feature concept art from the games on the covers. The release of the subsequently translated books after the games received very little attention in comparison to the games.

[24:15] In my opinion, that decline of focus on Geralt was the greatest weakness in the books, and the focus on Geralt is the greatest strength of the games. Because Geralt is at the core of what made Sapkowski’s story and world engaging in the first place. He is a fascinating character in a way that Ciri, who is a fairly standard fantasy “chosen child,” could never be.

This is just my opinion, and I explain why I think Geralt is so great in the subsequent paragraphs. Reasonable people can disagree on this, but I’ve come across more than a couple fantasy characters who could be generically described as “royal orphans with special powers.” It’s not exactly novel. Geralt is pretty novel, at least in terms of what I have read.

[24:49] He suffers many of the same psychological problems that characters like Tyrion and Brienne suffer from in Martin’s work

The technical name for these kinds of issues is “internalized bigotry.” This happens when you get treated consistently horribly by the society you live in due to some fundamental fact about yourself that you didn’t choose, and eventually you begin to believe and “internalize” their opinion of you. For example, people expect Tyrion to be unlovable, conniving, lecherous, and debauched. Eventually he simply leans into these characteristics, because in a way it’s almost easier to be what people expect you to be.

[25:48] To top it off, he hides all this inside a cynical and nihilistic exterior, he pretends he doesn’t care when in fact, he cares more than anyone.

The shot that accompanies this, of Geralt looking intently at what’s happening in the room while others tend to be watching with a sort of mild curiosity like you might at an unexpected circus performance, did an awesome job of conveying this idea.

[26:36] This was kind of a cool idea, but predictably their scenes ended up being generally less interesting and engaging then Geralt’s. Yennefer’s were sometimes fantastic but Ciri’s rarely were.

This was the opinion of fans that I most commonly observed. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this. If you have any that either supports or contradicts this please let me know, I would be fascinated to see it. I could see someone really loving Yennefer’s scenes, and I personally enjoyed a lot of them, but I don’t understand how someone could walk away from the first season with Ciri as their favorite character of the three. I’ll come back to this in a later section.

[27:40] In many ways the first two books, and the games, have more in common with Sherlock Holmes than they do most other fantasy stories.

Really a more accurate comparison would be Philip Marlowe since Geralt is definitely more of an American Pulp detective than a British one. I do love the similarity between Geralt’s Witcher Senses in The Witcher 3 and Sherlock’s detective vision in Crimes and Punishment. I can’t make the same comparison to a Philip Marlowe game, because no one’s made one yet.

Actually that’s not strictly true. There was one game that came out in 1996.

[28:12] But Netflix’s Witcher has barely a whiff of detective fiction anywhere. I think this has caused a lot of fans to feel alienated by the show, even if they can’t explain exactly why.

It’s not reasonable to expect people to know why they like or don’t like something. It’s a feeling, and unless they have experience with writing, narratology, literature, film studies, or just read a lot of tvtropes.org, they are not likely to be able to put their finger on what it is. This causes people to disproportionally blame the things that are most obviously wrong. The premiere example of this is Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar was obviously bad, but he doesn’t even come close to the top ten biggest problems with the movie. It was much worse that there was no main character or understandable plot and drama. Check out Red Letter Media’s legendary review for more on that.

I think a similar thing happened with Ciri, in that her story was sort of obviously underwhelming and so received a lot of flak, but there are deeper problems with the show.

[32:04] The third change is more subtle, but I’m worried that this Geralt genuinely believes in neutrality.

Just like Ned, the showrunners would not be the first to espouse this view. This quote in particular about “evil is evil” is obnoxiously peddled about as a justification for fence-sitting despite the fact that Geralt’s actual behavior doesn’t support it at all.

I don’t know for sure if the showrunners genuinely think Geralt tries to be neutral. There’s some evidence for yes in the first episode, the Borch episode, the Striga episode, and a couple of others. There’s strong evidence for no in the Duny/Pavetta episode. We’ll just have to see.

To be clear, when I mean “neutral” I mean in the face of immediate violence or injustice. Geralt often doesn’t care who is king, as he explains to Ostrit. But he won’t let a Striga continue to kill people just for coin.

[37:20] When the writers took away Ned’s best arguments for his actions, when they took his story of existential triumph, of not compromising his morals, and turned it into a simple tragedy, they showed they clearly did not understand his heroism.

See PoorQuentyn’s explanation of existential heroism, and how it applies to ASOIAF.

[37:58] In the books, Ciri and Yennefer are included in the story through their connection to Geralt, because he is our hero and the foundation of our connection to the world. In the show they are included before ever having met Geralt, and they take up time that could have been spent focusing on those devilish detective details that make Geralt’s stories and character work.

Originally this video had a lot of discussion about how well these two other characters worked, but it ended up being kind of useless because it comes down to personal opinion, and the writers failure to properly use Geralt massively overshadows whether or not someone liked or didn’t like either of the other two leads. Again, I get why someone could like Yennefer’s scenes. I get why someone could maybe even like her scenes more than Geralt’s. Anya Chalotra did great. I thought the writing was a little weak at times, but on balance pretty decent. Geralt gets the benefit of all his stories being straight adaptations, and she didn’t, so it was a pretty decent job.

On the other hand, I thought Ciri’s storyline was a giant waste of space. When I think of all the best moments in the show, Ciri doesn’t show up in any of them. She spends the entire season running away from and interacting with fairly minor and forgettable characters that did not need to be introduced in this season. Calanthe, Eist, and Mousesack were great characters and the actors gave great performances, but that did not make up for the fact that her storyline went nowhere and did nothing to justify its inclusion. If someone loved Ciri’s storyline I would genuinely be interested to know why.

[39:10] I do have some sympathy for the writers of the Witcher.

Many times in this video I mention sympathy for various writers. Moviemaking is a massively complex undertaking. If you know anything about the difficulty of getting these things together you’ll know that it’s an absolute miracle any movie gets made and takes herculean effort from everyone involved. Television series are arguably even worse because they are longer, more complex, and often have a lower budget despite that. The people involved are honestly doing their best, and I recognize that, even if I criticize the product.

[39:47] They are in this unfortunate position where they can’t really pull the majority of their writing straight from the books because the material isn’t really strong enough by itself.

The books are very dialogue heavy. As I allude to, the one scene that was very close to the book is that scene with Filavandrel and it’s just obnoxious because the two characters just dialogue at each other. It goes on even longer in the book. How well that works in a book is up for debate but it wasn’t going to work on the screen, and it didn’t.

These problems are not insurmountable though. You can put other footage over these monologues. You could have included some footage of Elves fighting in their war. You could have footage of the “cursed” daughters of Lilit being locked in towers or autopsied while Stregobor explains it. I get this is more budget, but that budget went other places.

On the other hand some great scenes that I think would have translated excellently shot-for-shot from the book with little additional budget, like Renfri and Geralt in the Alderman’s attic, are entirely cut. Ah well.

[40:25] Well, I have my theories, but it in the end it doesn’t really matter.

I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody thought it needed to be more “epic” than the first two books are, so we got all this princess and political stuff in early. If there’s any merit to the idea that this series “copied” GoT, it’s somewhere in here, just like how the Hobbit got poisoned with all of the “epicness” of LOTR.

[44:54] Lastly, I’m gonna do my best to put out more regular content going forward. I’m aiming for at least one video a month.

I place no limitation on topics. It’ll probably be mostly media analysis, but if I’m honest I’m just going to write about whatever interests me. That’s the best way to keep myself interested.

That being said, if you have something you think I should analyze let me know. If I’m interested, I might do it.

#witcher #netflix witcher #lotr #asoiaf #game of thrones #anti-got #lord of the rings #adaptation #video companions

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in-the-whisper · 4 years ago

Text

Here’s a video that’s really good that I think will give some good background information. If you don’t want to read all of this, the video is probably enough to explain.

youtube

I hope this makes sense anon let me know if you have any questions or if I misinterpreted your question.

TW suicide // grief // abuse // rape mention (not v bad or graphic or anything)

Long version:

I've always thought that life was tragic. That death is a fracture in the way things are, like we live in the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization.

Reconciling all of those ideas is really confusing.

The thing that I couldn't accept was the lack of eternality.

My friend thought that the question of “where is God?” was harder to answer than “why is there meaning to death?”

I'm a Christian because I'm horrified. He's an atheist for the same reason.

But without God there is no moral law. So I wouldn't be able to say, "you should never rape someone, because rape is wrong." And everything that I had experienced flew in the face of that.

Dr. Leff wrote this about that question;

Nevertheless:

Napalming babies is bad.

Starving the poor is wicked.

Buying and selling each other is depraved.

Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.

Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.

There is in the world such a thing as evil.

[All together now:] Sez who?

God help us.”

And I guess the answer to those questions was yes.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul”

When one of my friends was hospitalized I stood outside during the beginning of a thunderstorm and watched the clouds and the sky darken and lightning flash across the sky.

Even the wind and the sea obey him. He asked me if I trust him.

I guess my answer was yes.

I still am

#ask #what's your current relationship with god? i'm very curious lmao

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i-write-fanfics-to-procrastinate · 4 years ago

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Ohhh the Ask thingy for 001: Fairy tail and if we can ask for a second Fruits basket (I've been so into it and wonder if you are too.) P.s. I admire your writing and your blog soooooo much! You are a blessing. 😇🙏🏻💛

Gah you are SO SWEET! ahhhhh!!! Yes, I’ll do both! I’m not caught up with FB, because it was the new anime that got me into it, but I’ll try my best!!! Under the cut because this is gonna be long, I think LOL

Fairy Tail:

1. Favorite Character: hahaha crying Laxus Dreyar

2. Least Favorite Character: Ivan Dreyar, but! I love him as a villain and honestly we were robbed—could have had an amazing arc completely dedicated to him.

