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***

The Backstory

September 2006

In Nora Priestley’s fourteen years of life, she’s never lived this far away from the ocean before. It’s always been just right outside her window, a quick ten-minute trek from Thames Street until she reached the rolling dunes of Rejects Beach. Smelling the salt in her hair and feeling her skin grow sticky from the feeling of the ocean air was practically second-nature to her, but ever since she moved to the middle of nowhere Connecticut for boarding school, she’s never felt more disconnected from normality in her life.

Nora’s never really been a big fan of embracing change. She’d like to blame that on the fact that she’s never really had any monumental shifts to her tectonic plates so far in her short life, and she’s not quite sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.

It’s always been just her and her mom. A dynamic duo. A tag team of epic proportions.

Growing up in Newport, Rhode Island could be worse, Nora thinks. She was lucky enough to grow up in a small coastal town where everybody accepted her in one way or another. Even though she was much different than the other kids her age, considering she spent most of her time alone while her mother worked, she never felt unhappy. Life was simple. Life was easy.

Nora and her mother, Shannon, lived in a small apartment in a renovated old colonial townhouse at the bottom of Thames Street. It was a third-floor walk-up, and in the heat of the summer when the humidity made the wallpaper begin to curl at the edges of her tiny paisley-coated bedroom, Nora had to sleep with her creaky window open with nothing but a thin sheet to cover her sweat-soaked body, the soft sounds of the rolling waves crashing against the shore lulling her to sleep.

Shannon Priestley was the ultimate leading lady in Nora’s life. She referred to Nora as her perfect mistake, because having a baby the summer she turned eighteen with a boy she thought would be her forever was the very definition of that phrase. But she handled it like she did everything else in her life—with grace and dignity, and nothing but a big gleaming grin on her face that always made Nora and everyone else lucky enough to be around her sunbeam feel that everything would be okay.

With a one-year-old baby on her hip and a bright and shiny high school diploma under her belt, Shannon found a job listing to be a nanny for the Clemonte’s. Without a second’s deliberation, she packed up her things and moved to the tip of the state to Newport.

The Clemonte’s were one of the wealthiest families in Newport, hailing from an impressive lineage of old money with an expansive estate of fourteen acres overlooking Ochre Point and the Atlantic Ocean. They were one of those families that named their properties, and when Shannon Priestley first stepped foot inside The Breakers mansion, she knew right then and there that her new bosses had very high expectations for her.

Shannon became the singular nanny to Warren and Jane Clemonte’s baby son, William. He was born three months after Nora, and even though Shannon felt slighted that she had to spend most of her days with another family’s child while her own was being watched by their downstairs neighbor, she promised to split her time evenly. And even though twenty-four hours in a day was never enough for Shannon, she made sure to spend most of it with Nora.

And Nora was always grateful for that.

The second Nora was old enough to take care of herself, she started going to The Breakers after school so that her mom could walk her home. It was at that very moment when she had her first taste of ostentatious luxury, and from then on it never failed to amaze her. The other half certainly did live differently than Nora and her mother, and stepping foot inside the Clemonte’s mansion made that realization startlingly clear.

This was when she first met William Clemonte. Nora always knew he existed, considering her mother would sprinkle in small anecdotes about him while doing other mundane tasks. “Willy was very quiet today,” Shannon would tell Nora on their walk home from Ochre Point to Lower Thames. “Mr. and Mrs. Clemonte want Willy to take piano lessons and learn Latin. How on earth is a seven-year-old supposed to handle that?”

To Nora, Willy was somewhat of a fictional character living behind the towering walls of The Breakers. She imagined him being a smaller boy, blonde with blue eyes and wearing some sort of matching ensemble sitting inside the thick walls of his mansion, overlooking the deep cobalt ocean through a grand wall of windows. But when she meets him one afternoon after her first day of second grade, she could not be any more wrong.

Sure, Willy Clemonte was a small boy, but he was by no means shy or scared of her. He took her on a tour through the grand halls of The Breakers, showed her all of the secret passageways built inside the walls from when the mansion was first erected back in the early twentieth century, and shared his brand new toys with her.

But most importantly, he listened to her. He asked her a million questions about public school, about the world outside of his tall fortress, about the television shows Shannon let Nora watch after dinner, and the different kinds of popular music other kids their age were listening to.

“Wait, so *NSYNC isn’t just Justin Timberlake?” Willy would ask whenever Nora would show him what was inside her portable CD player (which was almost exclusively No Strings Attached until she reached the fourth grade).

“Oh my god, Willy! *NSYNC is a boyband! Justin is just the best one,” Nora would scold right back, shoving the plastic headphones over his blonde head of hair so that the felt cushions would press against his ear, the vibrating thumps of “Bye Bye Bye” playing through the electronic equipment.

Whenever he would ask her about school, Willy was always shocked to hear how different her experience was from his own. Nora would tell him about the yellow school buses that picked up and dropped off her friends, she would show up to his house afterward wearing jeans and a pink Gap sweatshirt and he was always surprised to learn that kids could wear whatever they wanted during the day, and when she would come over on Fridays and tell him that her mother gave her a dollar for pizza day at lunchtime, Willy wished more and more that he could go to public school with her, too.

While Willy was nothing but sunshine and kindness, Warren Clemonte was the complete opposite. A cold and distant man, stern and grumpy with a perpetual frown on his face, he sent a terrifying chill all the way down to Nora’s bones until they rattled together like a hollow instrument. And one Thursday afternoon when Shannon was busy packing Willy’s bags for the Clemonte’s annual Christmas trip to Aspen, Warren caught his son running around the main hall searching through every nook and cranny for Nora’s impressive hiding spot. It was only once she heard the bellowing yells when she emerged from behind an old armoire in the library, peeking her head around the corner to watch Warren yell at Willy in the echoing hallway.

“What do you think you’re doing, running around when you’ve left your Latin workbook unfinished?” Warren demanded, his low voice bouncing off the thick walls.

“I’m sorry, dad. I was just—”

“—Just what? Playing around and avoiding your responsibilities? How are you supposed to learn anything if you spend all of your time dilly-dallying with that girl, William?”

Willy began to cry then, and before Nora could interfere, her mother was already ten steps ahead of her, entering the main hall and apologizing profusely while her daughter stayed hidden behind the old armoire, watching everything with regretful eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Clemonte. I was just packing for Willy, I didn’t realize he had run off. I’ll make sure it never happens again, sir,” Shannon said, placing a comforting arm around Willy’s shaking shoulders while his father stood barely five feet away, watching his wailing son with lifeless eyes.

“Please do, Miss Priestley. William does not need any more distractions.” His voice held a clipped finality to it, and when he walked away and Nora appeared from behind the wall to approach Willy who was clutching her mother for dear life, she never understood how his father could just leave his son to fall apart in front of him like that.

That was the last afternoon Nora ever spent at The Breakers.

Up until four months ago, Nora was almost certain that the entire Clemonte family had forgotten that she existed, and that treacherous afternoon with Willy nearly seven years ago was just a sad memory that could be tarnished for the rest of eternity. But when her mother comes home with a thick black and red folder, the words Townbridge Academy in capital letters splayed against the front page above a golden crest, Nora’s never been more confused in her life.

When she asked her mother what she was doing with a boarding school acceptance letter in her hand that Nora had never heard of before, the answer she received was definitely not what she had expected. Apparently, Mrs. Clemonte found out that Nora was planning on attending the public high school on Broadway Street, and apparently, she believed that she could offer Shannon a lending hand. Nora would like to blame it all on Jane Clemonte’s philanthropic tendencies, but a few phone calls and a faxed copy of Nora’s stellar transcripts later, Nora was appointed a lofty scholarship to attend Townbridge Academy in the fall.

All things considered, Nora did not want to go. She liked her middle school friends, she liked being her own person, she liked knowing that her mom was only a twenty-minute walk away, and most importantly, she liked not having to be associated with a family like the Clemonte’s. She didn’t want to be seen as a charity case, and accepting the scholarship on Mrs. Clemonte’s behalf to attend a prestigious boarding school like Townbridge Academy was exactly that.

But when her mother sat her down and told her how amazing this opportunity was, and how much Nora could accomplish with a diploma from one of the best schools in the country, Nora couldn’t bring herself to say no. Especially when her mother held her close and whispered in her ear, “God, Nora, you can do all of the things I never could have done,” Nora knew that there was no way she could break her mother’s heart.

Because now, standing in her new dorm room with deep oak walls, a creaky polished hardwood floor, a red ornamental rug that smelled a bit like Warren Clemonte’s cologne, and a small twin bed nestled in the corner underneath a window overlooking the bleak green hills of Connecticut—Nora Priestley wishes she had told her mother no.

Before she can even wallow in her own self-imposed misery, the front door opens revealing an older man carrying a trolley holding a matching six-piece set of luggage. Nora looks down to the singular old leather suitcase she purchased at a surplus store on Spruce Street resting on the floor, comparing it to the monogrammed navy blue set with the gold letters ARW spanning across each piece.

The man begins placing each suitcase onto the floor without uttering a word to a very confused Nora, and suddenly the door opens wider, a pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair floating into the room. She’s wearing a white tennis skirt that rests a few inches above her kneecap, with a powder blue collared shirt cuffed at the wrists. For a brief moment, Nora wonders if her mother purchased the wrong uniform set for her, but when the girl lifts her eyes from her Blackberry and looks over at Nora, she notices a sailor’s crest embroidered on the right side above her chest with more initials, and she begins to breathe a little.

“Hi! You must be my roommate, I’m Nor—”

“—Where are the rest of your bags?” the girl interrupts, eyeing the old leather suitcase disdainfully. Nora’s fingers immediately fly up to her scalp and begin raking through her blonde hair, a nervous habit she’s tried her hardest to get rid of.

“I have a duffle on the desk chair, too,” Nora explains quietly, removing her hand from her hair so that she can point towards the old wooden desk that holds her mother’s duffle bag.

Nora watches as the girl’s piercing gaze shifts from her two flimsy bags to her outfit. And when Nora watches beady hazel eyes take in her old white tank top, her mom’s grey knit cardigan, thrifted bootcut jeans, and sandals from two summers ago, Nora’s never wanted to disappear more in her life.

Before she can find the words to speak, Nora hears a shrill “Alyssa!” echo through the hallway, until a matching set of girls wearing nautical-inspired clothing and thick headbands are hugging the strawberry blonde-haired girl who just so obviously judged Nora a few moments ago.

“Who’s this?” one of the girls asks Alyssa, breaking away from their hug and looking over at Nora with interest.

Just as Nora reaches a hand out to introduce herself, Alyssa says, “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go, girls,” and the three girls spin around without even uttering a goodbye.

Nora watches as they walk down the hallway, giggling the entire way as if they hadn’t singlehandedly just ruined her first official day away from home.

***

October 2006

The first month at boarding school is just a series of Nora playing catch up. While she thought going to public school and hanging out with normal people would be enough to prepare her for high school, three weeks in she’s never felt more lost in her entire life.

She’s one of the only students who doesn’t own a cellphone, she wears second-hand Sperry’s instead of fancy loafers with gold links on the front, her backpack is a maroon Jansport while most students opted for leather messenger bags, and when people ask her how she spent her summer, she’s gotten used to the wide-eyed look they give her when she explains that she scooped ice cream near the beach for tips.

Nora’s not naive. She knows that she’s referred to as The Scholarship Girl behind her back, she knows that Alyssa complains to her elitist friends about how dreadful it is to be forced to room with a girl who wears hand-me-down clothing, and she knows that adjusting to life at Townbridge was going to be the very definition of arduous.

But she remembers what her mother told her—how Nora’s skin is thicker than she thinks, and no matter how different she is to everybody else, she’s still just as deserving of a top-notch education.

Even though Nora was at the top of her class for most of her life, she still felt far behind the rest of her classmates at Townbridge. She spends the first few weeks getting very acquainted with the walls of the library, making the nearly twenty-minute trek from her dorm in Emerson Hall to Millikan Library across campus. Classes have only just begun, but Nora can’t afford to fall any more behind than she already has. So instead of making friends and signing up for various clubs and sports teams, Nora’s allowed her backside to practically mold into the stiff wooden chairs inside the empty library.

Nora would have completely forgotten about the First Year Mixer being held that evening if not for Alyssa and her friends getting ready in her dorm room. When she walks in still wearing her uniform well after classes have ended for the day, the three girls look at her as if she were crazy.

“Did you forget about the mixer tonight, Nora?” Grace, one of the twins, asks with a shocked expression decorating her pretty face. All three girls are wearing colorful Lilly Pulitzer dresses, passing along mascara and eyeshadow amongst themselves in preparation for tonight.

“Uh, no I was just—”

“—Making friends with the books again?” Alyssa sneers, earning a giggle from the girls.

Nora chooses not to respond. It’s just easier that way.

Walking over to her wardrobe, Nora sorts through her limited selection of clothing to find something appropriate to wear for tonight. She didn’t even want to be in attendance, but she’s figured that she’s probably spent enough time on her own, and that maybe, in the off chance that Townbridge has some normal students, she can make a friend or two.

The only two dresses she brought with her were a simple long-sleeved cream sweater dress that fell just above her knees, and a thin summer dress her mother bought her two years ago that was tighter and fell around mid-thigh. She goes with the sweater dress, deeming it the best outfit she has to just simply blend in. Once it’s over her head, she reaches for her thigh-high socks and brown boots she got as a graduation gift, slipping them on quickly. October has left a brisk chill in the nighttime air, and considering her jackets consisted of a worn-in winter parka and an oversized flannel she scored at Goodwill, Nora thinks this combination will be more than fine.

She reaches for the comb on her desk and begins to rake it through her knotted hair, smoothing out the kinks and leaving the strands to fall in their messy, wavy natural state. Just as she’s digging through her backpack to try and find her lip balm and mascara, she can’t help but overhear Alyssa gossiping to Grace and Erin loudly from across the room.

“Harry’s plane landed a few hours ago,” Alyssa gushes, plucking the blush from Grace’s hands and beginning to apply it to the apples of her cheeks.

“Oh my God, no way! You must be so excited, Lyss!” Erin squeaks, reaching for the lipgloss that Alyssa just used. Before she can even remove the lid, Alyssa swats at her wrists and tells her to pick another color.

“Have you been texting all summer?” Grace asks from behind the vanity.

Alyssa nods, readjusting her freshly curled hair. “Ever since he left the Hamptons in July, yeah. We’ve been messaging back and forth. He told me he can’t wait to see me tonight.”

“That’s so romantic, Lyss!” Erin says, and Nora tries her hardest not to roll her eyes. “I can’t believe they let him miss the first three weeks of school.”

“He’s Harry Styles, Erin,” Grace chides, turning to face her sister with slanted eyes. “He can do whatever he wants.”

Nora twists the mascara wand back into the tube before backing away from her desk, double-checking her outfit to make sure that it was suitable enough. Just as she gives her hair one last fluff, she hears Alyssa ask, “Are you really not going to do anything with your hair?”

Nora turns towards her with a sheepish look, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t own any styling tools so…” she lets the words fall from her mouth, watching the three girls in front of her look at her as if she had a second head growing out of her neck.

“You’ve never straightened your hair?! I’m sure Alyssa will let you borrow—”

“—Erin! Enough. Let’s go, we’re going to be late,” Alyssa scolds, ending the conversation abruptly. Before Nora can even shoot a smile in Erin’s direction, the three girls are already out the door, leaving Nora to walk to the Great Hall by herself.

The problem with spending all of her time walking from her dorm to the lecture halls on East Campus to Millikan Library is that she seemingly forgot where every other building was. Trying to locate the Great Hall in daylight was already difficult for Nora, but now with the sun practically set behind the horizon and her sense of direction completely shit, she starts panicking when she’s walked by the dining hall for the third time.

An upperclassman saves Nora before she can have a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the quad, and with two minutes to spare, Nora finds a row with a few empty seats towards the back of the room.

Nobody seems to have noticed her, save for the girls in the row in front of her who turn around when Nora’s boots jostle their chairs. She offers them a muffled apology, and just as quickly as they turned around to look at her, they swivel their necks to face the front again.

Nora sighs to herself, before lifting her head to hear the Headmaster begin his speech. After listening to him drawl about the mission statement and his expectations for the first-year students, Nora immediately wishes she never left her dorm room. She can feel her eyes begin to droop, and before her body can slump further down into her chair, the sound of a heavy oak door closing echoes throughout the Great Hall, and Nora feels her body springing upwards.

Headmaster Clayton pauses in his monotonous ramblings, and before the entire collection of students in front of Nora can turn around to see what the interruption was, a long body falls into the chair next to hers, and the Headmaster resumes his speech as if nothing ever happened.

“Did I miss anything?” an impossibly British voice whispers in Nora’s direction, and she’s a bit surprised by the low timbre of it. She looks over at him and finds herself staring into green pools with a golden shimmer surrounding his irises. Nora’s never been captivated by a boy before—but the one sitting next to her with fluffy chocolate curls falling over his forehead, surrounding his ears, and ending at the nape of his neck might possibly be the first. His hands are shoved inside the pockets of an expensive-looking black trench coat, and his upper body is leaning towards hers as he awaits her response. When Nora notices his pink lips forming into a small smirk, she’s almost positive that she’s been caught staring at this boy for far too long.

“Uh, no. Not really,” she whispers back, scrutinizing the way her voice squeaked at the beginning of her sentence.

His smirk shifts into a full-blown grin, and Nora can feel her cheeks begin to burn. “Hm, sounds like somebody wasn’t paying attention in the first place.”

Before Nora can retort, the boy near her chuckles softly at her nervous expression. “Can’t say I blame you, love. Clayton’s a fucking fossil.”

