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blueikeproductions · 2 years ago

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Night time at Sherwood, Dan is hanging out on the old, now even more duck taped, family couch in his sleep clothes, some striped sleep pants and a No Pain, No Gain Garfield t-shirt, watching TV. His folks are in bed, and Liam tucked away in his crib peacefully, but he hears JD coming in from outside in the kitchen. Dan’s left bicep is still bandaged from when JD shot him in the arm from the boiler room incident the other day, and he touches it gingerly as JD walks into the room in his own sleep clothes, a McDonalds Mac Tonight tee and shorts, carrying two Slushees. The formally troubled youth sits next to his best friend and hands him one of the drinks.

JD: Couldn’t sleep either, huh?

Dan: -takes the drink and places it against his wounded bicep- Nah. Just the whole experience kinda … catching up to me. Not every day you save the school. Not since Hawkins anyway. -takes a sip and keeps putting the cold drink against his arm-

JD: -sipping but looks sad, watching Dan icing his arm- …Y’know I never got around to thanking you and Veronica… For what you guys did. If I didn’t have you guys, I’d be dead by my own hands by now.

Dan: -half smiles- Is that where you’ve been? Making “amends” with Ronnie? -playfully elbows JD-

JD: Oooooh something to that effect. I was on my hands and knees- don’t give me that look, not like THAT, Danny-boy…! We’re… still working on stuff. -taps his cup with his index finger- But yeah, I think despite it all, Veronica an’ me have a future. Buyin’ summer clothes, playin’ poker, campin’ all that fun couples stuff.

Dan: What about hunting college jocks? -

JD: College… Can’t say I’ve given the matter much thought. Truth be told I figured I’d be stuck on Bud’s tight leash forever…

-Both are silent for a bit, just watching TV-

JD: …What is this anyway? Doogie Houser? I didn’t know you liked this.

Dan: -sips- I have other interests besides cartoons and comics. Doogie’s ok, but Sledge Hammer’s on next, that’s more your speed, Jason.

JD: -glances at Dan still nursing his arm with his slushee- Nah this is fine. -side eyes Dan and looks at Doogie doing a bypass surgery- …Maybe I’ll become a doctor.

Dan: Huh?

JD: Yeah! Put my mind towards something more constructive than demolition! Plus there’s the sheer thrill of getting to decide who lives or dies in a medical sense, heheheh. -makes a silly slashing motion with his thumb across his neck-

Dan: -just gives a tired but slightly amused look at him- There it is…

JD: Aw don’t worry, Danny-boy, if you wind up in my operating table, I’ll make sure you live! -instinctively pats Dan on the arm, but pats him on his injured arm by mistake-

Dan: -winces and slightly recoils in pain, drops his Slushee, though by sheer luck it lands on its bottom and didn’t spill-

JD: Aw shit! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Oh man… -thinks back to him as Shadow JD, aiming the gun at Dan and Veronica in anger and confusion- -more quietly- I’m sorry…

Dan: -composes himself- It’s ok, Jason. I figured I’d take a bullet for you at some point, I admit didn’t quite expect it THIS way, but it worked out! -smiles-

JD: -slumps back in the couch- I almost killed you and Veronica… I almost killed ALL of us… How can either of you still want to be around me…

Dan: -thinks about it in a silly way- Well, it’s never boring with you around. -picks up the Slushee-

JD: I’m serious, Danny-boy… D-do I really deserve this chance…? Do I deserve you and Veronica? All this kindness…

Dan: -sighs- I won’t sugar coat it, Jason, you fucked up. -JD looks at Dan in surprise, when he swears he’s serious- But we all fuck up. It’s what humans do. We do stupid stuff sometimes, but the important thing is we learn from it, and we move on to better things, even if we stumble along the way. Ronnie and me care about you. We always did. And in your, at the time, warped little way you proved you did too.

Dan: -rubs his arm- We all just took the long way to get here, that’s all.

JD: I s’pose so. -looks a little relaxed and sips. He stops and looks at his cup- …Y’know what the best way to fight pain is…? -holds out his cup to clink-

Dan: -smiles- With more pain. -clinks cups and both boys take a large sip of their Slushees until they recoil from brain freeze-

-They both look at each other and laugh-

Dan: Besides you’re not off the hook, Jason…

JD: Wait, huh… -looks legitimately scared-

Dan: -feigns pain- In my weakened state, no thanks to you, I can’t get up to get us some corn nuts from the kitchen for a midnight snaaaack…!

JD’s face instantly switches to an amused but annoyed look: Drama queen. -gets up- Message received though, BBQ or honey roasted?

Dan: Honey roasted, pretty please~ -gives a sly wink-

JD: Hmph. -goes to the kitchen-

-As he’s pouring some corn nuts in a bowl, JD just smiles-

JD: -mutters to himself- Veronica, Danny-boy… Thanks for not giving up on me.

#heathers #heathers jason dean #heathers the musical #heathers headcanons #heathers au #heathers oc #heathers 1989 #heathers fanfic #heathers the movie #blueike #blueike productions

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thanekrios · 3 years ago

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The way fall smells

SUMMARY: Tommy always loved the distinctive scent of fall. After a day patrolling with Joel, he remembers why.

The leaves had grown old and begun falling, laying carpets of warm hues on every trail surrounding Jackson. Tommy took a deep breath, taking in the unique sharpness in the air that came with the last months of the year.

It had been a good day. They had patrolled until noon, everything clear – no signs of Hunters or infected– and after checking in, left for the rest of the day to hunt and walk, to talk and have a snack under the orange light of the late afternoon just like they did when they were young.

Joel was having a good day too; Tommy could see it. For the whole afternoon, his shoulders had been relaxed, arms resting at his sides; every now and then, he stopped to take in the shushing of the leaves or the landscape. He was at peace.

Over the course of two years, Tommy had seen how his brother’s sharp edges had begun to dull and a smile would come to him easier than a frown. He talked more, about Sarah and Tess and sometimes even about himself; he hummed around Tommy, sang around Ellie. For a long time, Joel’s hatred for everything was like an all-consuming fire. But Tommy knew that as catastrophic as fires could be, they could also restore – he had seen it with grasslands, entire fields cleansed by the flames, making way for new vegetation to thrive. And now, he had seen it with Joel.

“We should head back.” Joel said as he got up and brushed breadcrumbs off his jacket. “We don’t want it getting too late.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed as they began walking in Jackson’s direction. “Got any plans for tonight?”

“Watchin’ a movie with Ellie.”

‘You’re both welcome to join us for dinner if you like.”

Tommy made a pause and considered his words.

Whenever they had them over, it wasn’t just dinner. It was a series of stories from any period of their lives. The brothers grew more excited with each anecdote, Maria would bid them goodnight long after their plates had been cleared; and as their laughter turned loud like thunderclaps, Ellie began knocking down every miserable object in her proximity as she became overexcited while shouting No fucking way! Then came the guitars. More laughter and clatter. And before they knew it, Maria was walking out the door for an early patrol.

So, Tommy added:

“Before your movie.”

“Thanks, but we don’t wanna interrupt Maria’s sleep two nights in a row.” Joel’s eyes ran across the golden foliage, the corners of his mouth curving.

“Well, I’m sure Ellie would appreciate some leftovers.” Tommy found himself smiling as well. “I can leave’em by the porch.”

“Usual place?”

“Usual place,” he confirmed.

“Appreciate it.”

They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the brittle sound of falling leaves and with each step, they walked into memories.

Tommy loved fall.

He first became enchanted with it as a child. He craved the crunching of a dry leaf under his booted feet, having a hot drink when his lips were chapped, listening to Joel play soft melodies as the sun set fire to the clouds. But above all, he looked forward to the unmistakable scent of summer’s perishing.

Tommy knew he came across as simple, devoid of imagination. Even before the outbreak people had assumed there wasn't much to him, that he never dreamt of anything other than a job in construction, blindly following Joel’s steps. He knew why it was easy to believe he had chosen an uncomplicated life rather than having settled for it. He didn’t make any effort to correct anyone. His dreams had been his own. Truth was, Tommy had wanted to be a storyteller in his youth.

During his childhood, he imagined the playful winds that came with fall were whispering stories, travelling through the rattling orange and yellow leafed trees, there for anyone who was willing to listen. Tommy imagined, to escape the empty rooms, the absent parents. He opened his mind and closed his eyes to craft tales of floating homes in the sky and flying whales and homemade dinners.

Fall shaped each story and realm that sprang in his heart and imagination. He didn’t speak of any of them, for whenever he had attempted to put it into words, the intricacy of each story, the vibrance of every world, the heartbreak experienced by each character became colorless.

"All imagination and zero talent," he confessed to Joel in his early teens.

Joel, who wasn't the wordy type either, comforted him the only way he knew how: by handing him his treasured guitar.

"You can tell stories with this, too."

By trading words for melodies, Tommy had compromised. If that was to be the only way to set his stories out into the world, it was enough.

Joel stopped and took in a deep breath, catching Tommy’s attention. His older brother let out a pleased sigh:

“I like the way it smells.” He didn’t need to say more, Tommy knew what he meant, but he continued, “Y’know, fall.”

He took in the words and allowed them to travel the usual road, back into his heart.

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. He buried his hands deep in his jacket pockets and filled his lungs with fresh air. He had heard that many times before but never from Joel. “Y’know, Sarah used to say the same thing.”

Something softened in Joel’s eyes, the look on his face echoing the one Tommy had seen on him countless times, whenever he had braided Sarah’s hair with so much care and tenderness it made it difficult to think of him as anything other than a loving father.

“Did she now?”

Tommy nodded:

“She said she liked the way fall smelled and then, uh, asked me what the smell was.”

“What did ya say?”

“I dunno, somethin’ dumb, like dust from a dirt road or somethin’.”

“That…that’s pretty accurate. Why’d you say it’s dumb? Was Sarah disappointed or somethin’?” Joel asked after a moment.

Tommy quirked a brow:

“Sarah? Our Sarah? That girl didn’t act disappointed a day in her life.”

“Yeah” Joel agreed in a whisper.

“But she asked me again the year after that. And then the one after that. And it kinda became a game we played. I gave her the thickest answers and she took’em. Then she started havin’ answers of her own.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d she say?”

“Well, a bunch of stuff. Good stuff. I think one time she said, uh, sharpened pencil. Yeah, that was it. Sharpened pencil. She also came up with…”

In recent years, Tommy had become an active forgetter, a problem that had triggered countless arguments with Maria. But those moments with Sarah, he remembered better than entire years.

“Apples, yeah. Refreshin’ and sweet and sour. There was, uh, wet soil after rain and hot hay dryin’ in the sun.”

“That’s…that’s a good one” Joel chuckled before kneeling to tie his shoelace. Tommy was certain his brother was only pretending to do it to shield his face. Then, as he stood up, he held his gaze. His smile was wide, eyes gleaming. “What else?”

Tommy didn’t have to think too hard. He knew just the one.

It had been a late afternoon, two days before the outbreak. Orange tinted the town as if the moment already belonged to a memory. Sarah had a plan; she would go to Tannhaus Watches & Jewellery to get Joel’s birthday present and he would go to the bakery next to it and place an order for a cake.

“Divide and conquer!” Sarah had repeated on their way to town.

The breeze carried the earthy sweet scent of the piles of leaves, tickling his nose. For once, he had decided, he would ask the question first:

“What does fall smell like?”

It had taken her but a few seconds to whip up an answer, taking Tommy by surprise:

“Fall smells like you, Uncle Tommy.”

Tommy’s words had died in his throat. He looked down, speechless still, and rested his eyes on her smile, equal parts sweet and smug. The realization of never having felt more loved dawned on him—it was a similar sensation to floating downstream. He felt weightless. Tommy remembered how when Sarah was little, they spent most of their time lying on golden grass, looking for shapes in the clouds or loudly singing along in his car. Sometimes they sat on the porch and drank extra sweet hot cocoa and he told her – in his own convoluted way – the stories he had told himself as a child to feel less alone. Tommy had reminded her, through his stories and his terrible mac and cheese dinners, that he would always be there for her – just like Joel had been for him.

“Alright. You win, sweetheart,” he said when he meant to say Thank you, I love you too.

Sarah had wrapped her skinny arms around his waist. She would never do that again.

They made their way down the street, their sneakers brushing against the asphalt, the musky fragrance of wisterias faint in the air.

“I wasn’t tryin’ to win but I’m glad I did.” And she had meant I love you more.

Jackson peered through the trees, lights dotted across the county. The temperature had dropped, the chill bit at Tommy’s ears, pink shading his cheeks. A big lump had formed in his throat — there was no way he would be able to speak without his voice breaking. It didn’t matter, he wanted to share it with Joel. The words poured out of his lips as tears ran down his cheeks. He stopped. He half laughed; half cried. Then explained, in vivid detail, how Sarah had made him feel. He apologized. Hell, he didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. Talking about Sarah? Crying? He had grown so used to getting burned whenever he had brought her up, it was still easy to forget just how much Joel had changed.