3. Five Favorite Ships (Canon or Non-Canon):

a. Laxui

b. Lyvia

c. Jerza

d. Mirafreed

e. MesCana or LoLu or okay maybe Gruvia

4. Character I Find Most Attractive: Laxus

5. Character I Would Marry: Laxus

6. Character I Would be Best Friends With: Ooh! Maybe Lucy! She writes like me, and she’s so sweet! Or maybe Cana cuz sometimes I just wanna be petty and she’d listen to me being petty.

7. Random Thought: something I wanna write an essay about: A continuing theme throughout FT is that there is strength in humility.

8. An Unpopular Opinion: I could do without the Alvarez Arc. idk if that’s unpopular, let me try again. People really out there shipping Hisui and Arcadios when he’s like 20 years older than her. Is that unpopular. Wait, let me try one more time. I don’t think Gray’s that impressive. There, I said it. Love the dude, but y’all.... just... it’s okay—breathe.

9. My Canon OTP: There are canon ships in FT? Oh wait, I guess Gajevy! They’re cute! :D

10. Non-Canon OTP: Laxui.

11. Most Badass Character: Laxus, Erza, and Jellal are all pretty high up there, Erza and Laxus a little higher than Jellal.

12. Most Epic Villain: We were really robbed cuz Ivan could have been AMAZING. It’s weird because my favorite arcs the villains eventually became good...? So like... Tartaros—that was pretty good. Oof, everything kinda melds together in my memory. Hades was a good villain. That’s the arc Laxus came back, bless.

13. Pairing I am not a fan of: Honestly I like a lot of pairings. I think though like any pairing where the age gap is #gross. See: Mest x Wendy, Arcadios x Hisui, Lyon x Chelia.

14. Characters I Feel the Writer Screwed Up: Ivan. But only because I wanted a bigger arc.

15. Favorite Friendship: Natsu and Lucy, Natsu and Gray, Gray and Natsu and Erza. All the kids who grew up in the guild together.

16. Character I Most Identify With: Hmm... probably Lucy, because she has the dream of becoming a published author! She’s also a romantic Hahaha. But also Levy because of her love of books.

17. Character I Wish I Could Be: Omg... um... which character would get me closest to Laxus... XD jkjkjk I’m not sure actually! I’d prefer to be myself in the FT world!

Fruits Basket: I’m not going to be able to answer all of these because I have a feeling based on spoilers that I haven’t met all the characters, and we don’t know a lot about the characters yet! So I’ll just do the ones I know I can answer!

Favorite Character: Tohru! She’s soooo pure, and I really admire her and look up to her. I want to be more like her, kind to everyone and so sweet. She offers really good advice and she really helps people.

Character I would want to be best friends with: Tohru again so she can teach me her ways. Also probably Shigure—he’s *narrows eyes*... something. But he makes me laugh.

Random Thought: No like seriously, I love Shigure. Also, like, I remember when I first got into FB I was really excited but there are sOME FANS who have been fans since the first anime, or even before that, who are RUDE. I know I don’t have a lot of knowledge about the series yet because I haven’t read the manga. So please be patient, and be patient with all the other new fans too, please!

OTPs: idk about canon/non-canon or anything really besides the spoilers I have which are ofc Kyoru is canon. but I’ll tell u what I ship. Kyoru ofc, cuties. how can u not? Recently seen that episode with Kureno and Arisa. Idk what that’s about but let me tell u... i can see it. Though... I remember her saying something about their age gap being pretty big.

Favorite Friendship: Tohru with EVERYONE. Tohru is the sweetest and can successfully make friends with anyone and i love that. Tohru with Yuki, Tohru with Kisa, Tohru with Arisa and Hana, Tohru with EVERYONE.

Character I Most Identify With: I really want to answer this question because I feel like I should have one. I want to say Tohru, but I can’t because I’m not like Tohru at all, but I aspire to be like her!

Thank you so much for the ask! I’m sorry I couldn’t answer all the questions for Fruits Basket, I’m very new! I hope you don’t mind!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

#fairy tail #ft #fairytail #fruits basket #fb #fruitsbasket #tales from kae

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cyborgsquirrel · 4 years ago

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Sanctuary: Chapter 18

Pairing: Wolfstar

Summary: The epic tale of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, from their first meeting until their happily ever after.

Link to Prologue

Link to All Chapters

Saturday, 2nd October 1971, 1:15 pm

As September melted into October, a noticeable chill fell over the castle. If one woke before sunrise and looked out of the window, they would be treated to the sight of the green lawns coated with a silvery frost, but there was still enough warmth in the air that it disappeared with the coming of dawn.

Remus was not looking forward to the full moon in two days' time, but he was pleased he'd be spending it in the fire-warmed house in Hogsmeade, and not in the garden hole his dad had dug for him. He had been hoping to get plenty of rest over the weekend. The full moon that month fell on a Monday, their busiest day of the week, with no free periods and three magically demanding classes. It was going to be exhausting. Unfortunately, James had other ideas for their Saturday.

'It's the Quidditch try-outs. We have to go!'

'But I'm tired, James. I don't really want to do anything this weekend.'

'You don't have to do anything, just sit and watch.'

Remus found it difficult to argue with that. He couldn't explain that it wasn't just a physical tiredness but a deep spiritual one that throbbed all the way down to his soul. No one would understand if he said that the slightest sound made his ears ring and his brain buzz. They would think him a freak if he tried to explain that every scent burnt his nose and choked his breath.

Remus turned away from James so he wouldn't see the pain in his expression when he climbed off the bed. 'Alright. I'll come. Let me get my cloak.'

James cheered, and Remus cringed at the sound.

When they got down to the common room, Sirius looked surprised to see him. 'I thought you were going to have a nap?'

Remus shrugged. 'James persuaded me to come.'

Sirius frowned at James but didn't say anything further.

'Come on then. What are we waiting for?' Peter asked. He was wearing a Gryffindor hat and scarf set and had painted his face in red and gold stripes. They looked glittery.

'You know this is just the try-outs, don't you, mate? It's not a match,' Remus said.

Peter laughed. 'I know, I just really wanted to test the paints.'

They made their way out to the Quidditch pitch where the try-outs were being held, and Remus found the cool air soothing on his aching joints. He couldn't understand why the pain had started so much earlier this month. It didn't usually hurt until the day of the full moon.

When they reached their destination, they took seats in the Gryffindor area of the stands, and Remus breathed a sigh of relief that he was sitting down again. But it was to be short-lived because, when the potential team members arrived and began displaying their skills, the noise was horrendous. People cheered for their favourites and their friends; James was keeping up a running commentary next to him, and Peter was whooping every few minutes. Sirius, though, was uncharacteristically quiet. Remus was grateful for it, even if it didn't make that much difference to his overall level of suffering.

Sirius bent close to him, and Remus fought against his instinct to move away. He trusted Sirius. There was no need to behave like a frightened animal with him. 'Mate, you look like shit. Why don't you go back in? I'll deal with James. I told him not to bother you in the first place.'

'I think I will. I'll go to the library though and see if I can find out anything about the belch powder. James can't complain about me missing tryouts if I'm working on the Halloween display.'

Sirius smiled. 'Good idea, it's quiet in the library. I'll see you later.'

Remus waved goodbye, and as he walked away, he heard James ask Sirius where he was going but didn't hear the reply.

When he reached the library, he browsed the shelves until he found a book on joke-shop products, and then he found a little room with beanbags, on which he curled up to read. It wasn't long until he fell asleep.

-o-o-o-o-

Sirius sat on his bed, putting the finishing touches on his Herbology essay about the care of jewelweed seedlings. It was due first period on Monday, and he didn't want it hanging over his head all the next day when he was trying to have fun. He glanced at his watch for the fifth time in five minutes. Remus still hadn't returned from the library, and it had been eight hours since he left them in the Quidditch stands. How long did it take to do a little research? Sirius couldn't actually answer that question. He'd never done research in his life. Maybe eight hours was a reasonable amount of time. However, it was twenty minutes past curfew, and Remus had no way of getting back to Gryffindor tower without being caught.

'James, I want to go look for Remus. Can I borrow the cloak?'

James glanced up from his own work, looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows, presumably surprised by the time. 'Of course, you don't have to ask. I'd come with you, but I really need to get this homework done. I still have McGonagall's to do after this,' he said, nodding to the parchment he was working on.

'No worries, I'll be quicker alone anyway.'

'Where are you going to look?'

Sirius shrugged. 'He said he was going to the library, so I'll try there first.'

'If he's not there, try the hospital wing. He didn't look too good earlier.'

If you noticed that, why did you drag him out of bed? Sirius thought, but he kept it to himself. He didn't want to start an argument when Remus was missing.

'Good idea,' he said instead, grabbing the silvery cloak from the top of James' trunk before dashing to his own trunk and then Remus'.

'See you later.'

'Good luck,' James and Peter both said, almost in unison. Sirius grinned and waved as he left the dorm room.

Sirius made his way down the Grand Staircase to the library, hidden under the cloak. The castle looked so different at night, and he'd never been out after curfew alone before. It was a little scary. The lights were dimmer and the shadows darker. Sirius felt the sensation of eyes watching him from the gloomy recesses. But that was impossible. He was invisible, for Merlin's sake.

