#and also nearly finished writing ch1 of my new story

[imagineitdearies]

Thank you for indulging me if you’ve already answered this, but, I’ve been re-reading PS and a question came up:

What would a healing potion have done in addition to the rat (chapter 20)?

Hi friend 😊 I don’t believe I have ever shared what was behind Astarion’s question, “Did he give you a healing potion after the rat?” and why he was relieved when Tyrus answered, “Just rats”!

And I’m very happy to do so—this fic consumed my life for a whole eight months, I am definitely not ready to let go of or stop talking about it, so ask away friends 🥰

To no one’s surprise I’m sure, given this is the direct aftermath of chapter 19, warning for potentially triggering talk of sexual assault and physical abuse from here on out that I’ll put below the cut:

Tyrus inwardly concludes from seeing Astarion’s relief, “So it could always get worse, then” (a mini theme of this story lol), and that’s a simple explanation in and of itself: he just needed rats to restore his blood, not healing to his body. Chapter 30 can give some more specific context—Astarion is not only being raped by Cazador when Tyrus walks in, he’s covered in bleeding claw marks, and later in the chapter his leg is gouged open, he’s stabbed multiple times, etc.

So Cazador using healing potions implies not just a sexual violence, but an extra brutish physical violence on top of it that even vampiric regeneration would take a while to heal. Rape with extra punishment, basically, instead of rape as a transaction or whim on Cazador’s end.

Needless to say Astarion has experienced both many times in the PS-verse, and hates both. But not the same amount. His relief goes back to his personal threshold for certain kinds of trauma—he has a much lower pain tolerance than he does a tolerance for forced sexual encounters (that’s just another day in his life, isn’t it). So it was a question he asked Tyrus because he feared terrible physical torture had also taken place that he just couldn’t see.

What kind of physical torture? Well, I’ll leave the *super* specifics of this to people’s imagination. There are plenty of horrors Astarion experienced that Tyrus has no idea about, and I think readers can fill in those gaps without my help….though chapter 25 & 30 were a little taste of it, I suppose.

Thanks for the question 🩵 I hope you enjoy your reread!!

[finn-nelson-for-the-win]

The Good Life: Chapter 14

Hello, my lovelies! I know that I’ve been a bit MIA lately, but I’ve been without internet at my new apartment and trying desperately to at least keep writing on my phone so that when I finally had internet I’d be ready to get back to posting. Yesterday my internet finally got set up and I was able to rejoin the 21st century, so here’s the next chapter that I’ve been working on these last couple weeks.

Need to get caught up? The Good Life: Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4 , Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8 , Ch9 , Ch10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13

If you want to be added (or  removed) from the tags list for this story, just feel free to let me know!

@pink-royaute @believethaticanandiwill @milllott @likeashootingstarfades @i-dream-of-emus @eveerez @saintsisterwriter

The Good Life: Chapter 14

Fridays were always relatively easy days at work, especially considering that two new interns had joined them last week and it lightened their workload considerably, but since Anna and Rae had completed all of their assigned tasks for the day, they were given permission from their boss to relax for the rest of their shift as long as they remained at their desks in the event that any last minute tasks came up for them to complete.

“So...What are your plans tonight?” Anna asked as she rolled her desk chair closer to Rae’s desk while they chatted.

“Well, Finn mentioned us grabbing a drink to celebrate my birthday, but nothing too interesting. What about you?”

“I’m actually going to a friend’s surprise birthday party!”

“Oh wow! That sounds like it will be a lot of fun!”

“Yeah I think so too!”

When their shift was officially over, Rae and Anna walked to their cars and parted ways in much the same way that they did every day before they headed home.

Rae expected to Finn to already be home from work by the time she made it back to their apartment, since the Friday evening traffic was always just beginning to pick up as she was leaving work; however, she got home and realized that he was still not home, so she decided to take the spare time she had to change out of her work clothes and into something that felt more appropriate for a bar on a Friday evening.

She was nearly done putting the finishing touches on her makeup when Rae heard the front door unlock and Finn walk inside.

“Hello, is anybody home?” Finn sing-songed as he walked through the apartment.

“Yeah, I’m in my room just getting ready,” Rae called back.

“Perfect! I’m just gonna change my clothes really quickly and then we can head out if you’re ready as well.”

Rae was sitting on the couch in the living room when Finn walked down the hallway after changing his clothes as well.

“Are you just about ready to head out now?” Finn asked as he walked into the living room, stopping once Rae was in view.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Rae replied as she stood from the couch, “Why’re ya staring at me?”

Knowing that today was her birthday and she rarely got dressed up, Rae decided to wear her favorite pair of black leggings that made her legs look particularly good paired with a semi-sheer long-sleeved polka dot crop top. To complete the outfit and keep her from getting too cold while they walked outside, Rae also was wearing her go-to black leather jacket and matching ankle boots with a small heel.

“I know you asked what you should wear tonight and I suggested ‘something kinda nice’, but bloody hell Rae,” Finn replied with a low whistle, “you look spectacular!”

“Oh, fuck off! We both know you’re just flattering me because I’m the birthday girl,” Rae joked.

“No, I mean it. You look fantastic!”

“Well, thank you! Are we going to head out anytime soon, or do you just plan on standing here and gawking at me all night?”

“As much as I’d love to choose the latter, I did promise to take you out for your birthday and I’d hate to break my promise to ya,” Finn replied with a smirk as he grabbed his car keys and the pair headed out of the apartment together.

Finn parked a short distance away from the bar and they walked together to their destination. Rae and Finn walked past the usual bar they go to for a quick drink, but Rae continued following where Finn was leading them until they ended up at a nondescript building with a sign on the outside that said “Ivory Piano Bar”

Rae gave Finn a confused look and he simply shrugged, “I thought we’d go somewhere new today. It can be hard to get into this place but I know a guy and he pulled some strings for us.”

“Name please,” a tall man at the entrance of the building stated when Finn and Rae got to the door.