After Sarah’s death, for the first part of the nightmarish years they spent together, barely scraping by, surviving at the cost of their own humanity, he dreamt of her almost every night. Waking up in sobs, the light dissolving into grey shadows. Joel had refused to look at him, splintering Tommy’s heart. They never spoke of the past. They never spoke of her. They took. They survived. And their hollowness deepened with every wretched day.

Time moved forward; the changing of the seasons serving as the last remaining proof of it. He found comfort in the breeze that came as the year was about to end, revisiting memories and his old stories. Sometimes, as he patrolled, he ventured back into his worlds and again greeted the heroes of his childhood. He knew that there was no room for dreams or stories and his heart ached as he gave them up all over again. And then, he watched how the seams of Joel’s humanity continued ripping one after the other. He had believed he would never get his brother back. But now, Joel’s eyes glistened, a combination of longing and joy. He told him there wasn’t a thing to be sorry for. He listened and placed a hand on his little brother’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Joel said softly once Tommy hung his head and fell quiet.

Tommy nodded, letting out a trembling vaporous exhalation.

“I’ve always wanted to tell you about that,” Tommy said as the knot in his throat loosened and he looked back up at Joel “I just didn’t know how.”

“I’m glad you finally did.” Joel gave Tommy’s shoulder a little squeeze before letting go.

Tommy watched him walk ahead, his silhouette against the sinking sun. He couldn’t see it, but he knew Joel was smiling. He was smiling too. The wind blew. It smelled like fall. It smelled like home.

#the last of us #tommy miller #joel miller #sarah miller #ellie williams #galifreyas writes #this was supposed to be the first chapter of a big thing #but things went sideways in my personal life and i abandoned everything to pursue crying in the shower #anyway! i have healed since #i know the fandom has kinda died out but like whatever #here i wrote it

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tiesandtea · 4 years ago

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SUEDE: Style & Substances

Alternative Press, May 1997 (no. 106). Mag cover. Written by Dave Thompson. Archived here.

Suede Give Us A Glimmer...

Bleeding through the debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. Dave Thompson travels to London to discover why Suede are one of the few bands that matter in an age of stars who are "just like you."

Brett Anderson leans against an amplifier, hands in pocket, shoulders hunched. To his left, the rest of Suede are playing Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross"; to his right, a television crew is fiddling with camera angles. He wants a cigarette, but he never smokes this close to showtime. Instead, he swings a keychain and glowers into the monitors. It's rehearsal time in Studio Four, a theater-sized room as the BBC, and the only person who's enjoying himself is an increasingly rotund-looking Jools Holland. He's the host of this evening's show, and he's away in another room entirely.

Later...With Jools Holland is a British TV institution. Less than three years old, it has nevertheless sewn up a comfortable niche somewhere between the chart-conscious grooviness of Top of the Pops and the more indulgent pastures of MTV Unplugged. It's a showcase for bands to run through a handful of new songs, play a favorite or two and give a taste of their live prowess without boring the unconverted senseless. Boring themselves senseless, of course, is another matter entirely, and as Suede are counted into the third rehearsal of their opening song "Trash," you can almost sense the desperation in Anderson's face. Then the action starts, and he's utterly transformed. Though he's barely moving and scarcely singing, he's conveying an intensity that explodes from his very presence, drawing the most disinterested eyes in his direction. Even the soundmen look up from their meters, and the camera crew compete for his undying attention. If Anderson weren't a rock star, he'd make a great lunatic. But because he is a rock star...well, he's probably a lunatic anyway. You would be, too, in his shoes. If the 1990s have given us anything, it's the demystification of the rock star. From the boy-next-door Weezers to the angst-ridden whiners, the message is the same: I'm no different from you; I'm no better than you; and, of course, I'm just as screwed up as you. Enter, or more properly, re-enter Suede, with their third album, Coming Up (Columbia). And all that hard work reducing idols to idiots counts for nothing. Because Suede couldn't be "just like you" even if they wanted to. Bleeding through the "is he?/isn't he?" debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and the "does he?/doesn't he?" of his rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. The scent of teen spirit clings to them, the doomed romanticism of consumptive youth which peaked on their last album, 1994's Dog Man Star, and peeks through the stunning Coming Up. Suede deal in emotional extremes, from the A Clockwork Orange apocalypse of their "We Are The Pigs" video in which armed hooligans howl through a burning industrial landscape while Suede gaze down from giant video screens, to the incandescent loneliness of the current "Saturday Night" video, in which a London subway station is transformed into a rave to which the band have not been invited. The band's junkie chic is as apparent in the stoned immaculate presentation of their latest wasted-youth album-cover artwork, as it is in the gorgeously gaunt frame which Anderson angles for the television cameras. Add a live show that oozes subversive glamour; couple that with the fearless decadence of Anderson's greatest lyrics, and whether it's all an act or not, Suede are a walking advertisement for the joyful sins of sleaze. Backstage in the bowels of the BBC, Anderson sighs. He's heard all this before. "Yeah, you can look at it like that, but that's other people's interpretation of it, and that's their problem. You can't look at yourself through other people's eyes, then worry about what you say through their ears; you've got to have some self-belief in what you are." Which is, right now, the biggest thing on 10 legs. Across Europe and the Far East, Coming Up charted at No.1 and has already outsold both its predecessors. Three singles have kept the pot boiling ever since, and the current Suede line-up (their fifth on record since their 1990 "Be My God" 7-inch single debut) is their strongest yet. Like Brian Eno's departure from Roxy Music, founding guitarist Bernard Butler's exit did not so much rid the band of one creative spark, as open the door for the flowering of another. Anderson's unequivocal grasping of the reins, only partly aided by the recruitment of guitarist Richard Oakes, may have diluted Suede's overall sound, but it has sharpened their vision to a razor's edge. The further addition of keyboardist Neil Codling fills the gaps that teen maestro Oakes couldn't plug; the Simon Gilbert/Mat Osman rhythm section is a thunderous roar that never lets up; and Coming Up is unmistakably the sound of the same great band that recorded Dog Man Star. The difference is, Anderson affirms, they've stopped pissing around. "After Dog Man Star, everyone thought we were going to do an operetta or something like that. But you get things out of your system. We wanted to refocus the band, the fact that we were virtually starting again; we wanted to readjust the basics." And did it work? "You can't completely divorce yourself from your past. I haven't got the memory of a goldfish; I was aware that I'd made two albums before it. But it felt fresh, and it felt as though we were making the record away from a lot of the crap you have to deal with, away from the spotlight, which was great. Plus...", and here he gestures to new arrivals Codling and Oakes, "... there's less of an obsession with self-importance, which was definitely a change in the band. The last two albums were quite precious and self-important, and that can be good and that can be bad." Ah, preciousness. Plough through five years of Suede press and the buzzwords leap out: "superficial", "fake", "David Bowie" - three hollow sides to the same soulless coin. But most of the people who call Suede "pretentious" are the same ones who fancy the Spice Girls. And the closest those cynics get to class is the corridor outside the school room. "It does bother us a bit," says Anderson. "People always want to polarize bands into camps, and what I always find objectionable, even with journalists who are pro-Suede, is, they always want to write about us as an alternative to this good, honest musicianship going on elsewhere, which kind of implies that there isn't any good, honest musicianship going on within Suede." Anderson resents that implication, just as he resents the accusations of vanity that are flung at him with equal frequency - the two go hand in hand, after all. "People ask, 'Are you vain?' Hang on, let me turn the question around. If you were going to appear on television in front of five million people, you'd probably look in a mirror to see what you look like. You'll brush your hair and put a bit of make-up on because you don't want to look like a pig. Does that mean you're vain? I don't think it does. "Ninety-nine percent of my career thought is dedicated to thinking about music; a very tiny percentage is spent on image. I may go shopping once a month; but while I don't think we're the honest blokes down the pub, we're not kooky weirdos either. We're just what we are." A decent image, though, is still worth a thousand songs (ask Marilyn Manson), and if it's not their Englishness that holds Suede back in the U.S., then it has to be their appearance. They look weird. Catch the "Beautiful Ones" video: Codling apes the same abstracted pose of diffidence and boredom that once made a star of Sparks' Ron Mael; and Osman and Oakes look like they're trying to extinguish a particularly persistent cigarette end. Their singer is fey. Imagine Bryan Ferry if a stick insect stole his trousers. Their music is arty. And they come on like they're somehow special, so special that America poses little interest or challenge to Suede. Other bands make no secret of their desire to crack the country, nor do they hide their disgust when they fail. Suede, though, never seemed bothered. Past U.S. tours (three so far) have been languid affairs, barely publicized flirtations which almost gratefully acknowledge that as far as most people are concerned, Suede might as well be a lesbian performing artist. Anderson dictates the band's Stateside manifesto: "I don't give a shit." "Don't get me wrong: please don't portray us as some sort of anti-American thing, because we're not. But as far as America is concerned, you can talk about airplay and videos, but all it really boils down to is the fact that America doesn't like Suede. And I'm not going to knock it, if they don't like it, they don't like it." And what don't they like? Kurt Cobain had a tummy ache, and a nation felt his pain. Trent Reznor's dog died, and a nation held his hand. Brett Anderson wrote songs about holes in your arm ("The Living Dead") and pantomime horses ("Pantomime Horse"); he equates love with flyaway litter ("Trash"), and he's never been in rehab. "I hate that rehab shit! That's one place where America get really suckered, with those rehab rock bands. Let me explain what going into rehab means. It means you're cool because you used to do drugs, but now you're a good lad, and you're really '90s, so you want to give them up. But it's a complete excuse, and anybody who says it or does it is a complete careerist. I don't think the public shoulg go out and buy records by people whose record companies have told them to say they're going into rehab. You want to talk about fakes and falseness in the music business; I think this rehab rock thing is such a lot of dog shit." So you don't just say no? "I can't sit here and honestly say that drugs are bad for you, because I don't believe that, and I don't think anybody with a brain believes that." He elaborates: "Smoking a bit of pot and taking a bit of LSD can open a few barriers in your mind, although I certainly don't think taking smack, taking coke or taking crack does anything. I know I've taken drugs before and looked back on it and said, 'That's fucking crap; you should have got your act together and stopped taking them.' They just numb you and turn you into a wrong-thinking fucking idiot. "But that's the whole problem with drugs, isn't it? You can't say 'drugs' because there's so many different factes to it. 'It's an aid to creativity.' Well, some of it is, and some of it isn't. You can't paint everything with one brush." As for the veneer of glamour which Suede's own observations convey, the danger that, to quote the new album's "The Chemistry Between Us," "we are young and easily led," Anderson remains equally adamant. "There's no point in trying to filter things like 'Don't talk about this, don't talk about that.' Lots of times when I'm talking about drugs, I'm talking in a pedestrian context. I'm not trying to make it into a big deal; I talk about it like I'd talk about anything else that's in this room." And though he agrees there is a moral question, he also believes it's impossible to do much about it. "The only way you can set yourself up as something moral is in the broader sense, by not treating music as this completely throwaway, meaningless thing, and not treating the sentiments expressed in the music as completely throwaway, meaningless things. "That's where I see my position morally, someone who can write a love song and actually bring a degree of warmth to someone else. You can't act as censor in your words; you just have to be positive about what you're doing and see that making records that people love, that people cling to, and that help people through sticky patches in their lives is, at the end of the day, a positive thing to do. There's very few things I think that are positive in the world, but music is one of them." And that is that. In an age when a star is only as big as his last three videos, and most stars are as interesting as a line at the post office, Suede are three albums into a career that means more to more people than any of the bickering of Suede's petty, wormwood competitors; and certainly far more than the bitter, twisted harping of their detractors. Stars shine, shit stinks, and the lowest common denominator is nothing to be proud of. No one really wants to watch Hootie feed his blowfish, but Brett Anderson spends "Saturday Night" moping around on a subway train, and it's the best thing on MTV this year. Who cares what else he gets up to? Turning as he heads for the soundstage, Anderson won't be drawn. "My drugs of choice are ginseng and chamomile tea, but don't worry. I'm going into rehab soon."

