#and he was like I will write a song about a fictional human woman who’s Like That

[maddie-grove]

My most irrational pop music theory is that “Killer Queen” by Queen is about a pet cat.

[eowynstwin]

returning for more book recs cause I eat your recommendations up like communion bread in an attempt to save me

Be saved my child

Also I’m going to deviate from the norm and recommend some manga, please don’t draw and quarter me I was a weeb in a past life

Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan is a relatively easy book to read that nonetheless made me cry several times as a child. After the sudden death of her domineering grandmother, a young girl discovers she has family raising horses in the west, which she has always dreamed of.

A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori is a slice of life historical epic centered around both the daily life and marriage practices of Turkic Central Asia. This manga is meticulously researched and FABULOUSLY drawn. Mori is the kind of artist you only see once in a generation. I worship at her feet.

Emma also by Kaoru Mori is another work of historical fiction, this time set in England during the late Victorian period (my beloved). It follows a maid who falls in love with the son of a social climbing nouveau riche family, interspersed again with depictions of daily life of the time period.

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan is a collection of feminist essays that follow the rise and dispersion of the incel movement, particularly the multi murder-suicide of Elliot Rodger. Amia explores the sexual expectations of heterosexual culture and interrogates the scripts set up that facilitate it. General trigger warning for discussions of rape and misogyny.

Second Place by Rachel Cusk is a short work of lit fic about a woman’s emotional affair with an artist who hates her. That’s kind of the best way I can describe it but it’s also about motherhood, marriage, solitude, loneliness, Covid lockdown (tangentially), and old age. The narrator invites a painter she admires to take residence in a cottage on her property for a season, and things don’t go well.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is part memoir part letter to his mother reminiscing on the childhood he shared with her. Ocean’s mother cannot read, and thus this letter divulges far more about Ocean’s life than he might ever actually tell her. He relates his experience growing up in poverty as a gay Vietnamese immigrant with two women marked permanently by the aftereffects of the Vietnam war.

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong is his second poetry collection which follows the death of his mother. Vuong explores the relationship of writing and grief, and honestly I have a hard time summarizing any poetry collection because I’m only an amateur poetry enthusiast. Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker and Dear T hit especially hard if you’ve read the book I recommend above.

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson is a novel in verse reimagining the myth of Geryon and Hercules as the bildungsroman of Geryon, who falls in love, or the closest thing to it, with Hercules as a young man and meets him later in life only to be disillusioned about who he’s become. Not to be irreverent but this is the best mslash lovers to strangers fanfictiony Greek retelling I’ve ever read. Song of Achilles eat your heart out. (I’m reading the “sequel” red doc> right now but I’m not finished with it yet.)

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers on the surface is a solarpunk novella set on a world fully recovered from its Industrial Revolution, but in actuality it explores dissatisfaction with life even in the closest thing we could ever get to a utopia. A monk named Dex realizes they are no longer happy in their profession and strikes out to serve tea in the countryside, and meets a robot from the forest who wants to know if humanity needs anything. A very kind book.

I have a few others in mind but I want to recommend them specifically alongside various fic series. Hope you enjoy these!

[justforbooks]

Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera

This frustrating novella by a star of global fiction imagines the formative years of Mexico’s first Indigenous president, exiled to New Orleans in the 1850s

Every novel by Yuri Herrera teaches you how to read it in the opening scene. His debut, Kingdom Cons, begins with a musician watching a king shoot a drunk man in his court. The victim’s offence? He refused to pay the musician for his song. The novel unfurls into a parable of patronage and art, cartels and complicity. Signs Preceding the End of the World opens with a young woman named Makina witnessing a sinkhole swallow a man, a car and a dog. I’m dead, Makina thinks, and the novel plunges into a journey from Mexico to the United States to find her brother, its chapters modelled on the underworlds of Mexican mythology. The Transmigration of Bodies starts with a hungover man stumbling out of his house in search of water. He notices the silence first, then “a dense block of mosquitos tethering themselves to a puddle … as though attempting to lift it”. The puddle is blood, and the silence is death. A plague has arrived in the night.

Like his previous novellas, Season of the Swamp follows a nimble, reluctant interloper as he learns to navigate a dangerous new environment. It also calibrates our attention in the opening scene, but even before teaching us how to read it, this novel teaches us why to read it. In a preface, Herrera writes: “1853. Benito Juárez has served as a judge, deputy, and governor of the state of Oaxaca. But he has yet to become the man who will lead his country’s liberal reform, first as minister and then as president, and he is certainly not the hardheaded visionary who will lead the resistance against France’s invasion of Mexico and restore the republic.” In his autobiography, “Juárez says not a word about his nearly eighteen months in New Orleans … despite the fact that it is there he evolved into the liberal leader who would transform the trajectory of his country”. Benito Juárez, orphaned at the age of three, would one day become Mexico’s first Indigenous president, prying his country back from the vice-like grip of the aristocracy and the Catholic church. Biographers agree that his exile in New Orleans was formative, but no one knows what, exactly, happened there. Who could bring this story to life better than Herrera? A novelist of unparalleled tonal agility and negative capability, one with a passion for archival research, who has split his time between Pachuca, his home town, and New Orleans for the past 13 years.

Like his previous novellas, this one begins with its protagonist witnessing violence. Benito and his brother-in-law watch “badges” (policemen) drag an enslaved man from a ship, thwarting an escape. The badges club the man and order him to drop the compass he’s cradling to his chest. Herrera wrote much of Season of the Swamp during pre-vaccination Covid-19, and when I read these lines, I can see the white officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, killing him on a public, daylit street as he asked for his mother. Season of the Swamp is about the galvanising power of witnessing. It’s about a revolutionary finding his compass. It also, unfortunately, suffers from an uncharacteristic, unignorable vagueness: vagueness of syntax, character and scope.

Benito and his fellow exiles spend the book wandering Herrera’s meticulously researched reconstruction of 1853 New Orleans. They witness bear fights, poor sewage systems, operas, dead bodies, sex work, duelling pianos, horse races, public executions and numerous parades. They find and lose housing, get drunk, discuss politics. Benito finds work at a printing press, then a cigar shop. He becomes infatuated with a Black woman named Thisbee who sells the best coffee in town. Her true vocation, however, is helping enslaved people escape to freedom. Benito befriends the Cuban poet Pedro Santacilia, who takes him on a harrowing tour of a market that sells human beings. New Orleans was the epicentre of the United States slave trade, and Herrera animates Benito’s experience with factual details of slavery’s daily horrors. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1837 – 16 years before the real Benito Juárez arrived in New Orleans – and the novel suggests that it was his encounter with the American slave trade, above all, that transformed Benito into the leader he became.

Herrera’s exceptional sensitivity to language, penchant for neologisms, ear for regional dialects and dexterous shifts in register make him uniquely challenging to translate. Fortunately, Lisa Dillman has risen to every occasion, brilliantly sailing all of Herrera’s work into English. While she has described him as “astonishingly hands-off”, their dynamic is more collaborative than most; Herrera is fluent in English, and the two maintain an open channel of communication as she works. Despite his propulsive plots, I don’t read his work to find out what happens, but to find out how he (and Dillman) will describe it.

The thick linguistic fog of Season of the Swamp is therefore aberrant. The English translation keeps Benito unnamed, referring to him only as he and him, which is especially confusing in a novel with a large cast of men and very few women. In addition to the pronoun slippage, the diction of the novel can be disorienting. Season of the Swamp is cluttered with the vague syntax of a rough draft, paired with culturally and temporally dissonant phrases. I delight in thoughtful anachronism, but it was jarring to encounter an abundance of contemporary American vernacular. Often, I felt I was watching a McDonald’s bag tumble-weed on to the set of a period drama. When semantic haziness obscures characterisation, the damage is more consequential. Season of the Swamp instructs us to read Benito’s inner life as the stage of its primary drama. Unfortunately, very little is visible in this theatre. When we meet him, Benito is 47 years old and he has already made a political impact substantial enough to get him exiled. In place of an interior life, however, we find notes toward an interior life. Even his encounters with the kidnapping and sale of human beings are rendered in bizarrely flat language; from both Juárez and Herrera, I longed for more than prosaic reflections on the general badness of slavery.

As I tried to identify the fundamental software bug of this novel, I kept returning to the opening of the second chapter, a curious cascade of language: “The most pivotal thing to happen in the weeks that followed was the drumming; no, the most pivotal thing in the weeks that followed was the dances; no, the most pivotal thing in the weeks that followed was the concerts; no, in a way it was kind of the hippodrome, which was fun and also pivotal though in another way …” Further candidates for most pivotal thing to happen in the weeks that followed include the “inner courtyard”, meeting “the canaille”, learning “what funk was”, and “more or less” figuring out “what Thisbee might or might not have done”. On my first read, I read this as an unsuccessful form of linguistic play. By my fourth reading, however, its rapid descent into absurdity began to register as the author’s confrontation – conscious or not – with the formula he has chosen. He decided to write a novel about a chrysalis of time in which a regular man transforms into a Great Man. But what if he fundamentally rejects the Great Man trope of history? What if Herrera – who chose to write about a leader’s pivotal months in exile – rejects the most pivotal thing as an organising force of identity and narrative? The opening of the second chapter seems to say: look how ridiculous this formula is. From the start, it was clear to me that both Herrera and Benito are too interesting to collapse 18 months into three-act structures, tidy conclusions, lessons learned. Regrettably, Herrera never offers an effective alternative. The novel was built on sand. Or perhaps more accurately: on a swamp.

Compared with his previous work, Season of the Swamp reads like notes toward a novel rather than a final manuscript. It is distracted, muddled with placeholders, declaring its purpose every few chapters while desperately searching for one. It is my love for his work – along with Dillman’s delicate, adept translations – that forces me to notice the perfunctory nature of this novel. Herrera’s rough drafts are better than most people’s final drafts, and many descriptions within this book – of languages and crowds, music and ecosystems, tenderness and violence – sing. Perhaps it is unfair to hold a genius to his own standards, but Herrera is a sublime astrological event that will never again occur in my lifetime. I can’t hide my disappointment when he behaves like an average star.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[jamiesfootball]

Please tell us more about your original works!!

Honest to God, I was thinking of your stories earlier today and thought how lucky we are you spend any time writing fan fiction (and for the show that is my hyper fixation! How did I get this lucky?) because you’re so fucking talented you should writing real books.

you are always far far nicer to me than i deserve and I LOVE IT! (I LOVE YOU!!)