“Finn Nelson.”

“Perfect, you two can head inside!”

Finn reached for Rae’s hand and she took it, allowing him to guide her through the building. Rae could hear someone on a piano warming up and more people shuffling inside, but it was still much less hectic than a typical bar. In the far back of the bar, there were a few sections roped off with a sign that read “RESERVED” but as Finn approached the section in the middle, he simply moved the rope aside so they could pass before replacing it.

“Wow, we’re in the VIP section? You really went all out, huh?” Rae asked as she turned around to face Finn.

“You could say that. But this isn’t even the best part,” Finn replied as he placed his hand on her shoulders and prompted her to turn around.

“What the...what are you all doing here?” Rae asked in surprise when she turned around to see all of the gang and some of her coworkers gathered around a few tables and booths in the reserved section.

“Surprise!” They all called in unison and Rae’s jaw dropped when the realization sunk in.

“This...this is all for me?” Rae muttered in awe as she looked at a few dozen of her closest friends drinking and greeting her.

“Of course it is,” Finn replied as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to lead her forward and gave her a peck on the cheek, “happy birthday, girl!”

Finn went to the bar to grab him and Rae a drink and Rae began to work her way around the tables to greet all of her friends that came out to celebrate

“Rae! Happy birthday!” Izzy called out as Rae walked up to the high-top table most of the gang was gathered around.

“Thank you! God...I can’t believe you’re all here and you guys surprised me like this.”

“Were you really surprised or where you just faking it?”

“Izz, remember when we took that drama class together in college? Yeah, well, we both know that I’m not nearly a good enough actress to pretend that I’m surprised!” Rae joked.

“Uh, excuse me dear, but you’re blocking my chair!”

Rae turned around quickly at the familiar voice and pulled her best mate into a tight hug.

“Chlo! What the fuck are ya doing here and not in New York?”

“Do ya really think I’d miss my best mate’s birthday for the first time in over a decade just because I’m out of town for work?” Chloe scoffed, “My meeting on Monday got pushed to Wednesday, so I decided to head home for the weekend so I could be here for your party!”

Rae stood beside the table talking to Archie and Chop when she heard someone calling her name behind her.

“Well, it appears that the birthday girl is being beaconed, but I’ll check in with you lot in a bit, yeah?”

Rae went to a different table a short distance away where she could see Anna sitting and waving her over.

“Anna! What are you doing here?”

“I told you I was going to a friend’s surprise birthday party! Didn’t I?”

“I suppose you did, huh? Whose idea was all of this?”

“Finn’s, I think. Or at least he was the one that invited me,” Anna replied.

Rae looked across the room where Finn stood at the bar waiting for the gang’s next round of drinks and when the two locked eyes, he smiled widely at her.

“I know that tonight’s your birthday party and it should be all about you, but I actually brought a friend of mine that I’d really like you to meet,”

“Seriously, Anna? Please tell me you’re not trying to set me up with someone at my own surprise party!”

“I just want you two to meet. I’m not gonna force anything, but at least chat for a bit. I think you two would really get along!”

“Fine, bring him over, I guess. We might as well get this over as soon as we can,” Rae huffed.

“That’s the spirit!” Anna turned and beaconed her friend that was standing at the bar to come forward and join them.

Rae tried to contain her reaction when a tall, considerably attractive handsome man approached them.

“Hey! Henry, this is my mate from work that I was telling you about.”

“Hi, I’m Henry,” he replied casually as he reached out to shake Rae’s hand.

“Hopefully Anna has told you nothing but good things about me,” she chuckled, “My name is Rachel, but most people call me ‘Rae’”

“I like ‘Rae’,” Henry said with a small smile, “and it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Well, I’m just gonna give you two crazy kids a chance to chat for a bit, but I’ll check in with both of you later,” Anna replied with a wink.

“I just want to start off by apologizing for crashing your surprise party. Anna mentioned that we were going to a party but I didn’t know the details until you got here and everyone yelled ‘surprise’,” Henry began with an embarrassed chuckle when Anna was a reasonable distance away.

“No need to apologize. So, how do you know Anna?”

“From work as well, actually. I’m in the HR department, but our schedules line up well and we see each other on all our breaks and at lunch most of the time. After a while of noticing the pattern, we actually started talking and eating together.”

“That’s so crazy! I have no clue how I’ve never seen you around the office before,” Rae mused.

“It’s a pretty big office, so I can’t really blame you.”

The pair continued talking and getting to know each other over drinks for a while before Rae excused herself to go to the toilet.

Luckily, the line to the Ladies room was short, but she happened to run into Chloe while they both washed their hands.

“How are you liking the party thus far?”

“I’m having a lot of fun. I’m honestly still in shock that you all were planning this behind my back,” Rae laughed

“To be fair, I’ve only been keeping the secret for about a week or two,” Chloe said as the pair walked out and worked their way back over to the reserved section they were seated in, “Finn was the one who really started planning all of this and pulled the strings to get us a reserved section and whatnot well over a month ago.”

“Wow...I don’t even know what to say...” Rae muttered when she noticed Finn standing at a table with Chop and Archie talking and laughing.

“How are things between you two, by the way? I never got the play-by-play of your conversation with him that you had promised me!”

“There’s really not much to tell, honestly,” Rae shrugged.

“Bullshit! You don’t simply get past making out with your roommate-slash-long time best mate without having a proper conversation.”

“We talked but it wasn’t anything major, Finn and I are...”

“You and I are what exactly?” Finn chimes in as he approached the bar Rae and Chloe were standing at.

“Oh, Rae here was just telling me about how after the two of you got drunk and made out you had a talk about it to make sure that you both were on the same page,” Chloe said nonchalantly as she stared directly at Rae.

“Oh, yeah, we talked about what happened and there’s no weirdness between us.” Finn replied simply.

“Yeah, we’re still friends like we were before,” Rae added.

“Yup...just friends,” Finn replied with a tight-lipped smile.

