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eury--dice · 4 years ago

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history, huh?

chapter one: principium

(or: the Red, White, and Royal Blue TRC AU, but no knowledge of the book is needed to read this! ao3 link in the rb)

Adam knew he was in trouble when he found himself covered in cake, champagne, and shattered glass while clutching onto someone’s sleeve.

Admittedly, the memory of the night as a whole is a bit fuzzy around the edges, softened by jet lag and overwhelming anger and a few flutes of champagne worth more than the house Adam grew up in. But he remembered enough to recall some key details: one, it was no ordinary reception, it was the royal wedding; two, the cake covering him was the 75,000-dollar royal wedding cake; and three, that he clutched onto His Royal Highness, Prince Ronan Lynch-Mountchristen-Windsor, while covered in the remnants of his champagne flute.

It was an international relations nightmare that a rational Adam Parrish, the first son of the United States, would pay to avoid at all costs. Even the slightly-inebriated Adam could feel a distant spark of fear over what Maura and Calla were going to say to him once he was not covered in frosting and brawling with a treasured member of the English monarchy. (Well, “treasured” was a relative term. Prince Ronan was more of a recently-reformed scandal than a treasure.)

But as he caught a glimpse of Blue’s expression, a carefully constructed mask of surprise for the cameras that only those who knew her personally could read the amusement behind, Gansey’s hand wrapped around his wrist and yanked Adam off of the ground.

He must have abandoned his conversation with Roger Malory to come and bail Adam out; deep down, beyond the adrenaline and anger and alcohol pumping through his veins, Adam was touched at the gesture. Guilt also hit him with the knowledge that Gansey hadn’t had a chance to talk to Malory since he left England as a teenager and now Adam had ruined that, but he tucked it away to examine at a later moment.

Adam thought he might have heard Ronan mutter “Oh my fucking Christ” from somewhere behind him in his stupid posh accent. Slinging an arm around Adam’s frosting-coated shoulders to steer him towards the Secret Service Agents already surging forward, Gansey leaned his head towards Adam’s and whispered around a smile, “What the fresh hell did you do?”

And, well. It was a good question. He glanced back at Ronan where he lay on the ground, already brushing off the help of the royal guards and climbing gracefully to his feet, the bead of blood on his cheek sparkling in the majestic royal lighting. Just a few minutes before, the Prince had stood by himself, a dark contrast to the pristine tiered cake and tiny buttercream flowers and gleaming champagne fountain behind him. And Adam, who was rarely angry over anything but could easily go too far when provoked, decided to engage.

“If it isn’t His Royal Highness,” Adam had said, drawing Ronan’s eyes to him. He could see the moment Ronan realized he wasn’t himself, taking in the curled hand and slightly flushed cheeks. Adam was a convincingly sober drunk, and something about Ronan being able to see through it pissed him off. And the fact that Ronan had spent more than half the night hiding away from the cameras and drinking himself didn’t help. Adam would’ve expected to find him dead on his feet and barely standing, but clearly Ronan was less of a lightweight than he was.

Ronan’s lips curled in what might have passed as a smile but looked a little too much like a predator baring its teeth. “Mr. Parrish,” he said, all clipped vowels and stiff politeness that made Adam want to scream. His lips lingered on the ‘h’ shape for a moment too long. “I’m surprised you’re speaking to me.”

Honesty was the last thing Adam had expected. “Why, because you monopolized Blue and treated her like some kind of...toy to ignore?”

His nostrils flared suddenly. “No, I do not... use people. But you have been avoiding me all evening when I’ve done my best to be civil.”

Adam laughed too loudly at that. “Civil? Yeah, okay,” he said, his mouth curved into a smile. “Most civil member of your family, I’m sure. Declan and Ashley would agree.”

Ronan went silent, swirling his champagne around in his hand and raising an uncoordinated hand to run over his shaved head. When he spoke, he grit his jaw as though holding back some impulse like the good repressed English boy he was. “I’d suggest you to go drink some water and find your way out before you do something you regret.”

“Or what?”

Ronan stepped closer to Adam so that they were nearly chest-to-chest, his two-inch height advantage only pissing Adam off more. “I said I’d advise you to stop.”

And Ronan, so subtly that he doubted any camera could pick it up, pushed Adam away with one hand. It would have worked splendidly had Adam not back-tracked and grabbed Ronan’s sleeve, sending them both falling.

And now they were both covered in frosted roses and shame, Adam stuck with Gansey’s voice on the plane saying please table your rivalry for one night reverberating in his head.

What the fresh hell, indeed.

***

Silence hung over the West Wing briefing room like a wet blanket. Maura Sargent stared unblinkingly into Adam’s eyes from where she perched on the edge of the table. Adam, from his seat at the head, stared back with every ounce of courage his mother’s PR campaigns taught him. Maura seemed to be studying him, and Adam simply didn’t know how to look away.

“Blue,” Maura said finally. On Maura’s other side, Blue wordlessly handed over a stack of newspapers, her gaze shifting from Maura to Adam as though watching a ping pong tournament. Adam knew of Maura’s “no restrictions” policy at home with Blue, but everyone knew this policy in no way related to her work life. Still, Blue watched attentively with knitted brows as though trying to guess the outcome or will a better one into existence.

“Gansey?” Maura asked, all without removing her eyes from Adam’s. The touch of anxiety in Blue’s expression didn’t even begin to reach the anxiety in Gansey’s face, as he stared at Adam like he was a lost puppy. Still, Gansey had more poise than most politicians did, and he managed to smoothly relinquish a stack of magazines into Maura’s free hand. Maura combined the stacks into one in her right hand before dropping them into Adam’s lap with a dull thwap.

“These are just the ones being sold outside this morning, not to mention what’s circulating in the British tabloids,” she said, finally turning away and reaching for a mug of coffee. “Read them.” She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like Jesus, but Adam didn’t try to discern it. He went for the stack instead, glossy pages almost slipping through his thin fingers.

THE $75,000 STUMBLE greeted him on the front page of The Washington Post.

BATTLE ROYAL: Prince Ronan and FSOTUS Come To Blows at Royal Wedding

CAKEGATE: Adam Parrish Sparks Second English-American War

Everywhere he flipped, images of he and Ronan covered in sparkling broken glass and frosting assaulted his eyes. The images and headlines blurred together, and he flicked his gaze back up to Maura. All he could see for a moment was Ronan’s rumpled suit and the sliver of red on his cheek. He blinked three times in rapid succession and Maura returned, her brown eyes cool and calculating over the rim of her travel mug.

“Isn’t this a topic for the Situation Room, Ms. Sargent?” He asked. His mother, seated across from him, and Blue both pursed their lips, although for entirely different reasons; Blue appeared to be holding back laughter while his mother must have been holding back something else. Maura narrowed her eyes, oblivious to Gansey’s tightening expression behind her.

“Don’t Ms. Sargent me,” she replied, her tone cool. “I knew all your secrets, kid. I’ve been watching you since you were five. The sass will get you nowhere.” She snatched the Sun article from out of his hands, flipping it open to the correct page and hiding Ronan’s buttercream-smeared frown behind her fingers. “‘Sources inside the royal reception report the two were seen arguing minutes before the cake-tastrophe. But royal family insiders claim the First Son’s feud with Ronan has raged for years. A source tells The Sun that Ronan and the First Son have been at odds ever since their first meeting at the Rio Olympics--’” here Adam made an odd, strangled noise -- “‘and the animosity has only grown—these days, they can’t even be in the same room with each other. It seems it was only a matter of time before Adam took the American approach: a violent altercation.’”

Adam locked eyes with Gansey at the last line, watching Gansey’s lips thin just as he felt the blood drain from his own face. His eyes slid over to Blue, who yielded much of the same reaction. His mother, surprisingly, didn’t change her posture. If she was thinking of Robert Parrish like the rest of them, she had a better poker face.

“They’re blaming this on Ana’s administration,” Maura continued, pushing on through the stony silence. “Please, explain the joke to me.”

“He started it,” is all Adam was able to say, which was probably one of the worst ways to defend himself. Sounding like a petulant toddler helped nobody, but he had made his bed and so he would lie in it, too. “He shoved me and I grabbed his sleeve to-”

“Adam,” his mother said, raising one hand to cut him off with the smooth, brown skin of her palm. He quieted at once, recognizing her demeanor as half-presidential and half motherly. Ana’s voice was caught somewhere between the sugary drawl that lulled him to sleep as a child and the All-American southern twang that helped win her an election. “You know I trust you, sweetheart, but the press sure as hell doesn’t give a fuck about the nitty-gritty of who started what.”

“Ronan definitely touched him first,” Gansey said, his voice unhurried but his face clearly eager to shift some of the blame off of Adam. Maura shot a cool look in his direction.

“He-said, she-said, that doesn’t matter. The press thinks and we can’t change their mind, we can only prove them wrong.” She held out a hand again, and with a sigh Blue acquiesced a new, thick file. Maura dropped it in front of Adam like a hot potato. “Here’s damage control. This rivalry with the prince of England ends now.”

“It’s not a-”

“Rivalry, we know,” his mother interrupted wryly. The tone was odd from her president-mode self, her wayward curls tamed into a perfect ponytail and her face made up instead of the more casual expression she normally had when joking. “But, sugar, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. You can call it whatever you like, but it’s always gonna be seen as a rivalry.”

Adam sat silently, flipping through a section entitled TERMS OF AGREEMENT. Maura continued. “You’re flying to England on Saturday and spending the weekend with Ronan.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but once they did he couldn’t stop thinking of them. Dread settled just below the surface of Adam’s skin. He looked at his mother. “I’d prefer to fake my death, actually. Or just really die. I know Calla would be willing to help with either, and Persephone is good with that stuff, right? Death of a son should boost your polling. The voters love a sympathetic case.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she warned. She looked to her watch with a heavy sigh and leaned over to kiss him on the head. “I’m too overscheduled for this. Adam, listen to Maura and don’t ignore her plan. You two,” she gestured vaguely at Blue and Gansey, “Make sure he doesn’t do anything irrational while we’re wrapped up.”

Blue lazily saluted while Gansey nodded reassuringly. With one last glance at Adam, Ana was gone, her heels clicking away from the heavy doors. She slipped away from being Ana Parrish, Adam’s mother punishing him for stupid behavior, to become President Parrish, leader of the country. Adam envied her compartmentalization.

Maura leaned over the table, flipping pages in the file. “We’re releasing this statement in conjunction with the Crown as soon as they approve. It was an accident, no harm was intended, all that jazz-”

Adam lifted one eyebrow. “So the truth?”

“Call it what you’d like. And we’re clarifying that you and Prince Ronan have been close personal friendships for several years despite conflicts in schedule making it difficult to appear publicly.”

Blue laughed out loud at that, clamping one hand over her mouth. Maura didn’t even look over to her, but Adam’s expression must have been similarly dumbfounded because she sighed resignedly, taking another sip of coffee. “Look, it’s better for all sides if your tussle just looks like some...frat boy joshing.” Blue’s laughs crescendoed louder, and Maura shot her a cool look. “If you need to step out, please feel free to, Blue. I’m sure Gansey will fill you in later.” Adam looked to Blue and her wave of dismissal, gripping onto the wrist of Gansey’s blazer to steady herself. Maura turned back to Adam.

“I know he’s difficult. You can hate him for all I care. In privacy, feel free to construct intricate arguments for his removal from this earth. Fantasize about dumping yogurt on his head. Compose songs to drive him insane. But, for the love of God, you will act like he hung the moon with nothing but yarn and a sewing needle whenever there’s the slimmest possibility of a camera or another living being witnessing it. Kapeesh?”

It wasn’t like he was allowed any true reaction, but he nodded all the same. His powerlessness was because of his own actions, not Maura. It was his own fault, and he would own up to the consequences. Even if the thought of willingly spending time with Ronan made his stomach turn.

“Your job is to not piss anyone off and to gush about Ronan. You’ll memorize this fact sheet-” she slid another page from the file and tapped it, “-and be prepared to answer any question with these as an answer. Your deal includes a minimum of two social media posts a day about Ronan and your visit. On Sunday, you have an on-air interview with ITV This Morning, and you’ll be fresh as a daisy with nothing but sunshine to say about Ronan’s competitive yachting hobby. There are only two photo ops, one in private where you can bitch and one charity appearance. That’s it, you’re free.”

Adam opened his mouth.

“Don’t care,” Maura said before Adam could make a noise. “You ruined the Royal Wedding and a cake that’s worth a year of college tuition. He’ll attend a state dinner in a few months for his part, and you will pay your penance now.”

Adam nodded slowly. He gathered the file in his hands along with all the decorum Gansey taught him over the years. He smiled a small smile at Maura. “Well, it will be an experience, won’t it?”

“I’d expect it, yes.”

“Thank you, Maura. And I’m sorry.”

She waved her hand. “Don’t apologize. Your apology will be not screwing this up even more.”

“I’ll try.”

Adam rose, Blue and Gansey following his lead. As he turned to walk away, Maura spoke again. “Oh, and Adam?”

“Yes?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled, and she looked younger, somehow. Almost amused. Guilt panged in his chest at the thought that he’d caused the tiredness on her face before. “Try to have a little fun. It’s a trip to Europe and you’re not even missing class.”

He paused, thinking of Ronan and his shaved head and cruel smile in front of the wedding cake. He tried to imagine what fun might be for him - whether to trust the fact sheet proclaiming fencing and yachting as Ronan’s pastimes or the tabloids that traded stories of illegal drag racing and getting black-out drunk. He wasn’t sure which version of Ronan sounded worse. “Sure,” he agreed quietly. “I will.”

***

Those who work in the White House know a few things about the First Family’s habits, but they never know the full truth.

They can observe things the average citizen would die to know; they see staffers pacing the halls and tearing their hair out over Instagram captions, overhear expletive-laden and fond familial conversations, and occasionally see the pristine members of the executive branch with dark crescents burning under their eyes and old high-school sweatshirts adorned like the newest fashion. But none were more elusive and two-sided than the White House Trio.

In their case, two-sided didn’t necessarily mean something bad, only something drastic. Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey, and Adam Parrish presented the perfect dynamic for the press to eat up: three attractive early twenty-somethings inside the White House who were notoriously open to the public about their lives. There were veneers crafted and stories concocted every day, all designed to get the perfect media response without sharing too much. There was Blue, the Indigenous American daughter of a single mother and prominent staffer, barely five feet tall but laser-sharp with any numbers you threw at her; there was Richard Campbell Gansey III, better known as the single-named Gansey who came from the billions that funded the Vice-Presidency but wanted nothing more than to give it all away, always ready with his winning charm and a new polo shirt to distract the press from his scathing op-eds; and there was Adam Parrish, a true American Dream born from a father from the Heartland and a mother from Mexican immigrants, a single First Son set to graduate valedictorian from Georgetown amid a political campaign with an ease most of the country only wished to possess.

Together, they hit every demographic that they could without even trying too hard. Their progressive politics were helped along by their identities, and so they aided their parents by nature of existing within the White House walls. White House staff saw these versions of them, but only glimpses of what lay beneath - Blue wandering the halls in self-created shirts and dresses with stacks of newspapers clutched in her arms, the scent of mint clinging to Gansey everywhere he went at all hours of the day, Adam’s frequent requests for coffee at midnight and propensity to wear coca-cola tee shirts.

They all knew very well that no one really saw the full picture of them, but that was how the White House Trio liked it.

The three of them spread out in the music room, one of their only haunts where they could be truly alone. For once, they weren’t a marketing ploy of their own creation or a group of kids on a pedestal; they were just Blue, Gansey, and Adam. After that meeting, they had to be.

Adam sprawled on the couch, laying exactly horizontal, flipping over the HRH fact sheet.

“You’re on the cover of Us Weekly, Blue,” Gansey called across the room, undoubtedly fulfilling his guilty-pleasure hobby of obsessively tracking their tabloids. “Full portrait of your Royal Wedding outfit.”

“It’s about time,” she responded from her perch on the windowsill, a bottle of red wine and a bottle opener in her hands. “I wore that lace to catch attention, thank you very much. It’s been at least four months since a solo cover.”

“Well, they do mention the cake-tastrophe in the corner.”

Blue waved her hand dismissively. “That was bound to happen. Scandal sells, but so do I.”

“Okay, ew,” Adam said flatly.

“They’re speculating about you two again, you know.” Gansey scrolled to a new part of the magazine, lifting a thumb to rub against his lower lip. “‘Tryst with a mystery brunette: Heartthrob First Son Adam Parrish caught sneaking back to the W hotel for an amorous rendezvous in the Presidential Suite. Sources say the brunette is none other than Blue Sargent, the twenty-two-year-old member of the White House Trio.’”

“Less than a month!” Blue exclaimed, popping the wine open. “You owe me, Gansey. Pay up.”

He ignored her, dropping the hand from his face. “You didn’t really…”

Neither Adam nor Blue responded. Gansey knew very well that their short-lived relationship on the campaign trail was due to die a quick death, but something - perhaps the lingering stares he seemed to throw Blue more and more often - was making him touchier to the subject of their former relationship. Of course, Adam and Blue did nothing of the sort, only watched the West Wing and made sex noises at young Rob Lowe with a bottle of champagne passed between them. Confusing the tabloids was an added bonus to their game. Blue took a swig directly from the bottle of red.

“You’d think they’d be talking more about your spat with Ronan than your possible sex life,” Gansey said, returning his focus to Adam. Adam finally looked away from the HRH fact sheet and towards Gansey’s squinting eyes. He really needed to put his glasses on, but far be it from Adam to mother Gansey. It had to be the other way around.

“No one cares about what happens over the pond.”

“Don’t they?” Blue said, scrunching her nose in a similar fashion to Gansey. “They seem to follow the royals pretty well. Tabloids were in a tizzy over the Prince’s lack of date.”

“In a tizzy,” Adam mocked. From where she sat on the floor, Blue stretched her short frame as far as possible to nudge Adam’s leg with the toe of her socked foot. “Why does anyone care? It’s not like he’s, you know, interesting.”

Blue and Gansey were staring again, he could tell. “Adam, honey,” Blue started, her southern accent heavy and thick. Gansey reached for the bottle and she relinquished it easily. “I know you hate him, but he’s probably the most interesting royal out there.”

“Wasn’t he caught in a club with his underage brother right after their father died?” Gansey asked, taking a prim sip from the bottle of wine.

“Apparently has a huge sucker of a tattoo on his back, too.”

“Isn’t that against royal etiquette or some shit?”

“Probably.”

Adam waved the fact sheet around, spinning himself so that his head hung off the edge of the couch. “Explain this, then. He’s more wonder-bread than Gansey, and that’s saying something.” Blue spluttered out a laugh, and Adam slung an upside-down apologetic glance at Gansey. “Sorry, man. No offense.”

“None taken,” Gansey said, reaching for the fact sheet and plucking it from Adam’s grasp. “What’s wrong with these? Charles Dickens as a favorite author? What do you have against Charles Dickens?”

Adam and Blue exchanged a glance. “Nothing in theory. It’s just a bunch of garbage I don’t need in my brain.”

Blue snorted. “No thoughts, brain full of GDP calculations.”

“You know I just finished my macroeconomics midterm.”

“That’s the point,” Blue said, snatching the bottle back from Gansey and peeking at the sheet. Her nose scrunched again, squinting her eyes as she always did when drinking. “Mutton pie? Who loves mutton pie?”

“It’s a very versatile meal,” Gansey defended.

“I mean, sure, these are boring as hell,” Blue conceded, ignoring Gansey’s scandalized look. “But this is clearly slapped together by his PR team to make him look like the perfect prince.”

“So?” Adam said, unimpressed.

“It’s not a reason to hate him.”

“Oh, I know. I hate him anyway. But I have better use for my brain space than facts about His Royal Dick.”

“That just sounds like you’re talking about Gansey.”

“To be fair, Adam,” Gansey said, “it’s your fault. You fought him.”

“What happened anyway?” Blue asked. He knew the question was coming, but all the same, he didn’t want to answer. “He was fine when I danced with him.”

“Fine,” Adam said curtly. “Cold and severe sounds more like it.”

Blue’s eyes scanned over him with an uncanny feeling she could see into his thoughts. “So you were...defending me? God, please don’t blame me for this.”

“That’s actually kind of nice, Parrish.”

“No,” Blue interrupted, a hard edge to her voice.. “Not if he does stupid shit because of it. I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

“I know!” Adam rushed to say. “Believe me, I know. It was…” he withered under her look. “...An excuse?”

“Look at me,” Blue said, voice firm. He did. Her lips were thinned with seriousness. “Don’t protect my honor again, please. It’s a weird-ass fishbowl world we live in, but if you do, I will leak to the press that your favorite song is Africa by Toto.”

“Please do,” Adam said, scoffing. “It’s a bop.”

“And do you want it dogging your every step?”

“Maybe I do.”

Blue shrugged. “Your funeral.”

“This is quite Shakespearean,” Gansey said, most likely in hopes of interrupting their budding argument. He gestured grandly to the gaudy tapestry-ridden walls and golden tassels on the furniture, although Adam imagined that Gansey thought it would look more impressive in his head. “Two sworn enemies forced into friendship for the sake of tension between their countries.”

“We’re not enemies,” Adam said. “That implies we’re...on the same level. Have actually spoken.”

“Exactly. Shakespearean.”

“Then let’s hope I get stabbed at the end of this. Blue, will you do the honors? I know you’ll do it mercifully.”

“Oh, cheer up now,” Blue said in a false British coo. “You’ll be the darling of England before Sunday even rolls around.”

“What does it matter?” Adam said, not lifting his gaze from the fact sheet. “They just think I’m another violent American over there.”

