#bergen hop-on-hop-off

[coeurdeverre82]

[echosong-87]

Do you think that Barb end up a company Branch and Poppy towards their Bergen adventure

Yes! Barb went out her way to stay with them and yeah. She wanted to know what these Bergens are and wanted to fight something… so yeah!

Because…

At first when chef attacked, she and branch where at their respective kingdoms and did not know about the attack when… a few of the pop trolls race out to go find the two…. Poppy already left and ignored her father’s warnings by venturing off by herself…

because her friends, the snack pack, got taken by chef… the only friend that did not was Cooper cause he was with his bio family when all of this happened…

so Peppy took it to his hands and ordered a few trolls to alert both king branch and queen barb…. Begging the two for help/advice.

Barb went to go meet up with Branch and asked him what to do since the guy’s more knowledgeable about how to handle in these types of crises…

Branch then would alert his father and Minuet to help take in some of the Pop trolls and told Barb to alert her own father and people to gather the rest of the pop trolls into her kingdom for the time being… for that would be their top priority….

Branch then alerted the funk family about the news since he knows that this was Cooper’s friends and to have them to keep an eye out for his and Barb’s kingdoms when they started to leave to go find Poppy.

He then told Barb to hop on his back and he’ll fly up to locate Poppy’s location… since they’ll have a bird’s eye view as to where Poppy was heading.

For Barb at the beginning would be pumped to see where this leads but when on his back the way Branch flies… felt like she was both gunna throw up and felt like she could easily fall off due to how fast and chaotic he flew to find Poppy… But Barb did not want any smoke cause she sees a cold fury in his face that made her shut up.

Branch was both furious and terrified as to what may happen if he doesn’t fly in time to stop Poppy from doing something he consider to be suicidal.

Hope you like this answer!! :3

[simplydannie]

["The Set Up"]

If Floyd were in Veneer's shoulder pad instead of JD and Veneer never needed to take a troll's talent to sing, I bet he'd have Crimp disable the built-in vaccum so the button doesn't work when he presses it. Before and during the Rage Dome show, he'd probably be trying to figure out how to free the trolls.

Bruce, being a dad himself and having witnessed the whole thing from Veneer's other shoulder pad, would figure out Floyd's relation to Veneer pretty fast.

Can you imagine Floyd attempting to fend off Ruff and Gruff and going like, "GET AWAY FROM MY SON!!"?

You just keep giving me the best ideas! And I love that! Ty so much! ❤️ Veneer would definitely have Crimp do that! But tbh I canon Veneer to be a little tech savvy himself (an HC keep forgetting to post). After getting the shoulder pads, Veneer would tinker with them, being able to disable the himself. Floyd would trust Veneer and hop on back in the diamond. Bruce on the other hand is hesitant, he trusts his brother. Vennie is determined to help him get their brothers back along with freeing his sister… up until the events of the Rage Dome show here the following events take place:

The Set Up (Alternate Version)

Link to main story here.

“How can we trust that this works?” Bruce asks as he was placed back in his diamond and onto the shoulder pad. He hesitantly looked up Veneer, then to Floyd opposite him.

“It’s going to work. Trust me, and I trust Ven.” The small Troll looked up and smiled at the Rageon. Veneer gave him a small grin, but was then over shadowed by sorrow. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“…You should’ve gotten out while you could..” Veneer whispered.

“Not again. Not without you or your sister. I am NOT going to make that same mistake again.” Floyd told him. Bruce watched the interaction between the two…something began to feel familiar….His thoughts were cut short as the door to the dressing bursted open.

“Time to go.” Ruff declared. Veneer swallowed the lump in his throat as he stood up. The Bergen escorted him out and to the black limo waiting for them to take them to the Rage Dome show.

Veneer was silent the entire way. He could hear Velvet talking excitedly, but her voice was muffled…All he could think about was how could he break Floyds brothers free, how could he escape this mess with his sister…alive. Out of the corner of his eye he looked at Mistress. She was way deep into her phone to notice anything…

“Veeenn? Hello, Earth to Veneer!” His sister’s voice finally caught his attention.

“What?”

“Were you even listening to a word I was saying?”

“Uh….”

“Never mind. Let’s just go out there and kill this!” She exclaimed as the vehicle pulled up to the red carpet.

The moments that followed were all a blur to Veneer. Smile, let them think you love them, Mistress said before they stepped out. As if in a trance, the twins walked down the red carpet waving and smile, they signed autographs, blow kisses to their adoring fans. They stopped for a quick interview. This isn’t real, Veneer continued to think to himself…none of it. The way they got here, it wasn’t real, it was fake…they were frauds…and they had to get out. But he had to play it smart…if he didn’t, it wouldn’t only be him that Mistress would kill, it would also be his sister.

They made their way through the entrance and towards the entrance of the stage where they were to perform. They were placed on two separate platforms that were to rise center stage.

“Ready?” Velvet asked as they touched up her last makeup.

“Ready.” Veneer smiled to her holding out his pinky. She wrapped hers around his tightly….Something they had come up with since they were younger.

“Promises.”

“Promises.”

Bruce glanced around the exterior…a realization hit him. He banged on the diamond with his tiny fists attempting to get Floyd and Veneer’s attention. “Guys! I over heard something that vile woman said. She said about marketing something look like an accident.”

“What.” Floyd stated.

“Kid! You have too…” He was cut short as the lights went black and music began playing in the back ground.

“Troll time.” Velvet clicked the center button. It absorbed the essence of the Trolls that were in her diamonds. She radiated with a light, her glowing a pink pigmentation that Veneer hadn’t seen before…a fear began striking him. He did the same…but Floyd and Bruce only pretended they were being hurt…What Veneer did to the shoulder pads worked, their essence wasn’t absorbed.

The platforms began to rise.

“HELLO MOUNT RAGEOUS!” Velvet screamed into her mic. The chants and screams of the crowds were muffled to Veneer’s ears…a nervousness began to settle over him…he had never felt this way at a performance before…did the essence really do that?

“You have to do it. You have the talent in you, Vennie…I’ve seen it. You can do it.” Floyd reassured him. The Rageon nodded and joined his sister in the melody of the song. It was soft at first, but his voice grew as his confidence did. He held back though, he didn’t want to over power his sister…he knew that’s what Mistress didn’t want. Bruce stared at Floyd who smiled up at Veneer as he sang…a smile like a proud father…the realization his Bruce…That’s when unfamiliar sounds began to emerge from under them. The platform Veneer was on began to rattle and shake. The Rageon looked down, his heartbeat began to quicken.

“What the…” He murmured as the sounds continued to rumble from within the platform. “Vels?” He turned to call out to his sister. She heard the sounds herself.

“Ven?” She said.

SNAP! Just then the platform broke in half. Velvet screamed her brother’s name as she reached out to grab him, but she only touched the hem of his frilled sleeve. She screamed as she watched her brother tumble towards the ground, the debris of the platform following after. Velvet attempted to press a panic button hidden with the platform to try and lower it….but it stayed risen. The screams and cries of the audience echoed through the auditorium as they witness what happened. They began to flee and run out in horror.

“SOMEONE! HELP! PLEASE HELP ME BROTHER!” She cried from the risen platform. Oh god, please okay, she thought as tears stung her eyes.

It took a moment for the dust to clear. Floyd and Bruce stirred inside their diamond. They were dizzy, but they were unharmed. They looked at the fallen debris around them…it seemed as if the entire Rage Dome had fallen, but it was just everything that was left over of the platform.

“Ven?…VEN!” Floyd called out. He peeked through his diamond. Veneer lay face up, one arm sprawled out on his side, the other resting on his stomach, he breathing was ragged and heavy, blood coming from his nose and mouth. “Ven. Answer me please!” Floyd cried.

“….I can’t….I can’t feel my legs…” His voice was almost a whisper. The Trolls looked to see that some of the debris had fallen on his legs, “….it hurts…it hurts so bad…” Veneer attempted to take a deep breath, but that even stung his lungs…he coughed out blood.

“Oh god. No…no…no…no!” Floyd panicked as he banged against the diamond, attempting to break it. “I’m here Ven! It’s okay I’m here!”

“Floyd.” Bruce attempted to call out to his brother…he knew the feeling…the feeling of seeing your child hurt…He felt himself be lifted. Through pain, Veneer reached over and took out each diamond…he released the Trolls. His arms fell limp again on his side as the pain shot through. Floyd ran over to him, placing his two little hands on Veneer’s cheek.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m here. You’re not alone. You going to make it through. You hear me. You’re going to make it through!” He leaned his tiny forehead on Veneer’s cheek. Yes, Bruce understood now…he understood what these two meant to Floyd…he knew now that he wasn’t going to leave without them. Noises were heard far off…the sound of footsteps approaching them.

“Floyd..we…we have to hide at least.” Bruce said.

“No.”

“…Run….” Veneer whispered through his pain.

“NO!”

The footsteps grew louder as they got closer. Whatever it was big, as the ground shook for the small Trolls. Suddenly out of the debris, two Bergens appeared: Ruff and Gruff. They looked down at displeasure at the Trolls. They saw that Veneer was still alive…this wasn’t part of the plan.

“Kill the Rageon. Eat the Trolls.” Gruff said. Ruff smiled as he attempted to stomp on the Trolls. They moved away in time, leaving Veneer alone and exposed to the Bergens. Gruff hovered over Veneer.

“Night night.” He reached over to place his hands on the Rageons head, ready to snap his neck.

“NO!” Floyd wrapped his hair around a tubing of debris. He swung and swung gaining enough force and momentum. He slingshotted himself straight towards the Bergens forehead. His force was so great that it knocked the Bergens out cold, causing him to fall backwards. Ruff stared in bewilderment as his brother was knocked out by a tiny Troll. He snarled his teeth at Floyd.

“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM! YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY SON!” Floyd screamed up. Ruff laughed as he reached down to grab Floyd, but the Troll being smaller, was quicker. He diveraged from the Bergen, through his legs. Using his hair, Floyd shot straight up. While in the air, he wrapped his hair again and shot straight for the Bergens stomach causing hims to groan. Floyd noticed a metal piping on top of the Bergens head. He wrapped his hair around the pipe and pulled…

CRASH! It fell straight on top of the Bergen, knocking him out along with his brother on the floor. Floyd waited moment, he then ran to Veneer again…He was still breathing, he was still alive, good.

“I’m getting you out of here!” Floyd tried his best to move the giant debris off the Rageon. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Floyd turned to Bruce who had a small smile on his face….tears began to sting Floyds face.

“I get it now bro. I understand. And I’m going to help you get him out…We’ll need some back up though.” Bruce turned…out from amongst the debris, gray Trolls began to appear…Under Rageous Trolls. Floyd quickly got in front of Veneer, protecting him.

“Rageous Trolls? They hate Rageons.” Floyd said.

One little gray Troll got in front of all the other ones, the leader by the looks of him, “We do. But we saw everything happen. This Rageon really means a lot to you doesn’t he? We heard what you called him.” Floyd swallowed the lump in his throat not knowing what to answer, “We’ll help him. We’ll get your kid out and to safety.”

[bunbunbillion]

THE BUNBUNBILLION Q1 2024 MEDIA THREAD EXTRAVAGANZA

i've been recording everything i consume for the past few months to do a media thread at the end of every quarter. and now april is over... so its time to talk about stuff!! forever!!!!!!

01/13 - Homestuck (Re-Read)

I finished re-reading Homestuck for the... 4th? 5th time? I've lost count. It's a good way to start the year though. This time around I read it with my girlfriend, who you should give all of your money too (@yinkybaginky), and it was very fun to see someones reaction to it for the first time. She knew literally nothing about Homestuck, not even what a Vriska Serket was. A truly great experience, especially thanks in part to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. I'll probably have more to see about Homestuck in depth on a later date, so I won't bog down this post with that. It's my favorite piece of media ever, and that's all there is really to say on the matter.

01/24-01/25 - The Trolls Movies

I've been surrounded by gay people who love Trolls for the past like 5 years so I finally decided to give them a watch on a whim with my girlfriend, after catching some of the first movie in a streamers server.

They were fun! I really don't think I have much to say on them. They're kids movies, sure, but they're also just very visually great and made me go "yeah you know what some of those old pop songs WERE pretty good". I think when it came to stories I liked the first one the most just because I liked the Bergen's a lot, I thought their whole world was very well designed and all that. Don't have the most care for Branch, and Poppy is OK as a protagonist, but otherwise I had more fun with the other characters. Creature design is absolutely excellent and is what stood out to me the most of anything, though. The animation in the 3rd movie is also top notch, I really do want to see the series continue. If they do, I like the third movies approach of finding a niche to make "the thing" for the whole movie, it's a fun way of doing stuff.

We thought this shot was really funny.

1/20 - Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

I was gonna watch this when it came out awhiiile ago, but just put it off forever. I saw Jacob Geller had uploaded a new video about Pinocchio, which talked about the movie and was like. Man. I wanna watch that video. Guess I'll go watch this entire movie. So I hopped into VC with Netflix on and just watched it.

It was Fucking Good!!!!!!!!!!! Every good thing you've heard about the movie is absolutely true. Do yourself a favor and just watch it. That being said, I also don't have too much to say about it! It's been a few months and it hasn't totally stuck around in my head, but that just means I get to rewatch it sometime, and I can look forward to that. It mostly made me want to watch more stop motion movies.

If I were to highlight anything, its that I love to make the movie all about death. Pinocchio as a story seems to constantly get turned into this thing all about freedom and living and how great life is and all that, but this movie completely nailed that yea. Pinocchio works so much better as a movie about death. A puppet living on a blessing against the laws of nature being used as a vessel to explore acceptance of death. It's really great.

the demons are such baddies btw

01/29 - Earthbound USA

Not the game, but the documentary put together by Jazzy Benson through Fangamer. It was absolutely fantastic. Easily my favorite game documentary I've ever watched... Because it's not really about the game.

To put into words, because I imagine 90% of people reading (not including the people I watched it with) haven't seen it or even heard of it, Earthbound USA is a documentary about specifically starmen.net and Earthbounds western fanbase.

The doc highlights basically every aspect of Earthbound in the west. They talk to the people who translated the game, who made the marketing campaign, the fans who bought the game day one, the translator of the MOTHER 3 fan translation, they talk about Earthbound Zero, about the virtual console releases, the quest to get MOTHER 3 officially localized and every single defeat that came with it, I mean Shigesato Itoi is just here too. It's everything you could ask for all combined with home videos from the early 2000s, an outstanding soundtrack that gives me goosebumps from Robbie Benson, it's just... So good.

I bought the DVD for the movie and streamed that to my friends, which you can get here on Fangamer, whenever they plan on restocking it at least. Or, you can watch it on streaming services listed on their website! If your a MOTHER fan, I'd say this is like, essential viewing. It may as well be official with how good it is.

01/29 - A Brief Retrospective of The Simpsons' Golden Age

I finished this the same day. I recorded this mostly as a joke, but hey if your insane and have watched every single Simpsons episode like me and want whats basically a Simpsons Summary Podcast, I recommend this 11-hour video.

02/06 - MOTHER

A week later I couldn't get Earthbound USA out of my head, so I decided to finally sit down and go where no MOTHER fan has gone before. To the first game in the series.

It was really really good. Like, man, I don't know why I slept on it so long just because it was an NES RPG. Ok, I mean, I know why I did, it's because it's a NES RPG, but still.

This game really highlights everything that went into its two sequels to make them so good, and has so many little unique novelties about it that make it just so so memorable. The music, the writing, the places you go, it's just... So, so good. I still think the best way to get into MOTHER is to start with Earthbound, just due to how approachable it is, but if you like it and/or MOTHER 3, do not sleep on MOTHER/Earthbound Beginnings. It's just so good.

Probably use an emulator with rewind or save-states though.

i'll be fine with not hearing magicants music anymore though

02/17 - Yakuza Kiwami 2

I started this game probably years ago, and never got that far. Yakuza 0 is definitely one of my favorite games ever, and I was kind of mixed on Yakuza Kiwami, but I was enjoying the start of Kiwami 2 for sure.

How did I feel by the end?

I mean it's not BAD, per say, it's just... Not very good, either. The gameplay never really felt like it evolved much, the writing really felt like it never picked up and just kept ADDING stuff, but at least the side quests were probably the absolute best the series has given me so far. That definitely saved it for me, but man the story. It just wasn't very good.

I had a lot more thoughts after playing it, but I think think in the end it just comes down to;

Ryuji did not get nearly enough time to shine to be an impactful villian

The bastard cop was a character I was given no reason to care for, and the focus put on him did not feel earned in any way

Kiryu really did not feel that involved with everything going on

Sayama did not get nearly enough agency in this story

As for the twists, I didn't like how many there were at first, but I think by the end there were just so many twists I was like. Yeah nvm this is so fucking stupid it owns. So good on them for that!

I don't think I'll ever replay the main story for this game, but I will absolutely come back to those side quests, they're so good I don't want to spoil a single one. I am also really enjoying Yakuza 3 so far, so that's a we might just be back regardless.

the selfie feature is really funny. you really feel like your some 40 year old dad.

02/22 - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasures of Area Zero - Epilogue

I have a lot of thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. I am a HUGE Pokemon freak, like omega huge freak levels of such. I will claw and bite tooth and nail defending Sword and Shield any fucking day of the week. I think Scarlet and Violet are like, painfully mid games in such a disheartening way. I still enjoyed a lot of it, but man it's so held back by... everything, really.

And the DLC fixed I'd say about none of it. In fact, I'd go as far to say the 2 DLC stories only highlight and strengthen every single problem scarvi has as a game and it disheartens me, so, so so much. Unlike the Sword and Shield epilogues, which expanded upon the best parts of the game and experimented with brand new formats as prep for the next generation, scarvi kinda just does. Nothing. It's more Scarlet and Violet, slime grease and all.

Kitakami is... Ok, I guess? It's an exceptionally uninteresting region with absolutely no landmarks that stand out in my mind. The story in it is pretty subpar, it's a really annoying kind of "player has no control over a misunderstanding" narrative in a really obnoxious way and by god I'll say it I never really get a reason to care about Kieran. He's not bad by any means, I mean he's just a kid, but really I don't feel like I'd ever call him a friend. The story with the Loyal Three and Ogrepon is really cute though, I do love that they completely flipped the story of Momotaro on its head in such a fun and unique way.

Blueberry Academy I was looking forward to much more, thinking that while Kitakami was really rushed and pretty bad, it must mean more resources were just put towards the second DLC. I was pretty wrong, it was basically just as under baked... But also still better, regardless. They introduce a lot of characters you won't really remember with this DLC, and it feels weird because it feels like there SHOULD be more to these characters, but it's all confined to a pretty short campaign.

The story is pretty ok, and I like what they did with Kieran here, but the second you beat him in the champion fight the story like, immediately halts the breaks and everything stops mattering. I really thought Drayton might've been set up as an interesting antagonist, someone subtly bullying Kieran and egging on how he is, but in the end he's just a well meaning friend who's just eccentric. All the other trainers basically disappear as well, and Kieran reverts back to how he was before all this for the most part. Then the story with Terapagos has to happen, and you get the return to Area Zero, except with your new friends you've barely built bonds with and Briar instead.

Similar to Drayton, I thought Briar might've been getting set up to be a bit fucked up. She's pretty obsessed with Area Zero and proving that Heath was right, and that feels like obvious easy set up for a villain right? Obsession is kind of the text book villain motive, especially in a series like Pokemon. But, no, like Drayton, Briar is actually exactly as she seems, and there's nothing underneath.

Unfortunetly, Area Zero itself was also not as interesting on revisit. I imagine it was the far lower budget, but it ends up mostly just being a very basic crystal-cave environment, without that really fascinating hollow-earth vibe Area Zero has in the base game. You're also mostly just traveling alone going on fetch quests to beat mini-boss Pokemon to open up gates, so that feeling of traveling an unknown place with friends is also completely lost. In the end, Terapagos isn't much of a character at all, like Ogrepon (or Miraidon/Koraidon) are, and is just kinda There. I'm sure the anime is doing a lot more with them, given they're a main character, but man they are NOTHING in this game and it's really disappointing with how incredibly hyped up they are.

In the end though, the thing I really came out loving with the second DLC was something I didn't actually know about until after finishing the epilogue, which was the brief interaction with the Professor in Kitakami once you have Terapagos. I won't spoil it, I'd recommend going to the crystal lake in Kitakami with Terapagos in your party to see it, but it was a moment where I was really like... Damn. This story really could've been something special.

NOW WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY, it was the Epilogue that I beat this year, which acts both as a bonus to the DLC, and a Mythical Pokemon event similar to ones from the DS games. And, I gotta say.