Nora giggles, causing the girls in front of her to turn around again with a murderous expression on their faces. She stops abruptly, and after they’ve snapped their heads forward for the second time, she looks over to the boy on her left and finds him trying his hardest to stifle another chuckle.

He shifts his body so he’s no longer leaning in Nora’s direction, and she’s a bit saddened by the sudden distance between them both.

Nora replays the interaction in her inexperienced, fourteen-year-old mind, wondering if the boy near her was just flirting with her. There’s no denying that she thinks he’s cute, considering she finds herself sneaking looks at him every few minutes during the duration of Headmaster Clayton’s speech just to get another glimpse of his soft hair and sunken dimples. And on more than one occasion, he catches her in his periphery, shooting her that charming smirk that never fails to make her cheeks blush.

The moment Headmaster Clayton wraps up his speech and the rest of the students begin to stand, Nora turns towards the boy and finds that he’s already looking at her. Now that they’ve exited their row, Nora notices how tall he is, taking in his long legs clad in black denim, his even longer torso in a similar black shirt. The all-dark ensemble somehow makes him look older. Makes him look mysterious. Makes him look even more handsome—and suddenly Nora’s grown a bit nervous.

“I’m Nora, by the way,” she says, sticking her hand out for him to shake. He hesitates, looking between her face and her outstretched hand with a smile on his face, finding it incredibly cute that a girl his age would greet him so formally.

Just before his hand can fall into hers, another hand claps him on the shoulder and he’s forced to look at the intrusion, his own arm falling back to his side. “Harry, my man! How was the flight?”

When Nora looks over his shoulder, she notices two boys greeting him warmly. She hasn’t really met anybody at Townbridge aside from Alyssa, Grace, and Erin, so she’s not surprised when she doesn’t recognize the two other boys infiltrating their small bubble.

But upon further inspection, Nora realizes that she does, in fact, recognize one of them.

Standing directly in her line of vision is none other than Willy Clemonte. Although it’s been seven years since Nora last saw him, there’s no denying that the sandy-haired, blue-eyed teenager in front of her is him. He’s practically almost the same height as his father now, towering over Nora in his khaki pants and a white cable-knit sweater. His hair still tangles in his eyelashes and his cheeks are still dusted with freckles, and Nora’s stunned at the sudden rush of memories that flood her insides.

He seems to have made the same startling realization as Nora did, because his eyes begin to widen almost comically, and a strained expression falls over his features. Before they can give away that they’ve been staring at each other, the boy from before, now known to Nora as Harry, spins around on his heels and gives her a small smile.

“Nora, right?” he asks, and she nods hesitantly. “Where are you from?”

“Uh, Newport,” Nora answers.

“Oh, wicked! So you must know Will, then?” Harry asks, seemingly oblivious to the awkward tension radiating from the two of them.

Before she can respond, Will clears his throat and takes a step forward. With one last panicked look at Nora, he tells Harry, “Yeah, man. Her mom was one of our maids.”

“Wait, what?” Harry asks, confusion written all over his face. Nora’s surprised that she can hear it over the sound of her breath leaving her lungs from Willy’s comment. Sure, she knew that the last time they saw each other he was crying into her mother’s arms over a remark his father said, and sure, she didn’t expect them to resume their friendship as if nothing had happened.

But to blatantly lie about Nora’s mother, a woman who took care of him for years? Nora never thought that he would grow up to be so cruel.

To twist the knife lodged into her chest even further, Alyssa and the twins approach the group with annoyed looks, all aimed in Nora’s direction. They seem to have overheard Willy’s previous comment, and before Nora can even defend herself, Alyssa reaches out and wraps her hand around Harry’s forearm as if she were claiming him in front of everybody.

“Yeah, apparently Townbridge is letting just about anybody in this year. Just ignore her, Harry, we all have been,” she says, her tone nothing but dismissive.

Nora watches as Harry shifts his gaze from Alyssa to her. His green eyes fall down her body, and for the first time, he notices the loose thread at the hemline of her dress from overwear, the tear in her socks behind the knee, her brown boots that lack the distinction of a designer label. With one last look at her, he takes a step back, and Nora knows right then and there that she’s been condemned as an outsider.

“C’mon Harry, tell us all about the rest of your summer in France! I want to hear all about it,” Alyssa enthuses, and without a second look, the group turns around and leaves Nora staring after them.

No matter how attractive she finds Harry, there’s no denying that his personality is undeniably ugly. And as she watches him wrap an arm around Alyssa’s shoulder, Nora thinks it’s quite fitting that they’ve both found each other.

***

November 2007

Summer has always been Nora’s favorite season (living permanently near the ocean sort of makes that inevitable), but that summer after her first year, Nora’s never been more excited to be home. She missed her mom, she missed the beach, and she missed her normal friends who didn’t care that she wore sandals that were falling apart and shorts that were fraying at the edges.

When Nora came back from school, she begged her mother not to send her back to Townbridge for her second year. She told her how she couldn’t make friends, how everybody made her feel like a social pariah, and how she was absolutely miserable being so far away from her.

“Oh, Nora baby,” her mother said, holding her close. “You know exactly who you are. You’re strong, you’re beautiful, you’re intelligent—and you’re so much better than those kids who make you feel like you aren’t.”

“You don’t understand, mom,” Nora said through hiccups, wet tears soaking her cheeks, “They hate me. All of them. They never even gave me a chance.”

“Everybody?” her mother asked. And when Nora just stared at her with her lower lip trembling, Shannon combed her fingers through Nora’s blonde hair comfortingly. “I’m sure there are people at Townbridge who are just like you. I just don’t think you’ve tried to find them yet.”

Even though she didn’t want to admit it, Nora knew that her mother was right. So after another summer filled with scooping ice cream for tips and spending every second of her days off at the beach reading romance novel after romance novel, Nora packed up her things for the second time—this time with another suitcase—and set off for Connecticut with higher hopes for her second year.

Things seemed to be turning around for her when she discovered that her roommate was no longer Alyssa Whalen. Instead, it was a girl named Lydia who lived a few towns over in Madison by the beach, just like Nora. They bonded instantly over their shared love of having sea-knotted hair and the feeling of having sand squished between your toes and letting your fingers wrinkle from wading through the briny water for too long. And when Lydia encourages Nora to sign up for the swim team with her, Nora’s grateful that she’s finally found a friend in this hellhole.

Her second year is leagues better than her first, considering in the first three months, she barely had to cross paths with Alyssa and Harry. On the rare instances that they do run into each other, they simply ignore the other’s existence, and Nora doesn’t mind it one bit. It’s just easier that way, she supposes.

Halfway through Nora’s swim season, she turns sixteen and discovers that everybody around her is getting their license. Lydia’s parents bought her a used 2005 Honda Civic when she passed her driver’s test, and when she told Nora that she could use it whenever she needed, Nora felt bad lying to her new friend. Because once again she was playing catch up, getting her learner’s permit over the summer when everybody was already scheduling their exam, and with the way things were going, Nora wouldn’t be able to get her license until she was home again for summer break.

She also didn’t want to admit to Lydia that she couldn’t afford a car, and that her mother would never allow Nora to take her 1997 Toyota Corolla to campus.

After swim practice one November afternoon, Nora leaves the Athletic Center with wet hair to head back to her dorm in Donahue Hall completely across campus. Normally, Nora walks with Lydia, but since it’s Friday and students who live in-state with a license are allowed to leave campus for the weekend, Nora’s forced to make the twenty-minute journey alone.

With her gym bag slung over her shoulder, Nora begins to walk through the parking lot to head towards the footpath that will bring her through campus. The sky is awfully dark for four in the afternoon, and when she looks up and notices the menacing grey clouds, she kicks herself for not packing her umbrella before she left her room this morning.

Just as she’s almost in the clear, she hears a familiar giggle that makes her skin crawl. Living with Alyssa for one excruciating year has allowed Nora to recognize that sound almost immediately, and sheepishly she tucks her chin deeper into the neckline of her jacket, praying that her face is hidden as she walks past the group.

When Nora reaches inside her half-zipped gym bag for her water bottle, she swears to herself when the strap detaches from the siding and the nylon bag falls to the cement. Making sure everything is strapped appropriately, she heaves the bag over her shoulder once it’s zipped up. As she swings her elbow to place the bag comfortably around her body, she doesn’t take into account her proximity to a particularly shiny black SUV—and just before she can escape the parking lot undetected, her bag smashes against the hood of the car, causing the headlights to flicker on and off and the alarm to blare piercingly through the space.

“Hey!” Nora hears from behind her. When she turns she sees Harry jogging towards her, his brown hair dripping from the shower he just took. He’s wearing joggers and a Townbridge Academy Soccer sweatshirt, and when he reaches inside his pocket and reveals a shiny key fob, Nora swears for the second time knowing that the fancy car she just accidentally hit belonged to him.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” His voice is booming through the parking lot and it’s enough to make Nora feel incredibly small. When he finally presses the alarm button on his key and the blaring stops, she can hear his exasperated breaths in its place, and she’s not quite sure what’s worse.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“—I saw the whole thing, Harry!” Alyssa calls over from her spot across the cement, walking towards the pair of them with an accusatory finger extended in Nora’s direction. “She slammed her gym bag against your car.”

“It was an accident!” Nora screeches, feeling her face turning red. “My bag strap fell off and when I went to put it back on my shoulder, I bumped your car. Not, er, intentionally.”

Harry looks between the two girls with an annoyed expression on his face. “Just be more careful, yeah? It’s brand new.”

When Nora looks at the behemoth of a vehicle to her left, observing the shiny black exterior with the words Range Rover written across the front in chrome lettering, she can only imagine the outrageous price tag it has. Which is why she nods, apologizing one last time.

“Won’t happen again.” Nora begins to turn around on her heel, just as the air begins to get cooler and the slightest smell of rain can be detected in the distance.

“You’re walking all the way to Donahue in the rain?” Harry asks suddenly, and Nora begins to wonder how he even knows she lives in that building. She pauses, thinking if he or Alyssa or any one of their stupid friends lives in Donahue, and when she comes up with nothing, she turns around with a confused expression on her face.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t have a car.” Before she can feel the first drop of rain hit her skin, laughter erupts from the small group surrounding Harry and his car. Nora hides her face, wishing the ground would swallow her up.

With one last gulp, Nora turns around and begins walking towards the footpath, shoving the hood of her flimsy rain jacket over her head.

“Well, at least your hair is already wet!” Nora hears Alyssa call out from behind her, with more laughter following until Nora’s a safe distance away from where she can no longer be scrutinized by Harry and his rude friends.

As Nora reaches Donahue Hall with her tracksuit bottoms sticking to her legs like a second skin and her jacket completely drenched, all she can think about is how she’d rather walk another ten miles before ever having another conversation with Alyssa Whalen and Harry Styles if her life fucking depended on it.

***

A/N: Here’s chapter two! We’ve finally met Harry and Alyssa (yikes), so feel free to share with me your thoughts and predictions for the next part! High school is a funny time period to write about, and I’m excited to share the next part with you all. Look out for it on Friday, February 19th, which will be the normal update schedule. Until then, stay safe! x

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#harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles drabble #harry styles x ofc #harry styles x reader #1dff #1dffupdates #fic: fade

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shitty-marvel-fan732 · 4 years

Note

Hi! I LOVED your peter x Barnes-Rogers post, I was wondering if you could do one where maybe Peter (being the lovable dummy that he is) feels like the only way he can protect her is to break up with her?

Thank you so much for this ask! I loved writing this. So sorry that this has taken so long, life has been STUPID hard lately.

So I wrote like 1100 words for this ask, because I have no self-control lmao. So I broke this into two parts, and I’ll post the second part a lil bit later in the week.

Title: Guilty, Part 1 of 2

Pairing: Peter Parker x Barnes-Rodgers!Reader

Requested: Yes!

Warnings: Peter is a sad boy, slight injuries, and I think that’s it?

Summary: Peter is worried the dangers of being Spiderman’s girlfriend are too much for you.

Link to Part 2

"Mmmm yeah no I'd definitely fuck Spiderman."

Peter nearly choked on his slice of pizza. Face rapidly turning pink at the mention of his alter ego, he whipped his head around in an attempt to locate the source of the somewhat disturbing statement. It seemingly came from a group of sophomore girls sitting a few tables behind his -- the girls were all furiously giggling at their friend who looked utterly unashamed at her bold declaration. Peter couldn't help the small smile that stretched across his lips. He knew that those girls had no idea who Spiderman really was, and even if they did he was more than happy in his current relationship. Still, the sentiment was a little flattering all the same.

Or disturbing. He couldn't quite tell which.

"Pete?"

Peter's attention was pulled back to his own table, the soft call of his name from you all he really needed to refocus completely. You were gazing up at him from your seat next to him, beautiful features gleaming with a look of amused curiosity as you silently asked what had him so distracted. Sending you a reassuring glance and squeezing your hand that was nestled firmly in his, he shook his head.

"I'll tell you later," he mouthed.

You quirked an eyebrow and shot him a look that clearly said 'you'd better' before turning your attention back to the conversation you and Ned had previously been having.

Watching the two of you argue childishly over your opinions on what the better Star Wars adaptation was, Peter couldn't help but grin. A wave of affection washed over him and butterflies danced happily in his stomach at the sight of you interacting so naturally with his best friend. He'd known Ned and MJ for much longer than you had, but over the time you two had been dating you'd effortlessly folded yourself into his small group of friends. Even though it's been months now, the simplest of interactions still warmed his heart and filled him with pride.

Despite the interruption, Peter's ears were still trained on the conversation of the group of girls behind him.

"Say what you want, Bucky Barnes is absolutely the hottest avenger," he heard another girl chime in over the dull hum of the other conversations in the busy cafeteria. He wrinkled his nose a little, an involuntary shudder going through him at the mention of your dad in this context.

"Mm, sure but let's be honest dating a superhero would be fucking awful," the first girl grumbled. Peter frowned.

"Are you nuts? It would be amazing!" her friend replied, disbelief lacing her tone.

"Please," the girl scoffed. "I can't even imagine the kind of scary shit you'd have to deal with on a regular basis."

Peter heard her friend hum thoughtfully.

"I guess, but I mean you'd still get to be with a god. Literally in Thor's case," she giggled.

"Whatever. Just seems downright dangerous if you ask me."

The girls moved on to a different topic, but Peter was still thoroughly distracted by what they'd said. He realized abruptly that he'd never really considered the affect his superhero life could have on you. What if those girls had a point? Was he putting you in harm's way just by pure association? Peter felt his stomach flip and lurch at the mere thought of something happening to you, and the idea that it would be his fault settled like a rock in the bottom of his belly. His mind whirred into overdrive as anxious thoughts filled him with an increasing dread and left him feeling paralyzed.

He was so still, in fact, that you took notice of his motionless form. Even though he was the one with the spidey senses, you seemed to have a knack for knowing when he was upset. Thumb rubbing across his knuckles absentmindedly, your gaze turned towards him once more, a frown marring your soft features.

"Petey? What's wrong?" you muttered quietly, voice just loud enough that you knew he'd hear but low enough that it didn't alert anyone else at the table.

He swallowed thickly and looked over at you. Your eyes were locked in on his face with a sparkle of concern playing in the y/e/c irises. Guilt began to mingle with the anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he noted your slight distress. Shoving all of his feelings down as deep as they would go, he managed a smile and kissed your cheek softly in reassurance.

"Don't worry about it angel, it's nothing," he lied smoothly.

Your eyes narrowed ever so slightly in suspicion, clearly not buying his excuse, but you allowed MJ to pull your attention back to the table's discussion all the same. Peter sighed lightly in relief at the distraction. Though he was turned towards his friends his mind was a million miles away, the girls' words echoing loudly against his skull.

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

A few hours later Peter was feeling only slightly better.

After lunch he'd managed to make it through the rest of the school day without so much as a second alone with you. While that would ordinarily be a bad thing, he knew that the moment you two were alone that you'd expect an explanation for what happened at lunch. You were incredibly perceptive, and Peter was certain he'd wind up telling you everything. Not 100% sure of his own feelings at the moment and completely terrified of your reaction, he decided to avoid you until he'd processed things. He'd practically ran out the door after the last bell, shouting that he'd meet you at the tower after patrol for your usual study-date and leaving you behind, confused and more than a little suspicious.

Patrol did little to quell his nervousness.

The streets were unusually quiet tonight and the monotony allowed him to picture all kinds of horrible things that could happen to you as a result of being associated with him. He tried to push the thoughts away, but he couldn't help but spiral a little further into his pit of self-doubt. Instead of the distraction he was hoping it'd be, Peter's mind ran wild as he watched the city from above.

Eventually, it came time to meet you, and Peter'd be lying if he didn't admit he was a little relieved. Being separated from you was always difficult, and the withdrawal from your presence felt like it was amplified by his anxious state.

Winding his way through the familiar tower halls, Peter decided he needed to tell you exactly what he was feeling. Though he wasn't much more certain about how he felt, he knew that you would make him feel better. He wasn't used to feeling so disconnected from you, and regardless of his thoughts to the contrary he couldn't quell his desire to be near you. He'd been overwhelmed with the urge to feel your soft skin against his, smell your sweet scent wafting into his nose, and hear your quiet words of reassurance in his ears ever since you'd parted ways earlier in the day. He knew it was selfish, but it felt like he was going to reach his breaking point soon if he didn't get what he needed.

And what he needed was you.

"Oh my god! Y/N, what happened?!" he exclaimed as he finally made his way to the common room and caught sight of you. Caught off guard, you jumped slightly at his bold entrance before grinning widely at him.

"Hiya Petey!"

Ignoring the way you completely evaded the question, he was by your side in an instant. His palms lightly grasped your cheeks as he examined your face gently. You had an angry-looking mark blossoming under your right eye, and your upper lip looked as if it'd only just stopped bleeding. His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets at the sight of your injuries, and he felt anger bubble up in his chest. For all his over-thinking today Peter never once considered finding you like this.

