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cherry-interlude · 3 years

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Lana Del Rey Unreleased Ranking (5)

This is a re-ranking of Lana's unreleased songs, after making a first a few years ago. This is all my opinion, which I don't mind anyone disagreeing with but don't come for me for it - honestly, I like every song, despite any criticism, and this ranking is very vague. It's based on objective and subjective opinion.

This is the fifth of five posts, with my favourites.

Wild One

Lana is nostalgic without the sadness, remembering how she’d shake it for Mike but is embracing her freedom. She lets country influence seep through her voice and her uncomplicated instrumentals – it would be an unsurprising addition to Chemtrails

True Love On The Side

Though simple in structure and lyrics, it’s more Lana’s grittier rock sound and her incredible vocals that make this one of my favourite unreleased tracks. Lana lets herself go and goes full pop rock chick for this track, whilst keeping in with her ‘other woman’ trope that makes the song still familiar despite its departure from her usual music.

Driving In Cars With Boys

Dripping in nostalgia, Driving In Cars With Boys makes you yearn for the kind of 1950s/1960s era Lana often laments over. Lana is a bad girl just having fun, doing what she pleases and giving in to her vices, and it’s this kind of song that is relatable in its escapism and desire to just do what you please. There are two versions, one with a more monotone chorus that matches the rest of the verses and another where Lana sings in a higher register, letting her cheerful, breezy love for driving with the boys shine through in her vocals.

Angels Forever Forever Angels

Perfect for Paradise, Angels Forever Forever Angels has that slow, rhythmic summer drive feel, a relaxed version of Ride which also has associations with the bikers that feature in both the music video for Ride and the lyrics to this unreleased song. It’s dreamy but grounded by Lana’s patriotic love for the grungier side of Americana.

Hollywood

It has a breathy chorus you could sing to, the feeling of a summer evening and blue skies. The ever building and dropping beat that keeps the song ticking as restlessly as Lana’s hopes and dreams gets me feeling pumped as much as her emphasised, dragged out “Hollywood” in the chorus makes me soothed. Lana is wishing for fame and fortune but it has the feel of an eighties American teen movie, iconic and deserving of a cult following.

Yes To Heaven

Hazy like a daydream, Yes To Heaven is made of sunlight and soft grass, closer to nature than the spotlights of Lana’s often alcohol-soaked, money drenched stages. Lana’s voice is tentative until it shimmers in the chorus, and though it was made for Ultraviolence, it wouldn’t be out of place on the shining beacon of hope that is Lana’s positive turn, Lust For Life.

Life Is Beautiful

This gorgeous song was intended for Age of Adaline’s trailer, and it’s been years of waiting for the full song to be released. Now we have it, it’s certainly worth the wait. Dreamy and soft, this track is a timeless classic that could underwhelm from it’s gentle feel but works perfectly well as a pure little love song.

On Our Way

Stripped back and with a country twang, Lana doesn’t add fuss and frills to this song, instead just crooning precisely how she feels in the kind of song that keeps you daydreaming for hours. Not even the smattering of her favourite imagery (Chevrolets and K-Mart lip gloss) overshadows the love that’s at the forefront of this track.

Never Let Me Go

Like On Our Way, Never Let Me Go has the country twang and stripped back feel that makes this a more subdued song, her lyrics shining even more. Lana’s additional strings layer this song well and her comparisons to the dangerous couple that is Sid and Nancy gives this track an edge, keeping it from being too frothy.

French Restaurant

A piano ballad, Lana strips back the hurt of Without You and dual dedication of Video Games to sing about how fame matters so little to her while she’s torn between two men. Her voice is beautiful and it does well to be so minimal in its production, her emotion driving the song clearly enough. Especially pretty are the backing vocals of the choruses, echoes of her thoughts that hammer home her broken feelings.

Trash Magic

Lana’s delicate and soft vocals help tie into the Lolita-esque character Lana often plays in her music. It has a similar feel to 1949, dripping with her delicious imagery, and wouldn’t be out of place on AKA Lizzy Grant. Lana is the fragile ‘daddy’s girl’ again in this song, and the sharp yet soothing music in the background sets the tone for a quiet trailer park night.

Us Against The World

Though fairly chilled out, Lana still hooks listeners with her characterisation of waitress by day/stripper by night, a dangerous girl tempting an equally dangerous guy. Lana drips sexiness in this song and though it’s not as exciting as some of her other unreleased pop hits, it is perfect for the Del Rey character.

Your Girl

Much like Caught You Boy, Lana is desperate for a man she can’t have but is instead a complete wreck. Lana just repeats over and over how she wishes she was this man’s girl, practically pleading after describing how she needs to be led off the stage from falling apart. Yet it’s still sultry, still passionate, and is topped off by her honey-like vocal demonstration in the bridge and the chorus.

Roses

Lana is the other woman with a twist – instead of moping about her man (Other Woman, Sad Girl) she is taking action. Fighting against him, not letting him go without making some noise and getting rid of his girlfriend, Lana storms into the song with a vengeful wrath and calls him out for his poor attempts at apologies. When this song first came out, I adored it, since it was the exact kind of strong-girl track I wanted from her with a great hook and all the right Lana-isms. Now, I still get that thrill listening to this song and its kick-ass fuck-you to the man she loves.

Playing Dangerous

The churning drums, the spoken verses and the coy vocals set this song apart from her others. It falls shorter during the choruses, the verses being the best parts of the track, but the way Lana interacts with the listener ultimately and is a more direct character of ‘innocent’ seductress who might actually be downright bad (arson is hinted).

Serene Queen

Lana is unbothered and unruffled, as collected as she is in Put Your Lips Together but this time with a definite Ultraviolence/Honeymoon feel. Lana is unshaken by the blazing guns, instead completely calm with her dangerous lover, questioning why he even has a problem in the first place. As it picks up in the chorus, almost smirking, it becomes one of her finer unreleased songs yet.

Ave Maria

This is just an instrumental but there’s something so beautifully haunting about it. It wouldn’t be out of place in a Hollywood movie, with shades of the Lolita soundtrack instantly coming to mind when it first starts. It even works well without singing, and I hope we get a full version soon.

Puppy Love

From the perspective of a Marilyn Monroe figure, Lana plays the teenage girl wishing for a traditional romance with her lover. It’s ever-so-adorable, harking back to the sweeter parts of the fifties, but there’s a sense of sadness throughout it. Under the surface of the puppy love is the reality that the references to Monroe do not forget her sadness, loneliness and ultimately her overdose. The tone shifts to such an unhappiness in the bridge, directly calling back to Monroe’s phone call shortly before she overdosed, twisting the song to something more melancholic.

Cherry Blossom

The lullaby that grew into the marvellous, completed Cherry Blossom is a lovely tribute to someone small and beloved. Though Lana doesn’t have children yet, the care in her voice and each of her heart-warming compliments and promises is still thoroughly enjoyable – and comforting.

Colour Blue

In a song that reminds me of the love/hate relationship of Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana takes her time to question why she loves the men that she does and, ultimately, grow from it, beginning to want something different. It’s raw and personal, with a gushing chorus that is complimented fully by the guitar. This song is blue all over, from Lana's opening harmonisation to her abrupt, unhappy ending.

Paradise

This song is, of course, pure paradise. A summery beat, a flippant Lana simply enjoying her lover no matter how long she’ll have him for and her coos of “sick!” and “that’s dope!” make this into a tasty distraction fit for the sunny months. Her casualness in this track is fresh as well as the dance-happy music that she doesn’t often create in her albums.

Meet Me In The Pale Moonlight

Lana is the waitress with a crush in this bop of a track, trying to convince a guy to get with her instead of that “bitch”. Convincing she is, as she uses all of her charm, wit and insistence that there’s no promises behind her intentions to have a good time with him. It’s just a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of her music, not too heavy and perfectly polished. It’s self-assured as much as it is breezy, and calm as it is it’s still a riot to listen to.

Caught You Boy

A dream-esque confession of desire, obsession and pure, crazy love, Lana isn’t outright insane in this track (Kinda Outta Luck, Jealous Girl, Serial Killer) but she hints towards being slightly too attached to her beau and describing herself as an army of one. The song is sweet and flowery but there’s a sadness and danger to it that keeps it from being too sugary.

Fine China

Some of Lana’s best lyrics are in Fine China as she sings of her fractured relationship, unhappy wedding and many beautiful yet easily broken things. It’s a slow, unfussy ballad but her strong voice and stunning lyrics make it so much more than a throwaway unreleased song.

Thunder

What feels like a coming-of-age slow dance song but is ultimately a choir-backed break-up track. Lana’s lyrics are clever and her voice is the perfect complement to The Last Shadow Puppets, this combined work a sure hit that deserves some kind of release and recognition. Lana is frustrated but tender as she leads the song with plenty of presence.

Prom Song Gone Wrong

The fifties feel, the teenage romance, the warm and gorgeous vocals that switch from dreamily longing to a cheeky talk-rap suggest this is a song tied tightly to Puppy Love, except with a more hopeful feel to it. Lana is ready to leave and she wants her lover to come with her, and even if it’s a youthful mistake there’s no mistaking that the love she – and her man – feels is real. It’s a pretty dedication to the kind of head-spinning romance of younger years, though it has an edge to it. Lana’s choruses are desperate, her pleading genuine and the strange way the music builds and collapses right at the end give the illusion all isn’t the sunshine and rainbows Lana sings of – and hopes for.

#lana del rey #lana del rey songs #lana del rey unreleased #cherry-interlude

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ghostcaterwaul-old · 4 years

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Overview of My OCs

Putting this under a read more thing because it’s... pretty long even though it’s not even theit full bios.

A Chaotic Love (Working Title)

Mallory Blythe A sheltered 18-year-old with a strict religious upbringing. Jeremy’s love interest.

Jeremy Wolfe Typical damaged bad boy with a dark past from the wrong side of town. Mallory’s love interest.

Suburban Secrets (Working Title)

Lieselotte “Lottie” Moon Impulsive and arrogant teenager. “Not like other girls”.

Heloise Moon Lottie’s younger sister. Super smart. In all AP courses.

Devyn and the Roses (Working Title)

Devyn Valentyne Electro-glam punk vocalist and guitarist. Levi’s love interest.

Levi Rose Glam goth Bassist. Devyn’s love interest.

Natalie Rose Goth girl. Keyboards/synths/drum machine. Levi’s sister. Is super possessive of him.

Untitled Occult Detective Series

Elliot Alexander Non-binary punk sci-fi nerd. Saw a UFO when he was 12. Wesley’s significant other.

Wesley Williams Indie emo hipster hacker. Sees dead things. Caffeine addict. Elliot’s boyfriend.

The 100 OCs

Misty Sawyer One of the 100. Arrested for attacking her abusive father. Sweet soft fragile bean. Has Classical-Like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Has AUs for multiple fandoms. (Faceclaim: Katie Jane Garside [in the 90s])

Liam Thorne Misty’s best friend. One of the 100. Arrested for helping her hide after she attacked her father. The therapist friend. Has a Z Nation AU and a Stranger Things AU. (Faceclaim: Landon Liboiron)

Elijah Stone One of the 100. Arrested for vandalism. Rebellious, hyper, a bit chaotic. Has AUs for multiple fandoms. (Faceclaim: Dominic Harrison AKA Yungblud)

Nimue kom Floukru Born Storm kom Azgeda. Was too soft and precious for the Ice Nation. led to join Floukru and changed her name to Nimue as a way of running from her past. Became a healer after joining Floukru. (Faceclaim: Lily Rabe)

Z Nation OCs

Vixen Ran away as a teen before the apocalypse. Did some illegal stuff to survive like selling drugs and firearms with an abusive boyfriend. Also has done survival sex work. She was working as a stripper when the apocalypse hit. (Faceclaim: Kaya Scodelario)

Riot O’Reilly Grew up with an artist for a mom and a biker for a dad. Dad died in a motorcycle accident when they were 5 years old. was the singer in a touring DIY queerpunk band called Rotten Rainbow Warhead Dolls From Planet 420 and was playing a show when the apocalypse hit. Dyes their hair as often as they can with whatever they can find (even if it’s not exactly hair safe, has even used sharpie ink) to maintain a sense of normalcy. (Faceclaim: Bex Taylor-Klaus)

VTM PCs

Izzy Strange A Malkavian glitter punk vocalist with BPD and substance addiction.

Sybil Valentine A Malkavian artist with PTSD and abandonment issues. (Faceclaim: Kimberly Freeman)

Multifandom OCs

Jet Gray Goth boy. Videographer. (Faceclaim: Kett Turton [as Clive Webb in Gypsy 83])

Olivia “Olly” Gray Jet’s younger sister. Goth girl. Plays guitar. (Faceclaim: Heather Baron-Gracie)

Leo Anderson A survivor of institutional abuse. Weed dealer. Sings and plays guitar. Lives out of his car and often couch surfs. (Faceclaim: Colson Baker AKA Machine Gun Kelly)

Emily Walsh Musician. Was a parentified child. (Faceclaim: Tessa Violet)

Other Fandom OCs

Ophelia Power Rangers in Space OC. Purple ranger. Space sorceress born on planet Xoia. Has an otherworldly feline creature from her home planet as a pet named Indigo. (Faceclaim: Sóley Sigurþórs)

Deirdre Doyle The Originals OC. Witch. Lots of trauma. (Faceclaim: Kat Dennings)

Other OCs

Adelaide St. Claire Louisiana Creole trans woman living in New Orleans. Voodoo practitioner. (I’m currently researching everything to do with Voodoo. I promise I won’t fuck it up!)

Astrid Shelley Old lonely widowed witch that lives in the woods on the edge of town. Agoraphobic. Has a familiar, a black vulture named Edgar. (Faceclaim: Anna-Varney Cantodea)

Luca Giger 400 year old vampire. Was sex trafficked at the age of 12, is now voluntarily a full-service sex worker. Was bitten at 20 years old by a client. (Faceclaim: Bartek Borowiec)

Arthur Julius “AJ” Montgomery III Dark academia OC. Artist, writer, musician, stoner. (Faceclaim: Timothee Chalamet)

Stitches the Carnie Ghoul (CW: Horror OC. Proceed with caution) Murderous people devouring necrophiliac. Keeps some of her victims’ corpses as dolls that she has tea parties with inside her circus tent. (Faceclaim: Peggy Giggles)

Jezebel Bathory A succubus. (Faceclaim: Rose McGowan)

Gwendolyn Lightweaver An angel turned human as a punishment. (Faceclaim: Katherine Shepard AKA Sylvaine)

Ozraphaeus “Ozzy” Embershroud A demon with a pet hellhound named Mordred. (Faceclaim: Ville Valo)

Willa Meadowsong Faerie OC. Seelie court (Faceclaim: Tori Amos)

Gossamer Greywood Faerie OC. Unseelie court. (Faceclaim: Xilmordas)

#writeblr #my ocs #the 100 oc #power rangers in space oc #the originals oc #fandomless ocs

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dreamofcentipedes · 5 years

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Red Lotus Blooms: 8 - Burning Bright

Summary: A monster is forged in flame. As light burns out, red leaves unfurl. Crossing paths once more, Tatara and Houji hurtle towards the end of the beginning, and the ashes of the past again burn bright.

