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lanonima · 5 years ago

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Here we are again.

Romantic - Fucky is not how risque a work is but rather my opinion of the attitude/quality of the main relationship, the way the characters interact with respect to one another. I like a lot of stuff in fiction but if you’re easily made uncomfortable, stay towards the top half.

Easy reading - Plot-heavy is how I personally consider the plot’s intricacy and successful implementation, regardless of the author’s intention.

Golden Stage

Author: Cang Wu Bin Bai

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: This one has some Sha Po Lang vibes, but the characters have more depth and chemistry. The word 'more' here is extremely relative because it's still pretty shallow. I honestly liked them both, I liked the relationship and the psuedo-rude way that they flirt entertained me. As for the plot...ehhhh. It tried. There were things that worked, but in general the plot seemed disjointed from the characters and there were a few things that had no business being there and just muddied the waters. It's not bad necessarily, it's just not very smooth. There are better political intrigues to read if that's what you want. But if you just want some sugar-sweet fluff with a backdrop of drama, then this one is perfect. My favorite scene was probably the flashback to the first few times they met, absolutely fantastic.

Would I read it again: Nah.

The reviews of things I previously read are below the cut.

Mo Dao Zu Shi

Author: MXTX

Quality: 9.5

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: I have a huge emotional connection to this novel. There are some weak parts, the tension isn’t quite even, she’s pretty terrible at erotic scenes and not great at fight scenes…but that being said, I love the characters and some of the plot points really ripped my heart out. This is a novel that’s really driven by the characters so if you’re a character-focused person like me, definitely look into it (as if we all don’t already know it lmao). I really, really love this story. Every single adaptation of it has also been great, but the novel is still my favorite. It was my introduction to xianxia novels too, so you can say it changed my life!

Would I read it again: I’ve already read it twice, and consumed every adaptation (sometimes also multiple times)

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Author: MXTX

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

Comments: I’m not much of one for comedy and, as I discovered, not really into system novels either. Clearly weaker than MXTX’s later work, many of the characters are somewhat bland, she hasn’t quite found her groove yet. It’s not my style but the fandom is hilarious and the fans constantly produce content that I actually do find entertaining so overall I still have some fond feelings for this one, even if not for the source material.

Would I read it again: I found a different translation and am willing to try again in the future, I’m also willing to watch the donghua. But I can’t guarantee I’ll like it any more than previously.

Tian Guan Ci Fu

Author: MXTX

Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: I love this book…but not as much as I love Mo Dao Zu Shi. I think the plot is somewhat typical, however the characters are great once again (though maybe slightly less deep than MDZS), and her use of thematic repetition and foreshadowing are killer. Actually, I liked this book more the second time around because it just hits differently. Definitely the best of MXTX’s couples, they are so soft and sweet. Very long, but worth it.

Would I read it again: I already have, was personally translating the manhua before I hurt my arms, and am eagerly awaiting the donghua this fall!

The Villain’s White Lotus Halo

Author: A Big Roll of Toilet Paper

Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: Fuck, I love this one so much…..even though it’s also a system novel. But that part is in it so rarely that it reads more like pure fantasy. I love the characters, I love the plot, I love the way the relationship is developing. Oh yeah, the translation isn’t even complete but I already purchased not only the original from JJWXC but also the print edition. I’ve even drawn fanart for it, which is so unlike me. Every time a chapter comes out, I’m ruined for the rest of the day, I can’t think about anything else. Good fight scenes, which is uncommon. My favorite danmei novel so far.

Would I read it again: I fully intend to once the translation is complete, and also plan to read it in Chinese later (I’ve already read certain parts in Chinese hahaha but not the whole thing)

2Ha (Husky and his White Cat Shizun)

Author: Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat

Quality: 8

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: 2Ha is not for the faint of heart, it’s very horny, and violent, and has a lot of questionable content. However I love it so much. The story and characters are great, Meatbun really has me by the heart. The writing is a little more on the casual side but it hardly matters because the story is so great. Good fight scenes. Chu Wanning is like, the ultimate Me™ character, I hate how much I adore him. If you read this, just go into it knowing that it’s a long emotional journey, the characters are very dynamic and there’s a lot of character development.

Would I read it again: Same as the above, I plan a reread when the translation is done and have read parts in Chinese and might read the whole thing again later. Cautiously eager about the up-coming live action and donghua.

Di Wang Gong Lue

Author: Yu Xiao Lanshan

Quality: 2

Enjoyment: 9

Comments: This is one of the most terribly written things I’ve ever read, but I’m a character girl and the characters and ways they interact fucking kill me. I’m constantly entertained….although I don’t think this is actually supposed to be a comedy. If I were going to treat myself and like, take a bubble bath and read something that made me laugh, this is exactly the sort of trashy romance I would want to read. Technically a political intrigue story but it’s so abrupt and full of holes, are any of us reading it for the actual plot? The donghua is on Youtube, I watched it first and recommend others to do the same. If you can handle that, you can handle the book because it’s exactly the same in quality, just gayer. I do love the main couple a lot, the set-up surrounding the relationship is great, and the side characters are also really fun.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but I’m still having fun with it. I watched the donghua and read a bit of the manhua as well, which has very cute art and is probably my favorite version of the story.

Liu Yao

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 7.5

Comments: I really struggled getting into this one, it took me about 25 chapters to get invested. Initially I had rated it a 6 in enjoyment but after careful thought, I realized that even though it was so hard for me, it probably is my favorite Priest novel and I really do love the main couple so much. Her side characters also seem to be slightly stronger than usual in this one. Decent plot, not too much or too little. It seems really chill to me, doesn’t provoke much of an emotional reaction but I do think it’s very sweet, which is nice sometimes too.

Would I read it again: No, but I think (?) it’s supposed to get some kind of tv adaptation (drama or donghua, not sure), and if that happens, I’ll watch it.

Didn’t Know the General was Female

Author: Rong Qing

Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: Not the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but cute. It’s short, and a little lesbian fluff is never a bad thing. Writing is a bit weak and the plot is basic, but the characters are enjoyable and I liked it overall.

Would I read it again: No.

Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader

Author: Yi Zhi Dayan

Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Again, not the greatest in writing or plot, it’s a bit shallow. But I found the idea of it to be entertaining, and actually liked it more than I would have assumed. It’s fairly short and cute, like a good summer beach read.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but possibly, if the stars align.

Female General and Eldest Princess

Author: Please Don’t Laugh

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: A very good first effort, but the writing is a bit weak. It’s slow to start and I don’t think the political plotline is spectacularly strong. Some things were left unexplained, and her sense of battle tactics and fight-writing were very confusing, definitely room for improvement. I don’t think it’s as good as people say, but she writes with the air of someone who will continue to improve. And also, a lesbian author writing lesbian stories so that’s a plus. Overall I enjoyed the experience, this story is definitely worth a read.

Would I read it again: Maybe, but probably not.

Sha Po Lang

Author: Priest

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Originally I rated this one higher, but on later thought I realized that I actually enjoyed Liu Yao more. I personally have issues with the way Priest writes, and this book showed a lot of them. Characters were okay, I did like the main couple, but side characters were weak as usual. The plot is pretty good, though not great, and I think some of the pacing is off. Some descriptions were confusing, but that could be a translation issue. Overall, still a pretty good political drama, but I would say that of the three I read, this was the Priest novel with the least impact on me.

Would I read it again: No. But I will watch the live action if it ever gets made.

Guardian

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

Comments: I love Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, thought the plot was interesting, and there were some enjoyable moments. But it has all the problems I usually have with Priest in addition to some choices that offend me as a queer reader. I spent about 75% of the time reading while pissed off. And actually the fact that it had a happy ending kinda bummed me out because I love a good tragedy. Overall, I can only give it an average score. If you like Priest, you’ll like this one too. I’m not a tv person but I binged the hell out of the live action, I really loved it, so I was sort of disappointed that the source material didn’t seem as strong as I had assumed.

Would I read it again: No, but I will happily watch the live action again some day.

Jing Wei Qing Shang

Author: Please Don’t Laugh

Quality: 9.8

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: I have to start off by saying: damn girl. The improvement evident in this book is absolutely insane. A few minor issues prevent me from giving it a 10 out of 10 – her transitions are still extremely abrupt, the ending is slightly weak and some plot points remain unresolved, and her use of narrative repetition is too heavy-handed for my taste. Other than that, this book leaves me almost speechless. Very similar to Female General and Eldest Princess, there are many similar themes and events. But while I thought FGEP was fairly cute, I like this one way better. If you like angst, political intrigue, and lesbians, you should definitely read this book. I have no doubt that Please Don’t Laugh will continue to improve in the future, and I really look forward to following her career.

Would I read it again: 100%, I absolutely intend to read this again sometime in the future. It’s very long and very dense but delightful and ultimately worth it.

Fox Demon Cultivation Manual

Author: Feng Ge Qie Xing

Quality: 8

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: This was a delightful romp. I had expected it to be somewhat silly and was pleasantly surprised. It was heavy enough to be engaging but light enough to be an easy read, with multiple spots that made me literally laugh out loud which does not happen often. This is apparently just one book in a series of same universe novels, and a lighter-hearted one at that. I would be interested to read the others because I found the world pretty engaging, and I do want to know what became of the other characters. Overall I found it very fun and very cute, I read it in four days so that says something. On the downside, the link for chapter 9 is broken. But skipping a chapter doesn’t seem to have affected the experience of the novel as a whole.

Would I read it again: Yeah I think I would be willing to read this again someday. If it gets adapted I would also consume adaptations, in addition to being interested in the other connected works.

#Golden Stage #Cang Wu Bin Bai #lano reads danmei #lano reading baihe #book reviews

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kingofno-whereville · 5 years ago

Note

How about this, Billy's getting notes from a secret admirer, at first he thinks it's thirty hoes but then the notes start becoming a bit more serious and starts leading to a curtain browned haired King of hawkins high. 👀💝💌💌💝

AAJDFJSDLJL I LOVE THESE KIND OF AUS THANK YOU!!!!

——————————–

The first note came on Monday, before first period simply reading:

I hate that you’re so aware of how hot you are.

Flattering. He wouldn’t lie, he loved the attention. He wasn’t completely surprised he got a note honestly. He knows he’s hot shit at Hawkins. He just figured it was some horny sophomore, so he folded the note and used it as a bookmark. He had no interest in sophomore girls. Or any girls for that matter honestly. He did have an interest in Steve Harrington though. Imagine if he left him a note? Billy would go insane. But it’s not from Harrington and he knows it.

Second note comes at the end of the day when he went to his locker after basketball practice to get his books and shit.

Stop licking your lips like that, please.

Okay so. Probably just another girl at school. He was oddly pleased to know he’s got someone squirming in their seat over him just being himself. He left that note to be forgotten about in his locker, which was prone to swallowing up everything into it’s unending tornado of papers. He kept rereading the first note while he was laying in bed that night. He had laid down to read his book but he couldn’t stop thinking about the notes.

The third note is in his locker when he goes to get his stuff for his next class after lunch on Tuesday.

Those jeans hug you so well

Okay that’s kind of hot. Whatever girl was writing these was pretty ballsy, he’d give her that. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Harrington sitting down to write the notes. He thought about the glare from Harrington in his direction during lunch. It sucked that he’s gonna have to tell some girl he’s not into her after reading these notes. He hoped even after he turns her down she’d continue to admire his ass in the jeans he’d been wearing that day because they were in fact his favorite jeans.

The fourth note was in his locker after practice just like the day before.

i wish you’d smile more. it’s hot.

Lust stops for no one huh? This one made him laugh. He stuck it in his book and took the other one with him. He committed the handwriting to memory That night. Maybe he could figure it out, who’s leaving the notes. The problem is that all the girls at school have expressed some interest in him or scoff when he smiles at them. He only smiles because it’s polite and everyone loves a polite boy.

Turns out the note in his locker in the morning on Wednesday was just what he needed to start eliminating candidates.

Sometimes it hurts because I know I can’t have you.

So it’s someone who would be bad for his image maybe? Like a nerdy girl. Or maybe she’s just got really low self-esteem. He groaned and put it in the book. Whoever she is is making this hard.

Wednesday lunch. Another note.

You’d probably beat my ass if you knew who I was.

He could’ve jumped with excitement. It couldn’t be a fucking girl. There’s one other queer at that school and he’s got the hots for Billy Hargrove. Figures. None of the girls at school talk like that. Except Carol but her and Tommy are pretty steady.

He could’ve cried when there wasn’t a note in his locker after practice like usual. He couldn’t believe he was getting excited about this. He went home bummed out so he opted to read with his music on since there’s not much else to do on a Wednesday night. That’s when a little note fell out.

My heart is aching for you Billy Hargrove and you just lick your lips and laugh at me.

God that’s hot in like..a teen tragedy kind of way. He’s into it. He needed to know who it was. Judging from the whole lips thing it had to be during basketball because that’s the only time he really does that. He could hardly sleep that night just thinking about the notes.

The next note didn’t come until lunch on Thursday. It was in his book again. He had gone to his locker to get his book and go off to somewhere quiet.

I felt like I was burning up when you pushed me. Felt like I was on fire when you grabbed my hand.

That was oddly specific. He remembers what the notes talking about. Basketball. It was Steve Harrington. He had his doubts but it could only be him because what he wrote about just happened yesterday. What if this is a prank? He gets Billy all excited and then out him to the entire school? That’s a nightmare. He decided to write back, just to play it safe.

Harrington?

He left it on top of his book and didn’t look at his book for the rest of the day. He checked his book after practice. He avoided Harrington for the whole day and it seemed like maybe he was doing the same. He wanted to talk to him but he was scared he would say something that would give him away. There was a note at the end of the day though.

Quarry. 7pm.

Fuck!! He was going to go. He needed to know if it’s him. It had to be. He needed to know if he actually liked him.

He went to the Quarry at 7:05pm. If he showed up on time he might think he’s desperate or something. Sure enough, there he was, standing near the edge of the drop off.

“Harrington?” He turned when Billy called out to him.

“You actually came.”

“Yeah? You invited me.”

“I didn’t think you’d…I thought you were ignoring the notes.”

“No. At first yes but..they were kind of hot I’ll be honest.” That made Steve smile and he took a step closer.

“So you’re not disgusted?”

“I don’t know what part of ‘they were kind of hot’ don’t you get.” He stepped closer, this time getting up in Steve’s space. He didn’t back away so he put his hand on his chest. “I’ve had my eyes on you since I got here.”

He doesn’t think he ever enjoyed kissing someone as much as he did that night at the quarry. He smiled at Harrington when he passed him in the hall. They had agreed to meet up again Saturday night. There was another note in his locker after lunch.

Kiss me until my lips are numb.-Steve.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #it got a little rushed because i needed to reset my laptop before class oops

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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1001

survey by voicedance16

Name A...

Name yourself: I said this like, seven surveys ago. To make things different, I share my name with a bird and Rihanna’s first name.

Name (one of) your best friend(s): Angela. Sister for life.

Name 3 things in your fridge/freezer: We have a loaf of white bread, a near-empty bottle of Japanese mayonnaise, and a tub of liver.

Name a color you're wearing currently: Pink and orange. I ended up going to the virtual Halloween party at work - went as Dora - and it was a blast. I’m SO glad impersonating our characters didn’t turn out to be mandatory; I just sat there and was happy to be there, lmao.

Name the last thing you ate: A ham sandwich.

Name the last store you went to: Does the vet count? They sell pet food over there, so it’s kind of like a store I guess. I went last weekend because Cooper needed a heartworm test and a couple of shots.

Name the song you're listening to: Nada.

Name the artist of that song: See above.

Name your favorite animal: Dogs! Elephants are a close second.

Name what pets you have, if any: I have two dogs, an aspin and a beagle.

Name the town/state you live in: I won’t give away the city, but I will say Metro Manila is a literal stone’s throw away. I live right at the border.

Name something commonly ordered at Starbucks: Like...in general? I’m not aware of the most common food/drink ordered by other people but if I had to pick a guess, I know frappes are popular among my age group and the age group before us and that java chip is a popular flavor. But if you’re just referring to my usual, I like getting an iced caramel macchiato.

Name the last person you talked to in person: My dad. They gave us a box of Halloween donuts AND cake pops at work today :’) so I just asked my dad if he wanted a donut.

Name the last person you talked to on the phone: Mom. But my last call in general was a Zoom call with the entire company just a few minutes ago for the Halloween party.

Name the current day of the week: Today issss Wednesday.

Name the current month: October.

Name the current time: 6:55 PM.

Name the last movie you watched: I’m Thinking of Ending Things, blech. Need a happier movie to mention.

Name the last book you read: I’ve mentioned it too many times on a lot of recent surveys.

Name a place you've been on vacation: Bali.

Name a place you'd like to go on vacation: I desperately need to go back to Sagada, or at least Tagaytay. I think visitors are already allowed to go to the latter so I’m really eyeing a solo, soul-searching trip soon. As for places I’ve never been to before but would make for interesting vacations, I’d go with Chicago and Marrakesh.

Name 3 things you can see from where you're sitting: I can see an empty mug that used to contain coffee, a box of cake pops, and a purple pen.

Name your favorite musical: Miss Saigon.

Name an animal (any): The first animal that came to mind was dragonfly.

Name a fruit: Avocado, the only bitch in the house that I ever respected.

Name a vegetable: Broccoli, my favorite.

Name a common breakfast food: Where I live, beef tapa.

Name a color: Dandelion.

Name a type of flower: ...Dandelion!

Name a type of tree: Pine. Not that we have any here lol, but it’s the first kind I thought of.

Name a city: Uhh, idk. Let’s go with Seattle.

Name a state: I first thought of Wisconsin because I have a lot of family living there.

Name a country: Let’s go outside of the States and go with Sweden.

Name a continent: Asia.

Name a planet: Mars.

Name a girl's name: Clara. Such a pretty-sounding name.

Name the last person to comment you on Facebook: I haven’t had Facebook in weeks and I genuinely can’t remember from whom I received my last comment before I deactivated.

Name a clothing store/brand: Mango.

Name the last book you got at the library: It’s called History of the Filipino People, written by one of my great-uncles.

Name a restaurant: Max’s, even though their food sucks.

Name a grocery store: SM.

Name an iPhone app: Like, an Apple-exclusive app? I think Keynote is one of them.

Name an actor: Eddie Redmayne! One of my favorites.

Name an actress: Kate Winslet, my biggest crush through and through.

Name a music group: Destiny’s Child.

Name your favorite/lucky number: I don’t have a lucky number, but 4 is my favorite. I don’t have a solid reason for it to be my favorite; it just is.

Name something you've accomplished: Graduating college from my dream school in my (then-)dream degree/course.

Name something you'd like to accomplish: Travel, and travel a lot.

Name someone who makes you laugh: Andi made me smile and chuckle a bit today, so let’s name them.

Name something exciting coming up soon: Nothing too specific, really. But I’m supposed to be receiving my internship cut any day now and it’s gonna be my first salary ever, so that’s pretty exciting :)

Name a song that makes you emotional: 26 by Paramore.

Name one of your pet peeves: People who call without texting or notifying beforehand. Holy fucking shit. A hiring manager did this exact thing to me yesterday and I rejected her call because she did not text first. I honestly have no regrets, and I wouldn’t have been bitter if she stopped pursuing me then.

Name someone you know who is an amazing singer: Hannah, without a doubt.

Name someone who is the same religion as you: JM.

Name a holiday you celebrate: Christmas. I can hardly believe another one is coming up soon.