"Seriously, what the hell happened?" he practically growled, a feeling he could only describe as rage filling him at the thought of someone hurting you. You opened your mouth to speak--

"That's exactly what we were wondering," a voice cut you off before you could reply. Peter turned, surprised to find your dads standing near your desk, arms crossed and expressions furious. He turned back to you only to find you rolling your eyes at the three of them.

"So Y/N, care to explain?" Steve demanded firmly. Peter shuddered a little at the tone of his voice. It was the same one he used in the field --the one you jokingly referred to as his 'Captain-voice' -- that clearly left no room for negotiations.

"I already told you, it's no big deal," you drawled, clearly unfazed by your dads' obvious anger. Peter frowned.

"Are you serious?" he gaped. "You're hurt, of course it's a big deal!"

You rolled your eyes once more, but your face softened just the slightest bit at the evident worry lacing his tone.

"Doll, just tell us who did this so we can maim them," Bucky practically barked. His hands were clenching and unclenching uncontrollably, and his eyes were alight with a kind of fury that made Peter shiver a little. You, however, either didn't notice his anger or didn't care.

"Oh please, like you all haven't come home from missions with much worse," you snapped. Bucky's jaw twitched in anger, and he opened his mouth to reply.

"We're not talking about us right now," Steve interrupted smoothly. "We're talking about you."

Expression irritated, you opened your mouth --clearly about to spit out a snarky reply-- but Peter cut you off before you had a chance to speak.

"Y/N, please?" he begged quietly. Your eyes snapped over to his face, the irritation fading from your y/e/c irises at his gentle plea. You chewed your lip a little, brows furrowing slightly in contemplation before sighing.

"S'not a big deal," you mumbled. "I just got into a fight with some asshole girls after school today."

"What girls?" Peter asked evenly, fighting the bubble of anger that was threatening to erupt from his body. You just shrugged nonchalantly, evidently unwilling to elaborate further.

"Y/N," Steve said warningly. You sighed, shoulders dropping.

"Just some girls! They were talking shit--," you started, pausing only when Steve shot you a warning glance. "Sorry Pops. Talking trash about dad and Peter, or rather their alter egos I guess. Anyways, I obviously took offense -- you know cause they're morons -- and things just kinda escalated from there."

The effect of your explanation was instant. Steve's hardened expression eased the slightest bit at your story, his eyes flicking to his husband as he cautiously appraised his reaction. To Bucky's credit, if he felt any type of way about what you'd said it didn't show on his face. Bucky remained stoic and he hardly moved a muscle. If it weren't for the fact you knew he had super-hearing you might've thought he hadn't even heard you. Peter, on the other hand…

It was like someone had knocked all the breath out of his body at once. His heart lurched and remorse burned at his insides. His anger quickly gave way to utter guilt, and he felt his face drop despite his best efforts. All the fear and guilt he'd been wrestling with all day felt like nothing compared to now.

You were hurt. And it was his fault.

"Like I said, it's not a big deal," you supplemented quickly as you noted the mens' various reactions. "Seriously, you should see the other girls' faces. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a call from Tiffany H.'s plastic surgeon thanking me for all the money he's about to make."

Peter felt frozen. Normally he would've chuckled at the adorably smug look that'd taken over your features, but he couldn't manage to muster up any feelings outside of his own self-hatred at the moment. Bucky, however, did not seem to share this sentiment. He loudly chuckled at your quip, a proud sparkle gleaming in his eyes and a wide grin plastered across his face. Steve still stood with his arms crossed, expression stern.

"Y/N, you can't just go around getting into fights just because you don't agree with people," he lectured. Bucky snorted.

"Really Stevie?" he chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "I'm getting the most distinct flashbacks of a certain sickly teen who picked fights pretty much wherever he went…"

Steve's face flushed with the slightest twinge of pink at his husband's insinuation. You grinned widely at your dad, clearly delighted with the turn the discussion had taken.

"Again, we're not talking about me," he covered quickly, weakly hiding his embarrassment with a cough. "Y/N, you're grounded. One week, starting now."

Your jaw dropped.

"What?! That's not fair at all!" you spluttered indignantly. "Tell him he's crazy dad!"

Bucky chuckled once more at the sight of your complete and utter shock, his grin only dropping once he caught sight of his husband’s unamused expression. He cleared his throat quickly and crossed his arms once more before shrugging at you.

“Pops is right Y/N, you can’t just go around getting into fights. No matter how good you are at ending them…”

“Oh come on,” you groaned, rubbing a hand across your face in exasperation. “It’s not a big deal, right Pete?”

Peter blinked, pulled only back to the conversation at hand once he heard you call his name. Shaking his head slightly to try and remove the lingering feelings of shock and guilt, he looked blinked slowly as his eyes darted between you and your dads. Opening and closing his mouth wordlessly, he felt utterly at a loss as to how to respond.

"It's a big deal if we say it's a big deal," Steve countered firmly. "So I'm sorry Peter, but you'll have to go now."

You scoffed, arms crossing furiously as your face crumpled into a pout. Ordinarily Peter would've giggled at your childish gesture, but at the moment he could only muster enough attention to nod.

"Yeah, o-okay. I'll see you later Y/N," he muttered quietly before leaving in a daze.

If he weren't so consumed by his own thoughts he would've seen the look of concern that passed over your face or the confusion spattered across your dads'. But Peter didn't notice either, too busy trying to sort through the torrent of thoughts and feelings currently raging inside his head. He walked out of the tower on autopilot as his mind was wracked with guilt over what'd happened to you. Left with only one possible conclusion, he returned home feeling utterly devastated with what he knew he had to do.

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

Bucky was confused.

He'd noticed a distinct change in his daughter's behavior lately that only seemed to be getting worse. He internally wondered how long this'd gone on, because let's face it, he knew if it gotten to the point that even he'd noticed, then it must've been a while. Bucky used to pride himself on knowing everything about you, but as you'd grown older he found himself knowing less and less. Despite Steve's constant reassurance that it was simply the way things went when kids became teenagers, he still felt that little twinge of guilt in his belly when his seeming ineptitude as a parent was called into focus.

Like now.

You'd become withdrawn and quiet, a far cry from your normally energetic and talkative self. You were spending more and more hours secluded in your bedroom, and he could've sworn he'd caught you looking as if you'd just been crying on more than one occasion. All the signs were pointing towards something bothering you, but Bucky felt utterly lost as to how to determine just what that even was, much less figure out how to help you with it.

Currently, the team was finishing up with their nightly dinner, and your strange behavior was once again on the forefront of his mind. You sat across from him and Steve, looking more like a zombie than anything else. Your normally bright eyes looked dull, the dark bags under each of them looking practically a mile long. The food on your plate looked untouched, and Bucky felt a stab of panic deep in his chest as he realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen you actually eat something.

"You okay doll?" he questioned you softly, voice low. You hardly moved, the brief flash of your eyes towards his the only indication that you'd even heard him.

"I'm fine," you muttered, gaze dropping to your dinner and fork moving more of your food around aimlessly as you fell silent once more. Bucky's brows furrowed deeper at your dull response, the lingering fear and discomfort settling deeper into his stomach. Steve eyed the two of you, expression full of concern. His hand gently rested over Bucky's in a show of solidarity with his husband until Bucky's gaze moved towards him.

"Any idea what that's all about?" he muttered quietly. Steve just shrugged, but his clear blue eyes were brimming with the same look of concern and slight confusion as Bucky's.

"Can I be excused now?" you mumbled without so much as a glance upwards. Steve shared a worried glance with Bucky before he cleared his throat.

"You have to eat something Y/N/N," Steve replied quietly. "Can't you just take a couple of bites?"

"S'cold," you protested, voice still devoid of any emotion. A flash of memory invaded his mind of he and Steve cooing and pleading with you as an infant, trying helplessly to get you to eat your food. He fondly remembered the way your chubby arms would cross as you stubbornly refused to eat your pureed food, a picture perfect miniature of Steve. His heart twisted painfully at the stark contrast of that strong-willed little toddler with the shell of a teen he saw now.

"Go into the kitchen and heat it up then," Bucky tried. You didn't move an inch. "Please?"

Sighing, you brought you picked up your plate and trudged away. Bucky let out a sigh of relief, but ran his fingers through his hair nonetheless as confusion and concern continued to rage fitfully in his mind. Steve didn't appear to be fairing much better -- he sat stoically next to him with both hands folded tensely under his chin.

"Seriously Steve, what the hell is going on with her?" Bucky asked exasperatedly. His husband sighed, his own fingers moving to rub against his eyes tiredly.

"Do you two honestly not get what's bothering her?" Natasha interrupted quietly. The supersoldiers glanced over, and she rolled her eyes at them. "Seriously? It's been like 2 weeks."

Now it was Bucky's turn to roll his eyes at her flippant tone.

"So are you gonna tell us what's bothering her, or are you just gonna judge us some more?" he huffed. Nat smiled coyly, relaxing back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest.

"I feel like I can manage both," she quipped good-naturedly. Steve sighed again.

"Come on Nat, just tell us. Please?" he begged, eyes silently pleading with the redhead. Nat seemed to soften a little at this, her green eyes flicking towards the kitchen quickly before she leaned across the table.

"Since I'm certain you'll never figure it out on your own, I'll tell you. But you have to swear you won't let her know that I'm the one who told," she muttered secretively. Bucky nodded dumbly, too eager to figure out what was eating you to care about her somewhat condescending tone. "Haven't you noticed that there's been one less arachnid-themed hero around the tower lately?"

"No. Wait, you mean Parker?" Bucky answered suspiciously. Nat rolled her eyes again before nodding tersely.

"Mhm. Seems like our resident kid-genius broke up with your girl, and now she's completely devastated."

Bucky felt his face furrow into an even deeper frown. Of course Parker had something to do with this.

"So you're saying she and Peter broke up and that's why she's been like this?" Steve interjected, his face a mirror of his husband's. Nat nodded once more, eyes flicking to the kitchen as she heard the beeping of the microwave.

"Yep. Well, to be more accurate he broke up with her, hence her mood," she whispered. Anger began to churn in Bucky's stomach and he felt his fists clench unintentionally at the accusation.

"That little punk," he seethed. "Who does he think he is leaving her like this?"

"I don't know the exact details, and I don't think she really does either," Nat continued. "She said he mentioned something vague about 'not being able to keep her safe' before just cutting off all contact. Poor kid didn't even get a say in it."

"That doesn't make any sen-"

"Hello my little дорогая," she greeted you warmly, voice raising back to a normal volume as you slumped down into the seat next to hers. You managed a half-hearted smile towards the assassin before you began lightly picking at your food. Steve clamped his mouth shut at the sight of you, the grateful smile he shot your way not reaching his eyes. It seemed that the talk with Natasha hadn't made your situation much clearer for him, and he looked utterly confused and perhaps more concerned than he had before.

But Bucky wasn't.

Something Nat said had triggered something for him -- a tiny piece of information that'd seemed inconsequential at the time that now made sense. Grabbing his husband's hand and squeezing it firmly, he gave Steve one last reassuring glance before he left the table. He knew what he had to do.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker one shot #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker #spider-man #spiderman #peter parker fanfic #peter parker fan fic #peter parker fanfiction #spiderman fanfic #spiderman x reader #spiderman imagine #spiderman imagine #spiderman oneshot #spiderman x barnes-rodgers!reader #peter parker x barnes-rodgers!reader

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kentuckywrites · 3 years

Text

Imperium 2: Chapter 1

Gratam mundi. (Welcome to the world.)

Elma decided, somewhere in the middle of Secretary Nagi’s speech, that it was a crime to schedule meetings during sunny days. BLADE Tower’s top floor was partially surrounded by windows, giving a full view to the city outside. The sunlight teased those inside with a considerable glare, a promise that nothing would dare stand in its way. For once, the meeting flew by, and Elma retained only bits and pieces of it, longing to escape outside. Maybe she could convince Lin to take the day off and come along for a picnic. Goodness knows, she hadn’t had the chance to sit down and truly relax, not even after the Lifehold was found.

The meeting was partially about that, after all. After her mission to the Lifehold, she’d discovered that the Lifehold had been flooded. On all accounts, everyone with a mimeosome in the city should have collapsed, never to wake up. And yet, something - something - was keeping the Lifehold in working order. Even the Outfitters couldn’t place what was powering the Lifehold, and they’d dug for a while trying to figure it out. Somewhere along the months and months of research, things shifted, and instead the focus was on using the Lifehold to create real human bodies. The meeting was a debrief on what the Outfitters had put together on the matter, which didn’t amount to much, unfortunately. Those systems were damaged after the crash, after the Ganglion attack, after the Vita and Luxaar and Lao and those hideous, awful chimeras. Elma shuddered at the memory.

When Nagi dismissed everyone, Elma was, regrettably, not the first one out the door. She made small talk with Nagi as the first group of people crammed into the elevator, waited for them to head down, waited for the elevator to come back up and take her to the first floor. It was quiet, thankfully, and when she stepped out into the bright summer air, she inhaled, exhaled. Freedom never tasted so sweet.

Elma took a few steps down the stairs, her goal in mind. She’d ask Lin about that picnic, maybe rope Gwin and Irina into joining them. She made the turn into Armory Alley and quickly spotted Lin, who was talking with L at his shop. She was holding something rather long in her hands. A pipe, of some kind? Elma couldn’t imagine what it was at first glance. As she grew closer, she caught some of the conversation.

“...from the interior of a xe-dom! Ferocious mechanical beasts, mind you, and so the part you hold is the rarest sight indeed!”

“Ooh, a xe-dom? What did it do? What was it connected to? Maybe I can incorporate it into this new Skell weapon I’m designing -”

“We believe that it - ah, Elma!” L caught sight of Elma, who approached Lin’s right side and peered at the pipe curiously.

“Elma!” Lin chirped, “How’d the meeting go? Any update on getting our real bodies back?”

Elma shook her head. “Unfortunately, not much progress has been made yet. It’ll be a while before we can say for certain when the Outfitters will be able to finish repairs to the Lifehold.”

“Aw man,” Lin sighed, “Well, it’s still good to hear that work’s being done. I still can’t believe I wasn’t recruited to help with that.”

“Your skills are far more valuable in the city than out there,” She said, “I know it doesn’t feel like much of anything, but trust me. The work you’ve been doing on Skells here is crucial.”

“I know, I know.”

Lin turned back to L, whose hands were clasped. He was leaning in slightly, as if he was trying to better hear the news Elma had brought along. “Hey L, how much did you say this would be again?”

“Ah, we are so pleased that your interested is picked!” L cheered, “It would be a mere five thousand credits for such a fine -”

“Deal!” Lin juggled her new pipe and her comm device as she transferred the credits over to L’s device. He smiled as his own device pinged with the newly received credits, and Lin quickly put her comm device away to admire her purchase. “Man oh man...L, would you let me know if you find any more of these?”

“But of course! We shall keep your name reserved and primed for any incoming materials of that nature,” L nodded, “Does anything else swipe your curiosities this fine afternoon?”

Elma spoke up before Lin could properly respond. “Actually, L, do you have time to spare today? I was thinking of taking the rest of the day off and inviting some friends along for a picnic out in Primordia. The weather’s beautiful for it.”

“Ooh, a picnic? Please tell me I’m invited,” Lin begged, “I need an excuse to get out of the workshop. Feels like I’ve been holed up in there for centuries!!”

“Of course you’re invited, Lin.”

“Yay!!”

L sighed wistfully. “We so wish to join, but our dearest assistant is out today, and we are tasked with managing this stand with our own two hands.”

“Is Jejebba okay?” Lin asked, concerned.

“Ah, he is doing most wonderfully!” L shook his hands in defense, “He is merely engaging in celebratory festivities. A friend of his recently partook in what humans would call ‘marriage’, and their party has since moved to Army Pizza.”

“I didn’t know Ma-non got married…” Lin wondered out loud, “I guess you learn something new every day.”

“That’s a shame, L,” Elma said, “Perhaps another day, then.” She turned to Lin, glancing at the pipe still in her hands before asking, “Do you know where Pongo is? We could ask him to come along.”

“Like a big family reunion!” Lin said, “Man, I haven’t seen him in ages, actually. What about you, L, has he stopped by recently?”

L put a thoughtful finger to his chin. “We don’t believe he has, not in quite some time. Last we heard, he was assigned to a tippy top secret mission!”

“Did it have anything to do with...the you know what?”

Elma watched L’s expression change in mere seconds. Of course, they both knew what Lin was referring to. It seemed like only yesterday that they’d seen Pongo walking through the city again, renewed and alive after the events in Cauldros. And it felt surreal, knowing that he was never truly human. Pongo was, in fact, an avatar of Mira, a creation of the sentient planet that it could inhabit and influence. From what Pongo had explained, his relationship with Mira was somewhat tense. They were both learning about what it meant to share a body, and though Elma couldn’t quite relate to his plight, she was proud of how Pongo was handling things.

Well...proud of most of it. She couldn’t admit to it out loud, but hearing about how he needed to sacrifice himself, watching him fall into Mount M’Gando without a second thought...it scared her. Not much could affect her, but many things on Mira had, and she knew many things on Mira would continue to haunt her. Even now, hearing that Pongo had been away on this mission for a while, she couldn’t help but worry. He was an incredibly strong companion, and it had been an honor watching him grow and improve. But he was always self-sacrificing, always cared about others more than himself. He couldn’t stop crossing the line, let alone draw the line himself.

And that worried look on L’s face...Elma thought of all the possibilities, good and bad. What did he know that they didn’t? Did he harbor the same fears?

“He would have informed us if his mission were to do with Mira,” L said, after a long pause. “He only managed to provide small cutouts of his true intent, but neglected to tell us specifics. From what we gathered, Pongo is the conductor of some form of treasure hunt.”