#brett anderson #mat osman #simon gilbert #richard oakes #neil codling #suede #coming up month #coming up era

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harrysgoldrush · 5 years ago

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and they were roommates {h.s.} i

masterlist

one of the perks of being roommates with harry is that he’s an honest audience.

you’re both writers, with him being the successful musician he is and you being a best-selling romance novelist which works out perfectly for the two of you when writer’s block takes over.

it there’s a chapter or moment you’re unsure of, he’s always eager to help even if he seems busy. you’ve always done the same for him when he can’t find the right word or turn of phrase to carry his latest tune, you’re quick to set aside your laptop to help.

still, anyone who knows you two knows that you’re the two most competitive people in the world.

every bit of advice comes with its own witty comment.

harry never fails to find your weaker moments, suggesting that the youthful confession of love in chapter four should be shyer and that your main characters should struggle more when nervous to tell the other how they feel.

you’re quick as a whip to point out any misspellings or made-up words, or as he likes to call it ‘harryisms’ and advise a shift of words to make the flow of lyrics fit better when he has too many syllables.

its all good-natured, you’re both stubborn perfectionists in the end and highly supportive of the others.

but that doesn’t stop you from sneaking into his bathroom early in the mornings to bring harry asperin, having learned early on that he has a nasty habit of falling asleep in the bathtub with his typewriter when he needs a late-night change of scenery when struggling with finalizing a song.

its become a habit for harry to get you an espresso every morning in the weeks leading up to a deadline when sleep is chased away by nerves and procrastination. he hates to hear you fell asleep at another meeting with your publisher.

still, the loving jabs at each other just serve as distractions.

he’ll loudly barge into your room at 2am to tell you your typing is keeping him up late as he slowly picks up the latest printed chapter of your book, tucking into his ridiculously fluffy yellow robe as he tells himself its just a much needed late-night read.

you simply scoff at him, not looking away from your laptop as you tell him you’ll stop as soon as he stops singing so loudly in the morning when he makes breakfast, carefully pausing your harry styles radio on spotify and hoping he couldn’t hear his music blasting through your earbuds.

it’s never been a secret you two admire each other’s work, there isn’t an unsupportive bone in either of your bodies.

and its been that way since the two of you met in a rushed coffee meeting in between business meetings in between work. he needed a ‘flatmate’ and you needed an apartment closer to your publishing house.

a friend of a friend had mentioned you at some point during a fashion show two years ago and harry was happy to reach out and ask to meet.

harry sat hunched over his warm coffee mug, his olive green jacket collar popped up to keep him warm as he watched you carefully sip your pomegranate tea, unbothered by the wind as you sat outside the fairly empty cafe.

his hair was longer back then, being relentlessly pushed into his cheery face with every gust of wind until you had graciously offered him a dark yellow hair tie. the two of you had instantly begun chatting like old friends.

“it’s freezing out here,” he exclaimed, his teeth chattering and his eyes wide as he held his mug close under his chin, ducking down to feel the steam on his face. after another particularly strong gust of wind, harry set his mug down and reached down to zip up his jacket. his brows furrowed and his face grew comically annoyed, making you stifle a laugh, before he shifted back in his seat and began to tug at the thin material of his white shirt which had somehow gotten caught in the teeth of his zipper. Once he successfully freed his shirt and fully zipped up his jacket, he smiled widely and grabbed his mug again, squeezing it between his hands.

his nails were a deep blue, his neat manicure both impressed you and caused you to curl your hands up to hide you last minute and very messy attempt to paint you nails red before rushing here to meet him. his ripped jeans and designer boots put your leggings and worn trainers to shame.

but something in his kind eyes told you it didn’t matter to harry. he had seemed ecstatic to see you, practically leaping onto you once he took in your faded fleetwood mac shirt you definitely stole from your mom before going off to college, crushing you in a surprisingly comforting hug.

“sorry. i guess i’m stuck in the habit of sitting outside, i’ve only gone in to order.”

“you don't have to apologize, ‘sides, it has a nice view of the park.”

“exactly. perfect to people watch.”

he had laughed at that, nodding as you casually checked the time on your phone.

“sorry, what time is it?”

“one thirty two.”

“don’t you have that meeting at two?”

“oh,” blinking, it dawned on you that you did indeed have a meeting you were scared shitless for. “it’s okay, i can reschedule.”

“no, no its fine. we can wrap this up.” finishing up his coffee, he set his mug down and rubbed his hands together quickly. “jeremy hatcher said you were still looking for a flatmate in the city. my flat is far too big for just me and it’d be nice to not come home to an empty house; i haven’t been adjusting well to living alone. i don’ t have anything planned for the next few months but normally, i travel for wo--”

“i know who you are, harry,” you laughed. when he looked at you surprised, you added, “the whole world does, your band has been the focus of every tabloid for weeks since you decided to go on hiatus.”

seeing him grimace made you realize that you never wanted to see him frown again.

“i am so, so sorry that was uncalled for.”

“maybe a bit.”

“you should make plans.”

“what?”

“just because you don’t have a band anymore doesn’t mean you can’t keep doing what you love. i’m sure everyone tells you this but its a blessing in disguise,” sighing, you rubbed your neck, unsure of why you were opening up so quickly to a practical stranger you wanted to live with. “i got laid off from my last job where i was cowriting mystery novels with eight other writers. i have a draft due in twenty minutes that i’m terrified to deliver because i’ve never published a book that didn’t have my name in tiny print. i’m scared people read my books because of the other seven authors but i’m also happy because this is my work. its what i want to write and if no one reads it, so be it because i know i’ll read it. maybe my parents will too. but i’ll have said what i want to have said.”

harry’s smile from earlier grew tenfold and he quickly stood up, startling you. “You shouldn’t be nervous about that meeting. i think you’ll be fine. and i’ll be happy to read it once you move in.”

“what?” you asked in shock, watching as harry dug through his jacket pockets before awkwardly shoving a hand down the tight pocket of his skinny jeans, pulling out a few crumpled dollars which he set on the table, placing his mug ontop of them to protect them from the breeze. “you hardly know me! you can’t just ask me to live with you after half an hour. i could be a murderer. don’”t ask me to be your roommate yet!”

stepping back, harry chuckled and shrugged, his hands moving up to grab at the drawstrings of his hood. “i’d like to think i know you well. besides, that’s the best part, we can’t rush getting to know each other.”

“you can’t just leave!” you exclaimed as he pulled his hood up and began to walk away.

“yes i can,” harry spun on his heel to take one last glance before frantically tapping at his bare wrist, “and you have a meeting to get to!”

“harry!”

“i know you’ll do great roommate!”

#harry styles tpwk #harry styles blurb #harry styles blog #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry #harry edward styles #harry styles #romance movies #romance novels #romance #styles #roommates #friends to lovers #harry styles x y/n

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lefaystrent · 5 years ago

Note

Has virgil ever had a break down infront of anyone in the nursing home au. Like freaked out becuse of police sirens outside of the building or on tv or a documetery of prision is played on the luchroom tv when he went to make" fucking mac and cheese™️" also im sad now cus all i think of is logan dying and then a when romans about to die he tells virgil "i know what my next adventure is. Im going to find Logan. Dont worry ill be fine" and thencloses his eyes to sleep but dosent wake up;-;.

First of all, hello sadness! Loganis the first to go yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar Roman would saysomething along those lines. (Or alternatively, the both of them discover thefountain of youth and never have to die. :D)

As for Virgil, he tries his very hardestnot to show his weaknesses, but sometimes…they just happen. The first time it happens in front of other people at the nursing home is written below the cut.

WARNINGS: in-depth descriptions of a panic attack, ptsd

Nursing Home AU Masterlist

It happens when Virgil is inRemus’s room cleaning up one of his messes.

Remus adamantly disagrees on theterminology of his ‘messes’.

“It’s art! You prudes wouldn’t haveany artistic sense if it bit you in the butthole!”

Virgil snorts, “You could have justleft it with ‘butt’.”

The old man grins, showing off asmile that’s missing half of its teeth. “But butthole sounds so much juicier.”

“I will pay you to never say thatagain.”

“This is payback for destroying mylife’s work.”

Virgil looks at him with a raisedbrow.

Then he looks pointedly back at thewall that features a giant penis drawn with smeared ketchup.

Virgil has no idea where Remussmuggled this much ketchup into his room.

Patton comes into the room. Heglances at the ‘artwork’ on the wall and doesn’t look the slightest bitsurprised. Someone must have spread the word to him.

Remus doesn’t look at all ashameddespite Patton’s disapproving expression.

“We’ve talk about this,” Pattonadmonishes.

“You talked, I ignored.”

“Remus. No…phallic imagerydisplayed in the building.”

“THIS IS HOMOPHOBIC!” Remusscreeches.

Virgil just shakes his head andcontinues wiping down the wall.

For the next couple of minutes helistens to the two of them talk behind him. Patton continues to try to reasonwith Remus, and Remus continues to be unreasonable. Same song and dance asevery day.

But then Remus yells something thatsticks with Virgil.

“This place is a prison!” hebemoans. “Give me back my freedom, George Washington!”

And it’s kinda funny and Remus’sstyle of random and dramatic, but …

This place is aprison.

Maybe. In some ways.

Like the small cell-like rooms.

Or not being allowed to leave for manyof those who lived here.

Seeing the same faces day in andday out.

Always having eyes on you, watchingeverything you do.

But for the most part?

You didn’t have to worry if yourcellmate would strangle you in your sleep.

Or keeping your head down in thecafeteria, because last time you made eye contact with someone they took it asa challenge.

Or choosing to forsake personalhygiene just so you wouldn’t leave yourself open to being cornered in theshowers.

The way they’d size you up quick aspredator or prey, and God help you if they thought of you as the latter.

As scared shitless as Virgil hadbeen, crying into his pillow almost every night because it was always so coldand the thin standard blanket did nothing to fight the chill…

Virgil had never in his life had toact so tough and mean. He learned to spit his words harshly enough to makeothers second guess their assumptions of an easy target. He hissed and bit anyhand that tried to touch him.

Virgil doesn’t realize at first,but he has stopped cleaning up Remus’s mess.

His hand lingers, rag pressedagainst the wall until it drags down and lays limply.

He stares, and while the beigepaint brings warmth to the room, it somehow fades to the steel gray he had tosee day after day.

Distantly he hears voices behindhim, but they become a muted hum, like the echoes from down the row of cells.He can hear footsteps, the guards pacing up the corridor.

“Virgil?”

A hand on his shoulder.

It burns like acid.

Virgil’s entire body tenses up, alive wire ready to strike but his vision’s gone all tunnel-y and he can’t seewhere the enemy is.

“Virgil. Virgil, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t. Touch. Me,” Virgil pushesthe words out with all the effort it takes to move a car out of a muddy bank.

He’s just now catching on thatmaybe he’s having a panic attack, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. Ifanything, it just makes it worse and he struggles to decipher past frompresent. It all muddles together, and he can’t move, can’t turn his head, can’tstop staring at the gray—brown—gray wall.

“Don’t touch me,” Virgil saysagain, breath kicking into a concerning pace. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me,don’t ever fucking touch me.”

All at once the hand is gone.

The burn of acid remains.

Patton is at a complete loss.

Virgil was fine just a minute ago.

But then he’d gotten quiet— which wasn’tunlike him, ya know? But he hadn’t responded to either of them when spoken todirectly, and that definitely was unlike him.

So Patton tried to get hisattention, thinking maybe he’d been lost in thought.

He’d never seen Virgil’s eyes sowide and terrified.

And his shoulders, they startedmoving up and down as his breathing shallowed out.

And his words—so aggressive thatPatton genuinely believed for a second that Virgil was one second away fromlashing out at him.

Patton keeps his hands to himselfafter that, but he lingers beside Virgil, reluctant to leave him likethis—whatever this is.

Is he angry at Patton? Upset withwhat they were talking about? Patton begs Virgil to tell him what’s going on,but it’s like Virgil can’t even hear him.

“Just keep talking to him,” Remussuggests.

“It’s not working though,” Pattonsays, voice dripping with worry. Virgil’s really starting to edge towardshyperventilating. An allergic reaction? But Virgil has never mentioned—and hehasn’t eaten anything recently—

“What’s going on here?” Dee asks,poking his head in.

Virgil can hear him at the doorway,kind of like in an out of body sort of way.

He’s never had a freak out this badaround them—had been so proud of himself for making it this long.

Now their eyes are on him, andVirgil feels their pinprick gazes stabbing into the back of his neck. The panicramps up another couple of notches.

Patton looks pleadingly at Dee.“He’s—he’s having some kind of attack. I don’t know what happened.”

“Oh shit,” Dee says eloquently.

For all that Dee oozes confidenceand spins pretty words, comforting an emotionally distressed rival is kinda outof his range of specialties. He stands there, slack-jawed and hesitating.

That won’t do at all.

“Just fucking talk to him,” Remussays bitingly and gets up from his bed.

He ambles over to Virgil and pullsa chair up close enough to him but far away enough to not startle him.

Virgil startles anyway.

“Whatever you’re seeing, kid, it’snot real,” Remus tells him. His eyes are bright and mad and clever. “They wantyou to think it’s real, and yeah okay, it was real at some point, wasn’t it? Butit’s not anymore. You’re not there. It’s over. You can come out now.”

It takes a minute, and Virgilshudders, and tears are streaming down his face.

But he’s listening.

Remus leans forward, elbows proppedon his knees. “You’re safe now. They already did the hurting. So tell them togo fuck themselves. They don’t get to touch you anymore.”

