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thespianbooks · 4 years ago

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A Court of Nightmares and Starlight //Chapter 21//

Masterlist

(tags: @thron3ofbooks, @df3ndyr, @courtofjurdan, @art-e-mis, @herondamnn, @the-third-me, @im-still-trying-here, @emikadreams, @paytin77, @mis-lil-red, @sleeping-and-books, @lucieisabooknerd, @amandaraey-sunshine, @easy-p-lemon, @azymondias05, @dagypsygirl, @makeshift-utopia) *bold tags don’t work ;-;

Sorry this is later than usual folks! Busy schedule, but I’m determined to still post on Monday’s regardless!

XXX

I couldn't have been more elated than I was when Madja officially lifted my period of confinement and bedrest. Another couple of weeks flew by since receiving the news of Eris becoming the new High Lord of Autumn, and things were moving fast. After initially sending out invitations to our allies; directing them on where to send their armies and encouraging them and their entourages to come and stay in Velaris, the last thing I wanted was to be restricted to switching from my place in bed or ambling around the estate with little else to do while Rhys, Mor, and Clotho worked seamlessly to create adequate accommodations for our guests. Though we didn't have a palace like Thesan's to host them as he did for our summits, we had more than enough space for them with the guest suites I drew into the blueprints for the estate. However, neither Rhys nor Clotho allowed me to do anything while still in recovery—even when the first of the High Lords and their entourages began to arrive.

Helion was the first, with Thesan following only a couple of days later. With them being the closest to our court, they wasted no time in gathering their numbers and were in Velaris within days following their armies. They both marveled at how far along I was now, and especially at the impressively large mound my belly had grown to. Helion had cracked a joke about my size, which earned a protective growl from my mate and an earnest laugh from me. Thesan had been rather stunned and actually worried that I might go into labor at any given second; so, whenever we were in the same room, he watched me with wary eyes—afraid that any sudden movement might bring about the labor pains. He had reacted the same way with Viviane when she attended our last summit; using whatever resources he had at his disposal, like having every available midwife in the palace, in order to make sure she was comfortable and in case of emergency.

As our plans continued to move forward, I slowly and surely regained my strength with faithful reassurance from our healer that my health was flourishing. Finally, after an agonizing two weeks—where I grew more and more antsy and eager to jump into some kind of work, Madja announced that I was fully recovered and that I had officially entered the final stage of my pregnancy. With approximately two and a half months left, ending this coup was our crucial next step in preparing for our son. The last thing Rhys and I wanted was to welcome him into the world while simultaneously trying to quell the civil unrest in our court. With the threat having loomed over us since the beginning of my pregnancy and causing my mate and I great periods of stress and nearly cost us our son's life, ending Keir's act of tyranny would grant us the peace that was long ago stolen from us. Now that the end was in sight, I couldn't help but feel a sense of relief—knowing that our chances of a favorable outcome was just within our reach, and then we could shift our focus back onto welcoming our baby.

Madja's announcement had come just in time as well. Kallias and Viviane were due to finally arrive this afternoon, along with their newborn Eira. With Helion and Thesan well-adjusted and working closely with Rhys, Tarquin also having arrived just a few days ago, Kallias and Viviane were the last of our allies we would host—Tamlin and Eris remaining at their prospective courts for now but sending their contingencies of armies ahead of them. The Winter couple had wisely decided to wait the longest in order to allow the bond between them and Eira to calm. In her letters following Eira's birth, Viviane explained that while she was recovering from the ordeal, Kallias's mated instincts caused him to shelter her and Eira for nearly a month. They were also adjusting to their newborn daughter, and as mates, both of their instincts sent them into a frenzy—their innate urges compelling them to shelter their child. The first three months had been critical, Viviane explained, not only for her and Eira's recovery from the birthing process, but also in learning how to parent their daughter while their natural tendencies ruled them. Over those last three months, their compulsions slowly ebbed back into a sense of normalcy and they were able to integrate themselves back into civilization.

Rhys and I understood that level of vulnerability in a mated bond, having experienced it ourselves during my own convalescence. It only made us all the more grateful that they chose to side with us to end our dilemma, and it also provided a safe haven for Viviane and Eira. Viviane was nowhere near ready to fight three months postpartum, and since she and Kallias still couldn't be parted with each other for long, she and her baby would remain safe with me while Kallias and Rhys worked together with the other High Lords when the time for the confrontation finally came.

"Mind already abuzz this morning, Feyre darling?" Rhys purred in my ear; the arm thrown over my waist moving to pull me closer while we lay in bed.

I smiled, letting him bring me closer until my back was flush against the hard planes of his chest. I lazily checked to make sure my mental shields were intact, having just recently been able to keep them in place once again, while his lips drew a lazy line of kisses from my ear to the crook of my neck.

"How did you know?" I asked softly, turning my head into his.

"I don't need to read your mind in order to tell when you're excited, my love," he hummed.

My smile grew with a quiet laugh that quickly turned into a soft gasp as he rolled his hips into mine. I breathed his name, ready to reluctantly protest until he reminded me that with my lying-in suspended, we were clear to resume our bedroom activities—as promised between a private conversation with him and the healer. Another roll of his hips had me nodding eagerly at his silent request. Our joining was slow and gentle—Rhys taking me from behind at a leisurely pace. We took our time enjoying ourselves, delighting in being unhurried and reaching our peaks at staggered intervals.

"Now we can both greet the day with a better sense of ease." Rhys said as he nipped at my earlobe afterwards, his voice still deep and husky.

I laughed and turned onto my back to face him, resting a hand on my belly as I released a deep and relaxed sigh. "We're really going to be okay, aren't we?" I asked.

He placed a hand next to mine, running it up and down the expanse of my stomach gently. "Are you having doubts?"

I paused in thought. "I've just...been afraid. I know the situation isn't as dire as it was with Hybern, but the stakes still feel so much higher this time…"

"That's understandable," he said as he looked at my stomach. "This time you're pregnant, and we do have more to lose."

I frowned, tears swelling and threatening to fall before Rhys pressed a reassuring kiss to my brow. "But we are going to be okay, Feyre. I have promised you from the beginning that we would make it through this ordeal together, and we have. We're so close, and Keir will be dealt with. Then in a matter of months we'll be holding our son in our arms knowing his world is safer," he promised.

I blinked away my tears, Rhys brushing his thumb along my cheek gently. "I love you," I whispered.

He smiled and pressed a kiss to my lips this time. "I love you, Feyre," he said and moved to kiss the top of my stomach gently. "And I love you too, my son."

I loosed another long breath, allowing it to calm the last of my nerves as Rhys moved back to his place at my side. "Are you feeling well enough to have breakfast with the others?" He asked.

I nodded. "Should I scare Thesan by faking a few early labor pains?"

He threw his head back with a loud laugh. "You might just scare everyone, my love, including our friends who also heed your condition at all times," he answered.

I giggled and sighed dramatically. "That would be a little mean, wouldn't it?"

"Positively cruel, Feyre darling."

"All right, but I still want to find some way to torture Thesan, just a little bit."

Rhys laughed again before climbing out of bed, pulling me along with him as we began our routine in preparing for the day.

XXX

Eira was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.

She was technically the only baby, human or high fae, that I had ever seen; yet I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Viviane and Kallias arrived promptly after lunch; Kallias having safely winnowed the three of them to the main port in Velaris, where Rhys and I happily greeted them. A sleeping Eira was wrapped up in swaddling blankets, tucked into her mother's arms and I noticed this time it was Viviane who looked wary of her surroundings rather than her mate. At the summit, Kallias had been the one on high alert—his feral intuition heightened as a natural reaction to protect his vulnerable mate. Now it seemed their roles were reversed.

While Viviane was more than glad to see me, and even delighted in how much my belly had grown over the months, she kept Eira close to her chest the entire time it took us to walk back to the estate. Even now, as the four of us were gathered in the largest guest suite we had, Viviane was perched on the settee, cradling the baby close as she nursed—Kallias and Rhys in the adjoining sitting room to allow them privacy.

"She's so tiny," I breathed, marveling as I watched the small bundle in her arms.

Viviane brightened. "She's actually a lot bigger than when she was first born," she said, touching her youngling's pale rounded cheek.

I stared as Eira let out a small groan in response to her mother's touch, continuing to suckle quietly. Her hair, as white as her parents, was a smooth and thin coating on her perfectly round head; her eyes as icy blue as Kallias's, while the rest of her features resembled Viviane exactly. She reminded me of the female's sister, who I had only seen a handful of times since the war. After recalling a conversation where the two mentioned their looks came from their family's strong lineage, it came as no surprise to see that Eira was a carbon copy of her mother.

"Does that hurt?" I asked.

"Nursing?" She shook her head when I nodded, "Not really. It took some time to adjust at first, but it's not exactly painful."

I brushed an idle hand along the expanse of my belly. "There's so much I don't know yet," I sighed.

She smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry Feyre, I had no idea what I was doing either. Right before the summit, I received a long lecture from my team of midwives on what to expect and how to care for her properly. I'm sure your healer is preparing to give you the same lesson."

I cringed. "She did say that starting at my next appointment she would be bringing along the midwife, her sister, now that I'm in the final weeks."

"Then you still have plenty of time to learn," she said. "How are you feeling?"

I sighed again as I rested against the settee. "Still tired. I'm hungry almost every hour of the day, and my back is unbelievably sore by the end of the night."

She smiled empathetically. "Are you feeling more movements from him?"

I nodded. "All the time. He's very...energetic these days, especially when Rhys is in the room, which is often. He loves to kick and stretch," I rubbed a spot on my belly for emphasis. "He used to take naps, I think, but in the last week I'm pretty sure he's decided that he won't sleep again until he's born."

Her answering laugh was melodic, Eira's stunning blue eyes fluttering open in response to the sound. "He probably won't sleep then either. Kallias and I are lucky if we get a couple of hours now; it's gotten better in the last month, but at first it's rough adapting to her schedule."

I gulped as I stared at my stomach, wondering if Rhys and I would be tormented by lack of sleep. "I don't mean to scare you," Viviane giggled. "It just takes some time to become accustomed to a youngling that's all. Once you actually see him, hold him, and nurse him...your world will revolve around him." She explained, pulling Eira away from her breast and adjusting her top expertly before scooping the youngling back up into her arms as she patted her back gently.

I laughed as that patting elicited the tiniest burp I had ever heard. "I'm assuming that's part of the nursing process?"

Viviane nodded, "Oh yes. These little ones tend to get gassy, so we help them along."

I paused for a moment as I watched her kiss Eira's cheek, cradling her close, and I imagined how in only a matter of months I would be doing the same with my son.

"Since you're here...I know you said as much in your letters...but how bad is it really? Labor?" I asked timidly.

She smiled sheepishly before contemplating how to answer me. I knew the last thing she wanted to do was instill fear in me, but I also knew she would be honest.

"I'll tell you what my midwives told me: every female's experience is different. Just as our pregnancies might differ, so will our labor's. For me, while my cycles are less than pleasant and always excruciating, I managed to find a way to alleviate the pains over the centuries. Because of that, I thought my labor would be...manageable. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It was...the hardest thing I had to endure. The pain left me...disconnected, in some way," she paused as the memories came back to her. "But Kallias was there the whole time. He kept me grounded and helped me through it all to the very end. I don't know what I would've done without him,"

She reached over to grip my hand gently. "But Feyre, you shouldn't be scared. Your mate, your Rhysand, will be there with you every step of the way too. I've seen the bond between you two, the love you share, and I have no doubt that he'll guide you through it all no matter how smooth or brutal the process might be. Who knows, maybe with his daemati abilities he could…"

I shook my head. "I don't want him to numb me. I...I want to be able to go through it as every female has for centuries. His mother endured it twice, and I figure if she could do it, if you could, then so can I."

