#also you know. historical setting butters my bread

[eliounora]

I started to watch derry girls which I have no idea why I hadn’t done before because it’s excellent and I love ireland. I’m an irelandhead

[scorpionoesit]

Hello author, don't mind me if I borrow your beta for a bit to ask a question if they see this-

Hello author's beta! (Alibi :D) I saw in one of the ask answers that world building is your jam, bread and butter (I've been stuck here for too long help me/j) anyway, I wanted to see if we could borrow some of your jam wisdom. (Can we have worldbuilding tips?)

Ps: love you author I love advice from you as well please don't hurt me-

"Okay...alright, so basically I have like two types of worldbuilding. One that's like history world building, which we'll get to in a minute, but the other I like to call Band-Aid world-building. *chuckles* So basically, for history worldbuilding, like let's say if someone were to look at earth, our worldbuilding would be history. And I like history! So this is fun! Making fake history? Awesome! So [for Vagabonds] it was like, finding things we refer to historically in real life and giving them like, Vagabonds...painting(?). Like how we can say...just say 'the pyramids' and you know what I mean. The same way they say 'the Archives' and you know what they mean. How we will casually refer to World War II is how they refer to their Civil War sort of thing. Just casual pieces of history that appear in our everyday life, how would that translate to a fictional world? And that's basically it. And just having like how [Scorpio] did before, just having those little references can eventually build into something else. So we don't even fully build a history, we just make little references, and if we need a history, we can go back to those and be like 'oh, let's expand on this'. Which is basically what we did. So basically this type of worldbuilding is just to add a little spice. You think there's dimension, but no, it's just a greenscreen. It's meant to make your world feel fuller. More lived in without having to make up years of complex historical shenanigans. Anyway, but Band-Aid worldbuilding is my favorite, okay? Because it's basically just like...built a story! Story has plot holes? Band-Aid worldbuilding over them! That's how you fix all plot holes: worldbuilding! Uhh, so like, Tommy has to help people that are hurt. Why can't he just call an ambulance? Well, obviously...there are none here! Band-aid, BAM! You see what I mean? That's...yeah, that's basically the two types. So basically, my advice would be not to focus on worldbuilding? Just build your story, use worldbuilding to fix any little issues, then throw in some historical references." (Another thing that I like to do (that I know isn't for everyone) is making fake religions? *nervous laugh* It's a weird thing to say out loud. 'I like to make fake religions like a good cult leader!' Yeah, but...just like we see that religions are, like, vitally integral to all things history, ever? And nothing makes a world feel more lived in than seeing how their religion has kinda grown with them? In a purely metaphorical sense. Am I making sense? [Nope! :3] Anyway, I also enjoy the thought experiments of picking little pieces of real life religions and mashing them together and shoving them into a story for my own enjoyment. And this hasn't shown up in Vagabonds yet, and it's important not to be too heavy-handed with it, but it's a good way to give a set group of people the same motivations and morals, I guess? [You'll see more of this in Vagabonds later on.])

xD And that's all they wrote.

I would also like to clarify, this is not the only way to do it? Obviously, I know, but like...I doubt this sort of thing worked with Tolkien. Everyone has their own method, their own process. This is ours.

It also helps that someone takes eons to write, which let's the worldbuilding marinate for eons. Hehe...

[wuxiaphoenix]

Behold, the Pepper!

Many things in the world are either much older or much younger than most people imagine. The idea of a 360-degree circle? Dates back to the Babylonians, about 2400 BC. The humble market strawberry? Still less than three centuries old, a result of crossbreeding between a European berry and a species from the Pacific Coast. Sweet bell peppers? Still haven’t hit their first century. Records conflict, but they date back to the 1930s at the earliest, and didn’t make it to American markets until the 1960s.

I’m trying to picture many of my favorite meals (jambalaya, spaghetti, pizza) without bell peppers. Ouch.

And a justified ouch, because peppers are amazing.

In most temperate climates they’re grown as annuals. This works, but they’re actually frost-tender short-lived perennials. If you can keep a plant from freezing during the winter, odds are it’ll bud out in spring again and give you a second crop. Though, noted, this is more reliable with hotter peppers. I’ve gotten an habanero through the better part of three years, bearing more fruits than I could use. Bell peppers, a bit less than two.

They’re not fussy about pollinators, either. You can do it with your fingers. You can let the bees handle it. Or, if you’ve got them on an enclosed porch because you’re trying to keep them from freezing, the ants will do it for you. If by some chance you don’t currently have ants, put in a pot of impatiens! Ants love the nectar in their spurs, and will appear out of thin air. Of course odds are they’ll also bring aphids to all your other plants, so consider what you can live with.

(Okay, I may still be cranky about the aphids.)

But peppers themselves are wonderful, adding taste, texture, and nutrition to dishes. I love the fruity element habanero adds to a tomato dish; you just have to add it in very tiny amounts....

One of these days I want to make habanero powder. I bet the mac ‘n cheese would be awesome.

It’d probably also make killer foot powder. Capsaicin is not just tasty heat, it’s medicinal. Antifungal, antibiotic, and a good pepper-up of the immune system in general. It doesn’t actually set your mucus membranes on fire, BTW. What it does is set off a reaction so your nerves think normal body temperature has suddenly become being slow-roasted by a flamethrower. Kind of the opposite of mint tricking your body into feeling cool. You can either wait for the capsaicin to degrade or apply quantities of lipids to pry it off your poor nerves. This is why milk and buttered bread work, while water is not an optimal solution. (So to speak.)

Still, if you’re going to use peppers in a fantastic world, check your time period. They’re native to the Americas, meaning if you’re doing a historical fantasy they won’t be anywhere else until the early 1500s. Though they started moving fast after that! Korea definitely had them after 1592, by way of Japan, who likely got them from China, who got them from the Spanish and Portuguese... you get the picture.

And now you know why MDZS fans who love history crack up at Wei Wuxian’s favorite foods including hot chilis. Yes, it’s a fantasy China, but that’s no more historical than the potatoes... oh dear....

[alistairsprayerwarrior]

Dragon Age Fanfic Fun, Part 1: Cook Shops

Edit: I realized, oddly enough, that I wrote this with Haven and Skyhold in mind (in short, DAI - probably because that's what I've been replaying as of late, lmao.) I promise I will get around to including how cook shops would operate in places like Kirkwall or Denerim (basically, urban centers)!

This will be part one of a series that was inspired by this video by the Modern Knight, in which I come up with silly little immersive ideas that one can easily add to their Dragon Age fanfic (or perhaps any medieval-themed fic/story) with the Dragon Age/Thedas setting in mind.

I hope to maybe do a series on this, at the very least for my benefit to reference instead of getting lost and forgotten about in a notebook, lmao. So let's begin, below the cut!

Also mild disclaimer, this is not an end-all-be-all where "OMG WHAT IF THIS ISN'T REALISTIC ENOUGH??" or "ACKTUALLY, MEDIEVAL FOOD SELLERS WOULDn't..." - look, at the end of the day this is just fanfic fodder for you and your blorbos, not a history lesson. I'm bound to make an error in judgment or descriptions, don't come at me with pitchforks. 😔

So you're hanging out in Haven or Skyhold. You're building up the Inquisition from the ground up with allies and defense forces - but also the little people to sell their wares (like our favorite Orlesian merchant, Miss Belle), but what about... Food!? Who's feeding everyone!?

Cook shops!

Or, "medieval fast food." These cook shops would be strategically placed where there would be frequent passers-by, such as next to a market square, or a busy gate entrance, and cooked to eat on the go (rather than cook-to-order.) In short, you see a tasty-ass pie, you buy it, and eat it right then and there.

I can also imagine the types of clientele our varied cook shops might have; you have a wide range of people (and pockets), varying from Templars with their income, refugees who may only be able to afford suspicious cuts of meat, or members of the Chantry with specific food preferences.

What sort of food would a cook shop sell?

This is not an exhaustive list of foods a cook shop would sell in Thedas, but perhaps ideas/suggestions you can quickly use. Otherwise, I'd recommend checking out @exhausted-archivist (formally known as @old-archivist) who will easily have a vast list of Thedosian cookery that will tickle your fancy in their Foods of Thedas Masterpost (it will even specify the region in which certain meals come from!)

Also since Haven and Skyhold are Ferelden-based, keep in mind what types of foods/ingredients will be procured/used in the food being sold. There are of course exceptions, such as Belle who was recruited from Orlais, for example (so there is always the possibility of foods outside of Ferelden cuisine.)

Also, cook shops can serve a specific type of food (rather than being a mobile Walmart of sorts.) Personally, I'd be a fan of Pickled Food Merchant... mmm. Pickles.

Boiled roots

Meat/Fish/Vegetable pies

Porridge

Roasts

Sandwiches

Sausages

Fish wraps

Soups/Stews

Nuts

Dried/Cured fruits or meats

Pickled foods

Hardtack

Rations

Edible plants

Desserts

Cheaper cuts of meat

Fried/Buttered foods

There are also ideas from other historical/modern use of foods:

Perpetual stew

Pagpag (though I see this used in more urban areas, such as Kirkwall's Lowtown)

But what about breads and drinks!?

Typically you would go to a baker for breads, or the tavern for drinks. In short, if you wanted to conjure up a meal, you'd have to likely go to different locales/merchants to pick and choose your foods. I feel like maybe bread could be an exception, since I can't imagine a baker really setting up shop in Haven/Skyhold because, well, baking, but this is all fantasy so you know what, fuck it, add your traveling baker!

Alcoholic drinks, of course, would be reserved for taverns. When it comes to non-alcoholic beverages, I'd still suggest sticking with taverns because they have the facilities for storage (casks, wells, tubs, etc.) But, again, have your own traveling wine seller, you do you boo.

Honestly, I like to imagine Haven or Skyhold being way bigger than portrayed in the game, so perhaps there would be room for a complete bakery (I mean, we've got Herald's Rest in Skyhold, so why not?)

Just, uhhhh, I feel bad for those merchants at Haven. Because, you know. Reasons.

What would a cook shop look like?

Since I imagine a cook shop for organizational establishments like the Inquisition, you won't exactly have people selling food right out of their homes (as was done in medieval times), since Haven or Skyhold aren't exactly "towns."

Instead, temporary stalls, huts, or cabins could be used to open and close up (in short, you won't be finding any glass windows or bars to protect products. Rather, there would be a shutter or board of sorts, that goes over the gap where you see the person cooking, which would be lowered during the day (like a table to display food) and then shut up and bolted when closed. The "ovens, and cooking facilities" are placed at the front so you can see the chef cooking, just like at Subway when you watch people make your little dinky sandwich.

Another alternative, you could simply have someone wandering about with a tray of foods they want to sell and yelling at the people of Haven/Skyhold to eat it (think popcorn, and hot dog sellers at baseball games. :)

When vendors sell their food, they may also yell at passersby to eat their products at certain times of the day

Services

Now this is gonna be fun. You can also have a cook shop that will literally make the food for you if you provide the ingredients (obviously if the merchant has the capability/equipment to do so.) In this case, according to the Modern Knight, ingredients would likely be made into pies or stews (be wary though, as merchants might steal some of the ingredients for themselves. 👀)

Also, how does Haven/Skyhold manage to look so nice when there's waste to be had? There were cesspits or barrels used to take away waste off-site. Also, be wary of hygiene practices; especially when it comes to using spices to cover the taste/look of spoiled food!

Sus Cook Shops

I'll just leave this here, for signs that a cook shop is rather questionable:

Flies

Reheated meats/foods

Foul garnishes

Faking the contents of food (such as using beef and promoting it as venison)

Well, there you have it. A basic gist of cook shops and fast food that you can implement into your DA fic (and maybe even conjure up some OCs!) Feel free to include in the comments/reblogs any other ideas you might have! Thanks for reading!

[drew7uk]

Writeblr Intro

Hi everyone! My name is Drew, and I am a writer of fantasy, sci-fi, solarpunk, and historical fiction. While my day job for the last 15 years has been in marketing and entrepreneurship, my true calling manifests under the cloak of the night when I exchange my strategies for storytelling, spinning tales of light and dark, family, change, and the profound mysteries of life after death.

As a neurodivergent individual, my characters often walk the winding roads of expectation, mental health, and the ever-evolving journey to acceptance. My love of nature often finds its way into my narratives, coloring my worlds with the vibrant hues of the planet we live on.

In the vault of my completed works lies a novel set in the intoxicating mystique of 1355 BC Ancient Egypt. While it undergoes the THRILLING process of editing, I’m excited to share snippets and insights from its making. And yes, there's a new project in the offing - a serialised dark fantasy, where we'll revisit vampire culture with a fresh lens.