Characters: Tatara, Houji, Eto, Noro, Arima, Donato

Rating: Teen Words: 8, 766 Link to AO3

Link to Table of Contents

A/N: FINAL CHAPTER! Thank you so much to all you readers, whether you've been here from the start, you hopped on partway through, or you're reading this in the future from start to finish - every comment and kudos I've received from you gave me the willpower to see this through to the end.

A note on ages: here, Tatara is 17, Eto is 16, and Houji is 27. It's a little under 9 years before Kaneki goes on that fateful date.

Cochlea was a uniform place for diverse peoples. Prisoners sane but for their cannibalism, guards mad but for their wives and two children, it was a melting pot of the most absurd congregation of ghouls and humans alike. Its architecture, with its circling rows of identical doorways, looked bizarre in contrast by its very unremarkability. Perhaps the effect was intentional: to differentiate the prisoner from the prison, chaos from order. The guards would not play into that fantasy, however. Houji often found himself wondering who really needed protecting here: who should be outside the cells, and who should be within.

So it came as a strange relief to meet so disgusting a ghoul as the child-murdering Donato Porpora. For a brief moment, Houji could regain some sense of moral certainty.

“And you are Special Class Kousuke Houji, is that right?”

Houji inwardly flinched at the title that still felt so ill-fitting to him. This ghoul, with his elderly but dignified aspect and his calm smile that seemed to hold secret knowledge, made the honour feel especially rancid. Like he was comparing him with Special Class Wu, a comparison he knew in his heart of hearts to be true.

“Oh, did that have some kind of impact on you? I really can’t tell, your face is solid as a rock.” The ghoul seemed disappointed behind his mockery. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

“Priest.” Houji addressed him, smoothly cutting through his nonsense, firm, clear, impassive. “You know why I am here, and why you are being kept alive.”

“Nosiness as usual then, is it?” He threw back his head with a rasping cackle that echoed behind the glass screen that separated them in the interrogation room.

The balding Warden Koumura sat beside Houji, bored. Houji was sure he had better uses of his time, but it was advised that interrogations took place in groups of two, especially with this ghoul. Arima was unavailable as he was on patrol and, though he was not fond of Koumura, he was preferable to a guard like that savage Tokage. Ultimately, Koumura could not turn down a rule he was meant to impose.

“Have you heard about any ghoul plans to breach Cochlea? Or if anyone who would be stupid enough to try it?” Koumura spat. He was obviously sceptical about these rumours, but they were the reason Houji had been assigned there as extra security.

“Breach Cochlea?” The ghoul seemed interested, for very obvious reasons. “Where did you hear that?”

“First Class Arima overheard a group of ghouls discussing the plans before intercepting them. However, they were not wearing anything indicative of allegiance to any group we know of.” Houji clarified.

“How would I know, when you’ve been keeping me in here so long…” He grumbled.

“Rest assured, an attack will not succeed. This is a maximum security prison now being guarded by myself and one of our finest upcoming investigators. So, if a breach does occur and we discover that you hid something from us, you will have outlived your usefulness. Do you understand?”

That was the view of the brass, anyway. Sceptical about the likelihood of such a bold venture, they had only assigned Arima, since he had raised the concern, and one investigator of his choosing. He had chosen Houji, for reasons he could not decipher. But that was always the way with Arima.

“Come now, you can’t blame me for hating being trapped up in here. I know you do too.”

Houji could not deny it. Caging ghouls up like animals, the pointless torture that went on behind closed doors that everyone could hear regardless – why prolong their suffering so cruelly, so meaninglessly? He may have resigned himself to the reality of the CCG’s role as humanity’s brutish cudgel, but the ghouls could at least be given the decency of a quick death.

Koumura gave him a sceptical side-eye. Houji’s demeanour did not falter.

“Indeed. If I had it my way, you would no longer be with us, Priest. But that is not my decision to make. So we most both perform our given roles.”

He had only the right to observe, to observe and do his duty. He was part of this greater, twisted whole, and so he must accept responsibility for their sins if he wanted to continue serving the CCG regardless.

Donato hinted at a sickly smile. “If I’m not mistaken, you performed that duty spectacularly in China. Is that where you developed this selfless, or should I call it spineless, ideology?”

Houji narrowed his eyes. How did he know about China?

“I’ve never been, myself. Are things much different there?” The old man went on.

Exactly the same. The same as the Japan he had come back to, if not the one he had left.

As soon as he had stepped out of the aeroplane after landing at Narita, he was hit by the same hostile air. He had thought – wished, rather – that when he returned to Japan he would return to how he was before he left. It was now woefully apparent that the Japan he had known was lost forever. Or rather, the self he had known. He was forced to look at the world through this new set of tainted eyes.

“Priest, if you have nothing of worth to say then I will terminate this interrogation.” Houji was getting tired of talking to Donato. The more the Priest talked, the more unpleasant thoughts haunted Houji’s mind. But he would cede no such reaction for that man’s enjoyment. Those days of vulnerability were far behind him.

“You’re getting more and more useless to us every day. Keep that in mind.” Koumura growled in his bullying fashion.

Donato drooped his brows like a child being deprived of his toy. “How rude. I was just making conversation, Special Class. It was no small thing, taking out Chi She Lian. An organisation of that size…that’s a lot of death.”

Blood dripping through the floorboards. A severed head. A ring on a lifeless finger.

“Although – and this is just pure hearsay, mind – I hear that you couldn’t quite finish the job. The one that got away, hmm?”

Houji’s teeth clenched like a vice. How could he know? Before he had left Beijing, he had spent two weeks fruitlessly searching for Tatara Huo. Not a trace. That was the true ghost of China – the one that had not died. It could not end while he was still out there, somewhere, in the shadows, grieving, hating, mourning…

Donato’s lips turned fully upwards now. “Maybe there’s your culprit. That ghoul must want your head more than his own life. Maybe he’s risking everything breaching Cochlea just to kill you. Tie up those loose ends.” The ghoul looked Houji dead in the eye with an expression now serious. “Would you like that, Special Class?”

Houji sat wide-eyed, staring and speechless. These had to be mind games, surely: there was no way the ghoul could know this. But Houji could not help but wonder if it was possible. Whether Tatara could truly be in Tokyo. If it was to kill him, then, perhaps…

Before he could respond, a siren started blaring.

Koumura’s jaw dropped in horror and fearfully turned towards him for an answer. Houji’s body tensed as he understood what it meant. The Priest, at first surprised, burst out into raucous laughter.

“Well, I suppose you’re about to find out! Don’t hold it against me, gentlemen, there really is nothing more I could’ve done for you.”

Houji shot him an icy look with a face of otherworldly calm. “Please relinquish that smug expression, Priest. You’ve no need of it. You will not be escaping this facility today.”

Houji rose briskly out of his chair, grabbed his attaché case, and marched out of the room with Koumura scrambling after him. The door closed behind them with a slam as they exited onto the ground floor, and Houji looked up to the great gates at the top of the prison. Slowly but steadily, they were opening.

Like clockwork, the heavy gates on Cochlea’s roof opened exactly on time. Tatara could hardly believe it. Eto had promised she could do it with her ‘connections’, but she had refused to specify what they were no matter how hard Tatara grilled her. In the end he decided to allow her this modicum of trust and return on a different day if it failed - after he beheaded the girl for her deception. Yet it seemed that trust was well founded. He wondered if she might have orchestrated a riot among the prisoners or something of that nature, but it looked peaceful enough down the great fall encircled by rows and rows of jail cells. That is, until the guards noticed the doorway receding.

There was no time for standing around. Tatara beckoned for his cohort, the remaining rabble of Aogiri, to follow him down the sinkhole. He jumped, and two hundred red cloaks followed him.

The ghouls unleashed hell on the guards below. Storms of ukaku shards thundered down upon them, and quinque bullets shot upwards in return. There were casualties on both sides already, but Tatara had the element of surprise. He landed on the first elevated platform in the centre of Cochlea, and immediately began sprinting, his eyes darting around on all sides for Houji. Seeing the afterimage of a white coat disappear behind an opaque screen on a floor above, he quickly rammed his kagune through the five guards charging at him simultaneously, smoothly slid it out, and launched himself into the air to an astonishing height to follow him.

He landed with a crash onto the railing, and, raising his head, stared at the now visible face of the white-coated figure with surprise and anger.

“You’re-”

“Not Houji.” The bespectacled man finished, and cut Tatara open.

Houji pelted through the rain of shards as ghouls descended from above. He could not understand how it happened. Were there ghouls strong enough to open the gates from the outside? After Loong, he could not doubt it. Guards rushed out into the fray, only for several to be impaled immediately. Arima was nowhere to be seen – his patrol had probably led him to the other end of the facility. More and more of the ghouls were landing on the ground floor, white-masked and red-cloaked.

If these ghouls spring some of the inmates…

There were immensely powerful ghouls being kept here. The S-Rate Tail Brothers. Tokage’s plaything, that S-Rate Jason. Not to mention the SS-Rate Priest. Iff even some of them were to escape, it could spell dire news for Tokyo. Houji could not let that happen.

He clicked open his attaché case, and drew out Douhi.

Special Class Zhao, who had miraculously survived Loong’s onslaught thanks to the quick feet of the other survivors in getting him medical attention, had presented Houji with three quinques before he left China. Seeing Zhao’s armless stump and remembering how he had failed to fulfil Zhao’s wish of putting a final end to Chi She Lian, Houji hardly felt like he deserved them, but Zhao had insisted on rewarding Loong’s slayer. Two of the quinques were unique as the results of new studies in quinque research which combined the kakuhou of one ghoul with the cell matter of another, allowing, for instance, an ukaku quinque to be augmented with the strength of a powerful bikaku ghoul.

Such was the case with Douhi, named for the lead researcher of the project. It was a long cannon in pale yellow with curved horns protruding from either side, and it was made from the ukaku kakuhou of a Chi She Lian ghoul and the cell matter of Fei Huo.

For this reason, too, China never left him.

He pummelled out shards from Douhi that rained and slashed through the ghouls charging towards him. Even so, they were quickly swarming the place. Guards unleashed quinques and fought all around him, some pushing forward, some giving ground. Koumura was barking orders but noticeably not fighting himself, his electric baton-style quinque hanging uselessly at his side. Kagune came darting towards Houji but he blew them apart with the force of his cannon, followed by the heads of their owners.

He swung around to obliterate another kagune spiralling towards him, but lost his momentum when he saw the monstrosity. It was huge, grotesque, with jagged teeth like razor blades. The moment of hesitation allowed it to smash Douhi out of his hands and send it clattering to the floor.

The kagune’s owner appeared briefly behind it, but there was nothing brief about the tall, pony-tailed figure with his eyeless, grinning mask. He looked like trouble. Houji glanced concernedly to the far edge of their arena where Douhi had fallen metres ahead of him, but the distance was too long and the fighting too thick to retrieve it, not to mention that his opponent blocked the way. There was no chance of fighting that thing without a weapon.

He saw Koumura shrinking against the wall on the periphery of the battle. If he’s not doing anything anyway…Houji caught his eye and shouted over the fray: “Quinques!” Koumura blinked and nodded frantically, and, hesitantly raising his baton, began fighting his way to the armoury on the same floor.

As Houji watched the eyeless figure stand stock still and swing his kagune around for another attack, Houji knew that until Koumura could retrieve the weapons he needed, he would have to be exceedingly careful. He turned and dashed behind him as the kagune hurtled in his direction. Pushing his way through the calamity of ghouls and guards, the kagune found itself lost, as if confused, unable to locate Houji in the fray. Houji punched away the ghouls surrounding him with his fists, constantly keeping up his pace, knowing that if he slowed down he was dead. Yet despite his efforts, the grinning ghoul’s kagune found him again and charged at him through the crowd – eating up guard, ghoul, and anything that stood in its way.

Thankfully, Houji had calculated everything just right. Or, almost just right. He still needed to leap to the floor before the kagune bit the air in front of him and could go no further. His python of a kagune had finally ran out length. This would have not been a handicap for any other ghoul, but this was one insisted on standing still, eery and overconfident. It cocked its head to the side, confused. But the victory did not last long. Houji scrambled up and began dashing into the crowd again as slowly, it began to walk forward.

Winding and weaving through the hordes of people, ducking kagune and quinque alike in the mad fury of combat, running at the greatest pace he could muster, Houji was quickly becoming exhausted and wondered how much longer he could keep up. Finally, he heard the shout of a familiar voice over the cacophony, calling his name.

Houji leapt up and made himself as visible as he could. Before the fat kagune could devour him, Koumura hurled him two attaché cases, one of which he caught in the air. When he hit the ground, he clicked the release and sliced the toothy maw leering over his head in half. No matter how strong his opponent was, it was no match for Chi She.

The second of the hybrid quinques Zhao had given him was a koukaku-type quinque with a broad blade outlined in red and a segmented silver guard attached to a lengthy pole. Houji had recognised the quinque at first sight, save for the red. It was the poleaxe he had used to kill Loong. The already extant quinque was, in an act of grotesque irony, infused with the cell matter of its victim to create Chi She, named for the organisation that it both led and destroyed.

There was little that Loong’s claws could not cut through. Houji blitzed his way through the obstructing ghouls and darted towards the grinning ghoul, whose attention was still fixed on his mutilated kagune. With a single heavy slash, he separated the ghoul’s torso from his pelvis.

When it fell to the floor with a thud, Houji allowed himself a moment to breathe. But almost immediately, he could tell something was not right. The ghoul’s legs were still standing.

The thin strand of flesh that still stood between the two halves began retracting at an incredible speed, swinging up the ghoul’s top half with it. Squelching, the torso reattached itself, and the bloody gash regenerated as if nothing had happened. The ghoul cracked its neck.

Houji looked on in horror. What on earth was this ghoul? Such regenerative abilities were far beyond the purview of typical ghoul biology. He readied Chi She in a defensive stance as he saw his kagune regenerate instantaneously as well. He was preparing for the worst, when he heard a girl’s voice call out:

“It’s okay, Noro, I’ll deal with this one.”

The ghoul jumped backwards, and a colossal mass crashed down in front of Houji. Instinctively, he shielded himself from the blast force, but when he turned his eyes upward again he saw a thin, grinning face whose slobbering tongue alone was almost the size of his head. Houji fell back to create some distance and examined the monster in full view.

The great white behemoth was draped in a burgundy cloak, with four enormous kagune like spider legs ripping out from its sides and a set of shorter ones bursting from the top like flower petals. Its face was made up of an elongated chin, a set of four horns, and a single mad red eye. Thin arms like bird legs served as the creature’s arms while its legs were obscured by the cloak. Suffice it to say, he was dealing with a kakuja – and no ordinary one at that.

“Hooouuujiii-kun!” The creature sung in a distorted sing-song voice. Houji flinched at the recognition. How can it know me?

But then, he was thinking he was starting to recognise it as well. He had never seen it before, but he had heard the reports of the creature that had killed the wife of his mentor Mado in Houji’s absence. Could this thing be that One-Eyed Owl?

“I can’t kill you or Tatara will be pissed, so don’t worry! I’m just going to rough you up for a bit, okay?”

Tatara?

Had this thing – just said…

“Is Tatara Huo in this building?” Houji questioned desperately.

