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shannygoatgruff · 4 years ago

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Only Fan(s) - A Thriller

Genre: Thriller

Pairing: Modern Ivar/OC

Warning: Language, sex, stalking, obsession, kidnapping, sexual assault

Rating: MA+18

Summary: Sometimes OnlyFans subscribers want a little more than internet pictures. Sometimes they want to be your ONLY fan…

Header by: @flowers-in-your-hayr

Thanks to @xbellaxcarolinax for being my beta.

Disclaimer: This story will deal with some topics that might be a little uncomfortable for some people. As always, I’ll try to tackle the hard stuff as tactfully as possible.

a/n: I wrote this months ago and let it sit on the shelf. I’m finally ready to dust it off and give it another go...so let’s see what it do...

Part iii - Trifecta

Torren Sykes hadn’t lived what anyone would consider an exciting life. In fact, in her twenty-three years, she had only just left her mom’s double-wide trailer in East Bumble Fuck less than a year ago. Not quite 365 days later, she still didn’t have a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of.

Truthfully, she usually didn’t know where she would be getting her next meal - that sort of thing wasn’t really a big deal to her. She actually liked the mystery of it all. There was something undeniably sexy about not knowing what the day would bring - who she would run into, or have to take something off of to survive. If someone else had to get hurt so she could make it through another day, such was life. She’d won. Those other people just needed to be better at playing the fucking game, plain and simple.

Besides, pulling a caper or two kept her on her toes. She learned how to pull off the best of them from her mother. It’s not like adulting was one of Leslie’s strong suits.

If only her mother had been more like her Me-Maw, now that woman was a saint. For reasons that Torren never cared to ask, she lived with her Me-Maw until she was five years old. Leslie would periodically visit her to drop off the obligatory present on Christmas or her birthday if that bitch remembered. Not that they were ever good presents – just some cheap ass, unwrapped items she happened to pick up at the dollar store. Torren couldn't remember a gift that she had received wasn't still in the plastic bag with the receipt in it.

Cheap, whore.

Just once she would have liked a real baby doll from Toys-R-Us, instead of those cheap, hard, plastic dolls that the hand molds weren't cut out evenly, and the jagged edges cut the shit out of her face when she tried to sleep with it. But, that was Leslie. Torren didn't choose her; Leslie sure as shit didn't choose her daughter.

It became painfully clear to Torren that her mother didn’t want anything to do with her after her Me-Maw died. Unfortunately, she found herself as her mother’s unwitting roommate at a very young age, forcing the girl to spend a lot of time alone.

By the time she turned nine, Torren was convinced that her mother was a prostitute and she was a trick baby. It was the only explanation she could come up with seeing as how her mother never worked but always had enough money to pay the rent, keep the lights on, and have plenty of booze, chips, and hot dogs in the fridge.

Not that Torren had many other life experiences with a working parent to compare her situation to, but it just seemed pretty fucking difficult to have a job if one were passed out drunk all the fucking time. Besides, who had time to work when during your waking hours you were spending them with one of your many, many boyfriends?

Torren used to wonder if one of the multitudes of men that would traipse in and out of that trailer were her father - but the more she got to know what type of person Leslie was, the more she realized that whoever that guy was, had gotten the hell out of dodge.

Lucky son-of-a-bitch.

But for all of Leslie’s flaws, she did manage to impart her three philosophies of life onto her daughter - the three things that Torren still lived by to this day. It was the least she could do. God knows that whore sure as fuck didn’t do anything else for her.

Mama’s Life Lessons #1 - There is no such thing as too much black eyeliner

As trivial as it sounded, it proved to be a precious lesson. Shortly after she had moved into the trailer, Leslie had forced Torren to sit on the bed and watch as she got ready for another one of her "dates". She had told the little girl that beautiful eyes were the one good gene that ran in their family. “You got to learn how to work ‘em,” Leslie exhaled a long plume of smoke at her reflection in the vanity mirror, “You listenin'? This's important. This right here," she held up the black liner pencil, “is gonna be your best friend.”

Of course, Torren had no idea what she meant. How was a pencil going to her friend? She didn’t really care so much as what her mother was saying to her at the moment, it was more of the fact that she was actually talking to her that made Torren hang on to every word.

That’s why she picked up the black liner pencil from her mother's cluttered vanity table and leaned over to look in the mirror. She tried tracing her bottom lid, the way her mother had done, but at six it was a little easier said than done. She had just learned how to color inside the lines with a fat crayon; mastering the art of applying liner would have to wait a few more years.

Leslie, however, was not willing to wait that long, "What the hell's amatta wit'chu, Dumbass? You doin' it all wrong," she said snatching the pencil from the girl's hand. Grabbing Torren roughly by the chin she said, "Gotta teach you every goddamn thing. Hold still." She mumbled more curses and said something about her good-for-nothing mother not teaching her brat anything useful.

By the time she had finished cursing her name, Leslie roughly turned her daughter's head toward the mirror, "Yeah you got those eyes. Now, learn to use ‘em.” Leslie dropped the pencil onto the vanity before picking up her drink and shooing Torren away.

That was the day that Drew Watkins bought her an ice cream. It had to be the eyeliner. It was a true fact, not just another one of her mother's drunken theories. Eyeliner and her eyes...she didn’t know how she used them, but they worked.

From that day on Torren opted to never step foot outside without heavy black liner again.

Mama’s Life Lessons #2 - As long as there are men around that want to fuck you, you will never need to work

It wasn’t like she going to go out and get a real job. She wasn’t raised with much of a work ethic. She was too young to remember if her Me-Maw worked and what she gathered from her mother was that there would always be men around to take care of her.

Leslie told her that she didn’t need to work because working a man was a full-time job. If she were doing that right, she wouldn’t have time for a fucking 9-5. It didn’t matter if he was in a relationship, gay, or the fucking Pope. As long as he a dick and she could bend over, and her eyes were done, her rent was as good as paid.

If she wanted more than just the basic bills paid, she would have to rethink what all she was willing to do - but just make sure she didn’t do too much otherwise she couldn’t guarantee a steady paycheck every week.

This sage advice didn’t make much sense to 8-year-old Torren, but as the years progressed she started to work it into one of her life’s mottos. She would never want for anything. She could always rely on the kindness of strangers and when that got to be too boring, she could always take it, just to spice things up a bit.

Mama’s Life Lessons #3 - If you want something do whatever it takes to make sure you get it

As a child that grew up with the television as a babysitter, Torren Sykes knew that she was destined to love Ivar “Lothbrok” Ragnarsson since she was a little girl. Ever since that day she turned on the TV and saw this adorable blue-eyed boy drawing Mickey Mouse ears saying, “I’m Ivar Lothbrok and you’re watching the Disney Channel,” she knew that he had to be hers.

He was co-starring on a show called The Baker Boys, about three foster kids, who had come to live with a family that owned a bakery. Ivar’s character was named Simon Baker - a mischievous kid that lived with his grandmother until she died and never felt like he fit in with this cookie-cutter family.

His life was just like hers - minus the cookie-cutter family that loved him and all. She was actually with more of an alcoholic whore that didn’t give a shit if she lived or died, and not pulling stunts in a bakery with flour and messing up orders like him, but she still saw them as kindred spirits.

When the show got canceled she was devastated. How dare the world try to keep her from her man? Didn’t they understand this was love? Didn’t those people at Disneyland know that he was the only person in the world that understood her?

As if on queue, she happened to find the Season 2 DVD box-set at the library one afternoon. Her mother had kicked her out of the trailer because she had a date and couldn’t have the dumbass child around fucking things up for her. Torren had nothing else to do - at 11-years-old, she had no money, and nowhere to go. At least the library was air-conditioned.

She wanted that box-set. Slipping it into her backpack unnoticed was the easy part. Trying to get it past the alarms would be harder. She watched for a while, paying particular attention to the way the check-out system worked.

When the librarians changed shifts, she let a smile cross her lips as she picked a few random books from the shelves.

Her beautiful eyes went as big as saucers when the alarm buzzed, and the young male librarian looked down at her, still clutching the large reference book to her check. Carefully she had stepped across to the other side of the alarm sensor waiting to collect the books she was checking out.

“I’m sorry, you can’t check out reference books,” the young man said, blinking his hazel eyes at Torren, the corner of his lip tugging into a smile.

She let a pout fall on her lips as she lowered her large eyes down to the book in her arms, “Oh...sorry.” She handed the book back, “I didn’t realize I still had it.” And like that, she walked out of the library with her prize.

She had stolen for Ivar...now if that wasn’t love what was?

The only thing that had threatened their love through the years is when Ivar got married. It damn near broke Torren’s heart. How could he be so cruel? She didn’t give a fuck that the marriage was short-lived. She even understood why he had to do it. He had gotten that bitch pregnant, and he didn’t have much choice. But, he cut her deep.

