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burkymakar · 4 years ago

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Mikko Rantanen Imagine: Remembered (Part Two)

Summary: You discover more parts of yourself while at Mikko’s Avalanche practice, and he discovers more about himself as well.

Rating: T

Note: Again, soap opera amnesia.

BLM Resources

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

After three days with Mikko Rantanen, you started to feel like a leech.

He insisted you didn’t need to do anything, that you just needed to recover and focus on getting your memory back but that didn’t feel right.

He let you stay at his apartment, he gave you his spare clothes, he didn’t charge you rent, which made sense you had literally $0 to your name. No one found a wallet or credit cards on you, or even cash.

You knew that logically but you didn’t want to be taking advantage of him. It warmed your heart so much to know he was sweet but you couldn’t take advantage.

You tried to help whenever and wherever you could. You kept the apartment clean, you made food according to his meal plan (he was an athlete, which made sense, he was built like a God with a really nice ass). You walked Bobby and took care of him while Mikko was out. You didn’t want to be a burden.

But he didn’t seem to mind your company. You two watched TV and the news and anything, really, together. Sometimes, things were hazy-familiar in your memory, like a commercial of a talking lizard. But mostly things were just a dull ring.

He watched some clips from his hockey team, the Colorado Avalanche. You didn’t know hockey (you didn’t know much) and you didn’t recognize the team. But you loved watching it with him, he nicely answered all your questions, and blushed a little when you complimented him.

“I don’t want to be annoying,” You started as you cleaned up from dinner on Sunday night. “But I was wondering if I could go with you to practice tomorrow.”

He looked up at you, concerned. “Don’t you want to rest?”

“I- I know nothing’s familiar here,” You said. “You’d remember if we met before right?” He nodded. “But who knows what would jog my memory elsewhere, right? Who knows what I’ll see?”

“Makes sense,” he said, then pursed his lips in thought. “Okay. I am happy to take you with.”

You beamed, “Thank you! I promise, I won’t be any trouble.”

“I figure.” He smiled at you, and you smiled back.

The next morning, you got up early with Mikko, and he gave you a big Avalanche hoodie to wear and your pants from the day you met. The sweatshirt was so soft and warm, you wanted it as a blanket.

“This is the practice rink,” he said as he pulled into a nice, big building. “We play, though, at where we met Dr. Katie.”

You nodded, and absently your fingers went to your forehead. You still had the stitches (six of them), but they were covered by a bandage. Mikko nicely made sure you changed it every day.

The rink was cold, but the sweatshirt fought against the chill.

“I have to get ready, but let me find- Syd!” Mikko grabbed your wrist gently and lead you to the seats, where two blonde women were sitting together and chatting. “Hi, Syd.”

You couldn’t tell which one was Syd but one spoke up. “Hey, Mikko. Who’s your friend?” She said with a raised eyebrow.

“This is Snow,” he said your moniker like it wasn’t a placeholder, like it was a real name, and it made you smile. “We found her up in Vail.”

“You found her?” The other blonde asked. “I thought you were there to snowboard on a boys trip, not collect girls.”

“Oh, you did no hear?” He said. “She was in accident, has amnesia.”

“Hi,” You said, feeling oddly awkward as they stared with you in utter shock and pity.

“You poor thing!” The other blonde said. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s good you remember your name though,” Syd said.

“I don’t,” You clarified. “Mikko came up with it.”

“I like it,” the other blonde said. “It’s cute. I’m Clare. This is Syd.”

“Nice to meet you,” You said. But that was true of everyone these days.

“Can you watch her during practice?”

“Of course, sit with us,” Syd gestured to the open spot beside her, and you looked to Mikko in panic. He was basically the person you’ve known the longest, and now he was just leaving you?

“I’ll be back,” he promised, reading your worry. “Clare and Syd are nice, you’ll have fun.”

For a moment, you had a flash, being you, staring up at an adult that was supposed to make you feel safe.

Taking a deep breath, you nodded and sat next to Syd as Mikko disappeared.

“Sorry, I’m just... I don’t really know what’s going on,” You said, which was a massive understatement.

“That’s okay,” Clare reassured. “Damn, that’s gotta be crazy.”

“Do you want to talk about it or be distracted?” Syd asked.

You thought it over, and really appreciated the choice. “I’d rather be distracted, please.”

“Cool,” Clare said. “We’ll tell you all about hockey, how’s that?”

You smiled, warmed by the reception, and let them tell you about what the different positions did.

Mikko Rantanen pulled on his practice jersey over his pads, when someone smacked him on the back of the head.

“What the fuck?” He said, spinning around to see Gabe Landeskog in his face.

“What’s this I hear about you inviting some stranger from the side of the road into your house?” He demanded.

Mikko looked to Andre, Mark, and Tyson, getting ready in their own cubbies. “Who fucking told?”

Andre held up his hands placatingly. Mark shook his head as he taped his stick. Tyson looked at the floor.

“Josty, I’ll kill you.”

“This isn’t Jost’s fault,” Landy said, refocusing his attention. “Mikko, what if she’s dangerous?”

Mikko shifted under his captain’s intense gaze, “Then she would have kill me already.”

Burakovsky laughed, “He has a point.”

“This isn’t funny,” Landy said. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking someone needed help.” He steeled himself. “Problem with that?”

“Calm down, boys,” Erik Johnson intervened. “Mikko, be smart about this. Landy, stop being a dad.”

Landy scowled, which was a new look for him off the ice.

“Mikko, you’re an adult. If you get murdered, it’s your own damn fault. But if you do, I’ll kill you again because you’re top line,” EJ said. “Deal?”

“I don’t think waiting ‘til Mikko gets murdered is a good plan,” Nathan MacKinnon said.

“I thought she seemed nice,” Burky said. “You could tell she was scared, but she was really kind.”

“She made sure I was wearing a seatbelt,” Josty spoke up.

“You, be quiet,” Mikko wasn’t ready to forgive him yet.

“I’m helping!”

Landy sighed, “I’ll trust your gut, for now. But be careful, okay?”

Mikko nodded, and they all went off to the ice for their first real practice since Bye Week.

He normally kept his focus during practice, but he found his eyes often drifting over to you, watching as you talked and laughed with Clare and Syd.

He had to stop when Landy slashed him gently at the shinpad.

“Focus,” the captain ordered, and Mikko forced his eyes away and focused on his team.

You watched Mikko on the ice, his number 96 on his helmet standing out to you. Clare and Syd pointed out their boyfriends, and they chatted with you briefly before they had to leave for hair appointments.

They invited you with but you demurred, not having the money. You almost went before you realized, because they put you that much at ease.

Since they were gone and the only person you knew was working, you decided to meander around the ice, and stopped when you saw a guy with two Canon EOS cameras standing at the glass.

How did you know that?

Drawn to the equipment, you walked up to him. He had one camera in his hands, and one hanging from a strap around his neck. His other hand was holding an iPhone, texting. He was scowling as he typed.

“Are those 4k?” You ended up asking.

He looked up, “Yeah, it’s great for social.”

“Is it as lightweight as it looks?”

“Here, hold it.” He took off one strap and handed it to you. Instinctively, you took it and put it on.

You held your eye to the viewfinder and fiddled with the camera settings, seeking Mikko again on the ice. Before you could manually focus on him as he crouched with another player, the camera did it for you. “Wow, that focus is insane, especially for that weight.”

“It’s a great feature,” he said.

“Mind if I take a couple shots?”

“Go ahead.” He shrugged. “I was waiting for a new camera assistant but this is, like, the third time he’s late.”

With moves as innate as breathing, you took pictures of the players around the ice. Again, you were drawn visually to Mikko. You tried to capture the balance of his lean frame and his power. But the other players were great to photograph.

49 was so small and so lithe, and you liked capturing the little blur of his as he spun around. 29 had such power to him. 95 had an amazing shot. The goalie had poise. You wanted to collect all these traits and pull them into photographs.

“Can I see what you got?” The guy said. Had he told you his name yet, and you’d already forgotten? Or had that just not happened yet? God, you hated not trusting your own mind.

