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mariephillipswriter · 4 years ago

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Square Eyes

Do they still say that if you watch too much television you'll get square eyes? Or is that an expression that went out of fashion when kids started spending all their time in front of the internet? Putting aside the obvious riposte (televisions aren't square, they're rectangular) I can report that I have been doing extensive research in this area and have come to the scientific conclusion: no, you won't. I have been watching so much television. SO MUCH TELEVISION. I never believed that I could watch such an immense quantity of television. On the whole I don't watch it during the day except for sometimes when I am having my breakfast and also when having my lunch, but in the evenings, when I have finished pretending to work, I might start watching television at about 6pm, or 5pm, or 4pm on a bad day, and keep going until, say, 11pm or midnight. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. HOW CAN A PERSON LIVE THIS WAY. Well it's easy enough, it turns out, if you're under lockdown in London in December and it's dark from 4pm and raining most of the time and you have the emotional resources of a gnat and reading is too demanding and talking on the phone is too exhausting and the light in the living room is not good enough for doing a puzzle in evening hours and you quit social media a month or so ago because it was driving you out of your mind with anxiety. I don't watch six or seven or eight hours of television every night. Don't be ridiculous. Some nights I only watch about three hours of television because I have a Zoom call or I'm cooking dinner or I've got stuck into a good cryptic crossword, maybe the Saturday Times Jumbo one because the Guardian ones are too gimmicky, or at last I've found a book gripping yet easy enough that I can't put it down (thank you Robert Galbraith, thank you Marian Keyes), but I would say that three hours is the minimum and my god that is a LOT. EVERY DAY. THREE HOURS. MINIMUM. But you don't need to me to explain that to you because you are all watching three four five six seven hours of television every day and when you are not watching television you are phoning your friends and first of all talking about the specific way that your own personal lockdown is terrible but then eventually saying 'what are you watching on television' because what else is there even to talk about? At the start of lockdown there was quite a small pool of television that everyone was watching (that thing about the Tiger King, which I didn't watch because by the time I got back from my early lockdown in Costa Rica you'd all seen it, and Normal People which I didn't watch because I was too embarassed to sit through all the sex scenes with my flatmates, and I May Destroy You, which I didn't watch because about five minutes of it was enough to send me into a massive panic spiral, but I hear was very good), but once we had all (other than me) got through that and Covid dragged on for months, our conversations began taking on the tenor of Vikings crowding around one another as a boat returns from a foray, WHAT IS OUT THERE, WHAT DID YOU FIND OUT THERE, IS THERE SOMETHING OUT THERE THAT I MIGHT DESIRE? And the Viking says yes, there is this thing called Schitts Creek but you really have to push on through the first season because I promise you it gets better and better and you will start to love that obnoxious family. And then we all watched Schitts Creek. (Including me, it's wonderful, you have to push on through the first series you will start to love that obnoxious family, Dan Levy is a divinity in human form and if you want more of him you could do worse than checking out the lesbian Christmas-themed romcom Happiest Season, which you can rent from Amazon Prime.) And now we are beyond even that and all our lives resonate with the screeching sound of a televisual barrel being scraped and now this is when things get really interesting (or put another way, VERY VERY BORING) because everyone has fractured and we are all watching different kinds of random stuff found in the dusty corners and unloved algorithms of our streaming services. There's the friend who has got into watching obscure French crime series on Netflix (The Chalet! La Mante!) and the friend who is watching every episode of Poirot on Britbox (thirteen series, 70 episodes) (though that pales in comparison with the friend who did a total rewatch of Friends from beginning to end (236 episodes) and finished it ages ago and is starving for more) and the friend who calls me up seemingly every week with a new old show nobody else has ever heard of (such as the early 1990s Nigel Havers and Warren Clarke comedy spy drama Sleepers, which he is watching old-school-style on DVD, and which apparently is like The Americans only with Nigel Havers and funny, and also, you should watch The Americans.) When I look back on the amount of television I have watched this year it defies comprehension. There were the things I would have watched anyway like the whole of Strictly Come Dancing and His Dark Materials, and the things that took me by surprise, like the stealthily hilarious Danny Dyer gameshow The Wall that was on straight after Strictly and drove me into a total obsession with the way that Danny Dyer says "Drop 'Em" (he's talking about the balls that are dropped down the wall, it's hard to explain, you can find it on iPlayer, but meanwhile if you only click on one link in this whole newsletter PLEASE click on that one), there were the things that were created especially to get me through lockdown (the wonderful David Tennant and Michael Sheen Zoom comedy Staged, which is not only extremely funny but allows you to see inside David Tennant's house which I'm not sure I am technically allowed to watch because of the restraining order? Anyway, new series coming on Monday, fellow DT fans) and the familiar things I watched to soothe me when it all got too much (Doctor Who, starting before Tennant even gets in on the action, right at the begining of the New Who seasons with Christopher Eccleston, because armchair space travel is the only kind of travel we are going to be getting for a while) and the exciting things I watched when I could no longer bear the tedious repetition of every identical day (Line of Duty, in which the famous-for-the-far-inferior Bodyguard writer Jed Mercurio delivers ludicrously compelling twisty-turny stories about police corruption that cannot be predicted for even a nanosecond) and the things that I watched just because I loved them (Fosse/Verdon, the Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon bio-series starring the breathtakingly charismatic Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, which is one of the best-made pieces of television I've ever seen, Love Life, the Anna Kendrick romantic comedy series which was surprisingly touching and truthful about the relationships that make up a life and which didn't make me want to open a vein as a single person the way that many looking-for-love shows do, and Better Things, a sort-of-comedy sort-of-drama written, directed by and starring Pamela Adlon, which began as a collaboration with Louis CK and initially reflected the sensibility of his show Louie, but became far more experimental and interesting once, after CK's disgrace, Adlon took over completely - the fourth series is maybe the closest thing I've seen on TV to a representation of the rhythms of real life, with long scenes of Adlon just cooking a meal on her own, or contemplating the rain, of having arguments with her children that explode from nowhere and end just as suddenly with tears or laughter or nothing at all.) And this entire paragraph is just things that I have watched on the BBC. Not even everything that I have watched on the BBC. The BBC is INCREDIBLE and my license fee has been serious value for money, before you even count all that time spent watching the news [Munch Scream emoji]. But overall, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of television that I have watched this year. Though while we're here, have you noticed that sometimes it's more relaxing to watch something bad than something good? Have you noticed that a vapid, cliched show like Virgin River (heartbroken city nurse with a secret moves to small town and falls in love with battle-wounded bartender with a secret), a show that makes This Is Us look like Succession, has the same effect on your brain that taking off your work shoes and putting on your slippers has for your feet? You can rest now, it says, there is nothing more for you to do. Have you noticed how easy it is to chug down, say, four episodes in a row of Designated Survivor - a show designed by a committee charged with taking elements of The West Wing, Homeland and 24, and making something similar but, crucially, much more ridiculous - without your mind even noticing that anything has happened at all? And if you're really ready for something utterly idiotic, might I suggest The Bold Type, in which three twentysomething girls in bonkers designer outfits "work" at an aspirationally "feminist" glossy magazine, and by "work" I mean constantly leave the office in the middle of the day to take care of personal business, and by "feminist" I mean "empowering women by for example having them post selfies of themselves looking perfect but without makeup on social media", a feminism so very feminist that they called the magazine's parent company Steinem in the first series and then had to change it to Safford, I can only presume because Gloria Steinem threatened to sue them. A couple of episodes of that is the televisual equivalent of having a nice relaxing full frontal lobotomy. Don't get me wrong: I love these shows. I owe them more gratitude than I can say. I would be unable to survive without them. I've managed to watch five hours of television just since starting this post24 hours ago (three episodes of Doctor Who, half a really cheap and very bad Sky Arts documentary about the musical Hamilton, and a travelogue in which Torvill and Dean go in search of a frozen lake in Alaska on which to dance Bolero but can't find one for almost the entire show because of global warming, which made me simultaneously and conflictingly want to give up air travel, fly to Alaska immediately, become obsessed with Torvill and Dean AND wonder how they managed to skate together all these decades without killing each other especially Torvill but also especially Dean). Five hours of TV, sounds like a lot, but with eight hours of sleep, that still left me eleven hours to fill in this boring boring boring boring BORING BORING BORING boring boring BORING boring BORING BORING lockdown. I think I am being incredibly restrained, all things considered. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some time to kill, having finished writing this post, and with at least five hours to fill before bed. I wonder what's on TV?

***

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sherryaptx4869 · 5 years ago

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Put a Ring on It

A gift for @jackel-gull happy holidays! 😊

Prompt: Coffee shop AU

(Also on ao3)

---

“Excuse me Ma’am, a muffin from that handsome gentleman over there,” the female staff interrupted Shiho as she is very busy typing at her laptop.

She looked over to the direction the staff is pointing to. She is in a rush because her laboratory report is due in just a few minutes. She needs to proofread everything before passing her output to her very strict professor, thus every minute counts. She’s a bit irritated that her momentum is ruined by the ‘gentleman’ the staff is pertaining to.

When she turned to look, the man waved at her. She merely nodded and proceeded to hunch over her laptop. She likes to do her academic papers at Poirot Café because 1) she gets the space she needs, 2) they really have delicious bread and pastries plus their drinks are top-tier, 3) they also have strong wifi connection. 4) It’s also a ten-minute walk from the university she is attending. Very convenient.

Five minutes before the deadline, she breathed a sigh of relief when she hit the send button with her report as an attachment to an email she sent to her professor. She massaged her temples and briefly closed her eyes keeping the impending headache at bay. She only has fifteen minutes before her next class starts. She allowed herself to relax for a bit when she sensed another presence at the table she is currently occupying.

She smelled him before she saw him. She smelled a faint, subtle smell that is not overpowering. Her trained observation skills as a scientist approves of his choice of perfume.

She opened her eyes, removed her earphones and eyed him. Up close, the guy looked just about her age- probably in his 4th year of college too. She noticed his lean body, and his calves are well-defined. She noticed a tan line in his arm when he waved earlier. He’s probably into sports.

She raised her eyebrow and regarded the stranger.

“Hi, I’m Kudo Shinichi and you are?” he said, flashing her a smile as he held out his hand for a handshake.

“And I was just leaving,” she said as she gathered her laptop, her papers and her books, stacked them all in her backpack and leaving not even sparing a backward glance.

---

“Wow, that girl is something.” Heiji teased Shinichi for the nth time.

“I wish I was there to see it when your ego was deflated and brought you back to earth,” Heiji continued. “I mean man, she rejected Kudo Shinichi, the great detective of the East!” Heiji is now clutching his stomach from laughing too hard, tears at the corner of his eyes.

Shinichi glared at him but that did not stop Heiji from laughing.

“Should I wait for you to finish laughing or are we doing detective work on her?” he asked Heiji.

“Huh, what work?” That caught Heiji’s attention.

“Returning this to its rightful owner,” Shinichi said as he fished a card from his pocket.

So Miyano Shiho is the name of the beautiful, auburn-haired woman.

---

In her rush to gather her things earlier, Shiho did not notice her library card slipped and fell to the floor of the café. Now, she stood at the heavenly doors of the library but not quite entering because her library card is missing. She meant to return the books and browse for other titles. Without her card, she couldn’t really enter, but what’s more important is that she can’t loan out books.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Upon checking, she saw she got an email from an unlisted account.

“Hello Miyano-san, I got your email address from the library card you dropped at Poirot Café earlier today. If you want, I can go to your university and return it there. – Kudo Shinichi, Detective of the East”, she noticed he’s studying at another top university in Japan from his email address. So he is the famous detective of the east.

“If it’s not too much to ask, I can meet you back at Poirot Café in thirty minutes. I just need to finish some stuff here and I’ll go over there,” she replied.

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” is his instant reply.

---

Shiho debated on meeting the stranger. Even if he is Kudo Shinchi, strangers are not to be trusted. And he’s definitely a stranger.

Dang it, her loaned books would have to be returned three days from now and if she doesn’t return them on time, she will accumulate penalties for her overdue books. She won’t be able to borrow more books on top of that.

She really has to meet with the stranger if she wanted her library card back. It will take a week for the library to process lost ID cards. And she needed hers asap.

She made up her mind, she’s meeting him and get it over with.

---

It’s 6:30pm. Upon her entrance at the Poirot Café for the second time that day, she immediately looked around and searched for some dark brown-haired guy. There were a few college students openly ogling the very handsome barista, Amuro-san. She spotted Shinichi at the back of the café. She approached him.

“Kudo-kun,” she tentatively called out to get his attention.

“Oh hi, Miyano-san.” He said as he got up to his feet and pulled the chair for her to sit.

“Thank you.”, she said.

“About earlier, I’m sorry if I came on as an arrogant guy. I was just being friendly with people who have the same interests as I do.” he offered an explanation.

She gave her a questioning look.

“Well, I saw you carrying Arthur Conan Doyle’s book and I got a bit excited to see a fellow Sherlockian fan,” he continued.

“I see. I was in a hurry myself earlier and I just don’t like dealing with strangers especially when I’m in a hurry. I didn’t want to be late for class,” she said without more ado.

“I also enjoy reading mystery novels, it’s just that I need my library card to borrow books from the lib.” She offered.

He handed her lib card and as his fingers skimmed over her hands, she felt a zap from the point of contact. Apparently, he felt it too.

To ease the sudden awkwardness of the situation, he said “Why don’t we start over? I’m Kudo Shinichi”

“I’m Miyano Shiho,” she said and shook hands with him.

“Shiho,” he repeated testing the roll of her name on his tongue.

The sparks from their hands touching is undeniably there. They quickly let go of each other’s hands and pretended to go over the menu. Shiho felt the blood rushing to her cheeks and she felt warm. Shinichi on the other hand felt his face flush. This beautiful woman elicited such a boyish response from him is something he could not rationalize.

They found out more about each other as the night deepens. From the café, they went to take a walk at the park. When it is apparent that they need to get some rest, Kudo offered to walk her home in her dorm.

The night has a certain chill to it, “It’s really nice talking to you Kudo-kun”, Shiho said as she’s getting ready to enter the building.

“We should do this again sometime, if it’s not too much to ask, Shiho” Shinichi replied.

“It’s too much given my schedule, but I’d like that,” Shiho said. She smiled before darting inside.

As Shinichi walked back to his own dorm, he mused over the evening. He got a big smile on his face even when Heiji kept one pestering him to share what happened with Shiho.

---

They fell in the same routine, meeting at the café, going on a trip together and having conversations about deep things, shallow things, whatever comes their way. They went out for a year. By then, Shiho graduated and is already working as a university researcher and Shinichi is on his first year of taking criminal law while still extending assistance to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

On Christmas day, they are at their favourite café where they first encountered each other.

“Do you remember the first time you rejected me here?” Shinichi asked Shiho.

“I may have remembered a little bit of that,” Shiho smirked.

“Heiji kept on rubbing it in my face how pitiful I looked back then,” Shinichi relayed.

“You need that to keep you grounded before your inflated ego take you away,” Shiho said before drinking her coffee.

“Heiji said that too. You’re in cahoots with that guy?” Shinichi pouted.

Shiho merely laughed. Her laugh is music to his ears. Not to be cliché but it just is. He never thought that this wonderful woman is willing to spend time with him. He hoped she still feels the same way for the rest of their lives.

Before his thoughts strayed any further, he gave her his Christmas present and planted a kiss on her mouth. It’s a bath bomb designed for aromatherapy. Her job at the research laboratory seemed to take a toll on her lately, she also catches colds easily.

Back at her apartment, she decided to use the bath bomb Shinichi gave her. She took a book by Agatha Christie to read while she soaked in the tub with the bath bomb still fizzing. She is basking at the sweet, floral scent from the lavender essential oil when her curiosity is piqued by a floating material. There were no fun additives for aesthetics such as glitter and flower petals in Shinichi’s present so why is there a floating thing at the tub? She grabbed the thing and a smile made its way on her face. Hmmn, she might play a little prank on Kudo-kun tomorrow when they see each other.