Some of the tension in Elma’s shoulders released, and Lin got stars in her eyes, blissfully ignorant of her and L’s concern. “Now that sounds exciting!! Forget working on the Lifehold or Skells, Miran buried treasure sounds awesome!”

“I bet he’ll tell us all about it once he returns,” Elma said, “For now, Lin, shall we prepare for the picnic?”

“Heck yeah!” She waved goodbye to L, who waved back with a somewhat forced smile. “See ya later, L! Thanks again for the pipe!”

“It is our pleasure!” L replied as they walked further away, his attention suddenly shifting to a new potential customer that had approached his shop. Elma led Lin down Armory Alley, who was skipping along with a pep in her step. It relieved Elma’s tensions further, seeing the young Outfitter look so full of life. Perhaps her concerns were a little misguided, rooted in previous encounters. After all, Pongo was a capable young man, and he could hold his own in a fight. She only hoped that whatever treasure he was after, he was cautious in his approach and took the right measures to -

“Elma?”

Elma blinked, realizing she had become lost in her thoughts. Lin was tugging her arm gently, the pipe cradled in her elbow, and she was using her other hand to point further ahead. Elma squinted. There was nothing terribly interesting up ahead, save for the usual tents, some Skells walking past, BLADEs whispering to each other as a woman, tattered and beaten, walked through the East Gate -

Wait a minute.

Elma didn’t waste any time in rushing forward. Even though everyone around her looked on with slight horror, she could only see that the woman was badly hurt, and she’d need help fast. She made it to the woman just in time to catch her as she fell, and Elma let her head rest on her shoulder. Her entire body was covered in blood, bruises, open gashes leaking blue...but at least, doing a quick once-over, nothing vital had been damaged. All flesh wounds, in an ironic twist.

Lin was by Elma’s side in a matter of seconds, her comm device out and scanning over the woman’s body. Some small beeps resonated from the device, and Lin looked up at Elma, frowning. “She seems okay, based on the scan. Maybe we should get her to the MMC just in case.”

“No...no.”

Elma was shocked when she heard the woman speak. She lifted her head slightly, her short black hair tickling Elma’s nose. Underneath her hair, Elma could see light skin, some scratches on her face, and…

Her eyes. Indigo, pupiless.

Just like Pongo’s.

“You must be Elma,” The woman gave a weak smile, “Sorry we had to meet like this. But...but I need your help. Pongo’s in trouble.”

Elma’s heart sank to her stomach. Lin’s eyes went wide, and any stars left over from her astonishment at the pipe vanished.

“You know Pongo?” Lin asked a question that Elma knew the probable answer to, but she wouldn’t be certain until she heard it from the woman’s lips.

The woman tried to sit herself up straighter, but Elma kept her hands on her forearms to make sure she didn’t fall again. She spoke again, after forcing a light giggle.

“I’m...well, I’m his sister. I’m Nessa-vara’is, but you can call me Nessa for short.”

#xenoblade x #Imperium 2: Chapter 1 #SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS #I said I'd be taking a break but #I have SO MANY IDEAS #anyways I hope everyone's ready for the inevitable angst #:3 #>:3

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2018shawn · 4 years

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15 and 41 from sickness/injury and maybe include 2 or 23 from sleepy or cozy I liked those haha ☺️

a/n: heeeey idk who you wanted it for but i went with shawn hope that’s okay!! request sickness/injury here & sleepy/cozy here 💓

warnings: erm mentions of periods and the struggles it PROVIDES sis and throwing up and yeh lol

sickness/injury: 15. “why didn’t you tell me it hurt so bad?” & 41. “you’re so cute when you’re sick and needy.”

sleepy/cozy: 2. “I can’t sleep, you’ve been gone too long” &/or 23. *gentle head massages until the other is asleep*

the feeling you had when shawn was away was somewhat a mixture or desire and emptiness. the feeling shawn had when he went away was neediness and pining. he’s never had someone to love as much as he loved you, although he’d not said it out loud because he was scared.

when you got the text from shawn, saying he’d be able to make it home for one night in the midst of the new single promo, you beamed with joy. you took the necessary precautions, decided on some nice underwear and prepped yourself for at least 3.5 days. on the fourth day, when shawn was due to arrive home, mother nature struck and there was no amount of sighing or eye rolling that could make it go away. just your luck, that you’d be going through your monthly cycle when your boyfriend was finally able to make it home.

not only that, but the symptoms that came with your period were.... brutal. there was no amount of medication or hot water bottles that could take away your aches and pains and most definitely no remedies that could take away how sick you got. shawn knew you got bad, he just didn’t know how bad, never having seen it first hand.

so when he sat on his sofa, your head in his lap and his fingers running through your hair, you felt 50% pure happiness to have him back and 50% on the edge of throwing up all over. you were fighting back the sleepy feeling, your glazed eyes staring up at your curly boy who was filling you in on the promo tour antics. “i’m hungry, and i’ve missed marco’s.” he declared, referring to the local pizza place in which you’d both become very familiar with over the past few months. and normally, you’d be straight on the phone placing your usual order. but today? today you couldn’t help but shoot up, running through to the downstairs bathroom and curling over the toilet. shawn was confused as he peeked his head around the bathroom door, “honey? what’s wrong?” his face was concerned as he walked over to crouch beside you, brushing the hair out of your face and holding it at the back of your neck with one hand.

you edged your face upwards, reaching up for the flusher and mentally scolding yourself for being so completely unattractive in front of him. “i...” you brought your hand to your mouth, closing your eyes as you tried to keep down whatever you could before you spoke the only word you could manage “period.”

he stayed with you for ten minutes, sat on the cold tiled floor even though you tried convincing him he didn’t have to. he would do anything for the girl he loved, he’d stay here all night if he had to. when you thought you were safe to move again, you nodded at him and he stood, towering above you with his arms outstretched. you put your hands in his and he effortlessly tugged you up, your face screwing up and stomach twisting in the process. a string of groans and swear words left your mouth as you brought your hand down to your lower stomach, trying to caress the aching area. “why didn’t you tell me it hurt so bad?” shawn asked, placing hands on your hips in fear that you was going to keel over at any given moment. “let’s get you back on the sofa.”

his hand never left your side as you both mooched back into his living room, where he left you stood momuntairily to plump the pillows and grab your favourite blanket from the basket. he guided you over, carefully letting you plop down on the cloudy cushions before rearranging the pillows around you. “i’m going to put some comfy clothes on and we’ll watch a film or something, yeah?”

“mmhmm, but can you not be long. maybe you could just grab your clothes and get changed down here...” you mumbled, grabbing the tv remote and pushing the standby button.

“i won’t be long, i promise.” he leant down, placing a delicate kiss to your forehead.

“and maybe bring me your harvard jumper, because i like that one and it smells like you.” you didn’t know if your time of the month was making you suddenly develop word vomit, or if it was turning you soft, but you couldn’t stop yourself.

“you’re so cute when you’re sick and needy.”

when shawn returned, harvard jumper in one hand, bottle of water tucked inbetween his body and arm, and a steaming cup of green tea in the other hand, your head was resting on the pillow, heavy eyes gazing up at some programme on the television you weren’t really watching. “you need to sleep.” he demanded, placing the selection of drinks on the coffee table and giving you the hoody. you didn’t put it on, just simply balled it up and hugged it close to your chest and you were right, it smelt just like him.

you aggressively shook your head, only to instantly regret the decision because it felt like your brain was rattling against your skull. “I can’t sleep, you’ve been gone too long”

shawn argued with you, of course, tapping away on his phone. “andrews gonna get me a later flight tomorrow, we have all day. so for now, sleep.” he snuck in next to you, squeezing inbetween your curled up frame and the arm of the sofa. your arms automatically wrapped around his waist whilst his arm hooked around your shoulder. the only response you could muster up was a soft groan, head falling into the crook of his neck.

before long, his fingers found there way into your hair, alternating between stroking your freshly washed waves and circling light patterns on your temple as if he could sense the throbbing headache. it didn’t take long for you to fall asleep, shawn noticing how your eyelashes stopped fluttering open in rebellion to drifting off and breathing became deeper. just like before, he stretched down and pressed a delicate kiss to the top of your head, nose filing with the scent of the banana and vanilla shampoo you swore by. “i love you.”

#Shawn mendes #Shawn mendes blurb #dee's SM blurbing #Shawn mendes oneshot #Shawn mendes fluff #Shawn mendes fic

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dwindledglow · 4 years

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001. MEET JORDAN

FULL NAME: jordan kade thompson. PREFERRED NAME: jordan. NICKNAME/S: jord and jordie. DATE OF BIRTH: december 17th, 1993. GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis male & he/his. ORIENTATION: hetero. RELIGION: atheist. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: married to alice thompson. OCCUPATION: music producer, songwriter and entrepreneur. RESIDENCE: in between soho, new york city and sag harbor, suffolk county.

002. CHECK JORDAN’S BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: tallahassee, florida. NATIONALITY: american. ETHNIC BACKGROUND: afro-american. LINGUISTICS: english which is his native language and spanish and french in a fluent level. EDUCATION: he has graduated from high-school and attended cuny's john jay college of criminal justice where he did two years of criminology and criminal justice before having to drop out due to financial difficulties. CRIMINAL RECORD: clean. BIRTH ORDER: third. FATHER: tyler dajan brown, born on april 30th, 1965 in baltimore, maryland. his whereabouts, as well as living situation, are unknown to jordan but last he heard, he worked as a record store clerk in atlantic city, new jersey. MOTHER: nora jada thompson, born on august 4th, 1968 in st. petersburg, florida, currently residing in sagaponack, suffolk county. she is the owner of four restaurants - wabi-sabi, a japanese cuisine place in soho, new york city, 1946 house, a contemporary french-american cuisine place in miami beach, florida, magari, an italian cuisine place in dumbo, brooklyn and scusi, an italian cuisine restaurant in miami, florida. SISTER/S: alexandra kalla thompson, born on january 7th, 1999 in philadelphia, pennsylvania, currently residing in new york and working as a model and professional dancer. BROTHER/S: william bakari thompson, born on july 1st, 1987 in tallahassee, florida, currently residing in new york city and working as a personal trainer. carter kaluuya thompson, born on may 21st, 1991 in tallahassee, florida, currently residing in new york city and working as a publicist. SIGNIFICANT OTHER: alice thompson, née cooper. CHILDREN: maya anne thompson, born on october 19th, 2018 in southampton, new york. ivy ayana thompson, born on november 8th, 2019 in southampton, new york. OTHER RELEVANT FAMILY: amani robins thompson, née white, william’s wife thus sister-in-law. monique byers-thompson, carter’s wife thus sister-in-law. jada niaara thompson, carter & monique’s daughter, niece. bryson alexander hill, alexandra’s fiancé thus brother-in-law. apollo kade hill, alexandra & bryson’s son, nephew. EX/ES: isobel powell and jessica loyle. PETS: kovu and kopa, two pomskys and cookie, a pug.

003. GET UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

HEIGHT: 6��3″ or 192 cm. WEIGHT: between 177 lbs or 80 kg and 181 lbs or 82 kg. BODY BUILD: jordan has what's considered the ideal weight for his height. he has a fast metabolism so albeit not upkeeping any kind of strict diet or following a specific eating plan, it's hard for him to put on much weight. up until a few years ago — five or six — and following how he stopped regularly exercising / playing basketball, he had a, somewhat, thin figure but ever since he started working out again, he has managed to get some lean muscle. overall, he has a toned body with defined abs and muscular arms. EYE COLOR: dark, earthy brown. EYESIGHT: his eyesight has no problems. HAIR COLOR & STYLE: when the topic in question regards personal style, it's hard to describe jordan's seeing as it is ever-changing. he has dreads and, most of the time, that's the extent he'll go to with his hairstyle. every so often, he'll get tired of having his hair down and he'll go for pigtails — which is one of his favorites hair styles — or a ponytail. when he wants his hair completely out of his way, he'll section his hair and part it in two cornrows and on the rare, he wears half of his hair up and the other half down. DOMINANT HAND: right. NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: the most notable physical trait is, without a doubt, the unusual birthmark on his cheek. besides it, and despite not doing it nearly as often ( unless he's around people he loves ), his smile / laugh are another thing that distinguishes him. there's also his towering frame, his ever-changing hair styles and his chiselled features on top of it. SCARS AND MARKS: asides from your every day, average scars here and there, jordan has a two larger and notable ones : the first on the underside of his right arm courtesy of breaking his arm when he was a kid and the second on his left knee, the result of a surgery he had to be submitted to due to an injury he made when he used to play basketball. he has a distinguishing birthmark on his cheek but, other than that, and sans a few moles here and there, jordan has no other relevant marks. TATTOOS: he has the quote on your own and for yourself in morse code tattooed around his right wrist — reference —, a reminder to keep going, no matter what might happen in his life; on his left wrist, he has a W — reference — which is the initial of his older brother's name; he has the outline of new york's skyline, in white ink, tattooed on the inside of his right arm — reference. on the back of his left arm, he has the geographic coordinates to alexandra's — his younger sister — and jada's — his niece — birth places — reference. on his left ankle, he has excelsior tattooed in bold font, new york city's motto. on his ribcage, a little below his left pectoral, he has the sound wave of his mother saying i love you tattooed. there's the word saudara — meaning brother in indonesian and which he got along with his brother carter — on the right side of his ribcage. he has the quote to new memories tattooed on the inside of his left arm — reference — something he got shortly after he moved to bali. he has the word clarity on small, uppercase font on the right side his neck. on the back of his right upper arm, he has two hands — reference. he has the word power on the back of his left hand. there's the quote self consciousness is heavy along his right hip. on his left collarbone, he has the quote dum spiro spero which translates into while i breathe, i hope and on his right collarbone, he has the quote esse quam videri which translates into to be, rather than to seem. he has the quote and still i rise in bold, uppercase and small font on the back of his neck. on the back of his left ankle he has the word tallahassee in uppercase and bold font, representing the city he was born, and on the back of his right ankle, also in bold font, he has 1993, the year he was born in. for his and ally’s daughters, on the inside of his upper right arm, he has maya shaped to form a heart and, likewise, ivy on the inside of his upper left arm. additionally, he has the sentence ten planes in cursive, recalling when alice and him first started dating and he mentioned how he’d fly ten planes for her. PIERCINGS: he has two piercings on his left regular lobe. VOICECLAIM: daniel caesar. ACCENT & INTENSITY: jordan's accent is somewhat of a hybrid thing — it's not a strong and prominent new york accent but it's also not the closest to a philadelphia accent. growing up and just as he moved to new york, it was easy to place how there was a philly accent to his way of speaking... slowly but surely, it started to fade away and nowadays, he has more of a faint new york accent. ALLERGIES: none that he knows of. PHOBIAS & FEARS: trypophobia. MENTAL & PHYSICAL ILLNESSES: none so far. ALCOHOL USE: sometimes, mostly on social situations. SMOKING: yes, he’s been trying to reduce it but he still does smoke. NARCOTICS USE: if he's in the studio, completely stressed out and needing a way to get creativity flowing, he does smoke weed. INDULGENT FOOD: not very often. SPLURGE SPENDING: yes, sometimes. GAMBLING: no, never.

004. DIG DEEPER

CAN THEY DRIVE? yes, he can drive. CAN THEY COOK & BAKE? yes and yes. CAN THEY CHANGE A FLAT TIRE? yes. CAN THEY TIE A TIE? yes. CAN THEY SWIM? yes. CAN THEY RIDE A BICYCLE? yes. CAN THEY JUMP START A CAR? yes. CAN THEY BRAID HAIR? yes. CAN THEY PICK A LOCK? yes. EXTROVERTED OR INTROVERTED? extroverted. DISORGANIZED OR ORGANIZED? organized. CLOSE OR OPEN MINDED? open minded. CALM OR ANXIOUS? calm. PATIENT OR IMPATIENT? patient. OUTSPOKEN OR RESERVED? outspoken. LEADER OR FOLLOWER? leader, but willing to listen to others and compromise. OPTIMISTIC OR PESSIMISTIC? in-between. TRADITIONAL OR MODERN? modern. HARD-WORKING OR LAZY? hard-working. CULTURED OR UNCULTURED? cultured. LOYAL OR DISLOYAL? loyal. FAITHFUL OR UNFAITHFUL? faithful. NIGHT OWL OR EARLY BIRD? a mixture of both depending on the days. HEAVY OR LIGHT SLEEPER? not heavy, nor light. an in-between. COFFEE OR TEA? coffee. DAY OR NIGHT? night. TAKING BATHS OR SHOWERS? showers. COCA COLA OR PEPSI? coca-cola. CATS OR DOGS? dogs. NETFLIX OR CINEMA? cinema. SHOWS OR MOVIES? movies. LAPTOP OR GAMING CONSOLE? laptop. HEALTHY OR JUNK FOOD? healthy food. ICE CREAM OR FROZEN YOGURT? ice cream. PIZZA OR HAMBURGER? hamburger. LOLLIPOPS OR GUMMY WORMS? gummy worms. BEACH OR POOL? beach. SNOWBALLS FIGHTING OR ICESKATING? both. LITERATURE OR SCIENCE? literature. HISTORY OR ART? art. CHOCOLATE BARS OR COTTON CANDY? cotton candy. XBOX OR PLAYSTATION? playstation. FACE-TO-FACE OR PHONE INTERACTIONS? face-to-face interactions. DRAMA OR SCI-FI? drama. HORROR OR COMEDY? both.

005. JORDAN’S FAVORITES

FAVORITE ACTIVITY: songwriting. FAVORITE ANIMAL: panther. FAVORITE BOOK: he has no favorite book so far. FAVORITE COLOR/S: orange and blue. FAVORITE CUISINE: thai. FAVORITE DISH/ES: jollof rice, khao soi, nasi goreng and yum woon sen. FAVORITE DRINK/S: coffee, limeade and thai tea, patron and hennessy. FAVORITE FLOWER/S: chocolate cosmos. FAVORITE GEM: topaz. FAVORITE MOVIE: fences by denzel washington. FAVORITE SONG: like really by oddisee. FAVORITE SCENT/S: coffee, cinnamon, mint and citrus. FAVORITE SHOW/S: how to get away with murder is the only show he really follows and his all time favorite show is the fresh prince of bel air. FAVORITE SPORT/S & TEAM THEY SUPPORT: basketball, he supports philadelphia 76rs and miami heat, baseball, he supports new york yankees, american football, he supports philadelphia eagles, hockey, he supports philadelphia flyers and tampa bay lightning, soccer, he supports tottenham hotspur fc, barcelona fc and juventus fc, formula 1, he supports mercedes amg petronas, and the list continues — he loves sports. FAVORITE SEASON OF THE YEAR: fall. VACATION DESTINATION: sidi bou said, tunisia and bali, indonesia.

#── ✰. ┊ jordan : — HEADCANON. ❜

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best-gluten-free-bread-makers · 5 years

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The best bread producers attempted and tried

Bread producers have collected somewhat of a blended notoriety since the first rose during the 1980s, planned by the organization presently known as Panasonic. While they offer the opportunity to create naturally heated bread with negligible exertion, idealists can look on them as somewhat of a cheat.

To which you may state: indeed, however isn't that the general purpose? In inquiring about this article, I addressed different cooks, and the general reaction was along the lines of: "The French could never purchase a bread creator", or "referencing a bread producer to a pastry specialist resembles saying 'Voldemort' at Hogwarts." To me, those perspectives convey a whiff of elitism – we don't constantly or self discipline to make crisp bread every day by hand.

I'm more as per Chris Young of the Real Bread Campaign: "obviously, we're pleased when individuals focus in and dig into the flour to blend, massage and shape by hand," he clarifies. "Be that as it may, there are numerous reasons why the Real Bread Campaign likewise underpins the utilization of machines."

Youthful refers to those reasons as: openness (in case you're not ready to find a workable pace or a pastry shop, for instance); sparing vitality (it costs less in vitality than heating in a residential broiler); and control (comprehending what goes into your bread and, at last, your body). The professionals can turn their noses up in the event that they wish; for all of us, bread producers present an entirely feasible methods for eating delectable home-cooked batter.

The Best Gluten Free Bread Makers are genuinely basic (however some of the time massive) apparatuses that generally follow similar lines. You'll get estimating gadgets and a bread skillet into which the fixings go, before the dish is put inside the machine. There'll be a progression of catches on the machine, which permit you to flip through the settings to arrive at the bread you need (white, darker, French, and so forth.). What's more, you'll in all probability get the decision of light, medium or dull covering.

The better machines permit you to make distinctive estimated portions (little, medium, enormous). All have clocks, so you can ensure you wake up to crisp warm bread, on the off chance that you like. Manipulating is finished by an oar, which remains in during the heating (and frequently, on lesser machines, gets stopped into the final result, which means you need to snare it out – snare gave).

All the apparatuses I looked into for this article accompany guidance booklets that highlight a few plans – white, dark colored, and so on. I adhered to these, as I'm informed that denouncing any and all authority can prompt poor outcomes; these plans have been followed explicitly for the units. You do need to be exact with fixings and directions.

In general the machines were quite simple to utilize, and offered a decent scope of choices. Some do gluten free, sourdough (not certain how), pizza batter, cakes, even jam or yogurt. I tried every apparatus utilizing its gave plans to essential breads, from white to darker, fast settings to more slow; and I attempted some jazzier choices as well: pizza batter; sourdough; gluten free; French bread.

In general, I found the tans to perform obviously superior to whites – however maybe that reflects individual taste.

At last, it's what turns out toward the end that matters, so in testing a heavier weight was set on how scrumptious the bread was (it gone from terrible to not awful by any stretch of the imagination).

This is what I discovered, beginning with my top choice...

1. Panasonic Croustina hard outside layer bread producer SD-ZP2000KXC

The first and, to my psyche, still the best. It's somewhat cumbersome, there's no denying it, however in the event that you need a decent measured portion, you'll need a moderately stout machine – littler bread creators would in general make enough just for a solitary breakfast, for two individuals max. Its monochrome dark likewise loans it a demeanor of polish contrasted and some others; the sort of thing that wouldn't watch strange on most kitchen worktops.

Bread creators can be somewhat uproarious, especially during the underlying plying stage. This was on the peaceful side. The bread didn't turn out very as consistently as two or three different machines (nothing a little spatula couldn't help), yet the massaging paddle didn't once stay in the portion.

I thought that it was a little infuriating that you can't peep in to see improvement through a window at the top. In any case, that bread! I could eat it consistently. Alright, it's not exactly like getting a crisp sourdough from your nearby craftsman/trendy person pastry shop, yet that costs £4 – and the Panasonic Croustina comes abominably close.

Clearly the machine is a serious cost, however in the event that you use it consistently you'll make that back. The bread truly was reliably acceptable.

An ordinary white turned out delightfully brilliant, with an incredible crunch. It smelt decent, with a satisfying taste of French bread. The center was a crawl on the clingy side, yet once toasted the scrap relaxed, helped up, and its flavor truly complemented. A fast white, while not exactly on a par with the normal, was consummately satisfactory.

A standard darker took five hours (most are around three) however maybe that extra manipulating, demonstrating and heating is the thing that made it stick out. It looked ravishing. An extremely dull dark colored outside layer (no white flour was included, exactly how I like it), and a cushy piece that wasn't sweet or salty. At the point when toasted, I was unable to blame it.

What might I be able to blame here? All things considered, the Panasonic is expensive – twice as much as the following dearest right now. In any case, truly, I'd pay that in a moment. On the off chance that you need top outcomes from the best bread cook out here, this is the one to get.

2. Tower T11002 computerized bread producer

Said to represent considerable authority in gluten free, and with sourdough and mature settings, this bread producer gets good grades for assortment. I like its utilitarian looks; it's worked by an exceptionally responsive touchscreen; and you can make distinctive measured portions.

The portions I made fluctuated in quality, yet by and large I was intrigued. A little, snappy white portion, only an hour and a short ways all the way, was deformed and topsy-turvy. It smelt somewhat acrid (it wasn't a sourdough). In any case, it tasted actually rather great; and was pleasantly delicate with a firm outside. A truly adequate white toasting bread, if a bit salty.

A darker portion (two sections darker to one section white flour), looked awesome: consistently dull brilliant, a medium stature with a pleasant domed top. It smelt extremely pleasant, similar to I'd entered an outdated bread kitchen. Flavor-wise, it was extraordinary, however a dab on the sweet side. The surface wasn't at all stodgy, as is wont with bread creators. The outside layer, not very crunchy, was perfect for sandwiches.

I endeavored a 'sourdough', as well. I'm not exactly sure how it qualifies as sourdough, yet it was light and breezy, and one of my preferred portions by and large.

The one issue was that I just couldn't ace gluten free. As somebody not used to that region, maybe I was utilizing an inappropriate flour (however it said gluten free); yet the bread simply didn't work. The equivalent, to be reasonable, can be said for sans gluten portions I took a stab at different machines. Obviously, it takes a touch of acing.

By and large, in any case, for straightforward, simple portions, I was more than satisfied with the Tower.

3. Morphy Richards Homebake breadmaker

I enjoyed this machine, however there were a couple of second thoughts keeping it from completing higher. Right off the bat, it was extremely uproarious while manipulating. The massaging procedure doesn't keep going such long – maybe 30 minutes – however in the event that others can be less forceful, at that point it's a point worth making. The touchscreen was additionally not the most responsive, regularly leaving me slightly disappointed.

Be that as it may, here's the acceptable stuff: guidelines were very much clarified. You can watch the advancement through a transparent territory. The plying paddle never stalled out inside the portion. Also, bar one bread, they were all scrumptious.

An essential white portion turned out tall, alluringly light brilliant in shading, and dry on top – perfect for sandwiches. It tasted a touch brioche-y, yet when toasted it took on brilliant roasted flavors. A French was uniform looking, with a great portion shape and an average surface and smell. The darker was appropriately hard, again a decent size for sarnies, and, gratitude to the formula educating 100pc entire wheat as opposed to a blend, it tasted sound and generous.

A sandwich portion was an extremely decent size for, you got it, sandwiches, and had a magnificent surface, however was on the sweet side.

4. ElectriQ Premium programmed bread producer

A littler gadget that winds up making exceptionally tall and slim portions – you'll get superbly scrumptious bread, just very little of it. The primary portion I attempted, a fundamental white, had a decent, high quality looking break on top. It was likely the nearest estimation to a normal, new white portion you'd get in a bread kitchen, if a touch on the sweet size.

The previously mentioned tallness was perfect for an appropriate cut of toast – if no one but you could receive more than four or five cuts in return. Toasted, with a touch of margarine, it was stunning.

A dark colored bread was comparable: acceptable bread yet insufficient of it. It was delicate, making it difficult to cut a perfect cut, and somewhat chewy and thick. Toasted, it was astounding. A gluten free was sad – rock hard.

Concerning the gadget itself: straightforward, simple to utilize controls (with real fastens!); a peep gap to watch progress; a pleasant plain white appearance. A slight let down was the forceful manipulating process: it shook pretty fiercely. Furthermore, the directions didn't disclose to me to what would be the Gluten Free Bread Makers we should take, which was somewhat frustrating.

5. Kenwood BM450 breadmaker

An extremely stout gadget – a piece excessively thick believe it or not. Despite the fact that in any event that implies you get a sizeable portion. Not as noisy as a few – progressively a moderate and study snorting commotion. The working oar stalled out in unfailingly, which is a disgrace. The touchscreen controls worked fine.

A white turned out somewhat low, with imprints in a single side. It was pleasantly brilliant in shading, however, with a satisfying crunch. In any case, I thought that it was a piece excessively sweet and stodgy. Toasted, it went marginally.

#Best Gluten Free Bread Makers #Gluten Free Bread Makers

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mastrechef · 5 years

Text

Drunk Card Games

Because I obviously have nothing better to do, my brain spawned this monstrosity. More or less a partial transcript of the New Year’s party I went to, but fused with FFXV. Warning: this is complete crack and utterly ridiculous. Read if you dare.

This first section involves the card game The Great Dalmuti. It’s become something of a tradition for my family and our family friends (who are basically just my extended family) to play this and Cards Against Humanity every New Year’s. I don’t really feel like explaining the game, so look it up if you’re interested. I tried to match people to the FFXV character that best fit them. Minimal editing only where I couldn’t remember exactly what someone said.

The Great Dalmuti: Movie Quote Edition

As the Great Dalmuti, Nyx declares that everyone must say a movie quote before they can play any cards. He begins the round.

NYX: Taxation is complete. Excuse me while I whip this out. Two twelves.

CLARUS: The Great Dalmuti has played two twelves! Oh wait, we’re not doing that.

NYX: No, we’re not doing the announcing.

REGIS: Look at me I’m Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity.

CLARUS and NYX break into cackles.

CROWE: And I’ll pass on that.

PELNA: What is it?

REGIS: Two elevens.

AXIS (softly): Two sevens.

NYX (expectantly): And? And? Gotta get a movie quote.

REGIS: Go Deadpool.

MONICA: He sees a movie every week. What’s your favorite movie?

Put on the spot, AXIS clams up. Everyone stage whispers suggestions.

AXIS (settling on a suggested quote): You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

Cheers break out.

REGIS: Christmas Story, that’s a good one.

PELNA: Pass.

NYX: Uh, I didn’t hear a movie quote.

CROWE: He didn’t play.

NYX (laughing): Ohhh! I think I want to hear one anyway! Every time you pass.

He breaks off into loud cackling again. The others join in.

NYX: Just for you.

PELNA: Tell me about it, stud.

More laughter.

IGNIS: We’ll have a magnificent garden party and you’re not invited.

NYX (dramatically placing his hand over his heart): Ouch! I felt that one.

MONICA: That’s a pass.

CLARUS: Sixes? Who has sixes?

CROWE (pointing out helpfully): Ignis does.

NYX: Pass.

Everyone around the circle passes.

CLARUS (for no particular reason): Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.

People talk over each other as they all get distracted and break off into separate conversations. The new round goes to IGNIS. He pauses a moment in consideration, then begins chuckling to himself.

IGNIS: Tomatoes, sausages, nice crispy bacon.

NYX (through incredulous laughter): What is this movie? I don’t know this one.

IGNIS: That’s from Fellowship of the Ring.

PROMPTO (off to the side recording this for posterity): Yeah! It’s one of our favorites!

NYX: Oh. Really?

CLARUS (nodding knowingly): Hobbits.

IGNIS: At the watchtower, remember? Before Frodo gets stabbed.

NYX: Oh, ok.

CLARUS (off in his own conversation with REGIS): It’s full of stars. (emphatically) That’s a classic!

The game continues.

NYX: Pass.

NOCTIS: Pass.

REGIS (incorrectly quoting): Nice to meet you Miss Uumellmahaye.

NYX cracks up.

REGIS: Man With Two Brains, remember?

Everyone around the circle passes again.

MONICA: I don’t even need a movie quote. I don’t get to play.

CROWE: That’s what I was thinking.

REGIS: I’ve been saving… No, that’s my endgame. (pauses)

CROWE (grumbling): See, I can forget the end point.

REGIS: My end quote’s going to make Clarus laugh. This one is… I’m karate man! I bleed on the inside! Nine.

CROWE: Eight. I’ll be back.

AXIS: Pass.

PELNA: Six. There’s only one guy for me and you are not it.

Uproarious laughter, particularly from CROWE.

NYX: Why do I feel like all these quotes are directed at me?

IGNIS: I tried to start a revolution, but didn’t print enough pamphlets.

More laughter.

REGIS (in falsetto): We’re free!

NYX (affecting a feminine tone): Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers. One.

REGIS: Oh, somebody wants to play.

NYX: I do wanna play. Uh… three eights.

NOCTIS: You’re not just wrong, you’re stupid.

REGIS cheers as everyone howls with laughter.

REGIS: Three fours!

CROWE (gleeful): That was so appropriate! That was perfect!

IGNIS: I think everyone passes on the three fours.

CROWE (to NOCTIS): Alright, darling.

NOCTIS (placing a card): And my axe.

REGIS: Pi. Ka. Chuuuu!

Random Highlights

-IGNIS: Time to die, obviously.

-CROWE: Glass? Who gives a shit about glass!?

-CLARUS: I’m sorry David, I cannot do--

MONICA: Wait, wait. (scans cards) ...pass.

Gales of laughter.

NYX: She does that to me all the time.

-CLARUS: Somebody get a shitload of nickels!

-CROWE (drawn out): As you wish!

-CROWE: Oh good god, you’re doing it again.

-AXIS: Do you know the muffin man?

REGIS (in a shrill voice): The muffin man!

NYX (also in a shrill voice): No not the gumdrop buttons!

-IGNIS: I can play, I’m just thinking of a quote.

CLARUS: You’ve got the whole darn movie memorized.

IGNIS: I’m trying not to repeat movies.

CLARUS: Then go to the Two Towers.

CLARUS and REGIS bounce around Lord of the Rings quotes (Fool of a Took!, Po.Ta.Toes, They have a cave troll).

IGNIS: The salted pork is particularly good.

-CLARUS: I know what he has. My problem is--

NYX: What do you mean you know what I have!?

CLARUS: I GAVE IT TO YOU!

NYX: Oh! You remember that shit?

CLARUS: Of course! They were my best cards!

-NOCTIS: Help, I’ve been impaled.

-CLARUS: I knew it. Sharks.

REGIS: Ohhh, nice.

CLARUS: I’m out! I don’t think he actually said that in the movie, but, you know. I’m NOT closing the beach! This is not a boating accident. He did say that in the movie.

REGIS: Yes.

CLARUS:You and I quote a lot of things from that movie that weren’t in that movie.

-REGIS: (unintelligible gurgling) Five.

NYX: Was that from--

REGIS: Chewbacca!

CROWE: That was every Chewbacca line.

-PELNA: I’m serious and don’t call me Shirley.

-IGNIS: Laugh it up, fuzzball.

Bonus: Song Lyric Edition

-NOCTIS: His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, there's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti.

REGIS (confused): Mom’s spaghetti? What kind of song is that?

IGNIS (pushing his glasses up): I believe it is one of the early works of the rapper Eminem.

-Someone starts singing Conjunction Junction. Everyone but NOCTIS and PROMPTO join in.

EVERYONE: Conjunction junction, what’s your function? Hookin’ up words, and phrases and clauses.

REGIS (chuckling): Noctis wouldn’t know this one.

-REGIS (singing): I’m just a sweet transvestite~

IGNIS joins in enthusiastically.

Cards Against Humanity

-Literally every time Noctis reads something the slightest bit dirty

REGIS (mock glaring): Who made my son say that!?

-CROWE: (reading cards unintelligibly while laughing)

NYX: Wait, wait. Can you read that again? I don’t think I heard it the first time.

CROWE (somewhat composed until breaking into giggles again): When all else fails, I can always masturbate to slowly easing down on a cucumber.

-CROWE: Live like you’re a dance move that’s just sex. Live like you’re my boyfriend’s stupid penis.

Profuse giggling.

NYX (referring back to an earlier conversation about wifely duties): Oh, really. Does he help with the house work?

CROWE: Oh, my goodness, none of these are good, they all suck.

CLARUS: No they don’t, mine’s great!

REGIS: But obvio--

CLARUS: Mine is awesome!

REGIS: --usly mine’s the best. Obviously mine is the best. Out of all of the ones that suck--

CLARUS: Only mine made sense.

REGIS: --mine sucked the least.

CROWE mumbles a bit to herself.

CROWE (declaring): A dance move that’s just sex.

NYX (excited): That’s me! How is that possible?

REGIS: How could overthrowing the government of Niflheim not be your answer?

CLARUS (disgruntled): Boyfriend’s stupid penis.

-IGNIS: Okay, I’m going to read the card now. (clears throat) In the distant future, historians will agree that the thin veneer of situational (stumbles) causality that underlies porn marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

NYX: That’s…

REGIS: That’s a big card.

CLARUS (referencing an earlier joke): Hey, the pizza guy’s here!

CROWE: Wow, that’s a lot of words.

CLARUS: But it’s funny.

REGIS: Yeah, it is.

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that Judge Judy marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline. Well I guess Lucis declined a long time ago.

CROWE: Judge Judy’s been around a looong time.

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that eating an albino marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

MONICA: In Niflheim, they think they’re magical. They take off pieces of them. They have to hide their albino children or people will like, amputate their arms and legs and stuff.

REGIS: Wow.

NYX (surprised): I was not aware of that.

REGIS: Monica’s been reading a lot of National Geographic lately.

NYX: Turn off Youtube on Monica.

A lot of talking over each other.

NYX: If I were an albino, would you eat me?

IGNIS: I really like this one.

Everybody shushes each other.

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that switching to Geico marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

Explosive laughter.

NYX: That is good. That is good.

CROWE (laughing uncontrollably): Switching to Geico, is that what you said?

IGNIS (confirming): Switching to Geico.

NYX: Switching to Geico. Yes that’s great.

IGNIS: We started declining a long time ago, then.

NYX: It all started with a switch to Geico.

REGIS (out of nowhere): Aflack!

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that daddy’s belt marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

CLARUS: No, no, we go back even further.

REGIS and CLARUS randomly break out into song. NYX joins in. CROWE admonishes them.

NYX: I’m sorry, we’re distracting.

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that my worthless son marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

NYX: Oh, ouch.

IGNIS: In the future, historians will agree that vigorous jazz hands--

Everyone throws out their hands.

CROWE: Jazz hands!

NYX: Jazz hands!

IGNIS (snickering): --marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

REGIS (contemplating): It could be.

MONICA: Like this.

CROWE (softer): Jazz hands!

REGIS: It’s like a fast royal wave.

IGNIS: Like Jack from uh… like Will and Grace. (throws out hands) Jazz hands.

MONICA: But you’ve gotta wave ‘em. (demonstrates)

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that the power of the dark side marked the beginning of Lucis’ decline.

Everyone groans.

IGNIS: I mean, if they watch this most recent movie then maybeee…

NYX (laughing): Oh, the most recent movie.

IGNIS: Then maybe.

REGIS (in the background): Suffer, suffer, suffer, the dark side.

IGNIS: In the distant future, historians will agree that getting hilariously gangbanged by the Blue Man Group will mark the beginning of Lucis’ de-decline.

CROWE: You can’t even read it.

IGNIS: No, it’s switching to Geico.

CROWE (triumphantly): Mine!

CLARUS: Noooo!

#ffxv #crack #crackfic #don't ask me what this is because I don't know #my brain does weird things in a moment of boredom

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myassbrokethefall · 7 years

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untitled rm9sbg93zxjz post-ep

rated: B for blobfish, R for robots, D for dreams and S for Scott.

So as I mentioned I watched the episode last night while Somewhat Drunk after a work party, and I could barely follow what was happening. It was like some crazy dream I had. I woke up this morning and it FELT like a crazy dream I had had. So I ran with that.

I'm looking forward to rewatching, but as of now I've watched it one time, while (as I mentioned) kinda drunk. So I've probably gotten a bunch of stuff wrong, which is fine because that's how a dream would be anyway. I'm sure it will all make perfect sense when I watch it again. Uh, maybe.

I wrote this in like three hours (for me, that is INSANELY fast), after drinking coffee, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

The friendly cacophony of the diner envelops them, comfortable, the two of them (as so often) alone together in a crowd. Mulder likes sitting at the counter, a habit left over from his lonelier days. You feel like you're part of the busy hum of life if you're drinking your coffee while plates pass by your head and orders are yelled out around you and someone is making pancakes three feet away.

Scully's phone chirps, and she looks down automatically. It's a push notification for something or other, telling her to drink water, or stretch, or pay her gas bill, or something. She frowns at it, and flips it over. Smartphone-era Scully, he has found, can be perfectly summed up by her habit of first programming her phone to remind her to do things all day and night, and then getting annoyed and refusing to do the things at least half the time.

Something about the exchange, however, lights something up in his brain. "Scully," he says. "I had the craziest dream last night. Whoa. I just remembered."

"Yeah?" She forks a bite of scrambled egg into her mouth. "What kind of dream?" She lifts an eyebrow at him. Gone, thankfully, are the days when they would have to flirt with each other while pretending that wasn't what they were doing, held back by a mutual terror that Crossing The Line would somehow prove disastrous. He doesn't miss those days. At all.

"Not that kind of dream, G-woman." He squints, trying to piece it all together. "I remember...a bunch of computers were after us."

"Computers were after us? Meaning what? Chasing us? Physically?"

"Well...we angered them somehow. The computers. Like...all of them, I guess."

"We ANGERED them? ...Like with that case we had at the office tower way back when?"

"Actually, yeah, kind of. God, that case was weird. I haven't thought of that in years. My subconscious must be thinking about it. Yeah, we...Well, in the first part we were at this sushi restaurant..."

"You and me?"

"Yeah, but it was empty. It was only us. And we couldn't talk for some reason, I think? I forget why. So we were eating our sushi. It came on a...one of those trays like on a conveyor belt. But they brought us the wrong thing. Remember the blobfish picture?"

She laughs. Scully had chanced to see a picture of a blobfish on the internet some months ago and he wasn't sure he had ever, in their years and years together, seen her laugh so hard. It was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, frankly, watching the outsizedly hysterical reaction of Dana Scully MD, his serious scientist partner, to a picture of a lumpy, slimy, theatrically frowning fish on the internet. He had brought it up at every opportunity for weeks, renamed the wireless network at the house Blobfish Cove, found a way to work a reference to it into a meeting with Skinner, once printed out a picture of it and left it on Scully’s pillow, and watched in utter delight as she got the helpless giggles every single time. (Even the Skinner time. He hadn't even asked, just looked wearily at some point behind their heads for a few seconds before sighing and continuing on.)

"Don't tell me the blobfish was in your dream!"

"It was!"

"You're just saying that because you want me to laugh."

"No, Scully, I swear. The restaurant served us the blobfish as part of our meal, and you thought it was hilarious." Just like now. She's giggling delicately even as he talks. "But we didn't want to eat it. You had some objection."

"Of course! I could never eat it." She cackles. "I love that thing. If ever there was something to prove that God has a sense of humor..." She shakes her head. Blobfish. Mulder sends God a mental high-five.

"So I tried to take it back to the kitchen, but I couldn't find anybody. There was literally no one in the entire restaurant but us. Like no one even working there."

"Why were we at this restaurant?"

"I don't know, we were just there. It's a dream. Oh, I think maybe it was your birthday. But then later I remember it was June, so, I don't know. Anyway, we were leaving and I tried to pay at some payment machine and the machine asked me for a tip. And I got annoyed and I wouldn't tip it, because, it's a machine. You were scolding me about that."

"Which you probably dreamed because I was scolding you just the other day for that shitty tip you gave the pizza delivery guy." It’s an annoying habit of hers, every time he's told her about a cool dream he's had (which, to be fair, is kind of often): to immediately attempt to map every aspect of it onto a real-world cause, the more mundane the better. No respect for mystery or symbolism, Scully.

"Yes. Your scolding reached my subconscious, congratulations." She nods as if accepting a great honor. "So I was hitting 'no tip' on the thing, but then I couldn't get my credit card out. It was stuck. There was this whole part -- I think we got trapped in the restaurant?"

"With the blobfish?" Her eyes are crinkling happily.

"Yes, Scully, with the blobfish. I'm sorry the blobfish doesn't play an even more substantial part in this dream than it already does."

"I can't believe you dreamed that we were going to EAT the BLOBFISH."

"We weren't going to eat it! That was the whole point. We ordered it by accident or something but we didn't want to eat it."

"So we got trapped in the restaurant, then what?"

"Well, we went home, I guess, I forget how we got out but we did somehow, and you were gonna take a taxi to your apartment." He's pleased with himself for keeping his tone neutral when he mentions her apartment. Easier these days when she's spending more nights at the house than not, but still. "But there was no driver, it was like, one of those Google cars. And you didn't want to get in and you were about to argue with me but then you got in anyway, and the car took off like, EXTREMELY fast. I'm sure you were mad about that. And I don't blame you, because it was not safe. So I went home too -- "

"Did you also have a Google car?"

"No, I just drove home."

"Why didn't I just drive my car home?"

"I don't know. It's a DREAM, Scully. It's a dream where you didn't have your car with you for some reason and we also apparently lived in some near-future dystopia where we were imprisoned in a restaurant after being served a blobfish by robots." He pauses to watch her giggle. Never fails. "And after I got home I think I was trying to call my credit card company. Maybe it was something about my card getting stuck from the other part? I just remember this whole long part where I was on hold for a really long time."

"Probably because of that erroneous charge you had to call Citibank about last month, and you kept getting that horrible voicemail system."

"Yes. I'm sure it was from that. Anyway, I was on hold forever and I also had to keep calling back -- "

"Because of how the voicemail kept kicking you back to the beginning when you were calling Citibank."

"Scully. Yes, I'm sure that's why I dreamed about it. I didn't know you were paying that close attention. Anyway, it was annoying. And while I was doing that there were a bunch of drones chasing me."

"Drones?"

"Yeah, the little ones, like in the Olympics opening ceremony. In the house. They were on the stairs."

"How did drones get in the house?"

"I have no idea, but then I got worried about you for some reason and I guess I went to your place. And Scully, I got to your place and it was insane. It was like, some crazy executive suite or something. Or a super posh hotel. All modern and, you know, like designer-y. And you were mad when I got there because I guess I had sent you a Roomba? Like I ordered it for you as a joke and you were mad because you thought I was insinuating something about your housekeeping."

"You ordered me a Roomba?"

"Yeah, but when you opened it it chased your vibrator."

She looks delightfully flabbergasted. "Mulder!"

"It was trying to vacuum up your vibrator. That little pink one." He likes that one. Because she likes that one. "But your vibrator -- "

"Mulder, PLEASE stop saying 'vibrator' in a restaurant."

"It had somehow come to life. I don't know how."

"You mean it came to life beyond the act of," she coughs lightly, "vibrating?"

"I think so. It had a malevolent intelligence. I guess. So I guess the Roomba was trying to stop it? I don't know. And, it was some kind of off-brand Roomba because I remember you saying, why didn't you just get the Roomba brand, and I had no answer. I don't know why I ordered you an off-brand Roomba."

"You were probably being cheap."

"Probably."

"So which one was malevolently intelligent? The Roomba? Or the, the other thing?"

"I don't know. The Roomba was trying to mow down the vibrator. Maybe it was a 'the enemy of my enemy' situation. Anyway, Scully, this apartment, this place was a palace. I wish in real life you could hook us up with a place like that that government employees could afford. You obviously had some secret inside real-estate source. It was insane. You had this fancy fridge."

"Full of blobfish?" She smiles around her coffee cup.

"I didn't see inside it. Oh, but you had a note on your fridge to defrost chicken because Scott was coming over. Who is Scott, Scully?"

"My sexy marine-biologist slash realtor boyfriend. I didn't tell you about him?"

He forks her gently on the nose, causing her to jerk away like a surprised cat. She swipes at her nose, then licks her finger. It's real maple syrup, so she's got nothing to complain about.

"Well, Scott the world's leading blobfish authority slash real-estate virtuoso is gonna be disappointed when he comes over for chicken because then your apartment burned down."

"WHAT?" She steals a bite of his not-quite-finished pancakes. He knew she wouldn't be able to resist that maple syrup.

"Yeah, there was a gas fire or something. I forget how it happened, but then you and I were trying to escape and we did, I guess, and you still had your vibrator but then we had to throw it away because they were tracking us."

"Tracking us via my..." she drops her voice. "My vibrator? Mulder. This is a dream only you would have. Talk about paranoid fantasies that -- "

"ANYWAY, Scully, your luxurious apartment. Burned down. And we didn't even get to christen all the rooms. So we were running and we had to throw our phones away, and the vibrator, because it was tracking us. That was your idea, because you're smarter than I am even in my own dreams. So we threw it in a dumpster." She makes a disappointed noise. Scully loves that vibrator. God bless.

"It's OK, Scully, it was only a dream. So we were running away and we ended up in this, like...robot factory? Or something like that. Maybe a warehouse? But a bunch of robots started chasing us."

"It sounds like most of this dream is robots chasing us."

"It is. I've got some deep-rooted anxieties. So we were running around the robot factory, or whatever it was, and the robots were after us. But they were robot animals, kind of. Like a robo-dog, like -- "

"Like that Boston Dynamics video we saw?"

"I don't remember that."

"You were falling asleep on the couch when I showed you."

"Well, I guess I absorbed it on some level. Maybe that part happened before we threw out our stuff. I can't remember. You know how dreams are."

The waitress leans over with her coffee pot, a silent question, and Scully obligingly pushes the cup towards her. Mulder feels a warmth deep in his belly. She has nowhere to be right now, except here, with him. He nods at the waitress and she refills his mug as well.

"Can we have more half-and-half, please?" Scully asks, and the waitress nods and takes the little pitcher to refill. She loves her half-and-half. Sensual pleasures, his Scully.

"So then what happened?"

"Well, then at some point I realized, somehow, that the reason this was all happening was that I didn't tip at the sushi restaurant."

"You disrespected the blobfish, you mean?"

"Yes. I disrespected the blobfish, or the blobfish's, I guess, robot masters, and they summoned all their connected, artificial will to come after us. And they almost succeeded. We almost DIED, Scully."

"Because you cheaped out."

"Yes. You were right all along. We almost died because I was too cheap, plus you lost your amazing apartment. Before I had a chance to defile it with you."

"I'm dying to know where this apartment was and how I afforded it."

"It was in some leafy suburb. I remember all the trees."

"Good thing I had driverless robot cars to take me to and from work, then. So did you finally cough up the tip?"

"Yeah, and once I did all the computer stuff stopped chasing us. But then you were mad that you had thrown away your vibrator for nothing. And then I woke up."

"Well, I'm glad you finally got what's been coming to you as far as your unacceptable tipping habits."

"Tipping is for exceptional service, Scully! They got my order wrong! And they were robots!"

"That's such an upper-class thing to say. You know servers don't make a living wage without tips. It's part of the cost of eating at a restaurant and if you can't pay it, you shouldn't eat there."

"ROBOTS, Scully. They don't need a living wage. They're not alive."

"Also, what does you throwing away my vibrator mean? That's got to have some kind of meaning, Profiling Wonderboy Mulder."

"You threw it away. And burned your own apartment down. Accidentally, but still." The waitress is back with the half-and-half, which Scully pours liberally into her refilled coffee.

"Why, though? What does it mean?"

"Well, I think it means that my subconscious wants you to come home. But so does the rest of me, so, I already knew that."

There's a little silence. Scully sips her coffee. Her face-down phone chimes softly again. She ignores it.

"Drones...in the house, Mulder?"

"Yeah. You know what I just realized they reminded me of? Those little green flying bugs. Do you remember? It was one of our first cases. Way back when."

"God. Of course I remember. We were in quarantine for two weeks."

"Yeah. They reminded me of those. I got the willies when I saw them on the Olympics thing and now I know why. They were purple though, not green. In my dream."

"You told me, as I recall, that it would be a nice trip to the forest."

"I probably did."

"It was NOT a nice trip to the forest, Mulder."

"I, honestly, Scully, I probably would have said anything to get you to come with me. Even then."

She shakes her head at him. They sit in companionable silence for a bit, the human noise of the diner around them.

"It would be a lot of trouble to find a new apartment, if I were to burn the current one down, due to evil sentient robots," she muses, after a time. "Probably more trouble than it would be worth."

"Probably."

"Since I don't have a Scott, in real life, to find me one."

"Shame."

"Not to mention that I could save on rent and protect you from scary drones at the same time."

His stomach flutters a bit. They have talked about this, sort of, in a roundabout way, but he hasn't wanted to ask too often, or too insistently. Scully doesn't like to be pushed. By him, by a phone that she had instructed to remind her about things, by anyone.

"Plus, no place would live up to that apartment," he says. "No place you could find in the city at least. Or anywhere, really. Unless like, maybe on a billionaire's private island or something."

"But then the commute would be hell. Even with a recklessly driving driverless car. Or boat, I guess."

"Is Scott also a billionaire, by any chance?"

"Scott can barely pay his own rent. And I think he's just with me for the free meals."

"Scott," he says, with a joking disgust that is not entirely forced. "God. Well. If that ever happens, Scully. You know the way back."

"It would be even worse if I lost my favorite vibrator at the same time." She's lowered her voice, he knows, so the entire diner won't overhear them, but he enjoys the effect anyway.

"You know I'm always willing to pinch-hit for your little pink buddy." He drops his voice to match hers. She touches her tongue to the side of her lip in that way that drives him crazy, then takes another gulp of her coffee.

"Or, you know. You don't HAVE to wait for it to burn down."

"True."

"There's room in that drawer next to the bed for Scully's little helper."

"Mulder...enough."

"I'm just saying."