He could feel the weight of Blue and Gansey’s stares above his head. No one needed to say the words themselves to invoke the double-wide of Adam’s earliest years, where blood covered most of the carpet. “They don’t mean it like that, Adam,” Gansey said finally, breaking some of the tension with his reverberating voice. “They mean it like… UFC fighters, or rioting after the Patriots lose the Super bowl. Or win.” Gansey’s frown deepened. “I can never figure out how they’re doing.”

“Yeah, I know,” Adam said, lips twisted downwards. He regretted bringing it up. “I know.”

Blue nudged him again with her foot. “Want to watch Parks and Rec and make fun of the Prince’s fact cheat-sheet?”

“God, yes.”

She snatched the sheet from Gansey, reading it over again. “Drinking game: drink whenever Prince Ronan’s interests are laughably terrible.”

“Counter-offer: drink whenever Adam overreacts to his interests.” Gansey offered. Blue passed him the bottle to reach for her laptop instead.

“Either way, we’re getting alcohol poisoning.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“We’ll quiz you,” Gansey offered Adam, just as Blue pulled up an episode of Parks and Rec. “Not season seven, Sargent, what the hell are you thinking?”

“Season seven can be great!” Off of Gansey’s glare, Blue complied, clearly not wanting the fight. “Fine. Season three?”

“Now you’re talking.”

Blue balanced her laptop on an old piano bench and joined their huddle near the couch, beckoning the bottle back.

“Alright,” Gansey began, eyes settled on the top of the sheet. “You better be ready to learn something, Parrish.”

***

None of them succumbed to alcohol poisoning, but they did learn several facts about Prince Ronan.

There was the basic information, things Adam knew already: his mother, Queen Aurora, took the throne with a dreamy demeanor and high hopes at the age of 19 after her parent’s untimely death and her twin sister’s abdication. The year before, she married Niall Lynch, an Irish actor, and practically upset the whole place. Niall died in 2015, not too long before the Rio Olympics, and Aurora’s public appearances had dwindled ever since, leaving the press to have a field day with rumors of illness and mental breakdowns. Ronan had a raven (why, Adam could not fathom) named, of all things, Chainsaw. His best friend, Henry Cheng, was heir to Cheng Industries and managed their charity branch.

Gansey actually knew both Cheng and Ronan, having spent a year at Eton in high school, and Adam just rolled his eyes at Ganey’s relentless knowledge of every human person.

His music tastes were listed as baroque, death metal, and Irish jigs, a combination that left Blue wheezing. “His Royal Highness may be my new favorite person,” she insisted, leaving Adam scowling.

The week came and went, and Adam found himself on a private tarmac following a trans-Atlantic flight with a man in an impeccably pressed suit and a cup of tea nestled into his hands. Calla, one of Blue’s pseudo-aunts and a secret service agent accompanying him, pressed forward to shake his hand and exchange a few words under her breath with him. He almost pitied the man. Calla, with her high bun of perfectly-contained curls and steely gaze, oozed intimidation out of her very being. But to his surprise, Calla actually smiled at the mystery man. She wasn’t quite warm, but he received considerably kinder treatment than everyone else subject to Calla’s jurisdiction. When she stepped back, the man turned his gray eyes on Adam. He smiled without any mirth.

“Mr. Parrish,” the man said, reaching out his free hand. Adam shook it, trying to keep it short and firm as his mother taught him. “It’s a pleasure to have you with us in England. I’m Mr. Gray, Prince Ronan’s equerry.”

“It’s very nice to meet you. I apologize for the turn of events that led to this weekend.”

“Well,” Mr. Gray said, turning and beckoning Adam to an Aston Martin with blacked-out windows, “once you reach my age, Mr. Parrish, you’ll find that these matters are quite simple to see coming.” Adam barely had a chance to blink in response before he was sliding into the back seat of the car, the rumbling of the tarmac shut out succinctly with the door’s closure. A lull in conversation settled around them; Adam, after clicking his seatbelt in, favored looking out the window to London’s scenery over making conversation. The blur of grey and white passed for a few minutes before Mr. Gray finally informed him of his role.

“There are a few matters of paperwork to go over before entering Kensington Palace. They’re currently next to you, and signing them is of highest priority before we begin this weekend.” Adam was no stranger to non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality paperwork; he’d expected the practically novel-length stack. By the time he’d finished signing on all the correct lines, the car slowed to a crawl. “Prince Ronan has just finished his tennis practice, and we’re here to escort him to our first activity.”

“Splendid,” Adam whispered under his breath, unconsciously mimicking Mr. Gray's crisp voice.

The English countryside hit Adam full in the face as soon as he stepped from the car; fresh air, the kind you never find in DC, welcomed him like an old friend, and though the English air was nothing like the air he remembered growing up with in Virginia, it felt nostalgic all the same. He suddenly wanted to be back there, in the home he remembered so well. He wanted to be anywhere but England with the goddamn Prince of Wales loping his way towards him in an all-white outfit, a racket swinging in his hand.

Jesus, how pretentious could he be?

Annoyingly, Ronan was not sweating and not fatigued looking in the slightest. He actually looked incredibly refreshed, the harsh lines of his face softened and a flush under his cheeks, his blue eyes charged and alight. Looking into them, Adam felt startlingly as though he was staring out at the horizon on a cloudless day.

“Parrish,” Ronan called, jogging the remaining distance quickly and closing the gap between them. “You've found the directions, I can see.”

“It’s difficult to miss,” Adam replied tightly, holding out a hand for Ronan to shake. “Extensive wealth tends to smell for miles around.”

Ronan took his hand, and his smoothed palm slid uncomfortably against Adam’s calloused hand. An unpleasant jolt started in his stomach. Ronan affixed his same unkind but not terrifying smile to his face, looking ridiculously like Declan for a moment, before continuing their conversation. Both knew to disconnect their words from their faces, conscious of the photographer unsubtly circling them. “It’s a rather pleasant odor, yes? I prefer it to fried food and pollution.”

“London, known for its fresh air, right?” Adam laughed, the charming laugh that beguiled TV hosts and entranced his mother’s constituents. “Excited for the days ahead?”

“I’d rather lie on the NASCAR racetrack, or even concede an argument.”

Adam slipped his palm from Ronan’s, choosing instead to slap him jovially on the arm. “I never thought I’d see the day where we agree on something, Your Highness.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan said, the words slipping through his unkind but certainly camera-friendly smile with practiced ease, and oh, there was the difference between this weekend and all their other interactions: Adam couldn’t speak of their interactions at all, locked behind an NDA. Ronan could swear as much as he pleased and not face retribution from his family.

“Gladly,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“The car is ready if you’re ready, then,” Mr. Gray said from behind Adam.

“Perfect,” Ronan said, any hint of his bleached teeth disappearing. “The sooner this is over with, the better.”

And they set off, side by side, for the car.

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felicia-cat-hardy · 3 years ago

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My 'Pretty Little Liars' Obsession Led Me To My Best Friend

“Got a secret, can you keep it?” Well, I’ve got one: Though Pretty Little Liars ended in 2017, the seven-season mystery thriller schemed its way into being an integral part of my life for the long haul, so much so that the opening credits live in my head rent-free. To this day, each time I hear the sinister theme song — “Secret” by The Pierces — I’m brought right back to my childhood comfort show (ahem, obsession). The visuals begin with a swipe of mascara, the smear of red lipstick, and a clasp of a heel onto a porcelain doll, which makes me feel like I’m watching someone get pampered for prom. Until, of course, it cuts to four girls standing in front of a casket. It's a chilling moment, one that, until Season 6B, ended with Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) delivering her iconic “shh.” I got cast under the show’s spell the first time I saw it, and I wasn’t the only one: Pretty Little Liars led me to my best friend.

Ironically, plotlines about deceit and betrayal actually helped ignite a long-lasting friendship. In 2011, the only other person I knew to be watching PLL was my now-BFF, Taylor, who’s been by my side for over a decade. We were only about 11 and 12 when it premiered, so shout out to our parents for letting us watch a show that dealt with very adult themes like substance use disorder, assault, and grief. Unlike our classmates, who watched tween-appropriate hits like iCarly and Victorious, we became PLL stans.

As fans know, the show is loosely based on the Sara Shepard YA series of the same name, and the first book was my entry point into the PLL universe. I loved reading about blackmailers and murderers navigating high school, but I thought I was the only one who was into it. (Was this my ~I’m different~ complex showing, or were my peers just naturally more inclined to recap Dance Moms? I’ll never know.) So, Taylor first struck up a conversation with me at school because she spotted the first PLL book on my desk — you know, the one painted with porcelain wax dolls warning to “never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret” in a Gothic script. She asked if I’d watched the TV adaptation yet and we immediately exchanged phone numbers to text about upcoming episodes. We then fell into the fandom. Fast.

I’d never talked to Taylor before this interaction — we had only been in a few classes together — but I always saw her as approachable and friendly. Universally, the beginning of middle school is a big and terrifying year when kids from different elementary schools unite. Eager to meet new people, I reached for friendship at any chance I could get. Taylor made it easy. Aside from being a genuinely kind person (a rare trait for a middle schooler!), she was fangirling over the same thing as me.

Fast forward over a decade later, and the show still feels timeless, especially in its accurate depictions of how dramatic high school can get. It’s no surprise there’s a PLL HBO Max reboot on the way along with the remakes of other buzzy shows from that era (hello, 2010s nostalgia). Ah. It was a simpler time. Back then, Freeform was still ABC Family and for me, Tuesdays meant one thing: PLL is on. What first started as a solo viewing experience soon became a designated hangout time, a time slot reserved for me and Taylor to gush over how much we loved Ashley Benson. (We still do!)

The series had a vibe similar to Gossip Girl or Bridgerton in that a mysterious, unidentifiable pot-stirrer keeps fans guessing each episode, but it was arguably so much better since “A,” the anonymous villain, is out for, you know, murder. Ultimately, it was the type of whodunit that made me and Taylor (and millions of viewers) go down a couple of Reddit rabbit holes — remember the “Aria is A” suspicion? — and this is where my and Taylor’s experience with fan theories began.

Oh, and let’s not forget the location. PLL takes place in the fictional suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, and for two girls from Bucks Country — aka the Philadelphia ‘burbs — we ate it up. The beloved “Welcome to the Dollhouse” episode was exceptionally creepy not only because the Liars get locked into a life-size replica of their bedrooms, but also because our real neighborhood looks extremely similar to their hometown. It operates like Rosewood, too, in that small-town gossip travels at lightning speed.

The Pennsylvania-based plotline also made it easier for us to identify with the characters, who felt like extensions of ourselves. In many ways, we got to know each other through their personalities. Taylor is studious and high-achieving, obviously a Spencer. And I owned feather earrings because I saw Lucy Hale sport them in Season 1, so obviously an Aria. Asking “Are you more of a Hanna or an Emily?” held as much weight in 2012 as asking someone their rising sign in 2021. While it might not say much, it also tells you everything you need to know about a person.

PLL got its start right before live-tweeting shows became popularized, so when we weren’t together, I used to text Taylor on my slide-out keyboard phone (only Zillennials will remember) to compare notes without stumbling upon many spoilers. They read something like this: “Caleb and Hanna are soul mates, TBH.” Like every other fan, we theorized about why A had to be Ian… and Melissa… and Jenna… and Mona… and, you get the point. When our elaborate speculations ran cold, we’d pause DVR’d episodes to gather more clues, like glimpses of Red Coat’s face in her second season introduction, or inspections of those eerie-gloved hands assembling dolls and sharpening knives at the end of each episode.

This game of Clue made room for conversations about all the things. We were in high school during the show’s peak, so it felt like the Liars had laid the groundwork for how to operate our school’s halls. Rosewood High was not traditional — uh, multiple students came back from the dead (*cough* Mona and Alison) — but it did prepare us for the stressors of college applications and first romantic relationships. In fact, Benson’s Hanna Marin would be proud of my matchmaking skills because back then, I introduced Taylor to the boyfriend she’s still with today.

As we both grew up with the show, our friendship got even deeper. The Liars weren’t the only ones to share secrets, and I found it incredibly easy to confide in Taylor. She’s trustworthy, level-headed, compassionate, and an excellent listener. She’s someone I know will always pick up on the second ring and is the type of friend to be there with advice, reassurance, and a quick-witted one-liner. She once joked about never needing a diary because we’ve transcribed the past 10 years of our lives via text.

Our bond has remained strong, especially because the most outrageous PLL-esque plotlines of our lives are ones we’ve experienced together. I love Taylor because I don’t have to provide background for my stories. I’m even so familiar with the cast of characters in her life that when someone re-enters after a long period, I like to say they Alison DiLaurentis’ed her.

And on the off-chance she’s not there to witness something meaningful happen to me IRL, she’s always ready to decipher what went down over texts or dinner and drinks — just like we did when we were teens trying to figure out who A was (minus the wine, of course).

The way she can reconstruct my way of thinking and offer up a perspective I hadn’t seen before is almost paranormal. Whether these are Taylor’s naturally given talents or traits learned from peeling back all the layers of the series, I’m not sure. But she’s always there to decode situations with me — whether they relate to a TV show or during moments when I feel lost.

I couldn’t be more thankful that Taylor entered my life and that PLL played a role in our friendship. I feel so incredibly lucky to know someone like her. Plus, now I have someone who is obligated to watch the reboot with me. Ali was right: Friends do share secrets. And she’s ~quite literally~ the reason Taylor’s got all of mine. Spencer and Aria, you’ve got some competition.

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chelseypbell · 3 years ago

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PROTECT OUR WOMEN

I think the recent kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard has shocked and saddened the nation of UK but this isn’t the first case of something like this happening to our women. As women, we are told not to walk down dark streets, to keep one headphone out so we can hear our surroundings, to not wear that short skirt or that revealing top as it could appeal to a man’s ‘urges’. In Sarah’s case, people have asked the question of why did she walk home at that time, why was she out at that time. Not, why was there a police officer who had already been flagged for indecent exposure waiting around for her to be attacked.

I have spoken out about my own experience with sexual assault, and most women have dealt with these events. From being beeped at by a car of men, to being touched in a club without consent to rape. We view rape as the most significant and worst of these crimes but the small crimes allow these types of men to build up to these more severe crimes. It’s the same idea of stealing something small, getting away with it and then moving up to stealing bigger items. Now I am not here to make the argument that it is all men who should be looked as the problem, that would be untrue. It’s those who commit these actions, things that are seen as no big deal, those who watch as their friends touch girls up in clubs, listen as their friends make derogatory comments about girls they see walking down the street, those people need to be held accountable as well as it reinforces that these behaviours and these comments are okay to make. The lockdown has seen the rise of more domestic violence and assault crimes, as women feel trapped more than ever and unable to leave home due to the money crunch this pandemic has left on people’s lives.

This begs the question, what more can we do for our most vulnerable women. Our most scared and at risk women. First, we need to look out for the signs. There are different kinds of abuse. Let’s start with psychological; this can include name calling, threatening behaviour and words, manipulation tactics, gas-lighting (making you question your own memory of events):

Examples:

“I don’t understand why YOU keep doing this” = Placing the blame on you for their actions, blaming their abusive ways on you.

“Are you sure that’s what happened” = Making you question your own memory of something that happened or what was said in a conversation.

Then there is economic abuse, controlling your money, stop you working or using your name to apply for loans or overdrafts etc.

Sexual abuse, making you feel like you need to have sex with them, this doesn’t have to be physical threats, it can be with words, manipulating you into doing sexual favours for them.

Physical abuse, it doesn’t have to just be hitting, they might throw objects, not necessarily at you but at the wall or near you. This is still classed as physical abuse.

Technological abuse, threatening texts, wanting passwords to social media or your phone, track your location or post personal photos or videos.

Secondly, you need to let go of the idea that this person will change over time and that you could be the one to help them change. These are the ones who will exhibit this behaviour but then tell you they are sorry and that it won’t happen again. It’s true that there are support systems out there for abusers to recognise their behaviours and help get treatment for it but you cannot wait for this to happen. Your safety is main priority and you cannot put yourself in danger waiting for someone to change their actions.

Some facts that not many know is that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, every 30 seconds the police will receive a call for help relating to domestic abuse.

Some excuses that will be used to excuse abuse are that alcohol and drugs make people more violent, most abusers will also be violent when sober, many who drink never use violence so why is this used as an excuse? Some say that abusers grow up in violent households and this is the reason that they become abusers, this can be true but violence is still the choice an abuser makes, they alone are responsible for their actions, no one else.

The ‘they just lost their temper’ excuse is also used but they are very much in control, they use multiple methods to abuse, it’s not a case of ‘seeing red’.

A good documentary about domestic violence was created by the BBC called ‘Murdered by my Boyfriend’ which is a drama based on a real life case from right here in Nottingham. This BAFTA award winning film follows ‘Ashley’ through her 4 year relationship with a man called ‘Reece’ who ultimately ended up beating her to death with physical violence and an ironing board as a weapon while their daughter watched on. The attack started after she confessed to sleeping with another man while they were split up, and she lay on her bedroom floor bleeding out for two hours before an ambulance was called, she later died from these injuries.

This is why we must be more vigilant, looking for signs with not only our own partners but with family and friends as well. If we find the signs and recognise them before its too late, we can help victims be safe and prevent murders from happening.

Stay safe and vigilant, make your voices heard and don’t let us be silenced.

- Chelsey Bell

#protect our women #protectourwomen #blog post #SA #SA support #sa survivor #SA advice #SA awareness #abusive relationships #agony aunt #advice #domestic abuse #domestic abuse advice

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dgchg · 3 years ago

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ghostsray · 5 years ago

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Ch4: Science

(...i swear, this chapter did not go how i planned it at all.)

(first - prev - next)

Danny was panting when he entered the school building. He had arrived in time despite the ghost he encountered on the way. As he leaned over on his knees to catch his breath, Sam walked over nonchalantly and handed him a filled worksheet. "I did your biology homework for you," she explained. "You're welcome."

Danny blinked. "We had biology homework?"

Sam rolled her eyes and said, "What would you do without me?"

"Fail school, for sure," Danny said and gratefully accepted the paper from her.

A girl passing by them suddenly paused and came over. Danny recognized her from a few of his classes, though he didn't remember her name. "Danny--" (He might not know everyone's names, but everyone knew his name; it was kind of hard not to recognize him with the Fentons' reputation)--"I didn't know you had a brother!" she said.

Danny furrowed his brows and said, "Brother? What brother?"

"That freshman who looks exactly like you," she responded, glancing between him and Sam with knit eyebrows. "Are you not related?"

Sam and Danny met each other's eyes. No doubt, the same thought was running through their heads: a fourteen-year-old boy who looked exactly like Danny? Sure, it could be a coincidence, but it was more likely to be Danny's oh-so-beloved clone, Niel.

Danny frowned at his classmate and asked, "Where is he?"

She pointed down the hallway, still confused, and Danny moved in the direction of her finger before she could ask any more questions. It didn't take him long before he spotted the freshman she had been referring to, standing alone by a locker.

Niel looked nervous. As much as the idea of being around other kids was appealing to him, the reality was a bit overwhelming. There were all these students milling about who didn't speak to him and whom he didn't know how to engage with. More than a few were staring at him and whispering to each other, which Niel found pretty rude, considering he was right there.

He perked up when he saw Danny approach him. Finally, someone he knew! Niel turned away from his new locker and greeted Danny with outstretched arms and an exclamation of, "Danny!"

Danny did not reciprocate his friendliness. Instead, he crossed his arms and demanded, "What are you doing in my school?"

Niel dropped his arms (a little disappointed) and replied, "Learning, supposedly."

Danny raised his eyebrows. "You mean you--? But I thought you were homeschooled."

"Not anymore," Niel responded with a grin. "Dad thinks being around others my age would be good for me. Er, my physical age, that is."

"That's great and all, but did it really have to be this school? No offense, but I think people would notice that you and I, you know..." he gestured between their faces and said, "look exactly the same."

"Actually," Niel said, holding up a finger, "sometimes look-alikes exist even though they aren't related at all. After all, genes are based on chance, and as the infinite monkey theorem says: if you allow a monkey to hit a typewriter at random for an infinite amount of time, eventually he will surely write out the complete works of William Shakespeare."

"The infinite mon...whuh?"

"All I'm saying is, it's scientifically proven that there's a one in 135 chance of someone having a perfect genetic double who isn't a twin--or a clone. It's rare, but not impossible."

Danny scratched his head. "You seem well researched on the subject."

Niel smiled and said, "Of course! I love knowing stuff."

"Wonderful," Danny muttered. "I bet you'll fit in just great with the nerd table."

"Nerd table?" Niel asked, sounding genuinely interested. Danny could already picture it in his mind: his double sitting with Mikey and Lester and the other nerds, standing out among their high pants and round glasses with his punk hair and luxurious clothes.

Danny wanted to stay and verbally fight Niel further, but he realized there was nothing to berate him for. Niel had long ago given up on recruiting Danny in joining Vlad, and he wasn't the kind of person to cause problems in school for no reason. Sure, he could be plotting something under Vlad's orders, but Sam had promised him that she had "recruited Niel into the rebellion against the tyrannical rule of parents", so he doubted it. Niel was, simply put, here to learn.

Danny narrowed his eyes at him just in case, then grumbled, "Welcome to Casper High, I guess. Try not to cause any problems."

"Rich of you to say, but all right," Niel said. A few students nearby giggled. Danny didn't know how Niel already knew about Danny's so-called deliquent status at school, but he frowned at Niel's smirk before turning away with the intent to go to class.

He paused mid-step when he caught Wes watching them intently. Oh, boy. Wes. That guy must be having a field trip--an exact double of Danny suddenly appearing at school? No doubt he was already formulating theories in his head about Niel's existence.

Danny and Wes caught each other's eyes. Danny smirked and made his eyes glow for just a split second. Wes scowled.

"You seem well acquainted with the new kid," Wes spoke with narrowed eyes. "He's not just a look-alike, is he?"