The wonderful thing about fanfiction is that writing for Ted Lasso has full-on cured my years-long writing slump. And I am looking at all of these book ideas, some of which have been kicking around in my brain for going on 10 years, and i'm like....yeah, yeah. I am going to work on those :D

So these are the ones I'm working on. They are in various states of progress.

My Babies! If any of these are getting finished first, it will be one of these three!

Barnacle - the placeholder name for my DETECTIVE STORY. A woman who has recently left a troubled marriage, our main character is a shell of the person she used to be. Wanting to put as much distance between her and the California life she left behind, she's rented a cabin in the middle of a small tourist town in the northern cold. When a man in the neighboring cabin is murdered during the night, she finds her mind stirred to action as the pieces of herself that she thought lost slowly come back to her. (And then she becomes a private investigator because I love detective stories and she solves crimes and makes friends and this is just the first one and I'm like. super excited about it.)

A Robot Named Future - this one is my long-brewing wip. It's about an AI robot from the not-to-distant future that gets rebooted ('wakes up') in a junkyard the very far distant future. Lots of scifi tropes, lots about the erosion of history and humans always being humans, and of course, food. Like a lot about food in this one.

Chasing Whispers in the Canyon (Western (sort of)) - Injured and AWOL military soldier Joanna is on the brink of death in the middle of the desert when she is saved by a tall, pale stranger. Her and the stranger -- an offputting, odd woman who's absolutely lethal with a pistol - hunker down together in a small town that seems on the verge of its own small war. When trouble comes for Joanna, the stranger risks drawing the attention of her own complicated past to save the woman who is possibly her only friend. (yes, the placeholder title is a song title. One song spurred all of this. I regret nothing)

The ones I'll get to one day!

Boots and Babes on the Boardwalk - I don't know why I titled it this way other than the alliteration (needs a new title). This one is about a partially closeted, mentally ill, middle aged gay man who's running his conservaative family's shady business. He just fell head over heels about another man, and that's serving as an impetus for him to actually look at his life. On temporary hiatus because the plot is a little wobbly

The Lens - Guy who recently went blind and had to drop out of an art program accompanies his still-seeing friend to a museum exhibit. Due to the awkward tension their circumstances have put between them, neither notices when his friend proceeds to lose the camera equipment he'd checked out from campus. With the museum closing in an hour and his friend's final grades on the line, these two piece together where in the museum his friend lost his camera. (this one is more like a novella or a long short story)

The Hoard - One night. One party. Five thieves. One pile of dragon treasure. (Think leverage but the treasure they are stealing belongs to a corrupt government via dragons).

Hawaiian Shirts and Bruised Eyes - A butch, lesbian stuntwoman who broke her arm on a motorcycle meets a nurse at the hospital who may just be the love of her life. The love of her life may also be a serial killer. It's hard to say.

The Frog Witch - vengeful disgraced witch lady seeks revenge against the people who wronged her with the help of a prince who has been cast out from his people. References to Euripedes' Medea.

[synthient]

Straight from my notes app to you: Devil's Chord rewatch commentary

• Door behind Maestro looks like the tardis

• That's my daddy -> mother father and other of us all

• Is the tardis a he/she/they/any?

• Maestro as the tardis's harbinger + H Arbinger disappearing when his song is sung?

• Is the tardis also an absent/abandoning parent to her children? Or are they just manifestations of her?

• Maestro plays the theme song. Cut to the intro, which the tardis is the active "host" of: her light is the first thing we see, she brings the actors' names on screen, she's the star of the action shots. Cut to the tardis playing the theme song on her jukebox

• Is the embittered musician who never got his break and had to go into teaching a mirror for someone? What about art as an expression of Beethoven's rage at impending deafness? "All the songs you never sung, wrapped around your heart"?

• Ruby's a musician and composer, but doesn't (yet) fit the bill. The Doctor is a musician and a teacher. That's all I've got so far

• The Doctor treating Ruby like an equal, not making fun of her Beatles idea like she thought he would, allowing himself girlish boyband whimsy over the masculine seriousness of the titantic etc - "why haven't I ever done that before???"

• Music/art as a comforting reminder of her mom's girlfriend who's presumably not in her life anymore

• Giggling and squealing and holding hands as they run to the makeover room

• The obvious "I've got a dog, he's not dead" foreshadowing. But also - the tardis isn't actually all that great at songwriting (or storytelling)? Their faces falling as they expected something good but got a lackluster song (finale)?

• Going back a bit - H Arbinger moving around on the page + the Chris Waites billboard near the end + Sue Tech + Bad Wolf + her penchant for writing words and wordplay across time and space

• The Doctor's suit in this is also a lil bit of a tardis disneybound, if that means anything

• "I love you, you love me, we are two, we are not three, we're happy, I think, perhaps" - commentary on the Doctor-tardis relationship?

• "Music is the highest form of thought" + "sonic" + all her psychic stuff

• Music is her domain, even if she doesn't totally "get" the human aesthetic expectations?

• Their first direct Susan interaction (since Isaac Newton) - "that's daylight robbery!" "that's me. Maragaret Lockwood in The Wicked Lady. Now there was a woman. Statuesque."

• The tardis faceclaiming? Tardis lesbian moment? What's the plot anyway

• "In 17th-century England, Barbara Worth (Margaret Lockwood) lives a privileged yet humdrum life as the wife of well-heeled landowner Sir Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones). To stave off boredom, Barbara begins impersonating famed highway robber Capt. Jerry Jackson, stealing precious jewels and valuables from coach passengers. A chance encounter with the actual Jackson (James Mason) propels Barbara into a dangerous double life with potentially lethal consequences."

• The tardis starts living a double life as a villain to stave off boredom?

• People have been giving up music (art, fiction) because they think it's childish and embarrassing. "But Paul, when it's just you on your own, don't you think there must be better songs? Songs that lift you, and devastate you, and make you soar. Songs that are tucked away, somewhere, in secret at the back of your mind."

• "That's all I want. Leave this life, and go home to a woman of my own. Then why do I wake up crying?"

• (Both life without art + heteronormativity?)

• Putting notes (words) together "feels like the most holy thing on this earth"

• Paul starts to sing "words straight from my heart." "I love you, so much" (the thing the Doctor couldn't say to Ruby). Everyone's heads whip around. The Doctor drops a spoon (spoon lady?) Maestro appearing in all the mirrored surfaces and laughing

• The Doctor needs to embrace the embarrassing childishness of both fiction & direct expressions of love?

• Something in all this about Clara's Song, as the closest he was able to get to a love declaration in that relationship

• "You know what you are with your ideas, pal? Disgusting. You are disgusting!" Definitely something here about music and homophobia. Hashtag beatles yaoi

• The midsentence jump of "the world is darkening - I live over there."

• The Doctor suddenly bringing up Susan. This all playing out in the time period where he lived with Susan. His failure to tell Susan he loved her, to take part in her whimsical girlish interests without making fun of her, to stop repressing himself enough to find their common ground?

• "You have children?" "I did have. I will have." Starts to say what I think is the truth, then corrects

• The Doctor casually saying that she might be dead, then laughing through Ruby's attempt to hug and comfort him

• Thought the Doctor was holding a spoon at the piano, but it was actually his screwdriver. Which looks a little like a spoon this season?

• The Doctor revealing that he was watching Ruby perform before she knew him + the tardis possibly shaping her into a companion

• "I wrote this for my friend Trudy when a girl broke her heart." More music/art as love, gay love, and a memory of the people we loved who are no longer in our lives

• Ruby playing her own theme, like the Doctor played Clara's theme and Maestro and the tardis played the theme song

• The songs "locked up in your heart. So tight" for the opening musician also have some homophobic repression vibes

• Ruby playing her song (for the loved no longer in our lives) while the Doctor looks out at the city (where Susan is)

• And doing his Nine Slaying Off In The Corner pose

• The Doctor is instinctively scared of Maestro/the pantheon in a similar way to the boogeyman. "Why was I so scared? I love an ugly bug. I am an ugly bug."

• Fear of the pantheon/boogeymen as internalized loathing/shame? Maestro being a They specifically?

• The Doctor uses his screwdriver as a tv remote to turn off the sound

• Maestro undoes it by putting their tuning fork in a puddle (Bill's puddle ghost gf callback?)

• "Sound and vision" [looks right at the audience]

• The Toymaker "tore my soul in half. I can't survive that again." The Doctor being "torn in half" by confrontations with the pantheon (his self loathing?). Play and music as Doctor attributes

• "I'm sorry. But the power of these creatures [the things I fear about myself] is so vast that the whole world could slide into the pit"

• "Doctor. I know you're clever, and all that. But the world did not end in 1963" (when you abandoned Susan)

• So the Doctor has to prove her wrong by showing her that her life & loved ones are in ruins/irrecoverable too. Like he did for Rose when he took her to the end of earth, and like he tries to do by discouraging Ruby from speaking to her birth mom

• He lets her walk outside by himself, while he waits clutching the console with his eyes closed

• Snow Spotted (natural?)

• "Where's my mum?" (are you my mummy?)

• "I think without music, the human race goes sour. Without any way of expressing a broken heart, they'll go to war without even knowing why."

• Did the Doctor go to war because he didn't have any way of expressing a broken heart?

• "Then why am I still alive? Why don't I fade away?" "Because of me." Harry Arbinger, fading away. The tardis, looming behind them

• Ashes + snow + the dust of death

• Maestro says boo, the spotlights come on, the world fades away. Like the Rogue dance?

• The "daddy was so mean" thing seems relevant somehow

• So much Tardis Looming this season. Is there always this much tardis looming? Lot of her in dark colors & big & at the center of the frame

• "Every song that goes unsung feeds me. I get stronger and stronger." Self loathing and the unexpressed

• "Aeolian tones across the whole of creation. And that lament [bows] will be my symphony supreme." The tardis and her grand finale

• How did Maestro get into this world? "A genius. A single silly man..." 👉 the Doctor

• I've heard people say Maestro plays the "Saxon theme" here (I think more for the 4 beat rhythm than the melody?). It also actively freaks the tardis out and makes her start flickering. tbt her growling at Rogue

• The Doctor assumes Maestro is controlling the tardis, like he'll assume Sutehk is controlling the tardis

• The tardis will only let him go back to 1963 (where Susan is)

• He kisses the tardis while whispering "I'm sorry I'm sorry" and (odder?) "don't hate me"

• She growls at them as they leave

• They keep doing dutch angles for some reason

• In a crisis, he falls back on old habits and underestimates Ruby (assumes he must be the genius who can bring back music and not her)

• The guitar as throwback to 12

• The infamous "I thought that was nondiagetic"

• And the infamous "hidden song deep inside her soul," which I still think is the tardis trying to make Ruby a mystery. But how much does Maestro (consciously) know about that? To what exent are they their own person? Do they know who the "mother and father and other of us all" is?