On this platform, I hope to share more than just my stories. Expect behind-the-scenes peeks into my writing process, character deep-dives, world-building challenges, rambles about my writing struggles and successes, and of course, the odd marketing wisdom that's been my bread and butter for over a decade. As we embark on this journey together, I also look forward to learning from all of you, fostering a space for creative exchange and mutual growth.

Oh, and as a fun bonus note – I dabble in voice acting, so who knows? You might just find an audio snippet or two of my tales narrated in my own voice! If you'd like this done for yours, hit me up :)

I'm excited to share my worlds with you, and I can't wait to see what we create together.

[memento-morri-writes]

This or That Tag

Jumping on an open tag from @oh-no-another-idea. Hi Cass!

Historical or Futuristic

To be honest, I love them both! It just depends on the story! All of my current WIPs are fantasy stories set in fantasy worlds, but they err more on the side of "historical" in terms of what the setting looks like and feels like. (I love taking semi-medieval inspirations for my fantasy.) But I do absolutely adore sci-fi, and I'd love to write a sci-fi story someday!!

Opening Chapter or Closing Chapter

It depends on the story, but since I struggle with writing beginnings, I would say that I prefer writing closing chapters. But there are some bomb-ass opening chapters out there. (thinking of Strange the Dreamer in particular...)

Light + fluffy or Dark + gritty

Both at once!! My favorite kind of media is media that alternates between being hilariously funny and making you want to cry your eyes out. I genuinely think some of the best stories are a good blend of dark/gritty and light/fluffy. Too much of one or the other can be overpowering.

Animal companion or Found Family

Absolutely no contest and no question. Found family is my bread and butter, it's the air that I breathe. If I ever write something that doesn't have at least a little bit of found family to it, please check to ensure that I haven't been possessed. There's just something so special about a bunch of people who love each other because they choose to, and who care about each other not because they feel obligated to, or because society expects them to, but because they just do. (Also, being aroace, I just love the idea of having people who will be with you forever that aren't necessarily romantic partners. In real life, there's this expectation that the person who will be by your side forever is your spouse, and that friendships are lesser. And I hate that.)

Hard magic system or Soft magic system

My worldbuilding is usually a mix of both, but I don't like getting into the nitty gritty of how everything works. Like, where does magic come from? Who knows!! It's just there!!!

One project at a time or Always juggling 2+

I have 6-7 wips right now, though a few of them are just concepts at the moment. But yeah. I'm incapable of working on just one thing. (But it seems I'm also incapable of ever finishing anything, lmao.)

Fantasy or Sci-Fi

I love reading them both, but in terms of writing, I have a much easier time writing fantasy. I think it's because the worldbuilding is easier for me in fantasy settings than it is in sci-fi settings. Particularly because sci-fi often comes with a lot of technology, and I hate coming up with tech, lmao. (Especially since any sci-fi I want to write would be space-based.)

Character Description or Setting Description

Character hands down. I can't describe settings to save my life. To be honest, I feel like I struggle with description in general, at least in the physical sense. But describing character emotions is one of my strong suits, at least in my opinion. My settings always get glossed over and feel under-described.

First Draft or Final Draft

I have never ever finished a draft of a novel in my life. Not even a first one. But I do absolutely abhor editing, so I would probably have to say first draft.

Love Triangle in Everything or No Romantic Arcs

I think this is pretty obvious for me as an aroace person. Enough amatonormativity, please.

Constant Sandstorm or Constant Rainstorm

From a writing perspective, I think a constant sandstorm would make for a really, really cool worldbuilding tidbit. But irl, I would much rather have it be raining than hot and windy.

Since this was an open tag, I'm also going to leave mine as an open tag. Please, I genuinely mean it, I want you to hop on my open tags! And tag me!!! I love seeing people's answers to tag games.

[abovethemists]

Hi there! It’s Santa!

How are you doing?

Your prompt has given me some food for thought and while I have no concrete idea yet it made me think of something.

I have seen your blog a while back when you were mentioning Bridgerton with Penelope and Colin as your favourites. Would you like for them to make a cameo? I know it is a rumbelle story but personally I think it’s nice to have favourite characters meet somewhere in a universe.

Which brings me to the next question, do you want your world to be in any specific setting? Where you thinking Storybrooke, Enchanted Forest, historical ( Regency perhaps 😉) ?

The heartache makes me think you want some angst. What is a trope there that you like?

I am excited to start brainstorming some more!

Till next time!

Hello, Santa! It’s so nice to hear from you!

I’m doing fairly well. My real life is extremely hectic right now so I’m wondering if I made a terrible mistake signing up for RSS. But it’s tradition, so I have to do it.

I would be fine with cameos from other fandoms if you so choose, as long as they remain cameos and not like a full crossover fic. I’m actually not that fond of crossovers in general though there’s certainly exceptions. (Anyelle for one).

I was definitely thinking more historical when I made the prompt, but honestly it could be used for Enchanted Forest or modern day as well. I know not everyone is comfortable writing historical fiction and I certainly don’t want you to feel like you have to do research or anything for this. If you wanted to do a regency fic though, I certainly wouldn’t say no!

Angst is my bread and butter. I love a little misunderstanding, some pining, thinking love is unrequited when it’s really not. I love when my OTP is torn apart by circumstance only to find each other again later (probably what attracted me to rumbelle in the first place. He spent 30 years thinking she was dead!). That said, I also live for a happy ending. I can weather any angst as long as I know it’ll be worth it in the end.

Thanks for reaching out, Santa! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

(I’m going to tag this as ‘raven’s Santa’ for you to easily find!)

[suspicious-pools-of-blood]

Hi buddy! Its Athena, I'm sending this out to all my mutuals - what got you into writing, what inspires you, who inspires you and what music inspires you to write? what do you love about writing?

Hi Athena!

To be honest, I don't actually know when I first got into writing. Especially if we count the "daydreaming plotlines of stories that never actually get written down," I've been doing that since I was a kid. I guess I started writing in middle school; we'd get assignments in English class to write stories and I'd always get way too ambitious and perfectionist with it and have trouble keeping it as a short story haha. In eighth grade we had one such assignment that was open-ended enough that the story I came up with would have needed at least a full book to contain it all, so I ended up just submitting a chapter 1 with a "to be continued" at the end. I wrote bits and pieces here and there continuing that story, but for the most part it just lived in my brain for several years. High school English class was a lot more essay-based than middle school, but my tenth grade teacher was fond of fiction; we had one or two full short story assignments, but for the first few months we also would get weekly vocabulary homework that involved writing a (very) short story using that week's words, and I think that's what really got me into writing. Those were more like one-shots than full short stories, but it made me remember how fun writing fiction is (and it's also around that time that I started writing more predominantly angst/whump, which is now my bread and butter). I just checked my old google drive files and it looks like I started actually writing stuff down around 2017 and actually writing my main story -- which, although nearly unrecognizable now, is the same one I started in eighth grade -- towards the end of 2020.

Inspiration: I think I'm mostly inspired by (1) other media and (2) history, with heavy overlap between the two. Full disclosure, coming as no surprise to anyone who has talked to me for over 5 minutes, I watched Xena: Warrior Princess in 2020 and it permanently rewired by brain harder than anything else ever has. In my elementary school, everyone got their Greek mythology phase from reading Percy Jackson in class, but my English class was the only one that didn't read it, so none of us had that phase -- until I watched Xena, and the ancient Mediterranean became one of my primary hyperfixations. I was never much into history before, but I always loved the medieval vibe of fantasy (although I actually was never into high fantasy/magic worlds); my formative book series as a kid was the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. (Side note, I think John Flanagan having written that series when he wasn't a writer previously was also influential for making me view writing as an activity with a very low bar for entry, so I didn't feel intimidated or like I shouldn't write just because I wasn't aiming for a career in writing.) So when I first started writing I defaulted to the generic run of the mill medieval-England-with-the-serial-number-filed-off setting that a lot of earth-like fantasy defaults to. By high school I think the setting had started to become more original, though still approximately equivalent to medieval Europe. But once I watched Xena, I realized that actually ancient Greece is so much cooler what the fuck. From there I watched some other stuff made by the same people who made Xena, including the STARZ Spartacus series, so I got generally into ancient history because of all that. I started reading a lot more nonfiction history books (as well as well-researched historical fiction, for the vibes) covering various civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean (not limited to Greece and Rome). I'm also half Turkish, so I was raised with the vague awareness that before the Turks there had been a number of great civilizations in Anatolia, from which we were partly descended (fun fact, my parents actually named me after one of those civilizations; it was one of my given middle names, but unfortunately no one told me it was based on that until after a decade of hating it because to me it was just a random girl's name and every time I mentioned not liking it my parents would be like "oh but it's a beautiful name" and I assumed it was just more of them being transphobic and not wanting me to change it to a boy's name lmao). I also sort of knew (though I didn't know the historical details) that our people migrated to Anatolia from central Asia a long time ago (tbc most Turks are genetically only very slightly Turkic, but a lot of cultural elements can be traced back to the nomadic lifestyle, even stuff as simple as our cuisine being a lot more dairy-based than other cultures in the area) and used to be nomadic warriors, what with the horseback archers and all that, so that inspired me for the whole other half of my setting. I also got into the history of the steppes, from the Mongols in the medieval era all the way back to the various peoples such as the Sarmatians or Scythians theorized to have been the basis for the Greek myth of the Amazons. And recently I started watching a Turkish show (okay, I started it like a year ago, it just has very long episodes that I have a really hard time sitting through) called Destan that is set in central Asia before the Turkic migration, and that's probably the biggest influence currently on my writing. [Stefon voice:] This show's got everything. Nomadic tribal politics and governmental organization, a strong female lead, so many strong female characters actually, horseback archery, a pet wolf, kurgans, fantastic fight choreography.

Whoops, wall of text. Here, have some line breaks.

I'll also add, for who inspires me, other writers on tumblr! For me this is more of a whump thing than a general writing thing; I used to feel suuuuuper self-conscious about writing fucked up shit (that was probably the biggest reason why I rarely wrote stuff down, because What If Someone Saw It) but now I open my dash and see way more fucked up shit than I could write lmao so idk if that counts as inspiration, but it definitely gets me past certain mental blocks to writing.

Music is a tough one, because I have OC playlists and whatnot, but those tend to be more "put them on and stare at an empty document for an hour" playlists than actual writing playlists. Sometimes I'll pick one specific song (or just a few) and put them on loop. If I have a song with lyrics associated with a specific scene, that might inspire me to write that scene, but for general writing inspiration I go more for either instrumentals or ~vibes~ music (a good example is Calyx Virago by Xandria, which fun fact is where my OC Calyx's name comes from).

My favorite part of writing is probably the end result. I write what I want to read (as evidenced by the fact that my story basically came about by putting all my hyperfixations into a blender and pouring out the results into a google doc), so I very much am the "Oh boy I can't wait for the next chapter! What do you mean I HAVE TO WRITE IT?!" type of writer lmao. That's also why I do a lot of story development in my head without writing things down, because I imagine scenes more like a movie, and then often have difficulty putting it into words in a way that sounds good. But if/when I do manage to do that well, it's gotta be my favorite part of the whole process.

[letterboxd]

In Focus: The Mummy

Dominic Corry responds on behalf of Letterboxd to an impassioned plea to bump up the average rating of the 1999 version of The Mummy—and asks: where is the next great action adventure coming from?

We recently received the following email regarding the Stephen Sommers blockbuster The Mummy:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you on behalf of the nation, if not the entire globe, who frankly deserve better than this after months of suffering with the Covid pandemic.

I was recently made aware that the rating of The Mummy on your platform only stands at 3.3 stars out of five. … This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is simply unacceptable. The Mummy is, as a statement of fact, the greatest film ever made. It is simply fallacious that anyone should claim otherwise, or that the rating should fail to reflect this. This oversight cannot be allowed to stand.

I have my suspicions that this rating has been falsely allocated due to people with personal axes to grind against The Mummy, most likely other directors who are simply jealous that their own artistic oeuvres will never attain the zenith of perfection, nor indeed come close to approaching the quality or the cultural influence of The Mummy. There is, quite frankly, no other explanation. The Mummy is, objectively speaking, a five-star film (… I would argue that it in fact transcends the rating sytem used by us mere mortals). It would only be proper, as a matter of urgency, to remove all fake ratings (i.e. any ratings [below] five stars) and allow The Mummy’s rating to stand, as it should, at five stars, or perhaps to replace the rating altogether with a simple banner which reads “the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking”. I look forward to this grievous error being remedied.