Didn’t he know how much she loved him? Didn’t he know that she stuck by him when he had joined 6cess and had seen him in concert 3 times? She still had the autographed photo of the two of them from the signing at Spring Hills Mall - when she was wearing that blue midriff cardigan and ripped jeans and he had his arm around her. That shirt brought out the color in his eyes. She even wore Happy, which he said was his favorite perfume. She thought it smelled like Comet, but she stole a bottle of it from Macy’s right before the photo-op to smell good for him.

And he went and pulled this shit?

Besides, Johnny Law said that she was still too young for him and that he could get arrested for being with her. She knew that he had to pretend to have a normal life so that no one would know about their love affair. She was just understanding like that. It gave her time to grow up a little more so that when they could he be together, the law wouldn't be standing in their way. She really didn't give a fuck, but she suspected he did. Why else hadn't he come for her?

Torren didn’t even like their music. She wasn’t a boyband kind of girl, but for him, she would make the exception. She was more of the gangsta rap or heavy metal type girl. But if Ivar was serenading her, she’d listen to sappy, wrist-slitting, emo, shit rock all fucking day long, because she loved him.

She hated that he had gotten that whore pregnant, too. She understood that he had to pretend that they had a normal marriage. She knew that when he was fucking that bitch, he was really imagining it was her. The years apart had made him a master at hiding his true feelings for her. He couldn't give anyone cause for suspicion. If he let on the truth he could risk losing everything…his house, cars, job, and his kid. That whore was trying to keep them apart. But, she was just a small obstacle that posed no real threat to Torren.

She did not doubt that she would be his daughter's new mommy. The kid would probably be sad at first that she wouldn't be with that other woman like Torren had been when her grandmother died. But, the kid would get used to it. Torren was going to be a whole hell of a lot better at being a mom than her piece of shit mother was to her. That was for damn sure. She was going to teach her stepdaughter all about eyeliner, and how to dye her hair.

She was going to teach her what party clothes every woman should have in her wardrobe and how to get a man to do whatever she wanted by just batting her eyes at him. She would even share her secrets on what pills to mix and what dosages to give for submission, making a man catatonic, and if she was really good, she'd teach what to put in a drink to kill someone. Hell, she even planned on giving the child her most discrete drug contacts. That would of course have to wait until she was older – at least 13. She was going to be such a good mommy.

Ivar's daughter was going to love Torren as much as Torren loved him. They were going to be the perfect family.

Torren was as hopelessly devoted to Ivar as he was to her. He had waited for her to become legal. Just months before she was old enough to legally consent to sex, and get married without parental permission, his marriage started falling apart. She knew that Ivar was trying to make a clean break from his wife, and get his daughter used to the idea of them being apart before he could come home to her.

Torren had been thoughtful and respectful enough to give him that space to make sure everything was right before she stepped into the role of the new Mrs. Lothbrok. He had to test the waters, make sure that she still wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had to get back into the swing of things…have sex constantly to make sure he could keep up with her. She knew that "the prude" wasn't doing it nearly as often as he needed to - why else would he have an Only Fans page?

Torren was the only one that could feed his appetite, and he hers.

Now, they were both finally ready. She was mature and developed. She knew what she needed, and it was him. He had his fun before her, but now he was auditioning again and getting everything back on track for them. He had a great relationship with his daughter and his dumb ass ex-wife finally understood that their relationship was a fling that went too far.

His face told her everything that her heart already knew. He loved her.

Why else would be looking at her like that? She could feel herself blush when he smiled on Instagram like that into them. Then he gave her that smile. That was her smile; the one that he reserved for her during their private times. Yet, there he was doing it in front of an audience of millions, and he didn't care who saw it. He had to let her know that it was time for her to come home. It was like a sleeper cell being awakened.

She didn't have a choice. She did what any other woman in her position would do. She packed a bag, threw it in the car she stole a few days before and drove. Armed with her trifecta of knowledge and determination, she prepared to face the obstacles that were bound to get in her way. There was nothing that was going to stop her from getting her man.

Nothing.

Part ii || Part iv

Tags: @ideagarden-blog1 @youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @a-mess-of-fandoms @didiintheblog @conaionaru @peachyboneless @flowers-in-your-hayr @heavenly1927 @zuxiezendler @waiting4inspiration @saldelys @didiintheblog @revolution-starter

#OnlyFan(s)#modern ivar #shannyland #trifecta

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to-read-or-not-to-read3088 · 3 years ago

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70+ disabled, neurodiverse and chronically ill authors COLLAB

This post is in collaboration with several other bloggers whose links are included here:

Artie Carden

Anniek

Hi! It’s been a while since I posted anything, but this post has been a month in the making. I have twenty books by twenty authors for my part in this collaboration, and you can check out the other parts of the collab with the links at the top of the post.

I haven’t read some of these books but almost all of them are on my to be read pile, and I did extensive research to make sure I got this right, but please let me know if there are any mistakes or if anything needs to be corrected.

1. Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

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Meet Cute Diary follows Noah Ramirez who thinks he’s an expert on romance. He must be for his blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem. All the stories are fake. What started off as the fantasies of a trans boy who was afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe. Noah’s world unravels when a troll exposes the blog as fiction, and the only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. That’s when Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place. Drew is willing to fake date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realises that dating in real life isn’t the same as finding love on the page.

The author, Emery Lee, is a kid lit author, artist and YouTuber hailing from a mixed racial background. After graduating with a degree in creative writing, e’s gone on to author novels, short stories and webcomics. When away from reading and writing, you’ll likely find em engaged in art or snuggling with cute dogs.

Emery Lee is nonbinary, and uses e/em pronouns, and e’s debut book, Meet Cute Diary, features a side character who is also nonbinary (and asexual!). Emery is also neurodivergent, and frequently speaks about what its like being a writer with adhd on twitter.

Meet Cute Diary is a book I only discovered last month, when it was published, but I’m excited to read it. It has representation of all kinds, and I love any book that has even a little mention of an asexual character because its so rare to see.

2. Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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At Niveus Private Academy money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because an anonymous texter calling themselves Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light. Devon, a talented musician, buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Chiamaka, head girl, isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they’re planning much more than a high school game.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, is the author of the instant New York Times and IndieBound bestseller, Ace of Spades, billed as ‘Get out meets Gossip Girl’. Entertainment Weekly has called it “this summer’s hottest YA debut”. She was born and raised in Croydon, South London, and Faridah moved to the Scottish Highlands for her undergraduate degree where she completed a BA in English Literature. She has established and runs and mentorship scheme for unagented writers of colour, helping them on their journey to get published. Faridah has also written for NME, The Bookseller, Readers Digest and gal-dem.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s book is one that I pre-ordered months in advance, after discovering that I actually really liked this sub-genre of YA, and although I still haven’t read it yet (sorry!), I’m still super excited to dive into it. From what I hear, it has some gay rep, which we all know by now is something I seek out in my books.

3. Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal

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Priya has worked hard to pursue her pre med dreams at Stanford, but a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease during her sophomore year sends her straight back to her loving but overbearing family in New Jersey and leaves her wondering if she’ll ever be able to return to the way things were. Thankfully she has her online pen pal, Brigid, and the rest of the members of “oof ouch my bones,” a virtual support group that meets on Discord to crack jokes and vent about their own chronic illnesses. When Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya does something very out of character; she steals the family car and drives to Pennsylvania to check on Brigid. Priya isn’t sure what to expect, but it isn’t the creature that’s shut in the basement. With Brigid nowhere in sight, Priya begins to puzzle together an impossible but obvious truth: the creature might be werewolf – and the werewolf might be Brigid. As Brigid’s unique condition worsens, their friendship will be deepened and challenged in unexpected ways, forcing them to reckon with their own ideas of what it means to be normal.

Kristen O’Neal is a freelance writer who’s written for sites like Buzzfeed Reader, Christianity Today, Birth.Movies.Death, LitHub and Electric Literature. She writes about faith, culture, and unexplained phenomena. Her debut novel, Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is based on her own experiences with being chronically ill. Kristen has two autoimmune disorders and “a number of other problems and issues” with her body. According to her website, she is doing much better than she used to, but still has flares somewhat regularly.

I cannot describe the feeling of seeing a published book with the best group chat name I have ever seen. Oof ouch my bones is absolutely something that I would be part of if it really existed, because its just such a mood, and funny at the same time. I pre ordered this book too, but like all the others, I still haven’t gotten around to reading it. I’m super excited about it though and cannot recommend it enough.

4. Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

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Will Tavares is the dream summer fling – he’s fun, affectionate, kind – but just when Ollie thinks he’s found his Happily Ever After, summer vacation ends, and Will stops texting Ollie back. Now Ollie is one prince short of his fairy tale ending, and to complicate the fairy tale further, a family emergency sees Ollie uprooted and enrolled at a new school across the country. Which he minds a little less when he realises it’s the same school Will goes to…except Ollie finds out that the sweet, comfortably queer guy he knew from summer isn’t the same one attending Collinswood High. This Will is a class clown, closeted – and to be honest, a jerk. Ollie has no intention of pining after a guy who clearly isn’t ready for a relationship, especially since this new, bro-y jock version of Will seems to go from hot to cold every other week. But then Will starts “coincidentally” popping up in every area of Ollie’s life, from music class to the lunch table, and Ollie finds his resolve weakening. The last time he gave Will his heart, Will handed it back to him trampled and battered. Ollie would have to be an idiot to trust him with it again. Right? Right.