It's easily the best thing in the entire DLC, bar none.

Despite just being a revisit to Kitakami, the Epilogue is not only better written then both of the DLC chapters, but actually shows that promise for future games like the SWSH DLC did years ago. I had a smile on my face basically the entire time.

First off, hanging out with the three friends again after they basically disappear once you beat the game is so incredibly refreshing. Just having them over to your house is the first time in a Pokemon game I've actually felt that like... Oh, I'm a kid hanging out with my friends, kind of feeling. That original inspiration the Pokemon series had was just completely captured with that, and I love it, and it continues through the entire DLC. On top of that, the DLC does a lot of very small things with its cutscenes that I felt were really missing from the main game that actually completely caught me off guard. Seamless transition between overworld cutscenes, cinematic cutscenes, and battles mainly. It feels like Pokemon games have always struggled with taking you out of the story for loading screens or transitions or letting the player wander off or something. It's hard to immerse, but with this DLC just through the most simple methods they really catch you off guard with the cutscene framing and battle starts in a way I absolutely adore, especially since your with your friends who can actually Talk for you too. Helps that all of the writing is just really funny too, I had such a good time.

Overall, I think this is where I want the Pokemon series to go. The segment of Area Zero where you travel with all your friends already stood out to a lot of people, but didn't have the most writing to back it up. Similarly, this DLC has all of the writing, but it can feel like you aren't actually traveling with your friends, as they don't follow you. I think having a Pokemon game where you travel directly with other people in a bit of a party is the way to go with expanding on Pokemon as a series, and this DLC combined with base scarvi really proves How it can work. It makes me so excited to see where we can go from here, and I can only hope they learned from all these mistakes.

wow i had a fucking lot to say about scarlet and violet dlc and i didnt even mention this thing. whatever.

02/26 - Splatoon 3: Side Order

Funny story, I actually beat Splatoon 3 on a friends copy, but on my own switch, so when this DLC came out I ended up buying an entire new copy of Splatoon 3, with DLC, and an already completed save file. So was the DLC worth 80 bucks? I mean, no, not at all, but it was extremely good!!

It came out while I was out of town with my girlfriend, so we had a lot of fun playing it together, and I think it's just overall a genius idea for a Splatoon mode. It makes me like, viscerally crave an even bigger Splatoon roguelike, but I'm also like an extreme roguelike freak. The story was super cute (my big "I <3 PEARLINA" shirt notwithstanding) and basically everything it introduces is great. I haven't actually beaten the Agent 8 locker yet, because I'm Bad At Splatoon </3, but I everything else was just so good.

im actually extremely biased, btw

02/27 - Ponyo (Rewatch)

I rewatched Ponyo with my girlfriend while I was over for the first time since I was a wee little amoeba. It was so fucking cute!!!! I really do love Ghibli movies a lot. I don't think there's a lot I can say about Ponyo, per say, at least not as much as other Ghibli movies I love like Spirited Away (my fave movie evarr), but I think this movie combined with like. Finding Nemo, Animal Jam, and going to the Houston Aquarium combined are probably why I love marine biology so much now.

02/29 - Death Note

The anime, to be specific, for the first time. Yeah, I can see why this became such a big thing with fujoshis. I get it, I understand now. I'm sorry L, I didn't know your game.

Death Note is overall both an anime of its time, and an absolute classic you should be watching. It's engaging, it's dramatic, it's funny, and there's so many points where your just like "damn are they gonna bone" about the two characters the authors 100% had no intention to be seen in that way.

It's only real problems come from the authors also having no fucking clue what to do with women in the story, and making pretty annoyingly shallow characters that get sidelined really hard. The final arc is also a bit head scratching, but it makes for good drama, so I can't really complain, even if I remember a lot less of it. Great show, great ending. Where's my Misa & Rem yuri manga series.

he really is just fucking jeff the killer huh

02/29 - Promare

Watched this with my girlfriend on a whim, cus we wanted to watch a movie together. I've been a very lowkey TRIGGER studios fan since I was a kid, watching Kill la Kill when I was way too young to be watching shows that crazy boobed, but it did definitely contribute to my transgender-ness, so you can't fault it there (you can fault it for a lot of other things though). No matter what though, when TRIGGER just randomly came out with a full feature length movie released in theaters, I was pretty interested. Which is why I didn't watch it for years.

After watching it though? Yea, that was really fun. It's not much in the way of story, very basic Minority Allegory story I think, but it's all to make way for extremely crazy action scenes and homages to all their favorite mecha anime, which like, yea props they did a great job. Character design is extremely fun, environments are super colorful, animation is what you'd expect from TRIGGER (good), and there's a lot of man tits this time around. I recommend it!

03/04 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

I'll be so fucking honest I watched this on my phone on a plane ride and I don't fucking know anything that happened. I think it was good?? I think it made sense??? I really wanted to fall asleep but I really wanted to watch the movie. It felt like it was simultaneously 4 hours long and 30 minutes. I think I should probably watch it again. I don't know why I chose to watch it on a plane. But hey, I did!

watching this shit while half awake on a dark plane felt like i was in another fucking dimension. what the hell happened

03/08 - Fortnite Chapter 5: Season 1

Hey Fortnite, I play that game! Sometimes.

I've been pretty consistently "playing" Fortnite since Chapter 2: Season 5, and I do really like the game. I love the gameplay, I love all the stupid crossovers, I loved the story, it was just a really fun time!

Well, up until like half way through Chapter 3 at least. The problem with Fortnite is that, no matter what, in the end of the day, it's still owned by Epic Games, and that means at some point, shits gonna get sloppy. I won't go over my whole history with how I feel Fortnites been on a decline since Chapter 3, but I can at least say i was pretty fucking checked out most of Chapter 4. I really didn't like it.

So, coming back on for Chapter 5? Oh shit this game is actually fun I forgot. Played a shit ton that season, actually finished the main battle pass for once, had so much fun with all the new things they added, it really feels like Fortnites back.

Oh... and there's that LEGO mode... and that rockband mode... and there's racing I guess... I didn't really touch them much but they're neat... They were pushing those modes pretty hard, I hope this isn't a sign of something to come... I'm sure they'll keep up the momentum for the next season right? Battle Royale is totally back, right?

i ended up staying up till like the last day grinding in creative to get this emote. im so glad i can make perfect cell do the bird is the word dance now.

03/12 - King of Crusher

I beat this game over on my twitch, you can catch me live playing obscure games every so often each month!! Check it out and give me money! I said mostly everything I wanted to say about it on stream, but this game was just a really fascinating little art project that was both really frustrating and really funny to play. I really wanna find more little gems like this to play, it's so ODD but fun.

03/15 - Animal Crossing (Movie)

Watched this movie as apart of a movie night with my groupchat and it was adorables so cutes! I don't think there's really anything I COULD say about this movie, but it does really make me wish Nintendo was more willing to make more stuff like it. Just a really well animated fun anime movie that's not trying to be this big thing.

the ending caught me completely off fucking guard though

03/17 - Unpacking

Similar to Animal Crossing, I don't really have a lot to say about this game besides so cutes! The story told through the environment was super adorable and I really do think back to this game a lot in a very emotional way.

That being said, I wish it was a tad longer for how expensive it was, as great as the art was lol

If you can find it on sale though, go play it!!

i was playing with my girlfriend and we ended up interpreting the main character as really hating her boyfriend. my fucking Pig of a husband wont let me put my posters on the wall. my Pigly husband. i need to Kill my Meat Pig of a Husband.

03/17 - Pizza Tower (The Noise Update)

In complete tonal contrast to Unpacking, I beat the Noise Update in Pizza Tower right after. It was, like Pizza Tower, really good, but not without its flaws.

In the time since I've played Pizza Tower, I've reflected a lot on what I love about the game and what I honestly don't care much for. I've been playing demos since the very first public one, and I've loved watching it evolve, but if there's one bit of context I've gotten that shapes how I look at the game, it's that the games creator has a really big issue with having a lot of ideas for stuff, and not really thinking about how they fit in together.

Pizza Tower is like, a REALLY good game, don't get me wrong. The movement is borderline perfect, the level design is consistently fun and flows well, the graphics are unmatched in how expressive they are, the music is some of my fave from the entire medium, but if there's one thing really holding back Pizza Tower it's that lack of focus, and I think you can boil that down to the core game design of levels.

Pizza Tower is easy to compare to Wario Land, given that's its primary inspiration, but I think it's much more akin to Sonic, which is also a major inspiration for it. The problem is, it definitely tries to apply Wario Lands brand of "wario can be anything" to sonics "levels can be anything". Sonic levels are all about super quick flashy levels you can blast through, each one having a gimmick unique to the level that you learn, master, and then use throughout the multiple zones. On the other end, Wario Land presents you with these large winding interior-like levels that you slowly (or somewhat quickly in the case of entries like WL4), navigate and solve puzzles throughout for treasure, with your main solution typically landing on how Wario himself can be controlled using various gimmicks unique to him. Your presented a gimmick, and then you remember that gimmick for the future so you can use it to solve a future puzzle. In many ways, these two games can almost feel like the opposite kind of game, only linked by being sidescrolling platformers where you can bust through walls. Pizza Tower, despite that, tries to be both, and in many ways succeeds, but cant avoid the problems that inherently comes with trying to be these two very polar ends.

Basically, I just feel theres a lot of really forgettable levels and an overall problem with gimmicks getting absolutely no chance to be explored so you can never really be rewarded in basic play for mastering a gimmick, other then replaying a level multiple times. I think less gimmicks but more places to use the same ones would be really great.

Talking about the Noise update specifically, it was just a fun retake on the main game, and made for a fun replay after not playing Pizza Tower for about a year since release. I find it really fascinating how even after changing how the entire game controls, the levels still work with minimal changes. I'm looking forward to see if they decide to change it any more in the future, and I hope whatever comes after Pizza Tower can be a much more focused experience.

03/17 - Hiveswap Act 1 (Replay)

See; Homestuck Reread. Been here a billion times, here to show my girl this time. I'll probably scream about this one later. <3

03/20 - Rescue Shot

See; King of Crusher. Another stream game! This one I liked even more, though I Really wish I had a lightgun (or could fix the mouse controls on my emulator). Incredibly adorable game with insanely good music, check out the VOD if your interested!

03/25 - Super Mario Bros. (1993)

I feel like in recent time, people have been hyping up this movie as like, secretly a really good film that people only hate because it's not a Mario movie. I'll be real, after watching it for the first time, I don't see it at all, I think this is just an incredibly funny bad movie.

Beyond not being Mario, which really doesn't matter at all, it kind of just felt like a fever dream of a script. Things kept HAPPENING there wasn't a single second to break I felt like I was in a nightmare hell dimension being blasted with insane plot beats and I couldn't keep track of anything. Without the Mario branding this would be like 10x LESS comprehensible, but good lord.

Maybe this is like, an arthouse film, and I need to watch it 12 more times and be high at least half those times, but idk I think it might actually be bad guys. Big Bertha a baddie though.

03/29 - The Croods

Another movie night with friends, we got the PRIVILEGE of watching The Croods. I saw it once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember anything about it other then there was a character named Grug.

I now realize that the reason I remember this character is because this movie literally lied and he's the main character. It really tries to set up that the conventionally attractive main teenage girl is the protagonist but no this movie is 100% about Grug and it's so fucking Particular. Why pretend it's not about him when he becomes our sole point of view for half the film? Why pretend its about the teenage girl when she basically doesn't have any dialogue for the last 25% of the movie? What is this movie trying to say, politically? This movies a thinker. I think its a bigger thinker then 2001, honestly.

04/12 - Police Story

The first Jackie Chan movie I've ever seen and damn what a fucking good one to start with. Insanely entertaining, incredibly funny, and just a really great film! I don't think I have much else to say about it other then gush about each and every scene and how well made it is, but it really makes me wish we could get movies like this more. Just a practical effect wonderland where the main guy is just having fun with people on set. It's great.

hes kind of a babygirl

04/13 - Con Air

Actually the first time I've seen this movie, surprisingly, given my attachment to the media that has essentially co-opted this film. It wasn't good, like at all, but it was very very entertaining with friends. I didn't expect it to get so much into like, weird racism stuff?? Characters just keep appearing and getting named it's so fucking weird. What was the deal with Steve Buscemi's character, I feel like scenes were cut or something. Nick Cage was incredibly funny as the lead. It's the thing you watch with friends on 4/13, what else can I say.

why did he do this

04/19 - The Princess Bride

Honestly, I thought this one was a rewatch when we put it on in the GC, but I think I just remembered watching clips of it or seeing half of it on TV as a kid, so I'll just consider this a first time watch. It's really good! Just a fun simple movie full of extremely witty jokes. It's kind of like watching a Simpsons episode for the first time and getting to a part where they say something and you go "oh i've heard this quoted like a fucking million times, i get it now". If you haven't seen this movie, whattarya doin, go watch it!

i feel like were it not for andre being basically irreplaceable we would have a netflix reboot about these three right now. maybe that does exist already.

04/21 - PokeRogue

Half this thread is Pokemon and as I already said, I'm a roguelike freak. This game is like crack for me. That being said it's just alright. I think I'll be willing to judge it more once it's more finished and not just Pokemon in the most barebones form imaginable, coding wise. It's the basis for an extremely addicting game, and I plan on sinking even more hours into it soon. Extra points for using PMD music as well <3

im only just now finding out the rival is gendered. hey cunts let me play as a girl and get the girl rival or you hate me ok?

04/22 - The Mask (2023)

Now you may be wondering, The Mask? The movie from ten TRILLION years ago staring the homunculi known only as Jim Carrey? You'd be a fool to assume this. I am talking instead about Connor O' Malley's current best work, THAT The Mask.

There's not much I want to say about it, because I just think it's good, but if there's one thing I can say it's that Joker (2019) should be fucking embarrassed in how hard it was stood up by this short film.

Content warning for pretty heavy themes and a lot of crass jokes.

04/23 - Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) & Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) (Rewatch)

In preparation for the Knuckles show (which I still haven't finished), I decided it'd be nice to rewatch these two films for the first time. I haven't seen the first one since I watched it for the first time before Sonic 2, and I haven't seen Sonic 2 since I saw it at an early screening. What do I think of them now in retrospect?

Yeah, not very good films. Very fun! But damn, yea wow, I think with enough time to look back on them, there's a lot I really don't care for in them, and I'm not just talking about the human scenes.

I've been having a lot of conversations about adaptations lately, so I'll mostly summarize my thoughts here. In making an adaptation, your one mission in my eyes is maintaining what made the original loved. Not good, because that's not really a quantifiable thing. Not faithfully, because I feel you can make a good adaptation without being faithful. All you need to truly keep is the Reason people came to that piece of media originally, in my eyes. Whether that means going as hard as you can with something like The Last of Us, which essentially 1 to 1 recreates an entire video game, or be much more out there like with One Piece (Netflix), which essentially tells the same story but with wildly different circumstance and aesthetic.

The Sonic movies, in my eyes, simply don't capture that. In the first movie alone, Sonic and Eggman are essentially our only ties to the games, which is fine as long as they can nail them right, right? And, as many before me have really pointed out, no they don't really at all. Sonic isn't really like Sonic at all, he's a much younger, innocent, and hyperactive "version" of the character, and I say version in quotations because I don't really feel like with those adjectives removed he'd be all that similar to Sonic still. This is basically a new character, and that's fine, but I'd be hard pressed to say it captures what brought people to Sonic. Similarly, Eggman is very much not really similar to any iteration to Eggman at all (except maybe AoSTH?) A lot of people love Jim Carrey Eggman, and I totally get why, but man he really has never clicked with me. I think I like canon Eggman too much to let go, it's over for me.

But I'm sure anyone who's been around Sonic long enough has heard a trillion complaints about the first movie. In rewatching the second movie, I found that it moved way faster then I remembered, and just had way less.. character? Tails is so incredibly shoehorned in, which is a common complaint, but it really felt like at times Sonic was too?

In Sonic games, Sonic isn't exactly a character we put ourselves in the shoes of. Sonic is like this cool older brother we're just along with for the ride. If anything we insert ourselves (as kids) in Tails' shoes. Sonic doesn't really have an internal monologue, nor does he really tend to need a big shonen arc to overcome in his games. He's very much this vessel to explore other characters, to see how people respond to his brash and cocky personality. In that way, Sonic works really well, but can struggle really hard when he's placed all alone. He needs people to not only bounce off of, but to do the emotional side of the story in his stead. With the Sonic movies, we get this very very diffrent form of Sonic being put into this scenarios the canon Sonic wouldn't typiclaly find himself in, and see how he acts. It can work for original stories, because it's basically an original character, but that's the struggle with Sonic 2, and I worry Sonic 3 as well. They aren't fully original stories. Sonic 2 is a loose adaptation of Sonic 3 in most ways, with Knuckles being the true second character, and Tails being mostly to the side. Knuckles acts basically perfectly, like yea that's Knuckles, no notes there outside of maybe not taking his heritage seriously enough, but that's him. So how do you write this movie sonic into this adaptation with a Knuckles whos playing it basically straight like the games? Well... I mean, you kind of just... You, don't, really? Sonic is really just There sometimes, to say quips and to move the story forward. With exception to the scene where he's having a feeling jam with Knux, which I like, Sonic is very much Just There, and it feels really odd. In the games, this works because of his aforementioned status as this guy your along with for the ride, a dude whos too cool to even be the protagonist, but Sonic Movie Sonic IS the protagonist. He's meek and still learning and is far from the asshole we know in the games and comics, but implanted into a games storyline, he just doesn't have much he can do. He can't be that too cool guy that let's his friends do the talking, because he's already been set up as this superhero esque main guy who needs to learn a lesson by the end of the film, or overcome some kind of arc. It's just all odd in retrospect, and I really wonder how they're gonna tackle it in Sonic 3, especially without all the characters that make Sonic Adventure 2s gears go.

i also couldnt stop staring at his teeth in the movie. i really dont like the teeth idk why im just now noticing them.

04/25 - Pseudoregalia

Knocked this game off my backlog and I'm really happy I did! Beat the game with all the time trials done and I really do love it. I want to call it the perfect length, but really I think it was just a bit too short and I hope we can get more content in the future, I'm definitely itching for more levels and maybe even more time trials.

I can't think of much else to say about the game. I don't think I picked up on the story much at all, I'll probably have to ask my girlfriend about it sometime, but it's not exactly a big part of the game. The music was absolutely fantastic, and I adore all of the costumes for the main character. I like her design, for many obvious reasons.

For further criticism besides length though, combat feels pretty useless. There's really no point in the game where I ever feel like I have to or even SHOULD fight, and the final boss ends up losing a lot of impact because of it. Enemies just become a hazard in navigating the world in a way that isn't particularly fun. Similarly, there were a few upgrades that had maybe one use ever and I don't even know why they're there. I think this game could benefit a lot from playing even harder into it's all too obvious inspirations and just getting a bunch of RPG mechanics and more RPG inspired elements in here. Give me Symphony of the Bunny-Cat-Goatgirl, full on.

I also watched madagascar 2 with friends, but i don't even feel like counting it. watch this fucked up compressed video instead.

THAT'S IT FOR Q1 2024!! I'm really trying to look at a lot this year, and I hope to have EVEN MORE TO TALK ABOUT in 4 months! maybe ill do it even earlier because damn this was a fucking lot to write. If you read this far thank you, I'll be sending you a giant mettalic muscular butler sir in the mail as thanks.

[cutelittleriot]

Return to origin band together Chapter 4 part 2

Poppy quickly follows Branch who is alot faster on all fours than she thought. Thankfully she managed to find him but he isn't doing too good.

At the moment he is just sitting down his face on his knees and his arms wrapped around his tail. As much as he hates the limb it's a good thing to hold onto when sad or overwhelmed.

She quietly sits beside him. She knows that Branch is completely overwhelmed right now but she knows that what he said at his brothers needed to be said. She doesn't say anything and just let's him try and collect himself.

After a few minutes he is sort of calm,that explosion,that...everything that happened....it felt good to finally get that off his chest. "Poppy......is it bad that I wanted to be a family with my brothers again? I know they all have lives of their own now but still" He asks.

She gasps at the question why would he even ask that? "Branch of course it's not bad. You just wanted to be together with them again. There's nothing wrong with that" She reassures him. She wants to touch him but with his state right now she isn't sure that he would appreciate touch right now as it might overwhelm him.

Soon Branch gets up,Poppy thinks he is going to head back to Rhonda but he keep going straight. "Wait Branch what are you doing?" She asks. "I'm going to go save Floyd.Alone. I didn’t need them growing up, and I don’t need them now" He simply replies.