"Of course, Feyre, if that's what you want. You do whatever is right for you," she affirmed. "In all honesty though, with Rhysand at your side you have nothing to worry about, and at the end of it all you'll welcome your son into a safe home."

I squeezed her hand, "I hope so," I admitted. I didn't have to reiterate how unsettled the coup, the very reason why she and our other allies were gathered in Velaris, left me.

She, as a new mother herself, understood perfectly. "You will," she promised. "And then you'll get to hold your beautiful boy. Have you wondered what he might look like yet?"

The image of the Bone Carver came to mind. Of those violet-blue eyes that nearly resembled mine, while all his other features were completely and utterly Rhysand.

"He'll look like Rhysand, I just know it." I said as I caressed my stomach lovingly, earning a glimmer and kick in response.

Viviane warmed as she looked at Eira, who now peacefully slept in her arms. "I was so glad when I saw that she had Kallias's eyes. I had a feeling that with my lineage she would look like me, but I still hoped she might look at least a little like Kallias. She has his spirit too, at least so far," she smiled as she smoothed the hair on the younglings head. "And Kallias, he dotes on her so much already. She hardly cries; all she has to do is wrinkle her little brow and he scoops her up."

"They say you can't spoil them at this age, but I'm sure he will as the years go on," she said.

"As I should," came her mate's voice as he walked in the room with Rhysand at his side.

My mate winked at me as he entered the room, crossing over to my side at the same time as Kallias came to Viviane's.

"I doubt our friends in the Night Court will be any different, especially with their brood." Kallias said with a smirk at me, before checking on his sleeping daughter. I noticed his fingers twitch, as if he might pick her up, but Viviane's hold was unrelenting.

"Viviane's maternal instincts are very...formidable." Kallias suddenly said, realizing my mate and I must have noticed that he hadn't held his daughter at all since their arrival. "The midwives warned us that it relates to our primitive ways; that females tend to be overprotective of their younglings for the first few months."

I blinked, and Viviane smiled sheepishly. "Back at home I don't have a hard time letting him hold and change her, but I think it's because of the change in environment now that I'm struggling."

Rhys and I exchanged an astonished look and I shrugged. "Well at least you know I won't be purposefully refusing to let you hold our son," I offered.

He smirked. "Poor Mor will be doubly disappointed, as will everyone else."

"It'll only really be intense the first week, for both of you actually," Viviane said. "The mating bond will make you both sensitive to outside influence, similar to when the bond first clicked into place."

Kallias shifted uncomfortably at the mention of something so intimate, but Rhys nodded in understanding. "We'll be in the Cabin for the duration of Feyre's recovery, so that should help."

I nodded. "The Cabin is also where you, my sisters, and I will be going...when that time comes."

"Are there any updates on that end?" Kallias asked, and I wondered what he and Rhys had been discussing in the other room if not about the business of ending the coup. "What did Eris's last report say?"

"He's managed to keep Keir at bay, hashing out details and negotiations for their supposed alliance and dragging them out for as long as he's needed to replenish the armies affected by their fighting," Rhys began. "According to his latest report, we should be expecting his soldiers any day now, along with Tamlin's."

"And then?" Viviane asked, holding Eira impossibly closer.

"Then we will lift the wards on our numbers, and have them march on the Ironcrest camp," Rhys started.

"Where that coward, Kallon, will inform Keir, and summon him here?" Kallias finished.

Rhys nodded. "Then we put an end to this for good."

I shivered at the darkness that laced in the promise of his words, and he quickly placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"What will you do with them?" Viviane quietly asked.

"Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel will deal with the Illyrians. As for Keir, we'll be handing him over to Mor. She's free to do as she wishes with him" I answered. Viviane nodded in approval, knowing the history and relationship our friend had with both her parents.

"Are you sure we can trust all of this in Eris's hands?" Kallias asked, his demeanor having shifted to a harder one.

"Azriel is keeping a close watch with his network of spies," I answered for Rhys.

"Not to mention with his court being in such shambles, entering another war against all of us, would be an extremely foolish move on his end," my mate added.

I scoffed. "Plus, he's probably enjoying his new position too much to risk losing it."

Our friends shared a wary glance, their eyes conveying their own silent exchange. "We trust you," Viviane finally said, adjusting Eira in her arms.

Rhys dipped his head in acknowledgement before turning to Kallias. "We'll ensure Viviane and Eira are safe with Feyre and her sisters in the cabin. Since the attack on Velaris we've set up stronger wards on all our properties."

Kallias's tense shoulders seemed to relax a bit at Rhys's reassurance for his daughter and Viviane's safety.

"I guess this time around you two will have to do without us." Viviane joked half-heartedly, though I could tell she harbored the same desire I had to do more for this fight.

You are doing plenty, my love, I promise you, Rhys said through the bond.

By that you mean carrying Sebastian? I mused back.

That is the most important thing right now, and more than I could have ever asked for.

I smiled at him, squeezing the hand on my shoulder, but we both looked up as a knock came from the sitting room. I saw Viviane flinch, bringing Eira close again.

"It's just Mor," Rhys reassured before waving a hand, opening the door for her.

Viviane smiled sheepishly at me as Mor entered the room. The blonde brightened when she saw her friend, but wisely didn't rush over to embrace her after noticing how protectively she held her child.

"Sorry to interrupt, I know you wanted to wait to greet the rest of us at dinner," Mor said empathetically to Viviane and Kallias. "But Azriel's spies returned from the Autumn Court with a report from Eris," she said to Rhysand and I.

"What did it say?" I asked, my heart beating faster.

"He's finalized his 'plans' with Keir, and his soldiers just arrived at Windhaven," she replied, her dark eyes hardening.

"What about the troops Spring promised?" Rhys asked, voice equally serious-his dark shadows beginning to stir.

I noticed the room growing colder as Kallias's own powers stirred at the news. "Cassian reported they're set to arrive at dawn," Mor said.

"So, it's time then, to lift the wards?" I asked—my words coming out more tense than I meant.

Rhys nodded stiffly. "As soon as the Spring soldiers arrive, we'll lift the wards. Keir and Kallon will surely meet us once we arrive at the Ironcrest camp."

"How long will that take, approximately?" Kallias asked, moving closer to his wife and mate-who rested her cheek atop Eira's head, still swaddled and sleeping in her arms.

"A day or two, at the most," Rhys answered.

We all exchanged the same strained, knowing, look and I wondered if they could hear the pounding of my heart as it settled over me that the time for this ill-fated encounter was at last about to reach its conclusion.

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lexpistachio · 7 years ago

Text

just jackparse - a ficrec

for my sister who requested this rec 82 years ago. special thanks for those who painstakingly linked me new fics in my askbox. you’re the real mvp!

some things first:

divided into AU, pre-canon, canon/canon divergence, and future

word length categorized as

short fic = less than 10,000 words medium = 10,000 - 20,000 words long = 20,000 - 60,000 words novel length = 60,000 - 100,000 words

format as follows:

title - author | rating | length | various tags | gratutious commentary by me

summary

just ctrl+f if you wanna find by rating (e.g search for: long) or other tags (eg. smut, humor, au)

★ are personal faves

some liberty was taken in rating fics that are not rated

might update in the future; if i missed something, i’ll be happy to read your rec!

Kent pressed his fingers into his eyes until his vision swam for reasons other than the salty tears welling up in them. “Are you seriously asking me to fly across the goddamn country to hold your hand while you cut me out of your life?” me: you know what this fandom needs? me: an eternal sunshine au me: only without the happy ending

I’ve Been Closing My Eyes by perfectpro ★ - teen | long | inception au | angst | you don't understand how much love i have for this fic. SO MUCH LVOE

Jack Zimmermann? You worked with him and Kent Parson together? What happened?” Bitty asks before he can help himself.

Everyone’s heard the stories. Parse and Zimms, taking the world of dream share by storm, trained by Dominic Cobb himself. Ten years later, no one’s heard from either in two years.

Shrugging his shoulders, Shitty tries to think of how to phrase it. “No one comes out of Limbo the same.”

Kent knew about superstitions before he made it to hockey. He knew about black cats and broken mirrors. About stepping on cracks and throwing pinches of salt over his shoulder. Kent knew about magic before he found hockey.

Jack hums and smiles, but otherwise doesn’t respond. They sit in silence, and he bites his tongue to keep from saying anything. There is no sense disrupting this fragile peace that they have.

Here is the deal he has made with himself: Jack is forbidden, until after the curse of the seventeenth summer. Kent does not want to do anything to let the gods know how they could hurt him the worst.

why do we fall? by sparklyslug - teen | short | touch telepath! jack au | epikegster | angst

“Didja miss me?” Kent had asked / looking strong/ look good/ looking happy/I could stand here all night and all day and just look at you/ and Jack’s control had crumbled, jerked him out of step with time and out into the swirling minds of the college kids filling their house, his consciousness sent running by the brightness in his own chest.

Corporal Kenny,” Jack huffed into Kent’s ear. The arms around his waist tightened.

“Captain Jack,” Kent teased right back. “You outrank me, Zimms.”

The Daily Grind by JaneJHills - mature | long | abandoned wip | the coffeeshop au that was foretold

It’s not that Jack wasn’t into relationships; it’s just that Jack wasn’t a relationships kind of guy.

maybe i’m falling for you by madameofmusic - teen | short | coffeeshop au | this is really cute <3 i too lament the lack of more cutesy coffeeshop aus from this ship. this one’s great tho

Jack’s normal coffee shop relocates, and he’s forced to start buying from the cat-themed coffee shop down the street, Catppuccino. It’s cheesy as hell, but the coffee’s good, and the "purrista” better. Jack doesn’t miss the old shop.

“Shush,” Kent says. “What have you got that says, like, thanks for not judging me when I get wasted on Moscato and pass out on your couch, and also sorry about that? Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically,” says the florist, lips quirking, “I’d recommend either white tulips or blue hyacinths.”

Even the plainest of the plain shall deign to reign (and boy, you're reigning over me) by exbex - gen | short | high school au | chubby!jack | kent pining over shy jack is cute, yes

Lardo looks at Kent with the most knowing look he’s ever seen aside from his own mother’s. “Kent,” she finally replies, “I like you Bro. So I’m going to give you the following information. Information, which, I assure you, is publicly available. Jack, who transferred in weeks ago, Oh Unobservant One, knows me through GSA. Jack is not straight. Jack likes hockey, among other things. And that is all the emotional labor that I am doing for free.”

Shitty found Kent on the porch. “Saw your girl here,” he said. “Can’t believe you actually got her to come to a party.”

“She’s not my girl,” said Kent, trying not to blush.

“She should be,” Shitty said, smiling and leaning against the railing. “Blind man could see the way you look at her, and you’re the only person she likes at school.”

Twenty Feet Back by floatingstark - mature | short | wip | daddy!jack au as in literally-a-dad-jack

Kent is aware this is a little odd; he’s standing behind some trees on the other side of the park, pretending to stretch but actually just high-key spying on a hot dad and his kid.

i'll be your platinum by achilleees ★ - explicit | medium | sugar daddy!jack au | daddy kink | angst and fluff | this is the one daddy kink fic that made me swoon, it's the banter and the way they fall for each other slowly that takes my breath away | sorta sequels here and here | better yet, read all the entire unrelated daddykink series she wrote

Wicks took a deep breath, then let out in a rush, “So I’ve been catfishing this dude online with your pictures so he’ll buy me free stuff, only now he wants to meet in person to hand off the suit jacket I need for Ginger’s wedding tomorrow, so I need you to meet him outside the Burberry at the Copley mall tonight to pick it up for me.”

Kent couldn’t speak for a minute, because he was laughing too hard.

here in the present tense by achilleees ★ - teen | short | soulmate au | bodyswap |

Jack isn’t really sure what he was expecting when he went to sleep on August 2.