Sophie Gonzales was born and raised in Whyalla, South Australia, where the Outback Meets the Sea. She now lives in Melbourne, where there’s no outback in sight. Sophie’s been writing since the age of five, when her mother decided to help her type out one of the stories she had come up with in the bathtub. They ran into artistic differences when five-year-old Sophie insisted that everybody die in the end, while her mother wanted the characters to simply go out for a milkshake. Since then, Sophie has been completing her novels without a transcript. Sophie Gonzales tweets about her experiences with ADHD on her twitter.

Only mostly devasted is one of the few books on this list that I’ve read. I read the whole thing in one sitting because I just couldn’t put it down, which is weird because I normally don’t read contemporary at all. I have recommended this book to literally everyone I know, and even bought my best friend a copy to convince her to read it.

5. The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd Jones

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Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family, and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meagre existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead. The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good? Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.

Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. After graduating from Western Oregon University with an English degree, she enrolled in the publishing program at Rosemont College just outside of Philadelphia. She currently resides in Northern California.

Another book on my to be read pile that I’m super excited to read, but still haven’t gotten around to. This one features disability rep, but because I haven’t read it, I don’t know much more, sorry guys.

6. Mooncakes by Susanne Walker and Wendy Xu

📷Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers' bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town. One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home. Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

Suzanne Walker is a Chicago-based writer and editor. She is co-creator of the Hugo-nominated graphic novel Mooncakes (2019, Lion Forge/Oni Press). Her short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld and Uncanny Magazine, and she has published nonfiction articles with Uncanny Magazine, StarTrek.com, Women Write About Comics, and the anthology Barriers and Belonging: Personal Narratives of Disability. She has spoken at numerous conventions on a variety of topics ranging from disability representation in sci-fi/fantasy to comics collaboration.

Wendy Xu is a Brooklyn-based illustrator and comics artist. She is co-creator of and currently draws the webcomic Mooncakes. Her work has been featured on Tor.com, as part of the Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion exhibit permanently housed at the Chinese Historical Society of America, and in Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. She occasionally teaches at the Asian American Writers Workshop and currently works as an assistant editor curating young adult and children’s books.

Suzanne Walker suffers from hearing loss, something that she wrote into her graphic novel, Mooncakes, making Nova hard of hearing. I read this in a few years ago as an advance reader copy for Netgalley and it was honestly one of the best graphic novels I have ever read. The main characters are Chinese American, queer AND magic, which is an amazing combination of representation.

7. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone… A convict with a thirst for revenge A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager A runaway with a privileged past A spy known as the Wraith A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy novels and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, The Language of Thorns, and King of Scars—with more to come. Her short stories can be found in multiple anthologies, including the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. Her other works include Wonder Woman: Warbringer and Ninth House (Goodreads Choice Winner for Best Fantasy 2019) which is being developed for television by Amazon Studios.

Leigh grew up in Southern California and graduated from Yale University. These days she lives and writes in Los Angeles.

In the acknowledgements section of Six of Crows, Bardugo reveals she suffers from osteonecrosis and sometimes needs to use a cane; this was a source of inspiration for one of the story's six protagonists, master thief and gang boss Kaz Brekker, who uses a cane.

I read Six of Crows a few years ago and I really loved it. I’m not going to pretend I managed to finish the whole Grishaverse series, because I haven’t even gotten close yet, but it really showed Kaz’s struggles with his disability, and his mental health. This is part of a duology, and the duology is part of a large series of books with another duology and trilogy, but Six of Crows can be read without reading the others.

8. Hyperbole and A Half by Allie Brosh

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This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So, I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Allie is an American blogger, writer and comic artist best known for her blog in the form of a webcomic Hyperbole and a Half. Brosh started Hyperbole in 2009 and told stories from her life in a mix of text and intentionally crude illustrations. She has published two books telling stories in the same style, both of which have been New York Times bestsellers. Brosh lives with severe depression and ADHD, and her comics on depression have won praise from fans and mental health professionals.

Another book on my tbr that I just haven’t gotten around to but really want to.

9. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

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What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just must find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions...

Patrick Ness, an award-winning novelist, has written for England’s Radio 4 and Sunday Telegraph and is a literary critic for The Guardian. He has written many books, including the Chaos Walking Trilogy, The Crash of Hennington, Topics About Which I Know Nothing, and A Monster Calls. He has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Born in Virginia, he currently lives in London.

Patrick Ness has written about OCD and anxiety in at least two of his books, inspired by his own experiences with the two disorders and how it affects him (The Rest of Us Just Live Here & Release)

10. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.

Seanan lives in an idiosyncratically designed labyrinth in the Pacific Northwest, which she shares with her cats, Alice and Thomas, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She has strongly held and oft-expressed beliefs about the origins of the Black Death, the X-Men, and the need for chainsaws in daily life.

Years of writing blurbs for convention program books have fixed Seanan in the habit of writing all her bios in the third person, to sound marginally less dorky. Stress is on the "marginally." It probably doesn't help that she has so many hobbies.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.

Seanan McGuire has an invisible disability due to herniated disks in her spine. She is slowly coming to terms with this, and talks about it occasionally on her twitter, and about the struggles she faces.

I loved this book, and so did my best friend. We both read it in one sitting and talked nonstop about it afterwards. Although short, its filled with amazing characters, plot, and representation (asexual character!!)

11. Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honour they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead 📷of paper, she's made of fire. In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it's Lei they're after -- the girl with the golden eyes whose rumoured beauty has piqued the king's interest. Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king's consort. There, she does the unthinkable -- she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world's entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.

Natasha Ngan is a writer and yoga teacher. She grew up between Malaysia, where the Chinese side of her family is from, and the UK. This multicultural upbringing continues to influence her writing, and she is passionate about bringing diverse stories to teens. Ngan studied Geography at the University of Cambridge before working as a social media consultant and fashion blogger. She lives in France with her partner, where they recently moved from Paris to be closer to the sea. Her novel Girls of Paper and Fire was a New York Times bestseller. Natasha has a heart condition, and talks about her struggles with her health, and gives updates on her health and her books on twitter.

I’ve heard a lot about this book, but for trigger warning reasons it sadly isn’t on my to be read list. Everything I’ve heard about it says its an amazing book though, and the cover is beautiful.

12. Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

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Three friends, two love stories, one convention: this fun, feminist love letter to geek culture is all about fandom, friendship, and finding the courage to be yourself. Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought. Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favourite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Jen Wilde is the YA author of QUEENS OF GEEK, THE BRIGHTSIDERS and GOING OFF SCRIPT. She writes unapologetically queer stories about geeks, rockstars, and fangirls who smash the patriarchy in their own unique ways. Her books have been praised in Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Vulture and Bustle. Originally from Australia, Jen now lives in NYC where she spends her time writing, drinking too much coffee and binging reality TV.

Researching for this collab was the first time this book popped up on my radar as something I might be interested in reading. Jen Wilde, the author, is herself autistic and suffers from anxiety, which gives the narrative “authenticity that is lacking in similar books” according to socialjusticebooks.org.

13. The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

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Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So, she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. There’s only one problem: Molly’s co-worker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Becky Albertalli is the author of the acclaimed novels Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (film: Love, Simon), The Upside of Unrequited, and Leah on the Offbeat. She is also the co-author of What If It's Us with Adam Silvera. A former clinical psychologist who specialized in working with children and teens, Becky lives with her family in Atlanta.

Becky Albertalli has generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and has spoken about it in several interviews, which you can find online. She has also written several characters in her books who also suffer with anxiety. Her first book, Simon vs the Homosapien’s Agenda (or Love, Simon), is the only book of hers that I have read so far, and I loved it. It was the first contemporary book that I read and actually enjoyed.

14. Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth

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Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra’s current gift gives her pain and power—something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother’s hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows. Akos is the son of a farmer and an oracle from the frozen nation-planet of Thuvhe. Protected by his unusual currentgift, Akos is generous in spirit, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get his brother out alive—no matter what the cost. Then Akos is thrust into Cyra's world, and the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. Will they help each other to survive, or will they destroy one another?

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection), the Carve the Mark duology (Carve the Mark, the Fates Divide), The End and Other Beginnings collection of short fiction, and many short stories and essays. Her first book for adult audiences, Chosen Ones, is out now. She lives in Chicago.

Veronica Roth suffers from anxiety, like a lot of the authors on this list, and talks about it in interviews. A quote from one: "I've had an anxiety disorder my whole life, so I've been to therapy on and off throughout, before books and after books. I went back and tried to talk through some of the things I was feeling and experiencing, and it was helpful."

