#i heard it and went home and immediately started writing a con artist who is in deep over his head lmao

[ineffmoth]

currently in that stage of writing where there are only like two songs that are doing it for me as inspiration for the specific tone i'm after so i just keep listening to them over and over again and can feel myself getting sick of them

[ibijau]

chap 2 of the modern xisangyao, also on AO3

Against his better judgement, Meng Yao finds himself quite charmed by the too handsome researcher who wants to meet his employer

Mister Shanzi will be unhappy when he discovers that Meng Yao has agreed to meet with a researcher without first consulting him, but he is simply too curious. It is so odd for anyone to be so interested in that obscure painter, and so desperate to see more of his work. Of course, Mister Shanzi himself holds a clear interest in Nie Huaisang, one that he has unwillingly transmitted to Meng Yao… But mister Shanzi is an odd man, and ordinary people cannot be compared to him. 

For this reason, Meng Yao's first instinct upon being contacted by Lan Xichen had been suspicion. Mister Shanzi has his enemies, as Meng Yao knows well, and they try to act clever sometimes. 

His second instinct, after a quick internet search, had been amusement. Surely nobody expected him to believe that this man, handsome enough to play the lead in a drama, was a mere university teacher. 

A more thorough search had confirmed it though. Meng Yao knew enough about running a con to spot modified photos and fake credentials, and he had found none of that. Digging further, Lan Xichen appeared in the background of photos and was referenced here and there on relatives' social media, with no incoherence to the presentation he'd given in his email. 

So Meng Yao had found himself intrigued, and offered to meet and chat. 

A decision he half regrets now, because somehow, Lan Xichen is even more handsome in person. He is, in fact, the single most beautiful person that Meng Yao has seen in his life, easily outranking mister Shanzi who had reigned there supreme since the day Meng Yao met him during a con gone wrong. 

"I am so glad you offered to meet me," Lan Xichen says with a warm smile. "I am really sorry that I was so insistent, but it is so rare for several of Nie Huaisang’s works to be in a single place."

“I understand,” Meng Yao replies, trying to match the warmth of that smile when he can’t help being a little dazzled by that handsome stranger. “Though at the moment, my employer is a little wary of showing any of those paintings in his possession until he has inspected them all again. It is very embarrassing that several fakes fooled him, and mister Shanzi wants to restore his reputation. He is still getting used to modern technology, and how much it has changed the art market in recent decades.”

Mostly, mister Shanzi complains a lot on the matter, and keeps saying he’s going to have to change career soon. Apparently, back in the days, it was much easier to sell a decent fake as long as you also sold enough real things. But now with age testing of the paper and analysis of the ink, it’s nearly impossible to do a good enough job.

Of course mister Shanzi could quite easily make as much money only selling legitimate art, he has the connections, the collection, and impeccable taste. So Meng Yao suspects it’s not just about money, and more about the twisted joy of deceiving others. He can't fault him for that.

“Yes, that makes sense,” Lan Xichen sighs. “I was fooled as well, so I understand the feeling. It’s so disappointing, but not unexpected. Nie Huaisang attracts forgers like no other artists.”

Meng Yao nods sympathetically. He’s heard mister Shanzi boast that well over half of Nie Huaisang’s paintings in circulation are copies he made himself, and perfectly undetectable unless one runs those ‘damn new tests’ on them.

“If I may be so bold, why the interest in that particular painter?” Meng Yao asks. “Surely you could have found someone less complicated to study.”

Rather than to answer immediately, Lan Xichen considers the question. He takes a sip of tea with more elegance than this café deserves, and Meng Yao is struck once more with the idea that this man should be acting in drama, not writing essays nobody will ever read. It’s easy to imagine Lan Xichen playing the role of a noble prince, or even a god. 

“He’s just a fascinating character I suppose,” Lan Xichen says at last. “Outside of his art, we know so little about him. We don’t even know his real name.”

“What?”

Lan Xichen smiles, clearly very pleased to have gotten that reaction.

“He wasn’t born Nie Huaisang,” he explains. “That’s only his courtesy name. You see, he belonged to that… well, they called themselves a sect, though at the end of the day they were closer to nobility, with the same inheritance problems and power struggles. Still, Qinghe Nie held a number of beliefs, and one of them was that the birth name of its members had to be kept a complete secret… and Nie Huaisang is among those who succeeded at obeying that rule. So we don’t know his name, we don’t know his date of birth, and we don’t know how he died or when.”

“Is there anything that is known about him?” Meng Yao teases, more endeared and intrigued than he would care to admit.

Lan Xichen must notice, because he smiles again, as if delighted to have found someone willing to listen to his impromptu lecture.

“We know he was raised by his brother because their father died when they were young,” Lan Xichen says. “Well, half-brother. Nie Huaisang was the child of a concubine, or even of a servant. His father recognised him, but his legitimacy was called in question a few times. We know he survived a local insurrection nicknamed the Sunshot Campaign, though it’s unclear if he was old enough to have taken part in any fighting. His brother did though, with great success, but died without heirs a few years later and Nie Huaisang found himself in charge of a fief.”

He pauses there, his expression turning sadder, as if he were talking of a personal friend rather than a long dead man. Meng Yao finds it ridiculous and a little endearing.

“A few anecdotes from the lives of contemporaries tell us that he must have had a rough time at first,” Lan Xichen continues, “and he was suspected for a while of being implicated in the murder of the head of the Jin clan, but nothing ever came out of that. He’s just thirty at that point, still fairly young, and he lives on for another fifty, maybe sixty years… and we don’t know anything about what he does during that time. Nobody really talks about Qinghe Nie again until his successor rises to power and brings the clan back into the political sphere. Nie Huaisang’s life is a mystery. What little we think we know comes from the few poems he left, and whatever clues we can gather from his numerous paintings. Isn’t that fascinating?”

What’s fascinating, Meng Yao thinks, is the way Lan Xichen’s eyes light up when talking about something he’s passionate about. If it’s an act, then it’s an excellent one… but Meng Yao finds himself hoping that it’s sincere, that Lan Xichen really is just an odd man who is apparently half in love with a painter who died a millennium and a half ago.

There is no way that mister Shanzi would ever let anyone see his private collection. Even Meng Yao is barely allowed to go to his employer’s house, to avoid attracting attention to the place. Lan Xichen’s request is never going to be granted.

But it has been a long while since Meng Yao has been so intrigued by someone, not since first meeting mister Shanzi in fact. And mister Shanzi, in spite of the mutual attraction that Meng Yao knows to be there, has made it quite clear that he isn’t interested in anything but a professional relationship. Meng Yao has satisfied himself with that so far, because his life really is pretty good as it currently is, but Lan Xichen changes that. Surely there’s no harm in pretending that there’s a chance he might get to see the painting, at least until Meng Yao can decide if that too handsome man is trustworthy or not, dateworthy or not…

“It does sound interesting,” Meng Yao admits. “I’m sure mister Shanzi would…”

His phone starts vibrating, interrupting him. Meng Yao can’t help a slight frown, which turns to a deeper one when he sees the message he’s just received.

“Well, I have to go,” he sighs. “I’m really sorry. But… mister Lan, if I may be so bold, would you agree to exchanging numbers? That way we can continue talking about this more easily.”

“Yes, of course,” Lan Xichen replies. There is a trace of pink on his cheeks as he takes out his own phone, which Meng Yao finds both very fetching and rather encouraging.

He’ll have to be careful, this could be a trap, Lan Xichen might be an excellent actor, part of a team skilled enough to have fooled Meng Yao, but… but he might not be, too, and it would be a shame to miss this chance.

After having exchanged numbers and promised to be in touch soon, Meng Yao quickly heads home. He lives on the edges of the city, in a building that already looked ancient when he was a kid. Today’s a good day, because the lift is, in fact, actually working for once.

Upon getting to his floor, Meng Yao goes to knock on the door next to his. It opens nearly immediately.

“Meng Yao, you’re saving my life,” the young woman who lives there greets him. “I’m really sorry, I’ve tried everyone else, but I’ve been called in for an extra shift and I need the money so bad, I’ve had to buy her new shoes this month, and…”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind at all.”

His neighbour thanks him again, and rushes inside. She’s back quickly, her daughter in her arms. The child nearly throws herself at Meng Yao, and her mother runs off to work, leaving them alone.

“Well, Beastie, it’s just you and me,” Meng Yao says, walking to his door. “What are we going to do tonight?”

“Watch fighting movies! Eat candies!”

“And what will we tell mama we did?”

“Watch documentaries and eat greens and I went to bed and I was good!” The little girl roars.

Meng Yao laughs, and puts her down while he unlocks his door. Beastie runs inside to check the tv, while Meng Yao makes sure they actually have something to eat. He tries to keep his fridge full and his cabinet fuller, especially since Beastie has become a regular at his place. Her mother is a hard working girl who, like Meng Yao’s mother, got pregnant too young from a man who didn’t stick around. He used to babysit Beastie for extra cash before meeting mister Shanzi, and for some reason he never really stopped, even if he refuses to take money for it now. He just likes Beastie and her mom, and he remembers how much his own mother used to rely on neighbours too, whenever things became rough.

As Beastie and him settle down for the night, ready to watch one of those cheesy, over the top old kung-fu movies that they both love, Meng Yao gets a text from Lan Xichen, thanking him again for meeting him. After only the briefest of hesitations, Meng Yao quickly answers that he’s sorry he had to leave so fast, because he loved chatting with Lan Xichen. This prompts another text from the handsome teacher, to which Meng Yao replies as well.

His phone doesn’t stop buzzing all nigh, and Meng Yao doesn't stop smiling. 

-

In the days and weeks that follow, Meng Yao and Lan Xichen manage to meet in person a few more times, and text nearly constantly. At their second meeting they’re still pretending that this is only about Lan Xichen’s research, but by the third one they start openly chatting about other things.

Lan Xichen is very open about his life, and everything he says fits with what Meng Yao had found during his initial investigation. He has a little brother nearly fifteen years younger than him who lives with him, he enjoys teaching and researching equally, he has a pet rabbit called Liebing he dotes on, he can’t handle spice at all, he has, in fact, been asked more than once if he was interested in a modelling or acting career but always refused because academia is his calling.

Meng Yao is more careful with the information he shares. He admits to having worked for mister Shanzi for nearly five years, but doesn’t elaborate on how they meet because that's not a story for honest people. He confesses he didn’t have any particular interest in art until taking the job, though he has tried to educate himself on the subject since then (Lan Xichen offers to go to a museum together someday, and to his own surprise, Meng Yao agrees). He doesn’t have pets, but he does have Beastie and he’s pretty sure that counts.

The way Lan Xichen’s eyes go soft over that… it does things to Meng Yao’s poor heart.

As does almost everything Lan Xichen does or says, in fact.

Meng Yao is half appalled at himself for how fast he’s falling for Lan Xichen. He tries to resist it, tries to be reasonable, but Lan Xichen just has to smile the right way, and Meng Yao’s heart flutters in his chest. He feels like a teenager with a crush.

He starts thinking like one, too.

Ever since meeting mister Shanzi, Meng Yao has been loyal to his employer. There is something about the man that demands it, and though he has never made threats of any sorts, Meng Yao can feel that mister Shanzi is not a man who takes kindly to betrayal.

And yet, it would be so easy to arrange for Lan Xichen to come to mister Shanzi’s home without his knowledge. Meng Yao is in charge of his employer’s schedule, so he knows where he is at any given time. He also has the keys to that isolated house in the middle of nowhere. It would be so easy, and Meng Yao has never been too good at resisting temptation.

At this point, he knows that if he tells Lan Xichen he won't see the paintings, the other man will be disappointed but will ask if they can keep seeing each other anyway. This isn't about finding a way to keep his attention: Meng Yao knows he has it already. 

It's about Meng Yao guessing how happy Lan Xichen will be to see those paintings, and deciding surely that's worth the risk. 

That’s how Meng Yao and Lan Xichen find themselves in a car one day, heading out of the city together. Meng Yao feels his skin buzzing with nerves, though every time he takes his eyes from the road to glance at Lan Xichen and finds him glowing and as excited as a child, he knows it was the right choice. It takes them a few hours to get to the house, which they spend chatting about a number of things. About midway through the trip, when they take a break, Meng Yao announces that due to a last minute problem, mister Shanzi won’t be able to meet them at the house, but welcomes them to check the paintings without him. Lan Xichen is of course disappointed and offers to try again another time, but Meng Yao convinces him it’s more convenient to go that day.

The house, hidden in a bamboo forest, takes Lan Xichen’s breath away when he discovers it, just as it did for Meng Yao the first time. It’s not particularly big or extravagant, but there’s something about it that makes Meng Yao’s heart ache every time he sees it, as if he’s known it before. It’s ridiculous, of course. He’d never really left the city before starting to work for mister Shanzi.

“It looks like home,” Lan Xichen whispers as he exits the car.

“Does your family have a place like that?”

Lan Xichen frowns, and shakes his head. “No, not at all. But it still feels like home. I can’t explain why… Ah, don’t mind me. Let’s just go inside.”

Meng Yao hides a smile and goes to open the door. In truth, he’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible. Mister Shanzi has no reason to be back from his trip until tomorrow, but Meng Yao won’t feel safe until they’ve left. It really is stupid to have come here at all, and even Lan Xichen’s happiness is starting to not feel worth the risk.

The house is quiet when they go in, and a little cold, making them shiver. It’s always fresh in there, which Meng Yao assumes is why mister Shanzi has taken to calling his home the Hanshi. 

“It’s not a very welcoming name for a home,” Lan Xichen says as he looks around, sounding a little distracted.

“It’s not much of a home anyway. He doesn’t live here most of the time,” Meng Yao explains as they head for the kitchen. “It has his private collection, a few personal belongings, and that’s it. He prefers to stay with friends or at hotels if he can. Check the fridge and you’ll see how bad it is.”

While Meng Yao pours himself a glass of water, Lan Xichen does check the fridge, and finds it predictably empty except for some forgotten leftovers. Sometimes, Meng Yao suspects that mister Shanzi doesn’t eat at all unless he has company.

After taking a moment to rest from the long trip, Meng Yao takes Lan Xichen toward the workshop in the basement, where he knows his employer usually keeps the best parts of his collection, fake and authentic paintings carefully divided according to a system he taught to Meng Yao.

It really feels more and more like a betrayal to be doing this, but Lan Xichen is glowing, and mister Shanzi will never know.

Meng Yao starts opening the door.

His blood turns to ice when he realises that there’s light inside the room.

He thinks, for a second, to stop and run away while he can, but it’s too late already. Lan Xichen would ask questions, and he wouldn’t like the answers. It could save him from also dealing with mister Shanzi’s fury at least, but even that won’t be afforded to him. When Meng Yao peaks inside, mister Shanzi’s swivel chair is turning toward the door, with mister Shanzi sitting crossed leg in it and looking curiously at the intruders.

It is painfully obvious that mister Shanzi isn’t expecting visitors. Instead of the polished outfits he favours in public, he’s wearing a pair of novelty boxers with emoji on them, and a hoodie two sizes too big with ink stains on the sleeves. His long hair isn’t in a neat braid, but in a messy bun held in place by some cheap chopsticks. In short, mister Shanzi doesn’t look like the refined young man he endeavours to be when he has to show his face somewhere, and more like a college student who has forgotten the taste of any food except instant noodle and energy drinks.

That impression is only made worse by the headphones he’s now lowering, and the game console on his lap. They must have caught him taking a break.

“Meng Yao, why are you…” mister Shanzi starts asking, unfolding his legs so he can stand up, only to interrupt himself when his gaze falls on Lan Xichen.

His hands start shaking, badly enough that his console falls from his grip and onto the floor, its screen cracking upon impact.

“You!” mister Shanzi gasps, eyes wide with terror.

[softest-cinnamon-roll]

Could I get a part 2 of that reddie office au??

part two to this prompt 

* * * * *

Eddie watched as Beverly sat on his bed, scrolling through her phone in excitement. Occasionally, she’d glance up at him with wide eyes, grinning from ear to ear which only made Eddie groan internally and wish he had never opened his mouth.

“I can’t believe it’s been almost a week and you haven’t messaged him yet. He was clearly into you!” Bev gasped, throwing herself back on Eddie’s bed dramatically. “Richie Tozier gave you his number and you haven’t messaged him yet. Why not?”

A flush rose up on Eddie’s cheeks and he looked away from his friend and down at his own phone. Richie’s contact name stared back up at him and a nervous flutter overtook his stomach. “I don’t know Bev, I just…I’ve been hurt before and I also don’t want this to affect him joining the company.”

Bev scoffed, “Eddie, how many times have I told you to quit that shitty job. They don’t give two craps about you and even though you do a pretty important job, most of them think you’re there just to run after them and fetch teas and coffees.”

Eddie sighed, because Bev was right, she always was. Eddie’s job was rubbish, and he hated having to wake up every morning and go do a job he hated more than anything in the world. The only thing was, it paid well and he had an apartment and car to run. He needed the money more than the happiness. “I can’t quit Bev…I need to find another job first and no-one is hiring at this time of year.”

“No-one is hiring at any time of the year because you’re not looking…” Bev sighed. Just then her phone went off and she glanced at it before standing up. “That’s Ben, we’re going to catch a movie. Seriously Eddie, call him. Go out on a date, see what happens. Be spontaneous for once.”

She left him with those words of Marsh Wisdom and Eddie locked the door behind her, collapsing onto the sofa. He flicked on the TV to some Hallmark Christmas movie and curled up under his blanket, occasionally glancing at his phone. There was no way he could call Richie Tozier. There was no way that he had been serious when he gave him his number. He was probably drunk. Yeah, that’s it.

The following day was Monday, and Eddie was back in the office of hell. As he made his way to his desk, Bradley stopped him and passed him a piece of paper with coffee orders on it. Eddie opened his mouth to protest, but Bradley was already talking. “We have a meeting this morning. Important one. We need these coffees pronto or you might find yourself out of a job.” With that, he walked away, leaving Eddie with the list.

Eddie knew better than to argue, as Bradley would just tell someone he’d broken a rule and he’d end up with another write up. He sighed and made his way to the kitchen, making quick work of the orders before setting them on a tray and heading to the large boardroom. He knocked three times and when he was called to enter, he opened the door and wheeled the tray inside.

What Eddie didn’t expect to find when he opened the door was Richie Tozier sitting in one of the seats. Their eyes locked and his cheeks turned a light red as he smiled just a little. Before he could greet him, Bradley’s high pitched voice was in his ear, “Jesus, I didn’t mean from the kitchen! I meant from the actual coffee shop! You can’t expect Mr Tozier to drink this crap!”

Suddenly, Eddie’s face was red for a completely different reason and he glanced around the room to see the other colleagues looking completely embarrassed, including Mr Gray. The boss cleared his throat, “Now, Elmar, please go and fetch the coffees from the coffee shop. Immediately.”

Eddie started to back out of the room, but before he made it to the door, Richie cleared his throat and everyone turned their attention to him. “This coffee is fine actually. Also, I thought his name was Eddie and he worked in the Risk Department? What is he doing fetching coffee? Don’t you have interns for that?”

“Oh the interns have much better things to be doing,” Bradley laughed. “They are here to learn, after all, not fetch coffee. That’s what Elmar is for.” The other clients and colleagues in the boardroom snorted, covering their mouths to hide their obnoxious laugh.

Tears filled up behind Eddie’s eyes and all he really wanted to do was hide under a table and never have to see any of these people ever again. Yet, as he was about to leave the room and run all the way home, Eddie stopped and turned back around, facing the group.

“I quit.” He muttered, immediately feeling a weight lift off of his shoulders. He spoke a little louder; “I quit. I am handing in my resignation effective immediately. I never want to see any of your faces ever again. I am done being your busboy, I’m done with you treating me like shit and pretending I’m not even here! Also, my name is Eddie not Elmar or Edwin or any other name you call me by. It’s Eddie!” He let out a breath, whipping his head to Richie who was staring at him in shock. “Also, you shouldn’t sign a deal with them. They’re just going to con you out of all your money. I’ll be expecting my last paycheck on payday.”

With that, Eddie left the boardroom, making his way back to his office and starting to pack up his things. He wanted to be out of there before Mr Gray caught up to him and screamed at him for speaking to Mr Tozier in that manner. In all honesty, at that point, Eddie couldn’t give a shit. He pulled his bag over his shoulder and waved a flimsy goodbye to Annabell who was staring at him from the front desk in shock.

As he passed the board room to head to the elevator, he spotted Mr Gray, Bradley and Monia trying to convince Richie to still sign the deal that was sitting out on the table. Just before he reached the elevator, Richie looked up and their eyes locked for the second time that day. He sent him a shy smile before stepping into the elevator and pressing the ground floor button.

The feeling of stepping out into the fresh air, stress free and finally out of the dead end job made Eddie feel like he was on cloud nine. He only managed to make it a few hundred yards down the street when he heard someone calling out his name from behind him. He turned out, his eyes widening as he realised it was Richie Tozier running towards him.

“Eddie, hi.” Richie smiled, catching his breath. His cheeks were already red from the cold air, hair tousled from when he’d been running his fingers through it. Eddie thought he looked much more handsome than he had at the party. “You never text…”

Oh, right. Eddie hadn’t messaged Richie because he had been scared, yet here Richie was standing in front of him after running after him. “I- I wasn’t sure the offer was genuine. I didn’t want to end up being the brunt of a bad joke...again.”

Richie’s smile dropped and he glanced behind him, “Honestly, after seeing all that in there? I don’t blame you.” He took a step forward. “But I want you to know that I was being genuine, I wanted you to text me. I was going to ask you out on a date, and I wanted to get to know you.”

Eddie flushed, tucking his blonde hair behind his ear as he looked down at the pavement. He looked back up, smiling just a little bit, “Well...if I’m not too late?”

“You’re definitely not too late,” Richie grinned. “How about I take you out to lunch and you tell me more about how this company was planning to con me out of money?” He asked and held out his arm for Eddie to take. “And in return, I’ll wine and dine you like you’ve never been before. How does that sound?”

Unable to say no, Eddie nodded his head and reached out to accept Richie’s outstretched arm. “It would be my pleasure.”

* * * * *

@richietoaster @tozier-boy @eds-trashmouth @bitchbrak @sloppybitchreddie @its-stranger-than-you-think @maximusfraker @jem-carstairs-is-perfection @thejadeazalea @halfway-happy353 @tinyarmedtrex @inthebreadbinwrites @kat-ships-everything @takeourpure @lo-v-ers @that-weird-girls-blog @studpuffin @s-s-georgie @reddie-for-anything @trashmouthtozierr @richietoizer @girasol-eddie @bi-bi-richie @honeybeehanlon @mars-14 @reddiesetandgo @marsisaplanetyall @xandertheundead @sedanleystanley @hawkinsbabe @beepbeeprichiellc @stellarbisexual @oldguybones @stanleuyris @eduardoandale  @purplepoisonedgem @reddie-to-cryy @pink-psychic @violetreddie @toziesque @queen-sock @appojoos @moonlightrichie @rreddies @disneyfan567 @annxmatron @lifesucksheres20bucks @anellope @roobarrtrashmouth @are-you-reddie-for-it @callmechee @nancynwheeler @reddieforlove @twoidiotsinl0ve @madi-artist @tozierking @s-onora @atownofeggs  @wilding-throught-thehallways @no-she-wasnt-reddie @dadbodrichie @thorn-harvester-ven @eddiekasbpark @sparklingrainbowdragon @ransonelovebot @gloire-celeste @derrylosers @3tothe1 @virgo-luthie @sashadrowned

[annafm]

(MEDALION RAHIMI, NONBINARY) - Have you seen ANNABEL MAJIDI? ANNA is in HER/THEIR JUNIOR year. The LITERATURE + INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM MAJOR is 22 years old & is a SCORPIO. People say SHE/THEY are DILIGENT, ADROIT, CYNICAL and AUSTERE. Rumors say they’re a member of WINTHROP. I heard from the gossip blog that THEY ARE FAKING BEING A PSYCHIC. (JAMES. 21. EST. THEY/THEM.)

hllo this is anna i hvnt .. played her in a while <3 bt thts okay i think she is very fun 2 play bt like in the way tht she is <3 serious n mean a bit ... bt its okay .. LHKDSGFHLKSDHLKG im sorry this is long this is. an old intro i hvnt rly changed much >.>

CAR ACCIDENT, INJURY TW

aesthetic.

falling feathers darkened at the tips, tweed and pinstripes, red trenchcoats and plaid skirts, worn ballet shoes covered in dust, smudged eyeliner and unruly hair, boxing gloves, ornate canes and pain medication, bandaged hands, classical music floating throughout an empty ballroom, worn jackets and awkwardly cut t-shirts, spilled ink and stained hands, glasses skewed, sneers and jabs, constant fighting, smog in a city, spotlights and encores, piles of books and a long line, backless dresses and sitting alone at a bar, wariness.

basic.

full name: annabel odeda majidi

nickname(s): anna, annie (father only), anna-banana (father only)

b.o.d. - october 31st, 1997

label(s): the catalyst, the charlatan, the minefield, etc.

height: 5′6″

hometown: nyc, ny

sexuality: bisexual

pinterest

stats

favorite song: you’re dead, norma tanega / now, your hope and compassion is gone / you’ve sold out your dream to the world / stay dead, stay dead, stay dead / you’re dead and outta this world

background.

born to two high schoolers who never married, firoj majidi and parvana banai. they were head over heels for each other - when firoj graduated he took up two jobs alongside community college to support their family, until parvana graduated and took on the arts.

growing up was tough - living in the city wasn’t cheap, parvana’s art rarely sold and the two often went without eating in order to provide for annabel. as a child she’d often wear hand-me-downs from extended family.

was taught to be a hard worker and it was reflected in her schoolwork - anna excelled in all her classes but especially english. her love for writing grew at a young age, and as a child she saved up enough money to buy herself proper journals.

the only thing that she grew more passionate towards than writing was ballet - she caught the image of girls flying through the air and landing on their toes in the window of a dance studio on a walk home from school one day and that was it - something clicked inside of her.

that same day she would spend hours prancing about their tiny apartment, trying to mimic what she’d seen. it was easy to spot the passion anna had for the dance - and within a few months they had saved up enough money for a month’s worth of lessons.

anna was ecstatic - her slippers were old and found in the back of a thrift store by an odd miracle, but she put her all into the lessons regardless. she was quick to pick up on each move, and by the end of the month it was clear that anna had a natural talent.

parvana picked up a job in order for them to keep affording the lessons, month after month - they weighed down on their pockets, but it kept anna happy.

flash forward a few years - life was good. money was still a struggle but they were tight knit.

or rather, anna thought they were tight knit.

firoj and parvana split up when anna was twelve - an event that rocked the young girl’s world, something that she couldn’t understand. they had kept up a front of love when anna was home from school or ballet - but behind doors, they had been growing apart.

anna viewed their separation as parvana running off with another man - an art collector who had a fascination with paravana’s paintings. she viewed this as the end of the world. she viewed this as the death of love.

when anna was twelve, she swore she would never fall in love - refused to believe in its existence. she couldn’t wrap her mind around the simple separation.

her father got a third job in order to keep up with payments, and anna pushed herself in both ballet and school - not being able to handle an empty apartment. she decided to get a job - to help ease her father, but was too young.

so anna decided to do what any average 12 year old would do. she started scamming people.

she’d sell store-bought lemonade as if it were homemade, stole ceramics from art class and sold them to neighbors. she found an old girl scouts uniform in the back of a goodwill and for the next month, she sold knock-off girl scout cookies from the dollar store - going door to door.

her personality had changed drastically - anna went from a sweet, optimistic girl with warm brown eyes and an infectious laugh to cold, calculated, and downright cruel. she knew what she wanted and how to get it.

she got an invitation to a prestigious private school, full scholarship, before she hit high school - originally wanted to reject it as the thought of being surrounded by new york’s richest teens was appalling, but their ballet program was a one-way ticket into the american ballet theatre. anna ultimately accepted the scholarship.

high school was immediately hell for her - pretentious rich kids who all shared a collective brain cell and her secondhand uniform being a prime target for them.

ballet got extremely competitive - anna was a threat to every dancer in their program, bullying and sabotage became standard - but anna retaliated when possible.

this all, however, suddenly stopped when anna picked up her latest scam: faking psychic. through a small network of ‘bees’ she’d pay to gather information (gossip, rumors, etc. etc.) she was able to accurately ~see~ into students’ past, present, and potentially future affairs. the money was very worth it.

from that point forward, people were intimidated by her.

when anna was 16 she was handpicked to join the american ballet theatre’s studio company, alongside 11 other lucky individuals. her dream from that point forward was to become the youngest principal ballerina for abt - and she was going to start by winning over the role of clara in their production of the nutcracker.

she was 17 when she was chosen, much to the dismay of the other girls. she had momentarily quit her ‘psychic’ business in order to dedicate the entirety of her time towards rehearsals & practice.

the final week before her first performance as clara, anna got into a car accident heading home after another tiresome rehearsal. knocked unconscious, anna woke up three days later with no recollection of the accident - and her leg freshly operated on.

it was a devastating event that should had killed her - maybe she would had been better off if it had - but instead, it had effectively destroyed any chances of her dancing professionally.

it took two months of extensive physical therapy for anna to walk again - now relying heavily on a cane.

with ptsd and depression weighing heavily on her shoulders, anna turned back to writing - mostly as a coping mechanism, but it soon became the fierce passion it once was when she was younger.

for the remainder of her high school life, anna dedicated the majority of her time towards recovery, her writing, and directing her school’s theatre productions. oh - and claiming that almost dying had given her the gift of mediumship. it wasn’t too far off from her psychic claims - her peers believed it well enough to either stay away, or pay her for a small amount of comfort.

decided to attend yates for their reputation despite her hatred for pretentious schools (very ironic because she herself is pretentious) & also. she had a scholarship <3 so. 

in the midst of writing her first book that’s based heavily on her experiences as a low income student at a private school but like. she’s side-eying all these societies and seeing a Big Money Grab if she were to. write abt them instead

still can’t dance any longer, but she works as a ballet assistant for one of the dance instructors & still tends to barge her way into theatre rehearsals to <3 give her unwarranted opinion

personality & facts.

she’s not the friendliest person. knows what she wants and how to get it, and will not hesitate to use people or push them out of her way in order to achieve her goals.

her cutthroat nature was the reason for her success in academics and dance - tends to intimidate the students in the ballet classes she helps out in.

horribly stubborn - if she’s got an idea of you already in her mind, then it’s hard to convince her otherwise.

still uses a cane - in fact, she can’t really walk without it - unless she wants to be in pain.

it’s sturdy, ornate, and pretty fucking solid. doubles as a weapon if need be - has definitely … hit people with it before, though she’s calmed down now that she’s a little older.

used to be very angry, very defensive as a teenager - is still the same, just … less intense. will not hesitate to speak her mind and let her opinions known - especially in the face of injustice.

doesn’t really have the best … relationship with authority, mainly because of where she was raised and her con-artist businesses. tends to be snarky and sarcastic to anybody in charge - or really, anybody in general.

pretty distrusting, pretty emotionless on the outside, doesn’t like to be seen as weak or somebody to be pitied. keeps herself closely guarded and doesn’t really let others ‘inside’ due to her own comfort levels.

she’ll sleep around but dating is out of the question, for the most part - she’s been on a few blind dates, a few casual get-togethers - but she’s always the one to break things off. is more of a careful hook-up kind of gal.

still does her psychic medium business !! sometimes she wonders if she’s a bad person because of it - but ultimately, it’s on her customers for believing in all that nonsense anyway. anna herself is a skeptic - doesn’t believe in anything unless she can see it and feel it.

is actually … a pretty sentimental person, doesn’t take anything she’s got for granted, and is hugely appreciative of her father. sends him money when she can. hasn’t spoken to her mother in years - pretty sure she’s got a step / half-sibling or two but she’s never met them.

a lone wolf and likes it that way, but she isn’t super opposed to friendship - even if she won’t necessarily call anybody a friend. appreciates others who are similar to her - got their head on right, and knows what they want in life.

has a pretty bad fear of driving - will uber if she needs to go anywhere - even then, being in cars makes her pretty anxious. still has ptsd-induced panic attacks, though she’s managed them pretty well.

doesn’t really do drugs! will smoke weed to ease the ache and her nerves, but otherwise she only takes what is prescribed for her. doesn’t drink anything hard, either. big fan of beer and wine. probably gets wine drunk home alone late at night … like … two times a week.

goes between being high strung and uncaring - she’s not especially moody ( rather, is just consistently angry for whatever reasons ) but she definitely tries to bottle everything up.

probably keeps pepper spray on her at all times, even though she’s got her cane. has cat ear brass knuckles on her keychain - took advantage of the archery club at her private school. she’s not paranoid, she just likes being prepared.

has a soft spot for children, animals, and soft women. kind of person who will put herself in the line of danger in order to protect others - even if she doesn’t necessarily know them too well.

also the kind of person who’ll set something on fire - or do something because you’ve told her not to. incredibly spiteful when wronged. will raise hell if need be.

morally ambiguous tbh.

wanted connections.

who do u think i am ;; either uh. people who have seen her around campus being a bit of a freak like <3 kick someone’s tire in a small fit of rage <3 or spend 20 minutes trying to coax a cat near her so she could pet it <3 or having a that’s so raven moment <3 or someone who tried to help her out with something and she was like. excuse me. what the fuck. get away from me freak loser. maybe threatened them.

slowburn but make it evil ;; uh. when i played her as older she hd a plot where she <3 ws engaged n then broke it off bcos her fiance cheated <3 so i wld like another. plot where she actually <3 tries to enjoy someone else’s company and presence and it just ends up hurting her n reaffirming her idea tht love is? fake n dumb n stupid. thank u.

ykno ... a little dash of spice ... ;; uh. yknow just hookups. hateships <3 or they never talk abt what happened <3 or an awkward drunk one night stand <3 maybe a pregnancy scare and shes like Ah. motherhood Scares me. because she <3 hates her own mother <3 LDSLKFHLGSHLK. it leaves their relationship rly weird the whole ordeal ... maybe even just a blind date <3 or someone she ghosted

read my future ;; customers very classic uh. just people who come to her for her psychic readings <3 and her uh. talking to the dead <3 but also alternately. skeptics ?? people suspicious of her ?? very epic. 

like actually Die? ;; enemies. she hates them so bad. maybe its one-sided. maybe theyre an annoyance. maybe she annoys them? very bad not very good. 

and we dance dance dance, dance dance dance <3 ;; this is just. fr ballet students. or, hold up, consider this: someone who recognizes her frm this. very tragic event where she cld no longer b a ballerina bc i think it ws. like not the Biggest deal bt if ur muse ran in private school circles ykno ??

pet the feral cat ;; these r the soft <3 normal connections <3 someone she’s soft for / protective of. friends that she doesn’t completely hate. 

i Do Not Know ;; i will. take anything. please. weed dealers, people she’s totally sus about for no reason. she steals and reads their mail. they have been rivals for years. they hv a special bond. they r strangers but they get stuck in an elevator. she’s tutoring them bt she wont let them take a break n she keeps making them recite fucking. shakespeare. anything is sexy and fun n cool

[queencatherynerhys]

Stuck With You - White Collar Story

Prologue

Summary: Neal Caffrey had met his fair share of interesting women over the years. Once or twice he thought he had known what love meant. But he learned what being in love was like when he met her. Now he must face a future without her. How will he survive?

A/N: I know I haven’t been non-existent in Tumblr world and TRR fandom. I’ve been working on this story for a while. I was looking through fanfiction stories and realized there's never really been a Neal/Female OC angst story that caught my eye. I just don't know why, so I decided to write one of my own.

 The character's voices might be a little different than you've come to know if you’ve watched the amazing show. If not, I highly recommend it. White Collar is one to binge through these uncertain times we live in. I’ve rewatched it several times now. 

I apologize for any errors. I feel like I didn't capture it very well. But please leave a like or better yet a comment if you like it and I will post the next chapter.

Disclaimer: Characters mostly belong to Jeff Eastin. OCs and the plot concept are mine. 

Peter was in his car heading towards his home to have a quick lunch with his wife. He didn't normally do it since he's always so busy with a case, but he found himself with a rare opportunity of nothing to do for a couple of hours since he delegated all that needed to be taken care of to Neal, Diana, and Jones. He turned on the police scanner in his car. He didn't need to listen to it because he normally doesn't respond to the calls, but he uses it anyway to get an idea of which road to avoid in the case there was traffic accident. He didn't expect the call that came next.

The female voice informed nearby officers to respond on a gunshot female victim on the corner of 2nd Ave. and East 17th street. Peter crinkled his brow upon hearing the street corner. Why does that sound and seem familiar? He thought to himself. Isn't that where Stuyvesant Park is? Stuyvesant Park…that's where she's supposed to meet the buyer…it can't be…he thought as he connected the dots. He immediately turned on his siren. Better to be safe than sorry, right? What's the harm in making sure it's not her on the radio? He thought as he pushed on the accelerator to drive faster. He pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket and called Neal and told him to meet him where on that street corner. He didn't give him a chance to ask what it was about before he hung up and concentrated on getting to his destination fast.

Flashing blue and red lights shone in the distance. Firefighters and EMT rushed about to attend to the emergency while policemen secured the area. Onlookers and bystanders paused from their daily routine to watch the commotion unfolding in front of them. Some of them were whispering to each other. Others had a look of misery and sadness as if knowing that the grim reaper had come to collect another soul.

Peter hurriedly arrived on the scene after being alerted in his radio about the gunshot victim. He flashed his badge to the policeman guarding the yellow tape. He stood aside and lifted the caution strip to let the special agent inside.

Peter's worse scenario was confirmed when he saw that it was her that was lying and bleeding on the ground. He watched with a worried face as the medical team encircled her. He saw as her eyes fluttered weakly towards him. She tried to lift her hand and beckon him.

"Ma'am try to relax, please," one of the EMT workers said.

"Peter," she ignored the advice and groans as she coughed up a bit of blood.

Peter knelt by her and held her reaching hand for comfort and support. He was not one to be squeamish around blood, but how was it possible to have so much around her? Was it his imagination? His guilt? It looked as if she was covered entirely in a pool of red. So bright and accusing that it was all he could see.

"Kell…it's Keller…" she warned. Peter's face fell and became red with anger as he heard what she said. He looked down and shook his head with disbelief as he pursed his lips The bastard was back in his city. He still hadn't forgotten what he did to Elizabeth, and now he'd come after one of their own again. But he couldn't worry about the dastardly criminal right now, his attention needed to be on the young woman in front of him fighting for her life. He saw her open her mouth to say something, but just groaned and coughed up more blood.

"Ryne, save your energy," he pleaded.

"One more thing…Tell Neal…I'm sorry…and that…that I love him…please, Peter…promise me…" she whispered before her fearful, begging eyes closed. He felt her grip weaken. Her breathing became more shallow. The medical team tried to hide their panic looks. They worked even faster to prep her for transport to the nearest hospital. Even though, she was unconscious Peter still felt the need to reply to her wish.

"I promise, Ryne, but you're going to be ok. You're going to be able to say those things to Neal, alright," he told her with feigned encouragement because he didn't know if she really would be able to. He didn't know if she heard him, but he hoped she did. Her wounds looked ghastly. He noticed that it looked like she suffered two gunshot wounds, one on the abdomen and the other on the chest.

The EMTs shooed Peter away so they could rush Ryne to the hospital. He went back and stood to the side trying to manage the shock and the gravity of the situation she was under. Ryne was able to tell him who shot her, but he was more worried about what Neal would do once he found out. Peter glanced at his hands and saw that her blood was smeared all over it. He realized that she was lying on the sidewalk slowly slipping because of him. It was his fault.

At the other side of the block, Neal rounded off the corner casually strolling where Peter told him to meet immediately. Even though his friend sounded rushed on the phone, he didn't bother walking faster as he thought it was just another break on the case they were currently working on. A conman was never late, everyone else was simply early.

Neal's eyes were immediately bombarded by the blinding, flashing lights of the emergency and police vehicles. He saw Peter exit his black government car and rushed to where the commotion was happening. He decided to pick up his pace then as he still had a bit of ways to go to reach the street corner, and now he had to fight the increasing throng of bystanders trying to make their way to the site to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

He saw Peter kneel and hold a woman's hand. Neal tried to look around the growing crowd and immediately stopped in his track when he saw the face of the woman beside his kneeling friend, whose hands he was holding. Everything disappeared around him and all he could see was her face. It was as if the world was in slow motion. He didn't hear the busy sounds of the concrete jungle. All he could hear was the nervous beating of his heart.

His face went ashen with fear and shock he had never known followed by an unbearable stab of pain in his heart. Before he knew or realized it, his feet were leading him in full pace towards where she laid. His panicked blue eyes were only trained on her. He saw the scene in slow motion. He saw her lose consciousness. He saw her once youthful glow become deathly pale or was it his imagination? He ran even faster to get to her in time.

"Let me through…excuse me…get out of my way…" he pushed his way through the crowd until he reached the barricade and a uniformed officer stopped him from entering.

"It's alright. Let him in. He's with me," Peter said behind the policeman. He nodded in response and let Neal in. He arrived just as the EMT lifted Ryne's unconscious body and started rolling her towards the back of the ambulance. He tried to rush by her side. His hand touched her cold skin before Peter grabbed and held him back.

"Ryne! Ryne!" All he could do was shout her name.

"Sir, please, let us do our job and take her to the hospital. If she doesn't receive immediate treatment her chances become very slim," one of the technicians said but he didn't hear any of it on the account of the blood rushing to his head. Neal trashed in the agent's arms, but his grip was stronger. He just stood and watched as the team lifted her gurney onto the back of the truck. As soon as she was inside, Neal heard deathly loud tones coming from the machine attached to her. When a second ago he couldn't hear anything, now all he could hear were the harsh fast beeps of the heart monitor.

"She's going to cardiac arrest. Prep the defibrillator. And get me an oxygen bag just in case," the lady paramedic said to her partner.

Neal watched them work around each other. He couldn't believe what was happening. He thought it couldn't get any worse, but he was wrong. His worse nightmare became a living hell. He saw her body shake uncontrollably until all he could hear was a flat tone signaling the sign of no life.

"No! No! No!" Neal screamed as he struggled in his friend's arms. That was the last thing he heard before the ambulance doors closed. He wanted to touch her soft and warm skin, to see her beautiful eyes open, to hear her heavenly voice. But all he did was watch her be driven and taken further away from him.

Neal didn't realize he was crying until he tasted the salt on his lips. As a world-renowned con artist, he trained himself to always put a mask and never show his true face or show vulnerability to the public, but who cared about that now when the love of his life was slipping away from him. He turned to face Peter and to demand some answers.

"Peter, what the hell happened?" Neal cried breathlessly. When he saw Peter's hands covered with blood, his knees almost buckled out of nausea. He didn't have to ask to know it was hers. Bile threatened to come up, but he quickly took hold of his fear to prevent looking more vulnerable and weaker especially in front of the bystanders watching them, or more specifically, watching him.

Peter led him away towards his car. He didn't answer his question or said anything else he just guided Neal to the passenger seat. When he sat down, Peter made his way towards the drivers side and sped away to the direction of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. They didn't speak during the ride and tension built within the small confine of the vehicle. Peter kept glancing at Neal, but he only stared ahead unblinking.

Not more than fifteen minutes later, they arrived and burst through the door of the emergency room. Neal ran to the reception desk to ask the status for a Ms. Ryne Beneventi. The receptionist typed in her computer and spouted off typical medical jargon.

"She arrived not long ago. They managed to restart her heart. She was rushed to emergency surgery, so it will be a while till you hear anything," she recited almost monotonously as if she didn't care about what happened to her.

Neal controlled his anger and just walked away towards where the vending machines stood. He paced back and forth the tiny hallway. He clenched and unclenched his hands over and over again. He felt so weak and tired. He leaned on the side of one of the machines to rest and shut get away from all of it for a second, but all he could see was her unconscious body. He thought of Ryne and how he would give anything to trade places with her right now.

He couldn't hold his emotions in anymore and he burst into tears as he slid down the side of the machine. He was so close to losing her. He still could. He rested his elbows on his raised knees and covered his tears with his shaking hands.

Peter's heart broke as Neal fell apart. All he could do was watch. He didn't know how to help, but he thought a simple gesture would be a start. He knelt in front of his friend shielding him away from the eyes of people passing by. He reached out and patted Neal's shoulder lightly to let him know he was there to support him.

Neal willed himself to calm down. It took most of his strength, but he managed to hold his tears back in. Even though what he wanted to do was scream at the world, he didn't. Instead he sealed his emotions temporarily and put on a steely face. Not for himself but for the love of his life. He knows she's fighting to come back to him, so will he. He will fight and be strong so when she wakes up, he's there to welcome her. Slowly, he stood up and dusted his Devore suit and faced his friend.

"Peter, what happened?" He asked again this time determined to not be ignored. Peter hesitated to look his friend in the eye, afraid of what might come when he tells him of what he learned. But if he learned anything about Neal over the last several years was that he'd stop at nothing to learn the truth, so he didn't really have a choice but to tell him Ryne's last words.

[peaky-shelby]

Back to you [4]

“Thunderstorms in spring„

Pairing: oc x Halstead bothers

Previous: prologue, episode one, episode two

Series summary: an old friend comes back and is need for help from the Halstead brother’s. Will this story end in heartbreak or a win?

Episode summary: Loralai talks to jay about the case and she and will are back to their old ways.

Words: 1745

Warngings: lots of angst this time, angry will

Author’s note: quite ironically this page is only the calm before the real storm. Some big revelations happening in the next chapter woohoo!! Please keep commenting and sending feedback it’s the only way I’m motivated to keep writing and it helps a lot. Thank you!! (+) quick dedication to @peachlle for reading and commenting, you are amazing♥️ I hope you’ll enjoy!!

Jay entered the hospital with a file in his hands. Turns out Ruzek had managed to shoot and kill one of the three guys that had attacked them earlier in the day and that was their only lead. They followed it but nothing good came out except a few random names and a photograph. He was hoping Loralai would have more to tell now that she was awake.

He stopped his pace when he heard loud voices coming from Loralai’s room, he took a peek and saw Will standing next her, shaking his head. His was very familiar with this picture of the two of them.

“This isn’t a joke Loralai!” Shouted Will. Jay felt like he was taken back to Will’s old apartment, listening to them fighting on their bedroom while he was in the living room, trying to ignore them.

“Isn’t it?” She asked, her voice loud and clear “because it feels like we’re back in time! It’s always the same fight with you Will, the same dialogue! You haven’t even changed your lines!”

“My lines? What about your ways Lor? How many times do you have to get hit to realize that you gotta stop—“

“IT’S MY JOB!” She shouted back.

“Your job is to write not to dodge bullets and pray that you’ll survive!”

“I don’t care wether I’ll survive or not!” She spat “even if I die, at least I’m dying for a reason! People will hear the stories that matter—“

“And what about the people that love you?” He asked, cutting her off before she could say anything else “what about your parents? Your sister? Me? Jay who saw you bleeding out in his hands? You die and then what happens to us? You really think it’s gonna be that easy for us to let go?”

Loralai scoffed “it didn’t seem like it was that hard for you to let me go three years ago.” She looked away “which reminds me. You are not even my boyfriend and I’m not your girlfriend so why the hell are we even fighting about this?”

Will didn’t answer to that, even Jay could feel how much it must have hurt him when she said those words. It was a cruel reminder but the truth. Will didn’t need to listen to anymore if it and as he stepped out of the room and turned the other way he bumped into Jay. He held him still.

“You ok Bud?” He asked but all Will could do was move his head. There was so much anger in his eyes, Jay expected to see smoke coming out of his ears. He looked down, rubbing his face, there were so many things he wanted to say but couldn’t so instead he settled of the typical “I have to go.”

Jay watched him leave without stopping him and then looked at the door to Loralai’s room. He fixed his jacket, like he was about to get in a ring and took a moment from himself to gather all the strength he could before he stepped inside. It was weird to see her again, awake. She was staring at the ceiling, biting her lip and scratching the sheets with her nails like she always did when she was angry. Ah, the details.

“Hello Sherlock.” He said, getting her attention. Her face light up immediately when she saw him, like she had been expecting him. She reached for him with her arms and jay walked quickly to her, wrapping his hands gently around her. He was so happy to see her safe and healthy. “How you feeling?” He asked, pulling away just enough to look at her.

“Better now that I don’t have your brother yelling at me.”

“he’s just worried about you a lot and you don’t make it easy for him—“

“That’s bullshit Jay! How many times a day do you have a gun pointed at your head? Why doesn’t he give you that speech of love and death— he thinks because I’m a woman I can’t take care of myself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Loralai! He texts me everyday to make sure I’m ok, he’s as worried for me as he is for you the only difference is I’ve been trained to dodge the bullets! You barely know how to hold a gun!”

Loralai didn’t say anything and before she could come up with a smart reply jay left the file he was holding on the bed and pulled out one of the photographs. “Have you ever seen this guy before?”

Loralai accepted the change in subject and took a moment for herself to think. “No.”

“Ruzek shot him while he was running away. He’s the only one we got from the car. We have no other leads so I was hoping you’d tell me more.” He sat down on the chair next to her bed, waiting to hear her story.

She sighed, looking at the ceiling “one month ago there was a fire at the Heathwood’s family house do you remember?”

“Yes it was an accident—

“Except it wasn’t.” She said confidently. “My editor asked me to write a piece on it and Michael Heathwood who had magically survived. It was a Miracle, the kind of shit that people love to read. But when I met with him...”

“You knew there was something wrong” he finished her sentence and bowed his head “why didn’t you go to the police?”

“The police were on it Jay! They porpusly looked the other way. If I went he would find out! So I did it myself. I looked as deep as I could. His wife, Alicia Stewart, died only one month before the explosion from a car accident and When the house exploded his father in law, Stefan Stewart and his mother in law, Carla Stewart were the only ones that died.”

“You saying he wanted to kill that family?”

“im saying there are far too many coincidences Jay!” She cleared her throat “so I might have illegally checked his bank accounts.” Jay raised his eyebrows and stood still across from her. He didn’t approve at all of what she had told him “I didn’t find anything which was even weirder”

“And I don’t suppose you gave up from then on...”

“I spied on him, searched everything I had on him and you wanna know something funny? Michael heathwood didn’t even exist two years ago!”

“Wait wait—“ He raised his hands, signaling her to slow down. “What?”

“His real name is Peter Evans! He’s a con artist! He tricks rich families, kills them, takes their money, saves it under a different name and runs.”

Jay stood up, pacing the room until he balanced himself on the edge of the bed, trying to process everything that she had told him. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you! Make sure that this..” He pointed at her wounds “wouldn’t happen!”

“I had to get enough evidence first. Create the story. If he realized I was on to him he’d disappear in thin air”

He stood straight again, crossing his arms “And Where is your evidence?”

“In the flash drive I gave you!”

Jay didn’t answer, he narrowed his eyes looking at her confused. “What flash drive?”

“In the car!” She insisted “I gave you a USB! Did you lose it?”

Jay hid his face in his palms “it must have fallen on the car.” He said, trying to reassure himself that the information was safe. He looked back at Loralai reaching for her hand and giving it a light squeeze “we’ll find it.” He told her. She held his hand before he could slip it away and he looked in her eyes, his heart beating a little faster. It was the bruise right under her eye that made his body shiver, he couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

“I owe you an apology...” she whispered, completely changing the subject. He tried to fake a smile as if he didn’t understand.

“For getting shot at?”

“Jay—“

“Don’t.” He warned “Not now. We’ll talk when all this is over.” He brought her hand up to his lips and gave it a light kiss before exiting the room. On his way out he caught Will behind the reception, making some notes but he decided not to bother him. Will saw him too from the corner of his eye but he was still angry from before to have any conversation with any body.

When he finished writing his notes he looked towards Loralai’s room. She had her eyes closed and she looked like she was about to fall asleep, god knows she needed that rest. He sat down on a chair, watching her sleep. He couldn’t go home and he couldn’t go in her room after their argument so this was the best way to check up on her and make sure she’d be ok. After a while he started to fall asleep himself. The position of his neck was so uncomfortable that kept waking him up and annoying him. When he opened his eyes again because of the pain he saw Loralai moving nervously on her bed. Turning her head right and left and whimpering. He jumped of his chair and rushed to her side.

First thing he did was check her wounds but he saw nothing alarming. When his hand touched her skin, her eyes shot open and she grabbed for his wrist. She looked so terrified to him, so broken, nothing like the confident girl he was used to having around. All the time he knew her there was always one thing she couldn’t battle and that was her nightmares.

He made sure to look calm and not scare her anymore than she already was. “Hey hey it’s ok. It’s just me. Lor?” He held her hand softly, stroking her fingers until she broke down into tears. This was the first time he had seen her cry today, all it took was a nightmare. He sat next to her on the bed, pulling her swiftly in his arms to warm her. He caressed her back and kissed her forehead, whispering sweet words in her hair, his breath falling on her like a veil of safety. She snuggled closer while he spoke, reassuring her that it would be alright.

He always thought of her like a thunderstorm in spring. It didn’t rain a lot but when it did... it was hell.

[lamortexiii]

Cryptic Mystic: Ouija & You

We’ve all heard of ouija boards. Maybe you played with one as a kid. Maybe you come from a place where they are forbidden. Why do certain cultures view this divine board as deserving of high praise, while others are terrified of it? Maybe you should be terrified, or maybe… if you know what you’re doing and you’re careful... you may have found exactly what you’re looking for. Get ready to explore the catacombs of ouija stemming from its origins to what we know it as today. Strange encounters, myths, mediums, and tales of yore; we will dive into some of the mysterious happenings that surround the Ouija board.

Before the Ouija board there was the “talking board.” The talking board is a descendent of automatic writing, also known as psychography, in which a person thought to have psychic abilities is able to write words without consciously thinking about it. Automatic writing can be traced back to China as early as 1100 AD. The Chinese termed this activity “fuji” or “planchette writing.” A planchette is the heart-shaped tool used as your guide when engaging with a Ouija board. Similar practices have been found in various countries around the world.

During the spiritualist movement of the late 1800s mediums began using this technique as a part of their ritualistic practices. This became especially popular with those who had lost loved ones during war and those who had served in the war and lost combat buddies. Due to the skepticism of legit mediumship, talking boards slowly became associated with part of this skepticism.

A businessman from Baltimore, Maryland named Elijah Bond discovered talking boards one day and decided to make a patent on the boards and planchettes, turning them into the “family fun game” we know today as sold by toy companies. His patent was granted in 1891, and the mass manufacturing of talking boards began. The name “Ouija board” and its origins are up for speculation. One story from one of the manufacturers of the original boards said that he learned the name “Ouija” by using a talking board, and that he was told this means “good luck” in an ancient Egyptian language. After his experience he began terming the boards as Ouija boards, and that is supposedly how we know them today. Another story suggests that an employee of Bond named William Fuld coined the name Ouija from a combination of French and German words for “yes.” The actual origin of the name is a mystery, but these are the most popular stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. To be completely honest, I always thought there was a cool story behind the term. Nope,  just boring old businessmen trying to make a quick buck. *hard eye roll*

Scientists have an explanation for the phenomenon that takes place whenever someone engages with a Ouija board. Their theory is that the movement of the planchette across the board is caused by an ideomotor response. This is a psychological response in which someone makes movements unconsciously. The unconscious mind is thought to produce answers in a way that psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual's normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions. Many studies have shown that participants move the planchette around the board themselves involuntarily. Don’t ask me how they measure an involuntary movement versus a voluntary one - I don’t know. I have to challenge this theory, as there is much we do not know about the world around us, and the many worlds around this one. In the early 1900s as research continued to be conducted on this phenomenon, many more skeptics surfaced as Ouija boards were used by con-artists for financial gain. This progressed to Ouija boards being associated with cults in the 1970s. If you were seen using a Ouija board in that time you may be thought to be a “devil worshiper,” because Christians began to spread the word that whenever people were using these boards they were talking to demons rather than entities from another realm. In more recent times, Ouija boards have been burned alongside Harry Potter books as being considered witchcraft.

I have a few noteworthy encounters with Ouija boards that I feel are important to share with you. The first was when I was about 12 years old. I was at a friend’s house. We used the board in their home between 5 of us. Most of the kids were goofing off and not taking it seriously, so I lost interest. That is, until my friend’s younger brother started freaking out. A terrified look spread across his face as he told us that he had seen a dark figure pass behind us in the room. We all thought he was joking, but then he got up and started screaming. Because of all of the commotion, my friend’s mother noticed what we were doing and ordered that we take the board out of the house immediately. We weren’t supposed to have the Ouija board in her house, but one of the kids had managed to sneak one in. Two of the kids that had brought the board to the house left with the board and took off down the street. My friend’s little brother followed them. My friend and I hung back for a few minutes, but then decided to take a walk around town. As we got to the end of the alley that was beside her house we noticed her brother and the other two kids by the soda machine at the corner store. There was a small fire burning in front of them. Within the fire was the Ouija board. My friend screamed at them, “what the fuck are you doing?!” We were both a little upset that they were going to the extreme of burning it. Her brother told us it was his idea after what he had seen in their house, and that he was not joking with us. We let them be, and continued to walk around town for about an hour. When we got back to her house I couldn’t believe my eyes. On the front porch sitting on the edge of a bench was the Ouija board in perfect condition. There were no burn marks, scratches, or dirt. It looked as though it hadn’t been touched. We immediately went to my friend’s brother and our other two friends who were playing video games in his bedroom. My friend begged to know what kind of trickery they were pulling on us. They swore they didn’t trick us and that they had burnt the board and threw the small remnants in a dumpster. No one ever figured out how the Ouija board ended up in perfect condition back at their house, but my friend did end up keeping it under her bed to hide it from her mom. We would bring it out every now and again, just not in front of her brother.

Another time, when I was 13 I was at another friend’s house. She lived with her mother and her boyfriend in the projects. There was a spare bedroom in their unit that her older sister had used to stay there for a while before she got another place to live. One day when I was hanging out at my friend’s place she asked me if I wanted to break out her Ouija board. I knew that she was big into witchcraft and dark arts, and she was a good friend, so I trusted her judgement. This was much different than the time with my other friends because this time it would be just me and this friend, and she was familiar with her Ouija board. While I was there I remember she made a circle of salt around us, and dropped some sort of oils around while she recited an incantation. She called this “blessing the board,” and said it would protect us from anything evil that may be present. Shortly after we started we got a hit. We talked to a man who said he was murdered in the 1800s and thrown in a nearby creek. The reason he was murdered is because he was accused of sleeping with a married man’s wife. He claimed he was innocent. When he died he was in his 20s. He was a local to the area. After we were done talking with him, my friend closed the board and did a different incantation before we were finished. It was an interesting experience that gave me goosebumps. This experience was much better than my initial one. I did question whether or not my friend was moving the planchette, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and trusted that she wasn’t and that the experience we had was a legit encounter with something not of this world.

Personally, I believe there is something more to Ouija boards that is powerful. I believe Ouija boards to be yet another mysterious unknown that we only know a fragment about. Think about it - where do ideas come from? What or who planted the seed for this thought; this idea that spiraled into what we know today as the Ouija board. If you notice, it came in stages and progressed into the modern board that we know today. Some documentaries have made mention of the ancient Egyptians holding key knowledge to how this world and other worlds work, and that this gift was bestowed on them from the Gods or “sky people.” One of the theories of how the Ouija board got its name has potential origins in ancient Egypt. Could it be that other life forms set this idea into motion all of those years ago, knowing what automatic writing would eventually turn into? Could it be that the power that we experience when engaging with a Ouija board is somehow related to extraterrestrials? Is this why there is a strong emphasis on the sun, moon, and stars within the drawings and carvings surrounding Ouija board decor? One thing is for certain, there is much more to the Ouija board than meets the eye. This practice has been around for thousands of years. We would be foolish to not at least question the “what if’s” that surround some of the mysteries of its origin and capabilities. As I always say, at the end of the day you choose what you want to believe.

Cryptic Mystic Blog by PsychVVitch

www.LaMorteXiii.com

[redstarwriting]

For A Reason

Stephen Strange x Platonic!Reader

Request: “Can you do one where the reader lost her dad @ 14, she's now 17, she's been living alone.She was closest with her dad because her mom left them. Stephen Strange runs into her and she peaks his interest, he convinces her to let him take her in. She starts to get attached to him and sees him as a father figure.She then forces herself to turn cold, she doesn't want to loose him like her dad.He notices and confronts her about it. She starts crying and explaining and he comforts her. Lots of fluff😊”

Word Count: 2,037

Genre: Fluff | Platonic

Warnings: Crying, Death, Guns, Sad past

A/N: This one took a while because I had work and a few other things I had to do, but here it is! I love Stephen Strange and honestly I could write about him all the time. I’m so excited for Doctor Strange 2 and it won’t even come out until like next year lol I’m a mess. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one! Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday so I may or may not post. Enjoy!

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Living alone in New York at seventeen years old wasn’t an easy feat. Lucky for you, you’ve been doing that since you were only fourteen. It was difficult at times considering it was only you, a literal child, squatting in and out of abandoned buildings. However, being a child on the run made you very street smart. You could pick-pocket like nobody’s business and you were surprisingly good at holding your own against people who tried to threaten you. You also learned how to get an all new identity, which was essential for where you’re at now. In reality, you’re seventeen. On paper, you’re nineteen. Your age didn’t really matter, but it threw people off on who you really were. You needed that for… personal reasons. So funny enough, you weren’t known as (Y/N) (L/N) to your landlord or anyone else you meet. Your name now is Serenity Andrews. You definitely prefer your real name, but a fake name was needed.

All your sneaking around is a way for you to make money on the outside of your job, which is a librarian. Your real job is actually where you learned everything you know since you dropped out of school after everything in your life went to shit. Since you helped people rent books, no one batted an eye when you would read books that could only be classified as textbooks. You were actually pretty smart even though you were technically a dropout. Not on paper though. Your “secret identity” graduated from a school in Nevada. Anyways, you don’t go to work for another hour, so you decided to go to Times Square and make some extra money. Unknown to you, there’s a man who can see everything you’re doing.

He observes you as you effortlessly pickpocket people, and needless to say he finds you intriguing. You don’t see him watching you, or even following you to your place of work. You go inside the library, saying hi to the other workers before getting behind the librarian desk and grabbing a random educational book. You quickly become lost in it, and don’t even notice someone coming up to the counter. “Excuse me, miss,” you hear a deep voice say, and it startles you. You look up to see a thirty-six-year-old man holding a book, looking at you expectantly. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” you say, immediately closing your book and grabbing his. You go to scan the barcode but realize there isn’t one. “Are you looking to donate a book to the library today?”

“No.” You look at him with an eyebrow raised. “This isn’t a book that belongs to this library.”

“I know. I think you could learn something from reading it.”

You scoff, opening the book to see it talking about something… different. Something, dare you say, magical. “You a con artist?” You close the book, pushing it across the counter and back to him. “No, but you are, ‘Serenity Andrews.’ I saw what you were doing in Times Square today.” Shit.

“Ah-hah… yeah, well I have no response to that other than please don’t tell the police… please?”

“I won’t tell the police because I see promise in you.” He pushes the book back towards you. “You see promise in me? What does that even mean?”

“Well, (Y/N), I think you’d excel in the mystic arts. I see potential in you.”

“How did you know my real name?”

“I know a lot. If I’ve peaked your interest like you’ve peaked mine, come to the address.” You tilt your head a bit when the book suddenly opens. You jump and look down at it in surprise, but when you look back up, the man isn’t there anymore. “Address? What address is he even talking about?” you mumble to yourself, closing the book and putting it in your bag. When you shove it in, a piece of paper falls out of it and onto the floor. You pick it up. Scrawled on it is an address. “177A Bleecker Street…” you mumble to yourself before shoving the paper in your pocket.

Against your better judgement, you found yourself standing outside of 177A Bleecker Street at six in the afternoon on a Tuesday night. “I’m being ridiculous,” you say to yourself, raising your hand to knock. Before your hand even makes contact with the wood, you’re transported to a new area. You stumble, nearly falling into the very expensive looking objects surrounding you. “Shit!”

“Ah, yes. That’s usually how most people feel after I transport them,” you hear a familiar voice. You look up and see none other than the man who visited you at the library today. Except this time, he was wearing a cape. “Is that a cape? Who the hell are you and what is this place?”

“No, it’s a cloak. I, am Doctor Stephen Strange and you are inside the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“The Sandman Scrotum? What two words did you just make up?”

“You sound a lot like Tony Stark,” he says, semi glaring at you. “You know Tony Stark?” Your jaw is basically on the floor considering this man knows Iron Man and you steal for a living. “Yes. Sadly. This isn’t a Sandman Scrotum. If you wanted to see a Sandman Scrotum I would have taken you to Spider-Man, he and Sandman have a great relationship. This,” he says, motioning around him with his hands, “is the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“Yeah, I’m still not sure what that means.”

“This is where I’m going to teach you everything I know. And we begin now.”

From that moment on you were bombarded nonstop with books, spells, and training. Your life on the outside world basically just vanished, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you had a home. You knew about every nook and cranny in the Sanctum, and often time Stephen would find you in an isolated corner, studying up on something. You were unbearable to him at first, constantly making quips and smartass comments, but he grew to appreciate them. He would just respond with his own headassery, and you two would go back and forth for hours. Wong hated it, but he also loved it because of how amusing it was. He once made the comment that you two acted like a daughter and a father because you two were basically glued at the hip. You two had formed a very close bond, and you definitely did look up to him as a father figure. But that scared you.

After about six months, you started becoming distant. You would barely speak to him only talking if you had a question on something. When he would fire a comment at you, you would just shrug it off and act like he never said anything. You would eat your dinner anywhere else than where he was. It was odd. You were acting strange. Eventually, he had enough. He wanted his not really a daughter but kind of a daughter because even though you aren’t his own flesh and blood you act exactly like him and it’s a bit uncanny but pretty awesome because finally someone who can put up with him back. So, while you were curled up in a corner, reading a book as you usually did, you suddenly felt the all too familiar feeling of being teleported. You glance up from your book to see Doctor Strange looking back at you. “Any reason you’re disrupting my reading?”

“You’ve been acting different lately.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh, come on (Y/N). Don’t act like I haven’t noticed. You’ve been avoiding me! And it’s not like that time you avoided me because I wouldn’t let you eat a pint of ice cream for dinner which, by the way, is still a stupid idea. Do you have any idea how disgusting you would feel afterwards? I don’t want to get into it right now, back to the situation at hand,” he shakes his head, leaning forward to talk to you better, “It’s been actual avoiding me. You go out of your way to not see me. I noticed. And I want to know why.” You just stare at him, not saying anything. It feels like an hour passes of you two being in a fierce staring battle before he sighs. “I just want to know what’s wrong, (Y/N). I know Wong said it as a joke, but I really do care for you like you’re my daughter.” That pushed you over the edge.

You immediately start crying, and Stephen just looks at you with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.  Lucky for him, his cloak is a huge softy, so it immediately unwraps from his shoulders and goes over to you. It envelops your whole body, frantically trying to wipe your tears away for you. You somewhat giggle, and then Stephen’s voice rings out. “Okay, now you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“…I don’t want to lose you like I lost my dad.” He goes quiet, and you sigh. The tears don’t stop, but you begin telling him your story. You tell him about how your mother left when you were a baby. It was only you and your father for the next multiple years of your life. You and your father were ridiculously close being you two were the only person the other had. Then one day, it all just stopped. You two were living in your two-bedroom apartment. You were busy doing homework in your room when you heard a crash and some yelling. Then you heard a loud bang. You quickly ran and hid in your closet, terrified of the noises you just heard. You only came out when you heard the voices of the criminals who broke into your home fade away. You carefully opened your door, peeking out only to see your dad on the ground. You ran over to him when you saw the bullet wound. You knew it was already too late when you saw him.

“So that’s why I was on the run. I didn’t have any other family and I was scared. I just left. I changed my hair and met some people who could change who I was. I didn’t want the cops to find out that I survived, they thought the robbers kidnapped me. From that day on, I didn’t have anyone. No family at all. And then you came along and ruined my loner dynamic and now I’m scared because if I lose the person I look up to the most again, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recover,” you sob, and he immediately hugs you. “(Y/N), you’re not going to lose me,” he tells you in a soft voice and you nod, finally giving in. “You being so distant scared me. I thought I did something wrong. It’s funny how you can feel such a strong bond with someone in such a fast time, but it’s like you really are my daughter. When I look at you, I see everything I wanted you to become. It’s actually impressive. I’m just so proud of the person you’ve become, and I know in the future I’ll only be even more proud.”

“While that made me feel better, it makes me feel weird hearing you be all soft. I imagine this is what Cloak would sound like if it could talk,” you say, sniffling. Stephen chuckles, looking at you as you pull away from the cute little embrace you two just had. “I’m sorry for being a dad, but I had to tell you that I was proud of you since I am.”

“Yeah, well next time tell me that I don’t suck as much as you thought I would, that sounds more normal to me.” He laughs, ruffling your hair and you roll your eyes. You had a rough past, and you definitely missed your dad. No matter what happened, nobody could replace him. But Stephen came pretty close. And although you sometimes wonder what your life would be like if you didn’t lose your dad all those years ago, you love your life now. Like Stephen always says. Everything happens for a reason.

[queencocoakimmie]

Only You

Chapter 5

Duncan Shepherd x Female Reader

Word Count: +3000

Warnings: Angst, Smut, Stalking, Daddy kink, Oral sex, Creampie.

            When I got home later on that day, I was incredibly happy to be back in my own space. After spending the morning trying to figure out how to sneak down the stairs without anyone noticing, eventually I gave up and trotted down confidently. I’m certain they all heard me last night and my apparent vivid dream about Duncan. Brunch was waiting for me on the table and a car was ready to take me home afterward. Coming back, I was relieved to see the two flights of stairs it takes to get up to my small apartment.

           Walking inside I could tell my friends had stayed over, waiting up for me all night to get the details on how it went. There was still the lingering smell of body wash from the shower and fruity lotion permeating throughout my place. A note left on the kitchen counter explained that they had cleaned me out of rosé and popcorn. When I didn’t come home, they just figured that I had gotten laid. “Good for you, honey” they signed. I can just imagine all those girls in here, all sprawled out on my couch and rug in front of the television. It was a proper slumber party.

I contemplated crashing right there on the armchair when I received a message on my phone. It was him. Duncan was texting to see if I made it home safely. I didn’t write back right away though. I still needed to change and get myself together. I was still wearing his old t-shirt and sweatpants, and my hair was still damp from the shower, “I’ll text him back later.” I say to myself.

An hour later, I woke up to my doorbell buzzing. I walked groggily to the door, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. When I opened it, right there in front of me stood Duncan Shepherd. The shock knocked me back onto my heels. “Duncan, what are you doing here? I thought you had to work?” There was a bit of anger behind those piercing blue eyes of his, his mouth tightened into a straight line, “I got worried about you when you didn’t write me back.” I stood there in the doorway, dumbfounded, “And you came all the way over here to check on me? You couldn’t call?” Annoyance starting to creep up in my voice. He tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, “I did,” he paused, “several times.”

I look down at my phone, and indeed he had called, four times to be exact. I slid the phone into the back pocket of my shorts, “Shit, sorry. I must have fallen asleep when you called. This phone kind of sucks.” Embarrassed, I looked down at my bare feet, before I had realized that I was in a cut off t-shirt and short shorts. My eyes darted back to him and he was dressed impeccably, of course. “I really wasn’t expecting company,” I say under my breath.

“Really? You look like perfection to me,” his eyes hungrily tracing the curves of my body, stopping at my bare midriff. “So, are you going to let me in, or am I going to stand out here in the hallway all day?” he says as he runs his fingers through his hair.

“Um sure, “I stumble over my words, “Yeah, how rude of me, come in.” I open the door wider and as he walks by me; I take a second to inhale his cologne. I close my eyes and draw it in, immediately my body begins to tingle, my mind flush with nasty thoughts of him. My heart skips a beat when I become fully aware that Duncan Shepherd and I are alone. In my apartment. Together.

I close the door behind me and follow him to my living room. “I’d give you a tour, but this is basically it.” My apartment is small, but it’s eclectic. Bohemian themed, with lots of purples and greens, tons of fluffy pillows and artwork from local artists on my walls. He eyes my easel that is set up over by my window that overlooks the bustling street down below. “I had no idea that you painted,” he says. I grin and walk over it, pulling the sheet over the piece I had just started. “I do it in my spare time when I’m not working or studying.”

He shakes his head, “Tell me again, why you want to be some stuffy corporate lawyer? By the looks of it,” he joins me at the easel and starts to lift the sheet, “you’re a damn good artist.” I grab his wrist, nervously I say, “Don’t, it’s not finished yet.” An awkward pause hangs in the air before I ask if he wants a drink. “My friends drank all of my rosé, I have sweet tea if you like?” He nods his head and replies that he’ll have whatever I am.

“Duncan, I am sorry that I missed your call, still though, you didn’t have to come all the way over here to check on me. Really. I’m a big girl.” He takes a seat on the stool in front of the counter as I slide the glass of tea over to him. “I know, but I feel…I feel very protective of you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He grips his glass tightly and continues, “Something in me changed last night. Listening to you and your stories, watching over you as you slept, to make sure you were ok. Those are things I’ve never done before, with anyone.” He takes a sip, “I’ve thought about you all day. The way you smile, the way you toss your hair over your shoulders. The way you say my name.”

I grab the edge of the counter, to hold myself up. His breathy words and his eyes undressing me, bring about a hunger I haven’t felt in a long time. “Vanessa, you’re not like any other woman I’ve ever known. I would like to make this…exclusive between the two of us. No one else.”

I open my mouth to answer but my phone rings, the obnoxious ringtone signaling that it’s my mother, cuts through the tension in the air. “Hold that thought,” I say as I pick up the phone, “if I don’t answer, I swear she’ll just keep calling.”

“Hola mamá, cómo estás?”

“Si, I came home late last night, I didn’t call you because I didn’t want to wake you.”

I smile and roll my eyes at Duncan.

“Mamá, por favor, te llamaré después,”

I let out an exasperated sigh, my mom unwilling to get off the phone, I make up a lie quick.

“I have an exam on Monday that I’m studying for; don’t you want me to do well, ma?”

She pauses her rant for a minute before she sighs in defeat.

“Ok, ma, I’ll call you when I’m finished. But, If it’s too late then te llamare mañana. Te quiero. Adios.”

 “Your mom seems really sweet. You’re lucky,” he says in a low voice. I set the phone down on the counter, his eyes downcast, the look on his face is a mixture of anguish and sadness. “Are you hungry, Duncan? I’m starving. I can whip us up some arroz con pollo if you want.” He looks up at me and I see relief wash over him, “Sure, that’d be great. I mean, we could always go out or maybe order takeout,” he suggests.

I wave him off, “No way, I ate dinner at your home, it’s only fair that I repay the favor.” That earned another smile from him. Standing here, watching him like this in my kitchen, he looks just like a regular guy, maybe even someone that I would have gone to high school with. There is no pretension in him, no “privilege”, no snobbiness.  The more time we spend together, the more he opens up, the more I feel myself falling for him. As I began cooking, he sheds his leather jacket, hanging it on the back of the barstool, he rolls up his sleeves and starts helping me season the chicken.

We laughed and joked the entire time, as I taught him how to make the dish. He had never really cooked anything himself, so he was extra proud of himself when the rice came out perfect. “Now, if only I could do this at home. Imagine the look on my mother’s face if she saw it. She’d flip out.” The moment he mentioned her; a forlorn look traveled across his face. She was a source of contention for him.

“Hey, I just remembered that I have a secret bottle of wine hidden in my cupboard up there. I knew the girls would be here drinking up all my best booze, so would you mind opening it for me?” I joke. He nods his head, giving me a half-hearted smile. Once he opened the bottle and poured our glasses, dinner was served. “Follow me, I have the perfect spot for us to dine tonight,” I say in my best posh hostess voice. He grabs his plate and silverware and we leave the apartment, headed for the roof.

Once up there, his puzzled look gives way to wonder. My landlord let me decorate the boring rooftop to make it a fantasy away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Fairy lights dusted the tops of the railings, giving everything a golden glow, my tiny vegetable garden tucked away in the corner and a cute little bistro table and chairs were set up in the middle. “I call it my Mid-city’s Night Dream. I know, I’m such a cornball.”

After we set our plates and such down, he grabbed my hands, “This place is perfect. More perfect than any gauche restaurant I’ve ever been to.” He leans in to kiss me, but I pull away, “Our wine glasses! We left them downstairs! I’ll run down and get them.” I don’t know what came over me at that moment, but I felt like I just needed a moment to breathe. 

I run downstairs quickly to grab the bottle and glasses when there was a soft knock on the open door. Startled, I turn around so fast that I almost spill the wine everywhere. It was Scott standing there with a confused look on his face. “Scott, what are you doing here?”

He raises his eyebrows and I follow his gaze to the two wine glasses in my hands, “Um, I just came to check on you. You didn’t return any of my calls, so I thought maybe something had happened to you.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Scott. You no longer have the right to care about me or what I am doing. Seriously, you need to leave,” I say angrily. He steps further into the door frame. “I’ve been calling you over and over. I almost called that friend of yours to see where you were.”

I set the glasses back down onto the counter, “It’s none of your business what I do or where I go. Besides, the call would have been futile, my friends would never tell you anything about me.”

He walks closer to me, stalking me like prey. The anger in his eyes gleaming, “Who’s here Nessie? Is it HIM? Is it Duncan Shepherd?” As he gets closer, I began backing up until I hit the counter, the sting of the pain bites into my lower back.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to scare me?” I bellow. He laughs a throaty laugh, his smile devolving into a sinister sneer, “Is it working?”

He comes too close to me, and I realize that I am trapped between him and the counter. I ready myself to fight him, quickly remembering the self-defense classes my mom had me take before I came here. He brushes my hair behind my ears and goosebumps raise on my arms, not from pleasure but from fear.

“You’re going to fight me now?” he laughs again, “Oh yes, I remember how you like it rough, my sweet. Maybe that’s what you need. You need me to take you down a peg. You rub elbows with some rich bitches, and you’ve seemed to have forgotten your place in this world.”

I shove hard against him, slapping him across the face, “And where is my place, Scott?” I go to slap him again, but he grabs my wrist tightly, staring down at me, a smug smile appears on his lips, “Your place is always going to be beneath me you, little whore.” He pushes himself against me, pinning me to counter. His hands grabbing both of my wrists now and holding them down, he tries to kiss me as I struggle under his weight, “Get the fuck off of me before I kick your ass.” Another cruel laugh and he presses into me harder, rubbing his erection against my stomach, “Squirm for me little mouse, you know how much I like that.”

“What the fuck is going on here? Get off of her,” Duncan yells from the entryway. Scott releases his hold on me and turns to face him. “Just what I thought. Women, they’re like fucking monkeys. They can’t swing to the next branch without still firmly holding on to the other one. Duncan, what are you doing here with my sloppy seconds?”

Duncan’s face becomes a menacing mask of himself, “Poor, irrelevant Scott. You get dumped by a beautiful girl and what do you do? Resort to being the stereotypical jealous prick. All I have to do is make a phone call, and you’ll be fucking ruined. Oh, wait a minute, you already are.”

He walks further into the apartment as I slip out from behind Scott. “Now really, Scott, you should know better. A simpleton like you should know when he’s out of his league. Don’t fuck with me, kid. I’ll bury you and no one will ever come looking. Not even your parents.”

Scott huffs and balls up his fists, “You’re one to talk. Your slut mother and uncle are anyone ever talks about in this town. A real Lannister vibe going on there. You sure HE’s not your daddy?” he taunts.

Duncan lunges at Scott, grasping for his throat. I run over and try to pull him off of him, but he shoves me back with one hand. The rage on his face is terrifying. I try again and this time I’m able to separate the two of them. “You’re a fucking psycho, Shepherd, just like your mother.” I turn around and punch him in the mouth, “Never talk about Duncan in my presence and never talk about his mother. Now, get the fuck outta here, before I call the cops.”

He wipes the blood from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand and spits a wad of it onto the floor. “Bitch. Just wait and see what happens to you next. You’ll wish you were back with me and when you do, I’ll treat you just like you deserve.” He pushes past the both of us and disappears down the stairs.

I slam the door, “Fucking asshole. I’m so sorry Duncan. He ruined everything.” When I turn around, Duncan drives me back into the door, my back slamming against it, “No one has ever defended me before.” He takes my hands in one of his and raises them over my head, his other hand encircling my waist. “No one has ever cared that much.” He kisses me tenderly on the lips, “I’ve never wanted someone as bad as I want you, Vanessa” his lips dangerously close to my neck. I close my eyes in anticipation, and I wet my lips ready for what comes next.

A flick of his tongue on my ear lobe elicits a husky sigh from me. I hear him hum his approval. “Do you want me?” he whispers. I nod my head, unable to answer back. His nose trails down my neck and he releases my hands. They find their way to his perfect hair and entangle themselves in it. His hand travels up my sides and then underneath my shirt. The tips of his fingers grazing against my soft stomach, inching his way up to my front closure bra. More moans escape my lips and he smiles back at me. “How bad do you want me, Vanessa?” I yank his head back and my eyes lock onto him, I kiss his lips forcefully, and murmur against them, “I want you as bad as you want me, Daddy.” He licks my bottom lip and bites it lightly, his thumbs travelling further up my torso, running over my ribs and then finally to my nipples. He pinches them gently and I sigh, “Pinch harder.” When he does, I let out a cry of both pleasure and pain. The wetness pooling in my panties is so hard to ignore, my body starts writhing against his. He removes his hand from my waist and unbuttons my shorts then glides his hand inside.

His thumbs my pussy over the thin soaked fabric of my panties. “Fuck, you’re so wet for me. What is that you want Daddy to do?” He pulls aside my underwear and thrusts two fingers inside of me. I gasp from the sudden intrusion, “I want…I want to feel your lips on mine.” A grin spreads across his face like the Cheshire cat and he licks his lips, “I see. You want Daddy to make you feel good, huh? I can do that.” With both hands, I push him down onto his knees and he pulls my shorts down until they hit the floor. I step out of them and try to tug my panties down until he stops me. “I’ll do it, you just stand still like a good girl,” he commands. My body shaking from the excitement, it takes everything in me to do as he says.

He spreads my legs apart, and with his tongue, his licks my pussy lips through my underwear. I reach up and grab my tit and start to massage it when he pulls my hand away, “I didn’t tell you that you could pleasure yourself did I? No. I said don’t move.” His voice stern and firm, “I tell you what the fuck to do, do you understand?”

He pulls aside my panties and begins to stroke his tongue over my labia, slowly and gently. My body starts to convulse with lust, my legs turning to jelly at the sight of him between my legs, I yell out his name so loudly, I’m certain my neighbors can hear me. His splits my lips open so expertly with his two fingers and forces his tongue inside, his mouth sucking generously on my clit. I can’t take anymore, and I start to buck against his mouth. He stops working me and stands up quickly, “I told you not to move.”

My eyes flutter open, “Huh?” He grabs my hand and leads me to the living room. I sit down on the couch in my soaked panties and he towers over me. “Before we go any further you have to understand something about me,” he says gently. “I like to be a very dominant partner. Meaning I like to give direction, tell you what I want you to do. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, tell me and I’ll stop immediately. Is that something that you’d be ok with?”

I chuckle and pull him by his belt loops closer to me, “Well, what do we do about both of us being dominant? Because I’ve never submitted to anyone.” I unzip his zipper and yank down his pants, “See, I’m not what you think I am,” I pull his boxer briefs all the way down until they too are on the floor. His erection staring me straight in the face, “I’ve become more of an assertive Queen when it comes to every aspect of my life.”

I spit into my hands and carefully take hold of his throbbing dick, “Look at you, Daddy, you’re rock hard. What could I do to help you?” I look up at him with innocent doe eyes.  He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, I place my lips around the tip, gently sucking the precum off it, letting my hands go to work on his shaft. Now it’s his turn to writhe under my touch. In his mind, he was and always had been in total and complete control, but with her, things were vastly different. She made him weak in a way that no one had ever made him feel.

He put his hand on the back of my head, in an attempt to push me down to his pulsating member. I snatch his hand and seize it, chiding him in the process, “Uh-huh, keep your hands to yourself until I tell you otherwise.” He snickered placing one hand on his hip, “Yes, ma’am,” and saluted her with the other. I took him into my mouth leisurely, deliberate in my teasing. I hear a grunt of approval when his dick hits the back of my throat, “Fuck, you take it so well,” he hisses. My mouth closes around it and I begin sucking on it, lavishing it, worshiping it, bathing it in my wetness. My pace quickens and his legs start to tremble. He’s not long for an orgasm, he’s right where I want him.

I pull my head back and a thin trail of spit connects us together. His eyes widen as he looks at me, his mouth agape, sweat dotting his forehead. “Why did you stop?” I stand up and shove him onto the couch, taking my place. He is bewildered and heaving, unaware of what I’m going to do next. So, I straddle him, sliding my panties to the side and slowly guiding myself onto his cock. I grind down against him and his eyes roll back into his head. He is breathless as I speed up, rocking my hips back and forth on him. I can feel my walls stretch around his thickness, the pain is minimal, but I’m aching with bliss. My body needs this, and I haven’t felt this way in so long. Lost in a wave of my own ecstasy, I temporarily forget that he’s there, and I use him and ride him like he’s some object made just for me. My concentration broken only by the sound of my name purring out of his mouth. Begging me to not stop. Pleading with me to let him cum inside of me.

I laugh at his neediness and grip the sofa cushions on either side of his head, giving myself more leverage. The sounds of my wet cunt sliding up and down on him is so lewd and pornographic, that I cry out in sheer elation. I take off my shirt in an instant and when he tries to undo the front clasp of my bra, I smack his hands away. Not breaking my flow, my tight walls clench and release around him and I free my breasts from their fabric prison. The mere vision of them bouncing up and down makes him growl with desire, “Duncan, I like it when you beg, do it again for me Daddy.”

I take his hands and place them on my hips, allowing him to push and pull me. Allowing him to use me like a rag doll, he begins to pump into me, roughly. He digs his fingers down hard enough into my hips, that I know there will be bruises later. This brings me some small satisfaction, knowing that later when he’s gone, I’ll be able to look down and see his marks on me. It makes me want more of him, all of him. I tighten my walls one last time, knowing that this will undo us both.

Shockwaves permeate through our bodies as our orgasms take hold of us. My name on his lips is intensely erotic. I feel his dick throb and pulse until his thick cum trickles down out of my puss and back down onto him. I grind down on him again, effectively draining him dry, making him completely mine. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles into my neck, “Where have you been all of my life.” I pull back a bit and kiss him softly, “I’ve been here, waiting for you.” We sit like this for a bit, even after he’s gone soft inside of me, my head on his shoulder, tracing my fingertips along his collarbone. Suddenly, he jerks up almost knocking me backward, “What? What is it?” I ask.

“Our dinner,” he chuckles, and I screw my face up in confusion, “Our dinner. We left it on the roof!” We both start laughing hysterically before we get ourselves together and head up there to retrieve our now spoiled food. Agreeing that take-out is on the menu for tonight. Not once did either of us notice the shadow hulking in the corner.

The man turns his back on the lovers and starts back down the stairs, running his hand along the railing, whistling a tune. Once at the bottom, he reaches out his hand and slowly turns the doorknob. Before he walks out onto the busy street, he glances back up the stairs. “You think this is over, Nessie? It’s not over until I say it is,” and slams the door shut behind him.

 /Chapter 1/ /Chapter 2/ /Chapter 3/Chapter 4/Chapter 6/Chapter 7/Chapter 8/Chapter 9/Chapter 10

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[neighbours-kid]

CCXP 2019

Or: How Zachary Levi Continues to Be a Blessing

Had anyone told be at the beginning of this year, that I would be going to a comic con, and that I would be meeting Zac again, I’m not sure I would have believed them. But as it so happened, I found out on the last day of early bird sales that Zac would be coming to Cologne to the first ever CCXP on the European continent and I…..I bought tickets immediately.

The last time I saw the man was two years ago in San Diego, where he was hosting SYFY’s Live From ComicCon, which was one of the most amazing weeks of my life. Back then, I finally met so many of my wonderful nerd friends that I had talked to over twitter, and even though NerdHQ was not happening that year, we had a great time around the convention, supporting Zac, dancing our asses off at his parties, going to the auction, and all the other cool stuff we did.

Then last year, I was in New York for six months, during which Zac was filming for Marvellous Mrs Maisel in the city, but since I was busy, and New York is ginormous, I never ran into the man.

I was so excited for Shazam to come out, and just following Zac’s experience with that over twitter and instagram, getting glimpses of the press tour and the conventions he went to over the year, and I was just so happy for everyone who got to see him, for my friends who got to see him again, and it honestly never occurred to me that there is a possibility I could be among the people to see him this year too. I never even considered it.

And then the news came, and I don’t think I really ever hesitated in booking that trip, buying those tickets. I went over my finances real quick, but that was that. And to my luck, or well, thanks to Someone upstairs, I even got to work during my Spring holidays, earn some money, and now that the con is over and I have all my numbers, it honestly pretty much exactly evens out. I spent no more, no less, than the money I earned in that week. Which is incredible all in itself.

When the time finally came to pack my things and hop on a train to Cologne, I was very excited, but also somewhat nervous. It had been quite a moment since I last travelled alone (the last time being my stay abroad in New York, where I had been for six months), and even longer since I had met Zac the last time. But the five hours on the train to Cologne went by unproblematic and I felt great when I arrived at my airbnb. My host was lovely and very forthcoming, and I immediately felt very welcome in the city. I didn’t spend much time at the room, however, and quickly made my way up to the Koelnmesse, where the CCXP was located.

It was Thursday, the first day of con, and it was actually rather empty when I arrived. But that did not particularly bother me, since I am not too fond of big crowds anyway. It gave me a nice opportunity to walk around the grounds in peace, look at the booths, the artists, the exhibitors. I bought some Tony Stark art, sunglasses, some Marvel shirts and a Gryffindor sweater. I took my sweet time just breathing the space in, letting myself relax and fall into the comfortable pace of being at con. In the evening, I went to see a screening of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, followed by a Q&A with Michael Uslan, the producer. I’d never seen the movie before, and am honestly not that interested in Batman, but it was really great, and Michael was utterly interesting to listen to.

During my walk home after the panel (which happened because I took a wrong tram and stranded myself somewhere I didn’t intend to be), I somehow found some public wifi and happened upon Zac’s instagram stories. It suddenly dawned on me that we were in the same city again, and that, theoretically, I could bump into him any time. Which, to be honest, I didn’t really know how to wrap my mind around.

I slept good that night, even though I did wake up the next day earlier than expected. But I was exhausted, in a good way. The way experiencing wonderful things makes you tired at the end of the day.

Friday brought with it some more specific plans. I had a photo-op with Ben Barnes first thing, and then wanted to watch some panels (Mark Pellegrino, Fast and Furious, Ben Barnes) spread all over the day. When I got to the con, I went straight to the photo booths to stand in line for my picture. Ben Barnes is a very lovely human being. He was so happy and excited to be there and to meet everyone, and just had a great energy. I had bought a Punisher shirt the day before, and had decided to wear it that day. When I walked into the booth, the first thing Ben did was make shooting motions at me. We talked for a moment about the city and the con, which was really lovely. I think that word really describes Ben very well. Lovely. He is lovely.

After the picture I walked over to where I could collect the print-out, took it over to somewhere I could sit, and just revelled a moment in the feeling of having a great time. Then I looked up to where the signing booth was, and I saw him. Zac was sitting there, signing things for the people in line, a big smile on his face. He was engaging and his joy was contagious. He was his usual passionate self, and I sat there watching him for a moment, and I just had this one thought: “Shit.”

I had not planned on having Zac sign anything. While the con in general was pretty reasonably priced in my opinion, the prices for some of the photo- and signing-ops were rather expensive. I had already booked a picture with Zac for the next day, and I thought that would be enough, I didn’t need him to scribble on anything. But as I was watching him, I couldn’t help myself, and I got up immediately, walked over to where they sold the tickets, and without a second thought bought a ticket for him to sign something. For some reason that morning I had packed my Shazam action figure, and now I knew why. I continued watching him interact with people until it was time for me to get in line too, because watching him was just so…..captivating, in a way. I had already pretty much seen everything of the con, so I didn’t even feel like I was missing out on anything.

I got in line, Shazito in hand, and just continued to take it all in. Benedict Wong was sitting next to him, also signing, also blasting music from his speaker, also being so very lovely. I can’t quite recall if Ben was also there, but he might have been. Or maybe it was Mark Pellegrino. I can’t remember.

As the line started to move, I started to get giddy. Would the man even remember me? I mean, it had been two years. Sure, we had interacted a bit over twitter, but that was that. And honestly, I didn’t expect him to. He meets so many people all the time, why would/should he remember me?

The line moved further, a staffer came to take our names for Zac, so he would write them properly. The person in front of me moved up, and I think that was when I started smiling like a big idiot. Zac turned to talk to Wong while the person in front of me was taking her stuff and moving away, so I stepped up to the table while Zac wasn’t looking. The staffer put the post-it with my name on the table, which got Zac’s attention, and he turned to look at me. If a facial expression can be described as “lighting up like a candle” then that is what his face did. Recognition. Big smile. Oh hey you! Gets up, walks around the table to where he could step closer to me, and squeeze-hugs me for a solid half minute at least.

Why should he remember me? Well, I don’t fucking know, but he did. For some reason. And honestly, it’s just so very him, so absolutely typical. Anyway, he sat down again, asked me how I was doing, how I was enjoying the con. We were having a lovely conversation, he signed my Shazam figure (which I presented to him with the words, “I have a butt for you to sign”), and when he felt he couldn’t possibly stretch the time any longer by carefully signing his name on the plastic butt, playfully jabbing at Wong about the music, asking me about Switzerland and where I was from exactly, he got up again, walked around the table, and gave me another hug. Once he let me go, I told him again, just how very happy it made me to still see that golden chain around his neck, and he smiled, telling me that there would come a day he would give it away, just like I did. But I knew that already, and it doesn’t change anything about how it makes me feel. As I was walking away, he asked me if I was around the other days, with genuine interest, and I told him I’d see him again for a picture the next day, which got me another one of those smiles.

It is save to say that when I walked back to a table to sit down and take that all in, I was just….blown away. Again. Just like the last two times I met him. Zac is just an inherently good person and I’ve never really met anyone who gives a shit as much as he does. I really haven’t. He has made every single time I met him a very special experience that I won’t ever forget. The man just knows how to make you feel seen and heard.

I think it took me a moment, to get up again from where I was sitting, and remembering what I wanted to do next. I was still just looking at the figure in my hand with the signature on it, and trying to remember everything that had just happened. Once I did get my mind back to the present, I went around the whole con again, looked at some more booths, bought some more things, and ultimately went to the Mark Pellegrino panel. I don’t watch Supernatural and I am not actually entirely sure I’ve ever seen Mark in anything, but I knew of him, and was interested to see what kinda person he is (—actually, I just checked. He was on two episodes of Chuck and was also in single episodes of some other shows that I watched).

Mark’s panel was fully moderated, but it was nevertheless very interesting. They did talk mostly about Supernatural, Mark’s time on set and how it was working with Jensen and Jared. The panel ended with Mark singing the first verse of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, which was honestly very beautiful. The man can sing.

Mark’s panel was followed by a quick appearance of Idris Elba and Jason Statham, who were interviewed quickly, presented us the newest trailer for Hobbs & Shaw, and we then even got to see some exclusive footage, presented by a video message from The Rock. After that, I wandered around the con for a bit more, before I went back to the panel room to see MinaLima, the studio that did all the graphics design work on both Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. Their work is incredibly interesting, and it was wonderful listening to them talk about their experience working on those films and just their whole process. Utterly fascinating stuff. I stuck around after that to see Ben Barnes’ panel. He was, again, very lovely. He talked a bit about Punisher and working with Jon Bernthal, but also got to answer some fan questions from the audience, which I always think is a lot of fun, because it immediately makes a panel so much more personal and interesting.

Going back to my airbnb that night I was elevated. I had a wonderful day, I saw Zac again and had a lovely time with him, and just saw some great stuff all around con. I had talked to some woman who recognised me from the signing booth, bought some more Iron Man things, and also another Harry Potter sweater. But, obviously, Zac had been my absolute highlight of the day.

Saturday was a lot more unplanned than Friday. I had the picture with Zac mid-afternoon, but other than that, I didn’t really have much I wanted to do. There weren’t really any panels I was interested in, and I had already seen pretty much every thing at the con. So I decided to get myself a coffee and a croissant, and just do some people watching. I saw a cosplayer, dressed as a Stormtrooper, hanging out with a Luigi and Mario, taking pictures in front of the kid’s bouncy castle. He also had a red balloon tied to his back, from the IT 2 booth.

Once I got bored of just looking at people, I face-timed the whole con, then found out Zac would be doing an interview in the glass box and maybe come out and talk to some people, and made my way over to that area. Zac arrived, did the interview — which was lovely and you all can find here — and then quickly came down to us and gave high-fives, since he didn’t have much time because his photo session began immediately after the interview. The photo session, that I had to line up for. Once I was in line, I got that giddiness again, that I already felt the day before. I was thinking about what I wanted our picture to look like, what kinda pose I could make him do — I had some ideas, but I couldn’t decide — and watched how the people in front of me came out after the picture, big smiles on their faces. That’s Zac for you right there. Meeting him won’t leave people unchanged.

The line moved forward, and I could see into the booth, watch how the people in front of me took pictures with Zac. So many lovely pictures, big smiles, silly poses, pointing at funny shirts and great cosplay. The usual, you know. When it was my turn, the staffer managing everything told me to go in, Zac’s friend put my bags on the chair for me, and I went in. And there he was, dancing to his music, having a grand old time. And again, just like the day before, he looked at me and his face lit up like a candle, a big smile on his face, another Oh hey, Alex! with that joyful recognition that I just don’t really know how to deal with.

With a c’mere he put his arm around me and squeezed me tight, leaning into me, and we both looked at the camera. He stayed close until the screen showed the picture and he deemed it perfect. And it was. None of the poses I had thought of before in line could’ve ever come close to what I had now. He asked me again, just like the day before, if I was enjoying myself, then gave me high-fives and started dancing again, waiting for the next in line. I took my stuff, left the booth and wandered over to the photo collection booth in a daze. Once I had the picture in my hands, I sat down somewhere, just staring at that photo. I think I must’ve been staring at it for a very long time, in a sort of disbelief, remembering the other pictures I had of us, and how none of them even compare to this. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I took a picture of it with my phone, and sent it to my friends who knew that I would be doing that today, and also changed my twitter profile picture to it. The next time I checked my phone, all my friends who knew the man started flipping their shit about how adorable this picture is. They were delighted and joined in my joy about this picture. I have treasured every moment I got to spend with Zac up until now, and I will treasure this one too. It makes me so incredibly happy, I can’t even begin to tell you.

I left the con pretty soon after that, since I had already seen pretty much everything, and didn’t really have any interest in the panels of the day. But before I left, I stopped by Elbenwald again, buying a Gryffindor scarf for myself, because I knew that if I didn’t, I would ultimately regret it. I made my way back to my airbnb in staggering heat, relaxed for a moment, and then went out again, deciding that I would do some touristing around the city. I went over to the cathedral — which is absolutely stunning, you guys, it’s just gorgeous —, explored the place around it, and took a bit of a walk by the water. I sat in the shade for a while, watching the people, watching the water, and just revelling in the good feeling of experiencing cool things and going interesting places, until I could feel the exhaustion of the heat and the walking. So I slowly made my way back, decided to cross the river over the bridge by foot (and saw all the love locks), and just took my time, breathing in the summer air and the freedom that came with it. Summer has always been my season, even though I bitch about the heat too much, and with it comes a feeling of freedom and opportunity that I always miss in the colder months.

I got home earlier that day than I did all the others, since I didn’t stay at the con, which usually closes at 9pm. And despite the heat, I slept wonderful, which, considering the day I’d had, is not a surprise at all.

My plan for Sunday looked like this: arrive at con by opening time, go to the very first panel immediately, and sit in the panel room all day until Zac’s panel at 4:30pm, sneaking my way into the front row when people leave after the panels before that. And that is exactly what I did. Lucky for me, the panel room had a bathroom and a snack bar, so I had everything I needed.

I went to the first panel which was a Game of Thrones “double feature” with first Mark Spindler, from the VFX team, having a presentation about his work, and especially creating the dragons like Drogon, and his experience working on the HBO show, and then with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who was interviewed, but also answered some fan questions. It’s save to say, that the panel room was absolutely full to the brink. He was the star of this con. Nikolaj is an interesting guy, even though I felt like the panel over all felt a bit awkward. But I’ve had that impression with all the moderated panels, so maybe it’s the language barrier between English speaking guests and native German speaking moderators. Who knows.

After the Game of Thrones panel, a lot of people vacated the room, and I was able to make my way into the front row immediately after that. I went to the bathroom, got myself some nachos, and settled in for a day full of panels. I cannot even begin to tell you how much my butt hurt after that day. But anyway, after Nikolaj, followed a panel with cosplay stars from all over the world, talking about their craft and their experiences, with some fan questions in between. After that came a Batman 80th Anniversary panel, with comic artists Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, David Finch, and Brian Azzarello. I am not particularly interested in Batman, but it was quite fascinating anyway.

I watched with a very pleased grin how the crew started clearing away chairs on the stage until only one was left, which gave me the very confirmation I had been waiting for: Zac would self-moderate his panel, which meant fan Q&A all the way, like he usually does it, like he loves it. I had been worrying all through the con, watching most other panels be moderated, that his would be too. But I was glad to be proven wrong. Vanessa came out to introduce our man, and when he came out, the energy in the room just changed to something akin to what I felt at NerdHQ. Lots of love. (He also, before even sitting down, before even fully arriving, spotted be in the front row and went Oh hi, Alex, how you doin’? straight into the microphone. I may or may not have felt some emotions about that.) Vanessa manned the microphone, and Zac went in full swing, already spreading so much joy just by being there.

His panel was absolutely lovely, as they always are. His energy is palpable, you can just feel his passion and love for this kind of stuff, and it just oozes out of him. He answered question after question, went on tangents and down rabbit holes, laughed and sang, joked and entertained both himself and us. He was talking about going to conventions at some point and came to talk about NerdHQ, during which he enquired who had been to the event before, and managed to phrase the question, “Besides [Name of Girl who asked the question which I can’t remember I’m so sorry*] and Alex, who’s been to NerdHQ?”, which again, emotions. But anyway. I had been looking out for Vanessa all through the panel, always holding my hand up to ask a question, and finally got to ask one. When I got up, he greeted me again with name and everything, and at that point I was just taking it. I asked him about his dream. He had been asked that question two years ago at DragonCon, and I asked him how it was looking, if he was still working on that, if anything came to it, or if he abandoned parts of it. I just wanted him to talk about his plans for life a bit. And he did. He gave a long, wonderfully beautiful answer, and honestly, the man’s eye contact is super intense, and it just meant the world to me that he took the time to elaborate on his ideas and plans and wishes and dreams. I just wanted to show everyone in that room who exactly I knew Zac to be, and he delivered. I have not found any footage from that panel online yet, but if I do, I will link it here as well.

(*This is me not remembering the name, and not Zac. Zac knew the name. He always knows the names.)

After the absolute high of that panel, I thought nothing could go wrong. I would make my way to the train station, where I would get my bags that I had already brought there in the morning, then I would board my train, and just relax for five hours on that journey, until I would be home around midnight. Well. As, apparently, per usual, that did not happen. Just like so many other trips I had, this one ended in absolute disaster as well. My train in Cologne got cancelled, I got sent around from one station to the other, ultimately ended up in a completely over filled train, had to change trains five times, had to sit on the floor in one of them, and finally arrived back in Bern at 1.30am. No busses or trams were running at that time anymore, getting a cab in Switzerland is one of the most expensive things you can do, and Uber or Lyft does not exist here. So I had to walk. From the train station, to my home, with my no-wheels sports bag, and all my other bags. I arrived home, completely drenched in sweat, absolutely exhausted, with shoulders so tense and overworked that I had bruises the next morning, at 2.30am. I was just so done.

But, I don’t want to dwell on such a negative note, and finish this post with some more words. I am so grateful that I get to experience such cool things. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to go to these conventions and meet such amazing people like Zac. I feel so humbled by it, and I am eternally grateful that I got to meet Zac again and make such great memories, yet again. I’ve been following this man’s career for seven years now, and I don’t regret a single minute of it. I found him during a time where I was only just becoming the person I am today, and it is save to say that he had some formative influence in that. It’s save to say, that because of his example, I am a better, kinder, more unabashedly passionate person today than I was before. God has used Zac to inspire me, to show me things I never thought possible, and to keep reassuring me that he has plans for me. And I am so incredibly grateful for all of that.

Going to Cologne, going to CCXP has been a wonderful experience for me, and should Zac make it back there again, the chance is pretty big that you’ll find me there as well.

But for now, I am back home, and remembering all these beautiful moments with fondness, and revelling in the knowledge that somewhere, sometime in the future, I’ll likely get to do something like this again.

Until then, I’ll be here. Writing. Remembering.

[albrtmason]

would you share some hosea headcanons you have? i’d live to hear them! i agree fandom tends to ignore him.

this is mostly backstory because thats the person i am and i like thinking of things as a Story. these also arent super polished because i havent had the time recently to put proper research into them!!! and this got a LOT longer than i intended so im putting it under a cut haha 

so hosea was born in the early to mid 1840s (1843?) in the allegheny mountains in what is now west virginia (would have just been virginia then, wv didnt exist until 63). he grew up in a small community, largely agricultural, and like most people in appalachia at the time, his family were subsistence farmers. he had his mom and his dad and two younger sisters.

his dad was in and out of his life from the beginning, especially into his teenage years. but its also through him that hosea really got his first taste of what it was like to be an outlaw: his dad was a moonshiner, and eventually hosea started helping him run it (but not distill it). what money his father didn’t gamble away or spend in brothels helped to support the family, which was more than others in the community could say.

(his father of course did a lot more than just run moonshine, and hosea knew that, but he never got involved

when hosea was around 15 or 16 (so mid to late 1850s) his dad was arrested and, his mother having passed away a year or two before, his sisters were sent east to live with a distant aunt. (they kept contact for a while, sending letters, but communication trickled to an end when hosea was in his early 20s and he never heard from either of them again) hosea was considered old enough to fend for himself so he gathered up the little money he had left and whatever could be sold and he headed west for lack of anywhere else to go. initially he had wanted to get enough money to buy a place for him and his sisters to live, but that plan fell through pretty quick

(he knew from his time running ‘shine that the best way to get money wasn’t ever through honest work but rather under-the-table sort of work, the type of work that wasn’t strictly above-board, the type of work where he could do what he wanted whatever way that he wanted)

and he just kept going west, bouncing from town to town to town. he started out running moonshine because that’s what he knew best but he eventually moved on to pick pocketing, petty theft, eventually armed robbery and hitting people’s homes. he preferred conning people though, cheating at cards or rigging roulette, being friendly and silver-tongued enough to get a man blind drunk and rob him of all he had and be long, long gone by the time he sobered up

we know of course that he met dutch in the mid 1870s (i feel like there’s a specific date but i cant remember it rn and im too lazy to look) when they both tried to rob each other, so he would have been in his very late 20s or early 30s by that point, and decently comfortable in the life he’d built for himself. he never really had a specific goal that he worked towards, no plan for the future or anything; he was just living for the present, or whatever. dutch changed that, eventually

(you could put all sorts of vandermatthews stuff here if you wanted and maybe i’ll talk about it in another post but right now i won’t)

he met bessie a while after he met dutch cus they stuck around in one place a lot longer than they usually would, around a year or so, and he took to her almost immediately. she wasn’t astonishingly pretty or anything- was just average, really- but she was well-read and thoughtful and horribly witty and hosea was terribly in love with her. he proposed just before he and dutch skipped town and they got married.

i like to think that bessie ran around with them without actually committing any crimes herself. hosea had been very upfront with her about who he was and what he did once they started a romantic relationship. and it was good like that, for a few years; she and susan kept he and dutch in line and it worked. but eventually i think bessie would have gotten tired of being so transient; i think she would have wanted to settle, to have a family, to be normal. and i think on some level that hosea wanted that, too.

in 1878 or thereabouts they picked up arthur and hosea really threw himself into trying to help him, because while dutch may have seen something of himself in arthur, hosea DEFINITELY did: he saw a kid who’d lost both of his parents and his home, not by choice, trying to make it in the world, just trying to survive. and while years of crime had made hosea rougher, sharper, more sly and less remorseful, he’d never really lost his sense of empathy. i think that dutch liked arthur well enough when they first picked him up, but it’s hosea that really insisted on keeping him around

so hosea became a sort of mentor (and father figure, i guess, moreso than dutch was) to arthur, and along with dutch taught him how to read and write and draw (though hosea was more lettered, and dutch more artistically-inclined). they taught him how to shoot and ride a horse and how to rob and kill. i think at times, especially towards the beginning, hosea would feel a bit guilty about dragging a kid into that sort of life, but then he’d tell himself that arthur would have fallen into it anyway, and with worse people than he and dutch

eventually bessie wanted to settle and put down roots and live, and a part of hosea did as well, so they left the gang for a bit to try and make it work. but hosea didn’t really know any other life than being a criminal; he was smart, he was clever and deft-fingered and a quick learner, but he wasn’t a tradesman and i think he would have started to chafe at the constancy of it all, and so he went back to the gang because being a criminal was all he really knew

like he said in the game, bessie understood. she knew what he was, who he was- she knew him. and he loved her, loved her as much as someone like him could; they tried to make their marriage work, with him gone all the time, and he really hated how it sort of echoed his parents because a part of him had hated his father, hated him for how sad his mother looked all the time, how she’d occasionally sigh and stare out the window like she was waiting for something. he didn’t want to do that to bessie, didn’t want to become like his dad

occasionally he’d split off from the gang and go and see her, often for some weeks, maybe a month, before returning. she was always happy to see him and she never complained but he always felt just a little bit guilty, even though they wrote letters to each other as often as they could. eventually though bessie got sick, real sick, and he spent three months away to be with her, to love her and take care of her the best he could, and to pray she would get better. she didn’t, though, and so he’d had to bury his wife, and like he says in some camp dialogue he spent the next year or so drinking heavily, enough that he was rarely sober and pretty much drunk all the time

john was the apple of dutch’s eye when he was brought to them and while hosea did the same as he did with arthur- taught him to read and write, and other things- it was mostly dutch who took over john’s “”education””. hosea was okay with that; him and arthur started running a few jobs together, just the two of them

as the gang itself grew hosea sort of asserted himself as dutch’s right hand man, if not almost an equal in leadership. he was more analytical and calculating than dutch, and he brought sense to dutch’s passion, taking his ideas and making them into something workable. and that was good, for a while; they worked well together, and by this point hosea was swept up in dutch’s ideas of striking out and making a home for themselves (though the was obviously still a bit cynical about it, as we can see in-game)

he was the only one really able to truly temper dutch, and the only one that dutch would really listen to criticism from, so he also sort of became an intermediary between dutch and the rest of the gang, where they would come to him with their problems and he’d pass them on to dutch and so on and so forth. that started to change though, little by little, and hosea knew that his friend was slipping away and there was not really anything he could do about it except be there to try and play damage control.

things never really got better but they sort of plateaued for a bit in a place where the gang was still safe and hosea was content enough with their position there, with the way dutch’s mind worked, but micah’s arrival really exacerbated dutch’s downward spiral because micah really enabled dutch’s passions and, well, dutch’s ego had always been his fatal flaw, and micah stoked that and kept doing so until eventually everything just fell apart

[tevotbegotnaught]

“The conductor…in the power he has over others…it is in his interest as a human being, as well as that of his musical achievements, to resist the temptation to misuse it. Tyranny can never bring to fruition artistic-or for that matter human- gifts; subordination under a despot does not make for joy in one’s music-making. Intimidation deprives the musician of the full enjoyment of his talent and proficiency. Yet I should certainly not want to impugn the employment of earnest severity or even the occasional borrowing of the Bolt of Zeus; the latter if the hand knows how to wield it, can in exceptional situations bring surprisingly good results. Severity is a legitimate even indispensable means of dealing with people...”

Bruno Walter

In my Summer of 42 (years), I was a college freshman…again. With neither Mexican weed nor dormitory hijinks to distract me, I worked through the full Brooklyn College Core Curriculum and a handful of music courses. My degree plan also required an ensemble each semester. When the Assistant Dean interviewed me, he looked over my CV and immediately suggested their Jazz Band. After hearing them, I chose a contemporary music ensemble founded by a composition professor. Fall semester, she was on sabbatical and a trumpet prof, Juilliard guy and veteran freelancer, ran the class. To begin, he sat everyone in a circle and asked us to play “Happy Birthday" in hocket. Most of the class was unsure of the melody and some also thought it a stupid idea. With our nonstandard instrumentation, we massacred Second Viennese School composers for the rest of the term.

Spring term, the founder returned. She was just over five feet tall, brown-skinned, with narrow shoulders and mineshaft dark eyes. When she listened, her head nodded while bottomless eyes fixed on you. Raised in a distressed country, her life moved from prodigy to conservatory-trained professional with impeccable musicianship: piano, score reading, solfege, conducting, improvising, composing. Then, she came to the US, with zero money and English and rebuilt her career from scratch. At BC, she conducted the orchestra until politics pushed her out. Now, she gave composition lessons and led this ensemble.

Our roster still read as spare parts: three singers, three pianists, two flutes, violin, saxophone, clarinet, guitar; some highly skilled, others not. For most, English was a second or even third language. Our professor's first assignment: list your colleagues’ instruments, find pieces for a subset of our forces, select only pieces written after 1960, bring scores/parts for audition.

The following week, we presented our finds. First, someone showed her a John Cage duet. As she turned pages, Maestra’s face went blank .

“Why did you get this?”

A mumbled answer.

Maestra closed the score. “You got eet because eet looks easy. Didn't you? First of all, it’s a short duet. Three, maybe four minutes of music. Nothing to do on a real pro-GRAM. Not serious. Not serious at all.”

More mumbling.

“Get something else. Thank you.”

She jabbed the score into their hands, then addressed the class.

“Nothing about John Cage. John is extraordinary. When you choose music, don’t just take a name you theenk you know. Read the score. You are musicians …supposed to be….”

Next, one of the singers produced a folio. Its font, ornate and oversized. I winced. Maestra saw it was a Puccini aria with piano accompaniment and recoiled.

“After nineteen-sixty? Thees? You are kidding me!”

Again, she faced us.

“Thees is NOT opera work-SHOP. I know some of you did not make it there. I'm very sorry about that. Please find some other music to sing. There are so many good theengs. I hope you will find out. Music does not end with Verdi, Puccini.”

So it went. Gratefully, she anticipated our poor choices and suggested some pieces.

Meastra spoke Spanish to some students, aware of the terrain they navigated and supportive. Jorge, a Mexican pianist, was one of her projects. He was a skilled player, an enthusiastic and warm colleague. His giggle often broke up the class. In our third meeting, we rolled the piano front, Jorge sat on the bench. While he longed for mama's home cooking, he wasn’t missing any meals in Brooklyn. His midsection expanded well beyond his tight-waisted pants, straining shirt buttons. Maestra questioned him on preparation: “you’re playing the second movement, what about the third?”

Unaffected by the prodding, he began to play. A minute in, she said, “stop”.

He continued, eyes closed.

She shouted, “Stop! I’m telling you, STOP"

He looked over.

“JORGE….WHAT…ARE…YOU….DOING?”

It wasn’t meant as a question. Jorge smiled and gently shook his head.

“Why are you smiling? Look at you!”

Her voice leveled.

“This is not ready. It’s better, but it's not ready.”

She shifted.

“I am very worried about you. Look..at…your…STOMACH. You need to take better care of yourself. You know, pianists perform in pro-FILE. Theenk what you show to the audience.”

Jorge wasn't smiling. He put his hand on his belly.

“Everyone should con-see-der an exer-CISE pro-GRAM. I am forty years, Dio mio! Almost FEEFTY years older than some of you. Take care of yourselves.”

She dismissed him with a sweeping gesture.

“Ok, who is next? Anna, where is the list? Geeve it to me!”

Her assistant, a brilliant, tiny, Yankee grad student, always cleaned up.

Maestra partnered Jorge with another pianist for a Gyorgy Ligeti duo. Its ingenious architecture, a complex cycle revealed one beat at a time. In Yogi Berra's construction, half the score was ninety-nine percent rests. The players needed infallible inner time. While they played, Maestra leaned over the piano, right hand supporting her, left turning pages. She nodded her head slightly in tempo. The pianist's hits charged toward and away from each other like Pacman's gobbling goblins.

“You are late!” she slammed her left hand down. They went back. Another hammer blow. Back again. The piece never made it to the program.

At the end of the initial class, she approached me about Milhaud's “Le Creation du Monde", a chamber work for winds, including alto saxophone. We didn’t have the other winds, of course, but a young woodwind quintet, in residence for the year, would help out.

“Le Creation" story moves from brooding chorale to a raggy bolero where the winds pass around jumpy tunes, then strut them all, polyphonically, in a joyous finale.

At the first of four rehearsals, we were less than half personnel. Maestra had been enthusiastic about the quintet, encouraging us to meet, hear and study with them. But they were collaborating with major artists and appearing all over the world. Their residency, now in name only. No one in the group even bothered to return her emails. Our conductor was livid. (Later, the assistant assured us that Maestra never returned emails, either.) In rehearsal, the music just marked time. In long stretches with no tune and no landmarks, I fell into a hole and missed my entrance.

“What are you DOING! Counting! Count-ting! I can’t do everytheeng for you.”

Concert day was the first we all sat down to play. In the midst of my disciplined colleagues, I was a bellowing hippo. During the chorale, my slow descending notes were either out-of-tune, out-of-time, the wrong dynamic, or all three.

The baton came down hard “NO..NO..NO. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

“How can you be late. It's jazz. Jazz! You play jazz? Right? You know who is John Col-TRANE? Play it like Col-TRANE! Why should I have to tell YOU this. Come on!”

I wore other hats that night: soprano, clarinet. Still, my mind remained fogged through the Milhaud finale.

The quintet players all demolished their solos. With a huge smile, Maestra gave each well-deserved bows. When they were done, she flashed her eyes at me, scowling. Then, jerked both her hands upwards, like she was flipping a pool toy. I stood up and stared straight down.

Next semester, a composition student brought a score. It was mostly squiggles and arrows, notation designed to move the music forward without defining functional harmony or conventional melody. She conducted a circle for each “bar”. We could gauge the length of each gesture and respond in time. Simultaneously, she sang the gestures using their pitched start/end points, conducted, turned pages and offered substantive commentary. If one of us was even a second late, her glance immolated them.

I became friends with some of her students. Waiting outside her office, they often heard shouting. When the door opened, students walked out in tears. Some planned to work closely with Maestra toward their Master's or DMA. Those plans would change...

An alumni couple created an endowed chair for Maestra, protecting her from political games. To celebrate, students accompanied her to the donors’ Connecticut home for a musicale. We loaded two vans with the usual music school suspects: waifish Asian virtuoso string players, an Eastern European sturm und drang pianist, a diffident “difficult” composer, and bit players like me.

Both donors were in their eighties and fabulously rich, earnest, lefty intellectuals. The wife wore a gas mask-like apparatus, its hoses attached to a whirring box on her back. I strained to understand her speech, but her eyes shone with love and curiosity. The couple warmly welcomed us to a large room packed with guests.

I was part of a quartet: oboe, flute, clarinet and piano, playing a student work. The composer, a young Dominican guy, rising star in the program. A Caribbean undergraduate writing skilled takes on contemporary European music. His piece used the difference-tone clusters of Gyorgy Ligeti: loud, high notes, staggered and longheld, producing acoustic anomalies: window-fan undertones and piercing oscillations. Bathing in timbral waves and madly counting beats, I couldn’t find the piano part, though we made it to the end without requiring oxygen or a conductor. The composer took a awkward bow and disappeared.

With Maestra as Maitre’d we served up a baroque cello sonata, Beethoven piano music and some Sondheim. Then, our little foursome loudly dropped a turd on the buffet table.

The donor husband was one of those ruddy-faced white guys who wear baggy corduroys and turtle necks over their barrel physiques. He sought me out, towering above me as I packed up my clarinet.

“What did he mean with that piece?"

“Sir, I…I wouldn’t want to represent the composer, he never said anything about..”

“Now, you must know something.”

He was an important man accustomed to getting answers, fast and in full.

“I know my part and how it fits with the others. The woodwinds are playing difference tones, Stravinsky used...”

“Why didn’t HE explain that to us? We go to concerts all the time. Conductors explain new music. They give examples, give context. You can’t just write something like that and expect people to automatically understand it.”

Gulp....“Of course.”

“It’s his responsibility to help the audience understand the music”

I looked over. By the buffet, the composer was holding a plate, one of the string players laughing next to him. Mrs Donor approached me, extending her hand. The box on her back hissed and clicked. Above the mask, searching eyes, below, a voice from a radio in another room. Was she talking about the quartet? It was too uncomfortable. I interrupted.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality and the opportunity to play for you. You and your husband are so generous.”

She squeezed my hand and leaned in, radio transmission drowning in static. Her husband came to her side.

“My wife is saying we've been to many, many concerts of new music. Starting way back, with Lenny Bernstein. He taught us there’s always something to learn. He introduced us to many extraordinary artists”

He put his hand lightly on her back. Over her shoulder, Maestra was listening to a guest, head level with their sternum, eyes searchlights in reverse. The radio faded and its whirring submerged in the din.

We got back very late. Our vans parked by the gatehouse and turnstile on the east side of campus. A few yellow lights glowed in the music building. Maestra thanked us. We said goodnight.

Drifting on an acoustic sea, our ancestors explored sound, harnessing the waves. Between foaming peaks and psychic undertow, they found power. From our African beginnings, to the stars, every lineage counted on those who navigated, who mastered instruments, who carried in them songs and stories. They became the music, while it lasted.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, so today was a train wreck. to fully explain, as my day post technically begins right after I write the one from the previous day, I have to start at 3:45 am last night/morning. I think I mentioned that I had a very slight cough after a few days of sore throat and congestion, but I didn’t think anything would come of it. I fell asleep at some point after 12, I don’t remember exactly, but when I woke up briefly at 3:45 am I was in a very different state, and it was immediately apparent to me that I was going to be having an asthmatic bronchitis episode today. Dammit. Not only is it super annoying and painful to be coughing up my lungs all day, but because it’s not a very common condition getting the medicine to treat it can be a big hassle (see the last episode in April 2017 when the urgent care and two doctors offices dismissed me before I finally found one who was actually willing to listen to me and help). Well, not much I could do about it at 3:45 am, so I tried to fall asleep, which I did eventually, but it took a while. I honestly don’t remember when I woke up, I wanna say some time after 10. My cough situation was the same and at this point I’ve had like 6 episodes of this happen, so I know right away what’s going on. Now, the tricky part was going to be getting to a doctor because guess what, it’s Saturday, and getting sick on Saturday is super inconvenient (and as mentioned above, I’ve attempted walk in clinics and they refused to listen to me). I did have a bit of a choice to make, whether I wanted to call my pulmonologist back in NY or if I wanted to call the doctor out here that ended up helping my last episode. They have very different approaches and thoughts on what’s causing it, but they’ve both been able to successfully treat it, so it’s hard to tell. I did reconnect with my NY doctor after the last episode and I’ve seen him several times since then, most recently in December I think, where the doctor out here I haven’t seen in about a year or so. I ended up deciding on the NY doctor mostly because I thought it was more likely that I would be able to reach someone from that office because they are pretty large and well-established I felt like it was more likely they’d have some coverage as opposed to a single practitioner who was probably not in on the weekend. So I call, get the office is closed message, but if it’s an “urgent medical issue” (but not an actual emergency, because they already said if it’s that hang up and call 911) stay on the line and get transferred to their answering service who can get messages to the on call doctor. So I talked to the lady and she took down the info, and said I should get a call back from a doctor shortly. Alright, sounds good, I guess I’ll do some bar prep while I’m waiting, so I did that while awaiting the call, but it didn’t come, and around 3 it was like, 4 hours after I called, so I felt like it was reasonable to call back at this point. So I did, there were some issues with the message getting passed along, they said they’d try again but if I heard nothing don’t wait so long to call back. So when another hour past with no call I called back yet again (I have to be the most annoying phone caller over all the ones I’ve done over the past week) and the lady said she’d pass it on to her supervisor to expedite the request and I was like OH THANK GOD at this point, lol. So I think some time around 4:30 I got the call from the on call doctor. I explained to him that my doctor has been treating me for asthmatic bronchitis since my original episode in March 2013, and there have been about 5 or 6 reoccurrences since then, but if I get the meds I can control it fairly quickly. Fortunately he was able to view all my medical info and what my doctor had previously prescribed, and he believed me, which is always big lol and he called in several prescriptions for me, prednisone along with an inhaler and a recommendation to get some OTC allergy meds. He was like “are you on something regular for your asthma?” and I was just like oh boy this is not a good time to go down that rabbit hole so I was just like “I don’t get normal symptoms, just this” which he seemed to accept as an answer lol. So he called it in, and I pretty much immediately headed over to Target. It was only at this point that I called my parents to let them know what was going on but I had it totally handled and they didn't need to worry about anything, because they flipped the fuck out last time this happened and it was super unhelpful honestly! So I was basically just like “yeah I’m having an episode but I already got the meds called in and I’m going to pick them up now so you don’t have to do anything and have nothing to worry about” lol, so I’d say that was pretty successful. I still felt like shit and didn’t want to walk so I ubered over, and actually stopped at a beauty supply right down the street because I need to cut a wig I got for a cosplay I’m gonna do coming up soon and needed some supplies. The store was super ghetto, which I mostly expected because I know it’s not a super great part of town, but there are no Sally’s near me at all so I’d have to go really out of my way to go there. I had a list of a few things, but I ended up only getting some hair cutting scissors, only to find out they were actually thinning scissors, which will actually be helpful with this style but not for normal cutting purposes, lol. Oh well. So I headed over to Target and went to check in on the prescriptions and to my surprise they had already filled them, so I got those and then did a short grocery run based on a few things I’d written down, more or less my weekly groceries, pretzels and fruit and lemonade, and some snacks. So that didn’t take long, I checked out and ubered back home because again still felt shitty. Got home, unpacked my groceries, then checked out the medicines. There were 3, the prednisone, an inhaler, and some albuterol but it was in the form that you would need a nebulizer to access it and I don’t have one of those, so we’ll see how I’m feeling and if necessary I’ll call on Monday and see if I can get it in inhaler form (or get a nebulizer). So I took the meds, then did some bar prep before trying to prepare to cut the wig. I had a youtube tutorial of the exactly style I was doing so I figured it couldn’t be that bad?? But like every artistic pursuit I’ve ever undertaken I’ve vastly overestimated my ability to do anything that involved even the smallest amount of creative talent. welp. One of the big issues was I didn’t have wig head to put it on which is pretty essential, so I ended up balancing it on an upside down (empty) apple juice bottle, but it kept slipping out of place. I tried to just cut most of the ends off because it was super long and the look I’m doing is pretty short, but of course it still came out super choppy and like, that’s kind of okay because it’s supposed to be kind of choppy but like, in a way that looks good, not like this lol. I was worried about cutting it too short, and there were definitely a few pieces that were, but for the most part they were good. The next step though was the layering and I couldn’t get the wig to stay in place on the bottle, so after many attempts I finally said fuck it because there was no way I could get it down like this. So I guess that project is on hold until I can get something (hopefully a wig head) that I can pin the wig to so I can cut it without it moving. So with that no longer an option I headed back to my con law lecture which was of course 4 hours long, so that took up the rest of my night of course. I object to them scheduling long lectures for the weekend, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. Tomorrow’s schedule is probably going to be an issue, because they have two 4 hour lectures and I have church, and by the time I get home it’s like 3 pm, so that would be a LOT. but we’ll see. I’ll see how I’m doing in the morning. I hope I’m doing better, I kind of pulled in the rationale of the other doctor I saw last year since he treated it by increasing my acid reflux meds, so I grabbed some OTC ones I had and added them to my pill box (I’m not gonna overdose on a fucking antacid, calm down) so maybe that will help because it did the trick pretty quickly last year. I’m supposed to be in the nursery and like, obviously this is an issue with my body, not something that would be contagious but like, I’m still going to feel bad if I’m holding a small child and coughing, I mean I don’t think I’d want a coughing nursery worker holding my kid, so if it’s bad I might have to bail on them, but idk how many people are signed up. So we’ll have to see how that goes. I just remembered how when this coughing happened last year there were numerous strangers that offered my cough drops just based on hearing me cough in public. And like, I had cough drops in my purse, but I just thought it was such a sweet and compassionate gesture, and it really touched me. That will always be a happy memory of Chicago for me, if I end up staying or not- Chicago has always taken care of its own. Alright, it’s 1:30 am, I gotta wake up early for church, so I’m getting off of here now. Goodnight dearies. Hope you had a kickass Saturday (and definitely were not sick). 

[strongerthanaman]

folklore & evermore plot thread/ AU ideas

Some may be based on multiple songs due to overlapping themes across songs.  Under cut due to length.

(Note: Bonus tracks for evermore not included because I haven’t heard them yet.)

TW: Mental Health, Death, Murder, Toxic Relationships, Abuse, PTSD

the 1 / champagne problems- Muse A and Muse B dated for a long time a while back. Everything was great right until Muse B proposed and Muse A turned them down, not ready for the commitment of marriage. Muse B moved on from them while Muse A worked on improving themselves. Years later they have crossed paths again. Will sparks fly between them again?

cardigan / august / betty- Muse A and Muse B were in a relationship until Muse B cheated with Muse C. Muse C believes that Muse B will choose them over Muse A and Muse A begins to ignore Muse B. In a last ditch effort Muse B tries to win back Muse A. Will it work? What happens if Muse A and Muse C meet?

the last great american dynasty- Muse A married the heir to a large company a few years prior to their death. The marriage was shocking at the time given what was known about Muse A’s lower class background. Since their SO’s death, they seemingly have thrown themselves into a party lifestyle without a care in the world, upsetting the quiet town they live in who had loved their SO. Muse B is a reporter who has come to interview Muse A about their life and what it is like having so many rumors about them.

exile / tolerate it / happiness / hoax / closure- Muse A and Muse B were together for a long time before Muse A realized that their relationship was toxic and tried to warn Muse B that their relationship needed to change before calling it quits. Both have seemingly moved on and realize everything they did wrong in their relationship now, years later. Muse B decides to write a letter to Muse A, asking for their forgiveness for their role in the relationship. Will Muse A forgive them? Will this end up stirring up old feelings somehow? 

my tears ricochet / tolerate it- Muse A and Muse B were together, but it was a far from perfect from perfect relationship. No matter how much Muse A loves Muse B, the love almost seems one sided. Muse B killed Muse A in a fit of rage one day and instantly regrets their actions. Muse A comes back to haunt Muse B. Will Muse B be able to forgive themselves? Will Muse A be able to move on?

mirrorball- Muse A always seems to be perfect no matter what. Despite everything the world throws at them, they always seem happy and ready to try and make others happy. Only Muse B seems to notice that this isn’t real. That there is more to Muse A. Can Muse B get Muse A to let their guard down? 

seven- Muse A and Muse B are children. Best friends who want nothing more than to play together and enjoy life together. Muse B’s life at home is hard though and tries to hide it from Muse A. Muse A notices and tries to convince Muse B to run away and live with them so they can stay together forever. 

this is me trying- Muse A was considered perfect until they began to spiral out of control. Muse B tried to help them at the time out of love, but Muse A was stubborn and refused any help, stuck in the mindset that they were fine. They spiraled out of control for years, until they managed to start fixing their life. Now they are back and are trying to show Muse B that they are trying to change. Will Muse B be able to believe them?

illicit affairs- Muse A and Muse B have been told countless times that they cannot be together because of their conflicting lifestyles. However they cannot deny that they want to be together, so they start to meet in secret. The more they meet however, the more they fall in love. Can they fix what is determined to keep them apart? Or are they doomed to end up tearing each other apart instead?

invisible string / willow- Muse A and Muse B are fated to be together since birth. Unbeknownst to them, every decision brings them closer together. Once they finally meet, Muse A immediately knows that Muse B is the one they are meant to be with. Just one problem though, Muse B is scarred from past relationships and doesn’t want to be in a relationship. Can Muse A help Muse B heal from their scars and show them that they are meant to be?

mad woman- Muse A and Muse B despise each other. Muse A mostly despises Muse B because they go around trying to convince everyone that Muse A is crazy, not to be trusted, and all together mad. Muse A is determined though to understand why Muse B feels the need to do this. What will they discover? 

epiphany- Muse A served in the military. Ever since getting medically discharged for a wound they sustained in battle they have been seeing Muse B for therapy. Muse A is really struggling to adjust back to civilian life, especially with their injury. Will Muse B be able to help them realize that although things have changed for them, they are still the same person they were before the war?

peace- Muse A lives an incredibly hectic life and knows that they can’t offer any sense of normalcy or safety to anyone. That doesn’t stop them however from falling in love with Muse B. They want to try and have a normal life with them, but their life constantly gets in the way and Muse B is put in jeopardy in a way that Muse A doesn’t like so they try to break things off telling Muse B it’s for their own good. Can Muse B convince them that they don’t care about a normal life so long as they are together?

the lakes- Muse A has been struggling lately and has decided suddenly that they need to move far away from where they live to be somewhere better suited for them, choosing a place where their inspirations used to live. The only thing holding them back is their relationship with Muse B. Muse B isn’t sure about moving halfway across the world though. Will Muse A be able to convince Muse B to move with them? Or is this the end of their relationship?

gold rush- Muse A is staunchly against love. They don’t like the emotions that come with it. Muse B however is perfect in their eyes with the exception of one thing- they tend to butt heads when they cross paths because they never seem to see eye to eye. Muse B enjoys the presence of Muse A despite this fact. Everyone else around them can see the sparks flying between the two. Will Muse A however allow themselves to open up to love if Muse B asks?

tis the damn season / dorothea- Muse A and Muse B used to date back in high school. When college came around though, they went their separate ways because Muse A was determined to get out of their small hometown and become a star. Muse A is well on their way to achieving their goal, but can’t help but lean on Muse B a lot via the phone and visits back to their hometown. Will Muse A be able to convince Muse B to leave their small town? Or give up on their dreams to have the life they want with Muse B?

no body, no crime- Muse A’s best friend was killed by their SO, so out of revenge Muse A killed them. Muse B was the lover of the SO and suspects that Muse A is the killer despite there being no body or evidence to back them up while the police suspect Muse B as being the killer. Now Muse A and Muse B are stuck in a game of cat and mouse. Which muse will win the game?

coney island- Muse A and Muse B are both up and coming stars in different ways. Muse A is a singer while Muse B is an actor. Before they began to become famous, they were very much in love. As their fame grows however, they grow distant from each other and drift apart until they decide to break up. After some time has passed, they realize that they miss each other and decide to meet up at a spot that they always used to go to to talk. Will they be able to find a way to make their relationship work again? Or are they doomed to just make the same mistakes over again? 

ivy / illicit affairs- Muse A is unhappily married when they meet Muse B. Their relationship starts off innocently enough, but it doesn’t take long for romantic feelings to start blossoming between the two. Muse A wants to be loyal to their spouse, but they can’t deny their growing attraction to Muse B with every encounter. Will Muse B be able to tempt them to adultery? Or will Muse A be able to remain faithful in their loveless marriage?

cowboy like me- Muse A and Muse B are con artists (alternatively they can be high end prostitutes) who enjoy using rich people's affections for them to get money. Both believe that love isn’t real and is overrated. Until they ended up meeting at a wedding of someone they both know. They get together to blow off some steam and have some fun that they don’t get with the people they are usually with, but what happens when feelings start to happen? Can they change their ways and open up to the possibility of real love?

long story short- Muse A has gone through numerous bad relationships in life as they tried to figure themselves out after a fall from grace. Then one day they come across Muse B, someone who is very different from their past self and is willing to help them find out who they are. Now Muse A is determined to not let themselves fall down the same rabbit hole again, enjoying their newfound life with Muse B. What happens though when Muse A’s old life catches up to them?

marjorie- Muse A and Muse B were together with Muse A being the more adventurous of the two. Muse A tragically died one day though. Muse B was devastated by their loss for weeks until one day Muse A was there in front of them again. Muse B knows deep down that they are hallucinating, but they don’t want the hallucinations to ever go away. Will Muse A’s hallucination be able to help Muse B grieve? Or will Muse B lose their mind?

evermore- Muse A is going through a hard time and is in a dark place mentally. Muse B is trying their best to help them, trying to show them all the good in their life and what there still is to live for. Will Muse B’s efforts succeed? 

[fuckyeahqueermusic]

The Con was released in the summer between me graduating high school and heading off to college. I don’t remember exactly how I heard about, probably some aggregate blog, which were big at the time, but I almost certainly first listened to it on a late night sitting at my family’s home computer, since I didn’t yet have my own. At the time, I had no idea how important this album would be to me.

I feel safe in saying that without The Con, I wouldn’t have started this blog, wouldn’t have become the avid music fan I am now, actively looking to support and listen to queer artists. It changed the way I listen to music, and still to this day, I hear new layers, new sounds, little instrumental parts I never noticed whenever I listen to its songs. Because of The Con I became an active listener, always trying to figure out the alchemy of how all the tracks of a song fit together; it makes it near impossible for me to get anything done while listening to music, and probably makes me a bit insufferable to my friends who have to deal with me rambling on and on about songs they don’t care about.

I truly believe The Con is one of the best albums of the 2000’s, full stop. It is so lovingly crafted and immaculately produced, the songs all encompassing, and swirling around you as a listener. And I think that’s how it ruined me as a passive consumer of music, I just don’t understand how you can listen to any of these songs and not want to immerse yourself in them completely. I’ve written about The Con in the past, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but while Tegan and Sara had always been smart, dedicated writers and performers, this album took them to an incomprehensible level. I was surprised when Heartthrob came out and it was so unabashedly poppy, but the more that I listen to The Con since it and Love You To Death have come out, I shouldn’t have been. Tegan and Sara are genius pop song writers, they crafted hook after hook on this album, and knew how to get exactly what they wanted out of their collaborators. Chris Walla managed to balance all of those elements so the record is full of sound, but it isn’t busy. It uses everything but the kitchen sink, but it isn’t what I would call a kitchen sink record. Every instrument, every sound has a purpose. I wrote in my review of it (lol over five years after it was released) that this album should not be as easy to listen to as it. It is dense, and the songs are dark. Dark in a way that I don’t think Tegan and Sara got to before or since. And it’s not the ironic study of contrasts that some acts do, with dark lyrics contrasting poppy instrumentals. The lyrics and the music are, for the most part, heavy (there are great exceptions for the bouncy piano of “Back In Your Head” and the pop-punk gem “Hop A Plane”), brooding and threatening in a lot of ways.

I picked “Are You Ten Years Ago” to go with this post because it is hands down my favorite song on The Con, and I think the one that is most under appreciated. I don’t know if I’ve ever really seen much writing about it, and I don’t know why. It perfectly encapsulates everything I said above. This song is claustrophobic. They lyrics fold in on themselves, slightly changing their phrasing, but repeating the same patterns. The music does the same; the drums in particular are such a specific kind of perfect and genius that I don’t even know if I can put it in words. Much like the lyrics, the drumbeat repeats the same pattern, but each pass through plays a different combination of programmed drum machine and Jason McGerr’s live kit, and it slowly builds, so there is this sense of something about to break, but it’s unpredictable, and in the end it never does break. The song is this ball of tension without any release, mirroring the tension of the uncertain relationship Tegan writes about. I think it’s the best song Tegan ever wrote (I think Sara’s is “Nightwatch” from Sainthood, but that’s another post for another day).

To get a bit more personal, I came out as gay in high school, one of a handful of openly queer kids. I was lucky in that I received very little grief from anyone in my life about it, but I still felt pretty isolated. While I was good friends with some other gay folks, we didn’t have a lot of common interests. I loved screamo and punk and weird TV shows (and still do), most of them loved musicals and theater and pop music (most of which I learned to appreciate later on, but I was, like many teens, obnoxious and contrary for no reason). And when I first listened to The Con, I just felt this immediate, visceral connection to the music, learning that Tegan and Sara were gay also made me feel this connection to other gay people that I didn’t feel like I had in my real life. And from this album I found other queer people and queer musicians, and eventually started this here sporadically updated blog, because I was just so excited to find queer people making cool, amazing, queer art. And while I’m no longer a gay woman (I’m queer man, life sometimes takes you places you don’t expect it to!), I still don’t think I’ll ever be able to be grateful enough for what The Con has given me.

Even if you’re not a huge Tegan and Sara fan, if you can spare 37 minutes, I think it’s worth taking the time today to listen to The Con, really listen to it, and appreciate the care and craftsmanship that went into making it. It launched their career into high gear for a reason, and without it, Tegan and Sara certainly wouldn’t be where they are today. This is the record that helped tons of kids come out, feel comfortable in their skin, and be a little less alone. It gave a bunch of us queer people a couple of weirdo Canadians to look up to, and that is reason enough to celebrate its ten year anniversary, but it’s a great bonus that it happens to be one of the best records of the past decade.

[wildstormoralhistory]

Director’s Cut Material #7- In Living Color

The following Director's Cut material is a very special one that I hope you all enjoy. Colorist Joseph M. Damon was kind enough to share his unique WildStorm journey that really shows what it was like to try and become a part of the WS group and see a dream realized. If you've been to some comic conventions, you might have seen him around as he usually assists Humberto Ramos out on the road.
 Joseph and I connected after the manuscript was finalized so I was able to sneak in a couple of his quotes in the proper book but the more I tried to edit, the less I wanted to break up his story throughout the different chapters. So here it all is as one piece and my sincere thanks to Mr. Damon for sharing it.

Joseph M. Damon (Colorist): Outside of being the fanboy buying comic books at my local comic store in the Bay Area, I'd attend local comic shows, in particular Wonder Con (in Oakland at that time), SDCC and there was an Image convention in LA. This was circa 1993-1994. At the shows, WildStorm Fine Arts was a booth selling ashcans, color guides from Joe Chiodo, Iris prints, and original artwork. At that time [it] was run by Joe Mendoza (Whilce Portacio's brother in-law and  [the] character Dozer was based on him in Wetworks), who was working as editor at Homage studios as well. I asked a ton of questions about color guides and the process behind them, what an iris print was (I purchased one of Travis' Burnout), drooled buckets over the original artwork from the books that were for sale as well (which of course led later to me buying original art). Joe gave me a smile and his card, which I still have, and I asked him about some of the artists. He gave me a second extension which was for the "The Pit" where at that time a lot of the new artists like J. Scott Campbell and Travis Charest sat. I stared at the card and within a week called in just to see what would happen.  I got reception, asked for Joe and he's out of the office, asked to be transferred to the extension for the Pit. Not thinking I'd get anywhere, it rang and rang and then I heard a voice say "Pit", I asked to talk to Jeff Campbell, and they said hold on, and then I heard, "This is Jeff" and I just start telling him that I'm a big fan of Gen 13 and his work on The Art of Homage Studios book and hoped to meet him at a show and get his autograph and show him some of my work. Jeff said good luck and then before hanging up, I figure I'd gone this far, why not see where else I can take this... and asked for Travis Charest. Jeff said sure hold on and then passed the phone to Travis, we talked real briefly and hung up and I just sat in awe for a few minutes... and that was the moment where, sacking up and being assertive just made me feel ten feet tall talking to people whose names I saw in my favorite comics.          Now I just needed to put in the work and find a way to work there. Around the same time I met colorist Brian Haberlin, talked with him on process and tools/applications used by the studio. I found out the best way to practice working on color guides to be like Joe Chiodo was to make larger copies of ashcan pages and color them.  So I mimicked a lot of what I saw in Joe Chiodo's work with multiple light sources and shading, light direction. I had a good portion of guides from Gen 13 mini-series #1, WildC.A.T.S. #5 and thought I was ready, so I found out at that time Bill Kaplan was in charge of submissions. I met him at a show, told him my name and showed my samples and my work was critiqued and it was ripped apart. Bad approach, terrible color theory, bad lighting. I listened and then commented on referencing Joe Chiodo's work, and he just looked at me and said thanks for letting me see your work and keep trying. Shortly after I met Steve Oliff and some of his guys from IHOC (International House of Color which would soon form Olyoptics), showed my stuff and also looked at his stuff from Akira and early Image color guides. He was really supportive, told me what media to use if coloring by hand and looking to Photoshop as digital was where it was at.  I had an Amiga 500 and used color applications like digipaint, so Jumping to a Mac with Photoshop 3.0 was the next step.

          I actually tried out for WildStorm back in early '90s when the studio had a talent search.   Really didn’t have too much experience, but enough to get a call to show up and take the test.  Met early WildStorm FX members, took the test given by Alex Sinclair and noodled the hell out of it and didn’t even finish in the allotted time, so [I] didn’t get the job. Come years later, I became good friends with several WildStorm FX members, Ian Hannin, James Rochelle, Jeremy Cox, Laura Martin (Depuy then) and Ben Dimagmaliw and heard about Andy Hartnell’s coloring spot opening up since he was writing Danger Girl. Send in samples, get a call to come take the test, fly down from San Francisco to San Diego, take the test, don’t finish due to catching a flight back home but get the file saved to a zip disk. Come home finish the test, send the file back in the morning, and then get the call that if I want the position its mine. I was currently testing video games at SEGA of America. [I] gave notice and started at WildStorm after relocating to San Diego a month later.            Day 1 at WildStorm, [I] get seated in the open area in “The Pit” facing Jim Lee’s office and to my left was Travis Charest & Tom McWeeney’s office… no pressure…breath right. Absolutely not, since my friend Ben Dimagmaliw had the Wizard magazine black and white picture of Jim Lee from the Top Ten and pinned it to the board in front of my desk…so now I had Jim staring at me. I kept it there to motivate [me] even when Jim would walk by and I was totally in awe…which I finally lost the fanboy-ness after four months. I still talked to Jeff Campbell, Scott Williams, Travis Charest and Rich Friend when they weren’t working to at least break the ice. Alex Sinclair and Nick Bell took me under their wings and showed me the essentials but soon after I got a lot of real tools to use as a colorist from my fellow colorists. I'd go in early to talk/watch day shift (Joel Benjamin, Tony Washington,etc) and at night talk with Justin Ponsor, Matt Millia, Eric Guerrero, etc., learning which artists like cut & grad or who liked airbrush, which books needed lots of color holds and knock outs and which books had none. Slow at first but was ramped up and rendering within a month and by the time I left, rendering two [pages] per day. But still, [I] was slow by comparison to others who could do three pages per day.  

          I was a huge fan of WildStorm's books as I picked [up] all the titles as they came out- from Wetworks, StormWatch, Gen 13 to WildC.A.T.S. WildStorm had the formula to take my money every month they came out with new books. From the first day I started, learning to flat books was the greatest thing ever. But that was the immediate glamour of working for Jim Lee. The first time I got to render a Gen 13 or Divine Right page was pretty cool, but while cool, you had a lot to do in a little time, so you turned into a machine to meet deadlines. Certain key items that I got to work on that stood out were Gary Larson’s “There’s a Hair in My Dirt”, coloring and art directing a ton of trading cards with David Baron, art directing Gen 12 issues with Eric Garcia and coloring Joe Madureira’s Wildcats #1 Grifter Variant was a highlight as I was not only a huge Grifter fan, but a fan of Joe’s work.            WildStorm FX had a lot of artwork to get done each day. Comic Books, trading Cards, specialty items like posters, DVD inserts, Gamepro or PSM magazine covers, Flash animated teasers for upcoming new release launches like Travis Charest’s Wildcats volume 2, strategy guide walkthroughs, etc. We did a lot and it did change day to day. Sometimes you knew you were flatting four pages and rendering two pages. Sometimes you colored four trading cards.          I was hired on for the nightshift and worked four to midnight or later to meet deadlines. So my hours were interesting to say the least. At the end of my first year at the studio, my son, Niko was born, so challenges of a newborn, and being alone in San Diego got to be very tough for my then wife, so she went back to the bay area to be with family. Even with weekend trips back to see my family, shortly after my year mark, I made arrangements to return back to the bay area and return to my family and work in the video game industry. So I of course placed my two weeks notice and left the studio but continued to freelance for off and on for a bit and continued to freelance for Image comics.

          What made WildStorm amazing was the people. The whole family worked together to get work done each day. Every person in WildStorm had a key role and made that place great. So while you think you have Jim Lee in drawing WildC.A.T.S, Scott Williams inking a page, Alex Sinclair coloring another, you have the rest of the studio doing their daily tasks… and a studio filled with laughter, music, discussions of who the Chargers or Padres played the night before, what movie flopped, or what new appetizer was on the menu at Moon Doggies Grill…this was day in/day out WildStorm. What Jim had set up was incredible to work for and some of that disappeared when DC took over. The initial announcement to us was a full company outing, where we were all told of the sale of the company to DC and what was changing and what would stay the same. Initially for me, there was some heartbreak, simply for what the mission statement of Image Comics was and why the founding fathers did what they did. WildStorm was a huge part of why Image was so big in the '90s and now it was gone to an extent since Time Warner was now the boss, a conglomerate, where before it was one man, figuratively speaking.          DC seemed very cool to work for. All hourly employees got a raise based on cost of living at that time, which was good, as it got me closer to what I was making prior in the bay area. Another benefit was employees now received comp copies every week of every DC item that shipped, be it a TPB, Hardcover, comics and sometimes toys/statues. Which when you’re 25 and a comic collector, is great. But for me it was close to the end.

          The experience was, best said, as a once in a lifetime, when it came to being listed amongst the best of the best in Artists/Inkers/Writers/Colorists. Few are able to say that. Even with very tight deadlines, (Fedex daily by 5PM), and long hours to make sure that the next shift had all the work ready for them, working along side the best was just that, the best. Aside from taking the knowledge of tips and tricks that WildStorm taught you as part of WildStorm FX, the friendships that I still have with my co-workers. Some are that of a hey, or head nod, while others are huge hugs annually at various comic cons, or random chats and discussions on Facebook or on the phone.          The biggest take-away I can comment on is hard work/work ethics, and keeping your name fresh and in the public eye every month- in Previews, in at least one book, a variant cover, an interview, whatever. Those that stay relevant are those that continue to work every month delivering content. If you step out or take a break from the industry, it takes you five times the amount of work to get back to where you were, as there are pencillers, inkers, and digital colorists ready to take your spot, for cheaper rates. I still moonlight in the comic industry as  a Manager/Handler but that’s simply because I'm still a huge fan of comics and those that create them.