Kind of. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that he genuinely thought he’d wake up in Georgia, in those checker-patterned, sunlight-limned sheets. That he’d go downstairs and hear Suzanne Bittle bustling around in the kitchen, and greet her wearing her son’s socks and his pajamas and his sweet, bashful blush.

Dynamite Boy by TomatoBird - gen | short | wreck it ralph au | glitch!jack | the concept is genius, i’d gladly read 50k more words of this

In which Jack is simultaneously a glitch, a child of champions, and an aspiring player in Hero’s Duty, and Kent is just someone he happens to meet along the way.

“You don’t have to trust me,” Kent said, “you just have to let me do this.”

Jack has spent many years away from his father's court. Now he must return to wed Kent Parson at last, with all those years and hurts between them. It's not pretty.

the light of all lights by decinq - mature | short | vampires au | look, it's not endgame and has open-ended j/b ugh but i feel like every ficrec should have at least one vampire au

Jack says, “Would you rather be able to fly or have super speed.”

The corners of Kent’s mouth tug into a small smile, and he says, “Compared to you, I do have super speed.”

Jack elbows him, hard. Jack asks, “What about being able to see the future?”

Kent thinks, they’ll end the movie here.

The story, of course, goes on.

rentboy jack and his nhl star boyfriend series by achilleees - rentboy!jack | prostitution au |

so put it on me - explicit | short | pining | smut

It will be a cold day in hell before Kent has the fortitude to say no to that pout.

“Ugh,” he says. “It’s just a dumb fantasy, man, it doesn’t matter.”

Jack cocks his head at him. “I am in the business of fulfilling fantasies,” he says. or, eloquently summed up by a friend: "Ugh poor Kent is so in love"

all the hearts they're messing with - teen | short | angst and fluff | trade |

As soon as Kent gets home, he pulls out a pad of paper and a pen and makes a list of his options.

1. Tell Jack you got traded. Get dumped. Cry in your cheerios.2. Hide from Jack that you were traded. Buy out (?) the Vegas media so they don’t cover the story. Bribe NHL.com Break Jack’s laptop so he can’t read NHL.com anymore. Fly back on off-days (?). Have plan fall through because plan is dumb. Get dumped. Cry in cheerios.

“Are you mad at me?” Kent says.

Jack meets his eyes in the mirror, gaze stormy.

“I’m just trying to get along with your parents,” says Kent. “I thought that’s why you brought me here.”

Second Chance by bittlebunny - mature | short | blind date au

“I know, I’m sorry.” Jack repeats. “It was wrong. I just didn’t know what to do, I don’t usually do that type of thing.”

“You should more often. You know you could probably get laid every night if you wanted to?”

Jack blushes and looks down into his black coffee, not quite agreeing with that sentiment.

This is a 16-fic series that centers around Jack and Kent and their history and their future. It follows canon, with one major difference; Bitty decided not to go to Samwell. Each fic is named after and based around a song on the Deluxe version of Troye Sivan’s album Blue Neighborhood. The first two fics are chronological, because they’re in the fic’s current time (2018) in the frame of the story. Most of the fics in the series are told through flashbacks and time jumps, though, and the stories switch back and forth between Jack and Kent’s perspectives.

pre-canon

meet you in the middle by madameofmusic - teen | short | pre-slash

Kent meets Jack Zimmermann for the first time.

A lot of things can happen if a cat is set loose in an ice rink; Kent never thought this would be one of them.

Or: “I may have brought my pet to the rink by accident and it may have escaped you have to help me.” AU

it’s too close for comfort by achilleees - teen | short | pre-slash | cats

“Go suck your own dick,” Parse grumbled. “I’ma find the cat.” Both pairs of shoes wandered away, and Jack was almost relieved until suddenly, without warning, the high tops came back and light flooded his sanctuary as someone crouched and lifted the hem of the tablecloth.

“Hey, you,” Parse said to either Jack or the cat, he couldn’t tell.

the bluest things on earth by blazeofglory - gen | short | drabble | pre-slash

Kent Parson isn't gay, he isn't, but there's... There's something about Jack Zimmermann.

Even though they're linemates, Jack doesn't know Kent all that well. He certainly doesn't expect the American to come look after him when he's unwell on their first roadie.

Count on It by bienenalster - gen | short | pre-slash | codependency | world juniors

Specifically, in which Jack and Kent fail at playing against each other.

Generally, in which Jack and Kent fail at being reasonable human beings. Or, the lighter side of codependency.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by bienenalster, Pax - teen | short | pre-slash maybe | mutual enabling

Jack can appreciate a good game of beer pong in someone's basement, especially when Parse is on his team, one arm around his shoulder as he tries to get Jack to miss his shot.

(Jack never really understood how Parse can just turn it off like that. If you want to win on the ice, then you should want to win all the time. Even at stupid things, like beer pong.)

(Jack has never considered the possibility that beer pong might not be the only game Parse is playing.)

but then his hands roamed by defcontwo - teen | short | first kiss

Jack’s hand pressed into the small of Parse’s back during team meetings, where no one else can see, and Parse toppling into Jack’s lap whenever he gets drunk enough that no one will blink twice at it.

A game of chicken, or a game of chance. Jack doesn’t know which one it’s going to be just yet.

you're neck and neck or cheek to cheek by punkpadfoot - teen | short | first kiss | i'm in love with the author's style of writing, and i love the tentativeness in this fic--they're shy and hesitant; their dilemma feels true

Kent’s always been fairly affectionate, but this thing with Jack is something else entirely.

the spark in your eyes, the look on your face by oscarmild - teen | short | drabble

Jack knows that Kent is his friend- his best friend, even. But lately, it’s been starting to feel like more than just friends.

Insults for Your Lovers by SummerFrost - teen | short | inter-class | social class difference | friends to lovers

Things Jack has: Brand new yellow sneakers, an expensive truck, Kent Parson.

Things Kent has: Converse with holes in them, riding shotgun, Jack Zimmermann.

Count on It by bienenalster - gen | short | preslash | codependency | world juniors

Specifically, in which Jack and Kent fail at playing against each other.

Generally, in which Jack and Kent fail at being reasonable human beings. Or, the lighter side of codependency.

What's Better Than This? Just Guys Bein' Dudes by Bittyybee (sunlight) - mature | short | massages | first kiss | ust

Kent's shoulders hurt. Jack gives good massages.

Kent spends the beginning of his summer with hockey prodigy/best friend Jack Zimmermann because they're young and they can and Kent likes getting free things.

"I know how you get all psycho near a game, don't worry. Just uh- maybe find a healthy way to release that frustration." Kate suggested as she turned and winked at Jacq. "Y'know what I mean?"

"Not hockey?" Jacq asked confused.

"Not hockey." Kate repeated, meeting Jacqs eyes.

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

its pimms cis swap smut!! enjoy!!

A Quiet Kind of Intimacy by alpha_exodus - explicit | short | first time | smut | photography

Jack doesn't really care about having a roommate on this roadie - that is, until he heads to his room and finds out his roommate is Kent Parson.

touches my foolish heart by foxfireflamequeen - explicit | short | first time | pwp

“That,” says Kent. “Was the most uncool moment of my life.”

Jack’s still laughing, the fucker.

First by omgericzimmermann - gen | short | first times | drabble | fluff and angst

They were just kids.

They were so young that everything was a first.

tear at the seams by defcontwo - mature | short | drabble | angsty smut

This is what Jack lives for: The second he touches down on the ice, his mind clears. For sixty minutes, he is nothing but a blank slate, a white board that fills itself up with plays and tactics, a steady hand on the stick and a heart that beats for nothing else.

So he sits next to Jack on roadies, bumping their shoulders together amicably as Jack chews on his lip and stares out the window at the passing scenery. He leans into every casual touch - Jack’s gloved hand on his back, their skates knocking together on the bench. Seeks him out on the ice, feeling a thrill when their passes connect effortlessly; slams him into the boards after game-winning goals, their teammates piling up around them but it’s Kent’s fist clutching the back of Jack’s jersey, Kent’s voice yelling in Jack’s ear.

If Jack notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Kent still hopes.

Good Things Ahead by perfectpro - teen | short | fwb

Jack doesn't want to go to a party, but Kent's pretty sure that he can be convinced.

Mutually Assured by Verbyna - teen | short | codependency | has kent/ofc | angst

The smile on Kent’s face is all wrong. He fixes it.

we gaze up at the stars above our heads by alyssakate - teen | short | fluff (mostly)

I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again, or when we meet our ends, but please just let me hold your hand.

There's thirty-four days of what feels like an endless summer stretched between the Memorial Cup and the NHL draft. Thirty-four days days of each other. Thirty-four days left.

four strong winds by defcontwo - teen | short | fluff with an angsty ending? (a tag that could be patented to this ship that's for sure) | i just love my teenage boys on dates and living in the moment ok

The sales pitch is irrelevant: this moment right here, sitting in the front of Kent’s piece of shit pickup truck, listening to “Party in the USA” on the radio at top volume – that’s all the convincing Jack ever needed.

Or: Kent and Jack, a carnival, and the last gasp of the 34 days.

follow my lead by mardia - explicit | short | the seduction of jack zimmermann | kent here is wily but his conviction is compelling | podfic available

Kent likes to have his fun, likes to mess with people, but there's something about messing with Jack that's just so deeply satisfying for him. He can poke and poke and he'll get a reaction every single time. No matter what, no matter how blatant Kent gets or how he pushes it, he'll get that same wide-eyed disbelieving stare, that same red blush staining Jack's cheeks.

New things by robokittens - explicit | short | smut | pwp

"Jack," Kent mumbles into Jack's neck. "I wanna try something."

wax/wane - explicit | short | angst | smut

Things will come full circle for Kent – he's sure of it.

party pieces by familiar - explicit | short | smut | pwp | painplay

From the early 2008 so-bad-it's-good sex idea vault: "It’s just him and Kent and the really stupid idea that was beating his ass raw with a hockey stick." Gotta hit it with something, you know?

search the world for something else by somehowunbroken - mature | short | second person POV | angst | au

Your name is Jack Zimmermann, and you were born into hockey.

Ode to Joy by coyotesuspect - mature | short | drunk sex

December 31st, 2008. Parse has a good feeling about the new year.

mess you made by schwule - mature | short | angst

Jack’s life hasn’t been very exciting, despite what people may think. Kent might just be the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to him.

only time is ours by thistidalwave - mature | short | angst

Jack always feels like he’s running. Running to catch up. Running to get ahead. Lungs burning. Legs about to give out. Falling behind, behind, behind. Coming in dead last, even when he hits the finish line before anyone else.

Leaving Me Stranded by mardia - explicit | short

Jack’s dad and Kent really get along great. Which isn’t a surprise, they’re basically the same sort of person--outgoing, funny, always ready with a story or joke--so when Kent comes out to dinner with Jack and his family, it’s basically those two monopolizing the conversation for the entire meal.

an empty room by quietest_one - explicit | short | smut | established relationship

The Combine is a mad rush of a long weekend, painfully sober, gloriously exhausting. Kent is on the road to reaching his dreams, and he's taking Jack along for the ride. (Or, two boys exchange handjobs around the back of a gym. Whichever you prefer.)

the heart is a risky fuel to burn by idrilka - mature | fluff and angst | established relationship

Montreal in summer is hot as hell, the heat sticky and clinging to the skin. (There were the thirty-four days in the summer of 2009, between winning the Memorial Cup and the NHL Entry Draft in Montreal, where things were perfect. This is one of those days.)

let me feel i'm falling safely to the ground by natscribbles - mature | short

Kent doesn't know which what ifs are more dangerous, can't tell which ones hurt the most.