Virgil slows to a calm.

He feels numb.

Drained.

But the walls have stopped crushinghim and he can breathe again.

“Better?” Patton asks from theother side of him. He never left his side for a moment.

Virgil nods jerkily, unable to talkat the moment.

“Need anything? Water? Anything?”

Virgil takes too long to think,thoughts sluggish.

“Let’s go talk to Logan!” Remusblurts out.

He hops out of his chair andmotions for Virgil to stand. Noticeably, he doesn’t try touching Virgil. Heholds out his hand in offer if Virgil needs help standing up.

“His nerdy talk can bore you rightto sleep. Let’s go, Emo. Upsy-daisy.”

Virgil takes his hand and stands.

He hesitates, gesturing at the wallas if to say, “But I still need to clean it up.”

Remus waves his concern off. “Don’tworry about that. Dee will clean it up. Dee loves cleaning up mymesses.”

Dee gives him a dark look butdoesn’t say anything. He stands aside and lets the two of them leave the room,Remus guiding a quiet Virgil by the hand.

Patton remains, though he staresafter them. “I’m still not sure what happened. He was fine and then … Iguess something must have triggered it.”

Dee shrugs, rubbing his glovedhands together self-consciously. “Everyone has their own demons.”

And when Remus had seen Virgildescend into the madness of memory, like had recognized like.

_______________________________________________________________

General Tag List: @spectralheartt @a-pastel-pan @rose-gold-roman @ijustrealizedhowdumbmynamewas @katie-the-noble-fangirl @yourroyalydramaticanxiousness @aroundofapplesauce @merlybird500 @beach-fan @jemthebookworm @randomsandersides @gamerfreddie @unring-this-bell @analogicallythinking @lilygold23 @levy-the-b00kw0rm @tacochippy @accio-hufflepuff-power1 @just-another-rainbowblog @georganabanana @grey-says-heck @crookedlyoptimisticdestiny @thesynysterunknown @idont-know-what-im-doing @idioticsky @fadingglowcloud @whizzie72 @theinvisiblespoon @greyyy523 @opaque-puppet @just-fic-me-up @wowimsogoddamnoriginal @sos-fandoms @loganeatsbooks @trust-is-overrated @theitalianalchemist @im-crunchie @mourning–star @4amanxiety @hogwarts-my-love @enby-phoenix @justanotherpurplebutterfly @internet-or-sleep @absolutesandersidestrash @seaspider10 @nonasficcollection @satanblessi @an-absolute-failure @analogical-mess @noisyeggpizzapatrol @hamilsandersfam @cefinitely-rolo @thgjclw @knight-shives @no-no-no-no-6 @savingshae @rabbitsartcorner @buddypallady @midnight-tragedyy @007ardra @fandomloverangel @dorkoverse @moodytrash06 @mirrorz-n-starz @idunnosong @lcrnbw @ollyollyoxinfree @cuter-on-the-inside @its-high-time-that-i-dropped-in @crazy-rat-man @i-need-a-life-8903 @modsnow

Nursing Home List: @thirteenashmctrash @figurative-falsehood @oddball-wqri@comicsimpson @hit-or-mish @delphionix @rabbitsartcorner @nugs-and-hugs-not-drugs @toostressedforthisbs @fluctuating-fangirl @why-should-i-tell-youu2 @bestbluebouquet @the-aroace-queen-in-the-quiver @logans-doodles @herestheanxietea @theblankest123 @lia-quanz

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insomniac-dot-ink · 5 years ago

Text

Garden Walk

Genre: supernatural horror

Words: 3.7k

Summary: a young woman sees a figure strolling the gardens making an odd sound.

Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter

Content warning: slight blood and injury

-------------------------

There’s something eating the bees.

You read about the bees disappearing all the time in the papers and on the news every few years in big investigative reports. Usually, it’s all the same alarm and studies about colony collapse and human pesticides and disease spreading rapidly through hives. I know all that and I’m sure it’s real and dangerous and one of the many ways we’re hurting the planet.

But this is different. I know it is, I feel it in my gut and under my skin and throughout my nerves with this itchy burn.

I like to go to the library on my days off. I work in a Bath and Body works shop so my hours are pretty random and my days off vary from week to week.

Still, I usually managed to make time once a week to hop downtown and go to the Fairfield Public library. I either walked when it was nice out or took the bus or Georgia used to drive me when we were together.

I went a lot more often that spring. I was in the process of getting over a nasty breakup and it was hard to be alone in my apartment. After you live with someone for so many years being alone in your own home can feel almost… like a punishment. You have to kill your own spiders in the corner and unclog your own drains and feed yourself old Mac and Cheese with no one to really care.

It was a difficult breakup to say the least and left this ache in my chest that I couldn’t get rid of, but managed to ignore most days. Distractions helped, so I went to the library.

Fairfield Public Library is this massive place that they renovated a couple years ago with new wings and a fresh paint job and better air conditioning. The bathrooms still had weak hand dryers and there was never enough chairs, but they did install some gorgeous immense windows in the central seating area. They’re ceiling-to-floor panels that let in gallons of sunshine that soak the floor and give the whole plan an almost enchanted feel. Some days I would just go in and walk beside them for long minutes with my hand trailing in the light.

The windows weren’t my favorite part of the library though. The inside still smelled a little dry and musty and they kept the temperature too cold for my liking. My favorite part of the library were the gardens outside.

There was a river that ran behind the library and a good acre of land spanning from the back of the building up to the edge of the water. In between the two was a complex public garden. Macy Dickson was one of the librarians and she would talk my ear off about how they used native Iowa plants and local plant fertilizer and set-up hummingbird feeders and plants that ladybugs liked.

I nodded along, but I wasn’t exactly an outdoors kind of person in the way Georgia had been. Most plants looked the same to me, and I was prone to stepping in poison ivy and itching for weeks and accidentally pissing off local Canadian geese and being chased.

These gardens were friendly though, easy. The bushes were low to the ground and the plots held sturdy herbs and a few flowers popping up depending on the time of year. A path wound in and out of red oak trees and honeysuckles and bird feeders until it made its way to a rock garden with stone benches facing it. I would take a deep breathe there, sit, and attempt to feel whatever it is you’re supposed to feel when you’re outside surrounded by tweeting birds and wildlife sounds. I was never very good at being calmed by ocean noises or wind in the trees or anything like that, but to be fair I was never really calmed by anything. I had nervous habits like washing my hands too much and picking at my skin and applying hand sanitizer every few hours like clockwork.

Maybe those were all the things Georgia couldn’t stand. I didn’t know.

Either way, sometimes that long walk out by the red trees and shrubbery did me good.

It was on a Wednesday in the middle of the week and the dreary weather had broken out into warm air and thin blue skies, I finally got to wear my strappy sandals again and walked all the way to the library. I was going through a reading period that my therapist might classify as “regression.”

One day I had been crying in the nonfiction aisle next to a true crime series and the next moment I found myself inching to the kids section. I crept into the bright wing as if in a sleep-walk and looked over the colorful covers of dragons and a boy and his dog and kids running from spooky shadows and little witches and I picked up a handful of kids chapter books.

I started reading all the books of my youth: Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys.

I read through them like you shake an old friend’s hand and there was something comforting about the non-threatening stories and consuming words of my youth. Of course, being a grown woman who was almost thirty reading children’s books… didn’t make me feel great.

I dashed into the kids section of the library that Wednesday and picked out two stories: Ella Enchanted and the Princess Academy. There was something so sweet and feminine about the titles that had me swiping them up and carrying them off like a burglar in the night.

I visited the nonfiction section next and picked out a book called “The Knife Man” about historical surgeries and went on my way. I had been padding my check-outs with serious books so the librarians wouldn’t give me funny looks.

In all honesty, the librarians and patrons and everyone I passed probably didn’t care in the least. But I was a nervous person. And sometimes my brain played tricks on me and told me that everyone was staring or thinking thoughts about me and noticing everything I did.

I didn’t make eye contact with librarian as she checked-out my “princess” texts and I slipped outside to the gardens to read in private. I may not have found solace in nature per say, but I did find solace in being alone there. I wondered up the white gravel path past the daffodils and beds of sage.

I sighed into the sweet air and turned to go to my favorite bench with a chunk missing from one of the arms. And then I froze. There were three teens loitering at my bench and they were all on their phones and sometimes glancing up at me.

I clutched my books a little tighter and, as if attached to a string, turned fluidly away from my usual bench and walked up toward the river. I didn’t know where I was going, but I just didn’t want to seem like I was lost or put-off by the teens.

Teens were the worst. They always looked like they knew things and were always exchanging whispers and furtive glances- none of which helped my state of mind. I did feel silly, being scared away like that, but the river was full and glittering and it almost felt worth it.

It took me a second but I found a large stone to sit on and got out of one of my books. I told myself this was better and it was good to switch things up. The afternoon passed in slow honeyed hours as I ate up one book after the next in a way that finally let my nerves rest. I could get lost there, forever, in those other worlds.

I only stopped when I noticed that the sun had gotten low on the horizon and the shadows were winding and long, and I realized I was very hungry.

I dusted myself off, stretched my stiff legs and arms, and turned back toward the library and the gardens. That’s when I saw him.

“Him” is the wrong word, but so is every other word for it.

He stood on the path several feet away with the sun at his back. The path runs right beside the river and the area is usually empty since it’s at the very back of the garden and tends to accumulate trash like empty soda cans, lost plastic bags, and coffee cups and is not as pretty.

It was just me and the tall figure.

He was skinny, and gaunt and I squinted at him for a moment because he seemed even taller than my father who was 6’4. The figure wore a long jacket despite the nice weather and had a wide-brimmed hat that made his face disappear entirely. It was the type of hat you might see on farmers or adventures, beige and stiff and there was a loose string hanging beneath the chin. He had long, tangled brown hair that fell past his shoulders and hung lankly by his face in greasy clumps.

The fellow was slowly ambling forward, taking loud thunking steps down the path with these hulking dirty boots that were even larger than the rest of him. Something about him unnerved me deeply. He was too tall and he moved too slowly, too clunkily, as if he was gradually moving some great weight. I would even say he was limping, but there were no visible signs he was actually staggering or missing a beat. It was just off.

He wore gloves and I couldn’t see an inch of his skin.

My shoulders rose like the haunches of a cat as I realized he was moving closer and I quickly turned to leave. I heard it as I was striding back toward the building: whistling.

A noisy and bombastic whistling that drilled through me into my core and left a smear there. It was an un-melodic messy tune I couldn’t place. I picked up speed and nearly fell all the way back to the nearest parking lot and other people.

At the time I didn’t know why I thought “other people,” because the man was obviously just someone out on a stroll. But I thought it all the same.

-----------------

I was able to put the man out of my head for a good while. Our stores general manager position opened up and I was up for consideration, though I’m not sure I really wanted it. I was busy taking on extra hours and making sure my cashiers and floors people actually showed up for their shifts and lady’s in floral dresses didn’t make my workers regret showing up.

That sort of thing.

It must have been a month into proper spring when I finally returned. I got a day to myself and my apartment still didn’t feel welcoming or soft. It was always missing something and the ache was just as hungry as before.

I thought about her often. I wondered if Georgia was still making her famous quiche and bragging about her latest road trip she had planned but would probably never take and coloring her toenails a brilliant red color. I had hated the chemical smell of that nail polish during her weekly retouch, but now I missed it in a way you miss snowstorms in the lean months of summer. The hole in my chest gnawed at me and I entered the library and collected three titles: The Girl Who Swallowed the Moon, Julie of the Wolves, and a medical text detailing the history of malaria.

My eyes darted around to check that no one thought this was weird and then I slipped outside so I could breathe properly. I found my usual bench unoccupied and took a seat.

I ate the books up like a hot meal at your family’s house and was even smiling into the glaring sunlight when a whistling came. It was noisy and tuneless and entered my head space like a sharp thorn.

I jerked my head up and looked left and right to find a tall man with a long jacket and dirty lank brown hair standing in the gardens.

My mouth became very dry and the light was slanting in just the right way so that I could see his face this time. He was wearing these thick, black sunglasses and had a haggered look and very stiff expression.

The worst part about him beside the hellish whistling though was the faint color of his skin. I had seen it in medical texts. Ever since I was a little girl I had a fascination with illness and germs: I hated them, reviled them, detested stink and mess and the idea of tiny creatures that could wiggle inside me unnoticed and change my body in ways I couldn’t control.

But something drew me to stare at pictures of illness over and over again as if maybe looking alone could protect me. That if I read enough about smallpox and studied enough pictures of dengue fever that I could break their power over me.

I’m not sure if it ever worked, but I had one thought as I stared at the man and his yellowing frayed complexion: jaundice. It was the exact same off-yellow complexion that no healthy human being sports.