“Hmm, I see. Well I promised I’d bring Izzy a new drink, so I better get this over to her.” Chloe replied as she grabbed the drink off the bar counter and left Rae and Finn standing alone together.

“Sorry about that. I told Chlo about the night we kissed and she’s been pressing me for details and an update since then,” Rae huffed.

“No problem. If I wasn’t concerned about the lecture both you and I would get from him if he knew about the kiss, I likely would have told Archie a while ago too,” Finn replied.

“Oh! There you are, Rae...wait, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Henry began as he approached the pair standing near the bar.

“No, we were just chatting.”

“Oh, alright,” Henry sighed in relief as he turned towards Finn, “I’m Henry, by the way.”

“Ah, yes! How rude of me! Henry, this is my best mate and roommate, Finn.”

“Nice to meet you,” Finn said as the two shook hands.

“I didn’t mean to intrude on your conversation here, Rae, but Anna was looking for you earlier so you might wanna check in with her soon so she doesn’t think you skipped out on your own party just to avoid talking to me,” Henry chuckled.

“Anna would jump to that conclusion, wouldn’t she?” Rae scoffed.

“Don’t worry about it, Rae. Go find Anna,” Finn chuckled.

“I probably should, huh? I’ll see you later then, Finn,” she replied before turning to face Henry, “do you mind taking me to where you last saw Anna?”

When Henry and Rae approached Anna together, she looked pleased with herself and her smile grew as the three of them kept chatting.

“Well, I should probably get home so I can check on Rocky and put him to bed,” Anna said as some of the people who had come to the party began saying their goodbyes and leaving and the party continued to wind down.

“Alright, I’ll see you at work on Monday,” Rae said as she gave Anna a hug.

“I should be heading out as well, I think,” Henry added shortly after Anna had left.

“Alright, I’ll walk you to your car,” Rae said as she stood from her chair.

Rae and Henry walked leisurely through the parking lot side-by-side, continuing a conversation that they had started earlier that night.

“It was really nice meeting you and getting to know you a bit better,” Henry replied when they stopped beside a dark green truck, “and I still feel a bit bad for crashing your birthday party and not having a gift of any kind.”

“I really enjoyed talking to you as well. And don’t worry about it.”

“I’d like to make it up to you, Rae, if that’s alright with you. Can I see you again sometime?” Henry asked with a small smile.

“I’d really like that. Here, give me your number and I’ll send you a text so you have mine too and then we can make plans to meet up again,” Rae said as she handed Henry her phone for him to add his number.

“There you go! Have a nice night,” Henry said as he gave Rae her phone back after inputting his number and climbed into the driver’s seat of his truck, “and Happy Birthday, Rae!”

Rae waited for Henry to drive off before she walked back to the entrance of the bar where she saw Finn waiting for her.

“You ready to go home?” Finn asked when Rae walked up to him and nodded before pulling him into a tight hug.

“Thank you for planning all of this. I know I kept saying that I didn’t wanna do anything for my birthday, but this was better than anything I could have imagined.”

“You’re welcome, love. I’m just glad that you had a good time!” Finn replied as he placed a kiss on the crown of her head.

Finn wrapped an arm around Rae when they released from the hug and the pair walked to Finn’s car together while recapping some of their favorite moments from the night.

A/N: This chapter was not nearly as long as I had initially feared it would end up, luckily. Also, here’s a couple random fun facts about this chapter: 1) Rae’s surprise party is based on a combination of my own surprise birthday party that a big group of my friends threw me for my 21st birthday and my experience at a dueling piano bar that I went to when I went to California a few months ago. 2) Henry is named after a guy that I met at a party I went to this past Friday, went to a few bars with immediately afterwards, and he ended up coming back to my apartment to play with my puppy for like an hour at 3am.

I’m pretty excited for the direction that I’ve decided to take this story in for the next few chapters. It brings up a lot of good questions and leaves other questions unanswered (Are Finn and Rae really okay after talking about the kiss? What’s the deal with Henry? Is keeping secrets from Archie going to come back to bite Finn and Rae in the ass later? etc.) and I have a lot of fun ideas for where I want this story to go in the next few chapters.

Now that my life is calming down just a little bit and I am able to use the internet and post stuff, I’m hoping to get back to my prior schedule of posting about once per week or so. Fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan this time! Until next time: Stay awesome, my friends! :)

[bettsfic]

question purely about your writing process : so I was wondering, after binge reading Wanheda and the Hunter, GIYMAF, TW, how did you build the sexual aspect of bc's relationship ? did you catch some signs, or specific scenes, of B and C (between them or with other characters) throughout the seasons that helped to have this conception of their sexual behavior, kinks (dom c or b / sub b or c ect...) ? I would love to read the birth of your ideas Luv u !!!

this is actually a super exciting question because i’ve never gone through and parsed out my au-building process. it just kinda happens, but there is a kind of method to it i think

so uhh the first thing i do in any fandom is read a handful of the top kudosed fics. in the case of bellarke my initial fic run-through showed me a few things about the fandom i wouldn’t have known from the show itself:

bellamy calls clarke princess in every fic. like. every fic. (so if i wrote a fic that was missing it, it would look weird)

in all E-rated fics, bellamy is obsessed with clarke’s tits and going down on her (or at least, i haven’t read a fic yet that doesn’t include both these elements)

the fandom overall is very skewed toward friends-to-lovers rather than meet-cutes

the fandom overall is skewed toward modern au over canon

the fandom overall sticks to TV canon rather than book canon (an important difference in, say, GoT fandom where the TV/book difference is pretty apparent in fic)

once that was done i started writing guy in your mfa, so, i’ll just...go over how i built each one, character-wise

guy in your mfa

i’d been wanting to write a fic about my MFA experience for a while but my previous fandoms didn’t seem to fit. t100 is perfect because it’s an ensemble cast with a strict age divide between the delinquents and adults, so it worked for the grad student/professor angle.