When he reached the door to the library, he found it was locked up for the night. Damn. What was that spell Remus used to get into Flitwick's office the weekend before? Aloe vera? No, that was a plant. Aloemore? Mora? Alohomora? Yes! That was it. He hadn't been able to do it before, but that was just a game. This was far more important. If he didn't get it right, Remus could be shut in the library all night. He could be injured. Or really sick. What if Sirius was wrong about the lycanthropy and Remus was actually sick with something else? Something less predictable. Oh Gods, what if he was in there dying? Sirius had to master this spell. He just had to.

Having worked himself up into a panicked ball of nerves, Sirius clutched his wand and pointed it at the lock. Repeating what he'd seen Remus do to his journal, he moved his wand anti-clockwise and spoke the incantation. Nothing happened.

He tried again. 'Alohomora! Alohomora! Alohomora, you fucking bastard of a lock!'

Okay, he needed to calm down. Sirius took a deep breath, focused all his willpower on his desire to get that lock open, and tried one more time. 'Alohomora,' he said, enunciating every syllable. The lock clicked open. Yes! I am brilliant! he thought, before pushing the door open and hurrying inside. Now, if I were Remus, where would I be?

Sirius jogged up and down the aisles, looking into the various nooks and crannies and checking the rooms that led off the main space. Five minutes into the search, he found him purely by chance. He had poked his head into a small room that had piles of beanbags for students to curl up on. Finding it empty, he had been about to leave and check the next room when he heard a loud snore followed by a shuffle. Sirius crossed the room in three quick strides and discovered Remus, sleeping, crammed between the wall and an enormous orange beanbag. He must have rolled off at some point. Sirius just stared at him for a minute. He looked so tiny next to the giant beanbag, curled into a ball.

Sirius was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of a hacking cough that was far too close for his liking. He pulled the cloak off, crouched down next to Remus and said as loud as he dared, 'Remus, wake up.'

Remus snorted and rolled over. Urgh, if only he could shake him.

'Seriously, Remus, you need to wake up.'

Remus' eyelids fluttered. 'Huh. Wha'? Wha's goin' on?'

'You fell asleep in the library. It's after curfew, and I think there must have been a warning ward on the door because someone's here.'

Remus sat up and blinked rapidly. 'Sirius?'

'Yes, it's me. We need to get out of here.'

A gravelly voice sounding almost gleeful came from nearby. 'I know you're in here. You'll be in so much trouble when we find you.'

'Shit. It's Filch,' Sirius said, running a hand through his hair from the stress of the situation. 'We'll be in big trouble if we're caught in here. I know you don't like to, but do you think you can cope with being under the cloak with me for a few minutes?'

Remus glanced down at his bare hands and back at Sirius. His eyes were wide and scared.

'Here,' he said, pulling two pairs of gloves from his pockets. 'I brought gloves for both of us, and I'll be really careful not to touch your face, I promise, but we really do need to hide.'

Remus hesitated and then nodded. 'Okay.'

Sirius handed one pair of gloves to Remus, and he put the other pair on. 'Thank you for trusting me. You won't regret it. Get up.'

Remus got to his feet, slipped the book he'd been reading into his bag, stepped over the beanbag to stand next to him, and let Sirius swing the cloak over their shoulders and pull the hood up to cover their heads. Just in time. A moment later, Filch appeared at the door to the reading room and they froze, not even daring to breathe.

-o-o-o-o-

Oh, Gods. Sirius smelled so good. All he wanted to do was turn his head and bury his face in his neck. That couldn't be a normal human urge. Other people didn't go around wanting to smell each other. Merlin, he was a freak. Sirius threw the cloak over their shoulders and pulled the hood up, and suddenly his scent was even more concentrated. It was overwhelming. Remus stopped breathing, and in the same moment, Filch appeared in the doorway, holding a lantern.

He didn't enter the room, thankfully. Just glanced around and moved on. Sirius let out a relieved breath next to him. Remus' lungs were screaming at him, and he gave in and sucked in a deep breath. Merlin, how could anyone smell so damned delicious. No! Not delicious. That made Sirius sound like food. He smelled… divine? Intoxicating? No, those weren't quite right either. Remus wracked his brain, entirely focused on the singular problem of finding the right word to describe the scent of Sirius.

Comforting.

Yes, that was it. Sirius smelled comforting. Like curling up in a favourite chair next to a roaring fire with a good book. Remus wanted to curl up on Sirius.

'Mate? You okay?' Sirius whispered. 'You're not freaking out are you?'

Gods, Sirius would be disgusted if he knew what he was thinking. He needed to snap out of it.

'No. I'm okay. We should go.'

'Alright. This is going to be really difficult if we're trying not to touch. Do you think you can cope with putting your arm around me like on the broom?'

Remus wasn't sure he could. It had been easier before, out in the open air and more than a week until the moon. Now, under the confines of the cloak, with Sirius' scent overwhelming him and the wolf so close to the surface, would it be too much?

He tentatively wrapped his arm around Sirius' waist. The warmth of his body bled through both layers of fabric and set his nerves tingling. His head was dangerously close to Sirius' shoulder, though. It shouldn't be an issue. His shoulder was covered by his school robes, but Remus wasn't comfortable with only one layer of fabric between their skin. He let go and moved away.

'I can't do it. It's too close,' he said, feeling his face heat with embarrassment. Gods, he made everything so difficult. Why did Sirius put up with him?

Sirius showed no signs that Remus' inability to co-operate bothered him. He just moved straight on to the next solution. 'Okay, what about if we link arms like the girls do all the time? They seem to be able to walk together like that.'

Remus nodded, and Sirius crooked his arm. He laced his arm through the gap and felt their elbows hook together. It was okay. There was plenty of distance between their exposed skin. This would work.

He glanced up and found Sirius looking down at him, awaiting his verdict. 'I'm good. This is good.'

Sirius grinned. 'Excellent. Let's go.'

They started towards the door, and the movement of air caused by their motion wafted a fresh blast of Sirius' scent into Remus' face.

He inhaled through his nose on purpose, relishing in their proximity and his ability to soak in his scent. Then he felt a wave of shame. He was behaving like an animal. Like a beast. He tried to stop, but he couldn't. The allure of it was too powerful. He wanted to drown in it.

They had reached the Grand Staircase, and Sirius guided him up the steps. Remus' head was swimming, and he tripped a couple of times, but Sirius held him upright by keeping his arm solid and unmoving.

'Almost there now, Remus.'

He felt like his whole body was on fire. Every part of him tingled with the heat from Sirius, and he was surrounded by the scent of him.

The soft thump of Sirius' heartbeat filled his ears. It was racing. Was he scared? Remus didn't want him to be scared. He whimpered.

'You okay there, mate?'

'Yes,' Remus managed to croak out. He was far from okay. Every part of him was focused entirely on Sirius. His smell, his heat, his heartbeat, the sound of his breathing in the silent hall. Merlin, was he hunting? Is that what this was? Was the wolf inside him hunting his friend? Gods, he wasn't fit to be around people. Sirius was just trying to help him, and he was taking advantage. He was despicable.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, and Remus tore himself away from Sirius. Turning his back on him so he wouldn't see the wolf in his eyes. He bent over with his hands on his knees and panted, taking deep, Sirius-free breaths of clean air and trying to clear the smell from his nose and his mind. Behind him, he heard Sirius give the password.

'Come on, mate. Let's get inside,' Sirius said, sounding worried.

Yes, inside. Safety. Remus' thoughts were scattered and erratic. One moment he wanted nothing more than to be close to Sirius. The next, he was recoiling from him. But he somehow managed to pull himself together enough to scramble through the portrait hole into the common room. Sirius led him to a secluded corner and got him to sit down.

'Talk to me.'

Remus stared at his hands. There was no way to explain what he was feeling, and he felt so ashamed. 'I'm okay. It was just a really long time. I'm sorry.'

'Sorry?' Sirius repeated with a snort. 'For what? Being incredibly brave and amazing?'

Remus looked up at him. 'Brave? How can you call me brave? I can't even touch someone without freaking out.'

'And yet you did,' Sirius said. 'Twice. Knowing how it would make you feel, you still did it. And one of those times was just so we could win a stupid game. If that's not bravery, I don't know what is.'

Remus felt like absolute shit. Sirius was praising him, and in reality, all he'd done was put him in grave danger. Gods, he was so selfish, risking infecting his friend with this vile disease just so he wouldn't lose them a game or get caught out of bounds after curfew. Was avoiding detention really worth destroying his friend's entire life? He couldn't ever let it happen again. Next time he would just take the detention.

'Remus?'

'Yeah, sorry. I think I just need to be alone for a bit. I'm going to go to bed.'

'Alright. I'll come up with you.'

Remus hurried up the stairs without looking at Sirius, greeted James and Peter and got straight into bed without even undressing. Despite his exhaustion from the coming moon, sleep did not come easily to him that night. And when he finally did succumb, he had horrifying dreams of Sirius tearing himself apart and erupting into a wolf, while his screams echoed in his ears. 'This is all your fault, Remus. Why did you do this to me?'

-o-o-o-o-

Sirius woke up on Monday morning well aware that there would be a full moon that night. and he intended to keep a close eye on Remus. He was almost certain he was right, but today would prove or disprove his suspicions.

Remus was difficult to wake up that morning, which probably wouldn't have seemed that odd, but he'd slept most of Sunday away and Sirius had found him asleep in the library on Saturday, although he didn't know how long he'd been sleeping for. He really shouldn't be that tired.