“Oh, oopsy, I said too much. Well, can’t have you interfering. Lights out for now, Houji-kun!”

The monster swung one of its chicken legs towards him and Houji lifted Chi She’s great weight just in time to block it. The force still sent him skidding across the floor, and before he knew it, one of its arachnid kagune descended on him from above. There was no time to block this one, and Houji felt his ribcage reverberate as he was knocked across the floor.

He barely had time to recover before the creature was on him again, laughing in crazed delight. Its size did not seem to impact its speed at all, and it was all Houji could do to dodge while its sledgehammer kagune came crashing down like lightning. Still, if he could avenge Associate Special Class Kasuka…

And yet, while Houji knew that was where his mind should be, it was not. He could only think of the name she had mentioned. The unfinished business which kept the memories of China swinging over his head like the sword of Damocles. Tatara. He was here. That damnable priest had been right. He was here, just for the sake of killing him; and here Houji was, fighting some other ghoul entirely.

He could make out openings in his foe’s defence, but he could not take advantage of them: because for every brief moment of rest his eyes were on the railings of Cochlea above him, searching for a white-cloaked figure amongst those endless rows of grey.

When at last, he saw him.

White cloak. White hair. Red mask. And the awed hatred burning in his eyes when they briefly met with his. Without a doubt, it was Tatara Huo. The heir of Chi She Lian was in Tokyo.

And he was fighting Arima.

This was bad. Arima was too strong, even for a Huo. Houji had seen his skill firsthand in the Clown Operation, and he had been promoted two ranks since then after forcing this very same Owl to retreat in their last encounter. Sure enough, he could already see Arima’s strikes ripping Tatara apart; at this rate, if Houji did not get up there in time, Tatara would die at the hands of a complete stranger. He could not allow that. It had to be him. For Tatara’s sake, and his own.

The Owl was quick to exploit his distraction. A clawed hand smashed him down into the Cochlea floor, and he coughed up blood as pain quivered through him. Then it hoisted him into the air, lifting him by his collar above its ecstatic face, its overgrown tongue licking the bone where its lips should be.

“Ah, but you know…I am hungry…”

There was no time for this. Houji had to leave. So with one sudden swing, he cleaved its tongue in two.

“AaaaaaAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAeEEEEEEEEEEiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIII”

The ghoul gave a cartoonish scream as it shook the blood off its broken tongue to splatter onto the floor, and in that gory mass followed Houji. His coat and suit thoroughly bloodsoaked, as the ghoul raged he pulled himself out of the red water and called for Koumura. The Warden, holding his own against the ghouls surrounding him and the remaining guards, perked his head up.

“I’ve spotted a highly dangerous ghoul. Please hold off the ghouls here before I get back!”

For all his personal failings, the Warden was an Associate Special Class Investigator. Backed up by his guards, he should be able to handle the heat for a time, at least. That was what Houji told himself. The Warden’s face went completely pale.

“But this is a highly dangerous ghoul!”

Houji paused in his dash for the stairs, and tossed Koumura his Chi She, which he caught between fumbling hands.

“You won’t lose with this.” Houji assured him, and ran for the other attaché case which Koumura had thrown to him before. It felt right, that this should be the one to end it.

He clicked the release, and Hollow swirled up his arm.

This was the third of the quinques Zhao had bestowed upon him. Wu had written a proper testament after all, albeit just a list of curt demands utterly devoid of sentiment. One of those sundry requests was that Houji inherit her quinque. No reason given. Whether it was out of any fondness for him, or if it was meant to teach him some kind of lesson, or if it was just some incomprehensible prank, Houji could not tell. To the end, he could not understand that woman. But if Hollow would put her killer to rest, that would ease the memory of yet another lost soul.

Leaving Koumura hacking away at his enemies with Chi She, Houji ran through the door to the stairway. He only prayed that he would make it in time.

Houji. He had seen Houji. Through the rage of blood and searing pain, Tatara was sure he had caught his eye. He was fighting some enormous ghoul, probably one of the escapees. Tatara had followed the smell to where he was: the smell that had filled his soul with such a confused anguish. He was sure that, somehow, after this long, long, year, he had smelled his brother and sister again.

For a brief, fantastical moment, Tatara imagined that they had somehow been returned to life. That they had come here to save him. When that beautiful dream was deflated and Tatara realised the gruesome truth, he went through the pain of losing his family all over again. There was only one thing it could really mean.

Kousuke Houji had perverted the bodies of his family into his personal ghoul-killing weapons.

Knowing this, he could not abide Houji’s breath a second longer. He could no longer waste time on this immovable enemy. But every time he tried he tried to turn his back on the dove, the dove would burn his back to smithereens.

His quinque was a peculiar model made from four metal planks that came together to form a lance and split apart to fire balls of electricity. The combination of short-distance and long distance fighting techniques, as utilised by the tremendous skill of its wielder, rendered any of Tatara’s attempts to either attack or escape completely useless.

Some of his hits Tatara managed to dodge within a hair’s breadth; but most connected. He could barely stand from all the wounds littered across his body. Great stretches of flesh were torn off and blackened from the force of the thunderstorm bursting from his quinque. There were huge gashes across crucial tendons in his arms and legs, and more than he could count across his chest. His face, too, had a disfiguring scar slashed straight across it that set his eyeballs stinging like they had in front of the burning house at Yangshuo. That was the last time he had ever felt so helpless. It was as if all the strength he had tireless worked to gain had evaporated in an instant.

I still can’t accomplish a single thing.

The dove, on the other hand, was completely unharmed.

Tatara collapsed to the floor with another shock from the lightning quinque. His loathing for the dove for holding him back from Houji yet again had been overwhelmed by an almost religious sense of fear. No single person could be this powerful. As he struggled to raise his head from the ground, the man stepped over him, all in white, with the light shining off his glasses and his lance still buzzing with power. The image was godlike.

He felt, then, that more than Houji, more than himself, this was the true face of Death. This man not much older than himself, with his long blue hair and cold mien, was assuredly the reaper. And to think they had crossed paths out of such random chance…

“You’re sturdy, aren’t you…” The reaper murmured as he raised his quinque over Tatara’s head.

He could not die this way. He could not die at the hands of some stranger dove, not after coming all this way. Not with Houji still breathing. He would not let even the reaper deny him that right.

Tatara’s kagune blasted from his back and slammed into the quinque, scattering it to the floor. The dove looked to where the weapon clattered away in mild surprise and dashed to retrieve it. This was Tatara’s window of opportunity. He pulled himself up, and, with a draconic roar, activated his kakuja.

The flesh was not half-formed around him before the dove sliced off all of his limbs. Tatara’s roar vanished into the air. The reaper had already retrieved his quinque and closed the distance.

It was over.

As something shattered within Tatara’s soul, his waking mind plunged into oblivion.

By the time Houji finally reached the railing where he had seen Tatara fighting, it was empty. Blood coated the cold metal, but there was neither ghoul nor investigator to be seen, dead or alive. He looked into the distance left and right, clutched the edge of the barrier and searched up and down for any sign of the two. There was nothing.

Houji yelled a cry of frustration that was lost beyond his throat, soundless and impotent. He hung his head in remorse that he had come too late again. And when he did, he bore witness to the bloodbath below.

Koumura, and all the guards who had fought with him, lay dead, their bodies bloody and savaged. The carcass of that mutant kakuja lay splayed out amidst the carnage. A little girl wrapped in bandages skipped over the abundance of death with the ghoul in the grinning mask in tow. Some of the ghouls had joined their victims, but not nearly so many.

As soon as he saw it, he was snapped back to his senses, and he knew he should have never gone after Tatara. That Priest had scrambled his brains. If he had simply stayed where the battle needed him most, this tragedy could have been avoided.

Raising his head, he saw ghouls spread out all across the facility, running towards cells and smashing open their windows. Houji realised with horror that it had only been a portion of their forces he had fought on the ground floor, and that first and foremost, it had served as a distraction. He had been so concerned with keeping the Priest and his fellow SS Rates behind bars, the ghouls had exercised free rein over the rest of the prison, releasing C Rates and B Rates and A Rates and S Rates alike.

There were more guards than those who had fought with Koumura, but they were evidently ill-equipped to deal with the threat, and there was no sign of Arima. That left it to him. He readied Hollow.

This was the last time, he swore. The last time he ever let his conscience get the better of him.

Pulling the trigger, he unleashed hell from above.

When Tatara awoke, it was dark, and it was raining.

He lifted himself off the ground with the stubs of his half-regenerated arms as the water assaulted his face like tears. He could not see anything in the blackness. Wherever he was, it was not Cochlea.

He had failed to kill Houji.

He tried to stand, but his legs were only stumps, too. Pathetically, he fell head first into the watery concrete with a clang of his mask, grazing his already swollen face. How did he end up like this? He tried to lift himself again.

“Kishou really did a number on you, huh, Tatara?”

Tatara started at the voice, and almost fell over again. He recognised it. That crooning, mocking tone was the last thing he needed right now. He ignored her and drew out his kagune. He smashed it into the paving stones, dragging his incomplete body behind it.

“Woah woah woah, where are you going?” She asked. Tatara could just see her through the darkness by the single glow of her red eye.

“Cochlea. To kill Houji. Where else.” He growled. His throat was coarse, his voice pained and too quiet to sound as firm as he intended.

“Ugh, seriously? And here I thought we taught you a lesson. You’re a stubborn bastard, I’ll give you that. Stubborn and foolish.”

Tatara twisted his form around in bewildered anger. His eyes adjusting to the dark, he could see the outline of her mummified form. In the shadowlight, those rabbit ears on her hood made her look like some kind of devil.

“What – are you saying…?”

“I’m saying my buddy just fucked you up, on my orders.”

Tatara’s eyes dilated. That couldn’t be. There was no way that could be.

“How do you think we got into Cochlea in the first place, numbskull? He let us in. Kishou Arima is my partner in crime. Oh, but don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.”

A dove? Working with a ghoul? It was impossible. Unheard of. She was lying. She had to be lying, messing with his head.

“I started the fight.” He argued back, between coughs of blood he caught in his mask. “I came to him.”

“And you saw him because he was on his way to fight you. Oh, and for the record, that’s why I positioned him there in the first place. Told him to spread some rumours about an impending ghoul attack on Cochlea, and to bring Houji along, of course.”

Tatara was becoming furious. What was she saying? She had been orchestrating the situation, the whole time?

“Ah,” she continued rambling, “he was a bit of a wildcard, though. We weren’t able to rescue as many ghouls as we wanted because of him. He killed one of our guys for every prisoner we sprung, which was kind of a pain. But this,” her eye shone down at him through the darkness, “this makes it all worth it.”

Tatara lost it. He ripped his kagune from the concrete and sent it swirling around Eto, trapping her in the same constrictor hold as before. She stood motionless in its folds as the dirge of heavy rain resounded around them.

“What are you talking about?” He screamed. “You only went to Cochlea because I made you!”

“No,” Eto responded unperturbed, and in a flash she suddenly expanded. A gigantic kagune emerged from her back and swung up her arm, knotted and swollen, the size of a car, with hundreds of branches like withered trees and human hands. Tatara’s kagune hold was broken in an instant, and the hand at the head of Eto’s abomination now caught Tatara’s throat and hoisted him into the air.

“You went to Cochlea because I tricked you.”

Tatara thrashed uselessly, wheezing for air. He could not breathe. Everything burned. The monster beneath him grinned with a daemoniacal aspect. It was dark. It was cold. He could not move his arms. He could not move his legs. Why was this happening?

“We’d planned to infiltrate Cochlea for ages. How else would we have been able to do it in two days’ time? When you wouldn’t join us the first time, I asked Kishou to plant himself and Houji in Cochlea so you would come along on this little mission of ours. He heard all about your past from Houji, and I heard all about it from him. I wanted nothing better than to snatch the object of your desire right from under you, exactly when you were so close to dying just the way you want. Then, I wanted to really teach you about death. That was Kishou’s specialty. So he sliced you up good and proper and gave you back to me before I made my getaway, which brings us up to now.”

Tatara hated the woman below him more than even Houji at that moment. He hated her for going to such lengths just to make him suffer, and when he thought about how he had fallen for every trap she had set, he began to fear her too.

“Then you – you let me win?!”

“Duh, and the drones you killed were far from my best people, either. After you tried so hard turning them into charcoal and taking down Noro, I decided I didn’t want to deny you your victory. Nothing better than a shot of overconfidence to show you how unprepared you really are. You were always joining me in Cochlea, whether you agreed to come along, I made you come along, or I tricked you into coming along and let you think it was your own idea. I figured the last option would be the best one. I wanted to break you in the right way.” Under her bandages, she seemed to lick her lips. “I am an author, after all.”

The world distorted below Tatara. Amidst the shadows he thought he could see an army of demons, and the sky began undulating like a sea of fire. Between the hell in the sky and its spawn on the ground, Eto’s small form seemed to flare up like a rising flame, synchronising with the twisted form of her gargantuan arm.

“Ah, but Tatara,” her voice seemed to carry on the red ocean, rising, “I didn’t do this because I hate you or anything. Actually, I really like you. I really want you to join Aogiri Tree. That’s why I did it.”

It was all sound to Tatara. Senseless sound. The primal religious terror that Tatara had felt with Arima, he now felt with Eto. They had the power to mean nothing at all.

Eto released her grip, and with panic Tatara came crashing to the ground, smacking his head against the concrete. It made him dizzy, but he retained enough consciousness to see the form of the blurred demon in front of him approach with the scores of laughing night behind her. She lifted his chin, and brought her faceless face close to his, boring her red eye into his own.

“Your brother and sister sacrificed themselves for you, but how are you using that life? You’re running around like a mad dog, living in pits and on roadsides, biting strangers just for the sake of biting them. You justify it to yourself, if it’s all for the sake of killing Houji, Houji, Houji, Houji. But this has nothing to do with Houji. It’s not for the sake of your family either. I think, Tatara, deep down, you really just want to kill yourself. Am I wrong?”

“Y-You are-”

“Not.” Eto cut him off. “I can see it. In these.” She brought out two fingers, and pressed them hard into Tatara’s eyes. He screamed.

“Don’t you think your brother would have wanted you to continue the legacy of Chi She Lian? Don’t you think that’s why he protected you? You can’t do that alone, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. Chi She Lian wanted to build a better world for ghouls, but you couldn’t care less about that. You don’t even care about avenging their deaths. If you kill Houji along the way, well, that’s a plus, but when push comes to shove, you want to fight Houji so you can die against Houji and join your family in the pit.”

“N-no, that’s not-“ He shouted out desperately in his blindness.

“True.” Eto cut him off. “It’s true. I can taste it. In these.”

Tatara felt fingers tugging at his mask, and he heard its metallic clatter on the pavement. Then he felt something warm descend on his lips. It sucked on them like seawater, and something wormish slipped in, sliding against Tatara’s tongue, tugging it forwards. He felt compelled to reciprocate. He just wanted something warm to cling onto. Everything hurt. His body. Her words. Everything.

It was lasting too long, and he was struggling to breathe again. But when the warmth left him and he heaved for air, he missed it with a paranoid intensity. He moved his lips motionlessly.