i paced this one differently than other romances i’ve written, where there’s a lot of pining through the whole thing and a confession at the end and suddenly they can be together. in this fic, they both realize pretty early on they have feelings for each other, because they’re writers, and writers, esp ones in grad school, tend to move fast and fall hard. 

so i had to engineer a reason they couldn’t be together, and i chose bellamy’s dark past in which he’s done some desperate deeds, and his self-hatred that makes him think he’s not worthy of love. 

in the show, they’re both kind of outcasts because they’re leaders. in an MFA this would translate to either being too good they stand out, or writing outside of the traditional literary canon. hence, bellamy is an amazing writer, and clarke writes from her gut (and what’s in her gut is YA SFF)

as far as building their romantic/sexual dynamic, it was a little difficult because i definitely veer more toward clarke’s mentality, like, we’re obviously perfect for each other, full speed ahead, which i think is pretty clarke-ish based on canon and how she just Gets Shit Done. but bellamy, while he thinks the same way, like this is a relationship that has a lot of potential, he also thinks, we better start it right, and we can’t do that until you know and accept all my bullshit. canon bellamy only acts rashly when it comes to life/death situations; otherwise i see him as very methodical and calculating. 

wanheda & the hunter

so this one started with the thought, i want to write a monsterfucker fairy tale, and from there i wove in a few canon details. this is probably the closest to canon i’ll ever get, unless i finish my six-years-on-the-ring fic. 

wanheda i built based on her actual character description -- she’s the commander of death. so if you only knew her as a legend, what do you think she would look like? so i described the image that popped into my head when i asked myself that question.

i don’t remember much of the rest of my process. i was pretty focused on practicing a new writing style that i’m not sure i pulled off very well.

talking with you in the dark

another fic where i was practicing a writing style. i wanted to see if i could put a lot of feels into fewer words, which i feel like i’m always practicing in some way because i’m hyperverbal. (i’m also working on leaning into it, but that’s in some other projects)

part of this writing style (kent haruf’s) is kind of........flattening characters in order to convey the simplicity of being human. so b and c are like diet coke versions of themselves, totally normal people living normal lives, and only flashes of canon made their way into the story.

bellamy’s initial hesitation toward clarke, followed by an intense sense of loyalty toward her, his strained relationship with octavia. clarke’s confidence and her prioritization of madi made their way in too. 

training wheels

lord help me. every once in a while i get an idea that i have absolutely 0 control over. one minute it flickers into my brain and the next i’ve written 20k and i don’t know how it happened. all i know is i started writing this fic august 22, even though i didn’t have time to or even want to write it. i don’t remember sitting down to start it, or how much of the idea had been fleshed out yet. it just happened, and it keeps just happening. if i let it, i would devote literally all my time to it, but i have other responsibilities so i can’t.

the character dynamic in this one was built separately.

for clarke, i took her pilot ep characterization, in which she’s experienced a lot of trauma and isolation, so when we meet her, she’s primed for badassery. but for ch1 training wheels clarke, i needed to strip even that away and go where i imagine she came from pre-canon, a little spoiled, very bright, manipulative as shit. so i need all the potential to be there but none of the growth, and the story over time will provide that growth.

for bellamy, i picked the s5 “i’ve sat in near isolation for six years and i’ve had a lot of time to introspect” version of himself. to me, being a teacher makes a lot of sense for him, because in s1 he was so dedicated to those fucking speeches (which i loved), and he seems like the kind of guy to get 97% of his self-worth and sense of fulfillment from finding the promise in people and helping them reach their potential, because he’s never learned to focus on himself or his needs. and he loves clarke, so it’s very hard to deny her anything she wants, especially when what she wants is to learn something new, something he’s very capable of teaching her.

then i tossed in their long-term undying loyalty and admiration of one another, and you get training wheels bellamy and clarke. 

there’s actually a lot more to this i think because i’ve spent nearly all of my mental and creative energy of the past month on this fic, but also i can’t talk about it forever, i have to go Do Things. happy to answer more questions later if there’s anything it would help for me to zero in on specifically. 

thanks for the great question!!

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 31: This Year’s Writing, Reviewed

I usually do a summary of my year’s writing on January 1 and I am still planning that for tomorrow, but I thought this year I’d also do a more critical review.

In other words, my thoughts on what I wrote (or... posted, rather) this year:

Mountain Lion Mean: Hands down my favorite fic of the year. I enjoyed brainstorming it, writing it, re-reading it. It still holds up nearly a year later. It’s definitely deeply in debt to Hell or High Water, but nevertheless I nailed the aesthetic I was going for, experimented with the style and the POV shifts, and I’m extremely pleased with how it turned out.

Until Death: I wrote this one without any sense of urgency or fear, since I wasn’t competing in madness, so it was a very low-stress experience. I had a random idea and an opening sentence and I just tried it out and ended up with a whole fic. It’s definitely a knock off of Briarpatch, both in Vibes and a little bit in plot, and I don’t entirely know myself what’s happening in it, but overall, I’m proud of it for existing and just being what it is.

Beloved, Feared, Misunderstood: Another non-competitive madness fic. I wrote this one in a single frenzy, probably over 4-5 hours (?), which is kind of wild. I wanted to write a Greek Gods AU for a while, but I never had concrete ideas. When Troped gave me the opportunity, I just ran with it without thinking too hard. I can’t believe this fic came out as coherent as it did, to be honest. I’m really quite fond of it. It would probably be my favorite of the year, but for Mountain Lion Mean.

The Treasure of the Golden Skull: A surprise Star Trek fic! I definitely did not expect to write this, or anything like this, this year, and I’m glad it exists. I’m glad I took a chance on it and finished it and put it out there. I admit that I did use some crutches on this one: doing an AU with a strong aesthetic and relying primarily on Kirk’s a Drama Queen for characterization. And to be honest, I don’t remember it very well now; it’s not a story that really strongly stands out to me. But I’m glad I dipped my toes back in that fandom again.