Best, Anwen

Which of course: no, we would never do that. But the vigor Anwen expresses in her letter impressed us (we checked: she’s real, though is mostly a Letterboxd lurker due to a busy day-job in television production, “so finding time to watch anything that isn’t The Mummy is, frankly, impossible… not that there’s ever any need to watch anything else, of course.”).

So Letterboxd put me, Stephen Sommers fan, on the job of paying homage to the last great old-school action-adventure blockbuster, a film that straddles the end of one cinematic era and the beginning of the next one. And also to ask: where’s the next great action adventure coming from?

Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ (1999).

When you delve into the Letterboxd reviews of The Mummy, it quickly becomes clear how widely beloved the film is, 3.3 average notwithstanding. Of more concern to the less youthful among us is how quaintly it is perceived, as if it harkens back to the dawn of cinema or something. “God, I miss good old-fashioned adventure movies,” bemoans Holly-Beth. “I have so many fond memories of watching this on TV with my family countless times growing up,” recalls Jess. “A childhood classic,” notes Simon.

As alarming as it is to see such wistful nostalgia for what was a cutting-edge, special-effects-laden contemporary popcorn hit, it has been twenty-one years since the film was released, so anyone currently in their early 30s would’ve encountered the film at just the right age for it to imprint deeply in their hearts. This has helped make it a Raiders of the Lost Ark for a specific Letterboxd demographic.

Sommers took plenty of inspiration from the Indiana Jones series for his take on The Mummy (the original 1932 film, also with a 3.3 average, is famously sedate), but for ten-year-olds in 1999, it may have been their only exposure to such pulpy derring-do. And when you consider that popcorn cinema would soon be taken over by interconnected on-screen universes populated by spandex-clad superheroes, the idea that The Mummy is an old-fashioned movie is easier to comprehend.

However, for all its throwbackiness, beholding The Mummy from the perspective of 2020 reveals it to have more to say about the future of cinema than the past. 1999 was a big year for movies, often considered one of the all-time best, but the legacy of The Mummy ties it most directly to two of that year’s other biggest hits: Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace and The Matrix. These three blockbusters represented a turning point for the biggest technological advancement to hit the cinematic art-form since the introduction of sound: computer-generated imagery, aka CGI. The technique had been widely used from 1989’s The Abyss onwards, and took significant leaps forward with movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997), but the three 1999 films mentioned above signified a move into the era when blockbusters began to be defined by their CGI.

A year before The Mummy, Sommers had creatively utilised CGI in his criminally underrated sci-fi action thriller Deep Rising (another film that deserves a higher average Letterboxd rating, just sayin’), and he took this approach to the next level with The Mummy. While some of the CGI in The Mummy doesn’t hold up as well as the technopunk visuals presented in The Matrix, The Mummy showed how effective the technique could be in an historical setting—the expansiveness of ancient Egypt depicted in the movie is magnificent, and the iconic rendering of Imhotep’s face in the sand storm proved to be an enduringly creepy image. Not to mention those scuttling scarab beetles.

George Lucas wanted to test the boundaries of the technique with his insanely anticipated new Star Wars film after dipping his toe in the digital water with the special editions of the original trilogy. Beyond set expansions and environments, a bunch of big creatures and cool spaceships, his biggest gambit was Jar Jar Binks, a major character rendered entirely through CGI. And we all know how that turned out.

A CGI-enhanced Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

Sommers arguably presented a much more effective CGI character in the slowly regenerating resurrected Imhotep. Jar Jar’s design was “bigger” than the actor playing him on set, Ahmed Best. Which is to say, Jar Jar took up more space on screen than Best. But with the zombie-ish Imhotep, Sommers (ably assisted by Industrial Light & Magic, who also worked on the Star Wars films) used CGI to create negative space, an effect impossible to achieve with practical make-up—large parts of the character were missing. It was an indelible visual concept that has been recreated many times since, but Sommers pioneered its usage here, and it contributed greatly to the popcorn horror threat posed by the character.

Sommers, generally an unfairly overlooked master of fun popcorn spectacle (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is good, guys), deserves more credit for how he creatively utilized CGI to elevate the storytelling in The Mummy. But CGI isn’t the main reason the film works—it’s a spry, light-on-its-feet adventure that presents an iconic horror property in an entertaining and adventurous new light. And it happens to feature a ridiculously attractive cast all captured just as their pulchritudinous powers were peaking.

Meme-worthy: “My sexual orientation is the cast of ‘The Mummy’ (1999).”

A rising star at the time, Brendan Fraser was mostly known for comedic performances, and although he’d proven himself very capable with his shirt off in George of the Jungle (1997), he wasn’t necessarily at the top of anyone’s list for action-hero roles. But he is superlatively charming as dashing American adventurer Rick O’Connell. His fizzy chemistry with Weisz, playing the brilliant-but-clumsy Egyptologist Evie Carnahan, makes the film a legitimate romantic caper. The role proved to be a breakout for Weisz, then perhaps best known for playing opposite Keanu Reeves in the trouble-plagued action flop Chain Reaction, or for her supporting role in the Liv Tyler vehicle Stealing Beauty.

“90s Brendan Fraser is what Chris Pratt wishes he was,” argues Holly-Beth. “Please come back to us, Brendaddy. We need you.” begs Joshhh. “I’d like to thank Rachel Weisz for playing an integral role in my sexual awakening,” offers Sree.

Then there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bey, a member of the Medjai, a sect dedicated to preventing Imhotep’s tomb from being discovered, and Patricia Velásquez as Anck-su-namun, Imhotep’s cursed lover. Both stupidly good-looking. Heck, Imhotep himself (South African Arnold Vosloo, coming across as Billy Zane’s more rugged brother), is one of the hottest horror villains in the history of cinema.

“Remember when studio movies were sexy?” laments Colin McLaughlin. We do Colin, we do.

Sommers directed a somewhat bloated sequel, The Mummy Returns, in 2001, which featured the cinematic debut of one Dwayne Johnson. His character got a spin-off movie the following year (The Scorpion King), which generated a bunch of DTV sequels of its own, and is now the subject of a Johnson-produced reboot. Brendan Fraser came back for a third film in 2008, the Rob Cohen-directed The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Weisz declined to participate, and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Despite all the follow-ups, and the enduring love for the first Sommers film, there has been a sadly significant dearth of movies along these lines in the two decades since it was released. The less said about 2017 reboot The Mummy (which was supposed to kick-off a new Universal Monster shared cinematic universe, and took a contemporary, action-heavy approach to the property), the better.

The Rock in ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001).

For a long time, adventure films were Hollywood’s bread and butter, but they’re surprisingly thin on the ground these days. So it makes a certain amount of sense that nostalgia for the 1999 The Mummy continues to grow. You could argue that many of the superhero films that dominate multiplexes count as adventure movies, but nobody really sees them that way—they are their own genre.

There are, however, a couple of films on the horizon that could help bring back old-school cinematic adventure. One is the long-planned—and finally actually shot—adaptation of the Uncharted video-game franchise, starring Tom Holland. The games borrow a lot from the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll be interesting to see how much that manifests in the adaptation.

Then there’s Letterboxd favorite David Lowery’s forever-upcoming medieval adventure drama The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander (who herself recently rebooted another video-game icon, Lara Croft). Plus they are still threatening to make another Indiana Jones movie, even if it no longer looks like Steven Spielberg will direct it.

While these are all exciting projects—and notwithstanding the current crisis in the multiplexes—it can’t help but feel like we may never again get a movie quite like The Mummy, with its unlikely combination of eye-popping CGI, old-fashioned adventure tropes and a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of overflowing hotness. Long may love for it reign on Letterboxd—let’s see if we can’t get that average rating up, the old fashioned way. For Anwen.

Related content

How I Letterboxd with The Mummy fan Eve (“The first film I went out and bought memorabilia for… it was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars”)

The Mummy (Universal) Collection

Every film featuring the Mummy (not mummies in general)

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

[ackerfics]

all there's left to do is run — mikasa ackerman.

— mikasa ackerman x female reader (historical setting)

— warnings: none

— summary: love story but it’s gay, basically ;> (bc ever since i heard taylor’s re-recording of love story, i could not get this idea off my brain)

— word count: 4.2k  

> we were both young when i first saw you  

The night was sparkling with extravagance and for such a girl like you, the chandeliers all seemed like those stars you read from astronomy books late at night, all burning and showering brightly that you had to look away. Of course, you continued looking up at the lights until your head got dizzy from tilting your head too high. You can faintly hear your mother scold you for doing something so unbecoming for a lady yet you continued adoring the stars in the ceiling of the castle your family owned, decorated to celebrate your tenth birthday. 

Your parents deemed it necessary to force you to wrap yourself in the most voluptuous gown you had ever seen in your life. As the daughter of the only Marquess in your kingdom, you were always expected to be tamed your whole life — dancing lessons that sprained your foot because of a couple of twirls in your ballroom, etiquette that became the reason for adults to scream at you to be better, tea parties that suffocated you with varying reasons, and all those dreaming in your head every time all of these happened. Being the daughter of the third most powerful person in your kingdom meant that these lessons will decide if you will be a good wife. And now that you are another year closer to being a lady of marriage age (being twelve since it was your birthday), it meant these lessons will double the load and will most likely take away your time.

A fact that you always disdained.

You were meant to be so much more. You always envisioned a life in the countryside, if the Fates were kind enough when they were trying to place you in society. You wanted extravagance but never this.

So you sneaked out of the party thrown for you, giggles flittering in the moonlit night and feet bringing you to the rose garden your mother liked to tend to. The flowers in the garden were one of the rarest to be seen in your kingdom, most of them on the verge of extinction, and the more you admired them, the more they shone before you. Dewdrops were forming in almost every petal inside the garden, the rain a few hours ago the culprit in making this part of the estate calmer than it already was. Swaying to the beat that can still be heard from the double doors, you took a single kadupul flower and placed it behind your ear. You were finally free to twirl however you want and you did just that, laughs searing the night as the moment turned into a memory that could never be forgotten. The grass felt cool under you as you draped yourself on the slightly wet terrain, staring into the dome of constellations you wholeheartedly admired.

The stars seem brighter than they usually are tonight.

“Hello, are you alright over there?”

Just like that, your peaceful night was ruined by a tentative voice coming from one of the bushes. You were told to never stray from your parents and ladies-in-waiting whenever you go to the stores, above all — to never talk to strangers no matter how young they are. Children you don’t know are much peskier to shoo away than those meddlers we encounter on our shopping trips, was what your mother grumbled one time. The voice meekly asking for your condition belonged to a girl around your age. Sure enough, a girl came from the shadows, hands clinging on the red scarf wrapped around her neck.

The girl in front of you looked star-struck. She was staring at you as if you held the universe in your small, dainty hands. The young mistress of the Palace of Flowers was a familiar face in all of the servants, seeing as you were a very adventurous child growing up, always dashing through the halls and paying the servants a much-needed visit. During these visits was the first time the dark-haired girl saw you. Though you were dressed in a more casual dress than the spell-binding gown you wore for the night, the girl thought you were the most beautiful person she ever saw. Her breath hitched when she realized you were waiting for her to speak up. Instead, she nearly hid her face in her scarf and dipped her form in a less graceful bow.

“Y-Young Mistress.”

“You can sit with me if you like,” you whispered to her as if there was someone in the vicinity eavesdropping. Your hands were cupped around your mouth so that the girl could hear what you were saying. “I’m whispering because the night is too peaceful to be interrupted.”

“Oh.” The dark-haired girl became flustered in a second and immediately plopped herself beside you, hands on her lap as she looked at anywhere but you. The children serving the family of the Marquess were told to never address the noble family informally. After a few minutes of silence, she cleared her throat to catch your attention, uttering the words that you heard throughout the night. “H-Happy b-birthday, young mistress.”

“Thank you.” The smile you gave her was brighter than the flower you carried in your hair.

The girl was wringing her fingers to calm down the beating of her heart. “I briefly saw you dancing in the ballroom while I was serving the deserts.” She looked at you straight in the eye with a glint of shyness. “You dance so well.”

You giggled, facing the girl with an eager expression. “What’s your name?”

“Mi-Mikasa,” the dark-haired girl answered with wide eyes.

Leaning back, you took out the flower you placed tucking your stray hairs, and tucked it behind Mikasa’s ear. You stood up with a huff, offering a hand to the gray-eyed girl. You slightly bowed as if you were the boy you were dancing with earlier. Mikasa was watching you with eyes full of wonder, her face flushed at seeing the young mistress of the palace bowing in front of her.

“Can I be your dance partner for the night, Lady Mikasa?”