I’ve never read any of her books, not even the hugely famous Divergent trilogy, though they’ve been on my radar for years. I’d love to get into her books at some point, but it might take me a few years.

15. How to be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe

📷An urgent, funny, shocking, and impassioned memoir by the winner of the Spectrum Art Prize 2018, How To Be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe presents the rarely shown point of view of someone living with autism. Poe’s voice is confident, moving and often funny, as they reveal to us a very personal account of autism, mental illness, gender and sexual identity. As we follow Charlotte’s journey through school and college, we become as awestruck by their extraordinary passion for life as by the enormous privations that they must undergo to live it. From food and fandom to body modification and comic conventions, Charlotte’s experiences through the torments of schooldays and young adulthood leave us with a riot of conflicting emotions: horror, empathy, despair, laugh-out-loud amusement and, most of all, respect. For Charlotte, autism is a fundamental aspect of their identity and art. They address the reader in a voice that is direct, sharply clever and ironic. They witness their own behaviour with a wry humour as they sympathise with those who care for them, yet all the while challenging the neurotypical narratives of autism as something to be ‘fixed’. This is an exuberant, inspiring, life-changing insight into autism from a viewpoint almost entirely missing from public discussion. ‘I wanted to show the side of autism that you don’t find in books and on Facebook. My story is about survival, fear and, finally, hope. There will be parts that make you want to cover your eyes, but I beg you to read on, because if I can change just one person’s perceptions, if I can help one person with autism feel like they’re less alone, then this will all be worth it.’ Charlotte Amelia Poe is a self-taught artist and writer living in Lowestoft, Suffolk. They also work with video and won the inaugural Spectrum Art Prize with the film they submitted, 'How to Be Autistic’. Myriad published Charlotte's memoir, How to Be Autistic, in September 2019.

Another book I didn’t know about until researching for this post, but I really want to read it because I haven’t read many books about autism, and practically none of them were actually written by someone who actually is autistic. Charlotte uses they/them pronouns.

16. Ask me about my Uterus by Abby Norman

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For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issues In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and grey hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a pre-existing condition.

Abby Norman’s debut book, ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain, was published by Bold Type Books (Hachette Book Group) in 2018, with advance praise from Gillian Anderson, Lindsey Fitzharris, Jenny Lawson, and Padma Lakshmi.

The book was praised by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, Book Riot, Toronto Star, ELLE, Health Magazine, Undark Magazine, BUST Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Ms. Magazine, BBC Radio 5, and other international media outlets.

In 2019, the paperback edition was published in the U.S. and the Korean translation in Seoul (Momento Publishing/Duran Kim Agency).

Her work has been featured in Harper’s, Medium, The Independent, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and elsewhere. Interviews and profiles have been seen and heard, including NPR/WNYC, BBC, Anchor.fm, The New York Times, Playboy, Forbes, Glamour, Women’s Health, and Bitch Magazine.

Abby Norman suffers from endometriosis, which was a large part of why she wrote her book, and why she advocates so hard for fellow patients at conferences such as Stanford University’s Stanford Medicine X and the Endometriosis Foundation of America’s medical conference and Patient Day. She is

Abby has served on technical expert panels including the National Partnership for Women and Families’ CORE Network (Yale University), the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid, The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), and Health Affairs.

In 2019, Abby contributed to a paper addressing research gaps and unmet needs in endometriosis published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

This book is definitely one I will be adding to my to be read list, as someone who (unfortunately) also has a uterus, it is important to be informed. And Abby sounds like such a badass who wrote a whole book about her chronic illness to help others with the same condition.

17. Stim: Autistic Anthology by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

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Around one in one hundred people in the UK are autistic, yet there remains a fundamental misunderstanding of what autism is. It is rare that autistic people get to share their own experiences, show how creative and talented and passionate they are, how different they are from media stereotypes. This insightful and eye-opening collection of essays, fiction and visual art showcases the immense talents of some of the UK's most exciting writers and artists - who just happen to be on the spectrum. Here they reclaim the power to speak for themselves and redefine what it means to be autistic. Stim invites the reader into the lives, experiences, minds of the eighteen contributors, and asks them to recognise the hurdles of being autistic in a non-autistic world and to uncover the empathy and understanding necessary to continue to champion brilliant yet unheard voices.

Lizzie (Hux) Huxley-Jones is an autistic author and editor based in London. They are the editor of Stim, an anthology of autistic authors and artists, which was published by Unbound in April 2020 to coincide with World Autism Awareness Week. They are also the author of the children’s biography Sir David Attenborough: A Life Story. They can be found editing at independent micropublisher 3 of Cups Press, and they also advise writers as a freelance sensitivity reader and consultant. In their past career lives, they have been a research diver, a children’s bookseller and digital communications specialist.

I wasn’t even aware that there was an anthology out there by an autistic author, about autism, but now that I do I need to read it.

18. Chimera by Jaecyn Bonê

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Creatures unlike you've imagined before! Welcome to a world where myths and legends collide to create a new breed of monster. Savage and soulful, these monstrosities combine to form the mighty Chimera. In this anthology, talented writers weave 10 tales of fantastical beasts. Featuring stories by: Matt Bliss Jaecyn Boné Alexis L. Carroll Chris Durston Dewi Hargreaves Stephen Howard Samuel Logan Vincent Metzo Braden Rohl Michelle Tang

Jaecyn is a queer, non-binary, disabled Asian-American writer and digital artist fascinated by faeries.

Most of their writing involves wlw romance and faery-inspired creatures. Their first novel, Farzana's Spite is a 10-year-old work in progress and the first novel in The Faerth series. Other works include The Killing Song (novel) and Colour Unknown (short), both of which are also part of the Faerth universe.

Jaecyn's art can be described as a neorealistic pop art style with cel shading. They began their digital art journey with a 5-year-old refurbished iPad using their finger as a stylus and immediately fell in love. They do digital download commissions as well as sell prints of their artwork.

Jaecyn is the Co-Editor in Chief of the Limeoncello Magazine, an online Own Voices literary magazine which debuted its first issue on March 21st, 2021.

When not writing, drawing, or chasing after their two children, they can be found either gardening or practicing their ukulele.

None of Jaecyn Boné’s books are published yet as they are still in the stage of querying, but they contributed to the above anthology, along with nine other authors. I had no idea that this anthology existed, and now I’ll be closely following this author to see when their books get published!

19. Forest of Souls by Lori M Lee

Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing, but she’s intent on becoming something. After years of training to become the queen’s next royal spy, her plans are derailed when shamans attack 📷and kill her best friend Saengo. And then Sirscha, somehow, restores Saengo to life. Unveiled as the first soul guide in living memory, Sirscha is summoned to the domain of the Spider King. For centuries, he has used his influence over the Dead Wood—an ancient forest possessed by souls—to enforce peace between the kingdoms. Now, with the trees growing wild and untamed, only a soul guide can restrain them. As war looms, Sirscha must master her newly awakened abilities before the trees shatter the brittle peace, or worse, claim Saengo, the friend she would die for.

Lori M. Lee is the author of speculative novels and short stories. Her books include PAHUA AND THE SOUL STEALER (Disney/Rick Riordan Presents), FOREST OF SOULS and the sequel BROKEN WEB (Page Street), and more. She’s also a contributor to the anthologies A THOUSAND BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS and COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES. She considers herself a unicorn fan, enjoys marathoning TV shows, and loves to write about magic, manipulation, and family.

Lori struggles with anxiety, and the common symptoms like fatigue but she doesn’t let this stop her writing amazing books. I read Forest of Souls earlier this year, and it was seriously one of the best books I’ve ever read. I loved the magic, the characters, the world building. Everything about it, including the plot twist ending that had me losing my mind at 2am, was just so unlike anything I had read in any other fantasy before.

20. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A Brown

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For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts Malik’s younger sister, Nadia, as payment into the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition. When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?

Roseanne “Rosie” A. Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana and immigrated to the wild jungles of central Maryland as a child. Writing was her first love, and she knew from a young age that she wanted to use the power of writing—creative and otherwise—to connect the different cultures she called home. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s in Journalism and was also a teaching assistant for the school’s Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her journalistic work has been featured by Voice of America among other outlets.

On the publishing side of things, she has worked as an editorial intern at Entangled Publishing. Rosie was a 2017 Pitch Wars mentee and 2018 Pitch Wars mentor. Rosie currently lives outside Washington D.C., where in her free time she can usually be found wandering the woods, making memes, or thinking about Star Wars.

Roseanne is another author that struggles with anxiety and wrote one of her two main characters with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), despite it being a fantasy. I don’t even think I can name a fantasy that had a character with anxiety represented so well. This was a book I read around the same time as Forest of Souls, and I loved it. The cover was beautiful, the characters were brilliant, and I just loved the world building, the magic, and the plot. It was just different to the usual fantasy books I read, and I enjoyed the variation so much I’ve had the sequel pre ordered almost a year in advance.