---

The following day when they met each other to eat lunch at the Kudo residence,

“How was your sleep?” Shinichi inquired when they were settled on his car on the way to the Kudo mansion.

“It’s good. Thanks for the special oils in the bath bomb, they really cleared my thoughts.” She purposefully avoided mentioning the ring embedded in the bath bomb.

“Did you find anything to your liking?” Shinichi pressed on.

‘He’s not his usual blunt, confident self,’ Shiho noted. ‘He’s skirting around the ring topic.’

“Well, I liked the lavender scent. I’d like to try the one with eucalyptus too, it clears the sinus,” she still did not give the answer he clearly wanted to hear.

He merely nodded. After that, he stopped speaking. Shiho made it look like she busied herself on her phone.

He’s clearly upset that Shiho did not find his surprise. It’s written all over his face, from his grip to the steering wheel.

They stopped by at a flower shop to buy flowers for Yukiko, Shinichi’s mom. While they are waiting for the store clerk to wrap the flowers,

“Shin, your phone pinged several times already,” Shiho informed Shinichi.

He checked and is a bit taken aback when his notification box is about to explode from congratulatory messages and best wishes. He clicked to see that Shiho tagged him in a post. His jaw nearly touched the floor when he turned to look at a smirking Shiho who put up her ten fingers on the air flexing his claim on her.

In her post where Shinichi is tagged, she uploaded a picture of her left hand wearing the exquisite ring with the caption, “Does this ring make me look engaged?”

Shinichi captured her in an embrace and kissed her hand.

“Yes, you look engaged and you look amazing with the ring too, future Mrs. Kudo” he whispered in her ear before fully capturing her lips with a kiss that is the promise of a lifetime together.

#coaiss2019 #coai #secret santa #@coai #shinshi #kudo shinichi #miyano shiho #coffee shop au #@jackel-gull

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dreaminginsteadofsleeping42 · 5 years ago

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My Brief Thoughts on the 27 Books I Read This Summer

I love reading and I love talking about books and I’d love to give any of y’all some reading recommendations if you’re looking for them, so, here we go!

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James. I actually started this in January, but then Life Happened, so I only finished it in June. I really sped-read this one towards the end. Kind of took twice as many words needed to convey what was conveyed. Kind of had that sexist-ly written, male fantasy, early twentieth century woman element to it (this woman isn’t like other woman in that she is SMART! yeah.). The story was fine, but not my favourite.

King’s Cage, Victoria Aveyard. This is the third book in the series and it was MUCH better than book 2. The problem I have with this series is that I find the main character and her love interest boring af, so I’m not really interested in their story, but that’s just a personal preference thing. I loved some side characters and the villain.

War Storm, Victoria Aveyard. The last book in the series. Very long. Big book. Anti-climatic. My favourite character was done dirty. I was over it. Why were there two characters called Cameron and Carmadon? It was an enjoyable read, if the ending was a bit eh. At least [SPOILER ALERT] the lesbians got a happy ending.

Crooked House, Agatha Christie. This one was fun. Classic Christie, bunch of people in a house, someone dies, someone in the house did it, let’s figure it out, detectives! Interesting ending, something I hadn’t seen from it before and it was refreshing to read a standalone novel of hers (as much as I love Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple).

A Pocket Full of Rye, Agatha Christie. My girl Agatha! Another fun mystery. Old dude dies: was it his sons? His young wife? His young secretary? Wtf knows! Let’s go, detectives!

Venetia, Georgette Heyer. Pretty enjoyable, good humor, likeable heroine. My only problem with this book was that the hero was an asshole and basically assaulted the heroine upon meeting and it was painted as attractive because it was the 1920s or whatever, so yeah. I didn’t like him. Kind of spoiled the rest of the really good book.

The Jane Austen Project, Kathleen A. Flynn. SUPER good, so intriguing, oh my gosh. The synopsis basically is these two people from the future go back in time to find a missing book by Jane Austen and try to stop her from dying. Had me getting confused about the logistics of time travel for a week. Awesome!

Heartless, Marissa Meyer. This was also great. It’s an origin story for the Queen of Hearts and I LOVE how the author incorporated characters and concepts from Alice in Wonderland while also making it a fresh story. Definitely recommend if you’re into fairytales and classics.

Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Very exciting. A real page-turner, if sexist and racist and uneducated about everything.

The Glass Spare, Lauren DeStefano. THIS. THIS book deserves more hype. I really enjoyed it. It’s about this princess who discovers she has the ability to create gemstones. It was original, I couldn’t predict what was going to happen next in the best way, there was an actually interesting male love interest and it had a wlw relationship. Check it out, do yourself a favor.

The Cursed Sea, Lauren DeStefano. The sequel to the above. Even better than the former, had all the qualities I mentioned above and more. Although there was not one cursed sea in this book and to this day I am still confused about that.

The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah. It was a very interesting murder mystery, in the format was a bit different than what I was used to. Four people were sent letters accusing them of murdering a bloke who died a few months back. Was invested and trying to figure out the mystery the whole way through, so I got my money’s worth in that respect. The ending was a bit of a surprise, but it was a fun read.

Tale As Old As Time. A HUGE book all about the history of Beauty and the Beast. I love that story so much, I was almost crying at times while reading this book, I was so overcome with love. Definitely check it out if you love BATB.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell. I’ve loved the Brontes’ books for years and this book reminded me of that love. Such a vivid picture of her life. Charlotte Bronte was pre-teen-me’s idol.

Victoria, Daisy Goodwin. This was a historical novel about the first year of Queen Victoria of England’s reign. SO interesting, I was so invested and annoyed when it ended. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Armadale, Wilkie Collins. The gay vibes were strong with this book. I don’t care what anyone says, Ozias and Allan are in love with each other, it’s canon. We got crazy family history and drama here, superstition, mistaken identity, scheming women and an all-round good time. 800 pages of it.

Elizabeth of York, Alison Weir. This is a biography of, um, Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, mother of Henry VIII. I love the British monarchy. They are such a dramatic bunch in pretty gowns. Super interesting book. Very well-written.

The Big Four, Agatha Christie. This was a very different Christie. There were these crime lords all over the word trying to kill Poirot and Hastings. Very fast-paced and exciting, bunch of racist undertones. Reading Christie is like talking to your grandparents. It’s all fun until they throw some random racist comment out there and it sucks.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Kate Morton. Everyone go read all of Kate Morton’s books, thank me later. This was excellent as usual.

Jane and the Wandering Eye, Stephanie Barron. This is the third in a series that re-imagines Jane Austen as a detective. I love them, lots of fun.

My Own Book. This is the short story/poetry collection my little story got published in! There were some pretty amazing pieces in here (alongside mine ahahaha). Pretty cool to have my own writing on my bookshelf. Excuse me while I cry.

The Mystery of the Blue Train, Agatha Christie. Jewels. Woman murdered on train. Did someone on the train do it? Did someone go on and off the train to do it? Were they disguised as someone else? Was the murdered woman really the murdered woman? Was it her husband? Her boyfriend? Snow. France. Millionaires. Fun time.

Three Dark Crowns, Kendare Blake. The first in a new series. It’s about these three triplets and one of them kills the other two to be queen. I LOVE the characters in this series. For different reasons too. Great cliff-hanger ending. I love it.

One Dark Throne, Kendare Blake. The second in the series. Continues to be good. We have to stan.

Two Dark Reigns, Kendare Blake. Third in series. Still good, but a little anti-climatic in that a spat of bad weather made everyone decide to cancel the big, climatic battle. There’s one book left in the series I haven’t got yet AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS.

Regina Rising, Wendy Tolliver. A prequel-esque story about the Evil Queen from the Once Upon a Time TV series. Interesting, but not revolutionary.

Partners in Crime, Agatha Christie. This one was so FUNNY. I love Tommy and Tuppence, I wish she wrote more books with them. It was so hilarious. They set up this agency where they guarantee to solve any crime in 24 hours. So good.

#long post

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neptune83 · 3 years ago

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I went to a book sale today and got 10 new books! And they only cost $20!

Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I literally had no clue what this book was about before I read the back, but it looks really good. I know it’s very popular but that’s all I know about it. I might read this one first.

Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart - The description on the back wasn’t very long, but I saw the words “exiled librarian” and was instantly hooked. It’s also a murder mystery, so I’m excited about that! (You can probably tell from this list that I like murder mysteries, considering all the Agatha Christie books lol)

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie - I really like the title and the cover (it’s so cool). Also there’s a quote on the front jacket flap that intrigues me: “This may be the curse of the human race. Not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” It sounds a bit different than what I normally read but I’m still excited!

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong by Jean-Benôit Nadeau & Julie Barlow - it looks funny but informing. This is very different than my normal reads but I thought it looked interesting.

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox - I learned about Rosalind Franklin recently and was so angry on her behalf. As soon as I saw this book, I knew I had to read it.

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser - I will admit, I only have a mediocre idea of Henry VIII and his wives but they are really interesting to me. This book is very long but I’m eager to read it. Also, I really want to watch Six.

Easy to Kill by Agatha Christie - I love Agatha Christie, so I picked this one up right away. Also, I especially love it when there’s more than one murder.

The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side by Agatha Christie - This is somehow the only Miss Marple mystery I have and the first one I will read. I think I’m going to like her even better than Hercule Poirot.

Poirot’s Early Cases by Agatha Christie - I will just read anything by Agatha Christie, but nothing in particular stood out to me about this book besides the fact it includes 13 mysteries! Granted, there is no description but the title is boring too.

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie - This book has attempted murder in it, but does it have actual murder? Probably, it’s Agatha Christie.

#books #agatha christie #antonia fraser #wives of henry viii #life of pi #rosalind franklin #the enchantress of florence #salman rushdie #jade dragon mountain #elsa hart #yann martel #tw murder #tw death #sixty million frenchmen can’t be wrong

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mintchocolateleaves · 7 years ago

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希

Notes: In celebration of the lovely @bakathief ‘s birthday! @cherelleholmes and I worked together to make her a birthday ficlet, with a mixture of a story (by me!) and art (Cherelle!). This here, is the writing side!!

This is a KaiShin fic! The title ‘希’ translates into ‘hope’ and I sincerely hope you enjoy it! And of course again to @bakathief, happy birthday!!

The first time invisible hands scrawl ink into Kaito’s hand, it’s not meant as a message.

It’s the name of a book, a memo that Kaito glances down at. He’s heard of the book and even though he’s only thirteen, and the book is typically aimed at adults, it’s a trend that’s spreading through the school like wildfire.

Kaito looks down at the name of the mystery novel, rolls his eyes, and grabs his pen from where it’s been left at the edge of his desk. He’s never been the biggest fan of detective books, and so he crosses out the detective Samonji with a single line.

Then, he focuses back on his class, trying not to think any more about what the writing means. Soulmates, Kaito’s been told ever since he could listen to the words, have been capable of sending messages to one another with ink pressed against skin.

Kaito, who’s never looked too intricately into the scientific research available on soulmates, decides that he’s not going to make a big deal out of things. Or rather, he isn’t going to now, not when he’s in the middle of a math lesson, trying to focus on what his teacher is saying.

He feels more tingling on his hands. Glancing down shows that the message has been erased and rewritten. Kaito smiles, crosses it out again. This time, he adds a recommendation of his own, a more adventurous book with magic and fantasy intricated into the plot.

The recommendation – one of his favourite books of the year – is crossed out with the word ‘no’ written beside it. Then, the detective Samonji book is written out, the words – Stop crossing it out – written beside it.

His soulmate, Kaito presumes, is going to be fun to mess around with.

He crosses the title out again.

It’s not until a few days later however, that it really sinks in what this means.

Kaito is on his way to school, having walked half the route, Aoko swinging her bag as she walks beside him, when the realisation sinks in. He stops walking, almost abruptly, and tilts his head.

He has a soulmate.

Somehow, he’d thought he’d fall into the larger demographic of people without them. Kaito doesn’t know, but he’d always just assumed that the closeness he’s got with Aoko, their playfulness was something akin to romance, and yet – the universe has come to change things up for him.

He doesn’t even know his soulmate’s name.

All he knows is they’re Japanese – wait… not even that. He knows that they speak Japanese, and that they want to read a mystery novel. Kaito wonders whether he should read it, just to see if his soulmate has good taste.

“What’s up, Kaito?” Aoko asks, turning back to look at him.

Kaito offers her a smile, falls back into step beside her, and says, “oh it’s nothing. I’m just thinking about my soulmate.”

Aoko takes it in about the way Kaito is expecting her to. She snorts, turns away from him and says, “Aoko pities whoever ends up being Kaito’s soulmate. The amount of stress they’ll have to go through while enduring all of the pranks.”

Laughter echoes the street, Kaito’s own, as he realises it’s true, and that if he’s going to impress (see: torture) his soulmate with various pranks, he’s going to have plan better things. Bigger ones – he’s working with someone who likes mysteries, he’s going to have to fool him.

Later, in class, he scrawls words onto his hand.

Did you read the mystery book?

He only has to wait a few seconds before the word ‘yes’ is scratched into his skin, something he removes with spit as he readies himself for a response. He doesn’t ask if he’d enjoyed it, because the Samonji books are on their forty-first edition and his soulmate wouldn’t be at this point if he didn’t like the series.

Who reads a series with more than ten volumes though – it’s unreal. That much content for a single series, Kaito wonders whether his soulmate has ever gotten bored of reading the same characters over and over.

Good, now you have time to read my rec!

The response is immediate. No.

Kaito pouts, and sticks his tongue out. Which, is hardly any use, seeing as Kaito is sat in the middle of class, reacting to someone who can’t see him, only the words written on his body.

Mean. Kaito writes in response, adding a small doodle of a sad face, and a thumb’s down. It’s a good book.

Maybe, but it’s not the genre I typically read.

Kaito decides that somehow or the other, he will force his soulmate to read the goddamned book. Even if he has to write the entire thing on his hand, sentence after sentence – he will succeed and force his soulmate to broaden his horizons.

I’m Kaito, he writes after a while. He’ll go through with the book idea on the weekend, he thinks. For now, an introduction will suffice. The response is longer this time, and Kaito isn’t sure why, but there is a hesitation, as if giving away names is something to be wary of.

It’s got to be all those mystery novels, making the other boy paranoid. They’re only teenagers after all.

I’m Shinichi.

They decide on rules as they continue to age.

Most of them, of course, are stupid rules that they’d follow without the need to make rules at all, but they’re there just for the comfort value. No messages to one another during exams. No writing on… intimate areas, or the face.

Obvious things that Kaito wouldn’t do, but wants to now that they’re rules. He’s always had an inclination towards breaking rules, something that he’s not really been disciplined against, and some days he finds himself wanting to break every rule they’ve place on themselves.

He doesn’t – although he often imagines scenarios where he does. Kaito thinks that he’ll spare Shinichi any trouble until they actually meet, and find their own boundaries as a pair.

A pair, because even by the time they turn sixteen Shinichi hasn’t been able to decide whether their soulmate bond is platonic or romantic. Kaito’s pretty sure with the faint amusement he feels every time he sees words pop up on his hands that it’s romance.

Oh well, Kaito will just have to let him remain oblivious. If only for now.

He almost puts all thoughts of romance on hold however, when he takes up the mantel of KID. Kaito dons the signature white suit, monocle and top hat, makes sure to wear gloves to avoid any police officers catching on to the fact that he’s got a soulmate.

And it works, for the two of them at least.

Kaito feels an all too familiar ache every time he reads about Shinichi’s day, about what he’s done with his friend Ran, the girl he seems to be completely in love with. And it churns his stomach because they’re soulmates and they shouldn’t… they should love each other, not other people.

Shinichi is throwing away the entire premise of soulmates.

It’s frustrating, unwritten words wrapped around Kaito’s throat, because he can’t write them, they need to be said, but he can’t just… Kaito can’t say them either, seeing as they’ve never even met.

They both live in Tokyo, and yet – Kaito feels a sigh rise, lets it slip from his tongue – they’ve never come across one another.

I want to meet you, Kaito writes one day, during the middle of science, when he should be listening to the teacher drone on and on about titration curves. He’s slightly sleep deprived, lacking sleep from his heist the day before, and he writes the words before he really thinks about it.