“Want more?” He heard Eto’s voice coo down to him.

He nodded frantically, dignity long gone, desperate only for the warm bosom of something like love.

“I’ll give you more.” Came her voice, maternal and soothing.

He felt something touch his bottom lip, but it was not warm. It was cold, and sharp, and it stabbed right through it. Tatara screamed.

“Sh, sh, sh, sh.” Eto whispered softly in his ear. “No more noise. I’ll do your speaking for you.”

Then she began to sing.

“Tyger, tyger, burning bright,”

He could feel string being pulled through the hole behind the needle, and then the same pain on his top lip.

“In the forest of the night,”

He felt too terrified to scream any more, and after each stab came the string, closing up his mouth, one by one.

“What immortal hand or eye,”

He did not know if he would ever be able to scream again.

“Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

Her movements stopped, and Tatara knew that the stitching must be complete. He was too horrified to risk speaking, so she spoke for him, whispering the words he needed to hear.

“You can still atone, Tatara, you can still honour your family’s legacy. I mean to change the world through Aogiri. There are forces at work that only Kishou and I know about, who want to keep everything exactly the way it is. Aogiri is the only organisation that can stop them. The only force that can truly save our species. We will create the world Yan wanted to see.”

Her voice calmed Tatara even through the residual agony burning on his lips. Here, it sounded soft, honest, itself pained, unlike the ruthless mockery and interrogation of before.

“You’re lost, confused, lashing out after everything was taken from you. I understand, I used to be the same. But it’s okay now. I’ll make everything better. After all, I promised you, didn’t I?”

The pressure lifted from Tatara’s eyeballs, and he opened them with a flutter of fear. He could see Eto lit up beneath the fire-sky, her bandages unravelling to reveal her bare skin and her beautiful face, looking at him gently through one green eye and one red. Tatara breathed faintly through his stitched mouth in awe.

“I will become your God.”

At that moment, he thought he fell in love with her.

Three days after the assault on Cochlea, Special Class Houji stared out from his office window at an afternoon sky awash with the first splashes of sunset. The redness of its waves sank his mind even deeper in its ruminations. He had only one thought that came with fire.

His office was otherwise empty, save for the entry, to his surprise, of First Class Arima. They hailed each other in greeting as Arima walked over to Houji’s desk.

“I’ve just come from a meeting with Special Class Washuu.”

“Oh?”

Arima pre-empted his question. “The guarding of Cochlea was my operation, so it was only me that they questioned. They didn’t blame you for its failure at all.”

They should, Houji thought to himself guiltily. It felt as though he was constantly being lifted up by others and protected for his misdeeds. A demotion or two would have been more than warranted.

Arima seemed to notice his fallen face. “Our conduct was not subjected to scrutiny. The other Special Classes are unanimous that we mediated the damage as best we could. It was Koumura and his lax administration that was lacking. He should have taken the threat more seriously, and, so Special Class Washuu said, so should have his father the Chairman. But with the number of ghouls you killed in particular, they are certain many more would have been released were it not for your presence.”

Arima spoke with nothing like consolation or pity, but in the same controlled, professional voice he always had. It made Houji feel more confident in his judgement. Although ghouls as dangerous as Jason and the Tail Brothers had made it out, he had at least kept his promise to the Priest, who was still rotting away in his cell curmudgeonly.

Despite that, he knew his inner sin. And despite that, he still could not stop himself from asking, one last time:

“First Class Arima, thank you for your words. But I still have one question, if I may.”

Arima looked down at him expressionlessly. “Go on.”

“What happened to the ghoul I saw you fighting with? It had a white cloak with a flame pattern, and a red iron mask.”

There was a hint – just a hint - of surprise in his reaction. “Ah, that one. It got away. It was surprisingly strong.”

“Even for you?”

Arima gave a polite, artificial smile. “Even for me.”

Houji gave such a smile of his own as he turned his attention back to the reddening sky.

“Thank you, First Class Arima.”

“Special Class.” Came Arima’s voice in acknowledgement, followed by his receding footsteps.

Too strong for Arima…

If that was true, Tatara would already be his brother’s equal. Houji turned his gaze to the cases containing the quinques he had retrieved from Cochlea, and remembered all the blood that had been spilt to make them. When the day came to finally end this struggle, he knew much more would follow.

When the day comes.

For now though, Houji knew better than to try and rush things to a conclusion. For now, he would pursue his duties in the CCG to the utmost of his ability, just as he always had, and put his personal desires aside. One day, he knew, he would finally meet Tatara in battle; but he would come to that day the long way round.

Forgive me, Tatara. I cannot give you peace yet.

The lotuses were in bloom.

Full red colour burst brilliantly on the flowers floating in the pond. Their leaves were stained as if from blood, but they had become something beautiful. Tatara pondered how far they had come since the shrivelled shrubs of the Yangshuo retreat. The flowers may be different, but his eyes were the same.

“Ah, he’s here.”

Eto’s voice called to him from the side. She was not wearing her bandages today, but appeared to him as he first saw her – or not quite. She too had bloomed. In what he had once seen as a childish nuisance he now saw the very spirit of power.

There was only one who could rival her. At the top of the slope from the forested alcove, where the pond lay hidden in the empty cemetery, stood the white-coated form of the reaper. Standing there, Kishou Arima appeared as a concentrated sunbeam, radiant in burning majesty. Tatara could truly believe he was the One-Eyed King.

There was much to this world Tatara had not known which Eto had shown him. V. The Washuu clan. Half-ghouls and half-humans. She told him about her past and Arima’s both, and about their plan, to raise a successor to achieve their dream of uprooting that warped root and creating a peaceful world for ghouls. He was reminded of how Yan had groomed him for that very similar role, and had saved him, in the end, for that purpose.

He and Eto ascended the slope to meet Arima. The King could not come down to his subjects. When they reached the top of the hill, Tatara fell on one knee before him.

“Welcome, Tatara.”

“King.” He responded with deference, his voice muffled behind his mask and stitched mouth. Now that he had fully regenerated, he was presentable for the ceremony. Eto had even ordered a new robe to be spun for him for the occasion; but not an Aogiri one. It was a Chi She Lian robe, decorated with the same licking flames at the bottom, but free from all the dirt, filth and blood of his old one.

“You seek to join Aogiri Tree?”

“If I may have that honour.”

“The honour would be ours.” Arima’s face was pensive. “I have heard you are a ghoul of ambition. Certainly, besides Eto you are the strongest ghoul I have fought in my career. Few have lasted so long against me. But, you are not the heir we are looking for. Do you still wish to join us?”

Tatara knew as much from Eto. That was another reason she had him fight Arima: they had decided that the messiah they needed was a ghoul strong enough to kill him. Again like Yan, their commitment to their mission extended beyond the parameters of their own lives. But Tatara had not managed to lay a dent in Arima. Despite Yan’s hopes, he was not the saviour the ghoul world needed.

“I do, King.”

His insufficiency for that role had been hammered into him excruciatingly in his one-sided ‘fights’ with Arima and Eto both, but he had found peace with it now. There was another way to honour Yan’s legacy.

He would take on the role Yan did. He would advance the cause of Aogiri Tree to raise up the true messiah, who would finally save the ghouls from their damnation to torment and tragedy that Tatara knew so well. Yan had thrown him into the fire to make him strong enough to survive, and that was what Tatara meant to do this world. How had Eto put it? To take this fucked up, piece of shit world, fuck it up even more and then give it a factory reset.

“Your humility does you credit. It is a small organisation yet, but I have full confidence that you can take it to greater heights.”

Arima released his attaché case, and brought out his lance-like quinque. Tatara did not flinch.

“In honour of your strength, your heritage, and the role you played in the honourable cause of our martyred comrades in Chi She Lian, I hereby dub you a leader of Aogiri Tree.”

Arima tapped his quinque lightly on each of Tatara’s shoulders. The honour surprised him. He felt greatly humbled. Eto was smiling widely at him, and he was glad his mask obscured the blood he felt rushing to his cheeks.

“Looks like we’ll be working together closely, Tatara.”

Arima nodded. “The two of you and Noro will bring the organisation forward while I maintain my cover in the CCG.”

“King, I will not squander this honour you have given me.” Speaking so ceremonially, Tatara felt like he was performing once more in the disciplined rites of Chi She Lian. It gave his life an order he desperately needed.

Arima gave another nod and looked towards the sunset. “With that settled, I should be leaving. Oh, one last thing.” He fixed Tatara with a steady gaze. “Houji asked after you.”

Tatara lowered his head.

“Is that so?”

“Do you still want to kill him?

There was no doubt about that. He could never forgive the lives he took from him, especially not after he made them into his quinques. But he had already seen where haste had taken him. He turned his eyes upwards again.

“The work of Aogiri Tree comes first and foremost.”

Now he had a real reason to live, there was no need to rush things. He would continue the work of Chi She Lian first and foremost, and take his revenge the long way round. His God was different now. Arima gave a small smile, and Eto did too.

“I see.” Arima responded. “Then, fare well, Tatara. I wish you luck.”

“King.” Tatara lowered his head again in respect. When he looked up again, he could see Arima’s snow-white back descending down the cemetery path. They waited by the pond fo r a little while longer to put distance between them.

Tatara rose and felt his shoulders. A leader of Aogiri Tree. Arima had given him quite the gift. He had been blessed, many times over, and not just by Arima. His very ability to stand there that day, watching the lotuses float by and the sky fall into deeper depths of red – his life itself – was a agift to him from Fei. The purpose symbolised by his robes and the mask he felt on his face were given to him by Yan. And the stitches he stroked beneath it were bestowed upon him by Eto.

They carried her unique scent. They smelled of human and ghoul, of blood and of lotus petals.

Looking back, it was scents like this one that Tatara had followed from the start. The smell of the flowers had taken him to the catfish pond, and the odour of blood had taken him to that ghoul in the alleyway. The stink of power and vengeance had summoned him to the Longxia’s den, whereas Fei had merely followed Tatara’s scent, and Yan a scent greater than either of them could detect. The doves followed that bloody miasma to Xuhangli, the same reek that brought Eto to him; and the whiff of Houji’s blood, blended with that of his family, had brought Tatara to Cochlea. Everywhere, anywhere, the strength of their noses had led them to destruction.

But even so, he wanted to see where Eto’s scent would lead him. That predatory instinct to follow the smell of something more was common to ghouls and humans alike, and he could no more defy it than he could shut out the roaring of the flames that burned in his brain since that fateful day in Yangshuo. No matter where it took him, he knew that the smell she was following came from something real, if just out of sight. So he would follow the smell of her. With these stitches, she had given him the promise of a new world.

She turned to him as the burning sky cast her in a light as terrible and beautiful as herself.

“Let’s go, Tatara.”

“Mm.”

Together, they walked down the graveyard path beneath the setting sun, towards the great ghoul dawn.

#tokyo ghoul #tg fanfic #tatara #eto yoshimura #tatara x eto #rlb #red lotus blooms

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anhed-nia · 6 years

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BLOGTOBER 10/23 & 10/25/2018: HALLOWEEN (2007) & HALLOWEEN II (2009)

By the time Rob Zombie made the bold move of remaking John Carpenter’s name-making classic HALLOWEEN, the horror rock-star’s directorial career had already proved to be incredibly divisive. His 2003 film debut, HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES drew a cult from among diehard fans of his music, but was largely panned by critics who identified it as a ramshackle, self-indulgent disaster. The movie was little more than a Frankensteining-together of Zombie’s favorite things, but he managed to follow it up swiftly with 2005′s semi-sequel, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. With this project, he appropriated three of the principle characters from his cartoony, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW-like first feature, and reimagined them as the redneck antiheroes of a story that plays like a cross between THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE WILD BUNCH. While DEVIL’S REJECTS showed major improvements in terms of drive and focus, it still felt unsettled. It is an emotionally confused movie that has trouble deciding whether its tale is more tragic for the innocent victims of its psychopathic protagonists, or more triumphant, for the Rejects’ anti-establishment swagger and charisma. Rob Zombie displays a refined aesthetic sense, and seems sincere in his storytelling, but he didn’t have much time to let these things ferment into a more potent cinematic brew before he stepped up to bat again with his controversial remake of the beloved HALLOWEEN in 2007.

Reviled even by the likes of John Carpenter himself, Zombie’s dour, ponderous retelling of the archetypal slasher story was baffling to critics and genre buffs alike. Loaded up with clunky psychoanalysis that flies in the face of Carpenter’s original intention--Michael Myers is PURE NO-REASON EVIL, FULL STOP--this iteration of HALLOWEEN worked for few people besides Zombie’s hardcore stans. In spite of that very large and general problem, the writer-director was back again in 2009 with a sequel to his own remake. With HALLOWEEN II, he took two major creative risks: Bringing the ubiquitous Sheri Moon Zombie back even though her character died early in the first film, and centering the narrative on Laurie Strode’s psychological recovery, or lack thereof, from her original ordeal. It is easy to see how this setup would draw more complex and ambivalent responses. Mrs. Zombie’s appearance as the ghost of Myers’ mother, whose character is plagued by a lot of Jungian nonsense, was identified fairly as ludicrous by many viewers. On the other hand, Scout Taylor-Compton’s return as Laurie Strode takes a character who was little more than a cardboard cutout in the first film, and turns her into a convincing mass of trauma who undergoes a profound transformation over the course of this sequel. As with THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, HALLOWEEN II suggests that even while Rob Zombie can be an incredibly frustrating filmmaker, he still seems to be on to something. Even in my most stuck-up moments, when his smug use of slow motion and arias of unshocking cuss words make me want to forget everything I just watched, his movies nag at me in a way that I have a hard time describing. I’m just now starting to formulate an understanding of why.

Often, I find myself asking: Who is Rob Zombie? First and foremost, he is a professional nerd. His music, art, videos, and feature films are strung together by his scholarship in all things genre, whether he’s invoking Tobe Hooper’s snuff-like realism, or the innocent sitcom pleasures of the Munsters. Zombie is vastly erudite about horror, and really anything remotely culty. This is actually to the detriment of HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, which is so bloated with pop culture references that it almost chokes out the movie’s dubious originality. But while he has that irritating nerdy compulsion to competitively show off what he knows, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who buys and bags comics without even cracking them open. Rob Zombie is clearly, legitimately passionate; it’s heartwarming, and enough to make you want to root for him even when you don’t totally love what he’s doing. His craftsmanship is on point, too, as a multimedia artist whose talent has been abundantly evident since the early band flyer days. It comes as no surprise that he attended Parsons School of Design, and he occasionally shows his hand as an amateur film historian with a love for golden age Hollywood. So, whatever he wants you to think about his hellbilly stage presence, he’s clearly no hick, and no basement-dwelling dweeb either. He’s an educated artist with a background in New York City’s brainy ‘80s noise rock scene. It’s because of this that I find the worshipful attitude his films take toward their sociopathic murderers to be, well...kind of annoying. Why am I supposed to think it’s so cool, as the movies’ punk rock tone suggests, that the Firefly family tortures random bystanders to death for no apparent reason? Why doesn’t Rob Zombie know how tired the whole “scary clown” thing is, and has been for a long time already, even when it’s someone as magical as Sid Haig under the greasepaint? Why do I feel like Zombie’s interest in pimps and ho’s is deeper than just exploitation pastiche, which makes it potentially worse than if it were just a shallow affectation? The thought of this Massachusetts-born college boy fantasizing obsessively about being so crude and violent and salt-of-the-earth is kind of lame. So, instead of just, you know, being a hater as usual, I looked it up--and discovered that Rob Zombie’s roots are actually in the fairway. As Wikipedia aggregates from various interviews:

While raising their sons, Rob's parents worked in a carnival, but they chose to leave after a riot broke out and tents were set on fire. Zombie recalled the experience in an interview, stating, "Everybody's pulling out guns, and you could hear guns going off. I remember this one guy we knew, he was telling us where to go, and some guy just ran up to him and hit him in the face with a hammer – just busted his face wide open. My parents packed up real quick, and we took off."