So, this was my 20 books by 20 chronically ill, disabled or neurodiverse authors list. Blurbs and synopsis were compiled between Goodreads and author websites, and bios were found either on Goodreads, author websites or on amazon author pages. All the information about their chronic illnesses, disabilities or neurodivergence was found online, where they had either explicitly said it or written about it, but if I have something wrong, please let me know so I can fix it!

If you have any other suggestions or know any other books and authors that should be on this list, please let me know and I’ll do my best to add it to the list as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading 😊

#bookblr #reviews #recs #books

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accio-kitty-malfoy · 4 years ago

Text

A Breath of Fresh Hair

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24633025/chapters/59552158

Chapter Two: Friends, Reunited.

Charlie had arrived late into the previous night. Harry had heard him being greeted by his mother and father. He could see in his mind Arthur taking the luggage out of Charlie’s hands and Molly replacing it with a cup of tea. Harry fell to sleep with their indistinguishable chatter floating in and out of his ears. The morning after he was able to take in Charlie’s appearance. The last time he’d seen him was about four months previously and he was just a little bit more tanned, his muscles were a little bigger and his silky hair was that little bit longer. Harry’s fingers twitched at the thought of tidying it up a little bit and feeling the weight and shine of it in his fingers. Envy also flitted in the pit of his stomach. He loved cutting and styling others’ hair, but his was still an uncontrollable mop. Charlie was also clearly covering up yet another new tattoo. Harry thought that Ginny looked the most like Charlie out of all the brothers; both of them had a somewhat androgynous beauty and natural glow about them.

“You alright mate?” Ron’s concerned face came into focus over his cup of tea.

“Yeah, just thinking I guess.” Harry smiled reassuringly at Ron and began to eat the omelette that had just been placed down in front of him. It was delicious.

Bill and Fleur arrived just after all the breakfast things had been cleared away. The heat had come back with a vengeance and Fleur looked like she was melting with her huge baby bump. A gigantic smile kept breaking out on Bill’s face every time he looked at her. Fleur was on Maternity Leave from her position as a healer at St Mungo’s and she was due to give birth a couple of weeks after Ron and Hermione’s wedding. When they’d told the family, Molly could barely contain her excitement. She’d already knitted the baby enough clothes for the first year of its existence. Harry chatted with the family for a while, enjoying the busy hustle and bustle of people having several different conversations at once, people flitting in and out of the kitchen doing jobs and Bill and Fleur’s Basset Hound Philippe playing with Charlie’s Central Asian Shepherd Hound Lucy.

Ginny was buzzing with nervous energy next to Harry. They’d decided that Harry was going to cut their hair the next day. They were going for a style that was short at the sides with some length at the top so they could style it if they wanted to. It was currently tied up in its usual messy bun and Harry couldn’t wait to get his hands on it. Ginny had spoken to Hermione about it, worried that the drastic change would detract attention from her at the wedding and put it on Ginny instead. Hermione had just smiled and wrapped Ginny in a hug, assuring them that they should do whatever made them comfortable. Harry could tell that Ginny was worried about how her family would react. Harry knew that they had no reason to be. They’d all been perfectly accepting when Charlie had come out as gay and then later on as asexual, but he could also understand Ginny’s fears. They’d also been the only little girl of the family for a long time. Ginny was also super nervous about the upcoming trials for the Holyhead Harpies. They’d been training non-stop since they’d been asked to try out the previous month. The try-outs were still a month off, but Ginny wanted to position of Chaser so badly that all of their fiery determination had been poured into practicing and training. Harry reached under the table and squeezed their hand, shooting them a small smile, and they seemed to calm down a fraction. Ginny jumped slightly as an owl tapped frantically on the kitchen window. It was Pig with a letter. They ran over to the window to let the frantic owl in and carefully untied the letter before giving the tiny owl a treat and rushing upstairs.

“Gin’s been getting a lot of letters recently,” Ron remarked, looking up from the sketch book in front of him and tucking a pencil behind his ear. “I wonder who they’re from.”

The Weasley kids and Harry decided to go out for a friendly game of quidditch before lunch, Fleur and Hermione watching from a blanket set up under a large parasol. Ron, Bill, and Harry were on one tea; Charlie, Ginny and George were on the other. The game soon became fierce and sweat was dripping off them all before they’d finished. Ron had become a pretty good keeper, but he was no match against Ginny. They were relying on Harry to catch the snitch, but the game came to an end before that happened when Arthur came out with a tray of his home brewed cider and two gooseberryaids for Ginny and Fleur. They were all parched and the cold beverages felt like heaven as they lounged in the shade, sipping and chatting. Molly was soon walking out of the house towards them, lugging the picnic that her and Ron had prepared the day before. It was spread out on blankets and everyone ate ravenously, and silence fell upon them for a while. When a lot of the food had been consumed and people were picking at bits that were left, conversation started up again and turned towards the upcoming wedding.

“Are you excited Hermione?” Fleur asked, resting her glass on her bump and shifting to try and get comfortable again.

“I am. There’s been so much to plan, but I’ve been so thankful for my mum and Molly helping with the organisation. They’ve been stars.”

“I can’t wait to see your dress, I bet you’re going to look stunning.” Charlie grinned at her. Harry agreed. He wondered what kind of style she’d gone with. For her job at the ministry she usually just wore smart trousers and a blouse and comfy shoes that allowed her to be on her feet as much as she needed to, and around the house she either wore cropped capris and a tank top and cardigan or maxi dresses. She usually either had her hair braided to keep it away from her face or left it natural and wore a thick fabric headband. Comfort and practicality were Hermione’s style, but she always looked effortlessly wonderful. She smiled back at them and tapped the side of her nose. Ron looked at her adoringly.

Ron and Hermione got together at the end of the war. There was something about them that just fit. Hermione was strong and independent, and Ron loved that about her. He knew that she could look after herself and he admired her passion and drive. She’d gone back to Hogwarts to study and get the qualifications she needed to get the job she wanted at the Ministry. She threw herself into her studies as a way of dealing with her grief and as a way of proving herself to others. Ron stayed at The Burrow and looked after his mum. He cooked and cleaned on the days that she couldn’t get out of bed and he drew a lot. He would go out for hours walking and drawing landscapes. He drew a portrait of Hermione for their first anniversary and it was one of the most beautiful things that Harry had ever seen. He’d managed to catch her power, calm confidence and wicked mischief whilst also perfectly portraying her soft curves, perfect skin and gorgeous bouncy hair. It really was a masterpiece. After a while he started drawing up plans for buildings that Dean and Seamus were working on. They offered him a position in their business as a partner. He declined, saying he’d rather work freelance, but they would have first dibs on him if they ever needed him. It was tough for the couple at the start of their relationship. They were apart for a lot of it, only seeing each other at weekends and during the holidays, and they were both broken and grieving. They made it work though. The three of them spent the weekends and holidays that Hermione was back from Hogwarts looking for ways to fid her parents and restore their memories. It took them seven and a half months, but they managed it with the help of the rest of the family and the teachers at Hogwarts. Harry blinked a couple of times, picking up a handful of blueberries and anchoring himself back in the present. Ginny squeezed his shoulder supportively and left to go and find more cider for the rest of the group and gooseberryade for themselves.

Neville, Dean and Seamus arrived later on that day. They were going to spend the couple of days before the wedding putting together gazebos and marquees to give people places to shelter from the heat. Neville was in charge of living flower arrangements, including flowers that glowed with soft light when it went dark that would provide lighting in the evening. The next couple of days were bound to be full of stress, work and excitement. None of them minded, however, as they’d been promised Molly and Ron’s cooking. Harry was looking forward to watching everyone creating and working with the things they loved. It was fascinating to him to see people so passionate about things. He was charged with odd jobs and then styling the hair of the bridal party, which included Hermione the bride, Ginny as the maid of honour and Fleur and Luna as the bridesmaids. He couldn’t wait to see what they all looked like after he’d finished, especially when they were all in their beautiful clothes.

After a while, Charlie, Bill and Fleur went back into the house and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Dean, Seamus and Neville sat reminiscing about their days at Hogwarts. Neville had become a professor of Herbology at Hogwarts the year before after his Grandmother had passed away and was looking forward to going back after the summer. He adored his job; he swore when he took up the position that no child under his care would ever feel the way he did at school and Harry knew that he would stick to his word. He also wrote a plant advice column for the Quibbler and dabbled in landscaping and flower arranging in his spare time, if he ever had any. He’d been ecstatic when Ron and Hermione had asked him to do the flowers for their wedding. Dean and Seamus had brought Noodle along with them and the three dogs were bounding around the garden, making a game of who could make the biggest splashes in the pond. The group sat watching and laughing at the dogs, making bets on which one would run up to them and shake water all over them first.