He’s not sure why he’s writing it, what exactly will change? They’ll meet, and then what? Shinichi will still love Ran, and Kaito will have to hide his feelings in person rather than in writing.

And yet, there’s also a part of him that hopes Shinichi will see him and realise. Everything muddles in his head, the thoughts malformed, interweaved from tired thoughts and painful optimism.

Okay, Shinichi writes back.

It takes a little longer for the words to come out, but they still appear. Shinichi’s hesitant… Kaito isn’t sure why he would be. He waits a little longer, thinks to himself a good enough date, or a place for them to meet.

Is Sunday okay? Shinichi writes. I’m at Tropical Land with Ran on Saturday. But the day after-

Kaito bites his lip. Their trip to tropical land together isn’t a… date, is it? He doesn’t feel brave enough to ask, so he doesn’t. Instead, he says Sunday sounds good, and they decide to meet in Café Poirot, in the Beika district.

The fact that they’ll meet soon, fills Kaito with a giddy sort of glee.

And he only has to wait a few more days.

Hey, I’m excited for tomorrow!

Kaito knows he probably shouldn’t write that, but he grabs a pen from his pocket in the evening, grins as he spreads ink across his hand. It smudges slightly, but he knows Shinichi will understand what he means, having been reading his handwriting for years now.

The ink sinks into his skin. It fades away.

And Kaito glances down at his hand, wondering where exactly the ink has gone because within all reason it shouldn’t be possible for ink to just disappear, not all at once within seconds – Shinichi isn’t that fast at washing things off.

His eyes widen.

Shinichi?

He adds, horror spreading through him when he realises that the words are disappearing before his very eyes. Kaito glances towards his laptop, practically dives towards it attempting to find a search engine that can explain this phenomena to him.

After fifteen minutes of searching, his heart thumping against his ribcage with a ferocity that makes him feel like he might pass out, Kaito clicks onto an old research project. He scours the page, breath stuttering in his chest as he realises that this… this can’t be possible.

Soulmates, the article reads, will only transfer words unto one another when they are both living.

Kaito blinks away something that might be tears, sees white and bites into his lip. They’re cracked, bleeding where his incisors have pierced skin and he almost feels as if this is some sort of bad dream, but when he pinches himself, Kaito does not wake up.

His heart aches.

His hand sends a jolt of pain down the bone as he flings it towards the wall, mutters ‘dammit’ as he slumps against his bed, knuckles split and bleeding, sore but not the type of pain he spends much time thinking over.

“I’ll go to the café tomorrow anyway,” Kaito mutters, because this must be a joke, he’d been talking to other boy earlier this morning, feeling angry about the boy’s connection with Ran, “he can’t be… he can’t be dead?”

Shinichi just… can’t be gone.

There is no one to greet him other than the waitress at the café.

Kaito sits in a booth by himself, waiting, fingers itching for the pen he carries for every message he sends to Shinichi, and shivers. He does a quick search in Shinichi’s name and tries to figure out the surname of the boy he’s fallen in love with.

They’ve never given them. In all the years, Kaito had always thought they’d exchange names upon meeting one another, it had been another silly rule they’d imposed, so the other couldn’t get any preconceived ideas about the other through the internet or the news or…

Now, he searches until his eyes grow wet, tears forming and dripping down into hot chocolate. He’s not cried in years, and yet now it feels too painful to keep up a poker face, especially when he feels he needs it the most.

It’s as if… some part of him has been severed and he doesn’t know how to cope without it. Red string cut, leaving him aching, lost without an idea of what he should do next.

He grabs his pen from his pocket, pulls off the lid and pushes a single line into his hand. The words fade, lost, just like his connection with Shinichi.

If anyone notices a change in Kaito’s actions following his planned meeting with Shinichi, they don’t bring it up. Maybe they realise something has happened because he’s not scribbling on his arm, or maybe they don’t pay enough attention in the first place, but there is no talk of Shinichi at all.

Kaito goes through his average day to day life, attempts not to think about the fact that Shinichi is obviously dead, and plans his heists instead. He searches newspaper articles for any mention of his soulmate’s death – finds nothing regarding a young teenager in the obituaries.

It does not fill him with hope, but rather, dread.

Something has happened to Shinichi and he will never know for certain what exactly that means. He throws himself into his work as KID, plans more and more heists, each one more outrageous that the others.

Kaito pushes himself every time he receives a challenge, becomes a better phantom thief than he’d ever imagined he could be, and slowly… he crumbles apart. He fades like the words against his skin until at last he finds himself a ghost, the perfect thief who wears nothing but a poker face and a faked, widened smile.

Time drags outward until finally he decides to steal the black star from the Suzuki family, people he vaguely recalls from conversations with Shinichi. Or rather, he assumes the youngest daughter is the Sonoko that Shinichi complains about.

Maybe a part of him is wishing to get some understanding about what has happened to his soulmate, to know whether he is dead or not, but Kaito isn’t sure. He’ll steal the jewel for the father he’s lost, and he’ll find out the truth about the soulmate who’s gone.

He’ll disguise as Ran. She’s easy enough to impersonate from the gushing rambles Kaito’s read over the years, and it’s not even like dressing up as her requires much work – she’s a good target. Plus… Even without him present, Kaito wants to be the object of Shinichi’s affections, even if he needs to be someone else to receive it.

Not that Kaito thinks the dead care for identity theft anyway.

Mouri Ran – a karate champion, it’s obviously the same Ran he’s heard about for years – will probably care for it. But he’ll give her a dose of sleeping gas, bring her to the brink of sleep before leaving her for the heist.

First, he’s got to send his heist notice. He wants to do it in two parts, one for April fools, to see who exactly he’s going up against, and the second part to ready himself for the actual event.

The fireworks catch him off guard when he climbs to the roof of a hotel. There’s a small child, arrogance rolling off of him in a way that catches him off guard, but he quickly catches himself, readies himself for the mass of police officers that he knows will arrive soon.

“I know you did that on purpose,” he tells the child, and then, “who are you?”

There hadn’t been any indication that a small child would show up at his pre-heist. It’s beyond late, and Kaito’s lacking any information on a child like this – probably just a straggler who’s somehow come across his heist notice, Kaito will have to research him a little more at some point, see what the internet brings up.

“Edogawa Conan,” the child says, “a detective. What will you do next?”

Kaito grits his teeth.

It’s not that he doesn’t have a plan – he does. Kaito’s got plans for every element of his heists, if something goes wrong he’s got hundreds of outs, multiple possibilities for what can happen as his crimes continue.

“You’ve really got me cornered kid,” Kaito lies. He glances at the police helicopters, imagines if Shinichi would have ever come to a heist, and turns away. He escapes with ease, leaves his heist notice behind, and tries not to wonder about a child wanting to catch him.

Of course, as soon he realises that Edogawa is living with Ran, Kaito knows he needs to mess with him a little bit. He’s got the biggest crush on his neechan that Kaito has to bring it up in some format.

He messes with him the littlest amount when they’re alone on the cruise ship, the black star in his hand. Kaito has to dodge a flying soccer ball, the force enough to break wall – frankly, he doesn’t deserve this – but it’s all worth it for the way the kid goes red at the thought of his precious neechan being left naked in one of the lifeboats.

Edogawa, however, is someone Kaito decides he doesn’t want to see again. He’s freakishly smart for a child, is only six or seven, and yet he’s capable of seeing through his disguises. Not even Aoko is capable…

So, with a wave, and a crackle of a smoke bomb, he removes himself, and the black star from the cruise ship.

Of course, because the world is cruel and seems to hate him, Edogawa continues to show up at heists. He thinks it’s Suzuki Sonoko’s fault, she’s practically as big a fangirl as he would be, if he weren’t actually KID. And it’s frustrating, because as much as he hates seeing the kid, it’s almost fun having heists where he needs to think on the spot.

Although, he does start to despise footballs. He’d be a masochist if he didn’t.

All of the heists with the kid are fine, Edogawa is scarily smart – which is alright, as long as he doesn’t get Kaito caught, or meddle too much – but ultimately, Kaito enjoys them.

Until, of course, he has to prepare for a heist where they stamp ink for recognition onto the hands of people who have been proven not to be KID. Kaito, still unable to place ink on his hand, less it disappear, finds himself borderline freaking out as he wonders who he needs to disguise as.

It takes a while to think over the possibilities. Until finally he remembers the way Aoko’s father, Inspector Nakamori, had found a soulmate in his wife, and hasn’t been able to write words against his own skin since she’d passed away years before.

He’s always avoided disguising as the man for that simple reason, but now… in a situation like this, it’s the only disguise he can really have.

Not even Edogawa seems to catch on, until he’s breaking free past the bottom floor, shimmying through a vent leading to the lower floors – his motorcycle is just out back, he’ll have to take that.

The gem feels like lead in his pocket. Even now, Kaito knows it’s not Pandora. He checks anyway, lifting the jewel up to the sky, peering through it to see the moon shining above.

The sky is warm, and the light is bright, but it doesn’t leave him washed in red, he is not blinded with red. Of course, he’s failing with Pandora, but it’s his goal and Kaito knows he’ll fulfil all goals he sets for himself.

Well… All but one.

He starts up his motorcycle, turns to glance over at the sound of footsteps. It’s only Edogawa – scarily smart Edogawa Conan – so he doesn’t feel the need to speed away immediately. They always seem to have short conversations, before Kaito makes his hasty exits.

“I didn’t expect you to impersonate the inspector,” Edogawa breathes when he comes to a stop, meters away from the motorbike. Kaito turns his head to glance at him, the front of his cap pulled down to cover his face. “Why would you make things harder for yourself like that?”

Kaito bites the inside of his cheek. He lifts his chin, and offers a smile, “I’m a magician, we like doing the impossible.”

“The inspector lost a soulmate,” Edogawa says, “ink disappears from his skin, not even magicians can fake that eff-”

The child pauses, glances down at the pavement. Something swims in his eyes, an emotion that Kaito doesn’t quite care enough to decipher, and after a moment, he clenches his hands together.

“You had a soulmate,” Edogawa says, more a statement than a question, “didn’t you?”

Kaito bites his tongue – the kid detective might have his respect, but he will not go into this with a child.

“I’m sorry.” Edogawa adds, and then, as if he’s not apologetic at all – “what happened to them?”

He smothers a bitter laugh. Kaito knows that as smart as Edogawa is, he’s still young, doesn’t deserve any spite thrown in his direction. And yet, still he feels it rising up, a twisted smile tugging at his lips as he looks the boy in the eye.

“Who knows,” he says, and with a flick of his fingertips, there’s a poof of smoke as he changes from a cap to his motorcycle helmet. He turns his keys in the ignition, heaves out a sigh. “Won’t you solve that one for me, detective?”

“Kaito,” Aoko says when she finally reaches her limit of sympathy regarding what she calls Kaito’s ‘Shinichi situation. “Aoko is getting tired of this, just talk to Shinichi and fix whatever argument the two of you have had.”

Kaito flinches at the idea of being able to fix anything, and shudders when he realises he’s never actually corrected Aoko on the fact that Shinichi’s dead, and not just ignoring him.

“It’s not that easy…” Kaito tries, raising his hands in a mock surrender. He’s been trying to keep an efficient poker face, and yet, he’s obviously let Aoko know that his ‘Shinichi situation’ is weighing on his mind more than he’s letting on.

“Of course it’s not,” Aoko sighs, exasperated as she stalks forward and crosses her arms. “It’s never easy to stop an argument because Kaito is way too stubborn to apologise for things, and the same goes for what Aoko knows about Shinichi.”

Kaito glances away, unable to refute because he’s always been strong-willed, but unwilling to admit that there’s a different reason. Both he and Aoko know that he keeps too many secrets, he’s not ready to disclose any of them.

“Kaito met with Shinichi right?” Aoko says, and Kaito doesn’t miss the movement of her hand flicking into her pocket, hand clenched around what he expects to be a pen, “did you two argue when you met one another, is that why you don’t write anymore?”

An awkward laugh. Kaito readies himself to leave his chair, to escape from Aoko in the small gap between class changeover, as they wait for their next teacher to enter the room.

“He didn’t show up,” the truth, although he doesn’t mention that he’d known from the evening before that Shinichi wouldn’t… couldn’t… show. “And we’ve not talked since. It’s not stubbornness, Aoko, it just is.”

Aoko shakes her head. “No, it’s more than that, Kaito is sad, and I want to make him feel better.”

She lunges forward before he has time to react. Which is certainly, something, seeing as she’s going up against Kaitou KID. Kaito moves just in time to avoid her arm crashing into his, moves his arm from reach as she uncaps the marker pen she’s been hiding in her pocket.

“Aoko what the hell?” Kaito says, as he scrambles away from his chair, jumping across one of the desks. Without any hesitation, Aoko continues to advance, weaving between their classmates as she attempts to mark his hand.

“Shinichi will respond,” Aoko says, “if Kaito just bridges the gap.”

Kaito lets his eyes widen. There is no talking to ghosts, just becoming a phantom himself during his heists. You can’t-

“I tried,” Kaito says, and Aoko falters just for a moment, “I’ve tried, so just leave it be-”

She doesn’t, she keeps coming nearer to him until finally Kaito is cornered, ready to slip away from Aoko’s grasp. And then – He feels pressure against his hand. Just a line, something he looks down at in horror.

He’d forgotten that Aoko would have asked for Hakuba’s help. Of course she would.

“What is wrong with-” Kaito pulls his hand back, away from their view, staring down at the marked skin. They’re… they’re going to know now, that Shinichi’s dead, that Kaito has been lying in order to make sure no one worries about him… “with…”

Except… the line doesn’t fade.

“What…?” Kaito breathes, glancing at the light blue that’s remaining in view. Aoko and Hakuba are quiet, watching as Kaito numbly returns to his seat, staring at the line as if it’s the most wonderous thing he’s seen in his life.

And then-

Kaito?

The writing is so familiar it sends a shiver down his spine, and it’s all Kaito can do not to sob in the middle of class. His poker face cracks, but holds together, somehow, as Kaito glances down at the same penmanship he’s been reading for years.

He reaches into his pocket, shiver running down his spine as he pulls out his own pen. Something easy to wash off, something that will be gone quick enough for a second message to take its’ place.

You died.

A pause – the ink doesn’t disappear, and yet the lack of an immediate response leaves acid churning in his stomach, nervousness filling him up, ready to spit him out with nothing but anxiety spurring his actions.

Almost. But I’m okay now.

Kaito lets out a staggered breath. Excuses himself from the classroom with the excuse that he needs the bathroom. As soon as he’s inside, he splashes water against his face, grabs his pen.

The ink kept disappearing. That only happens to the dead.

Another pause. It fills him with trepidation.

I’m sorry. It’ll be sorted soon, but I won’t be able to write again for a while. One day I’ll explain it to you.

This time, his breathing halts, shudders jarring through his body as bile rises to his throat. Shinichi’s going to just disappear again…? This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.

I’ll give you my phone number instead, okay? Kaito?

All Kaito can do, is nod. It’s half hearted, breathless, a response that Shinichi cannot even see, and yet, for a moment it’s all he can give. Then, he scrawls ‘yes’ against his skin.

Shinichi’s number, something Kaito types into his phone before the ink has any time to dry, stays on his hand for all of three minutes, until Shinichi rubs it off. He replaces it with, text me from now on, I don’t think we’ll be able to write messages for a while.

Kaito wants to know why, wants to find Shinichi and shake him until he figures out the reason why. Instead, he grabs his pen and writes.

If you’re alive, why’d you miss our meeting?

This time, the words fade.

Kaito doesn’t have the courage to ask through text.

Knowing that Shinichi, is, in fact alive, brings less comfort that Kaito would have expected. Mainly, because it brings more questions. Why hadn’t Shinichi arrived at the meeting they’d set up? If Shinichi’s alive, how come their bond had been broken, something that breaks only when a person dies.

And Shinichi himself – he’d known more, had stated he couldn’t explain right now, but that eventually he could… Kaito isn’t sure what that means, and the ‘almost’ dying leaves Kaito with unreasonable chills as he tries to figure out what it means.