I Love You, He Thinks by blithelybonny - teen | short

It's the night before the draft, and Kent knows that this is probably the end.

my versailles at night by thistidalwave - teen | short | au | first kiss

But now—now it’s the quiet of the early morning, they just won the Memorial Cup, and Jack doesn’t want to let this moment pass him by.

where we went by speedboat - mature | short | dysfunctional relationship

Once in the car, Kent does three things: he googles "valium+vodka"; he shakes Jack awake; and he takes a napkin and wipes the tears away from Jack's face.

or: Parse was the one who found Jack during his overdose.

or: In Defense of Kent Parson.

34 days by thistidalwave - explicit | short | fluff and angst

There were the 34 days in the summer of 2009, between winning the Memorial Cup and the NHL Entry Draft in Montreal, where things were perfect. Who wouldn’t want that back?

it's the stars that score by perfectpro - mature | medium | angst

It’s a week until the NHL draft. A week until he stops competing with Kent and starts competing against him. A week until he finds out if his dad’s name carries more weight than Kent’s skill does, and Jack sometimes has a hard time breathing when he starts thinking about it.

It’s why he tries not to think about it.

Three Words, Repeated by Freudianity - explicit | short | fluff with an angsty ending

5+1 Five times Jack told Kent he loved him, and one time he didn't.

to you he is a room by punkpadfoot - teen | short | angst | kent pov to the story followed by the next in this list

He’s happy now—the weather is warm and the grass is soft and there’s still a pleasant buzz in his head. Jack is close enough to touch. Right now, summer’s end feels distant, less of a looming presence and more of an exit they’ve yet to reach.

to them he is a mirror by misandrywitch - teen | short | angst | jack pov to the story which precedes this in this list

All Jack knows is that after this summer, everything is going to be different.

larger than life by Verbyna - teen | short | also helpfully tagged as: the making of Kent "Victory" Parson“

Everything feels like the end of the world when it happens. No one can see the future, so it’s hard to believe it exists.”

Kent’s dad wasn’t always right, but he was right about that.

if you are looking for the demons that play well with your own by storiesfromtheden - gen | short | angst

Kent spent years counting the things that were not right.

Like A Missing Limb series by thatallone - teen | short | angst | suicide attempt

Without You

Prompt: "You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

[delete]

Kent typed out a lot of texts to Jack in the summer of 2009. He never worked up the nerve to send any of them.

physical or otherwise by jedusaur (podfic - audio only) - explicit | audio length: 3:33 mins | this is short and packs quite a punch; please give it a listen!

"Listen to me, Jack. I am not going first in the draft because of your shitty impulse control."

city without seasons by thepalebluedot - teen | short | angst

It’s hard to measure time in a city you don’t believe in.

Kent after the draft.

Countdown by SummerFrost - mature | short | drabble | angst

Kent Parson spends three years of birthdays asking for Jack Zimmermann. Jack gives what he can; sometimes it's enough.

what might have been lost - mature | short | angst | ransom and holster reads fic au | 5+ 1

five times jack and kent loved each other (and one time they couldn't)

So if you don't mind, I'll walk that line by alyssakate - teen | short | au |

Kent and Jack play each other at World Juniors in 2008 and then again in 2009.

A story about winning, losing and coming to terms with what really matters.

no sign of land by perichareia - gen | short | unrequited love | angst | 2nd Person POV

i love him.

you’re seventeen years old and the words echo in your head like the aftershock of a heavy check into the glass. for a long moment, your world stops.

dodging bullets with your broken heart by perfectpro - gen | short | angst | mostly jack-centric, but i feel like it's in-character with how jack compartmentalizes his life, which explains a lot about the tension with Kent refusing to be boxed and be forgotten

Kent belongs back in Juniors. Kent belongs at Rimouski, and on the bus traveling to roadies, and on the ice with Oceanic. Kent does not belong on the front porch of the Haus.

Five scenes between Ashley Parson and her brilliant, miserable, wonderful big brother. Or: Kent Parson, growing up.

Role Models by MisconductandMimosas - gen | medium | au | read the rest of the series here

Jack and Kent both missed the draft, albeit for completely different reasons

-or-

“For your ThrowBack Thursday of the week, we sat down with two of the NHL’s finest, Trotsy of the Aces and McLeed of the Rangers to talk their record-breaking Memorial Cup win as well as former juniors star and Zimmermann liney- Kent-“ Holster looked at the magazine article and blinked- “Parson,” he said at a lower volume. “Kent Parson? I forgot about that guy. How did they even find him?”

history begins to be blue and brown eyes by decinq - teen | short | angsty ending, with j/b

There are articles upon articles about their on-ice chemistry, the way they move around each other like the well-oiled grooves of an impeccable machine.

welcome to the second reel by idrilka - teen | short | angst

They win at home. It goes all the way to game six, and then they win in their own home arena after it goes to double overtime, and Kent gets to lift thirty-four pounds of silver into the air.

(In the aftermath of the Aces' first Stanley Cup Championship title, Kent goes to Samwell on his Cup day.)

This is What Happy Looks Like by VerityR ★ - teen | short | angst | i just like the author’s writing of it

It’s been years. Six of them. Kent Parson is not still in love with Jack Zimmermann. But it’s not like he’s in love with anybody else. So when, in his dreams, he stumbles upon something approaching happiness, maybe the figure is vaguely Jack-shaped. Jack-adjacent. But that’s not the same thing as love.

canon/canon divergent

past the last exit by misandrywitch ★ - teen | medium | the prose on this one blows me away

Jack wonders when Kent started asking so many questions that he doesn't have the answers to. It felt so much easier when neither of them asked any at all.

Shut the God Damn Door by jedusaur - mature | short | au | angst maybe? short but poignant

What if Jack went first overall, as planned, and took his addiction with him to Vegas?

"Leave, Parse," Jack says. Again.

Or: Kent finds himself stuck in a time loop.

i thought of you and where you'd gone by runphoebe - mature | short | angst with a hopeful ending | has k/omc | love the fics like this that don't view jack with rose colored glasses

When Kent’s name gets called first, he smiles, and when he slips the jersey over his head, he smiles, and when he realizes he’s going to be in Vegas, Las fucking Vegas, he smiles so hard his cheeks ache. Just because Jack’s a huge fucking fuck up who can’t handle being number one doesn’t mean Kent’s going to cry about it.

In which Kent doesn't even bother trying to get over Jack because he knows it's a huge waste of his time.

you're writing your tragedy by forochel - teen | short | angst | podfic available Year 2, Comic 9, Parse - Part III, from Kent's perspective. | epikegster

I basically took 'Kent "Baby One More Time" Parson' and ran with it.

you're familiar like my mirror years ago by nighimpossible - explicit | short | accidental voyeurism | epikegster

Kent and Jack get reacquainted at the Epikegster.

Alternatively: Bitty hears something he shouldn't have.

New Start by SalazarTipton - teen | short | morning after | fluff | post-epikegster

The morning after falling into bed together during Epikegster, Jack wakes up in Kent’s arms.

To Hell With Why by angelsaves - explicit | short | j/p/omc threesome | smut | my alternative excerpt/summary: id have a 3some w/u, Parse texts him after a while. Thanks, Jack replies

Jack has been over Parse for ages. (At least, that's what he tells himself.) In which there is bad-idea sex, accidental voyeurism, an invitation (or two) to a threesome, an actual threesome, and 0% "being over each other" by volume.

the epikegster remix series by defcontwo

you can take this heart - teen | short | epikegster | reconciliation

"So, what the hell was that, then?"

Or: a way that Epikegster could have gone differently.

and don't let go - teen | short | post-epikegster | fluff

"Did you miss me at all?"

Or: what happens when a pair of dumbasses use their words a little better.

down the backs of tabletops by defcontwo - teen | short | has mentions of k/omc and past j/b

Breakups are a kind of private war, Jack guesses.

varied my velocities by punkpadfoot ★ - teen | short | tentative friendship | tears were shed in the reading of this fic

This should feel like a victory. This shouldn't feel like tiptoeing around broken glass.

This Time (I'm Telling You, I'm Telling You) by sparklyslug - mature | short | angst | established relationship

He and Zimms, they’re pretty good at breakups, historically. They’re pretty good at what comes after the breakup, anyway.

fated to pretend by nighimpossible - teen | short | humor | only j/p if you squint but it's goddamn hilarious with a side of ransom and holster

5 Jack/Kent fics that Ransom and Holster dramatically reenact for the Haus + the truth.

Not Quite Too Late by loveandallthat - explicit | short | au | reconciliation | ahhhh this is nice

Jack accidentally confesses on live television that he had a young love that ended badly. It’s possible that this isn’t quite as bad as he thinks it is.

Seven-Year Itch by Idday ★ - teen | medium | fake/pretend relationship | married au | angst with a happy ending

“I’m sorry,” Georgia says slowly, like she thinks she misheard him. “You said you’re… married?”

Amanda raises her eyebrows and taps something onto her keyboard. “That’s good to know, Mr. Zimmermann, but I’m sure you know that many of our players are married.”

“Right, but this is… different.” Jack says.

“Jack,” Georgia says, “Why did you never mention this before? Do I know your wife?”

“I’m sure you do,” Jack says carefully, “Only… it’s not a wife. It’s Kent Parson.” ... (So what if they’re not pretending to be married. They’re still pretending to be happily married.)

the nearer your destination by achilleees - teen | short | angst | open-ended

“Parse fought Averin because he was talking shit about you,” Max said bluntly. “And you being here is not going to put him in a better emotional state.”

neutral zone stickhandling by achilleees - explicit | short | injury recovery | humor (hallelujiah)

The splint around Kent’s leg is a feat of engineering, a hulking behemoth of black plastic and Velcro, but the crutches are sleek and slim. an alternate take on the March of Jack’s senior year.

Push/Pull by thistidalwave, Verbyna - teen | short | soul bond au | break up | I’m gonna miss him for the rest of my life" stayed with me | why do all the soulbond fics in this pairing all end tragically? Who holds the stars up in the sky? Is true love just once in a lifetime?

He looks at Kent and feels nothing, if nothing feels like a shattered rib cage, all the protection around his heart gone. Kent is right in front of him, his hair falling into his face and his hands clenched in the sheets, but if Jack closes his eyes, Kent could be anywhere.

(or, Jack and Kent can’t keep their bond if they both want to play in the NHL.)

bang the doldrums by Verbyna - explicit | short | has j/b | au but almost canon in my head how jack aggressively minimizes kent's importance in his pre-samwell years lol

Kent Parson is not Jack's friend. He’s a fucking fever.

Maybe Jack's not the only one who's scared.

Kent and Jack come out together. Not together together, though, no matter how much Kent wishes that were true.

Alternately titled: "the jackparse get back together fic."

Kent Parson has well over ninety-nine problems. He has a chronic potty mouth, a sneaking suspicion he may be an actual idiot, a narcissistically-named cat with gas issues, too many sisters... the list goes on.

Kent Parson has more than ninety-nine problems and Jack Zimmermann — freshly, resentfully and recently traded to the Las Vegas Aces — is definitely one of them.

you know i held on too much by unveils - explicit | short | fluff | smut | yay all the way for happy smut

It takes a minute for the pieces to work together in Jack’s brain, but when he catches Kent’s Britney phone case out of the corner of his eye, heat blooms in his chest to match the spread of red across his cheeks, embarrassment and something else entirely. He doesn’t duck his head, but it’s a near thing, under Kent’s crooked grin. “Really? You think now is a good time to be taking pictures?”

Two swipes and a press of Kent’s thumb has his camera app sliding open to the picture he took. Jack cranes his neck to see, but Kent presses the phone into his hand, slides his hands around Jack’s neck. “Dude, yeah. You make me look good, Zimms.” -- or: the one where jack and kent have fun with camera phones!

my honey i know by achilleees - teen | short | possessiveness | jealousy | reconciliation

After that, it happened more often than he would ever have wanted to admit. It was almost too easy; girls were always after Kent, but Kent spent too much of his time looking at Jack to notice.

For example, Kent texted him from chemistry one day. Hey lara and aly wanted 2 know if we wanted 2 go thrifting w them after school 2day. No, was all Jack texted back.