• "This creature is very wrong" + the songs for lovesick lesbians. Music homophobia strikes again

• Something about pianos in this ep as tardis analog? The Doctor assuming the beatles' piano, a machine used for great things (and by his friend Mrs. Mills), has some ambient energy that makes it the key to saving the world. Ruby's "How could they be inside the piano? It wouldn't work!" and the illogic of Sutehk and the tardis. Maestro's piano suit (and blue suit in this scene, matching the Doctor's disneybound)

• Ruby pushes in for a piano duet (collaborative art instead of lone genius)

• "Are you enough of a genius?" "Oh, I would never call myself that Maestro [yeah he would lol]. But I have lived. And I have loved. And I can only smile like this because I have lost so much. And if that's where music comes from...I can find the chord to banish you."

• But he can't (because he hasn't expressed his love and faced his loss?)

• Ruby has a small reaction where she looks like she wants to add a note, but restrains herself. Failed because it wasn't collaborative? The beatles yaoi succeeds because they were?

• Doctor gets trapped in a drum (the Master instrument). idk if there's any significance to Ruby getting trapped in a cello and/or bass

• The door between them and the beatles also kind of has the tardis windows/silhouette. But I might just be having door pareidolia now

• Beatle has a flashback to "I just wanna go home." "But we need you!" "Why? I'm no good at anything." Doctor mirroring/twice upon a time vibes

• And then Maestro gets sucked into the piano (our possible tardis instrument) while warning them about the one who waits (the tardis)

• There's Always A Twist At The End (and have we like. meaningfully gotten one yet)

• (Don't think I can blame this song being mid on the tardis though)

• Tardis prominently in the shot as the crosswalk lets them play giant piano

• Final shot: piano notes as we zoom in on the tardis and her door shuts. And then opens and shuts a second time, by itself, for emphasis

[mcalhenwrites]

Cal's original fiction writing list

Rascal Rascal With a stressful job as the breadwinner of the household, Hazel unwinds at home by surrendering control to his trustworthy partner, Ferdinand. The youngest "Raston Rascal" is under pressure to follow in his father's footsteps. It includes everything from his job to his hobbies to his lifestyle choices. But when there's a new airship being built, one that the Rastons have invested in, Hazel finds a growing interest in the vessel for all the wrong reasons. Rascal Short Stories: Ravish Him Hazel Raston might have been a little drunk when he first spotted Ferdinand Aletto standing by the nearest exit of the dormitory common room. So drunk, in fact, that he snagged Sinclair’s sleeve and hissed much too loudly in his ear, “Who is he? I want to ravish him.” Specifically, Hazel wanted to rip the stranger’s buttons off his shirt with his teeth and lick his chest down to his navel until he had his cock in his mouth. Ungrateful Little Princeling The first time Hazel is ever called an Ungrateful Little Princeling. The insult follows him into adulthood, as do the unpleasant memories. Eda, Darling After her lawyers contact Willie, Edith Anne goes home to face her future ex-husband. Woeful Spring Colds Ferdinand can always count on Hazel to take care of him when he has a cold. In turn, Hazel can count on Ferdinand to paint his ass red whenever they're no longer sick. A year spent together, as always Ferdinand and Hazel are content to spend a lifetime together - even other lifetimes, if permitted. A collection of monthly prompt oneshots from Year of the OTP. all to see you smile Hazel/Ferdinand consensual whipping boy AU. Seasons Seasons Howie Liddell and his siblings are born from wishes their father made during different seasons. But as the years pass, and Howie realizes no one in his family is aging, questions arise. It has been almost two centuries since Howie was born from the first fallen leaf of autumn. His fathers continue to raise Howie and his brothers as if they were small children. When a strange woman starts to appear, mysteries about their past begin coming to light. Seasons Short Stories: Summer in Snow The cruel words and treatment chase Shannon away from home, but the person who mistreats him is the one to bring him back when he runs. Stolen Summer Songs Human babies aren't usually born from cicada shells, but this child isn't human. There are no guides for how to parent a Season, and the fathers are left to wonder exactly how to keep their child alive. The Unfinished Gift We know about the rattan cane. We’ve seen it several times. He’s threatened us numerous times with it, fetching it on occasion to send it whooshing down through air. Something to give us a sense of the impact it would have on our hides were it to land. It is always returned to the umbrella stand afterward. I don’t think he plans to wag it around as a warning this time. Summer's Storm Despair sweeps through me like howling wind. My arms ache as if fighting against the gale, and only then do I realize it’s not an emotion but a physical sensation against my skin. My magic has responded to my grief. Above me, storm clouds brew. The village boys glance up, appalled by the sudden change in the weather. They yell at one another. I can’t make out their words. Only their sense of panic. How to Love When he's little, his parents mean the world to him.But he doesn't mean the world to them.

Geckos, Automata Short Stories: Dancing Bones A glimpse into Julian's growing relationship with necromancy in his youth. Don't Julian's pleas are always silent, but one day, a stranger speaks up for him and says the words he can't. Stand-alone Short Stories: Umbrella Spider A spider with umbrellas for legs helps the local humans stay dry in bad weather, but they aren't always so kind to him. Train Cats A city with a unique tourist attraction: giant cats roam freely, and the citizens accommodate them. The Sky Market A grandmother falls in love with the woman selling crafts. Sanctuary A group of werewolves takes in and raises an abused little girl. Mish's Dolls Every doll Mish crochets and adds a heart to comes alive. Bridge of Affinity Two young girls - one a monster and the other a human - bond over their shared love of stationary and cats. Audra Grief can be consuming, but it helps when you're visited by a cat who can heal people's hearts.

[isobelleposts]

What I’ve Been Watching This Year

by Isobelle Cruz [April 13, 2023]

March has passed and I figure it’s too late to follow through with a post on the female directors I love, so instead, here’s a short list of the shows and films I’ve been watching this year in no specific order.

Beef (2023)

Directed by Lee Sung Jin

My most recent and favorite watch…lo and behold, Beef. A show about two extremely vulnerable and flawed people masking themselves through pride and borderline pettiness. Beef has it all from road rage, heist, and arson, to child abduction.

The Netflix Original starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeung features some of the most lonely characters I’ve seen on film. Danny Cho is a struggling self-proclaimed contractor that works every opportunity he’s given to keep him and his brother afloat while also standing by his promise to buy their parents a house in Los Angeles. With all of that weight at hand, Danny resorts to attempts at suicide and at the perfect time, meets Amy Lau—a woman just as lonely, struggling, and desperate at life as Danny.

But I promise you, it is not as touching as I made it out to be.

Danny and Amy take turns attacking each other after a road rage incident—pissing in Amy’s bathroom floor, vandalizing Danny’s truck, breaking into her house, fucking his brother, kidnapping her daughter—it never seems to end. … Until it does, in the middle of nowhere. The final episode of Danny and Amy in the Deserts reminded me of animals in the wild, a representation of what humans are in the grand scheme of it all. Beef is a must-watch for the hot-tempered, prideful Asians out there who are looking to see themselves on screen

Aftersun (2022)

Directed by Charlotte Wells

Aftersun was an experience. It was uneventful yet somehow spoke so much to me about the joys I’ve been holding myself back from and continue to do. I’d say that Aftersun is so well-loved because of how much it’s able to connect with its audience, despite their varying experiences in life.

It reminded me so much of a trip I had gone on with my father when I was about the same age as Sophie. It’s happened, it’s passed, and I can’t say it really made a drastic impact on my life. But it was there. It is now a memory—which is exactly what the film was. Instead of showing a major turning point in the protagonist’s life, it showed a memory, and it was enough for me to love.

Daisy Jones & the Six (2023)

Directed by James Ponsoldt, Nzingha Stewart, and Will Graham

Let me start off by saying how rich the production for Daisy Jones & the Six was, firstly through their music. I still remember when I first got my hands on the book and searched the band on Spotify, knowing very well that no results would come up, but now there they are—-with 3 million monthly listeners and 24 songs released.

Although the production and marketing went beyond my expectations, the writing seemed to lack, unable to show depth and establish the characters’ relationships with each other. The show went straight to the point, as though the writers had been scared of losing the audience’s attention by putting more focus on the little things, which I would doubt. It lacked the craziness that was found in the book. It lacked the drugs, women, fans, and the skyrocketing feel of their career that were always present in Reed’s works.

Nonetheless, these things never dragged down my rating of the show. It was interesting to finally see what Daisy and Billy’s chemistry looked like on screen and hear their lyrics come to life, which were, oh, so difficult to read on paper. Amazon Prime did its job to reach DJATS fans’ expectations and to entertain newcomers to the fictional band. — Let’s just hope Netflix does the same for Evelyn Hugo.

Suzume (2023)

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

My first anime experience in the cinema. Suzume’s soundtrack blasting from the speakers and Makoto Shinkai’s breathtaking art displayed before me brought this urge to jump through the screen. The atmosphere his art carried through the room was something I wish I could do with my own works.

Throughout the whole watch, it didn’t come to me that this was a love story between two people. There was that obvious crush Suzume had on Sōta, but it surprises me to hear a few people refer to this film as romance. It was moreover an emotional adventure, shining light on the lost souls that have made inches of the world alive.

My favorite scene, before Sōta is turned into a keystone, wherein Tokyo is shown in slow-motion with people going through their everyday lives—eating, shopping, and commuting–-while not knowing their world was on the brink of end, made me ponder of the unseen things that make life the way it is. Everything that has brought everyone to where they are.

There had been times when Suzume and Sōta would prepare to lock up a door once again and I’d think to myself, when will this end? It was as though listening to a song that would repeat the same line over and over again, but besides that, the pacing was captivating---had my eyes stuck to the screen the whole time.

Suzume is exactly what you would expect from Makoto Shinkai. Beautiful art, music, and an okay story.

Babylon (2023)

Directed by Damien Chazelle

Ask me if I’m tired of watching films set in Hollywood and I would likely say yes. But that doesn’t stop me from doing just so over and over again. It surprised me to see how negative the reviews on Babylon have been and almost allowed myself to be swayed by them, but thankfully, had chosen otherwise.