You handed back the camera, feeling a little like a dog without a leash with it gone. He clicked through the photos you took, and you felt your nerves tighten with each passing moment.

“Damn,” he said. “These are really good. Holy shit.”

You tried to school your smile from a bright beam to a soft acknowledgment. “Thank you.”

“I’m Gavin, I do photos for the Avalanche.”

“I’m Snow,” You said, shaking his hand. It was the first time you adopted it as your name aloud. It felt good, like pulling on a warm flannel against the chill.

“Are you trained?” He kept clicking through the photos you’d taken.

“I- not really,” You said, not sure how to explain I don’t know anything about me.

“Can we use these? I’ll get my boss to send you a release.”

“Yeah, of course,” You said. “I- you really like them?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Here, take more. Go nuts.” He handed you the camera again.

With a smile akin to how kids on their birthday would feel after getting presents (oh shit, when’s your birthday?), you focused on the camera. The way the buttons felt, the glee at lining up a shot, the click of the shutter, it brought you joy from the outside in.

By the end of the practice, you’d taken over three hundred photos. Sitting with Gavin as you waited for Mikko to come back from the locker room, you went over the raw images.

“If you photoshopped the contrast here, you could get a good reflecting of 16 behind 91,” You said.

“I like that, good instincts,” he said. “Listen. Are you gonna be around tomorrow? We really need another photographer, but I doubt Jake will show up tomorrow. Are you available?”

“I- I have to check with Mikko, but if he’s here, I’m here,” You said.

He exhaled in relief, “Awesome. I’ll double check with my boss, but like we should be good to go. And I’ll photoshop these. Wait, do you have Photoshop?”

You tried not to wince, “No, but-”

“What there to fix? We look good,” A very tall player with a thick accent said. Mikko flanked him with a shorter player that reminded you of royalty, with a face both rugged and handsome.

“Your faces, for one,” Gavin said with a wicked grin.

“You fired,” the tall one said but that didn’t seem to be possible, shouldering his bag. “Bye, boys. Bye, memory lady.”

“Bye,” You said, at a loss for other words as he left.

“Don’t mind Nikita, he’s just like that,” Mikko said. “Did you have good time?”

You nodded, “Absolutely! I had a lot of fun with Gavin, he let me take pictures.”

“Wanna see? They’re really good, especially for raw photos,” Gavin set up the slideshow, and you felt anxiety at your work being displayed.

Mikko and the other guy (did you already forget his name?) leaned over to see, and you leaned back. It was weird this praise. It felt unfamiliar deep in your bones, more so than just the general confusion you felt as you encountered things since Mikko found you. It felt instinctual. Like using the camera itself came with shame.

“These are really good,” the other guy said, giving you a suspicious look. “I thought you couldn’t remember anything.”

“I- I don’t,” You said. “It was weird, I just knew what I was doing.”

Gavin said, “Wait, is your memory ok?”

You bit your lip, why were you suddenly embarrassed about it? It was literally one of the only things you knew for certain about you: you remembered nothing about your life from before three days ago.

But it was nice to pretend that wasn’t the case, just for this morning.

“I have amnesia,” You finally admitted. “Mikko nicely found me and he’s been letting me stay with him because I don’t know my name or address.”

“Wow, Mikko, damn, they should nominate you for the Lady Byng,” Gavin said, and you didn’t know what that was. But they all laughed.

“Utter gentleman.” The other guy clapped Mikko on the back. “But it is nice of him.”

“I really appreciate it,” You said. “I don’t have anyone else.”

They all went quiet.

“Well, you do have talent,” Gavin stood, taking the camera back and standing up. “Hope to see you tomorrow, Snow.”

You nodded, feeling the nerves shake your stomach again. Gavin left, leaving you with Mikko and whoever the hell this other guy was.

“Did you have fun with Gavin, Clare and Sydney?” He asked again.

You nodded, trying to shake yourself out of the sudden depression cloud that settled. It was a good day. You smiled to reassure.

“Yay,” Mikko said, then cut his eyes to the other guy. “Snow, this is Gabe Landeskog. He’s our Captain. Gabe, Snow.”

“Nice to meet you,” You shook his hand. “You photograph well.” What an awkward thing to say, but he kept staring at you.

He finally smiled, and Mikko laughed. “I know, we keep telling him to ditch hockey and model,” Mikko said.

“Not ‘til I retire,” Gabe said. “Are you guys doing anything for dinner? Maybe Mel and I can bring over pizza.”

“Mel?” You asked.

“My wife,” he explained. “We have a sitter anyway since we wanted to celebrate the season resuming.”

You looked to Mikko, who studied Gabe like he was about to spring.

“Great,” he said, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

They settled the plans, and you and Mikko went off to his car again. You debated asking him if he wanted to talk, but you didn’t know him well enough.

That struck you silent.

He knew you well enough, but you couldn’t say the same. That didn’t feel right, though as accidental it was.

Mikko and you watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves before the Landeskogs came over. He hadn’t seen the movie since he was a kid, but you found it on Disney+. The two of you were just marathoning old Disney movies when you had free time. It helped you both with pop culture, plus distracted him from the weird nerves he was feeling. He normally only felt that way before a game.

“You ever wear glasses?” You asked.

“Sometimes,” he said, eating the non-fat popcorn he and their trainer allowed him to have. “Why?”

“I dunno... I just... the more I see, the more familiar things feel, like it triggers a memory,” You explained. “But it’s really fuzzy. Like I’m seeing them without my glasses.”

“Eh what’s that word...” He muttered some words in Finnish, trying to find the English equivalent. “Clarity. You be having no clarity.”

“Yeah,” You nodded. “Listen, Mikko, can I ask you a favor?”

“Name it.”

“If at any point you change your mind and don’t want me anymore, you have to tell me.”

“I promise, but I can not see that happening.” He sent you a soft smile. “You are always welcome here, okay?”

“Okay,” You said, and finally smiled back, just as soft.

For a moment, he pictured leaning in. Kissing you, feeling you against him.

But he didn’t.

And he was saved from even thinking further about acting on that impulse when someone knocked on the door.

Bobby lost his shit and booked it towards the door.

“That must be Landeskogs,” he said, pushing up, saved by the knock. He opened the door, and Gabe immediately knelt down to greet Bobby, letting the dog whimper and kiss him in excitement. As he did, a weird stone dropped in his gut, one made of nerves that came out of nowhere.

“Hello good boy,” he said then devolved into Swedish and bastardized Finnish as he pet Mikko’s dog.

Mikko ignored him, still irritated after his earlier bullshit, and focused on Mel. He kissed her cheeks, “Hi. Divorce him.”

“Maybe next time,” she said with a smile. “Hi Mikko.”

Mikko hugged her tight, careful to avoid the boxes of pizza. “You actually got us pizza?”

“Mel insisted,” Gabe said from the floor as his traitorous pup wiggled. “Don’t tell Nate.”

“Deal,” he agreed. “Mel, meet Snow.”

Mikko led his captain’s wife further into the house, and let her set the pizzas down on the kitchen counter before gesturing off to his house guest.

You were standing off by the sofas, and you extended your hand, “Hi, Mel, nice to meet you-”

Mel cut you off by pulling you into a hug. “Gabe told me what happened, how awful, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks,” You said. “I’m glad though, Mikko’s been letting me crash here.”

“How nice of him,” Mel said with a smile. Since he knew better, he could see the hint of wickedness there. She had something up her sleeve.

“Just wanted to help,” Mikko shrugged off the praise. “I’m starving, eat?”

For his apprehension, the meal was actually great. Not only was the pizza fantastic, but Gabe stopped being a protective asshole and actually seemed to enjoy himself the more Snow and Mel talked.

He could tell you were a bit stressed to talk about what happened when Mikko and the boys found you, but Mel and Gabe were really respectful and changed the subject when you got uncomfortable.

Luckily, the conversation turned to happiness, talking about Linnea Landeskog and all the other cute babies on the team. Especially when Snow was willing to look at baby pictures. Mikko loved Linnea but he’d probably seen over five hundred pictures of her since she’d been born.