He sees that Poppy is still following him though "What are you doing?" He asks. "What do you mean? I’m coming with you" She replies there no way she's going to let her boyfriend go off on a rescue mission alone.

"Why bother? Aren’t you gonna leave me eventually anyway?......Everyone else does" He replies as his ears lower in sadness. Poppy gently takes his paw "I have been by your side from the moment we met. I have been with you when we went to go save my friends from the bergens,when I went gray you were there to help me bring my colors back. You protected me from being turned into a rock zombie. I was there when you were transforming. And throughout all of this you've been by my side too. Let's give eachother some credit here" she says smiling.

Branch sighs, he hates it when his negative thoughts show their ugly heads. He's right Poppy has been there for him for so much. "Right,uh I’m sorry. Thank you" He says smiling. "You’re welcome.And I’m not going anywhere unless it’s with you.To save Floyd." She says as their tails entertwine and they press their heads together. Branch wonders how he managed to land such an amazing woman.

The moment is cut short when they hear the sound of a tricycle. They see one coming up to them and to their surprise it's Tiny Diamond riding it. "Woah! Tiny! You’re coming too?" Poppy asks surprised. "Hey, what can I say?

I was moved by Branch’s speech and his sad, sad drawing. Now, let’s roll." The duo hop onto the tricycle even though they both have a feeling they would get there faster if they ran on all fours. But soon the trio make their way to Mount Rageous.

Meanwhile a certain married bergen couple are riding back from the water park on a motorcycle.

"Wow Grissy,I’ve never seen anyone get kicked out of a water park like that" Bridget says in awe. "All right, for the record,it was the water slide that ripped off my trunks" Gristle clarifies. "Yeah and it was so hot" Bridget says before she catches the smell of something familiar and delicious. "Wait Grissy do you smell that?" She asks as she keeps smelling. "Yeah I do it smells like" "French fries!" The couple says in unison as they stop the motorcycle. Little did they know what was about to happen.

The couple begin to walk throught the course not knowing of the many pairs of tiny eyes that were following their every move preparing to strike.

They soon come across a pile of fries on the ground but before they could even process it a giant clown head lights up. "Who goes there?!" It booms at the two who scream in fear and surprise. The mouth opens up and out comes a bunch of small colorful balls.

"Are those golfballs?" Bridget asks in confusion. They then uncurl themselves revealing to be trolls. "Oh their just trolls look at how cute they are" Bridget says as she coos at their apparent cuteness. Then through a series of events they both end up on the ground covered in sticky hands and wrapped up in tickets.

"Wow Grissy, I didn’t think we’d both find ourselves tied up on this honeymoon" Bridget says as she looks at her husband in shock.

Again very sorry for the very short chapter but the next ones will be long so that's why I'm doing this super short ones rn to get them done.

Fun fact when trolls touch their foreheads together its a show of love can be either romantic or familial.

[ourtriptoswedenandnorway]

Epilogue

Here are some observations I made throughout our trip. These are just my impressions and experiences and not based on actual facts. Also included below are a couple of recommendations.

Weather: The weather was totally unpredictable and changed hour by hour. When the sun comes out in Sweden, it seems like everybody wears shorts, regardless of the temperature. It could be because Swedes are accustomed to cold weather and have developed a high tolerance for it. Or, they just want to make the most of sunny days, even if they are cold, to enjoy outdoor activities and soak up as much light as possible after their long, dark winters.

Crime: I felt safer in Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen than in any other European city I have been to. Not that I feel unsafe in Europe—it feels far safer than in the US. It felt like crime doesn’t exist in Scandinavia, but I am sure it does.

Poverty: In the nine days we were in Stockholm, we never saw a homeless person or someone begging for money. It is unclear to me why that is, but I would guess they have a more comprehensive welfare system that includes housing and other social services. It was refreshing not to see people living on the streets, like in San Francisco. In Oslo and Bergen, we saw a few people (less than 10) non-aggressively begging for money, but again, nothing like you see in major cities in the US, or other cities in Europe.

Diversity: I found Norway to be more ethnically diverse compared to Sweden. The Swedes in Stockholm seemed more homogeneous. The best way to describe the Swedes is blond, blue-eyed, physically active, and fit. It seems like everyone on the street is in their 20s, 30s or 40s and dresses like fashion-aware preppy members of a fraternity or sorority. I know it’s not true, but I can’t help wondering where they hide their ugly and older people—or maybe they just age really well.

Walkability: Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen are all very walkable cities. And when they are not, public transportation is easy to use and runs frequently. Because of that, I don’t recommend the Hop On, Hop Off buses, even if you have a limited amount of time. I would only use them if walking around presents a problem.

Pedestrian Friendly: Stockholm and Oslo limit the number of cars in the central area of the city, making it relaxed and very enjoyable for pedestrians. The few cars that are there have very courteous drivers who yield to pedestrians. Drivers don’t seem to be in a hurry, unlike in the US. E-bikes and e-scooters, however, are everywhere and used by locals and tourists alike. Bergen, however, does not limit cars in the central area, and I found the city more congested. But still, car congestion was nothing like you would find in US cities.

Tourism: We encountered very few crowds or signs of tourists in Stockholm. It might have been because it was June and still early, but it was very refreshing to go to museums and move around the city without long lines. Most of the people we encountered in Stockholm appeared to be Swedish. The only exception was in Gamla Stan, the old town, which had tourist shops and plenty of tourists. But there is so much more to Stockholm than just Gamla Stan. In Norway, it was the same thing—we encountered very little tourism. Do tourists exist? Sure, but not to the extent we have seen in other major cities in Europe, or where it presented a problem for us. Bergen appeared to have more tourists than Oslo. The only time tourists and tourism got on my nerves was in Flåm in Norway, where everything seems to be geared around tourists from cruise ships coming in to see the fjords. But rather than hanging around Flåm waiting for our cruise to depart, we went for a walk out in the countryside instead.

Cash is King—NOT: Before we left, we got $200 in Swedish kronor and $200 in Norwegian kroner. We typically try to pay by credit card for everything, but most trips to Europe we still end up going to an ATM to get cash for small purchases, tips, museums, taxis, etc. Not so in Sweden and Norway. They are pretty much cashless countries—at least in the cities we visited. Two or three of the hotels even advertised they are “cashless hotels” and have no facilities to accept or provide cash. Most of the restaurants and museums we went to would not take cash. Buy a gelato, charge it! So we had a hard time spending our cash—we found the cruise ship tourist areas had the highest likelihood of accepting cash.

Tipping: After talking with a number of locals we learned that in Scandinavia tipping is welcome, but not expected. The staff in restaurants appear to be paid a living wage and are not reliant on tips. How nice that someone can make a living as a waiter. The only place I found that not to be true was in tourist areas, where restaurants and taxis try to take advantage of tourists who are not familiar with tipping customs and get as much money from them as possible. Most of the time, I tipped about 10% and still got US tipping guilt.

Honor System on Transit: In Norway, the buses, trams, and subways all work on the honor system. No badging on, no badging off. It works so much more efficiently. Most buses are articulated buses. A bus pulls up, and everybody just gets on, with people entering and exiting from all doors on the bus. While we were there, we purchased a 7-day transit pass, which you have to electronically activate the first time and then just need to make sure you have it with you whenever you use public transit in case someone asks. No one ever did ask, but supposedly, they have people who occasionally check. I came away with the impression that Norwegians are honest and trustworthy. I don’t think that would work in the US. How sad :-(.

Public Restrooms: Scandinavia has clean restrooms. During our three-week trip, I only encountered one restroom down by the harbor in Oslo that grossed me out. Otherwise, every restroom would get my Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

Unisex Restrooms: In Scandinavia, it was relatively rare to find separate men's and women's restrooms. One restroom, and a man, woman, or trans person just takes the next stall available. Makes sense and eliminates all the transgender issues related to restrooms that we have in the US. And if there is a queue, men and women wait the same amount of time.

Utensils To Go: Scandinavia is much more environmentally conscious than we are in the US. In Scandinavia, when you get food to go, instead of plastic utensils, you get wooden ones—a wooden fork, spoon, and knife. Sure, they have a lot of trees in Scandinavia, but it is also very environmentally friendly. Wooden utensils do taste and feel a little bit strange the first time you use them.

Pride: Scandinavians take a lot of pride in their country. And so they should. There is a lot they can be proud of, and in many cases, the US should model our society after theirs. I guess I am a late-blooming socialist :-). When you tell them you are from California, they ask, “How do you like Sweden/Norway?” They even appear to be proud of their Viking warriors who looted and terrorized most of Europe, unlike the Portuguese, who barely acknowledge their part in the slave trade (e.g., no museum there acknowledges or explains their part in the slave trade). I felt the greatest sense of pride from the Swedes—they appeared proud of their country, their traditions, their music (ABBA), and their history.

Sell It, but Don’t Use It: I found it ironic that all of Norway's public transit is electric, including their buses, and that Norway leads the world in electric vehicle (EV) adoption, yet oil makes up over 70% of Norway’s exports.

Packing for Scandinavia: The weather is very unpredictable in Scandinavia, and it rains a lot. Stockholm had the worst weather during our trip, but was sunny and hot the weeks before. Scandinavia is beautiful when it is sunny and wet when it rains. Essential items to pack are an umbrella, raincoat, waterproof pants, and waterproof shoes.

Laundry: It is not easy to find a laundromat in Scandinavia. There is maybe one in all of Stockholm and two in Oslo. And they are very busy. Using your hotel’s laundry services is prohibitively expensive. So bring quick-dry clothes that you can wash in your hotel room.

[madaminamorganheadsforthearctic]

Bergen is lovely

I am no longer grumpy; the weather has cleared; I am off the boat; and Bergen is lovely. I collect the Morgan and was surprised to see that the hold was now full and had around 30 cars. There seems to be quite a few people who like me, take the boat for a few stops and not all the cruise. Importantly the Morgan starts and the noise is not too throaty, but hold your breath for the exhaust please.

I am last out and just in front of me is a pulls with a seriously posh Porsche 2 seater. He does a few of the poser Porsche stuff - ie revs a bit; presses a button and puts his roof down (takes me 10mins to get mine down and twice that to put it up); and another button and a back ‘go faster spoiler’ fin comes up. Meanwhile the wife is taking a pic of the Morgan! We funnel round to the exit which is a different and narrower door than when I got on and requires a sharp left hand to line up. Lots of inching forward, reversing and gesticulating taking place. This becomes a matter of pride. I am going to do this in one go, no inching, no reversing and no need for any flapping ….and I did. Hurray for the girls! Big boy (the one who had dropped my keys and I took a shot of him having to lye down to recover them) shouts ‘good luck’ and waves. We are off.

I am going to say two last things about the Hurtigruten and then shut up for ever more. The first is that for those who want a floating retirement village, with jigsaws, knitting and basically nothing much else to do, they do it well. And second, it was me who thought that it would be a good way to travel north/south. No one persuaded me. What of course I should have done is hopped down the coast taking a clutch of the short distance drive on drive off ferries instead. But so what.

I have booked a hotel on the edge of the Bryggen which is the old part of the port and has the Hanseatic league history. I trundle over the cobbles which rattles the entirety of the car and excellent, they a parking place for me. This hotel is a conversion of an old warehouse, is just what I fancied and and I am on what will have been the attic floor and so have a brilliant view. But first I have the call to take from the PRA/Bank of England on liquidity (the swotting I have been doing) and just make it - 90 minutes later I am done and out I go for a look.

Coming into Bergen from the sea means that you can totally see why this has been such an important port and city for so long. Deep water, well sheltered and lots of natural quaysides.

The city was founded some 1,200 years ago and the Bryggen which now lines the east side of the harbour is where the earliest buildings were erected. The Hanseatic league established a trading post here in the 14th century and it grew from there. I should be clear that the Hanseatic proposition which was a group of northern european traders/trading nations forming a loose confederation for the purposes of enabling trade and the free flow of goods, is my view of how to have sustainable long term multi country relationship. The League had huge trade, and economic influence for over 500 years.

Every system has its time, state boundaries and relationships changed and the league disintegrated in the late 1600’s. Meanwhile I read on a history plaque hanging outside a museum, that the reason Norway became part of Denmark from the early 1500’s and for the next three hundred years, was because the Black Death (the Plague) wiped out 60% of their population and that it was our fault as it was brought to Norway in a ship from England.

Having walked the Bryggen, I head for the fish market at the head of the harbour. This is a row of fish stalls with restaurants alongside under canvass. There is a system. Choose your meal from the menu (the three options are fish, whale and shellfish); pay at the stall and join the queue for a seat under canvass.

There is a but. A somewhat raised voice exchange in front of me in ‘globe-ish’ and so understandable, reveals that this area is not allowed to sell alcohol and so all drinks are non alcoholic. However as the raised exchange develops it appears that what the locals do is rock up with their own beer or wine and then order at the restaurant an alcohol free drink. So I nip back to my hotel for that packet of Chablis; return to the fish market; check it’s ok; get a seat; and adventurously order the dish of the day. Pathetic I know, but delicious it was.

Streets are awash with all age groups.

Sun is setting -or as much as it does at this time of year- and the evening clouds suggest that tomorrow will be wet.

[drjpresents]

27th May 2024 - DJ Set - Track List

I had the incredible privilege of DJing some cinematic soul for friends at their wedding at the end of last month, rounding off a bank holiday weekend!

Loads of funk, jazz, Motown, funky house, hip-hop, broken beat and beyond! Massive shout out to my hosts for inviting and entrusting me with the finale of your big day! The amazing staff at Viet Hoa Cafe and Mess for the hospitality and support with setup and set down and, of course to the amazing guest who danced their feet off throughout the course of the night and shared kind feedback directly with me and the hosts too! I had a huge amount of fun at this gig (as pictured, ha ha!) For any of you there who were curious about any of the tracks played for the warmup and during the main event, I’ve popped it all in a video of you swipe to the end! And of course, if this kinda music is up your street and you’d like me to spin for you, hit me up and we’ll see if we can work something out!

The Warm Up

Chola - The Nostalgia 77 Octet

Escape Velocity - Menagerie

Settle The Score - Cookin' On 3 Burners

Take What You Need - The New Mastersounds

Tbilisi Sunset (Skit) - Fulgeance & DJ Scientist

2 Minutes To Midnight - Dr. J

Saudade De Maecenas - S.O.L Collective

Take A Break - Sven Wunder

Bergen Sunrays feat. Selim Mutic - Espen Horne

I Did It For You - Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes

African Mailman - The Rhythmagic Orchestra

Dub y Guaguanco - Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno

Sweet Love Affair - Resonators

The Get Down - Jonny Drop

Feel Involved In Love Feat. Mr. Tanqueray - Tall Black Guy

Loving Someone (Part 1) - Jaguar Skills & Omar

I Predict A Riot - Carolina Lins & Os Planatos

The First Dance

Chicken Wings - Samm Henshaw

The Main Event

Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine - James Brown

Crazy In Love - Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z

It Takes Two - Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston

What A Man - Linda Lyndell

Sài Gòn (1965) [Remastered] - Trúc Mai

Work It Out - Speedometer

Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac

Under the Sea / Flyers Drive - The Fearless Flyers

Funky Nassau, Pt. 1 - The Beginning Of The End

Arraino - Popular Cooper and His All Beats Band

Bomba Trópica - Ondatrópica

Is This Love - Bob Marley & The Wailers

Help Me Make It Through The Night - John Holt

All I Do Is Think About You Featuring Christopher Ellis - Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno

My Light - SAULT

It Runs Through Me - Tom Misch

The Way You Make Me Feel - The Kount and Marc Rebillet featuring Moods

Avenue Joffre (Instrumental) - The Shanghai Restoration Project

Un Canto A Mi Tierra (J-Boogie Remix) - Quantic and His Combo Bárbaro

Keep On Loving Me - Onra

Ooh Wee (featuring Ghostface Killah, Nate Dogg, Trife & Saigon) (Amended Version) - Mark Ronson

(Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop / Suga - The Fatback Band/Sarah Ruba

Ain't Nobody ft. Sharlene Hector - Jack & Juke

Thinking - Louis Cole

Get Lucky (Radio Edit) - Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams

Cosmic Girl - Jamiroquai

Candy - Cameo

Treat U Good - Moods feat. Noah Slee, Lyriya, Meron

Digital Love - Daft Punk

Delight (Instrumental) - Dr. J

Red Alert - Basement Jaxx

Caravan - Mark de Clive-Lowe & the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra

Not So Blue - Quantic

Superstylin' - Groove Armada

Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta) (Radio Edit) - The Artful Dodger

Hold It Down (Bugz in the Attic's Co-operative Mix) - 4hero

Body Groove (Original Mix MC Version) - Architechs

Dancing (Original) - Omar & Zed Bias

Loving You Is Easy - Camo & Krooked

Mesablanca - O'Flynn

Lk (feat. Stamina MC) - DJ Marky & XRS

Tremendo Boogaloo (Fluid Mechanics Remix) - Manteca

Last Goodbye (Feat. Celestine) - Break

Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield

I Say A Little Prayer - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas

Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross

Light My Fire - Stevie Wonder

It's Dancing Time - Mr. Scruff & Quantic

Evil Vibrations - The Rebirth

It's Dancing Time - Mr. Scruff & Quantic

Back To Life (Scrimshire, Waaaaaaait For it, Edit) - Scrimshire

8th Wonder (Pressure Drop Remix) - The Sugarhill Gang

Jumpin' Jumpin' (Jean Tonique Remix) - Destiny's Child

Joints & Jam Album Version  - The Black Eyed Peas

Dragonball Durag - Thundercat

A Little Bit Of Love (Souleance "C'est La Fête" Re-edit) - Brenda Russell vs Souleance

Shelter - junior state

[bonewaryreblogs]

Crossover AU Hopping: Trolls!

Because they happen to be on my mind lately :p

Anyways, This would take place sometime between the first and second movies; it always kinda bothered me that they never addressed bergens who didn't want to change their ways, rebelling against King gristle Jr. and still wanting to eat trolls. I've decided to use Serif to explore that thought because it's a convenient situation in which he can be useful, cause drama, and fuel interactions.

To anyone who doesn't know, Serif is an Undertale original character (my own Sans clone) that I'm writing a fanfic for. He eventually gains the ability to travel between Undertale AUs and I use this same mechanic to get him to interact with other fandoms/franchises as well, because I can. It's not exactly canon but it's fun to think about.

Serif had set up camp in a small clearing he found in a lush, tropical-type forest, awakening to find the trolls come by to prepare the clearing for a party. Serif apologizes for encroaching on their area, having not known that the area was already claimed; Poppy, enthusiastic as ever, invites Serif to join in the festivities, much to Branch’s chagrin, not trusting the large interloper. For all they knew, Serif was another predator out to get them when they least expected it. Serif agreed that Branch had a point, which surprised Branch, saying that all they had was his word that he was friendly; however, optimistic as trolls are, Branch was overruled and Serif was allowed to stay.

Serif helped set up some of the larger equipment, saving time and potentially dangerous physical labor, which Branch grudgingly appreciated. Serif kept very aware of the location of all the trolls so he didn’t accidentally squish any of them. As the party commenced, Serif stayed on the outskirts, entertaining some trolls with some scaled down magic; after his novelty wore off, Serif was mostly left alone but Branch stayed near him, using the excuse of watching Serif for any funny business (so he could also stay on the outskirts of the party). Not wanting to distract from the actual party, Serif spoke with Branch in hushed tones, revealing more about himself to try to get Branch to relax. This sort of worked. Branch also told Serif about trolls being a Bergen delicacy to explain his mistrust; being so small, they weren’t exactly high on the food chain. After the party, Serif helped with the breakdown and was allowed to reset his camp in the area while the rest of the trolls went to their own homes for the night.

Unbeknownst to the trolls or Serif, Chef had been gathering bergens that didn’t like the new truce with the trolls and chose this night to attack Troll Village. Serif was brought out of sleep due to an aggressive, predatory energy nearby, realizing it was in the same direction all of the trolls had come from and returned to; he assumed that was where their home village was. Concerned for his new friends, Serif gets up and quietly stalks over to the energy, arriving just in time to hear screams of panic and fear as the group of five bergens were scooping as many trolls into sacks as they could. Without really thinking, Serif acted, grabbing the bergens with blue soul magic and flinging them away from the village, corralling them together before grabbing each within the maw of a large, terrifying Blaster.

