#PLUS LIKE SIX OTHER MUCH MORE COMPLICATED QUESTIONS

[sorchasolas]

I want to sleep homework let me go to bed homework pleaseee youre giving me a migrane

[ninthcircleofprythian]

Unbound

Part 2 - Don't Pull Away

Series Summary - Not having a mating bond didn't stop the love Azriel and Celeste have for each other or their commitment. When an unknown magic lingering from Celeste's past causes her to lose all memories of the last century, will they be able to rebuild their life without a bond tethering them together?

Word Count - 3.2k

Warnings - angst, emotional turmoil (Az), mentions of past abuse, fade to black scene

Author's Notes - this continues the background portion of the series (one more after this before we get into the main portion of the plot)

Part 1

Keeping their courtship a secret for as long as they had certainly hadn’t been easy, especially since their two closest friends were mated to each other. When Celeste had broached the topic of breaking the news of their courtship months ago, he had rebuffed the suggestion.

“I’m not ready. Not just yet,” he had stated.

“Why?” she questioned seriously. “It’s been nearly six months since we’ve become serious, even longer if we count all the dates we went on before then. I’m not sure we will be able to hide it for much longer.”

She had started masking her scent in public after they had spent time with each other and suggested he should do the same. It was an idea she sprouted all on her own, but his emotions about it were complicated. 

There was no sadness in her tone, just curiosity. She had learned very quickly that Azriel was an extremely private male and sharing his feelings didn’t come easy to him. She never pushed too hard or pried too deeply until she was sure he was ready. 

“Nesta keeps trying to set me up on dates and I’m running out of excuses.” She saw him bristle at the thought before adding, “Plus, I don’t really like lying to my friend.”

Azriel’s skin felt tight at the mention of her dating other males. He had met a few of the casual dates of her past after Nesta had paired Celeste up before he had started courting her. Nesta’s choice in her own mate was infinitely better than the taste she had in choosing for her friends.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, the shadows tightening around his hand in nearly one fluid sheet as he flexed his hands into fist. “I’m just–I’m scared.” He sighed heavily, avoiding her eyes.

“Of what?” Celeste asked softly. While Azriel was definitely a private soul, Celeste was much more direct. She was gentle and empathetic but if she wanted to know something, she asked. It was something Az was still very much getting used to. She hardly ever skirted around things which was probably why her and Nesta had become such fast friends. 

“I don’t really know. It’s just-” the words seemed to escape him and the whiffs of chatter the shadows kept swirling around his ears didn’t help. His brain felt like a tangle of knots. 

“I think you do know. It’s in there,” Celeste leaned forward from where she sat on the sofa next to him, feet tucked under her and facing him, her knees pressed into his hip as she reached a hand forward and laid it on his chest. “Take your time.” She peered at him casually as if they had all the time in the world, head resting on her fist as her arm was propped on the sofa back.

Azriel stared down at the hand on his chest and watched as his shadows abandoned their perch along his ears and whirled in a pulsing ring around her wrist. He wasn’t sure if the hard thud of his pulse was because of Celeste’s proximity or her questioning. He centered his breathing to the shadow’s beat before trying again. “I’m scared because – once it’s out there we can’t take it back.” He met her hooded focus with a watery look of his own. Her countenance didn’t flinch. She understood what he wasn’t saying but guided him anyway.

“Would you want to? Take it back?” Her thumb began a slow rhythm against his shirtfront in time with the shadows that still lingered there. 

“No,” he answered hastily. “No, of course not. But–once we put it out there–” Azriel attempted to center his breaths again but only ended up with one shuddering inhale. “Once it’s out there it can be taken away.”

Celeste let him collect his focus for a moment. After a pause in silence she moved her hand from his chest and drew one finger down the side of his jaw, applying slight pressure to get him to turn to her. “Azriel,” she breathed out and he shuddered, his wings shaking the furniture. “It could be taken away now too.” 

The thought so simple, so plain and obvious now that it was spoken aloud, had never occurred to him. The idea that keeping this a secret meant it was safe and protected fractured in his mind. His eyes widened and she resumed the pacing of her thumb, this time along his cheek. 

“Just because we keep it hidden doesn’t mean it can’t be taken away from us,” she continued gently. “If a time of hardship happens to come, wouldn’t you want to suffer with people around who love you rather than suffering alone?” She had ceased her movements, the shadows stilling at the same second she did. 

Azriel sat there feeling like she had just broken open his chest and read the darkness inside like a book, a feeling he was very much not used to. Suffering alone was all he had known. The only suffering he shared, the only suffering he had done with others was because something happened to them collectively and even then he avoided sharing his own grief. Anything that had ever happened to him and him alone was always insulated. Always his and no one else’s. 

Celeste had known where to pluck out that mess of knots from because she had once battled the same fight. She had been subjected to terrible things at Tyrik’s hand in the past and then left alone and broken. Suffering in isolation with no one to console or comfort her had nearly been as hard as the physical healing. The life she was leading now, the one she had nearly lost her life for, was once her greatest wish. The friends and family she was now surrounded with had been what brought her that inner peace. Without them she didn’t want to imagine the mess of a person she could have become. 

Azriel’s focus zoned out while he pulled on that mind tangle Celeste had brought to the surface, feeling for the loose end with which to unravel it. She swore she could almost hear the gears working in his mind.

“There it is,” she whispered softly against his other cheek. “I told you it was in there,” she held herself there, Azriel feeling her warm breath brush across his face before she placed a gentle kiss to the spot and sat up straight.

“We can wait,” She stated matter of factly. “We don’t have to tell anyone just yet.”

Two days later, Azriel was sent up to Windhaven for an extended trip. This was the same place that had brought him so much suffering in his early life but also brought him so much joy in bringing him his brothers. The juxtaposition had always been a confusing one to Azriel, but usually when the feelings cropped up he had just ignored them. Shoved them deep down inside that darkness to examine later. Often, later never came. This time however, the chasm that Celeste had ripped open was still raw and shoving those creeping feelings down did nothing but to spit them back out from where she had read him. 

For the entirety of the first week, he took to the training ring every morning and every night, pushing himself against the wall of exhaustion with defense and weapons and weight training. When that didn’t work he laid in bed at night and held that tangle in his mind’s eye, just staring at it until sleep took him. 

Nearly three weeks into his stay, Celeste had arrived for a healer camp rotation. Azriel had been shocked to see the outline of her ample frame trudging alongside Rhys from the camp boundary where they had winnowed in. 

Seeing as the attitude towards females in the war camp wasn’t exactly welcoming, chaperones were a required necessity for all healers rotating through the camps. Azriel had stepped in to shadow Celeste on all her patient visits. 

“Your camp rotation wasn’t for another two months.” He pointed out when they were alone the next morning in the rickety cabin that was used as a clinic. Celeste was shuffling around preparing supplies, laying out bandages and tonics on a tray. 

“Well,” she said with her back facing him. “When you didn’t come home I figured I would come to you.”

Home. The word made that chasm in his chest twitch. 

“I told you I was staying longer.” He said from the corner where he had been for the last hour.  “You really didn’t need to change your schedule for me.”

Celeste had turned now to face him, staring directly into his eyes unflinching. “Yeah, a note. I have to miss our date this weekend. I am needed here a bit longer. I’ll be in touch. You got your point across alright.”

He had no response to that but his mouth twitched as he noticed her disappointment in his silence. Approaching him slowly from across the room, she placed her hand directly over the raw soul wound he could still feel inside him.

“Don’t push me away, Az.” She started softly as she leaned into her hand and tilted her head back to keep his gaze. “Take whatever time you need to work out whatever it is running through your head but please–please don’t pull away. Not from me.”

Celeste calling him out was never comfortable and she certainly had a knack for doing it. Rhys and Cassian loved him as a brother. Az knew that without a doubt but even they let him push away and isolate whenever his head became too loud with the thoughts he didn’t want to face. They didn’t poke and question. Celeste on the other hand spoke those thoughts aloud. She prodded deftly and guided gently. Pushing her away was the last thing Azriel wanted. He wanted her close by at all times, within his sight and tucked into his arms. He wanted all her mornings and afternoons and nights, especially her nights, for the rest of his days.

He spent his next few days at the camp standing quietly in her company, watching her nimble hands set bones, dress wounds and offer soothing touches of comfort. Often he noticed, when her work allowed them to reside in close enough quarters, that his shadows had begun choosing to gather around her remedying presence rather than swirl around in his brooding aura.

One afternoon, as Celeste had just dismissed the last patient from the clinic cabin, she began tidying up and gathering her supplies to prepare for the next day.

“Sometimes I wonder why we even have camp rotations,” she pondered aloud. “Most of the injuries I treat here aren’t accidents and most of the patients only allow me to treat the most severe ones.”

The patient she had just dismissed had done just that. Coming in for a shredded wing, he had an obviously broken arm in a dirty sling. The splint taped around his forearm had clearly been rushed and the bone badly set. But he had just clutched the arm tightly to his abdomen, outright refusing Celeste’s offer to access and reset it. “Just the wing,” he had said, the most important thing to an Illyrian aside from his siphons.

“It’s to teach them a lesson,” Azriel answered in monotone from the corner, shadows nearly obscuring him from view. 

“And what kind of lesson is that?” Celeste responded snidely, not bothering to look up from her duty. “That they can be broken in more ways than one?”

He knew instantly that she was hinting pointedly at her own experience with being broken. In more ways than one. Azriel didn’t answer as he worked to tamp down the anger at the thought. His wings twitched with tension as that tangle bumped against the shields of his mind. 

After a beat of silence she added, peering over into that darkened corner. “And do you agree with their teaching methods?” 

Her eye line didn’t waver as she waited for his response, even as the shadows thickened and briefly covered him completely.

How could he defend the brutality that bred fierce warriors and the violence that taught them to exact their powers into weapons? How could he defend that as one of the warriors who knew first hand, to his sweet Celeste who had experienced the same treatment for different reasons? But were the reasons really that different? In both cases the desired result was the same - obedience. In the end he had come out a soldier, but Celeste had just ended up broken. His feelings about Windhaven had been conflicted since childhood but adding Celeste into the equation had made them impossible. The tangle inside his head slammed against the obsidian fortress of his mind.

“No. I don’t.” His quiet answer seemed to satisfy her although her face remained furrowed in thought. 

A long tense bout of silence stretched between them with only the sound of her shuffling as she rolled bandages, the sun settling lower in the sky outside the window.

“Is that what happened to your hands?” She broke the silence, her voice strained.  “A lesson?” Her own hands had stilled before her but her head remained staring at the table. 

An unnaturally eerie stillness permeated not just his body, but the entire room. The shadows had revealed him fully and rushed to swirl madly around the hands she spoke of. He was unaware of how long it took him to answer. 

“No,” Azriel finally uttered gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest to hide the swirling shadows. “That was my brothers.”

Through all the time they had known each other and throughout their courtship of the last months, Celeste had never commented on or shied away from his brutal scars. She often stroked a touch over them or swept her thumb across them, following their grooves with a finger like reading words on a page, but she had never asked about them. 

Seeing the brief confusion flash over her features he quickly added. “Not them. Not Rhys and Cas.” He cleared his throat thickly. “My real brothers. Half-brothers.”

She didn’t ask any more questions of his confession, instead she looked at him pointedly and said, “From what I see, Cas and Rhys are the only real brothers.” 

That night he had laid there staring at the ceiling unable to sleep, the mess of a tangle laying squarely in his mind’s eye. At some point he gave up on contemplating the knots and decided instead to start pulling. Pulling and twisting and feeling. The things that surfaced inside him had been buried for so long that they had grown fangs. Fangs and claws and venom. As he pulled on that gods forsaken loose end, those wretched things followed, but as they emerged into the light that Celeste’s chasm had created, he began to see they weren’t so fearsome after all. Even though they snapped and snarled, hissed and spit, Azriel could feel that they would be able to be tamed in time. They didn’t need to be defeated. They were just as scared as he was. They had only grown fangs because he had refused them the kindness of trying and instead shoved them away. 

After what felt like an eternity, he had laid there in the barely lightening hours of pre-dawn, holding up that loose end, the tangle no longer a tangle but now just a string, and he had cried. Huge heaving sobs wracking his body and bringing him to his knees.

Oblivious to the time Azriel trekked the distance to the healer's quarters and banged the side of his fist upon the door. It took a few minutes for Celeste to rouse herself from sleep before the door cracked open a fraction and her velvety dark eyes peered out. 

“Az?” she questioned as she pulled the door fully open. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She stood there clasping her robe closed and taking in his appearance. His face was tense and rubbed swollen from crying, eyes red and puffy. The wind had ravaged his hair into a mess of dark curls falling into his face and the look in his hazel eyes was stricken. 

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him over the threshold, “Az, tell me you are alright,” she reached up to grab his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Are you hurt?” The warmth of her touch banished the cold.

Still no answer left him, instead he mirrored her movement, grabbing her face in his ridged hands. She gasped from the shock of the wind ravaged chill that seeped into her skin, the shadows adding to her startle with a misty chill of their own as they seeped from his fingertips and down the back of her neck. Before she could close her mouth he swept his head down and claimed a hard sensual kiss. 

He felt the heat of her face flood under his palms as a fierce color rose to her cheeks and it was his turn to gasp. She responded with a tenderly soft flick of her tongue against his teeth, sinking into his body and her hands slipping to his chest as she continued to reciprocate his kiss. 

Reluctantly, Azriel pulled back and seared into her gaze with a determined look. 

“I’m ready,” he said, his voice rasped from crying.

She shimmied against him with a gentle pressure from her thigh to the front of him. “I can tell,” she panted out a laugh.

“No – that’s not what–”

“I know what you meant,” she breathed out in another whispery laugh. “But for now–for just this minute–it can wait,” and she pushed the door closed, tightly shutting out the cold night wind. 

As the fateful hour of Solstice dinner approached, Celeste stood adjusting the silver fabric of her dress inside the closet-sized bathroom of her apartment. Selecting a glittering pair of dangling starry earrings, she tilted her head and began placing them in her ears.

“Mmm,” a sultry purr rumbled from behind her. “You look amazing in that.” Azriel slipped in behind her having just returned from his trip to his townhouse. With an arm around her waist he tucked his wings as tight as they would go in the cramped space. With her hair swept up and pinned into a loose pile, he couldn’t resist nuzzling into her exposed neck. Shadows began lazily exploring the twists and turns of her hair strands, landing curiously around her hairpins as he voiced, “I’m heading out now.”

“Okay,” she said, tilting her head to lean into his. “I’ll be behind you shortly. I just have to pick up the last part of your gift on the way.”

“Hmm,’ he purred again, propping his chin on her shoulder. “I thought I knew what my gift was already.”

“Believe it or not,” she smiled brightly in the mirror's reflection. “Even the famed spymaster of the Night Court can still be surprised.”

“Famed huh?” he chuckled into her ear lightly. 

A shiver ran down her spine as she swatted at the side of his face teasingly. “Go already. You’re going to be late.” Az released his arm from her waist and straightened as smoothly as he could in the close quarters. 

“We are moving you out of here. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning," he said with irritation as his wing bumped against the door.

Celeste’s merry laugh filled the small space with sound. “Yeah, the Illyrian compliant apartments were a bit out of my price range,” she jested.

With Az still taking up the doorway it was impossible to turn around to face him. Celeste instead caught his attention in the mirror, “Az,” she paused as his eyes met her reflection. “I love you.”

She saw muscles of his face relax and soften from the usually neutral expression as a sweet smile spread, reaching his eyes with a crinkle. “I love you too, Celeste.”

Taglist - @mybestfriendmademe @lilah-asteria

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Idk if you already discussed this but how do you feel about Adrinette being canon when there wasn‘t a reveal yet? Because I think the show just took all the exciting aspects of the love square away by making one side canon and the others strictly platonic.

Sure, they‘re cute and whatnot, but I don‘t think they‘re exactly interesting without the identity shenanigans and stuff? Especially because (to me at least) Adrinette always felt like the weakest side. It‘s a school crush romcom type of love, which is great and all, but like…. You have superheroes in your show?? Hello??? Why not combine the two elements more effectively???The others are either badass superhero couple (I loved the Ladynoir dynamic in the movie for example) or one superhero hangs out with the civilian and they bond. That‘s literally all of fanon Marichat, and I personally think it works with Ladrien too. There‘s different aspects of those relationships that can be explored and create problems that they have to overcome (like the power imbalance with the civilian x hero ships, how do you handle that while dating?)

I wish the writers would use the square more effectively

I'm not against pre-reveal dating, but I agree that Adrienette is the worst side to chose from a story telling perspective because - as you so rightly pointed out - it's arguably the side with the least identity shenanigans and the side that has the least ties to the superhero stuff that's supposed to be the show's main focus. Adrienette is the side you chose if you're focusing on civilian drama which, to be fair, was season five's main focus even though Gabriel had stolen the miraculous and we were all expecting that complication to be the focus of the season five plot.

Instead the focus was "will Marinette ever have the courage to say a kind word to Adrien's face instead of just telling others how much she loves him even though she knows that he explicitly returns her feelings, making this plot kind painful on every level" which was... a choice.... Five seasons and we're still doing this shit? Really?

This may mean that the writer's plan in season six is to continue to focus on civilian drama or it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing. Who knows? I have no idea how they're going to handle civilian dating plus secret identities for long since the writers chose the only side of the square where running off to fight akumas isn't a given thing that the couple-in-question knows will happen. My best guess is that the writers will probably just avoid putting Adrienette in the type of situations Adrigami and Lukanette were put in, I guess?

No matter how they handle it, I don't expect major identity shenanigans because the show has never done much with identity shenanigans probably because quality identity shenanigans require you to be able to draw out plots over multiple episodes and then resolve those plots. This show cannot have that kind of plot progression given it's formulaic nature and the "there must always be a secret between Adrien and Marinette" rule, thus the identity shenanigans being so limited.

This means that the side best suited to the show's writing is probably Ladynoir. Still room for the minor identity shenanigans that the show limits itself to, baked-in-yet-low-stakes tension from having to keep the relationship a complete secret, and a much more logical result of the writing in the first four seasons. While Adrien is far from perfect and has issues to rival Marinette's, his crush always felt like the stronger one given that he actually spent time with Ladybug and had a true relationship with her.

Marinette, on the other hand, barely talked to Adrien because the show literally has a rule that she can never successfully confess her crush, so they needed to keep her and Adrien from becoming close to make those continued failed confessions somewhat plausible. Given all that, it's hard for me to buy that Adrien's crush flipped to this girl that he barely knows. Meanwhile Ladybug's crush flipping had a pretty strong setup given that Chat Noir has been her loyal support in her darkest hours.

But that's not what they went with! Instead of having the secret be the low-stakes identities secret, the secret between them is, "Your father was a super villain whose minions killed you on multiple occasions and whose death you were arguably involved with. While were on the topic of your messed up family, you're an artificial being whose creation killed you mother. Oh, and we're also hero partners, which feels like a minor thing compared to all of that, but we might as well mention that, too."

...choice were made folks. Choices were made. This is so not how you write a formula show! You never go this serious!

Since you mentioned the Civilian/hero pairings, let's talk about those both to end on a lighter note and because that's where my personal favorite lies as I am here for identity shenanigans. That's right, folks, I am once again here to sell you on my Ladrien supremacy agenda.

While I have nothing against Marichat, it is not a good fit for canon. It's simply too limiting because Marinette is not a celebrity. There's a reason that of Marinette's canon hangouts with Chat Noir (and almost all Marichat fics) start on her balcony. That's really the only place they can meet up without drawing attention, which should be a major concern for them.

I physically cringed when the show had them go to the movies and on an ice cream date because Chat Noir was being so irresponsible! He cannot be shown to have a close relationship with a civilian, which is the excuse he should have given at the end Elation since that the episode included Gabriel discovering their relationship. The excuse Chat Noir actually gave feels pretty dismissive of his canon relationship with Marinette. She has canonically spent more time talking to Chat Noir then she's spent talking to Adrien and the same actually goes for the amount of time Ladynoir spends talking about non-hero things, so this feels off:

Cat Noir: I’m sorry about what happened, Marinette. You’re right, you have the right to love anyone you want. Even a superhero. But it’s easy for a person to mistake idolization of a superhero for love. So, even if I like this person very much, I could be taking advantage of the situation, and I just can’t do that. It would be wrong.

Evil Illustrator, their heartfelt talk in Glaciator, the movie date in Glaciator 2, and a bunch of other little moments add up to somehow make Marichat the deepest side of the square, which is painfully bad writing given how little screen time this side gets, but it's still what canon gave us. Marinette is not just a fan who only knows him from a distance. They are friends and even occasional teammates. The only reason this pairing doesn't work in canon is because there's nowhere for the relationship to go until a partial or total reveal happens.

Prior to that, it's just these two hanging out on her balcony or maybe going on secret dates around the city. Cute, but not suited to a silly superhero romcom aimed at kids where every story needs to be told in about 20 minutes. It's best left to long form fan content that is allowed to be more about drama and romance than the actual show and also a little more spicy than the actual show because - let's be real here - those rooftop dates would not just be talking. I don't know how you'd write this pairing in a way that's both genuine and well suited to the intended audience. It's simply way more suited to a teen drama than a kid's show.