He can’t just ask, but he can attempt to do some research. Not as himself, of course, because he doesn’t want anyone to lead it back to him and start treating both Shinichi and him as biological anomalies, but he is KID, so disguising himself will be fine.

Kaito creates a fake identity, gets the paper work together and assumes the role of medical reporter Haneda Satoshi. His fake ID and papers get him into a research lab with leading soulmate researcher Ito Megume.

“So,” Ito begins once they’ve both sat down, a coffee table between the two of them. Kaito pulls out a notepad from his bag, a voice recorder too, just so he fully fills the role of reporter. “You have some questions for me?”

Kaito nods. “Yes, we want to run a special on soulmate bonds, seeing as many people know next to nothing about them.”

He turns the recorder on, presses the record button.

“That’s because most people don’t show physical traits,” Ito begins, “so they think they don’t have a soulmate and they don’t learn about the bonds.”

“How do we know that everyone has a soulmate if we can’t see it?”

“Well…” The researcher taps a finger against her chin, takes a moment to think. “The signs are all very different. We know the obvious yet rare signs of soulmates, ink transferring across skin, birthmarks that match that of your soulmate. But there are more internal ones – sharing one’s pain across two people, being more in tune with one another’s emotions.”

Kaito nods.

“Soulmates are always present. There’s always a red string of fate that keeps us tied together, whether we wish for it to or not, whether it’s easily seen or not.”

Now, Kaito leans forward and crosses his arms. He rests his notebook on his knee, pretends that he’s looking at a question before proceeding.

“And these red strings of fate, there’s no way of breaking them?”

Ito shakes her head. “None, not if we’re excluding death. You can’t just decide, ‘this person isn’t going to be my soulmate anymore’, they’ll always be there, whether you decide to act on it or not.”

Confusion blossoms inside him like a flower. “Do you mind if I use an example, for a moment?”

The researcher nods, grey strands of hair drooping by her ears from the bun she’s pulled her hair back into. “Go ahead.”

“I’ll use a physical trait,” Kaito begins. “The soulmate bond where ink transfers across to the user, for example. When a person dies, the ink has nowhere to go, so it disappears, right?”

Ito nods.

“But suppose,” Kaito continues, “the ink disappears when they’re both still alive. Is there a way that could be possible?”

The researcher rubs at her ear as she thinks, before shaking her head. She says, “I don’t think so. As soon as both soulmates reach puberty, their bond comes into effect. It’s irreversible while alive. Only children and the dead don’t carry the bonds.”

Kaito nods, despite the fact none of this makes sense.

By the time he leaves the room, he’s determined to find an answer. He pulls out his phone, pulls up Shinichi’s number and sends out a text, demanding he explain everything.

Soon, Shinichi texts back. As soon as I can, I will.

Soon turns out to be three months later.

Shinichi sends Kaito a text message when he is scoping out his latest heist location, dressed as a maintenance worker in order to get some idea of the electronics within the area.

Kaito glances at his phone, opens the text and blinks at the fact that there’s just a location. Sakura bridge. He stares, takes a moment to think about how long it’ll take to drive there – with his motorbike, it should take no more than twenty minutes.

Come now, Shinichi adds after a moment, if you can.

Kaito responds that he’ll be right there. It takes a minute to worm his way out of the maintenance work, another minute to shed his disguise and get into the car park.

“Shinichi,” Kaito says, but the name is swallowed up by the sound of his motorbike as he revs and makes his way out of the car park.

Sakura bridge, despite its name, is not littered with cherry blossoms. The nearest plant to the bridge are hedges, perfectly cut – the trees that could leave cherry blossoms floating among those wandering across further back from the bridge.

It’s not packed, like Kaito remembers it being during festivals, which should make it easier to find Shinichi. He bites into his lip, realises that without an idea of the person he’s looking for, they won’t be able to find one another.

As soon as he comes to this realisation, Shinichi seems to as well. His phone buzzes with an incoming call, and Kaito presses answer with a quiet trepidation filling his bones.

“Kaito?” Shinichi asks, when he realises Kaito’s not spoken first. His voice is soft, slightly worried but with a kindness to it that Kaito had thought would sound sarcastic instead.

“I don’t know what you look like,” Kaito finally says, and he turns, glancing around the entirety of Sakura bridge for a teenage boy and coming up short. There are many, but he doesn’t really think they give off a Shinichi vibe. “I’m going in blind here.”

“Yeah,” Shinichi says, “we’ll meet in the middle, and then… well, I’m wearing a red scarf, if that helps?”

There are hundreds upon thousands of red scarfs in the world, and yet, somehow it does. Kaito hums approval, walking further down the bridge until he’s at the centre, his eyes searching around for red fabric.

“Okay,” Kaito says after a moment, running a hand through his hair and messing it up further, “I’m here. Are you?”

“Yeah.”

Kaito’s pretty sure that he sees him then, red fabric across a teenager who he knows as Kudo Shinichi from newspapers. A face missing from the news as long as their bond has been broken.

For a moment, Kaito can only stare, ignoring the voice from the phone. This is – He’s –

Alive.

Clicking the call off, Kaito pockets his phone, walks up behind Shinichi, and taps on his shoulder. Shinichi turns, offers a smile and says, “you must be Kaito.”

“Shinichi,” Kaito says, “you’re late.”

The detective frowns, confusion across the lines of his forehead. After a second, they fade into a grimace, “the café meeting… I’m sorry about that – I can exp- Kaito�� are you crying..?”

Shinichi takes a step towards him, looking uncertain about whether he should just stand there, or attempt to comfort him. His awkwardness only grows as Kaito lifts his fingers to his cheeks, surprised at the absence of any mask.

“Yeah,” Kaito says, wiping away his own tears. “I am.”

He offers a smile, the brightest he can in an attempt to override the idea that his tears are caused by sadness, and adds, “I guess I just thought I’d never get the chance to meet you.”

Because Kaito had thought–

Shinichi glances away, almost guiltily.

“I’m happy,” Kaito says, urges himself to release the small laugh that’s been bubbling up his throat, “even if it’s a little late.”

Shinichi turns back now, eyes steeled as if he’s ready to tell a painful story. Kaito wonders whether he’ll be dragged into sharing his own, he rather hopes he won’t be.

“I’m am sorry,” Shinichi says, “I wanted to tell you I wouldn’t–”

“It’s okay,” Kaito says, and he points towards the end of the bridge, in the direction of a small café that they could make their way towards. He thinks he’s told Shinichi about it before. “Just explain it now.”

Shinichi nods. Together, they start walking towards the edge of the bridge.

“Explain everything.”

#Kudo Shinichi #Kuroba Kaito #KaiShin #DCMK #Detective Conan #Magic Kaito #Nakamori Aoko #Hakuba Saguru #Mouri Ran #mywriting

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forthegothicheroine · 7 years ago

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Best books I read in 2017

I read a lot of graphic novels this year, whose individual volumes artificially inflated my goodreads numbers. In any case, here are my favorites- not necessarily books that came out this year, just ones I actually got to.

Behind this cut lies gothic horror, true crime, indie comics, weird history, magic realism, and muppets.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters: This one is my absolute favorite of the year. Oh my god. Heaven help me. Oh god. If you want a fantastic world of monster movies, private heartbreak, memoirs of libertine cults, and amazing color all narrated by an adorable lesbian werewolf girl, please read this book. And join me in dancing around impatiently for the next volume.

The Faerie Handbook: Look, sometimes I just want to be twelve again and surround myself with fairy artwork and crafts and mythology, all provided by the editors of Faerie Magazine. This book helps with that.

Haunted Castles: This is a collection of gothic novellas by Ray Russell, and it’s worth it for “Sardonicus” alone. The other stories aren’t bad either (especially the super-nasty “The Fugitive Lovers”) and an introduction by Guillermo del Toro doesn’t hurt.

Swords Against Wizardry: I’ve talked about my love of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series before, and this book is the best of all. I love these two dorky adventurers, and this is the pinnacle of sword and sorcery as Coen Brothers-style dark comedy. Steal invisible treasure! Romance invisible maidens! See what happens when you try to fence invisible treasure! Say ‘screw it’ and end up fucking around in Gormenghast! Such is the adventuring life.

The Rabbi’s Cat: Another graphic novel, this one is sad and cute in equal measure. Don’t worry, it’s not a downer- it’s about a skinny, mischief-making cat who wants to become Jewish solely so he can keep getting petted by the Rabbi’s daughter. The family’s life in 1930s Algeria fluctuates, as does the Rabbi’s faith, and through it all the cat wryly observes.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown: Now this is the kind of YA vampire romance I want to read! It’s genuinely exciting and the vampire dystopia portrayed is believably glamorous and grimy. These are vampires I can believe in, both sympathetic and otherwise. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to punch out Lestat, you’ll be satisfied.

Conjure Wife: I had read this one before, but it rang especially true this time. A college professor finds out his wife has been using witchcraft to prop up his entire career, and everything falls to hell when he makes her stop. It has to be taken literally for an urban fantasy suspense romp, but you can also easily read it as a metaphor by replacing “witchcraft” with “emotional labor.”

The Refrigerator Monologues: Catherynne M. Valente is pretty hit or miss for me, but this worked for me in a big way. Her anger at watching Gwen Stacy die on screen resulted in this work, where analogues for female comic book characters air their grievances from the afterlife (my favorite is the Harley Quinn one.) You can tell her opinions- she thinks Jean Grey has been rebooted way too many crimes, and Daredevil is the only hero who comes off completely sympathetic- but whether you share her opinions or not, I think you’ll find value here.

My Friend Dahmer: ‘Derf’ Backderf went to high school with Jeffrey Dahmer. The kid was weird, and they always laughed at his antics...until he got just a little too weird and they distanced theirselves from him. Looking back, he wonders many things, chiefly why none of the adults recognized or cared about the warning signs that Dahmer was having serious problems. @harkerling said this graphic novel memoir perfectly hit the balance between sympathizing with a killer and not excusing him, and it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

Nightmare Movies: Kim Newman is another hit or miss author for me, but I’m definitely going to check out more of his work now that I’ve read what he has to say about horror movies. Even when I don’t agree, he’s always intelligent and insightful and notices things I somehow missed (is Hayley from Hard Candy actually a ghost or an avenging angel?) I’ll fight him on a few movies he trashes, but it will be a gentle fight.

Paperbacks from Hell: Oh man this one is fun. The author of the horror comedy novel Horrorstor gives us a look at the best and worst of pulp horror paperback covers, from the sixties through the nineties. You’ll meet skeletons in funny poses, whip-weilding leprachauns, and plenty of gothic heroines running away from big houses in the middle of the night. The only problem with this book is that it made my to-read list so much longer!

Romantic Outlaws: This dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley filled in so many gap in my knowledge of gothic literature, broke my heart, and even helped me understand what these women saw in their wacky husbands. It’s huge but it’s a page-turner, and you’ll feel like these women are your troubled but fascinating best friends.

Muppet Classics: Phantom of the Opera: Look, you’ll never know till you read this what a great Christine Miss Piggy is. It works with the Leroux text adding not only Muppet characters and jokes but developing a semi-plausible background for the plot. The casting is perfect, and don’t get too comfortable because muppets actually die! Now I just need them to do Muppet Dracula.

Poirot and Me: Do you love David Suchet’s Poirot? Do you want to know how an actual method actor works, as opposed to a publicity seeking jackass who annoys his fellow cast? Read this book. It’s precious and enlightening, and now when I watch Poirot I see how much work Suchet put into every motion and expression to perfectly match Agatha Christie’s creation. (And to any of you who may have headcanoned Poirot as asexual, Suchet says you’re right.)

#books

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impracticaldemon · 7 years ago

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Nalu Fluff Week 2017 Within the Law Chapter 3: Lawful Tresspass

fanfiction by impracticaldemon

Author's Note:

This is the final chapter for Within the Law. This chapter is packed with flirtation, love, lust, raw emotion and thwarted need. Also, legal terms.

Hope it's fun! ~Impracticaldemon

Lawful Trespass Prompts: Texting; Fairy Tales (at least in concept if not final design)

Lucy's interview with Makarov & Vermilion—the law firm also known as Fairy Tail—had been on the Wednesday. When she'd gotten home that evening, she'd had no difficulty avoiding questions, since her father was at work, as usual, and the servants were all very much on her side and knew where she'd been. Not that they had a huge staff, but even four people seemed like an awful lot for a family of two adults and no small children.

That night, after eating a solitary dinner while trying to catch up on some reading for class, Lucy couldn't seem to focus on anything. The people at Fairy Tail had fully caught her attention, and they were far more interesting than what she was studying. She finally left her Trusts text book open at "constructive trusts"—the case law seemed to be all over the map, as the courts had gotten especially creative with this one—and threw herself down on her bed to stare at her comms lacrima.

You were speaking with him four hours ago. What on earth is wrong with you?

It was strange—she felt like she was fourteen crushing on a guy two grades up, not a competent young woman of twenty-three with one university degree already behind her. Her eyes traced a familiar pattern above her. When she was much younger, she and her mother had painted the stars making up the constellations of the Zodiac on her ceiling in phosphorescent paint. Lucy couldn't actually make out much right now, since she had lights on, but it didn't matter—she knew them all by heart.

The lacrima in her hands chimed, indicating a text message. Her eyes went wide when she saw the sender: Grand Moff Dragneel. She snickered at the name, but her stomach did an odd kind of squeeze-hop.

)Hey there! )Did you make it home okay? )So are you there or what?

Lucy scrambled to sit up and send back a quick affirmative.

)Great! Look there's something I've got to tell you. )Erza and Gray both reminded me. )Forgot you didn't know. Anyway I'm here now can I come in?

Lucy stared at the last few words.

)Lucy? Back window seemed best.

She ran to one of her two bedroom windows and looked out—and down. Now-familiar cotton-candy hair looked almost white in the intermittent light of the moon. Natsu raised an arm and waved. Lucy unbolted and opened the window. Then she shook her head and raised her lacrima in order to send another text.

)Natsu what are—

She never got to send her text. Somehow—she had no idea how—Natsu quickly scrambled up the fieldstone exterior of the house and swung himself in the window. He grinned at her as though guys climbed thirty-foot walls like that all the time.

"Hey cool—nice room!"

Lucy backed away slowly, lacrima clutched tightly in one hand.

"Natsu. What the hell?"

Something in the way she said his name got through to him. He stopped moving and stood awkwardly just inside the window. Lucy examined him closely, but there was nothing especially weird about him. Cargo pants hugged his hips and then fell loosely to meet black canvas sandals—and how on earth had he climbed in those? His tight navy t-shirt outlined a muscular chest and showed off a flat, well-defined stomach and strong arms. I should be freaking out right now, not… staring wistfully.

Natsu scrubbed the back of his head. "Right, right, sorry. Yeah, um… okay. This isn't usually my thing, you know?"

"Which part?" Lucy asked dryly. "The vertical ascent—and possible unlawful entry—or something else?"

Her guest (or possible trespasser), laughed. "Hey yeah, I guess I should've asked if I could come in, huh?" He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, it's nice to meet somebody who knows the difference between unlawful trespass and break-and-enter. People watch way too many American cop shows."

"Technically, you could be charged with home invasion," Lucy replied, "since you knew I was here."

"Maybe," Natsu conceded, "but you'd have a hell of a time showing that I entered with any intention to commit an indictable offence—"

"We still haven't even established whether you broke in, let alone your reason for breaking in. I mean, I opened the window voluntarily when you announced your presence. Though I'd argue that I didn't expect you to be able to scale the wall, so it's not the same as opening a door."

"But—no, never mind. Anyway, isn't the whole home invasion thing more of a factor in sentencing—like, it aggravates the crime?"

Lucy considered briefly, but her knowledge of criminal law was starting to fail her. Still, her memory was exceptional, and they'd covered the topic at some length at the end of first year. Murder might be more exciting, but a future client was a lot more likely to be charged with assault, or break-and-enter.

"I think you're right. But you may still be unlawfully in a dwelling-house."

"Still requires intent to commit an offence."