Kk, Kent replied, and they didn’t go thrifting with Lara and Aly after school that day.

we could be made for this by stereosymbiosis - explicit | short | pwp

Kent lifts his head and peers up at Jack. “Hey, Zimms, what kind of soap do you use?”

“I’m not sure this is entirely relevant, Parse,” Jack breathes out. Kent looks at the expanse of skin stretched before him, Jack’s muscles taut and twitching, the fucking perfect rise of Jack’s ass, Jack’s legs spread just so and his knees pressed into the mattress for leverage, and yeah. That can probably wait.

Jersey Memories by SalazarTipton - teen | short | reminiscing | hopeful ending

When Jack goes home to Montreal for break and just wants to get his assignments finished, but his parents keep giving him chores. When his mom sends him to look through his old jerseys, he gets lost in some old memories.

take me back to when we started by madameofmusic - teen | short | reminiscing | reconciliation

Kent gets a package in the mail from Jack six months after Jack signs with the Falconers.

They’re never going to be the same carefree best friends that they once were, and Kent’s getting around to accepting that. Things are good, now, but they’re not the same, and that’s okay. He’s getting used to it.

They’re better than they’ve been in years, and that’s really all that he can hope for, but sometimes Kent remembers all the texts he sent at 2 am and all the responses he never got.

Better the Second Time by loveandallthat - teen | short | au | reconciliation

He gets Jack’s text, “you don’t have to,” thirty seconds before he gets a direct email from Jack’s agent.

Of course he has to.

Or, Jack has a public event before he goes into the NHL, and Jack’s agent insists that it won’t be good publicity unless Kent is also there.

the heaviest of burdens by thekissofbees - mature | short | angsty pining

Kent sleeps with his phone resting on his pillow, the volume cranked up as high as it will go and the vibrate on. He’s stretched the cord of the charger out so that it will reach his bed, and the coating of the wire is beginning to fray and peel off at the top.

(Or: Kent waits for Jack to call.)

Like Slow Motion by apatientwolf - teen | short | reminiscing | angsty pining

//There in the bathroom I try not to fall apart and the sinking feeling starts as I say hopelessly "he said he'd be here"// OR Taylor Swift's discography is the soundtrack of Kent Parson's life.

The one where it's July 4th 2015 in upstate New York.

Getting Some Rest by SalazarTipton - gen | short | established relationship | fluff

There’s a box under Jack’s desk. When he works on a paper, he’ll kick his feet up on it. Everybody that comes in doesn’t notice it. If they did, it just looks like some miscellaneous box of whatever. Nothing special. They wouldn’t think anything of it. No one knows that battered, footprint covered cardboard box is Jack’s lifeline. On his hardest days and in the surreal, dark hours when his insomnia hits, he opens it up and is able to breathe.

Kent likes the difference between their bodies. He likes being shorter than Jack because he can curl comfortably under the weight of Jack’s arm across his shoulders when they stand next to each other, and he likes that Jack’s body on top of his is enough to hold him down and keep him there if Jack doesn’t want him to move. He likes that Jack has big, strong hands and big, thick fingers.

The Aces get knocked out of the playoffs and Kent Parson is having feelings about it. Jack Zimmermann is having feelings about him.

keep your lights on by ladyalysv - explicit | short | rebound sex | au | unapologetically elf-centric jack

At least with Parse, it's hard to fuck things up more. (2016)

when you were there by defcontwo - mature | short | angsty angst

Jack plays the Aces for the first time, and two things happen at once: Jack, nervous and fumbling all the way through the warm up, right down to puck drop when he catches sight of that familiar blonde hair and something in him just settles, winds up playing the most beautiful hockey of his season to date.

And Kent ignores him completely.

Redux series by Idday ★ - established relationship | domesticity | fluff | au | the thing with future-ish jackparse fluff aus is that their issues (e.g. kent's insecurities, or jack's daddy issues) remain to be dealt with and don't vanish by the virtue of love ipso facto, and that's why they're so goddamn satisfying

Like We Were - teen | short | first times (again) | getting back together | friends to lovers

Jack thinks there should be a word for this, for when you fall in love with the same person a second time.

no one has me (like you do) - teen | short | summers and holidays

“Kenny,” Jack says again. “You went golfing for me. That’s how I know it’s real.”

my heart, it came to life - mature | short | family planning??

“Kenny,” Jack says, and falls into the deck chair where Kent is laying out, absorbed in whatever’s on his phone screen. It could be an email from his agent, or it could be a cat video. It’s hard to tell.

The chair is much too small for two fully grown hockey players, but they make it work. Kent drops his phone, but he’s wearing sunglasses, his face hard to read. Jack pulls them down gently until Kent’s squinting up at him, eyes adjusting to the bright afternoon.

“Do you want kids?” Jack asks him.

something about the way you love me (finally feels like home) - teen | short | pseudo-proposal

He loves Jack likes this and loves that he can make him like this—warm and open and laughing with their friends. It makes him stupidly proud, like he has his own personal Jack Zimmermann. He has to share his boyfriend with the rest of the world, sure, but they only get the hockey robot version. Kent gets this Jack, the real Jack, all to himself.

future

“For one player on the Aces, this game represents the return of youth in another, special way. In just three weeks, Kent Parson, captain of the Las Vegas Aces, will not only be returning to the east coast winter of his childhood, but he will have the rare opportunity of being out on the same pond as his former friend and rival, Jack Zimmermann. The opportunity to play a game outdoors may remind them of their childhood, but from sharing a special bond as young teammates to struggling against each other for victory, this game also shows how much has changed with time.“

Kent texted Jack: “fucking epix”.

Dad Hugs by MisconductandMimosas - gen | short | more kent & bad bob tbh but i’ll take more of this rn | fluff

In the summer of 2019, Kent attends Bob Zimmermann’s private Hockey Hall of Fame Induction party

Because Jack is an addict, and some addicts relapse.

Endgame Jack/Kent. I cannot stress this enough.

In Due Time by loveandallthat - teen | short | reconciliation

Jack’s been in the NHL for several years now. The Falconers rose to glory and fell again, just like the Aces. Jack gets on a plane to Vegas.

Behind Closed Doors by loveandallthat - explicit | short | reconciliation | friends to lovers | getting together

It’s just a tabloid. Nobody’s going to believe it anyway; it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Jack can tell himself any one of these things a thousand times and he’s never going to believe them.

Confirmed: Kent Parson Las Vegas Aces’ First Choice All Along It doesn’t even help that the last line is, “When asked for comment, Kent Parson said, ‘Who even cares anymore?’”

17 Again by daeguarchives - teen | short | friends to lovers | angst

“I can’t believe I actually thought I was in love with you, once.”

17 was a bad time for both of them, they both know that. Except now Kent's kidding himself into thinking he can move on and Jack's kidding himself into thinking he has moved on and for some reason, 17 seems a much better time than now.

new jersey is for lovers series by defcontwo, sparkyplugs ★ | it's soft and sweet and sometimes, that's enough

Ready to Walk a Path That's New - teen | short | curtainfic | fluff

They’ll always have things to apologize to each other for. But these days, they’re trying to focus on what they have to thank each other for.

These days, that’s a much longer list.

There's a place for you and me - mature | short | proposal | fluff

“I don’t know, I just, uh. It wasn’t there. He’s not the kind of guy I could see myself ending up with, I guess.”

Jack laughs, warm and close, the standard pre-chirp Zimmermann coming in at the edges. “And what kind of guy would that be?”

Kent swallows hard, and thinks, You. Fuck me, it’s always going to be you. Or: the slow and steady steps to a happily ever after.

“And my running observation is that Parse can’t take a compliment from you without blowing it off. Could be a coincidence, but no evidence to the contrary since I started paying attention,” Ransom said.

“What?” Jack said, right as Kent walked back in the room.

the river twice by Verbyna - teen | short | addiction relapse | angst | hopeful ending at least

Going to Vegas seemed like the only option.

player judged most valuable by achilleees - teen | short

prompt: future fic, jack’s been in the nhl a few years, ignoring parse when they play the aces. he can’t ignore him the night of the nhl awards, not when he looks this good, not when he fucking thanks jack in his hart acceptance speech.

i really really really really really really like you by achilleees ★ - teen | short | insecurity | established relationship | jack reassuring kent is my forever jam

“Hey,” Jack said. “My parents love you, alright? They have never not loved you. This is going to be fine.”

“Condescension negates cookie privileges,” Kent said, and shut the door in his face.

some nebulous universe called domesticity series by alwaysbuddy ★ - established relationship | fluff | humor

keep your hands on me - explicit | short | sex dream | feminization | dirty talk af

“Not a girl then?”

“It was, yeah,” Jack admits, throat feeling a little tight, “you were the girl.

”in search of our lost time - explicit | short | hurt/comfort | bathtub sex

Jack rests a hand lightly on the porcelain, skimming forward to catch one of Kent’s wrists, where it’s dangling off the edge of the tub. Kent immediately turns his hand over, and wraps two fingers around Jack’s own wrist loosely, tugging in a way that says, why aren’t you in here with me yet, huh?

Maybe I'm Not Too Young to be a Cowboy by bsmog - teen | medium | retirement | injury

Kent is 34 years old. He's won everything there is to win in the world of hockey (just not this year, let's not talk about it, okay?), but ever since an injury took Jack out of hockey altogether, there's something missing on the ice. What the hell is the offseason for if not to find out what that is?

If only anything was ever that easy where Jack Zimmermann was concerned.

Wait So Long by perfectpro - gen | short | fluff | wedding and marriage | domesticity

Let it never be said that Kent Parson doesn’t work for what he wants. Trembling, Kent gets off his knee, but he doesn’t close the ring box. “I don’t want to win another Cup alone. I don’t want to win another Cup without you,” he explains, and it’s a confession if it’s anything. He doesn’t know how to make it not true.

Gordie Meow by madameofmusic - teen | short | fluff | established relationship | humor

Kent’s cats are allergic to Jack. This isn’t even the most ridiculous thing Jack’s had to deal with.

Kent “No Chill” Parson by MisconductandMimosas - gen | short | humor | all-star weekend au | established relationship, if you read this first

“Be on my team for the All-Star game,” Kent said suddenly.

Jack chuckled, “They haven’t even announced next year’s format yet. It could be by division this year. Even if it’s not, they could make us opposing captains.”

#omgcheckplease #kent parson #parsepositive #jackparse #pimms #jack zimmermann #fic rec #omgcp

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Trump’s reelection machine: Nothing like 2016

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trumps-reelection-machine-nothing-like-2016/

Trump’s reelection machine: Nothing like 2016

President Donald Trump speaks during a recent rally in Pennsylvania. Trump’s reelection campaign comes armed with resources it could only dream of in 2016. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

2020 elections

The president’s 2020 campaign is flipping the script from its ham-fisted approach the first time Trump sought elected office.

President Donald Trump is sitting on a war chest topping $40 million, boots on the ground spread across nine regions crucial to his 2020 map and a sprawling network of volunteers who’ve been rigorously trained for the months ahead.

When he takes the stage Tuesday in Orlando to announce his bid for re-election, Trump will be joined by 20,000 guests whose personal information — names, zip codes, phone numbers — was meticulously recorded when they requested tickets to the rally. First-time attendees will receive relentless emails and texts in the coming weeks, reminding them that they can help “keep America great” by contributing $5, $10 or $15. Some maxed-out donors who gave generously to his 2016 campaign will trek to Florida to witness what they delivered, and decide whether to give big again.

Story Continued Below

It’s a straightforward strategy to get the president four more years in the White House: be the political juggernaut Trump lacked in 2016.

While 23 Democratic presidential candidates scramble for attention, Trump’s 2020 campaign is quietly flipping the script from its ham-fisted approach the first time he sought elected office. His team has spent two and half years building a robust, modern and professional operation to optimize as many variables as possible, and amassing an unprecedented pile of cash to keep it all afloat.