Although I do see where some of the negativity comes from.

The film has been branded as “ Chazelle’s attempt to pander to the Academy for another best pic nomination” by audiences, and as yet another film showing off the lavish and wild lives of Hollywood. Inequality, drugs, women, abuse, and everything. What’s new?

Well, I don’t really care about what’s new or what makes Babylon a poorly-made knockoff of Cinema Paradiso or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Chazelle was able to keep me entertained and laughing throughout its 3-hour duration, and sometimes it gets really tiring trying to make cinema a technical experience. I can proudly say (shaking as I type this) that I loved Babylon.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In a scene filmed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., Michael W. Twitty, author of “The Cooking Gene,” reads aloud from placards describing the “crimes” for which Black men were lynched. “I want you to think about what the last meals of these men and women were,” he says. “What does it mean to be a Black woman who cooks on a plantation, who bears your slaveholder’s children? What is the kitchen at that point? The kitchen becomes a space of trauma and turmoil, not just a space where you make good food. These are the narratives that get woven out of the glorification of the South as a moonlight-and-magnolias place.”

Other storytellers in this documentary may seem, on the surface, to have almost nothing to do with the Southern past. Their art responds nevertheless to those historical forces, if only because they grew up in a place that was shaped by them. The screenwriter Qui Nguyen, who grew up in Arkansas as the son of Vietnamese refugees, believes that many people have a “stereotyped idea of what a Southerner looks like, or feels like, or sounds like.” A lot of them, he says, “probably wouldn’t guess this face being a part of it, and yet I’m completely a part of the Southern fabric.”

No writer has a lock on what it means to be Southern, but collectively these voices — straight and queer, old and young, Black and white and brown; writing in fiction and nonfiction, in poetry and song — are telling us an important story about what the South is and what it has been, whether we understand it or not. As the singer-songwriter Adia Victoria says, “Being a Southerner is a strange thing. You ponder about it. You gnaw on it. But you never can quite get to the heart of the South.”

Even more than the region’s oral tradition, that truth explains why this place has raised up far more than its share of storytellers. And why the stories will always, always keep coming.

Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “Graceland, at Last” and “Late Migrations.” Her next book, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” will be published in October.

[nattosushi]

Baldur's Gate 3 fan fiction: joke gift fic for Dark Urge Diaries

One of the most essential requirements in the crafting of a good contract was to not rush the negotiation. As one who has authored numerous successful ones, Raphael was naturally aware of this very basic rule. However, this contract was proving to be very demanding in its creation.

If not for the reward being what he has coveted for centuries, then he was more than a little tempted to just give up and return to the House of Hope.

He could send his little headache away, but that would result in a larger headache due to him being distracted by her absence.

"My little love, I do not believe that all my gold cannot buy an entertaining bard for you," he muttered to his wife, who immediately nestled against him at the mere opening of his arms, "Why must you be so fixated on this one?"

"Because she is so fun! No one else has yet to tell a story even remotely similar to hers. All the other bards automatically think that I want to hear about love and when I say that I don't, they look at me with such shock and even horror. The few that does not try to convince me that their love song is worth hearing then tried to sing about the various creatures of the Nine Hell. Why would I want to hear about them when I live there?"

"There are plenty of other stories in between."

It turned out that his wife has developed a fondness for stories with plots and characters that were, for the lack of a better term, appalling.

In all fairness, a woman who could accept being a devil’s love and wife obviously had some severe impairment in her method of thinking in the first place. However, her recent boredom resulted in this diversion transforming to a most horrid fascination.

"My devil, you always say that you will give me anything that I ask," she whispered, her hand resting on his arm, "This is such a little thing. It requires so little effort from you. You don't even need to be in the same room."

"And leave my most precious treasure unguarded?" he scoffed. However, it was partly because he did not want to admit the extent that he might be affected by these creative little stories, and because he would most likely still be able to hear from the next room, "My little love, what if I give you a necklace woven from king's tears?"

"How would that entertain me in anyway? At the very least," she pouted as her hand moved to stroke his thigh, "I just want to hear the ending of that story."

Such was the greed of mortals that his little human still had despite his wedding gift of immortality. Something new would almost always be precious, and by withholding it, it would suddenly be extremely valuable.

A strategy suddenly came to mind, one that was very promising. Even if it turned out to be one of his few ideas that did not come into fruition in the intended way, she would still be pleased due to interpreting him as giving in to her.

It was important, he thought as she began to kiss him, her arms and legs both wrapped around his body, to let her indulge in those silly little victories.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lumina was not surprised by Raphael’s sudden appearance, but that the impeccably dressed devil actually appeared rather tired.

"What an irritating door you have opened for me," he muttered as he threw a small lyre at her, "I want you to write a song for my troublesome little wife. This is payment."

Despite having a fairly good knowledge of the bardic art, Lumina would not describe herself as a bard, since she hasn't really performed in public. However, she was knowledge enough to recognise the value and beauty of the instrument. It was also a small lyre, what she was much more proficient at.

"Thanks to that creative story of yours, she has developed a rather unique taste. She is constantly pestering me to let her hear the ending of your unusual love story, as well as blaming me for her boredom by complaining that I would not allow her to relieve it."

"You came all this way with this gift because you want me to entertain her?"

"No, this is a transaction. The instrument is payment. I cannot have her already troublesome taste of bardic performance degenerate even more. I want you to write a song so grotesque that it would stop her from wanting to hear anymore. We will come in a week’s time.

Then, with a click of his fingers, he was gone, leaving Lumina with her new instrument.

Elora and Gale were both seated nearby, but the devil was clearly in such a hurry that he did not even turn to source any possible new clients.

"Are we finally suffering some sort of the side effect of ceramorphosis?" Gale muttered, not even realising that his new book was sliding down until it almost hit him

"It is…not that surprising. He does seem to…dote on his wife." Elora reasoned, "And I suppose what he asked Lumina actually make sense. When such an extreme quantity of anything is received, you might suddenly be weary of it. I guess that is a way to restore the balance."

"Does enunciating that out aloud actually increase its probability of being accurate?" Gale asked, and this was met with a dejected shake of head.

"Maybe you should replicate the performance, if it is one that could trigger such a dramatic reaction from a devil." Gale added.

"It wasn't anything so extreme! Just that a mind flayer was one of the two important characters," she picked up the lyre and strummed it, "Well, what should I write?"

Unlike last time, this was a much more challenging task. After all, it was to be a good song that also needed to be bad.

It would also be fun, she admitted, to try and unnerve the devil for a second time. For someone who committed such a long list of grotesque torture, he appeared surprisingly prudish due to being shocked by her story.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the day of the performance the camp was almost empty due to a lot of the others still being on their separated missions. In addition to her and the two that were present when Raphael first came, it was only Astarion and Halsin.

"Really, darling! Wasn't sharing your tentacle adventures enough?" her lover huffed out, "Now you have to talk about licking ancient skeletons. Everyone is going to think that I am so boring that you need to retort to such alternative source of entertainment."

"This is only a story! You know that I haven't done anything with him," she pointed out, although she did turn to look at the said subject thoughtfully.

"Darling, please! Listen, darling, listen!" Astarion cried out as he placed both hands on her shoulder, "If you are really bored with me, although I have no idea why you would be, then go on right on Halsin. Or get Gale to conjure up some mirror images. Or even ask Wyll – "

"I am not going to be involved in this conversation in any way! Even just as a hypothetical" Gale called out as he held up his book, covering his face with it.

Halsin coughed and looked at Elora, but the other merely smiled and pointed out that their guests seemed to have arrived.

One would almost think that the two were attending some form of elaborate soiree. Lumina was starting to think that Dahlia simply did not have anything that was inconspicuous.

"Oh, this is almost nostalgic. The hastily set up tents with the make ado kitchen of one single cauldron," Dahlia chuckled as she seated on the chair Raphael conjured for her, rearranging the trailing cascade of her dress.

"Do you want to play the poor adventurer again, my little one?" Raphael chuckled as he sat right by her.

"Definitely not. I do not miss that life at all," she said immediately before she turned to Lumina," Raphael said that you wrote a song for me?"

"Yes. I will also finish the song I first sang."

Dahlia giggled, like a child about to receive a new toy. However, her gaze also had a sharpness and shrewdness that could not be hidden despite her anticipation. She was well aware that this was not just an act of devotion from Raphael, and she was curious about the real motive. Despite playing the part of a pampered and docile wife most willingly, this was not her only role.

The ending of the first story answered the question that Dahlia had asked and while Dahlia chuckled, Raphael actually sighed as he turned to her.

"You never showed an interest in such a grotesque subject before," he muttered.

"I have never heard of such a song before and I have been a bit more bored than usual."

"So you want me to let you wonder around the city in order to find some tentacles to suck on?"

"Don't be so disgusting and crude, my devil."

This time, Raphael did splutter.

"You are the one relishing in such butchering of words!"

"Wanting to hear something does not mean that I want to do it."

It was a surprisingly abnormal normal domestic argument.

"Here is my second tale," Lumina interrupted, "But before I began, take a look over there. That is the protagonist."

Then, she began to sing.

It was of a sleeping prince, only that his sleep was not accompanied by immortality. The figure that greeted the brave adventure was actually a skeleton with only a few parts of his body covered by flesh.

Yet when he sought to flee from the herione, she held onto him, and even kissed him.

Lumina was still describing the kiss when they were suddenly interrupted.

"Enough!" it was Withers, and even though he still stood quite some distance away, they all heard his voice clearly.

It was a definite command, not a suggestion.

"Another story that I could not hear the ending of," Dahlia complained, "Why does it always get stopped just before the most interesting part? Oh darling, are you alright? Are you actually moved to tears by Lumina's story?"

Raphael was actually rubbing his forehead and his eyes were even shut. Upon opening them, he was faced with a sweet and serene smile that everyone could tell to be fake.

Elora was biting her lips in an attempt to not laugh, since Halsin was actually in a similar state of despair and muttering the words ‘unnatural’ over and over again. Tempting as it was to tease him, she decided to not do so, but merely patted him on the back.

As for Astarion, he was scowling and mumbling that this was not due to him in anyway, because they always had a lot of fun.

“Well, eh, I am going to go back to my tent," Gale announced as he picked up his books, "I need to um…memorise my spells."

The story was not bad in its construction. The music was nice with both narrative and dialogue flowing. The problem was due the subject matter being described in a most vivid and even graphical way.

"Wait," Raphael suddenly called out, "Wizard, give me the names of some books that are rare and would be desired by most mages."