They got him out of bed eventually, though, and headed down to breakfast. Sirius offered to join him in the kitchen, but Remus declined, so he followed James and Peter into the Great Hall, a little annoyed that he wouldn't know if Remus actually ate anything.

'Do you think Remus is okay?' James asked. 'He looks ill.'

Sirius tried to deflect. 'He's probably just getting a cold or something.'

Thankfully, they were distracted by the morning post arriving. James received a large box, wrapped in plain brown paper.

'It's from my dad. He's sent the belch powder for Halloween. I'll open it later,' he said, tucking it into his bag quickly.

Peter was staring at the teacher's table. 'McGonagall's getting a lot of post this morning.'

Sirius turned to look. He was right. Seven different owls had deposited parcels in front of her, and she had a wide smile on her face as she spoke to Dumbledore.

'Must be her birthday or something,' he said.

After breakfast, they met back up with Remus in the Entrance Hall and headed out to the greenhouses for Herbology. After an hour spent planting lemongrass, Remus looked ready to collapse. Thankfully, Transfiguration was next, and the first half of the double period was theory, so he was able to sit down for a while. They were learning how to combine the theory of transfiguring an object's colour and material, so they could change both at the same time. Remus dozed off several times, and Sirius was forced to kick his chair to wake him up. During the second half of the lesson where they were attempting to turn a red matchstick into an orange needle, Remus didn't even try. That was strange, but stranger still, McGonagall didn't say a word to him, despite reprimanding three other students for not putting enough effort in.

The evidence was stacking up.

After lunch, they had their second Charms lesson on diffindo and were supposed to be slicing through a piece of cloth, but again Remus just sat with his head on the desk and Flitwick ignored him entirely. Sirius pretended not to notice.

The final lesson of the day was Defence, and Professor Hawthorne lectured them on the chupacabra. Remus looked up briefly with vague interest when Emhio shifted into the creature but made no notes, and Lily seemed quite concerned about him.

Sirius had used his astronomy book the night before to do the calculations and worked out that moonrise was at ten past six. So he was unsurprised when Remus announced on their way to dinner that he was going to go to the hospital wing because he felt unwell. He was leaving more than an hour before moonrise. Did that mean he had to travel a long way? Or that he'd be too out of it to travel at all if he waited much longer? Where did he go? Surely he didn't really spend the night in the hospital wing? Sirius had so many questions.

After dinner, Sirius, James and Peter went to their daily meeting with the birthday person of the day. That day was a fifth-year Hufflepuff called Chris Fletcher. He arrived at exactly six o'clock and greeted them in an upper-class accent. 'Good evening, I hope you are well.' Sirius rolled his eyes.

Then the unexpected happened. Chris was unable to open the door to the room, never mind blow out the candle.

'But it is my birthday,' he said for the tenth time.

'Well, it seems the door disagrees, perhaps you should write to your mother and find out what's going on?'

Fletcher nodded and left, and Sirius turned to James and Peter.

'What the fuck are we going to do? It's only three hours until curfew!'

'We need to find someone else with a birthday,' James said.

'How?' Sirius said. 'We can't just run around the school randomly asking people.'

'McGonagall!' Peter yelled. Sirius and James jumped.

'Where?' Sirius said, spinning around on the spot.

'No. I mean, McGonagall got all those parcels at breakfast this morning.'

'You're right!' James said. 'Do you think she'll do it?'

'Only one way to find out,' Sirius said, already running down the stairs.

They reached McGonagall's office in record time, and James knocked on the door, rather louder than was necessary. They were shocked when it was answered by Professor Dumbledore.

'Hello. You three look to be in an awful hurry.'

James was too stunned to speak, so Sirius took over. 'Sorry, sir. We were looking for Professor McGonagall.'

'Well. I assumed as much. This is her office, I believe,' he said, looking at the sign on the door as if wanting to confirm he was, in fact, in the right room.

'Albus, stop teasing the children. Come in. What can I do for you?'

Dumbledore chuckled and stood aside to allow them entrance. They walked into the office and found Professor McGonagall sitting on one of the two armchairs, a glass of pale green liquid in her hand. Another glass was on the table.

'Professor. We may need your help. But first, I have to ask, is it your birthday today?' Sirius said.

She inclined her head. 'It is.'

'Brilliant. Happy birthday.'

'Thank you. But I'm fairly certain you didn't come here just to wish me a happy birthday.'

'No. We need your help.'

'With?'

Sirius took a deep breath and launched into the explanation complete with wild hand gestures. 'Well. Three weeks ago we found a hidden door. We figured out how to open it. Well, Remus did. And inside was a birthday cake and a poem on the wall. It said if we could blow out the candle on the cake every day for twenty-eight days in a row, we would be rewarded. But it can only be blown out by someone on their birthday. We managed to find someone for every day, but the person who was supposed to do it today, well, it didn't work. We're not sure why. Maybe he was born a minute after midnight and the clock was wrong?'

'So you want me to come and blow the candle out so you don't have to start again?'

'Yes. You see if we miss a day the room will move and we'd have to find it again. We really want to know what's inside. Please, will you help.' Sirius put on his most pleading expression. James actually got down on his knees and put his hands together.

Dumbledore chuckled. 'It sounds very interesting. I've heard rumours of this birthday cake room. I'd rather like to see it for myself.'

Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow at him. 'I will help on one condition.'

'Anything,' Sirius said, rather rashly.

'I want to be present on the twenty-eighth day in case this "reward" is dangerous.'

James jumped to his feet. 'That's no problem at all. The last day is the fifteenth, and we'll be doing it at six o'clock.'

'Well then,' Professor McGonagall said, standing up. 'Lead the way.'

They led the headmaster and their head of house through the school and up to the seventh-floor landing where Sirius opened the portrait with a dramatic, 'Congratulations.'

'How did you find out the password?' Professor Dumbledore asked with interest.

'The portrait of Silas down there told us,' Sirius said, pointing, and Dumbledore nodded.

'You have to tell the door it's your birthday and be telling the truth to open it,' James explained.

'And how did you work that out?' Professor McGonagall asked.

'Remus translated the runes.'

'Impressive,' she said. 'It is my birthday.'

The door clicked open with the usual quiet fanfare sounding from the surrounding walls. Dumbledore looked around at the noise.

'Fascinating,' he said.

They walked in, and the two professors read the poem on the wall and glanced at the glowing lights. There were sixteen of them by that

point.

'Are those lights keeping track?' Dumbledore asked. They all nodded. 'You're doing very well. Can I ask how you recruited your volunteers?'

'We made posters and hung them on the notice-boards in the common rooms,' Sirius told him.

'Indeed? Very industrious.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Shall I proceed?' Professor McGonagall asked, arching an eyebrow.

'Ah yes. Please go ahead. I'm quite anxious to see what happens.'

Professor McGonagall bent down and blew out the candle. The fanfare sounded, and a seventeenth light glowed to life on the wall above the words, Happy Birthday, Minerva McGonagall. A moment later the candle re-lit itself.

'Fascinating,' Professor Dumbledore said again, clapping his hands together. 'I do so love a mystery. Congratulations on your find, boys, and we will see you here on the fifteenth. I'm very excited to see what's through that door.' He smiled at them, and he and Professor McGonagall left.

'Minnie's great, isn't she?' Sirius said, grinning at his friends.

Chapter 19

#wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #remus x sirius

4 notes · View notes

hillnerd · 5 years ago

Note

Romione au headcanon where they date and break up ootp and hbp happens same as it is

Sorry this took so long to write! Ended up being 8k+ words! Hope you like it! :)

Valentine’s day was the next day, but that meant very little to Ron. He had no romantic plans. He never had in the past, and this Valentine’s day was looking quite bleak. Angelina had scheduled a quidditch practice that day, and he knew he needed it. He was the worst player on the team- perhaps the worst player in all of history. What had he been thinking, trying out in the first place? The looks on everyone’s faces at the end of each scrimmage was enough to make him sick with nerves. He was always an eternal disappointment, he knew- but now the whole school knew.

He was moping by the common room fire, fingers pressed into his eyes when something miraculous happened. Angelina had gotten sick to her stomach in a nearby planter. She was ushered up to the hospital wing and diagnosed with Fwooper Flu, which had been going around the castle. Her getting sick wasn’t miraculous, but the rest of the team coming down with the Flu, and thus canceling practice? That was probably considered miracle worthy of Merlin himself.

Suddenly free, he realized the possibility of Valentine’s Day meaning more than just discount chocolate. It could mean spending the day with Hermione! On Valentine’s day!

Truth be told he’d spent every Valentine’s day with Hermione since he’d been in Hogwarts, but he’d never realized how much he fancied Hermione then. Maybe he had always fancied her on some level. Either way, he was fully smitten now and hadn’t a clue as to how to close the deal.

He’d given her perfume at Christmas, but she didn’t act any differently afterwards. She’d politely thanked him, and he’d not gotten anything special from her. She gave him and Harry the exact same, rather horrible, talking homework planners.

But she HAD kissed him earlier that year. It was only on the cheek, but maybe… Maybe that meant something? He couldn’t remember her ever kissing Harry.

Then again, maybe it was all in his head. Maybe she didn’t fancy him at all. Maybe it would be better to skip Hogsmeade and practice flying, official practice or no. Maybe he should give up on Hermione altogether.

After all, she was beautiful, and smart, and had people like Viktor Krum after her. Compared to all that, Ron had little to offer. He was a skinny freckled ginger, who was poor, horrible at quidditch, and got average grades. Sure he was good at chess and kind of funny- but that was not exactly heartthrob material, was it?