It’s worked so far. The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee had a combined $82 million in the bank as of April — the result of a joint fundraising operation — and staffers have yet to devolve into the bitter infighting that strained the president’s first campaign and stained his earliest days in the White House.

“In 2016, the people on the campaign like to say that they were building the airplane while it was in flight. This time, he will have a campaign that is befitting of an incumbent president of the United States,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the new-and-improved Trump campaign.

Indeed, one official involved in Trump’s first presidential campaign likened the experience to a slow-motion plane crash: “We were strapped in on a sloppily assembled machine that was gradually spiraling out of control.”

Even with a better-financed and well-ordered campaign, the developing 2020 landscape has been tough for Trump. State investigators are still probing his past business ventures and financial history. Court rulings have delivered devastating setbacks for his agenda. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has encouraged congressional Democrats to do everything short of impeachment to hold his administration accountable.

On top of all that, the outburst-prone president has struggled to boost his approval rating above where it hovers at 42 percent and could encounter difficulty billing himself as an outsider while occupying the center of the swamp.

“He’s an incumbent. It’s hard to run the same way in 2020 as he did in 2016,” said a person close to the Trump campaign.

The challenges are not lost on the president’s campaign staff. This time, Trump will launch his 2020 campaign with organizational and financial advantages that his previous crew could have only dreamed of — soothing allies who worry the current political environment is less conducive to victory.

From a 14th-floor suite originally designed to house the offices of a capital markets firm, Trump’s modest campaign team of about 50 employees has spent the past several months laying the groundwork for a 2020 race that diverges from 2016 without sacrificing his insurgent populist message. Extensive assistance from the Republican National Committee has helped — bringing institutional knowledge and resources that were notably absent in 2016, driven by a massive staff, existing presence in all 50 states and a staunch Trump ally at its helm.

Officials at the RNC’s Capitol Hill headquarters are in constant contact with counterparts who work out of the Trump campaign’s Arlington, Va., office, and staffers from each side often travel to the same events to show simultaneous support for the party and for Trump. For example, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel both attended a dinner this week hosted by the Republican party of Macomb County, Mich., the self-described “home of the Reagan Democrats” and a must-win for Trump in 2020.

“If you look at where the campaign was in 2016 and where it is today, it’s a completely different organization. It has a united Republican party behind it that also has one of the best fundraising operations we’ve ever seen,” a Michigan Republican party official said, adding that the Trump campaign plans to deploy significant staff to Michigan beginning in early July.

A campaign official said Parscale plans to have “a fully functioning ground game by the end of summer,” as well as several coalition groups that will specifically target women, Latino and African American voters.

Many of those campaign staffers, along with members of the GOP’s state party affiliates, have gone through a program known as GROW, or Growing Republican Organizations to Win. The custom workshop-type classes were created by the Trump campaign and the RNC to train field staff in fundraising, communications, data and digital efforts that will be unique to their states in 2020. One state party official who recently completed the training said they were asked to draft mock press releases and budgets as part of the programming.

Campaign officials readily admit that Trump determines the message on any given day, making it difficult to create a fixed communications strategy that volunteers and staff can follow. Earlier this year, for instance, Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner instructed campaign staff to avoid targeting specific 2020 Democratic candidates only to watch the president lob repeated insults at former Vice President Joe Biden weeks later. (Trump has also insulted Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind.)

“The key for the Trump campaign is to successfully build its operation around the most unconventional candidate in history,” said Jason Miller, a former campaign adviser who remains close to the president. “Parscale has a good enough relationship with Trump to know that you always follow his lead and your job as the campaign is to build upon and amplify his message, not force feed him some message that you cooked up.”

Parscale has declined to foist soundbites on Trump, opting instead to let the president weaponize Twitter at his own discretion. But the campaign has begun crafting candidate-specific messages that they hope Trump will test out, and eventually deploy regularly, depending on who becomes the Democratic nominee. Officials have largely focused on Biden, Sanders and Warren, believing Trump’s ultimate opponent will emerge from that trio.

“If it’s Sanders or Warren, they immediately become advocates for radical change that’s a step too far for most voters, and Trump becomes the centrist. But against Joe Biden, the race is much more of a change vs. status quo dynamic,” Miller said.

Campaign allies who are aware of internal polling say they also want Trump to tout his accomplishments constantly. He will only outperform his Democratic opponent if he’s “getting the right amount of credit for the progress he’s making on immigration, the economy and national security,” one outside adviser suggested. Several 2020 Democrats have argued that the economy is booming because of policies put in place by former President Barack Obama, although Trump’s economic approval rating reached a new high in a CNN poll last month.

Trump’s campaign has been briefing him almost weekly on polling, according to two aides familiar with the conversations, one of whom said the president is more obsessed with polls than anything else, despite repeatedly questioning their reliability after 2016.

The campaign’s first internal re-election poll found Biden trouncing Trump by seven points in Florida when it surveyed Sunshine State voters back in March, ABC reported Friday. The state is key to Trump’s campaign strategy: Without it, a single loss in the Rust Belt could trigger the end of his presidency.

Campaign officials say that isn’t going to happen. They say fundraising has been too successful and that their massive data-gathering operation is unmatched by any Democratic presidential hopeful.

But as Trump prepares to launch his re-election bid 17 months before voters hit the polls, perhaps their most distinct advantage is time.

“It’s important to remember that we are not on the same timetable as the Democrats,” Murtaugh said. “We are already in the general election.”

Alex Isenstadt contributed to this story.

#Foreign #machine #nothing #Politics

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zell-dincht · 7 years ago

Text

"Tiger Lily"

Unsure if I’d bother posting to AO3, maybe if I do a followup chapter. But no one is interested in OC stuff anyway, so I’m just gonna put it here for now. Also, this isn’t part of my OC “canon,” don’t know that he’d actually agree to marriage ever, but after talking with @hipsterizzy I just love the idea of Lorne as bridezilla.

No warnings, just some language.

———

Weddings only ever meant two things to Lorne - open bar, and a one-night stand with the hottest bridesmaid and/or groomsman. Other than that, it was a stupid ritual that was entirely unnecessary and even stupid to legally bind yourself to another person this way. He never imagined he’d ever find himself in a situation where he’d be planning any wedding, not to mention his own.

He didn’t readily agree to the proposal, of course. At first, Lorne thought Davin was playing a joke on him and laughed it off, nearly shattering the poor man’s heart. He was no more forgiving when he realized his boyfriend was dead serious, and did, in fact, want to get married.

It was a practical decision, Lorne told himself, nothing more. Originally, he wanted to just elope. Go to a court and fill out the paperwork and be done with it. Davin didn’t want to make a big production out of this, anyway. It was just some legal paperwork, like going to the DMV.

But low-key had never been Lorne’s style. The whole point to a wedding was the open bar, so there was no way he could pass this opportunity to have a party and bask in all the attention. In a matter of days, Lorne went from repulsed by the idea of marriage to having his very own planning book and Pinterest board.

He was so focused on his laptop, scrolling tirelessly through images of wedding ideas, that he barely even noticed Davin had entered the room until a hand rested gently on his shoulder.

“Still at it?” the larger man spoke up.

“Davin, we need to decide on a color theme,” Lorne huffed impatiently. “I can’t go forward with any other plans until we figure out what our colors will be. I still like a deep red with gold, kind of like fire.”

“I guess so,” Davin muttered, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Mum says you ought tae use softer colors for a wedding.”

“For the last time, I do not give a rat’s ass what your mother–” Lorne instantly cut himself off as he looked up at Davin and noticed his future mother-in-law step through the doorway. He instantly flashed his best fake smile as he greeted her. “Hi, Mrs. Dahey.”

If she heard what Lorne had said, she showed no indication. She waved with a tiny wiggle of her fingers and replied, “I told you, just call me ‘mom.’ We’re practically family! But how are the future Mister and Mister Daheys today?”

The strain in keeping the fake smile was growing so tiresome, Lorne suspected he had begun to scowl, so he dropped his expression to what some might call a “resting bitch face.”

“No, actually, I’m keeping my name.”

“Oh, you’ve got time to decide, anyway,” she brushed him off as if he’d change his mind, then continued, “Anyway, I was talking to my lady friend at work, you know I just can’t stop talking about how my baby boy is finally getting married!” Mrs. Dahey paused to wrap her arms around her son as best as she could, squeezing with all her strength.

Being quite tall and muscular, Davin could easily have escaped, but instead idly tolerated her outburst of maternal affection. “Ma…”

“I won’t apologize for loving you too much! Anyway, so this lady friend of mine - her daughter was married just last year and she recommended this amazing florist. Why don’t we all go take a look, if you aren’t busy?”

Lorne opened his mouth to protest, but Davin quickly spoke up, “We’d love to go, won’t we, sunshine?”

The blonde looked up at his fiancé with a pout, and Davin wirelessly communicated with large, pleading eyes.

“Fine.” Lorne closed his laptop with a huff and pulled himself to his feet. There still was quite a bit left to plan, and he wasn’t going to accomplish much by just looking at pictures of flowers.

The car ride was awkward, with Davin’s mother driving and her son in the passenger seat, leaving Lorne to sulk in the back. Once they arrived, the shop didn’t look like much, but the owner was warm and welcoming.

“Congratulations to the happy couple!” he gushed, ushering the trio inside. “Trust me, we will find the perfect flowers for your wedding. All I need to know is your color theme for the big day.”

“Crimson and gold,” Lorne confidently answered.

“Oh, they aren’t set on that, though,” Mrs. Dahey cut in.

Lorne glared daggers at Davin, who responded with an apologetic smile and a shrug.

“If you are open to suggestions, flowers have a language of their own,” the florist offered. “For example…” He gestured to little white flowers blooming in the shape of a star. “The stephanotis here represents happy marriage.”

Lorne barely paid attention as his eyes wandered over the various displays of flowers. Ignoring the stephanotis, Lorne stepped towards a fiery orange lily and leaned in for a quick smell. “I like this one.”

“Er… the tiger lily represents wealth and pride,” the florist said hesitantly. “Perhaps to show you are proud to join hands with your husband to be?”

Husband. That word still turned Lorne’s stomach into knots. But he was too distracted by the task at hand to worry over any of his own insecurities.

“What about sunflowers?” Davin chimed in. “Suits you, I’d think.”

“Yes, the sunflower means ‘adoration!’ It would add a wonderful touch to your ceremony,” the florist encouraged.

“To hell with meaning,” Lorne scoffed. “No one’s going to know that. They’ll only see how it looks, and I want the tiger lily.”

Mrs. Dahey spoke up once again, “What about some some classic white roses?”

“Too common. Tiger lilies and sunflowers, that’s my final decision,” he replied.

There was a pause where Mrs. Dahey pursed her lips, and Lorne had hoped she would remain silent, but he was wrong. “I don’t believe Davin was too keen on this red and yellow theme. Are you, dear?”

“Well?” Lorne set his hands on his hips, glaring at Davin. “Are you?”

Meanwhile, the florist had stepped aside, more than familiar with the tensions that came with planning a wedding. Davin, however, had found himself caught between his mother and his fiancé, despite trying so hard to keep the peace.

“This really isn’t a big deal to me, Ma,” he finally confessed with a sigh. “I just want to marry the man I love, doesn’t matter how. So long as he’s happy, so am I.”

Lorne felt his gut turn into knots and he was just about ready to throw himself at Davin right there in the middle of the flower shop, but of course Mrs. Dahey was quick to ruin the mood.

“This is your wedding too, Davin! I raised my sons to have a backbone, so if there’s something you want, then say so! You can’t let your wife or husband or whoever just walk all over you!”

“It IS his wedding,” Lorne snapped. “It’s his and mine. Not yours. We don’t need your help, Sinéad.”