It seemed like the entire garden was meant to be the ballroom for you two when Mikasa finally placed her hand on yours.

“It would be an honor, young mistress.”

> we keep quiet, 'cause we're dead if they knew

“Did you sneak out from your lessons again?”

Three years since your first meeting with Mikasa and she was still the same — tolerating your behavior of throwing away your responsibilities of being the young mistress to enjoy her company. For three years, nobody knew where you disappear off from except for the dark-haired girl’s friends in the village down the hill who work under the head maid of the estate. Your rendezvous with the dark-haired girl always included random things that you came up with but mostly, it was you bringing books and activities you wanted to share with her and Mikasa letting you taste her cooking. At this point, the garden wasn’t enough for the two of you. This made Mikasa open up to you about her safe space, a small meadow down by the lake of your family’s estate. It was closer to where the dark-haired girl was residing and she wasn’t wrong when she said you would love it.

You sat down beside her on the picnic blanket with a huff. “Tell me about it. It was another round of etiquette that I had to master. It sounds like another skill I had to unlock.” The tantalizing smell of buttered bread wafted from the basket laid in front of you two perking you up from your sulking. “You baked bread?”

Mikasa nodded with a small smile, eyes soft as she watched you squeal in happiness. Every day, you grew more beautiful than the first day she saw you five years ago in the kitchens trying to help Missus Springer bake the afternoon treats.

“I tried learning your favorite bread earlier,” Mikasa told you, reaching out a hand to gently brush away the sugar from the corner of your lips. “I hope this was to your liking.”

“Have I ever told you that your cooking is the absolute best, Mikasa?” you gushed with eyes filled with stars dedicated to the girl sitting beside you, leaning forward until inches separated you from the girl’s shocked visage.

The dark-haired girl turned red in the face at the proximity. “About a thousand times now probably.”

You smiled brightly at the information. “And I’ll still repeat it to you until you get tired of it.”

“I will never get tired of it. I will never get tired of you.”

Now, both of you donned an endearing shade of cerise on your cheeks the moment Mikasa finished saying those words. It was a first for the gray-eyed beauty to say such things, you were always the one initiating the physical contact and compliments. However, there was something underlying in Mikasa’s words that reminded you of that night you asked her to dance. You prayed to any deity that she wouldn’t hear how loud your heart was beating. You weren’t children anymore and you were starting to see the tranquil girl basked in another light — the words she uttered were just the catalyst in doing so. Your mother will be out for blood for this. It completely flew out of your head that the distance between you two gradually diminishes as Mikasa also started to lean forward, head tilted and eyes cast to your parted lips.

“Hey,” she uttered your name so softly that it was making your face warmer than it already is, “have I ever told you that you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen?”

Always so blunt that it took your breath away.

“If not, I’ll be saying those words until you get tired of it.”

“Mikasa,” you whispered against the softness of her lips.

You faintly registered the hand that nestled on the back of your neck, bringing you closer to her while burrowing her fingers in the unbound locks of your hair. The scent of first love became apparent as the wind breezed through you the moment Mikasa’s lips found their way against yours in a tryst of forbidden storylines fit for a melodrama. A hopeful melancholy was the words to describe the scenario as you placed your hands gently on Mikasa’s cheeks, reciprocating the kiss she shyly yet determinedly gave you, the colors of a first kiss painting the meadow into a memory that will make you two immortal in each other’s minds.

There were no overbearing mothers, no nosy friends, no responsibilities — it was just you and Mikasa embracing, with the flowers as the witnesses of the start of your story.

> take me somewhere we can be alone

You shook your head in disbelief, lips curled in disgust and hands clenching on the skirts of your dress. “You can’t be serious?”

“You must understand that you are of age now. A husband is everything in a woman’s life, how can you say something so outrageous like not accepting Duke Montague’s proposal for marriage?” Your mother all but screamed her frustrations. Every single lesson of proper etiquette and manners, honing you into a lady worth your status, all came down to this moment. Both you and your mother were seeing red for different reasons after the horrid letter was presented by your estate’s messenger, Connie. Your mother growled your name, “Have you lost your mind?! What possessed you if you were planning on denying this opportunity? Not only does this benefit the family but you as well. You’re going to be a duchess, for heaven’s sake, that position begets luxury!”

“Your mother is right,” your father, the Marquess, tried to soothe the growing tension inside the parlor, though his words sent a blow to your cowering resolve. “You are the heiress of the House and we will do everything in our power to make sure you stay afloat the societal hierarchy. By doing that, we will make sure you’re going to marry the Duke.”

“But—“

“We won’t take no for an answer.” Your father looked at you straight in the eye, hands gripping the armrest of the chair, before saying, “You need to bear a son for our bloodline to continue.”

You abruptly stood up, your mind too fogged to conjure a proper response. Instead of taking out your anger on your parents (which will most likely lead to them taking away your only chance of seeing Mikasa), you made your way out of the parlor. Your mother’s calls resonating through the large palace as your heels clicked on the polished hallways. Upon passing by a large mirror on your way to the gardens, the sight of you in one of your day gowns sent bile rushing through your throat. You looked anything like those trophy wives the men adored to parade. Gritting your teeth, you shook your head and continued to your destination.

It was your regular rendezvous with Mikasa. The kiss that happened that day only drew you two closer rather than creating a wedge between your budding relationship. Oh, how you wish you can turn back time and let it loop only at that memory. A dull ache started to form in your chest at the intensity of the news you were about to tell your secret lover. With shaking hands, the meadow that calmed you the years past became foreboding as each step now led you beside a sitting Mikasa. 

“I heard.”

Mikasa’s words made you stop. She turned to you, giving you a view of her conflicted face. Three years have passed since you shared your first kiss with each other. Three years of hiding in the tall flowers of the meadow and behind curtains. Three years and Mikasa looked even more beautiful than ever. 

“Mikasa,” you weakly pleaded.

“You were always destined for something great,” the dark-haired girl started, her emotions now seeping through the carefully-crafted mask she created while growing up. She fumbled with her words as she threw her hands in the air, visibly frustrated at everything (at herself, at the Marquess and Marchioness, at every noble existing in your kingdom — but never at you). “You’re this heiress people were expecting tremendous things from and I’m just me. You’re so beautiful that it pains me to see you being fawned at during balls. You’re so talented that I’m afraid it will be put to waste by being with me. You’re so amazing to me.”

You pleaded for her to stop, sitting down beside her with your skirts fanning out around you, but Mikasa only continued, “Yet here I am — someone who doesn’t even have a family, who was only adopted by one of the maids in the castle, who recently found out I had an uncle that doesn’t want anything to do with me.” The way she uttered your name was nothing like the caresses you were so fond of. Mikasa placed both of her hands over your cheeks, now wet with tears that you didn’t even notice. “I’m nobody compared to you and that’s the truth.”

She tenderly placed her forehead against yours as your breath hitched from quietly sobbing. 

“I’ll find a way,” you pleaded again.

Mikasa shook her head desperately, trying to anchor you to reality. “No. You have to accept this proposal from the Duke.”

“But it’s you who I fell deeply for, not him!”

“You will grow to love him, flower, your heart is so big and kind that it would be impossible—“

“That’s preposterous!” You threw your arms around her neck, her hands finding their way around your corseted waist. “I’ll find a way to get out of this mess. We’ll go far away and live a comfortable life in a cabin or a cottage. I want it beside a lake, Mikasa. I want to run away with you and make this dream a reality because I can’t imagine a life without you in it!”

Mikasa could only tighten her hold around your shaking form, whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Under the afternoon sun, you once again sealed your lips with hers, promises burning along with the feelings you have for each other.

> and my daddy said, "stay away,” but you were everything to me

Mikasa was called to the study of the Marquess. Various scenarios passed through the dark-haired girl, her hand poised on twisting the doorknob. She took a deep breath, never noticing how the maid beside her (most likely the chambermaid of the Marchioness) appeared to have a sinister smile on her face. The churning in Mikasa’s stomach intensified as she opened the double doors and let herself in the grand room. The chamber was the size of their entire house and it took Mikasa a full second to reign herself and not linger her eyes on your huge portrait (you looked regal — a competitor against the Queen’s beauty). Straightening her posture, Mikasa schooled her features into that mask she perfected and faced your father with a stony countenance.

The Marquess didn’t pay attention to the presence of one of his staff. The tea preoccupied with his thoughts, perfectly brewed to his liking and figuring that he would thank one of the kitchen staff for preparing the beverage on such a dreaded day. The older man wiped his mouth with a handkerchief before regarding Mikasa.

“Miss Ackerman.”

“Marquess, sir.”

Your father hummed contemplatively. “Have you heard of the proposal of Duke Montague, Miss Ackerman?”

Mikasa’s eyebrows furrowed at your father’s words. It was phrased like a casual question but the way that he spoke reminded her that she was only a servant living within his estate. It reminded her of the rift between you two and her breath shuddered. Surely, the Marquess had never ventured to the meadows and discovered their secret, right? That would mean you were also in grave trouble and it was all Mikasa’s fault. Still, the dark-haired girl nodded at your father’s question.

“Very well.”

He leaned back on his chair, satisfied at the pliable nature of the girl standing in front of him. He heard many stories of the girl’s family — slaughtered by bandits at the dead of the night when the child was only nine years old (her parents were also working under him), wherein she was then adopted by one of the maids’ family, and now decided to work as one of the kitchen staff at a young age. It was something he didn’t want to happen to his daughter. He also didn’t want his daughter mingling with the help, much less sharing kisses in the meadow just a short walk from the main palace’s gardens. The maid who led Mikasa to his study was the one who witnessed such atrocity. It was the day when they told you that you were bound to be married. It looked like you sought comfort from someone, and the Marquess didn’t expect that someone to be a female help. 

“You understand that I would have to tell you to stop meeting with my daughter by the meadows.”

The maid at the door was now smiling like Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat. 

Mikasa felt a cold wave rush through every part of her body, her gaze now caught in a daze on the floor.

“If you’re not going to do that, you might as well say goodbye to living in my land, Miss Ackerman. My daughter has an entire future waiting for her and I can’t afford to let it jeopardize right in front of my eyes by some measly servant girl.” The Marquess had the nerve to look sympathetic yet his eyes told a different story by being cruel. “I heard that you found out about a long-lost relative in the countryside so,” the older man paused, “which will it be, Miss Ackerman?”

Mikasa was left with no choice.

> they're tryna tell me how to feel, this love is difficult, but it's real

The slap resounded through the four walls of your chamber.

At the exact time Mikasa was confronted with your father, you were reprimanded by your mother after the maid made use of the scene she witnessed in the meadows after following you out. It was a good thing that the said maid wasn’t inside your room at the moment. You would have thrown the vase on your bedside table at her instead of your mother right now, everything was mentally envisioned of course. You didn’t have the strength to retaliate with your mother, much less lift your gaze to level your eyes with the older woman’s.

“You are an abomination! What were you thinking?! You have been keeping this for how many years? You are a disgrace to the family! You are a lady, for heaven’s sake, and you go brandishing your skirt to another woman. This is a scandal fit for the century! Oh, my, my stress levels.” Your mother then draped herself on the couch at the foot of your bed, leaving you to stand in front of her with your head down. “Stop what you’re feeling for that girl this instant. I don’t want this to travel around the kingdom, unleashing gossip in its wake. A girl! What blasphemy. If only you can show that to Duke Montague as well when you two marry. Maybe I have raised you wrong, your lessons might be lacking in some sense.”

“Mother.” Similar-colored eyes stared at each other, making the room feel smaller. “I will do no such thing. I will never marry a man I know I won’t come to love. I won’t listen to you prattle about hierarchies and social standing. I won’t stop loving Mikasa if that is the last thing I’ll do. I’m so sick of you labeling me as a disgrace if I so ever made a little mistake in those idiotic lessons you forced me to do. I’m so tired of hearing you continuously proclaiming to everyone that I am willing to open my legs to a higher-ranking noble to save my reputation. To hell with that! Call me an abomination for loving someone I truly care about, I don’t care. Mikasa means the world to me and she’s the only person I could ever be real with. Shun me if that’s the only solution but I won’t stop loving the only person who has ever made me feel loved and special in my entire life.”

The silence was deafening and your heaves of breath rang loud in your chambers. Your mother’s posture now straightened, her eyes cold as she dragged her stare over your form. “You’re not to go out of this room until Duke Montague comes to this palace for your hand in marriage. You have no say in this matter.”

That night, you were ready to throw everything you could hold inside your room but a constant tap on your windows made your breath stop. Glancing at the locked doors of your room, you made your way to the doors leading to the balcony. Again, they were locked so you took the vase and slammed it on the doorknob, the sound rattling through your room and into the hallways. You hastily opened the doors and went out to lean over the balcony.