Ladrien, on the other hand, could work if canon wanted to go there. I don't think it would be a good fit for more than a season*, so Ladynoir is still the better pick for canon's format, but Ladrien could be a nice bit of pre-reveal padding to draw out the reveal and add some fun comedy if the show were allowed to have a reveal.

Because Ladybug and Adrien are both celebrities, you can have them interact in diverse settings without anyone thinking twice. This allows for a good amount of hijinks where Ladybug is trying to protect her boyfriend at public events without revealing their relationship while Adrien is trying to get her to let him run off and transform.

You can also do things like the public seeing them together, thinking they're a couple, and having them both deny it because they aren't, leading to Ladynoir comedy where Ladybug cries because she wishes they were and Chat Noir is like, "Wait, what? You what? ...My Lady, as your loyal partner who is here to support you in all things, I will get you your man even if it kills me!" The thinking-they're-a-couple thing could also be solved via Ladynoir by Ladynoir going public while Adrien remains "single". There's just a lot of potential for the show's style of absurdist humor here.

*Ladrien does eventually fall into the same issues as Marichat where it feels like the reveal needs to happen otherwise you're just repeating the same plots or going too spicy for a kids show via bedroom-based meetups, thus me saying that it's only good for about a season. There's also the problem that Akuma fights and supervillains are endless fodder for Ladynoir issues, but the only issue Ladrien could possibly address is Gabriel and Marichat's got nothing save for maybe Lila? So if you don't want to let a reveal happen, Ladynoir really is the best pick by far. Adrienette can work, but it's way less fun since they have to keep all these secrets while Ladynoir really only has one major secret or, at least, Ladynoir should only have one major secret (the identities). Canon has really dropped the ball on this one.

Now that I've written all this out, maybe the spicy issue is why canon went Adrienette? It's a lot easier to limit their alone time than it is to limit the alone time of any other side. I maintain that you could get away with it in pre-reveal Ladynoir by just ignoring the issue and giving them things to fight any time they try to have a date. You could also end episodes on them starting their date, leaving everything to the imagination but also keeping the setting relatively public (rooftops and the like) unlike the civilian/hero sides whose dates are going to be way more private. I fully understand why a show aimed at 5-to-12-year-olds wouldn't want to go there. That is far more suited to the teen drama Miraculous so desperately wants to be based on the ill-suited plots the writers keep going with.

[3d-wifey]

And They'd Find Us In A Week - Chapter 3

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Reader Word Count: 5.08k Synopsis: Here! Playlist: Listen up!

Past (iii) - You

[16 & 17] - THE CAPITOL

When you were six, Eleven had a bad year for crops. Of course, the ones who felt the brunt of it were the district citizens. Your parents had given you half of their rations plus your own, but that still wasn't much and you were starving. So you snuck into the woods in hopes of finding something to eat when you saw it. A coyote stuck on its side, legs too frail to lift itself. 

It looked gaunt, ribs protruding and spine on display. You knew hunger personally enough to recognize it anywhere. But even as weak as it was, it looked at you like you were prey—growling and snapping its teeth from where it laid on its side. 

You knew it could hurt you. No matter how weak it looked, it was still stronger than you and all it would take was one bite for you to get some kind of infection. With how weak your immune system was, something like that would have killed you almost instantly. So you left it there.

As you sit in front of President Snow, you can't help but be reminded of that coyote. 

He's paler in person, face thinner up close. That doesn't make him any less imposing. You fidget in your seat and glance at the door. You know there are four Peacekeepers stationed outside, guns full of ammo. They'll shoot you down without a second thought if Snow wills it, put a bullet in your skull at the snap of his fingers. 

There are dozens of white roses around you, tucked inside vases on any available surface. Almost innocent if not for their cloying scent. It gives you a headache. You’ve never seen so many roses outside of a funeral.

When you received the letter requesting your presence, you were at a loss. The next Victory Tour wasn't for a couple of months. What business do you have in the Capitol? 

You're so concentrated on your surroundings that it surprises you when he finally starts talking. 

"Forgive me, I never personally commended you for your games. I would have done so a year ago, of course, but there were complications." His gruff voice carries in the room. Your shoulders are stiff with tension. 

Is that it? He invited you to the Capitol—to his office— to what? To salute you? Your stylist didn't have you plucked and waxed just for a pat on the back. There must be more behind this, not that you would ever call him out on that. 

He opens a drawer on his right and pulls out an intricately designed, rectangular canister. He places it in front of you, takes off the lid, and picks up a gold-wrapped piece of candy. 

"Many people don't get to relish in the luxuries of the Capitol. For example, this candy. You didn't get to have many of these growing up in Eleven, did you," he chuckles when you shake your head. He knew the answer to that question before he asked it, "No, of course not. But you're a victor now, you should indulge. Butterscotch?" He offers and it feels like bait. 

You're not sure if you can work up the nerve to say no to him, even over something as trivial as a piece of candy. You nod and he raises his eyebrow. You clear your throat, "Yes, please." 

"Good girl." He mutters approvingly, gloved fingers brushing your palm as he hands the candy to you. You barely hold back a flinch. 

He watches you unwrap the candy and place it in your mouth. It's quiet. You can feel your heartbeat in your teeth. 

"It's good, isn't it?" He asks rhetorically but doesn't continue speaking. He just stares. You can't tell if he wants you to answer or not. And when you finally open your mouth to say something, he cuts you off.

"There's something on your mind. Say it." 

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I—I just didn't think my games were impressive enough to garner your attention." You barely did anything worth a spectacle. Your games might have been entertaining, but you're no Finnick Odair. 

“Now, let's be honest with each other. You're thinking, ‘Surely, he didn't invite me here just to congratulate me’, yes?” He smiles with an encouraging nod, almost like a schoolteacher. Are you that easy to read? First Finnick, now him.

You nod, unsure if any noise that comes out of your mouth will be intelligible. 

"You're quite clever for someone of your background. That's why people love you so much. And it's that love that brings you here today. The people want more of you." 

"I didn't know I was so popular." You naively thought the hype surrounding you and your games would die off with the entrance of a new victor. Will you be interviewed by Caesar? Doing another photoshoot for Capitol Couture? 

“I want to explain something to you, my dear, in a way you’ll understand. Imagine a wolf wanders onto your farm—you know what a wolf is, yes? This wolf hasn’t killed any of your cattle, but it has the potential to. Now, you could always get rid of the wolf, kill it, but that’s only a temporary solution. There will always be other wolves.” He scolds you as if you were the one to suggest it and not him. “Why go through the effort of killing it, when you can tame it—give the wolf a bone, so to speak. You earn its loyalty and it protects the cattle from other predators.” You aren’t sure you really follow what he’s trying to say. Are you the wolf? The cattle? You certainly don’t own the farm.

"In the past, I’ve always resorted to getting rid of my wolves. But I’ve found it’s easier to domesticate them. I'll be completely transparent with you as I want no misunderstandings between us. I am in the business of making wolves happy. And something that'll make them very happy is you," your knees ache with how hard you're gripping them, "not even the most blue-blooded citizens can fight the allure of spending a night with a victor. Especially one as captivating as yourself." 

You stare at each other. Your eyes stunned, his apathetic. You’re able to decipher his needlessly complicated metaphor and you wish he was talking about actual wolves. You’d rather take your chances with the predators in the woods than the ones in the Capitol.

“I...I'm sorry, I don't understand. If this is a money thing—” 

"No, I don't do this for money. Although there is a substantial fee involved, the people who are pushing for this are my key endorsers. You provide this service for them and I ensure their loyalty. Wolf, meet bone." 

You shake your head, suddenly nauseous. "Why would I agree to that?" 

"Why? Do you not care about your mother? What of Seeder and her poor children," he asks, tsking at your confusion. "Eleven is our most populated district. It can stand to lose a few people." You hear the threat he's not saying and throwing up becomes a very, very real possibility. 

You say nothing, swallowing around fear and vomit. He leans back in his chair, probably sickly satisfied at how subdued he’s got you.

You've never hated anyone as much as you hate the man before you. Not the peacekeeper that executed your father, or the Crop Overseer that made it her mission to touch as many of the young farmhands as she could. He's going to whore you out to the highest bidder. No, he's giving your body away like a party favor. 

He steeples his fingers. "There's a party tonight. I can expect to see you there, hmm?" 

You nod slowly before remembering what he wants. "Yes, sir." 

"Good," he releases a puff of air from his nose that you can almost count as a laugh. He slides a key card across the desk. "You will be staying at the Marquis Hotel in room 2077. There are only two people with access to the door: you and the Avox in charge of cleaning it. Unless stated otherwise, you will hold all of your appointments in this room." He's given you the top floor, you note faintly. 

"You will receive your assignments from me personally," he sits a paper card face-down in front of you. "This is the name of your client and what time you can expect them to knock on your door. Along with your room number, in case it slips your mind." You pick both cards off the desk, almost expecting them to burn your fingers. But they're just objects. The only thing that can hurt you here is Snow. 

"You've been very compliant thus far. I hope it's a trait you continue to possess in the future." The sound of his leather gloves squeaking against each other draws your attention for a beat. It's a welcome distraction from the blood rushing in your ears. "Now, there's something important I must ask you." 

You look up at him, shaking where you sit. You know your face is twisted into a scowl and you dig your nails into your thighs. 

What more does he want from you? He’s practically squeezing a stone, expecting blood, but can’t he see you have nothing left for him to take? But there’s something Snow knows that you haven’t considered. If you squeeze a rock hard enough, you get diamonds. Finnick finds you with your back pressed to the wall like you’re the only thing keeping it up, scowling at anyone who tries to start up a conversation with you. 

"What's got you pouting, beautiful?" He teases, approaching you with a good-natured smile. 

He leans in next to you, close enough that your bare arm brushes his satin-covered chest with every breath. He's a drink or two in, you can tell by the slant of his eyes and the flush in his cheeks. 

You contemplate it for a second. Should you tell him? You need someone to talk to, or just to listen to you and he's the closest thing you've ever had to a friend in a very long time, especially in the Capitol. That certainly means something to you. You’re so far from your natural habitat and there’s safety in numbers. Though, you guess you’ve never really left the forest, have you? The same rules apply in the Capitol as they do in the wilderness: blend into your surroundings and if a predator spots you, pray to God they lose interest.

"Can I trust you, Finnick?" You ask in place of an answer, eyes locked on the crowd. Snow never said that you had to keep your arrangement to yourself, but it didn't hurt to be safe. You want to confide in him more than anything, but you need to be sure that Finnick won't trade your secret for another. 

He straightens, sobering at your sudden seriousness. "Yeah. Yeah, of course." 

You stare at him for a moment. You've talked to Finnick a handful of times and only had two meaningful conversations that didn't involve either of you flirting. By all means, you shouldn't trust him. 

But you do. You really do.

You take him by the hand and pull him behind you, dodging socialites left and right, to a narrow corridor that nobody frequents. There are too many ears out there and the only people that walk down this hall are Avoxes. And it's not like they can tell anyone what they hear. 

You stand across from each other, so close that your heels touch his boots when he leans against the wall. You open your mouth, hesitate, and close it. 

Finnick pushes off the wall to touch your shoulder, leaning down to try to catch your eye. "What happened?" 

You keep your gaze down; you don't know if you can stomach the look he'll give you when you tell him. 

“Snow…” You trail off, losing steam fast. Finnick stiffens, his grip on your shoulder as tight as a corpse’s.

“What did Snow do?”

You launch into your explanation, starting with the letter you received and ending with the last question Snow asked you. 

"And, when I agreed, he asked me if…if I was still a virgin. Apparently, there's a high demand for my first time." You pick at the skin around your nails, a habit your prep team admonished you for. Nothing pretty about bleeding, peeling fingers. 

You bite the bullet and look up. His sea-green eyes are rocky and there's a grimace on his face. An angry tilt to his mouth, but that's it. No shock, no disgust, none of the emotions that this kind of revelation warrants. You take in his stance. He's tense, but he's not surprised. Almost as if he expected this.

"Finnick, are you...?" Your voice peters out lamely, unable to put words to what Snow is making you do, what you suspect he's been making Finnick do. 

He rocks on his heels and lets out a slow puff of air from his nose. "Since I won my games." 

You shake your head. That can't be right. "You were only fourteen." 

"Only a select few in Snow's private circle could indulge in my services at first. But once I hit sixteen," he shrugs with a mean smile, "I was fair game." Of course. You had thought Finnick was handsome when he first won, in that passing way thirteen-year-olds often thought of others. Obviously, it was a shared consensus. 

And Snow had said that he planned on speaking to you sooner—when you were younger. Stupid of you to think that he was swayed by something as trivial as morals. 

"Who else is he forcing to do this?" 

"You, me, and any other attractive victor with something to lose." The sleeves of his white blouse rub together as he crosses his arms, a sneer stretched on his pretty face. You're quiet. You think of Seeder. You think of Chaff and Haymitch. Cashmere and Gloss. You think of fourteen-year-old Finnick. You think of them in the same chair you were in, guns at their back and faced with an impossible task. 

Were they as scared as you? 

"I had thought...I thought that he wouldn't ask you," he looks at you with a gleam in his eyes that you recognize. It's the same one he had during that first dance. But you can distinguish it now because you feel it; he looks haunted, "Usually, he'd spring it on you as soon as you win, but he didn't with you, so I thought—I hoped …" He cuts himself off, staring over your shoulder. He bites his lip so hard you know it has to hurt. 

You reach forward, using your thumb to pull his lip away from his teeth. He looks between your eyes for a second and you drop your hand. "Hoped what, Finnick?" 

He clenches and unclenches his jaw. "I hoped you were safe." That's...you don't know what that is. Your heart is beating so fast you can feel it knocking against your ribcage. You lean your head back with a sigh. You close your eyes and resist the urge to rub at your chest. That's not supposed to happen. This isn't supposed to happen. 

"It almost sounds like you care about me." You joke, voice wavering. You can't do this right now. 

"I do," his arms drop beside him with another shrug, "I care about you." He says plainly, eyes locked on you. Evidently, he's not one to beat around the bush and, usually, you aren’t either. You don't say anything. Speechless is probably a better word for it. And then, he continues on like what he said isn't a revelation within itself. 

"Snow says it's to ensure loyalty, and maybe that's true, but it's not the only reason. His goal, above all else, is to further drive the wedge between victors and the Capitol," he says, an echo of your first conversation. "We're not human, not to them. He made sure of that." 

Neither of you talks, the silence heavy with the truth of that statement. You're well informed now, and you aren't alone in your imprisonment to Snow. You aren't sure what to do with that. It certainly doesn't make you feel better, and it doesn't change the fact that you only have two hours and forty minutes before your appointment. 

Finnick must be able to feel the anxiety wafting off you in waves because he grabs your hand and…pinches the skin between your thumb and forefinger? "What the hell are you doing?" You half-heartedly tug at his grip, more out of reflex than anything else, but he holds on tight. 

"It's a pressure point. You squeeze it when you're stressed or anxious—a trick I learned from Mags." He slides his thumb down to where the bone of your pointer finger meets your thumb and presses down. You both stand like that for at least ten seconds. 

"...It hurts." 

"It's supposed to," he laughs, soft lips pulled into a grin. "The pain, it's supposed to be distracting." It's definitely uncomfortable, but the only thing you're distracted by is his touch. You don't know if it's some kind of placebo effect or if this pressure point shit actually has some validity, but your heart doesn't feel like it'll beat through your ribs anymore. 

Or, the third option. It has nothing to do with the pressure point and everything to do with the man in front of you. This close, his scent engulfs you. Saltwater and something sweet buried under it, a smell you're sure will still be caught in your nose long after you go home. 

He digs in a pocket of his billowy pants and places a card in your hand. 

"Here," it's the same as the one Snow gave you. The only difference is the name, the time, and the room number. 2064, "It's one of my regulars, so I don't need it." He states in such a nonchalant manner, it almost sounds normal to you. 

"Regulars?" You frown before you can catch yourself. A seventeen-year-old shouldn't have regulars. 

"Don't make that face. I don't need your pity. We're in the same boat, remember?" He asks, but it's one of those rhetorical questions that only have one answer. 

"Right." At this point, the waves have capsized your boat. You're drowning, water filling your lungs, but at least you're drowning together. 

"Look, he puts us all on the same floor." He's still holding your hand with both of his. Like it's something delicate, something worth being gentle with. Like it hasn't taken lives. "If you need me, you know where to find me." He offers with a tender squeeze of your hand. And, despite yourself, you believe him. If you need him, Finnick will be there. 

A thought that's just as comforting as it is terrifying. He removes one of his hands from yours and thrusts it forward—correction, one of his pinkies forward in a gesture similar to the one you did months before. You only hesitate for a second before locking yours with his. 

A silent promise.

“Any advice?”

“Advice,” he laughs, short and brittle. “Yeah. Just…breathe and endure. It’s all any of us can really do.” His voice is angry, but his eyes are mournful. That’s definitely not the kind of advice you wanted to hear and you can tell it’s obviously not the kind he wants to give. But what were you expecting, some kind of miracle cure? That’s not the way this works. 

You could always just… disappear. If not physically, then mentally. A trick you picked up in Eleven when the grueling work days got especially long and—Finnick’s pinky is still locked with yours, you hadn’t even registered it. He doesn’t seem too nonplussed about the prolonged contact, quite the opposite, actually.

And, well, it's not like you're complaining.

Present (III) - Finnick

[23 & 24] - DISTRICT FOUR

The escort for District Four, Freesia Ashwind, stands before a rowdy crowd. Most, if not all, of the citizens, are excited to see who will represent them in the Games. 

It makes him sick. 

Finnick stares at the back of her magenta head and cracks his fingers behind him. 

When Finnick was younger, he hated her. Out of all the names she could have picked, all the lives she could have ruined, she picked his. She inadvertently had a hand in the years of suffering he endured. And when he was fourteen, alone and hurting, blaming Snow wasn't enough. 

It's different now. He's older and wiser, and he does still hate her, but no more than he hates every other Capitol. He tunes her out and tries to remember if he's had sex with her. 

After preaching the same spiel she's said every year, she finally says something of substance. 

"Now, normally, it's ladies first. However, since it's such a special occasion, how about we switch it up a bit?" The crowd roars, exhilarated, hanging on to her every word. He's sure she could recite the entire history of Panem and they'd cheer. District Four doesn't suck from the teat of the Capitol like One and Two do, but it's still a wealthy, Career district. 

She approaches the bowl on her right instead of her left. 

He stands alone as the sole male victor. There used to be three others, but they either drowned in their liquor or overdosed on their Morphling. Despite that, she makes a show of it. Swirling her hand around the empty bowl until she plucks the only paper out with a gasp, exaggerated in nature as most people of the Capitol are. 

"Finnick Odair!” He doesn’t know what he was expecting. There—there was no other outcome. Still, he goes cold, heart growing heavy with reality sinking into it. 

Finnick is a good actor. Maybe not the best, but he's certainly up there. Not many people could see through his veneer. It's fragile, cracks and instability on display to anyone who truly knows him—and even then, that's only three people. 

Two of them stand beside him now, waiting to see where the sword will fall. And the other…

Finnick waves to the cheering crowd with a closed-mouth smile. 

The other is lost to him. 

He plays up his enthusiasm, winking and waving. He dons the mask they chose for him: Golden boy of the Capitol, a born killer. Why wouldn't he be excited to get back in the ring? A couple more thoughts like that and maybe he'll start believing it. 

"Ladies next!" A hush settles over the crowd. No one is excited to see this. He glances to his left. Annie is shaking as Mags holds onto her. 

It's so quiet, Finnick can hear the tape tearing off the paper. 

"Annie Cres—” Annie is screaming before Freesia even finishes. He faces forward, biting his cheeks to shit. 

"Oh, it seems we have a volunteer!" He almost breaks his neck from turning so fast. Mags has her hand held high, gesturing to herself. 

The crowd cheers, but this time they cheer for Mags's bravery. Finnick feels like crying. 

As the cameras zoom in on them, he breaks protocol and goes to comfort her. He holds Mags close and kisses the top of her head. He's known her for most of his life and he's still surprised by her selflessness. She must know how high the deck is stacked against her. That, even with him beside her, the odds aren't in her favor. And she still volunteered. There's a reason you and her got along so well. 

He looks at Annie. Her hands are over her ears and she stares back mournfully, more lucid than she's been in years. She makes to come towards them before she's intercepted and ushered off the stage like a sheep. 

Finnick wonders who will take care of her with both of them gone. Annie may not be going into the arena, but this is just as much a death sentence for her as it is for them. 

Right about now, the reaping for Eleven should be taking place. 

Finnick knows Snow well, more than he'd ever admit. He knows, without a doubt, that he put Seeder's name in twice. 

But there's a chance that he doesn't know you as well as he thinks he does. Two years is plenty of time for a person to change. God, he hopes he's wrong about you. He hopes you've grown mean and callous, and you wouldn't even think about trading your life for someone else's. 

He hopes you're safe. 

Peacekeepers approach. Far more cordial than they'd be with the lower districts, but still gripping their guns tight. "Right this way, Mr. Odair." One of them says. He and Mags follow after him, like pampered pigs to the slaughter. 