“Oh don’t you?” She turned on her future son-in-law, head held high and arms folded over his chest. “Who do you think is handlin’ most of these costs, mm? I don’t see your mum ‘round anywhere.”

Lorne’s eyes burned with anger as he glared at Mrs. Dahey. “I wouldn’t let my mother within thirty feet of this wedding.”

“Shame, after she’s given birth and raised you. I taught my sons to have a bit of gratitude.”

“Unfortunately for all of us, mine barely raised me at all.”

Knowing Lorne’s strained history with his family, Davin quickly stepped between the two before this fight could get any worse. “Look, it’s fine! It’s just flowers, we–”

In that moment, Lorne and Mrs. Dahey both turned on Davin, simultaneously ranting at him:

“JUST flowers? This is not just flowers, Davin, this is our wedding, and it’s a pretty damn big deal for me. It’s my big day, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t go the way I want!”

“This isn’t about the flowers, it’s how you need tae be a man and stand up for yourself! Don’t just lie down and get walked all over ‘cause some blonde tart made eyes at you!”

Davin froze in a moment of panic before finally raising his voice, “All right!”

Hearing him shout was such a rare occasion, it caused the others to finally shut up, allowing Davin to continue, “Okay, there’s plenty of time to discuss our options. We’ll sleep on it.”

“But I–” Lorne began to protest, but Davin silenced him with a quick kiss.

“Trust me, sunshine, let’s come back here later, all right?”

If they came later, Lorne realized, perhaps they could ditch Mrs. Dahey, and have better luck with just the two of them planning alone. With a sigh, Lorne nodded his head in agreement.

Before they left, Davin paused to give the florist a friendly wave and apologetic grin. “Sorry about that. Still in the planning stages, apparently. We’ll be back soon!”

The florist responded with an understanding nod and saw the group out the door. The car ride back home was even more unbearable, even with music on the radio that Davin had played in hopes of easing the tension. Lorne kept catching Mrs. Dahey’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and every time, he held that eye contact with a cold, hard stare.

When they returned, Mrs. Dahey was ready to park the car and go inside with the couple, but Davin managed to talk her out of it. She dropped them off in the front of the building, leaving the two men to return to their apartment alone.

“I don’t see why she has to come along,” Lorne huffed as soon as they walked through the door. “I never cared to be married in the first place, so if I’m doing this, I’m doing it my way.”

“I know she’s a bit… enthusiastic, but she’s my Ma,” Davin sighed.

“So, what, just because you happen to share DNA, you have to be her slave your whole life?”

“Look, princess,” Davin calmly rested his hands on Lorne’s shoulders. “I know you’ve never been on good terms with your family, but you’re about to be part of mine. Just give ‘em a chance, is all I ask.”

“I’ll consider it,” Lorne agreed and slid his hands around the larger man’s waist, tugging him closer, “so long as she backs the fuck off my tiger lillies.”

Davin gave a soft chuckle. “We’ll go back to the shop tomorrow without her, and I’ll buy whatever arrangements you like, okay?”

Lorne responded with a silent nod and rested his head against Davin’s chest. After a moment, he pulled away again, looking up at the other man with a concerned expression, “You don’t really hate the crimson and gold theme, do you? If you’re just hiding behind your mother…”

“I meant what I said,” he replied with a warm smile. “If I had to choose, I’d just want something small and outdoors, but I don’t care about what colors or flowers or anything like that. I just want you to be happy.”

Lorne cupped Davin’s face in his hands and leaned up for a deep kiss. Not wanting to pull apart, he began to nudge the larger man through the living room and towards the hall to their bedroom.

“Don’t wanna save anything for the wedding night?” Davin smirked as he allowed himself to be tugged to the bed.

“Oh, please, we’re well past saving anything.” Lorne tugged off his shirt and flopped into the mattress, beckoning for his fiancé to join him.

Davin had done well today, keeping his mother in check and saying all the right things, and Lorne was quite eager to reward him for it. But that’s not why they were getting married, he reassured himself. It was totally a practical choice. No feelings involved, whatsoever.

#my writing #original character #my oc #lorne pruitt #izzy's oc #davin dahey

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mrhotmaster · 4 years ago

Quote

Review Of A Suitable Boy: Mira Nair And Book Fans Ultimately Receive Their Favorite An overview, although massively condensed, of a newly Independent India. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Mira Nair has been attempting to make a real to life adjustment of "A Suitable Boy" — Vikram Seth's transitioning perfect work of art set in a recently free mid-fifties India — since the time its distribution in 1993. However, for a very long time, she couldn't get her hands on the rights to the book. Rather, Nair wound up conveying a "microcosmic reaction" to A Suitable Boy with her 2001 Golden Lion-winning film Monsoon Wedding. No big surprise then that her adjustment of A Suitable Boy — a six-section miniseries coordinated completely by Nair that premières on BBC One in the UK, before hitting Netflix in India and the remainder of the world — might feel like Monsoon Wedding to a few. In spite of the fact that by the idea of its source material — it's probably the longest novel ever — A Suitable Boy is much more. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A Suitable Boy follows two defiant youthful grown-ups — Lata Mehra (Tanya Maniktala, from Flames) and Maan Kapoor (Ishaan Khatter, from Dhadak) — as they battle to find themselves and settle on decisions in a general public that anticipates that them should not raise a ruckus. Simultaneously, it includes in excess of a hundred characters, many having a place with one of four more distant families: the Mehras, Kapoors, Chatterji's, and Khans. You may naturally battle to stay aware of who's identified with whom. All the more so on the grounds that essayist Andrew Davies (BBC's War and Peace) has been entrusted with consolidating about 1,500 pages into six hours — an unimaginable accomplishment — which implies A Suitable Boy tosses a great deal at you from the beginning, even as it must forget about a ton. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); What's more, that is not all. Like its composed partner, A Suitable Boy is politically disapproved too, addressing Hindu patriotism in a couple of habits. Inside the principal scene itself, a compelling Islamophobic zamindar reserves the development of a sanctuary close to a mosque, a police power slaughters Muslim protestors at the command of the political world-class, and a Muslim-loathing government official calls for India to be a Hindu country with an eye on the primary majority rule national political race. Nair does well to attract equals to the catastrophes unfurling in India 70 years after the fact, which shows how little the needle has moved in specific respects, and been pushed back sometimes. All the more critically, for Nair, it's about how the political influences the individual, with the Hindu–Muslim pressures changing the characters' lives. It's not all overwhelming. Nair figures out how to impart some funniness into the procedures through her course, with some assistance from Seth's lines and foundation score from Alex Heffes (rejoining with Nair after Queen of Katwe) with Anoushka Shankar (making her arrangement debut as an author). A Suitable Boy downplays aunts and their snarky suppositions that contain a trace of desire. It conveys a touch of physical satire to address how classism capacities inside a family unit. It goes after the man-centric society, with one character calling spouses "totally superfluous". Furthermore, it shows how Indian moms can be somewhat of a messed up record, with their children ready to for all intents and purposes anticipate what they're going to state. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A Suitable Boy opens with the wedding of Lata and Maan's senior kin, Savita (Rasika Dugal, from Mirzapur) and Pran Kapoor (Gagan Dev Riar, from Sonchiriya). The young ladies' mom Rupa Mehra (Mahira Kakkar, from Hank and Asha) is inflexible that Lata will before long emulate Savita's example and that she intends to locate "a reasonable kid" for her as quickly as time permits. Lata messes with her mom that she may never need to wed, however with her school companions, it's uncovered that there's a whole other world to it. "I feel as though I'm going in reverse," Lata says at a certain point. "Last term, I was living in the college corridor. What's more, everything felt the present day, and free, and we were twentieth-century young ladies. Presently I'm living with my sister, her better half, and my mom as well." (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Rupa has lived with her youngsters since the time the dad's passing eight years back, transporting among Brahmpur and Calcutta. Brahmpur — an anecdotal city among Varanasi and Patna on the banks of the Ganga stream — is the place A Suitable Boy starts. Calcutta is the place Rupa's England-taught oldest Arun (Vivek Gomber, from Court) and his beguiling spouse Meenakshi Mehra (Shahana Goswami, from Tu Hai Mera Sunday) live. A Suitable Boy carries among Brahmpur and Calcutta in the early going, however, later scenes will acquire more regions. Meenakshi is effectively one of the most brilliant characters, and Goswami has a great deal of fun with her. Through Meenakshi and her high-class Calcutta circle, Nair injects a Western energy to A Suitable Boy, with move bars and tango parties. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Truth be told, A Suitable Boy is generally set in the higher classes of society. The Mehras are "poor" in that they can't bear to visit slope stations each late spring. The Kapoors are greatly improved off under the dynamic state income serve Mahesh (Ram Kapoor, from Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat). His most youthful wild Maan spends his powerful recompense on the concubine Saeeda Bai (Tabu, from Andhadhun), whom he succumbs to at a ghazal presentation one night. Maan additionally shares homoerotic scenes with the polo-playing Firoz Ali Khan (Shubham Saraf, from Bodyguard), yet we can't state if the arrangement will be more express than the book in portraying their relationship. The Khans — through the landowning patriarch Nawab Sahib (Aamir Bashir, from Sacred Games) — are a money related step over their old buddies, the Kapoors. Through it, A Suitable Boy additionally remarks on riches dissimilarity in post-segment India, a nation that is rising out of many years of the zamindari framework under British guidelines. Mahesh needs to annul it and the Nawab who stands to lose is additionally in favor, yet that doesn't agree with the Raja of Marh (Manoj Pahwa, from Article 15), who has profited off the insurances for his entire life and calls the bill "sunshine theft". All things considered, that cash is the means by which he's paying for the sanctuary that sits close to the mosque, or the deceptive routine visits to the prostitute. However, it's not simply the ones benefitting who are strengthening these inflexible structures in the realm of A Suitable Boy. Rupa isn't just against a Muslim husband to be for Lata, yet he should likewise be from their locale and position. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Be that as it may, with India now a free nation, its enlivened youth are attempting to be bolder. The book spins three of Lata's admirers, two of whom are presented on A Suitable Boy in the initial scenes. There's the attractive cricket-playing Kabir Durrani (newcomer Danesh Razvi), acclaimed London-visiting writer, and Meenakshi's sibling Amit Chatterji (arrangement debutant Mikhail Sen), and one Haresh Khanna (Namit Das, from Aarya) whom we get a look of. Despite the fact that Lata knows how it'll be begotten, she does as she wants. It's not in every case completely convincing, however, it causes the heroes dynamic and to feel alive, as opposed to living by the shows on those occasions. Simultaneously, the minimization of A Suitable Boy lessens the effect you'd feel if the narratives were extended over a season, not two scenes. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); It's muddled why the producers chose to do as such — Nair portrayed the procedure as a "refining" and how she was "completely energized" by it — however that is by all account not the only bizarre decision. The same number had noted after the arrival of the trailer, the cast of A Suitable Boy has been burdened with an unnatural highlight. For what it's worth, it doesn't influence everybody on the show, however, it feels unusual now and again. All the more critically, it was avoidable given the cast is entirely from India. A Suitable Boy likewise has a propensity for explaining things, including those that non-Indians probably won't get on. It's conceivable every last bit of it has been done to make it progressively agreeable for British crowds. In any case, hello, in any event on account of the BBC, we currently have an adjustment of A Suitable Boy, satisfying a since quite a while ago held wish of Nair and book fans. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A Suitable Boy is coming soon to Netflix. It premières July 26 on BBC One in the UK. Two scenes were reviewed for pundits, which venture ahead of schedule into "Section 7" of the book. For Regular & Fastest Tech News and Reviews, Follow TECHNOXMART on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google News and Subscribe Here Now. By Subscribing You Will Get Our Daily Digest Headlines Every Morning Directly In Your Email Inbox. 【Join Our Whatsapp Group Here】