I scooted to the edge of my bench in order to get up and quickly hurry along, but the figure stopped in place. He was still out of reach and I had time to leave, but somehow I couldn’t tear my eyes away, in the same way I couldn’t look away from bubonic plague depictions.

He was standing by this wooden lattice work that held vines working their way toward the sun. He was humming his same terrible song and looking down.

I didn’t notice the bee until he put his hand out and the fat yellow creature was scooped into his palm. I didn’t usually notice the bees flying around with their complex paths and busy work that filled them with this determination to be on their way. I liked bees in that way, not just in the “helps the planet” way but how they always looked like they were on a mission.

Me and the man stood there and stared at the fuzzy yellow creature for what must have been a whole minute.

And then the man’s jaw dropped open and he crushed the tiny bee into his mouth and swallowed. I say “dropped” because his jaw shouldn’t have opened like that and it shouldn’t have closed like that either.

It was far too wide, his cheeks too concave, the skin too thin, and there was something crooked about the angle- as if the jaw wasn’t connected in a solid way. He had just gaped open his mouth into a black hole and ate the bee.

My heart squeezed painfully in my chest and eyes went huge. His head slowly tilted up as if to look at me and I didn’t stick around for him to really stare. I turned and fled down the path and as far away as I could possibly get.

I tried reporting it to library security and told the guard some man was eating things he shouldn’t outside, but the statements were dismissed and I could tell were not going to be followed up on it. I went home with that same eerie droning whistle playing in my head.

I had seen something eating the bees.

----------------

I tried to be rational.

It took several days, but I eventually smoothed out the jitters and settled into a type of shame-faced guilt. I wished I could have talked the events through with Georgia, but we had agreed on a “no communication” policy for the first few months.

I decided it was just another case of my nervousness and over imagination messing things up. The man at the library was obviously a very sick person who needed help. He was eating bees from a garden after all and his skin was an unnatural yellow. I kept replaying in my head how a “proper” adult would have handled the situation: how I should have went over to gently talk to him or called some sort of hospital.

I gave myself a good talking-to and two weeks later I resolved to visit the library again. It was one of my favorite places and I figured if I saw him again I would try to reach out or get one of the staff to intervene.

It was a proper weekend for once and after I got my three books I went outside and my normal bench was taken by a family. I edged away, shuffling past the wild ginger and squirrels high in a tree and the disturbed rock garden and up the hill to the river.

The path by the river was empty and sunny until I reached the water itself. The figure was there. He was turned away, low to the ground, and facing the plants.

I gulped with great effort and any thought of trying to do the “right” thing went out of my head as I heard the horrible whistling tune once more. He was kneeling next to a Goatsbeard bush, Goatsbeard is a wide thick plant that holds several long white plumes of tiny flower heads.

His gloved hand was hovering over a resting bee on one of the white flowers.

It struck me at that instant that I knew what was about to happen and I really really didn’t want it to. The thought of his thing opening it’s gaping mouth and swallowing that bee was too much for me and prospect of watching it happen again was even worse.

I didn’t think. I just acted.

“Sir!” I used my voice even though it sounded too loud and too forceful in the still air and the quiet whistling still shivered through my spine. “You don’t have to do that. Sir!”

He ignored me and brought his face closer to the insect. My books dropped from my hands to the path. I was running, my hand out and heart pounding as he had scooped up the bee and I couldn’t stand it. It’s bright yellow body was stark against his brown glove and he held it in place as his lips started to part.

“Stop.” I must have stumbled because I lurched forward and fell toward him. I caught myself with the toe of my shoe, but my fingers brushed against his cheek. I’ll never forget the way his skin felt.

My fingers just barely touched the flesh. It was hard though, like cement or marble, there was no give and was cool to the touch. Most of all it was bumpy, bump after bump of puckered skin like running your hand over a warped building wall or a terrible pustule-ridden rash.

The sensation of the bumpy skin was just for moment before one of his enormous hands darted up with quick efficiency and took my wrist in a hard grip. I gasped and he stood up to his full impressive height and grinned.

It wasn’t a grin with his teeth and I still couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark black glasses, but that smile was all I needed to confirm the worst. “Mmph!” I yelped, but not very loudly. I was never very good at yelling, even when I was a child and found a dead raccoon in the backyard or needed to shout at my dad when to turn on the road.

It just yelped once and then stared in rapt terror as my stomach dropped and whole world compounded into that second.

My hand looked tiny in his and the whistling hadn’t stopped. I was close enough at that point that I belatedly realized there was no way he could have been using his mouth to make that noise.

His mouth opened ever so slightly and the sound erupted from inside him and it wasn’t whistling. His thin yellow lips peeled back to reveal rows of sharp teeth, but not blunt teeth or canines or incisors. They were all sharp white shards- like that of broken glass or pieces of bleached wood chips.

They were all slightly different sizes, thin and long and coming into narrow points that hurt just to look at. As he opened his jaw in that unhinged crooked way I heard the sound clearly: a buzzing coming from within him. An unmistakable, low buzz that you hear from TV static. And bees.

It seemed to surge from somewhere deep inside him like a nest of tangled angry sound flooding from his core. It had a frantic quality. Like it was trying to escape.

The waves of humming grew louder and louder as his mouth expanded and I barely registered as he brought my hand up. I broke out of my stupor at the sight of his needle teeth leering toward my skin and tried to pull back with all of my force. I furiously kicked him in the shin, but he didn’t so much as flinch and my toe stung from contact with that same unyielding hard flesh.

He held my wrist firm and his face drew closer and closer with those those same slow deliberate movements. The points of his teeth delicately dug into my fingertips, the ones that had touched him, and a bright spike of pain crashed over me. I think I finally managed to scream.

It was a sticky blur as I lost those fingertips. I do remember the blood running down his yellow chin and spilling down his neck in a steady trickle.

I fell to the ground in shock and my next memories were waking up in a hospital with bandages over the middle and pointer fingers of my right hand. The pad of each was gone.

I shook violently and called Georgia without hesitation. She came right away and drove me home in silence, not forcing me to talk or bring up the future police reports and descriptions I might have to give. We might even be friends again after that first week, I’m not sure.

The police investigated but found no man with that description by the library. The only evidence I had was that the librarians had records of less and less bees visiting their gardens recently.

But nothing more.

I think I’m moving out of Fairfield soon. I think I’ll move somewhere with less gardens and more cement and people everywhere and get a roommate and big dog and start renting my books from online.

There is something eating the bees.

--------------

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#supernatural #horror #writing #story #original story #creepy/#my work #cw: blood #cw: injury

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sybright · 4 years ago

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Grizabella being Munk and Tugger’s sister au

I’ve had this idea brewing in my head for a while and I’ve finally gotten the motivation to write it out. Fair warning, this whole thing is a COMPLETE mess, I have no idea where I was going with this, it got a longer than I thought it would, um, read at your own risk?

I think the “Griz is Munk and Tugger’s mom” headcanon is a neat idea, but it never vibed with me personally. For my “main” universe I see Griz as being unrelated to any of the Jellicles. However, for productions where Griz has a younger appearance (which can apply to both the pre-revival Griz design and the post-revival one), I really like the idea that she’s Old Deut’s daughter and siblings with Munk and Tugger.

Headcanons:

-She’s the eldest (of the trio at least, Old Deut has obviously had countless children in past lives, but Griz, Munk, and Tugger are his only children in this life), Munk is the middle child, and Tugger is the youngest.

-She was expected to become the next Jellicle leader. I have the feeling that the current life Old Deut is living is his last, and he feels confident in passing the role of Jellicle leader to his first born child in this current life.

-For a long time, becoming the Jellicle leader was a feeling of pride for Griz, for most of her youth she was excited to take on this role. She was confident, mature, caring, and deeply respected by the tribe, especially by her younger brothers. Simultaneously, she was laid-back, fun loving, and well, glamorous. This only earned her more respect from the tribe, she knew when to have fun, and she knew when to be serious. This is where she got her reputation as “the glamour cat.”

-During her late-teens to early adulthood is when she reached the height of her days as “the glamour cat.” It was around this time that she begun her Protector training, which was sort of like a prerequisite to her Jellicle leader training that would come later on.

-When Griz started her Protector training, she began to rethink her life goals. She was young, just a little while out of kittenhood, and she reveled in the freedom she had prior to her training. Griz had big dreams, she wanted to see the world, and suddenly she felt constrained by her obligation to stay with the tribe and complete her training. Her life felt caged, like it was all laid-out for her, she was having second thoughts about the whole “leader” thing.

-Griz was too scared to confide her doubts to anyone because she didn’t want to disappoint them or let anyone down. So she continued her Protector training, pretending like everything was fine.

-Over time, the pent up emotions in her led Griz to start resenting the tribe, she never said anything, but she grew more frustrated with them as each new day passed. The tribe started to see a change in Griz’s attitude, she became more cold and distant.

-This culminated in an argument Griz got into with Munk the day before her Jellicle leader training was going to begin (Munk is a teen at this time btw). Basically, Munk was asking what was going on with her lately, and why she had changed so much during her training. He had asked out of worry and concern, he wanted to help her. Griz snapped at him and a huge argument ensued. A lot of feelings were hurt that day, Munk didn’t know if he even knew his sister anymore, Tugger (who’s around preteen age at this time) overheard some of the arguing, and felt equally hurt by their exchange.

-The next day, the day she was supposed to start her Jellicle leader training, Griz was gone. She left without telling anyone or saying goodbye. She left to see the world and pursue fame, she walked out on them. This was a massive blow to the tribe, everyone was beaten down by it, Munk and Tugger especially so. They had looked up to Griz, and admired her for a long time, and this event, what felt like a betrayal, was awful for the two of them. Old Deuteronomy was more worried about Griz than anything.

-Years passed, Munk took up the mantle of becoming the next Jellicle leader, he started his Protector training and was determined to pickup where Griz left off. Meanwhile, Tugger took on a very care-free and rebellious attitude.

-Jemima shows up around this time, and it isn’t realized now, but after the events of the musical it’s decided that Jemima suits the role of Jellicle leader much better than Munk. Munk, while responsible, takes on far too much stress from the job, so he remains a Protector and storyteller.

-Everything started out great for Griz, she was free from her responsibilities and nothing could hold her back now. After a few years, however, it started to fall apart. She fell on hard times and wound up on the street, completely alone. She had too much pride, too much shame, to return to the tribe just yet, so she remained on the streets for a while.

-The events of the musical happen. Griz shows up after she finally gets over herself, it’s been roughly ten years since she left. Everyone’s on edge, the only one who had seen Griz prior to her return is Demeter, who encountered Griz on the streets many times in the past, and it’s only her, the kittens, and Old Deut who show her any empathy.

-After the final Memory, Griz is forgiven and welcomed back to the tribe. I haven’t fully decided yet whether Griz should be reborn or stay with the tribe. I’m leaning towards staying with the tribe, because it’s a neat idea that I want to play around with. Griz mending her relationships with the other tribe members and her direct family would take a lot of time, and her getting back into the swing of her old life is an interesting concept, there’s just so much good material in that setup that I want to explore, I’m just trying to decide whether I want to differentiate it from this au or not.

Extra stuff for this au:

The idea that I was trying to get across with this, is that everything came down to a lack of communication. In reality, no one was ever pressuring Griz to become the leader, if she had said something, the tribe would have supported her decision, but on the other hand no one ever asked her how she felt about it either. It’s the lack of discussion from both ends that causes the misunderstandings and tension, and eventually the falling out.

As an aside, this whole thing is apart of my “idiot universe.” To briefly explain, I have three distinct Cats universes, (which may or may not have been created for the sole purpose of having all my ships be canon, don’t judge me), they’re all separated by how Macavity is characterized. Universe one is my “main” universe, where Macavity is his typical self, universe two is the “redemption” universe where Macavity is less awful and gets redeemed, and universe three is the “idiot” universe where Macavity is just a dumbass who doesn’t pose a threat to anyone. He’s still a criminal, but only moderately worse than Jerrie and Teazer. So yes, this Griz sibling thing is in the “idiot” universe.

If any of you are more interested in the three universes Mac’s, here’s a full post on it from like two months ago, it’s pretty shit and there are some things I’ve changed my mind about since then, but it still has some nice details. It’s also from before I had all these followers, so I was still posting to the void lmao. Also, that post was from before storyweaverofgondor made that excellent post explaining Mungocavity, so I was just throwing ideas against the wall for the pairing and trying to come up with a ship name XD. I’m so glad her post made the pairing a bit more popular because I thought I was doomed to be alone in shipping it lol.

I’ve really been liking the “Tugger and Demeter are siblings” idea thanks to return-of-the-skimbly and thepansexualspoon, and I kinda want to incorporate it into one of my universe’s somehow, but I haven’t decided which one. I also can’t decide if I’d still have Munk as their sibling too if I went that route, but I know for sure that it won’t be in my “main” universe because of Demebombastrap. I’ve been thinking about putting it in the “idiot” universe, in which case I’ll have to edit some of the headcanons in this post. In fact, I’ll probably need to make a separate post explaining Deme’s whole side of it if I do that. *Sigh* there’s just too many fun ideas to work with!