Name the last 4 digits of your phone number: Uh, no thanks.

Name one of your cousins: Sam.

Name a book you loved when you were younger: I used to really love the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage and I reread the first book, Magyk, more times than I could ever count.

Name a song you loved when you were younger: Big Girls Don’t Cry - Fergie.

Name your favorite movie: Two for the Road.

Name a popular book series: The Hunger Games, even though I never actually read it.

Name a musical instrument: A song played on a solo saxophone...

Name a language: German.

Name what other tabs you have open: On this window, just Bzoink. I just closed a YouTube tab.

Name 3 things on the walls of the room you're in: Audrey Hepburn wall decors, a painting that I’m trying to cover up with post-its to turn it into something positive, and uhhh my aircon is mounted to the wall if that counts lol

Name your house number: I’m not sharing that.

Name your high school: It’s an all-girls Catholic school in my city. I’ve shared the name before but I don’t feel like doing so tonight.

Name your college, if applicable: My college was in mass communication, but I went to university in UP.

Name your middle school: See high school.

name your elementary school Again, see high school.

Name the college you wish you went to/hope to go to: UP.

Name your favorite teacher: My music teacher throughout high school. I don’t like her subject, but I love her.

Name the color of your backpack: I haven’t had to use a backpack in a while but my main one is pink.

Name a dessert: Creme brulee. I don’t memorize which letters have those accent marks and I don’t feel like looking that up right now.

Name a famous landmark: Because I can clearly read the next question, the Statue of Liberty.

Name a place you might go in NYC: I’d go straight to my uncle’s so that he can show me the good spots. He has a lot of cool friends who run their own bars/restaurants in the city so if anyone knows how to have a good time in NYC without having to go to all the big tourist places, it’s him. GOD I can’t wait to go to New York.

Name an inventor: Hedy Lamarr.

Name an article of clothing: Scarves.

Name an ice cream flavor: Mint chocolate chip, yum.

Name a religion: Buddhism.

Name an emotion: Resentment.

Name a room in your house: My bedroom, because that’s where I’m staying in at the moment.

Name a website: Wikipedia.

Name a car: This is pretty vague. A kind of car? Hatchback. Are you looking for a make? Toyota. Or maybe a specific model? Honda Civic. I gotchu.

Name something you need to do today: SLEEP. I should not be awake at 11 PM.

Name someone you admire: Andi.

Name someone you miss: At the moment, nobody.

Name a part of the body: Elbow.

Name the last youtube video you watched: I bawled my eyes out to a video playing the audio to Ben&Ben’s Kathang Isip because that song makes so much goddamn sense and is relatable now. Can’t I just go back to a simpler time when that song was just fun to listen to and wasn’t actually relevant to my life? I hate music sometimes.

Name a quote you love: I don’t have one.

#survey #surveys #this was a challenge to make entertaining bleh

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innumerablemuses-a · 5 years ago

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[So I’m reading the second book of “The Broken Code” series (it’s just how I am, I read it the first time with excitement, then many times afterwards just to find things I’ve missed). Obviously I’ll put this under a Read More so that you don’t get spoiled. But I have something to add onto an existing theory circulating.]

So if you’re reading this bit, you already know the theory about the spirit possibly being Ashfur that stole Bramblestar’s body. While there’s a lot of other speculated names, I’ve been rereading “Squirrelflight’s Hope” when I’ve had an epiphany in regard to this theory, which may give it more weight.

Obviously, StarClan can’t always watch what’s going on with the Clans, and Larksong admitted to Squirrelflight and Leafpool in “Squirrelflight’s Hope” that sometimes their unable to see everything that’s happening. And quite frankly, not all the cats of StarClan are watching the events together; only those that has special interests (via the safety of their mates or kits they left behind, or other personal reasons).

This here at least gives a little hint about StarClan’s view sometimes being blocked. Most likely, this pond is what most of the ancestors use to watch over the Clans. If this pond is the key point, then a cat could find a way to block it.

Now what Squirrelflight had done during her stay in StarClan seems to be remarkably unheard of, perhaps a theory that no cat had ever tried to enact on before, by diving into the pool to reach the living world. Her spirit could be in the living world even while she was at the halfway point of life and death. But this shows that those of StarClan could go back without needing permission, at least of what I can remember. It’s more likely that cats who visited seemingly without permission may have done this via the pool, without sharing it around to others. However, I very well am remembering wrong in this regard.

Continuing on though, a lot of cats would have witnessed Squirrelflight’s departure and would have spoken among one another, I’d imagine. Ashfur may have left with Dustpelt to meet Whitestorm by the river, but it doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t come back and simply ask what happened. It’s natural to answer.

Now back to points in the book itself “The Silent Thaw”. Bramblestar’s fake (I’ll refer to him as Fakestar here onwards) clearly doesn’t know much of Bramblestar’s life, not possessing his memories. Though the first thing he’d do upon getting up the first time was to go straight to Squirrelflight to say “It’s good to see you again.” She clearly is the focus point of his attention. If he was some evil dark spirit at random, that spirit wouldn’t know to look at Squirrelflight as either mate nor deputy.

Rootpaw helped to point out, during a failed attempt to talk to Bristlefrost, of Fakestar’s lack of knowledge in bringing up the Sisters. Fakestar gets huffy and snaps about who cares what a bunch of rogues had done a few moons ago. But if he didn’t know about the Sisters and in trying to drive them away, there’s another piece of knowledge that he shouldn’t remember, either, but he does.

He somehow knew that Squirrelflight had spent time in StarClan, despite not knowing that the Sisters had a big part in how she came to be at the point of life-or-death to do so. Ashfur was present at the start after Larksong greeted her and Leafpool, though he was being quite overly polite and keeping his distance.

Honestly... why would Ashfur come to see Squirrelflight? He didn’t even talk to her.

And here’s another snip from a book in one of the earlier series, “The Forgotten Warrior” from the Omen of the Stars. This had always stuck out as odd to me, because despite us seeing StarClan judging Squirrelflight and Leafpool on their lives, Bluestar was oddly unsure about what Jayfeather asked of her about him... she even admitted that it wasn’t StarClan’s place to judge him (despite what was done in “Squirrelflight’s Hope”, though it seemed to be a special circumstance).

There’s been so many hints about Ashfur making things unusual so shortly after his death. And Hollyleaf shrugging it off at Squirrelflight’s questioning on whether it was strange to have him so near... it feels a LOT like the writer trying to put hints in but doing their best to make it as subtle as possible.

I think that these few examples HEAVILY supports the idea that Fakestar is, in fact, Ashfur. A quick little review that adds on with this that I hadn’t mentioned thus far;

He would hardly leave Squirrelflight alone, preferring to ORDER her to pass her duties off to Bristlefrost to have her stay in the den with him.

Despite being named as a codebreaker from the ‘mysterious spirit’ through Shadowsight, he wasn’t planning to let her out of his sight. This proves it as such when he’d send Bumblestripe to follow her when she declares that she will atone, when he hadn’t done so with any other cat. He didn’t bother with Lionblaze, one of the first cats to be punished.

He’s excessively hostile with Lionblaze and Jayfeather.

Fakestar seems to favor cats who’s hearts had been broken. Bristlefrost (over Stemleaf), Bumblestripe (Dovewing), and others I can’t name off the top of my head.

In fact, when you look back at the codebreakers listed, there’s a pattern. If you equate this with Ashfur, some names at least makes sense. Lionblaze and Jayfeather are very obvious for why they’d be on the list. Crowfeather seemed to be an odd one unless you think about this -- he’s the father of Lionblaze and Jayfeather. Without him, they would not be born nor would they have been raised by Squirrelflight.

Dovewing I think was named for her connection with the Three. If I recall correctly, Ashfur had not once been mentioned at all during the Great Battle between the Dark Forest and StarClan plus their living descendants. I think that he preferred to let them fight it out, and was personally hoping for the Dark Forest to win, or at least kill most of those that had wronged him. Dovewing had been a key factor on the Clans being prepared.

In Mothwing being mentioned, it seems pretty obvious that it’s about her lack of conviction with StarClan and having no connection with the ancestors. BUT. She had just started to acknowledge them, that perhaps her views had been clouded. Why should StarClan want to punish her when she was at least on the path of connecting with them? If we all recall though, there IS a singular connection between Mothwing and Ashfur -- Hawkfrost. Mothwing’s own brother. Most likely, because Hawkfrost had been the one to flare up Ashfur’s embers for revenge against Squirrelflight, Ashfur might have felt a kinship with him.

Now the last codebreaker is one that I’m not quite sure on as of now. Twigbranch has no connection to Ashfur that is easily explained, none that I can find. The only ‘codebreaking’ she had done was to switch allegiance with Clans; not just once, but twice. The only viable, but frankly very thin, line I can see is that Sparkpelt had mentored her (the second time), which connects her to Bramblestar and Squirrelflight. The only other possibility is that she had been especially watched over by Bramblestar since she was a kit, for having been ‘found in shadows’.

Granted, there’s really no true way to know if any of this is even valid, but thank you for reading this. If this sparked any ideas or theories for you in regard to who the mysterious spirit is as Fakestar, then I’m glad it had done so!

#o.➤ooc;;Mod #silent thaw spoilers #silent thaw #spoilers #warriors #erin hunter

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seriouslyhooked · 6 years ago

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Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 14)

22 part AU written for @cssns. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey everyone! Oh my God it has literally felt like forever since I posted, and I took such a long break away from the story that I kind of forget where the heck we were. If you’re like me, read the last few chapters and you’ll remember in no time. If, however, you’re like some of my other readers who have been rereading because you are desperate for an update, well honey, we finally have one! In this chapter we are coming to the promised dinner from last chapter. I have been waiting a long time to include more tangible Snowing and CS scenes, because I love a story where Emma has her parents and then her parents get to meet and mess with Killian. Throw in the fact that we have Elsa and Anna, as well as Ruby and Granny and it’s truly a grand old time, at least in my book. This chapter is packing a lot of fluff, because I think we all need it quite honestly, but there’s a bit of a twist coming again. I know, I know this story is getting to be so twisty, but I think you guys will like where things are going and I can’t wait to see your responses! Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Fear was a funny thing.

For Emma there were a number of things in her life right now that justifiably sparked fear in her heart. The first and most obvious was the physical threat on the horizon. Killian’s brother was en route to Storybrooke and they didn’t know what he wanted. It was hard to imagine Liam was coming with good intentions, and as such, they all had the space to be afraid. Then there were other more mundane things that could cause her all kinds of anxiety, since Emma was, in fact, a worrier. These included things like whether Anna and Elsa would be okay with everything they’d learned today, or whether she and Killian would find their way to a more ‘normal’ life. She wanted that, but it just didn’t seem like that calm and serenity was coming any time soon and that was taxing to say the least. But somehow tonight Emma didn’t have the capacity to fixate on Liam’s potential wrath, or the future that fate was bringing her way. Instead, all she could focus on was the immediately impending chaos that would descend when her parents, her best friends, Killian, and his family were all under one roof.

“Maybe we should come up with a panic phrase,” Emma declared suddenly as they were on their way to the Nolan residence for dinner with Elsa, Anna, and Ruby in tow. “You know, in case we have to get out quick.”

“I’m sorry love, I’m unfamiliar with that term,” Killian responded, a touch of humor lacing his voice.

“You know, a panic phrase,” Emma said, giving a slight shrug of her shoulders as she explained herself. “It’s like the stranger danger term your parents give you as a kid so you know if you can trust a random adult or not. Ours was ‘operation mongoose’ but don’t ask me why because I have no idea where it came from.”

Looking at Killian, Emma could tell she wasn’t making sense. Her anxiety about this evening was causing her to blabber on about things with less coherency than she would like, but Killian remained patient and did his best to piece together her thoughts. “Uh, well in that case no, can’t say I’ve ever had one of these panic phrases before.”

“Well it’s simple really. It’s basically a safe word, so in this case if my parents get too crazy and we need to leave we have something to say as a signal that we got to get going.”

“Emma, I realize this is a big step, and I know your parents are… involved so to speak,” Killian said, totally underselling her parents’ investment in her life and her business. “But I assure you there won’t be any cause to leave. I might not know your parents well, but I do know they mean no harm.”

“Mean no harm and do no harm are different things,” Emma muttered, and she could hear her resigned tone of defeat as she said the words aloud. Without even looking at Killian she knew he was on the verge of laughter, but instead of her mate’s sound of amusement filling the air, it was Anna who broke into giggles.

“Oh come on, Emma! It’s going to be fine. You two are already mated right? So what’s the worst that happens? Your Mom pulls out those terrible photos of us from middle school and your Dad threatens that he’ll kill Killian if he ever hurts you.”

“Do either of those possibilities sound fun to you?” Emma asked and Anna immediately grinned so Emma amended her statement. “If you were me, would you enjoy a night like that?”

“Probably not,” Anna agreed, “And my Mom definitely didn’t have the balls your Mom does or the blunt way of asking things, but come on, Emma. We all know Killian’s never going to hurt you so it’s a non-issue. Besides Ruby and Granny have the dirt on Killian so it’ll all be even in the end.”

“What have you told them, Red?” Killian asked his cousin and Ruby smiled like the cat that caught the canary. This made Emma lighten somewhat, because whatever Ruby had it had to be good.

“Oh nothing much,” Ruby claimed coyly. “I’m still saving the best stories. Don’t want to run out of those too early.”

Killian groaned at his cousin’s words and because it was such a relatable outburst, Emma immediately took delight in it. She found herself laughing in spite of herself. Thank God she wasn’t in this alone. Knowing Killian had family who gave him grief too (even if it all came from a place of love) was a relief. No one would ever match her parents’ level, but at least she wasn’t in this alone. And by the way that Killian was watching her relax into her laughter Emma knew that Killian didn’t care about her finding out any of his embarrassing stories. His blue eyes told her everything in that moment, and the most important thing was that all he wanted was for her to be happy. With him she always found a way to be so, and it was only a love like this that could ever induce her into subjecting herself to this familial torture.

“Is it bad that I actually feel better knowing you’ve got stories too?” Emma asked and Killian shook his head as he pulled her in closer to his side. The feel of his body pressed against hers was hot but familiar. It made Emma feel safe even as she felt electrified, and the anxiety of before began to dissipate as contentedness took its place.

“No, it’s not. Anything that makes you feel better is something I cherish, love.”

“God, I know it’s a miracle you guys found love and everything but sometimes its just so…” Ruby trailed off, but Elsa and Anna were quick to fill in.

“Sweet?” Elsa asked.

“Adorable?” Anna replied.

“I was going to say ‘extra’ actually. I mean come on. Who says stuff like that?”

Emma bit back more laughter as Elsa and Anna went beat for beat with Ruby about what love should be like and whether Killian’s words were romantic or over the top. But whatever assessment they came up with in the end, Emma wouldn’t really care. The only thing that mattered was how she felt about Killian, and every time he made confessions like that it soothed her. Killian enriched her life and made her braver than she’d ever been. She was confident and comfortable in the love they were building together, and she loved his sweet words, even the cheesy ones.

“I dream of a day when they all find another amusement to preoccupy themselves,” Killian murmured to her, drawing Emma’s eyes back up to him. He had light in his eyes and she could tell he wasn’t taking their talk seriously either. “It might help if Elsa or Anna found someone to love too.”

“Oh God don’t let my mother hear you say that. You’ll be recruited for her matchmaking in a hot second.”

“I can think of worse things to do than showing other people the way to love,” Killian said and Emma agreed with him.

“And what about Ruby? You don’t think she wants love?”

“She does,” Killian replied. “But my cousin is particular. It’s going to take quite the person to stack up to her expectations.”

“I heard that!” Ruby said, though a human wouldn’t have been able to and both Emma and Killian laughed.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Killian emphasized. “If you’re going to love someone you better make sure they’re perfect for you.”

“Aww, he thinks Emma’s perfect for him,” Anna said and finally Emma rolled her eyes.

“Okay enough. I mean seriously, we’re about to be with my parents for at least three hours. Can’t you give us any peace?”

Anna and Ruby agreed that they would and Emma shared a knowing look with Elsa. Her best friend never gave Emma any real problems about things like this. It wasn’t her way and Emma appreciated that, and she knew she could trust Elsa to keep the others in line. Still the teasing had done wonders to distract Emma from her worries about this evening, and unfortunately, as quiet descended on the group, they cropped up again.

“I know you have a lot of feelings about tonight, Emma, but I can hardly wait to finally see where you grew up.”

“Well the wait is almost over,” Emma said with a smile. Her house might not be nearly as palatial as Anna and Elsa’s but she did love it so. She’d had such a perfect childhood for so long, and it wasn’t until Neal had gotten sick that things took a turn. Even since then things had gotten better, and that house had always been a part of the good times in her life. “Think you can handle it?”

“I hardly think it’s the house that’s hell bent on bringing trouble, love,” Killian joked and Emma swallowed harshly despite knowing that he was only kidding. “Nothing to fear on that score though, Emma. There’s no force in this world that could keep me from loving you.”

“How do you always say the right thing?” Emma asked, as they stepped to the front door and Killian grinned back at her in a way that sent a bold shiver of delight through her whole being.

“It’s a gift.”

“Okay love birds, you’ve got about five more seconds before we have incoming,” Ruby stated, clearly having heard everything as they approached Emma’s parent’s door. “Three, two, one.”

At the exact mark the door swung open, but Emma was surprised to see it was her Dad and not her Mom standing there. “Thank goodness you’re early. Your Mom might have said seven but she...”

“Never means it, I know,” Emma said, filling in for her Dad as she gave him a hug. “I was surprised she wasn’t pacing by the windows yet.”

“Granny’s been a good distraction. She keeps talking about you and Killian and how shifter happily ever afters work.” The comment was benign, but then Emma watched her father’s face pale as he looked to Elsa and Anna. “Uh, I mean, well -,”

“Don’t worry Mr. N, we know the deal,” Anna filled in merrily. “People turn into animals and then they fall in love with your best friends. We’ve got it.”

“Or sometimes your best friend is the shifter,” Elsa offered nonchalantly, and Emma smiled, knowing that she hadn’t mentioned that to Elsa so her friend must have picked that up through her own magical intuition. “Like Uncle Lance.”

“Yup. Can’t wait to tell him you girls all know now. It’s gonna make the summer barbeque pretty interesting,” her father said as he led them all inside, shutting the door behind them.

“Oh Lance already knows,” Emma’s mother announced cheerily as she walked in with a beatific smile. “I told Gwen a little while ago. I forgot one of the ingredients in her chocolate soufflé recipe and I filled her right in. God I love walkie talkies.”

Elsa and Anna laughed as Ruby and Killian looked at Emma with confusion. Again, Emma was amused at how even Ruby seemed to be stumped. Apparently witchy visions didn’t involve her Mom’s somewhat childish antics.

“Mom and Aunt Gwen talk all the time. They joke that they’re sisters separated at birth and as such they have all sorts of time to make up for. But it was a lot of calls. Like so many calls a day that Dad and Uncle Lance used to tease them that walkie talkies would be more efficient. Then for Christmas last year Neal and I had an idea – or really Neal did. I just funded it. He found these walkie talkies online that create their own frequency and that can cover super large distances. I think they’re for the military? Anyway, we got them for Mom and Aunt Gwen as a joke, but now they use them all the time. The gift backfired.”

“I’d use it right now if she and Lance weren’t having their date night,” Emma’s mother said, waving the walkie talkie that was clipped to her apron. “But there’s always next time. Anyway, thank you all for coming. You must be Ruby. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Knowing Granny it’s all bad,” Ruby said with a sly grin.