Feeling thoroughly down on himself, Ron was ready to turn in to bed when Hermione stepped through the portrait hole, arms laden with books that looked ready to topple. He quickly got up, took them from her, and guided her to the seat beside his own.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. Thoughts of his lameness fell behind him as he took in her countenance, and her hair got all huge and staticky as she removed her scarf.

“What’s all this?” he asked, pointing to a stack of books impressively large for a Friday evening.

“Well, we have quite a few papers coming up, and I wanted first dibs on these for our papers. And of course I have Arithmancy and Runes on top of our regular classes. The Runes texts are perfect for my new translating assignment. We get to choose our own epic poems to translate, and I’ve been torn between two poems for ages, so I think I’ll just translate both, then choose whichever one I translated better. I also have a few books you might want to use on our Transfiguration essay that you can borrow when I’m finished.”

“Sure, thanks.” Half the time he didn’t really listen if she got deep into it on studies, but he always loved to watch her animatedly ramble. She had such a breathless flush to her when she went on about something, and he found it charming most of the time. Sometimes he would exasperatedly sigh at her, but it was mostly so he could get her to glare at him. Her glares were practically pouts, and she’d scrunch up her little sharp eyes at him, and somehow it made him smile even wider. She was the cutest indignant person he’d ever met.

“What have you been up to?” she asked, sorting through her books and laying them out.

“Basking in my luck. The team is all sick with flu, except me and Gin- so practice got cancelled!” he said with a smile, putting his long legs up on top of some of Hermione’s books. She made her usual glare and he grinned at her before he gave a rough swallow. “So… I was thinking we could maybe go to Hogsmeade together then, since I’m not busy anymore… I mean, if you don’t have plans or anything.”

“Well, I do have something going on midday—”

“Oh! Ok, well then nevermind—”

“But! I think we could manage to spend some time together before it,” Hermione finished, shooting him a twinkly little smile.

“Oh yeah?” Ron said, perking back up. “Ok then! Erm… Meet you at breakfast around nine and we’ll go together from there?”

“Sounds good.”

It was perfect! Ron had a date with Hermione! Well… No it wasn’t a date. She didn’t even look all that excited. She was looking through her bag for a quill, and not even looking at him. Should he push it and make it clear he wanted it to be a date? It was loads safer to not say anything. She’d probably laugh herself silly if he tried. But…

“Well, then…” Ron said, standing up and taking a centering breath.

“It’s-a-date! See-you-tomorrow!” he blurted out.

He said it all very fast, and before she could say a word, and before he could check to see her face, he bolted up the stairs.

“Oh bleeding hell,” Ron cursed himself halfway to his dorm. What had he been thinking? Well… Perhaps she hadn’t understood him? Or thought he didn’t mean it that way? Merlin’s hairy bumhole! What an idiot he was.

As he got to his dorm he found Harry staring at a pile of clothes on his bed, as if they were a particularly difficult riddle that needed solving. He looked up at Ron with relief.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Harry asked gesturing to the pile.

“Start with pants and work your way outward.”

“Really helpful, that. Thanks,” Harry said shortly, giving Ron a two fingered salute. He looked grim and pale faced.

“Is this for… er… Hogsmeade?” Ron asked, putting his hands in his pockets. He and Harry never much talked about girls. He didn’t particularly want to start now.

“Yeah…” Harry groused, putting a hand through his hair. Ron found a sudden reeling sensation twisting in his stomach, knowing he’d have to make the same sort of decision.

Luckily for them both, Dean, Neville and Seamus came in.

“Boys,” Ron said stoutly, gesturing them over with as much bravado as he could. “Harry’s not a clue what to wear for his date with Cho. Thoughts?”

The other boys looked over and laughed a bit but finally, after they all stared at the mound of Harry’s clothes for a good ten minutes, they decided on his nicest jeans and one of his jumpers that fit alright. Something that was nice, but not too nice.

“Don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard, yeah?” Seamus had said.

Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Ron did a similar dive through all his clothes. He had nothing that could even remotely fall into the category of ‘too nice.’ Did he have anything at all that was even nice? It took a lot of digging, but he finally found the pair of jeans he’d received from Percy that summer, not a week before the prat had abandoned their family. Percy rarely wore anything as casual as jeans, so they were in a respectable state and fit Ron better than any other trousers he owned. He settled on the one jumper he had that didn’t clash with his hair. It was a little knobby with pills of fabric in the armpits- but not enough he thought Hermione would mind. Yes… Hopefully he would look alright for his first Valentine’s date.

_______________________________________________________

“It’s-a-date! See-you-tomorrow!” Ron blurted out before practically sprinting away from Hermione.

Hermione stared after him, her mouth agape as she processed what he’d said.

Surely he didn’t mean… Did he really say date? He couldn’t have possibly meant it as a real date, could he? But then why would Ron say anything like that? She’d hoped he would take some initiative and show interest in her, but wasn’t sure what to make of this. Did this count as him asking her out? Or were they just going to Hogsmeade together because he had nothing better to do?

She hastily gathered her books, not able to think of anything as trivial as runes when she was on the crux of a possible first date with the boy she had fancied for two years!

Oh! Ginny! She needed Ginny’s help immediately. Hermione had no idea what to do with her hair! Or what to wear! Or even if it was possible this was a date.

With as much speed as she could she Leviosa-ed the books and flung them onto her bed, not caring when half of them fell to the floor with a large slam disturbing Parvati and Lavender from a giggling conversation they were having.

She bound to the fourth year’s dormroom and luckily found Ginny reading a quidditch magazine on her four poster.

“Merlin!” Ginny exclaimed, taking in Hermione, who was panting and ringing her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I think… I think things might be right, actually!” Hermione let out a high pitched desperate sort of laugh, before she squeezed herself around her middle in agitation. “I’m not sure, of course, because I’m never allowed anything to go smoothly in this area, but yes… Yes I think things are going very well!”

Ginny looked at Hermione with concern before putting a hand to her forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t have Fwooper Flu.”

“I don’t have flu!” Hermione laughed. Ginny looked just as nonplussed as ever. “No… I— Oh Ginny, I think I might have been asked on a date!”

“What do you mean you think you might have been asked on a date?” Ginny smiled with incredulity.

“Well I was asked to Hogsmeade, and when we made our arrangements to meet up he said ‘it’s a date!’ So I guess, it’s a date?”

“Sounds like it!”

“But it is a common expression!” Hermione fretted. “Maybe it’s not!”

“Well, who asked you?” Ginny asked, seating them both on her bed.

“It was…” Hermione hesitated, biting her lip. Ginny had inferred Hermione liked Ron, but they’d never explicitly discussed it. It felt odd to confess her excitement if this was all a folly and Ron had meant to ask her only as a friend. It was a line she’d never crossed before, and the vulnerability of it made her tremble.

“Was it Ron?” Ginny asked quietly, a look of awe on her face.

Hermione silently nodded her head, and began to clutch at her arms again.

Ginny gave a broad toothy grin that made her resemble a smug Fred or George.

“The coward finally asked you out!” she crowed.

“We don’t know that he did! Like I said, it’s a common expression.”

“Not for Ron! Here, I can go and ask him—” Ginny moved to get up, but Hermione desperately tugged her back in place.

“No!” Hermione said in a strangled voice. “He can’t know I talked to you about it, because if he didn’t mean it as a date, and thought I thought it was a date and cared enough that I was talking about it and discussing it with his sister, then he’d think I fancied him, and he could be weirded out, and it could cosmically shift our dynamic, and then our whole friendship could be in jeopardy!”

“Hermione,” Ginny said putting a bracing hand to her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

“No! I worry the appropriate amount!”

“I won’t say anything, of course, but we all know he’s fancied you for ages. But even if it’s not a date, it can’t hurt to look nice for it and do a little bit of flirting.”

“Well, I came to you to help me with the looking nice bit, but as for flirting, I don’t believe I’ve ever been any good at it.”

“Just laugh at his jokes, and say nice things to him.”

“I do that already!”

Ginny arched an eyebrow.

“What?” Hermione replied defensively. “I do!”

“You kind of do, I guess, but you also go into scold and lecture mode a lot with him… I mean, he totally deserves it, but when’s the last time you complimented him?”

“I don’t know, the last time he did something worth complimenting obviously!” Hermione huffed, throwing up her arms.

“So, never?” Ginny laughed.

Hermione puffed up in response.

“That’s not fair! He’s done loads of things! He does things all the time! He’s very accomplished!”

“Well tell him that, and don’t wait for him to suddenly ‘accomplish’ something on your date.”

“Well you can’t go doling out compliments when people don’t deserve them.”

“I thought you said he was accomplished?”

Hermione squirmed. She was not sure how one should naturally segue way into complimenting when the act hasn’t been achieved recently.

“How?”

“I dunno, bring up past acts of valor or something? You’re a smart one. Make a cheat sheet for yourself and revise!”

Hermione nodded. That’s what she had to do. She needed to sit down and revise! She had no time, really, but she could manage this. Ginny agreed to help her with her hair and outfit the next morning, which left the rest of the night to think of some good compliments for Ron that she could apply in a natural way. And if it wasn’t a date, at least she was planting seeds that might blossom into affection later.

_______________________________________________________

Ron had never spent more time in front of a mirror. He didn’t have to shave all that often yet, but that morning he spent extra time making sure he didn’t have a stray whisker anywhere on his face or neck, made extra sure there wasn’t a pimple or anything hiding somewhere, and fiddled with where to part his hair a good ten minutes.