#cats the musical #grizabella #munkustrap #rum tum tugger #my rambles #my original posts #long post #old deuteronomy #cats headcanons #cats aus #I wanna make more posts about my three universes because they keep getting more elaborate and I need to talk about them ajdsakms #I'm not @ing the people I mention because the @ is at the very bottom of this post and this post is very long #I don't want to put them through the pain of having to read this mess so I'm just not @ing them #might also be because of my anxiety where I want to post this but simultaneously don't want people to read it hsadjjaka #also yeah I know 'idiot' universe isn't the most proper name but I might come up with something better later on

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bartletforamerica · 5 years ago

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When Maggie Met Donna

The West Wing-The Newsroom Crossover Post both Season Finales, in a world where somehow all of the show that takes place under Obama actually takes place under Santos.

Canon Ships, mainly MaggiexJim, JoshxDonna,

Normally I wouldn’t write fanfiction for either of these, but the plot bunny kicked me hard on the Metro this morning and wouldn’t shut up until I wrote my way through class and knocked it out. It’s not perfect, but it needs to get out of my brain and away where I can’t fuss over it anymore.

Oh, also, Happy Birthday Janel Moloney!

Maggie Jordan fights to be the one to cover the primary race for the Maryland 5th. Normally someone at her level wouldn’t be assigned to a single non-presidential campaign, but this one is going to be intense, with eyes across the nation on the district.

The incumbent, Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt, is running for the U.S. Senate. That too is going to be an amazing race. Congresswoman Wyatt is, after all, a badass.

The seat is heavily democratic. The congresswoman repeatedly won reelection with 80-85% of the vote. Her constituents loved her. Even if Republicans would do better than average, they weren’t going to make up 35% in one election.

So the focus is on the democratic primary. There’s a moderate democrat, the son of a former congressman, middle-aged and bland, but well-funded. There’s a so-far-left-as-to-practically-be-green democrat, who has broad sweeping plans, very little funding, and very little solid understanding of politics or how to pay for any of their ideas. And then there’s the reason Maggie wants to cover this race.

Then there’s Donna Lyman.

Donna Lyman is one of Maggie’s personal heroes. The woman is just about to hit middle age and has been more involved in politics over the last almost two decades than anyone at that age has a right to have been. She’d been part of the Bartlet administration dating back to the campaign, spent years as Josh Lyman’s assistant, been injured on a trip to Gaza, come back, recovered, and then jumped onto the Russell campaign. When Josh Lyman had led Matt Santos to victory at a contested convention, she’d been brought on and done some wonders with media strategy. She’d then spent the next eight years as chief of staff to the first lady, a first lady who hadn’t been content to let her husband run all of the legislative policy, who had fought hard to have her own policy goals legitimized and legislated. Donna Moss (who’d become Lyman after the first midterms) had been at the head of that push.

She and her husband had been THE D.C. Power Couple for eight years. When the Santos Administration had come to an end, they’d bowed out to take a break after 16 years of service and plan for what was next.

Apparently, it had been decided that they weren’t ready to be done with politics.

Joshua Lyman was white haired, with a full beard and glasses. No longer the suave swashbuckler of his youth, he’d gained an air of gravitas—so long as he wasn’t speaking. But he was, undeniably, seen as a kingmaker and the top political mind of his generation. But he’d never shown aspirations of being the one running for office, preferring to work behind the scenes. He’d helped countless democrats get elected at all levels, including his deputy, Sam Seaborn, who had rerun for the California 47th and won in the last election.

Democrats had done surprisingly well in the house and senate considering they’d lost the White House.

A right-wing old white Republican had won, a seemingly reactionary step after 16 years of democratic rule. The man was considered a joke and the potential democratic slate to take him on in the next election was longer than Maggie’s forearm. But covering his administration—covering the White House—had lost a bit of the shine it had once had.

Donna Lyman had announced her candidacy with a year until the midterm elections and a list of endorsements. She had the backing of the Santos family and the Bartlets. President Bartlet didn’t get around much anymore, but he and Abbey hosted house parties at the farm in New Hampshire. Emily’s List had backed her, as had N.O.W., and Planned Parenthood. Amy Gardner was on board as Fundraising Director in an instant. Josh Lyman was Campaign Director, though a muzzle had to be placed on him. C.J. Cregg-Concannon had given her backing, though being married to a journalist made it too difficult for her to be Media Director. And Andrea Wyatt had given her seal of approval as well.

It’s not a lock in for her, however. Donna’s political stances put her firmly in a ‘progressive’ column.

The main question of the campaign, the reason that this is the campaign that’s going to attract attention, is that of the voters’ desires. What does the democratic base want in a candidate? Do they want a moderate to bring them back to center? Or are they ready for another progressive to push the country onward? The challengers are all watching, trying to see if they are what the democratic base is looking for. With the strength of the democratic party in the district, it makes it an ideal test case. A democrat is guaranteed to win, but what kind?

Maggie’s practically bouncing out of her seat when she finds out she has an interview with Ms. Lyman. This is a woman who has gone from working for powerful men, to working with them as an equal, to now having them working for her (including her husband, which is a lovely bit of symmetry). She’d come from the Midwest and built herself up out of nothing, taking whatever opportunities had be offered to her and she’d succeeded. Donna Lyman gives Maggie hope. Hope for herself, and for her future, that one day she and Jim will figure out how to be in the same place at the same time and not just keep carrying on long distance. Hope that she’ll make it as a producer and maybe get to do more segments. And maybe, maybe, one day she’ll even be an anchor in her own right (though that dream is kept in the deepest corners of her soul, a dream of her at the desk and Jim in her ear, Mac watching like Charlie used to, backing them up as they take on the world).

Maggie sits down across from the older blonde, whose energy is palpable. There’s doing to be done and the gleam in her eyes makes it clear that she’s eager to be doing it.

Maggie knocks her water over within the first thirty seconds and spends the next minute apologizing. Thank god this is a print article she’ll be writing and not a tv interview. Donna smiles and helps her clean up and retells the story (printed once in a book, otherwise Maggie’s sure this wouldn’t have been said) of the time she left her underwear at an art gallery. By the time the table’s clean they’re laughing together.

Maggie leaves the interview an hour later with a full sound recording and pages of notes on policy positions and various anecdotes and fun facts. She’s smiling broadly as she rushes back to the D.C. bureau to write before the impressions fade from her mind.

Before she starts, however, she pulls a little reporter’s pad from her desk and flips it open. She shifts through a few pages and comes to number 34. With a black pen she strikes out ’34: Meet Donna Lyman’ from her bucket list.

With a grin, Maggie puts it back in the desk and opens her laptop. Time to tell the public about the time Donna pulled a fast one on her husband to ensure the First Lady’s child poverty program made it into the budget. She’s sure she can come to a reason the voters need to know about this in the voting booth.

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azvolrien · 5 years ago

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Seal Story

Roan does, in fact, have a backstory; she just tends not to talk about it very much.

Asta wasn’t going to let that stand for long.

~~~

When spring arrived at Dun Ardech, it did so with a vengeance. The trees burst into leaf over the course of just a few days, while the bleak winter hills turned yellow and green with flowering gorse. Down on the rocks, the water horses were foaling; the newborns were painfully cute, but neither the mares nor Riabhach would tolerate either Roan or Asta coming close just yet.

It wasn’t exactly warm, however, and there were still chores to be done. Asta rolled up her sleeves and knelt to weed the vegetable patch, while Roan took a long-handled axe from her workshop and went to chop some more firewood for the hearth.

Asta finished her task before Roan did and wandered up to the outer wall, pulling her coat more tightly around herself. Though it wasn’t her first spring in the Sea Lochs, it was her first at Dun Ardech, and the breeze coming off the sea was much colder than it was in the city at the far end of Loch Gorm. It didn’t seem to bother Roan, but then nothing short of a blizzard could even make her wear sleeves. Asta watched her from the top of the wall for a few minutes before climbing back down and walking out to join her at the chopping block over by the bathhouse.

“That’s the weeds dealt with for now,” said Asta. “It should be ready for the next round of planting soon.”

Roan wiped her brow with the back of one hand and positioned another log on the block. “Good. I thought I might try growing some onions this year – add a bit of a different flavour to things.”

“Oh, that would be good…” Asta sat down on a rock, safely out of axe range as Roan hefted it up and split the log in two in one blow. “Roan?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Can I… talk to you?”

“Always,” said Roan. She repositioned the pieces and further split the log into quarters.

Asta spent a few seconds staring at Roan’s bare arms, the muscle glistening with sweat despite the chill wind, her tattoos appearing to shimmer in the morning light, and briefly forgot what she was going to say. She shook her head and cleared her throat, looking up at the less distracting sky.

“I’ve been living out here for some four months now, five if you count that very first month back then.”

“You certainly have,” said Roan, placing another log on the block. “Personally, I do – and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, other than those very upsetting days at the end of the first month.”

“But last night I realised… I don’t really know who you are.”

Roan lowered the axe head to the ground, leant on the handle, and looked at Asta. Something appeared in her eyes that Asta had never seen there before; it took her a moment to recognise it as fear. Her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.

“No, that was the wrong way to word it,” Asta said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, that made it sound like I’m working up to saying I’m leaving you. I’m not, and I don’t plan to. I think I’ll stay with you forever if you let me.” The fear vanished; Roan smiled and swung the axe again. The second log fell into two pieces. “I know the important things. I know that you’re brave, kind and the most capable person I’ve ever met. That you helped me when I was scared, hurt and alone. I know you don’t like crowds, and that you’re such a good cook you can make half a trout feel like a Midsummer feast. I know that you sing to yourself when you think I can’t hear you. I know that… there is something in your blood, whether it’s a blessing from a god or just a condition you were born with, that can turn you into an unstoppable killing machine, and that despite that I have not once felt at all unsafe with you, which is more than I can say for many people I’ve met who weren’t berserkers. I know that you love me.

“But I don’t know where you came from, other than a couple of little things you’ve let slip like going to university in Duncraig. I don’t know how you came to be out here.” Asta swept an arm out to indicate Dun Ardech in general. “I don’t know what your family is like, or if you even have one. And I’d like to. If you’ll tell me. I mean, you know everything of note about me.”

Roan didn’t answer immediately. She split a final log into quarters, tied a carrying strap to the axe, and hung it across her back. “Can you help me carry these back to the broch?” she asked, picking up more than half of the freshly-cut firewood and nudging the remainder with her toe. Asta nodded and crouched to pick up the rest. “You’re right,” Roan went on as they walked back to the broch. “I haven’t been as open with you as you deserve. I suppose… I got out of the habit of talking about myself long ago.” They entered the courtyard and Roan shouldered the broch door open. “Give me a while to get my thoughts in order,” she said, kneeling to stack the firewood on the pile by one wall, within easy reach of the central hearth. Asta handed her the rest one by one. “But… Tonight. Over dinner, or after it. I’ll tell you everything then.”

Asta nodded, squeezed her shoulder, and leant in to kiss her cheek. “I can wait that long.”

Roan kept her promise. That evening, after a filling helping of fish-and-parsnip soup, she set her empty bowl aside and sat back in the warm dark of the broch, linking her fingers over her belly and gazing at the fire. Asta finished her own bowl and settled down beside her, hugging her arm and resting her head on her shoulder.

“You know what my surname is,” began Roan.

Asta nodded. “Captain Steel mentioned it. NicBruide.”

“Yes – except that it’s not really a surname. It’s a patronymic, or a grand-patronymic in my case. I was raised by my grandfather, Bruide MacDovran. Dovran being the name of his father. ‘Nic’ is the feminine equivalent of ‘Mac’ – means ‘daughter of’, or ‘granddaughter of’ in my case. It’s not common these days to keep using patronymics, not here at least, but my family kept the tradition.”

Roan smiled, still looking at the fire, and went on. “You would have liked him. Very, very tough old man, but the best Granda a little girl could hope for. You think my tattoos are impressive? He was almost covered in them from the waist up. He said his hair was red like mine once, but it was long since grey by the time I came along. He told such amazing stories about his adventures when he was young. Taking a boat all the way downriver from Kiraan to Stonemouth. Riding with a tribe of thuru-hunters on the Hawk Steppes. Travelling deep into the mountains and seeing a dragon flying in the distance.”

“Roan, dragons have been extinct for centuries,” said Asta, smiling.

“There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting in centuries,” Roan corrected. “The Dragon’s Teeth are vast – who knows what’s hiding out there somewhere? I couldn’t tell you what he really saw, but until the day he died he swore up and down that he’d seen a dragon.” She paused for a moment, sighing. “My parents and his wife were never in the picture, at least not that I could remember. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, so I never learned the details of exactly what happened, but when he felt I was old enough to understand he told me that when he was away one day, the… stronghold? No, not exactly, more of a fortified steading. Anyway, his home. It was in a valley somewhere to the north, but I don’t remember it at all – I was too young. He was away, and it was attacked. He never said who by. Bandits, marauders, maybe just someone trying to settle a score. It probably doesn’t matter now. They put the whole place to the torch. Somehow I survived when no one else did, and he pulled little baby me from the wreckage.

“He couldn’t bear to stay there after that, so he packed whatever he could salvage and took it – and me – down to a wee house by the sea. It’s not there any more either, but it was a fair distance up the coast from here, away to the north where the rocks give way to dunes.” She went quiet again. Asta silently took her hand and interlaced their fingers. “He gave me his name. I suppose using my father’s – his son’s – or my mother’s was too painful for him.”

“What was your father’s name?” said Asta. “Or did he never tell you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t so painful he couldn’t do that. It was Euan. My mother was Lorna; my grandmother was Morag. But it’s true, he very rarely spoke about any of them. We lived in that little house for twelve years. He taught me himself back then; my numbers and letters, of course, how to read and write, but also how to set a trap for a rabbit, how to clean a fish and sail a boat, all kinds of other things. How to fight.” She lifted her free hand and tapped a knuckle against her forehead. “He was a berserker as well; in his youth he’d been the kind of warrior people told stories about, fierce and lethal but only in service of the right reasons. He realised I carried the madness as well – we’d gone into a village on market day, and I’d got into a fight some other children – and taught me how to channel and focus it rather than letting it control me when it rose. I owe him a lot.” She freed her arm from Asta’s hold and laid it around her shoulders instead, hugging her in against her side.

“When I was twelve, he decided I needed to start going to school, so we abandoned the cottage and moved to Inverbeg, away from the sea on the bank of Loch Dubh – the next one north of Loch Gorm,” she added when Asta frowned in geographical uncertainty. “Not a big town, so not too overwhelming for me, who’d grown up mostly away from people, but big enough to have a high school. He found work at the harbour while I concentrated on my studies. He wouldn’t hear of me dropping out to help him.

“But, see… he’d always had this cough, an old infection that had never completely left, and as he got older it got worse. He saw a healer regularly to keep it at bay, but even so he couldn’t work as hard as he used to. And I decided that after everything he’d done for me, the least I could do was to make sure he could be comfortable in his old age. So I applied to the University of Duncraig and asked to study finance; it seemed like it would be a good way to make money, or at least get better at saving it for him. I’d always been good with numbers.” Roan sighed again and closed her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.

“I think he knew full well it wasn’t what I really wanted, but he was still so proud of me for getting in, telling all his friends at the pub about his clever granddaughter. He’d never gone to uni, you see. He asked what I wanted in celebration; I wanted my first tattoo. This one, if you’re curious.” She tapped a symbol on her left arm, one Asta always thought looked a bit like a shield crossed by a lightning bolt. “He paid for it, but that was the only one he paid for. The rest, those were all me. It got to be a sort of tradition. Every birthday, every festival, every exam I aced, I got another tattoo. Got to be on fairly close terms with the tattooist, actually.”

“You must have done very well in your exams,” murmured Asta, tracing a fingertip along the adder basking on Roan’s right forearm.

“I did, since you noticed,” said Roan, grinning. The smile disappeared. “And then… he… passed away, a few months before I finished university. I got this one in his honour.” She pulled her hair back to show the tattoo on her forehead, a crescent crossed by a broken arrow. “He had one similar, though the exact patterning on the crescent was different. Like I said, he was a very heavily tattooed man.” The smile came back, though the beginnings of tears showed in her eyes. “I buried him at the ruins of the old cottage, down by the sea. He’d been happier there than he ever was in town. The last few months were… hard, but I graduated with a decent mark and found a job in a bank in Duncraig. I don’t think they expected someone with quite so many tattoos, though, so they stashed me in a back room to do my bookkeeping.”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” said Asta.

“It wasn’t,” agreed Roan. “It was suffocating, but I stuck it out for a while. I waited until exactly a year after I started and handed in my resignation. The seal I have on my back? That was a reclamation of sorts. They’d… politely requested that I not get any more while I was working for them.”

“So you got the biggest tattoo you have the second you left?”

Roan nodded. “City life wasn’t for me anyway. You said it earlier – I don’t like crowds. So I was out on the street pondering what to do with my newfound freedom, and just thought… I have to go home. Back to the sea. Granda had left everything to me; I took what I could carry – the head of my spear was his, though I mounted it on a new haft – and sold the rest, including the house in Inverbeg. I came out to Dun Ardech and set to work on making it liveable again after however many years, decades, centuries it had been abandoned. It didn’t even have floors or a roof when I got here, just walls. When I’d finished, I took one last trip back to see my tattooist and got these two.” She indicated the water horses inked below her cheekbones. “I’ve been out here by myself ever since. Until you came along, of course.”

“Do you have any other relatives?” asked Asta quietly.

“Maybe, somewhere,” said Roan. “Granda never knew about my mother’s people; all he ever said was that ‘she came from the sea’ and never spoke about her own family. I might have a whole army of cousins out there on her side, but they’ve never got in touch if I do.” She gave Asta an affectionate jostle. “So for all intents and purposes, we have that in common; both alone in the world, you and I.”

Asta lifted her head from Roan’s shoulder and pressed a kiss against her lips. “Not any more,” she said, taking Roan’s head between her hands and giving it a little shake as if chiding a mischievous puppy.

“No, I suppose not,” said Roan, touching her forehead to Asta’s and sliding her other arm around her waist. “Well, Asta-my-love, congratulations; you now know more about me than anyone else alive.”

“I’m glad you told me.” Asta trailed her hand down Roan’s braid and lifted the end to tickle under her chin. Roan grimaced playfully and batted it away. “You… Well, you make sense now.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Roan. “But I’m glad I told you too.”