Dance When You’re Undead: My only complete Halloween fic this year. Sad trombone. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to top last year’s two Troped Halloween entries so I didn’t try to do anything similar, or as ambitious, and I do think that was a good call. This story is what I intended it to be: a fairly straightforward, purposefully weird, Aaaah Real Monsters AU. I don’t feel dissatisfied with it, but I’m not super excited by this story, either.

devil’s gonna get me one of these days (ch1): I sort of regret posting this at all, to be honest. I really wanted to have something up for Halloween, since it was my Halloween Season Project, but it frustrates me that there’s going to be such a big break between the first chapter and the rest. Also, and more importantly, I was skimming through it and I found bits I wanted to edit more and even some typos. It wasn’t ready for prime time. All that said, I really do love this fic. I’m still actively working on it so I’m way too close to judge, but it’s certainly a project close to my heart.

We’ll Find Out in the New Morning: I have a lot of warm feelings about this story. It definitely did/does need more editing--I was just flipping through it recently and found a lot of bits that could be polished more, which is completely unsurprising given that I barely had time to re-read it. But even given how rough it is, I am proud of myself for writing it and writing it so fast, and I feel... positive about the writing process. It really helped give some kind of structure to my first week of vacation (which, honestly, my second week could have used) and I just generally enjoyed writing again after a pretty long break. I wanted this fic to be sort of like a movie, but in words, and I think overall that I created that effect. It’s cute and gives a warm feeling. So I’m pleased.

[reginasrandomthoughts]

So when I finished reading chapter 4 (”Survival”) of A History of the World in 10 and a half chapters  I knew that that was pretty much the end of the progress I made today with my reading list. For one, I have stuff to say about and for two, I have other stuff and exams to prepare for. (Hey, ho! Icons on Film essay, I am so not happy to see you)

 So, I usually ramble on for myself and I have no structure to anything at all, so here I will try something different, and just write small reminders for me about each element or theme. Or will try. I know me and I have no illusions left. 

 I think that it is only fitting to start with the reindeer since that is what the story starts with. The reindeer that had premonition on Noah’s Ark and tried to run away from man, who will bring that bad thing on. The reindeer and animal cruelty. 

 Animal cruelty, animals paying for man’s sin is an established theme at this point and here it is very explicit: the Soviets exploded a nuclear bomb over Siberia and the radioactivity poisoned the food the reindeer ate and that poisoned the reindeer. But what humans cared about was that they could not eat its meat anymore. Since it became inedible for humans and they did not want to bury it, they fed it to an animal they thought unpleasant: the mink. This is how the story presents it. The mink of course gets slaughtered for its fur to make coats out of it and it still gets to humans, but the kind who would wear that coat presumably does not care about the radioactivity. 

 Another point of animal cruelty is the cats. Her boyfriend, Greg argues that they need to neuter Paul, the cat because he is too aggressive. Kath (whose name’s similarity to the word cat probably is not a coincidence) wholeheartedly disagrees. She thinks that mutilating an animal is a sin. ( I kinda agree with her on this. As a fellow owner of a male cat). But Greg is not the only one who is cruel to animals to fit his needs: in one version of the story Kath picks up another cat, Linda and keeps them on a boat with her and nearly starves them to death bc she is ignoring reality. 

Now, here is a quote from p87:

“Burying things gives you a proper sense of shame. Look what we’ve done to the reindeer, they’d say as hey dug the pit. Or they might, at least. They might think about it. Why are we always punishing animals? We pretend to like them, keep them as pets and get soppy if we think they’re reacting like us, but we’ve been punishing animals from the beginning, haven’t we? Killing them and torturing them and throwing our guilt at them?”

 For Kath this is purely a reference to the reindeer and what the government did to them. But she also connects to it through bringing in another topic, the inability to face reality and projecting. Out of Kath’s two alternative storylines she is torturing her animals: she disregards reality and does not notice that she is hurting them, argues that she is doing something good for them, feeding them fish (that she has no problem killing) but in reality she is starving them. An argument for this timeline can be made by her first claim that she feeds fish only to the cats while she eats canned food. She does not eat fish, because there is no fish to be eaten and reverts to eating the hallucination when she runs out of real food. In the alternative story, Kath’s reality, she is projecting her guilt on them, regardless of how real that version is. She is saying that she left everything behind to save them, as a modern Noah, she acts like protecting them will make her life better and wash the human sin off of her. And in case she is starving them, she projects her guilt onto them via the illusion: she feels guilty so she pretends they are getting fatter rather than thinner. 

Since both the upper mentioned topics are still very big and interconnected let’s tackle two smaller ones first discrimination and abuse (and Kath).

Discrimination is going to be the easiest to start with, because I already talked about it. It is a major theme of the book. So far we have seen humans discriminating between animal species (ch1), humans discriminating between human nationalities (ch2), humans discriminating between species (human and animal in ch3) and now we see humans discriminate between genders. Kath and Greg, I am sorry to say, are both sexist: Greg thinks Kath is stupid and doesn’t get what the men are talking about because she is a woman. He degrades her by calling her a cow, he figuratively lowers her to the level of an animal, to something less than human. Kath, in turn views all men as irredeemable. All the man must be like Greg because to Kath Greg is the “typical bloke” and since he is an abusive jackass, the antagonist of her life, all men must be villains as well. 

And Greg is abusive. He slaps Kath around, he degrades her, he belittles her. Yet Kath says that this is typical. Ordinary: 

“Greg was an ordinary bloke. Not that I wanted anything different when I met him he went to work, came home, sat down, drank beer, went out with his mates and drank more beer, sometimes slapped me around a bit on pay-night. We got on fair enough.”  