“And all true,” Killian quipped, leading Ruby to playfully punch his arm.

“No she had only good things to say, about you and about Killian.”

“Where is she exactly?” Emma asked, knowing Granny was supposed to be here.

“She’s on soufflé watch,” Mary Margaret announced, and this prompted a skeptical look between Killian and Ruby. “What? What’s so funny?”

“You said they were chocolate right?” Ruby said, biting back her laughter.

“Let’s just say Granny has very few weaknesses, but the main one is chocolate. I hope you’ve made extra since she’s very likely tricked you into trusting her with those treats.”

“I heard that!” Granny said, coming from the kitchen with her hands on her hips and an unamused look on her face. Her eyes were lit up with humor however, and then she admitted the truth. “And I’ll have you know I only had one, and I ran it by Mary Margaret first.”

“Wow, seems Storybrooke has had a positive influence on all of us,” Killian said easily and Emma felt herself warm at the way he spoke about her home.

“It has a way of doing that,” Emma’s mother said as her father came around to kiss her temple. “Now come on, dinner’s ready and I have just about a million questions.”

Taking a seat at the dining room table that Emma had spent nearly every important holiday gathered around, it was nice to see how natural all of this was. Everyone found their spots organically, and when Killian pulled out her chair like a gentleman, helping her into her seat, Emma was touched. She knew the gesture didn’t go unnoticed, but Emma avoided looking at any one else. Instead she looked to Killian, taking an extra boost of comfort from his subtle nod and upturned smile.

“So…” her father finally said, drawing Emma and Killian’s attention back to the table. Her Dad only looked at them a moment before deferring to his wife. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” her mom said happily. As Mary Margaret rose back up from her seat, Emma watched Ruby whisper to Anna.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s like grace. Before every meal they say what they’re thankful for. Neal started it.”

“He did indeed,” Emma’s mother said, and Emma watched as her mom’s eyes grew a bit misty. It certainly wasn’t getting any easier for her having Neal away at summer camp, and she could tell her mom missed her brother fiercely. “But we continue it even when he’s not here, and tonight we have so much to be thankful for.

“We have new friends and new family,” her mother said looking to Granny and to Ruby. “It has been a pleasure meeting you both and to welcome you into our home. I know there’s so much more to learn and to hear and Emma will tell you I never met a story I didn’t love.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Emma joked and everyone chuckled together.

“But more than that, I can sense you two will be good for us. You’ve already brought so many good things, which leads us to our next grateful thing. We are grateful for Anna and Elsa and their new journey. It’s been a tough few years, but you girls,” Emma heard her Mom’s voice break, a sign of how much she loved her friends as if they were her own children. “You both have blossomed into such wonderful women. Your family would be proud. We are proud, and wherever this new magic may take you, we know it’ll be exactly where you need to be.”

“Yeah it will,” Anna said, reaching her hand across the table to take Elsa’s in a sisterly sign of affection.

“We’re thankful that our children have their health. We’re thankful that Neal is so happy, that he’s making friends and expanding his mind. He’s being challenged and engaged and he’s finding out more and more about himself. His old scars have all but healed, his light continues to shine so bright. There’s nothing in the world he can’t accomplish.

“At the same time our Emma has found her happy too. It’s a new kind of happy. Beyond having purpose, it’s the happiness only available through love and hope and belief in something more. With Killian she has found her match, a match we very much approve of, not that you needed our approval. But rest assured, this doesn’t mean we can’t still have a little fun. Your father and I haven’t honed these interrogative skills for nothing.”

Emma didn’t know whether to groan aloud or duck her head in embarrassment, but when Killian’s hand squeezed hers tightly she looked at him instead and she saw his subtle smile from before had grown into a full blown grin.

“Whatever you guys have got, I can take it. Anything for Emma.”

“You sure about that?” Her Dad asked and Killian looked to him and nodded.

“Yes sir, I’m sure.”

A moment of comfortable silence elapsed where her Dad gave Killian his own silent show of approval and then Emma realized that her Mom was supposed to be talking. But when she looked over to the other end of the table her Mother’s tears had fallen.

“I’m sorry, I know I know. It’s just…”

“It’s just that life right now is good, and we have a lot to be thankful for.”

The words from her Dad were agreed to by everyone at the table and with their pseudo-prayer said, dinner was served. It was just as excellent as Emma expected. Her mother was actually a great cook, and the company was awesome in the end. It took a little getting used to that their dinner conversation would include things like shifters and spells and such, but Emma was delighted to find that her mother wasn’t as prodding and extensive as she expected. In fact, she only saved those extra exploratory questions for Emma and Killian, and Killian, luckily, managed to take on every one. By the end of the meal he seemed to have won her parents over even more, and Emma was so happy and carefree she had actually forgotten what brought them all together in the first place. Only after dessert was cleared away did Emma realize she needed to talk to her parents about Liam and the potential danger ahead, but her father beat her to the punch.

“We know already, Emma,” her Dad said quietly as she helped him clear the table. The two of them were back in the kitchen, away from the others who were conversing over coffee. “Granny told us about Liam, and then Killian called me while you were with Anna and Elsa.”

“He did?” Emma asked, completely surprised by the revelation and her Dad nodded.

“He did. He said he was sorry to not come speak to me directly but he didn’t want to let you out of his sight. I agreed that that was for the best. In the mean time, I can’t think of anyone that’s better to protect you than Killian.”

“Really?” Emma asked, feeling a wave of surprise that her Dad would hand over the reigns of a job he’d taken on her whole life. She didn’t often need protecting, but her father had always been her greatest champion. For him to allow Killian to step into that role was huge.

“Really. And it’s not just because he’s stronger and faster than I will ever be, but because he loves you, more than life itself,” her Dad said, stunning Emma with his honesty and acceptance.

“He does,” Emma agreed, her heart filled with so much love in this moment. Love for her Dad and for Killian, two men who both cared so much for her and who had always shown her that she was theirs to protect and to embolden. “But did he explain it all Dad? We could be in real danger. I know Killian will do anything it takes if it comes to that, but -,”

“I want you to know that it’s all going to be okay, Emma,” her Dad said as he put a hand on her shoulder, something he’d done many times through the course of the years. “I’ve talked to Graham and to Tink. We have some elements put in place already for would-be hostile shifters. And I’ll call your Uncle Lance in the morning and get him and Gwen here ASAP. I thought about maybe sparing him the headache, but you know him. He’ll be livid if we leave him out of anything that could be considered a good story.”

Emma wanted to laugh at that because it was honestly funny. She could picture Uncle Lance now, bemoaning a fact that he missed a good fight and whining (but still in a loveable way) that he was left out. But this wasn’t some party that people weren’t getting invited to. This was a potentially dangerous and more than hostile situation.

“I never wanted any of this to happen. I never dreamed that we might be in danger, and I know Killian didn’t either.”

“There’s no need to explain, Emma. You love each other and you’re bonded. His danger is your danger and vice versa, but that also means your family is his family. No one has to go through this alone. We’re all stronger together, and I would never let anything break this family apart. This is a battle we can fight, and not all battles are like that.”

“I love you, Dad,” Emma said hugging him quickly and taking comfort in his firm embrace. She knew he was thinking back on Neal being sick and how helpless that moment was. Emma hoped it wouldn’t actually come to fighting Liam. Maybe this was all being blown out of proportion, but she knew her Dad was right. They had better chances of beating someone who wanted a physical fight than they did of an unknown disease. They’d been through hell before, and they could all do it again.

“And I love you, Emma,” he said, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head before stepping back. “But we should get back now. Your mother has missed you something fierce. Best to give her as much time as possible tonight so she doesn’t start stalking you tomorrow.”

With a shared laugh, Emma and her father headed back to the living room where everyone was seated. With one last kiss to her father’s cheek she took her spot by Killian on the couch. Immediately his hand found hers and she felt so at peace, and though she knew her parents eyes were watching her closely over the next hour of the party, Emma didn’t care. She knew they had their approval and best wishes, and that was perfect as far as she was concerned.

“You know, Ems, I don’t think you’ve given Killian a proper tour,” Anna said, the mischievousness of her intention seeping through in her tone.

“Well technically I haven’t given Ruby or Granny one either,” Emma quipped, expecting the subject to drop when she did, but it seemed not only Anna was in on this little attempt.

“Actually your Mother showed me around earlier,” Granny said with a wry smile.

“And I have the witchy all-seeing thing happening so I don’t really need tours,” Ruby said. Emma looked at them all, waiting to see if any of them would break, but they all stood strong, unyielding in their want to give Emma and Killian alone time.

“Right, well we’re all still visiting. Killian can look around any time. It’s not like he’s going anywhere,” Emma insisted and it was her mother who interjected.

“We know that, but still it would be rude not to give him the tour, honey. Go on – it won’t take you long and I’d hate to have to ask your father to do it.”

“Hey! I give great tours,” her father insisted and though Emma agreed she hopped up immediately, not wanting to subject Killian to an undisclosed amount of time with her Dad if they didn’t have to.

“Of course you do, Charming.”

“Quick, before they hurt themselves with the plotting on our behalf,” Emma whispered to Killian who chuckled aloud as he rose with her, following her out of the living room and towards the rest of the house.

“It’s crazy how one second they’re testing us and the next they’re trying to get us alone,” Killian mused as they walked through the study and then her parents’ library on the first floor. “I hardly know what to expect at any given moment.”

“I wish I could say that will change, but with my family it probably won’t. I love them, but they just love to meddle. It’s in their blood.”

“Which technically means it’s in your blood too, love, yet I never seem to see you interfering in such ways.”

“Maybe I just haven’t had the chance yet,” Emma said, pulling Killian towards the stairs so they could see upstairs. The action made her heart flutter. She’d never actually had a guy up here before, and all through her teen years she’d thought about it. Other kids were sneaking away with high school sweethearts, but Emma felt like she could never even try. Her parents were vigilant with a capital V and because of that Emma always knew it was best to play things safe. “Who knows, maybe when Elsa or Anna find someone I’ll be just as involved.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt that, love,” Killian said with a grin. “So this room was yours then.”

“How could you tell?” Emma joked, what with the girlish white canopy over the bed and the pale yellow color on the walls. There were also all sorts of books, most of them about animals, and trophies from her days running track and cross country.

“It feels like you here,” Killian said definitively. He moved forward, looking about on the tops of her dressers and tables. He gazed at every picture and item that she’d kept here. It was kind of a time capsule here, with the person she was at eighteen essentially frozen in place while still being surrounded by items from her younger days. But where she could have been embarrassed, she found she was totally comfortable with Killian seeing all of this.

“Did your room at home feel like you?” Emma asked, curious about his life abroad. She knew a lot about it, about the running and yet also how Killian felt safe there for so long. But she never asked for details like that, and she found herself now wondering what a snapshot into Killian’s youth would have looked like.

“It did to an extent. But it never held much significance to me. The house was important. It was the place my mother made for us, but my room… well I haven’t thought of it in a long time.”

“Sorry to bring up bad memories,” Emma whispered and Killian turned, approaching her and taking her hand in his.

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Emma. The memories aren’t bad, not all of them. If anything you’re doing me a favor.” She looked into his eyes, searching for clarification. “You remind me that so much of my past was good, despite everything, and that as lost and broken as I’ve felt, I had everything I needed before. I have memories just as worth preserving as the ones worth forgetting.”

Emma felt a surge of pride at Killian’s words, not just because she was proud of him and his growth since they’d met, but also because she was happy she was making a difference in his life. Killian deserved to have the best and to access the good that he’d seen without the pain of the bad that had taken much of it away. If she helped him to rejoice in what was in any way she was overjoyed, and as he took her more fully into his arms, his hands drawing gentle but thrilling that feeling only grew stronger.

“So I hate to ask, but I can’t seem to help myself. Did you ever… I mean did anyone ever…”

“The only guests in this room were my family and Anna and Elsa,” Emma said, understanding what his question was going to be. She couldn’t help but smile at his jealousy of a boy who never existed, and when he looked so relieved at her confession she laughed aloud. “Tragically this room never saw much action.”

“Well we could change that, love,” Killian said, his eyes moving from hers down to her mouth. She could see the hunger there in his gaze, and as she watched him wet his own lips her heart fluttered and the gnawing sense of want low in her gut grew louder and louder. “We could pretend, just for a few moments, that our pasts aren’t what they were. We could pretend we’d met sooner, that we’d found each other all those years ago.”

“And let me guess, you’d have been the kind of boy who climbed up terraces to get the girl?” Emma asked, her voice going breathy as Killian’s hands moved across her body. She took a few steps towards the bed, and Killian immediately followed.

“If you were the lass up in the tower then yes, I’d have been exactly that kind of boy.”

Emma allowed herself to imagine what it would have been like. As a man Killian was gorgeous, and she knew as a teen he’d have stolen her breath away. The attraction they had now would still have been there, if just a little more awkward and bumbling. But it was a beautiful dream, to think of finding one’s soul mate so soon. She found herself craving that fantasy, and she pulled him down for a kiss to live it out if only for a moment. The two of them tumbled to the bed, but Emma noticed how quiet the action was, no doubt thanks to Killian’s shifter graces. It turned her on to no end, and she began to lose herself, forgetting where they were and why they were here. All she knew was she wanted Killian and she never wanted to let go. She wrapped herself around him, and lost all track of time. He always took her to this totally new place, and tonight was really no exception.

“I think we would have had a real problem if the fantasy were true, love,” Killian said when he finally pulled back from the delicious moment they were having. The words confused her and she blinked up at him only to find him smiling down at her thoughtfully, his fingers running through her hair as he gazed down at her. “I suspect I would have been here far too often. With an enticement like you up in this tower, nothing could have kept me away.”

“I’m sure my father would have loved that,” Emma joked and Killian grinned, his eyebrows wagging mischievously as he pulled her back up to a standing position and quickly straightened out the scene of the crime. He helped her pull her dress back to where it should be and then adjusted his shirt accordingly.

“Speaking of, I believe your father’s patience is wearing thin. I can hear pacing downstairs. What do you say we put him out of his misery?”

“Good call,” Emma agreed, taking one last look at her room and then accepting Killian’s hand as they headed back to the hallway. “But this is not over.”

“No it most certainly is not,” Killian agreed, pressing one last kiss to her lips before they descended the stairs and returned to the rest of the group who all gave them knowing looks. Killian remained unfazed by them, but Emma could feel a blush creeping over her cheeks. Still, she took her seat again on the couch, unwilling to let the attention get to her.

“Did you two have a nice time?” her mother asked and Emma tried to respond but Killian took the reins for her.

“We did. You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Nolan, one that’s clearly housed a remarkable life for your children.”

“Well thank you, Killian,” her mother said, clearly touched by the compliment. “That’s very sweet. I’m sure you and Emma will do the same someday soon.”

Emma inhaled so sharply that she almost started choking on air, but her mother’s grand statement had been even more badly timed for her father, who was taking a sip of his night cap. He began coughing immediately, his eyes almost bugging out of his head at the comment, but where everyone else looked concerned, Emma’s mother was not. “Oh come on, David. I was just teasing. I know they’ll do things in their own time. No one’s rushing anyone.”

“Good,” her Dad said when he finally caught his breath. “But please, let’s keep all future ‘teasing’ to moments when I’m not drinking, shall we?”

Everyone laughed and her mother agreed. “Sounds like a deal, Charming. Now why don’t you come sit down with me? I just convinced Ruby and Elsa and Anna that we should play some sort of game and I know how much you love charades. You can be on my team.”

Emma’s father smiled and moved across the room, but before he reached her mother a knock sounded at the door. Immediately the shifters went on red alert, and Emma guessed that Granny and Ruby had fallen into the same sense of comfort that Killian was prone to while in Storybrooke. It was hard to take shifters off guard, and with Ruby it should be even harder, but it had been done just now to none of their liking. Her Dad, however, didn’t seem worried in the slightest as he moved to the entryway. Only when he’d opened the door did she hear his inhale of breath and immediately Emma looked to see who it was, not believing her eyes when her gaze landed on the unannounced guest. She blinked a few times, stunned into silence and spell bound by the scene before her. There was no way. Like seriously, no way.

“Oh David,” the woman said, her voice filled with emotion and her big eyes filled with tears. “It’s really you. I found you. I finally found you.”

Instinctively, Emma’s mother stood up, moving to her Dad as the woman pushed forward and hugged him close and when she did, their new arrival was obscured from Emma’s vision. In that moment Emma told herself there was no chance that this could be who she thought it was. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her, but when they pulled back Emma saw her again and she knew she wasn’t mistaken. While this woman had never been here in all her life, Emma had seen this woman before, in a photo on her Dad’s desk at the clinic. But though so many years had passed since that photograph was taken, this woman stood here truly untouched by time. Somehow a ghost from the past was here with them tonight, and Emma was unable to fathom how anything like this could possibly be happening.

“Emma, love, who is that?” Killian asked, his voice on edge and his hands on her in a protective hold. She looked back to him, sensing his panic and his dislike for this uncertainty, and she reached for him, still not knowing what to say. She turned back to the rest of the room, and she found that the others were also looking at her for an answer, but Emma felt like hers couldn’t possibly be right. Still she said it aloud, hearing how crazy it sounded, but knowing despite all reason that her guess was correct.

“I think… I think it’s my grandmother.”

Post-Note: So I’m guessing most of you are looking at the screen you’re reading this on thinking ‘uh, what did she just say?’ and honestly that makes a lot of sense. This is a pretty out of left field thing, but I’ve known since the beginning that David’s story and his family aren’t as cut and dry as they’ve seemed. Not only do they have hunter lore and that background, but there are other things clearly at play if his Mom can potentially be back here. For those of you who don’t recall (and who aren’t going to read through thirteen chapters for Easter eggs), all we’ve heard of about Ruth was that she’s in a photo on David’s desk and that she reportedly died in childbirth. But not to worry, next chapter will address those questions of what the heck is happening, and you’ll see how this story line fits into other ones I have been weaving together throughout the story up to now. Anyway thanks so much for reading, and I really hope that you’ve enjoyed!

Tag list: @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @resident-of-storybrooke @snowbellewells @winterbaby89 @teamhook @ultraluckycatnd @colifer-oncer @artistic-writer @allofdafandoms-blog @eastside-divebar @snarkycaptainswan4

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berryherbist · 6 years ago

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So I just finished The Savior’s Champion by Jenna Moreci and

It...wasn’t good. In my opinion.

Well, I technically didn’t finish now, but this was what I sent my friend right after I finished reading it. It’s not a genuine review, mostly just things I felt right after I finished (and still do tbh). I felt like sharing it though so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I might do a more in depth review later, but I’ll just post this for now.