Mikasa’s eyes brightened at the sight of you. She was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt tucked inside a pair of trousers and a dark cloak. Excitement bubbled inside your chest at the prospect of running away with her in the dead of the night.

“Jump,” Mikasa whispered. “I’ll catch you.”

Looking back at the doors of your chambers, you didn’t think twice about slinging your leg over the balcony. You took a deep breath and prayed that Mikasa will catch you safely in her arms. The cold gush of the night breeze sent you shivering as you jumped down the balcony, only to hear the grunt from your lover with her arms securing you to her body. Gray eyes glinted against the moonlight and your mind was muddled with thoughts about her that the only thing you could say was, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Mikasa softly replied before kissing you on the lips. “Come on, Eren already took a horse from the stables.”

“Where are we going?” you asked, letting yourself be carried by Mikasa as she tried not to make a loud noise while walking in the direction of the stables.

The dark-haired girl grinned. “To a place where we can love freely of course.”

> it's a love story, baby, just say, "yes" (we were both young when i first saw you)

“Mikasa, let me tell you a secret that you’re probably tired of.”

A chuckle came from your lover’s lips. “Tell me.”

“I always thought you were beautiful since the first time I saw you.”

“I’ll trade a real secret of mine for that.” She kissed you, basking underneath the sun’s rays. “I have always loved you since I saw you help Missus Springer with the afternoon treats when we were ten.”

“You were there?”

“Yes and I’m so happy I was there.”

“Mikasa, I’m so happy it’s you I fell in love with.”

“I love you more than the stars you always adored.”

[ddagent]

the other side of the door

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR: Roommate/living together AU Part of the “30 Promptathon”.

Brienne shouldered her way through the front door of her home; her flatmate, Jay Hill, raising a single eyebrow as she entered. “What’s this?”

“Groceries,” Brienne huffed as she dropped the bags atop the kitchen counter. “You know, things that people purchase from supermarkets and cook themselves?” 

Jay lifted himself from the threadbare sofa where he spent most of his days reading alternative historical fiction or watching murder shows on Webflix. His crimson hoodie hid the missing fingers on his right hand as he prodded Brienne’s shopping bags with her left. He made the sign of the seven before slowly backing away. 

“Sacrilege, Tarth. What will the takeout menus think?” 

Brienne responded with a single eye roll, to which Jay let out a hearty laugh before retreating, as always, to the sofa. Ignoring her flatmate of six months, Brienne began putting the groceries away. She’d bought staples – milk, bread, toilet paper – but also some ingredients for a hearty dinner or two. Her law course at Winterfell University had finally provided some slack, and Brienne was determined to eat something other than vending machine sandwiches and whatever Jay ordered in. 

“I’m cooking scallops,” Brienne called out over the off-key theme music to whatever gory show Jay was bingeing now. “Do you want me to make enough for two?” 

“Kyle coming over, is he?” Brienne threw a tea towel across the open living room. “I’ll avoid the seafood cooked by an exhausted law student, thanks.” 

She just shrugged. “Suit yourself.” 

Brienne began preparing her ingredients for scallops and bacon in a garlic butter sauce, accompanied by handmade pasta. While perhaps not the healthiest option for a Monday night dinner, it sure won out over a takeaway burger dripping with cheese. Jay would, no doubt, put in an order to Hot Pie’s at the start of the penultimate episode, to ensure he had some fries to stuff in his mouth during the finale. 

“You know, we could stick on a cooking show.” 

“Not in this house, Tarth.” 

She couldn’t understand Jay’s aversion to cooking shows. He would watch the most awful murder shows, cult documentaries, even six hours on how to recreate an age-accurate broadsword (which, to be fair, Brienne had enjoyed as well). But Jay wouldn’t watch cooking shows. No Long Nights in the Kitchen; no Worst Cooks in Westeros. Even High Chef was a no go. Damn shame. As a teenager, Brienne had liked watching repeats of Mouth of the Dragon, where Chef Targaryen would pit two teams against each other in order to win the grand prize of being head chef in one of his restaurants. 

...of course, that was before his sous chef had burnt him with fryer oil. 

As Brienne began to make her own pasta, she noticed Jay watching her out of the corner of her eye. She broke the egg, gently mixed it with the flour, and began kneading her dough. Just as she began to roll it out, Jay decided to take a comfort break. He paused Murder in the Wine Cellar and loitered around the kitchen island. 

“You know, you can buy ready-made pasta.” 

“Never tastes as good as the real thing.” 

Jay smiled. “No. No, it does not.” He examined her groceries once again and plucked the scallops from the plastic bag. “Fresh. You didn’t buy them flash-frozen.” 

“Of course not.” 

He made a hmm noise with his mouth before setting off to the bathroom at the back of their apartment. It was a reasonable two-bedroom, located along a strip of takeaway joints and betting shops – far, far away from the heart of Winterfell and the more expensive restaurants. It was also a good thirty-minute bus ride from campus, but it was all Brienne could afford. All she could afford with a roommate who didn’t ogle her legs and insist on her not having a lock on her bedroom door. 

She shuddered at the memory as she put her garlic butter sauce on the heat and finished browning the bacon. With her pasta made and already in the saucepan, it was now time to cook her scallops. 

“You’ll burn them.” 

“I will not.”

Jay appeared beside her elbow. “Trust me. You’ll burn them. Either that or they’ll come out so rubbery you could use them to tarmac the street outside.” 

Brienne poked the end of her tongs into his shoulder. “You know nothing about scallops, Jay Hill.” 

“More than you, I’d wager.” 

“A wager, then? Deal. I’ll make two plates. If my food is edible, we watch anything other than a murder show tonight.” 

Jay grinned. “And if it isn’t edible, then we decommission the stove and put in something useful. Like a pinball machine or a candy floss dispenser.” 

“Deal.” 

Jay hovered far too much for Brienne’s liking, making odd little noises as she turned the scallops. He even began tutting as she plated their dinner. Together they moved to the sofa, plate in hand, the penultimate episode of Murder in the Wine Cellar on pause. Brienne took an eager mouthful. The scallops were cooked to perfection, just like Uncle Endrew had taught her. The sauce was rich and decadent; the pasta had just enough bite. Brienne was more than pleased. 

Jay, on the other hand, looked like she’d given him food poisoning. “Brienne, this is...” He shoved a mouthful of pasta in his mouth, sagging back on the sofa as he chewed. “...this is fucking incredible.” He broke open a scallop and swept it through the garlic butter sauce. “Do we have any bread?” 

Brienne handed him the baguette she’d bought from the bakery department. He tore into it like an animal. “This is so good.” 

“Glad to hear it.” She speared a piece of bacon before flicking through Webflix. “How about we watch The Cub’s Den? I know it’s the children’s version, but I always liked how Chef Lannister talked to the kids. He was so soft with them.”

An empty plate was dropped atop the coffee table. “Put on whatever you want. I’m going to my room.” 

Brienne spun her head round to stare at the back of her departing roommate. “Did I say something wrong? Do something?”

“No. You didn’t. You were...perfect.” 

She decided to leave Jay to it. After all, it wasn’t like they were friends. Just roommates. Instead, Brienne tucked into her well-deserved dinner and put on the first episode of The Cub’s Den. Fryer oil and scandal aside, Chef Lannister was quite handsome. Beyond handsome: he was a dish that anyone would want to enjoy. Brienne pierced a scallop with her fork. Whatever happened to him? 

[worlds-smallestviolin]

Petty Revenge pt1

Note: I started playing Mozart's route, and boy, does he know how to push my buttons (I know I'll probably fall for him eventually, though). MC being her sweet and innocent self, is all like "I'll get him to like me", while I just wish I could punch him. So it got me thinking: what if instead of forgiving ball of sunshine, our MC was someone who was not above messing with the boys to get some payback. Also, let me know in comments if you’d like a part 2.

Mozart:

Traveling through time to 19th century, only to find herself trapped in a mansion full of prominent historical figures, who also happen to be vampires, MC was not exactly having a good time.

Well, seeing as there was no going home for a whole month, she offered her help around the mansion, which is how she came to be responsible for delivering a breakfast next morning to one Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, AKA His Royal Rudeness.He used every opportunity to remind her how annoyed he was that she was even here, which is something she had no control over.

After exhausting all her energy on trying to talk to him only to get showered with insults, she finally gives up. If he wants to hate her, she will give him a good reason for that.

The hardest part was finding the right moment to carry out her plan. He rarely left the mansion and spent most of his time in the music room. Finally, after being asked by le Comte, he leaves one night to perform at the ball. She picks up tools that she managed to “borrow” without Sebastian noticing, and with a smile on her face heads to the music room.

Next morning, after setting down his cup of coffee and music sheets, Mozart sat down in front of his piano, only for the bench to let out a laud creak. He froze up, then moved slightly, as if to make sure that really happened. And sure enough, there was that sound again.

Not wanting to deal with it at the moment, he tried playing while sitting stiff as a board, making sure to only move his hands, but even that was followed by that annoying noise, so he marched out of room, frustration written all over his face.

He got Leonardo to fix it for him, only for the bench to start creaking again a few days later. He found himself in a never-ending cycle, fix the problem, only to have it reappear, sometimes even later the same day. One day, he stormed out of music room, red faced and eyebrows scrunched up with anger, and went to the town to buy a new one, hoping to finally put the matter to rest. It didn’t work.

Maybe it’s telling you that you’re fat attitude should go on a diet. MC stood at the door, gazing at Mozart leaning defeated over piano. He turns, seeing her smirk, realization finally dawns on him. But as she walks away, he simply stands there, mouth open, having to many things to say, but being too exhausted to voice them.

Theo:

She didn’t think that he ever used her name, sometimes she doubted that he even knew it. No, to him she was Hondje, a dog. And when he wasn’t busy calling her one, he was busy comparing her or treating her as one. That he claimed to like dogs did little to make her feel okay with it.

No amount of polite asking did anything to change this. Fine. There were other ways to get the message across. It was Sebastian who gave her a perfect idea, letting her know an interesting little detail about Theo. Honestly, the amount of information that guy had on the residents was frightening.

It was a long day for Theo. After spending it running across town, selling paintings, trying to butter up stuck up nobles, and then getting into a fight with those assholes from L’ Academie, he was really looking forward to seeing his bed.

After he checked up on Vincent, who was still painting despite the late hour, he headed to his room, only to run into MC in hallway. Hondje, you’re still up? He expected her to pout, as she always does when he calls her that, but instead she greets him with a smile. Just finished my chores. I was on my way to my room. And as she passed by him, her smile growing even bigger, she adds Good Night, Theo. Something in the tone of her voice told him she was up to something, but he was too tired to deal with it tonight.

Finally arriving at his door, he opens them, light from the hallway spilling into his room, and he freezes. It’s a miracle how he managed not to let out a scream, or how he was even able to lift his hand and pinch his cheek to insure that what he was seeing was real.

His room was filled with cats. Not a cat, which was terrifying enough. Cats. Ten, he thinks, though it’s difficult to count them due to them jumping all over the place.

Somehow managing to close the door, he practically runs back to Vincent’s room. He grabs him by the sleeve, like a little boy, and stuttering explains to his brother what’s wrong. Vincent enlisted Arthur to help, and between the two of them, they soon got all the cats out into the garden.

After he cautiously walked into his room, Theo found a note on his bed. 

Just letting you know, I’m more of a cat person.

Arthur:

To put it simply, Arthur was a walking, talking, breathing sexual harassment. MC could deal with his flirting; him trying to bite her, however, was another matter entirely. He gave her some kind of apology, saying how he did it because he wanted to warn her about vampires, because words are apparently overrated. 

He continued to flirt, seemingly unaware of what personal space means, and well, it was quite exhausting. She wanted to punch him so many times, but she knew that would do little to solve the problem, it might even encourage him.

Watching his interaction with Dazai, who seems to be the only person capable of getting under his skin, gave her an idea, something very simple.

Arthur was heading to the library, intent on doing some research for the book he was working on; only to find it occupied by one very pretty skirt. She had her head in the book and didn’t appear to have noticed him walk in.

Smirk on his face, he slowly approached her, already picturing her little gasp of surprise that was sure to be followed by a glare, as he set next to her and threw his arm around her shoulder. But her reaction wasn’t what he expected, in fact there was no reaction, she simply turned her head and looked at him. 