Danny shrugged and said, "The truth doesn't matter, especially since nobody will believe you either way."

"You're dead to me," Wes growled.

"Don't you mean I'm dead in general?"

Danny's grin was shit-eating as he walked past Wes like he wasn't there.

Wes glared at Danny's back before returning his attention to where Niel stood, but the other boy was already gone too. The bell rang to signify the start of class. Wes balled his hands into fists and muttered, "I will find you out, clone."

"Really, Wes?" someone said, and he turned around to find that Star still hadn't left the hallway yet.

"Oh, come on!" He gestured wildly and said, "Surely you must have noticed that they look exactly the same!"

"They have different hair. And eyes."

"Hair can be styled, and contact lenses exist."

Star rolled her eyes and said, "You're delusional, Wes."

"I am not!" But Star ignored him and was already leaving the hallway. Wes grumbled loudly to himself before eventually sighing and shuffling to class.

School was pretty easy for Niel. In fact, being the son of a scientist--as well as an avid reader and Wikipedia diver--made the subjects he learned in class seem like child's play. As he and his classmates stood in the chemistry lab, the other students oohed and aahed at the rainbow display when the teacher added boric acid to a flame, but Niel wanted to scoff. He'd seen much more impressive things in his dad's lab. Hell, he was a scientific marvel himself, so to speak.

The teacher told them to replicate the experiment in pairs. Immediately, everyone else in the room quickly paired up with their partners, and Niel suddenly found himself an outcast. Danny and his friends weren't in this class; he didn't know any of the faces around him. He didn't have the half year everyone else had to get acquainted with each other, and he doubted anyone was interested in being paired with the new kid.

Niel was just about to accept the prospect of him being partnerless when a boy quietly slid into the seat next to him. Niel looked up in surprise. The boy was tall, and Niel had a feeling he would make a pretty good basketball player. He looked sort of like Danny with red hair--which was a funny thought coming from a literal clone of Danny.

The redhead turned his eyes on him. Niel was suddenly reminded of the way Dad used to look at him during his first weeks of existence outside his pod. Studying him.

"Hello," Niel said, thinking it a polite way to greet this person who chose to be his partner.

The boy just narrowed his eyes and asked, "What's your relation to Danny?"

Did this person know Danny? "His parents and my parent were college buddies," Niel answered truthfully.

"Riiight. College buddies." His eyes squinted so hard at Niel, he wondered if something might have gotten inside his safety goggles. The boy leaned toward him and said, "So you're not, say, I don't know...a clone?"

Niel's eyes widened, but he thought he hid his worry pretty well. Dad had made him promise before going to school that he would not reveal to anyone his clone status. It was a closely guarded secret, like the existence of human-ghost hybrids.

So it turned out Danny was right about people noticing the physical similarities between them. But Niel told himself not to worry yet.

"We do look sort of similar, don't we?" Niel said conversationally. "It's pretty cool, actually. Did you know there's a one in 135 chance of--"

"Cut the bull," the boy interrupted. "I searched that up on my phone just now. The chance of actually meeting your look-alike is about one in a trillion."

"Then I guess I'm the one in a trillion?" Niel said with a shrug, but sweat began to form in his palms. The boy wasn't convinced.

"Yeah, right," he said. "You're way too similar to Danny for it to be normal. Either you're some long lost twin, or you're his clone."

Alarms blared inside Niel's head. He tried to think of a valid response to save himself. Luckily, he didn't need to, because a student from the table in front of them groaned and said, "Leave the new kid alone, Wes."

The boy--Wes--looked at the girl who spoke and said, "Come on, Ashley. You had to have noticed how much he looks like Danny."

"I don't know, his hair's different," Ashley retorted, turning around in her chair to face them. "Are you sure this isn't just your Danny obsession acting up?"

Wes spluttered and shouted, "It's not an obsession!" After getting a glare from the teacher, he lowered his voice and repeated, "It's not an obsession. You're all just too blind to admit the truth that he's Phantom."

Wes knew that Danny was Phantom? Yet, apparently, nobody believed him. Ashley rolled her eyes and drawled, "Suuuure. Just because he's absent most of the time Phantom appears--"

"Not most of the time! All the time!"

Ashley's lab partner snickered and said, "Right, and I must be Batman because we've never been seen in the same room together."

Wes growled. "Nathan, you know Batman isn't real. Phantom is. And he's definitely Fenton."

"Hey, how dare you imply Batman isn't real?"

Wes grabbed at his hairs and made a whimpering sound in his throat.

Niel was starting to realize that these people will never believe Wes no matter what. A sly grin worked its way onto his face, and he said, "No, you're right. I am absolutely a clone."

Ashley and Nathan covered their mouths and giggled. Wes gave Niel a stink eye.

"You're just like your original, you know that?"

Niel shrugged.

Ashley stopped giggling to squint at Niel. A second later, she said, "Actually, hey, I see it now. You do sort of look like Fenton."

Crap. "Really? I don't see it," Niel said, then mentally kicked himself. How could he say he doesn't see it when he already admitted their similarity earlier? Really, Niel, you're starting to slip with your lies.

Nathan just shrugged and said, "Big deal. Everyone tells me that me and my brother look the same."

"Yeah, but that's because you two are related," Wes retorted. "What's Niel's excuse--apart from his extremely unlikely cover story of being a random doppelganger?"

Ashley suddenly gasped and said, "What if Niel and Danny are brothers?"

"I thought Niel is the mayor's kid," Nathan said and scratched his head.

"Of course he is, but who's the mom? Haven't you ever noticed how close Danny's parents are with Masters?"

Niel really hoped she wasn't suggesting what he thought she was suggesting. "I'm adopted," he told her.

"That's exactly what Masters would say to the media," Ashley said with a smirk. She leaned forward and said, "Come on, tell the truth. Am I right?"

"No!" Niel replied, his face burning. Of course, if his dad knew that someone even thought he, um, went to bed with Maddie, he'd be elated. But Niel was not elated. "Danny's mom doesn't even like my dad."

"But Danny's dad does, right?" Nathan said, stroking his chin. "And you do sort of look like him, minus the size."

Wes raised an eyebrow. "Okay, now you guys are just making stuff up. How do two men have birth together?"

Nathan shrugged. "They're scientists, aren't they? Maybe they, like made him in an artificial pod."

Niel silently panicked. Obviously, the idea of Vlad and Jack in a relationship was plain wrong (and a bit funny, considering how much Vlad hated Jack), but the part about the pod baby was a little too close to the truth for comfort. Also, what the heck was with them discussing his birth right in front of him?

Niel was about to find something to say to get them to abandon this conversation when Ashley suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my god!"

"What?" Nathan asked.

Ashley held silent for a few moments to increase the tension before she slowly said, "Vlad Masters is trans."

Silence. Niel was suddenly aware that several other kids in the lab had abandoned their projects to listen in on the quartet's discussion. They observed Niel, as if trying to find the similarities in him to Vlad and Jack.

Niel slowly and deliberately whispered, "What the butter biscuits?"

Danny stomped down the hallway with a frown. He found Sam by her locker and approached her.

"As everyone knows, I'm all for brooding, but what's with the sour mood?" Sam asked. Danny glared at her.

"You did my biology paper, but you didn't think to remind me that we had an English assignment due?"

Sam held up her hands innocently and said, "Hey, I can fill out your worksheets, but I can't write your assignments for you. Mr. Lancer is crazy good at spotting differences in writing style."

"I thought you were good at copying styles."

"Maybe, but then I started thinking about what sort of creative writing you would think of, and it bummed me out too much to do it."

"The goth girl thinks I'm too much of a bum?"

"Exactly, Danny. Your life is sad as hell."

Whatever reply Danny was about to say was interrupted when the same girl from earlier ran up to them and said, "Danny, I didn't know you had a secret half-brother!"

Danny didn't think it was possible, but he was even more confused now than he had been before. "A what now?"

"Oh, right, my bad. It's supposed to be a secret." She winked.

"Wait, what? What secret?" he called out, but the girl already left.

Niel walked over to them. For some reason, his face was buried in his hands, as if he was in too much shame to make himself seen.

"Niel," Danny began, "what the heck have you done, and why are people calling you my secret half-brother?"

Niel just slumped his head against a locker and murmured, "The doppelganger excuse didn't work."

That didn't explain much, but just then Tucker came over laughing and slapped Niel on the back. "Niel, I know we haven't spent much time together, but I love you," he said between laughs.

"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Danny demanded.

Tucker spent another minute or so laughing, but after he eventually stopped with a satisfied sigh, he grinned at Danny and said, "People are starting to write Mpreg fanfiction of your dad and Vlad."

Danny choked on his saliva and probably would have died if he had needed to breathe. Tucker's guffaws picked up again, and Niel looked like he was seriously considering phasing through the earth.

#Danny Phantom #dannymay #dannymay2020 #niel masters #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #wes weston #fic #fanfiction #writing #mine

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ibelieveinharrystyles · 4 years ago

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Chapter Eight: A Whole New World

Forever? Masterlist

16th January 2017 “Harry what do I wear?” Ashley asked her best friend bluntly from the other end of the phone as she riffled through her chaotically messy wardrobe.

“You woke me up at five in the morning to ask me what you should wear? I thought something serious had happened.” Harry mumbled, his head resting comfortably on his pillow.

“Harry this is a very important day, I need to look the part.”

“Ash, you do know it’s radio, no one is going to see you.” Harry assured her, “But if you want my advice, wear the red roll neck jumper, with those ripped black jeans and Doc Martens.”

“I knew I could count on you Harry.” she sighed.

“I hope it goes well today love.”

“So do I,” she sighed, before proceeding to hang up the phone.

The tube was eerily quiet compared to Ashley’s usual journey to work, when she worked in the office her shift was 8 till 4, meaning hitting rush hour was inevitable, but getting to work for before 6AM meant an early tube, dropping Daisy off at the childminders on the way. Ashley was grateful that her journey was now somewhat more bearable, even despite the early wake up time, the only other commuters were those travelling in to the city for early starting jobs, and the people who had got drunk the night before and had spent the whole night asleep, travelling the whole length of the northern line. She hurried through the empty tube station, making sure not to be late. In an attempt to make a good impression on her fellow colleagues she stopped off at a nearby bakery that had just opened for the early morning rush, picking up a variation of croissants, pastries and donuts.

Ashley hadn’t felt intimidated by the Capital FM offices since the day she started the internship, she hurried through, most desks were empty as the majority of people didn’t start work until what was deemed a more ‘sociable’ hour of the day. “Morning Ash, how are you feeling?” Roman greeted her as she entered the office kitchen, placing the box of pastries on the side, and continuing to make herself a cup of tea.

“Nervous, but in a good way I guess,” Ashley told him, taking a bite on a pain au chocolat.

“You’re going to be great, I’ll make sure to ease you into it, I’ll introduce you and you can talk as and when you feel comfortable, there’s no pressure, I promise.” Roman assured her, picking a croissant from the box, “The big bosses have also said can we call you Ash when we are on air? Something about coming across as more relatable.”

“Sure, everyone I’m close to calls me that anyway, I mean you’ve called me that ever since I have worked here.”

“That’s great, you have about fifteen minutes to sort yourself out before we go live,” He explained.

“Alright Ro, cheers,”

“Good morning, you are listening to the Capital Breakfast show on a wonderful, yet slightly murky Monday morning, with me Roman Kemp, and for the first time, my new co-host Ash Hanson.” Roman chimed, resulting in cheers and woops from the producers and tech team who were present in the studio, “Ash, I’ll let you introduce yourself.”

“I’m Ash. I've worked at capital for about a year now. I'm originally from the North of England, and most people probably know me for being good friends with a curly haired member of a little British boy band, who you might have heard of.” Somehow talking about Harry and the band made her nerves disappear.

“So Ash, can I assume that with you being so close to the One Direction boys, you have a few stories that would make the lives of me and my fellow One Direction fans a lot better?” Roman asked her.

“I won’t lie I’ve seen a lot, particularly at the after parties, but they are all sound lads, there’s some stuff I probably can’t tell you on air, because frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them is listening.” Ashley told him.

“And obviously we’ve heard a bit of solo stuff from Zayn, Louis and Niall, if you had to pick one of the boys based on their solo music who would you choose?” Roman asked.

“That is a tough one, I think based on what we’ve heard so far, I’d have to say Niall.”

“Well on that One Direction related note, here’s This Town, on Capital Breakfast.” Roman said, before flicking a switch that meant their voices were no longer heard on air.

“Was that alright?” Ashley asked, taking a quick swig of her water.

“You’re doing great, you’ve got the knack of it already.”

“Taxi for Miss Hanson.” Ashley looked up as she exited Capital, seeing an all too familiar Audi parked outside, Harry stood leant against it, wearing a black trench coat over a grey hoodie and black skinny jeans, with a pair of sunglasses on top of his head to push back his messy hair.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, approaching her best friend.

“Can’t I pick up my best friend after her first day of her new job?” He asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“It’s lovely of you to come down here, I just wasn’t expecting it, that's all.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I mean I guess I wouldn’t say no.”

“Good, because you need to line your stomach.” Harry explained, as the pair of them climbed into his car.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“We’re going out tonight.”

“There are two major factors that go against that Styles,” She told him, “Firstly I have a six month old daughter who is far too young to be left home alone, secondly I have work first thing in the morning.”

“Firstly, Daisy is going to have a sleepover at Auntie Gemma’s house, Secondly, you can stay in my spare bedroom, I’ll drive you to work in the morning.”

“What am I going to wear? I’ve spent the last year in tracksuit bottoms.”

“Well after our brunch, we’re going to Oxford Street to get you a new outfit.” Harry explained, parking up outside The Ivy.

“What’s all this in aid of?” Ashley asked, leaning her head back against the headrest.

“You Ashley Hanson, need to get laid.” Harry smirked.

“When did you reach that conclusion?”

“Well you aren’t coming to America for my birthday, so I thought we’d celebrate early, and I could wingman you.”

“Why don’t we try and get you laid instead?” Ashley insisted.

“Oh darling, I do not need any help in that department.”

“I’m so happy for you Harry, but frankly I’m not at a point in my life where getting laid is something I want to do, Daisy is my main priority.”

“Can we at least go out for my birthday tonight? Pretty please?” Harry asked, looking at her and fluttering his eyelashes.

“Alright! But I want to go to a nice bar, not some mad club.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Are you sure about this Harry?” Ashley asked, looking herself up and down in the full length mirror in Harry’s bathroom.

“We’re going to have a great time.” Harry assured her from his bedroom, next door to the bathroom.

““You really think this looks okay?” Ashley asked, entering Harry's bedroom, she had gone for a black glittery bodycon dress paired with red heels.

“You look beautiful,” Harry told her, taken aback by his best friend who stood before him.

“I’m not sure about this dress, I’ve still got mum tum from when I was pregnant, and my boobs haven’t been the same since I started breastfeeding.” Ashley sighed, shrugging off the fact that Harry calling her beautiful made her stomach flutter.

“Love you wouldn’t even know you had given birth six months ago, and there is nothing wrong with your boobs,” Harry assured her.

“Have you been looking at my boobs Styles?” Ashley questioned, turning to look at her friend.

“Taxi’s here.” Harry replied, making a quick exit downstairs.

As promised Harry took Ashley to a swanky North London bar, the sort that you could only get into if you were well known, and with Harry being Harry, that was easy. Ashley and Harry’s previous attempts at nights out hadn’t ever really ended well, there was the night out in LA when the paparazzi gave Ashley a hard time, and Harry had to effectively cover her, and there was Ashley’s 18th, which resulted in a fight between Ashley and a fan. “Why are we here Harry?” Ashley asked him, taking a sip of her pornstar martini.

“To celebrate my birthday obviously.” Harry replied.

“I mean you’re Harry Styles, you could take literally anyone for drinks, but you chose me, a single mum, who lives in a one bedroom flat in South London and most of the time has either baby sick or milk on my clothes.”

“I didn’t want to take literally anyone out, you’re my best friend, you always have been, you always will be, I find it hard to trust people Ash, I’ve been screwed over by so many people who want to be friends with Harry the celebrity, not Harry from Holmes Chapel who would rather spend the night in watching a cheesy romcom than go to some overly prestigious party, and I’ve never had to worry about that when it comes to you,” Harry explained.

It was almost midnight when they arrived back at Harry's, both of them feeling a little bit tipsy from the several cocktails they had consumed, “Ash, lets dance,” Harry took hold of his best friend’s hand, leading her into the kitchen.

“Harry, I have work in like six hours,” Ashley whined.

“Please, if it was my actual birthday we would be dancing together,” Harry begged, holding both of Ashley’s hands in his.

“Alright one song, then I’m going to bed.” Harry opened his phone shuffling his music, the first song that blared out of his surround sound was Still The One by Shania Twain, Harry took hold of Ashley, one hand on her waist whilst he used his free hand to hold her hand, the pair swayed along to the song, Ashley’s head resting against Harry’s chest, breathing in the smell of his aftershave mixed with the alcohol from the cocktails he had drunk. Ashley smiled up at her friend, his smile beamed back at her, edging his face closer to hers, their lips mere millimetres apart, she knew exactly what was about to happen, “No Harry, we don’t do that, you’re drunk.” She stepped back from his embrace.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine, I’ll see you in the morning,” she muttered before quickly exiting the kitchen.

“I meant it, I am sorry.”

“Good night Harry.”

#harry styles #one direction #harry styles imagines #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfiction #one direction memes #harry styles one shot #harry styles best friend fic #harry styles blurb

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toyahinterviews · 4 years ago

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TOYAH TALKS SHEP FARMING IN BARNET WITH PHIL MARRIOTT 13.11.2020

PHIL: I'm so thrilled to be with Toyah Willcox on zoom! How are you? TOYAH: Woooo! I'm OK. It's really good to see you. I haven't seen many people in the last seven months so it's so good to see you! PHIL: I was just going to say – likewise. The last time I saw you was at Wise Buddha, a studio just off Oxford Street in Central London and we could see each other face to face TOYAH: That was about 18 months ago PHIL: I know! How have you been? TOYAH: I'm really good. Well, I'm really confused because I live in a market town, on a square, one High Street and I'm bang in the middle of all of this. I have a chemist next door, we did have a bank next door but we bought it and that's now our offices. So I'm looking outside my window and there is all normality. There's no sign of any kind of lockdown and I'm wondering if I'm being lied to because I've got people on park benches, drinking coffee, talking to everyone, eating and I'm thinking “I thought this was a lockdown!” I'm so confused! PHIL: It's crazy, isn't it? I went past a bar yesterday and they were walking in and out and my partner said "hang on a minute! It's meant to be lockdown!" I think it was take-away, it just felt like normality, it just felt normal. It's weird TOYAH: This feels normal. None of that terror of last April. Everyone's just having a lovely time out there and I'm thinking someone's played a joke on me because I've been indoors for so long PHIL: We do need it though, don't we … By the way I've been loving your lockdown shows every Saturday. It's been a real ritual. I've been pottering around and then I've been switching onto your Toyah At Home show on Saturday morning TOYAH: Oh, thank you PHIL: It's been fantastic, really enjoyed those. And they've been really honest as well because you've been talking about your life and feeling nostalgic and talking about what's happening at the moment and we don't normally get to see that – you walking around your house, showing things in your house, your books. It's been brilliant

TOYAH: I'm going to keep it up because normally on my working year I'm running an office. I run the band, I run the record side of things, I run the gigs – booking them and I never get time for any of that so it's been fantastic for me and for my husband Robert. We've been kind of been able to address what fans need

That might sound silly because fans just need to see you live and (to) do your music – well, lockdown has proven much more than that. I'm going to try and keep it going and try and prioritise the connection we've made with the fans and stop prioritising the ridiculous amount of bureaucracy we both have to deal with. So it's been great on that level it's been a fantastic year! PHIL: It's been really good for the fans as well like you say because they really appreciate it because they're feeling a bit lonely and isolated and it's good to have that company as well, isn't it? TOYAH: It's been shocking. We do a lot of celebrity messaging. We were a bit doubtful about it at first. We thought "oh gosh is this a step too far?" It's been a absolute joy and occasionally you get the odd message from someone saying "I'm so desperate, I'm so alone, can you just say something to help shake this blackness off me" We've really really loved every minute of doing these messages and also realising that our broadcasts have a deeper meaning than just us going "look at us". It's all become so much deeper and that is beautiful. It's affected my writing. The new album Posh Pop is really deep, it's really passionate and it really rocks and that could only have happened because of this exceptional year PHIL: We have to talk about Sheep Farming In Barnet. I can't believe it's 40 years TOYAH: Look what I've got! (Waves the box set about) PHIL: I know! I can't wait to see that TOYAH: This is an exclusive! PHIL: Amazing! TOYAH: It only arrived two days ago

PHIL: It's new images as well isn't it, like you've shown there, new photographs that we've not seen before. This is an album that was released in 1979 as an AP – an Alternative Play (above) and then it was released as an album in 1980 so you're obviously celebrating the 40th anniversary. What are you memories of this though because obviously a lot of stuff gets forgotten about. You've got a very good memory I have to say, watching your Toyah At Home videos. You seem to remember a lot of detail. Do you remember detail of that period? TOYAH: It's shockingly bad. My wonderful archive manager and he designed this, Craig Ashley, designed with Alan Sawyers – he writes a essay about each project. We're already onto Blue Meaning and then we're onto Anthem so we're 12 months ahead. We put this (Sheep) to bed three months ago. My memories were jogged by an essay that Craig had to send me. He knows more about my life than I do. He prompted my memory with this astonishing essay that's in here (shows the boxset) I thought "I did that?! I did that ?! Oh my God!" This is a long time ago this album but what I will say about it – I've always remembered that I think it's the one of the most relevant, one of the most original, ingenious albums of that period and it's never had that credit. Cherry Red (the record company) have really taken this on board and they are giving it the 100%. It's a beautiful album. There's a beautiful innocence but there's also so many pathways we opened for other people with this album. It's a fun album. It's a real danceable album. It's about youthful energy. It's beautiful and it's a side of punk that isn't that well known. It's great. I adore this album

PHIL: So this album was recorded – correct me if I'm wrong – Chappel Studios, New Bond Street wasn't it, in Central London - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Which is now the Mulberry store. There's something about quite poignant about that – it should always be that studio I guess but what are your memories of recording there? Do you have many memories of you actually recording it? TOYAH: Next door was Chanel and Hermes and I just pooh pooed them “Who wants to spend that on a handbag?” I don't want to spend half a million quid on a silk scarf. If only I knew, hindsight is a beautiful thing. The studio was upstairs, very very traditional. Almost old fashioned because the studio was a song writer's studio. There was quite a few studios in the corridor I was in. We were one of the first punk acts to go in. I found the whole recording process in this particular instance very difficult because we now know I sing without headphones on. I cannot do that (puts hands over ears) It just affects me emotionally. So this took about four albums to discover that. Steve James, our producer, realised that he was going to get the best performance out of me if he just put speakers in the room and I performed as live. That was a learning curve - it was a big learning curve. So the first songs we recorded - for me – were emotionally quite tough because I was just trying to learn how to work within this dead space. Recording studios – if you haven't been in one – have no sound reflection.