“Pizza?” Ron’s question caused a flurry of excitement amongst the friends and they all gave him their orders for him to make on his outdoor pizza oven. The pizza was crisp, the cheese was gooey, and Harry was thankful that he was Ron’s best friend; the guy knew how to cook. After they were all so stuffed with pizza that they didn’t think they could move, Seamus conjured a fire pit and Ron went to look for marshmallows. They sat late into the night drinking and talking and being at piece with the world. They were all excited about the wedding and all of the things that were planned for after it, but after a while they all began struggling to keep their eyes open and decided that it was time to retire to the house, ready for the insane amount of work that they would be doing in the following couple of days.

Harry went to sleep with a full stomach and a full heart.

#drarry #pan ginny #non binary ginny #trans luna #bi harry potter #gay draco malfoy #black hermione granger #aromantic asexual charlie

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jgroffdaily · 5 years ago

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Jonathan Groff is not, he says, “a serial killer sort of person”, which will probably come as a relief to the millions of adoring families who know him best in wholesome animated form, as the voice of mountain-dwelling ice harvester Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen.

What drew the 34-year-old actor – nominated for a Tony for his Broadway performance as Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening and his scene-stealing turn as King George III in Hamilton – to the dark, murder-heavy Netflix drama Mindhunter was, he says, precisely what a radical departure it was from his previous roles.

His FBI profiler Holden Ford is, as he puts it: “This corn-fed, all-American, earnest Midwestern guy, having an existential crisis, finding meaning and purpose while talking to incarcerated sociopathic murderers.” Groff tells me all this, it should be noted, with an enormous grin. Apparently, the only major note that David Fincher, Mindhunter’s director, ever has for his leading man is to stop smiling so much. “[Fincher] would be like, ‘We’re rolling, and, Jonathan, stop smiling. And you’re still smiling, you’re still smiling, and… action.’”

Television, of course, hardly needs another FBI drama, but what elevates Mindhunter above the procedural is not only Fincher’s precision direction, but also the tension inherent in Ford’s mission. Set in the late Seventies and based on the career of real-life FBI profiler and “serial killer whisperer” John Douglas, “Holden is pushing for understanding and curiosity, rather than simply dismissing these killers as crazy,” says Groff. Using the emerging social sciences of criminology and psychology, he hopes to gain some understanding of what motivates these apparent monsters.

The first series saw Ford interviewing notorious murderers Richard Speck, Ed Kemper and Jerry Brudos; season two, which begins this week, will delve into the Atlanta Child Murders (in which an estimated 28 children were killed between 1979 and 1981), and see the protagonist land an interview with “the rock star of the serial killer world”, Charles Manson.

There is also the added layer of Ford’s personal development; over the first season, he grew from a buttoned-up boy scout (literally drinking milk from the bottle in an early episode) into a skilful manipulator of his subjects; some critics have gone further and accused him of sociopathy.

“I never saw Holden as a sociopathic character, but he definitely wants to win,” says Groff. I agree about the sociopathy but, I suggest, Holden is perhaps guilty of wielding empathy as a weapon. “Yeah, I love that – weaponising empathy!” Groff cries, excitedly. “That might be the title of my autobiography.”

It’s early on a Friday morning in Los Angeles and, in spite of the unusually anti-social call time, Groff, boyishly handsome and sipping on a Diet Coke, is infectiously bouncy and Tiggerish. During the filming of Mindhunter, he has, he tells me, been listening to the audiobook of Fosse, Sam Wasson’s bestselling biography of the legendary Broadway choreographer and film director, on which the current show Fosse/Verdon was initially based. After finishing the book, he went back and watched all of Fosse’s films.

“He does such a good job of capturing that drug of being on stage, and the sadness that you get when you come off stage,” he says. “The huge rush of performing and the let-down afterwards. I get both happy and depressed about it. I don’t want to love it this much, but then I do, but I want also to have perspective.” He waves his hands in the air as if to bat away his only apparent torture: loving this job, which he is incredibly good at, a little too much.

Groff grew up in Pennsylvania, in a conservative, Methodist family, but his parents encouraged his theatrical ambitions, driving him several hours each way to audition for musicals in New York City. He won a place in a touring performance of The Sound of Music and deferred his spot at Carnegie Mellon University. At 20, he was cast in Spring Awakening, earning his first Tony nomination at 21, in 2007.

Television roles followed in Glee, The Normal Heart and Looking, the critically acclaimed but short-lived HBO drama about the lives of gay men in San Francisco. His parents, he tells me, “didn’t watch that one”.

Openly gay himself, in Mindhunter Groff is playing straight, in a role that features a solid amount of sex scenes as well as psychosexual content. Ryan Murphy, his former showrunner at Glee, and the creator of Pose and The People vs OJ Simpson, was so moved to see this, Groff tells me, that he rang to congratulate him.

“He got really emotional about it, partly, I think, because when he first met me [Groff made a pilot with him during Spring Awakening, which was never picked up] I was still in the closet. Then I came out, owned my identity and, thankfully, still get to play all different kinds of parts. Ryan said: ‘I know that it was something you were scared about, but you worked through your fear, and now here you are, getting to do this amazing show, and not being defined by your sexual orientation.’”

Did he really worry that if he came out he’d never be given a “straight” role again? “Totally,” Groff cries, slapping his thighs. “No agents or producers had ever said: ‘Don’t come out of the closet, it will ruin your career,’ but it was an unspoken thing. And there were no out gay movie stars as examples. But then I fell in love, at 23. And I thought, ‘OK, if I come out, and I only do off-Broadway plays for the rest of my life, I am totally happy with that – that’s what I moved to New York for. So maybe I won’t be a romantic lead in a movie – who cares? I would rather be doing cool stuff with people who don’t give a f--- than pretend to be someone I am not.’”

Happily, that couldn’t be further from the case. While filming the second season of Mindhunter in Pittsburgh, he’s been simultaneously reprising his role as Kristoff for Frozen 2, due out in November. “It was the dream,” he beams. “To be able to sit with Charles Manson, and then drive to New York to pretend to be in a blizzard, singing a Disney song.”

But, in truth, he’s never really stopped being Kristoff. “I make Voice Memos for kids,” he reveals. “I sing for them and do the reindeer voice, which they get really excited about. I do a lot of King George Voice Memos too, actually.”

He was in Hamilton for only two months, in the spring of 2015, but made enough of an impact with his campy, knowing performance, to earn another Tony nomination.

“It was like being in the eye of the storm,” he says of his spell in the Broadway phenomenon. “I listened to the Bill Gates Desert Island Discs the other day; he has My Shot from Hamilton as his final song. And I thought, ‘Oh my god, that’s right, I met Bill Gates – he came to the show.’ You really can’t take it in, in the moment, but looking back, I’m like, ‘Wow, I really met Beyoncé?’”

Given his experience in voicing Frozen, one might assume Groff would be a dab hand at recording audiobooks. Not so, he says. When he was asked to record the audio for John Douglas’s latest non-fiction book (his 13th), The Killer Across the Table, “it was SO hard,” he says. “So much harder than I thought it was going to be. I never made it through one page without f------ up.” It did mean, however, that he finally got to meet the legendary FBI agent in person. “We’d emailed before, but getting to meet him was a great moment. He loves the show, and even talks about it in the book that I recorded.”

This second series is launching at a moment of renewed obsession with Manson, thanks to the 50th anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate, and the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I wonder out loud whether the period that Mindhunter explores, when serial killers began to be studied seriously, was also the moment that they also began to be glamorised in popular culture.

“Yes, David and the writers try to address that question. You have Holden, who is a sycophant and obsessed with Manson, and you have the Bill Tench character [Ford’s FBI colleague, played by Holt McCallany], who is like: ‘Dude, these people are disgusting and deplorable.’

“David is uninterested in creating conversation in which any one person is right and any one person is wrong,” says Groff. “He likes to hold a bunch of different perspectives at the same time. That’s what makes it worth working on, that’s what makes it worth watching.”

Mindhunter, series one  and two, are available  on Netflix

#jonathan groff #interview #press #!

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winstonhcomedy · 6 years ago

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“Dope A-F” - 4/25-4/30- “Host Battle Shuts It Down”

Let’s jump right in. I need to get caught up because I am a sassy man! So let’s start with a raucous time at Pro Re Nata!

4/25

I got to do Host Battle as an open mic for one last time before we shut it down. Chris and I are both moving and neither of us really want to do the show without the other. I get to Crozet and write for a while at Pro Re Nata. A few other comics eventually show up, and we get a good hang going. JR who usually runs the show talks about what the night was going to be like. We all order some food and wait for the audience to show up. It is a rainy night and it is going to be a light crowd. Which is ok. This show rules when it is packed, but it is at least entertaining no matter what.

We have a pretty fun list. There are some people who are veterans, and some newbies to Host Battle. JR goes up and gets us started by introducing the show, and we hop right into it. Right away we had an annoying lady in the front. Who asked how raunchy it was going to be, and then Chris let her know. It was going to be an insane show.