I wanna preface this by saying there’s nothing wrong with liking this book, and I’m not judging anyone who does, it just...wasn’t good. Also, there are spoilers ahead

Alright leggo

Honestly?? Honestly??? Where do I begin?? Specifics or the overall book?? Either way it was b a d. Okay I guess to start, I feel like this whole book was a waste of time. Not in the "I hated it I wish I hadn't read it sort of way" though. I just felt like it was a set up for the second book. Like yeah, it technically had its own plot, but literally nothing was resolved and there were no answers to major questions. I was hoping to get /something/ by the end of the book, but it just raised even more questions and half of what happened didn't make sense after that ending. And it has absolutely no right to be as long as it is. There are so many parts that are unmemorable or useless, ngl I had trouble remembering half of the book.I feel like every scene or exchange between characters should either move the plot along or develop the characters more, and that hardly e v e r happened. A lot of Tobias' dialogue was just to show how much better he is than the other people in the tournament. Like, Orion and some of the others were decent, but Tobias was like the Golden Child of this whole thing. Like he couldn't ever do anything wrong. Even if he did fuck up or make a bad decision he ended up being right. Jenna shows obvious favoritism towards her two main characters and everyone else fades into the background so much they can hardly be considered shadows.I mean, she has how many characters and how fleshed out are they? Tobias and Leila are hardly fleshed out and don't change at all from their first to last appearance. I guess you could say Delphi is kind of developed, but even then we don't see too much of her. She's got a very tropey personality and most of her appearances are to connect Tobias and Leila.And I couldn't even be sad at any of the character deaths!! I can't even remember half of their names, let alone their personalities. I literally had to go back and reread the contestant's names (Raphael who?? Neil who??). I was disappointed at Orion's death, but not /sad/. It was more like a "damn, you're one of the few characters I don't hate reading about and now you're gone." And those characters hardly get a backstory. Again I know the book doesn't revolve around them but damn, if you're going to include this many characters don't just make them accessories to your mains.(She's got portraits/art for so many of her characters but they don't even have a story hdrasfjh. if you're going to go through the trouble getting official designs for them give them official backgrounds maybe??)Now moving on to individual characters...just...fuck...fuck I hate Tobias and Leila so much.First of all they're so fucking stupid. So fucking stupid. Especially Tobias. Why can't they just keep it in their pants and focus on things that are actually important? Like the tournament?? Or whatever the fuck Leila is doing?? Or the fact that they're being so obvious?? I didn't like Flynn but I agreed with him more times than I did with Tobias. At least Flynn understood it was a competition. Yeah, he was arrogant and was there for very selfish reasons, but damn he actually had his head on straighter than Tobias. If anything Jenna's most fleshed out character was Flynn. He showed both bravery and cowardice, he had his own goals and personality, and despite the fact he threatened to betray Tobias, he was basically loyal in the end. Aside from when the Sovereign ordered Flynn to kill him but like. Can you blame him? Also, if I found out that one of the people I was competing against didn't even want the "prize" (I don't like referring to the Savior as that but that's basically what she is adkjfadjdla) that I could possibly lose my life over than yeah I'm going to be pissed??

Tobias is just a Gary Stu. He's handsome, a "good man," selfless, talented, loved by many, and always talks about how fucked up and corrupted the competition is, as if other people don't know that?? I'm also pissy at how good he was at fighting. The boy has 0 experience except for the time he trained with Leila but he was able to kill the Giant, Drake, and Kaleo. I guess you could argue that he was fueled by rage or whatever, but against trained assassins?? I don't think so.And then Leila. Fuckign Leila. She was so boring. SO so boring. Basically just a female Tobias. Pretty, good at fighting, smart, and independent, with almost no flaws whatsoever, if any. Maybe you could count her being secretive as a flaw, but Tobias had literally no right to know what she was up to or any of her secrets. He obviously doesn't understand what goes on between politicians and other aspects of the tournament (or whatever Brontes is doing?? idk man) but he still demands Leila tell him anyway. Anyway, there's nothing intriguing about Leila at all. Get those two together and it's just cardboard on cardboard. They're so boring, and all they ever talk about is how much they "love" each other. I know Jenna was probably trying to hide the instant romance in TSC but they still only had thirty days to fall in love. And maybe it's just me but none of it felt real. SO much of it just felt like lust (how many times did we have to read about wet dreams or them grinding on each other like adhskja).As for her villains?? I honestly think I liked them more than her main characters. I mean, they weren't developed at all but I couldn't hate them just because they were dicks.Kaleo, for example. He's an asshole. Just a real mean fucker. Yeah, I didn't like how arrogant and unnecessarily cruel he was, but because he had no backstory or clear motives throughout the whole book I was just waiting on a reason to really hate him. The same thing goes for Cosima. We spend the whole book thinking she's the Savior, so I always thought a lot of her behavior was due to never having a mother and only being raised by her father (who I thought was just very protective at first tbh). But still, I don't even know how to describe her. Not quite bitchy but not the nicest either. Selfish maybe? Like, when Raphael was bitten or whatever she let the judging go on. Fake? How she flirted with all of the contestants. Ngl though I felt kinda bad, because she's the one who wasn't allowed to choose who she got to marry. (Kinda unrelated but Tobias always complained that men died for her and yeah it's fucked up but?? That's the competition?? and even though she's the Savior I doubt she could just be like "lmao nah let's not do this." He likes to act all righteous and good but he doesn't know wtf he's talking about lol). Or just gross, when she started groping and kissing Tobias when he obviously didn't want it? And it wasn't until the very end of the book that we started seeing those parts of her. When it's revealed that Leila is the actual Savior it was like, "okay, I'm supposed to hate her because she took advantage of acting as the Savior, and she betrayed one of the main characters. I see why she's an antagonist now." But it felt so cheap. Kaleo and Cosima were just there to make Tobias and Leila look better by comparison.

Did the people close to Tobias even matter??? Okay, so we had Milo, who was annoying af. I was lowkey happy when he died because I wouldn't have to read about him any more, but I also just. Couldn't care. Yeah he was Tobias' best friend but there wasn't a lot about him. And Tobias seemed to bicker with him more than anything tbh.His sister and mom were just kind of?? Forgotten after awhile?? His sister was the reason he entered the competition but soon enough everything was for Leila. He was fighting for Leila. He wanted to protect Leila. Leila was literally the only thing ever on his mind. Gaining a new motivation is one thing, but forgetting the people closest to you and focusing on girl you've known for a month is messed up. He was even about to leave with Leila to the forest at the very end. If I recall correctly Leila was the one to suggest going to their home. He was willing to just leave them in favor of running away with Leila.

Brontes was such a cut out villain it h u r t (also fuck the official pronunciation of his name imma say it how I please). Old dude in position of power after more power (and we still don't know why) who has an obvious hatred toward the main character and is trying to sabotage him. Wowza. I'm so intrigued.I also h a t e how Jenna made it obvious who we were supposed to like and who we were supposed to hate. We need to hate Kaleo because he's a dick, we need to like Tobias because he's a nice guy. There was no depth to a n y of these characters. I'm not saying antagonists need to be a likable person, but they should be able to be appreciated as a character. I didn't like any of the antagonists in Gentlemen Bastards, but I at least found them interesting, and clever in some way. They were awful people, but they didn't give off that "high school bully" vibe that Jenna's antagonists did.There's nothing to differentiate the characters aside from whether they were "good" or "evil." There's no diversity in their mannerisms or the way they speak. Brontes, who's a royal, speaks the same way Tobias, a peasant, does. Also, you could tell me that Brontes and the contestants are all the same age and I'd believe you.Again kinda unrelated and it's not a book but like, in Boku no Hero Academia a lot of the villains have likable (and different!!!!) personalities and I actually enjoy them *cough* Dabi *cough* so it's not impossible.This might be just me nitpicking but I've got a problem with the way Jenna portrays Pippa. In her videos she claims that Pippa has development issues?? (like all of her characters lol) or something like that. As in she doesn't act her age. And idk if it was her intention but I really hope that that wasn't an attempt at diversity or anything. You can't claim diversity or representation in a book if you need to clarify outside of the book.

Fuck in g world building. There. Was. None. Of. It.Here's what I know about the world:

1.) There are multiple kingdoms (can't remember the name of Tobias' tbh)

2.) The first Savior brought success or peace or goodness or whatever to his Kingdom and is now seen as a Goddess, essentially.

3.) There's a brutal tournament to choose her husband when she comes of age

Other than that we don't know anything about the world or their society. What kind of customs do they have? What's their language like? I'm not saying she needs to give us every single detail of their world, but there are so many gaps that the reader has to fill in, and it feels so goddamn generic. You've got your royals, your peasants, your armies. Apparently it's like a greco-roman thing? But I wouldn't be able to get that from the book. I don't even have a lot to say on world building aside from the fact that it's just not there asejgfaldksfh. Alright alright the pacing of the book pisses me tf off.So the start wasn't too bad, the prologue has the Savior's mother being assassinated, and it doesn't take too long for Tobias to enter the tournament, and we get to the Labyrinth quickly enough, but after that there's a ton of up and down. For example the challenge that's like. Capture the flag or something like that. I hardly remember it, and you could tell moments like that were only so Jenna had an excuse to kill of another character that wasn't important. But then there were moments with Leila and Tobias that just dragged on and on, like their conversations or their time in the art gallery, and they weren't even interesting conversations. Nothing to move the plot along or reveal much about the characters. I guess you could say that it was to further develop their relationship, but I just felt like that's the only reason why they existed. I didn't feel like there was chemistry between two individuals, just two characters that were being forced to love each other.Again, not a book, but imma take Jake and Amy from Brooklyn 99 for example (I wanna use Percy and Annabeth but it's been like seven years since I've read it and I'd probably butcher their story lol). Anyway, Jake and Amy are easily their own person, and they're both really different, but they both have their own goals and they both admire each other for different reasons. They help each other grow, both inside and outside their relationship, and they're better people because of each other. Leila and Tobias don't have that. It takes pages and pages of dialogue, and moments where they are the only two interacting, to try and convince the reader that they're right for each other. Chemistry between characters shouldn't be forced through romantic or intimate situations. The reader needs to believe that the characters as individuals are good for each other. I don't know if I'm making a lot of sense here aeskjfh.

Okay but back to pacing. The ending was just. So forced. And so rushed. And did absolutely n o t h i n g for TSC. In the very last pages we find out that Leila is the Savior and Cosima was just a face, but?? Why?? What was the point of withholding all of that information until the end if we're not going to get anything out of it. You could argue that we're going to learn more in the second book, but that's just bad writing imo. Obviously you're not going to get all of your questions answered in the first book of a series, but there should be some sort of closure at the end of an individual book, and we don't get that. The reader is left in the dark about everything at the end of TSC. We don't know anything, or understand what's going on. Imma just. complain about the fuckign part where Tobias is taken by Kaleo and Brontes. First of all, cheesy and lazy as fuck. I feel like that was just a way for Jenna to tell the reader what Brontes' plan was, or to further show how much of a dick they are, even though we already know. Also, just the whole being tortured thing. Really?? How many times have I seen that before??And then the w a y it ended. I was so disappointed. Aside from the fact that the last challenge/the maze felt rushed, the fight between Kaleo, Tobias, and Flynn was so boring and cliche. The way Flynn and Tobias worked together to defeat Kaleo. How Tobias was able to take down this ruthless assassin ("Fuck your parting words" afsdwkjld). And then what happened after Leila was revealed as the Savior, when they decide to go to his home. I honestly thought that the ending was just the end to another chapter and there would be another left. I turned the page and I was like, "Huh. So that's it then." I wasn't left feeling excited or looking forward to what happens next. I was disappointed and felt a little cheated. I spent all of this time following Tobias and Leila on their journey and I got nothing out of it, besides a forced romance. Also, I'm kinda just repeating myself here, but finding out that Leila is the Savior gives us some explanation for her behavior and actions, but now I wanna know wtf Cosima was for?? And why she was allowed to do that in the first place?? Like, I know Brontes wants to kill her, but why would Brontes let Cosima pretend to be the Savior. My guess is that Brontes would be able to kill Leila, the actual Savior, without creating chaos in the kingdom, but I don't know.

There is so much miscommunication/lack of communication in this story and I'm hte fuckign.There could've been so many questions answered throughout the book. I know I said Tobias has no right to know about Leila's plans, but she could've said something other than "it's complicated" or "you wouldn't understand." How many times did that happen?? Right when I thought we might learn something Leila would go on to say that Tobias couldn't find out, or something would come up and she would have to leave before she could tell him anything. This might've been able to work once, MAYBE twice, but it happened so often that I knew those kinds of scenes were useless and wouldn't provide us with anything, so it took whatever suspense was supposed to be there away.You could argue that because TSC is written in third person limited Tobias wouldn't know all of the secrets to the tournament and the government or whatever, but the way Jenna revealed things was so cheap. He suddenly gets an explanation from Leila at the very end, and Brontes and Kaleo capture him and tell him what their plan is. It would've been so much more interesting if Tobias took small things he learned here and there and pieced it together himself, or at least had some theories. Instead he focuses on Leila this, Leila that, why won't Leila tell me anything. All he does is brood and complain and it's so goddamn old.It kinda felt like the, "And then I woke up and realized it was all a dream" explanation.

I also really, really hate the way she treated her LGBT characters, aside from Dephi, she was decent. But she used the “kill you gays” trope. I’m not saying they needed to stay alive, I understand most of them were going to die, but she killed off one of them and then completely got rid of the other.

And then Kaleo. From what I can tell he’s bisexual.Which is obviously not a bad thing, but he wasn’t just a perv, he was disgusting and invasive, and even worse threatened to sexually assault assault Tobias, which feeds into the idea that bisexual people are just predators and want to fuck everything (Idk if I’m being clear about this hhh)

But yeah that’s all for now y’all

#mine #should I tag this? I feel like I shouldn't #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#the savior's champion #tsc #book review #kind of lol #the saviors champion review #tsc review #also if y'all wanna give me your thoughts they are def welcome

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honeybee-hannahh · 6 years ago

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Without you | Calum Hood

Summary: Calum helps you clean up your childhood house, after your mom passes away.

Warnings: Mentions death of a parent.

Word Count: 2k

Author’s note: Flash backs are in italics.

“Am I speaking with Lisa’s daughter?” a cold voice asked from the other end of a phone call “yes this is her, can I ask who is calling?” you asked hesitantly “I am your mother’s doctor here at Penrose Hospital in California, we are calling to inform you that your mother's condition has worsened and we think it would be best if you came in so we could talk about the next step.” your stomach dropped you immediately knew what he meant, while she hadn't been sick for long, you knew she wasn’t getting any better but you never expected it to happen this fast.

You were there the day she passed away, in the bleak hospital room, surrounded by a few friends. No longer sure if she could still hear you, but you always stayed. You watched as she took her last breath. It had been less than two months, since you had found out she was sick. You never knew just how sick she was until the day you came home and found her passed out barely breathing. Your breathing stopped as you raced for your phone dialing 911 before you even had a second thought. And now less than two months later she was gone. Just like that everything changed.

Death comes as a shock, and is almost never expected in someone who is only 48 years old. You spent the next month in bed, hardly moving to shower or eat, unless Calum forced you to. You felt empty, numb, everyday felt like a thousand without her. You never thought that at 21 you would be motherless.

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” Calum asked squeezing your hand lightly “you can take a few more days love.” you close your eyes taking a deep breath, it had been a month since you had been outside of the house Calum and you shared “no I’m ready, I need to do this.” you took a step towards the front door of your childhood house, your hands shaking as you reached for your keys to unlock the bright red door. You stood in the doorway of the house, letting the memories rush back to you.

*7 years ago* “Calum did you take my phone?” you yelled tearing the living room apart, all you could hear as a response was him laughing which was more than you needed to hear, to know that he had taken it. You rolled your eyes walking into the kitchen “Jason said he can’t wait to see you again, sweetheart.” he mocked sticking his tongue out. “Not funny Cal,” you reached for your phone taking it out of Calum's hands. “Ew why is it so warm?” you yelled almost dropping it onto the kitchen counter, Calum laughed holding his sides, “you did not put it down your pants again.” he shrugged “you’re so gross.” you yelled lunging for him.

You could feel the tears start to well in your eyes, Calum lightly placed his hand on your shoulder snapping you out of your thoughts. “Are you okay?” he questioned “yeah, - yeah sorry, I just we have so many memories here. I mean I grew up in this house, my whole childhood is within these walls,” you took a few steps inside running your hand along the wall it had been almost a year since you were here last “I fell in love with you inside this house.” You stopped walking to turn and look at Cal who had been looking at the pictures that were hanging on the walls now covered in a thin layer of dust. “You will always have these memories my love, they will always be with you when you need them the most. Just like your mom will always be with you from now on, she’ll always be right by your side. ” he wrapped his arms around your shoulders holding you tightly against his chest, you let your head loll back against him, allowing yourself to relax for a moment. “Do you remember when we bought jiffy pop and burned it on the shove,” he asked, you let a soft laugh fall from your lips “I had never seen your mom so mad before, the house smelt like burnt popcorn all night.” “You know she never let me cook popcorn on the stove after that night, i honestly don’t think she trusted me to cook ever again.” You smiled thinking back at the fond memories that this house held.

You ran your hand along the smooth wall of your childhood bedroom, the bright blue paint was cool to the touch, you begged your mom when you were 13 to paint it anything other than the god awful hot pink color it had been.

“Mom please I’m a teenager now and I don’t like pink anymore it’s such a baby color and I want to have a cool room, please pretty please.” you must have begged her on end for weeks before she agreed to finally let you paint your room blue. You never knew there were so many different shades of blue, the first day you both went to the paint store you couldn’t pick one single color, you must have come home with at least 10 different shades of blue. “Cal do you think deep sky blue or do you think cornflower would look better?” you had narrowed it down to your two favorite shades, “I think they look exactly the same.” he mumbled distracted by the video game he was currently playing, you lightly pushed his shoulder, “pick one please I can’t make up my mind.” You pouted handing him the paint samples. “Cornflower.” he said simply before turning his attention back to the video game.

You sat down on the cold wood floor opening the drawer to your night stand, you started filling the box next to you with memories you pulled out a large stack of polaroids, letting the memories of unforgettable nights flood your mind. Countless notebooks filled with poems, and stories of how you thought my life would be, books you started to write but never finished. You closed the first box placing the tape along the top. Calum knocked lightly on the door, making you jump slightly, “I found something I think you’ll want to see.” he gave you a small smile and offered his hand helping you up. “I was wrapping up the pictures from the living room and I found these.” he handed you a stack of cards, your breath caught in your throat, you knew what they were, it was every card your mom had written you from my first birthday all the way up until your most recent 21st birthday, you moved back towards the couch collapsing completely, letting your tears fall freely for the first time that day. “I can’t believe she kept them all.” Your voice was hardly a whisper as your body shook. Calums strong arms wrapped around you, holding you as if he was trying to put all your pieces back together. “Every year she would make sure to mail my card to our house so that I would feel special, when it came. When I moved out she refused to send me a card, told me that I could have it the next time I saw her, I always thought she just wanted to see me more. I didn’t know she was keeping them this whole time.” Your hands shook as you opened each card, almost as if you were scared that the wrong touch would cause the cards to fall apart in your hands, You carefully read and reread each message that was perfectly handwritten in cursive. Calum’s hand lightly wiped the tears from my cheeks.

“I think that was the last box love.” Calum said walking towards you, “it’s so empty, Cal.” Your legs dangle over the edge of the island, eyes scanning the bare room, that once held so much life and joy but now only held sadness of what used to be. You watched Calum as he walked around the now empty kitchen, taking everything in as if he was trying to commit every detail to memory, this might have been your childhood house but Calum spent so much time here when you both were kids, it’s almost like his second home. It can be hard to make a house feel like a home, but your mom never failed to welcome every single person into her home. You still remember when you told her about Calum and yourself dating, you had never seen her so happy, she always thought that Calum was the kindest and most respectful young man. He will always treat you right, I know he will, she told you the first time she saw Calum and yourself together she told you the way she knew he loved you, was in the way that he looked at you, even when you were just simply talking. He never takes his eyes off of you, she told you.

Calum and you stood outside of your childhood house for the second time that day. The moving van had long left, filled with boxes of clothes, books, pictures, and other various items that you had found while cleaning out the old house. Calum's arm was lightly draped around your shoulder as him and you stood there. You smiled as a tear ran down your cheek, “I miss her,” the tears burned your tired eyes as you ran your hand through your hair, “god, I thought I was ready for this. I thought I was ready for everything to change, I’m not ready to accept that she’s actually gone.” you let out a shaky breath. “She was such an amazing person, she would have given you the shirt off of her back, she always had a way of making people listen and understand what she was saying. It’s not fair that, it’s not fair that she’s gone.” you shook my head “It should have been me.” you mumbled, Calum moved standing in front of you, lifting your chin lightly so that you looked him in the eyes. “No it shouldn’t have been, it’s hard to see that right now, I know the guilt of surviving when you think you could have done so much more is overwhelming. But you did everything you could have done, you spent more time in her hospital room and with her doctors that you did at home. You did everything you could do and more.” “It doesn’t feel like I did, I feel like I could have done something else.” You looked down at your hands, playing with the ring on your right index finger. “It’s okay to feel that way right now, but you have to understand that you did everything possible to help her.” Calum said reaching for your hand, giving it a soft squeeze. In that moment it was almost as if time had frozen, the way everything stood still,the wind stopped blowing and not a single car passed as we stood outside the house. You don’t know how you got so lucky as to have Calum in your life. He was your best friend from the first moment you met him, he had stayed with you though so much never giving up on you or us for that matter. You don’t know where or even if you would be here without him but one thing that you knew for sure was that your mom was right when she said Calum loved you.

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arofili · 7 years ago

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Aro Kel Masterpost

ETA: I wrote a fic about aro!Kel/Dom, read that if you want ;)

After Tamora Pierce revealed that Kel is aro, I was elated. To finally have representation of any kind, especially from an author and a character I really love, felt so good. Now, it’s not really good representation - I would have preferred to have it explicit and there from the beginning, but this is still incredible for me. So, naturally, this new information spurred me to reread the Protector of the Small series with Kel’s aromanticism in mind, and I unearthed a whole lot of interesting things.

A lot of this was fairly obvious, but much of it was subtext, and there’s still a lot of parts of Kel’s love life that required a bit of effort to see as part of her arospec experience, but I would say that she reads as pretty darn aromantic to me now. In this post, I’ve compiled a bunch of quotes/scenes (mostly paraphrased, sorry) and thoughts about Kel’s aromanticism and how it was portrayed in the books.

This post has been more than a year in the making, mostly because I’m lazy as fuck, but I finally managed to finish it up for @aggressivelyarospec week 2018! Also, the wonderful podcast @tortallrecall is coming up on Kel’s arc soon, and I hope they’ll discuss Kel’s aromanticism, so I wanted to provide an aro person’s opinion on Kel being aro for them to have as a resource if they want to use it :)

Overall: I don't think Tamora Pierce wrote the series meaning for Kel to be aro, because I doubt she would have included the “romance” with Neal, Cleon, or Dom, though that is still justifiable with her being aro [see my explanations below], but I think that she did write it with her being less interested in romance than her peers and Pierce’s other heroines and I think she very intentionally gave Kel a happy ending without romance. And so looking back, the aro label fits. She is definitely arospec, and I am delighted to read about an aromantic character.

First Test

There’s a part where Neal is being all dramatic and talking about the glory of knighthood, but Kel says something along the lines of “Well, sure, but being sung about will take a lot of hard work”. Neal responds, “You aren’t a bit romantic, are you?” and I know that it’s a different kind of “romantic” in this context but also PUNS!

“she'd had experiences with crushes—none her own, of course”

I know Kel is 10 at this point, but also, that is exactly what I was thinking at age 10.

Whenever Cleon fake flirts with her, she's so exasperated and amused. At one part he says he'll pine for her until she returns and she thinks “He'll pine and I'm a holly bush”.

And she's always so sympathetic about Roald's arranged marriage. And sure, anyone could be because they’re not ~in love~ but Kel just seems really sympathetic about marriage in general.

Neal has a crush on Daine in this book, which I had forgotten about, and Kel is so exasperated every time he talks about it. She consoles him, but she's so confused and amused by his feelings.

Page

So here we get to the part where 11-year-old Kel thinks she likes Neal. It’s funny, because it happens at the same time when Neal has a crush on Uline of Hannalof, so I think there’s definitely an argument for her reacting of jealousy. She definitely has some feelings for him, but I don’t think they’re quite romantic, and she doesn’t understand them. At least, that’s how I’m choosing to read it.

And she keeps making fun of him about his feelings, and the part where she and her friends all get together to sing him a sappy love song is really funny.

Also, she keeps complaining to Lalasa that he won’t actually do anything about his feelings. Even when she thinks she has a crush on him, she’s annoyed by romance.

@buffintruda and I were talking about this, and I wondered how we hadn’t thought of Kel being aro before the announcement, and they said something I think is very true:

Too be fair, for me at least, the last time I read her books was before I knew I was aro, and her relationships and crushes deterred me from considering it, even though now that you point them out, they're pretty weak and aro-y

At some point in the story, Cleon’s fake flirting becomes real, but Kel doesn’t realize it. She still thinks he’s joking up until halfway through Squire. Even when he’s being really obvious and blushing and commenting on her appearance, she’s just confused as to why he keeps doing this and doesn’t even consider the idea that he could be sincere.

Honestly this is such a GEM of a quote. Like, same:

“I can flirt just as well as my gelding can dance”

When Kel is talking to Joren about how he’s “changed”, and he tells her that she should get married and her immediate response is “I don’t want to be married”. She does think of Neal, but it’s an afterthought. When I used to force myself to pretend to like someone, before I knew I was aro, I would do the same sort of thing - “I don’t want to marry anyone, ew! Wait, no, I would totally marry [insert fake crush here]...” It’s something she feels like she’s supposed to think, not something she actually feels.

Honestly, Kel’s whole crush on Neal is not really a big deal, even to her. She’ll pine over him when a situation comes up that makes her think about romance, and she’ll occasionally have that “heart flutter” thing, but it’s mostly them being great friends and she seems to forget she’s supposed to have a crush on him while she’s hanging out with him. This seems a lot more like a squish than a crush, at least to me.

So this isn’t technically related to Kel’s aromanticism, but I couldn’t leave it out. Before their third examinations, Kel and Neal talk about their friends and Neal says something like “I wouldn’t trade your friendship for anything”. Ahhh I was so emotional when I read that!! Their friendship is so good and heartwarming and beautiful that I wanted to cry!

Kel made a joke out of it, but it was really sweet and that moment was truly beautiful and relateable. It’s great to see strong friendships shown in books, even if one of the people thinks that they’re in love with the other one.

And in this scene, Kel didn’t think about her “crush” even once, even though it was a pretty intense moment for both of them.

Squire

When Kel finds out that Alanna wants Neal for her squire, she has this silly line about “I can’t not be his friend even if I can’t be his love” and Kel, please. That is far too melodramatic for you! This is so out of character it feels forced, which, if we view it through an aromantic lens, it probably is.

Aw yeah, Raoul is back! I love him. Another aro icon! @buffintruda and I couldn’t believe that we could imagine him as arospec, but totally overlook Kel!

When Kel joins the Own, she meets Dom! She’s wondering why Dom makes her feel all weird and “romantic” moreso than she ever felt for Neal, and I’m like... It’s because you’re making this all up! It’s amatonormativity and heteronormativity! Once you’re not around Neal, you forget you’re supposed to like him, so you find someone else to project your confusion and insecurity onto! You’re not “fickle”, you’re just a confused aromantic.

Kel wonders why “Lalasa never mentioned this”, and that’s pretty obvious. Lalasa is canonically in a relationship with her friend Tian...this girl is a lesbian.

“Who falls in and out of love in a summer?”

Probably someone who was never in love in the first place, Kel. This quote comes the next time that Kel sees Neal, and she realizes her romantic feelings are gone like they never were there in the first place.

“Were her feelings even real?”

Ding ding! Now you’re starting to get it!

Cleon is ridiculously awkward around Kel, and she is just as ridiculously oblivious of his feelings and exasperated by his flirting. (Relatable.) When he kisses her for the first time, she’s so shocked that she doesn’t know how to react which is a mood.

“They won’t be able to talk sense for weeks!”

When Yuki comes to Tortall, Kel makes fun of all the pages and squires for “falling in love” with her. She thinks “her messmates were romantic” in a way that totally excludes herself from that line of thought, because obviously she’s not romantic! That would be ridiculous!

“She hadn’t seen Cleon privately since that astonishing kiss. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to see him or never to see him again. She didn’t know which would be worse, finding that he’d done it on a dare or that he’d done it because he wanted to. Either meant a rat’s nest of problems.”

She liked the kiss, so we know she likes kissing, but that does not mean she isn’t aro. She doesn’t really want to like Cleon romantically. Unlike with Neal and Dom, she isn’t tricking herself into feeling something for Cleon; his feelings surprised her. “A rat’s nest of problems” is true not only politically, but also very much personally.

Tamora Pierce has also called Kel asexual at different times; this post is about her being aro, but there was one little ace thing I wanted to mention. When Kel meets George Cooper, she cannot figure out why Alanna is attracted to him; she only finds his eyes attractive. Kel is struggling to find anything attractive about him, and when has she ever before focused on the physical side of things when she’s forcing herself into liking someone? It isn’t something she even considers.

“Nice eyes hardly seemed to Kel like grounds for marriage.”

Yeah, well, for you it would be hard to find anything that would be grounds for marriage!

When Kel and Cleon (finally) talk about their first kiss, Cleon is trying to convince her that they should be in a relationship and Kel says something along the lines of “If people knew, they might not know it was friendly” and that’s literally the most aromantic thing I’ve ever heard. She is literally incapable of forming a reason why she would kiss someone outside of being friends. She likes kissing but doesn’t have romantic feelings.

In the same scene, she wants so badly to be interrupted by someone so she doesn’t have to deal with Cleon’s romantic advances. In the end they do get together, and some of this conversation was in jest, but Kel is truly terrified of romance and uncomfortable with her situation no matter how much she is genuinely fond of Cleon.

During the Progress, she talks to her mom about sex and Cleon. Her mom says, “you can choose if you want to have sex”, and Kel’s immediate response is “I don’t want to choose that!” Her reasoning is “I don’t want to be distracted”, “I just want my shield”, “I certainly don’t want babies” and if that ain’t the most aroace thing then I don’t know what is.

Shortly after this scene, Kel talks to Cleon, which goes something like this...

Cleon: Come down and let me hold you! Kel: No, you come up, and no holding.

Kel is terrified of sex but simultaneously struggling with her self-worth and wanting to be fuckable.

Once Kel and Cleon are officially together, their relationship is pretty romantic, which explains why I didn’t consider she could be aro at first. But even then, I see it as more that she enjoys Cleon’s company and the physical side of their relationship even though they never actually have sex. And the whole time, Cleon is so much more scared than Kel of the inevitable end of their relationship. Kel is much more practical and sees their relationship as doomed from the beginning.

Not related, but I love how Raoul and Buri’s relationship develops. They’re basically mutual beards and best friends. Buri’s such a lesbian, and Raoul is so aro!

When Kel first suggests that Raoul should ask Buri to go to his party with his aunt, she says that Buri “won’t get any romantic notions” which 1) shows how gay Buri is and 2) shows how Kel’s thought process about romance works.

This speaks for itself:

“She had decided years before that she was no prize on the romance market.”

There’s this lovely conversation while the Own is helping some town...

Kel: Why don’t people talk about hard work when it comes to war? All I hear about is glory. Dom: Pretty girls want to hear about glory, not work.

Kel wasn’t thinking about romance as a factor; she didn’t even consider it. While the Own is at Giantkiller, Kel completely forgets about her crush on Dom and it’s pretty much never brought up again.

Another gem of a quote:

“Kel thought asking her for wedding ideas was like asking a cat how to raise a horse, but she did her best.”

Kel and Cleon’s forbidden words are “love” and “marriage” and oh my god that is the most aro thing ever.

Lady Knight

There is so much less romance in this book! That’s great it in general, but it also really establishes Kel as aromantic because this is the book in which she becomes more sure of herself. She thinks about romance much less, which means there’s less things to specify how her reaction to romance proves her aro. I think it was at this point that Tamora Pierce decided that Kel wasn’t going to end up with a romantic partner at the end of her series.

On the way to the Scanran border, Neal and Roald are complaining about being separated from their fiancees, and Kel is so exasperated with them. She feels sorrier for Roald, but she approaches the whole subject with way too critical an eye to be alloromantic.

“She wanted love and children, too—someday.”

She thinks about Cleon, but it’s so distant. She’s imagining that she’ll feel different in the future, because that’s what’s supposed to happen to people, right? But she doesn’t really want love and children.

Kel’s thought of “romance was more pleasant than reality” proves that she doesn’t believe that finding romance is realistic. And as we know, Kel is practical above all.

“Friendship was there, but passion was gone.”

When Kel sees Cleon again after a few years of separation, everything she thought she had felt for him has disappeared. And multiple times she feels bad about not loving him anymore; that’s textbook aro guilt. She emphasizes that “she could still be his friend even if she couldn’t be his lover.” She isn’t at all surprised that she doesn’t love Cleon anymore. She expected this, and she’s relieved that she was right.

“She wanted no lovers until she had settled the Nothing Man’s account.”

Kel will look for any excuse to not have to deal with romance, and everything that justifies her lack of love will do.

“Beyond kisses, Cleon was her friend.”

This proves that she always saw Cleon mostly as a friend, just a friend she also liked to kiss. To aro people things like that aren’t always cut and dry; she likes to kiss but to her kissing is not a romantic action.

She’s relieved that Cleon isn’t trying to keep things going, because it would hurt too much for both of them and because she didn’t want to have to keep faking romantic love. She’s upset about the end of their relationship because change is hard, not because she wants Cleon. She understands that now and talks to Tobe about it. I’m so proud of her!! She’s coming to terms with herself.

At Haven, Kel sees Dom again and remembers that she had a crush on him, but it’s a minor afterthought after a paragraph of her considering their friendship. When he leaves, she misses his friendship and support and doesn’t even think about romance.

And finally, the second to last paragraph in the whole series all but makes aro Kel explicit representation:

“Lovers, Kel thought, rolling her eyes. At least there was one headache she didn’t have. She was about to tell her friend [Neal] he could wait when she remembered that she’d get to see Dom at Steadfast. It would be nice to able to sit and chat for a while without kidnapping, flight, and war to distract them.”

Sure, that could (and has been) interpreted as Kel’s crush on Dom continuing to manifest, but to me it shows her value of friendship, especially as it immediately follows her declaration that lovers are a headache.

In conclusion, my point at the beginning still stands: this is not necessarily good representation. Kel’s story was written without authorial consideration of her aromanticism. But it is representation. And to me, a queer who grew up reading Kel and identifying more with her than with any of Tamora Pierce’s other heroines, even post-canonical, Word of God revelations of Kel being aro matters a lot. This is especially relevant because of the void that is aro rep—I can only name one or two canon aromantic characters from popular media, and Kel is one of them.

An aromantic lens is required to see Kel’s aromanticism, but it is there. It means something. And even though this post has been like two years in the making, Kel still means a lot to me.

#aggressivelyarospecweek #aaw #tortallrecall #keladry of mindelan #aromantic #my meta #tefain nin #tortall #i wanted to write some fic for this week but i.....didnt rip

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evotter · 6 years ago

Note

jan, march, sept + one of your choice, love. have a great day, u icon

thank u kyra i adore u

january: what was the first fic you posted this year?

the first fic i posted this year TECHNICALLY was the epilogue of a different path. the first standalone was chewbacca (aka my introduction to the jily world once again and i have such a soft spot for it)

march: do you listen to music whilst writing?

yes! pretty much always; if it’s not music, it’s a TV show.

september: share a comment or review which still warms your heart?

quite literally anything you’ve left on any of my fics BUT there are a few that i hold dear to my heart. i’ll post them under the cut cause they are LONG :’)

ancient: the first fic you ever posted online?

hahahaaaaaaa. it was my own version of rick riordan’s the son of neptune before the actual book was published. it was on ff.net, and the first chapter got 7 reviews, and i felt so good about myself after that lmfao. who knew i’d still be writing 8 years later?

ask me questions!

OKAY so i have 3 top favorites:

from a different path:

okay so i had seen this in someone else’s bookmarks the other day, thought it was an interesting concept—especially since i too love slytherin!percy and strongly subscribe to ofswordsandpens’ headcanons about it—but didn’t give it another thought until i was listening to a video about the cursed child and went: wait, there’s a percabeth hogwarts au that i saw somewhere. and immediately i hunted this down and i’m just in awe? i tore through it. belatedly, i realized that i made a mistake: i didn’t write down my thoughts as i was reading, which is definitely a disservice to you. however, here are a generalized list of things that i loved.

first of all, with hogwarts au’s, there are three main aspects that i look for: plot, characterization, and quality of writing. normally, fics of this size lack one or more of these key factors, but i was astonished to find that the plot is tremendously tight and intriguing (my lip bled from biting it so much because i’ve been stressed to the max), you write these characters with such distinct voices i can easily picture them saying everything—except, of course, now in a little british accent—and your writing flows so well, it feels almost like i’m reading an actual harry potter book, just with percy and co. you also do a masterful job of weaving together aspects of the pjo universe with the established canon of hp.

and there are so many specific things that i love. primarily, the way you write the relationships in this story; not just concerning percabeth (though i will get to that in a minute), but also with each of the interactions between all of the characters. i applaud you for how you handled luke/annabeth and rachel/percy, and the friendship among them all is just incredibly well done. i especially love how well you wrote connor and zoë and just, a lot of characters that i don’t often think about when i think of pjo. grover and percy’s friendship especially is heartbreaking, i just. he’s so protective because he loves his friends and holy fuck i also love how you wrote grover in this. but i just adored how you wrote annabeth/percy—the love between them, both platonic in its early stages and the romantic all throughout, was doubly apparent. i ached when they kissed each other’s cheeks, and i inwardly cheered when she kissed him in the locker room. there was just such a natural progression, to me, of their relationship. and man did i dig it. i’m excited (and maybe a little scared) to see where you take their relationship in the future.

boy, this is getting long. sorry. but some more just little quick things: loved the b99 reference, with both of their competitive natures playing out in a similar way to jake and amy’s. i kind of want to go back and see if i can find any other references that i missed because i was just too engaged in the story to catch them. also, zoë’s death killed me all over again, thanks for that. i like how you’re working the kronos plot in, and i can’t wait to see how the Final Battle plays out. what else? oh! professor hestia? beautiful. eventual maybe professor percy? outstanding. percy kissing the top of annabeth’s head? breathtaking. rachel being a quidditch commentator? earth shattering. (truly i cackled when i saw that.) mrs. o’leary being a cat? incredible. how you incorporated percy’s water powers? stunning.

ooh, this exchange was beautiful and had me cackling it was so in-character:

“None of us are dying.” Connor clarifies. “Not you, not me, not Annie, not the rest of us.”

“I might have to dispute that.” Annabeth says, from Percy’s other side. “Call me ‘Annie’ one more time, Stoll, and I’ll kill you myself.”

Connor only grins at her. “Sorry, love. No more ‘Annie’. Can I call you Beth?”

“No.”

“Anna?”

“No.”

okay, so i just finished chapter nine and i am blown away. sorry for how long this comment was, but a fic of this magnitude truly warrants it. i can’t wait to see what happens next.

i leave you with just two words: “holy shit.”

from a different path:

god, oh my god, am i the only dumb bitch who didn’t get what the prophecy was??

anyway, i stumbled on this fic last year, patiently waiting for its completion, and now that i’ve rediscovered it, i’m so glad i finished it all in one go! i couldn’t imagine the tension of waiting for the next chapter, especially since the tension is so well-crafted!! i hardly noticed the tonal shift even as the story got darker and darker as it led up to the war, and in that way i was reminded of how extremely similar it felt to reading the hp books for the first time! you nailed percy very well i might say, and the awkward-yet-caring relationship he has with his dad. i daresay you gave connor and zoe more characterization than rick riordan himself, and the percabeth you wrote is perfect to the nth degree. i appreciate that you didnt bother with all the love triangle and unrequited feelings nonsense as well.

but i have to say, even as i cried at sally and paul’s wedding, or at dionysus’ quiet mourning for castor, what really struck with me most was the way you handled silena. for that, i have no words. that was a job extremely well done. thank you so much for blessing us with this fic.

from chewbacca (a comment from u!):

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen. Her coat is dripping all over the floor he’d just cleaned (but it’s fine) and when he leans over the counter he sees that her boots match the coat.

First of all!!! Thats the best opening line in the world and nobody can convince me otherwise. I want to become a publisher just so that if you ever write a book, I’d be able to publish it. ( like omg, what an honor??? )

She looks like sunshine, standing there with the amount of yellow in her wardrobe. Briefly, James wonders if that’s her favorite color. It’s got to be.

Im going to quote this whole fic but I really love these lines? Like, you have this distinct style of writiting that I aim to acheive and you’re literally such a rolemodel!!! These are my favorite kind of fics to read. Funny story but I was going through a ‘no thanks Jily’ mood ( a horror, i know !! ) but your fics are just,,,,exceptions? You could write about trash and I’d love it and ask for you to sign me up.

“Say it again, but convincingly this time.”

ooof this dialogue??? let me breathe

This is the longest he’s stood still since he started working. It’s actually a miracle.

and the funniest person award goes to YOU. also, the most talented and cutest but thats neither here nor there.

james taking care of fleamont, switching off the lights gives me just a nice and realistic vibe? its so simple but i love how you added it.

honestly at this point, ive been sucked again by the fanfic. it feels less like a fic and more like a masterpiece that belongs in a museum but anyway.

“James is supposed to be helping.

James is on his phone.”

ugh i love ur mind. im rereading and its so nice and lovely. even if its like 1am and im exhausted, this fic is sustaining me.

“Do it off the clock, would you?”

PEAK HUMOR

have i mentioned how much i love that scene with euphemia? she seems like such a lovely mom. i love ur euphemia the most. and ahh, both of them just rushing to the hospital ? another 100% good scene.

“Euphemia smiles too, but looks at Fleamont rather than at her son. “Yes,” she says. “It really does.””

fic? or shakspeare? HMMM

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen // “Get fucked.”

the fic!! has made a circle!!! i love how it begins and ends along the same lines. I really want to know how??? are you so talented im in love.

i just really love this fic, okay? i love how james is just the kindest, lily is allowed to have feelings, its just so soft and warm. and it makes someone feel loved, want love anyway.

the dynamic between the characters are just so real and great and im astounded, in short.

your sirius is everything. so many fics potray him as a dick??? which is first of all #rude and also, not at all true. you made me love these characters even more so i sincerely hope you never stop writing.

you’re such a beautiful writer and the way you string words together is just poetic and gorgeous and all the other good adjectives you can think of. i read your spiderman x reader too and i was a goner for you. EVERYTHING YOU WRITE IS SO GOOD. i read it so long ago but i can vividly remember peter whipping the mask off and she just going wtf stop on the window ledge. what im trying to say is that you leave this lasting impression on people that make them remember random scenes and words / prose long after they’ve read it which is a remarkable feat, i believe.

and im so sorry im not on tumblr rn bc i cannot keep recing this fic but i have told my friends about your writing and they loved it too. you’ve got like a million fans. when i do get back from my hiatus, im going to keep recing your fics and people will cry because their universe will shift thanks to the newfound joy of your presence in their life.

lastly, im more of a dog person and that, more than anything, should tell you how much i love this fic. i love u. and basee on your writing, i want to hug you, be your best friend and make you cookies bc again

WOW

#thelaziestgeek #answers #friends!#<3

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fictionadventurer · 7 years ago

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Father Brown Reread: The Hammer of God

The little village of Bohun Beacon was perched on a hill so steep that the tall spire of its church seemed only like the peak of a small mountain.

It took me a ridiculously long time to figure out that Bohun Beacon is named after the Bohun family.

The name Bohun Beacon reminds me of Beacon House from Manalive. In that book, the beacon name was meaningful--it was supposed to be a light for the world. I don’t see the same symbolism in this story--there’s not much good or worth imitating in these characters.

In my Father Brown omnibus, “seemed” in this sentence has three e’s (seeemed). I find this amusing.

Colonel the Hon. Norman Bohun, his elder brother, was by no means devout, and was sitting in evening dress on a bench outside “The Blue Boar,” drinking what the philosophic observer was free to regard either as his last glass on Tuesday or his first one Wednesday. The colonel was not particular.

This passage amuses me.

It’s also quick and efficient characterization of Norman Bohun.

The idea of evening and morning dress is such a strange and foreign concept to modern minds.

Few except the poor preserve traditions. Aristocrats live not in traditions but in fashions. The Bohuns had been Mohocks under Queen Anne and Mashers under Queen Victoria.

Chesterton’s skewering the upper classes in a way we haven’t seen since “The Queer Feet”.

Mohocks were a gang of aristocratic criminals in the early 1700s who attacked, disfigured, and killed men and women. A masher was a man who made unwanted sexual advances toward strange women. Chesterton’s not just calling the Bohuns and aristocrats fickle fashion-followers--he’s calling them criminals and scoundrels.

This suggests that Chesterton finds fashions to be evil things, while traditions are more likely to be wholesome and worth hanging onto.

Certainly there was something hardly human about the colonel’s wolfish pursuit of pleasure, and his chronic resolution not to go home till morning had a touch of the hideous clarity of insomnia.

I know just what Chesterton means by “the hideous clarity of insomnia”. A great description.

He seemed to live for nothing but religion; but there were some who said (notably the blacksmith, who was a Presbyterian) that it was a love of Gothic architecture rather than of God, and that his haunting of the church like a ghost was only another and purer turn of the almost morbid thirst for beauty which sent his brother raging after women and wine.

A good impulse (a love of beauty) can be turned to horrible things if it is turned in the wrong direction or taken too far.

Chesterton doesn’t do much to hide the possibility that the Wilfred is the murderer.

Wilfred looked at the ground, and said: “The blacksmith is out. He is over at Greenford.” “I know,” answered the other with silent laughter; “that is why I am calling on him.”

This is the first murder where the victim is shown as a truly despicable person. I suppose it’s meant to make us think about the idea of justice, and make us sympathize with the murderer a bit.

There he began to think less about the half-wit, with his livid face and mouth like a fish. He began to think less of his evil brother, pacing like a lean lion in his horrible hunger. He sank deeper and deeper into those cold and sweet colours of silver blossoms and sapphire sky. In this place half an hour afterwards he was found by Gibbs, the village cobbler, who had been sent for him in some haste.

At first read, this is a peaceful passage. After knowing the ending, it’s sinister. He’s forgetting about other people and sinking into a selfish stupor. By not thinking about people, it’s easy to dehumanize them.

And after knowing the ending, “silver blossoms and sapphire sky” doesn’t refer to the window--it’s a certain hammer falling from the heavens.

Chesterton throws in a nice, casual misdirect. It’s easy to assume that “found in this place a half hour later” means he stayed there for half an hour. But it doesn’t say that at all. There’s room for a lot to happen between the beginning and the end of that half hour.

Wilfred clenched his frail hands. “What devilry has he done now?” he cried in voluntary passion.

I hadn’t realized just how many tiny clues Chesterton sprinkles into his prose.

“Voluntary passion” is an easy phrase to skip over, but it suggests that he chose to exhibit passion--he’s putting on a front.

And “frail hands” is a clue when we’re considering why the murderer would choose a small hammer.

They included the doctor, the Presbyterian minister, and the priest from the Roman Catholic chapel, to which the blacksmith’s wife belonged. The latter was speaking to her, indeed, very rapidly, in an undertone, as she, a magnificent woman with red-gold hair, was sobbing blindly on a bench.

Yet another red-haired woman in a Chesterton story. (His love for Frances gives me life). It automatically signals that the blacksmith’s wife is a good person.

I’m surprised the judgemental and intolerant Presbyterian blacksmith tolerates a Catholic wife.

“Where’s Simon Barnes, the blacksmith?” “He’s over at Greenford,” faltered the curate. “More likely over in France,” said the cobbler. “No, he is in neither of those places,” said a small and colourless voice, which came from the little Roman priest who has joined the group. “As a matter of fact, he is coming up the road at this moment.”

I will never get tired of these casual moments of Father Brown being right--especially when he’s fadedinto the background so far in the story.

I wonder if the curate’s fearful upon realizing that he chose a moment when the best suspect--the blacksmith--had a rock-solid alibi.

“Don’t say anything! Oh, don’t say anything,” cried the atheist cobbler, dancing about in an ecstasy of admiration of the English legal system. For no man is such a legalist as the good Secularist.

When a man abandons faith in God, he has to put his faith in the systems of man.

This ties in with a theme of the story--who should judge the criminal, man or God?

The Secularist has to rely upon the legal systems of man for judgement and justice. A thing becomes moral based on whether it is legal or not, and punishment must be given to the fullest letter of the law in all situations. The religious person knows that God will ultimately judge wrongdoers, making Earthly mercy a more tolerable prospect.

Then he pointed to the colonel and said: “When did this dog die in his sins?” “Moderate your language,” said the doctor. “Moderate the Bible’s language, and I’ll moderate mine.”

I do not like the blacksmith.

His character adds nuance the story’s debate. It’s not just about religious versus non-religious people. It’s about legalistic versus spiritual philosophy.

Because even though God will judge the criminal, He also has mercy.

The blacksmith has religion, but holds onto the harshest ideas and interpretations of the Bible. To him, justice is black-and-white--good is rewarded, bad it punished. He has no room for nuance or mercy the way that a less legalistic person’s religion would.

One of those silences struck the group which are more strange and insufferable than any speech. Madly, in order to make conversation, the curate said to the Catholic priest: “You seem very much interested in that hammer, Father Brown.”

I am way too amused by imagining these characters standing around in awkward silence.

I sympathize with the mad desire to make small talk, but honestly, curate, why shouldn’t Father Brown be interested in the hammer? It’s the murder weapon! You should all be interested in it!

The further I get into these stories, the more I realize that Father Brown’s superpower is the ability to prioritize. And it’s not so much that he’s good at it, but that everyone around him is super bad at it.

The Rev. Wilfred was almost trembling with the excitement of his own glimpse of the truth. “Don’t you see; don’t you see,” he cried feverishly; “that is the only theory that covers both the riddles.”

Wilfred is teetering on the edge of madness in his fear and anxiety. He has a palpable and pitiable desperation to escape justice without harming any innocents. It’s a dizzying display of mental and emotional gymnastics for the character and the reader.

When silence had fallen he said with marked respect: “Mr. Bohun, yours is the only theory yet propounded which holds water every way and is essentially unassailable. I think, therefore, that you deserve to be told, on my positive knowledge, that it is not the true one.” And with that the old little man walked away and stared again at the hammer.

Father Brown is impressed by Wilfred’s desperation to pin the crime on someone who can’t be charged for it.

(Though was that really the case in English law? Even if he can get away with some sort of insanity plea, doesn’t this put him in danger of being locked up in an asylum as a danger to society?)

Thus, Father Brown warns Wilfred that he’s figured out the truth (and possibly gives and invitation for confession?)

I don’t think Father Brown’s ever been described as “old” before. He’s obviously not a young man, but the use of the word “old” shocked me. It doesn’t seem to fit him, even if it’s true.

“That fellow seems to know more than he ought to,” whispered the doctor peevishly to Wilfred. “Those popish priests are deucedly sly.” “No, no,” said Bohun, with a sort of wild fatigue. “It was the lunatic. It was the lunatic.”

Anti-Catholicism alert.

I just realized that the doctor might be accusing Father Brown of the murder. Or at least of hiding evidence.

Poor Bohun. This murder business is tearing him apart--his one impulsive moment of action is destroying his life. He can’t take much more of this; no wonder he confesses.

The shaken Wilfred was led away by Father Brown, who had an easy and friendly way with him. “Let us get out of this horrid place, Mr. Bohun,” he said. “May I look inside your church? I hear it’s one of the oldest in England. We take some interest, you know,” he added with a comical grimace, “in old English churches.”

I love Father Brown’s gentle compassion. Bohun is being torn apart, and Father Brown is handling him very well.

For all that, he’s not above making a slightly combative joke, reminding him that the great old Anglican church was stolen from the Roman Catholic.

But he nodded rather eagerly, being only too ready to explain the Gothic splendours to someone more likely to be sympathetic than the Presbyterian blacksmith or the atheist cobbler.

Once again, Father Brown has more in common with the murderer than with any other character. I love how in Chesterton, there’s no division between detective and criminal . Everyone has the potential to be both sinner and saint.

Father Brown ran not down, but up, with the agility of a monkey, and his clear voice came from an outer platform above.

Flambeau’s energy starting to rub off on you, Father?

“Look at that blacksmith, for instance,” went on Father Brown calmly, “a good man, but not a Christian--hard, imperious, unforgiving. Well, his Scotch religion was made up by men who prayed on hills and high crags, and learnt to look down on the world more than to look up at heaven. Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

The thesis of the story, expounding on the theme of humility and pride. Pride is a dangerous sin, because it can also corrupt the virtues and thus make the best of men into the worst of criminals.

In his pride, Bohun looked down upon his fellow men and raised himself up to the level of God, administering justice when he had no right to do so, either from heavenly or earthly authority.

Wilfred Bohun threw one leg over the parapet, and Father Brown had him in a minute by the collar. “Not by that door,” he said quite gently; “that door leads to hell.”

Father Brown is just awesome. Tough and gentle at the same time, and with a gift for a one-liner.

I leave things to you because you have not yet gone very far wrong, as assassins go. You did not help to fix the crime on the smith when it was easy; or on his wife, when that was easy. You tried to fix it on the imbecile because you knew he could not suffer. That was one of the gleams that it is my business to find in assassins. And now come down into the village, and go your own way as free as the wind; for I have said my last word.”

I’m not sure I agree with Father Brown here. “Mad Joe” would probably suffer if people thought he’d killed a man. At the very least, they’d probably lock him in an asylum somewhere, which couldn’t be pleasant.

Then again, when murder comes with the death penalty, I could see where Father Brown might hesitate to turn in a murderer who shows signs that he’s not a true danger to society.

Wilfred Bohun carefully unlatched the wooden gate of the yard, and going up to the inspector, said: “I wish to give myself up; I have killed my brother.”

This is what makes me okay with Father Brown’s decision to keep quiet. By doing so, he convinced the murderer to turn himself in, which makes for a more satisfying ending than just handing him over to the police.

#father brown reread #father brown #g.k. chesterton #the hammer of god #finally was motivated to finish it #it's been sitting half done in my drafts for month #hoping i can start this back up again

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drink-n-watch · 5 years ago

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This is a post that first appeared on Bloodthristy Little Beasts as part of a collaboration with Jordanne. However, as Jordanne has recently made her blog private I figured I would repost this top 5 on my blog since I did enjoy writing it

I hope you guys enjoy it too. It’s exactly what it says on the tin, The 5 first mangas I remember reading. You should know that I read all of these in French so I can’t vouch for their English translations but I assume they’re EVEN BETTER!

5) Gunnm – Battle Angel Alita

This steampunk despotian high action adventure with heavy religious overtones and a badass female cyborg heroin was my first manga and my favorite for a long time. Yukito Kishiro has said in interviews to have been strongly inspired by Frank Miller’s work and it shows. There’s this sense of foreboding and classic “noir” aesthetic that seeps out of every page. I must say, as a dorky teenager with occasional goth tendencies, it really spoke to me.

The narrative can get suffocatingly bleak at times. Even in its brightest moments, the story aims for the lesser evil rather than anything close to good. You may see hints of Madoka or Yuki Yuna in there. I would call it a precursor to the magical girl narrative and Alita certainly fits the tragic heroin trope. This manga is a classic for a reason.

I must admit, that I did try to reread it recently and just couldn’t quite get into it like I use to. I’m not sure which one of us hasn’t aged well. It could also have been a question of timing. This said, I still smile whenever anyone mentions loving this manga and if you are interested in brutal dystopian sci fi, you will certainly find something to enjoy in this manga.

4) Blame

Blame was amazing. It’s another dystopian sci fi…I guess I have a type. I’m gonna recommend Evangelion next!

I still love Blame. Not necessarily for the story or characters, but for the presentation. Blame is brilliantly executed in manga form. You see, the story is somewhat nebulous. We are thrown in the middle of an ongoing quest (if you will) with no establishing narration or exposition. In fact, there is little to no exposition at all throughout the series. Most of the story has to be inferred through the images and dialogue. Also…there’s almost no dialogue! You can go through entire volumes with roughly 3 pages worth of text.

To top it off, the images look like this:

Dark line art, with fluid detailing and heavy emphasis on shadows….

Blame is an experience. There is absolutely no way to explain the impact of reading this manga to another person and no way to capture it through anime. It’s one of a kind. This series opened my eyes to the potential of the medium. I had never seen anything like it before and suddenly, possibilities seemed endless.

I enjoy comic books in general – and find that they allow for experimenting with narrative styles more readily than in conventional formats. However, even in comic books, I had not encountered anything quite like blame. Even the black and white (by necessity) images and smaller manga page size seem to add something to the narrative.

When I was recently asked to pick the manga that describes me best – this is the one I picked. I also have to be experienced first hand!

3) L’Homme qui Marche – The Walking Man

The Walking Man is a one shot manga that you should read… OK so what it really is, is a haiku in manga form. At least it is to me.

This is a simple story, almost a non story really, that follows a businessman as he goes for a walk through his neighbourhood and just contemplates on life and existence. It’s basically a simple plea to stop and smell the roses. A love letter to all the little miracles that we take for granted. Most of it is one again conveyed through images…

Look it’s not that I don’t like reading words or anything but if you’re going to have a manga, might as well take full advantage of the visual aspect, right? No listen…I said I can read!!!

Honestly, if you’re having one of *those* days at work, you should find this book. I was perhaps a bit too young to fully appreciate it at the time but I could still tell that it was something special. A little compact shard of serenity and peaceful contentment to carry around with you through those harsher times.

2) Naruto

Yup, one of the first manga I read was Naruto. And I still like never ending shonen with genki male protagonists. I have since moved on to other titles in the genre (HxH being my favourite) but Naruto is what opened my eyes to one of the most prolific and popular manga and anime types.

I loved it. It’s what you think about when you think stereotypical Japanese comic. Super powers with weird names that get shouted out in battles. Occasionally awkward translations. Huge casts of characters. Never ending story line. Ninjas!!! The straightforward format, happy go lucky mood and slapstick comedy felt light and easy to digest for my younger self. It was a much brighter and more lighter counterpart to those american superhero comics. And much funnier too.

Then things got real… Naruto mixes in some truly brutal scenes and unthinkable betrayals with it’s lighter moments, in a way that american comics hadn’t quite caught up with at the time. I remembered being floored and staring at pages in disbelief. By now, this is somewhat par for the course. HxH or FMA take it much further. However, back then it felt novel.

Sure you could probably pick up Fairy Tail or One Piece for a very similar experience nowadays. For me though, it was the young Hokage wannabe that started it all. In fact, as I’m writing this, I’ve convinced myself to go reread them. See you all in 6 months!

1) Akira

Akira was one of the very first animes I ever saw. This is probably a common experience for a lot of cough, older, cough fans. I did like it. I liked it quite a bit but also…I kinda felt like I had to like it. It was a bit odd and not that easy to follow, but I was afraid that admitting it had some serious plot holes would simply prove that I “didn’t get it”. And I desperately wanted to get it. At the time, in my neck of the woods, there weren’t really any alternatives. You had a handful of animes to choose from and Akira was the gold standard. If you didn’t like that, you just didn’t like anime. For some reason, little me had firmly decided to like anime.

It wasn’t until some time later that I stumbled across the full collection of large bound full colour volumes at the library and decided to give it another go.

It changed everything! Of course, trying to condense 6 very large volumes into a single movie was going to be difficult no matter what but the experience was simply not the same. The rich story (um…dystopian sci fi….) the layered and complex characters, the intricate political background and mesmerizing plot twists, all of it had completely been lost in my viewing of the movie. I had to go through these manga to finally get it but once I did… I never looked back.

Extra mention

Natsume’s book of Friends

I actually finished Natsume’s book of friends volume 21 yesterday – sigh…… so it’s hardly one of the first I’ve read. I just want to mention it because, well I love Natsume and mention it whenever I can. Please read Natsume – it’s beautiful. Also, it is NOT dystopian sci fi. It will give you a new appreciation of the little miracles all around us.

There you have it. These five series managed to capture my imagination and kept me reading manga for years to come. I don’t know that they are my favorites but I certainly did enjoy all of them. Maybe you will as well.

Actually, I also once found a hardcore eroge mange on a bus… It was clean (as in not soiled…) – don’t worry. I didn’t include it here. Maybe I will next time.

Irina’s First Five Mangas This is a post that first appeared on Bloodthristy Little Beasts as part of a collaboration with Jordanne.

#anime #List #manga

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halothenthehorns · 5 years ago

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NICOLAS FLAMEL

Despite the emotional baggage of that chapter, James was very pleased indeed that Harry seemed to have gotten the idea of that dog out of his son's mind. He was all for focusing on Harry finding Nicolas Flamel however, or even moving past that and going along his school looking for something more fun to do, and so read on eagerly.

Harry was having nightmares now, dreaming of his parents disappearing in a flash of green light while an unseen voice laughed.

"Not appreciated, not one little bit," Sirius said, shuddering in disgust, and not mentioning that he had a very similar nightmare the previous night.

"Sorry," Harry said honestly.

"It's not your fault," James said, a shade paler than normal, "it's not like you can help what you dream."

When Hermione came back from break, she was just as disapproving of Harry's nighttime wanderings, fearing if Filch had caught him,

"Ah, he'd have only threatened to string you up by your thumbs or something," Sirius shrugged it off, since they hadn't actually been caught, it seemed rather funny to him.

and disappointment that he hadn't at least found out who Nicolas Flamel was.

"Did she expect you to, honestly?" Remus chuckled.

The three were about to give up hope on ever finding this out. When school started again they'd be back to searching at odd moments through infinite books.

"So we were right the first time," Remus said sadly, "Harry might not figure this out for years."

"Oh come on," James said bracingly, "I'm sure he'll find a Dumbledore Chocolate Frog Card again."

"We don't know how rare they are in this time," Sirius reminded him.

"And he most likely won't reread it if he does," Remus agreed.

"Well then he should start trying to memorize them in his free time," James laughed.

Harry was back to near constant Quidditch practice, since if they won their next game against Hufflepuff, they would overtake Slytherin in the house championship.

"Always a good motive," James and Sirius agreed.

Apart from wanting to win, Harry found he had less nightmares after an intense training.

"Also true," The two players agreed.

Harry's enthusiasm for his next game went down some though. At the next practice Fred and George were miming falling off their brooms and goofing around as usual, when Wood yelled at them to knock it off, they couldn't be doing that kind of stuff at the game, because Snape was refereeing this time.

"What!" The uproar was so loud, the neighbours may have heard that.

"James, tell me you're joking," Sirius said, looking faint.

James just sat there, frozen as he stared at the page.

"But he can't," Lily said weakly, "Madam Hooch always referee's."

"He would have had to get Dumbledore to say yes," Remus agreed, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "Which means that Dumbledore didn't have a problem with this."

"I have a problem with this," James yelped in disgust, "couldn't McGonagall have protested on bias."

They all shared devastated looks, but then glanced at Harry, only slightly reassured that he was still sitting here, looking as upset as the rest of them, but still here. Safe and sound.

George Weasley really did fall off his broom at these words.

"Can't blame him," Remus muttered in disgust.

The whole team began complaining loudly, but Wood pointed out he couldn't do anything about it, they just had to make sure they didn't give Snape a chance to pick on them during the game.

"When does he need an excuse to do anything he bloody wanted," Sirius hissed.

After practice Harry sprinted back up to the common room to find Ron and Hermione playing chess, the one thing Hermione wasn't particularly good at.

"Humility is beneficial in the long run," Lily agreed, distracted. She knew for a fact she wasn't going to be able to settle down again until this particular game was over.

Ron noticed the look on Harry's face at once though, and told him he looked terrible.

"And a good day to you to," James forced a laugh.

Harry quickly caught them up on Snape's sudden sinister desire to be a Quidditch referee.

"Now that's a sentence I never bloody thought I'd hear in my life," Remus said, looking a bit

queasy.

Ron and Hermione both told Harry he shouldn't play, Hermione suggesting Harry could pretend to break his leg, and Ron adding on Harry should really break his leg.

All three boys forced chuckles at this, while James pointed out, "good offers, but Madam Pomfrey could fix that in a second."

"You could have a potion's accident," Remus offered, "those get a bit trickier."

"And accidentally poison himself." Lily snapped.

"Got any better ideas?" Sirius snapped back.

"Read and find out," Harry said loudly when it looked like they were about to start really arguing.

James threw Harry a grateful look, then read on.

Harry pointed out if he backed out of this game, then Gryffindor didn't have a reserve Seeker, so the team would lose.

"Which is a bad idea honestly," the former Quidditch Captain shook his head, "you should always have a backup team."

"Well you can write him a letter later," Lily muttered.

Before the conversation could continue, Neville hopped into the common room. He had to hop, because his legs were bound together with the Leg-Locker Curse.

"Damn," Sirius let out a low whistle, "I'm impressed he made it all the way to the seventh floor. Where was he when that happened? Just think of going up one stair case like that!"

"He doesn't know the counter curse?" Remus asked in surprise, "it's a pretty basic curse."

James shrugged, deciding to read on.

He must have somehow hopped all the way up here, and the thought promptly sent every student into a laughing fit, except Hermione who jumped to her feet and performed the countercurse.

"Well that was rude," Lily huffed.

"I can imagine it being a bit funny," James said fairly, "but I'm glad Hermione fixed it," he said at once at his wife's sharp glare.

She escorted Neville over to their table and kindly asked what happened, and Neville told them it was Malfoy.

"Not that prat again," Sirius groaned.

"What possible reason could he have for cursing Neville? As far as we know Neville's done

nothing wrong to anyone," Remus said.

"Seems to me that boy doesn't need a reason to curse anyone," James muttered.

He'd seen him outside the library.

"Ouch," Sirius groaned in real pain, "had to hop up a whole floor. I can't believe he didn't just go to McGonagall, then he would have only had to go down some stairs, which would be far easier."

"Shame perhaps," James said, "no student wants to go whining to the teacher's if they can help it."

Lily shook her head in disbelief, she thought that was ridiculous, but could hardly say anything since she didn't exactly go to the teachers with all of her problems either.

Hermione urged Neville to go report this to the teachers, but Neville refused, saying he didn't want any more trouble. Ron insisted Neville shouldn't let Malfoy just walk all over Neville,

"I think that was supposed to be helpful," Sirius said, mouth twitching, "but it didn't come off very well."

"At least he's trying," Lily said in approval.

but it only seemed to make Neville feel worse as Malfoy had already told him he wasn't brave enough to be a Gryffindor.

"Why that little," James yelped, now wanting more than anything to punch that git in the face, "he has no bloody idea what he just said."

"Someone needs to tell Neville he's the lucky one," Remus agreed.

Harry felt around in his pocket and found his last Chocolate Frog card he'd gotten for Christmas and handed it over to Neville.

"That poor dear," Lily sighed, but then she added on, "that was very sweet of you Harry."

Harry smiled at her, knowing he would have done it again in a heartbeat.

Harry told Neville he was worth twelve of Malfoy, that Neville was the lucky one while Malfoy could keep his stinking Slytherin status.

"Much better," Sirius said bracingly, "If that doesn't cheer up Neville then I don't know what

will."

Neville unwrapped the chocolate while thanking Harry, eating the frog but handing the card back to Harry as he went upstairs. Harry glanced down and saw it was Dumbledore again,

"Yes," all five of them cried with joy.

"So long as you look at the back again, you should at least find his name again," Sirius cheered.

"I think I just remember without having to look, finally," Harry said cheerfully.

then Harry gasped and did a double take at the card.

"Yes!" They all cheered again. They didn't even want to imagine the frustration if Harry hadn't remembered that.

He eagerly read out the back of the card's information again, including Dumbledore's famous work on alchemy with his partner Nicolas Flamel.

Lily suddenly burst into giggling, gaining strange looks from all of the boys.

"It's just that, I'm thinking James read that from memory more than anything, and of all the things he's bothered to memorize," then she trailed off still laughing.

It was Hermione's turn to jump eagerly to her feet, sprinting up to the girls dormitories and returning a few minutes later with an enormous book.

"So Hermione read his name at some point to," Remus said in surprise.

"I don't know, she seems like the kind who remembers everything she reads," James said slowly.

"Maybe it was something else Harry just read, maybe a book on alchemy," Sirius suggested.

Hermione began eagerly tearing through the pages, saying she had checked this book out weeks ago for some light reading.

"Still an overachiever," Lily said indulgently.

Ron mocked the word light due to the bulk of the book, but Hermione shushed him as she flew through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Ron grumpily asked if they could speak again, but Hermione ignored him.

"Well that's just rude," Sirius laughed.

"You'd think he'd be a bit more excited at having finally found out a lead," James chuckled.

Hermione read out eagerly that Nicolas Flamel was the maker of the Philosopher's Stone.

"So she did read his name elsewhere," Lily said in surprise.

"Guess even Hermione can't remember everything," James shrugged.

None of them noticed both Remus and Harry seemed to be thinking really hard about something.

This meant nothing to either Harry or Ron, so she pushed the book towards them and had them read the passage, while mocking the fact that they never seemed to read,

"Well none of us knew it either," Lily said, rolling her eyes.

the book said the Stones properties including giving immortality and turning metal into gold.

After James got done reading that, he looked up to see everyone in the room looking at him like he'd grown a second head.

"You mean that's a real thing?" Remus spluttered.

"You've heard of it," Sirius demanded.

"As a rumour," he admitted, "like James said earlier, alchemy is one of the most untested studies. There have been rumours for years that someone made a stone that could utilize its magic, but I didn't think it was real."

"You still could have mentioned something," Lily said, staring at him wide eyed.

"Did anyone else catch on that Elixir of Life?" James demanded, "this thing sounds like a piece of eternity in your hand."

"You really think that's what's being hidden in the school?" Lily asked in concern.

This brought the other four boys up short. They had been so excited at figuring out this mystery, they hadn't come around to this yet, but now Remus said slowly, "well then it may not even be hiding from a dark wizard. Anyone would want it."

'Someone like a disgraced Death Eater' Sirius thought bitterly, but chose not to say that. He really didn't want to start another fight.

"Why now though?" James asked slowly, "do you think Flamel may have passed away and he left it to Dumbledore, or-"

"Hello, Elixir of Life," Remus reminded him, "I don't think that's it."

"Well, now we know what it is," Harry said, finally cutting them off, "now let's so what we did with that information."

All four adults turned wide eyed looks at him, Lily demanding, "Why would you have to do

anything with this? You followed your curiosity because you stumbled across this, fine. Now you know, and you can let it go."

Harry gave her an exasperated look, but when he looked around and all the boys were nodding in agreement, he decided to keep silent. There was no need in preemptively getting yelled at for what he was sure he had done. If his gut was anything to judge by.

James felt quite excited that at least one of their curiosities about this book had been answered so far, so he read on.

The book then gave a little information on Flamel, including his place of residence and his age, 665.

"How current was that book?" Remus asked in curiosity.

Harry shrugged, saying, "I don't know, I didn't ask."

Hermione then comes to the conclusion this must be what was being hidden in the school.

"Yes," Lily said slowly, "that makes sense, but are you telling me Dumbledore couldn't have come up with a better idea than a school full of children?"

"What better place than in plain sight," Remus offered.

"Yes, but since we've already established that someone did figure it out, and is after it," James said, "I'm going to agree with Lily on that one."

Sirius couldn't help but agree with them as well, thinking that anyone that had the powers to break into Gringotts and not get caught could certainly make it into the castle as well.

Harry agrees, saying something like that, it was no wonder Snape wanted it. Anyone would.

Lily pursed her lips, James had read that with a little too much conviction, and the other boys around him were all nodding in agreement. Unbelievably though, none of them verbally agreed.

They spent the rest of the night discussing this, but it wasn't until the next day during their DADA class where they were learning about treating werewolf bites,

Before either of his friends could open their mouths to make a sarcastic comment Remus snapped, "can it you two or I'll shove your heads into a lake."

Harry was biting his lip to keep from laughing, while Lily asked in genuine curiosity, "I remember some of that lesson, but I thought there was no cure for a werewolf bite?"

Remus sighed, looking up at the ceiling in self-hatred before answering, "there's not, but there are some solutions you can use on the infected wound so it won't scar as badly."

Harry cocked his head to the side as he investigated Remus, but thought it rude to ask to see Remus' bite, so he just let James go on.

that Harry remembered his coming match and close proximity to Snape. Harry tells his friends that he's going to play.

"So long as you don't fall off your broom again, sure," Lily muttered.

"Did anyone put in an inquiry why your broom acted up anyways?" James asked, realizing no one had mentioned this.

Harry shook his head, saying, "No, Professor McGonagall asked me about it, but when I told her I had it under control, she gave me a suspicious look and walked away."

All four adults exchanged uneasy looks, this didn't sound like the Professor McGonagall they knew. Something was up with their old head of house, she was acting very odd around their Harry.

James shook his head, still concerned, and decided to keep a closer eye on her actions.

The nearer the match grew, the more nervous Harry felt.

"I really can't believe my luck," James said with disgust, "I finally got a Quidditch chapter, and it's going to be awful."

Harry was gnawing on his lip for a moment, then he suddenly cracked up laughing.

"Just what was so funny?" James demanded.

"I don't know," he said honestly, "I just feel like there was another record broken in this game. Can't remember what though."

"It wasn't the record for the most bones broken by the youngest Seeker was it?" Lily demanded.

"No," Harry answered right away, shaking his head.

"Well, then let's get to it," Sirius said with high spirits now.

Could they really be expected to win the coming up game with such a biased referee?

"Still can't believe Dumbledore allowed that," Remus said in disgust.

Harry seemed to be having a lot of trouble avoiding Snape lately, he even wondered if he was being paranoid. The man kept popping up in corridors he happened to be in, and from the distrustful way he watched him, Harry couldn't help but wonder if Snape somehow knew they'd found out about the Stone, if perhaps Snape could read minds.

All four adults grimaced in disgust at this idea. If Snape had learned Legilimency, Harry's life would be a disaster.

At Harry's questioning look at all of them, Sirius said bracingly, "there is a form of magic, very difficult though, that can kind of do that. I doubt Snape can though, so you should be good. It's really difficult to learn."

Harry cracked a smile at that, then asked his Dad to go on.

The day of the match, Harry walked down to the pitch in the late afternoon,

"Afternoon," Lily interrupted, clearly distracted with worry and catching on a small detail she asked, "games usually start at eleven in the morning?"

"I don't remember, but something weird happened that morning," Harry said, shrugging.

"Dumbledore made an announcement the pitch was going to be closed, so it got pushed back. I never found out why."

The four of them were privately wondering if, perhaps, Dumbledore had heard about the last game, and had been investigating something? Why would he have waited so long since the last game though?

as Ron and Hermione were saying good luck to him, their expressions made it clear they were wondering if they were ever going to see Harry alive again.

"His friends are really chipper aren't they," Sirius chuckled, though he couldn't blame them one bit for this feeling.

Ron and Hermione went up to the stands, and Neville soon joined them, asking why they had brought their wands.

"You mean the students don't just carry their wands around with them everywhere?" James asked. He always had his on him, even while on the pitch.

Harry shrugged, saying, "No, Ron told me that teachers started discouraging it, so that fights wouldn't break out in the stands."

"Fair enough," Lily agreed.

Harry wasn't aware that Ron and Hermione had quietly been practicing the Leg-Locker Curse, which they fully intended to use if Snape showed any intentions of starting to hurt Harry.

"Brilliant," all five of them said in approval.

"Oh I hope they use it on him," Sirius said with glee, then when both parents through him a severe look, he tossed his hands in the air and said, "outside the pitch of course. I don't want them to have the excuse now."

Lily huffed, but James was appeased enough to go on.

In the locker rooms, Wood was turning his attention to Harry and told him that he wasn't trying to put pressure on him, but it was really important Harry gets the Snitch before Snape can favour Hufflepuff too much.

"How is that not pressuring him?" Remus demanded.

"It's not like Harry can magically catch the Snitch sooner just because he wants to," James agreed.

Fred was at the entrance and watching the crowd, and suddenly exclaimed that

Dumbledore was in the stands.

"Really?" All four of them said, beaming at once.

"Nobody would be dumb enough to hurt Harry with him around," Lily said at once, forestalling at least Remus and Sirius from saying the same thing, substituting Snape's name.

Feeling quite chipper now, sure Snape was still going to be an arse during the game but at least Harry was safe, he read on with high spirits.

Harry felt elated, positive at once that Snape wouldn't try anything with the headmaster present. Perhaps that's why Snape looked so sour as the teams came onto the field,

"Nah," Sirius said, "he always looks like someone shoved a dung beetle up his nose."

"Maybe because of how often you tried to?" Remus offered, fighting back a grin.

something Ron noticed as well. He didn't get much time to celebrate the good fortune, as Malfoy made an appearance.

"Gah," James said in disgust, "they really should keep the houses away from each other, at least during a match."

"How on earth would they go about reinforcing that?" Lily demanded, "and that's still not even fair. It is possible to have friends outside of your own house."

All four boys rolled their eyes at her, but it just didn't seem worth the argument at the time.

Malfoy apologized for knocking into Ron,

"I'm so sure," Harry muttered to himself.

but Ron completely ignored him as Malfoy began a tirade of insults. Ron was too busy watching the game, where George had decided to hit a bludger at Snape.

"Well now he's just provoking him," Lily frowned.

Sirius gnawed his lip for a moment before grudgingly agreeing, "yeah, okay, I'll give you that one."

Snape was doing exactly as predicted as the game progressed, including awarding a penalty to Hufflepuff for no reason.

"Someone should call him on that though," James said, narrowing his eyes, "you do have to actually have a reason for penalizing."

Remus sighed and rubbed his brow, this was going to be a long game.

Malfoy was still talking behind Ron, going on about how the people on the Gryffindor team are only their out of pity, like the Weasley's because they were poor. Then he made a crack at Neville, saying he should be on the team because he had no brains.

"Can we please switch back to me in the sky," Harry said, frowning back severely. He really didn't want to sit around and listen to Malfoy insulting his friends, and unable to do anything about it.

"I would if I could Harry," James agreed, gnashing his teeth for a moment before continuing.

Neville turned on the spot and stammered out he's worth twelve of Malfoy.

"Aw," Lily smiled, "I'm glad he took your words to heart."

"Because they're true," the other boys agreed.

Malfoy wasn't impressed, but instead cracked up laughing. Further insulting both him and Ron at once as he said that if Neville had as much brains as Ron had gold, they'd both be dead.

"I think I'd be much more offended if he didn't keep falling back on the same dumb joke," Sirius grumbled.

Hermione hadn't been paying attention at all, keeping her focus on the game, and suddenly screamed out Harry's name.

"What?" the three adults without the book said, trying to cut James off, but he wouldn't hear it and kept going.

Harry was pelting towards the ground in a dive,

"That's not accidental," Remus breathed.

and Malfoy made yet another poor attempt at a joke by saying Harry must have spotted some money he could lend Ron.

"That one wasn't even funny," Sirius said in disgust, still too keyed up to get back to what Harry was doing to get to mad.

Ron snapped. He flew out of his seat and tackled Malfoy to the ground.

"Yes," all four boys cried with high spirits.

"That git had it coming to him," Sirius crowed.

Lily was smiling to herself, not able to find any bad feelings about this. The boy really had been asking for it.

Neville only hesitated a second before climbing back and helping, as Crabbe and Goyle began to do the same.

"Loving this kid more and more," Remus said.

Hermione wasn't paying attention to any of the boys, Ron who was punching Malfoy in the face, or Neville who was a whirl of fists amongst Crabbe and Goyle.

"Did he really take on both of them?" Harry asked, remembering vividly the size of those two boys.

"And holding his own it seems," James responded easily.

In the air Harry was still diving and finally came up just in time, Snitch in hand.

"Amazing," Remus yelped.

"How long did that match actually last?" Sirius demanded, feeling giddy as a child.

"Record short," Harry beamed, feeling pride blazing in him. This, he thought, was a real

accomplishment. Nobody could just say he was a famous name now, he had done something to be really proud of.

Lily and James suddenly squashed their son in a hug between them, causing peals of laughter from in between them.

Only after they had all settled down did James finally manage to go on.

The stands exploded with applause, that had to be a record short capture of the game.

"I think the official time was three and a half minutes," Harry said brightly.

Remus let out a low, throaty whistle before saying, "I'm pretty sure the record before that was fifteen. Way to go kiddo."

Hermione was dancing in her seat in pleasure, calling out to wherever Ron was in

excitement.

"Ron and Neville are a little busy dishing out their own justice," James grinned.

On the ground Harry jumped off his broom only to have a crowd of people swarm him with congratulations. Harry spotted Snape land a bit away and spit bitterly on the ground.

"I'm sure he did," Sirius snarled, happier than anything that this overgrown brat hadn't been able to pick on this team for too long, but most of all unable to hurt his pup.

Harry couldn't be happier with himself. He'd now proven he wasn't just a famous name, but had done something he really could be proud of!

"Now that's an accomplishment I'll never forget," James agreed, forcefully ignoring the sting those words left in himself.

Ron and Hermione could be spotted jumping around happily, Ron holding a bleeding nose.

"I hope we get to hear how bad Malfoy got it," Remus said quietly to Sirius, who grinned

vindictively.

Not to long later as Harry was putting his broom away, he was feeling quite pleased with himself about having one upped Snape, speaking of Snape... Harry spotted a hooded figure coming out of the castle.

"Hooded?" James murmured, that was never a good thing.

The shadow was heading right for the Forbidden Forest. Harry couldn't help but wonder why Snape would be heading there while everyone else was at dinner.

"Are you sure you're not just jumping to conclusions?" Lily said fretfully, picking at the hem of her shirt. Even she couldn't deny how suspicious this was.

Harry shook his head slowly, the happy feeling gone at once as it was once again replaced with the pounding pain of forgotten memories.

James sucked in a deep breath, couldn't he have savoured this victory at least until the end of this chapter, but decided to just read on.

Harry jumped back on his broom and began following.

"Can't blame you there," Remus agreed, anyone would have followed that odd sight.

Gliding quietly behind him, he watched Snape enter the forest and come across someone else hiding in there, Quirrell.

"Odd place for a teachers meeting," Sirius muttered, shifting his weight about in agitation.

Harry couldn't really make out what they were saying, but he was sure he heard Quirrell stutter that this was an odd place for them to meet.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Remus yelped, "Quirrell's in on it!"

"So could he have been the one who let the troll in, as a distraction so Snape could get the Stone?" Sirius asked, unable to decide how he felt about this, "I mean he seems like an incapable moron, so-"

"Stop," Lily said forcefully before they could go on speculating, "I want to hear this."

Snape hissed back that this was as good a place as any, since students weren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone.

"Well we were right about the Stone," James said lowly.

"How did Snape know you knew?" Sirius demanded.

Remus was shifting his weight around, maybe they were wrong, maybe Snape had learned Legilimency.

James wasn't giving them much time to think about it.

Then he wanted to know if Quirrell had figured out how to get past Fluffy yet.

"Why would either of them need to know?" Lily yelped, going pale as a sheet.

"Obvious ain't it," Sirius said, eyes narrowing in disgust, "they're in it together or something."

"Oh, that's just so obvious is it!" Lily yelled, looking ready to breathe fire.

"Okay you two," James snapped, "let me keep going or we'll be arguing for the rest of the year!"

Both of them huffed, and looked away from each other in annoyance.

Quirrell said he didn't, and Snape said they would talk again soon, when Quirrell had decided where his loyalties were.

Lily blinked several times, releasing a breath slowly. Oh how she dearly wanted to think Snape was saying Quirrell wasn't being loyal to Dumbledore, or something along that line.

If Sev was implying that Quirrill's loyalties should lay with him, that Sirius was right and these two were really in on trying to steal the Stone... she viciously forced her thoughts to stop right there, and allowed James to keep going.

Then he put his cloak back over his head and walked away.

"What do you make of that then?" Remus said, a rather ugly look on his face. Despite his earlier opinion, he was now thoroughly behind Harry and the others in thinking Snape was trying to steal the Stone, and dumping Harry Potter out of the way was a nice little distraction for Dumbledore. He never thought he'd say it, or even think it, but it seemed Dumbledore had been wrong with this person.

"Exactly what you do Remus," Sirius muttered back, "that Harry needs to stay the bloody hell away from that backstabber."

While James looked ready to defend his two friends, the other two looked torn, confused, and hurt. Lily just couldn't make herself believe it, not until Severus was walking out of the castle with the Stone in his hand.

Harry felt just as conflicted on the inside, but it was a battle of gut and mind. His eleven year old memories had him totally convinced that Snape was up to no good, and that they had to put a stop to this. While his gut was telling him he was being an idiot, and to get all the facts straight.

Taking a deep rattling breath, James knew very well he couldn't post on either side. He had promised Lily he wouldn't press judgment, no matter how compelling the evidence. He also knew he would back up his friends till death, because he felt they were right.

With no winning side to an awful argument, James simply kept going on.

Harry sprinted back to the castle to find his friends, and when he did Ron was eager to tell him how he'd given Malfoy a black eye, and Neville had taken on Crabbe and Goyle all on his own. He was out cold in the Hospital wing,

Shaking his head in slight amusement, James was more than happy to hear about these Gryffindor victories.

"Neville really is the kind you should draw into this group you've got," Sirius laughed, thinking briefly that if Harry did, they would sort of have their own set of Marauders going.

"Agreed, couldn't be prouder of the boy," Remus chuckled.

Harry was smiling around at them all, feeling a bit more at peace now that his innards weren't at war anymore, and said, "I think we just know Neville as a friend, but I don't think I ever get as close to him as I am with Ron and Hermione."

James was still happy to hear that, so read on eagerly.

but Harry quickly brushed them off and informed them what he'd overheard. Mentioning how Snape had something about Quirrell's 'hocus-pocus' and how he now thought there were other things guarding the Stone,

"Agreed," all four adults said, already having come to that conclusion.

like other enchantments like some anti-Dark Arts Spell that Quirrell put up, that Snape needed to break through.

Sirius snorted and said, "Now that I don't buy. If anyone needed help getting past Dark Art spells', it would have been Quirrell."

"Then besides Fluffy, who honestly I've no idea how to get past," Remus asked, "what on earth is Snape and Quirrell trying to figure out?"

"Who knows," Lily sighed, "hocus pocus could mean anything, relating to any magic." Then she sat back with her lips pursed, the only thing she could think to add was that Sirius had just delivered a real compliment to Severus, but she didn't think he would appreciate her pointing that out.

Hermione gasped as she realized that the Stone was only safe so long as Quirrell didn't tell Snape this information. Ron groaned that it would be gone within the week.

All four adults sighed in discontent, why on earth wasn't this book getting any easier to read?

When James made to pass the book to Sirius, Remus pointed out, "Eh hem. I do believe it's my turn, since Harry skipped me."

Harry blinked, then blushed saying, "Oh crap, I'm sorry. I just had a good feeling about Christmas coming up, and-"

Remus laughed at the way Harry seemed to think he was actually mad, before reaching forward and saying, "I think I might forgive you. Just this once though."

After taking the book and going to the right page, he glanced up to see James whispering into Harry's ear, "and every other time. Don't worry about it."

Harry's smile was all the confidence he needed to keep going.

#boookhater95 #The Life that Never Lived #complete #fanfiction #Harry Potter #HP #Marauders #James Potter #Sirius Black #Remus Lupin #Lily Potter #Reading the Books

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deanstits · 8 years ago

Text

AU Fic Rec, Part 4

Modern AU

Buckle the fuck in children, this is going to be long and uhhhhhhhhh long.

Modern AU - Anything set in current day, but not in the SPN universe. A lot of the BDSM/sex worker fics fit into this category but obviously??? They belong on the ever important BDSM list. Duh.

Let’s get fuckin ready.

Part One - BDSM

Part Two - Sci-FI/Fantasy

Part Three - Historical Setting

____

1. The Last Great Race - Kicking it off with a bang. Cas is a reporter, he goes to Alaska to cover the Iditarod - the dog sled race. Dean is participating and so is Sam and there are so many huskies and also romance. It has a prequel time stamp. It is lovely and I love it and read this right now.

2. Pies and Prejudice - This is on my Top 8, but it’s a Pride and Prejudice Great British Bake Off Modern AU Fusion. Dean is Liz and Cas is Darcy. Please read this it’s wonderful and also cake is involved.

3. Between The Lines - Fam, Okay, I thought this was going to be Garbage but it’s not. Environmentalist Cas gets in a twitter feud(!!!!) with Western Actor Dean and they make a bet to live in off the land for a week and it’s. Amazing. Enemies 2 frends 2 luvrs. Trust me.

4. And Then You Destroy Yourself - The only Non-BDSM College AU worth reading. Cas is a freshman, he joins the College Newspaper, there is drama and mystery and intrigue. And Gay. The underage drinking is bit cringe but it’s very in character for college students, so what r u gonna do.

5. Love In The Wild - This is a hilaaaaarious Reality Show AU. Dean goes on a dating show and does challenges and meets the luv of his life, u kno? What more do you need. There is sex.

6. Through Basin And Range - Yeee buddy, Road Trip Fic!!!!! Dean and Cas are there but have broken up and it’s rough, and Sam is there also but he is sexting Kevin for some reason. Cas is spending the summer working on a thesis for his Geology Masters (master of rocks), and Sam n Dean tag along. This story really is lovey. It’s only on LJ though, so. :/

7. Unintended - Lawyer Cas bids for Fire Fighter Dean in a date auction and honestly. The sex in this is so good, like I lost this fic for three years but still remembered The Scene (You’ll know the one, that shit is hardly ever seen outside of PWP). This fic is so slept on. You need to read it. I think they live in Washinton or something. Maybe NYC. I forget, I’m busy thinking about The Scene.

8. Your Heart Makes - Ok so there are Three Disney Land AUs in this fandom that I know of. One of them is garbage, one of them is pretty good, and the last is incredible and it’s ur lucky day because the incredible one is this one. Castiel suffers from pretty bad depression, and is just trying to get through life, day by day. Insert Dean w/ a heart condition. There’s love, there’s slow build, there’s disney ride hand jobs. It’s a good time.

9. Any Little Heartbreak - I just reread this one recently! Heart Surgeon Dean! Surgery Nurse Cas! Enemies to FWB to Lovers! It’s like Scrubs meets... some sort of medical drama. Whatever, it’s a trip, and Meg is so fun.

10. Bearing Point - This fic is lovely and fun and it’s construction Dean + restoration expert Cas. I have beef with this fic, in that the author made Dean gay, instead of bi or pan and for me, a huge bisexual with strong emotional ties to Dean’s bisexuality, it kind of grated on me a bit and ruined the immersion. But, if you’re not a big baby like me, this fic is lovely and wonderful and they literally build homes together and also get nasty.

11. For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention - SPORTS AU. I don’t like sports but SPORTS AU. Dean is a hockey person. Something something NHL. Dean plays the sports with his brother. They get a new player from russia, but Dean is >:( bc they traded out his bff so Cas is The Enemy. Enemies to grudging friends to lovers. Coming out. Homophobic confusion. This fic is wonderful and lovely and sports. If you love destiel and you love Check Please, then this is the AU for U.

12. Fourth Time’s the Charm - Ooooooooh, age gap fic. Cas is a comic book artist, Dean is a fan who goes to conventions. He’s also a virgin. :) Here is a direct quote from the summary: ‘Dean shyly fumbles his way through his first real relationship.’ Literally what more do you need? Literally?

13. If At First You Don’t Succeed (Destroy All Evidence That You Ever Tried) - lmao this fic is ridiculous. Inspired by the HIMYM episode, the three days rule, Dean replaces his number in Castiel’s phone to test he’s not being too eager when he meets girls. sexting ensues and Dean is !!!!! Gay Panicked. I love it, read it now, it’s sexy.

14. Prosopagnosia - This one is Teen and Up, I know, I am shocked that I’ve included it too. But it’s such a sweet story. Castiel works in a Gas n’ Sip and he has a cognitive disorder that means he’s face blind. He can’t recognize anyone, which makes his blossoming relationship with Dean a bit complicated. But they work around it. The Impala plays an important role.

15. Run Boy Run - FAM OK FAM PLS. Blind! Dean wants to compete in the Boston Marathon, but he needs a guide people to help him navigate obstacles and the other contestants. Castiel’s brother signs him up and he’s reluctant, but then he meets Dean and uhhhhhhh it all works out. It’s so sweet. Read it. Teen and Up again??? I’m srry, but it’s really good.

16. Yellow - Here’s another I haven’t read yet, but. It’s Elizabeth1985 and also it’s Cas in Witness protection and the excerpt I read places it firmly on my favourites list. Ex-mobster Cas, They are bartenders, there is falling in love, there is also fucking yeaaaa buddy, back on the sexy bandwagon.

17. Rough Seas - Dean is a Lieutenant Commander who moves home with a toddler and he’s involved with the Coast Guard, and he used to know Cas but there was gay panic and so things are tense and angsty and wonderful and this fic is amazing. SLOW BUILD. LOVERS TO ENEMIES TO FRIENDS TO LOVERS. Literally the best. There is a sequel which is almost as long. This fic is so lovely.

18. Asunder - This fic my guys, this fic. Please send help. Social Worker Dean. Recovering Heroin addicts Sam and Ruby who are getting married. They go to Bobby’s for the wedding. I forget how Cas fits in but he’s there and it’s lovely and so well written and wonderful and honestly? A Classic. If you read anything from this list, read this fic.

19. Satin and Sawdust - Lmao u guys u know me. Dean in panties love story. It’s on my Top 8. There’s capentry, there’s gay panic Cas, there’s satin and lace and soft cotton and also Dean has two cats. Read this right now.

20. Living In Agony - THIS FIC MY GUYS. I had three people read it from my Top 8 and they all died and met me in heaven bc i also died when I read it bc it is so. Lovely. Angst, mental illness, teachers Cas and Dean, Gabriel and Charlie are there also, Jess is a delight, Sam is in love with green smoothies, the sex is ridiculous (there is one line that helped shape me as a person and you will know which it is and you can blame this fic for all of the absolute filth that comes out of my brain. Read this right now.

21. Inevitable Homoeroticism in Spanish Romantic Heroes - :) Okay so Dean is a Grad student and Cas is a professor and it’s academic and sexy and not really a college au and I read it like four years ago and I still think about it. I suggest it very highly!!!

22. Get Some - Dean is in college and needs a place to live. He goes to live with Castiel, at the stoner house. Gay Panic happens and there are drugs and loads of casual sex and it’s honestly a good time. A bit angsty but mostly thumbs up muy bueno.

23. That Summer - Short and sweet, lost love, this fic is so lovely and wonderful. It does feature an age gap with underage Dean so, if that’s not your bag... He is 17 at the time. Farmer Cas! Love and exploring sexuality!

24. Rvr Ro11435 - Destiel works at Nasa!!! Neither are astronauts but they are smart cookies who help send people to space. It’s tagged as an office romance. It’s cute.

25. The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through Chlamydia - One night stand. Dean gets an STD. Has to find his boo and tell ‘em about the STD. There’s fun sex and love and one of them is a baker and the love is so sweet and I love this fic. And I’m psure Cas gets a cat.

26. Say a Prayer and Light a Candle - College AU where Cas struggles with dating agnostic Dean bc he is very Jewish, and it’s important to him and his family. This fic is special, and really culturally rich. I love it. Little bit of Angst, mostly love and sweetness.

27. Painted Angels - Fuck u this one is hurt of my heart. The Angst is Unreal. Dean is an artist. Or, he was an Artist. Lost Love, which gets found again. Cas returning to town a decade later. All the good shit.

28. Small Town Charmer - SMALL TOWNS! DEAN AND CAS! THEY RUN BUSINESSES AND FALL IN LOVE! Errrrrrr OTHER STUFF HAPPENS! This fic is lovely and great and if you don’t read it then u a dum dum.

29. Summer Holds a Song (We Might Sing Forever) - :) Age difference. Body worship. Dean Winchester described as a Greek God. The fucking is so hot. The love is so sweet. It’s short, but you gotta read this.

30. The Great Escapist - This fic is so sweet. College roommates Dean and Cas spend the summer together and fall in love. I don’t remember if there is Gay panic but like... I’m pretty sure.

Okay! 30 seems like enough. Maybe in the future I will do a part five. We’ll see. :)

____

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#mod s #answered #destiel #destiel fic rec #modern au fic rec #fic rec #fic recs #modern au #destiel modern au #destiel fics #AU fic rec series

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