Sacks removed and set down for Poppy to empty, making sure everyone was accounted for, Serif identifies Chef as the ringleader and questions her, discovering that the trolls were going to be eaten for their happiness, a fact Branch had carefully omitted when speaking with Serif earlier. Chef tried to bribe Serif with a few trolls of his own if he let them go but the Blasters tighten their grips instead, as Serif was thoroughly disgusted. He was about to take them away from the area and kill them but Branch (of all people) stopped him, saying death was too far. Serif asked if he had another idea and Branch said they should take them to Bergen Town for punishment; they had befriended the Bergen King there and he would know what to do with them. Poppy and Branch agree to lead Serif and their prisoners to Bergen Town and, despite bursting with blood lust, Serif manages to only tie the offending bergens up, though perhaps a little tighter than necessary.

They set off the next morning, Poppy and Branch riding in Serif’s hood while the prisoners are tied together and forced to walk. Serif mentions the omission and Branch reveals that he did indeed keep that bit to himself, not wanting to give Serif any ideas. Serif understands but it doesn’t quell his utter disgust at the bergens; killing for pleasure was against everything Serif had ever been taught. Even their magically grown foods, if they gained sentience, were given full citizenship, like the Vegetoids had.

By noon, Serif thinks to ask how long the trip to Bergen Town would be and Poppy confirmed they’d arrive by tomorrow. Not wanting to wait that long, Serif decides to fly the rest of the way there, extending his flight magic to all five bergens, causing varying degrees of distress. They were heavy but, fueled by his thirst for justice, Serif could manage if it meant they could get this over with faster. Flying as fast as he could with his cargo in tow, Serif managed to travel the distance in record time, landing somewhat haphazardly between the Troll Tree and the castle steps as the sun was setting. Poppy and Branch went ahead to explain the situation to King Gristle while Serif caught his breath. Curious onlookers began to approach and some of the tied bergens tried to plead for their lives, which was cut short by Serif growling that he caught them trying to eat the trolls again, which miffed some of the others; how dare they try to keep the trolls all to themselves! Such comments quickly quieted as Serif seethed that if they thought eating another sentient being was ok, they could join these in whatever punishment Gristle deemed appropriate. This shut up most of the protests, despite the prisoners swearing it wasn’t true.

Becoming impatient, Serif picked up the five bergens again and flew up the steps. Finding the door locked, Serif growled and opened a shortcut through the door, releasing his hold on the prisoners once inside, dropping them all in a heap. Gristle is defensive at first but Poppy exclaims they were just about to go get them. Not soon enough for Serif; the townsfolk were getting antsy seeing the other bergens tied up. Chef says that they’re all lying, just to further punish her, and that Gristle can’t possibly take the word of these trolls over the word of one of his own kind. Gristle says that it’s true, the trolls have no evidence beyond their words, but Poppy says if they go back to the village, they could see the destruction for themselves and ask other eyewitnesses. Bridget mentions that she trusts Poppy to tell the truth far more than Chef and Gristle makes up his mind to throw the five bergens in the dungeon for now and go see Troll Village. They leave in the morning!

Serif is given an introduction, saying that Troll Village would be done for if not for him stepping in, and all three are given a room for the night, with extra pillows for Branch and Poppy to nest in. Interactions happen before everyone goes to sleep.

The next morning, a knock on the door awakens Serif with a jolt, battle ready, while Poppy and Branch barely begin to stir, having somehow managed to cuddle at some point during the night. They are told that breakfast is almost ready and Serif replies that they’ll be down in a bit, releasing tension as he remembers where he is and Branch and Poppy separate in embarrassment. Serif brings them both to the attached restroom; the trolls take turns in the sink, taking advantage of the soap to wash their cloths too, while Serif took a quick shower and picked a different outfit from his Inventory.

After breakfast, Serif hesitantly reveals that, now that he’s been to both places, he can take a shortcut to Troll Village and back again, making the trip and investigation take barely one day. They arrive in Troll Village and discover it was still pretty well wrecked, despite the trolls’ best efforts. They got many of the inhabitants to tell their version of events, all of which had varying degrees of theatrics but ultimately drew the same picture: the bergens attacked in the night (unprovoked), stuffed bags full of trolls, and were ultimately stopped by Serif. Though he tried to downplay his role, Serif received a lot of praise and even an amount of hero worship; they were so glad they decided to trust him the day before the attack!

With all of this in mind, Gristle and Bridget return to Bergen Town to deal with the criminals; Serif wants to go and see justice served but Poppy hesitates. She should probably go on behalf of her people, but she didn’t want to leave them again. She was also a little scared of what kind of justice would be served, knowing the bergens were generally more violent than the peaceful trolls; would she even be able to stomach it? Serif suggested he represent the trolls’ interests but Branch offered to go instead, knowing it would be best if an actual troll was there as witness.

Serif offers his services as executioner but is shot down by just about everyone; Serif also agrees that death would be the easy way out for Chef anyways. He wants her to suffer, as her victims suffered, but reiterates that he doesn’t want Chef finding some way to claw back her power and be able to hurt others again. Chef is manipulative and cruel, willing to do literally anything to achieve her goals. The others can’t exactly deny this, and banishment obviously didn’t work either, so it is eventually settled that she will work in the castle as a scullery maid, the lowest of the lowly positions. There is a glimmer of hope that working in such a lowly position would break down her cruel mentality so she could be built back up into a better person but Serif is certain that won’t happen; if anything, it will likely make her more bitter, cruel, and hateful. However, knowing she’s at least going to be supervised, Serif concedes.

Serif decides to stay at the castle while he recovers enough magic to AU Hop again, shuttling visitors to and from the castle and Troll Village, mostly Bridget and Poppy taking advantage of Serif’s quick travel shortcuts.

[talesfromlissom]

platonic 4 w mccree pls ?

i need some content with my chaotic ass and some ow friends .

thanks !!

A/N: Wow, this is extremely overdue. I'm sorry, school has been really tough lately, and I haven't been too motivated to do my requests. I plan to reopen them again in the next coming week though :). Again, sorry for taking so long.

Fandom: Overwatch

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Cole Cassidy, Genji (mentioned), Tracer (mentioned)

TW: Blood/Violence, America :I

Rules

Ask Box (Requests are closed!)

“I don’t mean to be rude, doll. But you’ve got some blood in your hair.” Cassidy chuckles.

“Well I don’t mean to be rude, doll, but you’re bleeding from your eye.” You reply, beginning to wrap the gauze around his eye.

An explosion goes off in the distance, as you continue to wrap.

“I told you to stop using that thing so much. You could hurt yourself, dumbass.” You mutter, picking Cassidy up in a bridal style.

: “Agent [L/N], what’s Cole’s status?” : Genji’s familiar voice asks through the commlinks.

“He’s fine.” You reply, already taking off down the street. “He can’t walk and probably screwed up his deadeye again. I’m taking him to the subway tunnels, you think you can meet me at Bergen St?”

: “On it. I’ll tell Lena.” :

You make your way down the stairs, avoiding the destroyed rubble.

“Ain’t these tunnels active?” Cassidy asks.

“Not anymore. They cut the power on the trains when the city goes under attack so they can divert it to the bunkers.”

“What ‘bout the people still in the trains?”

You sigh. “They…have to figure it out from there.”

“That’s fucked.” Cassidy mutters.

“Welcome to America, Cass’.”

You walk along the train tracks, ignoring the muffled yelling and fighting above you.

“Y’know, Genji’s gonna tease me about this later,” Cassidy mutters into your chest.

“Serves you right. He told you not to engage.” You chuckle dryly.

“He tells me to not do a lot of things.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to him.” You respond as Cassidy mutters something under his breath.

You hop over fallen rubble, which reveals sunlight to the otherwise dark tunnel. And finally, see the platform to Bergen ahead. You pick up the pace slightly.

“You really grew up here?” Cassidy blurts out.

You scoff.

“Yep.” You said. “I wish I didn’t.”

“Lena. I’m at Bergen St. You able to pick me up?” You ask into the commlink.

You’re met with silence.

: “Yep! We managed to clear enough air space for me to land!” :

You climb onto the platform and make your way up the stairs.

Cassidy rests his head on your chest fully.

“Damn darlin’, you got moobies.”

“I’ve got what.” You growl.

[primitiveprimelab]

070 Shake - You Can’t Kill Me

NEW ALBUM FROM NORTH BERGEN’S LOVE-STRUCK COSMONAUT

Shake’s music reminds me of Michael Jackson (Thriller + Dangerous era) and Pink Floyd. Before you go running to listen, based off those descriptions, Shake doesn’t straight up sound like either of those pop music titans.

The production’s proclivity toward synths and dark moods is what recalls Floyd, while the sensitivity vs angst, solitude and fusion of various pop music styles is what feels not so much like Michael’s music but like something he would’ve produce for another artist had he ever decided to go Quincy Jones on us.

The latest album, You Can’t Kill Me, is as defiant as the title commands. But in the title is also the clue of mortality and endurance if not survival. Someone in a review wrote, if this is a love album, its only one insofar as love has caused Shake pain. I think there’s plenty of songs about joy and synergy on this record but for me, the true consistent thread, is how loud it feels to feel. This album magnifies feelings, from the desperate and addicted to the spiritual and blissful.

The lyrics are straight forward and still enlist a mystique, Shake’s singing slides in and out of auto-tune so often that I can’t tell the difference anymore. Something about that also reminds me of Floyd. Shake is a new-psychedelic evolution from early Floyd experiments. Experiments that occurred before the rise of Hip-Hop, electronic music, and later still, the Yeezus album and Kid Cudi in general. It’s moon music quite literally as Dani Moon is another name Shake goes by. 

You Can’t Kill Me is a loner’s record. Reflected in the absence of features. But the album constantly reaches for connection. To awaken feeling, or to keep it alive, hence the immortality of experience, which cannot be diminished by the quality of what one feels but is sustained by the very fact that one continues to feel.

[mopeytropey]

a beer buds series: chapter 8

author’s note: happy, sappy Lexa hath arrived

available on AO3: here or below the cut

Timeline: just after Lexa returns from her holidays in New York, Clarke is bombarded with work at Dockside; Lincoln keeps her company over the weekend as Lexa relays the events of her Friday spent with Clarke (chapter 7 of 'apu')

Beer: Frequency KÖLSCH-INSPIRED GERMAN ALE

Clean and bright. Pleasingly malty with a touch of noble hop. Crisp and sharp with a subtle malt sweetness on the finish

ABV 5.0%

Frequency: Winter Hill Brewing (Somerville, MA)

:::

Lexa cannot stop smiling.

She hasn’t been able to curb the small grins and outright smiles that keep spreading across her lips at random intervals since leaving Clarke’s house on Friday morning.

She doesn’t stop them when her thoughts drift to the sound of Clarke’s voice and the looks they shared in her kitchen over coffee and bagels. And, she can’t keep her lips from curving when remembering their dinner Friday night, the way Clarke’s eyes would gleam and her cheeks would blush when Lexa would say something purposefully flirtatious. She has more-or-less lost all power over the muscles in her face and the control Clarke has on her overall good mood.

She hasn’t allowed herself this much visible happiness in ages. It feels both incredibly unnatural and like enormous relief.

And, because she is smiling into her phone while reading a recent text from Clarke, riddled with profanity about being stuck at work, she doesn’t notice Lincoln approaching.  

“Hey, I’ve missed that smile.”

Lexa’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice, and her smile remains. She’s missed him too.

“Hey.”

They clumsily exchange a hug while Lexa is sat on a wicker bar stool and Lincoln stands beside her at a bright grey bar counter made from swirled marble. The sun streams through the front windows of an upscale restaurant known for their brunch menu, woodfired pizzas, and signature cocktails.

Lexa had, in fact, intended to ask Clarke to brunch at this very establishment. She has been eager to resume their mutual exploration of the attraction that’s been brimming between them since early June. Friday had been a glimpse, a negligible fraction of what Lexa knows they are bound to discover over time. She thinks of her fingers tangling between Clarke’s or the physical distances between them that are gradually vanishing. Her head buzzes with all their potential in the days and weeks to come.

Lincoln unbundles from his wool peacoat and unwinds a striped scarf from around his neck to reveal his thick cable knit sweater beneath. “I just saw the girls,” he announces.

Lexa swallows, torn abruptly from the places her mind had been wandering. “Did you?”

“Yeah, they’re slammed down there.” Lincoln takes his seat and then angles himself comically in Lexa’s direction as if he plans to interrogate her. “So, Clarke says hi.”

Lexa’s chest balloons and her smile expands beyond her control. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“I assume this means you two are on speaking terms again?”

The burn in Lexa’s cheeks is so severe, she’s forced to look away to the sounds of Lincoln’s delighted laughter. He playfully jabs a finger into her bicep while she fails miserably to keep her cool.

“We started talking before I left for New York.” Lexa clears her throat, hoping it will reduce the heat of her embarrassment. “She dropped me at the train station, actually.”

“Yeah, I know. Octavia told me,” Lincoln admits. Lexa backhands him across his chest and attempts to scowl. “Sorry, I had to mess with you a little bit. I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“That’s your one free one.” Empty threats, and they both know it.

“Yeah, sure. Okay,” Lincoln plays along, nevertheless slinging an arm around the back of Lexa’s stool.

The bartender approaches before Lexa can respond, and Lincoln reaches across the bar to slap her hand in a familiar exchange. “What’s good, Lincoln?”

“Hey, what’s up, Taylor?”

“What are you drinking?” she asks him while sliding a coaster in front of him.

He nods to Lexa’s pint of beer. “What’s this?”

“It’s that kölsch-inspired one from Winter Hill,” Lexa answers. “It’s really smooth.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll do the same. Thanks.”

“You guys eating?”

“Yeah, I’d love to see a menu,” Lexa tells her.

Taylor nods, reaching for two rolls of cutlery from beneath the bar. “You got it. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, so: what happened? What’s happening? Tell me everything. How was your Christmas?”

Lexa can’t help but laugh at Lincoln’s eager requests, rattled off with palpable excitement. She takes a deep breath. “Christmas was definitely interesting.”  

“Oh yeah?”

Taylor returns with Lincoln’s beer and two menus. She mumbles something quick and low in Spanish to Lincoln that makes him laugh.

“She’s got some real pretentious dicks on the other side of the bar,” Lincoln informs her once Taylor has left them to tend to her other customers. Because the bar is circular, Lincoln attempts to scope out the situation on the other side of the bar by peering through the rows of bottles, glassware, and flatscreen TVs that create a barrier between both sides.

“Think we should bounce them out of here?”

Lincoln laughs into his first sip of beer. “Let me have another pint and I’ll let you know.” He finishes another long sip before sliding his glass back onto the bar. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why Clarke is suddenly in such a supremely good mood despite working her second double in a row, and why you haven’t been able to wipe that idiot grin off your face since I walked in. Wait—also, what did Anya get you for Christmas?”

Lexa rolls her eyes, hoisting up with disdain an article of outerwear from the stool beside her. “Stupid hat.”

Lincoln swallows his mouthful of beer and laughs, nodding approvingly. “Classic An. Okay so, what exactly happened while you were at home?”

Lexa watches her fingers trace the darker patterns that thread the marble bar top. “For one, Costia and I met for coffee after Christmas and finally had that long overdue conversation I’ve been avoiding.”

“Hey, you weren’t the only one avoiding,” Lincoln reminds her.

“Yeah, I know.”

“And so, it’s over?”

Lexa exhales, reaching again for her pint of beer and taking a low sip. “I think it’d been over for a while, but: yes. In an official capacity, we ended it.”

“And, how are you and Costia? Okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good. We’d been such good friends anyway—I honestly think that was a huge part of what complicated things for us for so long.”

Lincoln hedges his reaction. “I want to be really happy for you right now because you basically look like you just dropped this huge weight around your neck, but … are you okay with everything?”  

“I am.” She looks up to meet his eye as if to prove herself. “It felt right. And, I’m—” Her traitorous lips, already pulling at their edges in a smile, will give her away every time. “I’m really good actually.”

“Good because I’m so happy for you, buddy.” Lincoln squeezes her shoulder with the hand resting on her stool. “Okay so, I know you and Clarke are talking again—and, believe me, we’re all relieved as hell about that—but, what exactly have you told her?”

“You mean about Costia?”

Lincoln finishes his sip of beer, pinning her with a look he must have learned from Anya because Lexa feels absolutely transparent. “I mean, I think Costia is just the tip of a pretty substantial iceberg, but sure. Let’s start there.”

At his candid retort, Lexa exhales a laugh and grasps her beer. “I’m fairly certain Clarke knows that my feelings for her aren’t entirely platonic, if that’s what you mean.” Her mind flashes briefly to the lighting and warmth of Clarke’s kitchen, the scent of toasted bagels and freshly ground coffee.

Lincoln claps his hands, as he so often does in moments of triumph, and smiles broadly. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that we are finally having this conversation.”

“I know. Me too.” In spite of her nerves constantly bubbling to the surface, Lexa is also flooded with the acute relief of authenticity.

“Have you seen her since you’ve been back?”

“We spent some time together on Friday.” Lexa ineffectually bites at her lip to keep from smiling. She thinks of slow hugs, soft hand-holding, and timid admissions amid charged goodbyes. Their interactions thus far have been so buffered by innocence, Lexa cannot believe the way her stomach swoops at her memory of them. “I brought her bagels.”

“Suave.”

“Listen, she—I wasn’t attempting to be romantic.”

Lincoln doesn’t miss a beat. “Liar.”

“Clarke has been living her entire life under the misguided assumption that a small, newly established bagel shop in northern Massachusetts is on par with legitimate New York bagels, Lincoln.” The severity in Lexa’s tone has him visibly amused. “I felt it my sacred duty to correct this misconception.”

“You brought her Bergen’s, didn’t you?”

Lexa looks offended at the ask. “Like I would offer her anything less.”

“And, where are my Christmas bagels?”

She rolls her eyes, reaching for her nearby pint. “Linc—”

“Okay, I see how it is. Too hung up on impressing Clarke to remember one of your oldest friends.” He is nodding, self-righteously.

Like a loveable idiot.

“I’m beginning to second-guess your request to hang out today,” she tells him while averting her eyes to the paper menu in front of her.

Lincoln laughs at her stern tone, knowing it’s a bluff, and returns his arm to rest along the back of her stool.

“How are you actually feeling about this?”

“Sharing an afternoon drink with you? I’m of two minds at the moment.”

“Now who’s being a jackass?” Lincoln grins. “So, you’re scared out of your mind about Clarke then?”

Yes. Absolutely. The nervous uncertainty is all-consuming.

Lexa shrugs, ignoring her inner anxieties and recites aloud the mantra of useless facts she’s been telling herself for days.

“Clarke and I have been close for quite awhile. She knows me, maybe better than most people. Despite any potential uncertainties, we’re operating on the foundation of a very sound friendship.”

Lincoln watches her like she’s come entirely unhinged. “Okay, yeah. Do you have any idea how incredibly shook I was at the prospect of kissing my friend Octavia?”

At the thought of kissing Clarke—images painted vividly by her traitorous mind—a breath lodges in her chest, and Lexa must return to her beer for fear of passing out.

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m just trying to get you to be honest with yourself. And me, for that matter. I mean, I’m just assuming—knowing how much you overthink every goddamn thing to death—that you haven’t slept with her yet.”

“Jesus, Lincoln.” Lexa swallows her embarrassment through multiple sips of beer.

“For that matter, you probably haven’t even kissed her yet.”

“I can’t think about … that yet,” she manages to say without her voice croaking from the strain.

“Kudos to you for being able to think about anything else.”

“I have, obviously, considered the prospect. I just—more than anything I keep thinking about how I want to be around her all the time.”

“No offense, because I mean this genuinely and supportively as your friend, but are you just now figuring that out?”

“Shut up,” Lexa laughs.

:::

The food, as it turns out, is notable.

Lexa orders chicken fried steak and eggs with chorizo gravy and griddled potatoes, immediately lulled into a state of happy sedation as she clears her plate.

Lincoln groans his satisfaction as well, leaning back into his stool when he’s finished. “Damn. That was so good.”

“I might nap on this stool. Your friend would be okay with that, right?”

“Yeah, obviously.” Lincoln stretches his arms over his head and folds his hands behind the base of his neck. “A good bartender is always looking to have her guests fall asleep at the bar.”

“Okay good,” Lexa answers with a sleepy smile and suppresses an actual yawn with the back of her hand.

“What are you up to for the rest of your day?”

“This meal has completely erased any prior motivation to workout. My couch sounds pretty nice right now.”

The sun is setting and the streetlamps have begun to flicker on along the cobblestreet outside the restaurant windows.

“Not gonna go lurking outside Dockside until Clarke gets out of work?” Lincoln prompts with a teasing wink.

“Why do I feel like this was an actual tactic used on Octavia?”

“An effective tactic, you might say.”