"Presumption of intention of commit an offence goes along with the break and enter …or just being there unlawfully."

"Rebuttable."

"Oh for crying out loud, Natsu!"

"Oh?" The pink-haired man took a step further into the room and put his hands on his hips. "Does this mean that you're conceding the case, counsel?"

"Give me a break! First—no. Second—what case? Third—you specialize in corporate law, which we both know isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds! You're an expert on voting rights for minor shareholders, not some kind of, of pink-haired Perry Mason! When is the last time you even opened the Criminal Code?"

"In reverse order, Ms. Heartfilia," purred Natsu, eyes gleaming, "just last week; don't mock Perry Mason—even if he's at least fifty years out of date, fictional, and American; so what?; your case against me for breaking and entering (or maybe unlawful trespass with intent); and finally, where's your proof beyond a reasonable doubt?"

Lucy stamped her foot, torn between annoyance and growing amusement. "What case?!" Then she added quickly—because she was a sucker for a debate—"But just to make it clear: please leave immediately. Ha! Now, if you stay, you will clearly be unlawfully within this dwelling, since you have no right to be here. And that means that you are now presumed to be here with intent to commit an offence."

"Aw, Lucy, no fair!" Natsu hopped up onto the window sill. "It was just getting fun. Do you really want me to leave?"

Lucy shook her head, set down her lacrima, and gestured him back inside. Was that some kind of weird flirting or something? Because… it was fun and just very slightly sexy, which makes no sense. She pulled her desk chair around and sat down. "I'm still confused, so don't get too much closer unless I tell you it's okay. Why are you so up on basic criminal law anyway?"

Natsu looked slightly sheepish, but snagged a handsome leather pouffe and perched on top of it like a very unusual Little Miss Muffett (though not one who would be afraid of spiders, and minus the curds and whey). "I'd rather not go into that right now," he said loftily.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Is this the part where I say 'Curiouser and curiouser?'"

"Um, give me a minute." Natsu frowned slightly.

"You know Perry Mason but not Alice in Wonderland?!"

"I was getting there!"

"So you and Gray are both into old-time detectives and mysteries? I mean—Poirot? Isn't that what you called Gray earlier? How many people know Agatha Christie these days?"

"The shows were pretty popular for a while," muttered Natsu. "Besides, it's obvious that you know them too."

Lucy sighed. "I read… a lot." She wanted to ask, What's your excuse? Hot young lawyers don't sit at home reading the classics—do they?

Natsu had obviously lost track of the conversation. He was staring at a display case. "Wow… is that a—"

"Yes."

"Signed?"

"The card is. By George Lucas and Mark Hamill."

"You have an original, signed light-saber? I thought that was impossible!"

Lucy shifted uncomfortably. Her father was very, very wealthy. It had been an amazing gift, and she did treasure it—but she'd wanted something from Carrie Fischer. Princess Leia had been her idol, even though the original Star Wars movies had first aired long before Lucy was born. However, she was pretty sure that her father had delegated the purchase of a suitable eighteenth birthday present to one of his staff. She couldn't blame whoever it was for not knowing her very well, given their boss' temper when it came to "fraternizing" with his daughter. Besides, it was a light saber. Her father probably would have chosen jewelry.

"Just lucky I guess," she temporized.

Natsu started to look around the room with more interest than he had before. When he started skimming her book titles, she cleared her throat.

"Natsu—did you really come here to discuss Star Wars?"

"I would have if I'd known!"

"… Really not the point."

"Oh right." He turned and gave her a serious look. "Um, this is going to sound weird, okay? But Erza—"

"—and Gray—" murmured Lucy, remembering his original texts.

"—thought you might wonder."

This was getting annoying. "Natsu, spit it out. Is the firm a front for drug smuggling? Money laundering? Arms peddling? Cheating the tax system—well, any more than most?"

Natsu's eyes grew wider and rounder with each preposterous solution. "No! Of course not! And my clients know that although I set up, um, tax-efficient corporate structures, I'll never get them into tax avoidance problems, let alone tax evasion!" He paused, considering, and Lucy waited, her earlier annoyance having faded into a strong desire to giggle.

"The thing is," her odd visitor said slowly, "our clients find out pretty fast what we will and won't do. We're not afraid of a challenge, but if we think a client is screwing around with the law, then they become an ex-client pretty fast. Especially if they just want our firm's name on a few deals to make them look more like upstanding citizens. Anyway, not many people can stand up to Erza when she's mad." Natsu's grin suddenly returned. "She's had to deal with some pretty strange characters, but somehow we always keep our retainer, even when we cut them loose."

Lucy was intrigued. "You mean that when the drug dealers try to get M&V to set up a structure for their money laundering—or even for a legit deal just to get some credibility—you somehow find out who they are and send them packing? And keep the initial fee?"

"Well sure. Gray's gotta be good for something, even if he is a seriously nerdy guy."

"Says the man with a 'Type A' original release Star Wars poster," Lucy teased.

Natsu turned slightly pink, but laughed. "Well yeah, but Star Wars is cool, right? Gray's into computers and gaming and stuff."

"I've been known to play video games," Lucy told him haughtily.

"Okay, but I'll bet you play stuff like MarioKart and maybe some Legend of Zelda—you seem like you'd be into Link, somehow."

Lucy reddened. "What do you mean, 'into'? Yes, I like MarioKart and yes I like Legend of Zelda—so what? They're good games. I used to play a lot of the Fire Emblem stuff too, for that matter. I haven't actually played much of anything lately though because of my—" Lucy stopped short. She'd almost told Natsu about her book. What was it about this guy? "...Because of my courses."

Natsu had been nodding affably. There he was, sitting cross-legged on something that looked like somebody had turned a Jigglypuff into a soft, round footstool—an awful thought, but then again, at least Natsu matched!—and, and… Lucy cursed her brain. Normally she could be calm and logical when presented with strange situations. But an attractive guy with pink hair sitting on her favourite pink pouffe and talking law with her—apparently she had an unknown weakness. When was the last time she'd wanted to kiss somebody?

"The point is," her weakness said at that moment, since she'd stopped talking, "that you like Nintendo. See? I had you pegged for a Nintendo girl."

"Ugh. It's dumb to generalize like that."

"Okay, fine, but hear me out. I'm not saying that Gray doesn't play Nintendo, because he does—there isn't much he doesn't play, because he's a competitive bastard."

"Whereas you would never play any of his favourite games just so you could beat him," Lucy slid in smoothly.

"Right—what?" Natsu looked completely taken aback, and then shook his head at her. "That was—"

"Slick? Accurate? A brilliant character analysis?"

"Stop i!" Natsu put his hands over his ears and pretended to pout. It didn't last long. "Fine, okay? Maybe. But—"

"Look, are you ever going to tell me what Erza said to tell me? Because, you know, school tomorrow and… stuff."

"My point is that Gray plays those online multiplayer games where you pick some dorky fantasy or sci-fi guy and go beat on people. I mean, that's geeky, am I right?"

Lucy crossed over to Natsu and sat down in front of him. She was going to pretend that she'd done it on purpose to scold him, but the truth was that it had been half-unconscious.

"Natsu," she said, looking up into his green-grey eyes with a serious expression. "Look me in the face and tell me that you don't play Overwatch. Tell me that you have never spent hours figuring out exactly how to beat whatever character Gray likes best." She leaned closer to him and raised her eyebrows. "Well? On your honour as somebody who has collected all of the key Star Wars miniatures and probably has the AT-AT sitting in his living room on an end table instead a bowl of fruit."

There was a noticeable flush of red high on Natsu's cheekbones.

"Wow," he said, "you're good. And of course I can beat Gray at his dumb online games—sometimes, anyway. Maybe not at League of Legends unless I'm lucky and he has a lousy team. But did you see how much money those guys make these days?"

"Yeah, even my father's taken an interest—strictly from the perspective of exploiting the heck out of it of course. But now I want to know two things. One, what are you here to tell me?!" Natsu winced, and Lucy realized she'd spoken rather loudly. "And two, when do you guys ever, you know, work?"

"Oh it all sorts itself out," said Natsu airily. "Besides Gray had to agree to a percent—" he stopped abruptly.

"A percentage? Of what?"

Natsu waved his hands a little frantically, "Um, I wasn't supposed to mention that. So, about why I came?"

"A percentage? Come on Natsu… I'll die of curiosity… He looks so serious but it turns out he has a stripping habit and can play League like a pro—wait, that's not it is it? And is the Law Society okay with it?"

Lucy felt Natsu's warm hands on either cheek, and he lowered his face toward hers. She almost forgot to breathe. Why am I okay with this?

"You're really amazing Lucy. I've known it for a while now."

"For… a while?"

"Yeah. For example," the green-grey eyes flickered to her desk. "I know that you write late into the night, after you put your law books away. I know that you're always kind to people, even when you're having a bad day. I know that you forgive people, even when they hurt you."

Lucy pulled away from Natsu hands. She felt a combination of angry and afraid and… very confused.

"Natsu, what the hell? And it had better be good, because you're freaking me out and I'm seriously contemplating calling the police."

"Right, right… I'm sorry! I have personal space issues, according to Erza."

"Some people call it stalking, Natsu."

"No, no! Nothing like that! Honest! Argh - wait!"

He seemed genuinely upset, so Lucy stayed where she was.

"Make it good. Don't mention Star Wars, books, or games …or Gray, unless he's the one who told you to spy on me."

"No, that was gramps."

"The senior partner of M&V—Makarov Dreyar? He got you to spy on me?"

"Yeah. Well, he did say we'd been keeping an eye on you, right? See, supposedly your mum used to be pretty involved with the firm and its founding members—like, a protégée of Makarov's, you know?"

"No… I didn't know." Another thing her father hadn't told her?

"Oh. Okay then. Well, she gave it all up to marry your dad. According to gramps, they really might have, you know, loved each other, but it really wasn't a great fit. Unfortunately, their families were all for it, especially his. I think there must have been something funny about the whole set-up, but gramps won't talk about it. All I know is that he had Gray keep an eye on the Heartfilia companies—well, once Gray knew how. I mean, not even the Ice Princess was born knowing how to dig up the goods on a multinational organization that has limited partnerships holding shell companies holding blind trusts."

"I take it he's good at it now?" Lucy asked the question just to be polite. She disliked talking about her family, especially her parents. She was feeling… sad.

"Yeah. I'm no slouch either, of course. Took both of us—and some, um, judicious pressure by Erza on the right people—to get a good picture of things."

"And is any of that relevant right now?"

"Well, yeah… because, um, Fairy Tail has kind of an unusual structure."

"Uh-huh."

"We're all partners."

"Wait—seriously?! That just can't be financially viable! And why doesn't anybody know that? And what about the Law Society?"

Natsu shrugged, and Lucy could tell that he was honestly disinterested in what the Law Society thought. "Basically, profit is a factor for us, but it's not the main one. Whether a firm has all partners, or partners and associates is just a question of business model and profit-sharing, right? Thing is, when Makarov told you that we're like family, it was true. That's how it is. Some people work harder than others and earn more—that's no different from a regular firm that has the partners vote on bonuses, right? Some people are allowed more of the profits than others because of seniority, or special duties… Anyway, people don't leave too often."

Lucy was silent, still trying to get her head around a large firm with all partners and no associates. You'd really have to trust your partners, she decided.

"But my mother left?" she prodded at last, when Natsu didn't continue.

"Yeah, and that's the thing. She still had her share in the partnership when she left."

"But… there must have been a buy-out clause?" Lucy asked, puzzled.

Natsu shrugged again. "I think there was. I think they all hoped your mother would come back, or work part-time, or something. It's all a little weird."

You're all a little weird, Lucy thought.

"Is it resolved now?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But if you join us then gramps thinks we're vulnerable to your father's manipulation again. At the same time, he loves the idea."

"Why?"

Natsu gave her a strange look. "Because you're Layla Heartfilia's daughter dummy! I mean, didn't I just finish telling you about the whole 'family' thing?"

He had indeed. Lucy let her head drop softly against Natsu's knee. He was probably startled, but—just as she'd expected—a warm hand came down on her head to stroke her hair.

"So you came to tell me all this? They couldn't have told me all this sooner? And… that means you were lying earlier about not knowing who I was."

"Uh, well… kind of? I never said that I didn't know you. Anyway, gramps didn't want to get into it while you were still learning the ropes, you know. But there's a slight problem now."

"What's that?"

Natsu sat in silence for a while and Lucy was too comfortable—or had too much to think about—to move. Finally, Natsu gently tipped up her chin. His eyes were almost entirely grey now, and had lost their cheerful good humour.

"I kind of… like you." The blush on his cheeks darkened. "Um, a lot. You might have noticed."

I've only known him for about five hours, Lucy thought frantically to herself. What am I supposed to do now?

Natsu cleared his throat. "I totally understand that you can't feel the same way after, well, not very long, anyway. Plus…"

Lucy found her voice again. "Plus I'm pretty sure that a partner dating a summer student is frowned on by the Law Society."

"Probably—those guys don't like anything." Lucy saw him scowl and suspected that Natsu and the Law Society weren't always on the best of terms. "We totally have to watch our steps. But that's not the point. The point is that gramps and Erza are worried about it. We do have to follow the Law Society rule about not admitting you as a partner until you're qualified as a lawyer. And until you're a partner, you're an employee. And right now you're going to be mostly my employee."

"And you're telling me all this now?!"

Natsu looked away and scrubbed at his hair. "I, uh, didn't exactly tell them how I felt. They just figured it out."

"Especially after you said you'd be helping me find a place to live?" Despite being both flushed and flustered, Lucy was beginning to see the funny side of the situation. "Oh Natsu… You told them not to worry about me because we were getting together on the weekend to look at places, didn't you?"

"Well of course! They just took it wrong!" He frowned at floor. "Stupid Gray was laughing at me. But honestly—I didn't mean it to sound funny!"

"You just wanted to be friendly."

There was a long silence.

"I wasn't going to try anything, Luce, honest!"

"Luce?"

"It suits you."

Lucy pursed her lips, her analytical brain ticking over and fighting a losing battle with her heart and strangely overactive hormones. At length she said: "So, the burning question right now is whether I might like you back? And either way, am I willing to risk taking a job working for a firm in which you are a partner? Especially when both the senior partner and the managing partner are ambivalent about the situation…"

"They're not! They think it's hilarious—well, gramps does and Erza kept muttering 'how cute! how cute!' and then threatening to kill me if I hurt you."

"I still think it may be against the Code of Conduct somewhere," frowned Lucy.

"And… she's back to the Law Society!" Natsu looked frustrated now.

Lucy took a deep breath and put her hands on Natsu's face. His eyes—now mostly green—went very wide. "To hell with the Law Society!" With a strange, half-drunk feeling, Lucy closed her eyes and brought Natsu's lips against hers. It didn't surprise her at all to find them very warm and very sexy—just like the rest of him.

Natsu relaxed slowly against her, and his lips parted slightly, returning her kiss. Lucy moved her hands from his cheeks to his shoulders. Careful not to break the kiss, Natsu slid off his seat onto the floor so that he could wrap his arms around her. She could feel his solid chest against her breasts now, and his blunt-fingered hands on her back and in her hair. She couldn't believe what she was doing, but for once she told her cautious self to shut the fuck up.

Time passed, and the kiss deepened. They got better at it as they went along, until the first gentle pressure of lips was something entirely different and much more exciting. Lucy felt as though all the nerves in her skin had come alive at once. Somehow she'd ended up in Natsu's lap, and she was very good with that.

"Is this… okay?" Natsu mumbled at length, when they paused to breathe. He leaned his forehead against hers. "I hope it's okay."

"Me too," Lucy said vaguely. "It's all your fault for talking law to me."

"Torts."

"Not just for dessert anymore!" Lucy giggled at the old, old joke.

"Mens rea."

"I think so."

"What?"

"I think I understood and intended to commit the actus reus."

"So you are fully guilty of kissing me." Natsu tugged lightly on a lock of soft golden hair. "I don't think that's a crime though."

"I just figured that you couldn't take advantage of me if I took advantage of you first."

"What if I only want you for your lightsaber?"

"That's my line."