Up first was David McCallie. His set didn’t go great, but we got a few good lines. He seemed pissed that he went first, but someone had to switch and he was the one. Paige Campbell had a pretty good set with a few good lines. A dude ran in and a dog barked at him, and Paige said, “that dog hates pedophiles.” This got a pretty good laugh.

JR went up and just listed off the grossest things he had ever done. IT was one of the nastiest things I had ever heard. I almost vomited on stage. People were dry heaving and it was so much fun.

John Marg had a pretty good set and Heather Kilburn talked about hypothetically murdering her child so that was fun. Each set had at least a few good lines and the audience that was there seemed to enjoy it.

Sam Padgett had a wild story about a gay hypnotist that made me laugh harder than I had laughed in a really long time. We had a good running gag about Charles Bill being a serial killer, and Sean Wells had a good set (he is new but trying). We had some great riffs about him being a psychologist. He got me really good when I said I was getting anxiety, and he just started listing off the different types of anxiety. It got a big laugh.

We didn’t have a huge list, and everybody all did pretty well. It was one of my favorite nights of comedy in a while. It was tough and not everything was working. It was uncomfortable, but it was definitely funny. I’d give the show a C.

The next morning JR messaged Chris and I and said that Pro Re Nata had cancelled comedy effective immediately. They said this last show was too offensive (even though the people there definitely enjoyed it). They also said they hadn’t been getting consistent audience or returns. I feel like they needed a scapegoat and we were it. That’s ok it was a fun show and JR wasn’t upset. The last Host Battle open mic shutting down a room is a memory I will have forever.

4/26

The next night I was booked at Southern Eats in Norfolk. Jose Roman runs that show and he booked me to do 15 to 20. I had never been there before so I was super stoked to see how it was going to go.

I get to the show and the venue is like a restaurant/coffee/cigar bar. It has a dope vibe, and I am hopeful people are going to show up. Jose is there and we talk a bit. I then go and see/meet the other comics. Bobby Stephens, Mindy Ess, Ian Nightengale, and a couple other guys I don’t know at all are on the show. Everyone is nice to talk to, but we are all ready for the show to get started.

It is raining a lot. So much so that the Something In The Water music festival at the VB waterfront was cancelled for its first day. We sit around for like 30 minutes past showtime to get people in there and finally we get started .It is an ok sized crowd. Maybe 12 people, some are pretty wasted and loud. They aren’t being mean, but they are definitely disrupting the show.

Jose does a few minutes then brings up the first comic who does ok. Then the next dude goes up and has a few laughs, but the audience is being pretty rowdy. The dude after him is named Drew and he goes up and is a little edgier. You can tell all of these dudes are pretty new to comedy. Which is fine, but it means they haven’t done a lot of rooms like this so they might not be as prepared to handle it. He has a joke about where do you put your dick when having sex with a gay dude with a colostomy bag.

Michael Ridley then shows up. He is going to be going last. We talk a bit and then I get ready because I am up soon. The new dude Ian goes up and they are not into his shit at all. They just aren’t vibing and it’s tough to watch. I am not hopeful for my set, but I decide that I’m just going to have fun.

I go up and get right into it. I go into crowd work because it is this one lady’s birthday. I get some big laughs about where she met her wife (on craigslist). The drunkest chick (who also works there) sits down and already hates me. She is heckling and being rude. Apparently there was a military band festival going on. She told me I should be proud and I was like why should I be proud of the bands.

She then went off and got upset (I thought it was a festival of bands for military vets). I bust her balls and get some huge laughs and eventually win her over. I continue the crowd work shitting on her and riffing on the show for about 15 minutes before I close out with a few jokes. I got some huge pops and had the hottest set. Which felt good to go on the road and be able to put my rowdy room chops to the test. I’d give this set a B.

I went outside after this and ended up getting in a discussion with a comic outside the show. He talks about trying to trigger me and bring my Richmond out, and I bust his balls back asking about if “Richmond means successful”. He kind of came for me pretty hard to start. I think because there is a lot of weird comedy drama going on down there that I don’t participate in. It cools down a bit and ends up being fine, but it definitely was some weird tension there. Not a big deal, but I also felt like it was a weird flex the way it happened. It felt like the kind of thing he had been waiting to say to a comic from Richmond since the scene up here for the most part is PC and full of SJWs (which I am not at all), but I know my value and worth and I wasn’t going to just take it.

I went back in to watch a couple more sets and before I left I talked with this comic again about the way I operate business. Why I choose to associate who I associate with, and how I am not public about it nor do I drag anyones name through the mud. If there is someone I don’t mess with on a show I don't want to hurt my brand or reputation by being on that show. I’ll never ask anyone to get bumped off a show for me, but I just quietly explain why I can’t do the show and tell them to keep me in mind for next time. It was a good respectful conversation that didn’t involve any of the tension of the earlier one. We disagreed on certain things, but it ended up being a good conversation and I left feeling good about it and hope they did too.

After this I grabbed my stuff and headed out. I had got to say my peace, have a hot ass set, and it just reaffirmed how long I have come from when I started.

4/28

I had Saturday off so I didn’t get to perform until Sunday. I only got to do one set on Sunday, but I was very excited for it. I was going to be doing a spot at Tasty’s on Southside. I have done this mic once and it was fun but the PA sucked.

The host is a dude named Carsen Young and he had been complaining online that not a ton of comics had been coming out. I get there and I am the only comic there about 30 minutes before showtime. It is a nice crowd for an open mic. There is about 15 people there and it is pretty diverse. It is about half black and half white, but it is almost an entirely gay crowd which is dope. I had a joke about Gay Conversation Therapy I had been dying to do in front of a bunch of gay people to make sure it wasn’t offensive.

Carson and I shoot the shit and have a pretty fun conversation. He is a super nice guy, and I wish this mic was more often because I have enjoyed it both times. By the time the show starts the only comics there are myself, a new girl, and Remo.

The new girl goes up first and has an ok set. There is a table of gay black guys, and one in particular is a hell of a heckler. He isn’t being mean, but he is being sassy and has something funny to say after everything. She does well and people like her.

I go up next and do about ten minutes. I go right into the sassy dude and say he looks like Tiger Woods gay uncle. This makes all of his friend’s laugh and I really start giving it to him. They call him Tiger the rest of the night, and he is attentive. We joke around and they all love my material. I got a huge pop on Gay Conversion Therapy and I finally feel like that joke is about 90% done. It feels good. I’d give this set a solid B.

I get off stage and head home. I get some food from En Su Boca and watch the newest episode of Game of Thrones (even though I haven’t seen any of them). It was a huge battle and I enjoyed it. Then I passed out. I was ready for a hopefully fun week.

4/29

The next night I was at The Southern in Charlottesville. I had a few friends that were coming out and I was really dying to try some new material. I got to the show early and was in a really good mood. I got to joke around with the staff, and the gm. After a while a few of my friends showed up like Heather, Paige, and some others.

Colby Knight shows dup with a new girl named Harley. She was there to watch but I had overheard her mention to Colby she wanted to try it one day. So I took it upon myself to tell her she was performing that night. I signed her up and told her it was either perform or she could leave. She seemed nervous, but she agreed to do it.

Chris got there about an hour early and joined in on the hang. Padgett, Abdulla, Luzader, Keaton, Berthelsen, JR, McCallie, Marg, and some new faces. It was a fun and exciting hang. Kenn also showed up but something came up and he had to dip out early before performing.

The best part was Brett Leake was there. Brett is a great comic and a better person. He asked me about JFL and my writing process. We talked about this blog, and just all things comedy. He had so many encouraging words to say to me and we talked about 15 minutes. He is one of the nicest and most genuine humans I have ever met. He is a clean comic, and his observational stuff is simple and elegant. I won’t go too into detail about what we talked about, but needless to say it was a great time.

We have a nice little crowd and both of my friends came. Chris has the comic’s meeting and we decide to piggyback the show. I am up fifth. I am after JR, and before Harley.

The show starts and Chris goes up and does about 15 minutes trying to warm people up. They are into it, but it takes him a while. He does crowd work, but also tries some new jokes. He then brings up Brett and he has a good set. A few more comics go and then I get brought up.

I have a very productive set. I get some big laughs, and try a brand new joke that I riffed talking to Chris. I wasn’t going to do it on stage, but he told me to and it worked really well. I am excited about how it turned out. The rest of my set went well and I’d give it a B. I then bring up Harley and she has a good first set. It is pretty neat to be the reason someone gets on stage for the first time. Being that push for a person is dope.

I hung around a bit longer and filmed a quick vid for IG. I’ve been doing this thing Called #IsComedyHappening? where I ask someone is comedy happening and then I film myself running to the show. It is dumb, but fun.

I stick around and watch Paige’s set, and he works his tail off. People have left by the time he is up but he powers through and does new material. I’m proud of him. It was all and all a solid set.

I grab why stuff and head home. I am exhausted and need a good nights rest for the next day at work!