This was done and as soon as Gale finished, Raphael grabbed his wife by the arm and pulled her along with him.

"I'll get my servants to find these books for you if you promise to never ask her to sing anymore songs." Raphael began and even though they were not able to hear the rest of their conversation due to them disappearing in the portal, Dahlia did have time to turn around and blow them a kiss.

Unlike her husband, she clearly had a lot of fun on her outing.

"I actually enjoyed it." Elora told Lumina sincerely, "Because it is so bizarre, it was a very fun story."

"That was what I intended!" Lumina said with a chuckle, a bit amazed at the unexpected show of understanding.

The two remaining men, however, clearly thought differently.

"My heart, I know that I said I would not demand you to dedicate yourself to me, but don't you feel that there are some special circumstances?" Halsin began.

"So you mean those that you do not approve?" Elora asked with a frown.

"No, of course I do not mean it that way. But there are some things that are just too unnatural."

"Which part of what we did a few nights ago was natural? Not only we were with a pair of drow, you turned into a bear." Elora retorted, "I told you that you are the only one I want while you are the one that said you roam as nature demands. But now you are going to impose a set of rules due to a mere what if?"

At this, she turned and began to walk away, immediately chased after by Halsin. When she happened to look at Lumina's way, the two of them exchanged a slight smile.

Despite the three men being very different, they were also very similar.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Notes: This story was so fun to write. Basically, the dark urge diaries did a joke video of Lumina daydreaming about Withers and a lot of users left comments, and everyone just had a good laugh about it. I then told her that this could have been the story she entertained Raphael and Dahlia with, resulting in him asking her to leave since he said he wanted to be entertained, not disgusted. It was almost like a mini conversation with her, which was really fun.

The idea of this story then come and the main idea is really this: the ladies just see it as a really funny story, but the guys feel that this is actually a reflection of what their respective partners might want. Because this is a joke fan fiction, everyone is acting in a more exaggerated way, and maybe even a bit OOC.

I am not fully sure that Raphael would be so easily shocked, and it is possible that his comment about the emperor being Tav's lover is just exaggerated for effect. However, I personally feel that he seemed to be genuinely disgusted, so it is not impossible. In addition, he is also thinking about his wife being in such a position.

One of the most difficult things I had with writing the story was Gale's lines, as he speaks in such a wordy way. I had to check the thesaurus so many times when I was writing his dialogues.

Obviously, I dropped in a lot of quotes from the game. I also asked the dark urge diaries about what instrument Lumina should play, and she said a small harp/lyre. Initially, Gortash was going to make a special appearance by sending Lumina a letter saying that it seemed she is quite bored, and if she wants, then she can always pay him a visit.

Without intending to, this fan fiction also shows a bit more of the dynamic between Raphael and Dahlia. As I said in the previous one, there is the question of whether Raphael is ordering her around when Dahlia is more than happy to do whatever he wants. So at one hand, Raphael is aware that there are times Dahlia might feel a bit rebellious and want to go her own way, and he might act as if he is giving in due to her when he is not. While Dahlia pretend to not know of his real motive when she is well aware of it

[what-if-i-just-did]

Writing Masterpost

Triggers should be on the posts themselves, but if I missed anything, please tell me! If you want me to write something, or you want to ask my oc's a question, or whatever, just send me an ask! And don't be shy about it, cause I really love getting asks, especially for writing stuff. Also this is my AO3- go check it out!

Fanfics (SPN)

August Destiel Prompt List -just a thing I did

9/11 SPN thing -what where the boys doing during 9/11?

"You're home" -a Destiel fix-it in honour of 5 nov

Whumpcember 2023 Masterpost -31 whump prompts for Team Free Will

Finally - Home -a minific about Dean and Cas' first kiss

Dean's Vows -what it says on the label

This Broken Angel With His Shotgun -Human!Cas gets drunk and listens to a song. Angsty

Series

Guilt & Revenge -Whump story, happy ending, multiple whumpers, OC's

Whump

Recaptured Whumpee Drabble -Magical whump, found family and post apocalypse world in one drabble

Bubble Water Whump -Autistic whumpee drabble

It gets better -Caretaker and Whumpee becomes Whumpee and Whumpee

Information Source -A person with superpowers goes a little crazy due to corrupt superheroes

Guilt & Revenge Masterlist -OC whumpee gets abducted by kids he used to bully and tortured. Includes a captivity and a recovery arc

Divine & Demonic -Emotional whump with biblical themes, a fallen angel love story

"Humans are weird"

These don't all play in the exact same universe, eventhough they have some of the same OC's. There also isn't really a timeline or whatever.

Sight Guide Masterlist -An abandoned continuing story inspired by Superior Eyesight

Aliens & Neurodivergents -What it says on the box

Sometimes Less Is More (+ the person who asked for it) -Bringing a gun to a laser fight

Superior Eyesight (and the neurodivergent side) -What if humans could be invisible?

Body Language: Contradictory -An alien tries to learn human bodylanguage

Expressions -An alien is confused at hearing humans talk

Horrifying Defense Mechanisms -Just act crazy. Aliens don't like crazy humans

We Will, We Will, Rock You! -When you're bored but you can pop culture

How To Write X / Writing Tips

Bilingual Characters

Realistic Future Names

Other?

Werewolf Drabble Thing -How to become a werewolf

Please don't tell me I'm a prophet -Meeting an Angel

He's Not The Villain -When you get abducted so often the heroes stop caring

His Blue Eyes -Two sentence drabble

The Fairy's Forrest -A fairy tale about a little girl, a witch, and a fairy

The Demon & The Child -A woman summons a demon to take care of her child as she leaves for work

Favors from the Afterlife -a ghost follows her friend around

Nuri drabble -drabble of a series in the works. The series will be whump but this is just fluff

A Little Girl -immortal short story inspired by a pinterest post

We, Us, Our, Ourself -two nameless characters from opposing sides accidentally become One

Supernatural Superhero Meet-n-Greet -what it says in the title

Non-Fiction

I remember -An open letter to my ex, but there's so many trigger warnings seriously.

What I can -Me having various emotions about how fucked society is and how I make a difference

She's Puking -Short drabble about my relationship to puking through the years. Mind the tw's

[svartalfhild]

Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

Tagged by @late-nite-scholar to complete this "get to know the author" tag game. Thank you~!

Tagging: @wayfaring-rune, @celamity, @boxingcleverrr, @mxphanes

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

Just one? Well shit, that's tough. I have so many ideas percolating in my noodle, both in terms of writing and art.

Let's see...aside from my current ongoing march of ESO fic which is very likely to continue through the rest of the year, I do have a cyberpunk novel I've been wanting to continue working on. It's currently titled Ars Voltaica, and it's set in Detroit about a hundred years from now. It's about a young woman fresh out of college who gets into a corporate sponsored debt relief program in which she has to sign a contract to work in the data entry department of said corporation for five years and also live entirely on their campus. While she's there, she becomes privy to some information she shouldn't know and oops! suddenly she has to flee for her life. And that's just the beginning! There's a lot of stuff to do with androids in there. One of the central characters, the personal assistant of the corporate boss, is an android, and he's got wild shit going on with him. A lot of my motivation for this story comes out of me being mightily salty about how bad Detroit: Become Human is lol.

Anyway! In terms of art, the main thing on the docket is doing the final player character portrait for my DnD group. He's a Fallen Aasimar Conquest Paladin who's getting his holy power from Bane but doesn't realize it yet. He's played by my friend Jim.

2) Rec a book!

Aw shit I'm not the reader I used to be, and unfortunately I've disliked more of the books I've read lately than I've liked. I can always go back to reccing the Starlight & Shadows trilogy by Elaine Cunningham for the DnD novel inclined who want to read about a drow other than Drizzt or Jarlaxle who is also a lady. The story actually explains why drow magic works on the surface when it didn't used to. Also a good series if you're a fan of fancy wizard/scruffy barbarian romances.

3) Rec a fic! (outside your character tag)

Once again, I'm not the reader I used to be, but every now and again, when I'm thinking about my love for Perc'ahlia from Campaign 1 of Critical Role, I remember AFK: a critrole MMO AU and how fucking good it was, both in concept and execution. The premise is that the characters are living in the modern world and all know each other through playing an MMO together.

4) Rec music!

Kill the Alarm's album Fire Away is nothing but bangers (especially the title song) and tastes of distilled 2008 to me. Been listening to those songs for a looooong time.

Eva Under Fire's cover of Separate Ways fucking slaps and it's been in heavy rotation lately.

5) Share one piece of advice!

Let me share a writing secret from your friendly neighbourhood linguist: in fiction, grammar is your bitch, and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell something. Obviously it's good to know grammar rules, and a certain amount of obeying those rules is necessary for coherent and clear communication, but everything after that is fair game. You can have your characters speak in run-on sentences, because people do that all the time in real life, and it doesn't even always sound awkward. You. Can. Put. Periods. In. Improper. Places. You know why? Because bending and breaking the rules can convey something that following the rules can't. Think of the way people convey tone and cadence in their posts online or in texts. You can totally do some of those tricks in your writing to get the vibe you want, especially in dialogue.

Related: "don't split your infinitives" and "never end a sentence with a preposition" are fake rules literally made up by some asshole scholars during the Renaissance because they thought English needed to be more like Latin. Don't pay any mind to that shit. You can quote me on that.

[penhive]

Assorted Tales

Merry

A merry heart is good for the soul.

Samson and Delilah

Samson a brawny character in the Bible is given his source of strength in his hair.

Delilah a Philistine native was asked to woo Samson so that they might destroy the might of the Israelites.

Samson in drunken debauchery told her that his strength lies in his hair.

While sleeping she cut his hair.

Samson in desperation pleaded to God to give him his strength and when he got it, he shook all the buildings killing himself and the Philistines.

The Werewolf

It constantly nags him in his dream, sometimes growling and ferocious and sometimes appearing with a wagging tail. The funny thing about this story is the psychiatrist interpreting the dream had on his display board: I am werewolf the psycho. And put matters more complicated: the patient also became a werewolf and they started having sex.

Fairy

She is named as Echo’s Dawn. She is only tall as a dwarf. While prancing on the grass, a soothsayer approached her and asked for a boon.  The thing in the story is: the fairy Echo’s dawn is the soothsayer’s alter-ego.

Mermaid

Mermaid is a creature having the body of a fish and the head of a woman. One day a lion approached her and asked her to gift her body so that he can keep the head. The story goes that the architect designing Singapore’s emblem had a dream and that was how the Merlion became an emblem of Singapore.

A Surreal Dream

In the dream I saw a ship and standing on its deck are people with hands outstretched and blind.

Monsoon

June and July are monsoon seasons in Kerala. The sky licks the earth with rain as mad as hatter. The earth is a chalice receiving rain.

Smoking

Smoking is banned in public places in India and it’s bothersome to me as I am a smoker. What happened in the story is the Judge who passed the law was a smoker and he had to quit it due to sickness. So he was playing vendetta and enjoyed passing this Draconian law.

Psyche

I saw psyche dancing in the air, a sound of music. Its pretty feathers shone like a rainbow. Its flight was poetry of passion an ecstatic gaiety, a tinsel glitter, a harmony of music, a song seeping in the wind.

Fiction

Fiction is the gap between reality and fantasy.

Mind

Mind always lives in streams of consciousness.

The Bird

The bird is a woman of my dreams. She is slim having breasts as small as grapes and also she has lean thighs and hips. Yes I want to taste all her nectar.

A Dream

In the dream I saw myself feeding a cat. It symbolism suggests to me that my wishes are getting satisfied.

The Story

I am a pen writing a story without an end, a spurt of semen, infinity.

Taboo

Taboos are boring to salvage. I have to get rid of this nuisance.

Ego

Does ego have gratitude? The ego is self-accomplished.

Macabre Poe

Poe was in Easy Street where he bargained with a slut and took her home. He tied her up and smashed her skull with a spade, enjoying what he did. Then he took her to the basement and covered her body with mortar and buried her cruelly. I am only reflecting on Poe’s Gothic Fiction.

Music

Where did music come from? What’s rhythm and melody? They are secrets of God handed to humanity.

Red Riding Hood

After getting saved by the woodcutter, Red Riding Hood became a witch and ate his entrails.

Snow White

I am fascinated with Snow White’s step mother who wanted to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Alas the impediment is Snow White and she is lying in the apple that choked Snow White.

Luck

Is luck an evasive Proteus? I am grabbing Proteus before he changes form. I want to imprison him in the prison of luck.

Fortuna

Fortuna the Goddess of fortune is a menace to me. I would like to murder her and free myself to luck.

Temptation

Temptation brings lust  and I am trying to avoid it

The River

The river is a pregnant belly.

Totem

For the clan the Maverick, the totem is a phallus.

Wallet

Wallet has to become a friendly slave.

The Marriage

My marriage was an unpleasant one. My father was agonizingly debt ridden and all the creditors were in the house raising fury. Sad to say I had no honeymoon and to till this day, I long to spend quite moments with my wife. She has been faithful to me standing with me in life’s thick and thins.

God

God came to earth as a man, lived his life as a man, and got crucified as a man and then resurrected as God.

Pandora

I am locking your box and I don’t want to taste your evils and ruin.

Sin

God hates sin but the devil loves it.

Satan

God created Lucifer as the chief musician of Heaven. If God had no pride in his creation how did the devil become perverted to have pride? Why did not Lucifer ask God for pardon?  Yes no one can question God’s sovereignty.

Karma

Karma is an asshole that screws life.

[briamichellewrites]

53

I want to go back to sleep. Mike asked her what she meant. Bria had been thinking about her dream again. He nodded before asking her why. She wanted to restart the timeline. Maybe she was still asleep and didn’t know it. He didn’t have an answer to that. Neither did she. Nobody did. That was the problem. What if she woke up and things were different? What if she was sixteen again? That only happened in movies, not in real life.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them a few minutes later, nothing happened. Everything was the same. She didn’t know. Maybe she had to look into science fiction. What did she want to change? Meeting BP when she was sixteen years old. Maybe she would be reintroduced to the band and avoid meeting Richie.

Her documentary was released across the country. For the first time, people got to see who she was. She was complicated. Critics wrote about her being open about her mental health, addiction, childhood in the foster care system, and her career. They appreciated how she didn’t come across as whiny or ungrateful. Instead, she came across as a young woman who had gone through trauma and was still learning who she was. All while struggling with mental illness and her fame.

Bradley was given credit as a filmmaker. He invited her and the band to a screening at his house in Venice. They were provided with snacks and blankets to keep them comfortable. For the past year, he had followed her around and caught a lot of footage. Including some of her with the band goofing around or talking about their friendship with her.

“Phoenix is an asshole!”

“Bria is just annoying!”

They laughed when they saw that. In one scene, she was riding in the back seat of a van going to her hotel after performing on television. He asked her what she thought about turning thirty years old. She laughed a little.

“Dirty thirty. I’m fucking terrified! I can’t believe I’m turning thirty. Oh my god. It feels like just yesterday I was sixteen. How the hell has it been thirteen years?”

“What are you terrified about?”

“Just things changing. The world is changing. Music is changing. I want to pause and enjoy this moment. But, time doesn’t work like that.”

“What is one of your biggest regrets?”

“Getting involved with men that I shouldn’t have been involved with. Hindsight is 20/20, you know. I didn’t see the red flags. Instead, I was so excited about an older guy being interested in me. I didn’t have my brain telling me that a guy in his thirties should not be attracted to a teenage girl.”

The band knew she was talking about BP. Their relationship was extremely inappropriate. She didn’t know that at the time because she didn’t have anyone to tell her that. BP did see her documentary at the movie theater. He thought it was well done. Bradley showed everyone who she was. He had a lot of regrets about his relationship with her. His biggest regret was getting involved with her when she was underage. He should have backed off when he found out she was only sixteen.

Mike and Brad helped him get the rights to add some of her favorite songs to the documentary. She gave him a list of songs: A Minute Without You by Hanson, Hands by Jewel, Anything But Ordinary by Avril Lavigne, Have A Nice Day by Bon Jovi, I Write Sins, Not Tragedies by Panic! At the Disco, Numb by Linkin Park, and Talk Too Much by Coin.

Of course, her cats were featured. She introduced Cookies and Cream to the world. They were her four-legged children. They had no idea what the humans were doing. They had just jumped up onto the couch while she was talking about her sobriety. Whatever she was doing wasn’t as important as getting attention. She told them if they were going to sit with her, they needed to be quiet. Just as she started talking again, Cookies loudly meowed.

“I love you but you’re being annoying right now. This is what happens when I don’t give them attention twenty four seven.”

The band laughed. She liked to joke about her cats being assholes, even though she loved them to pieces. As she continued the interview, she petted both of the cats. Her drinking started in 2006/2007. She was in a relationship with a guy that was unhealthy. It was fueled by alcohol and sex. She and her cats moved in with him for five years.

During her addiction, she was hospitalized multiple times. That included once for suicidal ideation. She had a plan of how she would end her life. At first, she was able to hide her drinking from her friends. It took about a year before they started noticing something was wrong. She was having more trouble with her mood swings. They brushed it off as her Borderline Personality Disorder. When did they notice something was wrong?

“My friend, Mike was the one who first noticed it. Whenever he came over, I was always drinking. He told me he was worried about me but I refused to admit anything was wrong. By that point, I was already addicted.”

“How often were you drinking?”

“Every day. I was drinking until I fell over or passed out. Even on tour, I was drinking. I would wake up hungover. I always had a bottle of water with me to sober me up. It’s disgusting how much alcohol took over my life. I don’t wish addiction on anyone.”

It was a cycle of feeling depressed and then drinking. The more she drank, the worse her depression became. The worse her depression was, the more she drank. She lost weight because of alcohol and she could have lost her life. How did she get help?

An awesome guy named, Bradley Cooper had an intervention for her. She had been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. The doctor told her that if she didn’t stop drinking, she would go into liver failure and likely die. When she got home, he and her friends came together. They told her how her drinking was affecting them. She had no idea because she had blinders on.

“Bradley – you – told me ‘You’re better than this. You have so much potential that you can’t even imagine.’ It was because of that, I admitted that I needed help. I went into detox for a week. That was hell. Then, I went into rehab for six months.”

“Are you still sober?”

“I am! I am eleven months sober! I’m so proud of myself!”

Her longtime goal was to retire when she was forty. As much as she loved her career, she couldn’t do it forever. Twenty four years was long enough for her. What was she going to do instead? She wanted to have a farm in the middle of nowhere Los Angeles with cats, dogs, birds, horses, fish. Maybe even chickens and hens. She would spend the rest of her life caring for them.

They clapped when the documentary was over. They had laughed and cried and were inspired. Even though they were biased because Bria was their friend, they thought the documentary was very well done. It showed her as she was. That was the girl they loved, feared and respected. They would tell their friends and family to see it when it came out.

After getting up, they helped clean up by taking their garbage to the trash and folding up the blankets. They then said goodbye with hugs. Bradley put his arm around her before they headed upstairs. They were both tired and just wanted each other.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia @boricuacherry-blog

[littlelav107]

to elaborate on this:

i never really felt asexual? like i sometimes read spice in fics if yk what i mean, i occasionally make dirty jokes to my friends, but it's always been a joke to me. i only realized i was ace after figuring out to myself that all that spice was fictional and that i never wanted it irl and never will.

moreover, it didn't feel like I was doing something wrong, being ace. our family doesn't usually talk about sex as something to yearn for or something that makes you human, or something that everyone experiences. if anything, they warn me that it's okay to have crushes, but remember to not take it too far and go all relationship mode and jump to sex. to me, it never felt like I was doing anything wrong by not wanting real intercourse.

but the thing is, our family and Filipino culture as a whole always, and I mean ALWAYS talks about romance. usually I'm chill with it! I even enjoy shipping and making jokes about it, and yeah, some love songs are pretty okay. but the thing is-it's. just. everywhere.

I remember being in sixth grade and hearing everyone talk about crushes and relationships. it always seemed so strange to me how simple "he's so handsome" turns to "love". i really didn't understand. and the thing is, I was moving schools after sixth grade (high school starts in 7th grade in the Philippines). it broke me how technically people knew who I was in school, but I didn't have anyone to be close with, because the conversations would just switch to tales about lovelifes. I wrote countless poems crying about how I would never be able to get it. and it felt so conflicting. I knew that crushes weren't equal to romance, and that it shouldn't jump to a relationship instantly, and that I didn't want that. but hell, to this day it hurts to remember that version of me that wanted to belong, me who saw romance as the only way to be relatable.

and when I did move schools? I convinced myself that I wouldn't be normal if I didn't have a crush on anyone. so October happened, and I realized I was wrong, that I was normal and more importantly, *human* even without the desire to be in a romantic relationship. yes, that was the start of my aromantic awakening.

now it doesn't affect me as much, but sometimes it feels so striking how much the pursuit of romance is around me. a few months ago I had to keep up with the romantic happenings in my friend group. currently a different friend occasionally sends me her articles and writings about letting go of a past romance. she's a great writer - but sometimes I need to pause and breathe when I read, simply because I keep reminding myself that I could never relate.

and Filipino culture is just- look. we have pamamanhikan and harana. harana is when a man woos a woman by singing to her, usually with a guitar and his best mates with him. pamamanhikan is when the parents of the couple meet to discuss wedding plans. see why I discovered my aromanticism first? because these parts of our culture weren't focused on sexual attraction. they were on romantic attraction. kids learn about this in elementary. this is part of tradition. and me being unable to understand that? i know that my goal isn't to be like other people, but sometimes it just hits me that this is the kind of different that I don't want. I want to be able to understand the blushy feeling of a harana. I want to be able to understand the buildup to a pamamanhikan. the thing is, I just can't. romantic attraction is real, but it's just not for me, and sometimes I wish it could have been for me.

and as if it wasn't hard enough being exposed to it in school and friends and tradition, even my family (excluding my brother) constantly talks about crushes. apparently, everyone has had a crush at some point. "it's part of growing up. I'll get a crush someday." sometimes they joke about how some guy is 'not for me' in the context of crushes. the more I try to accept my aromanticism, the more I try to steer a conversation away from crushes and stuff like that because it's straight up uncomfortable and I can't explain to them why.

idk i just wanted to get this out there. school is about to start and no doubt I'm going to hear all the "miss ko na siya" ("i miss [-]" ) all over campus. my family will be saying that I have crushes on people again. my friends would be gushing about romance again. im going to be the odd one out again.

i don't know how to end this properly, but in summary: i feel like i discovered my aromantic identity first because it was such a contrast to the romantic norm I grew up up in.

thank you so much for reading if you stayed this long <3

-lav

i feel like i discovered my aromanticism before my asexuality and i think ik why

(might reblog, might delete, who knows)

[amelee23]

Stray Kids as fictional creature boyfriends | Lee Know

Small romance/ comedy series where I write about the reader finding out that skz members are a specific fictional creature.

LEE KNOW - INCUBUS

Genre: Romance, comedy, Headcannon

Warnings: mentions of clubs and alcohol, mentions of cheating, very suggestive but not explicit, Minho says something really savage and is a weirdo but also very sappy, reader gender isn't mentioned unless I somehow didn't see it during proofreading

Word count: 1250

✦✦✦

The club lights were flashing in neon colors of purple and blue; a strange upbeat song was playing in the background, muffled by the voices. 

You were there to accompany a friend, who eventually left you to go dance with a new found date.

Heading to the bar to see if there was anything non-alcoholic that could quench your thirst, you stumbled upon a scene that almost seemed comedic

A man completely unknown to you was slumped in his high chair, eyebrows furrowed, glaring at a bottle of booze on the shelf and occasionally to the back door where the barman came from. 

"Are you trying to order a drink?" You asked, amused. The man seemed to be pulled out of a trance the next moment

"Huh? I, no? Yes?" You couldn't help but giggle at how disoriented he looked.

"You were glaring real hard at that bottle. What has it ever done to you?"

"It's not the bottle's fault, it's my date's who just stood me up."

"Ah, that explains why you're so out of it. Makes two of us - my friend is somewhere in this crowd making out with some guy while I have to wait take her home because I'm the only one that can drive."

"Responsible... I like it."

"Hmmm... What's the deal on your side tho? She never showed or did she cancel?"

"Canceled. I should look for someone else anyway, she's all body and no brains - she might get the job done but I feel like pulling out my hair every time she starts talking." You couldn't help the healthy laugh that came out of your mouth at such a statement.

"I'm Minho by the way... Creature of the night."

You introduced yourself back to him and joked back that you also like Batman

Minho chuckled and offered to take you on a dance. His posture standing up was a lot more different, his eyes almost too mesmerizing from up close. He politely planted his hands on your hips and guided them to sway around, and soon you felt like you were floating. 

Eventually his face came closer to yours, breath fanning over your face, and he whispered in your ear: "My cat got drunk on catnip"

That's what he does to double check his seduction is successful. Usually his victims are so gone by that point that they moan at whatever he says

But you didn't

"Well, that was random- is she okay tho?"

"You heard me?" 

"Yes? You're a weird man, Minho. Have you ever been told that?"

"More times than you can imagine. It's my charm."

Never did he think he needed to take things slowly with a human before. Like ask for your number and take you on a date? Absurdity. But he did it anyway

Because he found himself really determined to have you. Maybe it was exactly because he couldn't seduce you that drove him crazy

And believe me, he tried

Way too many times. 

But you always were pulled out of the trance the moment he tested you with his weird sentences - he even said something about putting a guy named Hyunjin in the oven? 

Eventually Minho rolled his eyes in defeat and did things v a n i l l a

Which was difficult to say the least. Being an Incubus, he obviously had to be intimate with people on the side of your relationship. And it was eating him up from the inside. So much so in fact, that he had to tell you. He couldn't stand the disappointment in your eyes every time he pushed you away. 

And the reveal hit you like a truck

At first you thought it was his weird way of confessing he was cheating on you. That would've hurt on it's own, but he made sure to prove it to you. You reluctantly followed him to a club where you bore witness to Minho seducing a woman so badly that she turned into dough. He was listing pie ingredients to her and she was getting horny. 

So eventually you made peace with it. Your boyfriend was a magical creature. And he survives on making others commit bodily sins. 

And he told you he can't do abstinence. The longer he stays away from it, the worse it gets. He loses self control, kinda like a rabbid dog. You associated it with the myth of vampires.  So what were the repercussions of becoming intimate with him? Fatigue, he told you. Much more intense than normal soreness, because he's basically feeding off of the energy of the people he seduces.  

Once you took all of that information in, he began to excitedly talk about how it's so cool he can't seduce you. The chase, doing things the old fashioned way, it was all very entertaining to him.

But that's what really scared you. Not that he's some sort of demonic descendent, but the fact that... You might just be a source of entertainment. He enjoyed chasing you, but after he finally gets you in bed, what will happen? Will he just move on? 

So you decided to rip off the band-aid as fast as possible. No more dates and dilly dallying. You initiated it and he gave in, giving you the most mind-blowing sex of your life. You could feel why he was an Incubus to begin with.  But when you woke up in the morning, the fatigue came. He was right, you weren't just tired, you felt drained and drowsy, as if you had the flu. Still, it was something you could get over, for him and how much you were fond of him... And one glance to his naked sleeping form broke you. You began crying

He woke up as if burnt and instantly wrapped his arms around you. "Are you suffering side effects?"

"What side effects, Minho?" You asked him sadly. 

"Some get depressive after having sex with me. It's part of the neural fatigue."

"I'm not depressed Minho... I'm just scared."

"Of me? Did I do something wrong?" The fact that he instantly made himself to be the target of your fear saddened you even farther. 

"Not of you!" You found yourself yelling at him. "Of you leaving me now that you got what you wanted."

"Huh? What I wanted? Like what, sex?"

"Obviously. Isn't that why you chased me in the first place?"

Before answering he pulled you into his body for the tightest and warmest embrace you've ever felt in your life. "I meant it when I said I love the fact I can't seduce you. You gave me someone to get to know, someone to care about, someone to rely on... I don't do that with sex partners. They're just there to fix what's making my existence inconvenient. I told you the truth about me because I felt bad for breaking your trust through it, though. Basically what I'm trying to say is I never planned on leaving you. I dated you because I want to be with you. Romantically."

You pulled away to look him in the eyes and that was when Minho looked the softest he ever did. "I want you to trust me, kitten. I want it even though it's very selfish to ask for it. I mean- it's either I exhaust you constantly or I have to see other people on the side - there's no good choice. But I want to feel love too, you know? And it has to be you."

I do not own the picture!

Also tell me if you liked it, I have two other members I can post.

[always-andromeda]

– 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐆𝐍!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭・2,792

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲・Identifying with people has never been Hank's strong suit. But fictionalizing them can help, until one day, it doesn't. Perhaps, this is the push Hank needs to begin to build something new; something that doesn't have to be fiction.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞・this fic is dedicated entirely to @starshapedstickerss!! today is this lovely soul's birthday and I wanted to write a special little something just for her to commemorate the occasion!! the title of this fic is based on the song starflower by raveena. it's one of my favorite songs to listen to when I need comfort and it absolutely reminds me of you, my wonderful star. happy birthday, my friend!! hope you enjoy the fic and have a fantastic birthday!! ☺️

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠��・basically none? vague mentions of romance but this is mostly a sweet little meet-cute with bits of angst and fluff sprinkled throughout!

Routine is the killer of all good things. At least that's what Hank tells himself. That's how he hopes that his habit will go away. He hates calling it that, actually. It makes him feel like a voyeur. A strange man sitting in the park. At least a dozen derogatory descriptors and comparisons float through his mind. Hank would rather call himself a watcher. Or perhaps, a documentarian. What exactly is he documenting? He can never be quite sure, the fixation changes fairly often.

Except for this once.

The park is a good place to people watch. He can keep his head down for a while, earbuds plugged into his phone; playing the soundtrack to his own internal nature program. Here, we have children playing with their parents. See how the adult human lifts its young into the air, twirling it around and listening to it squeal in delight. Research has shown that these activities bring a rush of chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, resulting in an immense feeling of happiness. 

Only half reading the novel in his lap, Hank takes note of each little interaction he bears witness to. He doesn't quite realize it's happening, but as he skims the novel, he finds himself placing the faces of the strangers he sees into the shoes of each character. For some reason, it's easier for him to sort each of them out that way; easier for him to identify with them.

Suddenly, he sees the kindly old man who owns a deli in the novel having the same hooked nose and well groomed mustache as the man selling balloons for children beside the park's water fountain. The woman who hosts weekly story times for the children on the lawn turns into the fictional landlady who constantly hounds the main character about when rent is due. And the main character...

Well, the main character is you. 

He hadn't meant for it to happen, really. Hank had managed to keep the main character faceless. They simply waltzed through the fictional land on the page, shifting the world around them and making their own way. No one that he'd seen in all his days at the park had given him that same feeling.