Suddenly, it all started to make sense. Sure, the costumed popstar isn’t an undead cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and Charles Starkweather in real life, but he isn’t a complete poseur either. It isn’t immediately clear, from underneath his mountain of collectory movie references, that he is, more or less, writing what he knows. He isn’t just emulating his cultural heroes, he’s mythologizing his own childhood.

In view of this, the key to Rob Zombie’s movies is not an awareness of horror history and semiology; it’s actually all about outlaw culture. So, back to 2007′s deeply flawed HALLOWEEN. It’s a heavily bro-y movie, in its outsidery way, that breaks up the Dr. Loomis-Michael Myers-Laurie Strode love triangle, and focuses almost entirely on building a Myers biography. The fascinatingly sullen Daeg Neergaard Faerch plays young Michael, a fatherless boy on the verge of snapping from the relentless torment coming at him from all directions: his slutty sister, school bullies who fixate on his stripper mom (Sheri Moon Zombie), and his mother’s latest violent, depraved boyfriend. Michael follows the serial killer script perfectly, graduating rapidly from torturing animals to brutalizing other kids to annihilating his sister, her boyfriend, and his mother’s beau one Halloween night when his sibling chooses sex over taking her little brother trick-or-treating. He soon finds himself installed in a mental institution where he moves on to slaughtering the staff. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) spends years evaluating the boy, though he is ultimately stymied by Michael’s profound lack of humanity. As Michael increasingly retreats behind the folksy homemade masks he spends all day crafting, the opportunistic Loomis gives up on him, instead committing his energy to a money-making true crime/pop psychology book about Myers. Flashing forward, we find the hulking adult Michael Myers (played by the 6′8″ wrestler Tyler Mane) getting ready to bust out of the asylum and wage war on his home town of Haddonfield. There we finally meet teen dream Laurie Strode, a spunky babysitter with a gaggle of gal pals who are perfect grist for the slasher mill. In the final leg of the film, Myers carves his way through Laurie’s social circle, in an apparent attempt to reunite with his sister: Laurie herself. Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) reveals that when Michael’s despairing mother committed suicide years ago, he took her infant daughter and had her adopted out anonymously to insulate her from her family’s tragic history. Laurie, for her part, is unaware of anything other than her need to survive, which she only barely accomplishes.

Naturally, Laurie’s story is the weakest part of a movie that is otherwise so focused on male experience. That is, the experience of needing a father, the ambivalent and ambiguous craving for maternal intimacy, the trauma of having your masculinity impugned by your (fag-obsessed) peers, and perhaps even the undermining influence of academia and capitalism on a man’s natural-born strength and worth. When the newly-freed Michael Myers storms through a truck stop to begin his pilgrimage to Haddonfield, and Rob Zombie chooses to accompany this scene with Rush’s regal outlaw anthem “Tom Sawyer”, it tells you everything you need to know about this take on HALLOWEEN. Like the rampaging Firefly family in DEVIL’S REJECTS, Michael is certainly evil, but he also represents something essential about the formation of and reinforcement of one’s individuality in the face of castrating societal norms--something the carnies among whom Rob Zombie grew up would have found very relatable.

It’s worth noting here that, while the sexuality of the women in Michael’s life plays a role in his distorted development, he is not reacting to their sexuality in and of itself. Michael Myers is not driven by the kind of covetousness that we associate with the archetypal slasher, who gives sexually frustrated male viewers a vicarious thrill by punishing sluts and teases. Michael’s problem is that his mother and sister’s sexuality contributes to his isolation. His classmates use his mother’s profession against him, and that profession keeps her from being able to tuck him in at night. Similarly, Michael doesn’t get to enjoy Halloween with his family and the other neighborhood kids, because his sister is too busy getting laid. Michael is abandoned, even while he still has a home to return to, an outsider even in his own house.

This leads me to an important point about why the portion of the movie that is devoted to Laurie's struggle is so ineffective. It is a flaw in the film, but a virtue of the director: Normal, attractive teenagers are not Rob Zombie’s people. He doesn’t even participate in traditional slasher movie misogyny, he’s so far away from thinking about them. His movies are full of badass women who are fully possessed of their sexuality, and who wield it like a weapon against hypocrites and assholes, and this is always shone in a heroic light. Moreover, he delights in casting women of all shapes and ages, often assigning them immense personal power, as in LORDS OF SALEM, an enormously satisfying movie about society’s original persecuted outcasts: witches. Rob Zombie is deeply committed to outsiders, and his definition of them isn’t limited to banal lawbreaking--he also rejects conventional beauty and our cultural obsession with youth. His films are populated by all manner of human beings, and the farther away they are from looking like model material, the more likely it is that they’re meant to be the heroes. On that note, whatever you think of his movies, you have to acknowledge that they are almost never dehumanizing. Zombie is an accomplished actor’s director who gets a full spectrum of emotion out of his performers, and who excels at creating a feeling of camaraderie within his ensemble casts. It is this surprising sweetness, and compassion even for the victims of the villains he lionizes, that makes HALLOWEEN II so peculiarly effective.

If 2007′s HALLOWEEN was a remake on which Rob Zombie couldn’t resist draping some of his personal hangups, HALLOWEEN II is almost a completely original and separate entity from what one thinks of as the franchise started by John Carpenter. In it, Michael Myers is presumed dead but his body is missing--and indeed, his character is missing for much of the movie. We find a disturbed, scarred-up Laurie Strode living with her surviving friend Annie, and Annie’s father, Sheriff Bracket. Laurie is dealing, poorly, with a heavy dose of PTSD. Along with nightmares and flashbacks, she also has trouble just being nice to people, or accepting affection. Annie and her father’s attempts to be charitable with their adoptive family member are no match for Laurie’s increasing surliness and mistrust of the world. Once a good-natured and optimistic young woman, her appearance becomes vagrant-like (curiously similar to Rob Zombie’s own casual look), her attitude is more and more nihilistic, and she develops a drinking problem. I’ve always wanted to see a movie with a slasher-like narrative foundation, but that focuses on aftermath and recovery, and recent gimmicky efforts like FINAL GIRL and LAST GIRL STANDING did absolutely nothing for me. HALLOWEEN II--at least, the superbly-acted Strode part of it--is the movie I’ve been asking for.

The other part of the movie is also interesting--or more specifically, it’s as ballsy as it is flawed. The movie gets off on kind of a bad foot when a title card quotes an obscure psychology text book called The Subconscious Psychosis of Dreams:

WHITE HORSE - instinct, purity, and the drive of the physical body to release powerful and emotional forces, like rage with ensuing chaos and destruction.

This is the excuse we have for the fact that the ghost of Deborah Myers arrives with a white horse to compel her son to find his sister Laurie Strode, aka Angel Myers, to reunite their family, presumably in the afterlife. Deborah Myers is kind of a spectral cross between Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, at once welcoming and sinister, drifting in and out of Michael’s consciousness in the company of a sort of ghost of his childhood (Chase White Vaneck, who is no Daeg Faerch honestly). It might be easy to dismiss this anomaly as an expression of Michael’s mental illness, and his desire to experience an idealized version of his youth in which his mother still looks after him--except that later in the movie, during the final standoff, Laurie is shown to be physically affected by these spirits. Maybe the implication is that she and Michael suffer the same psychological ailments, but for them to share such specific hallucinations without speaking is borderline supernatural in and of itself. So, while Sheri Moon Zombie does her best with her impressive force of personality and compelling physical presence, it’s hard to say what this part of the movie serves. When I first saw the film, I was completely outraged by this, not only because it made no sense to me, but because it felt like a cheap ripoff of Sarah Palmer’s similar prophetic visions of a white horse in Twin Peaks. That was all I managed to make of it.

Today, I still don’t love it, but I have more trouble faulting Rob Zombie for trying to make HALLOWEEN his own, something more than a remake. He also does this by truly letting go of the Shape. The famous William Shatner mask was blown in half by Laurie at the end of the 2007 HALLOWEEN, and scarcely makes much of an appearance in this movie. Michael Myers is a disheveled drifter, literally haunted by his past, whose only real aim is to find a place to belong. It’s sort of funny, in retrospect: When John Carpenter made the first HALLOWEEN, he-by-way-of-Dr. Loomis declared Michael an empty shell of a person, someone who was simply born evil, as reflected by the empty-eyed mask he wears. For some reason, though, a whole legacy of directors just couldn’t resist trying to explain Myers away. The original HALLOWEEN II then says, “Well...what if Michael Myers is on a rampage because LAURIE STRODE IS HIS SISTER? What’s that you say? Why is that a reason to rampage? Ummmm...” And then HALLOWEEN 4 sees him pursuing other young female relations of his, and then in subsequent movies there’s an accursed rune, and druids, and immortality rites, and by the time you get to HALLOWEEN 6 you have this absurd stone soup of bad ideas. It’s a miracle that this franchise became such a thing. Rob Zombie makes the same fundamental mistake, but at least he tries it in the simplest possible way, asserting plainly that Nurture, not Nature, made Michael into a killer. Now, terminally lonely, he’s like a clown waking up in his trailer to find that the carnival left without him. Exiled from mainstream society, he seeks out what remains of his family, who, due to his own violent actions, has grown up more like him than he may have imagined.

I’m not saying I think this was the best thing to do with HALLOWEEN 2. Personally, what I crave in horror movies is something that is farther beyond explanation than this--something that gesturally resembles my life experience, but that plunges past the veil of mundanity into a deeper, darker world of primordial fears and urges, addressing things that unsettle me because I cannot rationalize them. For me, horror is definitionally incomprehensible, and Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN diptych is fundamentally sane. But, I think what I’ve discovered is that these movies are not proper horror movies, in spite of their relentless sadistic violence. They are outlaw fables, with more DNA in common with something like EASY RIDER, than with FRIDAY THE 13TH. It’s funny to watch myself coming to a compassionate understanding of these movies that are themselves about outsiders and rejects who are specifically deprived of understanding. My goal in all this was not so much to convince people of the value of these movies, which one might reject on any number of reasonable counts, but to explain to myself why I keep coming back to them. It isn’t to condescendingly heckle them, and it isn’t just because they’re often handsome-looking, or because they’re so emotionally authentic even when the narrative is less than compelling. It must be because, even when I’ve found him challenging, I can’t help seeing Rob Zombie as a person with vision, someone who heroically eschews common consensus on taste and sense-making--the consensus even among horror fans and his own cinematic heroes--in order to say what makes sense to him personally. Finally, he has begun to make sense to me, too.

#rob zombie #halloween #2007 #halloween ii #2009 #blogtober #remake #John Carpenter #sheri moon zombie #michael myers #laurie strode #scout taylor-compton #brad dourif #malcolm mcdowell #tyler mane #the shape #horror #slasher #outlaw culture

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lgbtqiahistoricalromance · 6 years

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YA & School Love in LGBTQIA+ Historical Romances

First off, I’m glad to say that the YA novels of today are teeming with LGBT characters, many of them MCs. That said, this is just a taste of a few that I really enjoyed or by authors you might not be aware of yet. @lgbtqreads is an excellent resource for more exhaustive lists, and also companies like Book Riot.

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages. Short story anthology of LGBTQIA teenagers throughout history, from across the spectrum. Ed by Sandra Mitchell

- Take a journey through time and genres to discover stories where queer teens live, love and shape the world around them. Seventeen young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.

Hayden Thorne novels are being reissued. She specializes in YA LGBT romance novels, many with fantasy elements, but all of them well constructed and inventive. I’ve read almost all of her novels in this genre, and several are mentioned elsewhere on this blog. Just, please, check out this amazing author’s work for some very creative takes on some of your favorite tropes, and ideas I’ve never read anywhere else.

A Place for Wolves by Kosoko Jackson

- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Code Name Verity in this heartbreaking and poignant historical thriller. (YA!!)

James Mills isn’t sure he can forgive his parents for dragging him away from his life, not to mention his best friend and sister, Anna. He’s never felt so alone. Enter Tomas. Falling for Tomas is unexpected, but sometimes the best things in life are. Then their world splits apart. A war that has been brewing finally bursts forward, filled with violence, pain, and cruelty. James and Tomas can only rely on each other as they decide how far they are willing to go—and who they are willing to become—in order to make it back to their families.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee (Review)

- A young bisexual British lord embarks on an unforgettable Grand Tour of Europe with his best friend/secret crush. An 18th-century romantic adventure for the modern age written by This Monstrous Thing author Mackenzi Lee - Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets the 1700s.Henry "Monty" Montague doesn't care that his roguish passions are far from suitable for the gentleman he was born to be. But as Monty embarks on his grand tour of Europe, his quests for pleasure and vice are in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family's estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.So Monty vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty's reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.Witty, dazzling, and intriguing at every turn, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue is an irresistible romp that explores the undeniably fine lines between friendship and love.

Don't miss Felicity's adventures in The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, the highly anticipated sequel!

Pantomine by Laura Lam (Micah Grey Trilogy Book 1)

- In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .

Gene's life resembles a debutante's dream. Yet she hides a secret that would see her shunned by the nobility. Gene is both male and female. Then she displays unwanted magical abilities - last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Matters escalate further when her parents plan a devastating betrayal, so she flees home, dressed as a boy.

The city beyond contains glowing glass relics from a lost civilization. They call to her, but she wants freedom not mysteries. So, reinvented as 'Micah Grey', Gene joins the circus. As an aerialist, she discovers the joy of flight - but the circus has a dark side. She's also plagued by visions foretelling danger. A storm is howling in from the past, but will she heed its roar?

Ash by Malinda Lo

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted. The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash's capacity for love--and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love. Entrancing and empowering, Ash beautifully unfolds the connections between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara

- A clever, romantic novel based on the true story of a girl who disguised herself as a boy to sail with the infamous pirates Anne Bonny and Calico Jack—and fell in love with Anne Bonny.

There’s no place for a girl in Mary’s world. Not in the home of her mum, desperately drunk and poor. Not in the household of her wealthy granny, where no girl can be named an heir. And certainly not in the arms of Nat, her childhood love who never knew her for who she was. As a sailor aboard a Caribbean merchant ship, Mary’s livelihood—and her safety—depends on her ability to disguise her gender.

At least, that’s what she thinks is true. But then pirates attack the ship, and in the midst of the gang of cutthroats, Mary spots something she never could have imagined: a girl pirate.

The sight of a girl standing unafraid upon the deck, gun and sword in hand, changes everything. In a split-second decision, Mary turns her gun on her own captain, earning herself the chance to join the account and become a pirate alongside Calico Jack and Anne Bonny.