So we've got sound reflection here, I'm surrounded by mirrors, I can hear myself speak but in a studio it's a dead sound. It's really difficult to form notes in that kind of sound so … You asked me what was the experience like? It was a major learning curve of dealing with working within dead sound. Now, if I'm acting and I'm in a studio there's nothing more beautiful than dead sound because it makes you forget about the camera. So it was very very enlightening, it was energetic, we were an energetic team I think it was challenging for the whole band because Keith Hale was brought in as an arranger and that was frustrating for Pete Bush who is the main keyboard player on this album and he felt very threatened by that. But all this rather glorious usurp thing and power play is the result of this album. That and the fact that we honed every song in front of a live audience, which is such a privileged thing to so. We would do these incredible long encores that were as along as the actual show because the audience would never let us go We would run out of songs so we'd start to play them stuff we were formulating in soundcheck and this is how we came up with these glorious arrangements because we knew what affected the audience before we went into the recording studio. That is something that all young writers should have the privilege to do today because to watch an audience affected by a bridge or a chorus – you just know what you need to do as a songwriter. So much of today happens away from a live audience and this is all about live audience work. It was magnificent PHIL: The album title itself – it still raises eyebrows today, doesn't it? Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's one of those really distinctive album titles that really stand out -

TOYAH: I know! Well, I lived in Barnet and bang in the middle of this urban kind of chaos with the A406 was a field with sheep in it and I just thought "sheep farming in Barnet?" So I wanted to call the album something that didn't relate to an emotion and didn't relate to another song. I wanted something completely out there. This is me (show the album cover) having broken in to Fylingdales - the early warning system - where they had sheep grazing and when we broke in we found an awful lot of dead sheep and we were arrested ten minutes after that was taken Bill Smith the art director was with me as was Gem, my boyfriend at the time and we had to hide the film down my pants. We knew we would not be body searched. We were literally just marched off the premises so we got the film out. So that whole "sheep farming in Barnet" was just a big question mark of what is our reality? PHIL: Is that something you do today? Stuff the - TOYAH: Guerilla filming? PHIL: Just stuff the evidence? TOYAH: Everything? Yeah, everything goes down my pants. As I get older it it's one of my things I do with my personal dementia – everything goes down my pants (Phil laughs) PHIL: I remember NME did a review – I think it was a three star review, it should've been more obviously but for the NME that was pretty good. At the time they called you a "post punk Grace Slick" - TOYAH: I have no problems with being the punk Grace Slick. My goodness that woman was a great voice PHIL: It's a nice comparison. Now, the album was split into two parts – much like Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love which had the Ninth wave as the 2nd part - TOYAH: Yeah! This was 1979! (waves the box set about)

PHIL: I was going to say – you did that before her. Both brilliant albums obviously but this had Heaven and it had Hell and there is a lot of darkness in this album because there's a lot of vivid imagery when you listen to those lyrics. I suppose it's the horror and sci-fi fan in you, is it? TOYAH: It's very dark poetry. I mean Neon Womb is quite innocent. I was making a movie with Katherine Hepburn called The Corn Is Green. I had to get on the tube train. The first tube train of the morning in Battersea which was six in the morning and I had to walk over to Victoria to get the train. And I just remember being alone in this tube that was neon lit and I thought "this is like a neon womb."

So that's where that name came from. Indecision I wrote in my home in Birmingham, the lyrics came there and I was doing lots of TV promotion for the film Jubilee and I just couldn't make up my mind what to wear so Indecision came out of that. And then Waiting is very dark Waiting is about if we looked at the planet and it only had burn layers and every burn layer was a war and you'd cut through them you'd see a very different planet. We wouldn't see a green planet. So Waiting is about layer upon layer upon layer of wars that we've had in the past … Let's say – let's be brave about this – 50 000 years? It's an endless theme on this planet. So that's what that one is about. Danced is about a second coming because I was brought up in extreme religious education by parents who weren't religious So because I was a rebel and because I was really out there as a child and I've always been a bit like this - they thought to cleanse my soul I should go into extreme religious education which I had from the age of about 10 ten right through to 14. So that has affected the poetry of my life a lot and that's what Danced is about.

Danced is saying the 2nd coming is coming – this is fantasy – but it ain't going to be a human being! It's someone coming from up there so that's what Danced is about. I'm always questioning the metaphor of what I've been taught and there's so many metaphor's in this (shows the box set). But I think that's what the fans like is that I use the imagery of metaphors to question things

PHIL: And there are so many anthems on this as well, particularly for fans that have been with you from day one. You know, Danced. You mentioned Neon Womb as well. These are real live favourites. There's a couple of of tracks I've never seen you perform live, Computer being one of those. Is that something that you would think about playing? TOYAH: Yeah! In lockdown we had to do the DVD filming (for the disc in the box set). Nigel Clark of Dodgy, my neighbour, came round and we performed Computer. He performed it beautifully, he even did backing vocals and that's on the DVD version of this (shows the box set). It's gorgeous so we could put that in live now but there's so much material, my whole back catalogue, I have to capture in shows today, an hour and half shows I have to capture about 28 albums. And remember 14 of those songs are hit singles. So we chop and change and we try and fit everything in. Computer might come into the show but then we'll get people complaining we can't fit in Neon Womb, Danced and everything else PHIL: Too many songs to play TOYAH: There's just too many songs to play. You got Our Movie as well. I get a big call for Victims Of The Riddle but that is impossible to sing live. It's in an octave higher register than I normally sing in today and also it's one of those songs once you've done the first two lines everyone goes to the bar or starts talking. So we've decided if the fans demand a song and they don't listen to it – we don't do it!

PHIL: I want to talk about the digipak that you have in your hands of this album because it's a real treat isn't it, for fans because there's a lot of versions they've never heard before. We mentioned Computer just then. That sounds quite different in its demo form. Are you quite happy to release these demos because obviously these have never been released before. It's so great to hear these now after so long TOYAH: This is the first album released where Joel Bogen (the original Toyah band guitarist and composer) and myself have actually been corresponded with about having permission of them going on the album. So one of my top selling albums in the world now is an album called Mayhem which is demos that Joel and I never wanted to be heard and ironically that is the world top selling Toyah album

So this time around now Cherry Red own the whole back catalogue they have agreed that will never happen again so we're even re-vamping Mayhem for its re-release. So there are 30 additional tracks, most of them unheard going onto this. It's a double LP and a live DVD and there's even DVD footage that's never been seen before PHIL: It's a real Christmas present, isn't it? TOYAH: It's perfect! PHIL: Yeah! TOYAH: When we do demos they're pre-producer arrangements so obviously when you get into the studio and having heard the demo and hopefully played the song live in front of an audience you can then re-work it. So doing a demo is like trying out a recipe for a cake and if you feel that you can improve – then you improve and most of the time that's what people do do PHIL: So Victims Of The Riddle is your debut single which is featured on this album. There was another version on the single B-side which was called Vivisection. To me that seems like a kind of outspoken view of your hate for animal experiments. Was that the case? Was it that obvious? TOYAH: Yeah PHIL: It was?

Above: Toyah with her rabbit WillyFred in 2016

TOYAH: Yeah. I like to think it's not so awful today and I think a lot of people, a lot of human beings stepped forwards and said "you can test that on us." So stop breeding animals to test on. So I put my hand up here – I'm against vivisection but I've had hip replacement, I've had life saving surgery for cancer. Animals have paid so that I can live. So it's not as if I've even avoided every aspect of the results of vivisection.

Where my argument is and if the make-up industry - which has something like a £6 billion fund for testing - keeps testing on animals they're never going to change the world and protect and do good husbandry to animals. Now at the time we were making this … '79 … this was … I mean it was rampant. Animals were just being treated so badly I was a very experimental singer in the beginning, I use my voiced as an instrument thus the stylisation on Vivisection. And I wanted to use this as a wake up call to those who didn't know about the cruelty to animals but also the amount of people who were willing to be human test people.

And it was just – if you don't bring that into your audience's intelligence then no-one could do anything about it and I think the greatest revolution we have had in the 40 years is we've stopped buying things unless they adhere to an ethic we believe in.

So good husbandry, non-cruelty to animals, respect for animals, understanding that animals do have souls, they do have an emotional life, they feel pain as much as they feel joy and this was what that was about PHIL: I'm glad you answered that question that way because I certainly saw it as very influential at the time – like you say it was a different time back then, in the 70's and the late 70's. There was a lot more of that nastiness going on and as a result more people have become vegetarian and vegan as well over the years, particularly the last five years people have become vegan which is great. So it's a good shift, isn't it?

TOYAH: It's very good. I think in a year's time when we have a vaccine for Covid and there has been human guinea pigs involved here ... I think one of the biggest outcomes of Covid and Covid history we probably, worldwide, will become vegetarian. What I mean by that is the easiness within Covid is mutating within the animal circuit and if we keep consuming animal flesh we are probably going to help Covid mutate even more. I'd like to think that one of the kind of strange blessings of this exceptional year is that the majority of the planet will become vegetarian PHIL: Siouxsie and The Banshees did the Kaleidoscope album a few years ago which I saw at South Bank, I know you're a fan as well, of Siouxsie - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Is that something that you (want to) do with Sheep Farming? Do it as a whole? TOYAH: (I'll) do it with any album but people want Siouxsie. I've had to - this is my career “Let me in! Let me in! (bangs the air with her fist) “Give me a fucking job!” Siouxsie, you know, gets invited because people absolutely adore her. I'm not on Siouxsie's level but I think what will change for me because in the last 40 years my catalogue has been with a record label that has actively allowed it to die and now Cherry Red- as soon as they announce these releases – I mean this went number one in the pre-order charts across the board and Cherry Red have released the demand is huge But if you don't have the record company behind you and the PR behind you and the team behind you … I don't get invited to play whole albums at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. So I now think this is going to change quite radically and hopefully my work will get the respect it deserves. But it has to be out there for that to happen and in the last 40 years it's just been buried

PHIL: Last Goodbye, another track on this album, last time we spoke we talked about your love of horror TOYAH: Yeah PHIL: And you told me watch The House That Jack Built, which I saw after your recommendation and yeah – it disturbed me very much (laughs) TOYAH: That's an astonishing film. There's another one I'll recommend to you and it's very gentle. It's a love story but it also it also tiptoes into the surreal and horror and it's called Border. I just adore this film - PHIL: I've seen it, it's amazing. It really gets under your skin, doesn't it? TOYAH: It's gorgeous. That is like reading a really good book. It translates beautifully PHIL: Absolutely, a very atmospheric film. But Last Goodbye on Sheep Farming – it's quite an evocative lyric. Again quite a dark lyric. There is lightness as well, obviously, on Sheep Farming but I'm just going to read the lyric here : “He points the knife between her eyes. Its light reflects on the one he despises. Here's one for the pain, here's one for the lies. When flood flows out I watch her say goodbye” That is quite - TOYAH: It's a revenge song but I mean this is about the vulnerability of men and men are vulnerable and this is the ultimate revenge. He can take on someone who is more powerful than him and it's a woman. So I always like to kind of invert what people see as normal. I think woman are just as easily aggressive as men are and devious and plotting so it's revenge on someone who has psychologically destroyed someone else.

And I think historically – I need to place it in context – 40 years ago and even 50 years ago you never heard about women's prisons, you never heard about female criminals. It was always men. There were only three that we heard about when I was young that were serial killers. I'm not going to name them, let's not give them the publicity but what you didn't hear was about was petty female criminals, female prisons and female aggression. It was never reported 50-40 years ago as it is today. You know you've got Piers Morgan doing “Female Serial Killers” today so here we were in the punk movement, '79, and it was such an opportunity to be one of the first women in this movement that I could invert everything I'd been taught And one of them is about women being psychologically cruel which kind of covers a lot of the early work. So I was just inverting stories and turning them into myth really. And another thing that was emerging at this time … computers were being programmed at this time on a mass level. So a lot of people we worked with, our roadies would disappear at night to go and do binary programming into computers and this was going on 24/7 to get computers how they are today. So there was this kind of secret technology going on that fascinated us but we didn't understand I mean if we ever knew we would have a phone in our hand (shows her mobile) or we'd be able to talk like this (on Zoom) … that was science fiction. And another thing that science fiction back then … was … oh, it's going out of my head … ah yes! Was how games were developed. So Dungeons and Dragons was very much a fantasy game then and it was the only fantasy game as was – Lord Of The Rings was a book, you never realised it would be made into a really brilliant digitally composed film. So fantasy for me was very very important. It was escapism from a normality that could be not only boring but could also be dangerous so all of that reflects in my work as well

PHIL: I could sit and talk to you Toyah for hours. I know you've got other interviews to do because you've got so much to do in the coming weeks before this re-release, this re-vamp of Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's out on the 4th of December but I have got one last question which I invited people to send in and this is a question from Darren Anthony and he's asked which 3 things, if there are 3 things, would you change about your debut album if you could? TOYAH: Ohhh! Do you know, Darren, this is such a good question and the only thing I would change – because there's a beautiful innocence about this album – I would change nothing about the music. I would've changed immediately the technique I use for singing because I've only in the last ten years really gleaned my 100% technique. And I would … just … how can I put this? If you're a singer you understand “opening the throat”. I would open the throat more, I would've had more confidence as a singer Instead I'd get into the studio and lack of confidence would make me go (pulls shoulders in and head behind hands) I would just close up like that and the voice became quite small. So that's one thing I would change but I can only answer that in hindsight. Elusive Stranger is an incredibly popular song and I would've just not sung the intro in that octave. I would bring that down an octave which would make it far easier to sing live today.

And I can't find a third thing I would've changed. Perhaps the one thing I would've changed about the whole of the beginning of my career – I was very against my natural femininity where women who are hugely successful not only exhibit their femininity but they control their femininity and I saw my femininity as a barrier that I needed to either kind of break down or walk away from. So I probably would exploit it - in the right way, in the Madonna way – my femininity PHIL: I should say it's also out on white vinyl which I've ordered and I can't wait to see that either! TOYAH: Wahey! PHIL: To represent the golf balls on the sleeve TOYAH: Oh, I know! It's a clever design. It's clever. Phil - thank you so much and I hope see you sooner than the 18 months - PHIL: Yes, me too. Good luck and stay safe. Thank you, Toyah TOYAH: Good luck everybody!

You can watch the interview HERE

#toyah #toyah willcox #toyahwillcox #the toyah willcox interview archive #thetoyahwillcoxinterviewarchive #toyah interview #toyahinterview #toyah2020 #toyah 2020

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loquaciousquark · 5 years ago

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E83 (Nov. 5, 2019)

A day late and many dollars short, but we’re here! Tonight’s preroll: minifigs & what I assume are tonight’s guests of Liam & Matt:

which is followed by lazy susan rotating the D&D minis from eldritch-foundry.com for the rest of the cast. Cute! Anyway, Dani is back and ready to rumble! Brian is briefly lambasted for only getting through mumblemumble questions last week, but it’s all smoothed over soon enough and we move right along.

Tonight’s announcements: Undeadwood finale is delayed one week due to some post-production tech issues. Should premiere Friday, Nov. 15. Brian marvels over Matt’s speech about God being just as feral as what he creates. Matt is also surprised. Marisha is apparently the living dice Snitch of both campaign 2 and Undeadwood - everyone wonders if it’s the seat, the chair, the floor, or some innate karmic sense Marisha herself creates. CR is also partnering with Operation Supply Drop for the month of November to support veterans. Matt announces (re-announces?) that they are partnering with Amazon to create a full second animated season, as well as two more episodes to the original season one. All backers will be able to still watch the full season one for free. Everyone is so excited & I’m excited for them. Good job, tiny D&D friend group. More details on the CR Kickstarter Updates page.

And now! Episode 83: Dark Bargains

CR Stats: Liam poured wine for 49 seconds. Brief sidebar as Liam expresses genuine nervousness being on the couch beside Matt; he normally talks behind his back on TM, since he’s not sure if Matt ever watches it, but now he has to watch what he says. Caleb’s smell has been mentioned 60 times. Matt acknowledges that he is clean and washed. [doubt] Nott’s death was the 60th knockout and 8th player death of C2. Half of those deaths were Frumpkin. Liam calls Frumpkin a magic fart with a weak wifi signal.

Our first question (23 minutes in, NOT THAT ANYONE’S COUNTING), reveals that Matt did design the HFB with some “big red buttons” for the characters to press, or want to press. He expected more group approval before some of them were pressed, though (the dreadnought). Liam wanted to clear all the corners of the Baldur’s Gate map.

Caleb fears Halas because he’s one of the most powerful mages ever, he fears the lab setup/experimentation angle, he still fears the siren song, and is scared of the grains of similarity he sees between the two of them.

Liam knows they’ve continually seen fun stuff come from shitty situations, but Caleb sees the story of the HFB as “you’re not welcome here; this is going to suck for YOU! You thought you were going to have fun here? Fuck you!”

Matt loves those climactic moments though, because he loves it when the dice tell the story. Liam loves that there was a day where Matt rolled terribly in Undeadwood and played it as being embarrassed to be around all these amazing people.

Matt enjoyed getting to dig into the backstory of his world. He’s had references to pre-divergence stuff before, and it was a big joy to give more context to some of the things the M9 have been encountering.

Liam: “[Caleb] is gambling big when he thinks there’s something of worth to gain.“ He’d heard of a long-vanished mage who was messing with time stuff, and thought there might be a chance this was him. Then, once they found the gem, he started feeling this might be the real chance he needed to start messing with the crazy stuff he wants to do with time.

The bound devil was a general temptation, but in hindsight he can see why Jester was drawn to him. Matt often builds scenarios and has no idea how they will react to them (and acknowledges that the M9 did not fully read the poem that would have given them more info here), and sometimes he’s right and sometimes he’s very wrong.

Caleb is very distrustful of other arcanists and always assesses their level of threat to the group. Liam does think Caleb has come a long way since the start of the campaign. “A lot is changing for him. He’s very reactive in a lot of ways. Whatever is laid out for him in the moment that he can take advantage of, or that he cares about...I don’t know. The Betrayer Gods coming back is so much more important, and I don’t know if it’s going to make him let go of that stuff. He has to re-evaluate. He has to. He’s like an addict who has a weak day.”

Brian comments that Caleb seems to be a clinic in self-forgiveness. He wants him to do well, but at the end of the day he wants him to forgive himself. He also points out that it’s possible to get addicted to grief, and he sees that in Caleb; he’s choosing to stay in that space, and we are watching what that does to a person. Brian feels that he forms an attachment to the grief because it is the only emotional connection he has to the family he lost.

Liam nods and says these are things he’s been thinking about for months and months. He does not and did not have the answers when he created the character, and is looking forward to seeing where he ends up. He is not railroading his character; he’s letting the other players affect his character so that Caleb can remain malleable.

Matt loves how it reflects how real people inform the lives and actions of their friends in real life.

Cosplay of the Week: @suchamantis on twitter for a Caleb/spellbook cosplay. It’s gorgeous work!

Brief derailment into Liam pulling a Bane out of his mug and Matt hypersensually smelling the winner’s dice vault. I don’t even know what’s happening.

Revivify in this campaign is being used as a CPR/AED type thing. If they fail, the DC goes up and a longer-form raise dead spell must be used out of combat.

It did occur to Liam that this is the second time his bestie has been killed by a treasure box. Would Caleb make the same sacrifice? Liam says in a spooky voice that nothing is as strong as the twin bond...but when Caleb goes into full-on survival mode where all emotions are pushed to the side, he doesn’t know what would happen. He knew he was with two very magical people who could work miracles and was focused on just getting her up the steps to them. Matt was sure everyone would figure it out and was shocked when no one checked it for traps.

The effect of the diamond on Nott being different from the diamond on Cad was flavor related to the Power Word Kill trap that was on the chest. He built the revivify around that imagery in the moment. A lot of Matt’s flavor text around spells is built around the moment, the characters themselves, their gods, etc. as much as possible.

Caleb is glad to find the signs of magic that may be able to return Nott to a halfling, but was way too concerned about the gem to think about anything else at that time.

Fanart of the Week: @acemasters4 on twitter for a beautiful pastel stylized portrait of Caduceus and mushrooms.

Ashley is almost here! Brian allllmost tells us how many days but refrains. COME BACK ASHLEY.