To Kath, him hitting her, a man hitting a woman is ordinary. Just part of the package. She was not looking for anything else. She oddly enough draws a direct connection between him hitting her and them getting on well by putting the two sentences next to each other. And from the hospital storyline (I am calling it that) we learn that that is, indeed, the case: Kath was looking for someone just like Greg, someone abusive, that she has a history with dating men like that, that she has Persistent Victim Syndrome. Now, in one timeline this is bollocks. In the other Kath is ignoring reality, really hard: she ignores that Greg being abusive is not okay, she ignores her dating history, she ignores the break-up. In this timeline there is no war, there is just one big fight, a bad break-up, the fall-out, and a post-Greg timeline, where kath is pushed to the breaking point and reality starts to slip because of all the stress and abuse of her life, and perhaps a natural tendency to ignore reality. 

Kath has a tendency to ignore reality. She believes that reindeer can fly just so she can believe that anything is possible. Her faith in that is unshakable. She is a sensitive, deeply empathetic woman who is easily touche by the suffering of animals and is attuned to the stress and dangers of her time. She has a tendency to cling to the unreal even in the face of evidence to the contrary and she may or may not be going insane. 

As a throwaway, I found it interesting that her name is Ferris. The first associations from that, for me, are ferris wheel, something that is just going round and round in circles, and ferryboat and ferry as in carry something. With these associations Kathleen Ferris fits into the theme about Noah and his animals: she like Noah gets on a boat to carry her animals to safety, but in the hospital timeline she ends up delusional and going in a circle, like a ferris wheel and, as she points out, humanity. In her-reality timeline, she insists that she is starting over again, and if that is the case she is starting again from the beginning, her being the new Noah, but purely for cats. Also in the hospital timeline, she herself becomes the ferryboat, carrying these ideas in her own head taking them away from reality, that has become uninhabitable for her. She says she does not look at the way she came because she does not intend to go back and in the end she makes up her mind to accept the her-reality to be the real reality. 

Now as the finale let’s talk about the two timeline of events and how ignoring reality and projecting comes into play. There are two possible timelines: 

 In the hospital timeline Kath breaks up with Greg and that combined with the stress of a looming nuclear war makes her snap and she becomes delusional, believing that the war did broke out and that she needs to get her cat, and the other cat she randomly picked up, away from the war. She gets stuck on a boat where she goes around in circles while her cats starve. She becomes ill and tears her hair out but gets rescued and has lucid moments in the hospital that she interprets as a hallucination until she finally retreats into her make-believe world.

 The other timeline, the her-reality is where everything is as Kath says: the war breaks out she grabs the cats, gets onto the boat, feeds them fish, gets sick from the whatever poison got into the air, finds an island where her cat Linda gives birth to the kitten of her other cat, Paul. 

Now, me being a born pessimist, I lean towards the hospital timeline. But I guess each to their own? I guess. Anyway, what we are talking about is themes and not definitive answers. The Theme of ignoring reality play a part in both of those and roughly the same way.

In the hospital timeline Kath ignores reality from the point onwards when she broke up with Greg, so everything after that is just her blocking out reality. To her a fictional reality where she can step away from the complicated human society that has so many stress-inducing problems is appealing even at the cost of having the new reality that probably most people are dead now and the air is poison. This post-apocalyptic fantasy is escapism, escape from humanity, its sins, its problems. And Kath can escape from her own life and own choices as well: the choice to date Greg, the break up, everything. And because she retreats from reality she has to project her own into its place: her reality. 

Her reality is that humans are ignoring the signs (we are) and that it has gotten t a point where the nuclear war broke out without anyone noticing. They are ignoring the reality to project a peace and to push the responsibility to solve the problem onto someone else. Now, in this line of events the flashes from the hospital-timeline are the delusions: they are Kath’s struggle to let go of the old world, to fight against escaping into a fantasy land where all of this is just a bad dream and she is just sick but will get better. 

So from the perspective of the themes it really doesn’t matter which timeline is correct. 

[lastbluetardis]

Chemical Potential, epilogue

Summary: Slightly homesick and stressed about her abysmal chemistry grade, Rose Tyler meets quirky James Smith, the boy who sits in front of her in their chemistry class. They become fast friends as James makes it his personal mission to help Rose get through the semester.

Ten x Rose University AU

This chapter: ~2800 words, teen

Notes: This was written for the lovely @thegreenfairy13 as part of the @dwsecretsanta gift exchange. Also tagging @doctorroseprompts.

That’s all she wrote, folks! I hope you've had as much fun reading this story as I've had writing it. I would love to hear from you one last time to know what you thought. And if you've been lurking this whole time or binged this in one sitting, I'd love to hear from you, too :)

AO3 | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10

Two Years Later

“Jeans… jumpers… socks…” James rooted through his suitcase one final time, sifting through the clothes to make sure he had everything he would need for a four-day trip.

“Nearly finished?” He spun at Rose’s voice and saw her leaning casually against door frame of their bedroom, her thick winter coat draped across her arm.

He nodded, zipping the suitcase shut. “Yep, just double-checking. I packed enough pants as though I'm planning to wee myself every day on this trip.”

Rose wrinkled her nose at him but giggled. “You're so gross.” She skipped up to him and draped her arms over his shoulder to peck a swift kiss to his cheek. Lingering with her mouth close to his ear, she murmured, “But now I know I can do other, sexier things to you to make sure you go through all those pants you've brought.” She nipped at his earlobe, making a shiver ripple down his spine, before she pulled back, an impish gleam in her eyes.

“You menace,” he said, his voice was hoarser than he'd like. She just waggled her eyebrows a him, and held out her hand. He hefted the suitcase off the bed and asked, “Is yours already in the car?”

“Yep.”

James followed Rose down the hall to where his Aunt Sarah was standing by the front door.

“Thanks for doing this,” he told her.

“Of course,” she said. “Now go. Have fun. I’ll see you two next week.”

“Kicking me out of my own house?” James raised an eyebrow.“Thanks for doing this,” he told her.

“Of course,” she said. “Now go. Have fun. I’ll see you two next week.”