For the first time, Mary has a shot at freedom. But imagining living as her true self is easier, it seems, than actually doing it. And when Mary finds herself falling for the captain’s mistress, she risks everything—her childhood love, her place among the crew, and even her life.

Breathlessly romantic and brilliantly subversive, The Unbinding of Mary Reade is sure to sweep readers off their feet and make their hearts soar.

Deviant Desire by Jackson Marsh (Just came out March 7th!)

- The Victorian East End lives in fear of the Ripper and his mission to kill rent boys. Silas Hawkins, nineteen and forging a life on the streets could well be the next victim, but when he meets Archer, his life changes forever. Young, attractive and rich, Archer is The Viscount Clearwater, a philanthropist, adventurer and homosexual.When Archer suspects the Ripper is killing to lure him to a confrontation, he risks his reputation and his life to stop the madman's murders. Every man must play his part, including Silas.A mashup of mystery, romance and adventure, Deviant Desire is set in an imaginary London of 1888. The first in an on-going series, it takes the theme of loyalty and friendship in a world where homosexuality is a crime. Secrets must be kept, lovers must be protected, and for Archer and Silas, it marks the start of their biggest adventure - love.

The Prince and The Dressmaker by Jen Wang

- Set in Paris, this graphic novel follows Sebastian, a prince with a secret. By day, Sebastian laments his parents' fervent search for his bride-to-be, but by night, Sebastian transforms into fashion icon Lady Crystallia! Sebastian's best friend and dressmaker, Frances, has kept his secret, but when the secret becomes too hard to keep, she may risk their friendship and Sebastian's trust for her own shot at the spotlight.

A Light Amongst Shadows (Dark is the Night series Book 1) by Kelley York and Rowan Altwood

This whole series is gold, but here is the information on the first novel...

James Spencer is hardly the typical troubled youth who ends up at Whisperwood School for Boys. Instead of hating the strict schedules and tight oversight by staff, James blossoms, quickly making friends, indulging in his love of writing, and contemplating the merits of sneaking love poems to the elusive and aloof William Esher. The rumours about William’s sexuality and opium reliance are prime gossip material amongst the third years…rumours that only further pique James’ curiosity to uncover what William is really like beneath all that emotional armor. And, when the normally collected William stumbles in one night, shaken and ranting of ghosts, James is the only one who believes him. James himself has heard the nails dragging down his bedroom door and the sobs echoing in the halls at night. He knows others have, too, even if no one will admit it. The staff refuses to entertain such ridiculous tales, and punishment awaits anyone who brings it up. Their fervent denial and the disappearance of students only furthers James’ determination to find out what secrets Whisperwood is hiding…especially if it prevents William and himself from becoming the next victims.

Originally, this list was going to include professors too, but they were already on a list and May/December romances will be on the list for May.

Adding a link for a list of best LGBT fantasy romances in the YA genre, because they have several novels with historical themes that I know friends/fellow readers I know, have enjoyed.

#lgbt romance #historical romance

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newx-menfan · 6 years

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X-23 and the Direction of the X-Men

I’ve talked a lot about what I don’t like with what Marvel has been doing, so I thought I’d talk about what I DO like with the X-23 solo series and how the X-Men line in general could benefit from doing the same…

Mariko Tamaki’s solo series utilizes elements of Morrison, Kyle and Yost, Liu, and Taylor; without being dependent on them. While examining Laura and Gabby’s histories as clones; I don’t feel like this story arc is TRYING to be ‘Innocence Lost’, ‘Target X, ‘the Four Sisters’, 'Riot at Xavier’s’, or 'Planet X’ . It’s very much it’s own story, instead of a continuation of previous stories.

One of the major reasons for this is Mariko doing something different with Laura’s clone narrative; by having her story parallel the Stepford Cuckoos, characters Laura has been around but never really interacted with.

This helps bring out BOTH a different side to Laura and a different side to the Cuckoos that we didn’t get to see before. Mariko examines Laura’s, Gabby’s, and the Cuckoos motivations thoroughly in this series; making the big motivating factor being different characters psychologies and points of view.

The Cuckoos motivations ARE relatable- wanting their family back. They also both connect to Laura’s inability to somewhat see herself as a individual- by dressing and acting as one; and Gabby’s desire for independence-be having different personalities and personal tastes. Esme wants to both be THE ONLY Cuckoo while simultaneously wanting to merge the Cuckoos power; essentially being permanently connected with her sisters.

Another big change is the risk factor; before in All New Wolverine there was little fear that Gabby was at risk. While Taylor did put her in dangerous situations; rarely as a reader did you question whether or not Gabby would come out of the situation okay. The change is, Mariko’s willingness to allow BOTH Gabby and Laura to go through conflict. While Gabby WILL more than likely come out of the situation physically unharmed, there is the question of-'How will this situation change or shape Gabby as a person?’ What changes will Laura and Gabby go through because of this story arc?

Good writing NEEDS conflict, because conflict is the biggest connector to humanity we have. Conflict can be anything from 'I lost my keys’ to more complicated conflicts like 'Who am I?’. Conflict can be Internal (man vs. self) or External (man vs. nature, man vs. man/society, ect…). But the universal truth is that everyone will experience some form of conflict in our lives and that conflict will shape us.

These elements are what have made the recent X-23 solo a really solid book (well that and Juann Cabal/Nolan Woodard’s art and inking…). It’s also the upcoming problems I see with the recent 'Uncanny’ and 'X-Force’.

Kelly Thompson, Matthew Rosenberg, and Ed Brisson ARE right-The series hasn’t released yet, so I can’t completely comment whether or not it will have these elements or not; but all of the indicators from solicits and interviews DON’T look very convincing…

If Brisson , Rosenberg, or Thompson were introducing a new villain- I’d give them the benefit of the doubt; but the character they are using is the rather overused Apocalypse.

If they were showing a different side of Apocalypse through some difference in plot, that would be one thing-but from the looks of it, it’s playing off 1995 storyline 'Age of Apocalypse’ where David Haller creates a new timeline when accidentally killing his father after traveling back in time to kill Magneto; the only minor difference appears to be is having the 'Horsemen of Salvation’ and kinda in representing Nate Grey as a messiah (a role he regularly rejected…).

We’ve seen the mutant 'messiah’ before-with Jean, with Rachel, with Cable, and with Hope. At the very LEAST you could have done someone NOT tied to the Summer’s…

We’ve seen Angel as a horseman; maybe having Angel being 'Life’ instead of 'Death’ will bring out a new facet to his character, but from the looks of it, the story will heavily hinge on his on again/off again relationship with Betsy.

Are we seeing a new team lineup-from the looks of it, not really; the focus seems to be Iceman, Jean Grey, Beast, Cannonball, Storm, Bishop, Nightcrawler, Jubilee, Psylocke and X-23.

*X-23 and Cannonball are really the only new additions.

*One of the covers heavily featured Legion, hinting that he will AGAIN play a part in kicking this story off.

*Bishop in the original 'Age of Apocalypse’ storyline was the character to notice the timeline WAS wrong and fought to fix it-so it’s not all that surprising to include him.

*X-Man was the main protagonist in the original 'Age of Apocalypse’- maybe their plan is to SUBVERT this trope by making HIM the antagonist and thus making a commentary around organized religion…but I kind of doubt it….

Pixie, Glob, Rockslide, and Armor are SUPPOSED to be the Horsemen of Apocalypse but I am somewhat doubtful that this will largely impact their characters developmentally any more than 'Age of X’ impacted Julian’s, or any of the OTHER ALTERNATE UNIVERSES have largely impacted any of the characters.

Can playing with old storyline’s and nostalgia BE fun: yes, but too much nostalgia becomes empty. It becomes desperately trying to grasp a time period long past that you are inevitably romanticizing and coloring with personal connections. It inevitably showcases how out of touch the writer is with current society…

It would have been one thing if X-Men HADN’T been over utilizing past teams and stories- but in the last few years we got 'the Original Five’ (both time displaced and living adult members…), the Exiles, Generation X, New Mutants/X-Factor hybrid, BloodStorm, Gold with a Claremont reminiscent team, Gambit and Rogue back together, Kitty and Colossus back together, Magneto reverting back to his roots as a villain, Emma reverting back to her roots as a villain, Xavier back, and multiple extinction storyline’s trying to be M-Day or the Legacy Virus…

It would be one thing if X-Men had taken a break from AU characters- but in the last few years we’ve had time displaced Original Five, Jimmy Hudson, baby Cable, Raze, clone Kid Apocalypse, BloodStorm back in focus, Old Man Logan, Exiles characters, ect…

Maybe this title is different and people are 'Pre-Judging’ it; but when in the last few years has Marvel given fans a lot to go on?! The recent interview could essentially be copied and pasted from 'ResurrXtion’-promising big changes before reverting to a overplayed status quo… Maybe this IS a new take on 'Age of Apocalypse’- but hasn’t Marvel promised that beforehand?! They promised a new take with the 'Original Five’ coming back, with the extinction plotline, and with countless other storyline’s-yet Jean and Scott’s romance is heavily the focus, the mutant population inexplicably recovers from mass genocide without any lasting effects, and little character growth actually happens.

I’m not saying this to 'rain on the writers parades’ or target them; but this has been promised BEFORE and all signs indicate this IS the exact same empty nostalgia we’ve seen for years…

I’m not writing this to be negative or condescending. I WANT to be wrong…but I don’t think I am, because I honestly don’t think the writers WOULD be getting defensive if this wasn’t a by the numbers homage to 'Age of Apocalypse’. You don’t NEED to get defensive if you have a trump card or brand new idea up your sleeve.

Whether you love or hate Morrison, Whedon, or Kyle/Yost; there’s no denying they are iconic runs BECAUSE they did something new.

Morrison created villain Cassandra Nova and countless other characters, utilized Emma as a main character to create a new dynamic, and examined population changes with having Mutants become the majority and create their own culture. Even Morrison’s representation of Scott, while controversial, still took a new look at Scott as a character.

Whedon created several characters including Danger, Armor, and Blindfold; explored Xavier’s more questionable decisions, and focused heavily on character dynamics and psychology of the characters. One of the defining relationships was the conflict between Emma and Kitty; utilizing old animosity but examining it under a new lens of Emma being a hero and interacting with Kitty (they did not interact when Emma was part of Generation X).

Kyle and Yost created X-23, creating a new examination into Wolverine’s mythos and a new dynamic. They heavily utilized some of the newer teen characters, to again create a new dynamic. While using older stories (Nimrod, William Stryker, Magik’s origin) by injecting new characters they created something refreshing instead of empty nostalgia. It also examines the darker side of X-Men, by questioning the choice of teens being recruited to essentially be a 'paramilitary group’…

Are all these writers still using old storyline’s- yes, but by adjusting lineups of characters, adding new dynamics, creating new characters, and examining the X-Men under a different social lens: it can dramatically change the story.

The original 'Age of Apocalypse’ also did this when first written by analyzing what the world would be like ruled by Apocalypse and changing character motivations and relationships.

X-Men doesn’t HAVE to change drastically; but it does need some variation. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again- I don’t think fans are being unfair by questioning if this was a good choice to semi reboot the X-Men. This by all appearances doesn’t LOOK like a 'Fresh Start’. Sorry but people are going to 'pre-judge’ things; it’s one of the things that sucks about being a writer.

It would be one thing if X-Men had been knocking it out of the park storyline wise, for the past few years- but the truth is, is they haven’t. You can’t blame fans for being tired of giving Marvel a chance only to watch them make the same pitfalls over and over again.

If you don’t want the criticism-maybe take a chance and try something NEW…

X-23 PROVES Marvel CAN get it right- they just need to put the same thought into the X-teams that they put into her solo.

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dunnystuff · 3 years

Text

Brace yourself - here comes the next wave

Hi to all -

Hope your Easter (or other religious service) was wonderful, and that it filled you with hope and enthusiasm for the coming year. I expect we will see many changes, some expected, others will come as a surprise.

Florida

Well, that state is in the headlines today. One issue was that a reservoir there was in 'imminent danger of collapse'. Okay, that is bad. But, in this case, it becomes much more dangerous. This water is used to cover radioactive waste, and if it goes, we could have a major national risk, something like 'fallout', and I mean that literally. Did you hear what Biden is doing to mitigate or prevent this terrible event? Neither did anyone else. See, the Governor told him off and refused his demands for a mask mandate, so Biden will ignore this, so long as he can, then drag his feet while blaming others.

But, Florida is doing well. Lockdowns are almost gone, along with mask mandates. Business is thriving once again, people are happy. How do you know? Well, people are moving to Florida in great numbers - and away from places like New York, with their corrupt governments and harsh oppression of the people. But NY supports Biden, so they must be protected, at all costs. Remember, a large portion of the 'stimulus' and 'infrastructure' bills were to bail out the failed states of NY and California.

So, what is next for Florida? Sixty Minutes did a hit piece on the Governor, accusing him of 'pay for play' - the standard democrat business model. They accused him of favoring vaccine rollout via Publix supermarket pharmacies, for campaign contributions. If we do a little research, I will bet we find that democrats are doing that all over the nation. They always accuse others of what they are doing. To convey this message, they 'edited' an interview, then aired it. But what these folks never seem to realize is that they do not have the only copy of such things. Other networks had the full story, and it presents a very different picture. So, they played both, side by side.

Well, another standard tactic of the left is to smear the people who are a threat to their power. Expect more of the same.

Georgia

Well, the smears and outright lies continue over the voting law bill here. The idea that voters must prove their identity is just too much for people like Stacy, who still thinks and claims that she won the election a while back. Can you say 'sour grapes', boys and girls? Sure you can. Guess democrats think that minorities are too stupid to actually get any form of ID, and need the protection of their party. You know, modern day urban slavery. Has anyone noticed how much the formerly inner-city black community has progressed? Yes, there are still riots and incidents - greatly facilitated by paid agitators who are nearly always imports to the area.

The republicans in the Georgia legislature have demanded the removal of Coke machines from their offices, over Coke opposing the voter law.

Hunter Biden

His laptop is filled with bad things. His crooked business deals, with payoffs for him, his father and others. Thousands of photos of Hunter with underage girls, and much more. So, it is time to put up a block, and try to deflect what is coming. Hunter got on TV, and claimed to have no memory of even owning the laptop, much less abandoning it in a repair shop (the owner has had to flee the area, perhaps the nation, over death threats - fake laptops rarely generate death threats, now do they?) Hunter asserts that it must be Russian disinformation to discredit him and his family. Can he sell that line, again? I suspect that this is a time bomb, and no matter how much they try to bury it, it is going to explode right in their faces.

Piers Morgan

He really was offended by the 'royals' whining interview on Oprah. He did not like the rest of the royal family being called racist by this spoiled couple. And, he said so, loudly. Even walked off the set on his own show when others tried to brew up a storm in a teapot. For refusing to accept the left's version of the story, he was fired from his job. Wonder if he will soon have a job on Fox, or another network?