Present (III) - You

[23 & 24 ] - DISTRICT ELEVEN  

You don't remember the walk to the stage. You've been out of it since the Quarter Quell was announced. You remember specific instances of Chaff forcing you and Seeder to train, your mother following you around like a shadow—and when you come to, it's to a sea of despondent faces. Every District Eleven resident, young and old, stands before you. 

Argon Wellway is the same announcer Eleven has had for the past five years. His neon purple hair remains stiff despite the breeze. You've always loved purple. It's an odd dichotomy to see something you love on something you hate. 

He steps to the mic, enthusiastic and jaunty despite the dour reception he receives from his audience.

"Hello, District Eleven! Are we excited for the Quarter Quell," he pauses with a wide smile, every tooth on display. The crowd stays silent, "Well, I certainly am. And so is everyone in the Capitol!" 

He steps back, attitude impervious to everyone around him. "Now, for the men!" 

You pity Chaff. He stands by himself on the left, bearing the weight of being the only male victor of Eleven. He never had a chance. 

Argon approaches the bowl on the left like a magician, showy with big movements. He pulls the card out and stands by the mic. "Chaff Mitchell!" 

Chaff doesn't move from where he stands, there's no point. 

Seeder takes your hand and you squeeze back with numb fingers. You don't know where her kids are, the mass of people too big to pick out three children, but you look for them nonetheless. You wonder what they're feeling. You wonder what you’re feeling.

"On to the female victors. This one is especially exciting, a fifty-fifty chance!" There's not a wrinkle on his face as he smiles, skin too tight with Botox. It makes him look inhuman, fitting. 

"Which one, which one," his fingers dance between the two cards inside the bowl, going back and forth like it was a guessing game and not someone's life on the line. He goes on like that longer than needed before deciding, "Aha! This one." 

He steps back to the mic, tearing the tape off the back of the paper before announcing, "Seeder Howell!"

She is quiet, face twisted in an attempt to keep back tears. Her grip is crushing as if she's scared they will drag her away. And you move without putting much thought into the decision. 

You raise your free hand and say, "I volunteer." You don't yell it, you don't need to. 

Your mother lets out a shrill, throat-shredding scream, her voice only elevated by the silence surrounding it. This will be the last thing you hear from her.

Seeder holds on to your hand as you step forward, grip tight. There are tears in her eyes, lips trembling around words she doesn't have the strength to say. 

"I know," And you do. As a mother, she's grateful, but as your mentor—well, "Let me do this for you." You say, but it isn't a request. You're going back into the arena whether she gives you her blessing or not. You can admit your reasons for volunteering aren't entirely selfless. You're going up against seasoned fighters, all prepared to do what it takes to survive. 

But—you don't have to win. No one expects you to win and that...that thought is relieving. You aren't planning on rolling over in the arena and letting someone get a free kill, but this is something Snow won't be able to work around. No matter how hard he tries, he can't manipulate the outcome of the games. And he'll have no one to blame but himself, no one to punish. It's cowardice, in a way, but you're tired. And you think you've been tired for a long time now. You'd be stupid not to take this ticket out. 

Most eyes pity you. You're essentially volunteering yourself to put your head under the executioner's sword. However, some eyes envy you. You're leaving Eleven. For good. For many of the citizens, death is a small price to pay for freedom. But there’s something else, something everyone in the crowd shares. There’s anger, a righteous fury in every face you see. 

Is this the view your dad had? Are these the faces he saw before he was lynched?

You spot your mom a few rows back, someone holding her up. She's inconsolable. You take a moment to look at her for the last time. After you die, they'll make her move out of your house, but you know without asking that Seeder will take care of her. 

"This is certainly a surprise! Very exciting," Argon grabs the stump of Chaff's right arm and the wrist of your left, lifting them into the air, "We have our tributes!" 

No one claps. You don't expect them to. 

Things move pretty quickly after that. You're given no time to say goodbye. No time to try and run. 

Peacekeepers approach and the hands that grab you are rough with their treatment, dragging you and Chaff in the direction of the train. 

There'll be many victors facing the guillotine, many of your friends forced into a death march.

You look to the sky, a quick glance before you're ushered to the train. It's a sunny day with plump white clouds on a baby blue backdrop. It might be the last time you see the real sky as a free woman. Calm and beautiful despite the carnage happening under it. 

You close your eyes for a moment and think. For the first time in almost two years, you'll see Finnick.

[fablesrose]

Ch 10 - The Two Live Crew Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist 

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: Stealing a family painting back for the client becomes more complicated when a competing crew comes to town.

Words: 3273

A/n: I wanted to get this out earlier, but here it is. I hope you like it!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was supposed to be a simple job. Stealing a stolen painting, giving it back to the rightful owners. But no, not only did someone beat us to the punch, but delivered a bomb to Sophie’s apartment. Now I stood here next to Nate at Sophie’s funeral. Though she was being buried under a different name. After Eliot, Parker, and Hardison all spoke, Nate went and closed the casket, giving it a soft pat as the pallbearers took it away towards the grave. 

I watched the curtain under the table where the casket sat, to see if it ruffled. It did as Sophie looked out quickly, gave me a wink and snuck out the other side where no one would see her. 

Faking someone’s death was surprisingly fun, especially when trying to find her potential killer. The four of us left, leaving Nate (and Sophie in a disguise) to keep scanning the mourners to see if one of them had any potential red flags of being her supposed killer. Only one man fit the bill. 

Sophie started the slides once we got back to Nate’s apartment, “Marcus Starke, brilliant grifter, even better forger.”

We all gathered around the living room to hear Sophie explain who this guy was. Parker sat next to Sophie, staring at her curiously.

“It’s like you’re haunting us.”

“Parker, I’m not really dead,” Sophie said. Parker poked her testingly. “I’m not dead!”

Parker replied with an unconvinced ‘okay’ before leaving her alone. 

“We used to work together,” Sophie continued about this Starke fella. “We did the Copenhagen job of ‘97, the Berlin Polytech job of ‘98, and, Nate,” she turned to him specifically, “remember that great run in Moscow?”

“‘That great run?’” he repeated, “I chased ya for three months.”

“Well, technically, you chased us,” she replied, “sorry.”

“Are you saying that you saw other teams before us?” Hardison asked.

“Really just another Nate, before Nate,” Parker rebutted. 

“Let me ask you a question,” Eliot said to Nate, “what bugs you more, is it the fact that he was with Sophie first or that he outsmarted ya?”

There were a few beats of uncomfortable silence before Nate expressionlessly said, “Moving on,” in a gravelly voice that showed he was very much bothered. 

“Ouch,” I whispered, of which Eliot replied with a smug huff. 

“Um, Starke doesn’t keep a permanent crew” Sophie continued, “He specializes in whiz mobs. He puts a team together, they slam into town on one high-profile job, and then they scatter. But usually they do one sm-” she paused as recognition spread across her face, “they do one smaller job first just to work out the kinks in the team.”

“Like our client’s painting, for example?” Nate asked. 

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Sophie said, mostly to herself, “Starke must have seen me, and now that I’m one of the good guys, and decided to get rid of me because… why?” She continued to think out loud, “because… I know his scams. Because… I know his favorite scam: the Mona Lisa variant.”

“Ooo!” Parker clapped a couple of times, “that was the first one I learned! In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen, and the conman who did it made six identical copies.”

“And then they put it on the black market, and each buyer thought that they had the original,” Nate finished. 

“So the dude sold the same painting six times,” Hardison said. 

“Seven,” I corrected, “depending on what he did with the original… the six copies plus the original, right?”

Nate nodded at me in agreement, but a bit distractedly. I glanced at Hardison to see he was agreeing, but a little embarrassed. 

“Not that that particular detail matters right now,” I added, motioning for them to continue.

“Hardison, pull up all the auctions in Boston in the next two days,” Sophie instructed, tossing him the remote. “Starke never stays in a city more than two days,” she explained. 

“Wait a minute, not museums?” Eliot asked. 

“No, no,” Nate answered, “Starke likes to use auctions to figure out who wants the painting. He picks who he’s gonna sell the fakes to.”

“That bit was actually my part of the scam,” Sophie said. “I made that up, it’s good isn’t it?”

“That’s still a lot of paintings,” Eliot said. 

“Yeah, it’s high profile,” Nate agreed. “A scam like this requires a lot of publicity, paintings ten million dollars or more.” 

“He does all his own forgeries,” Sophie said, “post impressionists, late 1800s.”

The screen showed all of the paintings available at auctions in the allotted time frame and slowly disappeared as they were eliminated on the given criteria just given by Nate and Sophie until there was only a couple left. 

“There,” Sophie pointed at one in particular, “That’s it. Van Gogh. He has a soft spot for Van Gogh.” 

The painting was a street scene, focussing on what seemed to be a restaurant or cafe with outdoor seating. I could tell that it was Van Gogh from the painting style once Sophie mentioned it. It was a quiet scene, peaceful, but the bright colors gave it life and energy. I could see the appeal to it. 

“So we just– we call the cops,” Hardison concluded. 

“Why is that the first thing you thought of, considering what we do,” I asked. I then said to myself, “I thought I was becoming part of the team, because that was not my first thought.”

“No,” Sophie said to Hardison, backing me up a bit. “If Starke goes down for this, there’s no guarantee we can get that painting back for the Mercers. He even smells the police, he’s gonna run, and we’ll get nowhere near it.”

“He did try to kill you, Sophie,” Nate reminded her. 

“We risk our lives all the time,” Sophie said quietly. “No,” She continued more resolutely, “We need to barter. We need something to trade for the Mercers’ painting.”

“Such as?” Hardison asked. 

Sophie looked back at the screen that showed the Van Gogh painting, “That. That’s what he’s come for. That’s what he wants.”

Nate turned to us, “We just gotta get there first.”

I turned to the rest of the team, “I feel a bit over my head on this one.”

Parker turned to me with a puzzled look, “What do you mean? You help us steal things all the time now. This is no different.”

“This is totally different, I mean, we’ve had time crunches before but this is a race. Against other professionals. I have learned a bit here and there, but not enough to be an asset against professionals,” I emphasized.

Nate shook his head, “Nah, you’ll be fine. We’ll find something for you to do. Come on, let’s go.” He walked away and everyone started to file out after him. I sat there watching them for a moment before following with a shake of my head. This will be interesting. 

There were people milling about the high end auction place, looking at the paintings on display. It was a relatively relaxed atmosphere, with servers handing out flutes of what seemed to be white wine, but I didn’t know enough about alcohol to pay much attention and I declined when one was offered to me. I wanted to stay particularly sharp in case we ran into trouble. 

We all had our assigned roles, with me acting more like a floater. Nate was obviously doing his point thing, making sure everyone was on task and being the brains of the operation, Parker acting like a server to swipe security credentials from the auction house manager, Hardison on computers and cams, with Eliot and I doing other general recon. Sophie was stuck in the van with Hardison, at least she felt like she was stuck. We had to keep her behind the curtain so to speak with her supposed to be dead and all. 

Eliot leisurely sipped on a glass next to me, surveying the room. With his hair pulled back with a beanie and his glasses, he looked comfortable. I could tell he was on alert, his eyes always peeled, but confident. I couldn’t help but admire him out of the corner of my eye until Hardison gave a direction.

“Eliot, check out the back corridor. I think I see an access point.”

Eliot looked at me and nodded his head in that direction, silently asking if I would come along. I nodded and followed him. It wasn’t long before there was some static in the comms with a voice I didn’t recognize coming through. Hardison argued with the voice, talking about baby monitor frequency and hacker whatnot. 

“Hardison, what is going on?” I asked, still following Eliot.

The voice responded before Hardison, “Ooooh, now who is the owner of that delectable voice?”

The voice was so… greasy that I reflexively gagged, silently, luckily.

Still, Eliot caught my response and growled into comms, “Who are you?”

“Nuh uh, we are stopping that right there,” Hardison answered. “Switching to backup comm frequencies. Eliot, they’re here, they’re here!”

“What are you talking about?” He asked as we turned a corner. At the end of the hall, an absolutely bombshell of a beautiful woman suddenly stopped as we spotted each other. She had a hand to her ear which she was talking to, which clued me in that she was part of the other crew. Eliot saw it too and quickly but gently pushed me back behind the corner as he analyzed the threat. I was in a position where I was relatively out of sight, but could watch both parties. 

I simultaneously listened on comms to Nate trying to figure out what was going on when Starke approached, striking up conversation, clearly already knowing who he was. I listened as it seemed the crew members paired off with their rival counterparts, battling it out in their respective fields. At least, I assumed that was what was happening in front of me as Eliot and this chick shifted between different combat stances. When each of them changed their form, the other seemed to flinch, leading to the conclusion that this was a more psychological battle. 

There was a look in Eliot’s eyes that I wasn’t sure I liked, particularly looking at this unfamiliar woman. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and I didn’t want to explore the feeling any longer, so I turned away from them to go search for that access point Hardison mentioned. I thought I found it when I heard the manager ask everyone to leave. I worked my way back to where I left Eliot to find that Nate beat me there to grab him.

“Done giving her bedroom eyes?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light and teasing, but I was sure there was a different undertone present.

The laugh he had on the tip of his tongue from the interaction (or lack thereof) seemed to fall, and he gave me a light scoff and eyeroll, “Whatever, y/n.”

I raised my hands defensively as we exited the auction house, “Just calling it as I see it.” I walked ahead of him, passing Nate to load into the van, claiming the passenger seat for myself on the ride back. 

Coming back to Nate’s apartment to debrief a bit, Nate had a new fire and determination about him. It seemed like Starke pissed him off a bit.We reviewed the other members of the team with Parker and Hardison mirroring Nate’s annoyance for their own rivals. Parker was up against a thief named Apollo and Hardison against a hacker who goes by Chaos. 

“Was that who I was hearing on comms? He sounded greasy, gross,” I commented.

Hardison laughed once, “Well he is, and unfortunately very much knows what he’s doing.”

 Eliot, on the other hand, seemed to admire the girl, Mikel, and her reputation. She sounded very skilled and very scary. 

Once the opposing team members were established in the debrief, Nate was scrambling through papers and information. Trying to retain as much as possible. 

Eliot turned towards Sophie, “How’s this gonna play out?”

“He’s been challenged, okay?” She answered. “His pride is hurt. His… his ego’s at stake. He’s gonna… he’s gonna come up with a bigger, riskier plan than…”

“You talkin’ about Nate?” Eliot asked.

“Nate, yeah,” Sophie agreed, though a little distractedly. 

Eliot looked towards me and I hesitantly nodded in agreement as well. I didn’t know this side of Nate as well as Sophie, but the more I watched as Nate became more frustrated, she was right. I knew Nate was competitive, he’s been like that as long as I could remember, but in this environment, with the constant undertone of at least a little bit of danger, it seems to be on a whole new level. 

“There’s no way. There’s no way this crew is gonna get to that painting before we do. No way,” Nate repeated, determined. 

“We’re not giving up on our only hope of helping the Mercers,” Sophie added. “They’ve waited their entire lives for justice and we are not gonna fail them now.”

“Yeah, yeah. That. sure. Yeah,” Nate haphazardly agreed. “But I mean, who does this guy think he is?”

I looked at the team cautiously, and it looked like we were all on edge. This might be becoming personal.

“We know their MO, their strengths, their weaknesses,” Nate continued. 

“No, no, no,” Hardison interjected. “I have noticed a distinct lack of weaknesses.”

“We know their target,” Nate reassured, “even better, we know their timeline. That painting is going up for auction tomorrow, and it gets sold, it walks out that door. That means they have to hit it tonight. We gotta go in hot. In and out before they even…”

“Tripled security since today,” Eliot reminded him. 

“We barely had time to check out the cameras, the motion sensors,” Parker added. 

“Whatever happens, one way or another, we are walking out of that auction house tonight with that painting,” Nate finished, “No matter what.”

There was a beat of silence, tension clearly hanging in the air. 

“You got it?” He asked.

We all nodded and voiced the affirmative. 

“Now, let’s go steal ourselves a masterpiece.”

 Before I knew it, it was go time. I graciously took a minor role with how technical this plan was, leaving Hardison, Parker, and Eliot to their specific niche. Nate was the main distraction to have Eliot and Parker sneak in, but I was there hanging in the background in case more attention needed to be drawn. 

It didn’t take long for Parker and Eliot to run into their rival counterparts and for Hardison to get in a hacking battle with Chaos, stealing security capabilities from each other. Nate was holding the attention of the guards pretty well, but he started to lose them after the motion sensors went off. I was about to step in when none other than Starke stepped up to aid in the distraction, posing as Nathan Ford, with the insurance company. 

That might have been as bold of a move as any. 

Starke led Nate away from the gates towards the park where I was hiding out. This was when we were put on our back foot. Parker was stuck with the lasers that Chaos turned on after he locked Hardison out of security. It sounded like Eliot was still fighting Mikel. 

“What do you want me to do, Nate?” I asked him through comms, staying hidden. I watched as he glanced at Starke and the time on his watch. 

“Come on out, I’m still thinking.”

I approached the pair and watched as Starke spotted me, a curious expression crossing his face. 

“Ahh, see,” Starke turned back to Nate, pointing at him, “we found information and learned about your whole crew,” he turned back to me, “with the exception of you.”

“Let’s keep it that way, shall we?” Nate replied, just as a police car pulled up to the auction house, lights and sirens blazing. 

“You all out of tricks, Nate?” Starke asked.

“Oh, I think he has one more,” Sophie called as she stepped out of the driver's seat of the police cruiser. 

“Sophie?” Starke asked, surprised. 

“Oooh!”

“You’re not-”

“Dead? Yes.” She stepped up beside Nate and I.

“You went through all this just to set me up?”

“Uh-uh. No. We went through all of this to save you,” Sophie corrected. 

“Now, Hardison,” Nate spoke smugly. 

I smiled as I heard Hardison get himself up and running again, activating the alarms as planned. Parker was acting as a police officer inside and ‘arresting’ the other thief and grabbing the painting; Eliot was ‘arresting’ Mikel. Hardison went in as a third officer to smooth things over with the guards. We as a group watched as they all walked out of the front door.

“This is saving me, how?” Starke asked. 

Nate nodded at me to go and help the others get everything sorted out. I still listened as Sophie and Nate explained how Chaos was going to double cross Starke and how he was the one who tried to kill Sophie. I flinched as Starke’s car exploded down the street, catching me off guard. 

“Easy, y/n,” Hardison teased, packing up the artwork.

“Explosions happen all the time, nothing to be afraid of,” Parker commented casually as she pushed Apollo into the back of the police car, even though it was unnecessary. 

I laughed, “Well Parker, I’m not used to it yet. Explosions don’t happen on the daily for most people.”

She had a puzzled look on her face, “Huh, weird.”

 It didn’t take long for it to come to the traditional celebration of a job well done. Both teams gathered at the pub for bonding and the exchange of paintings. Parker was racing Apollo in picking locks and Eliot was exchanging scar stories with Mikel. I tried not to linger my gaze on them from where I sat at the bar and moved onto Sophie and Nate. They had made Starke hand the Mercer’s painting back to the aging couple who were overjoyed at its return. Starke was only satisfied when he received his compensation in the form of the Van Gogh painting.

We all shared a knowing smile as he left the pub. We had snuck into their home base while they were gone and had stolen his forgeries of the painting. Nate had given Starke one of the fakes, sending the rest of the paintings, including the original, to the airport under Chaos’ name. That should be sufficient evidence to frame him for forgery and theft. 

I didn’t stick around the pub for very long. It, for some reason, felt a bit disingenuous to insert myself anywhere after playing the backburner in this job. No matter how wrong I knew that feeling to be, I couldn’t quite shake it. Hardison had joined the thief table with his laptop, but was mostly admiring Parker with her determination to beat Apollo. My heart warmed with his genuineness that I could read even from a distance. 

I caught Nate’s eye from his booth where he was sitting with Sophie and nodded my head towards the stairs to signal I was heading home. Once he returned a nod in understanding, I exited the pub. I put effort into not making eye contact with anyone else to reduce the chances of being stopped. All the same, I wondered if anyone else noticed I left, or if Eliot would tear his eyes away from Mikel to see me leave. 

I didn’t even want to know.

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty133 @plasticbottleholder

[lockandkeyhyena]

ok!! all time favourite mlp fic recs GO!!

I’m limiting myself to one fic per author for this list or else it’d just be filled with mushroompone and monochromatic fics haha

anyway if you guys want specific types of fic recs, shoot me an ask!! this list is based on my personal taste which tends to lean darker/dramatic/emotional/tragic.

now, these are just the ones i have reread relatively recently and as such can give adequate descriptions of, as well as me not being a professional reviewer by any means, so you’re not going to be getting any deep analysis, i honestly just want these fics to get more attention.

side note, you’ll have to have mature content enabled for some of these fics due to darker and more explicit themes seen in some of them.

Threshold

As the rest of her friends found happiness and fulfillment, Rarity was left behind. Now, trapped in a dead-end relationship, she can feel herself slipping away in more ways than one. The return of her dear friend Rainbow Dash might mean salvation, but as the world crumbles around them the girls begin to question their place in time and in each other's lives.