“Kicking me out of my own house?” James raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up. You’ll want to get on the road to miss the afternoon traffic. Don’t you worry about a thing. Just have fun.” She reached out to him, and he dutifully stepped into her arms to accept her embrace. “Good luck,” she whispered in his ear, giving him a squeeze that didn’t at all settle the butterflies that were suddenly churning in his stomach. Then she pulled back and kissed his cheek. “Go, go. Drive safely. Let me know when you get there.”

“Thanks again for taking care of the cats,” Rose said, skipping up to Sarah for a goodbye hug.

“It’s no trouble at all,” she said, kissing Rose’s cheek.

When Rose pulled back from his aunt, James rested his hand on her lower back. She leaned into his touch and beamed up at him with a smile that inflated his heart a few sizes.

“Ready to go?” he murmured, bending down to press his lips to the top of her head.

“Yep! Bye Aunt Sarah. Bye babies,” she cooed to the line of four cats pacing in the foyer. “Bye Gollum, wherever the hell you are.”

Sarah had driven in from Michigan earlier in the week along with her two cats in order to take care of their three cats while James and Rose went up to Cherry Springs State Park. It was one of the best places in the country to stargaze, and it was only a few hours upstate.

James was excited to spend a few days alone in the middle of nowhere with Rose so they could both decompress after this latest round of final exams. For James, since he was graduating early, it was his very last round of exams. This trip was a way for him and Rose to celebrate privately for a few days, even though his graduation ceremony wasn't until the springtime. 

And, if all went well, he and Rose would be celebrating something else, too.

James carried his suitcase to the car, tucked it into the back next to Rose’s, then settled into the driver’s seat for the next few hours. He kept his hand twined with Rose’s for most of the drive, and they passed the time listening to an audio book that neither of them was really invested in.

Four hours later, only narrowly missing rush hour traffic, he pulled into the parking lot of the guest services building.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. He saw she was unbuckling her seat belt. “You don’t need to come in with me.”

“I need to stretch out my legs. My bum went numb from sitting for so long.”

“Need me to rub it?” he asked, winking.

She snorted and smacked his chest lightly before she stood up out of the car.

It was a simple matter of signing a few forms then receiving the key to their cabin rental. When he returned to the car, he saw Rose bent over touching her toes. He was given a glorious view of her arse, and he let out a low, appreciative whistle.

She snapped up and whirled around, fire simmering in her eyes. It was extinguished when she realized who was ogling her.

“Just me,” he said, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

“Thought you might’ve been some wanker catcalling.”

“Nope. Only your wanker.”

Rose rolled her eyes fondly, then they both reluctantly got back into the car so James could drive them to their cabin. It was a small rental unit, only two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen, but it would suit their needs for the next several days.

They passed the evening uneventfully, walking arm in arm around the campground before retreating back to their cabin to make dinner with the food they’d packed. When the sun had set, they bundled up against the cool December air and went outside to sit on the porch swing. The air wasn’t unbearably bitter, but it did have a crisp sting to it that was made manageable with hats and gloves and, of course, a good cuddle.

James wrapped an arm around Rose and tucked her in to his side, enjoying the feel of her next to him. She turned her body into his, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his middle.

He rocked the swing slowly, using only the tips of his toes and heels. The motion was soothing, and managed to calm his sudden rush of nerves. The small velvet box that contained a small platinum ring seemed to weigh a ton in his coat pocket, where it had been resting all day.

The elation he’d felt when buying it hadn’t gone away, but nerves had cropped up too. He was fairly certain Rose would say yes, so he didn’t know why he was so anxious. Nevertheless, he was. And what was even more terrifying was finding a way to ask her. Surely he couldn’t simply blurt out, “Hey, so I was thinking… d’you want to get married?”

Soft, warm lips grazed his jaw. He hummed and looked down.

“Penny for ‘em,” Rose said gently, giving his waist a small squeeze.

“Oh, just thinking.”

“Obviously,” she said, sticking her tongue out as she grinned.

He rolled his eyes, then rested his cheek on top of her plum-colored beanie.

“I was just thinking… tomorrow’s one of my favorite days of the year.”

“Mmm,” she agreed, and he could hear the impish grin when she said, “It’s the day we went from study buddies to fuck buddies.”

He choked on a laugh.

That wasn’t quite true. Tomorrow was the anniversary of their first kiss, and the day they entered into their relationship. Becoming Rose’s boyfriend had been the best thing to ever happen to him. If he’d thought their first kiss had been brilliant—and oh, it had been brilliant—it was nothing compared to the rest of their courtship.

If he thought he had loved her when he’d first confessed his feelings to her, that was a mere drop in the ocean to what was in his heart now. He and Rose had grown even closer over the last two years as they fumbled their way through dating. The first few months had passed by like a dream as they spent nearly every waking (and sleeping) moment together. They’d gone on dates, told each other every little trivial fact about their lives, and started exploring a physical relationship.

Despite his inexperience, he’d caught on quickly and, to his unending relief, had not made a complete fool of himself the first time he and Rose had made love. It was slow and tender, full of laughing and teasing, and so perfectly them. Their ardor and desire hadn’t cooled a degree in the past year and a half; he desired Rose as much as he did their first night together.

Even when the high of a new relationship had worn off, the magic was still there. Even if some days were harder than others.

James’s stomach hurt when he remembered the strained month when Rose had hidden the fact that she’d been in communication with her ex-boyfriend, Jimmy. As it turned out, she had only been talking to him to repeatedly let him know that she was never coming home and that she wanted nothing to do with him. But James hadn’t known that, and he’d thrown some awful accusations at her, which led her to throwing some back at him. After spending two days apart, they came together and cleared the air, shedding many tears interspersed with apologies and affirmations of their never-ending love for each other.

That had happened just a few months in to their relationship and was one of their worst argument to date. But they’d made it through together and came out stronger on the other side.

Of course, they'd had disagreements and arguments since then, but nothing that a deep breath and a calm conversation couldn't sort through. More recently, however, some hiccups had arisen earlier in the month when James began receiving acceptance letters from the various graduate programs he’d applied to. Now that he had a stack of acceptance letters to sift through, it was becoming all too real that, come next August, he would be moving away from Rose for at least a year, until she graduated and decided if she wanted to join him in whatever city he ended up.