The Border

In spite of all the efforts of the Biden team, videos are leaking out of conditions there. They are much, much worse than we thought. Roughly a quarter million people per month are streaming in, often as minors without families, and they are being released into the general population, complete with any diseases they bring, and without regard to their criminal status, or even if they are literally on our terrorist watch lists. One can only describe this as an effort to destroy the country. Glad I do not live on the left coast, but the effects will be everywhere.

Oh, yes, Biden spokespersons are now openly admitting that his spending plans will mean massive tax hikes on the middle class (they always do, the poor have nothing, the rich buy off the politicians). Does anyone calculate how much per person this means? A few trillion dollars divided among about 150 million actual working taxpayers is how much? If the money goes to that, something else must be cut back, and you know what that means - depression, inflation and destruction. It always works that way.

Joe also says that taking the vaccination is a 'moral obligation'. So, is there also a moral obligation to promote other treatments, like HCQ, and some of those other drugs, that work, but do not make money for the few?

UBER Driver and Teens

The two teen girls, aged 13 and 15, who tried to carjack an UBER driver, wrecked his car and killed him in the process, are not going to be tried as adults for the First-Degree Murder for which they were charged. Nope. They will be tried as juveniles, and will be free as birds, with no record, by the time they turn 21. Wonder if they will have to pay for the funeral of the man they killed, or buy his family a new car, or do anything else at all?

All of these events are building to a crescendo. Sooner or later, it is all going to blow up in the face of the left, and the public will demand change. Democrats have never been graceful losers, so I expect that a time of conflict will accompany the changes.

Rich

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star-trekkin-across-theuniverse · 7 years

Text

The Perfect Date (A Human Resources One Shot)

Word Count: 3470 Tags: @supermoonpanda @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso@feelmyroarrrr@anyakinamidala @dirajunara @little-study-bug@rampant-salamander@goodnightwife @samaxraph99 @anotherotter @outside-the-government@kingarthurscat @coyote-in-space @originalpottervengerlock@dolamrothianlady @curiositywillbethedeathofme @superheroesofbothuniverses@mtriestowrite @wanderingkat77

Summary: Anna has to make an appearance at that damn wedding flying solo.

I surveyed myself critically in the mirror. My mother had vetoed the little black dress I’d brought from DC with me, saying black wasn’t appropriate at a summer wedding. Thankfully, Lizzie lived in Vancouver now, as opposed to across the street from Mum and Dad’s place at home as she had when we were growing up. And to her credit, Vancouver had incredible shopping. I’d taken a walk down Robson the afternoon I’d arrived and found the perfect replacement dress. It was halter style, with a contrast band under the bust and a flowy A-line skirt that was to the floor. It was made of some slinky fabric that hugged at my good curves and ignored the wiggly flawed bits, and the colours were perfect for a summer affair, hot pink and purple horizontal stripes that initially had gone against everything I believed about clothing, but once the dress was on, I was sold.

I stepped back and took the whole picture in. I’d splurged when I got up and popped into the salon in the hotel and had the wave in my hair tamed into loose, sexy curls. Once I’d told her about how Jack had dumped me because I wanted him to come to the wedding with me, the stylist convinced me to let one of the estheticians do my make-up. She was determined to make me just a hair less stunning that the bride, so I’d score a wedding hook-up.

I was not opposed to the idea. I’d been at odds with myself since Jack had dumped me, and apart from my disastrous Karaoke night out with Erin, I hadn’t allowed myself to have any kind of fun yet. I was finished grieving my relationship, I was at home in my favourite city on the planet, and I was totally going to pull at my cousin’s wedding. Her NHL fiancé had a crapload of gorgeous friends, and when I’d covertly checked out their stats on the team website, most of them even had all their teeth.

I looked damn fucking good. Too good for Jack, and good enough for whatever hockey player caught my eye. I was ready to take this wedding by storm. I met Mum at her room and did a showy turn for her.

“You look lovely. Much better choice, and it’s just casual enough you won’t risk upstaging Lizzie,” Mum nodded and looked me over. “Such a shame your fellow turned out to be such a dud.”

“I feel confident in saying I am finally over that, Mum.” We headed down to the street to catch a cab to the ceremony. It was the perfect sunny summer day in Vancouver. It was warm, and there was a gentle breeze coming off the inlet that kept the sun from feeling too hot. The park was a riot of flower blossoms. Even the trees were dripping late spring blooms. The perfumed fragrance of the air added to my list of reasons why I was pleased to have come, even as the pathetic singleton cousin. It was Mum’s first family affair since Dad died, and even with the dread of being newly single haunting me, I couldn’t leave her to face a big family gathering on her own.

The ceremony was short. Lizzie was stunning, and her fiancé, Ryan, shed tears as she walked down the aisle. He was big and broad through the shoulders, and rugged. Everything a beer commercial made you think a man should be. And he wept when he saw my little cousin in her beautiful white dress, train trailing down the grass as she walked toward him. It was like the happy ending of a Disney movie, it was so perfect. I felt the sting of tears at the corners of my eyes and thought that maybe I wasn’t completely over Jack. Mum squeezed my hand, as though she could read my mind.

“I’ve always cried at weddings, and your father was the love of my life. You aren’t crying over Jack, Annie.” It was exactly the right words, at precisely the right moment. Ryan kissed Lizzie and his best man whooped a huge cheer, bringing the rest of the guests to their feet with laughter and applause.

The bar opened at the reception an hour later, and I thanked Ryan’s freshly renegotiated contract for the open bar. I brought Mum and Gin and Tonic and then made my way over to the cluster of cousins that was grouped at the edge of the bar. Kyla, Lizzie’s sister, threw her arms around me.

“Annie-bananie! I am so glad you are here! Mama was worried you wouldn’t come after that business with your ex. You look amazing. And so very over him!” She was effusive. I ordered a drink and smiled, willing the flush out of my cheeks. My family all knew I’d been dumped over this wedding; I didn’t need to be embarrassed. But I was. I wasn’t embarrassed I’d been dumped though. I was embarrassed I’d shown such bad judgment that I’d been with Jack for a year before realizing he was the kind of guy to dump me over a wedding.

“Good lord, Kyla, you’re a grown-up!” I exclaimed. She was taller than I remembered. The glasses had been replaced by contacts and she’d filled out from the stick figure teen she’d been into something very distinctly curvy. She winked and grabbed her boobs.

“I’ve almost caught up to you!” She teased. “I’ve got the Smith curves too.” The hourglass shape my mother and aunt were notorious for hadn’t missed a single one of us. I was the only blonde in the mix, something I’d pulled from my Dad’s side. I turned to check out the other guests, and Kyla followed suit. Apparently she was on the prowl too. I caught the eye of the best man and smiled, then turned back to the bar for a refill.

“Kyla, the best man. What’s his story?”

“That’s Fraser Warner. He’s the second string goalie. Total lady-killer, terminally single,” she provided. I smiled at her and looked back at him. He had the same ridiculously broad shoulders that Ryan had. They were so broad I had to wonder if he didn’t have his shoulder pads on under his tux. His waist was narrow and his butt was exquisite. You could probably bounce a quarter off it. And goalies were flexible. Target acquired. I made eye contact with him again and smiled slowly. He didn’t waste any time in heading in my direction.

“I’m Fraser. Best Man. And you are?” He was even more handsome up close.

“Anna. Cousin of the bride.”

“Are you the American cousin?” His smile got broader. I laughed, and chose not to be embarrassed that he knew who I was.

“I’m not American. I work in DC,” I offered. “Apparently my reputation precedes me.”

“Elizabeth was worried you weren’t going to come. She asked me to keep an eye out for you,” he grinned.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t as amused anymore. He looked a little puzzled.

“I don’t follow.”

“Young guy like you, you could probably have any of the girls here. And you got stuck as the pity flirt for the bride’s spinster cousin,” I filled in. Lizzie had always been able to needle me in exactly the right way to make me feel like I was less than she was. And she’d managed to figure out how to do it and seem like she was being thoughtful this time.

“You guys are the same age. I’d hardly qualify you as a spinster, Anna. And I really don’t mind. Particularly now that I’ve had a chance to take a good look at you,” he shrugged. “You’re a lot hotter than Elizabeth let on.”

I wanted to scream. And throw my drink in his face. And kick him in the junk and then proceed over to Lizzie to tear her hair out. So I guess I wasn’t exactly ready to be out on the prowl. I gritted my teeth and smiled vacantly up at Fraser. It was a shame I was just a favour he was doing to my cousin because it completely ruined it for me. And I still had to make it through the whole reception, not just the bloody cocktail hour. Fraser took my smile as an invitation, and ran a hand down my arm. His touch was light and under normal circumstances, I would have found it a turn on. He squeezed my fingers and then ran his hand across my ass. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.

“We could get out of here. The reception is still about an hour away,” he suggested. I smiled and leaned away, suddenly feeling really dirty.

“I don’t think that’s a great idea, Fraser.” I glanced across the room, looking for my mother. I was totally going to use her as an excuse to get away from this uncomfortable situation. I found her just as I saw her leaving the room. She was probably going to take a nap. I looked over to Kyla and saw her deeply engrossed in a conversation with one of the other groomsmen.

“Let me get you another drink, baby,” he purred into my ear. I felt a tiny shudder of revulsion. As soon as he stepped back toward the bar, I wiggled my way out of the crowd of people near me and headed toward the doors. There were tables set up between the bar and the door, and there were groups of people sitting enjoying themselves, away from the crush of the open bar. I slowed my hasty departure as I wound my way through the tables. I had just reached the far side of the tables when a hand dropped onto my shoulder.

“Good plan, honey. Let’s sit and talk, away from the crowd,” Fraser’s strong grip steered me to the nearest table. He pulled out a chair for me. I probably should have felt threatened, but I didn’t. I knew that his career was far too important for him to risk doing anything that I could say was the use of force, so other than the awkward let down I was going to be forced to give, I wasn’t actually concerned. I took the offered drink and took a sip. Cheap rye. Ick.

“So Fraser, tell me. How long have you been playing professional hockey?” I decided the best way to let him down was to turn the conversation away from innuendo and toward idle small talk.

“Six years now.”

“Always for Vancouver?”

“No, I was playing on the farm for a couple years. I got called up two years ago, and have been here since. I like Vancouver. The girls are pretty, the winters are mild.” He ran his hand up my arm again and I had to resist the urge to break his fingers. I had closed my posture, and was no longer acting interested.

“And it’s a good team to play for?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “Are you sure I can’t show you to my room? I really wasn’t expecting you to be so beautiful.” His hand moved to my thigh.

“I –“ I stumbled over my words. “I’m flattered, Fraser –“

“Anna! I’ve been looking for you. My flight just got in about forty minutes ago, I’m so sorry I’m late.” A pair of lips dropped to my cheek and I looked up, stunned. Agent Coulson was standing there, looking better than I have ever seen him looking. His suit was pressed and fit him perfectly. His tie somehow had exactly the right shade of purple in it to match my dress. I tried to mask my confusion and stood up.

“Phil?” I wasn’t sure if it came out as a question because I was so surprised to see him or because I wasn’t sure if that actually was his first name, he’d been Agent Coulson for the entire two years I’d been at SHIELD. He kissed my cheek again, and slipped an arm around my waist, effectively cutting Fraser off from me. He held his hand out to introduce himself. Fraser stood and shook it.

“Hi, I’m Phil Coulson. Anna and I,” he paused and gave a knowing look to Fraser, “we know each other from work. I hadn’t been to Vancouver before so as soon as Anna asked if I wanted to join her, I jumped at the chance.”

“Sure, yeah,” Fraser nodded. “It was super nice to meet you, Anna. I’ll let you catch up with your date.”

Fraser walked back toward the bar, and I felt myself flushing with embarrassment and a little bit of anger. It figured that a big fucking caveman like Fraser would only back down if another man laid claim to me. And Coulson had absolutely laid claim to me. I turned to face him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. He grinned, unrepentantly.

“Winning a bet,” he laughed.

“Against whom?” I demanded.

“I bet you a hundred bucks you wouldn’t remember inviting me to this wedding as your date. There’s an ATM in the lobby if you need to get some cash,” he teased. I shook my head.

“Karaoke night?” I asked. He nodded. “I’ll pay you later. In the meantime, you’d better be the perfect fucking date, Coulson.”

“Oh, this is more than a wedding date. You promised hiking, a picnic at the beach and run along the seawall,” he laughed. His laugh was warm and it didn’t make me feel like an idiot.

“I don’t run. I wouldn’t have promised you a run on the seawall.” I felt a little dizzy and sat back down.

“You were very drunk. And very insistent.” His eyes danced with amusement. They were actually really nice eyes.

“I’m flying home tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have time for hikes and picnics, let alone running the damn seawall,” I complained. He put his hand on my arm and gave a light squeeze of reassurance.

“Raincheck then. In the meantime, I will be the perfect date. Right now that means making sure that your catty cousins see you leaving with me for a quickie before the reception starts.” He slid his arm around my waist and led me toward the elevator.

“Wait, a what?” I turned to face him once the elevator doors closed. He pushed the number for my floor and turned to grin at me again. His eyes crinkled around the edges and I was a little lost. I’d always had a thing for the slightly older guy. I would guess Coulson was in his late thirties, compared to my twenty-five. He had clearly defined smile lines and coupled with the strong jaw, I was a little melty.

“A quickie.” His gaze roved up and down my body and I almost felt naked.

“Oh, I know I didn’t promise that!” I exclaimed. Coulson started to laugh and shook his head.

“So not only are you losing a hundred bucks for your drunken bet, but I think this should be a lesson to you about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption,” he teased. I flushed and looked at the floor.

“You’re kind of a dick, Coulson,” I muttered, but there was no anger to my words.

“Ms. Ellis, look at me,” he demanded. I looked up, and he put his hand on my cheek. “You were a mess that night. It was my honour to escort you home because I don’t know if you could have made good choices on your own. But I’m not such an idiot that when I pretty girl asks me on a date I’ll say no. Even when it’s against my better judgment.”

“But you knew I wouldn’t remember.” I leaned my cheek against his hand. We were being highly unprofessional.

“You needed the reassurance,” he smiled again. I led him down the hall to my room and opened the door. I wanted him to touch me again, but I honestly didn’t trust myself to allow it. I sat on the chair and crossed my legs, closing my posture up. Coulson noticed, and sat on the edge of the bed, facing me, his fingers interlaced and braced between his knees.

“Ground rules, Coulson,” I demanded.

“I will be attentive, and make sure your drink is full, without allowing you to drink too much. I will dance with you. I will play up the crowd if you catch the bouquet, and even though I think it’s ridiculous, I will participate in the garter toss. No one will ever suspect we aren’t in a relationship,” he offered.

“Okay. And all I owe you is the hundred bucks from losing this bet?” I clarified.

“Yes.”

The reception went off without a hitch. The dinner was good, Coulson was as attentive as he’d promised. My mother loved him, although she did point out that he was a little old when he was up at the bar getting drinks. Lizzie found me and threw her arms around me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d already snagged another guy? He’s cute. A little old, but cute,” she kissed my cheeks loudly.

“It a fairly recent development,” I lied. Coulson handed me my drink. Lizzie took the opportunity to fling her arms around him as well. She was a bit drunk.

“You promise me that you’ll treat my cousin better than the last schmuck!” She pointed her finger in his face and swayed a little.

“Promise.”