Before he knew it, he only had five minutes to get down the dining hall. He and Harry got the breakfast, both looking as peaky as Ron did before a quidditch match. It didn’t take long for Ron to spot Hermione among the students.

Her hair was looking extra tame and bouncy, like she had spent a lot of time on it. That had to be a good sign! She’d pulled back part of it from her face, and… her lips seemed to have a shine to them they normally didn’t. She looked lovely. Was this for him? Or was this for whatever her midday Valentine’s plans were?

She didn’t notice them at first as she was taking a letter from an unfamiliar brown owl. She had an intense look on her face as she quickly read the letter, seeming to come to herself as Ron and Harry sat with her.

“Oh good! You’re here!” she exclaimed, looking to Harry and ignoring Ron. “Listen, Harry. This is really important…. Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?”

“Well… I dunno. Cho might be expecting me to spend the whole day with her. We never said what we were going to do.“

"Well, bring her along if you must, but will you come?”

“Well… all right, but why?”

“I haven’t got time to tell you now. I’ve got to answer this quickly—” she said as she got some triangles of toast and shoved them into her bag, ready to leave the room.

Ron should have known she’d forget about their date. Whatever this plan was with Harry seemed to be more important to her than whatever plan she’d made with Ron. He gave a sigh and began to load up his plate, resigned to spend the morning alone, when Hermione stopped mid stride and turned to Ron.

“Well, come along then!” she said, looking at a befuddled Ron. “Make an egg sandwich with your toast or something! We can get more food after I respond to the letter.”

Ron quickly complied and gave a shrug to Harry, who was eyeing them with nothing short of complete confusion. Ron was highly confused as well, but felt quite cheery as he followed Hermione. It was easy to keep up with her, even when she was practically running, since his legs were so long. Hermione always took quick tiny steps wherever she went and it made her curls bounce in a unique was that Ron found adorable.

She was on one of her missions, so Ron knew it best not to interrupt until she’d finished whatever her little task was. She lead them to the Owlery and penned a letter before choosing a school owl.

“This is urgent,” she told the little owl. It hooted in response before taking off. They watched the owl as it got smaller and disappeared over the horizon.

“So…” Ron said, polishing off his hastily made sandwich. “Mind telling me what all that was about?”

She quickly explained her plan to blackmail Rita Skeeter into doing an interview with Harry for the Quibbler so he could finally get the truth out about Voldemort’s return. They were to meet at the The Three Broomsticks midday. Ron had never felt such relief, but also was in awe of how cagey Hermione was.

“That’s a brilliant plan!” he exclaimed giving her a hug. He hastily let go of her and gave her a moment to fix her hair he’d mussed in his excitement.

They went on to the village talking about Skeeter, Harry and a variety of topics in the same easy manner they always did. Ron didn’t know anyone he could talk to as easily as Hermione. Well, besides Harry of course, but it was different. He and Harry talked all the time, but much of it was laughing and shared looks and being able to just hang out. With Hermione there was this… spark. He didn’t know what it was. It just made the whole thing feel exciting, even if it was just debating over the difference between jam, jelly and preserves.

They went on to stare at the Shrieking Shack, recalling memories of third year.

Ron felt his palms begin to sweat. Was this a date or not? How could he make it romantic? Maybe he could do something chivalrous - like give her his coat if she was too cold? Or he could just use the cold as an excuse to hold her closely, and then look into each other’s eyes and, in a fit of passion, kiss each other.

“Are you cold?” Ron asked.

“No, I’m almost too warm, actually. I think I went overboard with my warming charms before we left the castle.”

Ron deflated. Well there went that idea.

“Er, Ron. You look nice today,” Hermione said stiffly.

“Thanks,” he replied, unsure of what to say. “You do too. Your hair is all shiny.”

“Ginny helped me with it.”

“Well she did a good job.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome,” Ron replied before awkwardly looking away from her.

Oh, this was a disaster! What was he supposed to do or say? Did she look nice because of Rita Skeeter- perhaps wanting to give the woman nothing bad to print about her looks- or was she looking so lovely for him? ‘Your hair is all shiny.’ That wasn’t even a real compliment. What a tosser he was. He could do better than that, surely.

Despite his flimsy attempts at complimenting her, she was smiling at him. He loved the way her eyes seemed to sparkle a bit when she smiled like that. They reminded him of a rock in Percy’s rock collection he’d seen. It was called Tiger’s eye, and the shiny crystal had a special sort of soft lustre to it just like Hermione’s. Her eyes weren’t just brown, they had all sorts of honeyed hues to them.

“Your eyes look like rocks,” Ron said, before his eyes widened and his ears went red.

“I mean… Shit,” Ron cursed himself.

Hermione began to look angry.

“Did you really just say my eyes look like shi—”

“NO! I— fuck… No! I was trying to say they look like this special stone Percy had in his rock collection. It has all sorts of different colors in them. Tiger’s eye. Like… it was a really pretty rock, I swear! My favorite.”

Hermione stared at him in befuddlement before a smile broke out on her face, and her shoulders began to shake with suppressed laughter.

“Oh don’t laugh!” Ron rolled his head away from her, his face going red. After a moment of listening to her laugh, he found himself fighting a grin. “To be fair, in my mind it was really poetic.”

“I’m sure it was!” Hermione beamed at him.

“See, right there! When you smile like that! Looks just like it,” Ron enthused.

“That’s very sweet, Ron.”

His eyebrows rose as he looked down at her. So his rock thing had worked! Maybe he could try his other gambit?

“You sure you’re not cold at all?” he asked, giving her a hopeful look.

“Well, maybe my hands are a bit cold.”

Ron quickly grabbed her gloved hands in his own and held them tight. She was so tiny in every way. It amazed him how small even her knuckles were compared to his. He sandwiched her hands between his and began to rub them. He wished she weren’t wearing gloves- but it was still nice to have her so close and do something a bit more intimate than he’d managed before. _______________________________________________________

Hermione felt a thrill run through her as he took her hands in his. Even through her gloves she could feel the warmth of his hands burning through her. Everything about Ron was warmth and fire. His hair, his fiery temper, the way he could flush a deep red, and even how warm bodied he was. She’d be shivering from cold, and Ron would complain it was hot.

She wished she could bury herself in his embrace and feel warmed all over by him. He’d been rather daring, in his own way, trying to compliment her and holding her hands. Surely that wasn’t just friendly. It was notably different than his usual behavior. Perhaps she could test the waters and see.

“You know… I do think that warming charm on my coat is beginning to wear off.”

Ron’s eyebrows shot up high on his face, and his ears were beginning to turn a rosy hue.

“Well,” he said before roughly swallowing. “Well, you can share my coat if you like.”

Hermione quickly nodded, and he opened his coat wide for her to bury herself in. She slowly skimmed her hands along his sides before she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her face cuddled into his chest and she let a breath out as he closed in the side of his coat and wrapped his arms around her.

“I-Is that any better?” he asked, voice a bit husky.

“Much,” Hermione sighed. She knew she couldn’t keep doing this for long. She’d lied when she said her warming charm was wearing off. It was still going strong and she was already feeling a bit sweaty and overheated like this, and Ron would no doubt feel the heat from her coat soon. It was worth the physical discomfort, though, to be wrapped in his embrace like this.

The heat finally pushed her to let go of him. Even though he was so much taller than she, he was stooped so low his face was quite near hers. His face was flushed a deep pink, most likely from having a girl the temperature of a hot water bottle wrapped about him.

“I just remembered! I need some quills,” she lied, as she pulled herself away from him, not wanting to cause him further discomfort. ”Would you mind stopping by Scrivenshaft’s?”

“Wha— Er, yeah that’s fine,” he said, looking a bit glum.

“We can stop by some place more fun for you, if you like. I can put off the quills.”

“Naw, I’d probably just spend my pocket change on something stupid. Let’s get you some quills.”

They made their way down the road and Ron patiently waited as Hermione found herself new set of quills at Scrivenshaft’s. She’d dithered between a lovely set of minty green quills that was a little overpriced, or some more practical ones. Ron ended up waiting outside as she began chatting with a clerk about paper thickness and its effects on paper charms and hexes. She hadn’t made up her mind which set to buy when the lady behind the counter wrapped the nice quills in a colorful paper bag with a bow.

“Oh, no need to wrap that!” Hermione called out as the final flourish was added to the bow. “I hadn’t decided if I was going to indulge myself and buy them or not.”

“But it’s a gift!”

“What?”

The lady pointed to Ron who was casually leaning against the building. “He paid for it while you were chatting.”

They weren’t inexpensive quills, and Hermione felt prodigiously guilty that she’d made up the story of needing them in the first place. She’d only said that to more gracefully detach herself from Ron and not embarrass herself. She knew he didn’t have much money to spend on something like this.

As she opened the door, he gave her one of his lopsided smiles.

“All done?”

“Yes,” she smiled back before biting her lip. “You needn’t have paid for my quills, though.”

“I wanted to.”

“But, they were rather expensive and—”

“I know how much they cost. I bought them,” Ron said, brusquely cutting her off. His ears were red again. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll probably end up borrowing them and forgetting to return them. So it’s as much for you as it is for me.”

“Well…” He had a look on his face that clearly said she was treading into dangerous territory. “Alright then.”

He grinned back at her and she simpered before gripping the package close to her chest.