Not until you walked across the grass a few feet away from him, traveling in a straight and sure line until you got to the ducks beside the pond. There you sat with your back turned to him, gazing out over the water and throwing seeds for the ducks to consume. You completed the little mission like it was vital to your existence and chuckled each time a duck came to feed on seeds directly from your palm. Everything else quickly melted away as soon as you came along. Everyone else was merely your supporting cast of characters, the park a setting for your trials and tribulations.

The way you walked with a certainty in your steps entranced him. The way your coat fluttered with the wind with a flair to it. But, at the same time, Hank never thought you'd let that stance fill you with cockiness. At least he hoped so. Judging by the act of feeding the ducks, Hank determined that you're kind; a balance between something valiant and benevolent.

After the first time, Hank didn't think he'd see you again. Nonetheless, you'd left your mark on him. It was easy to picture you as the determined main character of his novel. It only became easier when you came back. Every Friday afternoon, you graced the park with your presence, returning to feed the ducks. Hank had quickly realized that he'd have a little over an hour or so to observe you until a particularly harsh breath of the chilly afternoon air invaded the atmosphere. It was enough to go through a handful of chapters in his book. The entire way, he’d glance back and forth between the text and you, plucking you from the grass and placing you snugly between the pages of the story. Then you'd pull your jacket up to cover a bit more of your neck. That was the sign that told him you'd be leaving soon; too cold to stick through the weather.

In a way, it's his strange routine. By the end of the month, he'd hoped that he'd get bored of this activity. Someone else would come along and capture his attention. However, though you have no idea of it, you are relentless. 

It was even easier to see a lot of himself in the nervous next-door neighbor who obviously had a crush on the main character. He almost dreaded the moment that romantic subplot became more relevant. Because that was the moment that the naive and nervous neighbor had done something Hank could never scrap together the courage to. He'd actually spoken to the main character. He took a leap of faith and landed perfectly because the author had made it so. Because what kind of story would it be if there wasn't terribly indulgent romance thrown in? What kind of pathetic character would the neighbor be if he didn't overcome his own insecurities to complete a character arc? Then he'd be me, he realized miserably, two dimensional, paper thin, and gone with a gust of wind. Just like you.

Hank should've been ecstatic for the slow burn romance to have tied up its taut threads. Instead, it filled him with spikes of shame, guilt, and anxiety that swirled in his mind as he laid in bed; all of the usual suspects that came with his disconnection with the world. Because no matter how much he tried to understand it, life wasn't a linear plot that he could dissect and decipher. Life is relentless. In some way, you remind him of that; that no matter how much he tries to contain your image in the pages, he'll never be that neighbor. He'll always be the stranger. The voyeur.

With the book now finished and closed, Hank sets it on his nightstand. He stares out the window across from his bed. On the other side of the street below his apartment is that park. And the longer he lies in bed, thinking about the ending of his book, the more he drives himself insane. For a moment, he feels like fiction too; being compelled by some hand to rise out of bed, sliding his slippers on and slipping his arms through each of the sleeves of his flannel bathrobe. 

With barely another thought about the strange look of his choice of evening wear, Hank finds himself riding the elevator down to the lobby of his apartment building and walking straight out the door. With each foot planted firmly on the ground before him, he waltzes directly towards the bench in front of the pond; the place where you usually sit. He settles on the freezing metal and runs a shaking hand through his hair before shoving his hands in the warm pockets of his robe.

Hank watches the still water, only occasionally disturbed by stray ripples. The light from park lamps lining the perimeter dance across the surface, twinkling with each little wave. He's not quite sure what he was expecting. Maybe some fresh air; a new perspective? Maybe if he stared into the water for long enough, he'd find some sort of answer to his problems. Something in his reflection could show him how he was going about this whole endeavor in the exact wrong way the entire time.

But he did something he found himself doing far too often now. He thought about you. Or, perhaps it was the utter lack of you. Both in the park and in his perception. It was strange. There was simultaneously everything and nothing to mourn. He'd turned you into a character. A figment of his imagination. Who knew if you were really brave, kind, and determined like the version Hank had pictured in his head? He sure didn't. All he had was this bench and the water before him. Somewhere deep down, he hopes that you'd sat in his same spot so many times that the bench would have molded itself to you; would have developed some strange sort of muscle memory and replicated the shape of your being to offer him some comfort. But that eludes him too. It fluttered away along with everything else he once believed.

He adjusts his robe around his neck, finally feeling the late night chill so deeply that it makes his fingers stiff like ice. He's close to leaving, seconds away from concluding this lonely chapter with an even lonelier sentence: None of it was real to begin with.

"Oh, would you like me to leave you alone?" came a startled voice, "I can do that if you'd rather be alone." 

Hank whips his head towards the sound. There you are. Shoes planted firmly in the damp grass a few feet away from him, dark rimmed eyes staring expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. A better plot twist than any other one he's read.

"No!" Hank blurts before softening his tone when he notices you jump, "No. You don't have to go. There's room for two." He managed to put on a polite little smile at the end. One that you hesitantly returned, still weary at his slight outburst.

For a few moments, you sit together, shoulders separated by a few inches from each other. Hank spares a sideways glimpse at you and sees you tilting your head back. Quite the opposite from all the times he'd observed you watching the water.

Hank clears his throat and says the first thing that comes to his mind, "Sure is cold out, tonight, huh?" He sounds old, ancient, practically geriatric with such a lame statement.

But you take it in stride and reply, "Yeah, but I don't mind."

With your own hands shoved in your pockets, Hank notices that your jacket is new; heavier and probably better insulated. It's small, but it makes him sniff for some reason.

You turn to look at him. "You look like you're freezing cold," you say with concern.

Hank parrots you, "Yeah, but I don't mind."

You let out a small chuckle. "Touché."

Your eyes squint as you search for the next thing to say. Then, as they adjust more to the darkness, they fill with a glimmer of recognition. "Oh, you're that guy I see around here every week!"

"What?" Hank says in a small voice. This is where he's found out; where he is revealed as the strange, lonely man he is. He is fully expecting the weight of disgust to settle in when your bright tone bursts the bubble of tension surrounding his thoughts.

"Yeah, the guy with the book! You always have your headphones in so I never wanted to bother you. But that book you've been reading, I've always wanted to ask what you thought of it!" you chirp.

"What I...thought of it?"Hank asks slowly. "Why?"

"That sounds weird, doesn't it? I just wondered because I read it ages ago and I've never seen anyone else reading it," you say while twiddling with your fingers, picking with your cuticles the same way he does. You add quickly, "I liked it! Though I think the main character was a little bit of a Mary Sue, ya know? I thought the cute neighbor was pretty interesting though. He probably should've been the focus, his story was way more interesting."

"Oh...I–"

You barely let him get a word out before you're talking again, "I'm so sorry. I'm rambling now and I don't even know if you've finished it yet or not. I just...I just like the idea of talking about it with someone."

Letting the words hang gently in the air, Hank blinks hard. "You don't have to apologize," he assures you. "I've finished it. Just tonight, actually. I've been thinking about it too; the ending."

You make a face. "Oh, I think the ending was just disappointing."

"Why?"

"It was so...unoriginal? The main character barely even acknowledges the neighbor until the absolute last second. And then when they do...you almost start to feel bad for him? He deserves better, ya know? He deserves someone who will actually see him and acknowledge his existence. Not someone who'll settle with him just because it's convenient," you rant, barely taking a breath between sentences like you'd contemplated the ideas for a long time before this point.

Hank chuckles dumbly at the comedic timing of the whole scene. You glance over at him with a flash of worry. "What?"

"Nothing...I was just thinking that..." Hank sniffs and lays his head back, just like you had minutes before. He watches his breath billow out of his nose in faint clouds, watches the way they dissipate into the inky midnight sky. Then he clears his throat and starts again, "I thought that the neighbor was a kind of...pitiful. He spends so long idealizing this person that he's so close to. Yet he can't manage to take that leap. But when he does it's just so hollow. He could've been spending all that time getting to know the main character, but instead he just..." Hank swallows hard. "He worries."

You gaze up at the same sky with him now, breathe the same air, and ruminate on the same thoughts. You speak again, "Then maybe they're both flawed. Maybe they both have their own things to sort out. Maybe the story continues after the last page and we just don't get to see it. Maybe that's just for them to figure out for themselves."

At the same time you both look towards each other. And in that moment, he can truly see you while you see him. And he smiles.

"Maybe," he replies then snorts, "But then again, they're not real. Can't be much of a life if there's no one around to read it."

"It doesn't mean no one would want to read it. It just means it hasn't been written yet."

Hank can't think of anything to top that. So he rolls the dice once more and asks the first thing that rolls onto the front burner of his mind, "What are you doing out here tonight anyways? It's almost midnight."

You gasp, "Oh! Wait a second!" Then you pull a phone out of one of your jacket pockets and quickly check the time on the fluorescent screen. "It's almost midnight," you grin.

"And that's important because...?"

"Once it hits midnight, it'll be my birthday. And I don't know...I thought I'd be able to catch a shooting star. That way I'd get a little birthday wish. That sounds stupid, doesn't it?"

Hank shakes his head quickly. "No, not at all. It's, uh...it sounds nice."

About a minute passes where you search the sky. Then you sigh heavily before looking back at him. "Guess I'm not going to get that birthday wish. What a bummer."

The cool air making his nose begin to flush red, Hank sniffles a few times. He averts his gaze, turning it instead to the grass below him. And growing right beside a leg of the bench, he finds the perfect thing. Even in the dark, he can make out the soft, fluffy puffball of the dandelion.

He leans forward gently and plucks it from the ground and presents it to you in his freezing fingers. "Here. Can't you make wishes on these too? Consider it your first birthday present of the day." Hank explains slowly, earnestly.

Your eyes flicker back and forth between his and the gift in his hand. Then, without a second thought, you take it.

For a fraction of a second, your fingers graze his during the interaction. For that split second, Hank feels the dull chill of your skin. You must be equally as freezing as he is by now, yet you haven't left this time. And once again, Hank smiles. It's a little bit bigger this time as he watches you blow on the delicate flower. The tufts float off into the wind, carrying whatever wish you had dreamt up behind your closed eyelids.

Though it's not his place to make a wish, he makes one anyway. It's a small one that he hopes that whatever wish-fulfiller is out there will grant him the mercy of having. He wishes that this feeling of connection won't end. He wishes for a hand that'll keep writing this story, that won't let this moment be the final chapter. Because whatever this is, he wants more of it.

"What did you wish for?" he asks you gently.

You giggle and reply, "Maybe one day I'll let you find out."