4/30

This was going to be a chill night. As far as I knew there was only going to be the one mic at City Dogs in Shockoe Slip, and I had asked host Ben Braman if I could go super early.

I get to the show at 7:30 because. I got to see Nate Izquierdo and Rachel Murphy for a bit since they were hanging with Braman. The show didn’t start until nine and there was another mic 5 minutes away. So my buddy Bryan Williams and I ubered over there first.

We get there and it is like 7:45. There is a few comics there but absolutely no audience. It is all newer comics and I have super new stuff to work out so I am ok with it. The host of the show is the bartender and he is a super cool dude.

He asks who wants to start the show so I say I do and I go for it. I do about 10 minutes and get some solid laughs. My R. Kelly joke hit super hard, so I know that once I get the wording right this will be a really good joke. I do some more new and It goes super well. For this room I give it a solid B+ set. I then bring Bryan up and he tries some new stuff, and works out some of his old. He has a fine set as well. We dip out and I get the uber back to City Dogs.

We get there and Ryan Mather, and Jason Kusterer had showed up. Kate Carroll was also there, and then Stella Naulo popped in. We all talked comedy for a bit. Aaron Shoemaker came in after that. Stella, Bryan, and I talked about the value of comedy classes, or books. It was a good talk, and I definitely enjoyed it.

I went up first and it was a rougher set. People were not really paying attention during Braman’s set and they continued it during mine. I had to work really hard to get their attention,. Some of the jokes worked, and some didn’t. A couple hit really hard at the end and by the time I was done people were at least laughing and paying attention. It was productive and I’d give this set a B-

I got Kusterer to do the #IsComedyHappening? bit with me and it turned out amazing. I loved it so much! I ‘m going to keep doing it every night! After kusterer’s set I hung out with my friends a bit and headed out. As I was leaving Jarvis showed up and I said goodbye. I met a homeless dude named Clinton and talked to him for about 15 minutes before finally getting in my car and getting out of there. I had a few shows the next night and I was ready for them.

So that’s it laydees! We are caught up again. I love comedy and I love this blog. I love you baybees so much! xoxoxo I have some fun shows coming up and can’t wait to write about them for you. Thanks for checking in and I’ll see y’all soon!

#comedy #roast #jokes #crozet #bomb #cancelled #cancel #standup

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hermionefae · 7 years ago

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Dog Walking- Tom Hiddleston x Reader Chapter 4

The next day it chucked it down with rain constantly. I glanced at my phone when I was on lunch at work and saw I had finally received a text from an unknown number.

I’ve booked a table at The Palomar in Chinatown for 7.30pm. I’ll meet you in there, the table is under the name of Gatsby. I hope you can still make it. TH

My insides squirmed with excitement, I was going on a date, tonight with Tom freaking Hiddleston. Jesus, what was I going to wear! My work friend Ellie walked passed my desk and stopped when she noticed my expression on my face.

“What’s up with you?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

“Erm, I have a date tonight and I have not clue what to wear” I answered her, putting my phone down onto the desk.

“Wait, what! Where did this come from? You didn’t tell me you met someone. Where did you meet him”

I chuckled, typical Ellie, she always wanted the full details “I met him whilst walking Daisy and he was walking his dog about a week ago. We keep bumping into each other so we exchanged numbers and he’s just text me now, we’re going for dinner tonight” I decided to leave out the part about our little unexpected swim in the pond yesterday and the fact that Tom was a celebrity.

“Nice, so what’s his name? What does he do?”

“Tom and he’s in the film industry”

“Oh no, he’s not a runner is he, you know they always say they’re in the film business and make out that they’re the next big thing but they really aren’t hunny”

“No, nothing like that” I smiled to myself, if only she knew she would freak out.

“OK, wear that blue dress you bought when we went to Westfield. It really compliments your eyes” Ellie suggested.

I couldn't wait to get home that evening, as soon as I did I let Daisy out in the communal garden that was attached to my block of flats and then left her some food.

I had a shower and re-did my makeup, I went for a more light eyeshadow and a brighter lip, deciding that although I knew I wanted to make an effort, anything would be 100 times better than the last time he saw me. Once the makeup was done I found the dress that Ellie had described. It was an amazing dress that I had bought for a work event which got cancelled at the last minute because the majority of us, myself included came down with a sickness bug that lasted for days. It was so bad I had to call my mum to come and look after me and Daisy.

It was a short Gucci dress, dark blue with plunging neckline and short, slightly puffy sleeves with a large red bow underneath the neckline. I wore black tights and my suede blue and red heels. I put my hair up in a messy updo and added silver earrings at the end. I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

Damn I look good! I thought. I turned to Daisy and held out my arms.

“What do you think girl?” I asked her. She barked in what I assumed was approval, I let out as short laugh and ruffled her fur on her ears. Just as I was about to grab my umbrella and leave to catch a taxi my phone pinged. It was a text from Ellie.

Secret’s out Y/n, I know who you’re going on a date with. It said with a link to a news headline. My heart sunk as I clicked on the link.

It was a gossip webpage with two pictures of me walking down Tom’s road, the day we fell into the pond. First one was of the both of us walking out of the park with the dogs to his house and the other was me and Daisy coming back out with me in his clothes. I was mortified, not only because this was all over the internet but also how bad I looked in both these pictures.

I’ll talk to you later I texted back and I thought briefly about texting Tom to cancel our date. I decided against that though. It wasn’t his fault that photographers followed him everywhere and if I wanted this to continue I needed to get used to this sort of thing happening. I sighed and walked out of my flat and flagged down a taxi.

We arrived just after 7.30pm and I flew out of the taxi and into the restaurant's foyer. I could see Tom at the back of the restaurant in the far corner. He didn’t have his glasses on this time and he was looking even more handsome than the last time I had seen him. He was also wearing blue, a blue suit with a white shirt with the collar slightly open. He was looking at his mobile with a worried expression in his face.

The Maitre D approached me before I could go any further, “can I help you miss?”

“I’m meeting a friend,we’ve got a table under the name of Gatsby.” He bowed his head a little and turned away leading me towards Tom. He heard us approaching, he smiled at me and drew the other seat out for me to sit down. The Maitre D gave me a menu and left us to it.

“Thank you for coming Y/n. You look stunning” he complimented. My cheeks flushed but tried to hide it by looking at the wine menu.

“There was something I wanted to discuss with you beforehand but I thought I’d better do it in person” Tom began.

Uh,oh I thought this was it, he wasn’t going to see me after this. I knew it was too good to be true.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures that have been published online today of us but I’m truly sorry. I totally understand if you feel that this couldn’t continue after today”

I held up my hand to stop him “I have seen the pictures, I’m not going to lie I was annoyed and a little mortified that they’re now out there for the world to see but it’s ok. You didn’t ask for photographers to be following you constantly. It comes with the job and I think I’m prepared to handle that” I put my other hand on the table with the palm up, really hoping that he would place his own on top. Luckily he breathed a sigh of relief and reciprocated, I gave him an encouraging smile and our date began finally.

We talked and laughed and ate all evening, he asked about my family and told me all about his and how he got into acting and before we knew it the restaurant had emptied and we were the only ones still in there.

“We should probably go” I suggested looking around.

“Yes we should” Tom agreed. He paid the bill and held out his arm for me to take hold. “Follow me” he whispered. Luckily the rain had stopped whilst we we were in the restaurant so we were able to walk without umbrellas.

We walked through Trafalgar Square and passed Westminster. We stopped on Westminster Bridge and looked out over the water. The alcohol I had drunk over dinner had hit me whilst we were walking and now I was feeling rather merry to be in Tom’s company.

“This place is so beautiful after it rains” said Tom looking out to the river.

“Yes it is” I agreed not looking at the water but at the man beside me. He turned to me and I quickly looked away so he wouldn’t know I had been staring at his profile. I think he noticed though as I could see a little smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“I had a really lovely time tonight, thank you Tom” I said nudging his side.

“Me too y/n. I’m really glad that I bumped into at the park, twice”

“Even when we fell in the pond?”

He let out a loud laugh “Especially when we fell in the pond.”

I was feeling brave, whether it was the wine or the atmosphere I wasn’t sure, I stood slightly on tiptoes and kissed his lips lightly. I pulled away, worried that I had overstepped the mark. His eyes, which I hadn’t realised had shut, opened slightly and he pulled me further into him. Our lips met again in a deeper kiss that promised more if we weren’t in public. The rain had started again, it was like something out of a rom-com, two people kissing in the pouring rain. We broke part and both chuckled at the weather.

“Come back to mine?” I asked hopeful.

“Show me the way” Tom said huskily.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

A/n things are heating up for these two, I hope you’ve enjoyed this update, see you in the next one.

Tagging for updates: @darkswanordie , @gay-ghost-fights @thejemersoninferno

#Dog walking #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston x you #reader insert #fanfiction #london in the rain #female reader #guccie

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