“No,” Lexa laughs. “I’m not planning to stalk Clarke at her place of business, you creep.”

“Suit yourself,” Lincoln shrugs. “If you need any tips, I’m just sayin’.”

Lexa’s laughter is more of a cackle, lost in the increasing din of the Sunday evening bar crowd. “I think I’m all set. Thanks.”

“Oh okay, here we go—two beers later, she is confidence personified.”

Taylor returns to collect their empty plates, and Lincoln, practically gleeful, seizes on an opportunity to embarrass Lexa in a public setting.

“Taylor, help me out here—first kisses with relative strangers versus first kisses with a friend-turned-something-more. Generally speaking, which one makes you more nervous?”  

“Why?” Taylor grins, bracing herself across from them with both hands grasping to the edge of the bar top. “Is one of you about to ask me to makeout?”

Lexa smothers a mortified oh-my-god against the palms of her hands where she has covered her face.

“No, no,” Lincoln laughs while shaking his head. “Like I would ever do anything to get Toni on my bad side—your girlfriend might be more intimidating than Octavia.”

“She’s gonna love hearing that,” Taylor smiles.

“The thing is, Lexa here—”

“Would love the check,” Lexa interjects, pinning Lincoln with her most threatening glare while her cheeks still burn warmly. “And, for reasons yet unclear to me, I’ll take Lincoln’s too. You can put us on the same tab.”  

“You got it,” Taylor chuckles, and strides off to the kitchen with their empty dishes.

As Lexa signs the tab, leaving an exorbitant tip to somehow assuage her own embarrassment as well as fulfill an unspoken creed between service industry workers, Lincoln warmly grabs her shoulder.

“Thanks. This was a great way to spend my otherwise very boring Sunday while O is stuck at work.”  

“Lucky for you, my Sunday plans were also foiled.”

“So glad we could be each other’s second fiddle,” Lincoln grins.

Lexa returns his familiar smile. “Anytime.”

They bundle back into their coats and hats and gloves before Lincoln waves and shouts a quick farewell to Taylor from across the bar. As they push through the front entryway back out into the cold and wind and lightly dusted snowy sidewalk, Lincoln wraps an arm around Lexa’s shoulder and hugs her closer.

“Thanks again—you didn’t have to pick up the tab, buddy.”

“Think of it as your belated Christmas present. Besides, you basically always pay whenever we hang out. I owe you.”

For the drinks and food, yes. But, Lexa also feels indebted to Lincoln’s unending kindness and patient listening as everything between she and Clarke has unfolded.

“You don’t owe me anything, but that food does make for a great belated Christmas present.”

“Well, it’s not pumpernickel bagels and pimento cream cheese, but,” Lexa shrugs, looking up to catch Lincoln’s eye just as his expression creases painfully.

“Aw man, did you have to bring up the pimento cream cheese?!”

Lexa laughs and savors the warmth of Lincoln’s broad frame close beside her.

:::

Sometime between the distance of Lincoln’s apartment, where they had parted after a smothering hug, and Lexa’s front entryway, her phone buzzes from within her coat pocket. When she sees Clarke’s name as the incoming call, she removes a glove with her teeth and swipes to answer.

“Hey.” It’s so cold now that the sun has set, her breath is frozen in puffs, but the anticipation of hearing Clarke’s voice builds a warmth deep in her stomach. “How are you?”

“Oh my god, I’m so tired,” Clarke whimpers.

Always so dramatic.

Still, she has sympathy for Clarke’s long and tiresome hours of unexpected work over the weekend. Lexa shuffles across an empty crosswalk, hurrying towards her street as other pedestrians bustle past in bulky winter wear. “Sorry you’ve been stuck there for two days.”

“I was prepared for Saturday. Today has kicked my ass. Where are you? It sounds windy. Oh my god, please tell me you aren’t running in this weather.”

Lexa laughs as she reaches her apartment and searches for her keys while keeping her phone pinned against her shoulder. “I’m walking home from grabbing food and drinks with Lincoln.”  

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, my brain is fried. Drinks and food sound so nice right now,” Clarke practically whines.

Lexa pushes into the warmth of the stairwell and begins to take the stairs to her apartment. “Seeing Lincoln was really nice, although it was you I was hoping to share a meal with today.”

“Were you?”

She can hear Clarke better now as she unlatches the locks of her apartment’s front door and steps inside a quiet, darkened room. She smiles shyly at Clarke’s surprised delight and lightly clears her throat.

“Yes.”

“And what did these plans entail?”

Lexa used to wonder constantly about Clarke’s intentions—whether or not she was consciously aware of the provocative ring to her voice. Presently, Lexa requires no translation: Clarke’s flirtation is unmistakable.

“I wanted to take you out for brunch.”

“I would have loved that.” Clarke sounds beyond charmed, and Lexa’s entire face warms.

“That’s—that’s good to know,” she responds, exhaling shakily at Clarke’s belated acceptance to a date they never got to have.

“I had brunch plans for us today too!”

“Oh yeah?” Lexa’s intrigue instantly distracts from her spike of nerves.

“Yes! They involved homemade waffles and really nice prosecco I absconded with the last time I left my mom’s and, most importantly, not being at work for over nine hours.”

Lexa clicks on a nearby lamp and shuffles out of her coat but does not bother to remove her absurd winter hat. The idea of Clarke making plans for them—specifically plans that involve home-cooked meals and sharing bubbly wine in Clarke’s home—sets Lexa’s stomach fluttering as she collapses onto her sofa.

“Well, for future reference, I’d be up for drinking prosecco with you any time, appropriated or otherwise.”

“This is good information to have.”

Lexa cozies into the couch cushions at the sound of Clarke’s laugh, wishing desperately that they were sat side by side, filling each other in on their day. She might weave her fingers into Clarke’s hair to help her relax or pull Clarke’s legs into her lap to massage her calf muscles after a long shift at the bar.

“How was your afternoon with Lincoln?”

“He was very upset about being excluded from the New York bagel delivery.”

More of Clarke’s laughter broadens the small smile on Lexa’s mouth. “They were indeed very enviable bagels.”

“I’m glad you liked them. We’ll have to get more sometime.”

A pregnant beat in which Clarke doesn’t immediately respond has Lexa’s heart racing. “In New York?”

The insinuation of taking Clarke to Brooklyn is lightyears ahead of asking her to brunch, and Lexa scrambles to backtrack her overzealous suggestion while pulling her stupid hat over her eyes. “I, um—I didn’t mean—”

“Lexa, I’m sorry—ugh,” Clarke grunts in frustration. “I have to go help one of our servers with something.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, of course. I’ll let you go,” Lexa fumbles to say, grateful that Clarke’s endless string of responsibilities has saved her from more useless stuttering.

“Can I call you when I’m finished here? If it’s not too late?”

Lexa sits up and finally removes her hat. “Call me whenever.”

“Okay.” Lexa can hear the grin in Clarke’s response and indulges in one of her own. “Oh, and if the invitation still stands, I would go with you to New York any time, with or without the promise of bagels.”

Lexa cannot stop smiling. She doesn’t even try.

:::

[elsanna-shenanigans]

February Contest Submission #15: The Old House

words: ca. 6000 setting: 20th Century. Real world (with a twist) lemon: No cw: Some angst. Mentions of parent death. Referenced/implied child abuse.

“It’s time to go.”

She saw through the mist a hand, reaching out for her. Large snowflakes swirled past them like a swarm of puffy hens. The hand could not hold her. It slipped away. She called her parents’ names, or so she thought.

They found her moribund little body in the snow the next morning.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Anna woke up with a start, chest heaving.

It was dark in the hotel room. Her roommate— partner?— stirred groggily next to her.

“Anna? What’s wrong?” Her raspy voice asked. “Was it another nightmare.”

“No,” she lied. “I’m sorry. Y-you can go back to sleep.”

She could feel Elsa’s eyes on her.

“What do you need?” She asked. Her voice spread warmth across Anna’s chest.

“…I could really use a warm hug.”

Next thing she knew, a pair of arms were gathering her into an embrace. She tucked her head under Elsa’s chin and sighed.

It would be a long day, it seemed.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Arendelle was a small town on an island north of Norway. It was born as a fishing town in the 1890s and never changed its trajectory. Only a few dozen houses, a fish-oil refinery, the docks, one church, one school, one hotel, and an administrative building uphill. The people of Arendelle were rustic and gloomy, much like the weather they were brought up in: hail twice a week, snow in winter, and rain the rest of the time. In short: Arendelle hadn’t changed one bit since Anna left.

Being at the foot of the mountain, Arendelle’s surroundings were prone to avalanches, and the most recent one had taken place only a week back. It missed them by a few miles, but it opened up a door for archaeologists from the University of Bergen, who came to study what had been uncovered by the snow.

Anna wasn’t an archaeologist; she was a girl on a mission. She left while her grandfather slept, hopping into a cargo ship to travel north. Her passage was worth weeks of work. She hadn’t expected the sight of the town in the distance to hurt her as it did, so she kept her mind busy, and spent her days searching. 

The day things began to go downhill, she was, as always, searching for her parents’ bodies. 

She climbed up the mountains with her wooden stick and stabbed the snow with it, searching for something harder than mud. Bones, hopefully, although she was terrified of finding frozen flesh sticking to their cheekbones. The sky grew dark and cold, and Elsa would kill her if she arrived one minute too late, so she decided to turn back. She followed her own tracks towards the dig (where they let her sit by the ever-burning campfire as long as she wasn’t too noisy). The skeletal tree-branches rattled above. The wind whistled and swooshed sharply, blowing rough snow that clawed at her reddened cheeks. Her hands were numb even inside her pockets. Anna’s only comfort was thinking about Elsa’s arms around her. Not even the sight of Arendelle downhill quelled the chill.

Anna might be a born-Arendellian, but she grew up in the south of Norway. She was ill-prepared for the hostile North. 

However, if Elsa had taught her anything, was that even under the dark frozen sky there were objects of wonder.

As Anna trudged across the snow-sea which reached her mid-calf, something caught her eye. A narrow stone-wall led deep into the forest. Only two feet tall and falling apart already. Frost covered its surface. 

Her heart leaped. She deviated from her path without a second thought, legs racing, pulse and breath quickening with emotion.

The picture-stone came into view after. It lied deeper into the woods. A bow-shaped slab. Abstract ships, stick-people, reindeer herds gathered on it in a violent array of reds. Waves, antlers, and swords, a story carved in stone. A sacrifice.

And in the center, she found her.

There was something else to Arendelle.

“The Queen,” The hotel-butler had explained.

“The Queen of Norway?” Anna had asked, much to his amusement.

“No, the real Queen.”

The Snow Queen, who with her reindeer-pulled chariot cast a shadow of frost over every corner of the North. Her arms rose towards the sky, where her snowflake curled like clouds, like the winds she sent south. The slab was thirteen-foot-tall and rose high above Anna, with its depiction of the nordic spirit. Below her, was an inscription.

As it usually did, time halted. Anna’s throat dried, her eyes widened. She covered her mouth. She could no longer hear the sharp branch-rattling or wind-whistling over the sound of her own warm blood pounding in her ears. She no longer felt cold. 

She reached forward, tracing with a fingertip the carvings. 

The finds couldn’t be younger than seven hundred years old. Had it truly been that long? Oh, Anna could nearly feel the sculptor’s trembling hands, their warm breath. She placed a hand where someone else’s hands had once been. 

She searched for her journal inside her coat and scribbled down the runes she saw, as well as the stone and the wall she’d seen before.

Anna was no archaeologist— she wasn’t nearly smart enough—, but she understood why someone may choose this path. When she gazed upon this stone, it was as if there was no distance at all. 

The icy wind pushed against her, pulling her out of her haze. Yes! She began to stroll downhill. She’d prove her usefulness! She’d alert the scholars of the new find.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Anna and the archaeologists were two land mammals sharing the same habitat, only, while they searched with brushes and trowels, Anna searched with a wooden stick. As non-competitive species, they often shared the same space, considering they knew her story. Anna wasn’t sure why the scholars tolerated her, but maybe it was because she and Elsa were a package deal now.

As soon as she reached her destination, Elsa threw her arms around her shoulders, kissed her cheek, and asked:

“Are you alright?”

She pulled back, anxious eyes studied her from head to toe. Anna’s heart always swelled with adoration when she heard that voice.

“I am,” she soothed her. “Oh, Elsa, you won’t believe what I found!”

“Wait.” Elsa tugged her towards the campfire and caressed Anna’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re cold. Come here.”

Soon, they sat on a log before the magnificent dig. A farmstead, they’d said. Stone walls and a half-rotten roof still mostly standing, surrounded by icy farming grounds where lamb bones were found.

The more awe-inspiring part, of course, was that a family had lived there. The farmstead was someone’s home. Elsa had described the findings in length: a family of three. All of them Christians, and funnily enough, also sheepherders. Thirteenth century. The settlement of Árnadalr lied many kilometers south, but this family lived in solitude.

Anna now wore an extra coat, held a mug of cocoa in her hands, and had Elsa fussing over her like a mother hen.

“What took you so long? You could get lost out there! And you left your scarf behind again. Here, let me find it.”

“Well, aren’t you a protective one,” Anna teased her, sipping her drink. Elsa’s pale skin flushed.

“It’s my job, isn’t it?” she muttered.

Before Anna could snort and ask what that meant, Professor Mattias, who was in charge of the dig, intervened to ask about Anna’s findings in the woods. Her enthusiasm immediately reassured everyone that she brought good news, and while they couldn’t travel at night, they still celebrated in the hotel. They cheered with vodka at the charcoal-sketch of the picture-stone Anna had presented. Yes, she’d made herself useful.

As they congratulated her, Elsa remained silent.

The hotel was so old, half the lightbulbs didn’t work. There was only one phone, and a dozen residents lined up every day to make their thirty-minutes calls and clog up the narrow smelly corridor. Each curtain was half-eaten by moths; you’d be wise not to put your clothes in the closet. Three stories of dusty light, creaky stairways, and dirty cracked windows. You could hear every neighbor from three doors away, and the ice clawed down from the roof into a fang-curtain before every window. They offered only one blanket per bed, but Elsa had provided Anna with a woolen quilt on her first night. That had perhaps been the first step towards falling in love with her. Between paying for both of them and giving up her own warmth, Elsa had extended unconditional kindness towards Anna from day one. Maybe they’d been doomed from the start. 

“They’re out of single rooms,” she’d clarified upon Anna’s arrival. “And I’ve been paying for an empty bed for the past week. Please, I insist.”

It might have passed as simple pragmatism had Elsa not been Elsa. It wasn’t only about her treatment towards Anna, no, but about how she’d treat a stranger in need, that made Anna lose control of her heart. 

She asked her about her silence, in the light of their whale-oil lamp (their room’s electricity hadn’t worked since the ‘30s), as she tried to translate the runes with her journal and a book she’d grabbed from the local library.

“Is everything okay, Elsa?”

Elsa was sitting on her bed, silently combing her hair. She wore only her slip, which was quite distracting, but she didn’t have the intention of getting into bed, despite looking so tired.

At Anna’s words, she tilted her head.

“Why? Are you feeling poorly?”

Anna snorted.

“I’m okay. Are you?”

“It’s nothing.”

Anna sighed. She closed the book and stared at Elsa.

“You never let me pull off this whole.. avoiding the subject thing,” she protested, and then extended an arm towards her, begging to come closer. A new anxious question settled on her tongue. “Are you…? Do you feel…? I mean, do you feel safe with me, Elsa? Like you can trust me?”

Elsa’s eyes studied her for one agonizing moment. She stood up. Well, they did only meet a month back. Weren’t they moving too fast? Her grandfather would certainly disapprove. 

“It’s not that,” Elsa murmured as she approached Anna. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and nuzzled the top of her head. She planted a kiss there, and Anna’s heart skipped a beat. “I do trust you.”

Anna saw her pale fingers brush over the pages of her journal. Her uncertain translation read:

This stone was raised in memory of Agðar and Iðunn, who met their end in their travels. Their daughter carved this stone.

“You’re becoming quite a good translator,” Elsa commented, and placed another kiss on Anna’s hair. Heat crept up to the tips of her ears.

“T-thank you,” she replied, as she ripped off the page and stored it in her folder, alongside all other translations and sketches she’d scribbled since her arrival: small runestones, illustrations of archaeological finds, and multiple petroglyphs of the Queen, all of which she’d shared with the archaeologists. “You’re an excellent translator as well! I mean, I suppose you are. You work at the dig, after all.”

Elsa hummed.

“I’m not an archaeologist. I’m only a volunteer.” she argued. “In fact, I believe you’ve been more helpful than me.” She flipped over a page. “The Snow Queen?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah,” Anna stammered. “Kind of a passion project.”

“For the Snow Queen?” Elsa raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

“Well, legend has it she was single, right? Oh! Thy Majesty! Pardon my manners, but I shoult say thy bosom looks exquisite. Are thee by any chance in need of a shieldmaiden?”

A hand snaked around her waist. Anna shrieked as Elsa’s fingers dug into the sensitive spot. Between laughter and screeching, she curled on herself and tried to swat her hand away. 

“Come on,” Elsa laughed. “It’s getting late. And keep working on your performance. That’s not how people spoke back in the day.”

She ruffled Anna’s hair and strode back towards her bed, and— alright, she saw swaying her hips on purpose. 

Anna pulled her knees to her chest, placing her heels on the edge of the seat and hugging her legs.

“You said you grew up here, right?”

“More or less, yes. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering. About the Snow Queen, you know.”

“What about her?”

“…That’s what I meant to ask.”

Elsa sighed. She rubbed her eyes.

“Just… some fairy tale,” she dismissed it, with a wave of her hand. “To make children behave. If you were nasty, a monster would feel your frozen heart and take you to her palace.”

“Was it a nice palace, at least?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was quite obedient growing up.”

“Oh, excuse me.”

Elsa chuckled, and Anna’s heart fluttered with affection.

“I was!” she insisted, giving Anna a mischievous look. “But no. I don’t think it was a nice place. In fact, they say everything about the Queen was cruel and horrible. She never seemed like girlfriend material to me.”

“You think?” Anna asked. “I don’t know. Maybe she was lonely.”

Elsa cast her eyes down, lips curling into a melancholic smile.

“Well, I doubt even she could resist your charms.”

With a delicate finger, she pulled Anna’s hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Now the heat was in Anna’s stomach, in her chest, in the way Elsa gazed at her with such an unexpected adoration, she couldn’t help but to raise her head and kiss her lips. Elsa sighed contentedly, her hand cradling the back of Anna’s neck. Her mind spun around as their lips brushed together. 

Then Elsa pulled away, with a pensive expression. She bit her lip.

“Tell you what,” she said, grasping Anna’s hands. “Come with me tomorrow. I want to show you something.”

Anna grinned. That was good enough for her. She’d wait for Elsa to speak in her own terms and time. 

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

“That’s the thing,” she remembered her grandfather say, when she was seven. “I doubt they got lost. We would have found the bodies by now. I bet the reason they’re gone is because they didn’t want to deal with the responsibility, so they thrusted it on me.”

Anna woke again. Her hands trembled.

That had been a lie. 

That had to be a lie. 

He had always lied, hadn’t he? Maybe he just despised her.

Yes, she’d find them and prove him wrong. 

They loved her. They were dead.

Thankfully, Elsa wasn’t disturbed by her pathetic dreams. Anna was surprised she still put up with her, but it was better not to take risks.

She grabbed her coat and got ready for the day.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Elsa guided her through the lonely snow-sea of the mountains in the dark winter morning. The Queen seemed to have it against them, because she blew her snow all over and made them struggle to climb up the hills. 

“Um… Elsa? How much until we get there?” Anna asked, as she could no longer feel her toes.

“Not much,” Elsa absently replied. Her eyes drifted all over the hills. She grasped Anna’s hand and pulled her along. 

The cliffs overlooking Arendelle were a dark shadow in the distance, but they gained definition as both women approached. They didn’t draw a 90 degrees angle with the ground— rather, the earth elevated slowly, in bumps and rocky points, rising like a heavy breath towards the cliff’s foot. It was a rather secluded spot, where the snow didn’t hit as harshly. There they could rest until the time to search came again.

Yet Elsa had other plans. She toiled forward, along the cliff-wall, until the runestones came into view.

Blood-red lines coiled around the edges of a small stone plate, only half as tall as Anna herself. It protruded from near the foot of the cliff, high above. They exchanged a quick look.

“Can you read what it says?” Asked Elsa. Anna cringed thinking about her rune-reading skills.

“I can try?” She vacillated. Looking up, she read: “…Sif and Afvaldr erected this stone in memory of Nafni, son of Ulfarr, father of Afvaldr and husbandman of Sif, who met his end fighting the snow.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She saw Elsa grin from the corner of her eye.