CW - Abuse/A Central Abusive Relationship, Self Harm, Profanity, Narcotics, Violence, Death

Look, if you’ve followed me for any significant amount of time, you’ll know how much I adore this fic. It’s one of my all time favourite mlp fics, if not my absolute favourite. The way it explores themes of abuse and something being not quite right just absolutely makes me adore it. Having it focus on one of my favourite ships is also just a cherry on top. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because experiencing it firsthand is an amazing experience, so I’ll just say if you like ~liminal space~ vibes, you should give it a read. I will warn you again, it is an extremely intense read and delves into themes of abusive relationships, depression and things along those lines but if you feel you’re in the headspace for it? It honestly and truly changed the way I read all fiction. I have to write up a proper thought-out review of it sometime. In fact, it’s just about time for my yearly reread…

Administrative Angel

Principal Celestia always has wings in her dreams. They got her into trouble, once. She let herself believe that they meant she was an angel. Then she grew up, and learned some hard lessons about what being an angel really required. Now six magical girls have just fought a demon in front of her school. And her phantom wings are itching. Her life is turning upside down ... and she hasn't even heard about Equestria yet.

What can I say about this fic except the fact that if you have to only read one Equestria Girls fic, let it be this one. The way it explores Celestia’s character and understands her better than almost any other fanfic I’ve read has done is phenomenal. It’s a short read, so you can get through it in an hour or so and wow. As a certified Celestia lover I give this fic my stamp of approval.

Cinéma Vérité

In the shadow of Nightmare Moon's rule, the ponies of Equestria live in uneasy peace. Vinyl Scratch refuses to accept the new status quo, making seditious films in secret out of a hidden basement below the streets of Manehattan. Octavia, meanwhile, busies herself with running a successful nightclub, finding audiences for illicit screenings of Vinyl's films, and preparing for the day when they draw the wrong kind of attention. Vinyl might be willing to die for her art, but Octavia refuses to let that happen.

Do you like Vinyltavia? Do you like Nightmare Moon Wins aus? Do you like intruige, drama and tension? Then I am begging you to read this fic. Please its so good. Plus it has one of my favourite Photo Finish characterisations out there.

A Life Lived In Hundreds

It was a normal life, until Twilight Sparkle fell out of time and into her lap. Then things started getting complicated. 100 words. Fragments of a life. Each year, every year: as the years march forward, unstoppable, unceasing, Granny Smith wonders what it all adds up to.

A ship and an experimental format that i never expected to see by themselves, much less paired together, but somehow making it work. The short, punchy chapters really submerge you in the story and the constraints of the word limit contribute to some fantastic prose.

The Enchanted Library

Everypony enjoys myths and ponytales, even if they know such things aren't real. Alicorns fighting against a spirit of chaos? An ancient princess trapped in a library under a tree, waiting to be found? Quite enchanting and fantastic tales yes, but nonetheless as fictional as Daring Do and other such stories. At least, that's what Rarity used to think. She doesn't anymore.

Come on, you guys knew this was coming. If you consider yourself a Raritwi fan you have to read this fic and it’s sequel/s. The way Monochromatic manages to write such gut-punch moments right next to the sweetest Raritwi fluff you’ve read in eons is just. Chefs kiss. I know it’s a big time sink but it is absolutely worth it.

Want more fic recs that I love just as much as these but haven’t read so recently? Shoot me an ask or check out my All Time Favourites List on fimfiction!

[crissiebaby]

DiapOut: Chapter 36

DISCLAIMER: This series contains diaper usage, public humiliation, masturbation, WAM, hypermessing, crossdressing, mental regression, and other ABDL themes. I hope you enjoy!

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“MMMMMMMNNNNFFF!!!*

*RIIIIIIIIP!*

A pale, desolate expression overtook the female employee’s face as she speedily tore open the six-foot-long Betsy Wetsy box; its flimsy, cardboard walls rattled from the inside, complicating the unboxing process. Muttering obscenities under her breath, the minimum-wage worker did her best to ignore the devilish giggles encircling the box as she finally broke the outer seal.

“-ET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING THING!” shrieked an 18-year-old Zeke at the top of his lungs, panicking in place with his arms zip-tied to the pink inner box layer. Not that being bound to a dolly box kept him from thrashing back and forth. He gritted his teeth as the soupy mess in his fake, pillowy diaper spread to the front, regrettably increasing his humiliatingly noticeable arousal; the sharp point in the center of his padding was a dead giveaway. Adorning the titular Betsy Wetsy’s famously short and lusciously silky babydoll dress, there was no hiding how embarrassed he was from his sister or her large assortment of friends. He could only squint his eyes shut tightly and let their unending laughter crash upon him like a brutal tidal wave.

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“It’s the laughter I haven’t gotten over,” said Zeke, reclining atop a chaise lounge. Two months into his first year of college, and the events of the previous summer had yet to leave his traumatized brain. Ever since his sister’s birthday party at the Pretty Pretty Princess Doll Factory, he’d cut himself off from pretty much every person in his life. Not even his girlfriend made the cut, who after countless attempts at consoling him had no choice but to give up and move on. Thankfully, therapy at college was free, giving him ample opportunity to talk about his problems confidentially. “I feel so much shame.”

Lowering his notepad and pen empathetically, Zeke’s therapist, Dr. Martin Anderson, had seen his fair share of patients with deep-seated shame issues. However, never before had the root cause been something so absurdly mortifying. “The ego is a fragile thing, and I do mean in the Freudian sense. What you’ve experienced shattered your self-image to such an extent that you’re rejecting anything associated with that past image. Not intentionally, mind you. Although, now that you are aware, it’s up to you to be kinder to yourself for aspects of your mind that you can’t control,” he said, starting from a scientific standpoint before digging into the emotional aspect. Tragically, it was only his second session with Zeke so there were still a lot of question marks in the air about how to approach his mental strife.

“It’s easy for you to say I should be kind to myself but you’re not the one who can’t stop getting turned on by this shit,” said Zeke, losing his temper as memories of how arousing it felt to be bound in the life-sized doll’s infantile attire. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying.

Tapping his pen on his notepad, Dr. Anderson knew he needed to pivot if he was going to send Zeke off in 20 minutes with his head held high. “Speaking of that, you mentioned in our last session being curious about buying some adult diapers for yourself. Did you end up purchasing any?” he asked, repositioning Zeke and himself to a more positive place within the conversation while sticking to the same subject.

“I almost did but I chickened out when my roommate walked by. Plus, I still have a few medical ones left that I took from my grandpa’s place,” responded Zeke, bashfully looking away from Dr. Anderson as hues of red descended upon his face. “Maybe I should just toss them out and try to forget about all of this.”

Placing his notepad in his lap and offering Zeke a benevolent smile, Dr. Anderson could sense Zeke didn’t mean the words he was saying, even if he desperately wanted to. “That is always an option, and there’s no shame in doing so…” he said, bending to Zeke’s will. It wasn’t his job to argue with his patients, though that didn’t mean he couldn’t present an alternative, “...but if you ask me, it would be far more beneficial to find a positive outlet for these newfound desires. It doesn’t even have to be in person. The world gets smaller every day, and there are dozens of online groups filled with people who feel the same as you.” He leaned forward and gently patted Zeke’s shoulder. “Ultimately, the decision is yours. Just some food for thought…”

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“...just some food for thought…”

Days had passed since Dr. Anderson’s innocuous suggestion and yet Zeke’s brain still lingered. The idea of seeking out online ABDL groups wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to the remorseful kinkster. He’d pushed himself to make a fetish Xwitter and join a few Discord servers. Sadly, both accounts had done nothing but collect dust over the past couple of months. He knew Dr. Anderson had a point but the concept of interacting with someone else in a kink headspace was unbelievably daunting, regardless of whether it was in person or not.

*YAAAAAAWN!*

Leaning back in his chair to check the cafeteria’s analog clock, it wasn’t even 2 pm yet and he was already ready to crawl back into bed. Considering he didn’t have another class until after 5, perhaps a midday nap wasn’t such a bad call. With half a tray of food left in front of him, he decided he was going to polish off his mac and cheese and dump the rest. His meal plan gave him three free meals per day so it wasn’t like he’d go hungry. 

“OMG! Did you see that girl? I can’t believe they let people into college who aren’t potty trained.”

Practically choking on his last bite of cheesy noodles, the conclusion to Zeke’s meal was suddenly accosted by two snooty-looking girls with obnoxiously loud whispers who happened to claim the table adjacent to his. He slyly leaned back in his chair and angled his ear towards the girls, too curious not to continue listening.

“I know, right? You can see droplets leading all the way to her table. It’s so pathetic.”

Unable to keep himself from gazing out across the cafeteria, Zeke instantly spotted a line of five or so yellow puddles no bigger than a penny apiece leading from the checkout counter to a booth just around the corner. Sure enough, the girl stationed in the booth was frantically patting her lap with napkins while constantly looking up to see if anyone was watching her. Her wandering eyes soon caused Zeke's head to swivel away to avoid detection. It wasn’t like he needed to keep staring anyway. He’d seen everything he needed to. Beyond the obvious issue of her pants being soaked, there was no mistaking the extra bulk surrounding her pelvis. She was diapered…she was diapered and leaking.

Memories of Zeke’s turbulently titillating ride through the Pretty Pretty Princess Doll Factory’s auto-dresser once again rose to the forefront of his mind, filling him with altruistic intentions. He couldn’t bear to see someone else go through an ordeal as humiliating as his, even someone he didn’t know. Propelled to action by a strange yet palpable longing for, as Dr. Anderson put it, “a positive outlet for these newfound desires,” he quickly gathered his belongings before speed walking over to the checkout counter. “Hi, um, can I get another can of ginger ale, please?” he asked, pursing his lips into a small smile.

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Double Trouble!

“Alright, Lelaya! For your Play-It or Pass-It Challenge, you get to select not one but two players to participate!” said CassiRole, gesturing to Lelaya’s prompt on the monitor. The audience roared with excitement as one of the Nanny Iris bots reappeared to deliver a bulky white object to Cassi. Holding the crinkly item up for all to see, the already exuberant audience went bananas as they gazed upon a ludicrously large diaper adorned with four leg holes. It didn’t take a genius to see where this was going.

Meanwhile, watching from a hunched position with her hands resting on her kneecaps, Mia was struggling to stay upright; the weight of her waterlogged diaper finally getting to her. If it hadn’t been for the constant starting and stopping of the show, maybe things would’ve moved fast enough for her to make it back around to her turn. Unfortunately, as things stood, she’d be lucky if she lasted another full minute.

“Hey, Miiiia! When’s my nex turn? I wansa pway agin!” said Misa, waddling over to Mia in a hypnotized state and draping her arms around her exhausted friend’s shoulders. Her timing couldn’t have been worse as the added poundage left Mia quivering in place.

Failing to stay measured under so much weight, Mia harshly shoved Misa away before exploding on her. “Back off! This is hard enough already!” she shouted, unintentionally interrupting the scene between Lelaya and Cassi.

“Quiet on set!” yelled Keelee, glaring in Mia’s direction before turning back to Cassi. “Still rolling!”

Clearing her throat, Cassi resumed her explanation, “As I was saying, this CrissBaby Buddies Diaper will be worn by two players of your choice, forcing the wearers to work in tandem until your next turn. So, any thoughts on who you’d like to see go butt-to-butt?”

“Hmmm…let me think…” said Lelaya, pondering her decision while tilting her head back and forth lackadaisically; the only part of her upper body that was moveable thanks to the straight jacket. A mischievous smirk formed as she glanced back at her temperamental team, “...Mia and Misa! That’s who should wear it!”

“WHAT?!” shouted literally everyone in the studio. It was a collective jaw-drop that, for the briefest of moments, unified both teams, the production staff, and the audience in a state of sheer awe. Backstage, a loud smack could be heard, echoing off of Jackson’s forehead as he slapped it.

Picking her chin up off the floor, Cassi’s face ran the gamut from emotions from pure shock to stupefied amusement. Never in her wildest dreams when she selected Mia and her friends to be amongst the first DiapOut contestants could she ever have imagined how ridiculously entertaining they would be. “Um…okay! Mia and Misa, come on up!” she said before focusing her attention back on Lelaya. “I’m sorry but I have to ask. Why pick members of your own team for such a humiliating task?”

“Because friends shouldn’t fight. Some diapee time together should sort them out, no problem,” Lelaya said without a hint of remorse.

Mia’s stink eye was fierce as she waddled up onto Cassi’s platform; her dismal mood contrasted by Misa, who was simply elated to get to another turn. Putting all thoughts toward future revenge schemes on the back burner, she braced herself for the task at hand. “L-Let’s just get this over with,” she said, leaning into what was swiftly becoming her signature catchphrase.

“Yay! Mo diapees!” clamored Misa, losing herself to the half of her brain being overrun with padded serotonin. Ever since her jousting victory over Zeke, any remnants of the diaper-loathing individual, who only elected to play in the first place out of a sense of guilt, had been completely suppressed.

Observing from across the giant game board as a small crew of PAs rushed to put Mia and Misa in their two-person diaper, Rupert scoffed in premature celebration. “They gotta be throwing it,” he speculated. This was now the second time the Wetters could’ve passed on a difficult challenge but chose not to, and since he was forced to stay on the hopper ball until his next turn, it would’ve pretty much guaranteed a loss regardless of who he was paired with. “I didn’t think we had a chance after Kyoko screwed me over but after this, we may still have a shot! What do you think, Zeke?”

The dark, brooding cloud that hung over Zeke’s head was thick enough that neither Rupert nor Cade could ignore it. He knew they were merely trying to cheer him up but there was no shaking the dread from his upcoming turn. “Yeah…we may still have a chance,” he said sourly, his tone betraying his sentiment. Staring two spaces ahead at the only red square in range, he exhaled sharply. If what he overheard was correct, his destination was already set in stone.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Wetters: 171.1 (+/-10) points Messers: 146.7 (+/-10) points

« PREVIOUS l FIRST l NEXT »

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💕 Story By CrissieBaby 💕 💙 Edited By AllySmolShork 💙 💚 Edited By AliceKChan 💚

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[popponn]

popon my loveliest "grandma", here is my submission for ur event—which is as cute as u 😽:

one. my chosen fandom is blue lock, and my favourite is ofc, mikage reo <33

two. yes to au, and i choose high school au !

three. my chosen tropes are childhood friends to lovers and mutual pining

four. my name is saki, and i am a cancer and infj ! i'd like to add emphasis to my mbti bc i am super introverted irl, and i come off as a rly shy individual at first. but once i've gotten comfortable w u, i am rly talkative, and quite loud too ! i'm also super honest, but at the same time, i can filter the things i say in order to "people please". i'm also pretty sensitive when it comes to the things others say—for example, if someone accidentally insults me, i do think ab it for the rest of the day and do feel pretty hurt. i'm also an overthinker, and i tend to overanalyse certain situations. i think i am pretty caring, since i act like the "therapist" and "mother" of my friendship group, and i'm a realist.

i like and love hanging out w my friends, and i also love shopping (for my own things lol). i also like dressing up for special events (like a fancy dinner party or smth), and i like reading/writing. drawing and painting is also a fun activity for me, but i don't do it as much anymore bc i don't have the time to do so 😞 other things i like are letters written to me by my friends, cute stationery (motivates me to study hehe), pretty hair accessories, rice (i am a true asian), dark chocolate and iced lattes <3

things i don't like include onions (MAJOR EW), some fish, narcissists, selfish people, pick-me people🧍🏻‍♀️, wet humid weather, school-assigned texts (legit hating the one i have to read rn), insects, cramped spaces, people who like to show off (like bro actually stfu 💀)

i don't rly have favourite movies so i'll list my favourite k-dramas and anime hehe: 18 again, twenty-five twenty-one, twinkling watermelon, shooting stars, fruits basket, kimi ni todoke, attack on titan (☹️) and your lie in april <33

my love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch !! i tend to be v affectionate w those i'm close to, and i would wanna receive love in the same ways plus acts of service hehe

five. yes yes !! any language is fine, as long as if u can also incorporate some english songs too 🤍

six. GIRL THIS IS LWKY A HARD CHOICE but i choose fluff <3 unless u can do a combo of both but if not i choose full fluff (thanks !!)

optional question. i love reo's looks. literally i love his hair and ik u don't like it 😭 BUT I LOVE IT and i also love how reo is so charismatic and affectionate hehe <3 he's also so ambitious and hard-working and that is smth that i admire,, AND HE'S SMART ?!?!! smart men are so hot omfg !!!! his wealth is a good bonus but idrc ab these things <3 😸

i hope that's everything u need popon <33 lmk if i need to add more details !! I LOVE U SO SO MUCH and good luck w the event 🫂 MWAH MWAH thank u saur saur much 😽😽

a tune, an image, and a story of... ⋆｡˚

“so?” seeing his friend raising an eyebrow in challenge, or in question, reo uncharacteristically rubs the back of his neck. this topic has always been an odd one for him—it’s one that brings everything into a halt and makes it feel heavy to breathe, yet perhaps because it has to do with you, reo could never think of it as unpleasant. “you know i can’t just…” reo glances towards your direction, talking happily with your friends on the other side of the classroom, “…you know. it’s kind of complicated.” chigiri makes a face that would get him the role of a disappointed mother in a tv drama. “it’s not. you do realize the two of you got more matching things than my sister and her boyfriend, right? and those two are shameless. what the hell are you afraid of?” reo honestly could give chigiri a list there and then. but, with a part of his brain focusing solely on your smile, he merely leans against the window frame and sighs, “…yeah. i wonder.” it’s so simple that it has become the furthest thing from one—reo, unreasonably and consciously, tries to reason.

you peer toward reo discreetly. sitting across him just like this for the nth time, even after so so many years, you still find your heart skipping a beat and three each time you see him. it’s not hard to like reo. he has good looks, smart, talented, friendly, bright, and is still very much a hard worker despite his family upbringing. it truly makes so much sense why he is so well-liked and popular. you could give your own testament to that, after all.  from the very first day when he offered his hand and name to you, you have known that reo has a brilliance that only few could rival–and even then you would confidently say that no one could ever truly outshine reo in your eyes. you have shared many years with him, growing up with him almost like a confidant to a prince. you have seen many parts of reo and–at moments where he laughs victoriously and at moments where frustration gnaws at him–to every single piece of those, your eyes could only gaze at them fondly. and you are more than aware that being so close to reo, being able to see all of those, is not a privilege given to anyone. it’s because you stand behind the line called ‘a childhood friend’, never stepping on them even out of your selfish feelings, that you could have that privilege. and if, by any means, you could stay beside reo for a long, long time, by keeping those feelings silenced then– “hey,” a pen taps your book lightly, reo’s voice following along with a question, “did you find a question you’re stuck on?”

“i know you don't want to see me,” reo says to the phone—to you, still panting heavily as he leans against your door, “but at least—please listen to me.” you sit quietly on the other side of the door. your eyes still sting and you know you still don’t really want to see his face. you know you should just hang up. “okay, so,” reo begins, pausing for a moment, taking a deep breath. loudly and confidently he says, “i like you too.” you blink at that. not knowing how to react as your eyes widened. “what—” “i know you probably think i am a pathetic piece of turd right now but at least, i want to say this before everything else,” he continues on, fully relying on his heart and his teammates’ advice—going against every principle of calm businessman hammered into his brain. “i like it whenever we do something together, since long ago. i like it when we talk, i like listening to you, i like being listened to by you, i like it when we walk to school together—actually, can we keep all those even after this? i might actually go bald if we don’t. you still like my hair right—” “reo—” “i…” as if just realizing that he can no longer turn back, reo takes in a deep and sharp breath. after a loud embarrassed gulp, he repeats “…i like you. really like you. as a lover. please go out with me.” for someone who has been on the receiving end of many confessions, reo feels like a newborn baby fish. after all these years, it surely takes a lot of guts and courage—also a fucking stupid fight with you that he should immediately apologize for after this—just for him to spit all those words.

notes: @yoisami sakiii!! i hope u like this. i tried to potray it in a familiar, soft way that is kind of shoujo esque, i hope i succeeded. also purple and yellow because it's the color of the dawn, and hey reo's hair is purple which contrasts nicely with yellow haha .if it's just a bit entertaining for you it will be more than enough! :> i hope the angst is enough darling even tho it's only implied lolol thank you so much for joining my lil event babe, also happy new year! i wish u many many happiness ahead ₊˚⊹♡

[sequinsmile-x]

Stained Glass Windows - Chapter Twenty Six

Life was complicated, but they wouldn't have it any other way.

-x-

Hi friends!!

As always, thank you so much for the love on this fic! This chapter is much softer than the last couple, giving our favs a well earned break from what I am putting them through in this story!

Please let me know what you think, your reactions genuinely mean the world to me!

-x-

Words: 3.2k

A full list of warnings for the fic can be found on the Series Master List and will be updated as we go along.

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

“I remember when our girl's days started with shopping and then ended in a bar, not the McDonalds in the mall’s food court,” Penelope says, smiling as she pops a fry into her mouth.

Emily chuckles, “It’s in the rules that the pregnant woman gets to choose where we eat.” 