However, his wonderful, brilliant, compassionate Rose had reassured him that there was not a distance long enough that would ever make her stop loving him. The confidence and vehemence in her declaration had made him fall in love with her all over again. And, incidentally, had been the catalyst he’d needed to pull the trigger on the engagement ring he’d had his eye on for months.

 “Hey.” James was abruptly jarred back to the present when Rose knocked her elbow into his ribs. “I’m just teasing.”

“No, I know,” he answered quickly. “I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

And here he was, back to wondering how the hell he was supposed to ask the love of his life to become his wife.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rose offered. “Are you worried about grad school? Because you know that we’ll make it work, no matter where you decide to go. We’ll always be all right, you and me.”

He exhaled, his breath clouding in front of him, and he kissed the top of her head. “I know.”

“Always remember that I love you more than anything, James,” she said quietly, but the weight of her words resounded into his very soul. “I love you more now than I did two years ago. I fall in love with you a little more every day we spend together.”

“So you didn’t fall in love with me during that week I spent at a conference in California?”

She smacked his chest. “You arse.”

He giggled, and suddenly he didn’t feel nearly as terrified anymore. Leave it to Rose to manage to calm him down when she didn’t even realize he was panicking.

They lapsed back into a comfortable silence, rocking together on the porch, until a few minutes later, Rose squealed. “Ooh, shooting star!”

James looked up and scanned the skies in the general vicinity she was pointing to. He finally saw the fading streak of light disappear into the darkness. He looked down at her and saw she had her eyes closed in concentration.

A moment later, they popped open.

“Did you make a wish?” she asked, snuggling back into his side. Even though he hadn’t, he nodded. “What’d you wish for? Unless you’re worried it won’t come true.”

His mouth went a little dry as a knot clenched in his belly. This had been the opening he’d been praying for all night.

He swallowed, buying himself time to figure out what, exactly, he wanted to say to her.

“I wished for a hundred more years like the last two we’ve had,” he whispered into her ear, slowly worming the hand not holding her into his coat pocket. “I wished I would always fall asleep and wake up beside you.” He managed to one-handedly remove his glove inside his pocket, then grabbed the velvet box with trembling fingers. “I wished to love you and be loved by you forever.” He took the box out of his hand, flipped it open, and held it out in front of Rose. She gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. “But more than anything… I wished to become your husband, and that you’d become my wife.”

James pressed a hard kiss to the side of her head, then let go of her so he could slide off the swing and kneel before her. Tears glistened in her eyes, lining them with silver as he looked up at her, trying to slow his heartbeat. It was thudding in his ears, making him a little dizzy.

Rose was staring at the sapphire and diamond ring nestled into the silk padding of the box. Her gaze kept darting between his face and the ring and back again.

“I don’t think you can have that many wishes on one shooting star,” she said faintly, but she was wearing that teasing grin he loved so much.

“Well, I figure we’d see more than one this weekend,” he drawled, trying to not panic that she hadn’t yet given him an answer. “I’ll cash them in later. So what’d’you say, Rose Tyler? Will you do me the extraordinary honor of marrying me?”

A little sob bubbled up her throat, and suddenly she was in his arms. She’d launched herself off the swing to crash into him, her arms wrapping around his neck as she hugged him hard enough to almost be uncomfortable. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

He exhaled a shuddering breath, and then he was hugging her as tightly as she was hugging him. He buried his face into her neck, his eyes prickling with emotion. Love, relief, more love, and a pure, unending joy.

Rose pulled back first, her eyes red and puffy and her cheeks wet with tears. It made him feel better about the moisture he could feel burning behind his eyes. She sniffled, then broke into tiny, beaming giggles, and he couldn’t help but echo the sound.

They were soon laughing somewhat hysterically on the front porch of a rural, northern Pennsylvanian cabin in the middle of the night as a cold December wind picked up around them. But James didn’t feel the chill, not when he was the happiest, luckiest person on Earth.

“I love you,” he said, brushing a strand of her hair away from her face where it got caught at the corner of her mouth. “So much, Rose.”

“I love you, too,” she replied. She ripped off her gloves and shoved them into the pockets of her jacket, then wiggled the fingers of her left hand. “Put it on me?”

He did. The fit was perfect, and Rose cooed in admiration at the beautiful ring adorning her finger.

“This is so perfect,” she sighed. “How did you know that this is exactly what I would love?”

“I creeped on your Pinterest account,” he admitted sheepishly.

Rose burst out laughing, but she continued holding her hand out in front of her, admiring the way the porch light shimmered off the gemstones.

“I love it,” she said, turning her head to look at him. “I love it.”

“I’m glad.” He leaned forward to brush a kiss to her cheek.

His lips glided down her jaw before skating over to cover hers. She parted her lips for him automatically and tilted her head to the side to free up their noses. He sighed against her mouth and wrapped one arm around her shoulders as his other went to her hair. His fingers met with her hat instead, making Rose grin.

He yanked her hat off and dropped it to the side so he could twine his fingers through the silky strands of her hair. She groaned when he scraped his fingernails across her scalp.

“I love you,” he murmured between frantic kisses. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she panted when he pulled her head back gently to give attention to her neck. Her hands went to his hair—he’d somehow lost his hat, too—keeping him where he was as he bit and licked and sucked at her neck. “Forever.”

“Forever,” he agreed, latching his mouth to the corner of her neck and shoulder.

She shuddered in his arms, but he couldn’t tell if it was from arousal or the cold. A steady breeze had picked up and was biting through their clothes.

“Want to go inside?” he mumbled into her skin.

“Yes please,” Rose gasped, arching into his touch and gripping his hair tighter when he nipped her again.

James chuckled, then planted a parting kiss to the red mark he’d been making on her neck. After pushing himself to his feet, he reached down and helped Rose stand, then he guided her inside the bright, warm cabin.

The End