“Anna,” she tugged at her hand. “Look.”

Anna followed the direction of Elsa’s finger, and saw extending into the distance a trail of stones with engravings on them. Small, big, at some points more spaced out than in others. They followed the length of the cliff-wall like a series of little stars, so tiny under the mountain’s shadow.

Anna’s throat tightened with emotion. 

She stepped towards the next stone. This one had a cross on it.

“Feykir and his daughter, Esja, had this stone raised in memory of Rjúpa, Feykir’s wife and Esja’s mother, who was taken by the wicked snow. May God help her spirit.”

This one was close enough to touch. Anna traced the edge of the cross with a finger. 

“How did you know this place?” She asked.

“Oh, you know.” Elsa shrugged. “This is my home.”

Many of the stones were cenotaphs, Elsa explained. No one was buried beneath this soil, but they might as well be, because each of these people, with names and loved ones, felt only a breath away.

“Bersa raised this stone in memory of Ilmr, her father’s sister. She was killed when trying to kill the snow.”

Anna’s breath grew heavier. She scrutinized these patterns, these strange writings, for several hours; they all dated to this wicked, living, killing snow.

Her heart vigorously pounded warm blood into her fingertips.

Then, she spotted a particular runestone. It was the greatest one of all, far away from the others, and it sported the same figure she’d seen only a day before; the Snow Queen with her arms towards the sky. Around her coiled a serpent with words on its skin.

In her blind excitement, Anna hastily climbed over rocks until she reached it. Elsa followed closely behind. 

“Do you know what it says?” Elsa asked when she reached her.

Anna squinted at the words. Its inscription was the longest she’d seen so far.

“It says… Agðar and Iðunn came from the south. It was with them that the snow came.” She stepped to the side, to read the following line. “It was their daughter that brought the evil, with which she could slay a hundred men in… Árnadalr? So… um… Crap. I don’t know what it says here.”

She turned around, expecting to find Elsa willing to lend a hand, but her expression was painted by an unexpected sadness.

Anna’s stomach sank a little.

“Elsa?”

Elsa lowered her head.

“It says they killed her,” she explained. Anna squinted.

“She was real?”

“So it seems.”

“The Snow Queen? No. That’s… too much even for Arendelle. Besides, vikings wrote a lot of weird stuff, right?”

“It’s what the stone tells.” Elsa pointed out. “I know I said it was only a tale last night, but…”

“Wait. Agðar and Iðunn?” Anna checked the names on the stone again. “Were they…? Oh, Elsa… She really was real. And her parents…”

“…Yes. Agðar and Iðunn were the names of the people who lived in the dig,” Elsa clarified.

“So, the Snow Queen… she…” Anna looked at the carvings in stone again. Despair seized her heart. “Oh, no, Elsa. She had a family. They… Oh, goodness…”

A family, yes, one the Snow Queen had missed very much, enough to raise a stone in their memory. To think about this loss, this pain that she thought she knew even if she wasn’t quite sure, tore her heart in half. 

Her eyes watered. 

“I don’t think she was a monster.”

There was… a long history of death and pain in that family, wasn’t it?.

She heard Elsa breathe behind her. 

“Anna, there’s…”

She dropped whatever it was she was about to say when she noticed the mist behind Anna’s eyes.

“I really hope I find my parents,” she murmured, then furiously rubbed her eyes. “D-did I ever tell you what happened to them?”

She could feel Elsa’s pain-stricken gaze on her.

“If that’s something you want to do, I’ll listen.”

Anna nodded. Her throat constricted. 

“There was a storm,” she recalled. “I don’t remember what happened very well. I-I can’t even remember their names, and my grandfather won’t tell me, and besides…”

“He won’t?”

“Yeah, so I think I got lost, because I couldn’t see them anywhere. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital. My grandfather adopted me afterwards.”

“But you’re the one searching for the bodies?”

“What can I say?” Anna shrugged and forced a crooked smile. “Guess he didn’t want to… unbury any painful memories.”

“He didn’t care to find his son?”

“…Or you could put it like that, too.” She wiped her eyes, looking down. “I think I’m beginning to understand him, though.”

Elsa squinted.

“How come?”

“Well…” She kicked the snow at her feet. “He told me once they’d left me in the snow. I like to think I actually got lucky, but I…” She shook her head. “I feel so selfish, Elsa. Like I want them to be dead, just so I can know they didn’t abandon me.”

“They didn’t,” Elsa blurted out with a thick voice. “Anna, your family loved you.”

“Then I shouldn’t be looking for them like this.”

Her voice sounded pathetic even to her.

She brought her hands together, and carefully leaned against Elsa.

“What are you going to do, then?”

She sucked in a ragged breath.

“I don’t know,” Anna admitted. “I don’t wanna go home. My grandfather…”

“Does he hurt you?”

“He’s never hit me.”

Elsa’s arm snaked around her waist.

“What will you do?” Anna then asked, trying to shift the attention from herself. “After the dig is over, I mean. You’ve lived your whole life here, right?”

“In a way.”

“Will you stay?”

That was a difficult question. Elsa could imply she’d leave her and neither of them would know, because Anna didn’t know what she’d do, either. Maybe she’d be the one to leave Elsa.

Elsa closed her eyes.

“I don’t know. Arendelle brings a lot of memories, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

Then Elsa lowered her gaze. Screwed her eyes shut. She pulled away from Anna and wrapped both arms around herself.

“Let’s just go back,” she said curtly. Anna’s heart weighed heavily in her chest— from thinking of her family, from thinking about the Queen, from this sudden rejection—, but she respected Elsa’s space. Had she done something to scare her away? Oh, she surely must have.

They climbed down from the hills even though Anna’s toes were freezing. The mountains made her feel hopeless but so did the sight of Arendelle, and with Elsa walking several feet before her, not even glancing back, Anna felt as though there was no respite from this tired heaviness. She wanted nothing but to curl into a ball and sleep. 

Just before they entered the town, Elsa stopped.

“Anna… listen.” She began. Her tone made Anna’s shoulders droop. “I-I can’t keep doing this. We can’t.”

Anna’s heart quivered.

“W-what do you mean?”

“I mean… this has to end.” She raised her shoulders to her ears. Avoided Anna’s eyes. “I-I’m sorry. Goodbye, Anna.”

Her heart cracked open. Anna shook her head.

“What? W-why?” She shouldn’t feel this surprised. “Did… did I do something? I’m so sorry if I did. Just…”

The pain behind Elsa’s eyes was indescribable.

“No.” She interrupted. “It wasn’t you. Just… please. I can’t say it right now.”

Anna wanted to reply (to scream, cry, seize her hands and not let go), but words failed her as Elsa turned her back to her and entered Arendelle.

As simple as that, Anna was alone. 

She didn’t begin to cry until Elsa was out of sight, like a pathetic little child. 

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

During her last night in Arendelle, Anna dreamed of her sister.

Yes, she’d had a sister, and even though she didn’t remember her name or face she remembered she’d loved her, once. She remembered holding her hand and running in the snow, building snowmen and drinking chocolate with her. The affection and tenderness lingered after, as if carved on stone.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

"Anna, wait.”

Her breath and heart came to a halt. Turning around, she found her standing there, in her blue dress and gripping a rucksack. Her expression was both serious and desperate; pained. She raised a hand as if to grasp Anna’s.

“Oh. Elsa,” Anna blurted. The need to cover her face nearly overpowered her. “Uh… Hello.”

Elsa took her acknowledgment as a cue to come closer. Two long steps and a stare, just for a moment; and Anna understood she didn’t know what she was doing, either. Did she intend to apologize for being brusque? Her approach seemed to indicate so. It wouldn’t be unlike her. Anna was willing to accept and move on if that was the case, but truth was, she didn’t deserve an apology when she’d been the one in the wrong.

However, Elsa looked anything but angry.

Rather, her blue eyes drifted over to the ship in port; the sea. Her throat bobbed up and down.

“I suppose we’ll be leaving in the same ship,” she pointed out with a lopsided smile. Anna tried to smile back. 

“Yep. So it seems.”

“Though I believe we’re early,” continued Elsa. “I was wondering if you cared for a walk in town.”

Anna looked to the side. 

“Elsa, I… don’t know.”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she insisted. “I know. I know. Y-you don’t have to listen to me. But I promise I’ll explain everything, if you’ll have me.”

“Oh, Elsa, there’s nothing to explain,” Anna reassured her. “You just… don’t feel the same way I do. That’s normal. I’m not mad, you know.”

Elsa shook her head.

“That’s not it,” she insisted. “It's… more complicated than that. Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you this ever since I found you.” She wrung her hands together and looked down. “I just hope you’ll believe me when I’m done.”

Regret and desperation were draped over her posture like a heavy cloak, dragging her down. Even when hurt, Elsa still made her heart skip a beat with every gesture of kindness, and this one was no exception. Both her lovestruck haze and her intellectual curiosity compelled her to give Elsa a chance. 

She picked up her bag and extended her arms to the sides.

“I’m all ears.”

Elsa’s grin reminded her of why she loved her. 

“Really?”

“Yep! One-hundred-per-cent. Now, hurry up!”

Elsa sighed in relief. She placed a hand on her chest.

“Alright. Come with me.”

She led her out of the port and into town. Despite having spent the last few months in Arendelle, Anna wasn’t eager to revisit it, but it was different when she knew that’d be the last time she’d see it. She spotted the playground where she and her sister had played (her big sis always hugged her from behind when they went down the slide, because it wasn’t fun going alone), and saw the place where they bought cod and salmon on the weekends. The little kindergarten she’d attended had closed down, but the building still stood. Most streets hadn’t been paved. Mud stuck to her boots. The sky was still white and cold, the houses dull, and the people as austere and uncaring as they’d always been. 

“When I was little,” Elsa began. “My family and I were hiding from a very dangerous man. Of course, I didn’t know that until I was much older. At the time it all felt like a game of hide and seek. We left the mainland, and when that wasn’t enough, we went even further.” She gulped. “We crossed a line that night, and someone else suffered the consequences.”

Anna bit her lip but didn’t interrupt. She feared any disturbance may break the spell and chase Elsa away.

“Anna, what do you remember from the dig?”

“There was a family. With a kid. The Snow Queen. And… her parents died.” Anna recounted. “Is that it? You were reminded of your family?”

“…I was, yes,” replied Elsa. “Anna…”

Was that it? Had it been a dumb case of miscommunication? Of course! She’d been so stupid. Neither of them had been in the right place back then, but now they were, and they could sort out the problem. Perhaps, Elsa didn’t hate her.

Only then Anna realized they were standing before the old house.

Her stomach sank. Her breath hitched and a shiver ran down her spine, mouth hanging ajar. She stepped back.

“Oh, no,” she heard Elsa mumble. 

The house was still made of wood, although it had lost its color. Two stories. A window was broken and so was one of the steps leading up to the entrance. From inside came the smell of dust and rust and rot.

“Anna?”

She looked at Elsa, and couldn’t find the words to beg or cry or scream, but she didn’t need to because Elsa didn’t ask questions. She held her reluctant gaze for a moment and then she nodded, stepped forward, and took Anna’s hand. 

She managed to hold her composure and lead Elsa inside. 

The house had been empty for thirteen years, and it had collected dust and spiderwebs over time. It still felt like home, though. A cold fireplace, where Mama often sang to them, or the rocking chair by the windows, where Papa sat to tell bedtime stories.

Anna’s ribcage unlocked with force. She exhaled shakily and blinked the blurriness away.

Elsa was dreadfully silent, but her thumb caressed Anna’s knuckles. This gave her the strength to climb up the stairs towards her old bedroom. The window was so dirty, you could barely see at all. Nearly all the furniture was gone, save for a pitiful nightstand.

“Anna?”

Anna placed both palms on the nightstand and screwed her eyes shut.

“W-would you tell me about your family? Please?”

She did not have a family to embrace her but perhaps she could bask in the comfort of someone else’s warmth.

“My father was a physicist. My mother was a historian,” continued Elsa. “A-and I had a little sister. Even then, I loved her with everything I was.”

The drawer was stuck. Anna struggled with it.

“W-we never meant to leave her behind.” Elsa’s breathing was laborious. “But there was a blizzard; a small avalanche. And she got lost. We tried to go back for her but it was too late. We’d already reached the other side.”

The wood made a horrible rattling noise, but it eventually gave in under Anna’s strength.

“To this day I still don’t understand how such a thing could happen. We spent thirteen years trying to go back, a-and my parents didn’t make it. The people in town saw something in me. They feared me, and I never knew why. I-I didn’t mean to scare them. My parents tried to find a way back, but they—they didn’t make it. I-I took care of them myself. Gave them a proper…” her voice cracked horribly. “T-they deserved to see her again, yet only three years later the very same window opened itself to me. I didn’t cross it. In fact, it crossed over me.”

Inside the drawer was a single photo frame. Anna picked it in her trembling hands.

“Elsa…”

“I was happy. I was back, after so long. And then I found my little sister, too. I can’t describe the way I felt when I saw her again, all grown up after thirteen years.”

Anna traced a finger around her sister’s childish face on the frame’s glass.

“Elsa, I…”

“But then, I began to feel… something else. I thought I was just… happy to have her back, even if I hadn’t dared to tell her the truth. But I was wrong. What I felt… scared me. I wanted to be with her all the time, but I couldn’t stand to look at her face. I felt disgusting. I-I still do.”

Anna put the frame down, and studied her sister from head to toe. The same blue eyes, snow-like hair. The same gentle features but also the same inner strength her broken little mind still remembered. Her thoughts were no longer made of words; she couldn’t hear them over the blood pounding in her ears— her heart would jump out of her chest at any moment. They had all come to a halt as her brain processed Elsa’s words. Her sister. Her sister, who had been away for so long, who was now back, who had taken care of their parents’ burial alone and who still made Anna feel like the most loved person in the world.

Her heart made up its mind. She threw her arms around Elsa’s neck.

“Oh, Elsa…” she breathed, and choked back a sob. “You’re not disgusting. Please, don’t ever say that. I love you.”

Her sister. She was back, from beyond time. She was the same girl who tucked Anna into bed back then. She’d taken care of baby sheep yet she saw herself through monstrous lenses. The Snow Queen, in love with her little sister, who one day vanished from her farmstead and was never seen again. Who raised a stone in memory of their parents, for people hundreds of years later to remember them. This girl with a quivering body, holding Anna in her arms.

A tear ran down Anna’s cheek.

“I realized that, regardless of how I felt, I would lose you again if I didn’t tell you,” Elsa whispered. “That’s all that matters. We can forget about whatever it is that I feel. That’s alright by me.”

Anna shook her head against her sister’s shoulder.

“Well, g-good thing it doesn’t have to come down to that, right?” Anna chuckled wetly. She slowly pulled back, and found her sister’s hands in hers.

“Even now that you know the truth?” Elsa closed her eyes. “No. It isn’t right.”

“What are you talking about? Elsa, can’t you see? I love you. I… will need some time to wrap my head around this, but… All these years, I thought I was alone, b-but I wasn’t! You and Mama and Papa were always out there. You were even searching for me! A-and now I have you back, and… Oh my Goodness, I got my sister back… A-and she’s in love with me.”

Anna hesitated for only one second. For some reason, she could believe her, almost without trying. Her sister, yes, it wasn’t normal, but after walking across time and back– after losing her for so long, normal was out the window for her. She wouldn’t lose her, in one way or the other.

“I’m sorry.” Elsa murmured.

“What? Elsa, have you met you?” Anna spluttered, then laughed. “Not everyone is lucky enough to say their sister loves them this much.” She stood on tip-toes and pressed her lips to Elsa’s— her sister’s— her family’s. The warmth that spread inside her body felt natural, and it did so even more when a hand cupped the back of her neck. She pulled back after a moment. “We have time to figure things out, Elsa,” she said. “Y-you’ll come with me, right? You’ll give me a chance?”

Her sister’s eyes brimmed with tears. Her hand tucked a strand of red hair behind Anna’s ear. 

“I’m scared, Anna,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

Anna grinned like a lovestruck fool.

“We’ll figure it out together,” she reassured her. Then a siren came from the port, echoing through Arendelle. They exchanged a smile. Anna stole one more peck before Elsa could speak.

“Are you satisfied? Shall we go now?” Elsa giggled.

They made it outside the house, and once outside, the brightness blinded Anna for an instant. When she inhaled the fresh ocean air, she felt as if she could float. The damp, heavy odor of the house no longer clung to her lungs. 

She looked back. The house hadn’t changed. Its wood was still colorless and empty of life. It was completely empty.

“Anna?”

Her sister stood next to her, more beautiful than she remembered. She looked at her with all the love in the world.

The siren blared again.

Large snowflakes swirled past them like a swarm of puffy hens. 

Anna grasped her sister’s hand.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

[solarclaw]

Lore Reversal AU: Desperation Ch. 1

Aaaand here’s what I’ve written for this AU. Further groundwork I think. I wrote an entire one-shot but then it evolved and beat me up until I broke it into chapters / parts. Whichever.  In fact this whole thing was in a single post, so the beginning might not seem coherent. Whoops? Not completely finished so there may be some wait between them.

More info of this AU can be found in a previous post, tho the basis is Bergen invasion before Tribal separation.

A few warnings:

  Kinda dark with death being a thing, but that’s what happens when you have predators to deal with, the kind that eat prey. And those prey are trolls. Also maybe mention of PTSD; I’m honestly not sure? I’m not a psychologist...But bad flashbacks.

  For the most part, I left a lot of things up to interpretation. Especially gender identifications. Even sexual ones. I’d like for people to build off of this since this is just supposed to be a sort of base, or supporting foundation for the AU, which is dealing with the after-effects from all of this.

  No actual dialogue even since that’s not really my strong suit. Even if I practice lines by talking to myself. I just can’t seem to get spoken words right w/out being heavy in sarcasm, “meh” & lots of muttering. And rambling. Basically my general tone of voice; which probably shouldn’t be the default to every character here...

  OC Warning in case you’re not a big fan of them. I know there are people that aren’t a fan of OCs & can be rather hyper-critical of ‘em. But honestly? Kinda inevitable since this takes place in the far past before Peppy, Branch’s Grandma, etc. In canon, this is around the time the Bergens 1st appeared, after the Tribes separated. Honestly unsure of good they are....hopefully not too Sue-ish?

  I’m sorry for any grammer, spelling, incohesion etc mistakes. Most of this was written late at night, fueled by aggressive exhaustion. There may or may not be a severe case of purple prose? I still need a beta reader or even just a soundboard to help me with that

Anyways, let’s start this conglomerate of bad decisions, bias, & systemic genocide!

    A favorite....flavor, of troll is Pop. To the Bergens, eating one granted just that little bit more happiness than the others. These especially colourful trolls were soon in high demand every Trollstice. Despite all the other tribes’ efforts, some even throwing themselves in the way of cruelly reaching hands, Pop’s numbers were dwindling quicker than the other tribes. Things were getting desperate.

   Being rather forced to live so close together, and without the strings, the different tribes became both used to & intolerant of each other. Soon they grew isolationist, as much as they could in limited cage space. They’ve heard rumors from passing Bergens that their strings weren’t destroyed, just locked away. It would explain why the trolls were still able to make some music; though they had to be soft or the Bergens, in their daily unhappiness whenever it wasn’t Trollstice, would get further upset. Very angry and annoyed Bergens tended to not only scare the Trolls willy-nilly, but they had the option to special-order a troll to be eaten, even if it was VERY pricey and needed to be Royal-approved. Eventually, a certain generation of the leaders was hatched. The heir of Pop grew a bit resentful of the other tribes, how relaxed they were and even seemed relieved just because it wasn’t their friends, their family, that was being taken away to be eaten. They wanted better for their Pop trolls.

    Their only friend was the heir of Rock, the only one of the other heirs & most of the other trolls to not look at Pop in pity. In history lessons, the Rock heir especially learned of the loud power of Hard Rock, loud enough to sometimes literally blow the audience away. They also learned that in the beginning years of being trapped, Rock trolls resisted and fought back the longest, even if it did mean that a lot of them were special-ordered to be eaten in retaliation. These 2 friends, Wes of Pop and Mara “Marred” of Rock, also overheard the exact location of the lyre, the Strings.

    They began to plan.

    It was Marred’s idea to intentionally get themselves captured by one of the members of the Royal family. Or, at least, by the Royal chef or one of the Royal guards. They were confident that they could tear through the old cloth bags the Bergens were still using to collect trolls; they were beginning to look worn down & Wes had been trying to find a way to improve the cutting power of a whittled stick. Especially since they recently found a small broken piece of an abandoned shaving razor.