The Angel of Irons thread has been planned since the very beginning: everything with chains and hunger was planned. He pulled it together with Yasha when he realized they would mesh well. She had created her backstory, and as the campaign proceeded he was able to marry some threads together to make story points. Liam compliments Matt’s ability to weave character & world backstory together; specifically, the crystals in Caleb’s arms were Matt’s idea after Liam sent the first draft of his backstory to Matt. Liam loved it and ran with it.

Everyone is so excited that she is coming back and Matt won’t have to plan for her to be suddenly absent again.

In a moment that shakes my world, Matt is discovered to be wrong about what class of magic Cure Wounds is in 5e. The question is about how Halas’s comment on healing being necromantic is a throwback to older editions of D&D where CW was a necromancy spell, and Dani reveals to us all that in 5e it is now Invocation. Matt chooses to accept this as a deliberate throwback to older editions to emphasize that “man out of time” feel.

Chris Perkins apparently once described BWF’s personality as “Power Word Kill for someone’s joy.” He also apparently did MMA & figure skating, because why not.

Caleb’s reference to Jester suffering in the ruby was purely coincidental regarding her mother. He didn’t realize until it popped out of his mouth.

BWF talks about how he likes where the campaign is at. He has a weird gut feeling that something exciting is about to happen. “I’m finally invested in this campaign after 83 episodes.”

Everyone pauses to talk about how beautiful Matt’s hair is blowing in the wind. BWF tells a story about how based on how they were sitting in Undeadwood filming, Matt’s hair would blow ever-so-slightly in the A/C and people thought they did it on purpose.

Matt had a good time at Blizzcon! He was glad to see people gathering for the Hong Kong protests; he understands it’s a very complicated situation where the initial punishment was way too harsh and caused a ripple effect, but he was glad to see the space where the activism was welcomed in response.

Matt enjoyed cosplaying again for the first time in a long time, both at Blizzcon and as McCree for the Halloween episode. When he was buying adhesive a shop worker upsold him on an inferior product, which is why his beard started falling off during the show. Sad times, Matt. :(

And that’s all! Is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #275

i’m anxious and my head is hectic so i can’t think of a single song lyric to put here lmao

Have you ever dated anybody online? Yes, but we met up in person for a week+ at a time multiple times. Ever been stalked? No. Ever stalked someone? No. I never got to that point with him because shit’s creepy. Have you ever been called a slut, hoe, skank, whore? Only playfully by close friends because that’s how we show affection sometimes lmao. Have you ever snuck out before? No. Do you eat meat? I wish I didn’t, but I do. If so, do you like meat? Yes. If not, do you have anything against people who eat meat? N/A Have you ever gotten a manicure or pedicure? I went with my old friend and sisters on rare occasions just to hang out. Have you ever been close to getting kidnapped? Jc no, thank fuck. HAVE you ever been kidnapped? No. I’d be so goddamn terrified. Do you listen to Lykke Li? Never heard of ‘em. Have you ever self-harmed? Yes. Do you have any eating disorders? No. Have you ever met a celebrity? No. Do you like Monster Energy or do you prefer other energy drinks? Astonishingly with how much I love soda, I am nooot an energy drink fan. They taste like straight-up poison. Describe the best day of your life? I don’t really know what that would be. About how many times a week do you skip class or just school in general? When I was in school, I’d fake sick as a kid rarely, then in high school I had quite a few mental health days. College, too. Have you ever been suspended from school? No. Have you ever been expelled? No. Do you role-play? Only on designated forums and in serious stories. I need substance behind it. Irl, sexual, and pretty much any other RP doesn’t interest me. Do you watch Degrassi? I never did, no. What is one of the saddest novels you’ve ever read in your lifetime? Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Jesus fucking Christ. Orbit or 5 Gum? Honestly can’t even remember their tastes… but I THINK I preferred the latter. Have you ever been in a love triangle? No. How bad are your hangovers? I’ve never had one. Do you think Taco Bell is nasty? No. Do you have a jacuzzi? Definitely not. Have you ever broken a bone? If so, what was the cause of it? No. Do you think vegans/vegetarians look down on people who choose to eat animal products? That’s a very generalizing statement… You can’t say that of them all. Some absolutely do, others don’t. Do your friendships tend to last a long time or are they short-lived? Definitely the former. Name the best and worst things about your current or most recent relationship. The best thing was absolutely that I felt accepted for entirely who I was, like I needed to hide not a single thing. The worst thing was easily distance. Fuck distance. How are you? Aggravated at a lot of things. What part of your body are you most insecure about? Absolutely my stomach. What’s one food you would be surprised to hear that someone doesn’t like? Chocolate. I mean I know at least one person who doesn’t, but boy does it catch you off-guard. Do you think your voice is higher or lower than average? It’s definitely lower than the average woman’s. Do you and your parents like any of the same bands/singers? Oh, loads! I couldn’t even begin to list them all. Is there any food in your bedroom? No. Do you know anyone who has road rage? MY YOUNGER SISTER. GOOD LORD. Riding with her is always a trip. How far away do your grandparents live from you? My only (barely) living one is in New York with family, probably until she dies. It’s like ten hours away. What kinds of cereal are in the cupboard? We have chocolate Special K, Honey Nut Cheerios, a Food Lion rip-off of Rice Krispies, and… maybe one more? Is your mom a big health freak or your dad? Or neither? Neither, really. Given her cancer, high blood sugar, and diabetes though, Mom is much more conscious of what she eats. Do you know anyone who wants to be the president one day? Not that I’m aware of. What kinds of chips are in the cupboards? We don’t have any. Mom and I try to keep snack foods out of the house because we know ourselves well enough to know we WILL eat them too fast. Do you have your mom’s or dad’s hair? Absolutely my mom’s. It’s thick as hell like hers was. What’s the first thing you see when you walk into your bedroom? Probably my massive Nightmare Before Christmas poster above my bed. Do you have any friends who have naturally red hair? Yes. Have you ever cried when a teacher retired? Yep. I’m never going to forget my first band teacher; he was a real comedian with a massive heart. We all adored him and got so excited when he would come back to substitute if our instructor had to miss and he was able to come. Oddly enough, I don’t remember his name… When’s the last time you wore heels? Oh Christ. Maybe Ashley’s wedding? Did I even wear heels? Do you have your mom’s or dad’s eyes? Neither. What’s the best date movie? I am such an average white bitch in how my answer to this will always and vehemently be The Notebook. How long has your current best friend been your best friend? Around three years. Have your parents ever been out of the country? No. Do you swear and yell while playing video games? No. I might curse under my breath. Is there any alcohol in the fridge? Oh I WISH. Do your pets chase after bugs? YUP. Roman loves hunting flies. When’s the last time you were so excited you couldn’t sleep? Why? Excited? Probably not since I was going to see Sara. I don’t know. What is your mom’s favorite movie? Oh shit, good question. How much older is your dad then you? Don’t make me math, please. 30-something years. Do you have any relatives who really spoil you? No. Do you know anyone who has security cameras in their house? Probably. What was the last movie to make you cry? No clue. Has anyone you know ever pulled the fire alarm in school, joking around? I think so? Who was the main character in the last book you read? Starflight. Is the last person you said goodbye to single? No, he’s married to my sister. Who are the last people you saw kiss? Like romantically/on the lips? Ummm probably a couple on Facebook or something. Have you ever posted a fan fiction on a website? No. Do you ever fantasize about your future wedding? Who’s the bride/groom? Not anymore. Do you have any relatives who are expecting a baby really soon? No. My high school friend did just announce she’s pregnant with her second child though. When you get married, who will be the maid of honor/best man? My mom. Does your best friend get along with their parents? Yes, they’re fantastic. Have you ever been in a wedding? What were you? Yes; I was the hideous bridesmaid that just cried all through my sister’s wedding. That was a fucking nightmare. Does it matter to you what kind of shampoo you use? I don’t really care, no. Do you have a sensitive gag reflex? Like STUPID fuckin sensitive. Where are you the most ticklish? Don’t touch my fuckin feet. What was the last situation to upset you? It was a petty envy thing that shouldn’t have upset me, let’s move along. Have you ever had an online argument? I’ve been socially on the Internet since I was 11 and am now 24, take a guess lmao. The general subject of your last text conversation? Asking Sara for permission for something RP-related. What is just down the hall from where you’re located? There’s not really a hall at all; my room opens up into the living room. Do any of your friends know you fill out surveys? Well besides the online friends I have here, no. Do you like the controversial/political surveys? ”It depends on if I have enough opinions (and energy) to give good answers or not.” <<<< Exactly this. Who/What did you last spend time worrying about? Myself and my future and my newfound fear of ending up homeless and hopeless after my parents pass away because I’m a very sorry Adult™. What was the last thing you prepared in the oven? Whoa, who knows. The oven scares me, so I don’t use it myself. When were you last offered something illegal? I don’t think I ever have been, actually. Did you accept or decline that offer? N/A When was the last time that you saw fire? On the way home like a week back or something. Someone was burning stuff in their backyard. Have you ever seen somebody get shot? No. What are you listening to? “Little One” by Highly Suspect. Gorgeous song. Do you chew on your hair? Um no???? Can you talk on the phone while having the tv/radio on? No. What size are all the televisions in your house? I don’t know the measurements, but it’s a large Vizio. One of the few really nice things we got when my parents were together. Do you have health insurance? Yes. How many times have you been pulled over by the cops while driving? Zero. What is one of your favorite movie lines? I don’t know, they’re not really something I memorize. What is one thing you look forward to every day? My morning Mountain Dew lmao it’s my coffee, essentially. What is one thing you dread every day? The inevitable part where I’m bored shitless by early evening. Ever lived through a natural disaster? Lots of hurricanes. What’s the longest you’ve lived without electricity? I wanna say around two days? Maybe even three? I don’t remember. Name all the drugs you have tried: None. Name all of the alcoholic beverages you have tried? Margaritas and sangrias with different types of alcohol that I don’t know. Oh, hard lemonade. Oh yeah, wine too, which was fucking repulsive. Name all the types/brands of cigarettes you have tried: None. What is one thing you stand strongly for? Fucking TRY ME on gay rights. What does your doormat say? We don’t have one. Who was the last person you were on hold with (on the phone)? I don’t remember. Who do you know that’s had a baby recently? Ummm I don’t think any *very* recently. Do you know anyone who got married recently? Again, not very. Do you know anyone who has died recently? No. Do you change songs in the car often? I use my iPod to play over it, where I select the songs to play, so I let them play through. However, if I was actually the driver, I definitely wouldn’t; it wouldn’t really matter because I’m so terrified of driving that I need almost no radio at all. What street sign do you find totally pointless? I’m not familiar enough with them all. What drinking games have you played? None. What made you pick up the last book you started reading? Sara got me into the series. Have you received any bad or troubling news lately? Welcome to 20fuckin20, y’all. When was the last time you were relieved about something? *shrug* What about your life concerns you the most? That I’ll waste it. Is there a common thing most people seem to do without trouble, but it scares you (talking on the phone, driving, interviews, etc)? When was the last time you had to do one of these kinds of things? When I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago, I signed myself in. Yes, that sets my anxiety off because I don’t know how to Talk. When was the last time you went somewhere for the first time? Uhhhhhhhh good question. I don’t go anywhere. What is a situation that makes you feel especially confident? Talking about meerkat behavior ha ha. If you’ve moved out from home, what was the scariest thing about it? What was/is your favorite thing about it? N/A Are there any fictional characters you like even though they’re “bad” or “evil?” What qualities draw you to a character? BITCH yes. I just like charisma. For villains, I really like when there’s a *reason* they’re bad, too, and not so just for the sake of it. And I am a SUCKER for sarcastic lil shit villains. What are your thoughts on “forgiving” murderers, rapists, attackers, etc? Do you think it’s even possible to forgive these people? This is a tough question, after I looked past my initial “hell no.” Like, people change. I suppose it varies case-to-case. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? Actually finished, Ginga Densetsu Weed. I’m sure Sara and I will keep watching Avatar: The Last Airbender next time we see each other. What is one way in which you are different from a year ago? What is one way in which you are still the same? I definitely hate myself more than I did. And that’s the problem: I haven’t developed at all in a year’s time. Is there anything you’ve promised yourself you’ll never do again? Multiple things. Do you prefer fake tanning or real tanning? I prefer not tanning at all. Would you date someone who was addicted to drugs? No. I’m not getting into that shit. If the person was recovered, yes, but I wouldn’t hesitate leaving if they relapsed and didn’t seek help. Sounds brutal, but I’m serious about the damage drugs do, and not just to the user. Do you still talk to the person you had your first kiss with? No. It’s probably best we never do again. Can you make yourself cry? I’ve never really tried, but I don’t think so. Are you ready for kids? I’ll never be. Have you ever woken up crying from a bad dream? Plenty of times. Thanks, nightmares every fucking time I sleep. Do you eat breakfast? Yes. Cannot relate to people who don’t like wtf that’s the best part of the morning. Have you ever trusted someone too much? BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did you get your last bruise? I don’t recall. Last time you got a text message and smiled? Idk. What was the last kid’s movie you saw? Ummmmm good question. Have you ever shared a shower or bath with someone as an adult? Noooo, not into it. Sounds dangerous but also just… weird to me. Like let me clean myself in peace??? Are you bitter about anything? Oh, am I. Do you use emojis? Occasionally. I’m too biased to emoticons, growing up using those every sentence, lol… but I’m starting to move towards them depending on the platform, and the ones I use are very limited. Do you have any hidden piercings? (this includes bellybuttons) No. I took my snake eyes out. Has anyone called you perfect before? *lips against mic* that was a motherfuckin lie Have you ever liked someone that was in a relationship? Yes. Have you ever gone through a period of mass weight-gain/weight-loss? What was that time like for you? Both, actually. First, mass weight-gain happened due to a medication I was on that murders metabolism + I was a bad emotional eater after the breakup, and those two don’t mix. Then, through recovery, I lost over 50 pounds in around a year from being off of that fucking medicine and my eating habits returning to normal. What’s one incident that has majorly affected your self-esteem? Was it for better, or for worse? THE BREAKUP. It made me feel like an absolute waste of space and time. Do you have a close bond with your sibling(s)? Was it always this way, or has it been better/worse? Not really, but I wish I did. Ashley and Nicole are very close, then I’m like… awkwardly on the sidelines trying to find times where I can insert myself and be a proper sister. Ash and I ARE closer than we were as kids, while it’s a harsh opposite with Nicole. We shared a room and were very close, but now I feel like she doesn’t even like me. Have you used Limewire before? Ha, yuuup… Who do you envy the most, if anyone at all? I’m uncertain about the most.

#survey #quiz #questions #questionnaire

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spine-buster · 5 years ago

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Alone, Together | Chapter 24 | Morgan Rielly

Everybody was in an awful mood. The Leafs had played like shit against Tampa Bay, and it left everybody with a bad taste in their mouth. It was almost like they hadn’t even tried; nobody had shown up to play that night. Despite Auston and Connor scoring, nobody even entertained the possibility of a comeback. The boys were getting shown why Tampa was in first place by a mile and they knew that.

Briony watched Morgan give a post-game interview from the warmth of his apartment, after having gone to work that day. He had called her and said he’d liked if she came over. She didn’t protest. She was staying the night more and more lately, unable to deny him – she even had outfits for work and casual clothes hanging in his closet just in case. Angie said, “That probably means he wants you to move in with him,” and Ashley said, “The only way you’re ever moving out of our apartment is if you’re moving in with Morgan instead,” and Bee didn’t know what to think. She’d stopped her apartment search momentarily because Ashley found out and told her that, and they had a talk about it, and Bee said “What if I even just start paying you $500 a month” and Ashley absolutely refused and Bee gave up. She had a personal rule, if you will, that she wouldn’t even consider moving in with a guy until at least a year into the relationship. But she and Morgan had been through a lot together. He was there for her during the break-in. He was there for her when her mom died. She had already met his family.

And, well…Morgan was Morgan. He made her re-think a lot of things about herself.

At the beginning of the relationship, she’d wanted to take things slow and not put a label on it. Now, she couldn’t imagine why she’d been so dumb. There was no reason for her – for them – to take it slow, because they were in a spot now she could only dream of being in at this point in her life. Comfortable. Loving. Supportive. Loyal. Encouraging. Ready to take on the world together. She never defined herself based on another person. With Bee, it was always me, myself, and I, because that’s how it had been most of her life. But now, her outlook changed. Her priorities changed. Her life changed. With another person by her side, completely by her side, encouraging her to do all these amazing things and go for anything and everything she wanted, she couldn’t help but feel less like her life was about herself and more that her life was about them. Together. Two people, not one person, growing together and experiencing life.

She wanted that. Oh lord, did she want that. And she didn’t want that with anybody else besides Morgan.

From the kitchen counter, her phone began to ring. She got off the couch slowly, tired from the long workday, and saw that Angie was calling her. Knowing how much Angie liked to be in bed by 9:30 on a work night, Bee thought it was weird she was calling. “Shouldn’t you be asleep already, you old hag?” Bee used the words Angie called herself.

“Are you on Twitter right now?” her voice was frantic.

“What? No. Why would I be?”

“Bee – I – there’s this video --”

“-- what video?”

“-- of the game tonight. Someone’s accusing Morgan of yelling something homophobic to a referee.”

“What?!” Bee couldn’t believe what she just heard.

“It’s all over Twitter, Bee,” Angie said. Bee looked back towards the TV, only to see Morgan’s interview had ended and the panel back on. Did they mention it in the interview? Did they ask about it? “They’re saying he called the referee the f-word.”

“WHAT?!” Bee exclaimed, her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach. “Morgan would never --”

“I know, Bee, but they caught something being said on a TV microphone. I don’t even – I don’t even know if it’s him, but a TV mic caught something and --”

“Angie, he would never – he would never --”

“Bee?” she heard Mason’s voice call her name, making her realize she was on speakerphone. “Bee, NHL public relations sent out a tweet saying they’re investigating.”

She ran towards her laptop and opened Twitter in a new tab, finding the tweet almost immediately. The NHL is aware of reports that a homophobic slur was used during the Maple Leafs-Lightning game. The League is investigating the incident and will have no further comment until this investigation is completed. Bee felt sick to her stomach. “There was no way it was Morgan. None. He c-c-couldn’t – he w-wouldn’t –”

“The Leafs PR sent out a tweet too,” Mason continued. “Is Morgan home yet?”

“No. I’m gonna call him right--” she said, only to hear the door unlocking and see Morgan walk through the door. She immediately hung up the phone on Angie and Mason and saw the dejected look on his face.

He barely looked up at her, feeling like complete shit because of how the game turned out. “Can we just go to bed, please? I want this day to end, like, immediately.”

“Morgan --” Bee tried to say, but she was cut off harshly by the sound of his ringtone.

Morgan rolled his eyes as he looked down at his phone. She saw his eyebrows furrow at the name running across the screen. He swiped to answer. “Kyle?”

Bee stood stoic as she tried to study the look on Morgan’s face, even though he kept his head down. She obviously couldn’t hear what Kyle Dubas was saying on the other end but the longer Morgan was on the phone, the more his eyebrows furrowed. Then, suddenly, his head shot up, and Bee could see a look of shock mixed with fear on his face. “They’re saying I said what?” he said out loud, and her stomach twisted into knots. “Kyle – I didn’t – I would never – okay, okay. Yeah. I’ll be right over,” he said, hanging up. He looked towards Bee, fear taking over the shock. She saw his chest starting to heave from breathing heavily. “Briony, I didn’t – I didn’t do it.”

“I know Morgan,” she said, running over to him.

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it,” he kept repeating.

“I know baby. I know you didn’t.”

“Why are they saying – what – why are they? Why are they saying I did?” he stuttered out, unable to form a coherent thought. “I didn’t say that word at all.”

“I know you didn’t, Morgan. And I know you wouldn’t. What did Kyle say?”

“I have – I have to go back to the arena,” he looked around him like he didn’t know where the door was.

“Okay. Let me grab my stuff and we’ll go,” she assured him, grabbing her coat from the closet near the door.

“Briony – I – you have to work tomorrow,” he said.

“So?”

“You can’t miss – I don’t want you to--”

“Shut it Morgan,” she said, slipping on a pair of boots. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Let’s go.”

The drive over was eerily quiet. Morgan tried to focus on the streets and the drive but his mind kept wandering to the accusations. The video. What everybody thought he said. What he didn’t say. God, he hadn’t even checked his phone since he got in the car to come home – God knows how many DMs he’d gotten. God knows how many people were tagging him in tweets. He felt sick to his stomach that anybody would think he’d said a word like that.

They took the usual route into Scotiabank Arena, except Morgan pushed a different elevator button to take them to the offices rather than the clubs and family floor. Bee hadn’t let go of his hand since they got out of the car. She squeezed it to get his attention and he looked down at her. “It’s all going to be okay,” she said softly.

His eyes were already red. He shook his head in disbelief that this was even happening in the first place. “I didn’t say it.”

“I know. And that’s why it’s going to be okay,” she assured him. “If they’re investigating they’re going to find out you didn’t say it and it’s going to be okay.”

“Briony…” he shook his head. “I can’t…I can’t deal with this. I would never say something like that,” he kept repeating the sentiment, because it was all he could think.

As the elevator doors opened, Bee saw Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, and another man standing together. Brendan had his suit jacket off, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and Kyle looked pretty much the same. When they looked over to the elevator, they stopped discussing whatever they were talking about. “Hi Morgan,” Brendan said.

“Mr. Shanahan, I didn’t say it,” he said, his voice desperate as he stepped out of the elevator. “I would never use that language sir. There’s no way – Steve, I approached you asking to be able to march in the Pride Parade in June --”

“It’s alright Morgan, it’s alright,” Brendan assured him, extending his arm as he smiled briefly at the two of them. “Let’s go into Kyle’s office, okay? Have you seen the video?”