The conversation shifted back to hockey, where it inevitably ended up, and then Mel just had to mention the ridiculous celly the boys did last year.

“I’ve got to show you the video, they’re adorable,” Mel said, going over to the remote like it was her own house. Which was fair, she could have anything she asked.

She turned the TV back on, and it was on a frame from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

“Aww, Linnea loves this movie,” she cooed then gasped. “Oh is this how you came up with the name Snow?”

“Mikko came up with it,” You said. “After we left Dr. Katie’s.”

He just shrugged. Really, you just kept talking about how pretty snow was, and he thought you were pretty. It made the most sense to him, and was the first thing he thought of.

“Too bad you got one giant instead of seven dwarves,” Gabe said, causing Mikko to kick at him. “C’mon, while Mel and Snow are busy, I gotta talk to you.”

Mikko went to send you a reassuring nod, but you were already sitting down with Mel as she set up the video. She was such a warm person, that made sense.

Relieved he didn’t need to check on you, he followed Gabe over to the bedroom hallway, and stood with him.

“What now?”

Gabe rolled his eyes, “I wanted to talk to you about Snow again.”

“Are you be an ass?” He raised an eyebrow.

“No,” his captain said then lowered his voice. “Listen, clearly she went through something traumatic. And it’s awesome you’re helping her, really.” He raised both eyebrows now. “But... you gotta be careful.”

“Careful?”

“You can’t take advantage of her. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, doesn’t know anyone else. So be good, okay?”

“Just earlier, you were telling me to not be too much with this,” Mikko stumbled over his English in his irritation.

Gabe made a slight face, like he was acknowledging he was caught but wasn’t going to backtrack.

“If you’re worried you can’t keep yourself together, then she can probably stay with us,”

“No, she stays with me,” he said, then caught the protective tone in his voice. “If she wants to.”

Gabe just gave him a look.

“I’ll be good,” Mikko swore.

“Good,” Gabe said. “C’mon, let’s go before they find something actually embarrassing.”

Mikko nodded in agreement, but his captain’s words rattled in his mind for the rest of the night.

Note: thanks for reading! I’m working on the next (and last) part but I’m not sure when it’ll be posted. please let me know ur thoughts!

#mikko rantanen imagine #nhl imagine #colorado avalanche imagine #mywriting

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cricketnationrise · 4 years ago

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Books Read in quarantine: Part 2

part 1 is here.

26. Free Little Library by Naomi Kritzer: tor.com short story. there’s a magical being that uses the free little library as the ultimate resource in gaining power and bettering their society. cute with a vengeful twist.

27. Sinew and Steel and What They Told by Carrie Vaughn: tor.com short story. i don’t remember this one super well but i remember the structure being cool

28. The Naming by Alison Croggon: book 1 in The Books of Pellinor series. cool magic system, some chosen one and mistaken identity, family LITERALLY found. looking forward to the next one

29. CHECK, PLEASE!, BOOK 2: STICKS AND SCONES BY NGOZI UKAZU: volume 2 of an amazing web series turned graphic novel about a college hockey player who likes to bake and falls in love with his captain its FANTASTIC and i recommend this series to literally everyone i know

30. Eric by Terry Pratchett: Discworld #9. Faust retelling as the premise. guy tries to summon a demon. gets Rincewind and his Trunk out of the demon realm instead. hijinks ensue from there. you probably need some discworld knowledge to follow this one

31. The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper: middle grade coming of high school novel. Sparrow Delaney can see and talk to ghosts, but she’s keeping her powers from her family (also ghost seers) because she just wants to be normal. a new family moves to town after their oldest son dies. oldest son’s ghost is hanging around his little brother and meets sparrow

32. An Explorer’s Cartography of Already Settled Lands by Fran Wilde: tor.com short story. what can you map? just geography? how sad for you. this narrator can map all sorts of things from bird migrations to emotions of a city

33. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: book 2 in the Queen’s Thief series (complete now). i got into these because of a few different fanfics mentioning them and they are AMAZING I’m very annoyed i didn’t know about them sooner. political intrigue, gods, competent people doing their jobs, everyone underestimating said competent people

34. A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter: so i stopped reading this one about halfway through because i didn’t need to read about the various orgies thrown by authors/literary agents this man attended. also he’s not so much into reading as collecting and that’s boring to me.

35. Love Charms and Other Catastrophes by Kimberly Karalius: book 2 in the Grimbaud series. definitely need to read the first book for context. but its a really sweet series with a dark underbelly that gives a nice contrast. think the paper magician series but milder on all fronts.

36. First Kisses and Other Misfortunes by Kimberly Karalius: set after book 1 in the Grimbaud series it expands on what happens to the main couple from book 1 before book 2 opens. read on swoonreads which is now fiercereads.

37. The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle: goblin king retelling. first in a trilogy. i enjoyed it, especially as the narrator sticks it to abuse family members

38. The Golden Specific by S.E. Grove: book 2 in the mapmakers trilogy. fascinating world building that you absolutely need the first book to understand. aimed at high schoolers. across the world there are different times existing at once. middle ages, technological age, 1800′s, and more times are interacting depending on where in the world you are. sometimes the lines shift.

39. The Crimson Skew by S. E. Grove: book 3 in the mapmakers trilogy. back in america a war is brewing that has managed to weaponize some sort of airborne disease/??? that explodes people. yeah. satisfying close to the series.

40. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: why why WHY was this my first Novik book. what was i waiting for??? polish folklore inspired. theres a winter (elf? goblin?) king who needs gold and wife. a fire demon trying to escape his (metaphorical) chains to take down the winter world. and a girl who can turn silver into gold. (by trading). politcal intrigue, magic, a really heavy crown. well worth the read. on a wavelength with the winternight series.

41. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History by Buzbee Lewis: I picked this up because its about a bookstore and the author’s name is buzbee. cute little memoir with an overview of the history of books/bookstores from ancient times to now

42. All Systems Red by Martha Wells: book 1 in the murderbot diaries. this was actually a reread for me, but it had been long enough that i wanted to refresh and its a novella so its a fast read. A Security Unit (SecUnit) that calls itself Murderbot has hacked its own governor module so that it can watch its soap operas. Now if only the humans it was responsible for would stop being so dumb.

43. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells: book 2 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot has freed itself from its government contracts and is working on its own. Murderbot gets a lift to a planet from its past from an empty transport vehicle, named Asshole Research Transport (ART) by Murderbot.

44. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells: book 3 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot’s story continues. pretty crucial that you read these in order. Murderbot continues to be put off by humans and their behavior. Still just trying to consume the media it wants without being bothered.

45. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells: book 4 in the Murderbot diaries. Murderbot meets back up with the humans from book 1. chaos ensues while trying to escape the company that Murderbot used to be contracted to.

46. Network Effect by Martha Wells: book 5 in the Murderbot diaries. first full length novel in the series. another one to come in April 2021. Murderbot gets kidnapped from its human friends. turns out ART needs some help and doesn’t have any other friends.

47. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel: steampunk pirates in airships. kind of similar in vibes to the aesthetic of the leviathan series, but strictly mechanical advancements. cool worldbuilding. teenage girl scientist protagonist. first in a series.

48. The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: book 2 in the cemetery of forgotton books series. very atmospheric. like you can almost see the fog while you read it. supernatural/elements of magical realism. helps if you read book 1

49. I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell: memoir told out of chronological order. each titled with the body part that almost caused death (neck, spine, blood, lungs, etc). by definition, not a happy read, but powerful. trigger warning for the neck story for an almost abduction/assault. content warning for chronic illness/disease.

50. Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks: yes that Tom Hanks. series of short stories. some of them are connected. i can’t remember anything super upsetting, and some of them are straight up comedic. elements of the absurd. in one a group of friends goes into space. like without nasa or any organization. they just. build a rocket. and go to space.