    Cautious and a little doubtful, Wes proposed a backup plan that if the Strings’ power wasn’t able to fight off the Bergens, then they at least memorize & map the layout from the kitchen to their exit. That way, for trolls captured in the future, all the trolls would know of where to escape & how. They could even try to find a way to escape Bergen Town itself.

    The plan was put to action dangerously close to the next Trollstice; the Queen wanted a good look at her potential next happy meal. She wanted these 2 loud and unruly upstarts to be served to her that very day, an appetizer of the joyous holiday feast that was to come. Knife cut through cloth before they were carried into the kitchen, unnoticed by the staff & guards around. They quietly, but quickly, traversed the halls, following a servant that was delivering a fine drink to the Royals in their chambers.

    They found the lyre, the Strings. It sat there on a shelving amongst many other trophies and even picture frames, one of the most colourful of all. It wasn’t glowing as brightly as their history records described.

   They snuck passed both Royal rulers and servant, the latter of which was getting yelled at by an irritably impatient Queen for bringing in the wrong drink with the King demanding for another servant to bring in the correct order.

    No one noticed the colourful lyre disappearing from the shelves. Nor did they see a slight glow coming from the basket of another servant collecting laundry. But the Royal chef & kitchen staff did notice the empty bag.

    As soon as the alarms were raised, the pair hurried in their escape, hopping from panicking servant to panicking servant towards the exit. Windows were being shut and doors closed as soon as someone entered the room. The clicking of locks echoed in the halls.

    No one was going to leave.

    Wes and Marred were going to escape.

    There was a garbage chute ahead, doors shut and a lever next to it. The servant they were currently hitchhiking was running towards a nearby door, blocked only by an abandoned mop bucket and wet floors. The Strings’ glow, though dulled, was still rather noticeable. Even if they did weaponize the music, the vengeance wrought from not only a pair of escaped trolls, but the theft of a prized possession (even if the trolls were taking back what was always theirs) would be catastrophic. A new plan formulated. And only one troll knew it.

    The harp was shoved in a surprised & confused Wes’ hair, which was thicker & bigger than Marred’s. The glowing Strings could barely be seen. Wes was shoved into the bow of the servants smock, tangling in the tie. Confusion changed to terror and the shock intensified as Wes watched Marred actually attack the servant, using their improvised knife. The servant stumbled, arms flailing, and Marred took the opportunity to throw the same knife at the servant’s foot, managing to cut into flesh, however shallow. A shout of pain, a short hop off the injured foot & onto, into, soapy water. Dirty mop water made the cut(s) burn as the servant was sent spinning on the bucket’s wheels, falling onto the chute’s doors.

    Marred finally leapt from the servant’s head landing squarely on the lever’s handle, momentum pulling it down. Those doors opened & both servant and unknown passenger fell through. The 2 friends locked eyes. Marred raised both arms, hands curled into Rock’s iconic horns, grinning; wild, triumphant, hopeful, sorrowful, accepting. I’m sorry. Goodbye.

    Angry shouts echoed against the chute’s walls, louder and closer. A large, sharp hand reached out for the Rock troll and the doors snapped shut.

    It was thought impossible, but the garbage dump was even more disgusting than the Bergens. Despite the bruises & scrapes from the fall, the Pop heir managed to untangle themselves and left the unconscious servant to the trash. The rainbow glow of the Strings stood out vividly against the dullness of the evening. Wes tucked the lyre deeper into their newly dark locks. Quietly, quickly, despondently, they made their way back to their cage.

[undermounts]

Bound―Chapter 7: Revelations

Summary: The truth comes out.

AO3 | Masterlist

Pairing: Gaius Augustine/Diana Leigh (BB MC)

                                    Bergen, Norway, 2042

One week later

Diana pulled herself and Gaius out of one of his memories with a gasp. She broke their physical connection and put her hand out to steady herself against the headboard of his bed, chest heaving. She glanced over at Gaius who looked just as disheveled as she felt.

“That one was…” Diana breathed, combing her hair back from her face. It was damp with sweat. Her whole body was.

“Rough,” Gaius finished, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. He nodded, swallowing. “Yeah, I know.”

Diana closed her eyes for a second, taking comfort in the fact that they were safe in a cozy hotel in Norway, not in a burning village in Mydiea. When Diana felt certain that she was in better shape, she grabbed the two glasses of water―both nearly empty after a night delving into Gaius’s memories―off of the nightstand between their beds and handed one to Gaius before nursing the other one herself.

“I’ll be glad not to dream of that one again,” Gaius huffed after he had drained his glass. So far, Diana’s memory therapy had worked. None of the memories they had worked their way through over the last few days had resurfaced in his dreams. 

It was taxing for both of them, to willingly immerse themselves in so many horrific memories, but it was worth it if it meant never seeing them again. Diana might have been less inclined to work through Gaius’s memories at the rate they did if it hadn’t been for their bond. With increasing frequency, their dreams had begun to bleed together. It seemed as if the more time they spent together, the stronger the bond grew. Although at least now they had both gotten better at keeping most of their own thoughts and emotions to themselves during waking hours.

“Agreed.” Diana nodded, taking both of their empty glasses and setting them aside before she slumped against the pillows, exhausted.

“Thank you,” Gaius said softly, elbow propped against the headboard as he looked down at her. 

Diana knew he wasn’t just thanking her for the water. She simply nodded and waved her hand nonchalantly before closing her eyes. She just needed a moment of rest.

Golden light bloomed behind her eyes. She felt dewy grass beneath her feet. A cool breeze brushed against her cheek, carrying with it the smell of honeysuckle, roasted meats, and fragrant spices. She heard joyous music and the rise and fall of distant conversations.

Diana smiled softly, opening her eyes.

“What was that?” she asked, turning on her side and propping herself up on her forearm to face Gaius.

“Midsummer Night’s Eve in 1638,” Gaius replied, lips slightly curved at the memory. “That was a beautiful celebration. The shortest night of the year, but also one of the loveliest.”

“Can I see it?” Diana asked and Gaius nodded without hesitation, gently taking her wrist and pressing her fingers to his temple. 

After a quick stop in Gaius mind palace―he was getting better at pulling up his own memories―they stood in a moonlit field illuminated by golden lanterns and twinkling lights. Fireflies, Diana realized, gaping at the scenery. There was a long wooden banquet table covered with all sorts of fruits, meats, and delicacies Diana couldn’t put a name to. The arms of a giant oak tree stretched overhead, decorated with elaborately designed luminaries. All around her, people roamed, skipped and danced in summery clothes that were fitting of the period. Diana watched as two little girls collapsed at the base of the tree and dumped an armful of flowers on the ground before braiding them into each other’s hair.

“It’s breathtaking,” Diana breathed, spinning in a slow circle. She reached out, her fingertips passing through a firefly as it lazily bobbed by. “These are all… vampires?”

“Mostly,” Gaius responded, glancing up at the star-filled sky. “Some human lovers were interspersed.”

Diana noticed a band of musicians playing joyous folk music next to a ring of people who clapped and whooped in delight on the other side of the tree. At the center, two figures half skipped, half hopped in a circle, their arms linked and faces flushed. “Gaius… is that you?”

“Hm?” he followed her line of sight, then let out an amused chuckle. “I told you I knew how to keep people entertained.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to dance,” Diana admitted, wandering closer to the circle.

Gaius rolled his eyes. “I’m nearly three thousand years old, Diana. I learned how to dance a long time ago.”

Diana watched the dancing couple, Gaius and another woman she didn’t recognize, both smiling broadly. “Who is she? The woman you’re dancing with?”

Gaius tilted his head, watching himself with a curious expression. “I don’t know. I don’t think I knew then, either. She was just someone I danced with. Everyone was mingling. It was like we were all friends.”

Diana’s brows drew together. “She’s… human. I can tell.”

“Hm. So she is,” Gaius hummed, shrugging. He cut Diana a sideways glance. “I didn’t always hate humans. There were times when we coexisted, places where the Order’s influence hadn’t reached. Where humans knew what we were and didn’t despise us.”

“Like now?” Diana questioned.

“Like now,” Gaius agreed, and she felt him brush against her mind. Because of you.

Diana turned to him, lips parting to respond when there was a sudden whoosh, like all of the air had been sucked from the atmosphere. Instantly, the sound vanished, leaving only a gaping silence. Diana’s brows knit. “What…”

“Diana…” Gaius’s eyes were wide and he took a half step towards her, arm outstretched. 

Diana glanced down at his hand, then to her feet. She gasped, voice high and frantic. “Gaius?”

There was a black patch of scorched earth beneath her feet. Diana watched in horror and confusion as the patch grew, radiating outward, grass shriveling up and turning to ash. She stumbled back, but wherever she stepped,  flowers withered and died. Whatever this was, this living death, it was following her. 

“What is this?” Diana yelped as the field around her turned to dust. She looked to Gaius, who looked just as confused and disturbed as she felt. The vampires and humans around them silently continued to enjoy their celebration, unaffected by their surroundings. 

“I don’t know,” Gaius admitted, shaking his head. “This isn’t me. I’m not doing this.”

Diana continued backing up until her spine collided with the tree. She heard a loud crack! and turned just in time to see the blackness spiderweb across its trunk, bleeding into the bark. As the darkness spread throughout the oak tree, the leaves crumpled and blew away on a phantom wind, all of the lanterns extinguishing at once. 

“Stay back!” Gaius gripped her shoulder, tugging her against his chest just as all of the stars in the sky disappeared and Gaius’s memory of the Midsummer’s Night celebration faded into nothingness, leaving only them, the moon, and―

“Demetrius,” Diana whispered as the blackened oak tree transformed before her eyes. “The Tree of Eternal Death. How…? What is this?”

Behind her, Gaius crumpled to the ground, clutching his head in pain. He groaned, deep and guttural. “Diana… his influence…I can’t....”

Diana sensed it, pulses of Demetrius’s power, rolling waves of death and decay. It was far stronger than it had been on the island two decades ago. And yet, it didn’t affect her. She stood tall, immune. Unfeeling.

Detached.

Diana turned and looked down at Gaius, whose head bowed was over his knees. Distantly, she felt her lip curl in disgust. 

Coward. Monster. Murderer. 

There was a bright flash and Diana saw herself several feet away, standing over the Black Shuck. Her other self looked over her shoulder at her, eyes glinting coldly, two swords in hand. Diana felt her katana materialize in her own hand, its weight familiar in her palm as she turned her gaze back to Gaius.

Monstermurderermonstermurderermonstermurderer.

It was a savage song in her head, melodic, alluring, like a lover whispering in her ear. She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, leather creaking. She was justice, death incarnate. Judge, jury, and executioner.

Gaius turned his face up towards her, agony clear across his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a hoarse croak came out. The pain was too much. He slumped forward, tears of blood trailing down his cheeks and dissipating into nothing once they hit the ground.

Something brushed against her mind, feeble. ...Diana.

Diana… She turned that name over in her mind, testing it on her lips. Diana.

She frowned, grip loosening on her sword. Its sharp tip dipped towards the ground.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t her. 

This wasn’t real.

She threw the sword away, chest heaving as if she had just run a marathon. She watched as its sharp edge glinted once in the artificial moonlight, then was consumed by the shadows. Diana shivered. What was this?

Diana crouched before Gaius, lifting his chin with her hand. His eyes were reddened and cloudy with pain, but as she turned his face towards hers, she saw an ember of clarity spark to life. His lips parted, breath wheezing through.

“Shh. Don’t say anything,” she cooed, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and tucking him into her side. “I’m getting us out of here.”

Diana closed her eyes and found the invisible cords that tethered them to their real bodies. She anchored herself on the corporeal plane, distantly feeling Gaius’s bed beneath her, and pulled them out of Gaius’s mind.

When she opened her eyes, they were back in their hotel room, safe and sound.

Diana heard a groan and whipped her head in Gaius’s direction. He was still slumped against the headboard of the bed, elbow propped up. He held a hand to his forehead, wincing.

“Gaius!” Diana scrambled to her knees, pulling his hands away and gripping his face in her hands. “Are you hurt?”

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she searched his eyes. They were their usual clear blue, no traces of agony or blood to be seen. They widened slightly and he leaned back in surprise at her sudden attentiveness, his fingers fluttering over her wrists.

“I’m fine,” he breathed, eyes flitting over her face. “Just a headache. Are you… you?”

Diana nodded quickly. “Yes, I―” she swallowed, her mouth dry. “I don’t know what that was.”

“It felt like being on Demetrius’s island, except worse,” Gaius’s brows drew together. “I’ve never felt anything else like it… But we’re on the other side of the globe. How?”

“I don’t know,” Diana admitted, absently brushing her thumb over his cheek as she stared at the sheets, lost thought. Gaius shivered beneath her touch but didn’t pull away. “It was Demetrius’s influence, I’m certain of it. I felt it, but it didn’t affect me.”

“Diana.” Gaius’s fingertips skimmed along the back of her hand as he spoke, voice grave. Her eyes met his and she was surprised by the sorrow in them. The silent apology they offered. “I think it did.”

Diana’s heart stopped. Her body felt cold. 

Monstermurderermonstermurderermonstermurderer.

Diana withdrew her touch, clutching her hands to her chest. They were trembling.

She had lost herself. Again. How? She was better than this. She was not—

“Diana, that wasn’t you.”

Obviously, she wanted to snap and Gaius recoiled as if he had heard. Then Diana realized it was because, of course, he had. Nerves frayed, she had accidentally projected her thoughts down the bond in the height of her emotions.

“I meant,” Gaius said softly, gently pulling her hands away from her chest. His touch was warm, reassuring in a way it shouldn’t be. Not for her. Not from him. “I don’t think it’s your fault. I think the reason you became…” He frowned, searching for the right word. “...detached is because something else is influencing you. I think it happened with the Black Shuck too. You aren’t losing your humanity. You’re being corrupted”

“The Tree of Eternal Death,” Diana whispered, remembering the way she had felt Demetrius’s influence wash over her, leaving her unfazed while Gaius crumpled in pain. Except it hadn’t left her unfazed. It had fed into her, strengthened her, hardened her into something awful. Diana shook her head. “No. The island is so far away. That doesn’t make sense. It can’t.”

“But it does. It has to,” Gaius insisted, squeezing her hand. “Look at yourself, Diana. Look how worried you are, how afraid you were of hurting me, your enemy. If you were losing your humanity, you wouldn’t care about any of that. You wouldn’t care about losing yourself the way you do. Trust me. I know what it is like.”

Diana opened and closed her mouth. “You’re not my enemy.”

Gaius blinked as if he hadn’t realized he had said that aloud. Then he nodded slowly, thumb brushing across her knuckles. “And I am grateful for that. Truly.”

They stared at each other for a long, heavy moment.

Then Diana glanced away, breaking the tension. “I still don’t understand how the Tree could be affecting me. We’re thousands of miles from the island. Other people would already be severely corrupted if his influence had spread so far.”

“You are of his blood, are you not?” Gaius questioned, brow raised. “His and Rheya’s? So perhaps you are linked to him. Psychically. You can feel his influence without needing to be physically near him. Whatever that was just now―whatever took over my memory―I think that was a result of Demetrius’s effect on you. We just happened to be in my mind when it happened, so I got pulled in with you.”

“But why now?” Diana wondered aloud, frustration coloring her voice. “We have lived over two decades in peace, and now I feel its pull?”

“Unfortunately, two decades is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But I don’t know, Diana,” Gaius frowned, looking troubled. “This psychic stuff isn’t my forte. If I had to guess… maybe something has happened on the island.”

Diana sagged, suddenly exhausted. “This is… a lot to take in.”

Gaius nodded, glancing over at the sliding door that led to the balcony of their hotel room. It was still dark outside, but it had been a long night of going through Gaius’s memories. “I think it’s time for us to get some sleep, Diana. We’ll think more on this later.”

“Yeah,” Diana sighed, untangling her hands from his. “You’re right.”

She clambered out of his bed and crossed the room to hers, drawing the curtains closed over the sliding door as she went. She collapsed into her bed, cocooning into the cool, cotton sheets and willed her heartbeat to slow, her mind to calm.

“Diana.” Gaius’s voice floated across the space between them, gentle but weary.

“Hm?”

“We’ll figure this out.” Then in her head, I promise.

Diana pursed her lips and turned on her side, putting her back to him. Goodnight, Gaius.

A beat of silence.

...Goodnight, Diana.

Diana laid there, staring into the dark, still uneasy and unable to sleep despite Gaius’s assurances and the ache in her bones. Minutes passed and eventually, Diana heard Gaius’s breathing even out, slow and deep. He was asleep.

She closed her eyes and willed sleep to pull her into its blissful embrace, but still, it wouldn’t come. After a while, she gave up and slipped out of bed. She grabbed her phone and wrapped her comforter around her shoulders before slipping out onto the balcony, closing the sliding door quietly behind her. Sighing, Diana plopped down in one of the lounge chairs and nestled into her blanket, pulling out her phone.

Diana idly scrolled through her social media, restless, before eventually closing out of her apps and locking her device. She glared into the distance, frustrated with the turn of events. As if she needed another problem on her hands. Why did she feel Demetrius’s influence now, after she had left New York in search of the artifacts?

Diana stiffened, hands tightening in the blanket. Was it possible the two events were related? That she felt Demetrius’s influence because of her search in Europe? Or perhaps… Perhaps she had dreamt of the artifacts because of his influence. Diana supposed the next question was whether the articles were supposed to further the corruption or combat it.

She unlocked her phone and opened her contact list until she found the one she was looking for. She stared at the name, then the number, thumb hovering over her screen. Then, Diana sighed and pressed the call button.

                                    “Norway? What are you doing in Norway?” Jax’s voice was incredulous over the phone and Diana winced, quickly toning down the volume. 

“I’ve never been,” Diana explained quietly, arms folded as she looked out at the slowly awakening town of Bergen. The sun was just cresting the horizon, and the clouds looked like cotton candy in the early morning light, lazily floating across the sky, their reflections rippling in the North Sea. “I’m at a dead-end right now. No new leads. So, I figured I would visit while I was out here. You know that I’ve always wanted to travel.”

Not necessarily a lie, but not the full truth either.

“I know,” Jax sighed and Diana could hear the weariness in his voice. “And I’m happy you’re out there doing your own thing and finding yourself―”

“Jax…” Diana rolled her eyes. She hated it when he said that. It made it sound like her journey away from New York City was some coming of age story. Although she supposed he wasn’t exactly wrong. Aside from searching for the artifacts, she admittedly had left to do some soul searching. To find out who she was on her own, outside of the city, apart from… apart from Adrian.

“―but we haven’t really heard from you in almost a month, aside from your email updates,” Jax continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “We know you can handle yourself, Diana, but we still worry. Because we care. And now you finally call and say you’re vacationing in Norway? What happened to those artifacts you were looking for?”

“Well, I found two of them already. The ones I sent you pictures of.” Diana chewed her lip, absentmindedly tugging on a strand of her hair. “I think there’s only one artifact left, Jax. Back in New York, I only dreamed of three. I thought that maybe once I started looking for them, I would develop a sort of knack for it and eventually find more.” Diana shook her head, some of her own frustration seeping into her voice. “But so far, it’s just been the three.”

“The amulet and the amphora,” Jax supplied, recalling the pictures she had emailed him, Kamilah, and Adrian. Diana had sent them about a week ago, with a brief update on her health and where she had found the artifacts, although she neglected to mention how she found them. Or with who. That was another problem. Diana had yet to tell anyone back in New York about traveling with Gaius. She didn’t know how to tell them, or what they would say when she did. She doubted it would be anything nice.

“Yes. Aside from that first reaction with the amulet, I still don’t know what they do. I’ve tried to get a read on them, but their presence is silent. It’s like whatever power they have has gone into hibernation. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Hopefully good. Well, that’s two,” Jax continued, voice curious. “What’s the third?”

Diana closed her eyes, recalling the dream she had over a month ago in New York and thinking of the sketch she had made of it in her notebook. “It’s a sort of ritual knife. It’s got a long, curved blade and a hilt carved of bone. There’s some sort of design etched into the handle, but I couldn’t make out the details. Of all of my visions, this was the haziest.”

Jax let out a long breath. “There’s gotta be thousands of knives like that. I bet Kamilah probably has a couple in her collection.”

Diana huffed a laugh. “She does. Kamilah was the first person I consulted after I had the dream, but unfortunately, it wasn’t in her possession.”

“Tough luck.”

“Just can’t get a break,” Diana agreed, smiling despite everything. “But if I managed to find the other two, it’s only a matter of time before I find this one, too.” Hopefully, she added to herself.