“That’s true,” JJ chimes in, having a sip of her soda, “I always got to pick when I was having Henry.”

“See,” Emily says turning back to Penelope, “If you want to pick you have to have a baby of your own.”

Penelope visibly shivers, shaking her head, “No thank you, I am more than happy being the cool Aunt to Henry and Nugget.”  

Emily frowns, scrunching up her nose as she smiles at JJ before turning back to Penelope, “Why are you calling my baby ‘Nugget?’”

“Well since you refuse to find out what you are having I’ve had to improvise,” Penelope replies, nodding towards the box of McNuggets in Emily’s hand, “Plus chicken nuggets seem to have become one of your main food groups lately.” 

Emily clears her throat, her cheeks red with embarrassment, “I’ve been craving them.” 

“All I ever wanted to eat when I was pregnant was this one particular taco from Taco Bell,” JJ says sympathetically, smiling wryly, “Poor Will went out to get it for me so many times in the middle of the night.” 

Emily laughs, “Aaron has half-filled our freezer with nuggets, Jack is always delighted when he comes over.” She knew that Aaron was, at best, a few weeks away from hiding vegetables in her food just like he did for his son.

“Did you get everything you needed, Em?” JJ asks, looking at the bags of clothes on the spare chair at their table.

Emily nods in response, “I got a new bra and a couple of pairs of pants,” she says, scrunching her nose up, “None of my actual clothes fit me properly anymore but I’m going to try to put off buying maternity clothes as long as I can.” 

“Just think, before we know it we’ll be throwing your baby shower,” Penelope says, her excitement clear, and Emily chuckles wryly, “Which reminds me, I’ll need your mother’s number so I can contact her about that. I tried looking for it but it’s listed as classified.” 

Not for the first time, she finds herself grateful for the way she was raised, the way she can hold herself together in moments like this. It had been just over a week since she had seen Elizabeth, and it still stung when she thought about it, about how everything had gone south so fast. She was grateful that her mother had, so far, stuck to what she had asked and not contacted her, but it also hurt. An unspoken confirmation from her that she had chosen alcohol over her daughter. Over her grandchild. Despite everything, she still didn’t want anyone else to know, her need to keep it private, even from the people she considered her extended family, overriding anything else. 

She supposed, on some level, it was probably a good thing she’d never seen her mother that often anyway. It would make things less suspicious, but she’s sure questions would come further down the line when the baby arrived. 

When she and Aaron decided to finally get married. 

She twists her engagement ring around her finger and smiles at her friend, “That’s not really her kind of thing,” she says before reaching for her drink and taking a sip before she expertly, switches the conversation “I’m only 17 weeks Pen, let's not wish the time away. There's a lot to do before then,” she finishes her fries and sighs, the salty food taking the edge off of her rising panic for everything she and Aaron needed to organise before the baby was born, “Like finding a place to live.” 

It was a discussion that she and Aaron had started having when they found out she was pregnant. She loved her apartment, it had been her home for longer than anywhere ever had been before, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough for their growing family. Whilst the baby would be sleeping with them for the first few months after they were born, she didn’t want to eventually force Jack to share a bedroom with his sibling when he was with them. 

She wanted a house, a home. Somewhere her kids could grow up and run around together. Somewhere they could get covered in mud in the backyard. Everything she’d watched in the movies when she was young and convinced herself she’d never have herself. Aaron, despite having moved into her apartment less than a year ago, agreed, and part of her wondered why they hadn’t just bought a house then. If she was honest with herself, she knew it was because a part, a very small part, had still wanted some kind of control of the situation. 

“Have you still not found something?” JJ asks, well aware of the difficulty, and stress, of finding somewhere to live when pregnant. 

Emily groans, shaking her head as she places her hand on her stomach, her almost constant indigestion bubbling away, “No. Aaron is insistent on splitting everything down the middle which is insane,” she exclaims, blowing out a breath, “I have all of this money just sitting in my trust fund.”

They’d been disagreeing about it almost as long as they’d been talking about buying a house. She wanted to use her money, to buy them somewhere they could live forever, but Aaron was hesitant. She could never quite figure out if it was incredibly misplaced machoism that made him feel like he had to be the provider, or if he was just uncomfortable with the amount of money she had, or if it was both. 

Either way, it was frustrating, and she knew this was something they would likely run into a lot over the years. 

“And you have how much in that trust fund?” Penelope inquiries, making both Emily and JJ laugh, the question a regular one on every girl's night since she’d first confirmed their suspicions that she had a trust fund at all.

“Pen, if you can’t get that information out of me when I’m drunk, you have no chance when I’m sober.” 

___

Emily sighs as she slumps back on the couch, rubbing her hands over her face as she takes a break from looking at real estate listings. 

“It can’t be that bad,” Aaron says as he sits next to her, handing over the ice cream she’d requested after dinner. She sits up, making Sergio who had been curled up in her lap, his head on her bump, jump up, meowing as he walks away. 

Emily grumbles as she takes the bowl from him, narrowing her eyes as she takes a bite, moaning at the taste of chocolate, “It is almost impossible to find a house that has everything we want within the budget we have.” 

Aaron sighs at the mention of it, familiar dread that what had so far only been a disagreement between them could easily transform into a full-blown argument, “Em-”

“I have the money, Aaron,” she says, placing her bowl of ice cream down on the table in front of them, her appetite for it gone.

“It’s your money, sweetheart.” 

She scoffs, shaking her head at him. “We’re having a kid. We’re going to get married. What happened to ‘what’s mine is yours?’” 

“I don’t know if that applies to literal millions of dollars,” he replies, remembering how he’d had to sit down when she originally told him how much money she had, a fearful glint in her eyes that it would change the way he viewed her. He sighs and places his hand on her thigh, squeezing it gently, “It’s just…I spoke to Dave and-”

“You listened to Dave about this?” She asks incredulously, cutting over him, “He’s been divorced four times, I don’t think he’s exactly the person to go to for relationship advice.”

“Three times,” Aaron corrects, a wry smile on his face, “And he’s the only other rich person I know.”

“I’m richer than him,” she grumbles under her breath as she crosses her arms over her chest. She looks at him and sees the flicker of amusement in his lips, the way his eyebrow arches, and she clears her throat, “Right, not helping,” she sighs, “Why are you so hesitant to do this my way? Is it some macho bullshit that you need to be the provider? Because if it is-”

“No,” he replies, squeezing her leg again, “I promise you it’s not that.” 

She stares at him for a moment, desperately trying to see if he’s lying to her, but she’s satisfied he isn’t and she places her hand over his on her leg, “Then what is it?” 

He doesn’t want to upset her, to make things harder on her than they had been since what small part of the relationship she had left with her mother had collapsed around her, but she deserved the truth. 

“I’ve been divorced once already, sweetheart,” he says carefully, hating himself as her eyes go slightly wider, “I need to be practical. If you buy us a house-”

“It will be our house,” she says, cutting over him, “Not mine. And if anything happened between us,” the thought of it alone makes her breath catch in her throat, “It would still be our house. We’ll have both of our names on the deeds. I wouldn’t just screw you over like that.” 

“I know,” he assures her, squeezing her hand, shaking his head at himself, “Why is this so important to you?”

She sighs, “That money in my trust fund came from my parents, and their parents, and the jobs they chose that meant we were never really a family,” she blows out a shaky breath, the wound from the conversation with her mother the week before still fresh, “And I always told myself that if I got married and had kids I’d use it to buy my family a home, to make something good out of the very thing that made my childhood miserable,” she places her hand on her bump, “For a long time I convinced myself I’d never have this and that I’d end up donating it all to a charity that would make mother furious, like a cat sanctuary or something, but now I do have you and Jack and Nugget.”

“I can’t believe the Nugget thing is catching on,” Aaron says, and she smiles at him, her eyes soft and full of love. She’d told him about their friend's nickname for their unborn child the moment she got home, and the confused look on his face had made her laugh so much she’d started to jokingly use it herself. 

“What can I say, Pen is persuasive,” she replies. She cups his neck, her thumb brushing over his jawline, “Please let me do this for us. If it makes you feel better you can pay all the bills when we do find somewhere, or we can keep this place and rent it out and that can go into an account for the kids, but…just let me do this.” 

He looks at her, and he isn’t sure he’s ever seen her so raw, so torn open. Her honesty a gateway that let him see the parts of her she still hid even from him sometimes. He picks up one of the more expensive listings she’d been looking at, far outside o the budget they’d tentatively agreed on and looks it over. 

“You like this one?” He asks, and she nods, her lower lip in between her teeth as if she was trying to keep her hope contained. It was a beautiful home, a large colonial-style house with a brick facade, the interior was largely open plan on the first floor, with large archways separating the rooms, letting natural light filter throughout the house. The bedrooms and bathrooms were all a decent size, especially the master bedroom and its adjoining ensuite, and there was plenty of space in the backyard for Jack, the baby, and any other kids they may have to run around. 

He finds himself mostly drawn to the huge, immaculately decorated, kitchen and he can picture himself making pancakes on a Sunday morning in there for his family.

“It’s a beautiful house,” he says, smiling at her and raising his eyebrow, “5 bedrooms?” 

She rolls her eyes at the suggestive tone in his voice, hearing exactly what he hadn’t said, and pats his chest, “Easy there tiger, at least let me have this kid before you start thinking about filling up the spare rooms.” 

Aaron chuckles and pulls her in for a kiss, “Let’s go see it.” 

The way her eyes light up tells him he’s made the right call, that putting aside any deep-rooted concerns and misplaced fear about letting her do this for them, for their family, is exactly what he should have done weeks ago when she first brought this up. 

“Really?” She asks, her smile wide, any ability to hide her emotions well and truly lost in the first trimester of her pregnancy. 

“Really,” he confirms, kissing her again, “I can see our family growing up there.” 

She throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around him tightly as she kisses him, the action lost in her wide smile, “I love you so fucking much.”

He chuckles and wraps his arms around her, pulling her so she was straddling his waist, her knees on either side of his hips, “I love you too.” 

“I’ll call the agent in the morning.” 

He nods and pulls her in for another kiss, smiling at the feel of her bump pressed up against him. “We won’t be able to do this for much longer,” he says, moving to kiss her cheek and then her neck, “We won’t have room.” 

She pulls back and smiles at him, and she runs her fingers through his hair, “In that case,” she says, leaning in to kiss him again, “We’d better make the most of it before we’re regulated to just the bed.” 

___

Cases with children were always harder. 

The desperation to solve the case, to find the bad guy who was doing the worst of things possible to the most innocent, more intense. She’d always felt great empathy for the parents in these situations, but now she could put herself somewhat in their shoes, her love for Jack, for the baby in her belly, enough to make her feel sick at the mere thought of something happening to them. 

She watches Aaron from her desk, her focus on her paperwork limited at best as she keeps looking through the blinds in his office, desperate to go check on him. She knew he found cases like this harder too. 

There were survivors this time, a little girl and a teenage boy reunited with their parents, the recovery from all that they had endured only just beginning, and that was something they could cling on to. Evidence that they all needed sometimes to remind themselves of why they did this. That didn’t make it any easier, and she knew they’d all remember the wails of one of the victim's fathers when he realised his son had been alive only one day ago. 

She blows out a breath and looks back at her paperwork, determined to get a little more done before they headed home, when she is distracted once again, but this time it wasn’t out of concern for her fiancé. 

It feels like tiny bubbles. Bursting against the inside of her belly, as if tiny butterflies were floating around, their wings delicate. She places her hand on her stomach and gasps, choking on a laugh. 

“Are you ok, Em?” Derek asks and she turns to look at him, nodding as she laughs again. 

“Yeah. I…I think I just felt the baby move for the first time,” she says, her hand still on the bump as she continues to feel the movement on the inside, “It feels weird.”

Derek smiles at her, his eyes soft as he nods towards Aaron’s office, “Go tell Hotch, we all need something good after today.” 

She nods, not needing any other encouragement, and she stands, almost bounding up the stairs as she approaches his office. She knocks on his open door and waits for him to look up. He looks exhausted, the lines in his face deeper than usual, as if they’d been carved in. 

“Do you have a minute?” She asks, and he smiles at her, already standing up from his desk.

“For you, always.”

It makes her smile, and she knows it’s one of the things he’s learnt from his past mistakes with Haley. He always made time for her, and in turn, she knew that was because she understood the job, the work that could sometimes consume them both. It was yet another way that, if she believed in fate, would make her think they were made for each other. 

She takes a seat on the couch in his office and waits for him to sit next to her, his arm automatically around her shoulder. She knew they couldn’t be seen from the main bullpen here, only if someone was on the walkway, but she was sure no one would begrudge them this after the last few days. 

“I just felt the baby move,” she says, her throat closing up as she says it outloud, her hormones getting the better of her as she fights back tears. 

“What?” He asks, his voice full of wonder as he presses his hand into her bump, and it makes her laugh.

“It will be a while before you can feel anything from the outside honey,” she says, resting her head against his shoulder. She feels the movement again, and she smiles, placing her hand over his, “I wish you could feel it though it's amazing. And really fucking weird.” 

Aaron laughs and kisses her temple, keeping his lips against her skin, “Nugget is the size of a pomegranate this week.”

She snickers at his use of the baby’s newfound nickname and pulls back to look at him, “I know, I’m reading the same book as you,” she says softly, “Spencer told me today that the baby weights as much as a mozzarella ball,” she crinkles her brow, her stomach rumbling at the thought of food, “Which, strangely, really made me want Italian food.” 

Aaron kisses her, eternally grateful for her, for the life they were building, “Sweetheart, I’d go to Venice to get you pizza right now if you asked me.”

She chokes on a laugh, but it comes out as more of a sob, her happiness overwhelming in a way she didn’t know was possible. “That’s sweet, but I’m totally content with that place down the street from our apartment.” 

“Whatever you want, Em,” he says, kissing her again, wiping a stray tear from her cheek, “Whatever you want.” 

-x-

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[lchufflepuffcorn]

Meeting you pt. 7

(Not my gif, credits go to its owner/creator)

Author's note: Hi !! I think it's been like a year or so since I posted anything about this series... It's been worked on, don't worry, I'm just awful at being consistent.

Words: 2716

Warning: None... longing... badly written emotions... all other warnings from this series...

Masterlist OGW Masterlist

Serie Masterlist

Part one Part two, Part three, Part four, Part five, Part six, Part seven.

Spotify link

In the night's secret

No sound but the wind- Editors

↺͏͏         ◁◁͏͏        ll       ▷▷        ⋮≡

It took a little while for the three vampires to plan the perfect cover story for their situationship. Philadelphia was really the town of miracles for Alice's imagination. She'd come up with the story that Jasper was her brother and that (Y/N) was her sister-in-law. It always bothered (Y/N) that the short girl with her was so good at covering up the truth. But this time, the story was adequate and sensible for humans to understand. 

Soon after leaving Philadelphia, the trio stayed in Toronto for a short time. The trio resided in a two-story building owned by a lovely older couple, who took them in without asking many questions. 

"My brother doesn't talk much." Or "My sister-in-law is so discreet." Would say Alice when they were shown the apartment. The lovely -but quite nosy- Mrs. Grant quieted down after that. And (Y/N) remembered why she disliked living with humans all over again. Because the biting envy and bubbling thirst (Y/N) felt from Jasper was one thing, combining it with Alice's and the poignant curiosity from their neighbours was nothing short of unbearable. 

Jasper was not much of a talker, and added to what (Y/N) knew from Alice's vision was not helping her communicate with the man. But the crisp and cold waves of nervousness she could feel wave off of him each time they talked weren't either. 

Every time. (Y/N) knew that the conversations he forced on them were out of duty and under the encouragement given by Alice more than anything else. 

It usually looked like this: 

“It was nice today.” 

"Hmm. Yes, the wind wasn’t as bad as yesterday.” 

Or: 

“What did you buy at the market?” 

“Oh, just some clothes. You really need some new ones too…” 

But slowly, the cold, shaky feeling echoing in her chest melted into a sparkling and lukewarm wind behind the skin of her neck, and the conversations started to center around things they both liked. 

 And then, after some months, (Y/N), Jasper, and Alice went to Alberta, where they had no trouble constructing their own small house not too far from the Slave River. It was hidden from society, perfect for the diet (Y/N) was trying to convert the other two. 

And then, after some months, (Y/N), Jasper, and Alice went to Alberta, where they had no trouble constructing their own cabin. Situating it not far from the Slave River to add to the illusion of their rustic lifestyle. It was mostly hidden from society, perfect for the diet in which (Y/N) tried to convert the other two. It was also less complicated for Jasper to control his thirst for human blood if no humans were around. Plus, the surroundings were beautiful. (Y/N) liked hearing the birds in the early morning and having water run nearby. 

''East from here, there's three of 'em.'' Jasper's voice said, floating in the wind and through the bushes around them. 

The three of them were running in the forest, searching for prey. Jasper had smelled some moose earlier, but now they were chasing a bear and her cubs. (Y/N) did not hunt with the others often. She preferred to do it alone. But it was always fun to see how Alice and Jasper would try and compete for the first kill every time. While she didn't participate in their games, she liked watching them. It brought life to their undead lifestyle. 

Running through the tall grass and between the tree's roots easily, (Y/N) spotted a rabbit. She lounged at it with ease. It didn't bother her that the animal was little. Smaller animals were more accessible for her to catch without butchering her clothes. (Y/N) didn't like to get dirt on her. Plus, rabbits never travelled alone. She would have plenty to feel full at the end of the hunt, and she wasn't in a hunting mood today, so it played in her favour. 

It had been months since Jasper joined Alice's and (Y/N)'s little clan. He'd been charming and kind and helpful. Even if he thought it hard to change his diet -he often complained about how the animal blood tasted- he still tried his best. It was January seventeen now. A new year had started, yet Alice was deflating each day more to see that neither of her companions wasn't getting any closer. She found it infuriating.

Alice had seen hopeful moments, like when Jasper renovated the cabin. He'd taken (Y/N) words and requests to heart. Or when (Y/N) had consoled Jasper about one of his slip-ups, her hands brushing through his hair as he cursed himself in low growls. (Y/N) had nothing but encouraging words to give him. Then, of course, she gave him a stern talk about how she controlled herself by thinking about things humans did when she couldn't see them. Or again, when he was reading on the porch and (Y/N) was lost in her world, humming a melody only she knew. Alice had to confess that she'd never seen Jasper smile so softly before that afternoon.

(Y/N) liked to think that Jasper took his time to court her. She liked it that way. They had all the time in the world anyway. As she caught a second bunny, plunging her sharp teeth through the fur and into the skin until its still-warm blood flowed into her mouth, (Y/N) got a glimpse of the naked ring finger on her left hand. The familiar shine hadn't caught her eyes as it would usually have.

She'd removed the enormous wedding ring from her finger two months ago, preferring to wear it around the chain on her neck, where too rested a medallion with the triplet's picture.

''Ahah! You owe me ten dollars, Whitlock.''

Alice's laugh took (Y/N) out of her reverie. She looked in the direction her voice came from. The vampire couldn't see them anymore, but she knew they would come back in her direction soon enough. She let go of the now-empty rabbit she was still holding.

Raising from her spot on a tree root, she patted her dress to remove whatever could still stick to the fabric. Jasper's head popped out from behind the bushes. An amused smile lit up his face as he looked over the pixie-like vampire. The blond man stopped as he reached (Y/N)'s height, offering her his arm.

''If I could have the pleasure, miss.'' He said with a smile on the corner of his smile. (Y/N) responded to his smile with one of her own.

''If I must.'' (Y/N) teased the man, accepting his arm by wrapping her own around it. 

The comfortable warmth of the calm he feels, yet a subtle hint of burning cold passion that resists in the pit of his stomach, made her eyes shine. The group walked back to their cabin. Their slow pace is now a sharp contrast to their earlier race. 

''We'll have to get new shoes; you can't be comfortable in those old things,'' Alice called, referring to the boots (Y/N) wore. They were from her time as a nurse for the Second World War. Those boots were still in perfect condition. The older woman wasn't letting her things get hideous or unwearable. Still, she obliged at Alice's request.

''I think we could go in town this week.'' (Y/N)'s butterflies now associated with Alice exploded in her stomach as the girl's face illuminated with a smile. The tiny vampire held onto the other girl's hand before stopping all of her movement.

(Y/N) stopped walking to ensure that Alice wouldn't tumble over the snowy ground. Jasper stopped, too, getting closer to the girl in alarm. He was still getting used to Alice's gift. One of his hands met the small of (Y/N)'s back to help walk over some roots, but Jasper's attention was on Alice too. 

''It's alright.'' She assured, starting to walk again.

''What is it?'' (Y/N)'s tone was worried. Since the other girl had revealed to Jasper and her that they were mates, (Y/N) had asked Alice not to hold secrets about her visions anymore. Especially if it concerned other people. But Alice only smiled at her, walking to the cabin. Jasper, ever the gentleman, held the door of the cabin open for both girls to enter it. He closed and locked the door behind him after following them inside. 

 Jasper was never much of a talker. So the girls had come to realize. But it was alright. His actions spoke louder than every word he could have said. The man walked to where both the girls were seated, but he stayed back a little. On the table was resting the piece of a rocking chair he was building at the moment; he took place behind it.