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sweetestcaptainhughes · 8 days ago

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Naw them panning to Keefe when they lost in OT was uncalled for.

then showing nico after that goal was atrocious and uncalled for

#like why you gotta do either tbh #sigh 😫#clare watching hockey #devils lb

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eddiesdiaz · 4 years ago

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50 questions!! tagged by the actual loml @madamewriterofwrongs 💖💞💗

what is the color of your hairbrush? pink

name a food you never eat: salad, i hate it and you can’t change my mind

are you typically too warm or too cold? warm

what were you doing 45 mins ago? watching clare siobhan with jeannette

what’s your favorite candy bar? snickers

have you ever been to a professional sports game? i have! baseball and hockey

what is the last thing you said out loud? goodnight to jeannette

what is your favorite ice cream? chocolate chip cookie dough

what was the last thing you had to drink? water

do you like your wallet? yeah, she’s a mint color and very pretty

what is the last thing you ate? popcorn

did you buy any new clothes last weekend? nope

what’s the last sporting event you watched? like half a hockey game when i was at my parents’ house

what is your favorite flavor of popcorn? butter or nothing

who is the last person you sent a text message to? my dad

ever go camping? in girl scouts but it was like a cabin situation. miss me with that sleeping in a tent shit, no thanks

do you take vitamins? no

do you regularly attend a place of worship? nope

do you have a tan? bold of you to assume i’ve ever been tan a day in my life

do you prefer chinese or pizza? pizza

do you drink your soda through a straw? if it’s in a glass, yes

what color socks do you usually wear? any and every color lmao

do you ever drive above the speed limit? no, absolutely not, i would never (yes)

what terrifies you? disappointing the people i love. also, needles

look to your left, what do you see? my cat 🥰

what chore do you hate most? cooking, yes it’s a chore (if you want a more legitimate answer, though, i hate cleaning the shower)

what do you think of when you hear an australian accent? james turner and deligracy

what’s your favorite soda? pepsi

do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? do people go inside a fast food place to eat? couldn’t be me

what’s your favorite number? 17

who’s the last person you talked to? jeannette

favorite cut of beef? 🤷🏻‍♀️

last song you listened to? what’s up? - 4 non blondes

last book you read? i honestly couldn’t tell you

favorite day of the week? time is meaningless and every day is the same

can you say the alphabet backwards? maybe?

how do you like your coffee? sweet as hell, but i prefer chai tea

favorite pair of shoes? a sick pair of tommy hilfiger sneakers that i wear literally every day

time you normally get up? 9 ish

what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunset

how many blankets on your bed? one

describe your kitchen plates. i have an annoying variety lol - white, pink, purple, and green

describe your kitchen at the moment: clean, i just did all the dishes

do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? i don’t drink, but if i’m at a bar and they have red bull, i’m a happy camper

do you play cards? does uno count?

what color is your car? black

can you change a tire? no, but i can call my brother to come do it 🤓

your favorite state? i don’t know. city, though? chicago, or maybe seattle

favorite job you’ve had? i worked at bath & body works for three years and while it was an honest to god nightmare sometimes, i genuinely really did enjoy it

i tag: @impractical-matters, @obsessedx, @softboiidiaz, @firefighterbuckleydiaz, @buckleysbabe, @royalsandotherships, @florenceandthemachine, and @gracieli

#tag games

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flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash · 5 years ago

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Get to Know Me Tag

I was tagged by the lovely @risingphoenix761 and tasked with tagging 21 people I want to know better. Thanks for the tag, love!

Nickname: In high school it was Toni. I don’t really have one now, but sometimes people call me Ash.

Real name: Ashton

Zodiac: Aries (I don’t really relate to it though)

Favorite musicians or bands: Oh gosh, I tend to be that person who listens to just one or two songs from a bunch of different artists. My only instant-download artist for any and all of her songs is Taylor Swift.

Favorite sports team: Not a big sports watcher, but I guess the Pittsburgh Penguins (hockey)

Other blogs: @negans-network and @we-write-imagines (which is abandoned)

Do I get asks: I do

How many blogs do I follow: 265

Tumblr crushes: So so many! Pretty much if I follow you, you’re a tumblr crush.

Lucky numbers: 13

What am I wearing: pink t-shirt, grey sweatpants, and a fuzzy tan blanket

Dream vacation: One big trip to see Scotland, Ireland, and England. Australia also sounds so beautiful, but 1. I’d burst into flames from the sun and 2. The creepy crawlers down there would give me a heart attack (have y’all googled the Huntsman spider???)

Dream car: I honestly suck at car knowledge, so I don’t have one. My Chevy Cruze works just fine for me.

Favorite food: Sushi, seafood in general, mashed potatoes, and chocolate

Drink of choice: Iced Coffee, and more recently Seltzer (I know, I’m getting old)

Instruments: I played clarinet for 8 years, but haven’t picked one up in over a decade.

Languages: English, sarcasm, and the tiniest bit of Spanish.

Celebrity crushes: Oh god, there isn’t a number limit on this one???

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, David Gandy, Tom Hiddleston, Ian Bohen, David Harbour, Alan Rickman, Jason Isaacs, Robert Downey Jr, Norman Reedus, Sebastian Stan, Hugh Jackman, Jensen Ackles, Mark Sheppard, James Marsters, Gerard Butler, Kris Holden-Reid, Dustin Clare, Manu Bennett, Henry Cavill, Chris Hemsworth, a bunch of other ones because my thirsty self is always rotating to new crushes

Random fact: I am a big fan of watching ASMR videos on Youtube to help relax and unwind in the evenings.

21 tags of people who I’d like to see play along: @kellyn1604 @s-h-e-w-r-i-t-e-s @opheliadawnwalker3 @thranduilsperkybutt @ericuhlorain @because-imma-lady-assface @letsby @snoopy3000 @ne-gans @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @sarcasm-is-my-native-tounge @jobean12-blog @londoncapsule @hughxjackman @bamby0304 @girlwiththepapatattoo @hannibalssweaters @darkangeldesignstudio @sexykitty96 @lovingzombiechaos @84reedsy

#ask me #tag game #about me #personal

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illadib-blog · 4 years ago

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That what gets me aroused

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sweetestcaptainhughes · 16 days ago

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and I am too. 😭

Oh he’s so done😭

#I am still in shock #and I’ve had like 2 hrs to process that shit #this to me was one of those games where we should of won and didn’t #but also the reffing was questionable on both sides #also DeBrusk was SO CLOSE to getting a too many men on the ice call #but thankfully he caught himself and jumped back up before the crowd even noticed #literally only saw it cause I was directly across the bench #clare watching hockey in person…#canucks lb

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im-that-bitch-still-that-bitch · 5 years ago

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A Place to Recover~s.b.

a/n: this is the first thing I’ve ever written on here, so I hope people like it! I just couldn’t get this idea for a story out of my head and had to write it. more parts to come... and it starts at the end of the first season with an alternate ending to the whole heading exploding thing

Part I-Homecoming: the prequel

The peaceful guitar melody of “Kiss me” by Sixpence None the Richer hummed softly out of Erin Brennan’s iPhone speaker as she put the finishing touches on her makeup for the homecoming dance. As she pulled loose strands of hair out of her half-up ponytail and laced up her converse, she couldn’t help but notice her hands shaking. Her best friend’s words earlier that week echoed in her ears,

“You just can’t wear heels. No guy wants to dance with a girl who’s taller than him.”

Erin didn’t want to give off a “girl who wears converse with a dress to be quirky” vibe, but she despised ballet flats, so what else was there?

She straightened up and looked into her full-length mirror at her lanky body in the pale pink slip dress she’d bought at a thrift store a week ago. The only thought racing through her mind was how stupid she felt, but that feeling always seemed to come with getting dressed up for Erin. She felt like an imposter.

“Do you really think you can convince people you’re pretty?”

As her dark brown eyes met her own in the mirror, she noticed a single tear threatening to slip out of her perfectly curled lashes, “Fuck.”

She had promised herself she wouldn’t smoke or drink at all before the dance because of the homecoming debacle of 2018 when not one, but three of her friends she showed got kicked out and suspended for being drunk, but as soon as that little tear began threatening to fall, she caught it on her index finger and climbed out onto her roof with a joint in hand.

As she felt the joint burn down to a tiny nub and the heat in it growing closer to her fingers, she let it fall onto the wet grass of her backyard and climbed back in through her window. Her timing was opportune because just as she latched the window closed, her sister barged into her room,

“Erin, we’ve been calling you for like ten minutes. Mom wants pictures,” Clare said, running out of breath.

“Yeah, I’m coming. Sorry, I didn’t hear you over my music.” She was in the clear luckily.

But as she strolled towards her bedroom door to follow in Clare’s lead, Clare stayed put. She whipped around and sniffed Erin’s shoulder. “You might want to put on some perfume,” she turned back and walked another two paces before turning to Erin once more to taunt, “Pothead!”

Erin laughed and spritzed perfume on her dress, then walked out the door. Mrs. Brennan squinted at her phone while snapping pictures of Erin with her best friend Kate, claiming she would only take “one more,” once every two minutes.

“We’re leaving mooom,” Erin called as she opened the passenger seat to Kate’s Mercedes Benz. The two had been best friends since middle school, making quite the dorky duo when they were both in puberty’s punishing grasp. When high school started, Kate blossomed into the perfect picture of a conventionally attractive woman, earning her lots of popularity. In a way, she dragged Erin to her new friend group. They were less than welcoming seeing as Erin was a bit offbeat, but they knew Kate was too stubborn to leave her other half behind.

The two girls stepped into the gym and admired the golden glow of fairy lights hung from the ceiling. They spotted their friends immediately, and the bubbly girls ran to them and insisted on hitting the photo booth. Of course, they all immediately came up with about a dozen different combinations of girls they wanted in a photo, none of which included Erin.

“I can hold everyone’s purses,” Erin spoke shyly. The girls all jumped on the idea, piling their clutches in their arms. Erin would get annoyed, but this was high school for her; catering to her so-called friends’ interests and needs because if they dropped her, where would she go, anyway?

Feeling more confident than ever due to her high, Erin marched up to the DJ booth, “What is going on with this set list?” The boy behind the booth shrugged indignantly, clearly not looking to cater to this girl’s music taste. The two argued for nearly five minutes.

“Listen, if you don’t wanna play Twin Peaks, then at least just go for a crowd favorite to play it safe.”

A voice spoke up from next to her, “Twin Peaks, huh? Not bad. I just came over here to figure out what the hell’s going on with this set list.” Stanley Barber stood beside Erin with his arms folded, staring the DJ down.

“Oh, hey Stan,” Erin said, then turned to the DJ, “Listen, man. I’m just trying to help. Do what you wanna do.” And with that, she was off.

Stanley watched the girl walk away, sort of amazed that she knew his name, but then again, that was the popular people’s job; knowing everyone. She had actually first caught his attention in his debate class, when she’s known for sparring with Bradley Lewis. Two weeks prior, they’d had quite the nasty exchange:

“I just think people should be less harsh on men with all this ‘Me Too’ crap.”

“If you think that you’re part of the problem. The behaviors these men are getting in trouble for are toxic, and they were normalized in a toxic society.”

“Maybe you think that way, but not everyone’s a crazy feminist bitch,” he spat.

Erin scrunched her nose with distaste, “Call me a crazy bitch again, Lewis, it really gets me hot and bothered.” Of course, the inevitable came, “ooh’s” and gasps from their classmates and a day in detention for the two debaters.

It was days like that when the distinction between Erin and her friends became clear. She was stubborn as hell and refused to try to please people like Bradley Lewis. Stan respected her for it, but what did the local pot dealer’s respect mean? Nothing.

The rest of the night went as usual. The group of girls all danced together, squealing with excitement when their song came on. Erin was (thankfully) able to find a boy from the hockey team to dance with for the slow dance who was pretty nice, wandering hands aside.

The trouble came when it was time to announce homecoming queen and king. “All right ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention? Stop right there, please. It is my privilege to introduce your homecoming king and queen, Jeff Butters and Julie Frasheski!” Erin and her friends all cheered extra loud, as Julie had shown up with them. Jeff Butters began his less than graceful speech, only to be interrupted by none other than Erin’s infamous debate opponent.

The boy jerked around on stage, trying to avoid the principal’s grasp, “I would like to take this moment to talk about something very important that affects everyone here. Sydney Novak. Hey, Sydney! Give a wave so everybody can see you.”

Erin felt her jaw clenching with anger, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a bit thankful Brad hadn’t chosen her as the subject of this odd callout speech, as they were sworn enemies.

He continued, “You see, what a lot of people don’t know about Sydney here… she is one hell of a writer.” The boy pulled a notebook out of his Letterman jacket pocket, and the tension in the room skyrocketed. “You know, it’s funny, because everyone is so fast to call me an asshole, but while I was downstairs banging Jenny Tuffield at Ricky’s, guess what Sydney was doing upstairs.”

Erin racked her mind trying to remember which party Ricky has hosted. The memories of playing beer pong with Julie, Becca, and Kate came flooding back into her mind. Becca puked in the bushes at the end of the night, and a football player had asked Erin for her “hot friend’s number,” which happened a lot.

“She was kissing my girlfriend,” Bradley spat into the mic. Erin anxiously chewed her lip, trying to think of something, anything, to do to stop whatever Brad was attempting. She didn’t know Syd, but she knew that getting made fun of by Bradley Lewis was no walk in the park, and no one deserves to be outed against their will.

The boy drew closer and closer to Syd, continuing his monologue of hatred, full of homophobic slurs, of course. As he continued to rib on the girl, even getting into her family life, Stanley Barber marched out of the crowd, gentlemanly as always, “Hey, man. Leave her alone.” His heroic gesture was cut short by Brad swinging a right hook punch right across his cheek.

Erin grew more and more anxious. She hadn’t even noticed that she had been cowering backwards until she felt her back hit the wall. She gasped and turned around. She scanned the room, seeing that everyone’s eyes were on Brad. Another key thing that she observed was the fire alarm right next to her shoulder. Her mind raced at the speed of light: “If Brad is exposing whoever he doesn’t like, then I’m next… Falsely pulling a fire alarm is a federal offense… What if I tackled him…. He’d beat the shit out of me.” Her thoughts began to overlap and get more jumbled, when she felt impulsivity take over her body as she yanked on the fire alarm. The sprinklers turned on, and a chorus of whines and shrieks came from the students who were currently getting soaked.

Erin’s chest began to rise and fall more quickly with every anxious breath. She stood frozen in place watching everyone flee the scene. After the main crowds scattered, she saw Dina and Syd each hooking an arm under Stan’s armpits and carrying him out of the gym. In a moment of bravery, Erin asked if they needed help and ran to the three. Syd and Dina accepted thankfully as Erin picked up the boy’s ankles and began to walk backwards, “Let me know if I’m about to bump into something, okay?”

The three finally reached Stan’s car and laid him down in the back seat. Just as Erin caught her breath, she heard tires screeching and saw Kate’s Mercedes Benz whipping out of the school parking lot with a drenched Julie and Becca in the back. “Shit,” she muttered.

“I-is something wrong?” Dina asked.

“Um… yeah, my ride sort of just left.”

“Oh well, I’m sure Stan can drive you home when he wakes up,” Dina said with a friendly, but clearly shaken smile.

“If he wakes up,” Syd added with a blank look in her eyes.

“SYD, don’t say that!” Dina yelped.

Sydney spoke up, looking at Erin, “Could you give us some privacy for a minute?”

Erin looked around awkwardly, “Uh, yeah. I’ll just… walk to the other side of the parking lot.” As she kicked the pebbles on the ground and watched Dina and Syd in a heated argument, she began to regret staying to help them. She probably could’ve gone home with Kate if she had rushed out like everyone else, but she was with two near strangers nursing another near stranger who was unconscious while the remaining teacher chaperones walked the perimeter of the school trying to see if there was an actual fire.

Erin was pulled out of her thoughts by Syd yelling (which she had never heard the girl do before), “Holy shit, he’s up.”

Erin began to jog back over to them, reading their facial expressions to see if they were done with their chat. Dina looked down at Stan intently, “Hey, buddy. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Stan furrowed his brows for a moment then sputtered out, “Brad… son of a bitch… how did I get out here?”

#fic #ianowt #stanley barber #sydney novak #dina #brad #i am not ok with this netflix #fanfiction #writing

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sweetestcaptainhughes · 1 month ago

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It never fails to make me laugh when commentators are complimenting Quinn, and then the pan to him on the bench and homeboy isn’t even on this earth right now he’s so spaced out.

#like I love him for it #and I can’t even lie I do the same thing but it’s so funny to me #clare watching hockey #canucks lb

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dominique-myles · 5 years ago

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Degrassi season 12 pt1

I have decided that tumblr has become a great outlit for me to post reviews and my true blood reviews went over well,so I’m gonna try it again. This time with Degrassi, the season are so long that it would take a long time to do entire review of a whole season at a time so I broke it up into parts. Some backstory I started watching Degrassi in 07/08 and I watched the first 8 seasons and then I kinda feel off the wagon because I couldn’t find the DVDs. About 2 years ago I watched 9 and half of 10,then just recently inspired by someone on Twitter I started halfway through season 10 where I left off. I’ve watched all of 10&11 but for 12 I’ve decided I need an outlet. I finished the first 20 episodes or half of 12. So far a lot has happened in 12 Ali and Dave has a pregnancy scare, Clare got sexual harassed, Drew moved out, the hockey boys came, Becky and Luke have come. I’m actually really liking what they are doing with Jenna and Becky, even if it did start out weird. I think Becky is definitely questioning her faith and what it means to be a good Christian. I mean she was willing to do the play and even kinda see Adams point. I happen to know one spoiler, that something happens between her and Adam and her parents send her to conversion camp. I like the Christian aspect even if it does come on a little strong, very rare do teen shows depicate Christian teens who are just normal. I know Becky and Luke are transphobic and homophobic and I don’t like that dipcation of Christians because not all of us are like that. I do like the fact that they included some Christian, even if they are flawed and I honestly think and hope that there is more to it. I’m in no way defending them or the hatred, I don’t agree with it at all but I never really saw myself or my faith reflected on teen tv shows when I was a teen. I mean Darcy was okay but Becky is better. It’s not an amazing depiction but i definitely can say that when I was in high school I was a lot like Becky, I was never outright transphobic or homophobic but people I went to church with did have those ideas and it can be hard to know when Jesus, faith, the bible and people start. What I’m trying to say is that I’m way more tolerant and understanding of my faith now. I guess I just get where Becky is coming from and hope that she can grow beyond that and still keep her faith. Cam, I love him so much and I’m assuming due to some spoilers that a bad thing happens to him, however scared I am I’m not there yet. I do think it might be something related to suicide, just because we do see him self harming, I also know that self harm isn’t always related to suicide, I’m just spit balling. I love how Maya cares for him and there relationship is so sweet. The hockey stuff is just so Canadian and I know that that he is flawed but I love me some Dallas. I’m loving the new Katie and Jake. I mean the girl with the dragon tattoo, I love this side of her. Maya and all the grade nines are also adorable. Also Owen, looking out for Tristan. I mean what a redemption arc, well kinda for Owen, he goes from being homophobic and transphobic to well Owen. Poor Clare, the sexual harassment storyline was well done in that it was very real to what a lot of victims go through. Eli is this supportive lovely angel this season. I also loved imogen dealing with her family stuff. Drew and Biance, they are cute and Bianca really cleaned up her act. Also another spoilers I know they don’t make it, however long it last though I ship it. Dave and Ali, I love them together but I agree they are different places in their lives. K.C. is gone to Vancouver and wow he changed his life so much to I’m gonna miss him. This season also had some pretty decent music. In terms of spoilers the one mentioned, also I know that Adam dies(😭😭😭) not sure when or how. Jake does weed. MO has diabetes and Eli does MDMA. I’m hoping not to be so spoiled going forward and i just want cam to be okay, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t happen but a girl can dream.Anyway solid first half it’s a B+ in my mind.

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holtbys-left-eyebrow · 6 years ago

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tagged by @chaospitals (thank!!!)

Name/alias: victoria/tori

Birthday: april 12!

Zodiac sign: aries ♈️ (id put my sun/moon/rising except idk what the fuck those mean)

Hobbies: cross-stitching, reading, thinking about writing (rip), hockey, playing the ukulele, D&D, podcasts

Favorite colors: purple, pink, and teal!

Favorite books: the book thief by markus zusak, good omens by neil gaimen and terry pratchett, the infernal devices series by cassandra clare

Last song I listened to: mr. doctor man by palaye royale (I cannot stress enough how much of a banger this track is)

Last film I watched: iron man 3 but I didn’t finish it bc I found out that my governor indefinitely cut funding for one of my primary scholarships I’m depending on at uni and I kinda freaked out a bit

Love: laughing so hard I cry, rocks/minerals, days where it’s sunny but not so sunny it hurts, learning something new, finally figuring out something I’ve been struggling to learn, vinyl records, space

Something that helps people: letting them know you support and love them

Meaning behind url: have you SEEN that eyebrow?????

8 people to tag bc I actually have 8 people to tag how wild is that (no pressure tho!!!)

@iwouldhavebroughtyouviolets , @tomwilsonisagod , @thegrumpygoalie , @speedyvrana , @mountain-ink , @softboybradenholtby , @kuzy-van-dijk , @thewinterbees (i tried tagging @snackstrom but tungle.hell hates me I guess)

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

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When Harry Met Enid

by Dan H

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

In which Dan dismisses Harry Potter as a jolly hockey-sticks boarding school romp.~

My childhood was almost embarrassingly suburban. We lived in a semi-detached house with privet hedges. I spent my evenings doing my homework, watching Children's BBC or reading. To fully round out the picture of cosy BBC normalcy, I should add that my preferred reading material, as a child, was a mixture of Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton.

I always preferred Dahl. His stories were strange, macabre, often surreal. His worlds were familiar yet peculiar, whimsical and disturbing. They were nice places to visit, but you most certainly wouldn't want to live there. It is perhaps interesting to note that, Great Glass Elevator aside, Dahl never went back to his worlds once the book had finished. His stories were self contained, they began at the beginning, and stopped at the end.

Blyton, of course, created a very different world. Teams of children with solid dependable names like Dick and Anne had very proper adventures while drinking lashings and lashings of ginger beer. Unlike Dahl, Blyton did write long-running series, the St Clare's and Malory Towers books followed the same cast of characters through their stint at boarding school, and of course the Famous Five and Secret Seven had endless adventures. Unlike Dahl, Blyton's world was ultimately a safe place, and gender aside I would have been quite happy to spend a summer term at St Clare's. I was and still am guiltily fond of Enid Blyton's 1950s utopia: it's nice sometimes to forget about the troubles of the real world, and escape to one where hardened criminals get their comeuppance at the hands of a gang of plucky twelve year olds.

A lot of people (JK Rowling first amongst them) like to talk about how much more there is to Harry Potter than to other children's books. They talk about the real danger that Harry faces, about how terribly, terribly dark Rowling's world is, and about how it's all very serious and mature. One Times reviewer, comparing Potter to the Worst Witch series writes:

But though Mildred, the Worst Witch, like Harry Potter, gets into scrapes with bullies and teachers, there is never a twinge of real terror in Murphy's imaginary world. Harry Potter experiences not only the ordinary trials and triumphs of the boarding-school genre, but repeated attempts to murder him.

This critic, I think, misses two important points. Firstly, while I admit that my memory of The Worst Witch is a little hazy, I am fairly certain that there actually is a villain in TWW who actually does have a plan to kill everybody in the school. Secondly, the repeated attempts to "murder" Harry are carried out by the most ineffectual, bungling, non-threatening group of incompetents ever to grace the pages of a children's book. Harry Potter's encounters with the Death Eaters are no more frightening than the Secret Seven's frequent run-ins with thieves and smugglers, and they represent no greater physical danger.

Now, I don't think this is a weakness in itself. When Harry and Ron confront the troll in Philosopher's Stone it's a genuinely exciting scene. We understand that Harry and Ron are willing to risk their lives for their friend thereby displaying the cardinal virtues of Courage and Friendship and Pluckyness. This scene is in no way marred by the fact that I do not on a rational level actually expect Harry, Ron, or Hermione to be killed. However, I do not think that the troll-fighting scene involves any more danger or sacrifice, or has any greater merit than (for example) the bit in The Naughtiest Girl in the School where Elizabeth risks detention in order to buy a birthday present for her less wealthy best friend. Both sequences involve the protagonist choosing to place themselves in danger (either physical danger in the case of Harry, or social danger in the case of the Naughtiest Girl) in order to help a friend. It doesn't matter whether the risk is of death or of detention, the point is the decision that the character makes, and the consequences that follow from it.

Thinking about it, it's this fixation on the physical events of the series (Harry Gets Attacked, Harry Goes Into The Dark Forest, Harry Fights Death Eaters), rather than the narrative points behind those events, which is responsible for most of the utter tosh that gets written about Harry Potter. The fans say "Harry Potter is placed in real, physical danger, this means that the Harry Potter series is Dark and therefore Good" the detractors say "Harry Potter is not placed in real, physical danger, this means that the Harry Potter series is Not Really Dark and therefore Not Really Good." Both of these groups of people completely miss the point. Harry Potter is a children's series about the importance of friendship and courage. Whether it chooses to illustrate those points with midnight feasts and ginger beer or with trolls and dragons and the occasional deaths of significant characters is completely beside the point. It is what it is, a children's adventure story set in a boarding school, with some wizards in it.

And that should be the end of it, and it would have been had something peculiar not happened to the series around about book four.

Harry Potter books 1-3 are excellent children's books. They combine exciting adventure with boarding school cosiness to produce thoroughly engaging stories about wizards and magic and the importance of friendship and courage. Books four to six (and I strongly suspect book seven will follow suit) are sub-par fantasy about Wizards and Magic.

Normally, this wouldn't annoy me as much as it does. It'd be a shame, but I'd cope. However I actually think that the course taken by the Potter books has actually had a detrimental effect on Children's Fiction as a whole.

It is absolutely right and correct to say that books for children are in no way inferior to books for adults. It is absolutely true that children are capable of dealing with issues far more complicated than adults give them credit for. Unfortunately this leads some people to the conclusion that there should be literally no difference between children's books and books for adults or, worse, that the merits of a children's book should be weighed according to how similar it is to a book for adults.

So many of the things which the later Harry Potter books are praised for the richness of the world, the complexity of the overarching plot are attributes which belong to adult, not children's fiction. That is not to say that children's fiction cannot be complex, but that its complexities should lie in areas other than the intricacies of the backplot and the precise functioning of Horcruxes.

To put it another way: Snape in the first book is complex in precisely the right way for a children's book. We start out thinking that he is Bad, but it turns out that he is Good. This is a nice twist, and children are smart enough to appreciate the moral complexity of it. Snape is horrible, but he is a good person. Snape in the later books is "complex" in precisely the wrong way for a children's book. He is a tangle of conflicting motivations, which may or may not actually make very much sense. He's probably going to wind up having been in love with Lily Potter, and blame himself for her death and blah blah blah.

Now I'm not saying that children are incapable of understanding characters with complex motivations. I'm saying that children won't gain anything by being asked to understand characters with complex motivations (particularly when said motivations are spurious and rather cliched). When you hear children talk about the Potter books, they always talk about how much they love the wizards and the broomsticks, you hear remarkably few people saying "well I'm really interested in the formative childhood experiences of Severus Snape."

Just look at the great classics of children's literature (particularly fantastic children's literature). We aren't asked to analyse the motivations of the Mock Turtle, or wonder whether the Queen of Hearts is really as bad as she seems. Nobody expects us to be interested in the political climate of Oz (well ... Gregory Maguire does). Children's books shouldn't be preoccupied with the same petty minutiae which fill up so much adult literature (particularly fantasy literature). In pandering to the fans' desire to speculate about the inner workings of her magical world (guess what folks, it doesn't have any, it's completely nonsensical) Rowling is breeding a generation of "book lovers" accustomed to the worst excesses of the fantasy genre.

Dahl, Carroll, Baum and the others may not have had the "moral" heart of the Harry Potter books (at least, that's Miss Rowling's analysis), but they had an imagination which far exceeds the few simple ideas which JK spins out over the Potter series. They may not have had long running plots, or complex character arcs (like the "Lupin shacks up with Tonks" arc or the "Harry goes out with Ginny for all of five minutes" arc), but for pity's sake children get enough of that sort of thing watching Eastenders.

JK Rowling is raising a generation of children to value world above plot, plot above meaning, and volume of written material above everything.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Rami

at 14:07 on 2006-12-20I don't read Harry Potter, but I agree with your points about Children's Fiction As A Whole - it *shouldn't* just be adult fiction with shorter words and more colorful packaging!

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Wardog

at 13:04 on 2007-01-01And Harry Potter, of course, has its range of "adult" covers, as if to further distance itself from the rest of children's fiction. As I shall surely write in an article of my very own, JK seems to be no longer writing books for children, she's writing books for Harry Potter fans which is actually a completely different thing.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 17:59 on 2012-04-21"Snape He's probably going to wind up having been in love with Lily Potter, and blame himself for her death and blah blah blah..."

Wow! You're a prophetic genius! How _do_ you do that? ;)

You hate JK Rowling as much as I hate Dan Brown. Let's get together and do coffee! :) Though I actually enjoyed the Potter series *ducks* I recognize it for the big magic soap opera it is. I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

Whatever you may think of Rowling, you gotta give her credit for getting young kids around the world excited about

reading

. That's no small feat. Sorry if the visual image of a 5 year old hugging the latest Harry Potter tome to their elated breast gives you the vapors, but I find it inspiring. :P

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Dan H

at 22:32 on 2012-04-21

Whatever you may think of Rowling, you gotta give her credit for getting young kids around the world excited about reading.

Obviously getting kids to read is good, but I'm genuinely not convinced JKR actually increased the amount of books read by children - I strongly suspect that the sorts of kids who read Harry Potter are the sorts of kids who would have been reading anyway. I think the anecdotal evidence gets skewed here in the sense that for kids-who-read, there is likely to be a particular author who you remember as being the author who got you into reading (for me it was Dahl with a side order of Pratchett) and while I think there's a generation of kids for whom that author was Rowling, I don't think that's quite the same as Rowling getting kids to read. It's like the Yoko Factor in reverse, the kids got themselves to read, Rowling was just there at the time.

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Arthur B

at 00:31 on 2012-04-22Plus: getting lots of kids to read is benign enough. Getting lots of kids to

all read the same stuff

brings me out in chills.

As a young person the most valuable books I read were the ones which were strictly speaking not actually intended for people my age.

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Sister Magpie

at 06:03 on 2012-04-22I could swear I remember reading some actual research about this idea with HP. The basic result was, unsurprisingly, that while HP did certainly get kids interested in reading those books (just as Star Wars got kids interested in seeing Star Wars), the number of readers (meaning kids who read for pleasure) was basically the same.

So essentially the same idea--there are now a lot of adult readers whose first amazing books were HP, but the generation that were kids when HP came out don't have a higher percentage of readers as a result.

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James D

at 06:56 on 2012-04-22Man, that's kind of depressing. There must also be kids out there whose 'first amazing books' were the Twilight series.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 15:17 on 2012-04-22Yeah, some kids are just readers. They'll read whatever's in front of them, whether it's Harry Potter or the cereal box. Kids who don't like to read because reading is hard or boring will just wait to see the movies, as always.

I'm honestly impressed with Rowling for tapping exactly the right cultural vein at the right time. I mean, the woman literally wrote books that managed to appeal to *every kind of person everywhere*. Even people who hated the books enjoyed hating them, and often for very different reasons. She tried to give everyone everything and failed spectacularly, but she did manage to give everyone something. And she did it just by being herself and writing the kind of books she would want to read.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 16:22 on 2012-04-22I'd like to see those statistics about how the number of kids reading Potter were "reading kids" anyway. I'm writing from the states and let me tell you, seeing American kids

under

7 years old _pack_ bookstores (and I'm talking the

big

chains here) just to read a story was a new phenomena to me. Kids that young usually are not into reading as a rule.

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Arthur B

at 16:25 on 2012-04-22

I'd like to see those statistics about how the number of kids reading Potter were "reading kids" anyway. I'm writing from the states and let me tell you, seeing American kids under 7 years old _pack_ bookstores (and I'm talking the bigchains here) just to read a story was a new phenomena to me. Kids that young usually are not into reading as a rule.

Were they packing the bookstores year-round or just around the Potter release dates? Because if it's the latter, that might just be a side effect of them all being keen to read the same books by the same author rather than being particularly more keen to read than their forebears.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 16:28 on 2012-04-22

James D: Man, that's kind of depressing. There must also be kids out there whose 'first amazing books' were the Twilight series.

I see what you did there. :P

God, that would be even

depressing, wouldn't it?

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Sister Magpie

at 17:17 on 2012-04-22

I don't have the actual statistics, but the upshot of what I read was the opposite. It wasn't that the books were read by kids who were readers anyway. They were also read by non-readers because they were a huge thing everyone wanted to read. But they didn't get kids interested in reading so much as interested in Harry Potter. So it didn't create readers, it created HP fans who read that.

Though in my experience having worked at a kids' bookstore there are plenty of kids who would pack a bookstore to hear a story. There just aren't huge events where a specific book coming out brings in the crowd all at once--which of course was true for adult readers with HP too.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:21 on 2012-04-22I think if the goal was to get kids to start reading Harry Potter and then graduate them to actual good books, it didn't work. There are kids who read Harry Potter and nothing else, which doesn't quite make them "readers."

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 20:09 on 2012-04-22

I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

That was never the problem- Pratchett, at least, was annoyed at the way she was presented in the news as if she was the first person ever to put MAGIC in books for CHILDREN, etc, in pieces obviously written by people who do not read fantasy (and yet think they know what's what in the genre).

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http://lonewolf-eburg.livejournal.com/

at 21:07 on 2012-04-22The main problem with Harry Potter isn't that the books stop being "children's books" halfway though. "These books are no longer for children" is a statement that implies something that is nor positive, nor negative.

The problem is that in the later books, "childlike" elements inherited from earlier ones uncomfortably mesh with the new "adult stuff". I'd argue that in HBP and DH this is particularly noticeable, though two previous books suffer from that as well. As a result, both the series and every particular post-PoA book taken in itself have a hard time realizing who the hell is their primary audience. That results in a lot of dissonant Mood Whiplashes, aborted storylines and themes as the narrative merrily goes from "childlike" to "adult" and back again, and inconsistent characterization.

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TheMerryMustelid

at 21:19 on 2012-04-22TheMerryMustelid:

I have no illusions that it's great literature, but I think fellow fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett are just a _mite_ jealous that she captured the youth market before they did.

http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

Didn't Pratchett also take Rowling to task for effectively saying her books

weren't

fantasy? Like she was trying to distance her series from the "taint" of the genre or something. If she did say something as bone-headed as that, I don't blame him for jumping down her throat.

I love Pratchett and am happy to see him finally getting a wider audience in the States. For many years it seemed he was almost the American fantasy geek's best kept secret. I used to sneer at Terry Brooks readers while I clutched the latest then-hard-to-find Pratchett tome. But that was way back and Pratchett has had good american distribution for at least a decade now.

Ogg is my Co-pilot. :D

To get back on topic, if it's statistically true that Rowling didn't inspire more kids to read beyond her series, that is too bad, but is it necessarily her fault? One of my little pet theories is that fantasy in general has benefitted from the Harry Potter frenzy, because during the waits between Potter books & after the series ended, readers needed something to fill the void. So in effect, Rowling did help other fantasy writers by making fantasy more popular than ever before, even mainstream.

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Sister Magpie

at 00:04 on 2012-04-23I don't think anybody would say it was her fault. It came up, I think, because there were a lot of people crediting her with single-handedly boosting literacy rates etc. That idea has gotten repeated a lot, so it just gets corrected. Blaming her for not performing that feat is like blaming her for not actually being able to fly a broomstick--I don't think anybody could do it!

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Dan H

at 09:37 on 2012-04-23

The main problem with Harry Potter isn't that the books stop being "children's books" halfway though. "These books are no longer for children" is a statement that implies something that is nor positive, nor negative.

I think I disagree, but only margainally. I think "these books are no longer for children" does in fact imply something negative, simply because it implies - well - all of the stuff you mention later.

The reason I would suggest that it was bad for a series of children's books to become a series of books for adults is simply that it is inevitable that the "for kids" stuff doesn't fit with the "for adults" stuff. Part of the problem here is that people seem to forget that you can have a dark, serious story in which bad things happen to people which is still fundamentally a children's story, or a lighthearted wacky romp which is still for grownups.

Rowling's error - essentially - was that she mistakenly believed that the only way to engage with the "serious" themes she wanted to engage with in her children's stories was for her to stop writing children's books.

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http://lonewolf-eburg.livejournal.com/

at 15:16 on 2012-04-23I agree that JKR's OMGADULT!change was always going to have some problems, but I also think that she could've done more to alleviate the problem of thematic discordance. She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

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Frank

at 17:04 on 2012-04-23I, too, recall reading that HP did not increase readers. My understanding is that the series may have increased literacy within age groups. Increasing one's ability to read books does not necessarily make one a reader of books.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:24 on 2012-04-23I agree that after about book three Rowling was no longer clear which market she was targeting, and it didn't matter because she was solidly hitting all of them. I can imagine her and her publishers having their minds blown by their success and wanting more of it, without really being sure what was working and shouldn't be changed and where they had room to let her go crazy and do what she liked. There may not have been a conscious choice to turn the books "adult," but an organic growth in that direction, which no editor ever bothered to sit down and take a good look at and realize just how fucked up it was.

Basically, I think Rowling was a decently talented newbie who was deeply injured by her early success, and it'll be interesting to see whether she ever recovers from it as a writer.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 17:34 on 2012-04-23

She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

I think closer to the end, her only thought was "finish these fucking books so I can get the fuck on with my life." It's probably more that she simply didn't care what she wrote anymore as long as she got words on paper, and her editors cared even less.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 20:06 on 2012-04-23

She didn't seem to be aware that she has a problem that needs fixing at all.

Given that her next book seems to be a satire on the State of the Nation, I'd say she does at least realise that a work primarily for adults will allow her more room to engage with the ideas she wants to in the manner which she would like. As Dan and others have noted, the social commentary in HP was hampered by the fact that it was ultimately a story about the Chosen One defeating the Dark Lord.

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http://lonewolf-eburg.livejournal.com/

at 20:29 on 2012-04-23I think that Scipio is correct here. To make her later books truly "grow" and be consistent at least in themselves (even if we disregard the earlier ones), JKR needed her books to change from "ultimately a story about the Chosen One defeating the Dark Lord". But while some fanfiction writers could do that (with varying degrees of success), Rowling, understandably, couldn't afford it.

That's why GoF and OotP weren't as bad as DH. In then, JKR could allow herself to deviate a little. HBP, IMO, is just plain badly written.

"I'd say she does at least realise that a work primarily for adults will allow her more room to engage with the ideas she wants to in the manner which she would like"

To be fair, sometimes fantasy can be a good vessel for real-world commentary. But then, see the previous points made on the thread.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 19:05 on 2012-04-24

To be fair, sometimes fantasy can be a good vessel for real-world commentary. But then, see the previous points made on the thread.

Oh, definitely. One of my favourite fantasies of the moment is Shadows of the Apt, which tries very hard to engage with race, privilege and the nature of prejudice and discrimination in general. I just think that a series for children is perhaps not the best medium for that sort of thing.

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #Roald Dahl #Enid Blyton #J.K. Rowling #Dan H

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