“Well, if anyone can find it, it’s you, Di,” Jax said, tone encouraging. Diana tried to feel half as confident in herself as he did.

“Yeah, well…” Diana’s smile fell and she stood, pacing to the edge of the balcony, leaning her forearms against the railing. “Listen, Jax… The reason I called is, well, I’m starting to think that the reason I started getting those visions wasn’t so I could find all these artifacts and keep them safe. I think… I think I’m supposed to find these three artifacts―and only these three―because I need them for something.”

“...What? Diana, no. What are you saying?” Jax’s disbelief was evident. Diana imagined he was pacing now. He had never been good at sitting still, the inclination to act overpowering the desire to think things through. “You’re meant to find these three things and use them? For what?”

“I don’t know, Jax,” Diana groaned quietly. She didn’t. Diana wasn’t even sure if the artifacts were related to Demetrius’s growing influence on her, and if they were, she wasn’t sure why she was so inclined to find them. But she wasn’t going to get any answers unless she investigated further. “Look, can you just do me a favor?”

“Depends on what it is.” He sounded suspicious.

Diana sighed, pushing her fingers through her hair. “Can you look into any reports about suspicious activity around Demetrius’s island? More suspicious than usual. 

“Demetrius? Diana, what is this about?”

“I just… have a feeling.” She bit her tongue. It would do no good to worry Jax over a theory. If he knew that she was being corrupted by the Tree of Eternal Death―that twice now, she had become something cold, cruel, and unfeeling―he would come to her, likely bringing the calvary with him. And Diana wasn’t ready to face that quite yet. “Please. Just check it out for me. Don’t engage.”

There was a long silence after that. The only way Diana knew that Jax hadn’t hung up was the sound of his footsteps, soft in the distance. She waited, chewing her lip and tapping her finger along the rail as she gazed out at the wondrous city, wishing she could see it like this without feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“Fine,” Jax finally decided, evidently choosing not to press her for any further questions on the matter. “Just tell me one thing, Diana.”

“Ask away,” she replied, hoping she wouldn’t have to lie to him.

A pause. Then, “Why are you calling me?”

She blinked. That wasn’t what she expected. “Well, as you said, it’s been a while. I wanted to see how you’re doing. Keep you updated and ask you to―”

“No. I mean why are you calling me?” He sighed and Diana could hear the weariness in his voice. “You should talk to Adrian, Diana. I’m sure he would want nothing more than to hear from you. Just to know first-hand that you’re alright.”

“I know. You’re right, Jax,” Diana closed her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose. This was not a conversation she was ready to have. “I just...I don’t know if I can. I don’t have the answers he wants right now.”

“Answers or no, he’d still want to hear from you. He just wants you to be safe and happy, regardless of what that means for the two of you,” Jax replied and Diana could hear the creak of his mattress as he sat down. “You know how the guy is. He’s a damn saint. Would put everyone else’s happiness before his own. Yours especially.”

Diana sighed, lips tugging into a frown. “Somehow, Jax, reminding me of that really isn’t helping.”

There was a soft chuckle. “Point is, Di, whatever answers you have for him, whenever you have those answers, he’ll live with it. And he’ll be fine. Avoiding this will only make it harder for you when you decide you’re ready to talk.”

Diana opened her eyes and stared long and hard out at the sea as it rippled beneath the morning light. She felt the sun’s gentle warmth on her face, reveling in the feel of it on her skin as she was reminded of a day, years ago, when she was an assistant, wandering the streets of New York City with her boss, enjoying daylight on borrowed time. She felt a pang of sadness, but at least it didn’t hurt. 

“Jax?”

“Yeah?”

“I hate when you’re right.”

Diana could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Good thing it doesn’t happen that often.”

“Alright,” Diana said, nodding to herself. “I’ll call him soon. Right now… I’m going to get some sleep. It’s been a long night.”

“You do that. I’ll talk to you later, Di. Try not to stay away too long. I miss you too, you know.”

She smiled softly, a gentle sea breeze stirring her hair. “I know. I miss you.”

“Goodbye, Diana.”

“Goodbye, Jax,” Diana whispered and hung up the phone. She stood there for a little while longer, enjoying a few moments in the light of dawn. Perhaps one day, before they left Bergen, she would walk these streets in the sun and steal a moment of peace for herself. But not today. She felt the exhaustion, heavy in her bones, and her mind became hazy with the prospect of sleep. Finally, she could rest.

Diana took in a deep breath, scenting sea salt and woodsmoke in the cool air. Then she grabbed her blanket and retreated inside the hotel room, closing the door behind her. She slipped beneath her covers, wrapping them tightly around herself, and fell into a deep sleep, comforted by the steady heartbeat of the man in the bed beside hers.

                                    Tagging: @bigmemesplz, @somin-yin, @bachelorettebound14, @mkamra2355, @mindlesschicca, @xbobbatea, @mikewawazoski, @vesselsynths, @dorkylittleweirdo

[silent-era-of-cinema]

Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929).

Two years after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn at 697 Bergen Street,[9] in a "bleak, sparsely furnished room above [a] dilapidated Baptist Church". Her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. The 1930 census indicates 1906 and on her gravestone of 1965, the inscription says 1907, but 1905 is the accepted year by a majority of sources.

Bow was her parents' third child, but her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow (née Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again, for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F (38 °C). Years later, Clara said: "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

Bow's parents were descended from English, Irish and Scottish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind ... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". By the time Clara was four and a half, her father was out of work, and between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses, but seldom outside Prospect Heights, with Clara's father often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father", she said. "He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always."

When Bow's mother, Sarah, was 16, she fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy". From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean" to her, but "didn't mean to ... she couldn't help it". Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me". Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead". One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to fend off the attack, and locked her mother up. In the morning, Bow's mother had no recollection of the episode, and later she was committed to a sanatorium by Robert Bow.

Clara spoke about the incident later:

It was snowing. My mother and I were cold and hungry. We had been cold and hungry for days. We lay in each other's arms and cried and tried to keep warm. It grew worse and worse. So that night my mother—but I can't tell you about it. Only when I remember it, it seems to me I can't live.

According to Bow's biographer, David Stenn, Bow was raped by her father at age sixteen while her mother was institutionalized. On January 5, 1923, Sarah died at the age of 43 from her epilepsy. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow accused them of being "hypocrites", and became so angry that she even tried to jump into the grave.

Bow attended P.S. 111, P.S. 9, and P.S. 98.[13] As she grew up, she felt shy among other girls, who teased her for her worn-out clothes and "carrot-top" hair. She said about her childhood, "I never had any clothes. ... And lots of time didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, that's about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed."

From first grade, Bow preferred the company of boys, stating, "I could lick any boy my size. My right arm was quite famous. My right arm was developed from pitching so much ... Once I hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that."[15] A close friend, a younger boy who lived in her building, burned to death in her presence after an accident. In 1919, Bow enrolled in Bay Ridge High School for Girls. "I wore sweaters and old skirts...didn't want to be treated like a girl...there was one boy who had always been my pal... he kissed me... I wasn't sore. I didn't get indignant. I was horrified and hurt."

Bow's interest in sports and her physical abilities led her to plan for a career as an athletics instructor. She won five medals "at the cinder tracks" and credited her cousin Homer Baker – the national half-mile (c.800 m) champion (1913 and 1914) and 660-yard (c. 600 m) world-record holder – for being her trainer. The Bows and Bakers shared a house – still standing – at 33 Prospect Place in 1920.

In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible". She did not have any girlfriends, and school was a "heartache" and her home was "miserable." On the silver screen, however, she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor". And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it.". "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At 16, Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid."

Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest, "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and "lived it". In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classics, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had, showed this very plainly, her emotional range of expression provoking a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses.

Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office (located in Brooklyn) until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with true theatrical tears, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach," she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business.

Bow, who dropped out of school (senior year) after she was notified about winning the contest, possibly in October 1921, got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged "Brewster magazine beauty contest winner" and sometimes even with a picture.

Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat." Eventually, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie Down to the Sea in Ships, saw Bow in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to bring Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' subeditors had urged Clifton to give her a chance.

Down to the Sea in Ships, shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts and produced by independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", documented life, love, and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less-known actors and local talents. It premiered at the Olympia Theater in New Bedford, on September 25, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through:

"Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne".

"She scored a tremendous hit in Down to the Sea in Ships..(and).. has reached the front rank of motion picture principal players".

"With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see 'Down to the Sea in Ships'".

"In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ... ".

By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in Down to the Sea in Ships, Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced half nude, on a table, uncredited in Enemies of Women (1923). In spring she got a part in The Daring Years (1923), where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up.

In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in Grit, a story that dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered:

Her emotions were close to the surface. She could cry on demand, opening the floodgate of tears almost as soon as I asked her to weep. She was dynamite, full of nervous energy and vitality and pitifully eager to please everyone.

Grit was released on January 7, 1924. The Variety review said "... Clara Bow lingers in the eye, long after the picture has gone."

While shooting Grit at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three-month trial, fare paid, and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm,"[15] he tried. "Why can't I stay in New York and make movies?" Bow asked her father, but he told her not to worry.

On July 21, 1923, she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for The New York Morning Telegraph. In 1931, when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:

She is as refreshingly unaffected as if she had never faced a means to pretend. She hasn't any secrets from the world, she trusts everyone ... she is almost too good to be true ... (I) only wish some reformer who believes the screen contaminates all who associate with it could meet this child. Still, on second thought it might not be safe: Clara uses a dangerous pair of eyes.

The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in Maytime and in great favor of Chinese cuisine.

On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered studio chief B. P. Schulberg's office wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Picture's "permanent stock". Alton and she rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players-Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists, ended up on the losing side and lost his job. As a result, he founded Preferred in 1919, at the age of 27.

Maytime was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the popular operetta Maytime in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before Maytime was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's biggest seasonal assessment, Poisoned Paradise,[51] but first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller Black Oxen, shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in Painted People, shot in November.

Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high-society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than 50 women, most with previous screen experience, auditioned. Bow reminisced: "He had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him. When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Lloyd told the press, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental." It was released on January 4, 1924.

The New York Times said, "The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a "hard-boiled" audience", while the Los Angeles Times commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot ... was amusing and spirited ... but didn't belong in the picture", and Variety said that "... the horrid little flapper is adorably played ..."

Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel Flaming Youth, released November 12, 1923, six weeks before Black Oxen. Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while Black Oxen was still being edited and Flaming Youth not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star with Moore as her kid sister in Painted People (The Swamp Angel). Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours." Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week—Bow got $200—took offense and blocked the director from shooting close-ups of Bow. Moore was married to the film's producer and Bow's protests were futile. "I'll get that bitch", she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to that very evening. With Bow's face now in bandages, the studio had no choice but to recast her part.

During 1924, Bow's "horrid" flapper raced against Moore's "whimsical". In May, Moore renewed her efforts in The Perfect Flapper, produced by her husband. However, despite good reviews, she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the Los Angeles Times, which had commented a month earlier, "Clara Bow is the one outstanding type. She has almost immediately been elected for all the recent flapper parts". In November 1933, looking back to this period of her career, Bow described the atmosphere in Hollywood as like a scene from a movie about the French Revolution, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off."

By New Year 1924, Bow defied the possessive Maxine Alton and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion: "I didn't care a rap, for (Maxine Alton), or B. P. Schulberg, or my motion picture career, or Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful." Bow felt Alton had misused her trust: "She wanted to keep a hold on me so she made me think I wasn't getting over and that nothing but her clever management kept me going." Bow and her father moved in at 1714 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, together with Jacobson, who by then also worked for Preferred. When Schulberg learned of this arrangement, he fired Jacobson for potentially getting "his big star" into a scandal. When Bow found out, "She tore up her contract and threw it in his face and told him he couldn't run her private life." Jacobson concluded, "[Clara] was the sweetest girl in the world, but you didn't cross her and you didn't do her wrong." On September 7, 1924, The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother.

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924.

In Poisoned Paradise, released on February 29, 1924, Bow got her first lead. "... the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears". In a scene described as "original", Bow adds "devices" to "the modern flapper": she fights a villain using her fists, and significantly, does not "shrink back in fear".

In Daughters of Pleasure, also released on February 29, 1924, Bow and Marie Prevost "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe ... I wish somebody could star Clara Bow. I'm sure her 'infinite variety' would keep her from wearying us no matter how many scenes she was in."

Loaned out to Universal, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy Wine, released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "red-hot mama".

"If not taken as information, it is cracking good entertainment," Carl Sandburg reviewed September 29.

"Don't miss Wine. It's a thoroughly refreshing draught ... there are only about five actresses who give me a real thrill on the screen—and Clara is nearly five of them".

Alma Whitaker of The Los Angeles Times observed on September 7, 1924:

She radiates sex appeal tempered with an impish sense of humor ... She hennas her blond hair so that it will photograph dark in the pictures ... Her social decorum is of that natural, good-natured, pleasantly informal kind ... She can act on or off the screen—takes a joyous delight in accepting a challenge to vamp any selected male—the more unpromising specimen the better. When the hapless victim is scared into speechlessness, she gurgles with naughty delight and tries another.

Bow remembered: "All this time I was 'running wild', I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen."

In 1925, Bow appeared in 14 productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan".

"Clara Bow ... shows alarming symptoms of becoming the sensation of the year ... ", Motion Picture Classic Magazine wrote in June, and featured her on the cover.

I'm almost never satisfied with myself or my work or anything...by the time I'm ready to be a great star I'll have been on the screen such a long time that everybody will be tired of seeing me...(Tears filled her big round eyes and threatened to fall).

I worked in two and even three pictures at once. I played all sorts of parts in all sorts of pictures ... It was very hard at the time and I used to be worn out and cry myself to sleep from sheer fatigue after 18 hours a day on different sets, but now [late 1927] I am glad of it.

Preferred Pictures loaned Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week" while paying Bow a salary of $200 to $750 a week. The studio, like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, which had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420. Three days later, it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor to become associate producer of Paramount Pictures, "catapulted into this position because he had Clara Bow under personal contract".

Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO, wrote in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care." Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take: in 1950, she wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow." And Louise Brooks (from 1980): "(Bow) became a star without nobody's help ..."

The Plastic Age was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit up to that time. Bow starred as the good-bad college girl, Cynthia Day, against Donald Keith. It was shot on location at Pomona College in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15, but due to block booking, it was not shown in New York until July 21, 1926.

Photoplay was displeased: "The college atmosphere is implausible and Clara Bow is not our idea of a college girl."

Theater owners, however, were happy: "The picture is the biggest sensation we ever had in our theater ... It is 100 per cent at the box-office."

Some critics felt Bow had conquered new territory: "(Bow) presents a whimsical touch to her work that adds greater laurels to her fast ascending star of screen popularity."

Time singled out Bow: "Only the amusing and facile acting of Clara Bow rescues the picture from the limbo of the impossible."

Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancé. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public, and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches.

Throughout the 1920s, Bow played with gender conventions and sexuality in her public image. Along with her tomboy and flapper roles, she starred in boxing films and posed for promotional photographs as a boxer. By appropriating traditionally androgynous or masculine traits, Bow presented herself as a confident, modern woman.

"Rehearsals sap my pep," Bow explained in November 1929, and from the beginning of her career, she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it." Bow was keen on poetry and music, but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention span did not allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene, and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down.

Years after Bow left Hollywood, director Victor Fleming compared Bow to a Stradivarius violin: "Touch her, and she responded with genius." Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability—it's personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow (Wings). She was mad and crazy, but WHAT a personality!". And in 1981, Budd Schulberg described Bow as "an easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act," and compared her to a puppy that his father B. P. Schulberg "trained to become Lassie."

In 1926, Bow appeared in eight releases: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical Kid Boots with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925.

In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama Dancing Mothers, as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter Kittens. Alice Joyce starred as her dancing mother, with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926.

"Clara Bow, known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well."

"... her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ".

Louise Brooks remembered: "She was absolutely sensational in the United States ... in Dancing Mothers ... she just swept the country ... I know I saw her ... and I thought ... wonderful."

On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "...to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week...".

In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle, Mantrap, Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorce attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "(Alverna)...was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt." The film was released on July 24, 1926.

Variety: "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range."

Photoplay: "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true."

Carl Sandburg: "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow."

The Reel Journal: "Clara Bow is taking the place of Gloria Swanson...(and)...filling a long need for a popular taste movie actress."

On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year."[78] Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e., in 1931.

In 1927, Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man. In the Cinderella story It, the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality —"It"— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The 'It' Girl."

The New York Times: "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of It."

The Film Daily: "Clara Bow gets a real chance and carries it off with honors...(and)...she is really the whole show."

Carl Sandburg: "'It' is smart, funny and real. It makes a full-sized star of Clara Bow."

Variety: "You can't get away from this Clara Bow girl. She certainly has that certain 'It'...and she just runs away with the film."

Dorothy Parker is often said to have referred to Bow when she wrote, "It, hell; she had Those."[109] Parker in actuality was not referring to Bow or to Bow's character in the film It, but to a different character, Ava Cleveland, in the novel of the same name.

In 1927, Bow starred in Wings, a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but was not happy about her part: "[Wings is]...a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie." The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1928, Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: Red Hair, Ladies of the Mob, The Fleet's In, and Three Weekends, all of which are lost.

Adela Rogers St. Johns, a noted screenwriter who had done a number of pictures with Bow, wrote about her:

There seems to be no pattern, no purpose to her life. She swings from one emotion to another, but she gains nothing, stores up nothing for the future. She lives entirely in the present, not even for today, but in the moment. Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets, if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong?

Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood elite's uneasy position in high society. Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!"

MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen", "sentimental, simple, childish and sweet," and considered her "hard-boiled attitude" a "defense mechanism".

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, all released in 1929, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood.

Neither the quality of Bow's voice nor her Brooklyn accent was an issue to Bow, her fans, or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and most other silent film stars, did not embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me." A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress .. I have to do the best I can," she said. In October 1929, Bow described her nerves as "all shot", saying that she had reached "the breaking point", and Photoplay cited reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed.

According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hairdresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow stated she was 23 years old, i.e., born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920.

"Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great."

With Paramount on Parade, True to the Navy, Love Among the Millionaires, and Her Wedding Night, Bow was second at the box-office only to Joan Crawford in 1930. With No Limit and Kick In, Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931, but the pressures of fame, public scandals, overwork, and a damaging court trial charging her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health. As she slipped closer to a major breakdown, her manager, B.P. Schulberg, began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was brought to a sanatorium, and at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets (1931). At 25, her career was essentially over.

B.P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained:

...[when] Bow was at her height in pictures we could make a story with her in it and gross a million and a half, where another actress would gross half a million in the same picture and with the same cast.

Bow left Hollywood for Rex Bell's ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise", in June[120] and married him in then small-town Las Vegas in December. In an interview on December 17, Bow detailed her way back to health: sleep, exercise, and food, and the day after[122] she returned to Hollywood "for the sole purpose of making enough money to be able to stay out of it."

Soon, every studio in Hollywood (except Paramount) and even overseas wanted her services. Mary Pickford stated that Bow "was a very great actress" and wanted her to play her sister in Secrets (1933), Howard Hughes offered her a three-picture deal, and MGM wanted her to star in Red-Headed Woman (1932). Bow agreed to the script, but eventually rejected the offer since Irving Thalberg required her to sign a long-term contract.

On April 28, 1932, Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation, for Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Both were successful; Variety favored the latter. The October 1934, Family Circle Film Guide rated the film as "pretty good entertainment", and of Miss Bow said: "This is the most acceptable bit of talkie acting Miss Bow has done." However, they noted, "Miss Bow is presented in her dancing duds as often as possible, and her dancing duds wouldn't weigh two pounds soaking wet." Bow commented on her revealing costume in Hoop-La: "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?"

Bow reflected on her career:

My life in Hollywood contained plenty of uproar. I'm sorry for a lot of it but not awfully sorry. I never did anything to hurt anyone else. I made a place for myself on the screen and you can't do that by being Mrs. Alcott's idea of a Little Woman.

Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a lieutenant governor of Nevada) had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died July 8, 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe in the Hollywood Plaza Hotel at 1637 N Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. It closed in 1943. Her last public performance, albeit fleeting, came in 1947 on the radio show Truth or Consequences. Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest.

Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn, and although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.

In 1949, she checked into the Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal", while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, she experienced neither auditory nor visual hallucinations. Analysts tied the onset of the illness, as well as her insomnia, to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the Institute. She did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death.

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, under the constant care of a nurse, Estalla Smith, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. In 1965, at age 60, she died of a heart attack, which was attributed to atherosclerosis discovered in an autopsy. She was interred in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers.