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curryandbread · 3 years ago

Note

Hello Curry! Can I request a Twisted Wonderland Headcanon with Dorm Leader when they witness they're S/o almost getting kidnap by someone (can be RSA student or anyone random but please no Neige) that have obsession towards their S/O.

Thank you~ oh! And make it Sfw please.

TWST Dorm Leaders protecting an s/o whose involved in an attempted kidnapping

hi anon!! thank you for requesting~

TW: drugging

Riddle Rosehearts

You were asked to meet someone at Heartslabyul’s rose gardens. It was a heartfelt letter, and for some reason it got you curious to who the sender might be.

Riddle keeps you close whenever you go somewhere. But this is a matter on your own hands, he lets you off once as he bids you a farewell with a kiss on the forehead.

You were waiting, looking around until someone from behind hugs your body tightly as you yelped. Unfortunately, your screams were muffled as the perpetrator covered your mouth with a hand.

Just when you were struggling, Riddle successfully hit the perpetrator down with his magic before running towards you.

He hugs you first thing, cupping your face as he checked if you had any injuries.

Riddle’s eyes were full of fire. He glared down at the person who attempted to kidnap you, not taking another latency of making them pay.

And once the situation was settled, with the perpetrator being taken away, from that since on, he will not leave you alone anymore.

He’d have you stay at his bedroom for security purposes, cuddling you to sleep as he whispered sweet nothings while he’s here.

Leona Kingscholar

Who dared to capture you?! Especially if you’re with the Leona Kingscholar.

In any circumstance that this one person doesn’t know that you’re dating Leona, he just signed himself a ticket for a train to hell.

Someone asks you to meet at the Magift field, offering you to ‘watch a game’, in which you allowed.

Leona would be somewhere unseen, most likely sleeping at random places again.

Someone violently grabs your arm, pinning you down to the ground with both of your arms behind you, you tried thrashing around but the perpetrator had a well-built physique.

Until suddenly, the perpetrator was sent flying by the jaw. The weight hanging over you dispersed immediately.

You look up to see Leona with the grimmest expression. His green orbs practically glowing.

Of course, the perpetrator got the message. As they scrammed without looking back, Leona eyes some of his men and gestured the delinquents to follow them.

Once the two of you are alone, he picks you up and slings you on his shoulder.

“Hey, herbivore. From now on I should see you in my sight. If you’re not there, you know the consequences.”

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul is the master of trickery, but he never saw it coming that someone would go to such an extent to kidnap you.

You were sitting alone at the bar of Mostro Lounge, waiting for your drink.

One of the students came to add something to your drink. Azul was not at the area, most likely at the VIP room doing his usual business.

You reach for your drink now being delivered to you. You took a sip, suddenly feeling your vision drop. The perpetrator purposely catches you before you even fall to the ground, insisting he’ll take you to the infirmary.

The perpetrator drags you somewhere secluded. Before they even tried to do something, a punch was landed on the perpetrator’s cheek.

All you could here was Floyd’s insanely high-pitched laughs, Jade following behind Floyd.

Once Azul gets the cue, the twins are going to give the perpetrator a little... lesson.

Whilst you can hear the perpetrator being abused by the twins at the back, Azul would stroke your cheek lovingly as he held you close.

“Let’s put it like this, treat it like a contract. You’ll stay by my side forever and never leave me, yes?”

Kalim Al-Asim

He knows he should be the one who’d get kidnapped due to certain cases in the past, but it had to be you instead of him.

You were only eating alone at Scarabia’s kitchen. The dorm head had gone to bed, and you were there to drop by for a little midnight snack.

Whilst your back was turned, arms loomed over you and your mouth was covered, trying to break free from the grip.

However the perpetrator stood his ground. You were struggling until the grip loosened. All you heard was a pan being hit on someone’s head.

It was Kalim who had thrown the pan at the perpetrator, now lying down on the ground.

He runs towards you and pulling you into an embrace, blaming himself for leaving you alone.

Jamil rushes down to see what’s the commotion he’s been hearing at the kitchen, of course, things are taken care of as he is already at the scene.

Next time, Kalim would have to reinforce the dorm with security barriers, and even make you sleep in his room, making sure that you’ll let him know that you’re running off somewhere.

Vil Schoenheit

Of course, some people will look down on you just like how people underestimate Vil.

It was the day of VDC, the representatives were busy preparing for their performance so you were left alone, Grim tagging along with the committees to secure other things for the festival.

You were only sitting on a bench by the stage. A student approaches you and they seemed to be from RSA. They hung around with you until they insisted to take you to a place they want you to see.

You politely decline but somehow the RSA student contained a short temper and was about to lash out on you.

However, Vil was quick to kick the student away from you.

The RSA student will definitely recognize who he just bumped into. Announcing a lot of apologies for his ‘rude’ behavior and leaves the two of you alone.

“Never mind you leaving us here. I’m taking you with me.” Said Vil.

Idia Shroud

Yada... yadaaaaaaa..! No way is he gonna have anyone even lay a finger on you without him around you.

You were only doing laboratory maintenance duties, you alone with another student assigned to help you.

Somehow, the student beside you pushes you down to the ground as he pinned you down. Shocked and unable to asses the situation, you suddenly heard a small voice from the corner.

“Charging laser beam, 30%.”

It was Ortho.

The student hissed, getting off of you as he ran away. Idia rushes in to check on you and pulled you up.

You asked him how did he know, he said he saw it from the security cameras. Don’t even ask him why he even has access...

Of course you had to thank Ortho for him nearly blasting the whole school down just for you. Giving Idia a reassuring smile as you held his hand with a light squeeze.

Malleus Draconia

It would bring a disgrace to the title of the next head of the Valley of Thorns if he were to harm someone for you. However, he will do so just to keep you by his side.

You were at a janitor’s closet, putting away the mop you had just used to clean a breakage that Grim has caused. Malleus was also there to witness it, however you insisted you’d clean up instead of him.

You were heading out of the closet, suddenly someone blocks your path and pushes you back in the closet.

It was a delinquent from Savanclaw who had wanted to take revenge for Diasomnia’s victory in every Magift tournament by holding the Diasomnia dorm leader’s precious, you, captive.

It was not long until a green mist of magic hit the back of the student’s head, knocking them to the ground.

Malleus had come to rescue you.

“I can never forgive myself for dragging you into this.”

You were quick to tell him that it wasn’t his fault and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland headcanons #twst hcs #twst headcanons #riddle rosehearts #riddle rosehearts x reader #leona kingscholar x reader #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul ashengrotto #kalim al asim x reader #kalim al asim #vil schoenheit #vil schoenheit x reader #idia shroud x reader #idia shroud #malleus draconia x reader #malleus draconia

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dilliebar · 5 years ago

Text

I’ll Show You: A Dillie Fic

Hey guys, I just finished writing another little fic for ya’ll. I know we’re all running low on Ellie/Dina content so I’ve been working my booty off to p r o v i d e. Especially now that I’m done with school I can focus a lot more on fics, at least until June 19th anyway haha. Anyway, enjoy guys!

Ellie and Dina set out on yet another long patrol, but this time, with Dina's boyfriend third-wheeling. Having a bit of trouble in paradise, this isn't exactly a recipe for success, and when the trio find themselves setting up camp at an old community of cabins for the night, tensions begin to unfold in the love triangle.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24195085

Jackson was pretty well-known for its relatively warm springs and summers, at least in comparison to the Boston QZ, anyway. Any snow that happened to collect on the ground during the winter wouldn’t last for long. By the first sign of spring, the icy, white powder that caked the trees would quickly drip away back into the earth, snowmen that children built and admired saw their pebble smiles melt into puddles of water, and more often than not peoples’ shoes would be drenched in mud every time they took a step outside.

None of that seemed to bother Ellie, though. She would take mud and heat over the freezing temperatures and sight-hindering snow storms any day. Not to mention, this time of year was a lot less stressful on her, and so her first patrol out would be a heck of a lot less scary than the ones a few months before that brought back not-so-fun memories.

And she was with Dina, so that was always a plus.

They had already been travelling from the settlement for a few hours, since supplies on their regular patrol routes were becoming less and less abundant. It seemed like after every patrol they would have to travel just a little bit further, and after that one, a couple miles more, and looking forward they really didn’t know where they would eventually end up. But for now, the pair set out to Idaho Falls, which was a bit more than eighty miles west of Jackson. Neither of them really had a problem with it, but the third wheel glued to their side was getting on their nerves.

“So when we get into the city, you guys stick to me. Got it?”

Dina rolled her eyes as she rode on the back of the saddle behind Jesse. He wasn’t even supposed to be on this patrol, but he had absolutely insisted on it for some reason or another.

“Yessir,” she replied sarcastically, making a face at the girl riding next to them. Ellie let out a snicker at her mocking tone. Sometimes she wondered why Dina and Jesse were even dating at all, considering how much they squabbled.

In fact, not even a day before this entire patrol, the younger girl was at her house in the middle of the night going on and on about how she was going to leave him if he kept up his behavior, how controlling and demanding he is, yada yada yada. She could see the discomfort written on her friend’s face whenever he was around, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering what a relationship was supposed to be about. Despite their arguments they almost always seemed to end up back together one way or another, though, usually ending in Dina apologizing for things that she didn’t do and Jesse forgiving her for imaginary problems.

And Ellie just didn’t get it.

The majority of the trek was filled with long stretches of awkward silence, something that was fairly uncommon when the two girls were alone. If one thing was for sure, this was going to be a long patrol.

But soon the sunlight began to dim, and disappeared over the trees, leaving the trio in darkness.

“Still about twenty miles out,” Jesse stated monotonically, “There’s a small cluster of cabins just off the highway. Best stay there for the night.”

The other two nodded in agreement as they diverged from the road.

Ellie looked over at Dina, who had been awfully quiet the entire time. There was a far-off look in her eye, almost as if she had checked out of the conversation completely, which was quite unlike her being the chatterbox that she usually was. While Ellie would generally find her sarcastic, playful demeanor somewhat excessive at times, she actually started to miss it. Instead, she felt a tinge of annoyance at the way Jesse didn’t even really seem to notice, or at least care.

That’s when their eyes met for the shortest moment, bringing Dina back to reality and causing a smile to pull at her lips. Ellie gave a small smile back in return as they approached the small neighborhood of cabins, all of which seemed to have been left without a trace of any inhabitants whatsoever.

The community was fairly rustic, with overgrown dirt paths leading from one of the three log cabins to another, all meeting in the middle, where a fire pit and an old grill stood untouched. The cabins themselves were similar, but each held their own unique features. One had a more modern, triangular design, with windows that stretched across the height of the building; the one to the east looked small, but cozy, with a stone chimney poking out the top of the house; and the last one, facing the north, had a traditional lodge-feel to it, with a small back wooden porch built just slightly over the lake. The neighborhood was surrounded by magnificent fir trees and pines, and it was a community that Ellie could see herself living in someday. It was calm, away from everything, almost as if it were a world of its own.

Ellie and Jesse rode the two horses over to separate sides of the porch of the triangular cabin, hopping off of them and tying their leads to the posts of the railing. Jesse reached up to take Dina’s hand.

“I got it,” she declined, jumping off of the saddle.

Jesse just shook his head.

“I’m gonna sweep this one, Dina-”

“I’m going with Ellie.”

He sighed in defeat, nodding in acknowledgment as he made his way up the porch steps and into the house. Ellie snickered as the two were finally left alone.

“Didn’t work it out, huh?”

Dina laughed, “Yeah, no.”

The pair made the short walk over to the small, eastern-facing cabin. From the outside, it was definitely the least spacious of the three, just big enough for one or two people at most. Rocks outlined what had been a garden stretching around the side of the house, though by this point it had overgrown to the point where the plants had begun to climb up the foundation. The wooden beams supporting the overhang of the porch had clearly worn over the years, showing its age, but frankly it seemed much more sturdy than some other houses they had seen on patrol. Ellie placed her foot on the first step, causing it to creak. Almost in response, they heard a crash from inside.

She walked quietly up the steps, pulling out her pistol from her backpack pocket. She nodded at Dina, giving her the cue to pull out hers as well before peeking in the living room window, checking to see if any infected were nearby. As far as she could tell, it looked clear, but the two knew better than to trust only their eyes. Ellie tapped lightly on the glass, with still no sign of the source of the noise. She gave a half-hearted shrug to Dina, who just shrugged in response.

Ellie placed her hand on the knob of the door, hoping it wasn’t locked, and turned it ever-so slowly in an attempt to make as little noise as possible. To their surprise, it opened with ease, and the pair made their way into the living room, guns up and ready.

The house on the inside looked just as cozy as the outside of the cabin presented itself. Aside from the bathroom off to the left side of the house, it was all one room split up into distinct areas. To their right where they walked in was an old bed, blanketed in a colorful handmade quilt. To their left was the living area, where a rustic couch, stone fireplace and knit carpet made their warm presence known. And in the back of the house was the kitchen and dining room, in which the wood stove reminded Ellie all too much of Joel’s cooking.

Despite the welcoming appearance of the cabin, both Ellie and Dina made sure to stay alert, noticing a broken vase on the ground next to the kitchen table. It was undoubtedly the noise that they had heard, but who caused it was yet to be seen.

That’s when they heard a thud from the bathroom.

Ellie slowly made her way over to the bathroom door, which was open slightly ajar. She put her hand on the knob, and carefully pushed it open. Still, no signs of infected, but she did notice the shower curtain to her left that was pulled shut, which was most definitely hiding something.

“Careful, dumbass.” Dina whispered from the living area.

Ellie put a finger over her lips in response and then moved it over the trigger of her pistol, her other hand on the curtain. She mentally counted down from three to one in her head before ripping open the shower curtain and pulling the trigger non-hesitantly with a loud bang.

But to her surprise, the shower was empty, and a furry critter dashed its way between her legs and out the front door.

A cat.

“You two alright?!�� they heard Jesse shout from across the way.

“We’re fine!” Ellie shouted back, sighing, “Stupid cat.”

She turned around and walked back into the living room, to where Dina was smirking deviously.

“What’s the matter, Williams?” she teased, “Cat’s got your tongue?”

Ellie just rolled her eyes as she began searching through the kitchen cabinets. She was slightly embarrassed but there was no way she would admit it.

“I mean you really escaped the claws of death there.”

Finally she spun around on her heel.

“Are you gonna help me, or are you just going to make cat puns the rest of the night?”

Dina raised her hands in defense, “Sorry, last time I checked, you really liked pus-”

That’s when Jesse appeared in the doorway, bundle of firewood under his arm and a box of matches in his hand. Whatever Dina was about to say caught in her throat.

“Found some firewood, thought we could cook up something to eat.”

The two hummed in agreement as Ellie finished up scouring the cabinets and Dina searched the living area and bedside drawers. They hadn’t eaten at all since they set out from Jackson early in the morning, so both of them were pretty much on the verge of starving. But Ellie couldn’t help but think in curiosity about the younger girl as she searched mindlessly through the bedroom area.

When Dina had come over to her and Joel’s house the night before, she hadn’t really said what prompted the visit, and honestly all that Ellie really cared about- even though it was a bit embarrassing- was listening to her friend vent and allowing her to decompress. Ellie just wanted her to be happy, and she could tell right then by her blank stare and tired body language that she definitely wasn’t.

Within a few minutes they finished searching the house, unfortunately not gathering many supplies, but in all honesty that wouldn’t matter all that much once they got into the city. They did happen to find food, though, which was always a plus when it came to scavenging. Ellie was even able to find a small bar of dark chocolate, probably used for baking before all of this, which she quickly shoved into her pocket for later. It was a small, but nowadays the smallest things made all the difference between a good day and a bad one.

By the time the two got outside, Jesse was already crouched around the campfire, setting up the logs and old scraps of newspaper in an attempt to start a fire. Hot expired canned goods were always better than cold ones.

Leaning against the grill were a couple of old camping chairs, which looked old but would probably be fine. She set up one for each of the three of them, with Ellie sitting on the far right, Dina in the middle, and Jesse to the far left. Soon enough the fire was up and roaring, and they all settled on canned pasta for a late dinner. Once again an invisible elephant placed itself smack dab in the middle of their silent conversation, and yet no one wanted to bring it up. Finally Ellie just decided to break the silence. “So, find anything good?”

Jesse puffed at her attempt to make conversation, not even making eye contact with her, almost as she had done something wrong. She couldn’t really remember anything, only making her more confused with the entire situation.

Dina sighed next to Ellie, setting her half-empty portion of pasta down next to her folding chair and standing up.

“I need some air.”

Jesse scoffed, “We’re already outside.”

She responded with a display of her middle finger.

Ellie just watched in amazement at the tension that pulled on both of them as Dina disappeared into some of the trees behind the eastern cabin. Frankly, she had never seen Dina that pissed off. Usually she would at least make some sort of sarcastic remark to lighten the mood a little bit.

She looked back over to Jesse, who shook his head and stabbed at the remaining pasta in the aluminum can.

“Okay, that’s it.” Ellie stated, “What in the hell happened between you two?”

Jesse rolled his eyes and set down the can, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. He definitely had a look of annoyance in his eyes, but he also looked much more upset than angry. He shook his head again, staring into the ground.

“Nothing.”

Now it was Ellie’s turn to be annoyed. Were they really going to just fight over the course of the entire patrol and not say a word about it? Traveling this far outside of Jackson was already miserable enough, and now she was going to have to deal with their drama, too?

“Listen, I hear you, man,” she sympathized, “but I feel like a kid sitting between two divorced parents right now.”

Jesse snickered at her comment. He thought about it carefully before looking back up to meet her eyes. Ellie never really liked Jesse from the minute he started dating Dina, but she decided to stay out of the way as long as he treated her right. Sitting here in silence while letting the tension build and build and build wasn’t treating her right.

“Just give us a minute.”

Ellie nodded as she quickly finished up what was left in her can. As she heard the shuffle of Dina’s footsteps behind her, she prayed that they could either just work this out or come to some sort of agreement at least for the rest of the patrol for her and Dina’s sake. She gave Jesse one last pleading look before standing up out of her chair.

“Going somewhere, freckles?”

She smiled at the nickname.

“Nah, I just think I’ve had about enough for today. Probably gonna turn in.”

Dina returned the answer with a small frown, a hint of disappointment flashing in her deep brown eyes.

“Alright, well see you tomorrow loser.”

“Night buttface.”

Ellie decided she might as well spend the night in the house they had already searched and leave the bigger one to Jesse and Dina. They still had to clear out the one near the lake, too, but she didn’t really feel like doing it right then and it could probably just wait until morning if at all.

She closed the door behind her and gave one last look outside the window to where the couple remained by the fire. Though she couldn’t quite decipher what they were saying, at the very least, their lips were moving as if they were talking, and that couldn’t be much of a bad thing, could it?

Ellie slipped off her shoes by the door and fell back into the bed. She felt her muscles relax instantly; they really had traveled a long way that day, and after all of the added relationship drama she could definitely use a good night’s rest. She pulled the quilt up over her body and adjusted the old, dusty pillow, finding a position she was comfortable in after a minute, and felt herself drifting further and further into rest.

She let her mind wander from topic to topic, but she found herself always drawn back to the thought of Dina. Her best friend was sarcastic and witty, but always kind to a fault, and sometimes Ellie worried about her for that. She was forgiving, and understanding, and a hundred percent invested in her relationships, and even when she didn’t get as much in return, she stayed committed. Sometimes Ellie wondered if she was really okay with Jesse, no matter how many times Dina said their relationship was fine, but if she ever thought to say anything she would usually just end up keeping it to herself for Dina’s sake.

Unfortunately for Ellie, the couple didn’t really mind letting the world know that they were having issues.

Loud shouting sounded from outside her window, and Ellie let out a groan of annoyance at the couple’s inability to work literally anything out. She ripped the covers off of her and walked over to the window to see a red-faced Dina storming off towards the lake, leaving Jesse alone by the fire. She watched to see if he would go after her, as he should, but instead he grabbed his backpack, shook his head and made his way back into the triangular-shaped cabin.

What a dick.

Ellie looked down at her tattered shoes, then back out the window, and then let out a small sigh. Did she want to just be alone? Should she follow her? After all, they were best friends, and whenever Ellie needed a pick-me-up she usually turned to Dina for a good laugh. She thought about it maybe for a moment before she was suddenly pulling on her shoes and making her way out into the summer night.

It was a bit cooler than usual, and she rubbed at her arms at the small chill she got upon exiting the cabin. She turned her head to see Dina’s shadowy figure sitting unaccompanied, legs hanging over the side of the lake cabin’s back porch, her boots just touching the surface of the water. Her head hung down and her shoulders were ever-so-slightly depressed. Ellie hadn’t seen Dina look that defeated in a while, and part of her really wanted to go tear Jesse a new one for whatever the hell he had said to make her look that upset, but instead she took the high road and made her way over to the shorter girl.

As Ellie approached Dina turned her head slightly to see who the source of her footsteps was, and her heart shattered as she noticed tears brimming in the younger girl’s eyes. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should turn around and let her have a moment to herself, but when Dina scooted over a bit to make room on the ledge, she didn’t wait long to take the invitation. She sat herself down to the left of her friend, who rubbed at her eyes and kept her head down.

When Ellie sat next to her she noticed something sticking out of her own pocket that she had completely forgotten about, but she couldn’t think of a better occasion to take it out than right now.

“You want some?”

Dina looked back up at the taller girl, who was holding out a piece of an old candy bar. The wrapper was a faded silver with blue ends, and the chocolate coating was a bit white, but she took the offered half anyway.

“Only if it doesn’t make me puke.”

“Oh, it definitely will.”

The two sat there on the porch for a bit, eating the chocolate as their legs dangled over the lake. It was probably one of the most scenic places Ellie had seen in her life, and coming from someone who had seen half the country, that meant a lot. She found herself captivated by the moon’s reflection off the water, which remained still as with the rest of the lake, and the sky was clear, allowing them to gaze up at the millions of stars up above.

Finally Ellie shook her head and turned to Dina, eyebrows tilted upwards showing her concern.

“What happened?”

Dina sighed.

“I told you last night, he’s just being an asshole.”

Not getting the answer she was looking for, Ellie prompted her again.

“No, I mean what happened?”

Dina rolled her eyes and fell back onto the boards of the porch, bringing her hands up to cover her face, contemplating.

“He wanted me to switch patrol routes with Jason.”

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“Weren’t he and Jesse supposed to go together?”

Dina nodded.

Ellie tried to piece together the information in her head, but anything she was coming up with didn’t make any sense. Why would Jesse not want Dina to go on patrol with her? Sure, they hadn’t always come back with a ton of supplies, and sometimes things went wrong, but that was true for everybody; in fact, most of the time, they brought back more supplies than any other pair did.

“Why?”

Dina tilted her head to look over at Ellie, who was beyond confused at that point. Dina’s lips curved up into a small smile when their eyes met, much like the smile that they had exchanged earlier that day. Ellie couldn’t help but feel her heart flutter at the sight, and that’s when Dina sat back up.

“Why do you think?”

Ellie scoffed.

“Right, because I’d be asking if I knew.”

“I think you do know.”

The confusion grew at her comment, and it skyrocketed as Dina pulled her feet up onto the deck and began untying her boots.

“Now what are you doing?”

“Going for a swim, you coming?”

“I can’t swim, asshole.”

“I’ll show you.”

Ellie just stared in disbelief and felt her face get a redder and redder as Dina removed the rest of her clothes, sparing her underwear, and she sincerely hoped that Dina couldn’t see how flustered she was getting. But at the same time, her movements seemed slow and taunting, almost as if she knew what she was doing, and Ellie didn’t know whether to be grateful or embarrassed for the heat that was rising in her body.

It wasn’t until Dina reached over the ledge and felt the temperature of the water with her hand that Ellie realized she was serious. The water, even in the summer, was probably freezing, and it’s not like they had unlimited changes of clothes or something; they were old enough as it was, the water would only wreck them more.

But still, she watched as Dina slipped slowly into the water while holding onto the ledge, allowing herself time to adjust to its freezing cold temperature.

“What are you waiting for, freckles?”

Ellie gave her a “really” look.

“I mean, unless you’re scared.”

She narrowed her eyebrows.

“I’m not scared.”

“Prove it,” she teased, “stay for a bit.”

Ellie hesitated for a moment, their eyes locked in a tension-filled stare; not the kind of tension between Jesse and Dina, though, it was something that Ellie couldn’t really put her finger on. But the mood had definitely shifted from something somber to something a bit more intimate, and Ellie was starting to like it.

Before she could change her own mind, Ellie removed her top in one swift motion, throwing it to the side along with her old, tattered pair of jeans and shoes. The summer breeze chilled her skin even more, and she couldn’t imagine what it would be like when she got into the water. But then her eyes met Dina’s again, and suddenly she couldn’t even remember what cold felt like.

“Come on in,” she said, “I’ve got you.”

Dina reached up and put an arm around Ellie’s waist as she slowly lowered herself into the lake, but she stopped as soon as her foot touched the water.

“No way, that’s fucking freezing.”

“Haha no! Come on!”

“I am not going in there you ice cube.”

Dina let go of her waist and instead grabbed her hand between her own, looking deviously into Ellie’s eyes.

“What’re you-”

Suddenly all Ellie felt was the frigid cold water around her as Dina pulled her off of the ledge and into the lake. She started to panic, being underwater and not being quite sure how to get back up, but a pair of hands quickly pulled her back to the surface.

Ellie coughed any water she had accidentally swallowed and looked at the shorter girl with a piercing glare.

“What the hell dude?!”

Dina’s hands were still placed firmly on her waist, and Ellie brought her arms up around Dina’s shoulders to keep herself afloat. She was sure that the lake wasn’t that deep considering how close the edge of the porch was to land, but not being able to touch the bottom of it terrified her.

“Here,” Dina said, pulling Ellie’s hands off of her and moving one of her own back on her waist, using the other to keep herself afloat, “just move your arms like you’re pushing the water away from you.”

Ellie sighed and hesitantly moved a little bit away from Dina, trying to do exactly what she was saying. At first her moves were frantic, as if she was absolutely sure that by doing what she said she would most certainly drown, but soon she realized that she was still above water, and she allowed her movements to relax a little bit.

“Okay, good, now kick your feet.”

Again, at first Ellie kicked for dear life, and suddenly she felt Dina let go of her waist.

“Hey, don’t leave!”

Dina laughed, making Ellie’s heart flutter in her chest.

“You’re good, look, you’re doing it all by yourself.”

Ellie looked down and realized her head was still inches above water, which meant that this was actually working. It felt unnatural, considering it was something she’d never done before in her life, but soon her body gave into the soothing flow of the water, and after a couple minutes she actually began to feel comfortable.

She then watched as Dina effortlessly flipped onto her back, floating on top of the water without needing to do anything. She looked so calm as opposed to about ten minutes ago.

“How do you do that?”

Dina hummed.

“You don’t,” she responded, “just float.”

Ellie honestly wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but she tried to mimic what Dina had done as best as possible, and soon she found herself floating on her back along with her. She never imagined that swimming could be so calm, although she wasn’t really sure if this counted as swimming, but she didn’t really care.

The two of them stayed close like that for a bit, with their arms or legs sometimes brushing up against another, and Ellie got chills every time. The view above them made it even better; it was like the universe decided to give them their own private show as the stars sprinkled themselves throughout the sky, the moon like a spotlight on their little lake here in the middle of nowhere.

This is what Ellie missed over those long hours of patrol that day, that being the closeness that often displayed itself in their everyday interactions. What was rare was moments like this; the special ones that made Ellie’s heart race whenever she thought about them; the ones that helped her see another side of her friend, one that was more vulnerable and at peace.

“We were arguing about you.”

Ellie was instantly snapped out of her thoughtful trance at those words, and she went back to wading in the water so she could stare at Dina in disbelief. Why were they arguing about her? That didn’t make any sense. Dina went back to wading, too, meeting Ellie’s gaze.

“Why, did I do something?”

Dina shook her head.

“No, idiot,�� she stated with a sigh, “he’s jealous.”

Ellie suddenly felt her body heat up. Jealous? Of what? If anything, Ellie usually found herself jealous of the romantic aspect of Dina and Jesse’s relationship. Why would he be jealous of her? After all, it’s not like that had done anything like that, although Ellie definitely, definitely wouldn’t be opposed to it. She was so unopposed to it, in fact, that she couldn’t help but notice the very short distance between them.

“Why’s that?”

Dina smirked.

“Do I really have to show you everything, freckles?”

Ellie’s entire body froze as she suddenly felt a soft pair of lips against her own and gentle hands on both sides of her face. It took the wind out of her, but she cherished every year-long second that passed by right then in ecstasy. Her first instinct was to deepen the kiss, but as soon as she moved her hands to Dina’s neck she felt them begin to sink.

Almost as if she had planned it, Dina lifted her legs up around Ellie’s waist as Ellie struggled to find a balance between keeping them afloat and enjoying the long-awaited moment that was ensuing. Dina’s lips were unlike anything she could’ve ever imagined, tasting slightly sweet from the chocolate they had earlier, but heavenly on a whole other level. Suddenly she felt like she was drowning for a completely different reason aside from the fact that she was barely keeping them up above water, and Ellie was loving every second of it.

When Dina pulled back Ellie immediately wanted more, but settled for leaning their heads together to allow them both time to catch their breath and to process what had just happened. Ellie was somewhat shocked, but Dina just smiled adorably.

“See? I told you, freckles,” she teased, “swimming is the easy part.”

Ellie just smiled back and stared into those deep brown, sparkling eyes in disbelief of what had just happened. She was about to lean back in when suddenly Dina pushed back, splashing her with a facefull of water. When Ellie had finished wiping the water out of her eyes she looked around for Dina, who was just walking out of the lake.

“Where are you going?” Ellie laughed at the bizarreness of the situation.

Dina raised an eyebrow suggestively, making a come-hither motion with her hand.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” she replied, “I’ll show you how to do some other things.”

Ellie hung her mouth open, knowing for the most part that Dina was joking, but what peaked her interest was that she was still down to her underwear and seemingly had no intention of going back to the porch for her clothes.

“Don’t we need our clothes?” she questioned, getting out of the water.

Dina smirked.

“Don’t need ‘em.” she said with a wink.

Ellie let out a small laugh of bewilderment before allowing Dina to grab her hand and guide them to the cozy cabin.

“Lead the way.”

#the last of us #the last of us part 2 #the last of us part two #the last of us ii #tlou #tlou2 #tlou ii #tlou ellie #tlou dina #tloup2 #fanfic #fan fiction #ellie and dina #ellie x dina #Ellie Williams #ellie #Ellie Miller #Dina #dina and ellie

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ethereousdelirious · 5 years ago

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Yada yada yada I'm on mobile and can't do a read more and I'm not going to butcher this fic by censoring all the names so vanillas please don't be weird or abusive to me on this post. It's not maintagged, so the only reason you're seeing it is because of Tumblr fucking idiotic decision to show posts that haven't been tagged

Anyway. Here's that request for sick!Yasha~ Let's hope the formatting doesn't get all fucked up

For Yasha, waking up in pain was not a novelty or even an unwelcome surprise. Pain was merely the byproduct of work and would fade, as all things did, in time.

Today, however, was unusual. Yesterday had been easy. Like the others, she spent part of the day walking and part of the day riding in the cart. They hadn't fought. They'd even made camp early and she'd spent some time sitting in the grass talking with Caleb.

Why then, did her joints ache like she had spent the day hauling cargo for the circus? Why was her head pounding in time with the drumbeat of her pulse?

"Up and at 'em, Yasha!" Beau gave her arm a light kick.

Yasha sat up slowly. "Morning."

"'Deuces is already done with breakfast. You'd better hurry before Nott eats it all."

"I wouldn't let her," Caduceus said from over by the fire.

Nott glared at him, her eyes shiny. "Like you could stop me."

Yasha laughed lightly and got to her feet. "I didn't mean to sleep in so late." She shuffled over to the fire and sat down beside Fjord. Beau followed her and squeezed in beside Jester.

"You didn't even move when Fjord tried to wake you up," Jester said. "You just kind of--" She threw her head back and opened her mouth, a caricature of Yasha asleep on her back with her mouth open.

"Oh." Yasha looked at what everyone was eating, some sort of oatmeal with berries, and decided she didn't want any. "Was I snoring?"

"Only a little bit," Beau said. "It was kinda cute actually."

"Like purring," Caleb agreed. He snapped a Frumpkin appeared in Yasha's lap.

Yasha buried her fingers in the soft fur, still feeling strangely hungover and overworked. "Caduceus?"

"Hm?"

"Do you have any," she hesitated, still not quite used to just asking for things from this strange new family, "mint tea?"

"Yeah, I'm sure I have something like that." Caduceus sat back and began to pull things from his bag. "Anyone else?"

The group murmured their mixed assents and declinations. Caduceus prepared some water to boil.

"We should probably get a move on sooner rather than later," Fjord spoke up.

"We will," Caduceus said, unconcerned. "This won't take long."

Fjord looked like he wanted to argue, but fell silent.

"Sorry," Yasha said, suddenly hyper aware of how the group might perceive her. "I didn't mean-- I don't want to hold us up."

"It's fine, Fjord is just antsy," Jester reassured her. "You know he can't sit still."

"I have the cure for that," Beau stood up and grabbed Fjord by the collar. "C'mon. Let's go do some push-ups since you're so energetic."

"Save me," Fjord whispered as he was dragged away, and then he was gone.

Yasha chuckled. Sitting like this was nice. Her joints didn't feel quite so sore and her head only hurt when moved too quickly.

When Caduceus handed her a steaming mug of mint tea, she drank it down quickly so as not to hold anyone up more than she already had.

At first it was pleasant, warming her body against the chill of the morning air.

But the heat didn't fade. By the time they packed the wagon and started down the path, she was sweating. Each step felt like it took twice the effort that it normally would.

She went silent as she walked, trying to figure out what could be wrong. Had she been poisoned? She knew Fjord and Nott were mistrustful of her now, but they wouldn't-- Would they?

No. Yasha shook her head to clear it. They wouldn't. Maybe… It was a slim possibility, but it was the only one that made logical sense. Maybe she was sick.

Yasha was rarely ill, especially not like this. The last time she'd been sick, she had caught a head cold off Molly, and continued to work while he draped himself all over her and complained that he was dying.

She smiled at the memory and let it fade before the pain of his loss could come sneaking in. So she was sick. She could handle it.

Jester stood at the front of the wagon and watched the ground move as she prepared to do something phenomenally stupid. Swallowing her fear, she jumped over the side of the wagon. She managed to land on her feet, but the momentum caused her to stumble and fall.

"Aw, man," she complained loudly, mostly so the others would know she wasn't badly hurt.

"Please don't do that again!" Fjord said from his spot at the front of the wagon. "At least, not without warning me first."

"Sorry!" Jester looked at the dust on her palms. Satisfied that she wasn't bleeding, she wiped them off on her dress.

"Here." Yasha's imposing silhouette blocked out the sun. She extended a hand to Jester and helped her to her feet.

"Thanks, Yasha!" Jester fell into step beside her. "I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but I was hoping it would be cooler than that."

Yasha laughed, but her gaze seemed far away. "Maybe Beau can teach you some tricks."

"Sounds fun!" Beau shouted from the far side of the wagon.

Jester shouted back and soon she and Beau were having a loud conversation about the proper form and practical applications of a forward roll.

She got so wrapped up in it that she didn't even notice when Yasha disappeared from her periphery. It was only when Caleb politely asked them to stop shouting (followed by a less polite request from Nott) that Jester looked around and realized that Yasha had fallen behind.

She was trailing several feet behind the wagon, her feet dragging in the dust and her head lowered.

Jester jogged back to her. "Hey, Yasha! Are you okay?"

Yasha's eyes were hazy, unfocused. She looked at Jester helplessly. "I'll be okay."

"What's wrong?" The wagon was pulling farther away from them but Jester paid it no mind. "Your face is all red. Are you sick?" She stood on her tiptoes and cupped a hand to Yasha's forehead. "Yasha!" she gasped, half-scandalized. "Did you know you have a fever?"

"I do?" Yasha slumped forward suddenly, like the realization had taken her strength away. "I don't get sick."

"Everybody gets sick," Jester said. She smoothed a few errant locks of hair out of Yasha's face. "Oh, poor Yasha."

"I really don't," Yasha said, her brow knit in confusion. "Not like this."

"You've really never had a fever before?"

Yasha shook her head.

"That's okay, I'll look after you!" Jester said. Then her head snapped up. "Oh. Shit." She screwed up her face in concentration. "Hey, Fjord! Stop the wagon for a second! Me and Yasha got behind. We're fine though, don't worry. We'll be right there. How many words was that?"

"I wasn't counting."

"Yeah, me either." Jester shrugged. "Well, they stopped. Can you walk? 'Cause I bet I can totally carry you."

"I can walk."

The others were waiting for them expectantly, varying degrees of concern on their faces.

"We're fine!" Jester said, making shooing gestures. "We're just going to ride in the back for a bit. Okay?" This last word was directed at Caleb and Nott, who had been riding nestled amongst their supplies.

"Ja, that's fine." Caleb shrugged and invited Nott to scurry up onto his shoulders.

"Okay, come on, Yasha." Jester helped her climb into the back. The she popped her head out from behind the cover. "Okay, stop staring already! We're fine. Let's go."

"O-kay?" Fjord started to walk back around to the front. "Beau, want to ride with me for a bit?"

"Sure." Beau kept casting curious looks at Jester, but she went with Fjord. The wagon started to move again and Jester turned back to face Yasha.

"Okay, I'll get you all taken care of, I promise."

"Thanks," Yasha said, looking a touch awkward. "I'm not really sure what to do."

"Well for starters," Jester dug through their supplies and pulled out her bedroll, then Yasha's. "I'm going to make you the comfiest little nest ever." She arranged the blankets and pillows to her liking and motioned for Yasha to lie down. "Umm, let's see. Are you hot? Your face is really red."

"Yes," Yasha said immediately. Her skin felt overheated and irritated. Even the texture of the blankets was almost painful on her bare arms.

"Okay, hang on." Jester started to go through her pockets, eventually producing a small scrap of cloth.

Yasha watched as Jester carefully poured some water over it. "What's that for?"

"It's going to go on your forehead," Jester explained. "Like this." She leaned over and carefully draped the wet cloth over Yasha's brow. "Lie back or it will fall off."

"Oh," Yasha said as immediate, blissful relief washed over her.

"I wish I had another one for the back of your neck," Jester said thoughtfully. "Maybe Caleb has a handkerchief in one of his 600 pockets."

"Jester," Yasha took her hand. "This is. Wonderful. Thank you." No one, not even Molly, not even Zuala, had taken care of her like this. It was almost overwhelming. "Really, thank you."

"It's nothing," Jester said, not looking Yasha in the eye. A deep purple brush was beginning to creep up her neck. "Um, anyway, do you want to sleep now?"

"I don't know." Yasha stretched as much as she could in the confines of the cart. "I'm tired, but not that kind of tired."

"How about I tell you a story? I can tell you all about Princess Fancybottom, the most beautiful, well-endowed princess in the whole world."

Yasha smiled. "That would be nice, Jester. You can-- You can lie down next to me if you want."

"Okay." Jester nodded, satisfied. "Close your eyes so you can really picture the story, okay?"

"That's a good idea, actually. I'm probably way colder than you are." Jester scooted in next to Yasha, settling in so their arms touched. "Ooh, you are warm. Let me know if you start to feel worse, okay?"

"I will."

Yasha closed her eyes. Jester began her tale of Princess Fancybottom as the cart rolled along the simple dirt path.

Yasha knew that the world was full of dangers and discomforts that she would eventually have to face, but in this moment, all she felt was safe.

#ethereous writes

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wetalkinboutbooks · 5 years ago

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Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri

Summary: The fate of an empire rests in the hands of a young woman with magical blood and nothing left to lose, and an outcast prince determined to save his family at any cost, in this "dark, melodious, and memorable" new fantasy (Library Journal, starred review) from the author of the award-winning Empire of Sand.

The Ambhan Empire is crumbling. A terrible war of succession hovers on the horizon. The only hope for peace lies in the mysterious realm of ash, where mortals can find what they seek in the echoes of their ancestors' dreams. But to walk there requires a steep price.

Arwa is determined to make the journey. Widowed by a brutal massacre, she's pledged service to the royal family and will see that pledge through to the end. She never expected to be joined by Zahir, the disgraced, illegitimate prince who has turned to forbidden magic in a desperate bid to save those he loves.

Together, they'll walk the bloody path of their shared past. And it will call into question everything they've ever believed...including whether the Empire is worth saving at all. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:

→ Geena: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

→ Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: Realm of Ash is a great follow-up to Empire of Sand, where we follow Arwa who was introduced briefly in Empire of Sand. There is quite a bit of political intrigue in the first half which sets the pacing a bit slow but picks up quickly once the characters go through big revelations. The characters and their motivations draw you in, and overall it was a good read!

~Check out our spoiler Full Review Below

A QUICK SUMMARY:

So, this book picks up twelve years later from where we last visited this world in Empire of Sand. In this book, we are following the story of a once minor character, Mehr’s little sister, Arwa. Arwa has grown and married and been widowed when we meet her again. She is on her way to a widows hermitage where she is to live out the rest of her days in mourning, after losing her husband.

Since the Maha’s death, this world had descended into chaos. The daiva, aka, eternal spirits, aka CHILDREN OF THE GODS, have been wreaking a bit of havoc on the world. If you remember, the Maha was manipulating the dreams of the Gods to favour the kingdom. When he was defeated, those dreams had begun to take their natural course. With dreams come nightmares. And those nightmares have taken form. BUT. The daiva protect their own blood, which is the Amrithi people. Arwa is half Amrithi, but she isn’t sure if the daiva are there to protect or hurt her. In addition, her mother (aka stepmom) raises her believing that Amrithi are cursed and savages, and essentially taught her to hate herself.

In the widow’s hermitage, she meets an influential widow, Gulshera, and realizes she has connections to the imperial family and because Arwa doesn’t care about anything she offers herself up as a tool to the royals. So, Gulshera takes Arwa to serve under Princess Jihan, we’re subjected to court politics and meet Prince Zahir, aka a bastard. Together, Arwa and Zahir work together to find the Maha in the Realm of Ash (essentially a spirit world) so they can unlock a way to save the empire from ruin. Princess Jihan turns around and essentially implies that she sent Arwa to Zahir to ‘PLEASE’ him in an INTIMATE fashion. Arwa doesn’t take it and gets mad but Zahir isn’t here for it and it’s smooth sailing again.

During a trip into the Realm of Ash Arwa realizes the truth behind her Amrithi blood and the Maha’s crimes and shares it with Zahir. They both struggle, Arwa being staunchly anti-empire and Zahir trying to do something to prove his worth to his sister. When the emperor dies, he names Zahir as the Maha’s heir and Jihan’s older brother Prince Akhtar as Emperor. A few murders later, a different Emperor sits on the throne and Zahir has a bounty on his head. Zahir and Arwa use the aid of a secret women’s society Zahir’s mom was a part of to escape to where the Maha was stationed to find the secret to the empire’s success, discovering cursed towns, ghosts from their pasts, and their feelings for one another.

The Good:

→ Zahir

Kae: So ZAHIR! I love him. He is as kind as a kitten. As sweet as an apple pie. But because he is a bastard, he is hidden away in tombs that were converted to be his rooms. There, he does research on how to restore peace and order to the Empire. He knows his days are numbered, being the bastard son of the Emperor, so he is essentially doing research to bargain his own life. Besides that, he genuinely likes learning and spent the majority of his days doing that anyway before he was banished to the tombs to live in secret.

When we first meet Zahir, he is studying by candlelight in his rooms. Arwa finds a bit of power in him not noticing her, and takes the time to watch him for a moment. She thinks he’s handsome with his ‘pretty face’ and sharp, slender form. She’s like “damn he’s kinda hot… but I'm a widow… I’m not allowed to think boys are hot anymore.�� But alas, she thinks he handsome. So they assess each other for a moment and agree to be apprentice and teacher.. Zahir gives Arwa poems and books to read that will help her better understand about the Realm of Ash and what he is working on.

Geena: Arwa wears a veil for 90% of the book because such is the way of the widow, so she makes a point to stare at Zahir through her veil because she knows he can’t see her checking him out. And this boy turns around and hands her poetry, the more we learn about the nocturnal prince the more you realize he’s such a Soft Boi™ who loves literature and wants to desperately prove that his life has worth. His mother was killed because she tried to give the Emperor some advice, and the Empire of Ambha drinks the ‘women aren’t shit’ juice so she was labelled a traitor and murdered. Zahir only survives because Princess Jihan loves him, and as a legitimate spoiled princess she has to be pampered. Zahir has the ability to study and work with magic, because his mother was part of a secret women’s society that did so and it was passed onto him, so he’s been tasked with figuring out a way to stop the Empire’s decline ever since the Maha died.

His character made me sad a little bit, because he feels like he should have died with his mother to some extent. And Jihan has led him to believe that his life being worth something depends solely on the fact if he can find the Maha’s spirit and save the empire. He’s treated like trash by everyone else because he’s a bastard and into witchcraft, even Arwa thinks he’s a weirdo in the beginning. But he’s such a kind-hearted soul?? Who btw respects women, when Arwa accuses him of tryna sleep with her, Zahir is like “MA’AM, I RESPECT YOU WITH MY WHOLE HEART IDK WHAT SHIT MY SISTERS BEEN DRINKING BUT I WOULD NEVER!” well, he’s less dramatic than that but yea he suggests laying out rules so they don’t cross the apprentice/teacher dynamic. Also, during one trip into the Realm of Ash and Arwa’s veil comes off and she literally snaps at him to not look at her face (bc it is not the widow way) he straight up doesn’t look at her face ever for a good portion of the book after that skfjdf.

Kae: YEH HE JUST LOOKS AT HER HANDS. SOFTIE. I LOVE HIM.

Geena: Hand fetish IM JOKING… BUT SNDKFJDNST THAT’S ALL I COULD IMAGINE.. Arwa was like “Man, my veils off but this boy is still looking at my HANDS”

The Bad:

→ Gulshera and the Royals

Kae: Gulshera! Ohh, she made me mad at the end. But like, I get it, ya know? So Gulshera, our bow-wielding widow, was Princess Jihan’s nursemaid and confidant. So when Gulshera finds out Arwa is Amrithi (because Arwa got caught trying to rid the Hermitage of daiva) she basically goes to Arwa like “You know you gotta get up outta here right? You can’t stay here, shawty.” But she gives Arwa the option of possibly going to the Empire and devoting herself to the Princess and her cause for solving the Empires bad luck. So Arwa goes, meets Zahir, yada yada yada.

Gulshera asks Arwa very vague questions about what she’s doing but doesn’t exactly want to know what Arwa is doing. She just a lil nosey. So after a while, the Emperor dies and the named prince is killed by his brother. Zahir is next and he and Arwa escape. Eventually, they are found in the desert where Gulshera shoots the shit out of Arwa’s shoulder. It’s such a bad blow that Arwa is pretty much bleeding out. I was like, yo what the FUCK GULSHERA.

Geena: YEA LIKE SHE PRETENDS TO BE HER ALLY AND CARE FOR HER BUT TURNS AROUND AND IS LIKE “SORRY BABES IMPERIALISM ALWAYS WINS”

Kae: AND THAT’S THE TEA BAYBEEEEEE. IT was such bullshit. But again, I get it. Gulshera is like “It’s either me or you… And I raised the princess so imma do what she says and also I knew her longer soooo…. Bye Arwa. This will haunt me for the rest of my days… but it be like that.”

Geena: Kae covered Gulshera really well! But yea she was a stank old lady in the end, like you’re essentially the reason Arwa is where she is but you’re acting like you had nothing to do with anything. BUT N E WAYS, I’m gonna talk about Princess Jihan a lil bit because she annoyed me too. She was privileged and used Arwa like a ragdoll, actually not even just Arwa but her brother she claimed to love too. Jihan really guilt-tripped the FUCK out of Zahir being all “Did I save you from nothing? Do I deal with other’s scrutiny for nothing? Prove your worth to me brother, prove that I’ve placed my love in the right man” and I was like…… bitch…. She might have been a princess but she was the queen of emotional manipulation. Also, she claimed to be for the women but essentially told Arwa that one of her jobs was to fuck Zahir and like…. Hello….. What is wrong with you.

OH AND ANOTHER THING… when it’s revealed that the Maha used Amrithi people to shape the Empire’s success, and Zahir confronts Jihan about this she’s like “Yea, and?” like she saw no problem in using a group of people and villainizing them in the same breath… Imperialism is a hell of a drug

The Ugly:

→ The Nightmare

Kae: So the Nightmare was truly… A nightmare.

When we first learn about how Arwa became a widow, we learn about an incident that took place at a military base called Darez Fort. Darez Fort is where Arwa stayed with her husband, Kamran. We learn some soldiers come back with what they think is a Daiva, trapped in a little cage/crate thing. When they open it up, it appears to be a childlike creature. But it soon reveals a face of white bone and attacks everyone in the fort. The Nightmare makes the men turn on each other as well and it’s quite literally a blood bath. Everyone is dead. The maids, the cooks, the soldiers, and Kamran. All killed. BUT THERE IS A DAIVA THERE. It’s Arwa’s litter guardian angel. She knows her blood protects her, so in a panic, she makes this big ass cut on her arm and surrounds herself with her blood. The Daiva protects her from the Nightmare and she is the only survivor of Darez Fort.

The Nightmare leaves a sense of fear in Arwa that literally makes her shake. She can kind of sense when it’s near. So on her journey with Zahir and a guards woman named Eshara, they end up at another fort for a rest. Some soldiers are ordered by this mean ass general to stay inside the fort because they aren’t allowed to leave. This is when Arwa gets that chilling sense of fear as she did in Darez Fort. SOME EVIL SHIT IS AFOOT.

Geena: Yesss, the nightmares are like anti-daiva essentially. I really liked their concept and how they factored in with the worldbuilding. What makes them terrifying is that the Maha spent how many centuries fending off nightmares by using Amrithi, but suddenly without him to control how gods dream, nightmares are flooding the empire. Arwa manages to defeat the nightmares by unlocking the memories of her past ancestors from the Realm of Ash and crudely dancing a rite that locks nightmares in cages. Along with Zahir, Arwa figures out that nightmares consider themselves some sort of god and love to be worshipped. Both Zahir and Arwa decide that the empire can rot, and the nightmares can do what they want but they’ll teach anyone with amrithi blood to dance the rite and worship the nightmares to prevent any more massacres like Darez Fort.

→ Maha

Geena: God….. This stankass wrinkly-ass bitchboy really sunk his claws so deep into the Ambhan people that after he died, he was thought to be a martyr. Like 12 years after his death and people still worship him, and mourn his death? Mehr and Amun went through so much to end his reign of terror yet the empire continued to worship him. I’m sure they didn’t have the time or power to go around and spread the truth behind the Maha’s work but good LORD was it grating to read people missing that disgusting man. But thinking back on it, even if Amun and Mehr had exposed him… would people have believed an Amrithi couple that killed their beloved Maha? They probably would’ve killed them instead :(

Though, this was an interesting detail that Tasha Suri included. That, despite the evil being defeated, people will refuse to acknowledge it as evil and continue to point fingers at marginalized people for the problems caused by the evil being.

The Awesome:

→ Arwa and Mehr

Kae: If y’all could see me now, you would see me doing a little dance because BIIIIITCH. I WAS LIVIIIIING SOLELY FOR MEHR AND ARWA TO MEET UP AGAIN. EVERY PAGE I WAS LIKE “is Arwa gonna talk about Mehr? Does she miss her sister?” AND SHE DID SOMETIMES AND I LOVED IT. AND THEN ARWA SAID SHE WAS TOLD HER SISTER HAD DIED AND I WAS LIKE NOOOOO. SHE IS ALIVE, ARWA. SHE IS ALIIIIVE.

So when Arwa was in the Realm of Ash, she had seen Mehr and was SHOOK. Because you can only see dead relatives in the Real of Ash. So she actively avoided Mehr in the Realm because it hurt too much to see her there. It just confirmed that her sister was dead. And even I was confused because I was like “Ummm, Tasha… I know you didn’t kill off my girl after she done went through all that shit.” So I started thinking…. Because in the Realm of Ash, you saw the dead as grey ash. Shadows. But she saw Mehr in colour and full of life. So I had this theory that since Mehr has Amata (Amrithi spiritual magic closer to the ancestors) that she was seeing Mehr in the realm because of how close Mehr’s amata was so the ancestors and daiva.

GUESS WHO WAS RIGHT BITCH? MEEEEEE. I CALLED THAT SHIT. IT’S MY SUPERPOWER. So like, as Arwa is dying from that arrow bitchass GUlshera shot her with, she ventures into the Realm and see’s Mehr again. She calls out to her, and Mehr sees her. She promises to find her.

When Zahir and Arwa escape from his sister’s claws, the daiva take them out into the desert. Mehr eventually finds them and brings them back to her home. When Arwa wakes up, she is greeted by Mehr bandaging her up. They cry and hug. I CRY BECAUSE I’M SO DAMN HAPPY. I LOVE A GOOD REUNION. MEHR LOVED ARWA SO MUCH AND ARWA LOVED MEHR. AND THEY WERE SEPERATED AND HADN’T EVEN KNOWN THE OTHER WAS STILL ALIVE. AND THERE THEY WERE. TOGETHER. AND ALIVE AND HUGGING AND CRYING. It was beautiful. I was like, ugly crying. So thank you, Tasha. Thank you for writing that scene so well because it was happy and emotional and they both deserved to see each other again. It will go down as one of my top 5 reunion scenes.

I’d also like to say, unrelated to Mehr-- That Awra and Zahir did admit their love for each other and kissed. And Zahir was Arwa’s, and Arwa was Zahir’s, though they made it clear that they belonged to no one. They belonged to each other. And their love was so soft and built on mutual respect. They were both very lonely and longed for one another, but never pursued because Arwa didn’t want to break the honour code of the “widows way” or whatever, and Zahir didn’t want to disrespect her. BUT THEIR MINDS. THEY LOVED EACH OTHER. So they both finally gave in. And it was lovely.

Geena: ugghh yess, Arwa and Zahir’s relationship was based on mutual respect and love (just like Mehr and Amun!). In both instances, people forced them together but it was only through their own agency that they fell in love with one another, and support each other wholeheartedly.

ALSO, THE REUNION KSJNFKSJF I had a suspicion that Mehr was alive too based on everything that Kae mentioned too! So, when Mehr says to Arwa that she’ll come for her I sCREAMED!!!! I loved it so much, them crying in each other’s arms… Arwa seeing Mehr’s own kid… LIKE HELLO???

Kae: AND TASH SAID HER AND AMUN COULDN’T HAVE KIDS BECAUSE OF THE RITES SO I WAS SHOOK AND HAPPY AND OMG. literally SCREAMING.

Geena: YEA I REMEMBER THAT, BUT THEN I ALSO REMEMBERED YOUR THEORY! Where the Maha had said that people that danced the rite couldn’t have children because he tried to impregnate amrithi women he enslaved but it didn’t work… and Kae you’d said it was probably because he was shooting dust and YOU WERE RIGHT!!!

Kae: IT’S MY SUPERPOWER. IM TELLING YOU. I CAN GUESS THE SHIT OUT OF SHIT.

Geena: KJDSFNKSDJF I LOVE YOUR SUPERPOWER!!! My only complaint was that we didn’t get a longer scene with Mehr/Amun and Arwa/Zahir bonding :( I wanted mooorreee… other than that it was everything!

Conclusion

Geena: TO CONCLUDE! Tasha Suri didn’t disappoint with this sequel… and it’s so easy to write a shitty sequel but she was like nAH WE’RE NOT ABOUT THAT LIFE. And we loved it! There was a slow start as we read Arwa struggling with her internalized hate, but after she realized that she came from a people who have survived in Ambha in the face of adversity the book sped up real fast. The romance was so soft and wholesome and everything that we want in a relationship, Tasha knows EXACTLY what she’s doing when she’s writing romance. I don’t trust anyone else with a romance this soft, and I cannot wait to read her upcoming series that feature a wlw couple.

Kae: GEENA SAID IT ALL. Tasha knows how to write a romance. I love soft boi’s that will also murder a man for you if need me. LIKE YAAAS HE’S SENSITIVE AND RESPECTS ME AND WILL BEAT SOMEONE'S ASS FOR ME. WE LOVE TO SEE IT. Honestly though, overall, this was such a stunning sequel. Because Geena and I have read some sequels that were…. How to say this nicely… fucking terrible. Tasha is a phenomenal writer and I know her upcoming series will be great too! This book was full of lessons. One being, SELF HATRED IS FUCKING TRASH. SO LOVE YOURSELF AND YOUR RICH BACKGROUND. BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL LOOK DOWN ON YOU FOR WHO YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU COMF FROM SOMETIMES, AND YOU JUST GOTTA SAY FUCK ‘EM AND KEEP IT MOVING.

Geena: JKSNFKJSNDSKJF YAAAS, ALSO IK IT WAS BRIEF BUT LIKE DAMN… TASHA REALLY WENT HARD WITH THE AMRITHI IN THIS BOOK AND HOOBOY… Like the insights into past ancestors? And the fact that there are so many mixed Amrithi people that have been forced to hide their heritage… once again… I M P E R I A L I S M and G E N O C I D E… this series covered it pretty well… PLEASE READ AND SUPPORT TASHA

#realm of ash #tasha suri #book review #booklr #book blogging #book blogger #books #reading

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maevefiction · 6 years ago

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Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 11

More than a week had elapsed since my last yoga session, and I was pleasantly surprised at my lack of stiffness. My iPod sat silent in the grass next to my mat…the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks proved to be the only music I required. Especially at six in the morning. The sun had just begun to rise behind us, its warmth exacerbating the flush my workout normally provided.

Simon’s skill level was far, far above mine, and some of the poses he worked through made me stop dead in my tracks as I admired the way his body seemed to defy the very laws of physics. He volunteered to work with me whenever we had the time, and I gratefully accepted, though I fully understood that a grace such as his was something that couldn’t be taught.

We chatted while cooling down, learning that our birthdays were only a day apart, his on October 30th, mine on October 31st. He found my being a Halloween baby hilarious, and I was tickled that we shared the same astrological sign. Fellow Scorpios - no wonder he’d liked my tank top. I tried to get him to reveal his birth year, but he adamantly refused until I offered mine up first. The look of delight on his face as he screeched out ‘me too!’ was adorable, and when he high-fived me and christened me his sister from another mister I embraced him and kissed his cheek, grinning at the lovely blush it caused.

I took a seat at the patio table and opened my laptop with the intention of starting work on Tom’s website design. Simon sat next to me, both of us facing the ocean, and he began typing away on his phone. He harrumphed and gave me some wicked side eye.

My brow furrowed. “For fuck’s sake, what NOW?”

He showed me his screen, scrolling through his inbox. “Seven more since last night. You’ve made an awful lot of extra work for me, woman.” I rolled my eyes. He turned on his chair to face me. “I’m curious, though…I thought you just lectured to and consulted with PR firms, which would mean their actual clients wouldn’t know much about you at all. So, it’s kinda surprising that an artist would be willing to jump ship and leave their current rep in the dust to wind up where you are, wouldn’t you say?”

I sighed and finished editing my open layer in Photoshop before replying. “I started out working directly with clients. My first was Anne Rice. She’s is a family friend and was willing to give me a cha…”

He put a hand on my shoulder and shoved. “GET. OUT. I’m assuming this means you’re from or lived in New Orleans at some point? But it mustn’t have been for long, because you have zero accent.”

“Your assumption is correct. Born there, raised there, relocated to New York City in 1998.”

He nodded emphatically. “So you dumped the accent. Understandable.”

It was my turn for side eye. “I didn’t dump it. It just…faded.”

He snorted. “Whatever you say, Maude.”

I pinched his arm, reveling in the resulting squeal he emitted. “Faded. I’m like a chameleon with accents. Soon I’ll be picking up your dialect and sounding like a pretentious asshat, too. In which case, you have my permission to kill me.”

“You can call me anything you like as long as you solemnly swear to take me to Mardi Gras next year.”

I rolled my eyes and held up my hand, palm towards him. “Simon. Please. I don’t think you’re ready for that sort of thing. But, if you start training now, we might be able to pull it off.”

He tilted his head like an oversized puppy. “Training for what? Drinking heavily? I’ve been training for that for years.”

“No. Throwing beads into the crowd. And doing the princess wave.” I demonstrated both. “Because if we go, you must ride on a parade float. It can be arranged. I know people.” I frowned. “At least, I used to know people. Anyway, what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted was that she was my first client, and it gave me a lot of clout. For which I am eternally grateful. I moved on after three years or so with her and began working directly with clients, most of whom were too small to have a decent PR firm behind them. I did everything, created websites, set up Facebook accounts, provided instructions on how to post, when to post, what to post, yada yada. Lots of hand holding and cajoling. Word spread, and bigger names took notice, which led to PR firms hiring me to work one-on-one with their clients for a specified duration. Most of them already had websites in place, so my focus shifted entirely to social media. In early 2010, I was invited to speak for two hours at a PR conference in San Diego…they wanted me to lecture on enhancing client reputation through social media. It was winter in New York, and they were willing to pay for my travel expenses so I thought, California? Fuck it, why not?”

Simon’s legs were crossed, his upper body leaning in towards me as he listened attentively. I had paused, and he motioned for me to continue.

“So, I spoke for two hours and they handed me a check for three thousand dollars. That was more than I normally made in an entire week and it blew my tiny little mind. It seemed to be vastly less stressful than dealing with super huge egos and non-tech savvy artists and damn, the money. I adjusted my entire business model, and within a month I was turning down engagements because my calendar was full. PR firms were still asking me for assistance, so I set up a consulting procedure wherein I’d outline a plan for them to implement, collected my fee and was on my way. It was all so…easy.”

He laughed loudly. “And you decided to work for Prosper why?”

“Because my ‘easy’ job and the cash it generated had taken over my entire life. I was the job and the job was me. Much to my surprise, lecturing and consulting long term turned out to be a soul sucking bore…and it transformed me into a miserable drudge. I am, at heart, a creative individual and I missed doing graphic and website design, photography, and learning new things. Terribly. Working for Prosper allows me to do all that again, and then some. That’s why.”

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin with one hand. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the exquisite creature sleeping soundly in your bed right now.”

“No, it doesn’t. He was actually the reason why I seriously considered declining Luke’s offer.” Simon looked puzzled, but I didn’t elaborate. “So. Why did you leave such a prestigious position at the Dorchester to become a PA? Just for Luke? Or is there more to the story?”

He grinned. “Damn, turned it right around on me, didn’t you? Touché, my friend. I went to university for business management and administrative assistance, and worked in the field until 2005. Cooking had always been my passion, and I had some sort of spiritual awakening wherein I decided I absolutely needed to become a professional chef or else I would shrivel up and die. So I did. I moved from place to place, learning, working, partying my ass off, and finally landed the sous chef spot at the Dorchester in 2009. It was dandy at first, but as the years passed I felt like I’d grown stagnant, doing the same thing night after night, having little input on menu changes and so on. Like you, I was bored. I was averaging 70 hours a week in that kitchen, cut off from the world, and it hit me that all I had gotten out of it was a nicely padded bank account…and that there was no one to share it with. I’d always loved being around lots of people, and there I was seeing nothing but the same damn faces day in and day out. In 2013 I happened across Luke’s ad, reworked my resume, and the rest is history. Unlike you, though, I don’t think I would have taken the job if it wasn’t for him, because the salary was abysmal. As soon as I saw him, I knew. He was it. The one. Love at first sight. I thank my lucky stars every single day that he felt the same way.”

After wiping the tears from his eyes, he took hold of my hand. “Maude, I don’t know if he’s mentioned it or not, but Tom’s had a rough time of it lately, and I’m so, so happy that you’ve found each other.”

“Me too, Simon.” I smiled, letting go of his hand. “Now, please, for the love of all things holy, shut your cake hole so I can get some work done, okay?”

“God, you are such a bitch.”

“I am. And you’re still talking. Cease.”

We worked quietly, side by side, until Luke poked his head out the doors to inquire as to when Simon planned on getting his butt in the kitchen and making some breakfast. As he got up from his chair, he peered over my shoulder at my laptop screen. I had a basic layout set and was in the process of choosing a color combination that would contrast perfectly.

“Wow, that’s a right brilliant color palette you have there, Maude. Is that for Tom’s site?”

I nodded. “Does it look…familiar?”

He stared. “Yes…maybe…should it?”

I opened the tab that contained the HD photo of Tom’s eye that I’d drawn all my color options from. “Tada.”

Simon poked my shoulder and called for Luke to come see. He padded out onto the lanai, looked over my shoulder, nodded, then put his hands on his hips.

“So, when are you going to use your magic to revamp the Prosper site?”

I closed my laptop and put my head in my hands, then pushed my chair back and went to wait in the kitchen, muttering to myself about peace and solitude and how I couldn’t find any even though I was in paradise.

Tom bounded our of our bedroom just as Simon was plating our pancakes and bacon, freshly showered, wearing a pair of faded, loose fitting jeans and a tight, light blue V-neck tee. I leaned back on my bar stool and around the counter to look at his feet. Scuffed, well-worn boots. When my eyes finally made their way up to his face I was greeted with a dazzling, toothy smile. I groaned.

Simon pinched his cheeks. “Lovely of you to join us, Thomas.”

Tom lowered himself elegantly onto the stool to my right, resting his hand on my spandex-clad thigh as he leaned in to kiss me.

��Good morning, Maude. How was yoga?”

“Spectacular, actually. Simon and I had a lovely chat and I even managed to get some work done in spite of it.” He laughed and began slowly sliding his hand up my leg, edging ever closer to the apex of my thighs. Simon set our plates in front of us, raising a brow as he spied what Tom was up to.

“Um, excuse me. This is a fine dining establishment, people. No foreplay is permitted.” I glanced up from my plate and saw Luke directly behind him, hand cupping Simon’s ass.

“Whatever, asshole.” I pointed at my short stack. “Do you have syrup for these?”

He pulled a pot off the stove and spooned some of its contents onto them. “Made with fresh pineapples. Especially for you.”

All eyes were on me as they waited for a reaction. I broke off a hunk of pancake with my fork and shoved it in my mouth. “Mmm, yummy. Thank you.” Luke looked at Tom, who shrugged. I took another bite of breakfast. “Yeah, nice try, losers. I happen to like pineapples. Just not on pizza.”

Tom put his arm around my waist, pulled me to him and kissed the top of my head. “I had nothing to do with this. I swear it.”

I said nothing, ripping off a piece of bacon with my teeth instead. He tapped his fork on his plate.

“So, Maude, I was thinking…maybe we could take a ride out to Talk Story today? I called to see if Alani would be in, and she is.” I spun the stool around in his direction, dumbfounded. He smiled. “I did say I’d go back to meet her, did I not?”

“Yes. Yes you did.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “What an amazingly generous thing to do. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. You’re going to be the one in charge of crowd control.” He stole a strip of bacon from my plate and swallowed it down before I could even muster a protest.

“I’d rather corral a group of a hundred people than have to sit next to you while I’m trying to eat a fucking meal, bacon stealer. And everything else stealer.”

He snickered, and I wolfed down the rest of my food, rinsed my dishes, put them in the dishwasher and headed for the bedroom, finally noticing that Luke and Simon had disappeared. I wrote a giant ‘thanks for breakfast’ on the chalkboard in the kitchen and drew a smiley face to go with it, figuring we wouldn’t be seeing them again before we left.

*************************************** After my much needed shower, I wound up standing in my underwear, staring into yet another wardrobe wondering what the hell to wear. Tom looked too damn good for me to get away with shorts and a T-shirt, and my black tank dress just didn’t scream ‘please behave and listen to the nice lady’. Tom was waiting patiently for me, sitting at the desk answering emails and returning calls. I looked at his boots, then back and my limited selection of dresses. The brown chiffon galaxy print sleeveless wasn’t an exact match, but pretty damn close. I pulled it off its hanger and laid it on the bed so I could unzip the back without it winding up on the floor, chastising myself for giving in to my everything-must-coordinate OCD once again. I slipped it over my head, put my arms through the proper holes and managed to zip it up on my own, then went into the bathroom to figure out a hair strategy.

I’d just wrestled it into a braid when I overheard Tom talking in the bedroom.

“How’s Los Angeles? Elsa? Kids? Good to hear. Oh, she’s unbelievable, Chris. Here, I’ll take you in and you can meet her.” He came around the corner carrying his open laptop.

“Chris Hemsworth, Maude Gallagher.” He turned the screen toward me, and there he was, Thor, God of Thunder. In my bathroom. He held up a hand in greeting.

“Hello, Maude. Nice to meet you. See you? Skype you?” He face palmed. “I have no idea what the correct terminology is.” I heard a woman yell in the background that meet was fine and for him to bring the tablet over to her so she could see me. He got up and walked into another room, and a beautiful blonde woman came into view alongside Chris. She waved madly.

“Look at you, you’re gorgeous. A natural beauty. And that dress…I am in love with it. You must tell me where you found it.” Her accent was a delight. She grinned. “I’m Elsa, by the way. Tom has told us so much about you I feel like I know you already.”

I waved at them. “Hi there. Lovely to meet you both. I’d like to say Tom has told me so much about you, but that would be a big fat lie, so suffice to say I’m sure he will tell me so much about you when we aren’t quite so…so…shit, what’s the word I’m looking for here?”

Tom moved to stand next to me, shifting the laptop so we were both visible, smirking. “Preoccupied. The word you’re looking for is preoccupied.”

They laughed, and Chris grabbed at Elsa. “Remember when we were always preoccupied?”

She slapped his hand. “Oh yes. I do. And that’s why now we’re preoccupied with three little ones, my darling Christopher.” I heard children crying in the background. Elsa said a quick goodbye and ran off, and Chris followed suit so he could assist.

Tom put the laptop on the counter and pulled me to him, hands on my ass as he pressed me up against his crotch and rammed his tongue in my mouth, then backed away quickly, leaving me panting. “Well, I guess we should get going.”

I shot him a scathing look. “We should. But I have to pee first.” He walked out into the bedroom. As I sat on the toilet, I weighed my options for getting even. I mentally high fived myself as I pulled my underwear off over my feet and left them on the bathroom floor.

*************************************** We parked a block down from Talk Story, and I scouted ahead and left Tom in the Jeep. My gladiator sandals clicked on the sidewalk as I half-jogged to my destination, anxious to see if Alani was at the desk. She was, and I texted him to come on down. He ran to meet me, and I stopped him from holding the door for me and letting me go in first.

“Nope, you should be the first thing she sees.” I had my phone all ready to go in order to capture the moment, planning on sending her a copy as a keepsake. He walked through, and she looked up as the bell dinged to announce that someone had entered the store and the look on her face was one I knew I’d remember forever. He approached her, hand extended, and I was right behind him.

“Hello, Alani. I’m Tom.” She remained motionless. He turned to me. “This is Maude. We were here on Monday, and she told me that you’re a fan of my work and would perhaps enjoy meeting me.” She nodded, gingerly lifting her arm up but unable to make herself grab his hand. He took the initiative, holding it to his lips and kissing it demurely. She squealed, so high pitched I thought my ears might bleed. Four other girls came running out of the stacks, took one look at him, and began jumping up and down, screaming, phones in hand. I stopped filming so I could set the boundaries before any issues arose, stepping between them and Tom.

“Hi, ladies. I’m Maude, Tom’s social media manager. Let’s go over some ground rules, okay?” They lowered their phones and nodded. “Tom wants to be able to take pictures, sign for and chat with all of you, but in order for him to be able to do so you need to make sure you don’t post anything to social media until after we leave the premises. No texting or calling, either. If a crowd turns up, we’ll have to cut things short, and where’s the fun in that?”

A husky, bearded, bespectacled man came out from the stacks, wearing a white and green palm leaf print Hawaiian shirt and khaki hiking shorts. “Girls, what the heck is going on up here? Why all the screaming? You know people prefer quiet when they…” He stopped short when he saw Tom, his mouth dropping open, then quickly closing as he grew closer, hand proffered. I figured he was the owner, so I let him pass.

“Aloha, Mr. Hiddleston. I’m Roger Marshal, and Talk Story is my baby. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate your stopping by again…the girls were so bummed when they learned they’d missed you on Monday.”

Tom shook his hand vigorously. “Thank you for having me. Your establishment is outstanding…I’m a bit of a bibliophile, and if I had my druthers I’d be perusing the shelves here for days on end. My apologies for dashing off so quickly when I was in last, but I had a prior obligation and thought it better to come back when I had more time to spend.” He turned to me. “This is Maude Gallagher, my social media manager.”

I offered my hand and he clasped it gently with one of his, then placed the other on top. “Maude, nice to meet you. Is there anything I can do to make this easier for you both?”

“Actually, would you happen to have a room available that’s a bit more private?”

He nodded, then turned his attention to the desk. “Sure thing. Alani, why don’t you show our guests to the staff lunch room?” Her eyes lit up, and the faces of the rest of the staff fell. “Girls, you go too. I’ll cover the desk.” They thanked him in unison between excited giggles.

I tried to hang back behind Tom, but he slowed and fell into step with me and slipped his arm around me, hand on my lower back, whispering in my ear. “The way you jumped in and took charge did…things…to me, Maude.” His let his hand glide lower and lower, halting when he reached the spot where the waistband of my underwear should be. He felt around with his fingers, over my hip, diving quickly down into the crease of my left buttock then back up to my waist, gripping me just a smidge too hard.

I met his gaze, noting his narrowed eyes and the way his tongue darted out over and over to lick his lips. I smirked and whispered back. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I forgot to mention that I’m not wearing any panties. They sorta fell off back at the house and are lying on the bathroom floor, all alone and unloved.” The hand on my waist began to shake as we reached the staff room and he began breathing deeply as he attempted to keep his shit together. And round two of Friday’s Titillation Tease goes to…me.

Tom spent nearly two hours taking selfies, videos, signing anything the girls could get their hands on, and answering their seemingly unlimited supply of questions. The giant cup of tea I’d had on the ride over had finally hit my bladder, and I excused myself and went off in search of the bathrooms. There was only a one, unisex, located all the way on the other side of the store, tucked into an alcove deep in the stacks. Nice and roomy, too. I envisioned Tom fucking me up against the wall, then scolded myself for my blatant lack of restraint as I texted him precisely what I’d been thinking while I walked back to the staff room.

Roger had come back to check on them, which Tom took as an indicator that it was time to wrap things up. He was hugging each of the girls goodbye in turn as they left the room, saving Alaini for last. She rested her head on his chest, facing me, and mouthed ‘he smells like a FOREST’ while hugging him tightly. Up until that moment, I hadn’t been sure whether she recognized me or not. She stepped back and looked at both of us.

“This has been, like, the best day of my life. I can never thank you enough.” Her eyes shone with tears. “Would it be okay if I took a picture of you guys together?”

I smiled. “Of course. But I think it would be better if you were in it, too.” We posed, and Tom held out her phone to get the shot. I was entering my Prosper email address into her phone so she could send me a copy and she was putting hers in mine so I could send her the video from earlier when she cleared her throat.

She looked up shyly. “Um, I don’t mean to be rude or get in your business or anything, but I was just, you know, wondering…” She swallowed. “Are you guys, like, a couple?”

Tom grinned. “Is it that obvious?”

Her brow furrowed. “Well, you know, I saw what you posted on Twitter yesterday and I was like, hmm, and I know you guys work together and now seeing you in person…yeah. It’s pretty obvious, I guess.”

Tom took my hand. “Yes, Alani. Maude isn’t just my social media manager…she’s my girlfriend as well. And can I let you in on a little secret?” She nodded, awestruck. “When you saw us here on Monday, that was the very first time we met. So you played a rather important role in what turned out to be the best day of my life so far.”

I kissed his cheek. “Mine too, Alani.”

Alani flopped onto the nearest chair, clutching her hands to her chest. “That. Is. So. Romantic.” She leapt back up and hugged me. “We all want him for ourselves, but if he has to be with someone else, I’m really glad it’s you.”

I patted her on the back. “Thank you. Hearing you say that means so much…honestly, I don’t have the words to express properly how it made me feel.” We let go of each other, and she made her way back to the desk.

I turned to Tom. “I need to hit the bathroom again before we head out.” He nodded and followed my lead. He didn’t mention my text, and I assumed he hadn’t read it yet. We didn’t see another soul on the way there, and the stacks outside the alcove were deserted as well. I recalled my vision of Tom fucking me against the bathroom wall and decided this was going to be my shining moment of public indecency. I opened the door, stepped in, then turned around to face him, left eyebrow raised.

“Want to join me?” I licked my lips. He barged past me into the bathroom, fingers already working to unbuckle his belt.

“I thought you’d never ask.” I locked the door, then did a 180. He held his fully engorged cock in his right hand, stroking it, catching any drips with his left. “I do believe I need to put this somewhere immediately so I don’t make a terrible mess on the floor.”

I bit my bottom lip as I tilted my head to the side. “I think I’ve got just the place for it.”

He ceased his stroking in order to back me up against the wall, growling in my ear. “Oh yes. You most certainly do.” He bent his knees as he lifted the front of my dress up to my waist, and I wrapped my leg around his, grinding my dripping pussy against him while I rubbed my clit. He groaned, and I slipped my glistening finger into his mouth. He sucked on it, and I felt the head of his cock at my entrance and his hands cupping my ass, his full weight on me, pressing me firmly against the cool tile.

He was panting. “Put your other leg around me and your arms around my neck.” I did the latter, but scoffed at the former.

“Um, there is no way in hell you’re going to be able to hold me up.”

He leaned forward to stare into my eyes, and his expression made me whimper. “Leg. Up. Now. Please.” As I complied he sheathed himself fully. I tried to bite back a ridiculously loud moan but was only partially successful. His mouth met mine, tongues dancing around each other. He pulled back.

“Maude, my apologies, but once I start moving I fear I’m going to last all of thirty seconds. If I’m fortunate.”

I clamped down on him. He began thrusting wildly, and I focused all my energy on not coming before he did. I was doing well until he started whispering in my ear using his Loki voice.

“Give in, mortal. Come for me. I know you’ve dreamed of this, me fucking into you for all I’m worth, you pinned against the wall, unable to sway those mesmerizing hips and have your way with me as you ride my cock to find your own selfish pleasure.”

He pounded into me, almost savagely, and as he felt my walls begin to flutter he put his hand over my mouth.

“Not. A. Sound.” I came, my scream trapped beneath his hand, the wet sounds of him moving in and out of me echoing eerily off the bathroom walls. “That’s it. Look at you, coming and coming all over my cock. So, so beautiful.”

He let his hand drop, and I could feel his thrusts becoming more erratic as I stared at him, his face red, jaw clenched, the veins on his neck standing out with his exertion. His head tipped back, fingers digging into the underside of my thighs, and his entire body shuddered as he orgasmed, come spurting hot inside me. I let my legs slide down one at a time, planting my feet as firmly as I possibly could despite the fact that they felt like they were made of Jell-O.

He rested his head on my shoulder, and I rubbed his back. “I guess this means you got my text after all.” I felt him nod. “Well, if this is what not wearing underwear gets me, I’m never putting on another fucking pair ever again.”

We both laughed, quickly cleaned ourselves up, and I peeked out the door to make sure the coast was clear. Still not a soul around, and we said a final goodbye to Alani on our way out and proceeded to walk back to the Jeep. We sat for a while, neither of us feeling quite capable of driving.

He leaned over to kiss me, hand on the back of my neck, grinning as he pulled away. “I’m famished. Want to grab something to eat before we head back?”

“You already know the answer to that.” I noticed the street getting a bit congested, a small pack of women heading in our direction and what appeared to be a local news crew up the road a bit…I pulled out my phone and checked Alani’s Twitter feed. She’d posted the photo of all of us.

Here’s me just a little while ago with Tom Hiddleston and his girlfriend, Maude. He smells like a pine forest, and she’s super nice. #bestdayever, #thankyoutomandmaude

I showed it to him. “I’m thinking maybe we should stop somewhere a little further down the road. You?”

He started the Jeep, put it in first and stalled it as he tried to pull away from the curb, and then again on his second try. He smiled at me sheepishly. “Perhaps you’d better drive.”

“Gee, ya think?” We got out and switched places. I shook my head. “What a newb.”

He crossed his arms. “I am not a newb. I’m just out of practice is all.”

I patted his thigh as we got to the highway. “Right. Rusty stick skills. I remember.”

He chortled. “Yours remain top notch though, my love.”

I smiled smugly. “They do, don’t they?”

He raised his index finger. “Although, technically, you didn’t actually make use of them this go round, did you?”

“I’ll make up for it next time.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Well I’d fucking hope you’d hold me to it. That’s the whole point.” I saw a McDonald’s sign in the distance. “Dude, I want some French fries in the WORST way. And a chocolate milkshake. You game?’

“I most certainly am.”

“If you behave I’ll let you have my cherry.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“How rude.”

“Perhaps. But true.”

“Not entirely true.”

“What do you mean, not entirely true?”

I turned off the highway and into the parking lot. The drive through line was mobbed, but the lot itself was relatively empty. “I mean that the fact that it’s a bit late for you to have my cherry is only partially correct.”

He stared at me as I engaged the parking brake, puzzled, then shook his head. “I’m not following.”

The left corner of my mouth scrunched up in mock irritation. “Really? Are you sure?” He shrugged, palms up. “Think about all we’ve…done.”

“Maude.”

“Good. Now think about what we haven’t done.” I gave him a few moments to review, watching his face closely so I’d see it dawn on him. 3…2…1…aaaannndd there it was. His jaw slackened, hips lifting almost imperceptibly. “That’s right. I’ve played around, sure, but as far as actually having a cock in my ass…nope. Which means, technically, my anal cherry is still intact.”

He covered his face with his hands, groaning, but said nothing.

I went in for the kill. “So, Thomas…tell me. Would you like my cherry?”

Shaking his head, face still hidden, he spoke in a low voice. “Maude.” He paused, remaining silent for quite some time, seemingly avoiding my question. I wondered if I’d overstepped some sort of boundary, pushing him too far.

My mind was racing, and I frowned. “Wow. I’m really sorry, Tom.”

He uncovered his face to take my hand, gazing at me with eyes full of concern. “Whatever for?”

“Because I put you on the spot there and just assumed it’s something you’d want to participate in. I didn’t stop to think that it’s something that might not be up everyone’s alley.” I rolled my eyes. “That didn’t come out…shit…DAMN. Anyway, that was incredibly presumptuous and I apologize for letting myself get so carried away. Please don’t feel like it’s something you have to…”

He leaned in to kiss me forcefully, covering my entire mouth with his, tongue darting over my lips, then pulled away before I could fully engage. “May I answer your question now?”

I shook my head. “Tom, you don’t need…”

“I know I don’t need to, but I WANT to. My answer is, with undeniable certainty, yes. Please accept my apology for not answering straight away. I’m afraid I was too busy thinking about how deliciously tight you’re going to feel around me and then I remembered that you aren’t wearing panties and it was all I could do to stop myself from dragging you onto my lap and fucking you right here in the McDonald’s parking lot.”

His eyes met mine, nostrils flaring, pupils blown wide open. Never before had I been able to do this to a man, make him want me so desperately using nothing but words. He squeezed my hand.

“That you’d trust me with something so intimate, bequeathing me such a precious gift, wishing to share something that you’ve not yet experienced with another, is…I’m honored, humbled, awestruck…so very many things.” He smiled timidly. “I’ve never been someone’s first anything before.”

My brows shot up, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

“Maude, there’s something I’d like to ask you, but…”

“Shoot.”

“All right. This may be terribly intrusive, and feel free to not answer it if you don’t feel comfortable doing so, but…knowing what I do about you, sexually, I’m…surprised…that you…erm, never…anyway, I suppose I’m just wondering why.”

I sighed. Good job, Maude. This is what you get for trying to be a seductress.

“Long story short, you’re only the fourth person I’ve been intimate with. The first two were before I was twenty and not even remotely interested in such a thing. By the third I was very interested, but things fell apart before it happened.” I put my arms on the steering wheel and rested my forehead on them for a moment, then raised my head and turned to him. I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face.

“Okay, I’m not sure if that look means ‘I didn’t need to hear that’ or ‘wow, only three, what a loser’.”

He shook his head. “It’s neither. Well, maybe a bit of the first one, because the idea of you being with someone else is much more unpleasant than I would have imagined, but…it was mostly surprise that such an incredibly beautiful, intelligent, hilarious woman wouldn’t have men lining up to be with her.”

“Thomas. Stop being so fucking wonderful, won’t you? Christ. There was no line, believe me. I’ve always been at least a little chubby, but after I moved to New York I put on a huge amount of weight. There are reasons for that, but that’s another story for another time. By 2003 I was tipping the scales at two hundred and forty-seven pounds. I’ve always been a confident person, and I honestly never cared what anyone else thought about the way I looked, but…you know what I’m getting at here, I think. In late 2008 I started feeling like shit, and Anne, who’d nearly died due to undiagnosed diabetes in 2003, pushed me to see a doctor. Sure enough, that was the problem. It was early, and resolvable with lifestyle modifications. So, I kicked myself in the ass, and over the next year I lost more than eighty pounds, and that was when I…a woman in her sexual prime, in the best shape of her life…met number three. God bless him…I was on a mission, making up for lost time and he could barely keep up with me. One time I actually thought he was going to need an ambulance…sheese, why I am telling you this? Yikes. Sorry. Lord knows I don’t want to hear anything like it from you.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Let’s pretend this never happened and go get those milkshakes, m’kay?”

He grabbed my arm as I opened the door, and I turned to meet his gaze. “I…Maude…I just…you are…everything about you…” He shook his head. “I fall deeper in love with you with every passing moment.”

“Right back atcha, baby.” He laughed. “Yeah. No way I was going to try and out-eloquent you there. Waste of time and energy.”

We went inside, his arm around my shoulders, and ordered two Happy Meals when we saw the new toys were Minions. Neither of us could resist playing with them as we ate. Tom went back for a Big Mac and chicken nuggets, which I shared. He stuck his fingers in through the lid of my milkshake, deftly picking up the cherry and popping it in his mouth, a huge smile on his face.

We both used the bathroom, separately, and as we were walking back to the Jeep I heard the voice of a young boy.

“Mom, Mom! That man over there! That’s the man you’re always looking at on your computer!”

A woman replied to him. “Mason, what are you talking ab…?” And with that, I knew she’d seen Tom. I pulled at his shirt, and he looked down at me and nodded. We turned around and waved. The woman was about my age, maybe a little older, and she looked like she might die of embarrassment when she realized we’d overheard their conversation. Tom strode over, hand extended.

“Hi there. Tom Hiddleston. And you are?” She moved as if in a trance, hand out, and he grasped it gently and shook.

“I…uh…um…Sarah. I’m Sarah. And this is my son, Mason.”

Tom beamed and shook Mason’s hand as well. “Lovely to meet you both.”

Sarah reached into her purse, dug around and pulled out a Coriolanus program. She cleared her throat. “I heard that you’d be on the island and I’ve been carrying this with me, you know, just in case.”

He took it from her. “Were you in attendance?”

Mason piped up. “We flew all the way across two oceans so she could go see your show. I saw Big Ben. It was really cool.”

Sarah was bright red. “I saw it twice, actually, but didn’t have time to stay after.”

Tom pulled a sharpie out of his back pocket. “May I?”

She grinned. “Please do.” He signed his name, as well as a message. ‘Sorry to have missed you there, but better late than never. Glad to finally have met you. XO’”

As he handed it back to her he asked if she’d like a picture with him. He introduced us, and I volunteered to do the honors so Mason could squeeze in as well. I gave him my Minion to keep him occupied while I took some shots of just Sarah and Tom. He held it up to give it back to me when I handed Sarah back her phone.

“Nope, buddy, that’s yours now.” I held out my hand to Tom and he put his toy in it. “In fact, you can have Tom’s too. This way he gets to stay with his friend and won’t be lonely.” He thanked me so quietly I could barely hear him, eyes full of wonder at what to an adult was such a small gesture.

Tom hugged them both goodbye, and Sarah embraced me as well. She smiled at my surprise. “Thank you, both of you, so much.”

Tom put his arm around my waist as we walked the rest of the way back to the Jeep, placing a quick kiss on the top of my head.

“It is my personal opinion that you’re a much kinder, gentler person than you’d like everyone to believe.”

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. And it’s all your fucking fault, too.”

#your light in the mist #chapter 11

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journalxxx · 7 years ago

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Awesome And Emotional Multichapter Fics That I Will Never Write - 1

Stan and Ford learn of this far-off, mysterious cave which is feared by the indigenous population because whoever dares to explore it never comes back. If it smells like trouble, they obviously have to check it out. They take off well equipped, with the proper clothes and weapons and tools and even oxygen supplies. It turns out that was a smart choice, because at some point the atmosphere in the cave suddenly turns almost unbreathable, with oxygen level barely sufficient to stay conscious, and they have to put masks on to keep going. Other than that, the cave is pretty much unremarkable, until suddenly a sneaky face-hugger-like monster thingy downs on Ford from the ceiling and almost eats his face off, destroying his mask.

And since it would be far too easy to just let them back-track to the exit from there, let's say it happens right next to a deep crevice which is conveniently not high enough for the fall to kill or incapacitate them, but it is steep enough to prevent them from climbing back up. The facehugger makes it rather unsafe for them to just wait there for the locals to get worried about them, so onwards it must be, in the remote hypothesis that there might be a secondary exit somewhere. The problem is obviously the atmosphere, which isn't ideal for heavy physical activity on Ford's part. Stan insists on sharing his supply, which Ford declines because, due to varied atmospheres he's had to adapt to in different dimension, he's kind of used at being short on breath, and he also has those fancy breathing techniques of his that help him recover more quickly and stay more level-headed than Stan would, not to mention the fact that the more time they spend messing the equipment and arguing about this whole thing, the more air they waste, the more they get distracted and expose themselves to further attacks, yada yada, soon enough Stan grumpily accepts to keep his mask and they start moving. It kind of works at first, but obviously, as time goes on, they need to stop more frequently and at length for Ford to catch his breath, even if he begrudgingly accepts to take a few lungfuls of Stan's air a couple of times. At a certain point Ford, one measured sentence after another, suggests that Stan should leave him behind and come back for him later, once he's found help. Their oxygen supply is limited and they have no idea how far the exit may be, if there even is one, and whether the oxygen levels in the atmosphere might drop even lower before they get to it. If he stops and waits there, Ford should be able to remain awake and vigilant enough to defend himself from any potential attacks, but if they both keep going and run out of air in a more dire environment that causes them both to faint, they're both as well as eaten. It's a sensible suggestion and Stan's obvious reply goes along the lines of 'Fuck you, I'm not leaving you here alone' Ford doesn't have the mental and physical strenght to go against Stan's stubborness so fine, they keep going a bit further, until Ford straight up blacks out and Stan needs to hoist him on his shoulders and bodily drag him forwards. Now, since I'm more of a psychological thriller fan than a horror junkie, I'm gonna toss away the face-hugger like the overused cliche plot device it was and decide that, I don't know, it choked on the plastic and died, I don't care, it won't appear again. But I do invite you to think about Stan's massive stress during the next hour or so. Eyes and ears peeled at the tiniest noise, knowing that if the thing attacks, he probably won't even time to drop Ford and reach for the gun before he gets his face eaten. Trying to give his mask to Ford a couple of times, but realizing that, holy fuck, how did Ford even stay awake that long, the air is so suffocating that one minute without the mask is enough to get him black bubbles in his vision. Finding out that indeed, he can't afford to give the mask to Ford for longer than a handful of seconds at a time, because he would probably faint, and that would be it. Keepins the mask for himself for the sake of moving forward, and hating himself for it, for every time he mocked Ford's hippie yoga sessions and every goddamn cigarette he smoked. Keeping Ford's face close enough to his neck so that he would notice, hopefully, if he were to stop breathing at some point, because he can't check every goddamn minute if he's still doing it, or it'll take them forever to reach the exit, which is totally just past the next corner, right? He almost can't believe when finally, finally, a faint glimmer appears somewhere in front of them, and he almost drops Ford on the spot to check on him and slap him awake or something. But no, no, come on, what if the alien thingy attacks them right there and then when they are almost safe, wouldn't that be lame as fuck. Besides, Ford's probably good, if the exit is that close, the atmosphere must have balanced out some time ago, and he's still breathing, so all good right? All good, definitely, absolutely. So he just keeps dragging him for another handful of painstakingly slow minutes, until they can finally tumble in the grass at a reasonable distance from the entrance. For good measure and for Stan's own peace of mind, considering there's still a surprising amount of air in Stan's tank and that they're in some hellishly hot and damp tropical place where even mosquitos sweat, Stan jams the mask on Ford's face while he tries to poke him awake. Which Ford eventually does shortly afterwards, gaping around himself in disbelief looking all like 'holy shit, how deep did we get, don't tell me there really are dinosaurs down here' Then a beautifully heartwarming conversation follows, along the lines of 'wait what, you dragged me all the way out?' 'no, I gave the alien my beefy jerky and he called a taxi for us, turns out they're really nice. Shut the fuck up and breathe, you fuckface' 'jfc that was such a poor idea, you burnt through the oxygen supply much more quickly and advanced much more slowly, if the exit had been further-' 'jfc I should have choked you in your sleep when I had the chance" Eventually Stan manages to glare Ford into silence and. If we assume this is one of those delightful pre-stancest scenarios. This is exactly the moment where silence falls, and they don't really have anything else to do but stare at each other and realize how close they got to disaster and feel in general very awkward and weird. And Stan is just kneeling there, glancing around to make sure nothing is creeping on them, feeling a ridiculous amount of relief just from seeing Ford breathing calmly while laying limply on the ground, and if that doesn't mean that his brother is a goddamn handful of a problem he doesn't know what does. Ultimately, they go back to the ship and Ford immediately starts making plans on how to eradicate the nasty creature safely. Something which Stan isn't exactly enthusiastic about. An argument easily arises, with Ford obviously wanting to do The Right Thing and free the village from the dangerous cave dweller and Stan, yeah, getting that, but also wanting to establish some firm ground rules, first of all no more self-sacrifing bullshit talk, for any reason. Whatever retort Ford might have regarding tactics and smart use of resources gets cut off when Stan bursts out with the classic 'BECAUSE I'D RATHER DIE THAN LOSE YOU FOR THE THIRD TIME, YOU MOTHERFUCKING IDIOT' trump card that. Kind of guts Ford and opens the way to some long-needed heart-to-heart talk that will eventually lead to smooching and. You know the drill. The end.

#stancest

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ahouseoflies · 8 years ago

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The Best Films of 2016, Part I

Rodrigo Perez of The Playlist posted his best-of list on January 15 and spent the introduction whipping himself for it being too late to be relevant. That was over two weeks ago, and here I am. But who can feel caught up if an actual critic doesn’t? Even now, at a point when I have to turn the page, I haven’t seen Toni Erdmann, Paterson, Things to Come, or Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Aside from pretending that my thoughts on movies are worth something to other people, I’m just a regular guy living in a film market that is not L.A. or New York, and the system for movie release schedules is broken for all of us. Most of the year is trash if we can’t go to festivals. Then we hear about interesting stuff from the critics’ top ten lists that bubble up in early December. Because the press machine follows an old model, interviews and commercials and dates on posters are timed to promote a film while it is technically on about six screens. In the case of, say, 20th Century Women, it opens in my area on January 20th. By that time it has already been judged a failure because it had to share the airspace with dozens of other pictures released in a one-month window. And Hollywood wonders why a) they lose $75 million on Live by Night or b) regular people pirate the product. Forgive those hicks for wanting to see the thing you’re selling. This pattern repeats every year, and no one learns anything because exactly two movies end up being financial successes. I hate movies. Because I hate movies, I watched 124 of them in 2016, which is a 3% decline from my viewing last year. (In consolation, my balance between classic films and contemporary ones was better.) As usual, I have ranked all 124 and divided them into the tiers of Garbage, Admirable Failures, Endearing Curiosities with Big Flaws, Pretty Good Movies, Good Movies, Great Movies, and Instant Classics. As Isabelle Huppert probably said in Things to Come, “Allons-y!” GARBAGE 124. The Bronze (Bryan Buckley) I'm reading an hour and forty minutes as the running time on imdb, but I could have sworn this laborious movie was at least five hours. The main problem here, besides profanity being a joke in and of itself, is that the film is never sure how much empathy it has toward its characters. It judges them for cheap laughs, then turns right back around and tries to wring emotion by taking them seriously. Juggling both of those modes isn't impossible, but The Bronze proves how difficult it is. I rented this on a weekend when my baby had diarrhea, which really took the viewing experience up a notch. 123. Equals (Drake Doremus) What a snoozefest of a perfume ad this is. I liked Doremus's Like Crazy a lot, but I found little nuance or invention in his world-building here, for a setting that needed something new to separate it from the emotionless dystopias we've seen before. Kristen Stewart is at watch-everything-she's-in status for me, but even her whispery performance is paint-by-numbers.

122. Dirty Grandpa (Dan Mazer) I'm mostly angry with myself because I thought I had gotten trash like this out of my system. You can learn a lot from bad movies, but I learned all I could by seeing whatever two movies were playing every Friday of high school. I had been making such better choices. I hope, at the very least, that one of Robert De Niro's failing TriBeCa restaurants was able to hire additional bartenders as a result of this. The experience is a bit like spending time with a child who has just learned how to use the F-word, but also if that child had a deeply-ingrained sense of misogyny? God bless Jason Mantzoukas for at least trying in all of these red-band write-offs. By the way, same diarrhea weekend. 121. Sausage Party (Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernen) Up until now, the Rogen-Goldberg aesthetic has been "genre/premise...but it's filthy." Sausage Party, more of a brand management lark than anything else, seems to stretch the high concept side and the filthy side until the whole thing breaks. The atheism allegory stalls halfway through. (So there is a God, but that God is evil? Is death being expired or is death being taken home? How can the device be so heavy-handed and so muddy at the same time?) The villain (a literal douche) is adequately motivated, but the screenplay drops him for a huge stretch of time. In the end, I needed more than hot dogs cursing. I wouldn't recommend this movie, but I would recommend the three following things in it: 1. Tha god Edward Norton as Sammy Bagel Jr. 2. The epilogue is clever! Where was that kind of thinking the whole time? 3. The one joke that I liked, then felt dumb for liking: A lavash lamenting that he won't get thirty-seven extra virgin olive oils. 120. The BFG (Steven Spielberg) If you drink every time you hear "Bee-Eff-GeeeeEEEE," then you'll die. And you might be better off than a person asking "who cares?" to the ether for almost two hours.Now that his style is so solidified, a brand of its own even thirty years ago, Spielberg has trouble merging his voice with anyone else's. You could argue that he did it with The Color Purple or Empire of the Sun, but Minority Report feels nothing like a Philip K. Dick work by the end as Anderton rubs the pregnant belly of the wife he's back together with. In Jurassic Park he casts a literal cartoon to yada-yada the science that Michael Crichton was fascinated with. And here he tries to wrap himself around Roald Dahl, a man who was simultaneously way sillier and way more cynical than Spielberg. Here's something that happens about a dozen times: The BFG doesn't speak English well, despite hearing all the whispers of the world and being alive since the beginning of time. So Dahl creates malapropisms and nonsense words for him. He calls someone "a human bean," and the girl corrects him with "Bee-Eff-GeeeEEEE, it's human BEING." And that's the film in a nutshell: Someone toying with the wacky only to yoke himself back to this boring world. 119. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (Nicholas Stoller) Compared to the first movie--not a masterpiece by any stretch--this one has no stakes at all. It's always a bad sign when characters have to keep repeating what their short-term goals are as the film goes on. If (when) you look really closely at Efron's abs, you can almost make out the "lol nothing matters" gif. 118. Wiener Dog (Todd Solondz) Todd Solondz hasn't made a good movie since the first half of Storytelling, and he hasn't made a financially successful movie ever. Yet here he is in 2016, getting more chances to spray the same pointless contempt. All of his movies are mean, but they're also weirdly toothless. My mistake that I thought the people who deserved scorn were venal billionaires and hypocritical authority figures. It's actually slightly materialistic middle-class people and college kids who need to be taken down a peg. Go get 'em, Todd! Danny DeVito comes close to saving his misshapen segment, injecting pathos into a character who is a self-loathing mouthpiece for Solondz. Fewer people fit the bill of "sad-sack" more than DeVito, and he wears his character's anxiety on his slumped shoulders. I had almost forgotten about this observant, reserved side of DeVito, and he takes over until the film shuffles along to another half-scene--you know, before we, God forbid, get attached to someone.There's a reason that Solondz's best scenes take place in schools, and there's a reason why he keeps returning to his younger stand-in Dawn Weiner, his only character that rises above a type. It's because Todd Solondz is still the weird kid in the back of the classroom giggling to himself. Then, when the teacher asks what he's laughing at, he looks down and says, "Nothing."

117. The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn) Bukowski wrote: "An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Of course, he didn't live to see any of Nicolas Winding Refn's movies, which challenge that notion. It's hard for me to reject something crafted so meticulously--I won't be able to unsee some of these shots--but I suspect that Refn dresses these things up so luridly because he isn't saying much. (Shout-out to your best movie being the only one you didn't write.) And he falls back on provocation because he doesn't have as much confidence in us as he has in himself. That's reductive I guess. "There's no difference between text and subtext" might be closer than "not saying much." Take the bathroom scene, for example, where the labored rhythm of the dialogue really takes hold. The Jena Malone character says that lipsticks have names that conjure images of food or sex, and she asks the Elle Fanning character what her lipstick name would be. In other words, "Are you food, something devoured by others, or sex, something you are active in for your own pleasure?" Luckily, the character doesn't answer her, but the movie spends another hour and a half clinging to the line between predator and prey. (Unless it's literally placing a predator into the character's motel room to force the issue, a moment as magical as it is didactic.) Beauty is something as pure as it is ephemeral. So if beauty becomes a currency, and one is forced to use her beauty as a transaction, can it ever really survive? Is its innocence lost then? Alternately, if a truly beautiful thing enters a realm of ugliness, doesn't it become a poisoning element that corrupts that environment? Isn't beauty, in that sense.../puffs joint/...ugliness? I think I'm pretty close, but you be the judge. The Neon Demon reminded me of Under the Skin, another film I did not like, because they both spell out obvious ideas, thinking that the genuinely artful visuals will complicate that text. (And the camera loves Elle Fanning as much as it does Scarlett Johansson. None of this is her fault.) Both films could probably be played at double-speed without missing much, but then they wouldn't be fables or dreams or other things I don't like. I feel as if I get what both of them are saying but...so? Both films suggest something blinding and poetic on the margins just beyond our view, but there's nothing there. Their beauty is empty. 116. Mascots (Christopher Guest) "Hi, I'm Laci." "What's your name?" "Laci." That's the time I laughed. I could have used maybe ten fewer characters--though please keep Parker Posey and her heretofore unseen physical comedy. Eerily reminiscent of the Netflix season of Arrested Development in which none of the stars were in the same room at the same time. Do I have to go back now and make sure those other Christopher Guest movies are actually good? 115. Zoolander 2 (Ben Stiller) The first Zoolander was silly fun, and I didn't expect much more from the follow-up. But man, Zoolander 2, separated by fifteen years from its predecessor, feels stale. And it isn't tonally desperate in the way that many of these belated follow-ups are; it's just an idea that culture has zipped past, more of a satire of the fashion world of the first film than anything relevant now. I laughed a scattered handful of times, but the final third is rough. My biggest takeaway: Will Ferrell must be a loyal friend to have signed back up. ADMIRABLE FAILURES 114. Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone) I appreciate Garrone's visual ambition: There's a shot that is manicured to look exactly like John William Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott. No two films of his look the same either. But I paused this movie to go to the bathroom, and I got really upset when I saw that there were forty-five minutes left. Most of the stories of this fractured fairy tale collection start off interestingly enough, but they all become bloody, sometimes unresolved messes that assert, well, I have no idea what I was supposed to take away actually. Violence makes the world go round? 113. Swiss Army Man (Daniels) Most reviews of Swiss Army Man start with the "what"--desperate castaway finds flatulent dead body and pals around with him--and move on to the "how"--it's actually about friendship and living life to the fullest and so forth. I'm going to flip that. I'll buy the "why," the semi-animated corpse as a device. I appreciated that it served to highlight a type of person we don't normally see on screen: sort of educated but rides the bus, social problems but resists being emo, family problems but has worked through them enough. No, the "what" is the problem. It was clear where the line between fantasy and reality was, but the filmmakers were inconsistent with that logic once the action moved into the real world. I feel as if I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt for its entire tedious second act, then it repaid me with, well, not much. 112. Elvis & Nixon (Liza Johnson) Team Shannon 4-Ever, but I think this worked better as a photograph. 111. Ghostbusters (Paul Feig) I would say that Ghostbusters was a mess, but the word "mess" implies risk-taking that went wrong. A much rarer breed, this remake is actually a safe mess. It hews closely to the original, slavishly incorporating cameos from the original cast and hitting all of the same beats. But it's also uniquely incoherent. For example, when the ghosts are released into Times Square, the lady busters can't shoot at the car Slimer is driving because "it would be like a nuclear reactor." So that problem disappears, and now the problem is that the ghosts have taken the form of a Thanksgiving Day parade? But our heroes extinguish that threat, so now everyone is possessed by the garbage villain into disco dancing? And now the ghosts are all huge again? By trying to up the stakes, the film can't even decide on what the obstacle for the characters should be. That sort of muddiness would be understandable if the film felt edited to shreds, but I watched the two hour and fourteen minute extended cut, and it still felt like that. Most of the cast is game, but Kate McKinnon is the standout, injecting weirdness (and, separately, queerness) wherever she can. It seems as if Holtzmann is the only member of the team who actually sciences, and McKinnon's mugging is just as indispensable to the team. The few shots that the film takes at protective nerds are funny, so I wish that the script had more of that bitterness. Or any tone of its own at all.

110. A Hologram for the King (Tom Tykwer) Spoiler: Tom Hanks gets wi-fi for his team. There isn't much "there" there in yet another low stakes tale of a White guy lolwutting a foreign culture. To be fair, Tykwer doesn't other the Saudis as much as most films of this type, but even with that respect, this feels like a movie we've seen before. Without Tykwer's surreal touches and without an actor that has built up so much goodwill, the film wouldn't have worked at all. 109. Amanda Knox (Brian McGinn, Rod Blackhurst) The recent true crime works that prompted Netflix to snatch up this one have been objective and gripping, reaching past their tawdry roots to reveal something about our own prurient interest in the subjects. Amanda Knox, on the other hand, can't get past tawdry. It exhibits just as much sensationalism as it decries in others. It is nice to hear Foxy Knoxy in her own words for once though. (For the record, I would have had enough reasonable doubt to acquit her.) 108. Jason Bourne (Paul Greengrass) Even the title makes it seem as if there's no reason for this movie to exist, so the least I can do is provide alternate titles: 1. The Bourne Pickpocket 2. Bourne: Folder Labeled "Black Ops" 3. Bourne: Last of the Jump Drives 4. The Bourne Cable-Knit Sweater 5. The Bourne Daddy (That one is accurate and true to the The Bourne ____ structure, plus you get a millenial hashtag.) I think Greengrass knew what he had with that trill car chase at the end, so everything else could be rote. Jason Bourne felt like returning to the house you grew up in and going, "Oh, they turned my bedroom into an office." 107. Money Monster (Jodie Foster) Dumb in small ways--a billionaire didn't hear about a national news story involving his company because he was on a plane?--and fairly big ways--dropping threads left and right and failing to give resolution to one of its main characters. Films involving finance are often too complex, but Money Monster isn't complex enough; it's missing a B story. If you think about the best possible version of a movie like this, it's probably Dog Day Afternoon. That film works because we care about Sonny just as much as we do about the boyfriend on the other end of the phone. There's no equivalent for Money Monster, though it could have been the cop, it could have been the girlfriend, it could have been the code-writers. There are a few surprises, good intentions, and Foster has a deft hand for the pacing. But any time the script asked me to care about these characters as people, I felt like it was faking. Maybe the smartest, most modern touch is the suggestion that becoming a meme on Vine is a deeper indignity that going on trial for breaking international law. 106. Jane Got a Gun (Gavin O’Connor) Jane Got a Gun makes sense as a vanity project for Natalie Portman because it allows her to play a lot of qualities she never has: steely, street-smart, matronly. The problem is that she doesn't play any of those particularly well, and the title character is not the most interesting or active one in the piece.That designation would go to Joel Edgerton's Dan Frost (not the woefully miscast Ewan McGregor). When the movie works, it's because he's selling the doomed nature of the Dan-Jane love affair, tugging at his own pride. But just as the film is cresting to an elegiac place, it pulls into the final shootout station. All of these movies end with the same twenty minutes, and if you aren't invested in the characters, that last leg can go on forever. 105. April and the Extraordinary World (Franck Ekinci, Christian Desmares) Like anything steampunk, April and the Extraordinary World has at least one dumb thing for each cool thing. I think the problem is that it can't decide how much of a mystery it wants to be; that is, which elements are unexplained to engage the viewer and which elements are unexplained because the filmmakers don't feel like explaining them. The art direction has so many tiny ingenious touches that define this alternate past in Paris, so of course the movie leaves Paris for a fake jungle created by sentient lizards. The animation does have some cell-shaded, Ghibli charm though. I almost forgot how water splashing looked for ninety years. 104. Florence Foster Jenkins (Stephen Frears) Meryl Streep is in this, I guess, so feel free to throw any awards you want its way. It would be impossible for Stephen Frears, Streep, and Grant to turn in something less than competent, but, other than normalizing adultery, I don't know what Florence Foster Jenkins is doing that is novel or unsafe. Here's something: Has any review mentioned that at least fifteen minutes of running time is made up of someone singing poorly? Not a starting-to-sing and we cut away after a few reaction shots. We're riding out full performances that are--such is the premise of the film--supposed to be unlistenable. Customize your back speakers to really steer into that piercing quality on minute eight of the Carnegie Hall performance. We got the point in the first half-hour, but let's really make it unpleasant. If you like this movie, it probably reminds you of splashy, unchallenging pictures that used to get made for adults. But, as a story about a person of privilege who is coddled to absurd, harmful degrees to hide her from an undeniable objective truth, it might be the most 2016 film I saw all year. 103. Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) If you say so. I still don't really get this guy. Part of the point is that these mystical things are happening all around us: goddesses chopping it up at picnic tables, intermediaries taking over dead bodies and going on dream walks. And all of that is written with deadpan certainty. But if the supernatural is always presented in that nonchalant way, then is it noteworthy? At the risk of sounding like an ugly American, what else is there if the film is about a bizarre sleeping illness, but we aren't meant to believe that the condition is bizarre or an illness at all? From a directing standpoint, other than a graceful dissolve at the halfway point (and who can't do graceful dissolves?), it's just full two-shots for the length of scenes--even simpler than the composition of Uncle Boonme Can Recall His Past Lives. The last five minutes play out like an observational music video, and I think I would prefer a music video from Weerasethakul to another film.

102. Elle (Paul Verhoeven) It's useless to think about what a movie is not, but it would have been interesting to gauge the reception of this film if it didn't have the imprimatur of an interesting director and a truly great actress. Because what we get is tawdry on the level of a Cinemax feature, despite the handheld trappings of art cinema. People who laugh with the film instead of at it might point to Michele's job as a video game designer as layered: She's in the business of devising fantasies publicly, and that's often what drives her privately. But the dialogue in that space--"This is our one chance with Activision," "given your publishing and literary background..."--is too clunky and artificial to seem lived-in. (That’s what happens when a novel is written in French, the screenplay is written in English, the screenplay is translated into French, and French is the director’s third language.) And, at the most basic level, the character just doesn't seem to know what she's doing. There's one specific plot thread that I found ridiculous, but in general the screenplay seems to confuse lots of stuff happening to the character with the character authentically developing. I can see what the filmmakers were trying to do by refusing to make Michele traditionally sympathetic, but I'm out on this. 101. The Fits (Anna Rose Holmer) For a debut film, The Fits is visually decisive and polished, but it's as thin as its 72-minute runtime might suggest. The girls in the movie, for reasons no one can figure out, fall victim to fits, and those seizures become a metaphor for the inexplicable, almost mournful dread of becoming a woman. It's rare that a movie of this type works on the level of metaphor but fails as a slice-of-life thriller--the thriller tropes are kind of the easy part. I liked how locked into the setting we were, but there wasn't enough meat on the bone for me. 100. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards) The first Star Wars film that doesn't feel like an event, Rogue One has one interesting thing (what we learn about the retro-conned nature of something that happens at the end of A New Hope) and one cool thing (Darth Vader smoking some dudes). Ben Mendelsohn avails himself well I guess. But mostly the film feels like bloodless, sexless information in search of any type of humanity. What's weird, considering that A New Hope is one of the most mythologically sound films ever made, is that there isn't a lot of care spent on setting the scene. Can we see a bit more of the type of evil the Deathstar can wreak to build some stakes? Can we stay in one location for more than a few minutes? Can we not have a location named Jedah because it sounds too much like Jedi and makes me confused for a split second every time it's mentioned? I don't think I can say it any better than A.O. Scott, who considers Rogue One "a schoolbook exercise in a course of study that has no useful application and that will never end."

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andylocksmithtipsntricks · 5 years ago

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How to Help Aging Parents Drive Longer

Being able to drive is a symbol of freedom for many older adults, but caregivers often worry about the risk of declining motor skills and cognition among senior drivers. If you’re concerned about whether an elderly driver should still be behind the wheel, there are some easy ways to assess driving skills.

Once you’ve identified concerns, you can take action to increase safety for aging parents both on and off the road.

To help determine if your aging parent should still be behind the wheel, you can run through the following steps to identify conditions that could impair driving skills.

Ride along for an informal driving assessment

Visit the eye doctor for a vision test

Have health professionals conduct a medical review

Install vehicle safety devices

Consider a driver improvement course

Ride Along for an Informal Driving Assessment

If your aging parent has come home with unexplained dents on the car or seems to be struggling with signs of dementia, it’s natural to worry about driving safety. So how can you set your mind at ease? Get in and buckle up. Observe reaction times, comfort and confidence behind the wheel, and the ability to follow basic traffic rules.

If you have concerns, the AARP’s online seminars can help you talk with older adults about senior driver safety.

Pro Tip

You can’t always ride shotgun to ensure safety for seniors. But if you’ve observed some warning signs, consider a mobile medical alert system or a more sophisticated in-car medical alert device. In-car medical alert devices for seniors can provide vehicle monitoring and automatic crash detection and response.

Visit the Eye Doctor for a Vision Test

Vision problems affect older adults more than other age groups, and blurry or diminished eyesight can prevent seniors from driving safely. While there aren’t strict age limits for driving, many states require drivers, including those over the age of 65, to pass a vision test to renew their driver’s license.1

If you have concerns about the vision of an aging parent, encourage them to visit an optometrist to diagnose health conditions, like glaucoma or cataracts, that might affect safe driving. It’s better to address the issue now than deal with the nasty surprise of having your parent denied a license—especially if they show up at the DMV expecting a rubber-stamp license renewal.

What to Expect from a DMV Vision Test

Every state is a little different, but there are some common guidelines for license renewal across the country. Generally, you’ll need to demonstrate 20/40 vision in both eyes.2 If you must wear glasses or contact lenses to pass the vision test, then the license will say corrective lenses must be worn while driving.

In some states, new applicants 65 and older are required to take a driving test, both written and behind the wheel, to be issued a five-year license.

Have Health Professionals Conduct a Medical Review

To promote senior safety, older adults should have a yearly physical regardless of their driving habits. If you’ve noticed an aging parent has warning signs of dementia or declining health, check in with a health professional. Any condition that could result in lapsed consciousness raises major red flags for older adults who drive.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows drivers over 65 are twice as likely to have a medical problem that makes driving difficult compared to other age groups.3 It’s critical that your senior driver is taking their medication and controlling any conditions like diabetes or risk of stroke.

Staying safe behind the wheel translates into more years of mobility and independence as older adults age.

Medication Tracking Methods

When caregivers are helping manage health conditions, it can be difficult to monitor whether older adults are taking critical medication. Consider using one of the following ideas to ensure seniors don’t miss a crucial medication that could affect their ability to drive.

Track meds and dosage using a safety device

Use an app to send medication reminder alerts

Purchase a pill organizer to avoid confusion

See our recommendations for medication tracking

Install Vehicle Safety Devices

There are a variety of safety devices that can provide some peace of mind for caregivers worried about aging adults behind the wheel. These safety measures can be inexpensive solutions like larger side mirrors to eliminate blind spots or booster seats to help shorter drivers scan for pedestrians.

Aftermarket backup alarms and dashboard cams can also improve visibility for drivers of any age, including older adults. Backup cameras were found to reduce the risk of police-reported reverse crashes by 78% when combined with sensors and automatic braking.4 Install a backup camera to avoid even minor parking lot smashups.

Aftermarket Backup Cameras

While backup cameras come standard in newer vehicles, they’re not guaranteed—especially since there are more older motor vehicles on the road than ever before.5 Getting an aftermarket backup camera is an inexpensive way to improve overall vehicle safety for every driver.

Our recommendation for easy installation and reliability is the Yada Digital Wireless Rearview Camera. It gets bonus points for being water-resistant as well as affordable. See our aftermarket backup camera guide

Consider a Driver Improvement Course

Taking a driver refresher course is never a bad idea. After all, there’s a reason many states require safe driving classes after a certain number of driving rule violations or speeding tickets. Mature driver improvement courses like Seniors for Safe Driving or courses through AAA do more than teach driving technique. They also offer older adults an opportunity to regain confidence behind the wheel.

Pro Tip

Double check with the insurance company to see if taking a driver improvement course will qualify for a discounted rate. In some cases, you may be eligible for discounts (no matter your age) if you pass a defensive driving or driving refresher course.

FAQs

Are there other ways of helping seniors in your family stay safe on the road?

There are plenty of ways to help seniors stay safe while driving. And most older adults already practice driving habits that keep them safer on the road, including avoiding night driving and obeying the speed limit. Seniors also drive fewer miles in general and wear seatbelts more often than younger drivers.6 As caregivers, continue to encourage these safe driving practices to keep aging parents on the road longer with less risk of fatality.

My aging parent is no longer able to drive due to mobility issues. Are there other things I should do to keep them safe at home?

There are actions you should take to make home a safer place if an older adult can’t drive due to mobility or health concerns. Check out our senior safety FAQs to learn more about securing tripping hazards, preventing falls, and installing safety equipment.

What are the safest times for seniors to be on the road?

You can test senior driving skills to make sure they’re not dangerous, but there’s also a risk in sharing the road with other drivers. To keep seniors safe, we advise driving in daylight, traveling well-known routes with good lighting, and following safe driving tips for winter.

I don’t think my aging parent should be driving anymore, but they won’t give up the keys. Is there anything I can do?

This is a tricky question. While older adults have the right to drive if they have a current driver’s license, that doesn’t mean they’re safe behind the wheel. Have a candid conversation about your concerns, and if you still feel conflicted, you can file a report anonymously with the state DMV. A representative will reach out and typically require the older adult to come in for a driving and vision test.

The Bottom Line

While you might have significant concerns about aging adults’ driving habits, take heart: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety data shows seniors are less of a risk than younger drivers.7

However, the same research study found that when it comes to motor vehicle crashes, seniors have higher driver fatality rates than other age groups when they are involved in a motor vehicle crash. Researchers say this is due to the increased fragility of older adults, who are more likely to sustain life-threatening injuries during a motor vehicle crash.

If you’ve got concerns about an aging loved one’s ability to stay safe on the road, you’re not alone—and you’ve got options. Ride along to assess your loved one’s driving skills. Have their vision and general health tested. Install safety devices like a backup cam. And don’t forget driving improvement courses.

Got other suggestions for keeping aging adults adults safe behind the wheel? Let us know in the comments!

Related Pages on SafeWise

Your Ultimate Room by Room Guide to Senior Safety

The Best Safety Wearables

Sources:

AAA: Digest of Motor Laws, “Driver’s License Renewal: United States”

American Academy of Ophthalmology, Eye Wiki, “Driving Restrictions per State”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: CDC Features, “Older Driver Safety Awareness Week”

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: Highway Loss Data Institute, Status Report, “Backstop: Rear crash prevention ratings aim to reduce parking lot collisions”

USA Today, “Old cars everywhere: Average vehicle age hits all-time high”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Motor Vehicle Safety, “Older Adult Drivers”

AAA: Foundation for Traffic Safety, “Rates of Motor Vehicle Crashes, Injuries and Deaths in Relation to Driver Age, United States, 2014-2015”

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