It felt a merry day until the skies opened and rain began to soak them through. Hermione had a small umbrella on hand that was most definitely not big enough for both of them. The umbrella did little to protect them from the wind whipping the rain into their sides, so they ran all the way to the Three Broomsticks. They both laughed as they entered the pub and found a table near the fire.

“Y’know, I think we got wetter trying to share the umbrella between us than if we’d just hoofed it,” Ron grinned as he unwrapped his wet scarf from around his neck. He hastily added, “not that it wasn’t appreciated.”

“I think you’re right, I’m soaked,” Hermione agreed with a laugh, wringing out her hair a bit. She gave a shudder as she took off her coat and the cold prickled at her, but a blast of warm air quickly drove the cold away. Ron had his wand out aimed directly at her.

“Oh! You musn’t use magic!” she admonished, looking around them to make sure no one had seen. “If you get caught you could get in loads of trouble!”

“I’m near enough to seventeen. If it were in front of muggles alarms would go off or something, but a place like this?”

“The Trace follows you everywhere!”

“Well… kind of,” Ron said with a shrug, ordering them two butterbeers and holding out her chair for her. “They can’t know WHO did magic in a place, only that it was done. Unless they were specifically looking for me, in a place buzzing with magic like this, it goes largely unnoticed. All my brothers were able to skate by with spells in Hogsmeade, so I’m not too fussed.”

“Well you still shouldn’t do it in a pub where anyone could see you,” she warned, looking about the patrons. Ron simply leaned back in his chair, his rangy legs stretched out so far they almost reached the other side of the long table.

“It’ll be fine. One of the few perks from having a hundred older brothers is you know which rules are a bit more flexible than others. You get to sit back, watch their mistakes, and mostly not repeat them.”

“No, you find all sorts of new mistakes they couldn’t even imagine,” she smirked, thinking back to their misadventures.

“Well if your brothers have already succeeded in every way,” said Ron, putting out a dramatic hand, “you might as well fail uniquely and spectacularly.”

He had a conspiratorial smile on his face.

“I’d say the Twins are taking that approach to school,” she added.

“Yeah. Guess they beat me to that too,” he laughed, though his smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes. “Not really any paths left to blaze.”

“You are blazing your own path though, Ron,” Hermione protested. “You’ve done loads.”

“Hmm,” he said with a doubtful look, before thanking Madame Rosmerta for the butterbeers, and taking a long draw from his mug.

Hermione thought back to Ginny’s advice to compliment Ron. This was a perfect set-up.

“Y’know, I think that Ravencl—” he began.

“You are very accomplished!” Hermione interrupted Ron, her face red.

“What?” he incredulously asked, eyebrows raised.

“I said you’re very accomplished.”

“Oh go on,” he laughed with dismissive hand wave before chugging down some more butter beer.

Well that hadn’t landed well at all! What was she supposed to do? Specifics! She should lay it out like one of her essays. She’d studied up on it the night before, but why was her mouth turning to cotton and her brain turning horribly blank on how to say it? She had actually written out a list for herself and had it stowed in her book bag. She never had a problem answering questions in class, but right now she had no ability to speak.

“One moment!” she said, leaning down to fish the list out from her book bag. It took little time to find the parchment. It was rather long and she’d stayed up late to make sure she covered her bases. “Here it is. See! You’ve done loads!”

On autopilot she handed it to Ron like turning in an essay to a teacher. The facts were all there, and she was rather proud to supply her evidence, all neatly outlined in her even script.

The moment he took it from her hand, though, panic crackled through her. She reached towards the parchment to wrench it back, but it was too late— he was already reading it.

“What is this?”

“Oh! Er…” She couldn’t possibly tell him why she had compiled the list. What was she thinking, bringing the list out for him to see? He’d either think she was mad, or never want to look at her again for fear she was a stalker.

“I just … It’s proof of your accomplishments… good attributes…” she mumbled, glancing up to see what his reaction was.

Ron’s usually expressive face was wildly unreadable as his eyes went back and forth over the parchment. His ears began to redden as he continued on, and he shifted in his seat to sit up quite straight, intently studying it.

She needed an excuse for writing it. In her panic it took a moment, but she finally had it.

“When you got your prefect badge, and the twins were making fun saying it was unexpected you’d gotten the badge— I didn’t say anything to counter them, and I was feeling guilty about it, and wanted to let you know your good attributes and accomplishments. Perhaps it could have been a birthday gift. I shouldn’t have done it now… As you can see there’s a lot there…” she finished in a small voice. She stared at her lap unable to look up at him.

“You numbered them,” he said, bemused.

“Yes.”

“There’s a hundred and twenty three lines?”

“Yes… I know you must think I’m ridiculous for writing it all out but—”

His arms were suddenly around her, and she was pulled into a tight embrace. His cheek was pressed against the side of her forehead, and she could feel an almost imperceptible quake to his arms.

She’d never been hugged like this by him before, and was so stunned it took a moment for her to engage her arms and wrap them around his back. Had his chest always been so broad?

“Thank you,” he roughly whispered in her ear.

She nodded and leaned into his embrace further, closing her eyes.

“Oh, young love is it?” came a voice from behind them, startling them apart.

_______________________________________________________

Rita Skeeter stood at their table, looking bedraggled compared to the last time she’d bothered them. She’d always been overly polished and artificial— once the veneer was gone it wasn’t a pretty sight. Everything about her was chipped and worn looking, from her raggedy nails to her grubby raincoat.

“Harry and Luna should be joining us soon,” Hermione said, an imperious little look on her face. It was like her words willed Luna to appear, for the pale girl with the protuberant eyes worked her way through the crowded table to join them, a drink with a cocktail onion in her hand.

“Hello Ronald, I didn’t expect you here,” she smiled, staring at him with her grey eyes that just didn’t seem to blink as often as other people’s eyes. She was wearing a large woven poncho and her hair hung lankly from the rain. “It’s been perfect weather.”

“Er, I guess… If you like it when it’s bucketing down.”

“I do!” she said wringing out her poncho on the floor and getting some stares from local patrons as she flapped it in the air. Hermione had loudly started pulling out paperwork from her bag for Luna to look at, but Rita ignored everything. Instead she had out her acid green quill and had been scribbling away.

‘Harry Potter’s love life has taken a tragic turn as femme fatale Hermione Granger breaks his heart again, leaving him for his other, supposed, best friend Ronald Weasley. Weasley, who Potter valiantly saved in the heartrending second task of the Triwizard Tournament, was seen seducing Granger on an intimate date at the Three Broomsticks this Valentine’s Day. The two were entwined by the fireplace in an appalling display that left patrons gaping. One has to wonder how Harry could possibly forgive the two, the lanky ginger haired boy who has betrayed his friend, and the brunette who has broken his heart— ’

“Oi!” Ron cried out. “You can’t be writing claptrap like that about us.”

“You mean to say this wasn’t a romantic rendezvous between you and Little Miss Perfect.”

Ron opened and closed his mouth, unsure of how to respond. He looked to Hermione who was watching him just as avidly as Skeeter.

“We’re not the reason you’re here and aren’t your story. Harry is,” Ron managed, feeling quite proud of himself for such a diplomatic response. Hermione’s mouth was a hard line, but she began to nod.

“That’s right,” she added, looking away from Ron.

In short order, Harry arrived sans Cho, and the meeting was underway. Rita made her attempts to pry into his love life, but Hermione brilliantly shut it down and got the interview going in a trice. Ron couldn’t help but admire how she’d taken charge and put the horrid reporter in her place.

They sat nearby as Harry recounted what had happened the night of the Third Task. Every time he said Voldemort Ron felt a shiver go down his spine, but nothing left him quite as shaken as seeing the look on Harry’s face as he grimly talked about Cedric’s death and being tortured. He hated seeing his friend look so torn up and sporting such a far away sad look in his eye. He couldn’t look away though. If Harry had the guts to go through it and talk about it, the least Ron could do was sit and listen. Hermione’s eyes were filled with tears, but she wiped them away as soon as they appeared. Even Luna, who seemed to have a wandering attention span, was raptly watching the interview the whole time.

When it concluded Rita said a few acid comments to Hermione, but Hermione was beaming.

“Harry I’m so proud of you!” Hermione enthused once the reporter had left, giving Harry a hug. He feebly returned it.

“Well done, mate,” Ron added, clapping a pale Harry on the shoulder.

“It was nearly as powerful as that lovely article about the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” said Luna. She went off a bit about how she didn’t know when the article would be released, as the Snorkack article might take precedence. Ron vaguely knew Mr Lovegood, and had a feeling even someone as dotty as Luna’s dad would know he had a story worth galleons.

They walked out the door to find the rain had stopped.

“Oh what a terrible change in the weather… I was hoping to walk in it a bit more. It’s supposed to be a good cure for nargles,” Luna said vaguely before skipping off humming Ron’s least favorite song, ‘Weasley is Our King.’ In all the excitement, he’d forgotten about his ill-fated Quidditch tenure.

Harry gave a sigh, which brought Ron back to the moment.

“Want to head back to the castle?” Ron asked him. He knew it didn’t do much good to ask Harry directly how he was holding up.

“Yeah… You don’t have to though.”

That was Harry’s way of saying he wanted alone time.

“We’ll come with you,” Hermione said earnestly. Ron put a hand to her elbow, and gave her a look. She seemed to understand him and gave a small almost imperceptible nod. “But I do need to… to stop by the quill shop… Perhaps we can meet you in a bit at the castle?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll catch you at dinner,” Harry rattled off looking relieved before walking away towards the castle, hands in his pockets. Dinner wasn’t for another three hours at least. This one had hit Harry hard. Ron would have to get something to distract Harry when he checked on him.