Natsu blushed. Lucy figured she'd been red from the start, so it was only fair. She took the opportunity to ask a question.

"So… did Gray really win millions by moonlighting in an online computer game tournament?"

Natsu eyed her warily. "Maybe. Why?"

"You're right, that's pretty geeky—or is it nerdy?" Lucy smiled at Natsu, for no other reason than that she was happy.

"I was on his team," Natsu muttered.

"Sorry? You'll have to speak up—I missed what you said over the sound of me laughing at you."

"Nintendo baby."

"Try me at MarioKart, Pepto B."

"Hey! What?! No—Luce!"

"Seriously though, when do you guys sleep?"

"When we can. Well, I do. As for Gray, well… the ice never rests…"

"So he does play hockey?"

"Of course. Fortunately, we figure that he was replaced with a robot years ago, so he doesn't pass out from exhaustion as crucial moments."

"So you don't play hockey?"

Natsu looked embarrassed. "They kicked me off the team partway through the first season, two years ago."

"Should I sue for wrongful dismissal?"

"Um… no. There may have been some—slight—cause." Natsu silenced her next question with a kiss. This time one hand slid under the back of Lucy's shirt to caress the soft skin of her back and waist, and there was no further conversation for quite a while.

They parted, very reluctantly, at midnight.

"You're a failure as a study partner," noted Lucy, examining various hickeys with a combination of embarrassment and satisfaction. "I still don't understand constructive trusts properly."

"Nobody does," Natsu assured her. "But if you're worried, gramps could talk to Prof Porly about it?"

"Prof… Porly?"

"Well, apparently she and Makarov go way back."

"I'll pass on the intervention. I'll bet Gray understands constructive trusts."

Natsu gave her a severe look. "You really know how to hurt a guy, don't you?"

Lucy sighed. "Sorry, Natsu. But… I've been trying to make a difficult decision…"

Natsu could sense that she was serious, and took her hand. "Tell me."

"I'm going to turn down M&V's offer."

"What?! No—Lucy, you belong with us!"

"Natsu." Lucy leaned up to kiss him quickly on the cheek. "It's just for the summer. I can find something else. Maybe work for one of the profs instead of at a firm."

"Because of me?"

"Because of us."

All pretence of joking had already dropped from Natsu's face, but now he looked especially unhappy. "I wish you wouldn't do this, Lucy. And it's not… it's not necessary."

"It is for me."

Natsu studied her. Two years of keeping an eye on her had given him insight into her moods. He'd classify this one as "smiling but stubborn".

"I feel like a total jerk. If I hadn't said anything… we could've at least been friends, you know? And you could've worked at Fairy Tail with a clear conscience."

"Until I ripped your shirt off…"

"Would you?"

Lucy laughed. "You look so hopeful!" Then she shrugged uncomfortably. "Which kind of proves my point. I just… can't have both, Natsu. Please don't make it harder."

Natsu looked down. After a short time, he nodded. "I understand. I'm sorry I messed things up for you."

"How? By existing and being the person that—gods know why—I want to be with?"

"Oi! That wasn't exactly flattering!"

"Your self-confidence can take it."

"Okay, Luce. So… you'll go out with me, then?"

"Yes."

"And you'll join the firm as soon as you're qualified?"

"As long as Erza and Mr. Makarov still want me, yes."

There was a longish interval that didn't involve words.

"Goodnight, Natsu."

"Night, Luce!" He swung himself onto the window ledge.

"Wait—Natsu!" When he paused, Lucy asked the one question she'd forgotten earlier. "How did you make it up here—and in sandals—and how are you going to manage a thirty-foot drop?"

Natsu smiled a little. "You'll find out when you join Fairy Tail, Lucy Heartfilia. Until then, well—you're the one who said she could be patient."

He was gone on the final word, and there was no terrible crunch of broken flesh and bones.

We'll see, Natsu Dragneel. I'll bet I figure it out before then. I've done a lot of reading about Fairy Tail. And at least one place mentioned "magic". Maybe it wasn't such a cracked theory after all.

Smiling to herself in a way that she hadn't in years, Lucy got ready for bed.

[END]

A/Note: I hope you've enjoyed this quirky little brain-child of mine. All comments and reviews are very much appreciated, and thank you for all your support through likes, kudos, follows and faves!

~Impracticaldemon

Tags: @nalufever @shell-senji @sabinasanfanfic @walk-tall-my-fr1ends @kazama-hime @nalu-natic @naluloverforever @strawberrysweetlove35

@eliz1369 @very-x-vice @hakusaitosan @ftfanfics @fic-writer-appreciation

#fairy tail #nalu #nalufluffweek #fanfiction #impracticaldemon #within the law #ft lawyers au #ft au #prompt texting

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abbajane · 7 years ago

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To celebrate the release of Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, and to kick off my Author Tuesdays, let’s talk about Agatha Christie!

Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, Five Miss Marple Novels

Whether or not you’ve ever read a Christie novel, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of her. She’s the undeniable Queen of Mystery and is one of the best selling authors of all time. Her most infamous creation is Hercule Poirot, the quirky genius detective, but she’s also well known for her independent novels and the Miss Marple collection, about an elderly woman who solves crimes in her small town. Before we break into my reviews, let’s take a minute to get to know Christie.

I won’t bore you to death with biographical details, so here are five fast facts about Christie, all taken from her website, which has more information if you’d like to read on.

Christie in later life.

Front page regarding her disappearance.

Christie and Mallowan on a dig site.

Christie as a young girl.

Agatha Christie was born in September 1890 (a Virgo! Of course!) in Southern England, and died in January of 1976.

Christie wrote a 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. The most famous of these are Murder on the Orient Express, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, and Murder at the Vicarage.

During the First World War, in which Christie began to write, she worked at a hospital dispensary where she learned about poisons. According to her website, “The murderer’s use of poison was so well described that when the book was eventually published Agatha received an unprecedented honour for a writer of fiction – a review in the Pharmaceutical Journal.”

Agatha Christie married a couple of times. Her first husband Archie Christie was an aviator in the war, and they married in 1914. Her second husband, Max Mallowan, was an archaeologist in the Middle East when they met and married in 1930.

In 1926, Agatha Christie vanished. Her car and some of her belongings were found in her abandoned car, and no one knew where she had gone. For ten days the nation searched for her, and eventually she was found in a spa under a fake name, seemingly unable to recognize her husband. Opinion is still divided today on whether Christie cracked under emotional strain between her husband’s infidelity, poor reception of her novels, and her mother’s death which caused her to experience amnesia, or if she was orchestrating some publicity stunt or effort to frame her adulterous husband for murder. She makes no mention of the incident in her autobiography.

I’ve read three of Christie’s novels this fall, and I chose them in an attempt to get a wide view of the kind of story that Christie was capable of. All of them deal in careful clues, twisting narratives, and untrustworthy characters, and all of them were a joy to read!

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

This is the novel that got me interested in Christie. I never framed myself as a mystery-lover, but I do love crime shows like 20/20, Dateline, and anything on the Investigation Discovery Channel, so I guess I should have given crime novels a go earlier! I picked up this novel because the film was about to be released, and because I had a computer game as a child that was based off this story that I loved dearly. So, I knew how this story was going to end, but that didn’t make the process any less enjoyable.

The premise of the novel is ambitious: a vaguely unlikable man is murdered on the cross-continent voyage of the Orient Express. The train is delayed by heavy snowfall, and the famous detective Hercule Poirot, who was planning to enjoy a peaceful journey, is recruited to investigate the 12 passengers and figure out who killed the man. Twelve suspects is a lot to keep track of, and there is a lot of evidence and motive to investigate, but Christie keeps the information manageable and, though some of the lesser characters can blend together or fade out, the cast as a whole provides plenty of entertainment and intrigue. I won’t spoil, in case you haven’t heard how it ends, but I will say that it is so clever that you’ll never see it coming.

I really enjoyed Poirot. He’s charming, quirky, and so damn smart that half the novel is keeping up with him. Christie has a tendency to be very cut and dry, meaning she doesn’t infuse a lot of emotion into her texts. She deals in the black and white of things, in cold logic and provable fact. While this novel sets up a lot of emotional turbulence with its conclusion, Christie keeps her feet dry by ending the novel right when the emotional could have run in and stolen the genius of the crime. I personally prefer a little more feeling and emotion in my stories. I like to feel with characters and experience their emotional conflicts, but Christie left me hanging with this one. As I read more of her work, I found the same issue, but it’s probably my only complaint with Christie’s work.

The cast of this film is stellar. Daisy Ridley! Judi Dench! Olivia Colman! Penelope Cruz! Kenneth Branagh!

I’ll take a quick moment to talk about the film, since I felt the film not only was a roaring success in cinematography, acting, and directing, but it also filled in those pitfalls that I found in Christie’s writing. The film was chock full of emotion, but still kept all those subtle clues and careful stages that comprised Christie’s novel, and even added a few more with mirror doubling, claustrophobic and vertigo-inducing shots, and one lovely Last Supper reference. It diverted from Christie’s novel only to fill the characters with a little more heart and feeling, which I felt was done tastefully and neatly. I got choked up a few times in that film, which I love! It was cathartic and moving and I think Branagh did a wonderful job with it. It seems we’re in for a few more Branagh/Poirot collaborations so buckle up!

The Body in the Library (1942)

This novel was my least favorite of the three Christie stories I read. I can’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t like it as well, but I think some small part of it might have been Miss Marple herself — she didn’t add much and she was mega-judgmental. Maybe I’ll read a few more, since I have a collection, to test my theory but something here fell flat, and it wasn’t just the lack of human sympathy and emotion, which seems to be token in Christie’s novels.

When the body of a missing hotel dancer turns up in the library of a well-to-do family man, his wife calls in Miss Marple to offer her advice on the case. Between the skills of the detective and the nosy old woman, the murder is brought to light after some seriously twisty turns and inference. This ending I felt to be a little too absurd to be realistic or plausible, and while Christie likes those WTF moments, this one just didn’t seem to have even the smallest element of believability in it. With the other Christie novels I read, I felt at the end that though it was entirely wild, it was explained in a way to make it entirely possible, given the facts. I think another thing that I didn’t care for was the overly traditional motive. After Orient Express and And Then There Were None, I wanted something a little more eccentric. Seems I can’t be pleased! The events were too unbelievable, and the motive wasn’t unbelievable enough!

Again, I’m going to complain about the lack of compassion and feeling in this one. I felt the victim was treated quite unfairly by others, especially with a surplus of unkind comments. Additionally, there was a lot of glee, and not just from the weird and excitable child, about the fate of the murder. These folks love death — even when its in their own houses. When you look at the gender politics at play here, there are a lot of cringe-y moments, and oftentimes I wondered if I was reading too far into things or if Christie was trying to subtly suggest some underhanded behavior by various male characters. Overall, I think the context of gender was nearly as huge of a character as any of them, but was completely treated as the elephant in the room. I can’t hold it too strongly since I’m reading with a modern mind, and concepts about rape-culture and sexism and shaming weren’t so easily verbalized or examined when the novel was written in 1942. Still, this novel just didn’t do enough for me. It felt half-assed, honestly.

And Then There Were None (1939)

This was the first Christie novel I read, and it is undeniably my favorite. ATTWN is not a Poirot or Marple detective novel, so it stands in a category of its own. This story was also included with the Murder Mystery computer game pack that I had when I was a kid, so I again knew the outcome of the story, but it had been ages since I’d played the game. While I knew who the murder was, I couldn’t remember the hows and whys that make this novel so great and complex, so it was almost as good as reading it completely new.

This novel, like Orient Express, is made of a cast of seemingly unrelated characters. Ten people arrive to a remote island residence all under different pretenses, but all on the invitation of the mysterious U. N. Owen. Strangely, and horrifyingly, the guests suddenly start dying in the order and method described by a children’s nursery rhyme as soon as they arrive, and soon realize they have been stranded on the island with a pyscho-killer. It’s utterly insane and terrifying. The remaining guests must work agains the clock (and each other) to figure out who the murderer is before it’s too late.

Where the other Christie novels failed to thrill me or strike at my emotions, this novel went above and beyond. I was scared, I was anxious, I was sympathetic, I was horrified. The whole thing was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish, and I really could not put it down. Like the other novels, the ending was completely surprising, but this one finishes up with a confession which is even more spine chilling than the action of the novel. This murderer is the most psychotic that I’ve read, and foreshadows the kind of killers that we obsess over today from the likes of Stephen King.

I can’t write a review about this novel, no matter how well I like it, without addressing it’s very sketchy and messy past. The novel was originally published under another name, which I will not write here, but will link to. Clearly, the name is racist and meant to inspire thoughts of darkness, violence, otherness, and evil via the racism of the day in the reading audience of the 1940s. To add onto this racism cake that Christie was building, the novel was renamed for the American readership, to Ten Little Indians, which is still meant to signal all of those wicked stereotypes about a certain race, but in a distinctly American context (not to say that white Americans were worse on the Native populations than the Black ones, or that Black populations had it any easier because that word was removed from the American title). Eventually, publishers decided that racism, no matter who you were being racist to, was not cool or remotely acceptable, and they changed the title to it’s current iteration, with the children’s poem being Ten Little Soldiers instead. I had no idea about this history when I read the novel, though I was vaguely familiar with the rhyme from a similar, though less gruesome and equally racist rhyme about little Indians.

Christie’s racism doesn’t come as a terrible surprise to me, since in Orient Express there was a lot of slurring and stereotyping being thrown around by the passengers and suspects. In Branagh’s film, the racism is adjusted, I think, to help modern audiences (especially American) understand the racism in Christie’s novel, since the modern viewer may not think the casual intra-European racism is as harmful as it is. Branagh included a black character and some not-so-covert racism by another character so the modern reader could understand the subtle damage Christie was doing in her own work. Christie has been accused of racism before, (see her top ten moments here) and some reviewers had some comments about how the film dealt with it. In an age where we out predators, racists, misogynists, and various other aggressors in our society, lets not forget to be critical of even those who write damn good books.

Further reading:

Murder on the Orient Express Is Agatha Christie Minus the Racism

Yes, It Still Hurts to Read Racist Depictions in an Otherwise Good Book

The Queen of Crime

Agatha Christie’s Autobiography

What’s your favorite Agatha Christie novel? What do you love about her? How do we deal with problematic authors in this modern age?

Author: Agatha Christie To celebrate the release of Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, and to kick off my Author Tuesdays, let's talk about Agatha Christie!

#agatha christie #and then there were none #author #Author Tuesday #crime novel #hercule poirot #miss marple #murder on the orient express #mystery novel #the body in the library

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anongoingsoliloquy · 7 years ago

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I’m calling this a summer haul because I don’t remember exactly when I bought each of these books. There’s a fair few books on this list, so let’s just get straight into it!

1. Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes is my latest purchase and the book I’m currently reading. I really like it so far! It’s about retired cop, Bill Hodges and his obsession with the Mercedes Killer case. The Mercedes Killer taunts him back into the middle of the case through letters and (i believe) a back and forth dialogue. I thought this book would be a lot more suspenseful, but since it’s the first book by Stephen King that I’ve read, maybe all of them start like this and build the suspense as the book goes on? If you’ve read his books before, let me know!

2. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

I’ve heard wonderful things about this book! it’s about a boy who is raised in a graveyard and who is hunted by the person who killed his parents. I’ve read a few of Neil Gaiman’s children’s books and really enjoyed them, so hopefully this one will be no different!

3. The Long Halloween

This is a fairly old standalone Batman series, but oh my does it sound good! In the comic, Batman has to solve the mystery of a serial killer who only murders on holidays. I believe the entire series is set over the few days before Halloween, where Batman must stop the murder of another victim.

4. Harley’s Little Black Book

This is a special edition connected to the New 52 Harley Quinn series. In these issues, Harley teams up with DC’s finest, including Wonder Woman, Super Man, and even the Bombshell version of herself!

5. Dividing Eden - Joelle Charbonneau

In Dividing Eden, twins are pitting against each other when their father, the king, and older brother, the crowned prince, are murdered. Now the twins are destined to become rivals in the fight for the throne.