''We'll have a visitor soon.'' Said Alice before (Y/N) could reiterate her question.

''Visitor?'' Quipped Jasper, ''in this part of the woods?'' Alice shot him a smile.

''(Y/N)'s old friend, my mate, I think.'' This got (Y/N)'s attention. She, too, was wondering why they'd have a visitor so far from civilization. There were only two people who knew their location, and those people were Thade and Esther. The older vampire's face darkened with a frown.

''Which friend?'' She asked. Her hand went to the necklace she wore, holding onto the locket hiding the triplet's picture. Not all of her friends were recommendable frequentations. But Alice only smiled and rose to leave the room. (Y/N) sighed but couldn't ask anything more.

The cabin was somewhat small. Not that the vampires minded it. It was big enough to maintain purpose: not living outside like homeless people. They might not be in any states now, but they could still live comfortably. It had one large room and two smaller ones behind the wall. It gave them the chance to have their place if need be.

Her ring finger slipped into the wedding monument she still had, then back out. A comforting habit (Y/N) took since she started wearing it around her neck. 

So it couldn't be Thade, that was for sure. But, on the other hand, Thade has been married to Esther ever since (Y/N) could remember meeting both of them. So maybe it was Gabriel. Last she'd heard of him, he was somewhere in France teaching history at a university. So that left – in the reasonable choices of friends (Y/N) would leave Alice with – either Gregory or Elliot. But would Gregory come to visit her out there in the woods? Esther, she knew the man was still bitter from their encounter during the First World War, as she was on the Allies' side, and he was on the Nazis.

That only left Elliot.

''What are yeh thinkin' about?'' Asked Jasper from his seat. He could feel her doubt just as she could feel his concern for her. (Y/N) turned her gaze to the man. He was still working on the rocking chair's part. Jasper's eyes shot up in her direction, staying for a second before wandering away. 

''I wondered which of my friends was to be Alice's mate.'' She answered honestly.

The man hummed.

Jasper's hair seemed more strawberry blond in the candle's light than the honey colour they had in the sunlight. His frozen features, kinder in the natural glow, were darkened by the dancing shadow of the flame. The now yellowish eyes he now had matched his hair. (Y/N) could only imagine just what the man's past was to make his face so stoic and emotionless while she could feel every change in Jasper's humour. Even from where she sat, the woman could see on his arm -uncovered as he worked, littered with bite marks. (Y/N) never asked about it, just like neither of the vampires with her wondered about her story. They didn't know about Alice. She could not remember anything from her past except for her first name.

''I meant to ask,'' continued the man after a short silence. ''What's in the locket? You always play with it.''

''Old memories.'' (Y/N) rose from her seat and walked to the table, taking place in the chair facing Jasper.

Usually, the seemingly young woman had no trouble talking about her experience and life. Some things were too hard to speak about, and nobody had ever asked. 

(Y/N) wasn't proud enough to assume her story could interest him more than any other. Tugging the long gold chain gently from her dress to present the locket better to the man in front of her, (Y/N) opened the locket to show the picture inside.

Alice shuffled closer to the both of them. 

Three small boys were staring at Jasper and Alice now, a serious expression on their juvenile faces. The man thought they couldn't be much older than eight or nine years old. He guessed that it had been taken late in the eighteen-fifties, early sixties, from the black and white picture and their clothes.

"The first boy on the right is John, the second, the one with the hat's George, and the last one on the left is Lowett." (Y/N) let Jasper take the locket in his and, it wasn't to see any better the photos, but more like a reflex.

"Were they yours?" He asked. The man could see little resemblance between the triplets and the woman sitting before her in the rocking chair. But there was still something in the expression and the posture that reminded him of her.

''In a way,'' (Y/N) answered. "I didn't birth them or bite them, but they were my children nonetheless." 

Jasper's eyes met hers. Alice smiled and got up. She silently walked to one of the other rooms, closing the door. She knew of this story and didn't want to put (Y/N) in more stress with her emotions in the room again. 

''They were vampires?'' (Y/N) smiled at Jasper's expression. But, then, his incertitude swung in her throat like a monkey to a branch. She shook her head.

''They didn't live long. And brought my creator's death with theirs.'' Jasper's expression didn't change. He looked conflicted. (Y/N) continued, shrugging. ''It doesn't matter now. It was a long time ago.'' 

''And the ring?''

(Y/N)'s smile faltered a little at his question. Then, from the other room, they heard Alice sigh. Her disappointment was bitter in the other girl's throat. ''It was my wedding ring when I was still human.''

Jasper went quiet after that, concentrating back on the rocking chair part. (Y/N)'s eyes followed his movement; she tucked the neckless back into the collar of her dress. Outside, the sun was already setting, and from the windows, the woman could see the timid shine of the slow rising of the moon in the sky. 

She suddenly felt the nip of boredom in the back of her chest. Like she was dragging the world around with her. It made her realize just how cruelly their house missed books, games, and music. If only she'd asked Esther to send her the harp she'd left in her care. But it was too late now. Her friend and Thade were travelling the world in search of his past. The man had felt the need to reconnect with his civilization now that the Second World War had ended. 

Maybe they could buy a radio once they'd gone to town. But, then, the music would fill the house at every hour of the day. (Y/N) missed the time when giggles would fill the homes she was in. She missed her son. 

Sons. 

Cocking her head slightly to the side, her hands resting on the table. The woman's eyes slowly clouded; Jasper recognized the look for when he'd meet her dazing out outside the house. He decided not to push his questioning further and worked silently on the rocking chair again. Alice came out of the room, her gaze unfocused but lucid enough to walk. When she didn't have full-blown visions, she would sometimes lose herself in the pathways of many shifting decisions of the people around her. 

In the silence, (Y/N) isn't aware that she started humming. Her finger played with the locket she'd tucked in her collar. It was a habit she couldn't seem to lose now. She hums the song Alice heard her sing to Esther years ago, and the girl can't help but sigh. 

Jasper just smiled. 

[savedpeople]

MULTIMUSE QUESTIONAIRE

RULES: Answer the questions with the Muses that would best fit the answers. Bonus if you give details why. If tagged, copy and paste into a new post – DO NOT REBLOG!

(Since this is a single-muse blog, I'm going to include muses I've played on other blogs. I'm not going to include every muse I've ever written though because 1. it already feels funny talking about muses that 99% of my followers have never seen me write, and 2. some of them were very short-lived. So I'm only including the ones that I've written most or were most significant, plus my newest one that I haven't written yet, since they've been on my mind a lot lately.)

1) Rank your softest Muse and your toughest Muse. (Personality-wise) - Strictly personality-wise, softest to toughest: Ted Logan (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure), Max Caulfield (Life is Strange), Izaya Orihara (Durarara!!), Amaimon (Blue Exorcist), Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen), Negan, Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan.) This is kind of funny though because aside from Ted and Max, none of these characters can really be considered "soft."

2) Which Muse would blow through $1000 quickly? - Gojo. But he's also rich rich, so $1000 is nothing to him. He canonically owns shirts that cost more than that. Aside from him, I think if you gave Ted $1000 he could easily blow it all on music gear and albums pretty quickly lol.

3) Do any of them have nicknames? Is there a meaning behind them? - Negan has been called "Neegs" by a few, but not many can get away with that. "Ted" is short for Theodore, and "Max" is short for Maxine (never call Max by her full name, she hates it.)

4) Are any of them up-to-speed on the latest trends? Anyone more old school? - Ted, Gojo, and Max are most likely to be up-to-speed on trends, but Max appreciates the old school stuff (she prefers analog cameras over digital for her photography, for instance.) Levi and Negan are more old school, though Negan might attempt to learn trends to seem cool to his students/the kids (it rarely works.)

5) Who has the best relationship with their siblings? - Three of them have siblings: Ted, Izaya, and Amaimon. Ted and his little brother probably have the best relationship, at least as kids, though he deals with insecurity and envy as their dad clearly favors his brother. Izaya has two sisters who are twins and about ten years his junior. Their parents were abroad for work so much that he basically raised them, but his bad influence played part in them turning out eccentric. Their relationship is complicated and a bit love/hate. Amaimon has six brothers and a sister. They are all demons (literally, they are children of Satan lol.) He's only seen interacting with one which I interpret him to have a neutral to positive relationship with. I don't see him having a close relationship with any of the others. But I also haven't read or watched the series in years, so I have no idea if more has been revealed.

6) Karaoke night! Who is likely to grab the mic first and bust out a tune? - Ted. Max will join him with some encouragement. Negan if he's had a few drinks.

7) Who is least likely to enter a beauty pageant/model? - Levi (he could actually probably do well as a model, but suggest this and he'll vehemently deny it.) Also Amaimon because he doesn't spend much time on Earth and probably doesn't even know what a beauty pageant is.

8) If your Muses visited a haunted house where actors scare you, who would panic and who would be unfazed? - Ted and Max would be panicking (but they're having a blast.) Levi and Amaimon are unfazed.

9) Are any of your Muses particular about taking certain modes of transportation? - Not really. Max does get nervous about airplanes and Izaya prefers to walk or take a taxi/public transport. Gojo doesn't drive and either takes the train/subway, has his assistant drive him, or teleports/warps short distances since he can do that lol.

10) Share a little-known fact about any Muse. - So I can't really think of anything, but I have twd verses for most of my muses that I never got to use/talk about so I'mma ramble on about little things about them here. Ted - and Bill - were following a band on tour that summer, and were at a music venue in the Atlanta area when the outbreak hit. Bill's dad died saving them the first day, and they and Missy go on to survive traveling around in their RV for a while. Max found an old vintage photography store shortly after the outbreak and took as many packs of polaroid film as she could realistically carry. She continues taking photos, not just to document the new world but to also capture small moments of beauty and happiness within her group. Gojo acts nonchalant about the apocalypse until he loses his best friend to a walker bite, after which he essentially shuts down and locks himself in a room with the (restrained) walker for days, refusing to let anyone in. He even attempts to remove its jaw/hands to keep it with him (kind of like Michonne did), and it wasn't until after that he finally killed it. He puts on a big smile and acts fine, but the unresolved anger and grief come out in spades whenever he goes up against walkers. Izaya and his sisters are in an airport preparing to fly back to Japan when the outbreak hits, and get stranded in the Virginia/DC area. A group takes them in out of pity, despite Izaya giving them the creeps. But when his sisters are eaten in a large walker attack, the group abandons him, and he's presumed dead. Months later, cue The Saviors showing up with Izaya at Negan's side as one of his lieutenants. Surprise! Levi meets up with his uncle, the only family he has, when the outbreak happens. It doesn't take long for them to start butting heads morally - his uncle is much quicker to warm up to the idea of stealing and killing. But they stick together until they're separated while fighting a horde, and Levi's been on his own ever since, unsure if he's alive. He's eventually taken in by Alexandria, but has a hard time adjusting. I don't have anything set for Amaimon, but he's naturally violent and off-putting and very likely ends up with the Whisperers or becomes a cannibal or something lol.

tagged by: @wexarethewalkingxdead tagging: @esoterium @survivoirs @chitteringbeast and anyone else that'd like to do this (y'all are the only active mutuals I know that have multiple muses and weren't already tagged I don't think??)

[balioc]

With regard to R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse books:

i'd be very interested in hearing why you both really like that series and also think it would be super alienating/what its target audience is

Yeah. So. OK.

The short version is "these are books for philosophy and history nerds, who love dense complicated worldbuilding, and who are lacking a lot of common social/ideological allergies."

They are fantasy books that take ideas seriously, in a way that will appeal to a lot of the people reading this. They're built on top of some really really cool metaphysical premises, and they explore those to the utmost. They do Big Sweep of History better than most fantasy books purporting to do that thing; the first trilogy in the series is essentially about a crusade, of the real Reclaim the Holy Land style, and it does a bang-up job capturing both the grandeur and the grotesquerie entailed in that kind of endeavor.

They have a lot in common with rationalist fiction, in a "descended from a common intellectual ancestor" kind of way, but they do a lot of important things very differently from capital-R Ratfic in a way that I like. They have a much darker moral and cosmological tone, with the gee-whiz take-us-to-the-stars optimism replaced by a kind of profound historical and cosmological horror. They are also, overall, much more literary and just-plain-weird in style. One of our protagonists is basically a rationalist supergenius raised in isolation who's just now encountering the world and learning to bend it to his will, and...well, the process is cool and maybe even overall good (maybe) (very maybe) but it sure is unsettling in basically every conceivable way.

The worldbuilding is also top-notch, in my opinion, not only in terms of depth but in terms of tone and style. It's a big, sprawling setting that feels like it was created by someone who honest-to-God knows how to channel Tolkeinian numinousness and someone who knows and appreciates pulp fantasy and someone who's actually read a goddamn history book.

But.

...look, I don't even know where to start here. Let me just list a grab-bag of things that are true about these books:

In the first trilogy, we have two major POV characters. One of them is a very sweet, angsty, relatable dude who also understands a lot of key facts about the setting history and the magic system. The other is a ruthless sociopath who engages with literally everyone and everything in a purely manipulative way. Guess which one we get to spend hundreds of pages with first, before meeting the other?

The ultimate bad guys of the setting, the Mordor faction, consists of aliens whose culture is built around the idealization of rape. Their hordes of minions, the orc-analogues, are genetically engineered rape monsters.

...there's a lot of conspicuously offputting sex stuff in general, in fact.

Long stretches of the narrative are basically misery porn, in which we get to see close-up just how grindingly awful it is to be part of a crusading army on the march / to be a prostitute in a city through which a crusade is passing / etc.

The metaphysics, which are the conceptual foundation of the series and also its coolest feature, do not get revealed in significant depth until halfway through the third volume. A friend of mine read the series on my recommendation, and kept asking me questions that amounted to "...are you sure these are the books you keep talking about?"

You do not find out until at least six books in whether our sociopathic rationalist supergenius protagonist is essentially benevolent or not. Despite spending an awful lot of time in his head.

Plus, y'know, there's generally a lot of philosophical jawing.

Plus...even I have to admit that, especially starting with the second trilogy, the series starts making a number of unforced errors. (There's a moment where we go back to the Monastery of Rationalism whence our protagonist dude sprang, and we learn a lot more about what went on there, and...sense-making gets sacrificed for shock horror in a big way.)

In sum: there's something to offend just about everyone, deeply. Old-school fantasy lovers will dislike the constant nasty subversions of classic numinous Cool Fantasy Stuff. Contemporary nu-fantasy types will dislike the extent to which the series is about the powerful wreaking their will upon the powerless, the general (extremely deliberate) sexism of the setting, etc. People who are there for the setting will be annoyed by how much is concealed for a very long time; people who are there for the characters will be annoyed by how unlikeable many of the key characters are. Almost everyone will be wigged out by the sloggy unpleasantness, the sexual grossness, or both.

[theletterunread]

Books in 2022

Uncharacteristically for a midterm year, 2022 sucked. 2006, 2010, and 2014 hosted some of my happiest experiences, and even their worst parts were emotionally rich or educational. 2022 was mostly stagnant, interrupted only by misfortune: illnesses and deaths, harassment, personal and professional setbacks that started on January 2nd and continued through December 29th.

There were nice moments too – everyone should go to at least one Weird Al concert – but they’re obscured in my memory by the relentless slaps to the face. In that same way, when I look over the list of books I read in 2022, I recognize a lot of good titles, yet the overall vibe is one of disappointment. But there’s an unresolved question of cause and effect at hand: did a bad reading list contribute to the mediocrity of the year, or did my existing bad mood prevent me from enjoying these books? Is it the tale or the teller?

Fifth Business, Robertson Davies (Jan. 2-5)

The first volume of the “Deptford Trilogy.” Dunstan Ramsay, a retiring history professor, reviews his own life. The title comes from the narrator’s sense of himself as a supporting actor (neither “Hero, nor Heroine, Confidant nor Villain”) in the more riveting lives of others. Maybe you can already understand my interest in this character. The novel is sophisticated and perceptive about human behavior, and at the end, it reveals itself to have been beautifully plotted too. A thoughtless act by a nasty kid in Ramsay’s neighborhood turns out to have reverberated through generations, and it leads to a dramatic and frightening ending. Frightening because the events are so convincingly presented that you can well imagine an unwelcome conclusion like that rearing up in your own life.

Abandoned Cars, Tim Lane (Jan. 6-10)

Pulpy short stories drawn in a highly detailed, old-fashioned style. The drawings carry it. The writing isn’t bad, but it’s a lot of those, “lonely men, open roads, cigarettes, greasy spoons, crooners on the jukebox” kind of stories. A midcentury nostalgia that was picked clean a long time ago.

A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews (Jan. 9-16)

A teenaged Mennonite in Manitoba dreams of a more exciting life in New York City. I can sympathize with the heroine’s dreams, and I did like learning about Mennonite life, a world I know nothing about and the author knows intimately. But the details were ultimately so foreign to me that there was a limit to how much I could get into the novel. It’s hard to know how perceptive an observation is when you have no idea what’s being perceived. Still, people whose tastes I trust (my dad; the cartoonist Tim Kreider) admire Toews, so let’s call this my failure.

Stone Fruit, Lee Lai (Jan. 11-13)

At the start of the book, Ray and Bron are happy aunts to a six-year-old niece. But soon, their relationship ends, and they’re sunk into an unhappiness that’s not alleviated by the families they turn to. It’s all pretty bleak, but not unfairly so. The emotions the characters endure are realistic and earned, so while you might feel depressed at the end, you won’t feel manipulated. Plus, there are some great illustrations, particularly of the friendly monsters that the niece imagines while playing with her aunts.

The Manticore, Robertson Davies (Jan. 17-25)

The second part of the “Deptford Trilogy,” following David Staunton, the son of the rotten kid from the first book, as he undergoes Jungian analysis, a subject I know little about. But the little bit that I understand (or misunderstand), I like. It’s much more internal than Fifth Business, the scope is narrower, and the stakes are lower, but it’s just as intelligent and well-written.

A Map of Betrayal, Ha Jin (Jan. 26 - Feb. 1)

The main story is of Gary Shang, a double agent working for the CIA and passing information back to China while dealing with his American family and his conflicting loyalties. The framing story is of Gary’s daughter learning of her father’s past and reckoning with it. As usual, Jin’s insight into his characters’ emotional lives is terrific and effortlessly rendered. The details of this particular plot, however, are not quite so successful. Some of the set-up is unconvincing, and there are plot turns that feel sketchy. Not so much that you’ll have to put the book down, but don’t go in expecting another Waiting.

Tintin: The Complete Companion, Michael Farr (Feb. 2-21)

The second book I read to supplement 2021’s reread of the entire Tintin series. This one deals with the factual background for the stories and the artistic process by which Hergé wrote and drew each volume – as opposed to The Metamorphoses of Tintin, which I read two months earlier, and which took a more academic view. This book is beautiful to look at, featuring details of the series’ artwork and clippings from Hergé’s archives, but neither this nor Metamorphoses really deepens the pleasure of reading the actual books. Maybe what I’m looking for is a third path: a book that doesn’t take a technical or academic approach to the series, but rather an aesthetic and emotional approach. Maybe I should stop whining and write that book myself.

World of Wonders, Robertson Davies (Feb. 3-8)

The last book in the “Deptford Trilogy.” More like Fifth Business than The Manticore, this one again covers most of a lifetime – this time, of the magician Magnus Eisengrim, who is linked, from birth, to Dunstan Ramsey and David Staunton. This one ties up some of the remaining threads from the other two books, if that sort of thing is important to you, and it’s all about stage magic, something I always like reading about (in fact, this book lead me to seek out the one three spots down this list). On balance, it’s not as good as The Manticore, which itself is not as good as Fifth Business, but those are only relative markings. There’s no reason not to read all three.

On Animals, Susan Orlean (Feb. 9-15)

A collection of essays about domestic animals and wild animals. Though there are interesting stories of whales, tigers, and other majestic creatures, the essay that affected me the most was about homing pigeons, perhaps because their feats were the most beautiful to me. Because this is a collection of pieces written separately and later cobbled together, it doesn’t have the thematic strength that her single-subject books do, but it’s worth reading nonetheless.

Pocket Kings, Ted Heller (Feb. 16-23)

A funny book about a stalled-out novelist who starts playing poker and becomes a relative success while the rest of his life falls apart. The plot doesn’t matter too much. You’re in it for the wittiness and intelligence of each individual paragraph. Towards the end, there’s a great section where we’re urged to reconsider the wisdom of a dozen pithy quotes by famous writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “There are no second acts in American lives” is challenged by the records of “Richard Nixon, Muhammad Ali, John Travolta, Bill Clinton or…F. Scott Fitzgerald.” There’s also a good joke when the narrator accuses the novelist Zoë Heller of leveraging her last name to mislead readers into thinking she’s related to Joseph Heller – a joke that became even better when I learned that Ted Heller is actually Joseph Heller’s son.