~~~

Roan’s mother was one of the Sea People (remember them?); she stole a boat and defected in her mid-teens, disillusioned with the culture, but was caught in a storm en route to the mainland and washed up on the shore where Bruide and Morag took her in. As Roan says, she never spoke about her life before that, so her new family knew nothing of it.

#az writes stories

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mst3kproject · 6 years ago

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811: Parts: the Clonus Horror

When The Island came out in 2005, the makers of Parts sued Dreamworks and reached a settlement for some millions of dollars. There are rumors that the film-makers were reluctant to actually bring the case, since they’d kind of hoped everybody forgot about this movie. If that’s true, they never had a chance. MSTies never forget.

Clonus is a high-security facility funded by Adidas, which raises clones so that their organs can be harvested for transplantation. After a rigorous physical fitness program, successful clones are told it’s time to go to Disneyland or something, and are then frozen and packaged. One day, a clone named Richard is inspired by an empty can of Old Milwaukee to investigate the ugly truth behind his world, and manages to escape Clonus and reach a city, where he kinda wanders around lost until a old man finds him. This guy is a retired journalist, who might be able to blow the lid off the whole Clonus project, as long as the company’s thugs don’t find them first.

My first thought on this movie is that I haven’t seen this much product placement since Mac and Me.

My second thought is that this is all extremely impractical. You’ve got this giant facility with hundreds of clones, all of whom need to be raised, educated, fed, exercised, clothed, cured when they’re sick, housed, entertained, etcetera… this would require hundreds more if not thousands of staff! What’s the payoff? Somebody gets a liver in forty years? Right, but you’d have to have your clone made while you’re still fairly young if they’re going to be mature by the time you’re old and sick, and then what if you never need a liver? That’s a whole clone gone to waste there. What if you die in a car accident without ever using your clone? Do they just throw it out? What if your clone dies before you do? Do you get your money back? Peter Graves talks about immortality through unlimited spare parts, but that’s not how that works… what if you have a stroke? You can’t replace your brain with a clone’s.

I have way more questions. Why are Richard and Lina different from the others? They’re ‘control’ clones, but what variables are the scientists controlling for? The ‘normal’ clones don’t seem that much different, just more complacent. If the clones aren’t supposed to know they’re being watched then why do the ‘guides’ talk into microphones right in front of them? What do the clones think is going on when an airplane flies over?

How do they keep this all a secret from the outside world? The staff must sign nondisclosure agreements and stuff, but do none of them ever have moral qualms and decide to talk? Most of the people with clones seem to know they have clones. They must have paid for it at some point. Do none of them ever decide this is fucked-up and withdraw from the program? What happens to their clone if they do? Do they ever get the urge to meet their clone? What if some narcissistic aging billionaire’s only child dies and they decide to adopt their clone as an heir… is that allowed? If your relative needs a liver and you’d be a close match but need to keep yours, can you donate your clone’s?

I think I just wrote six movies more interesting than this one, because Parts: the Clonus Horror is really, really boring. The first half of the movie is bland clones leading their bland lives in bland surroundings. I’m aware that’s supposed to be the point: the clones themselves are encouraged to be kind of dim and dull so that their keepers don’t get attached to them, and their lives are not very dramatic because stress would harm them. The Clonus facilities look like the world’s most boring wellness retreat because that’s exactly what they are. Fair enough, but you don’t have to show that to us in a way that bores the audience. Clonus doesn’t look like any fun, but it doesn’t look worth avoiding, either. Nothing that happens makes us feel like we know Richard and Lina as people, and so it’s hard to care about what happens to them.

It also undercuts the movie’s point. This is a film about human rights and how the rich and powerful are willing to violate them if it offers them some advantage. That’s an important thing to explore, but Parts does a terrible job because we don’t see the clones as people. They don’t have interests, or ideas, or relationships, they just wander around looking like they’re gonna bump into things. Richard’s curiosity and Lina’s journaling should make us like them, but it’s all so poorly-presented that we don’t care.

Part of this does come from the desire to show how the clones have been raised, but at lot of it is also bad writing, because the characters who are not clones aren’t any better. Peter Graves, his brother, and Hairy Son Rick chat about the morality of the whole thing but none of them have what one might describe as a personality. When they talk about the situation and its moral implications, they do so in a very ham-fisted way that’s talking to the audience far more than it is each other. We don’t care enough about them to be interested in their decisions, their opinions, or even their deaths. All the time that should have been spent getting us interested in these characters was wasted on clones jogging.

Guess what that makes Richard? Yep, sure enough, he’s a Main Character Who Doesn’t Do Anything! He doesn’t save his friends, he doesn’t save his girlfriend… he doesn’t even save himself. Even worse, during the second half of the movie, when the action should be happening, Richard is not even a part of it. Having escaped from Clonus he doesn’t know where he is and has no idea what to do next. He places his fate in his original’s hands, and lets others take over. The result may be the end of Clonus, but it is also the end of Richard and what few things he ever held dear.

I think Richard’s storyline might be an attempt to say something about the ‘hero’s journey’ trope, in which the Callow Youth sets out into the big, scary world to take on forces far greater than himself. It’s hard to imagine anyone callower than Richard, who has never really experienced anything, but that inexperience is his undoing. The outside world is just too big and scary for him, and having reached it, he just wants to go home. When he gets there, however, he finds that home is not a place of safety. He has not yet learned enough to know that it’s actually the worst place he could go.

If any of you remember Conquest, I was pretty sure that was an intentional subversion of the ‘inexperienced young hero saves the world’ trope. In Parts, it feels like an accident. The writing is just too amateurish to be trying to suggest anything so subtle. Richard questions his experiences and Peter Graves and his brother argue about the ethics of cloning, with all the nuance of Anakin Skywalker complaining about sand – which may be a bad example because that was at least an attempt at a metaphor, in a story that was intentionally about the hero’s journey gone horribly wrong. The closest Parts comes to a metaphor is to use the cloning project as a symbol of everything the rich get away with, and that would have been inherent in the premise anyway.

Since the clones themselves are mere pawns and almost all the other characters are villains, this leaves Parts as a movie without a hero. Richard certainly never does anything remotely heroic, the politicians are corrupt assholes, and Hairy Rick doesn’t know enough, himself, to know that taking Richard home will result in disaster (though at least he tried to help). The only characters who really do something heroes would do are the retired reporter and his wife. They do the right thing all the way through, trying to help this injured man on their doorstep and make sure the world finds out about something terrible, and they’re killed for their trouble.

You know what? I’m not done asking questions yet. What happened after the end of the movie, when the Clonus project was exposed? Paul notes in the Amazing Colossal Transplanted Sci-Fi Channel Episode Guide that since the villains of the movie are rich old white men, they probably got their way regardless, but what if they didn’t? What happened to all those clones? They have no skills or real education, and have never had to take care of their own needs. If they’re going to get jobs and apartments and so forth it’ll be a real steep learning curve.

Are the clones aware of sex? When the two of them are making out at the beginning they say things like “I’ve grown accustomed to you” and “I like you touching me,” which imply that they really have no idea what the logical conclusion is. Yet when Richard and Lina spend their night camping in the woods it’s implied that they went a little further than that. I hate to praise The Island of all movies, but it at least dealt with some of this stuff!