He was taken aback for a second, but than flirt mode was back on. He went on and on, teasing her and complimenting her, yet she didn’t blush or said anything. She just kept looking at him, eyes narrowed in concentration, as if she forgot something, and was trying hard to remember it. Noticing this, he too fell silent, and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Suddenly, her eyes went wide, she snapped her fingers, smile appearing on her face. It’s Sherlock, right? I’m sorry, I’m not very good with names. 

From then on every time he talked to her, she referred to him as Sherlock or that guy who wrote Sherlock. To make matters worse, Dazai joined in on the game.

Sebastian:

He is a perfectionist and very strict, understandable considering his occupation. She didn’t mind that; after all she volunteered to help around the mansion, which quickly proved to be a not so easy task. She understood that she needed to learn the ropes as quickly as possible, otherwise she’d just make things more difficult for Sebastian, so his constructive criticism didn’t bother her too much.

What did bother her, however, was his passive-aggressiveness. He would always make some snide remark, delivering it in a way that left her unable to reply lest she end up being the rude one. Add to that his habit of flicking her forehead, as if she was a little child, and well... He had it coming.

 So one night, after diner she was volunteered into cleaning up the kitchen by herself, after being flicked again, because a single spoon wasn’t polished to Sebastian’s standards.

 The next morning, Sebastian walked into the kitchen, part of him expecting to find something out of the ordinary, after all we are talking about MC. The kitchen was spotless and nothing appeared to be unusual, at least not at first glance. Feeling relieved, he went on to start preparing breakfast and make coffee for the residents.

He opened the first cupboard to take out coffee cups, and stared at it in shock. Gone were the cups, as well as all glasses that were supposed to be there as well. Instead he was greeted by plates that should be in a different cabinet. And not only were they misplaced, they were stacked completely out of order, piled in one disorganized mess, rim soup bowl on top of a salad plate, on top of a dinner plate, on top of a bread and butter plate, and so on.

He proceeded to the other cupboards and drawers, his horror growing with each one opened. He found saucers in the drawer where utensils were supposed to be, cups and glasses where plates used to be kept, spoons, forks and knives all mixed together, frying pans, cooking pots, spices, all piled in one giant nightmare.

It is a miracle how he managed not to have a heart attack. He started pacing, hands running through his hair in frustration, desperate to figure out how to begin putting kitchen back in order. It was at this point that MC walked in with a cheery Good morning!, soon to be followed by the rest of the residents.

What happened here?, asked le Comte. Looks like Sebas loves cleaning so much, he does it in his sleep, only not as successfully as when awake, MC said, and before he could deny it, the boys were already cracking jokes about it, while he was left desperate to try and maintain his cool.

Later she was left alone to clean up her mess, which was fine, she wasn’t trying to make Sebastian’s job more difficult, she simply wanted to get a reaction out of him. She paused for a moment to rub a red mark on her forehead. He flicked her so hard, she was sure her brain did a flip. Worth it, she grinned, Wait until he finds out I changed the order of keys on his key chain.

[painted-crow]

Secondary Toast Revolving Door, Part 1

I guess I should start with a little about me, since that’s easier than making you pick through previous asks for information and some of you guys are new here. This one’s going to be heavily personal, so you can skip it if you want.

I’m a double Bird. My Bird primary system is heavily Badger influenced, and I also use Lion to support it by telling me when I should investigate something more closely. If we can dip into primary territory for a moment, I guess you can say I understand the world through systems that model things around me. But not all of those systems are things I’ve consciously examined, or fully investigated.

My understanding of how historical people dressed is pretty limited, for example, because I haven’t studied it in depth to get all the information—but I consciously understand what I do know about it. You could say this system piece is tiny but clear; I could expand it if I chose to find out more.

My understanding of how someone I’m not close to thinks might have more data to work with, but I haven’t consciously processed it; that’s the kind of thing where my Lion primary model will tell me to look closer if that person starts acting weird. This system piece might be described as huge but fuzzy; I could clarify it if I sat down and thought about it. I probably have more of these than I realize, but Lion basically takes care of monitoring those. I don’t have to investigate everything.

But some of my systems are both large and fairly clear, because I’ve taken the time both to gather data on them and to examine it. My understanding of myself is… well, I won’t say it’s terribly clear, because I’m in my early twenties and I’m still constantly getting new information, plus someone keeps changing the environment and mucking with my data (that would be me). But I have to examine it, because my brain is like a notoriously buggy piece of software and I’m the poor schmuck saddled with tech support duties.

Basically, the reason I’m good at playing therapist with other people is that I’m constantly doing exactly that thing with myself. (This probably makes me a very annoying patient for actual therapists.)

About that buggy brain, then.

I have major depression. That was professionally diagnosed when I was a teenager and it’s probably genetic. I take medication for it, when I remember to. It especially flares up in the winter or when I’m under stress. I probably have some kind of anxiety disorder too.

I’m almost certainly autistic, which I’ve never brought up with a professional—the first person to figure it out was the system I’m now best friends with, because they’re autistic and they knew I was within two weeks of talking to me. It took me two years to catch up with them and figure it out myself.

In my defense, I thought executive dysfunction, sensory overwhelm, dissociation, and hyperempathy were like… secret menu items for depression, because those only really bug me during depressive episodes. My current theory is that they’re related to autistic burnout instead.

I mask a lot, subconsciously—it’s actually really hard to turn that off normally—and I just can’t do that as much when depressed. If I do, my tolerance for everything else goes way down and I’ll go into overwhelm and start having shutdowns and dissociating. I recover pretty quickly (hours, not days), but if you’ve never spent 15 minutes standing in a Walmart aisle trying to decide whether you want a jar of peanut butter, but you can’t make decisions because you can’t access your emotions and you don’t really feel like you’re “here” but you kind of just want to go home… well, be glad I guess.

Of course, I have other autistic traits that show up when I’m not under stress, but they’re seldom associated with autism because most people don’t know what autis are like when we’re actually happy. Like, hyperlexia? That’s not even an “official” word, the auti community just uses it because “official” literature hasn’t caught up. I taught myself to read at age three (according to my mom; she says I was reading news headlines and stuff, not just books I’d memorized) and wrote a 35k word novella when I was ten, with no external prompting. My audio processing used to be terrible, but I routinely tested at college age reading levels as a kid.

I also might have ADHD? If so, it’s also mostly just noticeable if I’m under stress, and then it’s hard to tell if that’s the issue or if it’s just autism/depression again.

You might be getting a clearer picture of how my secondary and its model end up burnt so often!

(Resisting a very strong urge to cut stuff from this post.)

In short, I was a Gifted Kid. I spent a lot of my teen years biting off more than I could chew, honestly. I felt that I should be able to do more, and I wanted to be taken seriously, but I had basically no idea how to take care of myself because my needs are different from everyone else’s. I’m still figuring those out.

I’m kind of like an orchid plant: incredibly picky about conditions, wants a different “soil” and watering schedule, gets stressed if stuff changes too quickly, but when everything is just right and it does bloom, it goes all out.

I’m not kidding when I say that I have odd needs. One of them is the need for creative work, which seems to be hardwired into me. When I say that art or writing keeps me sane, I often hear back “oh yeah! I’ve heard that can be very therapeutic,” which is an innocuous reply, but it’s always bugged me, and I think I���ve figured out why.

First, because that’s not the reason I make things… I just… have to. Second, I can’t “make up” not doing creative work with some other kind of therapy. Third and most importantly, I’d much rather think of “artist” as my ground state, and depression as a condition that happens when my needs aren’t being met, rather than thinking of depression as the default that I’m just using art to escape from. That seems to me a healthier way of thinking, and probably a more accurate one, but I’m probably the only one who can see that distinction.

If life gets in the way and I can’t make space for creative work, it will actively make my depression worse. I know this because, multiple times, I’ve been unable to pinpoint why I’m feeling shitty, and then I go back to my easel or my writing or (ukulele, cooking, even just taking care of houseplants) and realize I haven’t done anything creative in like a month and thaaaat’s the problem.

I crack open a bottle of gesso to prep some canvases and it smells like… well, I don’t think you can get high off gesso? But it’s not like when you’re out of it on painkillers or cold medicine or whatever. It’s incredibly grounding, like the world snaps back into focus but it’s also oddly euphoric. Or I write ten thousand words in a couple days and it just… I don’t know what that does. I’ve never run across a word for it.

The writer of Smile at Strangers (a really good memoir centered around women, anxiety, and karate) describes a similar feeling in relation to her martial arts practice.

It’s also a bit like when all the snow melts after winter and you step outside and there’s the smell of wet soil under sunlight and I’m not sure if this fully translates for people who don’t have seasonal depression. Sorry.

Dammit, I want to paint… I haven’t had space to set up for like eight months. I’ve been nose-deep in writing projects since last summer for a reason, but right now my friggin Ravenclaw secondary is off angsting about something because of Life Stress Bullshit, and I don’t have the focus to work on any of my writing projects. Apart from this one. But it’s not really what I want in terms of creative work.

*velociraptor screech*

Oh, yeah. I guess I could mention this is why my nickname is Paint. Not sure if that was obvious before. The header image (which is more visible in the app for some reason) is one of my paintings. It’s a tiny one and it’s not one of my favorites, but I had the photo on my phone and the colors work well enough for what I needed.

(restrains self from negging my own painting ability)

This is starting to get into spoiler territory for what burned Ravenclaw secondary looks like, huh? It’s peaced out for a couple weeks at this point. I’m trying to write about what made it take off, but my ability to think of words and form a coherent sentence kinda flew out the window when I approached it directly.

Let’s just say that around the start of the month, someone I was talking to online (if you’re reading this, it’s definitely not you) kindaaaa hit a nasty depression trigger of mine. Not their fault—it’s very specific to me, and I struggle to explain why I can’t really talk about it. Basically, I spent years studying programming and web design, and due to several different but related issues during that experience, it’s now a trigger for me. I very much want it not to be, but trying to train that out of myself has induced more than one panic attack and I’m stuck between giving up on it or figuring out a way to go back to it that doesn’t totally shut my brain down.

That paragraph took forever to write, by the way.

I think I have to end this here. I… am going to go take out the trash, and water my plants, and make my bed, and file some paperwork, and maybe I’ll even mix up some bread dough or do some laundry. Spoiler alert for what it looks like when my Hufflepuff model takes over, I guess.

Oh. And I should maybe probably eat something. I almost forgot about that... again.

[christinaroseandrews]

Best Books We Reviewed in 2020

Despite being the year from hell, 2020 was a good reading year for us. Especially Lark.

Here are the Best of the Best from 2020. And because we reviewed so many good books this year and got into a major argument over who was going to have their books off the list, you get 10 -- count them -- 10 really fucking awesome books that we read this year. (And let me tell you it was even a fight to get it down to 10.)

So here we go... our top 10!

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10. Project Duchess by Sabrina Jeffries

I first read this book as part of my lockdown reading spree this year. And let me tell you, it kindled a “I must read lots of regency romance” in me. I really love that the heroine is not fresh from the schoolroom. I liked the hint of mystery running through this. And the banter is fabulous. It’s a great book that I’m happy to recommend.

If you want to see what we said, you can read our review here!

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9. After Hours by Lynda Aicher

There’s hot and then there’s the boardroom. This is steamy. sensual, sexy and a whole lot of other smouldering “s” words. LOL.  Frankly this is what 50 Shades of Grey wishes it could be.

If you want well-written erotic romance, then this is for you!

Check out our review of it here!

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8. The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel

Look, I get it. Non-fiction can often be dry and dull. I mean, who thought that a comprehensive multi-disciplinary look back on the history of textiles could be so engaging? But it is. It really is. It also includes experts who aren’t white men and women and those who come from the countries in question. It’s inclusive and not European-centric like many history books.

It’s a really fascinating read.

Want to know why we liked it so much? Read our review here!

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7. The Galactic Pantheon Novellas by Alyce Caswell

I didn’t know I needed a collection of Novellas featuring LBGTQIA+ gods until I read this book. But I did, oh how I did. The stories are great. The characters are great. The universe makes sense. And the sex is steamy.

I really loved this collection of novellas. I really really did.

If you want to see what we said, you can read our review here!

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6. Falling for Her Brother’s Best Friend by Noelle Adams

Sometimes I want something sweet and fluffy, and back during the early days of the pandemic, this really fit the bill. I loved the characters, the teashop, the friendships, the small town feel, the everything. In fact, I liked this so much that I’ve made the sequel my first read of 2021!

Want to know why we liked it? Read our review here!

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5. The Baroness Affair by Jean Wilde

Both of us love equal triads -- absolutely adore them. And The Baroness Affair is a great example of how sexual compatibility, romantic compatibility, and true love aren’t always directly linked... but with creative thinking, you can find solutions anyway. It’s great to see a queer relationship treated both well and realistically in a historical romance. Plus, the smut was hot. And the characters are awesome.

Check out our review here!

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4. Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova

This manga was pure nostalgia glasses for me. It perfectly captured the anime con scene of the early 2000s. Like I swear that one of the people in the book was me. LOL. The art is beautiful and the romance totally believable. If you like very fandom meta romance, this is totally for you. It’s so good!

Check out our review here!

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3. Loving Maddie from A to Z by Kelly Jamieson

This was flat out the hottest book I read this year, including a triad, dominance/submission, and friends-to-lovers. (And communication!) The characters, the relationship, the setting -- everything about it was great, including the use of (and proper reaction to) safewords. I loved Maddie, I loved Aiden, I loved Zach, and I absolutely adored them as a triad. This is a book I intend to come back to again.

Want to know the details? Read our review here!

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2. Actually, the Comma Goes Here by Lucy Cripps

As an editor, my bread and butter is copy editing. Like straight up. And to do that, it’s imperative that you have a good handle on the technical side. The problem, each style guide is different. And the rules, especially for punctuation, seem arbitrary. (Ask me about the Oxford Comma some time) this book spells out How and Why to use certain punctuation marks. It goes into the history and helps you deal with the pendants.

I’ve already reread this book this year. It’s seriously a fabulous and entertaining guide.

This was our favorite nonfiction of the year -- to find out why, go here!

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1. How to Start a Scandal by Madeline Martin

This was a surprise find for me this year. A hero with believable PTSD. A plus-size heroine who is awesome and sexy. A cute cat. Cute kids. And lots of drama of all sorts. But also warmth and heart and comedy. This book gave me such a happy that I lobbied hard for it to be the best of this year. It’s so good. And it’s super under appreciated.

Want to know why this was our favorite? You can find out here!

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So that’s our top ten!

And honestly, ten wasn’t easy -- we easily could have put 15 or 20 books on this list.

Curious about our other reviews? Check out our blog, and you can see the best books posts for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

We hope 2021 is a great year of reading for everyone!

Enjoy our reviews?  Buy us a coffee!

[ablogcalledrevenge]

Potential (A General Hux x Reader Insert Multi-Chapter Fic)

This chapter is rated M due to graphic depictions of violence.

Chapter Five

Dinner is absolutely delicious, you begrudgingly give them that. After months of being on a starship with limited supplies, it’s so nice to get real, extravagant food again. The wine is light and crisp, the meat juicy and tender, even the bread is perfect and flakey. You briefly contemplate sneaking some back to your room for later, or perhaps home to Hux. But it would be stale by the time it gets to him and the rich herb butter would probably send his taste buds into overdrive. As if reading your thoughts, the lady of the estate; Colonel Paru’s wife, asks about your husband.

“Oh he’s just fine Karin. I spoke to him early today. He’s hard at work as ever and apologizes again for having to miss this. But I’m sure there will be more times in the future. Goodness knows I’d come back for the food alone. I’m tempted to steal your chefs right from under you.” You tease with a pleasant smile. You note absently that this is the first time she’s asked about you. You’ve been at the estate two days already and this is the first time she’s talked about anything other than herself. That was very rude. It’s clear that while these more decorated officers may wish they were royalty, they certainly are not.

Everyone at the table has a good laugh and the talk turns to business. Admiral Ersawit spears a piece of meat, pointing it at you.

“I imagine your husband is hard at work setting up the new base. He doesn’t have time to lounge around like us old banthas.” He says with a rueful chuckle.

“Oh nonsense, you’re quite spry Admiral. Why, I could see you dancing about at 200 years old!” You grin, perhaps too sharply for response, before flushing from the joke. Colonel Paru laughs as well and drains his glass.

“Just remind your husband, when he reaches our age, to focus on the finer things in life. A man feels no stress when he’s surrounded by good food and good art.” He adds, gesturing to the beautiful paintings that surround you in the dining room. He wasn’t wrong, the art was good, but the rest of the estate’s decor left something to be desired. It seemed that Colonel Paru and his wife thought that having money meant you had to buy the most expensive things available and show them off in every way. So they had beautiful art and sculptures lining their hallways, but they had too many. The wallpaper was loud and garish and the molding was gilded, and caused glares if you walked past when sunlight came through the open windows. Each trip from room to room caused a headache and you were surprised to realize how much you missed the simple gray and black of the Finalizer. 

“You do have some stunning pieces Colonel. It’s quite the collection. I’m amazed at some of the rarer paintings you have.” You agree, adjusting the napkin on your lap. Your dress was mostly white and you’d hate to stain it.

“Thank you my Lady. It takes years to acquire this kind of collection but it’s well worth it, in the end. As for the rarer pieces”, here his voice dropped and everyone subconsciously leaned in, “if you know who to talk to, you can skip some of the lengthier processes. You’d be surprised what a few extra credits will get you.”

You wag your finger and tsk playfully at him, while his wife hits his forearm with little force and a tittering laugh. You were no expert on art but you knew Old Republic Nabooian folk paintings when you saw them. The cost of an original was worth far more than a Colonel made, even one that had been a Colonel for as long as he had. Not to mention, Naboo had made a conscious effort after the destruction of the Empire to get all their art back and placed in a historical museum. This proved your husband’s claim that certain members of the Council were skimming off the top. That’s the only way he could afford such singular pieces while avoiding any legal troubles. Stealing art may not have been corrupt but preventing the people of Naboo from having a fair chance to recieve their own work was just contemptible.

You look down at your lap to avoid giving away your anger. Your fists clench in the cloth napkin while your eyes switch back and forth from one side of your gown to the other. You hadn’t questioned why you chose the dress you did, but now it felt serendipitous. Your gown was mostly white and cream with simple long sleeves and little adornment. But there was one side that was pitch black, a dark splash normally unseen on you. It wasn’t that you disliked black but you often found yourself straying away from darker colors. For some reason, you felt like they didn’t belong to you yet. Considering what you were planning to do tonight, maybe it was fate to have chosen a dress like this. 

The sound of clinking glassware brings you back to the moment as droids bring out dessert. The cake was rich and chocolatey with a fine layer of cream and fruit. Oh, you were definitely finding their chef and bringing them to your home when this was all over. 

“I’m glad you’ve taken such an interest in the art we have here, Lady Hux. It’s so refreshing to speak to someone cultured. Present company included,” Karin says and the other women give smug chuckles, “Perhaps if you’re good, I’ll send you a piece for your anniversary to the General. Though I can’t imagine where you’d put fine art on a starship. They’re all so dull and grey. You have my pity being surrounded by such coldness.”

“Not at all Karin, I find the aesthetics of a starship to be quite striking in their simpleness. True, most things are various shades of silver or black, but it all looks so streamlined and impressive that way. The fact that I stand out beautifully while wearing my more colorful gowns is just a coincidence.” You mention with a casual air that the other women see through quickly, as you intended. 

“Well of course! Your wardrobe is known throughout the galaxy. You have such exquisite pieces.” A dark skinned woman says, her hair braiding into an odd series of loops on top of her head. She gave you her name, as did the other men and women at the table, but they were not important so you forgot them. You cover your cheeks with your hands in a fake display of bashful modesty and the conversation spins again.

When droids finally clear away all the plates, Colonel Paru stands and announces to the various other people at the table that he has after-dinner drinks prepared in his study.  Your small party follows him there, chatting about the newest designers to hit Coruscant and some Captain who did remarkably well during a training exercise. As you walk you take note of any outward signs of security; cameras in the corners, panels on the walls, unusual patches of paint or suspiciously placed statues. Overall, it seems that the estate is moderately protected. There is, and will be, footage of you walking to and from your room, but that’s what you want.

The study is a circular room with high ceilings and ornate wooden bookshelves that go all the way to the top. They are filled with ancient texts and newer manuals, interspersed with knick-knacks and anthropological finds. You let your fingers dance across the spines, curving over a skull and pushing away dust from a plaque. A droid starts to prepare cocktails while the Colonel gives the other men cigars. Soon the room was full of smoke and good humor, though you desperately wish the grand fireplace was a window, as it was getting ridiculously stuffy. Still, you produce a cigarra from your purse and join everyone in smoking and drinking.

“Just a splash, I’m not as young as I used to be and I’d like to make it to my room before I fall asleep.” Admiral Ersawit says to the droid while the other men toss him knowing glances and laughter. He sips his cordial with a wink and he quickly sends a message on his data pad. You give a look of confusion to Karin but she doesn’t answer.

A minute or so pass as the group debates something trivial. Your mind is wandering so you aren’t sure. You’re thinking about your plan, going over it in your mind. It’s a good thing Kylo Ren is not here or you’d surely be caught. But as far as you know, he and his knights are the only Force users on your side of the war. You let your mind wander around Kylo Ren and his height and breadth, wonder about what his face looks like. Then it swims to your husband, stark and divine, and you imagine them on the bridge together; they must make an intimidating pair and you wish desperately to see it someday.

Then the door to the study opens and you startle back to the present. A helmeted guard enters with a truly shocking gift. Walking into the room, he leads a naked woman on a leash towards the Admiral. The old man smiles down at her and pets her head, as if she’s a simple dog. Then he lifts his feet and she shuffles on her knees to become his footrest. You are sure your face is one of horror. This is not only a show of extreme wealth but also one of power.

“I don’t blame you for wanting just a bit, what a beautiful specimen.” One of the other officers says, eyeing the kneeling woman like a luscious piece of fruit. Ersawit preens and fists the leash, accidentally choking his slave momentarily. She makes a strange gurgling noise and but otherwise says nothing. Then you notice the long scar across her neck and your meal threatens to come back up. Schooling your face, you take a long drag of your cigarra.

“Admiral, I hope you’ll forgive my ignorance, but how is it that you own a pleasure slave? The Empire dismantled most of the Hutt markets years ago. The First Order doesn’t align itself with that practice.” You say, keeping your voice unsure and confused, as opposed to righteously angry. All of the men, and a few of the women, give you pitying looks.

“Quite right Lady Hux, the Empire and Order has banned slavery throughout the galaxy. Not completely removed it, just banned it. The Hutt markets still exist if one knows where to look. I’ve served a very long time in this military and I figure I deserve a nice reward for all my hard work. Laws and morals be damned.” He explains without a hint of remorse. You tilt your head as if in concession.

“My, how clever you are. Quite right too! Why shouldn’t you enjoy all the pleasures of the galaxy? You’ve been such a monumental figure within the Empire and First Order, you deserve a sweet little thing to take care of you at night.” You say, raising your glass in a toast. Everyone joins you with hearty agreement and your hate for them makes the brandy in your hand taste sour. After a few more minutes of this you down your drink and stand, announcing you’re tired and leaving the study. All you want to do is talk to your husband and go to sleep.

Stars, but you hate them all, hate their arrogance and greed. Hate their condescension and hubris. They thought they were above everyone, above you, above your husband. They were foolish and lazy. They couldn’t see the true brilliance Hux had, the passion you had for his success. They all had so much power and they just lounged around in their ugly houses with their expensive art and mistreated servants, wasting it. You detest waste and it was about time that you clean up.

You nod at your Stormtrooper guards as you come up to your room. You enter the little antechamber; the pleasant smile you wore all through dinner dropping. Kicking off your heels, you collapse onto the luxurious bed in your gown. While you didn’t like much in this ridiculous house, the mattress under you was amazing. The mattress you had on the Finalizer was a standard one, perfectly average in every way. But your husband often complained of his back hurting, so maybe it was time you coaxed him into something new. He was the General of the fleet, he deserved a better night’s sleep.

It’s then that your datapad beeps, your husband calling you. Speak of the devil, indeed. Sitting up against a large pillow, you smooth down your hair and open the holo call, Hux’s face suddenly in front of you. The last vestige of nervous tension leaves you at the sight of his tired, but beautiful face. He’s sitting in what appears to be his office chair and based on the time difference, you’re both unsurprised and angry that he is still working.

“Hello darling. How are you?” You ask, taking in his bitten lips and dark circles. He looks annoyed and exhausted, which is pretty much his normal state of being, but you still worry.

“I’m alright my dear. Work is stressful as ever, but getting everything in place for the new base is proving more of a headache than I thought. I don’t remember Starkiller having this much red tape. Then again, I spent that time running on too much caf and stims, so perhaps there was. I also didn’t have to deal with Kylo Ren breathing down my neck the last time. He was on a mission during most of Starkiller’s construction but for some reason he’s taken to contributing now. It would be almost endearing if he weren’t so annoying. I haven’t been sleeping well either but that’s nothing to do with you.” He says, rubbing at his eyes in a rare show of weakness. It’s very touching.