Penn & Teller’s Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (Feb. 24-26)

When I was in high school, I read their other two books: How to Play with Your Food and How to Play in Traffic, both of which were full of worthy anecdotes and some magic tricks I’ve deployed throughout the years to mild approval. This one was less good. There are fewer interesting passages, and much of the book serves as a trick in and of itself. For example, half of the pages are illegible, printed in what the book itself calls, “itty bitty tiny irritating psycho-print,” so that it can be used as a prop in one of the tricks the legible pages teach you. Clever, but how can you not feel conned yourself when half of the pages are unreadable?

David Lodge and the Tradition of the Modern Novel, J. Russell Perkin (Mar. 3-7)

Another academic analysis of a favorite author, another unsatisfying read. Why do I keep picking these up? There’s nothing wrong with what Perkin says about David Lodge, and as members of the same relatively small fandom, I feel a kinship with him. But there’s no response possible to somebody else’s analysis besides (a) agreeing or (b) presenting a competing analysis. I hope he got an A for this thesis, but as a book, it does nothing for me.

Dracula, Bram Stoker (Mar. 7-17)

Foolishly, I wrote my own vampire stories before ever reading Dracula. I suppose I thought that, since the story has been absorbed into our collective consciousness, there was no need to read it. Maybe you feel that way. That is not so. It’s a very good book, even if it doesn’t surprise us the way it would have its first readers. It’s perfectly paced and vividly rendered, and, although the subject is masked by the nineteenth-century propriety of its language, I think you’ll be excited by how sexually charged the novel is. An early scene of the brides of Dracula descending on a victim will have you sweating.

All The Answers, Michael Kupperman (Mar. 11-14)

Michael Kupperman’s father was a boy genius who appeared on a panel show in the 1940s, answering tricky math questions. Being a child star was not a positive experience for him and he grew into a withdrawn adult, who never shared memories of his childhood with his son. Kupperman’s book is both a biography of his father and a memoir of his attempts to connect with a distant parent. In that sense, and because it’s a comic, it invites some comparisons to Maus, but that’s a pretty tenuous comparison. I only make it because the book doesn’t offer much to hold on to. Neither half of it is bad, but it never achieves escape velocity, perhaps because the father at the center of it all remains unknown to us and to Kupperman.

The Art of Fiction, David Lodge (Mar. 19-24)

A collection of newspaper columns from the novelist. In 50 entries, he discusses one element of the novel (opening lines, point of view, symbolism, the title, unreliable narrators, etc.), and illustrates his points with excerpts from modern and classical novels. It’s all very smart and very digestible, and if you’re trying to write a novel, you’d surely find some useful tricks to borrow. My favorite piece is the one on naming characters, in which Lodge cannily compares the deliberately suggestive names "Robyn Penrose" and "Victor Wilcox" in his own novel Nice Work to the name "Quinn" in Paul Auster's City of Glass. Quinn is a name that “flies off in so many little directions at once,” and if a name can mean anything, it ultimately means nothing at all – which, as Lodge rightly points out, is the point of that existential book.

Fictional Father, Joe Ollman (Mar. 19-23)

The story of a newspaper cartoonist who became rich and famous for his sappy father-and-son comic strip while ignoring and abusing his own son. This is a made-up story, but apparently – as Ollman himself only discovered after he’d written it – it’s very congruent to the real life story of Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis the Menace. Though Ollman sees and draws out the real emotions of in this dynamic, his book is played mostly for laughs and is mostly successful. Lots of funny dialogue and a drawing style that makes everyone look laughable.

The Lost Weekend, Charles Jackson (Mar. 26-30)

The classic novel about a dissolute alcohol’s weeklong binge. The best scene is when he makes a half-joking/half-serious attempt to steal a stranger’s purse to fund his addiction. In addition to how well it works as a sad character study, it’s also one of those books that transports you to a bygone urban landscape – if you like that sort of thing, which I do.

Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri (Mar. 31 - Apr. 4)

I find Lahiri’s work both irresistible and highly resistible. I like it because it’s so good, so intelligent, so precise, and so effective. I reject it because that same expertise leaves me feeling manipulated. It provokes an emotional response, yes, but because what’s provoked is always the only emotional response made available by the text, you have the sense that you’ve been moved from A to B to C without your input. A friend of mine says writing like this is akin to a sniper’s bullet: the marksmanship is incredible, but how good are you going to feel about the results? Oh, but this book in particular? It’s fine. A woman without a name wanders through a European city without a name, thinking. A little more diffuse and experimental than her other books, but in the end it feels…well, you know.

Amateurs, Dylan Hicks (Apr. 7-11)

I hardly remember this one. It was about a group of twentysomethings, tied together by threads of romance, thwarted romance, friendship, and competitiveness. Was there a wedding? A road trip to get to that wedding? I’m not sure. My recollection is that the book was good, not bad, but I have no evidence to back that up.

Don’t Come in Here, Patrick Kyle (Apr. 10)

A little comic book. Not much of a narrative. Just a showcase of trippy artwork, which wasn’t bad. What I remember most was returning this book to the library and it not being checked back in, obligating me to call up the circulation desk before I could be slammed with a humiliating late fee.

The Long Prospect, Elizabeth Harrower (Apr. 12-16)

An Australian novel about a young girl who lives a stifling life in a boarding house owned by her unpleasant grandmother. One boarder, a scientist, takes the girl under his wing. That’s the set-up, but I can’t animate any of the characters. Like Amateurs, the action of the book has been completely forgotten. Unlike Amateurs, the feeling that remains is not positive.

To Know You’re Alive, Dakota McFadzean (Apr. 14-15)

A collection of off-kilter, slightly spooky stories. There’s a cute one about how our culture might react if a boring alien landed on Earth, a creepy one about the discovery of a lost piece of children’s media, an eggheaded appraisal of Super Mario Bros. 2, and a silent nightmare with an inescapable cereal mascot. They’re all fun.

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear, Paul Hornschemeier (Apr. 16-17)

Another collection of short comics. The design of the book is clever. There are two halves: Let Us Be, printed from the front of the book to the middle; and Perfectly Clear, printed from the back of the book to the middle. But the stories themselves are less memorable than the package.

Hanging On, Edmund G. Love (Apr. 17-24)

Pulled off a library shelf at random, I think I may be the only person to have ever checked it out. A memoir of a being a teenager and sometimes college student in Michigan during the Great Depression. Though there are few highs and many lows when you grow up in that era, the book is a breezy, amusing read, so long as you don’t get hung up with resentment after learning that his tuition to attend the University of Michigan was only about $100 per year.

Carnet de Voyage, Craig Thompson (Apr. 21-23)

A little illustrated travel diary. Thompson wrote it while he was traveling around, promoting Blankets. It’s trifling, but fine. I had a stomach flu at the start of the year, so a sequence of Thompson suffering from food poisoning made me feel seen.

King of King Court, Travis Dandro (Apr. 24-28)

A very good memoir of childhood. It’s drawn in a chunky, juvenile style, but the material is pretty harrowing. Dandro’s dad was a heroin addict, his stepfather was an alcoholic, and his mom was understandably harried and overwhelmed. Dandro’s perspective is mature and empathetic, but he’s still able to recall and illustrate the feelings of fear and anger and shame that can arise in kids when they have unwelcome encounters with the adult world. It sounds like a painful read, but it’s not at all.

Remembering the Bone House, Nancy Mairs (Apr. 27 – May 5)

A memoir about the physical spaces Mairs has occupied: both houses and her own body. Her approach is scattershot, but I liked that. There’s a tendency towards loftiness and know-it-all-ism in memoirists (fair enough, given that the alternative is to concede that the stories from your life are meaningless, in which case, how self-indulgent is it to publish them?), but Mairs avoids it. She presents her book with the attitude that writing is not the summation of life, but just another action taken by the living. Illustrating that point is a moment where she writes of publishing a personal essay about her affair and discovering that, contrary to what she thought, her husband didn’t know about it – until he read the printed story.

Nutshell, Ian McEwan (May 7-11)

Told from the perspective of a fetus, as he listens in on the sinister machinations and plotting of his mother and her lover. It’s clever and the high concept doesn’t wear thin. Embarrassingly, I didn’t realize until I had finished the book that it was retelling the story of Hamlet, even though the title comes from one of the only lines of that play I can confidently quote.

Level Up, Gene Luen Yang & Thien Pham (May 11-12)

The main character’s strict father won’t buy him a Nintendo Entertainment System. When the father dies, the hero buys an NES, and develops a passion for video games that becomes a crutch whenever he falters in life. Eventually, he’s set upon by some cherubs or angels who act as his guilty conscience, obliging him to follow his late father’s wishes for him. The main idea here – the hero’s challenge to find his individual happiness without disappointing or disrespecting his family – is handled well, but I can’t help but wish that video games hadn’t been the subject the story was spun around. I like video games, and respect their intelligence and artistic merit…but every time people try to transplant them into another medium, the operation is a failure, and the subject dies on the table.

The Unconsoled, Kazuo Ishiguro (May 12-21)

A book that tries your patience, if it’s possible to say that without being totally negative. A pianist arrives in a new city in advance of a concert and is soon dragged all over the city for endless, perplexing meetings and chores. The story is presented like a dream, where characters pop up randomly, and locations can be endlessly distant in one moment and right around the corner in the next. The thing is, dreams are always more interesting to the dreamer than to any audience, so the book can be frustrating at times, even if you accept its structure. Still, it’s impressive that he pulled off such a stunt for 500 pages, and the quality of Ishiguro’s prose is bright and beautiful as always.

Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont (May 23-29)

Twilight Zone-esque tales from a writer for The Twilight Zone. Actually, many of the stories in this book became scripts for that show. But they work in either medium. The best is “The Howling Man,” about a traveler in Europe who comes across a group of monks who are keeping a strange prisoner. Inventive and tidy and not bogged down by any need for meaning, these are the sort of stories I’ve been trying to write recently.

Passport, Sophia Glock (May 28-30)

As a teenager, Glock discovered that her secretive parents were actually spies working for the CIA. I think that’s the set-up for Spy Kids, but this book goes in a less bombastic direction. It’s a fairly conventional coming-of-age story, as Sophia makes friends and enemies, goes out to parties, and learns to accept herself. It’s okay, and there’s something amusingly anticlimactic about the irrelevance of her parents’ profession to Glock’s own story, but you won’t be mesmerized by this book.

The Resisters, Gish Jen (May 30 - June 2)

A baseball prodigy tries to find happiness in a dystopian future. I sped through this book, surprised at how tolerable it was, but by the end, my general disinterest in dystopian stories won out. The nod-your-head-sadly parallels to our current culture are more wearying than enlightening. The baseball scenes are okay, though. That sport translates well to the page.

Come Along With Me, Shirley Jackson (June 4-9)

The title comes from an unfinished novella included in this collection, but it and every other story are overshadowed by “The Lottery,” which is as good as its reputation holds. The next best inclusion is Jackson’s essay about the reception “The Lottery” got. In addition to the reams of letters from people incapable of understanding that her story was fictional and convinced that there really did exist a small town that committed ritual stoning, she received a fawning letter, to which she politely responded, “I admire your work, too,” only to discover that she had responded to an accused axe murderer. On the far opposite end, this collection also has “Pajama Party,” a cute domestic comedy about a child’s first sleepover. I liked that one too.

Twists of Fate, Paco Roca (June 9-11)

I’ll compare this one to Maus too, and I’ll be on firmer ground: a comic book about a young man painstakingly drawing out the war stories of an elderly man. The man fought against the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, fled to Algeria, joined the Allied forces, and was party of the forces that liberated Paris from the Nazis. But he was never able to return to Spain to liberate it from Franco, a regret that gnaws at him, even at age 94. That’s a good story, and it digs into some underexposed history, but I was never fully convinced of the need for the framing device.

Memoir of a Gambler, Jack Richardson (June 12-19)

A little bit like a non-fiction version of Pocket Kings. After his divorce, Richardson crosses the country, and eventually the globe, playing poker in high and low places. There’s not a lot of happiness in this world, and Richardson does nothing to change that, but his cold and precise rendering of his adventures (and really, they are adventures: he’s not just sitting at the tables for the whole book) are entrancing. His description of the geography of Las Vegas – which, by chance, I was reading as I flew into Las Vegas – should on its own be enough to shut down the city.

Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker (June 21-25)

The true story of a large family in Colorado Springs, some of whom were acquainted with my uncles. There are 12 children, and half of them are ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to much grief but ultimately making the family a fruitful source of data for medical researchers. It’s a sad book, and like all good documentaries, it makes you feel guilty for being witness to what you’re seeing.

Lovesickness, Junji Ito (June 24-26)

A collection of unsettling, grotesque comics. Exactly what I was expecting and hoping for when I picked it up, yet I was unmoved by the collection. The territory is just the same as in Uzumaki, which I’d read the year before, but as a set of independent (rather than linked) stories, the material doesn’t have a chance to develop an insidious feeling or any thematic resonance. It’s more a series of satisfactory but forgettable shocks.

Thin Places, Jordan Kisner (June 27 – July 3)

These are the sort of essays all NYU freshman are taught to write: pick three or four subjects – usually a selection from personal experience, history, a piece of art, and an event, place, or occurrence in our culture – and juxtapose them in every pairing until you reach your page count. It’s a very mechanical process, and my experience being taught it left me prone to resist this form. And yet I liked this collection well enough. Kisner is honest, most of her insights are well-articulated, and though there’s no humor in these essays (the form won’t allow it), she doesn’t fill that vacuum with pretension, as my classmates and I always did.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (July 6-9)

There’s a party game called Humiliation, where you reveal that you've never actually encountered some huge culture monument, and you get points for each person at the party who has. For a long time (still, in fact), I could say I’ve never seen Titanic and scoop up a bunch of points. That was my go-to because I was too embarrassed to confess to an even bigger miss: I had never read The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a wonderful book, though. Very funny and very moving. What surprised me was how much I admired Holden Caulfield. I don’t just mean that I understood and accepted his adolescent angst. I actually think he’s a noble person. His anger may sometimes be misplaced and his sense of righteousness can be overly dogmatic, but those are habits that usually pass with age, and what will be left is the sensitivity, intelligence, and moral strength that’s plainly evident beneath his clumsy exterior.

American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar, Harvey Pekar, et al. (July 7-13)

Autobiographical comics by another admirable grouch. I had never read any American Splendor stories before, maybe because their multiple art styles (Pekar wrote the comics but had a variety of other artists draw them) seemed wearying to me. And truthfully, that quality still does nothing for me. But the writing is great. The stories vary in subject and length and presentation, but every one of them is closely observed and intelligent about the way people talk and act and think. The ordinariness of life (and of Cleveland) is rendered with extreme beauty. And Pekar himself is a great hero. Another noble crank who’s critical and passionate and full of fury, yet never unkind and never less than generous.

I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying, Bassey Ikpi (July 10-13)

A pain-filled memoir, this one about bipolar disorder, disassociation, and the Challenger explosion. It’s mostly engaging, though there are parts in the back half where useful details seem to be missing and it becomes hard to follow. Given the subject matter, this may not be unintentional.

Crash Site, Nathan Cowdry (July 14-15)

Edgelord stuff run through several layers of irony. Lots of violence and provocative dialogue stacked up in such a way that it’s impossible to tell whom the author is trying to provoke: those who would take offensive or those who would deny the validity of being offended. I sort of see the point, and I didn’t hate the book. But at a certain point, you wish Cowdry would stop fooling around and just write a real story.

Amnesty, Aravind Adiga (July 16-19)

A young migrant worker in Sydney comes across a murder. If he reports it, he risks deportation, a fact that the murderer is all too happy to rub his nose in. It’s a good blend of a thriller and a social commentary. I also liked that fact that it was taking Australia and its cultural values to task. Not that I personally have anything against Australia, but it’s a country that you rarely see condemned, so I appreciated getting to reading a rare (and surely well-deserved) scolding.

Onion Skin, Edgar Camacho (July 17-18)

The story of a couple that runs a food truck and finds themselves in a turf war. It holds your attention while you’re reading it, but it’s a mess, jumping around in time and in tone. Plus, the relationship at its center is very tired: a mopey guy finds his life reinvigorated by a free-spirited girl. The food looked good, though.

Popcorn, Ben Elton (July 21-24)

A Hollywood satire written by a Brit, so it has that some of the stiffness and artificiality that can come in when writers try to cross the pond. But on the whole, it’s funny and astute about the industry. The ending overemphasizes its lessons, but I liked that Elton didn’t shy away from the mayhem he’d been teasing.

Brownsville, Neil Kleid & Jake Allen (July 22-23)

The familiar story of growing up in New York, being attracted to the mafia, and eventually joining it. The twist this time is that it’s the Jewish mafia. Interesting? Not really. That detail hardly changes anything, so the arc and most of the individual scenes in this book are rote in conception and in execution. Your favorite mafia story, whatever it is, will give you as much as this book and more.

My Man Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (July 29 - Aug. 1)

An early and unpolished collections of short stories. Given that Wodehouse later rewrote most of these pieces, the decent thing to do might have been to let this collection go out of print. Fewer laughs than Wodehouse usually provides, though there are still a couple of big ones, such as one character’s passing idea to make money by selling anarchists and other dispossessed people the opportunity to beat up his rich uncle.

Good Eggs, Rebecca Hardiman (Aug. 6-10)

A warm-hearted comedy about an Irish family. There’s the grandma who keeps making trouble, the rebellious teen with a soft, sentimental center, and the harried father caught in between the generations, trying to keep everything running smoothly. Eventually, they’re all put on the same side of the field when they have to take on an American who’s scammed them. It’s nothing remarkable, and I didn’t laugh too much – perhaps not at all – but sometimes it’s enough if a book features one element close to your heart. In my case, it was the suburban Dublin setting.

Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22, MariNaomi (Aug. 9-11)

A catalog of intimate relationships ranging from crushes to long-term relationships. To some degree, it’s all contextualized by its setting (the Bay Area in the 1980s and 90s), and by how the author views her relationships in comparison to that of her parents. But mostly, it’s just a list, and one that becomes quickly repetitive.

The Library Book, Susan Orlean (Aug. 11-14)

Possibly a perfect non-fiction book. In 1986, a fire broke out at the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, wiping out 20% of its collection. Orlean covers that disaster and it subsequent investigation, but she also makes room for the history of the LAPL, discourse on the function of libraries in America, personal reflections, academic theorizing, and science experiments (the chapter about her own attempt to burn a book is one of the best parts). The arson at the heart of this story is compelling enough to make this book good in anyone’s hands, but in Orlean's, it’s great.

I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me, Juan Pablo Villalobos (Aug. 16-21)

Another fun mash-up. This time the blend is crime thriller, campus novel, and metafiction. Juan Pablo is a Mexican student who is abducted before leaving to study abroad in Spain, and ordered to get close to a corrupt politician by falling in love with his daughter. The plot is knowingly ridiculous and, though you eventually give up on trying to follow it, it’s amusing all the way through. There’s also a fun essay at the end, in which the translator explains his difficulty in capturing the voices of the different narrators, conceding with admirable frankness that he’s not sure he succeeded.

The Bridge, Peter J. Tomasi and Sara DuVall (Aug. 17-20)

The true story of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. If you don’t know it already, the fun detail is that the chief engineer became overworked in the middle of construction, and spent the rest of it monitoring the bridge’s construction from his bed while his wife took over as de facto leader at the job site. The standard details of how to build an enormous bridge are also fun to learn about, and the authors do a good job making you share in the stress of the workers deep below the water.

Woke Up This Morning, Michael Imperioli, Steve Schirripa, and Philip Lerman (Aug. 23-28)

An oral history of The Sopranos cobbled together from the podcast Imperioli and Schirripa started a few years ago. That show is endlessly discussable, and the book has a few funny stories and some thoughtful analysis, and it’s certainly better to read this book than to listen to the podcast (did I tell you I’ve declared a war on podcasts?), but I don't know…I found myself growing less and less interested the more I read. Once the initial fun of being a fly on the wall passed, I recalled that The Sopranos is strong enough to speak for itself.

Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, Brian Kellow (Aug. 30 - Sep. 4)

A thorough biography that features and contextualizes lots of excellent film reviews by Kael. It also reveals some of her astonishing lapses of ethics. In 1971, she published, “Raising Kane,” an essay about the authorship of Citizen Kane’s screenplay. It’s a terrific piece of writing, but it’s extremely shoddy journalism that has since been disproven. Even worse, much of her research was stolen from a UCLA professor, whom she never credited. It’s a shocking revelation and Kellow presents it without excuses. That chapter alone is worth the price of admission.

Love That Bunch, Aline Kominsky-Crumb (Sep. 2-5)

Autobiographical comics from one half of an underground comix power couple. A relationship that’s mostly been presented through her husband Robert Crumb’s eyes is shown here from Kominsky-Crumb’s perspective instead. But the thing is, they’re a very well-matched couple, so their perspectives aren’t all that different. And honestly, neither of their styles are terribly interesting to me, accomplished though they are. Still, you can admire Kominsky-Crumb’s pioneering efforts, and she and her husband and their unconventional family are pretty cute, no matter how repellant this book tries to make them seem.

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (Sep. 6-10)

Another classic that I’m only just now getting around to. A hair less interesting than Dracula – the old-fashioned formality of the writing makes it a less ripping read – but still great. Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are both fascinating and complex, and the whole story is genuinely haunting and ambitious in scope. The framing device of the Arctic voyagers who witness the end of Frankenstein’s story seems impossibly contemporary. Considering how young Shelley was when she wrote something so good, hers may be the greatest accomplishment in the history of literature.

This is How I Disappear, Mirion Malle (Sep. 10-12)

Another mental health story. Because this one is done as a comic, not as prose, it can place us immediately into the shoes of its protagonist and let us feel her pain, which is a point in its favor. Working against it is the abundance of scenes, dialogue, and plot points driven by text messages and social media messaging. As always happens when those elements are spotlighted in a story, they dial the energy of the book down to nearly zero. (I'm not letting myself off the hook: I've tanked my own pieces that way.) That technology is an important part of our lives and our culture, and someday somebody will find a way to mill it into art, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The Plot Against America, Philip Roth (Sep. 11-17)

It had been nearly 15 years since I read anything by Roth. This was a good one to restart with. An alternate history of Roth’s childhood if the United States had elected Charles Lindbergh over FDR in 1940. The family drama and the political drama are equally engaging, and Roth even leans into the ridiculous fun of speculative fiction with a big, ludicrous twist in the last fifth of the book that guides everything to a satisfying resolution.

Loved and Lost, Jeffrey Brown (Sep. 14-18)

Three graphic novels covering three of Brown’s formative romances. Sincere, but sort of wimpy. I don’t want to cross a line and start critiquing anybody’s personal emotional repertoire – I’m just talking about what’s recorded on the page. The happy moments we see of his relationships are moments of quiet companionship. There’s almost nothing about adventures or inside jokes or mutual discoveries – the exuberant parts of a relationship. Quiet companionship is an important part of love too, and if that’s the pitch at which Brown lives his life, there’s nothing wrong with that, and he should record it accurately. But the pleasure of reading about it is faint.

Fame Adjacent, Sarah Skilton (Sep. 20-24)

A fun and original novel. The narrator is a former child actor, the only one from her troupe of singers and dancers not to become famous. The first part of the book has her in rehab for her internet addiction. The second part has her road-tripping to New York for a reunion with her castmates. It’s a lively book (a quality in short supply in too many novels), and I want to commend Skilton for pulling off a trick that’s harder than you might think: the fake TV show that she creates is credible. Often the fictional media contained within books (and TV shows and movies, for that matter) seems either implausible – we don’t believe a TV show so described would ever air – or like a poorly disguised version of an existing piece of media – distracting us as we look for the Easter eggs in this universe’s version of Seinfeld. But Skilton’s invention (Diego and the Lion’s Den) is totally believable, and its details are nicely fleshed out.

Seek You, Kristen Radtke (Sep. 21-25)

Another bit of brainy graphic essaying by Radtke. The subject is loneliness – Radke’s and America’s. Surrounding the personal reflections, there is a lot of well-synthesized research and bright analysis. And how about this for a good definition to carry with you: “Loneliness isn’t necessarily tied to whether you have a partner or a best friend or an aspirationally active social life. It’s a variance that rests in the space between the relationships you have and the relationships you want.” My only complaint is about a section where, talking of television sitcoms, she blurs the important distinction between canned laugh tracks and the laughter of live studio audiences – but that’s only a personal hang-up of mine.

All About Me!, Mel Brooks (Sep. 25 - Oct. 1)

A very happy memoir by a very happy guy. Lots of warm stories stretching from his childhood to his dotage, and some triumphant moments where he outwits boneheaded Hollywood executives. He’s justly proud of his own talents and achievements, but he spends more of the book heaping genuine, specific praise on other actors and writers he’s worked with. Tellingly, the only colleague who’s recollected with even the slightest negativity is Jerry Lewis…

Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, Chester Brown (Oct. 1-3)

An illustrated collection of stories from the Bible that Brown believes evince a pro-sex work attitude in early Christianity. As somebody with almost no preexisting feelings about the Gospels, I’m an easy mark for any interpretation. Brown, who has spent the last 25 years visiting prostitutes, is not exactly a detached analyst here, but whatever his motivations for writing this book, his evaluation of the Bible’s text is convincing enough. The trouble for me was that, irrespective of their political meaning, I found the Gospel stories themselves distasteful and unkind.

Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (Oct. 2-4)

The blurbs all compare him to David Sedaris, but that’s inapt. There’s nothing funny about Burroughs’ story, and the comparison seems to me like laziness, an inability to distinguish two very different types of memoir. With that pedantry out of the way: this is a good book. As a teenager, Burroughs is put in the care of his mother’s psychiatrist, a dangerous blowhard who keeps a filthy and miserable home. Burroughs witnesses and endures a lot of horrors over the course of five years, and though he’s never self-pitying nor seeking of praise, I did feel admiration for his escape and his ability to transmogrify his life into art.

Hollywood Said No!, Bob Odenkirk & David Cross with Brian Posehn (Oct. 6-8)

Two never-produced screenplays and other sundry material by some of the brains behind Mr. Show. Not their best work, but I smiled a lot while reading it. I did object, however, to their attacks on Jamie Kennedy, towards whom I feel an odd and misapplied sense of protectiveness.

The Road Through the Wall, Shirley Jackson (Oct. 8-14)

Jackson’s first novel, in which she exposes the ugliness, prejudice and misery beneath the surface of a privileged upper-class neighborhood. That’s pretty shopworn material these days, but remember: she did it in 1948. The novel is decent – I liked the scene where two teenagers seek a transgressive thrill but the best they find is a secret tea party with a butler – and the gruesome ending does still shock. But it’s weighed down by having too many indistinguishable characters.

Clyde Fans, Seth (Oct. 14-17)

A meticulously drawn book about a generational struggle to keep open a family business. The artwork is impressive, but I just can’t summon up any enthusiasm for this story and its themes: the agony of being a salesman, the inability of men of a certain generation to share their feelings, and more of that midcentury nostalgia I complained about earlier.

Ostrich, Matt Greene (Oct. 15-17)

A 12-year-old boy with brain tumor narrates an otherwise typical story of growing up (parents, friends, school, burgeoning sexual feelings). There are some clever and funny lines, but I grew less and less convinced I was hearing the honest voice of a child as opposed to the practiced remarks of a novelist.

Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King (Oct. 20-29)

A retired detective is taunted by a murderous psychopath and begins a private investigation to catch the killer. My hopes for this one weren’t quite met. The plotting is fine, and some tension builds well in the last act, but none of the characters feel like more than placeholders, and the gruesome details (particularly in the killer’s backstory) are nowhere near King’s best. Also, King’s efforts to write dialogue for a Black teenager result in some embarrassing lines that I won’t quote here.

The Only Story, Julian Barnes (Nov. 4-9)

I picked it up because it was about tennis, and discovered that Barnes was an author I should have been reading for years. A man recounts his “only story,” of being a college student home for the summer and falling in love with a middle-aged woman he’s partnered with for a game of doubles. The direction the story takes doesn’t matter. What I liked about the book was how intelligently and unpretentiously Barnes writes, and how deeply he digs into important questions. The book opens with, “Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.” And before you have a chance to reflect on how well put that is, Barnes challenges himself: “You may point out—correctly—that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have the choice…if you can control it, then it isn’t love.” The array of thoughts those four sentences evoke would be accomplishment enough for most novelists, but it’s only the first of many treats Barnes offers.

Hummingbird Heart, Travis Dandro (Nov. 5-7)

The sequel to King of King Court, picking up on Dandro’s life as he hacks his way through his teen years. All of the praise-worthy qualities of the first book are present…but less so. The intelligence of the writing and the appeal of the drawing style are still there, but the subject is less interesting, more well-worn: shoplifting teenage boys learning to put aside their anger and face the fact that they must grow up. It’s done well, but only well, and Dandro's previous book set the bar higher.

Palimpsest, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom (Nov. 9-12)

A very angry memoir of an adoptee seeking out her roots. The author directs anger at her adopted country, at her country of birth, at bureaucrats from all over, and at herself. All of which is well-earned, and the point that Sjöblom makes early on is that she wishes to counteract the rosy prevailing narrative of the experience of international adoptees. I would push back slightly by noting that Sjöblom sometimes seems to not just want to dismantle that narrative, but to replace it with one that’s equally overbroad – her own – not realizing that that would be just as limiting. But that minor quibble aside, this is worth reading.

Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley C. Ford (Nov. 12-16)

There’s a lot of trauma recounted in this memoir of growing up with an abusive mother and an incarcerated father, and Ford renders it all calmly and dispassionately, yet still with a keen memory of the pain she felt. If you can handle that sort of material, this book offers it about as well as it could be done. And Ford shares a few memories that stick with you long after the book is done, like a scene of her grandmother setting ablaze a nest of snakes.

The Third Person, Emma Grove (Nov. 16-20)

This one sneaks up on you, and soon, you’ll be flying through its 900 pages. Grove is a transgender woman visiting a therapist to be approved for hormone therapy. As the sessions progress and Toby the therapist learns more about Grove and her past, he begins to think that she may have Dissociative Identity Disorder, which he feels must be addressed prior to any other medical care. The drawing style is simple and flat, and much of the book is given over to repetitive scenes of therapy sessions, which may sound boring, but it’s actually very easy to become absorbed in their discussions. And the therapist isn’t just a prop to give Grove somebody to talk to; he’s a real character whom we see as clumsier and more unprofessional the longer the book goes on.

This Is Not My Beautiful Life, Victoria Fedden (Nov. 17-20)

While Fedden was pregnant and staying with her family in Florida, her parents’ house was raided by the feds. This memoir touches on her dysfunctional family, their legal travails, and the goofy (and, to my eyes, could-not-be-less-desirable) experience of living in Florida. The details of her family’s unique experiences give the book some early momentum, but the humor doesn’t progress beyond zaniness, and eventually, the book spins off in fragmentary, underexplored directions in an unsuccessful search for a point.

Just After Sunset, Stephen King (Nov. 24-30)

I broke my informal rule and read more than one Stephen King book in 2022. This one is a collection of stories, and it’s more successful than Mr. Mercedes. There are 13 stories, and at least nine of them work. Particularly good are “Stationary Bike,” one of those tales about a living painting; “The Gingerbread Girl,” about an obsessive runner; and N., an old-fashioned novella about a psychiatrist who takes on his patient’s obsession.

The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky, Jana Casale (Dec. 1-8)

A highly internal novel about a Millennial in Boston who aspires to be a writer. No, don’t run away: this one is actually good. Leda, the protagonist, is seen in a number of quiet, precise vignettes, moving through college and her early 20s, trying to be a friend and a lover and a daughter and a romantic partner. I thought I’d had my fill of these stories (both from other books and from my own droning life), but I found room to let this one in. My interest waned in the last third, once the character grows up and we accelerate through her adulthood and old age, but up until then, it’s absorbing.

Fun, Paolo Bacilieri (Dec. 2-5)

A graphic novel about the history of the crossword puzzle, woven around a knowingly melodramatic mystery, all told in a vaguely meta style. It’s pretty busy, and though it delivers on the fun promised in the title while you’re reading it, it doesn’t stick with you.

Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (Dec. 10-15)

A book my mom was recommending to everyone 25 years ago. An askew story of the Antichrist being swapped at birth and of the junky Armageddon that follows. It’s cute and funny, and though I get a little impatient with British whimsy these days, it's well-deployed here. The cast is so sprawling that it becomes a little unwieldy – this is probably an asset in its miniseries adaptation – but there aren’t any characters whose sections you dread.

With the Fire on High, Elizabeth Acevedo (Dec. 23-29)

The first young adult novel I had read in many years, about a high school senior with a talent for cooking who must learn to trust in and prioritize her own dreams. It had been a while since I read a book with a lesson, and shifting gears took some time. But once I did, I was happy to go along and cheer the main character’s triumph. I read most of this book on a six-hour train ride through California’s Central Valley, seated next to a man without a neutral odor, so its many descriptions of aromatic food were very welcome.

***

It was not my favorite year of reading, but curiously, I read more books in 2022 than in any other year since I’ve been keeping track. Maybe it was overextension that led to a less positive experience. Maybe my mood was brought down by two or three too many painful memoirs. Or maybe I should just internalize the lessons of Ted Heller and Jack Richardson, and accept that sometimes life deals you a bum hand. That can be true of a year or of a reading list.

But I did discover those two authors. And finally mark off Dracula, The Catcher in the Rye, and Frankenstein. And one Susan Orlean makes up for a hundred Brownsvilles. In order to maintain my enthusiasm for writing in the face of the constant beatings 2022 offered, I had to accept the old lesson about taking pleasure in the creative act itself and not being preoccupied about where the final product would lead me. That equanimous outlook is just as useful pointed towards the writing of others, remembering that, whatever the yearly average turns out to be, the pleasure of reading any one good book is never diminished.

[draslihanxfahri-bailey]

She didn’t realize it at first. After all, it wasn’t something that they’d been working on or even talked about. And it was something that she never thought would happen for her again, something that while it still broke her heart, nonetheless she has grown to accept it by now. So for this to be happening... She couldn’t describe the emotions coursing through her, pacing throughout her bedroom and even up and down the hall of her house’s second story while six pregnancy tests were in the master bathroom, developing the results. She hadn’t even realized the signs, them being incredibly subtle now than they had been with Theodora, yet were admittedly a bit more obvious than they had been with Alexandria. But, even then, she knew that it didn’t mean anything until each and every single test result and even an appointment with her doctor could confirm what she was suspicious about.

Yet, at the same time, she found herself scared. Scared for how Elijah may react or what he might think. Despite spending years knowing each other, she never did learn about his thoughts on parenthood. That is, she knew that aside from Alex and Leti’s twins that he felt rather awkward when it came to children; However, she’d also been the same way before her first daughter. She was scared that this was incredibly too fast again. That this will completely change their relationship, especially since they’ve only been together for roughly six months now and only just a little over a month ago proclaim their love for each other. She was scared that she’ll face the same or a whole new set of complications again like she did with her last two and she questioned if she was strong enough for another round. Though, admittedly, there was a part of her that was excited. She’s been wanting another child for awhile now and had previously looked into adopting or fostering before putting that on hold. Maybe... this could be that opportunity. Maybe, her fears were just that: fears. Maybe her and Elijah got this, the thought of the man she loves becoming a father warming her heart and filling her with unbridled happiness and excitement. Or maybe, she could be completely wrong and just in her head with those six tests all coming up negative. Either way, whether she was or wasn’t pregnant, she was going to be happy. Finally, the alarm on her phone went off; All test results should be ready. Quietly, she headed to the master bathroom. Taking a deep breath. Holding it in. Looking at each result. Letting it go. Downstairs, she could hear the door opening and her boyfriend calling out. The anthropologist shook herself out of her daze, quickly straighten things out a bit within the bathroom and headed downstairs. Her heart beating happily at the sight of the musician before she rushed over to him to hug and kiss him. “I’m so happy you’re home; I missed you so much.” It’s only been a couple of hours yet with everything, it felt like eternity. Especially as her mind kept racing back to those results.

Five results with each a ‘Plus Sign’ in clear pink and white; One result with the actual word in black: Pregnant. They were going to have a baby together.

CLOSED STARTER: their home, february 15th, 2023 ; claret park // @elifalvey​​

[whentherewerebicycles]

blah blah journaling behind the cut

OKAY WHY DO I FEEL SO UNSETTLED i will gently disentangle the feelings.

the interview is just a screening interview and i might not make it to the next round! this isn’t even a JOB yet just the far-off possibility of maybe a job someday! but the REALITY of the screening interview on my calendar is making it feel more real that i COULD leave my current job and that is making me feel a bit panicky! to be clear i very, very, very much want to leave my current job but i feel like i’ve weathered so many major life transitions in the past 8-10 months and it’s kind of freaking me out to imagine weathering another one, even if it is a much-desired life transition that i think/hope would ultimately make me feel much more like myself. the prospect of change can be scary even if it’s a good change. this is not a feeling i can resolve it is just a feeling i will need to hold loosely & breathe through as i move forward.

i am nervous about the interview itself, mostly because i have spent the past six or seven months feeling pretty disconnected from my old self and pretty emotionally adrift in an existential crisis about my current job, and i am worried i will not be able to quickly & easily access my old thoughts/feelings about the work i used to do. but i have seven days to do some sustained thinking, journaling, and talking with friends/students to reconnect with that not-SO-distant version of myself. plus the coordinator confirmed they’ll be sending me the screening questions the day before, so i’ll have time to thoughtfully prep and practice.

liz is leaving today and we won’t see each other again in person until late april which feels so far away :(((((( i never want to waste the last day being in a funk about parting but i am in a funk about parting. but it will be ok. we got to see each other like every two weeks for the last three visits and we will both be traveling a lot in the meantime so the time will go faster than i think!!

i am traveling for a family trip this weekend and the logistics are slightly complicated (seattle to phoenix to palm springs to san diego to seattle) and that always makes me feel a little unsettled even if i know the trip itself will be fun. plus i have to do a bunch of errands before i leave AND pack for a different climate and i’m nervous about not having clothes that will work out. but it’s fine it will be fine.

WHAT CAN I DO TO QUIET MY WORRIES 

i can book airport parking (one lightly stressful logistics thing out of the way) and make a detailed to-do list and packing list so i have less free-floating anxiety about the trip itself. i can also map out the different legs of the trip and figure out when i’ll have time to work on interview prep, which i think will help me feel less stressed about preparing.

i already created a doc and spent a few hours researching the program i’m applying to, jotting down notes for examples/ideas from my previous job i can talk about in the interview, and making a list of things i want to be ready to discuss. i think i feel a little scattered in the way i’m prepping now, but if i carve out a solid block of time tomorrow to make a detailed prep plan i can just work my way through it steadily instead of feeling like there are a million scattered things floating around in my head. this will also make me feel more excited about the job which will help ease me through the scary AAAAAA MORE LIFE TRANSITIONS???? feelings.

liz and i are going to book our next visit now so we have something to look forward to! also i think we will go on a walk and that will help ease the pre-period hormonal jitters.

tonight i will have time to sit down and calmly think through all aspects of the next week (logistics, interview prep, work schedule, etc.). having a solid plan will make me feel less all over the place. and tonight i will also have time to do some good quality lying around and self-soothing activities (reading a favorite classic fic etc) which i think will help restore my feelings of equilibrium

[paramoira]

@certifiedhorror (sam)

it's an odd sort of evening, the quiet sound of leaves rustling outside her window in-between crashes of distant thunder; the window is open, fractionally-- just enough-- for the breeze to flow through yet not allow rain inside. clouds turn the darkening skies a deep shade of gray, sunset soon to follow. the day had been contemplative, a needed break after the stress of everything life had thrown upon her over the course of the last few weeks. she had had a plan in mind for herself and her life when she'd decided to return to new jersey. she would be close to uncle nik (close enough to visit the estate and ride sherlock, the horse he'd gifted her upon her return) yet far enough to maintain an air of independence from the life he'd chosen to live and her own. she wasn't the type to let his choice of business and her own line of work obstruct her loyalty or cause her to abandon her family. they were separated entities on the professional front and anyone who truly knew her, understood that. still, she was aware that declining the initial offer to live at the estate when she returned was a needed separation for professional appearances. plus, frankly, she needed her own space. her own dwelling to make her home in the wake of some much loss. loss of her best friend, though not in a morbid sort of way-- he'd left her not died, and loss of mehmed. her move was supposed to be a rebirth of sorts, a new beginning inside of the shell of something familiar to build off of.

yet, that's not exactly how things had played out had it? no.

devin had been there, that first day at the medical examiners office and a great many truths had come to light in the weeks after which had made ariadne question her understanding of many things including them. "you know. it's really strange. mehmed never saw this house. the whole time we knew each other was in london. six months that felt like a lifetime... and yet, all these months later, somehow... a part of me still expects him to walk through that door. i'm not sure that ever will go away on days like this."

her voice isn't melancholy, just... perhaps, tinged with a kind of resigned acceptance of a simple fact. she has grieved and sought to continue forward. she understands life will continue and maybe one day she will love again. but one love does not erase another. just as reuniting with devin did not mean she still held onto the hopes she once had for them. perhaps their time had passed and only friendship would now remain.

life was complicated like that.

it was only going to grow more complicated now that a winchester was standing in her living room. a different sort of complicated; a kind of complicated that had become increasingly present in her life lately-- given her work with the bprd on occasion-- even if the supernatural had tinged it since her mother. "if you need to get in touch with my baba you'll have to get in line. haven't heard from him in over a month. uncle nik is a lot easier though. he's just a short drive away and i think he always had a soft spot for you when your father brought you by."

ariadne had known sam was coming though the reason had appeared unclear as of yet. somethings were best left off of a text chain papertrail. or maybe he was just coming to see her now that she was stateside. she didn't mind either case, such is why she'd told him to let himself in when he got there after he'd texted her to say he was twenty minutes out. "alright, i've done quite enough internal musing today." she states, slapping her hands on her knees before rising from where she'd been seated near the window, her expression becoming bright as she crossed the short distance to sam and offered him a hug in greeting. that gesture coupled with the fact she'd allowed her door to be unlocked and him to come in without a knock was a surefire signal he was someone she trusted well. "now tell me what's brought you here. i know it wasn't just my radiant smile."