6. Caraval - Stephanie Garber

This is the only book anyone ever talked about at the beginning of the summer! It’s about this magical carnival that comes to an island, and takes our main character’s sister. Now, our protagonist must find her sister before the end of the carnival or she will lose her forever. There seems to be a lot of mystery and intrigue in the novel, and I’m super excited to read it!

7. The Bone Queen - Alison Croggon

This book is a prequel to the Pellinor series. I haven’t read the original series, but since it’s a prequel I don’t really care. In the novel, a powerful bard unleashes the Bone Queen. And that’s pretty much all I know about it, but I’m pretty excited to jump into this world.

8. Royal Bastards - Andrew Shvarts

This book is about exactly what the title suggests, royal bastards. The bastard siblings of the king must all band together to protect the legitimate heir to the throne from the forces that would see them dead.

9. And I Darken - Kiersten White

This book it about the daughter of Vlad the Impaler and her quest to escape the Ottoman Empire. I hope it touches on the vampire mythos surrounding Vlad and his descendants.

10. Closed Casket - Agatha Christie/Sophie Hannah

Closed Casket is the newest installment in the New Poirot Series. I’ve already finished it and it was amazing! It was a wonderful homage to Agatha Christie’s original series and perfectly captured the essence of her novels! Plus, you can never have too many Poirot novels; he’s the best!

11. Alex and Eliza - Melissa De La Cruz

I’ve also already finished this book. It was a light historical fiction, but was a very enjoyable read! it was a sweet love story; perfect if you, like me, are obsessed with Hamilton!

12. Jughead vol. 2

This comic collection is a continuation of the story from vol. 1, following the antics of Jughead and the other members of the Riverdale squad.

13. The Crimes of Jack the Ripper - Paul Roland

My mom bought me this book because I’ve always been really interested in the Ripper murders. Mostly because he was never caught. This non-fiction book has H Division files, autopsy reports, and autopsy photos, which is kinda gross but super interesting! I’ve read some of it and look forward to finishing this book soon!

14. Joker Loves Harley

This comic collection is a continuation of the first volume of the DC Harley Quinn rebirth. I haven’t started this series yet, but hopefully I will get to them soon!

15. Josie and the Pussycats vol. 1

This is a brand-new series in the Riverdale rebirth. I believe it’s an origin story of how the pussycats first got started as a band.

16. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

This is another book by Neil Gaiman. It’s about a man who literally falls through the cracks of London, into a dark world under the city. Funny story, this book was donated to my mom’s work place, and since she works at a daycare, the books that were donated were much to advanced for the children. Because of this, the staff where told to take which ever books they wanted for themselves. So, my mom brought this book home for me, but little did she know was that this book was the sold-out book I was looking for the previous weekend. Talk about destiny and chicken!

17. The Woods - Harlan Coben

This book was also part of the ‘too advanced for daycare students’ donations box. My mom brought me this one because it reminded her of Mr. Mercedes. It’s about a cop who is pulled back into the case of missing girls, one of whom was his sister, when one of the girls mysteriously returns to their sleepy little town.

And that’s it! Oh my, that was a lot of books! Let me know if you’ve read any of these books and what you thought of them!

Thanks for reading

#book haul #books #Book Recommendations #bookworm #neil gaiman #stephen king #mr mercedes #Harley Quinn #batman #agatha christie #hercule poirot #riverdale #jughead jones

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worldbestlawyers · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on World Best Lawyers

New Post has been published on http://www.worldbestlawyers.com/crime-fiction-ten-cliches-to-avoid/

Crime Fiction - Ten Cliches to Avoid

Crime fiction is big business at the moment, but there are certain situations that have been overplayed so much that they have become genre cliches and everybody knows what to expect next. Here are ten cliches you should try to avoid and thoughts on how to subvert the cliches if you do decide to use them.

Cops and Doctors

You can find this perennial favourite in both crime and historical fiction. You’ll see it in ER, NYPD Blue and in cross -genre shows like the X Files. The doctor says “OK but only for a minute” or “It’s touch and go. The next few hours will be crucial” or “It could be minutes, it could be days… you never know with coma cases” The policemen usually say nothing. They just stand around and chew the scenery in frustration.

Mulder and Scully actually spend a lot of their time hanging around in hospitals but you don’t notice so much because the patients aren’t your run of the mill criminals or witnesses.

And that’s the way to get around this one. Get a new twist and add some tension. Maybe the patient is related to either the cop or the doctor. Or maybe the doctor is an amateur detective and knows better than the cop? But beware of the “Dick Van Dyke” syndrome… that leads you into a whole new area of cliche

The New Partner

In this scenario a veteran cop has to get a new partner after the death of his old one. The rookie is either keen as mustard and eager to please, or burned out from personal problems. It’s probably best known in modern times from the Lethal Weapon movies. Screenwriters tried to add some tension early in the series by having Mel Gibson as a borderline suicide case, and that gave the first film an edge; but it was lost in later instalments. By the time the fourth movie came came along they had fallen so deeply into a buddy movie relationship that all drama was lost in favour of light comedy.

You need to do some serious subverting if you want to use this situation. People have tried having a dog as the buddy in K9, having their Mom as the buddy in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and having foreigners as the buddy in big Arnie’s Red Heat.

Outside the strictly police procedural we’ve also had the robot buddy in Robocop, the ghost buddy in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the alien buddy in Alien Nation, the magician buddy in Jonathan Creek, the ex-serviceman buddy in both Sherlock Holmes and Poirot. The list just goes on and on.

However you do it, filling in the blanks is easy in this scenario. What you need is something new. How about having the cop being given a politician doing a meet-the-people stint. Or, on a completely tasteless but might be funny level, how about the schizophrenic cop who is his own buddy?

The Rookie in the Morgue

Once only the province of young students in Quincy, this one now turns up on TV in the CSI franchise or Crossing Jordan and in print in the Kay Scarpetta books. There are usually two ways this one can proceed. Either the young cop rushes out, hand at mouth, or he stands still, icily cold and detached, as the autopsy proceeds.

Inspector Morse tried to subvert this situation by having the old timer as the squeamish one, but how about having the rookie as the pathologist?

Whatever you do, try not to give the pathologist a chance to be smug and patronizing while explaining large chunks of the plot. In the UK, this is overdone in Silent Witness and Waking the Dead, and is just a lazy way to advance the story.

The Cantankerous Lieutenant Chews Out The Cop

In films and television shows this happens to every protagonist, and Clint Eastwood for one must be tired of it. In the Dirty Harry series he was rarely out of his boss’s office.

It usually ends up with the lieutenant and the cop snarling at each other, so how about having one of them being completely calm and laid back? Or how about having one of them being deaf?

And if you must write this scene, please don’t use lines like “I’ll have your badge for that”, or “I’m not covering for you this time”

The Slimy Defence Lawyer

This one was a hot favourite on NYPD Blue and was guaranteed to get right up Sipowitz’s nose. Once you’ve introduced the sharp suit, the slick hairstyle and the briefcase, this guy will inevitably say, “My client has no further comment,” or “You had no right to talk to him without me there.” Everybody knows the rest.

Again, serious though is needed to bring a new twist to this situation. Your lawyer could be an ex-cop who knows all the moves, or a relative or lover of one of the cops? How about a lawyer defending himself? Or a counter-culture lawyer covered with tattoos and piercings?

Whatever you do try to come up with some creative invective. Slimeball, sleazeball, reptile and shyster have all been overused.

The Car Chase

Bullit and The French Connection set the standard, and Gone in 60 Seconds brought it into the 21st Century, but this situation has mostly become tired. There are only so many little old ladies to avoid, so many road signs to hit, and so many police cars to trash before your audience becomes jaded.

Over the years the Bond movies have used up just about all the possible permutations, so you’ll struggle to come up with something new. It would be better to add tension in another way.

In a bid to appear fresh, the chase element has sometimes been dropped altogether in favour of the race against time as in Speed or Die Hard With a Vengeance. To succeed you’ll need a good reason for the journey to take place, a disastrous outcome if it’s not successful, and some good near misses on the way.

But beware. Too much carnage and your readers will start thinking of The Blues Brothers. And please, don’t have your protagonist drive the wrong way down a one-way street.. it’s been done far too often.

The Shoot Out

Raymond Chandler’s advice to crime writers still holds. “If your plot is flagging, have a man come in with a gun.” You’ve got to be careful though. Too many people still transfer scenes from old cowboy movies almost verbatim into modern cop scenes.

Probably the best recent shoot out was in Michael Mann’s Heat. You cared who lived or died, and there was excitement and tension. Therein lies the trick. Make your readers have an opinion, not just about your hero, but about the other characters as well. At the end of LA Confidential, we knew all of the people involved in the climax, and it made it more satisfying to watch who lived or died. Lining one-dimensional people up just as cannon fodder might work in a Saturday night popcorn movie, but we should be aiming higher than that.

Shoot outs work well on film, but they can be a drag in print. Some writers tend to slow things down, especially to have a close look at the wounds. Unless you’re careful it can read like a medical textbook.

And, please, don’t have heads “exploding like ripe watermelons.”

The Cop in The Cafe

This was used in Chips in every episode, giving them an excuse to show a motorbike speeding from a car park with loose gravel flying.

It’s also a favourite in most of the aforementioned buddy movies, and especially in Starsky and Hutch. They’ll be in a cafe, musing over the chewing out they’ve had from their boss, when a call comes through. The radio buzzes, giving them a chance to attach a flashing light to the roof of their car and head off to a car chase, closely followed by a shoot out. See how it’s possible to run one cliche into another? Pretty soon you’d have a whole plot, but would anybody buy it?

One way of changing this scene might be to have an alternative means of the cops getting the message. You could have them hearing something on the Television? Or how about on a cell-phone or laptop… there are multiple opportunities for foul ups, misunderstandings or criminal actions there, and they haven’t been overdone… yet.

Good Cop / Bad Cop

The good cop / bad cop interview became a cliche almost as soon as crime fiction began. A fine example, nearly seventy years old, can be seen in The Maltese Falcon. By now everybody knows the moves, and your readers will be bored long before the interview is over. Unless you’re being self-referential and ironic, as in LA Confidential you’ll never pull it off.

Cracker tried to subvert the interview situation altogether by having it performed by a psychiatrist who played both cops in one. In The Rock, Sean Connery as the prisoner told Nicholas Cage which questions he should be asking. You’ll need to find something similarly innovative if you’re going to make it work.

How about having two good cops? Or two bad cops? Or maybe there is a new computer system designed by psychologists to ask the right questions in the right order? How would your cops and your prisoner handle that?

The Estranged Wife

Why do all fictional cops have relationship problems? This scene always goes the same way. The wife says, “You never see the children anymore.” The cop doesn’t say anything, because his mobile phone interrupts. You know the rest.

Cracker is again a good case in point as he went through this scene in almost every episode. Pacino played a variation of it with his girlfriend in Heat.

Not only does Cracker have a failed marriage, but he’s also a gambler and a drinker. In recent years people have been giving cops more and more problems to overcome, culminating in Denzel Washington’s paraplegic investigator in The Bone Collector. I wouldn’t even try to top that.

Why not be original. Make your cop a healthy, stable, happily married man. Now there’s a challenge.

Conclusion

The next time you read or watch a police drama, notice how many of the above are still in use. All of them can occur in any one story, and frequently do… just shuffle the paragraphs, add a murder or two and you have an instant plot.

But unless you can subvert some of the cliches, don’t expect anybody to buy it.

#Custody Lawyer

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rathertoofondofbooks · 6 years ago

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Today I’m taking in part in This Week in Books, which was started by Lipsyy Lost and Found! If you want to join in you just need to share what you’re reading now, what you’ve read over the last week, and what you hope to read next.

I’ve had a brilliant week of reading so I’m hoping the week ahead will bring more of the same!

Now

The Christmas Spirit by Susan Buchanan

This is my latest festive read and I’m really enjoying it.

Fukushima Dreams by Zelda Rhiando

I started reading this last night and it’s such a beautifully written book. It’s set in the aftermath of the horrendous tsunami in Japan a few years ago and follows a man and woman who have become separated from each other. It’s very dream-like and so good.

Twenty-Six Seconds by Alexandra Zapruder

This is another one of my picks for non-fiction November and I’m so glad I was able to pick it up this week. I started reading this yesterday and I’m three chapters in. It’s such a fascinating read, I had no idea what it was like for the Zapruder family living with the burden of the footage taken of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The Upstarts by Brad Stone

This is also on my non-fiction November TBR as my audio book choice. It’s an interesting book to listen to and I’m enjoying finding out more about how Air BnB and Uber came to be.

Then

Christmas Camp by Karen Schaler

This is a gorgeous festive read and I really enjoyed it. I do love when a Christmas book is full of the joys of the season so this was a lovely read. I’ll be reviewing it soon.

Bouncing Back with a Bang by Geraldine Ward

This is a powerful and moving poetry collection that I very much enjoyed. I reviewed it yesterday so you can read more of my thoughts on it here if you’d like to.

The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 – 1992 by Tina Brown

This was a non-fiction November pick and I’m really glad to have got it read this month as it’d been on my TBR for almost a year. It was enjoyable in places but particularly in the early part of the diary there were so many people that I had no idea about that it was a bit over my head. I’m in the middle of writing a review so my full thoughts will be posted soon.

No Such Thing as Society: A History of Britain in the 1980s by Andy McSmith

This is a non-fiction book about the 80s and I very much enjoyed it. A lot of things I already knew but this book helps put things into context that gave me new insight into some of the things that happened in the 80s. It’s a really accessible book and I recommend it.

The Present by DS Devlin

This is a crime fiction novel set near Christmas and while I really enjoyed the opening chapters, it did all fall a little flat for me after that. It was a fast read but it was missing something for me. I’ll be reviewing this at some point.

The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah

I had an ARC of this on my TBR but spotted the audio book on my audio subscription service so I half read and half listened to this. It’s the first Poirot novel that I’ve read by Sophie Hannah and I enjoyed it so I’ll definitely be looking out for the previous ones by her. I hope to get my review of this posted soon too.

I’ll Be There For You: The One About Friends by Kelsey Miller

I was looking for something light to listen to this week and this book caught my eye. I loved Friends back in the day and I’m now enjoying watching the repeats on Channel 5. This was a fun listen and I found out some things I didn’t know, and it was nice to think back over favourite episodes. I recommend this if you’re a Friends fan.

The List That Changed My life by Olivia Beirne

I loved this book. It was heart-warming and life-affirming and it was just a gorgeous book. I’ll be reviewing this for the blog tour next week so look out for that on Tuesday.

Snowday by B R Maycock

I’m so looking forward to reading this winter read. It sounds like a gorgeous book to curl up with on a cold snowy afternoon so this is the week for this one!

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

I was so excited when a proof copy of this arrived recently and I can’t wait any longer to start reading it! It feels like another perfect book for curling up in the chair with on a cold wintery day.

Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

I’ve had this on my TBR since it was published earlier this year and I’m just in the mood to read it so hopefully I’ll get to this one in the coming week.

Mansfield and Me by Sarah Laing

This book is on my non-fiction November TBR and I’d really like to read it soon. It’s been a while since I read a graphic novel so this should be a lovely change.

What have you been reading this week? I’d love to hear. And if you take part in This Week in Books or WWW Wednesday please feel free to leave your link below and I’ll make sure to visit and comment on your post. 🙂

This Week in Books (21 Nov 2018)! What are you reading at the moment? #TWiB Today I’m taking in part in This Week in Books, which was started by Lipsyy Lost and Found…

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fionatlux · 7 years ago

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STILL STAR-CROSSED SERIES FINALE

So… that happened. I’m not going to say much on this platform about the series as a whole. There were a lot of ways in which the project was mishandled on many levels: promotionally, yes, but also on the level of narrative, dialogue, and character (to say nothing of my loathing for the CGI camera zoom). There were also good things about it: the gorgeous and talented cast, the sumptuous costumes, the locations; the innovations of the source material into what is, I would argue, a very tired tale. As flawed as it was, I have a lot of affection for the show. And if you want more Rosaline/Benvolio goodness, go read the book by Melinda Taub (delicious bickering) and then Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine (the slowest of slow burns).

Without further ado:

[Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4 / Episode 5 / Episode 6]

EPISODE 7

Previously On

CAPULET: BURN IT ALL DOWN.

LADY CAPULET: Same!

The Gates of Verona

[An awkward party on horseback approaches the city gates.]

BENVOLIO: shit, I can’t believe Roz betrayed me!

ROSALINE: shit, I can’t believe B. didn’t notice that we were surrounded by armed guards under the command of a guy we knew to be plotting a hostile takeover of Verona!

PARIS: What a nice city. Pity about that giant column of smoke marring the roofline.

ESCALUS: Everything will be fine once I execute Benvolio!

Casa Capulet

[Everybody is happy to see Rosaline, who eyeballs Paris with dislike and suspicion.]

PARIS: See, I rescued her just like I said I would!

ROSALINE: You better not have hurt my baby sister or I will END you.

LIVIA: Rosaline!

ROSALINE: Livia!

CAPULET: Paris!

[Capulet is a lot more excited to see Paris than he is to see his niece.]

ROSALINE: Livia, can I help you get dessert so we can talk in private?

[Nope. A carriage from the palace has arrived for Lady Rosaline! Because this went so well the last time she was summoned to the palace.]

The Smoking Ruins of the Capulet Montague Cathedral

MONTAGUE: HOW DARE HE! Capulet has ruined generations of work!

[It’s generations of Capulet work, but whatever.]

LADY M: This means war!

Casa Capulet

PARIS: Rosaline knows too much and is impervious to blackmail! Can I kill her? Can I can I can I?

LADY CAPULET: I seem somewhat subdued by my recent visit to Juliet’s tomb, so no, you can’t.

PARIS: blah blah blah, metaphors, look, this whole thing was your idea, my minions are doing an awesome job of trashing the city, too late to stop now, etc.

[They both seem unaware that it was Capulet, not their clandestine army (“The Fiends”), who torched the cathedral.]

LADY CAPULET: I have a bad feeling about this.

Escalus’s Bedroom, The Palace

ROSALINE: Can I talk to you? I really need to talk to you.

ESCALUS: Nope, I’m gonna do the talking. I love you!

ROSALINE: …

ROSALINE: I longed for years to hear you say that but WOULD YOU SHUT UP for like five seconds? This is important! Benvolio didn’t kidnap me, we were finding out who’s behind the civil chaos and it’s Paris and he’s plotting to take over your throne!

ESCALUS: …

ESCALUS: so what I’m getting from this is, you knew I wanted to see you so you USED ME to… tell me really important information that I should know? HOW DARE YOU. I FEEL SO BETRAYED.

ROSALINE: Also Benvolio is innocent, could you maybe not kill him?

ESCALUS: But I have already used him as a scapegoat because of my own jealousy and irrational possessiveness toward you! I am genuinely convinced that executing him for crimes he didn’t commit will unify the city and bring peace!

ROSALINE: ok, 1) you are literally the worst, do you not realize that a Capulet pleading for the life of a Montague is exactly the outcome you originally wanted from this bonkers marriage plot? and 2) give me 24 hours to prove his innocence.

ESCALUS: ok but only because I love you, not because I actually care about justice.

ROSALINE: Close enough!

The Palace

[Isabella is back! Hi, Isabella!]

ISABELLA: I saw the smoke and heard Montague is preparing revenge, what’s up?

ESCALUS: nbd, I totally have a plan! oh and Benvolio is chilling in the dungeon and Rosaline is back safe thanks to Count Paris of Mantua.

ESCALUS’S LONG-SUFFERING ASSISTANT: There’s something about that guy I just don’t like!

[My working hypothesis: Paris, in addition to plotting with Lady Capulet to take over Verona, is actually Bluebeard and has a room full of murdered wives back in Mantua.]

ISABELLA: Well, cool. Here is your treaty I got the Doge to sign! I was manipulative and awesome and blackmailed a bunch of people and fell in love with a pretty blonde lady named Helena, tell you about it later, right now I need a nap.

ESCALUS’S LONG-SUFFERING ASSISTANT: “nbd, I totally have a plan!”? Oh, Sire.

The Dungeons

[Rosaline has bribed, or at least substantially tipped, the dungeonkeeper.]

BENVOLIO: Come to twist the knife you stuck in my back, Capulet?

ROSALINE: Really? We’re back to using surnames? OK quick recap: 1) Paris has my sister, 2) he was going to kill us all if I didn’t play along, 3) I have 24 hours to get proof of your innocence because Escalus has suddenly decided to implement certain parts of due process when it is convenient for him, 4) my plan is to get the Nurse to testify, 5) obviously I will not let someone of your hotness get executed, any questions?

BENVOLIO: No, I think you covered everything. Could you hurry, though? This dungeon is doing nothing for my hair care routine.

Casa Capulet

ROSALINE: I need you to tell Escalus what you know! also I can’t believe you let Paris seduce my baby sister, what the hell?

THE NURSE: I need to think about it, ok?

CAROLINA THE SERVANT: *lurks ominously behind a pillar*

Casa Capulet

[The next morning, there is a magnificent wide shot of the Capulet courtyard water feature and then a piercing scream from Lady Capulet. The Nurse, unsurprisingly, lies bludgeoned to death at the foot of the stairs. Lady Capulet seems genuinely distraught. Everyone’s dressing gown game is extremely strong; it is like a scene out of Poirot.]

PARIS: I really did not think you would be so distressed at the murder of the woman who raised you and your dead daughter! Look, you wouldn’t let me murder Rosaline, this was the next best thing.

LADY CAPULET: *tear*

The Palace

[To prepare for what will surely be a super awkward interview, Rosaline is dressed in yet another extremely fetching gown-cloak combo. I laugh when Escalus and Isabella wear the same outfit for three episodes, but Rosaline’s clothes are gorgeous and she wears them gorgeously and deserves many beautiful outfits, and also to be taken seriously by those in power.]

ESCALUS: Did you get proof?

ROSALINE: No. My witness was murdered, but that would take too long to explain.

ESCALUS: Oh, that is so sad for you, very tragic, no one regrets more than I, etc.

ROSALINE: I kind of doubt that.

ESCALUS: Well, you were alone and unchaperoned outside the city walls, there might be gossip!

ROSALINE: I honestly cannot believe that you care more about my virginity than justice. No, wait, I can believe that, I just think you’re stupid and the patriarchy is stupid and virginity = virtue/honor is a shitty social construct invented to oppress women. Also I’m pretty insulted that you don’t think my testimony is sufficient proof of Benvolio’s innocence. Given the fact that I was there the whole time.

[That’s my girl! I may have embellished slightly, but I’m sure this is what she would have said if the writers had thought of it!]

The Dungeons

[I’m okay with the camera-zooming through this bit, because it’s all leering emaciated prisoners at odd angles in uncomfortable spaces and the surreal quality is effective. The camera zooms in on B., who is looking depressed.]

[…Nothing happens, the camera just zooms in on B. looking depressed and then cuts away to...]

The Palace

MONTAGUE: You expect me to sign a peace treaty with the guy who burned down my cathedral?

CAPULET: Technically, it was my cathedral.

ESCALUS: Whatever. I will execute Benvolio and you will both call it square, agreed?

CAPULET: Agreed!

MONTAGUE: …I guess?

A Wisteria Arbor, Casa Capulet

LIVIA: The Nurse was always kind to me!

PARIS: We should elope!

LIVIA: …?

The Room Formerly Known as Juliet’s Room, Casa Capulet

CAROLINA THE SERVANT: Livia and Paris have eloped! So romantic!

ROSALINE: This is all your fault! How could you throw my sister at that murdering jerkface?

LADY CAPULET: He would never hurt her! Probably.

ROSALINE: He murdered the Nurse, and Juliet would be ashamed of you, and you should feel terrible!

[Lady Capulet actually does look like she feels terrible.]

ROSALINE: You are clearly going to be no help. Rosaline out!

Maison Montague

LADY M: Remember how you poisoned our older brother? It would be so tragic if anyone ever found out!

LADY M: Also I thought at the time that letting Tiny Benvolio live was a bad move, and I was right.

[Well, that explains a lot.]

Escalus’s Bedroom, The Palace

ESCALUS: All Montagues are terrible and you are the scum of the gutter! Unprincipled, undisciplined—

BENVOLIO: —don’t forget “often drunk”—

ESCALUS: —so why is Rosaline trying to save you?

BENVOLIO: Aside from the fact that I’m innocent?

ESCALUS: You tricked her into trusting you!

BENVOLIO: Yeah, honestly I kind of feel like that too, she’s a beautiful brave angel who likes to fight crime and cares about justice and I don’t deserve her, and yet she somehow trusts me and also I trust her.

ESCALUS: Tell her you’ve been plotting to take over my throne and be the New Prince!

BENVOLIO: Yeah no, I’m not gonna do that.

[Escalus, as usual, tries to justify his actions by pretending they’re for Rosaline’s own good.]

BENVOLIO: Have you tried taking her seriously, listening to what she has to say, and not lying to her? That usually works for me.

[This is so satisfying. I could watch people telling off Escalus all day.]

ESCALUS: No, why would I do that? Take him away!

BENVOLIO: Fine, it’s your funeral. No, wait, it’s still my funeral. Damn.

Maison Montague

MONTAGUE: Sis! I’ve been going over some legal records! GTFO or I tell the king of Scotland that you’re not really dead. I’m sure he’d be super interested to know of the part you played in his father’s death!

LADY M: *sips wine ominously*

MONTAGUE: And take your ugly portrait with you!

The Dungeons

LADY M: Hello, nephew! Would you like to know some interesting facts about our family history before you are executed?

BENVOLIO: Can I say no?

LADY M: Nope!

BENVOLIO: OK, I guess?

Casa Capulet

CAPULET: Babycakes, what’s up? You seem agitated!

LADY CAPULET: Husband! Juliet’s ghost keeps saying “Beware!” because I’ve done a dreadful thing!

Some Inn, Verona

[Paris and Livia are in bed, having presumably run off to whatever Verona’s equivalent of Gretna Green is. GET AWAY FROM PRECIOUS SWEET INNOCENT LIVIA, YOU GREASY MURDERING JERKFACE!]

[While he steps out for some reason, Livia blissfully wanders around sniffing his upholstered doublet. But what is this? A piece of paper falls out! It is the note Rosaline left her that Lady Capulet concealed and gave to Paris!]

ROSALINE’S NOTE: Dear Livia, I am going with Benvolio to solve a mystery! Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. Ish. I have definitely not been kidnapped, don’t worry. Love, your sister.

LIVIA: Oh, pardon my French, merde.

The Dungeons

MONTAGUE: Hello, nephew! I brought you booze!

BENVOLIO: Thanks. Hey, Aunt Tessa was just here, she told me a very interesting story about how you killed my father. Care to explain?

MONTAGUE: She is crazy and cannot be trusted!

BENVOLIO: It does explain why you always hated me. This is some excellent paralleling to Rosaline’s situation with her aunt, pity we didn’t bring it up sooner.

MONTAGUE: If it helps, I feel bad about how I’ve treated you?

BENVOLIO: It doesn’t. GTFO, s’il vous plait.

[B.’s snark game is strong this episode. Benvolio: 1, Montague: 0. FINALLY.]

Escalus’s Bedroom, The Palace

ISABELLA: You abandoned the city to go chase Benvolio? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!?!

ESCALUS: I don’t care about the throne! I love her!

ISABELLA: You are treating your hereditary office, which I only wish I could have, with selfish irresponsibility, but I’m gonna restrain myself and just remind you that our dying father’s last words were “strength and sacrifice.” Neither of which you are particularly devoted to at the moment.

Casa Capulet

CAPULET: I can appreciate that you saw an opportunity to beat Montague to the punch after the old Prince’s death, but did you actually think Paris would stay loyal to you?

LADY CAPULET: Yeah, not my best plan, I admit.

CAPULET: So why did our daughter’s ghost say “Beware”?

LADY CAPULET: I have a crazy theory: she loved a Montague and wanted peace!

CAPULET: We’ve gotta tell Escalus about Paris!

LADY CAPULET: He’ll execute me!

CAPULET: He might not! I have a plan! Let’s go, quickly!

CAROLINA THE SERVANT: Sorry milord, milady, I was working for The New Prince this whole time and he says you stay right there!

LORD AND LADY CAPULET: Oh, shit.

Some Inn, Verona

LIVIA: I found this letter in your jacket! What is the meaning of this?

PARIS: This is, I admit, somewhat awkward. Well—I did promise to make you a princess! Of Mantua and Verona, aren’t you surprised?

LIVIA: And you thought a Capulet bride would legitimize your power grab? Are you bonkers? I can’t believe I slept with you! I want to go home!

PARIS: Pack your things, you’re going to Mantua!

LIVIA: I am feeling pretty disillusioned, here.

The Dungeons

BENVOLIO: I don’t suppose you have good news? Because I’ve had a shitty day so far.

ROSALINE: Afraid not. Paris killed the Nurse so she couldn’t testify and Escalus won’t take my word as evidence.

BENVOLIO: I dunno, maybe my death will do some good, somehow? Leaving aside the whole Paris-is-plotting-to-take-over-Verona thing, you should just marry Escalus and forget me and be happy. He seems like kind of a manipulative jerk, but I saw the two of you kissing back in episode 1, and you should be with whomever you love.

ROSALINE: B., that was six episodes ago, keep up!

BENVOLIO: …oh.

[You couldn’t be bothered to light the tearful clandestine dungeon makeout better? Sigh. D’awwww, my little bickering-and-sleuthing OTP. Your bickering and sleuthing were cut short too soon!]

Execution Square, Verona

[Escalus has trotted out the guillotine again for the occasion. I’m not clear on whether the standard form of execution is the guillotine or hanging, at this point. Lady Capulet talked about being hanged for treason, but we’ve only ever seen people get guillotined, so who knows. Isabella is looking sharp, though.]

ESCALUS’S LONG-SUFFERING ASSISTANT [reading from a scroll]: In executing Benvolio, we somehow reclaim our city from violence. Despite the fact that there’s a coup d’état on.

Some Gorgeous Candlelit Chapel, Verona

[Rosaline is praying. I’m pretty sure this is where Romeo and Juliet were married. It is symbolic of the futility of love in the face of entrenched patriarchal violence, or something.]

Execution Square, Verona

ESCALUS’S LONG-SUFFERING ASSISTANT [reading from a scroll]: And Montague and Capulet have agreed to end the feud since they are both out of male heirs at this point.

[Rosaline, weeping in the crowd, refuses to look at Escalus.]

ECALUS: Uh…

ESCALUS: shit, I think I made a mistake.

[I think making the narrative turn on the whim of Escalus’s better nature was a mistake, but nobody pays me to write screenplays, so.]

ESCALUS: Is this justice or vengeance?

ISABELLA: Does it matter?

[Izzy, you could have been such an interesting antagonist! I weep for the times I’ll never get to yell at you for being a power-hungry bloody tyrant.]

ESCALUS: Yeah, I think actually it does matter. Wait!

[Rosaline, finally making eye contact with Escalus, looks like she is seriously considering uniting what’s left of the houses of Montague and Capulet against the Crown.]

BENVOLIO: Hello? I’m still awkwardly kneeling with my head in the guillotine, here?

ESCALUS: Yeah, you can get up, I’ve changed my mind about executing you.

ESCALUS: I’ve been told that this man is innocent, and I actually do trust the word of the person who told me. Benvolio is free to go!

THE ASSEMBLED CROWD: Aww, darn.

BENVOLIO: Is this the part where we should have a manly conversation about how I was right, you should take Rosaline seriously and listen to what she has to say?

ESCALUS: We would, but I’ve been shot by Paris’s insurgents and they’re swarming the city.

ROSALINE: Oh, this is bad. I mean, I’m delighted that B.’s not going to die, but this is otherwise terrible.

Somewhere Outside Verona

PARIS: Hello! I’m here and for once I’m not upholstered! And I brought my army!

[The End.]

#still star crossed #ssc recaps

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