“Are you sure? Are you sure it’s not because I’m not that to kiss you goodnight?” You tease, feeling your heart pound in an unusual way. You’re teasing him for his neediness while ignoring the line of pillows you’ve set up against your side to mimic his body. You don’t acknowledge the hypocrisy or the underlying affection. You and Hux may have come to a pleasant understanding but you still enjoyed spending time apart more than spending time together. That was the story you were sticking with.

Hux gives you a weak glare before a sound catches his attention and he looks away from you. He leans out of frame and returns holding Millie. Her flat face looks at you in interest, her fluffy tail swishing in front of your husband’s nose.

“Hello sweetheart. I miss you. Have you been behaving while I’m gone?” You ask your tooka, completely unapologetic in your excitement. Hux pets at a spot behind her ear and the purring is very audible. Despite Millie being a gift from him, you had been worried they wouldn’t get along. You’re relieved to see that in your absence they’ve become fast friends.

“She’s doing just well. I think she misses you too. Instead of sleeping on the couch or at the foot of the bed like she always does, she’s taken to sleeping on your side. As for her behavior; I had to send Messy in for repairs. She chased him into a wall the other day.” He explains with chagrin. As much as you feel bad for your mouse droid, you can’t help but laugh at the image that represents.

“Hopefully you punished her and she learns her lesson,” You say seriously, your lips fighting back a smile, “Try not to let Lord Ren bother you darling, I think it’s a good thing that he wants to be involved. I’m sure he has some valuable insight, in some capacity. I know you scoff at the Force, but you can’t deny that he wields power. Plus if you’re relaxed, I doubt you’ll be as annoyed by him.” Your husband nods and Millie jumps off his lap. You stretch out the kinks in your neck while he gives you a calculating stare. The mood changes and a shiver goes down your spine. 

“It’s late (Y/N), you should get ready for bed. Why don’t you tell me your evening plans?” He murmurs, leaning back in his chair and resting his fingers against his lips. Your husband’s gaze has always been intense and tonight is no different. It lights a fire within you and you quietly breathe out in anticipation.

“Yes, it is late. I should probably get into my sleep clothes.” You say slowly, carefully getting off the bed and placing the datapad upright to face you. The line between you was private and encrypted but you might as well insure that anyone who could possibly be watching will turn the feed off out of modesty.

You take off your jewelry with careful hands, placing it in a dish on the vanity. His eyes track your movement and you feel a rush of heady power. Your hands reach for your silver belt and you finally speak; the poison of your plans infecting the air around you. As you remove each item of clothing, you explain your thoughts to your husband so far away. Normally you’d undress perfunctorily, but right now, for him, you put on a show. Each layer discarded is another layer of your cruelty and by the end you are naked and he is palming himself through his trousers.

You’re about to get back on the bed and join him, when a knock sounds at the outer door. You curse and grab a large towel, your husband continuing his movements lazily. You glide out of your bedroom into the small anteroom and open the door to your hostess.

“Karin, hello! You caught me just as I was about to get into the shower.” You say breathlessly, your face probably still pink. She smiles and shakes her head.

“No worries, I just wanted to say goodnight and make sure you had everything you needed before turning in. I’ll be getting into bed soon too. Jhon is still entertaining in his study but he always comes to bed after me. Don’t be alarmed if you hear rowdiness later, that’s probably him and the others.” She says with an exasperated grin. You smile in return but your eyes are bright with interest. How thoughtful of Colonel Paru to provide the perfect spot for his demise.

“I’m fine Karin, the room is lovely and as of right now, there’s nothing I need. I’ll see you in the morning. If breakfast is as delicious as dinner, I know I’ll be up early.” You joke, before Karin waves goodbye and you shut the door. Returning back to your bedroom, Hux sits poised and ready on the other side of his screen. You give him a wicked grin and get on the bed to finish what you started. 

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

Time passes in the liquid way it always does after an orgasm and it’s only when the chronometer chimes that you get out of bed.

You grab the special garment bag from your suitcase and quickly get dressed. The black jumpsuit and boots are slightly too big but that will only aid in your story. The suit has an attached hip pack and you make sure the blaster inside is charged before zipping it up. You put your hair up and grab the small black helmet. Then you turn on the shower in the refresher, steam quickly filling the small room. Heading over the windows, you open them slowly, careful not to make a sound. You can’t hear much over the shower since you left the door open, but better safe than sorry.

It had rained earlier in the day and there was a patch of mud under your window. There was also an old fashioned trellis covered in vines. Holding your breath and praying that the thin wood could hold your weight, you descend down the side. It is dark all around you, no lights or cameras pointing towards your window.

You step down into the mud, making sure your feet are facing the right way. You need this to look like someone approached your window. Then with a sigh, you climb back up the trellis, making sure to scrape mud on a few of the gaps you stick your feet into. As you climb, you think of your husband and all the work he does. All the slights he faces and the disapproval that follows him. He could be great, he could change the galaxy for the better, and you were going to make that happen.

You climb back in and carefully walk out of your room and into the antechamber. The Troopers outside your door are quiet and you feel a little bad for what you’re going to do. But part of their duty was to give their life in service of the First Order. You were just taking it more literal as you remove the blaster from your hip pack and flick the safety off. It’s heavy in your hand as you open the door out into the hallway. The troopers turn to face you, clearly expecting to see their Lady in a nightgown. What they see is a figure in black, face obscured. You shoot them both in quick succession, one of them managing to get a shot out but it hits the wall next to you. You were a hypocrite for wasting good soldiers like this, but if you can get away with this, they will not have died in vain.

Keeping your blaster up, you sneak down the hallway as quickly and quietly as you can. You pass no droids or guards but you don’t relax, you can’t relax. More shots will be taken tonight but they can’t be at you.

There is a light spilling out from under the Colonel’s study door and you smile at the small crack left open by someone. The Colonel’s study is close to other bedrooms so you holster your blaster. You still have more to do after this and you can’t alert anyone to your presence. The open door could be seen as a sign of favor but you still hold your breath as you squeeze through the space. The colonel is in a lowbacked armchair, facing towards the fireplace and away from you. It seems he hasn’t moved since you left the study earlier. Out of your hip pack, you pull out a thick coil of rope. Colonel Paru continues to drink his wine.

You approach him slowly, your heartbeat steady and loud in your ears. For him, for me, for us, for him, for me, for us, the beats seem to say. The colonel takes another sip and lowers his drink, his other hand resting on the armrest of the chair. Quick as a viper, you loop the rope over his head and pull it tight against his neck. The effect is instantaneous. His hands come to grab at the rope and claw at your arms but you hold tight. Using your elbow, you hit a button on the side of your helmet to raise the blast shield hiding your face. It won’t make much difference but you want him to know who his murderer is.

“Just relax Colonel, this will be over soon. Your time ruling the galaxy is done. I think we’ve had enough of your lies and corruption. You will be remembered, but not for your victories. No, you will be recorded in history for your follies and inaction but don’t fret, the First Order will rise from your ashes. General Hux sends his regards.” You whisper into his ear. With the recognition of who his attacker was, he struggles anew but it does little for him. The weathered skin of his face is turning purple and he’s making gurgling, panicked noises, his grip against your wrists getting weaker and weaker. While he’s stronger than you, your position and height over him is your advantage.

He slumps finally and you hold tight a few more moments to make sure he isn’t faking. You slowly take the rope away, shaking out your fingers. Your grip had been so tight, they were shaking and sore from the exerted energy. Briefly contemplating cutting his throat to make sure he’s dead, you decide against it. The harsh red line on his neck is proof enough. His glass has fallen to the ground, cracking into pieces and spilling scotch on the carpet below.

Giving yourself a second to collect yourself, you glance around the study. Now that it was quiet, you’d love to really explore the room but you can’t dawdle. Still, a sliver of moonlight catches on an unopened bottle of Dantooine rum. It was a very old vintage; a rare and coveted bottle that was worth quite a few credits.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking this. My darling would love it and I doubt you’ll be drinking it anytime soon. Thank you Colonel, for your service.” You remark to his still body, putting the bottle into your hip pack, before switching out the rope for your blaster and exiting the room.

You’re running on adrenaline now and you can’t stop to pause. If you do, you’ll be forced to think about the blood you’re spilling in your quest for power. While you think you’re justified in your actions, the haunting sound of Colonel Paru’s last breath is better left for a different time. Or to be more specific, the lack of feeling his dying breaths gave you.

You sneak around the estate, searching for Admiral Ersawit’s room. You’re afraid you’re going to pass right by or spend the whole night wandering when you hear a groan on the left. It’s followed by a higher pitched squeaking and you grimace behind your helmet. A few more grunts and sighs, and the people inside the room finish whatever it is they were doing. You try not to picture it. Leaning up carefully against the door, you can make out the sound of the admiral’s voice. There’s the sound of shuffling sheets and the swish of something closing. Probably the refresher if his room is anything like yours.

You’re suddenly faced with a conundrum as you step back from the door. It’s locked and the control panel is coded to fingerprints. You bite back a curse and look wildly around the hallway for something to do. You can’t just stand here; a droid or Karin may find the Troopers or her husband. Turning quickly in a circle, you try not to panic at what to do next. What would Hux do? Hux would probably do something clever, or not have to deal with this at all, the jerk. You look at the panel again. You could try to hack it, but you have no tools to unscrew the panel and you don’t have the knowledge to breach the security system. You could end up setting off an alarm.

Taking a breath, you shrug and shoot at the panel, forcing it to break and open the door amid a shower of sparks. You walk through the smoke to see Admiral Ersawit lying in his bed, looking utterly surprised and reaching for the night table. He just manages to get his hand on the blaster there when you shoot twice, getting him in the head and chest. Blood is spattered against the headboard and it looks almost artistic in the pattern it takes. How anticlimactic though; he could have at least put up a fight. Silence follows and you turn towards the refresher door which is still closed. 

“Come out honey, he’s dead. You’ve got nothing to fear. I won’t hurt you.” You announce through the distortion of the helmet. A moment of hesitation and then she opens the door, looking terrified. You smile at her through the helmet though she doesn’t see it. Then you shoot her too, her emaciated frame collapsing onto the floor. The more horrible you make your actions now, the more it will serve you. Besides, what kind of life could she have led, half starved and traumatized with her vocal cords ripped out? You were doing her a kindness and that’s what you were sticking to.

The sounds the door made when you forced it open were louder than you anticipated and you know that the shots of the blaster weren’t quiet. You shove the gun back into the hip pack and race back to your room, almost leaping with the speed you’re reaching. Thankfully you don’t get lost on your way back. You skid in front of your room, barely taking the time to breathe.

The Stormtroopers are still dead on the ground outside your room and you stop yourself right before you slam the door behind you. Closing it with a near silent click, you head towards the open window. You go down the trellis again, making sure to snag your suit on the edge before placing your boots in the mud the opposite way. Then you groan and climb back up. Next time you murdered someone, Hux could do the set up.

Entering the room, you carefully remove the boots before stepping down. The shower is still running and you tug your suitcase from the closet to hide the boots, helmet, and suit. You’ll bring them back to the Finalizer to be destroyed since they can’t be left here. You can put them in the incinerator and hope the fibers under the Colonel’s nails will be enough to help identify the killer.

Then you step into the refresher and jump under the spray, cleaning yourself efficiently. Your hair gets damp but not soaking which will hopefully match the time you started the shower if anyone comes to your room now. You climb into bed, body vibrating from the stress of what you just did.

You do feel bad, guilty about the necessary but innocent lives you had to take for your plan, but the feeling doesn’t linger as much as it should. Perhaps you should be more concerned that you barely feel any remorse for what you’ve done, but the universe was in chaos and sacrifices had to be made. You want to call Hux, tell him of your triumph but you hold back. It can wait until you’re alone with him in the privacy of your rooms. 

The last thing you do before you fall into a pleasant and deep sleep is laugh.

Chapter Six Coming Soon...

Tagging: @babbushka, @livy1391, @renaissance-mama, @girl-next-door-writes​, @peqchynero​, @niniita-ah, @the-temple-pythoness​, @cupofmoonlighttea​, @sincerely-cronch​, @potato-ren​, @brujademente​, @ah-callie​, @rosirinoa​, @lwtficrecs​, @theold-ultraviolence​, @mad-hatters-teapot​, @firstordermariposa

Please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters! You can also find the fic on AO3 here!

[ryanmeft]

Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

  A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

 A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

  All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

  What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

  You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

  I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

  There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

 20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit.  Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for. 

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

 10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

 9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.