“Let’s get him some sweets from Honeyduke’s,” said Ron, leading them to the shop and giving Hermione a teasing look. “‘Need to stop by the quill shop.’ You’re lucky Harry didn’t notice your sack from Scrivenshaft’s.”

Hermione gave a nervous laugh before biting her lip.

“Are you sure he needs space?”

“Positive.”

“‘Catch you at dinner,’ he says’” Hermione huffed. “Dinner is not for another three hours! It just seems an awfully long time to put off having company after going through something so difficult. You saw the look on his face having to live through it all again… It was clearly traumatizing. If it weren’t so necessary I would feel even worse for asking him to do it.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s made of stern stuff,” Ron said with more confidence than he felt. “We’ll get him some sweets to tithe him over, then he’ll feel loads better when the article comes out and people are on his side again.”

“You really think this will work?”

“Of course it will! It was a brilliant idea,” Ron nodded. “And you handled Skeeter perfectly.”

Hermione was smiling at him and he felt the tinge of nerves from earlier come back.

“You handled her pretty well yourself,” she said a bit tightly.

“Yeah? Well…” he said putting a hand to the back of his neck. “Didn’t want her to get things sideways like she does…”

“Would it have been sideways to write that we were on a date though?”

His ears were on fire. His throat was so unable to produce sound he might as well have been twisted like a towel getting wrung out. Her eyes were boring into him, studying him as thoroughly as she did any tome.

“I… I said ‘it’s a date’ when I asked you to come to Hogsmeade,” he said testing the waters.

“But that’s a common expression, and I wasn’t sure if you meant it in the colloquial way, or if you meant it as a formal invitation,” she persisted. “Was-was this a date?”

“Well… to be honest…” But could he be? Could he tell her he fancied her? That her kiss on his cheek earlier that year had meant more to him than any other touch he’d felt in his life? That she smelled so good? That she made him actually look forward to studying because it meant more time with her? That she powered his Patronus more consistently than anything else? “To be honest, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”

“You’re the one who asked me!” said Hermione, throwing her hands in exasperation.

“Well which did you want it to be?” Ron asked, making a last ditch effort to know how she felt.

Her face turned scarlet. “Just answer the question!”

How come he had to be the one to lay everything on the line? He’d taken loads of risks already. He’d asked her out, he’d initiated some cuddling and hand-holding, he’d bought her a nice gift, held her chair out and done a drying charm when she was cold. He’d put himself out there fairly boldly… And if he’d misread this whole thing he wasn’t sure what the repercussions could be. Would the awkwardness dash their friendship to ribbons? Would she laugh at him for daring to think she’d like a nobody like him?

“If you are the one inviting a person out,” she began to lecture, “then you know which way you meant it when you said ‘it’s a date!’ That’s the basic structure of invitations, which you seem unable to grasp!”

“I just don’t want to ruin everything!”

“Oh, you’ve ruined plenty already!” Hermione snapped.

“Have it your way, then. I guess I just ruin everything.”

Ron stomped off to use his last few knuts to buy Harry some chocolate, but stopped to look back.

“You coming?” he growled at her.

Hermione petulantly looked away, but seemed to change her mind. Her hair had lost some of its sleekness and was bouncing in its usual wild fashion as she ran at him. He hopefully raised his arms out to catch her, and let out an ‘oof’ as she forcibly shoved the bag of quills into his stomach.

“Keep them!” she spat before tearing off for the castle, leaving a flabberghasted Ron in her wake.

_______________________________________________________

Hermione stormed her way to the castle and had to restrain herself from hexing a couple out of her way as they slowly ambled with their hands entwined. That was supposed to be her and Ron! Or was it? They were at this ridiculous impasse where he just wouldn’t tell her if all those little moments that meant so much to her were just friendship or something more. He’d been so sweet, and thoughtful, and bought her a lovely gift… And she’d shoved it right back at him…

“Oh well done, Hermione,” she cursed herself once she was finally alone in her dormitory.

She wasn’t even sure why she’d done it. He was just being so infuriatingly evasive, and she’d just snapped. She’d needed an answer. She’d needed to know without risking her pride being hurt. Maybe she’d have a chance to mend things at dinner. Ron wouldn’t abandon Harry after the hard day he’d had recounting the Third Task and that terrible graveyard. He could act as a buffer and they’d get back to an uneasy truce of some sort.

It took a while to calm her nerves and head downstairs to wait for the boys to come down. She sat beside the fire trying to translate her ancient runes poem, but found it impossible to concentrate. Would Ron even want to look at her? Would he have told Harry about her losing her temper demanding he declare it a date? She worried her lip until She gave a hiss and put her hand to her lip. She winced in pain and tasted a hint of blood.

“Hey. Seen Ron?”

She looked up to see Harry standing there looking peaked. She’d ruined Valentine’s Day for all three of them it seemed.

“Not since Hogsmeade, no,” she said, rolling up her parchment. “Did you want to get some dinner?”

“Oh… I guess…” Harry said with no enthusiasm at all. He looked about the room. She knew that look. He didn’t want her company; he wanted Ron. This was nothing new. Whenever Harry was down he immediately started looking around for Ron to cheer him up. Hermione couldn’t begrudge him doing this; she felt the exact same way. She and Harry got along very well of course, and she quite enjoyed his company, but neither of them were exactly the cheery sort. They were good at working out problems together, but just sitting and living their lives together? Having a good time? That was a bit more strained when they weren’t united with an actual purpose driving their conversation.

“Well let’s get some food. Where there’s food there’s usually Ron, right?” she asked, trying to bolster her spirits as much as Harry’s.

“Yeah… Right,” Harry said with a small smile.

But Ron wasn’t there. They each barely touched their food as they looked about for Ron and he was nowhere to be found as dinner came and passed. They finally gave up and went back to Gryffindor Tower.

“Are you quote sure he didn’t make his way to the dorm while you were there?”

“Er, well I was napping for a bit there, so maybe,” Harry replied.

He still looked exhausted and quickly withdrew to his dormitory, leaving Hermione by herself again. She sat by the fireplace again waiting for him, and it wasn’t until well past curfew when she heard the click of the portrait hole. Ron trudged through the portrait hole, his broom in hand, a miserable look on his face.

She moved from her chair and he gave a startle, nearly dropping his broom.

“Blimey, Hermione! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” he hoarsely let out. He was wet through and his boots were covered in mud.

“Where have you been?”

He looked to his broom then back to her with a quizzical look on his face.

“Fine… Why didn’t you come back for dinner? Harry was still really upset and could have used you here for moral support,” she said, her chin held aloft.

“I wasn’t hungry, and needed to get in some practice,” he said meeting her gaze, before dropping it. “I’ll check in on him in the morning and make sure he’s sorted, so don’t worry about it.”

“You shouldn’t skip meals.”

“Of the three of us, I’m the one who does it the least,” he said, voice tight. An edge filled silence choked them both.

“Well… It’s late, and I need to clean myself up…” Ron said after a beat. “See you at breakfast?”

“Alright…” she replied, cheeks beginning to burn.

His trainers squelched with every step he took as he headed towards his dorm. He had already taken a few of the steps, two at a time as usual, when he stopped his path.

“Hermione…” How was it he could say her name and it made her pulse quicken. “About Hogsmeade…”

She couldn’t bare it. He was going to reveal he cared nothing for her! That in her lonely desperation she’d somehow wildly extrapolated he liked her as more as a friend. She couldn’t hear him say the words. It’d make it too real.

“Don’t worry about it,” she cut him off. “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”

She retreated to her dormitory with such haste she was a bit out of breath by the time she reached her fourposter. She wanted to sob into her pillow, but refused to let herself, for fear of Lavender and Parvati hearing about it and reporting it to everyone around them. No. She’d never tell a soul that her dreams had been dashed; that she’d sabotaged a perfectly lovely time. Even if Ron had thought of her as a potential date, he’d never think of her that way now.

The next morning Ginny made her inquiries of how Hogsmeade was and Hermione forced a smile onto her face.

“We had a good time!” she said with forced lightness. Ginny raised her eyebrows, uncannily reminding her of Ron. She looked like she was about to question Hermione further, but with heavy thump Ron and Harry through themselves onto the bench across from Hermione.

Harry was looking remarkably better than he had the previous day. All he needed was a good dose of Ron’s company.

“Alright?” Ron asked, looking between her and Ginny.

“Of course,” Hermione said, taking a large gulp of orange juice. Ginny was called away by some of her friends, but gave her a look that clearly said ‘we have a lot to discuss’ as she left.

They ate their breakfasts and if there was any tension to be seen between Hermione and Ron, Harry seemed oblivious as he laughed about the state of Skeeter with Ron, and pointedly ignored the Ravenclaw table where Cho Chang was staring at his back.

As they rose to go to their first class, Ron pushed a small box across to Hermione. It had a bit of mud on it, but otherwise it was still the same beautiful pristine box of mint green quills he’d bought her.

“Thought you might want these before class.”

He was keenly looking at her. Sometimes she thought of Ron as quite clueless, but then he’d look at her like this and she’d feel utterly naked and seen. His blue eyes were looking right through her, surely.

“Thank you,” she let out, a bit breathless.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

“Nothing!” They simultaneously replied, even though it was everything.

#romione #my fics #hillnerd writes #ron weasley #hermione granger #au #fanfic #my writing #harry potter #hogsmeade #ootp #order of the phoenix #Anonymous

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