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 8 years ago

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WALL STREET'S BEST MINDS Jeremy Grantham: Why Donald Trump Won American workers elected a billionaire to save them from the rich and powerful, writes the money manager. Email Print 31 Comments Order Reprints Facebook Twitter Google+ smaller Larger By JEREMY GRANTHAM Jan. 26, 2017 5:10 a.m. ET An extraordinary, large exit poll run by Reuters/Ipsos in which 45,000 people participated took place in the early evening on election day in the U.S. To say this was a detailed poll is an understatement. The spreadsheet for each question in small print runs the length of a generous dining room table, 11 feet! It will tell you how the American Hindu sample of 172 voted. The poll’s early results of 9,000 inputs also revealed on the night before the election, when the bookies’ odds against Trump were 5 to 1, that the odds were wrong. The critical statement polled, in my opinion, was this: “America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.” From my perspective, the pushback against the rich and powerful for several decades has been very unexpectedly wimpy. “Occupy Wall Street” aside, the average voter had sat still for a series of major tax cuts for the higher tax brackets and on capital – capital gains and dividends. The lower income workers had paid the cost of outsourcing and labor-saving technology but had received no material help, while corporations and corporate officers and owners were the beneficiaries. In fact, money spent on worker training and education declined relative to foreign competitors. This shows up clearly in declining educational standards where today the U.S. global rank is, to be friendly, mediocre. Most scarily in this regard, the average Chinese 20-year-old now ranks two full years ahead of his American counterpart in math proficiency! So, all in all, we can say that global forces pushed wages down and politics pushed them deliberately lower. The share of GDP going to labor hit historical lows as recently as 2014 and the share going to corporate profits hit a simultaneous high. Similarly, the share of all income going to the top 0.1% rose well beyond any previous record and approached 100% of all the recovery in total income since the lows of 2009! The “rich and powerful” not only increased their share of income and capital at an unprecedented rate in recent decades, but they also increased their grip on politics through a rising tide of political spending, including lobbying and the new Super PACs, courtesy of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United. Even before this ruling, Princeton University Professors Gilens and Page had reported on the complete lack of influence that voter opinion had on the probabilities of any bill passing through Congress. If favored by the public the average 31% chance of passing rose to a dizzying 32% If not favored, it fell to 30%, justifying the nickname given to the influence of the average citizen: “Gilens’ Flatline.” When favored by the richest 10%, bills passed at a 65% rate – there is inertia after all. But when opposed by the wealthier and supported by inertia, the passing rate was essentially nil. Those hoping that there is any life at all left in representative democracy have to hope that some critics of this work are right when they claim that the data is complicated to sort out and the conclusions may be overstated. Anecdotal evidence on such issues as the minimum wage and gun laws, though, suggests that majority opinion is, shall we say, easily offset. Scarily, Gilens’ work does not include the post Citizens United data on political spending. I could not resist throwing in political contributions from unions, which are often cited by right-wingers as somehow balancing the books. And once upon a time they did. But, as unions have been severely weakened by the same combination of global forces and politics previously described. The Citizens United ruling reminds me of what a good ally of the “rich and powerful” and corporatism the Supreme Court’s majority has recently been, particularly in its strange assumption that corporations are human and deserve the same constitutional protections as we humans. It turns out, though, that humans are quite often cooperative and altruistic for no apparent self-advantage. Corporations, tied as they are these days to the single-minded goal of profit maximizing, seem to be close to saying that altruism, or the common good, when it compromises profitability, is a dereliction of their duty. In a human this would be considered pathological. (I wonder what the Founding Fathers would really have thought of this odd idea of corporate humanity. Or the equally odd idea that unlimited spending by corporations on elections is the moral equivalent of free speech.) It is data like this that has led me over the last 10 years to believe that this country does indeed need to be saved from “the rich and powerful”; to believe that corporate interests were coming to dominate the public good; to believe that when in conflict corporations would, perhaps under the usual career risk pressure we all know so well, choose short-term profit maximizing over the well-being of workers. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in their dispensing with the jewel in the crown of the old social contract, the defined benefit plan. This was done on the stated grounds of unaffordability even as corporate profits hit unprecedented high levels of GDP. Pensions that guaranteed a share of final salary were always going to be expensive and in hindsight we should perhaps consider it remarkable that it was ever voluntarily done at all…a testimonial to the old days when labor, cities, and countries of origin were also considered to be stakeholders of corporations. Worse yet, when deciding between their grandchildren’s well-being in a climate-controlled world or maximizing profits in a climate damaging world, so far at least, they have collectively chosen short-term profits. In fact, the erosion of democracy began in earnest in the mid 70s when Senator Lawton Chiles (D. Florida) began his successful crusade to shine light in the dark places of government. His “Government in the Sunshine” legislation opened the door to vastly more effective lobbying by those with the means to pay, because the spotlight his legislation cast on government work, such as Committee mark-ups of Congressional bills, enabled lobbyists to pay fully only for loyalty they could actually observe. The data on rising inequality also led me to check what others had thought and written on this issue and made me realize that a self-destructive streak in capitalism had been well-noted in the past. A particular surprise to me was Schumpeter – he of “creative destruction fame” – who believed capitalism in its current form would eventually fail through overreaching, using its increasing power to dispense with regulations designed to protect the public good (that has a painful echo today doesn’t it?) until pushback FDR style (or Teddy Roosevelt style) results in a more controlled mix, which Schumpeter called socialism. There was also a suggestion in his work and that of Keynes that excessive corporate power would weaken the demand from ordinary workers and hence weaken the economy. This last point is also emphasized more recently by Mancur Olson, who argued that “Parochial cartels and lobbies tend to accumulate over time until they begin to sap a country’s vitality. A war or some other catastrophe sweeps away the choking undergrowth of pressure groups,” as The Economist rather eloquently summarized his thinking in his obituary of March 1998. To promote a pushback against excessive corporatism (and elements of oligarchy) one needs first of all to recognize the problem. Given the rather apathetic response from what used to be called “the workers” to the last 30 years of relative slide, there appears to have been no such recognition. But then on the eve of the election I realized that the point had finally been made. For an astonishing 75% of those first 9,000 polled agreed that, yes, we did indeed need to be saved from the rich and powerful. From now on, in my opinion, we live in a different world from the one we grew up in. A world in which a degree of economic struggle between the financial elite, perhaps 10% but more likely 1%, and all the rest is finally recognized. The wimpy phase is probably over. The question now is which path will this struggle take? Will it be a broad societal effort through established political means to move things back to the 1950s to 1960s when a CEO’s pay was 40x his average employee’s pay and not today’s over 300x; when corporations never dreamt of leaving the U.S. merely to save money; when investment banks set the standard (and a very high one) of ethical behavior? Or do we try to do it through the other historically well-used method, and a much more dangerous one – that of resorting to a “strong leader?” Strong leaders work out just fine if we end up with a Marcus Aurelius, the mostly benevolent and wisest of Roman Emperors. But when things go wrong, as they often do, we could more easily end up with Caligula. As I read the poll on election night, “recapturing the country from the rich and powerful” seemed a long overdue cry from the broad public. The kick in the stomach, however, was the “strong leader” bit. On feeling that kick, a more dynamic betting man than I would have realized how wrong the 5 to 1 odds against Trump were and would have made a big wager on him. He not only would have scored higher on the “strong leader” bit than his rival, but despite his personal wealth, the words “rich and powerful” were much more closely aligned with “establishment” for candidate Clinton, almost a “Ms. Establishment 2016” in the minds of supporters and opponents alike. I felt the pain from the “strong leader” bit because, like almost all in my age cohort, I am fanatically well-disposed to democracy. We were born, after all, at a time that overlapped the trio of nightmarish, strong leaders of the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. But I believe this fanaticism has weakened in other age cohorts born less close to these three as they have receded steadily into history. A recent report captured this decline: Of those born, as I was, in the 1930s, fully 75% gave a 10 out of 10 for extreme support for democracy. But each younger cohort felt less enthusiastic: 62%, 57%, 50%, and 43% for each younger cohort by decade until by the time we get to those born in the 1970s, the 40-year-olds, extreme support is down to 32%! And this is not the worst of it. The same report listed those who were actually against democracy as a “bad” or “very bad” way to “run this country.” Shockingly, in the period from 1995 to 2011, the percent of each age group agreeing to that proposition doubled. From 5.5% to 12% for those over 65 rising to a frightening 24%, up from 12.5% for the 16- to 24-year-olds. By this time some readers may be asking for a profile of the 74% of the final 45,000 who voted against the rich and powerful. Who are these people? Well, they are us. All of us. I have never heard of a vote so uniform: whether Republican 72% or Democrat 77%; Male 74% or Female 75%; White 75% or Black 74%; Rich 70% or Poor 79%; Christian 74% or Muslim 72%; Graduates 68% or not 76%; they all agreed. They have all had it with the rich and powerful. And as for me, I don’t blame them. I think capitalism has lost its way. And has badly diluted the value of democracy along the way. We can only hope it is very temporary. More From Jeremy Grantham Jeremy Grantham Still Doesn’t See a Bubble Buy Natural-Resource Stocks Jeremy Grantham Warns on Immigration, Brexit Trump recognized this streak of strong opinion and played to it, clearly stating his intention to look after the forgotten workers. Clinton diffused her message as looking after almost everyone and, I suppose, that includes you workers – as it were. To move the dial in the right direction is very important: Measures of income equality are correlated positively with everything valuable in a cohesive society. The way to improve this situation, though, is fortunately straightforward: Increase taxes on capital and on the very rich, perhaps slowly over a number of years, and increase the effort on worker training and education. These actions will by no means be a total cure for long-term job displacement but they would be a great and necessary improvement. The real challenge in promoting less inequality is to increase the share of GDP going to labor. Almost certainly, for any given increase in their share of GDP there must be a decline in the share going to corporate profits. How does the program of the new strong leader stack up on this one? He is surrounded by capitalists and billionaires who, to further advantage corporations and the super rich, are apparently prepared to wage war on the already sadly diminished regulations that defend ordinary people (and, yes, with no regulations corporations would make more money). The war would also include direct tax cuts for the rich and corporations, which would further increase the share of the pie going to corporations. This is a strategy that if successful in the long-run – despite its current market appeal – could not possibly be worse for the workers if he tried. Perhaps they, the workers, will feel betrayed as their share drops in order to further fatten corporations. Perhaps they will be bamboozled enough not to notice the betrayal. For bamboozlement of the working poor has become an art form in the last 30 years, with bamboozlement defined as an ability to persuade people to vote against their own economic interest for one reason or another. For example, 62% of voters do not like the sound of “death tax,” which in the form of estate tax is paid by only 1-2% of American families. An astonishing 35% of those earning less than $10,000 a year do not approve of increasing taxes on the rich. Does it get any richer than that? It has been called the Homer Simpson effect, whereby the poor voter reacts negatively to the idea of tax, which like death has little appeal, but does not get the point that a tax decrease for the rich has unpleasant implications for them. But, the gods willing, you probably can’t bamboozle enough of the people enough of the time. And the Reuters/Ipsos poll clearly shows that the worms have turned. The lack of class war or economic war in the U.S. has always been a fiction, but it has been mostly hidden, and deliberately so, by the side so completely winning the undeclared war. Perhaps the 74% vote was indeed a public declaration that the war is now official. POST SCRIPT The Republican Administration seems to feel that it received a broad mandate and perhaps it did. But my guess is that this poll provides the real mandate that waits to be addressed. And it is a narrow, focused one: Save me, oh leaders, from the rich and powerful! It looks so far as if this point has been largely missed. If it has been, there will likely be powerful and sustained pushback from the poor and not yet quite powerless. Jeremy Grantham is the co-founder of GMO, a Boston-based asset management firm. Grantham is the firm’s chief investment strategist. Comments? E-mail us at [email protected] Like Barron’s on Facebook Follow Barron’s on Twitter

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