“Good! I’m going to toss my bouquet now! Come on, Annie-bananie!” She grabbed my arm and hauled me up to the dance floor where the other girls were starting to congregate. Fraser helped her up onto a chair and she turned her back to us and threw the bouquet up in the air. I wasn’t even trying to catch it. It fell right into my hands. I glanced back at Phil apologetically. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He stepped forward into the crowd of guys to await the garter toss, and closed his eyes when it was tossed. He reached up and the garter caught on his finger. Lizzie shrieked.

“Oh my god, how perfect! That’s my cousin’s boyfriend!” She squealed. “Kiss her, Phil!” She ran over to Coulson and started pushing him toward me. I panicked and tried to back away, but once they got close enough, Phil placed a hand on my arm and looked at me. It was so serious a look I stopped.

“I promised I would be the perfect date,” he warned. Lizzie was jumping up and down screeching for us to kiss. I sighed and nodded. He cupped my face in his hands and leaned forward to kiss me quickly. He pulled away almost before it started.

“I said kiss her, Phil!” Lizzie demanded. I bit my lip and mouthed “I’m sorry” to him. He shook his head and leaned forward again. This time, when his lips met mine, they met slowly. His tongue traced my bottom lip tentatively, and a jolt of lust hit me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. One of his hands slid from my face to my shoulder, then he pulled me hard against his chest. I could hear the crowd screaming and cheering but it was background noise, like we were in a different room. He suddenly broke the kiss.

“That’s more like it!” Lizzie clapped us both on the back. I tried to catch my breath, wilted bouquet in one hand, and looked at Coulson, who looked as surprised as I was. A silence fell across the dance floor, almost as if everyone was waiting for us to kiss again. Coulson’s phone suddenly rang, breaking the trance. He answered it and walked off the dance floor, listening to what was being said. I followed him to the edge of the room, and waited for him to get off the call.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ellis, I have to go,” he offered. I nodded. He stepped close and pulled me into an embrace. I wasn’t sure that anyone was watching us any longer, so I wasn’t sure he needed to. He pressed his lips against my forehead and when he pulled out of the hug, I looked up, unsure of how to proceed.

“Uh, thanks?” I hoped I didn’t sound like an idiot. I felt like one. I felt like I wanted to kiss him again. He pulled me back again and kissed me one more time, hard and forceful, like he wanted to kiss me, not just because he was doing undercover work. My hand flew up to my mouth when we broke apart.

“I’ll see you soon, Ms. Ellis.” He turned and left the ballroom.

#phil coulson x OFC #aos fanfiction #agents of shield fanfic

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vulturehound · 6 years

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Returning to Donington Park for the 16th year, Download Festival returns bigger and better with headline performances from acclaimed rock stars, Avenged Sevenfold, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Ozzy Osborne.

As campers scatter from venue to venue, it’s clear a certain dress code is only accepted here… black, with a dash of black, and perhaps more black? “This is the first year since 2013 that it hasn’t pissed down with rain.” Says a fan passing by. Held in the South side of Derbyshire, Download Festival is an acclaimed British, rock Festival held for the masses.

Running from Friday 8th and ending on Sunday 11th, the Festival gave a warm welcome to fans as they opened up the campsite Wednesday afternoon, enabling fans to settle in days before the Festival.

Here’s a log of the 15 acts we caught at Download Festival this year.

Jonathan Davis: Often referred to as JD, the American singer-songwriter was the first act we got a glimpse of at Download this year. Playing a hectic show at the Zippo stage, Davis’s audience filled every speck of open space and roared with excitement alongside each of his songs. Throughout his set he merged nonchalant, psychedelic, trance sounds underneath his screamed lyrics. Thrashing out a ton of tricks from under his sleeve, Davis rocked out a grunge-inspired, dark show when playing his 2007 hit, ‘Forsaken.’ Nicely accompanied by thousands of devil horns enthusiastically thrown from the members of his audience. Ending with his Gothic, metal track, ‘What it Is,’ taken from his debut album Black Labyrinth, the audience all sing with great passion and rage alongside him. “Download, it is what is it ya’ll.” Adds Davis.

Bullet for My Valentine: With just five minutes left until Bullet hit main stage for a dominant set, a fan scatters through the audience and asks a stranger, “do you guys know where the mosh area is?” An encore of, “Bullet,” is bellowed from the audience as they all cheer for the band to come on stage. With theatrical music coursing through the background and a beam of daunting lights, Bullet rock on stage, alongside the gusts of fire that shoot out only inches away from their feet. ‘Your Betrayal,’ kicked up a storm as fans threw their arms around with rage and excitement, “Holy fucking shit Download 2018.” Says front man Matt Tuck before bursting into their next hit, ‘4 words.’ Fans crowd surf, cups of beer are being flung around in numerous directions, and a nude flash from a crazed teen appears on the main screen. “It’s been five long years… fists in the air!” Instructs Tuck, before introducing their next track, ‘The Lost Flight.’ Bullet played an intense set, with inflamed guitar riffs, powerful thuds from Michael Thomas on drums. Playing some of their best acclaimed tracks such as, ‘Tears don’t Fall,’ the band also played their newest single, ‘Letting you Go,’ taken from their latest album Gravity.

Hell is for Heroes: We caught a glimpse of Hell is for Heroes playing at Zippo Friday evening. “This one’s called 5 kids,” Justin Schlosberg frontman says as introducing their next track. Schlosberg brought a great sack of energy to each track, skipping on stage, bouncing with enthusiasm and engaging with his audience. Walking off the stage and into the photography pit, the singer says, “How’s everyone feeling, we alright?” Returning to stage with a wheel of cartwheels, and head bangs, Hell is for Heroes thrash their instruments into their penultimate track, ‘I can Climb Mountains,’ taken from their 2003 album, The Neon Handshake.

You Me @ Six: Playing a disappointing show at the same stage, the praised, alternative rock band set their show off with a river of poorly performed songs. A stream of fans descend from the main stage and head towards Zippo, it’s clear You Me @ Six have a large audience to please. As the band get on stage they start with a steady, adrenaline-driven introduction, applauding the attention of all fans. With a clear, engaging introduction, the track is shortly ruined by the company of poorly out of tuned lyrics screamed by frontman Josh Franceschi. The band set the show off with, ‘Room to Breathe,’ followed by, ‘Fresh Start Fever,’ and ‘Lived a Lie,’ all taken from their forth studio album Cavalier Youth. Unable to give their most acclaimed rock tracks any justice, it’s clear their full potential of putting on a good show just wasn’t executed this weekend.

Avenged Sevenfold: Setting a far better influence were headliners Avenged Sevenfold closing off the Friday evening at main stage. Opening with their militant, hard-core track, ‘Hail to the King,’ with a encore of hails screamed by their audience, the heavy metal band threw some shade the moment they stepped on stage. With a roaring audience packed from the front of stage and almost stopping at the Dog Tooth venue, it’s fair to say Avenged Sevenfold had a meaty crowd amongst them. “How many of ya’ll are seeing Avenged Sevenfold for the first time? Welcome to our fucked up family.” Shouts frontman Matthew Sanders, otherwise referred to as M. Shadows. Playing at neck-break speed with beast-like guitar patterns, memorable lyrics and bursts of flame, the band illuminated the stage with a staggering performance ten minutes short from two hours long. Playing alongside a mix of great stage backdrops, the metal-band threw a militant show from start to finish with reels of energy.

WSTR: The pop-punk quartet kicked up a fuss at Download’s Avalanche venue, hosted by Kerrang! Magazine. Originally formed in Liverpool, the band consists of frontman Sammy Clifford, guitarist Tom Hawkins, bassist Alex Tobijanski and drummer Andy Makin. “Download up,” screams Clifford. The band show great similarities to that of, Sum 41 and Blink 182. Their stage presence is manic, and wildly energetic. With melodic guitar riffs and fun, parody lyrics, they’re great fun to watch live. It’s been a while since a good pop-punk band took a stance in the music industry, but I can assure you, if you haven’t already seen them live before, they’re worth watching. “I wanna see a fucking circle pit, I’ve always wanted to make a circle pit at Download.” Roars Clifford. As demanded, the front of the venue divides from those not willing to partake, and a small mosh pit is formed ladies and gentlemen. Their crowd was wild, bright hair colours bobbed their way through the venue in t-shirts with WSTR written on them. ‘Punchline,’ went down a treat, their was one crowd surfer who was taken down, not once but twice during this number. WSTR, you must be doing something right.

The Struts: Consisting of half a standing and seated crowd, The Struts played an awesome set. Entering In a dazzling gold suit, and black eyeliner smudge across his eyes, frontman Luke Spiller thrusted and skipped himself onto stage, with a wave of frantic hand gestures. I present to you Luke Spiller, the wonderful epitome of 21st century glam rock. Opening with,’ ‘Put your Hands Up,’ the band put on a flamboyant, fun and energetic show. “How you doing Download?” Says Spiller. As the crowd roar a response, the group move onto introducing their next track. Having mentioned working on a new album, for the third song, the band throw out an unexpected new single, ‘body talks.’ A sizzling, pop-rock track with melodically fetching chord patterns. The crowd took this single well. Ending the show on, ‘Where did She Go,’ it’s fair to say The Struts played a buyout show at Zippo stage that day.

Asking Alexandria: Playing the same stage, and opening with waves of glitchy electronics, are metal band Asking Alexandria. Walking alongside a burst of flames shooting out from the stage (this happens a lot at Download,) the band make a powerful entrance before bursting into their first track, ‘Into the Fire.’ In the far distance of the audience, a set of banana costumed teens have all set up a small circle and mosh alongside the bands next track, ‘Run Free.’ Drummer James Cassells threw militant thuds, whilst thunderous guitar riffs bellowed. With lyrics roared with rage and passion from frontman Danny Worsnop, the England born group played an epic show.

Parkway Drive: Trailing from down under, the Australian hardcore band walk on stage to a militant, enthusiastic and rage infused set of fans. Setting a long introduction, the audience all head bang with encouragement, as the band open their first track, ’12 Years.’ There’s only three words that can describe a band like Parkway Drive; Boisterous, hardcore and aggressive. The heavy roars of screamed vocals performed by vocalist and frontman Winston McCall were beautifully spoken. It isn’t often you see a hard-core metal band in this day and age who don’t show hints of punk, pop-punk or rock. Parkway Drive have stapled a strong and consistent heavy metal to their sound and they portray it so well. Screaming every inch he can give McCall is bright red with passion, fury and commitment. Playing acclaimed tracks such as,’ Prey,’ ‘Karma,’ and ‘The Void,’ it’s fair to say their set wasn’t short from a riot… A rock riot of course.

Guns ‘N’ Roses: Closing the show with a headlining set of two hours and 50 minutes were acclaimed heavy metal band Guns ‘n’ Roses. Having recently reunited last year for the first time since 1993, Guns ‘n’ Roses returned to Download still fresh as ever. Having played over 100 shows in the past, Saturday nights performance was the reunion a lot of fans had been waiting their entire lives for. Opening with their first ever single, ‘It’s so Easy,’ taken from their studio album Appetite for Destruction; it’s fair to say their fans had an appetite for a hectic show of classic, Guns ‘n’ Roses anthems. Acclaimed tracks ‘Live and Let Die,’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine,’ and ‘Black Hole Sun,’ were also thrown into the mix, accompanied by vibrant, 3D production on stage.

Neck Deep: With inflatable balls flying around, blistering stage lights beaming across the venue and a tent full of thousands of people- Neck Deep managed to catch themselves a giddish crowd. “Make some noise if you’ve had a really fucking good day,” crowd cheers, “that’s what I like to hear- we’re about to make it a whole lot better.” Says frontman Ben Barlow before thrashing into their next track, ‘Citizens of Earth.’ Throwing a burst of pop-punk energy onto stage, the bands backdrop graphics are bold, eccentric and fun. With bursts of confetti littering the venue and screams from crazed fans, it’s fair to say the north Wales, quintuple boy-band have a strong support system of fans around them.

Black Veil Brides: Strutting unapologetically onto stage eleven minutes late are Ohioan formed, glam-metal group, Black Veil Brides. “How you fucking doing Download?” Says Andy Biersack after playing their first track, ‘Faithless.’ Skipping up and down main stage as he tries to engage with all corners of his audience, Biersack screams into their next song, ‘Coffin.’ Throwing a 60 minute show of Gothic metal realness, the US band threw in some of their most acclaimed tracks, ‘Fallen Angels,’ and ‘Rebel Love Song.’ In January this year they dropped their latest album Vale, on Sunday night they played us one of their newest singles, ‘Wake Up,’ taken from the album. Ending on, ‘In the End,’ Black Veil Brides successfully tug the hearts of many emo teens.

Shinedown: Shinedown are a pretty mediocre, yet acclaimed rock band, with cheesy punchlines and basic riffs. “England have you brought your singing voices with you today?” Asks frontman Brent Smith, I hadn’t realised I was going to feel like I was at a school assembly at this performance, but perhaps I was wrong? Needless to say, Shinedown still tore up a good show, playing lauded tracks , ‘Killed your Consciousness,’ ‘Enemies,’ and closing the show with, ‘Devil,’ taken from their latest album, Attention Attention.

Marilyn Manson: The king of controversy, Marilyn Manson took on Download Festival main stage Sunday evening. Heaven Upside Down and Remix and Repent were his two album backdrops on stage, until his encore, where the graphics reflected a distorted and delayed live stream of him on stage. Playing a set of his best Manson hits and some from his latest 2018 album, it’s fair to say a lot of us were sad he wasn’t the headlining act of the evening. Opening, ‘Beautiful People,’ by tapping a set of drum sticks amongst the strings of Tyler Bates guitar, the track was unclear for the first few taps, until drummer Gil Sharone stepped in. A roar of cheers and fists pumps- as people threw themselves into the air with excitement. Tracks, ‘BeOBSCENE,’ ‘Kill4Me,’ and ‘This is the New Shit’ kicked up a storm as fans screamed the lyrics back and forth. Setting a far better performance than his 2012 live show at Download Festival, this year Manson took back his crown and took ownership of main-stage.

Ozzy Osborne: This is it, the end of an era… or perhaps just a three day rock Festival that I’m yet to come to terms with is officially over. Concluding a weekend of rock, metal and punk music is heavy metal, Prince of the Darkness, Ozzy Osborne. For many his show was astounding, the perfect end to a perfect weekend, however, for someone who knows hardly any of his music, it was pretty hard to get into the swing of his performance. The trouble with these, ‘rock Gods,’ is that they have a specific audience demographic, hardly any millennial’s were there for his show. Nonetheless, that doesn’t suggest for a bad performance, Osborne still wears his underlying talent on his sleeve. Having previously played Download’s main stage fronting as the lyricist of Black Sabbath, this year Osborne treated us with their 70s hit, ‘War Pigs,’ taken from the bands second studio album, Paranoid.

Here’s to Download Festival 2018, until next time.

All images taken from the official site of Download Festival Instagram account.

15 ACTS WE SAW AT DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 2018 (LIVE REVIEW) Returning to Donington Park for the 16th year, Download Festival returns bigger and better with headline performances from acclaimed rock stars, Avenged Sevenfold, Guns 'n' Roses and Ozzy Osborne.

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