What we’re left with in Parts: the Clonus Horror is another one of those annoying movies in which somebody had a really great idea and yet couldn’t be bothered to think it through properly before rushing to a final draft. This is always a tragedy, because so many people put so much time, effort, and money into making a movie. It’s a shame to see it wasted on something that is fundamentally unfinished.

#mst3k #reviews #that guy from the university of minnesota #parts: the clonus horror #70s #why is there always a rick

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luxuryt-shirt · 4 years ago

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tshirttrend · 4 years ago

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englishvisualnovels · 7 years ago

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Otakon 2017: MangaGamer Announces Room No. 9, A Kiss for the Petals: Maidens of Michael, and More

For this year’s conventions, MangaGamer made their last stop at Otakon where they announced an array of new titles!

English Visual Novels knows that we have many followers who are major fans of the BL and/or yuri genres. If you’re one of them, check out MangaGamer’s announcements because they include one BL title and four yuri titles that might be up your alley.

Note: Links in this post may contain content that is NSFW.

Localization Announcements

A Kiss for the Petals: Maidens of Michael (Yuri)

Developer: Yurin Yurin Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows, Mac, & Linux Age Rating: All-Ages & 18+

One of MangaGamer’s Otakon announcements is a treat for yuri fans. A Kiss for the Petals: Maidens of Michael will head west in the near future! This entry in the A Kiss for the Petals series reintroduces the five, original couples of the series and expands on their relationships.

A Kiss for the Petals: Maidens of Michael is 100% translated and 100% edited as of August 12th.

Relevant Link:

Official Site

Synopsis:

Today at Saint Michael Girls' School, the class representative for the first-year “Snow” Class, Azumi Risa, had once again been fighting with the class troublemaker, Ayase Miya. Risa, who is earnest and hard-nosed, and Miya, who hates to cooperate with others, couldn’t have been less right for each other, as they were always on the verge of tearing each other’s throats out.

At the time, the whole school was in a festive mood with Christmas just around the corner. As couples and spur-of-the-moment couples alike were flirtatiously carrying on, the whole school was abuzz with excitement over the “St. Michael’s Best Couple” poll being conducted by the student volunteers. Risa, who was single, figured it didn’t concern her…

So then how did she and Miya end up being chosen?!

Although Risa naturally denied that they shared that kind of relationship, the classmates who had selected them would just smile with the reasoning of tempered young ladies who had been raised in respectable families and say, “You always look like you’re having so much fun.” Resigning themselves, the two decided to go along with it, “Just for appearance’s sake,” and it seemed they would have to stick it out through the coming holidays of Christmas and Valentine’s Day along with four other couples as the committee members for various events.

And what’s more…

Those other four couples were practically the student council:

The president of the Campus Improvement Committee, Matsubara Yuuna, and her junior, Oda Nanami.

The renowned student model, Kitajima Sara, and her cousin, Kitajima Kaede.

The singing sensation of the culture festival, Kawamura Reo, and her girlfriend, Sawaguchi Mai.

And last, but not least, the girls of the Lily Platinum fan club, exchange student Shitogi Eris, and the school’s foremost scribe, the highly respected Kirishima Shizuku.

In other words, only the most preeminent couples on campus.

Will the big name couples be able to handle the events that follow? And will Risa be able to survive the lovers’ holidays of Christmas and Valentine’s with Miya?

Sengoku Rance (Bishoujo)

Developer: Alicesoft Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows Age Rating: 18+

Fans of the Rance series will be pleased to know that Sengoku Rance will receive a localization! This title is the seventh entry in the Rance series.

Sengoku Rance departs from the series’ traditional RPG gameplay style in favor of strategy battles with a greater focus on army battles, the conquest of territories, and management of the players’ forces.

MangaGamer will not base the localization on the fan translation. Instead, the localization for the official release will be done from scratch.

Relevant Links:

Official Site

Rance Series Official Site

Promotional Video

Synopsis:

In the far east nation of Nippon, a plethora of feudal lords are fighting for supremacy in the 4th Sengoku Era. After doing immeasurable damage on the Continent, the brute known as Rance traveled with his slave, Sill, to the island country.

For a hot spring vacation, you ask?

Wrong. While they'll go to some hot springs, Rance's goal is to bang all of Nippon's beautiful princesses, samurai, miko, ninjas, village girls, and more. In particular, he wants Kouhime of the prominent Oda Clan.

When Rance becomes the ruler of one of the feudal states, he charges head first toward uniting Nippon!

Rance Quest MAGNUM (Bishoujo)

Developer: Alicesoft Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows Age Rating: 18+

That’s not all! MangaGamer will also bring over Rance Quest MAGNUM in the near future. This is the eight entry in the Rance series and a sequel to Sengoku Rance.

Sengoku Rance and Rance Quest MAGNUM will be released separately.

Relevant Links:

Official Site

Rance Series Official Site

Promotional Video

Synopsis:

Returning from his grand adventure of unifying Nippon, Rance is back home and planning to take it easy for a while. Being Rance, though, he's barely into his vacation before he's getting into trouble and he's struck with a debilitating curse! Under the curse, Rance is unable to have sex with any woman under level 35, and if he goes without a woman for too long, he just might find himself turned off from them forever (if he can even hold out that long). Seems there's no time for a vacation after all! Rance sets off on another grand (though not always grave) adventure across the Continent: to find and fuck all the girls over level 35 he can get his hands on.

Chasing his (ig)noble goal, you will challenge hundreds of quests and recruit dozens of characters. There's a huge variety of adventures, dungeons, missions (both weighty and wacky), and sexy things all waiting for you! Meet new faces and return to old companions' beds while you do whatever and whoever it takes to break Rance's curse.

Room No. 9 (Boys’ Love)

Developer: parade Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows Age Rating: 18+

MangaGamer’s next announcement is a dark BL title: Room No. 9! This is the latest BL game from parade, the developers behind NO, THANK YOU!!!.

Room No. 9 contains options toggle on or off in-game visuals for body hair, glasses, guro, and scat.

Relevant Links:

Official Site

Synopsis:

Best friends Daichi and Seiji set out on an almost too-good-to-be-true summer vacation, but it quickly turns into a nightmare...

Instead of the island paradise they were expecting, they find themselves trapped in a strange room and forced to participate in an incomprehensible "experiment" demanding that they either harm Daichi physically or Seiji sexually. They'll have to play along to have any hope of escaping with their lives, but that means hurting each other and possibly destroying their friendship—and their minds—in the process.

While Daichi is quick to declare that he'd be just fine less one arm, and Seiji argues for the options that won't leave lasting physical scars, do they really understand the consequences? Can they survive the "experiment" and is survival alone enough?

The Spirit Master of Retarnia (Bishoujo)

Developer: Lunasoft Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows Age Rating: 18+

The last of MangaGamer’s localization announcements is The Spirit Master of Retarnia by Lunasoft, an indie developer.

Description:

Join the Spirit Master of Retarnia in saving the kingdom from the Demon World at the behest of your queen! Explore classic, 3D dungeons with a host of five heroines, each with their own special abilities! Power up with equipment uncovered in the dungeon, and customize your party’s skills as they level up to create the best builds for your style!

Original English Visual Novels

Dizzy Hearts (Yuri)

Developer: Lupiesoft Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows, Mac, & Linux Age Rating: All-Ages & 18+

MangaGamer will be partnering with Lupiesoft to help bring Dizzy Hearts through the MangaGamer store and Steam!

Dizzy Hearts was previously funded through Kickstarter.

Relevant Link:

Patreon Announcement

His Chuunibyou Can’t Be Cured! (Bishoujo)

Developer: Tamaya Kagiya Release Date: Fall 2017 Platform: Windows, Mac, & Linux Age Rating: All-Ages & 18+

MangaGamer will help bring over Tamaya Kagiya’s His Chuunibyou Can’t Be Cured!, a romantic comedy. The game was successfully funded on Kickstarter earlier this year.

His Chuunibyou Can’t Be Cured! will be available for sale on MangaGamer and Steam.

Relevant Links:

Official Site (Demo available)

Opening Video

Synopsis:

Play as Jun Mizushima, a gaming school student who suffers from "chuunibyou", or "eighth grade syndrome", a condition in which the afflicted genuinely believe that they posses superpowers. Aside from that, Jun is a charismatic young man, who is really determined to create a video game of his own. Join Jun and his eccentric, yet talented, group of friends to win the annual International Youth Game Development Competition!

The Stargazers: Remaster (Yuri)

Developer: Lupiesoft Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows, Mac, & Linux Age Rating: All-Ages & 18+

Lupiesoft will revamp their previously released The Stargazers with new chapters, new sprites, additional CGs, and the inclusion of voice acting!

Relevant Links:

Official Site

Synopsis:

What would it be like to explore deep space? To chart the unknown landscape of the outer rim, assessing new planets for their potential as colonies? What wonders and excitement might await?

Inspired by pulp sci-fi, The Stargazers follows Temperance as she joins the Shooting Star to explore and chart the galaxy with its crew. Join these girls as she discover new wonders of space, rescue lost ships, fight to survive against notorious villains, and more! Of course, sometimes the outer reaches of space might get lonely, but the girls have each other for that.

The Tower of Five Hearts (Yuri)

Developer: TsukiWare Release Date: Fall 2017 Platform: Windows, Mac, & Linux Age Rating: 18+

Next is TsukiWare’s second major title: The Tower of Five Hearts! This is a yuri tale featuring maids hoping to win the heart of their princess.

Tsukiware is an indie developer that previously produced Critical Hit.

Relevant Links:

Crowdfunding Campaign

Web Demo

Synopsis:

There are five continents of roughly-equal size; they’re side-by-side, and all of them meet to an approximate point in the middle. At this meeting of the borders, there is a tower.

The Tower of Five Hearts.

One Royal Family is in charge of upholding the peace for every continent, by marrying off their child to a prospective girl from one of the continents.

It’s more of a contest — five girls trying to be Maids, in the hope that their master (the Prince) will fall in love with them...

However this time, it’s a Princess.

Previously Announced Titles

Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome (Otome)

Developer: Kalmia8 Release Date: September 8, 2017 Platform: Windows Age Rating: All-Ages & 18+ Price: $24.95

In case you missed it, otome game Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome comes out this September 8th! This title will be coming to MangaGamer in its fully uncut adult version and an all-ages edition for Steam.

Pre-order from MangaGamer now and get the game for 20% off!

Relevant Links:

Where to Buy (Digital): MangaGamer (18+ ver.)

Official Site (Demo available)

Opening Video

Steam Page

Features, via MangaGamer:

Two eligible (?) bachelors to choose from (or choose both perhaps…?)

English text and menus (wow!)

Japanese voices (even Ema!)

You can rename the protagonist!

No mosaics! (…on the naughty bits in the adult version)

18+ content toggle (in the adult version)

Free 18+ content patch for Steam!

Achievements (Steam version only)

DRM free!

Synopsis:

Ema Tachibana is a tall, gloomy and unsociable girl with a bad case of resting bitch-face. With all that working against her, she’s never really had any friends. At school, everyone’s too scared to approach her.

But Ema herself is quite content with that state of affairs. In fact, she was all set to spend the rest of her time until graduation invisible as ever…

That is, until two men turned her life upside down!

“It’s you… I’ve finally found you! You are, without a doubt, MY MUSE!”

Miki Hiraizumi—recently returned to Japan from abroad, he’s loved making clothes ever since he was a little kid. He has a strong desire to help make charming, unusual women shine. (He’s also a bit of a masochist.)

“Listen up, twerp! You’re no good the way you are now. But even you have some potential to shine… I’ll just have to polish you up!”

And Saito Shinjou—he frequently finds himself bored because things have always come easy to him. He aspires to accomplish something so big, it’ll change the world. (He’s also a bit of a sadist.)

These two ambitious and attractive fellows decide to give Ema Tachibana a makeover!

But Ema has other ideas.

“Yeah, well… Who asked you?!”

Supipara - Alice the magical conductor. Chapter #02 (Bishoujo)

Developer: minori Release Date: TBA Platform: Windows Age Rating: All-Ages

The second chapter of Supipara - Alice the magical conductor. has been funded! According to MangaGamer, the translation is complete and will receive a release soon.

Fans can check the minori fundraising project page for more information on funding chapters 3 through 6 of Suipipara, which will be released English first.

Relevant Links:

Official Site

The minori Fundraising Project

Videos: Demo Movie 1, Demo Movie 2

Synopsis:

It's another round of Supipara, but something is different. Our story begins anew on Yukinari's first day in Kamakura... except that he magically has a new family member?! What other changes could this altered history bring about?

#room no 9 #sonohana #mangagamer #boys love #visual novel #bishoujo #yuri #otakon #event #rating: all ages #rating: 18 #indie

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