“No. I had just walked in the door – and then Kyle called…and Briony --” he gestured to her, “I think she might have seen it on Twi--”

“Morgan, it’s going to be okay. Don’t worry,” Kyle assured him as he pat his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go into my office.”

As they sat down on the plush chairs in Kyle’s office, he opened his laptop screen and put his phone down on his desk. Bee assumed he was waiting for a phone call from someone – whether that was going to come through to the office phone or his cell phone she had no idea. She shifted her chair so she was closer to Morgan, rubbing his back gently to calm him down. The third man that Bee didn’t recognize was tapping away on his phone. “Have you checked your social media portals yet?” he asked Morgan. Morgan shook his head. He looked at Briony. “Have you, Ms. McTavish?”

Brendan must have picked up on the shocked look on her face – this random man knowing who she was but her not knowing who he was – and interjected briefly. “Briony, this is Steve Keogh. He’s the head of public relations for the Maple Leafs.”

“Oh. Um, no, I haven’t,” she said, setting her phone on the table. “I mean…I – I’ve been contacted before on Instagram and Twitter. Mostly Instagram though.”

“What do you mean contacted?”

“Like, people have sent me DMs – or they’ve tried to now that my profile is private – and, um, that’s where a lot of them try to contact me…you know, once people started to find out Morgan and I were together.” She was totally word-vomiting and she knew it, but she didn’t understand why her social media portals would matter in all of this.

“Do you mind if I check your Instagram?” he asked.

She couldn’t exactly say no, so she unlocked her phone and went to her DM requests so Steve could see them. “You stupid fat bitch,” he read out the message. Kyle’s and Brendan’s eyes immediately went wide; Brendan even started to shake his head. “You and your homophobe boyfriend are the fucking worst I hope you both fucking burn in hell,” he swiped out of the message screen and onto the next one. “You and your boyfriend are both disgusting pieces of shit. I bet you caused this. You’re so disgusting and the way you are creating drama in Morgan’s life is gross and you should be ashamed of yourself,” he continued.

“Please stop reading,” Morgan snarled, visibly upset.

“You’re a fat ass c…oh no, I’m not saying that word out loud,” Steve’s eyes went wide now.

“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, don’t worry,” Bee quipped.

Brendan looked at her flabbergasted. He turned to Steve. “Is it what I think it is?”

“You’re a fat ass…see you next Tuesday,” Steve cringed. Brendan shook his head. “I’m not reading any more of these,” Steve put down her phone. “If hers sound like this you can imagine his.”

“Okay, we’re going to talk about this calmly and rationally,” Kyle said, taking charge and looking directly at Morgan. He swivelled his laptop so Morgan could watch the video in question. He let it loop a few times – at least three – shaking his head the entire time. Kyle eventually stopped the video and turned his laptop back to face him. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

Bee listened as Morgan recounted the play in question. He talked about the hooking call he thought the referee should have called, but didn’t, which was clearly visible in the video because of his hand motions. When the referee didn’t call it, he obviously got upset. He probably swore, yeah. Dropped an F-bomb. Anybody would when it could have been a five-on-three near the end of the period. But he never said that word. Never. The referee was close to him. He would have heard it. He would have called something on him if he did, or thrown Morgan out of the game, but he didn’t. Then Tampa had scored shorthanded, making it 5-1. And he was angry. He was fucking livid. But he never used the word in question. Never. Kyle kept asking questions. So did Brendan and Steve. “But what was said, Morgan?” “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t say it?” “Could you have said it in the heat of the moment?” “You’re positive, Morgan?” He was positive. Positive. Unequivocal. He didn’t say it. Not when he was angry, not in the heat of the moment. Never. He never said it.

Then the office phone rang loudly, interrupting their conversation. “That’s Colin calling,” Kyle said, lifting the receiver and pressing a button. Bee could only imagine that was someone important. “Hello Mr. Campbell. Kyle here. I have Brendan and Steve and Morgan here. You’re on speaker.”

Colin asked for the audio recordings from the various microphones that were around the ice for TV purposes. Kyle mentioned they already sent them. Colin thanked them, apparently not realizing they were already sent. Then he asked to speak to Brendan. Bee took the opportunity to grab Morgan’s hand under the desk, to try to get him to look at her so she could tell him everything was going to be okay, but he was too preoccupied with the phone conversation to even notice. She kept her hand there, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, but he didn’t notice. Steve was back on his phone. Kyle stayed quiet while Brendan spoke to Colin Campbell.

By the time the phone call had ended, Steve had been waiting to show everyone something on his phone for a while. Bee noticed that it was 11pm. Morgan was stiff as Brendan hung up the phone. “Somebody’s got a slowed down recording,” he said. “These Twitter people. They’re trying to analyze it. This guy who uploaded the slowed down video said ‘After giving it a long listen, I am convinced that Rielly did not say "Fucking F-word on the ice, and what was heard was two separate voices: One that says “Fuck” and another that says “Rag it”. I believe the first to be Rielly’s and the second from someone from the TB bench.’”

Brendan whipped his head towards Morgan. “Is that true?”

“It could be true,” he said. “I mean, I swore. And judging by the play somebody from the bench could have definitely been telling him to rag the puck to kill the penalty.”

Steve played the video loudly for everyone to hear. For Bee, it was clear as day. There were two different voices. The second one didn’t even sound like Morgan at all. It didn’t have his slightly nasally Canadian twang, none of it. “It’s two people,” Brendan mumbled to himself as they listened to the video over and over again. “It’s two people. It’s two voices.”

“The microphones will pick up on that, hopefully,” Steve added.

“I didn’t say it,” Morgan whispered, voice full of dejection and desolation at the events unfolding. He brought his hand up to rub at his lips, and Bee swore she could see his eyes well with tears. “I didn’t fucking say it.”

“Morgan, it’s okay. The microphone recording will show it was two different people,” Brendan assured him.

The phone rang again. Kyle wasted no time in answering it. “We’re still here Colin,” he said.

“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” this Colin Campbell said on the other end. “I’ve got Brad Meier here. We’re going to interview him, and after we’re done interviewing him we’re going to interview Morgan. So once we’re done with Brad, we’re going to call you back and you can come next door and we’ll interview Morgan.”

They were next-fucking-door?! Bee looked at everyone, and they were nodding their heads. “Alright Colin, sounds good. We’ll be in my office waiting so just call back when you’re ready for Morgan.” Colin hung up without another word, and Kyle looked at Morgan. “I’m going to get a recording of your statement. Just in case.”

And so he recorded a statement for Kyle, recounting practically every second of the play. And then, like clockwork, Colin called back and asked Morgan to go over. So he did, and Bee was left with Kyle and Brendan and Steve, and they asked her what she did, and where she went to school, and how she was liking Scotiabank, and joked that maybe one of them should send their investment portfolio her way so they could make more money, and she tried to laugh, but all she could think about was Morgan being interrogated and adamantly denying every saying that word. Then Steve gave her some tips for social media – the gist being to ignore it, which she was already doing – and she thanked him, and Kyle and Brendan assured her everything would be okay, and she thanked them. She knew they were trying to get her mind off things. She appreciated it. But she just wanted to see Morgan. She wanted to hold his hand. She wanted to tell him everything was going to be okay.

It was 12:30 in the morning when Morgan finally appeared back in Kyle’s office, and again, like clockwork, Colin called and said they had everything they needed and that they’d be in contact. When? Who knew. But they’d be in contact. Tomorrow morning? Tomorrow afternoon? Were they going to review the material now? Tomorrow? They’d be in contact.

Kyle patted Morgan on the back. “Go get some sleep, alright? We’ll talk about it in the morning. You need to rest.”

That was going to be impossible. All Morgan did was nod his head and they said their goodbyes and by the time he and Bee got back to his place, it was almost 1am, and she knew he wasn’t going to sleep. There was no way. He plopped himself down on the couch and put his head in his hands, and Bee wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Everything is going to be okay, Morgan.”

That’s when it happened. He finally broke down. After holding it together for so long at the arena and through the interview, his emotions and fatigue got the best of him as tears streamed down his face. His body even began to shake from the stress of it all and Bee tried to squeeze him tighter to make it stop, but it was no use. “I didn’t say it,” he managed to get out. “Why does everyone think I did? I swore, that’s it. I didn’t say that word.”

“I know baby, I know,” she cooed, running her fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm him. “You can’t look at what everybody is saying. You know what you said and you know what you didn’t.”

“But why? Why does everybody think I said it?”

“Shhhhhh,” she cooed as she brought a hand up to caress his cheek. “They’re going to find that you didn’t. Don’t worry. All the evidence is there for them.”

Before he could say anything else, her phone rang. When she pulled it out of her pocket, she saw Shirley’s name flash across the screen. “Baby, your mom is calling.”

Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Fuck, I haven’t even checked my phone,” he said, wiping his eyes quickly. He grabbed Bee’s phone from her and picked up. “Mum…mum I didn’t say it. I didn’t say it.”

Bee listened to the conversation, Morgan unwilling to let her go anywhere and Bee unwilling to leave. He spoke to his parents for a while, crying on the phone to them and explaining the entire situation – what happened on the ice, the phone call he got from Kyle, what they did at the arena, and the interview with the NHL. Then came the texts from the teammates that were sent earlier in the night – from Jake, John, Tyler, Auston, Naz, Fred, everybody – and he responded to all of them, and then Jake called, and they spoke about it, and Tyler called Bee, because Morgan’s line was busy, and she explained to him the situation, and he told her to tell Morgan to call him in the morning, and then Aryne called saying she couldn’t sleep, wondering if everything was okay, and it was just a lot. Everybody wanted to know what was happening, and she understood why, but she could only relive it so many times. So she stopped responding and calling to everybody, and when she finally focused back on Morgan, she saw his body shaking and him scrolling through Twitter.

“NO!” she screamed, running towards him and yanking his phone out of his grip. “Don’t – Morgan – NO,” she stressed, wanting to throw his phone – both their phones – out the window and onto the street so a car could run over them. “Why would you – why would you --”

“-- They hate me and they think I did it --”

“Stop it – no – listen to me,” she grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. “Those people can go fuck themselves. The people that matter – the people that matter – know you would never say that shit. Me. Your teammates. Your bosses. They all know you’d never say that word. Fuck those people. They’re the same people that send me DMs on Instagram. Are you really going to listen to them?”

“They keep retweeting the video. They keep – they keep --”

“They’re wrong,” she said definitively. “They’re all fucking wrong, and you know it. Don’t listen to them.”

“Bee…Bee…” he hiccupped out, tears still streaming down his face, unable to say anything else.

She wrapped her arms around his body again, another attempt to calm him down, and with each shake of his body from the stress and fatigue and everything else, the more her heart broke for him. This was the worst kind of psychological torture he could go through and she knew it was tearing him apart. And no matter how long she held him; no matter how long she played with his hair or cooed in his ear to calm him; no matter how long they lay on the couch together and she told him everything was going to be okay – nothing worked. His body kept shaking. He kept intermittently crying. His eyes became redder and the bags became deeper and she wanted so desperately to make everything okay.

And before she knew it, it was 7am. They hadn’t slept. Bee called her boss, Mark Travers, and asked for the day off, promising she’d come in on Saturday and get his coffee for an entire week. Being a hockey fan, he understood. She was lucky. Morgan decided to try and call Kyle and Brendan again, to see if they had any new information, but they didn’t. Bee tried to make him toast, but he wouldn’t eat. His teammates began waking up, and the phone calls and texts commenced again. No eating. Another phone call from Shirley and Andy. Angie and Mason offering to come over and cook breakfast.

And then the tweet from the NHL Public Relations department. 12:41pm. Following a thorough investigation, the National Hockey League has determined that Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly did not direct a homophobic slur at referee Brad Meier during last night’s game with the Tampa Bay Lightning at Scotiabank Arena.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Bee could see Morgan physically decompress. She saw his shoulders unstiffen, his jaw unclench, his hands stop wringing, and his brows stop furrowing. Morgan Rielly did not direct a homophobic slur. Did not.

Did not.

A phone call from Brendan and Kyle. “We’re going to have a press conference. Can you get to the arena?” A shower. A grey suit, no tie. A casual black dress. Another trip to Scotiabank Arena. An espresso to wake up. A chat with Kyle, Brendan, and Steve. “Can I please sit in on the press conference?” A seat directly at the front, near the door, so Morgan would see her first when he emerged. Reporters. Cameras. News outlets. Microphones. Lights. A press conference. Kyle being honest about the events of last night. Morgan reiterating he was confident that he didn’t say that word. Morgan saying it was hard not to make a statement because of how strongly he felt about it. Kyle reiterating how there was no place for homophobia in hockey. Morgan reiterating how there was no place for homophobia in hockey.

She could tell how tired he was by the way he repeated himself and stumbled through some of his answers. If the reporters couldn’t tell, they could definitely see by the size of the bags under his eyes and the physical fatigue his body looked like it endured for the last eighteen hours. But like any reporter dealing with the Leafs, they asked question after question until Steve finally put an end to it. He helped usher Bee to the back with Morgan, where they retreated back into Kyle’s office. “It’s all over now,” Kyle said, amongst other things. “Go grab some food. Get some sleep. You need to rest for the game tomorrow.”

It was 4pm by the time they returned to Morgan’s apartment. He was exhausted. So was Bee. The mental toll was much greater than the physical one, but his body still ached from shaking practically all night and being so tense. They ordered food. Jake, John, and Tyler called to ask about the press conference. Andy and Shirley called to speak to them as well and make sure everything was okay. Morgan ate some of the food they ordered, but not enough as he should have. He just wanted to go to bed. So by 6pm, Bee drew together the curtains, closed the bedroom door, and climbed into bed with him.

“I never want to have to go through that again,” he said as she snuggled into him.

“Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s all over now,” she cooed, cradling his face in her hands and giving him a quick kiss. “It’s all over. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“This sort of stuff lasts for a long time. I don’t know…” he mumbled.

“Shhh,” she cooed again, giving him another kiss. “You didn’t say it, and now everyone knows. That’s it. It’s over. You can’t let it stress you out, baby.”

“Briony?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you…” he hesitated. “Can you just like…lay on top of me? Like a blanket? You know like how I do with you sometimes?”

He didn’t need to ask twice. She lifted herself on top of him and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. She buried her face under his chin and he nestled his own face against hers. They lay on the bed silent for a while until Morgan piped up again. “Briony?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry I put you through this.”

She lifted her head so she could get a good look at him. “Why are you apologizing?” she ran her thumb along his lips tenderly. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Not just today. Everything,” he admitted. “Today, the messages you get…everything. It’s all because of me. And I’m sorry.”

“What are you even talking about?” she asked. “It’s not because of you at all. Morgan…I would take them ten times over if meant I could be with you.”

“Really?”

“You know how you told me on your birthday that you’re in this?” she asked. He nodded his head. “Well I’m in this too. I don’t care about the messages. And I know your character…where you came from, who you are, who you want to be. I’m going to be here for you, always, whether you like it or not.”

He wrapped his arms around her tighter. A small tear rolled down his cheek and Bee padded it away with her thumb before giving him a kiss. He quickly settled into what Bee thought was sleep – his heartbeat steadied, his eyes closed. It wasn’t until he mumbled a few words that she realized he was still awake. “I want you to be here all the time Briony.”

She wasn’t sure if it was him or the sleep talking. “What?” she whispered, even though she had a pretty good idea of what he meant.

“I want you here all the time. At my place. Will you at least think about it?”

Lying there on top of him, sheltered away and closed off from the rest of the city, from the cameras and the microphones and hockey; lying there with Morgan, not Morgan Rielly, so defeated and so vulnerable yet so stoic and so honourable; lying there as Briony McTavish, with five year plans and life rules not meant to be broken but never having experienced a love like this before; lying in bed together, in each other’s arms, each other’s bodies, Briony said the only thing she could say – the only thing she wanted to say – despite her rules and her five year plans and anything else she used as an excuse or a way to plan out her life.

“Yes.”

#morgan rielly #morgan rielly imagine #morgan rielly imagines #morgan rielly fic #toronto maple leafs #toronto maple leafs imagine #toronto maple leafs imagines #toronto maple leafs fic #nhl #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fic #hockey #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fic #alone together series

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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Catch Me If You Can (2/?)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

A/N: Sending shout outs to several people: to @resident-of-storybrooke for being my super cool beta, to @bmbbcs4evr for being the best support system/encourager, and to @wellhellotragic for sending me the prompt to start this whole thing. You guys are the best 💜

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2

Tag list: @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @snowbellewells @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @emmas-storybook @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @galaxyzxstark @qualitycoffeethings @thejollyroger-writer

-/-

The moment Killian gets back to his hotel room, he falls onto the mattress and wonders if he can sink into the soft, plush comforter forever. As much as he misses his apartment, misses the fact that he can wander around in his boxers without a care in the world and eat while sitting on his living room couch watching TV, this hotel is one of the better ones he’s stayed at. The rooms are big, he has a small kitchen, and the walls are thick enough that he can’t hear Will or Arthur on either side of him. He doesn’t want to hear Will because he blares music at all hours of the night and Arthur because his wife flew down here with him.

Privacy is privacy and all that.

It’s funny because he remembers sharing a room with Robin in cheap hotels while they were traveling for games for Vandy and they could pretty much hear what was happening in the rooms on every side of them. Once he swears someone was acting out the movie Titanic while the bed squeaked, and he’s never quite watched that movie in the same way since then.

Sorry Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

But right now, he never wants to move from this bed, never wants to have to get up to change clothes or eat. He simply wants to sleep for a solid twenty-four hours and then not have to get up to train tomorrow morning.

His entire body hurts.

His shoulder, specifically.

Really, it shouldn’t. He’s in good shape. He knows that he is. When he couldn’t play two seasons ago because his arm was wrapped in a cast and the complications with his shoulder kept piling up, he spent most of his time in the gym trying to work on everything that he could work on. He watched old tapes, watched videos of his games and games from the season that he didn’t get to play, and spent most of his time obsessing about getting back on the field and throwing one more pitch. So, for his team to have won the World Series last season, for him to have played so well, was something that was expected by every single person but him.

For a good while, he didn’t think he’d ever get to play the game again.

He wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to when it hurt too much to even reach up in his cabinets to grab a box of cereal. He nearly lost his dream, his livelihood, his life, because a group of drunks drove their boat right into his small sailboat. He doesn’t remember much of it, not more than the searing pain and the heavy fear in his gut over whether or not Liam was going to be okay. Everything after that is flashes of hospital visits and meetings with doctors to make sure that his broken arm wasn’t infected since he had an open-flesh wound and spent a significant amount of time in the water. That’s the injury the world knows about, the one that was covered on the news and online, the one that he saw about himself when he was scrolling through Instagram trying to pass the time.

No one but his family and his physio know about the rotator cuff tear or the surgery that was required to repair it. He always thought that he would suffer from an injury like that, but it was always going to be something that happened because he has been pitching for most of his life. It was never supposed to be a freak injury that tried to tear nearly everything he cared about away.

His shoulder still hurts even though the injuries have been healed, but he’s learned to play with pain, to embrace it. He should have asked to be relieved after the fifth today.

There’s a knock on his door, and he groans, unable to form actual words, before rising from the mattress and slowly walking toward his door, wondering who the hell is knocking on his door at two in the morning.

Ariel.

Of course it’s Ariel.

She’s got a cheerful smile on her face, her red hair twisted back into a complicated plait that he’s watched her do several times, and she’s still in her green dress that he saw her wearing this morning. Does the woman ever sleep?

If only he could sleep instead of having to talk to her.

Twisting the several locks, he swings the door open, propping his left arm up against the frame and hoping that him blocking her entry will keep her from wanting to stay. It doesn’t. She ducks underneath him and walks through, settling down on the couch and kicking her flats off so that they scatter across the multi-colored carpet.

He sighs, knowing that she’s likely here to talk about tomorrow, and settles down at the edge of his bed while he rolls his shoulder, trying to work out a few more of the kinks that he didn’t get out during physical therapy tonight.

He can already tell that this season is going to be different than last year.

“Does your shoulder hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No, A, I’m not lying to you. It’s ST. I’m still getting used to playing again after the off season.”

Her eyes narrow for a brief moment, and suddenly he feels naked under her gaze. Not that he’s not comfortable being naked. But he’s not exactly a fan of that in front of his manager who also happens to be one of his mate’s wife. And Ariel has this thing that she does where she can break him down and make him spill all of his deepest, darkest secrets just by a good stare and a few words.

It’s impressive but also terrifying.

And she doesn’t know the extent of his injuries. He never told her, and he doesn’t want her to ever find out. She’d be pissed at him for sure, but she’d also worry too much.

She already worries more than Liam and Elsa combined.

“So, you’re doing that ESPN interview tomorrow, and I figured we need to go through a few talking points.”

He nods his head as he tries to remember agreeing to that. He’s pretty sure that he did, but sometimes Ariel has him doing so much and signing so many papers that it all blurs together. He’d be lost without her.

“Emma Swan is the reporter.”

Well, shit.

No wonder Ariel is coming to talk to him about it instead of letting him simply answer the questions. He doesn’t do a lot of interviews that aren’t completely baseball related, not wanting to let more of his life out into the public eye, but occasionally he’ll do an interview or a funny clip for the team to put on Instagram. Something like this is a little out of his comfort zone, but he now remembers that Ariel talked him into doing it, saying something about making him an even more valuable asset to the team by making him a bigger name outside of baseball. He doesn’t quite understand that since all he cares about workwise is baseball and his contract lasts another five years. He’s fine.

But if Emma Swan is doing the interview, he might as well go ahead and tuck his head between his thighs and walk in there licking his wounds.

God, he was an idiot to ask her out live on television. He was an idiot who just won the World Series, who had adrenaline pumping through his veins, and who desperately wanted to ask out the woman he fancies before he didn’t see her for several months.

A pathetic, asshole idiot who never should have, even in his adrenaline haze, attempted to ask someone out when he knows just how screwed up he’s been when it comes to dealing with relationships in the past few years.

Among other reasons.

Liam would describe him as a fuck up, but only in the most affectionate way that would get him a slap upside the head from Elsa and then a comforting smile from her as she tried to talk to him about seriously dating again.

He wouldn’t listen. He never does.

Now he’s having to live with the fact that he screwed up, everyone saw it, and he likely pissed off a woman who has never been anything but professional to him in the few years that she’s been exclusively covering the team. Seriously. Their press has never been better, their exclusives never more interesting, and he’s likely made her uncomfortable all because he can’t seem to stop flirting when he’s trying to cover his nerves.

And she’s going to be at his training tomorrow.

Fuck.

“If the look on your face is any indication,” Ariel murmurs as she tucks her feet underneath her thighs, “you know as much as I do that you screwed up.”

“Aye.”

“But it happened, everyone on the internet saw it, and we can’t change it. What we can do is apologize for it tomorrow.”

“I know how to talk to a woman,” he protests.

“At a bar, yes. You know how to charm a woman there, and you know how to talk to women who you see on a regular basis. What you apparently don’t know how to do is talk to a woman who is only talking to you because it’s her job.”

“I didn’t do it to be fucking sleazy.”

“Killian,” she sighs, her lips curling into a soft smile that he recognizes as the one she uses to talk to kids who have come to visit the team, “I know this because I know you. You’re a good guy with this big heart, but to the rest of the world, you’re kind of, as you said, sleazy.”

“That’s not true.”

“And it wouldn’t matter if it was.” She waves her hands in the air before settling them down in her lap. “But that’s not the point. The point is that, no matter how charming you are, you asked out someone on TV, and she said no. She’s a woman working in a man’s world, and even if you didn’t realize it in the moment because you were out of your mind happy, you opened her up to a lot of harassment.”

Fuck.

There are no other words for it than fuck.

Maybe fuckity fuck, but that’s not even a true phrase. It might as well be.

He knows that he did that. He knows. He wasn’t thinking, obviously, but he still did something to make Emma uncomfortable. He did something to most likely ruin his professional relationship with her and her relationship with others, and even if he knows that there was mostly positive coverage on the whole thing, he knows that he has to apologize to her tomorrow. That positive coverage he saw doesn’t matter because he has no idea how it affected her personally. Who knows if she’ll accept his apology or if she’ll brush him off? Who knows if she’ll even agree to keep working with him or the team? She’s coming tomorrow, at least. That seems like a good sign.

Right?

His stomach churns, something deep and unsettling, and he wonders if his past is always going to keep catching up to him when he least expects it.

Maybe he should stop screwing up.

Burying his face in his hands, he speaks. “I’ll apologize tomorrow. I made a dumbass decision, and she doesn’t deserve to have gone through any harassment because of me. That was not at all my intention.”

“I know, sweetie. I know. I have the list of questions she’s going to pull from if you want it.”

He looks at her though his fingers. “Is there anything on there that’s going to catch me off guard?”

“Nah, it’s mostly light stuff. There’s going to be some talk about the boating accident, your broken arm, but I don’t see anything else. It’s actually a pretty fun list. It’s focusing more on you as a man than as a player.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Huh,” he mumbles, falling back against the mattress again. “Interesting.” His lips open as he yawns, and he can feel that one all the way down to his toes. “So, you don’t think she’s totally going to screw me over for asking her out?”

“I think Emma Swan is a professional who loves the game. She’s not going to do anything to jeopardize it.”

Ariel stays for fifteen more minutes before she leaves, sleep calling her name too, and it takes everything in him to have enough mind to brush his teeth and wash his face, figuring he can shower in the morning before he goes in for a run with his trainer to keep his limbs loose. His alarm goes off at nine, far earlier than it should on a day that would normally be his day off (the perks of being a pitcher), and he groans when he throws the cover off of him and rolls over to check his phone, several messages filling the screen.

Liam: Your curveball sucked last night.

Liam: Addy and Lucy are very upset about it.

Elsa: We can come down and visit on the girls’ spring break. Should we stay at your hotel or find another place?

Elsa: Your curveball didn’t suck, btw. But I could see the tension in your shoulder. Take care of yourself.

Will: Do you want to get breakfast this morning?

He shoots off replies to all of them, griping to his brother and sending his sister-in-law his hotel information as well as a couple others he’s stayed in while down here before, offering to pay for their accommodation since they’re coming down here to see him. Will texted him ten minutes ago, which means he’s probably already down at the buffet getting an omelet, so he sends him a text saying that maybe tomorrow when they’re on a more regular schedule. His schedule is so different than most of his mates. Even though Robin is another starting pitcher, they usually have opposite schedules, the two of them always one or two days off from the other, so most days he’s eating breakfast and doing workouts at different times than the teammates he’s closest to.

And he doesn’t really like to break his own routine. Call it superstition. Call it knowing what works.

After he gets out of bed and showers, letting the warm water work out a few more aches in his body, he grabs one of his protein shakes and an apple, eating his breakfast on his way to the rental car he’s using while down here. It’s only a ten-minute drive to the facility, but even with the air conditioning blasting, he can tell that it’s stifling outside.

When they play here in the summer, he nearly dies.

Flashing his player card through the scanner, he enters Steinbrenner and walks down the hallway lined with framed jerseys of retired players. It’s pretty quiet in here, the only footsteps his own, and he figures that everyone else is already in the gym working out and getting any remaining lactic acid out of their systems. The locker room is empty, and he types in his code before pulling out his running shoes and changing into them so that he can run on the treadmill for the next hour or so and then get some physical therapy before showering and meeting Emma Swan for the interview.

He’s decidedly trying not to think about that.

When he pushes through the double doors to head down to the gym, he can feel the pulse of the bass from the music they’re playing before he even gets to the entrance. When he walks inside, no one pays him any attention, all of them caught up in their own routines, until he gets on the treadmill and starts a slow jog to warm up with Will running beside him. Will would definitely call him out for missing breakfast if he didn’t look to be out of breath.

The small blessings in life.

Everyone filters out before he does, their routines calling for batting practice or PT or even some breakfast, so he’s left to listen to the pound of his feet against the treadmill and the pounding of music still playing. He likes running once he hits his stride. As a teenager, he despised it, especially when his father would be timing him or pushing him to keep going, but now that he has the inner motivation and can get moving all on his own, it’s almost therapeutic. And it makes him feel that pleasant ache that he often only feels in his arm.

When his phone timer goes off, he begins to cool down, walking at a slow pace as he fires back a few texts and approves an edit for Ariel to post online for him. Archie says they don’t have to meet today as long as he does his rotations with the weight bands, so as soon as he gets off the treadmill, that’s exactly what he does.

His shoulder is definitely still a little stiff, but it feels good.

“Oi, you want to throw today?” Will asks when he’s back in the locker room, stripping out of his clothes so that he can take a shower.

“I pitched last night, Scarlet.”

“And?”

He rolls his eyes. Will is definitely an acquired taste, and his heavy Boston accent definitely doesn’t make him seem nice.

“And I’m not twenty-three anymore. I need more rest on my shoulder.” It hurts is what he means but doesn’t say. “Locksley is your pitcher tonight. You should do a few rounds with him.”

“He’s in PT right now.”

“I’ll throw with you,” Eric offers as he pulls on a t-shirt. “I wasn’t happy with my arm last night. I need the practice.”

“See, Jones, that’s a friend.”

“I kept you from throwing up in Belle’s lap after a night out last year. There will never be a better friend than me.”

Will groans, and Killian smirks. That was a disgusting night after being out too long for New Years, and as much as he wants to forget it, that’s a great story to hold over Will.

“How long are you going to use that story?”

“Until you have something just as good that equals things out. I’m thinking about sharing it as a toast at the wedding if you two get married.”

God, he hopes that he never has something that equals that story. He had to throw away his favorite pair of blue jeans.

“I’m coming in the locker room,” Ariel yells before she opens the door, not bothering to give anyone time to get dressed. She rarely does.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Eric smiles, walking toward his wife only for Ariel to move out of his way and toward Killian, making Will and August laugh loud enough that they can’t even cover it with their coughing.

“Hi, babe.” Ariel waves Eric away before she’s standing just in front of him. She’s decked out in team gear today, her hair under a Yankees cap, and he thinks her barging into his room late last night might actually have affected her. He hates to be haughty about it, but he also doesn’t. “I’ll come see you in a minute. I’m here to tell Killian to shower because Miss Swan is going to be here in twenty minutes.”

There’s a collective whistle from all of his teammates, and he has the mind to threaten to hit all of them in the eye during his next game. But then he would probably be arrested, and his friends would hate him. On their first day back at practice in February, his locker was plastered with pictures of him asking Emma out, and he is definitely not going to ever live that down. The fact that they all know she’s coming today makes it worse.

“Thanks, A. I was planning on looking like a sweaty caveman.”

“To be fair, Emma probably thinks that’s what you are.”

He raises his middle finger at Will before moving to the showers, not wanting to get into a negative headspace before his interview. The absolute last thing that he needs is to do something else to make Emma uncomfortable or make himself look like a bigger jackass.

That might not be possible.

Once his body is scrubbed down, the sweat washed away, he turns the water off and gets out, patting his legs down with a towel before pulling on the gray joggers he brought into the showers with him. The locker room is nearly empty when he renters, everyone but August having gone on their ways, so he takes his time towel drying his hair and going through his shirts to find one to wear. They just got new uniforms and practice gear for the season, but he hasn’t broken them all in yet, some of the dri-fit material still a bit too tight when he likes it to not cling to his stomach and arms. He’s got to have a little bit of room to move.

Before he gets a chance to put on a shirt, the doors open again, and he sees Emma Swan walk into the room followed by a vaguely familiar man with a camera, equipment strapped to his chest. His stomach swoops at the sight of her after so long and at the sight of the short blue dress that she has on, the hem landing just above her knees and the sleeves nearly non-existent enough to show the curves of her muscles.

Half the men in the MLB would be jealous of her muscles.

It’s damn impressive.

He quickly pulls on a blue training shirt, and grabs a pair of socks and sneakers to put on as she comes further into the room, her green eyes making contact with him as he smiles up to her from his seat at his locker.

“Jones, Booth,” she nods, a slight smile on her face. Good. That’s good. A smile has to be good. “It’s nice to see you both again.”

“It’s nice to see you, Swan. I figured you were going to stand me up.” He finishes tying his laces before standing and walking over to she and the man, holding his hand out for the both of them to shake. “And it’s nice to meet you…”

“Jeff.”

“Jeff isn’t really one for words,” Emma explains, her smile fond instead of forced this time. He wonders if they’re friends, if they’re more, but that’s none of his business. “So,” Emma says, clapping her hands together, “your manager said to come get you in here, and that we pretty much have the entire day with you to do the interview and get you to walk us through what Spring Training is like for you.”

He nods as he takes a deep breath to calm down the pounding of his heart. This is ridiculous. He should not be nervous. He doesn’t get nervous like this.

“I’m already finished with everything I have to do today, so I’d love to have the pleasure of spending time in your company.”

He can tell Emma wants to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t, ever the consummate professional. “Good.”

They take a few minutes to hook his microphone up, the pack resting in the back of his joggers while the small piece is pinned into his shirt. Emma runs over what they’re going to do today, setting him out a schedule, and then instructs him to answer as honestly as possible. They’ll send the segment to Ariel before it airs, so he has nothing to worry about when it comes to getting swept under the rug.

He kind of feels like it when he’s trying to figure out how to apologize to Emma. He should probably do it now, but he’s not sure how he feels about doing it in front of Jeff.

Later.

Later, he’ll get to it.

Once they’re in the hallway that connects the training facility to the main building, Emma starts peppering him with quick fire questions that he hasn’t really had to think about in years. He mostly gets asked about his stats.

“Favorite player growing up?”

“Chipper Jones.”

“Because he had the same last name as you?”

“Exactly.”

“Of course. Okay, favorite cheat day dessert?”

“Cheesecake but one with fruit flavoring. Chocolate isn’t my favorite.”

Damn. Now he wants some cheesecake.

“What are you most likely to be doing on a real off day where no training is involved? Not one of your rest days.”

“Either sitting on my ass watching TV or spending time with my family.”

“Sport you like to watch the most besides baseball?”

“Tennis.”

“Really?” she huffs, almost like she’s surprised by his answer. Most people are, and he’ll never quite understand why.

“Yeah, I like the physicality of it and the strategy behind it.”

“Do you have a secret talent no one else knows about?”

“I can quote the entire Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld.”

She laughs, this sweet little sound, and it makes him smile. This interview is oddly comfortable, especially considering their history, and it’s nice to be able to relax his shoulders and answer her honestly as she keeps shooting off quick-fire questions.

“What’s the craziest fan encounter you’ve ever experienced?”

“A woman threw her bra at me while I was sitting in a restaurant with my nieces. She didn’t ask me to sign it or anything, which has happened before. She simply threw it and never asked for it back. Addy asked me what it was, which was a fun conversation to have.”

“I bet. Okay, um, I hear that you picked up a hobby while out on injury last year. You want to talk about that?”

“I got really into baking,” he admits, smiling at Emma before walking along the corridor to the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the field. “Which was a horrible idea for someone with one arm who couldn’t exercise his usual amount, but I learned how to make that cheesecake I was talking about earlier.”

“Do you bake for your friends and family?

“Family, yes. Friends, not so much since most of them are my teammates and avoid a lot of sweets.”

Emma nods her head and smiles, looking down at the questions she’s got on her phone. As comfortable as he is, he kind of wishes he could ask her the questions she’s asking him. The one-sided conversation is not his usually forte.

“Okay,” she laughs, “what would you do for a living if you didn’t play baseball?”

“I was going to enlist in the Navy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, his lips ticking up on the right. “I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and I couldn’t afford to go to college if I didn’t get a scholarship. My brother was in the Navy, so it felt like the natural conclusion for me. But then Vandy gave me that scholarship, and my entire life changed.”

“You met Locksley there, right?”

“He was a senior when I was a freshman, but yeah. We roomed together at a summer training camp, and apparently not much has changed since then except he has a few early gray hairs and an adorable kid.”

She laughs at that too before looking down at her phone at her list of questions once more while he sees Eric and Will leisurely tossing a ball back and forth.

“So, you’re twenty-eight and a World Series champion for the first time. That’s the ultimate baseball dream. How does that change expectations going forward? Has your life changed at all since then?”

Killian hums next to her and taps on the windows. This is something he has to think about as he still can’t quite believe any of it. He almost opens his mouth to make a joke about not having a date with her yet, but that would not be in his best interest.

“I don’t think my life has changed. It’s incredible to have that accomplishment, for sure. I’m proud of my team and what we’ve done. But I still wake up and put the work in every day and then spend my free time with my friends, my family. I like being a normal guy. The only reason anyone knows who I am is because I know how to throw a ball. It doesn’t make me special.”

“And going forward?” she prods, obviously looking for more.

“I want to play the game. I want to have fun and be competitive. Breaking my arm two years ago, not being able to play, it put me in a really dark place personally and professionally. The injury wasn’t serious, obviously, but it could have been. The wreck could have been worse, and I could have lost the sport that has really helped develop my life.”

Lies. All lies. It was serious, but no one knows that. Him being in a dark place, though, that’s the truth.

“Have you been back on a boat yet?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, tapping his knuckles against the glass. “It was a freak accident. It’s not something that’s going to happen every time. I doubt I’ll ever be in a boating accident again, but I’ve had to learn that I can’t let fear dictate my life. And I look damn good in a pair of swim trunks.”

“I think it’s time to go get lunch,” she tells him, most likely to change the subject. “Wouldn’t want you to wither away and lose that boat body.”

Killian winks, relieved that he didn’t push too far saying that. “I always knew you liked my body.”

Why is he the way that he is?

He guides Emma and Jeff down to the player cafeteria that they have, paying for all of their meals, and settling down at a table in front of a TV that’s airing a replay of last night’s game. It’s a bit of an awkward silence now that Emma isn’t asking him questions, and Jeff definitely isn’t adding to the conversation, so when he gets up to go get filler footage after he’s scarfed down his sandwich, his absence is not missed too much.

Except for the fact that he’s now awkwardly staring at Emma as she pokes around in her salad.

It’s now or never, he guesses.

“Listen,” he murmurs, reaching up to scratch behind his ear as Emma looks up at him with a piece of lettuce in her mouth, “I wanted to apologize for asking you out like I did, love. It was wrong and inappropriate, and I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes widen, getting larger, and he sees her try to speed up the chewing of her lettuce while a red flush rises on her cheek. He can’t imagine the one on his face. “Thanks,” she mumbles, her hand over her mouth while she’s still chewing. “I was not at all expecting that.”

“Yeah, well, I have come to realize that you likely got a ton of shit for it, and it’s wrong of me to have done it. The adrenaline was insane, I’d pitched more of that game than I should have, and I guess I was feeling bold enough to do something that I would have never done otherwise. But you’re a professional who deserves every bit of respect that anyone else would, and I should have never put you in a position like that.”

Emma looks gob smacked. He can’t think of another phrase for it, most likely because all he can really hear is the pounding of his heart between his ears.

“Thank you, Killian.” She smiles, something soft before her lips flatten into a line. “I mean, you’re right that it was wrong. I’m a woman working in a man’s world, and I already have to field off asinine questions and comments about how my ass looks or if I actually know what I’m talking about. You asking me out kind of opened the door for a flood of harassment, and while I mostly blocked it out, I also am terrified to go into the comments on Instagram. So, yeah, thanks again, I guess. Just…you have a lot of influence. Think about your actions if you can. It’s not just your job out there. It’s mine too.”

“I understand. Truce?” he questions, not entirely sure that she’s not still pissed at him.

“Truce,” she agrees. “Just don’t ask me out again.”

“I think I can handle that, love.”

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 5 years ago

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Alright, relate yours OCs or ship to my fav album songs Taylor Swift: Tim McGraw, Cold As You, Picture To Burn, Should’ve Said No Fearless: White Horse, Tell Me Why, Forever & Always Speak Now: Speak Now, Sparks Fly, Back To December, The Story Of Us, Better Than Revenge Red: Red, Treacherous, WANEGBT, The Last Time, All Too Well, I Almost Do 1989: Style, Wildest Dreams, New Romantics Rep: End Game, IDSB, Getaway Car, DWOHT, KOMH Lover: Cruel Summer, The Man, MA&THP, Cornelia Street, London Boy

Tim McGraw: ooof okay this is totally Fallon Parris Jones and Reggie Mantle? Actually their second first time (first time after they said ‘I love you’ and were dating not fwb lmao) was entirely based around this song!!

But when you think "Tim McGraw"/I hope you think my favourite song/The one we danced to all night long/The moon like a spotlight on the lake/When you think happiness/I hope you think "that little black dress"/Think of my head on your chest/And my old faded blue jeans

Cold As You: Aaliya Andrews x Graham Frank

You have a way of coming easily to me/And when you take, you take the very best of me/So I start a fight 'cause I need to feel somethin'/And you do what you want 'cause I'm not what you wanted

You put up the walls and paint them all a shade of gray/And I stood there loving you, and wished them all away/And you come away with a great little story/Of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you

Picture To Burn: ngl also Fallon Parris Jones but Fallon and Sweet Pea! Which I hate because I hate being mean to my beloved son but that’s just how their relationship went?

So watch me strike a match/On all my wasted time/As far as I'm concerned you're/Just another picture to burn/There's no time for tears/I'm just sitting here/Planning my revenge/There's nothing stopping me/From going out with all of your best friends

or worst enemies as the case may be

Should’ve Said No: Roxie Flores x Noah Puckerman

You should've said no, you should've gone home/You should've thought twice before you let it all go/You should've know that word, bout what you did with her/Would get back to me

I can't resist, before you go, tell me this/Was it worth it/Was she worth this

White Horse: Lucy and Alexander Pierce

Cause I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale/I'm gonna find someone someday who might actually treat me well/This is a big world, that was a small town/There in my rear view mirror disappearing now

And also Aaliya Andrews x Graham Frank & Delaney Carlyle x Reggie Mantle/Chuck Clayton

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale/I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet/Lead her up the stairwell/This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town/I was a dreamer before you went and let me down/Now it's too late for you/And your white horse, to come around

Tell Me Why: Carmen Rivera x Jackson Whittemore

And I need you like a heartbeat/But you know you got a mean streak/Makes me run for cover when you're around/And here's to you and your temper/Yes, I remember what you said last night/And I know that you see what you're doing to me/Tell me why

Forever & Always: Charlie Dugan x Flash Thompson

And I stare at the phone, he still hasn't called/And then you feel so low you cant feel nothing at all/And you flashback to when he said forever and always

Speak Now: Ooof Jennifer Andrews x FP Jones

This is surely not what you thought it would be/I lose myself in a daydream/Where I stand and say/"Don't say yes, run away now/I'll meet you when you're out/Of the church at the back door/Don't wait or say a single vow/You need to hear me out"/And they said, "speak now"

Sparks Fly: Alexis Argent x Lydia Martin x Scott McCall!!

Drop everything now/Meet me in the pouring rain/Kiss me on the sidewalk/Take away the pain/Cause I see, sparks fly, whenever you smile

ALSO Kit Conrad x Hope Mikaelson

The way you move is like a full on rainstorm/And I'm a house of cards/You're the kind of reckless that should send me running/But I kinda know that I won't get far

Back To December: Angela DeSantos x Veronica Lodge

I miss your tan skin, your sweet smile, so good to me, so right/And how you held me in your arms that September night/The first time you ever saw me cry/Maybe this is wishful thinking/Probably mindless dreaming/But if we loved again I swear I'd love you right

The Story Of Us: Juliet Capes x Fangs Fogarty

I used to think one day we'd tell the story of us/How we met and the sparks flew instantly/People would say, "they're the lucky ones"/I used to know my place was a spot next to you/Now I'm searching the room for an empty seat/Cause lately I don't even know what page you're on

Better Than Revenge: Amethyst Andrews, wrt Betty and Cheryl

Betty -

I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey/You might have him, but haven't you heard/I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey/You might have him, but I'll always get the last word

Cheryl -

She looks at life like it's a party and she's on the list/She looks at me like I'm a trend and she's so over it/I think her ever present frown is a little troubling/And, she thinks I'm psycho/Cause I like to rhyme her name with things, but/Sophistication isn't what you wear, or who you know/Or pushing people down to get you where you wanna go/Oh they didn't teach you that in prep school/So it's up to me/But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity

Red: Ophelia Dane x Ben Hargreeves

Losing him was blue like I'd never known/Missing him was dark grey, all alone/Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met/But loving him was red

Treacherous: Ashley Wilson x Percy Jackson

And I just think you should, think you should know/That nothing safe is worth the drive

WANEGBT: Percy Flowers x Brett Talbot

I remember when we broke up, the first time/Saying, "This is it, I've had enough"/Cause like we hadn't seen each other in a month/When you, said you, needed space (what?)

The Last Time: Carmen Rivera x Lydia Martin

This is the last time I'm asking you this/Put my name at the top of your list/This is the last time I'm asking you why/You break my heart in the blink of an eye

All Too Well: Also Fallon x Sweet Pea ouch

And I know it's long gone and/That magic's not here no more/And I might be okay/But I'm not fine at all

I Almost Do: Luna Hale x Isaac Lahey

I bet/You think I either moved on or hate you/Cause each time you reach out there's no reply/I bet/It never ever occurred to you/That I can't say "Hello" to you/And risk another goodbye

Style: ooh Anastasia Andrews x Jughead Jones

You've got that long hair slick back, white t-shirt/And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt

and also Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea

You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye/And I got that red lip, classic thing that you like/And when we go crashing down, we come back every time

Wildest Dreams: Ariel Blossom x Malachai

He's so tall, and handsome as hell/He's so bad but he does it so well/I can see the end as it begins, my one condition is/Say you'll remember me/Standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset babe

and Cathy x Bill x Stan

Say you'll see me again even if it's just in your wildest dreams

New Romantics: Amara Caro & Percy Flowers!!!

Baby, we're the new romantics/Come on, come along with me/Heart break is the national anthem/We sing it proudly/We are too busy dancing/To get knocked off our feet/Baby, we're the new romantics/The best people in life are free

And Arianne Martin!!

Cause, baby, I could build a castle/Out of all the bricks they threw at me/And every day is like a battle/But every night with us is like a dream

End Game: Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea 100%

Reputation precedes me, they told you I'm crazy/I swear I don't love the drama, it loves me/And I can't let you go, your hand print's on my soul/It's like your eyes are liquor, it's like your body is gold/You've been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks/So here's the truth from my red lipsI wanna be your endgame

also Stevie Cooper x Joaquin DeSantos

I got issues and chips on both of my shoulders/Reputation precedes me, in rumors I'm knee deep/The truth is it's easier to ignore it, believe me

IDSB: Arianne Martin

I can feel the flames on my skin/Crimson red paint on my lips/If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing/I don't regret it one bit, 'cause he had it coming

and also Katarina Aliano

They're burning all the witches, even if you aren't one/So light me up

and Amethyst Andrew

I never trust a narcissist/But they love me/So I play 'em like a violin/And I make it look oh so easy

This is how the world works/You gotta leave before you get left

Getaway Car: April King x Diego Hargreeves

It was the best of times, the worst of crimes/I struck a match/And blew your mind, but I didn't mean it/And you didn't see it/The ties were black, the lies were white/And shades of grey in candlelight

Percy Flowers x Scott McCall (x Brett Talbot)

I wanted to leave him/I needed a reason

DWOHT: Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea

I’m a mess, but I’m the mess that you wanted

My love had been frozen/Deep blue, but you painted me golden/Oh, and you held me close/Oh, how was I to know

Abigayle Whittemore x Allison Argent x Scott McCall

I could’ve spent forever with your hands in my pockets/Picture of your face in an invisible locket/You said there was nothing in the world that could stop it

Adrienne Argent x Liam Dunbar

I'd kiss you as the lights went out/Swaying as the room burned down/I'd hold you as the water rushes in/If I could dance with you again

KOMH: Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea

Is this the end of all the endings?/My broken bones are mending/With all these nights we’re spending/Up on the roof with a school girl crush/Drinking beer out of plastic cups/Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff

I made up my mind, I’m better off being alone

Avalon Le Fay x Jay

And all at once, you are the one I have been waiting for/King of my heart, body and soul

Camila Nelson x Steve Harrington

Your love is a secret/I’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep/Change my priorities/The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury

Cruel Summer: Aaliya Andrews x Jason Blossom

And I snuck in through the garden gate/Every night that summer just to seal my fate

and Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea

And I scream, “For whatever it’s worth/I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?”

The Man: AMETHYST FUCKING ANDREWS YALL

I’d be a fearless leader/I’d be an alpha type

I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man

They’d paint me out to be bad/So, it’s okay that I’m mad

MA&THP: Amethyst Andrews x Sweet Pea

It’s you and me, that’s my whole world/They whisper in the hallway, “She’s a bad, bad girl”

No cameras catch my muffled cries/I counted days, I counted miles/To see you there, to see you there/And now the storm is coming

You know I adore you, I’m crazier for you/Than I was at 16, lost in a film scene

Beverly Mantle & Reggie Mantle

We’re so sad, we paint the town blue/Voted most likely to run away with you

My team is losing, battered and bruising/I see the high fives between the bad guys/Leave with my head hung, you are the only one/Who seems to care

American stories burning before me/I’m feeling helpless, the damsels are depressed

Beverly Mantle x Fangs x Sweet Pea (in Inescapable Secrets)

Waving homecoming queens, marching band playing/I’m lost in the lights/American glory faded before me

Now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress/Running through rose thorns, I saw the scoreboard/And ran for my life

No cameras catch my pageant smile/I counted days, I counted miles/To see you there

It’s you and me, that’s my whole world/They whisper in the hallway, “She’s a bad, bad girl”/The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes

Cornelia Street: Selena McCall x Derek Hale

And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/I’d never walk Cornelia Street again/That’s the kind of heartbreak time could never mend/I’d never walk Cornelia Street again

Adrienne Argent x Liam Dunbar

Windows swung right open, autumn air/Jacket 'round my shoulders is yours

London Boy: Alissara Baratheon x Oberyn Martell

But something happened, I heard him laughing/I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent/They say home is where the heart is/But that’s not where mine lives

Send me a song and I’ll tell you which OC(s) it fits best

#ask #answered #lizziesxltzmxn #taylor swift #*song association

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 5 years ago

Text

So, I learned something recently...

Mary Kate Olsen (the top billed twin; I feel kinda bad for Ashley) is married to a man 17 years her senior, who also happens to be the half brother to the former President of France.

That sounds like the plot to one of their movies! Like, there’s a foreign exchange student at their school and they discover that he’s secretly foreign royalty. I can picture the whole thing in my head, I’ve thought about this a lot:

It has a late 90s/early 2000s aesthetic; kinda grungey and “totally radical, dude!”

Twins Mary Jane and Kelsey are just your average upper middle class teenagers living in multi-million dollar beachfront property with their widower dad, a security guard with dreams of being a detective. His firm just got a big contract to provide security for the visiting diplomats of the vaguely Eastern European kingdom of Slovotia (it’s generically foreign; funny accents, weird customs, offensive Slavic stereotypes, the works. The writers based it on Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Austria-Hungary, Ruritania, Backwardistan, etc)

At school, the girls are introduced to hunky Slovotian exchange student Nico. He’s, like, SO cool, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s quiet, tries not to make waves, and sneaks away at lunch to be by himself; the girls follow him and find him talking to a a burly bodyguard. Turns out, he’s the Crown Prince of Slovotia! His uncle, Count Bartok (who is clearly the antagonist but SHHH don’t tell anyone, we don’t know that yet) is visiting America as part of the Slovotian delegation; his brother, the King, wants to normalize relations with the west, but the Count doesn’t really like America.

Nico and his bodyguard Dolf (a hulking man of few words) ask the girls not to reveal his secret; he just wants to live a normal life, and be a normal teenager. The girls decide to show him around town and introduce him to hip American concepts like the mall and beaches and fast food.

They buy a hot dog from a street vendor, and Nico looks appalled. “My uncle, he say Americans, they are dogs, but I did not know they were to be eating them, yes?”

“They’re not really made out of dog, Nico! Try it, you’ll like it.”

He takes one bite, and is enraptured. “This is best thing I have ever to be eating!” He walks over to the vendor and offers to buy him out. “You there, meat monger. This dog that is hot, it is food fit for king! I buy your shop, I pay ten million Slovotian Kronle, good price yes?”

“Sure thing, whatever you say boss! Good price! Great price! My ticket’s finally come it, it’s easy street from here on out!”

They show him around “the city.” It’s never specified which city that is though; they live on a beach and go surfing, so it might be LA, but there are hotdog vendors and people with Brooklyn accents, so it could just as well be New York. Maybe there’s a shot in the middle of the film where the bad guys are looking at a satellite map of the USA, and the camera zooms into the center of the country, or there’s a blinking red dot somewhere on a random coast. The point is that there is no definitive location; it’s just meant to represent whatever city is closest to the viewer’s hometown (the writers didn’t put that much effort into it because this is a no budget direct-to-VHS Mary Kate and Ashley movie. What did you expect?)

Dolf follows them everywhere they go, and Nico complains that he wants to have some privacy. “You do not be seeing other kids with bodyguards, yes?” Wacky hijinks ensue as the trio try to evade him; there’s definitely a chase scene set to a punk rock song like SR-17′s ‘Right Now’ or something by Bowling For Soup. They sit on a park bench reading newspapers as Dolf runs by, then hightail it in the opposite direction. They casually steal hats and sunglasses from passersby to blend into the crowd. They walk in line behind a couple buys carrying a sofa. The chase ends with them hopping into a taxi and laughing with one another as we see Dolf give chase for a second before giving up in frustration.

Nico confides in the girls that life as a prince is not easy. His father, King Vladimyr XVI, is always telling him how big a responsibility he has, how important he is to Slovotia’s future. “My father, he tell me, Nico, you will one day be King, so you must to be acting like one, yes?” It’s so hard to be royal, he can never just be himself, he has to act a certain way to make his parents happy. The girls tell him that they know exactly what he means; high school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. They have homework and chores, and they too have to act a certain way or the cool kids will think they’re a couple of losers with a capital L (Nico doesn’t understand what the word cool means, “what does temperature have to be doing with this?”)

Suddenly, the trio is attacked by some dude in a track suit and gold chains with a jersey accent; he tries to kidnap Nico, and just when all hope seems lost Dolf appears from nowhere and lifts the would-be abductor up by the collar.

They interrogate him; Dolf holds him by the ankles from a second story window. “I ain’t sayins nothin, youse will never get a word outta me.”

Dolf says that if he doesn’t start talking he will disappear. “Maybe you wake up in gulag, yes?”

He sings like a canary. He was hired by Count Bartok to kidnap Nico. Bartok hates America and thinks his older brother Vladimyr is foolish for trying to normalize relations with them. He hoped that by having Nico kidnapped, he could blame the American government and end the diplomatic mission early. If anything were to happen to the boy, Bartok would become next in line to be king! He’s going to blame the girls’ father for Nico’s disappearance because he was supposed to be head of security.

“That’s everything I know. Hey, I’m sorry, okays? I just needed the money, ya know? I ain’t a bad guy, I’m just in a bad sitchy-ation.” The girls tell Dolf that he can let the kidnapper go, but he takes this literally and drops him out of the window (onto a bush! He’s fine)

They have to race to city hall to meet the Slovotian delegation and stop Bartok from doing anything drastic. Mary Kate plays the edgy tomboy, so she teaches Nico and Dolf how to skateboard so they can get across town super fast. This sequence is filmed with a fish eye lens so it looks “totally bodacious.” As the group barrels down the crowded sidewalk, pedestrians leap out of their way.

They make it just in time to be locked out of the ceremony. Bartok is giving a big speech condemning the Americans for kidnapping his poor nephew, and the girls have to watch helplessly as their dad is taken away in handcuffs. Dolf uses his espionage training to break into city hall and get the trio into the sound booth undetected.

“Hey Dolf, where’d you learn to do all this stuff?”

“I have many skills” (he is implied to be ex-KGB and it’s played for laughs)

The girls interrupt Bartok’s speech with video they took of the kidnapper revealing his entire plan. Bartok denies it, but the girls’ dad pulls some as-yet-unseen sleuthing skills out of his ass to prove that Bartok is lying, finally living his dream of being a detective. Nico bursts into the room and orders the Slovotian guards to arrest his uncle, but Bartok pulls a pistol and holds one of the twins hostage. Nico uses some of the American skills he learned to free her (he kicks his skateboard towards Bartok’s feet, and he slips on it)

Bartok is taken away, screaming that he would have gotten away with it were it not for those meddling twins, and the girls break the fourth wall by making a Scooby-Doo joke to the camera. Nico delivers a heartfelt speech to the gathered crowd at city hall about how much he has come to love America and how he’s proud to be representing Slovotia and normalizing relations with the west. He wants to open malls and hot dog stands and skateboard parks in Slovotia, and he gets a standing ovation as the mayor awards him the key to the city.

The girls are so proud of their dad, and he is just as proud of them. Just then, King Vladimyr and Queen Anastasia themselves make a live appearance, apparently having flown all the way from Slovotia (it’s never explained how they got there so fast). They thank the girls for helping their son, and award their father their kingdom’s highest honor. They even offer him a job as Dolf’s second in command, but he declines, saying he’d rather remain at his humble career and raise his family in the states.

The girls encourage Nico to tell his father how he feels. He knows he will be king someday, but that is very far off, and he would like some time to just be a kid instead of a prince all the time. The King decrees that Nico may stay in the United States and have a normal high school experience, “you are to be having twelve bodyguards instead of twenty now, good compromise, yes?” The girls roll their eyes and laugh; Nico’s dad still has a lot to learn!

Nico tells the girls that they are “very cold” (he meant “cool,” but it’s the thought that counts) He and Mary Kate kiss, and Ashley jokingly asks if he has a brother. As it turns out, there’s a nerdy kid at school who is played by the same actor as Nico who’s had a crush on her for years, so she gets with him instead (once he takes off his glasses)

Freeze frame

THE END

Roll credits

80 minute run time

Return the tape to Blockbuster and never watch it again

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traincat · 6 years ago

Note

I've just read that post on bridges in TASM films, and it reminded me: Before the Spider-verse comic event, Gwen Stacy was essentially the Lost Lenore of Comics. Now Spider-Gwen is popular enough that her fans, and probably younger generations would balk at the idea of Gwen dying. I'm aware that you're a fan of The Night Gwen Stacy Died story, so I hope this doesn't come off as judgmental: It's a major part of the main Spider-Man comics, but does it NEED to be part of general narrative?

This is something I do think about a lot actually because, as you’ve said, it’s pretty well known I’m a fan of The Night Gwen Stacy Died (or a Gwen Stacy deathfucker as some of my friends have delicately and tactfully put it), but I’m also a fan of Gwen, and additionally as a woman who loves big two superhero comics I do think it’s important to consider the treatment of women within that particular media. So I don’t think this question is rude at all, and I think it’s an interesting thing to debate and to talk over. As famous female characters deaths go, Gwen’s is definitely up there, and it is a storyline I personally love and have a lot of feelings about, because, to put it simply, I love a well-done fictional tragedy. I find a lot of the rhetoric around this death to be iffy – Gerry Conway’s own statement that Gwen died because she as a “non-entity”, as compared to the current hyping up of Spider-Gwen as the “Gwen we’ve always needed”, which seems to imply that it was Gwen’s own fault that she died for not being an interesting enough character, or that Gwen is only a valuable or relatable character if she herself has superpowers or is leading a book. There’s a lot to unpack here, no matter what your stance is. I think it’s particularly telling that Gwen’s death is very up there with, say, the deaths of Jason Todd or Bucky Barnes, and yet Gwen, as a female character, does not get a violent “return from the dead” vengeance storyline along the lines of Red Hood or Winter Soldier. Even the recent reframing of Gwen Stacy-65 as Ghost Spider is totally divorced from this subject, despite the fact that the name alone seems to tease the idea of Gwen, back from the dead. The fact that even with Gwen’s resurgence in popularity following The Amazing Spider-Man franchise’s portrayal of her still doesn’t mean she gets a revenge saga the way young and tragically at one time dead male characters do is I think very telling. (I could write the hell out of a Red Hood-esque Gwen Stacy revenge murder miniseries, I am just saying, Marvel.)

But to go back to the question at hand, if I’m being a hundred percent honest, I think that to keep a version of Peter in line with his 616 character development, he needs to suffer a loss of this magnitude at this particular point in his life. Personally, I don’t think that loss needs to be Gwen, but within the adaptation that is being told I think it needs to be of equal weight and importance to what 616 Gwen meant to 616 Peter. Gwen traditionally only ever gets spoken about as his girlfriend, but if you look at the period of comics surrounding her death, it becomes abundantly clear that Peter and Gwen were planning to get married shortly before her death, which adds a certain amount of weight to the relationship that simply referring to her as his girlfriend doesn’t lend:

(Amazing Spider-Man #99)

(Amazing Spider-Man #103)

Additionally, for me, I think it’s important that Gwen’s death isn’t just a one and done – she’s dead and it means something, both to Peter and to the rest of the cast that knew her. The definition of fridging is when a woman is killed for a man’s emotional development, true, but I think a key issue is that often when a woman is fridged there isn’t much emotional development when you actually look at the text. The man is sad but then he moves on, and maybe it comes up when he gets into a new relationship with a different woman because he needs to angst about how she can’t end up just like Poor Dead Previous Girlfriend. But I think Gwen’s death has a real weight in the series. She’s not a non-entity; her absence matters. I once saw a post about how Gwen’s death didn’t really have an effect on Peter and I think about it all the time over how incredibly wrong it was:

(Amazing Spider-Man #127)

(Amazing Spider-Man #136)

(Spider-Man & Black Cat: Evil That Men Do #6)

(Webspinners #12)

So this is a loss that deeply and consistently haunts Peter and not one he ever fully recovers from. It’s a loss with very lasting impact, like I said, not just for him, but for other people who knew Gwen.

“How lovely she was! What a wonderful couple she and made! I hoped we’d friends for life!” – Amazing Spider-Man #365

“Gwen was our light.” – Spectacular Spider-Man #250.

“She fell… and, in a sense – we all fell with her.” – Spectacular Spider-Man #200.

“Peter… loved Gwen. I loved Gwen! She was a good person.” – Spectacular Spider-Man #180

“Maybe because she knew Gwen, and was also friend.” – Amazing Spider-Man #509

Roughly speaking, I would say that to keep Peter on track with his 616 character development, the loss needs to be of a person in a serious and committed romantic relationship with Peter. The circumstances need to be duplicated, in my opinion, to track with 616 Peter’s development, but Gwen doesn’t necessarily have to be the character that dies. I personally have several WIP AUs where I’ve subbed out Gwen in this role for Harry; combined with Harry’s drug addiction and Peter’s natural protectiveness, as well as Norman’s role in this particular murder, it makes for a very interesting version of events. This sounds like I’m framing things around the man, but Spider-Man comics are a story about Peter, and so what Peter feels can’t be discounted from the story, and I do feel Peter needs to feel deeply about this. There are a lot of Spider-Man female characters death I feel very negatively about: Mattie Franklin, Ashley Kafka, Marla Jameson, Jean DeWolff, to name a few. But I feel negatively about them in part because if you’re going to kill a character, it should majorly impact the story and the main character. Gwen’s death does that in a way that the character deaths listed above don’t. In my opinion, if you’re going to kill an established character, it should matter beyond the story they die in. For me that’s a big part of what separates a character death I enjoy from I don’t.

At the end of the day, I think loss is built into Spider-Man as a story at its core. Look where everything starts: Peter, an established orphan, losing his uncle to violence. Right from the very beginning, we have an established loss. Then those losses add up: his parents, Uncle Ben, George Stacy, Gwen Stacy. Later, Harry Osborn, his and Mary Jane’s child, his clone Ben Reilly. Loss is embedded into the story on such a deep level that I think when you remove it, you ultimately remove Spider-Man’s identity itself, which has always been part of my complaint about the total refusal to even reference Uncle Ben within Spider-Man: Homecoming. And while I may love The Amazing Spider-Man 2′s retelling of The Night Gwen Stacy died as an adaptation, I also totally understand why some people might not want to watch a movie that ends in a young woman’s brutal death. As much as I joke that everyone deserves a version of their favorite problematic comics death, I also know not everybody wants that, or even has a favorite comics death scene. But when it comes to Spider-Man as a story and a narrative, I do think loss is an important piece of the puzzle. Take it away, and you end up with a less meaningful and human story. So no, ultimately, as much as I love the original scene in part because it’s so painful and haunting, I don’t think you need to kill Gwen to insure a 616-esque character development and emotional journey for Peter, but I do think you need to have him suffer a loss of the same magnitude if you’re invested in keeping the character on the same or on a similar track. But those are just my personal feelings on the story, and I do feel this is a topic where personal feelings are a make or break king of deal, and that not everyone is a slut for fictional tragedy, so I think this is very much a case that’s up to personal interpretation.

#traincat talks comics #*replies #long post/

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