She reaches over and rests her hand on his, warm from the coffee cup, lacing their fingers together, then leans her head into his shoulder. It's another reason he likes sitting at the counter. Being next to her, a very good reason.

"Got time for a walk around the park after this?" he asks. "Work off breakfast, get some extra steps in?"

"Sure," she says, giving his hand a squeeze. "There's nowhere else I need to be."

When they leave, he makes sure to tip the waitress well.

"Blobfish," he says in Scully’s ear on their way out the door, and she dissolves into giggles.

#fanfic #mine #whew now i can finally catch up on tumblr #rm9sbg93zxjz

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forever-rogue · 7 years

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Blend In

Summary: Y/N had always been an expert at blending in. That was until Bucky found out her secrets and encourages her to deal with all her demons.

A/N: Hey guys! This is the 1st part of 2 (maybe 3?). It’s just an idea I got, and I decided to run with it. Hope you all enjoy :)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: None

PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V

Ever since he had arrived at the Avenger’s compound several months ago, Bucky had mostly tried to blend in. He didn’t want to stick out after all he had done and the notorious reputation he had earned. While the truth was slowly coming out that he wasn’t some sort of psychopath without a conscience, he still kept his head down and hoped no one would notice him. He didn’t speak up, didn’t argue and accepted what he was told. Needless to say, he was so incredibly happy with how much the team had accepted him, and left him to his own devices when he wanted.

One thing he was quick to notice was that everyone had their own relationships and dynamics, and for the most part they all got along very well. Nat and Wanda had their close relationship, to Sam and Steve always joking around with one another, Vision and Bruce always talking about something, even Peter Parker had made friends with them all, coming around when he was allowed by his Aunt May.

Then there was Y/N. She wasn’t like everyone else, clowning around and joking with everyone. She got along with everyone for the most part, was included with all the group activities, but she spent most of her time alone, isolated even. She was short and small and had long wavy hair. She was a classic sort of beauty, the kind everyone usually wanted to be around. But not Y/N, she seemed content to be on the outside looking in.

Bucky wasn’t sure why he was so drawn to her, but he often caught himself watching her. He observed the way she smiled lightly to herself when Sam would tease Steve or the way she scrunched her when they were watching scary films during movie nights. Maybe it was because he knew how hard it was to fit in when you were so different from everyone else. What he also noticed was that whenever she smiled, the smile would never truly reached her eyes. Her laugh was always musical but was never deep or hearty, the kind that would leave you making wheezing sounds.

One rainy afternoon, the team was lounging around the tower engrossed in their various activities, Bucky spotted Y/N sitting in the living room on, the television was on playing some movie in the background, but she was absorbed in the book she was reading. He didn’t want to interrupt her for no reason, so he tried to think of an excuse, “hey, Y/N?”

She looked up and met his bright blue eyes and gave him a once over. He always intimated her a bit, not because of who he was or what he had done, but because he was so handsome, and always seemed kind. He usually didn’t say much, but his actions usually indicated that he cared about his other team members. Her lips lifted in a small smile, “what’s up, Bucky?”

“Do you, uhh, want a cup of tea?” He mentally kicked himself. A cup of tea, that’s what his mind came up with. He wanted to crawl in a hole right then and there. If that wasn’t a lame and obvious excuse, he didn’t know what was.

“No, thank you,” she quickly responded before lowering her eyes back down to her book, “it was nice of you to offer though.”

‘“Yeah, I figured I’d, you know, make myself one, and I saw you, so I figured I’d offer, with it being all cold and rainy,” he rubbed the back of his neck as he kept stammering. Y/N didn’t move her eyes off of her book but nodded in response, “would you want to get dinner or something later?”

Y/N was surprised at his sudden request, but secretly delighted. Just as much as Bucky observed her, she watched him when no one else was looking. She left as though he was somewhat like her: a member of the team, but also more distant. Although she was okay with spending only a minimal amount of time with the others, something about him made her curious, “Yeah, Buck. That sounds nice.”

“Really? Great, I’ll uhh, you can let me know when you’re ready to go and we could go to Rosso’s?” He was surprised she actually accepted, but wasn’t about to start complaining. He wanted to get to know more about her.

Y/N nervously pulled down the sleeves of her sweater as she gently knocked on Bucky’s door. She heard him stumble around before he opened the door, “hey Y/N. Ready to go?”

“I am if you are,” she responded softly. She stepped aside as he exited his room, looking handsome as ever. It was almost like he didn’t even have to try, he just always looked so good. Classic and handsome, just as he was a bit of classic, she figured.

“Definitely! Let’s go,” he took in her long wavy locks, flowing down her back, and her simple outfit. Even down up so simply, he thought she looked so beautiful. The only thing that struck him as weird was her sweater, it wasn’t summer anymore, but it wasn’t exactly cold either. He hadn’t opted for a sweater but was dressed in a short sleeved button up and well fitting jeans.

They walked closely next to each other to the restaurant in relative silence, but it didn’t feel awkward or anything, it was comfortable. Neither of them felt the need to fill the time with a bunch of endless small talk.

When they got to the small restaurant, Bucky held open the door and ushered her in. They were seated at a small table near the back, with a window overlooking the quiet street. It was quaint and romantic, a nice spot for a first date. Bucky wasn’t quite sure if that’s what this was, but he secretly hoped it was.

They looked over the menu for a few moments before deciding to go with a pizza that Bucky recommended. He swore it would knock her socks off.

“This better be good Barnes,” she laughed a little bit as they handed back their menus.

“Oh don’t worry, you’ll love it,” he smiled back at her, “can I ask you something?”

Y/N’s eyes widened for a moment while her mind raced and she tried to imagine what he could possibly ask. Did he know her secret? “Sure, go ahead.”

“How did you end up working with the Avengers?” He had realized he never knew why she was there. He had seen her go on different missions, usually ones he wasn’t involved with, and he knew she was a good and well trained fighter, but she still seemed somewhat like a weird addition to the mix of everyone else.

“Oh,” she let out a sigh of relief. Her secret was safe for now, “I thought you knew? I’m inhuman.”

“Inhuman?” He had heard of them before, but didn’t think many existed in their world. They didn’t have the greatest reputation, and they usually stuck to their own kind.

“Well, not fully. I’m half, I suppose,” she shrugged her shoulders lightly, “my dad was also inhuman, but my mother was human.”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows, “do you have powers then?”

“I do. I can manipulate thoughts,” she noticed the look of concern on his face, “don’t worry, Bucky, I would never do that to you or any of the team. I only do it when it’s absolutely necessary, so usually on missions. I think it’s wrong otherwise, you know, to try and change people’s thoughts? It’s kind of like using Jedi mind tricks on the bad guys.”

He laughed out loud at her Star Wars reference, “That’s fair enough. Seems like it could be handy though. Do you wave your hands around when you do it?”

“I mean, it has it’s moments,” she agreed, laughing a little bit, “I usually don’t, it’s not necessary. But sometimes, I add in some jazz hands for show.”

The waiter arrived and placed the loaded pizza in front of them. It smelled like heaven, and Bucky wasted no time in digging in and putting several slices onto his plate.Y/N hesitated for a moment, not unnoticed by Bucky, “go on, I guarantee you’ll love it.”

“I better,” she stuck her tongue out at him and reached to grab herself a slice. That’s when her heart almost stopped as she realized her sweater sleeve had rolled up and she heard a gasp from Bucky’s mouth.

“Y/N, what’s-”

“I-I have to go. Sorry, I just can’t. I’m sorry,” Y/N could barely think straight as she hastily stood up from the table, pulled down her sleeve and started heading for door, almost running into another table, tears threatening to run down her cheeks.

“Y/N! Please wait, Y/N!” Bucky stood up, throwing money down on the table as he started to run after, “Y/N!”

But she was nowhere to be found. Y/N had run down the street and turned down an alley, waiting for him to give up looking for and heading back home.

She knew she had vowed never to use her powers on her team, but she was willing to make an exception this time, if it meant her secret was safe.

#marvel #mcu #sebastian stan #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #winter solider #winter solider x reader #inhumans #avengers #spiderman #star wars #mine #one shot #imagine #captain america #steve rogers

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tumbleon · 7 years

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Go well, Celia

The first time I saw Celia Mancini was on celluloid.

Three years ago, my flatmates and I headed out in the rain to catch a screening of Margaret Gordon’s documentary about the Christchurch band Into the Void at Alice’s, a theatre in the centre of town that holds about 30 people.

Most of the documentary consisted of the band laughing about how they drank together far more often than they made music.

But the atmosphere changed when a clip from King Loser’s ’76 Come Back Special video jumped off the screen. A presence appeared: a femme fatale with jet black hair and red lips. She sprinted in short heels through the streets of Auckland, picking off men with whatever she had lying around: a car, a rifle, a karate chop.

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King Loser, ‘76 Come Back Special

“Wow,” I breathed.

Onto the next one... Still from the ‘76 Come Back Special video. Get it, Celia.

One of the people she murdered in the video was her bandmate Chris Heazlewood. Their personalities sparked when they met in Auckland in 1992. Celia spit venom, and Chris liked it. Celia liked him, too. King Loser was born shortly afterwards.

King Loser press shot for Flying Nun Records. Left to right: Celia Mancini, Lance Strickland, Chris Heazlewood. Not pictured: Sean O’Reilly

“That whole video was all her idea!” he cried. “She’s got a real good eye for iconography. She was like, ‘I need to be in a black vinyl catsuit, and I need to be killing everybody, and I need to die at the end.’”

Celia was larger than life. She was also still very much alive. Unlike the actual members of Into the Void, who were somewhat useless at remembering the finer details of their history, Celia had scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings. More than 20 years after the fact, she still had everything saved, as if she always knew that someone would need it one day. She was a rock star and an archivist. My heart glowed. As disparate as our lives seemed, I could relate to her in that one small way.

Media is often talked about as if it is some evil, homogenous lump of globalised ephemera with no real connection to anything or anyone other than capitalism and corporate profits. But in New Zealand, people step out of celluloid and cross over from the screen into everyday life all the time. You just have to know where to look, and who to find.

At one point in the documentary, Into the Void played in a gravel lot on High Street where their practise room used to be. One kid watched from the sidewalk, his hair bouncing. An hour after the screening, Mary and I were at the darkroom, and so was he.

“We just saw your movie,” we crooned. “Loved your scene.”

Though Celia first became known for her presence in Christchurch bands like The Stepford 5 and The Axel Grinders in the 80s, she didn’t live in Christchurch anymore.

(You can hear one of The Stepford 5′s songs here).

Although King Loser was born in Auckland, the band also lived in Dunedin for a bit. Part of that history included joining Peter Gutteridge in a reformed line-up of Snapper. The New Zealand poet David Merritt referred to their triumvirate as “an axis of good and evil”.

Self-portrait of Snapper, c. 1992 by Chris Heazlewood. Left to right: Peter Gutteridge, Celia Mancini, Chris Heazlewood. Not pictured: Mike Dooley.

Though their relationship didn’t last, they remained close friends.

Celia always used to introduce Chris to people with the line, “And this is my guitarist, Chris Heazlewood.” Photo courtesy of Chris Heazlewood, who said: “Note proprietary position of hand on shoulder.”

Celia’s and my paths first crossed two years ago in a bar on Karangahape Road in Auckland. Though I had killed a lot of time on K Road – I had written a novel there in another life, years before moving to the South Island – I had never seen Celia before. This time around, I was doing an oral history project on Peter Gutteridge. This time, I knew who I was looking for.

Chris Heazlewood was playing at the Audio Foundation, though I missed it (what gig finishes by ten?). Apparently, Celia appeared with a drummer and demanded that they play. Chris conceded. They smashed it.

After the show I ended up at Verona, and Celia was there too, in a black silk dress. Her arm was in a cast. One of her front teeth was chipped. The bar was loud and crowded. She talked with a drawl, and a bit under her breath. Her words rolled together like liquid and I couldn’t make out a thing she said. After a few moments she held up her cigarette and announced: “I’ll leave you for more conversation with this one.” She nodded to me. “Scintillating.” That I understood. I broke into a smile. I had just been insulted, but I didn’t care. She was funny.

Later that night a boy at the bar leaned in my face when he heard I was writing about Peter Gutteridge.

“Who?” the boy spat.

“He’s a musician,” I replied.

“Who?” he asked again, louder.

“Uh…” I tried to think of which band to mention first.

“I know who he is,” the boy seethed. “He was a friend of mine. Do you think he would have wanted you to write about him?”

He hit a nerve. I almost cried.

Celia wasn’t like that at all upon learning I wanted to write about Peter.

“I have no questions to ask you,” she said. “I’m just grateful.” She championed the project to several of their mutual friends, and put me in touch with all of them.

We did her oral history on a sunny winter day in Auckland in 2015. Celia didn’t have a permanent address, so we met at her friend’s flat in Grey Lynn.

Celia wanted food: she requested a pizza with anchovies, capers, and olives. I had a rockmelon. “Bring both if you can,” Celia said. Before I left, she doubled down. “I’m not joking about the rockmelon. I am half Indian, you know.”

When I arrived, Celia was waiting in the backyard.

“Hi!” I said as I approached. “I’m Hannah.”

She smiled slow. “I know.”

I had brought along the rockmelon, but by that point it had been long forgotten.

Oral histories ought to be recorded somewhere quiet, but Celia wanted to go find some sun.

“Lindsay, we need your keys,” Celia announced to her friend. “Hannah’s going to borrow your car.” It came off a bit abrupt, but Lindsay didn’t seem to mind. He tossed me his keys. I also needed power; he handed me eight rechargeable batteries and told me to keep them.

Boxes of Celia’s archives formed towers around Lindsay’s toilet. Even though she didn’t have a home, she hadn’t lost them. Her friends seemed unusually patient and generous.

As I drove, Celia drank.

“I'm a bit confused lately because I don’t live in Auckland,” Celia said. “I really want to be going home. I’ve been trying for two years.”

“Where’s home?” I asked.

She looked as me as if I was blind. “Dunedin!” she cried. “Always.”

We ended up on a park bench near the lake in Western Springs, where ducks were basking in the late afternoon sun.

Celia poured whiskey into a mug from her flask. “Would you like a drink, darling?” She doled out the word darling like candy.

“I would, but I can’t,” I protested. “I drove us here. I need to drive us home!”

Celia’s mind moved a mile a minute. As she talked, her words started to blur again, and I struggled to separate them, just like at the bar. My replies were flat. Most of the time I managed only a generic response once she had finished. “Oh. Hm.” I wondered if she was making any sense.

Later, when I listened back and slowed down the recording, Celia was totally lucid, and I sounded like an idiot. She would go off on three separate tangents in the middle of a sentence – but at the end of every sentence, she offered up about seven ideas.

Much of what Celia said blasted apart the two-dimensional statements that have been repeated so many times about rock music in New Zealand, they are often passed off as truisms. One is that the scene is full of amateurs who learned by the seat of their pants.

Celia didn’t ascribe to any of that bullshit. She loved classical music, played ragtime and honky-tonk on the piano from the age of five, and was a brass player in several orchestras as a kid.

And then she fucking rocked.

Another one of the two-dimensional truisms was that being on stage came with no pretence. Everyone wore street clothes.

Celia didn’t give a fuck about precedents. The world was her stage, and she was going to own it.

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Celia and her band Mother Trucker performing ‘Eric Estrada’ in 1998.

“People turned their back on the audience,” Roy Colbert told me over coffee. “Then, here comes Celia walking the stage like it’s a runway in a nightie. People had never seen anything like it before. Jaws were on the floor.” Roy laughed.

Celia and I reminisced about Peter and purred.

“I miss his tone of voice,” she said.

“So gentle,” I agreed.

She smiled. “So sweet.”

Although our first encounter was a bit acerbic, Celia treated me like gold ever since I wrote about Peter. She said my dissertation rendered her speechless. A rarity, one of her friends mused. Don’t worry, another chimed in. I’m sure it’ll wear off soon. Her reputation remained contentious, but she also remembered my birthday.

About a year later, word spread that King Loser had started to play together again. Shows were scheduled across the islands for September. As the dates neared, rumours rumbled through Dunedin that communication in the band had started to break down. There was talk the band might not make it.

But they did—curiosity regarding their arrival turned into cries of lament from Port Chalmers that Celia had demanded the entire stage be moved at the last minute.

Danny and Nikolai of Elan Vital had been drinking at Mou to mourn its last day before being sold; a brief sojourn to pick them along the way turned into a two-hour detour.

“Have shots with us,” they pressed.

“I’ll have a beer; I can’t have shots though,” I said. “I really want us to make this show.”

That night outside the Tunnel Hotel, the atmosphere was giddy. Nikolai leapt at Danny and pulled down his pants. Renee was draped over the fence outside the hotel in a fur coat, eyes glistening and grin demented. King Loser was back.

Chris Heazlewood passed us on the street on the way in.

I lit up. “You made it!”

“Agh,” he muttered. “Dragged that bitch all the way from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South...”

I smiled. “Well, we’re glad you did.”

The bar was packed. There were black leather miniskirts that looked like they had been dusted off from 20 years back.

There was no sign of Celia. Sometime after midnight, the band started to play without her. Eventually Celia stalked in an oversized fur coat from stage right. Her hair was teased and piled up a mile high over a white collared shirt buttoned up her neck and a black silk tie.

If looks could kill... Celia at The Tunnel Hotel in Port Chalmers, September 2016. Photo by Esta de Jong

Celia threw her coat behind her over a lamp. Their drummer—Lance Strickland, aka Tribal Thunder—carefully removed it.

Once they started playing, it all came together. Chris and Celia taunted one another. Lance was on point. At one point Celia almost knocked the keyboard into the audience, but Lance leapt out and caught it. Elan Vital and Death and the Maiden threw themselves into each other in front of the band, manic.

“I love you Celia!” Renee crowed.

“Another whiskey, please, somebody?” Celia posited to the audience.

“Somebody get her a whiskey!” Renee hollered, carrying the decibel of the request over to the bar.

“Thought she wasn’t going to make it for a minute there,” I mused to Roy Colbert, who happened to be standing in front of me.

“Don’t be fooled,” he said. “Celia wanted all eyes on her. She loved it.”

Word of King Loser quieted down a bit again after the shows.

The following summer I moved to North East Valley, and not long after that cycled past Chris Heazlewood walking a dog along North Road.

“King Loser is playing at the Crown this Sunday afternoon,” Chris said. “So, Celia’s down obviously.”

The cover charge was only five dollars. My whole flat came; those with a bit of extra money covered for the ones who couldn’t afford it.

By the time I arrived, Connie Benson was on her last song. Afterwards, King Loser were even tighter than before. There was no false starts, no long wait. The first song came like a bullet train. Wham! Celia introduced another. Wham! Then another came straight after, without any introduction. Wham!

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King Loser kill it at The Crown Hotel in Dunedin, March 5, 2017.

“Shall we have Connie Benson come up and play our last song with us?” Celia asked before the set ended.

The crowd cheered. Connie’s eyes widened.

“Come on, Connie.” Celia started a chant. “Connie! Connie!”

Connie slowly took her guitar out of the case.

Connie glanced between Celia and Chris as the band launched into a riff. She watched Chris’ fingers and slowly started to imitate them. Lance lifted his chin at Connie, encouraging her to go faster.

Celia stopped the song after about 30 seconds. ““All right, Connie,” Celia insisted until the beast ground to a halt, it’s E, F#, A...” Celia rattled off the notes they were playing.

I melted for the girl for being put on the spot to play a song that she didn’t know. Connie didn’t seem to mind, though.

“Isn’t she amazing?” Celia asked the audience at the end. “Connie Benson!” I couldn't tell whether Celia had been trying to humiliate her, or not. Celia ran over to Connie after the set.

Celia Mancini performing a matinee King Loser show at The Crown Hotel in Dunedin, New Zealand, March 2017. Photo by Jacque Ruston.

“Man,” my flatmate Caitlin marvelled. “What do you think she is like in person?”

“I’ve met her a few times,” I said. “I think what you see is what you get.”

Caitlin wouldn’t have to wonder for long. That weekend, Celia turned up at our flatwarming in the valley with a small entourage round midnight.

Marcus apologised on her behalf. “You know Celia,” he said. “She wanted to make an entrance.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I smiled. “Come as you are, whenever you like.”

It was a great night. Celia insulted the music, the lighting, and everyone at the party straightaway.

“What is this?” Celia’s head swiveled. “You’re living in some student flat?”

Yes. But it has a band room...

Caitlin tried to tell her a joke. Celia didn’t let her finish. “I’ve got a joke!” she declared. Then she forgot the ending, and cracked herself up anyway.

Caitlin stared. “I’m laughing. Your joke is really funny.”

“Cunt!” Celia crowed.

Caitlin put an arm on her shoulder. “Celia. I’m glad you’re here. But this is my house…”

Celia had already moved onto the record player. I tried to apologise for Celia, but Caitlin didn’t care. “Oh, I think she decided I was all right in the end.”

“What is this music?” Celia cried. My flatmates had put on something... electronic. “Change it!” she hollered.

I was more hesitant. “Someone wanted to hear this...”

“Put something that you like on,” Celia insisted. “You have good taste.”

She had no knowledge of my taste, but was charming enough to get people to go along in spite of how little what was said stacked up against facts.

At one point she sallied up next to me as I messed around on the organ in our hall. “That’s really good,” she encouraged, her eyes locked onto mine.

Immediately after I put on some rock and roll, a boy started dancing in our lounge with a broom.

Celia smiled. “See?” She cranked up the volume.

“We have to keep it down,” my flatmate Icky insisted. “Noise control already came. I don’t want my stereo taken away.”

“The neighbours only called noise control because of that shithouse music you were playing before,” Celia insisted. “They didn’t like the BASS. It has to do with FREQUENCY. This is a higher frequency, it’s fine.” She cranked the volume back up on her way out to the backyard.

Icky stared after her. “I think I’m in love.” He turned it back down once she had left.

“This lighting is awful,” Celia mused. “Lighting can make or break a party.” We turned a few lights off. “Better,” she insisted.

“She wasn’t that bad,” my flatmate Jenny said later on. “She wasn’t causing drama for the sake of it. Everything she was saying was about trying to make the party better.”

Celia was still putting records on when I slithered off to bed around two in the morning. The next day my flatmates told me that she was one of the last to leave.

Our time together was so short when compared with those who loved her and spent decades by her side. Yet as her spirit drifts from the bottom of the South Island to the top of the North Island and flies out over Cape Reinga, it feels still like I ought to share the little that I knew. If there was a legacy to carry forwards from the short time I spent with Celia, it was to engage. Celia can be channeled anytime someone moves with a certain modus operandi: Pay no mind to precedents. Focus on making the music good. Improve the party.

I have been lucky enough to find something in New Zealand, though I can’t quite yet describe it. If all of the people who had an impact on each other’s lives all over these islands could be seen at once, it would light up the night like rich constellations in a cloudless winter sky. But as time passes, clouds are forming. The brightest lights are slowly fading, and some are disappearing altogether from sight.

Yesterday, another soft glowing star faded from the constellations that tell the story of a time and a place.

Go well, Celia.

Celia Mancini by Brigid Grigg-Eyley

#king loser #celia mancini #celia patel #flying nun #auckland #new zealand #music #legend #stepford 5 #the axel grinders #rip

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d2kvirus · 6 years

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Dickheads of the Month: November 2018

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of November 2018 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Just when you think the current Tory government can’t get any scummier they find new depths to sink to, this time as it emerged that their use of gagging orders wasn’t just last month’s story of how Esther McVey silenced over twenty groups who oppose Universal Credit, oh no, the latest one to emerge was how engineering firm WSP had to sign a non-disclosure agreement expressly forbidding their report into the Grenfell Tower fire from criticising Theresa May or her government - which came to light just weeks after Theresa May claimed she was going to get tough on gagging clauses

Of course Theresa May herself wasn’t above scumminess, not when her address to the Confederation of British Industry featured her claiming how EU nationals “jump the queue” in terms of immigrations, and initially attempted to deny that she had said it - a claim that was somewhat difficult considering that comment had been broadcast by numerous television stations by that point

Bastions of journalistic integrity and not knowing what Photoshop is Newsnight hosted a panel of six members of the public to discuss the merits of Theresa may’s Britait deal, and one of the panel claimed to be a lifelong Tory supporter named Lynn who was wholly behind the deal - but what she neglected to mention was that she was an actress named Marina Lynn Hayter who had previously appeared in several BBC programmes ranging other political programming to working as an extra in EastEnders who also happens to post Islamophobic tweets. When this came to light the initial response was for Newsnight host Emily Maitlis to tweet patronising comments to anyone who dared think the BBC’s word couldn't not be trusted while editor Esme Wren responded by doubling down on claims that “Lynn” was a legitimate pastor - claims which were rapidly torn to shreds as Hayter’s Twitter feed proves she is a pastor of the Seeds For Wealth Ministries (who definitely aren’t a pyramid scheme...) whose ceremonial garb looks nothing like the Anglican garb she wore on Newsnight, which only begs the question whether she chose to wear that garb and nobody checked if she was genuine or whether Newsnight dressed her up that way

In a desperate attempt to gain sympathy and/or relevance David Cameron said he was “bored shitless” after two years being away from politics and spending most of his time in his shed and he was considering a return to frontline politics, possibly as Foreign Secretary - apparently failing to understand that the reason that he’s been away from frontline politics for the past two years is because his gamble of an advisory referendum on EU membership backfired horribly due to his incompetent handling of the Remain campaign, especially since he also promised to activate Article 50 if a Leave vote came in, which is the reason he ran for the hills the second his fuckup was readily apparent

Feckless cunt Ivanka Trump scored a spectacular own goal against Team Trump when it emerged she had sent several hundred government emails from her personal e-mail account before initially trying to claim she didn’t realise she had done anything wrong - as if she forgot about her father saying “But her emails!!!!!!” several thousand times during the Presidential campaign whenever any question he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer came up

The past two years of acting like a cockney gangster who thinks he’s gotten away with it to the point he’s rubbing it in the faces of everyone else meant that Arron Banks really looked foolish where, after months of saying he doesn't care what the Electoral Commission says about him, the Electoral Commission referred the investigation into his business dealings to the National Crime Office

...or course, within 24 hours of this, the geniuses at the BBC announced that Banks would be appearing on The Sunday Politics Show, which sails dangerously close to interfering with a criminal investigation, and as expected the whole thing was a farce as it degenerated into Banks using the opportunity to smear Carole Cadwalladr for the umpteenth time as Julia Hartley-Brewer agreed with him the whole time

It seemed the Banksification of the BBC continued apace when Andrew Neil posted a particularly nasty tweet about Carole Cadwalladr that sounded remarkably similar to the tweets Banks has posted about her for the past year or so - and the BBC did not help themselves when their response was to say that, as Neil had deleted the tweet, there was no reason to complain

And the BBC’s dereliction of duty continued apace on Question Time when David Dimbleby made no effort to demand a retraction from Claire Perry when she called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite

...and finally Andrew Marr decided he wanted part of the action when adopting a needlessly aggressive and downright nasty tone when interviewing Shami Chakrabarti

Compulsive liar Esther McVey had the gall to claim in her resignation letter that she could not be true to herself or the public in accepting Theresa May’s Britait proposal - a week after she told the House of Commons that mental health charity MIND had recognised and welcomed her suggested changes to Universal Credit, which was news to MIND, who had repeatedly criticised Universal Credit due to it having conditions that could stop those with mental health problems receiving benefits, as not only had they not welcomed her changes but she had not even informed them of these changes in the first place.

It appears that Paul Joseph Watson is quite happy on Manor Farm without his master telling him which lies to disseminate, considering he not only happily re-edited the footage of Jim Acosta having the microphone snatched out of his hands by a White House intern so it looked like he was assaulting her (and I’ll get to that in a moment...) but just 24 hours later falsely claimed (as did Laura Loomer and Pamela Geller) the perpetrator of the Thousand Oaks shooting was a Middle Eastern man and not an ex-marine who happened to be white

Doing her bit to unite the people of Mississippi was Cindy Hyde-Smith and her pledge to stand in the front row of a public lynching, which definitely didn’t have any connotations whatsoever considering her opponent Mike Espy happens to be of the ethnic background of people who tended to get lynched in Mississippi

Not only did Laura Loomer think that posting Islamophobic tweets about newly-elected Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar wouldn’t come back to bite her on the backside, but when Twitter blocked her account for spreading hate speech she responded in the most insane way - by pinning a gold “Jude” star to herself and handcuffing herself to Twitter’s offices in New York, livestreaming the whole thing...which only turned into a humiliation conga line starting with Twitter employees simply walking in and out of the office ignoring her, soon followed by Twitter stating they wouldn’t press charges so she could stay there as long as she liked, the NYPD walking up with a set of bolt cutters and telling her to bugger off, and the bizarre moment where somebody watching ordered pizzas for Loomer and her cameraman only for Loomer to send them away as getting her Twitter back was more important than eating. And, no, Twitter did not give her account back.

Professional contrarian Piers Moron Morgan obviously needed attention that day when tweeting some utter gibberish on International Men’s Day about radicalised feminists and how men should be manly men at the height of their manliness, all interspersed with him getting increasingly triggered by Little Mix because...nope, no idea whatsoever, but he certainly seemed angry about the whole thing

We got another round of “REEEEEEEEEEEdom of speech” wailing after a group of middle-aged edgelords who burned an effigy of Grenfell Tower because apparently if you can’t post a video of you and several of your friends burning an effigy of a real-life tragedy and using it as an excuse to make Islamophobic comments online without breaking some race-hate laws, what can you do in this country? Other than what the South Norwood Conservative Club did, which was decide that deleting photos of the individuals from their Facebook page wasn’t enough, and instead they should just delete the whole page

NRA TV’s lead hate preacher Dana Loesch decided to revive a decade-old tweet saying teenagers piss her off to advertise she would be reading out her hate mail, sounding uncannily like the school shooters who benefit from sociopaths such as her and her NRA buddies making it so easy to get hold of an AR-15

Vile mass of blood and organs with a deep-seeded need to be despised Lindsey Graham took it upon himself to patronise Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and say he could educate her about the Holocaust - a comment which saw him slapped down by someone with a far greater understanding of the Holocaust than him, namely the Auschwitz Memorial

It apparently only just dawned on Dominic Raab that the UK is an island that imports the vast majority of its food by sea, primarily from the European Union. This is somebody who is in charge of the UK’s negotiations to leave the European Union...

Seemingly on a mission to prove that the people most vocal about leaving the EU don’t have a clue Nadine Dorries stated she wouldn’t support Theresa May’s Britait deal as it would mean that the UK wouldn’t have a single MEP...something that’s a bit of a given considering that, by leaving the EU, the UK wouldn;t have a single MEP as they would also be voluntarily leaving the European Parliament

Doing their bit to demonstrate the failings of the American education system were the students of Baraboo school district who celebrated graduation by performing the Nazi salute en masse in their graduation photo

In the wake of a White House intern trying to grab a microphone from the hands of CNN’s Jim Acosta for his free exercise of the press, which I believe is something mentioned in the First Amendment, in their attempts to control the story Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Acosta assaulted the intern - and had an obviously doctobered piece of footage from the Squealer to Alex Jones’ Napoleon as quote-unquote proof

It’s hard to feel sorry for Scott Walker being unable to demand a recount for the Wisconsin gubernatorial election in spite losing the vote by just 1.2% to Democrat candidate Tony Evers - mainly because Walker passed a law stating that, if the candidate who finished second lost by more than 1% of the vote, they couldn’t demand a recount

Upon arriving at Luton Airport and learning that the airline he had flown on had lost his self-propelling wheelchair and being offered the use of one of the airport’s standard wheelchairs in order to help him through the airport, instead it occurred to Justin Levine that the best course of action would be to drag himself through the airport on his backside and, once he had left, threatened legal action against the airport - even though those who were responsible for the entire situation were the airline for losing Levine’s chair, and Levine for refusing any attempt at assistance from the airport just so he could make a show of his “struggle” for the person who quite conveniently filmed the entire thing

While it may be his schtick to make asinine arguments that he tries to tie to Trump getting elected, it should have occurred to Bill Maher that posting a blog just days after Stan Lee’s death laying into adults for reading comics and blaming them for Trump’s victory made him sound like a complete prick

Arbiter of what is or isn’t a consensual penis Enzo Amore demonstrated just how well he had gotten over being fired by WWE by buying a ticket for their Survivor Series pay per view, sneaking into the building in a disguise, and during the show jumping on his chair to make a spectacle of himself - for the few seconds before security dragged his sorry ass out of the arena

For the 2018 edition of using Remembrance Sunday as an excuse to bash Jeremy Corbyn the Daily Mail was up in arms that he attended the Cenotaph wearing an anorak - but then again, given MailOnline users were saying Meghan Markle was being “disrespectful” because...something about her face and not knowing her place, sentiments which definitely don’t sound like the dogwhistling of some indignant racists, it’s as if our soldiers died for these idiots to seethe in their sleep

Just an FYI: when Cressida Dick states that a Metropolitan Police investigation into a leaked dossier is not investigating the Labour party, neither the BBC or the Evening Standard should run headlines saying there’s an investigation into the Labour party - especially since the text of their own reports states that’s not the case

Putting the “amateur” in “amateur football team” was the bizarre story that unfolded when Ballybrack FC announced the death of their player Fernando Nuno La Fuente in a traffic accident...which was certainly news to La Fuente

With his position of Most Inexplicably Popular Youtuber under threat by the rise of T-Series, all that PewDipShit PewDiePie accepted the challenge by spouting all manner of insane conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of their subscriber count and going so far as to pay for billboards to try and raise his visibility, which looked like her was throwing the sort of tantrum not seen since Veruca Salt was told she couldn't have an Oompa Loompa because his precious record was about to fall - which, of course, his brainless followers swallowed whole

Somehow it never occurred to an estimated twenty members of Direct Action Everywhere who marched into a steakhouse to play audio of cattle being slaughtered to the diners while yelling their various slogans that they’re not getting their message across - you're pissing people off and being dickheads while you’re doing it

Oh-so-edge high schooler/Youtuber NathanTheHicc managed the impossible: he managed to give Bethesda some good PR from the trainwreck that is Fallout 76 after he decided the best way to play the game would be to round up a posse who would grief players while yelling homophobic insults at them through voice chat, or engage in “playful immaturity” as he tried to claim it was when slapped with a ban

None of which exonerates Bethesda from the utter shitshow that is Fallout 76, where not only was the game a bug-riddled mess by Bethesda standards to the point a bug in the game’s beta deleted the whole thing from people’s hard drives the second they installed it, but they couldn’t even fulfill expectations for the tat bundled in with a pre-order special edition - and thought the equivalent of a $5 giftcard was sufficient compensation

It should have occurred to Gary Neville that his being widely misquoted with his summary of Tottenham Hotspur (which was mainly to shut up the clueless Jamie Carragher, who doesn’t appear to understand how finance works) that the best course of action would be to let the whole thing blow over. Instead he got wound up by his failures as manager of Valencia being brought up by Harry Redknapp and fired back with a spreadsheet...which only drew more attention to his failures at Valencia

And finally, hiding behind an intern as he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, there’s Donald Trump blaming Californians for fires caused by his budget cuts, which shows it’s not just the midterm results he doesn’t have a clue about

#dickheads of the month

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